% ^V% # <^ ^p v > » , "°*. > V t »J ^ "Ye ' .0° *«> 4 p. »p^ v ^-* ****** : -^^-* /^> ^ti^*. "°- .*<<* >:^k'-/^ .° v ^>/^>*. "°- j HANDBOOK PSYCHOLOGY j. c CLARK MURRAY, LL.D., F.R.S.C. JOHN FROTHINGHAM PROFESSOR OF MENTAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY, M'GILL COLLEGE, MONTREAL. FIFTH EDITION BOSTON DE WOLFE, FISKE & CO. 361 and 365 Washington Street fel COPYKIGHT, 1897 DbWOLFE, fiske & CO. All rights reserved PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. In the preface to the first edition it was explained that " this handbook is designed primarily to introduce stu- dents to the science of psychology ; and to this design every other purpose, which the book may serve, has been made subordinate. Psychology embraces a considerable body of systems tised facts which are beyond dispute ; but there are also some problems, still unsettled, which affect even the fundamental principles of the science. No fair exposition of the science is possible without in- dicating the expositor's standpoint in reference to these problems ; but it is not advisable to perplex the beginner with a prefatory discussion of controverted questions ; and to the more advanced student, who may honour the book with a perusal, its general standpoint ought to be evident without preliminary explanations." The original object of the book has been always kept in view in the present edition. Numerous alterations have been suggested on revision ; but these, though adding on the whole a few pages to the volume, are not individually of such importance as to require specific mention. I may observe that, had I received Professor Ladd's Elements of Physiological Psychology in time, I should have referred to it at p. 12, as the best equivalent in English for the great German work of Wundt. J. CLARK MURRAY. Montreal, 16th April, 1888. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. Page § l. Definition of Psychology, • • • • I § 2. Method of Psychology, • • • • 4 BOOK I.— GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY. Part I. — Elements of Mind, - - • 17 Chapter I. — General Nature of Sensation, • 18 § I. The Sensible Organism, - - • 18 § 2. Agencies which Excite Sensibility, • • 21 § 3. Classification of Sensations, - • • 29 Chapter II. — The Special Senses, • • • 33 § 1. Taste, ...... 33 § 2. Smell, - - - - • -37 § 3. Touch, - • • • • *4i § 4. Hearing, • • • • 48 § 5- Sight, 56 Chapter III.— The General Senses, • .62 § 1. General Sensations connected with a Single Organ, 64 $ 2. General Sensations not limited to particular organs, - • • - -70 Vlll. Contents. Part II. — The Mental I roc esses, Chapter I.— Association, § I. Primary Lawi of Suggestion, § 2. Secondary Lows of Suggestion Chapter II.— Comparison, . BOOK II.-S1ECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. Introduction, Part L— Cognitions, Chapter I.— Perception, § I. Perceptions of Taste, § 2. Perceptions of' Smell, § 3. Perceptions of Touch, § 4. Perceptions of Hearing, § 5. Perceptions of Sight, § 6. Muscular Perceptions, Chapter II.— Generalisation § 1. Abstraction, § 2. Generalisation Proper, § 3. Denomination, - Chapter III.— Reasoning, § 1. Conception, § 2. Judgment, § 3. Reasoning Proper, Contents. ix. Chapter IV. —Idealisation, § I. The Speculative Ideal; § 2. The ^Esthetic Ideal, § 3. The Ethical Ideal, § 4. The Religious Ideal, Chapter V. — Illusory Cognitions, § 1, Illusions in General, • § 2. Dreaming, § 3. Hypnotic States, Chapter VI.— General Nature of Knowledge, § 1. Self -consciousness, § 2. Time, .... § 3. Space, - § 4. Substance, - § 5. Cause, - Part II.— Feelings, • Introduction, - § I. The nature of pleasure and pain, § 2. The expression of the feelings, § 3. Classification of the feelings, - Chapter I. — Feelings of Sense, Chapter II. — Feelings originating in Association % 1. Feelings for external nature, - 226 228 229 241 244 247 247 256 266 282 287 295 299 304 309 312 312 313 333 337 339 359 361 x. Contents. f 2. Feelings for self, • • 3^6 § 3. Feelings for others, • • • "37° Chapter III.— Feelings originating in Compari- son, .--••- 3^9 Chapter IV.— Intellectual Feelings, - - 397 Chapter V.— Feelings of Action, • - • 402 Tart III.— Volitions, - • • • - ¥>S Chapter I.— The General Nature of Volition, • 406 Chapter II.— The Motive Tower of the Fkelings, 410 Chapter III.— Extension of Voluntary Control over Muscles, Feelings, and Thoughts, 419 Chapter IV.— Fkhedom of Volition, • • 4^ Chapter V. — Conclusion' . . - 43 1 PSYCHOLOGY. INTRODUCTION. § I. — Definition of Psychology, PSYCHOLOGY* is the name now generally applied to the science which investigates the phenomena of the mind. Mind f is also denoted by the words soul and spirit^ while in mouein limes it has become common to use, as equivalent to these, certain expressions con- nected with the first personal pronoun, thrown into the form of substantives — the I, the me, the ego, the self. Another modern fashion in psychological language is to describe the mind by the term subject. The external world, when contrasted with mind or soul or spirit, is spoken of as matter or body ; it is opposed to the terms * This name, though derived from ancient Greek, is of compara- tively modern origin. It was used for the first time apparently during the sixteenth century, perhaps among the Ramists ; at least, Freigius is the earliest author, in whose writings it has been discovered. See Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics, Vol. i., pp. 135-6. r On the history of the word mind a learned philological article by Mr. Earle will be found in Mind for July, 1881. A 2 Psychology. expressive of the first person as the ncnego or notself % while the counterpart of subject is object In recent times mental phenomena are frequently distinguished from physical by the term psychical, — a term of some advantage from its being cognate with the name of the science. The phenomena of the self or mind are distinguished from those of matter by a very marked characteristic. Any material thing whether organic or inorganic, whether at rest or in motion or undergoing any internal change, is wholly unaware of its own condition. It is not so with me. 1 may be ignorant oi innumerable actions and processes going on in my own body and in other bodies; but of what I myself do or suffer I must be cognisant, else it could not be said to be done or suffered by me. If I feel a pleasure or a pain, I must know that I feel it; and to deny my knowledge of the feeling would be to deny its existence. In like manner, when I see or hear, remember or imagine, believe or disbelieve, love or hate, I must know that I do so. Now, this knowledge of what is passing within me is called consciousness ; and it forms the distinctive attribute of the mind or self. To avoid misapprehensions, it may be observed that we often speak of doing an action unconsciously. This seems to contradict the assertion that consciousness characterises all the actions we perform. But the truth is, that, when we use this expression, we mean that such an action is in reality done, not by oiirselves, but by those notselves, — those material things which we call our muscles, nerves, and brains. When a muscle twitches, or a nerve or brain-fibre thrills, without the movement being willed or intended by me, it is not I that produce the movement. It will be shown, in fact, that nervous and muscular actions often simulate strikingly the Introduction. 3 appearance of being originated and controlled intelligently by me, when, in reality, they are immediately due to habits of body formed long before by myself, or perhaps by my ancestors, or by the general constitution of nature. But an action, of which we are wholly unconscious, is one with which we have truly nothing to do, and that is the reason why we often exculpate ourselves by pleading that we acted unconsciously, inasmuch as the action could not then really have proceeded from us. It follows from this, that, in speaking of the mind, we must avoid supposing it to be the brain or the heart or any other portion of the material thing we call our body. We sometimes, indeed, by a figure of speech, use brain and heart to mean mind or soul ; and the figure is allowable, so far as the inexact requirements of ordinary language are concerned. But, in scientific accuracy, " I " am not a brain, or heart, or system of nerves, or any part or the whole of a body. It appears, then, that the distinctive characteristic 'of mind is, to be conscious of its phenomena ; and, consequently, these phenomena are often described as phenomena of consciousness. Like the phenomena of external nature, those of our internal consciousness will commonly be found to be composite, and therefore to require analysis. In order to such an analysis, it is necessary to know the elementary materials which enter into the composition of the phenomena analysed ; and accordingly the description of these materials will form the subject of the First Book of this work, which, as applying to all the phenomena of mind in general, may be appropriately styled General Psychology. The Second Book, to be distinguished as Special Psychology, will investigate the various combinations which form the special phases of our mental life. 4 Psychology. Before proceeding to these subjects, some further introductory remarks may be found of service in reference to the method which should be adopted in the study of our science. § a. — Method of Psychology. The method of Psychology is determined by the nature of the phenomena which it investigates. The nature of these phenomena, as we have seen, is that they are always accompanied by consciousness on the part of their subject. It is consequently by means of this accompanying consciousness, directed by proper precautions, that we must investigate the mind. The proper precautions, indeed, must not be neglected in Studying the phenomena of mind any more than in observing the phenomena of the material world ; for it cannot be su pposed that the ordinary consciousness of men will give them a scientific knowledge of what is pas- sing in their minds more readily than their ordinary perceptions reveal the physical facts disclosed to the scientific observer. The precautions which the psycho- logist must adopt in order to direct and correct his observations, are not essentially different from those which must be taken by other scientific observers; they are rendered only more necessary inasmuch as nearly all the difficulties in the way of accurate observation are greatly enhanced by the peculiar character, especially by the extreme evanescence and complexity, of mental phenomena. One of the most valuable safeguards against mistakes in observation is found by varying the circumstances in which phenomena are observed. Now this safeguard is Introduction. 5 readily supplied to the psychological observer by refusing to satisfy himself with the mere introspection of his indi- vidual mind, and endeavouring to watch the mental operations of others, as far as these are expressed in their language and external conduct. The study of psycho- logy, by reflection on one's own conscious life, is some- times spoken of as the Introspective or Subjective Method, by observations on the minds of others, as the Objective Method. Though some schools reject or un- duly depreciate the former, it is evident that both methods must be combined ; for objective observations can be in- terpreted only by reference to the facts of our own consciousness.* In such observations it is important to seek the assistance of those studies which have for their object to inquire into the phenomena of human life that reflect the mental condition of men under every variety of external circumstances. The facts which reflect the mental life of man may do so either as being its product, or in so far as it is theirs. These it may be convenient to consider apart. I. Of the phenomena which result from the action of the human mind, most have been already reduced to orderly study in separate sciences. 1. The main instrument which man employs for the expression of his conscious states is language, and there- * Objective observations may sometimes usefully be extended to the mental life of the lower animals, which may occasionally throw light on the lower activities, at least, of the human mind ; but the interpretation of the actions of animals, as implying facts similar to those of our consciousness, cannot be accompanied with too great caution. For the student who wishes to follow out this line of in- quiry, probably the most serviceable aids are the two works by Dr. G. J. Romanes on Animal Intelligenct and Mental Evolution i Animal*. 6 Psychology. fore the Science of Language will be found of continual service to the psychologist ; for whether in the wide re- searches of comparative philology, or in the etymology of isolated words, the speech of men often reveals the history of ideas and feelings and mental habitudes, which could not otherwise be traced with so sure a step. 2. The origin of language is hidden in the trackless distance of a prehistoric past ; so also is the origin of society and of the system of life which society entails. But the actual condition of society, both in our own day and throughout historical periods, is within our reach ; and there are few more fascinating branches of study than that which investigates the picturesque varieties of moral standard, of social custom, of political institutions, by which human life is diversified under different climates and at different stages of civilisation. The accumulation of evidence on these subjects, especially in recent times, throws occasionally a welcome light, if not on the origin, at least on the development of many feelings and ideas and convictions, which play an important part in the human consciousness. The collection and preservation of accurate statistics with regard to the existing pheno- mena and the current changes of society, are becoming a serious work among all civilized nations ; and the facts thus obtained may often be consulted for evidence of the operation of great mental laws. 3. The studies, which have just been indicated, belong to what older writers, with some propriety, were wont to describe as the Natural History of Man. But the civil or political history of man, — what we understand by history simply, including, of course, biography, which is but the history of individuals — is not without its value to the psychologist, as revealing the mental influences by which human life receives its determinate character in any Introduction. 7 particular country at any particular time, as well as its development from age to age. In fact, the Philosophy of History must seek to bring the periods in the evolution of a nation, or in the vaster evolution of the human race, into harmony with the universal laws of the human mind. 4. But the phenomena, which most directly reflect the mental life of man, are the product of his mind in science and art. Science is evidently the systematic effort of human intelligence to unfold the intelligible order that exists throughout every realm of the universe ; and the evolution of scientific ideas must be an exponent of the laws which govern the evolution of man's general intelli- gence. In science the cool intellect alone is called into play ; in art the intellectual life is warmed with feeling. The fine arts, therefore, represent a double aspect of man's mental nature, — his power of knowing and his power of feeling. Accordingly the critical study of the fine arts, — of sculpture and painting, of music and litera- ture, — will be found extremely serviceable in assisting to unravel some of the most complicated operations of the mind. II. But the mind is not only a producer, it is also a product. It is true that the function of the mind is, by becoming conscious of the forces of nature, to free man from subjection to their unqualified sway. Still whatever freedom from the mere force of nature the mind may reach, there is another aspect in which it remains a natural product ; and in this aspect it receives an explanation in the agency of those natural forces by which it is modified. 1. Here the vast cosmic forces of the solar system may be practically left out of account, as their influence on the human mind is of an extremely remote and indirect character. The changes of summer and winter, of day and night, of morning and evening, as well as the 8 Psychology. varying phases of the moon, do exercise an appreciable influence over the thoughts and feelings of men. But the influence of these agencies in human life is not the irresistible domination of a natural force, such as they exert over vegetation, or over the life of migratory or hibernating animals; it is an influence which, in normal health, is completely under the control of intelligent volition, and grows tyrannical only when by disease life becomes helplessly subject to external nature.* It is true that the grandeur and mystery of the great cosmic move- ments have, in earlier times, exercised such a fascination over the human mind as to gain the credit of a direct influence on human life, the systematic interpretation of which formed the exploded science of astrology. But the general advance of human thought to the modern scientific point of view, is strikingly indicated when we contrast an antique astrological calculation on the effect of a man's "star" with the causal connection which recent observations have endeavoured to establish between the sun's spots and the social disasters which follow a famine. 2. Only less remote than the influences just described are those which have their origin in terrestrial nature, — the influences of a geographical, climatic, and meteoro- logical character. Climate and geographical features have an undoubted power to mould the thoughts and feelings of men; but their effects in the history of the human mind have often been exaggerated by forgetting ar underestimating the energy of intelligence in asserting • The belief at least in the tyranny of the moon over the diseased mind is preserved in the Latin lunaticus, the Greek ) The vowels — literae vocales — are independent sounds, formed by the current of breath being modified by the configuration of the mouth. A change in the configuration of the mouth forms it into a practically new instrument by giving it a different resonance ; that is to say, the mouth becomes thus tuned to a different key, and adapted to resound tones that are in harmony with it. The result is that with each new configuration of the mouth different overtones are brought into prominence ; and consequently the vowels are distinguished from one another by the quality of their tone. It is not necessary here to enter into details on this subject ; these will be found in Helmholtz's great work, which has been already mentioned.* Of course it must be borne in mind that the sounds of the voice are merely the raw formless materials of * Lehre von den Tonempfindiuigen % pp. 163-180. Perception, 1 57 speech. That there is a strong animal instinct to use vocal sounds for the expression of mind is evinced in the inarticulate cries of beasts and the musical notes of birds. A very striking manifestation of this instinct is the fact that Laura Bridgman, who was blind and deaf almost from her birth, produces vocal sounds which she can feel merely as muscular sensations in the larynx, and that she associates these with different objects, animate and inanimate, in the same way as we associate words with such objects as their names or signs.* The raw materials — the mere sounds — of articulate speech can be reproduced even by many of the lower animals, like the parrot, which have a powerful instinct of mimicry in this direction. But the essential form of language — the syntax or intelligent arrangement of articulate sounds — is never acquired by any of the lower animals. Syntax implies the connection of different thoughts as factors of a larger thought — the connection of different parts of speech as forming by their relation one organic whole. It is simply, therefore, a modification of that general action of intelligence which consists in association and comparison ; but as quite distinct from any perception of hearing, it does not require further consideration here. The perception of articulate sounds, though a more humble, is still an essential part of the faculty of speech; and, humble though it be in comparison with the other, it involves a somewhat elaborate intellectual effort. The labour, accumulated in the effort, is disguised by the easy rapidity with which it is performed after long practice; but it is partially revealed to any one who sets about educating his ear to follow a foreign speech. The * Mrs. Lamson's Life and Education of Laura Bridgman, pp. xvi.-xvii., 61-2, 84. 158 Psychology. first impression of a foreign tongue is an unintelligible jabber ; and it is a significant philological fact, that in many languages the words used commonly to denote a foreigner, like the Greek barbaros and the Teutonic welsch, seem to have expressed originally the idea of babbling or talking inarticulately.* In fact, not a few phenomena in language are to be explained by the difficulty of catching distinctly the sound of unfamiliar words. Occasionally, for example, when two words are commonly used together, the final consonant of the one coalesces with the beginning of the other, or the initial consonant of the latter is attracted to the termination of the preceding. Of the former phenomenon vv? have examples in a newt for an eft, a nickname for an ekename ; of the other, examples occur in an adder for a nadder, un orange for un narange (Spanish naranja from the Arabic naranj). Old manu- scripts, at a time when spelling was less an object of care, and printing had not made orthography familiar, show numerous examples of such confusion. Another common confusion occurs when a word imported from a foreign language resembles the sound of a word in the language into which it is introduced. The familiar word is then made to do duty for the unfamiliar, even though the two may have no connection in etymology or meaning. Of this there is a well known example in the vulgar corrup- tion of asparagus into sparruwgrass ; and numerous additional illustrations may be found in works on the science of language. II. The fine art of music is of course built up on the musical sensibility of the ear. It implies a power of See Renan, De torigine du langage, pp. 177-181. Perception. 159 perceiving both of the musical properties of tone, — their pitch and their quality. 1. The perception of quality forms a considerable element of musical gratification; and this property, as we have seen, depends on the overtones by which a tone is accompanied. Simple tones, like those of a tuning-fork, which are nearly or altogether unmodified by overtones, being deficient in any pronounced quality, are felt to be weak, though agreeably soft. Those tones, again, in which the lower overtones, up to about the sixth, are most prominent, such as the tones of a piano or the open pipes of an organ, produce a richer, grander clang; while those, in which the higher overtones prevail, such as the tones of most reed-instruments, are harsh in quality, though valuable for some musical effects. The reason of this difference is, that the higher overtones form discords, the lower form concords, with the funda- mental tone. It appears, therefore, that the appreciation of quality is akin to the appreciation of harmony ; and this is a subject which will be immediately discussed. 2. The perception of relative pitch may apply either to consecutive or to simultaneous tones. (a) In the case of consecutive tones the succeeding tone must be such as to follow without violent shock upon the preceding. This agreeable relation of successive tones is melody. To understand the nature of this relation, it must be borne in mind that, in a succession of tones, each preceding tone is apt to linger, if not in sense, certainly in memory, after the succeeding has been struck ; and therefore a marked discord between the two tones would be disagreeable. This would be the case at least with the emphatic notes of a melody; and it seems that, in those airs which have been the delight of a people for generations, the emphatic notes are related by simple 160 Psychology. and familiar concords. The nature, therefore, of a melodious succession of tones, like that of the quality of single tones, seems to point to the same source of auditory gratification, from which harmony derives its power. (b) We are thus brought to the consideration of harmony, that is, the musical or agreeable relation of simultaneous tones. The complete explanation of harmony involves three problems, only one of which is strictly psychological. («) From physics harmony demands an account of its physical cause. This cause must be some peculiarity in the combination of the atmospheric vibrations pro- ducing the various tones that form a harmony. It is evident that different sound-waves, having a certain ratio, will coincide at regular intervals, while other combinations admit of no such coincidence. It is also evident that coincidences of this kind can be represented by the ratio between the numbers of the vibrations that produce the several tones of a harmony. A few of the more simple ratios are very obvious, and have long been familiar in music. Thus, when the vibrations of two tones stand in the ratio of 1:2, that is, when two tones at an interval of an octave are combined, each beat of the air producing the lower tone will coincide with every second beat producing the higher. A similar coincidence will also obviously result from such simple ratios as 1 : 3, 2 : 3, 1 : 4, etc. But it is unnecessary here to go into details, which belong to acoustics and the theory of music. (,3) To physiology also a problem is offered by harmony, — the problem of explaining the peculiar organic action that is set up during an harmonious conbination of tones. Here we enter on a more obscure region, and must grope our way mainly by deduction from our general knowledge of the nature of nervous Perception. 161 action. It is commonly held that the effect of coincident atmospheric vibrations upon the auditory nerve is to pro- duce a continuous nerve-current, while a discordant combination excites a confused set of intermittent shocks. The pleasantness of the one effect, and the unpleasantness of the other, will be considered in the next Part of this Book, when we come to discuss the nature of pleasure and pain. (7) But the physical and physiological aspects of harmony are noticed here mainly to avoid confounding them with its psychological aspect. To the psychologist harmony is a phenomenon in consciousness. The consciousness here is very largely emotional, but it contains a cognitional factor as well. This factor appears, of course, most distinctly where it is most fully developed, — in the mind of a cultivated musician. To such the consciousness of harmony is a perception of some sort of coalescence between the combining tones, while in discord there is a consciousness that the tones will not coalesce. In its intellectual aspect discord may therefore be compared with the consciousness arising from the presentation or representation of objects, so numerous and so dissimilar, that the intellect is baffled in the effort to comprehend them in one cognitive act ; and in its emotional aspect, as may appear more clearly in the sequel, discord may be classed with the more general feelings of distraction or confusion. To prevent misunderstanding, it may be observed in passing, that of course there are other factors in music besides the perception of tone. There is, for example, the cognition of time, of which it need only be said here that the sense of hearing is a pretty fair measurer.* * Time in music is essentially connected with metre and rhythn L 1 62 Psychology. There is also the aesthetic consciousness, which is com- mon to music with the other fine arts. But the con- sciousness of time and of beauty opens up questions which can be discussed only at a later stage. It is scarcely necessary to insist on the intellectual rank of this sense, as it is obvious that sounds are among the most readily associated and the most distinctly compared of all sensations, (i.) Their associability, that is, their suggestiveness and suggestibility are strikingly illustrated in the familiar use of speech; for the under- standing of language implies that sounds have the power of instantaneously suggesting thoughts, as speaking im- plies that thoughts have the power of instantaneously suggesting sounds, as well as the muscular adjustments requisite for producing them. (2.) The comparability of sounds is also remarkable. We have already seen that, in succession, they must reach the number of about forty in a second before they become fused into one tone ; and the power of a cultivated ear to discriminate minute differences of pitch or quality is often marvellous. The leader of a large orchestra can at once detect a false note, and turn to the offending instrument, while a tuner must recognise any variation, even to a small fraction of a tone, from the pitch which he is seeking to restore.* With this high intellectual quality sounds have natur- in versification, and the dependence of these on hearing is evinced by the fact that, while blind men have produced the most delicate charms of poetical structure, the annals of the deaf contain no great poets. See Kitto's The Lost Senses, pp. 140 4, where the author gives an interesting account of his own experience of deafness. * Observations seem to show that a practised ear can detect a difference of pitch, when it depends merely on a fraction of a vibration. Wundt's Physiologisehe Psychologie, vol. i., p. 396 ^second ed.). Perception. 163 ally entered very extensively into the materials of poetic art. Their artistic value, however, is most prominently exhibited in music ; but as the effect of music is chiefly, if not exclusively, emotional, this subject must be re- served for the next Part. § 5. — Perceptions of Sight. It is by the agency of light, as we have seen, that the sense of sight receives its impressions ; and, conse- quently, by itself it can give us no information beyond what is involved in the sensations of light, — of pure light or of colour. But in mature life sight is the sense to which we commonly resort for most of our information regarding the external world, especially for such informa- tion as involves ideas of space, — the magnitude, figure, distance, and direction of bodies. There is, therefore, a more uniform association of these ideas with visual, sen- sations than with the sensations of any other sense. The association will be shown to be, in some instances, practically invariable, and therefore irresistibly and in- stantaneously suggestive. On this account, while it was comparatively easy to dissociate ideas of space from other sensations, it has been found more difficult to do so in the case of sight. Even in recent times attempts have been made to show that the unaided sight is capable of perceiving space, if not in all dimensions, at least in length and breadth. It is, therefore, advisable to adduce the evidence, on which it is now generally admitted that the eye, of itself, has no such perception. (A) We shall take first the case of plane extension. This perception need not detain us long. It may be a question whether an indefinite consciousness of extension 164 Psychology. is not involved in the consciousness of light and colour : that is a problem which depends on the ultimate analysis of the idea of space. But whatever may be the solution of this problem, it is certain that definite extension in length and breadth can never be actually perceived by sight alone. Take, for illustration, one form of plane extension, the magnitude of a body, that is, the extent which it covers on the field of vision. It is a fact familiar even to the child, that to sight a body appears smaller or larger in proportion to its distance, and that therefore the illusions of visible magnitude have to be corrected by reference to other standards of measure- ment. Consequently, the experience of persons born blind, and afterwards restored to sight, — an experience of which a more explicit account will presently be given, — tends to show that at first they could form no definite notion regarding the magnitude of bodies from their visible appearance. Thus the patient of Dr. Franz could not understand the significance of perspective ; it seemed to him unnatural that the figure of a man in the fore- ground of a picture should be larger than that of a house or a mountain in the background. It is a singular circumstance, which it is difficult to ex- plain, but which is conclusive on the point under consideration, that both Franz's and Cheselden's patients, after the restoration of sight, saw for a time objects magnified, especially when in motion.* * This fact recalls a well-known trait ot the narrative in Mark's Gospel, viii., 24. The case of Cheselclen's patient was compli- cated by the curious fact, that one eye was cured before the other, and gave rise to this illusion. When the second eye was cured, objects appeared to it larger than to the first cured eye, though not so large as they had appeared to this eye immediately after its cure. I have discussed the problem of this magnification in a short Perception. 165 From the same cause the variations in the apparent size of a body which form such a familiar fact to those endowed with sight, are unimaginable by the congtnitally blind; and thus Cheselden's patient could not under- stand how his mother could have a portrait of his father in her watch-case, which seemed to him as impossible as putting a bushel into a pint-measure. A similar inability is experienced in regard to the perception of figure, which is merely the outline of the extent covered by a body on the field of vision. Except in the case of a few objects with very simple outline, such as a sphere, the visible figure of a body varies with the point of view from which it is seen. Consequently, persons born blind, after being restored to sight, are unable for some time to distinguish by their visible appearance, even objects that are very different in form, and are obliged to have recourse to the familiar sensa- tions of touch and muscular sensibility. Thus Chesel,den tells of his patient, that " he knew not the shape of any- thing, nor any one thing from another, however different in shape or magnitude ; but upon being told what things were, whose form he before knew from feeling, he would carefully observe that he might know them again ; but having too many objects to learn at once, he forgot many of them ; and (as he said) at first learned to know, and again forgot a thousand things in a day. One particular only (though it may appear trifling) I will relate : Having often forgot which was the cat, and which the dog, he was ashamed to ask ; catching the cat (which he knew by feeling), he was observed to look at her stedfastly, and then setting her monograph in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada for 1883. 1 66 Psychology. down, said, 'So, puss ! I shall know you another time.'" It may be added that Dr. Franz's patient was at first perplexed over the visible appearance of even simple geo- metrical figures, though he had made some progress in the study of geometry before his recovery of sight. These facts make it evident that the visual perception of any definite plane extension is not an immediate and original intuition of the mind through the sense of sight, but must be explained as the result of a mental process. (B) The same conclusion, however, is still more evident in the case of solid extension, which implies the third dimension of space, — depth, or distance from the eye. 1. The impossibility of seeing this dimension may, in fact, be said to be indicated by the very nature of vision. i. To use a phrase of Berkeley's, distance is a line turned endwise to the eye. It is, therefore, only its end, not its length, that we see. Our condition may be illustrated by reference to a similar condition in the sense of touch. Were the end of a wire brought into contact with the hand of a person blind or blindfold, could he tell its length? It might be but a short knitting-needle ; it might be an Atlantic cable : the touch of the end would indicate no difference of length. So a ray of light may come from a neighbouring gas-lamp or from a star count- less millions of miles away ; it is merely the termination of the ray that strikes the eye. 2. All parts of a scene, however near some, however remote others may be, are presented on the retina at the same elevation, precisely as they would be represented on canvas by a painter. There is, therefore, nothing in the structure or action of the eyes to indicate various distances. II. But it may be urged that such a priori arguments Perception. \6j are unsatisfactory, unless they are confirmed by facts. Indeed, however extraordinary it may appear in the face of these arguments, it will be shown in the sequel that, as far as can be judged from careful experiments on new- born animals of some species, these form accurate visual perceptions of distance and direction without requiring to go through any process of learning. But whatever explanation may be given of these observations on other animals, the experience of human life does not allow us to endow man with any such instinctive cognition. To prove this the most conclusive evidence is that of infants, though it cannot be obtained by direct testimony, but must be gathered from their actions. It has long been familiar to mothers and nurses that children require some weeks' experience before they learn to notice things. The meaningless gaze of an infant, even when striking objects, like a lamp, are passed before his eyes, has long been regarded as showing that he is incompe- tent at first to interpret his visual sensations. But for- tunately we are not left to the vague impressions of un- methodical observers ; for within the last few years the mental development of infancy has been made the sub- ject of numerous observations, conducted with the minute accuracy and precaution characteristic of modern science. From a large number of observations, directed specially to the development of visual perception, it appears that the child requires some weeks, or even months, to master the adjustments of the ocular muscles necessary to form a distinct retinal image, and that it is long after this power has been acquired before he can perceive by sight an inequality in the distance of objects. * * Die Seele des Kindes, by Dr. Preyer (Leipzig, 18S2), pp. 35-41. See especially the summary on p. 39. This work may be recom 1 68 Psychology. This result of the observations made on infant life is happily confirmed in the most unequivocal manner by the experience of persons in maturer years who have been born blind, but afterwards restored to sight. A number of such cases have been recorded ; but probably the most important, certainly the most accessible to an English reader, are those of which the reports are pre- served in the PJiilosophical Transactions. * A selection of one or two passages from the first and the last of these reports will sufficiently indicate the conclusion to which they point. i. The earliest case, and the one most frequently cited, is that of a lad born with a cataract of an unusually opaque quality. He was about fourteen years of age when the cataract was removed by Cheselden. The re- port of this case has been already cited in connection mended as the latest, and probably the most complete, treatise on the infant-mind. Earlier works are mentioned by Wundt, Grund- ziige der Physiologischen Psychologic, Vol. ii., p. 218, note I, (2nd ed). The work of M. Perez on The First Three Years of Child- hood^ though earlier than that of Dr. Preyer, has recently (1885) appeared in an English translation. * The cases are these :— (1) Cheselden's, 1728 ; (2) Ware's, 1801, where there is reference to another (p. 389) ; (3) and (4) Home's two cases, which are of minor psychological interest, 1807 ; (5) Wardrope's, 1826; (6) Franz's, 1841. Another case is described in Nunneley's Organs of Visions (1838). p. 31. Additional cases are referred to by Helmholtz, Physiologische Optik, Vol. ii., p. 178 (2nd ed.) ; by Preyer, Die Scele des Kindes, p. 404. In making psycho- logical inferences from the data of these cases, it should never be forgotten that the patients were but imperfectly blind, all being able to perceive the difference of light and shade, and therefore the presence of objects before the eyes, while some could even vaguely distinguish colours. It should also be borne in mind, that the patients had all reached a somewhat mature notion of space by the use of the other senses, if not also by their imperfect vision. Perception. 169 with the perception of plane extension. The following statements may now be adduced to show that the percep- tion of the third dimension of space through the newly recovered sense had to be gradually acquired : — " When he first* saw, he was so far from making any judgment about distances, that he thought all objects whatever touched his eyes (as he expressed it), as what he felt did his skin. . . . We thought he soon knew what pictures represented which were showed to him, but we found afterwards we were mistaken ; for about two months after he was couched, he discovered at once that they represented solid bodies, when, to that time, he con- sidered them only as parti-coloured plains, or surfaces diversified with variety of paints ; but even then he was no less surprised, expecting the pictures would feel like the things they represented, and was amazed when he found those parts, which by their light and shadow ap- peared now round and uneven, felt only flat like the, rest; and asked which was the lying sense, feeling or seeing." 2. The other case to be cited is one in which superior accuracy seems to have been observed in making and reporting experiments. The patient was a young man, practically blind from birth, of good intelligence, well educated, and acquainted especially with geometrical figures. He was about eighteen years of age at the time of his cure. The report of the case was in after-life declared by the patient himself to be substantially correct.* After relating a number of interesting experi- ments, the report goes on : — " When the patient first acquired the faculty of sight, all objects appeared to him so near, that he was sometimes afraid of coming in con- * See a letter of Mr. Mahaffy's in the Athencznm for January 22nd, 1881, where there is an interesting notice of the patient* lyo Psychology. tact with them, though they were in reality at a great distance from him. . . . If he wished to form an estimate of the distance of objects from his own person, or of two objects from each other, without moving from his place, he examined the objects from different points of view by turning his head to the right and to the left. Of perspective in pictures he had of course no idea ; he could distinguish the individual objects in a painting, but could not understand the meaning of the whole picture. . . . All objects appeared to him perfectly flat ; thus, although he very well knew by his touch that the nose was prominent, and the eyes sunk deeper in the head, he saw the human face only as a plane. . . . Even though he could see both near and remote objects very well, he would nevertheless continually have recourse to the use of the sense of touch."* It thus appears that the visual perception both of solid and of plane extension is gradually acquired ; and there- fore it is a problem for the psychologist to explain the process of acquisition. It will be convenient in this ex- planation to separate the two modes of extension. i. Extension in Depth. Here there are two conditions of perception so different that it is necessary to consider them apart. The one in- volves the use of both eyes ; the other does not. (A) Binocular vision affects the perception of depth only when objects are at no great distance ; for then the eyes must be turned in to see an object, and turned in the more, the nearer the object is. This will be evident * Phil, Trans, for 1 841, p. 66, Perception. Ijl from the accompanying diagram, in which E E represent the eyes, and Oi an object near, O2 an object more remote. Technically this fact is expressed by saying that the angle formed by the optic axes varies inversely as the distance. Consequently, since that angle dimin- ishes with increasing distance, it is obvious that, when an object is very remote, the optic axes must be nearly parallel. This produces two effects on our sensibility, which are of great significance in the perception of depth in space — one a muscular sensation arising from the ad- justment of the optic axes, the other a visual sensation determined by the different points of view from which the two eyes look at a near object. I. It has been already mentioned that the eyes are supplied with an elaborate muscular apparatus, enabling them to move in every direction. The muscular sensi- bility is of course excited in the movement of the eyes, as they are turned inwards or outwards to see objects near or more remote ; and the muscular sensations, thus invariably produced in adjusting the eyes to different distances, become uniformly associated with the different distances for which they are required. The result is that the distance associated with any particular adjust- ment of the eyes, is suggested irresistibly and instan- taneously, appearing in consciousness as if it were im- mediately perceived. This is no mere hypothetical explanation of the per- 172 Psychology. ception of distance. It can be verified by the most satisfactory evidence. It is possible to alter the adjust- ment of the optic axes at pleasure without altering the real position of objects within the range of vision. We can thus observe the effect of this muscular adjustment without reference to any effect that might be produced by an alteration of the distance of objects. If there is an object before the eyes, and they are directed to a point in front of it or behind it, in the former case it ap- pears to approach, in the latter to recede; and the suggestion of the appropriate distance is so irresistible, that one yields to it, even when it is known to be an illusion II. The other guide to the perception of relative dis- tances is a fact of visual sensation — the dissimilarity of the retinal images of an object. It must be evident, from the foregoing diagram, that this dissimilarity, like the angle formed by the optic axes, varies inversely as the distance of the object seen ; in other words, the difference between the pictures formed on the two retinae increases as the object approaches the eyes. Another invariable association is thus formed, resulting in an irre- sistible and instantaneous suggestion. Here, again, the process, by which the perception is formed, admits of complete verification both by positive and by negative evidence. i. The appearance of depth in space — of solidity — may be artificially produced by imitating this natural sign. The stereoscopist takes two pictures of an object from the two different points of view from which it would naturally be seen by the eyes ; and when these are ad- justed so that each eye sees only the picture intended for it, the object stands out with all the appearance of solid extension which it possesses in reality. Perception. 173 3. But this explanation is more powerfully confirmed by the negative fact, that the appearance of solid exten- sion is not produced when a near object is seen with both eyes, if the images on both are identical. Thus two solid bodies, placed near at hand in such a position as to produce the same picture on both retinae, appear plane. But a more familiar illustration is found in the fact, that no painting, however skilful its imitation of nature may be, ever produces the stereoscopic appear- ance, when seen near at hand with both eyes. The reason is, that, if the object or scene represented were really before us, it would produce a different image on each eye, whereas the picture produces two images that are identical.* An objection may perhaps, in some minds, be urged against this analysis on the ground that we do not see the two alleged pictures, but merely one object. In reply to this it is necessary only to point out, that we do see, and can at pleasure attend to the two retinal pictures. This may be made evident in various ways. We may, for example, by closing either eye, see the retinal pictures separately, when we shall find that the one eye sees more of the right, the other more of the left of an object. Or, again, we may direct the two eyes to different points of an object, and by this the spell of uniform association is broken. This may be done by holding an object before you, and directing your eyes to some point beyond it ; or * This was discovered, nearly four centuries ago, by the genius of Leonardo da Vinci. See his Treatise on Pai?iting (translated by Rigaud), p. 57. But the significance of the discovery remained unrecognised, till it was taken up and developed by Sir Charles Wheatstone in a celebrated paper on Binocular Vision, in the Philosophical Transactions for 1838, reprinted in his Scientific Papers (1879), p. 225. 1 74 Psychology. if you cannot readily control the movement of the eyes by voluntary effort, you may by the application of a finger, push one eyeball out of the direction, to which it would naturally adjust itself. In either case the two retinal pictures will be at once apparent.* But when the natural adjustment of the eyes is not interfered with, the presence of two dissimilar pictmes on the retinae is invariably associated with the idea of a single solid body at a certain distance. It is infinitely more important that the mind should dwell upon the fact associated with the two pictures than upon the pic- tures themselves; and there is, therefore, nothing to check the suggestion of that fact. The two pictures, accord- ingly, seem to coalesce. In strict language, of course, they do not coalesce at all ; they simply suggest irresistibly and instantaneously the presence of a single ob^'ec 4 -, and they are not themselves noticed in the in:ta;uaneousness of the suggestion. (B) The binocular vision of near objects, however, is itself materially assisted by various data, upon which the * This might be illustrated further by some curious facts con- nected with squinting ; but these are somewhat complicated, owing to the various causes to which this maladjustment of the eyes is du^, as well as the peculiar habits of different patients. The student is therefore referred for details to Helmholtz's Physiologische Optik, pp., 699-701. Reid's Inquiry (Chapter vi., § 16) is not un- worthy of reading still. The phenomenon of double vision may be compared with the double touch referred to above (p. 147) ; and a still closer analogue is found in the somewhat unfamiliar phenomenon of double hearing, which, I am led to believe, is due to one ear being less quick in its sensibility than the other. By the way, is it this cause of double vision that is noticed in A Mid- >ummer Nighfs Dream, Act iv., Scene i. ? •• Methinks I see these things with parted eye, When everything seems double." Perception. i?$ mind is obliged to depend entirely when no advantage can be derived from the use of two eyes. In looking at remote objects the axes of the eyes are virtually parallel, and the images on the retinae virtually identical ; so that, in perceiving distance, we are limited to signs which do not depend on the inclination of the optic axes, — signs which are indispensable also in monocular vision. I. Probably the most important of these signs is the visible or retinal magnitude; that is, the size of the retinal image. This, as even the child knows, varies inversely as the distance ; and an uniform association is thus formed, with the usual result upon suggestion. This result may be artificially produced by varying the retinal magnitude without really altering the distance of an object. Such, in fact, is the artifice adopted for bringing remote objects within the range of distinct vision. By applying the laws of optics an instrument, — the tele- scope, — is constructed, which magnifies the retinal image of remote objects, and reduces in proportion their apparent distance. Thus a telescope, magnifying ten times, gives you a retinal image of the same size as if the object were ten times nearer ; and the mind, instead of dwelling on the magnified image, rushes rather to the fact of increased nearness, which is commonly associated with such increase of visible magnitude. The visible magnitude by itself, however, cannot tell the distance of an object. It is true, if an object is varying in apparent size, it may be known to be ap- proaching or receding, as when a distant sail grows larger or smaller while we gaze on it. But to know the specific distance of a body from its visible size, we must have an idea of its size from some other source — from some other sense — besides sight. This requirement, however, is no serious inconvenience, as we have formed independent i j6 Psychology. ideas of size with regard to all the familiar objects of daily experience. II. Another help to the visual perception of depth in space is the distribution of light and shade. On a plane surface light falls equally ; it is interrupted and falls un- equally on a solid or a number of solids making up a scene. The unequal distribution of light and shade, therefore, becomes suggestive of the solid extension, to which it is due. The following facts may be noticed in illustration. i. A skilful picture, seen with one eye, especially if isolated by a tube, produces the stereoscopic appearance, because the conditions of natural vision are, in one way, thus fulfilled. 2. For binocular vision solidity is easily imitated, provided the imitation be kept at a sufficient distance from the eyes. On lofty cornices or ceilings the appear- ance of bas-relief may be produced, though it should never be attempted in the imitation of pillars, which descend to the floor, and can therefore be approached by spectators. On this principle, also, are founded the popular exhibitions known as dioramas, in which pictures of life-size are exhibited on a stage at a sufficient distance from the spectators to fulfil the requirements of natural vision. It is said that in these exhibitions the illusion of reality is at times so irresistible as to have completely overcome some of the spectators. 3. An interesting experiment may be added. The visible difference between concavity and convexity con- sists in the fact, that in the former the shadow is on the side from which the light comes, in the latter on the opposite side. To determine, therefore, whether an object is concave or convex, we must know the side from which the light comes ; and if that be unknown, an Perception. 177 object may appear either concave or convex, sometimes at will. For this reason also a concavity, seen through an inverting telescope, appears convex; a convexity, concave. A curious illusion of this sort is mentioned by Sir David Brewster. One day, as he was walking with a lady on the sea-shore at St. Andrews, the footmarks and other indentations in the sand appeared to both to be raised. He explained this appearance by the fact, that, though the sunlight was on the right, yet on the left there was a bright fringe of white surf, which seems to have momentarily simulated the light that caused the shadows.* III. A third sign of distance in space is the comparative sharpness or vagueness of outline, and brilliance or dull- ness of colour, with which objects are seen. These features in the visible appearance of objects depend on the interference of the atmosphere with the rays of light ; and they vary, therefore, with the state of the atmosphere. The result is that, in an unusually clear atmosphere, bodies are apt to appear nearer, in a dull atmosphere farther off, than they really are. Accordingly, people accustomed to a humid climate find that, in a dry climate, they are often deceived by an illusory appear- ance of nearness. The same principle explains why it is that, in pictures, objects in the background must be sketched with less definite outline, and their colouring toned down, else they would simply appear to be small without being remote. IV. The number of intervening objects also assists in the perception of distance, these being usually more numerous in proportion to the remoteness of the body seen. This explains the difficulty, especially for a lands- * On the Stereoscope, Chap. 16. M 178 Psychology. man, of estimating distance at sea; and a similar difficulty is also experienced by an unpractised eye on the prairies of the West or the vast desert plains of the East. V. An additional assistance in this perception is derived from a somewhat obscure muscular sensation connected with the adjustment of the ocular focus. The distance of the focus behind a lens varies inversely as the distance of the object in front. In order to distinct vision it is necessary that the focus of the lens in the eye should fall exactly on the retina ; and consequently it must be variously adjusted in accordance with the varying dis- tances of objects. The process of adjustment long formed a subject of dispute among physiologists; but it is now generally ascribed to an increase in the convexity of the lens by the pressure of the ciliary muscle. This will explain why we feel a painful strain when an object is brought too close to the eye. VI. As a guide by which we are frequently, if not al- ways, directed in the perception of distance, may be mentioned the motion of objects across the field of vision. As the most of objects are stationary, their apparent motion is generally due to ourselves — to the movement of the whole body, or a turn of the head, or simply a sweep of the eye. In the apparent motion thus produced, the nearer objects are, the more rapidly do they flash across the field of vision, while they approach the appearance of being stationary in proportion to their remoteness. Such a very obtrusi\e phenomenon cannot be without its effect on our ordinary consciousness; and, especially in a complicated scene, like a forest, it will be found that the idea of relative distances, obtained from a fixed gaze, is extremely indefinite when compared with that which is acquired by a series of glances that sweep the scene. This is confirmed bv the experience of Dr. Perception. 179 Franz's patient. " If," it is said in a passage already cited, " he wished to form an estimate of the distance of objects from his person, or of two objects from each other, without moving from his place, he examined the objects from different points of view by turning his head to the right and to the left." An additional illustration will be found immediately below in an illusion produced by the rapid flash of objects across the field of vision in railway-travelling. ii. Plane Extension. The chief perceptions, involving merely plane exten- sion, are those of magnitude and situation. (A) The visual perception of the magnitude of a body is based on its retinal magnitude combined with any of the signs of distance. The retinal magnitude, as we have seen, varies with distance ; and cannot, therefore, by itself signify real magnitude. It is for this reason that, in the illustration of objects whose size is unknown, 'the artist adopts the expedient of placing alongside for com- parison some familiar object, such as a human figure. Consequently in order to judge of the real magnitude of an object by sight, its distance must be taken into con- sideration along with its visible magnitude. From this it follows that any cause, which affects our judgment of distance, will affect equally our judgment of size. If an object appears nearer than it really is, inasmuch as its real distance makes its retinal image comparatively small, it cannot but appear to be also^'of comparatively diminutive size; while, on the other hand, as a near object forms a comparatively large image on the retina, it must to appearance enlarge in its dimensions, if there is anything to make it seem farther off than it is in reality. 1 80 Psychology. Among the more familiar facts illustrative of this may be mentioned the well-known illusions of magnitude pro- duced by the comparative clearness or obscurity of the atmosphere. Objects seen through a fog, or even at night, whether by starlight or moonlight, always loom in vaster proportions, because, while they seem at an obscure distance, they yet produce a retinal image of undiminished magnitude. This phenomenon is so familiar that it is frequently alluded to in literature. Thus Tennyson speaks of 11 Towers, that, larger than themselves In their own darkness, thronged into the moon." But more beautifully Sir Bedivere is pictured in Morte d 1 Arthur: — " But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge, Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walked, Larger than human on the frozen hills." Again, the presence or absence of intervening objects, as it influences our perception of distance, modifies also our judgment of magnitude. Thus to a landsman's eye at sea distant bodies seem unusually small, because, owing to the absence of intervening objects, they seem nearer than they really are. Probably it is for this reason also that objects at the foot of a perpendicular height, when seen from the top, appear of diminished size.* On the other hand, it has long been observed that the moon on the horizon looks as if it were of larger diameter than when it has risen high into the heavens. The difference, indeed, seems to depend, in some measure, on the state * A fine illustration of this effect is the imaginary description of the view from the cliffs of Dover in King Lear, Act iv.. Scene 6. Perception. 1 8 1 of the atmosphere ; * but it disappears to a large extent, if the horizontal moon is viewed through a tube which cuts off intervening objects. Another illusion may be mentioned here, as experi- enced by some persons in railway travelling.! While a train is moving at the ordinary rate of railway speed, objects in the vicinity scud across the traveller's field of vision with a rapidity altogether unusual, and are apt on that account to appear nearer than they are in reality. But this produces necessarily also an apparent diminu- tion in size. To complete the explanation of the perception of magnitude, it ought to be added that, in the case of vaster objects, the perception is aided by the muscular sweep of the eyes or of the head, or even by pacing the ground. The latter alternative, however, introduces us to the artificial methods of measuring space, which are distinct from the estimates of natural vision. (B) In speaking of the relative situations of different objects on the field of vision, we implicitly include the relative situations of different parts of the same object ; and these relative situations constitute its visible figure. Situation, in this comprehensive sense, is perceived by data that are partly visual, and partly muscular. I. The primary datum is visual ; it is the fact that the portion of the retina affected by the light which a body radiates has an uniform correspondence with the position of the body in space. By invariable experience we learn that the position of a body is precisely opposite to the portion of the retina on which its light falls ; in other words, by its essential structure the eye forms an inverted * Helmholtz, Physiologische Oftik, pp. 630 — I, t Ibid., p. 635. 1 32 Psychology. image of every object, of the whole visible world. It seems to have been a puzzling problem to many minds, that, with an inverted image of objects on the retina, we should still see them erect. But the puzzle dissolves at cnce if we bear in mind that the retinal image is not perceived by us, but is merely a sign suggestive of certain spatial relations. The suggestion, however, is governed, as in all other cases, by the laws of association. Now, in every-day experience we associate an impression on the right side of the retina, not with an object to the right, but with an object to the left ; and a similar asso- ciation is formed in the case of all other positions. Consequently all the associations of ordinary life suggest positions for objects the very reverse of those parts of the retina, on which visual sensations are felt. Instead, therefore, of its being unintelligible that we should see objects erect by means of an inverted retinal image, it would be wholly unnatural, — it would imply a reversal of all the usual associations of life, — to see ob- jects in any other positions than those in which they appear. Occasionally, indeed, new associations are formed, and it is surprising how rapidly perception adapts itself to them. The microscopist soon learns to move his object " instinctively " in the right direction ; and in civilized life all persons acquire, at an early age, the faculty of dressing before a mirror, guided by an image in which right and left change their natural posi- tions. But that such dexterities are acquired by a more or less gradual process, may be perhaps rendered more evident to those who have forgotten the process of ac- quisition, by recalling the awkwardness of any unusual association, such as the first attempt to use a razor or a pair of scissors under the guidance of an image in a mirror Perception. 183 II. It has been already observed that the perception of distance is very materially assisted by the motion of the eyes. An equal value must be attached to their motion in the perception of situation. This can be tested in ordinary experience by comparing the vague result of a fixed gaze on a scene, where the relative positions of objects are not otherwise known, with the distinct idea obtained from a series of shifting glances. It thus appears that this perception is aided by the association established in daily experience between the external position of an object and the muscular feeling of ad- justing the eyes to look at it. This statement finds an interesting confirmation in the results that are sometimes observed to follow from paralysis of the ocular muscles. Cases are mentioned, in which the rectus externus, — the muscle that pulls the eye horizontally outwards, — has been paralysed by a sudden injury. The patient, how- ever, will continue making ineffectual efforts to move the eye in the direction in which it was wont to be drawn by the paralysed muscle. There is, therefore, excited in consciousness a feeling of effort, though it is followed by no overt movement ; that is to say, the patient feels as if he were looking in a different direction, while the scene represented on the retina remains unchanged. By an irresistible suggestion, therefore, the whole scene appears to shift in the direction which has been uniformly associated in his mind with the felt effort of adjusting the eye.* It remains to be added that the direction in which we are looking depends on the adjustment, not only of the eyes, but also of the head, and that therefore the mus- * Wundt, Grundzuge iLr Physiologischen Psychologies Vol. ii., p. 91 (2nd ed.) 1 84 Psychology. cular feeling connected with this adjustment forms a factor in the perception of situation. Concluding Observations. There are a few points connected with visual perception, which could not so conveniently be introduced into the above exposition, and may therefore be now noticed at the close. I. The perceptions, whose acquisition has just been explained, seem to be congenital in some of the lower animals ; and this fact has sometimes appeared to militate against the theory that they are not possessed at birth, but must be gradually formed, by man. Attempts have been made to question the correctness of the usual interpretation put upon the actions of those young animals that seem to direct their movements by sight almost from the very moment of birth. With regard to some of these animals, certainly, observations have yet to be made with sufficient care to show that their first movements might not be directed with equal accuracy by extraordinary acuteness of smell and muscular feeling. But the experiments of Mr. Douglas A. Spalding have apparently placed it beyond doubt, that the chick of the domestic hen, as well as the young of some other birds, are able to perceive by sight all dimensions of space as soon as they are fairly out of the shell.* The explanation of this congenital perception belongs to Animal Psycho- logy. It foims, in fact, a part of the general problem of instinct. But, even if the perception is admitted to be instinctive in some of the lower animals, the admission would simply accord with the obvious fact, that several powers, which are instincts in other animals, must be slowly acquired by man. ♦The^e experiments are related by Mr. Spalding with interesting detail in an article on Instinct in Macmillans Magazine foi February, 1873. Perception. 185 II. It is impossible to over-estimate the extent or the value of those ideas which we receive through the sense of sight, and difficult, therefore, to describe the mental condition of a man born blind. To interrogate such a person philosophically would throw light on many an obscure problem, and has therefore been justly described by Diderot, as " an occupation worthy of the united talents of Newton and Descartes, of Locke and Leibnitz."* The chief difficulty of such an investigation is the fact that the blind must use the language of other men. Now, as a very large proportion of our ideas are derived from the sense of sight, a very large proportion also of the words that we employ can find their full interpretation only in visual ideas. Accordingly we are apt to be misled by the blind man's employment of our language, and to take for granted that he attaches to that language the same meaning as ourselves. But notwith- standing this difficulty, the following facts are obvious. 1. The fundamental deficiency of the congenially blind consists, of course, in their inability to feel, and therefore to imagine, light or colour. At times, indeed, they hit upon happy expressions to describe differences of colour in certain aspects. Such is the well-known description of red as being " like the sound of a trumpet," ascribed to a blind man by Locke. So also the blind Dr. Moyes remarked that red gave him a disagreeable sensation like the touch of a saw, and that the other colours decreased in harshness towards green, which give him an idea like that of passing the hand over a polished surface.! It is obviously natural that the blind should *D. Stewart's IV01 ks, Vol. iv., p. 304, (Hamilton's ed.). t See above, pp. 15 1-2. An interesting analogue to these compari- sons is fouml in the experience of a deaf man, to whom the sound 1 86 Psychology. form their conception of colours, either from sounds of from touches or from both, as these are the most important sensations left to them. But all such com- parisons bring out, only the more clearly, the insuperable defect in the physical sensibility of the blind. They point to the analogy between colours and other sensations in certain general characteristics of all feeling ; they do not express the special characteristic of colour : they describe wherein the sensations of colour resemble, not wherein they differ from, other sensations. 2. As a result of this defective sensibility there is a corresponding defect in the power of perception. Body, as body, — as extended, — the blind perceive only through the tactile and muscular senses ; and though they can recognise the existence of objects at a distance from the organism by an instrument in the hand, by sound, or even by smell, yet they are unable to comprehend an agent which can bring within the ken of sense bodies that are millions of miles away, so that their mechanical and other properties may be made the object of scientific investigation. This inability is strikingly indicated by several attempts, made by blind men, to describe visual perception. Thus M. du Puiseaux, the blind son of a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris, is said to have remarked : — "The eye is an organ on which the air* should have the same effect as my stick on my of a trumpet seemed like yellow, of a drum like red, of an organ like green, etc. (Maudsley's Physiology of the Mind, p. 93, note). * He has no conception of light y merely of a substance which can be felt by contact. It may be interesting to compare the case of Massieu, who was stone-deaf from birth, and who, in trying to conceive sound, imagined that persons hearing "saw with their ears" when they could not see with their eyes, as, for example, by night. Kitto's The Lost Senses, p. 158, (Am. ed.). Perception. 187 hand," — that is, a kind of touch. When asked if he would not like to be restored to sight, it is not, therefore, surprising that he should have replied : — " If it were not for curiosity, I would rather have long arms : it seems to me that my hands would teach me better what is passing in the moon than your eyes or telescopes ; and, besides, the eyes cease to see sooner than the hands to touch. It would, therefore, be as well to improve the organ I have as to give me the one I want."* We have seen that an extension of touch is obtained by the use of instruments ; and this distant contact seems to have afforded to the blind poet, Dr. Blacklock, an approximate conception of vision, though still only a conception of touch. He states that, when awake, he could distinguish men only in three ways, viz., by their voices, by feeling their heads and shoulders, by listening to the sound and manner of their breathing. But he adds that in dreams, he had a distinct impression of objects in a different way, — in the way of a distant con- tact effected by threads between himself and them.f As illustrating further the mental condition of the congenially blind man, it may be added that, even after recovering sight, he takes some time to acquire the power of imagining visual perceptions, that is, a visible space that is not actually present. Thus it is related of Cheselden's patient, that at first he was " never able to imagine any lines beyond the bounds he saw ; the room he was in he said he knew to be but part of the house, yet he could not conceive that the whole house could * Quarterly Review for October, 1865. t Abercrombie's Intellectual Foivcrs, p. 220, 1 88 Psychology. § 6. — Muscular Perceptions. There is only one of the general senses that is of very great value in furnishing materials of cognition, and that is the muscular sense. Accordingly, in quitting the per- ceptions of the special senses we shall confine our atten- tion to muscular perceptions. The muscular sensations, from which most perceptions are derived, are those of a dead strain, or of slow move- ment. The sensations of rapid movement are generally too exciting to admit of being calmly examined, and used as materials of knowledge; while, even in the case of a dead strain, the strain must be moderate, as an excessive strain is apt to deaden the sensibility. I. The first and fundamental perception of this sense is that of the degree of muscular effort put forth. The sensations of muscular effort may, of course, be associated and compared like others ; and the readiness of suggestion, as well as the acuteness of discrimination, thus originated, are marvellous. It is upon such percep- tions that general dexterity, as well as gracefulness, of movement depends. Some of the muscular perceptions have been already noticed in connection with the per- ceptions of touch, where it was shown that the latter would be comparatively insignificant without the aid of the former. Here, therefore, it may be sufficient to notice an example or two of special muscular acuteness. It was shown, in the preceding section, how the ocular muscles are called into play in judging the relative dis- tances of visible objects ; and it must be obvious that the muscular adjustments, required for the minute differ- ences of distance which we can easily appreciate, can differ only in a very slight degree. This case illustrates the suggestiveness of muscular sensations ; the next Perception. 189 furnishes an example of their suggestibility. The tones of the voice are produced by means of the laryngeal muscles, aided, in speaking and singing at least, by the complicated muscular apparatus about the mouth. When we reflect on the manifold modulations of the voice, even in ordinary talk, when we consider that a good singer can easily produce notes that differ only by a frac- tion of a tone, we can scarcely avoid wonder at the refinement of muscular perception which renders possible this delicacy of adjustment. II. The counterpart of this perception is that of the resistance which the muscular effort overcomes. This perception implies the association of muscular sensations with other sensations, visual and tactual. The muscular effort, which we are conscious of putting forth, becomes ♦.hus connected with the world of sights and touches, and lat world accordingly shapes itself in our consciousness jito a world of objects that are not only visible and fingible, but offer resistance to our efforts. It is only ly this process that we form the complete notion of body it matter. Other sensations, indeed, discover that which S independent of my will : for I cannot choose but feel hem when exposed to the conditions of their pro- iuction. But this consciousness of a thing which is different from me, and does not depend for its existence on my volition, becomes obviously most distinct with the consciousness of a resistance presented to my voluntary exertion. Of course, we do not require to obtain first the incomplete notion of the material world, furnished by other senses, before we learn by muscular play that it is a world of resisting bodies \ for the muscular activity is incessant from the moment of birth. It is from the -ensibility excited by this incessant activity of muscle, hat we obtain the materials to build up our conception 190 Psychology. of the world as a vast system of bodies endowed with force to resist ourselves. It is in its mechanical aspects that matter is thus made known, these aspects being so many forms of force resisting our muscular efforts. It is the function of physi- cal science to investigate these forms of force, with the view of arranging them into a systematic classification, and ascertaining precisely the laws in accordance with which they act Generalisation. 191 CHAPTER IL GENERALISATION. THIS form of cognition contrasts with perception as the knowledge of classes with that of indi- viduals. It has been usually analysed into three stages : Abstraction, Generalisation proper, or Classification, and Denomination. There is a convenience in adapting our exposition to this analysis. § 1. — Abstraction. The nature of abstraction may be explained by dwel- ling upon two facts : — (1) that it is the counterpart of attention ; (2) that it is merely an exercise of thought or comparison. I. Abstraction is the counterpart of attention. Atten- tion is the concentration of consciousness upon one among the multiplicity of phenomena. Now, as human consciousness is limited in its power, it cannot be con- centrated upon one phenomenon, without being to that extent withdrawn from others. This wilhdraival consti- tutes the mental act of abstraction* The act of abstrac- • If it be worth while to adhere to technical language in this matter, it may be observed that, according to that language, the phenomenon attended to is spoken of as being prescinded, while the 192 Psychology. tion is therefore one form of the general limitation of human energy. The force which is organised in the individual is essentially limited ; and, when it is largely absorbed in one form of activity, cannot be at disposal for others. Thus it is well known that the excessive expenditure of human energy in intellectual toil, and still more in emotional excitement, is apt to interrupt vital actions, like digestion, at the time, and, if prolonged, to issue in chronic dyspepsia. Now, an act of attention on the part of any individual implies a discharge of his energy mainly in the direction in which consciousness is concentrated ; and it is therefore often accompanied by that " inhibitory action," as it is termed,* by which the functions of various bodily organs are apt to be inter- rupted. A man frequently finds himself thus arrested in the midst of any act in which he is engaged; he may be brought to a stand-still, while walking in a crowded thoroughfare, and remain absorbed in his own thoughts, oblivious of the stream of passengers jostling against him in his awkward position. Even a large assembly of men, when their attention is rapt by an entrancing outburst of oratory, are at times checked in such an essential act of vitality as breathing, as may be evinced by the long sigh that is drawn at any pause. It will be seen therefore, that the state which is popularly described as absent- mindedness, is essentially identical with abstraction. A person in this state is absent mentally, that is, has his mind is said to be abstracted from others. The notion of a prescinded phenomenon is what we mean by an abstract notion, while the notion of the same phenomenon in its actual connections with other phenomena is concrete. See Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics, Vol. ii., p. 292, with notes. * Ferrier's Functions of the Brain y pp. 70-1 (2nd ed.) Compare also pp. 460-8. Generalisation. 193 mind abstracted from the concrete actualities around his body; but this arises from the fact that he is present mentally, — that his attention is engrossed, — with some- thing else. Consequently, the stories of absentminded- ness, which are met with in anecdo:ical biographies, may be taken as illustrative of the mental phenomenon under consideration. II. But it is still more important to observe, that in its essential nature abstraction is an act of thought, that is, of comparison. It is, in fact, simply that discrimina- tion, — that separation in thought, — which begins and continues with every step in the progress of knowledge. Abstraction and attention are, therefore, not only identi- cal with each other ; they are identical with the process of cognition itself. The fact signalised in these expres- sions is simply the intensification of a certain element which is implied more or less in all knowledge, but obtrudes itself more prominently in the careful procedures of the knowledge that is distinctively called science! The presence of this element will be realised, when it is borne in mind that, although for the necessities of scien- tific abstraction we discriminate cognition and feeling and will, yet such abstraction does not represent the concrete facts of mental life. Now, attention implies that the consciousness is strained in a particular direc- tion by some involuntary impulse or by a voluntary effort. The involuntary impulse may be either sensational or emotional. The attention may be absorbed in a sen- sation of excessive pleasure or excessive pain ; it may be rivetted on an object of some irresistible emotion, such as a passionate fondness or a paralysing fear. But the crowning triumphs of intellectual concentration are to be found in those efforts of voluntary attention or abstrac- tion, by which the cultivated mind girds itself for the un- N 194 Psychology. impeded pursuit of truth. The necessity of such concen- tration in all forms of culture points to the dependence of intellectual greatness on a certain kind of moral great- ness, — on the power of will " to scorn delights, and live laborious days," in order to the attainment of a philos- ophic or artistic ideal. For practical wisdom, therefore, as well as for insight into the theory of abstraction, the student may read with profit the interesting citations, which Sir W. Hamilton has collected, from the testimony of great men, who have ascribed any intellectual eminence they have attained to their superior power of attention.* Abstraction then may be said to be an artificial act of thought, in so far as it separates what are conjoined in nature. We never find, and cannot even imagine, one object or one aspect of an object, existing apart from all others. On the contrary, every object holds some relation to other objects, and the various parts or the various qualities of an object appear in our consciousness as if they had grown together, that is, had become concrete. But while abstraction breaks up this natural concretion of the parts and qualities of things, it is not to be sup- posed that the act is unnatural. It is rather a necessary movement of intelligence ; for to have intelligence of any object is to think it as marked by this or that quality, as made up of this and that part. We can therefore compre- hend the complex phenomena of nature only by breaking them up into parts and qualities. Thus, when a plant or an animal is submitted for examination, if we would make our knowledge of it exact and complete, we must study apart the different organs of which it is formed, or the qualities, such as colour and figure, which constitute its different aspects. The relations also, in which one object * Lectures on Metaphysics, Vol. i., pp. 255-261. Generalisation. 195 stands to another, may be separately considered ; we may investigate their relations in space or their relations in time, their resemblances or their points of contrast, or their adaptability to various ends. Thus any of the mul- titudinous facts in the confusing complication of the phenomena presented in consciousness may be made an object of abstract attention, and the entire complication may be completely evolved into distinct cognition. The very organisation of a human being adapts him for this decomposition of a complex phenomenon, inasmuch as many of its factors, — its sensible qualities at least, — are made known to him through separate organs. To guard against misapprehension, it only remains to add that an abstract notion, as such, is not yet necessarily general. I may attend exclusively to some aspect of an individual ; and so far I form an abstract notion that is singular. This observation may be useful owing to the fact, that the terms, general and abstract, are often used convertibly in popular language, and even by some psychological writers who have been influenced by the usage of Locke. The reason of this confusion will im- mediately appear. § 2. — Generalisation Proper. The fact is, that in the natural evolution of conscious- ness the abstract notion never rests at the stage of singularity. This must be evident from the nature of the process of perception, which was described at the beginning of the previous chapter. It was there shown that even in perceiving the individual we assign it to its class, that is, we identify one or more of its qualities with one or more of the qualities of other individuals. There is net, therefore, the radical distinction, which the 196 Psychology. old psychologists supposed, between the perception of an individual and the conception of a class. As we proceed, they will appear rather intellectual acts of the same com- plex nature, with the general element subordinated in one case, and brought into prominence in the other. In fact, it may sometimes happen to be doubtful, whether our consciousness should be described as individual or as general in its reference. Suppose, for example, the word apple is spoken. That word will bring up an image, more or less vague, of the object it is used to denote. But this image may be thought as representative of all similar objects, or merely as representative of some par- ticular apple that I saw or ate to-day. In the former case, my consciousness is to be regarded as the concept of a class ; in the latter, as the imagination only of an individual. It appears, therefore, that in all cognition there is a general factor, which receives prominence in the cognition of a class, but retires into a subordinate place in the cognition of an individual. This factor is that which, when disconnected from the rest, is spoken of as an abstract notion. An abstract notion, as we have seen in the previous section of this chapter, is a consciousness of some quality or aspect of an object considered without reference to others. When a quality, of which an abstract notion might be formed, is cognised in actual connection with a certain set of other phenomena, the cognition is a perception ; the notion of the quality loses its abstractness, it becomes concreted with the other phenomena. The notion of a quality loses its abstract- ness also when it becomes general ; but in this case it is conceived as in possible connection with numerous sets of phenomena. Thus the cognition expressed in " I perceive this quadruped " implies the connection oi Generalisation. 197 fourfootedness with an individual set of phenomena ; while the cognition, "I conceive a quadruped," implies the connection of the same quality, not with any definite set of actual phenomena, but with an indefinite number of possible phenomena. In other words, the notion of a quality, which in itself is an abstract notion, becomes general when it is thought as applying to various in- dividuals, as it is singular when it applies only to one. The evolution of general notions has formed the sub- ject of a controversy known in former times as the ques- tion of the Primum Cognitum.* The controversy deals with the problem, whether our knowledge, and therefore our language, begins with classes or with individuals. Two antagonistic theories most readily suggest them- selves to the mind, — one holding that knowledge starts from individual objects, and ascends from these to classes, another that the evolution of intelligence is in the reverse way. The young student of psychology is apt to be perplexed at first by the array of facts which each of these rival theories is capable of summoning to its support. We are now in a position to see **>at either theory expresses a part, but only a part, of tne truth, and that there is a point of larger view which embraces the partial truth of both. 1. Our analysis of perception, in its various complica- tions, has dispelled the popular mistake, which still in- fects much of our scientific literature, that the individual is a ready-made object, presented to the mind by an * Of this controversy, an interesting historical and critical sketch is given by Sir William Hamilton in his Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. ii., pp. 319-332. Some interesting remarks on the question, from a philological point of view, will be found in Max Midler's Lectures on the Science of Language (First Series), pp. 373-3S6. 1 98 Psychology. indecomposable flash of intuition. The cognition, by which the individual is revealed to consciousness, might rather be compared to a many-coloured light, whose variously-tinted rays are brought by the mind itself to the focus of distinct vision. In other words, an individual object of perception is the result of an in- tellectual process ; and the process is one that continues with every definition of individuality, with every exten- sion of our insight into the attributes, by which an object is differentiated from all others. It is evident, therefore, that our knowledge cannot begin with individuals. 2. But it would be equally incorrect to suppose, that knowledge starts from classes. The child, indeed, learns at an early period certain broad differences between things ; but these differences remain for a long time very broad, and it is only after a considerable evolution of intelligence, that they are narrowed down to definite characteristics, and conceived as belonging in common to a number of individuals which are thus constituted into a distinct class. It cannot, therefore, be said that knowledge begins with what is definitely general any more than with what is definitely individual. Since neither of these alterna- tives is admissible, there is but one conclusion to which we are shut up : knowledge must begin with something that is indefinite. Now, we have seen, in Book I., that the raw materials of knowledge, as of all mental life, are sensations. It is true, these cannot, as such, be called cognitions ; but cognition begins with the definition of sensations in consciousness, that is, with the identifica- tion of those that resemble, and the discrimination of those that differ. Whenever I become conscious, how- ever vaguely, that a sensation experienced now differs from other sensations, and yet resembles some sensations Generalisation. 1 99 felt before, the sensation becomes to that extent defined, that is, definitely known. Every advance in knowledge, moreover, is a progress towards the more definite dis- crimination of a phenomenon frorii those that are different, and its more definite identification with those which it resembles. This, however, is merely another way of saying that the evolution of knowledge is in the direction at once of more definite individualisation and generali- sation. With regard to the Primum Cognition, while neither of the above-mentioned rival theories can be maintained in its exclusiveness, it is not to be overlooked that the per- ception of the individual is an easier process of intelli- gence than the conception of a class ; and therefore it was observed above, that naturally the perception of the individual comes first in the evolution of intelligence. For, although the individual is not a simple object apprehended by an indivisible act of cognition, yet its complexity is based mainly on the natural associations of space and time ; the individual is a concretion of nature. But in the conception of a class the mind requires to abstract from the concretions obtruded on it by nature, and to form a combination of its own among individuals that are related, not by spatial or temporal associations, but merely by resemblance. It is for this reason, that concrete thinking is commonly more natural than that which is abstract or general ; while concrete forms of expression are most readily intelligible, and are therefore always to be preferred in addressing children or un- tutored minds. Accordingly it is not incorrect to regard generalisation as a measure of the mastery of nature by human intelli- gence. It is true that even the perception of individuals is a certain mastery of intelligence over the confusing 200 Psychology. variety of nature ; it is also true, as we have seen, that perception implies a certain generalisation, for the in- dividual perceived must be referred to its class ; and it is true still further, that every ascent in generalisation extends our insight into the nature of individuals by unfolding their relations to one another. Still, it is by knowing the unities that pervade nature, rather than by acquaintance with a multitude of individuals, that nature becomes intelligible. Particulars, even when cognised as individual objects, are so multitudinous and so various, as to be hopelessly perplexing to the limited understanding of man until they are reduced to some kind of compre- hensible unity by classification. The grouping, therefore, of any number of individuals into a class by the recog- nition of some feature common to them all is man's intellectual conquest of their perplexing multiplicity. The whole class of objeets can then be treated as a single object of thought ; and, by the discovery of a resemblance between it and other classes, we may ascend to a higher genus which embraces them all. This process, which is the process of science, may be carried on till we reach some supreme generalisation, in which all the subordinate classes shall find their appropriate place. At low stages of culture, as might be expected, this process has advanced but a short way. It appears from the languages of many savage tribes, that they have not reached the higher classifications that are familiar among civilised men, though they often possess a luxuriant growth of expressions for the lower species. In some Australian languages, for example, there are no generic names for tree, fish, or bird, but only specific names for the different kinds of each. The languages of the uncivilised races are said to be also extremely deficient in abstract terms. Of a piece with this is the ex- Generalisation. 201 tremely limited capacity of savages in regard to numbers, the limit in many cases being apparently the five fingers of one hand, or at most the ten fingers of the two.* But the truth of all this must be understood as by no means implying that the savage has reached definite individualisation before reaching definite generalisation. It is true, that a comparatively uncultured mind some- times attains a peculiar definiteness of individualisation. This is illustrated in the familiar fact, that a peasant will distinguish from one another his sheep and cattle, which seem to many a cultured mind destitute of any individual differences. But this arises from the circumstance of the rustic intellect being largely expended on the observation of such individual differences ; and it is important to bear in mind, that the marks, by which to such an intel- lect one object is distinguished from another, are often of that insignificant character which is due to an acci- dental association in time or place; they are not -those essential attributes of an object, upon which the scientific intellect would fix in forming its discriminations. At this stage, therefore, the mind is still in bondage to the combinations of nature ; it is only when the mind asserts its own free activity, that it learns to recognise individual differences which depend on general laws, and not on casual associations. The progress of knowledge, — the mastery of nature by human intelligence, — may therefore truly be said to be indicated by both individualisation and generalisation alike. * Facts illustrative of these statements will be found in Tylor's Primitive Culture, Chap. vii. ; Lubbock's Prehistoric Times, pp. 437-9, and 562-3 ; H. Spencer's Principles of Sociology, Part i. f Chap, vii., § 43. 202 Psychology. § 3. — Denomination. The process of generalisation is incomplete till the class, which has been formed by thought, receives a name. Now, since nature becomes intelligible only in proportion as its manifold phenomena are grouped into classes, it is evident that intelligence implies the forma- tion of general terms. Consequently general terms are found in all languages, being in fact essential to the very possibility of human speech ; and their origin, like that of language, dates of course from prehistoric times. The function of such terms in human thought must therefore be explained in order to the complete exposition of the process of generalisation. But this function has formed the subject of an impor- tant controversy, which is not yet altogether settled. The history of this controversy might, indeed, be regarded in some measure as the history of philosophy itself; and consequently it would be out of place to attempt even a sketch of it here. It is especially unnecessary to enter upon any account of mediaeval Realism, which involves a problem in ontology rather than in psychology. We may, therefore, confine our attention to the more modern controversy between Conceptualism and Nominalism, which does possess a psychological interest. The two rival theories may be briefly described as holding, — the former that we can, the latter that we cannot, frame some idea corresponding in generality to any class of things that we name. To a careful reflection it must be evident that, even if the whole controversy cannot be set aside as a mere dispute about words, yet it is in a large measure stripped of any meaning when the terms involved are ac- curately employed. For 1. On the one hand, it must evidently be conceded to Generalisation. 203 the Conceptualist, that thought has a certain generality of reference, however that may be explained. We can think, judge, reason about classes of things, — about men, animals, vegetables, triangles, circles, and so forth, — with the clear consciousness that our thoughts, judgments, reasonings, hold good with regard to the whole of each class. On any other supposition science, and ordinary thinking itself, would be impossible ; and the language of Nominalists, when fairly considered, never amounts to a denial of this. 2. On the other hand, it must with equal certainty be conceded to the Nominalist, that we cannot form a mental image of a class, that is, an image combining all the contradictory attributes by which the different individuals of the class are distinguished from each other. Whenever the doctrine of Conceptualism seems to maintain this, the very statement of it becomes its adequate refutation. Take, for example, the well-known passage of Locke's Essay Concerning Human Under- standing .•• — " Does it not require some pains and skill to form the general idea of a triangle (which is yet none of the most abstract, comprehensive, or difficult) ; for it must be neither oblique, nor rectangle, neither equilateral, equicrural, nor scalenon ; but all and none of these at once. In effect, it is something imperfect that cannot exist ; an idea, wherein some parts of several different and inconsistent ideas are put together." This has not unfairly been regarded as a reductio ad absurdum. Consequently, when thought refers to a class, as when it refers to an individual, the mental image before our consciousness is that of an actual or possible individual, Book iv. , Chap. vii. , § 9. 204 Psychology. or, if the process of thought is prolonged, there may be a series of changing images representing many distinct varieties in the class. If the mental image before our consciousness were taken to represent merely an in- dividual, then its individual peculiarities would form the chief object of attention j but these peculiarities are abstracted from as much as possible, when the image is made to represent a whole class. In accordance with the principles explained in the first section of this chapter, the attention is then concentrated on the general features of the individual imaged, — on those features which that individual possesses in common with other individuals of the class. Accordingly, we know that our reasonings hold good with regard to that individual simply because it possesses the features of the whole class, and therefore that they hold good also of all individuals possessing the same general features. The function of the mental image implied in all general reasonings is precisely analogous to that of the diagram commonly used in geometrical demonstrations. The diagram must be a single figure with something to distinguish it from all others. If of a triangle, for example, it must be large or small, equilateral, isosceles, or scalene, right-angled, obtuse-angled, or acute-angled, and it must be made of some particular sort of stuff. But in a demonstration we can think of it as a triangle without reference to any of its individual peculiarities ; and we can therefore feel assured that our demonstration applies equally to any other triangle as such. We are now in a position to explain more definitely the part which general terms play in the process of generalisation. That part is twofold. The general term assists us in keeping before the mind the class-properties of individuals to the exclusion of their distinctive pecu- Generalisation. 205 liarities ; and it enables us also to retain a classification, once formed, as a permanent possession of the mind. 1. The general name is usually given to a number of objects, because it is significant of some property which they all possess ; and, consequently, it is calculated to suggest that property alone to the mind. A general name, therefore, becomes a sort of symbol for all objects possessing the property which it signifies ; and our general reasonings accordingly approach, if they do not actually attain, the. nature of symbolical reasoning. The reasoning that is called symbolical is typified in the sciences of arithmetic and algebra. In arithmetic, by means of symbols, we carry on reasonings about abstract numbers, that is, about numbers without reference to the things that are numbered; while in algebra, by a similar instrumentality, we can reason about number in the abstract without reference to any particular numbers. Our general reasonings may never reach this absolutely symbolical character; but general terms enable us to dispense with the continued reference in consciousness to the actual individuals they signify, in the same way, if not in the same degree, as arithmetical figures and algebraical signs form an instrument for working out numerical calculations that are quite independent on the peculiar nature of the things that may be numbered. 2. But there is another function for general terms. We have analysed the process by which the cognition c f a class is formed ; but after the class is thus cognised, how is it to be recognised ? The individual, as a natural combination, is perpetually presented in the course of nature, and requires, therefore, no other means of re- cognition, though the recognition even of the individual is facilitated by the expedient of proper names. But the class has no natural existence like that of the individual, 206 Psychology. and therefore is not obtruded on consciousness again and again in the mere order of natural events. How, then, does it become a permanent acquisition for the mind? By means of general terms. The general term, we have seen, is significant of the common property be- longing to a number of individuals, and preserves for us, therefore, the fact that these individuals have been grouped into one class on the ground of their all pos- sessing that common property. The process of classifi- cation has often been compared to the action of the merchant who counts a confused heap of coins by group- ing them in piles of a definite number. The comparison might be extended by observing that, as the continuance of the piles implies the law of gravitation, without which they would all be scattered as soon as formed, so the permanent classification of phenomena implies the faculty of naming, else the phenomena would return to their uncomprehended multiplicity, as soon as they were arranged into classes. It has been questioned, whether any generalisation would be possible without the assistance of general names. The question is perhaps futile, as all normal human intelligence is developed by means of language, and we have no opportunity of knowing what might be possible to a being, could such be conceived, who was endowed with a normal human mind, and yet incapable of language,— of any system of signs. But the close de- pendence of generalisation on the faculty of speech is indicated by the fact, that deaf mutes find a difficulty in abstracting, and therefore in grasping the signification of common nouns.* * Dr. Howe, in the Eighth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Asylum, quoted in Mrs. Lamson's Life and Education of Laura Generalisation. 207 This analysis shows that our general reasonings are exposed to a two-fold danger, — one arising from their symbolical nature, the other from the fact that the men- tal image which represents a class is necessarily the image of an individual. 1. The fact, that general terms become to our thought symbols of a whole class of objects, implies that the meaning they suggest cannot be perpetually corrected by examining all the individuals of the class. Now, however closely such a term may be defined, it remains capable of suggesting more or other meanings than that to which it is limited by definition ; and though we may set out with the defined signification, this is apt to be lost sight of in the course of a long process of reasoning. This danger is to a considerable extent avoided by the coinage of a purely scientific nomenclature ; but in many depart- ments of thought, especially in the mental and moral and political sciences, we are still largely exposed to all the vague and vacillating suggestions of ordinary language. In the history of psychology an interesting chapter might be written on the influence which has been exerted by the figurative implications of such terms as impression, affection, representation, image, idea. 2. In general reasonings the image of an individual stands before the consciousness as a sort of mental diagram to represent its class. We may begin a process of reasoning with the exclusion of all features of the indi- vidual image except those which are common to the class ; yet in course of the process we often find the Bridg7nan, p. 16. Laura Bridgman herself used general adjectives at first as proper names, that is, as names of the individual objects to which they were applied {I/>id., p. 40). Compare Tylor's Intro- duction to Anthropology^ p. 1 1 9. 208 Psychology. imagination lording it over thought, and are pulled up by some opponent objecting another individual or other individuals, to which our reasonings do not apply. This is a vice which perpetually besets the scientific inquirer, who is not on his guard against the temptation to leap at conclusions after an inadequate induction of particular facts. It is in all minds the source of much of the power which custom wields over our thoughts, leading us to ascribe the characteristics of the objects with which we are familiar to all objects of the same class, however different their circumstances may be. This tendency is, therefore, the peculiar defect of what we might, in the largest sense, call the untravelled mind. Reasoning. 209 CHAPTER III. REASONING. REASONING is often described as the procedure of consciousness from individuals to the class which they form (Induction), or from a class to an individual or individuals that it includes (Deduction). It is, therefore, rather a process, more or less lengthy, by which an object is comprehended, than an act of immediate intuition, by which an object is apprehended. It follows from, this, that reasoning cannot always be precisely distinguished either.from perception or from generalisation, just as these cannot be precisely distinguished from one another. Every perception, as implying a cognition of the class- attributes of the object perceived, involves a reasoning, commonly of the deductive sort ; while generalisation is obviously the result of some mode of inductive reasoning however vague. But in the mental phenomena, which we commonly speak of as perceptions and generalisations, the reasoning process becomes unconscious, being absorbed in its products. It may therefore be studied to more ad- vantage in those conscious efforts of intelligence to which the name of reasoning is, in a stricter sense, confined. But it must not be supposed that, in actual mental life, conscious and unconscious reasonings can be always distinguished with exactness. In the daily consciousness o 210 Psychology. of every man there are numerous acts which it would be difficult to refer exclusively to either class. In analysing the process of reasoning, it is important to keep in view the distinction between the psychology of the reasoning process and the science of logic. Psychology, as the science of mental facts, details the steps which reasoning follows in actual life with all its comic and tragic inaccuracies. Logic, on the other hand, belongs to that class of sciences which, as dealing with laws that must be observed in order to the attain- ment of a certain end, have been appropriately styled by the general title of Homology. Every sphere of our mental life, in fact, may have a nomology of its own according to the end which it is designed to subserve. Thus we point an end to our sensitive life in such studies as those of gastronomy, perfumery, music, the theory of colours ; while the higher activities find their norm in mechanics, aesthetics, ethics, politics. In the same way, then, as the psychology of the moral life is distinguished from ethics, or the psychology of calculation from arithmetic, the psychology of reasoning ought to be kept apart from logic* Actual, as distinguished from logical, reasoning is manifold. It commences, perhaps, with the movement from particulars to particulars, if this be not mere unreflective association, and then developes into the reflective, or at least more reflective, movements from the particular to the general, from the general to the * Sometimes, it may be further observed, psychology, and logic also, are confounded with philosophy, as in the discussion by psychologists and logicians of the question regarding " the ultimate postulate," "the fundamental axiom,'" which, in the last analysis, forms the criterion or warrant of all thinking, of all science. Reasoning. 21 1 particular. To determine the warrant for such in- ferences, is the function of logic ; but the theory of the fallacies, which always forms a prominent part of that science, shows how the actual movements of thought are often regardless of logical warrant. There are three factors of the reasoning process, which have been usually distinguished by psychologists and logicians. The first is the object reasoned about ; the second, the predication, to which the reasoning process leads, in reference to that object; the third, the process itself, by which the predication is established. We shall take these factors in separate sections. § i. — Conception. The mental act, by which an object of thought is formed, was commonly named, in the old logical text- books, simple apprehension ; but by many logicians it is more appropriately called conception. The word concep- tion, like comprehension, signifies literally grasping together, and is therefore an appropriate name for any kind of knowledge which is obtained by gathering many into one. Such an act of knowledge may be accomplished either by mentally grouping into one class a number of different individuals on the ground of their possessing some common property or properties, or by associating a number of different properties on the ground of their belonging in common to the same individual or the same class. The object of consciousness in a conception, — that which is conceived, — is called, in the technical language of logic, a concept ; and the word or combination of words, expressing a concept, is called a term. From this it will be seen that a term, as expressing a 2 1 2 Psychology. concept, may be viewed in various aspects. For a con- cept, as just explained, is either a combination of indi- viduals forming a class, or a combination of properties belonging to an individual or to a class. The former combination constitutes what is called the exte?ision of a concept or of the term expressing it; the latter combina- tion is called intension. Consequently a term may be, and in thought actually is at different times, interpreted in reference to both of these aspects. Thus the term man, to different minds, or even to the same mind at different times, may mean either the individuals who compose the human race, or the attributes that constitute human nature. It has also been made a subject of discussion, whether terms are the names of things, or merely of our ideas of things.* In all such discussions confusion is apt to arise from failure to distinguish the logical and the psychological as- pects of the question at issue. The logician, dealing with the laws which must be observed for the sake of accurate thinking, may select one aspect of terms as that which is most suitable for the end he has in view. But his selec- tion does not foreclose the cognate psychological ques- tion : it does not imply that the aspect selected is the only possible aspect in which terms may be interpreted, or even that it is the most common interpretation put upon terms in the confused and blundering thoughts that make up the daily mental life of men. On the contrary, whatever interpretation of terms may be considered most convenient for logical thinking, it remains a fact, which the psychologist cannot ignore, that the aspect in which a term is viewed, may vary with the attitude of the mind. Mill's Logic, Book i., Chap, n., § 2. Reasoning, 2 1 3 Mr. Mill holds that terms properly denote things rather than merely our ideas of things:* and with certain explanations his theory is correct; for thought would fail in its function, if it did not take us beyond its own sub- jective operations, if it did not construe for us an objec- tive world of things. But the explanations, which ought to accompany this statement, take us into the sphere of ontology. Mill is led into the ontological question which his statement suggests ; and it is worth noting that his statement is nearly eviscerated of its meaning by his doctrine as to what constitutes a thing. f All our concepts, whether they represent perceptions of individuals, or generalisations, imply, as we have already seen, reasonings more or less unconscious. Our intellectual life begins with unreflective reasonings, and the concepts thus reached form the starting-point of more reflective reasonings, by which the obscure and uncertain and limited results of unreflective reasoning are developed and confirmed and extended. § 2. — -Judgment. An object of thought — a concept — is usually, as we have seen, a combination of attributes. But, of course, all the attributes of an object are not within the know- ledge of every intelligence ; and even when they have become familiar to any intelligence, are not always present to his consciousness. He may have learnt, for example, all the properties by which a particular species of animals, vegetables, or minerals is characterised ; but * Mill's Logic, Book i., Chap, ii., § 2. \ Ibid., Book i., Chap. 111. , §§ 13-15. 214 Psychology, in his ordinary thoughts these properties are seldom all consciously recalled. Take, by way of illustration, any plant with its peculiar corolla, calyx, and leaf, the num- ber of its petals, sepals, pistils, and stamens, as well as other facts in reference to its organisation, its growth, or its geographical distribution. Even the simpler consti- tution of a mineral does not exclude a multiplicity of properties, geometrical, physical, and chemical, not to speak of its adventitious aesthetic or commercial uses. Thus gold is distinguishable from other minerals by no less than eight different properties. Then, when we come to the more complicated concepts of biology and psycho- logy, of ethics and politics, — life, thought, beauty, con- science, right, and many others of a similar nature, — we find not only that our concepts usually exhibit a very incomplete grasp of all the factors implied, but a very indefinite apprehension even of those which are con- ceived. Our concepts are, therefore, ordinarily of a somewhat ndefinite character. Now, when an ordinary indefinite concept becomes defined by attributing to it some quality, our thought assumes the form that is technically called a judgment, the indefinite concept being the sub- ject, and the defining quality the predicate. When, for example, to the indefinite concept of gold as a yellow metal I add the predicate, that it is the most malleable of all metals, or that it is fusible in a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids, I form a judgment about the subject gold. It is scarcely necessary, therefore, to add that judgments cannot by a rigid line be separated from concepts : the judgment is in fact simply the concept unfolding itself to clearer definition. Of judgments some are formed by simply evolv- ing the meaning involved in the subject. Thus, when I Reasoning. 215 say, A quadruped is a four-footed animal, the predicate of four-footedness merely unfolds the idea implied in the subject. Such judgments have accordingly been called analytic, explicative, verbal, essential. On the other hand, judgments, which add to the idea implied in the subject, are called synthetic, ampliative, real, accidental* Explicative judgments are dismissed by some writers as useless fictions.! But this extreme depreciation of such judgments overlooks their real nature. To most minds the ordinary subjects of thought are indefinite concepts which require explication ; and such explication is rendered all the more necessary from the fact that most of the terms in common use have wandered so far from their primitive meaning, that their etymology no longer reveals their full connotation. Still this very fact implies that the distinction between analytic and syn- thetic judgments is one that cannot always be carried out. For when the etymology of a term does not reveal its connotation, any factor of the connotation may con- stitute a synthetic judgment ; and, on the other hand, when a scientific thinker has mastered the complete con- notation of a subject, it might be said that for him every judgment about it must be merely analytic. It some- • * Some writers, like Thomson {Outline of the Lazes of Thought, § 81), distinguish, as a separate class, tautologous judgments, in which a term is simply predicated of itself, as in Facts are facts, A maris a man. By writers of the school of Locke such judgments are described by the name identical, and are commonly dismissed as frivolous. See Locke's Essay, Part iv., Chap, viii., §§ 2-3. Thomson, indeed, recognises the fact that such judgments may become charged with meaning by some particular emphasis. But he is mistaken in regarding that as accidental to them ; it is rather their essential and ordinary use. + Locke's Essay 07t the Human Understanding, Tart iv., Chap, viii., §§ 4-10 ; Mill's System of Logic, Book i., Chap. vi. 216 Psychology. times happens, however, that a concept, in its general attributes perfectly definite, receives some particular qualification, as when a well-known mineral or vegetable is said to be applied to certain adventitious uses, or when an accidental action or state is ascribed to any person. From this it appears that subjects admit of various sorts of predicates. The classification of these is the object of the logical doctrine of predicables, the term predicablt being employed for any word that is capable of being used as a predicate. This doctrine is of special interest to the logician for the sake of that accuracy in thinking at which he aims ; for to attain that end it is indispensable to know precisely the relation of the pre- dicate to the subject of a judgment. But the classifi- cation of predicables is not of the same importance to the psychologist. Connected with this subject, however, there is a general question which does possess psycho- logical interest, — the question, namely, as to the import of a judgment or proposition. In the preceding section it was shown that a similar question is discussed in reference to the import of terms ; and it was there explained that a term may be interpreted from different points of view. The same points of view also affect the import attached to propositions. For example, we may consider mainly either the extension or the intension of a predicate, and this difference will alter the mode in which we interpret its relation to the subject. In fact, an alteration in the form of expression will often give prominence to the one of these views over the other. Thus, if I say, The omithorynchus is a quadruped, I naturally think of this animal as belonging to the class of quadrupeds, that is to say, I interpret the proposition as meaning that the subject is included within the exten- sion of the predicate. When I vary the expression into Reasoning. 217 The ornithorynchus is four footed, I think rather of four- footedness as forming one of the attributes of the animal, that is, the predicate is conceived as being included in the intension of the subject. In consequence of the various aspects in which it thus appears that a proposition may be viewed, a good deal of controversy has been excited regarding the real import of propositions. Mr. Mill devotes considerable space to the criticism of various theories on this subject* He opposes the doctrines, that a proposition expresses a relation between two ideas, or between the meanings of two terms, or that it refers something to, or excludes something from, a class ; and, in accordance with his theory of the import of terms, he holds that a proposition is to be interpreted as meaning that the things denoted by the subject possess the attributes connoted by the predicate. Now, in all such discussions, as in the similar discus- sions with reference to the import of terms, consider- able confusion arises from allowing the inquiry of the logician to run into the field of psychology. The pro blem of logic is to find out what is the aspect in which a proposition should be treated with the view of securing the greatest accuracy of thought in its use. But the import attached to propositions for logical purposes is not necessarily supposed to be that of which alone they admit, or even to be the interpretation most commonly put upon them in the confused thinking of ordinary mental life. § 3. — Reasoning Proper. When a judgment is analytic, it must be evident to every one who understands its terms, its evidence is con- * System of Logic, Book i., Chap. v. 2 1 8 Psychology. tained in its own terms, in itself; it is, therefore, called self-evident. Whether any synthetic judgments also are self-evident, is a question that need not be discussed here. It is admitted that a vast proportion of our judg- ments do not contain their evidence in themselves : their evidence must, therefore, be sought outside. Now, a judgment is a relation of two concepts, — of two things conceived ; and when that relation is in itself unknown, it must be reached from some other relation that is known. The process, by which this is reached, is called reasoning or i/i/cn/ice, in the stricter sense of these terms. It is this process that is now to be analysed. In order to this analysis it is to be observed, that the process implies (i) an unknown relation, (2) a relation that is known, (3) a transition from the latter to the former relation. Now, such a transition of thought must consist in the conscious comparison of the two relations. The analysis may be rendered clearer by a few expository observations. I. Reasoning is thus seen to be, in its essential nature, merely the universal process of intelligence, — comparison, with association of course implied. Objects, — materials, — therefore, form fit data for reasoning, in proportion to their fitness for the uses of intelligence in general, — in proportion to their comparability, that is, the ease with which their relations are discoverable. Now, no rela- tions are so obvious, so distinctly apprehensible, so measurable, as those relations of mutual externality which constitute space ; and, therefore, geometry was the earliest science to attain exactness of reasoning. Based on the concept of space is the concept of quantity in general ; and the relations of quantities are among the most easily comparable. Accordingly, not only have the scier.ces of abstract quantity, — arithmetic and Reasoning. 219 algebra, — long ago attained exactness, but other sciences become exact precisely in so far as their reasonings take the form of quantitative calculations. II. Since it thus appears that reasoning is essentially identical with the universal process of intelligence, it must have a certain affinity with those other forms of intelligence, the ordinary perceptions and generalisaiions, which have been analysed in the immediately preceding chapters. Still there is of course also a certain difference between either of these forms of intelligence and reasoning. That difference consists in the fact, that reasoning is a more complicated comparison. The superior complication of reasoning may be expressed by saying, that it is not, like judgment, a comparison of concepts, but a comparison of judgments. This analysis of reasoning has perhaps never been more clearly expounded than by Mr. Herbert Spencer, who describes the process as a comparison, not of terms, ,but of relations.* Of course this description is not sufficient always to distinguish reasoning from judgment, or even from conception ; for these are often the results of reasoning. Still, reflective reasoning implies previous concepts and judgments, even if, as when they are general, they have been formed by previous reasonings, reflective or unreflective. From this it follows that the account of the reasoning process given by logicians cannot be taken as a psychol- ogical analysis. In the common textbooks on logic, reasoning is described as a comparison of two terms with a third in order to their comparison with one another. * Principles of Psychology, Part vi., Chapters 2—8. The doctrine is perhaps foresha.lowed by Ilobbes. See, besides hia Computation, the Leviathan, p. 30 (Moles worth's edition). 220 Psychology. Now, for logical purposes such a description may be con- venient and useful. That is a question which the psycho- ogist need not discuss. But no psychological analysis tfould completely exhibit the nature of reasoning, which did not point out that it implies a comparison of two relations or judgments. Then the premisses are to be regarded as representing the two relations, and the con- clusion in reality expresses their relation or comparison. To illustrate, let us exhibit the syllogism under the form which it would take from this analysis. Let P = major term, S = minor term, and M = middle term. Then the following formula would represent a syllogism in the first figure : — M is P, S is M, .-. S is P. This, according to the above analysis, would run into the more complete formula : — S : M : : M : P ; and that, of course, is equivalent to S : M = M : P. If the syllogism were negative, as M is not P, S is M, .". S is not P, then the relation of S : M would be represented as un- equal to the relation of M : P. This will perhaps be clearer in the case of quantitative reasonings. Take, therefore, a very simple algebraical process : — Reasoning. 221 4* + 2 =3* + 4 (i) .•.4* — 3* = 4 — 2 (2) .-. * = 2 (3) Here it is evident that the operation is a procedure in thought from (1) to (2), and from (2) to (3). Each of these three stages in the procedure, however, is an equa- tion, that is, a relation or judgment of equality ; and the procedure from one to another involves the comparison of each with that to which it leads. The reasoning, therefore, in this instance, if fully expressed, would run thus: — (4*+ 2) : (3* + 4) : : (4*— 3*) : (4—2), and (4*— 3*) : (4—2) : : x : 2. This simple operation may be taken as a type of quanti- tative reasonings in general, for the most elaborate calcu- lations are simply a lengthening out of the same process. It appears, therefore, that all quantitative reasonings, in applied as well as in pure mathematics, involve a similar comparison of equations more or less numerous. But quantitative reasonings differ from others only in the fact, that they exhibit the reasoning process with the great advantage of absolutely exact terms \ and, conse- quently, all reasoning is analysed into a comparison, not of terms merely, but of judgments. III. All the varieties of the reasoning process are usually regarded as modifications of two fundamental types, — one proceeding from the general to the particu- lar, and called Deduction j the other, from the particular to the general, and called Induction. But some recent writers, following Mr. Mill,* recognise an inference from * Syiem of Logic -, Book ii., Chap, iii., § 3. 222 Psychology. particulars to particulars, maintaining even at times, that all reasoning is of this nature. Now, there can be no doubt of the fact, that a procedure of this sort does occur in consciousness. It may even be admitted that it is probably more common than a definite ascent to the general, or a definite descent to the particular. Take, for illustration, one of Mr. Mill's own examples, the reasoning implied in the proverb, that "a burnt child dreads the fire." It is well known that one or two experiences are sufficient to associate in a child's mind the appearance of a fire with the painful sensation of burning, and that any subsequent sight of the fire will probably suggest the thought that the touch of the fire will be followed by the former pain. Any of the more intelli- gent among the lower animals can go through this process. The actuality of such a mental process, then, is not a matter of doubt. The only question is as to the pro- priety of calling it reasoning. It may appear at first as if this were merely a question of words ; but, as in many similar cases, a failure to distinguish by different terms phenomena that have only a superficial resemblance may lead to serious confusion of thought. Here there is an essential difference between the mental processes that would be included under one term. In one process a fact is simply suggested by another fact in accordance with the unconsciously operating laws of association ; in the other process a fact is thought as founded on a certain reason. The latter is appropriately called reasoning, because it is the consciousness of a reason. Whether the former, — the mere suggestion, — should also be called reasoning, may not be considered a question of prime importance ; but it is certainly important to distinguish, in some un- mistakable way, processes so essentially different as those described. Mr. Mill himself explains that, whenever the Reasoning. 223 reason of proceeding from particulars to particulars is sought, that reason is to be found in a general proposi- tion with reference to the whole class of phenomena to which the particulars belong ; and it is more in accord- ance with the use of language, as well as more convenient for scientific purposes, to restrict the term reasoning to those transitions of consciousness, in which a reason for the transition is thought. Consequently, when any reasonings are spoken of as unreflective, this expression must be understood in a qualified sense. When any process which simulates reasoning, is absolutely unre- flective, — when it is a simple transition of consciousness without any reflection on its reason, — it ought, in psycho- logical analysis, to be degraded to a mere suggestion. The common distinction between Deductive and In- ductive Reasonings may, therefore, be retained, and more closely examined. 1. Deduction is not, as often represented, a mere peii- tio principii. It is that process of thought, in which the reason of a particular fact is found in a general fact, that is, in a whole class of facts in which the particular fact is contained. The mistake of representing this as a mere begging of the question has probably arisen from the supposition, that the general reason must be, or usually is, thought before the particular fact. This supposition itself may have its origin in the confusion between the artificial formulae of logic and the natural processes of consciousness. Commonly at the present day logicians state the parts of a syllogism in the order of Major Pre- miss, Minor Premiss, Conclusion ; and for logical accuracy this may be a proper artifice. But even among logicians this order has not been always maintained ;* * See Hamilton's Lectures on Logic, Appendix x. 224 Psychology. and no philosophical logician holds that that is the ordef in which alone men can think, or in which alone they actually do think. Deduction, then, is a real process of intelligence, even though its chronological procedure may usually be from particular fact to general reason. Its possibility and its actuality arise from the same cause as the possibility and actuality of judgments, namely, because we do not always think explicitly all that is implicitly involved in our thought. A deduction simply unfolds to consciousness what consciousness may not have previously realised as part of the extension or of the intension of a concept ; and the deduction may often be of incalculable theoretical or practical importance. For, though it is common to make fun of the stock-example in logical text-books, '• All men are mortal : Caesar is a man ; and therefore Caesar is mortal," yet it is often a crisis of unutterable meaning in the mental life of a man, when he substitutes for the mere symbol Ccesar^ father, mother, brother, sister, friend, and for the first time the thought flashes into consciousness, that one of these must die, since all men do. 2. Induction is properly that process in which the rea- son of a general proposition is thought to be the obser- vations made in reference to the particulars which the proposition includes. In actual conscious life this pro- cess admits of numerous varieties in its stages ; and the norm, by which it ought to be governed in order to guard against error, forms the subject of Inductive Logic. Though Induction and Deduction are thus disting- uished for scientific purposes, it is not to be supposed that they always, or even commonly, exist apart in actual thinking. Not only is the intermingling of the two pro- cesses evident to psychological observation, but the logi- Reasoning. 22$ cian also recognises Deduction as playing an indispen sable part in most of the processes by which general truths are established, even if the philosopher does not claim that every Induction is based on some primal Deduction. 226 Psychology CHAPTER IV. IDEALISATION. THE term, Idealisation, is here employed to designate the latest and fullest outgrowth of intellectual life, in which the earlier and simpler activities culminate. It is not, indeed, to be regarded as sharply separable from these in the actual operations of the mind, any more than these are always separable from one another. In the evolution of these activities the simpler forms of idealisation are perpetually anticipated ; but it implies something which is not explicitly exercised in these, and represents, in its maturer developments, the highest reaches of intelligence. After attaining percep- tions of the individual and conceptions of the general, after ratiocinative transitions from one to the other, intelligence learns to combine in one cognition both of these products of its activity ; the individual becomes transfigured with a higher glory by being viewed as the exponent of general laws, while these lose their dead abstractness by being seen in the concrete particulars, in which alone they have any living reality. The use of the term, idealisation, to express this activity of intelligence, may be explained by reference to its original meaning. Idealisation is literally, the formation of an ideal. Now, an ideal is an object Idealisation. 227 which receives its determinate character from an idea, as this term is understood in its earlier and higher significa- tion.* But in this signification idea means the general concept which, in the Platonic philosophy especially, was supposed to constitute the real essence of every individual in a class, f An ideal is, therefore, an object which is thought as an embodiment, not of particular accidents, but of universal principles. Accordingly, such an object implies the prior formation of the general concept which it embodies. The general concept is the end which the intelligence seeks to realise in determining the ideal object. But the object thus aimed at is various, and it varies in accordance with the various activities of intelligence, of which it is the end. These activities may be purely speculative, concerned merely in the exercise of intellect ; or they may be aesthetic, concerned primarily with the feelings ; or they may be ethical, concerned immediately with the direction of the will. Finally, there may be an activity of still larger scope, as embracing all these three, and aiming at an ideal which absorbs the ideals of all the others. This activity may be named religious. The ideal of the first activity is truth absolute, that is, an absolutely harmoni- ous system of thought ; of the second, it is beauty, that is, an absolutely harmonious gratification ; of the third, it is goodness, that is, an absolutely harmonious object of volition. Of the supreme activity of the human spirit * See Kant's Kritik der reitien Vemunft, pp. 419—422, ed. Hartenstein. t On the history of the word idea the materials for an interesting sketch will he found in Sir W. Hamilton's edition of Relets Works, Note G. Compare also Hamilton's Discussions, pp. 69 71. 228 Psychology, the ideal is God, that is, a being who comprehends all goodness and beauty and truth. This chapter naturally divides into four sections. § i.— -The Speculative Ideal As already stated, the ideal of all intellectual exertion is truth. But truth, as its etymology implies, is an activity of mind; it is what a mind tioiveth.* We have seen, however, that all the intelleetual activities hitherto analysed involve consciousness of relation. A percep- tion, even in the simplest form, is a consciousness of resemblance between a past and a present sensation, — a recognition of a past sensation in the present. Generali- sation is a consciousness of resemblance between different phenomena, which are on that ground thought under one category or class. And reasoning was shown to be a consciousness of resemblance between relations. All cognitions are thus reducible to a consciousness of rela- tions, which increase in complexity with the development of intellectual life. But every consciousness of relation is not cognition. To make it cognition, the relation must be not merely an accidental coexistence in an individual consciousness ; it must be independent on the accidents of an individual's mental life ; it must be valid for universal intelligence. In a word, it must be, not a subjective association, but an objective connection. Such a consciousness is truth, knowledge, science. Accordingly, the endeavour after truth is an effort to * Trowetk, trowth, tronth, and troth are old spellings of truth. Piers Plowman uses, on one occasion, even the seemingly para- doxical expression, "many a fals treuthe," which is, of course, merely many a false trowing or opinion. Idealisation. 229 bring all our consciousnesses — all our trowings — not only into harmonious relation, but into such connection, that they shall all be thought as dependent on, necessitated by, each other. All scientific research sets out with the assumption, that every truth is in thinkable unison with every other; and scientific effort would be at once paralysed by the suspicion, that there is any factor of knowledge which, in the last analysis, may be a surd quantity, incapable of being brought into intelligible rela- tion with the general system of thought. The labours of science, therefore, aim at discovering to consciousness this reciprocal connection of different truths ; and the intellectual ideal is thus a system of thought, in which all cognitions, that is, all truths, all objective connections, are conceived as component factors of one self-conscious- ness. Such a system is absolute truth. Here it would be out of place to sketch such a system, even in general outline. This is the work of philosophy, not of psychology. Our interest is limited to the mental process, by which such a system unfolds itself in consciousness ; and it now appears that this process is merely an inevitable outgrowth of that conscious com- parison, which constitutes intelligence universally. § 2.— The ^Esthetic Ideal The aesthetic ideal is beauty, and this has been already described as an absolutely pure gratification. Now, our gratifications — our pleasures — as well as our pains, arise from the exercise of our various powers in accordance with a law which will be investigated in the next part of this book. It will thus appear that a pleasure, to be pure, that is, to be free from any alloy, must be disin- terested ; in other words, it must be dissociated from all 230 Psychology. the interests of life, speculative and practical, higher and lower alike. The lower interests are associated most closely with the struggle for individual existence, the higher with the struggle for social existence. The lower are. therefore, what are commonly understood as selfish interests; the higher as unselfish, social, moral. The two may be briefly spoken of as egoism and altruism re- spectively. ^Esthetic gratification, as pure or harmonious, must be free from any incongruity either of egoism or of altruism. The activities, on which it depends, as has often been pointed out since Schiller's time, are of the nature of play* in which exertion has no end beyond itself, finding complete satisfaction in the pleasure which itself produces. That aspect of the aesthetic consciousness, in which it is considered as a mere feeling of pleasure, relegates it to the next part ; but it has another aspect too. In so far as it is a consciousness of an object qualified to give a pure gratification, it involves an intellectual factor, the quality of the object being what is understood by beauty. It is this intellectual side of the aesthetic consciousness that comes under consideration at present. Intellectually this consciousness is often described as imagination. As this term seems to imply merely the unaltered representation of what has been formerly pre- sented in consciousness, psychologists have been accus- tomed to give explicitness to their language by disting- * See Schiller's Briefe uber die dsthetische Erziehung des Mens- chen, especially the sixteenth letter. It is this suggestion of Schiller's that forms the germ of Mr. Herbert Spencer's account of aesthetic feeling {Principles of Psychology, Part viii., Chap, ix.), of which a detailed exposition is given in Mr. Grant Allen's volume on Physiological Esthetics, Idealisation. 231 uishing such unaltered representation as simple or reproductive imagination, while the imagination, implied in aesthetic consciousness, is described with varying pro- priety as productive, creative, poetic, plastic, artistic. This form of idealisation will also be found, on analysis, to be merely a mode of the general processes of intelligence, — association and comparison. 1. The materials of productive imagination, when not supplied immediately by perception, — and then of course they imply the associations and comparisons of all perceptions, — are given by representations, that is, by simple imaginations, suggested by the laws of association. 2. But there is more implied than the unmodified re- production of former cognitions, and it is this additional factor of imagination that is intended to be expressed by such terms as productive and creative. It is true that, in one respect, the mind cannot be said to create or produce anything, as it cannot give existence to, any materials which it has not originally received from sense ; and for this reason the term plastic has been suggested as more descriptive of its operation.* But by rearranging the materials once given to it, imagination does create for these a new form ; and in this sense the artistic mind may be truly spoken of as creative : it is this power of originating arrangements, which to itself are new, that constitutes the originality of any mind. This creative process must now be analysed. Under analysis this process discloses so many forms, more or less complex, of that fundamental function of intelligence, which has been so often referred to already as comparison. This function is involved, not only in * Sir W. Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics, Vol. ii., pp. 262, 498, 500. 232 Psychology. those identifications and discriminations which the original materials of imagination imply, but in a peculiar and distinctive mode. The original materials are com- posite wholes, which must be decomposed into parts, in order that these may be recombined into new wholes. But this decomposition is simply one of the functions of comparison or thought ; it is the separation or discrimi- nation of parts from one another. In like manner the recombination of the parts into a new whole is a further function of comparison ; it is the identification of corres- ponding parts of different wholes. This may be illustrated by taking one of the less complex operations of imagina- tion, such as the creation of one of the simpler forms of fabulous animals. What, for example, is implied in the imagination of a centaur? First of all, there are, to start with, two original wholes — the human figure and that of a horse. The two figures are, in thought, separated into parts. The upper part — the bust — of man is conceived as having a certain analogy with the upper part — the head and neck — of the horse ; while the respective lower parts are likewise conceived as analogous. The parts of one figure are thus made alternately to supplant, and to be supplanted by, corres- ponding parts of the other ; and by this comparison there is created for thought a new imaginary form of animal. While this simple creation illustrates the nature of the process implied in all artistic productions, it must not be supposed that they are all so easily analysed. On the contrary, many of these are so complex as to elude the most subtle analysis. This may be evinced more clearly by observing that the wholes analysed in the work of imagination are of two kinds, which may be distinguished as quantitative and qualitative. 1. A quantitative whole, which was variously named, Idealisation, 233 by older writers, integral or mathematical, is one whose parts exist out of each other in space, and are therefore really separable. The treatment of such wholes by the imagination has just been illustrated in the fiction of fabulous animals. Even in higher efforts a similar analysis and synthesis sometimes find scope. The sculptor or painter of an ideal will naturally study the peculiarities of figure in the objects most celebrated for the particular type of beauty which he wishes to produce ; and the features of t his new creation may be suggestions gathered from a great variety of such objects. This appears in the fact, that the ideal of every age and country receives its distinctive character from the realities with which the artist must have been most familiar. 2. But the more complicated productions of imagina- tion imply also, and more genera'ly, the analysis and synthesis of qualitative wholes. These have been some- times called physical or essential Their parts are quali- ties which, as not existing outside of each other in space, are separable only in idea, not in reality. Thus colour and figure, as attributes of the human body, are parts of a qualitative whole ; and so are thought, feeling, desire, virtue, vice, as attributes of the human soul.* It is evi- dent that all art, in so far as it gives expression to the spiritual life, must deal with this kind of whole. The play of intelligence in producing its own ideal world is thus found to be that analysis and synthesis — that discrimination and identification — which we have found to be the function of intelligence that excites the aesthetic emotions ; and the attribute of beauty, with * On this distinction of wholes see Sir W. Hamilton's Lectures p« Metaphysics, Vol. ii., pp. 339-40, with the authorities citerj. 234 Psychology, which it clothes its objects, has been therefore not untruly described as unity in variety. This description, indeed, is one of those abstractions winch are far too general to be of much service in definition. It implies merely that any particular object of beauty, or the universe conceived as beautiful, must exhibit, amid all its variety, that unity, in virtue of which alone it is intelligible — in virtue of which alone, in fact, it is an object at all. Still some importance may be claimed, even for this very general implication. It brings the aesthetic ideal into harmony with the speculative. It shows that the beauty of any- thing has a certain affinity with its truth — that permanent aesthetic gratification must be derived, not from the tran- sient fancies which particular men entertain about things, but from that insight into the real nature which things disclose to universal intelligence. The direction, which the aesthetic play of intelligence takes, is determined by circumstances which can be dis- covered only by an investigation of particular cases ; and such investigation must be left for the biographers of artists and the historians of art. The various products of aesthetic intelligence are spoken of as the fine arts in contradistinction from those in which utility is the ideal, and which are described as mechanical. But it has often been remarked that the two ideals are frequently com- bined, and that a more intense aesthetic satisfaction results from the consciousness that the beauty of an object is due to the same arrangement which gives it utility. This coq bination can be easily explained. For utility is the adaptation of means to an end. It is, there- fore, an extremely definite form of that unity in variety, which we have seen to be characteristic of beauty. It is common to distinguish the fine arts in accord- Idealisation. 235 ance with the materials they employ, or — what amounts to the same — the faculties which they address. This principle divides them into three classes. For all the arts either use the two most intellectual senses which have been sometimes inaccurately spoken of as the sole sensible organs of beauty, or they address themselves directly to the imagination through the ordinary medium of language. I. The arts, which address themselves to the eye, are three, — sculpture, architecture, and painting. From the nature of vision these arts are subject to a peculiar res- triction ; they are limited to the situation of a moment. All motion, all change, all that is unfolded through time, is excluded from the immediate scope of these arts ; they can tell of any event which occupies time merely what is capable of being apprehended in the arrangement of cir- cumstances at a particular instant. This limitation, of course, imposes a peculiar difficulty on the artist : it re- quires him to select from the evolution of any phenom- enon that moment, at which its whole meaning will be most completely suggested to the spectator. What moment best fulfils this condition, — the opening, the middle, or the close of a development, — is a problem of technical interest, which need not be discussed here. But the task affords the artist an opportunity of working one of the most potent charms within the reach of human skill. He can snatch from the ceaseless currents of time any moment of peculiar significance, and preserve some- thing of its living power for the perennial enjoyment of human sight. It is but with sober truth, therefore, that Wordsworth exalts the function of the painter: — " Thou, with ambition modest yet sublime, Here, for the sight of mortal man, hast given 2 $6 Psychology. To one brief moment caught from fleeting time The appropriate calm of blest eternity."* There is probably, moreover, in every product of time some moment, which is more amply suggestive than any other, at least for the particular purpose of the artist ; and an additional significance is given to his craft, when he frees that moment from its natural mutability, and imparts to it an ideal permanence. Although, therefore, it may be with a little youthful extravagance, it is not without an important meaning, that Schelling, in one of his earlier writings, observes : — " Every product of nature has only one moment of true perfect beauty, one moment of full existence. In this moment it is what it is for ail eternity; beyond this there comes to it only a growth and a decay. Inasmuch as art presents the essence of the thing in that moment, it lifts it beyond time j it makes it appear in its pure being, in the eternal form of its life." f i. Of the three arts included under this head the most limited in its range is sculpture ; for it gives up the infin- itely varied effect of colour, which is one of the chief sources of the painter's power, as well as the aid which he obtains from a background as a setting to his figures. The sculptor is limited to mere form for the expression of his conceptions. But it is the human form that he em- ploys, and this includes muscular development and attitude. These, however, are ordinary natural expres- sions, and often the most pathetic expressions of human * Miscellaneous Sonnets, ix. + Ueber das Verhallniss der bildenden Kunste zu der Nalur (Werke, Erste Abtheilung, Vol. vii., p. 303). A good story in point is told of Wordsworth. Being asked, on one occasion, whether he had not written some verses on a daisy, he replied, with lome warmth, "No, it was on the daisy, — a very different thing ! " Idealisation. 23/ emotion; so that the range of the sculptor's power is larger, and its intensity deeper, than the limitation of his material might at first lead us to suppose. 2. Architecture is akin to sculpture in the material it employs, but perfectly distinct in the effect at which it aims. Leaving the definiteness of the human figure, founding its combinations rather on the forms of external nature, it is necessarily more vague in its effects on the mind, awakening more of sentiment than of clear concep- tion. It is an often quoted saying, that architecture is " frozen music ; " and its affinity with music in the pre- ponderance of its emotional over its intellectual effects gives a certain significance to the expression. Architec- ture, therefore, takes rank with music among the arts which have served as handmaids to religion, fitted as it is by the mysterious vagueness of its effects to stimulate " the spirit that worketh in us with groanings which can- not be uttered." There is a kindred sublimity in the ideas associated with public order in any community, forming as it does a human type of the vaster order of the universe. Not inappropriately, therefore, has archi- tecture been employed among all nations in the sen ice of political welfare for the purpose of adding its imposing effects to the institutions of government. 3. There is a certain restriction attached to painting which does not belong to architecture or sculpture. Representing objects on a plane surface, it is limited to a single point of view. But this defect is more than counterbalanced by the superior advantages of the art. For while it is unrestricted in regard to the kind of figures with which it deals, its power is greatly enhanced by its being able to represent these in their native colours and in all the setting of the world by which they are surrounded in reality. By the variety of its figures, 238 Psychology. therefore, by combining these with their actual surround- ings, by exhibiting them in all the coloured light in which they would naturally be seen, painting is endowed with greater power than any other art to bring the visible world, in all its life-like reality, before the mind. II. In music, — the art which addresses the ear, — time is involved as essentially as it is excluded in the arts which address the eye. The flow of sound is sometimes spoken of as an ideal movement, and a considerable part of musical gratification is due to rhythm or periodicity, that is, the separation of the whole time occupied by a musical composition into equal intervals. The general effect of music on the mind may well be described as mysterious, for it presents a problem which is very far from being satisfactorily solved. But as that effect is one that touches the feelings rather than the intellect, it will appropriately come up again for discussion at a later stage. It need only be said here, that tones constitute the material of the musical artist in the same sense as form and colour in the arts that address the eye, and that the musical ideal is a product of the same intellectual analysis and synthesis, which form the process of artistic production in general. III. The art, which uses language as its material, may be named literature, for want of any more expressive designation. The term poetry might be appropriate, were it not so commonly used with exclusive reference to a versified structure of composition. For the aim of poetry is to produce an aesthetic gratification by the mere play of intellect and feeling stimulated by the suggestions of language. But literature in all its forms has some immediate end in view, narration or exposition, argu- ment or exhortation ; and the more artistically it is con- structed for the attainment of this end, the more nearly Idealisation. 239 does it approach the character of poetry from the aesthetic gratification with which the end is secured. Accordingly, the descriptive narratives in which the his- torian makes the past live again before his reader's imagination, the illustrations by which the scientific expositor enables us to see throughout the world the manifold operations of a vast natural law, — all such literary achievements are the source of an artistic pleasure. Even a well-connected mathematical demon- stration, or a bare statement of scientific facts arranged into clear system, may possess some charm of art. Literature is not, like the other arts, limited to the materials of a single sense. Addressing itself directly to the mind through the most familiar and most intelligible form of human expression, it claims for its use, not only the materials of all sensation, but every feeling and thought, every mental state and act, that is capable of being suggested by words. It cannot, indeed, repro- duce the visual aspects of a remote object or a past scene with the vividness which may be given to these by painting or sculpture, nor can it stir the soul with the uncontrollable emotions which music excites ; but its range is unrestricted by any of the limitations within which these arts are confined. It can evan, by what has been somewhat significantly named word-painting, pro- duce with some success a visual image of what is distant in space or time; and the pictures, thus conjured before the imagination, instead of being limited to an instan- taneous situation, may range through any period, and be quickened with all the liveliness of movement, of change. It can also, by the euphonious combinations of language even in prose, and still more by the measured euphony of verse, produce a certain musical effect ; while by making the tones of language ring to the march of 24O Psychology. historical events, to an unfolding chain of argument, or to the illustration of an universal truth, it can enlist intellect in the work of emotion, and direct an emotional outburst to its aim with a certainty which is impossible under the vague impulses of music. It is scarcely necessary to add that the artistic character of literary composition is due to that intellectual analysis and synthesis which are the source of all art. Even the simplest grammatical syntax, as the name indicates, implies an intelligent discrimination of the parts of speech and their combination into a sentence; while the term composition, which is commonly used, not only for the syntax oi words in a sentence, but for the arrangement of sentences in the treatment of an extensive theme, points also to the nature of the intellectual operation which literary work involves. The experience of the literary man is often a painful illustration of the wearisome toil which must be undergone to collect his materials and marshal them in an order intelligible to himself before he can make it intelligible to his readers; while the wearisome toil, which unfortunately a reader must often undergo, is an equally painful illustration of failure, on the part of the literary workman, to master his materials by the detailed research and the intelligible combination necessary to artistic work. The remarks in this section have been of necessity limited mainly to the aesthetic consciousness of men in general, without entering at length on the specialised consciousness of the artist. The importance of artistic production in human life, and the special character of the culture which it implies, have raised the subject into the rank of a special science. For the technical examination of the principles of art, the student must Idealisation. 241 consult any of the numerous works on aesthetics or on the several arts. § 1.— The Ethical Ideal The nature of volition is a subject reserved for discus- sion at a later stage. There it will appear that a volition is a self-conscious act, — an act of a being who knows what he is doing, knows the end which his act is designed to attain. It is not to be supposed that every phenomenon in human life, which is called action, answers to this description. Many so-called actions involve no conscious direction towards an end. Whether or not such pheno- mena can in strictness be called actions, they are not volitions ; and therefore a volition is an intelligent act, — an act directed by intelligence of an end to be reached. As the actions of men are various, various also are the ends which they seek to attain. But as the end is always one that is sought by an intelligent being, it must be in some sort adapted to his intelligence. His intelligence, however, can take cognizance, not merely of the end to be attained by any particular action, but also of the remoter consequences which are linked with that end by an indissoluble chain of causation. Consequently, every being, who is capable of intelligently directing his conduct, governs it not merely by purposes of the moment, but by reference to results of far larger scope. It is, in fact, scarcely possible to conceive an intelligent act which is exhausted in its immediate end. Is it the blow of a hammer, the thrust of a spade into the soil, a walk from one point to another, a child's exer- cise over the alphabet, or a statesman's address to a legislature ? the meaning of all such acts is usually ex- plained by results that are not to be reached for hours, for days, or, it may be, for years. The intelligent agent, Q 242 Psychology. therefore, seeks a rule of conduct which is of permanent value, and not merely of ephemeral use. But the intelligent rule of conduct is thus not only lengthened in its scope ; it is also widened. For the actions of a man bring him into manifold reciprocity with his fellows ; and consequently he finds that his con- duct cannot but have a reference to others as well as to himself. This necessary reference to others inevitably expands, as does the necessary reference to his individual circumstances. As his intelligence cannot limit itself to the wants of the moment in seeking a rule for the guid- ance of his conduct, so it cannot restrict itself by a re- gard for a limited circle of other persons, to the disregard of all outside. The same imperious necessity, which de- mands of the intelligent being, that his conduct shall be intelligent, refuses to let him rest content with any rule which is of limited application to himself or to others. It is not in accordance with the claims of intelligence, it is not reasonable, that any one moncr.t, or any one per- son, should alone be considered in acting. The intelli- gent agent, therefore, finds satisfaction only in a rule of conduct which is of universal application, — a rule giving him an aim for one moment which is not discordant with the aims of any other, — an aim for himself which does not conflict with the aims of other persons. This is that absolutely harmonious end, — that realisation of universal law in the particular act, — which constitutes the ethical ideal. The preceding remarks are not, of course, to be taken as an exhaustive analysis of the ethical consciousness. This mental state always involves an element of feeling, which is not only often predominant, but even at times completely submerges the intellectual factor. The na- ture of the moral feelings will come under consideration Idealisation. 243 again ; but even the intellectual side of the moral con- sciousness must not be supposed to be exhausted in the above analysis. The analysis brings out one feature of the rule which the moral consciousness seeks for the guidance of action ; it shows that that rule is one of uni- versal application. But this is a mere form, to which specific contents must be supplied. For we are not told what end is that which can be universally prescribed for human conduct. Is it pleasure or perfection, is it respect for self or respect for others, is it the will of the Infinite Being, or the laws of nature, or the conditions of success in the struggle for existence ? These are questions which need not be discussed here ; they carry us beyond psy- chology into the domain of ethics. But, in addition, it must be observed that the above analysis brings out mainly the pure form of the moral consciousness, — the form towards which the evolution ot that consciousness tends. The process of evolution, how- ever, both in the individual and in communities, reveals many impure or imperfect forms in ordinary mental life. A great part of history is necessarily devoted to tracing the development of this consciousness towards its ideal universality, as well as the effect of such development on the institutions and customs of communities ; while general literature derives much of its interest and pathos from its pictures of the infinitely varied stages of moral culture, and of the tragic or comic results which these produce in human life. For as this consciousness is the authoritative controller of conduct, we have in it the most potent influence in giving a permanent character to the organisation of society. Accordingly, in our social institutions, — in the family, in the State, in international law, in the Church itself considered as a corporation of human beings, — we have so many realised expressions, 244 Psychology. more or less perfect, of the moral consciousness. These institutions, however, are of such importance in human life, that they form the subjects of separate sciences ; and for further discussion of them the student must be referred to philosophical jurisprudence and politics. § 4. — The Religious Ideal. The ideals, examined in the three preceding sections, all indicate the tendency of intelligence, as it develops, to seek the universal in the particular, to interpret the particular in the light of the universal. In its purely speculative activity the aim is simply to know, — scimus ut sciamus, — without reference to any ulterior end, — any application of the knowledge obtained ; and of this activity, as has been seen, the ultimate ideal is the harmony of each particular knowledge with universal intelligence, that is, its comprehension in one self- consciousness. In the practical activity of intelligence, as explained in last section, the aim is one ulterior to mere knowledge, — sri?nus ut opeiemur, — we make use of our knowledge as a rule of conduct ; and of this activity the ultimate ideal was shown to be the harmony of each particular rule with universal practical intelligence, or, in other words, the comprehension of all rules in one self-consciousness. Besides the speculative and practical activities of intelligence, the second section explained another activity, which has no interest of a speculative or of a practical kind in view, the ultimate end of which is, in short, nothing beyond the play of intelligence itself. The beauty, which is the ideal of this activity, implies the harmony of each particular object of Idealisation. 245 intellectual play with universal intelligence, that is, the comprehension of all in one self-consciousness. These various forms of idealisation are thus found to harmonise in so far as they all imply in the individual intelligence a reference to an universal intelligence ; and every advance to a larger truth, to a fairer beauty, to a more perfect rule of life, is an evidence of the aspiration of the individual towards the standpoint of the universal mind. When this aspiration becomes an explicit fact of consciousness, it formj the religious spirit in man ; and its ideal is therefore that Universal Mind, in whom all the speculative and practical and aesthetic ideals of the human consciousness are realised. This sketch is not, of course, given as a complete analysis of the religious consciousness, any more than the analysis in the preceding section was supposed to exhaust the contents of the moral consciousness. Like the moral consciousness, the religious consciousness also contains a large emotional element ; and the various forms of emotion, which enter into its structure, will be noticed at another time. In its historical evolution, moreover, the religious consciousness undergoes even stranger modifications than the moral consciousness; and its influence upon the life of men, — on the recluse as well as on the man of the world, on commercial enter- prise as well as on schools of thought, on social customs and political institutions, — has been among the most extensive and permanent of the forces, by which human history is moulded. For whatever may be decided, on more accurate inquiry, with regard to a few savage tribes, which are said to be without any form of religious belief, and though it is claimed for some speculative minds, that they are uninfluenced by religious ideas, yet no nation without religious institutions has ever taken a prominent 246 Psycliology* place in the world's history ; and there does not seem, therefore, to be any normal human development, which does not evolve some consciousness of the relation between the finite mind and the Infinite. The manifold influences of this consciousness must be traced either in works which treat of history in general, or in the special histories of religion. Here we deal with the religious consciousness merely as a fact in the mental life of men. The true interpretation of this fact, its validity as evi- dence of any objective reality, is a problem which takes us beyond the limits of psychology. In fact, the whole subject of the religious consciousness opens up a vast range of other than psychological questions, which are of such importance as to constitute a separate science, or rather the cyclopaedia of separate sciences known under the name of ±heoi'&£y« Illusory Cognitions. 247 CHAPTER V. ILLUSORY COGNITIONS. AN illusion, as the name implies, is a state of con- sciousness, in which, though apparently informed, one is not really so, but is rather played 7cil/i, made sport of, befooled. It is true, the term is used by some writers in a more restricted sense, which will be noticed immediately ; but the more general appli- cation continues to hold its ground, while it is more accordant with the etymology of the word. It will at least be found convenient to describe as illusory all those mental states, which simulate the appearance of knowledge without giving us re?l information. In dis- cussing these phenomena we shall, first of all, make some remarks on their general nature and classification, then describe and explain some of the most familiar, such as dreams. § 1. — Illusions in General. Illusory cognitions may be distinguished according to the sources from which they arise. These are three. Sometimes it is the senses that are at fault in creating the illusory impression. At other times the mistake originates in an intellectual process erroneously interpret- ing a normal impression of sense ; while in a third class of cases the error lies wholly in an irregular intellectual 248 Psychology. process. To the first of these mental states the name hallucination is often given by recent psychologists j the third comprehends the fallacies commonly described in logical text-books; while for the second the term illusion is sometimes specifically reserved. This distinction is one which cannot always be rigidly carried out. The hallucinations, arising from the abnormal activities of sense, merge imperceptibly at times into the illusions which imply a misinterpretation of sensuous impressions ; and these again are often indistinguishable from fallacious processes of reasoning. The fallacies may be here left out of account, as they form a doctrine specially reserved for logic, and appropriately treated as a subsidiary illus- tration of logical rules. We shall endeavour to reach some outline of the phenomena comprehended under hallucinations and illusions, in the strictest sense of these terms. (A) Hallucinations originate in the raw materials of knowledge, in the fact that the mind is furnished with erroneous data. They imply, therefore, some abnormal excitation of sense. Sensations of the same kind as those which are normally excited by external objects, may sometimes be abnormally excited when no object is really present Many, if not most, of the phenomena designated spectres or apparitions may be ascribed to this source. An object may appear in consciousness either when, or when not, actually present ; in other words, the appearance may be either real or unreal. A spectre or apparition is an unreal appearance. Here will be evident the difficulty of regarding halluci- nations as due to sense alone; for whenever an object, even though imaginary, is created out of sensations, whether normal or abnormal, an intellectual activity is implied. Still hallucinations imply that the sensibility is Illusory Cognitions. 249 at fault, and we must trace the source of its abnormal excitements. These must be referred to conditions in the organs of sense. Now, such conditions are reducible to two heads, — the limitation or the variation of the sen- sibility of an organ. I. The sensibility of the organs is limited in space, in time, and in degree. 1. Organs are limited in regard to space by the extent to which the subdivision of their nerve-fibres is carried. Resulting from this some illusory impressions were noticed in treating the sense of touch. Thus, at an ob- tuse part of the skin two points may be felt as merely one; and on an acute part the distance of two points appears greater than on an obtuse part. 2. The limitation of sensibility in time arises from the facts that an impression must endure a certain length of time to excite consciousness at all, and that it tends to endure a certain length of time before it can be suppjant- ed by another. (a) Of the first fact numerous instances have been furnished in the phenomena of instantaneous suggestion, resulting from nvariable association, which play such a prominent part in forming many of the familiar percep- tions, especially of sight. (b) Of the second fact examples vary in the different senses. It was shown that the less intellectual senses do not recover rapidly from the effect of an impression, their inferior intellectual capacity in fact consisting in this slow recuperative power. It is in consequence of this, for example, that tastes cannot be readily distinguished in quick succession. Sights, sounds, and touches, on the other hand, were shown to be easily distinguishable, even when simultaneous j but this is the case only when the intensity of these sensations is of that moderate degree 250 Psychology. which intellectual processes require. When an impres- sion is unusually strong, it is apt to produce one or othei of two effects j it either deadens the sensibility, or it en- dures after its external cause is removed, mingling with other impressions that immediately supervene. Of the former effect a curious example is found in the pheno- mena called sfirtra. When the eye has been intently fixed on any object of some brilliance, on its being with- drawn we are apt to see, after a short interval, an image of the object in complementary colours, as if the sensi- bility of the eye to the natural colours of the object had been exhausted. Thus, a red object leaves an after-image or spectrum of bluish-green colour; a white object against a black ground is succeeded by a spectrum of dark hue against a light ground.* The other effect here noticed, — the fusion of sensations in rapid succession, — is most easily produced in the case of unusually powerful impressions, but shows itself also when these are of moderate strength, as illustrated by the thaumatrope and other optical toys referred to above.f In explaining the production of tones, moreover, it was shown that some forty vibrations in a second form the limit of the discri- minative power of the ear. 3. From the preceding remarks it is implied that the sensibility has a limit in regard to intensity. As already explained,:}: such a limit forms a condition both of sensi- bility and of the discrimination of sensations. As a con- dition of sensibility the limit of intensity is two-fold, on the side of excess as well as of defect. For not only is * A very full account of these phenomena will be found in Helm- holtz's Physiologische Ofitik, pp. 337-386. t Book i., Part ii., Chapter i., § 2. % Book i., Part i., Chapter i., § & Illusory Cognitions. 251 a certain strength of stimulus necessary to produce any sensation, but a certain weakness also. An excessively strong stimulus, or one continued long, either deadens the sensibility, as we have seen, or destroys at least the special sensibility of the organ affected, supplanting it by some general sensation of pain. A certain difference of intensity is also necessary to the discrimination of sensa- tions ; and this is the difference which an attempt has been made to formulate in a psychophysical law. II. But not only is there a limitation of the sensibility ; it is also subject to variations that are dependent on numerous conditions. This variation is noticeable both in the degree and in the kind of sensibility which an organ displays. 1. The sensibility may be either exalted or lowered in degree. (a) The exaltation of sensibility, which is technically called hyperesthesia, is due to various causes.. In health it is the common and valuable effect of attention directed to any organ or its sensations. The reinvigora- tion also, derived from rest, especially from sleep, com- municates a healthy heightening of the sensibility ; and it is perhaps largely due to this that, for example, the morning seems to impart an increased brightness to the colouring of nature. Sometimes the heightened sensi- bility of an organ is due to the semi-morbid state of ex- cessive fatigue, while its more abnormal causes are to be found in morbid nervous conditions like hypnotism or those induced by the numerous stimulants and poisons which act on the nerves. It would take us too far into the special pathology of mind, were we to enter on a de- tailed account of the hallucinations arising from this source. {b) The opposite effect, a depressed sensibility, has 252 Psychology. been less appropriately called a?iczsthesia. The discussion of it also belongs to the pathology of mind j for its effects are among the most familiar hallucinations of mental disease. 2. There, are, however, also certain variations in the kind of sensibility which an organ may exhibit. Thus in the eye there is frequently met the chronic deficiency called colour blindness, while it is also subject to such well-known temporary derangements as that'produced by jaundice. In the ear, also, there occurs a defect which, by its analogy with colour-blindness, might be called tone-deafness.* For such alterations of sensibility the name -paresthesia lias been suggested. The conditions of the sensibility, which originate hal- lucinations, are thus found to be various. They are by no means confined to disease ; occasionally remarkable hallucinations surprise persons in sound health. The general soundness of health in such cases is evidenced by the fact that the patient is not deceived by the hal- lucinations, but sometimes even holds them under such complete control as to make them come and go at will. Thus Earl Grey used to be haunted by the vision of a gory head, which vanished, however, at his bidding. It is generally difficult, often impossible, to discover any explanation of these hallucinations in sane life ; but the difficulty is obviously due to our ignorance of all the circumstances in which the patient happened to be at the time. It may be fairly conjectured, however, that in such cases there must be some peculiar discharge of ner- vous energy, arising from an emotional outburst or a volitional effort, which the patient may never have * See observations by Mr. G. Allen on a case of this defect in Mind for April, 1878. Illusory Cognitions. 253 dreamt of connecting with the hallucination, or perhaps from some constitutional tendency of which he may be ignorant. But if we cannot generally discover the stimu- lating cause of hallucinations, it is often possible to account for the peculiar form they assume. This form depends on the sense that is affected by some cause, known or unknown. Now, the sense is often determined by a person's habits. Thus, a painter generally sees hal- lucinations, while a musician hears them.* Sometimes in the heat of composition Dickens heard his characters speak ; f and Taine mentions that the French novelist, Gustave Flaubert, while writing the story of Emma Bovary's poisoning by arsenic, became twice so veritably sick as to vomit his dinner.| From the fact that most of our impressions of the real world are received through the sense of sight, it might be suprw^d that most hallu- cinations must be visual ; but it is questionable whether auditory hallucinations are not more frequent. There are strong reasons for believing that such is the case, at least in disease ;§ and, though the reverse is said to hold good in health, yet this assertion seems by no means established.|| Professor Huxley states that to him hallu- cinations of hearing are more common than visual appari- tions ; % and the experience of many others will probably be found to accord with his in this respect. Though there are many hallucinations of ordinary life * Wundt's Physiologische Psychologic, Vol. ii., p. 354 (2nd ed.). + Maudsley's Physiology of the Mind, p. 293. X Taine's De /' Intelligence, Vol. i., p. 90 (4th ed.). § Maudsley's Pathology of Mind, pp. 371-6. || Sully's Illusions, p. 119, note. II Elementary Lessons in Physiology, p. 267. 254 Psychology. which cannot be accounted for, yet there are also many the source of which is obvious. In next section it will appear that the peculiar hallucinations of dreaming often admit of being traced to their source ; and in fact the hallucinations of waking life are sometimes evidently the slowly fading residues of a dream, the excitement of nerve being prolonged even after the real world has broken in upon consciousness. Dr. Abercrombie men- tions the case of a man who, while sitting up late one evening, fell asleep, and had an unpleasant dream, in which a hideous baboon figured. Startled into complete wakefulness, he walked to the middle of the room, where he continued to see the baboon against the wall for about half a minute.* After wakening in the middle of a dream I have sometimes amused myself by dwelling upon the vanishing dream-figures which retained almost the vivid- ness of reality for some minutes, provided the eyelids were kept closed.! It will probably be found that most of the common hallucinations, whether of hearing or of sight, experienced by persons in ordinary health, come at those moments of deep reverie, which approach in char- acter the condition of sleep. Although many hallucinations of ordinary waking life do not obtrude any definite peculiarity of nerve to account for them, yet in most cases which have been subjected to careful investigation the patient's health has furnished some explanatory fact. Thus, a gentleman, who was subject to epileptic fits, and therefore to some * Abercrombie's Inquiries Concerning the Intellectual Pozuers, p. 278 (13th ed.). t A similar survival of dream-images after waking has been ob- served by Spinoza {Opera, Vol. ii., p. 216, ed. Bruder), and by Dr. Maudsley {Physiology of the Mind, p. 292, note). Illusory Cognitions. 255 painful disorder in the brain, found his attacks generally preceded by the spectre of a little woman in a red cloak striking him on the head with a crutch.* A lady, on being attacked with an acute inflammation in her left side, saw the traditional skeleton-figure of Death strike at her diseased side with a dart.f Dr. Maudsley men- tions an analogous hallucination of smell. A r gentleman of perfectly sound mind in other respects was tormented by the apparently groundless fancy that he was a source of annoyance to all his friends and neighbours by reason of a horrible odour emitted from his person. After some months an abscess formed on the lower part of the sternum, indicating the growth of some latent disease which had probably been the source of the " subjective odour." J It may, therefore, be inferred that even those hallucinations of ordinary life, which are seemingly the most inexplicable, would yield the secret of their origin to a thorough scientific investigation. That the explana- tion of these hallucinations merely requires to wait for further knowledge of the persons interested, is strikingly- evinced by a fact connected with the history of Dr. Aber- crombie's work on the Intellectual Powers. In the earlier editions an account is given of some inexplicable hallu- cinations, to which a gentleman of sound mind was sub- ject ; but between the fourth and fifth editions of the work the development of a serious cerebral disorder clearly indicated the source of the hallucinations.§ (B) Illusions are distinguished from hallucinations by the fact, that in the former the senses are not at fault, the illusory effect arising solely from the erroneous in- * Abercrombie's Intellectual Powers, p. 284. f Ibid., p. 286. X Maudsley Pathology of Mind, pp. 376-7. §See p. 276, 13th ed. 256 Psychology. tellectual process which misinterprets a normal im- pression of sense. In the first chapter of this Part, while illustrating the formation of ordinary perceptions, we have had such numerous opportunities of noticing and explaining illusory cognitions of this sort, that it is unnecessary to dwell upon them at further length here. We may accordingly proceed to describe some of the most familiar states of consciousness, in which hallucina- tions and illusions hold sway. § 2. — Dreaming. Among the facts of our mental life, which derive their peculiar character from being composed mainly of illusory cognitions, a prominent place must be assigned to dreams ; and the analysis of these will be found to furnish the fundamental principles, on which a large cumber of others should be explained. In the analysis of dreaming it will be of some advantage to describe the distinctive peculiarities of the state, before proceeding to indicate the psychological principles which furnish their scientific explanation. (A) The peculiarities which commonly distinguish dream-fancies from those of waking life, are two. The first is the fantastic combination of circumstances by which dreams are usually characterised ; the second is the irresistible appearance of their reality. I. The former of these is so obtrusive a characteristic of dreaming, that in our waking life any improbable fancy is very commonly described as a dream. All the ordinary probabilities of the real world, whether founded on internal character or external circumstances, are set at naught in the world of dreams. Here the coward achieves deeds of heroic courage, while the brave man is Illusory Cognitions. 2$7 mortified by the meanness of his poltroonery. The guilty sometimes dream of an innocence which is un- happily unknown to them in real life, while the pure mind is shocked at times by dreaming of being seduced into the most improbable sins. The untravelled lover of domestic comforts often spends his nights in wander- ing over the face of the earth, while the restless wanderer settles down to the quiet routine of home. The man, who in the real world was never known to be guilty of an eccentric action, rides in his sleep along the edge of precipices, seats himself on dizzy pinnacles, rushes into mad encounters with wild beasts, and exposes himself to all sorts of ridiculously needless dangers. In like man- ner there are no external restrictions — no obstacles of time or space — in the world of dreams. A few seconds carry us round the globe ; and the events of years may be packed into a single night, or even into a few minutes. Persons who are separated by a hemisphere in space, or even by centuries in time, enter into familiar intercourse in the dreamer's society ; and those friends, who have long ago passed beyond the veil, descend to him from the spirit-world as readily as they are supposed to come for the purpose of rapping upon tables at a spiritualistic seance. We pass from place to place in our dreams as if we were charmed by the cap of Fortunatus or shod in three-league-boots ; we spurn all ordinary modes of loco- motion, for we can float through the atmosphere as easily as if aerial navigation were no longer among the problems which have yet to be solved. Whether in its pleasanter or in its sadder aspects, the conditions of human life are extravagantly exaggerated in our dreams. They make us drink at times a draught of horror which is happily too large for the measured cup of actual woe ; and they enchant us again by the revelation of ecstasies R 258 Psychotog)>. which transcend in beauty and in joy the sober realities of human life. It thus appears that the dreamer creates for himself a world which is governed by laws of its own. The only laws which he cannot set aside are the laws of his own mind. But it must not be supposed essential to a dream, that it should possess this fantastic character. In familiar experience, dreams are often marred by no improbability which would render them impossible as real events. This fact, though at first sight apparently a difficulty in any theory of dreams, will be found to assist in their explanation. II. The second characteristic of dreams is the irre- sistible appearance of their reality. This illusory reality is so strong, that it is not weakened by any improbability, however extravagant. The strength of the illusion is also strikingly evidenced by two analogous facts, both of which are familiar in the experience of nearly all dreamers. The first is the fact that often, as the real world breaks in upon the middle of a dream, we find ourselves in doubt for a moment whether the dream is not a reality — in other words, which is the dream-world, which the real. Analogous to this is the other fact, that often a real event, especially if it has been of an extra- ordinary character, seems long afterwards like a dream ; and, indeed, most men have probably been in doubt at times with reference to some such event, whether it was a dream or a reality. The same remark, however, which was made about the former peculiarity of dreams, must also qualify this : the appearance of reality is by no means absolutely essential to a dream ; sometimes we are conscious that a dream is unreal. This apparent anomaly, instead of Illusory Cognitions, 259 being a difficulty, will be found rather to assist in the explanation of dreams. (B) In proceeding to such an explanation it is desir- able to bear in mind that the course of thought in sleep as well as in waking hours is governed by the laws of association. If you fancy any event or scene in a day- dream, its detail must all be suggested in accordance with these laws ; and so are all the details of any event or scene in the dreams of sleep. It is desirable also to rem:r ber, that a sensation requires merely some action in a nerve ; and if this action can be produced by any internal excitement, without the presence of an external body, the same result will follow as if an external body were there. Such " subjective sensations " have been already noticed in the preceding section as the source of hallucinations. Keeping these facts in view, we are prepared to ex- plain the characteristics by which dreaming is dis- tinguished from waking consciousness. The explanation is evidently to be sought in the peculiar condition of body and mind which sleep implies. Sleep is a cessation of activity in the brain, as well as generally in the nervous system to which the b~?.?n belongs. The thoughts and feelings which make up our waking life imply a large consumption of those elements of food which go to supply nerve and brain. After this has gone on for a considerable part of the twenty-four hours, the brain and nerves have spent most of the force at their disposal, and do their work more feebly. You may stimulate them for a time by tea, coffee, alcohol, tobacco, agree- able conversation, exciting work, and other artifices; but at last they cease work from pure exhaustion. The nerves of hearing, sight, and touch are no longer affected 260 Psychology. by ordinary sounds, sights, and contacts; all thought, all consciousness fades away. Now, it is known that the brain becomes comparatively bloodless in sleep, while there is a partial return of blood to its vessels when the sleep is disturbed by the imper- fect consciousness of dreams ; and the quantity of blood in its vessels becomes greatly increased with the perfect restoration of consciousness on awaking. Dreaming is, therefore, a state in which we are half-asleep and half- awake — sufficiently awake to have some consciousness, but sufficiently asleep to be unable to control the direc- tion of our consciousness. In this we have an explana- tion of the generally admitted fact, that most dreams take place at the transition from waking to sleep or, perhaps more commonly, from sleep to waking. I. Here, then, we have an obvious explanation of the first characteristic of dreams, their ludicrous improba- bility. The state of the dreamer is evidently one in which the mind is comparatively torpid — is doing little or no work. " Dreams are the children of an idle brain."* Now, when the mind is doing good work, we do not surrender ourselves to every idle fancy that is suggested ; on the contrary, we resolutely exclude every thought which is not connected with the work of the mind ; we control the direction of our thoughts. But in a torpid or inactive state of mind we let our thoughts take any order in which they happen to be suggested. Such a state we often indulge in during our waking hours ; and it resembles dreaming so obviously, that popular language calls it a daydream, or by the French equivalent of reverie. The improbable character of the pictures, with which we allow ourselves to be amused in * Romeo and Juliet, Act i., Scene 4. Illusory Cognitions. 261 such reverie, is witnessed by the fact, that the man who indulges in them is said to be building castles in the air or chateaux en Espagne. If our thoughts can form such fantastic combinations even during our waking life, when we never lose control of them altogether, is it wonderful that they run into an utterly lawless riot when the tor- pidity of the mind leaves them undirected by any active purpose ? The state of the dreamer's consciousness, then, is one in which the higher function of thought or comparison, implying (as the third part of this Book will shon) voluntary control, is dormant, and only the more mechanical function of association is active.* After the lengthy analysis of our perceptions, it need not be re- peated that the meaning of an impression on any sense * It is one of the fine comparisons of Hegel that discovers an analogy in waking and sleep to the great cosmic phenomena of day and night. At night the mere mechanical forces, on which the existence of the earth in the planetary system depends, continue their movements : but the subtler forces, connected with the calorific, actinic, and optical action of light, cease ; and organic life in plant and animal is affected thereby. Leaving the plant out of account, we find that, in the animal, as in the vast cosmic bodies during night, it is only the forces necessary to existence that con- tinue during sleep — the forces of organic life. The higher forces of animal life — sensibility and irritability — cease. Now, the soul — the consciousnesss — in so far as it is a natural phenomenon, has an analogy with the other phenomena of nature. Its lower functions do not cease in sleep ; sensation, and even ideas that have been originally the result of intellectual processes, may still be excited ; but they are arranged solely by the laws of suggestion, not by the categories of the understanding. The higher function of reason — comparison — by which sensations are interpreted in their real rela- tions, is dormant. Ideas appear merely in subjective, fortuitous, superficial association ; things lose all necessary, objective, rational connection. (See Hegel's Encyklop(zdie> § 398.) 262 Psychology. depends on our interpretation of it ; and as that inter- pretation implies a somewhat complicated intellectual effort both of comparison and suggestion, we cannot be astonished that it is beyond the sluggish intellect of the sleeper. As a dream is a partial disturbance of sleep, some at least of the senses are sufficiently roused to stir in consciousness sensations which are generally so obscure as to be all the more easily misinterpreted ; and the misinterpretation is commonly directed by any sug- gestion that happens to predominate at the time. That this origin of dreams is no mere conjecture, but a familiar fact, is implied in the delicious fancy of Queen Mab, as " She gallops night by night Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love ; O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on courtesies straight ; O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees ; O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream. Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose, And then dreams he of smelling out a suit ; And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail, Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep, Then dreams he of another benefice. Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck, And then he dreams of cutting foreign throats, Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, Of health's five fadom deep ; and then anon Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes." * If we took the necessary trouble, we might often, without calling in the aid of any poetical fiction, trace a dream not only to its originating sensation, but also through the suggestion from which it received its peculiar shape. Thus Dr. Gregory relates that in earlier life he had ascended Mount Vesuvius, and during the ascent had felt the heat Romeo and Juliet, Act i., Scene 4. Illusory Cognitions. 263 of the mountain on his feet. Long subsequently he had read an account of Mount Etna, though he had never seen it. Some time afterwards he went to bed one night with a vessel of hot water at his feet ; and during the course of his sleep he dreamt that he was walking up Mount Etna, and felt the ground under his feet warm. On another occasion he mentions that he had read an account of the Hudson's Bay Territory, which gave a vivid description of its severe climate. One night, shortly afterwards, he dreamt of being in that territory, and suffering intensely from the cold ; he awoke, and found that in his sleep he had kicked the bedclothes off.* The obscure sensible impressions, which thus suggest fantastic interpretations in the torpid mind, will easily explain those horrors of dream-life which have their source in the various painful sensations of indigestion. To such obscure impressions also can be referred that large class of horrid dreams which go by the name* of nightmare, in which the common circumstance is an effort to do something, with the feeling of inability to do it. These dreams will be generally found to arise from impeded respiration. The sleeper is lying on his back or face, or in some other position in which his chest can- not freely expand to allow a full inhalation; and naturally, therefore, he has a dim sensation of endeavouring to perform the most essential of the vital processes, while there is some difficulty in its performance which he cannot overcome. This sensation is of course enhanced if there is the additional oppression arising from a flatulent or overloaded stomach. But the general result * Abercrombie's Inquiries Concerning the Intellectual rowers, p. 201. 264 Psychology. is the same in all, varied only according to the habits or circumstances of each individual.* Other facts of dream life receive a similar explanation. It is well known, for example, that questions addressed to a dreamer, especially if they are connected with the subject of his dream, will often elicit answers which show that the question has been heard, and has even become mixed up with some of his amusing fancies. It is also a familiar experience of many, that they can waken at a fixed hour by determining upon it before going to sleep. This would seem to imply that, notwith- standing the torpid state of the sensibility in general, a certain degree of wakefulness was preserved, sufficient to keep note of time, without preventing the refreshment of sleep ; and it is known that the dominant idea of rising at a particular hour occasionally gives shape to a dream. It was noticed above that, though dreams generally exhibit a whimsical character, yet this is by no means essential ; for the fictions of dreaming may often be less strange than the facts of real life. This is not at all inconsistent with the theory which ascribes the impro- bable caprices of dreaming to the fact of the mind being in such a dormant state that it is unable to control the directions of its thoughts ; for though thoughts, when uncontrolled, may run riot, yet it is quite possible for them to take a perfectly sober course. In fact, the * Nightmares with me take a turn which is evidently suggested by professional work. I am standing in front of an audience, who are waiting to hear me speak ; but, although often ideas and the words to express them seem to rise with greater readiness and brilliance than during waking hours, the most frantic efforts of the vocal organs fail to elicit a single sound. Illusory Cognitions. 265 subject of a dream may sometimes control the direction of our thoughts, and produce thereby a concentration of mind, of which we are incapable amid the distractions of the waking world. As a result of this, it has been the testimony of several distinguished men, that in sleep they have seen their way through problems which had per- plexed their waking hours ; and Coleridge informs us that his poem of Kubla Khan was composed in a dream.* II. There still remains for explanation the second peculiarity of dream fancies, the irresistible illusion of their reality. This peculiarity, too, must be attributed to the "dormant state of the mind. This torpidity of mind implies two circumstances, which explain why the imagery of our dreams should appear so real in comparison with any imaginations of our waking consciousness. 1. The first of these circumstances is the absence of any impressions from the real world to exhibit, by force of contrast, the unreality of the images which play before us in dreams. That the want of this contrast has to do with the illusory reality of dreams, must appear from the fact that a dream is instantaneously dispelled by any violent sensation, such as a loud noise, which suddenly rouses the dreamer to waking life. It is an interesting fact, which illustrates the same effect, that spectral illusions, which have tormented a patient in a darkened chamber, often vanish by simply letting in the light, and revealing thereby the realities around. 2. A second circumstance connected with the condi- tion of the sleeper also accounts for the illusory reality of his dreams. The vividness, with which we can call up * Several facts of this sort are related by Mr. Dallas in The Gay Science, Vol. i., pp. 232-4. 266 Psychology. an image of anything, depends, among other conditions, 0:1 the sense, through which the image was first received, being occupied or not at the time. It is difficult to represent distinctly the visual appearance of anything, if the eyes are at the moment engaged in examining some actual object ; and this is the reason why many people instinctively close the eyes during intense efforts of thought or recollection. It is equally difficult to recall distinctly a tune while the ears are being assailed with actual music or loud talk ; and the same fact is notice- able in the case of the other senses. It is, indeed, for this reason that we can generally study to better pur] ose amid quiet surroundings and familiar scenes. Now, in sleep the senses are so torpid that they disturb us very little with impressions from the outside world at all; and therefore any images that are suggested, being allowed to absorb the consciousness, become as vivid as if they were produced by real objects. An interesting result occasionally follows from this. By one of the Secondary Laws of Suggestion we have seen that, the more vivid an idea is, it becomes the more powerfully suggestive ; and therefore it sometimes happens that facts are suggested in a dream, which had been totally forgotten in waking life. Several interesting anecdotes are told of persons who recovered in a dream important information regard- ing events which they had fruitlessly endeavoured to recollect when awake.* * Some of these are preserved by Abercrombie (Inquiries Concerning the Intellectual Powers, pp. 205-1 1 ). Dr. O. W. Holmes relates a story of a lost bond having been recovered by its owner recollecting, during the excitement of drowning from which he was saved, the place where it had been laid (Mechanism in Thought and Morals, p. 75). Illusory Cognitions. 267 But how is it that sometimes a dream loses its decep- tive reality, and we become aware that it is a dream ? That such is not infrequently the case, must have been the experience of most dreamers ; and there have been instances of men, tormented by nightmare, who have succeeded in vanquishing its delusions by resolving, as they went to sleep, that they would treat its horrid fantasies as harmless unrealities. Dr. Reid relates that in his early life, being tormented almost every night for a while by frightful dreams, he resolved to try and remember that his terrors were unreal. After some fruitless efforts he was at last successful ; and " often," he says, " when I was sliding over a precipice into the abyss, I recollected that it was all a dream, and boldly jumped down."* Such effects are obviously to be ex- plained from the circumstance that the dreamer is not only half-asleep, but also half-awake, and that he tends either to relapse into the unconsciousness of profound slumber, or to struggle into the distinct consciousness of waking life. Now, if the latter should be the course of his dream, and if he is not suddenly startled into com- plete wakefulness, there will often be a stage in his dream-life, at which its spectres continue to hover before his mind, but he is sufficiently aroused to be perfectly conscious of their spectral nature. It will generally be found, in fact, that the dreamer wakens immediately arter realizing that his dream is a dream. Perhaps it would be regarded as an incomplete dis- cussion, which did not refer to those remarkable coin- cidences between dreams and real events, which play a conspicuous part in the literature of modern spiritualism. * Letter in Stewart's Account of the Life and Writings of Thomas Reid, near the end. 268 Psychology. It cannot be denied that such coincidences have oc- curred, in which dreams seem to have contained prog- nostications with regard to future events, or information about contemporary events taking place in another part of the world. But it should not be forgotten that it is seldom, if ever, possible to tell how much a good story of this sort may have been embellished even by the original narrator, and still more by imaginative story- tellers. Moreover, it must be remembered that, while we hear all the remarkable coincidences between dreams and real occurrences, we seldom hear of those dreams which had all the appearance of being significant and yet turned out after all to be meaningless foolery of the imagination. I have known instances of dreams which at the time deeply impressed the dreamers with the events, and were found to indicate nothing but a little indigestion or an uneasy position of the body. Indeed, when it is borne in mind that there are probably several hundred millions of dreams every night, perhaps we ought to wonder, not that such coincidences are so many, but that they are so few. Besides, such dreams are practically worthless. Like the prophecies of Cas- sandra, they are fated to be received with incredulity. Few men will go even the length of Antigonus : — 11 Dreams are toys ; Yet for this once, yea superstitiously, I will be squared by this." * For who is to determine when a dream is a trustworthy informer, and not merely " a false creation proceeding from a heat-oppressed brain " ? * Winters Tale, Act iii., Scene 3. Illusory Cognitions, 269 § 3. — Hypnotic States, The term hypnotic, from the Greek word for sleep, was suggested by an eminent English surgeon, Mr. Braid, to describe a class of phenomena which have their source in a nervous condition resembling sleep. The affinity between these phenomena and dreams is so remarkable, that the former will be found to have received the chief part of their explanation in the treatment of the latter. At the same time, hypnotic phenomena are so interesting in many respects that they deserve a separate considera- tion. We shall, therefore, first describe their distinctive peculiarities, and then inquire how these may be ex- plained. (A) In studying the characteristics of hypnotism, we come upon one that is fundamental. I. This primary characteristic is a nervous condition resembling ordinary sleep. The condition may be in- duced either involuntarily by some disorder of the nervous system, or voluntarily by some artifice of a monotonous character, such as is often adopted for the purpose of overcoming sleeplessness. I, Of the hypnotic states which come on involuntarily the most familiar is common somnambulism. The fact of walking in sleep, which is alone expressed by this term, although a common phenomenon, is by no means an essential or distinctive characteristic, of the state. Frequently it consists in mere talk during sleep, and at this stage can scarcely be distinguished from those dreams in which the dreamer is heard speaking, at times in reply to questions. An interesting case in point is recorded of a military gentleman, whose brother-officers often amused themselves in directing the course of his 270 Psychology. dreams by suggestions whispered into his ear.* This, though given as a case of ordinary dreaming, ought rather to be regarded as one of somnambulism j for the subject of the experiment was continually roused to action under the impulse of his suggested dreams. But there are also instances in which some of the most astonishing phenomena of somnambulism are ex- hibited without the patient leaving his bed. Such is the case of Agnes Drummond, than which there is perhaps nothing more marvellous in the history of the abnormal states of mind. This girl had evidently suffered some serious injury to her nervous system from an accident in early life. The effect of this was to rendjr her uncom- monly stupid in waking life, but subject to hypnotic attacks, in which she displayed an extraordinary ability of various kinds. While in an unusually profound sleep she was often heard producing with her mouth a skilful imitation of elaborate musical compositions which she had heard played by an itinerant fiddler, or discoursing, with great beauty of language and illustration, on every imaginable subject. \ More commonly, however, the somnambulist rises in his sleep,, and proceeds to perform various actions. Some- times the motive of his actions is undiscoverable ; but often they are such as he was occupied with during the day. The farmer ploughs or threshes, or does some other farm-labour. The school-boy sits dow r n to his task. The clergyman writes his sermon; the judge, his * Abercrombie's Inquiries Concerning the Intellectual Powers, pp. 202 4. f Dugald Stewart's Works, VoL x., pp. cliii. -clix. See also Abercrombie's Inquiries Concerning the Intellectual Powers, pp. 232-5. Abercrombie does not give tbe girl's name. Illusory Cognitions. 271 decision ; the author, a part of the bock on which he is engaged. The man of science works at, and sometimes succeeds in solving, the problem which is perplexing him at the time. Some patients are liable to paroxysms of an hypnotic character in waking life, and during these exhibit all the phenomena characteristic of nocturnal somnambulism. 2. But it has been found possible to induce voluntarily a state essentially similar to ordinary somnambulism. The marvellous nature of many of the phenomena ex- hibited in this state has produced such an impression, not only on the popular mind, but on the minds of many scientific inquirers, as to upset their usual habits of scientific caution ; and as a result, various unscientific hypotheses have been suggested to account for the phenomena either by some occult force of nature or by some occult operation of one of the known forces. Among these hypotheses a prominent place must be given to that of Mesmer, who ascribed the phenomena to animal magnetism. Others, again — the representa- tives of the so-called electro-biology — held that electricity is the influence at work ; while the Baron Von Reichen- bach imagined the effects to be due to an universally diffused force, which, after the Teutonic god Odin, he named the Od or Odylic force. But the subsequent remarks will show that even the most startling pheno- mena of this slate do not require for their explanation any force beyond the known agencies which are at work in the animal and mental nature of man. Before proceeding further, however, it may be ob- served that some of the essential characteristics of hypnotism are found in many of those morbid social phenomena of an hysterical nature, which were often epidemic in ancient and mediaeval communities, but 272 Psychology. are fortunately disappearing from the life of modern civilisation. II. It is evident that, while there is a certain resem- blance between the hypnotic state and ordinary sleep with its dreams, there is also a marked difference. While dreaming proper is a passive state in which the patient simply allows various images to pass uncontrolled through his consciousness, the hypnotic patient is always active ; and there is, therefore, a propriety in the expres- sion, which describes somnambulism as " a dream acted." How is this to be more specially defined ? It seems that, as in ordinary sleep, there is a general torpidity of the cerebro-spinal system, only that the torpidity of hypnotism is much more profound. But combined with this impassive torpidity of the cerebro-spinal system in general, there remains an abnormal activity in certain portions, or at least a capability in certain portions of being excited to abnormal activity. Accordingly, ideas are able to take an extraordinary hold on the somnam- bulist's mind, and to concentrate his whole mental and bodily energy in a degree altogether impossible in waking life. In the hypnotic state, therefore, the patient's mind is dominated by an idea or set of ideas, creating an irre- sistible conviction that he does or does not experience certain sensations, that he can or cannot do certain actions. In ordinary nocturnal somnambulism the dominant ideas are suggested, as in sleep, by obscure sensible impressions or by the laws of association ; and it is noteworthy that the mind is so absorbed in the dominant idea, that attention is scarcely ever given to any suggestion lying wholly out of its sphere. Still, it is possible for another person with some tact to control the ideas which sway the somnambulist; and this is com- Illusory Cognitions. 273 monly done by the operator in artificial hypnotism. It appears that the muscular sense is that by which the operator can most easily work upon his subject ; and certainly many of the most marvellous phenomena of the hypnotic state are due to an almost preternatural exalta- tion of muscular sensibility and power. III. An additional peculiarity of this state is its dis- connection with the ordinary consciousness of waking life. This disconnection appears in two ways. 1. It involves an oblivion in waking life of what has been done in the hypnotic state. The oblivion is fre- quently total, though there is sometimes a very vague reminiscence of something having taken place. But in all cases the oblivion is so complete as to constitute a practical separation of somnambulic acts from the per- sonality of the patient ; and, accordingly, in more than one instance homicides have been successfully defended on the ground of their having been perpetrated in a state of somnambulism.* 2. But the disconnection of hypnotic and ordinary mental life is further evinced in the fact, that with the waking oblivion of hypnotic states there is often evidently a reminiscence in one such state of what has been done in another. It appears, therefore, that, while hypnotism exhibits an obvious affinity with sleep and dreaming, it is yet distinguished, on the one hand, by a completer torpidity than ordinary sleep, on the other hand, by a more active excitement than ordinary dreaming; and this extraordinary ♦Dallas' The Gay Science, Vol. i., p. 234; O. W. Holmes' Mechanism in Thought and Morals, p. 41. See also Annates Medico-psychologiques for 1881, p. 468, cited in the Fortnightly Review for November, 1885, p. 646 (Am. ed.). S 274 Psychology. activity in one part of the system, combined with extra- ordinary torpidity in the rest, produces a sort of double consciousness, disconnecting the normal from the ab- normal mental life of the patient. These are the pheno- mena which require explanation in this remarkable state of mind. (B) The true scientific spirit, in which to approach unusual phenomena, is that which, recognising all their extraordinary character, in so far as verified by accurate observations, yet seeks to account for them by known laws, rather than by the hypothesis of occult agencies, or occult operations of agencies that are known. Our object will, therefore, be to discover, in the ordinary mental life of man, phenomena sufficiently resembling those of hypnotism to warrant us in believing that both are due to the same causes. The needlessness of any hypotheti- cal agency to account for hypnotic phenomena is strik- ingly indicated by the results of a commission appointed by the French government to examine Mesmer's theory of animal magnetism. After a careful scientific investi- gation, this commission reported that all the phenomena, ascribed to the effect of magnetism on the human body, could be produced by simply miking persons imagine they were magnetised, even if the process of magnetising were not performed at all, while none of the phenomena were manifested when that process was really performed without the knowledge of the persons subjected to experi- ment. It is evident, therefore, that the phenomena in question were due to the mind being possessed with a certain idea. Accordingly, to find the analogues of hypnotic phen- omena in ordinary mental life, we must observe the effects which are commonly produced by the mind being ab- sorbed in one subject. These effects have been already Illusory Cognitions. 275 in some measure referred to, where mental abstraction was analysed, and shown to be the complement or reverse of attention.* In this necessary union of attention with abstraction, we have a familiar parallel to the extraor- dinary concentration of the somnambulist's mind on one subject along with his equally extraordinary insensibility to everything else. This parallel will appear the moie significant, the more carefully it is followed into detail. In the first place, it has been already observed that the abstraction, which is the necessary counterpart of con- centrated attention, often reaches the extreme form of absentmindedness ; and authenticated instances of this mental condition do not fall very far short of the torpor which the somnambulist displays in regard to everything beyond the range of his dominant ideas. But it is the other side of these phenomena that chiefly requires to be considered in this connection. The effect of attention, in ordinary life, is to concentrate the energy of an individual to such a degree, that he is enabled to achieve results beyond the power of a distracted mind. Now, these results are sometimes not altogether out of proportion to those which flow from the intense mental concentration of the somnambulist. Even if we leave out of account the great achievements of science and art, which have been rendered possible by the power of in- tense concentration on the part of scientific and artistic minds, and which, from their originality, often imply in- tellectual activities of a more unusual character than even the marvels of hypnotism, there are familiar facts in the humbler mental life of every day, which give an insight into the source of these marvels. • See Chapter ii. of this Part, § |. 276 Psychology. The intense mental concentration of the hypnotic patient often assumes the form of an overpowering belief that he can or cannot do certain actions. The increased ability and disability, which are thus gener- ated, are paralleled by the well-known effects of ex- cessive confidence and diffidence in daily experience. These effects are realised, in a homely form, which makes them familiar to all men, in games of skill. Success at the outset is one of the most important con- ditions of success at the close. The confidence thus awakened in the player's mind imparts an increased firmness to nerve and muscle, enabling him to direct his movements with precision ; so truly has it been said of those who make a good start, — " Hos successus alit ; possunt, quia posse videntur."* On the other hand, an unfortunate slip at the commence- ment of a game, on the part even of one who usually plays well, may often be observed creating a distrust in one's powers, — a feeling of anxious timidity, — which is almost sure to interfere with accuracy of stroke. This effect of confidence is, in truth, similar to that which is produced by any emotion powerful enough to concen- trate an individual's energies on one object. It is thus that under the influence of high enthusiasms men become capable of achievements, for which the tamer motives of everyday life are inadequate ; and occa- sionally a human career is blighted by a single crime, to which the criminal might never have been seduced but for the overmastering temptation of a moment. * Aeneid, v., 231. Illusory Cognitions. 277 The irresistible subjection of the somnambulist's mind to a dominant idea often assumes the form of a belief that he does or does not experience certain sensations. This phenomenon scarcely requires any elucidation by reference to other spheres of mental life, after what has been said, in the first section of this chapter, on the hallucinations and illusions to which even the same mind is sometimes subject. Here a single additional remark may appropriately be made on the effect of mere imagination in creating actual sensations. Numerous instances are recorded of persons being made to feel sensations of almost every variety under the influence of strong conviction, and such instances could probably be multiplied from the experience of most men. It is, in fact, not an uncommon social amusement to find sport at a friend's expense by making him the victim of some harmless hallucination ; and any one may by an experi- ment of this sort discover how easily subjective sensations can be excited.* The ease with which a person may be thus victimised, is of a piece with the power which the mesmeric operator wields over his subject. Nor is the disconnection of hypnotic and normal *The Memoirs of Dr. Chalmers relate two such pleasantries, intended to exhibit imagination overriding sense. In one the victim is made to feel the taste of coffee, in another the smell of sulphur. (Vol. i., pp. 191-3). A remarkable case is known to me of a farm-servant who, treading inadvertently on a harrow, saw one of its prongs protruding through the upper leather of his boot. 11 My God ! " he exclaimed, " I have got lockjaw ; " and fell into a sort of tetanic paroxysm. He was carried in this state into the house, his boot tenderly pulled off, when it was found that the prong had passed without hurting him between two of his toes. Yet it was some hours before he could free himself from the terror of lockjaw. 278 Psychology. consciousness without a parallel in our ordinary mental life. The oblivion of hypnotic actions in waking life is analogous to the difficulty of reinstating at will moments of intense mental absorption, whether in intellectual work or in emotional outburst This difficulty is probably owing to the fact, that all such absorption involves an excessive waste of energy which is essentially destructive, and that the destructive nature of the state forbids its reproduction even in the fainter form of memory. It is from this cause that human character often presents combinations apparently the most incon- gruous. For the ecstasies of the enthusiast, however ennobling their influence might be, cannot be recalled with sufficient distinctness to exert that influence on his conduct ; and therefore his life may be separated into two parts, which seem not only quite distinct, but even antagonistic to each other. A fanatic of the type of Robespierre or a devout inquisitor may indulge one day in a gush of religious fervour, and the next find diabolical satisfaction in a butchery at which healthy human nature stands aghast.* The disconnection of hypnotic and normal conscious- ness is in some respects also illustrated by the phenomena of habitual and dexterous actions. These exhibit an accuracy which parallels that of the somnambulist's conduct, — an accuracy which disappears under any attempt at conscious direction as completely as the somnambulist's increase of power is destroyed by the restoration of normal consciousness. There is also a separation in consciousness between the actions that are * Some striking instances of such incongruous combinations in moral character are given by Mr. Lecky in his History of European Morals, Vol. i., pp. 305-8. Illusory Cognitions. 279 done under the influence of habit and those that are governed by conscious volition, — a separation so com- plete, that we often go through a long series of habitual actions without being able to recall a single detail of the series. Even the fact that a patient in one hypnotic state can recall what he did in a previous state, — this connection of hypnotic states with each other, while they remain disconnected with ordinary consciousness, is not without an analogue in the phenomena of habitual actions. For it is often observable that, if we break down in the performance of such action, we start the whole series afresh with better prospects of success ; that is to say, by going back to the beginning, or to some well-marked point in the series, we endeavour to reinstate the condition of habitual activity in the hope of being able to proceed to the end of the series with that mechanical accuracy which we despair of attaining by any conscious direction. This is illustrated, not only in ordinary cases of repeating by rote, but still more strikingly in that extraordinary memory which some exhibit, and which is almost always of a mechanical character. For example, the scholarly Scottish poet, Leyden, could repeat verbatim anything, even a dry legal document, by reading it once. But he found this mechanical memory inconvenient; for, if he wished to recall any particular point, he had to start from the beginning and repeat the whole mentally till he came to the passage required.* So necessary and so effective is the expedient of reinstating the whole of the associated circumstances upon which suggestion depends. An additional illustration of this is afforded by the amusing, • Abercrombic's Intellectual Powers, p. 47. 2 So Psychology. but significant fact, that instances are on record of a man doing an action when drunk, wholly unable to remember it when sober, but recollecting it at once on getting drunk again.* The above remarks indicate the general explanation of hypnotic phenomena, which seems to be demanded by the present state of our knowledge. At the same time it must not be concealed, that there are many particular details which are far from having received a complete psychological explanation; and, on its physiological side, the whole subject presents still a wide field of research for cerebral physiology. To the student unfamiliar with the facts, the general description of this section can scarcely convey any idea of their marvellous nature ; but it was impossible to illustrate the subject more fully without giving the whole treatment too much of a merely anecdotical character. A fuller narrative of the interesting facts connected with this region of mental life must be sought in the special literature which it has called forth. Some of this litera- ture has been occasionally cited above ; and it is con- stantly receiving accessions, either in the periodicals of the day, or in independent monographs. Dr. Carpenter gives considerable space to the subject in his Principles of Mental Physiology, with which may be compared his two lectures on Mesmerism, Spiritualism, etc., historically and critically considered. Two papers by Mr. G. Stanley Hall in Mind (Number xxi., p. 98, and Number xxx., p. 170), give some account of the most recent researches both in Europe and in America. Wundt's Physiologische Psychologic (Vol. ii., pp. 375-8) gives a sketch of foreign Ibid., p. 238. Illusory Cognitions. 281 researches and literature. It may be added that the societies, recently instituted on both sides of the Atlantic for the promotion of psychical research, will probably at least succeed in collecting a body of facts connected with the abnormal activities of mind, free from those imaginative embellishments which, however pardonable in the art of the story-teller, are fatal to scientific inquiry. Some idea of the work already done by the English Society may be gained from the recent work, Phantasms of the Living, by Mr. Gurney, Mr. Myers, and Mr. Pod- more. With this may be compared four articles by Mr. Gurney in Mind (Numbers 33, 36, 46 and 47). 282 Psychology. CHAPTER VI. GENERAL NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE. THE explanation of our intellectual life would not be complete, if we did not attempt to generalise the detailed analyses through which we have gone. We have traced intelligence gradually evolving, out of associ- ate and comparable sensations, perceptions of individual objects, out of associable and comparable objects, classes of those that resemble. Then we have seen it evolving processes, by which it extends our knowledge from indi- viduals to classes, and from classes to individuals, with a consciousness of the reason for the extension. And lastly, we have followed it in its loftier movements, through the philosophic, the artistic, the moral, and the religious consciousness, seeking the interpretation of isolated particulars in the light of the universal order which they express, and stripping that order of its dead abstractness by finding it in the living particulars. To sum up, there is thus evolved to our consciousness a world of objects, placed over against ourselves, extending throughout an immeasurable space, and undergoing alter- ations during a limitless time — alterations which are pi> duced in the objects by each other in consequence of their recipi-ocal causality. There are, therefore, certain supreme categories, under which the intelligible world i General Nature of Knoivledge. 283 thought, and which are indicated in the terms italicised in the preceding sentence. These being the universal categories of the intelligible world, their interpretation involves the interpretation of the general nature of know- ledge. Consequently, we find that the problem of the ultimate generalisations of psychology gathers round these categories and their implications. The discussion of this problem carries us into the most controverted field of our science. The controversy over this field has been perplexed by being mingled with a philosophical question which, though having an affinity with the psychological, still in strictness lies wholly be- yond its sphere. The philosopher inquires into the validity of the categories as facts in the real existence of the world. To the psychologist, on the other hand, they are simply facts of human consciousness, which call for scientific explanation as far as the processes of science can be of service for this purpose. Accordingly, these universal factors of intelligence are now to be examined in a purely psychological aspect. Even in this aspect the examination has furnished a subject of extensive controversy. Among the innumerable theories which the controversy has called forth, there are commonly distinguished two general tendencies of speculation. Without attempting to describe these tendencies in a single sentence, it may be said, by way of preliminary explanation, that one, starting from the assumption of a world of realities, such as is formed in our consciousness, explains all factors of intelligence as being alike products of these realities. The other theory, on the contrary, starts from self-conscious intelligence as the primary fact of all science, sees in the realities of the world no mean- ing except as constructions of intelligence, and therefore refuses to find in these realities the source of intelligence 284 Psychology. itself. The former of these two tendencies is variously named, for reasons which will appear in the sequel, Realism, Empiricism, Sensationalism or Sensualism ; the latter is distinguished by such names as Idealism, Transcendentalism, Intuitionalism. Before proceeding to the discussion of these rival systems of thought, there are some terms of frequent occurrence in the controversy, with the exact use of which the student must be made familiar. 1. The term Intuition, from which one of the above systems receives its name, expresses etymologically the act of looking upon (or into ?) anything. As we seem to gain an immediate knowledge of things by looking at them, intuition is very commonly applied, in general literature, to any cognition which is given in a sudden flash of consciousness without the intermediation of a lengthy process of reasoning. Now, if there are any knowledges involved in the very nature of knowledge it- self, they cannot be the product of any cognitive process; for without them the process would itself be impossible. For that reason they are called intuitions. 2. Such knowledges are also said to be transcendental. They do not take co-ordinate rank with other factors of knowledge, which are merely adventitious. As condi- tions essential to the very possibility of knowledge, they may be said to transcend all its adventitious factors. 3. A priori is another expression applied to such knowledges, especially since the time of Kant ; while all other constituents of our knowledge are named a posteriori.* A cognition a priori is, literally, one that * The Germans have even made these expressions into regular adjectives, as we might do by adopting the forms aprioric and aposterioric. General Nature of Knowledge. 285 proceeds from what is prior, as an a posteriori cognition proceeds from what is posterior. It is on this account that arguments have been distinguished as a priori or a posteriori, when they proceed from cause to effect or from effect to cause ; for the cause is naturally prior. If I know an effect, — a fact or thing done, — from seeing it done, I know it from what comes last in regard to that thing, — from its ultimate accomplishment. My know- ledge is, therefore, a posteriori. On the other hand, if I know a fact before seeing it done, I know it from some source prior to the fact. My knowledge is, therefore, a priori. The former kind of knowledge is often spoken of as experience. Now, experience is literally trial. When we observe a fact as it actually happens, we may be said to have found it out by trial ; and, therefore, our know- ledge of it is appropriately described as experiential, or by the Greek equivalent empirical. Much of the knowledge, on which we act every 'day, is a priori in a certain sense. While I am writing, I have not yet tried the ink that is at the moment on my pen ; but I know a priori that it will leave a permanent mark on paper. Still, this knowledge, which, relatively to these drops of ink, is a priori, is not absolutely so. It is based on knowledge previously acquired by ex- perience, — by trying similar ink. As far as such cases are concerned, therefore, it remains a question, whether there is any knowledge that is absolutely a priori. 4. Various other terms are applied to a priori cognitions, describing the same characteristic from different points of view. (a) They are called pure, because they are derived from the intrinsic nature of intelligence, without the admixture of anything extrane- ous, (b) They are, therefore, to be viewed, not as 286 Psychology. exotics transplanted into the mind from some foreign source; they are rather native, innate (inborn), (c) On that account, they must also be conceived to be at the origin of all cognition, to be original. ( Book ii., Chap. 23. General Nature of Knowledge, 305 It is a striking proof of the impossibility of eliciting this idea from sensations, that Hume, on the empirical principles of Locke, denies not only the objective validity of the idea, but even its very existence, on the ground that there is no sensation,* from which it could be derived. The empiricists of the present day generally accept Hume's doctrine, but proceed in defiance of it by starting from an object outside of consciousness, — a sub- stance or force, — as the generator of consciousness itself. If we cannot trace the notion of substance to sensa- tions, its origin must be sought in some other factor of consciousness. To do this, let us observe the import of the notion. We are accustomed, as Locke puts it, to suppose that the qualities, represented by our simple ideas, are connected by some bond. Even Hume acknowledges, that " they are commonly referred to an unknown something, in which they are supposed to inhere ; or granting this fiction does not take place r are at least supposed to be closely and inseparably connected by the relations of contiguity and causation." That is to say, that the world, which unrolls itself before conscious intelligence, is conceived not as a series of vanishing sensations, but as a system of things which, with all their variableness, are endowed with a certain permanence. How comes it that the world shapes itself thus to intelligence? It arises from the fact, that otherwise there would be no intelligible world at all ; it is therefore the form of the world, that is implied in the very nature of intelligence. For to be intelligent is to be self-consc ous; and to be conscious of self is to be conscious of notself. Consequently, the very act of * Impression is Hume's name for sensation. See Hume's Trealist of Human Nature, Look i.. Part i., Section 6. U 306 Psychology. intelligence, by which we are conscious of sensations, projects these into an objective sphere, transmuting them into qualities of objects, and thus forming out of them a world that is not ourselves. Accordingly, in their psychological aspect at least, qualities are simply the form in which self-conscious in- telligence construes sensations. By a similar construc- tion is formed the notion of substance as that unity by which qualities are essentially connected, and which re- mains unaltered amid their changes. For the variable elements— the qualities— of things in the world of con- sciousness can be conceived, even as variable, only by relation to that which is permanent. The very condi- tions, under which alone an intelligible universe can be conceived, render necessary the notion of substances as enduring while their qualities change. And here perhaps we find also the source of those two supreme forms under which the objective world is con- ceived—the world of objects co-existing in space, and undergoing successive modifications in time. For the world takes its intelligible form from its being posited, by intelligence that is conscious of self, as something that is not self. Now, i. The notself cannot be thought as an absolute identity. It is the opposite of the identical factor of consciousness ; it is a construction of factors which are necessarily thought as varying, i.e., as in time. 2. Neither can the notself be thought as an absolute unity. Whatever relative unity may be ascribed to it, it must still, as opposed to the absolutely simple factor of consciousness, be thought as essentially manifold. That is merely another way of saying that it must be thought not as one indivisible whole, but as composed of distinct parts — of parts that are mutually exclusive. But the General Nature of Knowledge, 307 relation of mutual externality between co-existent things is space. Space and time would thus appear to be forms in which the world must necessarily be conceived in order to be intelligible — in order to be an object to self-con- scious intelligence. This view of these forms takes away the ground from the puzzles which have been often built upon them since the time of the Eleatic Zeno. It has been often maintained, even in recent times, that human intelligence is the helpless victim of a mysterious antinomy or contradiction in applying the notions of space and time ; and from this alleged fact various meta- physical inferences have been drawn with regard to the intrinsic impotence and limitation of our intelligence. This is not the place to enter upon the metaphysical aspects of the problems involved in this doctrine, but in so far as the doctrine bears upon the notions of space and time as psychological phenomena, a few words of explanation are required. The doctrine in question asserts that it is impossible to conceive time and space as, on the one hand, uncon- ditionally infinite or unconditionally finite, as, on the other hand, infinitely divisible or absolutely indivisible. However far you may stretch the imagination into the regions of space, into the past or the future of time, you cannot touch in thought an absolute limit — a limit be yond which there can be conceived to be no space 01 time. Repelled from the conception of such a limit, you endeavour to conceive space or time as absolutely unlimited ; but you find that thought sinks exhausted in the effort to compass this conception. Again, if time and space are broken up into parts, it is found impos- sible, on the one hand, to imagine a portion of either so small that it cannot be divided into portions smaller still, 308 Psychology. on the other hand, to carry any portion of time or space to an infinite division in thought.* Notwithstanding the high authority under which these perplexities have been propounded, it does seem that they imply a misapprehension regarding the nature of the notions upon which they play. It is quite true that we cannot think an absolute limit to space or time, while we are equally unable to think of them as ab- solutely unlimited. But the reason of this is to be sought in no mysterious impotence, which restricts in a special manner the finite intellect of man. The impot- ence arises from the fundamental condition of all think- ing — the law which prevents thought from contradicting, and thereby removing, its own positions. For space and time are, as we have seen, forms of relation ; and to ask us to conceive them under those modes, which the doctrine in question pronounces inconceivable, would be to require the conception of a relative which is not re- lated to anything. Take, by way of illlustration, the idea of a space absolutely limited. Space is a relation of mutual out- ness ; the very idea of space implies that every space has something outside of it. But a space with an absolute limit would be a space, to which there is nothing outside, — a space that is not a space at all. So, time means a relation to a before and an after. An absolute limit to the past, therefore, would be a time with no before ; an absolute limit to the future, a time with no after. But either limit would be a time that is not a time. * See Kant's Kritik of Pure Reaso7i (Chapter on the Antinomy of Pure Reason); Sir William Hamilton's Discussions, pp. 13-15, 601-9 ; Lectures on Metaphysics, Vol. ii., pp. 367-374. Compare Mansel's Limits of Religious Thought, Lecture ii., and Spencer's First Princip/es, Part i., Chapter iv. General Nature of Knowledge. 309 Take, again, the opposite extreme of the infinite. An infinite space or time, as the writers on the subject explain, is a conception that could be formed only by the infinite addition in thought of finite spaces and times; in other words, the conception implies an endless process. But when I am asked to form the conception now, I am asked to think a contradiction ; I am asked to end a process of thought which by hypothesis is endless. The same remark applies to the infinite division of space and time ; for like an infinite addition, an infinite division is a process which it would be a contradiction to speak of completing. On the other hand, space and time are, by their very nature as relations, conceived to be made up of related parts. The conception, therefore, of a space or time absolutely indivisible would involve an inherent contradiction. § 5. — Cause. After the preceding analyses, especially that of last section, little remains to be said on the special problem which the notion of cause presents. There is evidently a close affinity between the notion of cause and that of substance : in some metaphysical analyses substance and cause are regarded as ultimately identical. As far as they form distinct notions, the one refers to a necessary or objective connection of co-existing pheno- mena, the other to a similar connection of phenomena that are consecutive, in the world of which we are conscious. Accordingly, as empiricism derives the notion of substance from the uniform association ot co-existing sensations, so it analyses the notion of cause 310 Psychology, into an uniform association of sensations that form a sequence. This analysis is obviously chargeable with the general vice of all empiricism : it gives us a world merely of associated sensations, not of connected objects. A for- tuitous association of sensations, however frequently repeated, is not a necessary connection of objects; a temporal association in our consciousness is not an ob- jective connection between the things of which we are conscious. There need be no reluctance to admit, to the fullest extent, the marvellous effects of association, esj ecially when uniform and frequent We have seen that the two factors of an uniform sequence may, after a while, be able to suggest one another irresistibly and instantaneously. Still this implies merely that first the one appears in consciousness, and then the other im- mediately and inevitably arises. But the thought that the two are essentially connected, so that the one cannot appear without the other — this is a new thought, wholly different from either or both of the terms in the sequence. This thought, again, is the thought of a relation or connection, and cannot therefore be identified with sen- sation. It implies a consciousness which goes beyond transient sensations, and connects them with each other by a comparing act. This act is rendered possible by the presence in consciousness of a permanent factor that is not itself merely one of the phenomena which flow in unceasing variation. It is this factor by which, as we have seen, a plurality of co-existent qualities are con- nected into the unity of a substance. The same factor connects the successive movements in the world that rolls before consciousness. The changing modifications of substances, which constitute this succession, are thus thought as intrinsically connected in their temporal General Nature of Knowledge. 3 1 1 relations — as coming necessarily before and after one another. But to say that one is necessarily prior, and another necessarily posterior is to say that the one is cause and the other effect 312 Psychology. PART II. FEELINGS. Introduction, IN the remarks at the beginning of this Book it was explained that the various functions of mental life are evolved from the raw materials of sensation by the twofold process of association and comparison ; and the student may with advantage here refer to the explanatory remarks on this subject. The development of the first function, — that of cognition, — has been illustrated at length in Part I. It is the development of the second function, that we have now to trace. This function is variously termed feeling, emotion, sentiment. The term affection, as we shall afterwards find, has been commonly restricted to a single class of feelings, while passion is, in ordinary usage, applied to any feeling of unusual intensity. Of the three terms properly descrip- tive of these phenomena, emotion has the advantage of possessing the cognate adjectival form emotional: the adjective sentimental is not available for the same purpose, as it implies, in popular use, a preponderance of the emotional over the intellectual factor in our mental constitution. The various forms of feeling have their origin in the The Nature of Pleasure and Pain. 3 1 3 fact, that sensations are sources, not only of knowledge, but also of pleasure and pain. In the analysis, upon which we are entering, it will appear that the capacity of the different sensations for developing emotion, like their capacity for developing cognition, is to be measured by their associability and comparability. The most complex emotions, therefore, are those which draw their materials mainly from the more intellectual senses of hearing and sight. Those are also the emotions which are sometimes described as the most refined, inasmuch as in them the consciousness is freed from the dominion of mere sense, and exalted into a state in which purely mental activity becomes predominant over bodily sensation. We have seen that the aspect of sensations, in which they form the source of our emotional life, is that in which they are regarded as giving pleasure and pain. Consequently, this aspect of sensation demands our attention at the outset. Further, it may be observed that, though emotions are not connected with bodily organs in the same manner as sensations, yet there is an important connection, on the ground of which certain states or movements of bodily organs have come to be accepted as expressions of emotion. It will be advisable, therefore, before entering on the detailed analyses of this Part, to discuss the two general subjects thus indicated, namely, the nature of pleasure and pain, and the expres- sion of the emotions. § 1. — The Nature of Pleasure and Pain. In this inquiry it need scarcely be said that the question does not concern the intrinsic nature of pleasure and pain as facts of consciousness. To be 3 H Psychology. known they must be felt ; and you can explain what they are in themselves only in the way in which any simple sensation — a taste, a colour, or a sound — may be explained, by referring to the fact in consciousness. The inquiry, therefore, is of the same nature with other inquiries which have been already instituted with regard to our sensations ; it concerns the conditions under which pleasure and pain arise in consciousness. Here, however, we are at once struck by a difference between our present inquiry and those which have been already carried out in reference to sensations. It was found that the quality, and even the intensity, of sensations are directly referable to conditions in their objective causes. On the other hand, the pleasantness or painfulness of a sensation is not in general obviously connected with a specific condition in the object, on which it depends. Accordingly, the conditions, which determine the plea- surable or painful character of any conscious state, are to be sought, not in the object with which it is associated, but rather in the subject itself. On this fact is founded the ethical doctrine, preached by Epicurean and Stoic alike, regarding the indifference of externals to the real happiness of human life. This fact is also expressed in the psychological doctrine, which describes feelings of pleasure and pain as purely subjective states. For while in knowledge and volition there is necessarily a reference to an object known or willed, in the mere feeling of being pleased or pained, the subject is occupied solely with his own conscious condition. What, then, is it that makes one state of consciousness pleasant, and another painful ? This question seems to have attracted scientific attention for the first time under the great impulse, given by Socrates and by his contem- porary adherents and opponents, to speculation on the The Nature of Pleasure and Pain. 315 chief good of human life. Probably the earliest theory on the subject was that of the Cyrenaics, one of the various schools into which the many-coloured followers of Socrates separated immediately after his death. The theory, in its germ at least, may perhaps be traced to the Master ; for it apparently received the sanction of his greatest disciple in the Platonic dialogue, Philebus. But a theory, taking a far larger grasp of the phenomena, was soon after elaborated by Aristotle ; and it is marvellous to what an extent subsequent speculation on the subject has been influenced by Aristotelian thought. Sir William Hamilton has done more than any other British psychologist to draw attention to the subject, and his own theory professes to be little more than a reproduc- tion of the Aristotelian. But the most recent discussions on the subject, even among the expositors of the psychology of evolutionism, follow the essential line of the same theory, happily enriching it with a new wealth of illustration from the vast range of modern biological science.* Stript of the technical and even scholastic language in which it has sometimes been unnecessarily dressed, * The completest exposition of Aristotle's own theory is in the Nicomachean Ethics, Look x. Sir W. Hamilton devotes to the subject the last six of his Lectures on Metaphysics (Compare my Outline of Sir IV. Hamilton's Philosophy, pp. 195-222). Mill's Examination of Hamilton's Philosophy contains a chapter (the twenty-fifth) of hostile criticism on the theory. In Dallas' The Gay Science (Chapters 10-13) will be found an exposition of the theory with charming originality of illustration, and a chivalrous cham- pionship of Hamilton against Mill's attack. Among recent discussions by evolutionists, the chief work to be consulted is, of course, Spencer's Principles of Psychology, Part ii., Chapter i\ , with which compare his Data of Ethics, Chapter x. ; but a 316 Psychology. the theory may be summarised in the following brief statement : — All our conscious states — our activities and passivities equally — are capable of various degrees both of intensity and of duration. Still they are limited and that in two ways. There is firstly, an absolute or ultimate limit to the intensity and duration of any state, — a limit which cannot by any exertion be overstepped. There is, besides, a natural or ordinary limit, that is, a limit which the mental state tends spontaneously to reach, but which may be exceeded by an extraordinary exertion. This limit may be defined in various ways. It is here spoken of as natural, because it is the limit to which a mental state tends by its very nature. As affording a norm or rule for moderating the ordinary stimulation of a mental state, it may be called the normal limit. It is also the limit of health : if it is not usually reached, the organ or power called into play becomes atrophied; if it is usually transgressed, hypertrophy and destructive waste ensue. Pleasure, then, may be defined as the consciousness arising from the stimulation of a mental state to its normal limit, and no further ; pain, as the consciousness arising from a mental state being strained beyond, or restrained within, that limit. According to this law, therefore, those actions give pleasure which fulfil the conditions of healthy life, those, on the contrary, give pain, in which these conditions are violated. Accordingly, it has been pointed out by recent evolutionists that this is precisely the course prominent place must be accorded to Mr. Grant Allen's Physio- logical Alsthetics, especially Chapter ii. A history of theories is given by Hamilton, and also by Wundt [Physiologische Psychologie, Vol. i., pp. 494-9)- The Nature of Pleasure and Pain. 317 which the development of life would take through a struggle for existence in which the fittest survive, as it has been held from of old that the arrangement is a beneficent provision which the wise Author of Nature has made for the preservation of the individual and the continuance of the species.* But the abstract statement of this theory of pleasure and pain calls for some explanatory remarks in order to understand its interpretation of our emotional life. It may, therefore, be considered proper at the outset to notice an objection which appears in Mr. Mill's criticism of the theory. The objection is urged in an observation made by Sir W. Hamilton himself. "When," he says, " it is required of us to explain particularly and in detail, why the rose, for example, produces this sensation of smell, assafcetida that other, and so forth, and in what peculiar action does the perfect or pleasurable, and the imperfect or painful, activity of an organ consist, we must at once profess our ignorance." Mr. Mill cites this confession as implying that Hamilton was himself " more than half aware " of his theory being unable to fit all the facts. But, in spite of Mill's demand, Hamilton's assertion holds good with regard to all theories, that " in general we may account for much ; in detail we can rarely account for anything." There is not an animal or plant, not a star in space or a pebble on the seashore, whose position and shape and properties we are able to explain in complete detail. The utmost we can do is tc show how, if we were acquainted with * It may be interesting to compare with Spencer's Data of Ethics Ferguson's Principles of Motal and Political Science, Part ii., Chapter i., § 6. 3 1 8 Psychology. the history of each individual object, every detail in reference to it might admit of being explained; but to show how each detail has actually been brought about, is beyond the power of the most industrious intellect. This inability, however, does not militate against our ex- tending to unknown facts a theory which furnishes a simple explanation of all the known facts of the same class. From the accidental limitations of human knowledge, we may be unable to explain how certain facts have been, in all their minutest details, the result of a certain law : our ignorance does not imply that we know the facts to be incompatible with the law. Now, it is true that, in many cases, we cannot tell how the pleasantness or unpleasantness of a particular mental state has actually been produced. It is sufficient to be able to show how, if we were fully acquainted with the process at work in such mental states, their pleasant or painful nature would be seen to flow from the general law of pleasure and pain. But this is precisely what we are able to do in reference even to our simple sensations. Take, by way of example, an unpleasantly sour taste. We know the destructive action of powerful acids on all animal tissues even of the toughest sort. Is it an illegitimate supposi- tion that milder acids, like those of unripe fruit, which do not actually disintegrate the gustative organs, but merely produce an unpleasant taste, set up a violent activity in these organs, and that this excessive strain is the cause of the painful sensation ? For we know that an activity of the same kind, but more moderate in degree, such as is excited by the delicate acids of many common fruits, when ripe, is capable of affording one of the most pleasant tastes. On the other hand, it is worth observing that, if an acid of this sort is extremely diluted, The Nature of Pleasure and Pain. 319 It is apt to excite that unsatisfactory feeling which appears due to an imperfect stimulation; and in such circum- stances the sapid body is appropriately spoken of as insipid or tasteless. But it is evident that the full explanation of such phenomena must wait upon the pro- gress of physiology in disclosing the nature of the organic processes concerned in our various sensations. But whatever judgment may be passed on Mr. Mill's criticism, there are evidently not a few facts connected with our emotional life, which receive an interesting interpretation in the light of this theory. Among these prominence may be given to a fact which has often been noticed, that, on the one hand, feelings which seem intrinsically painful sometimes give pleasure, while, on the other hand, feelings which seem intrinsically pleasant sometimes give pain. To explain, it may be observed that some feelings appear to depend for their pleasurable or painful character on their intrinsic qualities. This is the case, as Wundt points out,* especially with those sensations, in which, as in tastes, odours, and the feelings of organic life, the consciousness is mainly taken up with the pleasure or pain received. Thus in distin- guishing tastes of a sweet quality from those of a bitter quality, we commonly attach an intrinsic agreeableness to the former, an intrinsic disagreeableness to the latter. So, as already observed, smells are in general distinguished only by their agreeable and disagreeable qualities. In like manner, certain emotions, such as love and hope, seem to be intrinsically delightful, while others, like fear and hate, seem intrinsically painful. Now, if it were really the natural quality of a feeling Physiologische Psychologies Vol. i., pp. 470-1 (2nd ed.). 320 Psychology. which yielded its pleasure or its pain, it would involve an irreconcilable contradiction to speak of a painful feeling giving pleasure, or a pleasant feeling giving pain. But the truth is indicated by our theory : it is not the essential quality of any conscious state that makes it agreeable or disagreeable, but its accordance or dis- cordance with the limit of healthy exercise. This will appear from both sides of the fact under consideration. I. The transition of generally painful feelings into an agreeable state is experienced where it might be least expected, — in sensation, where it might be supposed that, as there is a physical basis for the pain, there must be a physical barrier against its yielding to an opposite feeling. Yet we know that beverages and viands, disagreeable at first, come to be indulged in with even a greedy relish. Habits, like smoking, snuffing, chewing tobacco, are sometimes practised by the beginner with positive disgust, but become after a while the sources of a fascinating pleasure. It seems as if in these and kindred sensations the limit of healthy, and therefore of agreeable, stimulation were very near the limit where consciousness begins ; and, consequently, even a faint stimulation is apt to overstep the limit of pleasure. But a persistent exercise of the organ, on which the stimulant acts, seems to produce such a modification of its struc- ture, to impart such a strength or toughness to its tissues, as enables it to stand a degree of excitement which would previously have been unendurable. This is confirmed by the familiar fact, that the longer such a habit is indulged, and the more excessive the indulgence, the greater is the quantity of stimulus required to yield the gratification craved, — " As if increase of appetite had grown By what it fed on." The Nature of Pleasure and Pain, 321 It is but an extension of this explanation to suppose, that emotions, like grief and fear, which are apparently painful in their very nature, are so in reality only because they scarcely admit of any indulgence without transgres- sing the limits of healthy action. Feelings of the irascible type, for example, in all their ordinary out- bursts, imply too violent a disturbance of our sensitive nature to be capable of yielding any pure enjoyment; and yet the proverbial sweetness of revenge is a proof that these passions do form the source of a strong gratification. Moreover, prolonged or excessive indul- gence produces here the same effect as in the case of the unpleasant sensations which are converted into pleasure; the man, who continues to find delight in the indulgence of malicious feelings, may be hardened into a coarse insensibility to human sympathies, that will lead him to seek his hideous gratification in strong stimulants of envy and spite and cruel revenge, from which ordinary minds shrink with horror. But we need not dwell further on the malevolent side of human nature, as it will require to be considered fully in the sequel, when the source of its gratifications may be more appropriately examined. In the instances which have just been described, feelings that are usually painful are made to give pleasure by raising the normal limit of healthy excitement, and thus enabling the mind to bear a more powerful stimulant. But there are instances in which the same result is reached in another way, — by lowering the intensity of the stimulation. An example of these is furnished by one of the main branches of literature. Tragedy plays upon the pain- ful emotions of the human soul. These emotions, when aroused by causes in the world of reality, com- monly imply an excitement too serious for any sort w 322 Psychology. of pleasure. They may, indeed, as we have seen, afford a gratification to coarse natures that crave strong emotional stimulants, or to morbid sensibilities that feed on excitement. But to most minds that seek recreation in literature the tragedy of real life is too shocking. An ideal representation of life's tragedies, however, excites the appropriate sentiments in such a moderate degree as involves no unwholesome strain upon our sensibility, and fulfils thereby the condition of pleasurable indulgence. These remarks are not, of course, intended to be understood as discovering the source of all the en'oyment that is derived from tragic literature. It is obvious, for example, that part of this enjoyment must be due to the aesthetic gratification afforded by literary art. But greater than all the mere delight in artistic workmanship is the pleasurable excitement which is felt in the emotions themselves that are aroused by the ideal pictures of tragedy ; and it is a significant fact that philosophical critics, without any design of establishing a psychological theory, have yet sometimes analysed the pleasure felt in tragedy as if they were expressly illustrat- ing the theory of pleasure and pain, which is now under consideration.* A further result of this theory is the rule of poetic art which demands that a tragedy shall not be excessive, or at least without relief; and it becomes a fair question of criticism, whether some great poems, such as even King Lear and Othello, do not transgress the limits which are required for poetic effect. The emotions, which, since the time of Aristotle, have been regarded as pre-eminently the materials of * See Hume's well-known essay On Tragedy (Essays, Part i., 22.). The quotation from Fontenelle is especially interesting. The Nature of Pleasure and Pain. 323 tragedy, are pity and terror, or, as they might perhaps be more accurately described, sympathy with grief and sympathy with fear.* Yet grief and fear are, of all emotions, precisely those which force us, amid the realities of life, to face suffering without disguise. There is nothing, however, better established in experience than the fact, that these very emotions are capable of being transformed into pleasurable excitements. 1. Take, for example, fear. Even when it is not without ground in real danger, it is yet capable of being toned down so as to yield a genuine, though strong enjoyment, to men at least of robust nerve. It has often been observed that not a few sports owe their joyous stimulation in no slight measure to the excitement of the genuine peril which they involve. The ascent in a balloon, the shooting of a rapid in a canoe, the hunt of the tiger and other beasts of prey, perhaps even the glory of a battle-charge, " And that stern joy which warriors feel In foemen worthy of their steel," are instances in which even a well-grounded fear does not surpass the limit of pleasure when the sensibility has the toughness of vigorous health. But the purest pleasure of this stimulant is felt when it is drawn from imaginary sources ; and it is not merely the drama, but other forms of literature as well, that take advantage of its power. Here, therefore, is disclosed the secret of the spell which poet or story-teller may weave from tales of * See some capital remarks on this point in Dallas' The Gay Science, Vol. ii., pp. 53-59. 324 Psychology. horror, and from all the weird imagery that clothes the mysterious agents of an antique superstition. 2. A similar fact is noticeable in the case of the other tragic emotion. It has often been observed that, after the first shock of a bereavement is over, the heart seems to become accustomed to the natural feeling of sorrow, yearns even after the indulgence, and finds a solace in the sad exercise. Sir William Hamilton has cited numerous references to this strange experience of sorrowing minds ;* but he has apparently overlooked the most exquisite expression that it has ever found, when Queen Constance, justifying herself against Philip's complaint that she had become "as fond of grief as of her child," pleads : — " Grief fills the room up of my absent child, Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, Remembers me of all his gracious parts, Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form. Then have I reason to be fond of grief, "t If, even in the real calamities of life, the heart may thus find pleasure in dallying with its own woe, it is not surprising that literature should seize upon a fact so favourable to its effects. Not only, therefore, does the agreeable stimulation of grief form one of the principal charms of tragic representation in the drama, as well as in the narratives of history and fiction ; but in all poetry still the favourite theme is II Pensercso, — The sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought." * Lectures on Metaphysics, Vol. ii., pp. 482-3. t King John, Act iii., Scene 4, The Nature of Pleasure and Pain. 325 It need scarcely be added that, while for convenience illustrations have been drawn from literature, the same principle must explain the charm of pathos in all the arts. II. But the counterpart of the fact we have been considering affords an equally remarkable illustration of the law, on which pleasure and pain depend. Feelings, that seem in their essential nature pleasant, may be rendered painful by repression or by excess. This, too, is experienced, even in the case of sensations, where it might be supposed that there is a physical necessity for the pleasure. The experience is extremely familiar in connexion with the manifold forms of physical enjoy- ment, which the strong and healthy find in muscular exercise : the moment the limit of health is passed, the moment an injurious waste sets in, that moment a warning is sounded in consciousness by the pleasure of exertion giving place to the pain of fatigue. BuJ the same result is observed also in the indulgence of the passive sensations. Every child soon learns, by some uncomfortable experience, " To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof little More than a little is by much too much."* There is a point, also, which the most delicious fragrance may not exceed ; a slight increase in its intensity may transform it into a nuisance. But here it is surely unnecessary to enter into details \ all that has ever been written on the disagreeableness of surfeits might be cited in illustration of the same truth. In sensations, like those mentioned, which seem * Shakespeare's King Henry IV., Part i. , Act iii., Scene 3. 326 Psychology. intrinsically pleasant, it must be supposed that the limit of healthy activity for the sentient organ is considerably above the verge of consciousness, and that therefore the sensation in all ordinary degrees is a source of pleasure. But it is evident that the pleasure arises from no inherent quality of the sensation: it arises from the healthy moderation of the exercise which it involves, and is therefore neutralised by excess. Familiar facts oblige us to extend the same law to our emotions. The experience of men under all conditions has been, that no cup of joy can ever be safely drained to the very dregs. Every attempt to charge our pleasures with an undue intensity, or to prolong them for an undue length of time, is inevitably frustrated by the irreversible laws of our nature. And, therefore, even when life thrills with a moment of ecstatic joy, there often shoots through consciousness a pang from feeling that the intensity of bliss cannot be sustained, that we are trembling on the verge, where a breath may decide whether pleasure or pain is to prevail. This fact has, indeed, opened an in- exhaustible theme for the moralist in all ages, founding, as it does, on an unassailable basis the injunction to moderation in all our enjoyments. In an often-quoted passage from Romeo and Juliet this moral precept is actually based on the psychological law with which it is here connected ; and the law is itself illustrated by reference to the very phenomena already noticed of pleasant sensations becoming in excess disagreeable. " These violent delights have violent ends, And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, Which as they kiss, consume. The sweetest honey Is loathesome in its own deliciousness, And in the taste confounds the appetite The Nature of Pleasure and Pain. 327 Therefore love moderately ; long love doth so : Too swift arrives as tardy as to slow. " * Beside the double fact, now illustrated, of pains becoming pleasant, and pleasures painful, there is another feature of our emotional life, which also receives explanation from the law of pleasure and pain. The law leads us to expect that pain may be produced by opposite causes, — by defective exercise as well as by excess. This expectation seems in many cases to be realised. In illustrating the statement that a taste of sour quality is not intrinsically disagreeable, it was pointed out that, when of moderate strength, as in the delicate acids of many fruits, sourness is rather agreeable, and that it becomes disagreeable either by excess, as in the strong acids of unripe fruits, or by defect, as in an insipid dilution. The same observation may be made in reference to sweet tastes, only that the limit of agree- able intensity is higher than in the taste of acids. The contrast between pains of excess and those of defect is not so obtrusive in other sensations ; yet here and there it may be traced. Thus, an aromatic substance like the odoriferous fruits, may, in course of putrefaction, become so strongly scented as to be offensive, while it excites a milder dissatisfaction also when its aroma is gone. In colour-decorations an excessive display of the powerfully stimulating tints at the red end of the spectrum may * Act ii., Scene i. Compare the apposite passage in Goldsmith's DeserUS Village : — " In these, ere trifiers half their wish obtain, The toiling pleasure sickens into pain ; And, e'en when fashion's brightest arts decoy, The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy ? " 328 Psychology. derive its disagreeableness, partly if not wholly, from the surfeit of the eye, while a superabundance of the milder greens and blues, and, still more, of neutral tints, may owe its unpleasant effect to the disappointment arising from imperfect stimulation. Most of these forms of unsatisfying sensations are without names, probably from the fact that they are not sufficiently obtrusive in human life to require specific mention often; but it is one of the earliest lessons of all science to learn that the variety of nature is not to be restricted by the imperfections of human language. Here, fortunately, the want of specific names is compensated by a common artifice of language. The most familiar instance of unpleasantness arising from defective sensation is met with among our tastes ; and, as in numberless other cases, the typical representative of a class is used to provide a name for all the rest. Salt that has lost its savour, viands in which the customary seasoning is missed, the extreme dilution of any flavour, — these have long been taken as types of everything that fails to impart an adequate zest to our enjoyments. In- sipidity has, therefore, become a term of extensive application to feelings of an unsatisfying nature.* These feelings are met with throughout the entire range of our emotional life ; but probably they are to be found in their most striking form in connection with the general exercise of our powers. The happiness of life as a whole must depend on our having sufficient occupation to afford an agreeable stimulation of feeling. It is true * Various other terms, though not more specific than insipid, are also employed to denote the same idea of the unsatisfactoriness of deficient stimulation of the feelings, such as, dull, slozu, fiat, stale, vapid, spiritless, lifeless, dead, dead-alive. The emotional state must therefore be familiar enough in ordinary life. The Nature of Pleasure and Pain. 329 that the necessities of life compel most men to work beyond the limit of health and pleasure : the minute sub- division of labour in modern times, moreover, aggravates this evil by withholding the relief of variety in occupation, demanding, as it generally does, the special exercise of one power or one set of powers to excess. It is, there- fore, the irksomeness of excessive toil that is most frequently forced on our attention, as indeed it is the pains of excess that are in general the more obtrusive. Still, the irksomeness, arising from an unsatisfactory amount of activity, is not the less a fact. ** Absence of occupation is not rest, A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed."* This is the unpleasantness that we name tedium, ennui. The Germans name it well Langeweile ; for in this state all time seems a lo?ig while, it passes so slowly. Accprd- ingly, it is to escape from this condition that men invent the various devices appropriately called pastimes ; and when time, by its dreariness, appears like a foe to be got rid of, men are not unwilling to " kill time " by engaging even in laborious sports or feverish excitements like gambling. Perhaps in the light of these facts we may find an ex- planation of the sad phenomena of satiety. Variation of stimulus is essential to consciousness; but even a change perpetually rung on the old set of objects begins after a while to be followed by more languid feelings. Novelty is, therefore, essential to enjoyment, as well as variety, both being necessary to stimulate feeling to the lowest Cowjper's Retirement* 33° Psychology. limit of pleasure. But most lives are restricted within a comparatively narrow sphere ; and, whatever variety they may enjoy, cannot long continue to find scope for novelty of impression. Accordingly, if the mind has oppor- tunities of reflection, there is apt to arise, in varying de- grees of intensity, a feeling of dissatisfaction with circum- stances as unable to afford adequate stimulation in con- sequence of having lost their freshness. This feeling may attach itself merely to single objects which, from long fa- miliarity, have lost their power to please. But it may also extend to the whole surroundings; and if no bene- ficent necessity prevents the sensibility from morbidly preying on itself, the result may be a state of intolerable discontent with the general insipidity of life. 41 How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world 1 " * In this state of feeling may we not see the source of those pessimistic systems of thought, which find in hu- man life nothing worth living for ? This incapability of * Hamlet, Act I, Sc. 2. The citation of Hamlet suggests that the student will find an invaluable subject of psychological specula- tion in the mood of mind which has been immortalised in this drama. The same life-weariness, with its developments inhuman character, has formed a favourite theme with the poets of the modern world ; and the student may derive an interest from comparing in this con- nection other celebrated treatments of the same theme, such as Byron's Manfred and Tennyson's Maud, but especially Goethe's Faust, and perhaps also the less successful reproductions of the Faust-legend by Marlowe, Miiller, Lenau, and Bailey. There are borne admirable remarks on this mood of the soul, with a general reference to its manifestations in life and literature, but with special reference to his Sorrows of Werther, in Goethe's Wahrheit unci Dichtung, Book xiii. The Nature of Pleasure and Pain. 331 receiving pleasure from the feeble excitement of objects that are no longer new may explain also the fact, often referred to by the poets, that to young eyes there is thrown over nature a glamour which vanishes with ad- vancing years. " There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore ; Turn wheresoe'er I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more."* It only remains to add that another influence must be taken into consideration in order to comprehend ade- quately the phenomena of our pleasures and pains. Our feelings depend for their pleasantness or painfulness, not solely upon themselves, but also upon the relation in which they stand to one another. There are two results which follow from this. 1. A feeling, which, if allowed free play, might burst into vigorous activity or even absorb our consciousness for the time, may be held in check or, perhaps, wholly submerged by another feeling of an opposite nature, with which it happens to be associated. This is strikingly illustrated by the fact that the same object may, by its different aspects, awaken extremely different feelings. Take, for example, an exhibition of vice like drunken- ness. By his droll behaviour the drunkard is adapted to excite irrepressible mirth as naturally as, by his deg- * Wordsworth's Ode on the Intimations of Immorialily from the Recollections of Childhood. 332 Psychology. radation of humanity, a feeling of pitiful sorrow or of pitiless scorn. Take, again, aesthetic feeling or taste. Its vagaries have long been a subject of common remark. Nor is this hard to explain, for such feeling is often modified or entirely neutralised by other feelings that are out of harmony with it, such as physical pain, mental suffering, anger, or envy. Nearly all the objects that excite feeling are capable of being viewed in a variety of aspects ; and consequently our emotional life is, in most instances, of a complex nature, while in many instances it exhibits a strange union of discordant passions. In such combinations it depends on numerous causes, which of the contending emotions is to prevail ; but it will be found, in subsequent analyses, that the prevailing emotion is often misinterpreted from failure to appreciate the influence of the others with which it may have been associated. 2. Another important fact results from the relation of different feelings. A feeling may owe its pleasantness or painfulness, either wholly or partially to its contrast with the immediately preceding state of mind. Thus a men- tal state, which is neutral in regard to pleasure and pain, may be rendered pleasant by being a relief from previous suffering, while it may be rendered painful by the mere want of some previous luxury. By the same cause also, our pleasures and pains may be intensified ; and it is this fact, that gives to sudden calamities an additional bitterness, as well as an additional ze:t to unexpected good news. In the vicissitudes of life this character- istic of our pleasures and pains finds fresh illustration every day ; and therefore the pleasures of vicissitude have afforded to Gray a natural theme for one of his finest odes. Expression of the Feelings. 333 *' See the wretch, that long has tost On the thorny bed of pain, At length repair his vigour lost And breathe and walk again : The meanest floweret of the vale, The simplest note that swells the gale, The common sun, the air, the skies, To him are opening paradise." These facts have been embodied in technical language by the psychologists. In so far as our feelings owe their agreeable and disagreeable characters to themselves, they are said to be positive or absolute pleasures and pains. On the other hand, the terms negative and relative are used, when pleasure and pain are due to comparison with some previous feeling. § 2. — The Expression of Feelings. Our pleasures and pains have come to be associated with certain bodily actions, so that these can be interpreted by other persons as signs of our sensitive condition at the time. For accuracy three classes of such signs may be distinguished. (1.) There is the ordinary form of intelligent expression for feeling as well as thought in articulate language. This, however, is a mode, not of emotional expression in particular, but of mental expression in general, and, consequently, it presents no claim for special discussion here. (2.) There are many actions which are at first voluntarily adopted for the expression of various feelings, and afterwards become so habitual as to be practically automatic. Such are the established usages of courtesy, by which we express kindliness, respect, and other social feelings. Under this head ought to be included 334 Psychology. also the numerous exclamations which different persons adopt as expressions of joy, surprise, horror, and other emotions. All expressions of this class are particular in their character. They are limited to particular in- dividuals or to particular communities ; and their various forms are often determined by trivial accidents, so that they seldom illustrate, except in a very remote way, any universal law of human nature. (3.) But, after making every allowance for these two modes of express- ing emotion, there remain other expressive actions which are in all men apt to be stimulated by certain emotions, and which seem therefore to be connected with these by some general law. Such are the paleness of fear and the blush of shame, the arching of the eyebrows and open- ing of the mouth under the influence of surprise, the furrowing of the brow into a frown of anger, the curling of the lip into a sneer of scorn, and the effusion of tears in sorrow. Even the internal organs of the body are affected by various emotions. This is indicated in the use of the word hearty as well as of its equivalents in other languages, as a general name for the sensibility. The terms melancholy and splenetic connect the feelings they express with the liver and the spleen respectively ; while the Greek word airXdyx^a points to some influence of compassion on the bowels. These phenomena must have excited speculation at an early period. The surviving works of the ancient sculptors show that these artists had made the natural expressions of the emotions a subject of careful study. It is impossible also that mimicry and the histrionic art could have attained the perfection which they had reached in ancient Greece and Rome, unless play-actors had made at least an empirical acquaintance with the actions in which feelings are commonly expressed. The Expression of the Feelings. 335 so-called science of physiognomy may be said to have aimed at explaining the physical expressions of feeling, though it went generally on the wrong scent by tracing peculiarities of temperament to permanent features of anatomical structure, or by interpreting them in the light of fanciful resemblances between human features and those of other animals which were supposed to be en- dowed with certain natural dispositions. A new epoch in the history of the study may be dated from the publication of Sir Charles Bell's Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression as connected with the Fine Arts y which appeared first in 1806 as a set of somewhat fragmentary essays, afterwards in 1844 in a greatly enlarged form. Another epoch is marked by Mr. Darwin's Expression of the Ei7iotions in Man and Animals (1872). This work, while tracing all emotional expres- sions to three laws, lays great stress on the influence of heredity in the formation of these expressions ; and it may, therefore, be taken as a monograph in exposition of the general evolution-theory, which is commonly associated with the name of the author. More recently Professor Wundt, while maintaining the general theory of evolution, has devoted some hostile criticism to Darwin's special theory of emotional expressions, and endeavours to explain them by three laws different from those of Darwin.* *See Wundt's Physiologische Psychologie, Vol. ii., pp. 418-428! and compare his article in the Deutsche Rundschau for April, 1877. Both Darwin and Wundt give a sketch of the literature of the subject. A more recent work by Dr. Warner, Physical Expres- sions : its Modes and Principles (1885), refers to movements that express phases of organic life rather than of mind, and deals there- fore with questions preliminary to those of emotional expression. 33^ Psychology, It is evident, then, that we are still a good way from being able to formulate a law of the relation between feelings and their bodily manifestations. The subject is one where the inquiries of psychology and physiology become inextricably intertwined, and on a field where both psychologist and physiologist must walk with hesitating steps. The inquiry is, indeed, strictly speak- ing, physiological rather than psychological ; it concerns the functions of certain bodily organs in so far as these are affected by mental states. In the present condition of science, therefore, it seems preferable in a handbook to be content with an occasional notice of such facts as may seem to be of psychological interest in connection with the manifestation of the various emotions. Mean- while it may be observed that the tendency of emotions to associate with bodily symptoms is not equally strong in the case of all ; and in relation to this difference there is a generalisation of Hegel's, which seems sufficiently suggestive to deserve mention. He observes that our emotions may be separated into two classes as particular and universal, the former referring to the special condi- tion of the individual, like anger, shame, etc., while the latter includes those emotions which, like the aesthetic, moral, and religious, are free from any tinge of individual interests. The former preserve a close association with their bodily expressions, whereas the latter tend to liberate themselves from these accompaniments. More- over, owing to the complexity of our emotional life, the universal and the particular feelings often take on some of the characteristics of each other ; and the more any feeling tends towards particularisation, it tends also to embodiment in some form.* • Hegel's Encyklopadie) § 401. Classification of the Feelings. 337 § 3. — Classification of the Feelings. By their very nature as states of merely subjective excitement, the feelings cannot be made objects of such distinct conception as the cognitions. A distinct and exhaustive classification of them is, therefore, beyond the reach of psychology in its present stage. In their lowest form, indeed, as aspects of our sensations, they follow of course the classification of these; and in their higher forms it might at first sight appear as if they could be classified on the same principle as the sensations, that is, by reference to the bodily organs with which they are associated. It is true, they are not, like the sensa- tions, excited by affections of the bodily organs ; but we have seen in the previous section, that they are apt to excite such affections as their natural expression. This principle, however, is found to carry us only a little, way ; for it is often impossible to connect a peculiar affection of an organ with one emotion exclusively. A convincing illustration of this is afforded by one of the most familiar manifestations of feeling, namely, the action of grief on the lachrymal glands. For the same action is set up by the very different emotion of anger, and even by the opposite emotion of joy, so that tears of rage and tears of joy are almost as familiar in daily life as tears of sorrow. Indeed, almost any emotion at a high pitch of intensity seems capable of stimulating the secretion of tears \ while it is a still more remarkable fact, that the deepest griefs are tearless. 44 Home they brought her warrior dead, She nor swooned nor uttered cry ; All her maidens watching said, She must weep or she will die." X 33$ Psychology. No other princi; le of classifying the emotions has been suggested which is most obviously natural ; and con- sequently no classification has been proposed which has met with general acceptance.* Any classification sug- gested at present must, therefore, be merely provisional ; and the following is adopted mainly as a convenient order for describing the development of the emotions in our mental life. It starts from the rudimentary stage of feeling as simply the pleasurable or painful accompani- ment of sensation. It then proceeds on the assumption that the more complex phenomena of our emotional life, like those of our intellectual life, are developed by the two universal processes of mental action, association and comparison. As the former is the more primitive process, it seems natural to notice first those emotions which are due mainly to association, and then to take up those in which the higher process of comparison is the most prominent factor. There are other emotions which presuppose a certain development of intellectual and moral life, as they arise in connection with our cognitions and volitions. These two classes of emotions, which may appropriately be styled intellectual and moral, will naturally come last in our treatment. * In Professor Bain's The Emotions and the Will, Appendix B, the student will find a brief outline of some of the modern classifications. Feelings of Sense. 339 CHAPTER I. FEELINGS OF SENSE. HERE feelings are considered as merely certain aspects of the elementary mental states, out of which the emotional life proper is developed. A superficial observation shows that, as sources of pleasure and pain, the rank of sensations is the reverse of that which they take as sources of knowledge. The more prominent in consciousness the pleasantness or painful- ness of a sensation, the less is it adapted for that calm contemplation of its intrinsic qualities by which our knowledge is built up. Consequently, the general sensations, in contrast with the special, are, as a rule, with the exception of the muscular, associated in consciousness almost exclusively with the pleasure or pain they afford, and but slightly, if at all, with any information they communicate. The sensations arising from the healthy or unhealthy action of the nerves, of the digestive and other organs, commonly intrude themselves into consciousness only as states of pleasure or pain. Occasionally, indeed, a mind of scientific habits or of practical prudence may, by observation and reasoning, arrive at a knowledge of important facts associated with such sensations ; but for the ordinary mind they remain 340 Psychology. states of a vague uninterpreted delight or uneasiness. The result is, that feeling in such cases remains indis- solubly attached to the sensation in which it originates. Feelings of this primitive character may be of incalculable importance as contributing to the comfort and discomfort of our daily existence, which are of course essentially dependent on our animal condition. But as the sen- sations, arising from the functions of animal life, are in- capable of being distinctly observed and compared, they do not enter readily into association with other sensations to form those more complex states of feeling which compose our emotional life. Still it is not to be supposed that our emotional states are altogether dissociated from these vague general sensations. Occasionally we find the pleasantness or unpleasantness, characteristic of these sensations, applied to the description of feelings which have no apparent connection with sense. The heart is " broken " or "gnawed" with care, the feelings are "wounded," the spirit is "crushed." Often we are "cut" to the heart, we "burn" with impatience and other passions, we are "chilled" by a friend's unexpected manners. A certain "atmosphere of thought" is spoken of as "stifling," while we "breath a freer air " when we adopt a different set of convictions. Even the pleasures and pains, which are apt to be thought of as the most grossly animal of all, — the sensations of the alimentary canal, — may be transfigured in this way, as is shown in the secondary application of such terms as relish, zest, gusto, on the one hand, as nauseating and disgusting on the other. These feelings have, in fact, been exalted into a sort of sacredness in the memorable blessing of those who "hunger and thirst after righteousness." It is not always easy to tell how this transference of Feelings of Sense. 34 1 the names of sensations is brought about. In some cases it seems to arise from a resemblance of some sort between the sensation and the feelings designated by its name. In other cases, however, its source is to be found in facts connected with the expression of the emotions. It was shown, in the immediately preceding Introduction, that emotions are associated in some way with various bodily organs, so that the affection or movement of these forms a more or less distinct expression of the associated emotions. This association, however originated, seems to react on the emotions ; and thus an organic affection or movement comes to be suggestive of the emotion which it primarily expressed. For this reason, if for no other, dyspepsia, which may be induced by various unpleasant passions, especially by those of a malevolent nature, tends to darken the mental life by passions of the same order; while, on the other hand, eupepsia, which is promoted by a cheerful and benevolent disposition, returns this favourable in- fluence by making the culture of such a disposition more natural. A careful observer may easily convince himself by experiment, that those movements of the facial muscles, which are among the most familiar manifesta- tions of feelings, — smiles, frowns, sneers, — can be made to excite in a vacant mind the emotions which they com- monly express ; and it is a significant confirmation of this, that, in hypnotic states in which the consciousness is dominated by purely natural associations, it is com- mon for an operator to introduce into his subject's mind any feelings or ideas he wishes by setting the features or limbs to some adjustment usually expressive of an emotion. There is another fact deserving of notice in this con- nection. Pleasure and pain, by whatever cause excited, 342 Psychology. tend to combine with their natural emotional associates ; and consequently any agreeable sensation is favourable to joy, love, hope, and aesthetic delight, whereas any disagreeable sensation is apt to excite melancholy, ill- temper, fear, despair. But in all such cases it still remains a distinctive characteristic of the general sensations as a class, that they are not so adapted for entering into the vast combinations of feeling which form the most interesting as well as the most important feature of our emotional life. Such combinations have their chief source in the definitely comparable sensations of special sense, and especially of hearing and sight. In signalising these two senses it is meant that they are better adapted than any of the others for developing the more complicated emotions as well as the more complicated cognitions ; and this superior adaptation may be made evident by a comparison of the different senses in respect of their emotional power. I. Of the two less intellectual senses, taste and smell, almost enough has been of necessity said in analysing the cognitions which they go to form. The sensations of taste, though more distinctly marked than those of smell in our ordinary consciousness, were shown to be but slightly endowed with associability or comparability, and therefore to be incapable of distinct representation. Accordingly, it was observed that they do not readily enter into those ideal combinations, which are equally essential to emotional and intellectual development. Moreover, the sensations of taste are too closely bound up with the functions necessary for the preservation of life to admit of free indulgence in their pleasantness ; and this also, as we shall find, excludes them from aesthetic uses. Burke, indeed, thinks that the pains, — Feelings of Sense. 343 we might say, the horrors, — of taste may enter into our feelings of the sublime ; but the only instance he gives is the literary use of the phrases, " a cup of bitterness/' " to drain the bitter cup of fortune," " the bitter appleb of Sodom."* With these may be compared such terms as "sweet" or "sour temper," "sour looks," "bitter fate," " honeyed words," " bitter language." Expressions of this sort are merely examples of what was noticed a few pages before, — the transference of the names of sensations to describe feelings which have no connection with sense ; and it may be questioned whether the use of these expressions ever approaches the character of sub- limity. II. The sense of smell, as already observed, is in man mainly emotional. It is true that, in many species of the lower animals, its organ is more developed and its uses are more numerous. It serves to attract the sexes, as well as parents and young, to one another ; it forms a guide in the discovery of food, in evading more powerful enemies, and in tracking prey. Whether these facts are causally connected with the emotional character of odours in man, is still a matter of conjecture. It is no mere conjecture, however, that in each individual these sensations afford many of the familiar pleasures of life. Not only the interested enjoyments of the table, but all the purer delights of forest and garden, of rural life in general, derive a large element from the pleasures of smell. This naturally leads us away from the simple sensations of odour to the emotional associations which they form ; but although the subject belongs properly to the next chapter, it is not altogether out of place to * Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, Tart ii., § 21, 344 Psychology. notice the comparative readiness with which odours enter into such associations. It has long been observed, for example, that odours have an influence on the sexual feelings; and the use of incense in religious service points to some connexion with the feelings of devotion. It is true, that these emotional influences of smell are more prominent among Southern people ; and it may be in- ferred that the increased and uninterrupted development of odours under a warmer sun and a perpetual summer, is paralleled by an increased development of sensibility to their effects.* III. Touch is commonly conceived as more destitute of emotional character than any of the special senses. It is, therefore, a remarkable fact, that the term feeling, which is the most general name for the phenomena of pleasures and pains, has been borrowed from the sense of touch. As already hinted in treating of our tactile per- ceptions, the emotional side of this sense is probably overlooked from the fact that its contributions to our mental life have become largely absorbed in those of sight. Yet a more careful examination soon shows that the emotional elements of touch are neither few nor unimportant ; and that they obtrude themselves in our daily consciousness is shown by the fact, that a strong emotional impression is very commonly described by saying that we feel touched, while a strong emotional stimulant is spoken of as touching. The effect of touches upon our feelings varies according to the part of the skin affected, as well as the quality of the sensation excited. i. The emotional susceptibility of different parts of * Some interesting observations on this point will be found in a popular, but suggestive, little book by Dr. George Wilson, The Five Gateways of Knowledge, pp. 62-85 Feelings of Sense. 345 the skin evidently does not show a close parallel to their intellectual discriminativeness. The reason of this I take to be, not that the parts of great discriminative power are not also extremely sensitive to the pleasantness and unpleasantness of touches, but that the two modes of mental activity, cognition and emotion, are essentially incompatible. Accordingly where, as in the hand, con- sciousness is usually engrossed with the information given, the emotional uses of the organ are reduced to a minimum. Still the hand affords many tender delights, as well as many repulsive unpleasantnesses, of touch. It is the grasp of the hand that is taken, over most of the civilised world, as the appropriate expression of common kindly feelings. The tongue, though seldom used by man for discriminating anything but articles of food, and though the most acute part of the whole organism, is yet scarcely ever applied to emotional uses. But dogs, cows, and other animals, lick the objects of their affection. ' It is in parts not commonly employed for purposes of dis- crimination, that the highest emotional susceptibility is realised. The lip and cheek,* and even parts of lower intellectual rank, are commonly associated with the most delicious enjoyments of touch. 2. Among the various kinds of tactual sensation, that which yields the purest and most independent pleasure is smoothness. Softness is also a plentiful source of agreeable sensations ; but it is more dependent on concomitant feelings, and accordingly it is more apt to be supplanted by such associations as a rough or clammy surface. On the other hand, even the hardest substances, when highly polished, are capable of yielding an inde- pendent delight in their smoothness. Even the pleasure * Some African tribes rub noses in expression of friendly feeling. 346 Psychology. that we take in the sight of polished surfaces is, in a large measure, a revival by suggestion of the tactile feel- ing which such surfaces excite. The additional gratifica- tion, also, which we derive from gloss or lustre, though partly visual, is likewise partly due to its manifest suggestion of smoothness.* But the greatest volume of enjoyment, that we owe to touch, is found in the combination of its two most emotional sensations, smoothness and softness. The delicate petals of our common flowers, the downy feathers of birds, the sleek and glossy fur of many animals, are objects over which the fingers play with perpetual delight; while the use of feathers and furs for clothing, as well as the imitation of their qualities in cloths of velvety texture, rs evidently suggested by the agreeableness in the touch of smooth and soft bodies. But it is the human skin, especially in the infant and the female sex, that realises most completely the con- ditions of delight in tactual sensation; and the tenderness of such delight has furnished to thought and language a description characteristic of all kindly emotions. Among the pains of this sense hardness and roughness are of course the most prominent ; and their combina- tion, as in unwrought stone or unpolished iron, is as repulsive as the union of their opposites is attractive. The terms hard and rough are, therefore, of very extensive application to objects that excite emotions of a disagreeable nature. But it is important also to observe that smoothness and softness, especially the latter, are * The reader of Burke's Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, may recall the extravagant importance which he attaches to smoothness among the conditions of beauty. See especially iii., § 14, and iv., § 20-25. Feelings of Sense. 34/ themselves capable of an unpleasant excess. Perhaps the unpleasantness in such cases is due to defective stimulation ; and that may be the reason why the terms smooth and soft are often figuratively applied to objects of a mean and contemptible character. But whatever may be the cause of this unpleasantness, the pain of hard and rough impressions is undoubtedly due to excessive stimulation. Hardness evidently is akin to those violent pressures which crush and bruise the tissues. On the other hand, roughness resembles various sensations of an intermittent character, which were referred to before when explaining the nature 01 discord. In such sensations it seems as if the inter mission gave time for the organ to recuperate, and thus to become capable of a wasteful degree of activity, which would be impossible under the numbing influence of a continuous stimulation. In this way we may explain the unpleasant effect produced by a discordant clash of sonorous vibrations, or by a flickering light. Thus also it would appear that instead of the continuous impression made by a smooth body, a rough surface, being formed of projections separated by minute intervals, owes its unpleasantness to the violent tactual excitement caused by a series of intermittent shocks. The sensation of weight is mainly muscular, but may be noticed here, as it is also to a slight extent tactual. The only definite enjoyment which such sensation yields is that arising from a weight light enough to be borne with moderate exertion, so that light comes to be descriptive of all performances that are made pleasant by being easy. On the other hand, the extreme easiness of any action is unsatisfying ; and consequently light is often applied to objects of contemptible triviality. But the decided form of uneasiness connected with this class 348 Psychology. of sensations is that of excessive weight ; and therefore heavy is a term of wide use to describe the various feelings arising from the difficulties of life, by which its energies are oppressed. It only remains to add that, as touch is endowed in an eminent degree with distinct representability, its pleasures and pains enter readily into those ideal combinations which form the more complex emotions. Thus, " the touch of a vanished hand," and " remembered kisses after death," are referred to in well-known poems of the Laureate's as revivable with distinctness and suggestive with power enough to stir the deepest movements of our emotional nature. IV. Hearing is a sense of the very highest emotional value. Superior to touch in intellectual adaptation, it is superior also in capacity for pleasure and pain. In this capacity it is superior to sight as well, so that, although it does not ally itself so definitely with specific emotions, yet it originates some which stir our nature more pro- foundly. This is most familiarly illustrated in the influence of music. Here, it must be borne in mind, the influence of this art is considered, not in all its manifold character, but merely at its lowest — its sensuous stage. There is considerable difference of opinion as to the nature and origin of the emotional effects produced by music ; but all theories on the question must recognise a certain basis in organic sensibility, on which higher effects are built up. That sensibility implies, as has been ex- plained in earlier pages, a capacity for agreeable and disagreeable impressions, both from single tones, and from the melodic and harmonic relations of different tones. Single tones depend for their pleasant or unpleasant character on their intensity, their pitch, or their quality. Extremely loud or extremely shrill sounds are painful ; Feelings of Sense. 349 and the pain seems obviously due to the violence of the organic action which they excite. Harsh qualities of tone have been already traced to the same cause as discords, — the inharmonious interference of the overtones with the fundamental tone.* Now, the unpleasantness of discord has just been explained as, like roughness, caused by a series of intermittent stimulations, which allow the organ to recover between each, and thus call forth a wasteful expenditure of energy, f On the other hand, the unsatisfactory character of the weak tones, which from the absence of overtones possess no decided quality, is perhaps due to defective stimulation. The sensibility to auditory enjoyment, however, in its refined forms, is a later growth of evolution in the indi- vidual as well as in the race. Not to speak of the innumerable harsh cries of the lower animals, or the deafening noises which monkeys delight to make by beating sticks as well as by screeching, it is evident that, in early life, when the auditory sensibility is still undeveloped, and the general nervous organisation robust, the ear can not only endure, but enjoy, violent excite- ments, — loud noises that irritate, if they do not stun, an adult ear, or wild tones that pay little or no regard to musical law. The coarse sensibility of the savage enables him also to find delight in a music which is distinguished * See Book ii., Part i., Chapter £., § 4 (B). ii. + The depth of feeling which may be stirred by the mere organic effect of discord is strikingly displayed by the experience of hypnotic patients. "A discord, such as two semi-tones sounded at the same time, however sq/t, will cause a sensitive patient tc shudder and recede when hypnotised, although ignorant of music, and not at all disagreeably affected by such discord when awake." {Neurypnology, or the Rationale 0/ Nervous S/ee/>, by James Braid, p. 62, note). 350 Psychology. mainly by its overpowering stimulation of the sense. It may be observed, moreover, that, as the limit of healthy excitement varies even in the individual for hearing as well as for other senses, men of general refinement, in hours of boisterous mirth, relapse not unnaturally into the early rude taste for uproarious song and clamour. There is, however, a peculiar richness in the emotional effects of music, which extend over a vastly wider area than the mere sensibility to sound. It is in fact practically impossible to set a limit to the feelings which may be stirred by this art ; and no psychological theory could be accepted as a complete account of the nature and origin of the emotional influence of music, which restricted that influence to one set of emotions, such as sexual feeling, or derived it exclusively from one class of sounds, like those of speech. The truth seems to be, that tones readily associate with all the leading emotions of the human soul, and that therefore the sensuous gratifications of tone become at once intermingled with some of the associated emotions, though which of these shall be stirred must be determined by the various cir- cumstances of the individual and of the moment. It is a significant fact that, in Collins' fine Ode to Music, the passions, though of the most conflicting order, are all pictured as resorting to this art, at once for their approp- riate stimulus and for their appropriate expression. V. The sensations of light and colour owe their pre- eminent intellectual value to their comparative neutrality in respect of pleasure and pain. The organic feeling is here so slight, that, in mature life, at least among educated minds, it is generally absorbed in the pre- dominant perceptions, with their intellectual and emo- tional accompaniments. Still the emotional side of visual sensation is not wholly obscured ; and among Feelings of Sense. 351 children, as well as the untutored and uncivilised, who exercise less control over their feelings, the sensuous excitement of light and colour is frequently to be ob- served. 1. The sensibility to visual pleasure commences with the earliest form of visual sensation. There can be no doubt of the fact, that for months before the child shows any appreciation of colours, he finds pleasure in pure light;* and this remains throughout life the simplest enjoyment of vision. This enjoyment, however, is of two kinds. (a) When pure light is spread over a large expanse, as in a luminous atmosphere with the sun away from the eyes, or even when it is softened, as by a lampshade, the sensation excited belongs to the gentle and soothing class, and consequently light has always been regarded as itself one of the purest of organic gratifications, and as affording a type of the purest gratifications of life in general. " Truly," says an old Hebrew, " the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun."f The note is one that is echoed by many a tone of ancient literature. So the light of life is often used as a symbol of all that makes life worth living ; while terms, like bright and serene, expressive of clear light, are found appropriately descriptive of general happiness, whereas terms, that express the absence of light, such as shadow or gloom, are extended naturally to any joyless condition of mind. (6) But light, when concentrated in brilliant centres. * Preyer, Die Seele des A'indcs, pp. 6-17. t Eccles. xi., 7. The commentators cite in illustration Euripides, Iphig. in Aulis, vs. 1218 :—i}8v yhp t6 u>s flkiireip. 352 Psychology. is a powerful stimulant. The sensation produced is then of an exciting character ; and its enjoyment indicates, therefore, a coarser sensibility. The pleasure that we find in bonfires and pyrotechnic displays does not imply any refinement of sense. 2. It is also a coarser sensibility that draws its pleasures from the colours at the red end of the spectrum. Experiments show that these are the earliest to be recognised by the child;* and they remain throughout life the most exciting forms of colour-sensation. The ecstasy of children and savages at the sight of brilliant reds is an evidence of the strong effect which these produce. A curious illustration of this effect is sometimes found in states of mental disease, when the consciousness falls away from rational control into the sway of mere natural sensation. Thus, the dancers of St. John and St. Vitus in Germany were infuriated, while the Tarantati of Italy were thrown into an ecstasy of delight, by red colours.! This effect is further illustrated by the experience of some of the patients cured of congenital blindness, while their visual sensations still retained the impressiveness of novelty. Cheselden's patient is said to have thought scarlet the most beautiful of all colours, and of others those pleased him most which were "gay," — an expression I take to mean those in which red is the predominant tint. On the other hand, black gave him. uneasiness, and a negro at first excited feelings of horror. It is perhaps indicative of some individual, or zX least feminine, characteristic, that Wardrope's patient * Preyer, pp. 6-17. }• Hecker's Epidemics of tlie Middle Ages, Part ii., pp. 17, 19, • ote, 29, 41. Feelings of Sense. 353 thought the blue sky the prettiest thing she had ever seen ; but, when tried with other colours, she liked yellow best, then pink. Apparently dark objects looked ugly to her as they did to Cheselden's patient.* The more violent emotions, therefore, seem naturally to associate with red colours, while the colours at the other end of the spectrum have an affinity rather with the milder emotions, f 3. While light, pure or coloured, is the peculiar sensation of sight, the eye seems adapted to receive pleasurable impressions from other visual phenomena as well. Form, indeed, might be thought to require an intellectual appreciation for its enjoyment ; but as har- mony of tones and probably also harmony of colours, answer to some adaptation in the organs of hearing and sight, form also seems to be the source of a purely organic pleasure, even though the gratification it affords be partly derived from the intellectual activity which it calls forth. In consequence of the various factors of visual gratification being thus usually intermingled, it is difficult to obtain direct evidence of the above statement ; but it seems to be certified by the fact, that Cheselden's * Philosophical Transactions, 1826, pp. 534-5. f What makes the reds more exciting than other colours, is not certain ; but it has been conjectured that the less frequent occurrence of the former in nature allows the sensibility of the eye for them longer periods of repose, and consequently a higher degree of stimulation without being exhausted. This, however, is by no means obviously the most natural explanation. In any theory it is perhaps worth while to keep in view the fact, that, though red rays themselves are not favourable to vegetation, yet the processes of plant-life are stimulated by orange and yellow more powerfully than by any other colours, while these processes are almost arrested by the rays towards the violet end of the spectrum. Y 354 Psychology. patient received a peculiar pleasure from smooth and regular bodies at a time when he had not yet learnt to distinguish shapes by sight, and could not tell what it was in bodies that made them pleasing.* The pleasure which the eye takes in well-shaped bodies may, indeed, not be, in the most restricted sense, a visual sensation \ it may be due rather to the easy muscular sweep of the eye while surveying such objects in contrast with the broken, and therefore more violent, effort of grasping an angular or irregular form. For the muscles, being mostly levers resting on a fulcrum at one end, describe most easily a curved line with the other, so that any line with abrupt angle6 is the result of an uneasy strain until it becomes easy by discipline. But the pleasure we take in the form of visible bodies, even if it belongs to the muscular sensations, is noticed here for con- venience, as it affords an opportunity of pointing out how insensibly the organic pleasures of sight pass over into that larger store of mingled sensuous and intellectual enjoyments, of which the visible world is the source. The very simplest perceptions of sight cannot but open up this world of joy to some extent. It is true, that to most minds the visible world has become so stale, that its perennial delightfulness is seldom felt; but there are few who are not incited at times to a fresh relish of its pleasures, while there are many who continue to find in them the purest enjoyment of life. Most men have probably overcome the numbing effect of the world's staleness at times, as when, after the organism * The exact words of the report are : — "He thought no object so agreeable as those which are smooth and regular, though he could form no judgment of their shape, nor guess what it was ia any object that was pleasing." Feelings of Sense. 355 has had its sensibility quickened by a night's repose, they have opened their eyes to the splendours of the dawn ; and the memory of such an experience may enable us to realise the keenness of the delight with which the visible world discloses itself to the view for the first time. It is said of Cheselden's patient, that, "before he was couched, he expected little advantage from seeing worth undergoing an operation for, except reading and writing \ for he said, he thought he could have no more pleasure in walking abroad than he had in the garden, which he could do very safely and readily." But after his sight was restored, " he said, every new object was a new delight, and the pleasure was so great, that he wanted ways to express it ; but his gratitude to his operator he could not conceal, never seeing him for some time without tears of joy in his eyes and other marks of affection : and if he did not happen to come at any time when he was expected, he would ,be so grieved that he could not forbear crying at his disappoint- ment. A year after first seeing, being carried to Epsom Downs, and observing a large prospect, he was exceed- ingly delighted with it, and called it a new kind of seeing." VI. As being of peculiar importance among the general sensations, those of the muscular sense deserve special mention here. It has been already observed that the feelings of tension and of slow movement are most valuable for purposes of cognition, while those of rapid movement are most obstrusively sources of pleasure and pain. The sensations of mere tension — of a dead strain — are probably least emotional. There are, indeed, certain pleasures and pains connected with the support of the body in an erect posture, with the steady resistance to any force, with being baffled by an insuperable 356 Psychology. obstacle ; but these emotional effects are largely due to associated ideas rather than to the mere sensations involved. The emotional character of the muscular sense is more decidedly seen in the sensations connected with move- ment. Even slow movements are not without some pleasures and pains. Their sensations are of the mild and soothing type; and accordingly they are often of service when a soothing effect is desired. This effect is heightened by the fact that slow movements, at least in early life, when our most common ideas are formed, scarcely ever arise from a vigorous condition of the muscles, but rather from their exhaustion or decay. Slow movements are therefore felt to be in harmony with conditions of weariness and sadness. They are adopted in the rock of the cradle and in the lullaby to soothe a child fretful with sleepiness. We prefer a staid gait and sedate manners, quiet talk and slow music, when tired with a hard day's work, or when saddened by any mournful event ; and in general the aged exhibit this preference at all times. Mainly to the same cause also must we ascribe the pace of funerals, the elocution of religious services, the time of plaintive and solemn music. On the other hand, to the young, and to all in the fresh vigour of health, slow movements are apt to supply but an imperfect outlay of energy; and in the slang which fast society has originated, as already remarked, slow is a common and not inexpressive term for anything insipid. The sensations of rapid movement are of the exciting type, and in excessive forms approach the nature of intoxication. The mercurial movements of the young, the exuberant muscular display of the healthy, are evident sources of keen animal enjoyment. Skating, Feelings of Sense. 357 with the unusual speed and grace and novelty of its motions, affords one of the most delicious and healthy forms of this pleasure. The dance also derives a large share of its attraction from the same source, though, from the accessory circumstances in which it is frequently enjoyed, it is more apt to work an unhealthy excitement, and thus to acquire the tyrannous fascination of coarser stimulants. This is proved not so much by the excess with which this muscular excitement is sought in the common dissipations of society, but still more strikingly in the frenzied extravagance of barbaric religious festivals, in which the dance forms a prominent ceremony. The worship of Demeter and Dionysus in the ancient world, the dancing manias of the middle ages, and the boister- ous exhibitions of religious ecstasy in some modern communities, are instances of the intoxicating excite- ment that may be stimulated by the rapid rhythmical movements of a dance. Such is feeling at its rudimentary stage of mere sen- sation. By the process of abstraction a sensation may attract attention to one of its aspects exclusive of the others ; and thus its pleasantness or unpleasantness may become predominant without regard to any of its other qualities. Usually the pleasure or pain, of which at any moment we are conscious, arises from a variety of sources ; and therefore, even if partly or wholly due to sense, it loses the definiteness belonging to any single pleasant or unpleasant sensation. There thus results sometimes a feeling of vague agreeableness or disagree- ableness, — that emotional state which we express by such terms as joy, gladness, delight, mirth, cheerfulness, on the one hand, by grief, sadness, sorrow, on the other. But, to understand our emotional life in all its rich- 358 Psychology. ness, we must investigate the specific forms which this general agreeableness and disagreeableness assume under the play of modifying influences. These influences, when external, can act only through the processes of mind ; and the process, which comes into play first, is association. Feelings Originating in Association. 359 CHAPTER II. FEELINGS ORIGINATING IN ASSOCIATION. ASSOCIATION gives a peculiar tinge to our feelings by connecting them in consciousness with their objects or causes. The conscious states, thus originated, are described by such terms as liking and dislike, love and hatred, as well as other synonymous expressions, some of which will be noticed immediately. The formation of such states is easily intelligible from, the nature of the pleasures and pains, out of which they arise. These pleasures and pains have their origin in certain objects, with which they are thus necessarily co-existent. When we become conscious of this co- existence, an association is formed between the feeling and its object, so that the feeling will recall the object, or, as happens probably oftener, the object, even when merely remembered or imagined, may revive the feeling with which it was associated. But observe the effect which this has on our emotional relation to the object. If the feeling involved is pleasant, then, from the very nature of pleasure, there is an instinctive impulse to prolong it ; if it is painful, there is a similar impulse to bring it to an end. But I cannot pro- long a pleasure without keeping in consciousness the object which causes it; I cannot biing a pain 360 Psychology. to an end without banishing its object from conscious ness.* It is for this reason, that, in the former case, I am said to " dwell upon " the object, to " linger over " it, to " take pleasure in " it, such phrases being often used as synonymous with liking or love. On the other hand, dislike or hatred is often expressed by such terms as aversion and revulsion ; its object is described as repulsive, — as one that we cannot " brook," f that we can " take no pleasure in," that we are " displeased with," — as one that we cannot " bear," % that we cannot " bear the sight of," that we " cannot away with." The object of a feeling must here be understood in its widest sense. Frequently of course, — perhaps most frequently, — it is the natural cause of a feeling, that is, the phenomenon which, by its natural properties, is adapted to produce the feeling. Thus a sensible body produces with a healthy constitution its appropriate sensation , the death of a friend naturally awakens sorrow ; the good opinion of another gives us joy. In other cases, however, an object becomes associated with a feeling by a mere accident ; and its subsequent power to excite the feeling depends, not on its intrinsic properties, but merely on its accidental association. Only by bearing this in mind can we explain the fact, * "Amor nihil aliud est, quam laetitia concomitante idea causae extemae ; et odium nihil aliud, quam tristitia concomitante idea causae externae. Videmus deinde quod ille, qui amat, necessario conatur rem, quam amat, praesentem habere, et conservare ; et contra, qui odit, rem, quam odio habet, amovere et destruere conatur. (Spinoza, Ethica, hi., 13, Scholium). t Anglo-Saxon brucan, enjoy. X Suffer, endure, tolerate, as well as the Old English and Scotch thole, are also employed. Feelings Originating in Association. 361 that the most unreasonable hatreds are often formed for persons intrinsically loveable, while love clings at times with tragic pathos to those who have done everything by which love is commonly repelled. For the same reason any paltry article, like many a keepsake, that is intrinsi- cally of trivial value in relation to pleasure or pain, may yet become linked with a power to awaken either an un- speakable gladness, or a sorrow " Whose muffled motions blindly drown The bases of the life in tears." It is evident, therefore, this description includes a range of emotions second to none either in their variety or in their importance as factors of human life. As our feelings of liking and dislike may have their sources in external nature or in ourselves or in other persons, they may be conveniently studied under these three heads. § 1. — Feelings for External Nature. All the phenomena of the external world, organic and inorganic alike, are capable of exciting various modes and degrees of fondness and revulsion, according to the predominence of pleasure or pain in the impressions they produce on our consciousness. Occasionally also they awaken that mingled state of feeling, in which delight and aversion strangely alternate. Varieties in the form of these feelings may be determined by single definite objects, on the one hand, or, on the other, by more or less indefinite groups of objects. (A) The definite object of a liking or dislike may be an animal, a plant, or any inanimate thing ; and the feeling for it may be based either on the effect of its 362 Psychology. intrinsic properties on our sensibility, or on some extrinsic association. We need not dwell again on the fact, that any object may, by the merest accident, become linked in our consciousness with agreeable or disagreeable feelings. It is well known, that many ennobling sentiments, as well as some of the most whimsical infatuations of human life, have their origin in this cause. But in the evolution of our feelings for nature we shall discover the same tendency which may be traced in the general evolution of mind, — the tendency to liberate our emotional life from subjection to the merely natural effects of association, to raise it into the free control of reason. Consequently, the most interesting feelings of this class are probably those which are due to intrinsic properties in the object of love or aversion. The special interest, centring on such emotions, consists in the fact that they enter into the feelings of the beauty and ugliness, with which we invest natural objects. These feelings must be considered again j but at present it may be mentioned that some writers have ascribed them entirely to association. There is at least this inadequacy in such a theory, that it overlooks the intrinsic pleasant- ness of the sensation:, especially of sight and hearing, which beautiful objects are adapted to produce. The primrose may to many be " a primrose and nothing more;" but it is a primrose, — an object endowed with the property of producing certain sensations in every human sensibility. At the same time there is this of truth in the theory, that the agreeableness of a beautiful object is not to be found, solely or even mainly, in the pleasant sensations which it is intrinsically qualified to produce. The very fact, that to the uncultured mind the primrose is simply Feelings Originating in Association. 363 a primrose and nothing more, implies that, while it produces the natural sensations of a primrose, it fails to open up the world of thought and sentiment, with which it can become associated by culture. Without, there- fore, foreclosing further inquiry into the feelings of beauty, it is evident that these must draw largely from the associations which mental culture forms. This conclusion is confirmed by the most hurried reflection on the poetry which interprets for us the influence of natural objects over the soul. If the poet lingers with aesthetic delight over a "wee modest crimson-tipped flower," it is because " To him the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." (B) But this feeling for nature takes a larger range, when it attaches to no limited object, but embraces an indefinite group of phenomena. It is thus, that we may describe the sentiment excited by scenery. Evidently such a feeling presupposes a considerable development of mental culture. The child, during the first few months of life, is extremely restricted in his grasp of things. He notices an object near his eyes, or clasped in his hands ; he catches any distinct or startling sound in the immediate neighbourhood : but even a limited group of objects, such as make up the general appear- ance of a room, is obviously beyond his apprehension. He requires a longer growth to seize intelligently the entire view of a garden or a field, or the nearest surroundings of home ; and he may never attain the ability to master for intellectual or emotional results the vast outline and variegated colour and innumerable subordinate features of an extensive landscape. 364 Psychology. It need scarcely be said that the pleasantness or unpleasantness of a scene is sometimes purely extrinsic. The dominating mood of the soul at the moment when a scene is viewed may overpower the most pronounced natural adaptation to give pleasure or pain. Innumer- able illustrations of this are to be found in the love-songs of all literature. Drawing their imagery mainly from nature, these lyrics give an infinite variety of expression to the psychological fact, that the cheerful or gloomy aspect of the external world depends mainly on the mood of the ruling passion. Through all their changes runs the general strain, — *' Except I be by Silvia in the night, There is no music in the nightingale." It is thus that the most charming landscape may become to the sorrowful spirit invested in a gloom which it will wear throughout life, while it requires little inherent attractiveness about the scenery of a happy home to make it capable of awakening a deeper and more varied joy than any other part of the world. Even the disinterested enjoyment of beautiful scenery is closely dependent on the pleasantness of the circumstances in which a scene is visited ; and the great extension of this emotion in very recent times is probably due in a considerable measure to the facilities for comfortable travelling in modern railway-coaches and steamers and luxurious hotels. But the development of the emotional life, as of the intellectual, is essentially an elevation above the tyranny of merely natural influences, — of temporal and spatial associations. Consequently the expansion of our love, as well as of our hatred, for natural scenes is continually raising us out of merely natural into rational feeling. It Feelings Originating in Association. 365 is thus that the cultivated emotional nature refuses ever more and more to be subjugated by selfish or restricted associations which are meaningless for men in general ; and, while not ignoring the natural power of such associations, seeks its enjoyment rather in those that are of universal interest to intelligent beings. As it grows, therefore, from the intellectual and emotional grasp of the little nook to that of the vast landscape opening from a mountaintop, so it may expand into what has been not inappropriately called " cosmic emotion," — an emotion which, though not exhausting the religious sentiment, yet forms not its least noble factor in the higher order of minds. The poetry of the Hebrews shows at what an early period man had learnt to look with devout feeling on the sublimer phenomena of nature;* and the larger insight into the vastness of the universe, which is a chief result of modern science, has surely not weakened this feeling. " When I gazed into these stars, have they pot looked down on me as if with pity, from their serene spaces, like eyes glistening with heavenly tears over the little lot of man ! Thousands of human generations, all as noisy as our own, have been swallowed up of time, and there remains no wreck of them any more ; and Arcturus and Orion and Sirius and the Pleiades are still shining in their courses, clear and young, as when the Shepherd first noted them in the plains of Shinar."f In the same way the dislike, which is limited at first to single objects or scenes that are intrinsically or extrinsically painful, may expand into a pessimistic emotion in view of the universe ; and to such a mood ♦Compare especially Job ix., 6-9; Psalms viii., xix., 1-6, and civ. + Carlyle's Sartor Resartus, 'Rook ii., Chapter 8, 366 PsycJiology. the stars, no longer "glistening with heavenly tears," may become 11 Tyrants in their iron skies, Innumerable, pitiless, passionless eyes, Cold fires, but with power to burn and brand His nothingness into man."* § 2. — Feelings for Self. Like external nature and other human beings, we ourselves are adapted to excite agreeable and disagree- able feelings in our own consciousness; and this power must be ascribed to all the varied features of our nature, external and internal. Not only our permanent characters, but also our occasional thoughts and feelings and actions, our personal appearance, our dress, and even the estimate taken of us by others, are all capable of exciting varied states of emotion. Here again the evolution of feeling is in the direction already indicated, from the tyranny of restricted influences to delight in the sources of enjoyment that are universal. The general form of these self-regarding emotions is, on the one hand, self-complacency in the contemplation of anything about ourselves that is calculated to give pleasure, on the other hand, a dissatisfaction with ourselves on account of anything that is fitted to produce pain. It is not of course necessary that the feature, causing pleasure or pain, should be really attached to us. It need only be before the consciousness, whether as a known fact or as an imagined fiction ; and therefore not a few forms of self-gratulation, as well as of self-torture, are based on nothing more substantial than the power of .fancy. * Tennyson's Maud, xviii., 4. Feelings Originating in Association. 367 Self-complacency, though often based on fanciful grounds, tends under culture to grow into that self- respect, that " honest pride," that feeling of " honour," which forms an important element of moral character. In like manner dissatisfaction with oneself tends ever more and more to be confined to the shock of pain which is felt on doing wrong, and to form therefore the distinctively moral sentiment known as remorse. The feeling of shame evidently arises from such disagreeable impressions as originate other forms of self-dissatisfaction ; its peculiarity seems mainly due to the fact, that it implies a reference to the actual or possible knowledge by others of the circumstance which causes the disagreeable impression. This enables us to explain the confusion in thought and language between shame and a feeling so different as modesty. Any unusual exposure before others, such as even the introduction to strangers, is apt to produce, in sensitive natures, a shock like that which is due to the real or fancied inspection by others of something unworthy in us ; and the emotional shrinking from such exposure constitutes the essential character of modesty.* The feeling of shame connects itself thus with the love of esteem. This emotion was regarded by many of the older psychologists as an instinctive form of human sensibility ; but it requires no very skilful analysis to find * Mr. Darwin's theory of blushing chimes in with this account of the emotion which it expresses. He regards it as due to the unusual attention directed to the exposed part of the body causing an unusual discharge of blood in that direction, and he finds that it diffuses itself over a larger surface of the body among races that do not dress so completely as civilised men. {Expiession of ihl Emotions, Chapter xiii.). 368 Psychology. in association with the good opinion of others many pleasantnesses which make the desire of esteem intelligible, as well as the dislike of reproach. In some minds' this desire grows to remarkable intensity. All the great movements of history, — military, political, ecclesiastical, literary, — bring out men in whom the love of fame is a strong passion. Though ethically not the highest principle of action, it becomes valuable as an aid to more purely ethical motives in that happy coincidence when fame points in the direction of duty. " Not once or twice in our fair island-story The path of duty was the way to glory."* In truth, the love of merited praise acts as a not incon- siderable stimulus in the better class of minds; and insensibility to the esteem of others is an evidence either of extraordinary elevation or of equally extra- ordinary degradation. With truth, therefore, Milton may speak of fame as "the last infirmity of noble mind." An aspiration, having its root in the love of esteem, enters into the religious consciousness in the form of a desire to please God, and win His favour. It is such a serene aspiration that Milton has in view in that glorious passage of Lycidas ) from which a familiar phrase has just been cited, — M Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, Nor in the glistering foil Set off to the world, nor in broad humour lies, But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes And perfect judgment of all seeing Jove." * Tennyson'* Ode on the Death qf Wellington, Feelings Originating in Association. 369 There are two remarkable evidences of the strength of this desire in human life : one is the desire of an esteem which we can never enjoy ; the other, the desire of an esteem which we do not deserve. 1. The love of posthumous fame cannot, from the necessities of life, be a prominent feeling in the human mind ; but it is by no means an unknown experience for men to find pleasure in the imagined praises of posterity. Indeed, some writers of the present day maintain that a similar feeling, — the feeling of satisfaction at anticipating in fancy the beneficent results of our influence on pos- terity, — may take the place, as a motive in human life, of the Christian faith in immortality. 2. But it is perhaps a more striking proof ol the strength of the craving for esteem, that, when men are unable to secure it by desert, they are eager to win it by any means, rather than lose the gratification it affords. This eagerness appears in two forms. It may be a desire to get esteem for things that are not estimable, as implying no merit on our part. Such is the vanity of personal appearance, of family connection, of dress and other external displays of wealth. Or, again, this desire may seek esteem for qualities which are estimable, but which we do not possess. Such are the intellectual vanity of the ignoramus, and the moral vanity of the hypocrite. All the self-regarding emotions imply the presence in consciousness of an ideal by which we judge ourselves, whether this be the good opinion of others, or some abstract standard of goodness. All men are apt to have forced on them the contrast between this ideal and their actual attainments ; and the feeling of this contrast is humility. 370 Psychology. § 3. — Feelings for Others. The largest and most varied class of our likings and dislikes are those which relate to other persons. To these the term affection has been restricted by many of the older writers, and a distinction drawn between affections that are benevolent and those that are male- volent. In the ordinary use of language affection for a person is understood to mean benevolent feeling. There is no class of feelings where the complications of our emotional life appear so intricate, and baffle so completely all attempts at an exhaustive analysis, even by the most cautious and laborious science. Literary art, using as its favourite material the interests of human life, and obliged to represent these in all their concrete variations, is more successful in giving descriptions, and perhaps even analyses, of the affections than can be drawn by the abstractions of science. It is true, that the general source of affections is not hard to trace. It is to be found in the fact, that pleasure and pain can be derived, not only from external nature and from ourselves, but also from other persons. The vast variety, however, of the circumstances on which affection depends, and the complexity of their endless combina- tions, place their emotional effects altogether beyond the range of the most skilful analysis. We may enumerate facts both in the inner and outer life of men, by which our feelings are excited or modified. We may remind ourselves, that even circumstances, like rank, wealth, nationality, party-connection, and other social relation ships, wholly intrinsic to an individual, may alter entirely our affection for him ; that we receive some of our most powerful influences from external features like beauty or ugliness of figure, of manner, or of dress Feelings Originating in Association, 371 itself; that, in instances of rarer culture, we seek our emotional stimulants mainly in the intellectual or moral character and achievements of others. We may also keep in view the fact, that some of the most passionate affections are based on no more solid ground than mere fancies. But were a complete enumeration of the causes of emotion possible, it would still be necessary to keep in mind, that their influence is greatly modified by each individual's general susceptibility and by its varying moods. The truth is, that the multitudinous aspects which a human being may present to the mind, and the multitudinous modes in which these may affect us, far surpass in number and variety the influences exerted by any object in nature ; for while man is a natural product, he is something infinitely more. The result is, that he is capable of awakening all the emotions which are due to natural objects, with many others of a more subtle character that are peculiar to himself. Among the influences which may be specially noticed as giving a tinge to our affections, prominence should be given to the feelings of others, so far, of course, as these can be read in their outward manifestations. Here the analysis of psychologists and moralists has been singu- larly imperfect, when contrasted with the achievements of dramatic skill in the literature of history and fiction. It has been too often assumed that the feelings of others excite always kindred feelings in ourselves, that their pleasure pleases, and that their pain pains us. This is an amiable assumption, but the darker phases of human life forbid us to regard it as true. Both the pleasures and the pains of others exert a complex emotional effect. Even if we set aside obscurer feelings, such as wonder, novelty, fear, contempt, which often impart a peculiar shade to our affections, it still remains an important fact 372 Psychology. that fellow-feeling is not the only emotional state excited by the pleasures and pains of others. Along with this sympathetic effect there is another which by contrast may be called antipathetic. Before we proceed further, therefore, this subject demands a careful investigation. I. We shall take first the sympathetic effect. In its generality this emotional phenomenon is most unequivo- cally expressed by the term fellow-feeling. The needs of human life make fellow-feeling with the sufferings of one another by far the more important exercise of this emotion. This circumstance explains the fact in lan- guage, that, while we have several terms to express fellow-feeling with pain, there is none restricted to the specific expression of fellow-feeling with pleasure. On the one hand, there are such terms as pity, commiseration, compassion, condolence; and even sympathy itself is most frequently employed with the same limitation. On the other hand, words, like congratulation, complacency, complaisance, which signify literally fellow-feeling with pleasure, have all received a somewhat different meaning. Of fellow-feeling in its widest sense the source is the same as that of imitation.* Both imply the reproduc- tion by ourselves of what is apprehended outside of ourselves. Of this imitative or sympathetic tendency an instinctive basis is perhaps to be found in an un- conscious agency of the nervous system. We do not allude to those instances, in which one member is said to sympathise with another in the same organism, as, for example, eye with eye or ear with ear; for these have no natural affinity with the phenomena of sympathy, *In common language sympathy is applied to the reproduction rather of the feelings of others, imitation to the reproduction of their movements. See Bain's The Emotions and the Will, p. 172. Feelings Originating in Association. 373 properly so called. But it is a familiar fact, that the sight of tears, the sound of a sob or wail, tends, by an automatic impulse, to excite tears, sobs or wailing in ourselves. A yawn or a smile by one person may set a whole company yawning or laughing; and you may see a crowd of gaping rustics swaying their bodies in corres- pondence with the admired movements of an acrobat. Children may even be heard at times responding, in the same unreflective way, to the bark of a dog, the bleating of a sheep or the crowing of a cock. How far these imitative or sympathetic instincts are the result of educa- tion in the individual or in the race, it is impossible to say with certainty. But these automatic movements do not yet constitute fellow-feeling. To reproduce in our consciousness the feeling of another person requires that we should apprehend what this feeling is. Consequently, fellow- feeling is impossible without a certain act of intelligence, and it is not difficult to understand why the required act of intelligence should be associated with this emotional accompaniment. This will be most clearly seen by referring in the first instance to the lower order of feelings. When I represent any sensation, — a touch, a sound, or a colour, — the representation is evidently but the revival of the sensation in a fainter degree. It is a well known fact even that the representation implies a revival of the same sort of nervous thrill, by which the organ was stirred during the original sensation. In like manner, when a muscular movement is represented, a faint twitch is started in the same muscular region which the original movement called into play. Now, a large number of the pleasures and pains of others, with which we feel sympathy, are sensations; and the sympathy felt is simply a fainter revival in our own organism of the 374 Psychology. pleasurable or painful sensations which others are conceived to feel. It is thus that all men, even of moderate sensibility, on observing another person suffer a severe bodily injury, are apt to feel a pang shoot through the corresponding part of their own bodies; and many are unable to look at serious wounds owing to their vivid realisation of the pain endured. Apply all this to pure emotions. These can be made known to us, of course, only by their expression in language or by some other form of bodily manifestation. It is obviously requisite, however, that the expression of the emotion be intelligently interpreted by us ; in other words, that we represent to ourselves, with some degree of distinctness, the emotion that is expressed. But the representation of an emotion is its revival in our own consciousness ; and, consequently, the intelligent appre- hension of an emotion felt by another person is a fellow- feeling with him. This analysis is confirmed by the fact, that in all the lower grades of culture the power of sympathy remains extremely rudimentary and restricted in its range, while its expansion keeps pace with the evolution of general intelligence. It is true, that human life, especially among civilised communities, owes many alleviations of its sorrows, and much even of the sweet- ness of social intercourse, to persons in whom a comparatively limited intelligence is combined with a remarkable quickness of sympathy. But it will be found that, however limited the general range of intelligence in such persons may be, it has been specially directed to the interpretation of all the familiar symptoms of suffer- ing, and that, therefore, in the interpretation of these, it often outstrips intellects that have become famous by grappling successfully with the complicated problems of nature or of political or military affairs. On the other Feelings Originating in Association, 375 hand, the dependence of sympathy on the intelligent apprehension of the feelings of others is strikingly evinced by the fact, that the finest emotional nature may at times be seen exhibiting an unpleasant callousness in presence of sufferings which it is unable to understand. For the wider reaches of sympathy require that construc- tive activity of intelligence which places us by imagina- tion in situations which we have never personally tried, and enables us to construct out of the materials drawn from our own experience an ideal representation of the real experience of another. But this ideal construction is by no means always ready to command ; and hence with all men sympathy is quickest and most intense in the case of those sufferings which are precisely similar to their own, while it becomes more sluggish and less vivid in proportion as the circumstances of a sufferer differ from theirs. Probably the highest development of sym- pathy is that which runs out readily to meet emotional experiences which cannot at the time be understood, which are realised merely as inexplicable sorrows or joys. II. We now come to notice the less pleasing effect of an antipathetic nature, which is apt to be produced by the feelings of others. 1. The pleasures of others are not ours ; and, though this consideration may be overwhelmed in a generous sympathy, yet it may also at times force into conscious- ness the contrast between their pleasurable and our pleasureless condition. If this contrast is not banished from thought, but brooded over, it may give rise to the various forms of malicious feeling that come under the description of envy and jealousy. 2. On the other hand, the pains of others are capable of producing a twofold antipathetic effect. (#) The contrast between ourselves and the sufferer 376 Psychology. may excite a feeling of self-gratulation, which may even rise to a coarse exultation, over our own freedom from his misfortune. One of the most common forms of this exultation is met with in the ungenerous reflection on a competitor's defeat, which often gives a zest to the triumphs of successful rivalry. (6) Again, the sight of suffering has often a varied pleasurable effect. It may relieve the langour of mono- tony, it may by its extraordinary nature startle with a pleasant surprise; while the contortions of the victim exhibit at times that character of oddity, which is the source of ludicrous effects. These emotional excite- ments are, in finer natures, generally supplanted by the vivid sympathetic realisation of the suffering expressed; but to coarse or morbid natures, that feed on such excitements, they bring a real, though horrid, pleasure. Savage life evidently derives one of its keenest zests from the torture of enemies; the scenes of the amphitheatre formed one of the most fascinating attractions to the populace of ancient Rome; a child bursts into boisterous fun over the wriggles of a mutilated insect ; and even the most refined nature betrays a faintly malicious disposition in the occasional pleasure of teasing a friend. It is evident from all these considerations, that a very large factor of our emotional life consists of the feelings excited by our fellow men. A very large proportion of that pleasurable excitement, without which human life would be intolerably dull, is derived from social inter- course. Accordingly, psychologists and moralists have long recognised the love of society as forming one of the most powerful feelings in the human mind. It is true, that in many minds, — perhaps in all minds at some time, — there is a love of solitude which seems to con- tradict the theory that the love of society is an inherent Feelings Originating in Association. 377 craving of human nature. But society has its distractions, vexations, fatigues ; and to those who have known these solitude is a relief. Still the life of the recluse is essen- tially a sacrifice of manifold pleasures, and has therefore been a favourite form of ascetic self-denial in nearly all religions. Fellowship is one of the most imperious wants of man, and the power of this want is pathetically illustrated in numerous stories of solitary confinement or enforced seclusion. " Cast on the wildest of the Cyclad isles, Where never human foot had marked the shore, These ruffians left me ; yet believe me, Areas, Such is the rooted love we bear mankind, All ruffians as they were, I never heard A sound more dismal than their parting oars."* But our emotional relation to our fellow men consists not merely of this general delight in their companionship ; it assumes the form of specific affections for particular persons. It is usual, as already observed, to classify these in two great divisions as benevolent and malevolent; but such a division is apt, without explanation, to mis- * Thomson's Agamemnon. Hobbes is usually represented as maintaining that the natural state of men is one of unsocial hostility ; but this doctrine is often inadequately understood as implying that there is no basis for social existence in human nature. Hob 1 es does recognise certain natural impulses that attract men to friendly intercourse, and are more powerful than the " three causes of quarrel," namely, competition, diffidence, and glory. The only fault one can find with Hobbes' doctrine is the ludicrous incom- pleteness in his enumeration of man's social impulses. "The passions that incline men to peace," he says, "are fear of death, desire of such things as are necessary for commodious living, and a hope, by their industry, to enjoy them." {Leviathan ', Part i., Chapter 13). 378 Psychology. represent the concrete realities of our emotional life. The feelings we entertain for others are generally of a very mingled, often of a vacillating, character ; and now it is the benevolent, now the malevolent, factors that prevail. Still, if we bear this complication in mind, the division affords a convenient guide for more detailed examination of the phenomena. Here of course emotion follows the usual course of its development. It starts with those feelings which depend on purely natural associations, and expands gradually to those which imply an intelligent choice. Consequently, it will be found that the affections, both benevolent and malevolent, may be subdivided into two main types, the natural and the rational j though here again it must be borne in mind, that our actual feelings seldom belong to either type exclusively.* (A) Benevolent affections are the various modes, in which we find pleasure in other persons. They are called benevolent obviously because they seek their gratification in the real or imagined wellbeing of their objects, though it is an important moral truth that, without rational guidance, these emotional impulses often produce the very opposite effects to those which they seek. In the very front of the benevolent affections we come upon one that may be regarded as forming the centre from which social life, and therefore also social feeling, radiate. Sexual love is an emotion sui ge?ieris i exhibiting * This distinction was first drawn by Bishop Butler, and has been generally adopted by subsequent writers, in reference to the malevolent affections. See Butler's Sermon on Resentment. The distinction, however, is obviously applicable, with equal propriety, to the benevolent affections. Feelings Originating in Association. 379 the characteristics both of the natural and the rational types. Psychologists have too generally treated it in the spirit of Dr. Reid, who declares that " it is fitter to be sung than said," and accordingly leaves it "to those who have slept on the two-topped Parnassus."* It is true, that this emotion has formed a favourite material of poetry ; and the reason is probably to be found in the fact, that it is distinguished by an unusual combination of great intensity with great ideal power. Still this should render it only a more interesting subject of scientific analysis. The complete analysis of the emotion is, indeed, impossible. The truth is, that all the influences, by which one human being is capable of exciting amiable sentiment in another, are apt to be distilled into a finer essence of concentrated power in passing through the alembic of the sexual nature. Consequently this emotion may be modified into a thousand different forms according to- the character of the influences by which it has been generated; and therefore literary art, by its concrete treatment, is always able to describe the love of the sexes with more of the truth of nature than can be given to the abstractions of science. The peculiar character of this affection finds, of course, its natural basis in the difference of sexual constitution. A grossly inadequate view of this difference restricts it mainly to one set of organs j but as a true physiology and a true psychology look on no single organ, but rather on the whole organism, as being the organ of mind, so they compel us to regard the whole organism as an exponent of the difference of sex. The more thoroughly this view takes possession of the mind, the more * Reid's Works, p. 564, Hamilton's edition. 3 So Psychology, thoroughly also does sexual feeling free itself from a mere animal appetite, and expand into that spiritual sentiment which forms at once one of the purest enjoy- ments and one of the purest moral influences of life. It has been maintained that this spiritualisation of the senti- ment has been the result of mediaeval chivalry; but this is a question which belongs rather to history than to psychology. Whatever may have been the history of this sentiment in the past, it must follow the general course of emotional evolution ; and any reversion to the sensuous restriction of the feeling, such as occasionally makes its appearance among the eccentricities of litera- ture, is not only an anachronism, but a solecism in art, as decided as if the poet were to seek the fittest material for the artistic description of a banquet in the animal gusto with which the viands are devoured. I. Among the other benevolent affections, those which are founded on relationships of nature come appropriately first under consideration. The characteristic of these is determined by the fact, that they arise from natural associations, not from combinations of intelligence. It is not any rational consideration that directs them to their objects; it is simply the extrinsic associations of space and time. They appear, therefore, as blind instincts, as unreasoning passions, that cling to their objects without any reflection upon the intrinsic character of these. i. Of such social instincts the type is to be found in what is called, by pre-eminence, natural affection ((TTopyrf), that is, affection between persons of the same kindred. The passionate intensity of this affection is mainly de- termined by the closeness of the natural relation, out of which it arises ; and consequently a mother's love has in all ages been regarded as among the most irresistible instincts of nature. Even within the sphere of the Feelings Originating in Association. 381 family, as intelligence matures with age, natural affection is apt to be modified by rational considerations ; while, outside of that sphere, although the natural relation may still have a powerful influence on the affections, these receive their colour, in a very large measure, from the character of their objects. 2. A natural affection is often developed towards a community, with which we are connected by natural causes. Wherever social organisation exists, this senti- ment ennobles human life ; it appears in the devotion of the savage to his tribe, in the attachment to a municipal home, in the patriotism with which men sacrifice them- selves for a fatherland. The last fruit of nature's growth in this direction is that philanthropy, — that "enthusiasm of humanity," — in which is attained an emotional reali- sation of the natural relationship of all mankind. II. But such a late outgrowth of natural affection can scarcely be distinguished from the other form of benevo- lence ; for this is but the extension to persons who are not akin to us of those affections which are naturally excited towards our own kindred.* This expansion of benevolent feeling, however, is but a mode of the general development of mind, which frees itself from the spatial and temporal associations of nature, rising into the inde- pendent combinations of thought. Affection tends thus to lose the passionate force of an unreflecting instinct, and to be distinguished by the deliberate calm of intelli- gent choice. This characteristic of the rational affections is expressively embodied in the Latin verb diligo, which * This seems indicated in the adjective kind, which, like the substantive, is from the Anglo-Saxon cen/ian, to beget (cf. kindle), cognate with the archaic Latin geno (giguo), and the Greek yevvdu. 382 Psychology. is properly limited to them, and which is suggestive of the cognate intelligo and setigo.* Like the natural affections, the rational begin with attachments to individuals, and form the friendships of human life. But they, too, may extend to societies, that is, to societies which we enter by voluntary choice j and it is thus that the sentiment of espnt de corps is created. It is important to bear in mind, further, that when any rational affection for an individual or a society has existed some time it originates numerous associations which are apt to impart to it some of the passionate blindness of natural affection. This explains why the benevolent sentiment, which actuates the members of a society in common, may appear in relation to other societies, not only as a "generous rivalry," but also in the malevolent form of party-spirit or sectarianism. (B) We are thus brought to the second great division of the affections, — the malevolent The fundamental type of these is the emotional state named resentment. This term (originally rescntimenl) denotes etymologically a ftcling in return or again, and was formerly applied to the sentiment excited in return for favours as well as to that excited by injuries. Now the term is restricted to the latter feeling,! and it forms a very appropriate name for * The contrast of diligo with amo, which expresses rather the in- tensity of natural affection, is finely brought out in one of Cicero's letters: — "L. Clodius valde me diligit, vel, ut e/^art/ccirepoj' dicaui, valde meamat" {Ad Brutum, i., 1. Cf. Ad Fami Hares, ix., 14; xiii., 47). f A similar restriction may be traced in the history of the word retaliation (Trench's Study of Woids, pp. 54-5, nth ed.) Trench regards these restrictions of meaning as due to a degradation from the standard of sentiment in the good old times. They are evi- dently rather the result of that differentiation which characterises the growth of all language. Feelings Originating hi Association. 3S3 the rebound of our emotional nature against injury. When this emotional reaction has fixed on its injurious cause, it becomes malevolent affection. It has long been, and continues still to be, a moot question among psychologists, whether there is any feel- ing of pure malevolence in the human mind.* The con- troversy is perhaps owing to a want of distinctness in the use of terms. What is meant by pure malevolence ? As commonly used, the word must be understood to mean either pain felt solely on account of another's pleasure, or delight in another's pain, considered simply as pain. Now, the explanation of sympathy given above implies that malevolence or antipathy in this sense would involve a subversion of the very constitution of the human mind. The sentiment of sympathy is merely the emotional side of that mental act, which on its intellectual side is an apprehension of the feelings of others. Consequently the conception of another's pain, purely as pain, is the revival of the pain in our own consciousness; and a delight in pain pure and simple is, therefore, out of the question.! The same remark applies to dissatisfaction with another's pleasure. At the same time it has been shown that the feelings of others are accompanied with adjuncts which afford a sufficient basis in our nature for * A recent debate on the question will be found in a paper by Mr. F. H. Bradley, in Mind for July, 1S83, with a reply by Dr. Bain in the following number. + Even Hobbes, with all the repulsive egoism which generally characterises his psychology of the emotions, saw clearly this truth. After defining cruelty as "little sense of the calamity of others proceeding from security of men's own fortune," he adds : — "For, that any one should take pleasure in other men's harms, without other end of his own, I do not conceive it possible." {LeviatJian, Fart i., Chap. 6.) 384 Psychology. malevolent antipathy ; so that practically the result is the same as if we were capable of being pleased with the pains, and pained with the pleasures of others. I. At its lowest stage nn volence, like benevolence, is excited by mere associations of nature ; it is a purely animal instinct, a blind passion, like natural affection. Its stimulating cause may, therefore, be any accidental harm — anything innocently offensive — such as even an inanimate object. Occasionally in civilized life this un- reasoning outburst of resentment may be observed, as when a man, in instinctive anger, kicks a stone against which he has inadvertently struck a tender toe. But it is in savage life, or in situations like a battle in which the restraints of civilisation are snapped asunder, that the in- stinct exhibits its most appalling power. Savages have been seen tearing an arrow from their lacerated flesh, and biting it in rage. Commodore Byron saw a native of Tierra del Fuego snatch up in fury his own child, who had accidentally dropped a basket of eggs, and dash the little fellow against the rocks with such violence that almost immediately afterwards he died.* II. But resentment loses the passionate force of a natural instinct, when intelligence is called into play. It then requires something more to rouse it than mere harm ; it requires an intentional injury, supposed, if not real. The injury need not, indeed, be inflicted directly on ourselves. If borne by another, it may by sympathy become an injury to us, and thus excite resentment. Such representative resentment is usually called indigna- tion. Resentment, whether instinctive or rational, may be * Lubbock's Prehistoric Times, p. 560. Other examples will be found in Tylor's Primitive Culture, Vol. i., pp. 259-60. Feelings Originating in Association. 385 modified by numerous influences ; and thus it gives rise to the specific forms of malevolent affection, by which human life is disturbed. Like benevolence, it may attach itself to individuals or to communities. I. Among the malicious affections for individuals, envy and jealousy are the most common. Both originate in the same antipathetic emotion — the feeling of pain which is apt to be excited by contrasting the pleasures of others with our own want of their pleasures. 1. Envy is usually described as a malevolent outgrowth of rivalry ; but it may arise in circumstances in which there is no explicit competition with others. Still it finds its most natural stimulant in competitions, especially when the object is one of merely relative value. When out- stripped by another in the pursuit of any such object, we are apt to feel hurt by his success ; and envy, in so far as it implies malevolence, is the resentful passion thus excited. This analysis is confirmed by the fact, that the word envy is often used without malevolent implications, but always with reference to a pleasure which we are not enjoying ourselves, as when one friend says to another, " I envy you your privileges," etc. In connection with this subject a distinction has been drawn between objects of pursuit which are of absolute value, such as intelligence or virtue, and those which are of relative value — which are of value to any one merely in comparison, or rather in contrast, with the degree in which they are possessed by others. The vulgar craving for wealth, fine clothing, splendid equipages, palatial residences, popular applause, is largely a mere wish to have something more or better than one's neighbours ; and there is often all the annoyance of baffled endeavour when the object has been gained by so many as to be no longer distinctive. Pursuits of the former class are A 2 386 Psychology. spoken of as generous, because in them the successful enjoy their success only the more, the more that others partake of the same boon. It is in pursuits of the latter class that envy naturally arises.* 2. Jealousy arises similarly under the influence of an affection which can be gratified only by its return. When another wins the love which we have expected, we feel hurt ; and our resentment of this injury constitutes jealousy. This passion may be felt in the case of any affection. Thus it may form a just resentment in the case of a parent, from whom a child's love has been with- drawn by some third person.! But jealousy is most common and most powerful in connection with sexual love, partly because of the intensity of this affection, partly because with it, more than with any, the success of one rival inevitably involves the defeat of another, and a defeat often entailing the keenest emotional anguish of which the human mind is susceptible. 3. The malevolent affections of envy and jealousy are effects of failure in a competition ; but success often brings with it a kind of malice as well — the malicious pleasure of feeling our success enhanced by relief against the failure of a beaten rival. It is a startling fact, that not a few divines, in describing the joys of heaven, have attributed to the blessed the gratification of gazing into *This distinction is finely illustrated by Ferguson, Principles of Moral and Political Science, ii., I, 7. tXenophon draws a parallel between marital and paternal jealousy, in Cytop., iii., 1. Possibly it was in part to the paternal jealousy of Anytus, that Socrates owed his death. In the strong Eastern imagery of the Old Testament, God is described as jealous when His creatures give to other objects the love which He alone may claim. Feelings Originating in Association. 387 the nether world, and glorying that they have escaped the sufferings of the damned. " Tantaene animis coelestibus irae?" II. Strangely enough, the malevolent passions, by which communities are separated, have their origin in the benevolent affections, by which each community is held together. The attachment to any society on the part of its different members is apt to produce a social selfishness, which may be as baneful in its effects as the narrower selfishness of individuals. It is thus that all sectional loves are perpetually generating sectional hatreds among men. The malicious enmities of political parties and of religious sects, " the feud of rich and poor," the hostile feelings of different nations, or even of different provinces and municipalities in the same nation, are in- stances of restricted hatreds growing out of restricted loves. As the relations of a man to the other sex may sometimes be peculiarly unfortunate, it is not unintellig- ible that misogyny should be an occasional phenomenon among human feelings. Even misanthropy is not inex- plicable. When a man has been signally unfortunate in the world, when his misfortunes have been caused by the villany of others, and solaced by no generous help, the emotional nature may receive such a twist, as to make it insensible to the pleasantness of human character, sensible only to its irritations, while the judgment may be so warped as to create a thousand imaginary causes of irritation, where there are none in reality to gratify the distorted sensibility. It seems necessary to add one word on revenge. What is understood by this term is an action rather than a feeling ; it is an action done under the impulse of 388 Psychology. malevolent passion, not under the guidance of reason. The highest morality, therefore, reprobates revenge ; but it should be borne in mind that no action, done under the mere impulses of nature, is moral, and that any emotion, even benevolence, may lead to disastrous results, if allowed to control our conduct without rational direc- tion. Feelings Originating in Comparison. 389 CHAPTER III, FEELINGS ORIGINATING IN COMPARISON. AS in the class of feelings, to which the previous chapter is devoted, the prominent fact is the association of pleasures and pains with their objects or causes, so in those, to which we now proceed, the other mental process, comparison, is the determining feature ; in other words, they are the emotions that arise from a comparison of their objects with other objects. As this involves the relation of objects in consciousness, the feelings in question have been called feelings of relativity. This name may appropriately embrace a larger range of emotions than it is sometimes used to denote; it is, in fact, applicable to all emotions that arise from an object being thought under any relation. All objects, indeed, must be known under relations ; but the relation of an object need not be the obtrusive phenomenon in consciousness. When it is so, it is calculated to excite emotions that vary in kind with the nature of the relation concerned, in degree with the intensity with which the relation absorbs the consciousness. The most easily intelligible relations are those of space and time. Spatial relations, by themselves, do not seem competent to excite emotion ; for it need scarcely be pointed out that the feelings excited by 390 Psychology. movement involve the relation of time as well. The feeling, too, of vastness in extent, awakened by an immense landscape, or, still more, by the infinite spaces of the stars, derives its peculiar nature rather from the idea of sublimity than from that of space alone. Time enters as a subordinate factor into many of our emotions ; but we must limit ourselves to those, in which it is the distinctive element. Here meet us first the emotions already noticed, the feelings of move- ment, which have a spatial element in their primitive form, but throw that off in what has been called the " ideal movement " of music and speech. Here abstract rapidity and slowness produce pleasant or unpleasant effects, without reference to any change of place. Another class of feelings arising from temporal relations are those which have been called the prospec- tive and the retrospective. The prospect of pleasure is, on its emotional side, hope ; the prospect of pain is fear. But the uncertainty of the future often leaves the mind in that state of suspense, in which hope and fear strangely alternate or conflict with one another.* This state is undoubtedly one of the most exhausting to which our emotional nature is subject ; and possibly its painfulness may be due to the fact that, like discordant sounds and other feelings noticed before, it consists of a series of intermittent shocks, the intervals of which allow the sensibility to recover, and thus to undergo an excessive stimulation. * " Spemque metumque inter dubii " {Aeneid, i., 218), which Byron probably had in his eye when writing Donjttan, ii., 98 : — •' And then of these some part burst into tears ; And others, looking with a stupid stare, Could not yet separate their hopes from fears. " Feelings Originating in Comparison, 391 On the other hand, the retrospect of past pleasures has long been considered as one of the largest and purest sources of human enjoyment. For, in accordance with laws of feeling which have been sufficiently explained already, it is easier to reproduce in consciousness a state of invigorating pleasure than a painful condition of injurious excitement j and therefore in general for all " the past doth win A glory from its being far, And orbs into the perfect star We saw not when we moved therein." There is, indeed, no distinctive name for the emotional state excited by the pleasures of memory ; but the pain- ful events of the past are the sources of the emotion familiarly known as regret. Both the prospective and retrospective feelings enter extensively as modifying influences into our emotional life. Our loves and hates, for example, are deeply tinged by hopes and fears ; while regret becomes aggra- vated into remorse when the painful event, on which we reflect, is thought as due to any moral fault of our own. This may explain why a psychologist, like Dr. Thomas Brown, should be able to classify a large proportion of our emotions under the heads of prospective and retrospective.* 'Tis true, it may be shown that in all the feelings thus distinguished a prospect or retrospect is implied; but in most this element is not the differentiating cause which gives its character to the feeling. But the universal relations of intelligence are, as we * Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind, 63 — 72 inclusive. 392 Psychology. have seen, those of identity and difference; and these give rise to a long series of varied emotions. Such emotions have not always separate names. Sometimes it is the pleasant, sometimes the unpleasant, side which is most prominent in human life, and which is accord- ingly distinguished by a familiar name. The most common of these emotions may be briefly described. I. Variety, as has already been noticed more than once, is essential to the continuance of consciousness itself. It is, therefore, essential to that stimulation of the sensibility which is required for pleasure. Consequently the prolonged repetition of the same mental state pro- duces the unpleasant feeling known as monotony, — a feel- ing which is capable of completely neutralising any form of enjoyment. II. We may enjoy a variety of impressions that are all familiar ; but even the repetition of such a variety produces at last a feeling akin to monotony, — the feeling of excessive familiarity or staleness. This is relieved only by the presentation of new objects to the mind. Novelty supplies the wonted stimulus to the sensibility, and is therefore a well-known source of agreeable effects. III. Familiarity implies the repetition of the same objects ; but a similar effect on the feelings may be pro- duced by the continued presentation of the same kind of objects. This is the disagreeableness which we associate with anything extremely commonplace. On the other hand, any object, which is not so much individually a novelty, which rather differs wholly from the kind of things to which we are accustomed, excites the emotion of wonder. This emotion is sometimes too intense to be pleasant. An excessive deviation from what we are used to expect may lead to disappointment, to painful astonishment. In extreme cases a marvel may even pro- Feelings Originating in Comparison. 393 duce the effect of other excessively powerful stimulants ; it may deaden the sensibility : we may be astounded, dumbfounded, stupified.* But this feature of objects is, perhaps more frequently, the source of a pleasant surprise. Its pleasantness is illustrated by the power which the love of the marvellous exercises over the mind. Not only is the marvel-monger a favourite among vulgar minds ; the same passion often induces the scientific student to accept without hesitation ill-verified assertions regarding natural phenomena of a marvellous kind, while it also forms at times a misleading taste in the literature of history and fiction. IV. Resemblance and contrast are additional modifica- tions of identity and difference. As already explained, resemblance is identity in the midst of difference, while contrast is difference in the midst of identity. These re- lations are the source of various emotions, generally of an agreeable nature. A contrast may sometimes be too violent for pleasure. This is, in fact, the cause of pain- fulness in extreme astonishment or novelty. But more generally the flash of contrast, and probably always the flash of resemblance in consciousness is an agreeable stimulus. They both enter largely into the pleasures of scientific discovery and artistic invention. The develop- ment of science is a progressive insight into the resem- blances and contrasts that pervade nature, while agree- able devices of literary art, such as the common figures of speech, are founded on the emotional effects of simili- tude and antithesis. * It is worth observing that, at times, though less frequently, excessive variety is fatiguing, and excessive novelty (brandnewness) too striking; so that occasionally a moderate sameness or familiarity may form a pleasing relief to the mind. 394 Psychology. V. When identity and difference are applied to time, we get the relations of periodicity and aperiodicity, of rhythm and irregularity of movement; for these relations imply respectively the recurrence of identical and of different times. Even in the feelings of sense the organism appears adapted to rhythmical stimulation. As already explained, it is this adaptation that makes tones agreeable in contrast with noises, rich in contrast with harsh qualities of tone, and harmonious combina- tions of tone in contrast with discords. It may also account in some measure for the disagreeableness of a flickering light, of false time in music, of a false quantity or metre in the recitation of poetry, of false steps in a dance, of an unsteady gait, of any movement by jerks, of an orator who speaks in spurts. It is not easy to say where, in such cases, sensuous feeling ends; but it is evident that in the higher feelings also rhythm mingles as an emotional agent. It enters especially, as an influential factor, into the enjoyment of poetical and musical form. VI. Another set of relations involving identity and difference are those of harmony and discord, understood in the figurative application of these terms. In their most general use these terms may be interpreted as im- plying an identity or difference of relations, as when two objects do or do not form complementary parts of one whole. Such identity and difference is, therefore, what we understand by the various expressions, order and disorder, proportion and disproportion, symmetry and asymmetry, congruity and incongruity. The relation, denoted by the former term in each of these sets of expressions, is a very extensive source of the more refined enjoyments of human life. It enters largely into the varied forms of aesthetic gratification Feelings Originating in Comparison. 395 which we receive from nature and from all the arts, while the vast cosmic order gives in cultured minds a tone to the religious sentiment. The other relation is of interest perhaps chiefly because it forms the basis of the ludicrous. The sentiment of the ridiculous has given rise to almost as great diversity of opinion as the feeling of beauty. Various qualities in objects have been main- tained to be the sources of ridicule. Incongruity, mean- ness, degradation accompanied by the feeling of power or self-exaltation, have all found their advocates. Against each of these qualities instances have been cited, where, not ridicule, but some other emotion, — pity, anger, scorn, &c. — has been excited.* Such criticisms over- look the fact that there is a subjective as well as an ob- jective condition of feeling. The emotional effect, there- fore, of any objective quality cannot be told without knowing how the mind is related to that quality at the time. Thus incongruity will excite ridicule, if it is not counteracted by the mental condition of the moment. But an incongruous object may often be viewed in other aspects ; and consequently it may produce different feel- ings in different minds, or even in the same mind at dif- ferent times. Take, for example, the odd contortions of pain, or the comical behaviour of a drunkard. When viewed exclusively on their droll side, these phenomena will assuredly excite the sentiment of the ridiculous ; but that side may be entirely obliterated in minds of deeper insight or more sympathetic tenderness. On going over ridiculous objects no more prominent characteristic than incongruity can be found universally present. Other qualities, such as degradation, with the relief of self-exal- * See, for example, Bain's The Emotions and the Will, pp. 248. 396 Psychology. tation, may be frequently, perhaps commonly, met with ; but even if they could be shown to be uniformly there, in the production of ridicule they are altogether subordi- nate to the relation expressed by such terms as dispro- portion, incongruity, oddity, drollness. VII. The feelings of freedom and restraint have also been enumerated among those that are based on com- parison ; for it is only by relation to each other that these conditions have any meaning in consciousness. Were it not for the fact that human life provides all men with an occasional experience of the irksomeness of restraint, the glory of freedom would never be realised ; and with- out a taste of freedom it is proverbial that the slave will "hug his chains." VIII. Emulation, that is, the emotional excitement developed in competition, is obviously due to a compari- son between the subject of the feeling and his rival or rivals. This feeling undergoes, of course, the same kind of expansion to which mental evolution in general is sub- ject, and therefore it manifests itself in a great variety of directions. It also enters extensively as a factor into many of the complex emotions, inasmuch as the activi- ties, by which our sensibility is excited, are very often pursuits in which we are, implicitly or explicitly, com- peting with our fellowmen. Intellectual Feelings, 397 CHAPTER IV. INTELLECTUAL FEELINGS. OUR pleasures and pains are the concomitants of the varied activities of life. Now, our activities may be regarded as either cognitional or volitional, as intellectual or practical ; and there are some feelings whose chief determining cause is an activity of the one or of the other kind. In the present chapter we shall examine the intellectual, and in the concluding chapter the practical emotions. The acquisition of knowledge is the source of many and varied enjoyments. There is scarcely one of the pleasurable feelings described in the previous chapter which may not be at times experienced in intellectual pursuits. The exertion of intellect, when not overstrained, is in itself an agreeable activity ; while self-esteem, the esteem of others, the pleasure of power, and other feel- ings may enter as subsidiary factors of the whole enjoy- ment. It is not, therefore, difficult to explain the love of knowledge — the feeling commonly treated by psycholo- gists under the name of curiosity. During the earlier years of life, until the familiar facts of the world are mastered, curiosity forms a strong and useful impulse. In later life it is only among men of some education that it forms a useful and refining power. In vulgar minds it allies itself with the more petty instincts, and 398 Psychology. even with the malicious passions of human nature, degenerating into a prurient craving after the knowledge of facts too trivial or too pernicious to be worth know- ing. It thus appears that the use of the intellect in acquir- ing knowledge is a source of numerous pleasures. Generally, however, the emotional factor of intellectual work is subordinate, the consciousness being absorbed in the prima] end of the work, the object to be known. This end may be purely speculative — the acquisition of knowledge for its own sake ; or it may be practical — the acquisition of knowledge for the purpose of directing us to some ulterior result. But in cither case it is the object sought that engrosses the conscious effort. Sometimes, however, the end of intellectual activity is neither specu- lative nor practical, but simply the delight in the activity itself, not excluding, of course, any collateral pleasures which it may involve ; and then arises the emotional state known as aesthetic feeling. The nature of this feeling has been already indicated in the chapter on Idealisation.* It was there shown that intellectual activity, to be aesthetic, must be of the nature of play. But play is an exercise which seeks no end beyond its own pleasure ; and therefore aesthetic en- joyment is found in the intellectual activity itself, out of which it arises, not in any ulterior end. It follows from this, that aesthetic gratifications are distinct from selfish pleasures, on the one hand, and from moral interests on the other. I. They are distinct from all selfish enjoyments — all enjoyments connected w T ith the struggle for existence. Hence, •Book, ii., Part ii., Chapter iv. Intellectual Feelings. 399 1. Some sensations, such as the gustative and the ali- mentary, are wholly excluded from the aesthetic field. In fact, sensation as such — mere sensuous excitement — is, strictly speaking, not yet aesthetic. The higher sensa- tions furnish natural materials for the aesthetic conscious- ness ; but they yieM a purely aesthetic pleasure only when they have entered into suggestive associations and intel- lectual combinations. Accordingly it was shown that the different sensations are adapted to artistic purposes in proportion to their distinct representability. ^Esthetic material, being thus found rather in ideal representations than in actual sensations, can be enjoyed by many ; it is not consumed in being enjoyed by one. The enjoyment is, therefore, essentially unselfish, disinterested. The contrast between selfish and aesthetic gratifications is ex- treme, when w r e compare the pleasure of merely viewing a tastefully decorated banquet with the pleasure of eating the viands. The unselfishness of ce.^thetic emotion, therefore, constitutes also its refinement ; for refinement, as previously explained, is the power of freeing con- sciousness from mere sensuous states, and occupying it with mental products. 2. But even ideal representations, to be aesthetic, must be absolutely disinterested. Beautiful objects may at times naturally excite meaner passions like envy, jealousy or vanity. A bitter drop of envy or jealousy is often sufficient to neutralise all the sweetness of aesthetic feeling; an artistic production, that is known to be a vulgar parade of wealth, may fail to achieve the aesthetic effect that might have been expected from its intrinsic merit. If a work of art implies wealth in its possessor, it is not this fact which fits it for yielding aesthetic grati- fication. In the same way, although the useful may be beautiful, it is so, not because it is useful, but because of 400 Psychology. the intellectual pleasure afforded by contemplating the manner in which it is useful. II. But aesthetic feeling is essentially distinct from all moral interests, as it is from the selfish passions of the struggle for existence. Moral activity supposes an ulte- rior end j in fact, it supposes an implicit reference to the ultimate end of our being. Consequently it stands re- lated to art in the same way as the production of utilities. Art may be moral as it may be useful, and its aesthetic effect may be enhanced by its morality or by its utility. Nay, the artist, being a moral agent, must have some sort of moral aim in his artistic activity as in other spheres of His conduct. Moreover, the object of art being the production of an intellectual pleasure, the artist dare not overlook the value of the moral sentiments, as any flag- rant offence to these would inevitably defeat his aesthetic aim. Still the aesthetic gratification, which a work of art yields, cannot be derived from the fact that it has a moral purpose. This fact would excite the sentiment of moral approbation. The aesthetic pleasure is derived from con- templating the manner in which the moral facts of life are combined for the production of an artistic effect. The pure form of aesthetic pleasure is that expressed by the term beauty, and pure aesthetic pain is ugliness. But, like other emotions, these admit of numerous modi- fications according to the subsidiary influences which may happen to predominate in the artistic material by which the aesthetic effect is produced. In works on psychology and aesthetics it is common to give promin- ence to the feelings of sublimity, in which aesthetic enjoy- ment is just passing over into the disturbing emotions of wonder and awe and power. The picturesque and the ludicrous are also familiar objects of aesthetic pleasure. In the former, the pure aesthetic feeling is modified by Intellectual Feelings. 401 an excess of variety ; in the latter, by an excess of in- congruity. In strictness, however, aesthetic feeling is much more variously modified than it is commonly re- presented to be. The weird, for example, in which the mysterious, the " uncanny," the supernatural plays a prominent part, has, indeed, a certain affinity with the sublime in the common feeling of awe, but is destitute of its other essential factors.* A distinct place ought also to be given to the tragic, in which the painful emo- tions, especially terror and pity, form the chief aesthetic material, and also to the dramatic, in which aesthetic effects are based mainly on plot-interest. But the complete analysis of these various aesthetic effects would carry us into the details of the science of aesthetics. * The feeling of the weird is expressed in the Scottish adjective eery. 402 Psychology, CHAPTER V. FEELINGS OF ACTION. IN the general evolution of mental life volition, that is, action in the strictest sense of the term, is called into play ; and the action, as action, gives rise to various feelings, pleasurable and painful. There is a pleasure in mere action, — a pleasure which, at an earlier period of life, displays itself mainly in the love of muscular sports, and during later years gives a zest to the varied industrial, intellectual, and moral activities of men. But all action, strictly so called, im- plies an end ; and this circumstance constitutes it a more fruitful source of emotion. I. The attainment of any end gives us the pleasure of feeling that it is within our power, as failure to reach it excites the mortification of powerlessness, of baffled en- deavour. In this we have the source of ambition, the love of power, which obviously forms an extensive and varied influence in human life. If in younger years, and in many men to the very last, it shows itself only in the pleasure of producing results of bodily strength or skill, it expands under advancing culture into the aspiration after that power which high intelligence wields over nature and men. It has been pointed out that this emotion enters as an ingredient into the pleasure of virtue, inasmuch as the virtuous life is a realisation of Feelings of Action, 403 complete power over self, not to speak of the influence it may exert over others. But the love of power seems also to add force to the cruel side of human nature ; nothing yields such a vivid consciousness of our power over another as his subjection to our torture.* II. But without evoking the definite feeling of power, the presence of an end may kindle a more or less eager desire for its attainment. This eagerness takes sometimes an egoistic, sometimes an altruistic, direction. 1. In its egoistic form it originates the pleasure of pursuit, the pleasure of approximating to the end of an action, to the ideal of a life. 2. In its altruistic form this emotion arises from contemplating the activity of others, and the development of its results. We thus obtain that large element of literary gratification, the pleasure 01 plot- interest. III. As each action supposes an end, so each subordinate end supposes some supreme end, to which it is merely a means. All the immediate ends 01 human actions, therefore, point to a chief end of man, a summum bonum of his life. The pleasures connected with the pursuit and attainment of this end, the pains connected with the failure to reach it, — these enter as prominent factors into the moral sentiments. * Stewart has given a specially interesting illustration 0/ the numerous directions of the love 01' power in his Philosophy of ihe Active and Moral Powers, Book i., Chap, ii., § 4, Volitions, 405 PART III. VOLITIONS. VOLITIONS are actions consciously directed to an end ; and the problem of psychology is to explain the process by which we acquire control over our ac- tions so as to make them subserve the ends we have in view, instead of being aimless. In the treatment of this problem we shall discuss (1) the nature of volition, (2) the motive power of the feelings, (3) the extension of voluntary control over muscles, feelings, and thoughts, (4) freedom of volition. 4°6 Psychology. CHAPTER I. THE GENERAL NATURE OF VOLITION. HERE, as in cognition and feeling, the rudimentary material of the mental life is to be found in sensation,— here considered as giving, not information or pleasure and pain, but impulse to action. There are indeed impulses outside of conscious sensation. There are possibly, as a favourite doctrine of Professor Bain holds, spontaneous discharges of surplus muscular energy.* Certainly stimuli transmitted along afferent nerves are often reflected along efferent nerves without exciting consciousness. These spontaneous and reflex muscular movements are moreover not without value in the development of voluntary movements ; but they are by no means so valuable as those experiences, in which movement follows, though involuntarily, upon a conscious sensation. Thus we close the eyes, or turn the head away, from a dazzling light. We shrink or scream or groan under an excessive pain. The hand plays tenderly with any smooth soft body which it touches. We are constantly shifting to relieve the uneasiness of a posture maintained too long. In a thousand ways the * The Senses and the Intellect, pp. 5973 ; The Emotions and the Will, pp. 297-308. The General Nature of Volition. 407 feeling of pleasure, perhaps more frequently the feeling of pain, discharges itself in excitements of motor nerve. The movements, thus involuntarily stimulated by sensa- tion, are observed very strikingly in the changing positions of the sleeper, when he is disturbed. It is not possible always to distinguish such movements from strictly reflex actions ; but the distinction is real. When an action is thus involuntarily performed, whether by a spontaneous or reflex or sensational stimulus, it may be the cause, directly or indirectly, of pleasure or pain. In fact, most of our pleasures and pains imply some action on our part. We speak of objects being the causes of our feelings; but objects must be brought into the proper relation to our organism to excite its sensibility. Thus a beautiful scene must be looked at ; a sapid body must be put into the mouth, an odour must be sniffed, before the appropriate feelings can be experienced. The action therefore comes to 'be associated in consciousness with the pleasure or pain it produces ; and, as already explained,* it is thus that likings and dislikes are aroused. The association of action and feeling makes them mutually suggestive. The feeling, therefore, whether actually felt or merely remembered, will suggest the action, by which it is pro- duced ; but an action, — a muscular movement,— cannot be represented in consciousness without a faint thrill in the muscular region which would be stirred if the movement were actually made. This thrill of repre- senting an action in connection with a pleasure to be reached or a pain to be avoided by it, — this is that conscious state of desire, craving, longing, yearning, * See Chap. ii. of the previous Tart. 40S Psychology, which has been well named "the small beginnings of action."* This mental state finds its most vivid and familiar illustration in the earliest form in which it shows itself in human life— our animal appetites. The term, appetite, when used in its most restricted sense, is applied to those lie cravings which arise from the recurring wants of animal nature. Of these it is common to distinguish two kinds — one as being natural and original, the other as artificial and acquired. The latter arc simply particu- lar habits imposed on the nervous system by the peculiar indulgences of individuals. Such are the cravings for alcohol, tobacco, opium, tea, flesh, spices, and other stimulants or narcotics. Appetites of this sort are of course not universal impulses of the human mind, but are mere accidents of individual life. On the other hand, the natural or original appetites have their source in the intrinsic wants of our animal constitution, and are therefore common to all men. The most obstrusive of these in daily consciousness are those most closely con- nected with the struggle for individual existence, hunger and thirst. But, in addition to these, the sexual organic cravings, the craving for sleep, the cravings for activity and rest, and perhaps some other bodily desires of a more obscure character, are also to be included among natural appetites. These earliest and simplest forms of desire remain throughout life the types of all the more complex longings of the mind. In common language the terms hunger and thirst, in particular, are extensively applied to describe even the highest aspirations of life. For it scarcely needs observing, that cravings may nave their origin not merely in the pleasures and pains * Hobbes' Leviathan, p. 39, Molesworth's ed. The General Nature of Volition. 409 of sense. The impulsive power of a sensation depends on its power of giving pleasure and pain ; but this power is not confined to feeling at the stage of mere sensation ; it belongs equally to the stage of pure emotion. The impulsive action of feeling, however, even at this higher stage, does not constitute volition. Numberless actions in the daily life of all men are the thoughtless, involun- tary promptings of emotion. A sudden ecstasy of joy, an unexpected excess of sorrow, a flash of hope or despair, an overwhelming panic, a furious outburst of anger, — such emotions will diffuse themselves irresistibly over various muscular regions, and determine all sorts .of aimless actions. But a volition is not aimless or thought- less ; it implies a thought of the end to be attained by the action. How is this developed ? A volition, we have seen, is not merely an action un- reflectively prompted, suggested by a previous associa- tion with some pleasure it produces. It implies a consciousness of this association, a conscious compari- son of action and pleasure with a cognition of their relation as means and end. It is only when we thus reflect on the end to be attained by an action, that the action becomes voluntary. This fact is apt to be lost sight of, as it is obscured by an ambiguity in the use of the word motive. This term is sometimes employed to denote an impulse of sensibility, by which we are moved to act without reflection ; and such action implies no intelligent control. But in a higher application the term is identified with intention or intelligent purpose ; that is to say, a motive, in this sense, is an object set before consciousness as the end to be reached by the perform- ance of an action. It is only actions directed by this higher sort of motives that are voluntary. A volition is an act of an intelligent being acting intelligently. 4io Psychology. CHAPTER II. THE MOTIVE POWER OF THE FEELINGS. FROM the previous chapter it appears that, in ordei to volition, there must be a representation of the end to be attained. We have thus a test of the voli- tional quality of different feelings ; and it is found to be identical with that quality on which the intellectual and emotional life also depends, — that combination ofassocia- bility and comparability which has been briefly described before as distinct representability. It is true that in the mental picture of ends it is often not so much the future feelings themselves that are represented, but rather the external circumstances in which these are expected. Nor is it difficult to understand why this should be the case. Not only are external circumstances, implying usually visual images, capable of being represented with greater vividness than pleasures and pains; but it is by picturing in imagination the external stimulants of our pleasures and pains that these are realised in anticipation. Still, in order to endow our feelings with volitional power, they must be represented to the mind ; and therefore this power of our feelings demands some consideration here. To understand this power in all its bearings, the feel- ings must be viewed both on their sensible side, that is, The Motive Power of the Feelings. 41 1 as sources of pleasure and pain, and on their intellectual side, that is, as sources of knowledge. I. In the former aspect they possess two somewhat contrasted properties, intensity and durability. 1. The intensity of a feeling, as we have already seen, is the degree in which it absorbs the consciousness. Now, the intensity of a feeling may be said to be the measure of its motive power while it lasts. This law implies two facts : — (a) that the power of a feeling to move us is naturally in proportion to its intensity, but (b) only while it lasts. (a) The former statement is evidenced by the manner in which our moral judgment is modified by finding that an action has or has not been done under the influence of intense feeling. This modification is observed not only in the judgments of individuals and particular social circles ; it has influenced even civilised jurisprudence Though law properly concerns itself only with external acts, it has become common, in modern legislation, to mitigate t'ie punishment of crimes perpetrated under powerful temptations, such as a theft of bread to escape starvation, or a homicide prompted by a sudden over- powering passion. (b) But this statement is subject to the important qualification, that the intensity of a passion measures its motive power only while it lasts. After it has died away, it can be of influence as a motive only by being repre- sented ; and therefore its motive power depends then on its distinct representability. Indeed, as soon as reflec- tion has had time to work, passion begins to wane ; and in general, therefore, it may be said, that our feelings are powerful stimulants of action in proportion to their intensity only while they operate as unreflecting motives. A.s motives in the higher sense of the term, as objects of 4*2 Psychology, intelligent purpose, they imply the power of being dis- tinctly represented. 2. But before proceeding to this intellectual quality of the feelings, there is another quality, which they possess in their sensible aspect, demanding consideration. The durability of a feeling is its capacity of continuing in consciousness without relief. The relation of durability to intensity may be sufficiently expressed by saying that the two arc in an inverse proportion to each other, if this mathematical formula is understood not to imply the exact measurements of quantity, which are characteristic of mathematical science. This relation has impressed itself deeply on the com- mon consciousness of men, and impressed itself as a fact of supreme importance in its bearing on the sum of human happiness. For, as already explained in connec- tion with the theory of pleasure and pain, excessive or prolonged intensity, passing the limit of healthy action, destroys sensibility ; so that a period is soon put to the duration of intense feelings. " The breath of flowers," says Lord Bacon, " is far sweeter in the air, where it comes and goes like the warbling of music, than in the hand."* And the principle here implied holds good, not only of odours, but of all kinds of feeling. The pleasures which contribute most to our general welfare are those which come and go, or are of calmer tone and enjoyed in moderation. Fortunately, persistent intensity destroys sensibility to pain as well as pleasure. The worst agonies, therefore, as the brutal malice of the savage and the refined malice of the inquisitor equally know, are those pains which die away and return upon us afresh ; or they are those calm griefs which settle * Essay Of Gardens. The Motive Power of the Feelings. 413 down into a calm despair. " Dolor in longinquitate levis, in gravitate brevis solet esse ; ut ejus magnitudinem celeritas, diuturnitatem allevatio consoletur."* It is for this reason that we refuse to trust in the continuance of intense feelings : we prefer a sober friendship to any " gushing " affection ; and we look with certainty to the early decay of all ecstasies, sensual, intellectual, moral, and religious alike. " His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last, For violent fires soon burn out themselves ;"+ and there is a wise psychology in the old proverb, "Love me little and love me long." Even in the loftiest senti- ment an excess of fervour, equally with any excess in mere sensation, is apt to abolish consciousness. " In such high hour Of visitation from the living God Thought was not ; in enjoyment it expired." But the lesson, impressed on the mind by the relation of durability to intensity of feeling, is affected by an im- portant qualification. We have already seen that variety is an essential condition of consciousness in general, of pleasurable consciousness in particular. Nothing neu- tralises all kinds of enjoyment more completely than monotony. An uniform calm, therefore, even of enjoy- ment, tends to degenerate into insipidity. To avoid this result it is usual to vary the even tenor of the emo- tional life by occasional seasons of heightened enjoy- ment. Though plain food forms the staple gratification * Cicero, De Finibus, i. 12. t Richard the Second, Act ii., Scene I. Compare the passage from Romeo and Juliet, quoted above, p. 326. 414 Psychology. of life, there is a need for feasts at times ; and mis forms the reason of banquets, holidays, hightides. For one moment of intense enjoyment may, in many instances, be infinitely preferable to a feeble prolongation of the same feeling. '• Come what sorrow can, It cannot countervail the exchange of joy That one short minute gives me in her sight."* It would appear also as if in the anguish of a second might be summed up the misery of years. In the history of some kinds of suffering man is not without occasional experience of a moment of unspeakable horror, regarding which it may be truly said, that " In that instant o'er his soul Winters of memory seemed to roll, And gather in that drop of time A life of pain, an age of crime. "t This fact, however, bears upon the feelings considered not merely as sources of pleasure and pain, but also as impulses to action. There is a tide in the emotions of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to high achieve- ments. Enthusiasm, that is, an unusual intensity of elevating sentiment, is necessary to raise men above a humdrum existence. And therefore, for the sake of energetic activity, men dare to risk the emotional storms * Romeo and Juliet, Act ii., Scene 6. The idea is felicitously ex« pressed in a German students' drinking-song : — " Nippet nicht, wenn Bacchus' Quelle fliesset, Aengstlich an des vollen Bechers Rand J Wer das Leben tropfenweis' geniesset, Hat des Lebens Deutung nie erkannt." f Eyron's Giaour, The Motive Power of the Feelings, 415 that are apt to arise out of inspiring enthusiasms, rather than be content with the dull ease of a placid career. " Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife, To all the sensual world proclaim, One crowded hour of glorious life Is worth an age without a name."* For the same reason man finds more interest in a brief period of the great historical nations with all their stir and strife than can ever be felt in the uneventful records of those peoples that have left no impress on the development of humanity. " Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay ! " Accordingly, to render possible a more exalted course of action, men adopt various means for cultivating to higher intensity the sentiments by which such a course is inspired. This is the happy effect that we seek in the companionship of sympathetic minds ; and the great religious teachers of all ages are never weary of proclaim- ing that acts of religion have no significance or value except in cherishing the state of feeling which gives a nobler tone to life. Of course, there is a danger that the passionate susceptibility, which leads to splendid deeds, may be misdirected to meaner ends. Still, without its enthusiasms, life would scarce be worth living. To the general life of man they impart the charm of romance, and in the moral life particularly they are indispensable to heroic virtue. We can therefore understand why, in the more earnest movements of religious history, modera- tion has often been stigmatised, not indeed as implying positive vice, but as tending to cool the ardour of senti- * Scott, Old Mortality, Chapter xxxviii. 416 Psychology. ment necessary to reach the ideal at which these move ments aim. II. But it is not on their sensible side that the feelings are of chief interest in the development of the mental life. We have already seen that cognition and emotion owe their complicated developments to the intellectual qualities, the associability and comparability, — of our •ions; and it is in virtue of these qualities, which have been summarily described as forming distinct rcpre- sentability, that the feelings contribute to the development of volition. Considered merely as sensible phenomena, the feelings may form unrellective impulses to action ; but it is only by being distinctly representable that they can form intelligent ends. This aspect of the feelings, therefore, alters altogether the estimate of their motive power which we should form from their sensible qualities. It values a feeling not only while it lasts, but when it is afterwards revived in memory or imagination to form an object of intelligent reflection. It appears that the distinct representability of feelings may be generally described as in direct proportion to their durability, and therefore in inverse proportion to their intensity. From this it follows on the one hand that the calmer feelings are not only more durable, but more distinctly revivable in idea. Both of these facts are of great practical import, i . We may well at times be struck with awe at the fact that feelings, which for the moment overpower by their intensity all other impulses, cannot be afterwards repre- sented with any vividness. The reason of this fact has been already pointed out in the general principle, that a feeling, even if naturally pleasurable, passes, by its excess, the limit of health, and becomes destructive. The fact finds its illustration in all departments of our emotional life. There are many sensations, like those of sickness, The Motive Poiver of the Feelings. 4T7 which absolutely control our conduct while we are under their power, yet leave but the faintest traces in imagina- tion and memory. Perhaps, however, the most startling instance of the fact under consideration is to be found in the rapid access of repentance after excess, after the inordinate indulgence of any passion. Owing to the inverse ratio between the intensity and the durability of our feelings, the power of the criminal impulse collapses with appalling suddenness ; and in consequence of the inverse ratio of intensity to representability, being unable to quicken the dead passion into the after-life of memory, the guilty wretch stands aghast at his conduct, and cannot now realise what ever induced him to act as he has done. The famous scene, with which the second act of Macbeth opens, will long retain its terrible charm over the mind from the truthfulness with which it pictures this dread revulsion of feeling. It may be observed that a more pleasing illustration of the same revulsion is found in an emotional state resem- bling the nature of shame, that sometimes follows upon actions done under the influence of a high enthusiasm. 2. But the counterpart of this fact is also familiar in human life. The sources, from which we draw the materials for happy reflection and for pleasing construc- tions of the fancy in after years, are not, as a rule, the violent excitements of our sensibility, but those feelings which are of a calm nature, and which also endure commonly for a long time. This fact, however, is of interest, not only as pointing to the perennial sources of human happiness ; it noints equally to the kind of feelings which must form the objects of intelligent volition. The man, whose conduct is dictated by the most intense passion of the moment, leads a life that is destitute of any determinate character. To attain con- C 2 4i3 Psychology. sistency of character the life must be guided by an ideal plan; and an ideal plan of life supposes, not merely the impulses that proceed from the variable moods of the sensibility, but motives that can be retained permanently in idea. Such motives, U«wrvtfL, *ttt 5e found only in connection with feelings that are distinctly representable, Voluntary Control over Muscles, etc. 419 CHAPTER III. THE EXTENSION OF VOLUNTARY CON- TROL OVER MUSCLES, FEELINGS, AND THOUGHTS. THE most obvious and therefore the most intelli- gible sphere of volition is muscular activity. The nature of the volitional control of muscle has been partially explained in the opening Chapter of this Part. It was there shown that muscular activity is first stimulated by spontaneous or reflex or sensational im- pulses. The muscular activity, originated in any of these ways, excites pleasure or pain ; and the pleasant or painful feeling excited becomes accordingly associated in consciousness with the activity which is its cause. When the feeling is afterwards represented, it recalls the cause ; and we are accordingly moved to reproduce the cause in order to the reproduction of the effect. But to guard against mistake, and prepare the way for further developments of volition, it is necessary to con- sider the nature of the feelings connected with the activity of the muscles. Muscular sensation is merely a peculiar mode of feeling which, though distinguished in quality from other feelings, is not a consciousness of the muscles, by whose action it is excited. Apart from anatomical study, muscular sensation can no more reveal the structure, or even the existence, of muscles 420 Psychology. than a sound can tell the form of the cochlea, or a colour can reveal the rods and cones of the retina. The volition, therefore, which issues in muscular contraction, is not directed consciously towards the muscles contracted. I will, for example, to write certain characters on the paper before me with the pen which I hold in my hand. I am unable, without consulting an anatomical work, to tell precisely what muscles must be called into play in guiding the pen, But I have written the same charac- ters a countless number of times before. After scores of somewhat unsuccessful efforts in school-days I have hit upon the precise muscular contraction required. That precise contraction is the source of an equally definite muscular sensation ; and it is through this sensation alone that the required contraction becomes associated with the facts of my conscious life, and comes within the sphere of conscious volition. Accordingly when a familiar act is represented as an object of volition, I am able, through the muscular sensibility, to hit upon the muscular contraction necessary to the accomplishment of the act. If the act is still unfamiliar, — if it is one the performance of which still requires to be made into a habit or dexterity, — it is through the muscular sensibility that the acquisition is directed. From general use of the muscles I must of course be acquainted roughly with the limits within which the required muscular exertion lies. 1 can, therefore, hit more or less nearly on the precise contractions. It is here that the vast differences appear between individuals in regard to the sensibility and pliability of muscle. Some show a quick expertness, that seems to want no tuition, in finding the exact stroke of muscle demanded. For such nature has formed a basis for proceeding at once to those higher refinements, by which they may excel all ordinary Voluntary Control over Muscles^ etc. 427 teachers, and attain the achievements of genius. Others, again, less favoured by nature, never succeed, even after laborious repetitions, in overcoming the clumsy awkward- ness of learners. It is important, then, to bear in mind, that, even in voluntary control of the muscles, volition is directed immediately, not to the muscles themselves, but to the sensations excited by muscular action. In passing, therefore, to voluntary control of the feelings, there is not such a wide gap in the evolution of will as might at first be supposed. In controlling the muscles themselves the consciousness is directed to a certain mode of feeling, — a mode of feeling, indeed, connected with the muscular mechanism by which we modify the external world, but a mode of feeling all the same. Consequently the transition, in this expansion of voluntary power is, in strictness, not so much from control of muscle to control of feeling as from controlling one mode of feeling to the control of another. In fact there is, in many, if not in most, of the voluntary acts which control the feelings, a close affinity with those which control muscular movement. We have seen in the Introduction to the previous Part of this Book, that the feelings are in many instances associated with specific muscular movements as their expression. This association, it was further observed, is so close, as to constitute a certain dependence of the feelings on their expression j so that, by producing an expressive movement, the associated feeling may be in some measure reinstated. The dependence, indicated in this fact, is, however, manifested in other ways. The expres- sion of an emotion is connected with the emotion by some natural law or laws, in whatever manner the connection may have originated j and consequently the 422 Psychology. tendency of an emotion, when unresisted, is to find vent in its natural i in. But this tendency may be resisted, at least in those cases in which expression is connected with the voluntary muscles. We cannot indeed arrest the relaxation of the intestinal mi often broi lent fear ; we cannot check the quickened heat of the heart which emotional excitement re the interrupted rhythm of the circulation which, under the influence of various feelin] lour come and go on the lace. But the laugh and the frown, the start of surprise, and the numerous :m the familiar expres- sions of feeling,— these are all under conscious COntroL Now, the repression of these movements necessarily interferes with the natural play, and deadens the vivacity, motion. In fact the play of emotion, — its indulgence, — consists in the influence which it c: ■• vet the conduct of life; and this influence is exhibited, not only in the general human expressions of emotion, but also in par- ticular acts in which emotion may be indulged at any moment. The real control of emotion consists in the repression of all its overt manifestations. The emotional life feeds upon its overt indulgencies, and without them cannot be sustained. Such indulgencies are often private, like the secret fondling of objects associated with any affection, or retired acts of devotion. There is nothing more frequently enjoined in treatises on practical religion than the necessity of such private acts for the cultivation of religious feeling. This injunction of religious teachers is based on an universal principle with regard to the culture of the emotions, — the principle that any emo- tional excitement may be controlled by keeping in check its active manifestations, and that emotions may be Voluntary Control over Muscles, etc. 423 starved out of existence by being habitually refused the indulgence they crave in directing external conduct. To what extent such emotional repression should be carried, is a problem of ethics ; and the great divisions of ethical speculation might be described as separating on the problem. For while an extreme Epicureanism seeks the chief good of humanity in some form of emotional excitement, and while an extreme Stoicism, finding in such excitement the source of all evil, enjoins the cultivation of an emotional apathy; more moderate ethical theories hold up the ideal of a life, in whicli rational conduct is warmed and beautified by rational feeling. This is not the place to dwell on these theories further than to point out that, amid all their differences, they agree in recognising the psychological fact, that the emotions can be voluntarily allowed to determine, or prevented from determining, the character of any human life. • It is this check upon their external manifestations that is commonly understood by the control of the feelings in our daily life. But it remains a question, whether such an account exhausts all that can be said of this control. It may be true that feeling is, not only in general, but always, bound up with some muscular manifestation ; yet it is a very simple task of abstraction to separate in thought the feeling from its expression. It is quite con- ceivable, therefore, that though the feelings are usually repressed by restraining their outward manifestations, yet it is possible to direct conscious volition to the feelings themselves without reference to their manifestations. Whethei this is actually the case or not, is a question which brings us to the ultimate problem of the will. In the discussion of this problem it will be found that some psychologists refuse to recognise any sphere of voluntary 4 2 4 Psychology. control beyond the muscular system j and to such the utmost that ran he meant by volition is the conscious anticipation of a muscular movement that is about to be felt by us. Whether this is a complete account of the limits of the will, must be discussed in the sequel. Mean- while, is preparatory to that discussion, it is important to notice another extension of voluntary control. As there is a certain control exercised over the feelings, so we can also, in a certain sense, control the thoughts. The explanation of this act has been prepared in discus- sing f idary Laws of Suggestion * and the nature of attention. f It was then shown that, while the pheno- mena before consciousness at any moment are multifa- rious, the consciousness is unequally distributed over them. While the majority of these phenomena attract comparatively little notice, on some, perhaps only on one, the consciousness may he concentrated either by an in- voluntary impulse of feeling or by voluntary effort. This concentration of consciousness controls our thought!, not only for the moment, but also for the moments immedi- ately following. For it makes the thoughts, on which the consciousness is concentrated, more powerfully sug- gestive than the rest, and consequently determines the line in which the current of thought will flow. It is this straining, this attention of the mind, that renders possible voluntary recollection, study, consecutive thinking. Let us look at the nature of the act more closely. In some instances, at least, the act obviously resembles that of controlling the feelings by restraint of their out- ward manifestations. When the object of thought is a body actually present to sense, then attention to it in- • Book i., Part ii., Chapter i., § 2. «■ Book ii., Part i., Chapter ii., § l. Voluntary Control over Muscles, etc. 425 volves some muscular act, — the fixing of the eyes, the breathless listening, the manipulation of a surface, the sniff of effluvia, or some similar action. Even when the object is one of abstract thought, the concentration of consciousness upon it implies, as already explained.* such a tension of our limited powers as to arrest activity in other directions. Unless a voluntary restraint is exercised over the restless muscular movement by which bodily life is in health usually characterised, the con- sciousness would be so distracted by the innumerable changing phenomena brought within its ken that atten- tion would be impossible. The enforced quiet of the muscular organism produces a state of monotony in re- gard to outward impressions, and deadens thereby their power of stimulation. But this quiet is, of course, en- forced by the voluntary control of the muscles ; and it cannot, therefore, be doubted that attention, at least in its more definite forms, frequently, — it may be usually or even always, — implies muscular restraint. But here, as in regard to the voluntary control of the feelings, the question arises, whether in recognising this muscular restraint we have disclosed the whole nature of the voli- tions which direct the course of our thoughts. This question cannot be properly discussed except by entering upon the problem reserved for the concluding chapter. 426 Psychology. CHATTER IV. FREEDOM OF VOLITION. THE problem of this chapter is essentially identical with those ultimate problems regarding the general nature of knowledge, which were discussed in the sixth chapter of the first Part of this Book ; and, therefore, little remains to be done but to explain the bearing upon this problem of the principles involved in the previous discussion. At the outset it may be worth while to recall the definition of voluntary action in the first chapter of this Part. It was there shown that many so-called actions are due to unreflecting impulses, and that the term motive is very often used for impulses of this kind. On the other hand, this term is also frequently applied to the conscious purpose, the end which we have in view when we act. It is only actions of the latter class that are voluntary. A volition is therefore an act of a person who knows what he is doing, and who, in knowing what he does, knows the end which his action is adapted to attain. Now, it is not maintained that human actions are generally of this voluntary sort. On the contrary, it may be admitted that the majority of actions, — all the actions which make up the routine of daily life, — are of the mechanical type, even though they may be the result of habits voluntarily formed, and may therefore Freedom of Volition. 427 continue subject to voluntary restraint. Man is encir- cled by the systems of natural law, limited by them in his original constitution, rewarded or punished by them in his repeated actions. So far his activity is like any other natural product ; but the question remains, whether it does not essentially imply something more. The question, then, in reference to the freedom of volition is confined to those acts which alone are en- titled to be called volitions, — those in which the agent consciously seeks to reach a certain end. Accordingly, it leaves out of account, and we may throw aside as a meaningless fiction, that sort of freedom which has been called the " liberty of indifference," that is, a power to act free from the influence of any motive whatever. Whether such a freedom can be claimed for man or not, it is not worth claiming ; for a motiveless act cannot be an intelligent act, since it implies no intelligence of the end which the act is designed to accomplish. On the freedom of the will, then, as thus defined, there are two theories, or sets of theories. I. One holds that, whatever distinction may be drawn between the actions, to which the term volition is restricted, and those that are done unreflectingly, there is no difference in so far as the law of causality is con- cerned. According to this law, every phenomenon is absolutely determined by some antecedent phenomenon or phenomena ; and consequently every action of man receives its definite character from the immediately antecedent circumstances in which it was done, it being understood that antecedent circumstances comprehend the condition of the agent himself as well as the con- dition of his environment. The manifold agencies in the physical world excite their multitudinous tremors in the nervous system : these are followed by appropriate 428 Psych states of consciousness feelings, cognitions, desires ; and the phenomena, which we call volitions, are merely further links in this chain. Every volition, therefore, On this theory, is re simply as an event in time, wholly determined, like any other event, by events preceding. This has been commonly called, in former times, the id its sir N essitarians. tes of the theory, however, generally object to the term Ne - implying compulsion without consent, whereas the theory regards the consent of the agent as one of the conditions of" a voluntary action. On this account Determinism has been sug- K and is ; rally adopted, as an appropriate nation of the theory. Though a certain form of Determinism has often been maintained by theologians of the Augustinian and Calvin- istic schools, yet the doctrine tends at the present day to ally itself with that general theory of man's origin, which Is him as, in mind and body alike, merely the last evolution of organic nature on our planet. According to this view man's consciousness is simply the product of the forces in his environment acting on his complicated sensibility, and of that sensibility reacting on the environ- ment. His consciousness, therefore, stands related to other phenomena precisely as these are related to each other, each being acted upon by the rest, and reacting upon them, so that all are absolutely determined by this reciprocity of action. On this view man's self is not a real unity, forming by its unifying power, out of an unin- telligible multiplicity of sensations, an intelligible cosmos; it is a mere name for a factitious aggregate of associated mental states. The only actual self is the sum of feelings i>f which we are conscious at any moment; and the actual Freedom of Volition, 429 self, therefore, differs with the variation of our feelings. Such a self evidently offers no intelligible source of any activity that is not absolutely determined by natural causation. II. The opposite theory, maintaining that volition is in its essential character free from the determinations of natural law, is spoken of as the doctrine of Liberty, or of the Freedom of the Will. Its supporters are sometimes called Libertarians. This doctrine contends, in one form or another, that there is an essential difference between human volitions and other events, and that their character is not to be interpreted, like that of other events, solely by referring to the antecedent circumstances in which they were done. This theory tends to ally itself at the present day with that Transcendental Idealism, which refuses to accept Empirical Evolutionism as a complete solution of the problem of man's nature. The doctrine of Liberty insists on the essential distinction between the reality, the unity, of the self and that of objects. The notselves, that make up the objective world, have no real point of unity, no self- hood ; so that from themselves nothing can originate. But the self is a real self, a real centre of unity, from which radiate all the unifying functions of intelligence that form into intelligible order the world of sense. The self, therefore, stands related to the notselves of the objective world, not simply as these are related to each other ; it is contradistinguished from the whole of them in a way, in which each is not contradistinguished from the others, as the intelligent interpreter without which they could form no intelligible system. This system is formed of parts which are construed as holding relations of reciprocal causality ; but the intelligence, that con- strues the system, is not simply one of the parts, whose 430 Psychology. action is absolutely determined by the action of the rest. As \vc have seen in the previous discussion on self- consciousness, it is this distinction of self from the whole universe of notselves, tnat alone renders intelligible the cognition of that universe. It is also the independence of self on the universe of notselves, that alone renders intelligible its voluntary action on that universe. For a volition is not an act, .o which I am impelled by the forces of external nat ire beating upon my sensitive nature ; it is an act, ii which I consciously set before myself an end, and determine myself towards its attain- ment. The very nature of volition, therefore, would be contradicted by a description of it in terms which brought it under tin ry of causality. This freedom of the self from determination by the world of objects is the f i alone explains, without explaining away, the consciousness, that there is within us a centre of conscious activity which is, in the last resort, impregnable by any assaults of mere force. You may apply to my organism superior forces of organic or .mic bodies, and compel it to act as you wish. You may employ all the sensible inducements at your disposal in order to bend me to your purpose; you may tempt me with the most bewitching delights of sense, or scare me with its most frightful agonies. You may even, by ingenuity of torture, so shatter my nervous system as to prevent me from carrying out into the world of sense the deliberate resolutions of myself. But there is one thing which mere force, — force separated from reason, — cannot do ; it cannot compel me. Conclusion. 43 1 CHAPTER V, CONCLUSION. THE preceding discussions, brief though they are in comparison with those of more elaborate treatises, may yet be felt to be incomplete without a summary of their general results. Psychology being the science of man's mental life, its problems present not only the interest of scientific questions in general, but the higher interest of those questions which bear specially upon man's nature, his origin and his destiny. These questions, in their essential significance, cannot be ap- proached except through the path of man's mental life : it is this that at once creates their perplexity, and opens the way to their solution. Moreover, the meutal life of man, involving the problems of his essential nature and origin and destiny, involves also the problems of the nature and origin and destiny of all things. For, if these problems can be solved at all, the solution can be reached only by the nature of things being revealed to the human mind, and that can be revealed only under the conditions to which psychology shows that the human mind is sub- ject; while, even if the essential nature of things be unknowable, it can be shown to be so only by an analy- sis of the conditions of knowledge, such as is furnished by the psychologist. 43 2 Psychology, The mental life of man, as we have seen at the outset, is distinguished from other phenomena by the conscious- eess wiili which it is accompanied. It is Dot necessary to discuss whether the so-called mental life of the lower animals is likewise characterized by this accompaniment, whether any of these can ever consciously think within itself, u /"feel pleased or pained, / know this object as distinct from that, / will direct my action so as to attain tins or that end." Such consciousness forms the essentia] feature of man's mental lite, and forms also the fact which requires explanation in any theory of man's nature and gin and destiny. For it is obvious that any such theory IS Called U> explain mainly, how man came to conscious activity, and what is the function which such an activity implies in the universe. Now, as we have seen more than once, the fact of consciousness presents, on the face ol it. features which prevent us from treating it simply one among the manifold phenomena of nature, as if it held the same relation to these which they hold to one another. This distinction is more or less explicitly acknowledged by all. Even if conscious phenomena are subjected to the same methods of scientific treatment as the phenomena of nature in general, they are yet recog- nized ;,s forming a group by themselves, differentiated by their distinctive characteristic from all phenomena which are not accompanied by consciousness. The relation, therefore, in which the phenomena of consciousness stand to other phenomena — or, briefly, the connection of mind and matter, of soul and body — has long been regarded as invested with a peculiar mystery, a difficulty of being scientifically comprehended, other and greater than any difficulty which science encounters in comprehending the mutual relations of material phe- nomena. Accordingly, the history of philosophy reveals Conclusion. 433 various theories on the relation of mind and matter ; and these theories are in fact, merely particular phases of the views held on the fundamental problems of human knowl- edge. One theory may be said to cut, rather than to untie, the knot of the problem. It maintains that there is in reality no connection whatever between the phenomena of mental life and those of the material world. The two classes of phenomena are conceived as running in parallel currents, in which certain phenomena of one class are found to be uniformly contemporaneous with certain phenomena of the other; but this uniform co-existence of phenomena in the two classes implies nothing more than concurrence in time. Thus the mind is never really influenced by the movements of the material world, nor are these movements ever really modified by the efforts of the mind. Sometimes, indeed, a physical movement, such as a nervous vibration, is followed by a feeling, while a conscious volition is followed by a bodily move- ment. But in such cases the one phenomenon is merely a concomitant of the other : neither can be said to exert upon the other any real influence. This theory, though propounded in earlier times, found its fullest development in the speculations of Descartes and of his school, especially of Geulincx. It has also been associated with various theological doctrines, which it is unnecessary here to discuss. At the present day the theory finds a more or less explicit support from some psychologists, who look upon all the overt acts of life in general, and of human life in particular, as being scientifically comprehensible without ascribing to con- sciousness any real influence in determining their course. The purport of this theory may, perhaps, be best under- stood by taking any familiar act, and trying to imagine 434 Psychol how it would require to be conceived. Suppose, then, a buinan being, in whose organism a morbid process begina 11 *■ P* 008 " ! > boI in the nerve-tissues themselvi win attack them l.y and by, and send a thrill to the 1 "- ; ""- Beactingfrom this excitement, the brain sends a "- fl1 " motoMier the limbs of the 1,:lt,, ' m '" "**<>*« ; ""1 causes him to move towards t,,r "»<*«*» of bis medical adviser. There the roeal 1 ^epatientare excited to activity, and produce nbrationi ..." the air, which strike apon the car of the ,lo,;,,r - wh * » W in his turn to move the organs of his sd probably also to move his fingers forthepur- P '" "rttogoui a prescription. The prescription is then taken to an apothecary, and made up, and ultimately a ; 1 ' ni,l,M " ,v ' 1 t(> the Ment Now, according to the "■""jo! I' all this would go on precisely as it arIU:ll, . v ^PPens, even if there were do feeling or thought either in the patient or in his medical adviser j t,,:j: , the bodily actions are entirely independent of the conscious mental actions, and entirely unaffected by them. I- i a rarely obvious, however, that the efficient i of actions is the conscious suffering of the patient : apart from bis painful thoughts and feel- there would be no motive to action at all. But this theory may be tested in another way. How is the origin of pleasure and pain to be explained from the standpoint of modern evolutionism? It must be supposed that conscious feelings of pleasure and pain, when first experienced, gave to the animal that experi- enced them a certain advantage over others. If they had been of no advantage, they would soon have vanished from the universe as mere lusus nature that fulfil no function. But the fact is, that pleasure and pain have remained through innumerable generations amon* the Conclusion. 435 most prominent phenomena of life, and their continuance implies that they fulfil some function, that they are of some advantage to living beings. But they can give this advantage only if they have some causal efficiency, and therefore the conscious feelings of sentient beings must have some influence upon their life. Another theory might likewise be described as simply a rude cleaving of the knot, inasmuch as it maintains that there is no fundamental difference between con- sciousness and other phenomena, so that it must be explained by the same scientific concepts which interpret the others. On this theory conscious activities are simply phenomena of nature, produced by processes of natural causation like the phenomena of the material world. This is the psychological and philosophical system known as materialism ; that is to say, it maintains that all reality is, in the last analysis, reducible to matter and motion of matter. This system is commonly interpreted at the present day by an hypothesis about the constitution of matter which conceives it as being composed of exceed- ingly minute and ultimately indivisible particles — atoms. According to this hypothesis, every real event in the universe must be interpreted as a movement of atoms, either separately or in those larger or smaller masses into which they are combined ; and the task of science is com- pleted when it succeeds in making such an interpretation. Now, this is not the place to inquire whether the phe- nomena of the material world itself can be interpreted intelligibly on such an hypothesis. To the philosophical physicist or chemist or biologist it will appear a very obvious question, whether the facts, which he observes, are intelligibly or completely explained as implying merely that some atoms or molecules or masses of matter have changed or are changing their relative positions in 43^ Psychology, space.* Such questions, though indirectly, are not neces- sarily forced on the psychologist For him the problem is, whether, even if the facts of material nature imply nothing bat matter and its motion, the facts of man's Conscious life admit of being explained in the same terms. On this point fortunately little more is required than thai the student Bhould clearly present to his thought the meaning of the question raised. Almost every attribute, that can be predicted of a thing as existing and moving in space, is unthinkable in application to the thoughts and feelings of a self-conscious being. Even granted that the impact of external agencies upon our organism, and the activities which they set up in the nervous system, thrilling into the most secret chambers of the brain, may all be explained as movements; yet, whenever yon pass from the last thrill in the molecules of the brain to the activities of conscious life, you enter upon a region where the familiar landmarks of space and matter, of atoms and motion, are no longer to he discerned, and therefore intelligence must seek direction from a totally different order of concepts. Accordingly, in the common thoughts of men, as interpreted in their ordinary language, and in the more exact thought of science and philosophy, there has always been recognized a distinction between the internal life of consciousness and the external world, which renders it impossible to represent the former as reducible to the same order of facts with the latter. " The passage from the physics of the brain to the corres- ponding facts of consciousness is," says Professor Tyn- dall,f " unthinkable. Granted that a definite thought and * In the literature of this question a prominent place must be given to the able work of Mr. J. B. Stallo, "The Concepts and Theories of Modem Physics," in the International Scientific Series. t Address on the Scope and Limit of Scientific Materialism in "Frag- ments of Science," p. 131. Conclusion. 437 a definite molecular action of the brain occur simultane- ously ; we do not possess the intellectual organ, nor apparently any rudiment of the organ, which would enable us to pass, by a process of reasoning from the one to the other. They appear together, but we do not know why. Were our minds and senses so expanded, strength- ened and illuminated as to enable us to see and feel the very molecules of the brain ; were we capable of follow- ing all their motions, all their groupings, all their elec- trical discharges, if such there be ; and were we intimately acquainted with the corresponding thoughts and feelings, we should be as far as ever from the solution of the problem, 'How are these physical processes connected with the facts of consciousness ? ' The chasm between the two classes of phenomena would still remain intel- lectually impassable." In these words Dr. Tyndall has simply expressed the conviction of every competent thinker who has considered the subject. It is thus acknowledged that it is impossible to find any intelligible interpretation of mind in terms of matter. On the other hand, is there any impossibility in the opposite procedure which takes mind with its concepts as the starting-point, and interprets the material world by these? Such an interpretation would simply mean the discovery of a reason in every material thing, such a comprehension of material realities as would imply that they are all harmonious parts of one rational system. Now, it must be obvious, on a moment's reflection, that such a comprehension or interpretation of the material world is nothing but the avowed object of all science. As already stated,* scientific effort would be at once paralyzed by the suspicion, that there is any factor of knowledge which, in the last analysis, may be a surd * Above, p. 229. 43$ Psychol quantity, incapable of being brought into intelligible relation with the general Bystem of thought The obvioas inference from all this is, thai the uni- v « : interpreted, is the constrnction of :i " ! '1 [ntelli lo evade this conclusion, n,,v ometimes adopted, which, while implied in a peculation, has become perfectly explicit in o prominent school of thought at the !"■« • According to this conception, the univt >wn to us, indeed, is an intelligible system ; bat, as such, it is merely ■ construction of human in- tell what it is, apart from the construction we put upon it. never can be known. Man, therefore, is . r to bopeh is ignorance regarding the real if the universein which he lives: what he takes i with an independent reality are merely fictions of his own mind : " Beiumqae Iguarus imagine gaudet." Now. in order to determine whether our knowledge reveals to us realities, or merely appearances about which •re can never know what they represent, two questions require to be considered: W<- must, first of all, decide what is meant by knowing anything; and, in the second place, we must define tin- object about which we wish to find out whether it can be known or not. With regard to the first point, it is obvious that, when anything is known, it must stand in such a relation to the person knowing it as to admit of its being known by him. Knowledge, in fact, may be said to be a relation between a knower and a thing known. It is evident, therefore, that, if a thing is to be known at all, it can only be by forming one term of the relation that constL tutes knowledge. To try to know an object that cannot be brought into relation with any intelligent being Conclusion. 439 would be the nonsensical game of trying to find a relative without any relations, — a parent that never had a child, an antecedent that has no consequent, or, to use one of Ferrier's homely vivid images, a stick with only one end. It may be added, that, when a thing is known, it must be brought into relation with other known things ; that is to say, as explained fully in the previous pages, a thing becomes an object of knowledge only by being identified with, and differentiated from, other objects. These facts may be summed up in the statement, that a thing cannot be known if it is out of relation to all other things ; and it is these facts which constitute the real meaning of the often misunderstood doctrine of the Relativity of Knowledge. Even, therefore, if there could he anything which is out of relation to everything else, for us and for all intelligent beings it would be nothing, since it could never by any possibility be known. Having determined what is meant by knowing, we must now, in the second place, define what the object is, about which it is disputed whether it can be known or not. "Pis evident that, if you wish to approach without prejudice the question, whether a certain object is know- able, you must not at the outset define it in terms which preclude the possibility of its being known. But this is what we find perpetually done in connection with the subject we are at present discussing. If a thing is to be really known, we are told it must be known as it is in itself; and that is explained to mean, as it is when taken away from relation to everything else. Now, even if there could be any reality in the universe, existing out of relation to every other, it must be a reality about which the human mind can well afford to be indifferent. For no intelligence, indeed, could such a reality possess the slightest interest. To be of interest to us, an object 440 Psychology, most 1>f capable oi influencing ua for good or evil) and it cannot be of any inflaence without coining into some relation with us. A reality, therefore, which is defined to be out oi relation toeverj other, has no bearing oo tin- present question. For such a reality is already defined in terms which render il unknowable \ and accord- the definition implies merely that, it" there ia sny- thing which i- out of relation with everything else, it cannot be brought into relation with ;i knower, ami can- not therefore !"■ know u, lint the definition i* really meaningless* So far as we can attach any meaning to tin- language, a thing is what it ii in itself by virtue of it> relations to other things ; it- rial nature, it- real force, counts in its reciprocity « > i action with everything else; and, apart from such reciprocal relations, it is nothing at all. These relations, of course, being practically infinite, can never lie exhaus- tively known. All our knowledge is therefore partial; bat it is valid a- fur a- it i^oes. It is a knowledge of reality, because it is a knowledge of those relations — identities and differences — which constitute the real nature of all things. INDEX. Abercrombie, Dr., 187, 254, 255, 263, 266, 270, 279, 280 Addison, 129 Affection, 370 Afferent nerves, 20 Age, 10 Alimentary sensations, 35, 40, 68 Allen, G., 59, 132, 133, 230, 252, 316 Anaesthesia, 252 Anaxagoras, 43 Anthropology, 12 Antipathy, 375 Anytus, 386 Apparitions, 248 Apprehension, Simple, 21 1 A priori and a posteriori, 284 Aristotle, 34, 315, 322 Architecture, 237 Art, 234 Articulate sounds, 155 Artman and Hall, 151 Astrology, 8 Attic salt, 128 Augustinianism, 428 Bacon, Lord, 35, 81, 412 Bailey's Festus, 330 Bain, Professor, 143, 2S8, 300 338, 372, 383, 395. 406 Barbaros, 158 Beaumont and Fletcher, 144 Beauty, 234 Bell, Sir Charles, 335 Berkeley, 146, 166 Biography, 6 Blacklock, 187 Blushing, 367 Boerhaave, 34 Brace, Julia, 135 Bradley, 395 Braid, 349 Brewster, 177 Bridgman, L., 49, 50, 141, 145, 206 7 Brillat-Savarin, 129, 131 Brown, Dr. T., 391 Burke. Edmund, 343, 346 Burns, 132 Butler, Bishop, 378 Byron, Commodore, 384 Byron, Lord, 330, 390, 414 Calvinism, 428 Carlyle, 365 Carpenter, Dr., 35, 145, 280 Cerebro-spinal system, 19 Chalmers, Dr., 277 Cheselden's patient, 165, 168, 169. 187, 352, 353. 354, 355 Cicero, 81, 382, 413 Clang-tint, 54 Coleridge, 265 Colloids, 34 Colours, 57 Common sense, 121, 286 Composition, 240 Concept, 211 Conceptualism, 202 Consciousness, 2 Consonants, 155 Contractility, 66 Contrast, 86, 393 Cowper, 329 Crusades, 82 Crystalloids, 34 Cumberland,- S. C, 144 Curiosity, 397 44* Index. lies, 315 JISi 3-3 Darwi I 'cm lip of, 357 t, 45 I I . ism, 428 1 ition, 1 1 ! . ! i . i ! . :■> 70 Drmiimo;. . ;o 1 riastes, 351 , 401 20 1 tricily, l 271 I • : D, 31a Empirical, Emulation, 396 I Epicureanism, 423 1 iinis 41 1 tnann, 116 Euripides, 351 !cnce, 285 Facial sense, 141 Fallacies, 248 Familiarity, 99 Fatigue, 72, 325 Fear, 390 Fechner, 28 Ferguson, Adam, 81, 317, 3S6. Fine arts, 234 Flaubert, 253 Flavour, 35 Fontenelle. 322 Franz's patient, 43, 166, 168, 169 Galen, 34 Geiger, 59 Genius, II loo, '94. 286, Giants, 134 59 I . 330 I ith, ^7 1 i, 43, iso si meals, 128 day, 333 ' . Dr., 262 252 Gurney, 2S1 Habit, 10, 103-7 Mil. '',4.280 Hall<-, -'48 Hamilton, sir W , 34, 04, 78 Il6, 121, 122, I46, 192^ 223, 227, 23I, 233, 30$ Harmony, 160-1 N ■ ; . I Caspar, 135 Hecker, 352 336 Hetmholtz, 51, 60 61, 156, 168, 174, 181, 250 Herbart y, 7 Hobbes, 219. 377, 408 Holmes, O. W., 13S, 266, 273 Hope, 390 . Dr., 136, 206 Humboldt, 134 Hume, 305, 322 Huxley, 12, 253 Hyperaesthesia, 251 Idea, 227 Ideal, 226-7 Imagination, 230-I Indignation, 384 Indirect remembrance, 77 Induction, 224 Innate, 286 Instinct, 104, 184 Intoxication, 73 Intuition, 284 Invariable association, IOJ Itch, 47 Jealousy, 386 Job, 365 Index. 443 Johnson, 82 Kant, 116, 227, 308 Keats, 132 Kitto, 49. 150, 152, 162, 186 Lamson's Life of L. Bridgman, 49, 50, 145, 157, 206 Ijingeweile, 329 Language, Science of, 6, 158 Leckie, 278 Lefthandedness, 44 Leibnitio-Wolfian School, 116 Leibnitz, 185 Lenau, 330 Leonardo da Vinci, 173 Levy, 43, 141, 145 Leyden, 279 Libations, 128 Linnaeus, 34 Literature, 238 Locke, 185, 203, 215, 304, 305 Logic, 112, 210 Longet, 131 Lotze, 78, 116, 149 Lubbock, 201, 384 LunaticuSy 8 Magnetism, Animal, 271 Mahaffy, 169 Mansel, 308 Mark's Gospel, 164 Marlowe, 330 Massieu, 186 Maudsley, 134, 136, 141, 186, 253, 254, 255 M'Cosh, 303 Meier, 116 Melody, 159 Memory, 99-100, 297-9 Mendelssohn, Moses, 1 16 Mesmer, 74, 271, 274 Mill, J. S., 97, 212, 213, 215, 217, 221, 222, 288, 291, 292, 293, 294, 299, 300, 315, 317, 319 Milton, 132, 137, 358 Mind, I Mitchell, James, 50, 135, 138 Mnemonics, 80 Modesty, 367 Monotony, 392 Moonstruck, 8 D 2 Motive, 409 Movement, breadth, form, and velo- city of, 22 Movement, sensations of, 66 Moyes, 151, 185 Miiller, Maler, 330 Miiller, Max, 197 Music, 158-163, 238, 348-350 Natural history of man, 6 Naltirel, 1 1 Nausea, 36 Negative pleasures and pains, 333 Neuralgia, 72 Newton. 185 Nightmare, 263 Nominalism, 202-3 Nomology, 210 Nunneley, 168 Object, 1-2 Odylism, 271 Overtones, 55 Painting, 237-8 Palate, 33 Paresthesia, 253 Passion, 312 Pastimes, 329 Pearson, 143 Perez, 168 Personal equation, 29 Physiology, II Pitch, 53, 159 Plato, 34, 115, 257, 315 Plot-interest, 401, 403 Positive pleasures and pains, 333 Prescind, 191 Preyer, 167, 3S}>. 35 2 Psychology, origin of the name, i ; distinguished from Logic, 210 Psychophysics, 24 8 Puiseaux Du, 186 Pulmonary sensations, 39, 67 Pungent sensations, 36, 41, 47 Pure cognitions, 285 Quality of tones, 54, 159 Quinctilian, 8l Race, 9 444 Index. Ramists, I Realism, 202 '. 2S6 Recollection, 91 Refinement, 1 17 Reichenbach, Yon, 74, 271 Reid, 174, 267, 379 Relativity, 88 Remorse, 367 Kenan, 1 q8 Representation, 76 Resemblance, 84, 393 nent, $2 Ridicule, 395 Righthandedness, 44 Romanes, 5 Rousseau, 138 r, 35 Schelling, 236 Schiller, 230 323. 4'5 isb School, 121, 286 Sculpture, 236 Self-evidence, 218 . tense, sensibility, sensible, sm i/ive, define^ 1, 18 Sentiment, |I2 Sex, 10, 37S-380 tespeare, 33, 80, 84, 137, 174, 180, 260, 268, 320, 322, 324, 325. 326, 330, 364, 413, 414 Shame, 367 Simonides, Si Socrates, 314, 315, 3S6 Somnambulism, 269-281 Spalding, 184 Spectres, 248 Spectrum, or after-image, 250 Spectrum, or rainbow, 57 Spencer, 12, 43, 201, 219, 230, 288, 300, 308, 315, 317 Spinoza, 254, 360 Spirit of the age, 9 St. Vitus' dance, 352 Stewart, D., 50, 100, 135. 137, 141, 149, 185, 267, 270, 403 Stoicism, 314, 423 Striking likeness, 93 Study, 90-91 Subject, 1-2 Suggestibility, 93-100 Suggestion, 76 ' Sll Kk rcs, ' v eness, 90-93 Sully, 253, 295 Sympathetic system, 19 Sympathy, 372-5 Taine, 253 T.irantati, 352 Tedium, 329 Teiresias, 149. Temperament, n Temperature, sensations of, 48, 70 Tennyson, 40, 86, 96, 132, 180, 330, 34S, 361, 366, 368, 415 Tetens, 1 16 Theophrastus, 34 Thomson, Dr. \V., 215 Thomson, James, 377 Thought-reading, 144 Tickling, 47 Timbre, 54 Todd and Bowman, 145 Tragedy, 321-5 Transcendental, 284 Trench, 382 Truth, 228 Tylor, 12, 201, 207, 384 Unconscious cerebration, 107 Un lerstanJin°* 286 Uniform association, 101 Vanity, 369 Virgil, 86, 276, 387 Vowels, 156 Wardrope's patient, 168, 352 Warner, 335 Weber, 28, 42, 146 Weird, 401 Welsch, 158 Wheatstone, 173 Wholes, different kinds of, 232-3 Wilson, Dr. D., 44 Wilson, Dr. G., 344 Wordsworth, 235, 236, 331, 363. 413 Wundt, 12, 60, 64, 78, 116, 162, 168, 183, 253, 280, 316, 319, 335 Index. 445 Xenophon, 386 Young, 60 Zeitgeist, 9 Zeno, 307 I » ^ * .« A- 0*" C~ .' *, * y ^ . & . o - • M *^j Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 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