unpleasantness falls to the ground. If they are, it is still possible that their exposed position and consequent liability to injury allow them to function as sense-organs, while they are replaced in the interior of the body by more highly specialised structures; or it is possible that they have become adapted, in some unknown way, to the reception of sensory stimuli. No opinion can be more than a conjecture. It This theory of the bodily conditions of affection explains, first, the lack of the attribute of clearness. Affective processes are processes whose development has been arrested; they have not attained, and now they never can attain, to clear consciousness. Affective experience is the obscure, indiscriminable correlate of a medley of widely diffused nervous excitations. The theory explains, secondly, the movement of affective processes between opposites; for the nervous excitations will vary with the tone of the bodily systems in which they are set up, and that tone can itself vary only in two opposite ways. explains, thirdly, the introspective resemblance of affection to certain organic sensations; genetically, the two sets of processes are near akin, and it is natural that they should be alike in experience. And it explains, fourthly, the apathy or lack of feeling that comes with visceral anaesthesia (§ 56); for if the specialised nerve-terminals, the sense-organs of the viscera are paralysed, it is to be expected that the unspecialised free endings, occurring in the same tissues, should share their fate. Finally, the theory is non-committal on the questions of mixed feeling and of a differentiation of qualities within pleasantnessunpleasantness. It thus serves well enough for the present state of our psychological knowledge. It is, nevertheless, simply a guess. Many other guesses have been made with regard to the bodily conditions of affection, both peripheral and central. Under the latter heading it has been conjectured, for instance, that the affections are indices of the state of nutrition of the cerebral cortex; that they are symptoms of the readiness of motor discharge; and that they are connected with the activity of a special cortical centre. Each one of these hypotheses has a certain plausibility, but none is within measurable distance of proof. When physiology leaves us in this perplexity, it is but natural that we should make appeal to the wider science of biology. Can biology help us to a psychology of feeling? Well! a great deal has been written about the biological significance of pleasantness and unpleasantness. The pleasurable, we are told, corresponds to the useful, and the disagreeable to the harmful; pleasant experiences are good and unpleasant experiences are bad for the organism. And this means that pleasantness is felt when the activity of a bodily organ is in balance, outgo of energy equalling intake of nourishment; and that unpleasantness is felt when the organ is out of balance, either overworked or overnourished. But, first, the general law of correlation, pleasant-useful and unpleasant-harmful, cannot be made out: there are gross and obvious exceptions. Moreover, if it could be made out, it would not aid our psychology; for useful and harmful mean nothing until they are translated into psychological and physiological terms; and as soon as the translation has been made, we can dispense with biology altogether. Secondly, the theories of organic balance are as conjectural as the rest, and are very difficult to apply in detail. It is hardly worth while, therefore, to devote further space to biological considerations. References for Further Reading §§ 68-74. Wundt's tridimensional theory is set forth in his Outlines of Psychology, 1907; or, at greater length, in the Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie, ii., 1902, 263. For a theory which identifies affection with sensation, see C. Stumpf, Ueber Gefühlsempfindungen, in the Zeitschrift f. Psychologie, xliv., 1906, 1. A critique of these theories, and a discussion of the differences between sensation and affection, will be found in the author's Lectures on the Elementary Psychology of Feeling and Attention, 1908, Lectures II.-IV. For the method of impression, see S. P. Hayes, A Study of the Affective Qualities, in American Journal of Psychology, xvii., 1906, 358. For the method of expression, see J. R. Angell and H. B. Thompson, A Study of the Relations between Certain Organic Processes and Consciousness, in Psychological Review, vi., 1899, 32; P. Zoneff and E. Meumann, Ueber Begleiterscheinungen psychischer Vorgänge in Athem und Puls, in Wundt's Philosophische Studien, xviii., 1903, 1; M. Kelchner, Die Abhängigkeit der Atem- und Pulsveränderung vom Reiz und vom Gefühl, in Archiv f. d. gesamte Psychologie, v., 1905, I; N. Alechsieff, Die Grundformen der Gefühle, in Wundt's Psychologische Studien, iii., 1907, 156; F. Peterson and C. G. Jung, Psycho-Physical Investigations with the Galvanometer and Pneumograph in Normal and Insane Individuals, in Brain, xxx., 1907, 153. On the biological significance of feeling, see H. Spencer, Principles of Psychology, i., 1881, pt. ii., ch. ix.; H. Ebbinghaus, Grundzüge der Psychologie, i., 1905, 568; D. C. Nadejde, Die biologische Theorie der Lust und Unlust, i., 1908. A genetic theory of feeling, in some respects akin to that of the text, but differing from it on important points, is worked out by J. M. Baldwin, Mental Development in the Child and the Race: Methods and Processes, 1895, 481 ff.; 1906, 457 ff. ATTENTION § 75. The Attentive Consciousness. The word 'attention,' like the word 'feeling,' has been employed in the history of psychology to denote very different things. Attention has been regarded, at various times, as a peculiar power or capacity, the faculty of concentration, the ability to restrict at will the field of consciousness: as a peculiar form of mental activity, an effort that one puts forth or an initiative that one takes, radically different from the passivity with which impressions are received: as a state of the whole consciousness, a state of clear apprehension and of effective thought: as a feeling or emotion: and, finally, as a complex of sensations, and more especially of kinaesthetic sensations. It is plain that not all these views can be correct, though every one of them can find a certain support in the facts of observation. When I am so deeply sunk in a scientific problem that I forget my headache, or fail to hear the dinner bell, I seem, pretty clearly, to be exercising the power of concentration. When I force myself to go to work, in face of the temptation to finish an interesting novel, I seem to be exerting a spontaneous activity, to be myself determining my world rather than determined by it. When, again, I wish thoroughly to understand a thing, to make myself master of it, I give it my full attention: attention is, then, that state of consciousness, that degree of being conscious, which guarantees the best has often been found to slow (though not to slow and strengthen) in pleasantness, but that this change varies with the sense-organ to which the stimulus is applied. We saw, too, that respiration often grows quick and shallow in pleasantness, but that its changes vary with the individual; it may, for instance, grow quick and deep, and it may grow slow and shallow! It is, plainly, too early to draw any positive inference from the results of the method of expression. If we turn to the method of impression, we find results + + FIG. 39. Curves of tension (T) and of unpleas- judgments under the two headings is practically identical. The stimuli were metronome-beats, given at the rates marked along the horizontal line: 44, 50, ... in the 1 min. The figures on the vertical line denote the number of choices. It will be seen that the least straining were also the least unpleasant stimuli (76, 92), while the most straining were also the most unpleasant (176, 192, 208). that tell very strongly against the theory. The stimuli-colours or tones or rhythms -are presented in pairs, in the usual way, and the observers are asked to say, in successive series, which of the two is the more pleasant or unpleasant, the more exciting or depress ing, the more strain ing or relaxing. Now, in the first place, the affective curves for excitement, depression, tension and relaxation are always identical with the curve of pleasantness or unpleasantness; there is no special curve, no novel distribution |