I 



Sketch of an Orcjatiismal llicorif of Consciousness 811) 



^^more rational." It is only relative, not absolute tnitli, he 

 is aiming at in tliese statements. Nevertheless, after due al- 

 lowance is made for an expressional miscue to some extent, 

 there is yet substantial defect in his ])resentation. Speaking 

 in general terms, the defectiveness is not so much in the 

 antithesis set up as in the rcstrictedness implied. Or, bring- 

 ing the criticism around toward our ])articular standpoint, 

 the statement falls short of being organismal. 



Cannon has, I believe, indicated the direction in which the 

 adequate statement lies. He writes: "We do not 'feel sorry 

 because we cry,' as James contended, but we cry Ix'canse 

 when we are sorry or overjoyed or violently angry or full of 

 tender affection — when any one of these diverse emotional 

 states is present — there are nervous discharges by sympathe- 

 tic channels to various viscera, including the lachrymal 

 glands. In terror and rage and intense elation, for examj)le, 

 the responses in the viscera seem too uniform to offer a satis- 

 factory means of distinguishing states which, in man at least, 

 are very different in subjective quality. For this reason I 

 am inclined to urge that the visceral changes merelv contri- 

 bute to an emotional complex more or less intlefinite, but 

 still pertinent, feelings of disturbance in organs of which 

 we are not usually conscious." ^^ What Cannon's criticism 

 amounts to, expressed in other language is : while freely 

 granting that organs and functions in the usual ])hysiologi- 

 cal sense play an essential part in emotion, neither the vis- 

 ceral nor any other single set of organs is sufficient to account 

 for the whole of any emotion. Msceral changes contribute 

 to the "emotional com])lex," but the real source of the feel- 

 ings involved is embedded elsewhere and more broadly in the 

 organization. Cannon suggests: "the natural response is a 

 pattern reaction, like inborn reflexes of low order." ^^ "The 

 typical facial and bodily expressions," he writes, "automati- 

 cally assumed in different emotions, indicate discharge of pe- 

 culiar groui)ings of neurones in the several effective states." 



