FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   194   195   196   197   198   199   200   201   202   203   204   205   206   207   208   209   210   211   212   213   214   215   216   217   218  
219   220   >>  
hout the bodily states following on the perception, the latter would be purely cognitive in form, pale, colourless, destitute of emotional warmth." Round this hypothesis a very voluminous literature has grown up. The history of its victory over earlier criticism, and its difficulties with the modern experimental work of Sherrington and Cannon, is well told by James R. Angell in an article called "A Reconsideration of James's Theory of Emotion in the Light of Recent Criticisms."* In this article Angell defends James's theory and to me--though I speak with diffidence on a question as to which I have little competence--it appears that his defence is on the whole successful. * "Psychological Review," 1916. Sherrington, by experiments on dogs, showed that many of the usual marks of emotion were present in their behaviour even when, by severing the spinal cord in the lower cervical region, the viscera were cut off from all communication with the brain, except that existing through certain cranial nerves. He mentions the various signs which "contributed to indicate the existence of an emotion as lively as the animal had ever shown us before the spinal operation had been made."* He infers that the physiological condition of the viscera cannot be the cause of the emotion displayed under such circumstances, and concludes: "We are forced back toward the likelihood that the visceral expression of emotion is SECONDARY to the cerebral action occurring with the psychical state.... We may with James accept visceral and organic sensations and the memories and associations of them as contributory to primitive emotion, but we must regard them as re-enforcing rather than as initiating the psychosis."* * Quoted by Angell, loc. cit. Angell suggests that the display of emotion in such cases may be due to past experience, generating habits which would require only the stimulation of cerebral reflex arcs. Rage and some forms of fear, however, may, he thinks, gain expression without the brain. Rage and fear have been especially studied by Cannon, whose work is of the greatest importance. His results are given in his book, "Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage" (D. Appleton and Co., 1916). The most interesting part of Cannon's book consists in the investigation of the effects produced by secretion of adrenin. Adrenin is a substance secreted into the blood by the adrenal glands. These are among the ductless glands
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   194   195   196   197   198   199   200   201   202   203   204   205   206   207   208   209   210   211   212   213   214   215   216   217   218  
219   220   >>  



Top keywords:
emotion
 

Angell

 

Cannon

 

viscera

 
article
 

Sherrington

 
cerebral
 

spinal

 
glands
 
expression

visceral

 

regard

 

initiating

 

psychosis

 

Quoted

 
enforcing
 
organic
 

forced

 

likelihood

 
concludes

circumstances

 

displayed

 

SECONDARY

 

action

 

memories

 

associations

 

contributory

 

primitive

 
sensations
 
suggests

occurring

 
psychical
 

accept

 

interesting

 

consists

 

investigation

 

Appleton

 
Changes
 

Hunger

 
effects

produced

 

adrenal

 

ductless

 
secreted
 
secretion
 

adrenin

 

Adrenin

 

substance

 

Bodily

 

stimulation