Herrick, Moder?z Algedonic Theoties. 19 



which may increase the effect on the centres in a secondary- 

 way. Thus a somatic change, as sickness at the stomach, may 

 be almost or quite coincident with the pain. To the above we 

 may add the essential elements of Meynert's nutritive theory. 

 It is obvious that the responsiveness of a cell is directly affected 

 by its nutritive state and familiar experience shows that a state 

 of malnutrition, whether of the body at large or the nervous 

 system in particular, predisposes to pain and thwarts pleasure. 

 The stimuli which ordinarily are indifferent or even pleasurable 

 becomes sources of torture. 



In extending the application of these suggestions to the 

 emotions we may notice Professor Ladd's treatment in his most 

 recent work of the somatic basis of emotions. 



"Since all forms of feeling, when intensified so as them- 

 selves to feel, as it were, in a secondary way, the bodily reson- 

 ance they occasion, become emotional, the development of each 

 kind of emotion, as well as the development of the entire life 

 of emotions, requires us to consider the somatic influences that 

 are distinctive of them all." 



"An emotion, physiologically described, may be consid- 

 ered as a sort of nerve-storm which gathers intensity, at first, in 

 some comparatively limited region of the brain, but quickly 

 spreads from storm-center to storm-center, as it were ; which 

 sweeps down the different paths of exit upon the lower centres 

 and upon the different systems of muscles, upon the vascular 

 and secretive and respiratory systems ; and then from all these 

 peripheral parts, return currents sweep backward further to dis- 

 turb the centers that lie within the brain." ^ 



Compare also the following passage from another recent 

 author : ^ 



" Pain and pleasure do not originate where thought is de- 

 veloped, but are alterations of the functions of organic life ren- 

 dered apparent through the agency of the medulla oblongata. 

 This, then, is the centre of pain and pleasure, whether pro- 



'Ladd — Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, p. 544. 



^Sergi, G. Dolore e Piacere, Storia Naturale dei Sentimenti. Milan, 1894. 



