If we assume such to be the case, we are no better off under the hypothesis we are considering. Excluding voluntary movements, there is nothing left of the emotion, according to Professor James, but the consciousness of involuntary, reflex acts resulting from perception. The voluntary acts must, then, be directly caused by these. Now, in the first place, it is often difficult, if not impossible, to tell what these actions are. What are the involuntary muscular contractions that impel a day-laborer to go to the place of his work, and keep his voluntary muscular system in strenuous activity all day, enduring fatigue and all the discomforts of the summer’s heat or winter’s cold? It would probably puzzle him very much to tell, although he has a very clear idea of why he does it. I doubt if, on his own hypothesis, Professor James himself would find it easy to explain the constituents of the emotions which impel him to go to the class-room at the appointed hour and conduct a recitation. But even in cases in which we are distinctly conscious of involuntary action, there seems to be no connection between it and the voluntary acts accompanying the emotion. In the case of the man running from the bear, for instance, trembling lips, weakened limbs, goose-flesh and visceral stirrings have nothing to do with running, but, on the contrary, would rather tend to prevent it. In fact, it may be said, in general, that the two classes of emotional activities are mutually antagonistic. The more involuntary the action, the less efficient the voluntary activity is apt to be, as any one knows who has had an attack of the “buck ague.” We should have, therefore, diminution of the effect with increase of the cause. It seems, then, on the hypothesis, impracticable to account for the association of voluntary action with emotion either on the supposition that the former is the cause or the result of the latter. A third alternative—that there is no relation of cause and effect in the case, and that the phenomena of emotion and action, although constantly associated, are really independent, I will not discuss, as it does not commend itself to my mind, and Professor James, elsewhere, expressly repudiates it. It seems to me that the only reasonable conclusion is that emotion is something different from either involuntary or voluntary muscular activity, and which may be the cause of either or both. Professor James, after admitting that the view of the subject which he advocates is only a hypothesis, and that much is lacking to its definitive proof, goes on to say: “The only way coercively to _dis_prove it, however, would be to take some emotion and then exhibit qualities of feeling in it which should be _demonstrably_ additional to all those which could possibly be derived from the organs affected at the time. But to detect with certainty such purely spiritual qualities of feeling would obviously be a task beyond human power....