Page:Outlines of Psychology (Wundt) 1907.djvu/232

 202 II.Psychical Compounds.

their psycho-physical concomitants, the sudden irruptive emo- tions are all asthenic, the gradually arising emotions may be either sthenic or asthenic. 12a. The form of occurrence, then, however characteristic it may be in single cases, is just as little a fixed criterion for the psychological classification of emotions as is the intensity of the feelings. Obviously a psychological classification can be based only on the quality of the affective contents, while in- tensity and form of occurrence may furnish the means of sub- division. The way in which these conditions are connected with one another and with the accompanying physical phenomena and through these with secondary sense-feelings, shows the emotions to be most highly composite psychical compounds which are therefore in single cases exceedingly variable. A classifica- tion which is in any degree exhaustive must, therefore, sub- divide such varjying emotions as joy, anger, fear, and anxiety into their subforms, according to their modes of occurrence, ac- cording to the intensity of their component feelings, and finally according to their physical concomitants, which physical con- comitants are dependent on both the psychical factors mentioned. Thus, for example, we may distinguish a strong, a weak, and a variable form of anger, a sudden, a gradually arising, and an intermittent form of its occurrence, and finally a sthenic, asthenic, and a mixed form of its expressive movements. For psychological explanation, an account of the causal inter- connection of the single forms in each particular case is much more important than this mere classification. In giving such an account, we have to deal in the case of every emotion with two factors: first, the quality and intensity of the component feelings, and second, the rapidity of the succession of these feelings. The first factor determines the general character of the emotion, the second its intensity in part, and more especially its form of occurrence, while both together determine its ph3rsical accompaniments and the psycho-physical changes resulting from the sense-feelings connected with these accompan3ring phenomena (p. 191). It is for this very reason that the physical con- comitants are as a rule to be called psycho-physical. The ex- pressions "psychical" and "psycho-physical" should not, however, be regarded as absolute opposites in such a case as this where we have to do merely with symptoms of emotion. We speak