Page:Psychology and preaching.djvu/88

 7O PSYCHOLOGY AND PREACHING

The terms &quot; unpleasant &quot; and &quot; unpleasantness,&quot; or &quot; dis agreeable &quot; and &quot; disagreeableness &quot; are consistently used instead, although so much longer and less euphonious.

4. Does the physiological disturbance cause the feeling- tone or does the feeling-tone cause the physiological dis turbance ? As it is often expressed, do we feel sorry because we cry or do we cry because we feel sorry? It used to be considered as a matter of course as it is yet by the un sophisticated that when we experienced an unpleasant feeling this feeling caused and manifested itself in certain motor effects, certain physiological disturbances. It was supposed that the perception of a danger caused a feeling of fear and that the feeling of fear caused the trembling, etc. ; or that the manifestation by one person of a hostile purpose against another aroused in the latter a feel ing of anger and that this feeling caused the contraction of certain facial muscles, the doubling of the fists, the quickening of the heart-beat, etc. This naive conception of the relation between the feeling and its motor accom paniment is held by many psychologists today to be just the reverse of the truth. On the contrary, so it is claimed, the presence of a danger starts certain motor reactions in the reflexive and instinctive nervous organization and these physiological disturbances are echoed in consciousness as the feeling of fear; and so with all other feelings. The feeling, according to this theory, is always the reaction in consciousness of the excitation of the reflexive and in stinctive co-ordinations of the nervous system. The pri mary effect of the stimulus is physiological and the sec ondary effect is psychical. This is the celebrated James- Lange theory of the emotions, so called because it was pro pounded about the same time by those two eminent psychol ogists. While there are many facts which seem to confirm this theory, and while it is unquestionably true that a feel ing is never unaccompanied by some organic disturbance, the conclusion that the feeling is caused by the physiological reaction is not necessary. We are psycho-physical organ-

�� �