THE EXCITATION OF FEELING 129
and it is just possible that these mental rhythms are the ex planation of the rhythmical character of the universe of his experience. These mental rhythms seem to be closely re lated to the attention waves and are, therefore, helpful in thinking. But doubtless no part of our mental life is so completely responsive to and dependent upon rhythm as our emotional experiences. We tend to read rhythm into every series of sensations, no matter how devoid of periodicity it may be. A series which is unrhythmical is inevitably un pleasant, and if we cannot read into it some regularity of recurring periods it soon becomes intolerable. And to every sort of rhythm our nature responds in feeling-tones of some intensity, i.e., if it coincides even approximately with the peculiar rhythms of our own organism. For, while there are certain fundamental and universal rhythms to which all human organisms respond, each individual doubt less has his own peculiarities in this respect, as in all others. The reason for the emotional responsiveness to this par ticular type of stimuli is, perhaps, to be looked for in the constitution and operation of the vital organs of the body. No part of the body is so completely subject to regular alternations of tension and relaxation as these organs; no other functions proceed with such rhythmical regularity; and possibly for this reason no other part of our muscula ture is so sensitive to stimulations of this kind. This may be fanciful, but, at any rate, the parts of our musculature which control the activity of these organs seem to be most immediately and powerfully affected by such stimuli. A series of sounds following each other in a simple rhythm, though they may not have been heard before and are asso ciated with no ideas, will, by the reaction which they set up within those parts of the nervous system immediately related to the vital processes, evoke emotional responses of some intensity, which in turn call up more or less definite mental images.
As stated above, different persons vary by nature in their responsiveness to rhythms, no doubt on account of variations
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