Page:Psychology and preaching.djvu/91

 FEELING 73

passes into immediate, full and unhindered expression through the organs whose function it is to act upon the external environment there is little or no feeling. Feeling proper arises when the impulse is more or less checked, hin dered from immediate and full expression through those channels i.e., when it is deflected and causes a reaction in the muscles connected with the second general group of functions. The impulse thus deflected causes a tension in the vital organs which carry on the processes of digestion, respiration, circulation of the blood and secretion; and this tension is interpreted in consciousness as pleasant or un pleasant. If the reaction is purely reflex or instinctive, i.e., if the impulse passes into motor expression absolutely un checked, it will hardly be conscious at all. It is true that reflex actions, and especially instinctive actions, are fre quently reported in consciousness; but they are not con trolled by consciousness ; and that one is conscious of them at all is probably due to the fact that the nerve current as it passes over the reflex arc often radiates to other parts of the nervous system and produces consciousness as a &quot; by product.&quot; We may say, then, that just in so far as the impulse is restrained from immediate and full expression in reflexive reaction and is converted into organic tension it will become conscious, and pleasantly or unpleasantly con scious according to conditions. However, this is true only within limits; for as we shall see later on, the organic dis turbances may become so great as to result in unconscious ness. The deflection of the impulse and its partial or com plete conversion into tension of the vital organs result from the conflict of motor tendencies due to the more complex structure of the higher organisms and to the accumulation of the effects of past individual experience, as set forth in the above quotation from Angell.

We may conclude, then, that unrestrained external motor manifestation is not a sign of deep or intense feeling-tones. Ribot remarks, &quot; It is a sort of psychological law that the intensity of consciousness should vary inversely as the in-

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