LIMITS TO DIFFUSED MANIFESTATIONS.

7

which just suffice for the bare performance of the operations implied in them. The first time that the hand clenches a wooden or iron handle, a sensation is produced having all the characters of a feeling fully manifested. There is, perhaps, a pleasurable or neutral consciousness, an occupation of the mind, a responsive expression and attitude of the whole body. All sensations have originally these characters; they are conscious states, and for the time being constitute the exclusive mental experience, and impart movements of expression to the members that are in alliance with the cerebral system. But at a later stage, such an action as the grasping of a handle agitates the brain almost through one solitary channel of influence that, namely, which suffices for stimulating certain muscles of the arm concerned in rotatory motion. This remarkable narrowing of the sphere of influence of a sensational or active stimulus is one of the effects of education; and the comparison between the routine and the reflex operations seems most just and accurate. The character of unconsciousness would appear to arise exactly as the cerebral wave gets contracted.

8. Let us now attend to the circumstances that limit and control the diffused manifestations of feeling.

In the first place, a certain energy of stimulation is necessary to produce those gestures, changes of feature, vocal outbursts, and alterations in the state of the viscera, that are apparent to an observer. One may experience a certain thrill of pleasure, without even a smile; it is nevertheless a fair inference that a nervous wave is diffused to the muscles of the face, and to all the other muscles; the failure in expression being due to the mechanical inadequacy of the central stimulus. A certain degree of emotional excitement is possible without the full and proper display, but not without the tendency in that direction.

In the second place, something depends on the character of the active organs themselves. Irrespective of the intensity of the feelings, the energy of the demonstrations may vary in different individuals, and in the same person at dif

ferent times. There is a certain vigour and freshness of limb, feature, and voice, disposing those parts to activity, and seeking only an occasion to burst forth. Age, feebleness, and exhaustion, paralyse the display, without destroying the susceptibility of feeling. There are individuals and races characterised by the vivacious temperament; we may instance the ancient Greeks and the modern Italians. It does not follow that the strength of the feeling corresponds in all such cases to the degree of demonstration. We need other criteria besides this to determine the intensity of the mental excitement.

Thirdly. The different emotions differ in their manifestations. The distinct modes characterising pleasure and pain have been formerly described and accounted for. (See Instinctive play of feeling, § 20.) There are other distinctions. besides. Wonder is different from self-complacency; the pain of fear and the pain of a bodily hurt do not manifest themselves alike. Acute emotions, as wonder, stimulate the movements; massive, as tender feeling, are more connected with glandular effects.

Fourthly. The primitive outbursts of emotion may be greatly modified by education. Articulate speech and song are new and refined outlets for the emotional wave. In the exaltation of triumph, instead of savage laughter and frantic gestures, the hero of cultivated society vents his emotions in magniloquent diction or splendid music. The natural language of the feelings is cast into a mould in a great degree conventional; so that the same emotions would be differently manifested by a Frenchman and by an Englishman, by a man of society and by a boor.

Fifthly. It is possible, by force of will, to suppress the more prominent manifestations of feeling-namely, the movements depending on voluntary muscles. The organic effects, such as blushing, are beyond our power. The suppression of display may become habitual, but the feelings will still occur, although not unmodified by the refusal to allow them the natural vent.

9. Stimulus of an Active Impulse.—The law of diffused

DIFFUSION FROM AN ACTIVE IMPULSE.

9

manifestation accompanying consciousness is seen in starting from movement, as well as when the impulse is a sensation. So strong is the tendency for other parts to join with the one immediately called upon to act, that we often find it difficult to confine the energy to the proper locality. Thus an infant attempting any operation with its hands always displays a great many movements that are not necessary to the thing aimed at. So in speech, any outburst of utterance is sure to carry with it a number of involuntary movements and gestures, as if it were impossible to isolate the course of the nervous current, or restrict it to the proper instruments of the volition put forth. The awkward gestures of a child learning to write are one of the cares of the schoolmaster. Beginners in every art are in the same way encumbered with the uncalled-for sympathies of irrelevant members. The suppression of these accompaniments is the work of education, and the distinction of mature life. But this extinction is never complete at any age. All that is deemed ungraceful in the extraneous accompaniments of speech is repressed among the cultivated classes of society, but gestures that have not this character are preserved, and even superadded, for the sake of the increased animation that they impart to the human presence. Thus it happens that the diffused cerebral wave, whereby some one action rouses the outlying members into co-operation, is made available in the Fine Art of theatrical and oratorical display, and in the graceful accompaniments of every-day converse. In the uncultivated ranks of society, and more especially in races of low artistic sensibility, the instinctive diffusion of an active impulse produces very harsh effects. We may at all times note individual instances where the secondary actions are of the oddest kind. We shall find persons who cannot answer a question without scratching the head, rubbing the eyes, or shrugging up the whole body. In the excitement of energetic speech, no one is able to keep the other members tranquil.

10. In the volume on The Senses, I reviewed the parts of the body concerned in the expression of emotion, and endea

voured to generalize the physical adjuncts of pleasure and pain.

The concurrence of organic effects, or of alterations in the action of the viscera, with mental states, has not been observed with the care that it deserves. One important fact, however, has been determined experimentally, namely, the influence of mental causes on the capillary circulation.

The small blood-vessels by which the blood is brought into proximity with the various tissues of the body are kept in a state of balanced distension between two forces,-the one the propulsive power of the heart's action which tends to enlarge them; the other an influence derived from the nervous centres, and acting upon the muscular fibres so as to contract the vessels. The first of the two agencies, the heart's action, is so evident as to need no farther demonstration. The other reposes upon the following experimental proofs :-When the sympathetic nerve proceeding to the vessels of the head and face of an animal is cut, there follows congestion of the bloodvessels, with augmented heat over the whole surface supplied by the nerve. The ear is seen to become redder; a thermometer inserted in the nostril shows an increase of temperature, the sign of a greater quantity of blood flowing into the capillaries. The inference from the experiment is that, the counterpoise being withdrawn, the force that distends the small blood-vessels has an unusual predominance. It is farther proved that this nervous influence acting upon the minute muscular fibres of the small vessels is of central origin, for by cutting the connexion between the brain and the ganglion on the neck, from which the above-mentioned nerve proceeds, the restraining influence ceases, and congestion takes place. By stimulating the divided nerve galvanically, the suffusion disappears, the vessels shrinking by the contraction of their muscular coats.

The agency now described is of a piece with the action of the cerebrum upon involuntary muscles, such as the heart and the intestinal canal, and through it many organic functions, namely, digestion, nutrition, absorption, &c., may be affected

INFLUENCE ON THE CAPILLARY CIRCULATION.

11

by those cerebral waves that are the concomitants of mental states. It is well known that mental excitement has an immediate influence upon all those functions; one set of passions, such as fear, have a deranging effect, while exhilaration and joy within moderate bounds would appear to operate favourably upon them.

The specific expression of blushing is no doubt due to this mode of action. The region affected by blushing is the face and neck; and the effect arises from the suspension of the cerebral influence that keeps up the habitual contraction of the smaller blood-vessels over that region.

It is a point not yet finally determined, whether the nervous centres can act upon the organic processes of secretion, absorption, &c,, by an immediate agency, or a power apart from the control of the circulation as now described. Various physiologists have affirmed that there is such an immediate influence, and Ludwig has recently endeavoured to establish it by experiment; but as this implies an altogether new and distinct function of the nerves in the animal economy, other physiologists suspend their judgment on the matter for the present. It is almost certain that the cerebral agency put forth in the exercise of the will can tell only upon 'muscles; and by analogy it is probable that the emotional wave is confined to muscles also. Nevertheless, the existence. of a more direct kind of influence upon the organic processes is open to experimental proof.

CHARACTERS OF FEELING.

11. In my previous volume (p. 88, 2d edit.) I have given the scheme of a full description of the Feelings. A few remarks may be added here, as preparatory to the department now to be entered on.

The most palpable distinction among our feelings is the contrast of Pleasure and Pain.

of degree in both kinds.

Next to that is the difference Thus far the matter is plain.

Paley, in taking what he considers the practical view of