“So that is how it happens,” Hans Castorp said.

“Something like that. Those are reactions, you know. But it is the nature of reactions and reflexes to have a reason for happening; we are beginning to suspect, we physiologists, that the phenomena accompanying emotion are really defence mechanisms, protective reflexes of the system. Gooseflesh, now. Do you know how you come to have gooseflesh?”

“Not very clearly either, I’m afraid.”