444 PSYCHOLOGY. 



perhaps even more so, belongs to another subdivision of the motor appa- 

 ratus, namely, the involuntary or 'organic' muscles, especially those 

 which are found in the walls of the blood-vessels, and the use of which 

 is, by contracting, to diminish the latter's calibre. These muscles and 

 their nerves, forming together the ' vaso-motor apparatus,' act in grief 

 contrarily to the voluntary motor apparatus. Instead of being paralyzed, 

 like the latter, the vascular muscles are more strongly contracted than 

 usual, so that the tissues and organs of the body become antemic. The 

 immediate consequence of this bloodlessness is pallor and shrunken- 

 ness, and the pale color and collapsed features are the peculiarities 

 which, in connection with the relaxation of the visage, give to the victim 

 of grief his characteristic physiognomy, and often give an impression 

 of emaciation which ensues too rapidly to be possibly due to real dis- 

 turbance of nutrition, or waste uncompensated by repair. Another 

 regular consequence of the bloodlessness of the skin is a feeling of cold, 

 and shivering. A constant symptom of grief is sensitiveness to cold, 

 and difficulty in keeping warm. In grief, the inner organs are unques- 

 tionably anaemic ns well as the skin. This is of course not obvious to 

 the eye, but many phenomena prove it. Such is the diminution of the 

 various secretions, at least of such as are accessible to observation. 

 The mouth grows dry, the tongue sticky, and a bitter taste ensues 

 M'hich, it would appear, is only a consequence of the tongue's dryness. 

 [The expression 'bitter sorrow' may possibly arise from this.] In 

 nursing women the milk diminishes or altogether dries up. There is 

 one of the most regular manifestations of grief, which apparently con- 

 tradicts these other physiological phenomena, and that is the weeping, 

 with its profuse secretion of tears, its swollen reddened face, red eyes, 

 and augmented secretion from the nasal mucous membrane." 



Lange goes on to suggest that tliis may be a reaction 

 from a previously contracted vaso-motor state. The expla- 

 nation seems a forced one. The fact is that there are 

 changeable expressions of grief. The weeping is as apt as 

 not to be immediate, especially in women and children. 

 Some men can never Aveep. The tearful and the dry phases 

 alternate in all who can weep, sobbing storms being fol- 

 lowed by periods of calm ; and the shrunken, cold, and 

 pale condition -which Lange describes so well is more char- 

 acteristic of a severe settled sorrow than of an acute mental 

 pain. Properly we have two distinct emotions here, both 

 prompted by the same object, it is true, but affecting differ- 

 ent persons, or the same person at different times, and 

 feeling quite differently whilst they last, as anyone's con- 

 sciousness will testify. There is an excitement during the 

 crying fit which is not without a certain pungent pleasure 



