Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/84

 FEELING AND EMOTION. 73 subtracted in order to gain the amount of real expression. It may be necessary to subtract on the principle of spontaneity, but not we think as unexpressive. Play is expressive of the emotion of high spirits, and is to be subtracted from the expres- sion of joy with which it is often associated. Spontaneity is not a principle then of the relation of expression to emotion, unless it be called a principle that various emotions and expressions are often very closely associated, and the value of each must be de- termined by analysis and by the subtraction of the others. The principle of diffusion is the principle of surplus of nervous force which is insisted on by Darwin and Mr. Spencer. The principle of pleasure as the enhancement of function, and pain as the depression of function, Prof. Bain declares to be fundamental in determining expression. He opposes Mr. Spencer's law that intensity of expression is as intensity of feeling, by modifying the word feeling with the word pleasurable. That the character of the feeling as pleasurable or painful should affect very deeply the character of the expression is to be expected according to evolution. Pain will produce contractive, defensive, remedial measures ; pleasure, expansive measures. This is implied in the view of expression as degraded action. Again, actions following from pains or from pleasures would be antithetical; and thus Darwin's principle of antithesis is easily placed by Prof. Bain. That which injures the organism produces pain, but this pain is reflex from the organism, and the functional derangement is cause, not expression, of feeling. Now actions are put forth upon the stimulus of this painful feeling, and these actions may become expressions. This functional depression, causative of the feeling, is, perhaps, confounded by Prof. Bain with expression. Pain is accompanied by functional derangement not necessarily depression, as Prof. Bain emphasises in the part from which pain arises, but this is not to be confounded with expression proper. Pain is often stimu- lant to the organism as a whole, lifts the tone of the organism, as in the cut of a whip, although there be derangement in single part at the skin. The painful feeling and the pleasurable alike express themselves by intensity, local or general, not by depression, for only thus can there be positive and hence negative expression. There must be an arousing of nervous energy in order to any expression. Thus Mr. Spencer's law is applicable. The general law of expression is simply that conscious state as feeling is stimulant and directive of action whether the feeling be pleasur- able or painful. Prof. Bain tends to look upon expression, not as we have treated it, as consequent of conscious state, but as " incidental to physical support " (kernes and Intellect, p. 704). But physical support as basis of conscious states is to be carefully distinguished from expres- sion. Feeling, as conscious state, has a physical substratum and it has an expression. The expression is properly that action which