Genesis of the Emotions 435 



stimulation, we are not justified, without further evidence, in speaking 

 of them as effects of the emotional state. May it not rather be that 

 the emotion as a primary mode of experience is the concomitant of 

 the net result of the organic situation — the initial presentation, the 

 instinctive mode of behaviour, the visceral disturbances ? According 

 to this interpretation the primary tissue of experience of the emo- 

 tional order, felt as an unanalysed complex, is generated by the 

 stimulation of the sensorium by afferent or incoming physiological 

 impulses from the special senses, from the organs concerned in the 

 responsive behaviour, from the viscera and vaso-motor system. 



Some psychologists, however, contend that the emotional ex- 

 perience is generated in the sensorium prior to, and not subsequent 

 to, the behaviour-response and the visceral disturbances. It is a 

 direct and not an indirect outcome of the presentation to the special 

 senses. Be this as it may, there is a growing tendency to bring into 

 the closest possible relation, or even to identify, instinct and emotion 

 in their primary genesis. The central core of all such interpretations is 

 that instinctive behaviour and experience, its emotional accompani- 

 ments, and its expression, are but different aspects of the outcome of 

 the same organic occurrences. Such emotions are, therefore, only a 

 distinguishable aspect of the primary tissue of experience and 

 exhibit a like differentiation. Here again a biological foundation is 

 laid for a psychological doctrine of the mental development of the 

 individual. 



The intimate relation between emotion as a psychological mode of 

 experience and expression as a group of organic conditions has an 

 important bearing on biological interpretation. The emotion, as the 

 psychological accompaniment of orderly disturbances in the central 

 nervous system, profoundly influences behaviour and often renders it 

 more vigorous and more effective. The utility of the emotions in the 

 struggle for existence can, therefore, scarcely be over-estimated. Just 

 as keenness of perception has survival-value ; just as it is obviously 

 subject to variation; just as it must be enhanced under natural 

 selection, whether individually acquired increments are inherited 

 or not ; and just as its value lies not only in this or that special 

 perceptive act but in its importance for life as a whole ; so the 

 vigorous effectiveness of activity has survival-value ; it is subject 

 to variation ; it must be enhanced under natural selection ; and its 

 importance lies not only in particular modes of behaviour but in 

 its value for life as a whole. If emotion and its expression as a 

 congenital endowment are but different aspects of the same biological 

 occurrence ; and if this is a powerful supplement to vigour effective- 

 ness and jjcrsiatcncy of behaviour, it must on Darwin's princii>les be 

 subject to natural selection. 



28—3 



