126 ANIMAL.SENTIENT FORCES. [i. 



we feel to be merited, goes to the heart ; the recollection of a 

 cruel action shocks the heart ; the anticipation of a joyous 

 thing causes it to beat more freely and easily. And in short, 

 every sensational and intellectual conception which awakens 

 happiness or misery in the mind, causes changes in the pulse 

 and in the action of the heart, in which the respiration also 

 participates, and thereby exercises an important influence on 

 the whole economy, which a mere perception or a neutral ex- 

 ternal sensation, imagination, or foreseeing entirely wants. It 

 is consequently a general law of animal nature, that all excitants 

 of the feelings add a special sentient action to the other sentient 

 actions of the conceptions, so that they modify the functions of 

 the mechanical machines subservient to vital movements. But 

 since the sensational stimuli, or in other words, the pleasure or 

 pain of the external senses (80), and of the sensational con- 

 ceptions, imaginations, foreseeings (88), are, from their nature, 

 stronger stimuli than mere motives [Bewegungsgrunde] (53,88), 

 it follows, that their action on the vital movements is more 

 obvious and powerful. 



251. The direct sentient actions of the excitants of the 

 feelings generally, and considered per se, are consequently the 

 impressions in the brain of pleasure and pain, in so far as 

 being special conditions of the material ideas of each neutral 

 sensational conception, they excite the origin of those nerves in 

 the brain by which the vital movements are regulated; and this 

 applies, in particular, to the sentient actions of the pleasure or 

 pain of the senses (80), and to all other sensational stimuli, and 

 to motives [Bewegungsgrunde] (88, 250). In addition, there- 

 fore, to the direct sentient actions hitherto described, as resulting 

 from external sensations, imaginations, and foreseeings, the latter 

 excite other direct and special actions in virtue of these excitants 

 of the feelings, whenever they become agreeable or painful, so 

 that they modify the vital movements, and in consequence of 

 the physical, mechanical, and vital inter-connection of the latter, 

 powerfully influence the whole animal economy, and this pro- 

 portionately to the degree of excitation. This doctrine applies 

 also to the motives of the intellect. As to the cause of this 

 action of the sensational stimuli on the vital movements, we 

 can only say, that these inner sensations of the soul must make 

 an impression peculiar to themselves on the cerebral origin of 



) 



