cance of Bearing in mind that the heart is frequently used in a symbolic or figurative sense, we may still believe that there are inner strains and feelings which give special significance to many of the heart experiences which devotional writers describe. Broken or wounded Signifi- hearts are mentioned again and again in the Psalms and in ChrisHeart tian literature. Hearts are full, or they overflow; they are weak, Symbol- or strong, or restless; they are divided, or wounded, or rent asunder; or they are at rest, united, or fixed; they swell, are enlarged, are elevated, are lifted up, or bound with joy. A student, in referring to certain highly emotional experiences, says: "My heart almost feels as if it were going to jump out of my body." These and many more expressions seem to indicate a greater significance than that of merely symbolic relations. ism Experimental studies have made it clear that the functions of the heart and vascular system are of great significance in emotional states. Cannon, Crile, and others have shown that the secretion of the adrenal glands is increased in emotion, and that this subHeart stance not only hastens the coagulation of the blood, but also Stimu- stimulates the muscles of the heart. Cannon's studies confirm the lation tions and statement that “adrenin has a well-known stimulating effect on the Emo- isolated heart-causing an increase both in the rate and the amplitude of cardiac contraction";1 and shows "that adrenin has also another action, a very remarkable action, that of restoring to a muscle its original ability to respond to stimulation, after that has been largely lost by continued activity through a long period. What rest will do only after an hour or more, adrenin will do in five minutes or less."2 This substance is so closely involved in the phenomena of emotion that it is possible, under experimental conditions, by injecting adrenin into the circulation of an animal, to induce all the symptoms of violent rage. That emotions are accompanied by accelerated pulsation, changes in vascular tension, and the redistribution of the blood supply, is further shown by the studies of Mosso, Binet, Henri, and others, and these changes also affect the bodily temperature through "internal friction."3 In cases of strong emotion these modifications are very marked, for they represent the bodily mechanism for meeting an unusual situation for which the usual co-ordinations are inadequate. Even in the case of so mild an emotion as embarrassment there is a distinct vaso-constriction. The sensations in the cutaneous I Cannon, Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage, New York, 1916, p. 201. Angell and Thompson, Organic Processes and Consciousness, Psychological Review, Vol. VI, pp. 32 ff. Experi organs of temperature affected by vascular conditions, in the tissues surrounding the heart, or in the heart itself, constitute a part of the emotional experience. And so varied are these sensations that they account, very largely, for the expressions which have become associated with the heart in our religious literature. The studies of Binet, Henri, Angell, and others indicate a close relationship between the heart phenomena described above and respiration. The emotions which involve vascular changes also involve respiratory modifications. So closely connected are these functions that the sensations originating in the circulatory and Respirarespiratory mechanisms are frequently confused, and this com- tory plication of sensations in the chest may affect the use of the heart ences and lungs in descriptions of the God-experience. So when the writer of the thirty-eighth Psalm says: "My heart panteth;" it is not certain that the word heart is used merely as a symbol. The experience seems to be one not uncommon as a factor in strong emotion. The significance of the prayer, "As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee," is largely in its direct appeal to the sense-feelings involved in the emotional state suggested. The common association of respiratory functions with divine influence, God's breath in man, inspiration, the use of words meaning breath or air for spirit,—all these seem to indicate that men have felt characteristic respiratory tensions in the God-experience. And when a hymn writer pictures the soul "in breathless adoration," she relies upon our actual feeling of breathlessness, at some worshipful time in our lives, to make her imagery real and vital for us. and VIII Hunger and Thirst Experiences THE value of religious symbolism has often been impaired by its treatment as logical analogy. The imagery of hunger has been very conspicuous in accounts of religious experience, but it has often been considered merely a convenient, if somewhat arbitrary symbol The of the higher desires of the soul. The hunger and thirst after Significance of righteousness, however, is a refinement of the same instinct that Hunger leads to the search for bodily nutriment. An infant does not Thirst hunger after righteousness, but his food hunger is supplemented Imagery by an increasing number of desires, the fulfillment of which will contribute to the fullness of his life; and in adolescence, if all is well, he will probably find a craving, which is made powerful by its instinctive history, for the realities of the moral and spiritual life. In the experiences of hunger there are certain sensations of strain, accompanying the rhythmic contractions of the stomach.1 Carlson, in his recent and thorough studies of hunger, concludes that the so-called tactile sensibility of the stomach mucosa "may not originate in the mucosa but in the muscularis (tonus relaxation through reflex inhibition) or possibly in the visceral peritoneum.” 2 He holds, however, that the mucosa is possessed of warmth and cold nerve-endings of the protopathic type. The characteristic sensations of fullness or satiety are caused by tensions on the muscular coat of the stomach. The chief factor in the hunger complex is the stomach contraction, which is so closely associated with other vital processes as to affect rhythmically the reflex excitability of the central nervous system, the heart beat, and the general tone of the vaso-motor system.5 3 In the more refined and sublimated aspects of hunger there are sense reactions apparently similar in kind to those of the fundamental food hunger, and these are among the more significant sense elements in the God-experience. Concerning the large place of hunger and thirst in religious description, William James says: "Religious language clothes itself in such poor symbols as our life affords, and the whole organism. 1 Cannon, op. cit., Chap. XIII. 2 Carlson, Anton Julius, The Control of Hunger in Health and Disease, Chicago, 1916, p. 104. * Ib., p. 111. ♦ Ib., p. 112. Ib., Chap. V. gives overtones of comment whenever the mind is Social Hunger Ritualistic and symbolic eating and drinking have been of such widespread observance as to be highly significant. The origin of sacrifices of food or drink, which constitute a great element in the The worship of many peoples, has been traced by many writers to the Element propitiation of divinities. While this has been a factor in the in history of sacrifice, there seems to be a more fundamental reason Experifor sacrifice in the social significance of eating and drinking. Among ences varous peoples eating together represents a definite bond of friendship. From the ancient Hebrews to the modern Moors, compacts of friendship have been sealed in this way. The same social impulse which has had a great part in the development of the God-idea has related this significance of the common meal with the growing conception of God. In some cases the god himself, represented by a totem, has been eaten, and thus has communicated his strength or virtue to the eater; in others the meal was shared with the god, who is thus included in a covenant of friendship.4 Regard for a divinity doubtless prompted the food offerings, while a conception of the divine origin of fruits and harvests has also emphasized the social relationship of gods and men. The participation of the gods in eating and drinking has been the belief of many peoples. Westermarck says: "According to early beliefs, supernatural beings are subject to human needs. The gods of the heathen Siberians labored for their subsistence, engaged in hunting and fishing, and laid up provisions of roots against times of dearth. When the heavens appear checkered with white clouds on a blue surface, the Maoris of New Zealand say that the god is planting 1 James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, New York, 1902, p. 11. 5 2 Genesis 26: 30; 31: 46; 2 Sam. 3: 20ff; Joshua 9: 14ff; Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, London, 1908, Vol. II, p. 623 f. 623. 'Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. Translated by Swain, p. 337. King, The Development of Religion, New York, 1910, p. 115 f. Involved his potatoes and other divine edibles. The Fijian gods From such conceptions, which have been, in some form, wellnigh universal among more primitive peoples, have been developed more refined beliefs; gods and men becoming table-companions,2 eschatology involving a social table in a future life,3 and eating and drinking being elevated into a Christian rite in the Lord's Supper. In all this development God is associated with the satisfaction of the desire for food. The extension of the God-experience and its relation to other desires transfers the appeal of the universal, deepseated and instinctive impulse to satisfy hunger to the satisfaction of desires for spiritual values. A feeling of longing or desire, or the contrary feeling of repletion, is common in relation to the God-experience, and some persons discover similarities between these feelings and those of physical hunger and its satisfaction. Thus one person writes: "Sometimes I have a keen sense of longing, with a feeling of tension or constriction in the region of the stomach, or sometimes more extended through the abdomen. I cannot think the word 'yearning' without some such feelings. A feeling of breathlessness seems to accompany this feeling. At times there is a feeling of satisfaction, in which there is a feeling as though the diaphragm were raised. There is also, with this, a faint sense of warmth throughout the body." In view of such cases as the above, it is not improbable that the hunger and thirst after righteousness, or after God, involve the organs of strain in the stomach muscles. It is well known, through Inner the studies of various physiologists, that strong emotions affect the Strains peristaltic movements of the stomach and intestines, these movein Feel- ments ceasing, according to Cannon, in the stronger affective states.* ings of Whatever the sense elements which relate the digestive organs to Longing various emotional states, they seem to be specially concerned in the attitudes of yearning or sympathy. That most sensitive people, the Hebrews, distinctly recognized the bowels as the seat of sympathetic attitudes toward one's fellow men, and pictured God's relation 1 Westermarck, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 610 f. 2 Stratton, Psychology of the Religious Life, London, 1911, p. 140. 4 Cannon, op. cit., p. 16. |