Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 07.djvu/63

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
*
47
*

EMOLLIENT. 47 EMOTION. fomentation, etc., externally, and demulcents in- ternally. EM'ORY, John (1789-1835). An American clergyman of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He was born in Queen Anne County; Md., studied at Washington College (Chestertown, Md.), was admitted to the bar in L808, in 1810 was received on trial as a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and from 1813 to 1824 held various im- portant appointments. In 1824 he became hook agent anil editor lor the Methodist Episcopal Church in New fork City. Here he canceled the debt of the Methodist Book Concern and placed it upon a sound financial basis. He was elected a bishop in 1S32, displayed particular activity in connection with the educational in- terests of his Church, and assisted largely in the organization of Dickinson College (Carlisle, Pa.). He also originated in 1830 the ne"w series of the Methodist Magazine, known as the Methodist Magazine and Quarterly Review, to the first two volumes of which he contributed most of the orig- inal articles. His public writings include: The Defence of Our Fathers (1S24), and The Episco- pal Controversy Reviewed (1838). Consult Emorv. A Life of the Reverend John Emory (New York, 1841). EMORY. Robebt (1814-48). An American clergyman of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He was born in Philadelphia, Pa., graduated at Columbia in 1831, studied law. and was appoint- ed professor of ancient languages at Dickinson College (Carlisle, Pa.) in 1834. In 1845 he be- came president of that institution. He published A Life of the Rev. John Emory, his father (1841), and a Ilistory of the Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church (1843), and pre- pared a portion of an Analysis of Butler's Anal- og!/, completed by G. R. Crooks (1850). Both as a scholar and as a college administrator he enjoyed a considerable reputation. EMORY, William Hemsley (1811-87). An American soldier, born in Queen Anne County, Md. He graduated at West Point in 1831, served on the staff of General Kearny in California during the Mexican War, and was afterwards a member of the commission appointed to determine the boundary line between Mexico and the United States. In the Civil War he was promoted brigadier-general. United States Volunteers, in March, 1862; served under McClellan in the Peninsular campaign ; commanded the Nineteenth Corps, under General Banks, in the Bed River expedition of 1804, and afterwards against Early in the Shenandoah Valley. In September, 1865, he attained the full rank of major-general of volunteers. He afterwards commanded succes- sively the departments of West Virginia, of Wash- ington, and of the Gulf, and in 1876 retired with the full rank of brigadier-general. He wrote Notes of a Military Reconnoissance in Missouri mid California (1848), and a large part of the Report of the United Stairs and Mexican Boun- dary Commission (1S57-59). EMOTION (from Lat. emovere, ,to agitate, from e, out + movere, to move. Skt. miv, to push). A highly complex mental process, or mental formation, belonging to the affective side of our nature. (See Affection.) It includes all such experiences as joy and sorrow, hope and fear, anger and disgust. Its place in systematic psychology will be most easily understood by a comparison of the results of intro pe> tivi tnaly- sis in tbc two great mental departments of in- tellect and feeling. c begin, iii our treatment of these aspects of mind, with the simple ele- ments of sensation ami affection. Above the ele incuts, in order of increasing complexity, stand the perception or idea and the sense-feeling — e.g. t lie perception of locality when we arc touched upon the -.kin, and the feeling of drowsiness that comes witb bodily fatigue. Above these, again, stand the association of ideas and the emotion; while at the final level of complexity, we have the judgment, or the processes of the constructive imagination, and the various forms (aesthetic, moral, etc.) of sentiment. Since the highest functions both of intellect and of feeling are the prerogative of the most highly developed minds, and rarely occur in the experience of the average man. it is clear that for most of us, and upon most occasions, emotion is typical of the affectivi consciousness at large. Let us now trace the genesis of an emotion, in order that we may have a concrete basis for future analysis. Suppose that a man is engaged in his ordinary vocation, pursuing indifferently the work that lies before him, when a letter arrives which contains a piece of bad news. The current train of ideas is sharply interrupted; there is a break in thought; the current of con- sciousness is changed, or (as we may say, in accordance with the definition of consciousness (q.v. ) as 'mind now') a novel consciousness is set up. The focal point of the new consciousne-s is occupied by the perception of the unwelcome tiilings. If the news be overwhelmingly had, this perception may stand almost alone; there is inhibition of other ideas, a sort of paralysis of the mind, a state of what the French term 'nionoideism.' If it he disagreeable, but not over- whelming, all sorts of related ideas will cluster round the central perception — ideas of the conse- quences of the reported occurrence for one's life in the future, of its effect upon one's self and others in whom one is interested, of ways and means of mitigating the disaster — so that the perception expands to a simultaneous association of ideas or (in technical language) to an assimilation. In either case we must note that the item of news has taken possession of consciousness, as it were, in its own right ; there has been no resistance to the intruding ideas. The un- pleasant event has appealed as strongly and ir- resistibly to the attention as would a loud sound or the perception of movement in the visual field (see Attention) ; in other words, the news-con- sciousness is in a state of passive attention. And this means (as we have all along implied) that the news is keenly and deeply felt; the assimila- tion, which reflects in idea the total situation that our imagined individual has to face, is washed over, colored, perhaps almost swamped by affective processes. Finally — and this is sug- gested by the phrase 'face the situation' — the emotion finds expression (q.v.) in certain bodily movements or attitudes : the disagreeable news may be 'met' by a shrinking and cowering atti- tude, by a sour or bitter facial expression. peT- haps by the effusion of tears or sweat; or, again, by a brace and set of the muscles and a frown of resolution. In both instances the bodily re- sponse evokes certain intensive organic scn^i tions. These attach to the ideational elements of the central assimilation, and materially en-