THE LANGUAGE OF THE EMOTIONS. 821 



mentary sensations, of vague emotions, and of blind appetitions. In 

 the myriapod it is the head or terminal segment that directs, sees, and 

 smells, but all the other segments also fulfill their appropriate func- 

 tions, and have their peculiar life in the midst of the collective life. 

 If we cut the animal into several parts, the different parts will con- 

 tinue to move and react under external excitations ; it is, therefore, im- 

 probable that the head should be the only part to possess sensibility 

 and appetite. When a wound is inflicted upon the animal, it is felt 

 in different degrees by all the segments, and the reaction is propa- 

 gated from segment to segment. With the superior animals, which 

 are a sort of very centralized states, the concentration of consciousness 

 into the head only obscures the rudiment of sensibility which is still 

 subsisting between the other parts. 



For these reasons, we suppose a solidarity of the parts in the living 

 body which, mechanical without, is mental and social within. Hence 

 there can be no irritation of a part without its propagating itself by 

 contagion to all the other parts ; this is the germ of the diffused sen- 

 sation which is felt iu the whole body. Furthermore, this irritation 

 beino - always either favorable or unfavorable to the life of the whole 

 and of the parts, would be felt as rudimentary pain or pleasure that 

 is, as the germ of the diffused emotion. Finally, all the parts having 

 power to react and a tendency to their own conservation, the irritation 

 brings on a motive reaction of the whole body ; this is the germ of 

 the diffuse appetite, of the zest of life inherent in the whole. The 

 solidarity, in the association of living cells, then takes the triple form 

 of a solidarity of extension, of emotion, and of reaction. We could 

 summarize this mutual communication of the organs with the words 

 sympathy and synergy. We think we make a metaphor when we 

 say, "I am suffering all over my body" ; but we are only expressing 

 the exact truth : when a part of the organism is suffering, all the 

 other parts feel it by rebound, each according to its importance and 

 its degree of organization. The cry of alarm that issues from the 

 mouth is the translation to the ear of the alarm which is produced not 

 in the brain only, but out to the smallest parts of the organism ; it is 

 the cry of an entire people which finds its life threatened. Expression 

 is then a social phenomenon of sympathy and synergy, which is in- 

 terior to the organism before extending to neighboring organisms. 



Thus, we think, is explained the association of similar sensations 

 with one another, and of sensations with emotions. Wundt has insist- 

 ed upon these two psychological laws, while he has perhaps limited 

 himself too much in establishing them. By virtue of the first law, 

 analogous sensations are associated together ; grave sounds have a re- 

 lationship with somber colors ; high tones with bright colors and 

 with white. The sharp sound of the trumpet, and bright yellow and 

 red, correspond. We say, w T ith reason, that there are shrill colors, also 

 that there are cold colors and warm. The reason of these existing 



