in] The Triunity of Personality 101 



of the content of the emotion. Pain involves the realisa- 

 tion that I am in some measure free to avoid the repe- 

 tition of the blow; it links cognition with conation. But 

 what I feel is a sensation pain, not freedom? Quite so. 

 The emotion aroused by pain involves the realisation 

 that I am only partially free that I am limited by my 

 body. Pain-emotion is an emotion of limitation. But it is 

 none the less true that I realise that my freedom exists; 

 that the pain gives rise to a conative attempt to increase 

 my freedom; and that the small measure of freedom I 

 do possess lies in the region of emotion 1 . 



So with fear. Fear is an emotion of limitation; but 

 it usually gives rise to conation. Where it does this 

 only to a very limited extent, as in the phobias of 

 anxiety-neurosis, it loses much of its character of an 

 emotion and becomes to a large extent a simple feeling. 

 In the fear of anxiety-neurosis I, to a considerable ex- 

 tent, lose my self-consciousness. My self shrivels to the 

 likeness of a pea floating in a vast ocean of fear-sensa- 

 tion. I lose my freedom in a great measure; even in so 

 far as I am conscious of my self at all, it is only to be 

 conscious that I am not free, but limited. In this sense 

 of limitation the horror of great fear lies. There are, 

 thus, emotions which are dependent for their existence 



1 It may be objected here that, as we have dented true emotion 

 to the animal, allowing to it only sensation, we have denied all 

 freedom to the animal, in patent contradiction of our whole 

 philosophy of life. This is not the case. It is clear that in the 

 present discussion we are speaking of the freedom of the true 

 alternative, as manifested in conscious choice. All we can say is, 

 that in animals the measure of freedom they possess lies in the 

 happenings, whatever they may be, that link the perception or 

 sensation with the subsequent action. And the same is true of a 

 man. Actually, the freedom he possesses at present is small : 

 such freedom as he has lies in the same region as in animals : the 

 difference is that man is conscious of this region, and gives to it, 

 as he experiences it. the title of emotion. 



