THE EMOTIONS. 463 



Apparent exhaustion of the machinery. In rage, it is no- 

 torious how we ' work ourselves up ' to a climax by re- 

 peated outbreaks of expression. Refuse to express a pas- 

 sion, and it dies. Count ten before venting your anger, 

 and its occasion seems ridiculous. Whistling to keep up 

 courage is no mere figure of speech. On the other hand, 

 sit all day in a moping posture, sigh, and reply to every- 

 thing with a dismal voice, and your melancholy lingers. 

 There is no more valuable precept in moral education than 

 this, as all who have experience know : if we wish to con- 

 quer undesirable emotional tendencies in ourselves, we 

 must assiduously, and in the first instance cold-bloodedly, 

 go through the nnfivard movements of those contrary dispo- 

 sitions which we prefer to cultivate. The reward of persis- 

 tency will infallibly come, in the fading out of the sullen- 

 ness or depression, and the advent of real cheerfulness and 

 kindliness in their stead. Smooth the brow, brighten the 

 eye, contract the dorsal rather than the ventral aspect of 

 the frame, and speak in a major key, pass the genial com- 

 pliment, and your heart must be frigid indeed if it do not 

 gradually thaw ! 



This is recognized by all psychologists, only they fail to 

 see its full import. Professor Bain writes, for example : 



" We find that a feeble [emotional] wave ... is suspended inwardly 

 by being arrested outwardly ; the currents of the brain and the agita- 

 tion of the centres die away if the external vent is resisted at every 

 point. It is by such restraint that we are in the habit of suppressing 

 pity, anger, fear, pride — on many trifling occasions. If so, it is a fact 

 that the suppression of the actual movements has a tendency to sup- 

 press the nervous currents that incite them, so that the external quies- 

 cence is followed by the internal. The effect would not happen in any 

 case if there tvere not some dependence of the cerebral wave upon the 

 free outward vent or niamfestation. ... By the same interposition 

 we may summon up a dormant feeling. By acting out the external 

 manifestations, w'e gradually infect the nerves leading to them, and 

 finally waken up the diffusive current by a sort of action ah extra. . . . 

 Thus it is that we are sometimes able to assume a cheerful tone of mind 

 by forcing a hilarious expression. * 



* Emotions and Will, pp. 361-3. 



