§ 3. Relation to Pleasure-Pain and Conation.— Every special kind of emotion essentially involves a characteristic end or direction of activity, mental or bodily. Anger tends to destroy or disable its object; fear, to avoid or evade it. The relation of special emotions to pleasure-pain is not so definite as their cognitive aspect. Some emotions are invariably pleasant and others unpleasant; grief for instance is always disagreeable,* and joy agreeable. So fear is constantly disagreeable. But other emotions may be either pleasant or unpleasant, according to circumstances. A surprise may be either welcome or unwelcome. Anger is highly disagreeable when it is impotent; but when it can wreak itself on the enemy, it may be intensely agreeable. In general we may say that an emotion is agreeable or disagreeable according as the cognitive tendencies involved in it are thwarted or gratified. In fear and grief, they are from the nature of the case obstructed; when the obstruction ceases, the emotion ceases also. In joy, on the other hand, they are gratified by the very nature of the conditions which occasion it.

* There is such a thing as the "luxury of grief," but the mere existence of the grief does not constitute the luxury. A person may be grieved and at the same time he may be pleased to know that he is grieved. Sorrow over the loss of a beloved object may be accompanied by the pleasure due to tender reminiscences, and this pleasure may overbalance the pain of grief. But grief in and for itself is never pleasant.

§ 4. Ultimate Qualitative Differences. — Emotion in its various specific forms involves correspondingly specific kinds of feeling which cannot be explained away as resultants or complications of more simple elements. When we have said that a specific emotion is characterised by a certain trend or direction of activity, that it is accompanied by certain kinds of organic sensation, that it is pleasant or painful, and the like, though all this may be true, it is not exhaustive. Each specific kind of emotion has also something in it peculiar and undefinable. It is a unique kind of feeling-attitude towards an object. As Professor James observes: "There are infinite shades and tones in the various emotional excitements which are as distinct as sensations of colour are." Besides its own specific quality of feeling, an emotion has no doubt also a feeling-tone of pleasure or pain. But its peculiar colouring cannot be resolved into mere pleasantness or unpleasantness. It stands out as a fact unique and irreducible.