uld be described by locating it along each of
the three dimensions. Thus, one moment, we may be in a pleasant,
tense, excited state; another moment in a pleasant, relieved and
subdued state; and another moment in an unpleasant, tense and subdued
state, etc. As each feeling can also exist in various degrees, the
total number of shades of feeling thus provided for would be very
great, indeed.

Though this theory has awakened great interest, it has not won
unqualified approval. Excitement and the rest are real enough states
of feeling--no one doubts that--but the question is whether they are
fit to be placed alongside of pleasantness and unpleasantness as
elementary feelings. It {185} appears rather more likely that they are
blends of sensations. In the excited states that have been most
carefully studied, that is to say, in fear and anger, there is that
big organic upstir, making itself felt as a blend of many internal
sensations. Tension may very probably be the feeling of tense muscles,
for tension occurs specially in expectancy, and the muscles are tense
then.

Whether elementary or not, these feelings are worthy of note. It is
interesting to examine the striving for a goal and the attainment of
the goal with respect to each "dimension" of feeling. Striving is
tense, attainment brings the feeling of release. Striving is often
excited, but fatigue and drowsiness (seeking for rest) are numb, and
self-assertion may be neutral in this respect, as in "cool
assumption". Reaching the goal may be excited or not; all depends on
the goal, whether it be striking your opponent or going to sleep. On
the other hand, reaching the goal is practically always pleasant
(weeping seems an exception here), while striving for a goal is
pleasant or unpleasant according as progress is being made towards the
goal, or stiff obstruction encountered.

The _feeling of familiarity_, and its opposite, the feeling of
strangeness or newness, also have some claim to be considered here.
The first time you see a person, he seems strange, the next few times
he awakens in you the feeling of familiarity, after which he becomes
so much a matter of course as to arouse no definite feeling of this
sort, unless, indeed, a long time has elapsed since you saw him last;
in this case the feeling of familiarity is particularly strong.

The feelings of doubt or hesitation, and of certainty or assurance,
also deserve mention as possibly elementary.

{186}

EX