ABSTRACT

In the very process of arranging the emotions into grades, beginning with those involved in the lowest forms of conscious activity and ending with those peculiar to the adult civilized man, the way is opened for that ultimate analysis which alone can lead us to the true science of the matter. Setting out with the assumption that every new form of emotion making its appearance in the individual or the race, is a modification of some pre-existing emotion, or a compound of several pre-existing emotions, we should be greatly aided by knowing what always are the preexisting emotions. Mr. Bain’s grouping is throughout determined by the most manifest attributes—those objectively displayed in the natural language of the emotions, and in the social phenomena that result from them, and those subjectively displayed in the aspects the emotions assume in an analytical consciousness.