Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/642

 626 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

ence. And let us heartily admit that emotions are not " describ- able" in just the same way as things, or as ideas, concepts and deeds. But we are told that emotions are not describable at all, because they do not appear in the categories of description. It is true they have no spatial dimensions, but neither do differentia- tion, correlation, chemical affinity, ether, gravitation, and other concepts of which natural science makes use, and which are public and describable objects of thought; and we need not hasten to admit that emotions are without identifiable resemblances and differences, or that they do not exist in the categories of time and causality, meaning by the last conditioning, being conditioned and also conditioning effects. We are told also that emotions are not " permanent," and it is true that they are transient and unreturn- ing experiences. They do not return, yet others of the same kind may be experienced, and a kind of emotion is a distinct and per- manent concept in the only essential sense, for it can be recognized whenever it occurs in our own consciousness ; otherwise the word " anger " or " fear " would be meaningless except when the speaker is consciously angry or afraid. We are told, finally, that emotions are not " public/* but private. And it is true that they are individual and in one sense incommunicable. But human beings are so similar that they have the same kinds of emotions. Moreover, our knowledge that our associates have emotions like our own is not due to metaphysical insight, but is a direct infer- ence from observable phenomena. We and our associates are individuals of one species, products of a common evolution, inheriting capacities for the same types of subjective experience; and we manifest our experiences by conduct that is common to the individuals of our kind, which each beholder understands because it has been the familiar accompaniment of his own emotions, and accepts as evidence of similar emotions in his associates. And it is thus that we become convinced that our neighbor is angry, or afraid, or possessed by any of the numerous varieties of feeling that we learn to distinguish in ourselves and recognize in others, when by their overt conduct men display the various emotions that are characteristic of man.

The publicity and scientific tractability of emotional phe-