What is an Emotion?

What is an Emotion?
Our natural way of thinking about the standard emotions is that the mental
perception of some fact excites the mental affection called the emotion, and
that this latter state of mind gives rise to the bodily expression. The thesis
on the contrary is that the bodily changes follow directly the PERCEPTION of
the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur IS
the emotion.

“Common sense says, we lose our fortune, are sorry and weep; we meet a bear,
are frightened and run; we are insulted by a rival, are angry and strike. The
hypothesis here to be defended says that this order of sequence is incorrect,
that the one mental state is not immediately induced by the other, that the
bodily manifestations must first be interposed between, and that the more
rational statement is that we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we
strike, afraid because we tremble, and not that we cry, strike, or tremble,
because we are sorry, angry, or fearful, as the case may be. Without the
bodily states following on the perception, the latter would be purely
cognitive in form, pale, colourless, destitute of emotional warmth. We might
then see the bear, and judge it best to run, receive the insult and deem it
right to strike, but we could not actually feel afraid or angry.
\---
The functions and acts of ordinary life, it is true, still remain to me; but
in every one of them there is something wanting — to wit, the feeling which is
proper to them, and the pleasure which follows them. ... Each of my senses,
each part of my proper self, is as it were separated from me and can no longer
afford me any feeling; this impossibility seems to depend upon a void which I
feel in the front of my head, and to be due to the diminution of the
sensibility over the whole surface of my body, for it seems to me that I never
actually reach the objects which I touch... . I feel well enough the changes
of temperature on my skin, but I no longer experience the internal feeling of
the air when I breathe... All this would be a small matter enough, but for its
frightful result, which is that of the impossibility of any other kind of
feeling and of any sort of enjoyment, although I experience a need and desire
of them that render my life an incomprehensible torture.”

*[29 janvier]: selon le calendrier julien
*[IIe]: 2e siècle
*[6e]: Sixième
*[apr. J.-C.]: après Jésus-Christ
*[Ier]: 1er siècle
*[XIXe]: 19e siècle
*[26 mai]: selon le calendrier julien