The total feeling connected with outer and inner tactual sensations is designated in particular as the common feeling, since it is regarded as the feeling in which our total state of sensible comfort or discomfort expresses itself. From this point of view, the two lowest chemical senses, those of smell and taste, must also be regarded as contributors to the sensational substratum of the common feeling, for the partial feelings that arise from these two senses unite with those from touch to form inseparable affective complexes. In single cases, to be sure, one or the other of these feelings may play such an important part that the others disappear entirely . Still, in the midst of all this change in its sensational substratum, the common feeling is always the immediate expression of our sensible comfort and discomfort, and is, therefore, of all our composite feelings most closely related to the simple sense-feelings. Auditory and visual sensations, on the other hand, contribute to the sensational substratum of the common feeling only in exceptional cases, especially when the intensity is unusually great.
4a. The combination of partial feelings to a composite feeling was first noticed in the case of the common feeling. The psychological laws of this combination were indeed misunderstood, and, as is usually the case in physiology, the feeling was not distinguished from its underlying sensations. Common feeling was, thus, sometimes defined as the "consciousness of our sensational state", or again as the "totality, or unanalyzed chaos of sensations" which come to us from all parts of our body. As a matter of fact, the common feeling consists of a number of partial feeling. But it is not the mere sum of these feelings; it is rather a resultant total feeling of unitary character. At the same time it is, however, a total feeling of the simplest possible composition, made up of partial feelings of the first [p. 162] order, that is, of single sense-feelings which generally do not unite to form partial feelings of the second or of higher orders. In the resultant feeling a single partial feeling is usually predominant. This is regularly the case when a very strong local sensation is accompanied by a feeling of pain. On the other hand, weaker sensations may determine the predominant affective tone through their relatively greater importance. This is especially frequent in the case of sensations of smell and taste, and also in the case of certain sensations connected with the regular functioning of the organs, such as the inner tactual sensations accompanying the movements of walking. Often the relatively greater importance of a single sensation is so slight that the predominating feeling can not be discovered except by directing our attention to our own subjective state. In such a case the concentration of the attention upon it can generally make any partial feeling whatever predominant.
5. The common feeling is the source of the distinction between pleasurable and unpleasurable feelings. This distinction is then carried over to the single simple feelings that compose it, and sometimes even to all feelings. Pleasurable and unpleasurable are expressions well adapted to the indication of the chief extremes between which the common feeling, as a total feeling corresponding to the sensible comfort or discomfort of the subject, may oscillate; though to be sure, this feeling may not infrequently lie for a longer or shorter period in an indifference-zone.
In the same way, these expressions may be applied to the single constituents so far as they go to make up one of the total feelings. On the other hand, it is entirely unjustifiable to apply these names to all other feelings, or, as is sometimes done, to make their applicability a necessary factor in the general definition of feeling. Even for the common feeling, pleasurable and unpleasurable can only be used as general class-names which include a number of qualitatively different feelings. This variety among [p. 163] feelings of the same class results from the very great variations in the composition of the single total feelings that we have included under the general name common feeling (cf. p. 82 sq.).
6. The composite character mentioned is the reason why there are common feelings which can not, strictly speaking, be called pleasurable or unpleasurable, because they contain elements belonging to both classes, and under circumstances either the one kind or the other may predominate. Such feelings made up of partial feelings of opposite character and deriving their characteristics from this combination, may be called contrast-feelings. A simple form of such among the common feelings is that of tickling. It is made up of a weak pleasurable feeling accompanying a weak external tactual sensation, and of feelings connected with muscular sensations aroused by the strong reflex impulses from the tactual stimuli. These reflex impulses may spread more or less, and often cause inhibitions of respiration when they reach the diaphragm, so that the resultant feeling may vary greatly in single cases in intensity, scope, and composition.
7. The composite feelings from sight and hearing are commonly called elementary aesthetic feelings. This name includes all feelings that are connected with composite perceptions and are therefore themselves composite.
As a special form of feelings belonging to this class defined by the broader meaning of the term ' aisqhsiV, we have those which are the elements of aesthetic effects in the narrower sense. The term elementary does not apply in this case to the feelings themselves, for they are by no means simple, but it is merely intended to express the relative distinction between these and still more composite higher aesthetic feelings.