FEELING 77
intelligently guided activities. We have, then, the inherited organic constitution and functions; these inherited charac teristics as modified by habits acquired; and these, in turn, undergoing modification by voluntary processes from mo ment to moment. It is obvious, therefore, that the condi tions of feeling are both obscure and extremely complicated. " Emotions," says Angell, " are extremely complex proc esses, so far at least as the organic activities which condi tion them. In emotions we are not only conscious of the emotional object, as in ordinary perceptual acts, we are also overwhelmed by a mass of sensational and affective elements brought about by the intra-organic activities of our own musculature." He makes this remark with reference to the definite and distinctive emotions discussed above; but it is also manifestly true of all our feeling experiences. Indeed, it is probably more difficult to analyze the organic proc esses involved in the less definite and pronounced feelings than those involved in the emotions proper.
Now, when some experience occurs which brings about a change in these vital processes and the change is of sufficient moment to be taken notice of in consciousness, it is regis tered there either as pleasant or unpleasant. // it quickens, or promotes or intensifies a vital process it is felt as pleas ant; if it arrests or retards or represses a vital process it is felt as unpleasant. From this point of view we may get an idea as to why so few, comparatively, of our experiences have pure or unmixed feeling-tones. Let us suppose that a habit represents a partial arrest of an organic vital process. The indulgence of the habit will give pleasure; but it will be accompanied by a more or less vague undertone of un pleasantness ; which is certain to be the case unless the habit has become so inveterate as to cause a permanent modifica tion of the organic process, and even then a close scrutiny of consciousness would doubtless discover that the pleasure was not entirely unmixed. If a voluntary activity runs counter to an organic tendency, the unpleasantness will likely be pronounced. Often, however, an acute feeling of
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