Crying, like laughter, is always preceded by a stimulation to some motor action which may or may not be performed (Figs. 33 and 34). If a mother is anxiously watching the course of a serious illness of her child and if, in caring for it, she is stimulated to the utmost to perform motor acts, she will continue in a state of motor tenseness until the child recovers or dies. If relief is sudden, as in the crisis of pneumonia, and the mother is not exhausted, she will easily laugh if tired, she may cry. If death occurs, the stimulus to motor acts is suddenly withdrawn and she then cries aloud, and performs many motor acts as a result of the intense stimulation to motor activity which is no longer needed in the physical care of her child. With this clue we can find the explanation of many phenomena. We can understand why laughter and crying are so frequently interchangeable; why they often blend and why either gives a sense of relief; we can understand why either laughter or crying can come only when the issue that causes the integration is determined; we can understand the extraordinary tendency to laughter that discloses the unspoken sentiments of love; we can understand the tears of the woman when she receives a proposal of marriage from the man she loves; we can understand why any averted circumstance, such as a threatened breach of the conventions, which would have led to embarrassment or humiliation, leads to a tendency to laughter; and why the recital of heroic deeds by association leads to tears, On the other hand, under the domination of acute diseases, of acute fear, or of great exhaustion, there is usually neither laughter nor crying because the nervous system is under the control of a dominating influence as a result of which the body is so exhausted that the excess of energy which alone can produce laughing or crying is lacking. A remarkable study of the modification of laughter and crying by disease is found in that most interesting of diseases--exophthalmic goiter. In this disease there is a low threshold to all stimuli. That the very motor mechanism of which we have been speaking is involved, is shown by an enormous increase in its activity. There is also an increase in the size of certain at least of the activating glands--the thyroid and the adrenals are enlarged and overactive and the glycogen-producing function of the liver is stimulated. The most striking phenomenon of this disease, however, is the remarkable lowering of the brain thresholds to stimuli. In other words, in Graves' disease the nervous system and the activating glands-- the entire motor mechanism--are in an exalted state of activity.