We know that practically all emotions give rise to bodily expression.
Darwin wrote an extensive monograph upon “The Expression of the
Emotions in Men and Animals.” Fear, anger, hatred, etc., find visible
expression in the face, and in the actions of the body. Common-sense
seems to tell us that these bodily expressions are the _results_ of the
emotion; the James-Lange theory of the emotions says that the bodily
expressions are the primary factors, the internal emotions following
after. Thus, we feel sorry because we cry, etc. This theory was for
long popular among psychologists, but is today questioned in many
quarters.
Emotions of all sorts are certainly connected in a very intimate
manner with the body and its internal mechanism. Healthful emotions
stimulate, while destructive emotions inhibit and destroy. It has been
claimed that emotions actually cause the secretion of definite chemical
substances, which can be partially expelled in the breath; varied
emotions cause different colored precipitates in a given solution, etc.
(Elmer Gates.) However this may be, there can be no question of the
beneficial effects of healthful emotions, and the detrimental effects
of the reverse. It is not so much the effects of the _thought_ upon the
body, as the _emotion_ aroused by and associated with that thought.
Feeling is the fundamental sensation of all life. Strong feelings have
been called emotions; these are dependent largely upon the sympathetic
nervous system, although the glands of internal secretion are also
important factors. These are stimulated by the emotion, and also give
expression to it.
Emotions have, of late years, been the subject of much study. It is now
believed that the various complex emotions are built-up, or compounded
of simpler ones. An analysis of these complex emotions has resulted in
their being resolved into their component factors. On the other hand,
organized systems of emotional tendencies (centered about some object)
exist in all of us, and these have been called “sentiments.” This idea
has played a large part in contemporary psychological literature.
Dr. William McDougall, in his “Social Psychology,” has made a very
ingenious analysis of the various emotions. He shows at considerable
length how the complex emotions are built-up from the simpler
ones. Thus:--_gratitude_ is a compound of tender emotion and
negative self-feeling; _scorn_ is a compound of disgust and anger;
_fascination_, of horror and wonder; _envy_, of negative self-feeling
and anger; _reproach_, of anger and tender emotion; _anxiety_, of
anticipatory pain, tender emotion and anger--against the source of the
threatened harm; _pity_, of tender emotion and sympathetically-induced
pain, etc. Goddard (“Psychology of the Normal and Subnormal”) says that
low orders of intelligence (morons, etc.) experience only relatively
simple emotions; many of the higher forms are lacking in them, and that
“only higher intelligences have the highest emotions.” The primary
emotions thus seem to belong to animals and undeveloped humans; our
emotions have evolved in their intensity and complexity like everything
else. That is why refined and “sensitive” people experience the deepest
and keenest emotions.