Showing the teeth in scorn dates back, according to Darwin, to a prehuman stage of development, and is seen in its useful form in animals like the dog or gorilla that have large canine teeth. Baring the teeth in these animals is a preparation for using the teeth; and often, also, it frightens the enemy away and saves the bother of actually attacking "small fry". The movement, Darwin urges, has survived in the race, even after fighting with the teeth has largely disappeared.
Many other expressive movements are traced back in a similar way, though it must be admitted that the racial survivals are usually less convincing than those from the infancy of the individual. The nasal expression in disgust was originally a defensive movement against bad odors; and the set lips of determination went primarily with the set glottis and rigid chest that are useful in lifting heavy weights or in other severe muscular efforts. Such movements, directly useful in certain simple situations, become linked up with analogous situations in the course of the [{128}] individual's experience. Many of them, certainly, we can regard as preparatory reactions.
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.
The James-Lange Theory of the Emotions
The American psychologist James, and the Danish psychologist Lange, independently of each other, put forward this theory in the early eighties of the last century, and it has ever since remained a great topic for discussion. According to the theory, the emotion is the way the body feels while executing the various internal and expressive movements that occur on such occasions. The "stirred-up state of mind" is the complex sensation of the stirred-up state of the body. Just as fatigue or hunger is a complex of bodily sensations, so is anger, fear or grief, according to the theory.
James says, we do not tremble because we are afraid, but are afraid because we tremble. By that he means that the conscious state of being afraid is composed of the sensations of trembling (along with the sensations of other muscular and glandular responses). He means that the mental state of recognizing the presence of danger is not the stirred-up state of fear, until it has produced the trembling and other similar responses and got back the sensations of them. "Without the bodily states following on the perception"--i.e., perception of the external fact that arouses the whole emotional reaction--"the latter would be purely cognitive in form, pale, colorless, destitute of emotional warmth. We might then see the bear, and judge it best to run, receive the insult, and deem it right to strike, but we should not actually feel afraid or angry."