Note note 31 — ANALYSIS OF THE PHENOMENA OF THE HUMAN MIND James Mill

31 There is more than association in the case here supposed. Fear, anxiety, and painful emotions generally, cause disorder in the digestive and other vital functions, as a part of their nature. Every mental state can be proved to have its counterpart physical state; joy, sorrow, fear, are each embodied in a distinct group of physical effects in the nervous system, the muscular movements, and the organic processes. The physical side of agreeable emotions, as a rule, is a heightened tone of the purely animal functions. The physical side of fear is a complicated series of effects, one of them being the depression of the organic processes, digestion among the rest. In this respect, however, it more or less resembles severe pain, sorrow, shame, remorse, and other states, characterised by the general phrase “depressing passions;” the depression being both mental and physical.

The reciprocal agency described in the text, whereby the painful sensations of indigestion induce fear, is not dependent on the association of ideas, but on the deep connections of the emotional states with one another, through their physical accompaniments. A painful feeling of indigestion has much in common with states of depression due to mental causes, as, for example, the shock of a misfortune, fear, sorrow, and the like. From this alliance it favours the ideas of depressing states. It does more; it directly reduces that vigorous tone of the system, which is the support of the courageous and sanguine disposition; and hence, surrenders the mind an easy prey to any chance incentive of alarm or anxiety.—B.