lungs and voluntary muscle to the secretory organs and the other involuntary muscles. Thus in fear the skin is pale, the breathing shallow and hurried, the pulse weak and irregular, and the muscular strength diminished. At the same time, the salivary glands cease to act, so that the mouth and throat become dry; the body is bathed in a cold sweat; the bladder and intestine are affected (tendency to urination and diarrhoea): while there is a ' sinking of the stomach ' with consequent nausea, a tremor of the whole body (shivering and goose-flesh), and an erection of hair due to the contraction of the unstriped muscles lying be- neath the skin. In the emotion of impotent rage there is a sensation of choking, and, oftentimes, a derangement of the liver. In grief we have an excessive action of the lachrymal glands. These bodily symptoms are less well marked in the case of pleasurable emotions; though we find tears shed in moments of great joy, and a tendency to urination when the body is shaken by violent laughter.
We cannot say anything very certainly of the physiological mechanism of these various manifestations of emotion. It is natu- ral that, when the organism is affected as a whole, the whole sys- tem of organs in which the vital functions are seated should show signs of the shock. But this ' naturalness ' does not account for the particular symptoms of particular emotions.
(3) The organism has to * face ' the situation, by way of a bodily attitude. The reasons for the special forms of this attitude must be sought from biology. What concerns us here is the fact that we have in certain emotive expres- sions an illustration of the psychological law of associa- tion. For certain biological reasons, the frightened animal crouches down, the angry animal attacks the object of its anger, the startled animal leaps away from the unexpected Q 226 Feeling and Emotion impression. In civilised life, some of these actions have become unnecessary, and others are partially inhibited by acquired tendencies. Nevertheless, the association of a definite group of organic sensations to the feeling which reflects a definite situation tends to persist. Although we do not crouch down, as if actually to hide ourselves from a stronger opponent, we do * shrink into ourselves ' when we are expecting censure or bad news; although we do not attack when we are angry, we do clench the fist and brace ourselves as if in preparation to attack; and although we do not leap away, we do 'jump ' or start when we are sur- prised. In the wince and brace and start we have sur- vivals of the primitive bodily adjustment by which the organism faced three typical ' situations '; and our emotion is not complete until the organic sensations aroused by them have been added to the mass of ideas contained in the central feeling.
(4) When we speak, in ordinary conversation, of 'expression,* we mean the expression of the face. The muscles of the face are arranged round three very im- portant sense-organs, the organs of vision, smell and taste, and their adjustment forms a part of the total bodily adjustment to all the many situations which appeal to those senses. But that is not all. It is a remarkable fact that the facial muscles contribute something to the expres- sion of emotions in which they are not directly concerned. Thus the injured man 'looks bitter'; i.e., looks as he would look were an unpleasantly bitter morsel placed upon his tongue. The disappointed man 'looks sour'; i.e., looks as he would if he had taken a sharply acid substance into his mouth. In surprise, the eyebrows are raised, as if to afford a free view of the surprising object; and so on.
In attempting to explain this transference of expression, — the association of what were originally reflex move- ments, made in response to definite sense stimuli, bitter, sour, etc., to an emotion which does not include the sensa- tions set up by those stimuli, — we must remember two things: that gesture was far more essential for the com- munication of ideas among primitive men than it is now, and that the primitive vocabulary was limited. To convince ourselves of the latter fact we have only to look at the derivation of abstract words: we find constantly that they contain a metaphor, i.e., that they originally designated something concrete. Thus black is 'that which is scorched '; an animal is ' that which breathes '; to explain is to * spread out' or Mevel.'' This means that complex states of mind, such as emotion, would be spoken of, at first, in a meta- phorical or partial way, and that the spoken word would be eked out by gesture. The metaphors employed would be taken from the familiar incidents of everyday life. The primitive hunter ' tasted ' success, in a very real way. The unsuccessful ' tasted ' life also, and found it bitter or sour. The mouth of a maiden is * sweet'; 'honey and milk are under her tongue.' The unpopular man 'stinks in the nostrils' of his tribesmen. We cannot 'see' the point of a remark, or the reason for an action.
Whenever one of these metaphors came to mind, and still more certainly, whenever one of them came to the lips, the reflex expressive movements of the facial muscles would be set up. Certain part-processes in the central feeling suggest the metaphor; the metaphor brings the bitter or sweet or surprised ' look ' with it; and the ' look ' persists as a constituent in the total emotive expression, because of its original utility for the communication of J ^ 228 Feeling and Emotion ideas, and the consequent stability of its connection with the feehng. / Laughter. — Laughter consists of a certain play of feature, and of a series of long inspirations, each of which is followed by a number of abrupt expirations. It occurs under the most various conditions. We speak of it as sardonic, contemptuous, derisive, sympathetic, hysterical, joyous, etc.; it expresses the sentiment of power; and it follows tickling and certain acute pains. No explanation which has as yet been offered is entirely satisfac- tory.
(i) Some authorities regard the laughter which follows tickling as typical laughter. Tickling consists of intermittent light press- ures. Each pressure, it is said, sets up a reflex constriction of the small arterial blood-vessels of the body. When the arteries are constricted, the amount of blood pumped through them by the action of the heart is, of course, diminished. There is a close connection between the nerves governing the blood-vessels and the nervous centre which regulates breathing. Hence the inter- mittent arterial constriction is paralleled by an intermittent ex- piration. This latter serves a useful purpose, since it prevents the outflow of blood from the brain. The brain arteries are con- stricted, along with the rest; less blood gets to the brain; the movements of laughter prevent this blood from escaping too quickly.
(2) Other psychologists look upon laughter as intrinsically an expression of joy. When we are pleased, all the bodily activities are heightened, and a safety-valve is required. We ' let off steam ' by laughing. The muscles of face and respiration are employed to let off the surplus energy of the body because they are con- stantly in use; the energy runs off most easily by way of them.
On either of these explanations, laughter would fall under our second principle. It would be the direct result of a change in the nervous system. The suggestion has been made, however, that the play of feature in laughter, the opening of the mouth and nostrils, may be the (3) expression of a desire to 'take in ' the whole of the pleasant experience. We ' take in ' a comic situation, just § 59- ^^^^ Expression of the Emotions 229 as we take in a pleasant morsel of food or a pleasant odour. On this side, then, laughter would fall under our fourth principle.
Summarising this Section, we may say that the expres- sions of emotion include (i) the manifestations of simple affection; (2) an extension of these manifestations to the secretory organs and the whole system of involuntary muscles; (3) relics of actions, once performed in obedience to biological necessities; and (4) reflex movements which were primarily executed in response to certain sensory stimuli, and have now become associated to emotions along with the sensations set up by those stimuli. The second of these expressions shows the serious nature of the situ- ation to be faced; the last two make up the bodily adjust- ment spoken of in § 57.
Those who believe that feelings are simple mental processes, and that they present a large number of qualitative differences (§ 56), would explain the fourth factor in emotive expression a little differently. The emotion of care, they would say, is like the ' — Reeling- of oppression '; the emotion of disappointment is like the '■ sour feeling ' due to an acid taste. And there is a law of the asso- ciation of feelings: Like feelings tend to associate.
We have found good reason to believe, however, that the feeling is a compound process, and that there are but two affective qual- ities, neither of which can stand alone in consciousness. We have further found that the compound processes which we call ^ ideas ' do not associate as wholes: association ' by similarity ' is a form, not a law, of association. We shall not expect to have any such law of association, then, in the sphere of feeling.
As a matter of fact, we do not find affection serving as the associative link between two complex processes. There is no reason why a particular pleasant experience should call up another particular pleasant experience: the pleasantness is too general, too evanescent, and too much dependent upon its sensory con- comitants. The pleasant warmth of my room does not call up 230 Feeling and Emotion the pleasant breakfast that I ate an hour ago. If it calls up any- thing, it does so because it is pleasant warmth; thus it may call up the pleasant lunch that I ate at a German inn after a cold tramp, because one of the factors in the lunch-memory is the warmth of the inn-parlour. The associative link must be looked for always on the sensation side of the feeling; and the association must fall under the formula ab-bc.
Although the description and observation of emotive expres- sions do not require the use of introspection, i.e., do not constitute a psychological problem, the facts themselves are too useful to the psychologist to be neglected. It is not only that ( i ) the composition of the emotion, as stated in the text, furnishes illustrations of the association of ideas. The observation of the various forms of expression is of psychological value (2) in that it helps us to analyse and reconstruct a particular emotion; we know what sort of organic sensations to look for and take account of. In certain cases, these sensations determine the affective quality of the whole emotion; their intensity may, e.g., render an extreme joy unpleas- ant. And it is of further value (3) in that it enables us to un- derstand how the idea of pleasantness or unpleasantness, which is implied in every case of affective introspection (§ t^t^, takes shape. The idea of affection may be a mass of organic sensations, which have ' expressed ' a certain emotion; or the visual picture of oneself under the influence of emotion; or a word which con- tains a metaphor borrowed from sense (my idea of the unpleas- antness of a colour may be that it was a ^ hard ' or ' cold ' colour, etc.); or, finally, the word ' pleasantness ' or ' unpleasantness ' itself, — the word having been in the first place attached to some one of the foregoing ideas, as an associative supplement, but now detached from its associations (</. the verbal local sign: § 44).
§ 60. Mood, Passion and Temperament. — An emotion, regarded as a single total process, has three attributes: quality (pleasantness or unpleasantness), intensity and duration.
Nothing very definite can be said either of the intensity § 6o. Mood, Passion and Temperament 231 or of the duration of emotion. It may be laid down, as a general rule, that the most intensive emotions have the shortest duration, and the weakest emotions the longest. The rule follows naturally from the nature of emotions. A severe shock to the nervous system, such as is implied in an intense affection, must exhaust the organism more quickly than a slight shock: the violent emotion, if pleas- urable, soon gives way to a general lassitude and indiffer- ence; if unpleasurable, is ended by a swoon or faint.
The weaker emotive states, which persist for some time together, are termed moods; the stronger, which exhaust the organism in a comparatively short time, are called passions. Thus the mood of cheerfulness represents the emotion of joy; the mood of depression, that of sorrow. Like and dislike have the moods of content and discon- tent; sympathy and antipathy, those of kindliness and sulkiness; attraction and repulsion, those of ' charm ' and tedium. The mood of care is anxiety; the mood of melancholy, gloom. The mood of hatred is ' not getting on with ' a person; the mood of exasperation is chagrin. On the other hand, rage or fury is a passion, anger an emotion; and we speak of a ' passionate grief,' a * passion- ate love,' a 'passion of terror,' etc., when we wish to indi- cate a high degree of emotive intensity.
Regarded from the affective standpoint, mood evidently bears the same relation to emotion that the affectively toned idea bears to the feeling. The word ' passion ' is used, loosely, to express a very intense feeling, as well as a very intense emotion. We say that a man ' has a passion ' for collecting butterflies, meaning that the butterfly-idea calls up in him a very strong feehng.
Language rarely, if ever, distinguishes more than two degrees of emotion proper, between the slight affective 232 Feelmg and Emotion intensity of the mood and the strong affection of the passion. Thus we have the series: irritabihty (mood), aversion (weak emotion), anger (strong emotion), rage (passion); or chagrin (mood), mortification (weak emo- tion), resentment (strong emotion), exasperation (passion); or kindHness (mood), friendhness (weak emotion), ' affec- tion,* in the sense of * Hking ' (strong emotion), love (passion); or wonder (mood), surprise (weak emotion), astonishment (strong emotion), amazement (passion).
No sharp line of distinction, either intensive or temporal, can be drawn between these various processes. We can- not say that a mood lasts for a week, and an emotion for a day; or that a passion exhausts us in five minutes, and an emotion in five hours.
One of the difficulties in the way of a classification of the emo- tions has been brought out, in all probability, by the instances just cited. The reader has probably said to himself: *I should not put that emotion there 1^ This difficulty is inherent in the nature of language, which, as we have seen (§ 33), has been developed as a medium for the communication of ideas, not of feelmgs or emotions. The words which denote emotions are neitoer sufficiently numerous nor sufficiently delicate for psycho- logical purposes: they are rough, general names, carrying different side- meanings to different minds.
Hence it is not likely that any two psychologists would make up series, of the kind just given, in precisely the same terras. The emotions of each series differ in more than the single aspect of intensity. When we ask ourselves whether anger, e.g., is really nothing more than a stronger aversion, or love nothing more than a stronger affection, we are obliged to confess that there are other differences. The central feehngs differ not only in degree of affec- tion, but in composition, in the number and nature of their com- ponent sensations.
It is noteworthy that language has but few words to express § 6o. Moody Passion and Temperament 233 pleasurable emotions. We can be annoyed, vexed, irritated, dis- turbed, ruffled, chagrined, bothered, etc., on the unpleasant side; on the pleasant, we have only the general terms satisfaction and contentment, the pleasure of ' things running smoothly.' This accords with the fact that the direct bodily manifestations of unpleasant emotions are more extensive and more varied than those of the pleasurable states (§ 59). It places a further diffi- culty in the way of classification.
The mood stands upon the same level of mental devel- opment as the train of ideas. Just as the train of ideas is determined by intellectual constitution, following always the line of least associative resistance, so is mood deter- mined by affective constitution, or, as it is more usually called, temperament. It is customary to distinguish four temperaments: the choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic and melancholic. The man who thinks quickly and feels strongly is choleric; the man who thinks quickly and feels weakly, sanguine. The phlegmatic thinks slowly and feels weakly; the melancholic thinks slowly and feels deeply.
These affective temperaments stand upon the same level as the three 'intellectual temperaments ' of § 54: the co-ordinating, sub- ordinating and superordinating dispositions.
In real hfe, we rarely come across ' pure ' temperaments; human nature is too complex to be run into a single mould. Literature, however, furnishes us with typical instances of the four tempera- ments. Thus Hamlet and Laertes are respectively melancholic and choleric; Falstaff and the younger Percy, in the first part of King Henry IV,, respectively sanguine and choleric; while the scenes between Touchstone and Audrey in As you like it, bring the sanguine and phlegmatic temperaments into sharp contrast.
CHAPTER X Voluntary Movement. The Analysis of Action § 6i. The Nature of Action. — Every animal organism is a motor organism. The animal is constantly moving, either moving from place to place or changing its attitude, i.e., the relative positions of limbs and trunk. We have already had indications of the importance of movement in psychology (Chs. VI, VII, IX); and we must now sup- plement what we have said of it in previous chapters, in order to set this importance in a clearer light.
Animal movements are of two kinds: voluntary and involuntary. Psychology has to take account of both, though in different ways. Voluntary movement presents two points of interest to psychology: it has conscious antecedents, — conscious conditions, — and it gives rise to conscious processes during its performance. Involuntary movement, on the other hand, has no conscious antece- dents; we have to consider it only in so far as its per- formance involves the arousal of conscious processes, organic sensations.
The name of invohmtary movements is given to the purely mechanical movements of heart, lungs, vessels, intestines, etc. These movements go on whether we are conscious or not; they continue in the deepest sleep, in the hypnotic trance, and in the most profound swoon, as steadily as in the waking life. Their conditions are § 6i. TJie NaUtre of Action 235 entirely physiological; we have the power to vary some of them (we can breathe quickly, e.g\ but we cannot arrest them, and start them again, at pleasure. As a rule, they pass wholly unnoticed. But if they reach a certain degree of intensity, they give rise to organic sensations, cardiac, respiratory, circulatory, etc., and to the common sensation of pain. It is only under these circumstances, as the stimuli to organic or common sensations, that involuntary movements fall within the range of psycho- logical survey. We need devote no space to them in the present chapter, as we have discussed their effects in dealing with emotive expression (§ 59).
All the other movements of the organism are comprised under the term voluntary viovemejits. These do not occur except under definite psychological conditions, the chief of which is attention. As they occur, they give rise, like the involuntary movements, to organic or common sensa- tions, which in some instances pass unheeded, but in others are remarked, and turned to account by the organism for the acquiring of knowledge of the outside world. Our psychological analysis, therefore, must take account of both these sets of processes: the mental con ditions and the mental concomitants of voluntary move- ment.
It must be clearly understood that there is no conscious pro- cess corresponding to the irlease of a voluntary movement, to vi\oving. We have first a complex of processes in consciousness, and a certain state of things in the brain cortex; then we move; then we have certain organic sensations in consciousness, and another state of the brain cortex. The middle term of the series, the moving, does not come into consciousness.
The point will be made clearer if we draw a parallel, in general 236 Voluntary Movement. Analysis of Action terms, between the physiology and the psychology of voluntary movement. On the physiological side, an impression is made upon a sense-organ: a nervous excitation travels to the corre- sponding sensory area of the cortex, and (i) explodes a sensory cell there. The explosion is reinforced by energy from the frontal lobes, and in virtue of this reinforcement has an effect upon the whole nervous system. More than this: the explosion is com- municated to a motor cell, and so sets up an excitation in a motor nerve; a motor excitation travels outward to a muscle, and (2) a muscular contraction, a moving, results. The contraction of the muscle stimulates the sensory nerve-endings contained within its substance and within the tendons attached to it, as well as those upon certain articular surfaces; another sensory excitation travels to the brain, and (3) the explosion of other sensory cells, in a different cortical area, follows. On the psychological side we have (i) a sensation (explosion of sensory cell), which is attended to (reinforcement from the frontal lobes) and felt to be pleasant or unpleasant (effect upon the whole nervous system), and (2) or- ganic sensations, due to muscular contraction. There is, however, no conscious process corresponding to the motor excitation, no sensation set up by the explosion of the motor cell. It is not until the second group of sensory cells is exploded that we have a second conscious process.
Method. — The following experiment shows that there is no such thing as a motor-cell sensation, a sensation corresponding to the innervation of a muscle or group of muscles. Cut a cir- cular piece of hard wood, one inch in thickness, to the weight of 50 gr. Cut another disc, of one-third the diameter of the first, from the same wood; hollow it, and prepare a cap of wood to fit the top of the hole. Put enough shot in the hollow to bring the total weight up to 50 gr., packing the shot with cotton-wool, so that it does not rattle. The two weights now appear to be both alike of wood. Let the subject lay his arm upon a low table, palm upwards. Place first the large and then the small weight in his palm, and let him lift them, moving his arm from the elbow. If he has not been informed that the pieces are of the same weight, he will say that the smaller is markedly heavier than the larger.
§ 6 1. TJie Nature of Action 237 This judgment, however, might be made, even supposing that there were an innervation sense. The subject thought that the two weights were of the same material, and therefore expected that the larger would be the heavier. In his surprise at the heavi- ness of the smaller piece, he thinks that it is heavier than the other, although the two are really of the same weight.
Now repeat the experiment, after telling him that the two are equal, and showing him that the balance makes each of them weigh 50 gr. He will still find the stnaller piece the heavier. If he were judging by the help of a motor sensation, this illusion would now be impossible; for, knowing that the same amount of energy would be required to lift both weights, he would inner- vate his muscles to the same extent, i.e., have precisely the same innervation sensation. The illusion must be due to ingoing, not to outcoming, sensations, and is, in fact, to be explained by the circumstance that the larger piece stimulates a large number of cutaneous sensory nerve-endings slightly, while the smaller stimulates a few intensively.^ The problem which voluntary movement sets to psychol- ogy is the analysis of action. The word 'action' denotes both the mental condition and the mental concomitants of movement. It is usually qualified by an adjective, which indicates the nature of the condition. Thus the phrase * impulsive action ' covers both the impulse and the impul- sive movement, with the sensations which it occasions, — both the mental condition and the mental concomitants of a certain change of bodily position; the phrase * selective action ' covers both the process of choice and the sensa- tions set up by the movement which follows it; the phrase 1 The question whether there is a sensation accompanying the touch-off of a movement must not be confused with the question whether a conscious pro- cess accompanies the touch-off of a tendency (§ 36). The former asks: Does the explosion of a motor cell give rise to sensation, as the explosion of a sensory cell does? The latter: Is there any conscious process attending the rush of an idea into the channel which tendency has dug for it?
238 Vohintary Movemerit. Analysis of Action ' instinctive action ' covers both the instinct, — the men- tal condition, — and the sensations aroused by the instinc- tive movement.
' Movement ' is, therefore, a more general word than ' action.' All actions are, in part, movements; but only those movements which have conscious processes as their conditions, and other conscious processes as their concomitants, can form part of actions. In ordinary conversation we extend the meaning of the term ' action ' until it is almost identical with that of movement: we say, e.g., that a machine ' acts ' in this vvay or that. But we have already had occasion to notice the fact that the scientific meaning of words may differ considerably from their popular meaning (§2).
§ 62. The Beginnings of Voluntary Action. — There is no type of voluntary action, occurring in concrete experi- ence, which can be regarded as the simplest form of voluntary action in general, the form out of which all the more complex types have grown. This is not to be wondered at; for we could no more expect to find such a rudimentary action within the circle of processes compos- ing the adult consciousness than we could to find bare sensations not yet combined into ideas. All the sensa- tions which we experience are elements in ideas, i.e., sensations which bring with them habits of connection with other sensations, and all the actions which we exjDcri- ence are actions whose conscious conditions include the memory of past actions. Now it is plain that the earliest sensation could not have had a habit of connection, since there was nothing for it to connect with. Hence we are justified in assuming the existence of the bare sensation, and in inferring its attributes from the attributes of the sensations which we know. And it is plain that there § 62. The Beginnings of Volnntary Action 239 must have been action, before the memory of past move- ments had been acquired. Hence we are justified in assuming the existence of an original type of action, — a type which represents an earher stage of organic devel- opment than any which is now represented in our own consciousness, — and in inferring its nature from the nature of the actions which are known to us.
So far as we can tell, the single condition of voluntary action in the primitive consciousness was attention} Some object or process in the outside world caught the attention of the organism. This attention meant move- ment of the whole organism to or from the object: towards it, if its idea was pleasurable, away from it, if its idea was unpleasurable. The movement must be supposed to have taken place whether the object was attainable or not.