THE EMOTIONS. 467 



of currents among the thouglit-tracts, and with this an in- 

 creased tendency of objects to start downward currents 

 into the organs of the body. The consequence is tears, 

 laughter, and temper-fits, on the most insignificant provo- 

 cation, accompanying a proportional feebleness in logical 

 thought and the power of volitional attention and decision, — 

 Just the sort of thing from which we try to wean our child. 

 It is true that we say of certain persons that " they would 

 feel more if they expressed less." And in another class of 

 persons the explosive energy with which passion manifests 

 itself on critical occasions seems correlated with the way 

 in which they bottle it up during the intervals. But these 

 are only eccentric types of character, and within each type 

 the law of the last paragraph prevails. The sentimentalist 

 is so constructed that ' gushing ' is his or her normal mode 

 of expression. Putting a stoj^per on the 'gush ' will only 

 to a limited extent cause more ' real ' activities to take its 

 place ; in the main it will simply produce listlessness. On 

 the other hand, the ponderous and bilious * slumbering vol- 

 cano,' let him repress the expression of his passions as he 

 will, will find them expire if the}; get no vent at all ; whilst 

 if the rare occasions multiply which he deems worthy of 

 their outbreak, he will find them grow in intensity as life 

 proceeds. On the whole, I cannot see that this third ob- 

 jection carries any weight. 



If our hypothesis is true, it makes us realize more deeply 

 than ever how much our mental life is knit up with our 

 corporeal frame, in the strictest sense of the term. Rap- 

 ture, love, ambition, indignation, and pride, considered as 

 feelings, are fruits of the same soil with the grossest bodily 

 sensations of pleasure and of pain. But the reader will 

 remember that we agreed at the outset to afiirm this cnly 

 of what we then called the ' coarser ' emotions, and that 

 those inward states of emotional sensibility which appeared 

 devoid at first sight of bodily results should be left out of 

 our account. We must now say a word or two about these 

 latter feelings, the * subtler ' emotions, as we then agreed to 

 call them. 



