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OSMANIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

GUI No. JS'7/^f^ Accession No.

Author i < - '

This book shoulfl be returned on or before the date last marked below,

THE
INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY SERIES

PSYCHOLOGY

Edited by
CARL MURCHISON, Ph.D.

Professor of Psychology and Director of the
Psychological Laboratories in Clark University

THE INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY SERIES
IN PSYCHOLOGY

PSYCHOLOGIES OF 1925

By Madison Bentley, Knight Dunlap, Walter S. Hunter, Kurt Koffka, Wolfgang
Kohler, William McDougall, Morton Prince, John B. Watson, and Robert S.
Wood worth.

CRIMINAL INTELLIGENCE

By Carl Murchison, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology and Director of the Psy-
chological Laboratories in (Hark University.

THE CASE FOR AND AGAINST PSYCHICAL BELIEF

By Sir Qliver Lodge, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Frederick Bligh Bond, L. R. G.
Crandon, Mary Austin, Margaret Deland, William McDougall, Hans Driesch,
Walter Franklin Prince, F. C. S. Schiller, John E. Coover, Gardner Murphy,
Joseph Jastrow, and Harry Houdini.

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS: THE WITTENBERG SYMPOSIUM

By A. Adler, F. Aveling, V. M. Bekhterev, M. Bentley, G. S. Brett, K. Buhler,
W. B. Cannon, H. A. Carr, Ed. Claparede, K. Dunlap, R. H. Gault, D. W. Gruehn,
L. B. Hoisington, D. T. Howard, E. Jaensch, P. Janet, J. Jastrow, C. Jorgensen,
D. Katz, F. Kiesow, F. Krueger, H. S. Langfeld, W. McDougall, H. Pieron,
W r . B. Pillsbury, M. Prince, C. E. Seashore, C. E. Spearman, W. Stern, G. M. Strat-
ton, J. S. Terry, M. F. Washburn, A. P. Weiss, and R. S. Woodjvorth.

VOLUMES IN PRESS

THE COMMON SENSE OF DREAMS

By Henry J. Watt, Ph.D., Late Lecturer in Psychology in the University of Glasgow,
and Consulting Psychologist to the Glasgow Royal Asylum. Author of *' The Psychology
of Sound"

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF POLITICAL
DOMINATION

By Carl Murchison, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology and Director of the Psy-
chological Laboratories in Clark University.

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

THE WITTENBERG SYMPOSIUM

LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

THE INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY SERIES IN PSYCHOLOGY

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

THE WITTENBERG SYMPOSIUM

ALFRED ABLER

F. AVELING

VLADIMIR M. BEKHTEREV
MADISON BENTLEY

G. S. BRETT
KARL BUIILER
WALTER B. CANNON
HARVEY A. CARR
ED. CLAPAREDE
KNIGHT DUNLAP
ROBERT H. GAULT
D. WERNER GRUEHN

L. B. HOISINGTON

D. T. HOWARD
ERICH JAENSCH
PIERRE JANET
JOSEPH JASTROW

CARL JORGENSEN
DAVID KATZ
F. KIESOW

F. ISRUEGER

HERBERT S. LANGFELD
WILLIAM McDouGALL
HENRI PIERON
W. B. PILLSBURY
MORTON PRINCE
CARL E. SEASHORE
CHARLES E. SPEARMAN
WILHELM STERN
GEORGE M. STRATTON
JOHN S. TERRY
MARGARET F. WASHBURN
ALBERT P. WEISS
ROBERT S. WOODWORTH

Edited by
MARTIN L. REYMERT

WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS

CLARK UNIVERSITY PRESS

1928

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

PREFACE

This book contains the papers and proceedings of the Wittenberg
Symposium on Feelings and Emotions, held at Wittenberg College,
Springfield, Ohio, October 19-23, 1927, on the occasion of the
inauguration of the new Psychological Laboratory.

Plans for a mobilization of international scholastic talent in the
interest of clarifying the psychology of feelings and emotions were
first formed in May, 1927. S^h<p*y< conferences and cor-
respondence with several American psychologists revealed an
encouraging attitude, but also made clear the seemingly insur-
mountable difficulties inherent in the project. The untimely
death of Dr. Edward Bradford Titchener, who had kindly consent-
ed to act as Honorary Chairman of the meeting, created an added
difficulty. A most happy solution to this new problem came about
through the courteous attitude of Dr. James McKeen Cattell, who
upon urgent request graciously consented to assume the Honorary
Chairmanship.

Inquiries addressed to scholars both in this country and abroad
brought prompt and heartening responses. It was clear that the
choice of topic for the conference was meeting with general ap-
proval. Additional indication of this was evidenced by word from
one of our contributors to the effect that the Division of Psychology
and Anthropology of the National Research Council, Washington,
D. C., had appointed a Committee on Feelings and Emotions.
Correspondence with the chairman t>f this committee, Dr. Margaret
F. Washburn, brought further encouragement.

Representative American and European scholars particularly
qualified to contribute to the special theme of the conference were
invited to participate. In due time, the program was complete.

Invitations were sent to members of the American Psychological
Association, the American Philosophical Society, the American
Psychiatric Association, and other scientific bodies presumably
interested. The meeting opened Wednesday, October 19, 1927,
with an audience numbering several hundred. Those in attendance
included official representatives from the foremost universities and
colleges, the United States Bureau of Education, and from scientific
and educational societies such as the National Research Council,
the American Sociological Society, and many others.

In the necessary absence of Dr. Cattell from the opening session,
the meeting was formally opened with the following remarks by
the editor:

Vlll FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

"Ladies and Gentlemen: As convener of the Wittenberg Sym-
posium on Feelings and Emotions I take the liberty to call this
first meeting to order and have the honor to introduce to you, the
President of Wittenberg College, Dr. Rees Edgar Tulloss. Presi-
dent Tulloss received his Harvard doctorate in the field of psy-
chology and is deeply interested in the problems before us. From
the start, he has whole-heartedly sponsored this project, and has
spared no effort to make it successful. "

A brief address of welcome was then given by President Tulloss,
followed by the opening address/of the chairman, both of which
are printed elsewhere in this volume.

Upon the program appeared the names of fifteen European
scientists, who had prepared papers especially for the occasion.
These contributors represented the following countries: England,
Germany, Italy, France, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland, Russia,
and Estonia. Papers were presented by twenty Americans. The
papers of the European contributors and of the two or three
Americans who were unable to be present at the time appointed
were read by members of the Wittenberg psychological staff.

The formal inauguration of the new Psychological Laboratory
took place on Friday afternoon, October 21st, in the presence of a
representative audience. The inaugural address delivered by Dr.
Cattell is printed in the Appendix. On this occasion the Honorary
Chairman referred, in sympathetic and appreciative words, to
Dr. E. B. Titchener, and gave expression to the great loss sus-
tained by science in the untimely death of this distinguished schol-
ar. By unanimous agreement, telegrams of sympathy were sent
to Mrs. Sophie Kellogg Titchener, and to President Farrand
of Cornell University. Their responses by wire, together with
well-wishes for the meeting, were later read to the conference.

This same day was marked by a general academic program in
connection with the formal dedication of the new Chemistry-
Psychology Building at Wittenberg. In this exercise the psy-
chologists and their friends were joined by the delegates to the
National Conference on Chemistry, which was being held during
the same week under the direction of the Wittenberg Chemistry
Department. The dedication ceremonies, conducted by President
Tulloss, included an impressive academic procession and a ded-
icatory address by Dr. Edgar Fahs Smith, former Provost of the
University of Pennsylvania and an early teacher of science at
Wittenberg. The program reached its climax in the conferring of
honorary degrees upon a number of distinguished scientists in
both fields. Degrees were cc rred upon the following contrib-
utors to the Symposium on F ttj^and Emotions:

PREFACE IX

James McKeen Cattell, L.H.D.

Walter Bradford Cannon, LL.D.

Margaret Floy Washburn, Sc.D.

Joseph Jastrow, LL.D.

William McDougall, Litt.I).

Karl Biihler, Austria, LL.D,

Charles Spearman, England, LL.D.

Felix Krueger, Germany, Sc.D.

Wilhelm Stern, Germany, LL.D.

Henri Pi<5ron, France, LL.D.

Pierre Janet, France, LL.D.

Federico Kiesow, Italy, LL.D.

Edouard Claparde, Switzerland, LL.D.

Alfred Adler, Austria, LL.D.

Vladimir M. Bekhterev, U. S. S. R., LL.D.

At a joint banquet of the Psychology and Chemistry Depart-
ments in the evening, Dr. Edwin E. Slosson and Dr. Joseph Jas-
trow delivered the addresses which are printed in the Appendix.

As the program was carried out, ample time was given for the
discussion of each paper. As will be seen from this publication,
the participants in this notable gathering voiced their opinions
freely. Great interest in the Symposium was manifested. The
press throughout the country carried daily accounts of the sessions.
Many important publications sent special representatives to
report the proceedings.

The editor is, of course, indebted to so many for the success of
this first International Symposium on Feelings and Emotions that
it is hardly possible for him to record here his gratitude to all. The
Symposium would have been impossible without the understanding
support and cooperation so heartily given by the president of the
college, Dr. Rees Edgar Tulloss. To Dean C. G. Shatter, chairman
of the general committee on arrangements, great credit should be
given for the way in which he foresaw and cared for the problems
connected with the arrangements for the gathering. The Board of
Trustees of Wittenberg gave their unreserved moral and financial
support. The entire faculty were interested and cooperative. The
members of the Department of Psychology should be especially
commended, including: Dr. H. G. Bishop, Dr. P. L. Mellenbruch,
Dr. Margaret Kinkaid Bishop, Dr. C. H. Schneider, Miss Ruth
Immell, and Mr. H. J. Arnold. Mention should also be made of
the efficient help of the department assistants: Dorothy D.
Markley, Donald B. Lindsley, and William Schwarzbek.

In the early planning and preparation for the Symposium, the
editor is deeply indebted to Dr. E. B. Titchener, Dr. James
McKeen Cattell, and Dr. Edwin G. Boring, who gave freely of their
time both in personal conferen v fyand through correspondence.

X FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

Prompt responses and helpful suggestions also came from
contributors, whose interest made the Symposium and this book
possible. It should likewise be mentioned that some, being unable
to accept our invitation on account of pressing academic duties
or for other reasons, sent their sincere regrets and best wishes
for the success of the meeting. Among these were: John Dewey,
Edward L. Thorndike, and H. L. Hollingworth, Columbia; Ray-
mond Dodge and Robert M. Yerkes, Yale; Howard C. Warren,
Princeton; Victor Kuhr, University of Copenhagen; A. Grotenfelt,
University of Helsingfors; B. Hammer, University of Upsala; A.
Herlin, University of Lund; T. Parr, University of Bergen; G.
Heymans, University of Groningen; and K. Koffka, University of
Criessen. Comments from several of these scholars as well as
from our contributors were to the effect that the conference would
mark a most needed step in contemporary psychology.

Sincere thanks are also extended to the translators of the foreign
papers, most of which reached the editor in the original languages ;
namely, German, French, and Russian. The translations were
undertaken by members of the psychological staffs of Wittenberg
College and Cornell University, at which latter institution Dr.
L. B. Hoisington very kindly and efficiently carried out the
promises of Dr. Titchener in this regard. The editor, however,
will have to accept the final responsibility for all translations. He
asks the contributors and readers to be lenient in their judgment
of an exceedingly difficult task. In some cases, the final translation
has been approved by the author.

The scientific sessions of the Symposium were brought to
a close Saturday, October 21, 1927, when the honorary chairman,
Dr. James McKeen Cattell, according to extracts from the steno-
graphic report of the proceedings, was kind enough to give voice
to the following words of thanks: "I think no formal arrangement
has been made for a vote of thanks, but we ought not to go without
most cordially stating our obligation and appreciation. I doubt
whether there has ever been held a meeting of psychologists in
which were presented so many papers of such high average merit.
What I wish to do now is to present to Dr. Reymert and to the
president and authorities of this university our most sincere
thanks. "

In closing these introductory notes, which are in the nature
of a brief historic record of the first International Symposium
on Feelings and Emotions, I venture to express the hope, referred to
also in my opening address as chairman, that other gatherings
of a similar character may in due time follow.

PREFACE XI

This book, to the appearance of which Dr. Carl Murchison of
the Clark University Press has given so much personal attention,
is now sent forth in the hope that it will be of value to scholars
as representing a view of the general status of the field of Feelings
and Emotions in 1927, and that it will so stimulate research and
discussion that if, in five or ten years from now, scholars again
assemble to consider the problems of this field, we may then be
able to point to material advances.

MARTIN L. REYMERT
WITTENBERG COLLEGE
SPRINGFIELD, OHIO
December, 1927

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface vii

List of Illustrations 1

PART I. GENERAL PROBLEMS IN THE PSYCHOLOGY
OF FEELING AND EMOTION

1. Is "Emotion" More Than a Chapter Heading? . . 17

MADISON BENTLEY, Cornell University

2. The Place of Emotion in Modern Psychology ... 24

JOSEPH JASTROW, University of Wisconsin

3. A New Method for Investigating the Springs of Action 39

CHARLES E. SPEARMAN, University of London

7 A Emotion, Conation, and Will 49
F. AVELING, University of London

5. The Essence of Feeling: Outline of a Systematic Theory 58

F. KRUEGER, University of Leipzig

6. The Feeling-Tone of Sensation 89

F. KIEBOW, Royal University of Turin

7. Emotion and Thought: A Motor Theory of Their

~ elations 104

MARGARET F. WASHBURN, Vassar College

Utility of Emotions

W. B. PILLSBURY, University of Michigan

Feelings and Emotions

ED. CLAPAREDE, University of Geneva

Hf. AxJ'imctional Theory of the Emotions ....
/ D. T. HOWARD, Northwestern University

W. Emotion as a Dynamic Background 150

KNIGHT DUNLAP, The Johns Hopkins University

12. Can Emotion Be Regarded as Energy? 161

MORTON PRINCE, Harvard University .

13. Feeling and Emotion as Forms of Behavior . . . 170

ALBERT P. WEISS, Ohio State University

xiii

PART II. SPECIAL PROBLEMS IN THE PSYCHOLOGY
/ OF FEELING AND EMOTION

14. Ijfispleasure and Pleasure in Relation to Activity . . 195
.S KARL BUHLER, University of Vienna

15. Emotion and Feeling Distinguished 200

WILLIAM McDouoALL, Duke University

16. Phonophotography as a New Approach to the Psychol-

ogy of Emotion 206

CARL E. SEASHORE, State University of Iowa

17. Excitement as an Undifferentiated Emotion . . . 215

GEORGE M. STRATTON, University of California

18. How Emotions are Identified and Classified . . . 222

ROBERT S. WOODWORTH, Columbia University

19. The Differentia of an Emotion 228

HARVEY A. CARR, University of Chicago

20. Pleasantness and Unpleasantness as Modes of Bodily

Experience 236

L. B. HOISINGTON, Cornell University

21. Pleasurable Reactions to Tactual Stimuli .... 247

ROBERT H. GAULT, Northwestern University

PART III. PHYSIOLOGY OF FEELING AND
EMOTION

22. ^Neural Organization for Emotional Expression . . 257

WALTER B. CANNON, Harvard University Medical School

23. Emotions as Somato-mimetic Reflexes 270

/ VLADIMIR M. BEKHTEREV, University of Leningrad

24. Emotion in Animals and Man 284

HENRI PIERON, University of Paris

PART IV. PATHOLOGY AND PSYCHOANALYSIS
OF FEELING AND EMOTJON

25. Fear of Action as an Essential Element in the Senti-

ment of Melancholia 297

PIERRE JANET, University of Paris

xiv

26. A Theory of the Elements in the Emotions . . . 310

CARL JORQENSEN, Copenhagen

27. Feelings and Emotions from the Standpoint of Indi-

vidual Psychology 316

ALFRED ADLER, Vienna

PART V. FEELING AND EMOTION IN CHILDREN

28. "Ernstspiel" and the Affective Life: A Contribution

to the Psychology of Personality 324

WILHELM STERN, University of Hamburg

29. The Development of Conscience in the Child as Re-

vealed by His Talks with Adults 332

DAVID KATZ, University of Rostock

PART VI. FEELING AND EMOTION IN RELATION TO
// AESTHETICS AND RELIGION

30. The Role of Feeling and Emotion in Aesthetics . . 346

HERBERT S. LANGFELD, Princeton University

31. Psychological and Psychophysical Investigations of

/Types in Their Relation to the Psychology of Religion 359
ERICH JAENSCH, University of Marburg

Feelings and Emotions in the Psychology of Religion 372
D. WERNER GRUEHN, University of Berlin

PART VII. HISTORY OF THE PSYCHOLOGY OF
FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

33. Historical Development of the Theory of Emotions . 388

G. S. BRETT, University of Toronto

PART VIII. EMOTION IN RELATION TO EDUCATION

34. Training the Emotions /^40

JOHN S. TERRY, New York City

APPENDIX

A. Presidential Address of Welcome 421

REES EDGAR TUL.LOSS, Wittenberg College

B. Opening Address: Why Feelings and Emotions? . . 423

MARTIN L. REYMERT, Wittenberg College

C. Early Psychological Laboratories 427

J, McKEEN CATTELL,, formerly of the University of Penn-
sylvania and of Columbia University

D. Lo, the Psychologist! 434

JOSEPH JASTROW, University of Wisconsin

E. Chemistry and Psychology 439

EDWIN E. SLOSSON, Science Service, Washington, D. C.

INDEX 449

xvi

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

I. MEMBERS OF THE SYMPOSIUM

Alfred Adler 3

F. Aveling 3

Vladimir M. Bekhterev 3

Madison Bentley 3

G. S. Brett 4

KarlBuhler 4

Walter B. Cannon 4

Harvey A. Carr 4

Ed. Claparede 5

Knight Dunlap 5

Robert H. Gault . 5

L. B. Hoisington 5

D. T. Howard (>

Erich Jaensch . 6

Pierre Janet 6

Joseph Jastrow 6

Carl Jorgensen 7

David Katz . 7

F. Kiesow . 7

F. Krueger ... 7

Herbert S. Langfeld 8

William McDougall 8

Henri Pi6ron . ... .... 8

W. B. Pillsbury 8

Morton Prince .... 9

Carl E. Seashore . . . . 9

Charles E. Spearman 9

Wilhelm Stern 9

George M. Stratton . . . .10

John S. Terry .... 10

Margaret F. Washburn 10

Albert P. Weiss 10

Robert S. Woodworth .... . 11

II. OFFICIALS OF THE SYMPOSIUM

J. McKeen Cattell 12

Martin L. Reymert 12

Edward B. Titchener . 12

Rees Edgar Tulloss 12

III. CHEMISTRY-PSYCHOLOGY BUILDING, WITTENBERG COL-
LEGE 13

VLADIMIR M. BEKIITEKBV

MADISON BENTLEY

A. CARB

II. GAUI/T

L. B,

PIERRE JANET

JOSEPH JASTROW

CARL JORGENSEN

DAVID KATZ

F. KIESOW

F. KRUEGER

S. liANOFRLi)

HENRI PIERON

W. B. PlLLSBURY

MORTON PRINCE

CARL E. SEASHORE

CHARLES E. SPEARMAN

WILHELM STERN

GEORGE M. STRATTON

JOHN S. TERRY

MARGARET F. WASH BURN

ALBERT P. WEISS

ROBERT S. WOODWORTH

J. McKEEN CATTELL MARTIN L. REYMERT

EDWARD B. TITCHKNER REES EDGAR TULLOSS

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PART I

General Problems in the Psychology
of Feeling and Emotion

CHAPTER I

IS "EMOTION" MORE THAN A
CHAPTER HEADING?

MADISON BENTLEY

Cornell University

Those who meet to contend against their fellow psychologists
are scarcely in a position to deny the existence of the emotions.
Whatever the temper of their psychological creeds, the temper of
their assertions, denials, and retorts bears testimony to our
eyes and ears that emotions or things similar to them, however
denominated exist and are observable in our midst.

The question before us is primarily a question of scientific
feasibility. Is it profitable we may first ask ourselves to
psychologize a class of phenomena which we shall agree to call the
emotions? And then, if profitable, we shall have to seek a feasible
manner of regarding the class for purposes of concrete study and
delineation.

Long before the emotional life achieved an independent recogni-
tion (while contended against by German rationalists, French
sensationalists, English empiricists, and other advocates of the
more roow j ed ii^bellect), the passive affections of the soul les
passions de I'dme, in the Cartesian phrase had caught the atten-
tion of certain expositors of the nature of man. These "passions"
included the perceptions, the emotions, and much besides. The
affective ari4 ^motional aspects <af experience were, however, long
subordinated to the faculties of reason and will. But the nineteenth
century, with its romanticisms, its naturalisms, and its humanisms,
seems easily to have turned the reflective attention of men toward
the feelings. Along with Spencer's didactic evolution of human
reason appears Bain to insist that the emotions be given a place
coordinate with the intellect and with the will. In France the
physician-psychologists found the feelings to play a major part in
the aberrations of mind, and in Germany and America the affective
phenomena came generally into prominence among psychologists.
Charles Darwin and G. H. Schneider brought in the instincts and
the emotions as adaptive devices of service in survival, and Wundt
drew an elaborate doctrine of emotion and voluntary action out of
the integration of his simple feelings. And finally, by their experi-

18 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

mental attack upon the circulation, the muscles, and the viscera,
the physiologists contributed their share in adding the details of
bodily resonance to the emotive stirs which thrill and afflict the
human organism.

The common result has been to add a large and important
chapter to our textbooks and other general treatises. Has any-
one ventured, within the last half-century, to compose a com-
prehensive work without according to the emotions one of the
most prominent places in the book? I don't recall an important
exception. What have been the contents of these chapters?
Usually a section upon classification; a section devoted to James-
Lange (usually the longest); a section on "expression"; sometimes
a little description and often practical reflections upon the uses
and the inconveniences of emotive disturbance. I recall that when
I read and returned the manuscript for Titchener's emotive
chapter in his Text-Book I exclaimed (not having essayed the
terrible task myself!): "But why bury James-Lange again with
such elaborate rites!" The author's retort was: "What would
you put in? You've got somehow to fill up the chapter!" I fear
that many other authors have had as good an occasion for frank-
ness and that few have had the courage to leave out what had
already been said too many times. But who would dare to speak
authoritatively upon the emotions without showing his audience
that he was au courant with his subject by discussing and criticizing
these alien twins! You may have noticed that they were by no
means neglected by the hard-headed committee of researchers into
emotion which met last year in strategic counsel upon our common
enemy. Why do men continue to whet their knives upon the
broken fragments of this hard stone of exaggeration? Is it because
psychology has so few respectable theories that it fears to let one
escape or die? The virtue of the theory seems to lie in drawing
attention to the widespread seizure of the organism whose Gemilth
is moved. But language, both vulgar and literary, had many
times picturesquely referred to the straightened chest, the yearning
bowels, the palpitating heart, and the rigid muscles. Besides, the
physiologists were bound, without inspiration from the theory,
independently to describe the organic details as soon as appropriate
methods could be devised. I doubt whether the psychology of the
emotions would not have ripened faster without the huge academic
discussion through decades as to whether the emotion had any
substance not contributed by viscus, blood-vessel, and unstriped
muscle. Energy otherwise expended might, for example, have
enlightened a certain graduate student who wished to begin a
doctoral research on emotion because, as he explained, he had

MADTSON BENTLEY 19

discovered that elusive object in his stomach and intestines, and
wished an appropriate apparatus that he might demonstrate his
discovery to the psychological world.

As to whether the instincts supply, or are likely to supply, the
key to the emotions, opinions (even inspired opinions) are bound to
differ. The concept of instincts we chiefly owe to biology; and biol-
ogy's knowledge of the matter comes mainly from field-stories,
casual observation, and speculation. One of the inveterate
tendencies of the biologist has been, when pressed by difficulties
in the organism, to refer to past generations as an alleged cause.
The creature does so-and-so because it was so born. As certain
plausible facts are set forth, it is difficult to check the speculation,
which creates convenient instincts to account for observed emo-
tions. An added danger is that for actual emotive descriptions
is likely to be substituted the mere stock label of fear, anger,
jealousy, or rage, and for actual instincts are substituted alleged
powers which match these labels. The concept of instinct has, as
it seems to me, never been really naturalized within psychology;
and it is, as I venture to think, the loose adoption of it from a
speculative biology which is in large measure responsible for the
destructive critical attacks which have lately been made upon it.

You may be inclined, in your reaction, to go with extremists
of an opposite camp who allege that the human infant is so nearly
neutral in its functions that its "conditioning" creator can make
of it what he will. But until the boast has been confirmed by,
say, a dozen children of various extractions, reared by and answer-
ing to a prescription and a plan of design published at the birth
of these neutral individuals, I shall be skeptical about the alleged
powers of the creative behaviorist.

As regards classification and description, I doubt whether any-
one can boast. Leaving purely logical schemata aside, the titles
to our emotions generally refer (1) to the situation or context in
which the organism is placed (the terrifying object, the taunting
aggressor, the rival in love, the uncertain and worrying turn of
events), and (2) to the bodily indicators of the way in which the
individual "takes" the situation (trembling, striking, cowering,
blanching, reddening, and what not). Instead of the emotive
experience itself, the first kind of reference gives its setting and the
second its indication or symptom. What we call "expression" of
emotion is, in large measure, the "social indicator" which adver-
tises how the organism is affected. These indicators have high
social value since they grant the observer important information
about the precise way in which the sufferer is moved. Under
human sophistication we all learn to modify them, by way of

20 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

repression, exaggeration, and emphasis, for our own social purposes.
Cannon was inclined to doubt whether visceral changes were
sufficiently diverse to characterize the emotions. But some of the
states and conditions which Cannon induced were scarcely authen-
ticated as "emotions" (save by an arbitrary definition); and,
moreover, he was confined to a small number of indicators. The
very fact that we recognize in our fellows the shades and varieties
of emotion (even injecting them anthropomorphically into other
animals) argues for a wide variety in these bodily indicators, even
when taken in their grosser forms. Of course, bodily variety might
be present and still not be constitutive of a like emotional variety.
And I should always look for the latter in the emotive experience
itself. But then others are more interested in the secretion of
adrenin or thyroxin, or in vascular turgidity, or in electrical
conductivity of the skin; and their interest in emotions may well
be as authentic as mine.

This remark leads me to comment upon the last of the big
sections which I find in the chapter devoted to the emotions. The
history of "expressive methods," as they are called, is extremely
interesting; but you know this history as well as I. Interesting, I
should say, but melancholy. Enchanted by the principle of
"parallelism," men have diligently sought, as they earlier sought
the philosopher's stone, to discover some fundamental indicator
among our bodily functions which should run in simple parallel
to the "mind" or "consciousness." Fechner sought to express a
general function and relation in a quantitative way in the Webcr-
Fechner Law. The Wundtian School sought the function in feeling,
on the one hand, and in changes in muscular contraction, circula-
tion, and breathing, on the other. To the behaviorists, all move-
ment is expression in the form of "response," and response runs
parallel to the initial way in which the organism is stimulated or
moved by outside agents.

But we are concerned at the moment with the emotional ex-
pressions. You remember the technical devices by which they were
harnessed: sphygmograph, sphygmomanometer, pneumograph,
laryngograph, planchettc, ergograph, and plethysmograph. There
was initial success, the hint of a simple parallelism, then a doubt,
then a repetition, then the discovery of instrumental errors,
negative cases, and new complexities, and then a recasting of the
method. The most integrative and persistent attempt appeared
in the Wundtian tables and graphs of bodily symptoms in cir-
culation, secretion, respiration, and muscular tension which
regularly accompany the course of the typical emotions. As the
emotion was conceived to be the unified resultant of many simple

MADISON BENTLEY 21

feelings, integrated into typical courses under centralizing processes
of the brain, it was natural that the typical course should have had
definable and decipherable symptoms among the bodily processes
mentioned. This was the logic of the emotive expressions. The
logic was beautiful and the experimental program of verification
brilliant. Many think that the attempt failed; that the delicate
instruments fail to detect either a parallelism or a differential
bodily outcome and expression of the emotions. And we may
well doubt whether, under the vast complexities of organic function,
so simple a parallelism is to be looked for. Too many organic
events influence in too many ways blood-pressure and pulse and
smooth muscle for the emotion of anger or fear or jealousy to
have its undisputed way with these great bodily systems and so
with the organism at large.

In the nineties the project revived when galvanometric deflec-
tions were observed with certain emotional states and the absurd
hybrid name of the "psychogalvanic reflex" suggested new hope
in a universal indicator of the emotions. Faith in the galvanometer
is still to be found; but at least we are beginning to understand that
deflections sometimes occur without emotions, and emotions
sometimes without deflections. Moreover, it is common to find
the most meticulous care exercised with the electrical measurements
and controls and the most appalling looseness with the descriptive
side of the emotion which the changes in bodily resistance are
supposed to register. As a physiological aid the method holds out
promises; but as a plain and unequivocal indicator of emotion it
does not impress us. And the case for the glands seems at the
moment to be in about the same state; though the frank recognition
by all who really know something about the vast complexity of the
subject is here a good augury.

Well, emotion is at least a topic ! It is something to talk about
and to disagree upon. To me its essential characteristic is a
progressive activity of the organism when faced by a predicament.
As a psychological function it is related to the various forms of
action. It has beginning, course, and ending. It is to be described
in terms of its inception, its successive stages, and its outcome. It
comprehends, in a peculiar way, the internal regulation of the
body by chemical and neural means. Whatever concerns emotion
by way of experience and by way of bodily process is proper
material for its description. Its varieties, its history, its pathology,
and its subsequent effects upon the organism are all thrilling mat-
ters for investigation. But to another psychologist, emotion
means glandular products and visceral incidents; to a third, the
action of the autonomic nervous system; to still another, a type

22 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

of external bodily activity or deportment; or again a pleasant or
unpleasant reaction upon events or a "mental state." Once
more, emotion may be defined as a quality of excitement which
accompanies the operation of an instinct, or a kind of drive under
which the organism whips itself into action, or a certain kind of
response to a certain kind of stimulus. All these conceptions and
understandings of emotions, and more, do we find current among
psychologists. And yet we speak of emotion as if it were the
common intellectual and professional property of all of us. At
this moment the flag of emotion floats above us announcing to
a mildly interested world that we are convened to discuss and
possibly to solve its problems. And there are, doubtless, problems
of emotion; as there are problems of reducing poverty and of
preventing war. But is emotion here more than a label, or a
general topic of discourse, or a banner? It certainly represents a
subject of human concern. For example, few human concerns
in current academic and medical matters now rival men's interest
in the power and the therapy of the emotions. The lay- world has
been given to understand that its passions, perplexities, tortures,
and lusts stand among the chief agencies of personal and social
order and disorder; that a man may be made or marred by worrying
about his limitations, his father's debts, or his mother's lovers;
that childish tantrums and adolescent longings may scar him for
life. He is also encouraged to believe that these same thrilling
emotions may be interestingly discussed in the clinic and set right
by the new doctors. Naturally he is all for the emotions. But
are the emotions a center for coordinated psychological research?
That is to say, is there a scientific problem of emotion? This
query suggests, as I suppose, one of our main objects in coming
together in this hospitable place by the courtesy of this generous
college. At the least, the interests of all of us are bound to be made
more catholic, more tolerant, and more enlightened, and the
discriminations of all of us made sharper for our own problems and
for the problems of our neighbors.

As a logical matter, our present status is fairly clear. It seems
to me that our problems have prospered best when the emotions
have been considered as one phase of the general affective life and
when the feelings were properly coordinated with all the other
aspects of experience and of the psychological organism. While
the mere analysis into affective qualities has never carried us far
in the understanding of emotion, it seems to me that reasonable
accounts of the feelings have. Just now I have been reading a
manuscript of this temper, a judicious and enlightened book upon
the affective life of man which will soon (as I hope) come to

MADISON BENTLEY 23

publication. It gives a psychological setting for the emotions
which would include in a coherent way most, if not all, of the
current problems of which we have been hearing. But most men
care less for a general understanding than for the exploitation of a
private interest or a particular problem. And perhaps this individ-
uality of interest is well for research. It may lead us ultimately to
a common topic and to common coherent knowledge.

But whether emotion is today more than the heading of a
chapter, I am still doubtful. Whether the term stands in the
regard of most of us for a psychological entity upon which we are
all researching, I do not know. Whether it is the common subject
of our varied investigations, I am not sure enough to be dogmatic.
But that is precisely one of the desirable issues which we may
confidently expect from this international symposium of psy-
chologists.

CHAPTER 2

THE PLACE OF EMOTION IN
MODERN PSYCHOLOGY

JOSEPH JASTROW

University of Wisconsin

I am accepting the uninspiring r61e of an unofficial guide to the
realm of emotion, and shall be content if my offices prove of
service. At most I may aspire to arrange in one reel the several
shifts of scenes and plots of the story of the emotions in the motion
picture of modern psychology. True to the function of guides, I
shall be pointing out what is familiar, but commonly omitted from
statement because assumed. A certain measure of completeness
is desirable, while yet limiting the survey to what has become
significant in the status of the affective life in the present-day
empire of the mind.

The first setting may be assigned to emotion as motive. The
common root of several energetic words, m-o-t, indicates that that
whereby we live, wherein we have our being, leads to our moving
in that we are moved to response. Motive, emotion, and motion
are of one psychological as well as philological family.

Yet there is rivalry within the family circle, not, as the Freudians
would have it, a family romance, in which the romantic appears
to be more frantic than fond (and to the more normally minded,
more fiction than fact), but a family faction as well as affection, a
friendly contention for the supremacy of the "why. " Those who
answer the "why" with a motive it may be revenge, it may be
sympathy, it may be deviltry are emotionalists; those who answer
it with a reason it may be to obtain advantage, to save trouble,
to avoid disaster are the emotionalists once removed, whom we
call rationalists. They stress the means-to-end relation in its
plan and mechanism, its logical device, and do not choose to
uncover any deeper motivation-level for the choice of behavior
or its defense. Motives and reasons present two sides for the
same shield; it is not easy to say which is gold and which silver,
as so often either is gilt or glitter, or even brass or dross. The
aptness at supplying good reasons for poor motives is an ancient

JOSEPH JASTROW 25

one, and was not left for Freud to discover; even Aesop was late
in the field. The discovery that grapes are sour when out of reach
is made by many humans whose I. Q. does not entitle them to be
called foxy. The tendency to rationalize is encouraged by the
need of defending or disguising motivation again an evidence of
rivalry or conflict between feeling and thinking. In tracing the
service of reason in defense of emotion, we come upon the more
vital urge or drive that stimulates both.

Next in the overture arises a question : Why this belated regard
for what is now so cordially recognized as a clue to the entire
psychic nature? Why was emotion so long the Cinderella of the
psychic household? The answer requires a historical reference. It
was not so at the outset. To the ancient Greek mind the "psyche"
was an integrated activity, of which the " phrene" was the problem-
working partner. Had not the term been bastardized some time
before the needed advent of its birth, phrenology would have been
the name of the "mental philosophy" concerned with the logical
equipment.

Yet that fateful tendency to assign value, which makes not
cowards but moralists of us all all but the most abandoned or the
most tolerant seeking to moralize the rest is responsible for the
greater dignity assigned to the soarings and explorings of the
intellect in contrast to the homely beckonings and reckonings of
the feelings. Yet no Greek or Roman philosopher, however equally
under the sway of moralizing bents, could anticipate that the
marriage ties of Psyche and Phrene, which he respected, would
under Christian influence lead to the distrust of all but a prescribed
range of feelings, and to a castigation of the flesh as the seat of the
passions. But this recognition of the closer moralization-value of
the emotions is itself a distrustful avowal of a truth that led
modern psychology to the rescue of Cinderella. We are virtuous or
vicious more by how we feel than by what we know.

One hesitates whether to go back to Plato or to Adam for the
further intrusion or confusion of the tree of knowledge, and the
fabled loss of a Paradise in which ignorance secured bliss. The
doctrine that no one would knowingly or willingly do wrong sug-
gests to the irreverent Freudian disciple that Adam and Plato
alike should have been psychoanalyzed. Idealism, intellectualism,
rationalism, were all set going in that active ferment of the mind
that through the ages made Plato and Aristotle household words,
and made the Story of Philosophy a twentieth-century best seller

26 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

among the many cherishing the volume as a sign of intellectualism
rather than as a guide to their perplexities by which the majority
of these philosophers-by-purchase were untroubled, having no
vitiating contact with the tree of knowledge, but much with the
range of feelings, including the pride of intellect. Man will not
easily give up the hope that he is a rational animal by definition
if not by fact. Behaving like human, all too human, beings does
not imply any striking measure of rationality, if we accept a happy
mean between Nietzsche and Dorsey.

Dessoir in his History of Psychology offers a convenient distinction
to indicate the two streams which, when they converged, made
the current of modern psychology: the one psychology proper, as
the accredited ruler of the affairs of the thinking mind, and the
other psychosophy, which gathers the reflected wisdom growing
out of experience and behavior. The psychosophic attitude was
congenial to the Roman mind, like the American given to practical
affairs, to engineering of aqueducts and highways and boom-towns.
To take things philosophically is a Roman expression; the Stoic and
Epicurean were emotionalized practical rather than scholarly
attitudes toward life. A continuous stream of doctrine reflecting
both interests is that relating to character, from the delineations
of Theophrastus, their revival in Renaissance Europe, and the
sturdy survival of the "humors" or temperaments from Galen
down all engaged with the psychic life in the concrete and
emotionalized reality. The practical stress of modern living has
played its part in focusing upon the actual realistic motivation
that keeps us going. The feelings are so real that their claim
to attention was congenial to our modern interests.

Of like antiquity is the recognition of the abnormal. For medical
psychology, though a modern term, is an ancient body of knowl-
edge, emerging from the observation of disturbed emotional
states of excitement and anger, like mania, of fear and depression,
like melancholia. Yet in this field also the false accents of ration-
alism and moralism appear. Until recently the insane were regard-
ed as those unable to reason straight a distinction which if
democratically applied would require more asylums than apartment
houses or again, were supposed not to know the difference between
right and wrong, on which many asylum-residents have more
emphatic views and defend them better than many who read the
daily papers and do as they are advised. Elation and depression
as fluctuations of mood and as characteristic of temperament form
early data of emotional psychology.

When psychology became an established discipline, yet long
attached to the apron-strings of mother philosophy, the very

JOSEPH JASTROW 27

addiction to psychologizing was an invitation to intellectualizing.
Professor Stratton has stated it simply and well.

"In the older clays the philosopher took his own mind as the type and standard
by which all minds were to be interpreted; the psychologist applied universally
whatever stood in the forefront of his own consciousness. The intellectual interest,
so powerful in the observer, made him see little but intellectual interests and
devices wherever his eye might rest Today in the effort to correct his prepos-
session we have come to a careful study of rudimentary minds, where there is risk
that our judgment be distorted in an opposite way, man being now conceived as
made in the image not of pure reason but of the beast. But in this way we are
attaining to a knowledge, never before had, of the driving forces of inheritance,
of the impulses, of the passions of the human mind. When new corrections are
made in the light of these, then our intelligence is seen not as a thing apart, moved
solely by laws of consistency and evidence, but swept this way and that by deep
currents of longing and anger and fear."

Ill

We may now approach at closer range. The emotions could
hardly come to their own before a very considerable convergence
of modern interests had prepared the way for the consummation.
A set of sign-posts may indicate the route. These are:

a) the evolutionary doctrine in general and the signal service
of Darwin's study of emotional expression as a link between man
and beast;

b) its application to primitive man and the widening of the
psychological horizon by a comparison of culture stages, as notable
as the expansion of the geographical horizon by travel and ac-
quaintance with the variety of customs and their emotional
support ;

c) the genetic unfoldment of the child, so different from the
adult in many ways, but emotionally most instructive and au-
thentic;

d) the differential psychology of sex, race, type, temperament,
age, and organic disposition;

e) the abnormal emotions, particularly the upsets of psy-
choneuroses and the dominant part which disturbed and dis-
torted emotion plays in mental disorder;

/) convergent as well as divergent streams among these by
way of the specialized study of the criminal, defective, and de-
linquent classes, all examples of the emotional-social maladjust-
ment;

g) the social embodiments and agencies of the crowd-mind,
and the sway of socialized motives that must be understood and
controlled if men are to be governed, including also the institu-
tional products that themselves arise out of the emotional needs

28 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

of men the church as well as the school, the courts as well as the
forum;

h) the specific contributions of the Freudian psychology cen-
tralizing upon the primitive urges, the drives, the libido, the
elan vital, the horme, the what-not that men live by and for;

i) the advance in experimental knowledge making it possible
to include the study of emotion by laboratory methods, and to
define its organic basis;

j) the specialized study of the lower and the higher reaches
of the affective life (including the fine arts) and the theory of the
interrelation and integration of all the world of affect in its own
domain from instinct to sentiment, and by this route returning
to the philosophical orbit, but with the enrichment of a biological,
genetic, comparative, psychopathic, social approach;

k) finally, the applicational side of this cumulative insight
for which the term emotional hygiene is itself a summary. To
live wholesomely and happily requires affective health. We must
feel rightly to act rightly. Morale is largely emotional.

My further course is to comment upon the significance of these
contributions and their place in the picture.

a) The evolutionary renaissance was a general one. Yet the
demonstration was easier that animals behave like human beings
because they feel as human beings feel than that they behave so
because they think as human beingt think. In so many ways
animals put what mind they have upon different ranges of activity,
though with much in common with the human scene, as in the
emotionalized pursuit of food and sex. But these typical appetites
are highly though differently emotionalized, as well as organized;
and the struggle for existence, so largely a struggle for meals and
mates, was indelibly written in the bodily gesture of desire and
attack, and most intricately in the palimpsest of the face. Here
are to be read the original pre-human records of fear and anger,
as well as the courtship gestures and the maternal attentions far
earlier and more convincing records than the selected laboratory
registrations that have only the advantage of measurability.
We eat and pout, we chew and gnash with the same outfit, greet
friend and meat with the same smile, reject distasteful food and
disgusting conduct and even express disdain with the same pooh-
pooh ; we thus show that we and our animal friends or enemies have
been through the same school of Mother Nature, though in a
more advanced class. Where the dog snarls, we sneer, but both

JOSEPH JASTROW 29

have the same muscle to uncover the "canine," our single vestige
of a pointed tooth. It is in uncovering this amazing record of
the emotional past preserved in the smile and laugh, the cries
and tears acquired without learning, that Darwin may be said
to occupy the first place in the Hall of Fame of modern emotional
psychology.

6) Among the group of early Darwinians there were, in addition
to the zoologists and the geologists, for whom the long aeons for
the play of variation and natural selection seemed a "special
creation," a group of anthropologists to whose pioneering ven-
tures we owe the inclusion of primitive man as a psychological
inquiry. One may mention Spencer and Tylor as distinctive.
A survey of the fauna and flora of human races and institutions
brought forward the close dependence of custom, belief, and in-
vention upon modes of feeling and satisfaction of affective needs.
The mores, rites, and ceremonies gave up their dead secrets as
modes of relief or expression of fears and angers and hopes and
sympathies. Primitive man was much more homo sentiens than
homo sapiens or volens; and, if he acted or believed strangely to
our so differently centered systems, we can still meet and under-
stand our primitive forbears on the common basis of the desires
and rewards, the dreads and avoidances of so much that remains
our common fate. Despite other days and other ways, we main-
tain the same hopes and fears, establish similar prides and shames
to regulate our conduct. The extended anthropological record
proclaims the emotional as well as the anatomical brotherhood
of man, despite the difference of behavior magnified to our sophis-
ticated vision. The recent proof from Boas to Levy-Bruhl,
to Radin that primitive mentality approaches, far more nearly
than we supposed, our own mind-processes, through a common
service of curiosity and orderly satisfaction of intellectual cravings,
is another brilliant example of a correction through the con-
sideration of the emotional ingredient of knowledge.

c) Emotions have profited as much from the rich contributions
of the genetic approach in its modern restatement as have the
knowledge-functions. Parallel with the intelligence tests as
marking the stages of growth are the emotional tests, that have
more recently and imperfectly come to their own. The will-tem-
perament and personality schedules and the indications of traits
through types of response suggest the promising line of advance.
Equally significant is the emotional (instinctive) dominance in
the early infantile stages as set forth by Gesell, in whose program
the affective genesis finds a proper emphasis. Here, too, belong
the evidences of original emotional responses by Watson a part

30 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

of the solid core of the behavioristic contribution, which remains
valid despite the extravagant and so sadly misleading super-
structure that has been based upon it. Here more than elsewhere
is the inadequacy apparent of what a hurried guide may mention.
Sufficient to say that the genetic concept has been enriched per-
haps more than any other by the recognition of the emotional
support and direction of growth. The story of feeling parallels
the story of thinking as part of the story of psychic growth more
intimately, more indispensably, than in any other chapter of the
Story of Mind.

I must not leave it without indicating sentence-wise what would
require a chapter-scale of presentation. The psychic growth of
childhood is dominantly an affective development. Childhood
is even more characteristically an emotional condition than a
stage along the route to intellectual grasp and motor control.
The stream of childhood behavior is set by the emotional course.
Affect is more authentic, plays a larger and more directive role
in the ensemble of childhood than later. It is because the emo-
tions in the child are so strong, so sweeping, so devastating if
unwisely hampered, that childhood is a problem as well as a clue
to the intricacies of later adjustment. The concept that must be
given a far w r ider recognition than it has yet received is that of
emotional age. The stages and levels of growth, so rapidly shifting
in the earlier periods, are distinctively affective, native reflexes
of organic insistence, primitive craving and avoidances, expanding
to tastes, desires, longings, and their antipathies. Viewed from
its later issue, there arises the concept of infantilism, the relative
failure to outgrow with the maturity of years the bondage of the
early emotionalism. Genetic psychology alone would require the
intensive study of emotion which this survey outlines.

d) Continuing the theme, we may with similar emphasis and
similar inevitable foreshortening, set forth that the study of in-
dividual differences equally requires the centralization of the emo-
tions in the total picture. Each of the rubrics of differential
psychology carries an emotional story, sex above all. To be mas-
culine or feminine implies a distinctive and pervasive emotional
composite. I cannot stop to do more than characterize as elab-
orately foolish and futile the attempts to make out that boys and
girls are substantially alike in their "psyche" because they do
equally poorly in algebra or in supplying missing words in sen-
tences. Of course coeducation shows that the mediocrity or, if
you like, the super-mediocrity of college students follows no lines
of sex, and that I have only a fifty-fifty chance in correcting
examination papers to guess whether the inadequacy is that of a

JOSEPH JASTROW 31

John or a Jane. But to allow this trivial fact to offset the over-
whelming contrast of the rest of John's and Jane's natures, merely
because in other unenlightened days their similarities were over-
looked and a false view of their meaning shaped the whole system
of lives for men and lives for women, is to throw out not only the
child with the bath but the whole human family and its record.
For the relatively unemotionalized sections of behavior, sex may
have slight meaning as affecting performance. But one of the
major contributions of affective psychology is to show how ex-
ceptional is the behavior with the but slight or remote affective
determination; and no less, that what is decreed by nature carries
farthest in reach and authenticity at whatever level of expression.
The problem of social adjustment is to shape living conditions to
the needs of men and of women, not to ignore nor yet to thwart
them. We shall lead more rational lives as we use our rationality
to recognize and not to disguise or distort the psychology of sex.
To this much-desired conviction the psychology of the emotions
contributes notably.

Less can be and need be said of race. The affective traits of
race are real, however difficult to formulate and however over-
lapping. In the social aspect they again come to the front, as
Porteus has interestingly set forth. The study of racial prejudice
is one of the most illuminating demonstrations of the realities of
the affective life. How far animosities can be regulated by cul-
tivation of tolerance through rationality, is an uncertain but vital
issue. Through the recognition of the emotional factor in race
contacts, as well as in race proficiencies, the future of racial psy-
chology is more secure, as well as more imperative.

The psychologies of differences, whether of sex, of race, of age,
or of type, have a common or an overlapping orbit. I am con-
vinced that in every psychology of the future, the chapter de voted
to psychological types will be an increasingly important one.
Between the individual and the species stands the type. The
plan of personality is neither a standardized repetition of a uni-
form unit nor a haphazard medley or mosaic; there runs through
its designs a limited set of groupings or configurations (again
with subvarieties) which compose the type. Consideration^ for
type is the logical and humane principle for treat mejnt and special-
ization. Type likewise starts from the affective clue or drive, of
emotional push and pull; it is temperamental. The study $>t
type, whether introvert and extravert or some more refined divi-
sion, is bound to follow the lead of affect, again justifying tne
focus upon the psychology of the emotional distinctions.

Growth includes decline. The genetic and the individual con-

32 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

verge. Sucli a survey as that of Hollingworth is most useful tc
establfsh the correct vicissitudes and regulations in terms of age
periods. It brings adolescence and senescence into one picture,
Life proceeds in a cycle; the ages of man have their dominant
affective aspects, their compensations, and handicaps. An affec-
tive psychology of the cycle of life has as. marked a regulative as
an informative value.

e) In terms of influence, the abnormalities of emotion have
presumably contributed more directly to the " emotional" renais-
sance which this occasion celebrates than has any other phase of
interest. Its early and continuous play in shaping the doctrines
of temperament, its later invitation to consider the poles of elation
and depression, have been noted. The most casual visit to the
wards of what we by tradition call mental disorders offers con-
vincing and distressing proof that we are traversing the halls of
aberrant emotion. An established principle of abnormal psy-
chology is that the fundamental psychic relations and mechanisms,
the dispositions and conditions of behavior, are the same in sane
and insane; the derangement indicates only that the psychic clock
is no longer keeping correct time, may be permanently disabled
for such normal function, while yet it keeps going as a timepiece
of some sort. Because in normality it is so vitally and intricately
an emotional going concern, its false movements are largely
emotional ungearings, as MacCurdy's thesis elaborately indicates.

In the newer insight the psychoneuroses have yielded a rich
psychology; they are representative of the common meeting-
ground of the psychologist and the psychiatrist. If we specify
only the hysterical and the neurasthenic complexes, the lessons
are sufficiently clear and comprehensive. Sanity broadens to
emotional balance and a mental hygiene of their control; mental
stability becomes emotionally poised and maintained. Hysteria
must be outgrown and checked if the stability of human relations
is to endure. The incapacities of neurasthenia must be reduced
and the waste and menace of fatigue be broadcasted. We become
aware through the psychoneuroses those of the war-shock adding
to the tale of the delicacy of the psychic balance, the perils of
the strains that modern strenuosity places upon the more sensitive.
Thus reconstructed sanity acquires an affective rather than an
intellectual implication. Reasonableness becomes an issue, not
a condition of emotional integrity. The coming of age of ab-
normal psychology, the establishment of the clinical attitude
toward behavior, the close alliance in intent and technique of
psychology and psychiatry all converge upon and have been,
in part, prompted by the significance of the affective life. The

JOSEPH JASTROW 83

same conclusion appears in further extension and detail in the
Freudian approach.

/) With emotional maladjustment thus brought into the psychic
scene, the practical stress of its social consequences naturally
intensified the interests in its manifestations. Poverty and crime,
weakness and sin abound; the salvaging of humanity is a persistent
need. Humanized psychology becomes a necessity, not an aca-
demic ideal. How the newer insight has affected our concern
and treatment of the defective, delinquent, and criminal classes
and our understanding of the offender, is familiar. Through the
reconstruction of emotional psychology, what has been too ex-
clusively regarded as a moral failure appears as part of the liability
of aberrant emotions and faulty instinctive responses. Much
of the problem falls in the sphere of adolescent and youthful
stress, where emotion runs high and readily becomes unruly,
where the spark of impulse, when in contact with the tinder of
neurotic constitution, readily produces the psychic conflagrations
which become social menaces. Juvenile and adolescent stresses
are real. To many dispositions, emotional maturity and stability
become a difficult achievement, requiring all the aid of sympathy
and understanding that we can command for their wise direction,
and in more serious incapacities become an almost hopeless
consummation. The guiding hand of psychology replaces or
supports the stern arm of the law.

g) How intimately the affective life is a socialized venture has
become clear through much the same shift of view and emphasis.
The great majority of the psychic responses, the affective ones
dominantly, move in a social milieu; we react to others far more
intimately and more format ively than to situations of things and
processes of the mechanical order. The socialized emotions ex-
press at the same time a field of reference and a reconstruction.
Social conflict and mutual aid are alike emotionally supported.
Social psychology is so recent a discipline that it has grown up
under the same set of influences as have crowned our emotional
Cinderella.

In addition, collective emotion, herd-traits, mental contagion,
class conformity, social conflict, racial and communal prides and
shames, rewards or disgraces are seen to derive from the extensions
of the emotionality of the individual in the only setting in which
it can reach complete expression. The development as well as
control of the crowd-mind, the guidance of public feelings and
sentiments buttress the structure of collective emotion. More
specifically must institutions be considered and developed in
terms of emotional values.

34 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

h) In emotional psychology Freud requires either a page or a
volume. The single-page, the front-page reference would be to the
commanding fact that here first appeared the motive psychology
in its own right as a star performer, assigned the leading part in
the play. Freudian psychology is deep psychology; exploring
below the surface, it comes upon the hidden and suppressed mo-
tives and mechanisms, exposes a subconscious activity, discloses
the sources of conflict within the competing motives and the
imposed struggle between the individual and the encircling col-
lective forces of restraint the family, society, moral censorship,
custom, law. All this striving is essentially emotional, as being
alone sufficiently organic, natural, instinctive, driving. Libido
is emotionalized psychic energy. That Freud came upon it in
the role of sex and forthwith sexualized all striving is but one ver-
sion, one configuration of libido in the natural, in the raw. Hence
the need of sublimation of emotional refinement, of affective
development through civilized outlets for primitive, romantic, or
cultural urges; hence later the inclusion of the power or mastery
motives and the total personality, the ambitions, disappointments,
and rewards in the drama of life. Each measures himself against
the rest, emerges or struggles with an inferiority complex, a superi-
ority delusion, a compensation device, a rationalization system,
or a normal "know thyself* adjustment. We Freudianize our-
selves clumsily or expertly, deliberately or deceptively.

The coincidence of the Freudian era and of the emotional re-
naissance is not accidental. The twenty -year period of resistance
itself a Freudian symptom was doubtless in the main the result
of a medical prejudice and suspicion of irregular practice, but in
a secondary way also a scepticism towards emotional disturbance
as so causative an agent in the production of neuroses, and in
the details of making and dreaming experience. After Freud
performed the matrimonial ceremonies uniting motive and emo-
tion, it has been hazardous for a psychologist to put them asunder,
while his ardent disciples regard such attempt as sacrilege. Freud
is a notable name in the emotional renaissance.

i) The experimental psychology of the emotion can hardly be
summarized. Most distinctive is the demonstration of its organic
bases in the complex glandular mechanisms a chapter unknown
when Wundt ventured to call his pioneer textbook Physiological
Psychology. Yet there is today hardly a beginner's text that does
not present the relation of thyroid deficiency to apathy and inertia,
of thyroid overaction to undue excitability, of the adrenals to
strenuosity, of endocrine balance as a condition of normal func-
tioning of the emotional life. Sex finds its place in a glandular

JOSEPH JASTROW 35

psychology. Through Cannon's monumental demonstrations,
emotion becomes an emergency-meeting device, mobilizing the
organism for fight typically and for other vital emotional situations
as well by virtue of the same integrated mechanisms. Rage, fear,
hunger, and sympathy no less overlap in their glandular registra-
tion. More than one writer has been struck with the analogy of
the doctrine of " humors*' to the secretions. A fanciful guess with
a stroke of luck and a large dose of baseless notions has been re-
placed by laboratory findings undreamed of in the philosophy
that, when revived in no less sporadic relation to scientific evi-
dence, gave us the phrases, still current, of good humor and bad
humor.

This fascinating story of the glands is quite as dramatic in its
further relation to the organic background of the affective life.
The mediumship of the autonomic nervous system has revealed
itself as bringing glands and the central direction of the new brain,
to whose extraordinary development man owes his behavior as a
human being, into one genetic integration. The life of feeling
and emotion is aeons older than that of thought, of cerebral re-
direction and control. We are far older emotionally than intel-
lectually and can never deny, never outgrow our evolutionary
birthright, whatever its handicaps. In the duality of the nervous
system is written the organic preamble to the chapters on feeling
and thinking. *

j) Here again, a summary becomes an enumeration. I select
for mention the theories of emotion, for which the James-Lange
contribution represents the modern starting-point, and the several
attempts to define pleasure and displeasure in subsequent develop-
ment. Next, the close relations between instinct and emotion,
suggested by Shand, made current by McDougall, widely in-
fluential in social psychology, critically present in Allport. There
is the large chapter on the sentiments and the intricate relations
which they assume under intellectual reflection and institutional
support. The most elaborate work is that of Shand. The special-
ized treatment of the great trunk-line emotions is the next step.
A brilliant example is Stratum's treatise on Anger with its further
specialization in the field of religion. It was part of Stanley
Hall's ambition to bring together his several contributions to
these phases of emotional psychology, and his name belongs among

1 As experimental findings do not lend themselves to summary the handbook
of Smith may be referred to, and the many studies of the emotional components
of character and personality not yet collected. The chapter in Roback's Psychology
of Character is an available summary. Studies in aesthetics and in social products
of emotional trends have also, in part, proceeded ex perimen tally.

36 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

the foremost of its pioneers. But to the making of lists there is
no end, except the limitation of time and space.

k) The regulative side of the emotional life I have referred
to in my prologue. From the nursery school, which owes its being
to the recognition of affective control as the basis of the first steps
in right growth, to the university, which harps upon the training
of character but flounders in attempting to find a place for it in
its crowded and too commonly aimless curriculum, the theme of
the emotional life is asserting its claims. Emotional hygiene, genetic
and social, has come to stay.

My epilogue determines itself: how to harmonize the life of
feeling and of thinking in one living symphony. Ours must be a
"life of reason," a phrase expanded to a series of volumes by one
who has lived it significantly Santayana; he has felt as sen-
sitively as he has thought nobly. For the most of us, the program
must be reduced to humble dimensions, to simpler terms. Ed-
man has used the caption " Career of Reason" in surveying for
college students the several contributory disciplines to the re-
flective and institutional occupations of mankind.

In this humanized version of psychology we must recognize that
we cannot trust our feelings uncritically, however much we must
feel as well as think our way to the solution of our problems, to
the attainment of the attitudes that represent what we have made
of our lives. We must definitely recognize the emotional impedi-
ments of thought. Superstition, prejudice, dogmas form a human
record vast and dismal, a permanent warning of the dangers at-
tending the life of reason. From moods to philosophies the affects
rule. The arts of ruling men organize or exploit their sympathies
and sentiments. Leaders are experts in gauging the composite
tempers of their following; their insight is a tact far more emotional
than rational in its technique. Thus the renaissance of emotional
psychology derives its largest warrant from its practical value in
understanding and directing human motives as the mainsprings of
action. The adjustment of feeling and thinking in that cause
remains the great desideratum.

For its establishment our survey provides a few hints and guides.
The neurological approach leaves a deposit of advice. The neurotic
must be understood and avoided; a sound organic basis is indis-
pensable to the sane life of reason. The neuroses indicate the
untoward liabilities. If we are hysterical, we shall live and love
and think not wisely, but too well, too intensively, too narrowly,
with too heavy an affective load, with a too much prejudiced and

JOSEPH JASTROW 37

fitful vitality. If we are neurasthenics we shall feel and think too
timidly, with too much repression, too much troubled anxiety,
too ready discouragement, too shrinking a venture, too sensitive
a responsiveness to the give and take of an imperfect world. If
we are paranoiac, we shall be burdened with suspicion and dis-
tortions, see the world too much in the image of our own deviations,
be prone to fanaticism and the erratic. The avoidance of the
neurotic is the first condition of the affective stability.

In further illustration, note that the neurotic liabilities, the
recognition of which grows out of emotionalized psychology, throw
the weight upon hereditary factors, despite the recognized influ-
ence of wise direction in mitigating and avoiding neurotic catas-
trophe. But disposition is fundamental and offers aid or resistance
to discipline. As long as psychology was so largely concerned
with the intellectual processes, learning was paramount and much
of it acquired, redirected, artificial. With the emphasis directed
to the emotional basis of the psyche, the hereditary rather than
the environmental appears in the determining r61e. Traits are
deeper than habits; the laws of psychic heredity must be read
first in the emotional, temperamental make-up, and the conclu-
sions transferred to the logical traits as of a derivative order.

Constructively we shall seek the normal by a rightful satisfac-
tion of the dominant urges, not by way of crippling, denunciation,
denial, or escape, but by whole-hearted employment and enjoy-
ment of the stages of growth. The slow, yet natural expansion of
motives must be accepted; for such is the law of emotional age.
The disciplines of early life assume a corrected perspective under
the recognition of the validity of natural urges, free expression,
arid levels of emancipation and growth. The emotions have
themselves been rationalized by giving them an accredited place
in the life of reason.

The older intellectualism has receded to its proper place in
the psyche. Motive psychology has replaced it, yet has incor-
porated the most valued of its findings, including its laboratory
and clinical technique. In the recognition of mechanisms the
advance of knowledge is congenial in both fields. Perceptive and
apperceptive mechanisms as aids to logical and objective control
are of one order; emotional mechanisms for guiding instinctive
satisfactions and their derivative issues up to the complications of
character and personality are of another order for self and socialized
assertion and control. But as we go far in a life of reason we re-
quire the logical techniques for the combined direction of the
psychic, the integrated rational life. Motives lead to goals and
ideals, by way of principles and formulated experience; insight
belongs to both a humanized scientific habit of mind. It is in

38 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

view of these converging and supplementing contributions that
we are warranted in speaking of an emotional renaissance and in
commemorating it so worthily, as by the program of the present
occasion.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOAS, F. The mind of primitive man. New York: Macmillan, 1911.

CANNON, W. B. Bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear, and rage. New York:
Appleton, 191.5.

DARWIN, C. R. The expression of emotion in man and animals. New York:
Appleton, 1873-1913.

DESSOIR, M. Outlines of the history of psychology. New York: Macmillan,
1912.

DORSEY, G. A. Why we behave like human beings. New York: Harper, 1925.

EDMAN, I. Human traits and their social significance. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1920.

FREUD, S. A general introduction to psychoanalysis. New York: Boni &
Liveright, 1920.

GESELL, A. Mental growth of the pre-school child. New York: Macmillan,
1925.

HOLLINGWORTH, H. L. Mental growth and decline. New York: Appleton,
1927.

JAMES, W., AND LANGE, C. G. The emotions. Baltimore: Williams & Wil-
kins, 1922.

LEVY-BRUHL, L. How natives think. London: Allen & Unwin, 1926.

. Primitive mentality. London: Allen & Unwin, 1923.

MACCURDY, J. T. The psychology of emotion, morbid and normal. New
York: Harcourt, Brace, 1925.

McDouGAU., W. Introduction to social psychology. Boston: Luce, 1918.

PORTEUS, S. D. Race and temperament. Boston: Badger, 1926.

RADIN, P. Primitive man as philosopher. New York: Appleton, 1927.

ROBACK, A. A. The psychology of character. New York: Harcourt, Brace,
1927.

SANTAYANA, G The life of reason; or, the phases of human progress. (5 Vols.)
New York: Scribner, 1905-1918.

SHAND, A. F. The foundations of character, being a study of the tendencies
of the emotions and sentiments. London: Macmillan, 1914.

SMITH, W. W. The measurement of emotion. New York: Harcourt, Brace,
1922.

STRATTON, G. M. Anger: its religious and moral significance. New York:
Macmillan, 1923.

TYLOR, E. B. Researches into the early history of mankind and the develop-
ment of civilization. London, 1865; Boston: Estes Lauriat, 1878.

. Primitive culture. London: Murray, 1870-1903.

WATSON, J. B. Psychology from the standpoint of a behaviorist. Philadelphia:
Lippincott, 1924.

WUNDT, W. Principles of physiological psychology. New York: Macmillan,
1922.

There has been no general survey of the' "Psychology of the Emotions" since
that of Ribot (1889), but many and varied special contributions.

CHAPTER 3

A NEW METHOD FOR INVESTIGATING
THE SPRINGS OF ACTION

CHARLES E. SPEARMAN

University of London

I. PRESENT LACK OF SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS

Few topics of inquiry could be more fascinating than that of
the fundamental human impulses, desires, and emotions. The
behavior of every one of us at every moment is not only always
caused by such urges in ourselves, but also for the most part aims
at being effective by activating those of other persons. As much
may be said of all public legislation, and even of all social customs
and institutions.

With small surprise, then, we find a pre-eminent place ceded
to this topic already in the writings of Plato. Familiar enough is
his beautiful simile wherein the organization of the mind is likened
to that of a charioteer driving two horses, the one noble and the
other base. The former steed represents the higher tendencies,
such as courage to face danger; the baser animal stands for the
sensory appetites; whilst the charioteer symbolizes the controlling
"Logos" or " Reason. " And upon such a ground the con-
stitution of the individual person it is that he builds up the
constitution even of the model state itself.

Hardly less well known is the kindred line of argument adopted
many centuries later by Hobbes. For again the make-up of the
state is derived from the inclinations of the individual citizen. But
since this motivation of the individual is now conceived in a totally
different manner that is, as essentially directed towards his own
happiness and preservation so too the whole state and statecraft
are now entirely remodelled.

Great, however, as has always been the interest displayed in
this paramount branch of psychology from the earliest times, there
are grounds for doubting whether it has made any corresponding
amount of scientific progress.

Take, for example, the most fundamental and elementary step
towards submitting the natural inclinations to exact investigation;
namely, the making out of a list of them. Such lists have been
drawn up, indeed, abundantly enough; but they have varied most

40 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

disconcertingly from one author to another; and, what is worse,
they seem to remain as discrepant nowadays as in the most ancient
times. Thus, nothing could be more unlike than, on the one hand,
the "original tendencies" of Thorndike, and, on the other hand,
the "instincts" of W. McDougall. Have we at any rate the
consolation of knowing that, although controversy has not abated,
yet it has been continually passing on to new and more modern
phases? Even this comfort is vouchsafed to us only in meager
degree. For instance, any attempt to trace back the parentage
from which McDougall's doctrine of emotion has sprung would
not rightly, I think, go to such immediate predecessors of his as
Ward, Bain, James, or Wundt, but rather would jump right back to
Malebranche. In fact, that which in current literature has been
universally accepted and yet is characteristically modern com-
prises little more than a thoroughgoing adoption of the biological
standpoint. To the preservation of self as advocated by Hobbes
has now been added the preservation of the offspring and the herd;
whilst the conscious motivation towards these ends has been
replaced by a system of blind drives subserving them. For the
rest, the most notable general modern characteristic would appear
to be a decisive indeed, contemptuous rejection of what in the
older doctrines plays such a dominant part as the "will"; by this,
it used to be said, all the natural impulses and acquired desires
are alike brought under supreme control.

II. SCOPE OF RESULTS NEEDED

Since, then, the situation seems to warrant some misgivings and
scrutiny, let us begin by inquiring what extent of information has
really been elicited by psychology ancient and modern, and how far
it goes towards covering the whole scope prescribed by science.

To begin with, there are the already mentioned lists of natural
inclinations, as also of emotions, sentiments, and so forth. The
supply of these, however it may err on the side of discrepancies,
leaves at any rate nothing to be desired in respect of elaborate
detail. But still such lists are primarily and in themselves nothing
more than classifications.

And herewith is at once furnished a key to some part at least of
the discrepancies. For one and the same material may with equal
truth be classified in any number of different ways. The question
really at issue between them may be and usually is not as to
which is the more correct, but only as to which is scientifically the
more fruitful. And to answer this may require many years, or
even centuries.

CHARLES E. SPEARMAN 41

In addition to all such analysis, but necessarily in intimate
connection with it, has been supplied a great amount of further
analysis. For this latter alone can furnish the characteristics
upon which the former is grounded. In analysis, accordingly,
it is that the acumen of psychologists has always been most
conspicuously manifested. What unbiased reader, for example,
can fail to admire the beautiful analysis of the emotions by
Malebranche? Or who does not wonder to find even him over-
topped by McDougall?

But for the 'purposes of science we need something more even
than all this. We require, not only analysis and classification to
gratify the understanding, but furthermore laws of causation and
sequence to confer the power of prediction. Exact investigation is
wanted, both of the manner in which the inclinations and emotions
are influenced by circumstances and also of the way and degree
that they themselves influence conduct.

Now the work hitherto done in these causal directions, however
admirable in quality, would seem to have been lamentably defective
in quantity. Indeed, most often the required causation and
sequence, instead of being definitely evidenced, have only been
surreptitiously and illegitimately inferred from what was really
no more than a classification. This has been done by the old,
old fallacy of confounding names with things; what in truth were
only classes of mental events were taken to be unitary mental
entities. Consider, for example, the immense share in school life
that has been allotted to games which involve teamwork, the
reason offered being that thereby the children's inclination to
teamwork in general will be developed and they will become
correspondingly better citizens. Typical of this view has been the
popular myth that Wellington declared the Battle of Waterloo to
have been gained on the playgrounds of Eton. But in vain one
may look for efforts to support this view with serious evidence.
And as for the evidence that may be picked up casually, even this
is far from favorable. In the World War, for instance, did those
nations who had been most devoted to team-games really display
any the more cordial teamwork between, say, regimental officers
and staff officers? Rumor says otherwise. For all we know at
present, development of the one kind of teamwork will no more
bring with it that of the other kind than, say, the watering of one
rose tree will serve as a watering of its neighbor.

Turning to quite a different type of causal problem, suppose
that we have analyzed any complex emotion, as exactly as may be,
into its constituents. How far will the effects of the whole emotion
be the same as, or even resemble, the sum of the effects of these

42 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

constituents occurring separately? Into such matters there seems
never to have been any investigation. Or, to take yet another
type of problem in causality, psychologists have from the earliest
ages attributed the utmost importance in forming a child's charac-
ter to the kind of literature with which he is supplied. Neverthe-
less, so far as I know, none of them have ever tried really to ascer-
tain the nature and amount of such influence by way of reliable
experiment.

Alongside of and supplementary to this universe of problems in
causation and sequence is the further universe of the problems of
coexistence. In the make-up of the individual, what qualities
tend to go with what? If there have been investigations of this,
at least one may run through the gamut of current psychological
textbooks without finding any trace of them.

III. NEW AIDS TO RESEARCH

Confronted with all these grave difficulties and deficiencies in
the sphere of inclination and emotion, I venture to suggest that
some assistance may be derived from the "noegenetic" doctrine,
which has been found of service in so many other domains of
psychology.

To begin with, the three noegenetic laws of quality can at least
help the science of purposive action by showing in what manner
any ends, or means to these ends, can possibly be brought into
the mind of the purposer at all. Suppose a person to encounter
some novel situation. How can he so much as think of any ap-
propriate behavior, on the adoption of which he has to decide?
The solution to this paramount problem has been shown, especially
by Laycock, to center upon the noegenetic laws of eduction and
reproduction.

Further assistance in the causal problems may be supplied by
the noegenetic doctrine through the quantitative laws which it
has evolved. For these, originally shown to govern the whole
field of cognition, have since proved themselves to be also ap-
plicable in at any rate large measure to the sphere of inclination
and emotion. Consider, for example, how the " law of retentivity "
has been corroborated by the "motivation tracks" of Boyd Bar-
rett. As for the "law of energy," this finds confirmation ubiqui-
tously: in experimental work, as that of Ach and Aveling; in
pathological observations, as those of D&jerine and Gauckler; or
again, in the most familiar mental therapeutics, as when some
morbid desire is suppressed by exciting a healthy one. Even
the "law of fatigue'* would seem to have far more extensive bear-

CHARLES E. SPEARMAN 43

ings here than is commonly suspected; it may perhaps supply
the real key to so strange and momentous a phenomenon as that
of "abreaction."

But still more in need of aid than all these problems of causation
and sequence, it seems to me, are those of the coexistence of quali-
ties in the individual make-up. Nor can it ever suffice merely to
calculate numerous correlational coefficients. Science demands
also that the results obtained in this way should be systematically
interpreted in relation to one another. The most significant
feature about correlations, as a rule, is not so much their absolute
as their relative values, together with the theorems deducible from
these. The well-known cognitive theory of "Two Factors" is
only one instance out of very many possibilities in this direction.

Furthermore, even the most elaborate systematization will be
quite inadequate if put aside into a watertight compartment labelled
"individual differences." It ought, rather, to be thoroughly in-
corporated with psychology as a whole. The present unnatural
divorce between the two on the one hand the novel method of
correlations, and on the other hand the ancient and still dominant
method of analysis and classification cannot but doom both
alike to sterility. In order to illustrate how they can be combined,
let us briefly consider an actual case.

IV. THE CASE OF EGOISM

Throughout the literature of the natural inclinations, no tend-
ency has been so copiously, so emphatically, and, it would seem,
so justly urged as that of exalting one's self. Such terms as self-
assertion, self-regard, self-esteem, egoism, amour-propre, and so
forth have filled the most eloquent pages mostly in censure, but
sometimes in praise from the earliest times down to this day.

Now, for the most part, this inclination has been assumed to
constitute one single entity in the constitution of an individual.
But is this justifiable? In an investigation conducted by Dr.
Webb in my laboratory an attempt was made to put this and many
similar assumptions on trial. Six different versions of self -exalta-
tion were formulated, so as to ascertain how far these are cor-
related together. Only in so far as the correlations approach unity
will the prevalent assumption be corroborated.

These six versions their titles together with some explana-
tions of what these titles were taken to express are given below:

1. "Desire to excel at performances (whether of work, play, or
otherwise) in which the person has his chief interests. " (a) Desire
to do well for the sake of excelling another, not so much for the

44 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

work's sake, (b) The keenness with which he followed his favorite
work, (c) Desire to beat all rivals, (d) The "plus" characters
were patently anxious to do better than their fellows; they believed
in their own powers and made no secret of it. (e) The wish to
distinguish one's self, not ostentatiously, but in order to give one
self-satisfaction .

2. "Desire to impose his own will on other people (as opposed to
tolerance). 99 (a) Desire to be a leader. (b) Want their own wa}'
and sulk when they do not get it. (c) Degree to which he desires
to override the opinions of others, and press forward his own.

(d) Desire to have his own way. (e) Dogmatic and inclined to be
intolerant of the views of others. (/) No wish to hear both
sides, (g) Blindly believing that his ideas are the only correct
ones, (h) An autocratic attitude towards his fellows.

3. "Eagerness for admiration. 99 (a) Acting or speaking, not
naturally, but to gain the applause of his fellow-men. (b) Playing
to the gallery, (c) Desire to be appreciated and tendency to talk
of their own "prowess." (d) Long speeches to win approval.

(e) "Conceit." (/) Extent to which a subject would go in order
to display his talents, and thereby gain the applause of others.
(g) Enjoys being in the "limelight. " (h) Will set aside principles
for the sake of admiration.

4. "Belief in his own powers. 99 (a) Self-confident. (b) Ab-
sence of diffidence with regard to the work, (c) Boastful, (d)
Plenty of self-confidence, (e) Believes himself equal to any task.
(/) Spoke of superiority to others.

5. "Esteem of himself as a whole. 99 (a) Feeling of satisfaction
with himself as a member of society from the point of view of
general ability to "cut a figure." (b) Decidedly the reverse of
modest and self-depreciatory, (c) Boastful of capability to over-
come practically all difficulties, (d) The general estimate or
summing up of himself by himself, (e) This includes belief in
one's own powers and a considerable satisfaction with everything
belonging to or connected with one; at the same time this feeling
caused the owners to regard others in a pitying manner. (/)
Thinking one's self above criticism, (g) Subject's good opinion of
himself, especially of his personal actions.

6. " Offensive manifestation of this self -esteem (superciliousness) . "
(a) 5 carried to excess. (6) This follows from the^felStT'^m^a way,
though a man might think very highly of himself without offensive
manifestation, (c) 5 pushed to excess, (d) Overdoing 5. (e)
Looking down upon others. (/) The "plus" characters did not
disguise the low esteem in which they held such opinions as did
not fit in with their own ideas, (g) Looked at times upon everyone

CHAKLES E. SPEARMAN

else with contempt, (h) Subject's overbearing manner, due to
too much self-confidence, and too great opinion of himself, (i) A
person possessing this quality in a high degree always carries an
air of superiority and seizes every opportunity for giving vent to
his high opinion of himself, (j) Always talking of themselves
always imposing their esteem of themselves on other people
unwilling to hear it.

To begin with, an interesting comparison is afforded between
the titles (as given in quotation marks at the beginning of each
version of self-quality) and the explanations (as indicated by the
letters of the alphabet). In general, the titles represent the results
of a priori analysis on the part of the experimenter. Whereas
the explanations show what the estimators, on trying to interpret
the titles, actually observed in the subjects. We may note inci-
dentally that the different estimators often interpreted in diverse
manners.

Passing on to the correlations between these six self -qualities,
they are as given in Table 1.

TABLE 1
RAW CORRELATIONS

1. Desire to excel

+ .36

+ .28

+ .47

+.36

+ .26

2. Desire to impose will

+ .36

+ .71

+ .59

+ .66

+ .62

3. Eagerness for admiration

+ .28

+ .71

+ .57

+ .61

+ .71

4. Belief in own powers

+.47

+ .59

+ .57

+ .69

+ .54

5. Esteem of self

+ .86

+ .66

+ .61

+ .69

+ .73

6. Offensive manifestations

+ .26

+ .62

+ .71

+ .54

+ .73

As there were 194 subjects, the largest probable error is under
.05.

TABLE 2

CORRELATIONS CORRECTED FOR ATTENUATION

1. Desire to excel

+ .48

+ .39

+ .65

+.51

+ .37

2. Desire to impose will

+ .48

+ .94

+ .78

+.90

+ .88

3. Eagerness for admiration

+.39

+ .94

+ .78

+.86

+ 1.00

4. Belief in own powers

+ .65

+ .78

+ .97

+.77

5. Esteem of self

+.51

+.90

+.86

+.97

+ 1.00

6. Offensive manifestations

+ .37

+ .88

+ 1.00

+ .77

+ 1.00

46 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

Accordingly, we see that in many cases the assumed functional
unity does receive some degree of corroboration. For despite the
Diversity in interpretation, several of the correlations are very high
indeed. Notably is this the case between eagerness for admiration,
esteem of self, and offensive manifestations. But, on the other
hand, there also occur several correlations which are remarkably
low; in particular, the desire to excel has no high correlation with
any of the others. On the whole, it seems impossible to concede
that all the self-qualities are reducible to one and the same func-
tional unity.

There remains still, however, the question as to whether or
not they contain, at any rate, some common element. Here, our
first impression is favorable, seeing that all the correlations are
positive. But really this fact takes us only a little way. To
establish the unitariness of function we require further that all the
"tetrad differences" 1 should vanish (within the limits indicated
by their probable errors).

And this is very far from being so. Out of the 30 different
tetrad differences (of the raw correlations), no less than 22 are
more than five times larger than the probable error; several are
about eight times as large.

But, on the other hand, 20 out of the 22 turn out to involve one
and the same correlation; that between desire to excel and belief
in one's own powers. And both the remaining involve the cor-
relation between desire to impose will and eagerness for admiration.
When these two correlations are left out of account, all excessive
tetrad differences disappear. On the whole, then the most plaus-
ible interpretation of the table seems to be that all six self -qualities
do possess a factor in common, besides each having a factor specific
to itself; whilst additionally there is a large group factor common
to 1 and 4, with a smaller one common to 2 and 3.

The next great point at issue is as to which of the six qualities
depend on the general self-factor in highest degree. We find that
five out of the six are very nearly the same in this respect, the
moment of the general as compared with the specific factor being in
each case about 2:1. But the remaining or sixth quality stands out
in remarkable contrast to all the rest, the ratio this time being
only about 2:5. 2

Besides these correlations of the six self-qualities with one
another, however, there have also to be examined their correlations
with the further qualities over fifty of them which were included
in the investigation. Out of this great mass of information we will

1 C. Spearman, The Abilities of Man (New York: Macmillan, 1927), p. 73.

2 Ibid., pp. 74-5.

CHARLES E. SPEARMAN

for the present pick only a very small part; namely, the group of
qualities, again six in number, which may be regarded as ethically
"good." These and their correlations with the self-qualities
are given in Table 3.

TABLE 3.

'S.

-g

i
-9

..-

o
CJ

1. Desire to excel

+ .07

+ .30

+.49

+.50

+.24

2. Desire to impose will

-.08

-.60

+.08

-.64

-.72

3. Eagerness for admiration

+ .04

-.57

-.17

-.72

-.69

-.50

4. Belief in own powers

-.21

-.22

-.03

-.40

-.50

-.31

5. Esteem of self

-.16

- .33

-.04

-.54

-.57

-.42

6. Offensive manifestations

-.47

-.79

-.04

-.83

-.78

-.47

This time the results are very striking indeed. The desire to
excel does not merely differ in degree from all the other self-
qualities; it is absolutely opposed to them all. For it shows
throughout significantly positive correlation with the good qual-
ities; whereas the other five have overwhelmingly negative ones.

Such results, no doubt, cannot be accepted without much further
investigation and corroboration, seeing that research of this kind
is beset with very great difficulties. But should the corroboration
be eventually forthcoming, then there would seem to ensue corol-
laries of immense magnitude. The fact that the desire to excel
correlates in low degree with all the other self-qualities, but in
high degree with all the good qualities, appears to supply a founda-
tion pillar for education and even for legislation.

V. "W" AND "DECISION"

The space at our disposal admits of only one more extract from
Webb's research to illustrate the method of investigation here
recommended. It is a theorem which was already obtained by
himself, and indeed was very rightly taken by him to be his most

48 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

important discovery. Expressed in his own words, it is that in
addition to the intellective "0"

"A second factor of wide generality exists; this factor is prominent on the 'char-
acter' side of mental activity." It may be taken as "consistency of action result-
ing from deliberate volition or will." 3

This second general factor he calls "w".

Verily a strange upshot! On investigating character with what
seems to be far greater thoroughness than ever before (or after-
wards), and on employing the new incomparably more powerful
technique than available previously, what ensues? That ancient
entity, which almost all modern authorities are now pluming them-
selves as having abandoned as an effete supersitition ! Over and
above all the impulses, inclinations, instincts, etc., struggling with
one another there re-emerges an all-controlling " will. " A will, too,
as Webb shows, the strength of which has high correlations with
all the representative "good" qualities.

Furthermore, this result of Webb some dozen years ago has
just recently been followed and illuminated by a no less momentous
discovery to stand beside it. It is that of Aveling, 4 according to
which a volitional "decision," far from being nothing more than
the victory of one struggling conation over another, does not in
itself contain any conation at all! It proves to be an act sui
generis, neither cognitive nor conative. With this result of the
most perfect experimental conditions as yet realized, we seem to
have returned to something curiously like the original "Logos"
of Plato.

Be this as it may, Aveling's "decision" together with Webb's
"w" would appear to restore to us at last some solid foundation
for the ethical distinction between right and wrong. A distinction
which, perhaps fortunately, the usual modern writers on character
have not seen that they have eliminated.

3 British Journal of Psychology, Monograph Supplement, 1915.

4 See recent numbers of the British Journal of Psychology.

CHAPTER 4
EMOTION, CONATION, AND WILL

F. AVELING

University of London

It is an opportune time for a symposium on the psychology of
feeling and emotion. These aspects of mental process have not
been investigated so thoroughly as those of cognition, but already
sufficient experimental work has been done in their regard to
warrant the bringing together of psychologists to discuss them.
What is wanted is more exact and agreed definition of the terms
we are currently employing, and sympathetic criticism of such
researches as have so far been carried out.

In contributing to this symposium my attempt shall be to
analyze briefly the qualitative and quantitative changes in con-
crete conscious experience which give rise to the notions of feelings
and emotions; to examine, in particular, the temporal properties
of conscious process by reference to which I believe we may be
helped in our distinctions; and to define some at least of our terms
in the light of certain experimental evidence which I shall ad-
vance. The paper thus falls under two heads: Introspection,
showing the phenomena to be related; Experiment, in which
we shall hope to find indications of their relation. A final para-
graph will deal with Nomenclature.

I. INTROSPECTION

In attempting to determine what a "feeling" or an "emotion"
is, we must clearly begin with the concrete experience of an affec-
tive or an emotional state of consciousness. There is no difficulty
in deciding that we are experiencing such states, though there
may be a difficulty in saying why they are affective or emotional.
Simple introspection, however, is enough to enable us to differ-
entiate qualitatively one feeling state or one emotional state
from another, as well as to analyze a number of irreducible phe-
nomena which enter into the constitution of the latter. "Feel-
ing," though this term is ambiguous, I shall restrict in the present
paper to the "pleasure-unpleasure" couple, which I take to be a
modality of self -awareness. My reason for this is that pleasure
and unpleasure seem to be irreducible to any other conscious expe-

50 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

rience; whereas all other "feelings" can be reduced either to
cognitive or to conative processes. We experience these affective
states when we are pleased or unpleased; and (though, in ac-
cordance with popular usage in speaking of objects as pleasant
or unpleasant, some psychologists would group such *' feelings"
with sensations) it seems to be introspectively clear that they
are subjective states of mind rather than objective presentations.

Similarly, we experience anger, fear, and the like, when we
are "emotionally" affected. To make these statements is to
bring the Self which experiences (without prejudice as to any
explanation as to its nature) into the very forefront of the science
of psychology. I believe this to be a necessary position to take
up, but, as I have argued the point elsewhere and supported the
argument with experimental data, it need not be labored here. 1

Accordingly, like the feeling states, the emotional states are
prominently subjective; and we are able to distinguish a very con-
siderable number of them introspectively the large number of
terms in ordinary language expressive of emotions and shades of
emotion being proof of the fact. All psychologists will agree that
many different emotions are actually experienced; but they are
certainly not all in accord as to what an emotion is, by what it is
conditioned, or what, in turn, it effects. The causal relations of
emotion are, of course, a matter for experimental investigation.
We can judge only by results, in the presence or absence or varia-
tion in amount of which causal sequences can be ascertained.
But the fact of the occurrence of emotion and its descriptive analy-
sis are open to introspection, and to introspection alone.

In such an analysis of any normally aroused and moderately
intense emotional state, over and above cognized (and significant)
objects or situations, feelings, and impulses or conations, we find
coenaesthetic and kinaesthetic elements. Doubtless these are
all abstractions from the concrete state in question, none of which
can be taken to occur in its own right or to be capable of existence
alone; but the problem is to discover which of these elements con-
stitutes the state an emotional one, or gives it its emotional char-
acter. The fact that we are also able to report quantitatively as
to the intensity of emotion or feeling helps us here. We currently
describe these experiences by the use of quantitatively compara-
tive adjectives, and adverbs. It is quantitative variation which
makes it possible for us to form notions of feelings and emotions
at all, and to say what element in the total state makes it emo-
tional, since observable variations in some of its aspects ap-

1 F. Aveling, "The Standpoint of Psychology," British Journal of Psychology,
(Gen. Sect), XVI (1925), 15&-170.

F. AVELING 51

parently occur in the absence of variations in others. There are
times in which the emotional aspect is found to have thrust all
others out of focal consciousness, just as there are times when the
cognitively objective or conative aspect is predominant in it.
These are commonplaces, but they form the raw material out of
which psychology is built up. /

Much confusion in the present use of the term "emotion" is
due to the failure to distinguish two absolutely different characters
of experience. Emotion is sometimes looked upon as a pathic,
sometimes as a dynamic state, but quite as often as a combination
of both. The confusion is ancient. The "desire" of Aristotle can
be analyzed into two factors. The "passion" of the Schoolmen
was something suffered, but equally expressed an active aspect of
mind. The two aspects have almost invariably been confused,
even in recent psychology, not excluding psychoanalysis. It is
probably this fact which has led a representative psychologist to
say that the term "emotion" should not be used at all; or, if used,
only in a very general sense, since we cannot make it precise or
give it a definite meaning. 2

It is clearly necessary to distinguish within an orectic process
whatever can be distinguished in introspection; the dynamic im-
pulse (namely, appetition or aversion) and the massive and pathic
aspect which enters into every emotion popularly and properly so
called. Abstract this from the impulse, from the feelings and
from the objectively cognitive items which accompany (or precede)
it, and there is no emotion left. To this it may be objected that,
since the massive and pathic element is clearly in the main co-
enaesthetic, and since this forms a part of all conscious states, all
consciousness must be emotional. I am not concerned to deny it,
but merely to assert that in what are commonly called emotions
the markedly "stirred-up" character of consciousness is essential. j
As in the case of feeling, with a neutral point between pleasure and]
unpleasure, so in the case of emotion the habitual coenaesthesio-|
kinaesthetic tone may be neutral.

This is a version of the James-Lange doctrine taught, in sub-
stance, long before the time of James and Lange. It lays stress
on the usually vague (but sometimes partially quite determinate)
sensational aspect of the emotional state as the characteristic of
emotion. Bodily changes (principally visceral, glandular, and
analogous ones) are mentally experienced as a massive sensa-
tional complex, and it is in proportion to the massiveness rather
than to the clearness of this complex that the emotion is said to be

2 1). Wechsler, k< What Constitutes an Emotion?," Psychological Review, XXXII
(1925), 235-240.

52 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

greater or less. Here, again, any connection between the bodily
and the mental phenomena is not a matter for introspection but
for experiment. The massive and sensational character of emo-
tional experience, however, is an immediate fact of consciousness,
and in its absence emotion is not commonly said to be expe-
rienced. Bearing in mind the fact that it is an abstraction, there
would seem therefore to be no very grave objection to calling this
the emotion.

In the emotional state, however, apart from the qualitative and
quantitative changes due to the inrush of vague somatic sensa-
tion, there is also variation in the conative impulses as well as in
feeling. In my opinion the former is of the greatest importance.
I have been led, both by introspection and experiment, to the
view that what is experienced as massive and unclear sensation
complex is invariably consequent upon conative impulse. Almost
literally, in the picturesque language of William James, "we feel
sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we
tremble," and so on; or at least we experience these emotions
because of a previously aroused conation which constitutes the
"set" of the conscious organism towards action. Stated in purely
psychological terms, the order of events would seem to be: first,
cognition of a significant stimulus; second, conative "set" towards
it; and, last, the "stirred-up" characteristic of emotion proper.
Feeling may also enter into the total state of consciousness at
any phase of its development from the initial cognition to the
full-blooded emotion.

All these abstract phenomena can be discriminated introspec-
tively, provided care be taken to arrange suitable conditions in
which one or the other is emphasized, and the experiments re-
peated a sufficient number of times to allow of adequate charac-
terization of the phenomenon in question. This is a sine qua non
of all serious introspective work, since what in reality is intro-
spected is (cognized) experience, and not all that enters into a
single given experience can ever be taken to be cognized ade-
quately a fact due to the law of the limitation of mental energy. 3
We are directly aware only of an infinitesimal part of our external
sensory experience at any given moment. Our span of conscious-
ness is likewise limited for any aspect of experience whatever.
Very many observations, accordingly, may be necessary to dis-
entangle the phenomena of the simplest mental process.

8 C. Spearman, The Abilities of Man (London: Macmillan, 1927), p. 98 ff.

F. AVELING 53

II. EXPERIMENT

We have now to ask what evidence there is of any causal order
between the phenomena we have been able to distinguish intro-
spectively, and of what functions each may subserve. This is a
matter for experimental investigation, so planned as to vary the
introspectible phenomena in a relatively independent way, and to
observe the objective results. I propose to offer the evidence of two
or three researches as a contribution towards a partial solution
of this many-sided problem.

It need hardly be argued that conation and emotion are condi-
tioned by experience of a cognitive^ character. I use "experience"
here in order to cover all possible (even pathological) cases, since
it may be admitted that conscious feeling, and even emotion, may
be a consequent of cognitions of which we are neither intensely
nor determinately aware. 4 And this may happen in two ways:
either by reason of a natural set (e. g., instinct), or because of
a set intentionally adopted.

It will be convenient, especially in connection with the latter,
to consider first the relation between will-acts (decisions, resolu-
tions, etc.) and the conations involved in their performance. It
has been shown that the determination to perform a task (ac-
ceptance of an "instruction") sets up a determining tendency
in virtue of which the task in question is carried out. Ach's
rhyming experiments 5 (even though they may not have provided
a method of measuring the strength of the will) and Michotte's
researches on choice 6 are, among others, demonstrations of this
relation. Work in our own laboratory, embracing a very con-
siderable number of mental processes, not only corroborated
these demonstrations, but allowed us also to obtain graphic
records which suggest that the will-act itself is not conative (in
the sense of a striving), whereas the carrying-out of the decision
most frequently is. From the outset in these researches, together
with other instruments for recording bodily changes taking place
during the reaction period, we made use of the galvanometer,
subjects regularly being placed in circuit with it in all the experi-
ments. Almost at the beginning it was noticed by some of the
subjects that it came to be designated as "alertness," as roughly
equal to, or greater or less than, a previous experience of a similar
nature. And it was found that the galvanometric deflections

4 C. Spearman, The Nature of Intelligence and the Principles of Cognition (London:
Macmillan, 1923), p. 164, ff.

6 N. Ach, Ueber den Willensakt und das Temperament: eine experimenteUe
Untersuchung (Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer, 1910).

8 A. Michotte, Etude experimentale sur le choix volontaire (Louvain, 1910).

54 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

correlated in a significant manner with the estimates. At the time
"alertness" was identified with "consciousness of action" (Mi-
chotte) or "act" (Ach); but the distinction was not then clearly
drawn between will-acts on the one hand and conations on the
other. 7

In a later research definitely planned to investigate the nature
of the deflections occurring in connection with will-act and cona-
tion respectively it was found that they were usually greater
with the latter, and often did not occur at all with the former. A
brief report of this work was communicated to the VHIth Interna-
tional Congress of Psychology at Groningen. 8 The main con-
clusion which is relevant to the present paper, however, was that
will-acts (resolutions, etc., to perform difficult mental or bodily
tasks) are both intrpspectively and objectively different from the
conations involved in the actual performance of the tasks. The
conations are clearly strivings and effortful; the will-acts as such
appear to be neither. While we must doubtless allow that cona-
tions may issue from non-voluntary dispositions (as instincts)
also, it is clear that causal sequences obtain between true voli-
tions and conations, from which, accordingly, they should be
distinguished.

An objection to the foregoing argument lies in the commonly
asserted emotional character of the psychogalvanicreactipn itself.
This objection seems to be due to thriJTOfu'^lmi b^t^ggfffRe pathic
and dynamic aspects of consciousness noted above; and in meeting
it we shall find, I believe, evidence of a real causal sequence be-
tween conation and emotion. In all the researches conducted by
us, we not only photographed the galvanometric deflections, but
also measured reaction-times and recorded full introspections.
The last named covered the period between the giving of the
stimulus and the end of the performance of whatever task was in
hand choosing one of several alternatives; reacting by rhyming,
reversing, etc., to a syllable which has been learned in association
with another; attempting "to have and to hold" one of several
alternating visual after-images; trying to get the meaning of an
imperfectly learned nonsense word; mentally working out mathe-
matical and logical problems; and the like.

On comparison of the times of occurrence of the deflections with
the times of the reactions, it is clear that whatever bodily changes
are indicated by the former almost invariably take place after
the whole introspective period is over. The somatic resonance

1 The distinction is drawn in: F. Aveling, "The Psychology of Conation and
Volition," British Journal of Psychology, XVI (1926), 339-353.

8 Proceedings of the Vlllth International Congress of Psychology, p. 227.

P. AVELINO 55

can, therefore, neither be the antecedent nor the concomitant of
the experiences related in the introspections. It can be only the
consequent. And similarly with any mental concomitant or
consequent it may itself have. These are effects and not causes of
the conation to perform or the performance of the task.

Hardly ever were emotional experiences reported in the very
large number of introspections recorded. Sometimes feeling was
noted, but mostly only cognitive and conative phenomena
especially in % the difficult mathematical, after-image, and mean-
ing tasks. Accordingly, since, as has been said, the size of the
deflections varies with the estimated amount of a conative
phenomenon, it can only be taken as indicative of this; and, since
the somatic resonance is regularly subsequent to the conation,
conation is the cause of emotion.

An alternative account of emotion would make it due not to
conation but to a choc or general excitation of a large number of
cranial and sympathetic nerve centers not habitually affected by
the stimulus causing it. Variations of physiological activity
(heart, respiration, secretion, etc.) and variations of impulse (to
run, to strike, etc.) would be two parallel expressions of the emo-
tional stage. 9 Not to emphasize the fact that this is a conational
explanation, making emotion the mental counterpart of a neural
rather than of a glandular-vascular-muscular activity does not
seem to be satisfactory for the following reason. In the greater
emotions, at any rate, definite organic sensations often stand out
from the vague coenaesthesio-kinaesthetic mass, and these, to-
gether with that mass, certainly seem to form part indeed the
prominent part of the emotion itself. Moreover, certain secre-
tions, toxins, and organic diseases produce, or concur in the pro-
duction of, emotional states. It would be impossible to say that
this action is not by way of the nerves, and that the choc is not
the cause of the emotion. But this has to be shown rather than
stated.

My contention above is that variation of impulse and of physio-
logical activity are not synchronous, but related as cause and
effect. A consideration, however, arising from our own researches
might seem to lend color to the opposing view. One observer in
our work on will-acts and conations designated the initial phase
of what we have termed alertness as a "shock," and describes it
as a "passive endurance of enjoyment rather than . . . ac-
tive striving or willing." 10 This seems to be the "something has

D. Wechsler, loc. cit.

10 R. J. Bartlett, '* Does the Psychogalvanic Phenomenon Indicate Emotion?, "
British Journal of Psychology, XVIII (1927), 30-50.

56 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

happened to me but I do not know what" state of mind which
had been noted in another (yet unpublished) research made in our
laboratory. The experience in question is one in which various
peripheral stimuli were presented to the subject under conditions
in which he was unable to say to what sensorial sphere they be-
longed; and the term "primary pathic state" was used to character-
ize it. This is a state of cognitive order, but clearly antecedent
to determine cognition. 11 It is feeling in the sense of inadequate
apprehension. 12 And it might be confused with emotion, not in
the sense in which I have used this term, but in that in which some
psychologists have postulated an "interest" as a limiting case of
emotion in their treatment of instinct. 18 For, though it seems to
display both aspects, it is a subjective state rather than an ob-
jective content. It is unclear, more in the sense of being indeter-
minate than necessarily lacking in intensity. And it is identified
with the initial phase of conation.

The truth would seem to be that conation is an introspectible
mental process which has a temporal development, but a far more
speedy one than the physiological adaptation of the organism to
the situation; that it has usually come to full expression before
anything like emotion, in its common meaning, is experienced;
but that, nevertheless, the emotional (or interest) aspect of con-
sciousness so quickly superimposes itself upon the cognitional
and conational that it is not, except in carefully arranged experi-
mental conditions, easy to discriminate between them. Conation
thus would initiate emotion as even unclear cognition initiates
conation, each developing phase tending to overlap and inter-
mingle with the preceding one.

There remain many -questions to be asked, among which two
(concerning the reciprocal bearing of emotion on conation, and of
feeling on cognition) have had some beginnings of investigation.

It is generally considered that emotion reinforces conation;
and this would well fit in with the view put forward in this paper.
Certainly more can be accomplished under emotional stress than
in its absence. This, again, is a commonplace; but, so far as I
am aware, it has not been the subject of detailed investigation
and measurement.

On the other hand, experiments which we have been carrying
out indicate that feeling (pleasure-unpleasure) has upon cognition
an effect similar to that of conation. Conscious pleasure and un-
pleasure provoked by auditory, gustatory, olfactory, etc., stimuli

11 C. Spearman, The Nature of Intelligence and the Principles of Cognition (London:
Macmillan, 1923), p. 48 ff.

12 R. J. Bartlett, loc. cit.

" J. Drever, Instinct in Man (Cambridge, 1921), p. 130 ff.

F. AVELING 57

have an enhansive effect upon the perception of visual stimuli. A
greater number of letters tachistoscopically shown can be per-
ceived, and in their true order, under the influence of feeling than
otherwise. The research in which these experiments figure is not
yet published, but it shows that with feeling (when the subject
adopts a passive or receptive attitude) the percentage of letters
reproduced is of the order of those reproduced, without feeling,
in an attentive attitude. Feeling considerably enhances the results
of reproduction.

A final mention may be made of a research on the influence of
conation upon the duration of visual after-images (perception).
Having secured disparate and alternating after-images for each
eye, it was found possible "to have and to hold" one or the other
to some extent at will by trying (conation). Within the range
of the experiment, this indicated that cognition is the effect of
conation. 14

III. NOMENCLATURE

The foregoing brief notes, which touch only upon some of the
problems of feeling and emotion, permit us to make several psy-
chological distinctions between introspectible aspects of a mental
process, and to define terms which may be used to denote them.

A volition, as an act of the Self by which we resolve, decide, etc.,
to do anything, is in essence effortless, and is to be distinguished
from a conation, of which it may be the cause.

A feeling is the experience of pleasure or unpleasure enjoyed by
the Self.

A conation is an experienced act, mental or bodily, of doing
(striving or effort).

An emotion is the massive and generally wholly unclear ex-
perience of coenaesthesio-kinaesthetic sensation.

These terms, thus defined, are clearly not employed in the am-
biguous meanings of current psychologies, but it is suggested that,
so defined, they would make for precision in thought. Admittedly,
they signify no more than abstract phenomena of concrete ex-
periences. But, short of discarding them altogether and sub-
stituting an entirely new terminology, only some such drastic
limitation of their meaning can bring agreement among psychol-
ogists, who often dispute, not about facts and events, but words.

14 Messer, Thesis for Degree of M. Sc. (University of London Library).

CHAPTER 5
THE ESSENCE OF FEELING

OUTLINE OF A SYSTEMATIC THEORY

F. KRUEGER

University of Leipzig

Whatever pleases one, whatever interests him, whatever de-
presses him, whatever excites him, whatever he perceives as the
comic; even more, how easily and how continuously he is moved
internally in these ways this is the particular characteristic of
his "being," his character, and his individuality. Such has pre-
scientific thought unanimously been since ancient times. Feelings
embrace or penetrate all other mental events in some way. The
"emotional" testifies in a unique way to the structure of the
"inner," the mental life. Apparently it is generally typical of
life itself.

I. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL STATUS OF THE PROBLEM

Since science with its analysis and schematic abstraction shatters
the naive belief in the seriousness of "matters of the heart," the
most fervent and the deepest experiences have, consequently,
fought from the beginning against their investigation (Beobach-
tung) by science. The results in mechanically constructing and
in quantitatively determining "objective" reality are generalized
into a materialistic metaphysics in which everything which may
not be subjected to the procedure of reduction is said to be unreal.
Physics, chemistry, and mathematics, with proven right, seize
the phenomena of life, seize even the structures of life. These
unmistakable advances create a prejudice that scientific problems
may be exhausted with settling these questions and using these
methods; that whatever phenomena of life might be understood
physically and chemically would, if they might not be at the same
time mentally (erlebnismdssig) qualified or closed within them-
selves, lose all psychological relations; that if they should be
"accompanied" here and there by mental data it would then fye
superfluous to observe those mental phenomena as such within
the science.

F. KRUEGER 59

Out of epistemological and empirical necessity a special science
of mental reality and its particular laws developed, nevertheless,
especially among those nations which were creative in natural
sciences. But even from those psychologists who are opposed to
materialism (Stout, Lipps), we have heard recently that "feelings
are secondary phenomena"; they have no particular "psycho-
motor " force ; they are " something parasitical. " Such paradoxical
statements, as a rule, are co-determined by certain depravities of
later civilization. Enthusiasms, aesthetic and snobbish over-
refinements, also moralizing tendencies can, in fact, generate
emotions which are, so to speak, mere "luxuries" in the household
of mind; or they are even "ungenuine, " merely imaginative feel-
ings consciously created to deceive. With mental attitudes like
these they are sufficiently important science must occupy itself
without judgments of evaluation. In so far as the conceptions
just mentioned are valid, in general, for all mental events, they
are regularly deduced from certain theories or from one-sided
"principles" of generalization.

The whole qualitative variety of mental phenomena is, sensual-
istically, reduced to "sensations," besides these, perhaps, to their
"images" or to psychological residues, or to Herbartian statics
or mechanics of block-like "imaginations." Other psychologists
construct mental events according to the reflex movements of
a beheaded frog by a scheme of stimulus-response, to which the
"movements" of mood do not in the least correspond. Finally,
since the days of the Greeks, psychological thinking has always
been inclined to correct reality anew, according to the model of
rationalization, and to confuse its empirical regularity with logical
ideals. Schopenhauer and, in a more exact way, Wundt have
struggled indefatigably against this confusion.

It is instructive that those thinkers who render most decided
homage to psychological intellectualism, e. g., the French meta-
physicians of the seventeenth century, take most pains to arrange
"affections" in their systems. They are, as a whole, in a contra-
dictory fashion reduced to influences of the body, which ought
not to happen, or they are interpreted as pathological disturbances.

We learn from history as a whole that since the victory of Chris-
tianity, the real emotionality including the ethically or artisti-
cally informed emotionality is placed more and more in the center
of the struggle of opinions and of psychological doctrine. When
the Germans at the end of the eighteenth century fully overcame
the enlightenment, storm and stress had prepared the way for the
classicists in art as well as in thinking by means of its conviction
of the originality, productivity, and all-determining power of

60 PEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

the emotions. Kant, Tetens, Goethe's friend, K. Ph. Moritz,
recognized in the faculty of feeling a particular, genetically early,
and fundamental class of mental functions. Since that time psy-
chology, especially in the German countries, has mainly followed
that direction of ideas. At least the problem remains a psychologi-
cally fundamental one. Whoever intends to penetrate into and
explain mental realities, whoever would describe fully any one of
their phenomena and would understand that they are necessary,
is compelled to understand feelings and emotions as one whole.
(Cf. 14 in the bibliography, p. 17 ff.)

The results obtained up to the present time as a scientific solu-
tion of this problem are out of proportion to the admittedly central
significance of the problem. Even the most exact observers today
not infrequently describe the psychophysical development of
animals, young children, and primitive peoples as if primitive
experience were poor in emotions, or at least not mainly deter-
mined by them (12). In general, mental, emotional phenomena
are mentioned as something qualitatively particular, but keen-
minded specialists always seek anew to lose them again by specula-
tion. One "reduces" them to "relations" of "imaginations"
(Herbartians) , to indwelling constant "tones" of sensational
elements (Wundt at the beginning), or to organic sensations (W.
James), while others, especially German theoreticians, considered
these weighty facts once more as unimportant "concomitant
phenomena." Recently C. Stumpf has made a special class of
sensations related to tickle, itch, pain, the basis of all emotions
(20). Besides explaining teleologically, one uses all kinds of ob-
jective expediencies; on the other hand, somewhat the same psy-
chologists set up the old hypothesis in many new forms. At all
events the finest, most spiritual emotions are caused by intellectual
processes which are admixed with some known and more "ele-
mentary" data. Thus the border line fluctuates, and the qualita-
tive relationship of the higher to the lower emotions remains
incomprehensible.

One would expect that we should be clear at least about what
well-circumscribed phenomena have to be interpreted in a theory
of emotion. As a matter of fact, however, scarcely two books agree
on how to draw a line between the emotional in, or with, our ex-
perience and the non-emotional, even in a rough way. What
have the facts called emotions, phenomenologically and immedi-
ately compared, in common with one another? A related question
about the classes of feeling is still answered in the most contra-
dictory way. For example, Th. Lipps, for good reasons in our
opinion, decided, until future researches are made, in favor of an
unlimited manifoldness of emotion. More than fifty years have

F. KRUEGEB 61

passed since Wundt created his theory of the three elementary
classes or principal directions of qualitative differences in this
field. Until this very hour, however, professional psychologists
maintain that feeling, in the scientific sense of the word, is identical
with pleasantness and unpleasantness. Some critical spirits su&mit
to this algedonical restriction, not only because Wundt surely
confused his well-founded descriptive division with unclear and
incorrect theories (13, 14), but, more clearly stated, mainly for
the reason that they were afraid of losing every basis for an un-
equivocal answer to the fundamental question, "What is 'the
emotional'?"

II. DIFFICULTIES OF CONTENT AND METHOD

Whatever a sensation of green or the taste experience of bitter
may be, the mental datum of the tone a, or the memory-image of
such a partial experience (Teilbefundes) those questions, like
all psychological ones, are not ultimately definable. They may
be only exhibited, not defined. For the normal man, however,
conditions of great exactness may be created in which he finds and
recognizes definite experiences of seeing, of tasting, or of hearing.
And we can as well look at every such field as a total, as we can
divide it, with general validity at least, into main directions of
general similarity and into "modal" differentiation without gaps.
There are highest and lowest tones. Every sensory experience
can be classified according to intensity by the determination of
absolute and relative limens.

On the other hand, does not the world of emotions elude every
effort to classify or even limit them? In our language we call the
most different and the most heterogeneous things "feelings":
data of the sense of touch and all sensitivity of the internal organs;
complex, especially diffuse, or weak sense experiences of every kind;
vague images; unclear ideas; even the "subjective" in aesthetic
enjoyment and in artistic creation, and many other things almost
every reality, in as far as it cannot be exhausted in intellectual
"objective" relations. Whatever is difficult to name, whatever
cannot be fully conceived in any other way, one is inclined to call
by that name. Is there something of quality or function in com-
mon which positively needs the name "emotional" and exalts it
to the significance of an identical concept?

Whatever has been differentiated scientifically until now as
"feelings in the narrower sense" pleasantness, tension, excite-
ment, etc. everything of this kind can pass over steadily from
one into another and even change into its qualitative opposite.

62 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

Such a phenomenon seems to dissolve easily into indifference, but
variations of the conscious attitudes in general are unnoticeable.
Moreover, sense experience or thought experience, whichever you
choose, can "develop" out of it without a break, and conversely.
Of all forms and colors of our experience the emotional are the
most fleeting, labile, or, as the name implies, motile. Many of
them are of a directly intangible fragility. All movements (Re-
(jungen) of feeling, as they are experienced, have originally and
in common the peculiarity that the experiencing person must
attend to them to some degree. But when he changes the direction
or the intensity of this attending, moreover when he thinks about
it, they unavoidably change themselves. That may be formulated
in a more precise and at the same time more general manner
ceteris paribus, an emotional complex loses in the intensity and
plasticity (Ausgeprdgtheit) of its emotional character to the degree
that it becomes analyzed, so that its parts become relatively
separated or that the partial moments in it come out clearly as
such. This law can be reduced still further in an explanatory
manner as we shall see. Those facts of which we spoke here,
at first propaedeutically, must be observed in continuity by
psychology.

Two touch impressions, brightnesses, optical shapes, or two
experienced verbal meanings can be observed one beside the other
and be directly compared. Concerning emotional life, however,
we have theoretically good reasons to claim that two feelings are
never experienced at exactly the same time. The experimental
principle meets with difficulty with them in that they are influ-
enced by every variation in the condition of simultaneous experi-
ences with which their particular ability to be blunted is connected.
Quantitative units like the just noticeable differences are extremely
problematic in our field. The concept of " adequate stimuli"
is here scarcely compatible with the actual complications, some of
which we have called, not unsuitably, the "universality of the
excitant of emotion."

The founder of scientific methods in psychology, Wilhelm
Wundt, toward the end of his life assigned the more central mental
functions almost exclusively to "folk psychology," i. e., to eth-
nological and historical comparisons. Thus he gained fruitful
insight into the genesis of language, and into the social conditions
of primitive civilization (14). But the continuity with his re-
maining doctrines of general or individual psychology is unsatis-
factory. He took this social-genetic course from a certain despair
about the utility of the methods of experiment and measurement
introduced by himself and, last but not least, from the realization

F. KRUEGER 63

that they are, in fact, unsuited to the investigation of emotional
life. In the matter of feelings Wundt had amplified the experi-
mental quantitative method up to the nineties. Following the
example of physiological registration but without a real contact
with the other methods of psychology, he conceived the important
idea of the "expressive methods" (23, II, p. 278 ff.). He knew
very well that with them he took only the first steps in a way full
of promise but to a high degree "indirect." Only haltingly and
occasionally did he recognize, for example, the measurement of
Sprechmelodie as an expressive method. He restricted himself
mainly to the symptomatic correlation of certain variations of
breathing and circulation of the blood with the three fundamental
qualities of his theory of feeling. With these experiments and
with his theory of affections, Wundt methodically approached
the theories of Lange and James but in a more exact way. He
did not contradict the principle when one said to him that at
every moment the total mental state is mirrored in the whole atti-
tude and in every movement of the organism; in this "expression, "
above all else in the expression of feelings, every organ of the body
(including the glands) participates in ever changing arrangements
which ought to be observed systematically.

To restrict itself to "objective" methods in the physical sense,
much less to limit its view materialistically, is in general remote
from European science since Kant, Herder, and Hegel. Wundt
was fortified against it in detail by his axiom that all true psy-
chology rests more or less directly upon "introspection." This
is epistemologically an indispensable truth. To be sure, Wundt
as an experimenter interpreted it so one-sidedly and limited it so
narrowly that other necessary ways of comparison, for example,
in animal and child psychology, were therefore denied him.

Positivism, as it is known, used the criticism against all psy-
chology that the process of observation, if it be directed upon the
particular experience of the observer, always changes these ex-
periences themselves. This is true in the highest degree, as we
saw, for the psychology of feelings. Skeptical conclusions may be
drawn only with precaution. It is the task of science, however,
to recognize difficulties and then overcome them step by step by
suitable methods.

III. EMOTION AND PSYCHICAL, TOTALITY (Gefuhl und
PsycJnscKe Ganzheu)

Psychology has been educated to scientific exactness by the
natural sciences, its earlier matured sister disciplines. But in

04 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

the middle of the nineteenth century it took as an example not
biology but physics and chemistry. It incorporated into the
psychological events of life not only the methods of experiment
and measurement but also problems, fundamental concepts, and
the mechanistic scientific ideal of these sciences of inanimate and
non-genetic reality.

A. The Totality of Inner Experience (Erlebens)

Wundt claimed even to the end that it is the principal task of
psychology to analyze the concrete complex "contents of con-
sciousness,** which are always manifold, into a limited number of
atomistic "elements** out of which those contents (Taibestande)
are "composed.** He maintained that such "mental elements**
were, besides "simple** sensations (i. e., not analyzable and not
changeable by experience), "elements of feeling*': pleasantness,
unpleasntness, tension, relaxation, excitement, calm. He felt
obliged, however, to extend these analytically in several directions
by the introduction of special processes which established cohe-
sions; namely, assimilation, apperception, and, superior to them
all, creative synthesis (16, 14). Tension and relaxation were
believed to be mainly dependent upon apperceptive conditions.
In the general theory of feelings he worked with a special principle
of "unity of disposition of feeling*' (Gemutslage), and he placed
them in the foreground, in a significant way, more and more as
time passed (23, II, p. 325, cf. p. 316 ff., 363 ff.; Ill, p. 99 ff.).
But in contradiction to these supplements, the original atomism
of sense experiences and their constant "affective tones" led to
confusion everywhere. He related his symptomatic results of
expression immediately to the proportionate participation of those
elements of feeling. The affective impression of the major chord,
for instance, was believed to be composed of the isolated effects
of feeling of the partial tones and intervals contained in the chord.
He even taught with great emphasis, concerning affections, that
each one of them could be analyzed, without remainder, into sen-
sations and into many "partial feelings" of pleasantness and
unpleasantness, of excitement, etc.

This summarizing, atomizing mode of observation has been
in the meantime essentially completed, and to a high degree
overthrown by mere exact description and comparison of real
data, as well as more critical concepts. The Austrian school of
psychologists made clear for instance that a chord, a melody, a
rhythmic sequence possesses, as far as they are immediately ex-
perienced, particular qualities as wholes, which are independent

F. KRUEGER 65

of all actual analysis, and that those qualities of shape (Gestalt-
qualitfiten) cannot be reduced to qualities of existing parts of
experience. Furthermore, it follows from this insight that simi-
larity of complexes of experiences is not based exclusively and in
many cases not at all on similar or identical parts, as experience
very often shows (15, p. 82). However, the corresponding syn-
thetical-total conception of feelings has not satisfactorily suc-
ceeded as yet. When H. Cornelius transferred the concept of
Gestaltqualtitat (quality of shape) to them unequivocally (1,
p. 74 ff., 362 ff.), almost nobody considered this a far-reaching hy-
pothesis. Von Ehrenfels himself opposed us violently, in private in
1897 and publicly since that time, and until today scarcely one pro-
fessional psychologist, except my pupils and colleagues, has con-
sidered it seriously to say nothing of discussing it fundamentally.
In the psychological congress at Wurzburg in 1906, C. Stumpf
gave a survey of the possible fundamental conceptions of feeling and
added his sensualistic construction of Gefuhlsempfindungen to them.
When I explained this shaped-qualitative (gestaltqualitativ) or better
still complex-qualitative conception, it seemed to be new to all
those present, and Stumpf declared it incomprehensible. (20,
p. 211 ff.; Stumpf has moderated this here.)

For thirty years I tried continuously to refine the new theory
of the essence of emotions and feelings and of mental totality in
general. I applied it to the experience of evaluation (Werterleberi)
and found it confirmed in extensive experiments upon chords,
consonance and dissonance, Sprechmelodie (6, p. 30 ff.; 7, p. 617,
cf. 344 f., 364 f., 373 ff., 592 ff.; 9, p. 239 ff.; 11, I, p. 375 ff.;
11, V, p. 401; 10). Here I placed the more inclusive concept of
"complex quality" above the original quality of shape by an
experimental as well as theoretical basis, (11, II, p. 221 ff., cf.
H. Volkelt, 21, who, by the way, in 1914 did not dare to accept
the consequences of the theory of feeling; see esp. p. 79 ff., cf. 15,
p. 104, note 2). I early, and with increasing variety, connected
those two concepts with the still more inclusive one of mental
totality (Ganzheit) (15), especially the totality of inner experience
(Erlebens). This expansion and differentiation is necessary, mainly
for two reasons: first, because of the fact that immediately given
and comparable qualities of experienced totalities are realized,
even above all other ways, in sharply limited, heterogeneous, and
diffused, yes, absolutely unorganized data (e. g., in the lower senses,
in the consciousness of place or time, in primitive thinking) and
are indeed realized much more frequently and genetically earlier
in the narrower sense of correlated "parts" actually excluding
one another than in the sense of "shapes" (15a, p. 7 f., 11 ff.;

66 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

15, p. 71 f., 82); second, because we need a special concept for
the existence (Gegebensein) and conception of specific forms of
organization (Gliederungen) , e. g., of geometrical, musical, logical
ones, and this is the concept of shape (15, esp. p. 96 ff. Please read
this summary together with all the following). All these concepts
have proved themselves fruitful, even indispensable in the various
fields of experience since that time not only in Leipzig. They
have been determined in increasing exactness by quantitative
experiments. (Cf. Neue Psychologische Studien, Mtinchen, since
1926; especially I, Komplexqualitdtcn, Gestalten und Gefuhle,
and IV, Gestalt und Sinn, now in press.) But the majority of the
exact psychologists continue either not to consider them, or to
confuse them with one another and with things not belonging
to them. '

The problem of shape has, however, forced general attention
recently. It has many industrious workers in different countries.
The danger exists already that the name Gestalt will be used as
a magical lamp for any psychological darkness, and especially
that the misuse of such an important concept will prevent the
completeness of analysis both of phenomena and of conditions.
Nevertheless, the assured results of Gestalt psychology will some-
times be favorable, even if only indirectly, to the theory of feel-
ings and of mental totality in general.

It is necessary, to this end, that all attempts at explanation be
put aside at first as premature, both the physical analogies, as
Kohler has ingeniously presented them, and Wertheimer'sQwer/wnfc-
tionen of the brain. Whatever we would explain scientifically,
we must above everything else know exactly as it is. We must
take the task of a pure and complete description of the phenomena
very seriously. Then we recognize, among other things, that the
homogeneous, sharply limited, and objectively organized "per-
ceptions" of the higher senses, which are prevalent in experimental
observation today on account of tradition of method, are, at
best, very specialized, genetically late results of an abstracting
attention; not infrequently they are the artificial products of the
laboratory far removed from life. This is true to a particular
degree in the scientific attitude (Einstellung) of the conventional
observation of " animal intelligence" toward the static, and at the
same time spatial "contact" (Zueinander) of purely optical parts
of a sensational complex and toward its purposeful, intellectual
application (15, p. 96 ff.). Although experimental Gestaltpsy-
chologie and also Denkpsychologie tried to describe mental events
which have hitherto been isolated, their concepts directly hide
the character of totality of true experience and close the main

F. KRUEGER 67

entrance to the world of feelings. In reality, the experience of a
normal individual (and also all social experience) consists in its
main bulk of indistinctly bounded, diffused, slightly or not at
all organized complexes in whose genesis all organs and func-
tional systems take part. It is significant and not at all obvious
that, at least in adult human beings and higher animals, the total
state of their experience often unfolds into a multitude of rela-
tively closed part-complexes. But even in the highest stages of
development, this is not always the case, e. g., in states of the high-
est, permanent excitement, great fatigue, most complete self-
subservience. Even where we observe experience in relief, its
organization, as a rule, does not correspond at all and may never
correspond exactly to the limitations of objects created by in-
tellect, or to objective "situations," or even to the physically
and physiologically mediated or constructed "stimulus" rela-
tions (" Reiz"-beziehungeri). Never are the differentiate parts or
sides of real experience as isolated from one another as the parts
of physical substance, i. e., its molecules or its atoms. All things
which we can differentiate there, by comparison, always grip into
one another and around one another in the greatest elaboration.
And every time it is, without exception, imbedded within a total-
whole, by which it is penetrated and more or less completely
enclosed (15, p. 36 ff., p. 117 ff.). Feelings are the qualities
of experiences of this total-whole. (Erlebnisqualitdten des
Gesamtganzen) .

In so far as part-complexes are more or less sharply excluded
(sick ausgliedern) , they have their specific qualities, i. e., complex
qualities of the most different kinds, notwithstanding whether
they are organized or in how far they are themselves organized
(gegliederf) or shaped (gestaltet). They also possess specific simi-
larities. One chief task of a descriptive psychology consists speci-
fically in a systematic comparison of these two kinds of total-
qualities. It happens that phenomenologically the qualities of
the part-complex (e. g., a clang, tint, or "dull" and "hot-humid")
are allied to the feelings, more allied by all means than the qualities
of the unanalyzable parts of experience (e. g., the tone a, sharply
limited pressure or temperature sensations), which are stamped
in the same way. The complex qualities are of the nature of
feeling (gefuhlsartig) ; the more the corresponding complex in-
cludes of the existing total-whole, the more indistinctly it lifts
itself out from the "background" of the remaining simultaneous
experience and the less penetratingly it is organized in itself,
under equivalent circumstances. The natural, the most frequent,
and genetically earliest kind of experiences like the following are

68 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

determined by complex qualities, therefore emotionally (gefuhls-
mdssig): the experiences of an optical-motor situation, the per-
ceiving of a sequence of sounds or noises, the consciousness of a
change in our bodily state, our seeking, finding, or willing, our
being disposed or being directed toward something stated briefly,
all are mental reactions. Recognizing, remembering, knowing,
and concluding also every kind of "thinking" naturally uses
related total-complex forms. ?

In the same direction, to mention the first description of real
facts, there pressed in from various sides the results of the psy-
chology of thought (Denkpsychologie) , which was founded in the
beginning of the twentieth century at Wurzburg. Kiilpe and his
pupils dared to investigate experimentally what educated adults
find in themselves whenever they understand and correlate verbal
meaning or meaningful sentences, form judgments, or arrange
concepts logically. The result was that sometimes exclusively
"imageless" data were found that such " conscious attitudes"
or states of awareness (Bewusstheiteri) difficult to name have an
important share in them, that sometimes there is very "definite
knowing" of the direction of thought, of gaps in the continuity,
which the experiencing person often tries passionately to close or
feels painfully obliged to close. All classifications and qualitative
schemes usually attempted failed with respect to those including
heterogeneous complexes, which here came into play regularly.
The flight unto the totally "unconscious," which some older psy-
chologists tried, is impossible, because those "states of aware-
ness" or "tendencies" frequently possessed a sharply cut contour
and, with suitable experimental technique, were clearly recognized
in their specific qualities (Eigenqualitaf) . The crude data of
such experiments, published in a completeness meriting our thanks,
contain very much which nobody has as yet evaluated psychologi-
cally, especially concerning simultaneous feelings of the most
diversified quality and manner in which they come to an end, as
well as concerning feeling-like (gefuhlsartige) forms of experience,
dispositions, and attitudes of the observer. But the school was
prevented by a fundamental prejudice from observing facts like
these sufficiently, to say nothing of building a theoretical bridge
across to the life of feelings. Kiilpe himself more decidedly than
any other psychologist had determined that scientifically only
pleasantness and unpleasantness could be called feeling; all others
were not emotional. And all his successors agreed with him in
this (cf. 13).

One could object to what has been said because the terms are
arbitrary. I answer that the terminology here used agrees better

F. KRUEGER 69

than the one reigning in experimental psychology hitherto with
the terminology of civilized nations and the practical observers of
men, which terminology is itself psychologically instructive. It
can be carried through without contradiction for all facts which
demand the fundamental concept of totality, for those recognized
as emotional, and, at the same time, for many others which were
recently found to belong to them; they are above all closely related
phenomenologically. The total-whole of experience always has a
specific, immediately observable quality which changes in a partic-
ular, continuous way. Such qualities of the total-whole are the
different kinds of pleasantness and unpleasantness, excitement,
tension, relaxation, and many other manifold tintings, shadings and
forms of flight of total experience, cannot be limited by number
and, until some future time, cannot be completely classified.

These total-qualities, phenomenologically, all have something
in common: that is what I call bewusstseinerfullende Breite (13),
a spread which fills consciousness completely. Seen from another
angle, it is, as Lotze saw it, their inability to be indifferent (Nicht-
gleichgultigkeit) or, positively expressed, their "warmth" or their
"weight." Whatever can otherwise be distinguished in or within
our experiences qualitatively approximates the qualities mentioned
(feeling-like) to such extent that it fills out even the total zone of
experience (Erlebens) and, on the other hand, does not leave the
experiencing person in indifference.

This is mostly true for the specific qualities mentioned, which
are attached to the largest part-complexes and which, at the same
time, by weight of experience, overbalance both the qualities and
the relations of those part-complexes decisively encompassing
them with "withinness" (Innigkeit). (Compare for this concept
G. Ipsen: 2, p. 247 f., 263 ff.; 3, 336 ff, 447 ff.) This again fits the
fact that everything actually given is always imbedded in simul-
taneous feelings, most deeply in the most pronounced ones and
those of weighty intensity.

Does not the clearness of the fundamental conceptions suffer,
however, under this kind of observation? Is not the opposition
between the emotional and the non-emotional eliminated? From
pur point of view, in a science of living processes and especially
in its descriptive introduction, less depends upon excluding op-
posite views than upon approximation to reality, upon complete-
ness, and upon combining everything which essentially belongs
together. It is certainly a fact that feelings (e. g., of excitement
without an object, of excitement resembling fury, or of purely
moody excitement) always pass over into qualities of more cir-
cumscribed and, primarily, of less organized partf-complexes, e. g.,

70 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

into the consciousness of that about which I become excited, of
that for which I hope, of that which I seek or of which I am
afraid; and, conversely, it is a fact that the one set of events is,
moreover, qualitatively related to the other. The conception of
the feeling-like is necessary in order to designate those phenomeno-
logical similarities arid transformations. As far as it is possible,
without violating the facts, our theory, which, it seems to me, is
more unequivocal than those propounded up to the present time,
primarily determines more descriptively what feelings in the partic-
ular sense of the word are, as they are differentiated from all
other kinds of experience, even from the most circumscribed and
most complicated ones, but in connection with them, feelings
are the complex qualities of the experienced total-whole,
of the experienced totality.

B. Functional Interconnections^

Only when we put the total as well as the partial totality into
the center of observation is it possible to exceed the description
of compared phenomena and "functionally" to understand living
experience as necessary in the sense of full analysis of conditions.
A fundamental conception of the essence of feelings must prove its
correctness by being theoretically applied to the unitary explana-
tion of definite facts.

Three things follow necessarily from what has been said before
which permit of unprejudiced and careful observation :

1. The universality,

2. The qualitative richness (Qualitdtenreichtum) ,

3. The variability and lability of feelings.

1. The Universality of Feelings. Whether the events that can
be met with now arid then in my own inner life are so accen-
tuated or otherwise, are sharply organized or diffused, significantly
combined or are immediately quite without division, the experience-
whole always has its own particular quality as such. Of course,
this coloring may be more or (in the case of approximation to
indifference) less expressed and dominating.

Nearly everybody admits this fact now for part-complexes.
That they unquestionably possess fotaZ-qualities would scarcely
be seriously disputed now. This has been exactly investigated
with part-wholes which are organized in themselves, especially
with sensory shapes. The consciousness of an " organizedness "
or "shapedness" is itself always totally formed and conditioned.
But if a complex is experienced as unorganized, chaotic, unar-
ranged, even as something completely diffused, the cause is ex-

F. KRUEGER 71

actly the same. A part -complex must in every case be totally
qualified in order to be set off from the remaining states of ex-
perience as something particular, something more or less closed.
What then is the phenomenological fact if we meet no kind of
organization or accentuation or no plurality at all in an experience-
whole? That this happens is obvious even in a dogmatic, most
objectively prejudiced inspection. Nobody doubts there are in
the total experience steps of organizedness, steps of simultaneous
as well as of successive plurality. Should the infinitesimal limiting
case never appear here? We have found examples of it already.
Very likely the duration and the relative frequency of such unor-
ganized states decrease, in general, with the rising civilization of
the individual and of peoples. The conditions, however, under
which they happen certainly become more and more manifold.

Here is the place to emphasize a social-genetic relation: the
density of the population and of traffic, the growth of large cities
and whatever belongs to them always create new opportunities
to experience that which is common by fits and starts in unor-
ganized masses. The larger their numbers, the more unorganized
are the mental events, ceteris paribus. Demagogues change the
original magic of the world into a rhetoric of many forms. Tech-
nicians of mass suggestion develop from holy ceremonies, from
faithful devotion and enthusiasm. Furthermore, we think of
the use and misuse of many intoxicants or of the growth of crude
tensions and excitements in places of sport, in the movies, etc.
On the other hand, those forms of enthusiasm which seize one
totally for some time and those which persist are increasingly
refined, music, for example. These are only a few main directions
of the phenomenological as well as of the functional relationship.
Do all those mental events lack a specific experience-quality?
The demagogues, the producers of the films, also the artists, the
prophets, see reality more clearly than the algedonically restricted
theorists. They know that the strongest emotions of the most
different, often sharply defined qualities originate under such
circumstances from necessity, and that they do not harmonize
sometimes with any form of experience which is not emotional;
they repress all critics; they watch comparison, judgment, and
meditation; they oppose every clear, analytical behavior. Inner
states and functions of this kind are unanimously called emotional
(gefuhlsmassig) .

Seen genetically, many of them bear the character of the primi-
tive. We observe such behavior much more regularly among
primitive people, young children, animals, crude and depraved
adults than in the educated. On the other hand, the forms of

72 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

organization which grow out of true culture and penetrate even
the most personal experiences are even more regularly accompanied
and penetrated by them. Consider the devotion of the religious
mind, or how artistic forms, especially those thoroughly shaped
ones, seize one totally and tax fully all one's mental powers. Those,
of course, are emotions of particular and much more manifold
quality. In the laboratory, however, the one as well as the other
kind of complete strongly emotional experience cannot easily be
observed. But by suitable methods we are able to create some
of the genetic relations in an abbreviated form and observe their
regularity. The "actual genesis" (Aktualgenese), as we say in
Leipzig, (cf. 19, sect. 5) shows everywhere that isolated sensations,
perceptions, relations, also memories, clear ideas, decided voli-
tions in brief all experience-organization (Erlebnisgliederung)
split off only after some time from the diffuse tendencies of emo-
tion, and, secondly, that they always remain functionally domi-
nated by them. In any case they always remain more or less
imbedded within the emotion, which, as it were, fills in the "gaps"
in the total experience as it exists and forms the common " back-
ground " for all outstanding experience. Feeling is the maternal
source of all kinds of experience and their richest fostering soil.
{Whenever something happens mentally to a living being, we
always observe or with good reason we discover an emotional
mood. If anything at all changes in an experience, then the emo-
tion always changes, either alone or together with other simul-
taneous experiences determining it. To the degree that we,
as psychologists, try to explain anything, we never are allowed to
neglect those facts nor their specific qualities and effects. This
is, briefly, what "universality" of emotions should mean.

The ideal of the older psychologists to relate changes of ex-
perience as completely as possible to unequivocally definite vari-
eties of physical stimuli arose out of discreet (Zusammenhangslos)
observation and "analysis" of sensations which demanded an
object (objektgebundene "Analyse"). Behaviorism has recently
exalted this ideal almost to the status of the sole principle of
psychological investigation. In reality, it can never seriously be
applied in the total field of pyschophysical events and especially
to emotions and feeling-like experiences. The totality of experience
is fundamentally opposed to it, and totality is especially marked
in experiences of the kind under discussion. No constellation of
stimuli can ever predict that it will positively initiate feelings
at all, to say nothing of releasing this or that definite feeling.
On the contrary, every intentional change of psychophysical
experience can be an initiating (komplementar) condition of every

F. KRUEGER 73

kind and intensity of emotions, by means of a suitable constitu-
tion of the experience-totality. On the other hand, a really existing
emotion must color everything that one experiences at the same
time. These threefold consequences necessarily follow from the
principle of emotional universality. If one does not observe it,
then every exact investigation of psychological conditions falls
into confusion. Functional psychology pre-eminently needs this
principle as a guide at every stop.

Speaking from the standpoint of general psychology, even
now certain pervading regularities are recognizable where the
accompanying genetic investigation is still in its swaddling clothes.
Whatever we have emphasized hitherto as constant processes
and brought into a system is empirically the more impressive;
the more intensive the observed feelings are, the longer they last
and the more completely they fill consciousness, the more exclu-
sively they dominate the total experience with significant specific
quality. Advances and notable transitions, etc., result if any
change in the course of experience suddenly enters, if we devote
ourselves " totally " to any object, or if we are "totally" ab-
sorbed in it. Under certain circumstances, the high intensity
of a certain inner vent, and even of a sensation, works in this
direction. Our method of comparing partf-complexes with feelings
under the point of view of totality is thoroughly useful for an
exact understanding of those relations. The total-qualities here
as well as there are exactly similar to one another, and they func-
tionally determine everything else. Feeling corresponds to the
remaining total content of experience just as the specific attributes
of every part- whole correspond to that which may be differentiable
within it or in it.

2. The Qualitative Richness of Feelings (Qualitatenreichtum).
We expect, according to the rules of combination, that there are
many more complex qualities than qualities of the final, unanalyz-
able parts of experience. In the field of hearing, we have an
especially good ability in perceiving homogeneous pluralities as
such and as manifold.

At this point, on the other hand, the immediate, phenomenologi-
cal dissection, even of simultaneous experiences, is highly de-
veloped; and the functional analysis of conditions has progressed
far in relation to both. One may investigate, for instance, what
a definite number of (let us say vibration frequency and ampli-
tude) six distinctly different, physical, tonal stimuli will arouse
as single-tone sensations (under otherwise equal circumstances
there can be only thirty-six different ones), and then compare
with that the richness of mental qualities which result specifically

74 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

from the cooperation of those thirty-six single sensations taken
in pairs, in threes, etc., simultaneously or successively; i. e.,
what can be experienced in clang-tint and harmony, in melodies
and rhythm. With a plurality of tones very many things are
given simultaneously or in temporal relations: roughness, beats,
noises, even heterogeneous, non-sensuous (unsinnliche) expe-
riences. Every further combination of this kind increases poten-
tially the manifoldness of the concrete experience-shades. It
is necessarily greatest for the momentary, total experience-whole.
The comparative observational results agree with this. A tone
perception, a cutaneous pain, an optical-shape experience, a
thought, or a judgment can essentially remain "the same"
whether I have or do not have, besides it, this or that kind of
other sensation, memory, etc. On the contrary, the feeling
found simultaneously never stands as much "besides" another
experience as those partial events which can run along beside one
another. The emotions are demonstrably influenced by every
variation in the total content of experience as well as its total
qualitative, intensive, temporal, etc., constellation. Here "small-
est" causes have the most manifold and in every psychological
sense the "greatest" effects.

This explains:

3. The Variability and Lability of the Feelings. A chord of
two notes can become something very different if a third tone
sounds at the same time; if this one stands in a "disturbing"
relation, or stands in a relation "not suitable" to one or. both of
the fundamental tones, then the feeling which belongs to them
changes color extremely, even reciprocally. Or a recognition
changes much more penetratingly if certain sensations, percep-
tions, memories, which are related to it, spring up or change; all
the more does a shape of higher intellect or of volition with its
manifold similarities, states of being directed (Gerichtetheiten) ,
and experienceable relations change. Feeling is, however, always
immediately related to everything which is found simultaneously
with it or in experience neighboring upon it. Think of synaethesias,
of surprising intuitions and rushes of thought, or think of the plays
of imagination; they all collectively are mediated by their rela-
tions to emotion (Gefuhlsbeziehungeri).

Liminal methods have been exactly applied to experience-
complexes only for a few years. One of the most certain results
is that we possess an extremely fine just noticeable difference for
them as wholes. Children and animals possess it for complexes
suitable to them, complexes always heterogeneous and widely
inclusive (viel umfassend), therefore proportionately all the more

F. KRUEGER 75

feeling-like. If one compares the distribution or the mean limen
for the "most" simple, i. e., the most isolated sensations with the
corresponding measurements for closed shapes, which among
many others contain the same sensations as one member, the
limens are there very much higher. (In all fields investigated
until now, cf. Neue Psychologische Studien, I and II. Newer
results which belong here, e. g., for motor-kinaesthetic differences,
will soon be published in IV.) One can state as a law that the
variation of total-complexes is more certainly observed and more
exactly perceived than the variations of their parts, and this is the
case the more complete, the more organized, and at the same time
the more closed those complexes are; besides this, of course, it
depends whether the compared " parts" mean much or little
for the whole. For conceivable reasons, especially from methodi-
cal difficulties, the just noticeable difference for emotions has
not yet been exactly investigated. But the agreement with
the facts found up to the present permit carrying it on theoretically
in just the same direction that our conception of the essence of
the feelings demands. Facts which are manifoldly proved fit in
very well. Primitive consciousness reacts by sensitivity (Fein-
fiihligkeit) even more sharply and in a more differentiated way
than in all its part-functions. It has been observed a thousand
times in laboratories, although mostly as a by-product, that the
smallest variations in any part of the field of experience come
into consciousness "emotionally" long before one can say "where"
something changed and what really happened earliest.

The three main directions by which we functionally determine
an object, when we try to understand penetrating features of the
life of emotion, converge most exactly one upon another. The
variability of feelings, their lability, and the capacity they have
to get blunted rapidly (rasche Abstumpfbarkeit) by an especially
great variety of constellations of conditions in contrast with the
adaptation of sensations all this can be regarded as the dynamic
counterpart of their more static richness in qualities. Both again
are necessarily combined, together with the universality of feeling,
with the fact that they alone are never absent from the state of
experience as it is found (Erlebnisbefunde) , that every noticeable
change of events appears in an emotional way more than in
any other and that those emotional fluctuations are subjected to
the most manifold conditions. They seem demonstrably to ac-
company the most heterogeneous variations of experience, and
the most different experiences seem to be carried by them.

4. Analysis versus Totality of Experience. From all this we
understand better a regularity which had to be mentioned above

76 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

on account of its methodological importance that contradictory
character of mental functions which occupied psychological think-
ing for a long time, most strikingly in the popular form of a polar
conflict between "head" and "heart." In fact, the feeling of
absolute devotion is diminished to a high degree by intellectual
activity, and conversely. It loses in plasticity and strength, nay,
what is more, it evaporates into experience of indifference if
the experiencing person, by abstraction, emphasizes definite cur-
rents in the given experience, turning away from all else, if he
judges, or if he makes clear distinctions and binds things together
from one point of view, or if he, by his concepts, makes the flowing
events stand still and cuts them into bits. Analogous effects occur
as "attention" focuses sharply upon something there, outside or
purely within, as soon as memory, expectation, or volition are
directed upon something definite, etc. If we summarize these
experiences among themselves and with what has been said be-
fore, we may formulate these facts in the following general law:
Every dissection, every analysis of the experience-totality is destruc-
tive to the whole as such, acts against its particular form of phenomena
and forms of existence, is functionally in discord with it. Otherwise,
and perhaps more audaciously expressed: the more a mental part-
function becomes dominating, just that much more does the func-
tional totality of the mind become rickety; its unity, at least, is
endangered,

A great wealth of facts, both concrete and pathological, confirm
this rule and unite undividedly under its concepts. Again our
method of comparing parJ-complexes with the total-whole of
experience, and both with its organizations, justifies itself, a
method which in turn goes back to our fundamental conception of
the essence of emotions. The opposition between total experiences
and attention to their parts has been observed more closely in
the field of acoustics in my experiments on Zweikldnge und Kon-
sonanz. If one were to try here to describe emotional impressions
comparatively, it would have to be done in the beginning of every
experiment, because the rise of partial phenomena and their after-
effects in consciousness would otherwise make the feeling unclear,
weaken it, and even destroy it. The results were the same in the
total impression of part-complexes such as "consonant," "har-
monious," "discordant," "chord of the 4th and 6th," etc., (cf.
7, p. 539 ff., 618; 9, p. 242 f.; see also 12, 13, 15). Since that time
numerous experimenters, mostly independent of one another,
have hit upon the same regularities with very different material
(cf. Neue Psychologische Studien t I and IV).

F. KRUEGER 77

5. The Dominance of the Whole. We have already pointed put
several times, for instance, in connection with the universality,
qualitative richness, and inconstancy of the emotions, that changes
in any part of the experience-totality appear most frequently in
a dyeing another color of the total-quality, especially of the feeling.
In this way, the smallest changes in mental events and the finest
stratification of their profiles in terms of complex quality, are
potent for experience, even those part-contents whose mental
place, "particular quality, and relations" are otherwise not recog-
nizable at all. (Cf. 9, p. 44 f. and 11, I, 324 f.; concerning " An-
gleichung [Assimilation] und resultative Nachwirkungen frUheren
Erlebens. ") The emotional life offers the most tangible and the
most manifold proofs of this, as is to be expected. Who has not
experienced that a "mood" which dominated him totally arose or
changed in a moment, even to its qualitative opposite, when some-
thing happened in the background, when something was out of its
place or was gone, something that, considered in itself alone, seemed
to be extremely unimportant, even seemed to be without relation
to the remaining content of experience? Very often one discovers
only uncertainly and after a long search what it really was, or one
never understands why such a mood intruded or was "destroyed. "

Cases of such a kind belong to the field of reciprocal action be-
tween the experience-total and its parts or members. Total-
qualities and isolated qualities have the tendency to influence
one another, assimilating one another into a resultant (" resultativ"
angleichend) . As the coloring of a part-whole and especially that
of the momentary total-whole of the feeling beams upon every-
thing that belongs to it, as it penetrates everything to a greater
or less degree which can be differentiated within the whole, so
the quality of the whole, on the other hand, is dependent always
upon the attributes, the relations, and the total constellation of
the parts, in case there exists any organization of the experience
at all. With a certain measure of exactness we penetrate those
complicatedfio^litions ^relationa-at the present time only in
cleaHyTimited parlTarcompIexes, especially in organize^ghmilities
in the sphere of audition and vision. We cTCITIsEow thaFTFTs
essential for the total impression of dissonance, that at least one
chord out of tune 1? IfontamedT in the given 'tonal plurality, if it
also, as usual, is perceived for itself, not separately, and shares its
roughness, its bifurcation in short, if it shares its qualitative
character with the clang-whole of the moment, and, as a rule, if
it spreads itself out over this part-complex in a feeling-like manner
far into the total-whole of the experience (11, V, p. 368 ff.). This
is not the place to add single facts to this important problem,

78 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

which is still too little worked out from our point of view. The
newer experimental investigation has shown many kinds of insight,
even some quantitatively determined, into the reciprocity between
wholes and their parts. In certain cases we recognize rather
exactly what part-determinations are noticed genetically first,
what ones are noticed at all, and what ones operate most strongly
afterwards upon memory. One can say, in summary, that functional
overweight regularly comes to those part-determinations which
have greater significance for quality and erection of the experience-
totality, in short, to those related to totality (ganzheitsbezogenen)
in the highest degree. To these belong contours, in the visual as
well as in the symbolic sense, of that which closes a complex and
limits it; rhythm in the broader sense of the word; shape charac-
ter (Gestaltcharakter) ; the form of organization (Gliederungsform) in
itself; (cf. Neue Psychologische Studien, I and IV; and Sander, 19).
These and features or aspects of our experience related to them
take a significant position in the total experience in relief. If
they possess decided character of inclusion (Gliedcharakter) , as well
as a regular, known, or beautiful shape in the field of vision, then
such separate qualities appear and work as dominating part-
contents within the whole at that moment. If they have, as in
the case of rhythm, a characteristic change between some kind
of "accentuated" and unaccentuated members, then the accentu-
ated ones are, by nature, more important for the total impression
and are more sensitive to every change. If, by way of exception,
a relatively unaccentuated, peripheral part or moment, apparently
dislodged from the structure of the whole, becomes impressive for
us, strikes us, then this usually fleeting constellation passes over
very soon into the normal one previously indicated.

More exact analysis shows, too, that from the beginning inti-
mate relations existed between the problematical component and
the part- whole to which it belongs, especially between these two
and the total- whole. These are not infrequently conspicuous at
first in an especially feeling-like complex quality of inescapable-
ness, confusedness, unattunedness (Nichziissammenstimmenderi),
annoy ingness (Storenderi), states of the given (Gegebenheiteri) ,
which go regularly hand in hand with an experienceable urge,
with a more or less definitely directed striving to close the "con-
tour," to reconstruct regularity or order, to "supply" missing
details from which most of the illusions of sense and memory
arise; in short, to experience the whole as a closed unity of the
highest possible degree of stability.

These are the observations which I called Dominanz des Ganzen
(dominance of the whole) and later summarized in the concept

F. KRUEGER 79

Drang nach Ganzheit (striving for totality). (Cf . 15, p. 22 ff., 27 ff.,
55, 72, 80 ff.) After our comparative orientation concerning
part-complexes, their more or less feeling-likeness, and on the
other hand concerning the type of phenomena of the total-whole
and its function, we understand now much more exactly that
feelings, as we said before, are naturally attended to. It is their
nature always to dominate. Even the most distant, the most
excluded parts of an experience-constellation always remain inter-
woven into the simultaneous feeling, alloyed with it and embraced
by it, according to the behavior of the totality (Ganzheit).

In this manner even the most dismembered inner events are
directed in their qualities as well as in their functions. The emo-
tion always strives powerfully to penetrate everything which goes
on in us with its color, to quench resistance or to recast it, and to
carry through its own total rhythm by overlapping.

Actually it always fills consciousness totally only that it may
quickly and perpetually pass over into other feelings. The emo-
tional gives the main direction to all mental behavior. What-
ever has been regarded otherwise until now, as strengthened
"attention," as forms of domination of the psychophysical life,
such as intensity of sensations, as relative weight of the palpable,
of the spatially spread out or the long continuing, of the sudden
and sensational, as the power of the customary, of exercise, and of
repetition, as the compelling effect of the closed "shape" and
of form of organization, all these may be arranged a corollaries
of our principle of the dominance of the whole and can be con-
ceived in a more unitary manner through it.

C. Durable Forms (Dauerformen) The Psychophysical Structure

Of all mental functions the emotional obviously has the great-
est weight for life in general. Since the emotions are themselves
products of the total psychophysical state and totality of function,
it so happens reciprocally that totality maintains a well-rounded,
filled-up life, without breaking apart or wearing away, and always
generates itself anew, principally through feelings. Furthermore,
in the endless whirlpool of manifold influences, ultimately of the
total universe, these little beings, which we know as living things,
can remain alive at least a few hours or decades; this means, then,
that they maintain themselves for a certain time as structures
(Gefuge) of a psychophysical kind formed for some time (psycho-
physischen Dauergeformtheit) . (Cf . 15, p. 53 ff ., p. 9 f . ; 15a, p. 16 ff .)

Regarded from this angle, we see in a new light that man and
probably animals, especially the young, always strive for "ex-

80 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

periences" (Erlebnisse), playing, hazarding, even intoxicating
themselves for experiences which are emotionally combined and
motivated, which are wherever possible wholly filled out by strong
feelings. The sick cling to these warming waves even in the
enjoyment of their pains. The immature seek by pathos or sen-
timentality to quiet their longing for a full being alive (Leben-
digsein); those of broken nature wear themselves out for it by
assuming the sentiment of another, and at the same time by all
kinds of self-criticism. "All joys," says Friedrich Nietzsche,
"long for eternity." So far as this quotation is true, it is valid
for every quality of inner total-fullness (Ganzerfulltheit) , although
in no way at the same degree everywhere. But, as we saw, the
emotional, on the other hand, is labile to the highest degree, even
fragile. This is true especially of those emotions which, deter-
mined moment by moment contrary to structural determination
(cf. 6, p. 30 ff.; 15, p. 57; 15a, p. 15), have roots no deeper than in
an accidental constellation of the psychophysical reality only for
a moment; they never remain long as they were; they blunt swiftly;
they reverse or dissolve without control. A continuous sequence
of mere moods, to say nothing of strong effervescence of the emo-
tions, is a thing for which man does not seem to be constructed.

Now it is an established fact of our lives, which has been con-
sidered only a little hitherto in research and theory, that different
kinds of emotions can become blunted to different degrees. If
one considers the amusing effect of verbal witticisms, or of a crudely
comical situation, and, in contrast with that, if one considers a
truly humorous occurrence, one finds that the latter presupposes
a set spirit and especially a formed emotionality (Gemut), that it
is combined harmoniously with other phenomenologically similar
and functionally related mental efforts in a perpetual attitude
of the mind, which is maintained even in storms.

In the same way all mere thrills can be distinguished, and es-
pecially the most boisterous can be distinguished as momentary
ones from spiritual emotions of a healthy kind, e. g., from per-
petual, strongly established thrills of friendship, of art, or creative
work. Still within a field of experience conditioned by culture as,
for instance, art, there are broad tensions. The decorations of a
festival may be very effective, but one cannot use them a second
time. A street-song is rather pleasant sometimes when we hear
it the first time, or a catchy tune from an operetta seems to be
pretty the first time, but after even a few repetitions it becomes
uninteresting to one who is musical or it becomes torture. On
the other hand, a fugue of Bach always seizes one anew just as
a painting by Rembrandt or an engraving of the "Kleine Passion"

F. KRUEGER 81

does; one discovers new beauties in it every time. Even the
untrained can hear an original folk song, a minuet of Haydn, or
a melody of Mozart many times, even again and again, with
undiminished enjoyment.

To conceive such facts psychologically one must become free
from the dogmatic_jjbenomenalism which in the nineteenth
century, according" to tKe "false example of physics, narrowed
scientific psychology (cf. 15a, p. 17; 15, p. 100). One must have
the courage to view stable, penetrating duration-forms of the
mental, and to go babk, at least hypothetically, to the dispositional
set (Angelegenheit) of experience, finally to its structural coherence
(Strukturzusammenhang), i. e., to the working totality of the mind
and the organism. For this purpose we need in every case genetic
and also cultural-genetic comparisons and analyses (15, p. 120 f.)-
For instance, the appertaining ability of emotions to be blunted
does not differ to the same degree at all steps of the development.
Primitive people and children, up to about the eighth year, can
devotedly repeat innumerable times one and the same harmless
joke which bores us to death.

The problems presented here can be reached to a certain degree
even by measurement and experiment. Sander, starting with
the basic ideas of the Leipzig laboratory, successfully investigated
the Aktualgenese (actual genesis) of limited shape-formations.
Besides establishing results for the genetic primary and for the
penetrating, phenomenological, and functional dominance of the
feelings, he gained instructive new views, even of the structural
condition of those processes. In that he regularly cut back the
effect of the outside stimulus by temporal abbreviation, diminished
brightness, diminution of size, etc., he showed, by steps, that the
dispositional sets became preponderating; in this manner, certain
mental part-structures and their persistent cohesion became clearly
recognized (cf. 19, and IV, Neue Psychologische Studien).

These data must be completely coordinated with numerous
other experimental results. It is no accident that exact psy-
chology recently investigated the problem of set (Einstellung)
from different angles. Thus, in a way rich in consequences, it
broke down the ban of the atomistic conception of ideas and
theories of images (Vorstellungeri), which for centuries retarded
scientific knowledge in the field of "memory," of so-called "asso-
ciation,'* of "attention," and which, checked elsewhere, led the
theory of feelings into confusion, and immediately tied up the
investigation of the "imagination." (It is wholly dominated by
feelings; cf. 15, p. 31 f.; 15a, p. 12.)

82 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

What combines systematically, or at least what ought funda-
mentally to combine those new significant problems and methods,
is the idea of mental totality; on the one hand, totality of inner
experience (des Erlebens), above all, of the emotions; secondly,
totality of the universal coherence of function; and thirdly, totality
of their structural foundations, foundations of the mental and
finally of the psychophysical structure (l5a, p. 16 f.). With
strenuously refined methods, we dare not fall back again into that
way of thinking which was a stranger to totality and therefore to
genetic development. The part-coherence's of mental events,
necessarily isolated when investigated in the laboratory, are in
reality always imbedded in more embracing unities of experience;
they are always embraced and conditionally dominated most
effectively by the whole totality which we recognized as the emo-
tional. The mental par/-structures which are now tangible here
and there, must, correspondingly, be theoretically incorporated
within the structural whole of the psychophysical organisms in
their genetic regularity and ultimately within the structure of
culture.

This very far-reaching requirement means, to be sure, among
other things, that we psychologists must by no means be satisfied
with the juxtaposition of infinite dispositions, shape-phenomena,
or artificially (e. g., by training) produced and arbitrarily variated
forms of "structural'* reaction, as one says equivocally (cf. 15,
p. 96, 99 ff.). The "urge to form shapes" (Gestaltungsdrang) ,
which can easily be observed in visual figures (Darbietungeri) and
also in tests of intelligence, to mention only this one fact critically,
is certainly considerable in the right connection. Often this is to
a great extent nothing but a kind of self-defence of the observers,
however, who try continually to get rid of the boredom imposed
upon them. Shapes which are in conformity with the structural
conditions of the inner experience and with its genetic necessities
look absolutely unlike. They are always penetrated and mainly
determined by feelings. They are subjected to more inclusive
principles of the blood-warm, whole totality, and the same is valid
concerning those artificial products, if we observe them completely.
Much more regularly than would be expected according to present-
day theories, highly differentiated men are inclined, to a high de-
gree, to behave in an unorganized way, purely emotionally, even
to give in totally to a state of drunkenness of the mind, although
scarcely in the laboratory. Of course they do not long remain in
it. Living perpetual shapeness (Geformtheit) forbids it. The
morning-after headache follows every intoxication the more
developed the organism is, and the more civilized his environment.

F. KBUEGER 83

It is also important that the habit, particularly of purposefully
creating ecstasies, makes one unfit for life. It soon damages the
organization itself, the mind as well as the body. On the contrary,
high art, or wisdom, especially deep, sound religion are fruitful
or grow strong in that they at the same time lend enduring warmth.
Their true experiences with all the intimacies (Innigkeif) of the
corresponding emotions filling us to the full, are, to the highest
degree, structurally conditioned, built according to structure,
and they therefore promote structural growth.

Manifold and strongly organized inner experience which, at
the same time, is powerfully infused with feeling is indeed de-
manded, biologically, in forms prescribed according to the staie
of development. Even the finest, most spiritual form of human
existence is corporally typified as far as it does not sever itself
from the cycle of life.

From a totality more than from an individual we see all living
beings, from the beginning of their existence, endowed with a
great number of inherited adjustments of their behavior to regu-
larities in the environment. These innate constancies of the psycho-
physical course (AUaufs) interweave with manifold, acquired,
dispositions for a longer or shorter time; they interweave with
individual dispositions, just as in ourselves, as human beings, they
interweave with historically developed dispositions (e. g., rites,
customs, institutions, etc.). All those dispositional facts are of the
kind that I call part-structure; their structural unity, the psycho-
physical total-structure of the experiencing person is meant if
one speaks of the constitution or personality or character, as the
standpoint of observation may be. None of the determinations
of the direction of the events is absolutely unchangeable or fixed;
otherwise it would be torn out of the developing structure of
life. They are in thorough reciprocity with one another and with
the structural whole. They are plastic, even the bones and the
teeth, the instincts and acquired traits (Dressurerfolge) , and even
the reflexes. They are changed by the shaping, restoring, and
combining powers of the total organism equally as well by the
powers of the individual as by the powers of the larger social one.
In diseases, bodily or mental crises, in revolutions, they can fall
to pieces or fully demolish themselves.

What threatens the duration-form of life most is the irrecon-
cilable conflict of structural dispositions with one another. We
experience it, like all structurally conditioned psych ophysical
events, in experiences of palpable "depth" (13, p. 6; 15a, p. 15;
15, p. 53 ff.). To them belong all feelings of valuation in contrast
with momentary excitements; all emotional awareness of signifi-

84 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

cance but also thoughts "deeply" conditioned and full of co-
herence in contrast to unstable intuitions, or imitated, merely
copied judgments; and also voluntary decisions from the conscious-
ness of duty, and final responsibility. Such forms of behavior are
realized when the experiencing person always feels unequivocally,
and often very strongly unequivocally, and under the proper
conditions clearly knows, at the same time, that the whole (urns
Ganze), even the substance of existence in the ever ascending
stages of life is concerned. The depth of the emotions descends
into another level than the total remaining richness of colors and
the richness of shapes of the inner experiences. It is essentially
different, especially from the mere intensity and momentary force
of the emotions. So far as these facts are not determined by values
and systems of evaluation, are not rooted in the structure of the
personality, so far as they remain without continuous connections
with the central conditions which determine their course (zentralen
Gerichteheiten) and with duration-form we recognize it immediately
in the flatness of the experience, and conversely. The depth di-
mension of mental events corresponds sympathetically~T5 v tfie 1
functional unity of fife, better symbolically, in phenomena of great
consequence. In it is reflected the formation of the structures
(gefugehaftes Weseri) which combines all expressions of life from
within and thus reflects the stage of development of the structures
and the necessity for their growth as well as for their decline (15a,
p. 19 ff., 24 ff.; 15, pp. 53, 57, 75, 83, 110 ff.; cf. 7.ur Entwickslungs-
psychologie des Rechts, Mlinchen, 1926).

Deep inner experience is essentially conditioned by the bipo-
larity of feelings. All growing-deeper, all shape-getting of the
individual as well as of society comes inescapably by way of hard
opposition. It requires struggle and sacrifice, deprivation and un-
ceasing suffering. From the most serious conflict of duties and
primarily from hard wrestling for eternal "salvation" it happens
the heart does not "return whole." There is a remainder, then,
unquenchable perhaps in a whole life and yet the one possessing
it will not overcome it; and if it could be, they would continue on,
be blessed in the continuous growth of such suffering.

The limited shape-formation, as we create it, methodically
change it, and measure it in our psychological laboratories, has its
theoretical value. Although they lie relatively at the surface,
these phenomena and these connections in their rich complexity
give much to think about to one who reflects. Out of the parts
of the living, if one observes them correctly, the whole always
shines. The wonderful closure, impressiveness, and indentation
even of those small bits of experience with their tensions against

F. KRUEGER 85

one another and against unshaped events, all those part-phenomena
whose regularities we now begin to suspect, must become incor-
porated genetically into the structural necessity of the total course
of life. To the mental manifestations of this necessity and to
their duration-forms science has a particular entrance, the psy-
chological one. Here we may be allowed to look from the inside
bedause we have full inner experiences ourselves, where we who
have the inner experiences observe and describe them, carefully
compare, analyze, and combine them anew. Whatever has been
conscientiously observed in this way can finally be brought under
concepts in so far as they have been cleanly determined. Life
itself seems to demand more vividly at the present than in ancient
times that some of its bearers in diverse lands observe mental
experiences scientifically. We must ponder them as total men,
clear of vision, but humble before its mysteries.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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2. IPSEN, G. Ueber Gestaltauffassung. Erorterung des Sanderschen Parallelo-
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3 Zur Theorie des Erkennens. Untersuchungen liber Gestalt

und Sinn sinnloser Worter. Neue Psychologische Studien, I (1926), 279-471.

4. KLEMM, O. Sinnestausohungen. Psychologic und experimentelle Padagogik
in Einzeldarstellungen. Leipzig, 1919.

5 Wahrnehmungsanalyse. Aus "Handbuch der biologischen

Arbeitsmethoden, " hrsg. v. Abderhalden. Berlin, Wien: Urban & Schwarzenberg,
1922.

6. KRUEGER, F. Der Begriff des absolut Wertvollen als Grundbegriff der
Moralphilosophie. Leipzig: Teubner, 1898.

7 Beobachtungen iiber Zweiklange. Philosophische Studien,

XVI (1900), 307-379; 568-663.

8, Z ur Theorie der Combinationstone. Philosophische Studien,

XVII (1901), 186-310.

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10. . Beziehungen der experimentellen Phonetik zur Psychologic.

Bericht uber den 2. Kongress fur experimentelle Psychologic in Wurzburg, 1906.
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11 j)j e Theorie der Konsonanz. Eine psychologische Ausei-

nandersetzung, vornehmlich mit C. Stumpf und Th. Lipps. Psychologische Studien,
I (1906), 305-387; II (1907), 205-255; IV (1908), 201-282; V (1910), 294-411.

12. . Ueber Entwicklungspsychologie. Leipzig, 1915.

13. 9 Di e Tiefendimension und die Gegensatzlichkeit des Geftihls-

lebens. Festschrift zu Joh. Volkelts 70. Geburtstag. Munchen, 1918.

14 Wilhelm Wundt als deutscher Denker. Beitr&ge zur Philo-
sophic des deutschen Idealismus, II (1922), 1.

86 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

15 Ueber psychische Ganzheit. Neue Psychologische Studien, I

(1926), 1. (Auch separat erschienen.)

16. SANDER, F. Wundts Prinzip der schopferischen Synthese. Beitrdge
zur Philosophic des deutschen Idealismus, II (1922), 55-58. ,

17 B Ueber raumliche Rhythmik. I. Mitteilung: Experimentelle

Untersuchungen liber rhythmusartige Reihen und Gruppenbildungen bei simul-
tanen Gesichtseindriicken. Neue Psychologische Studien, I (1926), 128-158.

18 Optische Tauschungen und Psychologic. Neue Psychologische

Studien, I (1926), 159-166.

19 f Ueber Gestaltqualitaten. Sonderdruck des Vortrags 8. in-

ternationalen Psychologenkongress in Groningen, 1996.

20. STUMPF, C. Ueber Gefuhlsempfindungen. Vortrag. II. Kongress fur
experimented Psychologic in Wurzburg, 1906. Leipzig: 1907. Pp. 209-273. Abge-
druckt in Zeitschrift fur Psychologic, XLIV (1907), 1-49.

21. VOLKELT, H. Ueber die Vorstellungen der Tiere. Arbeiten zur Entwick-
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22. . Fortschritte der experimentellen Kinderpsychologie. Jena:

Fischer, 1926.

23. WUNDT, W. Grundzlige der physiologischen Psychologic. 3 Bde. 6.
Aufl. Leipzig: Engelmann, 1908-1911.

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1922.

DISCUSSION

DR. REYMERT: You may think we have given undue time to this particular
paper. There are two reasons for this: one, that we have a pupil of the author
here, Dr. Carl Schneider, so that the paper can actually be discussed, and the other,
that the system of Wundt's successor in the Leipzig laboratory should call for
particular attention in an American psychological audience.

DR. GEIBSLER (Randolph-Macon College): I do not quite understand the rela-
tion between the intensity of feelings or emotions and the total consciousness. I
should like a restatement.

DR. SCHNEIDER (Wittenberg College): Feelings in this theory mean that they are
a quality of a total experience. Now, of course, that does not mean that the more
total the experience is, the more intensive the feeling is. This would be the easier
answer but it is not so simple. The intensity of the feelings does not depend ab-
solutely on the richness of the total experience. At least we cannot observe this
experimentally. But we may say that the richness of the inner experience is mir-
rored in the depth of the feelings. Depth and intensity are different. In the Krueger
system there is great difference between a deep joy and a flat joy in their qualita-
tive aspect. Depth is a qualitative term and can be seen better the more closely
we arrive at a totality of the experience. But, on the other hand, there is really
no difference in intensity alone without a difference of quality. Difference of
intensity alone is an abstraction which measures difference of quality. Therefore
we cannot speak of pure intensity of feeling; we can speak only of a kind of meas-
ured differences of emotional quality, and from this standpoint we also can say
we measure indirectly the different intensities by measuring the different states of
more or less total experience but indirectly, of course, not directly.

DR. GEISSLER: I was wondering what that had to do with the possibility of
comparing feelings in their relative strengths with each other. We can compare
geometric forms with each other: "I like that best"; "that one has the lowest
feeling for me"; "that one has the highest feeling." Now, can we make compari-

F. KRUEGER 87

sons, put these feelings into pairs, and compare them? I don't quite understand
the relations.

DR. SCHNEIDER: Of course we can do it methodically, but the results show that
there is always a difference of quality, too. No two emotions are always so alike
that they may be differentiated by intensity alone. They are always differentiated
by the qualitative state as well. It is, therefore, not surprising that the Leipzig
Ganzkeit psychology has created and is creating a new technical vocabulary.

DR. REYMERT: I wonder if this would be of any help in clearing up the question
which Dr. Geissler has raised. I think this is a fundamental one. May I ask this
question? Would it be somewhat comparable to saturation and brightness as we
use these terms in speaking, for instance, of one particular color? These two attri-
butes of a color-tone might be regarded as the intensity and the color-depth of that
hue. Of course intensity and saturation are abstractions or singled-out aspects
of the total i. e., the -hue under observation. Changes in either one aspect or
in the total experience are, of course, interdependent. Changes in brightness
are naturally experiential of a qualitative nature. The total the hue under
immediate observation may, like feeling, be changed in infinite dimensions, or
experiential qualities. The naming of these infinite totals in vision is not farther
advanced than Krueger's emotional qualities.

DR. SCHNEIDER: Every change in the emotion or feeling from the one aspect
means at the same time a change in the other, too. Using your terminology any
change in " brightness" means also a change in intensity, saturation, etc. Not
only one "attribute" is changed, but the total. Therefore it is not so easy to
compare two emotions. It is impossible to measure emotions quantitatively only.

DR. REYMERT: Would you say then that, so far as it goes, my reference to
color experiences helps to clarify the situation?

DR. SCHNEIDER: Yes, with the mentioned restrictions.

DR. REYMERT: Of course no strict parallels may be drawn.

DR. PYLE (Kansas State Teachers College, Pittsburgh, Kansas) : If the measuring
of the various intensities are abstractions, could you say that you would never get
a knowledge of what the law is?

DR. SCHNEIDER: No, I should say this. Although we cannot measure the
emotions qualitatively, we can see in indirect quantitative measurements laws
concerning the quality. You remember what Krueger said on the least perceivable
difference. We can measure indirectly the expressions of these total states and
these expressions as we find them. In measuring the least perceivable difference
we find in it regularities of the qualitative experience.

DR. PYLE: But the measuring again would seem to be analytical and therefore
aside from the whole.

DR. SCHNEIDER: Only as a methodical necessity which lends to a fuller de-
scription of the whole by various, mainly genetic methods.

DR. ERICKSON (East Orange, New Jersey): It was a little difficult for me to
follow certain points in Professor Krueger's paper, though I think it was made
perfectly clear. One point, however, I should like to have covered again whether
we may think of Professor Krueger as tending toward the functionalistic concept
more than, say, toward the structuralistic? Is my question clear?

DR. REYMERT: Very clear.

DR. SCHNEIDER: By all means more towards the functionalistic concept, but he
is no functionalist in the classical sense. Of course emotions have a functional
character, but they have only a functional character so far as all total experiences
have a functional character not in the sense of elementary functions. As they
are always simultaneous and successive they are similar to functional experiences
of a total state. And thus, of course, his theory is neither structuralistic nor func-
tionalistic. These qualities which we finally experience in every state of life, these
are qualities which are imbedded in experience as a closed total experience.

88 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

DR. MABEL FLORENCE MARTIN (State Psychological Clinic, New Jersey): But
if we are to dispose with elements and analysis, in what terms can totalities be
described?

DR. SCHNEIDER: We have to have in many respects a new terminology in psy-
chology. Of course many things can be described in the terminology which we
now have. But our present psychological terminology is too much under the in-
fluence of physiological and chemical vocabularies. You will find in Krueger's
terminology many new words which simply had to be created for naming totalities.

DR. MARTIN : I am not sure that that quite answers my question. Suppose that
you can create new terms of description, are not these in themselves elements, or
are not they at least products of analysis?

DR. SCHNEIDER: No, that is just what we deny. They are not products of
analysis, but they are descriptive symbols of experienced phenomena. Even the
application of the language of the mathematical formula in psychology means
always only organization, as it were, part-shapes (Gliederungsformen), and is
absolutely dependent on the whole which is given with the part.

DR. DICKINSON (University of Maine): Would I be right in understanding from
the presentation of the paper that we have a continuum of qualitative changes
which in any given time would be the aspect of emphasis at that particular time
in relation to the total? I am trying to formulate the question in my own mind: I
mean would I be right in understanding that there is a continuum of qualitative
change, and that the parts in relation to the part- whole at any particular time
would be the emphasis of the aspect at any particular time?

DR. SCHNEIDER: Yes, there is just the main essence of the theory. Of course,
there is a continuous change and we divide this into parts as compared to the
total. The task of psychology is to observe laws of this change. As for those ques-
tions of organization of shape we organize diffuse, chaotic total experience into
arranged, organized experience, and we divide this first total into parts; but always
so that the parts have relation to the total. These are the problems of this kind
of psychology. They are not elementary problems. The relation between parts
and whole is the most interesting phenomenon.

DR. REYMERT: Having to close this interesting discussion, I feel that Dr.
Krueger's paper when published will give all of us much food for thought and
fruitful discussion.

CHAPTER 6

THE FEELING-TONE OF SENSATION

F. KIESOW

Royal University of Turin

The phenomenon of consciousness, with which we shall deal
in the following pages, belongs to those psychic processes which are
generally comprised under the concept of the life of feeling. What
is common to all the experiences included in this concept is that
they are not referred to objects of the outer world, of which one's
own body is regarded as a part, but remain, as it were, in conscious-
ness, forming a necessary basis for the development of the processes
of the will and the empirical ego. We cannot here treat of the
development of the latter, nor of the connection in which the
feelings stand to the will-processes.

Since investigation of the domain of feeling is among the most
difficult tasks of psychology, it is not surprising if, in spite of the
manifold work on the subject carried out both in the past and the
present, not only is the problem as a whole still unsolved, but
even respecting certain fundamental questions, no agreement has
yet been compassed by the various investigators. One of these
fundamental questions relates to the nature of the phenomenon
which we call the feeling-tone of sensation.

What has rendered the psychological investigation of feeling
difficult for a long time is the fact that it was carried out under
the influence of metaphysical premises, as well as ethical valuations
and epistemological considerations. We cannot here deal with
all the perturbations which the problem of feeling has consequently
been subjected to, but I cannot refrain from mentioning that these
influences are responsible for our speaking even at the present
day of "higher" and "lower" senses and of "higher" and "lower"
feelings, and for our assigning the feeling-tone of a sensation to
the lower feelings. Such valuations are useless to psychology as
an empirical science. Psychology demands that we should, as
far as possible, separate into their ultimate component parts the
complexes of consciousness which emerge from the ceaseless
flow of psychic events as relatively independent forms, in order
to comprehend the cause of their internal structure and their
modes of origin, and, at the same time, the building-up and ulterior

90 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

development of psychic life. What further value is to be ascribed
to the results of psychic analysis, psychology, as an empirical
science, is not called upon to decide. It is the task of metaphysics,
of ethics, and of epistemology to turn to account the results of
psychological investigations. Psychology may not set to work
in the opposite way, but in saying this I certainly do not mean
that it can fully dispense with philosophy.

On this premise let us endeavor to avoid expressions like those
mentioned above and make use instead of terms which are psy-
chologically free from objection. Just as we designate as sensa-
tions the ultimate constituents of which objectifiable complexes
of consciousness are composed according to the principle of psychic
synthesis, so we call those which form the basis of the unobjecti-
fiable feeling-complexes elementary feelings. No other than a purely
psychological valuation lies at the bottom of this concept. In
this sense the feeling-tone of a Sensation is an elementary feeling.

Instead of elementary feelings we frequently hear the expression
"simple feelings" used. Since, however, it is a question of really
fixing a designation for the last, not ulteriorly divisible contents
of feeling, the expression " elementary feeling" is, in my opinion,
preferable to that of "simple feeling," and for this reason, that
the term "simple feeling" may lead to misunderstanding: those
feelings which accompany complex objectifiable contents of con-
sciousness, that is, representations, and which are certainly not
final elements of feeling, give, owing to their unitary character,
the impression of simple feelings and are generally called so. We
are unable to reduce a composite feeling of such a kind into its
components by pure subjective effort, and must, in order to
recognize these, have recourse to special experimental aids. In
this respect there is an essential difference between representation-
complexes and feeling-complexes. To put it briefly, every ele-
mentary feeling may be conceived as a simple feeling, but not
every feeling, appearing as a simple feeling, is an elementary
feeling.

It is clear from all this that by the feeling-tone of sensation is
to be understood that purely subjective something which ac-
companies the sensation, and which is yet essentially different
from it, and which is called agreeable, disagreeable, etc. Of course
we may also speak of the feeling-tone of a representation. We
shall not, however, here discuss this part of the domain of feeling.
In the feeling-tone accompanying a sensation in its greatest pos-
sible isolation, we have the elementary feeling in its purest form
and therein lies, I think, the fundamental importance of this psychic
phenomenon for the comprehension of the whole life of feeling.

F. KIESOW 91

In what I have said, I have already expressed a personal con-
viction, which is not shared by all the psychologists of today.
On the contrary, it is vigorously opposed by very distinguished
representatives of our science. The latter conceive of the feeling-
tone of sensation in a sensualistic way, thus reverting to older
conceptions. At the same time it must be pointed out that the
opinions, even within the sensualistic school, deviate considerably
from one another. As we can see now from this general survey,
the opinions about the actual nature of the elementary experience
here under discussion are so widely different that the struggle
raging on this point between the various authors will not end, I
think, until either the one or the other view has fought its way
through to general recognition. A conciliation of views may be
regarded as impossible.

As for the origin of the expression "tone of feeling," it is suffi-
cient here to point out that the Herbartian school used it in the
form "tone of sensation." The fundamental idea of the Herbar-
tian school, long dominant in psychology, is, we may say, a thing
of the past. We know now that the feelings cannot be explained
by Herbart's mechanism of representations. This must be said
in spite of full recognition of the various introspections concerning
feeling which are to be found both in Herbart's own works and in
those of adherents of his theory, such as W. F. Volkmann, Ndh-
lovski, and others. The term "tone of feeling" has also met with
some hostility. If, however, we emphasize the fact that by this
term nothing more is meant than the universally recognized ele-
mentary experience which accompanies sensation, then the desig-
nation "tone of feeling" (considering the difficulty of finding,
in all languages, adequate terms for given psychic experiences)
may surely be accepted as the one best answering the purpose
and not likely to lead to misunderstanding.

The term "sensory feeling" (sinnliches Gefuhl) seems to me
more open to criticism. My opinion is that we should avoid
this expression. Not only does it imply a valuation, inasmuch
as the so-called "sensory" feelings are not infrequently placed
in opposition to the "intellectual" feelings, as experiences of
a lower nature, which psychologically is inadmissable, but such
a designation may give rise to the erroneous notion that a "sen-
sory" feeling is essentially different from an "intellectual" feeling.
This is not the case, as a comparison of the two processes shows.
The feeling of pleasure which I experience during a simple in-
tellectual process is not essentially different from that which I
experience, for instance, when looking at a saturated color in a
dark room. Further, the attribute "sensory" favors, to an extraor-

92 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

dinary degree, a sensualistic interpretation of the phenomenon in
question, which I, for my part, must reject.

As our time is limited, we must pass over the older opinions
on the feeling-tone which are to he found in the literature of the
subject. We must be content to take into account those chief
directions which, at the present time, struggle for supremacy.
These, in my opinion, are connected principally with the names of
Carl Stumpf, Theodor Ziehen, and Wilhelm Wundt. We shall,
therefore, consider the theories of these three authors with partic-
ular care, thereby touching on the opinions of other investigators
in so far as they relate to the problem before us.

Carl Stumpf expressed his opinion on the feeling-tone of sen-
sation first in 1906, at the Second Congress of the Association of
Experimental Psychologists at Wiirzburg, and published his
lecture in the following year in Volume XLIV of the Zeitschrift
fur Psychologic (pp. 1-49) in amplified form under the title, "Ueber
Gefuhlsempfindimgeri." A further treatment of the same subject
was published by Stumpf in 1916 under the title, "Apologie der
Gefuhlsempfindimgen " in Volume LXXV of the same journal
(pp. 1-38).

Stumpf s conception is, in the most rigid sense, sensualistic.
This is indeed indicated by the title of his above-mentioned paper.
Sensations of feeling (Gefuhlsempfindungen) are, according to
Stumpf, all so-called sensory feelings, that is to say, all tones of
feeling accompanying sensations. Stumpf thus rejects both the
opinion that in these processes we have to do with a particular
category of psychic experiences and the view of earlier authors,
who regarded feeling as a function of sensation, and maintains
that all sensory feelings represent a "particular class of sensations
of sense'* (Sinnesempfindungen) . Nevertheless Stumpf is for
a rigorous differentiation between sensations of feeling on the
one hand and aesthetic feelings and the emotions on the other.
The two latter groups of experience are designated by him as
"states of a particular kind" (Zustdnde eigner Art) which, ac-
cording to him, are not "disintegrate into sensations^ of sense."

As for the term "sensation of feeling" itself, it is to be found also
in Brentano, to whose school Stumpf originally belonged. We
find it, however, still earlier, in the works of older authors. Ernst
Heinrich Weber, for example, has the term "sensation of common
feeling" (Gemeingefuhlsempfindung), which likewise is to be under-
stood in a sensualistic sense, and with which he designates all
those psychic processes which, according to him, are not included
in the five senses derived from the Aristotelian doctrine of mind.
This, in Weber, is explainable, because the physiology of his time

F. KIESOW 03

took no special interest in the subjective experiences accompanying
sensations and representations, in spite of the notice taken thereof
by Ackens and, more particularly, by Kant; and further, because
physiology, owing to the fact that the German language of every-
day life makes no essential difference between feeling and sensa-
tion had given the name "sense of feeling" to the "fifth" sense.
This influence is still traceable in Weber, although he himself
speaks, instead of the "sense of feeling, " of the "sense of touch, "
which term has been metamorphosed in our time, as we know,
into the concept of the "skin-sense" with its manifold subordinate
senses.

I have directed your attention to these facts because in Sturnpf 's
views their influence is, I think, to a certain extent, recognizable.
Otherwise, the juxtaposition of the concepts "feeling" and "sen-
sation," with which the psychology of today designates totally
different contents of consciousness, is difficult to understand.

Stumpf, too, has the concept of the sense of feeling. For the
most part, however, he speaks of the "sensory" feelings which
are, for him, precisely, sensations of feeling. Stumpf enumerates
among the sensory feelings "sensory pains," the "feeling of
bodily well-being" (with the "pleasure components of titillation,
the feeling aroused by itch, and the sexual feelings") and, finally,
the tones of feeling which arc linked to the sensations of tem-
perature, smell, and taste, as well as to the several tones and colors.

The views held by vori Frcy and his followers on the subject
of the cutaneous sensation of pain have, as I imagine, contributed
essentially to the propounding of Stumpf's theory of sensations
of feeling. Stumpf adheres to these views. On the other hand,
however, since he classifies pain as a "sensation of feeling" of a
disagreeable character, he is obliged to look upon the two factors
the actual pain quality and the concomitant unpleasantness
as a unitary single experience. Through von Frey's researches,
Stumpf says: "The sense of feeling has, so to speak, been success-
fully isolated, like a culture of absolute purity." Stumpf rejects,
therefore, Thunberg's opinion, which ascribes to pain sensations
a specific tone of feeling, and arrives at the really paradoxical
conclusion that pain possesses no tone of feeling. "It possesses
only one quality, and it is this which is expressed by the designa-
tion *pain.'" According to Stumpf, this holds good for the de-
layed pain sensation noticeable in pathological cases, as well as
for the secondary pain sensation first observed by Goldscheider
and Gad. Pain sensation has, according to Stumpf, whenever
and wherever it appears, only the one quality, namely, that it is
painful. This means, in other words, that it is an unpleasant
sensation in itself.

94 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

The second chief quality in the sense of feeling is, according to
Stumpf, generally speaking, agreeableness. Stumpf leaves the
question open whether, just as, according to von Frey, there are
particular pain nerves, there may be particular pleasure nerves
also. He writes: "Perhaps there are such for the pleasure sen-
sations excited at the periphery, while for those arising in the
inside of the body for the sensation of satiety, of rest, of general
well-being only definite central processes are perhaps called
into action, as concomitant effects of the modified circulation of
blood in the brain." "Pleasure sensations" as opposed to pain
sensations must, according to Stumpf, be characterized likewise
by one quality only. This means, from his point of view, that
they have no tone of feeling. Among such sensations, pleasant
in themselves, Stumpf includes voluptuous sensation.

In the cases mentioned up to this point, we have been dealing
with sensations of a high degree of intensity. But what about
sensations of a low or intermediate intensity? Besides pleasant
and unpleasant sensations of a high degree of intensity, such as
pain and voluptuousness, smells, tastes, colors, tones, etc., as
generally observed in our laboratories, there are sensations of
intermediate or low degree of intensity. And yet they may be
all more or less characterized by a tone of feeling. According
to* Stumpf s premises this would mean that they are not character-
ized, like pain sensations and the really pleasant sensations, by
one quality only, but are accompanied by a second sensation, that
is, by a sensation of feeling. This raises the question: How does
this sensation of feeling arise, which Stumpf likewise defines as a
"sensation of sense"? Since it can scarcely be due to the agency
of a special nerve-apparatus with definite peripheral end-organs,
Stumpf regards it as highly probable that it be owing to centrally
aroused concomitant sensations. According to Stumpf this
opinion is borne out by the fact that the specific sensation and
the concomitant sensation can neither be separated from one
another nor modified independently of one another and that,
further, wherever they are artificially separated, this can only be
effected through a change in central conditions. Concerning
the last point, he calls attention to his own auditory observations
and to my experiments of isolation, systematically followed up
in the domain of sensations of taste and their concomitant tones
of feeling.

Summarizing, we may say that Stumpf differentiates, finally,
two classes of feeling-sensations: one which he holds to be char-
acterized by the fact that the qualities belonging to it, such as
pain, voluptuousness, etc., are absolute pleasant or unpleasant

F. KIESOW 95

sensations, that is, require no accompanying tone of feeling and
come into existence through peripheral stimulation or through
central processes of excitation; and a second to which belong
feeling-sensations conditioned exclusively by central concomitant
excitation, whose pleasant or unpleasant character is, according
to him, to be regarded merely as a supplement to any one specific
sensation (colors, tones, tastes, odors).

Stumpfs theory of feeling-sensations has repeatedly been
subjected to criticism. Passing over the resultant polemics, I
intend merely to state briefly what prevents me personally from
agreeing with this distinguished scientist.

In the first place, the assertion is incorrect that pain possesses no
concomitant tone of feeling but is, in the absolute, an unpleasant
sensaETon. ~~"Ih high degrees of intensity both factors are certainly
so bound up with one another that isolation is difficult, if not
impossible. But pain does not always appear at once in the high-
est degree of intensity, but may increase gradually from a slight
degree onwards through a series of stages, until it reaches a point
where it is unbearable. In all the intermediate and weaker de-
grees, the feeling-tone of displeasure is, I think, clearly distinguish-
able from the actual pain quality. There are, besides, different
pain sensations with varying feeling-tone. Conversely, I am able
to produce on the skin pain sensations free, or almost free, from
feeling. Moreover, the question as to the existence of pleasure-
toned pain sensations must be more amply investigated.

Stumpfs assumption that tickle and itch sensations, as also
voluptuousness, are, in the absolute, pleasure sensations is er-
roneous. So far as voluptuousness is concerned, it is a very com-
plicated process which will not be here analyzed. As for tickle
and itch sensations, I cannot personally sense these two experiences,
in agreement with Stumpf, as pleasure; rather do I experience them
as fraught with unpleasantness, indeed, given continuance, they
may become a torture. The tickle sensation, conditioned by
the touch apparatus, is, besides, no simple process, while the itch
sensation must really be looked upon as a low-degreed pain
sensation accompanied by a distinct tone of feeling. True, pleas-
antly toned sensations may be produced by simply stroking certain
regions of the skin, for example, the skin of the back, but these are
neither tickle nor itch sensations but touch sensations accompanied
by an elementary pleasure feeling.

There is, again, great difficulty in the way of accepting Stumpfs
second class of sensations of feeling. If there are not elementary
feelings, but, as Stumpf maintains, real sensations, they ought
then to obey the fundamental psychophysical law to which all

96 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

real sensations are subjected. I know of no single sensation which
ever changes its quality during increasing stimulation. During
the gradual increase of stimulus every real sensation attains at
last a degree of intensity, the so-called acme of stimulation, beyond
which no additional intensity is perceived. In tones of feeling
I observe the opposite phenomenon. Beyond a certain point
of stimulus-increase the quality of feeling generally changes to
its opposite, and, in certain cases, a stage of indifference may
even be observed. This justifies, at any rate, the conclusion,
that the " sensations of feeling" may not, as Stumpf proposes,
be considered as equal to other sensations.

This applies likewise to the process of concomitant central
excitation to which Stumpf ascribes the suscitation of the different
tones of feeling. I do not understand how, in this way, new qualities
of sensation can be called forth. When, commonly, we speak of
centrally aroused concomitant sensations, we mean, beyond a
doubt, sensations aroused in a reflex way, which were suscitated
in the first instance through the agency of a particular nerve-
apparatus with special peripheral terminations. Here, however,
we are called upon to accept as a fact that a completely new quality
of sensation is produced exclusively through concomitant central
excitation. This opinion seems to me to conflict so with all other
known psychophysical processes that it fails to carry conviction.

There still remains the further question whether tones of feeling,
as such, are localizable. Only if this were the case might we, I
think, speak of them as sensations. The numerous observations
relating to this question which I myself have carried out force me
to assume a negative attitude. Stumpf himself admits that the
feeling-tone may, to a certain extent, be isolated experimentally
from the sensation which it accompanies. When I perform experi-
ments of this kind with colors, for instance, I observe that the
various tones of feeling induced by the colors are not projected
externally.

These are my chief objections to Stumpf 's theories. They lead
me to conclude that his views on the sensations of feeling are not
well founded.

The views of Theodor Ziehen are likewise sensualistic. He
holds that tones of feeling are not essentially different from the
sensations which they accompany. Taking them all together
Ziehen looks upon them as constituting a " sixth sense." He has
also designated the tone of feeling as a property of sensation. As
regards this opinion in particular, Oswald Kiilpe combatted it as
far back as 1893. Stumpf likewise expressed his complete agree-
ment with Kiilpe. We find the same negative attitude in Edward

F. KIESOW 97

Titchener (Lehrbuch der Psychologic, 2nd ed., p. 194). And indeed
the tone of feeling can under no condition be a property of sensa-
tion, whether we take the expression in its stricter or wider sense.
No dialectic argumentation, such as Ziehen attempts in Volume
II of his Grundlagen der Psychologic in 1916, can help us over this
difficulty. The theory, in my opinion, is even in contradiction
with Ziehen's own conception of the nature of the feeling-tone.
A sensation, as Ziehen, at bottom, must take the feeling-tone to
be, can never be a property of another sensation, nor a character-
istic (Merkmal) of a sensation, which expression Ziehen makes
use of in the last edition of his Leitfaden der physiologischen Psy-
chologic. More to the purpose is the proposal advanced by Ziehen
in his above-mentioned work of 1915, p. 219, to call his theory
"epigenetic" or the theory of the "central supplementary proc-
ess." These designations emphasize, to my thinking, the special
character of Ziehen's hypothesis. Less acceptable seems to me
his proposal to call his theory the theory of the feeling-tone, for
the tone of feeling is that very psychic experience which all theories
on the subject are endeavoring to explain.

Ziehen rightly rejects the expression "sensory" feeling; still
it seems to me that not very much is gained in the one which he
suggests should take its place. He speaks of "sensorial" feelings
and "sensorial" tones of feeling, and divides these further into
"primary" and "secondary" according to whether they are
"conditioned exclusively by an external stimulus or by sensations
themselves" or "are due to previous connection with representa-
tions." My opinion is that the expression "tone of feeling"
suffices with the further distinction between the feeling-tone of
sensation, of representation, etc.

Concerning pain sensations, in the first place, Ziehen advocates
a view which is opposed to that held by von Frey and his adherents.
Ziehen, too, considers pain sensations to be supplementary quali-
ties due to the agency of central processes. On these lines, he
tries, for instance, to explain the gradual transition of sensations
of touch, warmth, and cold, under continuous increase of stimulus,
into pain. Needless to say, I reject this opinion. Not only is
the arousal of pain through purely central processes incomprehen-
sible to me, but this view is combatted by the fact that analgesic
spots are to be found upon the skin of the body and that the mu-
cous membrane of the mouth contains zones insensible to pain.
It is, similarly, to my mind, an incontrovertible fact that the
warm and cold spots on the skin of the body are, as was first shown
by Goldscheider, analgesic.

98 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

With respect to the tones of feelings of pleasantness and un-
pleasantness accompanying other sensations, Ziehen, in a paper
published in 1903 (Zeitechrift fur Psychologic, XXXIII, p. 216)
attributes their origin to the discharge tendency (Entladungs-
bereitschaft) of cortical brain-cells, a process which the author
strictly distinguishes from the "excitability" of these cells. Posi-
tive processes of feeling are said to correspond to a great "dis-
charge tendency/' negative processes to a feebler tendency. In
the article of 1915 (p. 216) already mentioned, the hypothesis is
made more explicit by the affirmation that the cells of the cortex,
in which the processes released through the peripheral stimulation
develop and to which the sensations correspond, contain, further,
other substances in which a second physiological process is set up,
to which the tone of feeling is said to correspond. This process
is, according to Ziehen, facultative. The conception might seem
to owe its rise to Ewald Bering's theory of the antagonistic
processes in the visual substance,

Ziehen finds that his theory agrees with the following observa-
tions: tones of feeling may be absent; they have not been proved
to exist by isolation; they are capable of an increase in intensity;
as regards characteristic, quality, and intensity, they are de-
pendent on the quality, intensity, locality, and duration of the
sensation; there is nothing in the stimulus which bears specially
on the tone of feeling; the tone of feeling can unite with all qualities
of sensation and is influenced to a very much greater degree by
representations than are qualities of sensation. Ziehen empha-
sizes as a positive fact that "the sensorial tone of feeling varies
exactly like any other sensation in intensity, quality, and locality. "
(Grundlagcn der Psychologic, II, p. 215, 221.) The author con-
cludes from this that sensation and its tone of feeling cannot be
essentially different from one another. This can mean nothing
else but that the tone of feeling must also be considered as a
sensation. It is at this point that Ziehen's theory, in spite of its
deviation in details, ends by agreeing with that of Stumpf.

With regard to the above observations, it is certainly correct
that tones of feeling may be absent. There can be no doubt about
this. There are sensations without tones of feeling. Neverthe-
less, respecting this, I think, certain particulars are open to dis-
cussion. I may mention, for example, that, given an increasing
stimulus, there is observable, sometimes, in the feeling-curve, a
point of indifference or a brief space of indifference, which fact
seems to me to conflict with Ziehen's hypothesis. If I experi-
ment with a sweet solution, for instance, and try to compare the
tones of feeling accompanying the sensation during the con-

F. KIESOW 99

tinuously increasing stimulation, I observe at the outset a growing
pleasant feeling, then intervenes a point or a brief space in which
I perceive neither pleasantness nor decided unpleasantness, and
then unpleasantness appears which augments with the further
increase of the stimulus.

As for the assertion that a tone of feeling never appears in
isolation, the following observations are to the point. In his Grund-
riss der Psychologic, 1893 (p. 233), Oswald Kiilpe remarks that
in his experience there are feelings free from sensations. In 1905
(Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologic, VI, p. 383 ff.) I myself com-
municated cases in which apparently unmotivated feelings, arising
in a thoroughly dependable observer in a condition of quite normal
wakefulness, called forth a sudden change in the general mood.
These results testify against Ziehen's theory. Oskar Vogt, in
1897, seems to have observed a similar phenomenon in a subject
whom he had placed under hypnosis. More particularly, I can-
not admit that tones of feeling arc localizable. One is liable
to error in this respect. In all cases, however, in which the tone
of feeling appears with any vividness, it has, so far as my obser-
vations bear me out, no circumscription of locality. This militates
against the assertion that sensation and its tone of feeling are of
like nature. Then, if they are not of like, they must be of different
nature, and this, indeed, is my conviction.

There is not time to go into other sensualistic theories such as
the well-known James-Lange theory. I will only remark that the
peculiar nature of the feeling-tone of sensation cannot, I am con-
vinced, be explained by this theory either.

We now come to the conception of Wilhelrn Wundt. Wundt's
theory of feeling developed gradually. His views in these matters
gained in limpidity through his polemics with Horwicz, and in
depth through the work of his pupils who had turned to good ad-
vantage the improvements which the registration methods of
expressive movements had undergone in the domain of physiology,
principally through Angelo Mosso. Until about 1896 Wundt re-
tained his affirmative position as to the pleasantness-unpleasant-
ness theory, which Stumpf and Ziehen also advocated and with
them many others such as Kiilpe and Titchener, although if we
look through his works today, we find indications even in the first
edition of his Grunchuge der physiologischen Psychologic that this
theory was not destined permanently to satisfy him. And, indeed,
whoever delves down into his own personal domain of feeling must,
I think, come to the conclusion that it is much too manifold to be
forced into a system as simple as that of the pleasure-displeasure
scheme. Our task would be considerably simplified if we

100 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

could reduce everything in the domain of feeling to these terms.
But the matter is not so simple. If, therefore, in the investigation
of complexes of feeling we are confronted by more than can be
expressed by the simple pleasure-displeasure system, it is surely
patent that this "more" must be contained in the elements of
which those complexes are composed. A profound study of this
problem gave rise to Wilhelm Wundt's tridimensional system of
feeling, which is planned on the analogy of the tridimensional sys-
tem of light and color sensations.

This theory is so well known that I need not expound it here.
Only my personal attitude towards it calls for a few words. I
hold the elementary feeling, as it appears in the feeling-tone of
sensation, to be essentially different from the sensation itself.
In my opinion Wundt's tridimensional system is a grand attempt
to emerge from the chaos of all the manifold and contradictory
views about the domain of feeling, and to point out a new road for
the forward march of investigation. The lasting value of this
system lies, to my thinking, in the indisputable demonstration
that the old pleasure-displeasure theory is inadequate. Its in-
trinsic value will remain untouched, therefore, even if, as is prob-
able, the further course of investigation should demand modi-
fications as to detail. The conviction, however, that the problem
of feeling can be solved only upon the basis of a multidimension-
ality of the single feeling will, I believe, permanently hold its
ground in psychology. Wundt worked out his system on the
foundation of the newly acquired results of the expression method.
I recall with pleasure, tinged with sadness, how, many years ago,
in the pulse-curves of Sellmann's investigations, he demonstrated
to me the correctness of his theory.

Like Stumpf and Ziehen, Oswald Kiilpe and Edward Titchener
are also amongst the opponents of Wundt's system of feeling.
Both, alas, have been taken from us by premature decease. In
Kiilpe's case, we cannot see whether he, in the further course of
his work, even though not surrendering completely to Wundt,
might not eventually have fought his way through to the accept-
ance of the multidimensionality of the feelings. Certain passages
in his works relating to the domain of feeling, as well as personal
conversations which I had with this highly esteemed friend, lead
me to believe that this would not have been impossible.

Concerning the objections which Titchener has raised to Wundt's
theory of feeling, I freely admit, amongst other things, that he is
right in maintaining that the tone of feeling varies with the ex-
tension of the spatial contents of sensation. In the case of colors
I myself have frequently been able to furnish proof of this fact.

F. KIESOW 101

But it does not appear to me to follow that Wundt 's system of
feeling is, as Titchener thinks, "illogical." Since Wundt took
into account, in addition to the quality and intensity of the feel-
ings, only their direction, he doubtless did so deliberately. Dura-
tion represents the most general condition for every psychic ex-
perience, consequently also for the experience of space. There are
numerous experiences which contain nothing spatial, but there is
no experience of space for which temporal duration is not a con-
ditio sine qua non. Duration is, thus, the more general condition.
This is the point of view which guided Wundt in working out the
new theory of feeling. I am unable to see anything illogical in it.

I must agree with Titchener's further objection that Wundt
does not distinguish sufficiently between experiences which we
call "calm" (Beruhigung) and "depression," but uses those ex-
pressions synonymously. I notice this deficiency whenever I
study Wundt's -theory of feeling. "Depression" is without a
doubt, a composite process of feeling to begin with, a mood, if
you will, and is certainly different from the experience which
we call "calm." When we are depressed, we are not calm. Per-
sonally, I use the term "calm" because it seems to me to be the
more consistent.

Our time does not allow us to discuss, point by point, the other
objections which Titchener raises against the tridimensional sys-
tem of feeling. I acknowledge, however, that they all seem to
me of importance. I must add, nevertheless, that not only Kiilpe's
objections but still more those of Titchener strengthen me in
my conviction that the old pleasure-displeasure theory has not
a wide enough outlook to embrace the variety of experiences of
feeling. Only upon the foundation of the multidimensional sys-
tem can the problem of feeling, so important for the comprehen-
sion of our whole psychic life, be finally solved. To have proved
this is Wilhelm Wundt's great achievement. There are, indeed,
more elementary feelings than experiences of pleasantness and
unpleasantness, whether we call them, with Wundt, "excitement"
and "calm," "tension" and "relaxation," or otherwise. The
great variety of expressions by which every language indicates
the multiplicity of experiences of feeling is indeed proof of it.
It is at this point that we must begin afresh. All the results ob-
tained up to the present must be taken into consideration and
the elementary feelings arising in every separate field of sensation
must be compared with one another by that method, first of all,
which Wundt has aptly called the method of impression.

Investigation on these new lines will eventually settle the ques-
tion whether the terms applied to the several experiences of feeling

102 FEELINGS AND EMOTI&NS

are to be looked upon as class-concepts, or whether all feelings
belonging to one category are all exactly like one another. To a
certain degree the question is independent of whether we shall
recognize a unidimensional or a multidimensional system of feeling.
The supporters of the unidimensional system would formulate it
thus: Are there different pleasantnesses and unpleasantnesses or
are all feelings of pleasantness and unpleasantness alike? This
apparently simple question is hard to answer. Without venturing
to give a positive answer, I confess that I incline to the opinion
that the latter is not the case. The feeling of pleasure which I
experience in tasting a sweet solution appears to me, for example,
to be qualitatively different from that which arises in me at the
sight of colors. But, as I say, many accurate experiments are
necessary before this question can be finally settled.

With respect to the method of expression, which obtained its
name from Oswald Kiilpe, the many carefully controlled experi-
ments which were conducted according to it have so far led to no
uniform results. On the contrary, the discrepancies in the results
of the several investigators have been extraordinarily great. We
conclude from this that not all the experiments were carried out
under the same conditions, and it may be asked whether this be
really possible. We must always remember, when registering the
pulse, the breathing, the blood-pressure, etc., that these processes
are not given to us in order that we may learn from them without
further effort the laws to which the domain of feeling is subject,
but that we possess in them merely motor reactions in the ser-
vice of the physical organism. These very complicated physio-
logical processes are therefore only concomitant phenomena. And
the question with which we are confronted can be this only: To
what degree is a constant relation between psychic experience and
its expression demonstrable under perfectly definite psychic and
physiological conditions? If this preliminary question is not
finally settled, we shall not be able to rely absolutely upon the re-
sults obtained by means of the method of expression. In the
experiments conducted in my institute upon this question, we
have found that the pneumogram in general reveals more in this
respect than the sphygmogram. Dr. Ponzo, for instance, has
for many years worked at the task of rendering possible, under
the most diversified conditions and under the most absolute ex-
clusion obtainable of all easily arising sources of error, the recog-
nition of the expression of simple will-processes in the breathing-
curve., He decided to begin his work not with the simple feelings
but with simple will-processes, because the latter are more easily
controlled by the expression method, and because their expression

F. KIESOW 103

appears more distinctly in the pneumogram. I cannot go into
the details here, but in general I may say that, upon the basis of
Ponzo's experiments, we are compelled to recognize the subjection
to definite laws of the expression of the will-factor in the breathing-
curve. This induces us to hope that eventually the expression
of simple and of composite feelings may be recognized in a
more unequivocal manner than has been possible heretofore.
Ponzo's numerous works are, for the most part, published in the
Archivio Italiano di Psicologia. Personally, I remain convinced
that the methods of measuring blood-pressure may also be used
for such purposes to great advantage, but my experience goes to
prove that the corresponding instruments need improvement for
very exact determinations.

I will not enter into the question of the processes in the brain
which underlie the feelings. On this subject nearly every psy-
chologist has still his own particular hypothesis. Perhaps we
may hope that exact observations in pathological cases may
throw new light upon this unexplored field.

Respecting the question discussed by the older authors and
again in modern psychology, whether in the development of the
living being the sensations or their feelings be primary, I can say
only that the experiments which I have performed upon little
children lead me to conclude that in human beings both phenom-
ena appear together from the very beginning, and I may add that
my microscopic observations of lower forms of life tend to show
that, even in these, sensations do not seem to arise without a tone
of feeling. All these various observations have led me to look
skeptically upon the theory according to which sensations have
developed out of feelings.

CHAPTER 7
EMOTION AND THOUGHT

A MOTOR THEORY OF THEIR RELATIONS

MARGARET F. WASHBURN

Vassar College

In what sense, and for what reasons, do emotions paralyze
thought; and when and why, if ever, do they aid it? These are the
questions which in the short time at my disposal I am not, indeed,
hoping to answer adequately, but on which I wish to offer a few
reflections. The reflections will be made from the point of view of
a motor psychology whose main assumptions I will ask you for the
time to accept.

The first assumption is that while consciousness exists and is not
a form of movement, it has as its indispensable basis certain
motor processes, and that the only sense in which we can explain
conscious processes is by studying the laws governing these under-
lying motor phenomena. The second assumption is that the motor
accompaniment of thinking, as distinguished from sensation,
consists of slight, incipient or tentative muscular contractions,
which if fully performed would be visible or audible reactions to a
situation, but which as only tentatively performed are a kind of
rehearsal of the reactions. They may also occur unconsciously.
Both full and tentative movements may be organized into systems,
which may be of movements either simultaneously performed, as
when we play the piano with both hands, or successively performed,
as when we repeat a phrase; they may also either be steady tonic
muscular contractions, such as are involved in maintaining an
attitude (these I have called static movement systems), or involve
actual change of position (these I have called phasic movement
systems). All association of ideas and thus all thinking involves
on this hypothesis the organization of tentative movements into
systems.

But the word thought may be used in two senses. It may mean
reverie or undirected thinking, or it may mean thinking directed
towards a problem or purpose. In the first case, each idea suggests
the one that follows it, but here its influence ends and our thoughts
wander: A suggests B and then is forgotten, while B suggests C
without aid from A. In the other case, that of directed thinking,

MARGARET F. WASHBURN 105

a long series of ideas is governed by the idea of an end, problem, or
purpose, and irrelevant wandering thoughts are inhibited. Now
the third main assumption that I shall ask you to bear in mind is
that the peculiarly persistent influence of the idea of an end or
purpose as compared with that of ordinary ideas is due to its
association with a persistent bodily attitude or static movement
system which I have elsewhere called the activity attitude. I have
said of this attitude that "in its intenser degrees it is revealed to
introspection as the 'feeling of effort/ 1 . . . Introspection
further indicates that it is not due to shifting innervations but
to a steady and persistent set of innervations. It appears from
introspection, also, to be in its intenser forms a bodily attitude
involving a kind of tense quietness, a quietness due not to relaxation
but to a system of static innervations." Through the inherent
and characteristic persistence of the innervations involved in
the activity attitude as members of a static movement system, the
innervations connected with the problem situation may exert the
long enduring influence which is characteristic of directed thinking.
This theory holds that "the motor innervations underlying the
consciousness of effort are not mere accompaniments of directed
thought, but an essential part of the cause of directed thought' ' a
proposition that has recently received support from the results of
experiments by A. G. Bills, 2 indicating the impossibility of thought
during complete muscular relaxation.

The motor theory under consideration thus bases all thinking on
the occurrence of tentative movements, and bases directed thinking
on the occurrence of a persistent motor innervation here called
the activity attitude. Whatever interferes with tentative move-
ments will inhibit all thinking; whatever interferes with the activity
attitude will inhibit directed thinking. The tentative movements
underlying thinking are, it is reasonable to suppose, chiefly those
of the smaller and more delicate muscles of the body, such as those
of the eyes, the fingers, and above all the muscles involved in
speech. For it is impossible that the large muscles, say of the arms
and legs, should be capable of enough variety of movement to
supply the multitude of differing movements needed to form the
basis of ideas. In the activity attitude, on the other hand, it is
largely the trunk muscles that are concerned, as may be introspec-
tively observed in its intenser form, the feeling of effort.

While the assumptions about thought which have just been
outlined may not command assent, we shall all agree in the follow-

1 Movement and Mental Imagery (New York, 1916), pp. 161-2.

2 "The Influence of Muscular Tension on the Efficiency of Mental Work,"
American Journal of Psychology, XXXVIII (1927), 227-251.

106 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

ing statements about emotion. An emotion occurs in a situation
of vital significance to the organism; primitively, perhaps, the
flight, fighting, or mating situations. In such a situation, the
possibilities of response may be divided into several classes. First,
there may occur adaptive movements of the striped muscles,
adequately meeting the situation: movements of flight, fighting, or
mating. Secondly, there may be non-adaptive movements of the
striped muscles. Some of these, like human facial expressions, are
survivals of movements formerly adaptive, or adaptive under
conditions somewhat but not wholly similar. But the most striking
instance of non -adaptive movements is constituted by what may
be called the motor explosion : the kicks and screams of the baffled
child, the curses and furniture abuse of the baffled adult, the wild
expansive movements of extreme joy. A motor explosion tends
to happen when adaptive response is impossible. Thirdly, there
may occur internal changes produced through the sympathetic
and glandular systems.

On a motor theory, the question as to when and how emotion
will interfere with thought becomes the question as to which of the
various things we do in an emotional situation are likely to inter-
fere with the things we do in thinking. Which will tend most to
interrupt the tentative movements underlying ideas and the ac-
tivity attitude underlying directed thinking: adaptive striped
muscle reactions, non-adaptive striped muscle reactions, or
visceral reactions produced through the sympathetic and endocrine
systems?

Clearly, one motor process can interfere with another only
when it is physically impossible for the two movements or attitudes
to occur together, as for example it is impossible to raise and lower
the arm at the same time. Nothing can interfere with a movement
but another movement. The motor theory would go farther and
say that when one nervous process inhibits another, it must be
because the two are connected with incompatible movements.
Further, what is true of single movements is true of their com-
binations: whenever two movement systems are simultaneously
stimulated, if one contains a movement incompatible with some
movement in the other, the systems cannot be simultaneously
performed and will tend to inhibit each other, unless, indeed, they
become smaller by dropping out the incompatible elements. The
functioning of such smaller movement systems may be regarded
as responsible for dissociation, and a tendency toward it as char-
acteristic of those individuals whom we call hysterics.

We may turn, then, to the first type of response possible in
an emotional situation, namely, adaptive movements of the

MARGARET F. WASHBURN 107

striped muscles. Will these be incompatible with thought? It
is obvious that one motor process will be more likely to disturb
others, the more muscles it involves, that is, the more wide-
spread its distribution over the body. Now definitely adaptive
movements of the striped muscles, as compared with the non-
adaptive motor explosion, will as a rule involve only definitely
demarcated groups of muscles, and these will be for the most part
the larger muscles those of the limbs. Thinking, on the other
hand, is, according to the hypothesis here adopted, based chiefly
on contractions of small muscles capable of a large repertory of
different movements. Stratton 3 reports the case of an aviator
who, during a tail-spin fall of four thousand feet, made all the
movements needed to remedy the trouble with his plane and
straighten it out, while experiencing a series of intensely vivid
mental images from his past life, beginning with childhood. These
images, on the theory here presented, would be based on tentative
movements in certain muscles, which were evidently not incom-
patible with actual movements in the other muscles needed to
meet the emergency. Stratton deduces from this and other similar
cases that it is only the intenser degrees of emotion which inter-
fere either with coordinated action or with thinking. It is true,
however, that the more serious the situation which excites emo-
tion, the more extensive the adaptive movements are likely to be.
Thus one fighting situation may require only a short, well-directed
attack, while another demands a desperate struggle calling into
play all the body muscles, and, by virtue of the alert watching
of the enemy 's movements needed, many of the smaller ones.
Except in extreme cases, however, adaptive movements, it would
appear, need not interfere with thought.

What, now, is the relation of thinking to the second type of
response in an emotional situation? The motor explosion or non-
adaptive striped muscle response has been often overlooked by
psychologists. For example, Wechsler 4 divides emotional reac-
tions into "choc' 9 or visceral responses and "behavior reactions,"
which involve orientation to the stimulus, thus ignoring the
motor explosion, which is neither visceral nor oriented. Yet it
is really an important and interesting phenomenon. As we have
noted, it occurs when adaptive response is impossible. This is
usually because such responses are repressed either by external
force or by internal inhibitions, as in impotent anger. The case

3 G. M. Stratton, "An Experience during Danger and the Wider Functions of
Emotion," Problems of Personality (New York, 1925).

4 D. Wechsler, "What Constitutes an Emotion?" Psychological Review, XXXII
(1925), 235-240.

108 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

of the motor explosion resulting from joy, by the way, is a curious
one. People do, of course, all sorts of wildly irrelevant things in
extreme joy. Now here adaptive response is impossible not be-
cause it is being prevented, but because it is non-existent. There
is nothing one can do in joy that has any essential appropriateness
to the situation, in the way that knocking a man down has essen-
tial appropriateness to anger. Joy represents not a situation
where something needs to be done, but the release of energy that
has been occupied in long-continued tensions, which, since it has
no pre-ordained channel, diffuses itself into many channels.

There is high probability that the motor explosion, in which
any and all muscular systems, including those of speech, may take
part, will interfere with thinking, if thinking has any motor basis
at all. A man in a wildly gesticulating, vociferous fit of rage has
no muscles left at liberty to think with. In its milder form, the
motor explosion is identical with general restlessness, which
also involves a wide range of muscles, although in less violent
contractions. And it should be noted that a motor explosion may
occur in the form of tentative rather than actual movements.
In such a case, I would suggest, it forms the basis of the experience
of mental panic. When no adaptive movement is possible, there
may occur impulses towards all kinds of non-adaptive movements;
these tentative movements in all directions may well produce
the effect of making our brains whirl, as we say, and would evi-
dently through their widespread character be antagonistic to
clear thought.

Thirdly, will the visceral reactions, those dependent on the
autonomic and glandular systems, interfere with thinking? Why
should they, on a motor theory of thought? If thinking is based
on movements and attitudes of the striped muscles, nothing can
interfere with it but antagonistic movements and attitudes of
these muscles. And the internal changes produced through the
autonomic and endocrine systems do not involve striped muscles.
May we not say, then, that visceral changes per se cannot dis-
organize thinking?

Visceral changes have, however, indirect effects upon the ex-
ternal muscles. Cannon has pointed out their important influence
upon adaptive responses; the pouring of sugar into the blood,
the neutralizing of fatigue poisons, the checking of digestive
processes all serve the purpose of producing more powerful reac-
tions of an adaptive nature, for instance, movements of fighting
or flight. Such movements, as we have just seen, are not neces-
sarily incompatible with thought. What, now, is the relation of
non-adaptive movements to visceral changes? Since non-adaptive

MARGARET F. WASHBURN 109

movements are in themselves useless, and since, as we have seen,
they are likely to interfere with thought, have such movements
any function, or shall we class them with nature's superfluous
products? We seem to "feel better" after them! Pascal and
Davesne 5 in a recent article suggest that the non-adaptive move-
ments called "tics" are useful in preventing the emotion from
invading the " vegetative" or visceral plane, that is, the autonomic
and endocrine systems; the more the emotion discharges into
motor paths the less it goes into visceral paths. Various writers
imply that the organism seeks to avoid the visceral discharge;
why should it be avoided? The normal function of discharge
into the autonomic and glandular level is to aid the performance
of adaptive movements. Should these be interfered with either
the visceral discharge is worked off in motor explosion, or it
remains in the organic level. And according to Cannon, 6 "if
these results of emotion and pain are not 'worked off* by action,
it is conceivable that the excessive adrenin and sugar in the
blood may have pathological effects." When, then, adaptive
movements remain blocked, it is probably for the safety of the
organism that the visceral processes should work themselves off
in a non-adaptive motor explosion. And so they have indirectly,
though not directly, a disturbing influence on thought.

When and how does emotion aid thought? There is time for
only a few reflections on this topic.

It is a well-known fact that emotional states may function as
the associative links between ideas, thus forming what in the
Freudian terminology are called complexes. Thinking of this
type, however, is highly inefficient, and emotion cannot be said
to do thought any service in thus binding together what might
better be left separate. Another type of thinking which may
occur along with emotion is, as we have seen, dissociated thinking,
made possible by the shrinkage of movement systems so that in-
compatible movements are dropped out. MacCurdy, 7 in his
Psychology of Emotion, regards such subconscious and co-conscious
ideas as forming the very essence of affect, the conscious aspect of
emotion. It is, naturally enough, from pathological cases that he
draws the evidence for his statement that "the quality of the
affect is determined by the sum total of unconscious complexes
that are activated, and may therefore have an infinite variety."

6 C. Pascal and J. Davesne, " Chocs 6motionnels, pathog^nes, et th6rapeu-
tiques," Journal de psychologic, XXIII (1926), 456-487.

6 W. B. Cannon, Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear, and Rage (New York,
1915), p. 196, note.

7 J. T. MacCurdy, The Psycliology of Emotion, Morbid and Normal (New York,
1925), p. 86.

110 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

But again, emotion cannot be said to aid thought in thus permitting
itself to be accompanied by dissociated ideas.

Yet if thought has a motor basis, it must need some energy,
and the visceral changes in emotion are supposed to supply an
extra amount of energy; they should be able, therefore, actually
to aid thought. According to the hypothesis here presented,
efficient thinking requires two factors: a varied supply of tenta-
tive movements to serve as the basis of ideas, and a persistent,
tense attitude of the trunk muscles associated with some of these
ideas to secure their influence during a considerable period. Now
when the amount of extra energy generated in the visceral discharge
is not too great, it may pass over into the tentative movements
underlying ideas, so that their number and speed are increased
and new combinations of them occur without the long effort of
directed thinking. Experience shows that the flow of ideas is
heightened by mild emotion. Moreover, a part of the emotional
energy may, even in discharging through non-adaptive movements,
relax an inhibition that has been repressing the flow of ideas. But
the most important function of emotion in aiding thought will
relate to the activity attitude.

Directed thinking never occurs without a motive. Reverie,
the drifting of ideas, may go on while we are indifferent, but if
we suddenly begin purposeful thinking, it is because some affective
process has been stirred up. And also, of course, because direct,
external reaction to the stimulus that thus taps the storehouse of
the organism's energy is blocked; if it were not blocked, there
would be no need of thinking. Thus we have directed thinking as
the outcome of the very type of situation that occasions emotion;
but in directed thinking the energy thus set free and blocked finds
its outlet in the tense quietness of the activity attitude instead of
in the random and uncoordinated movements of the motor ex-
plosion. The setting free of energy in the visceral levels, so far
from being incompatible with thought, is necessary for directed
thought.

Why does this energy sometimes discharge into restlessness and
useless movements and sometimes into the attitude of tense quiet-
ness? At least three factors seem to be concerned in the decision
of this point: the amount of energy released by the situation,
and the thresholds of discharge of the non-adaptive pathways and
of the activity attitude, respectively. If the situation is desperate
and the amount of energy set free is great, the tensely quiet atti-
tude and the tentative movements of thought, requiring so little
energy, will be inadequate outlets. But evidently the seriousness
of the situation is not the only factor; in less desperate situations

MARGARET F. WASHBURN 111

it will not always be the weaker desires that produce in a given
individual directed, purposeful planning and the stronger ones
mere restlessness. With a given amount of energy stirred up by
the situation, certain conditions evidently open the pathways to
diffuse discharge and block those to the concentrated tonic dis-
charge of the activity attitude. One of these conditions is certainly
fatigue. In fatigue* all muscles tend to relax, and the activity atti-
tude, which involves steady and continued contraction of certain
muscles, is more readily fatigued than is restlessness, which in-
volves diffuse contractions followed by relaxations. Fatigue is in-
volved also in another condition that determines whether we
shall think or merely be restless, namely, the lack of ideas. No
one can keep on trying to think on a subject of which he has no
knowledge. In fruitful thinking, when out of a storehouse of
information one relevant idea after another occurs to us, the
activity attitude is refreshed by little relaxations along the way
and fatigue is postponed.

On the motor theory here suggested, emotion, then, interferes
with thought only when the movements made in emotion are in-
compatible with the movements and attitudes essential to think-
ing. This will be most likely to happen when the energy set free
by the glandular processes in emotion discharges into the diffuse
and random movements of the motor explosion. Emotion will
aid thought when conditions favor the discharge of this energy
into the maintenance of a steady innervation of the trunk muscles,
which is the basis of introspectively reported feelings of will,
determination, activity, or effort, and which secures the steady
influence of the idea of a goal.

DISCUSSION

DR. DUNLAP (The Johns Hopkins University)-. Dr. Washburn's paper has given
rise in me to some emotions which I hope will not interfere with my thinking.
Before I take up the main point that I want to inflict on you in connection with
this paper, I would like to say that I wish that Dr. Washburn's optimistic state-
ment were true. I am afraid it is not. She said, "People cannot keep on trying
to think about topics of which they have no knowledge." Would to God that
were true! I don't know what would happen to much of our psychology if it were
true.

Some of these emotions were aroused by this fact, that I suppose I can say
that Dr. Washburn and I are the pioneers in this movement on theoretical founda-
tion of thought in motor processes. My own formulae were put forth before
behaviorism had begun to behave, and I have deplored I suspect Dr. Washburn
also has deplored the extremes to which the motor theory has been pushed in
behaviorism. I feel that before the connection between thinking and emotion
shall be worked out on the basis of the motor theory the motor hypothesis of
thinking that hypothesis itself needs a great deal more elaboration and correction.

In the first form I assumed I think Dr. Washburn still assumes, if I under-

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

stand her paper correctly, as she did at the start that all thinking requires mus-
cular contraction. The more I attempt to connect that theory with the actual
facts of life and with the learning process, as we know it now from our laboratory
work, the more improbable does that become. It is a serious question at present
whether that theory can be still held. Experimental work now in progress in
several universities bearing upon the particular point as to whether implicit reac-
tionsI do not know whether Dr. Washburn would accept that behavioristic term,
but it expresses the older view can be demonstrated as occurring in typical
thought processes. These experiments must tell the tale, before we can go further.

Personally I have had to modify my theory and assume that the thought
processes during the learning period, during the period of modification, are motor
in full. Muscular contractions are involved. I believe we can demonstrate many
of the things Dr. Washburn has pointed out in connection with disturbances of
the thought process in the incipient or learning stages. I have a suspicion that
after thought has become crystallized, as it were, a great deal of our thought is
routine thinking, even when it is highly efficient, that that stage has passed away,
and that the muscular contractions are no longer needed.

That is an experimental matter, a matter that will be experimentally deter-
mined I am tolerably sure within the next five years, which is of vital importance
in this matter which Dr. Washburn has brought up.

There are one or two other things, if I may take a little of your time, which I
would like to speak about. One is a minor matter with regard to the illustration
which Dr. Washburn used, taken from Dr. Stratton's story of the aviator. I
am beginning more and more to distrust all that type of evidence. It is a very good
illustration of a very interesting type of evidence. From the point of view of
dreams, I no longer believe people dream what they afterwards record. There
is very strong evidence in dreams as recalled and in cases of this kind as recalled
of illusions of memory occurring. Conditions are exceedingly favorable for a
man afterwards speaking as if he did think so and so during that period, when
he did not think it. All that is a very interesting type of evidence which requires
scrutiny. It does not at all invalidate Dr. Washburn's illustration.

I do want to ask Dr. Washburn whether in the present state of her views she
is implying the peripheral doctrine or the central. It is a very vital matter con-
cerning thinking in connection with emotions.

Yesterday I was upholding the peripheral view. Dr. Cannon was upholding
the central view if I understood him. Fortunately, I was all pepped up to discuss
Cannon's paper last night, but unfortunately for me at least I could not get near
enough to the stage to hear what he said. So that had to go by. So I may be
forgiven for introducing something which has reference to both Dr. Washburn's
paper and what I gathered yesterday and what better eared observers told me
last night about Dr. Cannon's paper.

The work which Dr. Cannon has been doing in determining the pathways
through which the reflexes, or what I should prefer to call the transits, should
go is one of the most important works of its kind that has been carried on for
years. That as far as I see has no bearing on the James-Lange theory, on the
peripheral theory, or the central. On either theory these transits must occur, and
what we call the expressions of the emotions be produced.

This question (whether or not in a pre-neurological state, that is, in our expe-
rience when we do not try to associate things with the neurological machinery,
whether they be produced as Descartes would have it by the process of discharging
from the brain that is, innervation feelings in the old sense or whether they be
like the perceptual parts of our experience due to the peripheral sensation of
setting up complete new transits) is the issue on which we are divided the innerva-
tion feeling, the Cartesian theory, on the one hand, and the James-Lange theory,
which as a matter of fact neither James nor Lange believed, on the other hand.

MARGARET F. WASHBURN 113

I am not sure whether Dr. Washburn is upholding here what I should call the
James-Lange theory, that is, the peripheral view, or the central view. I am inter-
ested in that. It is not, of course, essential to the point Dr. Washburn is making,
but I am very much interested in whether she is assuming that this discharge of
energy here again is a concept of a very dangerous sort, talking of energy as if
there were a reservoir of it somewhere in the body, and all you have to do is to
open a spigot to get it here, and if you do not open it, you get your pressure some
place else, a dangerous metaphor, but not important in this particular discussion
produces the external disturbance, which I would be willing to admit is not essen-
tially visceral, and if in turn it produces the afferent impulse which leads to it.

With regard to a point which I understand Dr. Cannon to have made concerning
the peripheral theory, the very fewness of visceral sensory neurones is a point on
which I have previously laid stress in connection with this theory as related to the
other fact which I understand Dr. Cannon to bring up, i.e., that the analysis of
the emotion into visceral and somatic components, if it can be so analyzed, has
been strangely delayed in the light of the fact that the human race has been expe-
riencing these emotions for a good many centuries. These things seem to be
connected. The fact that we have not the apparatus receptorally for discrimina-
tion viscerally as we have for discrimination tactually and visually and in an
auditory way this fact contributes to the difficulty of analysis or identification.

Secondly, the very enclosure of our viscera within our bodies prevents our
making experimental determinations, which we make in our daily lives as children,
varying the stimuli, so that we perform in the course of years an exact special
localizing analysis through our external senses, which is impossible for the internal
organs. That difficulty of analysis and the dependence of that analysis upon the
development of refined experimental methods which have only recently, if ever,
been developed, the fact that the human race would not be able to analyze these
visceral contents, is exactly what we would expect from our psychological knowledge
of the nature and conditions of analysis and localization of external factors, so that
those factors fit together and fit in with the peripheral hypothesis.

Again and I won't do any more of this retroactive talking just one more
point. Suppose a person who had never heard any of the instruments of an or-
chestra separately to be in a room through the window of which he might hear
from time to time a splendid symphony orchestra playing. Would that man ever
know analytically what that mass of sounds is composed of? No. We have every
reason to believe, from what we do know of the psychology of massive experience,
that he would never be able to analyze such experience into the sound of the flute,
the harp, and so on. But somebody might, without acoustical experiments in
the room, without the instruments, explain it to him. We have not been able to
analyze this. We cannot stimulate them separately. We stimulate them only in
large masses. We have had no experience in the elements, and only in the round-
about way can we perform that analysis.

But finally, with regard to that point of view, with regard to the introspective
experiments with adrenalin, with regard to certain points in Professor Washburn's
paper, what I have been trying to point out unsuccessfully yesterday and today
is that an emotion is not just one limited thing. In fact if I were to say what I
really think, without trying to exaggerate, not only is there no such thing as an
emotion, there is no such thing as thinking, there is no such thing as perception;
those are terms of our laboratories. There is no process separated from thinking.
We have a much more highly integrated situation, in which, for the purpose of
discussion, we omit certain fundamental facts and include others. Just as we say
this light is the stimulus, when as a matter of fact it is not, but we use that term
for the purpose of our discussion.

Interference of thought with perception, interference of thought with action,
is a much more complicated thing I imagine I am not criticizing Dr. Washburn,

114 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

for she will agree uith me is a much more complicated matter than we might
assume from Professor Washburn's brief discussion, that is, in no case is it true
that we have an emotion as one set of processes, that we have thought as another,
that we have perception as another. We have a single set of processes of a highly
complicated order, in which we can artificially for convenience, and falsely if we
are misled, distinguish this factor and that factor, which are distinguishable in
thought, but never are actually separate.

DR. WASHBURN: A great deal of what Professor Dunlap has said I agree with,
more apparently than lie would have expected me to. There was nothing in my
paper to indicate any hypothesis as to the basis of emotion as a conscious ex-
perience. I did not say that emotion resulted from visceral processes. I said that
in an emotion, among the other changes which occur in the body, were these
visceral changes. So that all he has to say about the impossibility of analyzing
the visceral processes, and so forth, is something with which I quite heartily agree,
but which was not germane to the ideas which I was trying to put forward.

The most important point, of course, at least the most important point to me,
is the point Dr. Dunlap raised first, the fact that he is becoming convinced by the
course of experiments that much of our thinking goes on without any motor
accompaniment. Now, I believe I am quite prepared to find that experiments will
fail to discover any motor accompaniment in a great deal of our thinking. But it
seems to me possible, and in fact altogether probable, almost self-evident, that as
the tentative movements in thinking become organized into systems some single
slight movement may by association, by the ordinary associative processes, come
to stand for, to act in place of, such an entire system.

This is the whole process of symbolizing in thinking. If it is possible in ideas,
I do not see why it is not possible in tentative movements. So that a motor process,
accompanied by quite a complicated set of movements, may be reduced by habitua-
tion to one physiological process represented by only some insignificant movements,
which it might be impossible to demonstrate by the very rough apparatus which
we still have at our disposal.

PROFESSOR JAMES MELROSE (Milliken University} : I should like to ask on the
same point Professor Dunlap raised and Dr. Washburn has just answered more
specifically what is included in thinking as we have heard it used. Watson, for
example, divides thinking into three parts: first of all, a mere rehearsal of long
habits; secondly, thinking upon matters that are not new; and finally, thinking
as applied to the solving of new problems. I wondered if it would not answer
the question brought up by Dr. Dunlap if we confined the meaning of thinking
arbitrarily to the last point. I wonder if he is thinking in the conception in which
Dr. Washburn's paper was presented.

DR. WASHBURN: I intended to refer to all thinking, but, since the last type of
thinking is the type of thinking that is most truly thinking and that is not re-
ducible to automatic habits, that is the type it seems to me which presents the
most interesting problem, and virtually I would be willing to confine myself to
that type because of that fact. That is practically the only type of thinking in
which perhaps we really use ideas.

PROFESSOR MELROSE: I have in mind, Mr. Chairman, that it has been, I think,
proved by physiological test that in certain types of thinking there is no evidence
of a large amount of metabolism, and consequently it would be difficult to find a
large amount of concomitant bodily behavior. I wondered if, for example, certain
types of thinking upon problems that were strictly theoretical (such as, for example,
working upon the plans of a house that you might be intending to construct)
would not have a considerable amount of motor activity, although you had no
immediate motor problem; whereas, if you were thinking upon some line where
for the most part you were thoroughly accustomed to the type of thought, the
pattern of thought, and there was no motor action attendant at the time, would
you have very much motor activity?

MARGARET F. WASHBURN 115

DR. WASHBUKN: That would reduce to a place where the thinking had become
so organized into systems of motor activity that one very slight movement might
act as agent, so to speak, for the whole system.

DR. PHINCE (Harvard University): Some facts occurred to me during the read-
ing of the paper, and I wonder if Dr. Washburn will inform me about them and
reconcile them with the motor theory of thought? These are facts which have
grown up in pathological fields. Now we have certain types of paralysis in which
all the muscles of the face are involved, particularly those of the tongue and palate,
a type of motor paralysis. In that kind of paralysis the person is unable to use those
muscles at all. and yet is able to think perfectly clearly. Their mental processes
are not interfered with at all. If muscular movements or movements of those
small muscles are required, why should it not interfere with continued thought,
unless Dr. Washburn means that it is not necessarily action of the muscles, but
the effort of innervation?

Let us take the hypnotized subject, a subject that had been under observation
for a long time, after coming out from that influence, after the amnesia or the
hypnotic state. Now during the hypnotic state I taught her several characters
of a shorthand of my own, which she could not possibly have known anything
about. I taught her some of the characters. The experiment was one of sub-
conscious perception. I taught her those characters. After she was awake I
wrote in that polyglot shorthand of mine a phrase. I haven't a blackboard here
on which I could write it or I would see how many here could translate it. I would
be willing to give a dollar to a man who could translate it. And then I had the
subject write the translation automatically with her hands and the hand wrote it
out; mind you, she interpreted those characters or perceived them, thought them
out, and wrote the translation with the hands, all of the time discussing with me
other matters. Now, there was a matter of a mental process going on during the
time of the experiment the subject was conversing with me. And it seemed that two
kinds of thinking could go on at the same time. It does not matter whether one
type is subconscious thinking or whether it is co-conscious thinking or what it
may be. A mental process was going on, which is thinking.

Now, what I want to know is, how it can be reconciled with the motor theory
of thinking.

Then take another test, one to which I referrred the solution of mathematical
problems while the person is thinking about something else. You know we have
lots of such observations in everyday life, that for example of the mathematician
who had the solution of a mathematical problem pop into his head spontaneously
while he was thinking of something else. There are a great many such cases.
[ hypnotized the same subject and told her that when she was awake she was to
solve a mathematical problem, to calculate the number of seconds intervening
between certain hours. She would not know what the hours were until she was
awake. When she was awake she did not know that any experiment at all was
being done. So I arranged the experiment I will not go into the details of it.
She subconsciously received the data and performed the calculation. The calcu-
lation was made while the person was thinking about something else. Now, you
have the facts. I won't take up more time.

CHAPTER 8
THE UTILITY OF EMOTIONS

W. B. PlLLSBURY

University of Michigan

My intention is to make an analysis of the facts, so far as known,
that throw light upon whether we may regard emotion as having
any utility in the scheme of man, and, if we answer in the affirma-
tive, to ask what that utility may be. It pretends to offer no new
facts but merely to summarize and coordinate those that we
have.

The first step in the undertaking is to discover when and under
what circumstances emotions occur. For its freedom from pre-
supposition we may assume the behaviorist's attitude and study
the conditions from their external side. We may assume that
emotion accompanies only those types of behavior which have
not been sufficiently automatized to be reflex. If that be true, all
of the so-called instincts and instances of learned behavior would
fall into one class of trial and error responses. If the situation be a
new one, each response would be determined in the first place by
the stimuli acting upon the organism and in the second place by
the factors that selected one from among the various responses
that resulted. In eating, for example, hunger, an internal stimulus,
causes random movements that continue until food is found.
When the food stimulus presents itself to taste, smell, or sight, the
random movements are succeeded by the straight ahead eating
movements. These continue until hunger is satisfied or the food
is exhausted.

Each type of response divides into these two parts : the initial
stimulus that incites to random movements, and the terminal
stimulus that puts an end to the random movements. Emotion
attaches to both of these initial and terminal situations. If we are
to consider its utility, we must keep in mind the two situations
and recognize that the emotions developed in each are distinct in
function, although in objective and subjective characteristics
they may be identical. The stimulus that arouses any form of
response for the first time nearly always has an emotional accompani-
ment. If the stimulus is external and intense, the animal or child
is either inhibited in all movements (paralysis or death-feigning
response), makes a series of uncoordinated movements that may

W. B. PILLSBURY 117

result in flight, or gives vent to more or less coordinated aggressive
movements (defense movements) . The overt acts are accompanied
by incipient movements and contractions of internal muscles and
glands that constitute a large part of what we ordinarily call
emotion. Classed largely according to the nature of the overt
responses, we call these the emotions of fear if the reaction be of
the first two types and probably anger if of the third.

When the stimulus is internal, as in hunger, thirst, or sex, the
movements are less vigorous although equally random in character.
The animal merely wanders here and there until a new stimulus
causes the responses necessary to satisfy or remove the inward
disturbance. Similar random movements also arise when the
animal is in good physical condition without particular external
stimuli. These are the play movements. Here the emotion would
be named largely from the nature of the internal diffuse movements,
rather than from the initiating situation or the external response.
In this group, too, we might have a condition of quiescence from
slight stimulation, as in Watson's instance of the stimulation of
the erogenous zone or in the cuddling of the kitten or child when
stroked or lying against a warm or soft object. The emotion in the
latter case would be very much like the ones that may present
themselves as terminal stimuli. The external response or its lack
is also the same.

In this whole group the emotion would seem to have no direct
utility. By emotion in this sense we need mean no more than the
sum of accessory internal responses* the contraction of muscles not
directly involved in the act, the contraction of the striped muscles in
remote or neighboring parts of the body, the contraction of unstriped
muscles active in respiration, circulation, digestion, and the secretions
of glands, internal and external. With each type of stimulus some
are increased and others are inhibited. They contribute to the
mental state we call emotion if we are not behaviorists, and so we
may consider them as the emotions if we are speaking as behavior-
ists. How they help is still largely a matter of speculation. In the
active movements, changes in circulation and respiration probably
increase the energy of response. The adrenalin secretion has the
same effect. Most of the other endocrines are top slow to be
effective at the moment of action although their activity induced
by earlier excitation may determine the type of response. O'Goni-
gal has suggested that the thyroids, by their secretions, produce
the condition in which strong stimuli will evoke the tetanic death-
feigning response, while adrenalin prepares for the defense reactions
of anger. Here the condition of the endocrines determines the
type of response and so of emotion. The emotional responses

118 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

connected with the initial stimulus and response further or check
the response itself, and are useful to that extent.

The emotions and affections connected with the terminal response
are the fundamental determinants of animal and human conduct.
With the exception of reflexes, all acts are developed from random
responses, and responses continue until an emotional or affective
condition puts an end to them. We say roughly that we keep
trying until we find something that pleases us and then use that
something, or stop. What shall please is the real determinant of the
actions that we call instinctive or learned. This makes the hypothesis
that all so-called instincts are trial and error responses different
from ordinary habits in that the situations which arouse the
responses are natural and of frequent occurrence and possibly
become established with rather fewer responses than in the proces-
ses that we call learning. What is inherited, and so the determinant
of the instinct, is the factor that selects between the different
responses to the initial stimulus. This many speak of as affection,
Thorndike as satisfaction, but we must look more deeply into the
process if we are to make any pretense of understanding it.

Direct observation of the animal shows that the process of
selection consists in little more than changing the random move-
ments into a specific straight ahead one. The hungry rat runs here
and there until he finds food. Then he begins to eat. The immedi-
ate selection depends upon the acceptance of the odors and taste.
Suitable appearance and odor start the eating. If taste confirms
them when the substance is taken into the mouth, chewing and
swallowing succeed. If not, they are ejected, as Lloyd Morgan
reports for his chicks with caterpillars. Similar analysis might
be made of the sex-determined random movements. Curiosity
would be only slightly different in that the original movements
may start with a stimulus that might make possible one of two
different reactions. The movements of approach, tentative in char-
acter, continue until they evoke movements of flight or use. These
then replace the tentative movements. Objectively regarded,
satisfaction is usually the substitution of a direct movement for
a random tentative one.

The exception is found when the animal merely becomes quies-
cent in place of acting. This we see in the nestling of the tired
animal into a smooth soft bed, or the cessation of movement in-
duced by patting, by contact of the young with the mother or with
other members of the species. We also have in this group the
cessation of wandering when the social animal comes into a herd or
group of its own kind. He wanders here and there when alone, but
grazes calmly, lies down, or stands quietly when with others of the

W. B. PILLSBURY 119

same species. The social approbation that is so effective in the
learning of the child would have a marked effect in selecting
the suitable random movement. This is the important factor in
learning its native speech. The paralysis of movement that comes
from social disapproval has an equally strong negative influence.
At times, passive response may approach a positive character.
Tolman, who has presented a somewhat similar analysis of instinct,
suggests that the nesting of the bird follows somewhat this course.
Building the nest seems to be in many species rather a random
type of activity. The materials are gathered, we may assume, as a
result of a general restlessness from internal stimuli, and are put
together in a somewhat hit-or-miss way. When the pile takes a
shape that will contain the eggs, it serves as a stimulus for laying
the eggs; then eggs and nest together stimulate the continued
brooding. Each of these types of response or quiescence constitutes
the physical accompaniment of satisfaction.

Accepting satisfaction ds fundamentally a straight away type of
response, we still have the question as to why one situation gives this
reaction while others do not. In answer to this we can do no more
than point again to hereditary connection. The response is always
evoked by a stimulus. All that we can say is that the nervous
connections inherited by the animal are of such a character that
he must respond as he does. The odor of meat starts the approach
mechanism ; the odor of hydrogen sulphide, the withdrawal mech-
anism; the taste of biscuit initiates in rat or chick the swallowing
movements; the taste of quinine, the ejecting reactions. All de-
pends upon hereditary connections, and these connections initiate
reflexes on the same principle that what we called the initial
stimulus evoked the random search movement or the withdrawing
movements of flight. "Why" can only be answered in terms of
evolution and natural selection. That the animal or man does
have these fundamental forms of response is the beginning of our
explanation of all action and of all learning. We cannot, however,
explain why he has them. They must be accepted. The feeling
processes can be derived from them; they cannot be explained by
the mental states.

If we reverse our question and ask to what the condition of
satisfaction corresponds, we can answer only that it accompanies
a straight ahead type of response, marked usually by approach
and acceptance rather than rejection and flight. These straight
ahead types of reactions are also accompanied by characteristic
accessory responses, secretions of glands, normal peristaltic re-
actions, and with slight and well-coordinated contractions of the
striped muscles. These serve to color the responses subjectively,

120 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

and are useful incidentally to the performance of the reactions. It
is hard to see that they make any important contribution to the
selective activity itself, except as they further the responses.
This analysis would tend to put the pleasant affections and emo-
tions in the class of accompaniments of non-inhibited or furthering
activities of the neuro-muscular mechanism, while the unpleasant
would fall under the head of contractions that were mutually
opposing each other, the hindrance group. The difference would
lie in that our description does not assume any direction or pur-
pose in the response of the organism as does Stout's old statement.
On the contrary, the animal when he makes his first response is
driven by stimuli he knows not where, and he is stopped or his
activities turned in another direction by new stimuli. Both
responses are determined by the innate nervous connections acted
upon by the stimuli. Pleasure, satisfaction, or emotion are to be
looked upon as accompaniments not causes.

Once this new connection is established between the original
situation considered as stimulus and the new response determined
by the terminal stimulus we have the beginning of learning. With
repetition the activities that follow upon the original stimulus
become less and less random, more and more direct, until with full
learning the train of responses becomes unvarying. We need not
go into the complexities of this problem, although learning is one
of the functions that has been most frequently explained in terms
of the emotional accompaniments.

Learning would not take place without the direction given by the
terminal stimulus, but it is the repeated arriving at the point where the
terminal stimulus may act that makes learning possible, rather than^
the emotional accompaniments themselves. The controversies as
to the learning mechanism revolve about how the separate links
in the chain of acts that attain the end may be forged or eliminated.
Each must assume that the separate acts all finally bring the in-
dividual to the terminal stimulus. Without that stimulus to set
an end to the random movements, no learning and no ordered
action would be possible. The pleasant stimulus is more effective
than the unpleasant because the pleasant begins a new series of
acts which in the end remove the internal stimulus that produces
the random movements, while the unpleasant merely drives the
animal away and gives no conclusion to the drive. In a series of
partial acts, however, the animal learns even more quickly to avoid
an opening where it receives an electric shock than it does to
take a path that leads to food. This, too, gives a new turn to the
tentative movements, more strongly reinforced.

If we admit that it is not the emotional accompaniment but the

W. B. PILLSBURY 121

repetition of the terminal stimulus in succession to the original
exciting stimulation that is responsible for learning, we still may
ask whether the incidental contractions, the overflow phenomena
that James would make the basis of emotion, have any effect upon
the formation of the connection. On this point the evidence is
conflicting, so far as there is evidence at all. It is probably true
that many, if not most, stimuli that initiate a new line of reaction
and so stop the random movements are accompanied by diffuse
bodily responses. Even most stimuli that give reflexes that may
be transferred to other stimuli by conditioning have this accom-
paniment of non-essential responses. The meat probably arouses
other overflow phenomena as well as the secretion of saliva. The
sound of the bell need have no such effect. In the light reflex of
the pupil, which Cason could transfer to a sound stimulus, there
seems to be no necessary emotional accompaniment. There is no
reason for assuming that the connection depends upon these
added contractions and not upon the simultaneous occurrence of
the two stimuli, even if we assume that they always accompany the
reflex to be conditioned. It could be interpreted to mean only
that any stimulus strong enough to produce a reflex that could
be conditioned would also be strong enough to arouse the wide-
spread incidental contractions.

Again, after the connection has been established between the
exciting situation and the terminal stimulus and response, one
tends to arouse the other. How this is brought about is not easy
to investigate in the animal. In man, however, and here we must
abandon the behavioristic assumptions, the situation at once
recalls memories of the old terminal responses, or ways of elimi-
nating the unpleasant present conditions. These memories have
their emotional attachments, due in part at least to the actual
rearousal of striped and unstriped muscular and glandular re-
sponses. The drive, if we may use Woodworth's terms, is not
merely the neuro-muscular tendency to make random movements,
coupled with the unpleasantness of the present stimulus, but has
added to it the memories of old satisfactions with their pleasant
emotional accompaniments. Even if there is nothing in the
present situation to suggest where the old alleviating stimulus
could be found, the memory that it has been found spurs to greater
effort for the random movements and keeps one on the qui vive
for the random thoughts that might solve the difficulty. It also
serves to select from the ideas those that are more promising and
reserves them for actual trial.

Here again the question arises whether the choice is in terms
of pleasure or of emotional and affective phases in general. A

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

better case can be made for this than for the statement that
pleasure determines the selection of the original terminal stimulus.
The pleasure comes, in fact, with the thought and before the
actions begin. If, however, we are to keep to a parallelistic as-
sumption and have only physical processes modify other physical
processes, obviously not pleasure but the physical conditions that
give rise to pleasure would be the determining and inciting force.
The stimulus that arouses the memory, either directly or through
the associative paths that evoke the memory, would also give us
the overflow innervation of glands, and the preparatory activities
of muscles. The hormones from the ductless glands would energize
the nervous and muscular mechanism, in general; the activity of
the nervous system would prepare specifically for the activities
that had previously been useful. To these we must look for the
real determinants, although the accompanying emotional and
ideational experiences stand out introspectively as the incentives
and constitute the drives of our conscious life.

Again, we have the fact that stimuli and situations, by virtue
of what the behaviorists call conditioning or the more classic
group were content to designate association, tend to become
connected with innumerable other experiences and objects, and
the emotion that attaches originally to each of these becomes
transferred to the first in addition to the innate characteristics
and accompaniments. No one would dare to say how much of
the emotion aroused by a picture, by a human face or form, or
even by simpler objects is an immediate natural or innate ac-
companiment and how much has been attached to it incidentally.
Here the psychoanalyst would translate all to one type, but we
need not accept his extreme assumptions to see the importance
of transfer. The network of interrelations is so complicated that
it almost justifies us in agreeing with our friends of the Gestalt
school that we must think of the pattern as making the elements
that compose it rather than having the pattern develop from the
arrangement of the elements. It is this maze of cross-references
that obscures the explanation and makes it impossible to dis-
tinguish betw r een the inherited determinants of action and learn-
ing, the fundamental feelings and emotions, and the adventitious
additions. These again, however, are derived from other inherited
affective responses. They merely attached originally to other
situations.

One might point out, although there is no space to develop
it, that, even in the animal, where we have no introspective
evidence, there must be similar neurological organizations that
change the latent response in terms of wider interconnections.

W. B. PILLSBURY 123

We assume no consciousness attaching to them, but in man it is
not consciousness but the neural organization that is affective.
They would undoubtedly be accompanied by all of the diffuse
muscular and glandular reactions that we appreciate in man.
If we come back to our special problem, to what end the emo-
tion as such? We must answer: it is everything or nothing ac-
cording as we define it. If we look at the matter in the rough, we
can assert confidently that all learning, all of what w r e call instinct,
except the vanishing portion that can be ascribed to chain re-
flexes, is determined by affection or emotion. That alone puts an
end to random responses and so selects the particular response
that shall be learned. If, however, we ask how the selection takes
place, we find that, so far as analysis can be pushed, the actual
mechanism of selection is nothing more than starting a specific
definite response in place of the earlier random ones. If you reply
that this is not affection or emotion but merely a reflex, we must
admit it. The only physical accompaniments that could be called
emotion or affection are the diffuse neuro-muscular and neuro-
glandular discharges, and we know little as to what use these may
have. They can be shown in certain cases to intensify the original
reaction, and we may speculate that they make more easy the
establishment of connections between stimuli, but of this we
know little definitely. It is entirely probable that they have an
important function and that only our ignorance prevents our
describing it. This paper will have attained its purpose if it
stimulates investigation of the detailed mechanism by which this
effect is exerted.

CHAPTER 9

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

ED. CLAPAREDE

University of Geneva

The psychology of affective processes is the most confused
chapter in all psychology. Here it is that the greatest differences
appear from one psychologist to another. They are in agreement
neither on the facts nor on the words. Some call feelings what
others call emotions. Some regard feelings as simple, ultimate,
unanalyzable phenomena, similar always to themselves, varying
only in quantity. Some, on the contrary^believe that the range
of feelings includes an infinity of nuances, 'and that feeling always
forms a part of a more complex whole, in exhibitioner in condition.
Certain psychologists regard physical pain and moral pain as
identical, while others separate them by calling one a sensation,
the other an emotion. Some regard pleasure and pain as two
phenomena, antagonistic but of the same kind, while others de-
scribe them as entirely heterogeneous. A number of pages might
be filled by simply enumerating the fundamental differences.

These differences are increased when one passes from one
language to another, since the lack of agreement about the facts
is then complicated by lack of agreement about words. What
French word is the exact equivalent of the word feeling? Does
Gemutsbewegung correspond exactly with emotion? And what
equivalent does one find from one language to another between the
words AJfekt, Gefuhl, passion, douleur, pain, affection, etc.?

If we survey the problems which are presented by affective
psychology, we shall bring to our attention the extent of the field
to be covered. Some of the problems follow:

1. The specific character of feelings and emotions. What is it
which distinguishes them from other psychological phenomena?

2. Variety of affective phenomena. Are there several kinds of
simple feelings? How many kinds of emotions are there?

3. Are all feelings located on a single bipolar line running from
pleasure to pain, or are certain feelings located outside this line?
Or do feelings, indeed, arrange themselves in a figure of several
dimensions?

4. What relations exist between feelings and emotions?

ED. CLAPAR^DE 125

~s. y ~-

fr*

5. Genetic origin of feelings. Have they the same origin as
sensations, and are they distinguished only by a secondary dif-
ferentiation, or are they, from the beginning, phenomena distinct
from sensations and irreducible to them?

6. What are the physiological concomitants of feelings and
emotions? Relations existing between these phenomena and the
sympathetic nervous system and internal secretions.

7. Do feelings of the same sort vary in themselves only in
intensity, or do they perhaps vary in other directions different
from intensity, as, for example, according to "depth."

8. Does a true affective memory exist? (Or do affective
memories constitute an actual revival of feelings or emotions?)

9. What are the relations between feelings and other related
phenomena need, interest, desire, will, character, temperament?

10. Pathology of affective phenomena. R61e of the affective
phenomena in the production of nervous or mental diseases.

11. Relations between affective and intellectual phenomena.
Role of feeling in normal thought. Role of feeling in the formation
of concepts (for example, the concept of "danger/* of "beauty,"
etc.). Affective logic.

12. Biological significance and general functions of affective
phenomena. Affective dynamics.

I make no claim to have given here a complete list of the prob-
lems which present themselves. Each of the problems enumerated
implies a number of others, arid, in proportion to the new researches
which are conducted, new problems will arise. However, I believe
that it will be in the interest of the progress of affective psychology
if psychologists can make clear among themselves the fundamental
problems which are to be solved.

THE FUNCTIONAL POINT OF VIEW

It is always advantageous, in my opinion, when one wishes to
study a psychological phenomenon, to begin the approach from
the functional angle; in other words, before trying to analyze it in
detail under a strong magnifying glass, as it were, to examine it
rather less enlarged, in order to take account of its functional
value, its general part in conduct.

If we apply this principle of method to the study of affective
phenomena, we ought to commence by asking ourselves: Of what
use are feelings? Of what use are emotions? And, if this way of
speaking should be found too finalistic, one can say: What are
the situations in which feelings and emotions intervene, and what
is the role played by these phenomena in the conduct of the
individual?

126 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

It cannot be denied that the functional point of view has shown
itself fruitful in psychology. Let us recall Groos's theory of play,
which has shown the value of play in development, and the
Freudian concepts, which have considered mental maladies from
the point of view of their functional significance. I myself have
considered thus sleep, hysteria, and also intelligence and will.
Without doubt, the functional study constitutes only an introduc-
tion to a more complete study. Nevertheless, it has no slight
value in making clear the path to follow.

The functional point of view then places the emphasis on con-
duct. Functional psychology demands less what the phenomena
are, then what they do. It is thus closely related to behaviorism.
It is clearly distinguished from it, however, since that which in-
terests it is conduct, its laws, its determinism, and not the method
by which one pursues the study of these laws. It is of very
little importance to it whether these methods be objective or
introspective.

Let us observe another advantage of the functional point of
view: it brings to our notice problems which otherwise would not
have been raised.

DISTINCTION BETWEEN FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

From the analytical point of view, feelings and emotions are
distinguished with difficulty. One needs but to open any book on
psychology to see the confusion which reigns in this subject. Let
us see if the functional point of view permits a clearer delineation
of the two groups of phenomena.

Suppose we ask ourselves: Of what use, in everyday life, are
feelings, and of what use are emotions? We are immediately
tempted to give to these two questions very different answers:
Feelings are useful in our conduct while emotions serve no purpose.

We can, in fact, very easily imagine a man who would never
feel an emotion, who would never experience a crisis of fear or of
anger, and who would be none the less viable. But we cannot
imagine a man deprived of feelings, of that range of affective nu-
ances which permit him to estimate the value of things to which
he must adapt himself, who would not distinguish between what
is good for him and what is detrimental to him.

Observation shows us, on the other hand, how unadaptable
emotional phenomena are. Emotions occur precisely when
adaptation is hindered for any reason whatever. The man who
can run away does not have the emotion of fear. Fear occurs
only when flight is impossible. Anger is displayed only when

ED. CLAPARKDE 127

one cannot strike his enemy. Analysis of bodily reactions in
emotion points to the evidence that one does not make adaptive
movements but, on the contrary, reactions which recall the
primitive instincts. (Darwin has also shown this.) Far from
being the psychic side of an instinct, as McDougall teaches, emo-
tion represents on the contrary a confusion of instinct, "a mis-
carriage of instinct," as .Larguier des Bancels has said. And,
as in emotion, we can prove not only the vestige of the ancestral
reaction but also the confusion or insufficiency of the acquired
reaction, so we can, perhaps, with more justice define emotion
as a "miscarriage of conduct."

The uselessness, or even the harmfulness of emotion, is known
to everyone. Here is an individual who would cross a street; if
he is afraid of automobiles, he loses his composure and is run over.
Sorrow, joy, anger, by enfeebling attention or judgment, often
make us commit regrettable acts. In brief, the individual, in
the grip of an emotion "loses his head."

Emotion, from the functional point of view, appears to be a
regression of conduct. When, for one reason or another, the normal
correct reaction cannot be made, then the opposite tendencies
borrow the primitive ways of reaction. And these primitive reac-
tions, rudiments of reactions formerly useful, may be contractions
of the peripheral muscles as well as phenomena vascular, inhibi-
tive, secretory, visceral, etc. Perhaps some of them have no
biological significance (e.g., tears) and result only in the propaga-
tion of a nervous impulse which has not found its normal issue.
Everyone has noticed that one weeps more easily in the theater
than in real life, although in the theater one knows that the
scenes in which one is taking part are fictitious, but in the theater
the normal reactions are prevented from occurring.

And again, in these cases one can attribute to these phenomena
a secondary function of discharge, an appeasement of the nervous
system unduly excited. 1

PERIPHERAL THEORY OF EMOTION

The James-Lange theory is the only one, to my mind, which
explains the existence of specific bodily phenomena in emotion.
In regarding the bodily phenomena as the result (and not the
cause) of the emotion, the old theories made the emotion an

1 If organic phenomena are the bases for all emotions, it does not follow that all
organic phenomena cause emotions. It is probable that many physiological phe-
nomena (internal secretions, vasomotor modifications, etc.) are compensatory reac-
tions of regulation, the function of which is to repair the disturbance caused by
the emotion.

128 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

entirely enigmatic process. Moreover, facts of great importance
speak in favor of the James-Lange theory: the suppression of
the emotion by the suppression of the peripheral phenomena
according to James's observation; and also the production or the
facilitation of certain emotional states by the consumption of
poisons, alcohol, coffee, hasheesh, etc.

The peripheral theory of James and Lange raises, however,
a very great difficulty. Why, if the emotion is only consciousness
of peripheral changes in the organism, is it perceived as an "emo-
tion" and not as " organic sensations"? Why, when I am afraid,
am I conscious of "having fear," instead of being simply con-
scious of certain organic impressions, tremblings, beatings of the
heart, etc.?

1 do not remember that anyone has sought until now to reply
to this objection. However, it does not seem to me that it should
be very difficult to do so. The emotion is nothing other than the
consciousness of a form, of a "Gestalt," of these multiple organic
impressions. In other words, the emotion is the consciousness
ofa global attitude of the^ organism.

TThis"~confused and general perception of the whole, which I
have formerly called "syncretic perception/' 2 is the primitive form
of perception. In the case of emotional perception, we know well
that it is more useful to know the total attitude of the body than
the elementary sensations composing the whole. There must be
for an individual no great interest in perceiving the detail of
internal sensations. What is above all important to an organism
is action; the question then is whether it is aware of the general
attitude it is showing to the environment. As to the "internal
sensations," their perception results especially from a theoretical
interest, and perhaps, before there were psychologists in the
world, each internal sensation, each kinaesthetic or muscular
sensation was not, as such, an object of consciousness.

Many of the impressions which we receive are interpreted
differently according to the direction of our interest. This is
particularly true for tactile impressions, which sometimes are
perceived as objective, sometimes as subjective. The experiment
is very easy to make. Put your hand on the table. The same
tactile impression is apperceived, according to the direction of
your attention, sometimes as a "tactile sensation," sometimes as
"a hard object," a table. If, at that moment, your interest is
turned to yourself (for example, in the course of psychological
experiment on tactile sensations), you feel your hand, but no
longer the table.

2 Archives de psychologic, VII (1908), 195.

ED. CLAPAK&DE

It is the same thing in the case of emotion. When you are angry,
turn your attention to the kinaesthetic sensations in your clenched
fists, to the trembling of your lips, etc., but then you have no
longer the consciousness of anger. Or permit yourself to become
absorbed in your anger; but then you no longer experience dis-
tinctly the trembling of your lips, your pallor, or the isolated
sensations arising from the different parts of your contracted
muscular machinery.

What the consciousness seizes in emotion is, so to speak, the
form of the organism itself that is to say its attitude.

This peripheral conception which regards the emotion as the
consciousness of an attitude of the organism is, besides, the
only one which can take account of the fact that the emotion
is immediately, implicitly "understood" by him who experiences
it. The emotion contains in itself its significance. As far as we
can judge by external observation or by our own memory, a child
who for the first time experiences a great fear or a great joy or
falls into an excess of anger understands immediately what has
happened to him. He does not need experience to understand
successfully the meaning of this explosion of his organism, as he
does to understand the meaning of impressions which come to
him by sight or by hearing, impressions which do not possess any
immediate and implicit significance. But what is meant by "un-
derstand"? Does not the "understanding" consist essentially
in the assuming of an attitude with respect to an object? If this
is so, it is not astonishing that emotions should be implicitly
understood, since they consist in the assuming of an attitude
toward a given situation, this assumption of an attitude being
itself due to hereditary and instinctive causes.

These last remarks allow us to understand not only how anti-
biological but also how antipsychological the "central," classic
concept of emotion is: "we tremble because we are afraid, we
weep because we are sad, we gnash our teeth because we are
angry." This concept is antibiological because it does not allow
any significance to the organic reactions and because it makes these
primitive reactions, evidently of reflexive or instinctive nature,
the result of a purely intellectual perception, of a judgment which
can be formulated as follows: The situation in which I find myself
is dangerous or terrifying (fear) or it is sad (sorrow) or it is provok-
ing to me (anger), etc.

This concept is also altogether antipsychological. It implies in
fact that we can, by a simple intellectual perception of a situation
in which we find ourselves, call it "dangerous," "terrifying,"
"sad," etc. But "dangerous," "sad," etc., are not conscious-

130 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

nesses which are given us by means of the external senses, as are
color or temperature. It is we ourselves who color the things or the
external situations, by projecting into them the feelings which they
arouse in us and which they excite by producing a reaction of our
organism. A large dog or the dark is found terrifying by a child
because they have aroused in him the reactions the consciousness
of which is what we call "fear."

To say, as the classic theory does, that a situation arouses fear
because we judge it to be terrifying, is either not to explain why we
find this situation frightening, or to revolve in a vicious circle.

Indeed, how does an individual "comprehend" that a situation
is "terrifying"? To comprehend, we have said, is to take an
attitude toward things. To understand that a situation is "dan-
gerous," "frightening," is to take, with regard to this situation,
an attitude of flight or of protection. But this attitude of flight
or of protection is precisely what is at the basis of the emotion of
fear. In other words, to say with the classic theory that a situation
makes you afraid because it is terrifying is to say that it makes you
afraid because it makes you afraid. It is only revolving in a
circle !

FUNCTIONAL CONCEPT OF AFFECTIVE PHENOMENA

We say that the emotion is capable of giving a significance to the
situation which it arouses. This assertion demands examination.
For, if the emotion is a deficiency in conduct, a poorly adapted
act, how can it give a true meaning of things?

It must not be forgotten, however, if the emotion is an objec-
tively poorly adapted act, it represents none the less a total of
reaction having a biological significance. To an objective mis-
adaptation may correspond a subjective significance. The attitude
taken by the organism is without efficacy on the surrounding
environment. It is none the less comprehended by itself; that is to
say, it orients itself in a certain definite direction.

I believe that, in order to explain the paradox of an unadapted
act which plays, nevertheless, a useful role for one cannot deny
that fear, shame, sorrow, joy have great importance in the life of
man it is more simple to make the following hypothesis. The
emotion is a mixture of adaptive reactions and unadaptive actions,
of which the proportions vary. The more the emotion takes
the form of shock, of explosion, the more important is the share of
the misadaptation as compared with that of the adaptation.

Considered from the point of time, the two parts of the emotional
phenomenon habitually succeed one another. Sometimes the
emotion begins with a shock, with unadapted reactions, which

ED. CLAPAREDIO 131

little by little readjust themselves toward a useful behavior.
Sometimes on the contrary, the useful adaptation delineates itself
at first, and if it is hindered in its termination, it is followed by an
emotional explosion. Does not the observation of emotional
phenomena in everyday life show us the presence of these two forms
of affective processes?

That the emotion, when it is an explosive phenomenon, is not
capable of influencing behavior usefully, seems to be shown by the
following example, taken from among many others.

Here are two individuals passing through a forest at night. One,
of emotional character, feels violent fear. The other remains
calm. They have to return another time, also at night, through
the same forest. The frightened man will take precautions. He
will carry a weapon, take with him a dog. The second will not
modify his behavior. It is without doubt the affective experience
of the first journey through the forest which has later modified
the behavior of the first traveler. We can, nevertheless, ask
whether it is the emotion, as such (considered as a disorder of the
reactions), which has made this modification in the ulterior conduct.
We can very well indeed imagine a courageous man who, in passing
through this forest, ascertains that this crossing is not without
danger, and makes this decision without feeling the least emotion of
fear. His subsequent behavior will be, however, modified in the
same manner as that of the man who was afraid; he takes with
him a weapon, a dog. The comparison of the two cases shows that
the fear as such has not played the role which it seems to have
had.

What then has happened to the brave man? The crossing of the
gloomy forest has excited in him diverse reactions of attention, of
eventual defense; it has determined, in a word, an attitude of
"being on his guard. " Is it not the perception of this attitude
which constitutes the " consciousness of danger"? And can one
not say, in the case of the man who is afraid, that it is this attitude
of precaution which has modified his subsequent behavior in a
useful way? This attitude was blended with the emotion or
alternated with it, and one can say that it is not because of the
emotion but in spite of it that the behavior has been happily
modified.

Do not these reflections lead us to admit, besides the emotions,
reactions which are distinguished from them by the fact that they
are, themselves, adapted, and as a result capable of orienting
behavior usefully. These reactions, these attitudes, and the
consciousness that the subject possesses of them, we group
together under the name of feelings.

132 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

Besides the emotion of fear, we should have then the "feeling of
fear/' which it would be better to call "feeling of danger" and
which would consist of the consciousness of the defensive attitude.
Besides the emotion of anger, there would be the "feeling of anger,"
which it would be better to call "combative feeling" and which
consists of the consciousness of the offensive attitude and the
attitude of combat. Besides the "emotion of shame" which
seems to me to be a "miscarriage" of the instinct to hide oneself
there would be the "feeling of shame, " which betrays the tendency
to hide from the sight of others.

For the emotions of joy and sorrow, the corresponding feelings
would then be the pleasant and unpleasant, pleasure and pain, as
described by current psychology, and also would be only the
consciousness of an attitude of the organism, an attitude positive
or negative with respect to the present situation. Only, in the
case of the pleasant and the unpleasant we have the case of
particularly obscure phenomena, which represent surely a very
primitive phase of the organic attitude, that phase in which the
humoral processes still predominates over the nervous processes.

The concept which I have outlined seems to me to give an account
of the various facts, and presents certain advantages, which I
shall enumerate.

RECONCILIATION WITH THE CURRENT CONCEPT OF EMOTIONS

Our concept permits of a reconciliation to a certain extent of
the peripheral theory with the current concept of emotions.

It is true, as the current concept affirms, that often fear does
not arise in us until after we have first had a consciousness of
the danger of the situation in which we find ourselves. Only,
this consciousness of danger does not consist, as the classic theory
supposes, in a purely intellectual judgment. According to our
theory, it results in a "feeling of danger." Let us say then that
the emotion of fear follows the feeling of danger; it follows if we
cannot flee or protect ourselves in an effective way, for the normal
unrolling of behavior is then substituted a miscarriage of behavior.
In its principle this way of looking at it, however, is profoundly
different from the classic theory, since it considers that neither
the emotion nor the feeling of danger is awakened immediately
by the perception. The reactionary processes always intervene,
as indispensable to the development of the affective phenomenon.
It is the awakening of this process which warns us of danger.
The emotion, then, appears only as a special phase of the reac-
tionary process. The primitive reactions are substituted for the

ED. CLAPAREDE 133

adaptive reactions when these are prevented from terminating
in an act. In cases where the emotion appears quickly, as when
we jump at a sudden noise, the James-Lange theory in its ordinary
form retains its full value.

The following schema shows the theories about emotions,
and will make more clear what we understand by them:

Classic Theory Perception Emotion Organic Reactions

James-Lange Theory Perception Organic Reactions Emotions

Modified Peripheral Perception Attitude (of flight), Feeling

Theory (of danger) Organic Reactions Emotion (fear)

Flight without Perception Attitude (of flight), Feeling

Emotion (of danger) Flight

VARIETY OF FEELINGS

Our concept also enables us to render account of the infinite
variety of affective phenomena, feelings, and emotions. If the
whole affective phenomenon is subjectively the consciousness
of an attitude and objectively this attitude itself, we can conceive
how infinite is the possible range of all of the attitudes. Even
attitudes orienting themselves in the same general sense (for
example, in the sense of the agreeable) can, nevertheless, differ
between themselves in the relation of the quality, since these
attitudes can be very different in form.

We now understand why the range of affective phenomena is
indeed richer than a thory would foresee which, as that of
McDougall, would relate each emotion to a definite instinct. In
the first place, these are not emotions, but feelings (as those of
danger, of aggression, etc.) which correspond to actual instincts.
In the second place, as there are more affective nuances than
definite instincts, one is obliged to admit that feelings may some-
times have for organic base reactions or attitudes intermediate
to two or more instincts.

The concept here presented also permits us to understand that
feelings and emotions are distinguished not only by their quality
and their intensity, but also by their depth. The pain which a
pin-prick causes me may be much more intense than the pain
which is produced by the news of a shipwreck of a boat full of
passengers, but the latter is assuredly a deeper pain. One may
suppose that this "depth" corresponds to a supplementary
arousal of certain reactionary systems. Perhaps, however, once
admitted that feelings of the same kind can differ among them-
selves in the relation of the quality, the depth resolves itself
simply into a question of quality.

134 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

THE "TRANSCENDENTAL REVELATION OF FEELINGS"

A peripheral theory of feeling also explains the kind of im-
mediate comprehension which we have of feelings a compre-
hension of which I have just spoken above with reference to
emotion. All affective phenomena have for us not only a content
but a value. While blue or red has for us no immediate value,
no implicit meaning, pleasure and pain have a value, an inborn
value. It seems that, in the affective consciousness, we are
the beneficiaries of a really transcendental revelation. How can
a little infant, just born, or a caterpillar on a leaf know that this
is good and that that is bad; and how, receiving only subjective
impressions, do they behave as if they know the objective value
of impressions of good and bad? Here we have material for fine
metaphysical discussions. For us psychologists, the mystery
resolves itself remarkably as soon as we consider that if feeling
has, to consciousness, a subjective value, it is because it
corresponds, in behavior, to an attitude, to reactions, which have
an objective value. The value perceived by consciousness corre-
sponds to the value for life, for conduct. And one cannot go farther
in the way of explanation, if one holds to the principle of psycho-
physical parallelism.

INTELLECTUAL FEELINGS

Our theory of feeling has also this advantage that it gives a
place to intellectual feelings. The term V intellectual feeling"
has not a very definite meaning. In his Psychology of Feeling,
Ribot includes under this name only surprise, astonishment,
curiosity, doubt. Other authors add to these the general feeling
which we have of the movement of our thought, of its success,
or its impotence. To my mind, one can go much farther, and
include among the intellectual feelings all those elements of
thought which James calls transitive and which are not represen-
tations: conformity, implication, congruity, certitude, probability,
and those thousands of relations which we have expressed in the
words but, if, and, why, after, before, the thoughts which we express
by the words future, past, conditional, negation, affirmation, etc.

William James has very well seen all this. "If there be such
things as feelings at all, then, so surely as relations between
objects exist in rerum natura, so surely and more surely do feelings
exist by which these relations are known. There is not a con-
junction or a preposition, and hardly an adverbial phrase, syntatic
form, or inflection of voice, that does not express some shading
or other of relations which we at some moment actually feel to

ED. CLAPAR&DE 135

exist between the larger objects of our thought. . . . We
ought to say a feeling of and, and a feeling of ?/, a feeling of but,
a feeling of by "

It is very curious that so illuminating a passage of William
James, which contains in all its essence a fruitful psychology of
thought, should have remained almost a dead letter for psychology.
This results, no doubt, from the fact that psychology, under the
reign of the associationist doctrine, has remained very definitely
closed to biological thought, which alone, to my mind, is capable
of rendering it fruitful.

It must be noted, however, that Ribot, in all his work, has
insisted on the role of movements and of tendencies in behavior.
To him, thought brings itself at last to account in movement.
But even he has not seen the consequence which can be drawn
from this concept, being in part fascinated by associationism.
However, in his Evolution of General Ideas (1897, p. 94), he rallies
to an opinion derived from the linguists the opinion according
to which the prepositions and the conjunctions express move-
ments. "The consciousness of these movements, " says Ribot, "is
the feeling of the different directions of the thought."

In my Association of Ideas (1903), where I have strongly com-
bated associationism, I have revived James's idea and sought
to develop it in biological terms. I consider here all intellectual
feelings as corresponding to adaptive reactions or to attitudes
of the organism. " Cannot the body/' I say (p. 317), "be also
the source of those numerous ideas which do not correspond, it
is true, to anything in the external world which is capable of
making an impression on the senses, but which can indeed be
nothing other than the consciousness of the reactions of the body
with regard to its environment?" I have applied this point of
view to the "comprehension" which brings itself back to an
adaptation, and have considered the feeling of comprehension
as "the consciousness of the more or less complete adaptation
which is produced." With respect to the consciousness of rela-
tions, "it suffices," I say (p. 369), "to admit a different reaction
according as the relation perceived is a relation of identity, of
resemblance or of equivalence, of possibility or of necessity,
of affirmation or of negation, etc. . . . And, in fact, we
do not behave the same with two things when they are different,
or similar, or simply equivalent."

We well perceive, when we see someone gesticulating as he
speaks, that all thought is doubled by a moving manifestation.
One can say that to think is to gesticulate internally, to outline
the acts which the thought prepares and coordinates. This con-

136 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

cept, I repeat, is the only one which takes account of the r61e
of thought, of its dynamism. But the psychology of thought,
in developing with the Wtirzburg school towards pure intro-
spection, has lost at the same time its explicative value. For,
whatever may be the descriptive value of phenomena, like Be-
wusstheiten or Bewusstseinslagen, one must agree that the descrip-
tion of these states does not explain at all how they influence
in an adequate way the course of thought and of behavior. This
is, by the way, what Binet has recognized in an excellent article,
where he also brings together the "mental attitudes" of emotion
and feelings. 3

If one considers all intellectual feelings to be the outlines of
actions or of inhibitions, all is clear, since one can understand how
movements can influence the one over the other, reinforce, oppose,
or modify themselves in their respective directions.

There remains, however, one difficulty that is to know why,
while emotions and ordinary feelings seem to us to be "states
of our self," the intellectual feelings appear to be objective.

But is this exact? Very many intellectual feelings, such as
certainty, doubt, affirmation and negation, logical constraint,
etc., can indeed, according to circumstances, according to the
direction of our interest at the particular moment, appear to us
as objective or as subjective. On the other hand, are ordinary
feelings really always subjective? We know how they easily
objectify themselves. The aesthetic emotion objectifies itself in
the beautiful, the emotion of disgust in the repugnant, etc. We
say that an event (objective) is sad, joyous, shameful, comic,
or disagreeable. When we declare that a task is painful, we
place the pain in the task or in ourselves according to the context
of our thought.

To my mind, the subjectivity or the objectivity of a content
of consciousness is always the result of a secondary process,
depending on the acquired experiences. In the beginning, our
states of consciousness are neither objective nor subjective. They
become little by little the one or the other according to the
necessity of our adaptation to our physical or social environment.

FEELINGS AND INTERNAL SENSATIONS

The functional concept developed above permits us to state
what distinguishes feeling from internal or organic sensations,

8 A. Binet, "Qu'est-ce qu'une Emotion? Qu'est-ce qu'un acte intellectual?'* Uannie
psychologique, XVII (1911), 1-47. Cf. also M. F. Washburn, "The Term 'Feeling/ "
Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, III (1903), 62-63; E. B.
Titchener, Experimental Psychology of the Thought Processes (New York: Macmillan,
1909), p. 176.

ED. CLAPAREDF, 137

notably the sensations of hunger, thirst, fatigue, or synaesthesia.
Often this distinction is not made, and people generally speak
of the "feeling" of fatigue or of hunger.

To my mind, the sensations of hunger, of thirst, of fatigue
(and perhaps one might add to these those of pain) have no value
in themselves; they are phenomena which derive their value
only from attitudes, tendencies, movements, which they in-
stinctively arouse, and it is the instinctive reactions which confer
on them their value for the behavior of the individual. But
these instinctive reactions are nothing other than the basis of
feelings: feelings agreeable or disagreeable, of desire, of need.

The internal sensations are then states, contrasting with
feelings which are attitudes. The internal sensations inform us
about such and such states of our organism as our external senses
inform us about such and such state of the surrounding environ-
ment. But it is by virtue of these feelings that we can estimate
the vital value of the organic sensations.

If we seek to represent to ourselves in a purely physiological
way, in making abstractions from consciousness, the function
of the stimulations corresponding to internal sensations, and
the function of the attitudes corresponding to the feelings, it
is easy for us to see the functional difference between the two
orders of phenomena. The stimulations have value for behavior
only in so far as they determine the attitudes or the movements
of the organism. One can, with different stimulations, obtain
identical attitudes (as, for example, in the experience of Pavlov's
conditioned reflexes). This shows us that the stimulation of
an internal origin has something of the accidental with relation
to the attitude while the attitude represents itself a vital value,
because it is already an outline of behavior.

Feelings express in some way a relation. The relation between
such a situation or such an object and our welfare (or, what comes
to the same thing, the attitude which we should take with regard
to it). The physiological basis of this relation is the attitude
itself. Feeling is the consciousness of this attitude. On the con-
trary, sensations give us only the objects with regard to which we
should take an attitude. In the cases of internal sensations, as
those of hunger, of thirst, of fatigue, the object which they give us
is our own body. It is through the relation to its own state that our
body can take a certain attitude. We understand that we have
here a very intimate relation between internal sensations and
feelings, since they have this in common that they both have
their source in our body. But this does not prevent us from
distinguishing them very well from the functional point of view.

138 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

They are opposed the one to the other, as a reaction is opposed to
the object which has aroused it.

I have spoken about the fact that internal sensations correspond
to our needs. What is the internal sensation of kinaesthetic
nature, such as tension or relaxation, excitement or depression,
which Wundt regards as of an affective nature? To my mind, the
same observations can be made here that I have made just above.
These phenomena are, on the one hand, sensations, or, on the
contrary, feelings, according to the context in which we examine
them. When we examine them in themselves, as states of the
organism, they are sensations, objects, which can be agreeable or
disagreeable. When we examine them as dependent on the situa-
tion which arouses them (an exciting situation, or one calling for a
lensiori, etc.), they become feelings. In other words, considered
? as evaluated objects, they are sensations; considered as instruments
of evaluation, they are feelings.

MENTALIZATION OF AFFECTIVE PHENOMENA

In everything discussed above, I have taken the point of view of
psychophysical parallelism. However little satisfying parallelism
is, perhaps, from the point of view of philosophy, it is none the
less the only position tenable by psychology which would be based
on biology.

Although parallelism forbids us to set ourselves the question of
the usefulness of consciousness as such, it does not prohibit us
from setting the problem of the becoming conscious of mental
phenomena. This becoming conscious, like the loss of conscious-
ness of a phenomenon, is a purely empirical question. From the
point of view of parallelism, indeed, an organic phenomenon
accompanied by consciousness differs from a purely automatic
phenomenon. To the fact of being "conscious" corresponds a
special physiological process. Let us suppose (a rough hypothesis
to fix our ideas) that this special process should be a cortical proc-
ess. We could ask ourselves why, in certain cases, a process which
has not been cortical becomes, at a certain instant, cortical (i.e.,
why a process which has not been conscious is, at a certain
instant, the object which has been seized by consciousness).

I formulated some years ago in the following way the law of
becoming conscious. 4 "The individual becomes conscious of a
relation the more tardily as his behavior has earlier and longer
implied the automatic (instinctive, unconscious) use of this
relation."

4 Archives de psychologic, XVII (1918), 71.

ED. CLAPAR&DE 139

One can, to simplify the language, call this change from the
unconscious to the conscious of a given phenomenon mentalization.

It is necessary to say one word here about the menialization,
the capture of consciousness, of affective phenomena.

The function of affective phenomena is a function of regulation.
This regulation consists in the attitudes which the organism takes
with respect to the stimuli (internal or external) which reach it.
But we can ask: Since these attitudes are of instinctive nature,
why are they conscious? Why do they not all take place in a
purely automatic fashion? Why this mentalization of affective
phenomena?

Of course, we can readily imagine an automatic regulation and a
purely objective valuation of stimuli; we establish this in a large
number of organic processes of assimilation, nutrition, secretion,
digestion, etc., where substances are selected, rejected, received
all this in a purely instinctive and unconscious manner. But the
point in question here concerns those functions which are accom-
plished in a uniform manner. Mentalization has evidently for
its function the enabling of the individual to cope with new
circumstances.

The mentalization of affective phenomena has the same source
as the mentalization of other psychological phenomena, namely,
sensations (which one can also imagine acting under the form of
purely physical stimuli). I cannot enter here intQ this interesting
question. Becoming conscious seems to be the result of a mis-
adaptation before which the individual finds himself. In the face
of new circumstances his habitual automatisms no longer adapt
him, and then it is necessary that he should "be conscious " of the
situation in order to be able to adjust to it by new means. In the
work of readjustment the mentalization of affective phenomena has
evidently the advantage of permitting a comparison of the values
considered, of associating feelings with certain representations, of
establishing certain concepts (as danger, kindness, etc.), of grant-
ing, in a word, to thought its exercise of a role of anticipation of
movement. Feeling has, for conduct, a functional value analogous
to that of meaning (concept) : it is an instrument of adjustment.
But there are still many obscure points to elucidate in detail.

I have been able in these pages only to touch on the large
subject which was proposed. I hope that I have shown by some
examples the fruitfulness of the functional point of view applied to
feelings and to emotions.

CHAPTER 10

A FUNCTIONAL THEORY OF THE EMOTIONS

D. T. HOWARD

Northwestern University

The first unambiguous statement of a functional theory of
the emotions with which I am acquainted was made by John
Dewey in two articles appearing in the Psychological Review in
1894 and 1895. 1 In 1895 S. F. McLennan advanced a similar
theory as an independent discovery. 2 Although the functional
theory has had some currency in recent times, it has not, I am
convinced, attracted the attention to which by reason of merit
it is entitled. I propose in this paper: (1) to restate the theory in
its most elementary form; (2) to develop certain of its implica-
tions; and (3) to suggest how, following the lead of this theory,
we may discover an experimental approach to the study of the
emotions that holds promise of profitable development.

First, then, to state the theory. I am going to borrow for this
purpose the language of J. R. Kantor, who, in the second volume
of his Principles of Psychology? gives us an excellent presentation
of the functional theory exclusively, of course, in terms of be-
havior. I would not be understood to subscribe unreservedly to
all that Kantor has to say about the emotions, but his identifica-
tion of the emotional states seems to me essentially sound.

"Emotional behavior," he tells us, "consists essentially of interruptive forms of
action stimulated by rapidly changing circumstances and in all cases involves
various slight or intense general organic and visceral processes.

"Probably the most obvious observation made in studying emotional conduct
is that the primary occurrences in such action are the confusion and excitement
which disrupt the behavior that ordinarily takes place when the emotion-exciting
stimulus appears. When we attempt to describe the specific characteristics of
an emotional act we are profoundly impressed with this condition of disrupting
chaos and inhibition of action. We may look upon the emotional person as one
who is practically paralyzed for a moment; he appears to undergo a dissociation
of his reaction systems, so that he remains powerless and helpless until his re-
sponses are reconstituted. This reconstitution may be superficially described
as a refocussing of the person toward some definite object. Essentially, emotional
conduct is a momentary condition of 'no response,* since there appears to be a

1 "The Theory of Emotion," Psychological Review, I (1894), 55S-569; II (1895),
13-32.

2 "Emotion, Desire, and Interest: Descriptive," Psychological Review, II (1895),
462-474.

8 Chapter XVI, pp. 1-25.

D. T. HOWARD 141

complete cessation of all directed responses to surrounding conditions. In point
of fact, it is this disruptive chaos which definitely distinguishes the milder emo-
tional activities from the numerous classes of affective or feeling behavior to which
they otherwise display a striking resemblance.

"In detail, it might be pointed out that emotional conduct consists of a definite
type of failure to perform an expected form of adjustment or adaptation upon the
basis of surrounding conditions and the individual's reactional biography or
previous behavior history. Whenever it is possible for the person to make the
expected or necessary response to the stimulating condition, there is no emo-
tional disturbance."

Now a theory of this type, presupposing as it does an organism
in process of adapting, and a stasis or disruption of the adjustment
activities as the occasion of emotion, is intelligible only in the light
of evolutionary conceptions. The organism, an individual entity,
must be able to adapt itself to the changing circumstances of its
environment if it is to preserve its integrity of life and action. We
find, accordingly, that organisms which survive and prosper and
secure for themselves the fullest range of action and mastery are
quick and discriminating in their adaptive reactions, resourceful
in the face of difficulties. So much is elementary. But the
theory has still another implication which is too often neglected.
A distinction is to be made between two types of adaptive reac-
tion. There is a form of organic adaptation brought to its
highest perfection in the social bees and ants which is reflex,
routine, automatic, or predetermined by habit patterns in the
nervous system. There is another kind of adaptive reaction that
is plastic, built up to meet the peculiar requirements of novel
situations, essentially creative and spontaneous. No psychologist
may call himself a functionalist who has not grasped the reality
and the significance of the latter form of adaptive reaction.

Dewey first insisted upon this distinction, and its implications
have been developed by many of his colleagues. Permit me to
quote briefly from the writings of B. H. Bode.

"Is that noise, for example, a horse in the street, or is it the rain on the roof?
What we find in such a situation is not a paralysis of activity, but a redirection.
The incompatibility of responses is purely relative. There is indeed a mutual
inhibition of the responses for hoof -beats and rain, respectively, in the sense that
neither has undisputed possession of the field; but this very inhibition sets free
the process of attention, in which the various responses participate and cooperate.
There is no static balancing of forces, but rather a process in which the conflict
is simply a condition for an activity of a different kind. If I am near a window
facing the street, my eye turns thither for a clue; if the appeal to vision be elimi-
nated, the eye becomes unseeing and cooperates with the ear by excluding all
that is irrelevant to the matter in hand. In this process the nervous system
functions as a unit, with reference to the task of determining the source and
character of the sound. This task or problem dominates the situation. A voice
in an adjoining room may break in, but only as something to be ignored and shut
out; whereas a voice in the street may become all-absorbing as possibly indicating

142 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

the driver of the hypothetical horse. That is, the reason why the conflict of re-
sponses does not end in a deadlock, but in a redirection, is that a certain selective-
ness of response comes into play."

When the individual confronts a situation to which he is not
habituated, to which no pre-organized response is forthcoming,
the internal conflict or disequilibrium that results immediately
arouses a secondary, indirect process by which the stimulus is
reconstituted, the disorganization overcome, and a response
prepared that is suited to the occasion. Such secondary, recon-
stitutive activities are what we know in humans as mental, con-
scious, or attentive processes; they are non-habitual, creative,
emergent. In calling these processes secondary, I mean that they
involve the preparation and guidance of reactions, and do not
themselves involve direct responses to stimuli. Perhaps, also,
the statement that they occur upon occasion of the failure of
automatic and habitual responses may mislead some into sup-
posing a real disjunction between the secondary and primary
activities of the organism. It is probable, on the contrary, that
the secondary processes are constantly operative, in waking life,
to maintain the organism's equilibrium of action. For the sec-
ondary or consdoiis. ..processes are just the equilibrium-main-
taining activity of the organism itself. -

The functional theory would hold, then, that emotion occurs
upon the occasion of the disruption of these secondary, reconsti-
tutive activities. A conflict is set up with which the equilibrium-
maintaining process is unable to cope, and unity of thought and
action is lost. Let me illustrate. I, a greenhorn, walk one bright
and balmy day through the woods and suddenly meet with
a large grizzly bear. The perception of the bear begets, first of
all, an impulsion towards response. But, as common sense has
it, I "do not know what to do" I have no habitual modes of
response to uncaged grizzlies. The organism is thrown out of
equilibrium. A secondary process of adjustment starts up, but
explodes under the impact of conflicting reaction tendencies. A
disruption occurs I "go to pieces," "lose my head," and am "un-
able to pull myself together" or "collect" myself, and stand
trembling and helpless with fright. But old Leatherstocking, an
experienced woodsman, meeting a grizzly under similar circum-
stances, calmly sizes up the situation, and reacts effectively. He
is so habituated, and has such resources in the way of response
patterns, as to be able to devise a new mode of response, if old
ones will not serve, to meet the needs of the situation.

All of the grosser emotions can obviously be similarly described.
Rage, for instance, is a state of disruption. The individual "flies

D. T. HOWARD 143

to pieces," quite literally. He finds himself in a situation to which
he cannot adapt himself effectually, which baffles his efforts at
control. His mental processes disintegrate under the effort to
secure adjustment. In the resultant state of confusion reflex
or habitual responses, under the impact of accumulated energy,
may fly loose and get out of control too often with disastrous
results, as every prize fighter knows. Anger is thus a sign of fail-
ure, an evidence of maladjustment.

In the disruptive state called emotional the victim can be
said, in one sense, "not to know what to do." The bear is too
much for him. He has no ready-made responses to draw upon,
and too little resource in the way of reaction patterns to enable a
reconstitutive process to build up an appropriate response. From
another point of view the victim can be said to think of too many
things to do. For, upon sight of the bear, he tends simultane-
ously to yell, to climb a tree, to run away, to throw a stone, to
grasp a club, and what not. All of these impulses seek motor
expression, get jammed in the process, and the result is a state of
discoordination. Accompanying this disruptive condition we
have those strange visceral and vegetative phenomena commonly
recognized as characteristic of the emotional condition. I will not
attempt any account of them, since they have been described by
many competent investigators.

Some years ago, in an effort to make an objective experimental
study of the mental processes, I constructed a rather elaborate
apparatus and designed a series of studies from which we secured
some results that seemed to us highly interesting. Some of them
were not at all anticipated. It was my desire to create for the
subject problematical combinations of stimuli, to which he could
not have been accustomed by practice, and to which he could not
respond in habitual modes. The subject was to react to visual
stimuli by pulling levers and pushing pedals. He sat on a stool
before the apparatus. At the level of his hands were five long
levers, numbered from left to right, 1-2-3-4-5. His feet rested
each on a pedal, the left pedal designated A, the right B. In a
slot before him, in large type, appeared combinations of the signals
B-4-1-2, A-5-B-4-3-1, and the like. He was to respond by
manipulating all at once the designated levers and pedals.
Immediately upon the completion of a correct response a new
signal appeared in the slot, and it was the subject's task to react
to a series of 24 such signals in the shortest possible time. The
reaction apparatus had one notable advantage: it called for
extended visible bodily movements, which could be very readily
observed and studied.

144 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

In this experiment we have an individual confronted by novel
stimuli, arid can observe him in the act of reconstituting the
stimuli preparatory to making his responses. The mental process,
at the perceptual level, of course, is rendered amenable to analysis.
The secondary process of reconstitution is visible in the tentative,
groping movements of the hands, in the movements of the eyes, in
the play of the musculature of the body, in the movements of the
lips, and in the furrowing of the brow. It is as if the coordinating
activity which we so often think of as confined to the brain
alone, although it never is so confined had been suddenly pro-
jected into the whole organism, and there enlarged upon, as the
activities of amoeba are magnified under a microscope. This
experiment, properly conducted, will convince the most skeptical
that our mental processes are activities of a secondary and in-
direct type, involving a discriminative reaction upon the stimulus,
an inner process of coordination, and the preparation of an ade-
quate response. The preparation of responses, the building-up of
the reactions that are to emerge, can be seen as actual operations.
The results of our principal studies by my colleagues, Miss Phyllis
Bartelme and Professor S. N. Stevens, have not yet been published,
but I am hopeful that Professor Stevens' report may soon be in
print.

We made one discovery that came as a surprise to us, for it
was found that the subject of the experiment frequently lost co-
ordination completely under the stress of the conditions imposed
on him. The preparatory process would get under way and
suddenly disintegrate. It is the kind of thing that often happens
to people when learning to drive automobiles. The individual
"gets rattled," "loses command of himself/' and works his con-
trols at random, in a flurry of blind excitement. We observed
many instances of such loss of control, in our experiments, before
it occurred to us that these states were emotional in character.
We had unwittingly verified the functional theory of the emotions.

I do not propose to magnify the importance of the emotional
states thus produced. The states which we observed were tran-
sient the individual soon recovered his poise. None the less
they had all the characteristics, objectively and introspectively
considered, of true emotions. The signs of anger, embarrassment,
and frustration were unmistakable. We are now trying to develop
the reaction experiment with the specific object of inducing emo-
tional states that can be observed, and have good reason to expect
success. Every experimentalist knows that it is difficult to produce
genuinely emotional states in the laboratory subject. The reac-
tion method here suggested may prove a valuable instrument of

D. T. HOWARD 145

research. I would anticipate two conditions as essential in the
use of the method: (1) the reaction must be highly complex; (2)
it must be performed under high pressure

I am not prepared to report on the results of our studies of the
emotions, for these were tentative and preliminary in character.
But I would like to touch upon the theoretical implications of
certain of our more assured observations, since they bear strongly
upon our whole doctrine of the emotional states. In this discussion
we turn to the introspective part of our studies, for we have not
hesitated to ask our subjects for observations on what they them-
selves did and what they experienced. I must first acquaint you,
then, with what we called the "blur" for lack of a better name.

It has been said that the mental processes are reconstructive,
having the function of reconstituting stimuli and preparing re-
sponses. It was our expectation, therefore, that the conflict or
uncertainty visible in the subject's movements would be experi-
enced by him as a vagueness or haziness on the side of the senses.
The stimulus as it first appears is unclear and inadequate; the
motor reactions incipiently started are confused. In what form
was this uncertainty actually experienced by our subjects? We
found that it appeared in a variety of forms which we called
" blurs." Many observers reported kinaesthetic blurs actually
experienced in arms and body. Some reported concrete visual
fogs or hazes. Let me quote some rather unusual reports of this
kind. "There was a definite grayness before me," one subject
reports, "as I sought to discover the stimulus. The stimulus
seemed to clear up through this gray haze, each part becoming
definitely meaningful." Again: "Even those first stimuli, simple
as they were, just worried me; that is the only word I can use for
it. Why, I could not always see the signals, and I was looking
right at them. They come and go just as though they possessed
some freak capacity. " These are instances of actual visual blurs,
reported by competent observers. We had many observations on
kinaesthetic blurs, which were frequent and typical. Other blurs
might be called intellectual, since they had to do almost exclusively
with meaning vision and kinaesthesis remaining under control.

Our observers reported, also, that the blurs, concomitant with
the initiation of the reconstitutive process, cleared up, sometimes
suddenly, sometimes gradually, as the adequate response emerged.
This was to have been expected, since it is precisely the function
of the attentive or reconstructive processes to make things clear
to remove blurs. We secured introspective evidence, very defi-
nite in character, to show that the final formation of the response
was attended by a heightened feeling of clearness, as if light had

146 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

suddenly been let in upon a state of obscurity. " When the blur
dissipates," one observer told us, "the feeling of relaxation is
quite marked." Another said, "The feeling of uncertainty and
the lack of clearness passed away when the stimulus was seen in
its true relationship, and I was prepared to respond. "

I wish now to advance the thesis that in the emotional state,
in its true form, what is experienced is an enlargement and irradia-
tion of the original blur. Introspectively, as well as objectively,
emotion is a state of disruption. All the sensational, imaginal,
and affective elements of the experience are exploded out of their
natural patterns, are confused and mixed and meaningless. Some
theorists maintain that organic sensations are the characteristic
elements in the emotions; others emphasize the feelings. Intro-
spection upon genuine emotional states will, I am assured, in the
light of our studies already made, show that none of the sensational
or affective elements are definitely in the focus of experience, but
that, on the contrary, experience is without focus or margin, a
confused and scattered state of consciousness. The affective
tones which introspectionists describe or try to describe are
probably present in all of our experiences. But in the emotional
state they are confused and dissipated, and the affective tone of
the emotional state if it can be called a tone is one of blarik-
ness and lostness; a condition in which the thousand colors of
feeling lose all definiteness and are mixed indiscriminately in
the star-dust of general psychical confusion.

DISCUSSION

PROFESSOR HUGHES (Lchigh University): Mr. Chairman, the statements that
we have just heard read, it seems to me, refer to one class only of what are gen-
erally classed as emotional disturbances. It seems to me that we have plenty of
evidence of another class of human responses, human activities, which we can
hardly deny are emotional, but which, so far from being blurred, are the clearest
and the most effective responses that human beings make. Dr. Stratton, in a
recent article, has drawn attention to the experiences of an aviator, who, however
great the stress, thinks with unusual clarity. The literature of the world is filled
with illustrations of that type. Just why it is that psychologists neglect that type
of experiences it would be interesting to consider.

You will recall how Plato defines the act of creative imagination. He does not
think the best work can be done in a condition of high excitement.

Perhaps some of us are familiar with Oliver Wendell Holmes's account in The
Autocrat at the Breakfast Table of how it feels to write a poem like "The Chambered
Nautilus." At the same moment the man is in a great state of excitement, stunned,
thrilled, and so on, to read his adjectives still he receives things with clearness,
a clarity which is unexampled in his experience.

Francis Galton, in speaking of the greatest geniuses, men of the highest imagina-
tion, insists on that great emotional quality in their work. Side by side with
energy and intelligence he puts what he calls zeal. The emotional factor in human
behavior he looks upon as necessary. That is, as the poet says, the fine frenzy of
doing.

D. T. HOWARD 147

Until we find what it is that is common in those two types of emotional activity,
I do not think we can proceed so far. Why is it that so many psychologists think
that an emotionally disturbed state of mind is one in which we are confused? Of
course, if it is a matter of definition and we want to say that emotional states are
states in which the image is blurred, let us say so. But we are overlooking a de-
partment of human behavior that is as important as anything, the work of the
minds of the highest quality of creative imagination who seem to be practically
unanimous in their treatment of emotional states. So I think I am compelled to
reject Dr. Howard's theory of emotional behavior.

DR. HOWARD: There are a great many experiences, such as the one described,
that have at various times been called emotional. I certainly do not want to in-
terfere with the examination of any of these interesting experiences. The states
that I have called emotional states are confused states, states of blur. I think the
other states ought to be studied, too, but it seems to me their nature is different,
just as their description is different.

PROFESSOR McMuLLEN (University of Kentucky): I would like to ask what the
connection would be between what we call latent intelligence and the tendency
of emotion to be disturbed? What is the connection between those two: tenta-
tive or emotional reaction and the strength of the intelligence?

DR. HOWARD: I can see some kind of connection between the two things all
right. Assuredly a person who has a character or a make-up that tends to break
down constantly under strain can do intellectual work only under the most favor-
able conditions. Certainly the operation of the intellect would be greatly hindered
in the case of a personality that was dissociated or that constantly tended toward
disassociation or disruption, and emotional disturbance after all is just a break-
down of personality temporary break-down of the kind that we often find perma-
nent in abnormal cases.

DR. REYMERT: It occurs to your Chairman that the question from Professor
Hughes has been given at least one intelligible answer, worthy of note: namely,
by Bergson, in his treatment of "intuition."

DR. HOWARD: I do think that those states of experience in which things stand
out clearly and are perceived clearly, in which memory is clear, and in which there
seems to be a general uplift of one's whole conscious life, are undoubtedly very
interesting. Just what their condition is I am not sure. I am certain that they
are not disruptive states. I should say they are the opposite of disruptive. That
man has these splendid high moments in life is true, and he must be completely
integrated for that moment in order to experience them. The gentleman spoke
of a case of clear perception, clear memory, where the person was working under
a strain. Well, clarity of memory or clarity of perception are not emotional
necessarily. They carry an affective tone with them secondarily, but to be able to
see clearly is not to have an emotion. But in general I think those fine high mo-
ments of life, which we all experience more or less, come to us when we are inte-
grated, when we are most of all ourselves, most completely in command of ourselves.

PROFESSOR THOMPSON: In support of Dr. Hughes, I would like to ask this
question: Is it not the biological and physiological purpose of emotion to protect
the person rather than to confuse him?

DR. HOWARD: I have always been interested in that question, as to the value
of emotional states, and the conclusion to which I come is that they have absolutely
no value at all, but represent a defect in human nature. I cannot see any other
conclusion you can come to.

DR. CANNON (Harvard University) : I studied a short time ago a large number
of bodily changes that occur in times when emotions are expressed by lower ani-
mals. I spoke of a redistribution of the blood in the body, a rapid heart, a dilation
of the bronchia, a liberation of sugar from the liver, a discharge of adrenalin from
the glands. Now every one of those changes are directed at least, they are

148 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

serviceable; I will not say that they are directed in making the organism more
effective in the struggle. If an animal is enraged, he is likely to attack. If he is
frightened, he is likely to run. Whether one is to be the attacker or the attacked,
or whether one is the pursuer or the pursued, work must be done by the big skeletal
muscles. And perhaps it is a great and lasting struggle. To say that these changes
in the body, all of which are serviceable for struggle, are defects, is going against
physiological investigation and examination, it seems to me.

I can account for both of the situations which have been developed this after-
noon, the clarity and the confusion. It seems to me that there are parts of the
central nervous system below the cortex in which all of these emotions have their
pattern have their natural expression. If the cortical inhibition is removed, the
expression is intense intense to the highest degree. If the cortical control is still
there, there is a conflict between the natural discharge of these inpulses and the
control from above. Under those circumstances there would be hesitation, there
would be confusion, there would be no clear integration of the organism in its re-
sponses to influences from the outside. The moment that release comes from the
cortex and the lower centers have full sway over the body, obviously the clarity
would appear.

James had to confront this matter. It was complained by those who opposed
his theory that there was an emotion when no work was being done, that there was
an emotion when there was no bodily change occurring. I do not think James
met that very well, because he had to assume changes were taking place, and he
said there were tensions that were not ordinarily observed. You do not have to
do that. There are operations going on in these lower states which are discharging
upward to the cortex, but which can discharge down lower in the motor mechanism
because the cortex holds control. You see we have a conflict. The moment that
conflict is resolved by the release to the lower centers of the higher centers, the
bodily centers are integrated and the whole process runs off smoothly, and then
occurs what James claims did occur under these circumstances, which directly
contradicts what the last speaker said. James declared that it was in the expres-
sion of the emotion and not in the confusion that the emotion was felt.

DR. PRINCE (Harvard University) : There are certain things to explain the inter-
pretation that emotions are serviceable. That is to say, when an intense emotion
occurs there is a tendency to dissociation of all other processes that are not
serviceable for the moment to carry out the adaptation of the person to the situa-
tion. In an attack of intense rage, for example, not only is there the discharge of
the visceral currents that Dr. Cannon has described and worked out, but there is
a discharge that inhibits all other mental processes, so that there is only one focus
of intention, there is only one object, one point of view, to which all behavior is
directed, and all conflicting behavior or conflicting emotions are inhibited and
rendered unconscious. That is the situation as we find it from observation any-
way, whether it is serviceable or not. That is to say, if there is a conflict between
anger and love, and occasionally that occurs between man and wife, if the husband
or the wife arouses that anger, it discharges in the body emotions of that sentiment.
Every other point of view, every other conception of the other party, every other
emotion that is presented, is inhibited. There is a large number of data derived
from abnormal psychology, where the emotion has dissociated the personality,
as to that one factor at least, even to the extent of creating a second personality
and affecting the defense reaction. Anger is, in one sense, a defense reaction, and
when we have the defense reactions, they are serviceable because they direct
all of the activities to that point. It is a question of the interpretation of the
phenomena.

DR. WILM (Boston University): The conception of the emotion as a predica-
ment has seemed to me to be very attractive. I do not see why we should call it
a theory. It is a way of regarding an emotion rather than a theory. It affects

D. T. HOWARD 149

those emotions which are disagreeable and upsetting rather than the agreeable
emotions the emotion of predicament. Therefore I went through this list of
emotions to see how many are disagreeable and how many are pleasant and agree-
able, and I found the describers give a very large number of disagreeable and
unpleasant emotions, and a few agreeable. Nevertheless, the predicament is not
quite so obvious in the agreeable. However, there are situations, as in excesses of joy
where one is beside himself and so happy that he does not know what to do, which
will show the emotions of predicament. And whether beyond those agreeable
emotions, whether beyond the predicamentive sort there are things we should
call emotion, I suppose is more or less a matter of definition. At least a good many
of them can be there cared for. I see no contradiction between outcomes of emotive
states, such as have been noticed, the clearing out of the muscles, the removal of
fatigue products, and the predicament. I do not think it has been shown by the
physiologists, but those combining outcomes are common. They are present.
Even there, however, as Dr. Cannon said a little while ago, it is doubtful whether
the autonomic and visceral changes are residuent in the emotion and belong thereto,
because they occur without emotion. But even if they are integral to the emotion,
I see no contradiction in conceiving the emotion as a predicamentive state, which
may, notwithstanding, in its ultimate outcome have certain benefits in certain
cases for the organism.

DR. HOWARD: I would like to say just one word. I agree thoroughly with
what Dr. Cannon said, and I think there is no real disharmony when I said that
emotion had no value. I meant the disruption itself had no value. I say the
extreme gross emotional states have no value.

CHAPTER 11

EMOTION AS A DYNAMIC BACKGROUND

KNIGHT DUNLAP

The Johns Hopkins University

In my title there are three words the meanings of which are
uncertain. These words are: emotion, background, and dynamic.
No one can predict what anyone will mean by these words, until
they have been scrupulously defined. Even with the most careful
definition and explanation I could give, many persons would prob-
ably understand me to use them in senses radically different from
those of my definition. It would be better in some ways if I made
substitutions for these terms, using the common symbols for
unknown quantities, so that the title should read "^Y as a Y Z"
But even then, there would come a moment at which the listener
would say: "Oh, yes, by X you mean an emotion." And then
he would proceed to refer everything I might say about X to an
emotion as he understands the term, regardless of what I mean
by it.

I must confess that a great deal of what is said about emotions
passes over my head. It is probable that the psychologists who
discuss this topic are talking about something* and I am willing
to admit that they are; but if so, then that "something" is some-
thing in which I am not interested, except as a matter of folk
lore and mythology. Hypogriffs, satyrs, nymphs, djinn, and all
the other creatures of mythology, of course, are something; and I
am afraid that the emotions most psychologists talk about belong
with them.

It is supposed that psychology deals first of all with facts, and
second with the laws or principles in which these facts are bound
up. Admittedly, the laws or principles are tentative, that is,
more or less hypothetical; but, if hypothetical, they are hy-
potheses about facts. The assumption is that before one can
legitimately build a hypothesis he must first establish the facts it
is designed to fit. But of recent years I have begun to wonder
whether psychologists are really interested in facts at all. Arti-
facts, or concepts, or conjectural facts seem, at any rate, to interest
them much more.

I have been asked recently, "What is a fact?" And I can
answer that question. A fact is either an object, a relation, or.

KNIGHT DUNLAP 151

an occurrence. Here is a grain of corn. That is an object. I
heat it and it pops open. The heating and the popping are series
of occurrences. The corn may be said to be bigger than another
kernel; it differs from a kernel of a different variety. These are
relations. Are there any other kinds of facts? If there are, they
have not been demonstrated.

Now, relations involve something else, usually objects, although
there may be relations between relations. But in these cases
the relational complexes always go back to relations between
objects. An occurrence always involves objects. Hence all
factual matters go back to objects.

The dependence of the psychology of perception and of thought
on objects has long been recognized. We start our investigations
by defining, or pointing out the objects of perception, and we
accept the scholastic dictum that all thought depends upon per-
ception, that we can think only of what we have perceived. That
this recognition leads to the creation of a class of clumsy myth-
ological objects (sensations and images), does not alter the case.
These fictions were created in a well-meaning but unfortunate
effort to adhere to the principle that there can be no perception,
no thought, without objects. We have discarded sensation and
images only because they are fictitious objects, and we can
better refer our perceptual and ideational processes to the real
objects of the world in which we live and move and have our being;
these objects, on the other hand, we no longer confuse with the
mathematical symbols and formulae of chemistry or physics by
which we must represent them. For such reality as the physicists'
and chemists' objects have is pretty well understood to be derived
from the real objects of perception.

The so-called emotions of the psychologist (and the so-called
feelings also) remain, however, in the world of myth. They are,
so far as I can understand, neither objects, nor occurrences, nor
relations, but mystical entities, concerning which a mass of
mystical speculation has grown up. These are not the emotions
of which the unsophisticated man speaks. They have the same
connection with reality as the hypogriff, the demon, and the
entelechy.

When the plain man speaks of fear, rage, or grief, he apparently
has reference to some facts moreover, to facts which are, or
can be, experienced (and experience is an occurrence, and an
undisputed fact). If these emotions are facts, they must be
either objects or occurrences "in" objects. (I omit the con-
sideration of the possibility of their being relations between
objects, for the sake of saving time.) If they are objects, where

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

are they? How can we demonstrate them? If they are occur-
rences, where are the objects in which they occur?

I shall not attempt to consider the answer that objects or
occurrences are parts of the brain or occurrences in the brain.
This might have been argued forty years ago, but would merely
bore you now. One might as well discuss the question whether
the observed grain of pop-corn is a part of the brain, and whether
the popping is a brain occurrence.

Scientific psychology assumes brain changes, and change in
other parts of the organism as well, as the "basis" of experiencing
an object or occurrence. But in the field of perception it assumes,
in the terms of our modern response hypotheses, that there is an
object or occurrence outside of the central nervous system which
initiates the response of perception. The principle of parsimony
impels us to extend this same principle to emotion and the ex-
periencing of emotion. If we actually experience an emotion, the
emotion is something demonstrable; and it is something capable
of being a stimulus pattern. If it is not, then we are talking in
fables, and we should stop discussing emotion in psychology.

Now, Jarnes and Lange more or less clearly faced this problem
and suggested the answer. Actual conditions and occurrences in
the viscera, and in certain parts of the soma, are manifestly capaBte"
of serving as stimulus patterns, and can be experienced. "TIere
are demonstrable facts, which might be what we mean by emo-
tiOns. Since no one else has even remotely suggested any other
groups of facts which could be indicated by the term, the problem
is really this: Shall we agree to call these experienceable visceral
(or visceral and somatic) occurrences, emotions? Or shall we re-
ject these, and apply the term to vaguely mystical entities, in
which we may happen to believe? The scientific attitude in this
dilemma is clear. We must deal with the facts, and let the fictions
alone. The only further question is whether we have a right to
use the term emotion for these facts, or shall we find a new term
and give over the term emotion to the mystics?

Towards the answering of this question, the speculative and
analytical work of James and Lange was really directed. It is not
a question of the psychological importance of visceral changes. It
is solely a question of whether we shall name them emotions. The
work of subsequent investigations, analytical and experimental,
has been partly directed toward the same end, and in part to the
more definite understanding of just what these visceral changes
are. The issue was somewhat clouded by the reappearance of the
James-Lange theory in what was supposed to be a new form;
namely, with emphasis on the anatomical branches of the nervous

KNIGHT DUNLAP 153

system involved in the visceral response. This so-called "auto-
nomic" theory, however, is merely an anatomical elaboration
of the James-Lange theory or, as we should rather term it, the
visceral hypothesis of the emotions.

The experimental work has had the following program. We
establish conditions in the animal such that, in popular usage of
the terms, certain emotions are said to be present. We then try
to determine what visceral or somatic occurrences are essential
to these conditions. Having established these, we then ask, per-
haps: Shall we call these occurrences emotions, or perhaps
elements, parts, or features of emotions?

Such experimental work is necessarily slow, and we have but
begun to cultivate it. The results, however, are all encouraging.
No phenomena appear, so far, which tend to make it impracticable
to call these occurrences emotions (or feelings). In addition, we
are deriving some information as to the nature of the processes
thus named. For example, the work of Cannon, perhaps the most
significant thus far, indicates that the emotions which would be
commonly classed together as "exciting" do really have a common
element. While it is not finally certain that this common element
is the important one, the finding of this community in emotion
which would be, by simple observation, classed as closely allied,
or largely identical, is distinctly encouraging to the visceral view.
Moreover, our suspicion that emotions are not distinct entities,
but complexes of many variables shading into one another, there-
fore in many dimensions, is strengthened.

I have spoken of objects and occurrences as demonstrable. By
that I mean that they are capable of observation in various ways,
and in particular by those methods, indirect though they may be,
called physical and chemical. We would not be satisfied as to the
reality of an apple which could only be seen, not touched, unless
the light wave from it could be registered photographically. We
would not be satisfied with the reality of a smell, unless chemical
tests showed the presence of a stimulus. We would not be satisfied
with the reality of movement of an object, an occurrence, unless
that movement could be registered. In the same way, we should
not be satisfied with any object of experience unless it is capable of
physical or chemical registration. The "emotions" of which too
many psychologists and most physiologists talk are not facts of
this kind. Hence, I have no interest whatever in them. The vis-
ceral occurrences are demonstrable. Hence, when I use the term
emotion, I mean these things. This is the final demonstration.

One more point, and then I am through with this part of my
discourse. The physical method does not register the yellow of the

154 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

unpopped kernel of corn, nor the whiteness of the popped corn.
Only the optico-neural mechanism of the animal organism can do
that. Neither does the physical and chemical examination of the
visceral changes register the peculiar "quality" which is experi-
enced as an emotion. But the concomitance is the same in the two
cases, and the methods of demonstration are identical. I am not
denying, necessarily, that there may be "imaginary" colors: color
phenomena not capable of physical registration. The possibility
of "imaginary" emotion, therefore, is also open. This problem is no
more important in the affective experience than is the visual, and
is not the point at issue in my discussion.

I may now pass to my second term, dynamic. I am well aware
that this term too has mystical implications, and seems to apply,
in the discussions of several psychologists, to frankly mystical
conceptions. I am using it, however, in a strictly mechanistic
sense.

By dynamic, I mean simply having the characteristic of re-
leasing or affecting responses terminating in muscular activity.
On our current response hypothesis, which is the basis of what I
have named scientific psychology, the effective activities of the
organs, muscular and glandular, are in large part due to neural
transits beginning in the stimulation of receptors. Any stimulus
or stimulus pattern is therefore dynamic, since it brings about, or
checks, these activities. By calling emotions dynamic, I am merely
emphasizing the fact that they are stimulus patterns. The only
demonstrable stimulus patterns which we could rather uniformly
designate as emotions are the visceral ones.

Here we are breaking no new ground. The importance of the
emotion as a stimulus to action, as initiating certain types of re-
sponse, as greatly intensifying certain responses, as powerfully
inhibiting others has long been recognized. The psychologists
paid little attention to this, so long as they dealt with the dream-
world of fictitious "psychic" content. Now that we have de-
scended from the clouds to deal with facts, we are forced to face
this aspect of emotion. But so long as our emotion is a mystic
entity, our conception of the effects of the emotion is a mystical
one, tied up with superstitions of psychic energy and animistic
purposes. As soon as we accept emotion as a visceral occurrence,
the conception becomes scientific. Vast numbers of receptors are
stimulated by visceral changes. The stimulus to any movement is
not merely the stimulus pattern imposed on the receptors of the
external senses, but the total pattern of these and the somatic and
visceral pattern. Any response is the outcome, not of a limited
external pattern, as we unfortunately figure it in many of our

KNIGHT DUNLAP 155

textbooks, but of the total pattern. Emotions, therefore, partici-
pate in the determination of all our responses at all times. The
dynamic aspect of emotion is of enormous practical importance,
and merits our experimental consideration.

I come now to my third term, background. Here I am using a
term which is definitely metaphorical. I am implicitly likening
the total stimulus pattern to the limited visual pattern. Just as
the totality of objects in the visual field is integrated into a pat-
tern, so the total of visceral occurrences and external objects
and persons affecting the external sense is integrated into a pat-
tern. But in these patterns we recognize the fact of dominance.
Dominance is a concept which is hard to define, but we are more
and more using the term in psychology and physiology, and its
general significance is fairly definite.

In more conventional terminology, we may point out that, in
the visual field, certain details "stand out" or are " focal," while
the remainder are the "background." What I wish to emphasize
by the use of this figure is that in normal life the emotions are the
general background, against which external objects appear. This
is, of course, a psychological commonplace. I wish to point out
certain problems it implies.

1. Why is an emotion different from an external object? Why
should we set these occurrences aside from all others of our expe-
rience? Why not speak merely of the "visceral sense" as one
speaks of the visual sense, the auditory sense, etc.?

2. Is emotion always and necessarily "background"? If not,
under what conditions can it become "focal"?

3. Can external objects and occurrences reverse their normal
relations, and become "background" for the visceral processes?

The answers I would suggest to these questions come from
the consideration of the popular use of the term "feeling" in
two different ways. It is applied to emotional concepts and proc-
esses on the one hand, and to tactual and kinaesthetic on the
other. Most texts treat this confusion as a merely vicious one,
and explain it as an unfortunate popular lapse to be corrected.
On the contrary, I think it is highly important and significant.

If there is a peculiarity of visceral occurrence of visceral sense
which sets it off from external perception, then it would seem
probable that somatic sensitivity, including kinaesthetic and
dermal, would occupy a place intermediate between the two.
This I believe to be the case. Visceral content is normally "back-
ground." External content is normally "foreground." Somatic
content is normally integrated with the background, but may
from time to time emerge into the foreground, or even into the

156 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

focus. Our emotions, in other words, are normally not visceral
alone, but include, more frequently than not, the somatic, even
the dermal factors.

On the other hand, it is observed that at various times large
parts of the external world are as much a part of the background
as are the visceral factors. There is thus no organic division, no
anatomical one, of perception from feeling. The distinction is one
of integration.

As a possible illustration of the change from foreground to
background of the external content, I suggest observations on
music. The movie houses furnish the conditions for this. Un-
doubtedly, most orchestral noise in the movie houses is an irrita-
tion and a distraction. But occasionally, the movie is really ab-
sorbing and becomes focal, while the music becomes a part of the
background, as urianalyzed and undifferentiated as the visceral
processes commonly arc. In such cases it may be valuable addi-
tion to the total pattern. Is this because it stimulates certain
emotional processes? Perhaps. But is it not itself in these cases
a part of the emotion? I suspect thai the answer to this is largely
an arbitrary one, depending solely on how you chance to employ
and define the term.

Consider, now, the problem of whether the whole group of
external contents may become background, against which the
visceral contents become foreground. In such a case, would we
say that the external world is our emotion, or would we say the
emotion has become focal? Again, a terminological matter. But
it is important to consider the possibility of the integrative re-
versal, for I have a strong suspicion that this is exactly what is
occurring in certain types of psychopathic patients. This is
another problem which well merits investigation.

What I am trying to point out is that, on the visceral hypothesis
of emotion, there is no divine peculiarity of the visceral processes
themselves which sets them off as emotions in contrast with the
external world rather, that it is a peculiarity of the habitual
pattern of integration which is responsible. Why inCegratioh
nSrifirstJty takes this pattern type, we may not be able to explain
in full, but we can make a good guess. The constancy of presence
of the visceral factors (auditory and visual stimuli may come and
go, but our guts are always with us) and the difficulty of spatial
analysis on account of the enclosure of the organs are, no doubt,
contributing factors. But I suspect that the most important
reason is a combined hygienic and motor one. The visceral proc-
esses work the better, the less we attempt to attend to them, and
our attention is needed for control of our environment. (By

KNIGHT DUNLAP 157

attention I refer to the type of dominance in integration.) The
introspective person is morbid, that is, in an unhygienic condition,
and is also inefficient. The outdoor life demands a minimizing of
introspection. The sedentary life permits introspection because
of the lessened demands of environmental adaptation, and hence
it facilitates morbidity. Routine has the same effect. The
visceral contents are emotions because mankind has to integrate
in that way in order to live effectively.

DISCUSSION

DR. PRINCE (Harvard University): There should be a great deal of discussion
on this paper. There are one or two points about which I would like to speak and
have further elucidation from Dr. Dunlap. But before doing so, I would like to
cite this: I like very much his point of view, his critical and analytical approach,
and his examination of the grounds. It is said that London University was founded
for those who were not willing to accept conclusions until they had examined the
ground upon which they were based. I think that Dr. Dunlap's stand is that. He
wants to examine the grounds. But there are one or two points which arc not
quite clear to me, and on which I wish he would elucidate a little further.

I cannot understand why, under his definition of a fact, he does not accept
emotion as a fact, that is to say, as an occurrence, and define a fact as an occur-
rence; and if he admits emotion at all, why doesn't he accept that as a fact? If he
accepts emotion as something or other, why isn't it just as much an occurrence as
a pain would be? I have a pain now. Or we will assume it. I may not present
evidence to you that I have a pain. I know very well that I am subconscious of
it. It may not appear to you but I know it perfectly well. Now to me, if I had a
pain, it would be a serious fact, and I would class it as an occurrence. Dr. Dunlap
was using thoughts. Weren't they facts? I don't see exactly why he takes that
position.

Now, what sort of facts they are is a different kind of proposition. And so,
another point that I want to bring out. As I understand Dr. Dunlap, he quotes
James and others as holding the fact, and also himself adopts the fact, that the
emotion is the visceral change. I never understood that James said they were
the visceral changes. As I understand that theory, it is the awareness or conscious-
ness of the visceral changes. The bell rings when the visceral changes take place.
To identify emotion with the visceral changes seerns very much like identifying
my perception of the locomotive with the locomotive. But they are two different
things. I do not quite understand identifying emotion with a physical change
unless you are an idealist. But those points I cannot help but refer to. I think
they should have more elucidation.

I also wish that Dr. Cannon, who is here, would tell us something of his experi-
ments bearing upon these things.

DR. CANNON (Harvard University): I was very much interested in the em-
phasis which Dr. Dunlap laid on the visceral changes. Also 1 was interested in
what was said about the relatively small number of visceral changes that had
been described as a consequence of the experiments carried on in the Harvard
laboratory. After we had shown that there was a stoppage of the movements of
the stomach and the intestines, a liberation of sugar from the liver, an acceleration
of the heart, a liberation of adrenalin from the suprarenal glands, a dilation of the
bronchia, and other physiological changes, Dr. Humphrey said that Cannon had
brought so many facts to bear in support of the James-Lange theory that it was
very extraordinary that he thought he was arguing against it.

158 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

The point that Dr. Prince refers to, I think, is this. We found that the same
sort of change occurs in the viscera whether the animal shows signs of aggression
and attack or signs of retreat and attempts at escape. We have interpreted these
two different sources of behavior as of the nature of rage or anger or fear. Those
are two experiences which we testify to, at least to each other, as being very dif-
ferent experiences, and yet, so far as the changes in the viscera are concerned,
they are very much alike. It is hard to see how you can differentiate such emotions,
such different emotions as these, on the basis of phenomena that are so alike as
the visceral changes in the two.

More recently we have found that the same changes occur when the animal
is exposed to cold, when the animal is given an injection of dead bacteria and has
fever; also when it is given insulin and the blood sugar drops down to about half
of its amount. The viscera have the same changes in all these various conditions.

And in the last three conditions I have mentioned there is no emotional state
that results from the change. Furthermore, a Spanish investigator who admin-
istered insulin in large doses to numerous persons, well and ill, recorded their
testimony. Adrenalin brings about in the body the same physiological changes
that are wrought by the activity, the impulse, of the sympathetic division of the
autonomic system. What did these patients testify? They did not have feelings
of emotion. They said they felt edgy, they felt as if they might have an emotion;
they had what Meringian has himself called a cold emotion. It was as if they were
sitting by and watching something going on, but the emotion as such was not
testified to by these persons.

Again, if the viscera are so important as elements of the emotional experience,
as a basis for the emotional experience I may say that James specifically laid a
greater emphasis on visceral changes than on the changes of the skeletal muscle
if they are so important, it seems to me peculiar that we are not conscious of
peristaltic changes that are passing through the stomachs of you who have enjoyed
a good lunch, of the rhythmic contractions in the small intestines, and of the
pouring out of bile or the pancreatic juices. All of these visceral changes had to
wait for myriads and myriads of generations for observers to be prepared to look
into the body and find out what is going on there.

We know of only about one-tenth as many afferent nerves as motor nerves,
but the situation is altogether different in the spinal nerve trunk, in which the
afferent nerves are more numerous than the motor.

These evidences seem to me may be put together as making out a very strong
case against the reverberations, the returns from the sounding board, to use
James's expression, as a source of emotional quality.

As I have pointed out, the observations of Henry Head indicate that the afferent
nerves from the skeletal muscles are likewise not a source of affective states of
feeling at all.

What is there left? We have going on, in the lower part of the brain, processes
of a pattern character. That they are of a pattern character is shown by the
fact that they establish patterns. When a person weeps he is displaying a very
different skeletal muscle pattern from that which he displays when he is angry
or when he is glad and laughs. The external pattern is indicative of an internal
pattern.

We know, furthermore, that this part of the nervous system works with
extraordinary intensity if it is only released from inhibition.

It seems to me that, in this region where such patterns arise and play their r61e
in establishing external forms of muscle settings, all you have to assume is that
the impulses which are started there outward toward the periphery also affect
directly the conscious states or send impulses up to the cortex, where they are ex-
perienced as a conscious state of the feeling character, and that these feelings are
added on to the experiences which we have as a consequence of the stimulus of

KNIGHT DUNLAP 159

external objects. The feeling-tone is obtained from the lower part of the brain
and not from the periphery.

DR. DUNLAP: I will say with regard to Dr. Morton Prince's questions, if I
gathered them correctly, that what I was trying to show was that I accept the
emotion as an occurrence, and, when I try to find out where it is, the only thing
I can find is something in the viscera. I was accepting it. That is what I was
trying to do.

With regard to James and Lange, it is true that James never accepted his own
theory in a full way, and not only held on to psychopathic parallelism, but he also
reserved a whole lot of spiritual feelings that he was not willing to subject to the
gross bodily condition. You know we have a feeling that our stomachs and in-
testines are low and vulgar. Curiously our brains, which biologically are not so
very superior, we do not think degrade our feelings.

With regard to Dr. Cannon's remark, I want to say my paper has had exactly
the effect I had hoped it would have. I shall not attempt to answer Dr. Cannon
(I will say that I cannot) but I do feel I am not going to burden you with a lengthy
argument here but I do feel that Dr. Cannon's results are rather in favor of the
visceral theory than against it. The old theory which Descartes proposed, that is,
that the afferent currents produced the intellect and the efferent produced the
passions of the soul, James thought Miinsterberg had knocked out. Apparently
James was wrong.

There are many points of argument on that basis. We do have these patterns,
muscular and glandular. How are they going to register? Is it a double-handed
affair? Or is it experience of the same type where a stimulus pattern introduces
a response which ends in another pattern, but in which we experience the stimulus
pattern but not the terminal pattern? I am for the sake of parsimony trying to
make our theory which works for perception also work for emotion.

Now, with regard to the many points that Dr. Cannon has brought up that
I shall not take time to argue -I do not say I can answer them I think that the
matter of interpretation of results is sometimes a thing we want to keep distinct
from the results themselves. The uniformity of results from uniformity of visceral
conditions in certain of what we call emotional states is a thing I would have pre-
dicted on the basis of the James-Lange theory. These emotions with which Dr.
Cannon works are exciting emotions. They are much more alike than they are
different. We expect to find the similarities first. I say I do not believe that they
produce anything. I do not know that adrenalin had anything to do with the
case. But where we expected to find overwhelming agreement, we find similarity
in that respect. Out of that adrenalin test I think Dr. Cannon himself has some
discussions on that point which will clear that matter up.

So with regard to the numerousness of the visceral receptors. That is an
important point we must consider. With regard to the few or many types of vis-
ceral process that can be identified with something emotional, that again is some-
thing about which we cannot say we have exhausted all the possibilities there are.
Dr. Cannon himself will say that. There is still a great deal more to be found with
reference to the ductless glands, with respect to the tissues, with respect to other
conditions. I am not attempting to answer Dr. Cannon. I cannot do it, but I
think there is a strong point there that can be brought out in more detail.

I want to say this. I value my hypothesis, as I said in the beginning, as sug-
gesting experimental means of attack. There has been suggested to me a method
of approaching facial expression that I had never thought of before. I had not
thought of it until I got this old visceral theory. I hooked it up in intelligent
shape to myself and it occurred to me there are certain details of expression of
what we popularly call emotion or feeling of various types that ought to be
more characteristic to the muscles surrounding the mouth, which belong to the
feeding system, than to the muscles around the eyes, which do not belong to that

160 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

system. There is something in the theory. I tried it out. My results are interest-
ing. I have some more stuff on that line that is also going to be interesting. The
only defense I am going to make to that theory is that it can suggest interesting
things to try out in our laboratories.

DR. WILM (Boston University): The most sensational part of Dr. Dunlap's
paper to me at least was the denial that emotions or feelings are facts. Now, it
seems to me that that is a highly debatable statement. To my mind, to deny
that the pain I feel from the pin-prick is not a fact, and a fact distinguished, for
example, from the fact of sensation, seems to be a highly untenable and absurd
proposition. There are some theories, like behaviorism, that are so intrinsically
absurd that only the most learned men may hold them. I may add two very
elementary remarks about the reason why emotions and feelings might possibly
not be regarded as facts, in the sense at least that they may not be dealt with as
legitimate objects of scientific investigation. The first consideration would be
that the emotion, as opposed to the antecedents and the consequents of the emo-
tion, is not an object of common observation. And, in the second place, the
emotion as distinguished from the condition of the physical correlates of emotion
and the physical accompaniments. They are not susceptible of exact correlation.
Those are patent facts. But it does not seem to me that those facts would enable
one to deny the existence of the emotions as facts.

I think it would be well to refer to Hume's discussion of causation in this con-
nection. It does not seem to me that we have to do more than to note a rough
correlation between the antecedents and consequents, in order to recognize the
emotion not only as a fact but as a cause. It is undoubtedly true, if you are satisfied
with the causation in the relation of antecedents and consequents, that there is
a cause relation between emotion and the physical antecedents of emotions and
any physical consequents which they may have.

DK. DUNLAP: What I was trying to show was that emotions were facts, and
any attempt to make anything of them other than facts is necromancy. A man
says he has a pain in his toe. As a fact I want to find that fact in his toe. I am
afraid I cannot find it in the sphere in which Professor Cannon wants to find
it. As far as that goes, I was trying to demonstrate the thing which my critic
demonstrates.

CHAPTER 12

CAN EMOTION BE REGARDED AS ENERGY?

MORTON PRINCE

Harvard University

Let me begin by saying that in bringing this question before
you I do not intend to dogmatize or lay down any final conclusions.
Rather what I want to do is to invite discussion of the problem of
emotion and energy as one that needs full and open-minded con-
sideration. For, to my way of thinking, it is one which lies at the
root of a number of difficult problems of emotion and particularly
that of the part it plays in the mechanism of instincts (if there be
instincts) and in many mental processes such as inhibition, re-
pression, and conflicts, and consequently in behavior in general.

"Can emotion be regarded as energy?" I quite well realize
that this question is one at which psychologists tend to look ask-
ance and balk like timid, nervous colts. They like to put it aside
as a disagreeable one for they scent an unpleasant trail that is
likely to lead them to epistemology and concepts which cannot be
reduced to tabulated correlations of objective data so dear to the
present-day psychologist. If he can only correlate something and
present us with figures embellished with plus and minus signs in
expensively arranged tables (I speak with the feelings of an editor),
he feels he is entitled to enter at least the porticoes of objective
science and perhaps will be permitted to sit down on equal terms
with physicists and chemists and other fortunate devotees of exact
methods. It does not matter much what he correlates, or how
much energy he wastes, as long as he correlates something.

The concept of emotion as physical or psychophysical energy
involves consequences of serious import. It must be obvious that
it makes a radical difference in the validity of some of the theories
of emotion, and also in our interpretation of the part it plays in
the mechanism of the emotional reactions of the organism, whether
they be regarded as instinctive or not.

If, for instance, it is energy, a Cartesian concept by the way,
then plainly it needs no argument to show that it does not play
the r61e of "passive sensory receptions" of visceral functions (to
use a phrase of L. H. Horton's), as the James-Lange theory holds,
but its discharge must of itself determine behavior of some kind.

Likewise, again, in the interpretation of behavior as response to a

162 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

stimulus, emotion, if energy, cannot be regarded as an epiphenom-
enon correlated with neural reflexes, as behaviorists would have
us believe, but must be a factor in the neural discharges affecting
motor and other responses, whether it be only by exploding or
releasing those discharges or providing the energy for them.

Nor, in the responses of those innate inherited mechanisms
characterized by emotion call them instincts or not, as you
please can emotion, if energy, play the passive part of an epi-
phenomenon; it must do something; and it is logical to infer that,
as a discharge of energy, it provides the drive for the response of the
mechanism to the stimulus. And, if such be the case, emotion
would have to be regarded as a discharge of psychophysical energy
along neural pathways. This does not mean that those particular
units of energy, alias emotion, must or would as such traverse as
waves, or some other kind of motion, the neural pathways. They
might transmit their energy to efferent neurones, i. e., be trans-
formed into neural energy, just as in the world of physics and
chemistry mechanical energy is transformed into electrical, ther-
mal, and chemical energy, or electrical energy is transformed
into neural and magnetic energy (light, radio, and other waves).

Aside from these considerations I would point out that the
serviceability of emotion to the organism becomes much more in-
telligible by this concept of emotion and energy, for if, per contra,
emotion is nothing but a conscious correlate of a neural discharge
of energy, or if only a passive sensory awareness of visceral activity,
as many maintain, one may well ask: "What is the good of emo-
tion? 'What price emotion' if the physiological neural discharge
accomplishes everything is the whole drive? Why could we not
get along perfectly well without emotion, without anger, or fear,
or any other feeling, even if we were only automata?*'

But, granting all this, if you are willing to do so, the real ques-
tion is : What facts have we for the concept that would identify
emotion with so-called physical energy? Facts we have but their
interpretation is not easy, and positive conclusions, perhaps, are
not justifiable.

In the first place, we know that with the excitation of emotion
there is a discharge of energy of some kind in different directions.
That is a demonstrable fact. There is the discharge to the viscera,
to the heart, and to the suprarenal glands, for instance. The dis-
charge to the heart could be measured in foot pounds by recording
the increased work done by that organ. The discharge to the
suprarenal glands might well be measured by weighing the in-
creased quantity of adrenalin poured out into the blood stream.

The discharge to the voluntary muscular system could also be

MORTON PRINCE 163

reckoned in foot pounds by measuring the increase of work done.
And so with other effects of the discharge. Whether such dis-
charges of energy have their source in the emotions is another
question is the question at issue. It is the simplest explanation
and we are forced to ask, why not?

In the second place, the discharge of energy occurs apparently,
i. e., so far as it is possible with our present technique to determine,
synchronously with the occurrence of the emotion and continues
as long as the emotion persists. In other words, the stimulus that
sets off the discharge of neural energy synchronously excites or
at least conditions the emotion.

Now if it can be safely assumed that the occurrence of emotion
is synchronous with the discharge of energy, then this fact gives
a knock-out blow to the James-Lange theory. For obviously as
emotion, according to this theory, is the "passive sensory recep-
tion" awakened in consciousness by the visceral activities follow-
ing the discharge, the emotion must occur still later and follow
the visceral response. But if emotion is synchronous with the
neural discharge, it must precede, not follow, the visceral response.
We could not say with James that "we are pleased because we
laugh " or " are sad because we weep, " because we would be pleased
or sad before we laughed or wept. (As a matter of fact, by the
way, a hysteric may laugh without being joyous and weep with-
out feeling sad.)

On the other hand, if emotion be a pure, luxurious epiphenome-
non, enabling us only to enjoy the pleasure or pain of an expe-
rience without in any way determining our response to a situation,
it presents nothing incompatible with the fact of occurring syn-
chronously with its correlated energy-discharge. So synchronism
is an important problem awaiting solution.

As an epiphenomenon, however, it would seem to be a perfectly
useless, in a biological sense, phenomenon, as abhorrent to evolu-
tion as a vacuum is to nature. But, it may be argued, this is not
true. It may be that emotion as an epiphenomenon may be
serviceable indirectly to the organism in warning it of danger or
pleasure in the present situation, or in one to r come. In that case
it might correspondingly in some obscure way originate the stimu-
lation of habit neurograms or patterns of response that will avoid
the danger or secure the biological advantages of pleasure. In
this sense it would be comparable to a fire-gong sounding an
alarm that brings the firemen, or a theater-gong that between the
acts advises the audience smoking cigarettes in the lobby that the
pleasure of a new act awaits it. But would not even such a
stimulation function be equivalent to the discharge of energy?

164 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

There is another fact that must be considered though how
much weight should be given to it is not wholly clear. It cer-
tainly has some significance. We all have a feeling that passion
moves us, that it energizes our thoughts and our bodily actions.
We have a consciousness that emotion and feeling activate us.
This conscious experience is a fact; its significance is another
question. The expression, "I was moved by emotion," or "I was
overwhelmed by emotion," "I was driven by emotion," is on
everybody's lips, meaning moved or overwhelmed, or driven by
emotion as a force or an energy. It is the interpretation of "com-
mon sense." Common sense, of course, is a dangerous criterion.
As a test it is unreliable for it is quite likely, as we all know, to
be fallacious. Yet it may be right and sometimes is more likely
right than some new-fangled, far-fetched theories of schools.

In this case, the testimony of consciousness and common sense,
if it can be shown not to be contradicted by demonstrable facts,
acquires some weight as evidence. And I think we must admit
that there are no demonstrated facts that contradict the evidence
of consciousness, even if it be insisted that there is none which
supports it.

It is not without bearing on this point that the notion of
"energy" and "force" is derived, as I shall presently insist, from
our conscious experience of exerting force, from our conscious-
ness or feeling of exerting energy. If it were not for the reality of
this consciousness of force, whether it be delusion or not, in all
probability the term would never have come into being; some other
term would have been invented by the physicist though it is
impossible to guess what it would have been. He derives his
concept of energy as something that moves and does things and
causes things to happen from his conscious experience of that
which, as it seems to him, moves his muscles and energizes his
whole being.

At any rate, the conscious experience of passion energizing us
as a force is a fact though its interpretation and significance may
be in doubt.

But how reconcile the concept of emotion as energy with the
physicist's concept of energy? Emotion, the psychologists and the
plain man in the street recognize as a state of his consciousness,
but if it is of the order of consciousness how reconcile it with the
physicist's conception of energy, or rather identify it with his
energy, a physical term which is to say, with what the physicist
means by energy? Here is an apparent paradox.

Well, what does a physicist mean by energy? It is not going
too far to say that he has nothing in mind, if by energy is meant

MORTON PRINCE 165

a concrete entity of a specific nature and quality, like the ether,
or electromagnetic waves or mass. It is only a concept which he
postulates as an entity to explain why and how things happen.
To be sure, he measures and weighs it and tells us what quantity
of kinetic energy is involved in the appearance and disappearance
of motion. But how does he do this? He does it by measuring
the motion and mass moved, as when, for instance, he measures
the energy of a great turbine engine by measuring the motion
and mass of things moved, etc. the product of the motion times
one-half the mass. Then he tells us such a quantity of energy
was used derived from the coal and expended in motion. He
even tells us that mass itself is energy, and makes us a bit dizzy
by his formula which now becomes : quantity of energy is motion
times one-half the energy!

If asked what energy is, he does not pretend to know or even
care to know. It is not necessary for him to know. In fact it
cannot be known by his objective methods. It belongs to the
unknowables of physical science. But, as I have already pointed
out, the concept is derived from conscious experience and may be
said to be an anthropomorphic term. Things happen as if there
were an entity called energy. But the physicist will tell you that
it is none of his business to determine wheat it is. It is none of
his job.

Is it the job of the psychologist? Can he say that it is none
of his business, if it is true that the physicist derives his ter-
minology and concept from psychology, and if it is an entertainable
hypothesis that emotion is a certain kind of energy, that the two
can be identified? Isn't it his job to explain how this can be?
I leave it to you.

This brings us back to the remark I made at the beginning about
psychologists' fighting shy of the question, feeling that it will lead
them astray out of the beaten path of objective methods. But
if the notion of emotion's being energy is entertainable, I submit
it becomes the business of psychologists to examine what is meant
by physical energy and inquire how the apparent paradox of emo-
tion's being like mechanical, electrical, and thermal energy
a form of this postulate of physics can be explained; that is, ex-
plain how they can be one and the same thing. And this would
seem to be the business of the psychologist, as emotion is a psy-
chological event and energy a psychological concept. For without
the concept of energy of some kind behavior cannot be explained.

The need of this inquiry is further forced upon us, as the answer
may make all the difference in the world in our understanding of
those fundamental psychological problems about which there is

166 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

much present-day debate, and which we are called together in this
symposium to discuss.

In lieu of an extended discussion of the paradox in question I
will content myself with stating my own conception of the answer
to the problem.

The postulate of physical science of an entity called anthro-
pomorphically energy is, by all the criteria of matter, immaterial.
Its nature is unknowable by the objective methods of science. It
is inferred from and postulated to explain the happenings of the
so-called "physical world"; it is only known, therefore, by its
manifestations or behavior by what it does. It is known from
without, not from within.

As kinetic energy it manifests itself in many forms as mechani-
cal, electrical, thermal, chemical, etc., and perhaps neural energy,
and each may be transformed into another form. Many of its
forms, it is agreed, are the resultants of the complexities, colloca-
tion, combination, number, arid organization of its units. The
present thesis is that psychical energy is another form.

Kinetic energy is only known through its manifestations, among
which are the motions of electrons and of coll cations of electrons
(atoms, molecules) and electromagnetic ether waves. But the
most advanced and philosophical physicists tend to regard elec-
trons not as little lumps of something called electricity, but as
units of energy itself and as such, of course, unknown in their
inner nature. Under this concept the whole universe is this mys-
terious, unknown, immaterial energy.

Now according to our thesis emotions may be conceived as
emerging as consciousness out of energy in either one or two ways.
(1) They may be discharging complexes of units of energy asso-
ciated with the electrons of the highly complex atomic structure of
the nervous system. That is to say, the discharges emerge (by
the principle of "emergent evolution") as emotion because they
are the energy itself energy from within not as observed from
without, of the extremely complex organization of enormous numbers
of units of neural energy. Observed from without they would be
known only by what they dp. Or (2) we can conceive that kinetic
afferent neural energy, being immaterial^ becomes transformed
into its like, immaterial psychical energy, which in turn, as a link
in the chain of events, becomes transformed into immaterial
efferent energy, thus conforming to the physical law of the trans-
formation of energy.

That which is the unknown and unknowable by the objective
methods of science emerges as the known of psychology, as states
of consciousness. This, of course, is monism.

MORTON PRINCE 167

The only alternative hypothesis is dualism and parallelism,
that is to say, epiphenomenonism and human automatism.

But emotion as an epiphenomenon would be as useless to the
organism as the steam whistle, to borrow Huxley's famous phrase,
is to the working of the engine. It would be only a symbol in
consciousness of what was happening without power to control,
direct, or determine behavior, or at best its serviceability would
be limited like a fire-gong, if the emotion be fear, to warning of
danger, a signal to "look out*' for fire but without power to direct
how to put it out or escape. Here we stand between two concepts
or hypotheses, both of which we find difficult to reconcile with
conscious experience.

The difficulty with the first is that our modes of thinking are
so horribly and incorrigibly concrete that we find ourselves handi-
capped in conceiving physical forces as immaterial, as anything
like the psychical, and therefore as comprehensible as an entity
out of which anything like emotion or other state of consciousness
can emerge; or, as an alternative, though the psychical be force,
how physical force, even if it be immaterial, can be transformed
into the psychical as a link in the chain of events to be transformed
again into the immaterial physical.

The difficulty with the second is that it is irreconcilable with
conscious experience and common sense that tell us we are some-
thing more than physiological automata, and that emotion moves
us, determines our behavior, and is not an epiphenomenon nor
only a symbol in consciousness of neural processes.

Yet between these two hypotheses we must choose.

Which hypothesis is the more probable I submit for your con-
sideration. For my part, I lean towards the first.

For one thing, it escapes the difficulty, if not impossibility, of
constructing emotion and feeling out of sensory elements as the
James-Lange theory requires, but it assumes they are definite,
psychical states in accordance with the commonly accepted
conscious experience of ages a possibly debatable postulate.

I have avoided speculation as to the locus of origin of the psy-
chical energy, whether at the central brain receptors of sensory
stimuli, or at the central motor outlets (synapses) to efferent paths,
or in a special locus of pattern neurones in the thalamus or cortex
in accordance with the very beautiful experimental studies of
Cannon. The first two localizations are purely speculative.

Wherever it may be, the hypothesis enables us to form a con-
structive notion of the serviceability of emotion and feeling to
the organism and the part they play in behavior. "Step on it,
step on the gas, " you tell your chauffeur. And he steps on the

168 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

accelerator, and your machine springs forward with increased
energy. "Go to it," you tell the young man who has undertaken
a job. "Go to it," the coach tells the athlete the track runners,
the football team, the crew and each and all step on the accelera-
tor of their emotions and spring with revitalizing energy, power, to
their task of beating their rivals. Without turning on the energy
of their emotions, what a listless game they would play ! But they
step on the accelerator only when increased power is needed, yet
at all times the throttle is partially open, just enough to supply
sufficient energy to keep the wheels of activity going and to help
in doing the everyday job.

The mechanism by which the throttle of emotional energy is
thrown wide open or closed is another problem, but in the or-
ganization of sentiments as worked out by Shand and McDougall,
we have at least an adequate arrangement. The linkage of ideas
to the emotional dispositions (that is, to the innate psychophy-
siological mechanism of which emotion is the central energizing
factor) to form sentiments would provide a serviceable adequate
device. According to this theory of sentiments their driving power
is derived from some such linkage of the emotions. When, then,
the coach exorts his team to "go to it," he calls into being, stimu-
lates, a sentiment of one kind or another, one of winning, and the
emotional energy of that sentiment supplies the needed power.

It is not necessary for me to point out how this conception is in
line with McDougall's theory of instincts so far as they are "prime
movers of human activity." Unless emotion and feeling are
energy his theory would, it seems to me, have little weight.

William James, with that almost uncanny insight, a sort of clair-
voyance which enabled him to see into commonplace things some
meaning which escaped those of lesser vision, called attention to
the "reserve energies of men." It was just a commonplace fact
until he touched it with his imagination, when it became an in-
triguing mystery.

The mystery disappears if emotion be energy. Under certain
conditions men are known to perform feats of strength and en-
durance of which they are incapable in everyday life. They seem
to tap a reserve of energy ! I think that in such conditions it will
be found that they are in an emotional state of exaltation, or
ecstasy, or some sort of state when all inhibitions of emotion are
dissociated, cast off, and the throttle of energy is thrown wide
open allowing the driving force of emotion full play.

Other fruitful applications of the hypothesis as well as elabora-
tions of its details could be given if time permitted. As it is, I
leave it here as a useful concept to explain human behavior, com-

MORTON PRINCE 169

parable to that which physical science makes use of to explain
the universe.

DISCUSSION

UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: I should like to ask Dr. Prince upon
what theory he says energy is an anthropomorphic term.

DR. PRINCE: In the first place, energy is a concept that was used in psychology
and philosophy long before it was used in physics, I take it as far back as Aristotle.
In the second place, I think it is a generally accepted fact by all the physicists
certainly by all the physicists with whom I have spoken, and I was only recently
speaking to one of our most distinguished mathematicians and physicists that
it was derived from conscious experience. If you stop to think about it, what does
the physicist see in the electron? He sees, if there were such a thing as that,
something like that which I feel. That would account for it. I think it is generally
accepted by every physicist and every psychologist that I have talked to.

MR. X: May I ask how you would relate the theory to Keith Lucas' theory of
all or none?

DR. PRINCE: First, I will say it is something I had not thought of. Secondly,
I do not think it alters the situation under observation. We now conceive of the
discharge of neural energy, only we do not identify it as an emotion, and you
have to ask the same question with reference to neural energy, whether it conforms
to the all or none theory. I do not think it alters the thing at all. If it is compatible
with the theory of energy, it would also be with this.

CHAPTER 13

FEELING AND EMOTION AS
FORMS OF BEHAVIOR

ALBERT P. WEISS
Ohio State University

INTRODUCTION
Changes in Psychology

I believe we all agree that the fundamental assumptions of
psychology are changing. Man is being studied not only (a) as
an organism that reports mental states, but also (6) with respect
to the biological and social conditions which make him a partici-
pating unit in a social organization. These two points of view
may be distinguished as (a) mentalistic, introspective, experi-
ential, or literary, (6) as the biological-sociological. 1
""The systematic difference be*twefcn the two lies in the fact
that the mentalistic approach leads to philosophical 2 or meta-
physical discussions; the biosocial approach leads to social,
statistical, biological, chemical, or physical discussions.

In order to throw the two points of view in strong relief against
each other let me present them in contrast. A definition of
psychology stressing the mentalistic set of fundamentals is given
by Bentley (1925): "It (psychology) seeks to describe and to
understand experience and the activities of the total organism
in which experience plays an essential part" (p. 15). As repre-
sentative of the biosocial set of fundamentals, I give the following:
"Psychology studies those movements of the individual from

1 For linguistic convenience I shall use the term "biosocial" for the compound
word biological-sociological, natural-evolutionary, or merely scientific.

2 The philosophical categories are inadequate for psychology because they are
the remnants of classifications of human behavior which were developed before
neurological observation had made it possible to describe human behavior. Phi-
losophy represents the unanalyzable complex linguistic responses which are sub-
stitutes for personal and tribal taboos, social, political, and religious practices whose
origins are lost in antiquity. For those who lack the scientific and particularly
the biological training that makes human behavior comprehensible, outworn racial,
national, and class shibboleths have been synthesized into an ambiguous, but
more elegant, terminology which is more acceptable than the cruder popular
superstitions. In practice philosophic discussions lead to heterogeneity in classifi-
cation, scientific discussions to homogeneity.

ALBERT P. WEISS 171

infancy to maturity which establish his social status in the social
organization of which he is a member."

According to Bentley the psychological problem is largely that
of describing human experiences (whatever we may mean by this
term) . I do not mean to be facetious in the use of the parenthetical
phrase. I believe the phrase is necessary because there is not
sufficient agreement among psychologists as to just what is to be
included under the term. For any given writer, however, it is
usually possible to formulate a reasonably clear statement. Bent-
ley, for instance, indicates what he would include as follows:
"In experience, for example, appear tones and noises; and as they
appear the organism is affected in a specific way and at a particular
place by the vibratory movements of the air. These vibratory
movements (a part of the physicist's world) affect experience
only by way of the ear; more exactly stated, by way of the auditory
receptor or sense organ in the inner ear" (p. 33).

According to the biosocial position "experience" is merely a
name for our acquired responses. It is an open question whether
the study of human behavior (as opposed to the study of human
experience) will replace the mentalistic conception. For the
present it is only necessary to differentiate the two sets of funda-
mental "doctrines," mentalistic and biosocial psychology. 3

3 In earlier writings 1 have used the term "behavioristic" instead of hiosocial.
When, among others, I first began using the term behavioristic about twelve years
ago, I used it as the biologists and zoologists use it; as a description of the activities
of an organism. Within the last few years, however, it has acquired an entirely
different meaning in psychology. That there is a profound change taking place
we may all admit, whatever we may think about the permanence of the change.
But this change is not as sudden or of the same nature as the flare-up of "behavior-
ism" in popular psychology. As with biology, psychology is getting farther and
farther away from the position assigned to it by philosophy and is taking a place
intermediate between biology and sociology. For a time it perhaps will be neces-
sary to distinguish this transition by a name. I have suggested the term biosocial.
This would have been unnecessary had the term behavioristic retained the sci-
entific meaning that it has in animal behavior. Unfortunately psychology is not
yet scientific enough to have a generally accepted system of fundamental assump-
tions. We may as well admit this. When we get these, and this is a problem for
all of us v we can dispense with both the terms mental and biosocial. There will
be only one approach to the study of human behavior. When there is only one
approach we shall not need to characterize it any more than it is now necessary
to distinguish the scientific approach to physics and chemistry from the older
approach of alchemy. Biology is still struggling with a "vitalistic approach,"
but in America at least the biochemical approach is now regarded as almost self-
evident.

172 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

Does Psychology Need a Different Set of Fundamental
Assumptions?

The introspective method isolates psychology from the bio-
logical and social sciences, and we may ask whether it is possible
to substitute fundamentals 4 which will place psychology in the
system of the natural sciences without losing whatever the intro-
spective technique has to contribute. I believe we must plan our
experiments in such a way that it will be possible to weave our
results into the fabric of science as represented by physics, chem-
istry, biology, and a social science which studies statistically the
biological and environmental conditions under which human
institutions arise.

To be more specific, Titchener (1908) defines feeling "as mental
processes of the same general kind as sensations, and as mental
processes that might, under favorable conditions have developed
into sensation" (p. 292). Meyer (1908) defines feeling as, "the
(nervous) correlate of pleasantness and unpleasantness is the
increase or decrease of the intensity of a previously constant cur-
rent if the increase or decrease is caused by a force acting at a
point other than the point of sensory stimulation" (p. 307).

These two statements of the concept of feeling rest upon entirely
different fundamental doctrines. Professor Titchener rests his
analysis upon a mentalistic foundation, Professor Meyer upon a
biological foundation. We may ask which set of assumptions will
best meet those requirements which are recognized as inherent
in scientific method. Simply stated, cannot what is included under
the term mind or experience by psychologists and writers in general
be more clearly described under a set of non-mentalistic assump-
tions? Suppose we begin with a shorter review of the problem of
feeling as represented by traditional psychology.

THE PROBLEM OF FEELING
Contradictory Views of Feeling

Lagerborg (1906) regards a feeling as a weak and unlocalized
sensation. As soon as its intensity is increased it can be localized
and is then called a sensation. There are three classes of feeling:
unpleasantness, pleasantness, and common feelings. The corres-
ponding sensations are pain, the sexual sensation, and visceral or
kinaesthetic sensations. There are probably special pleasure and
pain nerves in various parts of the body which may be stimulated

4 I have outlined such a set of postulates in my A Theoretical Basis of Human
Behavior.

ALBERT P. WEISS 173

in two ways : (a) mechanically and (6) chemically by the nutritive
processes in the tissues. Heightened metabolic processes produce
pleasantness; lowered metabolic processes produce unpleasantness.

Titchener (1924) regards pleasantness and unpleasantness as
elementary processes of a different sort from sensations and
images, the main difference being that feeling cannot be made the
object of direct attention. In combination with organic and
kinaesthetic sensation, pleasantness and unpleasantness produce
sense feelings of six types : agreeable and disagreeable, the exciting
and subduing, the straining and relaxing. He does not offer
specific biological correlates, nor does he regard feelings as causes
in the modification of behavior. "The explanation of action," he
says, "is to be found in the determining tendencies of the nervous
system and not in the motive force of feeling" (p. 258).

For Marshall (1894) pleasure indicates the expenditure of sur-
plus stored energy whereas pain indicates an expenditure of energy
larger than the possible supply. As mental correlates Marshall
(1908) proposes psychical elements of the nature of pain and
pleasure.

Stumpf (1906) regards pleasantness and unpleasantness as
sensations. Unpleasantness is merely a slight degree of the
sensation of pain. Pleasantness is a slight degree of that sensation
which in its greatest intensity results from stimulation of the
sexual organs, and of which intermediate degrees are given the
name of tickling and, somewhat stronger, itching. As the nervous
correlate of pleasantness and unpleasantness Stumpf assumes the
existence of the algedonic pain nerves suggested by Marshall.

The distinction between pain and unpleasantness is clearly
brought out by Professor Calkins in her very apt illustration, "It
is unpleasant, for example, but not painful, to mistake an ice-
cream fork for an oyster fork at a dinner party" (p. 71). As
a neural basis for pleasantness and unpleasantness she proposes the
nutritive conditions of the cells in the frontal lobes. Pleasantness
occurs when the nervous discharge passes over well-nourished
cells; unpleasantness when it passes over fatigued cells.

Pikler (1900) raised the question which has now become domi-
nant in psychology, namely, what is the selective factor in changes
of behavior? He holds that all organic life may be regarded as a
mechanical process in one definite direction. This process, which
is about identical with the vegetative life of an animal, depends for
its continuance on the impressions made constantly upon the
animal by the physical world surrounding it. A part of the process
occurs in the nervous system, another part in the rest of the body.
To force this process into its opposite direction results in death.

174 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

But temporarily parts of this process may be forced into the
opposite direction. From out of the large number of possible
movements, that one is selected which does not oppose the forward
direction of the general nervous activity going on all the time. The
nervous correlate of pleasantness is this relation between temporary
nervous activities and the continuous nervous activity. The
relation of opposite direction is the nervous correlate of unpleasant-
ness, the relation of equal direction that of pleasantness.

For Meyer (1908) the mental states are pleasantness and
unpleasantness. The nervous correlate is the increase or decrease
of the intensity of a previously constant nervous process if the
increase or the decrease is caused by a force acting at a point other
than the point of sensory stimulation.

Fite (1903) asks how pleasure and pain can modify behavior.
He extends the limits of pleasantness and unpleasantness beyond
a few purely physiological metabolic processes to more complex
habit systems, and expresses doubt as to the causal nature of the
feelings. For him pleasure and pain are not causes in mental
life but mere indicators of the conflict or harmony between acting
causes. To express this in the light of recent theory, Fite regards
the mental states as pleasure and pain, and the nervous correlate as
some effect of the operation of the conflict or harmony between
acting causes.

In presenting these theories I have ignored complications such as
localization, clearness, recognition, lack of habituation, value,
etc. In doing this I have simplified the facts so as to get the max-
imum of clearness in the present state in the psychology of feeling
when expressed in traditional terms. 6 It seems to be agreed that at
least the mental states of pleasantness and unpleasantness are
characteristic of feeling. The physical or physiological correlates
of feeling are given as: sensory processes (Lagerborg, Marshall,
Stumpf) ; relationships between sensory processes (Pikler, Meyer) ;
indicators of physiological condition (Calkins, Titchener, Marshall,
Lagerborg); harmony between the causes for action (Fite, Meyer).

No Unified Experimental Program

The difficulty of resolving the lack of agreement into a series of
crucial experiments is well indicated by the lack of unity in the
recent experimental work on feeling. There seem to be too many
questions that are not questions. Even though the problem of

5 No attempt has been made to exhaust the possibilities. I only wish to show
that even where we are fairly well agreed on any introspective findings, we are
not agreed on any objective correlate for these findings.

ALBERT P. WEISS 175

feeling has been before us for many years, the obvious question
what percentage of an individual's daily activity is pleasant, what
percentage is unpleasant? has no ready answer. The practical
question shall I select alternative modes of action on the basis of
an anticipated feeling content, either immediate or remote?
is still answered as it was by the Greeks, by various ethical codes
which have never been subjected to scientific analysis.

Of course this limitation is not restricted to the mental states
called feelings. It is a limitation wherever mental states are
restricted to the introspective method leading, as it does, to
metaphysical discussions rather than to the analysis of environ-
mental and sensorimotor components.

Feeling ''as such" or as Action

It has been urged that biological and social considerations should
not determine the character of psychological investigations and
that the introspective method does make it possible to study feeling
"as such" even though the data secured by this method make no
contact with the work of other scientists.

For those who expect an investigation to contribute toward the
development of general scientific laws, the study of feeling "as
such" is not very alluring. Of course, I recognize that isolation
from the other sciences need not result in inactivity. That it does
not is well attested by the novelist, especially the so-called psy-
chological novelist who probably represents the highest degree of
introspective efficiency. However, is this science? Or does it
become science by merely restricting the scope of the free literary
associations to the special introspective categories of sensation-
image, feeling, attention? This is, I believe, a personal problem
which each must decide for himself. However, none can escape
the verdict which science eventually will render as to the merits of
this method.

In this connection I wish to call attention to a difference between
introspective observation and scientific observation which is not
generally recognized. Titchener (1924) maintains that psy-
chological observation is not essentially different from other
observation, that the world which the psychologist explores is
"the world with man left in." Now it seems to me that by the
way in which Titchener uses the phrase "man left in" he is in-
troducing a ''something more" which is not in the category of
natural science. We find this more clearly stated in the following
quotation: "the experience which we are to have is a mental
experience, and our account of it is to be couched in psychological

176 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

language. We are, then, ready for the experience; it comes, and
we give it our best attention; we then express it in words; and we
try to express it fully and adequately in the words that it itself
points to and requires. When the account has been written down,
and so made available for other students, we have completed a
psychological observation. When a number of such observations
have been taken, we have the materials for a scientific descrip-
tion" (p. 19).

We may ask just what is included under the term "experience,"
and what is the "it" which comes and to which we give attention?
That the "it" is not merely a linguistic idiom is clear when we
try to answer any genetic question in psychology. To be specific,
suppose we ask when does the "it " (say the experience of pleasant-
ness) first occur in the infant? We cannot answer this question
in the same way that we can answer the question when does the
plantar reflex first appear? Asking the infant to report when
pleasantness appears or disappears is useless. To answer the
question at all we must select some action 6 of the infant from
which we must infer the experience of pleasantness. Here con-
troversy begins. We are confronted with the following questions:

1. Can an infant experience pleasantness?

2. If we agree that he can (and few would answer this with a
categorical yes) , what act shall we accept as an invariable indicator
of pleasantness?

a) If we select the act of smiling, very few psychologists will
accept this as an invariable sign of pleasantness.

b) Some will refuse to accept any physical manifestation
and will refer the problem to philosophy or metaphysics.

c) Some will maintain that it may be necessary to agree upon
some physical criterion but that we must not forget that the
physical criterion is only a correlate or an indicator, that there is
a "something more" of which we must not lose sight.

d) Still others, and this is by far the greatest number, will
have no criteria and will simply begin on some kind of an investi-
gation which they claim reveals the "facts" of pleasantness rather
than any theoretical principles.

These questions illustrate what I mean by saying that the
introspective method leads us to philosophical discussions. None
of these questions arise in a scientific investigation. The fact is
that traditional psychology has limited itself to observations which,
from their nature, are philosophic and not scientific.

6 That we must select an action, some contractile effect in the infant, which
produces changes in the light waves or sound waves that act on the eyes or ears
of the experimenter, is obvious. A motionless infant cannot become the object
of the type of investigation I am describing.

ALBERT P. WEISS , 177

Young (1927) in a very significant experiment on pleasantness
and unpleasantness concludes: "Some of the conditions which
determine the report in affective psychology are (a) the O's edu-
cation in psychology which includes the kind and the amount of
his information, (6) the O's bias determined in part by his theo-
retical reflections, (c) the O's understanding of words and his
habits of speech, and (d) the suggestions which happen to reach
him from various sources" (p. 187).

In other words, introspection is not inspection. Introspection
assumes an "it," an "experience," an entity of some sort which
is not assumed in the natural sciences. However, at this time I
merely wish to call attention to the fact that an ontogenetic
approach to the study of experience is practically excluded. This
does not mean that feeling cannot be studied from the biological
and social points of view. However, when we do this we are
clearly relinquishing the mentalistic or experiential group of
fundamentals and adopting other fundamentals.

Literary versus Scientific Observation

I think that my analysis thus far indicates what an exceedingly
difficult task confronts us if we try to make a scientific study of
the many things that have been included under the term feeling.
We can well agree with Young (1927) that: "The confusion and
contradiction found to-day within affective psychology are noto-
rious. Upon the most fundamental matters there is little agree-
ment among psychologists" (p. 186).

Perhaps, however, this confusion arises only because of the
traditional introspective approach which yields un verifiable data
and which assumes that feeling is "something more" than physical
or physiological conditions. This has led us to regard pleasantness
or unpleasantness as "something" which determines our actions.
Such a theory removes the need for making a careful analysis of
biological and social factors. We need only learn how to control
our own minds or our mental states by some simple philosophic
device such as "reflection and self -analysis " and then be able to
produce pleasantness or unpleasantness at will. If we can do this,
why make painstaking observations on stimulating and sensori-
motor conditions which are at most only indirectly associated
with feeling?

The same ambiguity is evident in recent writings in which the
term "experience " is used as a causal or selecting agent in modifying
behavior. From the biosocial standpoint the term experience
is merely a name for any change in activity which replaces in-

178 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

stinctive or acquired behavior. This is equivalent to saying that
the term experience is merely the literary name for the totality
of our acquired responses, particularly our social responses.

This, of course, does not explain "how" experience can modify
behavior. From the biosocial point of view behavior is modified
only by:

1. The growth of the sensorimotor system along lines that are
determined by inheritance.

2. The internal stimulating conditions produced by internal
biochemical processes.

3. The external stimulating conditions which act upon the
sensorimotor mechanism. These can be divided into two classes:

a) The ordinary physical environment which is common to
both human and infrahuman organisms;

6) The social environment which is specific for human beings.
The social environment itself is the product of contemporaneous
and past human behavior.

An individual does not respond to all the possibilities which
the environment presents, if we measure the possibilities by the
different responses of all the individuals who have been acted upon
by it. When we say the responses of an individual are selective,
this means only that he does not make all possible responses. The
selective agent is the sensorimotor system as determined by in-
heritance, by its structure, by its biochemical properties, by the
physical and biosocial environment. To say that "experience"
acts as a selective agent is merely the literary way of stating the
scientific fact that sensorimotor conditions determine our behavior.

To study human behavior scientifically we must drop the literary
approach and begin a series of careful analyses of the stimulating
and response conditions. The introspective method has made us
practically blind to the fact that normal human behavior is mostly
acquired and that changes in behavior originate as changes in the
physical conditions.

The social environment of speech, language, and other individ-
uals is a physical environment, patterns of light and sound waves
principally. The individual produces these patterns by muscular
contractions and in no other way. In turn his own reactions are
produced by the light and sound patterns produced by the mus-
cular contractions in others. Many of these patterns developed
long before man was able to isolate their physical components and
this explains their non-scientific form. Language, for instance,
must always remain incomprehensible to one unacquainted with
such things as the vocalizing reflex, sensory structure and function,
and sensorimotor interchangeability between individuals.

ALBERT P. WEISS 179

The scientific approach to the study of human behavior and
human achievement is the rearrangement of the literary classi-
fication of human behavior into those classifications which give
the structural and functional components of human actions. These
are physical and biological, and the "something more" upon
which the mentalistic conception insists is only a substitute speech
response for our inability to isolate all the physical components
in a given form of behavior.

THE BIOSOCIAL APPROACH TO THE PROBLEM
OF FEELING

Stimulating and Contractile Effects

This approach assumes that all of human behavior can be under-
stood if we know the properties of the stimulating conditions which
act on an organism and the properties of the organism itself.
Specifically with respect to the problem of feeling, a biosocial
analysis requires a description and enumeration of: (1) the con-
tractile effects (reactions) that are to be included under the term
feeling, (2) the ontogeny and phylogeny of the contractile effects,
(3) the stimulus antecedents of the contractile effects, (4) the
social effects of the contractions on other individuals.

If an analysis of a limited number of responses leads to a generali-
zation from which the four phases can be deduced without the
specific analysis of each response or response series, we have a
scientific uniformity or law.

(1) The Contractile Effects. A complete analysis of the con-
tractile effects that are to be included under the term feeling would
cover a description of all the reactions, implicit and overt, which
have been described -under feeling by the various writers. These
descriptions need not be in actual anatomical or neurological
terms, provided they are clearly understood. Thus a " smile"
describes a contractile effect as well for our purpose as would an
enumeration of the extents and sequences of the contractions of
the many muscles actually involved in producing the smile. 7

Have we such a list? We have not. However, suppose we ig-
nore this for the present and assume that those contractile effects
which produce the stimulus pattern called a smile are an indication
of what is called pleasantness. The verbal contractile effects which
may indicate feeling are of the type that produce the sounds: "it
is pleasant," "it is unpleasant," "it is indifferent." There are

7 Landis (1944) has performed a series of experiments in which he recorded pho-
tographically the actual changes in the contractions of the facial muscles as re-
vealed by displacements of the skin surface.

180 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

many linguistic variants of these phrases. More doubtful reactions
are laughing, crying, avoiding, reaching, vomiting, injury, manner
of eating, sex responses, etc., according as we try to fit our defini-
tion of feeling to one or another writer. I think we all agree that
we have no relatively complete list of actions which could be
classified under the category of feeling, nor do we have a generaliza-
tion from which such a list could be deduced.

(2) Ontogeny and Phylogeny of the Contractile Effects. The
genesis, both ontogenetic and phylogenetic, of the contractile
effects in feeling has received scanty recognition. Restricting
our remarks to the act of smiling, we know that the infant does
not smile for about ten days after birth. After the smile does
appear it is variable and writers are not agreed that it always
expresses feeling. Some characterize it as an automatic reflex at
first. Gradually the muscular contractions of smiling follow better-
known stimulating conditions but the stimuli again soon become
too complex for classification. In adult life the smile may ex-
press many different conditions. It may lose entirely its feeling
of significance and become a response to a non-affective stimulus
such as the smile of a salesman greeting a customer. As to the
phylogeny of the smile many animals, apes particularly, show
changes which have been called smiles. However, we are not able
at present to trace back to infrahuman conditions those sensori-
motor structures and functions which are now the smile of the
infant. About other activities such as laughing (vocalization)
we know even less. We cannot ascribe these gaps in our information
as entirely due to the nature of the problem. The paleo-anthro-
pologists, for instance, have worked out a very comprehensive
record of the ontogeny and phylogeny of the bones and muscles of
the foot. Of course, the genesis of sensorimotor structures is
more difficult, but it is a problem of the same sort.

(3) The Stimulating Effects. The stimuli which release the
contractile effects that express feeling, say the act of smiling in an
infant of six months, include such stimuli as the light-wave pat-
terns reflected from parents, nurse, feeding bottle, rattle, toys;
the sound-wave patterns produced by the movements of parents,
nurse, animals, toys; the internal stimuli from metabolic and nu-
tritional conditions. Besides these direct stimulations, supplemen-
tation or interferences between the nervous processes themselves
seem to release feeling responses. The list is different for each in-
fant and does not remain constant. To attempt to enumerate
all the stimuli which release the smile in a given adult would be
futile. If this is impossible for even such a simple response
as a smile, the task has no conceivable limits when we consider

ALBERT P. WEISS 181

the many other responses from which writers have inferred the
presence of feeling.

If feeling is to be included as a scientific uniformity, it is necessary
to arbitrarily establish a generalization which will enable us to
classify stimulating conditions according as they do, or do not,
produce the contractile effects which are to be included under the
term feeling.

(4) The Social Effect of the Contractions. One of the most
frequent effects of the smile of one person on another is also to
release a smile in the other person. Two factors which usually are
not isolated should be listed separately :

a) The actual muscle contractions. In a smile these would be
certain facial muscles; in a laugh, the contractions of certain
muscles in the throat and chest.

6) The effects of these contractions on the medium which acts as
the stimulus on the other person's sense organs. Thus, a smile is
transmitted from one person to another by the changes which the
contractions of the facial muscles produce in the pattern of the
light waves which act on the other person's eyes. In transmitting
a laugh (assuming that vision is excluded) the change is in the
sound-wave patterns acting on the ear of the other person.

We may begin by asking, what kind of response does the smile
release in other individuals? The smile of the infant releases
fondling, vocalizing, playing, coddling, and in general some form
of behavior directed toward the child. The smile of the salesman
serves as an introduction which releases the buying and selling
responses. The smile of the diplomat is supposed to be non-
committal, should not be reacted to at all. Thus we might continue
with all kinds of smiles, the coquettish smile, the smile of derision,
sympathy, approval, etc., all of which are different physical patterns
which act on others in more or less specific ways. This purely
physical transmission of stimuli is overlooked in the rnentalistic
approach. In some way the mental state of the smile in one person
is said to arouse a corresponding mental state in another. Any of
our so-called psychological novels will reveal many hypothetical
effects produced on others by the various kinds of smiles, but
little has been done along scientific lines. Again I have limited my
analysis to that of the smile. To include the many other ways in
which the physical expression of feeling may act as a stimulus which
changes the behavior of others would be an enormous task. It is
this speaker-hearer relation (as it is called by the linguists) which
has been practically ignored in the psychological investigations.
The smile has been studied as an individual response or as an
individual mental state. Its effect on others has received very
little attention.

182 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

I shall refrain from even attempting to indicate the ontogenetic
and historical phases by which the contractile effects expressive of
feeling have acquired their special social stimulating values. The
problem is scarcely recognized. But again when we consider the
much more intensive biological studies in animal life, such as love
antics, dances, plumage decorations, bird songs, strutting, etc.,
we can see that the subject is not beyond the limits of the scientific
method. Our experiments on affection and feeling have been based
on the implicit assumption that responses which belong to the
literary feeling category are more than physical effects, that they
are expressions of underlying mental states. A complete biosocial
analysis of feeling requires a description of all the responses, all
the forms of stimulation which release these responses, all the
social effects produced in other individuals, and the genetic and
historical description of the antecedents of both the responses and
stimuli. Until we undertake to investigate feeling in this way we
are not attacking the problem in a scientific manner.

Feeling as a Biosocial Category

I think it is clear that if feeling is to be an important topic in
psychology we must limit ourselves to verifiable data, drop the
causal implication in mental processes, and try to develop a
generalization from which we can deduce the stimulus-response
relations. Without a generalization, an attempt to analyze each
response which conceivably can be included under the literary
category of feeling presents insurmountable and experimental
difficulties.

The most promising approach along these lines seems to be that
of Meyer (1908), who has tried to discover some biological condition
(a nervous correlate) which seems to conform to most of the literary
requirements. However, we should be careful to recognize that
there is an ambiguity in the term correlate. If we mean by corre-
late the biological or sociological manifestation of a psychical
entity, we shall not have gained anything. If the nervous correlate
is merely a scientific description of what in the past has been
described only in a literary manner, we shall be safe; but we may
then ask, why use the term " nervous correlate? " Why not merely
differentiate the scientific from the literary description?

Normal Interferences and Facilitations in Behavior Series

At any given time, for each individual, the environment releases
responses which are determined by the individual's previous
behavior history. They represent the daily personal, domestic,

ALBERT P. WEISS 183

Erofessional, and public adjustments which give the individual
is social status. The stimulating potential of the environment is
always greater than is indicated by the responses which actually
occur. But from early infancy the physical and social environment
is such that the individual is constantly being trained in a particular
direction and this represents his behavior career.

However, at no time is the series of day-to-day activities so
uniform, and the environment so unvarying, that abrupt changes
do not occur. These changes which are of relatively short duration
(as compared with the longer life-history series) may affect the
normal behavior in two ways :

a) A facilitation or supplementation of the normal series so
that it requires less energy or less time.

6) An interference or retardation of the normal series so that it
requires more energy or a longer time.

Feeling as a Relationship between Responses

From the biosocial viewpoint we may include under the term
feeling this facilitation or interference of new stimulus and response
groupings with the system of coordinated activities making up the
normal behavior of the individual. Feeling then would be the
term used to describe a relationship between relatively temporary
and permanent behavior. Pleasantness would refer to a condition
in which some new stimulus grouping releases responses that facil-
itate the general coordination of movements, provided this facil-
itation arises not as a mere increase in the intensity of a stimulus
already acting. The term unpleasantness may be used to indicate
the sensorimotor conditions in which a new stimulus releases
responses which interfere with the normal behavior career, again
providing the interference arises not as a mere decrease in the
intensity of a stimulus already acting. This is practically the
equivalent of Meyer's point of view as developed about twenty
years ago. Since this is readily accessible I need only indicate his
main conclusions:

The term feeling should be restricted to pleasantness-unpleasantness.

Pleasantness-unpleasantness does not occur apart from perception.

Pleasantness-unpleasantness is not localized.

Some sensations are usually unpleasant; some are usually pleasant.

Sensory and intellectual pleasantness and unpleasantness are of the same
nature, but the highest intellectual activities give the most intensive pleasantness-
unpleasantness whereas sensory pleasantness-unpleasantness is rather insignificant
in the life of a person of culture.

Emotions are usually accompanied by pleasantness-unpleasantness.

Pleasantness-unpleasantness is not the cause of action and is the latest product
of mental evolution.

184 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

We may now ask why has not Meyer's clear presentation re-
ceived more attention? I believe this is due to the general in-
adequacy of the mental categories as the basis for an experimental
program for the study of human behavior. Students well trained
in science frequently assert that the difficulty with psychological
problems lies in the fact that "one does not know how to get
started."

The sensorimotor problems of supplementation and inter-
ference are very important psychological problems because they
form a part of the general problem of how new actions are selected
and acquired. However, the special case of supplementation and
interference which seems to fit the literary descriptions of feeling
best, is relatively unimportant. The question, "Is it pleasant or
unpleasant?" is a relatively unimportant one when the individual
is learning those responses required by his social status. Most
new adjustments are at first unpleasant, but this does not prevent
us from acquiring them. From the biosocial standpoint, then,
pleasantness only indicates that the action probably will be
repeated. Unpleasantness indicates that it probably will not be
repeated. However, these propositions have so many exceptions
and are so difficult to state statistically that they do not seem
to be very promising as indicators of what actions will or will
not become part of the individual's normal behavior. It is the
biosocial requirement that determines this.

Conclusion

What traditionally has been included under the term feeling
may be regarded as a literary description of the biological factors
of facilitation and interference. Nevertheless, the scientific
analysis of facilitation and interference is such a general problem
that it occurs wherever changes in behavior occur. The special
type of facilitation and interference which Meyer gives as the
nervous correlate of feeling is a special case of the general problem
of the interaction between the structural and functional properties
of the sensorimotor system, and the stimulating conditions of
the environment.

The mentalistic point of view has failed to distinguish ade-
quately between sensory facilitation and interference on the one
hand, and the type of facilitation and interference which may
occur between acquired behavior series of long and short duration.
In addition the mentalistic conception has only recently recognized
the fact that pleasantness and unpleasantness are not causes in
the important life-adjustments, and therefore a literary analysis

ALBERT P. WEISS 185

of the feelings of an individual from birth to death does not
contribute as much to the development of the laws of human be-
havior as does a study of the biosocial components of human
behavior during the social maturation of the individual. A men-
talistic analysis is restricted to relatively new adjustments and
exceptional conditions; it does not describe the very prostiic and
very uninteresting phases through which an infant enters adult-
hood and which for the most part are so commonplace that we
have ceased, even as scientists, to react to them. From the
scientific standpoint feeling is a relatively unimportant category
because it does riot enter as a causal factor in biosocial adjustment.

THE PROBLEM OF EMOTION
Introduction

The topic of emotion is at present being investigated from
many angles. Again we find planless experiments of the "let us
see what we can see" type. The simple question what is an
emotion, or what shall we include under the term emotion?
was raised by Landis et al. (1925). They begin with the assump-
tion that a rating scale is the best criterion for emotionality.
Part of the instructions to the raters reads: "By emotional
stability we mean the ability to resist the cumulative effect of
the emotional situations such as might be employed in ex-
perimental conditions" (p. 215). The extreme conditions are
represented as "going to pieces" and "not going to pieces."

Of course this already assumes that the raters have some
definition of emotionality, and the degree of the consistency
of the ratings that was actually found shows that they do. How-
ever, this may be merely an expression of the fact that the raters
have had similar linguistic and social training. From the bio-
social standpoint the rating scale is a quantitative expression of
the degree of uniformity which exists in the literary terminology
of the "emotion" category. With raters representing wide varia-
tions in social status, the consistency would be correspondingly
less. Even with his relatively uniform group and the results of
subsequent experiments, Landis (1926) is unable to convince him-
self that the literary classification is serviceable. He says, "Any
attempt to define 'emotion' in a simple, clean-cut fashion must
be a failure since the phenomena generally classified under the
term are much too complex and diverse to admit such treatment"
(p. 242). I think this means that the literary classification of
emotions, developed as it was without a sensorimotor background

186 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

simply cuts across the stimulus-response uniformities which
Landis was investigating. In emotions as in feelings, it is probably
more fruitful to differentiate the mentalistic category into
biosocial categories.

The plausibility of the James-Lange theory of emotions has led
to studies of the changes in bodily processes during those condi-
tions in which the organism was said to be in an emotional state.
Among the organic processes that have been and are being studied
we find changes in pulse, blood-pressure, blood composition, respira-
tion, knee-jerk; changes in the electrical resistance of the tissues,
in action currents, basal metabolism, and metabolic rate, etc.

As one phase of these studies a peculiar condition has arisen.
Because of the absence of a generally acceptable criterion of
emotion, the tendency is in the direction of defining emotion in
terms of these organic measurements. For instance, instead of
regarding the psychogalvanic process as an organic function of
emotion, we tend to say that the psychogalvanic process is pro-
portional to the emotion. As yet the real problem how does
the psychogalvanic process correlate with the degree of bio-
social adjustment which the individual is able to make? is just
being recognized. Whether these organic responses are better
functions of the character of the overt responses which deter-
mine the individual's social status than are some other easily
measurable responses, remains an open question.

The Biosocial Approach to the Problem of Emotion

As I pointed out under the topic of feeling, the biosocial approach
is specifically directed toward the description of those movements
and the antecedents of those movements which we call human
behavior. Thus an individual who is sitting on a chair in a relaxed
condition and whose hand is suddenly brought into contact with a
number of live frogs, which he djd not see beforehand, goes through
a series of movements which can be described, photographically at
least.

The greater the number of responses that are recorded and the
better the stimuli have been controlled, the more instructive will
be the experiment. Whether we call this a "fear" response or an
"emotion" is quite beside the point. If the stimulus and the
response conditions are under the best control, we may classify
the subjects on the basis of the behavior records of which a psy-
chogalvanic reading may be one out of many others.

If, further, the action is studied from the standpoint of the ontog-
eny and phylogeny of both the individual and social stimulus and

ALBERT P. WEISS 187

response conditions, we shall approach the limit of at least knowing
something about this one form of behavior.

Specific and Non-specific Behavior

From the biosocial standpoint a very important relationship
between responses is one in which we determine the percentage of
specific as compared with non-specific activity in performing a
given task. The difficulty of defining specific and non-specific
can be eliminated by assigning a task which must be done in a
predetermined manner before the response series is accepted as
biologically or biosocially adequate. If in performing such a task
the individual makes many non-specific movements (either im-
plicit or overt), the time will be lengthened. If he fails to make
the specific movements necessary to perform the task, the time
will also be lengthened. We can now define specific movements
as those movements which complete the task in the shortest time,
even though they are not qualitatively identical. The partic-
ular task can be simple or complex to meet the capacities of the
individuals to be measured.

Meyer (1924) was the first, to my knowledge, to formulate this
category, 8 and he has designed an apparatus which meets the
preceding conditions. The task consists of a combination of
relatively simple movements, which the subject learns for the
first time. By combining these simple movements into various
tempi and rates, a problem of any degree of complexity can be
developed.

It seems to me that the literary classification " emotional in-
stability" best describes an individual who makes non-specific
responses for which specific biosocial responses have been estab-
lished. This conception seems also to be shared by Warren (1919)
who says, under the r61e of emotion in mental life: "The emotions,
more than any other kind of mental states, represent by-gone
conditions of life. They do not fit particularly well into the human
world of to-day" (p. 300). "The emotional part of our mental
life is to some extent an anachronism. Emotion, if uncontrolled,
hampers the proper interrelation between the individual of to-day
and the environment of to-day. It is only when the instinctive
emotions are trained into intelligent modes of expression that this
phase of mental life works harmoniously with the rest" (p. 302).

8 Meyer uses the terms " useful*' and " useless" movements. If we abide strictly
by Meyer's definition of useful and useless, no difficulties arise, but I doubt whether
in the present state of psychology it is possible to use the terms without a strong
"vitalistic" tinge. We are still too much disposed to run into discussions of the
"purposive" type which include much more tnan Meyer would include.

188 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

The Elimination of the Literary Category of Emotion

It seems to me that a category of behavior which is defined as
the ratio between specific and non-specific movements will elim-
inate many of the problems that lie hidden in such a classifica-
tion of the emotions as given by Warren (1919) :

1 . Expressive (Nutritive) : e. g., joy, grief, shock, etc.

2. Reproductive: e. g., love, lust, tenderness, etc.
8. Defensive: e. g., fear, disgust, shame, etc.

4. Aggressive: e. g., anger, hatred, pride, etc.

5. Social Emotion: e. g., affection, cordiality, pity, etc.
0. With Temporal Projection: e. g., regret, surprise, etc.

Of course for special forms of behavior such as aesthetic or
ethical, it may be useful to attempt a complete biosocial analysis
of some of the separate items given in lists of this type. The
stimulus-response conditions of any behavior series can be arbitra-
rily delimited and, when so delimited, the movements of which it is
made up can be classified as specific or non-specific on the basis
of some criterion based upon personal, domestic, professional, and
public requirements which are relatively constant for a given social
status.

If a biosocial approach can eliminate such vexing questions as
these Are there any emotions? What is rage? What is anger,
joy, grief? Are there any instincts?, etc. questions which are
now sources of much controversy, a great deal will have been gained.
The biosocial approach clearly recognizes the fact that all behavior
classifications are human classifications and that classifications or
descriptions in biological, statistical, and social terms are supersed-
ing those that were developed when only a supernaturalistic
theory of human behavior was possible.

Organic Measurements in Emotion

Every response requires a certain expenditure of energy which
varies greatly for different stimulating conditions. Under normal
conditions the reserve food material in the nervous and muscular
tissue is not much above that required for the demand of a basal
metabolism rate of about 100 calories per hour. If a set of muscles
functions strongly, the available reserve is soon used up and must
be renewed. This is done through the blood stream, which carries
a constant amount of food in the form of glucose. As this is ab-
sorbed by the functioning tissues it is replaced in the blood by the
conversion of the glycogen in the liver to sugar. To keep the sugar
content of the blood as constant as it actually has been found to
be, requires delicate sensorimotor regulation of the glandular

ALBERT P. WEISS 189

system. If this system is not functioning properly the individual
makes movements that are too strong, too weak, or biosocially
troublesome.

Inadequate functioning of the regulating mechanism 9 would
give us another class of behavior which would indicate emotional
instability as generally understood. It seems to me that the pres-
ent interest in the organic measurements under experimental
emotional situations is an attempt to learn how this regulating
mechanism is related to social interaction.

Conclusion

From what has preceded we may regard the biosocial problem
of emotions from two views: (a) as the ratio of specific as com-
pared with non-specific movements in the performance of a given
task, (6) the relationship between the internal energy regulating
mechanism and biosocial adjustment.

SUMMARY

One of the big problems in science is to answer the question:
What does the normal person do and how does he come to do it?
The individual himself does not know and the traditional method
of asking him does not yield scientific results. We must make a
study of the biological and social antecedents of his actions. There
are at least four phases to be studied : (a) the actions themselves,
(6) the conditions which produce them, (c) the effects of the
actions on other persons, (d) and the origin both ontogenetic and
phylogenetic of both the stimuli and the movements of which
the actions are made up. In other words, we wish to know how
the infant becomes the adult and how the adult modifies the infant.

Our present conceptions of the individual and of human behavior
were developed long before we had the neurological information
that is essential to make any action at all comprehensible. As
a result, the literary categories that were developed show no
connection with the stimulus-response type of categories now
developing.

The problem of feeling becomes a study of the facilitation or
interference between movements when these conditions arise from
stimuli at sensory points other than the ones which are releasing
the particular response. This is a special case of the more gen-
eral problem of how any facilitations and interferences between
responses are brought about.

9 A more complete account is given in my A Theoretical Basis of Human Be-
havior, pp. 369-377.

190 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

The problem of emotion becomes that of determining the
conditions under which non-specific activity interferes with the
development of biosocially specific action, or of determining
the relation between the internal energy regulating mechanism
and the biosocial adjustment.

Feeling and emotion should be regarded as categories of be-
havior resulting from the interaction between physical stimulating
conditions and the sensorimotor system. To regard feelings and
emotions as non-physical forces which modify behavior leads to
a type of experimentation the results of which cannot be in-
corporated into the rapidly developing system of biological and
social laws.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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LAGERBORG, R. Ueber die specifischen Ursachen der Unlust und Lustgefiihle.
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LANDIS, C. Studies in emotional reaction: II. General behavior and facial
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LANDIS, C., GULLETTE, R., AND JACOBSON, C. Criteria of emotionality. The
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MARSHALL, H. R. Pain, pleasure, and aesthetics. London: Macmillan, 1894.

The methods of the naturalist and psychologist. Psychological Review,

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MEYER, M. F. The nervous correlate of pleasantness and unpleasantness.
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STUMPF, C. Uebcr Gefiihlsempfindungen. Zcitschrift fur Psychologic, XLIV
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ALBERT P. WEISS 191

DISCUSSION

DR. BDHLER (University of Vienna): I do not intend to isolate but to reconcile
the main standpoints we have today in psychology. When recalling last night's
introspective paper and comparing it with what you heard from Dr. Weiss today,
the situation seems to be this: we shall have to decide whether in the future we
want to be behaviorists or introspectionists. I do not think so. I think I am
a behavior ist and a mentalist too, and I think that in the future all of us will be
at the same time behaviorists and mentalists. I do not think we have two exclu-
sive standpoints, but I think we must have the one and the other, too. I cannot
explain to you briefly the reason for my opinion, hut I shall pick out some points
from what Dr. Weiss said. First, let me tell you a little story. Last Sunday morn-
ing I had a very nice drive around Johns Hopkins; the driver was a psychologist
you know him very well. His little daughter was with us and suddenly she asked
the question: "Father, they ask me at school whether you are a behaviorist."
Papa shrugged his shoulders and finally said, "Ask Dr. Buhler whether he is a
behaviorist or not," "Yes, I am a behaviorist" and I am willing to be a be-
haviorist in the field of animal psychology, and in so far as behaviorism is a method
to make experiments and use what we can observe in young children or animals.
But it is not possible to carry out entire scientific work when you think in terms of
the behaviorist only. I state further that Dr. Weiss in his paper used terms, no-
tions, coming from the other aspect, from mentalism. For instance, I have not
been able to appreciate exactly and to get his definitions of pleasure and dis-
pleasure, but one I think is that "pleasure means that the movement of our be-
havior will be repeated, and displeasure means that it will not be repeated."
All right; let us point out that this definition means that certain behavior will be
repeated in the future. Yet he goes on to say that this is not a stern rule, not a
definite law, but has many, many exceptions. All right; who gives him the right
to say there are exceptions exceptions to what? If those movements will not be
repeated, they will not belong to this type of movements of behavior to what he
calls pleasure. All movements that are repeated belong to this class the move-
ments of behavior called pleasure. Why say that not all movements not all
behavior is repeated? Let us ask ourselves and our subjects. We all know exactly
what pleasure is and what displeasure is. Weiss compares the experiences he has
and those of other people with what he calls the law. Some movements are re-
peated, others are not. He said, " You have not an exact definition of pleasure and
displeasure in the field of emotional psychology." Has he an exact definition?
I do not think so. You remember there are many exceptions to his rule. Is that
an exact definition? Let us take another view. We have a fact; for instance,
you remember that Roentgen found his famous X-rays, as he called that phe-
nomenon. He found a certain fact and then by scientific reasoning defined it,
and we now know partly what X-rays are. In the same way we define pleasure and
displeasure. We are quite sure we have had pleasure and displeasure. Ask a child
of three years. It knows exactly that some things have been pleasant and others
unpleasant. This is not a definition, of course; but, we first state the facts and then
we have to find a good definition. I have tried to show in a new book just published,
The Crisis of Psychology, that behaviorism as such is a very good aspect, one of the
possible and one of the necessary aspects of psychology; but the terms of behavior-
ism need some facts derived from other aspects, for instance, from introspection.
I think we need more than that, another, a third aspect perhaps in the future
we shall call it a social aspect. Everyone of these three aspects is possible as well
as necessary. Behaviorism as such cannot carry out the whole program and
cannot cover the whole ground of systematic psychology. I think with Dr. Dunlap
that in the future we will not have as many psychologies as we have now. The
situation now is that we must decide whether we are behaviorists or mentalists,

192 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

but in the future we will combine these two and maybe more aspects in psychology.

DR. PRINCE (Harvard University)-. I should like to ask Professor Weiss two or
three questions. If I understand him correctly, he told us that experience does not
modify behavior. I take it that by experience, of course, he means conscious
experience, consciousness in some of its forms. I like to get away from the word
"consciousness," calling it experience; but I think we ought to call facts by their
names, call a spade a spade. Consciousness does not modify behavior. Now I
should like to ask if that is not pure dogmatism; is it not a dogma to say that all our
behavior is determined in every way by physiological activities? If that be true
we are only automatons. Of course it would be a corollary. I should like to ask
whether that statement was made by his intelligence or by his nervous system. It
seems to me that if you adopt that view, then you are simply going back to the old
discussion of whether or not we are automatons, which, as you remember, Huxley
discussed many years ago. Is not the whole of the social organization based upon
the fact that intelligence or consciousness does modify behavior? Is it not the
basis of criminal law or criminal intent? And I should like to ask Professor Weiss
that he assume that he had committed a criminal act (impossible supposition we
admit, I suppose) but let us say he has committed a criminal act stolen some oil
lands, or committed a murder, or whatever it may be. Suppose he pleaded to the
judge that he had no criminal intent, "Why, Your Honor, it was nothing but my
nervous system, my neurones that committed the crime." What do you suppose
the answer of the judge would be? " We shall punish your nervous system; we shall
send your grey matter down there?" He is practically reducing us to mere
machines. Now, we may be automatons, but I believe it is very difficult to make
the man in the street believe that we are nothing but automatons and that our
experiences, that our feelings, are only the symptoms of consciousness, or that be-
havior takes place in us and that we are powerless to determine that behavior. I
find myself in accord with a great deal of what Professor Btihler has said. There
seem to be only two aspects of the same question. You have got to consider both
aspects. But we can go a certain distance as a method of investigation, using the
physiological method. And I say to anyone that uses that method, "Godspeed
to you! Go as far as you can go; but you are bound to come up against a stone wall
somewhere, sometime, and you have finally got to come to conscious experience."
I can trace back, as I see it, to something that went before my presence here today.
When I was nine years of age I was first interested in psychology. In a way, every-
thing is related to what has gone before. We cannot isolate any behavior from
what has gone before; but that antecedent behavior was conscious behavior, it
was conscious experience at that time. And so it seems to me impossible to conceive
that our feelings, our consciousness, our ideas, our beliefs, are different. They
finally boil down to different aspects of one and the same thing.

CHAIRMAN: I regret that lack of time makes it impossible for Dr. Weiss to
answer his various challengers.

PART II

Special Problems in the Psychology of
Feeling and Emotion

CHAPTER 14

DISPLEASURE AND PLEASURE IN RELATION
TO ACTIVITY

KARL BUHLER
University of Vienna

If a first sign, Z), means displeasure, and a second one, P,
pleasure, then psychologists have generally agreed, since Aristotle
and Epicurus, that the general direction of human activity is,
as a rule, from D to P. In terms of behaviorism we may say:
There is a steering principle to be found in the field of movements
we can observe. Think of what physicists call a field in the theory
of electricity and magnetism. As the needle in the compass
shows a certain directing influence, so also does human behavior.
Concerning this scheme let us make the assumption that the
arrow has not a static but a dynamic significance there is a
movement, an occurrence, along the arrow, changing the status
D into the status P.

Now, draw the consequences and you have a theory the
theory of common sense applied to pleasure since ancient times,
but nobody till Fechner tried to formulate it in exact scientific
terms. After Fechner, Freud and I myself in the same year
(1920) were concerned with this formula.

There are small differences. Fechner speaks as a pure physicist
on this point, and Freud, whose speculations always touch philo-
sophical problems, took the opportunity to find a fundamental
definition of libido, and to confess his black pessimism in things
of human life. Freud's relationship to Schopenhauer appeared
clearly on this occasion. I myself, without knowing Freud and
Fechner and coming from biology, used some biological terms.

But beyond those differences there is an agreement in the main
point, which I shall now state. Whatever human activity may be,
wherever the forces (powers) implied in the movements we can
observe are coming from, as far as this scheme is right and the
movements are steered along the direction represented by this
arrow, there is no reason why the status of P once reached should
be transgressed and left again by the continuing of the same
movements.

196 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

Therefore, Fechner says, P means stability, D means insta-
bility, in terms of physics. Out of the status of D springs what
we call an action (or reaction), and in the status of a relative and
maybe temporary stability is to be found the natural end and
conclusion of the movements, the changes. In other words, if
you substitute the psychological terms tension and relax-
ation in the scheme, the place of tension is here and the place of
relaxation is there.

D > P

T > R

H S

I do not think there is anything new or astonishing for any
psychologist in this formulation. Replace the general terms
tension and relaxation by adequate notions drawn from more
concrete situations like the food business or sexuality, and the
behavior in the status of being hungry comes to stay here and
the opposite behavior in the status of satisfaction there; sexual
eagerness here, satisfaction there. In zoological gardens before
and after the mealtime of the big carnivorous animals there is
a good opportunity to observe a relatively short and swift transition
from the first status to the second, and so to examine and prove
this formula. Or think of certain big snakes, like the boa con-
strictor. Their behavior after the meal is a picture of a long
and complete relaxation.

In human beings, especially in those restless products of modern
civilization like us, maybe this picture is sometimes a bit faded
put. Neurologists know and describe a certain form of neurasthenia
in which the patients are entirely unable to relax and digest, as
it were, in the right manner. They chase after the enjoyments of
life and collect them, like trophies or scalps, only to feel themselves
in all the riches of their collection starving with hunger for new
ones, or finally prostrated with satiation or disgust. Maybe
we restless men of modern civilization are placed in the series
far from the behavior of a boa constrictor, and nearer the neur-
asthenic patients. But I do not think we have overcome and
surpassed the general law of this formula. The human child in
the first years of its life shows better the naive and unspoiled status
than we adults.

But, notwithstanding, it is observation of the child that has
convinced me that the old and venerable formula does not con-
tain the whole truth about the relation between the pleasure prin-
ciple and activity neither in man nor in animals. It explains
but one side of the facts. There are two others. And psychology

KARL BUHLER 197

does violence to the facts when it confines itself to that one prin-
ciple applicable only to the first of the three aspects we must
consider in our field.

By the way, it was also observation of the child that spoiled
Freud's theory of libido for him. He then started anew, and
wrote that strange book, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, and so
startled his followers that for seven years they have not recovered
from their fright. Beyond the pleasure principle Freud felt com-
pelled to invent and state the existence of a second powerful
factor determining and ruling human and animal behavior, be-
cause he once came in direct contact with and observed some facts
in a child's playing.

I now have for examination a series of six systematic researches,
complementing each other, which we have just finished in Vienna.
These six researches concern play in childhood and its development,
and they agree with Freud in the main point. Indeed, the facts
concerning children's activity in play are not to be explained by
the supposition of a general libido and this formula alone.

I found another one. Think of the movements themselves as
endowed with pleasure, and we have formulated a fundamental,
a central knowledge concerning children's play. I call it Function
Pleasure. The fact is, certain forms of movements are themselves
pleasurable. I postpone the general question as to what forms
and why. It is my purpose to enumerate some concrete cases.
In the phase of development where the child learns to grasp, the
grasping movements of arms, hands, and fingers are endowed
with function pleasure and so in other phases the movements
of walking, or talking, etc.

Do not expect me to explain in this short reference the empirical
reasons we found for this central statement. But suppose it is
true and look with me at some important theoretical consequences:

1. According to the first formula, P means relaxation and
quietness. Freud drew the radical conclusion: Ergo P finally
is a principle of death. I do not think that relaxation is equal to
death. But there is indeed a problem. One and the same thing,
namely, the playing business in childhood, is endowed with pleas-
ure and is characterized by movement (not relaxation). All right,
because, according to the second formula, P does not play the
part of a brake but the pjart of a motor.

2. Repetition is one of the most impressive characteristics in
children's playing. Well, this repetition is the necessary and imme-
diate consequence of function pleasure. Repetition is the simplest
way for the P of a movement to be prolonged. It is superfluous
to state a special principle of repetition as Freud did. Children's

198 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

playing is not beyond the pleasure principle, but the first and
simple consequence of function pleasure.

3. We know repetition means habit formation. All right.
This agrees with the old and good supposition that children's
playing produces useful habits and abilities for later life. Certain
forms of behavior endowed with function pleasure constitute a
method so simple and efficient as to effect the training of restless
youth.

4. There is a general direction to be found in the development
of children's playing leading to better and higher forms of move-
ments. Function pleasure is bound to rhythm, for example, and to
other shapes, structures, forms of movements. And therefore we
find a selection and performance progressing from worse to better
and more effective movements or behavior.

These are, in short, the main steps of a theory of play: beginning
with the fundamental statement that the movements of the
functions implied in play are themselves endowed with pleasure,
and finishing with the other statement that the development we
can observe in children's playing business goes all the way from
simpler and lower to higher and more complicated forms of move-
ments or behavior, because function pleasure especially is bound to
what we call today form, structure, shape, like rhythm and the
others. There is a steering principle to be found in the develop-
ment of children's playing which leads to better and higher forms
in behavior.

Now the third formula, the third aspect, in which we find P
connected with activity. Look at the enjoyment, the happiness
in any creative human work. What phase of creative work is
endowed with the highest kind of enjoyment of happiness humans
are able to experience? I think of inventions and discoveries and
how they are endowed with pleasure.

My answer is: This kind of pleasure is bound neither to the
end and the following relaxation nor to the process of realization,
but to those delicious moments when the invention or discovery
overcomes the subject and grows up in him. It is bound to what we
call the conception, and conception stays here.

Think of the highest forms of human inventions and discoveries
in the fields of sciences, arts, technical inventions, organizations,
etc. Psychologically considered, it is always the same process. Or
think of the lowest forms we know today, Kohler's chimpanzees.
I don't know whether the chimpanzees already enjoy the moment
of finding a solution in a new situation or not. But I know
exactly, because we have observed the phenomena, that human
children do that already in the first years. I think it belongs to the
common features in human nature.

KARL BTTHLER 109

The process of growing human civilization can be considered as
a complicated texture of accumulated inventions and discoveries.
Well, and one of the different powers or leading principles in it is,
I think, and was from the beginning, the enjoyment humans find
in making inventions and discoveries.

If we, by way of convention, call this side or aspect of human
behavior intellect, then the pleasure in creative work is the
emotional background of intellect and is correlated with it as
nearly and as adequately as function pleasure is correlated with
habit formation in children's playing. It would take me too long
a time to explain here the details and to discuss the observations,
especially on children, upon which this statement is based.

Let me finish the abstract scheme of the theory with two
remarks :

1. I think it can be and is to be carried out in the most exact
and well-defined terms of modern psychology. I can give an exact
definition for the notion of a steering principle in human and
animal behavior.

2. As for the correlations and transitions between the three
formulae, I think they are nothing less than differentiations or
specifications of one and the same more primitive and fundamental
relation between movements and what we call pleasure. I am an
optimist in things of life and suppose, with Herbert Spencer and
many others, that life with its changes and movements of vital
processes originally means pleasure.

Jennings found that the natural status of lower organisms is not
quietness and relaxation but movement. That statement is not
true, except in certain respects, when applied to what we can
observe with children in the first weeks of life. It is a fact that
sleep and relaxation dominate in them nearly all the movements
we find which follow the characteristics of this first formula,
except a relatively small group of those events that Preyer called
impulsive movements. But out of them, in swift development,
springs the important playing of children. And concerning the
great development of living beings, I suppose that not what we
can find in the differentiated system of behavior of new-born
human children but what Jennings found in the system of behavior
of lower organisms is to be considered as the first step. I am willing
to think those movements are already endowed with pleasure,
because I am an optimist. But that belongs to philosophy.

CHAPTER 15

EMOTION AND FEELING DISTINGUISHED

WILLIAM McDoucALL

Duke University

There is still much uncertainty and confusion in the use of
the terms "emotion" and "feeling, " corresponding to the un-
certainties and diversities of views as to the status, conditions,
and functions of the processes to which these terms are applied.
After many years of gradual advance toward clarity of my own
thinking on these problems I feel able to offer a scheme which
seems to me comprehensive, coherent, and fundamentally correct,
however much in need of correction and elaboration in details.

The scheme I offer is founded on evolutionary and comparative
or genetic considerations and moulded in conformity with the
facts of human experience and behavior. It implies a voluntaristic
or hormic psychology, that is to say, a psychology which regards
as the most fundamental feature of all animal life the capacity
actively to seek goals by means of plastic behavior, of striving
expressed in bodily movements adjusted from moment to moment
to the details of each developing situation in the manner called
by common consent, intelligent.

As I have argued elsewhere, the capacity to strive towards an
end or ends, to seek goals, to sustain and renew activity adopted
to secure consequences beneficial to the organism or the species
must be accepted as a fundamental category of psychology. 1
Whether in the course of evolution such capacity has "emerged"
from modes of being lacking all germ of it; whether it can be
explained in terms of physics and chemistry, as the psychologists
of the Gestalt School seek to show these are questions for the
future. Psychology is not called upon to await affirmative an-
swers to these questions before recognizing purposive striving as
a mode of activity that pervades and characterizes all animal life.
Nor need we determine whether plant life exhibits in some lowly
degree the same essential functions, or whether some cognition,
however lowly, is always and everywhere a cooperating function.

It is reasonable to assume that the primary forms of animal

1 " Purposive Striving as" a Fundamental Category of Psychology. " Presidential
address to the Psychological Section of the British Association, 1924. Reprinted
in Science, November, 1924.

WILLIAM MrDOUGALL 201

striving were the seeking of food and the turning away from the
noxious, primitive appetition and aversion; and that from these
two primitive forms all other modes of appetition and aversion
have been differentiated and evolved.

Setting out from these assumptions, my thesis is, first, that all
the modes of experience we call feeling and emotion are incidental
to the striving activities, the conations of the organism, evoked
either by impressions from the environment or by metabolic
processes taking place within it or, more commonly, in both ways;
secondly, that we may broadly and consistently distinguish feelings
on the one hand and emotions on the other by their functional
relations to the conative activities which they accompany and
qualify, these relations being very different in the two cases.
||There are two primary and fundamental modes of feeling, pleas-
ure and pain, or satisfaction and dissatisfaction, which color and
qualify in some degree, however slight, all strivings.\ Pleasure
is the consequence of, and sign of, success whether partial or com-
plete; pain, the consequence and sign of failure and frustration.
It seems probable that primitive pleasure and pain were alter-
natives, perhaps not mutually exclusive in any absolute sense but
practically so. But with the development of the cognitive powers
came the simultaneous apprehension of diverse aspects of objects
and situations and, further, the pleasures and pains of anticipation
and recollection. The former brought the possibility of the simul-
taneous excitation of diverse impulses conflicting or cooperating
with reciprocal modifications. The latter rendered possible the
conjunction of present success with anticipation of failure, and of
present frustration with anticipation of success. With these came
corresponding complications of the modes of feeling.

The organism that has attained such a level of cognitive develop-
ment no longer oscillates between simple pleasure and simple
pain; beside and between these simple primitive extremes, it
attains a range of feelings which are in some sense fusions or blend-
ings of pleasure and pain; it experiences such feelings as hope,
anxiety, despondency, despair, regret, and sorrow. And, with
the fuller development of mental structure, the adult man learns
to know "sweet sorrows," joys touched with pain, "hope de-
ferred that maketh the heart sick," and "strange webs of melan-
choly mirth"; "his sincerest laughter with some pain is fraught";
his darkest moments of abject failure are lightened by some ray
of hope; his bright moments of triumph and elation are sobered
by his abiding sense of the vanity of human wishes and the fleet-
ing, unstable nature of all attainment. In short, the grown man
no longer is capable of the simple feelings of the child, because he

202 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

' has learned to "look before and after and pine for what is not."
With the development of his cognitive powers, his desires have
become complex and of long range, and the simple alternation
between pleasure and pain has given place to a perpetual ranging
through the scale of complex feelings. These complex feelings are
known in common speech as emotions. Adopting the terminology
proposed by Shand, I have elsewhere discussed them under the
general title "the derived emotions of desire, prospective and
retrospective. " 2

It would greatly conduce to clarity and precision if, in science,
we should cease to give the general name "emotion" to these
complex feelings. The difficulty of distinguishing these complex
feelings from the emotions proper and the common practice of
confusing them arise from the fact that well-nigh all the strivings
of the developed mind are qualified both by emotions proper and
by complex feelings or "derived emotions," blended in one com-
plex whole or configuration.

To turn now to the emotions proper or the qualities of emotional
experience : As the primitive appetition and aversion became differ-
entiated into impulses directed toward more special goals and
evocable by more special objects and situations, each specialized
impulse found expression in some special mode of bodily striving
with some corresponding complex of bodily adjustments facilitating
and supporting that mode of bodily activity. Without accepting
the James-Lange theory in an extreme and literal way, we must
suppose that each such system of bodily adjustments is reflected
in the experience of the striving organism, giving to each specialized
mode of striving a peculiar and distinctive quality, the quality of
one of the primary emotions; and that, when mental development
reaches the level at which two or more of the specialized impulses
come into play simultaneously, conflicting or cooperating, these
primary qualities are experienced in the complex blendings that
we call the secondary or blended emotions, such complex qualities*
as embarrassment, shame, awe, reverence, reproach.
; Let me now contrast the complex feelings or " derived emotions "
'with the emotions proper, primary and blended, bearing in mind
that all the concrete emotional experiences of the developed mind
are configurations in which are blended qualities of both kinds,
qualities which we abstractly distinguish as the true and the derived
emotions.

1. The complex feelings, like the simple feelings, arise from,
are conditioned by, the degrees of success and failure of our striv-

2 Introduction to Social Psychology (Boston: Luce, 1910), and Outline of Psy-
chology (New York: Scribner, 1923).

WILLIAM McDOUGALL 203

ings, and, like the simple feelings, they modify the further working
of the impulses by which they are generated, strengthening and
sustaining them in so far as the balance of feeling-tone is on the
pleasurable side, checking and diverting them in so far as the
balance of feeling is on the painful side.

The true emotional qualities, on the other hand, are prior
to and independent of success and failure; they spring to life with
the evocation of the corresponding impulses and continue to color
the experiences of striving each with its distinctive tone, giving
its specific quality to the whole configuration regardless of degrees
of success or failure, actual or anticipated. And they have no
direct influence upon the course of striving. As qualities of ex-
perience they are merely indicative of the nature of bodily adjust-
ments organically bound up with each fundamental mode of
striving; but in the developed mind they play an indirect part in
determining the course of conation because, serving as signs of
the nature of the impulse at work, they render possible to the
self-conscious organism some degree of direction and control of
these impulses.

2. The complex feelings, then, are dependent upon and secon-
dary to the development of the cognitive functions. It is perhaps
true to say that they are peculiar to man, though possibly attained
in their simpler forms by the highest of animals. The true emo-
tions, on the other hand, must be supposed to be of very much
earlier appearance in the evolutionary scale. Throughout the
major part of that scale they appear as mere by-products of the
impulsive strivings of the animals. In man alone they become an
important source of self-knowledge and, therefore, of self -direction.

The introspective study of these emotional qualities has been
much neglected by psychology, for the reasons that they do not
readily lend themselves to experimental control, and that our
nomenclature inevitably remains very inadequate. Yet the
practice of such introspection brings great increase of facility in
recognition of the nature of our conations; and such facility is of
more practical importance than any other kind of introspective
skill, not only because it greatly conduces to efficient self -direct ion,
but also because it is a principal means to a better understanding
of the motivation of conduct in general. It is not difficult to
know that we desire (or are averse to) some particular end; the
difficulty, theoretical and practical, is to know what is the nature
of the impulse in which the desire is rooted, what tendency finds
satisfaction in the attainment of such an end.

3. The named complex feelings (such as hope, anxiety, re-
gret) are not in any sense entities and do not spring from special

204 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

dispositions. Rather, each of the names we use in describing such
feelings denotes merely an ill-defined part of a large range of
feeling, the whole of which may be incidental to the working of
any strong desire, no matter what its nature and origin. As the
subject, moved by desire, passes through this range of complex
feelings, each named part is experienced in turn, and in turn passes
over into its neighbor quality; there is consequently no blending
of such qualities.

On the other hand, each one of the true primary emotional
qualities arises on the coming into activity of a corresponding con-
ative disposition, which is an enduring feature of the mental struc-
ture of the organism; hence, each such quality is experienced only
in association with an impulse or a desire of a specific type; and,
since two or more such dispositions may come simultaneously
into play, yielding cooperative or conflicting desires, the corres-
ponding primary emotional qualities may be simultaneously
evoked and may fuse or blend with one another in various inten-
sities. Let me illustrate these contrasting features with examples.
Hope is the name we give to the complex feeling which arises
when any strong desire is working in us and we anticipate success;
if new difficulties arise hope gives place to anxiety or despondency,
but cannot under any circumstances be said to blend with des-
pondency to yield anxiety; rather, as the circumstances become
less favorable, the feeling rooted in our desire changes by imper-
ceptible gradations from hope to anxiety and then to despondency.
Contrast with this the emotion we call curiosity or wonder and
its relations to the emotion we call fear. The emotion-quality
wonder accompanies always, in some degree, the impulse or desire
to explore and to become better acquainted with some object;
it is never experienced save as an accompaniment of that tendency
in action. The process of exploration leads to the better compre-
hension of the nature of the object and this in turn may evoke
fear, a quality which accompanies always the impulse to shrink
from, or the desire to retreat from, the object. But with the rise
of this new impulse with its distinctive emotion-quality, wonder
is not necessarily driven out or arrested; the impulse to explore
may continue to work simultaneously with the impulse to retreat,
and in this case we experience an emotion-quality in which we
recognize affinity to both wonder and fear, and which we seem
justified in describing as in some sense a blend of these two pri-
mary qualities.

Note: I seize this opportunity to illustrate the fact that the distinction drawn
in the foregoing paper obviates certain objections which have been raised against
the view of the relation between emotion and instinct propounded in my Social

WILLIAM McDOUGALL 205

Psychology. Professor Harvey Carr (in the paper contributed to the symposium)
raises against that view (namely, that each primary emotion is one aspect of the
functioning of a corresponding instinct) the fact that "the emotion of joy" is apt
to spring up on the completion of some instinctive action, that is to say at the
moment of attainment of the goal, the moment when the instinctive impulse sub-
sides. This fact would constitute a serious objection, if joy were a primary emo-
tion (as has so commonly been assumed ever since Descartes claimed that position
for it). But as I have tried to show elsewhere, joy lacks the distinguishing features
of a primary emotion; it must rather be regarded (together with sorrow) as one of
the "derived emotions of desire," that is to say, in stricter language, one of the
complex modes of feeling. Joy, as Professor Carr points out, has no specific ten-
dency, does not constantly accompany or qualify any one instinctive impulse, the
desire for a goal of any one type, but rather may arise upon the attainment of any
strongly desired goal, no matter what the instinctive root of the desire. It has all
the distinctive marks of feeling, rather than those of emotion.

CHAPTER 16

PHONOPHOTOGRAPHY AS A NEW APPROACH
TO THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EMOTION

CARL E. SEASHORE

State University of Iowa

The new approach to the study of emotion which I wish to
outline in a few words is restricted largely to the field of emo-
tional expression in music and speech. But the principles observed
in vocalization are often such as may be transferred directly or
indirectly to other channels of expression.

The technique I advocate on the basis of our experience in the
laboratory for the last eight or nine years rests upon the simple
assumption that everything that the singer or speaker conveys to
the listener in the form of music or speech is conveyed on the
sound wave. We may have dramatic singing and gesture and
other forms of embellishing action, but these are accessory and
can readily be recorded by photographic methods if desired.
But the fundamental fact is one which even the psychologists
and physicists have been slow to recognize, namely, that what is
conveyed from voice or instrument to the ear is conveyed on the
sound wave and through no other medium.

This being granted, we have only to take advantage of the
marvellous development in phonophotography which has taken
place within the last few years. We intercept the sound-wave
message with the camera, which records every character of the
message on moving-picture film permanently and in minute detail.
We may then build a scientific terminology of emotion within
these fields in terms of measurement upon this sound-wave record
and convert this into psychological terminology.

My purpose in speaking today is not to announce any marked
contribution to the advance in phonophotography, but rather to
point out how we psychologists may take advantage of the re-
markable development of facilities for exact record, reproduction,
analysis, and measurement of sound waves.

We may note three reasons why this approach to the study
of emotion is full of promise and assurance for the psychology of
emotion. These are: (1) that phonophotography furnishes us
in this field complete objective records of emotional expressions

CARL E. SEASHORE 207

in permanent form and adequate detail; (2) that music and speech
represent perhaps the most highly developed artistic forms of
the expression of emotion in the human being and constitute the
medium most commonly used for the expression of all stages of
affective life; and (3) that basic records of this kind become a
common instrument of reference in all studies of physical and
mental conditions of emotional expression.

1. The physical record in a phonophotogram may be reduced
to four factors; namely, the wave-form, the wave-length, the wave-
amplitude, and the wave-recurrence, each of these giving us in
turn timbre, pitch, intensity, and duration of sound. 1 The infinite
complexes of rich experience in hearing are all built up from
these four fundamental sources. Each of these four factors of
the sound wave has a large range for itself and when we take into
account all the possible permutations in combination of these
four series of variables we have sufficient physical basis to account
for all auditory experience from the stimulus point of view.

The thing I wish to emphasize here is that a complete record of
vocalization may be available for physical measurements on
these four phases of the sound wave and that theoretically we
shall be able to reconstruct from these four fundamental measure-
ments an almost infinite variety of experiences or expressions
which are recognized as vocal. While some of the detail in the
building of instruments for a complete record of sound waves
yet remains to be worked out in practice, we have theoretically
in sight, and in most cases practically, instruments which will
record emotional expression in appeal to the ear through voice
or instrument in as fine detail as may be significant for psycho-
logical analysis. I know of no other field for the expression of
emotional life in which we have or are ever likely to have a tool
of investigation so adequate and readily available.

2. When we regard all mental life as tinged with emotion and
when our object is to tease out this particular tinge from the
normal, beautiful or ugly, agreeable or disagreeable act, music
and speech present an incomparably fertile field. Our largest
interest is, of course, in the problem of determining the laws for
the expression of the beautiful. The expression of the ugly may
be regarded as the negative or obverse phase of the same thing.
Now beauty in vocal expression may be regarded as a pleasing
deviation from the regular, the fixed, and the exact. Thus, in
determining what constitutes beauty in singing, we must formulate

1 Although the attribute of extensity belongs in this category of attributes of
sound I do not give it a separate status here because its physical basis is wave-
length, which is the same as for pitch.

208 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

the laws for deviation from the regular true pitch, exact time,
fixed rhythm, pure tone, and so forth. This simplifies our problem
and makes it specific and concrete. I am using the term "expres-
sion of emotion" here in the broadest sense so as to include the
affective phase of concrete acts and experiences from the most
attenuated affective tone in the everyday act up to the violent
emotional expression or experience. The emotior^Js therefore
never_jnegarded_as^a process in itself but rather as a pEaseTot ~expe-
rience and action almost universally present.. We, thereforeTSpeak
of the photogram as representing a song or a speech in toto, yet
the photogram is such as to enable us to deal with the affective
aspects in and by themselves in the actual setting of the process
as a whole.

3. A phonophotogram becomes a basic record embodying
or representing the emotional act. In the study of all factors
involved we have, therefore, not that illusive consciousness
which introspective psychology has changed, but the overt
emotional act as a whole preserved and available for examination
from all points of view. The photogram therefore becomes a
universal tool of investigation.

On the basis of our own experiments in the laboratory, I may
give a number of examples of the manner in which this tool may
be used. I cannot stop to give results, but merely indicate
principles involved.

a) Comparison of the auditory experience and the analysis of
the objective record. The photogram of the rendition of a great
singer from a phonograph record has strategic value in that it
enables us to go back at any time and compare the hearing of the
sound and its objectively analyzed features. Countless problems
involving laws of hearing may be solved in this manner. By the
introduction of the tone-producing feature the same film may now
report both for the purpose of auditory reproduction, as in the
vitaphone, and for quantitative analysis as now studied in our
laboratory. When such a camera can be taken out to primitive
peoples for the making of this double record, a new wonderland
may be brought home to the laboratory. And, when distance
is annihilated so that the double record may be made instantly
in the laboratory from any part of the world over the radio,
science seems to approach magic.

6) The motor mechanism in the expression of emotion. With
the conditions under which phonophotograms are taken, ob-
jective record may be made of any feature in the motor mechanism
for the purpose of determining the primary sources of innervation
and the order and relationship of the various secondary innerva-

CARL E. SEASHORE 209

lions which enter into the musculature of a given act. For
example, with the phonophotogram of the beautiful rendition of
a tone, minute photographic records may be made also of the time,
the extent, the form, and the spread of the movement in the
individual muscles involved which produce that element of
beauty. The same amplifying system which is used in reporting
the sound may be used in amplifying the reproduction of other
inceptive and otherwise unobservable muscular movements.
Such studies enable us to give a structural picture of the motor
mechanism in a given emotional act.

c) The neural functions which condition the act. The principle
of amplifying for the recording of sound may also be applied to
the photographing of the action current. Thus in the study of
the sources and paths of innervation we need not wait for the
response of the muscle as an indication of the innervation, but
may record directly the origin, the course, and the frequency of
the innervations of the given muscle. It has been shown recently
that the rate of transmission of a nerve impulse through a simple
set of synapses is correlated with mental alertness, and by the
same principle there would be reason for assuming that it would
correlate with types of emotional response. Although it concerns
only the grosser movements of the nerve impulse, the technique
of measurement of action currents furnishes a new tool for the
determination of the neural mechanism which correlates with a
given emotional act.

d) Causes and conditions of emotional responses. The phono-
photogram as a permanent representation of the original act
enables us to tease out under experimental control one after another
of the countless subjective and objective factors which condition
a particular emotional act, such as its relation to stimuli, specific
mental processes, awareness, effort, and dominant drives. The
problems and types of approach from this point of view are
countless.

e) The relation of artistic expression of emotion to talent. The
quality and degree of artistic emotion expressed in song, for
example, is dependent upon the singer's possession of certain special
capacities such as the sense of pitch, sense of rhythm, musical
imagery, reflective thinking, and various forms of motor control.
Each of these may be studied in turn under control in relation
to the actual performances as recorded by a photogram and such
studies immediately reveal aspects of general forms of personality
traits such as emotional stability, persistence, or introversion.

/) Objective differences in the expression of emotional qualities.
The differentiation in the expressions of love and anger, the

210 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

quiet emotion and the violent emotion, and similar qualitative
differences in emotional experience may now be approached a
step nearer by measurement; for, if fear, anger, love, are expressed
through music, the differences among them, so far as the affective
quality of the singing is concerned, may be expressed in terms
of measurements upon the sound wave.

g) Development or adaptation of emotional expression. Since
age groups may readily be studied by phonophotography for this
purpose, the development of artistic singing forms the modulation
of the expression of feeling; and the actual rise and fall of certain
emotional tendencies may be adequately recorded.

h) Racial traits in song and speech. We may now compare
the beauty or ugliness of a particular expression of emotion in
music or speech of the Hottentot or the Bostonian, the Fiji
Islander or the Eskimo, for many of our instruments now available
bring all these within our reach.

i) The inheritance of emotional qualities. Likewise, since our
objective records enable us to make comparisons within a family
and for successive generations in a family group, the study of
inheritance of emotional traits, such as a beautiful singing voice
or a conspicuous rhythmic activity, may be studied objectively.

j) Learning, the acquisition of emotional skill. The voice has
up to the present time been one of the most grossly neglected
factors in the judgment of the charm of personality. As interest
in art grows we are going to place the development of the affective
aspects of human intercourse on a part with the cognitive; and
the most important of these is the pleasingness of the human
voice. Appreciation of the forms of beauty in the human voice
and skill in its control are among the large lessons that cultured
man has yet to learn; and, in the present approach, we have a
means for laying scientific foundation for a science of the expres-
sion of the beautiful through voice.

To this list of ten vantage grounds many more might be added.
These are selected as points of view which are actually in opera-
tion at the present time in the Iowa laboratory. I might illustrate
all of them in a specific case, the study of the vibrato by Dr.
Metfessel and others. By such methods the investigator has
been enabled to work out a number of laws of the relation of
the perception which the vibrato has to its objective existence;
what fundamental types of motor mechanism actually operate
in the production of the vibrato; what are the primary and what
are secondary forms of innervation indicating the seat of control
of the vibrato; what types of mental and physical antecedents
and motives condition the vibrato; what are some of the charac-

CARL E. SEASHORE

teristic limitations of artistic vibrato as set by limitations upon
specific musical talents; what are some of the objective devices
in an expression of, for example, love and anger; what is the
normal order of development and the mode of origin of the vibrato
in an age series of children; how the vibrato of the Carolina negro
spiritual compares with that of the trained artistic singer; whether
an early vibrato comes through true inheritance or merely as a
social or educational factor; how may the vibrato be taught and
how a disagreeable vibrato may be corrected.

This illustration should suffice to convey something of the
unlimited scope of possibilities which are open to us by the
technique of phonophotography in the study of emotional life.

DISCUSSION

DR. DUNLAP: (The Johns Hopkins University): The program which Dr. Sea-
shore has laid down is one which should excite our enthusiasm as an experimental
program, and it does excite mine. Nevertheless, I am 99.44 per cent skeptical.
Many of us have worked in this field in the past. I am still somewhat skeptical,
not as to the desirability of the program, but as to the possibility of attaining the
results which Dr. Seashore has predicted for us. I am afraid that in exposition
Dr. Seashore has confused beauty and expression, which I believe are two different
things, and possibly Dr. Seashore seemed to confuse them because of the limitations
of his presentation here.

But the beauty of a singer's voice, its power to arouse emotions in the hearers,
is one thing. Her voice as an expression of her own emotions is in most cases an
entirely different thing. Many of our singers are, you might say, human violins
or oboes. They do not feel the emotions which they arouse in their hearers.

Moreover, the mechanism which they have built up for the purpose of working
on pur organisms in that way is one which is not built up through emotional ex-
perience of that type, but through a careful and long training in details of technique,
which singers know will have that effect in the mechanical perfection of the human
organs.

To a large extent, as we know, those methods of arousing feeling in auditors,
these elements of beauty, as we may call them, are conventional. The things which
to us are of great value, which arouse deep emotions in us, to other men of the same
heredity, who have not been trained in that same thing, arouse loathing and disgust.
The vibrato is an example, where the training to that constant trembling of voice
may lead us to accept that somewhat jazzy element of singing as something of
great beauty, that is, may arouse in us emotions which it did not arouse fifty years
ago.

When it comes to the voice as expressing the actual feelings of the vocalizer, then
we are entering upon a problem of exceeding great interest, but the problem where
my pessimism is deepest.

It is true, as Dr. Seashore has pointed out, that the totality of vocal expression
can be reduced to a few elements. In that consideration lies great advantage and
significant danger.

Water can be reduced to two elements, oxygen and hydrogen. But you tell
your engineer designing a city water system, with all of its complicated requirements,
that all he has to do is to deal with oxygen and hydrogen, and you won't convince
him that the matters of pressure and purification and the manifold details of en-

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

gineering practice in regard to water supplies can be solved by a simple synthetic
consideration of primary elements.

Our problem with regard to emotions is as much an engineering problem as it
is a chemical problem, I believe, and I think Dr. Cannon would agree with that.
But important as the chemical consideration is, it is a much more complicated
problem than that, and I think we can very quickly assure ourselves of that fact
with regard to vocal expression. The voice does express feeling or emotion, what-
ever you want to call it. Of that there is no question. It is one of those physiological
signs. We are long past the day when we were inclined to connect those factors
with anatomical signs in a mixed population. But we know all physiological signs
must be considered, both with regard to the fleeting expressions of mental changes,
and with regard to the permanent tendencies in mental constitution.

But here we are dealing, if my experience is dependable, with factors of great
subtlety. If we were to estimate Galli-Curci's voice in the terms of simple factors
on the basis of a synthesis and an analysis which we could make of those at present,
I am afraid that Galli-Curci, with her well-known characteristic of inability to
keep on the pitch, would be rated much below some of our church sopranos. Those
elements of superiority in Galli-Curci's voice which enable her to produce her effects
you see I am getting over into expression, but you see now it is the effect of the
voice itself rather in beauty than expression regardless of how Galli-Curci feels
when she sings, and from what I have heard, her introspection would be quite
worth while in that regard those elements which give her voice superiority in
spite of its grave technical defects are subtle considerations. That has to do with
the difficulties of instrumentation and analysis which we get immediately.

I unfortunately did not hear the beginning of Dr. Seashore's paper. He may
have overcome this in his opening. But all of the instruments which I know, six or
seven different instruments of phonographic registration of vocal expression, are
exceedingly troublesome. I suppose nobody in our land knows that better than
Dr. Dayton C. Miller, who spent the greater part of his life in attempts at this type
of analysis. And a phonograph isn't any more a source of difficulty than the other
instruments. We can, it is true, register pitch, we can register duration, we can regis-
ter amplitude, we can register wave-form. How much these details of average
pitch, average amplitude, hiive to do with emotion is a question. I do not think
they have much to do with it.

A person who talks may talk in a voice which has been standardized for many
years, but he gives himself away in small matters, and those small matters are the
significant matters. Timbre is important but timbre is standardized by our meth-
ods of training, and the analysis of timbre from our best phonographic records, as
some of you know, is a matter yet for conjecture. If you succeed in analyzing in
months a few feet of record and are sure of your analysis, I think you will have the
commendation of Dr. Miller.

Our instruments are not at the present time capable of registering timbre ac-
curately. You have to make manifold physical corrections. It is in those slight
variations that we find the significant things, so that slight variations over a long
period of time, not through a few seconds but over some moments, in pitch and in
amplitude are the things which give the other fellow's expression away to you.
Now, those difficulties may be overcome. Maybe sometime in the future we
will be able to make analyses which will give us these glittering results. But after
considering some of the simpler points and finding the best I can calculate the solu-
tion of a single one of these minor points for a single singer (which would be a mile
of phonographic records), then consider how long it would take anybody, comparing
details over miles of records, assuming he has methods of analysis not yet invented,
to get that done in several years, if it could be done. The labor of getting at general
principles, you see, would still be left as an exceedingly long task.

CARL E. SEASHORE 213

The question of instrumentation and analysis is a different thing. I think it is
a splendid thing that Dr. Seashore has held up these glittering ideals, in order that
our energy, which many people have been putting into attempts to overcome these
apparently insuperable difficulties, shall be restored, our courage heartened, and
we may go on and perhaps in the course of thirty or forty years I will be optimistic
to that extent we may have succeeded in getting a start on this program.

Even then, however, valuable and important as the registration of the emotional
expressions of the human voice may be, I am not sure but what dependence on that
as a very important index of emotional life would not be something like depending
upon a record of barometric changes in the state of Colorado over ten years as an
index of the agricultural and mercantile productions she might be ultimately
capable of producing.

DR. SEASHORE: This is a splendid opportunity to add another specimen to my
collection of those who are not willing to go back to fundamentals and what seem
to me to be self-evident truths with which I start out and which we must believe
in if we are going to do laboratory work. As Dr. Dunlap spoke, I was trying to
decide whether he was speaking as a philosopher or psychologist. If he speaks as
a psychologist or as a critic of laboratory methods, he has my full support and
sympathy. And I am sure he will agree with me that we are at the very beginning
of an extremely large program. But I see no reason why we should not see the
program.

The paper which I read has been written with some care for the purpose of
printing it, and I shall be very glad to have psychologists of that very fine critical
type of mind which Dr. Dunlap represents show wherein I have made a wrong
forecast in placing the program for measurements of this type before you.

I should consider it unnecessary to mention in this audience that the first prin-
ciple of scientific work in psychology is that you must isolate one factor, study that
under controlled conditions, and limit your conclusions to the factor which is
under control. I did not think it necessary to say that in my paper, but if I had
said that, I would have taken the momentum away from the thunder which seems
to carry the impression that I had a complete explanation of emotional life and
experience.

What I am making a plea for is that we scientists shall be willing to settle down
and spend generations and ages if necessary in studying one form of one sound wave,
in order that we may lay sound foundations. And, of course, the apparatus is
not the feature. But even the most excellent apparatus with which Dr. Miller
has led the way is very much surpassed at the present time by the newest forms of
instrument for recording, and I want to say at this time that we owe a great deal
to Dr. Miller for doing just the thing which I have tried to do a stage further by
showing what the program is. We do not have to philosophize about it. We do
not have to be gloomy or stand in despair. The facts in regard to what is trans-
ferred physically from the singer to the listener are objective facts which can be
studied by instruments.

PROFESSOR RIEBLER (St. Lawrence University): I would like to know whether
we might transgress on Dr. Seashore's time and have him put on the blackboard a
typical graph of some emotion, rage or fear, say.

DR. SEASHORE: That is asking too much, because that is an awfully long story,
and we have just begun to pry into it. But if you had stopped in the first part
of your sentence, I could have given you fifty principles somewhat on the order of
laws in psychology which must be taken into account in the interpretation of that.
The vibrato that is beautiful is approximately, when plotted in terms of pitch and in
terms of intensity, a synchronous pulsation of pitch and intensity in which to the
present musical ear and musical conventions the most beautiful form is that in
which the amplitude oscillation is something between a half and a third of a tone.

214 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

and in which the intensity oscillation is equally perceptible to the pitch oscillation.
This oscillation is smooth at the rate of about six to eight or ten vibrations per
second, depending upon the quality of the emotion that is expressed.

DR. PRINCE (Harvard University) : I did not catch none of us did, I think the
method of how Dr. Seashore records the nerve pulsation or nerve current respecting
the voice. May I ask that question, because I can see that that may be a very
important and valuable method for the solution of some problems. Will you explain
that please?

DR. SEASHORE: We have just recently perfected the instrument for measuring
these things, so that we have no important results to give as yet. I may say in
just a word that it is the well-recognized principle of recording the action current,
and if, for instance, you want to know how the diaphragm is actuated, the nearest
approach is to the muscles which control the diaphragm and record the time inter-
vals, so stated as to be significant for your purpose. We have to begin with the
grosser reflexes in studying stuttering and the vibrato, because vibrato is an
instability of the voice and stuttering is an instability of the voice. We began with
the study of patellar reflexes, thinking that if we could master that, we could transfer
to the study of other reflexes which are less accessible.

DR. CANNON (Harvard University): How is differentiation made between the
action current of the muscle and the action current of the nerve?

DR. SEASHORE: I can answer that only in objective facts; that in this particular
thing we took the easiest approach, taking the stimulation for the patellar re-
flex, the nerve impulse has to go up to the spinal cord through a reflex arc (how
far up that goes we do not know) and then back. And the question arose which
you asked, how shall we differentiate the place with reference to the recording?
Now, as I understand it, the action current which we record at the present time is
a neuro-muscular affair, and the boys who did this measuring went into the ana-
tomical laboratory and dissected a lot of cadavers, in which they knew where the
motor impulse which innervates the large muscle, the patellar muscle, is located,
and then they put the electrodes just above that point. That is the empirical way
of answering that question. I do not think the full answer can be given to your
question, but it may be possible to get it.

DR. CANNON: I hardly think that would give the action current of the nerves.
The only way that can be got is by having the nerve wholly isolated from sur-
rounding tissues and having the electrodes applied directly to it. The current is
so extraordinarily minute tnat the fluids which surround the nerve would readily
carry any difference of potential which might develop as the impulse passes along
the nerve, and would not be expressed on the surface by electrodes that are applied
to the surface of the body.

DR. SEASHORE: There is no difficulty in getting the response large enough.

DR. CANNON: You can get muscular action current?

DR. SEASHORE: Yes, whatever it is. But it is at that point and it is one step
in advance. Say roughly, not to be exact, the patellar response has ordinarily
been taken at about a tenth of a second, now the response which we get at this
point is less than a hundredth of a second, and while we don't know exactly what it
is, it gives a vantage ground, in that we are closer to the time over the circuit which
is examined. I admit fully that we do not know just what happens and what it is
that we are picking up there where the nerve runs into the muscle.

CHAPTER 17

EXCITEMENT AS AN UNDIFFERENTIATED

EMOTION

GEORGE M. STRATTON

University of California

On an earlier occasion, there was reported the experience of
an aviator who, while doing "stunts" at a height of about 5500
feet, found that his elevator-control was stuck, and that his
airplane in that respect no longer answered to the "stick." He
thereupon kicked the rudder over and sent his ship into a tail-
spin, and, while falling, discovered and corrected an entanglement
in the wire of his control, and was able thereupon to straighten
out the airplane after a fall of about 4000 feet and when within
about 1500 feet of the ground. 1 While considering this experience
and its indication of the uses of emotion, I ventured to suggest
that, along with the particular emotions well recognized by
psychologists of the day, a place should be made for excitement.
But at the moment there was no opportunity to explain or to
justify this thought. Yet because of its intrinsic interest and its
important bearing on current theory of the emotions, I shall
now return to it, with the hope of doing more justice to what
was then confessedly slighted.

In proposing to recognize excitement in this manner, it will of
course be clear to the reader that the way has been prepared by
others. Excitement appears in one of the "dimensions" of simple
feeling in the well-known account by Wundt. For Ladd and
Woodworth 2 a feeling of excitement is unquestionably real, and
they describe some of its forms of expression. Excitement is
mentioned or briefly spoken of by Bain, 8 Woodworth, 4 Warren, 5
and others. But while it is recognized by some as a feature com-
mon to various emotions, there is a reluctance to admit it to a

l " An Experience during Danger, and the Wider Functions of Emotion" in
Problems of Personality: Studies in Honor of Dr. Morton Prince (New York: Har-
court, Brace, 1925), p. 47.

2 Elements of Physiological Psychology (New York: Scribner, 1911), pp. 501 ff.,
531.

The Emotions and the Will (4th ed.; London: Longmans, 1899), p. 13.

4 Psychology (New York: Holt, 1921), p. 126.

* Human Psychology (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1919), p. 284 f.

216 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

place of importance along with sadness, joy, anger, fear, love, and
the rest. Thus it is notably absent from James's classical survey
of the instincts and emotions; 8 and from the accounts of the
emotions and instincts by Shand 7 and by McDougall. 8 Nor
does it appear in the tabulation by Warren. 9

Before I attempt a fuller account of this important psycho-
physical process, let me give a few instances to show what I mean
by excitement. My dog "pointing" at a squirrel-hole in the
hills, standing stock-still, but uncommonly ready to be startled
by some slight sound I make, perhaps by my dislodging a small
stone which rolls down the slope, or by a single light clap of my
hands this, I believe, might be called excitement in the dog.
And in the reports to me by cattlemen, as to the effect of the
sight or smell of blood, several of them rather shrewdly, I am now
led to believe, resisted the temptation to call the cattle's response
anger; they preferred to call it excitement. 10 Some of the behavior
of birds described by W. H. Hudson, I should feel might most
safely be regarded not as fear, nor as anger clearly, and certainly
not as love, but rather as excitement.

In human beings, the emotion is to be found fairly clearly in
the experience of public speaking, after one has passed through
his initial anxiety and, getting well under way, finds his audience
becoming attentive and ready to indicate its interest. He warms
to his theme, his misgiving vanishes, and there may come over
him a condition clearly emotional and yet difficult to identify
with any of the recognized emotions. I doubt that it is always
vainglory, a rejoicing in one's adequacy and progress; there seems
often to come, rather, a lessened self-consciousness and a more
complete absorption in the work at hand. And when a person
is hunting or fishing, he experiences fateful moments, when the
greatest trout of the day hesitates between striking and flight;
or when the twigs snap deep in the forest, as though the expected
deer was at last about to emerge. The heart's action, the breath-
ing, here is no longer calm; the entire receptive and effective
system is so keyed that the slightest sound, the slightest seen-
movement, is apt to cause a start; the attention is preternaturally

fi Principles of Psychology, (New York: Holt, 1890), II, p. 409 ff.
, 7 Foundations of Character (2nd ed.; London: Macmillan, 1920), p. 27 ff.

8 Introduction to Social Psychology (Boston: Luce, 1910)..

9 Human Psychology (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1919), p. 299.

10 "Cattle, and Excitement from Blood/* Psychological Review, XXX (1923),
380 ff.

GEORGE M. STRATTON 217

alert; according to the impressions of the moment, action is ready
to be set off instantly along one or another course.

Excitement would also be exemplified in tense moments while
reading a novel, when observing a decisive football game or game
of baseball, and by the behavior of those students who, in a con-
flagration in Berkeley a few years ago, rushed to the help of the
townspeople whose nouses lay in the path of the fire. Houses
were entered, all manner of household things were salvaged,
pianos were carried out to the street, smoking roofs were scaled,
life was risked for anything or for nothing. Such men were not
afraid, nor angry, nor in love; neither were they sorrowful nor
rejoicing, nor were they calm. They were in a highly emotional
state. The plain man would probably have said that they were
excited, or would have urged them not to get excited. And I
do not see but that he is right in recognizing their condition as
emotional and yet as being not that of any specialized emotion.

There can accordingly be no shadow of doubt, it seems to me,
that we here have a principal form of psychophysical behavior
as real and as definite and we might say as important as fear, or
anger, or joy, or sadness. But its definite character, if one may
risk a bull, lies in its indefiniteness, in its being more nearly
general than any of these others, in its being less specific.

Excitement differs from joy or sorrow in its external behavior
and in its internal course and quality, as well as in the situation
which usually calls it forth. It goes less clearly to one or the
other extreme of rejoicing or of wailing. It is easily distinguished,
for example, from the elation of the victor and from the depression
of the vanquished. In either of these two emotions, pleasure or
unpleasantness comes to a high pitch and occupies a prominent
place in the total complication. Excitement, on the other hand,
while it may be pleasant or unpleasant, is mildly so, and it may
be mixed or perhaps neutral. At the moment, the pleasure or
unpleasantness is hardly at the front; what is more prominent
in excitement is the tension, the expectation, the readiness for
instant adaptation to novel openings in the situation; there is
a distinct looking for something yet to come. In joy and sadness,
the situation has shown itself with relative fullness, the tension
is gone, and one is glad or sad in what has come to pass or is fore-
shadowed. In excitement the mind and body are extraordinarily
alert; and for the normal organism, one may assume, alertness
is pleasant. But this is a pleasure had in the very living itself,
arid not in some particularly favorable turn which the events of
life have taken.

218 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

Excitement is also distinct from anger, fear, and affection.
For these three emotions have characteristic impulses fairly gen-
eral and unspecialized; and with the impulses there are connected
with each of the three emotions movements which are of wide
variety and are fairly unspecific. But connected with excitement
there is no special impulse nor even a general impulse which is
characteristic of this emotion. In anger there is the impulse to
injure another person or to destroy his resistance to one's purpose
or interests. In fear, there is an impulse to hide or flee or to
reduce by some manner of defense an impending injury. In
affection, there is an impulse to remain near and to enjoy the
endeared object and to benefit that object. But in excitement
there may be no clear impulse to any definite form of action.
The excited man is active; he is apt to be in motion; but the
fact that he is excited tells us nothing as to the end to which his
movements will be directed. His whole being may or may not be
dominated by a purpose. He may be on the qui vive and with
no impulse but a most general one of being ready for anything
that may occur. Or he may have a very special impulse to
make a fortune by an impending change of the market, to rescue
a drowning man, to get to a fire. But what the impulse is or is
to be, cannot be deduced from the excitement itself; all will
depend on circumstance. Excitement can support and strengthen
any particular impulse you please. Or, as I said, it can be without
particular impulse. In this respect, then, excitement is unlike
anger, fear, and affection. But in this very respect it is like
joy and sadness, which also are marked by far less specific and
characteristic impulses to action than are anger and fear. Yet
it is unlike joy and sadness in the several respects already in-
dicated. Excitement thus appears as the least specialized, the
most generalized of all the emotions.

The relation of excitement to the other relatively simple emo-
tions might be represented by the accompanying diagram, in
which there are conceived to be four limits of emotion; namely,
the most generalized and the most differentiated or specialized,
and the most pleasant and the most unpleasant.

GEORGE M. STRATTON

219

Differentiated

anger

fear,

affection

Unpleasant

Pleasant

depression

elation

excitement

Undifferentiated

One should not assume that these analytic findings indicate
that in evolution and development the causal derivation is pre-
cisely as this diagram represents. What the evolutionary and
developmental connections may be is a matter to be determined
by further observation and experiment. It would not be sur-
prising, however, if the order in evolution and development should
be found to correspond to what is here suggested.

The relation of excitement to the other emotions may be
further clarified by a word. One might well ask whether excite-
ment always stands clearly apart from the others, or whether it
mingles with them. The facts seem to me to warrant us in holding
that:

1. Excitement may stand alone; it may arise with the full
qualities, even if without the full strength, of excitement, and
may, without leading to any other emotion, slowly or swiftly
pass away.

2. Excitement may be the precursor of any one of the other
emotions; before there is joy or sadness, before there is fear or
anger or love there often is although there need not always be
mere excitement. A man's manner may stir me before he awakens
in me fear or anger or any other emotion; there may be an initial
stage marked by quick interest and alertness, as though on the

220 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

verge of something fateful, but without as yet any clear reaction
of alarm or resentment or of friendly attraction. When the
situation becomes the definite occasion for one of these, then the
mere excitement has gone and a less generalized emotion is in
its place.

3. Excitement may be the successor of other emotions. When
fear is relieved by the sudden disappearance of a menace, as when
one has killed a rattlesnake faced suddenly in the mountains,
there is no instant calm. The alarm is gone, but the waters
continue to be troubled as after a squall. This persisting dis-
turbance, when the specific emotion is no longer demanded by
the situation, this continuing agitation seems to me emotional
and to be identified as excitement.

Some would perhaps add a fourth assertion, that excitement
is an accompaniment or essential constituent of all emotion, being
present in every case of fear, anger, love, elation, or depression,
as well as in the more complex emotions. I have no stout objec-
tion to this, although my vote would be against it. In the end
it is a matter less of fact than of words and of prudence in limiting
a concept. To include under the one term "excitement" both
the generalized emotion, and also the commotional aspect of all
the specialized emotions would hardly tend to clarify; we had
better continue to designate this common aspect of the specialized
emotions by a separate term, such as emotionality, or agitation,
or affect, or by Woodworth's "stirred-upness." We shall then
perhaps be less tempted to believe that each emotion is a mere
compound attained by agitation plus specific impulse plus pleasure
or unpleasantness, and so on; whereas, instead, each emotion
is an organized whole.

Ill

As for the situations which arouse excitement, something of
their character has already become clear. Excitement is our
response to a situation which we recognize as calling for somewhat
more than an easy and routine handling. The situation which
arouses excitement may require no adaptation beyond our powers;
but it does require an adaptation not covered by our resources
immediately available, by our forces at the front; there is need of
our reserves. Moreover, it is not enough that the situation has
this unusual character; it must be recognized as having it. A
rattlesnake in the open and within a foot of one's hand or face
would for most of us call for an unusual act of adaptation; but
unless one is aware of the snake's presence, there is no emotion.

GEORGE M. STRATTON 221

But, further, if the situation, including the recognition of it,
is of a relatively clear character and such as calls forth what we
might call one of the stock impulses to flight or hiding or attack
or affectionate embrace or wailing or glad shouting and laughter,
together with the feelings and judgments usually connected with
one of these impulses then, instead of excitement, there is joy
or fear, or the like. For excitement, the situation must be other
than this. It may be either (a) unresolved as yet, not developed
enough to indicate its meaning for us, as when a hunter hears a
crash in the underbrush and cannot make out what it is; or (6)
so complicated that it tends to stir incompatible impulses which
cancel one another and leave the individual bewildered, as was
the case with many persons when the World War burst upon us;
or (c) relatively clear, and arousing unmistakably a particular
impulse but not what I have called one of the stock impulses.
Thus to face a difficult examination, or to see one's neighbor's
house in flames, or to be stopped on the street by a policeman
with a summons, for the first time in one's life to appear in court
for jury duty any one of these may arouse a particular impulse
but no primal or stock impulse; the whole reaction, inner and outer,
is of mild or intense excitement. In a great business crisis, a man
may, as at no other time in his life, be brought to commotion, while
also not confused.

Following all these directions of the evidence, then, it has
seemed to me that our thinking would be clarified by recognizing
this peculiar state of mind and body. In excitement we have a
form of emotion, which perhaps exists at an earlier date than do
the other forms, and which certainly is less differentiated than any
other form of emotion. It may exist itself, or it may be the pre-
cursor or successor of any of the other emotions usually recognized
by psychologists. It has its own situations which call it forth,
and which can be as adequately described as are the situations
which arouse joy or sorrow, fear, anger or love.

CHAPTER 18

HOW EMOTIONS ARE IDENTIFIED AND
CLASSIFIED

ROBERT S. WOODWORTH

Columbia University

Among psychological theories which have won acceptance
because of the neat way in which they introduced order into a
large and confused field, few can rank with William McDougall's
doctrine that specific emotions are the affective phases of specific
instincts. 1 With instinctive avoidance behavior goes the emo-
tion of fear, with instinctive aggressive and pugnacious behavior
the emotion of anger, with curiosity and exploratory behavior
the emotion of wonder, and so on through a list of the most
"powerful instincts," each including one of the primary emotions.

Considered as an attempt to find a one-to-one correspondence
between characteristic modes of overt behavior and equally
characteristic affective states of the organism, this theory pre-
supposes that it is possible to identify the several emotions in-
dependently of overt behavior. Otherwise we have only a *lgpu-
rious correlation?" IF fear "is recognizable and definable only as
thS^eEaotional" state that goes with avoidance behavior, it is no
great achievement to discover that fear goes with avoidance.

If we turn to the dictionary for definitions of the several emo-
tions, we read that fear is "the painful emotion characteristic
of the apprehension of evil; agitation and desire to avoid an
object"; that anger is an "emotion of displeasure or antagonism
excited by injury or insult"; that wonder is the "emotion excited
by novelty." Apart from non-specific characters such as pain
and agitation, these attempts at definition go outside of the
organism altogether for something to serve as the differentia of
any given emotion. McDougall himself does no better. He makes
no serious attempt to give an introspective description of each
of the primary emotions. Indeed, it is very doubtful if a purely
introspective description with no reference to the external
situation arousing an emotion or to the overt behavior attending
it could be made so characteristic as to enable the reader to
identify the emotion which was being described. Warren has

1 W. McDougall, Introduction to Social Psychology (Boston: Luce, 1910), p. 46.

ROBERT S. WOOD WORTH

gone further than most authors in attempting to describe the
emotional states as such. 2 He says of a certain emotion that its
hedonic tone is unpleasantness, usually present in a high degree,
that its characteristic organic sensations come from the lower
viscera and the region of the heart and lungs, and that there are
kinaesthetic sensations of trembling, etc. Of another emotion
he says that its general hedonic tone is unpleasant, that its char-
acteristic organic sensations come from the upper digestive tract,
the heart and lungs, and the circulatory system generally, and
that there are intense kinaesthetic sensations of muscular tension
from the face, hands, and legs. It is safe to assert that these
emotions would not be recognized from the introspective descrip-
tions, aside from the indications of overt behavior admitted by
way of the account of kinaesthetic sensations.

Now we have to admit that introspective study of the emo-
tions has not been carried far enough to warrant our denying
that each emotion could be defined as a purely affective (and
sensory) state. But certainly psychologists are not yet in a
position to point to a well-defined list of such states, along with a
well-defined list of modes of overt behavior, and then to call
attention to the remarkable one-to-one correspondence that
exists between the two lists.

The behaviorists, though looking with contempt on any such
attempt to characterize emotions in terms of feelings and sensa-
tions, still regard the concept of emotion as usable, provided the
emotion is defined as intra-organic behavior, consisting largely
in the action of glands and unstriped muscles. 3 But when Watson
comes to his admitted list of three primary emotions, fear, rage,
and love, he describes and identifies them in terms of external
stimulus and overt behavior, with practically no reference to the
glands and smooth muscles. So he says of fear in infants: "The
responses are a sudden catching of the breath, clutching randomly
with the hands (the grasping reflex invariably appearing when
the child is dropped), sudden closing of the eyelids, puckering of
the lips, then crying." Of rage he says, "If the face or head is
held, crying results, quickly followed by screaming. The body
stiffens and fairly well-coordinated slashing or striking movements
of the hands and arms result; the feet and legs are drawn up and
down; the breath is held till the child's face is flushed."

Indeed, at the present time it would be as impracticable to
present an identifiable picture of each of these three emotions in

2 H. C. Warren, Human Psychology (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1919), p. 1297.
3 J. B. Watson, Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist (Philadelphia:
Lippincott, 1919), pp. 195-202.

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

terms of the activities of glands, smooth muscles, and internal
organs in general, as it is to present an identifiable picture in terms
of sensations and feelings. Cannon 4 finds the same internal
changes in fear and rage, as well as in states of "being all keyed
up" for strenuous activity, which states cannot properly be called
either fear or rage. All serious and thorough experimental efforts
to discover a characteristic bodily expression for each emotion
have failed. Shepard 6 found that "feelings cannot be classified
on the basis of vasomotor and heart rate changes. ... In
short, all moderate nervous activity tends to constrict the periph-
eral vessels and to increase the volume and size of pulse in the
brain." Landis, 6 introducing into the laboratory a variety of
often drastic emotional situations, was unable to find differential
patterns of response, either from the vascular organs or from the
muscles of facial expression, while Brunswick 7 found the same lack
of characteristic patterns in the field of gastro-intestinal reactions.
Similarly, the students of the psychogalvanic reaction have not
reported different types of response for different specific emotions.
The present state of the question is thus summed up by Landis:

"When an organism is in a situation which results in a disturbed or wrought-up
condition, then the situation plus the reaction gives us a name or word which char-
acterizes the whole as a specific emotion. The reaction of itself is not sufficient to
differentiate the emotion; the character of the situation is involved in this differ-
entiation. That is, the same bodily responses in different situations will be called
by different names on other than the emotional attributes of the entire situation. "

Experimental studies of internal bodily activities, we might
say, afford plenty of evidence of emotion, but little or none of the
emotions as characteristically different states of the organism.
This conclusion should, indeed, be accepted with some reserve,
since laughter seems an exception, and since a strong sex emotion,
unhampered by embarrassment, has perhaps not yet been ex-
amined under laboratory conditions. In short, we may not have
succeeded, thus far, in bringing the whole range of emotion under
careful observation. But, at any rate, we have to admit that
many distinctions which we unhesitatingly make in everyday
speech, such as that between fear and anger, do not rest on any
known intra-organic difference, either introspectively or object-
ively observed. We seem to be driven back to where the dic-

4 W. B. Cannon, Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear, and Rage (New York:
Appleton, 1915).

6 J. F. Shepard, "Organic Changes and Feeling," American Journal of Psychol-
ogy, XVII (1906), 557-558.

8 C. Landis, Journal of Comparative Psychology, IV (1924), 497; Landis and
Gullette, ibid., V (1925), 243; Landis, ibid., VI (1926), 238.

7 D. Brunswick, Journal of Comparative Psychology, IV (1924), 286.

ROBERT S. WOODWORTH

tionary left us. U.nable to separate the emotions in intra-organic
terms, we needs must seek a basis of distinction in the external
situation.

Such a search, indeed, does not appear very promising at the
outset, since emotion would seem to be nothing if not intra-
organic, and since it would seem very unlikely that we could
successfully classify external situations as fear-situations,
anger-situations, amusing situations, satisfactory situations,
without reference to the responsive organism. The same external
situation may be any one of these, according to the native
characteristics and past history of the organism in question. The
response of the organism must certainly be considered. And it
will riot be sufficient to take into account the visceral or other
internal response of the organism, for we do not know that the
internal response differs in fear and anger. Any valid basis for
distinguishing between fear and anger must take into account
the overt response of the organism. The overt response in fear
we may call avoidance, and in anger attack. Fear we distinguish
from anger, accordingly, by the overt behavior of avoidance in
one case and attack in the other.

This tentative conclusion is so far sound, I am sure, that no
valid distinction can be drawn between fear and anger that does
not include this difference in overt behavior. But several difficul-
ties at once present themselves.

There may be, there often is, a cold-blooded or unemotional
avoidance or attack. This difficulty can be readily met, however,
much in the manner of Allport, 8 by agreeing to limit fear to in-
stances of emotional avoidance, and anger to instances of emotional
attack, and then referring the, perhaps undifferentiated, emotional
part of the total response to the viscera, while the distinction
between the two "emotions" lies in the overt behavior.

There may be anger or fear without overt attack or avoidance.
We speak of a controlled desire to attack or escape. Probably
there are minimal movements of attack or escape, and, at any
rate, the distinction is still in terms of the overt behavior "de-
sired," whatever that means in terms of the dynamics of the
organism some kind of set, readiness, or adjustment, probably.

A third difficulty is less trifling than it first appears. We have
been talking as if, however ill defined might be the difference
between fear-situations and anger-situations, or between the
intra-organic responses of fear and anger, at least the overt re-
sponses of avoidance and attack were perfectly easy to distin-
guish. As a matter of fact, this distinction cannot be made in

8 F. H. Allport, Social Psychology (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1924), p. 91.

226 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

purely motor terms. There are no muscles of attack, no muscles
of avoidance. Movements are not classified on any such basis,
since the same movement, as flexion of the arm, may be an
avoidance reaction (if the hand is pricked or burned), or may be
" hauling off" preparatory to striking a blow, or preparatory to
throwing a kiss. Almost any movement can be a movement of
avoidance, or can be something quite different, according to the
situation; just as almost any situation can be a fear-situation, or
something quite different, according to the response. 9

Avoidance can be defined only in terms of the relation of situa-
tion and response, in terms of the change in the situation pro-
duced by the response. Let us first attempt to define this change
or relation without assuming any " desire,' 1 adjustment, set,
or orientation of the organism in short, without assuming
anything intra-organic that characterizes one "emotion" as
distinct from another.

We might try to define avoidance as any motor response that
separated the organism from the exciting stimulus. Of course
we should have to break up the total situation to the extent of
specifying which element in it was the effective stimulus, since
every movement towards one object is inevitably a movement
away from some other object. Every movement could be classified
as either an approaching or an avoiding reaction, unless we felt
we knew enough about the organism to specify which element
in the objective situation was getting this response. But even a
movement away from an object, aroused by that object, is not
always avoidance. The dinner-gong sounding in the living-room
provokes a general exodus, which is not an avoidance of the gong,
but a " conditioned" approach to the dining-room. In view of
the prevalence of substitute stimuli and substitute responses,
avoidance reactions would have to be sorted out by a study of
the life-history of the individual.

When such an ontogenetic classification has been carried out,
the question remains whether the manifold "avoiding responses"
have anything in common at present, or are only historically
connected. Just as the words "radius," "radium," and "radio"
have little in common except their derivation from a common
root, so the various forms of behavior classed together under the
head of avoidance might have nothing in common, except the
fact of a common origin. At this point, I recognize that my argu-
ment becomes perceptibly weaker, but I cannot seriously doubt
that common sense is dimly viewing some real intra-organic fact

9 Cf. the discussion by Grace A. De Laguna, Psychological Review, XXVI (1919),
418-420.

ROBERT S. WOODWORTH

when it says that certainly, no matter what be the origin of an
individual's fear or avoidance, and no matter what the avoiding
movement may be, avoidance always means that the individual
is trying to get away from something, or trying to keep away from
it. Common sense here introduces a teleological note, in speaking
of "trying to avoid," but it is a genuine note, which demands
to be included harmoniously in our psychological system. We
make a start towards a mechanistic, or at least causal, formula-
tion of this teleological notion by speaking of an "adjustment to
avoid," for there can be little doubt that this term means some-
thing genuine in intra-organic dynamics.

The avoidance adjustment probably represents some pattern
of neural and other intra-organic stresses, the attack adjustment
another such pattern, the satisfaction adjustment a third. They
have to do with the external situation and the overt response,
and, since they cannot be objectively observed, they have to be
identified in terms of external situation and response. Even if
we observe them introspectively as different desires, we still need
to identify them by reference to external stimulus and overt
response, since desires can be distinguished only by such objective
reference. These adjustments cannot be called emotions; they
are too external in their reference. If we follow the lead of
McDougall and Watson, and distinguish emotion, as some form
of internal activity, from overt behavior, then the several distinct
"emotions" are not emotions at all, but adjustments for different
types of overt behavior.

CHAPTER 19

THE DIFFERENTIA OF AN EMOTION

HARVEY A. CARR

University of Chicago

Since the time of Lange and James, the somatic conception
of the nature of emotion has been the orthodox doctrine. For
purposes of exposition, the various activities of an organism may
be divided into two classes: (1) The first class, which may be
termed the intelligent activities, are those which are primarily
concerned with the adaptation of the organism to its objective
environment. In an emotional situation, they would embrace
the apprehension of the nature and significance of the exciting
situation, danger for example, and the overt reaction of the
organism to that situation on the basis of this appraisal. (2) The
second group embraces the vital, the vegetative, the autonomies
or the somatic activities which are primarily concerned with
the maintenance of the structural and functional integrity of the
organism. They are concerned with the intake, transformation,
distribution, and assimilation of energy and the elimination of
the waste products involved in its consumption.

An emotion, according to the orthodox doctrine, represents
an instinctive and biologically useful interaction between these
two classes of organic activities. The stimulating situation of
danger, for example, also excites a distinctive set of changes or
alterations on the part of the on-going somatic activities whereby
the reserve stores of energy are released, mobilized, and distributed
to the reacting mechanisms involved in flight, and the waste
products involved in this greater expenditure of energy are more
quickly eliminated. In other words, the vital or somatic activities
are readjusted so as to promote a more vigorous, sustained, and
effective response to the stimulating situation.

Certain essential features of this somatic readjustment are
obvious. In danger, for example, the heart beats faster and
more vigorously. The flow of blood is accentuated. A greater
volume of blood is distributed to the reacting mechanisms a
fact which is evidenced by the reddening and flushing of the
skin in certain areas and the anaemic condition of others. Some
authorities assert that, as a consequence of the action of a certain
ductless gland, the composition of the blood is so altered that it

HARVEY A. CARR

contains a higher percentage of a readily available form of energy.
Respiration is deepened and quickened, and the waste products
are more quickly eliminated. The sweat and sebaceous glands
are excited; the skin becomes damp and moist in some regions
and dry in others. The circulatory and secretory changes alter
the temperature of the skin; the angry individual may feel warm
or hot in some areas, and cold and chilly in others. All of the
digestive activities may be considerably affected. The whole
somatic mechanism is temporarily thrown out of gear. In any
profound emotional seizure, this somatic disturbance may rever-
berate throughout every inch of the organism. For example,
our whole being seems to seethe and boil with rage. According
to the orthodox conception, it is these various readjustive activities,
in so far as they are experienced, that constitute the emotional
experience.

An emotion may thus be provisionally defined as a somatic
readjustment which is instinctively aroused by a stimulating
situation and which in turn promotes a more effective adaptive
response to that situation; and it is assumed that this greater
efficiency 'is sufficient to increase materially the chances for the
organism's survival in those primitive conditions of life that
obtained while this instinctive reaction was evolved.

I am not so much concerned with the truth of this group of
definitive characteristics as with their completeness or adequacy.
Does any one or all of them differentiate an emotion from other
similar experiences?

I wish to call attention to the fact that the two groups of
activities the intelligent and the somatic are continually inter-
acting in a mutually helpful way. The intelligent activities are
frequently adapted to alleviate various somatic conditions such
as ' hunger, thirst, intra-organic pains, digestive disturbances,
fatigue and lassitude, etc. Likewise the somatic or vegetative
activities are continuously being altered and modified in an ap-
propriate manner in response to all pronounced variations in
the organism's reaction to the external world. The heart beats
faster and more vigorously, the respiration is altered, the face
becomes flushed, the perspiratory activities are stimulated, and
digestion is affected when we indulge in any vigorous type of
muscular activity, whether it be chopping wood, playing tennis,
doing gymnastic stunts, or running after a train as well as running
from that which we fear. With the change to other types of
activity such as studying, lecturing, writing, arguing with our
neighbors, or attempting to be agreeable to our family, we find
that these somatic activities are altered accordingly. Interaction
is a continuous affair and not an intermittent phenomenon.

230 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

An emotion, as we commonly use the term, is an occasional
experience. Somatic readjustments to behavior situations are
continually occurring, while the emotional type of readjustment
occurs relatively infrequently. The emotions are thus special
cases of a more general phenomenon. There are non-emotional
as well as emotional somatic readjustments to behavior situations,
and any definition of an emotion, to be adequate, must differentiate
those experiences from the non-emotional class of somatic dis-
turbances. What is the differentia of an emotion? How does it
differ from the non-emotional readjustments that are continually
occurring? Do the definitive characteristics that have been
enumerated do so?

The emotions do not differ from the non-ernotional reactions
in their compositional character. If we take any standard de-
scription of the somatic readjustments in anger, the account can
be approximately duplicated almost word for word in describing
the somatic changes that accompany any unusually vigorous and
prolonged muscular effort. The two do not differ in intensity.
While it is true that extreme fear and rage represent a more intense
type of reaction than do most of the non-emotional readjustments,
yet they may be approximated at least by the somatic disturbances
involved in such strenuous forms of exercise as football and the
quarter-mile dash. On the other hand many of the emotional
adjustments, such as love, sorrow, pity, awe, and the milder
forms of fear and anger, are no more intense than the somatic
reactions involved in many of our daily activities.

The alleged instinctive character of an emotional response is
not a differentiating characteristic. It is assumed that each
emotional readjustment is an instinctive response to the stimulat-
ing situation, i.e., the character of the somatic response and its
relation to the exciting situation is a function of the inherited
structure and disposition of the organism. Yet the same statement
may also be made for the non-emotional reactions. The circulatory,
respiratory, and secretory mechanisms function just as sponta-
neously and automatically in the case of vigorous muscular work
as they do in fear, anger, and joy. One can hardly assert that
the reaction was learned in one case and not in the other. Both
types of readjustment are equally expressions of the innate
endowment of the organism.

Neither can the emotional readjustments be differentiated on
the basis of their adaptiveness and biological utility. To my
mind, not all of the emotions are adaptive and biologically useful,
while some of the non-emotional reactions are.

The biological utility of the emotions is a necessary postulate

HARVEY A. CARR 231

of the assumption that the various emotions represent distinctive
inherited mechanisms that have been independently evolved in
phylogenetic development. The concept of natural selection
assumes that each instinctive reaction was selected and per-
petuated only in so far as that mode of reacting tended to preserve
and perpetuate the life of the reacting individual or of the species
to which it belongs. If the emotions are a group of instinctive
reactions, each of these must possess such a survival or biological
value for the conditions of life that obtained at the time of its
origin. For example, fear is said to promote a more effective flight,
and thus tends to preserve the life of the individual.

The biological utility of the emotions, to my mind, has been
somewhat overemphasized. This a priori postulation has con-
siderable difficulty with the empirical data. I am somewhat skepti-
cal of the various attempts to specify the survival value of grief
arid sorrow. These reactions may have a considerable social
value, i. e., they may be cultivated and utilized in the interest of
certain social ideals, but this fact will riot account for their origin.
A biological value assumes that these reactions aid the individual
to survive by promoting a more effective response to the situation
which excites them. Grief and sorrow are usually awakened by
the loss of highly desirable conditions, and I fail to see how grief
promotes a type of response to such a situation that materially
increases the chances for survival. Joy is awakened by the sudden
and unexpected attainment of a highly desirable end. Inasmuch
as it is aroused after the attainment of an end, it can hardly pro-
mote a more effective way of dealing with that end. Even the
survival value of anger and fear is usually overrated. Fear is
conducive to a more vigorous flight from danger, and anger pro-
motes a more impetuous and energetic attack, and surely these
behavior characteristics will tend to preserve the life of the or-
ganism. An enraged animal not only fights impetuously and
energetically but also somewhat blindly and rashly a mode of
attack that is hardly suitable to all occasions. A frightened animal
may flee precipitately but heedlessly, while a paroxysm of terror
may interfere with effective flight, and induce a series of futile
and abortive attempts at escape. Fear may paralyze as well
as invigorate one's actions. In order to promote survival, perhaps
Nature would have been wiser to have endowed organisms with
less emotion and more cunning and intelligence. Some writers
have classed the paralysis of fear with the death-feigning instinct
of animals, which promotes survival because the immobility of
the organism renders it less noticeable to its enemies. But the
abortive attempts to flee in a paroxysm of fear differ materially

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

from the clear-cut and decisive reaction in feigning death; such
attempts merely court instant destruction rather than survival.

Not only may we doubt the survival value of some of the emo-
tional reactions, but we may also call attention to the adaptive
character of the non-emotional readjustments. The heart beats
faster, breathing is accelerated, the face becomes flushed, and
perspiration is accentuated in any vigorous muscular activity,
and this somatic readjustment functions in turn to invigorate and
prolong that act. Obviously such a device must materially in-
crease the organism's chances for survival.

In passing I wish to take exception to the conventional doctrine
that the emotions represent a group of instinctive reactions, each
of which evolved independently of the others and was biologically
selected and perpetuated because it possessed some distinctive
utility. Two general objections may be urged against this doc-
trine. As has been indicated, the biological utility of many of
these emotional reactions may be seriously questioned, and the
doctrine likewise necessitates the assumption that the various
non-emotional readjustments represent a large group of instincts.
We are thus confronted with the hypothesis of a multiplicity of
separate instinctive mechanisms to account for the phenomenon
of continuous interaction. According to this conception, there
will be almost as many instincts as there are instances of interaction.
The situation, to my mind, can be better conceived in much
simpler terms. As we have said, the two groups of activities are
continually interacting in a mutually advantageous manner. The
biological utility of such an arrangement is obvious, for the or-
ganism is a reactive and biological unit and all its separate activ-
ities must be intimately organized and related to each other so as
to maintain and perpetuate life. From the standpoint of biologi-
cal selection and development, we are here dealing, in my opinion,
with a unitary phenomenon a single biological device and not
with a multiplicity of mechanisms, each with its own phylogenetic
history. This conception frees us from the necessity of assuming
a utility for each emotional reaction and for the non-emotional
readjustments as well; for any biological device, according to the
principles of natural selection, needs to be useful only in the large
majority of cases. So long as the two groups of activities interact
in a mutually adaptive manner in the great majority of cases, the
fact that they may influence each other at times in a non-adaptive
manner and even in a harmful way on occasions will not seriously
prejudice the survival of the organism. The unitary character
of this biological device is not inconsistent with a considerable
variety in its functional manifestations, for what happens in any

HARVEY A. CARR 233

case will depend upon the nature of the processes that interact.
In other words, the manifestations of this interaction will continu-
ally vary with the state of the organism and the ever varying
behavior situations with which it is confronted.

We may conclude that the conventional definitive characteristics
of an emotion are inadequate because they do not differentiate
the emotions from the non-emotional adjustments. The two do
not differ in nature, intensity, innateness, adaptiveness, or biologi-
cal utility. The somatic adjustments are essentially alike whether
an individual runs from that which he fears or energetically speeds
after that which he desires. These vegetative processes function
in much the same manner in the fleeing deer and the pursuing pack.
In both cases they promote vigorous and sustained action, and
they are equally useful from the standpoint of survival.

We do distinguish the emotions from the non-emotional ad-
justments, however, and it is at once obvious that they must differ
in some respect, or else we should not be able to differentiate them
as we do. What is the differentia of an emotion? Why do we term
the somatic reaction an emotion when we flee from danger, but
do not call it an emotion when we run just as energetically to win
a race?

The distinction proposed is that of the orderly and coordinated
character of the non-emotional adjustments as opposed to the
relatively uncoordinated and somewhat chaotic course of events
in the emotional reactions.

In our ordinary activities of lecturing, constructive thinking,
or chopping wood, we react to the situation in a relatively orderly
and methodical way, and the somatic activities nicely adjust
themselves to this orderly progression of events. The whole
process exhibits a high degree of adaptive coordination and har-
monious functioning.

On the other hand, an individual is unable to respond im-
mediately to an emotional situation in an intelligent manner.
How can we react to an overwhelming and irreparable loss except
to grieve about it? Joy comes with the sudden and unexpected
attainment of a valued end, and naturally there is nothing more
that can be done except to revel in our enjoyment. A surprising
situation is one to which we are temporarily unable to adapt.
Dread is awakened by the sense of impending danger whose
nature, time of occurrence, and location may be unknown, and
as a consequence the individual is at a loss to know what to do.
An effective way of dealing with a suddenly encountered danger
is not always readily apparent. Because of the caution with
which we are endowed or which we have acquired in the vicis-

234 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

situdes of .experience, or perhaps because of the inhibitive influence
oFbur moral ideals, most of us are not accustomed to rush im-
mediately to the attack when angered or enraged. An emotional
situation is one for which there is no appropriate response or one
to which we are unable to respond for the time being.

An emotional stimulus is a very effective one and, being denied
any motor outlet, it necessarily discharges into the somatic
mechanisms the only available outlet at the time and tends
to awaken a vigorous appropriate adjustment. These somatic
activities function in turn as stimuli and release impulses that
are normally incorporated into the organism's adaptive response
to the exciting situation. Lacking this normal outlet, these
impulses are necessarily drafted back into the somatic mechanisms
and thus interfere with their orderly functioning. Because of
their vigorous stimulation and because of the lack of a motor
outlet, the somatic activities become disrupted and react to the
situation in a relatively disorganized and chaotic manner. In
dread and terror, our heart jumps and beats irregularly, we gasp
for breath, and alternately turn hot and cold in rapid succession.
In grief we breathe convulsively and sob hysterically, and our
whole being quivers and seethes and boils with rage. In any
profound emotional seizure, such as a paroxysm of fear or rage,
this somatic disturbance may be such as to render the individual
temporarily incapable of either flight or attack. The emotions
may paralyze as well as invigorate action. The descriptive state-
! ments that have just been employed are certainly not applicable
to a harmonious and coordinated type of action. The emotional
experience is essentially one of inner turmoil and commotion.

Occasionally an individual may react to a sudden emergency
in a prompt and a highly efficient and capable manner. In this
event they usually experience no fear, and humorously report
that they had no time to be afraid. Again these individuals may
be overwhelmed with a severe attack of fear after the emergency
has been successfully encountered. In other words, an immediate,
effective, and well-coordinated response prevents the arousal
of an emotional reaction.

An emotion gradually subsides and finally disappears as the
organism begins to respond to the situation in an orderly and
methodical manner. Our anger soon cools and wanes as we settle
down to the fight, and terror no longer holds us in its grip as our
precipitate and hasty initial efforts gradually become organized
into an orderly and effective flight. The athlete is likely to be-
come excited as he prepares for the race, but this emotional
excitement soon subsides as he settles down to a rhythmical pace.

HARVEY A. CARR 235

The somatic reaction does not disappear in these cases. It
merely loses its tumultuous and chaotic and emotional character
as it becomes adjusted to the demands of orderly action.

To summarize, we may say that the somatic activities are
continually being excited to react in an adjust ive manner to the
behavior demands of the organism. The emotional reactions
are those that are awakened when the organism, temporarily
at least, is unable to respond in an orderly and efficient fashion
to a highly stimulating situation, and for this reason they partake
of the nature of " a somatic disturbance. The non-emotional
reactions, on the other hand, represent a relatively coordinated
and orderly type of somatic readjustment, and hence we may
suggest that, contrary to orthodox opinion, it is these non-
emotional adjustments that exhibit the greater degree of adaptive
utility.

CHAPTER 20

PLEASANTNESS AND UNPLEASANTNESS
AS MODES OF BODILY EXPERIENCE

L. B. IIOISINGTON
Cornell University

In the year 1924 J. P. Nafe published, so far as I know, the first
descriptions of the affective experience. 1 The work up to that time,
and there is a vast body of it, had dealt with problems about affec-
tion and had given us "facts" about pleasantness and unpleasant-
ness, "facts " of correlation, but not one word of description beyond
the qualities of P and U which the workers assumed on empirical
grounds from the outset. All these "facts" about affection, all
the correlations, still hold at the level at which the work was done,
at least so far as the published reports of Nafe are concerned; he
worked at a different level, viz., description.

Since method and procedure are important, it will be worth
our while to turn to the reasons for Nafe's success where others
had failed. He offers one reason in the introduction to his study;
the reason, namely, that others had used too strong stimuli, thus
making their observers into feelers rather than observers of feeling.
Let that pass. A more important one, in my opinion, is that since
Nafe himself had no notion of what to "set" the observers to look
for, he could not instruct them specifically; all he could do was to
ask for a complete description of experience in the hope that such
reports would reveal the unique in affection. Hence, the general
instruction in spirit, if not in words, came into use at least at
Cornell for the first time. It came out of necessity, bred and born
of ignorance. The observers, fortunately, were as ignorant of
what to look for as the experimenter to instruct, so they could not
set themselves a specific problem from the general instruction;
all they could do was to describe experience as a total as it ran its
course freed, very largely, from bias and previous determination.
Experience became clearer and description more nearly complete.

What of Nafe's results? There are just two that need concern
us here. The first, and in some respects the most important, is
that the affective experience is in its essential character a kind of

1 J. P. Nafe, "An Experimental Study of the Affective Qualities," American
Journal of Psychology, XXXV (1924), 507 ff.

L. B. HOISINGTON 237

pressure. However varied the pleasantnesses and unpleasantnesses
of everyday life, whatever modes of experience go to make up the
total at such a moment, the bright or the dull pressure, as the case
may be, is essential. After the event it is easy to see that it must
have been so; that these experiences must be bodily pressures, as,
indeed, Yokoyama had insisted. 2 The particular quality or quali-
ties were not apparent for him; it remained for Nafe to make them
specific. That his results will stand the test of time, I have not
the least doubt.

At this point I should like to say a word about the use of the
term "pressure" as a descriptive symbol. The affective experi-
ence, especially pleasantness, receives the name "pressure"
partly by courtesy, partly from the fact that it is a bodily ex-
perience, partly because it resembles pressure more than it does
any quality from the other modalities, partly because the ob-
server does not as a rule coin new terms, but not at all because
the quality of the experience is like the pressures of ordinary life.
Practically every observer demurred at the term "pressure" but
nothing better suggested itself. I am sure we shall have some other
word to denote these experiences; I wish very much that I had such
a term for the purposes of this paper.

The other result which I shall mention is that these pressures
were non-localizable in the state of specific object perception. This
explains the former idea of lack of clearness as a special mark of
the affective life. It may mean either that we must take experience
at its loosest if we are to report the separate qualities, that as
experience becomes more highly integrated the qualities lose their
individual character in the closely patterned total, or it may mean
that with specific object reference the affective quality drops out.
For reasons which I shall give presently, I am convinced that the
latter alternative is the correct one. This means that we are not
pleased or displeased with this or that object as such, but with
this or that kind of experience.

The net result of Nafe's work, for our present purposes, is,
then, that the essential affective quality is a bright or a dull pres-
sure which arises only under the condition of non-specific object
reference.

Last year, in the Cornell laboratory, Horiguchi attacked the
problem of the localization of the affective experiences. Although
this study is as yet unpublished, I wish to offer such of his results
as bear upon our topic. He found not only the localization but
some further characteristics of these bodily experiences. The ob-

2 M. Yokoyama, "The Nature of the Affective Judgment in the Method of Paired
Comparison," American Journal of Psychology, XXXII (1921), 357 ff.

38 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

servers who had not served in Nafe's work, as well as those who
had, were better prepared for the task of affective description than
were the observers at the time of the earlier study. They knew
better how to come observationally passive to the work; how to
take an attitude even less favorable to the perceptive formation;
in brief, how to shut themselves off from the world of objects and
allow the bodily experience to run its course fairly free from and
unhindered by other experiential formations. Do not misunder-
stand me I do not mean that the pressures of affection come to
observation only when no meaning is present; they come with what
I have, in another place, called immanent meaning as opposed to
transcendent meaning. The former refers to the experience as
such; the latter, to some object outside or beyond the experience.
But I am not at all sure that we can put it as strongly as that, for,
as we shall see, the affective modes of experience may come with
a situatifcnal meaning which is transcendent in that it refers be-
yond the experience but not to a particular object as such; it is
our way of living the object. There are, moreover, degrees of
specificity of the immanent meaning. The more the observer
escapes a definite "set" or determination that always comes to
observation in terms of muscular pressure, the more do the various
bodily experiences which constitute the warp of mental life come
immanently into being. This is only another way of saying that,
as we free ourselves from the dominance of particular instructions
and laboratory "set," we approach nearer to the condition of
everyday experience; we get a truer picture of mind in its functional
dependencies with some hope eventually of its inherent laws.
Of course I presuppose observers capable of painting a word-
picture of experience in its totality as a total when under no other
determination than that to observe.

Horiguchi found that dull pressure localizes in the region of
the abdomen, well inside the body. It is a fairly compact, fairly
limited mass which comes, very positively, at its meaningful
best, as muscular. That is, it carries a definite muscular ref-
erence; it means that some muscles of the abdominal region are
in a state of contraction. It is true the observers in this study
first came upon the affective pressures as unlocalized, just as Nafe
reports them. But then they sat back, as it were, and allowed
them to go where they would. Only the sitting back was not
absolute; the attitude was not one of complete passivity/ The
affective pressures were prominent immanently, which proves
that the observers had an observational "set." As such, of
course, the dull pressures had no muscle or body reference. |They
came, nevertheless, to the same general localization. They did

L. B. HOISINGTON 39

possess a directional reference, and this came to point to the
place where the abdomen would have been if it had been there
for perception.

The course of the dull pressure from a wholly unlocalized bare
experience to a definitely localized muscular one and it often
came to specific perception was not an even one. There always
was a momentary break or instant of experiential confusion
just at the passage from bare dull pressure out there in a fairly
determinate direction to dull muscular pressure there in the
body. It is true that, after the break, experience showed more
than it did before, as if some new feature had entered which
carried the muscle reference. Just the same, I am sure that this
instant of non-identification and of addition does not prove
disparity so far as the dull pressure aspect is concerned. Even
here, however, the perceptive reference does not transcend the
experience; the reference is to a trait of the experience. This
ability of the unpleasant affective experience itself to become,
through an accretion, the object of perception is no doubt one
reason why so many writers have found it much easier to deal
with unpleasantness than with pleasantness.

In some respects the bright pressure of pleasantness presents
a very different picture. It localizes in the region where the upper
parts of the body, the neck and the shoulders, would be if they
were perceived but they never are under these conditions. The
bright pressure never takes on transcendence; it never means
muscular pressure nor does it belong to the body; it is all the body
there is. This detachment makes the bright pressures very
elusive and, in a sense, difficult to observe. It really is no wonder
we should find in treatises on affection the phrase, "and similarly
for pleasantness/' following an elaborate discussion of unpleasant-
ness. To put it figuratively, I should say that the reaction in
the case of pleasantness is a more or less complete surrender to
the luxury of living and does not involve any ordinary or useful
response of a particular muscle group, while the reaction in the
case of unpleasantness is one of rejection and withdrawal or
constriction and involves what may be a useful response of a
definite set of muscles although the mechanism is probably different
from that for ordinary muscular response. If you remember
that this is figurative, the picture will stand.

In* another phase of his work Horiguchi asked for reports on
the affective pressures and their localization in ordinary everyday
cases. For some time the only report was "failure." Logically
two possibilities presented themselves: either the pressures
reported by all observers were, despite the approximation of

240 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

the experimental atmosphere to that of ordinary life, artifacts
of the experimental situation and the observational^ attitude ;
or the observers were guilty of some oirservationaTTiliiiider.
Success finally came. The task was easy from the first in the
case of the unpleasantly toned moods.

In these the dull pressure aspect is undeniable, even for the
naive, with general localization almost, if not quite, as obvious.
The story of the way by which we attained success gives nothing
really new; it merely throws a known truth into a new and* bolder
relief. If I take a concrete instance, the facts pertinent to our
purpose will appear more clearly. The one who made the observa-
tion was somewhat irritated, annoyed, provoked by a statement
made by another. As long as the observer looked for unpleasant
experience directed specifically upon the offender he did not find
it; as soon as he became simply annoyed, without specific object
reference, the dull pressure was there localized fairly definitely
in the abdominal region.

An instance of a pleasantly toned experience would show the
same failure of the affective pressure to come for observation as
long as specific object awareness obtained. That is, if the observer
looked for the bright pressure and at the same time perceptively
fixated the object that served as stimulus, he did not find it. If,
on the contrary, he surrendered himself to the pleasurable expe-
rience as such without the specific perception of an object, to
just pleasurable existence, the bright pressure was there with
the same general though vague localization as found in the
experiment.

Now we have to face anew the question of just what happens
when, in the older terminology, we attend to an affective expe-
rience. The question as we should put it now in empirical terms
is: Are the object consciousness and the affective life incom-
patible? In experiential terms: Can the qualities that go to
make up the perceptive pattern and those which enter into the
affective pattern be present in experience at the same time?
If there is nothing in the nature of the qualities nor in the manner
of their arousal which precludes their simultaneous appearance,
it may be that the two types of pattern preclude each other. I
mean that the pressures of perception as well as those of affection
might both be present in experience provided neither the one
nor the other, especially the perceptive, became too highly focal.
In stimulus terms, being focal would mean, I presume, that the
muscular action correlated with the same is highly specific and
relatively strong. An alternative to this question might be, as
I put it before: Do the various varieties of experience form such

L. B. HOISINGTON 41

an intimate whole that they lose their identity? Our answer to
these questions will come with the next approach.

The last set of results I shall consider are those from a pre-
liminary study of the humorous, the comic, and the witty. This
study carried on last year by E. Frances Wells and myself is also
as yet unpublished. We made no attempt to define the above
terms and nothing in the instructions or in the situation indicated
the possibility of such a division. With this aspect of the work
I am not here concerned, except to state that the main difference
is one of degree on the one hand and of temporal course on the
other. '

In comedy and wit there is a fairly sudden shift in experience
which carries one, in the first moment at least, completely away
from specific perception. To be seized by the comic is to be
wrenched suddenly out of the world of specific meanings and hurled
into a world of sheer enjoyment. We do not enjoy or laugh at the
concrete; we enjoy and laugh at the enjoyable. Lest this appear
to be pure tautology let me state it in a different way: Up to a
certain moment experience shows the qualities and pattern of
perception together often with the strain of expectation or search-
ing, then comes the complete break-up of the perceptive and
expectation experience and the infusion of something at least like
the affective pressure plus all the stir from laughter a moment
of just enjoyment.

Humor is a state in which neither the perceptive nor the affec-
tive-like aspects of experience come dominantly to the fore.
The perceptive aspect reduces to something like the situational
consciousness as opposed to the object consciousness, and the
affective stands as a diffuse pleasant-like background as opposed
to specific pleasure. Both approach the attitudinal level of
organization. I have no intention to present a picture of humor;
that will come in its proper place. I mention it merely as another
instance of the bimodal character of bodily experience and of the
relation which the two modes bear to each other.

I do not claim we have to do in this work with simple affection.
I am as sure as one can be in a field where ignorance is still master
that we are in the face of one of the integrations which involve the
same fundamental mode of experience as constitutes the essential
character of affection. I do not believe that there is a fundamen-
tally different mode of bodily experience, if there is such, for
every one of the different kinds of mental activity as found in
empirical and common-sense classifications. The number of
unique modes of reaction with their correlated experiences is very
small, and each one of these or combination of them in various
patterns and integrations gives us our functional variety.

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

If the results so far presented will stand, and I can see no reason
to reject or even to suspect them, we must be ready then to con-
clude that there are at least three, or perhaps four, modes of bodily
experience. But before I proceed to the exposition of these, two
other topics need a word. Perhaps nothing has received more
emphasis during the past few years than the part played in our
mental lives by the bodily experiences. In Bentley's terms, there
are no bodiless minds or soulless bodies. It requires no superior
insight to see that the one and only source of experience, beyond
that immediately aroused by some stimulus which acts upon a
particular receptor, is that from our bodies. I also take it, al-
though this will not be granted by all, that the experience cor-
related with the stimulus serves as nothing more than a cue, a
starting-point, for the various mental acts, or experiential patterns
of everyday life. That which completes, which renders functionally
adequate, which makes meaningful all our perceptions, thoughts,
memories, imaginations, volitions, and what-not is that which we
bring to the cues offered by the stimulus experience. We should
know this from the work on imaginal overlay if we had nothing
else. But the evidence is plentiful and convincing almost any-
where we turn. So much so that today it is the fad, if such a term
is not derogatory, to evolve theories and systems which emphasize
the importance of bodily experience. Since the only part of ex-
perience which we can acquire and carry about with us and which
we continually possess is this bodily experience, it is logical, if
experimental work did not yield the same result, that it should
play the formative rdle in our mental acts.

The other topic is one on which we have very little evidence.
It is the question of the quarter in which we shall seek the laws
which will eventually lead us to a real understanding of mind in
its functional character. Many of the so-called laws of psychology,
at the present time, are laws of stimuli at least they refer in one
direction to the stimulus. I take it that such laws can never
afford us the understanding we seek, if any generalization with
a heterogeneous basis deserves to be called a law within a special
sphere. Others seek for these laws in the physiological mechanism
laws of physics and biology, we say. What we call them does
not matter if they will lead to the goal of our desire. The ques-
tion is whether these laws, once they are known, will be likely to
lead to a workable comprehension of any empirical mental func-
tion such as, for example, memory. At present, I can see no
promise from this quarter whether we take the muscular and glan-
dular activities physically or biologically. The one other source,
as I see it, to which we may turn is the patterns or totals of ex-

L. B. HOISINGTON 243

perience. If we can and the outlook is hopeful discover the
laws which govern the formation of experiential totals, we may
have placed in our hands the means whereby we can understand
the functional moments of mental life. Some may contend that
we shall need a combination of the laws drawn from these diverse
sources but that, to me, is a surrender which I am not willing to
make until after further trial.

Our problem now is to determine what we have by way of bodily
experiences and how these experiences go together to give us the
familiar integrations of ordinary life. I said a moment ago that
there are at least three or perhaps four modes of bodily experience.
So far as I can make out after long observation, I would say that
muscular pressure, i. e., the pressures and strains correlated with
the contraction of the skeletal muscles, constitutes one mode;
what, for want of a better term, I call bright pressure correlated
perhaps with a state of non-contraction of the skeletal muscles
forms a second mode; and dull pressure correlated apparently
with contraction of the visceral muscles forms the third. The pro-
posed correlations for the affective modes do not preclude the
possibility of special end-organs or of special means of stimulation.
The bright pressure mode corresponds at times with what we
call in common-sense terms a state of high muscular tonicity. The
tentative nature of the correlations does not affect the positive
evidence for the modes themselves. I am not sure whether the
first group will stand as a single mode, or whether the general
bodily tensions will make up one mode and the experiences from
more special muscular activity another. If this is the case, there
would be four modes. At any rate we can be pretty sure that the
pressure-strain aspect of experience is the essential mode for what
we call perception, thought, memory, and imagination, as well as
the attitudes. The general bodily tensions give the attitudes with
all that they imply for the above classes of mental activity. In
so far as they give rise and direction to the subsequent experience
they belong to the energetic aspect of mind. Volition may very
well prove to be a more complex experience which involves a
combination of modes. I have no experimental evidence on the
point at this time. I use the above as well as following common-
sense classificatory terms without prejudice, the implication being
that psychological description will scarcely support them. The
brighter, livelier experiences of the second mode are essential for
pleasantness, humor, comedy, well-being, happiness, joy, and the
like. The dull heavy experiences of the third mode are peculiar
to unpleasantness, the " brown" moods, unhappiness, sorrow, grief,
and their kind. With either of the last two modes combined

244 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

with a high degree of the first we get the emotions, provided the
pressure-strain is not specifically patterned. This, as far as I
can observe, is our bodily equipment.

What about their integration? I can do little better than to
speculate at present. What I have to offer is, by the nature of
the case, inference rather than observed fact. This, however,
seems certain, that a highly focal state of the perceptive pressure-
strains precludes the affective modes from experience. The
perceptive and the affective modes are not otherwise exclusive,
which proves that the two types of muscular response are not,
as such, incompatible. Whether the two affective modes are, as
types of muscular response, simultaneously impossible, it is much
more difficult to say. The slight evidence we have indicates that
they are not; that the incompatibility of pleasantness and un-
pleasantness is rather a matter of experiential organization.

I cannot concede that the affective moments in mental life
are moments that lack pattern. By the term pattern I mean the
collocation of qualities, extents, and what-not that constitutes
the totality of experience at any one moment and that reveals
differences in obtrusiveness or dominance in the organized whole.
I do not mean that experience, as I have used that term to denote
the describable as opposed to the value side of ordinary experience,
comes as a mosaic of separately demarcated qualities. Every
quality, as we know them in terms of previous experience under
special determination, gives its color to the whole so that we have
a blend or fusion which is more than, or at least other than, the
qualities if taken separately. Thus experience presents totals,
patterns, configurations, in which there is a focus and a background.
This definition of the pattern, as similar as it is to the configuration
of Gestalt psychology at the level of transcendent meaning, has
long been current in the Cornell laboratory. The patterns of the
affective moments do not present the same degree of focus as do
the perceptive and thought patterns, but they are as characteristic
in their type of pattern as is perception. It is as if they belong
genetically to the more primitive situational consciousness and
that the perceptive pattern is a more modern type built out of
a mode of experience which came in with differentiation of muscular
activity.

Be all this as it may, the earlier experimental findings do not
stand or fall with our interpretation on this last point. What we
have then, to put it into brief form, are: first, three modes of
bodily experience, two of which enter respectively into the pat-
terns of pleasantness and unpleasantness; and, secondly, experience
admits but a single pattern at any one moment. Finally, we have

L. B. HOISINGTON 245

the suggestion that a discovery of the laws of experiential or-
ganization will reveal the secrets of mental activity.

DISCUSSION

DR. CANNON (Harvard University) : I come to you as a physiologist and not as
a psychologist, and I hope you will make concessions to my weaknesses. There are
several points, however, in Dr. Hoisington's paper that I should like to call atten-
tion to, and they are primarily based on observations which Dr Henry Head of
London has made on some very interesting cases of hemiplegia which he studied
during life and also after death. Now the extraordinary feature of these cases is
that there is a difference in the experience of feeling on the two sides of the body,
when the same stimulus is applied. On the normal side a warm test tube is felt as
anyone else reports it; on the other hand, the same test applied to the affected side
gives a very pleasant experience of warmth, so reported. A hot test tube and a cold
test tube feel very different to the two sides. On the normal side, they are felt as
anyone else would feel them; on the affected side, as very pleasant experiences.
Now it is very difficult for me as a physiologist to see how these feelings would be
different on the two sides of the body. Certainly we cannot divide the liver into
right and left sides, nor the alimentary tract, etc., so that so far as the viscera are
concerned, on the basis of this difference, they may be ruled out. So far as skeletal
muscle is concerned, this is also a poor case. Dr. Head found that bodily posture
was entirely without feeling-tone. There was no report back from the muscles
which gave any feeling of one sort or another, but utter indifference. These matters
are very interesting in the discussion, and I hope that Dr. Hoisington will comment
on them.

DR. HOISINGTON: Well, it seems that Dr. Cannon said just what I tried to tell
you, i. e., that the central muscles have nothing to do with affections. As far as
the two sides are concerned, what you have in one case is an affected side which
will not respond the same as the other side which has functioning skin.

DR. CANNON: You have perception on both sides; the experience is the same on
both sides.

DR. HOISINGTON: What is the exact nature of the experience?

DR. CANNON: It is a motor affection . . . from the thalamus along the
motor tract.

DR. HOISINGTON: Well, I don't know why it should be more effective on one
side, if they really perceive it as an object the same as they do on the other side.
I should rather not have very much attention called to the correlation as such.
It is not the aspect of this paper. I know nothing about it and I do not think very
much about it myself. It is not what we can observe. I should suspect that prob-
ably correlations of a chemical nature will be found, and probably involving the
blood-vessels rather than muscles at all; but I don't know.

DR. CANNON: May I ask whether the localization in the abdomen is regarded
by the observer as indicating a definite change there?

DR. HOISINGTON: Not as affection, no; only when it goes over to the perceptive
aspect does it take on the meaning of a definite change.

DR. CANNON: May I point out that it is not at all necessary for a change to
occur in the abdomen to have it referred there. The reference would often be to
the periphery and not to the optic thalamus because we naturally refer things out
to the periphery.

PROFESSOR DEKKER (Battle Creek College) : I should like to ask a question with
regard to the technique of discovering these pressures. I think I understood the
definition of a pressure that the speaker gave, but I do not understand the technique
of discovering the exact pressure or of measuring these pressures.

246 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

DR. HOISINGTON: The technique is largely one of attitude. What we have to
do is simply to get the observers into the "set" or rather out of the set so they
can simply sit there and let the experience come along; and then you apply some
stimulus that would, under ordinary circumstances, arouse an affective reaction. It
is pretty difficult to say anything about the technique, because this is all up to the
observer. Simply get him into such a state that he is not looking for something
specific but simply allowing experience to go its way though of course observing.
As soon as you get him into this state, the bright or dull pressure will show up.
Everyone who has done that has found it.

PROFESSOR AYHES (Taylor University): I should like to ask this question: Are
we to understand that the bright and dull pressures are mutually exclusive? And
if so, how does the author of the paper deal with what was brought out yesterday
concerning melancholies who are happy only when they are unhappy?

DR. HOISINGTON: I should deal with that most summarily! I should say it
simply isn't true. We have not done very much work in an effort to find out whether
as modes of reaction, the two things are exclusive. All I can say is that the slight
evidence we have is that they are not incompatible. It is a matter of organization.
I take it for granted that the matter of incompatibility of pleasantness and un-
pleasantness is an established fact. I know there are people who deny it, but after
all, you can't get everybody to agree on everything!

CHAPTER 21

PLEASURABLE REACTIONS TO TACTUAL
STIMULI

ROBERT H. GAULT

Northwestern University

The title of this paper has been suggested to me by experience
of a year ago with certain deaf subjects in the Vibro-Tactile Re-
search Laboratory. 1 Instrumental aids were being employed
by means of which they were enabled to feel in their fingers the
movement of spoken sentences and of continued discourse verse
or prose. A small receiver, closely similar to the instrument
used by telephone operators and in radio sets, was being held in
the hand of each subject. His finger or thumb was held lightly
against the diaphragm and thus he felt vibrations that corres-
ponded to the voice of the speaker at a distant microphone.

We were attempting to make these cases familiar with the
pattern of spoken language by means of its character as felt, in
the expectation that the kinaesthetic elements of language could
be built into them by this means, and that these elements would be
effective in improving the subject's manner of speech and of
reading from the printed page, and in facilitating his reception
of speech.

Several examples of verse and prose were selected for reading
through the- instrument into the fingers of six subjects simultan-
eously. Each example was chosen because of its strong motor
quality. No two selections of verse were in the same meter.
Among them was Southey's:

"How does the water
Come down at Lodore,
From its sources that well
In the tarn by the fell?"

And there were Clement C. Moore's verses:

"'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. "

After some drill two of the six subjects began to show signs
that they enjoyed Southey's verses especially, in relation to other

1 The activities of this Laboratory are being carried on under the auspices of
the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

248 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

examples. They began, when these lines were being read, to make
signs meaning "pretty. " After a week of training, when the signs
I mentioned had first been noticed, it was not unusual for them to
ask that a reading be repeated.

At first it seemed likely that the strong rhythm of the verses was
the basis for the reaction of pleasure. But when we substituted a
verse from Stevenson, in the same meter:

"How do you like to go up in a swing?"

we did not find evidence of the accustomed reaction. When this
line and those from Southey had been equally employed as
stimuli aldng with others to be sure the latter continued to be
the more thrilling, and even then, our records show, subjects now
and again asked us to repeat the Lodore verses and gave other
evidence of their satisfaction with them.

Evidently it is not rhythm that occasioned the choice between
them. Possibly it was difference in predominating vowel quality
that accounted for the phenomenon.

We set out to examine this hypothesis. For the purpose, on the
side of instrumentation, we employed a Western Electric loud-
speaker with which we had been supplied through the courtesy of
Bell Telephone Laboratories. An oval diaphragm 2" x 3" was
fixed to the body of the instrument and at its center it was at-
tached to the armature. In practice this instrument was held
with its vibrating part, not against the tip of a finger, but solidly
against the chest wall, over the sternum. The instrument was
operated by a high-grade microphone through a Western Electric
amplifier.

We selected but one subject to assist in our preliminary examina-
tion of the pleasurable reactions I have mentioned. In the labora-
tory situation I have described he felt the speaker's voice as a
complex of vibrations, not only upon the skin of his chest but
throughout the bony wall of his thorax. If he had had any effective
residuum of auditory function, the arrangement might easily have
enabled him to hear the stimuli by way of bone conduction to the
inner ear. But I feel justified in saying that he could not hear in
the condition I have described. Four audiometric tests had been
made upon him one of them in the Sound Laboratory at the
Bureau of Standards. At the Bureau his hearing for simple tones
was described as zero in one ear and 10% in the other. The
remaining three reports closely corresponded to f this. Such a
condition is believed to make it utterly impossible for him to get
any auditory cues in such a situation as ours.

I should say that the subject was thirty-five years of age and a
successful teacher of mathematics by profession. He was not

ROBERT H. GAULT 249

plagued by that elusive thing that we call temperament; he had an
abundance of good common sense and, judging from daily contact
with him in the laboratory, one would say that he was above the
average in point of intelligence. He came to the laboratory daily
and remained there approximately forty minutes. During thirty
or thirty-five minutes each day he was steadily occupied with our
exercises. The sessions continued day after day from March 16,
1926 to May 26.

This subject was not in the group in which we first observed a
preference among verses. We first undertook, therefore, a few
exploratory experiments to find whether he would express any
preferences as other subjects had done. For the purpose we chose
four stanzas: Southey's "How does the water come down at
Lodore," etc.; Moore's "Twas the night before Christmas,"
etc.; Stevenson's "The friendly cow all red and white," etc.; and
Stevenson's "How do you like to go up in a swing?" etc. (This
verse is in the same meter as Southey's above. But succeeding
ones are different, as "Up in the air so blue.") No two of the
stanzas are alike as to meter, throughout.

We then went about it to read these stanzas by pairs into the sub-
ject's chest: the first and second, first and third, first and fourth,
second and third, and so on till each one had been recited with
every other in a pair. I should say in this place that the subject
had no idea before or after or during a session what stimuli were
being employed. Now and again the members of a pair were
reversed so that each member was recited first in approximately
50% of instances. At once after the recitation of a pair the subject
was asked whether either member occasioned a reaction of pleasure
and if so which one was the more pleasurable. We tried not to
suggest to him that one or the other must be found to possess
this quality. At the outset, in conversation with him, we discussed
the preference for certain verses that had been exhibited by other
subjects preferences that have already been referred to in this
paper.

I told him I was not convinced that there was any pleasurable
reaction from this work that could be counted upon to extend over
a considerable range of experience within the laboratory or outside
of it. By this means I sought to dispose him not to indicate a
pleasurable reaction merely because he thought I was looking
for it.

On the first day, March 16, he was given ten opportunities to
compare each of the stanzas I have referred to with every other one.

Number one was preferred to number two eight times. It was
always preferred to number three, and nine times in ten it was

250 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

found more pleasurable than number four. Number four was
seven times reported as more pleasurable than number three, and
two was always more pleasurable than three.

On the basis of that day's experience, therefore, it was possible
to rate the stanzas as follows on the ground of their pleasurable
quality:

1 . " How does the water come down at Lodore "

2. " 'Twas the night before Christmas "

3. "How do you like to go up in a swing?"

4. "The friendly cow all red and white. "

I repeat that the subject had no knowledge, either before or
after, as to what verses were being read. He knew only that they
were verses.

Subsequently, on March 24, he had thirty opportunities, under
the same conditions, to choose between the Lodore verses and
Stevenson's stanza beginning: "How do you like to go up in a
swing? " In twenty-seven cases, or 90%, he chose the former. On
the following two days he was given the opportunity to choose
again when all four stanzas were in the repertoire thirty judg-
ments on each pair. The order of preferences was exactly what
we found on the sixteenth. There were ninety opportunities to
react to each of the four stanzas. The first was preferred in 54%
of the instances; the second in 24%; the fourth in 16%; and the
third in 6% of the cases. Approximately the same result was
found two days later.

This appears to make it fairly certain that the subject had a
real basis of comparison. More than one variable factor occurred
in the situation. There were rhythm, predominating vowel and
diphthongal qualities, and varying distinctness of feel correlated
with these qualities and with the tactual character of consonantal
elements. It seems clear enough from the observations I have
mentioned that somewhere in the complex there is a factor, or
more than one, that accounts for the pleasurable experience that
follows upon the tactual stimulation.

For the purpose of making more systematic observation we
began on March 25 substituting the consonant-diphthong com-
pound "Ray" for each syllable in the stanzas that theretofore
had served as stimuli. Thus the Lodore verses became:

E&y R&y R&y R4y R&y Ry Ry R&y R&y, etc.
and Stevenson's "The friendly cow" became:
R&y R4y RSy Ry R&y RAy, etc.

In twenty-six out of thirty cases the former was preferred to the
latter.

ROBERT H. GAULT 251

"The night before Christmas" became:

Ray Ray Ray Ray Ray Ray Ray Ray Ray, etc.

This arrangement of feet practically tied with /UU. In thirty
reports sixteen favored /UU and fourteen favored UU/. Each
of these had an advantage over the changing meter of Stevenson's
"swing" verses:

/uu/uu/uu/
/ u u / u /
/uu/uu/uu/
/ u u / u /

In the one case it was an advantage of eighteen to twelve, and
in the other of twenty to ten. Throughout six succeeding days,
during which the subject was held to these exercises without
varying the stimuli, he almost consistently reported as I have
indicated. He knew nothing of the nature of the stimuli excepting
that "Ray" had been substituted for each syllable in the verses
that had earlier been employed. He said he felt more sure of
himself in his reactions to the substituted stimuli than to the
original words. This may be due to the fact that in this case the
successive tactual stimuli were of uniform intensity (barring varia-
tions in the speaker's voice) whereas in the other instance there
was variation of intensity from word to word due to the fact that
no two vowel qualities get through the instrument with equal
effect. This would contribute to consistency in the case of the
substituted stimuli. On the other hand the subject may have
remembered, as soon as he recognized a movement, that he had
formerly preferred it to others. This, too, would make for con-
sistency, and I am unable to estimate its force. I had seen enough
to afford reasonable assurance that this subject at any rate did
have real preferences for tactual rhythms. Several times he
told me he believed all rhythms were enjoyable even at the
outset. Even then, as the record appears to indicate, some
were more enjoyable than others. As time went on, however,
differences in pleasurableness seemed to be accentuated pro-
gressively. He spoke of it as "learning" to enjoy one thing more
than another. Naturally he could not describe the process of
learning. It is impossible, on the basis of these preliminary
observations, to say anything with respect to a nativistic or an
acquired pleasurableness in relation to rhythmic tactual im-
pressions.

The observation we first made in this connection the greater
pleasurableness of Southey's verses on the Waters of Lodore as
compared with the first verse of Stevenson's "How do you like

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

to go up in a swing?" suggested that, since the meter is the same
in the two cases mentioned, the predominating vowel qualities
in the two examples may account for the difference in the reaction.
In the first two Lodpre verses there are ten syllables and the
same number occur in Stevenson's first verse. In the Lodore
verses there are six vowels that I call "long and broad" and four
"short and thin." These terms are roughly descriptive of their
tactual quality.

For the purpose of examining this guess I undertook to find
whether there is a difference in pleasurable quality when the meter
remains constant but the vowel or diphthong changes from
time to time. Accordingly, I set Row Row Row, Ray Ray Ray,
Re Re Re, Raw Raw Raw, Rou Rou Ron, Roy Roy Roy, Roo
Roo Roo, and Ri Ri Ri each group of syllables into dactylic
feet; fifteen syllables or five feet in succession. From April 10 to
May 25, inclusive, each of these groupings was compared for
pleasurableness with every other. In the course of this period
other exercises were interspersed to break the monotony. There
were fifty reports upon each pair of nonsense verses.

TABLE 1

DISTRIBUTION OP PREFERENCES

I. Row 25 VIII. Roy 28 XV. Rou 29 XXII. Raw 42
Roy 25 Rou 22 Roo 21 Re 8

II. Row 25 IX. Roy 30 XVI. Rou 32 XXIII. Roo 29
Rou 25 Raw 20 Ri 18 Ri 21

III. Row 40 X. Roy 35 XVII. Rou 34 XXIV. Roo 33
Raw 10 Roo 15 Ray 16 Ray 17

IV. Row 42 XI. Roy 35 XVIII. Rou 41 XXV. Roo 33
Roo 8 Ri 15 Re 9 Re 17

V. Row 43 XII. Roy 37 XIX. Raw 31 XXVI. Ri 34
Ri 7 Ray 13 Roo 19 Ray 16

VI. Row 44 XIII. Roy 46 XX. Raw 37 XXVII. Ri 30
Ray 6 Re 4 Ri 13 Re 20

VII. Row 47 XIV. Rou 26 XXI. Raw 38 XXVIII. Ray 28
Re 3 Raw 24 Ray 12 Re 22

In the course of all these laboratory exercises each of these
vowels or diphthongs combined with R was felt upon the chest
of the subject 350 times in company with one other. That num-
ber of times he expressed a preference for one or the other of the
pair. The total data enable us tentatively to rank the stimuli
I have mentioned on the basis of their pleasurable quality. The
figures in Table 2 indicate the number of times each was chosen
while being compared with others 850 times.

ROBERT H. GAULT 253

TABLE 2
RANKING OF STIMULI ON THE BASIS OP PLEASANTNESS

Total preferences

1. Row 266

2. Roy 236

3. Rou 209

4. Raw 202

5. Roo 158

6. Ri 138

7. Ray 108

8. Re v 83

It is bound to occur to anyone who studies these figures that
the order of preference indicated may depend principally upon
the relative intensity of the stimuli. One or another may be more
satisfactory or pleasurable or agreeable than another merely
because it is felt as more intense and hence more distinctly than
another. It is appropriate to say here that the subject declared
that the vibration of the instrument is felt more distinctly when
his fingers rest upon it, but that the more pleasurable experience
occurs when the apparatus is upon his chest. And the intensity
of the stimulus upon the skin is a function not only of the voice
that goes into the apparatus but of the nature of the instrument.
And here I have to make what may be a damaging confession:
I do not know the quality of my own voice. It has never been
subjected to harmonic analysis. In the course of the day-after-
day work that brought to pass the material I have presented
here I had no means of checking the inevitable variations of my
voice from day to day. All I can say is that I tried to keep it
uniform.

With the cooperation of two normally hearing subjects I have
attempted to rank in the order of their intensity the vowel and
diphthongal qualities I have employed here. For this purpose
the subjects were placed in a situation in which they could not
hear either the voice of the speaker at the microphone or the sound
emitted by the instrument. Instead of placing the instrument
against his chest each subject rested his thumb ball against it.
Each one had twenty -five opportunities to compare every stimulus
with each one of its associates. Table 3 gives the combined
order of the stimuli on a tactual intensity basis :

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

TABLE 3
RANKING OF STIMULI ON A TACTUAL, INTENSITY BASIS

Times chosen

Ron

260

Raw

240

Row

200

4.
5.

Roy
Ri

206
162

Roo

140

7.
8.

Ray
Re

110

Correlation

between

pleasantness

ranking and intensity ranking: 21

I believe it is true of this subject at least that he does get a
thrill out of some of these vowel and diphthongal qualities
from some of them more than others.

It has been interesting now and again to observe his description
of the sensory experience. After several days of practice he re-
ported that at the beginning of the campaign he never got away
from the sense of an object vibrating locally against a small area
upon his chest. " But now, " he said, *' I am not conscious of feeling
it locally. I feel it nowhere in particular, especially after a
sitting has got under way." Neither do you and I hear locally.
Hearing is all over us just as pleasantness is (excepting perhaps
when the stimulus is extremely intense then it hurts our ears).

Work of this nature suggests the well-authenticated case of
the totally deaf Eugen Sutermeister of Berne, Switzerland, who
enjoys the feel of the orchestra. Our subject, indeed, enjoys
the chapel organ, especially when it is playing "Lead Kindly
Light." He catches himself now and again moving his head or
hands or feet in rhythm with the organ tones.

I do not know that these observations suggest anything in
relation to a theory of the pleasurable reaction. The reaction is
undoubtedly there and it has to come to pass in an unusual situa-
tion. I do not believe that the observations can be used to support
a nativistic hypothesis, for my subject did not at once get a thrill
out of any movement or tactual quality. Practice was required
upon the particular stimuli at hand. Even so he believes that the
great variety of tactual exercises that were distributed over an
entire year before these experiments began prepared him for
enjoying the thing in hand.

Note: Although we have not followed the matter up, it appears probable that
the subject of these experiments can enjoy singing when he receives it as he received
rhythms and vowel and diphthongal qualities in the course of this work. He was
able, roughly, to follow the pitches of the voice of the experimenter while he sang
and to indicate a primitive scale by marking with a pencil upon a sheet of paper.
He consistently preferred the time of "Old Black Joe" to five others, even though
he never knew beforehand what was about to be sung. The syllables "Row"
or "Ray" were always substituted for the syllables of the song that was being
sung.

PART III

Physiology of Feeling and
Emotion

CHAPTER 22

NEURAL ORGANIZATION FOR
EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION

WALTER B. CANNON

Harvard University Medical School

In this paper I shall restrict myself primarily to a consideration
of a typical reaction system of the more highly developed organ-
isms, that which is commonly called an expression or outburst
of anger or rage. Later I shall consider some bearings which the
facts may have on the nature of emotional excitation.

The complex of bodily alterations that appears in rage has
many features resembling the simple reflexes, such as sneezing,
coughing, and sucking. First, its occurrence in the early months
of even so highly developed an organism as the human infant indi-
cates that its neural pattern, like that of the reflexes mentioned
above, is congenitally inwrought in the central nervous apparatus.
Second, as in the reflexes, it is a prompt response to the appropriate
stimulus. Again, it is a constant and uniform response so much
is this so, indeed, that there is no mistaking its character, whether
it be manifested by the diverse races of man or by the lower
animals. It is like the reflexes, also, in being a permanent mode
of reaction; throughout life the characteristic display of the rage-
response may be suddenly evoked in all its elaborateness. Further,
it is a response to a fairly definite stimulus an inner stimulus
which arises when there is a hampering or checking of motion or
an opposition to one or another primary impulse. Finally, the
rage-response is like the simple reflexes in being useful. Else-
where (1) I have called attention to the wide range of bodily ad-
justments which occur in an enraged animal the more rapid
heart -beat, the redistribution of the blood, the increase of red cor-
'puscles in the circulation, the deeper ventilation of the lungs, the
dilatation of the bronchioles, the liberation of sugar from the liver,
the secretion of adrenin with its favorable action on fatigued mus-
cles all of which may properly be regarded as rendering the
organism more efficient in struggle, in such struggle as may be
necessary to overwhelm the opposition and to allow the natural
impulse to prevail. Thus, as should be clear, all the main features
of the simple reflexes the inborn prompt, constant, uniform,

258 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

permanent, and utilitarian nature of the response to a definite
type of stimulus all these features of the simple reflexes are re-
produced in the characteristics of an outburst of rage.

Much evidence exists which indicates that, whereas delayed
responses uncertain, temporary, and readily modifiable involve
the cerebral cortex the prompt, uniform, and stereotyped re-
actions to stimuli have their central locus in lower levels of the
brain and spinal cord. It becomes a matter of interest, therefore,
to inquire regarding the seat of the neural mechanism which op-
erates the action complex of rage. Does this mechanism have
its locus in the cortical neurones or in the more primitive parts of
the nervous axis?

In the brain-stem there s a group of centers which, in the lower
vertebrate, lacking a cerebral cortex, carry on elementary func-
tions for maintaining existence. In higher forms these centers,
though normally held in check by the dominant cortex, are capable
of energetic response when conditions demand urgent and im-
pulsive action. If the cortical government is set aside the sub-
ordinate activities become prominent. Goltz's (2) and Roth-
mann's (3) hemisphereless dogs and de Barenne's (4) cats de-
prived of the neopallium illustrate this point. These animals
under various conditions reacted commonly with signs of rage.
Goltz's dog exhibited a typical outburst of fury when taken from
his cage to be fed barking loudly, snapping in all directions,
and resisting vigorously. Trifling stimuli, such as pulling or
pressing the skin, called forth similar excesses of emotional re-
sponse. The behavior of Rothmann's dog was of the same type.
Gentle scratching of the back was the occasion for snarls and growls,
and the presence of a fly on the dog's nose would send him into
a fit of rage. With de Barerme's cats, pinching the toes or skin
produced energetic movements of defense and such reactions as
are characteristic of the angry cat spitting, growling, and erec-
tion of the hairs of the tail and back. Again very slight disturb-
ance proved an effective stimulus for this response; even the act
of lifting the cats from the floor would evoke it.

These various instances of a typical rage-reaction appearing in.
animals deprived of the cerebral cortex may be interpreted as
examples of " release phenomena," to use the term introduced by
Hugh lings Jackson (5) phenomena resulting from the activity
of lower centers in the cerebrum that appear readily on slight
stimulation when the dominance of the superior centers is re-
moved. It seemed reasonable to expect that these lower centers
might display their typical activity after removal of the cortex
in an acute experiment. Decortication would eliminate an es-
sential condition for sensation and therefore the use of a depress-

WALTER B. CANNON 59

ing or disturbing anaesthetic could be dispensed with. Accordingly
Britton and I (6), using cats as subjects, undertook an investiga-
tion of some of the immediate effects of decortication. A stylet,
pressed through the upper, inner quadrant of the left bony orbit
and then to the bony tentorium on the opposite side of the skull,
was swept downward and outward and withdrawn along the floor
of the brain case. A similar operation was performed through the
right orbit. Thus the cerebrum was substantially decorticated
and almost all of the ganglia at the base of the brain remained in-
tact. As soon as recovery from anaesthesia was complete, a
remarkable group of activities appeared, such as are usually seen
in an infuriated animal a sort of sham rage. A complete list of
these quasi-emotional phenomena which we observed is as follows :
vigorous lashing of the tail; arching of the trunk, and thrusting
and jerking of the limbs in the thongs which fasten them to the
animal board, combined with a display of claws in the forefeet
and clawing motions, often persistent; snarling; rapid head move-
ments from side to side with attempts to bite; and extremely
rapid, panting respiration. These activities occur, without special
stimulation (apart from the operative trauma and confinement to
the holder) in "fits" or periods, lasting from a few seconds to
several minutes. During the intermediate quiet stages a "fit"
could be evoked by slight handling of the animal, touching the
paws or jarring the table. Besides these changes which involved
skeletal muscle there were typical and more permanent effects
produced by sympathetic impulses: erection of the tail hairs,
which recurred again and again after they were smoothed down;
elevation of the vibrissae; sweating of the toe pads; dilatation of
the pupil to a size during activity that was threefold the size
during a preceding quiet period; micturition; a high blood-pres-
sure; an abundant outpouring of adrenin; and, as Bulatao and I
(7) found, an increase of blood sugar up to five times the normal
concentration. Because of the resemblance of some of these ap-
parently spontaneous reactions to pseudaffective reflexes which
Woodworth and Sherrington (8) were able to elicit in decerebrate
cats by stimulation of sensory nerves, we used the term "pseud-
affective" in designating the preparation. The animals may
manifest this pseudaffective state, or sham rage, at short intervals
for two or three hours before the arterial blood -pressure falls too
low for continuance of activity.

The pseudaffective phenomena observed by Woodworth and
Sherrington, and also by Bazett and Penfield (9) in "chronic"
decerebrate preparations, were disturbances of an otherwise fairly
continuous rigidity. In decerebration the cut passes through the
mid-brain (M, Figure 1); thus the diencephalon and all parts of

260 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

the cerebrum anterior to it are excluded from action. Obviously
that part of the neural organization which directly sends forth the
rage-response lies posterior to the section through the mesenceph-
alon, i. e., in the remnant of the mid-brain or in the medulla.
In these decerebrate animals, however, spontaneous exhibitions
of sham rage are rare; relatively strong stimulation is required to
evoke them, and, when evoked, they are likely to be isolated items
of the total reaction and may be associated at times with in-
consistent elements, such as violent clawing accompanied by
purring. This is in marked contrast to the intense and complete
manifestation of fury which may be shown by decorticate animals.
The difference in behavior of the two preparations must be
referred to some part of the brain-stem lacking in the decerebrate,
but present in the decorticate animal. In other words, although
various parts of the rage-response can be activated by afferent
impulses in the bulbospinal animal, the integration of these
responses in an energetic and typically widespread outburst of rage
appears to be controlled by a superior center. Britton and I
left untouched almost all of the basal gray matter of the anterior
brain-stem. Where among these basal ganglia does the dominating
center reside? This question has been the subject of an investiga-
tion by one of my collaborators, Dr. Bard.

The method employed by Bard was that of ablating various
amounts of the brain-stem after decortication, and studying
thereafter the behavior of the preparation. He found that typical
sham rage, accompanied by vigorous discharge of sympathetic
impulses recurs in spontaneous fits or outbursts after both cerebral
hemispheres, the corpora striata and the anterior half of the
diencephalon have been removed completely (along dash line,
Figure 1). The additional removal of the posterior half of the
diencephalon promptly abolishes the spontaneous activity; but
since it persists after much of the dorsal portion of the region has
been cut away (along dotted line, Figure 1), the dominating center,
we may infer, is situated near the base, probably in the sub-
thalamus. Its size in the cat is less than a fourth of a cubic centi-
meter. In recent years considerable evidence has accumulated,
pointing to the thalamic region as the central station of the
sympathetic system. Isenschmid and his collaborators (10) have
localized there the mechanism for temperature regulation a
mechanism controlling heat-production and heat-loss via sym-
pathetic channels. And Karplus and Kreidl (11) have observed
that local stimulation of the same region in anaesthetized animals
causes a sympathetic discharge. Bard's observations bring strong
support to the conclusion that in the subthalamus there exists
an integrating center for sympathetic activities. Thus in the

WALTER B. CANNON 261

diencephalon, in a part of the old brain, which is common to all
members of the vertebrate series from the fishes to mammals, is
localized the neural apparatus for integrating the complex reaction
system of rage, not only the external expression, but also the
internal mobilization of the bodily forces for the violent physical
efforts in which rage typically culminates.

FIGURE 1

DIAGRAM OF THE MID-SECTION OF THE CAT BRAIN

Ch, cerebral hemispheres; D, diencephalon (dotted); M, mesencephalon ; Cb,
cerebellum; Md, medulla. The parts distinguished by slanting lines can be wholly
removed without destroying the rage-response.

Besides the central neural organization there are the peripheral
effector organs. They arc in two divisions the skeletal muscles
and the viscera. The skeletal musculature is so played upon that
a characteristic picture is presented. I have described above the
appearance of the infuriated cat. Darwin's (12) description of
rage in young children is not very different; during a violent
outburst they scream, kick, scratch, and bite. In adult men the
display is not commonly of this puerile type, but it is likely to
include the crouching body, the moist and frowning brow, the
firm lips, the clenched or grinding teeth, the growled threats and
imprecations, and the tightened fists or the seized weapon ready
for attack.

Important visceral alterations accompanying fury I have
recounted above. They are profound and widespread. They are
called forth by discharges through the sympathetic division of the
autonomic system. The neurones of this division are so arranged,
as I have noted elsewhere (1), that they discharge impulses
diffusely to smooth muscles and glands in all parts of the body.
Among the glands is the adrenal medulla a gland of internal
secretion. Thus at the same time with the diffuse emission of
sympathetic impulses there is liberation of adrenin (13). The

262 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

adrenin, which is poured into the blood stream, necessarily has a
general distribution and therefore a diffuse action. Everywhere
that it acts in the body, it has the same effect as the nerve impul-
ses i. e., the humoral and the neural agents cooperate. Indeed,
this cooperation of the ubiquitously distributed adrenin and the
nerve impulses confirms the concept that the sympathetic neurones
are arranged for diffuse effects otherwise any special action by
the neural agent would be covered by the general action of the
humoral agent.

The sympathetic system is called into operation in various
circumstances during marked excitation of the cerebrum as in
fear or rage (1, 13), on exposure to cold (14), when the blood sugar
is too greatly reduced (15), in asphyxial states (16), and in very
vigorous muscular effort (13). Because the system is activated in
quite different conditions and also because it operates as a unit,
it induces changes which are useful in one circumstance but may
not be useful in another. In the rage-reaction, however, as noted
above, all the known changes may be readily and reasonably inter-
preted as rendering the organism especially capable of enduring
prolonged and extreme physical effort.

Although activation of the sympathico-adrenal system is a
prominent feature in an outburst of rage, it is not an essential
feature. Recently Lewis, Britton, and I (17) have succeeded in
removing completely both sympathetic trunks, from the superior
cervical to the pelvic ganglia, in cats, keeping the animals healthy
and vigorous in the laboratory for many months, and noting that
in appropriate circumstances they exhibit almost all the superficial
signs of rage. Thus, one of these animals, which had given birth
to kittens, showed her teeth, drew back her ears, lifted a front leg
ready to strike, and growled and hissed, when a barking dog
approached her young. The hairs, however, did not bristle on any
part of her body, and vigorous struggle resulted in no increase of
blood sugar. In animals with the adrenals, liver, and heart wholly
disconnected from the central nervous system the rage-response
occurs, as Lewis, Britton, and I (18) have shown, quite as in normal
animals, even to the appearance of a bushy tail, without, however,
any discharge of adrenin or noteworthy acceleration of the heart.
In these cases there is no reason for supposing that the peripheral
operations have disturbed the established pathways in the central
neurones. If the central neurones are connected with the muscles
of the tail hairs, the hairs stand, otherwise they lie flat; if the
nervous connections reach to the adrenal glands, adrenin is dis-
charged, otherwise not. In short, the central neurones discharge
in their fated manner; and the activity or absence of activity in
effector organs depends on the presence or absence of connections
with the spinal cord.

WALTER B. CANNON 263

Thus far I have given an objective account of physiological
facts related to a typical emotional expression that of rage. Do
not these facts have implications pertinent to other emotions?
Do not they help towards an understanding of the nature and
functions of emotion in the behavior of the organism? May I
venture to suggest that they do, and attempt to present some
reasons for that suggestion.

A fundamental fact which I would emphasize is that the neuro-
muscular and neuro-visceral arrangement for the display of rage
has its central control congenitally organized in or near a phylo-
genetically ancient part of the brain, the optic thalamus. The
thalamus is not like the cerebral cortex in being a region where new
relations with the outer world are registered and old relations
are modified; it more nearly resembles the spinal cord a region
under superior dominance, where afferent impulses are received,
regrouped, and redistributed either to the higher levels, or to
neighboring motor neurones which promptly discharge to effector
organs in stereotyped reaction patterns. The typical postures
and attitudes which result from action of the thalamus are more
complicated than those produced by spinal reflexes but are not
essentially different. The physiological organization which es-
tablishes the reflex figure of rage I have detailed because it may
serve as a prototype for other primitive emotional responses.
The expressions of fear, joy, and grief are similar in character; in
their essential features they are not learned, and they are exhibited
so early in the human infant that they may properly be classed
with rage as being natively inherent in the brain. There is good
evidence that central control for the expression of these emotions,
like that for rage, lies subcortically and, specifically, in the thalarnic
region. Bekhterev (19) has reported that whereas "painful"
stimulation excites cries in an animal freshly deprived of its cere-
bral hemispheres, gentle stimulation ("petting") may evoke signs
of pleasure, e. g., purring in the cat and tail-wagging in the dog.
These responses disappeared, in his cases, after removal of the
optic thalamus. In human beings indications of a subcortical
management of emotional expression are to be seen in the effects
of anaesthetics. During the second (excitement) stage of ether
anaesthesia, there may be sobbing as in grief, or laughter as in joy,
or lively and energetic aggressive reactions as in rage all without
refined or even definite adjustments to the environment. The
surgeon may open the chest or perform other operations of equal
gravity, while the patient is pushing, pulling, shouting, and mut-
tering, and yet the events leave no trace in the cortex which yields
later a memory of what has happened. A peculiar effect of nitrous
oxide anaesthesia has led to its common name, "laughing gas,*'

264 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

though an experienced anaesthetist has informed me that under
its influence quite as many patients weep as laugh; in either event,
when cortical functions have been so deeply abolished by this gas
that the patient has no experience from an ordinarily painful
procedure, there is a release of the typical expressions of gladness
or sorrow. Pathological cases support these indications of a sub-
cortical source of emotional behavior. In certain forms of hemi-
plegia the patient is incapable of moving the face on the paralyzed
side; but if he is suddenly affected by an occasion which is gay
or sad, the muscles which have been dissociated from cortical
government act properly to give the face the expression of joy
or sadness (19). The clinical studies of Head and Holmes (20)
have brought evidence of a more precise localization of centers for
emotional acts. They noted that such unilateral damage to the
brain as isolates parts of the thalamus from the cortex has a most
remarkable consequence in the excessive^ responses to "all po-
tentially affective stimuli. " The prick of a pin, painful pressure,
excessive heat arid cold, all produce a more vigorous unpleasant
feeling on the abnormal than on the normal side of the body. At
the same time, pleasurable warmth may evoke an unusually vivid
pleasant response. And they conclude that since the affective
states are increased when the thalamus is freed from cortical con-
trol, "the activity of the essential thalamic center is mainly
occupied with the affective side of sensation. " Similar testimony
to residence of the neural mechanisms for affective expression in
the brain-stem is afforded by anencephalic monsters the so-
called "frog-babies/' born without cerebral hemispheres and often
having little more than the medulla arid cerebellum. Even with
such a poor remnant of the brain as that, noxious stimulation will
cause whimpering and drawing down of the corners of the mouth
as in distress and grief (21). In all these instances of absence of
cortical function, primitive emotional reactions are as perfectly
performed as are the reflexes of coughing, sneezing, sucking, and
swallowing, i. e., they are complicated automatisms. In all these
complicated acts the nerve impulses run their appointed course
according to phylogenetic patterns and without individual in-
struction or training.

A second point on which I would lay emphasis is the intensity
of the rage-reaction which we observed in pseudaffective animals.
Many years ago Hughlings Jackson (5) made the suggestion,
recently supported by Head (22), that the nervous system is or-
ganized in a neural hierarchy, such that primitive reactions, which
might otherwise disturb the more discriminative responses of
higher levels, are by these repressed. When the cortical govern-
ment is set aside, the subordinate activities, released from in-

WALTER B. CANNON 265

hibition, become prominent. Then only slight stimulation is
required to produce extreme effects. Thus may be explained the
violent and persistent display of sham rage by our decorticate
cats while fastened to a holder, the vigorous snapping, snarling,
and resistance of the hemisphereless dogs when taken from their
cages, and the excessive responses to mildly affective stimuli by
human beings with thalamus freed from the cortex. The extraor-
dinary intensity of these exhibitions seems to indicate that the
neural apparatus for emotional expression is set and ready for
energetic discharge, and that if only the superior control is weak-
ened or inhibited, appropriate stimuli evoke an intense and power-
ful response. If external conditions should be such as to call
forth an emotional response, therefore, a definite innervation of
effector organs from the cortex would not be required; withdrawal
of cortical dominance would be the main condition for prompt
and vigorous action. But the cortical government may not re-
lease the excited neurones in the thalamus. Then there is conflict
between the higher and lower controls of bodily activities there
are opposing tendencies with accompanying confusion. The corti-
cal neurones, however, can check only some of the bodily activities,
those which are normally under voluntary control. It cannot
check the stormy processes of the thalamus which cause shivering
and forcible emptying of the bladder and rectum. In states of
conflict these phenomena become prominent.

A third point since cognitive consciousness is associated with
the functioning of cortical neurones, it follows, as a corollary
from the facts cited above, that the neural mechanisms for the
primitive emotions operate in a region outside the range of such
consciousness. This consideration, together with the readiness
of these mechanisms, when released from inhibition, to exhibit
a major response to a minor stimulus, explains, I think, some of
the most characteristic features of emotional experience. We
have emotional "seizures"; we laugh, weep, or rage "uncontroll-
ably"; we feel as if "possessed"; what we do in the stress of ex-
citement is "surprising," "shocking" something "surges up
within us" and our actions seem no longer our own. These com-
mon bywords are explicable in terms of a sudden and powerful
domination of the bodily forces by subcortical neurones. Under
favoring circumstances, with only a momentary lifting of the
normal inhibitory check, these neurones capture the effector ma-
chinery and drive it violently into one or another of its variegated
attitudes.

And finally, it seems to me that the facts presented above sug-
gest a new source for the peculiar feelings which we experience
in an emotional upset. We are familiar with James's (%3) idea

266 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

that the feeling of the bodily changes, which occur spontaneously
in an exciting situation, constitutes the emotion; and also with
the similar idea of Lange (24) that consciousness of cardio-vascular
disturbances is the essential element. Elsewhere 1(1) have pointed
out that any high degree of excitation in the central nervous
system, whether felt as anger, terror, pain, anxiety, joy, grief, or
deep disgust, may rouse the sympathetic system to activity and
affect in a stereotyped fashion the functions of organs which that
system innervates. May I recall that the central station for
the sympathetic system is a small, compact center in the dien-
cephalon, and, furthermore, that when strongly aroused, that
system tends to act as a unit. The responses in the viscera,
therefore, are too uniform to offer a satisfactory means of distin-
guishing states which, in man at least, are very different in sub-
jective quality. For this reason I urged that the differential
features separating one emotion from another could not be
found in diverse afferent impulses from the viscera. Furthermore,
as Maranon (25) has shown, injections of adrenalin into human
beings in amounts which induce the visceral changes charac-
teristic of emotional excitement do not in fact produce an emo-
tional experience; the subject merely becomes reminiscent of
other times when these changes were noted he reports them and
remains calm. In addition, the afferents from the viscera, espe-
cially from cardio-vascular organs, are too meager to yield us any
rich sensation based on the happenings within them. There re-
main as support for the James- Lange theory the positions and
tensions of skeletal muscle that are peculiar to the various emo-
tions. But forced laughter does not bring real joy, nor forced
sobbing real sorrow, as it appears to me they should do if the
peculiar quote of the emotion were derived from the innervated
muscles themselves. Furthermore, Head (26) and his collabo-
rators report that in thalamus cases the quality of feeling-tone,
though markedly intensified in relation to other sensations, notably
those resulting from certain tactile, auditory, and thermal stimuli,
is entirely absent from such sensations as underlie an appreciation
of posture. The theory of a peripheral source of emotional expe-
rience has little or no positive factual support. To produce an
effect in the cortex, however, it is not necessary that afferent
impulses arise at the periphery; they may be started anywhere
in the afferent path. May not this happen in emotional excite-
ment? The neurones of the subcortical centers in the cerebrum
act in different combinations in the different emotional expressions,
as proved by the reaction pattern, typical of the several affective
states, which they induce. May not the "feeling" be due to im-
pulses, not from the effector organs, but from the lower neurones

WALTER B. CANNON

in the special combination which fixes at the moment the peculiar
facies and bodily postures of the reaction system? These 'neu-
rones, as we have seen, are organized in the basal gray matter, in
the old brain. They do not require detailed inner vat ion from
above in order to be driven into action. Being released for action
is a primary condition for their service to the body; they then
discharge precipitately and intensely. We know that intense
activity in one part of the nervous system extends to other parts
by "irradiation." The phenomenon occurs in the gray matter
of the cerebral cortex; it may occur likewise in the gray matter
of the basal ganglia of the old brain-stem. Here, within or near
the thalamus, the neurones concerned in emotional expression
lie close to the relay on the senspry path from periphery to cortex.
We may assume that when these neurones discharge in various
combinations they not only innervate muscles and viscera but
also' affect afferent paths to the cortex by irradiation or by direct
connections. Only in this way, I think, can we account for the
phenomena observed when in human beings the optic thalamus
is freed from cortical control by a unilateral lesion. All the emo-
tional aspects of experience are greatly intensified on the injured
side; in a case described by Head (26), though a tuning fork or
a bell had no unusual effects, stirring music produced such in-
tolerably intense feelings (referred to the affected side) that the
patient was obliged to leave the room. Thus as an accompani-
ment of each emotional expression there could surge up from the
old brain to the cerebral cortex impulses characteristic of the neu-
rone pattern then prevailing. The quality of the emotion might
arise from the- obscure and unrelated source of the intruding
impulses, from the sense of extraneous control of the bodily forces,
and from the different combinations of the excited afferent
neurones each combination specific for a particular emotion.
In other words, for the theory that emotional experiences arise
from changes in effector organs is substituted the idea that they
are produced by unusual and powerful influences emerging from
the region of the thalamus and affecting various systems of cortical
neurones. This view accords with the pertinent physiological
facts now available. It can be applied to the "subtler" emo-
tions, which the James-Lange theory had difficulty in explaining.
It offers interesting suggestions for the study of emotional ex-
pressions experimentally in lower animals and in human beings
under the influence of various drugs and in pathological states.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. CANNON, W. B. Bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear, and rage. New
York: Apple ton, 1915.

2. GOLTZ, F. P finger's Archiv fur die gesamte Physiologic, LI (1892), 570.

268 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

3. ROTHMANN, H. Zeitschrift fur die gesamte Neurologic und Psychiatric,
LXXXVII (1923), 247.

4. DE BARENNE, J. G. Archives neerlandaises de physiologic, IV (1919), 114.

5. JACKSON, J. H. British Medical Journal (1884), 591, 660, 703.

6. CANNON, W. B., and BRTTTON, S. W. American Journal of Physiology.
LXXII (1925), 283.

7. BULATAO, E., and CANNON, W. B. American Journal of Physiology, LXXII
(1925), 295.

8. WOODWORTH, R. S., and SHERRINGTON, C. S. Journal of Physiology, XXXI
(1904), 234.

9. BAZETT, H. C., and PENFIELD, W. G. Brain, XLV (1922), 215.

10. ISENSCHMID, R. Handbuch der normalen und pathologischen Physiologic,
XVII (1926), 1.

11. KARPLUS, J. P., and KREIDL, A. Pflugers Archiv fur die gesamte Phy-
siologie, CXXIX (1909), 138; CXXXV (1910) 401; CXLIII (1912), 109; CLXXI
(1918), 192; CCIII (1924), 533; CCXV (1926), 667.

12. DARWIN, C. The expression of emotion in man and animals. New York:
Appleton, 1897.

13. CANNON, W. B,, BRITTON, S. W., LEWIS, J. T., and GROENEVELD, A. Ameri-
can Journal of Physiology, LXXIX (1927), 433.

14. CANNON, W. B., QUERIDO, A., BRITTON, S. W., and BRIGHT, E. M. Ameri-
can Journal of Physiology, LXXIX (1927), 466.

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Physiology, LXIX (1927), 46.

16. CANNON, W. B., and CARRASCO-FORMIGUERA, R. American Journal of
Physiology, LXI (1922), 215.

17. CANNON, W. B., LEWIS, J. T., and BRITTON, S. W. Boston Medical and
Surgical Journal, CXCVII (1927), 514.

18. CANNON, W. B., LEWIS, J. T., and BRITTON, S. W. American Journal of
Physiology, LXXVII (1926), 326.

19. BEKHTEREV, V. Virchow's Archiv fur pathologische Anatomie und Phys-
iologic, CX (1887), 345.

20. HEAD, H., and HOLMES, G. Brain, XXXIV (1911), 109.

21. STERNBERG, M., and LATZKO, W. Deutsche Zeitschrift fur Nervenheilkunde,
XXIV (1903), 209.

22. HEAD, II. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, B, XCII (1921), 184.

23. JAMES, W. Principles of psychology, II. New York: Holt, 1890. P. 449.

24. LANGE, C. G. The emotions. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1922.
Pp. 63-72.

25. MARANON, G. Revue frangaise d'endocrinologie, II (1924), 301.

26. HEAD, H. Studies in neurology, II. London: Frowde, Hodder, & Stough-
ton, 1920, p. 620.

DISCUSSION

DR. REYMERT: In opening the discussion of Dr. Cannon's paper, I want to
say that we, as psychologists, are extremely fortunate in having a physiologist
like Dr. Cannon with us His works, as we all know, have exerted a great influence
upon contemporary psychology, and his latter findings now will most likely bring

WALTER B. CANNON 269

about some revisions which will have to be made in certain psychological conclu-
sions and investigations. The paper is now open for discussion.

DR. WEISS (Ohio State University): I would just like to ask Dr. Cannon this
question which was raised in part also as a response to Dr. Dunlap's paper. I
agree, of course, with the findings that Dr. Cannon has presented. Now there is
this, I think, which would be of extreme importance to psychologists: that is,
what is the criterion of emotion and how many different kinds of emotions are
there? That, I think, is somewhat unclear to some of us.

DR. CANNON: That is a question of very great importance and, I think, of
fundamental importance. It seems to me that this conception that I have tried
to bring before you tonight, that these patterns exist in the cortex early I do
not mean in the cortex, but in the brain early, in the thalamus early allows us
to make studies of the various reactions which the animal exhibits and when I
say the animal I mean human beings in the first days of existence, and that
possibly by such careful examination, such as Watson has already started, we
can get a notion of how many emotions there are to start off with.

Now my notion is, and I am sure that there are others who have had the same
idea, that these primitive responses become associated very much as responses
become associated in cortical operations, so that we have all sorts of complicated
combinations of emotional reactions that are dependent upon previous experiences.
I have an emotion or an emotional feeling that is fairly intense and has been so for
many, many years when I hear sleigh-bells, and it goes back to a time when I saw
Henry Irving play "The Bells." I was a boy at the time and was immensely
stirred by the terrific tragedy which he represented on the stage. Since then I
cannot hear sleigh-bells without having a queer feeling inside of me, which I inter-
pret as emotion. An association has been established between the sound of those
bells and the experience which I had at that time, so that a recurrence of the sound
of the bells brings back the emotions.

It is a very different matter to explain that emotion. At the time I had it I
think it would have been an easier emotion to define if I had been introspective or
had been watchful at the moment. These complications come as a result of ex-
perience. I am talking now to a lot of psychologists. I am only a physiologist,
and I am not expert in psychological theorizing and speak upon some of these
matters haltingly, but that would be my way of answering Dr. Weiss's question.

DR. WEISS: The results of some investigations which we are now conducting on
new-born infants, beginning at birth up to about ten or twelve days, indicate that
there are practically none of these emotional disturbances present at that early
stage. You can take young infants, wind them tightly in a cloth, and they go to
sleep. Hold their noses, which is usually an easy way of getting a strong emotional
response from an adult, and they wiggle a bit and go to sleep. That is as far as
we have been able to find with our experiments on young infants. We do not get
the emotional responses, that is, the skeletal responses, except those organic re-
sponses. We do get those. But we get those also with other things, that is, not
only with what we would call emotional stimuli, but we get it when we try to elicit
a palmar reflex or a blinking reflex or an auditory reflex. We are likely to get any
one or all of these things. So, as far as the new-born infant is concerned, I think
there is very little opportunity there, as far as our researches go, to try to establish
the fact that we have such a thing as a primary emotion, unless we eliminate all
skeletal posture. If we consider the organic responses, we can see them. There is
evidence of emotion. But we get those organic reactions without emotional stimuli.

DR. CANNON: May I ask any mother here to hold up her hand if she has heard
the first cry of her baby? There have been persons who theorized about that
first cry and they supposed that the first cry was due to the fact that the child
suddenly found after being in heaven that he was in a very much worse place.
I am quite sure that that expression of emotion, that cry, is heard almost im-
mediately or very soon after birth, and I am sure that anything in the way of
stimulation will bring that out.

CHAPTER 23

EMOTIONS AS SOMATO-MIMETIC REFLEXES

VLADIMIR M. BEKHTEREV

University of Leningrad

The psychology of feeling, as it is called, rests upon two different
theories. One maintains that the primary source of feeling is the
internal experiences of the psychic sphere, which call forth,
secondarily, corresponding changes in the viscera. The other is the
well-known James-Lange theory, which considers feeling a second-
ary phenomenon, usually following physical changes, especially
changes in cardio- vascular activity and muscular tonus.

Researches which were carried on in my laboratory by Dr.
Sreznevski (Dissertation, 1906) prove conclusively that the
James-Lange theory is not corroborated by the results obtained
from emotions physiologically aroused. During fright, for instance,
there is at first an acceleration of the functions of the reproductive-
associative system, followed by retardation, which occurs before
the changes in the cardio-vascular system, due to the influence of a
sudden external stimulus which calls forth the fright. This shows
us that the James-Lange theory does not explain all the phenomena
of feeling and emotion, and leads us to conclude that neither of the
theories are tenable. We must consider other possible explanations
of emotional states.

We also know facts of a different sort. For instance, opium or
hasheesh and a few other poisons which affect the intellectual
processes bring about a euphoric state; the penetration of the
organism by the toxins of hydrophobia is followed by strangely
expressed fear or fright, which is augmented by the presence of
certain external stimuli, as water or glittering objects. These
poisons evidently act upon the nervous system by way of the blood,
poisoning the central as well as the peripheral synapses. It is
also possible to arouse emotional states artificially. It is well
known that the subcutaneous injection of adrenalin is usually
followed by a state of anxiety, together with the phenomena of
hy pert hyroid ism (tachycardia and tremor). This shows clearly
that anxiety is associated with hyperthyroidism ; the state of
euphoria, with athyroidism. There is very interesting work on
this subject by M. Laignel-Lavastine. 1

1 "Les psychoses thyroidiennes," Progrbs mtdical, XLIX (1922), 158-163; Ques-
tions neurologiques cTactualite. Vingt conferences faites & la facult de medicine de
Paris, 1021. (Paris: Masson, 1922.)

VLADIMIR M. BEKHTEREV 271

There are also pathological states of euphoria, some of which
develop independently, and some in connection with manic
depression. Thus we see that the basis of these states designated
as feelings and emotions is alterations in the composition of the
blood. Hence, the ultimate source of these states must be found in
the functions of those organs which can quickly alter the chemical
composition of the blood. Such are the organs of internal secretion.
Cannon's well-known experiment proves this point. When a dog
approaches a cat, there is a marked increase in the amount of
adrenalin in the cat's blood. The question is: How are these
organs innervated? Investigations which have been recently
carried out in our laboratory and later corroborated elsewhere
prove conclusively that each of the glands of internal secretion
receives nerves from the automatic system afferent as well as
efferent. We have demonstrated this in the case of the testicles
and some other glands. It should hold true for the others as well.
Thus the glands may be controlled through either the parasympa-
thetic or the sympathetic nervous system.

When one remembers that the sympathetic system controls
vasoconstriction, and the parasympathetic system vasodilation,
it is clear that excitation of the sympathetic nervous system
should be accompanied by weakening or inhibition of the glandular
functions, and excitation of the parasympathetic nervous system
by strengthening or acceleration of them. Individual differences
in degree of sympatheticotonia or vagotonia are merely expressions
of different degrees of excitability or reactivity in various types of
nervous systems. This excitability is naturally reflected in the
activities of the glands, which, in turn, stimulate the vegetative
nervous system.

But, in addition to this nervous control of the endocrine func-
tions, there is a chemical control. The glands can, and undoubtedly
do, react to the chemical composition of the blood (chemical
reflexes). Thus there is established a sort of equilibrium between
the various glands, due to the direct effect of the chemical com-
position of the blood upon the chemical elements of the glands
themselves. 2

If the nervous control of the glands explains the relation of mood
to the development of innate and acquired reflexes, then the
chemical control through the blood may explain the relation of
changes in mood to the composition of the blood and, consequently,
to the state of the viscera in pathological cases.

If we take into consideration the facts that the basis of emotional

2 Dr. Bielov, one of the men working under my supervision, has established the
law of the mutual interaction of the glands by study of the brain.

272 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

states is the secretory activity of the glands, and that certain glands
are innervated chiefly by the sympathicus (e. g., the sexual organs,
etc.), while others are innervated chiefly by the vagus (e. g., the
pancreas), it is clear that the relations between the two systems
determine various degrees of emotional excitability. The pre-
dominance of one gives the more excitable type of person; the
predominance of the other, the less excitable type; a good balance
between the two systems, the intermediate emotional type.

The facts thus far presented compel us to realize that the
functional changes in the cardio-vascular, respiratory, and other
somatic organs during emotional states may be dependent upon
changes in the secretory activity of certain glands, brought
about by reflex stimulation through the central nervous system
or by changes in the chemical composition of the blood. Every
case involves the chemical excitation of the nerve cells which
determine the emotional states. As for the functional changes
in the reproductive-associative system, which precede those
of the cardio-vascular system in fright, they must be due to
inhibition of cortical processes. In some emotional states, on
the other hand, there is an excitation of cortical processes rather
than inhibition.

As for the various changes in cardiac function, we must con-
sider the following cases: (a) strengthening of heart action, (6)
weakening of heart action, (c) acceleration, (d) retardation,
(e) strengthening and acceleration, (/) strengthening and re-
tardation, (g) weakening and acceleration, (h) weakening and
retardation. If we consider that other variations in heart action
are possible, and remember also that these changes are accom-
panied by changes in the blood-vessels dilation and contraction
in certain parts of the body rand changes in the respiratory
system deep fast breathing, deep slow breathing, shallow fast
breathing, and shallow slow breathing then we will understand
what a large variety of objective changes may occur in the cardio-
vascular and respiratory systems. We must also consider the
phenomena of excitation and retardation of the mimic reflex
activities which accompany these changes. We must take account
of the reflexly produced secretions which stimulate the nervous
tissues. This will lead us to an understanding of all the various
phenomena which occur during the so-called emotional states.

At present we cannot establish the correlations between all
the various objective changes in the somatic sphere and specific
subjective states. We may, however, recognize certain facts.
For instance, the state of fear is correlated with acceleration and
strengthening of heart action, contraction of the peripheral vessels,

VLADIMIR M. BEKHTEREV 273

increase of blood-pressure, a violent rush of blood to the head,
strengthening of the respiratory movements, and an increase of
adrenalin in the blood, according to the results of Cannon's
experiments.

Heroic ecstasy is correlated with a strong increase in heart
action, active dilation of the vessels of the brain and periphery,
and strengthening of the respiratory movements. Grief or sorrow
is correlated with weakening of the heart action, accelerated pulse,
slight dilation of the vessels, and slow shallow breathing; joy,
with increased heart action, moderate dilation of the peripheral
vessels, deeper breathing, etc.

It is understood that all these states are accompanied by a
number of phenomena which involve the receptors of the striated
muscles in addition to the other changes in the conditioned
reflex activities. These phenomena include a great variety of
external mimetic activities which we will not describe in detail.
Emotions, as they are called, consist of these external mimetic
movements together with the above-mentioned somatic and
conditioned reflex changes. Reflexology regards them as specialized
somato-mimetic reflexes. On the basis of the general character
of the reflexes we may distinguish: (1) general somato-mimetic
tonus, which corresponds to what is called mood in subjective
psychology; (2) various somato-mimetic reflexes (emotions accord-
ing to the subjective terminology), which may be exciting, de-
pressing, or mixed; and (3) somato-mimetic disturbances or
affects, as the psychologists designate them. The psychologists
usually study the feelings and subjective experiences which
accompany these states by the use of the very unreliable intro-
spective method. Consequently, this domain of science has been
only slightly developed to date.

Since the subjective experiences and the nerve impulses in the
brain which accompany them constitute one and the same process,
one may analyze one's own somato-mimetic reflexes (excluding
their external manifestations associated with the exciting stimuli) ,
by using proper instruments and keeping at the same time a record
of the subjective experiences felt. This is the method of self-
analysis or the automatic method, which Shumkov and I have
employed. 3 It is quite consistent with the objective, biosocial
method of observation (which excludes the external stimuli
associated with previous life-experiences and constitutional
condition), and may be utilized to insure greater completeness
in the study of a subject of such complexity and delicacy as
somato-mimetic reflexes.

8 V. Bekhterev and G. Shumkov, Monatsschrififiir Psychiatric und Neurologic,
LXV (1927). Flechsigfestschrift.

274 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

To turn to the phylogenetic development of the somato-mimetic
reflexes, we must point out that Darwin explained that human
mimicry is deeply rooted in the biological world. Here we come
upon the same law of evolution which applies to all other phe-
nomena of the plant and animal kingdoms. According to Darwin,
expressive movements have developed phylogenetically from
movements which originally had different meanings. Some of
these movements, which were originally useful to the individual,
have been retained although they have ceased to be useful.
For example, the expression of hatred in man is characterized by
the lifting of the upper lip and baring of the teeth, which, Darwin
says, represent movements preparatory to fighting, intended to
frighten the enemy. Although man does not use his teeth in
fighting, the expression of hatred is retained. The setting of
the jaws and clenching of the fists in anger have a similar origin.
Darwin himself did not consider this principle of useful habits
adequate to all types of expression. He supplemented it by two
other principles: the principle of " antithesis " and the principle
of actions which are dependent upon the structure of the nervous
system. These two supplementary principles have been rejected by
later critics, and, therefore, need not claim our attention, but the
first, the retention of originally useful habits not now useful, is rec-
ognized by the majority of authors. Even this principle, how-
ever, cannot serve us as a guide, as I have explained definitely in
my work, "Biological Development of Mimicry" (Vestnik Znaniya,
1910) . 4 As a matter of fact, what could be the use of scaring the
enemy by baring the teeth, raising the hair on the neck and on
the body in general (in order to appear larger and more fearful),
when the enemy himself employs the same methods of inducing
fear. My interpretation of the movements in question is entirely
different. They are "vitally necessary," because they prepare
the individual for the fight, because the strength necessary for
the attack can be developed in no other way. One cannot fight
unless the body assumes the proper position at the appropriate
time, unless the muscles are tense preparatory to the development
of maximum strength, unless the heart and blood-vessels are
prepared to furnish an increased blood supply.

Neither can an adequate defense be developed without corre-
sponding preparations : raising of the hair on the neck and body,
the reptile's raising its collar to defend itself against the bites of
the enemy, the paling of the superficial vessels to prevent an

4 See also: V. Bekhterev, "Die biologische Entwicklung der Mimik,"
Folia Neuro-biologica, V (1911), 825860; "Ler61e biologique de la mimique, "
Journal de psychologic, VII (1010), 385-408.

VLADIMIR M. BEKHTEBEV 275

excess flow of blood from wounds received during the fight,
increased heart action, etc. The "muscular concentration,"
which enables the organism to defend itself or to attack at any
moment, could not exist without initial muscular preparation
flow of blood to the muscles and increase in tonus.

Thus we have to deal with general movements which serve the
general needs of the organism. The same principle applies to the
movements associated with the specialized sense organs (eyes, ears,
nose, and tongue). These are movements of accommodation to
insure better reception of the external excitations according to the
needs of the organism, defensive movements to protect the organs
from superfluous and harmful excitations, and muscular readiness
which makes possible a better orientation during the given excita-
tion. These movements, which are not only useful but necessary,
constitute the Very essence of complex activities. They are the
ultimate source of the somato-mimetic reflexes or expressive
movements. These reflexes, which were produced as the initial
stage of certain acts, came to be the mimical language of the animal
kingdom, facilitating the exchange of reactions among various
individuals. Thus, even at this stage of development, they are
just as necessary as they were originally when they constituted a
part of the complex activities of the individual. This is my point
of view.

We have still to say a few words about sexual mimicry. In
dealing with this subject, the great naturalist again emphasized
the subjective by interpreting the various expressive phenomena
including the displays of the male which occur during the period
of mating as attempts to attract the female by their beauty,
originating consequently in the process of sexual selection. We
know, however, that it is not the females who select the males,
but the males who select the females and fight for possession
of them. From the point of view which I have set forth above,
sexual mimicry is simply the result of the increased activity of
the sexual glands preparatory to mating. It serves also to increase
sexual excitement in the individual of the opposite sex. This
is essential to successful mating, which insures the preservation
of the race.

This conception of sexual mimicry furnishes a natural explana-
tion of such phenomena as the reddening of the bare buttocks of
monkeys, the reddening of roosters' combs, the spreading of wings
and tail feathers of birds, which Darwin regarded as sexual displays
intended to attract the female. The secondary sexual characteris-
tics, which are dependent upon the hormones of the sexual glands,
also function as sexual stimuli in mating.

The biological method supplies an account of the phylogenetic

276 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

development of mimicry, but not of its ontogenetic development.
Since man's greater perfection and sociability have led to the
acquisition of a large number of new and more refined emotional
states, we cannot dispense with an ontogenetic study of the
subject. We must also keep in mind the comparative method of
studying the genetic development of emotions in animals and in
man.

Reflexology regards emotional states as somato-mimetic
reflexes, in which the subjective and objective aspects represent
one and the same indivisible process. The objective method of
studying the emotions of other people, which is used in reflexology,
permits investigation only of the external bodily and internal
somatic changes. These changes, which vary with the nature of
the emotion, serve as a preparation, an orientation, for the defense
or the attack, or mating, and are consequently quite useful. 5

The present development of reflexology makes it possible to
approach the study of the various somato-mimetic expressions of
the human being in a purely objective way. We may be certain
that the objective reflexological or bioconscious method of study
will lead us to a better understanding of the human being. We
approach the subject with the help of this method.

Let us consider the autogenesis of the somato-mimetic reflexes.
What is the essence of the reflexological method? It is the study
of the external expressions of a person under the assumption that
these expressions are reflexes conditioned by corresponding excita-
tions. These reflexes are determined by brain processes, for every
subjective state presupposes a brain process.

In the case of man the sources of excitation are to be found not
only in the biological but in the social environment, especially the
latter. It is these social excitations that make man a biosocial
being. The reflexological investigation is completed only when the
very genesis of the phenomena is explained. The fact that the
majority of these reflexes are somatic shows that the vegetative
nervous system plays a very important part in their development.
Since this system innervates the striated muscles, as recent investi-
gations have shown, it is probable that changes in the muscles
degree of toiius, tremor, etc. are dependent upon it. 6

5 Although gestures are closely associated with emotions and especially
with speech, they must be distinguished from mimicry. They are indeed a
complement of speech. They do not occur in animals, except, perhaps, in a
very rudimentary form. Gestures are incomplete movements which orient,
point, defend, attack, and describe. Thus they supplement the intonation of
the voice in giving to speech a very vivid demonstrative quality.

6 We do not include gestures because they are dependent upon the excitation
of the pyramidal tracts of the nervous system.

VLADIMIR M. BEKHTEREV 277

At present the cerebral mechanism of these reflexive somato-
mimetic phenomena can be made more or less clear. First I must
point out that, as early as the eighties, I proved experimentally the
significance of the visual center in the development and execution of
these movements, which I have designated as "expressive." 8

The function of the visual center is shown not only in the
external mimetic movements, but also in the various internal
somatic changes, as these same experiments have demonstrated.
More recently these facts have been confirmed by a number of
clinical observations. Studies made upon the encephalon by
pathologico-anatomical dissections prove conclusively that the
striated system, which is intimately connected with the visual
center functionally and anatomically, plays an important part in
mimetic phenomena. The main center of the vegetative nervous
system is, as we know, the gray matter in the region of the lower
part of the third ventricle, the region of tuber cinereum. It is,
therefore, probable that the optic nerve sends its fibers in the
direction of this center of the vegetative nervous system. In this
way the changes in the vegetative nervous system which accompany
the somato-mimetic reflexes are brought about. The cortex of the
brain also belongs to the general mechanism of the somato-mimetic
reflexes. This r61e of the cortex was first demonstrated in our
laboratory. We know that the respiratory functions play a part
in the somato-mimetic reflexes. For instance, a dog's rate of
respiration increases when a cat is brought near it. At the end of
the last century, we used this reflex, which is undoubtedly condi-
tioned, to localize the respiratory center in the brain. Dr. Zhukov-
ski (Dissertation, 1898), who experimented with dogs in my
laboratory, found that the somato-mimetic reflex in question is
eliminated when the cortical respiratory centers, which lie outside
and in front of the sigmoid convolution, are removed. This may
also be demonstrated with the somato-mimetic erotic reflex. If a
male dog is near a bitch during the period of mating, the erection
of the penis takes place. But if the cortical sexual centers, which
have been located during the course of these investigations in the
rear portion of the sigmoid convolution near the center which
controls the tail, are removed, erection no longer occurs under the
same conditions. (See Dr. Pussep.) The same holds true for the
maternal reflex secretion of milk at the sight or cry of the child.
Experiments upon milking sheep, which were conducted in our

3 See my work: "On Expressive Movements," Russia Vratch, 1893; "On
the Function of the Visual Center," Vestnik Psikhologi, 1885; and "Die Be-
deutung der Sehhtigel auf Grund von experimentellen und pathologischen
Daten, " Virchow's Archiv fur pathologische Anatomic und Physiologic, CX
(1887), 102, S22.

278 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

laboratory by Dr. Nikitin, have shown that the electrical stimula-
tion of certain centers located near the facial center brings about
a.n abundant secretion of milk. Experiments have shown that the
same effect takes place at the sight of a lamb or even at hearing
its cry when it is outside of the building. The reflex is eliminated
when the centers in question are removed. Analogous phenomena
have been observed in the case of other glandular secretions.

These facts show clearly that the conditioned reflex phenomena
of the vegetative nervous system, which enter into the complex
of somato-mimetic reflexes (emotions), are controlled by centers
located in the cortex of the brain, which influence the vegetative
(vago-sympathetic) nervous system by way of the subcortical
vegetative nervous centers.

We must remember that the somato-mimetic reflexes may be
divided into two groups the innate and the acquired. The innate
reflexes begin to develop soon after birth without previous experi-
ence. Such are the mimetic satisfactions after eating: the cry, the
smile, laughter, etc. They are touched off by reflexogenic stimuli
external and internal and transmitted to the centers by afferent
channels. The acquired reflexes originate by an associative
process; they are conditioned upon the innate somato-mimetic
reflexes. For instance, the smile which was originally induced by
favorable internal biological stimuli and appeared later as laughter
under the influence of external cutaneous stimuli (such as tickling
in certain regions) may, with time, begin to appear in response to
visual and auditory (verbal) stimuli, as a result of the association
of certain social stimuli with the biological and reflexogenic
cutaneous stimuli mentioned. Like all conditioned reflexes,
this latter case involves the transmission of the visual and auditory
impulses to the visual center by way of the cerebral cortex and
thence to the cerebral center of the vegetative nervous system.
As for the somato-mimetic (emotional) expressions of the secretory
activity of the glands, they, too, are directly dependent upon the
vegetative nervous system, and therefore involve a similar mech-
anism. Furthermore, experiments performed in our laboratory
by Pines and others prove that the glands of internal secretion
(suprarenals, thyroid, sexual glands, and evidently all the rest)
are innervated both by the sympathetic and the parasympathetic
systems.

Thus we have to deal with conditioned reflexes, which accel-
erate or inhibit the activity of the glands of internal secretion,
thereby altering the composition of the blood which nourishes
the ganglia of the nervous system, thus exerting an influence upon
the nervous system itself.

VLADIMIR M. BEKHTEREV 279

The question is: Which of these spmato-mimetic states are
to be regarded as the innate or inherited reflexes which supply
the basis for the development of conditioned reflexes? Dr. Watson
regards the emotions of love, fear, and anger as innate (The Peda-
gogical Seminary and Journal of Genetic Psychology, June, 1925).
But all three may be acquired emotions of the conditioned reflex
type. There are specific stimuli for each of them. Fear, for
instance, is aroused by a sudden noise or by the sudden loss of
support. The innate anger reflex is aroused by inhibiting the
movements of the body. Stroking of the skin, especially erog-
enous zones, or patting is the stimulus for the emotion of love.
We note here that the sexual glands, which exhibit their hormonal
function from the day of birth, play a very important part in love. 8
The stroking of the skin really excites the activity of these glands
and so leads to the erection of the sexual organs. Our observations
show that stroking of the abdomen when the sexual organs are
turgid, results in erection even during the first year of life. But
love in its mature form is the result of a number of external stimuli
cutaneous (caressing), visual, and auditory which are asso-
ciated with the original stimulus and so excite the hormonal
function of the sexual glands.

The three emotional or somato-mimetic reflexes mentioned by
Watson are not the only ones which belong to the innate or inher-
ited group. In addition to them we must recognize: (1) the reflex
which denotes biological satisfaction, characterized by general
dilation of the peripheral blood-vessels, especially those of the
face, and smoothening out of the facial wrinkles; and (2) the
reflex which denotes biological dissatisfaction, characterized by
increased muscular energy, increased tonus of the vessels, and
later by the phenomena of muscular unrest. Very much later
in the course of development the superabundance of the sexual
hormone is indicated by sexual excitement and changes in the
face and eyes. Other somato-mimetic states are aroused by
ordinary reflexes which act as external reflexogenic stimuli. We
know that gentle stroking of the skin causes dilation of the
peripheral vessels, that stroking near the sexual region, especially
the abdomen, excites the sexual organs, as noted above. Repeated
manipulation of the armpits and the soles of the feet with fairly
gentle, short strokes causes irregular respiratory movements,
contraction of the facial muscles, and characteristic defense reac-
tions, which result in laughter or even hilarity. Lastly, gross
stimuli which prick or injure the skin arouse violent and lasting

8 The influence of these glands upon the uterus before birth is not taken into
consideration here.

280 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

defense reactions, accompanied by the rush of blood to the face
and shedding of tears. 9

Restraining movements arouse the muscular activity of attack,
characterized by increased muscular energy and tonus, violent
contraction of the muscles, corresponding changes in facial
expression, strong heart action, and a rush of blood to the surface
of the body, especially the face.

The acquired somato-mimetic reflexes, which develop as a
result of the relations between the individual and his environ-
ment, are later superimposed upon the innate, inherited somato-
mimetic reflexes. It is easy to trace the development of these
conditioned mimetic reflexes in a baby. For instance, satiety is
followed by a general quieting, relaxation of the limbs, reddening
of the face, and consequent smoothening of the features, which
gives a peculiar expression of physical satisfaction with time.
But, even very soon after birth, the mere placing of one's arm
under the back of the crying, hungry child (an act which usually
precedes the process of taking him into the arms for nursing),
suffices to produce the quieting effect the moving limbs relax
and the folds of the face smooth out.

The smile and other somato-mimetic movements are developed
in the same way. The gentle touching of the child's cheek with
two fingers (the thumb and the index finger) very soon after
birth causes a contraction of the cheeks which resembles a smile.
After this stimulus has been repeated many times, a smile may
be induced by merely bringing the fingers near the face without
actually touching it. Very much later the conditioned secretion
of saliva at the mere sight of food originates in the same manner;
similarly the secretion of tears and the secretion from the nose
in response to external stimuli which do not involve touching the
skin, as well as the cardio- vascular reactions which belong to the
complex of somato-mimetic reflexes.

If we trace the development of somato-mimetic reflexes in babies
and animals, it is easy to see that all of them originate as condi-
tioned reflexes superimposed upon the ordinary reflexes which
appear shortly after birth. All the various somato-mimetic ex-
pressions of adults gradually develop in the same way as life-
experience goes on. Similarly, conscious stimuli bring about the
further development and differentiation of those somato-mimetic
conditioned reflexes which give greater expressiveness to human
conversation. On the other hand, social stimuli inhibit the

9 The shedding of tears is itself a defense reaction, for the tear serves to
protect the eye just as the secretion of saliva serves to protect against acid
stimuli.

VLADIMIR M. BEKHTEREV 281

manifestation of those somato-mimetic reflexes which are con-
trary to the social interests of the individual. Finally some of
these reflexes acquire a symbolical character by undergoing
various modifications, and so become a mimical speech. The
development of somato-mimetic reflexes in adult life takes place
just as it does in childhood. For instance it has been shown that
mere concentration upon work produces a change in the circulation,
and that muscular work is preceded by the dilation of the blood-
vessels of the muscles (Leber). Analogous phenomena are ob-
served in those somato-mimetic reflexes which involve a state
of tension of the striated muscles, as anger.

As we have already seen, the experiments performed with
milking sheep in my laboratory show that the mere sight of the
approaching lamb or even its cry causes the secretion of milk.
The same thing happens in women. After a woman has nursed
a child a fairly long time, the mere thought of nursing causes the
breasts to fill with milk (Greving). Needless to say, the visceral
phenomena, which play a part in the complex of somato-mimetic
reflexes, develop as conditioned reflexes.

We now know that all the conditioned reflexes of the internal
organs are developed by the vago-sympathetic system. Such
are the contractions of the throat, oesophagus, stomach, and in-
testine, the changes of pulse and blood-pressure, changes in size
of the blood-vessels, perspiration, secretion of bile and gastric
juice, micturition, and defecation. In general, the endocrine
glands react upon the conditioned stimuli, thereby causing an
abnormal excitation of the sympatheticus or vagus. Cannon
has shown experimentally that stimulation of the nerves of the
suprarenal capsules causes a hypersecretion of the thyroid gland
just as does a small does of adrenalin. On the other hand, it is
known that the somato-mimetic state may bring about not only
glycosuria but also suppression of menstruation and sudden
disappearance of milk.

Such states generally disturb the equilibrium between the
vegetative and endocrine systems. According to Ken, traumatic
syndrome causes a poisoning which originates in the tissues,
especially the traumatized muscles (histamin). Shocks which
cause no organic injury may also be classed with emotions (Ballet,
"Les commotions sont des Emotions"), for the Ashnerov symptom,
the disturbances of the heart rhythm, and the vasomotor changes
which they involve are directly dependent upon the increased
excitation and disturbances of the vegetative nervous system.

Cardio-vascular phenomena also belong to the conditioned
reflexes of the somato-mimetic type. For instance, a state of

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

gladness arouses faster and stronger heart-beats an effect which
is produced directly by the increased sympathico-vagotonia, the
sympathicus predominating. In fright the heart-beat is weaker
and interrupted, the pulse is irregular and may stop altogether.
In this case vagotonia, which occurs as a conditioned reflex, is
highly predominant. The peripheral vessels dilate in gladness;
they contract in fright. In conclusion we may say that the
success of the reflexological method shows that the somato-
mimetic reflexes may be studied experimentally.

The emotional or somato-mimetic reflex was aroused artificially
many years ago. In the preliminary experiments made by Dr.
Czaly an electrical current was used. The strength of the current
was such that, when applied to the sole of the foot, it aroused not
only the defensive reflex jerking away the leg but also reflexes
of the cardio-vascular and respiratory systems. It was shown
that, when the electrical stimulus is associated with an indifferent
external stimulus, the subject gives a conditioned cardio-vascular
reflex, which can be differentiated just as a conditioned motor
reflex can be. Further work done by Dr. Schneierson upon
conditioned motor reflexes aroused by electrical stimulation of
the fingers has shown that, in some sensitive subjects, this stimula-
tion is accompanied by a somato-mimetic reflex, which may also
be produced by the indifferent conditioned stimulus in this case
auditory.

These investigations supply experimental proof that the
somato-mimetic states originate as conditioned reflexes.

As early as 1913 I began publishing a series of papers, in which
I showed that even general neurotic cases and cases of sexual
abnormality may be analyzed by the reflexological method. 10
Pathological somato-mimetic states of a persistent, annoying
nature originate like other reflexes of the laboratory type. As
a rule an external stimulus of a given nature, which arouses a
definite somato-mimetic state under certain conditions, establishes
the reflex in persons of a pathologically excitable constitution.
With time it becomes a habitual conditioned reflex.

We have also developed a therapy for such annoying somato-
mimetic states, 11 including a special conditioned reflex therapy,

10 " Concerning Phobias and Their Cure," Russki Vratch, XIV (1915);
"On the Development of Phobias," Psychological Review, XXIII (1916), et
a/.; "Sexual Abnormality in the Light of Reflexology, " Voprosi Izucheniya
i Vospitaniya Lichnosti, nos. 4 and 5, 1922, Archivfur Psychiatric und N erven-
krankheiten, LXVIII (1923); "Sexual Perversion as Conditioned upon the
Sexual Reflex," Pedagogitcheski Sbornik (Leningrad: Yefron, 1925); "Con-
cerning the Perversion and Inversion of Sexual Desire from the Standpoint
of Reflexology," Polovoi Voptosi (Moscow: Gosisdat, 1925).

"V. Bekhterev, Russki Vratch, XIV (1915).

VLADIMIR M. BEKHTEREV 283

which has been applied successfully to the more elementary
phenomena of general neuroses (anaesthesia, paralysis) as well
as to complex annoying acts. 12 It has been applied to such
childish states as those characterized by kleptomania, in which
the emotion of satisfaction is associated with the annoying act
of theft. This method of conditioned reflex therapy, which
involves the association of the defensive reflex aroused by reflexo-
genic stimuli (electric current) with the words, "Do not take,"
(Osipov, Oparin), has proven quite satisfactory, for stubborn
kleptomania in children has been completely eradicated after
several of these sittings held at weekly intervals. Our results
are closely related to the investigations of Watson in America.
Watson was able to develop the somato-mimetic reflex of fear of
a white mouse in children by striking a metal bar with a hammer.
The reflex was thus aroused by a number of animals (irradiation
or generalization of the reflex). 13

The author regards the above method as the most helpful of
the many methods used to suppress the somato-mimetic emotional
reflex. Experiments have been performed which involve the
introduction of the object of fear while the child is eating break-
fast. The object (a rabbit) was brought near to the child on
several successive days, until finally the child would drink milk
from one hand and caress the rabbit with the other.

There is no reason to doubt that the strictly objective biosocial
or reflexological method of investigation, which originated here
and has been developed in America, has placed the problem of
emotions as somato-mimetic reflexes upon an experimental
basis, and has given a great impetus to the development of an
exact understanding of these complicated states of the human
being.

DR. WALTER B. CANNON (Harvard University) requested that the following
questions be submitted to Dr. Bekhterev:

1. What is the basis for the statement that the vegetative nervous system
determines the tone of skeletal muscle?

2. What is the evidence that the adrenal gland is innervated by parasympa-
thetic fibers, and that the sex glands are innervated by both sympathetic and
parasympathetic nerve supplies?

12 V. Bekhterev, "On the Therapeutical Significance of the Conditioned Re-
flexes in Hysterical Anaesthesia and Paralysis, " Obozrenie Psikhiatri, Nevrologi,
i Eksperimentalnoi Psikhologi, XI-XII (1917-18). "On Conditioned Reflex
Therapy," Sanitarno Meditsinski Vestnik, 1925.

18 J. B. Watson, The Pedagogical Seminary and Journal of Genetic Psychology
XXXIII (1925).

CHAPTER 24

EMOTIONS IN ANIMALS AND MAN

HENRI PIERON

University of Paris

In the lower organisms, the protozoans, which are the least
differentiated, reactions to stimuli show only slight variation, and
reduce practically to the avoidance of certain excitations and
attraction toward certain others. These positive and negative
responses may be characterized as affective reactions of a primitive
sort.

In the more complex organisms, where part-responses appear, we
can distinguish diffuse affective reactions of avoidance and attrac-
tion on the one hand, and stereotyped reactions to certain stimuli,
the adapted reflexes, on the other. But, when one watches the
development of reactions which become gradually stereotyped
with repetition, one ascertains beyond all doubt that these reactions
originally constitute a part of a complex affective response and
play a definite role in a general activity of avoidance and attraction.
This may lead one to believe that the same holds true for reactions
which have become congenital, and so, to affirm the primacy of the
affective reaction, from which the reflex would be derived through
the process of mnemonic automatization, with repetition.

In animals at the higher stages of evolution, the reaction systems
are extremely numerous and complicated, the reflexes are mul-
tiplied, and it is very easy to witness the development of less stable
automatic reactions in the form of conditioned reflexes. Under the
given conditions, a general competition is set up between possible
modes of activity, and prediction of results becomes very difficult
in default of knowledge of the precise resistance of the action
systems, a resistance which depends upon numerous factors, both
past and present. The analysis of the behavior of the higher
animals and man shows an elaboration of action, which strives to
provide the best means of attaining a certain end, affectively
determined.

Thought, which is theoretically reducible to a complex play
of more or less stereotyped mental reactions of the conditioned
reflex type, functions only under the affective impulse, which alone

HENRI PllSRON 285

prescribes the ends of action. From the amoeba to man, action is
always essentially affective, even when it occurs in the preparatory
form which it may assume in the most highly trained animals, the
purely mental form of thought.

Modern psychology, of a biological spirit, is called upon to
recognize this fundamental r61e of affection in governing the
interests, even in the play of intellectual processes. If we think of
the facts physiologically and trace the play of thought to the
activation of complex associative circuits, then we will identify the
intellectual sphere of man with the nervous pathways of the cortex
as a whole, the circuits provided by the new brain, and we will
attribute to the affective sphere, localized in the old brain, the
regulation of nervous activity along these pathways, the regulation
of the functional dynamism of the nervous impulse.

A network of railroads furnishing numerous and well-distributed
pathways is not sufficient; the trains must also be steered and
hurtled along the pathways in a number and with a speed suitable
to needs. The intellectual sphere is built up just as is the network
of railroads; but the regulation of the functioning of the network,
sensitive to the variable needs of traffic, is comparable to the
affective regulation of thought. 1

Nervous functioning in all its forms, including the mental form,
requires a certain specific expenditure of energy, connected with
the nervous impulse. What is the precise nature of nervous energy?
Docs it obey the laws of thermodynamics? These are problems
which have not yet been definitely settled. But one does not need
to await their solution before utilizing a concept which is indis-
pensable to all general theory of psychophysiology. In the neu-
rones there are reserves of energy, accumulated in the course of
normal metabolism, which are expended during functional activity,
but their utilization is dependent upon certain liberative stimula-
tions. It is the affective sphere, acting as regulator, that gives rise to
the stimulations, which release the more or less copious discharges
into the nervous pathways of thought and action.

To the intellectual sphere belong the qualities, the modalities;
to the affective sphere, the general direction and the quantity.

Now the idea of emotion seems to be associated with a quantita-
tive aspect, a certain level, of the affect. The difference between
the moderate interest taken in a theatrical performance and the
keen emotion which it arouses, whatever may be the precise nature
of the feelings involved pain, fear, pity, pleasure, or enthusiasm

1 Cf . H. Pidron, Thought and the Brain (London: Kegan Paul; New York:
Harcourt, Brace, 1927), Part IV, "The Affective Regulation of Mental Life,"
p. 229 ff.

286 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

is essentially a quantitative one. But at what moment during the
continuous increasing of the affect has one the right to speak
of emotion?

Evidently there is a conventional element in the application of
the terminology in this case, as in all our classifications, in which
we are compelled to establish more or less arbitrary cleavages in a
continuous series. The examination of cases which we agree to
speak of as emotion leads us to suppose that the word is employed
whenever the behavior of the individual reveals either violence or
disorder. A child injures one of his comrades, the latter replies
by slapping him in the face, and the response is affective; but, if he
gets red in the face, stamps his foot, trembles, and slaps violently,
then he is in a rage, he is prey to an emotion. Between the slap
given calmly without any other noticeable manifestation of the
affect and the scene of the rage, all sorts of transitions are possible.
Where should we draw the line? In the search for a criterion, let us
appeal to the emotional expressions found in animals.

An animal is threatened; he gives a defense reaction, a stereo-
typed reflex, or a more plastic and better adapted response. This
reaction is generally connected with an affective orientation of
behavior tending toward flight or aggression. There is no reason
for invoking the existence of an emotion. But, in addition to the
defense reaction, the animal displays processes which are foreign
to this reaction and, like it, are aroused by the threatening stimulus.
This is the emotional reaction.

1 lift a rock which has been left exposed by the ocean; I perceive
a poulp, an Octopus, covered with little stones, motionless; I
try to seize it, and the animal moves away hastily, or, if I take
hold of it, grasps my hand in its tentacles so as to bite me with its
horny beak. These are the adapted defense reactions which the
animal has at its disposal. But, at the same time, its chromato-
phores are frantically displaying continual changes of color, which
pass over its skin like shivers, 2 and its pupils become abnormally
dilated. These manifestations, which are foreign to the defense
mechanism, reveal a violent emotion.

The toads (Phrynosoma cornutum) studied by Redfield, 3 also

2 These displays of tegumentary coloration have sometimes been regarded as a
defense reaction belonging to the class of " terrifying attitudes, " such as have been
noted among the snakes, the lizards (Varanus), the spiders, the mantes, etc. But,
in reality, the paling or darkening of the tegument cannot be regarded as possessing
a terrifying value in itself.

3 A. C. Redfield, "The Reactions of the Melanophores of the Horned Toad,"
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, III (1917), 202.

HENRI PIERON 287

showed chromatophore reactions under the influence of certain
emotional stimuli paling by contraction of the dark pigment cells
and also by an ordinary mechanism which might be considered an
exaggeration of the secretion of adrenalin and the characteristic
hyperglycemia found in the higher animals, such as the cat and
man, during emotion. These occur along with visible changes,
many of which also involve the skin, as horripilation.

Intense reactions which play no part in the functional activity
of the animal constitute a criterion of emotion. But hasty reac-
tions which are unsuited to the present circumstances may be
indicative of the emotional state. If a person hurts himself on a
table and begins to pound the table or to break a plate, we do not
hesitate to say that he is angry. An ant, coming upon a spot of
soil near its nest, which has been saturated with the odor of foreign
ants, sometimes begins to strike the ground violently with its
mandibles, instead of being content to flee or to explore carefully
the neighborhood of the suspicious place. 4 In this case it well shows
that it is a prey to anger. The same is true of animals which, if
held still so that they cannot bite their enemies, take to biting
themselves in their anger.

We will now consider some cases which border on the limits
of the emotional level of the affect. The reactions shown are
indeed defense reactions, but they are of an exceptional nature
and do not normally occur under conditions where they would be
necessary for the conservation of life, except when the affective
shock is present. I borrow examples from my researches on
autotomy. 5 (Autotomy appears to be like a reflex set off by the
violent excitation of the nerve of the claw. Leon Fredericq has
asserted, in his classic monograph, 6 that this is the only possible
mechanism of autotomy in the crab.)

We know that many of the Arthropoda (crustaceans, insects)
amputate their own limbs under certain conditions. For example,
let us take a crab, and cut deeply the mdropodite (third joint) of
one claw; the claw breaks off and falls into our hands. Let us now
tie a crab to a stick by a wire attached to one claw, and leave it
alone after placing food near it but out of its reach; after one or

4 1 have verified this fact in the course of my researches upon the olfactory
recognition of ants: Comptes rendus de la Soci&6 de Biologie, LXI (1906), 385, 433,
471 ; and Comptes rendus de V Academic des Sciences, CXLIII, 845.

8 H. Pi6ron, "Le probteme de 1'autotomie," Bulletin scientifique XLII (1908),
185-246. Cf. also Archives Internationales de physiologic, V (1907), 110-121.

6 Archives de biologie, III (1882), 235. Archives de zoologie exp6rimentale et
g6n6rale, II (1883), ser. I, 413. Cf. also the article " Autotomie" in the Dictionnaire
de Physiologie, II (1895), 952.

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

more days we will find it there, still tied, unable to free itself,
dying on the spot. 7

Now let us release a poulp, the most dangerous of its enemies,
near to the tied crab, and we will see the latter amputate its limb
and escape. In such exceptional cases the reaction is set off by
what we believe may be termed an emotional shock, an emotion
of fear.

This has been verified with Carcinus maenas, in which autotomy
is obtained only by the reflex to strong stimulation o,f the nerve,
except in this case. 8 With oth^r crabs, less intense emotions are
sufficient to set off autotomy. In the Grapsidae, for example,
sudden seizure is sufficient to cause the abandonment of the claws;
and if the animal is tied among the rocks, a sudden movement of the
hand, as though to seize it, brings about the immediate autotomic
liberation, which only the sight of the poulp can cause in Carcinus.

A crab, held upon its back by forceps, suddenly removes its
claws when I pick its carapace with the point of a scalpel, as a
result of the painful shock, which sets up an emotional state.

Autotomy of a tied claw occurs also in the pagurians, when one
makes a swift movement as though to seize them. They react
by retreating into their shell.

Some Diptera (the tipulids) remain caught by the legs without
self -amputation, and one may hold them by the extremities of
the legs without their flying away, whereas the grasping of the
femur causes immediate reflex autotomy. But the tipulid com-
pletely abandons its leg the moment that it is seized, or when it is
held by the tibia and a grasping gesture is made.

I have further verified the same facts with various Orthoptera.
An oedipod (Oedipoda coerulescens, Oedipoda minata) tied by the
tibia will die without freeing itself unless its femur is pinched, but
it amputates its legs immediately and takes to flight when a
mantis, its dangerous enemy, approaches it. 9

7 In most cases a specific mechanism, functioning by performed anatomical
structures, brings about the self-amputation of the member at a definite place;
sometimes there is a simple pulling out of the member, breaking at the weakest
point (autospasie) ; finally, certain Orthoptera (phasgonurids) amputate their
anterior legs with their mandibles, a mechanism which Rabaud and I have noted
and termed "autopsalize." Pie*ron ahd Rabaud, Comptes rendus de la Soci&e de
Biologic, XCI (1924), 362.

8 The fact has been noted before by Parize, Revue scientifiqne, II (1886), 379. It
has been systematically studied by a pupil of Fredericq J. Roskam, who verified my
results, Archives Internationales de physiologic, XII (1912), 474.

9 H. Pieron, "Les formes 616mentaires de 1' Emotion dans le comportement
animal," Journal de psychologic, XVII (1920), 937.

HENRI PIRON 289

III

The emotional level of the affect is first reached when the
reactions to a given situation show an abnormal, exceptional
intensity. In anger, or when the presence of danger causes an
overexeitation of the instinct of self-preservation, the muscular
strength is increased by considerable amounts; weights which would
have seemed impossible to lift are lifted, forced marches are
accomplished, the speed of running may be considerably increased.
Fear, they say, gives wings.

It is very evident that changes are not produced in the muscles,
but that the nervous excitations for the muscular contractions
attain exceptional levels of intensity, compensating for the de-
creases in functional capacity of the muscles due to local fatigue.

The mental abilities, power of attention, rapidity of elaboration,
etc., may also be noticeably augmented in pressing danger. A
violent emotion may reinforce memory, and give rise to indelible
associations. 10

The emotional exaltation, the excessive discharge of nervous
energy, which is expended in mental elaboration or in motor
execution, is highly favorable to the protection to the defense of
the individual. But there is another side to the story. These
exceptional expenditures are followed by an exhaustion which
demands a long period of recuperation and may have pathological
consequences, especially when emotions are frequently repeated.

Moreover, this excessive discharge of nervous energy is useful
only in so far as it finds utilization in the situation in which the
individual is placed. A stag, threatened by a pack of wolves,
manages to gain upon his pursuers by his swiftness, and utilizes all
the energy which his emotion generously discharges for the force
and rapidity of the movements of running. An angry man
vanquishes many enemies, thanks to his ten-times increased
strength. But here is a cat in a cage, threatened by a dog, and
prey to a violent emotion, although it does not need to fight; here
is a man prey to a violent anger because he is injured in an anony-
mous letter, although he does not know on whom to lay hands. In
such cases the expenditures of nervous energy represent a pure
waste, exhausting for no purpose. The threatened cat mews,
hisses, bristles, crouches to leap; the injured man cries out, strikes
the table, grits his teeth all that in vain.

10 In my book, Involution de la m6moire (Paris: Flammarion, 1910), I noted this
fact in the case of a lizard which, after biting a particularly nauseous caterpillar,
consistently refused thereafter to touch a caterpillar; he had acquired then and
there an experience which remained fixed.

290 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

But all the nervous energy which emotion discharges is not
utilized by motor reactions; part of it finds its way into the vegeta-
tive system. The sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves
receive stimulations, which are translated into changes in respira-
tion, the heart-beat, the state of the blood-vessels, the tonus and
contractility of the smooth muscles, the secretory activity of the
glands, etc.

Finalistic biases have lead to an interpretation of these secretory,
circulatory, and visceral reactions as useful elements in the activity
of defense. A case in point is the conceptions of Cannon, from
which Watson has derived the idea of emotion as "visceral and
glandular instinct. " n

But, when we see that these vegetative reactions sometimes end
in death, 12 that they usually paralyze the defense mechanism, and
that they lead to pathological states which are often serious, we
become skeptical as to the value of finalistic interpretations.

The phenomena of cerebral vasoconstriction from emotion
involve the loss of the use of the legs and fainting, which may also
result from a syncope due to excessive inhibitory action of the
vagus nerve upon the heart. The relaxation of the bladder
sphincter and the colic pains resulting from exaggerated peristaltic
movements of the intestines do not facilitate the useful defense
reactions. Although the increased secretion of adrenalin by the
suprarenals, along with the hyperglycemia involved, which is
indicated by a certain amount of glycosuria, may be regarded &&
favorable, the other glandular activities which may take the form
either of functional acceleration or of inhibition 13 certainly cannot
be invoked in support of finalistic conceptions.

In reading Darwin, we smile at the childishness of his detailed
utilitarian explanation of the expression of emotion. Apparently
the muscles of the face simply participate in the arousal of general

11 J. B. Watson, Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist (Philadelphia:
Lippincott, 1919), p. 195.

12 Certain birds which are subject to tachycardia and palpitation of the heart
die without being wounded, when handled, and I have seen a kitten, which was
kept tied for a physiological experiment, die without suffering an injury. On this
question, see the observations and researches of E. Martin and Roja Villanova,
"La mort subite ou rapide par choc e*motionnel, " Journal de mldicine de Lyon,
VII (1926), 543.

13 G. Dumas and Malloizel have promulgated what they have called "the
polyglandular expression" of emotions, Journal de psychologic, VII (1910), 63.
Anger in the dog causes an increased secretion of urine and saliva. In fear, the
inhibition of the salivary secretion makes the throat dry, and the digestion is
disturbed by the sudden suppression of the gastric juice, while the cold sweats
instance the excitation of the perspiration.

HENRI PIRON 291

motor activity under the influence of an intense, diffused nervous
excitation, as the analysis made by G. Dumas well shows. 14

Of the vegetative reactions, there are some which may be useful,
there are some which are unquestionably harmful, while a large
number are indifferent. At any rate, they do not fit into a finalistic
systematization, but, on the contrary, taken as a total, they appear
to confer upon emotion an actual pathogenic value. 16

Emotion may give rise to true hemoclasic shocks, with all
the consequences of these shocks, especially in certain individuals.
Benard and Joltrain have produced experimentally a characteristic
hemoclasic crisis in a patient suffering from exophthalmic goiter
and having fits of asthma as a result of a fright, by using an
unexpected detonation close by as an emotional shock. 18

It seems to us, therefore, that emotion is associated with an
affective discharge of abnormally intense nervous energy. A part
of this energy is utilized for the useful, adapted reactions, which
may be accelerated and reinforced to an exceptional degree. But
a more or less considerable part is expended in useless motor
reactions (like the reactions of the facial muscles), and even finds
its way into the vegetative organs, where many different reactions
are produced, 17 varying accordingly as the excitatory or inhibitory
systems are stimulated, and where injurious or even pathogenic
processes are aroused.

The overflow of the excess discharge of nervous energy into the
visceral organs has been explained by Lapicque in the light of his
general conception of chronasie and the shunting of the nervous

14 G. Dumas, " L'expression des Emotions" in Trait6 de psychologic (Paris:
Alcan, 1923), I, 606.

16 At the present time, we know of well-certified cases of various diseases, in
which emotions played the essential pathogenic r61e: cases of jaundice, nettle-rash,
eczema, asthma, diabetes, glaucoma, scurf, (including the canities brusques) ,
exophthalmic goiter (with persistent tachycardia and tremors, etc.).

18 Bulletins et m6moires de la Soci6t6 Mtdicale des Hopitaux de Paris, 42nd year
(1926), 1155.

17 Many medicines have opposite effects depending upon the size of the dose or
the phase of the action. The intensity and duration of emotion also play a part.
In Italian soldiers sentenced to be shot and warned of it the day before, Gualino
has noted tachycardia and increased blood-pressure, soon followed by a large
decrease in heart rate and of arterial pressure, Rivista di psicologia, XVI (1920), 42.
Finally, there may be variations due to the functional condition of the organs at
the time of the emotion. Thus Sinelnikov has demonstrated that emotion arrests
movements in an active segment of the intestine and instigates them in a quiescent
segment, Pf Niger's Archivfur diegesamte Physiologic, CCXHI (1926), 239.

292 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

impulse by the syntony of the neurones. 18 The impulse in one
neurone arouses an impulse in the neurones with which it is
connected the more easily when the specific vibration rate of the
latter is near its own. When the impulse is not very intense, the
neurones simply respond synchronously with the neurones of
equal chronasie, as is the case in the reflexes. If the intensity of
the impulse increases, neurones which are more and more dis-
chronous come into play. When emotion arouses particularly
intense impulses, the torrent of excitation overflows the paths of
the adapted reactions and produces a general diffusion of this
excitation. The visceral overflow of the emotional excitation
takes place more easily in some individuals than in others, and
circumstances also have an effect.

It is when the normal utilization of the excessive discharge of
energy for the defense reactions is impossible, and especially when
motor activity is impeded, that the emotion comes to be diverted
to visceral reactions. In this connection I would mention a fact
which seems to establish well the existence of a certain mutual
compensation between motor reaction and visceral reaction.

During the war my colleague, Dcrrien, and I studied the influ-
ence which the lumbar puncture exerts, through its psychical
effects, upon the amount of sugar in the blood and the cerebro-
spinal fluid. 19 When the puncture involved an emotion, repeated
blood tests showed increased glycemia, accompanied by increase
in the amount of sugar in the cerebro-spinal fluid, whereas, in the
absence of emotion, there was no variation. For example, in two
paretic patients, the glycemia (measured in grams per liter) was
1 to 1.24 gr. before the puncture, 0.95 to 1.20 gr. after it; and, in
two imbeciles, 1.31 and 1.01 gr. before, 1.30 and 1.02 gr. after-
wards. These patients had remained indifferent. But here are
two emotional soldiers, who are restless, cry out, and writhe when
punctured; in one the amount of sugar increased from 0.98 to 1.08
gr., in the other from 1.06 to 1.26 gr. Finally, here are three rest-
less soldiers, who, due to their military discipline, offer no resistance,
suppress all agitation, inhibit their motor reactions, and try to
conceal their emotion their glycemic reactions are especially
high, due to compensation; in one the amount increased from 1.0
to 1.25 gr., in the second from 1.25 to 1.46 gr., and in the third from
0.85 to 1.27 gr., an increase of 50% in this last case.

18 L. Lapicque, "Essai d'une nouvelle thorie physiologique de F&notion,"
Journal de psychologic, VIII (1911), 1.

19 E. Derrien and H. Piron, "De la reaction glycemique 6mot?onnelle, " Journal
de psychologic, XX (1923), 533.

HENRI PI^RON 293

The pathogenic action of emotion, connected in part with the
nervous exhaustion resulting from the excessive discharge of
energy, especially when a subject is submitted to a regular emo-
tional surmenage, to repeated violent shocks, is dependent chiefly
upon disturbances in the endocrine equilibrium, hemoclasic
shocks, and functional disorders of organs which eliminate poisons,
such as the liver, 20 that is to say, vegetative reactions. It is
normal, therefore, that this pathogenic action should be par-
ticularly marked when the visceral expression is strongest, when
the normal defense reactions are consequently rendered impossible,
and when the discharged nervous energy cannot be used in motor
activity. These conditions were found peculiarly combined during
the trench warfare of 1914-1918, and that explains why there have
been so many diseases of emotional origin among the soldiers who
have experienced violent bombardments.

In particular, there very frequently occurs an "emotional
syndrome/* which A. Mairet and I identified very early in the
course of the war by distinguishing it from the purely shock
syndrome resulting from accidents in the air (involving functional
neurone troubles and hemorrhages from the small capillaries of the
medullar and cerebral regions. 21

The essential elements of this syndrome include: (1) emotional
anaphylaxis, a state of hyperexcitability taking the form of rest-
lessness or of fear, often going to the extent of delirious hallu-
cinations at the beginning, and revealing itself for a long time by
persistent nightmares; (2) extreme mental fatigue, evidencing
nervous exhaustion from emotion, with aprosexia, fixatory amnesia,
slowness of speech, easy confusion; (3) finally, headaches aggra-
vated by mental effort. In the pure shock syndrome, the most
noticeable symptoms are inertia, staring, indifference, sometimes
accompanied by anger reactions. There is also considerable retro-
grade amnesia, anaesthesia, and vertigo.

The emotional syndrome often occurs entirely apart from any
pathological tendencies, individual or hereditary (in ten out of
thirty-five cases of pure emotional syndrome in which I was able

20 In the frightened cat Buscaino has found changes in the blood, the liver, the
suprarenals, the thyroid, the ovary or testicles, etc., "Richerche biochiiniche in
animali normali ed in aniinali emozionati, " Rivista di patologia nervosa e mentale,
XXIV (1919), 2.

21 A. Mairet and H. PieVon, "Le syndrome commotionnel dans les traumatismes
de guerre," Bulletin de I'Acadtmie de Mtdicine, LXXIII (1915), 654, 690, 710;
"Le syndrome 6motionnel, sa differentiation du syndrome commotionnel, "Annales
mtdico-psychologiques, LXXIII (1917), 183.

294 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

to obtain adequate information regarding the history of the
individual and of the family), thus proving, from the nervous
and mental point of view, the pathological nature of repeated
emotions in conditions where the normal defense mechanisms are
not generally called into play.

SUMMARY

Thus it seems to us that emotion may be described as an extreme
level of the affect, tending toward the pathological as a limit. It
consists essentially in an abnormal discharge of nervous energy, a
discharge which exceeds the amount which can be used for the
normal reactions of the individual, and which occurs even when
there is no occasion for reaction. It consequently involves a
diffusion of excitatory impulses into the viscera, which, on the
whole, seems to be not only useless, but harmful, and even patho-
genic, adding its own ill effects to the nervous exhaustion which
results from the excessive expenditures of discharged energy.

These expressions of emotion are found only among the higher
animals, whose associative nervous centers are well developed, the
different species varying considerably in emotional susceptibility.
It is in the Hymenoptera, the Cephalopoda, and at least the higher
Vertebrata 22 (all of which have associative areas either in sub-
oesophagal nervous ganglia, or in the brain) that we find the
characteristic expressions of emotion, which take the form of agi-
tation, of cutaneous, cardio-vascular, and visceral Imanifestations.

It is probable that these centers contribute a reserve of nervous
energy releasable under the influence of intense affective shock,
and that it is the sudden expenditure of this energy which brings
about the overflow into motor and visceral organs. In man, when
the susceptibility to emotion is high enough so that there is a
strong power of affective mobilization and a high degree of insta-
bility in the reserves of energy, the cortical reservoir seems to
constitute a real danger, just as do large ponds established along a
water course, which accumulate the available energy and may cause
disastrous inundations if the barriers begin to give way before a
sudden onslaught.

22 Certain birds which fall victim to the fascination of snakes owe their death
to an extreme emotional state, which involves intense visceral reactions, along with
motor inhibition, such as are produced in man by extreme terror.

PART IV

Pathology and Psychoanalysis of
Feeling and Emotion

CHAPTER 25

FEAR OF ACTION AS AN ESSENTIAL

ELEMENT IN THE SENTIMENT OF

MELANCHOLIA

PIERRE JANET
University of Paris

In order to understand the true psychological character of the
feelings it is necessary to analyze the often complex attitudes
which characterize and even constitute, more often than we think,
our diverse feelings. One of these most important attitudes
may be called "fear of action" the fear of acting. This attitude
may be observed in its typical form during the crises of melancholic
depression, prolonged or transient; but in the exaggerated and
slightly ridiculous form, it shows us the caricature of what we often
enough are experiencing ourselves while we are sad. These
pathological feelings tell us about the veritable nature of sadness
and its dangers.

One of the things which strike even an inexperienced observer
when he speaks to a patient who is in the grip of melancholy is
that the ideas, the particular opinions he expresses with regard
to the surrounding things and any events of which one speaks to
him are always pessimistic and catastrophic appreciations.

From the very first, all things and people have lost their agree-
able qualities and all charm; nothing is beautiful, nothing is
pretty. A sick woman of this type used to recognize the beginning
of her spell by the bizarre detail that the landscape she could see
from her window did not look pretty anymore, whereas from
experience she knew that it should be pretty. This is the feeling
of devalorization, the feeling of emptiness of which we shall not
speak now. These feelings develop rapidly, and the objects
become ugly, deformed, adulterated, and dirty. "Everything in
the house is ignoble, ugly, and dirty; everything is sad and lugu-
brious. " Let me point out to you the feelings of a young man
driving an automobile on a rather long ride. At the start he is
proud to show his ability; he admires the landscape and invites
his companions to do so; soon he stops speaking and makes a

298 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

sombre face, since the landscape has become "ugly" and, above
all, " lugubrious." "It is," he thinks, "as though we are rolling
and rolling through one cemetery after another. "

All events of which we speak to these patients are valued in
the same way, especially when future events are concerned. These
events will be horrible in every respect; they will have sacrilegious,
immoral, cruel consequences; they will afflict all those we love with
terrific sufferings. "We are going to be robbed, massacred; if
people come to see me, it is to rob me of my civil position, to steal
the gold in my teeth, to tear out my eyes." "If the sun rises
tomorrow there will be disaster, for sun and moon hurled against
each other by God will smash each other, and the d6bris will fall
upon the earth, burning and annihilating us; the whole world
around me suffers and dies. "

To study these facts I choose two particularly typical examples,
whose mechanism we shall then discuss. A girl, twenty-seven
years old, who figures in my books as Flora, when very exhausted
has one of those asthenic spells during which the periods of melan-
cholic feelings often and unexpectedly befall. She is at a sanatorium,
isolated and at rest. I think to please her in announcing that
her brother's wife, of whom she is very fond, has borne a child,
and that they intend bringing her the baby to have a look at him
and kiss him. "Don't do that," she answers. "The automobile
will dash into the trees by the street; my mother, the nurse, the
child will be crushed, oh! what horror!" Another time I ask her:
"Are you willing to see your mother and sister? " She : "It would
be very painful for me to see them in mourning." I: "But the
ladies are not in mourning." She: "If they must come and see
me, my father and my brother will be dead, and then they will
come in mourning." And then she adds intelligently: "I cannot
help this; it is a kind of catastrophic vision that is putting all
things together. I lose my foothold, people wish me bad luck,
mother scares me, everything is gloomy, the street looks gloomy,
even the sun looks gloomy." Another example is just as typical:
Daniel, forty years old, is busy selecting a country home for his
family; a particular house does not displease him and he is willing
to rent it. However, immediately one thought invades his mind.
Now he knows what in that house was appealing to him: the
rather beautiful, monumental entrance door would look fine when
d'raped in black above the coffin of his wife. Another day he
hesitates to go home, because he would find the staircase crowded
with bearers ready to carry down the coffins of his children.

Undoubtedly these two patients are not entirely delirious, and
these ideas present themselves as something like obsessions, the

PIERRE JANET 299

absurdity of which they are able to see, at least for some moments.
But there are others who would assert far more foolish ideas with
all signs of deep conviction. The woman of whom I have just
spoken is sure that the stars would smash each other, and she
already sees the beginning of the catastrophe. Another woman
whom I used to call Sophie 1 asserts that she sees before her, in the
alley through which we are going to pass, the corpses of her parents,
on which we necessarily must step. I will not expound here on the
different degrees of persuasions, but only on the content of those
catastrophic ideas.

These ideas seem to refer to things and events external, but, let
us not be mistaken, they are nothing but an extension of pessimistic
appreciation; at the bottom of all this there is a fundamental
object to which above all this appreciation refers, and that is the
patient himself and his own deeds. The patient, in spite of
appearances, is not unaware of this disorder of things. When that
woman tells us that she sees the stars like fireballs shoot against
each other to be crushed into chaos by God, she sadly adds: "I
should not like, however, to destroy the work of God." I: "But
this does not concern you; if the stars are blinded, and God drives
them against each other, it is their business and not yours. " She:
"Why yes! I don't know just how, but I am mixed up in it;
however, it is my fault, because I have soiled my hands with evil. "
At the bottom they all accuse themselves. Flora feels sure that
she plays a part in the smashing of the automobile, for she adds:
"If they came to visit another person, the car would not run into
the tree." When I suggest to Daniel that I go up the stairs,
instead of him, to see whether the hearse-drivers have finished
their sinister job, so that he may come in, he replies, "It would not
be worth while; if you go, there won't be any coffins there."
Briefly, they play their part in those catastrophes; it is their own
action that produces them, and they objectivate in their persuasions a
feeling they have in relation to themselves and to their actions. It is
indeed always the pessimistic appreciation of their own action
which is essential.

It is, by the way, easy to verify this statement. The patients
mentioned above, or others whose delirium is not so far advanced,
show their unfavorable beliefs are not always relating to the
external object, but that they refer directly to the actions. We
find a great number of persuasions of this kind which attribute to
the act the most horrible characteristics. Acts are considered
abominable and sacrilegious from the religious point of view. "I
am insulting God and all that is holy if I make one step. If I wash

1 De I'angoisse a Vexlase (Paris: Alcan, 1926), I, 337.

800 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

myself I lose my heaven. I do horrible things to the dead if
I advance in this alley. In stepping forward I should walk on my
father's corpse. I make my brother stir in his grave if I pant, if I
breathe. " One poor fellow, a very good musician, stops playing
his violin, declaring: "Whenever I play the violin I have the
feeling that I annoy God." And he adds: "When I do anything
whatever (no matter what) I have the feeling of acting against
God's divine will."

Of course this feeling of sacrilegious doing may be toned down,
and the act appears as simply immoral and cruel. Daniel, for
example, has bought toys for his children, but does not give them
to them; for months he keeps the packets unopened. He says:
"If I give my children these toys, I make them suffer deadly
tortures; their destiny is tied to these parcels and if I open them I
put the seal on their death warrant. " By the way, the poor man
sometimes has the same feeling with regard to anything he does.
He has ordered new shirts, but does not wear them; he even tries
to take them back to the merchant, since he is convinced that he
will wear them at the burial of his children, and that he would
expedite that burial.

To a great number of patients, all acts they perform are crimes.
One woman says that, if she talks about her people, if she mentions
only their names, she betrays them, delivers them up to the police,
hurls them into the abyss of misfortune. Or, "This book must be
immoral, " says another, "since, opening it, I have the same feeling
I used to have when I was secretly reading forbidden books in
boarding school. While eating my breakfast at the restaurant I
have the feeling of robbing poor people. " They feel the necessity
to take refuge in similes in order to explain this feeling of aversion,
of culpability: "It is as though I'm throwing needles in the soup,
putting poison into the bread, bombs into the chimney; it is as
though I am beckoning to men, inviting them to come up to my
room. "

On the same level with criminal acts we should place as a bit
less serious, but just as significant, feelings of untidiness and
uncleanliness. Many persons, especially girls, have the feeling of
becoming dirty in an ignominious way, as soon as they move or do
anything whatever.

Finally, underneath the feeling accompanying an act is simply
that of doing something dangerous, and, especially, awkward.
One patient says: "I obey you, I walk with you, I keep quiet, and
yet this is the thing I should not do; it is clumsy, stupid. Oh, if I
only could do once what I should do!"

"If I am with a friend I feel in advance that I am going to hurt

PIERRE JANET 301

him in saying one word to him. As soon as one word falls from my
lips I think I have lied. Whenever I have a passion I feel some-
thing in me that remains cold and finds it dirty. If I touch an
object I make it fall on somebody's head."

And always there is the feeling of doing something stupid and
foolish, of looking like a ridiculous fool, and of being crazy. One
patient said: "How must I act in a pseudo-reality, with a pseudo-
purpose, and pseudo-liberty? Deep in me, I always have the
feeling of acting like a fool."

These feelings are not without importance; they are the starting-
point for many frenzies and obsessions; they determine a great
number of bizarre manias troubling the conduct of neurotics, even
though it be only the washing of the hands and the mania of the
endless recommencements of acts. They are especially the
veritable starting-point for the pessimistic and catastrophic
appreciation mentioned above. When I speak to Flora of her
mother's visit and of the baby she will bring along, I conjure up in
her mind the picture of that visit and of what she will have to do
to receive her parents or to caress the baby. She cannot help
picturing these acts as horrible things. Daniel is expected to select
a country house, to sign a contract. They are acts that look
dreadful to him. When one believes, one is always ready to
objectivate, to give external reality to what one believes. If the
attitude we must show during a visit, or in making a decision is
something feared, it is the whole visit, the whole decision that will
be feared, and those patients speak to us of external catastrophes in
regard to those events in which their conduct is involved.

Let us not be too severe toward these poor patients; their
exaggerated ways show us a caricature of what often enough we
think ourselves. Don't we know about persons who see everything
in black, who expect lamentable things to happen as soon as we
want them to act, simply because they are disgusted, frightened at
the very thought that they have to perform that act? Persuasion in
relation to things and external events is only an objectivation of
the appreciation of that act; these objects and events are, in fact,
only a particular expression of the acts themselves.

This is, indeed, the general idea which results from the first and
superficial observations of the catastrophic ideas. To consider a
thing horrible, dangerous, also means to be afraid of it. And since,
at the bottom, it is their own action which assumes those character-
istics, it is their own action of which they are afraid. Amiel, who was
a patient of this type, said again and again: "I am afraid of the
objective world; that's why I am afraid of action. It is the
instinctive fear to act, the fear to make a decision which is paralyz-

302 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

ing me. " When we see everything in black and imagine everything
to turn out badly, it is because we don't feel strong enough to react
and to force things to turn out all right. When we are afraid of the
future, it is because we are afraid of what we must do, in other
words, we are afraid of action.

In order to understand the fear of action, which is so important,
let us first remember the important fear of a living being, of a man,
an animal, confronted with an object.

We know an object is characterized by what we think to do with
or on account of it; an object is, first of all, a comestible object, a
sexual object, an object to be talked to, to be given orders, to be
asked for something. It is the act that determines the nature of
the object, and we recognize the object (only?) if we begin the
characteristic action, i. e., eat the apple, write with a pen. This
act may be reduced to a minimum and may manifest itself only
by outlines of actions which we call desire. The perception of an
object is only a characteristic act suspended entirely in its first
stage; that is, in any notion of an object there is the beginning of
characteristic action. Or, all action implies an essential condition;
it is necessary that the object be in reach of our senses, our limbs.
To eat a fruit or to write with a pen requires that the fruit enter
our mouth or that the pen be in our hand. The fundamental act
characterizing an object, the use or the perception of an object,
consists in taking it, touching it, and in every object there is a
tendency toward the act of approaching it.

What happens when we are afraid of an object? A radical
change takes place: the characteristic act is stopped, completely
inhibited. If for some reason or other the fruit we want frightens
us, seems to be spoiled, rotten, or poisoned, we don't want to eat it,
we stop eating it and even wanting it, for wanting a fruit is the
beginning of the act of eating it, and this act is then stopped
even in its germ. If the mountain path that invited us to a walk
frightens us, we stop our promenade, we become disgusted with it.
If a man to whom we want to speak, from whom we want to ask
something, frightens us, we stop talking to him, and we have not
the slightest desire to have anything to do with him.

The essential condition to stop all action with an object, all
relation with a man, is that of his not being any more in reach of
our senses or our actions, and that of our not being in reach of his.
It is the absence, the removal of that object. Presence and absence
are fundamental psychological facts which are not often enough

PIERRE JANET 303

mentioned by psychologists. To make this absence real we have
an act at our disposal: dismissal, removal; as, at the same time, to
determine presence, we would use the acts of bringing together.

In a general way, we accomplish this removal by a special
conduct that is the reverse of the preceding conduct. Instead of
approaching it, we walk, or run, in an opposite direction; this is
the act of flight thoroughly characteristic of fear. In particular
cases we may effectuate this removal by more precise acts which
are exactly the reverse of the acts the object invited us to perform.
Instead of eating the fruit, we spit it out; instead of asking the man
something, we give him all we have that he might spare us; instead
of caressing the dog, we hit him, or kill him, which again is a kind
of flight. To stop the characteristic action of the object and to do the
reverse act, to flee from the object instead of approaching it, these are
the essential attitudes of fear.

How can these attitudes of fear in the fear of action apply to
actions instead of objects? This is usually not understood very
well. In all fear of action there is, first of all, a check of action.
It has been stated repeatedly that in the case of melancholia there
occurred a check of action, but this inhibition has hardly been
explained.

The action does not disappear because it becomes impossible;
it is checked by the patient himself who does not want to eat, to
walk, or to speak any more. In all the -phobias which are more
precise, more localized cases of fear to act than melancholia, the
patient stops working, walking, speaking, eating. He stops this or
that action and knows what kind of action he stops, whereas the
melancholic checks a much larger number of them and, what is
more essential, does not know exactly which ones they are. I
wish to emphasize one characteristic of this check of action; that
is that it not only refers to the entire action to be performed, but
also to the outset, to the slightest beginnings of that action. Now,
since the desire is nothing but the beginning of the action, more or
less complex on account of the efforts added to them, these patients
check their desires and, as far as it is in their power, suppress them.
The neurotic not only refuses to eat but claims he need not eat
because he is not hungry and has no appetite. In those bizarre
diseases called "ereutophobias, " the fears of blushing in public,
which are morbid exaggerations of timidity, stop the patient from
joining people, and he loses the slightest desire to do so. Many
forms of asceticism are fears of action and melancholias. This
suppression of desire is a very important moment since it is
responsible for the fact that those patients are not able any more
to imagine any satisfaction, any consolation, and that the future

304 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

appears to them like a black hole. "I have no wish any more but
what appears immediately repugnant and criminal. "

But the fear of an object determines a more serious reaction, that
of the removal of the object by destruction or by flight. Are we
able to run away from action, from the motion of our limbs? Are
we able to flee from ourselves? Yes, in a higher degree than we
think. First, we can run away materially; we can leave places
where the acts are expected to be done; we can keep away from
persons to whom we should speak. This determines the escapades,
the bizarre conduct of individuals who run away from their family,
their household, their city, to go no matter where provided they
can stay elsewhere. There are even, as I have described them,
escapades from situations, when an individual wants by all means
to drop out of human society, to break an act of association or
engagement just to save himself, to shirk actions he would be
obliged to perform in that situation. There are other ways to
avoid action. In human society the greatest number of our actions
are not dictated by circumstances, but by other men who demand
them or order us to do them. The act of eating is provoked by a
person who comes to tell us that dinner is served; speech, by
individuals who ask us questions, who invite us to speak. A good
means of shirking action is resistance against other people's orders;
if we never obey orders or invitations, which are sugared orders,
we suppress a great number of actions. This is the case with all
patients who offer resistance to any request. In the asylums,
melancholies may be very quiet in their easy chairs if we don't
ask them to do something, but they will become very obstinate
and stubborn as soon as you advise them to have breakfast.
Negativism, which has been discussed very much at random, is
not exclusively a symptom of the so-called "dementia praecox";
it is a general characteristic of all cases of melancholia, of /all those
depressions in which the fear of action is involved.

The resistance toward orders may complicate itself in various
ways; many patients I have described not only resist orders given
to them but also protest against other people's actions; they even
fight orders they are giving to themselves, which causes the most
bizarre act of dividing themselves into two persons (d6doublemenf) .

Yet there is, in the flight from action, an attitude still more
curious and interesting, a phenomenon I suggest calling "inversion
of acts and feelings. " In the case of an act necessitated by cir-
cumstances, which the individual is perfectly able to perform, we
notice the development and sometimes the accomplishment of an
act completely contrary. This is a phenomenon which a Swiss
author, Ch. Baudoin, has communicated and well described under

PIERRE JANET 305

the title of " converted effort. " He described in this connection
the inexperienced bicyclist who is turning exactly in the direction
of the obstacle he wants to avoid, or the person with a touch of
dizziness who wants to walk straight and who throws himself into
the abyss. The cases of complete execution of this inverted action
are fortunately rather seldom. However, what is frequent and what
I have described a hundred times is the inversion of the very
beginning of the action, the inversion of the desires. "I detest the
things I love, and passionately love what I loathe; it is absurd,"
they repeat very often. The mother who wants to bathe her baby
with kindness and precaution has a desire to boil or drown it. I
have spoken repeatedly of those poor modest women who make up
their mind to practice perfect chastity and yet are convinced to
be the most dissolute women. One of them, whom I have described
under the name of Hermine, has been upset by the loss of her two
boys killed in war; she has sought consolation in religious and moral
exercises. This was the time to be more moral, to behave well.
"Flirtations of love and intercourse with a husband are good for
happy people; we must give them up or at least renounce the
pleasure they might give us. " So she puts much energy into the
renunciation of all frivolous entertainments. "I have always been
used to keeping straight, to being severe toward myself. " The
result came soon enough: obsessions of immorality, apparent
temptations, and fictitious impulses toward unclean conduct. The
poor woman no more dares to board a bus or a train since she has
horrible desires, and fears to be impelled to throw herself on the
neck of any man. These strange inversions are found in many
pathological symptoms under different names, as, for instance,
ambivalent feelings, monstrous desires, mixtures of love and
disgust making it sometimes difficult to recognize the real
tendency of the patient.

Unfortunately, I cannot enter into the very interesting dis-
cussions of these inversions of acts and feelings. I only remind
you that the opposed actions are interrelated like the antagonistic
muscles of our limbs, and that the flight from an act carries us
away to the opposite extreme which is just the act opposed to the
former. These facts show us above all the nature and importance
of the flight from action, which adds itself to the check of the act
in the fear of action.

Ill

How can we understand all these kinds of absurd conduct?
And yet it is necessary to understand them a little first, if we want
to try to cure or to prevent them. I should like to collect these
troubles in a number of laws which I am studying now under the

306 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

title of "regulation of action," and which, if I am not mistaken,
give me the best explanation of the feelings. Here are a number of
reactions which are found in everybody and which, in a certain
form, are perfectly normal : I mean the actions of retreat, of recoil,
which we combine under the name of reactions of defeat.

In psychology we are not very much engaged in the problem
of the development of action, its beginning, evolution, and end.
It is especially important to understand the end of action, for
action does not stop of its own accord. Pathology has shown
us a great number of troubles characterized by the indefinite
continuation of actions, although they have become useless or
even dangerous. With a normal individual, the end of actions
is characterized by reactions of internal regulations. One of the
most important of these regulations of the end of the act is the
attitude of triumph, of which I have spoken extensively in my
latest essays. It is the reaction of triumph on successful action, a
real or illusory success, which plays the greatest part in the feeling
of joy. But this shall not interest us today. The reaction which
leads to the fear of actions and which creates the feeling of sadness
is the inverted reaction characterizing the acts as recoil, retreat; it
is the reaction of stoppage.

An act is always performed on account of a certain stimulation
produced on the surface of the body, a stimulation which is either
to be eliminated or to be preserved. Its purpose is to adapt us to
these modifications of the external world, be it in making them
disappear or in transforming us so that they become insensible.
When the act fails to effectuate these modifications, when the
disturbance from the external world continues, is it good to con-
tinue indefinitely the action which has been started in order to
rid us of it? Certainly not; the persistence of the same fruitless
act would allow the danger to subsist, and, on the other hand,
exhaust us completely. It is necessary first to stop this useless
act and then to employ the forces it was spending uselessly in a
different way, in performing another act that perhaps leads to
better results. This reaction of stoppage is rendering the greatest
service; it is the starting-point of changes, of attempts, and of
progress.

When we study these regulations of action, effort, fatigue,
triumph, we always run into a great psychological difficulty, the
determination of the starting-point of the reaction. Why, at a
certain moment, is the action interrupted by this reaction of
checking? One can hardly speak of a real check or a real success;
these are external facts, hard to appreciate, which influence the
attitude in a more indirect way by the changes of the action which
they impel . We must admit that performance of the action changes

PIERRE JANET 307

independently of the external results, that the act becomes too
easy or too difficult in the course of its performance, and that these
modifications of the act determine the diverse regulations.

However this may be, the melancholic attitudes and in particular
the fears of action present themselves as checking regulations
which stop the first action, replace it by another, and, above all,
invert it in substituting the opposite action.

But what strikes us is the fact that in our patients these reactions
of check are enormously exaggerated. Here we have a perpetual
failure, which, by the way, is the background of melancholic
delirium. In question is an immediate failure which stops action
at the very outset after the perception of the least circumstance
that calls for action.

Why, then, such exaggeration of the reaction of failure, which
should intervene but moderately and only from time to time? A
first reason is of greatest importance : that is a considerable weaken-
ing of the psychological forces, a reaction to this weakened condi-
tion, an attitude of misery. Let us take account of one very
important thing which the old psychology has not sufficiently
emphasized, namely, the fact that actions, moral life itself, require
large expenditures of forces. The philosophers who, as disciples of
Descartes, fixed inner thought as the starting-point of psychological
life imagined that spiritual phenomena were independent of
strength and weakness. We, on the contrary, consider that action
is the essential psychological fact and that thought is nothing but a
reduced reproduction of it. To our mind, it is extremely important
whether a man be strong or weak, whether he can march several
kilometers or only a hundred steps, whether he can speak an hour
or only five minutes. It is probable that different acts require
different expenditures, that certain acts are expensive, and others
economic. Actions performed in company cost more than those
performed in isolation; acts superior, more perfect, more exalted
in the psychological hierarchy, will doubtless bring their money
later, but will be very expensive at the start.

In such conditions, exhaustion, the psychological misery, is
disturbing action; it determines sluggishness, irregularities, inter-
ruptions which we are able to account for in an imperfect way.
But the reflexes of regulation of the action of which we have spoken
are irritated, and particularly the reflex of the reaction of failure.
It seems as though the organism divines that an act that makes so
little progress cannot end well, that it is too deficient to arrive at its
goal, that it will find too much resistance, and that it would be best
to regard it right now as doomed to failure. The driver of an
automobile who hears too much squeaking and rattling thinks the
best thing to do is to give up right now. The organism is doing the

308 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

same, and the act, deficient on account of weakness, is stopped,
modified, inverted. It is that stopping of action, when it is repeated
too often, which is the fear of action.

It is easy to prove that all those melancholies with pessimistic
judgments, victims to the fear of action, are psychologically
weaklings. The acts they are able to perform even when their fear
of action does not stop them are little, not numerous, slow, and
imperfect. Besides, we notice in those patients all the physiological
signs of exhaustion, all the disturbances of the functions which
result especially from an exhaustion of the functions of the central
nervous system.

In an almost experimental way, we can ascertain the appearance
of the fear of action and of the inversion of the feelings after the
performance of a somewhat prolonged action. After enjoying the
playing of his violin, L feels what he calls a *'bad, ugly, abashing
fatigue," and he thinks he is annoying God. After excessive
worldly distractions Sophie believes she walks on the corpses of her
her parents. After a little longer visit Flora is falling back into her
catastrophes and buries everybody. The young man who invited
friends for a ride in his automobile is very proud and happy at the
start; then he stops speaking and concentrates on his effort;
finally he is invaded by the "lugubrious. " They must put him to
bed, and for two days he remains in a state of melancholic depres-
sion. This explains to me a rather curious characteristic of the
spells of anguish I have observed in several persons. It is at the end
of an effort, when the subject may stop struggling, when he begins
to relax, that anguish and fear of action appear. A girl works
excessively in school all year, but at the beginning of the holidays
there come distress and the inversions of action. With another
they come after an examination; with a third, in the evening, at the
end of a day's work, when he is ready to go to bed. During the
school year, before the examination, during the day, an enormous
effort supported more or less the insufficient strength. When the
effort stops and the subject relaxes, the exhaustion becomes
evident, the actions offer to stop, and reaction of failure with its
retinue of fears and sadness begins its work. It is likewise remark-
able to observe melancholic reaction after a great joy or after a
period of excessive joy. After joy, I have noticed epileptic spells
which are also a manifestation of the exhaustion of the superior
functions. We must remember here the spells of distress, with
their feelings of the " lugubrious," fear of action, inversion of
feelings which overcome certain minds in midst of joyfulness and
great exaltation. This happens because joy is an expenditure of
great effort; it, therefore, brings exhaustion and thus calls forth
melancholic reaction. Briefly, fear of action is often analogous to

PIERRE JANET 309

fear of giving out in individuals who are feeling half -ruined and
therefore are afraid to engage themselves beyond their resources.

But whatever may be the importance of this real exhaustion
in individuals who are afraid to act, there are always personal
dispositions that play a great part. They are weaklings who do
not know how to make an effort, who very soon quit struggling.
They are thrifty and miserly, not only with their money but also
with their strength, individuals disposed to economize with exag-
geration and to perform the least possible actions. They are timid
people, long since accustomed to being afraid of everything. "It
is those fears which always make me indolent," said one of them.
And, I add, they are the people who have the habit of melancholic
reaction. "Emotivity, " which we try to explain as very doubtful
visceral modifications, is just a habit which calls for the regulation
of stoppage far too early, at the outset of action, at the very
perception of the circumstance that might call for action. There
are people who, in a struggle, never admit being defeated and fight
until they are victorious. There are others who fight for a certain
time and then quit. Finally, there are those who declare them-
selves defeated before any beginning of fighting, as soon as they
smell an opponent. In the study of these anticipated reactions we
find the explanation for emotion.

We observe the gradual completion of the emotional reaction,
and, so to say, the education of melancholia and the fear of action.
When the patients have several spells of melancholia in succession
they seem to learn their job as melancholies; they have much finer
fears of action at the second and third spells than at the first one.
They finally arrive at the fear of life, which is a completion of their
fear of action. It brings about a general and continuous state of
sadness, suppresses all action, makes one indolent, and may even
lead to highly absurd feelings and actions.

Let us understand! We have studied this fear of action in
patients showing it in its exaggerated form; and don't let us forget
that the disease only magnifies facts which exist in everybody.
Doubtless, veritable melancholia is a disease, but sadness in its
most simple form is, after all, identical with melancholia and
contains the same fear of action. There are families and, one
might say, entire populations who are going through periods of
discouragement, of sadness, and of recoiling from action. Let us
also remember that those spells of sadness should not be called
poetic, and that they must not be cultivated. Sadness is always a
sign of weakness and, sometimes, of a habit of living weakly. The
investigations of pathological psychology have shown us the evil
of sadness, and, at the same time, have evidenced a very important
thing: the value of work and of joy.

CHAPTER 26

A THEORY OF THE ELEMENTS
IN THE EMOTIONS

CARL JORGENSEN

Copenhagen

It is a fact that anxiety can arise in mind without any connection
with sensations, impressions, ideas, or any cognitive elements at
all. In medical pathology the states named "angina pectoris sine
dolore" refer to such conditions of physiological anxiety as arise
from functional heart disturbances without the pain with which
angina pectoris is generally accompanied but even if no pain and
local sensations are being felt at all, anxiety may arise in full
strength. In psychoses and neuroses, anxiety arising without any
object is often described; the patients are frightened, but do not
know why. Indeed, this is a sentence heard nearly every day in the
practice of neurologists: "I am so anxious, though I have nothing
to be afraid of. " Certainly there exist not only psychologists, but
even also psychiatrists, who deny that emotions can arise without
connection with a cognitive element (Isserlin). 1 Now, it is not the
first time in the history of science that systematic thinking and
convictions have made a fact disappear. I myself have seen the
indefinite, isolated anxiety so clearly that I cannot doubt its
existence. It is met with not only in heart disturbances, but is
sometimes also caused by irritation of the pleura or peritoneum
and, as mentioned, is found in neurosis, where organic disturbances
are completely missing.

From my viewpoint of psychology there are two decisive points.
First, I think it of the greatest importance whether emotions can
arise without any connection with cognitive elements or not;
second, I cannot agree with a psychology that will deny or close its
eyes to the fact that emotions can really do so, for it is evident that
anxiety can arise and exist without any intellectual background,

1 have been glad to see that experimental psychology in recent
years has arrived at similar results. 2

1 " Psychologische Einleitung," Handbuch der Psychiatric, ed. Ashaffenburg
(Leipzig: Deuticke, 1913), II, 179.

2 A. Wohlgemuth, "Pleasure Unpleasure: an Experimental Investigation on
the Feeling-Elements," British Journal of Psychology, Monograph Supplements,
No. IV (1919).

CARL jftRGENSEN 811

Concerning anxiety arising from the heart, or peritoneum, or
pleura, it must be stated that on the one hand it is an emotion, but
on the other it appears, similar to our sensations, as a sensitive
element with its own stamp, its own individuality, its own quality,
just as all sensations do in accordance with Mtiller's Law concerning
the specific energies of sensations. I do not think that all condi-
tions of anxiety should arise from heart, or pleura, or peritoneum,
but I am tempted to think that all anxiety, including that which
arises from intellectual elements, appears in the mind with its own
specific quality.

I am tempted to think that something similar can also be said
about other emotions. For instance, anger seems to me to contain
a similar nucleus of specific quality. It is no explanation to say
that anger is a state of displeasure combined with certain conditions
in the environment. First, anger is not always disagreeable, and
second, it can arise quite "spontaneously." This state of anger
arising apparently without any cause conditioned only by the
internal physiological state of the individual is well known in all
asylums in cases of mania. The reader doubtless also knows
persons who in everyday life present primarily a condition of
anger, and secondarily an attempt to find an object to which the
anger can be allied.

If attention is paid to the phenomena of spontaneous conditions
of feeling and emotions, it will be seen that there is a great range
of such states, which often appear with such a peculiar stamp that
it is easy to describe the condition and name it joy, sorrow, want,
shyness, etc. If the physiological basis of emotional life were made
up of a series of different, specific elements which, in excitement,
produce the states known as emotions, falling back to a light tone
when in a state of repose, as is commonly observed in neurological
elements, we would seem to have a simple explanation of most of
the phenomena within emotional life.

Regarding the many difficulties which the understanding of
emotional phenomena even today presents to the psychologist,
a hypothesis of this content has seemed to me worth trying.

I do not, however, undervalue the difficulties that attach to the
practical elaboration of such a theory. Even if we had full security
concerning the chief point, namely, that emotional life is built up
in the manner named, yet in the finding of the fundamental
qualities themselves we would encounter several difficulties. We
are facing an analytical problem like that of a chemist searching
for chemical elements.

While pointing out this reservation regarding the fundamental
elements which I have found, I venture to recommend a series of six

312 PEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

elements to be considered as the fundamental elements of our
emotional life. The number is small, and it would be easy to
propose dozens or hundreds of fundamental elements, but obviously
we must credit the emotions with as few fundamental elements
as possible.

The elements to be considered as fundamental are the following:

1. Fear (anxietas, angor)

. Happiness (laetitia, gaudium)

3. Sorrow (tristitia, dolor)

4. Want (desideriwn, cupiditas)

5. Anger (ira, furor)

6. Shyness (verecundia, pudor)

Whether it is justifiable to consider these six elements as funda-
mental and indivisible or not must be passed over at present.
Concerning the names chosen for the elements, they are to a certain
degree fortuituous, and can only be so, as one and the same emo-
tional element often gets a different name in the language, whether
it appears in an intense, perhaps eruptive form, or in a milder
one.

1 is the nucleus, the specific energy in dread, terror, fear,
anxiety, apprehension. 2 is rapture, joy, happiness, satisfaction.
3 is grief, despair, pain, sorrow, despondency. 4 is hunger of the
soul, want, desire, longing. 5 is furiousness, anger, grumbling,
and, if present, the emotional element in "strength." 6 is shame,
shyness, embarrassment, bashfulness.

Mixed emotions appear when two or more fundamental elements
are simultaneously in action. If we distinguish only three degrees
of intensity for each of the fundamental elements and combine
two, three, or six elements, it will readily be seen that these mixed
emotions run into many thousands. Rich though a language may
be, it is destitute in comparison with the number of different
emotional states that exist. On the other hand, it is qfuite interest-
ing to try an analysis of the more commonly mixed emotions. In
hope, for instance, we easily recognize the quality of 4, 3, and 2;
in envy, of 3 and 4; in sadness, of 3 and 2; in bitterness, of 3 and 5;
in reverence, of 6 and 1, etc. In the case of love, hate, pride, etc.,
we must remember that each such word covers both veritable
emotions and the dispositions towards producing these emotions
in regard to certain objects.

After this brief exposition we should discuss a problem or two.
Perhaps the reader will ask why loathing has not been listed
among the fundamental qualities. Perhaps we really ought to do
so. No doubt there are mixed feelings of 6 and 5, shame and

CARL JORGENSEN SIS

anger, which may appear as loathing. Nevertheless, it is possible
that loathing is to be regarded as a fundamental element; I dare
not decide the question. I only mention it here to demonstrate the
practical difficulties which are not wanting in our theory.

Again, the reader may ask if pleasure and displeasure, those
two states which have virtually dominated the psychology of
feelings since Spinoza, are not to be listed among the fundamental
elements of emotion. To this I must answer "no"; they are not
to be considered veritable emotional elements.

Regarding the emotions of fear, happiness, sorrow, want, anger,
and shyness, it may be remarked that states containing one or
more of these elements may at one time appear agreeable, at
another disagreeable. It is also worth noticing that states of
fear, sorrow, and want, though generally disagreeable, often seem
pleasurable, especially in case of slight intensity. A discussion
of the possibility of explaining these facts must be passed over at
present. I think, however, that the classification of feelings as
pleasurable and displeasurable is to be compared with a division
of all colors into light or dark colors, though white and black are
not fundamental elements in the conception of colors. Or to
divide feelings into pleasurable or displeasurable is like furnishing
a row of figures with positive or negative signs. Pleasure and
displeasure are peculiar accentuations with which the different
emotions are equipped, accentuations which point out their
relation to volitional life. Displeasure means the aversion that lies
within or arises from an emotion, just as pleasure means the accepting
tendency that lies in or arises from an emotion. The two phenomena
belong to a boundary area between emotional and volitive life.

A question which has often been discussed in psychology is that
concerning the line of demarcation between sensation and emotion.
Regarding this, I doubt that any such sharp distinction really
exists. Psychologists have dwelt on the phenomenon of pain,
which in one aspect is kindred to sensations, in other aspects to
feelings and emotions. I myself think that bodily pain is a sensitive
element with a quality of its own, but in the row of sense qualities
it gets its place in the end that nears emotions. Just the same is
the case with sensations such as hunger and libido. On the other
hand, an emotion like anxiety nears sensation. Briefly, it is par-
tially fortuituous in the list of sensory elements to draw a close
distinction between sensations and emotions.

In the problem in question the standpoint of Wundt is often
quoted. In the demonstration of his conception that feeling cannot
be a sort of sensation, he points out that a passage from red to
green or from the deepest tone to the highest is a passage through

314 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

differences, while the passage from displeasure to pleasure shows a
zero-point, and thence a phenomenon of opposition (Grundriss der
Psychologic). This opposition between pleasure and displeasure,
Lust and Unlust, may be right. But the whole way of looking upon
the matter fails when we recall to mind that phenomena of pleasure
and displeasure cannot be identified with feelings.

In the above exposition I think I have pointed out the principal
points in my way of looking upon emotional phenomena. How-
ever, I should like to add a few words concerning the opposition it
will no doubt meet with among psychologists of today. This
opposition will not be due to the fact that the prevailing theories of
emotions, such as the pleasure-displeasure theory in its various
shapes from Spinoza to Lehmann, or the physiological theory of
James-Lange-Ribot, should have satisfied the claim of empiric
psychology to a useful hypothesis. In this regard the hypotheses
at our disposal have shown several deficiencies. Some oppositions
may arise from the difficulties which naturally attach to the
theory put forward. In spite of the many phenomena which are
explained in a simple and natural way, many questions remain
open, and many analyses still remain difficult. The greatest
opposition I think, should arise from the fact that this theory on a
superficial view may seem like the "faculty psychology" of the
Middle Ages. The reader who, when reading the above, has been
reminded of the psychology of Suarez or of Thomas Aquinas, may
certainly have had " a bad taste in his mouth. " Now, I am unable
to recognize my indebtedness to the psychology of the scholastics;
even when Descartes reduced the eleven emotions of Thomas to six,
or when Spinoza reduced them to two, it was a speculative more
than an empiric psychology, and there is no relation between the
psychology of these authors and mine. I recognize, however, my
debt to Johannes Mliller, to his law of the specific energy of
sensations. Without this law I do not think my conception could
have been carried through.

Concerning the utility of the theory brought forward, I should
like to recommend it also in studies of temperaments. No doubt
the above-named six elements, though present in all normal men,
show a different strength in different individuals, and, hence, there
arises a different tendency towards reacting on given situations.
Likewise there arise differences in the spontaneous, affective tone
which the different individuals present. A greater or smaller
tendency to anxiety, to happiness, to sorrow, to want, to anger, or
to shyness naturally leads us to twelve types differing in the
affective aspect of temperament. When two or three fundamental
qualities are well marked, whilst the other elements are relatively
failing, other temperaments appear.

CARL JORGENSEN 315

It lies outside the range of this paper to go into details regarding
these problems; only a single observation should be mentioned here,
namely, that a temperament charged with sorrow and anger (3 and
5) renders its possessor an invalid. Such a psychic constitution is
as fatal to the conduct of the individual as a congenital heart
failure or idiotia. An individual suffering from " psychopathia
tristomorosa, " as this constitution may be named, is an invalid in
human society.

CHAPTER 27

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS FROM THE

STANDPOINT OF INDIVIDUAL

PSYCHOLOGY

ALFRED ABLER

Vienna

It is obvious that the style of life does not solely rule an indi-
vidual. The attitudes do not alone create the symptoms, nor do
they alone build up the whole neurosis as a security for not going
on. To this must be added also feelings which do not hinder the
person's strivings on the useless side.

This is a new view in psychology and is presented in contradic-
tion to other conceptions. Individual psychology does not consider
the part of mind and psyche as separate but rather as a whole.
What we see in this view is no longer physiological or biological and
cannot be explained by chemical or technical examination. We
presuppose all the right physiological results, but we are more
interested in the goal. Our interest is not that anxiety influences
the nervous sympaticus and the parasympaticus, but what is the
end and aim?

We are very interested in where a feeling has arisen, but we
mean the psychical rather than the bodily roots, striving towards
totality. We do not believe that anxiety arises from suppression of
sexuality nor as the result of birth. We are not interested in such
explanations, but we know and understand that a child who is
accustomed to be accompanied by the mother uses anxiety what-
ever its source may be to arrive at his goal of superiority to
control the mother. In this we are not concerned with a description
of anger, but we are experienced enough to see that anger is a
means to overcome a person or a situation. We believe that only
such a viewpoint is a psychological one, and not other views such
as the description of feelings, emotions, and affects, or such as, for
example, that of inherited instincts. It can be taken for granted
that every bodily and mental power must have inherited material,
but what we see in mind and psyche is the use of this material
toward a certain goal.

In all the cases we have described up to now we have seen the
feelings and emotions grown in such a direction and to such a

ALFRED ADLER 317

degree as was essential to attain the neurotic goal. The anxiety,
sadness, and all the characteristics have run the way we could
predict, and have always agreed with the style of life. We have
also seen that dreams have a similar purpose to arrange the feelings
and that they are influenced by the neurotic goal. They give us a
remarkable insight into the workshop of the soul. A person who
accomplishes his goal of superiority by sadness cannot be gay and
satisfied in the accomplishment. He can only be happy when he is
unhappy. We can also notice that feelings appear and disappear
when needed. The patient suffering from agoraphobia loses the
feeling of anxiety when he is at home or ruling another person. We
come to the point of view that all neurotic patients exclude all the
parts of life in which they do not feel well and strong enough to be
the conqueror.

Character is much more fixed. For example, a coward is always
a coward, even though he shows arrogance (against a weaker
person) or courage when he is shielded. If he locks the door with
three locks, protects himself with watchdogs, guns, and policemen,
and insists he is very courageous, nobody could prove a feeling of
anxiety. However, that he is cowardly in character is proved by
the fact that he sought protection.

The realm of sexuality and love is similar. The feelings belong-
ing to them appear always when a person has a desire to approach
his sexual goal. His attention and concentration have a tendency
to exclude contradictions and conflicting tasks and thus evoke the
right feelings and functions. The lack of these feelings and func-
tions such as impotence, ejaculation praecox, perversions,
frigidity are all established by not excluding other tasks and by
contradictions. Such abnormalities are always influenced by a
neurotic goal of superiority and a mistaken style of life. In these
cases we always find the tendency to expect and not to give. There
exists a lack of social feeling, courage, and optimistic activity.

As we have shown, social feeling is of the greatest importance in
treatment and education. This feeling is the inevitable supplement
of the organic weaknesses of human beings. From the biological
side we cannot think of a human being without thinking of social
feeling. The new-born animal needs to be supported for a certain
length of time, as does the human child. The pregnant animal
needs much care before, during, and after birth as does woman.
Mankind could not persist without cooperation and social culture.
This culture demands common efforts for education. To accom-
plish the three questions of life it is necessary, as we have seen, to
develop sufficient social feeling. As far as we can see, only the
possibilities for the development of social feeling are inborn.

318 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

There is no use in trusting social instincts because these can be
destroyed or increased. The most important factor in the develop-
ment of social feeling is, as we have shown, the mother. In his
mother every child has his first contact with a trustworthy fellow-
creature. This is the first change in the behavior of a child and the
first circuitous expression of his desires and organic drives. His
interest includes himself and his mother. The goal of all his
strivings is, as before, to overcome the difficulties of life and to
gain superiority.

We can presuppose that such a helpless being striving for
satisfaction has a feeling of inferiority. This feeling of inferiority
becomes later the stimulus among all individuals, whether children
or adults, to establish their actions in such a way that they arrive
at a goal of superiority.

The first concretization of this goal is the spoiling mother. This
goal cannot be fixed permanently. She must, therefore, in this
phase try to give the child freedom so that he will be able to
establish a style of life which will enable him to seek for superiority
on the useful side. The mother must then use a second function,
which is to spread the interest of the child to other persons and
situations. In this way she makes the child independent so that he
feels a part of the whole environment and at home in the world. In
this way the mother creates inevitably, in connection with this
social feeling, independence, self-confidence, and courage. The
goal of such a child will be to become a fellow-man, such as a friend,
a useful worker, a true partner in love. Whatever place he may
occupy, the degree of his social feeling, courage, and optimistic
activity will be influenced by his goal to be superior as a fellow-man
on the useful side of life. We cannot emphasize too much the fact
that all the feelings of an individual are dependent upon the content
of social feeling in his individual goal of superiority.

We can now understand why all actions on the useless side of
life among problem children, neurotics, criminals, suicides, sexual
perverts, and prostitutes are caused by a lack in social feeling,
courage, and self-confidence. We can understand it better when
we realize that all the questions of life are social, such as kinder-
garten, school, companionship, occupation, love, marriage. All
these questions demand a well-trained and automatized social
feeling. For example, if a boy terrified by illness and death wishes
to overcome this fright by being a doctor, he has selected a more
social goal than another boy in the same situation who wishes to
become a grave-digger.

A lower degree of this automatized social feeling is the same as
too great an interest for one's self. Therefore, we can add at this

ALFRED ADLER 319

point what we have pointed out before that, as a rule, we find
this lower degree of social feeling among individuals with a great
feeling of inferiority, and this appears in the style of life of spoiled
or hated children with imperfect organs. We can conclude also
that feelings are always in connection with the whole. They are
never independent expressions and never in themselves real argu-
ments for action. They will, nevertheless, always be used in this
way and influence our secondary decisions from time to time.

The most important single factor in individual psychology is
what we have called a feeling of inferiority. This forms the back-
ground for all our studies. We can ascertain this feeling of inferior-
ity only from the actions of an individual. In the beginning of life
it is very varied, for we see many expressions of it in order to
overcome the urges and the feeling itself.

We find from these expressions that they are connected with the
strength or weakness of the organs and the environment. These
react upon each other and influence the degree of the feeling. The
remarkable part of this is that neither the inherited material nor
the milieu are responsible for this; neither is it the result of both
together. The degree of the feeling of inferiority is due to both of
these plus the reaction of the child. We cannot expect that a
child, normal or abnormal, reacts from a stimulus in an absolutely
right way. Living material as opposed to dead material always
reacts more or less in a mistaken manner.

In a study of children in their earliest years we discover three
types:

1. Children with imperfect organs. They need more time and
more effort than others to integrate.

2. Spoiled children. They are not free to function alone and
they develop in the direction of always wishing to be supported.
They are attacked on all sides because of this behavior, fall in an
inimicable environment, and are, therefore, under strain.

3. Hated children (illegitimate, not wanted, ugly, crippled).
They have the same difficulties as the second type, but are without
the aid of a supporting person.

After some time these strained efforts, particular interests and
attention become mechanical, and this living machine has its own
life-plan of how to accomplish the three questions of life. The
tension among these children gives them a greater impetus, and
forces them to seek a higher goal of security and superiority than
the average.

After this goal has been established, the characteristics, attitudes,
and feelings are fixed and agree wholly with the purpose to attain
it. The impressions, perceptions, and expressions are now selected

320 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

and seen in this perspective through a prejudiced mind. Such an
individual views everything he experiences from all sides until he
can assimilate it to his style of life. This is equivalent to how he
wishes to solve the three problems of life. Because these three
types have a greater feeling of inferiority, they have less social
feeling and a greater visible interest for themselves. We thus come
to the conclusion that feeling of inferiority and social feeling are
connected with, and belong to, the life-plan with which they
must agree.

It is not a contradiction if the surface view does not appear so.
I once met a very rich old lady, who dominated her whole family.
She had no interest for society and only associated with her own
relatives. She had great fame as a benevolent woman. This feel-
ing of pity does not seem to agree with her unsocial life. One day I
visited her and found her crying. Before her stood an old man
weeping. I asked her, "Why do you cry?" She answered,
"Look at this poor old man. He has five starving children. He
cannot pay his rent and must leave his home unless he pays the
10 due. I can give him only 5. " I replied, "You must not cry;
let me add to your great gift my small gift of 5. " She thanked me
and said, "I have always known you are a good man." I replied,
" Oh, I am only a quarter as good as you are. " As we can see, this
feeling of pity and sadness has only agreed with her desire to feel
superior over this poor man.

If we judge a feeling separated from other expressions and the
style of life, we recognize only the physiological factors. For a
psychological understanding we must know the goal towards which
the feelings run.

A patient of mine, a second boy in a family, developed a feeling
of guilt. The father was very honest, as was also the older brother.
The older brother was very much beloved and the second boy
strove to overcome him, as is usual with second children. He was
seven years old when he deceived his teacher in school by telling
him he had achieved a task alone, although his brother had done it
for him. After concealing his guilty feeling for three years, my
patient went to the teacher and told him how he had lied. The
teacher merely laughed at him. He went to his father and discussed
this matter with him with a great feeling of sadness. The father
enjoyed this love of truth and praised and consoled his son. But
the boy always felt depressed, thinking in his compulsion neurosis
that he was a liar in spite of the fact that he had been pardoned.

Considering the circumstances, we cannot help the impression
that this boy wished to prove his great integrity by accusing him-
self for such a trifle. The high moral atmosphere of the home gave

ALFRED ADLER 321

him the impulse to excel in integrity because he felt inferior to his
brother in schoolwork and in attractiveness.

Later in life he suffered from other self-reproaches as a sinner,
because he masturbated and was not wholly honest in his studies.
This feeling always increased before he took an examination. As
we can see, in going on he collected difficulties so that he felt him-
self much more burdened than his brother and, therefore, had an
excuse for not being superior.

When he left the university he planned to do technical work.
However, his compulsion neurosis increased so greatly that he

B'ayed all day to God to forgive him, and so he was unable to work,
e was put in an asylum and was there considered as incurable.
When he had improved, he left the asylum and asked permission
to be readmitted if he should have a relapse. He changed his
occupation and studied the history of art. Before he was to have an
examination in this, he visited a church. It was a holiday and the
church was very crowded. He prostrated himself and cried, "I am
the greatest sinner." He was thus the center of attention.

He again went to the asylum, where he remained a long time.
One day he came to lunch naked. He was a well-built man and
could compete in this point with his brother and others.

His feeling of guilt was a means to make him appear more honest
than others, but on the useless side of life. His escape from
examinations and occupations was a sign of cowardice and a too
great feeling of inferiority. For these reasons he made a purposive
exclusion of all activities in which he feared defeat. His prostration
in the church and his shocking entrance to the dining-room were
also cheap expressions of his striving for superiority.

We conclude rightly that in the same way his feelings of guilt
also meant an effort to be superior.

PART V

Feeling and Emotion
in Children

CHAPTER 28

"ERNSTSPIEL" AND THE AFFECTIVE LIFE

A CONTRIBUTION TO THE PSYCHOLOGY OF
PERSONALITY

WILHELM STERN
University of Hamburg

I have introduced the concept of Ernstspiel to define an actual
characteristic of the behavior of the period of puberty. But
the meaning of the concept is much more general. Ernstspiel
behavior occurs at all stages of life in very different situations,
and constitutes the common basis for a multifarious group of facts.

In the first place, the concept of Ernstspiel must itself be cleared
up. It is a "personality" concept, that is, one which is defined by
the relation of a single factor to the total life of the individual. One
and the same performance may be "serious," "playful," or
t( ernstspielhafty " according to its place and significance in the life
of the individual. We speak of the behavior of the individual as
"serious" when it is deeply rooted in the living structure of the
personality and its real connection with the world. What one does
"seriously," what one takes "seriously," is consequential and has
consequences. Indeed, it should have consequences; one is
responsible for it, because it concerns his own self entirely, and he
wants to be taken seriously, that is, he expects that the world will
take the particular event or the particular act in its context, and
always consider that context as a factor in the account.

With "playful" behavior, it is entirely different. Play, taken
in its pure form, moves in a world apart, which seems to bear some
similarity to the real world, to be sure, but has no "serious"
connection with it. The freedom of play is contrasted with the
constraint of the serious. The simple limitation of each period of
play, which begins suddenly and ends equally suddenly, running
its course, as it were, upon a plane apart from real life, is contrasted
with the intricate involvement of serious activity with the sub-
ject and with the world. Lastly, the immanent sufficiency of
play is contrasted with the transcendence of serious conduct the

WILHELM STERN 825

regard for the past and the future, for preceding conditions and
after-effects.

But, in this rough contrast, we have merely made a first approach
to the real problem. For if play activity were so absolutely
sundered from the normal continuity of life, appearing and dis-
appearing phantom-like, then, to be sure, it would be a regular
foreign body, a senseless appendage to the otherwise meaningful
structure of the personality. Schiller observed that this is im-
possible when he expressed his famous dictum : " Man is thoroughly
human only when he plays. " As a matter of fact, all the newer
theories of play have really assumed no other goal than to correct
the notion that play behavior is apparently devoid of meaning. In
children's play this "meaning" is found either in the future of the
playing individual (preliminary training theory of Groos); or in
the past, since atavistic impulses may work themselves off harm-
lessly in play (recapitulation theory of Stanley Hall); or in the
present, since play represents a disguised and often very misleading
symbol of unconscious excitations of the sexual or self-assertive
impulses (Freud, Adler). In all these theories and others, each of
which contains only a part of the truth, the conception is peculiar
in that it implies that everything that the person does belongs
intimately somehow to his mental structure, and consequently
has a "serious" significance.

Does this mean that a distinction between play and serious is
untenable, since all play is " serious "? It does not for two reasons.

If we grant that all behavior and experience of the individual
has a relation to the total, then this "interrelated totality" may
have many degrees of intensity. The individual is "stratified."
This means that his separate moments have different depths,
that they are more or less focal, persistent, immediately essential.
But perhaps it may not be understood that this theory assumes a
personal nucleus, the real "essence" of the individual, to which
everything else is opposed as pure froth, unconnected with the
nucleus. The stratification itself is the distinguishing characteristic
of the personality; the superficial is just as necessary a part of the
total structure as is the profound. The chronic and the unchanging
belong to its vital stream just as do the acute and the changing;
that which is inextricably embedded in the total is as much a part
of the multiplex unity as that which is less intimately connected
with it but never entirely separated from it.

Now playful behavior per se stands at one end of this opposition.
It has a relatively superficial character, is more transitory, more
isolated, less deeply rooted than the especially serious phases
of life.

326 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

Certainly play always retains its serious relation to the totality,
as we have already seen. But and this brings us to a second differ-
ence from the really serious the serious import of play must be
sought behind real play itself, in another stratum, somehow more
deeply laid than the one in which play, as such, occurs. The
immediately given content of play proves to be incomplete and,
therefore, lacking in significance. Indeed, the conscious content
of play the experience of freedom, caprice, unrestraint, the
immanent satisfaction and seclusion appears nothing less than
delusive. In serious activity, on the other hand, there is the
agreement of the apparent and the real; the behavior appears to
be what it is; the consciousness of the consequences involved and
the responsibility for the serious act are appropriate reminders that
this activity is of real concern to the individual and his society.

But this is merely an ideal picture of serious behavior. Now
we must bridge the gap to play from this side. The completely
serious, the careful fitting of behavior into the system of conse-
quences to the individual and the world, is merely a limiting
case. Even in the most thoroughly serious there somehow lingers
a trace of the playful, of protest against that forced constraint,
of inner aversion to the confining structure. The absolutely serious
would reduce man to the lifelessness of a lofty monument, would
eliminate the tension between the more superficial and the deeper
factors, thereby denying the whole dimension of depth to the life
of the individual.

Thus we see that, between the two poles of pure play and pure
serious, there lies an unlimited number of modes of behavior
which are fusions of the playful and the serious these are Ernst-
spiele. But we wish to reserve this expression for a very definite
type of individual manifestations, using it as a technical psycho-
logical term. A primitive Ernstspiel is exhibited where play cannot
yet be distinguished from the serious, because the individual is
still much too vague, too undeveloped, too superficial. Thus, in
the early years of childhood, one can scarcely distinguish clearly
between what is serious activity and what playful. To the child
everything that he plays is very serious; and, on the other hand,
his serious doings are no more thought of in terms of consequences
than is his play.

But, first, we wish to consider the really developed form of
Ernstspiel, in which both the serious and the playful, now clearly
differentiated, are present and are recognized, and in which there
occurs a characteristic synthesis with intense strain coefficient.
This tension exists between the significance of life to the individual
and the nature of his mental experience.

WILHELM STERN 327

Consequently, in Ernstspiel, the conscious experiences of the
serious are present, and they seek straightway to maintain them-
selves against the non-serious, more or less playful, personal
significance of the act. The period of puberty furnishes an abun-
dance of examples of this; indeed, one may well say that nothing
characterizes this period more acutely than this struggle, the
attempt to take seriously that which is not seriously meant. When
young people find their societies, have their love affairs, and begin
to carry out their great creative technical, literary, and scientific
schemes, they think that they are far removed from childish play-
things; but the real import of all this activity lies not in the imme-
diate aims which are taken so seriously, but in their play-like
significance, for the whole thing is a preparation for the really
serious problems of adult life, a preliminary trial. Various types
of life are investigated rather superficially, certain possible experi-
ences are merely touched upon and abandoned, until the young
person finally finds, in this school of Ernstspiel, the kind of individ-
ual behavior and experience best suited to him. More examples
will be given in the next section.

We have already spoken of Ernstspiel as behavior of the individ-
ual. Now we shall speak of it as a mode of mental experience. Up
to this point we have been concerned with "personality"; we now
turn to psychology in the narrower sense. 1

Here we separate the intellectual realm of ideas and thought
processes from the realm of feeling and volition. The first may
be dismissed with only a few words, since it does not belong to the
subject of this paper. The mental equivalent of the serious, in the
intellectual sphere, is the consciousness of reality; that of play is
the experience of unreality, of appearance. From a purely intel-
lectual point of view, there is not a vague wavering between the
two in Ernstspiel, but a clearly defined consciousness of reality.

1 The Ernstspiel problem clearly shows how unsatisfactory is a purely objective
theory of behavior such as behaviorism, reflexology, etc.; they are not fair to the
phenomenon of "human personality." Since the characteristic mark of Ernstspiel
lies in the tension between behavior and mental data, it cannot be fully explained
from an investigation of behavior alone. On the other hand, a pure consciousness
psychology is equally inadequate, since it, too, is unfair to that tension. I seek to
avoid both of these one-sided views by setting up a " personalistic " psychology,
which treats impartially of all the functions and modes of behavior of the individ-
ual physical, mental, and psychophysical and under which psychology in the
narrower sense is subsumed as a discipline. A more detailed treatment of this
concept will be contained in a book on "personality psychology," to be published

328 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

The youth who falls in love with a maiden thinks that he is doing
this with all seriousness. Thus, in Ernstspiel, the intellectual
illusion is complete. 2

But this holds true only for an isolated observation of the
constituents of thought and idea, and such an isolation carries
with it the danger that we will overlook the most essential. For
the consciousness of reality and of appearance is certainly not
purely intellectual; indeed, we not only think of reality and un-
reality, but we take an affective and volitional attitude toward
them. Only in this way do we confer upon them their complete
content. This brings us to the very core of our problem: how is
Ernstspiel behavior represented in the affective life of man? ,

The series of increasing seriousness runs from pure play through
Ernstspiel to the completely serious. Does this mean that the
feelings associated with this series become continuou3ly stronger?
By no means! Often enough the intensity with which a playing
child goes about his play is not strong, and, on the other hand, a
very serious performance may be accompanied by very weak
feelings. Nevertheless, there is something like a scale of feeling
which corresponds to the degrees of seriousness, but it varies in a
dimension different from the scale of intensities of feeling. It
seems to me, therefore, that this is the chief result of our study : in
the affective life there are gradations in various directions; in addition
to the gradation of affective intensity there is also a gradation of
affective seriousness. There are feelings, which, in spite of their
intensity, are non-serious or semi-serious; and there are feelings,
which, in spite of their serious coloring, are of low intensity.

It is very difficult to characterize what we have called the
"degree of seriousness" of a feeling. One has to resort to descrip-
tion and explanation by use of examples. The non-serious feeling
has a certain instability and transitoriness at all intensities. The
fact that the play-like activity has no consequences has its effect
upon the accompanying feelings; they lack that conscious back-
ground, peculiar to the serious feeling, which reaches from the
present experience into the past and the future of the individual, as
in remorse, repentence, expectation, anxiety, and hope. They
lack also those nuances of consciousness which lead from pure
feeling to willing, as in the experience of responsibility, being
prepared for a decision, and the definition of comprehensive terms.
The intermediate portion of this scale is occupied by the "semi-

*In this way Ernstspiel is differentiated from "aesthetic" behavior, in which
there exists that characteristic wavering between surrender to the illusion and
conscious dispelling of the illusion. Cf. Conrad Lange's well-known aesthetic
theory of "conscious self-delusion."

WILHELM STERN 329

serious " feeling, which corresponds to the behavior of the Ernst-
spiel. In this case, those conscious backgrounds of which I have
just spoken are not entirely lacking, but they are not very promi-
nent; and, consequently, the resulting affective total always has
very little stability.

We give examples: ^

1. A youth of fourteen years falls in love. He concentrates
the first erotic impulses aroused in him upon a chosen person, a
young girl, or a juvenile leader. The supreme happiness completely
overwhelms him; throughout each waking hour he thinks only of
the object of adoration. It seems to him a self-abasement to
consider possible an attenuation of this feeling or a complete
cessation of it. All of his childish feelings now seem insipid,
compared with the ardor of his present affective experiences. And
yet this feeling is only " half -serious. " The fact that his love affair
does not go further than adoration from a distance, that the
inhibitions which prevent advances and the realization of the love
desire are not overcome, indeed that these inhibitions are them-
selves created only so that he may revel in ideal feeling as such this
shows that the feeling was not very firmly rooted in the dynamics
and volitional system of the young person. This is also corrobo-
rated by the fact that the feeling may dwindle away after a more
or less brief time as though it had never existed. Half a year later
the young person may scarcely be able to conceive that he had
been so madly infatuated with this or that one; the feeling has
been replaced by love for another person or by an interest of an
entirely different sort.

2. A scholar, who is usually entirely absorbed in his scientific
interests, may be dragged into politics at times when political
tension is running high, and, due to his intelligence and eloquence,
may soon rise to be spokesman of a party. He is now in an
electoral assembly; he stands upon the speaker's platform, speaks
enthusiastically and inspiringly, pledging all the intensity of
feeling of which he is capable to the political ideal, and is com-
pletely permeated with the purity of his motive, the clarity of his
argument. This exuberance of feeling is enhanced by the emotional
expressions of the audience, which he moves at will. But, after
the assembly, he goes back to his quiet study, and it is not long
before this emotional intoxication has disappeared; indeed, it
now seems entirely strange, apart from himself, unreal. He looks
back upon that excitement much as he does upon a theatrical
performance, during which he has lived through a dramatic
suspense. Yet there was none of the aesthetic pretense character-
istic of theatricals in his participation in the electoral assembly.

330 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

There he believed that he was taking his actions and his feelings
completely seriously. It is only afterwards that he discovered,
from his altered affective attitude, how superficial that seriousness
was, how slightly that strong rush of feeling affected the deeper
strata and the permanent nature of his affective life. The feelings
with which he meets his scientific problems may be less intensive
and less turbulent, but they have an entirely different degree of
seriousness.

3. The actor is engaged in "play," as his professional name
indicates. But among actors we can easily distinguish two types:
those who merely "play " their parts in the strict sense of the term,
and those who "live" their parts. The virtuosos belong to the
first group; the true artists to the second. The feelings of the actors
in the first group are entirely non-serious; they are the feelings of
another person whom the actor impersonates without actually
experiencing them as his own feelings. It is different with the
second group. In its best representatives, both men and women,
the temporary identification with the individual impersonated
is complete. The joy and despair, the hope arid anxiety, yes, even
the good and the evil that the artist acts are actually his joy and
his despair, yes, even his good or evil. The state of complete
mental exhaustion in which many actors and actresses find them-
selves at the end of the performance is an indication of the powerful
intensity of these merely second-hand emotions. Yet these
emotions may be characterized as only " half -serious " even in the
most extreme cases. They may result in exhaustion, but not in
volitional determinations. They may be acutely violent, but never
last on chronically. The mere fact that the same actor can play
such diverse r61es is an argument against the complete seriousness
of it, for the completely serious is connected with the indivisible
totality of the personality.

4. Lastly, we must take account of those cases in which the
tendency toward Ernstspiel is an essential part of one's con-
stitution. Indeed, there is a type of person in which the Ernstspiel
is characteristically the predominant behavior, and the half-
serious affective life is the predominant content of consciousness.
Upon the basis of our preceding examples, we may say that it is
the eternal "puberile," 3 who has not completed the transition
from the hybrid state of youth to the complete seriousness of
adulthood. It is the dramatic nature which sometimes plays a
part in real life, not under pretense, but in complete naivet6.

3 This term, formed in analogy to " infantile," seems to me indispensable as a
designation for the perseveration of the characteristics of puberty in subsequent
stages of life.

WILHELM STERN 331

Ibsen has immortalized the Ernslspiel type of person in Peer
Gynt, and Cervantes in Don Quixote. With people of this sort
the affective life also seems to have a peculiar shallowness and
unsubstantiality, although in each particular case it exhibits
undiminished intensity. This is most clearly manifested in cases
where the limits of the normal are overstepped, and the human
Ernstspiel type tends toward the abnormal, doubtlessly just
because of his inability to adapt himself to the complete serious-
ness of existence. Hysteria, which is characterized by the patho-
logical self-importance of the particular ego and his petty concerns,
and consequently by a tremendous "super-seriousness," also
shows that correlate of greater violence and, more especially,
fragility and artificiality. But, in normal life, the finest example
of the Ernstspiel type of life is the great humorist, in whom fixed
determination and compelling importance never absorb the individ-
ual so completely that he cannot turn upon them playfully and
snap his fingers at them. Yet that half-seriousness which we have
so often noted before predominates in this vital feeling as well.

CHAPTER 29

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONSCIENCE

IN THE CHILD AS REVEALED BY

HIS TALKS WITH ADULTS

DAVID KATZ

University of Rostock

For about two years my wife and I have been recording, word
for word, chats which we have had with our boys, who at the time
of writing are aged six years, nine months, and five years, three
months, respectively. Up to this time we have had about three
hundred chats, some long and some short. These chats have all
been entirely spontaneous, far removed from anything which
might be considered an examination or a test. These dialogues,
which might best be characterized as chats, were taken down at
various times of the day and on various occasions. As a rule, the
child opened the conversation, and this was continued until the
child ceased talking or seemed satisfied with the conclusions
suggested by the parents. /

We have up to this time in child psychology very thoroughly
pursued the development of speech up to the point of complete
mastery, but there is almost a total absence of studies that reveal
just what the child accomplishes with finished speech after it has
acquired the mechanism of speech, the magic key to all higher
knowledge. That the most important perceptions are awakened
in the child in his talks with adults is a fact. This is true of the*
preschool period as well as of the child in school.

I made it one of our tasks, in analyzing the talks with our chil-
dren to study the socialization of speech and to learn to recognize
the peculiar psychic attitudes such as assent, pretext, refusal,
questions, etc., which develop in them during these talks.

We are trying to apply an unlimited examination method to
the entire field of child psychology. This has hitherto not been
done. The dialogue, not the isolated sentence response, is in
reality the only natural point of departure for the analysis of
speech. We are also trying to give the socio-psychological point
of view its rightful consideration in these studies, as should be done
in all child psychology.

DAVID KATZ 333

These talks furnish an inexhaustible source of knowledge for
the proper understanding of the child world in all its ramifications. 1
From our extensive publication, which is devoted to an analysis
of nearly one hundred and fifty talks, we have selected some ideas
on the development of a child's conscience as revealed in his
dialogues with adults.

The so-called confession talks, which occasionally were carried
on when the children were lying in bed and were in a communica-
tive frame of mind, proved to be of special interest in this con-
nection. This procedure stimulated the child to recall consciously
the experiences of the past day and to develop in him definite
attitudes toward purposeful behavior. We were enabled to incite
a critical attitude in the child toward these larger and smaller
acts of conduct of the past day in various ways. Sometimes it
became necessary to reopen a discussion about some naughty bit
of behavior of the child, because at the actual time of the trans-
gression it was difficult, if not impossible, to admonish the child
in any effective way. For instance, the child might have been
emotionally disturbed, or strangers might have been present, or
the child might have been in a precarious position, such as at an
open window, near the stove, or at play, at which times a severe
admonition was hardly proper.

By no means did the adult questioner always try to lead up
to a specific case of misbehavior, but more often the dialogue
was of a very general nature. The questions asked were by no
means directed altogether toward the transgressions of the day,
but also emphasized the good and kind deeds done by the children.

A child needs such a comparison in order that it may learn to
distinguish between good and bad. However, we were more eager,
in seeking out the kind deeds, to prevent a feeling of depression
or inferiority in the child. A qhild should not be led to think that
he is a sinful, oppressed creature, but should experience the joy
that follows naturally the recollection of a kindly deed.

The more children become accustomed to the quiet evening hour
in which the day's experiences are reviewed, the more shrewdly
the questioner needs to proceed in order to obtain an unrestrained
report of the day's events.

We have found that these confession talks have a very profound
influence on the life of the child. The older boy, Theodor (here-
after referred to as T), from the very beginning gave evidence of
being mature enough to participate in these confessional talks;
however, the younger, Julius (hereafter referred to as J), gave

1 D. Katz and R. Katz, Gespr&che mil Kindern: Unterauchungen zur Social-
psychologic und Pddagogik (Berlin: Springer, 1927).

334 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

such evidence only after some time had elapsed. By and by, we
found it possible in the evening to review the events of the day
with the children at perfect easa> while during the day they would
have balked at any attempt on our part to have them discuss the
same questions.

It may be taken for granted that these evening talks frequently
afforded the child an opportunity to relieve his mind of distressing
experiences or incidents which were deeply impressed on his
conscience.

After some time this conversational period had become so fixed
that the children could not be induced to go to sleep until they had
been given an opportunity to pour out their hearts. Even though
conscience is not externally aroused, eventually it does become
aroused, and from this moment it may frequently happen that a
child who is denied the opportunity of confiding in someone might
fall asleep in a state of depression, feeling that he had done a
wrong.

We are, in any case, convinced of the great significance of the
confessional talk from the psychological point of view, even though
we cannot take time to discuss the specific confessional moments
in these heart-to-heart talks. According to our experiences, these
confessional talks undoubtedly work toward the establishment of
desirable motives. They likewise have proved themselves to be
builders of will-power. By our talks we mobilize the good qualities
of the child, we enable him to be critical toward himself, and this
means more than an external coating.

There are doubtless those who object that it is unwholesome
for the psychic development of the child to direct attention to his
inner life too early, that being occupied with self so constantly is
detrimental to natural reactions, which develop more rapidly under
conditions where there is a minimum of reflection on the inner life.
Our experience has shown that such fears are entirely groundless.

We now present several confessional talks in detail. T and J
are the children, and M the mother. The letters (a, 6, c, d, etc.)
refer to the order in which the items are discussed, following the
dialogue.

TALK NO. 1

EVENING OF DECEMBER 6, 1925 IN BED

M: Did you do .anything wrong today?

T: I ran around on the floor and Papa scolded.

M: Well, you shouldn't have done that.

DAVID KATZ 335

T: But I was also naked and barefooted, (a)

M: Did you do anything else? Did you put your finger in your nose?

T: Yes, I also leaned on my elbows when I was eating. (6)

M: Did you eat everything on your plrfte?

T: No. Baby Julius did not do it either, (c)

M: We should always eat everything on our plates. Did you finish any work

that you started today?
T: Yes. I finished the work on my fireplace. That was not hard. First I

pasted on the black and then the gold, (d)
M: Are you going to make a fireplace for Tony P. tomorrow?
T: I do not know yet whether I will, (e)
M: Have you done something good today?
T: Yesterday there was constant knocking at the door which caused me to wet

my bed; I said to Aunt Olga (nursemaid), "Aunt Olga, you have a lot

of work. " (/)

M: Did you do anything else that was nice for Grandmother?
T: I picked up Grandmother's spectacle case from the floor, (g)
M: And what did you do for Aunt Olga?
T: I picked up the black yarn, (h)
M: Were you not angry with Grandmother today?
T: I struck her. (t)
M: Yes. That is bad. And Aunt Olga?
T: I struck her too. (j)
M: And Ella (maid)?

T: No. (&). Mamma, I will tell you something about Baby. (/)
M: Theodor, think, isn't that tattling?
T: Yes, that is tattling.
M: One should not tattle.
T: Mamma, there is such a thing as tattling but one should not do it. (m)

Discussion: (a) T is not satisfied to relate his misdeeds in
a general way, but he feels impelled to add the details also.
(6) The question of M was directed toward a specific misdeed, but
T refers to several other items, (c) The fact that J has not cleaned
his plate is used by T as an excuse for his own conduct. There is
apparent a general, ever recurring tendency to minimize the
misdeed by incriminating others in one way or another. Appar-
ently the same misdeed committed by several people is originally
regarded as being of lesser consequence, (d) Great care was taken
to see that all tasks begun were completed. Insistence on this
principle was intended to train the child in perseverance and
steadfastness. An unfinished task was regarded exactly as a
misdeed.

T had pasted together a very attractive fireplace and he remem-
bers all the steps of the process and is very proud of them, (e) It
speaks for T's feeling of responsibility that he is not willing to
make a rash promise. He wants to think about the matter.

(/, g, h) Examples of good deeds of previous days that are also
readily recalled, (i, j, k) Striking is one of the greatest misdeeds
that children know of. T, however, admits this rash act, even

336 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

twice. Ella was not struck by either of the children; both are
very friendly toward her, for she knows how to busy herself with
them far better than Olga. (/) c T evidently believes that by also
reporting on the misdeeds of J he can relieve himself of fur-
ther responsibility; tattling, however, will not be tolerated.
(m) T's discrimination here is very fine. There is such a thing
as tattling all right, but one should refrain from it.

TALK NO. 2
EVENING OF DECEMBER 8, 1925 IN BED

J: Mamma, ask me some questions.

M: What shall I ask you?

J: If I slapped anyone.

M: Did you slap anyone?

J: No.

M: Were you bad?

J: No.

Discussion: J's request to be questioned is not due to an inner
urge to confess, but to a desire to be treated exactly like his older
brother. Since M in the evening busies herself with T by asking
him questions, so little J craves attention of his mother. However,
he has not grasped the idea of the confessional nature of the
dialogues. This fact stands out frequently in the talks. The basis
of this desire is, we think, the child's natural striving after recog-
nition. When J demands to be asked if he had struck any one
(a question that is answered negatively), he is not doing this to
secure approval, as we might imagine and therefore call his atti-
tude naive and comical, but he is seeking to follow the model of
the talks that were carried on with the older brother.

TALK NO. 3
EVENING OF DECEMBER 9, 1925 IN BED

M: Did you do anything bad today?

T: I struck Aunt Olga.

M: Why did you strike Aunt Olga?

T: Because she smashed our depot. Shouldn't she have built it up exactly

as it was? (a)

M: Were you rude toward your grandmother?
T: (After considerable silence) I do not know. (6)
M: Have you done anything else bad? Were you disobedient?
T: What is disobedient? (c)
M: Disobedience is, for example, when Aunt Olga calls you and you do not

come.
T: Mamma, I had run away from Aunt Olga and Papa would not have me

near him, so I came to you.
M: Were you disobedient this forenoon?
T: (Long delay) No.

DAVID KATZ 337

M: Did you finish up the work you started?

T: Yes. I finished the fireplace.

M: Did you pack everything back?

T: Yes, I packed up the tool-chest. *

M: Did you eat everything on your plate?

T: Not all, but I ate all the dessert. (M turns to J)

M: Were you bad today?

J: No. (d)

M: Did you permit yourself to be washed?

J: (Embarrassed laughter) No. (e)

M: Did you eat everything on your plate?

J: Yes. (/)

T: (Comes in tripping, blinking his eyes) He did not eat everything on h is plate.

I struck Grandmother with a stick today, (g)
M: That is naughty. You dare not do that.
T: But Grandmother was so cross. She took the board for the playthings and

broke it in two. (h)
M: You must not say anything like that about Grandmother. She did not

break the board on purpose. (Long silence)
T: Mamma, why did you ask us then? (i)

M: I want you to see what is wrong so that you will not do it again.
T: But, Mamma, then we will not ask for one day and see what will happen

then, (j)
M: I do not ask you every day. Sometimes when I go away, I do not ask you.

Discussion: In this talk it may be clearly seen that, without
doubt, it is far from T to conceal his misdeeds in any way. He
really tries conscientiously to tell everything that he remembers
in thinking over the occurrences of the day. (a) When T demands
that Aunt Olga restore the thing that she had broken up, he is
insisting on that principle of conduct that everything which one
breaks up, cither purposely or accidentally, must be restored. The
boy rightly demands that adults shall respect this principle the
same as children, and Aunt Olga's refusal to do this resulted in T's
striking her. To be sure, this does not excuse T, and his striking
her should not be excused, but his act may thus be explained.
(6) This is an honest answer. He is unaware of any wrong. When
the transgression is later recalled to mind, he spontaneously repeats
that he did strike Grandmother, (c) It is indeed striking that T
does not understand the word "disobedient" especially since it
has been used in the playroom so frequently, but it is more than
likely that he fails to grasp its meaning because the word is used
here in a more or less isolated form, entirely removed from definite
concrete acts, in which connection he was accustomed to hearing
it. (d, e) J does not yet readily admit his transgressions sponta-
neously but repeatedly answers only after some hesitation. Perhaps
this is due, in the first place, to the difference in the ages of the
children rather than to a difference in their characters.

That there is a tendency toward conscious falsehood in J we

338 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

deny. On the contrary, in his answers there is more often the wish
that he might not have done many of the things that depress him,
and the desire that by denying iiis blamable attitude the wrong
might become undone. We believe such inclinations to be more
conspicuous in J because he is gifted with a vivid imagination,
which makes him regard things as real that are but children of his
thoughts or desires.

(h) One should not take T's severe rating of his grandmother
too seriously. A child has only a very limited vocabulary with
which to express human characterizations whether good or bad.
These are very often undifferentiated and are sometimes very
brazen, just as they would be in the case of uneducated people.
For illustration, if an adult were to say, "It was not quite right,"
the child might say that it was "bold" or "rough stuff." In view
of this natural inability of the child to characterize human acts
fairly, it would be wrong to use drastic methods in dealing with
such a situation, but one should not allow him to slip through
easily.

(i, j) It is evidence of an encouraging independence of thinking
when T inquires as to the reason for the evening question period.
We find something of the tactics of the experimentalist when he
suggests that the questioning might be omitted some evening in
order to determine if this form of inquisition is entitled to be
considered as of positive value.

* TALK NO. 4

EVENING OF DECEMBER 10, 1925 IN BED

M : Did you do anything wrong? Did you strike anyone?

J: You must ask, "Did you strike Grandmother?" (a)

M: Did you strike Grandmother?

J: No.

M: Did you strike Aunt Olga?

J: No.

M: Did you strike Papa?

J: No.

M: Did you eat everything on your plate?

J: Yes.

M: Were you disobedient?

J: Yes.

M: What did you do then?

J: I ran away from Aunt Olga. (6)

M: On the street?

J: No. In the room. I wanted to get a pillow but Aunt Olga would not let me.

M: Perhaps you went to an open window?

J: Yes, I was there, (c)

M: Should you go to the open window?

J: No.

M: Why should not one go to the open window?

DAVID KATZ 339

J: Because you might fall out. (d)

M: Don't do it again, Julius. Did you do anything else wrong today?

J: Yes, I cried, (e)

M: Why did you cry?

J: I wanted to come to you. (/)

M: Did you do anything good today? Perhaps you handed Grandmother a

chair?

J: There was a chair and Grandmother sat down in it herself.
M: Perhaps you picked up Grandmother's handkerchief for her?
J: No, Theodor did that.
M: Did you clean up the playroom?
J: Yes.

M: Did you put the chairs away?
J: Yes.

T: Mamma, I struck everybody today and I bit the baby, (g)
M: Why did you strike at them?

T: They would not let me come to you from the playroom.
M: Why did you bite the baby?
T: Well, Mamma, you know he changed the locomotive and the cars around,

and you know that won't do. The car is shorter and the locomotive

is longer, (h)

M: Well, is that so bad that you had to bite him?
T: No. You must always explain it. You must have a school, (i)
M: How do you come to think that?
T: Yes, you must always say, "Theodor, don't bite. " Mamma, I also pinched

Baby's fingers in the drawer, (j)
M: What, today?
T: No, at another time.
M: Did you do it on purpose?

T: Baby held his finger in the drawer and then I closed it quickly. (A;)
M: Perhaps you were at an open window?

T: Yes. (/) ^

M: Do you dare to do this?
T: No. (m)
M: You know you must always watch out so Baby will not go to the open

window. You know you are the older brother. You straightened

up your things?
T: Yes.

M: Did you finish up the work that you began?
T: Yes, I made Papa a chain and some stars, (n)

Discussion: (a) J is not satisfied with a general formulation of
the question as to whether he had struck anyone; he asks that it
be directed especially to Grandmother in order that he may have
the satisfaction of denying any culpability. One might suppose
that J, who should certainly know that he had not struck his
grandmother, was eager to place himself in a favorable light, but
we think that the situation should be explained differently. The
concreteness and visual nature of the child's imagery demands
concrete and visual questioning.

Only on the basis of such questions is J able to distinguish.
Consequently the type of questions demanded by the child is not

340 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

altogether without reason, however humorous they may sound to
an adult. For safety's sake, M asks if there had been any other
victims, but he denies that ther^were any others.

(b, c) New evidence of the fact that J's report about the trans-
gressions is not like T's, spontaneous, but follows only after very
definite questioning on the individual happenings of the day.
Therefore, much more than in T's case, it is advisable to let his
confessions be followed by exhortations and descriptions of the
disastrous consequences his misdeeds might entail.

(d, e, /) The fact that J cried belongs to the other deeds only to
the extent that J finds it necessary to mention it, because his
attempt to leave the playroom and to go to his parents presumably
did not occur without conflict with Aunt Olga or Grandmother.
The remaining answers of J's show that it was not made very easy
for him to do some good turns, nevertheless he can name a few.

(g) T blurts out the chief transgressions of the day almost
spontaneously. We should not think of these cases of striking too
seriously. As a rule, in the case of adults there is usually more of a
threat to punish (strike haueri) than punishment itself. Children
tend to such threatening, especially when they make an attempt
to get out of the playroom to see their parents. Fisticuffs between
the two children are the common way to defend their personal
interests; left alone, they not infrequently use even their teeth as
efficient weapons.

(h) Such a misdeed to change around the locomotives and the
cars! Yet T finally understands that this should not be regarded
as a real misdeed and, therefore, requests M to give him an
explanation as well as a warning to keep him away from similar
misdeeds. This, then, is what he calls having a school, for in
school we have the opportunity to learn most.

(j) T is so engrossed in confessing that he even mentions a mean
trick perpetrated on little J many days previous.

(k) T, doubtless, did not intend to pinch J's finger and to hurt
him, but this was rather a result of a careless act on the part of T,
and the latter could not resist the temptation to close the drawer
quickly.

(I, m) When one lives in an upper flat, one feels constantly that
the safety of the children is threatened when the windows are open.
Consequently the opportunity, in the evening talks, to warn the
children about falling out cannot be passed by.

(ri) The close of the talk recalls a kind deed that was done for
Father, which brought joy to the child.

DAVID KATZ 341

III

Space will not permit further illustrations of these confessional
talks. However, we shall attempt to summarize their psychological
and pedagogical significance.

How does the child become embodied in the moral ideals of his
environment? Most surely more through becoming accustomed
to reacting to definite situations than through instruction. How-
ever, we are not speaking of these habit methods only, but we
shall show how, by taking these confessional responses as an inte-
grated whole, we proceeded to show the child the difference
between good and evil. It was the first attempt of this kind that
has been made, and we expect our readers to object, here and there,
either to the principles of our method or to details in the formula-
tion of our questions. It need not be said that we welcome criticism
whole-heartedly. We ourselves found it necessary to make
certain modifications in the form of the confession talks. For
example, in the instance of such a direct question as "Did you do
anything naughty today?" a question that might easily suggest
to the child that he is a sinful creature we changed to the form
"What did you do today?" or, "Did you do something good
today?"

However, we should reject any suggestions to do away alto-
gether with such questions of conscience. In the case of our chil-
dren such questions have proved an invaluable aid in proper train-
ing. We did not notice even a trace of hypochondriacal reaction,
which might be expected from early introspection or constant
watching of our own doings.

To a rather high degree, the self-defense of our soul sees to it
that psychic phenomena, as in our case introspection and its
motives, are not mobilized by external stimuli exclusively, if the
time of their maturity has not yet come.

No better proof of this statement can be cited than the one
furnished by J in the first talk. You will recall that he does not
at all grasp the significance of this catechizing. He wants to be
questioned, but only because the older brother is questioned. He
answers negatively the questions which he himself propounds. In
the later talks, by giving proper answers to meaningful questions,
he proves that he is mature and has grasped the significance of the
whole procedure. In one of the first confessional talks with him,
T's answers exhibit a full understanding of the procedure, and in
Talk 3 he even rises above the situation by reflecting on the pur-
pose of these evening talks. The suggestion that the talks be
omitted sometime to see what might happen implies an experi-

342 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

mental attitude on the part of the child toward the will and its
motives.

As in the case of all recurring Activity of the mind, so confession
requires a kind of practice. This is clearly shown by the results
in the case of T. There is certainly little connection between these
results and his advance in age in the course of the investigation.
In support of this contention it should be noted that the account
of the day's happenings seems to come more spontaneously and
more to the point day by day, so that it becomes more and more
unnecessary to ask special or even general questions. In the course
of time the reports were entirely deliberate. J does not arrive
at this stage, not even after a longer practice. In his case the
perfecting lies simply in the continuously growing understanding
of the questions as well as in his correct answers. T's ability to
ponder over his doings is constantly growing. Of course this
ability to remember sometimes fails him, which, by the way, would
happen even to adults. However, a progress in this ability is
unmistakable.

The fact that these evening talks constantly become more and
more of a necessity for T is not to be ascribed merely to repetition.
Here we have a noteworthy awakening of conscience. Were it
not in the nature of conscience to be thus awakened, not all the
chats in the world could arouse it. Of course T does not expect a
chat every evening. It depends entirely on whether anything of a
depressing nature occurred to him during the day. Nevertheless,
the particular incident that would ordinarily serve to awaken a
response might be entirely forgotten. The relief which such con-
fessional talks give to the child is always noticeable. This longing
of the burdened soul for a confession to a second person mani-
fests one of its most elementary desires. In other words, socio-
psychologically, in such cases man is badly in need of an
understanding neighbor.

What can be said about the relative significance of good and
bad deeds as manifested in these confession chats? We get the
distinct impression that bad deeds are much more readily recalled
than the good. It seems that good deeds lack the characteristic
urging motivation that occurs in the recollection of bad deeds.
Even in adults, conscience more frequently plays the r61e of
accuser than the r61e of commender.

What do children regard as violations of the social order? In
classifying the misdeeds of children we might well have categories
called: (1) antisocial acts, which manifest themselves in conduct
involving attempted or accomplished bodily injury; (2) injury to
things; and (3) harm to his own person. To be sure, the child is

DAVID KATZ 343

unconscious of any such classification or of the magnitude of his
transgression. His attitude toward his misdeeds is entirely different
from that of the adult. For example, a very minor injury to
objects may, under certain conditions, arouse in the child greater
pangs of conscience than had he inflicted bodily injury on someone.
Indeed, we can almost say that everything that seems "bad" to
the child is about equally bad. It will be recalled that the bodily
injuries, either threatened or actually carried out, were inflicted
upon each other or upon the grandmother or the servants. Only
rarely are the parents made to suffer. No serious consequences
arose from the children's spatting with each other nor from striking
the grandmother or the servants. It requires a far more intimate
acquaintance to provoke such "love taps." In fact we never
noticed real rows between our children and those who were
guests. Occasional visits do not call for frictions so easily as
constant living together in a family.

In addition to the antisocial acts we include as misdeeds all
violations of the family social rules, disobedience, insulting remarks,
running away from the table at mealtime, playing in the street,
etc. Cases in which injury to things was admitted in our chats
were very rare. This is probably due to the spirit of freedom which
is developed in the playroom, where the child is not held strictly
accountable for his abuse of playthings and furniture.

What are the good deeds of which the child boasts in his chats
with parents? Doing a kindness for his grandmother or aunt,
greeting a child on the street, making a paper chain for Father or
a fireplace for a little friend, cleaning his plate at the meal. To be
sure, no heroic deeds, but after all the opportunity for kindnesses
is greatly limited for children so young.

A great many pedagogues have emphasized the significance of
habit-forming in the development of will to do good. In our
evening chats we always saw to it that the child made a resolution
to do better in the future. It is impossible for us to furnish experi-
mental evidence or numerous proofs that our procedure exerted
a fine influence; however, we are nevertheless convinced that
this is a fact. We felt that the task of educating the child was made
much easier by our procedure. However, even though this might
not have been true, these evening chats were justifiable, because
they afforded the child an opportunity to unburden his mind of the
little cares and worries of the day. In reality they seemed small
only to adults, not to children.

PART VI

Feeling and Emotion in Relation to
Aesthetics and Religion

CHAPTER 30

THE R6LE OP FEELING AND EMOTION IN
AESTHETICS

HERBERT S. LANGFELD
Princeton University

The general subject of feeling and to a certain extent also that
of the emotions form perhaps the most unsatisfactory chapters
in the systematic psychology of the present day. It is therefore
not surprising that in the literature on aesthetics there should
be considerable vagueness and uncertainty regarding these expe-
riences. Some writers use the words "feeling" and "emotion"
interchangeably, while others separate the emotion from the
affective experience to the extent of identifying the former with
a confused manner of thinking. It is true that aestheticians are
unanimous in the belief that the beautiful is pleasant and the ugly
unpleasant, but this obvious fact is the only one upon which they
are entirely agreed. When one seeks to discover the nature and
function of this aesthetic pleasantness or unpleasantness, and
the r61e, if any, which the emotions play, one encounters a variety
of opinions.

It is far from my desire in this symposium to defend a theory
of feeling or of the emotions, but it seems necessary at the outset
to describe the theories which appear to me to be in best accord
with my concept of the aesthetic activity, both productive and
appreciative.

Pleasantness is a conscious state corresponding to successful
adjustment of the organism a state in which the organism is
approaching and obtaining more of the stimulus. Unpleasantness
is the conscious state where there is a motor conflict between
two or more possible reactions, and a withdrawal from the stim-
ulus. The states of pleasantness and unpleasantness do not
accompany or follow these conflicts and adjustments; they
are the conscious side of these particular states of organic response.
When the motor inhibition or conflict is severe, there is a strong
response of the muscles directly concerned with the conflict, and,
through the spread of impulse, of muscle groups that are not
directly essential to the particular adjustment in question. Under
these conditions, the inhibitions are apt to be prolonged, and we

HERBERT S. LANGFELD 347

speak of an unpleasantly toned emotion. The pleasantly toned
emotions are more difficult to explain, but a possible solution of
the problem is that there freqifently occurs a correspondingly
strong response of coordination and adjustment following a
strong conflict, and a consequent emotion which is pleasantly
toned as long as the motor responses are in harmony with the
appropriate action. Frequently, however, conflicting and inap-
propriate responses follow the successful adjustment under the
condition of strong stimulation, and the pleasant emotion goes
over into an unpleasant one. For example, an author who is
writing upon some scientific question cornes to a point where
conflicting theories occur to him and cause indecision. The
situation becomes distinctly unpleasant and may go over into
an emotion very like fear. After much thought, he sees the
solution, and there is the accompanying emotion of joy, but, if
he desires to continue his intellectual task, he may find that the
emotion interferes with his further endeavors, and the emotional
response then becomes distinctly unpleasant. Or one might take
an example from direct action. An experienced golfer might
indulge in the emotion of joy over a successful play, but he would
be careful to inhibit such expression when taking his next shot.
It is probably such experiences of emotional interference that
make efficient workers consider all emotions, whether of joy or
sorrow, love or hate, to be unpleasant qua emotions.

In the above description, I have said nothing of the response
of smooth muscles because I believe they have only an indirect
relation to consciousness, that is to say, only in so far as they
affect the response Of the striped muscles. It should also be
indicated that, in such a theory of feeling, there is no place for
a neutral affective tone. As long as we are conscious, we are mak-
ing some sort of response, and are consequently either poorly or
well adjusted to the situation. Does this hypothesis not fit the
facts of experience? Are we not at all times in at least a slightly
pleasant or unpleasant frame of mind, the so-called neutral
state being a state of contentment which is pleasantly toned?

In a previous paper, 1 I have attempted to show the relation
of motor inhibition to art production. The experience of artists
seems to point to the fact that art production starts with some
sort of conflict which cannot be resolved by direct action in the
so-called world of reality. In the young child we see such conflict
between random movements. There is a striving for coordination,
and when it cannot be accomplished in the child's ordinary

l " Conflict and Adjustment in Art," in Problems of Personality (New York:
Harcourt, Brace, 1925).

348 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

environment, play eventually ensues; and play, according to a
majority of aestheticians, is the forerunner of art.

The conflict is a state of unpleasantness, which frequently goes
over into an emotion, and this conflict (or unpleasantness, if one
agrees that the terms are identical) is the urge towards continued
action, whether "real" or in fancy, until an adjustment is made.
Such an urge is present in artistic production.
~ It can, therefore, be said that emotions are at the root of aesthetic
creation, but not as some mysterious driving force that guides
the artist in his endeavors, or supplies the energy for his effort.
Nor can it be said that a man is emotional because he is an artist,
but rather he is an artist for the reason that he is emotional, or
more explicitly, because his life is full of conflicts, which he is
best able to overcome in artistic expression. All that is implied
by this statement is that for artistic creation in the strict sense of
the term, that is to say, production beyond mere hackwork,
there must be disturbing problems in the life of the artist. I am
^reminded in this connection of the complaint of a short-story
writer whose fiction was being rejected by a magazine which had
formerly accepted everything she wrote. During her successful
period she was greatly troubled by social problems, which were
later resolved in a very favorable marriage. After a lapse of a few
years, matrimonial perplexities began to appear, with the conse-
quent return of her former creative ability.

There still remains to be explained why the activity does not
always end in useless day-dreaming, in which all of us occasionally
indulge. To answer this question satisfactorily would be to
solve the centuries-old problem of the nature of creative genius.
Although numerous attempts have been made, so far as I am
aware no adequate psychological explanation has as yet been
offered.

Freud, while not specifically referring to the problem of the
emotions, has very clearly described the role of conflict in art.
"The artist is originally a man who turns from reality because he
cannot come to terms with the demand for the renunciation of in-
stinctual satisfaction as it is first made, and who then in fantasy-
life allows full play to his erotic and ambitious wishes. But he
finds a way of return from this world of fantasy back to reality;
with his special gifts he molds his fantasies into a new kind of
reality, and men concede them a justification as valuable reflec-
tions of actual life. " 2 Further on he makes the significant state-
ment which is in accord with the theory of feeling which I have
here accepted: ". . . happy__people never make fantasies,

2 Collected Papers (London: Hogarth Press, T925)i IV, 19. "

HERBERT S. LANGFELD 349

only unsatisfied oa^g. " 3 We might add that there is probably
no one who is perpetually happy, so there is no one entirely free
from day-dreaming. * .-

"Although 1 agree in the broad with these statements of Freud,
I do not wish to imply an acceptance of Freud's fundamental
doctrine of the almost invariable functioning of childhood ex-
periences. We can pass by this remark regarding erotic and ambi-
tious wishes, since the term "ambitious wish" might easily be
interpreted to cover any form of wish, even of the most trivial
nature, but it seems to me that any relatively recent perplexity
can be the incentive for a flight into the land of fantasy, and a
spur for artistic effort.

The theory of relief from conflict in the production and apprecia-
tion of art has appeared to many writers to be similar to Aristotle's
famous doctrine of Katharsis: "through pity and fear effecting
the proper purgation of these emotions." Is it a matter of ex-
perience, however, that art frees us from our emotions in the sense
that our emotional life becomes tempered through artistic creation
and enjoyment? Can the theory mean any more than that the
particular conflict and its corresponding particular emotion are
resolved? The facts of experience, as well as the general laws of
habit, seem to point to the opposite of a general catharsis of emo-
tions. The artist, as long as he is creative, seems if anything to
increase in emotional expression, and the devotee of the modern
exciting drama or motion picture, as long as he is not worn out
physically by his experiences, becomes rather more, than less,
emotional. One only need point to the craving for excitement, for
new experiences and emotional thrills, by the present generation,
which night after night is held in dramatic suspense of almost un-
bearable length by the clever stage and screen craft of our modern
producers. In short, although art offers us a means of adjustment
toward fundamental problems of life and perplexing conditions of
our environment, which we might not otherwise be able to obtain,
it is very doubtful whether it often acts as a sedative.

It follows from what has been said concerning the artistic im-
pulse toward creation that a certain degree of emotion is a neces-
sary characteristic of that activity. This statement obviously
refers to what can be considered an original contribution in the
field of art. Much that goes by the name of art is mere imitation
produced by so-called artists who are little more than thoroughly
machine-like individuals. On the other hand, I do not mean to
imply that the entire process of artistic creation if emotional or
accompanied by emotional reactions. I have elsewhere 4 attempted

3 Ibid., p. 176.

4 The Aesthetic Attitude (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1920), pp. 6-13.

850 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

to describe the balance which probably exists between the intel-
lectual and emotional life of most artists, and have suggested that
the artist whose main attention is upon his own emotional re-
sponses, and who feels that he can only produce in the heat of
what seems to him an inspirational state, is liable to become a
mere sentimentalist and to produce a form of art which usually
marks the extreme of a romantic movement. It is dangerous
to generalize concerning the lives of artists, since there are as
many different psychological states as there are forms of art, and
what one would say of the poet would probably not be true of the
musician; a description applicable to the classicist among the
painters would probably be indignantly repudiated by the mod-
ernist. I should like to venture a guess, however, that while the
inspiration to creative effort is an emotional experience, and while
this emotional state may recur at intervals during the period of
production, for the most part the creative work is carried on with
great favor, and in a calm, controlled, and relatively unemotional
state of mind. In short, an emotional reaction seems a necessary
characteristic, but not a constantly present factor of artistic
production.

Can the same thing be said concerning aesthetic appreciation?
If we considered only music, which Ribot, among other authorities,
believes to be the most emotional of the arts, we should be inclined
to state that emotional response is as essential to appreciation
as to the creative process. Wherever we have pronounced rhythm,
we are likely to have an emotional arousal. In this connection,
Ribot has pointed out the direct effect of music on animals, where
the emotional response is frequently very much in evidence. The
dance and the drama are also very strong emotional stimuli, and
poetry might be placed on the same level, but painting, architec-
ture, landscape-gardening, furniture and formal design, do not
usually call forth ecstatic expressions of joy or sorrow, and when
they do, one is apt to suspect a shallowness of experience. I am
aware of the objection so frequently raised, that an unemotional,
sophisticated attitude toward art is a purely intellectual affair,
which resembles true aesthetic appreciation about as much as
candlelight does the sunshine. It is a problem that cannot be an-
swered to the satisfaction of all, since it is difficult, if not impos-
sible, to convince those on the one side that their artistic response
is that of the cold, calculating critic, and therefore not aesthetic.
But both phylo- and ontogenetically, I believe we can trace in
the development of aesthetic appreciation a gradual diminution
of the emotional response. Primitive art was often primarily for
the purpose of arousing fear and passion, and the child, when it

HERBERT S. LANGFELD 351

has what seems like an aesthetic reaction, is generally highly
emotional. The emotional response, when it becomes intense, is
likely to take us out of a strictly aesthetic attitude, out of that
peculiar state of detachment so essential to appreciation, and I
suspect that it is the subconscious realization of this fact which
induces many of us to practise a control over our responses.

Although the emotional response may be absent from the
aesthetic appreciation, there is necessarily present a feeling-tone
either of pleasantness or unpleasantness, wherever there is a
true aesthetic experience, and not merely an intellectual one as
to values. The problem is therefore presented as to whether there
are any characteristics of pleasantness or unpleasantness which
differentiate them from the affective tone of purely sensual
experience. Introspection does not seem to reveal any differences
in the degree of diffuseness or intensity in the two instances. Exact
localization within the organism is equally difficult, and the
scale of intensity seems to be equally extensive. On the expressive
side, experiments have not, so far as I know, shown any changes
in heart rate, breathing, blood-pressure, or psychogalvanic re-
sponse, which might not have been obtained during a non-aesthetic
experience; (the problem is complicated by the fact that it is
difficult to determine, with any degree of certainty, whether or
not the subject's response is to the beauty or to the merely sensual
quality of the object) . Attempts have been made to limit aesthetic
feeling to those experiences which are obtained through the so-
called higher senses, but it is easily demonstrable that although
most of our perceptions of beauty come through the eye and ear,
any sense may be the vehicle of such an experience. It is equally
impossible to limit the experience to a particular category of
objects. Bosanquet 5 has proposed three characteristics of aesthetic
feeling permanence, relevance, and community; our pleasure in
beauty does not pass into satiety as do pleasures of eating and
drinking, they are annexed to some quality of the object, and
they are not diminished by being shared by others. Although
these three characteristics seem in some degree to differentiate
the aesthetic from the sensual, they are not exclusive characteris-
tics of the former. Sensual pleasures may, under certain circum-
stances, be fairly permanent, they can be projected into the
object as well as localized vaguely within the organism, and they
can be shared by others. I surmise the problem is impossible of
solution, as it has been stated. The aesthetic experience is a
complex affair of feeling-tone and specific organic response or

6 Three Lectures on Aesthetics (London: Macmillan, 1915), pp. 4 ff.

352 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

attitude. The experience is the total situation, and the aesthetic
quality cannot be found in any of its parts.

I am fully aware that the v(ews here formulated are based on
scanty experimental evidence. Up to the present, the data in
the field of aesthetics have had, for the most part, to be gathered
from personal experience, from the lives of artists, and from their
works. Further, an analysis of feeling and emotion has always
been a difficult problem for the laboratory. The difficulty is
increased when the problem concerns their role in the aesthetic
experience. As an experimentalist, however, I hope that eventually
our technique will allow us to present something more than
suggestions for a possible solution.

DISCUSSION

DR. ENGLISH (Anlioch College): I should like to ask Dr. Langfeld as to whether
the negative attitude which he takes towards the Aristotelian catharsis would hold,
at least for creative activity, if we interpret the catharsis as a purification of the
emotions. I think we should all hesitate to suppose that there is any purification
of the emotions in the matter of the movies which he mentions, but whether there
is any type of purification, or, in Freudian terms, sublimation of the emotions in
the case of the creative artist, is something more doubtful.

DR. LANGFELD: I think I did imply that in what I have said in my paper, and
certainly Aristotle would have implied that, although we could not say how he
would interpret it today, because it is a centuries-old problem for discussion as to
just exactly what he did mean. He said only a few words, so we cannot tell.

DR. JASTROW: I find myself in the embarrassing position of agreeing so thorough-
ly with Dr. Langfeld's position that I merely want to emphasize a point that is
implied, namely, that one of the few approaches to the study of aesthetics is through
the ontogenetic series. We have taken emotion, as we have taken a great deal of
our intellectual life, too high up. We have not started low enough, and we do not
use the word aesthetic until the experience is fairly well matured. I should like
to see someone devote half his lifetime to primitive aesthetics, and then the other
half to enjoying the product of his work. I think that is what we need, the primi-
tive idea of aesthetics, primitive aesthetics. There have been certain surveys and
some remarkably interesting material, from the anthropological side, of the play of
primitive children about which we know much. We of the present generation
know more of primitive man than any other. The remarkable contributions are
these amazing discoveries of what has been found in the caves of Northern Spain
and Southern France. All of this remarkable material is now available for children,
who are now for the first time seeing the aesthetic problems of the childhood of the
race.

As for the next point that Dr. Langfeld so well emphasized, namely, that aesthet-
ic experience runs through the whole series, we have a totally false view of aesthet-
ics if we confine it to the ear and eye, and particularly the refinements of the ear
and eye of which those of us who do not go to the movies still have an appreciation.
The fact is that we must determine, first, what I should call the motor phase. I
should say there is only one primitive art. That is dancing, the art in which you
make the expression through the total human machinery. You do not have to have
any instruments. You do it from within. That is necessarily a total motor response.

Let us take the idea of gratification. I think the most useful way is to regard
the word "affect" as a conveniently large category, and by a category I do not

HERBERT S. LANGPELD 353

mean a wastebasket. The point is we must have a term which does not imply a
too specific connotation. Consequently, anything in this field has its affective side.
Again, primitive affect would include those forms of gratification.

So again I have avoided the difficulties it is one of the Freudian methods of
escape, which is another word for ignorance by calling it plus and minus. Any-
thing that adds to our human content and adjustment, as Dr. Langfeld said, is
plus. When we are in an adjusted state of content, we are likely to be on the plus
side. Otherwise we would be a little pessimistic and there would be no difference
of opinion. But if a person is in ordinarily good health, he has a little plus, he has
a little balance in the bank. Consequently the plus and the minus feeling.

That, carried out, would give us a primitive aesthetics, not of the eye and ear,
but of this great motor experience, for example, in the ordinary gratifications of
food, taste, and smell.

My plea then is this, that in considering, as has been so helpfully done, the na-
ture of the aesthetic experience, let us not focus too largely on the elaborate and
the creative artist. The creative artist is fairly rare, and most of us, after we leave
our childhood, have left all the glory we are ever going to have in life. We are
interesting in the first four years. The number of geniuses in the first four years is
remarkable, as family histories indicate. Consequently we have to emphasize
this primitive aesthetics. I would not stop there. Let us say that the view of
aesthetics is one with the view of a great deal of our affective study.

DR. REYMERT: I should like at this point from the Chair with your permission,
to voice my perfect agreement with Dr. Jastrow and Dr. Langfeld as to the neces-
sity of the ontogenetic approach to these aesthetic problems. And it may be in-
teresting for you to hear that we have now some investigations going on here at
the Wittenberg laboratory along ontogenetic lines, starting with young children,
and it is amazing how much seems to come out of very simple studies like that. Our
results so far seem to correlate very well with tentative results arrived at before
from all of the studies we have on children's growing in Germany and in this coun-
try, and especially well with results from the Leipzig laboratory.

DR. DUNLAP: I wanted to ask Dr. Langfeld, first, about the use of his terms for
feeling. I had a suspicion that he was using them in a way that I hope is not for
qualitatively distinct entities, but rather as categories wastebaskets if you please
into which for convenience we put many totally different things which have a
connection in sometimes a very remote way. Is that what you mean?

DR. LANGFELD: Yes, that is why I expressed my skepticism in the first place.

DR. DUNLAP: If I may use another wastebasket term and leave it there, the
term "desire," I wanted to ask you what you would say about the distinction be-
tween aesthetic and other emotional attitudes. I have been somewhat interested
for years in this distinction, in which you might say that the one important char-
acteristic of the aesthetic attitude is that it is free from desire, using desire in the
rather commonplace way. One of the points that has occurred to me many times
in that connection is the constant struggle over the presentation of the nude female
figure in art and on the stage, and the statements of the moralists all seem to turn
about that point that if it produces desire, then it is not aesthetic; if it is aesthetic,
it has not the considerations the moralists allege. And that has a bearing too, Dr.
Jastrow, (I am not proposing this as anything more than a suggestion) not on the
origins of art, nor of aesthetic feelings, but as to how far these primitive dances are
merely sexual matters, which they are today among certain of the African villages.
In this sense I should say there is nothing aesthetic about them, however important
for human life they may be. So the question is of art in that sense and of the be-
ginnings of aesthetics, if we may use those terms rather generally whether they
may not be found there. The dance may be art in one sense, but not in the aesthetic
sense until later.

354 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

DR. LANOFELD: I am very glad that Dr. Dunlap brought up that matter of
desire. I did not mention it in the paper because that would take you a little too
far. I tried to make it plain in defining the aesthetic attitude, and I am not
sure that I did not use almost the words that you use now in regard to the elimination
of desire in the broad sense of the term. Of course, there is a desire of some sort,
whether it is desire for art appreciation or whatever it is. In art I said we are rather
led, as distinct from other forms of activity where we ourselves are active, that is,
we desire and carry out our own wishes according to our own plan, rather than ac-
cording to the plan of someone else. That seems to me to be the essential distinc-
tion, if one can express it in such broad terms. Now, I should like to get down to
more specific terms if we possibly can do it in the future.

DR. PRINCE (Harvard University): I should like to ask Dr. Langfeld a question.
1 suppose he can hear me behind the board there. And that is, how much weight he
would place upon the theory of subconscious activity in creative imagination, to
use James's phrase in another connection, subconscious incubation of motives apart
from the experiences of life? I ask that question because there is a good deal of
evidence in specific cases of subconscious processes in creative imagination. In
the literary art, a great many pieces, a great many productions, are introduced
subconsciously. It is said that Stevenson, you know, dreamed his story of "Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." "Kubla Khan" is said to have been dreamed, and I am
not certain about "The Ancient Mariner. " But there have been many productions
of that kind produced subconsciously. I have myself I am only mentioning
this to justify my question I have myself quite a large collection of paintings and
drawings done subconsciously through automatic activity. I have a large collec-
tion showing very marked constructive imagination. And also I have a very large
collection of works of fiction produced in the same way. Now, how are we justified
in generalizing from those incidents? That is another question. I remember the
remark of a man who said, "All generalizations are untrue, including this one."
I should like to hear from Dr. Langfeld as to how much weight he would lay on that.

DR. LANGFELD: I am glad you have mentioned "The Ancient Mariner" and
"Kubla Khan," because I have just finished that most delightful of books by one
of your colleagues, J. L. Lowes, The Road to Xanadu, in which he shows most con-
clusively where Coleridge got his visual imagery which he uses in "The Ancient
Mariner" and to some extent in "Kubla Khan," because he had Coleridge's note-
books, and he did read everything that Coleridge had ever read during the period
of his life before he had written "The Ancient Mariner." It is a most striking bit
of research, the almost one-to-one correlation between the lines of "The Ancient
Mariner" and the words and lines selected from the various readings that Coleridge
had access to. Now, we know from psychology that at the time of creating "The
Ancient Mariner" Coleridge was not conscious of all the books that he had read;
that was not his method to have gone out into a card- index catalogue and picked
out this image that he had got and say, "That is a good image for me to use. " We
know that it is not the process of creative art. And if he had done it that way, by a
system of card catalogues and strictly conscious processes, we would not have had
"The Ancient Mariner. " We never would have had a work of art.

So I entirely agree with Dr. Prince that we have got to take into consideration
the subconscious to a very great extent in creation, and that the period of so-called
inspiration is very much a period where the facts of former experiences appear.
I have used just that particular point to try to prove, or as part proof of, the neces-
sity for the training of the intellectual side of art, the stirring of knowledge. And
I have said it is only when we get the combination of the highly intellectual man
and the man of feeling that we get great art. I think we can prove that by numer-
ous examples throughout the whole history and development of art. It is not a
one-sided man. It is not an emotional man. Nor is it an intellectual man. But
it is tha.t rarest of combinations. And that is why I think that genius is so rare.
It is a thing we hardly ever meet among our friends the man almost perfectly
balanced between the two.

CHAFFER 31

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANf) PSYCHOPHYSICAL

INVESTIGATIONS OP TYPES IN THEIR

RELATION TO THE PSYCHOLOGY OF

RELIGION

ERICH JAENSCH
University of Marburg

In German psychology the center of discussion is just now
formed by the question whether there exists a unity in psychology,
or whether our science is divided into two parts having to take
separate ways, a "naturalistic" psychology and a "humanistic"
psychology.

The unity of an extensive field can best be made clear by singling
out some points as widely apart as possible from each other, and
then showing them to belong to the same sphere in spite of their
wide separation. Psychological investigation of types generally
makes use of experimental means and does not disdain to investi-
gate, in psych ophysics and psych ophysiology, processes of an
elementary mental kind and even their bodily foundations. There-
fore, at first sight, the doctrine of values seems very widely
separated from it. Also, in the philosophy of values it has often
been represented as a sphere entirely inaccessible to elementary
psychology, and it was a special stronghold of the attempts to
put the strictly empirical psychology into sharp contrast with
entirely different methods of procedure.

Inside the range of values, the religious values again appear
to be the most central and the highest ones. If it can be shown
that it is necessary to comprehend all these different spheres
in one glance, as it were, and that precisely in consequence of
such a uniform contemplation of things apparently widely different
the problems become clearer, an example of this sort can certainly
help to demonstrate the unity of psychology.

In another place my co-workers and I have treated the inte-
grated human type (integrierte Menschentypen) at length. 1 This

1 A brief explanation is to be found in my pamphlet, "Die Eidetik und die
typologische Forschungsmethode." These human types have been studied and
represented more in detail in a book to be published soon by Otto Eisner (Berlin),
Grundformen menschlichen Seins und ihre Beziehung zu den Werten. But the
question discussed here, dealing with religious experience, has not yet been explicitly
examined, and will be treated later on in a special series of monographs.

356 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

can be characterized briefly by saying that the partitions which
usually separate the functions from one another have been, so
to say, pulled down. The psyahic processes influence and pene-
trate each other, a,nd, in more strongly pronounced cases, psychic
events also exercise a special influence upon physical events.
Bodily events are here the expression of the mental.

One external characteristic of this type, therefore, is soulful,
brilliant eyes, which in their constant mobility are a faithful
mirror of the soul. This psychic and psychophysical interpenetra-
tion has been proved, in my Institute, in extensive psychological
and psychophysical investigations. The spatial perceptions,
the after-images (Nachbilder), and the processes of adaptation
function in a different way from what physiology, always starting
from the normal average adult, has described up to now.

In these elementary psychological processes of the senses it
invariably appears as though concepts have here a stronger
influence upon the processes. Here we can only superficially
touch upon these phenomena without trying to explain them.
Following them up would lead us into the deepest questions raised
by psychology. 2 It is by no means true that conceptions or the
contents of inner experience mix with the elementary feeling
processes. What causes the impression that such an influence
exists, is that the elementary processes of perception in this
type have been shifted in the direction of the processes of con-
ception. Briefly stated, they stand in a way between the processes
of perception of the normal average adult, described by physiology,
and the conceptions. The barriers which in the average adult
usually separate perceptions and conceptions and generally the
elementary mental processes from the inner life exist here to a
far lesser degree. Eidetic phenomena may serve as an example.
Pronounced eidetic phenomena are certainly frequently, but not
invariably, a symptom of the integrated type of man. But
wherever pronounced eidetic phenomena of this type exist con-
ceptions can become visible in the literal sense of the word. This
is one symptom amongst others, but it need not necessarily always
occur. Yet it is an example in which the "integration" or "inter-
penetration of functions" appears with particular clearness and
by means of which it can be very well demonstrated.

In a way conception and perception here penetrate each other.
The partitions elsewhere separating them exist here to a much
lesser degree. I repeat, with the integrated human type the

2 On the basis of extensive experimental material, I have tried to investigate
these questions in my book, Ueber den Aufbau der Wahrnehwungswelt vnd die
Grundlagen der menschlichcn Erkenrdnis (2nd ed., Leipzig: Barth, 1927), Part I.

ERICH JAENSCH 357

eidetic phenomena are often but not always present. 3 But inva-
riably the principal characteristic of the integrated type consists
in that functions, elsewhere separated, merely penetrate each
other. Examined by more delicate tests, the integrated type
proves to be widely spread. Certainly its frequency varies very
much with different German tribes, and even more so, as we have
been able to establish already, with different races and nations.
But the integrated type becomes of general importance by the
fact that children at certain ages have more or less of the charac-
teristics of the integrated type, and because this psychic and
psychophysical integration of juveniles is of great importance for
the construction of the world of perception and of all mental life.
As tests we made use of the different processes of perception
and feeling. In what way the processes of spatial perception
can be used for this purpose has been demonstrated in our larger
publications. 4

The elementary feeling processes, too, show here the charac-
teristics of integration and arc, therefore, employed as tests. The
physiological after-images in integrated adults, and to a large
extent also in children, behave quite differently from what physi-
ology until now has always described, e. g., those of the normal
adult. 5

3 Occasionally I have been represented as having tried to build up the whole
of psychology upon "eidetics." Whoever has read the works of my Institute will
know that this representation certainly does not correspond with the facts. Eidetics
form only a small section of the work here.

4 In Uebcr den Atifbau der Wahrnehmungswelt, usw., and especially in the mono-
graph about to be published, Grundformen menschlichen Seins, usw.

5 Compare with our older works (especially in the Ze.itschrift fur Psychologic}
the work being published by W. Schmulling in the same review, "Aufdeckung
latenter eidetischer Phiinomene und de.s integrierten Menschentypus mit der Inter-
mittenzmethode," a continuation of the intermittance method of the Englishman,
Mills, and its application to the investigation of types. The publications recently
made by Koffka and his pupils on after-images do not refute my theories, but rather
throughout confirm the results and views published by myself and my pupils.
Koffka affirms that the doctrines of physiology concerning the after-image are
wrong, and he points out deviations, as we ourselves have been doing all along.
But the teachings of physiology about the after-image are to a great extent correct;
at least they are true for the average adult. On the contrary, they are not true
for the integrated type and, therefore, to a large extent not for children. The
deviations indicate a special type; and they can therefore be studied more pro-
foundly in connection with typology, as I and my cooperators have already been
doing.

Compare the article by W. Walker from my Institute, "Ueber die Adaptations-
vorgange der Jugendlichen und ihre Beziehung zu den Transformations-Erschei-
nungen," Zeitschrift fur die Psychologic, CIII.

Compare iji our publication, Grundformen menschlichen Seins, usw., the passage
written by Carl Kohler: "Das Verhalten des Pupillenreflexes und die psycho-
physische Integration der Jugendlichen und des integrierten Menschentypus."

358 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

With integrated people and children the elementary processes
in dark adaptation also are of a special kind. They are more
numerous and under certain conditions they can be influenced
and altered from the sphere of conceptions. But the integration
or interpenetration of functions does not only exist in the psy-
chical but also in the psych ophysical sphere, i. e., psychical proc-
esses influence not only one another, but also, to a high degree,
bodily processes. Thus motor functions and also the eyes are
here to a high degree organs of expression of mental life. This
psychophysical integration of the integrate and of children has
been proved with great exactitude, e. g., by studying the reaction
of the pupils of the eye by means of Helmholtz's ophthalmometer. 6
It was shown that the reaction of the pupils here was influenced
by central and psychical factors to a fairly high degree.

In this example of the integrated type it becomes evident that
typology is important also for medicine. It is the integrated type
on which psychoanalysts found their assertions. For the inte-
grated type it is in fact true that the elementary psychic and even
somatic occurrences are to a large extent dependent upon the
contents of the higher mental life and upon conceptions, 7 of which
the occurrences are the expression. But these observations, hold-
ing good for the integrated type, may not be generalized at once.
The psychophysical study of constitution is, nevertheless, of far
greater importance for medicine. Not only in psychiatry but
also in internal medicine, the problem of constitution has stepped
more and more into the foreground. Morbid processes are to a
considerable degree anchored and performed in the constitution.

It has become evident that the psychophysical tests form a
very delicate reagent for the discovery of important constitutional
forms. 8 How the study of types is related to the questions of
inner medicine can here, where we have to deal with entirely
different matters, be only briefly hinted at. Psychophysical
typology has to do with normal types. But the one-sided accentua-
tion and exaggeration of these types lie on the way to certain
forms of disease. Typology teaches us to discover their rudi-
mentary forms, indicates those who are endangered, and thus

8 See the third paragraph of footnote 5.

7 E. R. Jaensch, "Ueber psychische Selektion: eine experimentelle Untersuchung
liber Beziehungen der wertenden zur vorstellenden Seite des Bewusstseins, mit
Bemerkungen zu der durch die Psychoanalyse hervorgerufenen Erorterung,"
Zeitschriftfiir Psychologic, XCVIII (1 925). Compare also the report of W. Jaensch,
"Psychotherapie," Benefit liber den aUgemeinen drztlichen Kongressfur Psychologic,
Baden-Baden, 1926.

8 Mv brother has treated the psychophysical types of constitution from this
clinical point of view. Cf . W. Jaensch, Grundzuge einer Physiologic und Klinik der
psycho-physischen Personlichkeit (Berlin: Springer, 1926).

ERICH JAENSCH 359

opens up prophylactic possibilities; e. g., there are also internal
diseases where the nervous system plays a decisive part.
G. von Bergmann has shown thi%to be probable with certain forms
of gastric ulcer. W. Jaensch and Kalk have made it extremely
probable that our integrated type is very strongly represented
amongst this kind of ulcer patient. The individuals of different
fundamental psychophysical types also show, in their pronounced
cases, different bodily characteristics But the difference here is
not anatomical in the build of the body but is functional.
If, with the integrated type, the bodily characteristics are also
strongly pronounced, we speak of the B-type. Usually we have
then to do with strongly marked cases of the integrated type.

That this is the case of not only the psychic interpenetration
but also the psychophysical interpenetration, is strongly pro-
nounced, and, accordingly, so is the complex of bodily charac-
teristics. We then find a functional preponderance, and increased
irritability of the entire vegetative nervous system, which, accord-
ing to Gildemeister's observations, is also highly integrated, i.e.,
works uniformly. To psychical and psychophysical integration
of this type, there thus corresponds also a somatic integration.
To the fundamental mental structure, therefore, the bodily
constitution corresponds. But here we have to do with the purely
psychological characteristics of types. Also here the fundamental
characteristic of the integrated type again consists in this, that
the psychic functions in this case those of the higher mental
life penetrate each other. This explains the close relation be-
tween the integrated type and art. Artists express more or less
the integrated type; inversely, the more gifted amongst the inte-
grated adults are more or less aesthetically disposed. The reason
is that aesthetic and artistic mentality stand in an essential rela-
tion to the integrated type, for art has always to do with the inter-
penetration of various mental functions. Certainly the work of
art represents facts, but these at the same time always serve the
needs of feeling (interpenetration of conception and feeling).
Every great work of art interprets thoughts, not in a didactic
form but in the form of sensuous perception (interpenetration of
thought and perception). To the elements of all aesthetic and
artistic experiences belongs Einfuhlung (interpenetration of
perception and feeling).

In the pedagogical movement in Germany it has long been
asserted that there exists an intimate relation between the mind
of the child and that of the artist, and that in view of this at a
certain age teaching ought to assume a sort of artistic character.
Typology justifies and explains these experiences of our practical

360 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

pedagogues. 9 It shows that the integrated psychic structure is
the elementary foundation of art, and at the same time is also,
at certain ages, characteristic of the child's mind.

Only now do we come to the principal object of this brief
treatise; but in order to make ourselves clearly understood, we
had to begin with some observations about the more general
results of psychological and psych ophysical typology. Only
in this way can it be achieved that the unity of psychology will
appear in the particular subject which we are treating here.

For this purpose we had to point out, however briefly, how the
types express themselves in the elementary psychic and even in
the psychophysical sphere. So far we have treated elementary,
indeed the most elementary, things. Now, however, we turn to
the very highest spheres of psychic life. For there is no other
sphere in which the innermost life of man manifests itself as
strongly as in his religious life. The unity of psychology shows
itself in this, that the same structural forms run through the most
elementary as well as the highest psychic modes of being, deter-
mining both in the same way. We especially wished to emphasize
this unity of psychology, for nowadays in Germany it is a bone of
contention. 10

To this basic psychic structure, too, corresponds the manner
in which the individual experiences values and in which he ap-
proaches the highest, the religious values. Also, the realm of
ideals and that which is actually given are for the integrate
unseparated, that is, integrated. The ideal world and reality
are a unity. These people stand in intimate coherence (Kohdrenz)
with their animate and inanimate surroundings, are open to
everything, and, as it were, lovingly given to everything. As the
lover the object of his love, so the integrate sees all things, as it
were, transfigured. Values and ideals, as in the theory of ideas
and manner of experience of Plato, seem to shine through the
objects of sense. But that which is given can never be experienced
alone, only in connection with everything else, as it corresponds
to the process of integration.

The whole is always seen behind the individual. Hence, the

fl Experimental and descriptive psychological investigations concerning this
topic, as well as practical pedagogical experiments, will be found in our mono-
graph, which is soon to be published: Ueber die psychologischen Grundlagen des
Kiinstlerischen Schaffens. Very likely it will appear at Dr. Benno Fibert's, Augs-
burg. Compare also my report: "Psychologic und Aesthetik," Second Congress
for Aesthetics and General Theory of Art, Berlin, 1924 (Stuttgart: F. Enke, 1925.)

10 Compare also my lecture, "Die typologische Forschungsmethode," Proceed-
ings and Papers of the Vlllth International Congress of Psychology held at Groningen,
1926 (Groningen, 1927).

ERICH JAENSCH 361

separate data have at the same time something cosmic. In the
experience of the "cosmic" lies the connection between the
experience of the infinite and the experience of value. In our
records there are continual references such as this, that things
are experienced in a finite and an infinite way at the same time,
that, like the monads of Leibnitz, they mirror infinity, have a
corona of infinity about them, or seem like an external facade
of infinity. One subject drew it thus :

THE INFINITE

The Finite

The integrated type has different shades, and, according to
them, the experience of finite-infinite takes on somewhat different
forms. It can either form a constant undertone of being, or it
can appear only at particular points in every state of feeling, or
only in moments of special inner joy or exaltation. Of importance
for this experience in every case, however, is the fact that the
integrate stands in the closest coherence with his surroundings.
He, therefore, experiences no separating barrier between himself
and the cosmic, but appears, while experiencing objectivity as
infinite, to be lifted up into this sphere of the cosmic. For example,
all this is found with different intensity, very clearly, in the
following record, which was given by a student of the history
of art:

"At certain moments I believe I live in the cosmic. When that is the case,
things are officially changed, they attain a size, a width, they are large in an optical
sense. People are literally large and herewith is connected the feeling of a growth
of the individual persons, corresponding to the tide of feeling which rules the mo-
ment and may appear in the aforementioned optical appearances. Everything

that is inappropriate disappears from the figures "He then feels

himself just as large as, or larger than they. In a room, on this occasion, he may
get a feeling as if he towers far above the ceiling, so that he, as it were, is above it
and can span not only the room but the earth below it as well. He then has the
feeling of being anchored in the cosmic and that a cosmic motion flows through him.

Changes in perception, as in this case, naturally do not neces-
sarily need to be present. We have here a very pronounced inte-
grate, with somatic characteristics as well a B-type, therefore,
in whom the world of perception usually is particularly fluid.
For in the typological method we always start from strongly
differentiated cases, and can then find the corresponding charac-

36 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

teristics in the weaker cases, even though these are not as clearly
defined. That which has been dealt with here refers throughout
to a particular case of the integrated type, which we call the "type
with general and externally directed integration" (allgemein
und nach aussen hin integrierter typus), or, in short, "i-type."

"Integration" is a very general characteristic and occurs in
various special forms. The "general and externally integrated
type" (i-type) is one of the most important cases within the
wider group of the integrated type (I-type). We differentiate the
i-type as the basis of experimental criteria and characteristics,
which cannot be discussed in the brief space at our disposal. 11

Some of its characteristics have been partially touched upon
above, for at the beginning of this essay it was by means of this
i-type that we explained the basis properties of integration,
taking it as an example by means of which the properties of the
whole species (I-type, integrated type) could be demonstrated
with particular clarity. Of the i-type, it was only the funda-
mental characteristic which was of consequence in this connection;
namely, that it stands in thoroughgoing coherence (in closest
connection) with the external data.

Before discussing types in which the inner world dominates
still more exclusively religious experience, we turn to a group in
which the outer world, with its manifold inclines and color,
dominates religious experience more strongly than is the case with
the I-type, so that this religious experience by its primitiveness
reminds one of the native races.

Between the I-type and the synaesthetik or S-type, to which
we come now, there are certain connecting links. Thus, in child-
hood the "I" nd "S" characters are widely coupled together. 12

To understand the most characteristic, therefore, we must
first of all turn to the most extreme synaesthetic types. The inter-
action of the senses here witnesses to a type of integration, which
is always a destruction of barriers.

In pronounced synaesthesis the experiences combine, as it were,
piecemeal; no unit or whole enters into the amalgam, as is always
the case with the i-type. To the i-type, a favorite expression of
the circle round George 13 is applicable: He is always "round,"
always "spherical." He puts into every detail the harmonic
and closed unity of this "I" (ego) and at the same time the

11 Some of them will be touched upon briefly later. The whole matter is
thoroughly discussed in our monograph, Orundformen menschlichen Seins, usw.,
which will appear shortly.

12 My co-worker, H. Freilung, will prove this in a monograph, Ueber die psy-
chologischen Grundlagen der Arbeitsschtde, which is to appear shortly.

18 Stefan George, famous poet and life-reformer.

ERICH JAENSCH 363

closed unity of his "cosmic" conception of the universe. The
characteristic synaesthetic has no such unity, no uniform "I,"
but also no uniform, closed worlcj therefore, no cosmos. Never-
theless he, too, is integrated, and so the fragment of his inner
world and the fragments of his outer world form a firm amalgam.
As a result, religious experience in the characteristic cases of the
S-type, which are far removed from the i-type, is primitively
archaic, fetishistic, demonic, at most similar to polytheism.
Other things, too, have an influence in the same direction.

The stronger and, more pronounced the synaesthetic type is,
the more completely he lives in archaic strata of consciousness.
Everything appears living and ensouled; for many individuals of
this type dead things simply do not exist. While the I-type feels
himself into his animate and inanimate surroundings, the syn-
aesthetic projects his feelings, or rather feeling-fragments into
them. For the characteristic I-type Einfuhlung predominates,
for the S-type Zufuhlung. For the latter, therefore, facts have
above all a symbolic value. The world of sense perception is often
extraordinarily fluid; its contents are of importance above all
according to the symbolic value of the very often primitive
affects, and in their sense are extensively remodelled. According
as Zufuhlung predominates over Einfuhlung and the S-type
recedes from the I-type, all mundane experience, as well as re-
ligious experience, becomes more autistical, more unintelligible
to others.

We men have the "schizoform synaesthetic type." We next
give a portion of the record of a synaesthetic woman who is still
close to the I-type and whose demonic, almost polytheistic
conceptions are at any rate still quite intelligible.

"The sea is strongly felt as female; she is the infinitely great woman, with very
deep blue eyes. When I suddenly talk of storm, she laughs aloud and tosses her
hair. Similarly with the wind, who is felt more as male, a man with the gigantic,
gray storm-mantle. As I went along the road, the storm whistled past, threw his
gray mantle around me, the trees bent before him, he did not heed them and
passed over them.

"In the roots of trees I continually see faces; when I lie in the forest and gaze
into the distance, everything around me is full of the ghostly doings of gnomes
and animals. They come towards me, have long hair, are threatening and hideous.
When someone scolds me, the whole room is filled with darkness, the scolding
person seems to touch me to attack me, so that I hold out my arms to defend
myself and retreat to the wall, just as when a child I used to hide myself. The
question as to the reality or unreality of these contents of experience is not put at
all it is left completely in the air "

The description of his religious experience by a characteristic
synaesthetic, who is far removed from the i-type, is far more
artistic. He is a student and passionately fond of boxing. In

364 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

other aspects of his life he is also somewhat primitive, but at the
same time is very talented.

"The luminous twilight of Gothic churches forces me to holy devotion, which
at the same time is coupled with the feeling of inner exaltation and fervor. It
becomes clear to me what the love of God means one wants to thank someone
that one is able to achieve this intense realization of one's humanity. I had this
feeling most strongly in the Egyptian temple in the old museum in Berlin; when
the two Rameses colossi glimmered in the dim light, I wanted to fall on my knees;
the feeling of holy awe is intensified by the smell of stone so prevalent in Gothic
churches. I am inspired by a heroic thought in archaic form. I am happy that as
a human being one can take part in it.

"Even though the idea of battle cannot be realized in that form today, one can
still achieve admiration and love (as a wounded hero on the battlefield). There is
a rapture in the thought of this dream-world turned to stone, which, for example,
in its highest power embodies within itself all expression of a warrior's strength.
Involuntarily an erotic thought vibrates in unison, that the most beautiful woman
belongs to the hero. ... A ceremonial liturgy, when the priests of Isis
strike the gong and the temple-girls perform a ritual dance, could force me to
my knees by its monumental monotony.

"Religious aspirations are awakened in churches only by monotonous chants
and liturgies. I can designate this musing in my world of dreams as something
different from the aesthetic and artistic, namely as 'religiosity.' The sight of the
Pyramids could make me weep because in them my dream-world towers into the
real. Eternal happiness for me would be to live my life as a lost and wandering
Odysseus, an Egyptian Pharaoh, in heroic-antique-archaic wise. This dream-
world was already mine when I still believed in eternal life, at the age of fifteen;
afterward I thought God would furnish me with a stone, heroic-antique-archaic
wise, on which I would live and taste all modes of existence, Odysseus, Pharaoh,
Centaur, till the end of time."

The origin of the demonic in fear is quite plain in the case of
our characteristic synaesthetics, and this fear again arises from
the torn and disunited character of this type. I once more quote
a part of the record of the boxer, who in many respects is not at
all timid :

"When I have to pass through many doors, I rush because I believe a ghost is
following me to plunge a dagger between my head and cervical vertebra. I duck,
jump aside, and, quick as lightning, slam the door behind me so that the ghost
cannot follow. The world is peopled with demons. During an evening's walk,
I lose my psychic balance; it seems to me I have gone down in a ship and, separated
from all living things, am walking along the sea bottom. The evening sky appears
like the surface of the sea, which is sky-high above me. Shuddering terror over-
comes me that a shark may grab me from behind. I dare not go through parks,
because a shark might be hidden in the jungle of seaweeds. In between times is
a quiet battle of reason. The question of whether reality is attributable to these
ideas or not remains unsettled, although they determine the action. .
This fear of ghosts is intensified in states of depression. One may not leave a
leg hanging out of bed, because outside the bed it would come within the reach of
bad demons "

Basing his stories on such experiences, he writes grotesque,
phantastically gruesome tales after the manner of Edgar Allen

ERICH JAENSCH 365

Poe. His bizarre fancy reminds one of the synaesthetic Victor
Hugo and of the pronounced archaism of the synaesthetic Richard
Wagner.

We now return to the i-type, the type with general and out-
wardly directed integration. We throw a brief glance upon the
types resulting when the integration outwards recedes more and
more, together with the external world, and when at the same
time the integration is inwards and together with it the inner
world steps more and more into the foreground. In purely
experimental researches on integration, it first became necessary
to differentiate between a T-l and a T-2 type. 14 Experiments
which with T-l at once gave positive results did so with a second
group, which we called T-2, only under certain conditions, namely,
only by means of vivid imagining.

A third group which did not react at all (they are those who
are not at all outwardly integrated) need not be considered here.
We find, for example, with the T-l types that if, during the
contemplation of a line drawn upon a piece of paper, one pulls
their arms, there very often suddenly takes place an optical
change in the length of the line. With T-2 this does not manifest
itself at once but only as soon as the subjects vividly imagine
that such pulling forces as they have just experienced act on the
line also. In the inner psychic life corresponding phenomena
take place as in these elementary strata. These people too stand
in coherence (Kohdrenz), in connection with the world, but,
exactly as in the above-mentioned experiment, always through
the medium of an inner world of conceptions and ideas, which
here has a firm existence of its own. They do not surrender
themselves to everything, like the naive and ever plastic, ever
regenerative type T-l, but only to that which corresponds to
their determinate, rigid world of ideas and of ideals. Unmis-
takably even here we always have to do with an outward integra-
tion, because we see that even these ideal worlds do not entirely
lack perceptual elements, but somehow bear the features of the
external world. But the ideal and the divine here do not shine
forth as immediately from out the real as with type T-l. Type
T-2 loves veils and distances. For him the ideal world is not so
near that he can touch it; it is not immanent to facts but it lies
beyond the hills or in temporal distance, though it still bears the
features of the transfigured real. They also can still be poets
and artists. Lucke, experimentally and by means of structural
philosophy, compares the T-l types investigated by him to the
Goethe type, the T-2 to the Schiller type.

14 Further details appear in the dissertations of V. Lucke and H. Weil, which
are about to be published.

366 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

On the other hand, those who are purely inwardly integrated
can in general not become poets or artists. Here there exists
no surrendering to the outer wdrld and to things, no binding to
the world given by perceptual experience. The purely inward
integration or interconnection consists here in there being a firm
line of life, faithfulness to one's self, genuineness. Here it is mental
complexes, belonging purely to the life of mind and will or to a
sense of duty, which bring about integration, the unity of per-
sonality. It is only when these complexes are touched, as when
man gets immersed in himself and retires from the outer world,
that the outward sign of integration also shows itself. Only then
the otherwise dim eye becomes brilliant, whereas with type T-l
we might say that it always carries the soul outside. Sensuous
conceptions, especially of a visual kind, are here mostly absent,
to a degree which would be surprising in other types. There does
not exist any inner connection with things, quite the reverse;
things can serve only as material for actions, for practical work,
or for the fulfilment of duty in the sense of Fichte.

Only immersion into the dark depths of the seif and into the
origins of the inner line of life can be experienced as religious.
Only here the connection with the divine is sought.

In all these cases the most pronounced form of religious expe-
rience is not yet to be found. It is only in converts that it mani-
fests itself. The converts who have been treated on the basis of
vast material by E. Schlink, one of my co-workers, have the
aspects of a change of axis. The axis round which existence
revolves moves out of the world and the axon "ego" merges into
God, into whose hands the convert feels himself to be completely
surrendered. And yet, in spite of this conformity, how enormously
different, according to the type, the experiences in conversions are!
I limit myself here to the quotation of some passages from our
records. The first is taken from an integrate: the second from
a non-integrate. In the first case, God is experienced entirely
emotionally, nearly sensuously and bodily; in the second case,
emotion is entirely absent. The experience is quite unsensuous
and abstract.

The first case shows the characteristics of the integrated T-l
type. Before being converted, as a young girl, she always had

"so much fancy, such an impulse towards something exalted. Especially in
autumn I could hardly bring myself to stay in the house. Away! Out of doors!
Into the forest! I was as if drunk, as if I must die if I did not get outdoors. It
was a passionate clinging to nature. But I am now freed from it by the Lord. I
am entirely in the Lord. It still gives me pleasure, but it no longer seems to draw
me away. .

ERICH JAENSCH 367

"To be in God, to be near God, I feel as something sublime. One cannot
describe it. ... There are services and hours when God can be felt in us."
(" Can you paraphrase the feeling more in detail?") " If I may say so it is a divine
feeling of awe! As of being entranced. & . . When I rose from prayer, I
felt reborn. ... I have experienced God almost bodily. It is a youthful
force arising out of the inner life and taking hold of my body."

Again and again the characterization, "quite different." Divine
joy is a joy "quite different" from any ordinary joy.

Not only here but also elsewhere we are reminded of the charac-
terizations of the "luminous" in Rudolf Otto's classical work
Das Heilige (The Divine). But none of the persons we examined
were influenced by it. They are simple people and have never
taken any interest in theology and philosophy.

Another example is that of a man with a hard nature, a pro-
nounced soldier type, in his profession as a teacher feared on
account of hardness and severity, in war a reckless leader of
attacking detachments (Sturmtruppe) . Conversion took place
when his child met with a fatal accident.

"My conversion was a purely rational decision. With me principally the
merely rational facts have been at play, nothing else. I had a life without God
behind me; then my attention was drawn to this and God revealed himself to me
by the love of his judgment. And then, as a cool, reflective man, having stood
under the discipline of mental training, one is naturally ready at once to sum up
the results. 'Now go and submit yourself unto this God.' My conversion was a
purely rational decision. Feelings were quite spared to me in it. Also at my child's
death I was entirely spared pain. Everything was more rational. It had become
dear to me that my child had to die, in order that my God might prove his love
for me.

"I always kept myself quite free from feelings. I was quite clear about it, that
this (i. e., the communion with God) is a deadly serious affair. I was quite clear
that the dangerous side in the communion with God is that one's emotions can
go astray. I always was repelled by people who spoke emotionally of the divine.
I then knew: 'Either this man is in danger of going astray, or he has gone astray
already.' The Lord also has kept people away from emotions. Let the dead bury
their dead!"

Occasionally the doubt has been raised that the investigation
of types might make truth relative, by taking everything equally
seriously, i. e., by taking nothing seriously. I am going to con-
tradict this entirely mistaken view in other articles in a more
detailed way. Investigations of types do not lead to relativism,
but to a standpoint of relativity, to a neo-Leibnitzian perspective.
In the doctrine of knowledge, which as a basis makes use of the
typology of thinking and knowing, it can be demonstrated very
precisely that the mental structures of the different types com-
prehend different sides, so to say, different perspective views of
the real. 15 In this article there is only space to prove my view

15 This is proved in a Kategorienlehre on which the author is now working.

368 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

that in religious life the same rules hold good as in the sphere
of values.

We are convinced that the importance of such typological re-
searches goes beyond the range of psychology and into that of
the philosophy of values. A philosophy of values, having as
basis the knowledge of the different forms of the experience of
values, will see clearer in many questions. Such a doctrine of
values will possess a theoretical but especially a great practical
importance. It will lead to a deeper tolerance. Many discussions
in the sphere of the philosophy of values suffer from the author's
knowing only his way of experiencing values, and from his quite
ignoring the other ways. For everybody is, so to speak, fettered
to the barriers of his own type. Scheler, for example, in his
important writings on the philosophy of religion proves himself
to belong entirely to the T-l type. Herein lies the weakness of
his excellent works. His polemics against modern times and
against the Protestant world, and his exclusive glorification of
the Roman Catholic Middle Ages, especially of Augustinism,
are brought about chiefly by his not knowing the T-2 type and those
who have only inward integration. He, therefore, does not know
people who are religious in quite a different way, whether they
are Roman Catholics or Protestants.

In studying mental structures one recognizes how values and
non-values are coupled together, and in consequence of this
knowledge one will learn better how to avoid non-values. We
have mentioned already that the records of our first case of
conversion, where we had to do with a simple person who had
not the slightest knowledge of theology, reminds one of Otto's
description of the "luminous." In the second case, on the con-
trary, we have to do with an experience of God quite free from
feeling and purely rational, which seems originally to underlie
another theological line of thought nowadays very widespread
in Germany. But just because religious experience here bears
a purely rational character, there is great danger of gliding into
dialectic construction and thereby stepping out of religious
experience altogether. In fact this line of thought has often met
with the reproach that it is too much inclined to dialectic con-
struction and that it abandons the ground of religious experience.
It is manifest that there is a form of religious experience which
essentially contains this danger; thus the investigations of types
will be able to indicate in many cases the non-values coupled with
values and even dangers.

Thereby we have hinted already that such a study of types not
only serves the psychological description of the experience of

ERICH JAENSCH 369

values but also the discovery of the values themselves, and thus
also general philosophy and culture. In this connection it is an
important circumstance that the> study of types Jbrings about a
widening of the horizon and an eye for values. It breaks up the
narrow bounds in which we are confirmed by our own type for
experiencing values, and it teaches us to know kinds and inter-
connections of values which otherwise would remain a closed
book for us. And progress in this sphere inevitably depends upon
our having as wide an outlook as possible upon the sphere of
values, for progress here is chiefly brought about by a synthesis
of different values. It is accomplished by various, even contra-
dictory values being united in a higher synthesis and thereby
coming to agreement amongst one another. 16 The strongest
obstacle acting against a synthesis of this sort consists in the
barriers of individuality and type, in which we are all locked up.
Typology, opening for us cin insight into the world of other people,
is an efficient means of eliminating or at least weakening this
obstacle.

Thus the work of psychology and philosophic anthropology takes
its place in the wider field of philosophy, that philosophy which
does not disdain its foundation on empirically assured facts.

From Descartes up to Kant and his successors, modern phi-
losophy has been struggling with the question concerning the
meaning of consciousness. Idealism, which gave a definite
answer to this question and which dominated the last phase of
philosophizing, had overemphasized the importance of conscious-
ness. At the present time, idealism is believed to have failed,
and nowadays, in the so-called ontological lines of thought, the
opposite mistake is being committed of ascribing hardly any
importance whatever to consciousness. But it is certain that
consciousness is a system of coordinates, a basis of reference in
which the real is given, whatever the essence may be, and different
structures of consciousness are different coordinate systems.
Idealism was bound to fail on account of its lack of a well-derived
and insured doctrine of consciousness and because it fought
against the recognition of the real. Our psychological and anthro-
pological work aims at such a doctrine of consciousness, and, by
being founded upon facts, will avoid all the exaggerations of
idealism, helping at the same time to detach from it that timeless

16 It seems as if Aristotle, the real founder of scientific ethics, had already known
this, or at least had had a presentiment of it. At any rate Nicolai Hartmann
(Berlin & Leipzig: E. Urik, 1926) interprets the Aristotelian concept in this sense.
According to him, Aristotle did not really mean an average of values but a syn-
thesis of values. This historical interpretation has not been left unchallenged,
however.

370 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

nucleus which can be taken over into the realistic epoch of thinking
of the future.

Every correct and tenable insight holds good also in practice.
The treatment of philosophic questions on the basis of psychology
and philosophic anthropology will not only open up important
theoretical insights but will also assume practical importance.
That can best be explained by the example of typology discussed
here. We have hinted already that such a typological treatment
of fundamental mental questions must lead to a wider tolerance.
This is of importance with regard to the re-ordering of human
relationships which is being aimed at everywhere in the world
today and which is to be based upon men's no longer fighting and
destroying one another, but striving to come to a mutual under-
standing. Here we, once more, refer to the examples discussed in
this short article.

According to our experiences, the general and outwardly inte-
grated type is much commoner and much more pronounced
in the west of Germany than in the north. Our most pronounced
cases of the T-l type came from western Germany. On the other
hand, the purely inwardly integrated type seems to prevail in
northern Germany and at the coast. Most of the subjects of this
kind examined by us came from there. The west of Germany is
predominantly Roman Catholic the north, Protestant. It
now seems to me certain that the stronger inclination of the west
towards Catholicism and that of the north towards Protestantism
are connected with the different diffusion of human types and
their different ways of experiencing the world. For it is clear that
the T-l type, generally and outwardly integrated, stands in an
inner relationship to Catholicism, and that the not at all out-
wardly but purely inwardly integrated type stands in an essential
relation to Protestantism, because Protestantism leads man to de-
pend exclusively upon his inner being and thus corresponds to the
nature of the inwardly integrated type. Catholicism seeks to
bring the inner and the outer world into harmony, corresponding
to the way the generally and outwardly integrated type experiences
the world. Also the innermost being of man, his religious expe-
rience, is here connected with the outer. It is represented by
symbols which appeal to the senses, and man appears within his
innermost nature not solely dependent upon himself, but belonging
to an outward community, the Church. Both kinds of experience
have their deeper meaning. If through the doctrine of types we
learn to know their peculiarity and their significance, we shall
also do justice to people who are constituted differently from
ourselves. The representatives of the various faiths will then

ERICH JAENSCH 371

no longer fight each other but will rather strive towards mutual
understanding.

And with nations it is the sanq^ as with faiths. Nations also
stand in relation to the psychophysical fundamental types: in
one people one fundamental type prevails, in another people
another type. We have experimental results for this contention
too. Here, too, typological contemplation will lead to a more
deeply rooted tolerance. It will bring about peace, or, let us rather
say, it will prepare the way for peace. For that is a great and
heavy task. Its solution will require patient work for a long time
to come. But science must help according to its powers. The
study of the fundamental psychophysical types also promotes
the study of nations and puts the merits of each single nation into
the best light. It explodes all barriers of individuality, which
prevent us from seeing strange values. Typological contemplation
leads us to a conception which considers the separate types, as
well as the various nations, as being instruments of a great or-
chestra. It will be everybody's first duty to take care that his
own voice gives a pure tone but he will honor the others too,
conscious that all are necessary and must complement each other
in harmonic cooperation.

CHAPTER m
c-

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS IN THE
PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION

D. WERNER GRUEHN
University of Berlin

Every science has its Achilles' heel. It has problems which
seem difficult or even impossible to solve. It has results which
lack the certainty and precision of exact science. We know of
such problems also in modern empirical psychology. This will
not surprise us if we know the history of psychology and its
unparalleled development in the twentieth century. It has,
in point of fact, been authoritatively stated that in a hundred
years the history of scientific psychology will begin with the
year 1900. Consequently, we need not give up the hope that some
problems which are unsolved today will yet be solved satisfactorily
as investigation advances.

In present-day psychology the status of the doctrine of feeling
is particularly confused. And yet it is precisely in this field that
practical life demands peremptorily a clear answer. This is true
of all feelings, especially of the aesthetic, moral, and religious
feelings. In the school we try to educate our children to reverence,
piety, and trust. But what do we mean when we speak of rev-
erence, piety, and trust? It is obvious that they are mental
states and that only a science of mental life can make out what
they are. In the church we cultivate various feelings: solemnity,
devoutness, meditation, abandonment, active love. What
sort of feelings are these? It is obvious that psychology must
know the answer. Ever since Schleiermacher, which means for
the last one hundred and twenty-eight years, all religious proc-
esses have been quite generally referred to the affective side of
mental life. If, then, the investigation of feeling cannot answer
these questions, the cultivation of the spiritual life must of necessity
remain purely external as external as the raising of hothouse
plants when their cultivator knows nothing about all his various
plants except that they belong to the large group of "flowers."

Such deficiency will be felt in particular when very rare and
delicate plants are intrusted to the gardener. It is then certain
that in the hands of a gardener so uninformed the very best

D. WERNER GRUEHN 373

and finest plants will be ruined. And do not the aesthetic, moral,
and religious feelings belong to the noblest and most delicate
experiences which a man can h$ve? Are not the finely shaded,
deeper feelings, which take place in the mind of a highly civilized
man (Kulturmensch) , an irreplaceable condition for any profound
and genuine civilization (Kultur)? However one may regard
religion, one must admit that these very delicate feelings of
evaluation require tender care if they are not to perish utterly
in a harsh, material world. But before we can cultivate feelings
we must know them.

I. THE SITUATION IN MODERN PSYCHOLOGY

Let us look for a moment at present-day psychology, as far
as the time placed at our disposal permits. What can it tell us
concerning the study of feeling, particularly religious feeling?

Six years ago there appeared a searching investigation of the
mental structure of religious experience by my late teacher,
Karl Girgensohn. That work, which was originally intended
as a contribution to the theory of religious feeling and as an
exact test of Schleiermacher's theory of religion, attracted so
much attention that, despite its scope and the poverty of the
years after the World War, it was fully sold out in only five years.
In a first section the book gives a brief exposition of the various
contemporary theories of feeling. Practically all psychologists
who have worked at feeling are quoted: W. Wundt, O. Kiilpe,
H. Ebbinghaus, K. Biihler, E. Dlirr, S. Witasek, A. Messer,
C. Stumpf, and also R. Lagerborg, W. James, C. Lange, T. Ribot,
H. Munsterberg, G. Storring, F. Jodl, T. Lipps, H. Maier,
O. v.d. Pfordten, R. Muller-Freienfels, R. Honigswald, K. Oester-
reich, J. Orth, and others.

And what are the established results? The answer is a crushing
one for scientific psychology. It can be put in a few words:
Psychology is very far from agreement on what feelings are, what
mental states belong under them, and what their principal classes
are. When every investigator today sets up his own theory of
feeling, it simply means that psychology as science must answer
honestly: ignoramus. And of religious feeling we know least.
It is but slight consolation to know that the expression "feeling"
(das Gefiihl) occurs for the first time in the year 1691 (J. Orth),
and that it was introduced into scientific psychology only a
hundred years later by Tetens and especially by Kant, while
thought (ideation) and will have been elaborated for centuries.
In view of the situation described, we may well surmise the

374 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

presence of important methodic errors which hinder the steady
advance of the modern investigation of feeling.

No change in this situation is^ndicated by the present attempt
to carry on again with a purely rational psychology to elucidate
the nature of feeling in a purely conceptual manner (the Austrians:
A. v. Meinong, W. Schmied-Kowarzik, and others; in part also
the phenomenologists: E. Husserl, M. Scheler, and others).
Such work is, of course, meritorious. It must, however, be joined
to empirical observation of actual mental life; it must follow,
not precede. If not, it becomes speculative; it brings certain
theories arbitrarily into the actual state of affairs, and so confuses,
instead of amplifying, the psychological picture; it generalizes
before it has apprehended the fullness of reality, and so makes for
triteness. From this error, J. Leuba, S. Freud, and E. Jones are
not altogether free. The apparent unanimity which distinguishes
this group of rational theories of feeling favorably from all other
theories is, consequently, merely artificial; it is obtained through
the relinquishment of exact observation.

If science has not yet been able to set up a consistent theory
of feeling, it seems reasonable to turn bark to the language of
everyday life. This method is also followed, as we know, by the
experimental psychology of the higher mental life; its most refined
analyses always start out from the subjects' everyday vocabulary.
So we inquire: What do we mean in ordinary life when we speak
of feeling? What mental processes are in that case reckoned among
feelings?

The answer goes as follows: In everyday life we are acquainted
with an infinite number of feelings. Every dim or obscure stirring
of mental life is designated by that name. Indeed, the concept,
feeling, has become a veritable lumber-room into which we promptly
throw any internal process that we cannot or will not designate
clearly. A large number of such feelings have been already recog-
nized by the so-called pure psychologists, who, since the beginning
of the last century, have opposed the psychology of associa-
tionism, who stress exact description, and make no resort to
experiment: F. Brentano, Volkelt, W. Dilthey, E. Spranger,
T. Elsenhans, F. Jodl, v. Aster, Pfander, and others; my Munich
teacher, T. Lipps, also takes a leading position among them. In
the field of the psychology of religion we can mention R. Otto,
F. Heiler, I. W. Hauer, and, in part, W. James and M. Scheler.
They have the merit of having directed attention to the large
variety of religious feelings: fear, fright, awe, regret, calm,
exaltation, devoutness, and so on.

D. WERNER GRUEHN 375

E. B. Titchener, in his Text-Book of Psychology? mentions
casually 54 different feelings. A. Messer, in an experimental
investigation (1906), also makes casual mention of 70 feelings.
I have in my possession a list, wnich I happened to find four years
ago and which has not yet been published; in it are discriminated
525 feelings of common parlance. The number has since further
increased by about 50 feelings, and can easily be still more amplified.
Wundt, consequently, was right in his surmise that the number of
feelings is larger than the number of sensations, as of these it is
already possible to differentiate 1300 separate kinds (Orth).

But what can we do with so many feelings? Obviously, nothing
more than with the two feelings, pleasantness and unpleasantness.
Application requires an ordering, a grouping of this multiplicity;
else nothing can be done with it. We have just seen, however,
that scientific psychology has so far been unable to give us such
an arrangement. Neither the logicians, who wrongly call them-
selves Analytiker, nor the pure psychologists, now known also
as phenomenologists, go very much further than ordinary observa-
tion does. It is obvious that science must take altogether new
roads in order to get ahead in this difficult field. Let us now turn
to these new roads, and first of all to the important question of
method.

II. METHODS

In the history of psychology the year 1900 means very much,
because at about that time Oswald Ktilpe had already found
altogether new methods for the exact determination of the higher
mental life. He was a pupil of Wilhelm Wundt, and had been
trained by this great man of science in precise experimental
observation. The significance and the limits of the Wundtian
experimental procedure and his doctrine of feeling are so generally
known that we can pass over them. Kiilpe was not content with
measuring, as Wundt had done, only the external reactions of
feeling. He went much farther. He was primarily concerned
with obtaining as complete a description as possible of the internal
processes.

The details of our inner life we know only through self-
observation. If our self -observation were, in fact, reportable with
full precision and exactness, we should now be already excellently
informed concerning our inner life. Everything, therefore, depends
upon improving self-observation as much as possible. How is
this improvement to be obtained? There are three places in an

1 German edition by O. Klemm, Lehrbuch der Psychohgie (Leipzig: Barth,
1910), I, 225.

376 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

experiment where it comes in: in the experience, in the observa-
tion, and in the report. More precisely, it means that the desired
experience of the subject can be produced in accordance with a
regular plan; that the subject's sllf -observation can be made very
much more exact by the aid of special measures; and that the
subject's report of the results of his observation can be rendered
as precise as possible (by recording it immediately, by the use of
shorthand, by increased practice, and so on). In the simple
formula, experience-observation-report, is in fact summed up the
whole of the ingenious technical advance which Kiilpe achieved.
How great this advance is we realize also when we consider that,
methodically, even the remarkable psychological descriptions of
the poets have a similar origin. What gives their portrayals its
exclusive value is the depth and the individuality of their expe-
rience, the accuracy of their observation, and the consummate
art of their narration.

The practical success of the Ktilpean procedure has been
demonstrated by his pupils, the so-called Wiirzburg School:
K. Marbe, H. J. Watt, A. Messer, K. Blihler, A. Griinbaum,
G. Storring, B. Schanof, O. Selz, L. Rangette, J. Lindworsky,
A. Westphal, N. Ach, J. Orth, K. Koffka, A. Mager, Segal,
Legowsky, Michotte, Prum, (in the psychology of religion especially)
T. L. Haring, K. Girgensohn, W. Stahlin, A. Canesi, W. Gruehn,
and others. As I showed in my 1924 review, this school has subject-
ed to exact investigation the most varied provinces of mind:idea-
tional activity, thought, the processes of volition and the affective
life (Orth and Storring), the processes of aesthetics, choice, and
evaluation, and the religious experience.

The progress thus achieved is not slight. To be sure, in com-
parison with the great advances which, with the help of improved
methods, can certainly be made in the next decades, it is infini-
tesimally small. It is not small when compared with our psycho-
logical knowledge to date. For it is quite astonishing how every
one of the investigations already made has brought to light from
the depths of mental life utterly new material. Connections, acts,
even the course of individual acts, which formerly were closed
to observation, are becoming clearly discernible. Most important
of all, almost every investigation confirms the results of preceding
investigations, so that in this way we are finally getting again in
psychology concordant, hence certain, scientific judgments. The
sole disadvantage, the laboriousness, and the length of these
investigations, does not counterbalance seriously the great
advantages. We may then expect that this experimental mode of
research will soon receive another impetus, after having suffered

D. WERNER GRUEHN 377

in Europe from Klilpe's death and from the post-war mania of
uncritical speculation.

Just a few words more about the methods of investigation
of religious feeling. I disregara A. F. Shand's thoroughgoing
investigation, since it analyzes primarily the instinctive life and,
furthermore, pursues different methods.

Already in 1903, J. Orth published results in accordance with
the Kulpean method. His stimuli were tuning-fork tones, odors,
colored figures, noises, lines, and points. The concrete results were
rather slight. Yet the discovery of a particular class of experiences,
Bewusstseinslagen, as he called them on Marbe's suggestion, was
a very valuable outcome. Though before unknown, they play
a big role in the mental states which are designated as feeling.
They enter into connection with the feelings of doubt, certainty,
uncertainty, contrast, acquiescence, immediate cognition, and
so on.

In 1914, W. Stahlin went farther. He presented to his subjects
selected religious passages. These passages evoked certain
impressions and feelings, of which a detailed report was required.
He, too, came across peculiar, as yet unknown factors of feeling,
which became understood as a result of later studies.

Then came K. Girgensohn. In his work, which we have already
mentioned, he followed up the religious feelings in a most com-
prehensive manner. He presented to his subjects carefully
selected religious compositions, which he had them read a number
of times during the experimental period. After every reading,
the subject had to report in detail upon his experiences during
the reading. There were twenty-eight compositions and fourteen
subjects. There were also supplementary association experi-
ments, carefully planned conversations on religious questions,
and the like. It will interest Americans to know that this study
was preceded by experiments, in 1909-10, which were carried
out with a combination of Starbuck's questionnaire. The results
of this most important work will be treated in the following section.
The method is still imperfect, as Girgensohn himself admitted.
It gives us insight more into the statics than into the dynamics
of religious life. Yet Girgensohn, like James, knows how to handle
masterfully an imperfect method.

In 1913, and independently of Girgensohn, T. L. Haring,
another pupil of Ktilpe, published a study of the processes of
evaluation. Provided with a large stock of stimulus-words and
carefully chosen instructions, he follows up the processes, which
have not yet received experimental treatment, of logical, economic,
aesthetic, and moral evaluation. But his results, as I have shown

378 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

and as Haring admitted, still do not go very deep and are im-
portant chiefly to logical evaluation. The lack of preliminary work
in this difficult field and a pronounced speculative disposition
rendered the getting of new facfe difficult.

I began my studies of the experience of evaluation in 1913 by
building upon the methods of my predecessors. Instructions and
stimulus-words were brought into closer relation to each other,
reaction-times were reduced, and the stimulus-words were short-
ened. In this way I succeeded not only in scrutinizing minute
processes but also in uncovering previously unknown mental
structures. Girgensohn, in particular, repeatedly pointed out
the advance here achieved.

Afterward, H. Lorenzsohn, one of my pupils, made a detailed
study, by a similar method, of the most central religious feelings.
It is to be hoped that he will soon be able to publish the results,
which are novel in part and very interesting. Other pupils of
Girgensohn's, C. Schneider and E. Nobiling, have studied the
individual and genetic aspects of religious experience.

A. Canesi, a pupil of Gemelli and Klilpe, went so far as to inves-
tigate experimentally the life of prayer. He follows Girgensohn's
investigations and mine, but he believes that he can do without
a more refined experimental technique because his subjects are
all selected and very pious. This is a very instructive error. To
be sure, in this way Canesi obtained results of a very high religious
status; but the reports are not precise. Thus his results, like those
of Stahlin, who came at the beginning of this series, in spite of
a wealth of material derived from many subjects, are quite hazy
and not perspicuous. The attempts show convincingly that no
other advantages can replace refinement of psychological technique.

Looking back, we see in the methodic development of the study
of religious feeling an unretarded progress in depth. The method
has already become indispensable. From fruitless speculations,
from theories of the seat of feeling, from discord-producing
conceptual analyses, and so on, our methods turn more and
more to the individual concrete phenomena of mental life which
are not too distant from ordinary life, and, by intensified self-
observation, try to penetrate deep into the structure of mind.
Thus they come closer and closer to real life, which the results in
the last section will confirm.

Truly, the more precise these observations become in detail, the
more do they require supplementary methods. Microscopic obser-
vation must be supplemented with macroscopic observation. The
larger connections of mental life must not be forgotten on account
of the details. At this point the methods of pure psychology

D. WERNER GRTJEHN 379

(J. Volkelt and T. Lipps) and of phenomenology (E. Husserl
and M. Scheler), which we criticized earlier, become extraordi-
narily important. The same is ^rue of the modern psychology of
Gestalt, \jdiose need was early recognized by D. F. Schleiermacher,
H. Cornelius, C. v. Ehrenfels, and others, and which is now
successfully represented by M. Wertheimer, W. Kohler, K. Koffka,
F. Krueger, K. Biihler, F. Sander, and others. It has grown out
of the realization that a one-sided analysis of mental life, a
mere resolution into elements, is dangerous to scientific psy-
chology and breaks up mind in an unreal manner. At the same
time it tries to find clear concepts for the unresolvable totality-
character of mental life and of its individual structures and
phenomena. Yet it seems to me that this tendency which is
gaining ground in Germany is to be invoked not in opposition
to but as supplementing experimental analysis. This was the
standpoint of Girgensohn in his description of the religious states
of pleasantness and unpleasantness (supra, p. 383 ff.). In my
Religionspsychologie, I, too, devoted a separate section to synthetic
normal psychology (p. 106 ff.). Decisive advances in getting new
facts are to be expected, as I believe I have shown, chiefly from
analytical experimentation.

III. RESULTS

Girgensohn's impressive analyses will long remain a model for
the study of religious feeling. He shows that subjects mean very
different things when they talk of feelings, but, in the main, two
classes of experiences. In the first class, the observer's self plays
a decisive role, either as self-perception or as self-function. Gir-
gensohn mentions in this connection agreement and rejection
(cf. supra, J. Orth, activity and passivity). Thus it is certain
acts, activities of the self, that are termed feelings. In the second
class, feeling has definite contents. Either organic sensations
appear (cf. James-Lange's theory, Leuba, Freud), or the well-
known feelings of pleasantness and unpleasantness, intuitive
thoughts, or reproductive bases, memories, and impalpable
cognition (cf. supra, J. Orth). Here very refined mental operations
are regarded as feelings. We can only mention the fact that
Girgensohn has also very significant evidence for the nature of
intuitive thinking, for the importance of organic sensations, for
the topography of the field of consciousness, and the like.

The following result is particularly important. If we take
together all the mentioned factors of the religious affective life,
we come close to the experience which Schleiermacher understood

380 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

by the terms, religion or feeling. In the genuine religious expe-
rience, ideas, discursive thinking, and processes of volition are
secondary. The experimental psychology of religion has brought
us farther. It shows us that religion, or what is ordinarily under-
stood as religious feeling, is a specific compound, synthesis, or
Gestalt, in which the two groups just mentioned appear in intimate
fusion with each other. It is at the same time self-function and
mental operation.

Of special interest are the self-functions, a class of elementary
mental processes for whose emphasis Girgensohn deserves credit.
In these functions or mental acts, the total self, the personality,
enters into intimate personal relation with the idea of God. It
is already clear how important these results are to pedagogy.
Rationalism, voluntarism, the Herbartian one-sided stress upon
sense-presentation in education, impersonal "objective" religious
instruction are absolutely mistaken. The sources of the religious
affective life lie elsewhere.

In my studies of the experience of evaluation, I tried to supple-
ment and carry on the investigations of Girgensohn. His defini-
tion of self-function is still very ambiguous. We have seen that
he subsumes under it activity, and he does the same with atten-
tion and the like. I succeeded a point which Girgensohn himself
had stressed in throwing more light upon these self-functions.

The central group I have called acts of appropriation. They
are specific mental acts which bear the character of experiences
of inner contact. Whatever thus comes into touch or most
intimate contact with the self becomes a personal possession of
the self, becomes a part of it. These processes bear the character
of experiences in the highest degree; they are "events" in mental
life; they bear the character of microscopic conversions (Bekeh-
rungen), as E. D. Starbuck has described them. The impressions
thus received form the depths of mental life. They seem to have
an outstanding share in the building-up of the individual self.
A peculiar hierarchical arrangement, a "monarchical principle"
(O. Ktilpe), brings the individual ideas and thoughts into a sys-
tematic connection of superordination and subordination. In
my Religionspsychologie, I described the course and the stages
of these acts. In my Psychologic des Jugendlichen, I pointed out
pedagogical consequences of this discovery. It appears that
the important religious acts or "feelings" of faith and love follow
exactly the same laws as the self-functions. Indeed, that was to
be expected.

I must content myself with the results I have given as examples
of the modern investigation of religious feeling, although there

D. WERNER GRUEHN 381

are other most noteworthy things to report upon in the above-
mentioned works. It is generally admitted that the published
protocols deserve special attention. For they offer the possibility
of studying with great refinement the true life of mind.

It is especially important that these results may already be
regarded as secure. For we can clearly observe in the studies
of Orth, Stahlin, Girgensohn, Gruehn, Canesi, and also Haring,
A. Bolley, and in those not yet published how the same central
processes, though variously and independently executed and
guided by different motives, appear again and again, are appre-
hended from quite different points of view, but, as the method
progresses, can be diagnosticated more and more univocally.

At the same time, we find confirmation of certain casual (all
the more refined non-experimental results are in a measure
accidental), very interesting, but frequently contested results of
non-experimental psychologists; in a larger context they become
comprehensible. So, it seems to me, the doctrine of self-functions
throws light upon some peculiar observations of medical psy-
chology and of pure psychology: the concept of transfer (Freud),
identification (A. Maeder), empathy (Lipps, Volkelt), love and
hate (Brentano, Scheler), and the concept of a depth dimension
in mental life (J. S. Mill, Volkelt, Lipps, Scheler, Schmied-
Kowarzik, Orth, Krueger, and others).

If we take the results here described and those only indicated,
Girgensohn is quite right in saying that the first task of the
psychology of religious feeling can now, thanks to experiment,
be regarded as solved, namely, the analysis of the fundamental
elements and structures of religious life. We are now faced with
the second task, equally important and no easier, of the unitary
arrangement of the most important religious feelings and the deeper
understanding of all the immense variety of forms of religious life
from the newly obtained unitary points of view. The execution
of this task also opens up very wide perspectives.

For the progress of the doctrine of religious feeling here sketched
is of no small importance for the whole of mental life. Let us,
at the conclusion as we have done at the beginning, look into these
distances. One hundred years ago German classical idealism
(Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel) made the gigantic attempt of
creating a unitary and comprehensive world-view of the whole
of modern science and civilization (Kultur). After Plato and
Aristotle, it was the second attempt of the sort in the history of
man. The attempt failed, and led, as we now clearly see, to the
terrible debacle of present European civilization. But now we
see even more clearly the mistakes which frustrated the attempt.

382 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

First, the last peaks of mental life were sought in mysticism
(Fichte), and in religious rationalism (Hegel) not in that still
higher sphere in which, as I havg shown, the inwardness of mys-
ticism and the spirituality of intuitive thought combine into the
mysterious experience of true piety. As a result of this error, the
nineteenth century clung to a false religiosity, and neglected
those genuine sources out of which the peoples and civilizations
of earlier centuries drew, again and again, rejuvenating power.

The second error was seen, but could not then be eliminated.
Kant wanted to establish exact mental sciences this was one of
the starting-points of his famous Kritiken which were to be
as securely founded as the natural sciences. To do this he had to
have very comprehensive and precise work chiefly in the field of
mental life, the common basis of all the mental sciences. Since
this work was not available, there resulted the familiar one-sided
structure of science and civilization, the underestimation of the
mental and the spiritual, the perverse overestimation of the
material world, and the spiritual debility of Europe. These
two errors stand in perspicuous connection with the doctrine of
religious feeling.

Humanity is today working again with profound earnestness
at a re-establishment of the whole of its material and spiritual
possession. Again, as a hundred years ago, the unsolved problems
come up. Will we succeed in the exact treatment of the pro-
found problems and in the attainment of the goal which Kant
saw? That it is not unattainable is shown in small part by the
progress of experimental research in the field of religious feeling.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. LOGISCHE PSYCHOLOGIE

1. HUSSERL, E. Logische Untersuchungen. Halle: Niemeyer, 1912.

2. MEINONG, A. v. Psychologisch-ethische Untersuchungen zur Werttheorie.
1894.

3. MULLER, A. Psychologic. Berlin: Dummler, 1927.

4. 1 Gotteserlebnis und Welterkenntnis. Festschrift fur J. Volkelt.

Munich, 1918.

5. SCHELER, M. Xur Phanomenologie und Theorie der Sympathiegefuhle.
Halle: Niemeyer, 1913, 1923.

6. SCHMIED-KOWARZIK, W. Umriss einer analytischen Psychologic. Leipzig:
Barth, 1912.

II. HEINE PSYCHOLOGIE
1. JAMES, W. The principles of psychology. New York: Holt, 1890.

2 > T| le varieties of religious experience. New York: Longmans,

Green, 1902.

D. WERNER GRUEHN 383

8. LIPPS, TH. Vom Fiihlen, Denken, und Wolleii. Leipzig: Earth, 1902, 1907.

4. MAIER, H. Psychologic des emotionalen Denkens. Tubingen: Mohr, 1908.

5. RIBOT, TH. La psychologic des sentiments. Paris: Alcan, 1896.

6. SCHLETERMACHEB, D. FR. Rcden ifber Religion. 1799.

III. EXPERIMENTELLE PsYCHOLOGIE

A. AUgemein

1. KRUEGER, F. Die Tiefendimension und die Gegensatzlichkeit des Gefiihls-
lebens. Festschrift ftir J. Volkelt. Munich, 1918.

2. . Komplexqualitaten, Gestalten und Gefiihle. Munich: Beck,

1926.

3. LEUBA, J. Psychologic der religiosen Mystik. Munich: Bergmann, 1927.

4. McDouGALL, W. An introduction to social psychology. London: Methuen,
1908, 1922.

5. SHAND, A. F. The foundations of character. London: Macmillan, 1920.

6. STARBUCK, E. D. The psychology of religion. London: Scott, 1899, 1901.

7. TITCHENER, E. B. Lectures on the elementary psychology of feeling and
attention. New York: Macmillan, 1908.

B. Wurzburger Schule

1. BOLLEY, A. Die Betrachtung als psychologisches Problem. Banner Zeii-
schriftfur Theologie, 1924.

2. CANESI, A. Ricerche preliminari sulla psicologia della preghiera. Con-
tributi del laboratorio di psicologia della Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano,
Series I, Vol. I (1925), No. 4, pp. 247-315.

3. GIRGENSOHN, K. Der seelische Aufbau des religiosen Erlebens: eine
religionspsychologische Untersuchung auf experimenteller Grundlage. 1921.

4. . Die Erscheinungsweisen religioser Gedanken. Brricht uber den

VIII. Kongress fur experimentelle Psychologic, 1924.

5. . Religionspsychologie, Religions wissenschaft und Theologie.

Leipzig, Erlangen: A. Deichert, 1923, 1925.

6. GRUEHN, W. K. Girgensohns religionspsychologische Entwicklung. Archiv
fur die gesamte Psychologic, LV (1926), 219-250.

7. . Das Werterlebnis: eine religionspsychologische Studie auf

experimenteller Grundlage. Leipzig: Hirzel, 1924.

g Religionspsychologie. Breslau: Hirt, 1926.

9 Psychologic des Jugendlichen mit besondere Berucksichtigung

der religiosen Erscheinungen. Handbuch fiir d. ev. Jungmannerarb. Deutschlands,
ed. by E. Stange, I (1927).

10. HARING, TH. L. Untersuchungen zur Psychologic der Wertung. Archiv
fur die gesamte Psychologic, 1913.

11. KULPE, O. Grundriss der Psychologic. Leipzig: Engelmann, 1893.
12. . Vorlesungen iiber Psychologic. Ed. by K. Biihler. Leipzig:

Hirzel, 1920, 1922.

13. MESSER, A. Psychologic. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlag, 1914.

14. ORTH, J. Geftihl und Bewusstseinslage: eine kritisch-experimentelle
Studie. Berlin: Reuther & Reichert, 1903.

15. RATTZ VON FRENTZ, E. Bedeutung, Ursprung und Sein der Gefuhle.
Scholastik, II (1927), No. 3.

384 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

16. STAHLIN, W. Experimentelle Untersuchungen zur . . . Religions-
psychologie. Archivfur Religionspsychologie, I (1914).

17. STORKING, G. Psychologic des menschlichen Gefuhlslebens. Bonn:
Cohen, 1916. u

IV. MEDIZINISCHE PSYCHOLOGIE

1. ADLER, A. TJeber den nervosen Charakter. 1922.

2. FREUD, S. Studien iiber Hysteric. 1895.

3. SCHULTZ, I. H. Seelische Krankenbehandlung. Jena: Fischer, 1918, 1922.

DISCUSSION

DR. REYMERT: Dr. Gruehn's paper is now open for discussion. May I call
upon Dr. Biihler to please voice his opinion?

DR. BthiLER (University of Vienna): I do not want to speak first in this dis-
cussion. I should prefer to be the last speaker. Dr. Schneider can answer as well
as I. Do you agree to that?

DR. REYMERT: Surely. Any questions or comments from anyone? I believe
from my own impressions at several national conventions of psychology in America,
at which I have been present, that the experimental attack on the psychology of
religion, as we should know it through the Kiilpe-Girgensohn method, and from
the work of Biihler, Schneider, and others, is somewhat unknown among American
workers as yet. I think that we should use this opportunity, having both Dr.
Biihler and Dr. Schneider here, to ask any questions our hearts desire. Let us
start in.

DR. WEISS (Ohio State University): I should like to ask for a more complete
analysis of the self-function. In religious feelings two kinds were mentioned, the
self-function and the object-function.

DR. SCHNEIDER (Wittenberg College): This is not easy to explain in the short
time at our disposal. It means that finally all religious experience can be analyzed
into two functions: we may say, in the more popular terminology, into an emo-
tional function and an intellectual function, that is, the self-related function or
ego-function, which has qualitative tones of emotional character. At the same
time every religious experience goes inherently together with an objective relation,
a more or less intuitive thought process. This thought process is an experience
of a transcendent object. These two functions may be found in the psychology
of Augustine. He makes a difference between amare and intellcgere in the religious
experience. We also have it in the psychological observations of the mysticists.

DR. WEISS: I understand, then, that this ego-function, so far as religious feel-
ings are concerned, is dominant.

DR. SCHNEIDER: Yes, yes.

DR. BUHLER: Yes.

PROFESSOR CROWL (University of Michigan)'. As I understand it, the chief
characteristic of the technique under discussion was that of having persons explain,
at some sort of request, their feelings which are supposed to be of a religious nature.
Without meaning to criticize, I should like to ask the speaker what his opinion is
of a supplementary method, that of employing the spontaneous religious writings
of adolescents as apparent from diaries and religious poetry?

DR. SCHNEIDER: We do not put questions to our observers. I think Dr. Gruehn
has been misunderstood. The process is that we give religious stimuli, religious
poems, or better, short striking religious sentences; we have tried it also with
pictures, and I tried it here with religious tunes and melodies. We give the stimulus
and then the observer has, with his definite Einstellung, to read, hear, or see this
stimulus and then give us an introspective report. All other methods would be

D. WERNER GRUEHN 385

useful as supplementary methods, and when you read Girgensohn's books you
will find he also has often used such supplementary methods.

DR. ERICSON (Upsala College): Has it been observed in these experiments that
the subject really changes his report, i. e., that his reaction is reported differently
at different times? What came to my mind was the suggestion given somewhere
of the possibility that the physiological condition of the subject has something to
do with his reaction to the religious stimuli.

DR. SCHNEIDER: Certainly it has. A complete description has to include all
these things: physiological condition, Einstellung, i. e., "general mood." Dr.
Ericson's question refers to a genetic process. Some religious experiences con-
tinuously change, but we can also observe some structural lines which run through
all protocols, under all possible conditions. To bring this out in detail I should have
to cite too many instances.

DR. BUHLER: I think Dr. Schneider has answered all questions so well and so
definitely that I have nothing more to add.

PART VII

History of the Psychology of
Feelings and Emotions

CHAPTER 33

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE
THEORY OF EMOTIONS

G. S. BRETT

University of Toronto

It seems proper that in a symposium on feelings and emotions
some account should be given of the long history of the subject.
The development of all the sciences has been so rapid in the past
century that no one can expect to find in the records of antiquity,
or even of comparatively recent times, any significant addition
to knowledge. But the function of the historian is quite distinct
from that of the experimenter or the theorist. In the common
language of today, history is a cultural subject. It serves to open
the mind to the long periods of time during which men have
pursued truth. It also provides a perspective in which it is pos-
sible to see the variety of interests which dominate research,
often influencing the whole trend of thought for long periods of
time and inclining men to accept theories which afterwards appear
misguided and limited. The historian, for better or for worse,
is committed to the labor of going back along the highway of
progress and discovering the ideas and suggestions which, though
no longer remembered in their original form, are none the less
landmarks in the general advance.

In the limited time which this subject can claim on the program
it would be futile to attempt any detailed history of what has
been said about emotions. Omissions will be numerous and can
easily be pardoned. While some subjects in the field of psychology
have been more or less adequately traced by historians, there
seems to be no adequate survey of the theories of emotion, and
it is to be hoped that the task will be undertaken some day by
someone with sufficient leisure and ability. A probable reason
for this state of affairs is the fact that no subject in the whole
field of psychology is more complex or indeterminate than the
emotions. The conditions under which they can be observed
are not such as would naturally produce exact results; but those
conditions are so common and so frequent that descriptions and
classifications have been recorded from the earliest times and
exist in bewildering confusion.

G. S. BRETT 389

All scientific work emerges from a background of uncritical
observation. Though the earliest efforts may have little perma-
nent value, they often contain elements of truth which help to
direct thought into the right cnannels. In so large and difficult
a field as that of human behavior it would not be surprising if
some shrewd observer, unhampered by the accumulation of
theories, were to make a contribution as valuable as it was simple.
Though the Greeks were by no means primitive, they came very
near the beginning of Western civilization, and they may be
said to have created the first systematic account of the human
organism and its functions. In so doing they started from a pure
and unprejudiced naturalism, which stands out in the history of
thought as distinctively as Greek sculpture. For the Greek
thinker, man was an animal, distinguished from other animals
by two characteristics the power of calculative reason and the
capacity for social organization. The science of human conduct
was a part of natural science, and the two great exponents of this
theory, Plato and Aristotle, constructed their interpretation of
human life on the basis of the contemporary science of medicine.
Though the nervous system was at that time undiscovered, the
apparatus at their disposal was not wholly inadequate. The
" humors'* were a good basis for clinical descriptions. The idea
of a physiological balance was expressly formulated; disease,
mental and physical, could be usefully catalogued in terms of
the excess and defect in the quality and quantity of the humors.
The Hippocratic School was responsible for the authoritative
statement which put all diseases on the same natural level and
banished the supernatural from the sphere of medicine.

The mental and the physical are only known in correlation;
he would be a bold man who would assert more than that. It
is therefore not contrary to the logic of scientific thought that
sometimes one and sometimes the other should exhibit an inde-
pendent advance. Psychology as a science of behavior can go
a long way in the analysis of conduct without committing itself
to physiological dogmas. The fact that Greek physiology was
not within sight of the real truth most of the time is not a reason
for refusing to acknowledge the contributions made to psychology.
As a historical fact it is clear that the psychological descriptions
succeeded in spite of the defective physiology. In the subjects
with which we are now concerned the fundamental concept em-
ployed was that of activity or vital motion. With a large and
generous outlook Plato calls this eros, popularly translated love
but more correctly interpreted by the word libido. Greek natural-
ism, consciously opposed to the Oriental sentiments, took its

390 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

stand on the three fundamental ideas of food and drink and sex.
Accordingly the emotional life is mainly dependent on the various
manifestations of these three primary drives. But the virtue of
the Greek method is found in the kkill with which these elementary
forces are kept in relation with the progressive civilization of the
human animal. As the level of development rises, the nature of
the satisfaction changes; aesthetic and intellectual satisfaction
are as real as food and mating. What Plato called eros Aristotle
described as orexis, the conation of the later Latin writers. This
is simply the biological will-to-live, the life-energy itself. In
Aristotle the details are more systematically elaborated and we
have a remarkably complete sketch of the evolution of conduct.
The primary elements are the purely somatic energies the ferocity
of the animal in defending its life and the hunger that seeks food.
But with the expansion of life these develop into acquisitiveness,
desire for fame, sensitiveness to insult, and all the other modifica-
tions which accompany the evolution of the social group. This
sense for the different forms of the original affective state is a very
interesting point. Fear, for example, covers a variety of states
ranging from timidity and dread of pain to that kind of fear
which is only possible to a creature that hopes and plans Many
things cause fear, but they are all reducible to one class : the typical
fear is fear of death, and all other causes are forms of this original
type. Similarly Aristotle makes a significant point when he
distinguishes between the feeling which belongs to natural hunger
and the craving which results from acquired habit and self-
indulgence.

These suggestions must suffice at the present time to support
the claim that the Greeks hold an important place in the history
of this subject. By taking a simple basis of "motion to " and " mo-
tion from," the seeking and the avoiding reactions of modern
writers, they were able to construct a plan of behavior which still
repays consideration. The affective states were recognized as a
distinct class; in them the subject undergoes a change in some
way distinct from the changes which constitute perception.
They are more deeply organic than intellectual processes; they
move to action, for intellect cannot produce motion. They are
the various forms in which the original dynamic energy of life is
expressed; for desire is the primary factor in life and the emotions
are the deeper stirrings of nature. That Aristotle thought feeling
is controlled chiefly by success or failure in the realization of
purpose, conscious or unconscious, seems clearly indicated by
his definition of pleasure as "the accompaniment of unimpeded
activity."

G. S. BRETT 391

In popular thought the Stoics and Epicureans are considered
to have been excessively preoccupied with the problems of feeling
and emotion. There is truth in^this view, but the popular tradi-
tion omits the subtlety of their actual theories. Both parties
accepted the view that emotions are actually forms of motion,
of being "moved," as we say; emotions were reduced to the for-
mula of positive and negative directions of motion. In the normal
state the emotion in the proper sense was not found; all emotions
were forms of disease, or, as we should say, abnormal states of
excitement. The normal state was a point of equilibrium called
tranquillity, a point on the scale of feeling to which the person
returns after divergence either toward elation or toward depres-
sion. Amid the lengthy moralizing of a school more interested in
controlling than analyzing emotions, there are many acute de-
scriptions which seem to express in cruder language the ideas of
tension, relaxation, sthenic or asthenic states, and similar classi-
fications revived in the last century. Moreover this doctrine was
not merely theoretical, for the variations of the pulse were elab-
orately studied by the Alexandrian schools of medicine. There is
an old story of the Arab physician who discovered by variations
of the pulse which lady of the harem was disturbing the tranquillity
of the royal patient. The fact that this story appears in several
forms is good evidence of the extent to which the volume-pulse
method was practically applied when emotional disturbances were
suspected.

The Oriental writers invariably describe emotions in terms of
somatic conditions, and such picturesque phrases as "the bowels
of mercy" perpetuate their memory. The Greeks, too, employed
a language which showed that they assigned emotional states a
place in the middle parts of the body. In spite of this there seems
to be a widespread notion that all the older theories were intellec-
tualistic and took no account of anything but a vague entity called
a soul. It is true that as the science of behavior became more
complex it was felt necessary to give the psychic factors a place
in the description of emotions; but even so the important writers
continued a form of bookkeeping by double entry: anger, for
example, might originate in the idea of the wrong inflicted but
it was also a " boiling of the blood about the heart. " Psychologists,
along with other people, will have to revise their ideas of mediaeval
doctrines and cease to refer to that period as though it were exclu-
sively an age of theological abstractions. The chief defect of that
age was a love of formal classifications and it is more than probable
that we have not yet recovered from the influence it exerted on the
earlier modern writers It is to be recorded as a virtue of the classi-

392 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

cal Greek writers that they made no attempt to devise a complete
list of emotions. Fear, pity, love, hate, and some others are quoted
as examples, but there is no systematic order and no finality is
attempted.

The Revival of Learning merely brought into vogue the original
Aristotelian and Stoic views. Aristotle had expressly likened ani-
mals to machines operated by the inner forces just as a puppet
is worked by wires. Descartes, anxious to exploit his physiology,
revived this method of treatment. It was an easy way of shaking
off many difficult problems and offered a prospect of reducing
emotions to the laws of mechanics; the dynamics of expansion and
contraction were adequate to explain the affective or passive
states. The fashion spread rapidly, because all theory was tem-
porarily in bondage to the clearness and distinctness of the ideas
which Galileo formulated. It was a fallacious simplicity, but of a
kind which has often made an equally successful appeal. Also it
could easily be combined with the formulae that survived in the
Aristotelian tradition. Hobbes, inspired by Galileo, proceeded to
reduce all mental phenomena to modes of motion and reproduced
verbatim his own translation of Aristotle's Rhetoric. Malebranche,
intoxicated by the Cartesian wine, emphasized contractions and
dilatations so effectively that he has been proclaimed the fore-
runner of James and Lange, a discovery which is less remarkable
when we remember that Lange refers to Malebranche as virtually
anticipating his theory. The "machinamentum corporis" was a
regulative idea in the eighteenth century and slowly penetrated
the last strongholds of rationalism. But it remained a barren
theory, a testimony to the futility of all attempts to reduce
experience to the artificial language of mechanics.

The subject of emotions was saved from complete extinction
by the influence of two new movements the novel and biology.
The sudden emergence of the novel in the middle of the eighteenth
century is a curious event. There can be no reasonable doubt that
it was a by-product of the individualistic philosophy which had
conquered England and France. The sentimental superseded the
rational; the sentimental journey and the sentimental novel were
now fashionable, and the rigidity of logical systems was ignored.
The Romantic School was interested in the variety of human emo-
tions and popularized the idea that emotions were really important.
As students of life the Romantics joined hands with the biologists,
notably in the case of Goethe who was an epitome of the whole
movement. There are still no greater descriptions of the emotional
life of individuals than those produced during this period. Psy-
chologists have made too little use of this literature, though Shand

G. S. BRETT 393

set a good example and Miss Edgell has recently drawn attention
to it. On the more scientific side we find at this period a revived
interest in the physical expression of the emotions. Sir Charles
Bell's Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression may be called the
first attempt to make a science of expression. The way for this had
really been prepared by the great artists to artists and actors
the psychologists owe a considerable debt.

From this point progress during the nineteenth century has
been considerable and varied. The names of Wundt, Darwin, and
Bain naturally rise in the mind, and at the present time in this, as
in all branches of psychology, we may say of the workers that their
name is legion. The object of this rapid survey is twofold. First,
in the interests of the historical approach I have aimed to suggest
how much there is to correct in current opinions about our pred-
ecessors and how much might be gained by adorning psychology
with the greatness of its own tradition. Secondly, I have tried to
trace the variety of interests which converge on this subject of
emotions. At the present time they seem to run parallel. There
are first, the description and classification of normal emotions;
second, the experimental analysis; third, the contributions from
the field of abnormal psychology, psychoanalysis, and the like.
In all this there is great confusion and variety of opinion. A list
of emotions implies that there are emotions to be listed. If the
list is correlated with a list of instincts, there is a double implication;
namely, that there are both instincts and emotions and that they
are related in some definite way. This structure would collapse
if either instincts or emotions were found to be illusory entities.
There is no doubt about the utility of such schemes but at the same
time there is no guarantee of their finality or adequacy. We must
accept the lesson of history, that a new truth is generally discovered
later to have been a half-truth. The experimental approach has a
hard task in the case of emotions. It plays its part in determining
the endosomatic responses and they are perhaps the most definite
factors today in the whole range of literature on the emotions.
But whether we talk of secretions or galvanometric measurements
it is very obvious that we are only selecting one aspect of a total
response; there is no successful generalization of the facts and no
satisfactory explanation of the causation or the correlation implied.

When we turn from the experimental to the clinical approach,
we seem to be in another world. For those who reject the un-
conscious altogether, there can be little interest in the study of
this material and the opponents are apparently irreconcilable.
I cannot pretend to pass any judgment on the merits of the case,
but a study of the recent works in this field suggests the need for

394 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

some distinction between the emotions as usually described and
the kind of experience which the clinical psychologist describes.
The influence of animal psychology and of the physiological schools
that flourished in Germany has been allowed to obscure the pos-
sibility of an evolution of the emotions. There is no a priori
reason why the emotions should not evolve; the assumption that
they do not seems to be little more than an oversight. If they
did, the most natural and obvious mistake would be to confuse
the different levels. This has been the worst effect of the inter-
pretation usually put on such theories as the James-Lange; be-
cause they are indisputably right up to a certain point they are
stretched over the rest of the area. It is noticeable that some
writers are addicted to the use of the word biological; we are
assured that the instincts and their visceral accompaniments
are what they are because of their biological importance. But,
properly speaking, this importance is known only to the theorist;
an animal certainly does not exhibit fear or rage because self-
preservation is the first law of life. The word biological, if it is
given an exact meaning, implies a relation between the act and
the consequences of the act for either the individual or the race.
This relation is no part of any behavior unless we assume that
the behavior is influenced by memory or purpose. Behavior is
only biological for the scientific observer; for the agent it is
psychological. If the psychologist' is confident that emotions are
gut-reactions, he need not complicate matters by calling them
biological. We may, presumably, accept as an established fact
that instincts are equivalent to muscular reactions and emotions
equivalent to visceral reactions. On this basis it would seem ad-
visable to attempt a comparative study of emotions. It may be
that all the theories are right, but that they require to be sorted
out on some evolutionary principle. At one end of the scale the
types of reaction would approximate a type of compound reflex
response. The instinct and the emotion would then be so far
undifferentiated that the terms need not be discussed; the general
diffusion of excitement would adequately account for all forms
of behavior at this level. The emotion as a differentiated factor
would then emerge at that point on the scale of development at
which we are prepared to say that a situation has meaning, using
that word to denote any form of connection between the given
situation and other situations either remembered or anticipated.
This higher level, defined in terms of organic development and
ultimately of brain-development, would carry with it more or less
modified forms of the primitive type of reaction; it would be
emotional both on account of the bodily reverberation and the

G. S. BRETT 395

psychic tension. In defense of this suggestion I would appeal to
the very significant results reported by Helga Eng in the book
called Experimental Investigation^ into the Emotional Life of the
Child Compared with that of the Adult. The results reported in
this work are derived from exact experiments in which the measure-
ment of physiological expression is the method of investigation.
The definition of the emotion is therefore derived from the bodily
changes and the investigation is in line with the modern methods
in this respect. But the conclusions show important modifications
and are particularly significant in demonstrating the difference
between children and adults. It is reported that in the case of
stimuli employed objectively by the experimenter, there was no
difference between children and adults. This is natural, because
the stimuli were sensory and there would be no ground for suppos-
ing that a direct response to such stimuli would differ in adults
and children. But it is reported that "in the spontaneous curves
where the changes are caused by free personal psychic activity
the matter is otherwise." Here a real differentia seems to be
introduced by the more complex mentality of the adult; the
relation between ideas comes into play and the character of the
emotions changes.

The author of the work says: "If a few of those investigators
who have carried out plethysmograph investigations, such as
Mosso and Canestrini, find that the results point to the de-
pendence of mind on matter, this must rest on an acquired mate-
rialistic view of life." That expression indicates the important
point that a theory may be influenced by the fashion of the time
at which it appeared. In the reaction from a peculiar form of
vagueness which belonged to Germany in the early nineteenth
century, there was an almost hysterical demand for what was
tangible and demonstrable to the senses. This was the time when
it seemed plausible to say man is what he eats. But that epoch
is definitely ended; nothing remains of it but the limited doctrine
that physiological data are a part of all human behavior. For the
other part we are compelled to accept a type of causation which
is psychic and consists of antecedent events which qualify the
subsequent acts either as memories or as subconscious factors.
This point of view makes it possible to unify the general theory
of emotions with the theory of abnormal phenomena. All emo-
tions begin from a stimulus which disturbs the balance of the
organism. The response varies with the nature of the organism
and is more or less complex according to the level of development.
Fear, for example, may induce flight and thereby cease to exist
as an emotion, or it may induce a complex state of antagonistic

396 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

impulses producing inhibitions which augment the emotion; or
it may persist as a conflict between a conscious purpose and an
unconscious or co-conscious i#ctor, which is equivalent to a
reduction of energy with a sense of defective power. This condition
is a state of fear such as occurs when there is no apparent cause
of fear but nevertheless the situation is made the object of genuine
fear.

The historical development which has been sketched seems to
end in confusion and a demand for a reconstruction of the theory
of emotions. The most recent efforts to satisfy all the require-
ments have not been described in detail because that process
would be too fatiguing. But their significance ? eems to lie in the
direction indicated by all evolutionary methods. The human
animal has reached its present state of development through slow
processes of growth and integration which are admitted to be the
explanation of special cognitive functions. There is no ground
for, divorcing these functions from general bodily states, but there
is also no reason for ignoring the possibility of great differences
arising from the degree of cerebral development and integration.
This seems to be the element of truth in the distinction which
James retained between the "coarser" and the "subtler" emo-
tions. But that distinction smacks of a theory of values which is
not wholly relevant to psychology. The amendment which it
requires must be looked for in another direction. Instead of
opposing one class of emotions to another we must recognize that
any emotion may have distinct forms, as distinct as animal rage
from righteous indignation. As the one form has evolved from
the other, in conformity with the general evolution of man, it
may easily retain associations with its more primitive type or
with allied types. In any case the relation between the emotion
and the expression will become less fixed as the organism develops
away from instinctive and stereotyped forms of reaction. The
more complex emotions (i.e., the subtler), having had no specific
associated reaction (such as is typical of animal behavior), will be
capable of varied expression, and the expression will have no
intimate connection with the cognitive element a point which
might considerably assist the theorists who try to decide why we
weep as successfully for joy as for sorrow.

DISCUSSION

DR. REYMERT: May I be permitted a few remarks from the Chair about the
small investigation of Helga Eng, to which Dr. Brett seemed to attach altogether
too much significance, and to which he referred at length. This study was under-
taken at the University of Oslo, from which I hail. It meant a following-up of

G. S. BRETT 397

the well-known works of Lehmann in Copenhagen using his expressive method.
The arrangement of the plethysmographie apparatus was minutely done by the
director of the Physiological Institute, Dr. Torup. As far as I remember, Dr. Eng
had just a few children and very few adult bservers, most of them not psychologi-
cally trained. We all know the tremendously many sources of error in plethysmo-
graphie work in general and from this knowledge it should a priori be almost
impossible to undertake such work with children. From the small number of
observers and from the application of the method to children, it seems to me that
all the many conclusions which the author draws from these experiments have at
best only a hypothetical value. The high-sounding title of such a limited study
seems pretentious, and when Dr. Eng even goes so far as to offer a solution of the
general body-mental problem on the basis of such experimentation then we are
way outside the simplest scientific logic. I have permitted myself these remarks
because it often happens that philosophers are apt to use quotations and conclusions
of this kind, without as may be reasonable being able to weigh or scrutinize the
limitations and the possible sources of error inherent in the experimental method
employed.

PART VIII

Emotion in Relation to
Education

CHAPTER 34

TRAINING THE EMOTIONS

JOHN S. TERRY
New York City

Those of you who have listened to the learned and scientific
papers on the feelings and emotions delivered here since last
Wednesday, doubtless feel like the twelve-year-old boy who not
long ago was presumably taking part in an arithmetic class. The
private school which he attended was a very modern one, using
all up-to-date methods. His teacher in this particular class
noticed that he was not paying attention, and finally, when she
asked him a question, he blandly ignored her.

"Why don't you answer the question, John? " asked the teacher.

"Oh, I'm relaxing," replied John.

One of his other teachers had told the children that when they
felt a nervous strain they should relax. Arithmetic made John
nervous. Perhaps psychology has done the same for you.

I recently read an account of a visit by two parents to another
very modern school. The children were learning by doing. As
the parents went through one classroom they noticed that two
boys were beating another over the head with a club.

"But," asked the mother, "aren't they hurting the child?"

"Oh, yes," replied the teacher. "These children are studying
the Whiskey Rebellion."

"Why, they're drunk," said the mother.

"Certainly," said the teacher. "They're drunk and they'll
soon be sick. We use real equipment when possible. But today
even the schools can't get decent whiskey for their work. "

The parents would not visit the class in literature studying
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue."

At the very outset I want it clearly understood that my knowl-
edge of psychology is not enough to permit me to understand what
its battles are about. And as to scientific knowledge of the emo-
tions, I remember that William James, after reading the classics
on the subject, said that he would as lief read verbal descriptions
of the shapes of rocks in a New England field.

In spite of these facts, I hope to give you in the next few minutes

1 Portions of the discussion of Mr. Terry's paper have been published in School
during December, 1927, and January, 1928, and in subsequent issues.

JOHN S. TERRY 401

some thoughts on the need for more wholesome emotion in the life
of America, for more attention to the emotional lives of the children
in our schools, and to suggest a few methods that have been or
might be used in this work. *

A new emphasis is needed in our education, I feel sure. We have
gone ahead too much with the idea that training the minds of
children is enough. We give them intelligence tests, measure their
mental possibilities after a fashion, classify them, and then put
them through their intellectual paces, just as if their minds were
the controlling factors in their lives. As a matter of fact, I think
it is generally believed that the intellect plays not fifty per cent in
determining what people are going to do with their lives. En-
vironment and circumstances play their parts, but emotionalized
attitudes play a much more important part. In life, the heart
plays a much bigger r61e than the head.

James Harvey Robinson, in his notable plea for science and the
scientific method, recognized this when he said that only through
a change in man's attitude can intelligence play its part in
civilization.

In December, 1925, I came to the conclusion that the schools
were neglecting to fulfil their duties in guiding the emotional de-
velopment of children. I visited a New York City junior high
school for girls. The principal told me of a serious problem case.

A girl had gone to a dance with a high-school boy. He escorted
her home and told her good-night. The girl did not enter her
home, but decided to see more of night life. She wandered along
the streets, bent on flirtation. It happened that the man she
finally spoke to was sensible enough to take her to a policeman.
She then pretended to be suffering from that tabloid disease known
as amnesia.

I asked about the girl's school record. It was excellent. Her
grades were high; her conduct, good. But her teachers investi-
gated and found that outside the school this girl went to all the
dances she possibly could. She was a constant viewer of lurid
moving pictures, in which virtue usually triumphs in order to
please the censor, but always rather late. Her home was crowded.
She had no privacy. In other words, her whole life was being
moulded not so much by her mental training in her school, as by
outside forces playing on her emotions. She frankly admitted
that while she enjoyed school, it had little influence in determining
her conduct after she left it in the afternoon.

I realized that here was a girl whose emotional life was an un-
weeded garden. She was evidently fearless, too much so; she was
adventurous, even in the realm of lying. And her school was mak-

402 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

ing no particular effort to guide her and show her how to develop
her life emotionally.

I began to look around me, and saw that while we have an excess
of emotional stimulants in American life, too many of them are of
the wrong sort. I agree with the editors of Civilization in the
United States that "the most moving and pathetic fact in the
social life of America is emotional and aesthetic starvation. "

I find Americans attempting to feed their emotions. They are
avid for thrilling moving pictures and for jazzy radio programs;
they buy tabloid magazines and confession magazines by the
millions.

Sinclair Lewis criticizes the Babbitts for the poor intellects they
display. The Rotarians are not after intellect. In their business
they use their brains. In their get-togethers and social activities
they try to feed their emotions. Booth Tarkington has given a
better picture of Babbitt in his novel The Plutocrat. Tarkington
shows the zest a Babbitt gets from his good fellowship and showing-
off. No heartburnings here; rather a childlike zest in living.

I believe the fact that ours is called the jazz age is significant.
" Let me write a nation's songs, and I'll let who will write its laws, "
said some wise man. Americans have been wrought upon by
jazz music until the greater part of our social life, from "speak-
easy" to ball-room, is negroid. This jazz music is easily reacted
to, and it sets a whole nation dancing to primitive rhythms. I
wonder what is the effect on a sedate North Dakota family of
radio jazz music and cutting-up broadcast from the Silver Slipper
night club on footloose Broadway. I read recently of a psychologist
who had a jazz band perform for the sake of an elephant. The
elephant soon routed the players with well-directed spouts of water.
Perhaps he had more than human intelligence.

Americans enjoyed the World War immensely. It gave them
a chance to blow off the lid of the emotional reservoir. The lid
has blown off only once since the war when Charles A. Lind-
bergh stirred the nation to transports such as were never before
aroused by one man's heroic deed.

After the war there developed a mood of futility that exists yet.
If you "want to see how cynical and hopeless young America is,
read The American Caravan, a collection of short stories, plays,
and poems, that the magazines wouldn't print.

Even the best of our creative artists seem terribly depressed.
Sinclair Lewis has studied religion and I hear that he is actually
so wrought up that his favorite sport is getting a crowd of boon
companions together to sing hymns. I believe that the man may
become a revivalist at any minute. There's no doubt in my mind
that Lewis is emotionally starved. The hymns do him good.

JOHN S. TERRY 408

I think that the intelligentsia in America are in the same plight
that Darwin found himself in, in his later years. In his youth he
got the greatest pleasure from music. In his old age he expressed

Erofound regret that his intellect had so dominated his life that
is emotional and aesthetic nature was atrophied.

I believe these generalizations are worth thinking about. All
psychologists agree that the emotions are extremely important.
I expect that every scientist envies the fervor of the religious man
and knows that his own life is colorless in comparison.

The crime situation, with preachers, judges, and newspapers
seeking panaceas, has brought about a great outcry for character
training in the schools. They would train character, but they
don't know what it is. They know it only when they see it
manifested.

Various groups are trying to find out what character is. One
scheme for finding out is most interesting. The researchers plan
to investigate how men and women of acknowledged success
and character react in certain social and moral situations. They
plan to ask the men and women to tell them. It is devastating
to think what a lot of lies, conscious and unconscious, will be
told by those who are asked to give their reactions. As one man
put it, every autobiography is a lie. People refuse to undress
their minds and souls for the public gaze.

Another method has been followed by President Daniel L. Marsh
of Boston University. Last year he asked several hundred
business men and his thousand seniors and graduate students
what qualities or ideals a good man should possess. The com-
posite answers named the following qualities: honesty, love,
reverence, loyalty, industry, intelligence, a moral sense, courage,
justice, self-control, and patience. Four ways of attaining these
were given: example and environment; education, that is, definite
instruction; experience; and precept.

Such inquiries seem to me of little practical worth. My reasons
are obvious. We all agree, for example, that loyalty is a desirable
quality. But loyalty to what? John Galsworthy in his play
Loyalties has given us some idea of the complexity of the question.

Shall we be loyal to self, to family, to friends, to race, to city,
to state, to nation; to the ideal or to the practical? If a man
begins consciously to try to be loyal, he's apt to land in a mad
house. So it is with love.

Just one reference to a related field of inquiry. Drs. Hugh
Hartshorne and Mark A. May have been using provocations
tests. They are making an investigation in cooperation with the
Institute of Social and Religious Research, New York, in Teachers

404 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

College, Columbia University. They have been asking children
all sorts of questions, from why they like their friends to what
they would do in certain situations.

In one of the provocations t&sts they asked this question:
"Henry saw a big bully strike a little boy, so Henry walked up
and gave the bully a real hard blow and knocked him down."
"Was Henry's action right, excusable, or wrong?" Eighty-five
per cent of the sixth-grade children questioned said that Henry's
action was right, six per cent said it was excusable, and nine
per cent said it was wrong. Forty-five per cent of a class of
graduate students thought Henry did right in knocking the bully
down, forty-two per cent thought Henry's deed excusable, and
thirteen per cent thought he did wrong. Messrs. Hartshorne
and May had three points of value for the decisions. They voted
two points that Henry did wrong, and one that he was to be
excused. I expect the majority of us would agree with the judg-
ment of the sixth-grade children.

I believe that such questions and answers are also of little
practical value, for we cannot possibly tell how we would act,
and therefore cannot safely pass judgment on others. The only
way to find out what we would do in Henry's situation would be
to see a bully strike a child.

I suppose that it is practically impossible to determine just
how important a part the intellect plays in determining what
people will say and do under any stated conditions. There is
certainly no way at present to tell. However, there is much good
authority which favors emotional attitudes as the strongest
determinant of conduct. There is strong distrust of the intellect
as arbiter and guide. Associate Superintendent Joseph M.
Sheehan of New York City recently quoted George Eliot as saying
that to train a child to reason about everything is to make him
a monster. This statement is in agreement with my belief that
the feelings and emotions play a large part in determining a man's
action and worth.

Dr. Cyril Burt, the English psychologist, defines character as
"the sum total of those personal qualities of mind which do not
constitute, or are not pervaded by intelligence. They are marked
by feeling rather than skill." Roback declares that character is
"an enduring psychophysical disposition to inhibit instinctive
impulses in accordance with a regulative principle." Herbert
Martin in his study Formative Foundations of Character states:
"Intelligence has long been regarded not only as of doubtful
worth in the realm of morals, but as an altogether perilous pos-
session. Knowledge and moral peril vary directly." Adam and
Eve found this to be true.

JOHN S. TERRY 405

I agree with Dr. Ira S. Wile, who has quoted these authorities, 2
that the motor part of emotion determines action and character;
that the intelligent child is oftenharder to train in desirable habits
just because his intelligence shows him how better to feed his
desires through habits of his own formation.

I believe, therefore, that psychologists and educators should
try to shape the emotional attitudes of pupils, despite the fact
that there is no scientific working basis for procedure in the work.

Perhaps you will say that it is impossible directly to train the
emotions. Of course a teacher cannot tell his pupils to register
love, tenderness, hate, fear, as would a movie director. But
we have found methods by which to train the mind. These
methods are indirect too. The educator can only teach. The
child must do the learning so with the emotions.

I wish you'd all think back over your school years. Did any-
one ever tell you the importance of the feelings and emotions in
your lives? I'm afraid not.

Of course I'm rather late in urging training of the emotions.
Christ did it about two thousand years ago. I feel that He
would have had more success with His doctrines if St. Paul and
some of His other followers had not intellectualized them. Saul's
conversion left him still a man of intellect, and he wrote too many
letters.

Christ said to his disciples, "Love one another." He also
commanded them to love God with all their hearts. St. Paul
preached this too, but rather unconvincingly. As Dr. William
Dygnum Moss has often said to me, "Christ knew that a good
man is a person of fine feeling. The man with the right feeling
will do the right thing in practically every situation." Christ
was moral without trying to be. But St. Paul was intellectual;
he had a thorn in his flesh.

The influence of all religious leaders has been due to the emotions.
Their whole success has depended on whether or not they could
develop desired emotional attitudes in their followers. Mohammed
fired his followers with a flame that swept over Asia and Africa,
and seared part of Europe.

1 think the weakness of many religious organizations today
lies in the fact that they have forgotten the fundamental need of
emotional appeal. The fundamentalists still use this appeal,
but the modernists have lost ground through appealing chiefly
to the intellect. It seems to me that the Catholic and the Christian
Science Churches have been the most successful trainers of the
emotions. Please understand that I adhere to neither faith. The

2 Intelligent Parenthood (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1926), p. 241.

406 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

Roman Catholics have this work down to a science. The Christian
Science Church is certainly one of the most successful of all
modern cults. Study of the worfc of these two institutions should
be a challenge to psychologists. The Catholic ritual, confessional,
and discipline have helped make success along this line possible.
The Christian Scientists train themselves by a kind of mental
hygiene to forget the evil in life. They sometimes succeed. "God
is love," they say, until they actually believe it. Their work
offers a wealth of material to show how the mind can control
health, now the primary aim in education.

The schools themselves have, of course, attempted to develop
attitudes, but more or less haphazardly. The good teacher has
always created interest by his enthusiasm and his ability to
stir the curiosity of his pupils. William Heard Kilpatrick has
for years been pounding home the need for purposeful activity
and performance followed by satisfaction. The junior high schools
are using pupil clubs to bring about a sense of social cooperation.
Dr. Harold Rugg, who was, I believe, formerly an engineer, and
is now a psychologist in the Lincoln School, Teachers College, is an
advocate of education in which art has at least three-fourths of the
curriculum. But the schools have not as yet any practical scien-
tific knowledge as to how they should proceed in the cultivating of
right emotional attitudes.

This province of the emotions educators have too long left to
the artists. It seems to me that teachers have the greater oppor-
tunity. I shall now give some of the methods which I think they
might use to direct the emotional lives of children.

First of all, parents should understand to as great an extent as
possible the emotions and how to build up good ones and destroy
or replace evil ones. Second, teachers should be required to master
all the available scientific knowledge as to methods of guiding the
child's emotional life and of stimulating good reactions and re-
placing or killing bad ones. There is very little knowledge avail-
able as yet. Third, parents and teachers should cultivate the
best emotional attitudes in themselves.

After these three, which are fundamental, come the ones directly
affecting the child so as to develop good emotionalized attitudes.
The six which follow were listed by Professor Thomas H. Briggs:
(4) precept, (5) formal instruction, (6) incidental instruction,
(7) personal example, (8) experience followed by satisfaction, (9)
ritual.

The next, number 10, Associate Superintendent Gustave Strau-
benmtiller of New York City, thinks most important of all. It
is to guide children properly to influence each other.

JOHN S. TERRY 407

Number 11 is the use of personal conferences between pupil
and teacher, a kind of modified confessional.

While number 12 may be closely related to many others, it is
worth a place of its own. It is this: The child's curiosity should
be aroused so as to stir his interest.

Number 13 : Teaching and learning should be cooperative enter-
prises, with the teacher a co-worker with the pupil.

Number 14: Children should be made conscious that their
emotions affect their lives and should, with the greatest care and
skill, be made to analyze their past emotional reactions, with the
consequent effects.

Number 15: All teaching should be bent toward educating the
child for freedom, setting free his latent abilities, and developing
his powers.

Number 16: The child should be given opportunity to learn to
appreciate art in all its branches, and to develop any talent that
he may show in art.

There are many possible ways, but these seem to me most im-
portant. A brief discussion of these suggested methods may serve
to give an idea as to how I think they might be used.

It is axiomatic that the knowledge, attitudes, and work of
parents and tteachers are paramount. Here we can hope for prog-
ress because of the ever growing movements for parent -teacher
cooperation and for adult education.

As to the use of precept, I'm rather doubtful. It seems wrong to
flood children with a lot of idealistic language which they may or
may not understand or heed. Most of us preach too much. Pre-
cepts seem to have been used from the beginning of the world,
but even children are apt to see that many of them are half-truths
or worse.

Their reactions may be surprising. A father had two sons who
drove recklessly. He put up a sign on the wall of the boys' room :
"Safety First.'' The boys turned the sign to the wall and wrote
on the other side, "Aw, take a chance!"

Formal instruction, such as courses in ethics, religion, etc., have
been largely used, but the most valuable, it seems to me, is that
which trains children through the use of situations that arise in
their schools and in their neighborhoods.

Incidental instruction is perhaps the most easily available meth-
od. Superintendent of Schools William J. O'Shea of New York
City has stressed the necessity for teachers' using all subjects to
develop the emotional and aesthetic aspects of the child's nature.
On October 11 he issued a pamphlet explaining how study should
be directed and with what aims. The first aim, he said, should be

408 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

insights, appreciations, attitudes. The second, moral traits and
habits. The third, the teacher should make himself useless by
directing the student to take control of his own education.

Dr. O'Shea has constantly encouraged the teaching that stresses
the higher and finer elements of personality, and has decried the
emphasis placed on methods of teaching, the imparting of facts,
and testing, at the expense of the more important aim. He has
declared that it is not so important that the pupils know all the
facts of the American Revolution as that they be stirred by the
spirit of sacrifice, patriotism, and democracy that made possible
the birth of a new nation on this continent. He has urged that
geography be taught so as to develop appreciation for the majesty
of nature and its contributions to man's life. Associate Superin-
tendent Gustave Straubenmuller, as teacher and as official, has
made geography one of the most vital, interesting, and inspiring
of all the elementary school subjects in New York City.

The schools, from the elementary grades through the university,
have made the mistake in many subjects of neglecting this great
emotional appeal. Strangely enough; they have made their
greatest mistake in teaching literature. The child is not taught
so much to appreciate the life that is in a poem or story as he is
the language that is used to express it. He is all too often driven
to hate reading and books. Our colleges and universities do even
worse. The students must learn all the known facts of the author's
life, the sources of his plots and ideas; they must study texts and
language, and pay the scantest attention to the beauties before
them. Poems, novels, plays, and short stories are primarily
emotional, but one would never think so from seeing how they are
taught.

I once heard John Erskine say that he would like to make an
experiment with two students. One would spend four hours a day
for ten years with Milton; the other, with Whitman. At the end
of the ten years Erskine said he would analyze the minds and hearts
of the students and find what the effects had been.

Without a doubt, incidental instruction, not only through the
particular subjects studied but also through the use of current
events, can be a most powerful lever in influencing the emotions
of pupils.

The use of personal example is of great importance. Herej
hero-worship can play its part. Rudolf Steirier said that if a
school has a good, strong, wholesome principal everything else
can be taken for granted.

But in this field other problems arise. Children are usually
taught to reverence men high in public life. Here the emotional

JOHN S. TERRY 409

appeal is easily used, for the majority of political leaders who
make a success do so through their appeal to the emotions. I
imagine, however, that the teachers of Indiana and Indianapolis
would be opposed to this method now. As one man remarked
recently, only dead heroes are safe to be used in teaching youth.
The live ones are apt to get into trouble. Charles A. Lindbergh
seems to be one live hero who is all right for teaching purposes.

In the matter of example, the teacher himself is most important;
his influence may be incalculable.

Experience followed by satisfaction is so obvious a necessity in
all human activity that it is accepted without question, though
this, too, should be subjected to some careful analysis. We must
realize that there are many kinds of satisfaction, some of them not
particularly desirable. A burglar doubtless enjoys experience
followed by satisfaction when he gets away with a lot of swag.

Ritual we have great need of in our lives. It seems necessary,
and the schools are trying schemes which make use of it. The
Knighthood of Youth, with all the romance, trappings, and
ceremonies of chivalry, is perhaps the most outstanding one.
The saluting of the flag is another great ritualistic scheme.

Guiding children rightly to influence each other is of utmost
importance. Drs. Hartshorne and May, after prolonged research,
have reported that their findings show the home to be the greatest
influence in determining the child's knowledge of right arid wrong,
that the club leaders may possibly have a slight influence, but
that there is no evidence that day-school or Sunday-school
teachers are contributors to the moral knowledge of children either
directly or indirectly. But there is much evidence that friends
come second in importance after the home, and really do much
to determine the child's attitudes and actions. Here, of course,
lies the use of pupil clubs, boy scout troops, and self-governing
organizations. If the pupils are allowed to work out problems
of their own freely in the school through social cooperation and
learning to work with one another, and incidentally to respect
the rights of others, they are apt to carry over the attitudes
formed into their outside activities.

The use of conferences between pupil and teacher would be a
great boon. Some believe that the teacher cannot be. the father
confessor, but I doubt that. I believe that the confessional,
now being used in so many ways by psychologists and others, is
one of the chief sources of strength of the Catholic Church. Of
course, the Church requires that suffering or penance follow sin,
and at least the intent that the sin be not committed again.

In their conferences the teachers would find most difficult

410 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

problems to solve, but with study and experience would come
wisdom. The visiting teachers are doing immensely valuable work
in this field. They, like the priest^ persuade the sinner to give up
his sin.

Curiosity is the greatest spur to interest, for it creates the desire
to know and to experience. Here is a subject related to incidental
instruction, but, as I have already said, important enough for a
separate classification. As Bertrand Russell states, the pupil's
interest and not the teacher's authority should be the motivating
power in education. Education would not have to be easy,
even if this were the sole motivating power. The teacher should
know how to arouse the curiosity of his pupils to such a pitch
that they would work to find the truth just as the athlete bores
himself with arduous training in order to win a football game, and
incidentally builds a strong body.

My next point closely follows that of interest. Teacher and
pupil should be cooperative workers searching for interesting truth.
There should be no sense of superiority in the teacher. He should
grow as he teaches even little children for the small ones are
just as interesting, emotionally and mentally, as adults. The
teacher should not be so much the instructor, pouring knowledge
in, as the educator who shows the pupil how to draw out of himself
his abilities and powers. Children do not need teaching; they
need understanding and freedom. The teacher has no right
to impose adult conceptions on children. He should be a guide
and a liberator.

Any real discipline in the home or in the school grows out of
leadership. This ideal of leadership is widespread now, and there
is every sign that it will grow in strength and influence.

While the next suggestion may be dangerous, nevertheless I
believe that it should be attempted. It seems to me that children
should be made to analyze their own emotions (of course, after
the emotions have been experienced) and to consider the consequent
effects. They should be made aware of the power of feelings
and emotions in their lives, either for enriching or destroying.
There is danger that the child might become morbidly introspec-
tive, and a moral prig; therefore I was glad to learn that this
practice did not work harm when it was tried by Bronson Alcott
in his school in Boston. He was extremely successful in it.

In this work there is enough to keep the teacher busy always.
Perhaps one of the simplest ways to begin would be to have
children define some common words with worlds of meaning. I'll
guarantee that few people ever stop to ask themselves the differ-
ence between happiness and pleasure. Many think they are the

JOHN 8. TERRY 411

same thing. Children should know the difference between these
two states of being, as well as other important distinctions between
related words words such as knowledge and wisdom, license
and liberty. They would not have to be philosophers to know
the differences between these words I mean the deep underlying
differences, which, understood, might influence attitudes and
actions. By knowing the differences, children might avoid
confusion.

They should also know that all things called by the same name
do not mean the same thing. Dr. Johnson's famous definition of
patriotism as the last refuge of a scoundrel seems all too true, if we
may consider for a moment the patriotic conflict Mayor Thompson
of Chicago is now waging with Superintendent William McAndrew.
Intelligent diagnoses of such words as patriotism might bring
children to realize that they have responsibilities as citizens, and
that citizenship means more than a glow of enthusiasm when they
salute the flag.

In the problem of direct teaching of children how to safeguard
their emotional lives, methods used by religious organizations again
offer help. Many of them specifically warn their adherents to
avoid all places, persons, and things that might cause them to com-
mit sin. Children might learn to foresee and avoid places, per-
sons, and things that would be harmful to them emotionally. 3 Of
course, I realize that the decision to do the avoiding must be the
child's, for the warning by adults is more than apt to arouse
curiosity and interest that would lead the child to seek the forbidden.

Some would teach the child not to fear, but to do this would be
absurd. Intelligent fear may be one of our most useful emotions,
causing us to avoid that which would harm us. Fear should be
changed to positive action. 4 It really seems quite difficult to build
up intelligent fear in human beings, or so many of them would not
get killed by automobiles.

In this phase of training many educators are now interested in
changing what seems to be one of the strongest motives in human
nature. They would have the schools teach pupils that competi-
tion is damnable. Wells has told how Sanderson of Oundle did
fine work along this line.

Suggestibility ! The power of suggestion is another great force
for use in training the emotions. Professor Herbert Martin has
said that "our ideas and beliefs, our ethics and our religion, our
arts, science, and politics are through suggestibility." Certainly
our feelings and emotions, and our emotionalized attitudes are

3 Curriculum Problems (New York: Macmillan, 1926), p. 57.

4 The Problem Child (New York: McBride, 1927), p. 157.

412 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

built up around our families, cities, states, and nations. These
institutions were moulded by the feelings and emotions of our an-
cestors. Surely the best way toiring about any desired changes
is through using the emotions of their descendants.

Our principal effort in Americanization is to create a love for our
institutions in the hearts of new citizens. For example, recently
a ritual for awarding citizenship papers was instituted in New York
City. All of us are more apt to resent an insult to the flag, which
represents an emotionalized attitude, than we are an intellectual
jibe at our institutions. If Mencken had insulted the flag physi-
cally as he has our governmental philosophies and institutions
intellectually, he would have been lynched long ago.

Freedom must be the goal of all educational training. As I have
said in another connection, I believe that in all the work of the
schools there should be no attempt to force children to adopt the
preconceived attitudes of teachers. In this work there would be
the inevitable temptation for the teacher to make the child accept
the teacher's attitudes as correct. The Child's own attitudes may
be the better for him and for his progress than would be the teach-
er's. I think that if training in emotionalized attitudes would
result in forcing children to adopt the preconceived attitudes of
others, such training had better be neglected.

As A. S. Neill said in pleading this same cause, 5 educators with
schemes of life and philosophy are humbugs. To impose adult
conceptions and values on children is not what I desire. I merely
ask that children be shown how to develop through their own initia-
tive and power the qualities that will help make them stronger
and happier.

To paraphrase D. H. Lawrence, it seems that the whole of
humanity has certain ideas in common: truth, duty, honor, love.
But each idea may represent a different kind of feeling in each
individual. Few of us would agree that anyone has the right to
tell us what to feel and do. We do not know what another man
ought to feel. Certainly every man has his right to his own special
reactions. Educators ought not to want children to feel alike.
All of them have different natures and so they should feel differently
about practically everything. We don't want to produce stand-
ardized feelings.

Love cannot be created; it can only be set free. Demand
it and you don't get it; you only produce hypocrisy. Children
are usually naturally friendly and draw friendship from others. 6
In other words, the whole problem in this work is how to help

6 The Problem Child (New York: McBride, 1927), pp. 115-116.

6 Education and the Good Life (New York: Boni Liveright, 1927), p. 207

JOHN S. TERRY 413

children freely to develop themselves as emotionally balanced
individuals.

Before leaving this phase of the subject I wish to point out a
few aspects of the emotions that do not come under any of the
heads that I have suggested. No one would try to create despair
in a child. Yet, strangely enough, despair has often been one of
the greatest incentives to accomplishment. Schubert, a most un-
happy man, unable to sell his songs, kept on composing until
he gave us six hundred of them. Beethoven was driven to des-
pair by his tyrannical father, who made his son's life a burden
by requiring him to practice too much on the piano. The son
would have given up music, but later, under an inspiring teacher,
he received the inspiration that was necessary to revive his inter-
est in music, and to express his creative faculties. Despair, in-
stead of helping him, had almost wrecked his powers. But despair
has also been found to whet the desires. John Keats was told to
go back to his pill-boxes. Schumann-Heink was told to go back
to her wash-tubs. Paderewski was told that his fingers were too
thick and blunt. Beethoven always did better work after suffering
great disappointment. He composed his Eroica when he thought
that Bonaparte would lead France to freedom. When Napoleon
crowned himself emperor, Beethoven removed all references to his
former hero and immediately composed some greater music.

Other peculiarities in human nature must be taken into con-
sideration. Ideals are often more forceful in getting action
when they are expressed in the negative. 7 A teacher in a tough
neighborhood realized that talking about sanitation in the usual
way would do no good. At first she planned to use the negative
statement, "Boys, don't spit on the floor." Instead she said,
"If you spit on the floor at home, spit on the floor here!" Where-
upon one boy spat, and explained that he had done the same
thing at home and his father knocked him down, but that the
teacher couldn't beat him. The teacher's negation might have
worked better. While working for good ends with some resource-
fulness, she had not impressed her reasons nor created attitudes
in her pupils with regard to sanitation.

We are all more or less interested in shaping people according
to our ideas of what they should be like. Practically every edu-
cator has some philosophy which he uses as a guide. His philos-
ophy grew out of his own attitudes. Deep down in his heart he
admits that he does not know what education really is. He rarely
knows what the child's life is going to be. But in spite of this
lack of knowledge, educators try to express their ideals and lose

7 Curriculum Problems (New York: Macmillan, 1926), p. 138.

414 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

themselves in vague terms. For instance, Bertrand Russell
wants four qualities developed by education: vitality, courage,
sensitiveness, and intelligence. Think of how these qualities
might be misused. In his school^he proposes to have no obstacles
to knowledge, but to "seek virtue by the right training of passions
and instincts."

He is most fearful of the power placed in the hands of educators.
He says that "the power of moulding young minds which science
has placed in our possession is a very terrible power, capable of
deadly misuse; if it falls into the wrong hands, it may produce a
world even more ruthless and cruel than the haphazard world of
nature."

The knowledge that I have asked for that to be used in train-
ing the emotions is even more dangerous, for in the past the
feelings and emotions have kept human nature fairly wholesome.

To see the danger of wrongly used emotion we need only glance
casually at history. Whole nations have been led to feel that
they were crusaders for a holy cause, when really the leaders were
merely working selfishly for their own power. A play recently
produced on Broadway, Spread Eagle, showed how possibly a
powerful and influential group, close to the government, might
in a few hours by propaganda broadcast through radio and
press, stir up a war fever that could not be denied. Of course,
in every war, emotion plays the biggest part. The sinking of the
"Lusitania" and emotional phrases like "Make the World Safe
for Democracy" did more to throw America's power in with
the Allies than did reason.

Perhaps if people's minds were brought consciously to bear
on their emotions, they would try to practice more intelligent
control of them during great crises. The schools have long
been about the work of developing emotionalized attitudes and
establishing habits, but without any definite scientific knowledge,
and without placing enough emphasis on the problem. Some
schools of psychology may claim that they have set forth methods
of procedure that could be used in this work, but I know that their
methods are not being used to any great extent.

In my hasty summary of methods that have been or might be
used in this work, I have doubtless overlooked many important
things. And right here I wish to say that I know that many of
the methods suggested are being used splendidly by our educators.

On December 10, 1925, I urged editorially in School that
psychologists and educators pay more attention to the uncharted
jungles of men's emotions and attempt to discover scientific
methods by which children could be so taught that they would
develop life-enriching emotional attitudes. I then asked Associate

JOHN S. TERRY 415

Superintendent Gustave Straubenmuller, chairman of New
York City's Committee on the Study and Revision of the Curricu-
lum, to make a special study oHhe subject. He did so, and found
that psychologists had paid very little attention to the subject,
and that many textbooks in education omitted it entirely. He
recorded his findings and conclusions in an article called "Im-
portance of the Emotions in Education and How to Use Them,"
which was published in School, June 3, 1926. As chairman of
the important committee charged with the remodeling of the
course of study, he has constantly emphasized the need for giving
the greatest thought and attention to thi's phase of education.

On February 25, 1926, Superintendent of Schools William J.
O'Shea in an address before the executive session of the Depart-
ment of Superintendence of the National Education Association
in Washington, on the subject, "Changes in the Course of Study
for the City of New York," declared that "the fundamental aim
in education is the development of moral character." In his speech
he mentioned, among others, two aims which he declared were of
paramount importance. "One of these," he said, "is the develop-
ment of the emotional and aesthetic aspects of the child's nature;
the other is the development of moral character."

"The schools," he continued, "must perform their full duty
of developing in school children good taste and good manners,
high and noble ideals, consideration for others, 'charity toward
all,' those indefinable attributes of personality, outlook, tem-
perament, and conduct for which we use the term character."

He declared that today teachers seem to underestimate the
importance of this aim in education, that "methods of teaching,
the imparting of facts, and testing are being emphasized to the
neglect of the higher and finer elements of personality." He
stated that the courses of study and syllabuses should be the
instruments for the realization of this aim in education.

The problem of training so as to develop emotionalized attitudes
was stated in a book, Curriculum Problems, by Professor Thomas
H. Briggs of Teachers College, Columbia University, which was
published in July, 1926. Dr. Briggs also stated that the greatest
problem now facing educators is how to cultivate emotionalized
attitudes. He declared that he could not answer the question,
but that he was merely bringing it to the attention of educators.
This was, I believe, the first book to ask recognition for the same
need that was pointed out by me in School on December 10, 1925,
by Superintendent O'Shea on February 25, 1926, and in elaborated
form by Associate Superintendent Straubenmiiller on June 3, 1926.

New York City is already proceeding to work out its curriculum
so as to develop the proper emotionalized attitudes. This city,

416 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

with its million school children, drawn from practically every race,
has a problem astounding in its complexity, but its officials are
working manfully to solve it.

During the past month Chairman Straubenmuller and his Com-
mittee on Character Education have had their proposed course
printed, but its contents have not yet been made public. The
whole scheme is planned to develop emotionalized attitudes in
children. The basic aim will be health, then self-reliance, self-
control, kindness, honesty, and other desirable qualities, including
sportsmanship. Definite methods of procedure will be given all
teachers for every grade, but chiefly as suggestions. Every teacher
may put his own ideas into operation, using the course as a guide.
I believe that Dr. Straubenmuller and his committee have done
a magnificent piece of work, one that the great majority of adults
might well study and apply to their own lives.

Explanations of why this important phase of education has been
so long neglected are not hard to find. In the first place, religious
organizations have long been trying to handle this part of training.
But now the school is more and more taking over the duties of
the home and the church. The public is demanding it.

But there is a second and a more important reason. We cannot
measure the intangible things called personality and the soul. The
teacher desiring promotion knows, however, that the pupil's
mental progress can be measured. Therefore he crams the child's
head with knowledge, often of the poorest kind, fact-knowledge,
and gives what time is left to the heart. The teacher himself, per-
haps, has only vague notions of the child's emotional and spiritual
progress.

This neglect will be no longer possible in New York City. Asso-
ciate Superintendent Straubenmuller has placed emphasis here
in his work in revising the curriculum. His character-education
program will, I believe, bear immortal fruits.

No one knows what the results of attempting to develop emo-
tionalized attitudes will be. Teachers may still find the most useful
materials to be those given us by the artist. However, they can
bring their own minds and those of their pupils consciously to bear
on the emotions, and try to cultivate by the help of the reason and
will-power the good feelings and emotions and to avoid the bad ones.

One thing I know. Teachers must be artists. Art is the ex-
pression of fine emotion, crystallized in some form. Teachers have
the privilege of working with living materials. Surely they should
so work that their pupils become living embodiments of all that
is nourishing in the emotions as well as in the intellect.

Of failures there will be a plenty. You remember how recently
one well-known psychologist, a child specialist, suffered the loss

JOHN S. TERRY 417

of his own adolescent son by suicide. And how, some years ago,
a woman who went about the country lecturing on how to bring
up children properly, was shocked when her own son, a medical
student, killed the schoolgirl whom he had ruined. But from
failure may come value. The adolescent son of one of America's
best-known poets recently committed suicide. The poet has
dedicated his life to helping solve the problems of youth.

In the beginning, perhaps, it is necessary to urge that emotional
training be not carried to extremes and therefore become absurd.
The children themselves would be the first to rebel against any such
overdoing. They are usually able to take care of themselves and
will continue to do so.

Whatever we may be able to accomplish in this field, the truth
remains that everything we do and are, our outlooks on life, our
interpretations of the universe, our religions, are basically deter-
mined by our emotional attitudes.

We have sought relief in science and not found it. Science has
contributed to man's material and intellectual progress as has
no other power. But it can answer only four of the great questions :
What, Where, When, Flow. It cannot answer the question that
demands knowledge of first principles: Why. Men have tried
to answer this question through their emotions, their religions.
Psychologists have done prodigious labor in studying man's mind,
and have given immeasurable aid to education. But so far they
have neglected the feelings and emotions.

I believe, therefore, that this symposium is among the most
significant ever held. It will focus attention on the most important
and most unexplored phase of education. It may be the first move
toward a really cooperative, practical, and scientific study of the
feelings and emotions, and may mark an evolutionary as well as
a revolutionary step in education.

If from this beginning grows a science by which teachers may
be guided in developing good emotional attitudes, education may
become a spiritual and emotional adventure. To bring this about,
I can imagine no greater opportunity than this symposium has
offered.

"What is truth?" said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an
answer. Perhaps, since Francis Bacon, we have too long sought for
truth in the intellect. Mayhap by searching in the emotions, we
may come nearer to the answer.

I read not long ago how "when Zola's remains were being re-
moved to the Pantheon, an anti-Semite fired a shot at Dreyfus.
In the trial, the defendant made the plea that he bore no hatred
toward Dreyfus, that he had not even aimed at him. 'My action
was symbolic, and I fired a shot at an idea.' "

APPENDIX

APPENDIX A

ADDRESS OF WELCOME*
REES EDGAR TULLOSS

President of Wittenberg College

It is with profound satisfaction that I welcome to the Wittenberg Campus this
distinguished assembly of participants in the Wittenberg Symposium on Feelings
and Emotions.

Preparations for this conference have been made in the confident expectation
that the results will constitute a real contribution to scientific thought in an im-
portant field of psychological investigation.

This seems assured by the character of the contributors to this Symposium. Some
thirty-five of the world's most distinguished workers in our field find place upon the
program. Professor Dallenbach is probably correct when he writes that they
constitute "the most illustrious group of psychologists who ever participated in
any symposium."

Another consideration seems to justify the expectation of results highly important
to scientific advancement. I refer to the particular field to the consideration of
which these days are to be devoted. Of all phases of human behavior, the feelings
and emotions have most persistently resisted the attacks of the experimentalists.
We may almost say that no general attack upon the problems has yet been made.
We have, as it were, made minor skirmishes and done some effective scouting. But
the field of feelings and emotions remains for the most part an unconquered and
unexplored territory.

This is, of course, entirely understandable and expectable. The great sub-
strata of human experience are built up of our emotional reactions. Such more
superficial phases of behavior as our sensational experiences, our habit formations,
and our thought processes, have naturally received first attention. They have
to some degree yielded up their secrets. But who will venture to say that we
have gone far into the understanding of the more ancient, fundamental, and
deeply hidden elements of our experience and behavior which are involved in the
feelings and emotions?

The program has been prepared upon the basis of the belief that the time is now
ripe for a gathering of the forces of psychology for an attack upon this important
field; and that the form of attack most likely to achieve results of consequence is
that of experimental procedure. If this conference can help to show that a study
of the feelings and emotions is scientifically desirable and practically very deeply
needed, and if it can further emphasize the experimental method as the procedure
toward which we may now most hopefully turn, it will amply justify the labors of
those who have undertaken the task of its arrangement.

Dr. Reymert has been kind enough to refer to the cooperation and encourage-
ment which, in the development of this project, he has received from the Witten-
berg administration. That has been only a small contribution, made with genuine
personal pleasure. Let me bestow credit for the bringing about of this important
gathering where credit belongs, placing it upon the vision and energy of my friend
and co-worker, Dr. Reymert. His wide acquaintance with the psychologists of all
lands, acquired through his study in America, his teaching experience in Europe,
his editorship of the Scandinavian Scientific Review, and his intense interest in the
field here to be dealt with, have fitted him uniquely forthe task of convening this
conference. Its results will stand as a memorial to his organizing ability.

* October 19, 1927.

422 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

Permit me in a closing word to express my heartfelt thanks and appreciation to
all who have answered Dr. Reymert's call to contribute to the Symposium as stated
speakers or writers of papers. May you have the reward of the satisfaction of
having cooperated in a worthy project.

Permit me to remind you also that the*Value of the Symposium will depend in
no small measure upon the degree to which those of you who listen to the papers
and addresses participate also in the discussion.

The Honorary Chairman of the Conference, Dr. J. McKeen Cattell, will be
introduced later during the day. At this time it is my pleasure to present to you
the Chairman of the Symposium, Professor M. L. Reymert, head of the Department
of Psychology at Wittenberg College.

APPENDIX B

WHY FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS?*

MARTIN L. REYMERT

Wittenberg College

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:

Our science evolved out of philosophy. It received its great impetus in the
middle of the nineteenth century from the natural sciences physiology, physics,
biology, and anthropology. Its history clearly shows that the field of feelings
and emotions has been puzzling to savants of many departments of organized
knowledge from the very beginning of scientific pursuit. Scholars have always
been aware of this intangible and intricate "something" which we may call feeling,
as a very essential and perhaps the most dominating aspect of mental life. We find
numerous endeavors toward a hypothesis of explanation and a search for rational
methods of attack. Looking out over human history in a philosophical light we
find a clear division line already drawn in ancient Indian philosophy, in its dif-
ferentiation of love and thought. Greek classical philosophy shifts its differentiation
to mood and intellect. The scholasticism and mysticism of the Middle Ages are
charged, the first, with intellect and, the second, with emotion. In our own times we
are isolating what we call the emotional and the intellectual.

Many scholars have emphasized the rivalry between heart and head. It is
apparent from their writing that this struggle accompanies the development of
psychological thought from the most primitive forms of philosophy and religion up
to the psychological problems of our day. As is well known, various periods of
European history have been christened by scholars in accordance with the way
in which the intellectual or the emotional factors have been dominating; as for
instance, romanticism, scholasticism, and mysticism.

The fact that science has been so conspicuously slow in trying to dissipate the
fog of the emotional states, may have its general explanation primarily in the fact
that man has always been reluctant to undertake the study of his own real self.
Again, and perhaps more clearly, it may have its origin in the seemingly inherent
tendency of man toward mysticism; certain desires acting as prohibitive agencies
against such destruction of the emotional complexes in him, as would bring him out
of his beloved, elated, or depressed self. A third reason may be found in obstacles
due to the unstable and fleeting characteristics of emotional experiences, and the
difficulty of finding expressions for the highly complicated factors of emotional
patterns. With the birth of experimental psychology, whether along strictly
psychological or biological lines, the intellect of man for the first time arrives at a
systematic study of the entire range of mental phenomena, getting its sails filled
from the spirit of the natural sciences. As a result we very soon witness the applica-
tion of exact methods to this important study. From the enthusiasm of the earliest
workers, such as Fechner, Weber, Helmholtz, and Wundt, 1 it is apparent that these
scholars had the aspirations and hope that this scientific method would in time solve
all problems and enigmas of mental life. The primary desire within the sphere
of natural science being to find basic elements, we observe a wealth of research

* Opening address, October 19, 1927.

1 Wundt, like G. Stanley Hall, William James, and Edward L. Thorndike, in
this country, can be mentioned only with restrictions. Wundt's interest in social
psychology shows that he knew the limitations of the laboratory method.

424 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

with noteworthy results on the senses and the sensations, on imagery and intellec-
tual elements. It is, however, almost with reluctance that an experimental psy-
chologist has to admit that this tendency of the most extreme analysis has lasted
up to thte present time, thereby blinding ajjd misleading the investigators into a
piece-meal psychology. 2 There are exceptions of course. T. H. Lipps regarded
feelings as a manifold of total and unanalyzable functions. C. von Ehrenfels and
H. Cornelius discovered and propounded, long before the Berlin Gestalt School,
the emotional importance of qualities of shape as experienced qualities resisting
a complete dissection into elements. 3 Thus it is rather strange to know that while
the element which we may call "simple feeling" was truly recognized from the very
start, we now and then find rather strange methods of experimental attack, and
various and often extremely insufficient theories proclaimed in explanation of the
more complicated feeling and emotional patterns. We observe this fact in the
earliest psychology of feeling in Wundt, Munsterberg, Titchener, Kiilpe, and others.

1 am happy to say that recently a new trend is making itself apparent in psy-
chology, emphasis shifting as regards both viewpoint and method, a trend which
not only promises to revive scholarly interest in the field of feelings, but also fore-
shadows fruitful results. A number of the papers at our Symposium will doubtless
bear witness to this. The fact is also clearly revealed in the psychological literature
of today. Such a new orientation has rapidly been coming to the fore. It does not
disregard analysis, but restricts analysis in such a way that it shall not be used
to the extent that it will destroy or alter the more complex mental phenomena as
entities in and by themselves, to be described and investigated in and by their
own natural attributes.

We observe this in the psychology of Ganzheit (Leipzig), claiming that a psy-
chological entity or "whole" is always more than the sum of its elements and that
this "more" is of the greatest importance; and in the psychology of Gestalt (Berlin)
with similar claims, but going still further in its condemnation of analysis (almost
disclaiming it altogether). We further find this tendency in the psychology of
understanding (Verstehende Psychologie) of Eduard Spranger, and in the systems
of the psychoanalytic schools. In this connection we should also mention the
more recent English psychology of "relations" (Spearman and Aveling) the
beginnings of which might already be detected in Lord Shaftsbury's psychology,
and which also has in Italy an able exponent (Rignano) who interprets Spearman's
"relations" as feelings. In this country, Madison Bentley with his psychosomatic
structures, and H. L. Hollingworth in his original use of the " redintegrative
sequences" are pointing out new methods toward systematic unity. It is also
significant that the more recent studies emanating from the Cornell' laboratory and
from close adherents to the Titchener school definitely show similar trends. From
William McDougall's dualistic purposivism arose the first systematic view of society
as a psychological unit. Even recent behaviorism points more and more to observa-
tion of genetic as well as of social totalities; as may be evinced from the biosocial

2 The writer has no patience, however, with certain modern scholars who disre-
gard the importance of the historically necessary and highly valuable analytical
trend in our science. While, as stated above, this trend might be said to have
delayed the investigation of more complicated processes in their true form, it,
nevertheless, has to be looked upon as an inevitable background for the beneficial
reaction to this method which is now to be witnessed in several psychological
movements. Even scholars of today who ostensibly sponsor "description" in
place of analysis, do not seem fully to realize that any "description" presupposes
in all cases a certain amount of analysis.

8 The preludes of these pioneers just mentioned sounded upon deaf ears while
being played, and it seems that some of the present performers of similar melodies
are very little aware of the original composers.

MARTIN L. BEYMERT 425

systems of Max Meyer and A. P. Weiss. We may observe this tendency also within
several other departments of contemporary science. Thus we find it in the biology
of Driesch and Erich Becher; in the physiology of W. B. Cannon; and in the
sociology of Dilthey, Litt, Durkheim, ^6vy-Bruhl, Bartlett, and others, who in
all their attempts at explanations of social phenomena, put the main emphasis
upon society as a unit. We have reflections of this also in recent philosophy com-
pare movements and systems as Stern's personalism, J. Dewey's social philosophy,
Krueger's neo-idealism, N. Hartmann's phenomenology, etc. For psychology
then these recent changes in attitude have brought about a new interest in emo-
tions, a domain in our science on which, to my knowledge, we have had no mono-
graph and no systematic bibliography since Ribot.

While all these new efforts indeed seem to promise much of real value for the
future, we nevertheless must admit reluctantly that at this particular moment we
are as yet not far removed from the state of mere hypothesis, theories, and opinions
in the field of feelings and emotions. Let us just mention a few vital problems still
open: Why is an emotion? What is an emotion, i. e., the rise, the life, and the
decay of a particular emotion in the individual as well as within social units? What
are the laws governing the interplay of the different feelings and emotions, again
individually and socially? How far are we justified in dealing with "elementary"
feeling as against "higher" feelings, or in accepting any one of the now existing
systems of classification? Have we been blinded by senstialistic psychologies to the
paramount importance of research and systematic study of such more complex
but highly important phenomena as moods and sentiments? Shall we ever arrive
at such entities as national and racial moods? May certain national groups be
more marked by the contemplative moods, so highly essential for cultural and
scientific pursuit?

Our Symposium, it seems to me, has two valid raisons d'etre. First of all, we
shall be taking stock internationally of our present status; secondly, from the plat-
form thus afforded, we should arrive at a clearer and more fruitful perspective which
in turn may show problems as well as ways and means which should occupy our
attention in the immediate future. In this connection I am glad to announce to
you that our present meeting is not meant only as a passing show in the history of
psychology, but that, with the hearty endorsement of the administrative authori-
ties of this institution, and, as we hope, with the continuous interest of all psy-
chologists, it is our hope to repeat such an International Symposium on Feelings
and Emotions every fifth year.

It should not be inferred from the above that we are interested in the general
psychology of feelings and emotions only, since our endeavor is to cover the field
in the broadest way and in all possible phases. Thus we shall not overlook the
importance of our subject for individual psychology, a field which has already been
entered, thanks to the original points of view and the methods instigated by such
pioneers as Cattell and Stern. We are also fully aware of the crying need for further
and more minute and extensive work from the point of view of both individual
and general psychology in such spheres of interest as religion, aesthetics, education,
law, psychotherapy, business, and industry. If in this way we could be of some
aid in the work toward a real factual knowledge of feelings and emotions, this
should lead also to a new epistomological and general philosophical era. In this
latter conjecture we find ourselves in full accord with views expressed by Bergson,
F. Krueger, Muller-Freinfels, Rignano, Jaspers, Spengler, and others.

You will find in the selection of contributions to this Symposium, as will also be
the case for those in the future, a strong emphasis placed upon the genetic approach.
It seems to me that we now witness an altogether too artificial division line drawn
between the investigations of momentary consciousness and behavior in laboratory
adult psychology on the one hand, and a study of the growing mental-bodily struc-
ture of the dhild on the other. This might have been natural hitherto; but that it

426 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

has not been easy is readily apparent, e. g., from the excursions into the genetic
field which Titchener finds necessary in s many of his writings. May it be possible
then that a systematic work of comparison and correlation of these two so intimately
interrelated aspects may receive its impetus from this Symposium?

Considered from all angles we cherish tne hope that the Wittenberg Symposium
on Feelings and Emotions of 1927 will prove to be of real value to the history of our

AITJfiJNLHX C

EARLY PSYCHOLOGICAL LABORATORIES*

J. McKEEN CATTELL

Formerly Professor of Psychology in the University of Pennsylvania
and in Columbia University

Laboratories for research and teaching in the sciences are of comparatively recent
origin. They may be regarded as part of the industrial revolution, for there is a
close parallel in causes and effects between the development of the factory system
and of scientific laboratories. The industrial revolution began with the exploitation
by machinery of coal and iron in England; it may perhaps be dated from the use
of the steam engine of Watts's in the coal mines of Cornwell about a hundred and
fifty years ago.

The laboratory had its origin fifty years later in Germany as part of the scientific
renaissance following the Napoleonic wars. The University of Berlin was founded
by Wilhelm von Humboldt and Frederick William III in 1810. The first laboratory
of chemistry was opened by Justus von Liebig at Giessen in 1824. This was
followed by similar laboratories at Gottingen under Wohler in 1836, at Marburg
under Bunsen in 1840, and at Leipzig under Erdmann in 1843. The first English
laboratory was the College of Chemistry, now part of the Imperial College of
Science and Technology of the University of London, which was opened in 1S45
by von Hofmann, brought from Germany by Prince Albert. Benjamin Silliman
founded at Yale University the first American laboratory for the teaching of
chemistry. Laboratories in France and in other countries were of later origin.
Prior to the industrial revolution the artisan worked at home, sometimes with
apprentices, who were often his children. The factories, the mines, and the systems
of transportation, with their machinery, their skilled overseers, and division of
labor, their owners and entrepreneurs, their exchange of commodities and ideas,
created a remarkable economy in production, so that now each individual may
perhaps work half as long and consume twice as much wealth as formerly. But
there are serious drawbacks in the lack of freedom and initiative of the workman,
in the loss of joy in creative work. The situation in the laboratory is similar. A
professor may have many associates, assistants, and students; expensive apparatus
and extensive libraries may be installed; division of labor in each laboratory and
among laboratories can be planned; there may be exchange of ideas and of infor-
mation on the progress of research; students are taught in large groups. Production
is greatly increased, perhaps quadrupled, as in the industrial system. But the
scientific man is subject to administrative controls; he is no longer free; he must
compromise with others and teach all sorts of students. The system is useful for
the production of a large mass of routine work; it may not be favorable to creative
genius.

Anatomy has been called the mother of the sciences; dissecting rooms go back
to the medieval universities of Italy. Observatories, museums, botanical gardens,
academies of science, and university schools, where research was undertaken and
in which students and assistants were taught and trained, preceded organized
laboratories. Chemistry is the gold transmuted through alchemy; we have all
seen on the stage the laboratory of Faust. Tertullian and other Christian fathers
say that when "the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair and

* Address on the occasion of the inauguration of the Psychological Laboratory of
Wittenberg College, October 21, 1927.

428 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

they took them wives" as told in the sixth chapter of Genesis, these fallen angels
taught the fair daughters of men- the ar,s of astrology and alchemy. Scientific
men who do not care for special creations may assume that there has been a gradual
development from the time of the first experiment by an anthropoid ape, or it may
be by a paramecium or an electron. If, however, we want an official beginning for
the first scientific laboratory, it will be the laboratory of chemistry at Giessen, the
hundredth anniversary of whose foundation was celebrated three years ago.

Chemical laboratories were followed by laboratories of physics and biology. I
worked in the first American biological laboratory in its early days. It was estab-
lished at The Johns Hopkins University by Newell Martin, a student of Huxley
who at the Royal College of Science had founded the first laboratory of biology.
From the laboratories of Martin and Brooks at The Johns Hopkins have proceeded
many of our most eminent biological workers. The Johns Hopkins also led in the
establishment (under Welch, Mall, Abel, and Howell) of laboratories in the medical
sciences, But there is obviously no sharp line of demarcation between the modern
laboratory and earlier group? of workers such as the great school of zoology con-
ducted by Agassiz at Harvard.

The first laboratory of psychology was established by Wilhelm Wundt. In an
article on the Leipzig laboratory, published in Mind in 1888 and submitted to
Professor Wundt, I give the date as 1879. The fiftieth anniversary of the founding
of the laboratory was, however, celebrated at Leipzig in 1925. Wundt published
his Grundzuge der physiologischen Psychology e in 1874 and was called from Zurich to
a chair of philosophy at Leipzig in 1875. The Psychologische Institut there was
a gradual development. Wundt writes in his autobiography Erlcbtes und Erkanntes>
published in 1920, that Kraepelin, Lehmann, and I were his three earliest Arbeits-
genossen who remained faithful to psychology and that we worked with him at a
time when the institute was his private undertaking and lacked official recognition
on the part of the university. The first research published from the Leipzig labora-
tory was apparently a doctor's dissertation by Dr. Max Friedrich carried out during
the winter semester of 1879-80.

Wundt writes in the preface to the Physiologische Psychologic that it undertakes
Vein neues Gebiet der Wissenschaft abzugrenzen" but he was partly anticipated by
Hermann Lotze whose Medizinische Psychologic was published in 1852. Both
Lotze and Wundt had a medical education and were professors of philosophy. Their
books are landmarks in the history of our science. It was my privilege to hear the
last course of lectures on psychology by Lotze given at Gottingen in the winter
semester of 1880-81. In accordance with the custom of that university Lotze
dictated summaries which could be written down verbatim even by one who had
little psychology and less German. The Dictata of that year were published and
have been translated into English. In the spring of 1881 Lotze, then seventy-four
years of age, migrated to Berlin and died, according to Gottingen opinion, of
homesickness.

Herbart, whom Lotze succeeded at Gottingen, had tried to give a mathematical
formulation to psychology as Spinoza had to philosophy. He published the first
edition of his Einleitung in die Philosophic in 1813. There followed Drobitsch,
Lindner, Benecke, Volkmar, and other German psychologists. In England we have
the notable development of association and analytic psychology from Locke through
Berkeley, Hume, the Mills, and Bain to Ward. The first edition of Carpenter's
Mental Physiology, today a useful and readable book, was published in 1874, the
same year as Wundt's Grundzuge. In England and in France there were numerous
workers in the fields of physiological and pathological psychology.

The most important developments for laboratory psychology were through the
great German physiologists and physicists, most of all Helmholtz, who passed from
physiology to physics. His Physiologische Optik, recently translated under the
editorship of Professor Southard and published as an act of piety by the Optical

J. MCKEEN CATTELL 429

Society, and his Tonempfindungen of which there is an earlier translation, are
classics in the history of science. E. H. Weber became professor of anatomy at
Leipzig in 1818 at the age of twenty-three, being later transferred to physiology.
The law that bears his name was stat^i in his Annotationes, published from 1834
to 1851. Fechner was appointed professor of physics at the same university in
1834; his Zendavesta was published in 1851, his Elemente der Psychophysik in 1860.
When I was a student at Leipzig he was over eighty-five years old and blind from
experiments on vision, a charming man, intensely interested in his psychophysical
experiments, though chiefly in philosophical interpretations.

The middle fifty years of the last century were the golden age of the German
University and of science, its Wunderkind. It is marvelous what was accomplished
then and there. Thus in the little corner of the field of science concerned with the
psychology of the sense of vision there worked, in addition to Helmholtz and
Fechner, a notable company, including Aubert, Briicke, du Bois-Reymond, Don-
ders (in Holland), Exner, Fraunhofer, Fick, von Graefe (who examined my eyes
when I was a child of eight), Hering, Hermann, von Kries, Listing, Johann Muller,
Nagel, Purkinje, Vierordt, the Webers, and many more. In England there were
Brewster, Maxwell, and others. There is no such group in the world today working
on vision or in any other part of experimental psychology. At that time the
investigation of the other senses, of movement, of the time of reaction, and much
else was pursued probably to greater effect than in all the innumerable laboratories
of today.

The fields so fertile in the nineteenth century were, of course, cleared at an
earlier time. Experiments on vision go back to Kepler, Huygens, and Newton.
Weber's law was anticipated by Bouguer and Lambert; Fechner's law by Bernouilli
and Laplace; the personal equation by the astronomers. Observations on after-
images were made not only by Goethe, the elder Darwin, Buff on, and Newton
among others, but also by Augustine and Aristotle. Very curiously the problems
of psychological measurement were clearly stated by the poet Shelley who more
than a hundred years ago wrote: "A scale might be formed, graduated according
to the degrees of a combined scale of intensity, duration, connection, periods of
recurrence, and utility, which would be the standard, according to which all ideas
might be measured."

When I came across this passage in Shelley it seemed almost incredible that he
of all men should have written it, as indeed it is that the most unearthly of poets
should have been the son of a country squire. But England has always given birth
to great men in families, and as sports. It has been said that Graham Bell (he too
was British) could not have invented the telephone if he had been a physicist, for
he would have known that it was impossible; so it may be said that Francis Galton
could not have accomplished his great work toward founding modern psychology
if he had been a psychologist, for he would have known that it was not psychology.
Galton, like Darwin his cousin, had no university position and no laboratory. lie
published his Hereditary Genius in 1869, his Inquiries into Human Faculty in
1883.

With intermissions I was a student at Leipzig under Wundt from 1881 to 1896,
serving during the last year as laboratory assistant in psychology, the first to be
appointed there or anywhere. Wundt had a higher opinion, doubtless with good
reason, of American enterprise than of American scholarship. In his reminiscences
he writes that with "bekannter Amerikanischer Entscholssenheit" I approached him
and declared: "Herr Professor, you need an assistant and I shall be your assistant. "
He was the most kindly of men and was much worried lest I should not pass my
doctorate examination in physics under Hankel and in zoology under Leuckhart,
but these distinguished professors also fortunately made due allowance for a child
of the wilderness. Wundt' s combined courtesy and remoteness from the modern
world may be illustrated by an incident. At that time women were seldom ad-

430 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

milled to university lectures, but at my request he gave permission to an American
woman of fine intelligence to attend his coirse on psychology. This was frequented
by some two hundred students, among them the most stupid in the university, for
all theological students were required to ^tend. One day he said: "I am sorry
that I let Miss X attend my lectures; it embarrasses me; I feel that I ought to speak
in a way that a woman can understand. "

When I showed Wundt an outline of the work that I proposed for a doctor's
thesis on reaction-time, including complicated responses and a study of individual
differences, his comment was: "ganz Amerikanisch." As a matter of fact I did
the work in my own rooms and with my own apparatus. At that time students
were expected to work in the laboratory on a subject assigned by the professor
during certain definite hours in the afternoon and with the apparatus supplied,
which had to be put away neatly in the cases after a two-hour period. We used two
batteries of Daniel cells and when these were set up and got into running order it
was nearly time to take them apart, wash the zincs and coppers, and put the fluids
into bottles. As in this process we were likely to splash sulphuric acid on our clothes
we kept handy a bottle of ammonia which was very promptly applied to the stains.
At that time I anticipated Dr. Watson in an observation on the unconditioned
reflex, for when the German student who worked with me drew a mouthful of
dilute sulphuric acid through the syphon that we used, he immediately reached for
the ammonia bottle and took a mouthful of that.

In the early eighties Wundt's laboratory was housed on the top floor of the
Convict building, where indigent students had their meals. He used to walk through
the laboratory after his lecture, always courteous and ready to answer questions,
but, as I remember it, usually limiting his visit to five or ten minutes. He was
interested in the laboratory as a system and as a method of introspection, but he
was not himself a laboratory worker. His interests were very broad, a less friendly
word would be voluminous. His Loyik, first published from 1880 to 1883,
contains in the second edition 1995 pages; his Ethik, also published while I was at
Leipzig contains in its third edition 933 pages. The System der Philosophic, pub-
lished in 1889, contains in its third edition 738 pages. The last edition of the
Physiologische Psychologic contains 2317 pages; the V oik er psychologic, 3161 pages.

These books and others Wundt composed on a typewriter that I gave him, one
of the first in Germany. Avenarius once remarked that I had by this gift done a
serious disservice to philosophy, for it had enabled Wundt to write twice as many
books as would otherwise have been possible. At that time the relations of German
professors were curious from an American point of view. Wundt was not in friendly
relations with Helrnholtz, Stumpf, Miiller, and others. Stumpf, next to Wundt the
most distinguished of German psychologists, was professor at Halle, only three
quarters of an hour by train from Leipzig, and Wundt was asked for an introduction.
He said that he was sorry that he could not give it as he did not know Professor
Stumpf personally; it was better so, for they could then write more freely when
there was a difference of opinion and they did so a couple of years later.

At the beginning of the semester, students who wanted to undertake experimental
work stood before Wundt in a row and from a slip of paper that he held in his hand
he assigned topics in order. The year that I appeared there were six or seven of
us, representing nearly as many nationalities. I was assigned the problem of react-
ing to colored lights; first, when the light was seen; and second, when the color
was distinguished, and by subtracting one time from the other of obtaining what
Wundt called the " Apperceptiomzeit. " This I could not do, but the problem was
most useful to me, for it led me to realize the limitations of introspection and to
base my work on objective measurements of behavior. Wundt's refusal to admit
any subject to the laboratory except a psychologist who could use the results
introspectively was also useful, for it led me to transfer the work to my rooms and
make there the first psychological measurements of individual differences and to

J. McKEEN CATTELL 431

attempt to develop the useful applications of psychology with both of which efforts
Wundt had no sympathy. I

Wundt rejected as a doctorate dissertation Mimsterberg's very able monograph
on Die Willenshandlungen because it did not coincide with his own theories. He
calls Stanley Hall's excellent sketch of ms life and work an "crdichtete Biographic
die von Anfang bis zu Ende erfunden ist. " But such things were only the righteous
indignation of the Hebrew prophet denouncing the enemies of the Lord. The
academic life in Germany in those days was truly exalted. The nation, the uni-
versity, the professor, were sacrosanct. It was a fine experience to be admitted to
the outer court of the temple before the money changers had entered. Wundt
himself was the ideal German professor, with boundless learning shading toward
the pedantic, fully conscious of his plenary inspiration, yet withal, most modest,
shy, and kindly; a seer before his students, a child at home, a truly great man.

Wundt 's laboratory of psychology was international in its reputation and influ-
ence, attracting students from all parts of the world, Americans and Russians
predominating. In 1892 it received larger quarters and in 1897 was removed to
one of the buildings vacated by the Medical School where fourteen rooms were
remodeled for its purposes. In the late eighties there were beginnings of laboratories
under Ebbinghaus at Berlin, under Mil Her at Gottingen, and under students of
Wundt who were my contemporaries and friends: Miinsterberg at Freiburg,
Martius at Bonn, and Lehrnann at Copenhagen.

The second laboratory of psychology was organized by G. Stanley Hall at The
Johns Hopkins University early in the year 1883. I was there before Hall, holding
a fellowship in philosophy, this award for a thesis on Lotze havi'ng been made by
the professor of Latin who knew even less about philosophy than I did, or the
fellowship would have been given John Dewey. He was there as a student, as were
also Joseph Jastrow and II. II. Donaldson. We helped Hall set up a modest lab-
oratory in a private house adjacent to the center of ugly little brick buildings and
great men that formed the university. The small group of professors working there
included Remsen, Rowland, Sylvester, Gildersleeve, Haupt, Adams, Brooks,
and Martin.

It is a curious fact that neither of the founders of our first two psychological
laboratories was a laboratory worker. Hall's chair, like Wundt's, was not limited to
psychology; he lectured on philosophy and he also conducted courses in pedagogy.
The range of his interests was large, but it was the human aspects of life that he
cared for rather than abstract quantitative measurements. Like James he was a
man of literary genius swayed by the emotions, which are such a large part of
life and yet such a small part of our science. Minot, the distinguished Harvard
embryologist, once said that he envied my occupation with a science concerned
with human interests. My reply was that my experiments had as little to do with
such things as his had with love and children. Hall wrote about children, ado-
lescence and senescence, religion and sex, the drama of life. He and James were
giants in the land, over-towering their descendants of a work-a-day world.

As Wundt established the Philosophische Studien to publish the work from his
own laboratory and his own articles on psychology and philosophy, so Hall estab-
lished the American Journal of Psychology. The early volumes give a survey of the
work done in Baltimore, which was largely physiological and psychiatrical. Hall
was much interested in insanity and other pathological aspects of psychology and
we used to go regularly to the Enoch Pratt Hospital for the insane. These interests
were maintained and in the last conversation that I had with him in his lonely house
at Worcester he wanted especially to know why orthodox American psychologists
cared so little for Freud and psychoanalysis. He showed me a mass of publications
and notes that he had collected on the subject.

Hall was called upon to organize Clark University in 1888 and gathered there a
group of outstanding scientific men including Michelson, Webster, Bolza, Nef,

432 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

Whitman, Mall, Donaldson, Lombard, McMurrich, and Boas. The financial
support of the university by Mr.- Clark ivas less liberal than had been anticipated
and Dr. Harper took over in a body a large part of these men for the faculty of the
new University of Chicago. Hall remarks in his Life and Confessions: "I felt his
act comparable to that of a housekeeper who would steal in at the back door to
engage servants at a higher price." Sanford went with Hall from The Johns Hopkins
to Clark and became director of the laboratory of psychology which was opened
in 1889. The Johns Hopkins laboratory was closed and the apparatus dispersed
until it was re-established by Professor Baldwin and Professor Stratton in 1904.
Hall and Clark University long maintained a dominant position in psychology and
the psychological side of education. In his death there ends the romantic and
heroic era of our science.

The laboratory of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania was founded in
1887, though it was only in January, 1889, that a special laboratory with adequate
equipment of apparatus was opened. The laboratories at Leipzig and The Johns
Hopkins were for research students, and psychology was only part of the field
covered by the professor. At the University of Pennsylvania a professorship of
psychology was established and laboratory courses for students were given. It
might consequently be argued by a partial advocate that this was the first laboratory
of psychology in the sense that Liebig's chemical laboratory at Giessen was the
first scientific laboratory. More significant is the circumstance that in this labor-
atory the research work and the courses for students were based on objective
measurements of responses to the environment with special reference to individual
and group differences and to the useful applications of psychology, thus leading
to the development of modern educational, clinical, and industrial psychology.

In 1888 I was also lecturer at Bryn Mawr College and at the University of Cam-
bridge, conducting in both institutions laboratory courses for students. At Cam-
bridge the work was in conjunction with the lectures of Professor James Ward and
in the Cavendish laboratory of which the present Sir Joseph Thomson was the
director, having just before at the age of twenty-six succeeded Maxwell and
Rayleigh in the professorship of physics. In the Cavendish laboratory apparatus
for research work was also set up, and this was the beginning of the first British
laboratory of psychology. At that time I had the privilege of assisting Galton in
setting up the Anthropometric Laboratory in the South Kensington Museum and
we began in cooperation the preparation of a book of instructions for a laboratory
course in psychology.

The five-year period from 1887 to 1892 is distinguished for the development of
laboratories of psychology in the United States. For earlier work tribute should
in passing be paid to James McCosh, Presbyterian clergyman from Scotland and
president of a Presbyterian college, who at Princeton promoted the study of organic
evolution and physiological psychology. George Trumbull Ladd, also a clergyman,
was called to Yale in 1881 and developed there courses in physiological psychology,
leading to the publication in 1887 of his Outlines of Physiological Psychology. With
James and Hall he shares the honor of leading in the development of psychology
in America. The laboratory at Yale was organized by Professor Ladd in 1892 with
Dr. E. W. Scripture as instructor.

Work in experimental psychology leading to the establishment of a laboratory
was begun by Professor Joseph Jastrow at Wisconsin in 1888. His service as pro-
fessor of psychology is the longest in the history of our science. A year or two later
laboratories were established at Indiana University by President W. L. Bryan, at
the University of Nebraska by Professor H. K. Wolfe, at Brown University by
Professor E. B Delabarre, and at Stanford University by Professor Frank AngelL
Professor J. Mark Baldwin was called to Toronto in 1890 and established there a
psychological laboratory as he did at Princeton when he returned to that university
in 1893. In 1895 we together founded The Psychological Review which, with its

j. MCKEEN CATTELL 433

children, The Psychological Monographs, The Psychological Index, The Psychological
Bulletin, The Journal of Experimental A Psychology, and the newly established
Psychological Abstracts, have now, through the generous cooperation of Professor
Warren, been acquired and are being conducted by the American Psychological
Association.

The professorship of psychology and the laboratory of psychology at Columbia
University date from 1891. The following year is notable for the establishment of
the psychological laboratories at Harvard and Cornell and the calling to America
of Hugo Munsterberg and E. B. Titchener, At Cornell the traditions of the Leipzig
laboratory have been best maintained. Titchener brought to us the high standards
and some of the idiosyncrasies of the Oxford don and the German professor. Now
he has followed James, Hall, and Miinsterberg, leaving the world more drab and
empty.

Where James, Royce, and Miinsterberg were, was the center of psychology.
James was appointed professor of psychology at Harvard in 1889, having been
from 1872 to 1880 instructor and assistant professor of comparative anatomy and
physiology, after 1880 assistant professor of philosophy, becoming again professor
of philosophy in 1897. His great work The Principles of Psychology was published
in 1890. In a letter addressed to me as editor of Science in 1895 James tells of the
development of work in experimental psychology at Harvard: " I, myself, 'founded*
the instruction in experimental psychology at Harvard in 1874-75, or 1876, 1 forget
which. For a long series of years the laboratory was in two rooms of the Scientific
School building, which at last became choked with apparatus, so that a change was
accessary. I then, in 1890, resolved on an altogether new departure, raised several
thousand dollars, fitted up Dane Hall, and introduced laboratory exercises as a
regular part of the undergraduate psychology course. Dr. Herbert Nichols,
then at Clark, was appointed in 1891 assistant in this part of the work; and Profes-
sor Munsterberg was made director of the laboratory in 1892."

With the publication of James's Principles of Psychology in 1890, the opening
of the laboratories at Harvard, Yale, and Cornell in 1892, and the establishment of
the American Psychological Association in the same year, the earlier period of psy-
chology in America may be closed. The few survivors may look back upon it as
the golden age of our science, but that is doubtless due only to the presbyopia that
obscures the vision of* objects near at hand. In the thirty-five years that have
since elapsed the number of our workers in psychology has increased to an extent
perhaps without parallel in any other science or in any other country. We welcome
the opening at Wittenberg College of a new laboratory, which under the direction
of Professor Reymert will become a new center for psychological research, auspi-
ciously inaugurated by this conference to advance our knowledge of the problems
of feeling and the emotions.

Chemistry is the earliest, and psychology is the latest, of the laboratory sciences.
It is of interest that we meet today to dedicate a building built for laboratories in
these two sciences which I understand will be given equal opportunities at Witten-
berg College. Psychology as the youngest child of the family has in our univer-
sities usually been given the outgrown clothes of the older sibs. Here, for almost
the first time, it is treated on terms of equality. It is also significant that in an in-
stitution that is designated as a college rather than a university, there should be
Provided men and equipment for advanced teaching and research in psychology,
t will be a fine development worthy of a truly democratic nation, if each of the
better colleges of the class of Wittenberg, if each of all the thousand colleges of the
country, will take up some one or two subjects in which high standards of research
and scholarship are maintained. They will be leaven for the college, beacon lights
for the state.

APPENDIX D
LO, THE PSYCHOLOGIST!*

JOSEPH JASTROW

University of Wisconsin

There are interludes when attention may be diverted from the play to the
players. The psychologist, responsive to encouragement, steps before the curtain
and addresses, in his own behalf, as if over the radio, a small present and a larger
invisible audience. There is current a gentle libel that a psychologist is one who
tells what everyone knows in language that nobody understands. The aggressively
up-to-date psychologist has changed all that: he tells what, as yet, nobody knows
in language that everybody understands, and cultivates the art of persuading enter-
prising editors to reward him handsomely for his reckless ingenuity.

At a ceremony similar to the present I was introduced as one of the small company
who had taken the sigh out of psychology, and did not resent the unearned compli-
ment; thus proving my sympathy with the popularization of all sound knowledge.
Particularly have we psychologists gained and not lost by becoming intelligible.
But the lure of the footlights and the glare of the headlights tend to obscure the
steady, modest lamp of learning. The psychologist should not be dazzled by the
ready and undiscriminating demand for his services; his responsibility remains.
He cannot, though at times he pretends to, be all things to all men and even more
to some women. Yet it is not my unpopular purpose to impose a personality-
inventory upon the psychologist, nor yet to subject him publicly to a psychoanalysis
that might even in private prove embarrassing.

I prefer to acknowledge gratefully his good fortune in being accorded the public
ear, and to suggest the obligations of this privilege. We are not likely to overlook
the circumstance that the typical psychologist is a professor, however little the
typical professor is a psychologist. But the implications as well as the prerequisites
of what some call a career and others a misfortune have altered notably in our
scholastic generation. The days when the university had any of the configuration
or Gestalt, or presented even remotely the behavior-patterns of a cloister, are so
far in the past that no one of us remembers them. It is only in such archaic tradi-
tions as those that survive on the stage and in the press that the professor is still
portrayed as an absent-minded beggar, whose reputed mentality is spent upon
unprofitable mysteries of his own beclouded making, though a half-truth remains
in the beggarliness of his salary. His alert presence of mind is his indispensable
asset to hold his job. In his distracting versatility he often longs for a bit of a
retreat where the students cease from troubling, and the tax- or fee-paying parents
are at rest. Far from suffering, as did his predecessor, from the view of his Fach
as something to learn in order to teach others to learn to teach it to still others
in a squirrel-cage rotary continuum called the curriculum or educational running-
track, he is under diverse pressure from the world without to make his wares market-
able. He is training a select group of practical-minded scholars, and talks to many
so intensely practical that they do not take him seriously.

The ambition, at one time attributed to college presidents with more energy than
erudition, to make culture hum, now affects the psychologist with the determination
to make psychology pay. The psychology of advertising has so subtly taken posses-

* Address given at the dedication of the Chemistry-Psychology Building at
Wittenberg College, October 21, 1027.

JOSEPH JASTHOW 435

sioii of the academic premises as to emerge as the advertising of psychology. The
tail of applied psychology impudently Jvags the dog, and I am doubtless betraying
my senility in bemoaning the anatomical innovation. Pure psychology needs no
plea, and I am not disposed to make a plea for a pure psychologist or even a pure
professor. Every complete professor is something more than he professes. A
pliable versatility offsets the danger of too specialized interests. Since the only
person who glories in being addressed as "professor" is the dancing-master, most of
us prefer to travel incognito, and are delighted to be mistaken for men of the
world. Through the popular practicality of psychology, it has come about that in
some quarters a psychologist is expected to read your character or, if you lack that
superfluous appendage, your palm or your bumps, to inoculate you with success
germs, and reveal either your past or your future, according to whichever is the
more presentable or promising. If of a certain kidney, he undertakes to double your
future income by removing some of your present cash. Nor can one dismiss the peri-
patetic reapers of shekels as psychologists of the slums, since some of them have
dwelt in college halls while others in prison walls.

There is the like temptation in the quite legitimate fields occupied by the legiti-
mate profession. I am not ready to greet as a philanthropist the confident adviser
of manufacturers, showing them how to avoid unnecessary movements in making
still more unnecessary articles, or developing a technique of reducing recalcitrant
buyers (still retaining a moronic .delusion that they know what they want) to help-
less victims of the salesman's craft. The enterprising psychologist bent upon
practicality is prepared to measure intelligence even when it is conspicuously
absent, and to reduce to a score anything from a fingerprint to a belief in immortal-
ity. For more complicated mortals there is the devastating penetration of X-raying
psychoanalysis; while the more simple-minded can have their behavior recorded and
their careers shaped to any desired pattern by a conditioned response applied early
and often. You can have your mind lifted or acquire a permanent wave of your
psychic head-gear if you pursue the proper cult with faith and fees. To make
people efficient though incompetent is no longer the exclusive prerogative of the
colleges.

Supporting the ambitious superstructure of many such claims, pursued even by
able and reputable psychologists not wisely but too irresponsibly, is a solid body
of sound information and an important approach attained by well-tested methods
of well-organized research, together with much more of similar intention but carried
through with halting comprehension. Psychology has in fact advanced man's
knowledge of the human make-up, has furthered the better direction and control
of human energy in fields as various as the spread of human interests. Lo, the
psychologist has come to his own! In a sense never before so appropriate, we live
in a psychological age; but equally the improper as well as the -proper study of
mankind is man. So long confused by the products of his traditionally and eco-
nomically hampered activities, he has awakened to the realization with a newer
insight that it is imperative to take stock of human motives and conditions and
thereby test the value of his strivings.

We have at command, as has had no previous generation, a modernized and
humanized and scientized outlook, all as potent to influence human welfare as the
transformations wrought in the human scene by autos and airplanes and radios
and X-rays and floating palaces and soaring skyscrapers and the more than nine-
times-nine wonders of the modern world. How we think and what we believe, how
we influence and minister to minds in the making, how we attempt to control the
conflicts of men's interests and the clashes of their jealousies and ambitions, is more
significant than how we move and live and maintain our physical being. To select
but two high points of the psychologist's insight, there is the revelation of the nature
and unsuspected significance of early childhood, and the equally significant story
of man's liabilities in mental disorder and defect. Both are imbedded in the

486 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

human heritage. The child as early man, as well as primitive man himself, still
active in the cave-man that survives, though the modern cliff-dweller ascends to
his eeried office by express elevator, sets the problem of human direction, whatever
the occupations that engage the same hands,ihe same brain, that made possible his
ascent. It is in this complicated world that the psychologist operates; and it is
important that he should not be confused by its din and machinery, that he should
join the small remnant of creative and progressive thinkers who can see even this
bewildering world soundly and see it whole. Such is part of the psychologist's
responsibility. Hence the necessity to him of an adequate background, of a com-
prehensive outlook. However engaging and legitimate the study of trees, the
psychologist is a forester in human nature and must attain that position whether
through the laboratory, or through analysis of the behavior of human minds in the
records of history and literature and science, or by direct contact with the streams
of activity, mingling with men and their many affairs.

It is, I believe, in his response to the practical pressure of our times that the
psychologist will show his worth. He must continue to maintain that the problems
of greatest moment are those that arise within the science itself. In this the
lessons of the story of all science are clear. The great advances have come from
those who found their problems by the light of their own concentration. Galileos
and Newtons and Darwins are too rare to afford a working model for the rest of us
gleaners. But so far we can all accept the guiding principle of their endeavors: to
find the supporting motives for our intellectual life in the interpretation of that
aspect of nature that we chose by dominant interest and studious possession.

Lo, the expert psychologist! There was a certain dignity in the older name of
physics as natural philosophy, and the term naturalist deserves a more liberal
currency. We are all naturalists: the chemist studies the inner nature of the make-
up of things; the psychologist, the inner nat ure of the make-up of mind. We should
never need the cry, "Back to Nature," which was Rousseau's slogan for a too
sophisticated social world, a world since his day jazzed to a feverish pace out of ail
resemblance to that which aroused his revolt; because we should never move away
from nature, as nature never moves away from us, however much we try to escape
her conditioning hand. Because nature conditions art, psychologists must keep
the direction of advance in their own control. However ready to serve, they cannot
be subservient to a practical perspective imposed from without.

The sterility of many movements in psychology even within the early laboratory
period resulted mainly from the too academic pursuit and framing of problems;
the lesson that all function has a natural setting was not yet learned. This correc-
tion has been made; the psychologist has a biological grasp. The present danger is
just the opposite that psychology will take its problems too largely from the
stress of application, which is just as artificial in another sense, and irrelevant and
disturbing as well.

The psychology of advertising may in itself be a matter of slight moment, just
a section of the far larger and more consequential psychology of persuasion; and
it cannot be glorified into importance because vast sums of money are spent or
misspent in this amazing exhibition of the lack of self-direction of human sheep.
Science must set the standards of importance. The psychology of the nervous or
the gifted child, the psychology of the variant specimens of humanity whether de-
linquent or defective, are a hundred times more significant and more difficult to
pursue than the psychology of advertising which a properly directed human so-
ciety would reduce to a minimum.

As I look about to find some common factors of the misdirection or abuse of
psychological interests, I seem to discover first the lure of simplicity. Sound
psychology simplified in statement by all means, but not by sacrifice of perspective
and truth, nor yet in a flippant disregard of the difficult paths by which the stages
of insight have been reached. The actual behavior of human beings and their

JOSEPH JASTROW 437

psychological problems that arise out of them are not simple. Simplification not
well steadied distorts, misleads, and obstructs.' As so many leave home-work for
factory-work and home-making for making things for the market, because the
factory side of life is so much simpler*than the home side, so may the lure of the
practical be but a phase of the lure of simplicity as well as the hope of quick re-
turns. Both lead to a superficial psychology; and we need more than ever a deep
psychology. I find it necessary to place in this same misleading tendency a move-
ment for which, within its domain, I have the highest respect that too limitedly
called behaviorism. With few exceptions, all psychologists are behaviorists, and
with just as few exceptions psychologists refuse to follow the ambitious negations
and conclusions of extreme behaviorism. The attraction of the radical behavioris-
tic doctrines is their simplicity, yet also the next lure, that of novelty. The con-
fusion of the new and the true is a widespread fallacy. Since everything that ever
led to human progress was at one time an innovation, the novel, always attractive
in its own engaging charm, gets a hearing; and a following uncritically heralds it as
an advance and a correction and an emancipation. But this is too momentous a
matter for brief consideration. One may simplify anything by ignoring its com-
plications; and in the negations of radical behaviorism, as well as in its cavalierly
dismissal of the essential problems, there is a pitfall for the unwary.

The psychoanalyst is a deep psychologist in all truth. His is the opposite danger
of making mountains out of molehills. He may well profit by the rigid exactions
of the behaviorist's technique. The behaviorist's facts will stand though we
challenge the practical consequences which he deduces from them; the over-zealous
psychoanalyst insists that the facts must be as his conclusions demand, and he has
a technique that favors finding what you look for. Both are on the search for
mechanisms, but are angling at different depths. The psychoanalyst is persuaded
that the behaviorist is catching nothing but minnows and ignores the complications
of deep-sea life; the behaviorist is persuaded that the psychoanalyst's monsters
of the deep are hatched in an imaginary aquarium. Clearly, the psychologist is in
no immediate danger of finding his occupation gone through a dreary unanimity
of opinion. Man is still an enigma, and the nature of the human mind not a dead
issue but a live controversy. Lo, the psychologist has his hands full, and the public
awaits his deliveries!

As the largest asset of the advertiser is the habit of reading advertising, so the
most valued asset of the psychologist is the public faith or hope that he has a
message for the man of the street and the office and the home and the school and
the church and the courts and the political and social life generally. If as the result
of a campaign of enlightenment, one could broadcast the conviction that practically
all advertising is bunk, and every he-man would show his masculinity and every
she- woman her native insight by resisting every advertising appeal and establishing
a boycott for all advertised goods, that hugest industry of the modern world would
crumble to the dust, and the glare of Broadway be sobered down to a pleasing and
decorative illumination. By quite the same argument (and doubtless the issue is
just as probable) if all men could be made to resist the temptation to take what
is not nailed down, all locks and bolts and steel vaults and armored cars and the
rest of the world of steel against steal would be so much junk. In the one instance
people would be so inhumanly intelligent that they would know what they want,
and in the other case so inhumanly honest that they wouldn't take it when they
saw it. And lo, the psychologist as well as the advertiser and the preacher and the
lawyer and the judge would have their occupations reduced to a pleasant employ-
ment of their superfluous energy, while now they all work overtime and with ques-
tionable profit to their several flocks and charges!

But even in post-prandial mood I am not optimistic enough to indulge in Utopias.
I use the idea only to place the responsibility of the psychologist in the present
instance, of every other profession in turn as their devotees assemble, plainly before

438 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

them. We must retain the popular ear and confidence, for we are convinced that
what we have to offer has an important sBare to guide aright the course of many
lives, to contribute to the pool of knowledge that we call modern science, human-
ized science particularly. We live in a journalistic age. The sources of distribution
exert the most powerful control over what people will accept, whether in things or
ideas, for such is the texture of human suggestibility. One editor in an influential
position, 1 will not say with a perverted but with a less than worthy policy of
adapting what people will accept to what is good for them, can do more to offset the
work of all the rest of the educational forces directed toward stabilizing the present
generation (I use the word because "uplifting" has acquired a suspicious repute)
than any agency as yet developed. The yellow peril by which we are threatened
is not a racial one in the far East, but is blazoned forth in all colors on every news-
stand. One of the outstanding jobs for the Hercules among psychologists is to
develop a journalistic hygienic technique to clean out the garages of high-powered
presses.

We must popularize as we advance and advance as we popularize; and because
of the special temptation to the psychologist to yield to the clamor for the simple,
the predigested and misinterpreted, the novel and upsetting and surprising, the
sensational when it is sufficiently off-color, is it permitted, even while he steps
before the curtain to receive the applause which he so artfully arranged that it
seems to be spontaneous, for a fellow psychologist to speak to his guild in words of
congratulation not unmixed with warning.

The current reply to all this is: "Highbrow stuff not wanted!" Apparently, we
are still willing to be called, "the heirs of all the ages," but have no aversion to
herding with narrow foreheads vacant of our glorious gains. Addressing, as I have
the futile habit of doing, audiences of all sorts and conditions of men, I am quite
intimately aware of the difficulty of steering between that which demands the slight-
est mental effort on the part of the hearer and that which demands no effort at all
on the part of the speaker. Perhaps some are expert in thus striking the proper
cranial altitude between the high-brows and the low-brows. With me it is hit or
miss; and, unlike the shooting gallery, one gets the report when one fails to score;
nor have I any great interest in keeping score. So I fall back on the conviction
that, however poor my sermon, I have a good text. I am convinced that psychology
has a message that can be "put over" (to use "journalese") not by the arts of the
advertiser and the exploiter, but by the same loyalty to a sense of truth and value
that advances the search for knowledge and its sober and critical application. I
even entertain the hope that there may coine the day when some mind as great in
insight as that of Newton for the physical world, of Darwin for the biological
world, will appear as a great psychologist combining in one composite all the several
congenial insights that make up the present heritage of such a body as is here
assembled to dedicate another center of dissemination of learning. May he be
greeted: "Lo, the great psychologist!"

APPENDIX E

CHEMISTRY AND PSYCHOLOGY*

EDWIN E. SLOSSON

Science Service, Washington, D. C.

In speaking at the dedication of a chemistry-psychology building I have attained
a lifelong ambition. I am filled with that feeling of satisfaction, that peace of mind,
which arises from the synthesis of two diverging desires, the appeasement of a con-
flict that tore my soul in twain at the critical period of adolescence.

The day I left the University of Kansas in 1891 I had two jobs offered me. One
was the offer from G. Stanley Hall of a fellowship in experimental psychology at the
newly established Clark University. The other was to become the assistant in
chemistry in the newly established University of Wyoming. I was drawn in oppo-
site directions, east and west, after the ancient mode of torture. I felt like the
Italian lover in Daly's ballad:

"I gotta love for Angela,
I love Carlotta, too!
I no can marry both of dem,
So what I gonna do?"

Since in those days I could not combine the rivals no such building as this
having been erected I chose chemistry and rejected psychology. Since it ^s
nowadays permissible to admit that our decisions are not determined purely by
intellectual arguments, but are sometimes swayed by the emotions, I may now admit
that my choice was influenced by the fact that the eastern fellowship was celibate
whereas the western position allowed me to take a wife. Owing to this, that my
decision was dictated by my optic thalamus more than my cerebrum, I am in the
chemical section of this symposium instead of the emotional section.

A few years later a student entering graduate work came to me to get me to
suggest a novel and promising field for research for his Ph.D. Arbeit (as we used to
call it before the war). No easy task to be asked to give offhand a subject on which
a young man might spend profitably three years and $3,000! But I was young and
more ready to give advice to other people; less willing to admit that I did not
know everything.

So I resorted to generalities, as we all do when we are at a loss for particulars. I
discoursed to him on the fundamental principles of the scientific method.

" All Nature is one, " I said. "So at least we believe, and it is the object of science,
as it is of religion, to prove its faith in practice. Science consists in showing the
relationships between things. As Poincar6 says of mathematics, 'It is the art of
giving the same name to different things. ' Everything in the universe is related to
everything else, but the relationship is often not apparent but has to be disclosed.
The more remote the relationship, the greater the triumph of its discoverer.

"Now put yourself in the place of a matrimonial matchmaker. Look around the
circle of the sciences, pick out two of them that no one has ever thought of bringing
together, and marry them. Never mind if it may be considered by the world a
mesalliance. In the history of science, unlike biology, the hybrid sciences prove
most fertile of offspring.*'

* Address given at the dedication of the Chemistry-Psychology Building at
Wittenberg College, October 21, 1927.

440 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

"But how can I think of two sciences that no one has ever thought of joining?"
"Resort to chance, my boy. Chance h& a wider imagination than any human
intellect. Write out on separate slips of paper the names of all the sciences and
subsciences. Put them in your hat, shake $em up, shut your eyes, and draw out
two of th^n. Then write your dissertation on the connection between the two.
If fortune favors you she may call upon you to marry such dissimilar sciences as
* astronomy and conchology* or 'herpetology and metallurgy* or 'psychology and
chemistry.' "

But at that the young man went away sorrowful, for he thought I was joking at
his serious dilemma. No one is more serious than a student in search of a thesis
subject.

I must admit that my advice seemed absurd, especially the idea of there being
any connection between psychology and chemistry. For in my time I use the
phrase in its customary sense, meaning when I was in my twenties, the age we all
are in our dreams chemistry and psychology were not on speaking terms. They
moved in different social circles. Teaching psychology was a white-collar job.
There was no taint of stinks and stains. The Chancellor of the University taught
it to seniors out of Porter or McCosh in the classroom opposite his office at the
front entrance, while chemistry was put in the basement or attic where it would
be most out of the way.

But times have changed. I have been recently in psychological laboratories
where rats and monkeys were being educated and the smell was worse than in my
old chemical laboratory in the basement. 1 suspect that the presence of psy-
chologists in this building will be quite as obnoxious to the chemists as the chemists
will be to the psychologists. But I hope there are no impermeable partitions. I
trust that ideas will be allowed to seep through by mental osmosis.

Such partitions are doing a great damage to science nowadays. Some of the
sciences are hardly on speaking terms with one another. According to the familiar
definition: "A specialist is a man who is learning more and more about less and
less." The same principle seems to apply in research as in boring for petroleum;
the deeper the well the narrower becomes the bore.

Specialization, matchless method of research, has been carried so far as to remind
one of the study of the elephant by the six blind men. The one who touched the
side reported that the elephant was "very like a wall." The one who embraced
the leg concluded that the elephant was "very like a post." The one who was
entangled in the trunk said that the elephant was "very like a snake," and so
forth. These investigators were all quite correct, yet it would have been better
if they all could have got a glimpse of the beast as a whole before beginning their
specialized researches.

So, too, it seems to me advisable to give our pupils a glimpse of nature in its
wholeness before we begin to partition it among the several sciences. It is the
custom at hotel dinners to bring in the roast turkey or the planked steak and exhibit
it in its entirety to the guests before it is carved up into portions for the particular
plates where it is to be still further reduced by each to masticable morsels.

The slicing up of a subject into separate sciences is as necessary a preliminary
to its complete assimilation as is the carving of a turkey. But both processes
are irreversible reactions. It is difficult to get from the consideration of hash an
integral idea of what creature supplied the meat.

Not long ago I was in the study of the head of the biological department of one
of our colleges when he said to me: "You are going about the country a good deal,
can't you help me to get a professor of zoology?" I replied that that ought to
be easy.

" No, " he said, " I have been trying to find one for the last three years. You see
I want a zoologist of very unusual qualifications. "
" What sort of a man do you want? " I asked.

EDWIN E. SLOSSON 441

"I want a professor of 7x>6logy who knows something about animals. But the
universities don't seem to be turning out such nowadays. I can get a man who
knows all about the hydrogen ion concentration of the blood or who can count the
chromosomes or who is familiar with museum specimens, but they do not seem to be
acquainted with animals that are alive and whole. "

It seems to me that what we need in our educational institutions is a combination
of specialized research and synthetic education. Yesterday evening at the dinner
given in honor of Professor Linn, I had the pleasure of sitting beside Dean Shatzer
and found that he feels as strongly as I do about the importance of closer cooper-
ation between diverse departments of education. "At present," he told me in
substance, "our studies are taught as though they were islands rather than parts
of a continuous continent of universal knowledge." It is to prevent the students
from living the lives of intellectual Robinson Crusoes that progressive colleges are
attempting to introduce some sort of synthetic or orientation courses.

I am glad to see that in spite of the partitions of our curriculum, diverse training,
and trade-union spirit, the several and separated sciences are spreading into each
other's provinces. A growing science is like an overpopulated state. It cannot be
kept to the bounds of the map.

Chemistry since my time using the words in the same sense as before has
invaded the field of biology and even the field beyond, that of psychology.

This week thirty-five of the leading psychologists of the world have, at Witten-
berg, been studying the feelings and emotions of man and, I suppose, of woman.
But in this province chemistry is the dominant science. For feelings and emotions
of every sort can be instantaneously suspended by a whiff of ether. And a few more
whiffs of ether will abolish them permanently. The chemist would then leave the
psychologist nothing to study.

So you have done wisely, I think, in planning this program so that the psy-
chologists and chemists meet at the same time, though I am sorry you did not
force them to sit together in the same room and listen to each other in discussing
the emotional side of human conduct.

" Until this paragon of spheres
By philosophic thought coheres
The vast machine will be controlled
By love and hunger, as of old."

Now love and hunger are based upon definite chemical reactions. They can
be excited or allayed by certain compounds, some of which are already known. By
chemical means affection can be stimulated or transformed into indifference or into
aversion.

One of the most powerful of the emotional factors among the higher animals
is maternal affection. Yet lack of an infinitesimal amount of a chemical compound
may annihilate or even reverse maternal affection. I allude to vitamin X or E. It
has been found that feeding rat mothers on a diet containing this vitamin they
nurse their young, cover them from the cold, make straw beds for them, wash them
with their tongues, even protect them at the risk of their lives.

But change the diet to one without vitamin E, although equally nutritious,
digestible, and tasty, and the attitude of the mother rat changes. She refuses to
suckle her offspring or care for them, shoves them out of the nest into the cold,
thrusts them out of the cage to fall on the floor and perish. She may even eat
them up.

Here is a chemical transformation from maternal affection to maternal canni-
balism. Some day we may assume the maternal vitamin or hormone will be isolated,
even synthesized in the laboratory. We may also assume that what has been found
true about rats may be applied to humans. At least psychologists and physiolo-
gists commonly assume this. If so, we may expect that it may be possible to instill

442 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

the maternal instinct by administering the missing ingredient to the females of our
species who are nowadays too often destitute of it.

In proof of the power of the chemist to control the other ruling passion of the
world, hunger, the experiment just performed in this room is most convincing.
We all, however diverse in temperament, were drawn here simultaneously by a
common motive, the feeling for food. It is a sort of chemico-psychic impulse, which
psychologists who experiment with bugs and worms call chemotaxis. But within
the hour by the aid of that branch of applied chemistry known commonly as "cook-
ery" the passion of hunger has been amputated from the bodies of all of us by a
painless, indeed pleasurable, operation.

Scents, savors, and colors are silent and subtle in their sway over emotions,
and emotions move the world. When the mother advises her daughter that "The
way to a man's heart is through his stomach"; when the florist advertises, "Say it
with flowers"; when the confectioner suggests, "Take a box of candy with you
when you call on her," they are recommending chemical courtship the oldest way
in the world, the method that prevails all through the animal kingdom from the
insects up to mankind. When the poet wishes to play most powerfully upon our
emotions, he resorts to chemical allusions. Let me read you what seems to me the
most tasty stanza in all poetry, the courtship scene from Keats's Eve of St. Agnes.

" And still she slept in azure-lidded sleep,
In blanched linen, smooth and lavendered:
While he from forth the closet brought a heap
Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd:
With jellies soother than the creamy curd,
And lucent sirups, tinct with cinnamon;
Manna and dates, in argosy transferred
From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one,
From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon."

You will see that he said it with polysaccharides and coal-tar compounds, and you
know how well it worked. They eloped that very night. Keats was a chemist
before becoming a poet. We will not properly understand the world's great litera-
ture until the teaching of English is transferred to the department of chemistry,
or at least until the professors of English study chemistry.

The same is true of history. The history of the world will remain a riddle, an
inexplicable succession of chance happenings, until we recognize the chemical
factors in the course of events. It is like looking at a tapestry from the wrong side;
but when we turn it over the design becomes plain.

What was it that drew Columbus across the Atlantic? What was it that enticed
Vasco da Gama to India around the Cape of Good Hope? What was it that sent
Magellan around the world? It was "the spicy breezes that blow soft o'er Ceylon's
Isle." The great explorers followed that spoor as the bee scents out the flower
or the vulture his game. Chemotaxis gives the clue to many an historical mystery.

In the past the chemist has controlled the course of civilization through such gross
means as the introduction of a new food or fuel, or inventions like glass or paper.
But he is now beginning to get his hands upon minuter means of control which
are more direct and vastly more powerful in their influence upon the human race.
Chemical changes of almost inconceivable minuteness are found to affect the
balance of the body. The growth of young rats is perceptibly promoted by the
addition to their daily diet of much less than a hundredth of a milligram of vitamin
A from codliver oil. An infinitesimal amount of pollen protein may not only start
a new plant to growing but may start a big man to sneezing. This is Nature's
sternutatory gas, the chemical warfare service of the ragweed.

Adrenalin produces a perceptible effect upon the tissues in a dilution of one
part in 330,000,000. The hormone that Professor Abel has extracted from the

EDWIN E. SLOSSON 443

pituitary body has still higher potency, for it can be detected in a dilution of more
than 18,000,000,000. "A deviation in *he acid-alkaline balance of the blood no
greater than that between tap water and distilled water is fatal" to human beings.

The conventional classification of animals and plants from the time of Aristotle
and Linnaeus has been chiefly based on morphology, just as mineralogy was in its
early days mostly a matter of crystalline form. But nowadays we know that
minerals can better be classified according to chemical composition than by their
shape, color, hardness, and other visible characteristics. A similar change must
take place in the field of biology, for it is already apparent that the forms of all
creatures from the microbe to man are determined by certain chemical compounds
in extremely minute amount. This may put it in the power of the chemist to control
the size and shape of plants or animals, to fix the number and location of their
branches and leaves, or legs and eyes, to modify color or complexion, and to deter-
mine or alter sex. The factors of heredity and the origin of species, when you get
down to bedrock, are chemical problems.

But this is not all. The chemist will soon have power, not only to control the
course of life in the future, but he will be able to reinterpret the past.

We already hear endocrine explanations of the character and career of Napoleon
and Roosevelt, and may look forward to a new school of historical writers, the
chemical interpretation of history, based upon the composition of the blood of the
leaders of thought and action in the past. But chemical analysis may extend much
further than man into the past. We already know something of the chemical
causes of the development of organs and excrescences in animals, and we may in
time be able to tell the true story of "How the Camel Got His Hump" and "How
the Dinosaur Got His Horns." The chemist of the future may be able to measure
the pH concentration of the blood of prehistoric monsters of millions of years ago
as he can now follow the gyrations of the electrons in stars billions of miles afar.
Neither time nor space can curtail the scope of chemistry.

Hitherto the chemist has confined himself to the humble task of providing the
conveniences of life. In the future he may gain control of life itself. He may mold
stature and character as the sculptor molds his clay. The world knows too well the
evil influences on the race of certain chemicals such as alcohol, opium, and cocain,
but some day the chemist will turn his attention to the preparation of compounds
that will contribute to human welfare instead of woe and will stimulate virtues
instead of vices.

The way is open. We know now that what we value as individuality the fami-
liar features; the fascinating temperament; the charms of vivacity, wit, and sym-
pathy; all the peculiar qualities that attract or repel us in a personality are due to
definite hormones, some of which are already known as chemical compounds. The
new theory of hormones reminds one of the old theory of humors which were sup-
posed to regulate health and determine temperament. The hyperthyroid type
corresponds closely to the choleric and the hypothyroid to the melancholic
temperament.

Diabetic patients taking insulin tell me the first effect of an overdose is a feeling
of formless fear, a vague apprehension, a sense of futility and failure, a shiver of
anxiety. Their courage can be at once restored by sucking a lollipop. A variation
of a few hundredths of one per cent in the glucose of the blood may make the
difference between cowardice and courage, may determine whether a man shall
be shot as a slacker or medaled as a hero. Courage is not a matter of "sand," but of
sugar. In the excitement of combat the secretion of adrenalin is stimulated and
this causes more sugar to be released to the blood and so strengthens a man's valor
and endows him with greater strength.

Sugar fed to plant lice will so sweeten their dispositions that they will grow wings,
while the administration of alcohol has, as we should expect, the opposite effect,
and prevents any approach to the angelic state.

444 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

The chemist can so sensitize a man with an injection of hematoporphyrin that he
will be light-struck and die if he ventures out of doors, even on a cloudy day, and
yet would feel well so long as he remained in the house.

According to Goldschmidt, sex in birds nd mammals depends upon a balance
of opposing hormones both present in both sexes. " In the female the production of
female hormones is more rapid than that of male hormones, the opposite is the
case in the male."

It seems, then, that we must regard sex, with all it means throughout the range
of animate nature, with all its influence on the development of art, literature, morals,
and social life, as essentially a chemical affair, regulated, repressed, stimulated, or
reversed by minute amounts of certain definite compounds in the blood or food.
Experimentation is already active in this field and no one can foretell how far it
will lead. The experiments of Evans and Bishop in the University of California, of
Sure in the University of Arkansas, and of Stone in Stanford University indicate
that a specific vitamin in food is necessary for reproduction, in addition to those
essential for growth and health. This, too, may involve a reinterpretation of
history, for it may be that what has been called "race suicide" in a class or nation
may be sometimes due to a change in diet to a new one, which, though quite as
nutritious and more tasty, is deficient in vitamin X or E.

That sex itself can be reversed at adult age by chemical means, at least as high
up in the scale of life as birds, is proved by Dr. Crew of Edinburgh, who observed
the transformation of a hen into a cock, and by Dr. Oscar Riddle, of the Carnegie
Station for Experimental Evolution, who reports the change of a female pigeon to
a male.

It is apparent that we have it in our power to modify the characteristics of plants
and animals in two ways, biologically by eugenics, and chemically by such agencies
as vitamins and hormones.

It is evident that we are entering upon a new epoch in medicine, for when the
physician injects into the blood a hormone, such as insulin, thyroxin, or adrenalin,
he is not introducing a foreign compound, such as strychnine, quinine, or arsenic,
but merely restoring a natural compound unnaturally deficient. It is more like
a food than a medicine.

Several of the hormones and vitamins have now been isolated; some even have
been synthesized. We may reasonably expect that in the course of time many,
if not all, of them will be made in the laboratory, But the chemist does not stop
with the imitation of nature. lie produces metals, building materials, dyes, scents,
and foods not found in nature, and having, for human purposes, certain superiorities
over natural products. Why should not the chemist be able to create hormones and
vitamins not found in nature but capable of producing greater or different effects?
And why should not these effects be desirable as well as undesirable? Why should
it not be possible by chemical means to improve the stature, looks, longevity, or
capabilities of human beings?

Dietetic physiology has been investigated for some years. Dietetic psychology
has only recently been recognized as a field of research, while dietetic sociology
is far in the future.

But it is already obvious that all these fields of chemical research are likely to
elicit lessons of great value to humanity. The consumption of a few hundred
calories of common food may completely alter a man's attitude toward the uni-
verse, including his wife and children.

By changing the diet a colony of rats may be, at will, converted into militants or
pacifists. Chemists do not seem to have yet accomplished the production of any-
thing corresponding to that human hybrid, the militant pacifist.

There is a certain drug known to organic chemists which is so potent that a single
dose of it may within a few minutes incite a well-disposed and peaceable man to
attack his best friend and beat his wife, or, on the other hand, caijse him to weep

EDWIN E. 8LOS8ON 445

on the shoulder of his worst enemy. On account of its powerful and incalculable
effect on the emotions, the manufacture^and sale of ethyl hydroxide has been pro-
hibited in this country.

The effect of ethyl hydroxide on the cerebral functions, causing temporary
anaesthesia and ataxia, was discovered Ify Noah in the year 2349 B.C., shortly after
the world had gone wet. Like a true scientist he experimented upon himself and
the results were conspicuously successful and decisive. Nevertheless, many of
his descendants have thought it desirable to repeat the Noachian reaction even to
this day.

History unconsciously records many cases where a change in the character of a
race coincides with a change in diet. When a tribe of nomads, living almost
exclusively on meat and milk, settles down to agriculture and vegetarianism, when
a frugal band of mountaineers from the cold and arid uplands invades tropical
territory where they live in luxury, the alteration in diet must be a formative factor
of their future as well as the change in climate and mode of life.

I hope I shall avoid the mistake so often made by theorists of attempting to
unlock all doors with the same key. In particular I do not mean to add another
to the already too long list of the causes of the fall of Rome. But I cannot forebear
calling your attention to the fact that when the Romans rose to power they were
living on their own land, that is, on fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, and milk, and
that in the days of their decline they were dependent upon oversea supplies, mostly
grains which are deficient in the vitamins essential to the maintenance of health
and fertility. The cry of the Roman populace was for panem et circenses (bread
and circuses), neither of which was good for them.

This is a delicate question at the present day so I merely venture to suggest in
passing that the student body in our colleges may likewise be suffering from an
overdose of starch and stadium.

Whenever the psychologist enters a new field of investigation the chemist follows
close at his heels and claims possession of it. Recently psychologists have been
actively pushing forward into a new territory, that of dreamland, not properly to
be called "new territory," since it was in this field that the psychologists of an-
tiquity first gained fame and fortune. But this field was overexploited in ancient
times so psychologists have left it fallow for some centuries until in the 20th they
are again engaging in the interpretation of visions.

But here also the chemist can file a claim to be considered. A psychoanalyst may
interpret your dreams as he likes best, but a chemist can give you any kind of
dream you like by a dose of hasheesh, strychnine, or opium; or you may get dreams
of a kind you don't like from an untimely mince pie or an unruly Welsh rarebit.

America has contributed the means of approach to a new artificial paradise like
those described by Baudelaire and Havelock Ellis, the peyote or mescal buttons.
A church has been chartered in Oklahoma where chewing the peyote is used to
evoke visions of saints and angels of Heaven and its antithesis. It is called "The
American Church" for the membership claims to be of native American stock
although the aboriginal blood may have been diluted by admixture with the in-
vading pale faces. The Oklahoma legislature at its last session tried to suppress
the church by law but the chiefs of the Indian tribes appeared in a body and pro-
tested that the partaking of peyote was their form of communion and so could not
be prohibited by the Food and Drug Act.

I tried an involuntary experiment recently on the effect of chemicals on vision.
I am extremely defective in visual imagery. If I try to recall a picture of an
old friend, a familiar building, or this morning's breakfast table (as James advised),
I get only faint and fugitive pictures, very elusive, indefinite, and only in black and
white. But once taking a prescription containing a little laudanum I was entranced
when I closed my eyes by a succession very vivid, minute, and brilliantly colored
pictures, from memory or imagination, like the little landscapes the Japanese paint

446 FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

on rice paper, or those seen through an inverted opera glass. I saw then what I
had missed. I was convinced of what others had said of their visual ability. We
may anticipate that drug-stores will sell such visions and dreams as they do post-
cards, one cent plain, five cents colored.

The influence of chemistry upon art opens up another unexplored field. I do
not mean painting or printing or motion pictures but on the models which set the
artistic ideals of a generation. The dwarf and giant gods of antiquity and other
monstrosities are easily explainable by endocrinology, Bes of the Egyptians, the
Titans, Gog and Magog, triple-headed Cerberus, many-armed Briareus, multi-
rnammiferous Diana of the Ephesians.

We can see where Michelangelo got his masculine sybils of the Sistine Chapel
and Fra Angelico the anaemic angels of the monastery.

Botticelli set an example for the consumptive as an ideal of art. His famous
Venus arising from the sea you know the one I mean, it might be called "Venus
on the Halfshell" was modeled from La Bella Simonetta, mistress of de Medici,
who died at the age of 23 from tuberculosis.

The Pre-Raphaelites' school made the goiter popular. The model in this case
was an ill-nourished seamstress whom Dante Gabriel Rossetti made his wife.
The " Blessed Damozel" as she leans out over the bar of Heaven is in a posture to
show her enlarged thyroid admirably. In "Rosa Triplex," Rossetti has portrayed
three goitrous girls in a row. The Pre-Raphaelite movement might have been
prevented by the administration of iodine.

The endocrine theory of art would also throw light on dark periods in history.
It has been recently pointed out that the infant Jesus as portrayed by northern
painters following the thirty years' war is deformed by rickets. The Babe in the
manger shows the squared head, shrunken chest, and bow-legs due to lack of
vitamin D. The artists would not, of course, intentionally depict the infant Jesus
as inferior. Quite the contrary, so it is evident that rickets was so common among
the best babies in those distressful days that they regarded the pitiful types they
portrayed as normal children.

I have given here a few casual illustrations of the human side of chemistry and
especially its influence on psychology. The topic would be equally fruitful if ap-
proached from the opposite point, to show the influence of psychology on chemis-
try. I have here time for only one instance. I can stand six feet in front of a man
weighing not over fifty kilograms and raise the percentage of dextrose in his blood
without touching him. I should do it by making faces at him or calling him a liar.
I stipulate that the body weight of the subject stripped shall be less than fifty
kilograms because otherwise the reaction might be reversed.

Chemists and psychologists can learn much from each other. I hope that at the
next conference at Wittenberg they will meet together and not be segregated.

1 now yield the floor to Professor Jastrow to whom I owe my initiation in the
methods of experimental psychology when in 1893 he allowed me to aid him in
preparing the mental tests used at the Columbian World's Fair, which was, I
believe, the first time such tests were applied in mass to thousands of individuals.

INDEX

[References to papers of the symposium, as indexed under the author's name,
are printed in bold-face type; references to illustrations are in italics.]

Ach, N., 42, 53 f., 376

Ackens, 93

Adler, A., ix, Jf, 316, 325, 384

Aesthetics and religion, feeling and

emotion in relation to, 345 ff.
Age, emotional, 30, 37
Alcott, B., 410
Allport, F. H., 35, 225
Analysis of emotions, 41, 310 ff.
Angell, F., 432
Anger, 257 ff.
Animals, emotions in, 71, 118 ff., 147,

284 ff.
Aristotle, 25, 51, 92, 169, 195, 349,

352, 369, 381, 389 ff., 429
Aster, v., 374
Aubert, 429
Augustine, 429
Aveling, F., 1, 42, 48, 49, 424
Ayres, 246

Bain, 17, 40, 215, 393, 428

Baldwin, J. M., 432

Ballet, 281

Bard, P., 260

de Barenne, J. G., 258, 268

Barrett, B., 42

Bartelme, P., 144

Bartlett, R. J., 55, 56, 425

Baudoin, Ch., 304

Bazett, H. C., 259, 268

Becher, E., 425

Behavior reactions, 107; feeling and

emotion as forms of behavior, 170 ff.;

specific and non-specific behavior, 187
Behaviorism, 20, 30, 72, 116, 126, 171,

223, 327

Bekhterev, V. M., ix, 1, 263, 268, 270
Bell, C., 393
Benard, 291
Benecke, 428

Bentley, M., 1, 17, 170 f., 190, 242, 424
Bergmann, G. von, 359
Bergson, 147, 425
Berkeley, 428
Bernoulli, 429
Bielov, 271

Bills, A. G., 105

Binet, 136

Biosocial approach to feeling and

emotion, 170 ff.
Bliss, S. W., 268
Blur, 145
Boas, F., 29, 38
Bode, B. H., 141
Bois-Reymond, du, 429
Bolley, A., 381, 383
Bosanquet, 351
Bouguer, 429
Brentano, F., 92, 374, 381
Brett, G. S., 2, 388
Brewster, 429
Briggs, T. H., 406, 415
Bright, E. M., 268
Britton, S. W., 259, 262, 268
Briicke, 429
Brunswick, 224
Bryan, W. L., 432
Buffon, 429
Biihler, K., ix, 0, 191, 195, 373, 376,

379, 384 f .

Bulatao, E., 259, 268
Burt, C., 404
Buscaino, 293

Calkins, M. W., 173 f., 190

Canesi, A., 376, 378, 381, 383

Canestrini, 395

Cannon, W. B., ix, #, 20, 35, 38, 108 f.,

112 f., 147 ff., 153, 157 ff., 167, 212,

214, 224, 245, 257, 271, 273, 283,

290, 425
Carpenter, 428
Carr, H. A., 2, 205, 228
Carrasco-Formiguera, R., 268
Cartesian, see Descartes
Cattell, J. McK., vii, ix, 10, 422, 425,

427

Causation of emotion, 41 ff.
Character and emotion, 404 ff.
Children, feeling and emotion in, 27,

30, 71, 197 ff., 319, 323 ff., 332 ff.,

400 ff.
Choc, 55, 107

450

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

Claparfcde, E., ix, 3, 124
Classification of emotions, 19, 40, 61,

188, 222 ff., 393
Coexistence of emotions, 42 ff.
Conation, 49 ff.; definition of, 57
Conditioning, 19, 122, 278 ff.
Cornelius, H., 65, 85, 379, 424
Crowl, 384
Czaly, 282

Darwin, C. R., 17, 27, 29, 38, 127, 261,
268, 274, 393, 429

Davesne, 109

D^jerine, 42

Dekker, 245

Delabarre, E. B., 432

De Laguna, G. A., 226

Derrien, E., 292

Descartes, 17, 112, 159, 161, 205, 307,
369, 392

Decision, 48, 53

Definitions of emotion, 21 ff., 57, 190,
222

Definition of feeling, 57, 172, 190

Definition of volition, 57

Denkpsychologie, 66 ff.

Description of emotions, 19, 393

Dessoir, M., 26, 38

Dewey, J., 140 f., 425, 431

Diagram of emotions, 219

Dickinson, 88

Differentia of an emotion, 228 ff.

Differential psychology, 27, 30, 43

Dilthey, W., 374, 425

Distinction between feelings and emo-
tions, 126 ff., 200 ff.

Donaldson, 431

Donders, 429

Dorsey, G. A., 26, 38

Drever, J., 56

Driesch, H., 425

Drobitsch, 428

Dualism, 167

Dumas, G., 290 f.

Dunlap, K, 3, 111 ff., 150, 191, 211 ff.,
269, 353

Durkheim, 425

Dttrr, E., 373

Dynamic background, emotion as a,
150 ff.

Ebbinghaus, H., 373, 431

Edgell, B., 393

Edman, I., 36, 38

Education, emotion in relation to, 399 ff .

Egoism, 43 ff.

Ehrenfels, C. von, 65, 379, 424
e Elsehans, T., 374
Energy, emotion as, 161 ff.; law of

energy, 42
Eng, H., 395 ff.
English, 352
Epicureans, 391
Epicurus, 195
Erickson, 87, 385

Ernstspiel and the affective life, 324 ff.
Evolutionary doctrine, 27, 28
Excitement as undifferentiated emotion,

215 ff.
Exner, 429
Experimental psychology and affection,

236 ff., 247 ff.
Experimental psychology and emotion,

28, 34, 42, 53 ff., 143 ff., 174, 206 ff.,

224, 257 ff., 270 ff., 276 ff., 393
Expression method, 63, 100, 102
Expression of emotion, 19 ff., 27 f.,

206 ff., 257 ff.

Faculty psychology, 314
Fear of action, 297 ff.
Fechner, 20, 195 ff., 423, 429
Feelings, common, 172; complex, 202 ff. ;

elementary, 90 ff.; intellectual, 134;

qualitative richness of, 73; sensory,

91; simple, 90; universality of, 70;

variability and lability of, 74
Fichte, 360, 381 f.
Fick, 429
Fite, W., 175, 190
Fraunhofer, 429
Fredericq, L., 287
Freilung, H., 362
Freud, S., 25, 28, 34, 38, 109, 126,

195 ff., 325, 348 f., 374, 379, 384
Frey, von, 93 f.
Friedrich, M., 428
Functional psychology and emotion,

73, 125 ff., 130, 140 ff.

Gad, 93

Galen, 26

Galton, F., 146, 429

Ganzheit, 63 ff., 424

Gauckler, 42

Gault, R. H., 3, 247

Geissler, 86

Genetic approach to emotion, see also

primitive man, 125, 269
Gesell, A., 29, 38

INDEX

451

Gestalt psychology, 66, 122, 128, 200,

379, 424

Gildemeister, 359

Girgensohn, K., 373, 376 ff., 383, 384 f.
Goethe, 392, 429
Goldscheider, 93, 97
Goltz, F., 258, 267
Graefe, von, 429
Greving, 281
Groeneveld, A., 268
Groos, K., 126, 325
Gruehn, D. W., 372, 376, 381, 383
Griinbaum, A., 376
Gualino, 291
Gullette, R., 190, 224

Hall, G. S., 35, 325, 423, 431 ff., 439

Haring, T. L., 376 ff., 381, 383

Hartmann, N., 369, 425

Hauer, I. W., 374

Head, H., 158, 245, 264, 266 f., 208

Hegel, 63, 381 f.

Heiler, F., 374

Helmholtz, 358, 423, 428 ff.

Herbart, 59, 60 ff., 91, 380, 428

Herder, 63

Hering, 98, 429

Hermann, 429

Hippocratic school, 389

History of the psychology of feelings

and emotions, 387 ff.
Hobbes, 39 f., 392
Hoisington, L. B., 3 t 236
Hollingworth, H. L., 32, 38, 424
Holmes, G., 264, 268
Holmes, O. W., 146
Honigswald, R., 373
Horiguchi, 237 ff.
Horton, L. H., 161
Horwicz, 99
Howard, D. T., 4, 140
Hudson, W. H., 216
Hughes, 146 f.
Hume, 160, 428
Humor, 241
Humphrey, 157
Husserl, E., 374, 379, 382
Huygens, 429
Hygiene of emotion, 28, 36

Identification of emotions, 222 ff.
Individual psychology, feelings and

emotions from the standpoint of,

316 ff.
Inheritance of emotional qualities, 210

Instincts, 19, 119, 127, 133, 161
Introspective study of emotions, 49 ff.,

222 f., 375 ff.
Ipsen, G., 69, 85
Isenschmid, R., 260, 268
Isserlin, 310

Jackson, J. H., 258, 264, 268

Jacobson, C., 190

Jaensch, E., 4, 355, 358 f.

James-Lange theory, 18, 35, 51 f.,
63, 99, 112 f., 127 ff., 133, 152 f.,
157 ff., 161, 163, 167, 186, 202, 228,
266 f., 270, 314, 379, 392, 394

James, W., 38, 40, 60, 121, 134 f*,
148, 168, 216, 265, 268, 373, 374,
377, 382, 396, 400, 423, 431, 433

Janet, P., ix, 4 297

Jaspers, 425

Jastrow, J., ix, 4, 24, 352, 431, 432, 434

Jodl, F., 373, 374

Joltrain, 291

Jones, E., 374

Jorgensen, C., 5, 310

Kalk, 359

Kant, 60, 63, 93, 369, 373, 381 f.

Kantor, J. R., 140

Karplus, J. P., 260, 268

Katharsis, 349, 352

Katz, D., 5, 332

Ken, 281

Kepler, 429

Kiesow, F., ix, 5, 89

Kilpatrick, H. W., 406

Klemm, O., 85, 375

Koffka, K., 357, 376, 379

Kohler, C., 357

Kohler, W., 66, 198, 379

Kraepelin, 428

Kreidl, A., 260, 268

Kries, von, 429

Krueger, F., ix, 5, 58, 85, 379, 381, 383,

425
Kiilpe, O., 68, 96 ff., 373, 375 ff., 380,

383, 384, 424

Laboratories, early psychological, 427 ff .
Ladd, G. T., 215, 432
Lagerborg, R., 172 ff., 190, 373
Laignel-Lavastine, M., 270
Lambert, 429

Landis, C., 179, 185, 190, 224
Lange, C. G., 266, 268, 328, 373
Langfeld, H. S., 0, 346

452

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

Lapicque, L., 291 f.

Larguier des Bancels, 127

Latzko, W., 268

Laycock, 42

Learning, the acquisition of emotional

skill, 210
Leber, 281
Legowsky, 376
Lehmann, 314, 428, 431
Leibnitz, 361, 367
Leuba, J., 374, 379, 383
Le>y-Bruhl, L., 29, 38, 425
Lewis, J. T., 262, 268
Lindner, 428
Lindworsky, J., 376
Lipps, Th., 59, 60, 373 f., 379, 381,

383, 424
Listing, 429
Litt, 425
Localization of affective experiences,

237 ff.
Locke, 428
Lorenzsohn, 378
Lotze, 69, 428, 431
Lucas, K., 169
Lucke, V., 365

McCosh, J., 432
MacCurdy, J. T., 32, 38, 109
McDougall, W. f ix, 6, 35, 38, 40, 41,
127, 133, 168, 200, 216, 227, 383, 424
Mclver, M. A., 268
McLennan, S. F., 140
McMullen, 147
Maeder, A., 381
Mager, A., 376
Maier, H., 373, 383
Mairet, A., 293
Maladjustment, 27, 33
Malebranche, 40, 41, 392
Malloizel, 290
Maranon, G., 266, 268
Marbe, K, 376 f.
Marsh, D. L., 403
Marshall, 173 f., 190
Martin, E., 290
Martin, H., 404, 411
Martin, M. F., 88
Martius, 431
Maxwell, 429
May, M. A., 403 f.
Meinong, A. v., 374, 382
Melrose, J., 114
Mentalistic approach, 170 ff.

Mentalization of affective phenomena,

138

Meringian, 158

IVJesser, A., 57, 373, 375 f., 376, 383
Metfessel, 210
Meyer, M. F., 172 ff., 174, 182 ff., 190,

425

Michotte, A., 53 f.
Miller, D. C., 212 f.
Mill, J. S., 381
Mills, 357, 428
Monism, 166
Morgan, L., 118
Moritz, K. Ph., 60
Moss, W. D., 405
Mosso, A., 99, 395
Muller, A., 382
Muller, G. E., 430 f.
Muller, J., 314, 429 f.
Muller-Freienfels, R., 373, 425
Miiller'slaw, 311
Miinsterberg, H., 159, 373, 424, 433

Nafe, J. P., 236 ff.
Nagel, 429
Nahlovski, 91
Neill, A. S., 412
Newton, 429
Nichols, H., 433
Nietzsche, F., 26, 80
Nikitin, 278
Nobiling, E., 378
Noegenetic doctrine, 42

Oesterreich, K., 373

O'Gonigal, 117

Oparin, 283

Orth, J., 373, 375 ff., 381

O'Shea, W. J., 407, 415

Osipov, 283

Otto, R., 367 f., 374

Parallelism, 20, 134, 138, 159, 167

Parize, 288

Pascal, 109

Pathology and psychoanalysis of feeling

and emotion, 26 f., 32, 42, 125, 293,

393

Pavlov, I. P., 137
Penfield, W. G., 259, 268
Personality, a contribution to the

psychology of, 324 ff.
Pfander, 374
Pfordten, O. v. d., 373

INDEX

453

Phonophotography, 206 ff.

Physiology of feeling and emotion*
255 ff.; bodily changes, 20, 51, 127,
147, 186, 202, 224, 228 ff., 243 8^
glandular responses, 34, 117, 119,
121 ff., 189; muscular contraction,
104, 117, 119, 121, 179 f.; organic
basis, 28; organic measurements,
188; physiological concomitants, 55,
125, 174; psychogalvanic reflex, 21,
54; reflexes, emotions as somato-
mimetic, 270 ff . ; visceral changes, 20,
107, 108 f., 113, 152 ff., 157 ff., 172

Pieron, H., ix, 6, 284

Pikler, J., 173 f., 190

Pillsbury, W. B., 6, 116

Pines, 278

Plato, 25, 39, 146, 360, 381, 389 ff.

Play, 126, 197 ff., 324 ff.

Pleasantness-unpleasantness, 49, 61,
172 ff., 183, 195 ff., 236 ff., 313, 346

Pleasurable reactions to tactual stimuli,
247 ff.

Pleasure-displeasure, see pleasantness-
unpleasantness

Ponzo, 102 f.

Porteus, S. D., 31, 38

Pressure and affective experience, 237 ff .

Preyer, 199

Primitive man, 27, 29, 62, 71

Prince, M., 7, 115, 148, 157 ff., 161, 192,
214, 354

Priim, 376

Psychoanalysis and pathology of feeling
and emotion, 295 ff.

Purkinje, 429

Pussep, 277

Pyle, 87

Querido, A., 268

Rabaud, 288

Race and emotion, 31, 210

Radin, P., 29, 38

Rage, see anger

Raitz von Frentz, E., 383

Rangette, L., 376

Redfield, A. C., 286

Reflexology, 273 ff., 327

Religion and aesthetics, feeling and

emotion in relation to, 345 ff.
Reymert, M. L., vii, 10, 86 ff., 147,

268, 353, 384, 396, 421 f., 423, 433
Ribot, Th., 38, 134 f., 314, 350, 363,

383, 425

Riebler, 213
Rignano, 424 f .
Roback, A. A., 35, 38
Roentgen, 191
Romantic school, 392
Roskam, 288
Rothmann, H., 258, 268
Royce, 433
Rugg, H., 406
Russell, B., 410

Sander, F., 81, 86, 379

Sanderson, 411

Sanford, E, 432

Santayana, G., 36, 38

Schanof, B., 376

Scheler, M., 368, 374, 379, 381, 382

Schleiermacher, D. F., 372, 379, 383

Schlink, E., 366

Schmied-Kowarzik, W., 374, 381, 382

Schmulling, W., 357

Schneider, C., 378

Schneider, G. H., 17, 86 ff., 384 f.

Schneierson, 282

Scholasticism, 423

Schoolmen, 51

Schopenhauer, 59, 159

Schultz, I. H., 384

Scripture, E. W., 432

Seashore, C. E., 7, 206

Segal, 376

Sellmann, 100

Selz, O., 376

Sensation and emotion, 90, 313;

feeling-tone of sensation, 89 ff.;

feelings and internal sensations,

136 ff.; kinaesthetic sensations, 172
Shand', A. F., 35, 38, 168, 202, 216, 377,

383, 392

Sheehan, J. M., 404
Shepard, 224

Sherrington, C. S., 259, 268
Shumkov, G., 273
Sinelnikov, 291
Slosson, E. E., 439
Smiling, 176 ff.
Smith, W. W., 35, 38
Social aspect of emotion, 27, 33, 62,

71, 118, 180, 317 ff.
Spearman, C. E., ix, 7, 39, 52, 53, 56,

424

Spencer, 17, 29, 199
Spengler, 425
Spinoza, 313 f., 428
Spranger, E., 374, 424

454

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

Sreznevski, 270

Stahlin, W., 376 ff., 381, 884

Starbuck, E. D., 377, 380, 388

Stem, W., ix, 7, 324, 425

Sternberg, M., 268

Stevens, S. N., 144

Stoics, 391 f.

Starring, G., 373, 376, 384

Stout, 50

Stratton, G. M., 8, 27, 35, 38, 107, 112,

146, 215, 432

Straubenmuller, G., 406, 408, 415 f.
Stumpf, C., 60, 65, 86, 92 ff., 173 f.,

190, 378, 430 \

Suarez, 314

Temperament, 125, 314

Terry, J. S., 8, 400

Tests, emotional, 29

Tetens, 60, 373

Theophrastus, 26

Theories of emotion, see also James-
La nge theory, 28, 35, 60; functional
theory, 133, 140 ff.; motor theory,
104 ff.; of the elements in emotions,
310

Thomas Aquinas,' 314

Thompson, 147

Thorndike, E. L., 40, 118, 423

Thdught and emotion, 104 ff., 125, 284

Thunberg, 93

Titchener, E. B., vii, 10, 18, 97 ff.,
172 ff., 190, 375, 383, 424, 433

Tolman, 119

Torup, 397

Totality, see Ganzheit

Tulloss, R. E., viii, 10, 421

Tylor, E. B., 29, 38

Types, 31; psychological and psycho-
physical investigations of, 355 ff.

Utility of emotions, 116 ff., 230 ff.

Vierordt, 429
Villanova, R., 290

Vogt, O., 99
yolkelt, 374, 381
Volkelt, H., 65, 86
Aklkelt, J., 378
Volkmann, W. F., 91
Volkmar, 428

Walker, W., 357

Ward, 40, 428

Warren, H. C., 187 f., 190, 215, 216,

222 f.

Washburn, M. F., ix, 8, 104> 136
Watson, J. B., 29, 38, 114, 117, 223,

227, 269, 279, 283, 290, 430
Watt, H. J., 376
Webb, 43 ff.

Weber, E. H., 92, 423, 429
Weber-Fechner law, 20
Wechsler, D., 51, 55, 107
Weil, H., 365

Weiss, A. P., 8, 170, 190, 269, 384, 425
Wells, 411
Wells, E. F., 241
Wertheimer, M., 66, 379
Westphal, A., 376
Wile, I. S., 405

Will, 48, 49 ff., 53 ff., 57, 102, 125 f.
Wilm, 148, 160
Witasek, S., 373
Wohlgemuth, A., 310
Wolfe, H. K., 432
Woodworth, R. S., 9, 121, 215, 220,

222, 259, 268
Wundt, W., 17, 34, 38, 40, 59, 60, 86,

92, 99 ff., 138, 215, 313 f., 373, 393,

423, 428 ff.
Wundtian school, 20
Wurzburg, 68, 136
WUrzburg school, 376, 383

Yokoyama, M., 237
Young, P. T., 177, 190

Zhukovski, 277
Ziehen, T., 92, 96 ff.

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