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



vasomotor centre upon the hlood-vessels of the brain, as well as on 

 those of the viscera and skin, plays an important part. 



The teaching of Professor Sergi closely approximates to that of 

 Lange. He argues that the exciting stimulus acts on nervous centres 

 in the bulb (medulla oblongata) producing cardiac vascular and respi- 

 ratory effects as well as effects upon the abdominal and pelvic viscera. 

 He writes recently : " Lange hat gemeint, die Affekte hingen von 

 dem vasomotorischen Zentrum ab ; doch ist dieses Zentrum zu eng, 

 um die Mannigfaltigkeit der visceralen Erscheinungen des Ernahrungs 

 lebens erklaren zu konnen. Dagegen hat mich die Analyse zu der 

 Erkenntniss gebracht dass der Bulbus rachidicus, wo die reflex und 

 automatischen Zentren der Nerven, die das ganze Ernahrungsleben 

 regulieren, zusammenlaufen, das Zentrum der Affekte und im allge- 

 meinen das der Gefiihle ist."* 



The views of James, Lange, and Sergi have common to them this, 

 that according to them the psychological process of emotion is secondary 

 to a discharge of nervous impulses into the vascular and visceral 

 organs of the body suddenly excited by certain peculiar stimuli, and 

 depends upon the reaction of those organs. Professor James's position 

 in the matter is, however, not wholly like that of Professor Lange. 

 In the first place, he does not consider vasomotor reaction to be 

 primary to all the other organic and visceral disturbances that carry 

 in their train the psychological appanage of emotion ; and to a certain 

 extent Professor Sergi, though more nearly in harmony with Lange, 

 agrees with James in this. In the second place. Professor James seems 

 to distinctly include other " motor " sensations and centripetal im- 

 pulses from musculature other than visceral and vascular, among those 

 which causally contribute to emotion. Thirdly, he urges his theory as 

 one which is completely competent only for the " coarser " emotions, 

 among which he instances " fear, anger, love, grief." For Lange 

 and Sergi the basis of apparition of all feeling and emotion is physio- 

 logical, visceral, and organic, and has seat for the former authority 

 exclusively, and for the latter eminently, in the vasomotor system. 



This view, which some may conceivably tax with " materialism,"! 

 has a merit that materialism does oftentimes possess, namely, 

 relative accessibility to experimental test.| Such test it is attempted 

 in certain measure to apply in the observations which I herewith 

 report. They have been obtained from five young dogs. In these 



* * Ztschf . f . Psychologie u. Physiologie d. Sinnesorgane,' Hamburg and Leipzig, 

 1897, vol. 14, p. 93. 



t James, ' Principles of Psychology,' vol. 2, p. 453. 



X Sollier, * Revue pliilosophique,' Paris, March, 1894. Dr. Sollier records 

 experiments made on subjects in tbe condition of deep bjpnosis; their sensation, 

 both cutaneous and deep, was believed to be abolished ; the conclusions he draws 

 from the experiments are in support of the theory of James and Lange. 



