EMOTION (from Lat. caioverc,.to agitate, from c, out -f- movere, to move. Slat. to push). A highly complex mental process, or mental formation, belonging to the affective side of our (See AFFECTION.) It includes all such experiences as joy and sorrow, hope and fear, anger and disgust. Its place in systematic psychology will be most easily understood by a comparison of the results of introspective analy sis in the two great mental departments of in tellect and feeling. N1e begin, in our treatment of these aspects of mind, with the simple ele ments of sensation and affection. Above the ele ments, in order of increasing complexity. stand the perception or idea and the sense-feeling—e.g. the perception of locality when we are touched upon the skin, and the feeling of drowsiness that comes with bodily fatigue. Alove these, again, stand the association of ideas and the emotion; while at the final level of complexity, we have the judgment, or the processes of the constructive imagination, and the various forms (oesthetie, moral, etc.) of sentiment. Since the highest functions both of intellect and of feeling are the prerogative of the most highly developed minds, and rarely occur in the experience of the average man, it is clear that for most of us, and upon most occasions, emotion is typical of the affective consciousness at large.
Let us now trace the genesis of an emotion, in order that we may have a concrete basis for future analysis. Suppose that a man is engaged in his ordinary vocation, pursuing indifferently the work that lies before him, when a letter arrives which contains a piece of bad news. The current train of ideas is sharply interrupted; there is a break in thought; the current of •con sciousness is changed, or (as we may say, in accordance with the definition of consciousness (q.v.) as 'mind now') a novel consciousness is set up. The focal point of the new consciousness is occupied by the perception of the unwelcome tidings. If the news be overwhelmingly had, this perception may stand almost alone; there is inhibition of other a sort of paralysis of the mind, a state of what the French term `monoideism.' If it he disagreeable, but not over whelming, all sorts of related ideas will cluster round the central perception—ideas of the conse quences of the reported occurrence for one's life in the future, of its effect upon one's self and others in whom one is interested, of ways and means of mitigating the disaster—so that the perception expands to a simultaneous association of ideas or (in technical language) to an assimilation. In either case we must note that the item of news has taken possession of consciousness, as it were, in its own right; there has been no resistance to the intruding ideas. The un pleasant event has appealed as strongly and ir resistibly to the attention as would a loud sound or the perception of movement in the visual field (see ATTENTION) ; in other words, the news-con sciousness is in a state of passive attention. And
this means (as we have all along implied) that the news is keenly and deeply felt; the assimila tion, which reflects in idea the total situation that our imagined individual has to face, is washed over, colored, perhaps almost swamped by affective processes. Finally—and this is sug gested by the phrase 'face the situation'—the emotion finds expression (q.v.) in certain bodily movements or attitudes; the disagreeable news may be 'met' by a shrinking and cowering atti tude, by a sour or bitter facial expression. per haps by the effusion of tears or sweat; or, again, by a brace and set of the muscles and a frown of resolution. In both instances the bodily sponse evokes certain intensive organic sensa tions. These attach to the ideational elements of the central assimilation, and materially en rich its contents: while their high affective value gives them a prominent part in the total 'feel' of the emotion. In sum, then, an emotion arises when (1) the current train of thought is inter rupted by (2) an assimilation, which represents some situation or incident in our social or pro fessional world. The assimilation (3) holds the passive attention, and is therefore (4) keenly felt. Aloreover, the representative contents and the affective coloring of consciousness are both enhanced by (5) a complex of organic sensa tions. the result of the way in which the organ ism as a whole takes the situation in which it finds itself involved. It follows from this ex treme complication of component processes that the emotion occupies a fairly long period of time, has a distinct temporal course. We should say, indeed, speaking from unanalyzed experience, that joy and sorrow, hope and fear, may domi nate consciousness, not only for hours. hut for days, and sometimes, with intermissions, for weeks and months; while the consequent mood or disposition may continue for years. Such a statement would miss the finer changes of idea tional trend, and the frequent interposition of foreign conscionsnesses that introspection reveals. _Nevertheless, the persistel1C0 of the emotion in time. its ripening, maturing, and gradual decay, are so characteristic that Wundt gives it a tem poral definition. An emotion, he says, is "a series of feelings, succeeding one another in time, which unite to form an interconnected process that is disting,nished, as an individual whole, from preceding and following processes." It fol lows, further, from the facts of emotive 'expres sion,' that there is an intimate relation between emotion and will. Emotion differs from volition only in the point that it fades out or subsides when its course is over, to make way for cus tomary trains of thought and habits of action; while the volition, beginning as does the emo tion, ends in "a sudden change of sensational and affective contents, which brings the emotion to an instantaneous elose"—i.e. in a voluntary ac tion. See .NCTION: WILL.