Quote: emotion is closely tied to its bodily symptoms; the trembling lips of fear, the flushed face of rage

Quotation

If we fancy some strong emotion and then try to abstract from our consciousness of it all the feelings of its bodily symptoms, we find that we have left behind, no "mind-stuff: out of which the emotion can be constituted, and that a cold and neutral state of intellectual perception is all that remains. ... What kind of an emotion of fear would be left if the feeling neither of quickened heart-beats nor of shallow breathing, neither of trembling lips nor of weakened limbs, neither of goose-flesh nor of visceral stirrings, were present, it is quite impossible for me to think. Can one fancy the state of rage and picture no ebullition in the chest, no flushing of the face, no dilatation of the nostrils, no clenching of the teeth, no impulse to vigorous action, but in their stead limp muscles, calm breathing, and a placid face?   Google-1   Google-2

Published before 1923

Related Topics

Topic: philosophy of mind (74 items)
Group: relationship between brain and behavior   (9 topics, 315 quotes)
Group: psychology   (9 topics, 303 quotes)