The Emotions in their Relation to Instinct. 207 



And the value of the emotions in the evolution process is 

 tolerably obvious. The prolonged visceral back-stroke in 

 fear or anger, for example, leads to continuous exertion 

 in flight or fight ; a continuous exertion that is all the 

 more pronounced if visceral and motor groups are closely 

 linked by the bonds of association. Even the general 

 collapse of extreme dread or terror may be seen to have its 

 protective value in the case of birds or other animals that, 

 like the rails above described, are said to sham dead — in 

 which, that is to say, the collapse has been organized 

 through natural selection into an instinctive response of 

 stillness and limpness.* 



In fine the general conclusions that we reach as to the 



relation of emotion to instinct are somewhat as follows. 



Instinctive activities are primarily automatic responses of 



the organism to certain external stimuli under certain 



internal conditions; the performance of these activities 



affords to consciousness by back-stroke certain motor data 



; which are correlated with the data provided by the special 



\ senses. But there are other automatic responses of the 



' organism, or effects in the organism, which are more or 



i less closely bound up with some at least of the instinctive 



, activities. These are visceral effects. They, too, like the 



/ co-ordinated activities, are due to outgoing impulses from 



i the lower brain centres. They, too, afford to consciousness 



, certain data, which are correlated with the other data of 



I experience ; and these data, visceral in origin, are, if not 



the sole, at any rate the distinguishing constituents of 



what we term the coarser emotions (for under this term 



exceedingly complex states of consciousness are included, 



comprising many diverse data sensory and motor as well 



* Dr. Wesley Mills has discussed the conditions of the so-called death- 

 feigning response in the "Trans. Eoy. Soo. Canada," Sect, iv., 1887, p. 181, 

 et seqq. 



