ABSTRACT
One source of confusion in discussions of emotional experience is that the expression "an emotion" is used in two very different senses. Sometimes it is used to mean only some emotional quality of experience. But sometimes "an emotion" is used to imply the whole mental and bodily process of the moment; and in this sense "an emotion" means much more than the emotional quality of our experience at that moment. The primary "emotion" is an indicator of the instinctive impulse at work; its bodily expressions serve to indicate the nature of the impulse to our fellows and to evoke in them the same instinctive impulse, attitude, and emotional excitement. A complex emotional experience is not literally formed by the separate excitement, the coming together, and the subsequent blending of the two emotions, anger and disgust; rather it is the immediate response to the complex situation.
