rgan, just as wider and
wider zones of the system are brought into participation in the primary
enhancement or inhibition, so a feeling is diffused from an individual
to a circle of sympathisers who repeat its expressional movements. And
just as all the widened "somatic resonances" contribute to the primary
feeling-tone increased strength and increased definiteness, so must the
emotional state of an individual be enhanced by retroactive stimulation
from the expressions by which the state has, so to say, been continued
in others. By the reciprocal action of primary movements and borrowed
movements, which mutually imitate each other, the social expression
operates in the same way as the individual expression. And we are
entitled to consider it as a secondary result of the general
expressional impulse, that when mastered by an overpowering feeling we
seek enhancement or relief by retroaction from sympathisers, who
reproduce and in their expression represent the mental state by which we
are dominated.

In point of fact, we can observe in the manifestations of all strong
feelings which have not found a satisfactory relief in individual
expression, a pursuit of social resonance. A happy man wants to see glad
faces around him, in order that from their expression he may derive
further nourishment and increase for his own feeling. Hence the
benevolent attitude of mind which as a rule accompanies all strong and
pure joy. Hence also the widespread tendency to express joy by gifts or
hospitality. In moods of depression we similarly desire a response to
our feeling from our surroundings. In the depth of despair we may long
for a universal cataclysm to extend, as it were, our own pain. As joy
naturally makes men good, so pain often makes them hard and cruel. That
this is not always the case is a result of the increased power of
sympathy which we gain by every experienced pain. Moreover, we have need
of sympathetic rapport for our motor reactions against pain. All the
active manifestations of sorrow, despair, or anger which are not wholly
painful in themselves are facilitated by the reciprocal influence of
collective excitement. Thus all strong feelings, whether pleasurable or
painful, act as socialising factors. This socialising action may be
observed at all stages of development. Even the animals seek their
fellows in order to stimulate themselves and each other by the common
expression of an overpowering feeling. As has been remark