390 Dr. C. S. Sherrington. Experiments on the Value of 



" Experiments on the Value of Vascular and Visceral Factors for 

 the Genesis of Emotion." By C. S. Sherrington, M.A., M.D., 

 F.K.S. Eeceived April 5 — Eead May 10, 1900. 



(From the Physiological Laboratory, University College, Liverpool.) 



That marked reactions of those portions of the nervous system 

 which regulate the activity of the thoracic and abdominal organs and the 

 skin do contribute characteristically to the phenomena of emotion has 

 long been common knowledge. In descriptions of emotion furnished 

 in recent years by certain leading psychologists these purely physio- 

 logical processes have been given a place more important than was 

 attributed to them formerly. To changes induced in the condition of 

 the heart and blood vessels, lungs, abdominal and pelvic viscera and 

 skin has been assigned a large causal role in the genesis of affective 

 psychological states. Whereas the cardiac, vascular, respiratory, and 

 visceral phenomena accompanying emotion were wont to be regarded 

 as secondary to the cerebral and psychological, we find their position 

 reversed in the writings of Professor W. James,* Professor C. Lange,t 

 and Professor Sergi.J It is true that it is claimed that this more 

 recent position has been foreseen and partly preoccupied by older 

 writers, by Descartes§ and Malebranche,|| ; but as Professor Eibot, who 

 with some reservation, endorses the new theory, H writes : "La supe- 

 riorite de James et de Lange, c'est de I'avoir posee clairement et de 

 s'^tre efforces de I'appuyer sur des preuves experimentales.""^"^ It is 

 scarcely fitting here to enter on a full statement of the doctrine. I 

 may, however, be allowed some brief quotations from the authorities 

 indicating their teaching. 



After having, in a previous chapter, given an account of the 

 influence that a shock of feeling exerts on the nerve centres con- 

 trolling circulation, respiration, skin glands, abdominal and pelvic 

 viscera. Professor James writes : " Our natural way of thinking about 

 these coarser emotions {e.g., ' grief, fear, rage, love ') is that the mental 

 perception of some fact excites the mental affection called the emotion, 

 and that this latter state of mind gives rise to the bodily expression. 



* ' Mind,' London, 1884, ' Principles of Psychology,' London, 1890, vol. 2, pp. 

 448, &c. 



t Om Sindsbevagelser, Copenhagen, 1885 ; G-erman by Kurella, Leipzig, 1887 ; 

 French by Q-eorges Dumas, Paris, 1895. 



X Dolore e Piacere, Milano, 1894, 398 pp. 'Zeitschft. f. Psychologic u. d. 

 Physiol, der Sinnesorgane,' Hamburg and Leipzig, April, 1897, p. 96, &c. 



§ ' Passions de I'ame,' Paris, 1648-9 ; ' Passiones sive Affectus Animae,' 

 Amstelod. 1677. 



II ' Recherche de la Yerite,' 1672. 



IT * La Psychologic dea Sentiments,' p. 92 — 113. Paris, 1896. 

 ** Ihid., p. 112. 



