Szz THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY. 



affinities between different sensations is that they can be relegated to 

 a fundamental unity ; they are all, fundamentally, excitations and sym- 

 pathetic reactions of the same primordial appetite. 



This fundamental unity explains, we think, the other great psycho- 

 logical law of association, which connects the sensations with analo- 

 gous emotions a law which plays a very important part in expres- 

 sion. Wundt has shown that there is something exact in the images 

 of vulgar language a hard necessity, a sweet tenderness, bitter griefs, 

 black cares, a somber destiny. These images, so far from being wholly 

 artificial, have their natural origin in the constitution of our sensibility 

 and in the relation of the sensitive organs to the motor muscles. Our 

 sensitive organs are provided with muscles which have the double 

 purpose of better disposing them to receive favorable excitations and 

 removing harmful agents. The mouth takes a different form and ex- 

 pression accordingly as we are tasting a sweetened liquor or swallow- 

 ing a bitter draught ; in the former case, it seems to dispose itself to 

 attract and receive, in the latter to repel and reject. Darkness, a glar- 

 ing light, a clear daylight, give by turns a different figure to the 

 physiognomy. By virtue of the association of the emotions with 

 similar sensations and of these with their corporeal expression, agree- 

 able or disagreeable feelings joy, esteem, fear, grief, spite are mani- 

 fested by muscular contractions resembling either the action of pleas- 

 ing tastes and smells, and of the luster of a tempered light, or of 

 bitterness, poisonous odors, darkness, and blindness. If the expression 

 is the same for the physical sensation and the moral feeling, it is be- 

 cause both have their unity, not only in the same field of conscious- 

 ness, but also in the same movement of the appetite and the will. 

 Whatever the causes and whatever the objects, we simply desire what 

 augments our activity, and repel what diminishes it. 



Reciprocally, the willful expression of an emotion which we do 

 not feel, generates it by generating the sensations connected with it, 

 which in their turn are associated with analogous emotions : the actor 

 who expresses and simulates anger ends by feeling it to a certain ex- 

 tent. Absolute hypocrisy is an ideal ; it is never complete with a 

 man, realized in full, it would be a contradiction of the will with 

 itself. In every case, Nature is ignorant of it ; sincerity is the first 

 law of Nature as it is the first law of morals. So it is with sympathy. 

 Nature knows no isolation of ideal egoism ; it brings together, it con- 

 founds, it unites. Like heat and light, it can not give life and sensi- 

 bility to one point without making them radiate upon the other points. 

 Even within the individual organism, it establishes a society ; and he 

 Mho believes himself one and solitary is already several : the ./is al- 

 ready the we. In this way, all the organs, the heart, arteries, nerves, 

 and muscles sympathize with the brain, and tell, each in its own lan- 

 guage, of the suffering or enjoyment in which they are participating. 

 In this way, too, the brain sympathizes with the organs, changes their 



