¹ Since this article was written, K. B. Lashley's The Thalamus and Emotion has appeared (Psychological Review, Jan., 1938). I regret that its conclusions were not available for inclusion here. It is of interest to note, however, that Professor Lashley examines critically the view that there is a “peculiar quality of emotion” (p. 44) and that he casts doubt upon the validity of the evidence offered in support of the thalamic theory. Professor Lashley concludes his examination of the thalamic theory in these words: “… the only part of the thalamic theory of emotion which has factual support is the localization of motor centers for emotional expression within the hypo-thalamus. It seems certain that these motor centers do not contribute directly to other aspects of emotion and there is no evidence for the existence of other affective or emotional centers. …” (p. 60)

² This abstraction is that of Locke and the school of “sensationalists“.

³ The divergences of James' statements from those of Lange are considered in this analysis to be critical. Therefore, no attempt is made to defend the “James-Lange theory“. James' theory has alliances as old as Aristotle's hypothesis of the soul as form or entelechy of the body (always excepting the Aristotelian “intelligible soul”) and in it are expressed views apparently as divergent as those of Descartes and Darwin. Cf. de Anima, 6 ff., 211 ff.; Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions; and Descartes' Meditations, 6, and The Passions of the Soul. For historical anticipations of the James-Lange theory, vide E. B. Titchener, An Historical Note on the James-Lange Theory of Emotion, Amer. Journal of Psych., 1914 (25), pp. 427 et seq.

⁴ Principles of Psychology, vol. 2, pp. 449-50.

⁵ The great complexity which James attributed to the bodily reaction may be gathered from the following: ‘The researches of Mosso with the plethysymograph have shown that not only the heart, but the entire circulatory system, forms a sort of sounding-board, which every change of our consciousness, however slight, may make reverberate. Hardly a sensation comes to us without sending waves of alternate constriction and dilatation down the arteries of our arms. The blood-vessels of the abdomen act reciprocally with those of the more outward parts. The bladder and bowels, the glands of the mouth, throat, and skin, and the liver, are known to be affected gravely in certain severe emotions and are unquestionably affected transiently when the emotions are of a lighter sort. That the heart-beats and the rhythm of breathing play a leading part in all emotions whatsoever, is a matter too notorious for proof. And what is really equally prominent, but less likely to be admitted until special attention is drawn to the fact, is the continuous cooperation of the voluntary muscles in our emotional states. Even when no change of outward attitude is produced, their inward tension alters to suit each varying mood, and is felt as a difference of tone and strain’. (Mind, 1884, vol. IX, pp. 188-205)

⁶ Principles of Psychology, vol. 2, p. 449.

⁷ The Physical Basis of Emotion (1894) in Collected Essays, p. 350.

⁸ The Principles of Psychology, vol. 2, p. 442.

⁹ Op. cit., p. 478.

¹⁰ cf. E. M. Wyman, On Instinct and Intelligence, pp. 40, 41.

¹¹ Principles of Psychology, vol. 2, p. 374: “An object falls on a sense-organ, affects a critical part, and is perceived; or else the latter, excited inwardly, gives rise to an idea of the same object. Quick as a flash, the reflex currents pass down through their preordained channels, alter the condition of muscle, skin, and viscus; and these alterations, perceived, like the original object, in as many portions of the cortex, combine with it in consciousness and transform it from an object-simply-apprehended into an object-emotionally-felt.“

¹² Concerning James' view of ‘consciousness’, the relevant distinction between experience and reflection, and the clarification of ambiguities found in James' epistemology, vide E. A. Singer, Jr., Mind as Behavior, pp. 6-9, 174-176, 182.

¹³ Adrian, E. D., The Physical Basis of Sensation, p. 18.

¹⁴ The problem is discussed in Grace A. de Laguna's Emotion and Perception from the Behaviorist Standpoint, pp. 412 et seq., The Psychological Review, vol. 26, no. 6, November, 1919.

¹⁵ Vide E. A. Singer, op. cit., p. 93 et seq., On Sensibility.

¹⁶ ibid., p. 95.

¹⁷ cf. E. von Hartmann, Philosophie des Unbewussten, ch. X., p. 302.

¹⁸ Prin. of Psych., p. 442.

¹⁹ cf. J. R. Angell, Psychology, p. 370; W. B. Cannon, Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage, (1929) p. 228; John Dewey, The Theory of Emotions (Psychological Review, Nov. 1894, vol. 1, no. 6, pp. 18-19, 28, and Jan. vol. 2 no 1, p. 595); and James, Collected Essays, pp. 350-356.

¹⁰ What Is an Emotion?, in Collected Essays and Reviews, pp. 250-1.

²¹ Bodily Changes, particularly pp. 2-3.

²² Bodily Changes vii. But cf. denial of this in Again the James-Lange and the Thalamic Theories of Emotion (Psychological Review, July, 1931); cf. op. cit., p. 193, p. 194-5 and p. 243.

²³ op. cit., p. 194 and cf. p. 243.

²⁴ The Interrelations of Emotions as Suggested by Recent Psychological Researches, (American Journal of Psychology, 1914) p. 275.

²⁵ The James-Lange Theory of Emotions: A Critical Examination and an Alternative Theory, Washburn Commemorative Volume (American Journal of Psychology, 1927), p. 114.

²⁶ In Feelings and Emotions, The Wittemberg Symposium, p. 263.

²⁷ Bodily Changes, p. 351 et seq. and op. cit., passim.

²⁸ The Integrative Action of the Nervous System, Lecture vii, pp. 235 et seq. and Experiments on the Value of the Vascular and Visceral Factors for the Generation of Emotions, Proceedings Royal Society of London, Vol. 66, May, 1900.

²⁹ Experiments, p. 402.

³⁰ op. cit. pp. 392-3.

³¹ Experiments, pp. 390 et seq.

³² Experiments, p. 402: “A vasomotor theory of the production of emotions seems at any rate rendered quite untenable.“

³³ He says that James' ‘suggestive chapters led to the above attempt at examination of his theory, an examination the incompleteness of which I wish to unreservedly acknowledge.‘ op. cit. p. 403.

³⁴ The Integrative Action, p. 251.

³⁵ Ibid. p. 259.

³⁶ Bodily Changes, p. 228, p. 247.

³⁷ Again The James-Lange and the Thalamic Theories of Emotion, The Psychological Review, 1931, citing Bell, The Nervous System of the Human Body, 1833.

³⁸ Bodily Changes, pp. 351 et seq.

³⁹ Again The James-Lange and the Thalamic Theories of Emotion, p. 285: ‘Newman, Perkins and Wheeler have failed to discriminate between emotional behavior and emotional experience. According to the James-Lange theory the two are inseparable—the bodily changes result from impulses from the cortex and report back to the cortex, so that, if the changes occur, the cortex must have received and mediated an affective stimulus or stimulus pattern and would therefore be receptive to reverberations from the periphery. In this view there is no true emotional behavior without emotional experience and, vice versa, there is no felt emotion without peripheral changes.—The thalamic theory, on the contrary, admits the possibility of separation—the typical reactions have their source in the thalamus, and whether there is an experience of emotion or not depends on whether the cortex is present and proper thalamo-cortical connections are intact.‘

⁴⁰ Bodily Changes, pp. 290-293; cf. particularly p. 296, ‘Hunger, in other words, is normally the signal that the stomach is contracted for action.‘

⁴¹ The general principle underlying the search for completeness in experimental findings is expressed clearly by Berkeley.

⁴² Cannon's Theory of Emotion, Newman, Perkins, and Wheeler, Psych. Review, 1930, p. 315.

⁴³ The James-Lange Theory of Emotion, Washburn Comm. Vol. (Amer. Jour. of Psych.), p. 114. ‘From the evidence adduced by Marañon we may conclude that adrenalin induces in human beings typical bodily changes which are reported as sensations, that in some cases these sensations are reminiscent of previous emotional experiences but do not renew or revive the experiences, that in exceptional cases of preparatory emotional sensitization the bodily changes may tip the scales towards a true affective disturbance. These last cases are exceptional, however, and are not the usual phenomena James and Lange supposed. In normal conditions, the bodily changes, though well marked, do not provoke emotion.‘

⁴⁴ Again the James-Lange—pp. 288, 290. Cf. Bodily Changes, pp. 356-7.

⁴⁵ Cf. de Laguna, op. cit. and Cannon's Theory of Emotion, loc. cit.

⁴⁶ Cannon, Bodily Changes, pp. 193, 228, 275; cf. Wittemberg Symposium, p. 257.

⁴⁷ cf. infra pp. 482-4.

⁴⁸ cf. Med. 6; Passions of the Soul; Letter to the Marquis of Newcastle; Letter to Henry More.

⁴⁹ cf. Conditioned Reflexes, p. 7 (Eng. trans.): “Our starting point has been Descartes' idea of the nervous reflex. This is a genuine scientific conception, since it implies necessity.“

⁵⁰ Lectures on Conditioned Reflexes, pp. 48-50. Cf. on Descartes op. cit. p. 4.

⁵¹ Traité, p. 681. ‘Tandis que l'expérimentation physiologique n'arrive pas à infirmer la théorie de Lange-James—’. The further stipulation is made, however, that ‘l'observation psychologique et l'observation clinique permettent d'être plus négatifs.’ Dumas finds this to be particularly true in the problem of the ‘émotions délicates’.

⁵² Loc. cit.; vide pp. 632-5 for criticism of Darwin and Spencer. It is implied consistently in the Traité and, indeed, in many attempts to justify the complete exclusion of teleology, that the conception of ‘end’ or ‘purpose’ inevitably involves theology. The argument appears to rest, for the most part, upon the simple statement that ‘finalisme theologique’ results if any other than mechanical principles are employed but it is obviously directed against the introduction into ‘science’ of proofs for the existence of God based upon the purposive nature of the world. However, simply because phenomena are interpreted ideologically does not necessarily imply a) that all purposes in the universe are completely coordinated or b) that they are coordinated by a deity. In fact, either implication involves an infinite regress which by definition excludes the final term. Kant, in his discussion of the physico-theological proof for the existence of God, has shown with sufficient clarity the fallacy involved. The author of the Kritik adds, moreover, the equally important empirical objection to the argument, the fact that “we can never find in experience material sufficient to satisfy such a concept (the idea of God)—We are not acquainted with the whole content of the world, still less do we know how to estimate its magnitude by comparison with all that is possible.” But Kant holds with equal clarity that the concept “is never decisively contradicted by any experience” that “it contributes,” as a regulative principle, “to the extension of the employment of reason within experience, through the guidance which it yields in the discovery of order and purposiveness.” (K.d.R.V., A 621 et seq. (arranged)). Kant sums up the argument succinctly in the K.d.U., Sect. 75: “On the question, therefore, whether or not any being acting designedly stands behind what we properly term physical ends, as a world cause, and consequently, as Author of the world, we can pass no objective judgement whatever, be it affirmative or negative.“

⁵³ op. cit. e.g. p. 633, Concerning the expression of the emotions: ‘It is then indispensable to give a large place to the phenomena of excitation or of neuro-muscular depression in the explanation of emotional expressions; many of these expressions are only phenomena of tonus, hypotonus, of excitation, of exhaustion, of inhibition. …‘

⁵⁴ op. cit., pp. 629 et seq.

⁵⁵ Piéron, Feelings and Emotions, Wittemberg Symposium, p. 285 et seq.

⁵⁶ Tratté, p. 200. It is of even greater interest to note that between the first and second edition of the Traité, the problems raised by purely mechanical explanation have caused such difficulties that Dumas, while still holding that such explanation is adequate for “passive sadness” and “active joy” adds (loc. cit.) that the sound conclusion is that one must lay “considerable emphasis on the psycho-reflex and instinctive reactions which are mingled with the reactions of excitation or depression. …” He hastens to add, however, “but much less so than did Darwin. …“

⁵⁷ This inference was clearly stated by Pavlow, Conditioned Reflexes, p. 4: “It may be hoped that some of the more complex activities of the body, which are made up by a grouping together of the elementary locomotor activities, and which enter into the states referred to in psychological phraseology as “playfulness,” “fear,” “anger,” and so forth, will soon be demonstrated as reflex activities of the sub-cortical parts of the brain.” cf. loc. cit, pp. 6-11.

⁵⁸ Tratté, ed. 2, p. 201.

⁵⁹ ibid., p. 201.

⁶⁰ Traité, ed 2, p. 200.

⁶¹ I have adopted Kant's phrase. cf. K.d.R.V. pp. A 118-123 et seq.

⁶² Principles of Psychology, p. 442.

⁶³ Feelings and Emotions, Willemberg Symposium, p. 286.

⁶⁴ cf. H. Bergson, L'Evolution Créatrice, pp. 158-9.

⁶⁵ Bernard, Instinct, p. 84.

⁶⁶ op. cit., cf. pp. 258-60 and 288 et seq.

⁶⁷ cf. E. A. Singer, Jr., in Mind as Behavior, pp. 86 et seq.

⁶⁸ Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Part 1.

⁶⁹ The Physical Basis of Emotion, in Collected Essays, p. 350.

⁷⁰ K.d.U., cf. Sect, 15.

⁷¹ Cf. Bekhterev, Emotions as Somato-Mimetic Reflexes, (Wittemberg Symposium, pp. 274-5).

⁷² Traité de Psychologie (ed. 1923), p. 479. Cf. Piéron in Emotions in Animals and Man, Wittemberg Symposium, pp. 286, 290; cf. Cannon, Bodily Changes, pp. 228 and 234.

⁷³ cf. supra, p. 471.

⁷⁴ cf. note 61.

⁷⁵ cf. McCurdy, Psych. of Emotions, ch. viii, pp. 58-65.

⁷⁶ Psychology, p. 323. cf. McDougall, An Outline of Psych, pp. 325-6.

⁷⁷ Ibid., p. 323.

⁷⁸ cf. R. P. Angier, The Conflict Theory of Emotion, Washburn Commemorative Volumes p. 401: “Whenever a series of reactions required by an organism's total ‘set’ run their course to the consummatory reaction which will bring ‘satisfaction’ (i.e., abolish the ‘set’) unimpeded by other reactions that cannot be readily absorbed by (integrated with) them, there is no emotion. Emotion arises only when these other reactions (implicit or overt) are so irrelevant as to resist ready integration with those already in orderly progress towards fruition. Such resistance means actual tension, checking, interference, inhibition, or conflict—conflict between the intercurrent reactions appropriate to the original ‘set’ and reactions of other origin threatening the abortion or frustration of the relevant series. Such conflict constitutes the emotion“.

⁷⁹ Kant's terminology—but ‘image’ is used in the sense of ‘effective stimulus’ external or internal.

⁸⁰ The Theory of Emotions, pp. 562 et seq. Psych. Review, vol. 1, no. 6, 1894, and pp. 27 et seq. vol. 2, no. 1, 1895.

⁸¹ op. cit. p. 29.

⁸² Principles of Psychology, vol. 2, p. 478.

⁸³ Cf. Tacitus, de Germania, xxxviii, “Among the Seubi, however, even till old age they continue to fasten back their unkempt hair, and often they knot it on the very top of their head. This comes from their care for their personal appearance, but it is not mere vanity; for they do not adorn themselves in order to enter the lists of love, but they thus add to their height that they may appear more terrible to the eyes of the enemy when going into battle.“

⁸⁴ T. H. Morgan, Critique of Evolution, p. 21. The author is discussing the physiological retention of primitive organs, etc.

⁸⁵ Morgan ibid.; vide Landis, The Expressions of Emotion in Handbook of General Experimental Psychology, p. 346.

⁸⁶ Bodily Changes, p. 193.

⁸⁷ Ibid., pp. 2-3.