674 Professor C. Lloyd Morgan [Jan 28, 



It is not, of course, to be inferred from these observations tbat 

 sucb an emotion as fear has no place in the hereditary scheme, or 

 that the associated acts of hiding, crouching or efforts to escape, do 

 not belong to the instinctive type. I have seen little pheasants 

 struck motionless, plovers crouch, and moorhens scatter, at the sound 

 of a loud chord on the violin, or of a shrill whistle. A white stone- 

 ware jug, placed in their run, caused hours of uneasiness to a group 

 of birds including several species. But there is no evidence that, in 

 such cases, anything like hereditary experience defines those objects 

 which shall excite the emotion. It is the unusual and unfamiliar 

 object, especially after some days of active life amid surroundings to 

 which they have grown accustomed ; it is the sudden sound (such as a 

 sneeze), or rapid movement, as when a ball of paper is rolled towards 

 them, that evokes the emotion. Hence, if the parent birds are absent, 

 the stealthy approach of a cat causes no terror in the breast of inex- 

 perienced fledgelings. But when she leaps, and perhaps seizes one 

 for her prey, the rest scatter in alarm, and for them the sight of a 

 cat has in the future a new meaning. 



The elementary emotions of fear, anger, and so forth, stand in 

 a peculiar and special relationship to instinct. At first sight they 

 seem to take rank with the internal impulses which are the part- 

 determinants of instinctive behaviour. The crouching of a frightened 

 plover or land-rail, the dive of a scared moorhen, result partly from 

 the external stimulus afforded by the terrifying object, partly from 

 the emotional state which that object calls forth. But in their pri- 

 mary genesis I am disposed — here following to some length the lead of 

 Professor Wm. James — to assign to such emotions an origin similar to 

 that of the consciousness which follows on the execution of the in- 

 stinctive act. Assuming, as before, that consciousness owes its genesis 

 to messages which reach the sensorium through incoming nerve-chan- 

 nels, the sensory stimuli, afforded, let us say, by the sight of a terri- 

 fying object, do not seem, in the absence of inherited experience, 

 capable of supplying messages which in themselves are sufficient to 

 generate the emotion of fear. Now the well known accompaniments 

 of such an emotional state are disturbances of the heart-beat, the 

 respiratory rhythm, the digestive processes, the action of the glands, 

 and the tone of the minute blood vessels throughout the body. And 

 all these effects are unquestionably ^produced by outgoing discharges 

 from the central nervous system. But they are felt as the result of 

 incoming messages, like vague and disquieting rumours, transmitted 

 to the central office from the fluttering heart, the irregular breathing, 

 the sinking stomach, and the disturbed circulation. Is it not there- 

 fore reasonable to suppose that the emotion in its primary genesis, is 

 due to the effect on the sensorium of these disquieting messages ? If 

 this be admitted as a working hypothesis — and it cannot at present 

 claim to be more than this — we reach at any rate a consistent scheme. 

 As primary messages to the central office of consciousness we have, 

 on the one hand those due to stimuli of the special senses, and on the 



