Whatever may be the exact psychological nature of the emotions--and there has been much discussion of the question--it may be regarded as certain that they introduce into the conscious situation elements which contribute not a little to the energy of behaviour. They are important conditions to vigorous and sustained conation. And so closely interwoven are these elements with the whole situation in its impulsive aspect, that their disentanglement, in psychological analysis, is a matter of extreme difficulty. I have elsewhere[122] devoted some space to the consideration of the matter. I there follow Professor William James in regarding organic effects, other than motor sensations, as specially characteristic of the emotions in their primary genesis. The cold sweat, the dry mouth, the catch of the breath, the grip of the heart, the abdominal sinking, the blood-tingle or blood-stagnation--these and their like, in varied modes and degrees, characterize the emotions of fear, dread, anger, and so forth, when they rise to any pitch of intensity, and contribute largely to their sharpness and piquancy. These organic effects may be regarded as part of the private and individual business of the body; but in experience they closely coalesce with the motor effects through which the animal has to deal in practical behaviour with that which evokes the emotion. On this view these organic states which contribute characteristic elements in the emotional consciousness are due to afferent data from the vascular system and visceral organs, just as motor consciousness is due to afferent data from the parts concerned in overt behaviour. But, associated with emotional states, there are also certain motor reactions, which we speak of as their “expression”--so carefully discussed and elucidated by Darwin,--and these unquestionably contribute data to consciousness which coalesce with those afforded by the visceral and vascular elements. The whole is commonly suffused with feeling-tone, and the object which excites the emotion is a centre of pleasurable or painful interest. Representative elements, as experience develops, crowd into the conscious situation and render it more complex. And in addition to all this, there is, apart from the motor expression, the strenuous behaviour of flight or attack, or other mode of vigorous procedure which we commonly speak of as the outcome of the emotional state. The conscious situation, in the case of an enraged or scared animal actually behaving as such, is thus exceedingly complex. And it should be understood that in urging the importance of vascular and visceral elements, this complexity is nowise denied. What is suggested is that these elements are essential, and that they serve to characterize the distinctively emotional factor in the situation, that in any case they heighten the conative tendency.