474 PSYCHOLOGY. 



or else the latter, excited inwardly, gives rise to an idea of 

 the same object. Quick as a flash, the reflex currents pass 

 down through their preordained channels, alter the con- 

 dition of muscle, skin, and viscus ; and these alterations, 

 perceived, like the original object, in as many portions of 

 the cortex, combine with it in consciousness and transform 

 it from an object-simply-apprehended into an object- 

 emotionally-felt. No new principles have to be invoked, 

 nothing postulated beyond the ordinary reflex circuits, and 

 the local centres admitted in one shape or another by all 

 to exist. 



EMOTIONAL PTFFERENCES BETWEEN INDIVIDUALS. 



The revivahility in memory of the emotiotis, like that of all 

 the feelings of the lower senses, is very small. We can 

 remember that we underwent grief or rapture, but not just 

 how the grief or rapture felt. This difficult ideal reviva- 

 hility is, however, more than compensated in the case of 

 the emotions by a very easy actual revivability. That 

 is, we can produce, not remembrances of the old grief 

 or rapture, but new griefs and raptures, by summoning up 

 a lively thought of their exciting cause. The cause is now 

 only an idea, but this idea produces the same organic 

 irradiations, or almost the same, which were produced by 

 its original, so that the emotion is again a reality. We 

 have ' recaptured ' it. Shame, love, and anger are particu- 

 larly liable to be thus revived by ideas of their object. 

 Professor Bain admits * that " in their strict character of 

 emotion proper, they [the emotions] have the minimum of 

 revivability ; but being always incorj^orated with the sensa- 

 tions of the higher senses, they share in the superior reviv- 

 ability of sights and sovinds." But he fails to point out 

 that the revived sights and sounds may be ideal without 

 ceasing to be distinct ; whilst the emotion, to be distinct, 

 must become real again. Prof. Bain seems to forget that 

 an ' ideal emotion ' and a real emotion prompted by an 

 ideal object are two very different things. 



* In his chapter on ' Ideal Emotion, ' to which the reader is referred for 

 farther details on this subject. 



