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Dr. Cobb has long occupied a unique position in his field because of his capacity for sympathetic understanding of the work of others,
the realism of his insights, and the lucidity of thought and exposition into which he distils his erudition. This book, based upon his Salmon Lectures, is a comprehensive and critical digest. In two parts, the first is a review of pertinent neurophysiology. This section provides a great service to the reader through its clear and readable presentation of current knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the brain which underlie psychological phenomena. The anatomy of the archipallium, mesopallium, and neopallium is described and the evidence presented for the connections of these parts of the brain with visceration, emotion, intellect, and action. Experimental extirpation with animals by Bard, Fulton, Kluver, Bucy, and others, as well as other experimental work such as that of Ranson, Spiegel, and others, is reviewed to indicate the relationship of the brain to emotional expression, to docility, aggressiveness, sexuality, and oral behavior. The endocrine and autonomic machinery of emotional expression are also described with special attention to the work of Cannon, Selye, Gellhorn, and others.
Dr. Cobb presents an interesting bipolar classification of emotions—most differentiated in anger, opposite to the least differentiated state of excitement and alertness. Then on the one hand are the pleasant emotions of love, companionship, and joy, and on the other the unpleasant emotions of fear, sadness, and loneliness. Exaggerations of these lead to pathological states. He is not concerned with a long list of types and subtypes of emotion about the primacy of which there might not be general agreement. He sees emotion as having three main parts: first, the private feeling experienced subjectively which must be expressed to others by symbols; second, the changes set up within the body; and third, the pattern of overt behavior wh