Genesis of the Emotions 435 
stimulation, we are not justified, without further evidence, in speaking 
of them as effects of the emotional state. May it not rather be that 
the emotion as a primary mode of experience is the concomitant of 
the net result of the organic situation—the initial presentation, the 
instinctive mode of behaviour, the visceral disturbances? According 
to this interpretation the primary tissue of experience of the emo- 
tional order, felt as an unanalysed complex, is generated by the 
stimulation of the sensorium by afferent or incoming physiological 
impulses from the special senses, from the organs concerned in the 
responsive behaviour, from the viscera and vaso-motor system. 
Some psychologists, however, contend that the emotional ex- 
perience is generated in the sensorium prior to, and not subsequent 
to, the behaviour-response and the visceral disturbances. It is a 
direct and not an indirect outcome of the presentation to the special 
senses. Be this as it may, there is a growing tendency to bring into 
the closest possible relation, or even to identify, instinct and emotion 
in their primary genesis. The central core of all such interpretations is 
that instinctive behaviour and experience, its emotional accompani- 
ments, and its expression, are but different aspects of the outcome of 
the same organic occurrences. Such emotions are, therefore, only a 
distinguishable aspect of the primary tissue of experience and 
exhibit a like differentiation. Here again a biological foundation is 
laid for a psychological doctrine of the mental development of the 
individual. 
The intimate relation between emotion as a psychological mode of 
experience and expression as a group of organic conditions has an 
important bearing on biological interpretation. The emotion, as the 
psychological accompaniment of orderly disturbances in the central 
nervous system, profoundly influences behaviour and often renders it 
more vigorous and more effective. The utility of the emotions in the 
struggle for existence can, therefore, scarcely be over-estimated. Just 
as keenness of perception has survival-value; just as it is obviously 
subject to variation; just as it must be enhanced under natural 
selection, whether individually acquired increments are inherited 
or not; and just as its value lies not only in this or that special 
perceptive act but in its importance for life as a whole; so the 
vigorous effectiveness of activity has survival-value; it is subject 
to variation; it must be enhanced under natural selection; and its 
importance lies not only in particular modes of behaviour but in 
its value for life as a whole. If emotion and its expression as a 
congenital endowment are but different aspects of the same biological 
occurrence; and if this is a powerful supplement to vigour effective- 
ness and persistency of behaviour, it must on Darwin’s principles be 
subject to natural selection. 
28—2 
