454 rSTCHOLOGT. 



excite?" and ''How come they to excite these particular 

 changes and not others. " We step from a superficial to a 

 deep order of inquiry. Classification and description are 

 the lowest stage of science. They sink into the background 

 the moment questions of genesis are formulated, and remain 

 important only so far as they facilitate our answering these. 

 Now the moment the genesis of an emotion is accounted for, 

 as the arousal by an object of a lot of reflex acts which are 

 forthwith felt, ive immediately sec tvhy there is no limit to the 

 number of possible different emotions ivhich may exist, and ivhy 

 the emotions of different individuals may vary iiuiefinitely , both 

 as to their constitution and as to objects which call them 

 forth. For there is nothing sacramental or eternally fixed 

 in reflex action. Any sort of reflex efi'ect is possible, and 

 reflexes actually vary indefinitely, as we know. 



"We have all seen men dumb, instead of talkative, with joy ; we 

 have seen fright drive the blood into the head of its victim, instead of 

 making him pale ; we have seen grief run restlessly about lamenting, 

 instead of sitting bowed down and mute ; etc., etc., and this naturally 

 enough, for one and the same cause can work differently on different 

 men's blood-vessels (since these do not always react alike), whilst more- 

 over the impulse on its way through the brain to the vaso-motor centre 

 is differently influenced by different earlier impressions in the form of 

 recollections or associations of ideas." * 



In short, any classification of the emotions is seen to be as 

 trite and as ' natural ' as any other, if it only serves some pur- 

 pose ; and such a question as " What is the ' real ' or ' typical ' 

 expression of anger, or fear ?" is seen to have no objective 

 meaning at all. Instead of it we now have the question as 

 to how any given ' expression ' of anger or fear may have 

 come to exist ; and that is a real question of physiological 

 mechanics on the one hand, and of history on the other, 

 which (like all real questions) is in essence answerable, 

 although the answer may be hard ^;0 find. On a later page 

 I shall mention the attempts to answer it which have been 

 made. 



DIFFICULTY OP TESTING THE THEORY EXPERIMENTALLY. 



I have thus fairly propounded what seems to me the 

 most fruitful way of conceiving of the emotions. It must 



* Lange, op. cit. p. 75. 



