Some psychologists, however, contend that the emotional experience is
generated in the sensorium prior to, and not subsequent to, the
behaviour-response and the visceral disturbances. It is a direct and
not an indirect outcome of the presentation to the special senses. Be
this as it may, there is a growing tendency to bring into the closest
possible relation, or even to identify, instinct and emotion in their
primary genesis. The central core of all such interpretations is that
instinctive behaviour and experience, its emotional accompaniments,
and its expression, are but different aspects of the outcome of the
same organic occurrences. Such emotions are, therefore, only a
distinguishable aspect of the primary tissue of experience and exhibit
a like differentiation. Here again a biological foundation is laid for
a psychological doctrine of the mental development of the individual.
The intimate relation between emotion as a psychological mode of
experience and expression as a group of organic conditions has an
important bearing on biological interpretation. The emotion, as the
psychological accompaniment of orderly disturbances in the central
nervous system, profoundly influences behaviour and often renders it
more vigourous and more effective. The utility of the emotions in the
struggle for existence can, therefore, scarcely be over-estimated.
Just as keenness of perception has survival-value; just as it is
obviously subject to variation; just as it must be enhanced under
natural selection, whether individually acquired increments are
inherited or not; and just as its value lies not only in this or that
special perceptive act but in its importance for life as a whole; so
the vigourous effectiveness of activity has survival-value; it is
subject to variation; it must be enhanced under natural selection; and
its importance lies not only in particular modes of behaviour but in
its value for life as a whole. If emotion and its expression as a
congenital endowment are but different aspects of the same biological
occurrence; and if this is a powerful supplement to vigour
effectiveness and persistency of behaviour, it must on Darwin's
principles be subject to natural selection.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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