Tuesday Otium | a whole whirlwind of organic and psychological phenomena.

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Every strong state of the consciousness is a source of life; it is an essential factor in our general vitality. Consequently, all that tends to weaken it diminishes and depresses us. The result is an impression of being disturbed and upset, one similar to what we feel when an important function is halted or slows down. It is therefore inevitable that we should react vigorously against the cause of what threatens with such a lowering of the consciousness, that we should attempt to throw it off, so as to maintain our consciousness in its entirety.

Among the most outstanding causes that produce this effect must be ranged the representation we have of the opposing state. In fact, a representation is not a simple image of reality, a motionless shadow projected into us by things. It is rather a force that stirs up around us a whole whirlwind of organic and psychological phenomena. Not only does the nervous current that accompanies the formation of ideas flow within the cortical centres around the point where it originated, passing from one plexus to another, but it also vibrates within the motor centres, where it determines our movements, and within the sensorial centres where it evokes images.


Emile Durkheim
The Division of Labor in Society (tr. WD Hall)

John Singer Sargent
En route pour la pêche (1878)