Evolution; Knowledge, Theory of; Philosophy and religion
system, joined sometimes with increased action of glandular organs. But
as the emotions rise in strength, the muscles of the face, body, and
limbs, begin to move. Of examples may be mentioned the frowns, dilated
nostrils, and stampings of anger; the contracted brows, and wrung hands,
of grief; the smiles and leaps of joy; and the frantic struggles of
terror or despair. Passing over certain apparent, but only apparent,
exceptions, we see that whatever be the kind of emotion, there is a
manifest relation between its amount, and the amount of muscular action
induced: alike from the erect carriage and elastic step of exhilaration,
up to the dancings of immense delight, and from the fidgetiness of
impatience up to the almost convulsive movements accompanying great
mental agony. To these several orders of evidence must be joined
the further one, that between our feelings and those voluntary motions
into which they are transformed, there comes the sensation of muscular
tension, standing in manifest correlation with both—a correlation that
is distinctly quantitative: the sense of strain varying, other things
equal, directly as the quantity of momentum generated.
“But how,” it may be asked, “can we interpret by the law of correlation
the genesis of those thoughts and feelings which, instead of following
external stimuli, arise spontaneously? Between the indignation caused by
an insult, and the loud sounds or violent acts that follow, the alleged
connexion may hold; but whence come the crowd of ideas and the mass of
feelings that expend themselves in these demonstrations? They are
clearly not equivalents of the sensations produced by the words on the
ears; for the same words otherwise arranged, would not have caused them.
The thing said bears to the mental action it excites, much the same
relation that the pulling of a trigger bears to the subsequent
explosion—does not produce the power, but merely liberates it. Whence
then arises this immense amount of nervous energy which a whisper or a
glance may call forth?” The reply is, that the immediate
correlates of these and other such modes of consciousness, are not to be
found in the agencies acting on us externally, but in certain internal
agencies. The forces called vital, which we have seen to be correlates
of the forces called physical, are the immediate sources of these
thoughts and feelings; and are expended in producing them. The proofs of
this are various. Here are some of them. It is a conspicuous fact
that mental action is contingent on the presence of a certain nervous
apparatus; and that, greatly obscured as it is by numerous and involved
conditions, a general relation may be traced between the size of this
apparatus and the quantity of mental action as measured by its results.
Further, this apparatus has a particular chemical constitution on which
its activity depends; and there is one element in it between the amount
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