Affective Tendencies 377 
thesia, which is itself a resultant, a combination of vital 
operations.” 18 
Nor does it in the least prevent affective tendencies 
from keeping all the fundamental properties which 
they owe to their mnemonic visceral origin, of which 
the most important are first the possession of a “diffuse” 
seat, and second that they are eminently “subjective.” 
For every stationary physiological system in equilib- 
rium with regard to its environment permeates the 
whole organism and consequently also all that part of 
the brain in which this organism is reflected. Accord- 
ingly, in contrast to the mnemonic sense-accumulations 
each of which to all appearances has a seat distinctly 
localized at a single point or in a single center of the 
cortex of the brain, we have every reason to conclude 
that each affective tendency is made up of an infinitely 
large number of different elementary mnemonic accumu- 
lations, deposited respectively in every point of the body 
and in every corresponding point in the brain. 
To this mnemonic physiological origin of the affec- 
tive tendencies is also due their eminently “subjective” 
character; for the organism is equipped potentially with 
this or that “idiosyncratic” affective tendency, with this 
or that “appetite,” according to the various environ- 
ments or conditions in which the species and the in- 
dividual were placed for a longer or shorter time in 
the past, in other words according to their individual 
history. 
Hence the subjectivity and infinite variety manifest 
in the needs, the appetites and desires and consequently 
in everything that furnishes an object of “affective 
evaluation.” 
18Ribot, Psych. des sent., p. 10. 
