CHAPTER IV
FEELING
FEELINGS are exceptionally changeful and variable fac tors of -experience, and easly blend into compounds whose elements are hard to distinguish. Moreover, a feeling can not easily be seized by the attention and held steadily enough before consciousness for critical study. It is diffi cult, indeed, to do this in the case of any mental phenomenon so much so that some psychologists are disposed to de preciate the value of introspection as a scientific method; but it is especially difficult when we are seeking to analyze and describe feelings. When we try to do this we are apt to find ourselves engaged in a chase after a constantly elusive phenomenon, always on the trail of it, ever about to seize it, but never quite succeeding. It is possible, however, to secure insight into this realm of our experience, if we have sufficient patience and industry, and for those whose occupation it is to persuade men to action nothing is more important. We shall, therefore, devote this and the two succeeding chapters to a study of this most problematical aspect of our mental life.
i. It will help us to keep our bearings in this hazy region if we make at the beginning and keep in mind the distinction between feelings and feeling-tones.
(i) As to feeling-tones. A feeling-tone is an accom paniment of conscious experience. It surrounds or en velops the focal point of consciousness. We are justified, perhaps, in saying that it is an accompaniment of all con scious processes, though psychologists are not entirely agreed as to this point. Some maintain that there are con scious mental states which have no feeling-tones at all, are
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