12 Journal of Comparative Neurology. 



We have hitherto made no explicit mention of what is now 

 generally known as the Lange-James theory of emotion. In 

 1884 James and Lange independently published a theory of 

 emotional consciousness so nearly identical that they may be 

 practically treated as the same. Emotional feeling is for them 

 the effect of those muscular and visceral organic changes which 

 have been usually considered to be expressions of the emotion. 

 The primary effect of the excitement is the organic change, the 

 affection of consciousness is secondary. The various objections 

 which have been offered to this theory have been admirably 

 summarized by James in the September number of the Psycho- 

 logical Review for 1894, and the rejoinder makes some points 

 much plainer than the original statement. One thing which has 

 struck all critics is the fact that the external occasions of a given 

 emotion may be so different with so constant a result. If the 

 symptoms make the emotion the variability of symptoms should 

 have a corresponding variability of sensation. This objection 

 counts for little however, A chill is a very easily recognized and 

 constant sensation, but it may be caused by the workings of a 

 malarial phasmodium, a surface exposure, a mental state, a 

 hemorrhage or one of a hundred other agencies. According to 

 the analogy of the objection noted each form of cause should 

 have its own corresponding species of chill. In our illustration 

 as in emotion the vera causa is a nervous change in the central 

 organ which may be produced in a great variety of agencies. 

 In reading the objections and the rejoinder one is struck with 

 the crudity of physiological concepts employed. Of course 

 much must be conceded to the illustrative use of language, but 

 the force of the whole discussion is chiefly spent on points which 

 would disappear with a clearer apprehension of neural processes. 

 Long before we are justified in looking for the constants of emo- 

 tional determination we have passed from vaso-motor nerves to 

 tracts or concatenated cell-series in the central system and from 

 these to receptive dendritic plexi and their cellular sources. 



The result of the recent discussion has been to bring all 

 students nearer together and to cause all to admit the great im- 

 portance of visceral changes in determining emotion. 



