Pleasantness and unpleasantness are the only feelings generally accepted as elementary, though several others have been suggested.

Wundt's tri-dimensional theory of feeling.

This author suggested that there were three pairs of feelings: pleasantness and unpleasantness; tension and its opposite, release or relief; and excitement and its opposite, which may be called numbness or subdued feeling. Thus there would be three dimensions of feeling, which could be represented by the three dimensions of space, and any given state of feeling could be described by locating it along each of the three dimensions. Thus, one moment, we may be in a pleasant, tense, excited state; another moment in a pleasant, relieved and subdued state; and another moment in an unpleasant, tense and subdued state, etc. As each feeling can also exist in various degrees, the total number of shades of feeling thus provided for would be very great, indeed.

Though this theory has awakened great interest, it has not won unqualified approval. Excitement and the rest are real enough states of feeling--no one doubts that--but the question is whether they are fit to be placed alongside of pleasantness and unpleasantness as elementary feelings. It {185} appears rather more likely that they are blends of sensations. In the excited states that have been most carefully studied, that is to say, in fear and anger, there is that big organic upstir, making itself felt as a blend of many internal sensations. Tension may very probably be the feeling of tense muscles, for tension occurs specially in expectancy, and the muscles are tense then.

Whether elementary or not, these feelings are worthy of note. It is interesting to examine the striving for a goal and the attainment of the goal with respect to each "dimension" of feeling. Striving is tense, attainment brings the feeling of release. Striving is often excited, but fatigue and drowsiness (seeking for rest) are numb, and self-assertion may be neutral in this respect, as in "cool assumption". Reaching the goal may be excited or not; all depends on the goal, whether it be striking your opponent or going to sleep. On the other hand, reaching the goal is practically always pleasant (weeping seems an exception here), while striving for a goal is pleasant or unpleasant according as progress is being made towards the goal, or stiff obstruction encountered.

The feeling of familiarity, and its opposite, the feeling of strangeness or newness, also have some claim to be considered here. The first time you see a person, he seems strange, the next few times he awakens in you the feeling of familiarity, after which he becomes so much a matter of course as to arouse no definite feeling of this sort, unless, indeed, a long time has elapsed since you saw him last; in this case the feeling of familiarity is particularly strong.

The feelings of doubt or hesitation, and of certainty or assurance, also deserve mention as possibly elementary.{186}