448 PSYCHOLOGY. 



absolute truth ; that tliey only applied to the average man ; 

 that every one of us, almost, has some personal idiosyncrasy 

 of expression, laughing or sobbing differently from his 

 neighbor, or reddening or growing pale where others do 

 not. We should find a like variation in the objects which 

 excite emotion in different persons. Jokes at which one 

 explodes with laughter nauseate another, and seem blas- 

 phemous to a third ; and occasions which overwhelm me with 

 fear or bashfulness are just what give you the full sense of 

 ease and power. The internal shadings of emotional feel- 

 ing, moreover, merge endlessly into each other. Language 

 has discriminated some of them, as hatred, antipathy, ani- 

 mosity, dislike, aversion, malice, spite, vengefulness, ab- 

 horrence, etc., etc. ; but in the dictionaries of synonyms we 

 find these feelings distinguished more by their severally 

 approjjriate objective stimuli than by their conscious or 

 subjective tone. 



The result of all this flux is that the merely descriptive 

 literature of the emotions is one of the most tedious parts 

 of psychology. And not only is it tedious, but you feel 

 that its subdivisions are to a great extent either fictitious 

 or unimportant, and that its pretences to accuracy are a 

 sham. But unfortunately there is little psychological writ- 

 ing about the emotions which is not merely descriptive. 

 As emotions are described in novels, they interest us, for 

 we are made to share them. We have grown acquainted 

 with the concrete objects and emergencies which call 

 them forth, and any knowing touch of introspection Avliich 

 may grace the page meets with a quick and feeling 

 response. Confessedly literary works of aphoristic philos- 

 ophy also flash lights into our emotional life, and give us a 

 fitful delight. But as far as " scientific psychology" of the 

 emotions goes, I may have been surfeited by too much 

 readihg of classic works on the subject, but I should as 

 lief read verbal descriptions of the shapes of the rocks on 

 a New Hampshire farm as toil through them again. They 

 give one nowhere a central point of view, or a deductive 

 or generative principle. They distinguish and refine and 

 specify in infinitum without ever getting on to another logi- 

 cal level. Whereas the beauty of all truly scientific work 



