274 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE PHYSIOLOGY OF EMOTION. 



By GEOEGE FIELDING BLANDFORD, M. D., 



IEOTUREK ON PSYCHOLOGY AT ST. GEORGE' S HOSPITAL. 



THE object of this paper is, to examine the physical accompani- 

 ments of mental action, and, chiefly, to discuss the nature of the 

 feelings or emotions which accompany the various conditions of body 

 and mind ; in fact, to lay down the theory that feeling (or emotion, 

 which is another name for high and complex feeling) is the state which 

 accompanies the excitation of a nerve centre or centres, being pleasant 

 or painful according to the condition of the centre, or the intensity of 

 the excitation. 



Supposing this view to be correct, there is no need to allot one 

 place in the brain to the intellectual and another to the emotional por- 

 tion of the mind, neither can we discuss them apart. The intellectual 

 or idea function, the thinking and working function of the mind, may 

 be supposed to depend on the intercommunication of the nerve cells 

 or centres of the entire hemispheres, carried on by means of the nerve- 

 fibres, this interaction being accompanied by a feeling or emotion 

 peculiar to the centres acting, but which varies according to their 

 physical state at the moment of excitation, or that produced by the 

 excitation itself. 



That the cells, which in their aggregation make up what we call 

 nerve-centres, vary immensely in their endowments and qualities, is a 

 fact which probably few will dispute. We have centres of vision, cen- 

 tres of hearing, centres of taste and smell: the'nerve-cells which form 

 the intellectual centres of one who comes of a Ions: line of educated 

 and cultivated forefathers will differ from those of a descendant of 

 Bushmen, even before they have been submitted to the influence of 

 education. But, besides the special quality or endowment which each 

 cell possesses, that quality which constitutes one a cell and centre of 

 vision, as distinguished from another which is a centre of hearing, 

 there is in each a varying state or condition on which depends its 

 efficiency, its power of perceiving more or less accurately that which 

 is presented to it, or of communicating with other centres of idea or 

 motion. This condition will be influenced by a number of circum- 

 stances by due nutrition, by heat or cold, rest or fatigue ; but, ac- 

 cording to it will be the efficiency or non-efficiency of the cell-function : 

 by it, moreover, will be regulated, as I conceive, the pleasure or pain 

 experienced when the cells are called into action. When the condition 

 is sound and healthy, the function of the cells will be duly performed, 

 and, in the due performance, pleasure, not pain, will be experienced. 

 In other words, the supply of nerve-force being ample, the cells will 

 energize pleasantly : when the nerve-force is insufficiently produced, or 



