le
that of the adrenals has a selective affinity for the sympathetic or
inhibiting system.

In the stomach, for instance, extracts of the adrenal glands have been
proved to intensify the function of the sympathetic or check system
in different degrees, so that there is a lessening of the amount and
acidity of the gastric fluid. On the other hand, thyroid extracts will
intensify the action of the autonomic or drive system, so that the
amount and acidity of the digestive juice is increased.

The stomach cell may, therefore, be regarded as a test-reagent for
the different internal secretions, as they affect the check and drive
systems.

These constitute an automatic device for regulating the activities of
every organ. Three factors enter into the mechanism. One is the amount
of the circulating internal secretions. Another is the organic and
functional integrity of the nerve filaments comprising the check and
drive systems. The third consists of the number and vitality and
limitations of the terminal receiving cells acted upon by the nerve
filaments, which in their turn have been acted upon by the internal
secretions. Upon every organ, including the mind, through the brain, a
stimulus from without or within will act according to its ability to
influence one or others of these factors.

Normally, the check and drive systems are properly balanced. But under
stress and strain the balance is upset. Indeed, the Kinetic Drive may
be defined as a mechanism contrived in the course of evolution as the
normal, healthy mode for meeting stress and strain. The Kinetic chain
of organs, brain, adrenals, liver, thyroid and muscles, began working
together in desperate situations for their possessor ages ago.
Successful in helping him to survive, they have survived as a
functional unit.

It was probably evolved in the Post-Tertiary Era, about twenty million
years ago, when the coming of the carnivores introduced direct
body-to-body conflicts, and their concomitants, a quick and versatile
nervous system. During the Tertiary epoch the earth basked in the heat
of a tropical sun nearly everywhere on its surface. The luxuriant
vegetation of the torrid zone flourished and swarmed, for the
temperature all over was what it is today at the equator. Gigantic
vegetarians were the animals, creatures like the dinosaurs, enormous,
gargoylean monsters, of an incredible size and strength, but clumsy
and grotesque, with small brains and little intelli