All these disturbances of digestion seem mere interruptions of the “normal” course of events unless the part they may play in adaptive reactions is considered. In discussing the operations of the sympathetic division, I pointed out that all the bodily changes which occur in the intense emotional states--such as fear and fury--occur as results of activity in this division, and are in the highest degree serviceable in the struggle for existence likely to be precipitated when these emotions are aroused. From this point of view these perturbations, which so readily seize and dominate the organs that in quiet times are commonly controlled by the cranial autonomic, are bodily reactions which may be of the utmost importance to life at times of critical emergency. Thus are the body’s reserves--the stored adrenin and the accumulated sugar--called forth for instant service; thus is the blood shifted to nerves and muscles that may have to bear the brunt of struggle; thus is the heart set rapidly beating to speed the circulation; and thus, also, are the activities of the digestive organs for the time abolished. Just as in war between nations the arts and industries which have brought wealth and contentment must suffer serious neglect or be wholly set aside both by the attacker and the attacked, and all the supplies and energies developed in the period of peace must be devoted to the present conflict; so, likewise, the functions which in quiet times establish and support the bodily reserves are, in times of stress, instantly checked or completely stopped, and these reserves lavishly drawn upon to increase power in the attack and in the defense or flight.[*] *[Footnote: One who permits fears, worries and anxieties to disturb the digestive processes when there is nothing to be done, is evidently allowing the body to go onto what we may regard as a “war footing,” when there is no “war” to be waged, no fighting or struggle to be engaged in.] It is, therefore, the natural antagonism between these two processes in the body--between saving and expenditure, between preparation and use, between anabolism and catabolism--and the correlated antagonism of central innervations, that underlie the antipathy between the emotional states which normally accompany the processes. The desire for food, the relish of eating it, all the pleasures of the table, are naught in the presence of anger or great anxiety. And of the two sorts of emotional states, those which manifest themselves in the dominant division of the autonomic hold the field also in consciousness. Antagonism Between Emotions Expressed in the Sympathetic and in the Sacral Divisions of the Autonomic System The nervi erigentes are the part of the sacral autonomic in which the peculiar excitements of sex are expressed. As previously stated, these nerves are opposed by branches from the sympathetic division--the division which is operated characteristically in the major emotions.