The Unity of the Organism 



description. And nowhere, perhaps, in the whole biological 

 realm is there a better chance for description of the genuine- 

 ly natural history, organismal kind the kind a cardinal 

 motto of which is "neglect nothing," than in this very field 

 of human emotions, especially of one's own emotions. Nor 

 can I refrain from reminding the reader that one of the 

 master works in this field is Darwin's The Expression of the 

 Emotions in Man and Animals, 27 and that while a leading 

 motive of its author was to interpret the emotions in ac- 

 cordance with the theory of descent and the natural selec- 

 tion hypothesis, probably the most lasting value of the work 

 is from its fullness and excellence as a natural history de- 

 scription of the emotions and their objective expression. 



As to the fact of vital interdependence between psychic 

 life and physical life through the emotions, personal experi- 

 ence and observation, backed up and supplemented by many 

 authoritative writings, among which those of Darwin and 

 James stand out strongly, there seems no longer any room 

 for question. The role of the emotions as between "Body" 

 and "Soul" may be crudely likened to the splice which a skill- 

 ful sailor weaves into two pieces of rope in joining them so 

 that there shall be no knot and as great strength as in any 

 other part of the rope. In the recent period of psychology 

 of so-called physiological psychology we have frequently 

 heard about psychology "without a Soul;" and such an idea 

 has seemed repugnant to many persons. But if we could 

 show that this modern psychology is "without a Body" by 

 the same token that it is "without a Soul," the legitimate mis- 

 givings about the soullessness of the psychology ought to be 

 allayed. And really the organismal conception of psychic 

 life is seen, especially when we examine it in the phase of the 

 emotions, to amount to such a composition of the Body-Soul 

 antithesis. "Body" we can see, as it figured in the old psy- 

 chology, virtually signified what we usually mean by corpse, 

 or cadaver. "The Body," in that sense was not alive at all. 



