Mind and Body; or, Mental States and Physical ConditionsAtkinson, William Walker
Science
Mind and Body; or, Mental States and Physical Conditions
Atkinson, William Walker
Mental suggestion
The very feelings or emotions themselves are so closely related
to the accompanying physical expressions, that it is difficult to
distinguish between cause and effect, or indeed to state positively
which really is the cause of the other. Prof. William James, in some
of his works, strongly indicates this close relation, as for instance
when he says: "The feeling, in the coarser emotions, result from the
bodily expression.... My theory is that the bodily changes follow
directly the perception of the exciting fact, and that our feeling
of the same changes as they occur _is_ the emotion.... Particular
perceptions certainly do produce widespread bodily effects by a
sort of immediate physical influence, antecedent to the arousal of
an emotion or emotional idea.... Every one of the bodily changes,
whatsoever it may be, is _felt_, acutely or obscurely, the moment it
occurs.... If we fancy some strong emotion, and then try to abstract
from our consciousness of it all the feelings of its bodily symptoms,
we have nothing left behind.... A disembodied human emotion is a sheer
nonentity. I do not say that it is a contradiction in the nature
of things, or that pure spirits are necessarily condemned to cold
intellectual lives; but I say that for _us_ emotion disassociated from
all bodily feelings is inconceivable. The more closely I scrutinize my
states, the more persuaded I become that whatever 'coarse' affections
and passions I have are in very truth constituted by, and made up of,
those bodily changes which we ordinarily call their expression or
consequence.... But our emotions must always be _inwardly_ what they
are, whatever may be the physiological ground of their apparition.
If they are deep, pure, worthy, spiritual facts on any conceivable
theory of their physiological source, they remain no less deep, more
spiritual, and worthy of regard on this present sensational theory."
A deeper consideration of the relation between Mind and Body would
necessitate our invading the field of metaphysical speculation, which
we have expressed our intention to avoid doing. Enough for the purposes
of our present consideration is: _the recognition that each individual
is possessed of a mind and a material body; that these two phases or
aspects of himself are closely related by an infinite variety of ties
and filaments; that these two phases of his being act and react upon
each other constantly and continuously; that in all considerations of
the question of either mental or physical well-being, or both, that
both of these phases of being must be considered; that any system of
therapeutics which ignores either of these phases, is necessarily
"one-sided" and incomplete; and that, while, for convenience and
clearness of specialized thinking, we may consider the Mind and the
Body as separate and independent of each other, yet, we must, in the
end, recognize their interdependence, mutual relation, action and
reaction._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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