Animal Life and Intelligence

by C. Lloyd Morgan

Now, with regard to the emotional state here indicated, we may notice, first, that it is initiated by a percept; secondly, that associations of pleasure or pain are by no means the most important or predominant characteristics; thirdly, that the motor-tendencies seem to be essential, the emotional state being the psychological aspect of these motor-tendencies; and, fourthly, that we should perhaps be justified in speaking of a presentative emotion when the percept which gives rise to the emotion is presentative; and a representative emotion where the originating percept is represented in memory. And with regard to the attention which was incidentally introduced, we may notice that it, too, has motor-concomitants, and that it is directly associated with the emotional state. If no emotional state is aroused by a percept, attention is not specially directed to the object. The concentration of the attention is directly proportional to the intensity of the emotion evoked.

Emotions, then, would seem from this illustration to be certain psychological states which accompany activities or tendencies to activity. They are evoked by appropriate objects perceived or remembered. Where the tendency is towards the object, as in the sexual emotions, we may speak of it as an appetence; where it is away from the object, as in the emotion of fear, we may speak of it as an aversion. Appetences are normally pleasurable; aversions, painful.

It is clear that the organism must be in a condition fitting it to carry out its various activities. And this condition is more or less variable. In the terms of our previous analogy (Chapter II.) the tissues are "explosive." After a series of explosions have taken place in a tissue, its store of explosive material becomes exhausted, and a powerful stimulus is required to liberate further energy in the exhausted tissue. A period of rest is required to enable the plasmogen to generate a fresh store of explosive material. As this store increases to its maximum pitch, the tissue becomes more and more ready to respond at the slightest touch. Responsiveness to external stimuli is spoken of as sensitiveness; emotional responsiveness is called sensibility. What we have before spoken of as a want or craving is a state of heightened sensibility, which often gives rise to a painful state of general uneasiness. It may also give rise to perceptual representations in memory, as may be seen in the dreams experienced during a state of extreme sexual sensibility. If we seek a basis for the emotional states, therefore, we shall find it in sensibility rather than in pleasure and pain.

The motor-accompaniments of the emotional states have long been known under the title of the "expression" of the emotions. The term is too deeply rooted to be altered; but we may notice that what is called the expression of an emotion is really its partial fulfilment in action. Some psychologists, dissatisfied with the term "expression of the emotions," as seeming to imply that the emotion is one thing and its expression another, go so far as to say that the motor-accompaniments are the objective aspect of what, under its subjective aspect, is the emotion. It is quite possible, however, to experience an emotion without any motor-accompaniments at all. Nevertheless, there is, I believe, in such cases an unfulfilled tendency to action.

A most important feature in general physiology and psychology is the postponement or suppression of action. The physiological faculty on which it is based is inhibition. I do not propose to discuss the somewhat conflicting views on the physiological mechanism of inhibition. It is, however, a fact of far-reaching importance which no one is likely to deny. In its higher ranges it is the objective basis and aspect of self-restraint.

A stimulus gives rise to sensation and perception; the perception gives origin to an emotional state; and the emotional state is fulfilled in appropriate motor-activities. The process is a continuous one, and, in the absence of inhibition, would in all cases inevitably fulfil itself. But through the faculty of inhibition, the final state of activity may be postponed or suppressed. We may place side by side the physiological series and the accompanying psychological series thus—

Stimulus of sense-organ	→ nervous processes in brain →	Stimulus of motor-organs.
Consciousness of sense-stimulus	← perception, emotion →	Consciousness of activity.

The arrows pointing away from perception and emotion are intended to indicate the fact that the consciousness of sense-stimulus on the one hand, and of activity on the other hand, are accompaniments of the nervous processes in the brain, and are referred outwards to the sense-organ or the motor-organ, as the case may be. It must be remembered that the two series, physiological and psychological, belong to distinct phenomenal orders. If one speaks of emotion being fulfilled in activity, and thus seems to jump from the psychological to the physiological series, one does so merely to avoid the appearance of pedantry.

Now, by the postponement or suppression of action, the process is either arrested in its middle phase, the motor-organs not being innervated at all, or, as I believe to be more probable, the motor-organs are doubly innervated, a stimulus to activity being counteracted by an inhibitory stimulus, the two neutralizing each other either in the motor-organ or the efferent nerves which convey the stimuli. In any case, there is no consciousness[HJ] of activity. And the mind occupies itself more and more completely with the central processes, perception, and emotion, and also, in human beings, conceptual thoughts and emotions. Nevertheless, at any rate so long as we confine ourselves to the perceptual sphere, these processes have their normal fulfilments in action, and, if they become sufficiently intense, actually do so fulfil themselves.

Now, since the emotions with which we are now dealing (we may call them emotions in the perceptual sphere) are stages in the fulfilment of activities (though the activities themselves may be suppressed), it is clear that there may be as many emotional states as there are modes of activity. Hence, no doubt, the extreme difficulty of anything like a satisfactory classification of these emotions, especially when the activities are regarded as a merely extraneous expression.