GENESIS OF EMOTIONS. 15 



twice alike, and that stand in relations which are never 

 twice alike. The difference in the resulting modes of 

 consciousness is this : In the genesis of an idea the suc 

 cessive experiences, be they of sounds, colors, touches, 

 tastes, or be they of the special objects that combine many 

 of these into groups, have so much in common that each, 

 when it occurs, can be definitely thought of as like those 

 which preceded it. But in the genesis of an emotion the 

 successive experiences so far differ that each of them, 

 when it occurs, suggests past experiences which are not 

 specifically similar, but have only a general similarity ; 

 and, at the same time, it suggests benefits or evils in past 

 experience which likewise are various in their special 

 natures, though they have a certain community of general 

 nature. Hence it results that the consciousness aroused 

 is a multitudinous, confused consciousness, in which, along 

 with a certain kind of combination among the impressions 

 received from without, there is a vague cloud of ideal 

 combinations akin to them, and a vague mass of ideal 

 feelings of pleasure or pain that were associated with 

 these. We have abundant proof that feelings grow up 

 without reference to recognized causes and consequences, 

 and without the possessor of them being able to say why 

 they have grown up ; though analysis, nevertheless, shows 

 that they have been formed out of connected experiences. 

 The familiar fact to which, I suppose, almost every one 

 can testify, that a kind of jam which was, daring child 

 hood, repeatedly taken after medicine, may become by 

 simple association of sensations so nauseous that it cannot 

 be tolerated in after-life, illustrates clearly enough the 

 way in which repugnances may be established by habitual 

 association of feelings, without any idea of causal connec 

 tion ; or rather, in spite of the knowledge that there is no 

 causal connection. Similarly with pleasurable emotions. 



