Heidelberg, Germany. September 25, 2009.

The American psychologist James, and the Danish psychologist Lange, independently of each other, put forward this theory in the early eighties of the last century, and it has since remained a great topic for discussion. According to the theory, the emotion is the way the body feels while executing the various internal and expressive moments that occur on such occasions. The “stirred-up state of mind” is the complex sensation of the stirred-up state of the body. Just as fatigue or hunger is a complex of bodily sensations, so is anger, fear or grief, according to the theory.

James says, we do not tremble because we are afraid, but are afraid because we tremble. By that he means that the conscious state of being afraid is composed of the sensations of trembling (along with the sensations of other muscular and glandular responses). He means that the mental state of recognizing the presence of danger is not the stirred-up state of fear, until it has produced the trembling and other similar responses and got back the sensations of them. “Without the bodily states following on the perception” – i.e., perception of the external fact that arouses the whole emotional reaction – “the latter would be purely cognitive in form, pale, colorless, 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 should not actually feel afraid or angry.”

Excerpted from Psychology: A Study of Mental Life by Robert S. Woodworth. Published by Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1921.