Anger, fear, lust, the comfortable state appropriate to digestion, grief (the state of the weeping child), mirth or amusement, disgust, curiosity, the "tender emotion" (felt most strongly by a mother towards her baby), and probably a few others, are "primary emotions". They occur, that is to say, by virtue of the native constitution, and do not have to be learned or acquired through experience. They are native states of mind; or, as modes of behavior, they are like instincts in being native behavior.

One distinction between emotional and instinctive behavior is that the emotion consists of internal responses, while the instinct is directed outwards or at least involves action on external objects. Another distinction is that the emotional response is something in the nature of a preparatory reaction, while the instinct is directed towards the end-reaction.

The close connection of emotion and instinct is fully as important to notice as the distinction between them. Several of the primary emotions are attached to specific instincts: thus, the emotion of fear goes with the instinct to escape from danger, the emotion of anger goes with the fighting instinct, the emotion of lust with the mating instinct, tender emotion with the maternal instinct, curiosity with the exploring instinct. Where we find emotion, we find also a tendency to action that leads to some end-result.

It has been suggested, accordingly, that each primary emotion is simply the "affective" phase of an instinct, and that every instinct has its own peculiar emotion. This is a very attractive idea, but up to the present it has not been worked out very satisfactorily. Some instincts, such as that for walking, seem to have no specific emotion attached to them. Others, like anger and fear, resemble each other very {135} closely as organic states, though differing as impulses. The really distinct emotions (not impulses) are much fewer than the instincts.

The most important relationship between instinct and emotion is what we have seen in the cases of anger and a few others, where the emotion represents bodily readiness for the instinctive action.