Do Sensations of These Various Preparatory Reactions Constitute the Conscious State of Emotion?
No one can doubt that some of the bodily changes that occur during an emotion make themselves felt as sensations. Try this experiment: pretend to be angry--it is not hard!--go through the motions of being angry, and notice what sensations you get. Some from the clenched fist, no doubt; some from the contorted face; some from the neck, which is stiff and quivering. In genuine anger, you could sense also the disturbed breathing, violent heart beat, hot face. The internal responses of the adrenal glands and liver you could not expect to sense directly; but the resulting readiness of the limb muscles for extreme activity is sometimes sensed as a feeling of tremendous muscular power.
Now lump together all these sensations of bodily changes, and ask yourself whether this mass of sensations is not identical with the angry state of mind. Think all these sensations away, and ask yourself whether any angry feeling remains. What else, if anything, can you detect in the conscious emotional state besides these blended sensations produced by internal and external muscular and glandular responses?
If you conclude that the conscious emotion consists wholly of these sensations, then you are an adherent of the famous James-Lange theory of the emotions; if you find any other component present in the emotion, you will find this theory unacceptable.