The Emotions in their Relation to Instinct. 193 



"Without citing further authorities, let us now note how 

 the emotional theory under consideration stands. It must 

 be regarded as a theory of primary genesis ; this is 

 essential. All effects due to association through experience 

 must be resolutely excluded. Not that, in practical ex- 

 perience, the part played by association is unimportant. 

 It is, so far as adult experience is concerned, profoundly 

 important. But it is without bearing on the question of 

 origin, and that is the question under consideration. As 

 a matter of primary genesis, then, the theory before us 

 affirms that an emotion, such as that of fear, when, for 

 example, a chick which has been left undisturbed for forty- 

 eight hours shrinks from your hand if you be rough, is due 

 not directly, but indirectly, to the sight of the advancing 

 fingers. It does not fear and then shrink ; it shrinks 

 instinctively, and then for the first time experiences the 

 emotion of fear. The emotion, thus indirectly produced 

 at sight of the hand, was held by Prof. James in his 

 earlier presentation to be due to the joint effects of both 

 motor and visceral reaction, but in his later writings he 

 assigns to visceral action the chief part. " Visceral 

 factors," he says,* " seem to be the most essential ones of 

 all." We shall have presently to decide, as far as possible, 

 between the relative claims of the visceral and the motor 

 factors. For the present we may leave the question open, 

 and inquire how far the theory of indirect origin is in 

 accord with the conclusions we have already reached. 



It has been shown that soon after birth a chick will 

 peck at small objects which catch its eye ; that a young 

 duck or moorhen will swim directly it is placed in water ; 

 that such activities as scratching, preening the down, sand- 

 dusting, bathing, scratching the ground, are distinctly and 

 unmistakably congenital. These activities and their like 



* Psychological Review, September, 1894, p. 512 ; see also p. 529. 







