changed. How comes it, then, that those internal sensations that are raised to a higher intensity do not attract attention to themselves? We must answer: by the competition and attractive power of the object. When we are emotionally affected the object has unusual hold upon the attention. Yet even then we learn more about our internal sensations than at other times, and cannot help at moments noticing the beating of the heart, the trembling, and other symptoms. But, on the whole, our attention is for the time absorbed by the object. When we are angry we think of the man who has injured or offended us: this thought displaces all other thoughts. Still the attractive power of the object has its limits. Were the emotion of disgust to provoke vomiting, the attention to its object would be displaced by the attractive power of the sensations. The definite emotion would be suspended; but the instinct would be fully active, and its sensations raised to the highest intensity.

The competition in emotions between the attractive power of their objects and the attractive power of their sensations suggests a further question. When these sensations exceed a certain intensity do they exclude the possibility of all emotion? By no means; but that emotion which was present, or would have been present at a lower intensity, is for the time excluded. We become engrossed with our internal sensations. But this attitude to our own states may be itself an emotion, and probably will be so in proportion to their intensity. The continuance of a colic or of sickness arouses anxiety for oneself.

Darwin records an observation which supports this conclusion. "I never," he says, "saw disgust more plainly expressed than on the face of one of my infants at the age of five months, when, for the first time, some cold water, and again, a month afterwards, when a piece of ripe cherry was put into his mouth. This was shown by the lips and whole mouth assuming a shape which allowed the contents to run or fall quickly out; the tongue being likewise protruded. These movements were accompanied by a little shudder." And he adds this significant remark: "It was all the more comical, as I doubt whether the child felt real dis

gust-the eyes and forehead expressing much surprise and consideration." 1

The second law of disgust, then, is complementary to the first and implied by it: (85.) The emotion of disgust must refer to something other than its constituent sensations. This object may be extremely vague and undefined, as when we say that we are disgusted with everything, or with life in general; but it must at least provide something to which thought and attention may be referred, and have sufficient attractive force to overcome the competing, attractive force of the sensations. Now there seem to be states in which this condition is not fulfilled. It is not only external things that arouse sensations of sickness and repulsion, but also, as in the case of other emotions, bodily states themselves. In troubles of digestion and in sickness faint sensations of nausea may be present for considerable periods of time, with an impulse, that is felt at intervals, to retch. If food be offered under these conditions a genuine disgust at it is felt. But the same sensations and impulse are present in a weaker form when it is not offered, or even thought of. In the one case there is an emotion of disgust; in the other there is not. In the one there is some object to refer to, and the attention is directed to that; in the other there is none appropriate to these sensations and impulse. What happens in this case? We either attend to these sensations, and recognise that we feel ill; or we forget about them, or force ourselves to attend to something else. But, in the latter case, these sensations, however unconscious we are of the fact, colour our mental attitude, and dispose us then to feel disgust with things in general. Thus at times there arises an emotion of disgust partly constituted of these same sensations and impulse.

There is, then, a third law which has been implied in the preceding remarks: (86) In the development of the emotion of disgust, the sensations belonging to it, being restrained by their own weakness and the attractive force of the object from concentrating attention on themselves, form part of the emotional attitude to this object.

We have attempted to lay down certain general laws of the 1 'The Expression of the Emotions,' ch. xi.

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development of the specific emotion of disgust from the impulse and instinct belonging to the first type. We have only to go back to a period sufficiently early in the life of the child to find this impulse and its connected sensations without the emotion. The attention is then absorbed on these sensations. Sooner or later disgust comes to be felt at something with which its original disgust has been connected. This attracts attention, and withdraws it from internal sensations. Like ourselves, the child may have swallowed some food that produced nausea or vomiting. The sight of a similar object on a future occasion may arouse an emotion of disgust at it.

Thus, in certain cases, the emotion of disgust felt in the perception of an object is due to the re-excitement of an instinct, aroused primarily through taste or smell, in a degree not sufficiently strong to engross the mind with its internal sensations. How far this is the only source of the emotion we have next to inquire.

5 Of Primitive Tactile Disgust

The hypothesis that other varieties of disgust were derived through association from the disgust caused by sensations of taste and smell1 does not seem able to interpret the peculiar instincts present in tactile disgust. Nor is it otherwise probable that the disgust felt when some insect creeps over the skin, or that excited by slugs, snails, and other cold and clammy things, has been derived from our former experience of their taste or smell. The sense of smell seems here to play little or no part; and although children put many things into their mouths, they do not experiment on slugs and snails often enough to account for the general disgust felt at them. And, further, we may remark that there are many sweetmeats that are both cold and sticky to touch that we eat with enjoyment; and while the cold and clammy touch of oysters in the hand may disgust us, the taste of them in the mouth is in many cases a stimulant of appetite. The French eat a certain kind of snail; and this disgusts the English,

1 Ribot, op. cit. part ii. ch. i., ii.

not because they have tasted them and found that the taste directly excites disgust, but because they recall their cold and slimy touch. We seem, then, driven to conclude that there is an original disgust, caused by sensations of touch and temperature, that we experience in other parts of the body than on the tongue. Hence, in such cases there may be no revival of sensations of nausea, except where a disagreeable odour is connected with the object, but sensations of shuddering or 'creepiness' are apt to replace them.

Assuming, then, that tactile disgust is an original variety based on its own instincts, we have next to inquire whether the activity of one or other of these instincts involves from the first the emotion which is now connected with all of them. These instincts we have distinguised as those of shrinking, of pushing out the hands, of shaking the body, of licking it or cleansing it in some other way. They are based on the sensation of something in contact with the body, and, according to the nature of the sensation as stimulus, one or other of these instincts is excited. Now, at least, the activity of these instincts does not evoke any sensations as violent as those which sometimes accompany gustatory disgust; nor, in fact, any of such intensity as would oblige us to attend to them. The intensity of the sensations does not seem therefore, to stand in the way of the emotion of disgust. It is rather, that the action, following often very rapidly upon the stimulus, is concluded before the emotion can be felt-as in many cases of fear.

In ordinary reflex actions we feel neither an emotion nor even an impulse to accomplish them. If a hand is approached closely to the eye, to remove something from it, the eye blinks. We do not feel any impulse to accomplish the action. The action is too rapid, and the process automatic. There is first the sensational stimulus, and upon this there follows the reflex action, also accompanied by sensation. But between the two, and as a condition of the occurrence of the second, there is neither emotion, nor even an impulse felt. The act of shrinking from something, or of pushing it away, or of shaking the body, or of licking it is somewhat more complex; but each of them is also innately connected with its

sensational stimulus, and the instinctive behaviour is frequently completed with such rapidity as to preclude the presence of emotion.

Is this exclusion of emotion, as in the first variety of disgust, more likely to occur in the beginning than at a later period? We should conclude that it is. In those cases in which the emotion of disgust is clearly present we perceive, an object that had on a former occasion excited one or more of the instincts of disgust-as some cold and slimy thing that we then touched, not knowing what it was. The perception of this object tends to re-excite the same instincts again. We shrink from this object, but the perception of it holds for a little while our attention, and the shuddering, the shrinking, and the readiness to thrust it from us fall into the background of consciousness, and colour the emotional attitude toward it. These intervals, during which the attention is engrossed with the object, and an emotional attitude to it is generated, increase in frequency with mental development, because we are so often able to recognise the object before it comes in contact with us.

To sum up: In the primitive disgust due to taste or smell there is probably no emotion of disgust present at first, because the intensity of the sensations of vomiting, spitting out, or blowing out are so intense that they direct attention to themselves, and preclude a perception of the cause and an emotional attitude toward it; and, in many cases, the actions are accomplished too rapidly to allow of the presence of emotion. In the primitive disgust due to sensations of touch and temperature, localised in some part of the external surface of the body, the obstacle to an emotional attitude is especially the suddenness and rapidity with which the instinctive acts are accomplished; and the confusing effect of the surprise caused by the new sensations, precludes sometimes an emotional attitude to the cause; and this may also apply in the first case, as the intensity of the sensations may be here, too, an additional cause of the direction of attention to them.

Our tentative solution of this problem furnishes us, then, with another law on which the development of the emotion seems