THE EMOTIONS ANDI) THE WILL. BY ALEXANDER BAIN, LL. D., PROFESSOR )OF LOGIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN. THIRD EDITION. NEW YORK: D. APPL-ETON & COMPANY, 549 551 BROADWAY. 1876. PREFACE. THE present publication is a sequel to my former one, on the Senses and the Intellect, and completes a Systematic Exposition of the Human Mind. The generally admitted, but vaguely conceived, doctrine of the connexion between mind and body has been throughout discussed definitely. In treating of the Emotions, I include whatever is known of the physical embodiment of each. The Natural History Method, adopted in delineating the Sensations, is continued in the Treatise on the Emotions. The first chapter is devoted to Emotion in general; after which the individual kinds are classified and discussed; separate chapters being assigned to the Esthetic Emotions-arising on.the contemplation of Beauty in Nature and in Art-and to the Ethical, or the Moral Sentiment. Under this last head, I have gone fully into the Theory of Moral Obligation. It has been too much the practice to make the discussion of the Will comprise only the single metaphysical problem of Liberty and Necessity. Departing from this narrow usage, I have sought to ascertain the nature of the faculty itself, its early vi PREFACE. germs, or foundations, in the human constitution, and the course of its development, from its feeblest indications in infancy to the maturity of its power. Five chapters are occupied with this investigation; annd five more with subjects falling under the domain of the Will, including the Conflict of Motives, Deliberation, Resolution, Effort, Desire, Moral Habits, Duty, and Moral Inability. A closing chapter embraces the Free-will controversy. As, in my view, Belief is essentially related to the active part of our being, I have reserved the consideration of it to the conclusion of the Treatise on the Will. The final dissertation of the work is on Consciousness. Although it was necessary at the outset to assume a provisional definition, I considered it unadvisable to discuss the subtle problems involved in Consciousness in the abstract, until the detailed survey of the facts of mind had been completed. Whatever opinion may be formed as to the conclusions, I think the expediency of the method will be admitted. LONDON, March, 1859. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. IN the present edition, I have introduced extensive emendations into both divisions of the work. The chapter on Emotion in general has been wholly re-cast; and the deriving of emotion from sensation, according to general laws of the mind, has rendered it possible to define and classify the emotions more precisely. The analysis of the special emotions has been carried out in conformity with the general views. I have added, in the Appendix, an account of the various classifications of the Feelings, both English and German. Under the Will, the chapters on the first commencement of voluntary power have been considerablymodified; and numerous amendments will be found throughout. The discussion of the meanings of Consciousness has received additions and corrections. And, finally, all that regards the connexions of mind with physical processes has undergone careful revision. ABERDEEN, November, 1865. PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. THE publication of the present edition has been long delayed by the wish to revise the work thoroughly, at every point. Of the three departments of the mind, the one most difficult to treat scientifically is the department of Feeling, in other words, Pleasure and Pain; yet, whatever vagueness may attach to it, is so much uncertainty as to the final end of all human endeavour. Now one chief condition of scientific handling is to estimate quantity with precision. To do this in Psychology seems a very hopeless task. Yet we may enquire what are the means actually employed for fixing degree in regard to the feelings, and whether such means as are in use can be extended or improved. To this enquiry I have devoted a part of the Introductory chapter. In a separate chapter, I have fully discussed the bearing of the Evolution hypothesis on the EMOTIoNs. The only question here considered is-Do the facts, when viewed in the light of this hypothesis, gain in clearness? As regards, more especially, the great antagonistic couple-Love and Anger-I think the effect is happy. PREFACE. ix The chapters on the leading Emotions, on Ideal Emotion, and on Sympathy, have been almost wholly re-written. In the chapter on 2Esthetic Emotions, I have profited largely by the investigations of Mr. James Sully, who promises to be the psychologist of Fine Art for the present generation. In the account of the Moral Sense, I have made room for a note on the difficult problems connected with our Disinterested Impulses. Under the Will, the changes have been fewer; but a certain amount of new matter has been introduced here too. Having had to consider how far my original explanation of the origin and growth of voluntary power would be affected by the hypothesis of Evolution, I feel confident that my leading assumptions are equally required under that hypothesis; while minor modifications have had to be made in stating the nature of our voluntary aptitudes at birth. An addition is made to the handling of Desire. In the chapter on Liberty and Necessity, the argument for Free-will from Consciousness, as reproduced by Mr. Sidgwick, has been subjected to a fresh examination. I have re-written the chapter on Belief, with some modifications. The general view of Consciousness has been revised, and the analysis of Subject and Object re-stated. ABERDEEN, November, 1875. TABLE OF CONTENTS. THE EMOTIONS. CIAPTEE I. OF FEELING IN GENERAL. PHYSICAL ACCOMPANIMENTS OF FEELING. PAGE 1. Divisions of Mind. Subdivisions of Feeling - - 3 2. General principles of concomitance-Law of DIFFUSION ib. 3. Examples of the Law. Unity of Consciousness - - 4 4. Proofs of Diffusion - - - - - - - 5 5. Circumstances that limit the diffused manifestations - 6 6. Stimulus of an Active Impulse. Concurrence of organic effects. Influence on the small capillaries - - 8 CHARACTERS OF FEELING. 7. Distinction of Pleasure and Pain not enough - 9 Emotional Characters of Feeling. 8. The PHYSICAL SIDE and the MENTAL SIDE - - - 10 9. The Physical Side of Pleasure - - - - - 11 10. The Physical Side of Pain - - - - - 12 11. Feeling as Pleasure - - - - - - - ib. 12. Feeling as Pain - - - - - - - ib. 13. Feeling as Indifference or Neutral Excitement - - 13 Volitional Characters of Feeling. 14. Feelings tested by conduct - - - - a 14 X11 CONTENTS. Intellectual Characters of Feeling. PAGE 15. Persistence of Feelings; recurrence in idea - - 14 16. Conditions of ideal revival of feelings - 15 Mixed Characters of Feelings. 17. Forethought-combines Will and Intellect - - 17 18. Stamping intellectual impressions - - - 18 19. Differences of intellectual character, according to the predominance of feelings - - - - 19 20. Influence of Feeling on Belief - - - - - 20 21. The Emotions affect the judgment of true and false. Deep-seated corruption of the intellect - - - 21 INTERPRETATION AND ESTIMATE OF FEELINGS. 22. The estimate of quantity necessary to an exact science 23 23. Great latitude in the estimates of mental qualities - 24 24. Mind known directly only to each one's self; the knowledge of other minds inferential - - - 25 25. Degree of delicacy in estimating our own states - - 27 26. Estimating pleasures and pains by their neutralizing each other. Intensity estimated by Time, and by Number. Statistical methods. Strength of Belief ib. 27. Measure of Objective Accompaniments:-Expression. Estimate of known Agents - - - - - 30 28. Volitional signs - - - - - - - 32 29. Intellectual signs. Influence on the thoughts - - 33 30. Difficulties in regard to other men's feelings:-Disguise and Concealment; habit of Contentment; difference of Physical Energy -.- - - ib. 31. Conflicting testimony of Emotion, Volition, and Intellect. Radically different types of Character - - 35 32. A Standard of degree; statement of an average - - 37 -33. Fixing a standard from known individuals - - 38 34. Summary of procedure for estimating degree in Mind - ib. '35. Value of mental analysis in reducing the difficulties - 41 THE RISE AND SUBSIDENCE OF FEELINGS. 36. Every feeling has a course of rise and decay - 12 07. Periodicity of feelings - - - - 43 CONTENTS. xiii PAGE 38. Certain feelings are mutually exclusive - - 44 39. Allied feelings heighten each other - - 46 CHAPTER II. EVOLUTION, AS APPLIED TO MIND. 1. The doctrine of Evolution complies with a condition of a scientific explanation - - - - - 47 2. The general arguments for the doctrine count in favour of its being applied to Mind - - - - - ib. 3 Similarity between Instincts and Habits - - - ib. 4. Doubtful character of the facts adduced for hereditary transmission of acquired peculiarities - - - 48' 5. Gifted individuals arising through the accidents that confer physical superiority - - - - 49 6. The history of the highest races does not fall in with evolution - - - - - - - - 51 7. Facts from the domestication of animals - - - ib. 8. Inheritance of acquirements is an exception - - 53 9. Conditions-(1) simplicity, (2) iteration, and (3) interest - - - - - -.- ib. 10. Examples:-Reflex Actions; Locomotion - - - 54 11. The Space relations: - - - - - - ib. 12. The Moral Sentiment,-an unlikely case - - - 55 13. Doubtfulness of Moral Instincts in themselves - - 56 INHERITANCE OF EMOTION. 14. A case, on the great scale, of associated feelings. The permanent natural sturroundings might be impressed and transmitted - - - - - - - 58 15. The strongest example is the case of Living Beings, - 59 16. Enumeration of feelings not in any sense hereditary:Organic Sensations; the Parental Instinct - - 60 17. Primary feelings of the five Senses - - - - 61 18. Feelings that are highly dependent on bodily conditions 62 19. Transmitted feeling possesses the ideal character - - ib. INHERITANCE OF SOCIAL RELATIONS, 20. The Gregarious Life - - 63 X1v CONTENTS. PAGE 21. The Sexual Appetite- - -.. 64 22. The Parental Feeling ib. 23. Revenge takes us to the predatory life of animals - ib. 24. The predatory urgencies come short of the pure pleasure of malevolence - - - - - - - 65 25. Malevolent pleasure needs a power of representing the feelings of others - - - - - - - 66 26. Hereditary impressions of personality may be stamped by the hostile passions - - - - - - 67 27. Doubtful how far Property and Liberty are evolved feelings - - - - -b. CHAPTER III. THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION. 1. The Emotions are derived or compound feelings - - 69 2. Physical side of Emotion, as such - - - 70 3. Mental peculiarities of Emotion, as such - - - ib. 4. Certain well-marked genera of Emotions apparently simple. Others compound. Consequent order - 71 5. Are the Emotions exclusively derived from the Senses? 72 6. Seemingly independent sources of Emotion:-Love; Anger - - - - - ib. 7. Assumption of a triple source of Emotions. Difficulty of fixing an order of treatment - - - - 73 8. Order proposed - - - - - - - 74 9. Specially prominent are Love and Anger - - - 76 10. Distinction of Pleasure and Pain not a basis of classification - - - - - ib. CHAPTER IV. EMOTIONS OF RELATIVITY, 1. Relativity recognized in current maxims, but misapplied - - - - - - 78 2. General statement as regards Feeling. Examples - ib. 3. Subordinate law of Accommodation.-To be fixed by observations - - - - - - - 80 'CONTEN TS. XV PAGE 4. Conditions of diminishing efficacy of stimulation: frequency; memory of the prior condition - - - 81 5. Some emotions are relative in respect to objective cause 83 6. NOVELTY - - - - - ib. 7. VARIETY - - - - - - - - 84 8. MONOTONY - - - - 85 9. WONDER - - - - ib. 10. FREEDOM and RESTRAINT - - - - - 86 11. Pleasures associated with Liberty - - - 87 12. POWER and IMPOTENCE - - - - - 88 CHAPTER V. IDEAL EMOTION. 1. Emotional Feelings are revivable - - - - 89 2. Comparative revivability of emotional states - - ib. 3. Revivability follows Discrimination - - - - 90 4. Feelings, as such, are incorporated with Intellectual states, and are revived by that means - - - 91 5. Special conditions of revivability of emotions:-Pleasurable emotion taken as the type - - - - 93 6. The Emotional Temperament - - - - - 95 7. Emotional growths distinguished from intellectual - 97 8. Condition of Intensity - - - - - - 98 9. Freedom from Distraction - - - - - - ib. 10. Revival of the Accompaniments - - - - 99 '11. Concentration of the Regards - - - - - 100 12. Conditions of REOALL:-suggestion of the accompaniments - - - - - - - 101,13. Force of Similarity - - - - - - 103 14. Disengagement of the Mind - - - - - 105 15. Application to the case of Painful emotions - - ib. 16. Our sentient life a mixture of Actuality with Ideality 108 17. A certain share of Actuality indispensable - - 109 CHAPTER VI. SYMPATHY. 1. Sympathy defined - - - - 111 xvi CONTENTS. PAGE 2. Acting for others not always a far-seeing Selfishness 111 3. The appearances to be accounted for - - - - 112 4. First condition of Sympathy-experience of Feelings - ib. 5. Next, experience of the Signs - - - - - 113 6. Association of Feelings with Signs - - - - 11 7. Susceptibility to the impressions of the senses generally ib. 8. Relation to the Person sympathized with - - - 116 9. Counteractives of Sympathy - - - - 117 10. Effect of sympathy upon the recipient - - - 118 11. Fellow-feeling supposes a regard to our own happiness - 119 12. What is the source of our sympathetic impulses? - 120 13. Hypothesis of the primitive gregarious situation of animals - - - - - - - 121 14. Sympathy compatible with dislike - - - 122 15. Width of sympathies-how accounted for - - - 123 CHAPTER VII. TENDER EMOTION PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS. 1. The Tender Emotion surpasses every other life interest 124' 2. Love and Sociability the same phenomenon - - ib. 3. The Love of the Helpless given by Mr. Spencer as the central fact of the Benevolent regards - - - ib 4. Love rests upon the pleasure of the embrace - - 126 CHARACTERS OF THE EMOTION. 5. OBJECTS, or inspiring causes - - - - - 127 6. Great Pleasures; Pains; Massive Pleasures - - 128 7. PHYS.ICAL SIDE of Tender Emotion:-Tears - ib. 8. Sobbing - - - - - - - - - 129 9. MENTAL SIDE:-Connection with Weakness - - 130 SPECIES OF TENDER EMOTION. The Interests of Sociability at large. 10. The gregarious position under an equal relationshipFraternity -. - - - - - 131 CONTENTS. Xvii PAGE 11 Superior force of agreeable associations with sentient beings - - - - - - 132 12. The pleasure of Giving benefits. The love embrace - ib. 13. Interesting accompaniments of personality - - - 133 14. Transformations of the embrace - - - - 134 Sex. 15. Ingredients of Sexual Love - - - - 135 16. Operation of Disparity - - - - - ib. 17. Accessory Emotions. Passion for One - - - 136 The Parental Feeling. 18. Hypothesis of its origin - - - - - 13 19. Stimulants of parental feeling:-circumstance of helplessness - - - - - - - - 139 20. Sensuous aspects of infancy. The Maternal feeling - 141 21. The Paternal feeling - - - - - 142 hie Benevolent Affections. 22. Benevolence, as Pity or Compassion - - - - ib. 23. Tender Feeling mixed with sympathy - - - 143 Gratitude.,24. Tender feeling completed by the embrace. Proper gratitude begins with sympathy - - - - 144!25. Emotional Gratitude. Justice - - - - - 145 26. Tender feelings towards the Lower Animals - - ib. 27. Tender sentiment towards Inanimate things - - ib. Borrow.,28. Pains that we are liable to in connection with beloved objects. Consolations of Tenderness - -. 146 29. Social and Ethical bearings of Tenderness - - - 147 30. A moral lever for the elevation of mankind - ib. Admiration and Esteem. 31. Admiration the response to superior excellence - - ib. 32, Esteem refers to usef1 qualities - - - - 148 Xviii CONTENTS. CHAPTER Flll. EMOTION OF FEAR.' PRELIMINARY REMARKS. PAGE 1. Fear presupposes certain mental conditions - 151 2. Fear, as a product of Evolution..... 154 CHARACTERS OF FEAR. 3. PHYSICAL SIDE:-Derangement of functions, with loss of power........ 156 4. MENTAL SIDE:-Depression; effects on the Will; deepening of Intellectual impressions - - - 157 5. The apprehension of Pain. Strangeness - - 158 SPECIES OF TERROR. 6. Fear in the Lower Animals -.... 160 7. In Children........ 161 8. Servile Terror........ 162, 9. Forebodings of Disaster, Anxiety, Suspicion, Panic - ib. 10. Superstition........ 164' 11. New operations. Dread of Censure. Shyness - 165 12. Fear of Death........ ib. 13. Counteractives of Terror -.... 166' 14 Re-action from Terror. Comfort of Security - - 168 15. Terror in government and in education - - - 169 16. In Art. The ancient Mysteries - - - - ib. CHAPTER IX. EMOTION OF ANGER. I. The emotion considered as evolved - - - - 172: 2. Anger, in the human type, is the pleasure of repaying pain for pain...... - 173 3. PHYSICAL SIDE illustrative:-Expression described by Darwin........ ib. 4. MENTAL SIDE:-The shcck of pain The impulse to inflict suffering -. 176 5. Ihjury vyith intention, lexves!a rankling wound - - 177 CONTENTS. xix PAGE 178 6. 7. 8. 9, 10. 11. 12. 13. The fascination for the sight of suffering The effect of injury is to suspend the feelings SPECIES OF ANGER. The Lower Animals Infancy and Childhood Sudden Resentment Deliberate Resentment.-Revenge Antipathy Hatred - - -ft 179 ib. 180 ib. 182 183 - 184 compassionate 14. Hostility or Combat-the primary situation of Anger - 15. The Pleasure of Malevolence, called in question -.16. Righteous Indignation 17. The Moral bearings of Anger 185 187 190 ib. CHAPTER X. E MOTION OF POWER. 1. VAarious feelings of Activity. Pleasure of Power distinct 2. The unction of Power needs sociability 3. The pleasure of Power coincides to a great extent with the pleasure of Malevolence 4, Power comprises the pleasures of Property and of Love 5. Attaining the ends of labour with ease 6. PHYSICAL SIDE-contains no original manifestation. Laughter 7. Wide scope of the pleasure of Power in Idea 8. Interest in the Signs and suggestive circumstances of Power 9. Drawbacks to the pleasure of manifested power. Disposition to come under Protectorship. Admiration of Moral Power CHAPTER XI. EMOTIONS OF SELF, 192 194 195 ib. 196 197 198 199 ib. 1. Meanings of the termu I Self - 2. Mfore select meanings - 201 202 XX CONTENTS. SELF-WORTH. SELF-ESTEEM, SELF-GRATULATION. PAGE 3. Primary form of Self-regard - - - 203 4. Reflected self-regard borrowed from the social regards - ib. 5. Self-worth, the value put upon our own deserts - ib. 6. Self-pity, an appropriation of the luxury of Pity for others - - - - - - 205 7. Self-complacency, Self-gratulation - - - 206 8. Self-respect, a loftier feeling - - - - - ib. 9. Self-sufficingness - - - - - - 207 APPROBATION, ADMIRATION, PRAISE. 10. Approbation involved in the primitive social situation ib. 11. Circumstances that heighten the effect of Approbation and Disapprobation - - - - - - 208 12. Feeling of being Admired - - - - - - 209 13. Flattery, Adulation, Fame, Honour, Applause, Compliment, Variety, Vain Glory - - - - ib. 14. Arts of Politesse - - - - - - 211 15. Disapprobation, Censure, &c. - - - - - ib. 16. Shame - - - - - - - - - ib. 17. Bearing of education on the emotions of Self - - 212 18. Self-love and Selfishness. Prudential Calculation - ib. 19. In one sense, Disinterested actions a part of Self - 213 CHAPTER XII. EMOTIONS OF INTELLECT. 1. The operations of Intellect give rise to feelings - - 215 2. Emotion of Similarity in diversity a species of Surprise ib. 3. Discoveries of Identity give the pleasure of relief. Emotions of Knowledge - - - - - 216 4. Pains of Contradiction. The regard to Truth - - 218 CHAPTER XIII. EMOTIONS OF ACTION-PURSUIT. 1. Evolution might account for the fascination of Pursuit 220 2. Conditions rendering pursuit agreeable - - - i. 3. Ends of pursuit that best admit of suspense - - 221 CONTENTS. xxi PAGR 4. Uncertainty. Mystery - - - - - - 222 5. The Object attitude intensified in pursuit - - - 223 6. Examples:-Sport; Industry; search for Knowledge - ib. 7. Our Sociable pleasures extended by the interest of pursuit - -. - - - - 224 CHAPTER XIV. THE AESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 1. Peculiarities that circumscribe the aesthetic pleasures - 225 2. The Eye and the Ear the aesthetic senses - - - 226; 3. The Muscular and Sensual feelings are aesthetic in idea ib. 4. Problem of the Beautiful - - - - - - 227 5. Designations of the aesthetic qualities - - - - 228 6. Resumption of Laws applicable to aesthetic pleasures - ib. 7. Pleasures of Light and of Hearing - - - - 229 8. Co-operation of the Intellect - - - - - 230 9. Emotions entering into Art - - - - 231 10. Intellectual feeling of Unity. Likeness in Diversity - 232 11. Emotions of Science are under certain disqualifications ib. 12. Combinations of Sound.-Music. The primary musical sensations - - -. - - - - - 233 13. Unity in Variety-musical form - - - - 234 '14. Musical Expression - - - - - - - 236 15. Melody of Speech - - - - - - - 237 16. Harmonies of Sight. Simple effects - - - - 17. Unity in Variety-Proportions. Statement of Laws of Proportion - - - - - - - - 18. Beauty of Form - - - - - - 19. Expression in objects of sight-Beauty from Associations - - - - - - - - - 241 20. Expressiveness of Form and Qutline - -, - - ib. 21. Beauty of Support - - - - - - - 242 22. Ease in Support - - - - - - - 243 23. Symmetry - - - - - - -. - 244 24. Beauty of Movement - - - - - - - 245 25. Fitness-The Esthetic of Utility - - - - ib. 26. Beauty of Order - - - - - - - 246 27. The Sublime. Complex aspects of Power - - - 247 xxii CONTENTS. PAGE 28. Human Power the literal sublime.- 248 29. Sublime of Support - - - - - - - 249 30. Sublime of Space - - - - - - - ib. 31. Greatness of Time - - - - - - - 250 32. Natural Objects in general:-Mineral and Vegetable Kingdoms. Surface of the globe - - - 251 33. The Animal Kingdom-its beauties and deformities - 252 34. The Human Form - - - - 253 35. Beauty of Character - - - - - ib. 36. Artistic operation of Idealising - - - - 254 37. The Imitative Fine Arts. Conditions of artistic imitation - - - - 255 38. The Ludicrous:-Causes of Laughter. Incongruity not necessarily ludicrous - - - - - - 256 39. The Ludicrous as dependent on Degradation. Theory of Hobbes - - - - - - - 257 10. The Comic a rebound from the Serious - - - 259 CHAPTER XV. THE ETHICAL EMOTIONS: OR, THE MORAL SENSE.' 1. The test of Moral Obligation is punishment - - 264 2. Variety of Moral Theories - - - - - 265 3. Will of the Deity; Right Reason; the Will of the Sovereign - - - - - - - - ib. 4. Self-interest - - - - - - - - 267 5. The Moral Sense - - - - - - 268 6. Qualified form of the doctrine-Whewell - - - ib. 7. There can be no abstract Moral Standard - - - 270 8. The supposed Uniformity of men's moral judgments. Regard to the Public Security - - - - ib. 9. Unanimity in imposing restraints on grounds of Sentiment. Great differences in the things imposed - 272 10. Adam Smith's theory of Sympathy - - - - 273 11. The Principle of Utility. Necessary qualifications in the Statement of Utility - - - - - 274 12. The usual objections to Utility are sentimental - - 277 13. The existing rules combine Utility and Sentiment - 279 14. Examples of Sentiment converted into moral rules - 280 CONTENTS. xxiii PAGE 15. Process of enactment of moral rules - - - 282 16. Example from anti slavery opinion - - - - 284 17. The abrogation of moral rules - - - - - ib. 18. The growth of CONSCIENCE follows external authority - 285 19. Varieties of Conscience - - - - - - 287 20. The self-formed, or Independent Conscience - - 288 21. A sense of duty in the abstract - - - - - 290 22. Our moral judgments of other men's conduct. Moral Disapprobation - - - - - - 291 23. Moral Approbation connects itself with Reward. Virtue and Merit - - -. - - - 292 24. Discussion on the nature and reality of Disinterested Regards. 25. The Moral Chaos - - - 293 THE WILL. CHAPTER I. THE PRIMITIVE ELEMENTS OF VOLITION: THE SPONTANEITY OF MOVEMENT. 1. Doctrine recapitulated - - - 303 2. The moving organs operate in groups - - - - 305 3. Requisite of Isolated Spontaneity exemplified - - 306 Circumstances governing the spontaneous discharge. 4. Natural Vigour. Excitement. Mental StimulantsPleasure, Pungency, Pain - - - 310 5. Graduation of the discharges of motive energy - - 312 LINK OF FEELING AND ACTION. 6. Law of Self-Conservation - - - - 313 7. Question whether the emotional movements may offer a suitable beginning to the Will - 314 8. Workings of the Law of Self-Conservation, under Pleasure and under Pain -.. - - 315 XXiV CONTENTS. PAGE The foregoing theory viewed in connexion with the doctrine of Evolution - - - - 318 CHAPTER II. GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. 1. Volitional associations with the Muscular Feelings - 321 2. Organic Sensations:-Pains of Muscle-Cramp; Thirst 322 3. Feelings of Respiration; Warmth and Chillness - - 324 4. Sucking - - - - - - - - - 325 5. Mastication - - - - - - - - 328 6. Snuffing sweet Odours; recoiling from the opposite - 330 7. Cherishing agreeable sensations of Touch; avoiding painful sensations-training of the whip - - 331 8. Avoiding painful, and courting pleasurable Sounds - 334 9. Sense of Sight:-Abbot's observations as to following a light, and as to adjustment to Distance - - 335 10. Intermediate Actions and Associated Ends:-Carrying the hand to the mouth - - - - - - 337 CHAPTER III. GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER -('Continued). 1. Transference of acquired connections to new uses - 340 2. Instrumentality of general control:-the Word of Command - - - - - - - - 341 3. Faculty of Imitation - - - - - - - 344 4. Imitation of Movements at sight - - - 348 5. Acting on a wish - - - - - - - 350 6. The mental antecedent the idea of the movement to be effected - - - - - - - - 351 7. The mental antecedent the idea of the effects to be produced - - - - - - - - 352 8. Operation of Pleasure and Pain in idea - - - 354 9. Examples from the Voice - - - - - - 355 CHAPTER IV. CONTROL OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS. 1. Volition crowned with powers of general command 358 CONTENTS. XXV CONTROL OF THE FEELINGS. PAGHI 2. The operation of the Will limited to muscles - - 359 3. Parts of the emotional wave that are not muscular. Means of emotional control - - - - 360 4. Growth of the voluntary control of the Feelings - - 363 5. Control of feeling tests power of Will - - - 366 THE MIXED EXPRESSION OF THE FEELINGS. 6. Cases where emotional expression is combined with the operation of the will - - - - - - 367 COMMAND OF THE THOUGHTS. 7. The will can fix the mental, as well as the bodily, Attention. Singling out a quality in a concrete whole - 369 8. Control of the intellectual trains a test of volitional energy - - - - - - - 374 9. Constructive Association a voluntary operation - - 375 10. The thoughts are instrumental in commanding the feelings - - - - - - - - 377 11. The ideas assist in suppressing or in rousing emotional displays - - - - - - - - 378 12. Converse fact:-The feelings governing the thoughts - 379 CHAPTER V. MOTIVES OR ENDS. 1. Varied aspect of the things that constitute motives - 383 2. Ultimate ends of pursuit included in Feelings of Movement, Sensations and Emotions - - - - ib. 3. Ideal persistence of the various feelings operating as motives - - - - - - - 386 4. Aggregated, derivative, and intermediate ends:-Money, Health, Knowledge, Power - - - - - 388 5. Excited, impassioned, exaggerated, irrational, ends: Fixed Ideas - - - - 390 6. Excitement attending Pain - - - - - 391 7. Excitement attending Pleasure - - - 392 xxvi CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. THE CONFLICT OF MOTIVES. PAGE 1. Concurrence of two states of feeling, viewed simply as emotions - - - - - - - - 397 2. Spontaneity in conflict. Physical exhaustion - - ib. 3. Two opposing states of present pleasure or pain. The result a fact of character - - - - - 400 4. The same pleasure or pain, on different occasions and in different persons - - - - - - - 402 5. Conflict of the Actual with the Ideal - - - - 403 6. The Affections, as motives in conflict - - - - 405 7. Ideal ends in conflict - - - - - - - ib. 8. Aggregate or comprehensive ends - - - 406 9. Impassioned ends - - - 407 CHAPTER VII. DELIBERATION.--RESOLUTION.--EFFORT. 1. Deliberation a voluntary act prompted by the known evils of hasty action - - - - - 408 2. Example - - - - - - - - - 410 3. The deliberative attitude gives opportunity for all the considerations to arise to view - - - - 411 4. Franklin's Moral Algebra - - - - - - 413 5. Farther device:-Recording impressions at the end of each day - - - - - - - - 414 6. Deliberative process different as the things have, or have not, been experienced - - - - - 415 7. Deliberation no exception to the theory of the Will - 416 8. RESOLUTION.-Action suspended till certain things shall have happened - - - - - - - 417 9. Resolutions extending over long periods are liable to fall through - - - - - - - - 418: 10. The plan of human life is a train of resolutions - - 420 11. EFFOrT.-Various feelings associated with voluntary acts. Different meanings of Effort. - ib. CONTENTS. xxvii CHAPTER VIII. DESIRE. 1. A motive to the will, with action restrained - - 2. Aspect of Desire in protracted operations. What are the outlets when action is forbidden - - - 3. First alternative,-Endurance - -. - - 4. Second alternative,-Ideal or Imaginary action - 5. Cases suited to imaginary gratification:-Feelings persisting in idea - - - - - - - 6. Provocatives of Desire:-wants of the system; pleasure tasted - - - - - - - - - 7. Longings arising from our several emotions:-sexual passion; things inexperienced -. - Inquiry into the proper object of Desire, whether it be Pleasure or Pain, or something indifferent. Butler's doctrine on the subject. Mr. Sidgwick's views PAGE 423 ib. 424 426 428 432 434 436 CHAPTER IX. THE MORAL HABITS. 1. Peculiarities of moral acquisitions - 2. Control of Sense and Appetite - - 3. Example from early rising - - - - - 4. Necessity for a strong inititative - - - 5. Temperance: what is meant by a habit of - 6. Control of the Attention - - - 7. Suppression of Instinctive Movements - - 8. Changing the preponderance of Emotion, as a whole 440 441 442 443 445 ib. 446 447 9. Culture applied to special emotions 10. Terror:-Courage - - 11. Tender Emotion - - - - 12. Malevolent sentiment, as lust of Power 13. Plot-Interest - - - 14. Emotions of Intellect - - - 15. Taste and 2Esthetic Culture - - 16. How sudden conversions are possible - 17. Spontaneity modified by habit - 18. Repression of Desire-Contentment - - - 448 449 450 451 452 ib. ib. 453 454 ib. xxviii CONTENTS. PAGE 19. Domestication of the Animal Tribes - - 455 20. Opposition to Intellectual Trains-Concentration of thought - - - - - - - - 456 21. Butler's doctrine that habit deadens passive susceptibility - - - - - - - - - 457 CHAPTER X. PRUDENCE. -DUTY. -MORAL INABILITY. 1. PRUDENCE.-The Will in the search for happiness. Self-promptings - - - - - - - 460 2. Promptings supplied from without - - - - 461 3. Leisurely meditation an element of prudence - - 462 4. Constitutions cast for a prudential career - - - ib. 5. Forces counter to prudence - - - - - 463 6. Prediction of men's characters, from the strength of motive - - - - - - - - 464 7. DuTY.-Self-promptings - - - - - - 466 8. Prohibition from without, the first source of the Moral Sentiment. The Slavish Conscience - - - 467 9. Elements of Conscience over and above the fear of Punishment:-Disinterested Impulses; the Citizen Conscience - - - - - - - 468 10. The Independent Conscience - - - - - 472 11. Adjuncts and aids to Conscience - - - - 473 12. Impulses counter to Duty - - - - - - ib. 13. MORAL INABILITY.-Consists in remediable weakness of motive - - - - - - - - - 475 14. The Offender's excuse that 'he could not help it'- - 477 CHAPTER XI. LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 1. In practice, human conduct is assumed as uniform. Free-will a metaphysical puzzle - - - - 479 2. Not unusual to have questions perplexed by factitious difficulties - - - - - - - - 480 3. Liberty, Freedom, Free-will.-Inappropriateness of the terms to express volition 4 8 - - 482 CONTENTS. xxix PAGE 4. Question of Liberty not wholly verbal. The invariable sequence of human actions may be denied, as it was by Socrates - - - - - - 484 5. Necessity-An unsuitable and misleading word - - 486 6. Choice.-Deliberation:-Meaning of the words, and their bearing on the question of Liberty- - - 487 7. Spontaneity.-Self-determination.-Self as representing our permanent interests - - - - - - 490 8. Self the sum-total of the classified mental functions - 491 9. Consciousness of Freewill:-Argument of Mr. Sidgwick, that Free-will is shown in resolves to change our character - - - - - - - - 493 10. Contention that change of character is not a peculiar mode of volition. Ordinary explanation of the case 495 11. Free-will cannot be stated in definite language - - 496 12. Determinism has no connection with the Utilitarian or with the selfish theories of Morals. The supposition of Free-will hostile to the pursuit of virtue - 498 13. Moral Agency.-Responsibility:-Two different meanings of 'moral' - - - - - - - 500 14. Responsibility means punishment. Limits to the imposition of punishment. Responsibility for Belief - 501 BE LIE F. 1. Belief not identical with knowledge, or with emotion - 505 2. The test of belief is preparedness to act. In the primitive aspect of volition, belief has no place - - ib. 3. Belief involves a cognizance of the order of nature. Belief in our sensations - - - - - 506 4. Our happiness and misery dependent on the forecast of the supply of our wants. The opposite of Belief is Doubt. Pleasure and Pain in idea are more efficacious when accompanied with belief - - - 507 5. Belief, as varying in Degree. Tests of its force - - 510 6. Order of handling of the questions raised - - - 511 7. I.-Primitive Credulity - - - - - - ib. 8. The primitive assurance, as affected by checks - - 512 9. Adjustment of the two opposing influences - - 513 XXX CONTENTS. PAGE 10. How Experience strengthens belief:-The surmounting of contradictions - - - - - - - 514 11. Experience discriminates the precise conditions of a fact - - - - -515 12. How to deal.with probable sequences. Intrusion of the feelings - - - - - - - - 517 13. II.-Under Intellect, we must consider first the power of the Present - - - - - - - 518 14. Influence of the powerful suggestion of an idea - - 519 15. III.-Efficacy of the Feelings:-Feeling overpowers Discrimination - - - - - - - 520 16. Emotion or Feeling heightens the intensity of an idea - 522 17. Keeping back hostile or incompatible ideas - - ib. 18. Rise and depression of the spirits - - - - 523 19. IV.-Belief swayed by Activity:-Spontaneous Activity 524 20. Will and Desire, as affecting belief - - - - 525 21. Effect of the Feelings and the Activities on checks or contradictions - - - - - - - 526 22. Applications to our belief in the Uniformity of Nature ib. 23. Perversions due to primitive credulity, coupled with the feelings - - - - 527 24. Belief in the Supernatural - - - - - 529 25. Ordinary cases of Delusion and Illusion - - - ib. 26. HOPE - - - - - - - - - 530 27. The antithesis of Hope-EsDESPON NCY - - - 531 28. FAITH, in the religious sense - - - - - 532 29. Belief in Memory:-Views of James Mill and John Stuart Mill; difference between Memory and Imagination - - - - - - - - ib. 30. Mr. Sully's views as to the foundations of Belief - 535 CONSCIOUSNESS. 1. Prevalent meanings of the term ' consciousness' - 539 2. General Tendency of the several meanings:-I. Mental Life; II. Subjectivity - - - - - 545 CONSCIOUSNESS, AS FEELING. 1.-The Passive States. 3. Pleasure and Pain. Neutral excitement-its Diffusion; its occupying the mind - - - 546 CONTENTS. xxxi PAGE 4. Intellectual efficacy of neutral excitement,-stamping of impressions - - - - - 547 2.-The Active States. 5. Consciousness of energy. Cognition of the Extended Universe. The Volitional Consciousness - - 548 THE INTELLECTUAL CONSCIOUSNESS. 6. The common groundwork of Emotion and of Intellect - 570 Sense of Diference. 7. Discrimination the fundamental fact of intelligence - 549 8. Illustration of Change of Impression as the condition of consciousness - - - - - - - 550 9. How an emotional transition settles down as Discrimination - - - - - - - - - 551 10. Special intellectual value of the mental form of excitement or emotion - - - - - - 554 Sense of Agreement. 11. The mental shock given by Agreement or Diversity is essential to our recognition of resemblance and generality. The three properties of Mind resolvible into a two-sided Unity-Emotional and Intellectual 555 Sensation and Perception. 12. Distinction between the Emotional and Intellectual aspects of the Senses - - - - - - 558 13. A sensation combines a present shock with the cumulative revival of previous similar shocks. Mistakes from wrong identification - - - - - 559 14. Perception more intellectual than Sensation - - 561 15. Illustration from the acquired perceptions of sight - 562 The Sensation (Intellectual) and the Idea. 16. The Sensation and the Idea agree in certain points - 563 17. Their differences:-comparative strength or vividness - 564 18. Fulness of the Sensation in details. Ease in maintaining it before the mind - - - - - 566 xxxii CONTENTS. 2T e nature of Cognition. PAGE 19. What is it to be cognizant of a thing? - - - 567 20. Dispute as to the origin of our knowledge in Sense - ib. 21. Knowledge surpasses both Sensation and Perception - 568 22. All sensation does not become knowledge - - - 569 23. Specializing or selective forces - - - - - 570 24. Selection by contrast, is the same as saying that we know only Relations - - - - - - 570 25. Literary genius and language, as means of selection - 573 26. Summary of the essentials of cognition - - - ib. SUBJECT AND OBJECT.-THE EXTERNAL WORLD. 27. An example of Contrast or Relativity - - - 574 28. The three features formerly given as distinguishing Object and Subject - - - - - - 575 29. Mr. Herbert Spencer's detailed Analysis - - - ib. 30. Another analysis proposed - - - - - 577 31. The Ontological problem of the Reality of an Independent External World. The common Realism remarkable for its convenience in expressing broadly the distinction of Object and Subject - - - 583 32. The type of Realism best suited for this end - - 585 33. External Perception as stated by Destutt Tracy - - ib. APPENDIX. A. On the most general physical conditions of Consciousness. -Laws of Relativity and Diffusion. Combined statement. G. H. Lewes on Reflex Acts - - 589 B. Classifications of the Emotions.-Herbert Spencer; Reid; Dugald Stewart; Thomas Brown; Sir W. Hamilton; Kant; Herbart; Waitz; Nahlowsky; Wundt; Shadworth H. Hodgson - - - - - - 591 C. Meanings of Consciousness.-Hamilton on the priority of Knowledge or Cognition in the division of the mind. Ulrici on Consciousness - - - - 602 THE EMOTIONS. 1 'But, although such a being (a purely intellectual being) might perhaps lbe conceived to exist, and although, in studying our internal frame, it be con - venient to treat of our intellectual powers apart from our active propensities, yet, in fact, the two are very intimately, and indeed inseparably, connected in all our mental operations. I already hinted, that, even in our speculative inquiries, the priniciple of curiosity is necessary to account for the exertion we make; and it is still more obvious that a conmbination of means to accomplish particular 'ends presupposes some determination of our nature, which makes the attainment of these ends desirable, Our active propensities, therefore, are the, motives which induce us to exert our intellectual powers; and our intellectual powers are the instruments by which we attain the ends recommended. to us by our active propensities - " Reason the card, but passion Ls the gale,"' IDuoxAn STEWAnT, PhilosolThy of the Active Powers, p. 2. CHAPTER I. OF FEELING IN GENERAL. PHYSICAL ACCOMPANIMENTS OF FEELINg. 1. MIND is distinguished by the three attributes or properties, named FEELING, VOLITION, and INTELLECT. FEELING comprises all our Pleasures and Pains, together with states that are indifferent as regards pleasure or pain and are characterised simply as Excitement. Under the MUSCULAR FEELINGS and the SENSATIONS of the SENSES, were detailed all the susceptibilities of a primary character, due, on the one hand, to the putting forth-of muscular energy, and, on the other, to the operation of the outer world on the organs of sense. There remains a large department of secondary, derived, or complicated feelings, termed the EMOTIONS. 2. In the previous volume, attention was called to the dependence of all mental workings whatever on Bodily Organs; and, in treating the sensations, there was given, in each instance, not merely the mental side, but the physical also. The same mode of treatment will be followed with the feelings now to be entered upon. In the Sensations, the physical side includes both the mode of action on a sensitive surface, and the outward manifestations or diffused wave of effects. In the Emotions, the first is wanting. Our attention is thereby limited to the second, which consequently rises into greater importance. The connexion of Mind and Body needs various laws for its exhaustive statement. Probably, as yet, we do not know them all, nor the most o'eneralize@.Torm of any of them. After affirming that the connexion is thorouoio-gog the most fundamefr6 d circumstance seems to be the often-quoted 4 PHYSICAL ACCOMPANIMENTS OF FEELING. and all-pervading Law of RELATIVITY. As this law will perpetually re-appear in the present division of the subject, a convenient place will be sought for giving its comprehensive bearings. Next is the Law of DIFFUSION, which carries with it the action of Relativity, and sums up the physical accompaniments or expression of Feeling. The meaning of Diffusion may be expressed thus:-' According as an impression is accompanied with Feeling, the aroused currents diffuse themselves freely over the brain, leading to a general agitation of the moving organs, as well as affecting the viscera.' 3. A full enumeration of the parts (muscular and organic) concerned in the outward manifestations of Feeling is given in 'The Senses and the Intellect', and to that enumeration is appended the law of pleasure and pain. I here quote the facts relative to the still more general circumstance-Diffusion, as attending all feelings alike. The organs first and prominently affected, in the diffused wave of nervous influence, are the moving members, and of these, by preference, the features of the face (with the ears in animals), whose movements constitute the expression of the countenance. But the influence extends to all the parts of the moving system, voluntary and involuntary; while an important series of effects are produced on the glands and viscera -the stomach, lungs, heart, kidneys, skin, together with the sexual and mammary organs. The facts that establish the companionship of feeling and diffusive action have been abundantly quoted in the description of the sensations. Each of us knows in our own experience that a sudden shock of feeling is accompanied with movements of the body generally, and with other effects. When no emotion is present, we are quiescent; a slight feeling is accompanied with slight manifestations; a more intense shock has a more intense outburst. Every pleasure and every pain, and every mode of emotion, has a definite wave of effects, which our observation makes known to us: and we apply the knowledge to infer other men's feelings from their outward display. The circumstance is seemingly universal, the proof LAW OF DIFFUSION. 5 of it does not require a citation of instances in detail; on the objectors is thrown the burden of adducing unequivocal exceptions to the law. Cases occur where some impression is made, some stimulant applied, without arousing the feeling or emotion. In the heat of a battle, a man is wounded, and for a time is wholly insensible to the pain. The explanation is that the intense engagement of the energies of the system-both brain and muscles -precludes the diffusion of the impulse in the usual channels; it is only when the system is released from the engrossment of the fight, that the pain is felt; there being then a free course given to the nervous wave. Also, after pain has taken possession of us, one mode of relief is to divert the attention and the energies; according as this is possible, the physical supports of the state are withdrawn, and the feeling is quenched. This doctrine has an important bearing on the Unity of the Consciousness. A plurality of stimulations of the nerves may coexist, but they affect the consciousness only by turns, or one at a time. The reason is that the bodily organs are collectively engaged with each distinct conscious state, and they cannot be doing two things at the same instant. The eyes cannot minister to one feeling, the ears to another, and the hands to a third; for, although the feeling may not be strong enough to involve the activity of all the organs, yet those unemployed must either be at rest or be engaged in mere routine functions, such as walking, that are not necessarily accompanied with consciousness. 4. A dissentient may admit the occasional, and even frequent concomitance between feelings and physical expression or display, and yet deny the universality of the law. The energetic states of feeling may produce an outburst of gesticulation, while, it may be alleged, the more refined and deep emotions are able to subsist without any such bodily disturbance. The reply is that the most refined and exalted emotions of the human mind lave been, in all ages, regarded as possessing a natural expression, although not of a violent kind. This expression is reckoned essential to the highest beauty of the human face. No emotion whatever is devoid of outward display when it rises to a certain pitch of strength; there may 6 PHYSICAL ACCOMPANIMENTS OF FEELING. be modes so feeble that the diffusive accompaniment is not strong enough to overcome the inertia even of the features. It is a part of the law that when the feeling is weak the expression should be weak. The principle is farther confirmed by the view commonly taken of Reflex or Automatic Actions, and also of Habitual Actions. The Reflex Actions are, many of them, wholly unconscious, while others may be attended, more or less, with consciousness. Now, these actions are conceived as having a very limited circle of nervous action; some do not pass beyond the sympathetic ganglia, others are supported by the spinal cord; and their course is strictly confined to the single action that they serve. There are no collateral movements, no general wave of effects, no enlargement of the sphere beyond what the occasion requires. A reflex action is an isolated response from one single ganglion, or some restricted portion of the nervous centres, and not an influence diffused over the members generally. The Habitual actions are also contrasted with emotional diffusion. At first accompanied with feeling, they gradually lose that character, and are at the same time narrowed in their operation to the precise members needed for the work. The first efforts at manipulation are intensely conscious; and there is a corresponding agitation of the features, with gesticulation of the whole body; while, as the education proceeds, the intensity of feeling and the diffusive manifestations subside together. 5. Let us now attend to the circumstances that limit and control the diffused manifestations of feeling. In the first place, a certain energy of stimulation is necessary to produce those gestures, changes of feature, vocal outbursts, and alterations in the state of the viscera, that are apparent to an observer. One may experience a certain thrill of pleasure, without even a smile; nevertheless, a nervous wave may be diffused to the muscles of the face, and to all the other muscles; the failure in expression being due to the mechanical insufficiency of the central stimulus. A certain LIMITATIONS OF DIFFUSION. 7 degree of emotional excitement is possible without the full and proper display, but not without the tendency in that direction. In the second place, something depends on the character of the active organs themselves. Irrespective of the intensity of the feelings, the energy of the demonstrations may vary in different individuals, and in the same person at different times. There is a certain vigour and freshness of limb, feature, and voice, disposing these parts to activity, and seeking only an occasion to burst forth; age, feebleness, and exhaustion, paralyse the display, without destroying the susceptibility of feeling. There are individuals and races characterised by the vivacious temperament; we may instance the ancient Greeks and the modern Italians. Third. The different emotions dicter in their manifestations. The distinct modes characterizing pleasure and pain have been formerly described and accounted for. (See INSTINCTIVE PLAY OF FEELING, ~ 18.) There are other distinctions besides. Wonder is different from self-complacency; the pain of fear and the pain of a bodily hurt do not manifest themselves alike. In some emotions, as wonder, there is a strong stimulus to movements; in others, as tender feeling, there are marked glandular effects. Fourth. The primitive outbursts of emotion may be greatly modified by education. Articulate speech and song are new and refined outlets for the emotional wave. In the exaltation of triumph, instead of savage laughter and frantic gestures, the hero of cultivated society displays his emotions in magniloquent diction or splendid music. The feelings vent themselves not only in spoken address, but in mutterings and in imagined speeches. The natural language of the feelings is cast into a mould in a great degree conventional; the emotions are differently manifested by a Frenchman and by an Englishman, by a man of society and by a boor. Fifth. It is possible, by force of will, to suppress the more prominent manifestations of feeling-namely, the movements depending on voluntary muscles. The organic effects, such as blushing, are beyond our power. The suppression of 8 PHYSICAL ACCOMPANIMENTS OF FEELING, display may become habitual, yet the feelings will still occur, although not unmodified by the refusal to allow them the natural vent. 6. Stiiuluts of an Active Impulse.-The law of diffused manifestation accompanying consciousness is seen also in movement. So strong is the tendency for other parts to join with the one immediately called upon to act, that we often find it difficult to confine the energy to the proper locality. Thus an infant attempting any operation with its hands always makes a great many movements that are not necessary to the thing aimed at. So in speech, any outburst of utterance is sure to carry with it a number of involuntary movements and gestures, as if there were no power to isolate the course of the nervous current, or restrict it to the proper movements. The awkward gestures of a child learning to write may also be quoted as an example. Beginners in every art are in the same way encumbered with the uncalled-for sympathies of irrelevant members. The suppression of these accompaniments is the work of education, and a distinguishing feature of mature life. But this extinction is never complete at any age. All that is deemed ungraceful in the extraneous accompaniments of speech is repressed among the educated classes of society, but gestures that have not this character are preserved, and some are superadded, for the sake of the increased animation that they impart to the human presence. The diffused cerebral wave, whereby some one action rouses the outlying members into co-operation, is made available in the Fine Art of theatrical and oratorical display, and in the graceful accompaniments of every-day converse. In the uncultivated ranks of society, and more especially in races of low artistic sensibility, the instinctive diffusion of an active impulse produces very harsh effects. Many persons cannot answer a question without scratching the head, rubbing the eyes, or shrugging up the whole body. The concurrence of organic effects, or of alterations in the action of the viscera, with mental states, has not been observed with the care that it deserves. One important fact, however, has been deter ORGANIC ACCOMPANIMENTS OF FEELING. 9 mined experimentally, namely, the influence of mental causes on the capillary circulation. The small blood-vessels by which the blood is brought into proximity with the various tissues of the body are kept in a state of balanced distension between two forces,-one the propulsive power of the heart's action which tends to enlarge them; the other an influence derived from the nervous centres, and acting upon the muscular fibres so as to contract the vessels. The first of the two agencies, the heart's action, is so evident as to need no farther demonstration. The other reposes upon the following experimental proofs:-When the sympathetic nerve proceeding to the vessels of the head and face of an animal is cut, there follows congestion of the blood-vessels, with augmented heat over the whole surface supplied by the nerve. The ear is seen to become redder; a thermometer inserted in the nostril shows an increase of temperature, the sign of a greater quantity of blood flowing into the capillaries. The inference from the experiment is that, the counterpoise being withdrawn, the force that distends the small blood-vessels has an unusual predominance. It is farther proved that this nervous influence acting upon the minute muscular fibres of the small vessels is of central origin, for by cutting the connexion between the brain and the ganglion on the neck, from which the above-mentioned nerve proceeds, the restraining influence ceases, and congestion takes place. -By stimulating the divided nerve galvanically, the suffusion disappears, the vessels shrinking by the contraction of their muscular coats. It is a point not yet fully determined, whether the nervous centres can act upon the organic processes of secretion, absorption, &c., by an immediate agency, or a power apart from the control of the circulation as now described. Various physiologists have affirmed that there is such an immediate influence, and Ludwig has recently endeavoured to establish it by experiment; but as this implies an altogether new and distinct function of the nerves in the animal economy, other physiologists suspend their judgment on the matter for the present. It is almost certain that the cerebral agency put forth in the exercise of the will can tell only upon muscles; and by analogy it is probable that the emotional wave is confined to muscles also. Nevertheless, the existence of a more direct kind of influence upon the organic processes is open to experimental proof. CHARACTERS OF FEELING. 7. In my previous volume (p. 73, 3d edit.) I have given the scheme of a full description of the Feelings. A few remarks may be added here, as preparatory to the department now to be entered on. 10 CHARACTERS OF FEELING. The most palpable distinction among our feelings is the contrast of Pleasure and Pain. Next to that is the difference of Degree in both kinds. So far the matter is plain. It is laid down by Paley, in taking what he considered the practical view of human happiness, that pleasures differ only in continuance and in intensity. His words are:-' In which inquiry (into the nature of happiness) I will omit much usual declamation on the dignity and capacity of our nature; the superiority of the soul to the body, of the rational to the animal part of our constitution; upon the worthiness, refinement, and delicacy of some satisfactions, or the meanness, grossness, and sensuality of others; because I hold that pleasures differ in nothing but in continuance and intensity; from a just computation of which, confirmed by what we observe of the apparent cheerfulness, tranquillity, and contentment of men of different tastes, tempers, stations, and pursuits, every question concerning human happiness must receive its decision.'-Moral Philosophy, Book I., Chap. 6. For my own part, I doubt the completeness of a theory of happiness restricted to the consideration of those two attributes. The distinction in pleasures (and in pains) between the acute and the voluminous or massive (Intensity and Quantity) is a pregnant one. Then, again, the attribute of Endurability, or continuance without fatigue, and the farther and related attribute of ideal persistence, are grounds of superiority in pleasures, being the main circumstances implied in refinement. The characters of Feeling are, 1st, those of Feeling proper, as Pleasure and Pain, which we call Emotional; * 2dly, Volitional characters, or the influence on the Will; 3dly, Intellectual characters, or the bearings upon Thought, we may add, 4thly, certain mixed characters, such as the relations to Forecasting or Sustained Volition, to Desire and to Belief. Emotional characters of Feeling. 8 Every Feeling has its PHYSICAL SIDE. In the Sensations of the Senses, we can point to a distinct physical origin or * See, on the use of this adjective, ' The Senses and the Intellect', third edition, p. 668. PHYSICAL SIDE OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. 11 agency, as well as to a diffused wave of effects. In the Emotions, the physical origin is less definable, there being a supposed coalition of sensational effects with one another and with ideas; and it is as regards the diffusion, or outward manifestations, that our knowledge is clearest. The notable contrast on the physical side, lies between the Pleasurable and the Painful, and between their various gradations; but our means of discrimination do not stop here. Love, Vanity, and Power are all pleasurable, and yet differently embodied, or expressed: Fear, Remorse, and Grief are painful, but with outward characters special to each. On the MENTAL SIDE we recognise Quality, that is, Pleasure, Pain, or Indifference; Degree, in its two modes of Intensity and Quantity; and Speciality, or points that may distinguish states substantially equivalent in quality and in degree. These distinctions have been largely illustrated under the Muscular Feelings and Sensations. 9. The Physical Side of Pleasure was fully considered under the Instinctive Play of Emotion (' The Senses and the Intellect'-INsTINCTS). Notwithstanding apparent exceptions, the great principle may be established that pleasure connec.t itselfw~.it~.vlxiLe~ergy, and pain with the opposite. The two states are as much opposed as plus and minus, heat and cold, credit and debit: and the physical concomitants must be expected to show a similar contrariety. All modes of increasing vitality do not equally contribute to pleasure, and all modes of diminishing it do not equally involve pain. A distinction needs to be drawn between the more and the less sensitive parts. Increase of muscular power is very slightly attended with increased pleasure; diminution of muscular power does not immediately give pain. Some of the organic functions, as digestion, have a great influence on the condition of the mind as regards pleasure or pain. There is doubtless a certain aspect of brain power more especially connected with the pleasurable tone of the system; 12 CHARACTERS OF FEELING. and a direct increase of vitality in that special mode would be the most direct agency in causing pleasure. The law of vitality is qualified by the Law of Stimulation. Stimulants do not increase the power of the nervous centres, they merely exercise these; and exercise within limits is pleasurable; while not to exercise the brain within those limits is to miss pleasure. Exercise in excess brings on the pain of lowered vitality, according to the primary law. These Laws were exemplified and proved by an Induction of the Muscular Feelings and Sensations; they were extended by analogy to the Emotions, while the application was confirmed by the examination that was made of the manifestations bf the opposing states of pleasure and pain. 10. The Physical Side of Pain can be stated with great probability for a large majority of cases. Lowered vitality accounts for one large department. In regard to the pains of the Senses, we find that a certain point in the Intensity and in the continuance of a stimulant leads to pain. This applies to Touch, Hearing, and Sight; it applies partially to Taste and Smell, but not fully in the present state of our knowledge: we cannot say that a bitter taste is accompanied with an excessive stimulation of the nerve; for we find that the slightest degree of bitter contains the essentially painful quality. Another circumstance attended with pain is Discord, a species of conflict which we may suppose produces waste of power, or else a painful intensity of stimulation; but we do not know whether these two modes of operating exhaust the case. 11. Feeling as Pleasure. The state of pleasure is an ultimate, indefinable experience of the mind. The fact itself is known to each person's consciousness; the modes, varieties, degrees, collaterals, and effects of it may be stated in propositions, as laws of the mind. It is opposed by the state called Pain, and by the state called Indifference. 12. Feeling as Pain. This state also is indefinable, and known to each person by an experience that cannot be imparted. Pleasure and Pain are opposites in the strongest INDIFFERENT STATES OF FEELING. 13 form of contrariety; like heat and cold, they destroy or neutralize each other. They are both contrasted with the state of Indifference. 13. Feeling as Indifference or Neutral Excitement. We may feel, and yet be neither pleased nor pained.* A state of feeling may have considerable intensity, without being either pleasurable or painful; such states are described as neutral or indifferent. Surprise is a familiar instance. There are surprises that delight us, and others that cause suffering; but many surprises do neither. We 'are awakened, roused, stirred, made conscious; on the physical side, there is a diffused wave, shown in lively demonstrations of feature, gesture, voice, and oral expression. The attention is detained upon some object, the source of the feeling; if a sudden clap of thunder, or flash of lightning, excited the feeling, the mind is for the moment occupied with the sensation, and withdrawn from other objects of thought. Almost every pleasurable and painful sensation and emotion passes through a stage or moment of indifference. A melodious sound is most pleasurable at the first; the pleasure gradually subsides; but the excitement does not necessarily subside in the same degree. So the pleasurable emotions-as love, self-complacency, power-have phases of mere excitement, the pleasurable zest being faded, while the mental agitation remains; the mother's love for her child exists for long periods as mere excitement detaining her attention and regards, without amounting to pleasure. It is the same with the cycle of the more intense painful emotions, as fear, remorse, impatience; the painful feeling may subside, and yet the accompanying excitement remain. As neutral states, these feelings do not directly incite us to action; they are not motives to the Will. They operate indirectly through their intellectual efficacy, that is, by detaining the attention, or by keeping a certain impression in the ascendant. This is the operation already designated the * The indifferent feelings are fully recognized by Reid, but Hamilton, strange to say, disputes them. (Hamilton's Reid, p. 311.) 14 CHARACTERS OF FEELING. 'Fixed Idea', occurring to thwart the ordinary course of the Will. It will be again adverted to under MOTIVES. Volitional Characters of Feeling. 14. Although the operations of the Will are conceived by us as something distinct from, or superadded to, the operation of Feeling proper, yet in every volition, rightly so named, the stimulus, or antecedent, is some feeling. The genuine antecedents are pleasure and pain. The neutral emotions just discussed, have no immediate power of stimulating activity; their efficacy is indirect. A pleasure, present or prospectivea feast, a recreative amusement, or an acquisition of property -makes me go forth in a course of active pursuit; an impending evil makes me alike active in a career of avoidance; a neutral feeling works by gainirig the attention. Thus our conduct is ruled partly and principally by our pleasures and pains, through the proper and legitimate operation of the Will, and partly by our emotions, through the stand they take as persisting Ideas. Hence, by marking the line of action dictated by an emotion, we have a further means of characterizing it. If it be a pleasure intensely felt, the fact is shown by the efforts made to secure the continuance of the delight; if a pain, a corresponding energy, with a view to deliverance, attests the circumstance. The volitional character of a feeling, therefore, is an indication of its pleasurable or painful nature, liable only to the disturbing influence of a fixed idea. All our pleasures stimulate us more or less to active pursuit; all our pains to precautionary efforts. When we see a man's avocations, we infer what things give him satisfaction, or cause him suffering. We read, in the everyday industry of mankind, the pangs of hunger, cold, and disease, and the pleasures of exercise and repose, repletion, warmth, music, spectacle, affection, honour, and power. The freely-chosen conduct of any living creature is a final, though not infallible, criterion of its pleasures and pains. Intellectual Characters of Feeling. 15. In describing the Sensations, I took note of their per RETAINABILITY OF FEELINGS. 15 sistence as ideas, in the absence of the actual object. This is a property belonging to all mental states, although unequally. It is greatest in the most intellectual of the Senses-Sight, and it is comparatively low in regard to Organic Sensations. When we study the Feelings properly so called, as typified by our Pleasures and Pains, we find that these can be revived or remembered, but not to the same extent as the Intellectual Sensations that constitute our knowledge of the surrounding world. There is reason to suppose that a state of pleasure demands a considerable physical support in the brain and other organs, which support cannot be obtained without a powerful stimulation. If it is a present pleasure, there must be an actual stimulant, if an ideal pleasure maintained by memory and association, the resuscitating agency must be correspondingly effective. On the ground of mere physical support, it is far easier to hold in the mind an ideal picture, or a train of verbal recollections, than to sustain a flow of pleasure of the smallest amount that would deserve to be counted as a pleasure. The revival of an emotion in idea depends upon the general laws of Retentiveness, modified by the special peculiarities of the Feelings, properly so called. A feeling as such-a pleasure, pain, or mental excitement-cannot exist without present physical conditions of a much more stringent sort than is necessary in the case of mere intellectual states. Still, by their association with the more revivable sensations, feelings as such can be revived, in greater or less strength; and, in this way, the retentive power of the mind enlarges our emotional life. 16. The conditions of Retentiveness, as given for Intellectual States, are-Repetition, Concentration of the Mind, and the natural force of Adhesiveness in the individual mind. These apply to the Feelings; there being, however, circumstances that render the association of feelings more complicated. It makes a most material difference whether the feelings to be revived are pleasures, pains, or mental excitement. To 16 CHARACTERS OF FEELING. maintain a flow of pleasure is the highest consummation of vital energy; and the memory of pleasure, to be effective, needs an abounding vitality. The practical problem of emotional growth is to cherish associations of pleasure, and reduce to the minimum associations of pain. First. As regards the need of Repetition, the associations with feeling are the slowest of all, although exceedingly various in particular cases. This is true in the typical and important case of building up superstructures of pleasure; the tender affections, local associations, testhetic associations, pleasurable tastes, are products of years. Second. The circumstances leading to Concentration of Mind, which is the vital fact in all recognition, are numerous and efficacious. It is in this way that Intensity operates; the intense feelings necessarily impress all their surroundings and involved circumstantials, by which they are afterwards revived. Another circumstance is the comparative disengagement of the mental forces for emotional growths. To be little distracted by alien pursuits, to have periods for the undisturbed play of the agreeable emotions, in connection with special objects, may be set down as a leading condition of pleasurable associations. Third. Individuals may be prone to the indulgence of tion generally, or to certain emotions in particular; of this one consequence, among others, is a more effective recall of foregone states of feeling. All these conditions are common to intellectual states and to feelings. The circumstances special to feeling are such as these:(1) It is never to be forgotten that an emotion in its pure and perfect character as feeling is, properly speaking, not revivable at all. A vague excitement felt merely as such, and not connected at the moment with any accompaniments of the senses, any properly intellectual states, is wholly irrecoverable in idea. An emotion in such an extreme form of isolation does not exist; but there are all degrees of connection with REVIVAL OF FEELINGS. 17 the revivable sensations. Now the more completely a feeling is surrounded and penetrated with the higher sensations, especially sight and hearing, the more does it tend to become a possession for after time. Farther. The occasion of reviving an emotional outburst is under peculiar checks. Not to mention that the physical state of the individual must be adequate to its support, the presence of an opposing emotion is a fatal bar, to which nothing fully corresponds in the revival of ideas as such. We cannot effectually recall an emotion of pleasure under a present state of depression, unless that pleasurable recollection is ushered in with such effect as to master and change the present mood. Again, the recovery of an emotion is not instantaneous but slow, and we must give ourselves up for a time to the influences of restoration. Finally, the intellectual associates, by whose agency the feeling is recovered, must themselves be presented with some considerable degree of energy; an energy far greater than is required for the purposes of the understanding.* Mixed OCkaracters of Feeling. 17. There are certain mental facts that exhibit at once the volitional and the intellectual properties of feeling. The first of these is Forethought, or Volition; engaged for Ideal ends. When a pleasure or a pain is actually felt, the Will is prompted by an immediate or present motive; when these are only in prospect, they must be effectively present in idea. Hence we need to remember past pleasures and pains, with a view to future action. The motive power of any feeling is thus complex; depending first upon its pleasurable or painful intensity, and next on the vividness of our recollection of it in absence of the reality. The strongest pleasures and pains, if but feebly remembered, are unable to stimulate our persistent endeavour on their account. Accordingly, the theory of the Will presupposes a full knowledge of the circumstances that govern emotional retentiveness. * The whole subject of Ideal Emotion is so important, that a separate chapter is devoted to it. 2 18 CHARACTERS OF FEELING. In the conflict of opposite motives, it is common to have one feeling in the actual opposed to another in the ideal. This is the case when present gratification is restrained by the consideration of remote consequences. In order that the dread of the future may prevail over the present, it is necessary that the intellectual image of the absent evil should be sufficient to maintain the volitional urgency belonging to the reality. Thus it is, that what is termed self-control, prudential restraint, moral strength, consists in the intellectual permanency of the volitional element of our feelings. A parallel illustration holds with reference to pleasures. Weakly remembered, they do not, in absence, stimulate the voluntary efforts for securing them; more strongly remembered, they become standing objects of pursuit. It may be said, in this case, that if we had the memory of them in full, more is needless; just as a man that has a book by heart cares not to take up the volume; but memory in matters of enjoyment is seldom, if ever, as good as actuality, The usual case is to have the remembrance of the pleasure, with the consciousness that it falls short of the reality; and this is a spur to obtain the full fruition. Such is Desire. We see, therefore, that it is a property of feeling to attract and detain the observation upon certain objects by preference, the effect of which is to possess the mind with those objects, or to give them a prominent place among our acquisitions. The abundance of the associations thereby formed leads to their recurrence in the trains of thought; and the same fascination causes them to be dwelt upon in recollection, and largely employed in the mind's own creations. The poet and the man of science, if they are so by natural disposition, dwell each respectively in their own region of objects and conceptions; and a stinted place is left in the mind for other things. Whence it is that the direction taken by the spontaneous gaze, and the easily recurring trains of the intellect, afford a clue to the predominant emotions. 18. The influence of the feelings in stamping intellectual impressions of all kinds had to be taken account of in the INTELLECTUAL INFLUENCE OF FEELINGS. 19 exposition of the Intellect. The effect is partly a volitional property and partly an intellectual property. A pleasurable feeling detains the gaze upon the object, which is thereby imprinted on the memory; this is pure volition. Painful objects are avoided by us in the same manner. We have just seen that there are modes of excitement neither pleasurable nor painful, which have yet an intellectual efficacy. A shock of neutral surprise will impress the object that causes it. By the power of mere excitement a painful incident will seize the attention and imprint itself on the memory. 19. Throughout the exposition of the Law of Contiguity, there was assumed, in the first instance, a neutral or disinterested adhesiveness for each class of impressions; something in the character of the individand that gives it a firm hold of_6tain things-colours, forms, sounds, and the rest, irrespective of any special charm or any motive growing out of the feelings. Unless we take this for granted, we cannot account for intellectual differences among human beings. The stimulus of the Feelings is a new power; it divides with the natural adhesiveness the government of our acquisitions; yet it is not the sole condition of superiority or distinction in any walk. The objects that please and fascinate us may not be those that take the deepest hold of our minds, so as to constitute our highest intellectual grasp. One may feel a deep charm for the conceptions of science, without possessing the tenacity of mind in scientific matters requisite to high attainments in them; and the same person may have a really powerful intellect in some other department without experiencing a corresponding charm. We may exert intellect in one field, and derive pleasure in another. A great statesman like Richelieu finds a superior fascination in composing bad tragedies; an artist of incontestable genius is supremely happy in abortive mechanical inventions. Granted that a certain pleasure must always flow from the exercise of our strongest faculties, it still may happen that we take a far higher delight in a class of things where we could hardly 20 CHARACTERS OF FEELING. attain even to mediocrity. There is no law of mind to connect talent and taste, or yet to make them uniformly exclude each other; all varieties of relationship may exist, from the closest concurrence to wide separation. When the two happen to coincide very nearly, when the thing that fascinates the attention most, also coheres in the intellect best independently of this fascination, we have then the most effective combination that can exist for producing a great genius. 20. Influence of Feeling on Belie/.-In a subsequent chapter we shall enter fully into the character of the state of mind denominated Belief. The influence of feeling on belief is of a mixed character. In the first place, it would arise in the- ordinary action of the Will. A thing strongly desired, in other words, an object of intense pleasure, is pursued with corresponding urgency; obstacles are made light of, they are disbelieved. We are not easily persuaded of the ill effects of anything that we like. In the second place, the influence is farther connected with the power of the Feelings over the Trains of Thought. When we are under a strong emotion, all things discordant with it keep out of sight. A strong volitional urgency will subdue an opposing consideration actually before the mind; but intense feeling so lords it over the intellectual trains that the opposing considerations are not even allowed to be present. One would think it were enough that the remote considerations should give way to the near and pressing ones, so that the 'video meliora' might still remain with the 'deteriora sequor'; but in truth the flood of emotion sometimes sweeps away for the moment every vestige of the opposing absent, as if that had at no time been a present reality. Our feelings not merely play the part of rebels or innovators against the past, they are like destroying Vandals, who efface and consume the records of what has been. In a state of strong excitement, no thoughts are allowed to present themselves except such as concur in the present moods; the links of association are paralyzed as regards everything that conflicts with the ascendant influence; and it is through this stoppage of the intellectual PERVERSION OF THE JUDGMENT. 21 trains that we come into the predicament of renouncing, or, as it is called, disbelieving, for the moment, what we have formerly felt and acted on. Our feelings pervert our convictions by smiting us with intellectual blindness, which we need not be under even when committing great imprudence in action. It depends upon many circumstances what intensity of emotion shall be required to produce this higher effect of keeping utterly back the faintest recollection of whatever discords with the reigning fury. The natural energy of the emotional temper, on the one hand, and the feebleness of the forces of effective resuscitation, on the other, conspire to falsify the views entertained at the moment. 21. Intense Emotions, while inspiring the actions and influencing the intellectual acquisitions, likewise affect the judgment of true and false. The emotion of Terror proves the greatness of its power, by inducing the most irrational beliefs. In the extreme manifestations of Anger, a man will be suddenly struck blind to his most familiar experiences of fact, and will for the moment deny what at other times he would most resolutely maintain. Take also Self-complacency. The habitual dreamer is not instructed by a thousand failures of pet projects; he enters upon each new attempt as full of confidence as if all the rest had succeeded. We note with surprise in every-day life, that an individual goes on promising to himself and to others, with sincere conviction, what he has never once been known to execute; the feeling of self-confidence lords it over the experience of a life. He has not stated to himself in a proposition the conflicting experience. He does not know that he never fulfilled his purposes. So with the Tender Affections; love's blindness is the world's oldest proverb. The falsehood, mistakes, confusion, and fatality growing out of this property of the feelings, ramify in every province of affairs and every relation of human life. I speak not at present of the conscious lie-to that our illustration does not now extend. The perverted views of matters of common business, the superstructure of fable that envelopes the narra 22 CHARACTERS OF FEELING. tion of the past, the incubus of superstition and blind faith, have their foundation and source in the power of emotion to bar out the impressions of reality. The deep-seated intellectual corruption due to the ascendency of the feelings has been a theme for reflecting minds to dilate upon, and yet we cannot say that it has been sufficiently set forth. The cloud of legend and fable, unhesitatingly accepted for ages as the genuine history of foregone times, has only just begun to be dispersed. The pages of early Greek and Roman story had been filled with narratives relying solely on faith and feeling; and the introduction of the canons of evidence appealed to in all matters of recent date, is felt as a cruel and remorseful operation, by which the keenest susceptibilities and most favourite fancies are cut to the quick. Warm emotion had bred and nursed those ancient stories; and in an early uninquiring age, the realities of nature were set at naught by the very minds that had to face them as the experience of every hour; such experience being unable to restrain the creations of an unbridled fancy, or to check the reception given to the wildest tales and most extravagant inventions. In the sciences, the perverting influence of the feelings has been no less conspicuous. It is the nature of scientific truth to express with punctilious accuracy the order and sequences of the world, so that its statements shall hold good at all times and to all observers. The mind that is engaged in collecting the facts of nature for this purpose ought, so far as they are concerned, to be utterly devoid of emotional bias. Neither liking nor disliking, favouritism nor repulsion, should see anything that cannot always be seen the same; and the mind should keep record in like manner. But this attitude of observing and generalizing the phenomena of the world is not natural to the human intellect, as the generations of actual men have been constituted. In primitive times, the scientific spirit had no existence; the strong emotions always interfered with the observation of nature in everything but the matters of routine industry for supplying the wants of life. The re IMPORTANCE OF QUANTITATIVE PRECISION. 23 presentation of surrounding nature was left to the poet, or to the religious seer, whose professed purpose it was to follow, instead of opposing, the prevailing currents of feeling. Even when cool accuracy was brought to bear on the examination of the order of the world, the progress was slow, as of a cause labouring under a heavy load of obstruction. Mechanical science has not been long constituted with philosophical rigour; chemistry and physiology belong to the last and the present century. The first book of the 'Novum Organum' of Lord Bacon stands out distinguished among his remarkable writings as an almost singular exposure of the mental corruption wrought by the intrusion of the feelings in scientific speculation. INTERPRETATION AND ESTIMATE OF FEELINGS. 22. The inability to estimate quantity with precision is a serious defect in any department of knowledge; it is the absence of the feature constituting an exact science. 'Accurate and minute measurement,' says Sir William Thomson, 'seems to the non-scientific imagination a less lofty and dignified work than looking for something new. But nearly all the grandest discoveries of science have been but the rewards of accurate measurement and patient long-continued labour in the minute sifting of numerical results.' (Address to the British Association, 1871.) In Natural Philosophy and Chemistry, at the present day, numerical estimates are the rule. In the Biological sciences, the same exactness is rarely attained. The descriptive language of Botany as to the forms, dimensions, colours, of plants, leaves a margin of vagueness. In speaking of the animalbody, quantity is given sometimes by numerals, but oftenest by indefinite numeral adjectives; a small head, large eyes, a middling chest, broad shoulders. These properties, however, might be given in ekact measures; much less easy would it be to reduce to numbers the shades of health and robustness of the bodily constitution, or of the separate organs; the usual forms are-in good health, delicate chest, strong digestion, heart little affected, liver sluggish, 24 INTERPRETATION AND ESTIMATE OF FEELING. throat relaxed. Of late years, there has been a great advance in the quantitative accuracy of medical diagnosis, as in estimating the pulse and the force of respiration; also, in applying the thermometer to measure the intensity of fever. 23. To come now to Mental Qualities. As regards these, there is an almost total absence of numerical or measured estimates, and an exclusive employment of the indefinite adjectives-much, middling small, very small. For example, Helps speaks of the extraordinary pleasure of grappling with a scientific problem, and says, 'it needs no Akenside to tell us that the pleasures of the imagination are very keen.' To make matters worse, there appears to be no standard for fixing the meaning of those adjectives; to different persons, very different degrees are indicated by the epithetsgreat, moderate, little. The uncertain interpretation of amount renders vague and unsatisfactory our discussions as to the intensity of the human feelings; and, in consequence, great latitude needs to be accorded to all statements respecting degrees of happiness or misery. When we sit down, like the aged Kephalos, in the opening of Plato's Republic, to compare youth and age in point of happiness, we need 'to discover some very decided difference, before pronouncing a confident opinion; any form of language that expresses how much happiness can be realised in, youth, and how much in age, would fail to give the same estimate to different hearers. Plato's Kephalos dwells much upon the subsidence, in old age, of the turbulent passions, yet, who can say that the loss of youthful zest and spirits does not overbalance the gain? Again, it is usual for moralists to set forth the delights of virtue, as superior to all the advantages of vice; in which they rely less upon any computation than upon the exceeding desirableness of the thing in itself. So, attempts are made to disparage the pleasures of superior wealth, power, reputation, by quoting, among other things, the Law of Relativity, under which there is a gradually decaying charm in every mode of superiority when once fully possessed. All such comparisons are to be received with a wide OUR CONSCIOUSNESS LIMITED TO SELF. 25 margin, and yet they relate to the highest of questions, the question-how to live. All rational conduct is, in the final resort, the preference of a greater pleasure to a less, or of a less pain to a greater, whether as regards ourselves or as regards others. The metaphysical controversy as to Innate elements of the mind practically turns upon an estimate of degree. Certain products are given-our notions of Distance, of Space, of Cause, of Right and Wrong; in all of them there is a process of education; and the point is, does education account for the whole? This supposes an estimate of what education can effect-; and, unless the estimate may be made with some degree of precision, we should need an overpowering insufficiency in order to establish an Innate power. Assuming, in any instance, that one-tenth of the effect is due to Instinct, if, in our measure of the force of education, we commit an. error of one-fifth, the supposed instinctive tendency is swamped in the margin of uncertainty. 24. The position of the enquirer in interpreting and in estimating mind, is peculiar. It is only my own mind that I know directly; of the minds of others my knowledge is indirect, circuitous, and haphazard. Self we know by the introspective consciousness; our fellows are known by objective signs-by gesture, conduct, and communicated information. No doubt these objective indications in themselves appeal to our highest senses; they can be delicately discriminated and measured; they are in no degree inferior to any department of objective knowledge. Indeed, they are much superior to the discrimination of the individual self-consciousness, the dimensions of a smile, the intensity of a groan, are more delicately measured by an observer, than the corresponding emotion by the individual's own self; so much so, that even one's self-knowledge is greatly improved by the addition of objective estimates. Thus, in regard to the minds of others, the radical and insuperable difficulty of the situation is, that while the signs of feeling may be sufficiently distinct, we never have access to 26 INTERPRETATION AND ESTIMATE OF FEELINGS. the thing signified. We must each use our single and solitary mind as a key to the whole human race; and not to it only, but to all super-human and all infra-human minds. This must be pronounced a narrow basis of interpretation for such a vast range of individualities. How greatly would our insight be helped, if we could gain the consciousness of fifty or a hundred representative minds; especially those whose constitution and habits remove them farthest from ourselves! As this cannot be, we are forced to act upon the assumption that, on a given occasion when another personality behaves outwardly in all respects as we should behave, such person feels inwardly as we feel. If some stroke of good fortune has induced upon any one all the appearances that accompany great happiness in the observer's own self, the conclusion is that the reality or subjective condition of happiness is also present. Our own experience tells us that the same outward expression does not always mean the same inward state even in ourselves. To be very demonstrative in our gestures, or to be very active in pursuit and avoidance, we need not only a certain strength of feeling, but also a definite vigour in the active organs, this vigour not depending on the intensity of the present state of pleasure or pain. Thus even in the same person, the energy of the outward display is not always a correct measure of the degree of mental excitement; it is correct only on the supposition of an equal or average condition of the physical organs. Clearly we must apply the same allowance in comparing different persons. One man may be, by nature or habitually, more expressive in gesticulation, and more active in voluntary pursuit, than another man; the independent endowment of the active organs may be such that they respond more vigorously to the same subjective or mental state. This is a cause of serious ambiguity in our renderings of the human feelings. If we had no separate means of judging of the proneness to expression or to action, the uncertainty would be incurable. We may, however, in most cases ascertain whether a man's vehemence of manifestations is due to the superior DISCRIMINATION OF DEGREES OF FEELING. 27 force of the active organs themselves; we are safe in putting down half the energy of youthful expression, as compared with the expression in mature years, to the greater physical vigour and freshness of the organs. So we can obtain evidence to show that ever-ready and exuberant laughter is, in a particular person, a physical outburst, for the greater part, and not a sign of extreme joyousness of feeling. 25. In order to see what amount of exactness is possible in the estimate of mental states, it will be convenient to enquire first into our means of judging of the degree of our own feelings. Here we have the self-conscious method to begin with; and we may add to it the test of external indications, the sole test in dealing with our fellow beings. Of two pleasures, two pains, two emotions, closely succeeding each other, we can pronounce one to be the stronger, within a certain limit of delicacy. If one of the states has passed away for some time, memory must be trusted to; in so far as this is faithful and adequate, we can still make the comparison. The discrimination, however, is not very delicate, if we take as a standard the delicacy of the senses-sight and hearing, for example, as regards things seen and heard. From the zero of indifference, up to the highest known pitch of agreeable warmth, as in the bath, no one would venture to interpolate twenty graduations; perhaps eight or ten would be the utmost that we could practically bear in mind. Not much superior would be the discrimination of the pleasure of a taste, a relish, or an odour, or the pain of their opposites. In our rough estimates, we usually jump from one extreme to another in four or five leaps. In object properties on the other hand, we can (apart from artificial means) interpolate many times that number of stages; visible magnitude, visible form, shades of colour, intensity and pitch of sounds, can be discriminated into hundreds of graduations; the length of a line, the sharpness of a, bend, the brightness of a tint, are appreciated and remembered with far greater nicety than any mode of pleasure or of pain. 26. The above supposition, however, does not do full 28 INTERPRETATION AND ESTIMATE OF FEELINGS. justice to our power of ascertaining degree in our mental states. It puts us in the least advantageous attitude, namely, direct and immediate comparison of the intensity of two feelings. Exactly as in the exercise of the senses, we can resort to indirect modes whereby our self-conscious discrimination is greatly magnified. In estimating pleasures and pains, we can value a pleasure by the pain that it submerges, and conversely. This is an additional help in settling the comparative force of pleasures and pains, and is undesignedly made use of for the purpose. Cheerful society, change of scene, good fortune, are measured by their power of rallying a person from the depths of depression and despondency. A more express and systematic employment of the method would still further increase the accuracy of our measures of pleasure and pain. Another important resource is to advert to the Time or continuance of states of mental excitement. A usual effect of increased intensity of feeling is increased continuance or duration. Now, duration is susceptible of very accurate measurement; even the subjective discrimination of continuance is much higher than the discrimination of intensity; while, by employing the objective tests, and the common instruments of Time, we can render the estimate as exact as we please. People are wont to exclaim a good while after a shock of surprise, and as a proof of its intensity, 'I have not got over it yet'. Another measure of intensity, on the same ground, is given by vivid recollection at a long interval: 'I remember it as clearly as if it had happened yesterday'. When an excitement has attained its height gradually, the time occupied in working it up can be referred to as a means of estimating the pitch arrived at; a great natural outburst of feeling is measured, not only by its effects but by the supposed duration or continuance of the causes that have been at work. The charm that we experience from a work of art, a performance, a scene, an exercise or occupation, a beloved person, is measured by the continuance of the interest. Thus, both in the rise and in the subsidence of a state of things, we may AIDS TO ESTIMATE OF INTENSITY. 29 have a collateral estimate of intensity through the easilygained estimate of Time. No less effectual as an aid to our feeble judgment of strength of feeling, is the indirect employment of Number, the most exact of all our means of measurement, and used in the last resort as the measure of time. There are various ways wherein difference of intensity of mental states can become numerical. Confining ourselves still to the subjective or selfconscious phase, one way is the rapidity or flow of the thoughts, or transitions from one degree to another. The stream of thought is not a continuous current, but a series of distinct ideas, more or less rapid in their succession; the rapidity being measurable by the number that pass through the mind in a given time. Mental excitement is constantly judged of by this test; and if we chose to count and time the thoughts as they succeed one another, we could give so much more precision to the estimate. It is like counting the beats of the pulse, which may be regarded as the earliest accurate diagnostic of disease. This is, perhaps, the chief instance of the use of Number, in subjective discrimination; the others belong to the objective signs. We make frequent use of a kind of Statistics in our estimate of the feelings and of character; and the method is perfectly legitimate, and might be more deliberately worked. Our strongest cravings are not at all times operative; they show their strength by the frequency of their recurrence. It is a. very fair criterion of a man's intemperance, to compute the number of times that he becomes inebriated. Unpunctuality is open to the same easy computation. The taste for music or the theatre is shown by the frequency of indulgence, when the opportunities occur. Sociability is measured by the amount of time freely devoted to society; by the number of clubs, societies, and connexions that one keeps up. Irascibility is judged of by the frequency of the fits, combined with their duration and intensity. The enjoyment of Alpine scenery is tested by the number of visits that one pays to Switzerland, 30 INTERPRETATION AND ESTIMATE OF FEELINGS. or even the recurrence of the longings to go there. We compare one man of genius with another by the relative abundance of their original strokes or fetches; if a poet, by similes and picturesque and harmonious combinations; if a practical man, by the number and originality of his inventions. All the Stattistics of mortality, crime, pauperism, emigration, consumption of commodities, marriages, births, suicides -bear a strict and accurate mental interpretation, if guarded by the other two known signs and causes of human conduct. When we know the circumstances of a population at home, we judge of the intensity of their aspirations for a better lot by the rate of emigration; we can, by such means, compare with precision the intensity of motive in two different peoples. Hardly any fact comes more decisively to the surface than the strength of Belief in a given matter; it shows itself in conduct, and in language, by ways that are patent and unmistakable. The statistical criterion is applicable to one's strength of conviction in a given course; a self-confident man adheres to his own opinions nine times in ten; a man of feeble confidence in self, is driven out of his opinions perhaps in the same ratio. 27. As already remarked, we are not confined to the introspective method, even in judging of our own conscious states; we can extend our resources by watching the outward or objective signs and accompaniments of our feelings. As this is the only method in our observation of other beings, the scope and compass of it may now be viewed once for all. The external adjuncts of feelings may be exhaustively resumed under the three heads-Feeling, Will, and Thought. Under Feeling, we have Expression properly so called; under Volition, Conduct, or Pursuit and Avoidance; under Intellect, the communicated Thoughts of the individual. What the EXPRESSION or embodiment of Feeling consists in, has already been abundantly stated; in the present chapter, reference has been made to the Diffused wave of physical influences accompanying every mental excitement as part of its nature. Now when any feeling is allowed full vent, there is MEASURE OF VEHEMENCE OF EXPRESSION. 31 little difficulty in gauging its intensity by the energy of the manifestations. We can apply objective tests to the vehemence and rapidity of the gestures; we can estimate increase or diminution in the enthusiasm of a multitude by their increased or diminished stir, by their vocal and other demonstrations. A considerable number of shades or degrees of excitement could be assigned by watching this outward stir as it comes and goes: while, now and then, the individuals concerned, in the intensity of their liking or disliking break into some new and distinct phase of approbation or disapprobation that marks in the strongest manner that the feeling has reached a particular pitch, just as the freezing and the boiling of water afford, without more ado, a precise estimate of the temperature. An assembly rising up simultaneously to applaud an orator or a performer; a man leaving father and mother to devote himself to a great cause,-afford proofs of intensity of feeling that are not merely salient to observation, but adapted to a quantitative estimate. In the same persons, under the same circumstances, degree of unsuppressed manifestations is a criterion of degree of feeling. When we are judging in our own case, we have the additional advantage of knowing whether we are now suppressing or are freely venting our impulses, and whether or not we are putting on a display without a feeling to correspond; we also know whether we are in our usual state of physical vigour, or whether we are below par, and unfit for the ordinary display due to the mental disposition. These points are all more or less concealed by other persons, and are known, if at all, only by circuitous processes. In all that numerous class of feelings, due to definite and assignable Agents, we must assume at the outset that the same agents will operate alike in two or more persons whose circumstances are nearly alike. Food to a healthy hungry person, sugary compounds to a child's palate, fresh air after confinement, shelter from cold, liberty to the captive, an increase of fortune to the needy, must be presumed, in the first instance, to operate alike. This is the political economy 32 INTERPRETATION AND ESTIMATE OF FEELINGS. view of human welfare, the most objective of all measures, which the moralist too readily carps at. Much, however, may be inferred from it. For one thing, the nature of the outward agency of pleasure or pain shows us whether the feeling is acute or passive. The test is not always true for the, amount but it contains a large part of the truth; and should never be left out of the reckoning. It needs to be checked, by the manifestations of feeling, or the various signs of sensibility to be now adverted to; through which means our inference can be raised to the highest attainable certainty. In certain marked feelings, the testimony of mankind has established a permanent estimate, which is assumed for each case until an exception is made out. Such are self-preservation, self-regard generally, sexual love, dread of public censure. These are like the very notable ailments-gout, neuralgia, small-pox-where the individual differences are less important than the generic agreement. 28. To come next to the VOLITIONAL signs, or the motive power of the Feelings in pursuit or in avoidance. Other things being the same, a greater pleasure stimulates to a more active pursuit, a greater pain to a greater energy of precaution. We constantly use this measure both in our own case, and in judging of the strength of feeling of all other persons. We need to be sure that there are no counter motives present; and, farther, that the active forces are in a fair condition; inasmuch as the same motive will not produce the same energy of conduct in a weakened frame. In studying the lower animals, whose organs of expression are few, and their meaning often doubtful, we lay most stress on the voluntary signs, or the energy of pursuit and avoidance. The relish of food is judged by the vehemence of the search and the voracity in the act of devouring it. The schoolboy's pace schoolward shows the faintness of his ardour in that direction. The revulsion against journeying by sea is a great test of the misery of sea-sickness. Our pleasure in a spectacle, is seen by what it takes us away from, by its power of detaining us in spite of opposing DIFFICULTIES OF OBJECTIVE SIGNS. motives. The intensity of ambition and the love of conquest in Alexander and in Caesar are measured by the energy shown in their vast enterprises, and by their defying an amount of hardship and risk that men do not incur without powerful motives. We hear much of the miseries of great wealth and great power, but as it is so easy to get rid of either, and as the remedy is very rarely sought, we do not estimate highly the alleged grievances. 29. The purely INTELLECTUAL signs of a state of feeling come to the surface through Language and other means. They are known to self independently. The immediate and direct indication of feeling through intellect, is the power of detaining the attention and the thoughts, the influence of the Fixed Idea. An excitement as such detains the attention upon the occasion or cause of it, excludes other things from the attention, prevents other thoughts from rising to the view; and thus shows its power by an effect that is open to measurement. Now we may see the workings of this influence in the minds of others. Unless there be purposed concealment, we can discern the cause and the prolongation of another person's attention and thoughts in some one way; should the person lay himself freely open in conversation, we are left in little doubt as to the comparative intensity of the feelings that are uppermost in the mind. 30. In the foregoing observations, directed mainly to the estimate of our own mental states, I have, in discussing the objective indications, anticipated the mode of estimating other men's states. It is requisite, however, to treat the second and more important determination apart, with a view to its special difficulties, and to the modes of overcoming these. The difficulties have been already quoted; they grow out of our inability to say whether a certain expression, conduct, or course of the thoughts, signifies the same thing in two different individuals. In the first place, we have to find some means of seeing through reticence, reserve, disguise, dissimulation and hypocrisy, which for a variety of purposes are so common among 3 34 INTERPRETATION AND ESTIMATE OF FEELINGS. mankind. There are several courses open to us with this view: we may be able to assure ourselves that there is no disguise, in the particular case; we may alight upon special manifestations where disguise is inoperative; or we may know how much allowance is to be made for it. In many instances, a good observer is aware that, owing to habitual dissimulation, an accurate knowledge of character is unattainable. The great problems of life are not often affected by such cases; it is enough that we can sum up the feelings-the happiness or the misery-of such as are willing that we should know their condition. To this consideration we may add the more laudable circumstance of a habit of Contentment, through which the individual suppresses or restrains the indications of painful feeling; and, in fact, learns to regard misery as not miserable. In the next place, supposing the absence of the abovenamed obstacle, allowance has to be made for inequalities in the Expression, the Conduct, and the Course of the Thoughts, under the very same mental experience. We know that there is such an inequality, from the differences in our own bodily condition; we must, therefore, apply to others, at the very least, the allowance that we are taught by our own case. When a person is languid, ill, exhausted, old, we do not interpret want of interest in a thing from moderate animation in talking about it, or from feeble pursuit. We inquire, if possible, what was that person's demeanour and conduct in the fulness of physical health and vigour; a man's enjoyment of sport, of scenery, of geology is valued at the time when his body was equal to the requisite exertions. In like manner, there are states of enfeeblement of the brain and intellectual functions, when an excitement occupies the mind in an unwonted degree; when one is a prey to an idea: these occasions do not give the rule as to the strength of the exciting cause; 'health keeps an atheist in the dark '. When we know that anyone is in an average condition as to physical energy, we have only to surmount the uncertainty of casualties and fluctuations; for which it is enough to use CONFLICT OF EMOTIONAL AND VOLITIONAL SIGNS. 35 the method of statistics or averages. Observations continued over a few months or a year afford all the precision that the case admits of, or requires. The same method also eliminates disturbing accidents, and the operation of clashing motives of the merely accidental kind; a separate enquiry and allowance must be made for motives that are both permanent and considerable. For example, the pleasures of society are estimable, with almost any amount of precision, in one whose movements we know. A single season's engagements is a test of the superior enjoyment of the youth newly entered upon a gay life; the diminishing zest of years is made apparent to an observer by the same statistical method, with a few needful allowances for cross currents and disturbing conditions. 31. Our greatest embarrassment is the conflicting testimony of the three departments-Emotion, Volition, and Intellect; more especially the two first-Emotion and Volition, whose combination we principally rely on. By the test of Expression and Demonstrativeness, a person may be supposed to feel strongly on a point; the test of Volition, or conduct, does not accord. Here we have a real constitutional difference, and one that may be increased by habit and usage, which makes some races and individuals more demonstrative, under the same degree of mental excitement, than other races and individuals. Some would suggest an easy way out of the embarrassment; of the two tests-Expression and Conduct-rely upon conduct.' Any superabundance of demonstration and protestation about the agreeableness of this, or the disagreeableness of that, vwithout a corresponding energy of pursuit or avoidance, might seem at first sight to be merely constitutional or else conventional, if not also hypocritical, and fit only to be disregarded. This course is too hasty. There is a real difference in the constitution of human beings, founded on the unequal predominance of the three great leading functions of the mind -Emotion, Volition, Intellect. As between Emotion and Volition, some dwell more in the indulgence and expression of 36 INPERPRETATION AND ESTIMATE OF FEELINGS. Feeling, without active pursuit; others less endowed in that region, and more disposed for Activity, are found showing their feelings more in their actions. The most characteristic test of the distinction is the behaviour under pain; in the one, pain is followed by profuse expression in a variety of ways, and is soothed through the abundance of the demonstrations; in the other, the resort is to voluntary action for mitigation, and relief, and for future prevention, A clear understanding of this difference can alone make the proper adjustment between the emotional and the volitional tests. We have to make a preparatory diagnosis of character, in order to a correct diagnosis of feelings. This may seem to invest the problem with an amount of uncertainty that makes the whole inquiry fruitless; which would be quite true, if the distinction were one of a subtle and impalpable kind. The case is not so bad when we come to try it. Whether a person is Emotional or Volitional in temperament, may be shown with great nicety, by the numerical or statistical test, applied to the whole manner of life. The one temperament is essentially inactive, given to emotional displays, as measured by mere continuance and repetition, and by the collateral test of sociability; the other is soon exhausted of demonstrative power, while eager and enduring in voluntary pursuit. Fox was an emotional man; Pitt was volitional. It might be regarded as over-refining to apply the same method to the Intellectual criterion. Indeed, to interpret the intellectual signs of feeling, with allowance for difference of intellectual nature on the whole, is to attempt rather too much in the present state of our knowledge. In the case of persons about equally proportioned in the Emotional and the Active constituents of the mind, a comparison. of intensity of feelings-pleasures or pains, seems fair and practicable; in persons unequally proportioned, the comparison must be much rougher. We may compare together, in point of enjoyment, two potato-fed and lightly-worked Irishmen; but how shall we make the comparison between one of these and a good-feeding, hard-working English navvy? It FIXING A STANDARD OF DEGREE. 37 would seem to be necessary to retain two types of mental life; but yet practical emergencies require them to be compared. We might, of course, test each man on his own ground: the Emotional man by the cast of his emotional outburst, whether, and in what degree, hilarious, gay, joyful, on the one hand; or melancholy and lachrymose, on the other; and the Volitional man by his labours to avoid what he dislikes, and to secure what he likes. But we must make a pure venture when we attempt to state an equation between the two men; to call a certain emotional manifestation the equivalent of a certain volitional display, in so far as giving a test of pleasurable or of painful feeling. 32. This being understood, the problem recurs to the consideration of objective signs as before; and the remaining practical difficulty consists in deciding upon some standard of degree, which shall always be understood when the same language is used. 'Now, if we enquire into the usage that has been spontaneously adopted by mankind for signifying differences of degree in mental qualities, we shall find that the leading device has been to assume an average, mean, or middle state; to use for that the phrases-average, ordinary, usual, common, and so on; and for higher and lower degrees to employ the adjectives of quantity (indefinite as opposed to number)-much, great, extraordinary, little, very little, and so on. In conceiving an average, people are also accustomed to conceive a maximum and a minimum, and to interpolate a few stages of degree between these and the mean. The procedure is, in principle, sound; and we can readily assign the conditions necessary to its being tolerably accurate. In order that different observers may place their average alike, they must be in the same sphere of observation, dealing with the same cases, and generalizing over the same area. Average veracity is very different in England and in India. Happy, and very happy, must be interpreted according to the class that the speaker belongs to. Extraordinary pleasure to 38 INTERPRETATION AND ESTIMATE OF FEELINGS. a man of superabundant wealth is what a poor man could not stretch his imagination to measure. 33. Our problem is not yet gone through. An exceedingly subtle matter remains; that is, to refer degrees of mental qualities to a common standard. The attempt to set up a standard or common measure brings us back to the intrinsic difficulty of the case-the inability to compare notes on subjective states. We can compare our standards of length, or of colour, but not of sweetness or of toothache. The only solution of the difficulty is that already suggested- accept identical objective marks, as showing identical subjective states. The same expression, behaviour, &c., under the same circumstances must be held as evidence of the same feelings. The collective manifestations are to be taken as the ultimate test of another man's mind. There is an obvious advantage in fixing the average, or some other point of the scale, by a well-known individual instance, estimated in nearly the same way by all observers. As notoriety is gained by departure from the common, such instances are oftener maxima or minima than mean or average examples. I)evotedness may be measured by a great philanthropist or martyr; love of adventure by a noted traveller; ambition by the culminating historic instances. The preciseness of the operation is interfered with, when such persons are unduly magnified or depreciated; and it might be better if average instances could be made accessible for general reference. Any case thoroughly discussed, with reference to all the indications, would be sufficiently fixed to constitute a standard of comparison. Thus, in point of fact, the settling of the standard with a view to the meaning of language is the very same operation as the discriminating of the degree of two or more cases according to the different classes of signs. 34. To bring the matter to a practical issue, the following scheme may be suggested as to the determination of the feelings of any given individual, on a given occasion. I. A preparatory survey may be made of the Physical Constitution and circumstances of the individual, most of SCHEME OF DETERMINATION OF FEELING. 39 which are suggestive of mental facts, and, at the very least, guide and control the mental characteristics. This would include race, sex, age, bodily frame and condition, of all which we are able to obtain a more or less certain estimate. The value of these facts increases with our knowledge of the connexions of the physical with the mental, and consequently with the progress of Psychology as a two-sided study. Such study is the only corrective of a prevailing popular error, namely, the under-valuing of physical causes in moral and intellectual effects. The error is often exemplified with reference to the mental bearings of the nourishment and health of the body in general, and the sexual appetite in particular. II. We may add the means and resources of the individual for obtaining gratifications, and warding oft sufferings, in connexion with outward causes. Wealth expended shows what are the pleasures and pains of the individual, in so far as under the control of money power. It is on a complete survey of character and'circumstances that we are able to make full allowance for the influence of Relativity or comparison, which must always be supposed, when we are valuing mental results. This knowledge of externals is completed by the estimate of the precise situation at the moment when we are to make the observations of the mental state. III. The immediate testing of the various signs of Feeling -Emotional, Volitional, and Intellectual-is then to be proceeded with; the direct signs of intensity being checked by the indirect indications of time, number, and critical outbursts. The Emotional signs include all the outward gestures, movements, exclamations, and other symptoms, excluding the voluntary conduct. Conduct, or pursuit and avoidance, is a distinct head, and is a criterion of pleasure and pain, less liable to concealment than the emotional expression. Lastly, the occupation of the Thoughts is the intellectual 40 INTERPRETATION AND ESTIMATE OF FEELINGS. test; most valuable as an independent testimony, and as a check upon the others. IV. The Spontaneous Testimony of the individual, completed by Interrogation. When there is a power of Interrogation, the course should be-induce the person to make as many comparisons as possible, so as to give a scale of degrees of feelings. The questioner, by knowing the value of any one point of the scale, can make out all the rest from the graduation stated. V. What we have termed critical manifestations are of great interest. The point of intensity of pain that makes a child cry, or puts one into a fright, or a rage, is very expressive, and great stress is naturally put upon all these ebullitions or outbursts. It is like appreciating the severity of an illness when it proves mortal. Our alarm for the safety of Ssomething valuable is shown by the decided act of putting it under lock and key.. A political tyranny is marked definitely when it provokes a revolution. The highest available criterion of insufferable misery is committing suicide. On the side of pleasure, love is tested by a proposal of marriage. The charms of a new locality are shown by breaking with all the habits and associations of the old. VI. As regards the expression of degrees of feeling, and the finding of some common standard, we may adopt systematically and upon principle, the devices that have been fallen upon unconsciously in the common language of mankind. In his celebrated scheme of the virtues, Aristotle supposed three gradations-a mean, an excess, and a defect. Any one of these being fixed, the others are to'a certain extent also fixed. We might extend this scale, without losing definiteness, and give two or three grades above an assumed mean or average. To describe the virtuousness of a sacrifice, we might use epithets, one, two, or three removes from an average; being able to interpret the act to that degree, and also to convey the interpretation to others; it being necessary only that all should agree upon some point in the scale of virtue. THE SCALE OF DEGREE. 41 For degrees of pleasure and pain, and emotional excitement in general, we do not usually fix the scale by a mean or middle: we begin at zero, and give a designation to the lowest degree that is of any assignable value; when this first grade receives an accession that has, in like manner, a distinct value, we use a second designation, and so on. We pause perhaps at the greatest height of intensity that is ordinarily reached; and reserve an additional epithet for some pitch of very rare occurrence. On this plan, it might be possible to conceive and to express, and to bring about a common understanding upon, six or seven grades or stages, and not more, from nothing up to the highest pitch of ordinarily attainable intensity. Everybody would agree upon the lowest point, or zero, meaning quiescence or neutrality: they might farther agree upon the first degree, which would express what would be regarded as amounting to a distinct power or motive; for the superior degrees they might diverge, whence the desirableness of coming to an understanding on some higher point in the scale, which would practically fix the rest. The observer of mind thus requires first to state to himself the compass of degree of any given feeling; next to divide this compass into as many stages as he can effectually discriminate; and finally, to show by his epithets of degree to what height any given feeling has risen. By references or comparisons to some known cases, he should bring his hearers to fall in with his own standard. 35. The difficulties in the estimating of mental states are an incentive to mental analysis and generalization. By assimilating facts regarded as different we make one computation serve for all. To whatever degree belief depends on a given emotion, the estimate of the emotion is an estimate of the belief. If sympathy is an ingredient in the moral sentiment, the degree of the sympathies is so far the degree of moral feeling. If we know all the ingredients of a compound feeling, their estimated sum gives the degree of the compound. The uncertainty as to degree renders practically worthless the analysis of states that are very complicated. If six or 42 THE RISE AND SUBSIDENCE OF FEELING. seven constituents can be assigned for a given emotion, its dependence upon each constituent must be wholly incalculable. Commonly we are able to discard as insignificant some of the elements of a complex compound; if in this way, we can reduce the effective elements to not more than three, we may succeed in valuing the share of each in the compound. Whenever, therefore, we are able to assign a large number of conspiring elements in some compound, we should endeavour to make a distinction between the larger and the smaller elements, and practically work upon the one, two, or three that may be shown to have the ascendency. THE RISE AND SUBSIDENCE OF FEELINGS. 36. Every state of feeling arises by degrees, is maintained for a certain time, and falls away by degrees. According to the intensity of the state, is the time occupied in accomplishing its course. To the mere fact of being conscious a certain duration is requisite; a tremor lasting only a fraction of a second would not be accompanied with consciousness. We encounter a great number of minor shocks, pleasing, painful, and neutral, that are conscious and no more; these are quickly stimulated, and if not renewed, quickly subside. Such are the multitudinous small impressions made on the senses in a full and busy scene. By their number and concurrence, these passing shocks work up a certain strength and current of feeling, which would operate much the same as one considerable outburst of sensation or emotion. The commencing stimulus of a state of feeling, therefore, must continue for a certain time; and as the efficacy of every stimulus decays rapidly, the only mode of raising a powerful stream is to operate by a succession of shocks, varied, if possible, as to their incidence, while agreeing in the ultimate effect. States of feeling are, in their very nature, more or less fitful; the nervous system supports a continuous state only through the renewals of decaying impulses. The physical condition of sustained endurance of mental states is illustrated by muscular endurance. A continuing PERIODICITY OF FEELINGS. muscular exertion is possible only through alternating the organs; no one muscle can be kept on the strain beyond a very short time. So a continuing emotion is, on the physical side, a succession of nervous outbursts or paroxysms; there being alternate pauses and resumptions of energy. It is not simply that after a few hours of exertion, we need a corresponding rest; the long-continued exertion is itself a series of momentary fits with momentary rests. As time is required to raise a state of emotion, so time is required to let it fall down. Having been made angry by a series of irritations, we do not at once become cool. Excitement must have its course. The current may be diverted upon a different subject, or a new excitement may be induced. The feelings of an enraged people cannot at once, in the absence of a victim, be soothed or appeased: it may be diverted into a safe or harmless channel; or some altogether new emotion may be called into being, by means of an adequate occasion, as for example, something to awaken the sentiment of pride. 37. A second fact of the development of feeling is expressed by Periodicity. This does not equally apply to all modes of feeling; for which we can assign a reason. The most strictly periodical feelings are the Appetites, which are governed by known periodical states of the bodily system. Next to these are certain habitual gratifications, such as the acquired tastes and the routine occupation of the body and mind. The system is artificially accommodated to the usual gratifications, and the usual modes of occupying one's self, and there is a blankness or sense of defect when they are not indulged as the time comes round. One of the personages in the Greek Comedy is represented as uncomfortable when he did not take the Orphic communion once a month. The length of time that each feeling can be sustained depends in the first instance on the intensity and amount of the stimulation, and next upon the subjective capability of the system for the peculiar kind of emotion; regard being had to the previous intermissions of the exercise. 44 THE RISE AND SUBSIDENCE OF FEELING. Thus the alternation of exercise and repose, which gives a periodic character to the outward bodily life, extends to the inward depths of the mental life. Every emotion whatsoever both exercises and exhausts some one portion of the physical framework of mind. Certain circles of the brain, certain muscles and organic processes are involved in each case, and these are liable to weariness after a time, while by repose they become charged with new vigour. Hence every department that has been severely drawn upon, ceases to support its associated mental condition, and every department that has been long dormant, is ready to burst forth on the application of the proper stimulus. We all know the delight of a feeling long restrained; the dullest emotions can yield a moment of ecstasy when their strength has been allowed to accumulate, instead of being incessantly dribbled off. A very ordinary amount of affection for one's native land rises to a fervid burst of delight on returning after years of absence. The feelings that are discharged from day to day are hardly appreciated from the smallness of the amount, but the slender current dammed up for weeks or months rises at last to a mighty overflowing. The intensest moments of delight ever enjoyed by man are the consequence of long privation. 38. In the third place, Feelings, if opposed, or even if different, exclude one another. The greatest opposition of all is Pleasure and Pain. These two cannot co-exist, any more than light and dark, hot and cold. If we are in the one state, say pleasure, a painful stimulation destroys the pleasure in whole or in part; the measure of its amount being the extent of its destroying power. Hence all opposing couples where the opposition turns upon pleasure and pain are incompatible; as sweet-bitter, melodious-harsh, pride-humiliation, approbation-disapprobation, good conscience-remorse. When we are under two different local stimulants, one pleasurable, the other painful, as in the relish of food, coupled with an acute smart, we are conscious of the two in separa INCOMPATIBLE STATES. 45 tion; the distinction of local seat and of characters in other respects, prevents the two from merging in a composite state. The fusion is most complete under two emotional waves, of internal origin, one simply elating and the other depressing. But in all cases of concurring pleasure and pain, there will be a resulting general tone, where each will operate, according to its amount, in neutralizing the other. There is an opposition founded on the difference between Active and Passive conditions and moods of mind. We cannot be active and passive at the same moment; we can only alternate from the one state to the other with more or less rapidity. Hence an emotion based on activity does not coexist with an emotion essentially passive. Now the emotion of Power is allied with our active energy; Tenderness is allied with our quiescent and passive moods. Both may be pleasurable, yet they are to a certain degree incompatible; they are less incompatible than the pleasure of Power and the pain of Impotence. There is' thus a certain incompatibility between the emotion of the Sublime and the emotion of the Pathetic; hence in Art, the two should not be markedly stimulated at the same moment, or by one image. The incompatibility of Anger and Affection is of the extreme kind; the outgoings of the two states are in total contradiction. If the one state is established, the other is inadmissible, unless so powerfully stimulated as to destroy or submerge the first. Fear and Courage are mutually destructive opposites. The one has a painful element, the other a pleasurable. And this is not all; the one is weakness, prostration; the other is power, elation. The couple, Arrogance and Submission, are, in like manner, necessarily opposed. So, Reverence and Ridicule cannot be manifested at the same moment to the same object. These incompatible states may be entertained in very rapid transition, provided they are connected with different objects, and provided they are not overpowering in their degree. We may display anger towards one person and then shew affection to 46 THE RISE AND SUBSIDENCE OF FEELING. another; we may fear one enemy and meet a second with courage. The same person may fawn to his superior, and in a moment trample upon an inferior. We may pass from a flight of the sublime to a touch of pathos; and if sufficient interval is allowed to change the mood, the transition may be even agreeable. The adjustment of such transitions is one of the delicacies of artistic tact. 39. In the fourth place, Feelings of the same kind, or of allied kinds, inflame or heighten one another. This is not an effect of simple addition, like two separate fires kindled in the same room; it is an effect of mutual inflammation, like two burning masses conjoined into one. In both cases there is a heightened intensity with more rapid consumption of the supporting material. Two equal elating influences produce an elation more than double the effect of one; the duration being shortened according as the glow is increased. When a person is already under some depressing passion-Fear, Grief, Sense of Impotence, Humiliation,-a slight additional depression may produce a disproportionate effect. Things that hardly affect us at all when we are at par, are very discomposing when we are down. Moreover, the law of rapid exhaustion applying to the inflammation of pleasure does not apply to the augmentation of pain. Because we have an undue and extreme fit of depression, it does not follow-as we often fancy and figuratively express by the greatest darkness introducing the dawn-that we shall the sooner get back to our ordinary condition. The laws of pleasure and pain are opposite in regard to the circumstances of their maintenance and duration. Thus, then, the flow of Feeling is the flow of Stimulants -actual or ideal, bodily or mental. The chief regulating circumstances are (1) intensity, of stimulus, best promoted by variety pointing to one end; (2) subjective ability, including the power that intermission gives; and (3) opposition and agreement. (Some farther illustrations on the subjects of this Chapter are given in Appendix A.) CHAPTER II. EVOLUTION, AS APPLIED TO MIND. 1. THEI doctrine of Evolution has been invoked to render an account of the animal and the human Instincts. According to it, all those aptitudes called instinctive are acquisitions that haye become hereditary. The power of walking, shown by a quadruped at birth, was gradually attained as an acquirement or educated peculiarity, by the animal's remote ancestors; and the nervous arrangements implicated in the act became so fixed as to descend with the other transmitted peculiarities of the species. This hypothesis complies with at least one condition of a satisfactory explanation; it reduces two facts, hitherto supposed to be wholly unconnected, under one law. 2. Whatever arguments can be brought to the support of Evolution generally, will count in favour of its being applied in the present case. We cannot exempt from the operation of the principle so important an organ as the brain; and with development of the brain proceeds, parii passu, development of the mind. As the brain advances in size and in complication, there is an advance not merely in those lower functions called Reflex and Automatic, but of the higher functions named Intelligence, Emotion, and Will. The probability attaching to the general hypothesis is such as to claim a full examination of its bearings on mind. The facts that constitute the proof of mental evolution fall under two heads: first, the strong resemblance between Instincts and Acquisitions; second, the actual transmission of mental peculiarities known to be acquired. Under the first head, we may establish a considerable presumption on behalf of Evolution; on the second head, the evidence is not what could be w ished. 3. First. Without quoting in detail the various instincts, 48 EVOLUTION, AS APPLIED TO MIND. animal and human, we can easily render apparent their great similarity to the powers acquired as habits. The old definition of Instinct, as seen for example in Dugald Stewart, describes it as the performance of actions useful to the animal; which useful aptitudes are strengthened by experience and education. The child begins to suck by instinct; we carry food to the mouth and masticate by habit or acquirement. Maternal care is instinct continued into education; and the two are perfectly homogeneous. The difficulty, occurring in various parts of the mind, to say where instinct ends and acquisition begins, is a strong indication of the similarity of the two. Many of our instinctive powers need practice to make them perfect. Locomotion, even in the animals best endowed with it, is crude and incoherent until after a few trials. The suiting of the movements to visible distance is, in some animals, highly advanced at birth: yet still, there must be a certain amount of trial and error before confidence is attained; and we cannot exactly say how much is due to the primitive provision, and how much to the experience. In like manner, the dispute regarding certain aptitudes, as to whether they are instinctive or acquired, seems to show that they may be viewed as either. Imitation, the Perception of Distance, Knowledge of Space, Cause and Effect, the Moral Sentiment,-are accounted, by some instinctive, by others acquired; while a third party would regard them as both. It is only after viewing all the various human instincts in the light of inherited peculiarities,-that we can feel the whole weight of this argument from resemblance. If the employment of tile hypothesis of evolution in any way adds to our understanding of the facts of instinct, it is sufficiently justified as a provisional assumption, and is rendered in some degree probable as the real explanation. 4. Second. The other department of evidence comprises the facts showing the transmission of mental peculiarities that are in tile first instance acquired. Should any unambiguous facts of this nature be producible, Evolution is shown to be a HEREDITARY TRANSMISSION OF ACQUIRED POWERS. 49 real caue. Since, however, by the very supposition, the process is exceedingly slow, the absence of such facts would not disprove the doctrine. Still, it is this alone that can, at one stroke, raise the doctrine to the rank of an established principle; leaving open merely the extent of its workings. In a chapter entitled 'Heredity', in Mr. Herbert Spencer's remarkable and original work on Biology, certain facts are brought forward as showing the hereditary transmission of acquired mental powers and peculiarities. For example, Mr. Spencer regards the musical faculty as a product of development, increasing in the course of centuries of exercise. The facts that he more particularly dwells upon are that certain great musicians, as Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, were descended of fathers of great musical capacity, although inferior to their own. Such cases, however, are not sufficiently numerous for a valid induction; and besides, they prove a great deal too much. In a few instances of men of genius, there may be found something in the parents already approaching to genius; but, I am persuaded, that in a very large number, there is nothing of the kind. Equally remarkable is the circumstance that great genius can rarely sustain itself even in the next generation. Still more to the point is the remark that if it were possible, by inherited acquirements, to rise from the merely good to the extraordinary, development would not be the slow process that we must admit it to be. 5. A distinction must be drawn between the transmitting of intellectual acquisitions and the occurrence of a gifted individual through the accidents that confer physical superiority. Among the children of the same pair, some are usually better constituted than others; and the chances are even in favour of those born earliest, when the parents are least advanced in mind. The superiority may attach to any organ,-stomach, chest, muscle, brain; and may be open and visible. Generally speaking, the eldest children of large families are among the most vigorous human beings; according to Dr. Mathews Duncan's conclusions from statistics, the chances of greatest 4 50 EVOLUTION, AS APPLIED TO MIND. vigour are with the second child of a mother marrying about twenty-two. Now any one born with more than ordinary force of constitution, and with that force in the brain or supporting brain work, would show a more developed mind, in some direction or other. In order to great mental power, we need not suppose a transmitted stock of acquisitions; equally to the purpose is a superior aptitude for acquiring in the course of the individual life. The susceptibility to nice gradations of musical tone may be an accidental superiority of some part of the brain, consequent on favourable conditions of breed. A larger brain contains more nervous elements, and along with increased number of elements, there would probably be increased power of mind. A curious remark made by Dr. Win. Ogle, in a recent paper on Right-handedness, illustrates the connexion of mental superiority with very simple physical conditions. After proving that, as a general rule, the left hemisphere of the brain is the larger, he seeks an explanation of this fact in the anatomical arrangement whereby the great artery of the left hemisphere becomes larger, and consequently carries more blood to its own hemisphere. Thus an improvement in the nutrition of the brain leads by a direct consequence to an increase of size. Now, by such an increase, however promoted, more might be done at one leap for the talents or virtues of the individual, than by the accumulated acquisitions6of two thousand years. If an accidentally large brain were to transmit itself, it would raise and sustain the mental quality of the progeny, without supposing ideas and habits or impressions to be transmitted. We may freely grant that the brain is enlarged by intellectual exercise, and that the enlargement so caused may be inherited: a family or caste devoted to intellectual pursuits might contract increased brains; so that the child might more easily fall in with the prevailing bent than children taken from a different class of the same community. But this is not the only or the most manifest origin of large brains. If we could suppose a selection made of the best brain in a family, and a breed taken from that, with a further selection to breed from again, we DOMESTICATION OF ANIMALS. 51 should far outstrip in rapidity any conceivable development arising by sustained mental exercise. 6. What are the patent facts as to the evolution of the highest races? Of the Greeks and Romans all we know is that in two or three centuries they made a start in civilization greater than had been made for thousands of years. What is still more remarkable, the Teutonic and Celtic races that came into contact with them, were in a very low state of intelligence; but they at once and with ease imbibed the Greek and Roman ideas. Their brains were equal to a high class culture, although all their previous ideas were poor and grovelling. The Saxons embraced Christianity as soon as presented. Where did they get their preparation of mind? Men of genius in all countries spring indiscriminately from every order of the community; with us, Shakespeare and Cromwell, Burns and Scott, rose at one bound from the humblest mediocrity; and their genius was uninherited. 7. The nearest approach to a proof of development is found in the domestication of animals. Whatever instincts can be shown to be the exclusive property of the domesticated breeds must come by inheritance. Even in their case we have to distinguish between general power, as blank aptitude, and specific associations. A more delicate sense does not prove development; there is wanted besides some definite action that grows up in a particular situation, before there has been experience to contract the ability. The attitude of the pointer is a true instinct; if we could prove that this came by training animals that could not point, and whose remote offspring exhibit the peculiarity without any training, we should establish a case of development. Darwin and others have adduced facts that appear to shew the inheritance of acquired or educated peculiarities.* Few * See P.ibot's work, 'L' IH6eredit6' (p. 24) for a collection of all the known facts. M. Ribot includes a discussion of the hypothesis of Evolution, under the much larger question of the hereditary transmission of bodily and mental qualities, without reference to their primary origin. On this subject, his handling is very full. 52 EVOLUTION, AS APPLIED TO MIND. of them, however, if any, are decisive to the degree that we should wish for such an enormous issue. It appears to be well established that diseases contracted by animal or human beings are transmitted. This only proves, what was recognized before evolutiori was thought of, that a diseased parent (whatever may be the origin of the disease) makes an unhealthy progeny. Another class of facts point to the inheritance of fear or timidity, as when a race of birds become wild after being much pursued. Here we are not always able to eliminate the influence of the imitation of the old by the young. Moreover, timidity is a very vague tendency, unless it can be shown to be discriminating and selective, in which case it is an important intellectual attainment. The least exceptionable class of facts are those indicating the acquirements of the peculiar aptitudes of dogs used in the chase, sheep dogs, and the like; inasmuch as the young can be exý perimentally insulated from the old, and their natural tendencies made manifest beyond mistake. Now cases are adduced where the commencement of the education is said to be known, and where that education has been transformed into instinct. But such allegations are exposed to another source of difficulty; they prove too much. When it is said that three or four generations will suffice to convert an acquirement into an instinct, the rapidity of the process is contrary to experience. Were it possible to go on at this rate, evolution would be susceptible of ocular demonstration everywhere. In the dog, according to Mr. Spencer, consciousness of possession rises to a considerable height, as shown when he secretes a portion of his food; while in guarding his master's property he combines the sense of possession with sympathy. Now the argument is that, as much of all this has been acquired since the dog became the companion of man, there must have evolved a hereditary bias. Probably so; but the instance is not free from ambiguity and uncertainty. We have not good evidence of what the dog was when he began to be domesti CONDITIONS OF INHERITANCE OF MENTAL QUALITIES. 53 cated; we do not know how far his brain may have improved in vague. aptitude; we do not find all dogs equal to the function of guarding property; we cannot say exactly how far the dog's early education goes. 8. Notwithstanding the deficiency of unambiguous cases of of mental development, I am not deterred from entertaining the doctrine as both probable in itself and as facilitating our study of the mental constitution. Let us then state what must be the conditions of the process, and see whether, and how far, these are complied with by our various supposed instincts. Evidently, the inheritance of an acquired mental power is an exceptional and rare operation. Our acquisitions to all appearance die with us; our children have to commence de novo, just as if we had learned nothing at all. The son of a great philologist does not inherit a single vocable; the son of a great traveller may be surpassed, at school, in his geography, by the son of a coal-miner. Any superiority that the children of the erudite may possess is sufficiently explained by their inheriting a more capacious brain; in which they are always liable to be surpassed by a chance birth among the ranks of the uneducated. 9. Nevertheless, I assume, that, however slow and difficult, inheritance of acquisitions is still possible. Under what circumstances then, are we most likely to see it? The answer is, in mental functions (1) that are comparatively simple; (2) that are incessantly iterated; (3) that are intensely interesting. The palpable experience of mankind shows that complex acquisitions are not inherited; and to the circumstance of complexity we should add intermission of exercise. But now, if there were any function of narrow compass, frequently or continuously exerted, and, moreover, very beneficial to the animal, such a function would take a very strong hold of the nervous system of the individual in the first instance; and, in virtue of the acquired strength of nervous connections, these might in some degree persist in the germ, and so communicate EVOLUTION, AS APPLIED TO MIND. an initial bent to the progeny; which bent, in the course of generations, might be confirmed with a hereditary quality. 10. To take examples. Our so-called Reflex actionsswallowing, breathing, sucking, and the like have, on the Evolution-theory, descended to us from our progenitors in the animal series. These are all comparatively simple; their iteration is great; their utility is of the strongest kind. Such are the circumstances most favourable to the fixing of an acquisition in the individual's life time; and such are the conditions that would bring about the fixity needed for hereditary transmission. The more complicated rhythmical actions, as Locomotion, might well contract an hereditary bent, considering their comparative simplicity, their iteration, and the value attaching to them. The wonder is that in human beings, locomotion is not still more decisively an instinct. Consider the frequency of the alternation of the lower limbs in an average life. A man can easily be supposed to walk twelve miles a day for forty years. Each day would represent about ten thousand paces, which would have to be multiplied twelve thousand times, giving upwards of a hundred millions of paces. Yet with all this iteration, the child takes weeks from the time that it puts its feet to the ground, to attain the power of walking. The difficulty does not lie in alternating the limbs; the struggle seems to consist in balancing the body; and evolution appears to be doing nothing to make this easier. 11. Let us next adduce an example from the Intellect. The Space-relations of the object or extended world offer a case highly favourable to transmission on two out of the three grounds-iteration, and interest: as compared with reflex and rhythmical actions they are not simple; they are indeed considerably complicated, although among the simplest of our many intellectual acquisitions. The largest part of our working life is spent in adjusting ourselves to the distances, magnitudes, and positions of outward things; the only remission being our subject regards, that is, the occupation of the EVOLUTION IN SPACE-RELATIONS. 55 mind with its feelings and inward workings. Moreover, excepting a few occasional illusions, which we learn to allow for, there is an unbroken consistency in our experience of magnitudes: forward motion uniformly increases the apparent magnitudes of visible things; the sum of two sides of a triangle is invariably greater than the third side; two rods proved separately to coincide in length with a third, are proved to coincide when applied to each other. The perception of distance from the eye has been made a distinct subject of discussion since the time of 'Berkeley; and it admits of being separately handled; yet it is but a part of the larger question relating to Space or Extension. Now without entering upon the facts adduced to shew that human beings have some instinctive pre-conception of the various relations of extended magnitude, every one must admit that iteration is here at the maximum. The connections between our movements and the visible changes of things around us are formed every time we change our place or posture in the daylight. Comparisons of visible magnitudes are incessantly going on in our presence. The experiments made in a lifetime must count by millions. 12. If the notions involved in Space are, of all important mental products, the most favourably situated for being bequeathed from one generation to another, the Moral Sentiment is about the least favourably situated for transmission by inheritance. This follows from considering how stand the three conditions in regard to the sense of Eight and Wrong. In the first place, as regards Iteration, we are geometers always, we are moralists at long intervals; it is only in our exclusively subjective moods (less than half our time) that we are disengaged from space relations, while we may often be hours and days without any marked moral lesson. Next, as regards comparative Simplicity. Although the notion of space is a vast complexity by the side of the inferior instincts-locomotion, and the like-it is simplicity itself as compared with the ideas of right and wrong. Whatever we may regard as the central fact of the moral sentiment, yet in 56 EVOLUTION, AS APPLIED TO MIND. its working, it supposes a complicated situation between human beings, apart from whom, it has neither substance nor form, being wholly destitute of meaning. The outlines of space in three dimensions, the simple relations of distance and magnitude, may possibly be so imprinted on our nervousý framework as to descend from father to son; while, nevertheless, a code of duties adjusted to the simplest relationships may not become hereditary. The important circumstance of constancy of presentation is all in favour of space and against the transmission of a moral sentiment. There are, indeed, certain common aspects in moral action quite enough to give duty a character apart; but these common aspects are so varied in their accompanying circumstances as to be often hidden and obscured; the consequence being that the iteration does not produce its proper effect of deepening the impression. The third leading condition bearing on hereditary transmission is the degree of Interest belonging to the case. On this head, the moral impressions are not wanting; yet something is to be said on the other side. We do not readily acquire what we dislike; now mankind, being naturally indisposed to moral self-denial, are on that account slow in learning good moral habits, and are not generally in an advanced state even at the last. How then should this reluctant training succeed in impressing itself upon the children (who must be begotten before the maturity of the parents' moral sense), when so many more interesting subjects fail to leave traces that can be communicated? 13. These antecedent improbabilities of the inheritance of ideas of moral right and wrong are in harmony with the fact (as I regard it) that there are no Moral Instincts properly so called. Looking at the early impressions connected with the outer world, I allow that they possess a degree of precocity that experience or education can hardly account for; looking at the early moral impressions, I do not feel the same difficulty. Having elsewhere argued this point at full (' Mental and Moral Science', p. 448), I do not here repeat the discus THE MORAL SENTIMENT. 57 sion, but confine myself to the part of the case bearing upon the theory of Evolution. In declaring against the intuitive character of the sentiment, I freely avow that certain powers belonging to us at birth are ifidispensable to the growth of our moral feelings; which powers, one or all, may have been developed through the cumulative experience of past generations. Into the moral sentiment there enter, first and most conspicuously, the ordinary action of the Will, prompting us to avoid pain and court pleasure; secondly, the power of Sympathy, or disinterested impulses; and lastly, the operation of our leading emotions, as Fear, Love, Anger, and others. All these are primitive or inborn powers of the mind, and as such are open to be accounted for by the hypothesis of development. The finishing stroke, in my view, is due to education under AuthoTrity; which constitutes the moral sentiment a distinct and peculiar phenomenon, different from all the other exercises of Will, Sympathy, and Emotion, or any compounds of these. Moreover, the growth and the working of the moral sentiment largely depend upon intellectual processes unnecessary to specify. The standing obstacle to the performance of duty is individual Selfishness; this is aggravated by the intellectual defect called short-sightedness, for very frequently a far-seeing self-regard would retain us in the path of right. Now the direct counteractive of selfishness is Sympathy; a power very variously manifested in individuals, and in races; being deficient in the lowest tribes of mankind, and increasing with mental endowment generally. Advancement in morality follows advancement in sympathy; no other factor is essential; although increased intelligence or knowledge is an extremely valuable adjunct. To this remarkable manifestation of the mind called Sympathy, Disinterestedness, Vicarious or Altruistic impulse, we must devote our attention in accounting for the higher forms of moral sentiment. If we are to treat morality as a development by the accumulated experiences and education 58 EVOLUTION, AS APPLIED TO MIND. of mankind, the power that has been so developed is Sympathy. I am quite prepared to regard this power as a likely case for development; and to that extent at least, I can agree with Mr. Spencer in supposing that the moral sentiment may have improved through the inherited experiences of mankind. Among the least questionable of all our inborn propensities, is that large mass of sentiment, involving also ideas, connected with Sociability; and here we may expect to find the roots, and even the chief branches, of sympathy. THE INHERITANCE OF EMOTION. 14. The inheritance of Emotions is a case, on the great scale, of associated feelings. We have all, in mature life, a number of associations of pleasure and of pain with objects in themselves indifferent; with our homes and haunts and pursuits and studies, with historic sites, and with the relics of great events. These are all contracted during our own individual life; and the conditions and circumstances that further them can be fully assigned. Inheritance is not taken into account in those instances. For inherited emotions the believers in evolution point us to those permanent and uniform surroundings that are in the first instance attended with strong feelings, and that by repetition at last affect the nervous structure so deeply as to descend from parent to offspring. What are these surroundings and relationships? Plainly, there are two great departments-External Nature, including the permanent scenic aspects of the outer world, and Living Beings, meaning, in the first instance, our own kindred, and next the inferior animals. Notwithstanding the variety of the outer world, there are certain aspects common to all countries and climes. The sky above, and the green earth with its woods and waters, furnish a constant, if somewhat complex, impression to all animals with the power of vision. The abstract space-relations are embodied in a definite concrete expanse, whose features of uniformity stand out clear and definite in the midst or great IMPRESSIONS OF THE OUTER WORLD. 59 diversity. As all terrestrial beings accomplish their career in the presence of this constant exterior, it becomes intensely associated with their feelings, and if any traces of the visible world are hereditary, some faint tremors of associated feeling may accompany them. In accounting for the emotion of a landscape, Mr. Spencer refers to the vague emotional combinations organized in the race during barbarous times, when men's pleasurable activities were chiefly among the woods and waters. This is perhaps to allow too much for the pleasurable side of human experience in those times; inherited emotion connected with nature cannot be all to the account of pleasure. Yet, whatever be the emotional tone that is awakened, there is no reason why it should be limited to select parts of nature: hunters have to do with woods, and fishers with waters; but every one is impressed with the sky above, the course of the day and night, and the terrestrial surface in those features that are constant wherever man and animals can live. 15. Living Beings like ourselves are a part of the surrounding scene, yet they have to be singled out and contrasted with the earth and its verdure, as possessing a more intense attraction for us. Among our best attested instincts are the conduct and feelings that mark Sociability. Each animal has its susceptibilities aroused by the presence of its own kind, and and by other kinds related to it as prey. The human infant is affected by the expression of the human face before it can have any experience to show the difference in meaning of a smile and a frown.* This involves the hereditary persistence of the image of the human form, a still more specialized embodiment of space-relations. We cannot have the emotion without the characteristic human figure, which is a very complicated picture, proving, a fortissinmo, that space-relations must be impressed on the mind at birth. If we have not here a simple product, we have a case involving enormous iteration A Mr Darwin states, from his observations, that an infant at six months old is sympathetically affected by seeing the expression of the face in grief. 60 EVOLUTION, AS APPLIED TO MIND. and intense interest; and the hereditary transmission is to that extent a probable fact. A hereditary interest in the inanimate world may be assumed as a part of the transmitted emotions of mankind. It is too vague to be established by proof, the more so, that by far the largest part of the feeling awakened by landscape effects is due to the outgoings of personality. There is no reason why the race should not transmit associations with the great world its home; yet the only approach to certainty is in reference to the feelings for our own kind. It will be found, I think, that all the emotions that are decisively instinctive are emotions of personality: such undoubtedly are Love and Anger; and, in all probability, Fear also. Thus, the understanding of the situation that develops the social instincts paves the way for the evolution of the Emotions generally. In this view, I shall recur to it presently. 16. Let us next ask, what are the feelings that are not apparently formed or augmented by inheritance, and how are we able to affirm that any are exempted from the operation of the hereditary principle? The assumption that any feelings, provided they are iterated and strong, are entirely exempted, would seem to be precarious and unwarrantable. Yet we must have some primordial susceptibility, something growing out of the mechanism of the system, otherwise we are without a basis for hereditary cumulation. The Organic Sensations, which include the strong sensual appetites, are, we may suppose, in themselves unaffected by transmission. The states of Hunger and Repletion, the Sexual gratification, the Feelings of Physical Comfort and Discomfort, are appended to certain nervous and other organs, and although these organs may have been developed by physical tendencies, we do not attribute any part of the intensity to the ancestral recollections of the feelings themselves. We may say thus much, upon no other evidence than the conditions of mental evolution, namely, that before a feeling can be transmitted to posterity in the weakest echo, it must UNEVOLVED SENSIBILITIES. 61 be a first-class sensibility to commence with. The strong sensual appetites are what we need in order to account for emotional transmission. The Parental instinct is put by Mr. Spencer upon the same footing as the bodily appetites. It began we know not how; the supposition that it was a chance variation, preserved by its fitness in the struggle of life, is as likely as any other. It is not, however, exactly the pleasure of giving birth to progeny; that act is not in any case pleasurable, so far as we are able to judge, while it is in many cases the contrary. The pleasure begins with the embrace of the young by the mother; a very great charm in the higher class of animals. There are elements of pleasurable sensibility in general, as the soft warm touch; but. it seems to pass beyond these, and to contain a special thrill of delight that we cannot localize or express in terms of any known sensibility. Probably in no species has the male parent the same degree of pleasure. In the human race, the father takes a very high interest in the child, although inferior to the mother's interest; which would appear to show that the female organization is necessary for the fullest degree of the feeling. There is no proof that heredity adds to the force of this instinct. All that could be contended for is, that by inheritance we connect the feeling with its collateral signs and appearances-the diminutive size, weakness, and other peculiarities of the newly born animal. The effect might be to develop an interest in the little and the weak members of the species, as well as in the sensuous peculiarities of the infantile presence. 17. In all the five senses, there must be primordial and unborrowed sensibilities, intrinsic pleasures and pains, which are worked up into emotions. In Sound, for example, there would appear to be inborn and original feelings, pleasurable and painful. The sweetness of a simple musical note, the pain of a shrill, loud, or discordant cry, are connected with the intrinsic quality of the nervous substance. According to Mr. Sully, the pleasure of concord is a primary fact. Evolution is 62 EVOLUTION, AS APPLIED TO MIND. not called for in these instances. The repugnance of a dog's ear to a hurdy-gurdy, or of the human ear to the sharpening of a saw, is unconnected with foregone hereditary experience. So in Sight, there must be intrinsic pleasures of Light and Shade, of Colours and their contrasts, of Sparkle and Lustre. To draw the line between these and the acquired or associated pleasures, is not altogether impracticable, as will be seen in connection with the special emotions. The three lower Senses-Touch, Smell, Taste-have in like manner primordial sensibilities, the greater number of which are obvious and self-evident; while' in the instincts of animals there are sensations whose power may be looked upon as borrowed or derived. The characteristic odour of an animal's own kindred, or of its special enemies or prey, is likely to be acquired and hereditary. 18. According as a feeling varies with bodily conditions, we must pronounce it to be dependent on the organism apart from transmission. For although even associated pleasures and pains require a certain state of the nerves in order to manifest their proper character, yet they are far less dependent on the varying conditions of the body generally, than are the organic sensibilities and the pleasures and pains of the lower senses. If we take a good conscience, love, vanity, remorse, and compare these with relish, muscular exercise, sexual excitement,-we shall at once recognize the comparative independence of the one class, and the variability of the other. It has been a prevalent mistake to place some of the higher feelings beyond the reach of all physical conditions; yet the mistake shows that some feelings are distinguished above others by yielding less to the fluctuations of the bodily organs. 19. Transmitted feeling possesses the ideal character. In our life-experience, we draw a distinction between actual pleasures and ideal pleasures; between such feelings as genial warmth and refreshing coolness, real or present, and the suggestion of these by a painting or by a verbal description. The points of difference are easy to specify. One is inferior intensity. Another is association with the more intellectual THE GREGARIOUS SITUATION. 63 of the senses, as sight and hearing. (See IDEAL EMOTION.) This last is the vital consideration. Without intellectual images clearly recollected, we do not remember feelings; the reproduction of feeling is an intellectual fact, and the groundwork is intellectual imagery. The ever-recurring difficulty of instinct and hereditary transmission is the extent and complication of the ideas that must descend with the transmitted emotions. INHERITANCE OF SOCIAL RELATIONS. 20. A general view of what we may suppose to be possible in the evolution of social relationships will be a suitable introduction to the Emotions in detail. The situation is well resolved by Mr. Spencer ('Psychology' II. 558) into the attractions of the Gregarious life. These are not the same for all animals. The solitary position suits the large carnivora whose prey is widely distributed. The gregarious mode of life answers best with herbivora, who may find food without being dispersed, and who experience the advantages of protection in being together. Supposing a commencement of the habit of living in company, there will be a tendency to retain and perpetuate it. Survival of the fittest may come in aid of the primary tendency. 'The perception of kindred beings, perpetually seen, heard, and smelt, will come to form a predominant part of consciousness-so predominant a part that the absence of it will inevitably cause discomfort' (Spencer, p. 561). The mind of each animal of the flock will be indelibly impressed with visible images of its fellows, with their characteristic motives, gestures, sounds; all which render each an object of interest to the others. Next to grass, the proper study of a sheep is sheep. Having their pleasures in common, they look upon one another with pleasure; having their pains in common, they might contract mutual associations of pain, were it not that relief comes through mutual aid. The impression of personality thus intensely cultivated may pass into a hereditary stamp, if any imagery so complicated can take such a deep 64 EVOLUTION, AS APPLIED TO MIND. hold of the intellectual framework. The gregarious situation, if allowed full scope, would bring about a complete identity of the individual with the flock; there would never be a thought of acting alone or apart from the body. The social principle would be triumphant over all egotisms. 21. So far we consider only the effect of living together in the herd. We must next add the Sexual appetite, with its inordinate concentration of regard upon select individuals. This greatly intensifies the mutual impressiveness of the individual members, and the associations of interest and pleasure in one another; although doubtless also generating rivalries and hostility. When the sexual feeling advances beyond the mere momentary indulgence to a continuing interest between two individuals, it becomes so much the more socializing; rendering each member of the couple less disposed to think of self alone. 22. Following Mr. Spencer, we take farther into account the Parental feeling, in its origin less explicable than the sexual feeling, but even more potent as a socializer. Most universal and most powerful is the motherly instinct; the offspring do not in all cases rejoice in a father's love. The intensity of the mother's feelings shows by an extreme case the workings of a strong attachment; the mind intensely possessed with the image of the brood, and the adoption of its interests without qualification or reserve. To pass through such a fiery excitement is to become more and more engrossed with the common personality of the entire flock. Were there no occasions of rivalry, did not offences come, the regard of each to every other might, under these conjoined influences, be altogether overwhelming; the social system would be unmitigated communism. 23. The gratification of REVENGE, if illustrated by the hypothesis of Evolution, carries us back to the predatory side of animal life. The struggle for existence involves at once peaceful co-operation and warlike antagonism; and if the one fact is the sufficing fountain of the pleasures of love, the other MALEVOLENT SENTIMENT. 65 may be accounted the remote source of the pleasures of hatred and revenge. There is, however, one important difference. We saw in the first embrace an independent gratification concurring to intensify the delights of co-operation; being perhaps the largest factor in the result. There is nothing exactly corresponding in the other case; on the contrary, the necessary loss of this solace must be a drawback to the satisfaction of revenge. It may be said that great as are the advantages of gregarious co-operation, still more immediate and apparent are the advantages of successful destruction. One half of the animal race live upon prey; and as it is delightful to eat so it must be delightful to kill. Pleasurable also must be all the signs of discomfiture, the helpless struggles and agonized gestures of the victim. Moreover, if a now victorious animal has itself previously passed through the state of deadly fear, the reaction from this state would heighten the exultation of the moment of victory.. 24. -Granting the evolution hypothesis, we can easily suppose the hereditary transmission of the predatory habits and of the satisfaction accruing from all that has to do with killing both prey and rivals. We are still, however, some way from the essential pleasure of malevolence. We have plenty of the reality of malevolent infliction without the sentiment. In fact, the full-grown sentiment does not appear necessary to the end in view. All that is needed is the impetus to seize and devour a sufficient number of animals to gratify appetite; to take pleasure in the prospect and in all the circumstances and signs of the effect; and finally, to destroy or weaken rivals and whoever stands in the way of the animal's gratifications. The added pleasure of torturing another animal is not called for by the situation; and the feeling at work is not so much being injured, as being thwarted. The disposition to kill and destroy is ample of itself without the education of delighting in those signs of pain as pain, which only the higher classes of animals can readily interpret. What we delight in as indicative of agony and distress, 5 66 EVOLUTION, AS APPLIED TO MIND. can be viewed by the less endowed minds chiefly as indicative of the loss of power to resist. 25. Sympathy and Antipathy come on the stage together. They both suppose the ability of representing the pleasures and pains belonging to other minds; they assume actions governed by the fact of inducing pleasure or pain in some one apart from self. From the one springs a motive to bestow pleasure, from the other a motive to inflict pain; and there is a satisfaction in both cases. It seems wonderful that in the same mind both should lie down together; but the contradiction is resolved by the difference of circumstances; the pleasure of giving pain follows from pain received. The predatory impulse, therefore, does not involve the pleasure of knowingly causing pain; but probably prepares the way for that refinement, at the proper stage. It is remarked by Mr. Spencer that it was necessary for the progress of the race that destructive activity should not be painful, but on the whole pleasurable. In point of fact, however, the pleasure of destruction has gone much beyond what these words express, and much beyond what is advantageous to the collective interests of animals and of human beings alike. The positive delight in suffering has been at all stages too great. It would appear rather that Revenge, like Fear, is a weakness and not a merit of the animal system. In small amounts, and under vigorous control, both feelings are helps to our security. Yet both easily run to excess; they are the unhinging and disorganizing passions; they interfere fatally with the steadiness and balance of our judgment; they are hostile alike to our own interest and to the interests of others. Weak natures are prone to both. Mr. Spencer regards the callousness to suffering as a kind of culture, like the discipline of endurance; comparing it to the thickening of the skin under friction. For my own part, I doubt whether the hardening process was ever called for. Indifference tor giving pain seems the primary situtation, the early or initial stage; while the repugnance to inflict suffering IMPRESSIONS OF PERSONALITY. 67 is the late, tardy, slow, and backward growth. Moreover, indifference, pure and simple, would have been quite enough for all practical ends; the positive delight and fascination in suffering is the superfluous and diabolical side, the depraved humour, which has entitled even humanity to so many reproachful designations. 26. As we are here concerned to account for the hereditary impressions of personality in the members of a species, the basis of all social instinct, we may note that the hostile attitude, while it abates the workings of love and sympathy, contributes no less effectually to stamp the common image of the species on the mind of each individual, so as to bring it at last to the point of hereditary persistence. Thus it is that if the transmitting of imagery so various as the figure, gestures, and movements of one of the higher tribes of animals, is a severe trial to the powers of the nervous organization, the favouring conditions are at the very utmost stretch. To retain the hereditary impress of sun, moon, and stars, day and night, the fall of bodies, the green fields and the glistening brook,-might involve no greater cost of nervous embodiment and trouble to abridge in the microscopic germ that carries on the likeness of the parent to the offspring; but the iteration and the influences that strike home the impression are vastly inferior. 27. If I could be satisfied that the strong feelings connected with Property and with Liberty are in any degree instinctive, I should have to view them also as products of evolution. I am not, however, prepared to affirm that the regard to poasessions and the desire for freedom of movements, may not grow out of the early and continuous sense of the value of these in promoting our immediate gratifications, and in warding off pressing discomforts. The most exaggerated and irrational forms of avarice might grow up under causes operating during life. Still more confidently might one affirm that the love o0 liberty might be altogether due to the sense 68 EVOLUTION, AS APPLIED TO MIND. of its advantages. In many races and individuals, both sentiments are too little developed; there being no apparent deficiency of time for the evolution to have taken -place; While a very small change in education or in outward circumstances will suffice to bring both into an average prominence. CHAPTER III. THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION. 1. FEELINGS are divided into Sensations (including Muscular Feelings) and Emotions. Sensations, as such, are primary and simple; Emotions, as such, are secondary and compound. The pleasure of a fragrant odour, in so far as mere sensation, is a primitive or elementary fact; it is believed to be a direct and immediate consequence of the physical stimulation: the pleasure of a fine statue is a derived and compound effect; in its formation, there intervened a process of education or acquirement. The modes of derivation or composition of the Emotions are various; but the leading circumstance is contiguous growth or the associating process. Association operates in uniting together a number of separate feelings into one aggregate or whole; which is then connected with a special object, as in sexual Love. It also operates largely in the transfer of feelings from their original cause to some connected object, as in the Beauty of Usefulness, and in the sentiment of Truth. In most of the complicated emotions, both operations concur; the feeling of Property is both an aggregate and a transference. Another source of emotion is the concurrence of different sensations, when these are of a kind either to harmonize or to discord; out of the one case arises a pleasing, and out of the other a painful feeling, which is considered to be not a sensation, but an emotion. The sweetness of a sound is a sensation; the pleasures of musical composition are accounted emotions. Surprise and Wonder are due to the clash of opposing states; the intrusion of something extraordinary or unfamiliar, through which is incurred a shock that may be considered as something beyond mere sensation. 70 THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION. The theory and explanation of the Emotions must, therefore, consist in an account of the principles that regulate the aggregation and transfer of the primary sensibilities or sensations, which are the laws of Association applied to the Feelings. As regards the other source, the harmony, collision or conflict of feelings, the principles involved are partly the great law of Harmony and Discord, and partly the law of Relativity. 2. Physical Side of Emotion, as suchz. Emotion has, proximately, a central origin; while Sensation has a superficial or peripheral origin. Although many of our emotional outbursts are due to the stimulus of sensation; as when we are raised to the feeling of sublimity by the spectacle of the stars; yet the sensational stimulus is not essential, and its emotional effect depends upon a series of mental transformations, so that the emotional character is imparted by internal workings, which we can only hypothetically divine. Hence, while in sensation, the known physical side includes both Origin and Diffusion; in emotion, the physical side is confined to Diffusion. Every strong emotion, however, has a well marked and characteristic diffusion or embodiment; and the description is unsatisfactory and incomplete if it leaves out this outward display. 3. Mental peculiarities of Emotion, as such. The Emotions, as such, have certain mental peculiarities in contrast to the Sensations, all which peculiarities result from the description of them already given. In the first place, they rise more slowly, attain to a greater volume, and subside more gradually, than Sensations. Instead of manifesting themselves at once on an external stimulus, they wait a series of internal movements and transitions, which occupy more time and take a greater sweep in the circles of the brain. As remarked by Mr. Spencer (' Psychology', vol. I., p. 123), the general effects of an emotion, as distinguished from local effects, are greater and more conspicuous than the general effects of a sensation. In the next place, they are more dependent than sensations are, upon the general condition of the mind at the time, on the dispositions and prevailing bent of the mental powers. PRINCIPLE OF ARRANGEMENT. 71 We can resist an emotion more easily than we can resist the influence of a passion; it is easier to suppress love or hatred, than a sweet or bitter taste. Again, it is remarked by Mr. Spencer, that the difference between the actual and the ideal is less strongly marked in the emotions than in the sensations. There is in every emotion a large portion of the ideal, or of resuscitated feeling; a sensation is what alone represents full and proper actuality. For the same general reason, it is of the nature of emotion to be voluminous rather than acute. Acute pleasures or pains are mostly sensations. Hence emotions are less exhausting and more sustainable than sensations. The emotions are more near in character to the higher or intellectual senses than to the lower; they are in the widest contrast to sensations of Organic Life, Tastes and Odours; yet they resemble voluminous or massive sensation in all the senses. Hence they are less open to strict quantitative estimate than any other mental elements whatever; a circumstance unfavourable to their exact or scientific treatment, and to the practical appreciation of their value in human life.* 4 In reviewing the Emotions, with a view to classification, we encounter at once certain well-marked genera, apparently of an ultimate or elementary character; the chief of which are Love, Anger, and Fear. We find also designations for masses of powerful sentiment, which may not be elementary, although often supposed to be so; the most notable instances being Beauty and the Moral Sentiment. While these leading examples are expressed by many different names, and qualified by epithets, so as to branch out into numerous species, there are many designations of emotional states that would seem to point out other genera or * Mr Shadworth H. Hodgson remarks that the Emotions are to be regarded as a new kind or mode of feeling, depending upon the constitution and operation of nervous matter. Hence he objects to the theories (of Hobbes and others) that seem to regard them as mere sensational compounds. ('Theory of Practice,' vol. I., p. 108.) 72 THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION. classes of emotions. For example, the sentiment of Property is a first-class emotion, seemingly distinct from any of those named. Again, Pride is a very powerful feeling of the emotional kind, and not obviously a species of some more general mode of feeling. So, the pleasure of Power, or Domination, and the co-relative Pain of Subjection to power, are highly influential motives in the human mind. Once more, there are pleasures connected with the possession of Knowledge that have often been the theme of enthusiastic laudation. If we could declare with assurance, that certain of these emotions are simple, ultimate, or irresolvable, and that the others are derived from them, the obvious plan of classification would be to take the simple first, and the compound next. Of the simple, there might not be any one fixed order; it might be equally defensible to adopt the order, say, Love, Anger, Fear; Anger, Fear, Love; or Fear, Love, Anger. Unless one of the supposed simple genera required some of the others to be given as a preparation for itself, we could not assign a reason for preferring absolutely any one order. The only arrangement that would be imperative would be to give the simple emotions before the compound. As to the arrangement of the compounds themselves: whether Beauty should precede or follow the Moral Sentiment, might be as incapable of being decisively settled. 5. It is interesting to ask, at the outset, whether there be any emotions derived solely from the pleasures and pains of the Senses, by associations with a greater or smaller number of these. One answer readily occurs. There are certain things that comprehend or sum up a great many sources of pleasure, and a great many exemptions from pain; for example, Property. A feeling, sentiment, or emotion for this complex object might be engendered through associations with sense pleasures, and the relief from sense pains. And if so, the emotion of Property might find a place very early in the classification, s apparently assuming only the operation of the senses and the intellectual associations. 6. A second question is now to be.asked:-Are there in THE SIMPLE PRECEDE THE COMPOUND. 73 the human mind any sources of Emotion that are wholly distinct from the Senses, whether with or without the co-operation of the Intellectual Powers? The answer may not be quite easy; for there may be products of sensation so subtly compounded, that the constituent elements are scarcely discernible. Let us, however, make a guess; and one would say that the two emotions-Love and Anger-are not obviously derived from Sensations, as is the case with Property. In them we seem to have original fountains of sentiment or feeling. Possibly also, the same may be said of the emotion of Fear. On the other hand, the delights of Power and of Knowledge are less probably primordial; for it is quite clear that both the situation of Power, and the situation of possessing Knowledge, are, like Property, extremely advantageous for gaining sense pleasures, and for warding off sense pains. Whether this last effect represents the entire value of these two emotions is a matter for discussion. We know, regarding Love, that it has a value apart from the pleasures of the senses; and we can say the same as regards Anger. Of the other examples quoted, Pride does not at first sight appear to be a derivative of sensation; it may, however, be a derivative of some of the other independent emotions, as Love or Anger. Its place in the classification would then be posterior to these more simple feelings. 7. Let us, therefore, assume, for the purpose of illustration, that there are three prime sources of Emotion-the Senses, Love, and Anger. The natural inference, as respects order, is that the derivatives of the senses should stand first-for example, Property, Power, and Knowledge-and that the other two should follow in whichever order we might deem fit. But now rises to view a farther circumstance. Suppose we begin with Property, as a manifest derivative of our sensations, being the sum of many pleasures and many exemptions from pain. While the associations with property are gathering force from these influences, the other two fountains of emotion are sending forth their peculiar currents of feeling; and it is not possible for the growing emotion of Property to avoid their 74 THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION. influence. In fact, that emotion embraces their interests along 'with the sense interests. In so far as Love is a source of our pleasures, and an opening for pains, and in so far as property or wealth can operate to procure the one and buy off the other, the aggregate sensibility to Property is a compound of sense and of love emotion. The very same is true of Anger. Its pleasures, if purchasable, heighten the value of wealth, and increase the associated sentiment of wealth. And this is not all. The emotion of Love, although in its origin connected with living beings, is found overspreading and colouring inanimate possessions; so that the mass of pleasurable sentiment, united with our collective means of procuring our pleasures and warding off our pains, is found to have a certain perceptible tinge of love or tender feeling. Yet, farther: as Anger, although having our brethren and other living beings for its prime object, has, for its occasion, the loss of some of our sources of pleasure or the incursion of some of our pains, it always runs in close attendance on our property sentiment; so much so, that the completed emotion has an element of anger as part and parcel of the contents. 8. This example ought to show at a glance the permanent and insuperable difficulty of expounding the Emotions in a strict order of sequence. Begin where we will, as we can only take one source at a time, we must anticipate what is to follow. The only thing to be done is to recognize the fact, and also its consequence, namely, that there is no one absolutely preferable arrangement. There may be an arrangement that reduces inevitable anticipation to the minimum; yet probably not so convincingly as to procure unanimous consent. Thus, to take the example just given. There would probably be a balance in favour of taking Property, not at the beginning, but at the end of the simple emotions. Looking at the characteristics of Love, Anger, and Fear, as they will be set forth in the exposition, I consider these, to all intents, simple emotions. The feeling named Wonder olr Siirprise, if we strit of its usual adjuncts-admiration, or the opposite-is a simple fact; but, in that naked char SUCCESSIVE DEGREES OF COMPLEXITY. 75 acter, it has little emotional value; the interest of it lies in the elucidation of the intellectual consciousness. We might, therefore, decline to place it side by side with such powerful generators of our sentiments and passions as those already named. The feelings of Power, Pride, and Vanity, are not, in my opinion, elementary states; and this being so, I must place them subsequent to the three that are judged to be elementary. On the other hand, they are not the most complicated of our sentiments; they precede, for example, on the ground of less complexity, the -esthetic group. Their order among themselves does not admit of any one peremptory settlement. If it be hard to find a decisive priority among the simplest elements, the difficulty increases with such as are certainly complex; the only motive is that furnished by greater or less degrees of complexity. Holding the opinions that I do respecting the highly composite nature of both the AEsthetic and the Ethical Emotions, I am constrained to place these at the end of all. Connected with our ACTIvITY, in the pursuit of our ends, is a peculiar situation that gives birth to a considerable amount of our pleasure. The term PLOT-INTEREST will bring to view what is meant. The Exercise of the INTELLECT brings forth certain species of emotions. The routine operations sustained by mere contiguity evolve no feeling; the more perfect the intellectual habits, the less the consciousness associated with them; a practised accountant approaches to a calculating machine. But, in the operation of the Law of Similarity, where new identifications are struck out, there is an emotion of agreeable surprise accompanying the flash. Hence, although routine is unconscious, originality is intensely stimulating. From this effect proceeds part of the pleasure of works of genius, and it supplies one of the rewards of intellectual pursuit. Under the same head is to be reckoned the very characteristic pain produced by Inconsistency, on the susceptibility to 76 THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION. which temperaments differ greatly. The Love of Truth is greatly fostered by the desire of escaping contradictions. 9. Thus far I have brought into view a number of wellknown forms or genera of emotion-Love, Anger, Fear, Property, Power, Pride, Vanity, Plot-Interest, Knowledge, Beauty, Moral Sentiment. Whether these may be so expounded as to provide a complete account of all that rise above sensation, remains to be seen. Having given not less than eleven heads of classification, I must again call attention to the two that stand out in bold relief, as the giants of the group. Love and Anger are the commanding and indispensable members of the emotional scheme. Withdraw these, and the whole fabric would collapse to something little beyond sensation aggregates. Although there are a few other distinct emotional roots, yet the growths from such would be utterly insignificant, but for the incorporation of these two mighty allies. As departments important in themselves, as well as being subsidiary to the account of the Emotions, I propose to discuss, in separate chapters, the following subjects, namely, RELATIVITY, in its bearing on Emotion, IDEAL EMOTION, and SYMPATHY. Under Relativity, there come to the foreground the emotions called Novelty, Wonder, and Liberty. 10. A very natural remark will occur in the emotional scheme as here adopted, namely that the vital distinction of Pleasure and Pain is nowhere apparent as constituting a line of demarcation. The answer is, that this distinction occurs in all the feelings of the mind-Sensations and Emotions; it enters into the species and individuals of every class. Both pleasures and pains are contained in every one of the classes to be described, just as the natural order of plants may each contain food and poison, sweet aromas and nauseating stinks.* * To take an instance or two. The natural order solanece includes both the wholesome potato and the deadly nightshade; the order umbelliferce contains celery and hemlock; and the genus orchis comprises the fragrant cenopsea and the fetid hircina. PLEASURE AND PAIN NOT A BASIS. 77 In constituting our natural families, we endeavour to bring together species that have the greatest number of points of resemblance, instead of sinking nearness of kindred in some one distinction that happens to have a great practical interest. Accordingly, I shall treat our pleasures and pains as species arising in the different orders or families as we have set them forth. Inasmuch as suffering treads always on the heels of delight, and each kind of sweet has its cognate bitter, it would be divorcing the closest relationship to partition the human feelings into pleasures and pains as the primary division of the whole. (For additional remarks on the principles and modes of classifying the Emotions, see Appendix B.W CHAPTER IV. EMOTIONS OF RELATIVITY. 1. THE fundamental principle of Relativity has already received frequent mention. In discussing the Emotions, it has to be kept perpetually in view. Every allegation respecting the presence or the degree of a feeling has to be qualified by the supposition of some prior co-relative state. The wonderful takes its start from the common. The measure of a feeling is the measure of a transition. The relative character of all pleasure and pain has not been overlooked in the current maxims of mankind; indeed, the consequences of the fact are frequently exaggerated. The assertion that 'the mind of man accommodates itself to his condition' needs to be greatly qualified. Paley's doctrine that a man finds no pleasure in comparing himself with his inferiors, and is gratified only when he surpasses his equals, is not conformable to observation. The following remark of Swift must be pronounced incorrect:-' All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or languor; it is like spending this year part of the next year's revenue'. 2. How then shall we state the law, as a governing principle of the efficacy of emotion, so as to rectify the popular empiricisms on its operation, as becomes the pretensions of a scientific handling of the mind? The general rule is embodied in such propositions as the following; being all the same in substance, although differing in aspect:--Change is necessary to feeling; we are unconscious of unremitted impressions; the degree of feeling is proportioned to the change; abruptness or suddenness of transition is one mode of enhancing the effect. To quote a few familiar examples:-The recovery from siclness is illustrated in Gray's lines-- ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE GENERAL LAW. 79 See the wretch that long has tost On the thorny bed of pain, At length repair his vigour lost, And breathe and walk again. 'Peace with plenty crowned' is a matter of rejoicing, at the end of a desolating war. The charm of a fine morning is doubled or tripled by a week of dull weather going before.* * To pursue the illustration of this important theme a little farther. The mountain sheep is entirely destitute of those respiratory pleasures and pains familiar to human beings, who spend their time partly in the confined air of houses, and partly out of doors. It is the transition that develops at one time the oppressive sensation of closeness, and at another time the exhilaration of fresh air. The animal whose days and nights are spent alike on the mountain or the plain has no experience of confined air, and therefore no sense of a pure atmosphere. This does not debar the animal from the good effects following from uninterrupted purity of respiration, as regards the general health, but it prevents the possibility of any consciousness growing out of respiratory action in the manner familiar to us. Again, the fishes in the tropical seas are without the sensation of warmth. Since they live in an invariable temperature, the sensibility of that temperature is dormant for want of varying the experience by a greater or a less. Never to feel cold is never to feel heat; a transition from one grade to another is indispensable to consciousness. In like manner, sightless animals, whom our imagination pictures as living in the gloom of deepest midnight, in reality have no sense of darkness as we understand it. It is the loss of light, or of the power of vision, that makes the dark; the tenants of the Mammoth cave of Kentucky, where no ray of light ever entered, know nothing of darkness. We have repeatedly seen pleasures depending for their existence on previous pains, and pains on pleasures experienced or conceived. Such are the contrasting states of Liberty and Restraint, Power and Impotence. Many pleasures owe their effect as such to mere cessation. For example, the pleasures of exercise do not need to be preceded by pain; it is enough that there has been a certain intermission, coupled with the nourishment of the exhausted parts. These are of course our best pleasures. By means of this class, we might have a life of enjoyment without pain. Exercise, Repose, the pleasures of the different Senses and Emotions might be made to alternate, so as to give a constant succession of pleasure, each being sufficiently dormant, during the exercise of the others, to reanimate the consciousness when its turn comes. It also happens that some of those modes of delight are increased, by being preceded by a certain amount of a painful opposite. Thus con4nement adds to the pleasure of exercise, and protracted exertion to thrat of repose; fasting increases the enjoyment of meals, and being much chilled prepares us for a higher zest in the accession of warmth. It is not necessary, however, in those cases that the privation should amount to positive pain, in order to the existence of the pleasure. The enjoyment of food may be experienced, although 80 EMOTIONS OF RELATIVITY. 3. The general principle is so far clear. The difficulty arises out of the subordinate law of Accommodation, which we might conceive to be absent. One's first illness and first recovery from that illness have an intensity of feeling, first depressing and then elevating, not experienced a second time. The second morning of a holiday is attended with a less flush than the previous, and so on at a decreasing rate. The first visit to Switzerland, to Paris, or to Rome, is far more thrilling than any subsequent visit. Whittington's third Mayoralty was fiat in comparison with his original promotion. The millionaire's accumulations strike him with feebler and feebler impulses. The delights of knowledge, and even of virtue and religion, do not escape the law of accommodation. Can anything be done to fix the rate and conditions of this diminishing efficacy of pleasurable and painful causes? Is it such that after a small number of recurrences, a great pleasure practically vanishes; or does there still survive, even at the very last, a sufficient thrill to make our chief sources of pleasure valuable, and our pains at all times repugnant to us? the previous hunger may not be in any way painful.; at all events, with no more pain than the certainty of the coming meal can effectually appease. The pleasures of warmth may count for a share of one's enjoyment, without being alternated with such degrees of cold as to amount to positive suffering; this is the case, in all probability, with the majority of healthy persons enjoying the means of warmth. There is still another class of our delights depending entirely upoln previous suffering, as in the sudden cessation of acute pains, or the sudden relief from great depression. Here the rebound from one nervous condition to another is a stimulant of positive pleasure; constituting a small, but altogether inadequate, compensation for the prior misery. The pleasurable sensation of good health presupposes the opposite experience in a still larger measure. Uninterrupted health, although an instrumentality for working out many enjoyments, of itself gives no sensation. The conditions of relativity are often greatly misconceived. Thus in Paradise Lost (II. 600) the damned are takenFrom beds of raging fire to starve in ice Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine Immoveable, infixed, and frozen round, Periods of time; thence hurried back to fire. Now, in reality, such alternations would mitigate, rather than aggravate, their sufferings. The cold would quench the torment of the heat, before beginning to be felt as cold: and reversely. LAW OF ACCOMMODATION OR DECAY. 81 Does a year of attained wealth, leisure, command, affection, Sgratified taste, abate the original shock by from eighty to ninety per cent, which would be annihilation, or by from ten to fifteen per cent, which would be insignificant? And what difference would be made between one year and twenty years? Nothing but an extensive collation of facts can enable us even to approximate to the rate of decay of impressions by repetition. The enquiry is attended with all the difficulties attaching to the quantitative estimate of mental states. The case is one where we should desiderate a number of separate experiences as recorded by the individuals themselves. Subject to confirmation or correction by multiplied observations, I will hazard this remark, namely, that the decay of a pleasurable or painful shock is rapid at first; while after a certain time, which may be weeks or months, but seldom years, the farther diminution is imperceptible. Moreover, in contradiction to Paley, we may assert that the whole decay of the pleasure of superior worldly advantages is not such as to deprive them of half their original efficacy. No amount of repetition can obliterate the difference of feeling between a superior addressing an inferior and the converse situation. 4. The operation of decay has various conditions. These will be illustrated to most advantage in the detail of the several emotions. The first condition is the frequency of the stimulation. It is well known that any indulgence that happens to be excessive loses its zest; there is, in each case, a certain frequency that is possible without any falling off in the enjoyment. What this frequency is depends on the individual capacity for that peculiar stimulus. One man. can go into society every night; another man finds it enough to go once a week. In the second place, there is a counteractive of decay in the persistent memory of the prior condition that we have been raised from, or sunk down to. A single short illness in ten years scarcely imparts any consciousness of the blessing 6 82 EMOTIONS OF RELATIVITY. of health. One that has had but a short and easily forgotten experience of privation, toil, or dependence, is little elated by better fortune; a very brief possession erases all the effect of the elevation: whereas a long experience of such evils, acutely felt, never acquiesced in, with perhaps a naturally strong memory for good and evil, would make the refreshing sense of deliverance an undying pleasure of the mind. Linneus typified his worldly fortunes by the plant that has been dedicated to him (Linnea); the stem trails along the ground a foot or more before starting upwards. On the other hand, it is a peculiarity of the sanguine temperament soon to forget pains that are past, and consequently to lose the elation of deliverance. This state is happily caricatured by Swift. Gulliver, on his return from each of his perilous Travels, always vowed that he never would set out again. The resolution lasted about three months, and then wore off. In Gulliver's case, however, there was the deepseated love of adventure, which would always emerge after an interval of repose. These two conditions may be computed in each individual case, with more or less precision. There is, however, a disturbing element in, the calculation, growing out of a different law of our constitution-the memnory of past pleasures and pains. The fact that we have once felt some very great pleasure or some very great pain, has, by virtue of memory, a power over the future, even although the system can no longer be awakened to the same states in the actuality. It is said, a first love cannot be repeated; yet the memory of that experience will have a persistent value in human life. Out of the operation of memory, or the associations of pleasure, we have a certain compensation (I decline to say whether adequate or not) for the decay of repetition, through the accommodating process of relativity, and also for the farther decay of the sensibility of advancing years. Were it not for these associations, life would probably be one short and rapid ascent to the summit of pleasure, followed by a steady irreversible decline; the only alleviation being, that pain (not the NOVELTY. 83 result of new forms of sufferings) would also be a diminishing quantity. 5. Every emotion, as well as every other feeling, is subject to the principle of Relativity, as now explained. The influence of an outburst of affection is dependent upon the previous remission of the state; and so with all other feelings. But there are some emotions, whose objective cause is a purely relative circumstance, as for example Wonder.. To the rise of this emotion, it is not merely requisite that the mind should have been previously in a routine common-place frame; it is further requisite that there should be some startling deviation from use and wont in the world without. However well we might be disposed mentally for the shock, if there be no external transition from the common to some uncommon circumstance, the emotion would not be stimulated. Hence to such states, we may apply, as a specific designation, the name, 'Emotions of Relativity'. The chief examples are Novelty, Wonder, Power, and Liberty. Some notice may be taken of these, in the present chapter, reserving the more important developments for subsequent handling. 6. NOVELTY is not properly speaking a species of Emotion; it merely expresses the superior force of all stimulants, on being first applied. Its value is measured by the loss consequent on the law of accommodation, whatever may be the estimate of that loss. The effect of Novelty on the side of pleasure is realized in early years, when all the sensations are new. The youthful initiation into the various pleasures of the senses-as stomachic relishes, stimulating drugs, melodies, and glowing colours,-is a time of high enjoyment. The. new emotions ofpuberty are apt to be overpowering in their freshness. When the primary sensations are gone through, the charm of novelty belongs only to new and varied combinations, and in that form may be sustained, although with decreasing force, to the end of life. New scenes, new objects, new persons, and new; 84 EMOTIONS OF RELATIVITY. aspects of life, constitute the attractions of travel. Novelty in incidents and events is furnished by the ongoings of life, and by the pages of story. Inventions in the Arts, and discoveries in Science, have the initial charm of novelty, as well as the interest of permanent utility. In Fine Art, whose end is pleasure, the powerful effects of novelty are earnestly invoked: pleasurable surprises are expected of the artist in every department; beauty must be enhanced by originality; and the passion for change, uncontrolled, leads in the end to decadence. Last of all, in Fashion, novelty is supreme. Throughout the whole, but one rule prevails; other things the same, the greater the novelty, the greater the pleasure. To all this, there is an obverse. Novelty in Pain has the same enhancing effect. Our first encounters of the pains of sense is our worst experience of them. Whatever be the difference that hardening makes upon the sensibility, that difference represents the aggravation of strangeness or novelty. This is the bad side of our youthful years. Irritations that are little felt by the aged are discomposing in a degree to early inexperience. 7. Next to absolute Novelty comes VARIETY. This is the effect of remitting a stimulus for a longer or shorter time; the longer the remission, the greater is the stir or shock of renewal. After a long privation, a pleasure may regain very nearly the pristine charm.* The perfection of enjoyment in anything is a mean between the repetition that makes the pleasure stale, and the privation that leaves an aching void. Our happiness at last must depend on the rotation of familiar pleasures; most of.us having but a small round, while a favoured few expatiate in a wide variety. The long remission of pains, in like manner, gives no play to the case-hardening operation of our present law. The * The thrice-a-year visit of the Jews to Jerusalem gave an unction that we cannot approach, to the Psalm-' I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord'. The American backwoods settlers are seized with an almost oriental ecstacy, when there comes an 'occasion ', that is, a social gathering. WONDER. 85 serenity of a man of business, under shocks and vicissitudes, opposition and abuse, is in part, although not entirely, due to their frequency. 8. The counterpart, or opposite extreme, of Novelty and Variety, is MONOTONY. This is a peculiar mode of purely painful sensibility, depending on the exhaustion of our organs by stimulation; it passes beyond the point where novelty and variety have lost their power, to a state of positive suffering. The poet speaks of 'love's sad satiety'. Common speech has coined for one instance of the situation, the expressive word 'bore'. In correlation with Monotony is ENNUI; which may be simply the withholding of such sources of stimulation as the system is ready for, so as to leave blankness of mind and the pains of desire. The. Jews strongly felt it in Babylon. This is the peculiar liability of all those that have been much indulged with various and great pleasures, and have been suddenly cut off from them. A lower depth of Ennui is that following on general exhaustion of sensibility, when the usual pleasures cease to please-an aggravated form of monotony, a 'polytony', so to speak. If we could form an estimate of the intensity of men's pursuit of absolute novelty, as distinct from alternation, we could approximate to a measure of the force of Accommodation under relativity. 9. The emotion named WONDER is founded on relativity. It is more than simple Novelty. One degree beyond novelty is surprise, or the shock of what is both novel and unexpected. There is, in surprise, an element of contradiction and conflict, which, if acute, would of itself be painful; most surprises, however, give merely a neutral excitement of different degrees of intensity. The accompanying circumstances may add pleasure or pain; but these are not necessary adjuncts.* * The Expression of Surprise is well handled by Mr. Darwin (chap. xi.). The eye-brows are raised; the eyes are opened wide; so also is the mouth. The raising of the eye-brows is in conjunction with the opening of the eyes RS EMOTIONS OF RELATIVITY. Wonder contains surprise, attended with a new and distinct effect, the effect of contemplating something that rises far above common experience, which elevates us with the feeling of superiority. We wonder, and are astonished, at the genius of Shakespeare. On the other hand, it may be something that falls beneath what is ordinary, and thereby inspires one or other of the emotions connected with the mean, the little, the contemptible, the bad. This is a very important and wide-ranging species of Emotion; it is much more complex than simple Novelty, and its consideration may be postponed to a later stage. It relates itself to Admiration, and the AEsthetic Sublime. 10. FREEDOM and RESTRAINT are strict correlatives; the one has no existence without the other. Freedom is a pleasurable release from restraint; restraint is a painful infringement of Liberty. The convenient starting point in rendering an account of this opposing couple is the pain of Restraint, viewed as Conflict. All conflict is painful; as is the conflict, so is the pain. Whatever may be the pain of Conflict, the rebounding feeling of deliverance, called Liberty, is an equal pleasure. A slight restraint yields but a slight sense of enlargement; a severe restraint withdrawn makes a joyous elation. The pleasure of liberty is thus measured, if we have been able to measure the suffering of restraint. the end being more perfect vision. Whatever awakens the sense attracts the -gaze; or, if a sound, the ear. The opening of the mouth is connected by Mr. Darwin with the respiration. To breathe gently, under intent watching, we open the mouth; also, in preparing for a great effort, we take a deep and full respiration, which is easier with the mouth wide open. Another expression of surprise is throwing up the arms above the head; explained by Mr. Darwin on his principle of Antithesis, being the opposition to the attitude of indifference. But as indifference may have many opposites, a reason should be given for choosing this one. I should rather be disposed to look upon it as a harmonic gesture accompanying the other movements; since we know that one member cannot be suddenly agitated, without taking some of the rest along with it. The relaxation of some of the organs, as the dropping of the jaw, is accounted for by the concentration upon others. Energy is diverted in all exciting passions, and the organs not stimulated are relaxed. LIBERTY. 87 The suffering caused by Restraint depends, in the first place, on the acuteness of our sensibility in the particular case where we are under coercion. The least complicated form of restraint is the arrest of our movements when they are spontaneous and fresh. Simple confinement gives rise to this pain, which may be described as a muscular conflict, great in proportion to the natural energy of the system. To the young, it is a state of acute uneasiness that may amount almost to torture; in them, the process of accommodation would take a very long time, and would be completed only by destruction of the youthful tone of the constitution. Hence the pleasure of release from muscular restraint, in the young and active temperament, is very great; corresponding to the disposition to muscular exercise and the pleasure derived therefrom. 11. The liberation of pent-up activity is a very small part of the stirring associations with Liberty. In connection with the name, we think of all the ends of pursuit-of all the pleasures that free action brings within our reach, and of all the remote pains and privations consequent on being shut up; so that half the interest of life is expressed by 'freedom'. A thirsty man hindered from access to a well is in one sense the victim of restraint, but, to put it more plainly, he is a sufferer from thirst. The peculiar pain of being restrained comes to the foreground, when water is near, and some obstacle too great for the strength debars the person from getting at it. So the restraints of government and society, are not merely conflicts with the motor impulses of the system, they are prohibitions of access to human pleasure. Forced celibacy is the thwarting of the strongest of human appetites. The process of accommodation to such restraints is a suppression of desires and appetites. The rebound of deliverance from any species of bondage or restraint diminishes at every step towards the accommodation of the system. There are instances on record where long confinement attained its perfect work of adapting the system to the state of bondage. It was said that at the overthrow of 88 EMOTIONS OF RELATIVITY. the Bastile, some of the prisoners felt no joy at their release. To produce this total and complete accommodation, and indeed to produce, in a limited time, any sensible accommodation to restraint, the pressure must be unremitted. This is a vital consideration in the consolidating of moral habits, as will be shown under that head. Occasional bursts of liberty keep alive the spark. 12. The emotions of POWER and IMPOTENCE, like the foregoing, depend on transition or contrast, in other words, Relativity. A rise in the consciousness of our own might or energy, is attended with elation of mind, a fall brings depression; an even continuance of the same state is indifferent. Any circumstance occurring to reflect or illustrate our superiority, as success in a competition, gives a thrill of satisfaction; the unsuccessful are correspondingly mortified and depressed. The situation of Power has much in common with Liberty; restraint or opposition so far as it extends and is succsssful, is tantamount to impotence. But power has a wider range; bodily and mental energy, high command, leadership, wealth, are not fully expressed by mere liberty. This emotion is of sufficient importance to require a detailed illustration, which will be given in a succeeding chapter. CHAPTER V. IDEAL EMOTION. 1. EMOTIONAL Feelings are revivable according to the laws of revival of mental states. The two leading conditions are Repetition and Concentration. Under 'Intellect' these have been fully exemplified for Intellectual states; we have now to look at the peculiarities of Feeling proper, as typified by Pleasure and Pain. The discussion of the Senses brought out the unequal revivability of our different sensations. It was laid down that Organic Sensations are least revivable: sensations of Sigh.t most revivable; in fact, the order in handling the Senses was regulated by their Intellectual rank, in other words, by comparative Discrimination and Revivability. The scale of degree applies both to the Intellectual sensations of the senses, and to the Pleasures and Pains connected with them. The pleasures of Organic Life are less revivable than the pleasures of Taste, while these are less revivable than the pleasures of Hearing and Sight. 2. The question now arises, What is the comparative Revivability of the Emotions proper-as Love, Anger, Power, Fine Art? If we answer according to the popular estimate of these emotions, we should say that in this respect they equal, if they do not surpass, our higher senses, namely, Hearing and Sight. Both from matter-of-fact observation and on theoretical grounds, I believe this estimate is just. We might construct a scale of our sensibilities, beginning at the least revivable, and ending at the most revivable, thus:J Muscular Feelings ( Organic Sensibilities J Tastes ( Smells 90 IDEAL EMOTION. Touch Hearing Sight Special Emotions. I would not undertake, from mere observation, to establish a difference between Muscular Pleasures or Pains and Organic Pleasures or Pains, generally; nor between Tastes and Smells. Hearing is decidedly superior to Touch; Sight is superior, although not by a great difference, to Hearing; and the Emotions are quite on a level with Sight, and possibly surpass it. Such I think would be the estimate proved from our conscious experience of the various groups of sensibilities. Of course the comparison must be made under similar conditions and advantages. 3. The explanation of these differences is to be sought in the nature of Feeling or Emotion, as such, or in its contrast with Intellectual states-an agreeable warmth, a glow of affection, with a sum, a date, or a name. The fundamental attribute of an intellectual state is Discrimination; the more discriminative senses are, in virtue of that very fact, the more intellectual; and certain it is, that Revivability follows delicacy of Discrimination. If now we consider the Feelings as such, Pleasure and Pain being the type, we find that in them discrimination is very small. We do note a difference between one pleasure and another, and use language to express their relative degrees; but the distinctions are not nice. Whereas, in the pitch of musical sounds, a musician can discriminate hundreds of grades; between zero and the highest known pleasure, our ability to discriminate could scarcely amount to twenty grades. Besides degrees of intensity, we can make the important distinction of intensity and quantity in emotional states, but with the same deficiency of nice shading. When to these two distinctions we add the fact of time or duration, which as regards pleasure and pain is not delicately measured, we exhaust all the points of difference between pleasures and pains viewed intrinsically. FEELINGS INCORPORATED WITH INTELLECT. 91 But farther. To the comparative incapability of perceiving nice grades of pleasure and pain, must be added the important circumstance, that in the full state of enjoyment or of suffering, discrimination or estimate of degree is not thought of; enjoyment is enjoyment and not the pursuit of knowledge. The differences that might be felt are not felt, the comparisons that might be made are not made; so that, in point of fact, states of enjoyment or of suffering are discriminated to a very small degree. If the revivability in their case followed the sense of difference, it would be of a very low order indeed. Another pertinent consideration to the same effect is that difference is character; anything that is not distinguished from every other thing has no definition, no existence. To revive a pleasure is to revive something different from other states of mind; the number of our pleasures is the number of those that have been discriminated one from another; the number of our recollections of pleasure is in like manner the number of our recollections of discriminated modes of pleasure. 4. This brings us to the gist of the whole matter:-Feelings as such-pleasures, pains, and neutral excitement-are always incorporated with intellectual states, and, by that means, are differentiated, held, sustained, and revived. The superior hold assigned to the pleasures and pains of the higher senses is not owing to any specific superiority in the feelings proper, but to their being accompanied with a more intellectual class of sensations. The pleasure of a fine picture, or a fine air in music, is breathed out from a highly retainable perception of sight or hearing, and is well remembered on that account. An equal pleasure arising from warmth or muscular repose, or the drowsiness of sleep, and still more those organic pleasures that arise casually, we know not how,-pass away with the occasion, and are not recalled by mere mental agency. The best way of proving the allegation now made, is to call attention to the circumstances that engrain in the memory the pleasurable or painful sensations of the lower senses. For 92 IDEAL EMOTION. example, we are able to recall, effectively the organic exhilaration of a summer day passed in the country after confinement in the town. Yet it must be obvious on reflection that this echo of an organic state is supported by the large group of visible and audible associations, aided perhaps by odour and taste. The more we are re-possessed of these sensuous accompaniments, the better are we re-imbued with the organic freshness of the original occasion. So, when we remember strongly an acute pain, it is through a vivid re-possession of the sights and sounds that were impressed on the mind at the time; as the place, persons, and incidents connected with a severe operation. Pains that arise without obvious cause, are much less revivable than those whose causation and remedy are alike attributable to distinct and visible agents. Upon the law now mentioned, a reason can be given for classing the Emotions with the higher Senses, in point of revivability, instead of classing them, as Mr. Spencer is disposed to do, with the inferior senses. In their strict character of Emotion proper, they have the minimum of revivability; but being always incorporated with the sensations of the higher senses, they share in the superior revivability of sights and sounds. Nothing can surpass our recollection of objects of sight. Correctly speaking, therefore, emotional pleasures can do no more than attain the level of visual pleasures; affection cannot be more revivable than the pleasure of sunrise. But there may be any amount of difference in the number and impressiveness of the visible associates of two pleasurable moods. Sunrise seen from the top of the Righi, leaves behind it an impression of pleasure, tenacious and lasting, through the more purely intellectual accompaniments of the situation. A Royalist that witnessed the execution of Charles I. would be sustained in his lively and recurring sentiment of sorrow by his remembrance of the circumstantials of the scene. True, the intensity of the emotion contributes to its revivability; but only, as we shall see, by a quickened perception of the sensible surroundings. PHYSICAL CONDITIONS OF EMOTIONAL GROWTH. 93 5. So much being premised, we shall now advert to the specific conditions of emotional re-instatement. As already said, they are still the conditions of all mental resuscitation, as amply expounded under the 'Intellect,' that is to say, Repetition and Concentration. But as the peculiarities of the case require stress to be put upon circumstances that are not prominent in the intellectual field, the arrangement and plan of treatment must be different. First. In the Emotional growths, special importance attaches to the Physical framework. In intellectual education, physical conditions, as commonly understood, namely, the robustness of the system generally and of the brain especially, are essential. Both in the laying up of images, and in their recall for the ends of thinking, we require a certain energy and freshness of the system; the apparent exception of morbid activity is no real exception. But the effective maintenance of a strong emotion, the cementing of a durable bond between an emotional state and the conjoined situation, the resuscitating of that emotion by mental links,-although the same processes at bottom, demand a ten-fold physical support. The aroused and sustained energy of the nervous system must be far greater than what is required in the currents of ordinary thinking. Hence we must look still more to the various nutritive and other supports that uphold the flow of nervous energy. In laying down the primary condition of Ideal Emotion, I advisedly keep in view pleasurable emotion.. I put this in the foreground, and regard it as the point of departure in handling the present subject. It is not simply that pleasure is the great end to be realized in human life. There are other reasons besides: Pleasure and Pain are strict contraries, like up and down, cold and hot, light and dark, credit and debt; and the knowledge of contraries is one. If we know pleasure aright, we shall know pain also; the conditions of pleasure as such, when reversed, afford us the conditions of pain as such. Pleasure is \identified withl the highest energy and most consummate balance o the powers of the system; just as the 94 IDEAL EMOTION. accumulation of wealth flows from great resources managed with the utmost circumspection. Pain is identified with weakness, exhaustion, prostration, or with loss of balance, with being obstructed and out of joint. To ascend the heights of pleasure, to sustain the elevation for a length of time, demands exuberant power and felicitous adjustment, one or both; to fall into the depths of pain, distress, agony, needs only weakness and derangement. A great number of conditions must be fulfilled to give pleasure; the failure of one is enough for pain. A constitution or temperament formed for pleasure is a constitution remarkable for vigour, and vice versd. Associations of pleasure, fitting us for the ideal life of pleasure, are formad only under favourable conditions and numerous precautions; they are the cultivated plants of the garden and the field: associations of pain, to be abundant and strong, need only hardship and neglect; they are the weed crops whose presence makes more than half the labour of tilling the ground. The growth of painful emotion has the same interest as bodily disease, or crime, the interest of how to prevent it. It is therefore with reason that Mr. Spencer lays down as one of the conditions of the growth of emotion, the goodness of the nervous centres at the time when the emotions are experienced in the actual; a condition, however, that applies not to emotion indiscriminately as he would lead us to suppose, but to pleasurable emotion purely. Every physical condition that favours the feeling when it arises in the actual, XTwhether referring to the nervous substance or to the general state of nutriment of the body,-is favourable to the association of the feeling with its accompanying circumstances, and to its subsequent revival through the mental resuscitation of those accompaniments. Hence the causes and occasions of bodily vigour in general, and of nervous vigour in particular, --robustness of frame, youth, times of relaxation and refreshment-are causes and occasions for laying up pleasurable memories, in other words, ideal emotions in the best acceptation of the name. Even the Stinmulants-Alcohol, and the rest-which lead to THE EMOTIONAL TEMPERAMENT. 95 joyous elation in the actual, by the very same cause foster the growth of emotional memories. Notwithstanding that they may have been pushed too far, so as to be followed by lassitude and depression, the moments of brightness will impress themselves on the recollection, and will lead to subsequent revivals in proper circumstances. The gloom of the re-action will also impress itself, and be recovered by its own associates; both the good and the evil counting among our future possessions, the relies of our past. 6. Second. In the distribution of the human powers, there may be a special tendency to Emotional manifestations, in other words, an Emotional Temperament. A given total of constitutional vigour may be very variously distributed. In the first place, it may go in excess to physical functions strictly so called-Digestion, Respiration, Circulation, Assimilation, and Musele-of which the result is a powerful physique, a soldier, an athlete, a man of physical endurance. On the other hand, it may tend by preference to the Nervous system, and especially to those activities immedia.tely allied with mind, which are no doubt the principal, although not the only functions of the brain. This will result in superiority of mental powers in some or in all departments of mind; the bodily powers being then perhaps below the average. Farther, the mental powers form three chief divisions-Action, Emotion, Intellect; and these three may be unequally manifested, through the mode of distributing the total forces of the brain. As a general rule, great superiority in one implies inferiority in the otl:hers; the human powers being limited on the whole, although there are exceptionally endowed individuals, whose totality is large. A very powerful Intellect is apt to be accompanied with less than the average both of Activity and of Emotion. Now to have a smaller emotional capacity means to be less disposed than the generality for responding to pleasure. Such natures do not realize from the causes of pleasure the ordinary intensity and continuance of the pleasurable thrill; consequently they are more victimized by the pains of life, to which they are not cor 96 IDEAL EMOTION. respondingly obtuse; and their tone of enjoyment all through is apt to be feeble or low. No doubt favourable outward circumstances, ease and abundance, might counterbalance the depressing tendency, and might place a constitution so poised on a level with a better emotional endowment immersed in hardships. Or it will happen that superiority in Action and in Intellect combined, so effectually forecasts and turns aside the darts of misfortune, as to secure extensive immunities or exemptions from evil, and thereby confer a moderate share of tranquil enjoyment. Still, it is to the Emotional Temperament that large Emotional growths will naturally pertain; to him that hath will be given. The Ideal life of Emotion will correspond in richness and fulness to the exuberance of the actuality. In vain will an arid emotional nature hope to clothe persons, localities, and objects, with that warm perennial interest that counterworks the dulling effect of familiarity, and the lassitude of advancing years. As the largest share of human emotion is involved with personality, the best criterion of emotional fulness is furnished by Sociability, or the indulgence of warm feelings towards persons and sentient creatures. The personification of nature, which makes a great part of our nature interest and our aesthetic pleasure generally, is an effluence from the same fountain. Even the antisocial passions,-the love of domination, revenge,-are in various ways related to the primary interest in personality. This consideration, coupled with the view that regards typical Emotion as identical with pleasure, very much simplifies the farther question that may be started under the present head, namely, how far we are by Temperament, or original distribution of the forces of the system, rendered prone to the indulgence of special emotions; as Fear, Tenderness, Power, Anger, Curiosity, JEsthetic Sentiment. The Emotional temperament supposes a full response to pleasurable or positive emotions, as Tenderness and Power; and a superiority to painful or negative emotions, as Fear. The predominance of REPETITION AND TIME. 97 one or other of the pleasurable class is explicable by the specialities of each. For example, the pleasures of Knowledge suppose necessarily a certain amount of Intellectual force, in connection with emotional susceptibility. 7. Third. The conditions of acquisition or Association are somewhat peculiar in the case of the emotional growths. As a matter of course, there must be a certain Repetition, or frequency, greater or less according as the other circumstances are less or more favourable. Anyhow, we have to remark how much more rapid are our intellectual acquisitions than our emotional. A few repetitions suffice to impress for life a name, or a narrative of fact; many of our most durable recollections have been formed by the cohesiveness of a single occasion. Hardly anything corresponds to this in the associations of strong pleasurable feeling. It should be observed, however, that our rememberedi knowledge is but a very faint reproduction of the original impressions; while it so happens that this inferiority does not detract from its value as knowledge. Galileo's recollection of his experiment on falling bodies on the tower of Pisa was far inferior as a mental picture to the reality, but it was good enough for its purpose as entitling him to dissent from Aristotle's doctrine of gravity. But this inferiority of the ideal to the actual, which for many intellectual and practical purposes is unimportant, must be looked upon as all-important in the emotions. The fulness and intensity of the original cannot be dispensed with in our valuation of a resuscitated pleasure; every degree below that is so much abated from the worth of the recollection. The frequency and length of time required for emotional associations of any strength may be judged of from the growth of Local attachments. These are very trifling in the minds of the young; and, for a slight consideration, they are readily bartered by those in advanced life; as when a man emigrates or shifts his locality to gain a trifling improvement in pecuniary means. Again, the setting up of a Taste, by mere culture, is a work of years. More notable still would be the 7 98 IDEAL EMOTION. estimate of the time required to cultivate from slender beginnings a powerful Religious emotion, where the consoling and comforting element is so strong as to be the highest charm of life. 8. Among the circumstances favourable to concentration of the mental forces, in deepening the impress of an emotion, the first is Intensity; or the degree of the original feeling as manifested in the actual. A very strong emotion is better recalled at after times than a weak one; a series of occasions of some intense feeling will take a large share in our ideal life of emotion. The effect is not due to any self-subsisting efficacy in a strong emotion, as such, or in its proper quality as feeling; it depends wholly on the influence of an intense present consciousness in impressing all the surroundings and sensible and other accompaniments of the occasion. Under great excitement, whatever things engage the attention are impressed and engrained. Now every feeling or emotion is induced in connexion with something sensible or intellectual; something either essential to its production, or inextricably involved with it. The excitement of a show or a race, the admiration of an orator, the enjoyment of music, the charm of love,-all tend to excite a lively interest in the causes and accompaniments; without these, the emotion has neither attachments nor distinctive existence. The more intense a pleasure is, the greater the strain upon the mental forces to reproduce or sustain it in idea; hence the marked inferiority of our remembrance of great delights. Yet the very intensity will be efficacious in the recall of some portion of the charm; so that for ideal purposes, it is plainly better to have strong actual emotions than to have feebler states. The faint echo of a great pleasure is a contribution to the interest of life; the only drawback being the sense of inferiority to the actual, which in moments of scanty bliss may give birth to the pains of unsatisfied desire. 9. Another circumstance contributing to deepen an emotional impression is freedom from distraction, or the full sur ACCOMPANYING SENSATIONS. 99 render of the mental forces to the indulgence of the present feeling. This is a most potent element in every species of mental acquisition. To be undisturbed in the enjoyment of a pleasure or the indulgence of a taste, is of the greatest consequence as regards the full-toned revival of the state by the mere power of recollection. The worst of all distractions is pain, trouble, and care; but mere intellectual exercise, if intense, although free from pain, greatly attenuates present emotion, and still more effectually interferes with the process of associative growth that makes it subsist afterwards as an ideal enjoyment. A good education contains happy associations of the feelings, as well as knowledge and intellectual habits. For this purpose, it is important that the strength and the freshness of the morning hours should be gained for the work; while the surrounding circumstances should be auspicious. 10. We must attend next to the nature of the accompanying circumstances themselves, as well as to their more or less intimate blending with the emotional flame. According to the theory that I have adopted as to the only possible means of reviving emotional states, these associates are the all-in-all, the vital part of the operation. The most comprehensive requisite, accordingly, is the presence of objects of sense, and especially of the higher senses-Sight and Hearing. The number, the impressiveness, the close proximity, of the sensible collaterals, must be estimated in forecasting the probable growth of an ideal emotion. In other words, we must take account of the extent and the goodness of the holding ground. The fluidity of Emotion gains consistence and permanence in the intellectual framework. Feelings are best incorporated with Sights; next with Sounds, as in language. An inferior degree of associability belongs to the other senses; yet these may play a considerable part in maintaining and reviving emotional sights; witness the power of Smell. To have present to the sight in a moment of intense feeling some impressive collaterals or a marked environment; and, again, to have characteristic sounds falling 100 IDEAL EMOTION. on the ear;-would be to provide a hold for fixing the emotion into a permanent growth. Other things being the same, emotional growths proceed most rapidly in well-appointed homes, in rich and varied scenes, in bright and sunny lands, in plenty of companionship. The British sailor can scarcely find in the mountain wave and the deep a surface of attachment for his emotions. His best medium is the ship itself, with its multifarious rigging and operations, and the living personalities of the crew. A bright flash of joy in a dark and silent cell, would find little aid towards converting it into a pleasing memory. The delights of a fete, or of a great commemoration, are inwoven with the multiplicity of the display, and are echoed in after times, by virtue of these various and impressive adjuncts. It follows also that the growth of emotion is most rapid in sensuous or pictorial minds. The retentiveness for Concrete things, which makes the artistic and pictorial intellect, carries with it the power of attaching the feelings and promoting their recollection. Hence such minds are enabled to live more in ideal scenes and emotions than minds of another class. The depth of feeling manifested in the artistic mind is thus at the outset an intellectual fact. Affection, local attachment, sentiment towards historic scenes and objects, the sublime in nature, and even the warm religious emotions, flourish upon the basis of a great endowment in the higher senses. 11. An equally remarkable application of the same general doctrine is seen in the tendency to concentrate the regards upon individual objects, as in love, and in select attachments and favouritism of every kind. It is not to be supposed that the overweening attachment for one person, or for one spot, or one work of art, can be due to any intrinsic difference in the merits, or even in the power of impressing the admirer. But it is muich easier to idealize upon one limited and wellremembered object, than upon a scattered multitude of vaguely conceived individuals. For enjoyment in the actual, for the pleasures of sense, at first hand, variety is best; for ideal or CONCENTRATION OF REGARDS. 101 remembered pleasures, concentration is far more efficient. The love fire subsisting in the mind by nature bursts out on the choice of some one object, and is best sustained upon one. Mankind have agreed to concentrate their highest interest and admiration on certain selected persons and places and events, not because these might not be rivalled in some way or other, but because the imagination would be a great loser by diffusion and vacillation of attachments. The Greek of Aristotle's time felt the impossibility of transferring to another locality the sentiment towards Athens, as the hearth and home of philosophy, even although its greatest philosopher had to take refuge in JEgina. The modern Italians, in spite of serious drawbacks, insisted on re-constituting Rome the metropolis and seat of government of Italy. On a superficial computation, it might be said that Rome is still there as an object of ancient and venerable association, and that some other place, chosen as the working centre of government, might have its share of sentiment as the present capital of Italy; and that the two feelings might be indulged in separation and independence, neither interfering with the other. But the people, interpreting their own emotions, decided otherwise. It was necessary to the Italian mind to concentrate both sentiments upon. one locality; the ideal glow was felt to be quadrupled in intensity by the concurrence of the two streams upon the same object of affection. So it is in the love sentiment of the sexes. When the ideal takes its full sweep, it desires that the beloved person should be everything at once; disregarding the principle of division of labour, by which one person is better fitted for being loved, another for imparting knowledge, for advising in difficult emergencies, or for aiding in the business of life. 12. Hitherto we have been discussing the ways and means of impressing an emotion on the mind, so as to fit it for ideal reproduction. We pass next to the conditions of reproduction or RECALL. We assume a certain adequacy of the prior or preparatory operation. The chief modes of reproduction are those so largely 102 IDEAL EMOTION. treated of under the 'Intellect', one or more Contiguous attachments, and Similarities. The following things contribute to the effective Recall of an emotional state (Pleasure still taken as the type). First:-The goodness of the nervous centres, physically viewed. To take on a lively emotion of ideal pleasure, there needs to be a certain physical support, of the same kind as was favourable to the original emotion under the still more potent actuality. We cannot in a physically depressed condition rise to the pitch of joyful emotion; the apparent exceptions are not really such. Under a general law, already noticed, long dormancy, or absence, of a peculiar emotional tremor, is favourable to its being vividly resumed on the proper application. Having had no occasion for a long time to think of some favourite hero, we are all the more susceptible to be inflamed at the suggestion of his name and exploits. A persecuted religious sect, whose times of meeting for worship are long separated, feel on each occasion a glow of emotion that they vainly sigh to reproduce under a regime of perfect toleration. Second. Emotions, like intellectual states, are recovered by the presentation of their former accompaniments; the speciality being the need of a far greater impetus of reproduction than for mere ideas. Hence the collaterals must be extensively suggested; prominence must be given to such as were most strongly under the attention at the time; and everything should be favourable to the full and steady hold of the various accompaniments. A sharp and sudden presentation has necessarily a greater effect; or any circumstance that brings with it surprise or excitement. To get complete possession of the mind by quashing all other thoughts and images for the time, is by necessity the surest mode of ushering in the associated feeling of the scene. The Emotion of a great victory, as Marathon to a Greek, is best recalled at a time when the system is physically prepared for joyful exultation, when the locality is made vividly present, as by an actual visit, or a strongly presented recollec WORKINGS OF SIMILARITY. tion, or when some of the incidents are strongly recalled, and more especially the crowning incident or turning point of success. If the action is brought forward unexpectedly by some touching relic, or accidental encounter, there is an especial vividness and impetus in the suggestion of the feeling. As circumstantials flow in from all sides, through conversation. or in other ways, the emotion is re-inforced and sustained in its brilliancy. One mode of recalling agreeable emotions in idea, is to be engaged in working for the reality. Much of our ideal pleasure consists in planning, forecasting, and preparing for, our various enjoyments. In winter, we amuse our vacant hours by scheming our summer travels. The parent, in working for the future of a child, feels already something of the joyful result. 13. The reproductive force of Similarity operates variously. When the collaterals and occasion of a feeling are brought up by a stroke of likeness in diversity, there is an agreeable and vivifying stimulus to the conception, operating like the surprises just mentioned. The Roman army, coming upon the scene that led them to exclaim -Ecce ZTiber!-would be suddenly re-filled with the emotions of their city and their home. Similarity operates in a still more interesting way. Our favourite emotions are brought into play not merely by the occasions personal to ourselves, as when an ambitious man makes a step, but by the like occasions in other men whose career we witness or hear of. This spreads out and magnifies in a remarkable degree the influence of an emotion. It constitutes much of the charm of sympathy, of history, and of poetry. An Alexander the Conqueror delights in the Iliad, from the likeness that he sees between himself and the godlike leaders of the Greeks and the Trojans. More subtle yet is that operation of Similarity, whereby a present emotional excitement, actual or ideal, evokes and awakens all the echoes of our kindred emotions. The intricacy of this situation almost defies analysis. The facts are such as these:-Under a stimulation of the IDEAL EMOTION. senses, as music, our strong favourite emotions are resuscitated; and the pleasure is a complex product of present sensation and ideal feelings. Love, ambition, and pride are aroused to a lively ideal exercise in a mood prepared for them by some quite inferior stimulation. Music is the most striking instance, but not the only one; the influence of scenery, colours, and various stimulants have the same operation. It is a problem next to insoluble, how much, in these cases, is due to actual influence, and how much to the awakening of echoes of the past. We find a difficulty in stating the principle at work; there are various ways of rendering the phenomenon. We want to know how much a remembered emotion can contribute of itself to a present state; how much happier the person that has that memory is, than the person that does Pot have it. This measure cannot be reached under a present actual stimulation; we should need a case where a nieutral state was changed into an emotional outburst through the purely intellectual revival of prior experiences of a delight. We often have such a test; the occasions of neutrality changed into pleasure by a mere memory of pleasure are so frequent and unmistakable, that we are quite confident of the truth of the principle contended for in this chapter. We, therefore, infer that, when music or other genial stimulation wakens up past occasions of pleasure, these echoes do greatly increase the emotional glow; that the highly educated emotional man is necessarily much more elated under the circumstances than the poor, the outcast, the emotionally famished man. It is, consequently, an important law of the mind, that a present pleasurable stimulation is a means of recalling ideal states of pleasure, and is thus twice blessed. Without a certain round of those pleasures that we call actual, or present, such as the pleasures of sense and the gratification of appetite, the best education in pleasures, the richest accumulation of associated feelings, will not attain more than half their efficiency; they will be a mass of barren potentialities, unused riches. It is only following out the law of Similarity, in its strict DISENGAGEMENT OF THE MIND. 105 ness, to remark that present feelings will recall by preference those of their own special character; affection recalling affection, sublimity recalling sublimity; not simply pleasure recalling pleasure. On this principle, a musical performance should recall former musical experiences, which undoubtedly is the case to some extent with all, and to a great extent with musicians, with whom the pleasurable feeling is more firmly set and embodied in the score of the music. In those that are ignorant of music as an art, the pleasure is comparatively vague and loose; it is wanting in intellectual associates, and reduced to the lower level of physical or sensuous excitement, in fact, mere intoxication. The mind is open to the revival of all pleasures alike; and in such a situation, the emotions that happen to be strongest, whether by nature or by cultivation, are the first to be recalled. 14. So much for the two great intellectual agencies of resuscitation-Contiguity and Similarity-as applied to ideal emotion. Completeness requires us to add the condition of disengagement of the mind, which is the more necessary, the greater the draft upon the powers. It is in our more vacant hours, when the strain of action and of intellect is remitted, while there is yet a reserve of power in the physical supports of the mind, that we are in a condition to mount the heights of emotion, and to respond to the suggestions of our foregone experiences of delight. To those that devote little of their strength to either action or thought, these emotional opportunities are everything that can be desired. There being thus a store of rich associations of pleasurable emotion, the economy of life needs to be such as to stimulate them with sufficient and no more than sufficient frequency; the test being the necessary limitation of all pleasures, the power of the system to bear them. It is in great part to recall our husbanded pleasures, that we surround ourselves with objects of interest, see the world, move in society, cultivate literature, perform ceremonies and rites. 15. Having, on principle, viewed Emotion as pleasure, and not as pain or indifference,-as the strength or affluence of 106 IDEAL EMOTION. the system, and not as its weakness or exhaustion,-let us advert now to the circumstances of painful association; the practical interest being to discover the means of checking a series of growths all too easy. In some respects the two cases have the very same conditions; where the conditions are not the same, they are not different merely, but opposed. For the stirring up of ideal or remembered pains, there must be pains in the actual, environed with circumstances or collaterals, whether causes or incidental accompaniments. In proportion to the intensity of pain (short of all-engrossing agony) is the strain of the intellectual attention upon the objects close at hand, which attention forges a permanent link between these and the feeling. Again, Repetition or frequency confirms or strengthens the link once begun. The operation of the law of Contiguity is thus so far the same with pleasures and with pains. Next, as regards the working of Similarity in the moments of recall, or the remembered feelings, there is a substantial agreement in the two cases. A present painful situation will recall former resembling situations, and by preference those that have both emotional and intellectual similarity. A gloomy mood revives former occasions of gloom, and deepens the darkness by accumulation. It is when we refer to the physical and other conditions of the system at the time of the actual, and also at the time of the remembrance or the ideal, that the same language will not apply to pleasure and to pain. The goodness of the nervous centres, the abundance of blood or nutriment, the remission of severe exercise, the discontinuance of the special stimulation for some time previous,-are all conditions preparatory to a great pleasurable outburst, on an appropriate application; they are not the conditions of a painful outburst, even under the appropriate application. On the contrary, the system being as it were wound up to respond to pleasure, if unfortunately there should be presented, instead of pleasure, a course of pain, all these conditions will operate in resisting and neutralizing REVIVAL OF PAINS. 107 the blow, in fighting it off for a time; and only after the language above used ceases to be applicable, when the nervous system is enfeebled and the nourishment impoverished, does the pain fully take possession of the system. Pain as such is more exciting to the nervous system than pleasure as such. If, by the measure of mutual saturation or extinction, we settled the equality between a pleasure and a pain; on making a suitable experiment, we should find that the pain is more rousing, more exciting, more stimulating to the attention than the pleasure. Consequently, pains stamp themselves more deeply on the mind, are more firmly tacked on to the associating circumstances, than pleasures are. The education in the memory of pain is thus a quicker and an easier process than the education to ideal pleasure. The one is the rapid downhill course; the other is the slow and toilsome ascent; the one works by recklessness and neglect; the other by intent and unremitted circumspection. The most felicitous junctures of pleasurable experience make but little progress towards an abiding memory of pleasure; by one stroke of pain, we may plant a life-long memory, or undo the work of years in consolidating an ideal recollection of joy. A single fright will convert a happy confidence into bitter mistrust. A few suggestions of jealousy will be the counteractive of a nourished affection. The causes of pleasure are (with some qualifications) the causes of health; pain is synonymous with disease. The comparison, if not identity, is most emphatically exhibited in their respective modes of causation; in the one, multiplication of precautionary appliances, in the other, abandonment to every hazard; the one is like keeping up the impregnability of a citadel, the other, going asleep till the enemy gets possession. And as a six months' defence may be neutralized by the remissness of one hour, so a careful and continued husbanding of pleasant ideals may be squandered in one reckless or unfortunate incident of painful disaster. The circumstances and events of life are thus laying up for us both retrospective bliss and retrospective misery; 108 IDEAL EMOTION. through a fortunate lot and multiplied precautions we may further the bliss, and hinder the misery. When the same object has been mingled with experiences both pleasurable and painful, as happens with most things that we have had much to do with-home, kindred, property,-the pleasure or the pain is recalled according to the mood and circumstances of the resuscitation. 16. The stream of our sentient life, as regards pleasure and pain, is a mixture of Actuality with Ideality. As Actuality is by its nature superior, we prefer it on all occasions, up to the pitch of satiety. But there is a very important circumstance in favour of Ideality, which makes it often preferable to the Actual. In an ideal feeling, we can drop out all disagreeable accompaniments. The actual pleasure of a feast, of a spectacle, of a success, is a concrete situation, with many effects besides the chief feeling, some of them the reverse of agreeable; all which may be omitted in an ideal resuscitation of the scene. True enough, such recollections are unfaithful to the fact; and an honest mind would repudiate them. But we do not carry honesty so far as this; we are content to garble, to omit disagreeables, and to dwell only upon the good side. If we can draw the line between this exercise of picking out choice morsels of a foregone situation, and of believing that these were the whole case, we may be better off with the ideal than with the reality. Such are the exercises that we may often deliberately prefer to repeating the actuality; after a grand tour, where we have had great pleasures, but also great fatigues and privations, we resolve to be content with our ideal retrospect, and not again to face the actual scenes. The old soldier, the retired man of business or politician, rest satisfied with the memory of the past. The proceeding is more natural, than if we were so far carried away with the happy incidents, as to be oblivious of the opposite, and were determined to repeat the experience without having these in the account at all. Ideality being so much cheaper and more virtuous than reality, the tendency of the moralist is to prescribe it as a THE IDEAL ALTERNATED WITH THE ACTUAL. 109 substitute when there is a deficiency of pleasures in the actual. There are decided limits to such an attempt, which are the limits to the so-called Pleasures of the Imagination. The Ideal is a paper currency, and needs to rest on a sufficient basis of the Real. The considerations already adduced are sufficient proof of this. The conditions for laying up a numerous host of pleasant memories, and for evoking them in due force and frequency, are conditions incompatible with a pinched and poverty-stricken career. Besides which, it is not possible to sustain a cheerful flow from ideas alone; a mixture and alternation of actual pleasures must be present in a happy life. The mother separated from all her children is a prey to many hours of painful longings. 17. The highest condition of well-being is to have as many actual delights as we are able to sustain, interpolated by ideal satisfactions; the ideals embracing what is also given in the actual. It is good to be sated with town life, with country life, with agreeable work, and agreeable recreations; and in the moments when the concrete accompaniments of any one are unpleasant, to think of the others in idea, with the knowledge that we shall eventually have them in the actual. These actual delights may be fewer than we could enjoy with full relish; so that we must spend a good deal of time in mere ideas; as when friendly intercourse is liable to long interruptions. Still it does recur, and can be counted on. Here the Ideal is not the exclusive resort; and, moreover, it is supported' by the powerful aid of belief, that is, Hope. Ideality in this shape goes a long way; it is one of the most considerable factors of human bliss. Its support, however, is still a substantial basis of the actual; not, perhaps, a great area of luxurious satisfaction, but a certain number of well-secured delights. The last and lowest form of Ideal Pleasure is the total absence of any corresponding actuality. Even supposing that the circumstances and culture of one's life have been favourable to ideal memories of pleasure, yet if these are formed into pictures without any corresponding reality, the indulgence 110 IDEAL EMOTION. of them may give occasional bright moments, but no wide tracts of satisfying delight. Of this nature is sorrow for the lost. Next are the dreams of unattainable happiness; the contemplation of good fortune that will never be ours; the building up of future bliss without a basis of belief. This is but a melancholy culture of the Imagination. Fine Art leaves a good deal to be imagined, but not everything. We need a powerful emotional temperament to go on for ever finding satisfaction in Romance.. The question arises whether it may not be an equally profitable culture to dwell upon the marring accompaniments of all real bliss, and, on that ground alone, to cease to imagine it. No doubt this view also is extravagant and erroneous; but it may be quite as efficacious for our purpose. By no conceivable manipulation of ideas can we make riches spring out of poverty. It belongs to the theory of Fine Art to trace out the constructive pleasures of Imagination, the delights of pourtraying original situations, such as to provide new forms of Ideal gratification. Ideal Emotion, as viewed in this chapter, embraces chiefly the pleasures of memory, or of memory converted into anticipation. Beyond and above these, are the delights of Imagination strictly so called, the pleasures of Poetry, Painting, and other Fine Arts, and of the aesthetic in nature. The Ideal Emotions as now described are the elements of these farther delights; while the constructive faculty must minister to the emotional aptitudes. CHAPTER VI. SYMPATHY. 1. SYMPATHY is to enter into the feelings of another being, and to act out these for behoof of that other, as if they were our own. It is the vicarious and self-sacrificing impulse of our nature, in opposition to the self-seeking or self-regarding impulse. He -that gratifies his own hunger, alleviates his own aches, panders to his own senses, seeks his own revenge, gratifies his own curiosity, lays up store for his own future wants,-is occupied with his proper interests, consults his proper sensibilities, acts as if there were no one to look after but himself. He that, without thought of re- imbursement or reward, makes provision for the needs, wants, pleasures of others, is said to feel for, sympathize with, bestow kindness upon, deny himself for, his fellow-beings. 2. In the involved relationships of society, the giving of favours so often procures favours in return, that some have plausibly argued against the existence of purely disinterested conduct, alleging that what appears to be such is only a farseeing selfishness. The facts that refuse to be interpreted so are these:-the instantaneous unreflecting impulses of pity to creatures in distress, although strangers, enemies, criminals, noxious beasts; the absence of all balancings of immediate loss with ultimate gain; and the setting on one side for the time the services that would certainly bring a return. Longsighted selfishness does not explain the conduct of the good Samaritan. Again, the hosts of human beings that in all ages have voluntarily given up their lives for their country, could not be influenced by their own advantage. For, although many of these have been taught the hopes of a future existence, this has been by no means universal; and there could be little certainty in the mass of minds that the surrender of this life would receive a full compensation in another. 112 SYMPATHY. 3. Deferring the enquiry into the ultimate foundations, in our constitution, of this tendency to go out of self, I will first endeavour to state precisely the conditions of the sympathetic process as revealed to us by observation. Speaking generally, there is an association between certain signs of feeling, and the feelings themselves, mainly the result of experience of the connexion of the two facts. Given the signs or indications of a state of feeling, there will arise, or tend to arise, the feeling itself. The circumstances that favour the association, and those that aid the resuscitation, have all been discussed in other places. (See CONTIGUITY-Objects and Feelings, and IDEAL EMOTION.) The special thing to be accounted for in Sympathy, is not the re-excitement of a feeling, but the attaching of that feeling to another personality, and the working out of the consequences in that character. Seeing another man in danger, we may be reminded of like dangers to self, and may feel frightened on our own account; if we stop there, we are purely egotistical, and in no respect sympathetic. 4. The first essential of Sympathy is our own experience of states of feeling in the actual. Every one has a certain experience of the human feelings; in some the range is limited, in others it is extensive. Of the great fundamental varieties of feeling-the pleasures and pains of the senses, and the simpler emotions-all must have some acquaintance. The old have necessarily more experience than the young; the cultivated than the uncultivated; the civilized man than the uncivilized. Every situation has its characteristic and often incommunicable experiences; child-birth and maternity have a special group of emotions, not to be attained by the childless. Among the efforts of the constructive intellect, is the power of conceiving new and unexperienced emotions. In so far as this power is possible, and is put in exercise, the basis of our emotional character is enlarged, with a corresponding enlargement of the means of sympathy. It is not enough to have emotional experience, there must also be the power of remembering that experience, or of effectively.representing it to the mind. This supposes among EXPERIENCE OF THE SIGNS OF FEELING. 113 other things a considerable iteration of the feelings. An occasional sufferer from acute disease may have his recollection of the state too feeble for sympathy; not so the habitual sufferer. It has been a frequent remark in the course of our exposition of the mind that for Prudential Forethought, and for Sympathy alike, there is needed an effective recollection of pleasures and pains. 5. Next to experience of the Feelings, is experience of the Signs. These are-the recognized expression of human and other sentient beings, by Voice, Movement, Gesture, and Demonstrations of every kind. Probably the foremost place among the associated signs of feeling should be given to the voice. One reason is that we are at all times affected by our own voice, whereas we do not see our own features. Another reason may be that the shock of a sound, being a transition from silence, is more impressive than a mere variation in the appearance of what already occupies the eye. In the third place, the emission of sound is the most wide-spread of all the significant signs of the mental states of animals and human beings. The Visible Movements are impressive according to their suddenness, their rapidity, their extent. Of many of our own movements, we are sufficiently conscious to connect them with our states of feeling. The start, the bound, the run,-under the emotions of sudden joy, anger, or fright,-are distinctly felt by ourselves; and are associated with the feelings, so as to give a key to the states of other men. What we fail most in is the expression of the features, together with those changes of colour and complexion that accompany the mental moods. In this situation, we are assisted by another class of indications of feeling that are not properly speaking the expression of feeling, but are still the medium of knowing the states of others. These are the known causes, collaterals, and consequences of our various pleasures and pains; including all the outward agencies and all the proceedings that follow. The sight of a hot coal in contact with the skin suggests the pain of a burn; and when this happens to any one in our presence, 8 114 SYMPATHY. we know their acute suffering; and seeing the movements of the features at that moment, we have the means of knowing what are the signs expressive of acute pain. So we interpret the operation of pleasure: we know the pleasure of sweetness in connexion with a piece of sugar; we mark the alterations of the countenance in the child or other unsophisticated partaker of the delight, and thus obtain indirectly a knowledge of the connexion of pleasure with the movements in smiling. Only by this circuitous method can we interpret changes of the countenance aud complexion-the crimson blush, the pallor, the brightening or the suffusion of the eye. Since we connect, at first hand, vocal sounds with feelings, we can use the indications of sound to learn the additional signs of visible expression. A cry of pain calls our attention to the pained individual; we already know the state of mind, and we farther watch the movements and gestures, and learn to connect these with the same state. Another medium for learning the Signs of feeling is given in the gregarious situation of the sociable animals. Creatures living together are affected by the same causes, and take on the same feelings. In this way, each one, while conscious of the feeling, witnesses its expression in the rest. The pleasures of abundant meals, the excitement of the chase, the terror of being preyed upon, are all felt and expressed in company; the coincidence of the feeling and the language cannot be mistaken; and there inevitably follows an association between the two. The rate of associating growth between the Feelings and these various Signs follows the laws applicable to the case. Besides repetition, there are to be taken into account, the intensity of the feelings on the one hand, and the impressiveness of the signs on the other. As regards the signs, they should, by their quality, impress themselves on the senses; they should also be distinctive. The sharp cutting sound of a cough, and the sound of a person talking hoarse, are known to to be contagious; and the probable reason is the intensity or expressiveness. The contagiousness of the yawn may be due INTELLECTUAL ACQUISITIONS IN SYMPATIIY. 115 to the same cause. Laughter is more powerful than either; combining, as it does, strong sensations both of sight and of hearing. * 6. The connecting of Feelings with Signs depends upon the Intellectual forces on the whole. A feeble intelligence fails in this as in other branches of acquirement. Hence one reason for man's being superior in sympathy to the brutes; also for the more sympathetic character of the higher races, and of the most intelligent individuals. This is qualified, but not contradicted, by cases where the intellectual forces are concentrated on other subjects; a man may have great intellect and yet not expend it in either multiplying or deepening associations with the Feelings. 7. The characteristic of being susceptible to the impressions of the senses generally, must favour the workings of sympathy. One of the greatest distinctions between human beings consists in being much or little impressed from without. Some men are all eye, all ear, all sense; and are in the highest degree receptive beings. The contrasting peculiarity is shown in spontaneous and ebullient activity, with the minimum of outward regards. The physical basis of the one character may be supposed to be a rich endowment of the centres of the Senses; of the other, a comparative defectiveness in the senses, giving more play to the centres of Movement. Be this as it may, the distinction is fundamental and pervading; while taking on many specific forms and varieties. To be more occupied with sense and less occupied in movement, is to imbibe a greater variety of impressions; and when action follows, that action is more circumspect, in other words, better accommodated to circumstances. ow, in order to large and The infectiousness of laughter is considered by Mr. Spencer to be illustrative of the primitive situation that gave birth to sympathy; the gregarious state, where all the members of the flock were subjected to common influences and expressed themselves in common. A cause of pleasure operating on all alike would be responded to by all; and thero would be formed a habit of manifesting their feelings in unison, so that each would be disposed to chime in with the multitude, without being under the same original stimulation. 116 SYMPATHY. ready sympathies, there must be the wakefulness of the senses to begin with; the completing fact being wakefulness in this particular department, instead of other departments. Failure of the senses, by age or otherwise, notably contracts the sympathies and increases the egotism of the character; deaf persons become more and more self-engrossed and self-conceited. An irrepressible activity narrows the opening for impressions from without, whether sympathetic or other. Whatever circumstances restrain or subdue the active disposition, give more scope to the passive susceptibility. Ill health may have the effect; and the quieting influence of age is on this one point favourable to sympathy. In immediate susceptibility, the feminine temperament, as less energetic, has a certain advantage. By a morbid excess of the sympathetic turn, the result of ill health on a mind naturally susceptible, John Sterling gave himself the death blow. Seeing a maid-servant straining to pull a table, he jumped to her aid, and by a violent wrench irreparably injured his feeble lungs. The quieting refinement of manners, and the release from severe engrossing activity, may also operate in the direction of sympathy and susceptibility to the outward world. There is a ridiculous caricature of this effect quoted from Athenseus by Sir A. Grant. One of the Sybarites declared that 'seeing some men digging the fields had given him a rupture'. To which his friend replied,-' the very mention of it gave him a pain in his side '. The mesmeric sleep is the extreme illustration of susceptibility at a single point exaggerated by quiescence elsewhere. The activity from within is in abeyance, and the mind is opened in only one of its avenues. Whatever is suggested in this single line is followed out freely; and the rising thoughts are thus at the mercy of the prompter. 8. The relation to the person sympathized with is a vital circumstance. It is notorious that we sympathize readily with those that we are attached to, less readily with indifferent persons, and scarcely at all with those that we dislike. So intimately connected are sympathy and love, that a careful atten COUNTERACTIVES OF SYMPATHY. 117 tion is needed to show that, notwithstanding their close alliance, they are distinct aptitudes. Community of opinions, sentiments, situations, or fortunes, begets first the state called sympathy proper, and from that, not unfrequently passes to affection; but there must be present, over and above the original occasion of sympathy, some qualities suitable to engender positive liking. It is still an open question, to be considered presently, whether the essential nature of sympathy may not be a remote consequence of our sociable or tender feelings. This is the ground taken in accounting for sympathy by Evolution. 9. From what has already been advanced, we are prepared to sum up the counteractives of sympathy, whose absence is to be reckoned among its conditions. First. The Energetic or Active Temperament, under which the system is more active than sensitive throughout. Nothing farther need be said on this head. Secondly. The preponderance or strength of the lower or animal senses; the devotion to the pleasures that cannot be shared. In the young generally, and in some constitutions more than in others, the animal delights have a very powerful hold. The pleasures of the table, stimulants, sports, and even the sexual passion, are all highly-egotistical. Thirdly. Of the higher emotions, the feeling of Anger is by its very nature antipathetic. The irascible outburst, how-. ever, usually supposes some prior wound on a sensitive part. There must be at the bottom a mass of inflamed egotism, the real source of the destructive energy. The predatory side of the animal supposes the getting of a livelihood, the gratification of the strong appetites, together with an acquired propensity to the chase. In necessary opposition to Sympathy, is the allied, but more comprehensive, emotion-the Love of Power, or Superiority, which subsists by trampling upon other people's individuality instead of cherishing it. The state of mind called Aversion, or Antipathy, in name and in fact the greatest enemy of sympathy, is a combination 118 SYMPATHY. of anger and fear grounded on the irritation of numerous or acute sensibilities. Fame or glory is egotistical in its nature, but with a sympathetic side. It implies superiority to the rest of mankind, but still requires us to consider and regard the feelings of those that we appeal to. Avarice, being a product arising from all the sources of pleasure, but especially the costly and unsharable modes of enjoyment-sensuality, splendour, and power,-is hostile to sympathy at the majority of points. It is an obvious consequence of the foregoing enumeration, that we sympathize best with the pleasures and pains that are nearest our own. Our own experience is the sole basis of our conception of other people's experience. Hence an obstacle to sympathy is Disparity of constitution, temperament, or education. The timid man cannot comprehend the composure of the courageous, in the face of peril; the cold nature cannot understand the pains of the ardent lover; the impulsive mind will not sympathize with cautious deliberation. When we are far removed in natural constitution, in habits, in associations from another mind, and still desire to possess ourselves of the emotions belonging to that mind-as when a historian deals with the hero of a past age, or a poet presents a farfetched ideal to our view-a laborious constructive process has to be gone into, of which mention has been made in another place. In many ways this exercise is exceedingly valuable and instructive; sympathy enabling us to know other men, as self-consciousness enables us to comply with the precept 'know thyself'. 10. I remark next on the value or effect of sympathy in the person sympathized with. It prolongs the thrill of every pleasing emotion. In Aristotle the observation occurs, that 'it is not easy to maintain a glow of mind by one's self, whereas in company with some one else, and in relation to others, this is easier' ('Ethics', Book IX.; 95). To find another person giving powerful utterance to some of our favourite sentiments and views, is an especial charm. Many REGARD TO SELF A CONDITION. 119 examples could be given. The preacher, the poet, the actor, each exercises the power of reviving in men's minds the emotions that they especially delight in; and the machinery they employ is some form of the instrumentality we are now discussing. Foreign aid is brought in to kindle a flame which the individual, standing alone, does not easily sustain at the same pitch, or for the same length of time. Thus it is that devotion is kept up by the preacher, the crowd of worshippers, and the presence of the smybols and ceremonial suggestive of its objects. When the mind is wearied, and sick of dwelling on a cherished pursuit, the entry of a friend, ardent and fresh, seems to give new oil to the dying lamp. Often it happens that we take delight in a mode of feeling that we find a difficulty in keeping up by unassisted strength; as when one finds a charm in science, without possessing scientific force or cultivation. In that case we love to come under the influence of one that wields with ease the matter and the emotions of scientific truth, and we may in fact have the greater enjoyment of the two. In like manner, the responsive feelings of an assembly, a party, or a nation, tell with accumulated force; and whether it be for encouragement in arduous struggles, or for condolence in the depths of distress, we are sensibly alive to the value of a wide circle of friendship. 11. It is a fact of great practical importance that fellowfeeling requires us to have a certain regard to our own happiness in the first instance. If our own lot contains but a small share of pleasure, or, if by an ascetic culture we are made to set little value on the enjoyment of life, we part with the very basis of sympathy. Thus, while a large amount of self-regard excludes sympathy, self-abnegation and misery extinguish it. There is a certain middle point between the two extremes, where fellow-feeling is most likely to flourish. In military service, each man has to risk his own life in battle or through hardship; and no one has a great desire to screen his neighbour. Sympathy is chiefly shown to the wounded. In great public calamities, as the plague, regard. 120 SYMPATHY. for others is extinct. It is remarked by James Mill that men need to be comfortable themselves in order to enter into the discomforts of others; virtue and wretchedness are incompatible. A moderate share of property gives sympathy for property and a respect for the rights of proprietors. Assuming the presence of a sympathetic element in the mind, in order to give it play, we need also a measured and successful pursuit of our own happiness. Among the greatest defenders of abuses are those that have suffered from them to the full; it takes an unusual share of benevolent impulse, or else some hope of personal importance, to be willing to exempt other persons from the miseries that we ourselves have gone through. Hence people are loath to abolish fagging at schools, and the ordeals of apprenticeship in trades.* 12. We are now prepared to put the question-What is the origin or first source of the sympathetic and disinterested impulses of our nature? We have seen that the faculty is * 'Every altruistic feeling needs the corresponding egotistic feeling as an indispensable factor' (Spencer). 'The situations', says Adam Smith, 'in which the gentle virtue of humanity can be most happily cultivated, are by no means the same with those which are best fitted for forming the austere virtue of self-command. The man who is himself at ease, can best attend to the distress of others. The man who is himself exposed to hardships, is most immediately called upon to attend to, and to control his own feelings. In the mild sunshine of undisturbed tranquillity, in the calm retirement of undissipated and philosophical leisure, the soft virtue of humanity flourishes the most, and is capable of the highest improvement.' 'But the strength of the papacy was in its own reviving energy and activity. It had armies at its command, more powerful than the men-at-arms of Alva, or the chivalry of the Guises. For home or foreign service it had its appropriate and effective forces. It had its stern and remorseless police in the Dominicans, who administered the inquisition in Italy and Spain; mcn of iron hearts, whose awful and single-minded fanaticism bordered on the terrible sublimefor they had wrought themselves to the full conviction that humanity was a crime when it endangered immortal souls: the votaries of the hair-cloth ane the scourge, the chilling midnight vigil, the austere and withering fast; those who illustrate the great truth that men who proscribe happiness in themselves are least scrupulous in inflicting misery; whom one dark engrossing thought made equally ready to lay down their own lives, or to take away those of others'. (Milman). THE PRIMITIVE GREGARIOUS SITUATION. 121 in a very great degree intellectual; that it rests upon intellectual operations. It supposes, an experience of various moods and emotions, with the ability to recall these in idea or recollection. It supposes, farther, an exact knowledge of the signs of feeling, whereby these signs bring up the feelings themselves. So much is plainly due to intellect conjoined with our own personal experience of the various sensations and emotions. But now comes the peculiar point, the characteristic moment of the sympathetic impulse-the being laid hold of and engrossed by these suggested feelings as connected with another person; the taking that person altogether into our own mental grasp, to the setting aside or exclusion of our own personality. The previous steps so far lead the way, but do not necessarily include or guarantee that final transition. I may go through all the intellectual or knowledgegiving part, and make use of it in ways that do not constitute sympathy; turning it to practical account in the management of human beings, as an orator or a politician; reproducing it for artistic effect, as a dramatist; studying its laws scientifically, as a mental philosopher. To be wakened to sympathy proper is a new and distinct phase; a fact still remaining to be accounted for. I have always been disposed to regard sympathy as a remarkable and crowning instance of the Fixed Idea, which is to make it an intellectual fact, or as much so as any fact conversant with emotions can be. It has this in common with the Fixed Idea; that it clashes with the regular outgoings of the Will in favour of our pleasures. Yet the question still returns upon us, what gives the impression of another's pains and pleasures such a degree of fixity that we are constrained to follow these out as if they were our own; setting aside for the time our proper pleasures and incurring sacrifices or pains far beyond any satisfaction that the sympathy can bring? 13. I think that the hypothesis of the gregarious0 ogin of the sympathetic impulse relieves the difficulties of the problem, and explaiins, with much probability, our being detained, 122 SYMPATHY. engrossed, fascinated, with the mental states of other persons. The ancient habit of acting with others, the intense preconception of personality, would give an interest in everything relating to persons; there might not be a felt pleasure attending it on all occasions, there might be a good deal of the -reverse; yet at one time or other, in the history of the sympathetic growth, there have been innumerable experiences of pleasure and relief from pain, which on the whole leave a cheering or exhilarating impression, and, irrespective of this, a strong habit of giving way to the expression of feeling in those about us. The habit once contracted, the effect will often arise without any conscious pleasure, or with the pleasure more than neutralized by the painful consequences of the sympathy. The facts and appearances, so far as I can judge, are in favour of this view; and until some still more likely hypothesis is started, I am content to acquiesce in it. The illustration of the supposed situation will be resumed and amplified in the chapter on Tender Emotion. The hypothesis is in marked consistency with one special condition of sympathy, namely, our affection or regard for the person sympathized with. To the same degree, however, does it appear to render impossible our sympathy with those that we dislike. Yet dislike, although a serious obstacle to fellowfeeling, does not destroy it. 14. The influence of habituation is quite sufficient to get us over this difficulty. The sympathizing tendency was at first engendered, and continues to be nourished, by the satisfaction of co-operating with others; but its exercise is not limited to the occasions when that satisfaction is felt. The sensible augmentation of its force in the case of objects of affection shows its very close dependence on the sociable gratifications; yet there is a constant pressure of fellow-feeling in our constitution that carries us through occasions of suffering and sacrifice, overcoming repugnance and dispensing with all considerations of selfish recompense.* It is the mr.-easoning attachment of the people to the existing institu MEANING OF WIDE SYMPATHIES. 123 15. Thus it is that our sympathy may extend far beyond our tender affections. A man may be fastidious in the choice of objects of affection, and may form few attachments. His sociable interest would be in a great degree the diffused feeling of fraternity; his sympathies would then be wide, and his outgoings patriotic and cosmopolitan. With the intellectual conditions of sympathy-the representative power-well formed, he would labour for large public objects, for remedying evils, and for raising the standard of general well-being. Such men were Howard and Bentham, amid a host of monumental names. tions of the country which constitutes one of the main safeguards of a government. Such an attachment, indeed, will probably not arise, unless the institution is, on the whole, beneficial; but when it has snce arisen, it is confirmed and augmented by habit; it derives strength from the existence of similai habits in others, and it creates a patriotic feeling, which prompts every citizen to action, independently of any special process of reasoning in the individual case, or of any prospect of direct personal advantage (Sir G. Lewis, ' Methods of Observation and Reasoning in Politics', II., 187). CHAPTER VII. TENDER EMOTION. PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS. 1. THE Tender Emotion, in all its outgoings of sociable regards, is one of the first, if not the first, of human emotions. It surpasses every other life interest; so much so that it is made the setting of nearly all our pleasures. Whatever we enjoy (with few exceptions) we desire to enjoy sociably; in other words, we wish to couple with the pleasures of companionship. What then is the basis, or groundwork, of this great susceptibility? Is it simply a large aggregate of sense pleasures, for which living beings from their many-sidedness furnish the occasion? Or has it an origin transcending the proper sensations of the senses? 2. In the chapter on Evolution, I instanced the gregarious situation as a source of special emotions, and more particularly the emotions of sociability and love. Mr. Spencer has followed out the workings of this situation in order to account for sympathy. He does not, however, take into consideration how far the interest of sociability--making creatures happy in one another's presence, uncomfortable in solitude-is in substance the warm, tender emotion, the reality of love and affection. Yet when we attend to the workings of love, we see that it is nowise different from this sociable interest, this joyous elation from the presence of other personalities. If the mere fact of being constantly together in a flock, rendering mutual services as regards the first wants of life, develops a mass of agreeable feeling, one towards the other, this would seem a sufficient beginning of whatever is meant by love, affection, tender regard. 3. Mr. Spencer thinks it necessary to assume an origin, apart from the sociable situation, for what he deems the central fact of Benevolent regards, namely, the Love of the AS LOVE OF THE HELPLESS. 125 helpless. Now we must admit that the feeling of protectorship of the weak by the strong is a very marked form of tender interest and one of the greatest pleasures attending it. What is not so apparent is that this is a primary fact of the constitution, due to a chance variation, and perpetuating itself by the great advantage conferred by it in the struggle for life. The feeling supposes a complex situation; it implies a knowledge of the fact of being strong or weak, a capacity of inferring weakness in another individual, and a sympathetic response to that weakness. Whoever has all these gifts must be far gone in sociability already. I can hardly suppose this complex aptitude starting forth of a sudden in some accidental variety of the animal kingdom. Mr. Spencer accounts for the maternal feeling by the same bold assumption, there being nothing to evoke it in the course of ordinary generation or evolution. The two facts are in substance the same: the maternal feeling is but a specific case of protectorship. Probably, if we could account for the one, we might account for both. The maternal feeling in particular might lead to the love of the helpless in general, and conversely. The love of the helpless is certainly in keeping with the feelings due (as we suppose) to the sociable situation. The interest in all the flock, the habit of co-operating and assisting one another, involves a forliori the assisting of such as are needy and weak. A moderate amount of intelligence would discriminate between the position of having and the position of wanting, and the general sociable interest could hardly fail to take on some variation suited to those positions. Again, in the predatory and fighting relation, the sense of weak and strong would be independently cultivated. The dangerously strong rival would inspire anger and fear; the extreme re-action from this state would be felt towards a creature neither strong nor a rival; to this extent we might accept Mr. Darwin's law of Antithesis. The remission of fear is certainly an agreeable elation; the remission of anger, that is, the complete withdrawal of the cause and the institution of of an exactly opposite situation, might awaken a feeling 126 TENDER EMOTION. kindred to love. Pity and Revenge might possibly be developed together as an obverse couple. In their origin, they are about equally explicable, equally inexplicable. 4. In considering the genesis of Tender Emotion, in any or in all of its modes, I am inclined to put great stress upon the sensation of animal contact, or the pleasure of the embrace; a circumstance not adverted to by Mr. Spencer. Many facts may be adduced as showing this to be a very intense susceptibility, as well as a starting point for associations. (1.) Touch is the fundamental and generic sense, the firstborn of sensibility, from which, in the view of Evolution, all the others take their rise. (2.) Even after the remaining senses are differentiated, the primary sense continues to be a leading susceptibility of the mind. The soft warm touch, if not a first-class influence, is at least an approach to that. The combined power of soft contact and warmth amounts to a considerable pitch of massive pleasure; while there may be subtle influences not reducible to these two heads, such as we term, from not knowing anything about them, magnetic or electric. The sort of thrill from taking a baby in arms is something beyond mere warm touch; and it may rise to the ecstatic height, in which case, however, there may be concurring sensations and ideas. Between male and female the sexual appetite is roused. A predisposed affection through other means, makes the contact thrilling. (3.) The strong fact that cannot be explained away is, that under tender feeling there is a craving for the embrace. Between the sexes, there is the deeper appetite; while, in mere tender emotion, not sexual, there is nothing but the sense of touch to gratify, unless we assume the occult magnetic influences. As anger is consummated, reaches a satisfying term, by knocking some one down, love is completed and satisfied with an embrace. This would seem to show that the love emotion, while fed by sights and sounds, and even by odours, reaches its climax in touch: and, if so, it must be more com OBJECTS OF THE EMOTION. 127 pletely identified with this sensibility than with any other. In a word, our love pleasures begin and end in sensual contact. Touch is both the alpha and the omega of affection. As the terminal and satisfying sensation, the ne plus ultra, it must be a pleasure of the highest degree. CHARACTERS OF THE EMOTION. 5. The generic description applicable to the entire mass of feeling comprehended under Tender Emotion is,-a massive pleasure growing out of definite relations to persons or sentient creatures, and pointing to the embrace. Following the usual order, we should begin with a full detail of the OBJECTS or inspiring causes of the emotion. It will, however, be most profitable to give this detail for the leading branches of the emotion separately. As the interest of sociability at large, it is stimulated by one class of objects; as sexual love, by another; as parental love and pity, by a third. We can readily assign certain sensuous facts and appearances that awaken the tender feeling; but it may be doubted whether they would have their influence except as suggesting personality. The soft warm touch, the pathetic wail, and the colours and forms that inspire the tender interest, are effective only when related to a pejspn.* If this be so, the main and central object is some person; while the personality must be clothed in particular ways in order to inspire this feeling rather than other feelings, such as anger and fear, or rather than none at all. The enquiry into the modes and aspects of personality that call forth the tender emotion in a marked form, takes a very wide sweep; it does not stop short of solving the grand question-What is Beauty? * The wail of pathos is an association with misery and grief, and has a primitive potency to awaken the feeling. Seeing tears in the eye of another has an irresistible tendency to stimulate the flow in self. Here too, there is probably a deep-seated connexion from hereditary associations. The fascination for clear water and for transparent objects, including much of the beauty of lustre, may start from this origin. 128 TENDER EMOTION. 6. Very great pleasures, whether acute or voluminous, prompt the emotion. Under the agitation of extreme joy, the affections burst out with warmth and seek for a responding warmth. The na;ive remark of a child, quoted by Darwin, is true to nature. To the question 'What was meant by being in good spirits', the answer was 'It is laughing, talking, and kissing'. Occasions of rejoicing are celebrated by feasts and social gatherings. It is the paradox of tenderness that pain, no less than pleasure, operates as a remote cause. This is one of the most notable characters of the emotion, rendering it a means of assuaging misery as well as of heightening enjoyment. It is not simply that a person in pain seeks society, and finds comfort in love and sympathy, it is that there is prompted, in certain forms and situations of pain, a gush of feeling that renders the sufferer self-solacing. It must be a kind of pain that does not find relief in volition, nor yet in angry feeling; such pains as are connected with infirmity and helplessness, and not with energy. Naturally, the pains of the affections seek the specific outlet of tenderness. We may remark a general tendency in massive pleasures to induce tender feeling. Such are the pleasures of slow movements, repose after exercise, repletion, agreeable warmth, sweet odours, gentle and voluminous sounds, mild sunshine. These pleasures are of the soothing or quieting kind, as opposed to the acute or pungent pleasures; they induce the condition of repose, and inspire tenderness. Probably the explanation is, partly the general demand for companionship, especially in pleasures, and partly the suitability of the state of repose to the enjoyments of tenderness. 7. The PHYSICAL side of Tender Emotion is a suggestive study. The connection with Touch has already been dwelt upon. Next is the participation of the Lachrymal Organsgland and sac, which are specifically acted on, and probably combine their sensibility with the general mass of the feeling. We know what is the extreme manifestation of these organs CAUSES OF TEARS. 129 in grief; we may infer their influence in other degrees and modes of the feeling. Any one that follows Mr. Darwin's elaborate investigation of the causes of Tears will see that the phenomenon is not confined to any one emotion of the mind. The primary occasion seems to be pain, for which the flow of tears is a marked relief (by lessening, as Spencer thinks, the congestion of the brain): although it is curious that infants, for some time, cannot shed tears; they can only scream when they are in suffering. A remote consequence of prolonged screaming, according to Mr. Darwin, is to stimulate the lachrymal glands. The effect also follows in laughter, where the violence of the expression, although joyful, prompts the effusion of tears. Being thus an assuagement in pain, and an adjunct in pleasure, the original purpose of tears, in keeping the eye moist and free from irritating particles, is no longer the main function. Looking at both occasions-pain and pleasure-the flow of tears is pleasurable rather than otherwise. But the effect is one of relaxation and prostration, as opposed to the energetic displays. When we are exhausted, baffled, forlorn, this relief is sought; it is the outlet of weak-ness and passivity, and is associated with a kind of indolent self-indulgence, and an inactivity the reverse of masterly. But now we must ask what is the link of connection between those circumstances and the tender feeling in particular? It is in pity for others, more than in the pains of self, that there is a ready prompting to tears. The appropriating of the effect to the pains of the affections is as yet without any explanation. There appears to be something common to the two situations-the shedding of tears and the tender relationship-in the fact of passivity and quiescence, as opposed to the active and energetic attitude, and that is the only solution of the difficulty that can be offered at present. 8. Following on Tears, although still later in being acquired by children, is Sobbing, a spasmodic movement of the glottis. It takes place (according to Gratiolet, quoted by Darwin) at 9 130 TENDER EMOTION. the moment when the spasmodic inspiration conquers the glottis, and the air rushes into the chest. Darwin thinks that it is 'in part due to children having some power to conmmand their vocal organs and stop their screams; but from having less power over their respiratory muscles, these continue to act in a voluntary or spasmodic manner, after having been brought into violent action' (' Expression', p. 157). He adds 'sobbing seems to be peculiar to the human species'. Like the shedding of tears, sobbing is at first connected with pain generally; it is not, however, primarily an accompaniment of pleasurable outbursts. In the final development, it equally lends itself to tender feeling. The indescribable choking sensation in the throat, which arises on a sudden display of generous emotion, is an incipient sob. The luxury of pity and grief is the massive sensibility of incipient sobbing and tears. Both expressions are associated with weakness, or the remission and renunciation of active energy. When our enemy unexpectedly performs a friendly act, there is, as it were, a breaking down of our attitude of hostile activity; and the exchanging of this for the tender sentiment appropriate to,the action specifically stimulates these expressions. The mammary secretion in women would seem to have a sensibility that enters into the aggregate of tender feeling. The feminine constitution on the whole, and certain well-recognized varieties of the constitution of the male sex, are favourable to the emotion; circumstances tending to show that the sense organs by themselves are not the exclusive foundations of it, but that the interior organic functions participate in a way that cannot be precisely described. The analogy of the sexual feeling strongly supports the assumption. 9. On the MENTAL side, the Tender Emotion has been.already characterized generally, and will be described more specifically under the several kinds. To say that it is a massive feeling, is to say that it is an emotion, and not a sensation; for emotions, although they may vary among themselves,.cannot be acute. I have already adverted to the remarkable. connexion between the emotion and passivity, repose, or weak CONNECTION WITH WEAKNESS. 131 ness. Anger, the fighting passion, is allied with activity and energy; love, the amicable passion, flourishes in the remission of the active energies, and is suited to the lowest stages of prostration and weakness. It is thus the refuge after toil, the solace of the sick bed, and the emotion of declining years. In its development, as we shall see presently, the element of helplessness is present in a marked degree; and the only display of strength that it admits of, is the exercise of protectorship. In the moments of affection, the sword is sheathed and the fighting energies remitted on both sides; the attitude is mutual trust, dispensing with the very thought of warlike precaution. It must not, however, be thought that the emotion can be sustained as a gratification of life, without being supported by the kind of physical vitality suitable to its manner of existence. True, that support is independent of muscular energy and the corresponding nervous energy of the motor centres; but in other organs, and in other parts of the brain, there must be a reserve of power to respond to the stimulations of tenderness. There are modes of weakness 'too deep for tears';. where the only manifestation possible is a faint smile in return for some great service of alleviation. In many instances, loss of health tends to peevish irritability, and disinclines to tenderness even under the bestowal of much loving attention. SPECIES OF TENDER EMOTION. The Interest of Sociability at Large. 10. This is the department of feeling supposed to grow out of the gregarious position, under the relationship of substantial equality. We may typify it by Fraternity. A very large amount of our interest and enjoyment in society is unconnected with either sexual feeling or parental feeling; and the objects or stimulants of such interest must be sought apart from those two springs of emotion. The gregarious position, as already described, assumes mutual help or protection, and a sense of the gain or benefit of companionship. There must be farther assumed, as the 132 TENDER EMOTION. basis of the persistent sociable interest, as well as of other acquired pleasures, the fact that the agreeable feeling of benefits received makes the individual look with pleasure upon the giver. Without this fundamental supposition, it is impossible to assign an origin to the sociable interest; and equally impossible to account for the artificial delight in property, or in liberty, unused. There must be a sufficient degree of mental persistence to retain the pleasurable feeling of the various primary gratifications, and to couple it in some degree with the image of the giver or helper. The same process would lead to the associations of agreeable feeling with the inanimate sources of pleasure, with the stream that never failed, and with the localities where food was most abundant. 11. We must farther account for the superiority of those agreeable associations that are contracted with other sentient beings. Why should a more lively feeling grow up towards a fellow-being, than towards a perennial fountain? It must be that there is a source of pleasure in the companionship of other sentient creatures, over and above the help afforded by them in obtaining the necessaries of life. To account for this, I can suggest nothing but the primary and independent pleasure of the animal embrace. Here, as I have said already, there is a gratification whose amount is a considerable fraction of human pleasure. Even in its primary form, that is, before it has been augmented by associative growths, it is a real and great delight. Sentient creatures may be drawn together by this alone. It is the element of sociability in the solitary tribes; making the individuals fraternally interesting, without the gregarious co-operation, if only there be an absence of rivalry. The gregarious situation, added to the mutual fondness grounded on the embrace, raises the sociable interest of fraternity to its highest point; in which case it is a great power in the animal mind, not second to the interest of subsistence, and inferior only to the special attractions of sex and maternity, when these are at full tide. 12. As yet, however, we have looked only to the pleasure PLEASURE OF GIVING. 1.33 of receiving benefits. We need farther to account for the satisfaction of conferring benefits-the pleasure of giving. From our starting point, since receiving is a pleasure, giviig should be a pain, as being so much lost to the giver. Frequently it is so, and the difficulty is one that we must meet. Reverting to the gregarious situation, and looking at it in its happiest results, where by mutual co-operation every one is benefited and no one loses more than another, the associations are all in one direction; each member regards the other as a help and not as a burden. This is the smooth course of fraternal interest; the pleasure of giving is not drawn upon,, and need not be in existence. How then is it to be bred and nurtured to the degree that we find it? Probably it is a slow and not very easy acquirement from fraternity alone; its amount, even in the human race at its best, is not very great. We can conceive it arising first from the discovery that occasional giving is a condition of receiving; a fact that consciously nourishes the pleasure under all circumstances. In the next place, we can connect it with the genuinely sociable pleasure -the love embrace. For this pleasure every creature is disposed to pay something, even when it is only fraternal. A certain amount of material benefit imparted is a condition of the full heartiness of a responding embrace, the complete fruition of this primitive joy. In the absence of those conditions, the pleasure of giving, which is necessary to complete the sociable interest, can scarcely be accounted for; we know full well that, without these helps, it would be a very meagre sentiment in beings like ourselves. In an ideal adjustment of social relations, where each one has occasion to receive good from others, and where also he bestows good without too great a strain, there is the maximum of fraternal interest. How large an ingredient of human satisfaction would thus arise, any one can judge; schemes of communism owe their attractions to the high estimate formed of the situation. 13. We must next add as objects or stimulants of the social interest all the signs and accompaniments of favour 134 TENDER EMOTION. and of fondness. The smiling expression, the demeanour that betokens good, and whatever has often indicated friendly acts, awaken the fraternal interest. If, independently, of personality, a sentient being has any sensuous charms-anything that in the world of dead matter would give pleasure-that is so much gained. Sweet sounds, bright colours, pleasant odours, would add their force to the other personal attractions. There is, however, a nice question in determining whether some of the most characteristic beauties of the person,-for example, the lustre of the eyes, hair, skin, teeth,-be not heightened or indeed formed by the personal associations. The rounded forms may have a primitive pleasure, but that pleasure is probably very much increased by the suggestions of the embrace. The case of simple melody of sound proves that all the sense charms of living personalities are not made by association: we feel assured that a sweet sound is pleasurable in itself; and we can draw the line between the primitive and the borrowed effects of sound. 14. We must next view the transformation of the embrace into the other forms of sympathetic response. Iesponsive glances; echoing of expressed feelings, sentiments, views; unison in conduct,-extend the sphere of tenderness, and refine its pleasures. Fondling or caressing is reduced to a few narrow forms, as the shake of the hand, or the linking of the arms, but the substance is retained and the total value increased. These are the chief objects, stimulants, or causes of tenderness, as Fraternity or sociable interest. I have reserved not only the feelings of Sex, but also the pleasures of Benevolence, as founded on Pity for distress or weakness. Both these energetic stimulants contribute to the grand aggregate of personal interest. With the presence of the objects of the emotion, we must couple the absence of the opposing influences, flowing out of the hostile passions. CONFORMATION OF THE SEXES. 1.35 Sex. 15. The speciality of sexual love is sufficiently decided. The mutual embrace is here shown at its utmost power. The workings of the appetite are comparatively simple; while the collateral waves of emotion are far-reaching and possibly inscrutable. The emotion of Sexual Love, which takes its beginning in the appetite, involves superadded ingredients. In the first place, the mere associations of this new plea-, sure add to the interest of personality, as formed on the general grounds already stated. The fact that another person is of the opposite sex is enough to evoke this additional contribution to the fraternal interest. In the next place, the distinct conformation of the two sexes increases the charm felt by each to the other. The analysis of this effect is very subtle; it carries us to the question of personal beauty as modified by sex. I will here assume, what is most probable on the whole, that personal beauty turns (1) upon qualities and appearances that heighten the expression of favour or good-will, and (2) upon qualities and appearances that suggest the endearing embrace. This applies alike to the fraternal and to the sexual interest. As regards the farther question of the different sexes, we must separate the two aspects of it-the regard of the man for the woman, and the regard of the woman for the man. 16. There may be a felt congruity between the form of the two sexes and the part performed by each in the sexual act, so that the characteristic conformation on both sides remotely and vaguely suggests the gratification of the appetite. In addition to this, the differences are of a nature to give scope to each individuality without mutual obstruction. There is a kind of disparity that repels and a kind that attracts; a kind that tends to rivalry, and a kind that tends to friendship. When two are aiming at the same thing, while only one can enjoy it, the gainer is disliked by the loser; when the aims are different, there is full compatibility. Moreover, if what the one has, the other has not, but desires, there is a basis of 136 TENDER EMOTION. positive attraction. In the love of the sexes, the charm of disparity (so qualified) goes beyond the standing differences of sex; as in contrasts of complexion, and of stature. So far as we have gone, the difference of mode in the regard of the two sexes, one for the other, is limited to the difference of parts in the sexual act. The element of disparity acts equally upon both. A more serious difference arises when the sexes are viewed as unequal in power or capacities, physical or mental; so that the one acquires ascendency over the other,-giving origin to the relationships of protector and protected. This complicates the situation, by introducing the parental type; and under that type we shall have to study its bearings. The 'child-wife' of Dickens exaggerates the circumstance; while in asserting parity or equality of the sexes, it is discounted and dispensed with. Though there is a form of the love of the sexes that does not call forth the appetite, we are not to conclude that the appetite was not an original groundwork of the charm. As the fraternal or sociable interest may be referred ultimately to the full embrace, while operating extensively with no more than a shake of the hand, so the outgoings of the powerful appetite of the sexes are likely to be many and marked. The interest awakened by one sex towards the other precedes sexual gratification, and goes on in its absence; but we are not to suppose that the two modes have been independent all through the past history of the species. 17. While appetite and personal charm constitute the leading circumstances in the love of the sexes, it is a common observation that other strong feelings are brought into play when the emotion is manifested in its power; such as admiration given and received, self-esteem, and property or possession; while all the pleasures of life as a whole come to be placed around this master feeling. The heightening process goes along with that peculiarity of love-concentration upon an individual. To be able to give an account of so strange a disproportion in the regards, were the best proof that we understand the subtle workings of the love passion. The sociable ABSORBING PASSION FOR ONE. 137 interest is by its nature diffused: even the maternal feeling admits of plurality of objects; revenge does not desire to have but one victim; the love of domination needs many subjects; but the greatest intensity of love limits the regards to one. That the facts of intensity and oneness in the object go together appears likely from the following circumstances. First, the feelings cannot be strongly roused towards a person without supposing or making that person greatly superior to all others. The beginnings of a special affection turn upon a small difference of liking; but such differences are easily exaggerated; the feeling and the estimate acting and re-acting, till the distinction becomes altogether transcendant. The effect farther supposes a positive tendency in the mind to intensify and narrow the love regards. It seems to imply that the condition of narrow intensity is a far higher emotional state, an incomparably greater bliss, than the condition of feeble and diffused regards. The mind would appear to clutch at the opportunity of rising to the intense and contracted mode. Must we take this as an ultimate law of emotion, or has it any analogies in other facts? There is in its favour one considerable circumstance, growing out of our intellectual constitution-the superior hold that the imagination takes of a single person. This is all the more important that the imaginative moments of love are apt to be the most excited. The contracted mode of feeling is the favourite of Romance, and is fostered in preference to every other ideal. Even the political sentiment of Loyalty is most congenial and easy when the object is a single person. The absorbing passion for one is not exempted from the struggle for existence. The hostile influences are of no small amount and ultimately wear away the feeling in many instances, attesting its power in the others. The satiety of sameness, the difference between the ideal conception and the actual person, the strain necessary to support the emotion,are formidable agencies in pulling down the huge fabric of excitement and fancy. 138 TENDER EMOTION. The feelings stirred by this relationship have been more dwelt upon than any other human sentiment; which shows the hold that they take of the human breast both present and in idea, as well as the aptness that there is in them for artistic handling. The real power is not, however, to be measured by poetic language. We can set aside the habitually exaggerated modes of expression, and appeal to the criterion of conduct, to the labours and sacrifices that they give birth to, and the evident satisfaction that they furnish. The excitement at its highest pitch, in the torrent of youthful sensations and ungratified desire, is probably the most -furious and elated experience of human nature. By every test applied to estimate the force of a state of feeling, this condition ranks supreme. Even at a later stage, under the influence of familiarity, matter of fact, and occasional discords, an amount of interest is maintainable between the opposite sexes that, more than any other circumstance, attests the force that draws them together. The Parental Feelings. 18. The connexion of Parent and Child is the source of a new variety of the tender emotion, although generically allied to the others. The typical situation is given when the pangs of maternity have passed and the newly-born offspring lies in the embrace of the mother. All through the higher orders of sentient life, this is attended with an unspeakable feeling of tenderness, and is probably the highest example of. sensual delight. The gregarious situation does not contain within it this special provision for the helplessness of the parvenu member of the flock. All we can say is, that there is an approximation to it in the varying aspects of the gregarious co-operation. Accustomed to act together in common danger, the herd would naturally muster at the weakest point, or by the side of the individuals most exposed or most helpless for the time. An interest or solicitude about weak members would be almost the necessary completion of the social system. On LOVE OF THE HELPLESS. 139 the other hand, as respects the personal fondness grounded on the embrace, a weak individual is preferred to a strong; the strong have other tastes and outlets and are not always disposed for love. Such is the young Adonis: ' Hunting he loved, but love he laughed to scorn.' Thus we may contend that an intensified attraction towards the weak is not merely consistent with the gregarious situation, but seems to be required by its varying exigencies. Nevertheless, we may go too far in assuming that a regard possessing the strength of the mother's for the offspring would arise by the gregarious operation. From the very nature,of the case, it must be coeval with tha, st-, *i where the young need to be fed and o tendcd ibr some time ) the parent. Gregarious sociability could scarcely!p:eede this point of advancement; the question is -he__lier the parental necessities do not come sooner than the other by a considerable interval, in which case the parental feeling might be an important element in maturing the social; in accordance with the theory of human society that makes the family the beginning of the state or community. Parental feeling would already contain in germ both fondness or tender feeling and helpfulness or effective sympathy. The same remarks apply to the sexual feeling. In the hypothetical history of the animal series, viewed as evolved, sexuality, with its accompanying fondness and sympathy, would precede the parental situation. If there be animals whose young can make their own way as soon as they are cast forth, the feelings of the parent would not come into being; yet the congress of the sexes would be necessary. 19. Leaving this curious, but not unsuggestive, hypothesis on one side, let us view the objects, stimulants, or moving causes of parental feeling as we find it in humanity, being not radically distinct from its manifestation among the higher animals. It is not enough to say that the stimulant is an infant in the helpless or dependent stage. We wish to analyze the situation, and to separate the essential from the unessential conditions. 140 TENDER EMOTION. On comparing all the attributes accompanying the newlyborn offspring of animals, and serving to impress the minds of the parents, Mr. Spencer finds only one constant traithelplessness, or incapacity to do for themselves what the advanced animal can do for itself. I have already adverted to the only difficulty in this view-the assumed mental capacity of the parents to take the measure of their offspring's inability, implying a considerable stretch of reflective insight. It seems to me rather that there must be at the foundation that intense pleasure in the embrace of the young which we find to characterize the parental feeling throughout. The origin of the pleasure may be as purely physical as in the love of the sexes. Such a pleasure once created would associate itself with the prevailing features and aspects of the young, and give to all of these their very great interest. For the sake of the pleasure, the parent discovers the necessity of nourishing the subject of it, and comes to regard the ministering function as a part or condition of the delight. Granting an initial satisfaction in the animal embrace, heightened by reciprocation, a very strong case is given in parent and offspring; weakness being one of the motives for clinging to another. The reciprocated fondness may easily be checked in the fraternal relation; in the sexual and parental positions it has the strongest promptings.* It seems hopeless to pry into the physical diffusion of the mother's yearnings, the moistening of the eye being perhaps only one of a series of organic effects supporting the collective sensation. The last act of parturition we can safely say contributes nothing to the delight; but the prior operations of conception and growth may have prepared the system for the * The deep connection of the tender feeling with helplessness and weakness is shown in endless ramifications; it starts up at every stage of our exposition. We remark the tendency in even young children to fondle and make pets of whatever can be conceived as weak; also the instinct of affection generally to look at its objects as weak-as seen in all vocabularies of diminutives. In reciprocating the love of the stronger, as in the case of the fond wife or child, there is a playful attribution of feebleness and needs, and the fiction of pro. tectorship. CHARACTERS OF INFANCY. 141 thrilling influence of the embrace. True, the feeling is not confined to the animal's own offspring; still it originates in its having offspring, and may hence be transferred by the force of similitude to the other cases. 20. The sensuous aspects of the newly-born progeny may, as Mr. Spencer contends, owe their whole influence to the suggestions of helplessness; or, on the other hand, they may have some independent efficacy. We know that all young creatures are not equally interesting; and yet all may be equally helpless. There are attractive and also unattractive infants; and it is possible to assign the reasons of the difference; they being substantially the circumstances of personal beauty. Starting from the fact that the infant is a personality, we first remark that it is a personality in miniature, or in diminutive size, and with that smallness of size is associated the primary thrill of the sensual contact. In the next place, the infant has, in the extreme degree, some of the choicest beauties of the person, those that heighten the charms of the sexes, and particularly the feminine charms; such beauties being in their origin of a kind to enhance the primitive embrace. Again, the pleased and smiling aspect, with all the movements that invite the mother's caresses and give promise that they will be responded to, augment the charm of the infant presence. Farther, there is an intellectual pleasure, open to the most ordinary degree of intelligence, in the curious likeness in unlikeness, shown by the tiny form of infancy. This is one of the standing beauties of the young so long as an interval separates them from the mature man or woman. In the case of a mother's own child, there is an increase of the regards from the strong sentiments of property and of pride, which go to augment all forms of tenderness where there is exclusive possession. In forecasting its happy future, there is a boundless scope for ideal longings and outgoings; an exercise of mind that deepens the intensity of the original regards. 142 TENDER EMOTION. On a review of the indications, maternity appears to be the most intense of all the sociable emotions. It may be surpassed by the sexual feeling, in its highest moods, as in the freshness of a first love; but tested through the whole of life, it seems without doubt the first of human emotions. 21. Through the deep community of organization of the sexes, in spite of their contrasting functions, the male parent is also sensitive, in a high but second degree to the magnetic thrill of the child in the arms; while he is, equally with the mother, affected by all the adjuncts. The feeling of protectorship is cherished in the male sex, through the sexual relation; a feeling that must rise with the consciousness of power, which the male sex has in greater measure. Most of the beauties of the infant are standing beauties of the feminine form; whence the love of infancy is an extension of the prior love of the feminine sex. The intellectual charm of likeness in unlikeness detains equally the mother, the father, and the unrelated spectator. The sentiments of property and pride belong to the father; while at a later stage he can enjoy the delights of power. The paternal relation was somewhat brusquely summed up, by Hobbes, with tenderness left out: 'Children', he says, 'are a man's power and his honour'. The -Benevolent Affections. 22. In the three species of emotion now brought forward, all the situations of tender feeling, love, or affections, may be considered to have their seat. They also implicate the earliest impulses of sympathy, which we must judge to be inseparable from personal fondness or regard. In its least developed form, Benevolence appears as Pity or Compassion; an impulse that springs from pleasure taken in helping the distressed. This is treated by Mr. Spencer as a feeble offshoot or extension of the stromg maternal impulse, as it supposes the situation of helplessness in somewhat altered circumstances. There is, undoubtedly, an analogy in an important point, if not the all-important point,-weakness or the need of help. Yet, in the sufferings of a grown person, there PLEASURE OF PITY. 14' is a considerable departure from the peculiarities of the child, and a great inferiority in the other elements of interest, whose value is shown by the diminished strength of the feeling in their absence. To make the luxury of compassion complete, the demeanour of the object should contain a good deal of the child-like; there should be an aspect of softened grief and humility, and not of irritation and violence; while any of the modes of personal attraction will count for something in the effect. The pleasure of pity is a great element in human life and a great power in conduct. The impulses to relieve distress have a double motive; the giver of aid derives the direct pleasure of pity, and the indirect pleasure of relief from pain. In its broadest bearings, pity is sympathy with pain. This is a sure source of good actions under all forms of distress. The sympathizer takes on the pain that he witnesses, and instead of ridding himself of the disagreeable feeling thus assumed, by turning his back upon the sufferer and looking out for some.diversion, he works it out as if it were his own, by such relief as he is able to afford. The net result of the whole may be sacrifice, or a loss, and yet it is done. 23. When tender feeling mixes with the sympathy, there is more or less of the gushing mood, with its pains and its pleasures. This is manifested primarily and markedly in the case of helpless infancy deprived of protection and of all its needful supports;, as when the new-born babe is left to perish. It is also shown when any one is overburdened or ill-used: as in our fellow-feeling for slaves, for the wife and children of a brutal parent, for the subjects of a tyrant. It arises strongly when a man is deprived of his rightful earnings, by force or by fraud; and in flagrant injustice of every kind. Also, when any one in the plenitude of vigour is struck helpless; and finally, in the tragic incidents of human life. The mere spectacle of the misery causes tears of agony. The being able to relieve and succour is a joyful re-action, under which the flow of tears and the spasmodic choking may be aggravated; but there is also felt the pleasurable sensation named the luxury 144 TENDER EMOTION. of pity. This is awakened even by barren commiseration, and is then a spurious article, called Sentiment, in a reproachful meaning, or Sentimentality. A large part of the good offices rendered to the needy is fed from this luxury of helping; there being an immediate and apparent result in the amelioration of the distress, and the reciprocated gratitude of the sufferer. Kant wondered that there is 'so much kindness, and so little justice in the world'. Chivalry is thought a finer thing than good g)vernment. Gratitude. 24. The sociable and tender feeling in all its modes, when completed, supposes the mutual and responding embrace. In this we have the simplest aspect of gratitude, or the return of pleasure for pleasure received. In the lowest forms of the feeling, the pleasure returned is unintended; it follows from the mutuality of the regards. The infant in responding to the mother's caress does not know that it enhances the mother's satisfaction; it only brings about its own satisfaction. Proper gratitude does not begin until we sympathetically enter into othef persons' pleasures and pains, and become conscious of being causes of the one or of the other. It also supposes that we take notice of others as the causes of our own pleasures and pains, and have associations in consequence. At this stage there is an increase of the satisfaction of giving good offices, when we have ourselves experienced good at the hands of the same person. Our finding one that has benefited us in a position to be benefited in return, provokes a twofold burst of the tender feeling, both in its painful and in its pleasurable outgoings. While the emotion of the protector is tender feeling, as Pity or Benevolent regard, the emotion of the protected must contain elements of tenderness, without the pleasure of helping. Other circumstances being the same, it is an inferior degree of the emotion. Nevertheless, it is the primitive situation, wherein the sociable emotions are supposed to be GRATITUDE. 145 engendered; it gives an agreeable interest in the members of our kind, and serves to attract us to their embrace, while other passions operate to repel their advances. 25. Emotional gratitude shows itself, in the first instance, as love, and comes out most readily to those that we are able to love; after which it becomes a spring of kindly and beneficent conduct. To beings dignified and distant, we have great difficulty in feeling the grateful sentiment as a warm and tender inspiration. In perfect love, the superior condescends to the other's level. Gratitude to our Creator, although enjoined upon us, is barely realized in this special form. The remaining aspect of the state is the gratitude prescribed as a rule of Justice, a fulfilment of what is obligatory in the reciprocal relations of life. Whether tender sentiment shall enter into the discharge of this duty, depends on the circumstances of the case and the character of those concerned. 26. The Lower Animals are fit subjects of tender feeling, and inspire warm attachments. Their total dependence forbids the rivalries that introduce the taint of anxious watchfulness into the relationships between human beings. By their sensuous charms, their vivacity, their contrast to ourselves, their services, and their devotion,-the domestic species are able to touch the chord of tenderness, and to enlarge the sphere of our affectionate interests. 27. There is not wanting a form of tender sentiment towards Inanimate things. A man comes to look upon his house, his fields, his wealth, the implements of his trade, his collections of art and curiosity, his local environment,, with something of the associated emotion shown to his family or his friends. His regard for these things assumes the character of affection; when he is deprived of them, the pain is a kind of sorrow. It is, doubtless, from their original power to give pleasure that such things, instigate the tender passion, but as they are unsuited to its proper consummation, the indulgence is imaginary or fictitious, like the love felt towards a person beyond our reach. We derive a certain satisfaction from personifying 10 146 TENDER EMOTION. the impersonal objects that give us delight, since by complying with the forms, we can in some measure experience the reality of tender regard. Sorrow. 28. The pains inflicted upon human beings through their tender sentiments are of various grades, from the gentle longings of brief absence, to the overwhelming sorrow of the newmade grave. They are as manifold as the ills that can happen to any beloved object. They may be mainly summed up in two classes. On the one hand, our own loss by the withdrawal of those we love, and, on the other, our share in the evil that befals them,-are the two sides wherein we are vulnerable through our affections. With respect to the first case-the deprivation of what we have become attached to-the pain is deep and intense, according to the power of the attachment and the pleasure it affords. When we have cultivated an object of tenderness as a principal ingredient of our life's comfort, the cutting off of that object has a reaction of misery and distress, and charges a cup of bitterness to be drained to the dregs. There is in this effect much that is common to the pain of severe loss or disappointment in any region of things. The baulking of a dear revenge, an insult to personal dignity, the wreck of some cherished hopes, pecuniary losses, a sudden check in anything that the heart is bent upon, the failure of a prop,-all lead to an intensity of mental conflict constituting one of the severest forms of human suffering. A large range of associations that used to yield pleasure and support have suddenly stopped payment. Although the first effect of the situation we are supposing is of a kind common to most forms of heavy loss, the after stages assume a character peculiar to the present class of emotions. When time has adapted the mental currents to the new state of things, the tender affection still survives as one of the pleasures of life. The property of ideal persistence that belongs to it, renders it a possession even when the SOCIAL AND ETHICAL BEARINGS. 147 objects have ceased to be. Doubtless the regret continues to have a mixture of the sting with the tenderness, which is what we mean by Sorrow; but the one may abate while the other remains. Grief and lamentation gives way to cherished memo-ry. 29. The Social and Ethical bearings of tender feeling are of high importance, although the best part of the effects is due to the co-operation of sympathy proper. The mere circumstance that we take pleasure in other beings, makes us court society, and labour to attract, instead of repelling our human kindred. The brutes are moved to this extent, and for the most part prefer companionship to solitude. The effect would be more uniform through all grades of sentient beings, were it not for other strong passions tending to disunion, which even the higher forms of human civilization have been able to subdue only in a partial degree. 30. So marked is the influence of tender affection in creating a counter affection in the object of it, that this is naturally considered a great moral lever for the elevation of mankind. Unfortunately it fails with the lowest natures; owing to the nearly total absence in them of the aptitude for sympathy. An infant, a savage, or even a wild beast, in the act of receiving benefits, embraces the giver, and after repeated kindnesses, may contract a species of affection; yet the power of sympathy does hardly exist, and is not to be evoked; moral virtue in the proper sense makes no progress. Sympathy flourishes only under a certain development of intelligence; the amount requisite being scarcely attained in many individuals and tribes of the human family, Admiration and Esteem. 31. We may treat as supplementary to the present chapter certain feelings that are not exclusively based upon tender emotion, but that either contain it as a principal element, or come into easy alliance with it. The analysis of Admiration belongs to a later stage. We 148 TENDER EMOTION. assume here that it is a grateful elation of mind on the view of superior might or excellence in any department of human capability. Being, in the primary form, manifested to a person, it inspires love, as well as the feeling of might, unless the object is marred by qualities inimical to affection, as when great powers are ill employed. The physical strength of a Hercules, manual skill and dexterity of a high order, artistic power, intellectual force, eminent moral qualities, beauty and refinement, and even the adventitious circumstances of wealth and rank,-all tend to raise us above ourselves; and the resulting expression is wonder mixed with love, that is, Admiration. The recognition of superior excellence in some quality or characteristic that we are strongly alive to, is a frequent beginning of love. 32. Esteem is a sentiment applicable to many things that can hardly be said to rouse our admiration. Referring to useful qualities principally, we do not demand for it the attributes of rarity or surpassing excellence. The feeling excited in us towards those that perform their part suitably and well in the relations of life, however numerous they may be, is esteem. We do not compare one man with another; we rather compare a work to be done with the manner of executing it. The objects of our esteem, therefore, may be said to be all those about us that fulfil the tasks imposed upon them by their situation, or display the virtues that make men useful in society. Industry, independence, fidelity to trust, integrity, truthfulness, practical good sense, are qualities that command our esteem, although they may have no charm to excite admiration. The utilities of life, in the narrow sense of the phrase, imply those precautionary offices valuable only for the prevention of evil, and having in themselves no immediate power of fascination. An artist touches the sources of pleasure by an immediate impulse; a magistrate, lawyer, or physician, is valued because of the evil that he can ward off or remove. The emotion of esteem is a reflected or associated feeling, growing out of our sense of the mischief prevented, and the good achieved, by the performance of the social virtues. ADMIRATION AND ESTEEM. 149 Knowing well the miseries that accrue from neglect and carelessness of every description, we feel a lively and cheering sensation of relief from an opposite kind of conduct, which easily passes into a certain tender regard towards the persons. The feeling of being saved from impending or possible miseries is a very prevalent one, varying chiefly in degree according to the nature of the danger. There is always a distinct trace of pleasure and a cheering tone connected with it, and in extreme cases the effect may rise to a burst of delight. The removal of actual pain yields the condition in the most effective form; next to that is the prevention of anticipated pain. This ideal form of the pleasure is what connects itself with the labours and precautions of human industry, and makes us feel an interest in the character of our fellow-workers. The cheering sentiment of misery prevented rises up when we see a man skilled in his vocation, and faithful to all his engagements. The prompting of tenderness that the pleasure involves with it, helps to constitute our esteem or regard for the individual. The sentiment of esteem, although not of itself a first-class emotion in respect of contributing to our happiness, is nevertheless a calculable element; and the more so that we are keenly alive to the evils of careless living. When at all strongly developed, as in the case of persons coming much under our observation, a current of considerable strength flows habitually in the presence or recollection of those persons. Not only do they give us that amount of pleasure signified by the phrase 'causing an interest', but they become a power over our actions, opinions, and sentiments. All this is implied in the meaning of the words 'regard', 'respect', which indicate an interested gaze with a deferential disposition. In the bustle of life, where every one is struggling to maintain a position, we make room for those we esteem, showing them preference, and finding a pleasure in serving them. Admiration and Esteem are emotions well suited to promote our happiness as members of society. Not only do they 150 TENDER EMOTION. bind us in warm relationship to a number of our fellow-beings, but their expression in language is an easy and agreeable effort, and a bond of sympathy between us and third parties. Our conversation is frequently made up of allusions to those that we esteem and admire; and when we address those that share in the same feelings, the effect is animating and agreeable. CHAPTER VIII. EMOTION OF FEAR. THE emotion of Fear or Terror arises in apprehending evil to come. Its characters are,-misery or depression; the prostration of the active energies, except in the one form of running away from danger; and the excessive hold of the related ideas. The pain from some actual infliction, as a blow, a deranged organ, a bitter taste, a discord, a loss,-may be severe; but mere pain, whether acute or massive, is not terror. Only when the mind apprehends some painful infliction still in the future, are we liable to the emotion. The anticipation of being punished is a state of mind quite different from the actual punishment; both being painful. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 1. Although Fear is one of our most elementary Emotions, it belongs to a'situation of some complicacy. It presupposes the following mental laws and conditions. First. For its explanation, we must render a complete account of present Pain, on both sides-mental and physical. On the mental side, we must specially remember the volitional property, or the stimulus to the will. We must also advert to the intellectual adjuncts or associates of pain, the causes and collaterals that strongly engage the attention under the. irritated consciousness. These make the most special characteristics or distinguishing marks of the pain, and by them it is afterwards revived. On the physical side, we need to keep steadily in view the expression, manifestation or embodiment of present pain, the spasmodic violence of the early stage, and the prostration of the functions at all stages. Second. We need to understand the recollection, or revival 152 EMOTION OF FEAR. of pain in Idea; and the subsistence of the state by purely mental forces. This is itself a matter of some complication; and all the conditions that affect the revival and self-subsistence of a painful mood, operate in modifying or producing the emotion of Fear. For one thing, as ideal states may be roused by ideal influences, they may give very distorted representations of actuality. The healthy balance of the mind requires that every ideal state referring to a real state, whether past or to come, should correctly square with that state-should induce such a course of proceeding as would be induced by the reality. The after remembrance of a pain should give it at its full value, and no more; the anticipation of a coming pain should do the same. Under such a perfect and just correspondence of ideal and actual, the proper emotion of Fear would not be manifested. The chief instrument for reviving and supporting an ideal pain is the assemblage of collateral circumstances that engaged the senses and attention during the reality. The cause, real or supposed, of the pain is always an important circumstance in the resuscitation; but since, from our ignorance, coupled with the difficulties of nature, we often misconceive the cause, our recollections are frequently tainted with unfaithfulness, and misguide our conduct. The ideal pain has the volitional urgency of the real pain, in proportion as it rises to the intensity of the actual. Even without fully amounting to the actual state, if our reason tells us how much short of the actual it is, we may be induced to adjust our conduct to what would be the reality. The physical side of the ideal pain shows all the characteristics of the physical side of actual pain, merely with difference of degree. The inferior degree of the mere instinctive demonstrations, and of the derangement of the functions, shows how far the ideal comes short of the actual. As Terror is an Ideal state, it is at the mercy of the agencies that effect our ideas as such. In the healthy balance of the mind, an idea should correspond with its reality, but PRELIMINARY CONDITIONS. 153 being an idea, it is subject to mental forces, the strength of the reality being only one. In short, our ideal states may be tampered with, and so pervert our actions. The physical and mental condition at the time affects an ideal pain of anticipation, making it more or less than its proper measure as representing the actual fact portended. So do all circumstances that strengthen or weaken the associations; as explained in the systematic account of Ideal Emotion. Third. Attention must be given to the state of Expectation or Belief, as opposed to mere idea or fancy unconnected with any real occurrence. It is unnecessary at this stage to enquire into the mental origin of Belief; we need only to assume its unmistakeable characters and sources. Now the chief circumstance that makes us believe in, or anticipate, a coming evil, is past experience modified in various ways that we are not here concerned to specify. A precipitate fall of the barometer at sea induces the state of dread in the sailor, who sees the coming hurricane. Whatever circumstances strengthen his belief in the dangerousness of the expected storm, add to his present fears. On the other hand, anything leading him to believe that the storm will not be of perilous magnitude, quiets and soothes his alarm. The sources of belief are agencies for evoking or for lulling the fears; and vice vers&, the sources of fear (apart from belief) have an influence on belief properly so called. This seems a mere subtlety, but it can be made evident in the full discussion of belief. Fourth. The most characteristic feature in the situation of terror is Uncertainty, Ignorance, Darkness. In the case of a great but certain and understood evil, the ideal pain may be simply a measure of the reality of the case. The irregular, disproportionate, and eccentric courses connected with Terror are brought into relief under future evil of unknown amount or character. There being no definite picture to control or steady the movements of the mind, anything is received that the chance course of the thoughts may introduce; but as 154 EMOTION OF FEAR. nothing is sure, or abiding, the victim is tossed to and fro, in uncertainty and distraction. Under the ordinary laws of thought and feeling, there would naturally ensue a state of excitement, voluminous and painful. This is the genuine manifestation of Terror. Take the case of a susceptible and superstitious mind in a haunted castle. Nothing is clear, definite, or certain; there is a great evil possibility, and yet the person does not know when, where, or what. Every trifle is suggestive; but all is speculation and incoherence; the mind shaken from its calm centre, desolate, and depressed, anticipates the worst, without knowing what the worst is. The gloomy excitement grows and deepens. This is the obverse of that pleasant exercise of Imagination so highly coveted in Fine Art-an agreeable experience with a splendid possibility. Indeed the intensest moments of human bliss are those where an actual gratification is the opening up of still greater ideal delights. Fifth. The considerations now mentioned prepares us for viewing Terror as a product of Evolution. So far as I can judge, the hypothesis of Evolution is uncalled for in explaining the more general characteristics of Terror; the excitement, the depression, the Fixed Idea, the exaggeration of ideal evil, as well as much that belongs to the physical wave of effects. No doubt we may say that the general laws of all mental action are evolved; but that is not what is meant by the development of special emotions; these are declared to be superadded to the more general framework of our sensibility and activity. 2. The illustrations that are given to show the Evolution of Fear rather point to specialforms or instances of the emotion; as when the infant or animal shows dread of the human presence, before actually suffering harm from human beings. If this be a fact, we might account for it by the transmission of hereditary experience of evils endured at the hands of our kind. It ought to take the form of dread at those special expressions or manifestations accompanying the infliction.of mischief; and should imply the obverse feeling of encourage EVOLUTION APPLICABLE TO SPECIAL FORMS. 155 ment or satisfaction at the sight of the benign aspects of humanity. In short, it would be involved in what Darwin believes to be instinctive in man-the interpretation of the smile and the frown. In the case of animals that habitually prey upon others, the mere sight of one of those, in any attitude, would inspire terror; as when a snake, beheld for the first time, frightens a young ape. The emotion is here embodied upon a certain intellectual pre-conception and does not arise without that. It is solely with reference to special instances that Mr. Spencer regards the evolution of Fear. He supposes the sight of an animal in an angry mood; as when a dog growls, puts back its ears, shows its teeth, and makes advances. Although animals differ from one another in the details of their menacing expression, there are certain broad manifestations common to all. These have been continually experienced by successive generations; hence there is a hereditary mental union between an intellectual image, and the emotional depression, with the other characters of fear. The possibility of such special embodiments, constituting an instinctive dread of particular animals, or particular expressions and attitudes, implies that the foundations of the emotion of fear are already laid in the system. It supposes that, in the course of each life-time, the animal goes through an education of fear towards whatever has often been the cause of suffering. Unless this were possible to us, in the first instance, there would be no transmitted associations. The life-experience is the broad way, the hereditary transmission is the narrow and difficult way. We have certain susceptibilities to the passion of fear, whenever the circumstances arise; these must exist before any such product as Mr. Spencer supposes ean be matured; unless, indeed, it be contended that the general passion is developed pari passu with the special modes. The development, however, must presuppose whatever would be necessary in order to contract feelings of dread during the individual life, or make some approach to that. Heredity is the transmissing to progeny, in a slight echo, what is already 156 EMOTION OF FEAR. strongly impressed upon the parent; none but impressions of the deepest kind are able to affect the germ and re-appear in the offspring. The thing that development accounts for is, not the passion of fear, but the instinctive associations of fear with the predatory animals. Development fails to account for the dread of a flame, of a blow, of want of food, of a prison, still less of a ghost, a haunted castle, death, or punishment in a future life. For the state of mind making up our apprehension of these objects of terror, an explanation must be found in the knowNn laws of Feeling, Will, and Intellect, as applied to the several situations; which laws, if developed by successive steps, grow out of much more general situations than what are assumed to account for instinctive fear. CHARACTERS OF FEAR. 3. After this preparatory discussion, let us resume methodically the characters of Fear. PHYSICAL SIDE. The usual and obvious signs of fear imply organic derangement and muscular relaxation, accompanied with strong efforts in particular directions. The result on the whole is loss of power; but there is an increase of tension in the eye, and the voice, and a vehement exertion in order to escape the danger. Thus, on the one side, there is the physical depression accompanying massive pain, and on the other side, an intense and excited volition inspired by impending evil. This is the precise situation where the organic functions are the greatest sufferers; and every one of them is liable to be depressed.* A good instance for illustrating the failure of the organic processes under fear is seen in the check given to the flow of saliva. This circumstance is the foundation of the custom in India of subjecting suspected criminals to the ordeal of the morsel of rice. The accused is made to take a mouthful of rice, and after a little to throw it out. If the morsel is quite dry, the party is believed to be guilty-his own evil conscience operating to paralyze the salivating organs. It is needless to observe that this would be an effect of fear that, like blushing, might overtake an innocent as well as a guilty person under such an ordeal. MENTAL CHARACTERS. 157 Likewise any of the muscles that are not expressly stimulated show relaxation. The tremulousness of terror is due to the intermittence of the motor stimulus of the muscles. 4. MENTAL SIDE. The general description of the mental state of fear is massive pain or general depression of tone. We apply to it the strongest figures for massive pain-melancholy, gloom, darkness, despair. The amount of pleasure swallowed up by a fright, or in the attempt to recover the usual tone, corroborates our high estimate of the misery due to fear in any pronounced degree. As regards Volition, there is, as already remarked, an excited activity in the supposed direction of escape. With one definite course open, there is concentration of energy in that course. But the worst cases of fear are those that present no specific opening; and there is then a painful mimicry of voluntary exertion, a shifting about at all points. In the extreme forms, combining danger and uncertainty, there is utter paralysis of activity. The excited gaze is a part of the voluntary strain. Intense watchfulness must accompany our efforts to avoid an evil agency. The shriek or cry of terror would be in accordance with Darwin's view of the original employment of the voice, that is, to obtain help from companions. It is employed in part unconsciously, from engrained habit, and in part consciously, from our knowing its power to procure relief. There is nothing special to the passion of fear in the utterance of cries; the effect is one that accompanies great pain. The Intellectual aspects of terror are in accordance with its other characters. Objects of alarm are impressive to an extraordinary degree. One of the effects of acute pain in general is to quicken the memory. The whipping of boys at boundary lines was intended to engrain the remembrance of the landmarks. But the perturbation of fright, in its excitement of the perceptive powers, makes a more indelible stamp than even an acute bodily infliction. An instance came within my knowledge of a person whose house had taken fire, and 158 EMOTION OF FEAR. who was ever afterwards preternaturally sensitive to the odour of burning wood. In Fear, we see the extreme case of the 'fixed idea', or the influence of the feelings upon the conduct, through the medium of the intellectual trains. It is not the regular action of the will, leading us from pain and to pleasure, on the whole, but the action following from the engrossing persistence of an idea, that blinds the view to consequences generally, and overturns all rational calculation. When a man is thoroughly terrified, his intellect is no longer at his command. The minor forms of fear, expressed by anxiety, watchfulness, care, use up the powers of thought, and exclude all impressions of a foreign nature. The poor man whose daily bread is in constant uncertainty, the mother of numerous children, the trader deep in speculations, are unapt subjects for liberal culture or enlarged mental acquisitions. The influence of fear on Belief follows from its characteristics, as a depressing passion, and as engrossing the intellectual view. Mental depression, however arising, is exaggerated distrust of good and anticipation of evil; and an idea that cannot be shaken off is believed for the time to be the true representation of the facts. 5. It is proper to dwell a little more particularly upon the cause or occasion of Terror; described generally as the apprehension, of pain, or evil to come. Present or actual pain, uncoupled with anticipation, does not seem to give rise to fear. A present smart viewed as the foretaste of something worse to follow is efficacious in the extreme; this, however, is apprehension in the most impressive form. A coming evil that is certain and of known amount is so far a genuine occasion of alarm; but being favourable to the play of accommodating and neutralizing influences, it is not the worst case conceivable. It is the opportunity for putting forth an effort of fortitude and resignation. The mother's mindl is not unhinged by the prospect of child-birth; it is bad enough when it comes, but the mere apprehension of it does not necessarily induce the DARKNESS.-STRANGENESS. 159 quakings of fear. On the other hand, evils that are only possible or probable, while in nature and amount they are uncertain, operate severely as causes of the emotion. A sudden crash in the night, a hurried messenger with ghastly features, the cry of fire, a battle raging in the distance,occasion unspeakable alarm. The excited imagination conceives boundless misery; it shifts about from one conception to another; renders impossible the exercise of fortitude, accommodation, or resistance. Of all forms, the worst is a new kind of danger: Fear is identified with 'new monsters' -grave ne rediret Seculum Pyrrhoe nova monstra quests. This illustration introduces us to the general connection of terror with the absence of knowledge, a circumstance everywhere prominent in the workings of the passion. There are cases where ignorance is bliss; where knowledge serves to show danger a-head. But the value of knowledge in pointing out definitely the whole compass of an impending or possible evil is incalculable. I doubt whether any of the numerous benefits of advancing science is greater than the subduing of terrors. The influence of Darkness is easily understood. Being in the dark is not of itself a cause of terror; very often it is a protection and a defence, and therefore a preventive of fear. But, in case there be mischief about, darkness is ignorance and vague apprehension. The question may be raised, how far mere intensity of sensation, viewed by itself, induces the condition of dread. The nervous disturbance, due to a violent shock, would seem to be something akin to fear. As a weakening influence, it would pave the way for the state of fright; so that any suggestion of danger would find the system an easier prey. A pistol fired at one's ear unexpectedly is intensely discomposing; in the minds of most animals, in children, as well as in many grown persons, it would stir up the quakings of genuine terror. It is a near ally and quickener of the passion, if not itself the reality. In a fire, horses are known to be unman 160 EMOTION OF FEAR. ageable. All animals are frightened by thunder and lightning, and during a total eclipse of the sun. Whether there is a real apprehension of danger on such occasions, I am unable to decide. The same remark applies to Strangeness as such. The mere fact that a thing is strange to us would not make us dread it; in order to be frightened at a new appearance, in itself seemingly indifferent as regards good or evil, we need to be habituated to regard the world about us as, on the whole, more hurtful than friendly; so that we suspect every thing to be an enemy till we prove the opposite. This applies of course to agencies possessed of great power. When a train of caravans headed by an elephant passes by, the children and dogs on the road seek their homes.* I do not suppose that comets would ever have frightened mankind, but for superstitious education. SPECIES OF TERROR. 6. Let us first trace the passion in the Lower Animals. The prominent demonstrations of fear in animals belong to their social relations. They dread one another; and all are more or less in dread of human beings. The fact of fear, however, is not made good until we first allow for the operation of the will in avoiding pain. The burnt dog avoiding the fire does not necessarily show fear; the reality of the passion is made apparent only when the animal grossly exaggerates the danger of a repetition, starts at the fall of a cinder, and carries about with him a fixed idea of being scorched. This is the general phenomenon of fear, having no reference to other beings, and not demanding heredity for its explanation. Animal fear is also abundantly displayed in the form of * An observation recorded by Mr. Darwin illustrates the working of strangeness. He put a living fresh water turtle into the monkeys' compartment of the Zoological Gardens. It produced great astonishment, as well as some fear. But 'it was curious to observe how much less afraid they were of the turtle then of a living snake which I had formerly placed in the same compartment '. ANIMALS.-CHILDREN. 161 being readily discomposed by strangeness and surprises unattended with pain. This, however, may grow out of their social experiences; still, it is a great weakness and disability on their part. The physically weakest, as a rule, are most easily affected by unfamiliar or startling sensation. There is a remarkable fact, well attested, that birds in an uninhabited island show no fear at the approach of man, never having met him for good or for evil. It would be desirable to know more of the circumstances. We should wish to enquire first, who they do fear? Would the visit of an elephant disturb their composure? The struggle for existence, there as everywhere else, leads to the system of competition and prey; so that fear is already in existence; and there is a great disposition to reason by analogy from the known guise of an enemy to the unknown. Probably a habitual victim of the gorilla would feel uncomfortable at the presence even of a white man, not to speak of a negro, a negritto, or a papuan. 7. The operation of fear in Children corresponds with the peculiarities of their position. The first manifestations of the state are seen in the general perturbation caused by overexcitement, or mere intensity of sensation. A sudden glare of light, a loud sound, a rough contact, or any other pungent effect, without being necessarily painful, is discomposing to the nervous system, much in the manner of a fright. When the infant is so far advanced as to recognize familiar objects, anything strange that arrests the attention gives rise to the perturbation of fear. The child revolts from the grasp of an unknown person, and manifests all the quakings of genuine terror. At the still later stage, when pain is connected with specific causes, as when the child knows what it is to be plunged into cold water, to take a bitter draught, to be scolded, or to be punished, the emotion appears in its proper form, as the apprehension of coming evil; the only speciality in the case being what is due to the weakness of the subject. Darkness is not necessarily a source of terror to children, although very easily becoming so. The instinctive dread of the frown is a part of the heredi11 162 EMOTION OF FEAR. tary associations of pain with certain appearances; these we can refer to as accounting for special terrors, but not for the general fact of terror. 8. It would form an extensive theme to illustrate the ramifications of Servile Terror. The state of subjection or subordination in human society involves punishment, and punishment may be such as to inspire not merely acts of avoidance but the perturbation of terror. The two leading circumnstances are, its being great and its being capricious or indefinable. Very severe punishments naturally keep up terror whether in the family, in the school, in the industrial sphere, or in the state. Next to severity is uncertainty as to the amount, with the possibility of its being great. A capricious despot, not uniformly severe, but capable of being so, may inspire terror in his subjects. This is the evil of despotism in its purest type -personal government without the check of known law or custom. The parent, the slave owner, the chief of a tribe in the lower stages of society-by reason merely of occasional excesses in severity, make themselves objects of terror. The terror due to great and uncertain possibilities of retribution and arbitrary infliction, is dispersed according as written laws are made to prevail; yet, in a very advanced society, the complications of law pass beyond the understanding of ordinary people, and re-introduce the element of uncertainty that makes the soil of terror. A poor man in our own country looks forward to the issue of a trial at law with as much quaking as a suitor in the most corrupt court of an oriental despotism. The actual pressure and amount of Terror depends upon the occurrence of reminders; whether examples made of others, or inflictions on ourselves. This is the way that a. tyrant or severe ruler makes his authority felt and dreaded. A family, a school, a ship, or a regiment, where punishment is always going on, is hell upon earth. 9. Taking a still wider view of the sources of terror, we may next mention the Forebodings of disaster in general. What FOREBODINGS OF DISASTER. 163 ever be the agency that brings us mischief in serious amount, is an agency not merely of avoidance but of fear. The powers of the physical world have always been a standing cause of dread; and the more so, the deeper the ignorance respecting the course of nature. - The term Anxiety represents the condition of fear with reference to our various interests that are apt to be more or less imperilled. The rational and measured exertions to meet our known emergencies may be said to indicate anxiety of mind. Yet the phrase is not properly applicable unless there be present something of the perturbation of fear.* The anxious condition of mind is a readiness to take fright in connection with our most vulnerable points on all occasions of apprehension or unaertainty. As no one's future can be clear throughout, there is never wanting the matter of anxiety to a mind susceptible of the state. The lives of some are spent in a constant flutter of agitation, varied by moments of inexpressible relief. The term Suspicion expresses the operation of our fears upon belief. The state of alarm being by its very nature the breaking up of confidence, things in general become the objects of distrust. Slight incidents that the mind in its ordinary coolness would pass by, as unmeaning or irrelevant, are interpreted as ill omens;' and the persons that we never doubted * There is a well-known anecdote related, if I remember aright, of some great general who read on a tombstone the inscription-' Here lies one who never knew fear;' and upon this, remarked, 'Then such a one could never have snuffed a candle with his fingers'. Here the revulsion from pain, operating in every sane mind, at every moment of life, is confounded with the perturbation of terror, which is only occasional, and may be almost entirely absent from the character. The same ambiguity is seen in Dr. Thomas Brown's exposition of what he calls the prospective emotions. (Lecture 65.) With him fear is simply the contrary of desire. These are some of his expressions:-' Our fears, which arise equally from the prospect of what is disagreeable in itself, and from the prospect of the loss of what is in itself agreeable'. 'We fear to lose any source of pleasure possessed by us, which has long been an object of our hope'. The want of a good term for the opposite of desire is probably the reason of this abused application of 'fear' to denote simply what stimulates efforts of avoidance. The true antithesis lies between fear and coolness,.omposure, or measured expenditure. 164: EMOTION OF FEAR. stand forth as compassing our ruin. These effects are ascribable solely to the disturbance wrought by fear. As affecting the conduct towards others, the outgoings of suspicion are most disastrous. We witness them constantly in private life, and they are exhibited on a great scale in the proceedings of nations. Times of political disorder like the civil wars of Rome, or the first French Revolution, are rendered more calamitous by the exaggerations of suspicion, and the credit given to the suggestions of fear.* For the sudden rise and spread of terror in a multitude, we have the expressive designation-Panic. The mode of working of the passion is still the same, while the scale is immensely magnified. The utter loss of control, the breaking down of discipline, the ruinous persistence of a fixed idea,are exhibited in portentous dimensions. 10. Under the guise of Superstition, the feeling shows itself in strong relief, departing farther and farther from the regular action of the will. The evils dreaded are unreal, and therefore unmeasured and indefinable. Superstition begins in actual dangers. The destructive powers of nature are not imaginary; all men are actual sufferers by them. It is in the mode of looking at these powers that the human race runs into superstition. Unable to discover their true character, the primitive inquirer is carried away by fanciful analogies, chiefly on the human type of activity. A storm is regarded as an angry dispensation, an eclipse as a foreboding of calamity. In the scheme of cause and effect, trifles are set up as the key to the secrets of the world, and associated with feelings of awe or dread. Omens, auguries, signs, are all of this superstitious family. Observances of propitiation are conceived on the same fanciful method, and exert an equal power over men's fears. Incapable of coming face to face with the actual realities of nature, * It is well known that, in new epidemic disorders, the physicians in ignorant countries are usually suspected of poisoning the wells. Alexander the Great crucified the physician that attended his friend IHephasstion. This was a despot's wrath inflamed by suspicion. DEATH. 165 mankind were long at the mercy of these crude suggestions, and their fears ran in the same channel. Malign deites, evil spirits, and the inferior classes of tenants of darkness, described under the names-ghosts, hobgoblins, evil genii, imps and fairies-all belong to the primitive man's theory of the universe; and, by virtue of their position, exercise power and inspire terror. Speaking of the popular notions respecting remote countries, previous to the voyages of Columbus, Helps says, 'Where you know nothing, place terrors'. More precisely, we might say, 'In the presence of vast agencies for evil, of whose principles of action you know nothing, weave fancies and place terrors'. 11. In New operations, involving risks, there are the elements of terror. Youth has to undergo this painful experience at many points. More especially disturbing is the attempt of a beginner to make a difficult display in the presence of others: as in the first public appearances of actors or speakers. Here possibly there may be at work one of the special feelings towards human beings that are more or less instinctive. But it is not all instinct. The ordinary laws of fear, operating in the circumstances, would make the situation of submitting our reputation and prospects to the chances of failure one of especial terror. The dread that we all live in from the censure of other persons, or the loss of good opinion, keeps up a certain tremulous circumspection of manner in general society, until extensive usage has set us at our ease. The uncertainty of our position with those about us, the not knowing what dispositions to ourselves we inspire them with, is a great source of disquiet and pain i in our intercourse with others. Hence the comfort of the long familiarity that has set all doubts at rest. The shyness of manner induced between the sexes is of the same nature, and proves the influence of mutual regard, by the apprehension on either side of not standing well with the other. 12. The Fear of Death is the crowning manifestation of the feeling. The apprehended loss of life's pleasures affects us 166, EMOTION OF FEAR. according to the remaining relish, which is keen in the vigorous period of life, but usually fades under the pressure of years and ill-health; while superadded pain may turn repugnance into welcome. It is the distinction of the human intelligence to conceive a scheme of life, with objects to be accomplished and positions to be attained. To be cut off in the middle of the career thus chalked out, is a severe shock of disappointment, and the prospect is full of anguish. This experience belongs only to creatures looking before and after; the inferior animals who are without life-plans do not feel it; the more reckless of human beings have little of it. Those that began life in hardship, that have laboriously. worked their way to affluence, and that have been taken away just as they are about to enter on their reward, may well look upon death as a fell destroyer. To have had from the beginning a full measure of gratification, to have been happy through infancy and youth, when the zest of life is at its utmost, is a great palliative of the misery of dying before one's time. Quite different is the terror of the Unknown state after death. Here everything depends on the represented picture, on what we can conceive, and what we can believe. A deeplyrooted conviction of the reality of a place of endless torment, an ill-spent life, and faint hopes of pardon, may fill the last moments of existence with unutterable horror. The fear of the act of dying is factitious and unreal. A better knowledge shows that there is no more pain in dying than in being born; there being no severer agonies in the most painful death than we may have at any moment in the fulness of life. Equally factitious is the loathing of the incidents of decomposition of the dead body. Our great difficulty is to avoid transferring to the state of the dead the sentiency of the living. The most helpful and kindly expressions for conceiving death, adopted by men of every creed, are the comparisons to rest and sleep. 13. Terror is farther illustrated by its counteractives. SOURCES OF COMPOSURE. 167 The opposite of fear is Composure or Coolness in the presence of danger. It is not insensibility or indifference to evil, but a measured estimate of the danger, and a corresponding exertion to meet or surmount it. It is not truly expressed by Courage, a noble quality containing an element of self-sacrifice, in opposition to Cowardice, which has in it an element of meanness. There is a certain endowment of the nervous system, apart from all mental qualities, that resists the agitation and displaced energies accompanying fear. Every one knows the difference between strong and feeble health, in this particular; and, still more especially, the difference between vigorous and shattered nerves. The susceptibility to fear in the young may be to a certain extent a nervous property. The vigorous type of nerve is proof against all violent sensations and shocks, such as derange the course of the nerve currents in a feebler system. Next, we may assign, as an aid to composure, the Active or Energetic Temperament, in contrast to the passive and susceptible. An overflow of spontaneous and natural vigour resists the incursions of fear, which cannot establish itself without quashing the energies, more or less, and diverting such as remain from their natural channel. It is a deeper result of the active temperament that in it there is less susceptibility to influences from without, including the signs and symptoms of danger. The naturally Sanguine or Joyous disposition resists fear, simply as a depressing passion; it has not any more specific power as against our passing from rational avoidance to the consternation of terror. Persons gifted with this temperament show the fact by the predominance of elated moods, by not being easily cast down under adverse or menacing appearances. Power of Will, in other words, the strength of the motives to self-possession, may check the beginnings of fear. This control is the begiining of habits of composure. It may work the moving organs, which lend themselves to the r...ma5tion and development of the state; it may work 168 EMOTION OF FEAR. still better upon the course of the thoughts, which are apt to be unmanageable under an attack of fear. But the great specific against terror in general is Knowledge. Superior knowledge will undoubtedly awaken us to dangers concealed from the ignorant. In order that we may confront all dangers calmly, this is a legitimate awakening. The destroyers of our happiness are the apprehensions of distempered fancy, superstitions, and vulgar errors. The physician is composed in the presence of a disease that frightens the unprofessional man. While there are so many real evils in the world, it is an object to be freed from the imaginary. By long consent, knowledge is power; still more emphatically and specially, knowledge is composure. 14. The state of Re-action, or Relief, from terror is characteristic as a mode of delight. It is relative to the misery and depression that we undergo when alarmed, and is productive of a corresponding buoyant cheerfulness. The enormous tension of the attitude of terror is relaxed; the forces recur to their usual channels. We are not necessarily repaid for all that we have suffered; a serious fright cannot be atoned for, although a slight one may. There is a permanent habit or condition of the mind, founded on re-action from terror, namely, the state of Confidence, Security, or Assurance, which is eminently comforting and agreeable. In part it belongs to the mere fact of evil kept at a distance; but when the evil is such that we cannot face it without the quakings of genuine fear, the tone determined by assurance of its being overcome assumes a higher pitch. Security is, in the first place, a state of entire virginity of soul, a paradise situation, where we have never yet known harm. Once violated, we can regain the state only after a long round in the voyage of life, a laborious education in the causes of good and evil, which shows us when and how far we are keeping calamity at a distance. The exceeding value that we- put upon the vay -eans of Protection against mischief, as money, liberty, powir;-ii... GOVERNMENT AND EDUCATION. 169 ledge, friends, may be due in part to the re-action from terror. The vast potentiality of money would account for its charms with those that are turning it to full account; but scarcely for the pleasure of accumulating without the intention of spending. The Duke of Wellington, in old age, amused himself with keeping a number of watches going, the re-action from the great strain of mind so often experienced in observing punctuality. The virtue of truth is supported in its high exigencies by our terrors. Liberty or autonomy contains in it the elements of a similar re-action. Settled government with security to property and life has an unspeakable charm at the termination of a reign of terror. The Architectural associations of support are gratifying through the mental apprehension, running into terror, of the downfal of our erections. All machinery that is perfect for its end, that end being deeply interesting to us, has the charm of making us rise superior to the incubus of terror. 15. In Government and in Education, the discipline of pain may be re-inforced by terror. When authority encounters flat resistance or revolt, it is apt to seek the aid of this instrument. The scattering of the energies in fear, more than anything else, subdues obduracy and rebelliousness of mind. It is less suitable for inducing steady exertion, alertness, and circumspect conduct; these require the cool command of the entire unbroken energies of the system. Hence spiritual terrors used in government often recoil upon the users. By their means we may put multitudes to flight; we may not induce them to stand by our side in difficulty and in danger. The attempt to govern children by the fear of ghosts has always proved disastrous. 16. Our concluding observations relate to the use of the passionin Art. The expression of fear makes a subject for the artist, whether painter or poet. The actor brings it on the stage both in tragic and in comic exhibitions. Pictures and tales of thrilling interest are sometimes created out of the deepest horrors that reality or imagination can furnish. A genuine fright is undoubtedly an experience of pure 170 EMOTION OF FEAR. misery; but a slight fear, with speedy relief, occurring in times of dulness and stolid composure, acts like a stimulant on the nervous system. In the flush of high bodily vigour, danger only heightens the interest of action and pursuit. The hunting of tigers is the most exciting of sports. But it is in the fictitious terrors that the sting of terror is most effectually extracted, and only the pleasurable stimulus left behind. In proportion as the reality of evil is removed far from ourselves, we are at liberty to join in the excitement produced by the expression of fear. The skilful dramatist is able to regulate the dose, although the greatest of all has not always done so; the genius of Shakespeare has not been able to submerge the painful horrors of Lear. Some minds can endure a large amount of this element, having that robustness of nerve that can throw off the pain, and not be too much excited by the picture. Murder, calamity, and misrule, are no more than interest to such minds. For others, the miserycausing element would predominate. The spectacle of gladiators, bull-fights, contests in the ring, &c., contains both terror and voluptuous excitement; and the taste for them is determined according as one or the other prevails. The ancient 'mysteries '* are generally supposed to have had terror for their * The Eleusinian mysteries were celebrated every year, in September, and the festival occupied ten days. Both sexes and all ages were admitted; but foreigners and bad characters at home were excluded. It was considered a duty of every Athenian citizen to go to Eleusis at least once, for the sake of being initiated. The intending communicants on each occasion formed themselves into a procession, and marched on foot from Athens to Eleusis, a distance of ten or twelve miles. Various ceremonies of purification were gone through, and sacrifices offered, with solemn processions, and the carrying about of lighted torches. Sports and contests, as was usual at all festivals, were regularly exhibited. The ceremony of initiation was nocturnal, and took place in a large building called the Temple of the Mysteries. The candidates entered with myrtle crowns and clean garments, dipping their hands in the holy water at the door as they passed. The hierophant, or chief actor of the mysteries, received them with a solemn admonition to preserve their minds pure and undefiled on so august an occasion; and then read out of a book the import of of the mysteries. He next put certain questions to them, as to whether they had duly prepared themselves by fasting, &c.; to all which they returned answers in a set form. A vast exhibition of strange objects and scenes then FICTITIOUS TERRORS. 171 basis, and their influence was considered favourable, as well as stimulating, to the mind. opened up before them; thunders and lightnings alternating with pitch darkness, noises and bellowings, apparitions of horror, and dramatic spectacles of the most terrible excitement. The sad mythical history of the goddess was represented, it would appear, with an exaggeration of details that struck dread into the spectators. Obscene rites and symbols seem also to have been mixed up with the revelations. The shock given to the spectators must have been terrible. The whole scene,was an extreme instance of tragedy, according to Aristotle's account of its intention-namely, to purify the heart by pity and terror. It was an accumulation of all the objects and stimulants of the most tumultuous passions of pathos and terror. The motive of the display would appear to have been to operate as a counteractive to these passions in ordinary life, by the abiding remembrance of one volcanic outburst of emotion. There was a saying, that persons that had once visited the cave of Trophonius, where a similar dish of horrors was served up, were never known to smile afterwards; and perhaps some permanent solemnizing effect was anticipated from the exhibition of the mysteries. CHAPTER IX. EMOTION OF ANGER. 1. THIs is the second member of the great antithetic couple that, next to the collective sensations, stand out in towering prominence among the sources of human pleasure and pain. In the chapter on Evolution, the characters of the emotion of Anger were viewed in connection with the supposed derivation from the predatory side of animal life. The hypothesis seemed to account for all the stages but the very last. The necessities of living by prey would impart a pleasurable interest to the act of destroying another creature, and to all the signs and symptoms of weakness and approaching death. The interest would consist not merely in the associations with the obtaining of food, but in the equally powerful associations of deliverance from being the prey of another. Animals have both to catch and kill their inferiors, and also to fight their equals, with various fortune. They thus have occasion for that joyful outburst that accompanies relief from a doubtful struggle, which is so much the greater, according as they are liable to the special emotion of fear, in addition to the primary sensibilities to pain. This re-action from fear is a source of gratification of perceptible magnitude; it adds a considerable factor to any total of delight. But we have yet to account for the characteristic manifestation of anger, the delight in putting to pain any one that has given pain to us; the gloating over misery and suffering in an enemy. This is most markedly a human form of the passion. The lower animals are too little versant in subjective facts to appreciate this circumstance to the same degree. They know what it is to suffer, they know some of the signs of suffering, more especially screams and outcries; those in the same flock come to one another's aid on the signal of distress. So far they are acquainted with the connections between feelings and their signs. Applying this knowledge to victims and PHYSICAL SIDE. 173 rivals in distress, they may be supposed to infer from such indications of suffering, that the struggle is nearly over, that they have secured their prey, or have rid themselves of a dangerous foe. So far they are interested in the mere fact of pain, and may acquire a pleasurable interest in it, through these connections with other pressing ends. It is probable, however, that the interest seldom goes beyond such very marked signs of agony as portend speedy destruction. 2. Thus Anger, in its human type, is the pleasure of inflicting pain on sentient beings that may have been the occasion of pain to us. When we are put to pain by some visible cause, the first and deepest impulse of our nature is the voluntary exertion for riddance. The putting forth of Will is, on all theories of the mind, the most fundamental resort in an emergency of pain. Other effects may be produced of the kind that we are accustomed to term emotional; namely, Grief and Terror. These both imply the baffling of the voluntary energies; if a man is able to free himself from an incursion of pain by means of his voluntary energies, he neither indulges in grief, nor succumbs to fear. A third remedy of the nature of emotion is Anger. This does not suppose the baffling of the will; it goes along with the full competence of voluntary energy. If the cause of the pain is a person, the will neutralizes the agency of that person; the emotion goes farther and requires us to leave our sting in the sensibilities of the author of the mischief. Thus, in finding a remedy for pains given us by other beings, our voluntary activity and our anger appear to flourish together. We may display activity without anger, but our anger supposes our activity. 3. The outward or PHYSICAL side of Anger is so far illustrative of the character of the passion. (1) Excitement of the system generally, and of the active organs particularly, is the first indication of an outburst of anger. This, however, is merely in the direction of voluntary energy; and would prove nothing but the occurrence of a great necessity for exertion. A man may be very much 174 EMOTION OF ANGER. roused to action, without being angry; yet, we know that the addition of the feeling of anger makes the voluntary activity and excitement greater than it would be without the anger. The rousing of excessive activity is pointed out by Mr. Darwin as characteristic of Rage. The action of the heart is greatly accelerated, or, it may be much disturbed, as happens when we make any great voluntary exertion. 'The excited brain gives strength to the muscles, and at the same time energy to the will'. In a case, reported by Dr. Harley, of a child suffering from morbid activity of the motor centres, there was displayed an extraordinary violence of temper, which subsided when remedies were found for soothing the active excitement. We are not to be surprised that great excitability, even when not more determined to one part than to another, is apt to be accompanied with irritable temper; for although the excitement may be general at first, it is easily localized; and a provocative to anger has this effect. Great readiness to be excited shows itself in temper, among other modes. Hence a person of ordinary irascibility, but unusual excitability, is often said to have a quick temper. As the excitement subsides, so does the fit of anger. (2) The more specific expression of Anger has next to be considered, namely, the displays that correspond to destructive activity. This is the feature that lends itself to the hypothesis of Evolution. In Mr. Spencer's language, 'The destructive passion is shown in a general tension of the muscular system, in gnashing of teeth and protrusion of the claws, in dilated eyes and nostrils, in growls; and these are weaker forms of the actions that accompany the killing of the prey'. 'What we call the natural language of anger, is due to a partial contraction of those muscles which actual combat would call into play; and all marks of irritation, down to that passing shade over the brow which accompanies slight annoyance, are incipient stages of the same contractions.' A minute detail of the peculiar expression of Anger is 11Z SPECIFIC EXPRESSION. 175 given by Mr. Darwin. 'The body is commonly held erect for instant action; sometimes it is bent forward towards the offending person, with the limbs more or less rigid. The mouth is generally closed with firmness, and the teeth clenched or ground together. The arms are raised and the fists clenched. The desire to strike becomes irresistible, and may expend itself in knocking down inanimate objects'. The Australian women, in a fit of rage, dance about and cast dust in the air. Sometimes the lips are protruded, an action that Mr. Darwin is unable to account for. More common and more remarkable is the retracting of the lips, so as to expose the clenched teeth. This connects itself intelligibly with the action of biting, seen in the rage of young children, as well as in animals. The same expression is strongly manifested in the rage of lunatics. The uncovering of the canine teeth, on one side, is extraordinarily expressive of the most determined hatred. As to the Face in particular, according to Mr. Darwin, there is in most cases a strongly-marked frown on the forehead; the indication of displeasure, difficulty, and concentration of mind. Sometimes the brow remains smooth, and the eyes are wide and glaring. From the abundance of the circulation in the head, the eyes are always bright, and in extreme cases, bloodshot, protruding from the socket. The nostril is dilated-the favourite sign of anger with the poets; being a consequence of the heaving of the chest in respiration. The Voice is loud, harsh, and discordant; which may mean partly the violence of the activity, and partly the inspiring of dread in the victim. The Organic disturbances are all consequent on the excessive activity of the system. The reddening of the face, head, and other parts, the distension of the veins in the forehead, are the effect of the quickened action of the heart. In an infant under four months old, Mr. Darwin observed that the first symptom of approaching passion was the rushing of the blood into the bare scalp. Monkeys also redden with passion. In the excesses of anger, as in all exhausting passion, the action of the heart is impeded, and the countenance is pallid 176 EMTOTION OF ANGER. or livid. The digestive and other functions necessarily suffer, from the withdrawal of blood and nervous power. In successful retaliation and revenge, the access of pleasure shows itself in a smile or grin, which in its setting of angry and hostile passion is far from genial, or agreeable to behold. It is still one of the moot points of Psychology, what are the specific causes of laughter. That it is an expression of mere exuberant pleasure is certain; but it seems also to be connected more with some states of pleasure than with others, and there are good grounds for the surmise of Hobbes, that it naturally accompanies the exultation of victory. Anger and Power are near neighbours; they both imply the treading down of rivals,-an effect that readily expresses itself in shouts of laughter. 4. Having seen the physical concomitants of Anger, let us trace the MENTAL workings. First, there is the shock of pain, discomposing the system, and directing the energies into the channel of protective volition. The circumstance that the pain arises from a person, stirs up the peculiar state that we call Anger, a deep rankling pain, pointing at once to the infliction of counter pain, and giving to the will the special bent towards that object. By an inherent tendency of the system, activity is re-inforced in this pursuit; the body and the mind are absorbed by its urgency. If we are speedily and thoroughly successful, the pain turns to exceeding joy; the provocation is swallowed up in victory. The knowledge that we have wounded, crushed, rendered miserable, the offender, is a source of genuine delight. The pains that incite to Anger must be such as to sting without destroying active force. A crushing blow will kill the sentiment of Anger, and end in terror or grief. Proverbially, small grinding inflictions are the most irritating. Insulting language has a specific efficacy. The connection of the pain with some personal agency is an essential feature; there is a grim satisfaction in tracing every evil to a person, thereby making an opening for revenge. PLEASURE IN THE INFLICTION OF SUFFERING. 177 It thus appears that the feeling of Anger contains, as its essential peculiarity, an impulse knowingly to inflict suffering.upon another sentient being, and to derive a positive gratification therefrom. We need to be able to read, and to enter into, the pleasures and pains of our fellow-creatures; and, as the pleasure enjoyed by another gratifies our tender sensibilities, so may suffering manifested by another gratify our irascible sensibility. The satisfaction thus derivable from malevolent sympathy, so to speak, helps to soothe the original wound. Starting from the circumstance that we ourselves are put to pain through the agency of another person, the mere volitional impulse would lead us to react upon that person, so as at least to deprive him of the power of injuring us. This is the course we take with offensive animals; we put them hors de combat for our own protection, and, having once felt pain and peril, we experience in our deliverance a corresponding satisfaction. Still this does not reach the essence of the irascible sentiment. 5. To get at the true character of anger we must look at the feeling that remains after our enemy has been deprived of the means of committing farther injury. The fact that we have suffered harm at the hands of another person leaves a sting in the violation of the sanctity of our feelings. This presupposes doubtless the sentiment of self-regarding pride; the presence of which gives birth to the best developed forms of anger, although we may have genuine specimens without such co-operation. In any case, the pain actually inflicted upon us by a personal agent, with the contemplation of deliberate purpose in the act, gives us, in addition to the actual pain, a degree of mental discomposure that survives the mere mischief. We forget the suffering caused by inanimate things, or by the mere inadvertence of our fellow-beings. But injury done us with design, or from neglect, is not so easily wiped away. Some positive application is needed to heal a wound that is of the nature of a fretting sore. Two kinds of application are found to answer the end; one the voluntary self-humiliation of the wrongdoer, the other a compulsory 12 178 EMOTION OF ANGER. humiliation inflicted upon him. True anger thus supposes a discomposure of mind through harm received from another person, and the cure of that discomposure by the submission or suffering of the agent. 6. There seems little doubt that the primary fact in the pleasure of Anger is the fascination for the sight of bodily infliction and suffering. Singular and horrible as the fact may appear, the evidence is incontestable. It is enough to quote the delight of children in torturing animals, and the zest of multitudes in witnessing public executions. In the absence of an adequate counteracting sympathy, the writhings of pain seem to furnish a new variety of the aggregate of sensual and sensuous stimulation arising from living beings. The indications of a state of suffering that we are happily exempt from, and that we do not choose to conceive in its dread reality, instead of revulsion, impart a species of pleasurable excitement. The moral culture of mankind has endeavoured to suppress, and has greatly succeeded in disguising, this primordial delight in suffering. In minds of exceptional brutality, it appears in its naked horrors. Witness the behaviour of James II., when in Edinburgh as Duke of York, 'amusing himself with hearing Covenanters shriek, and seeing them writhe while their knees were beaten flat in the boots'. It is an element in the pleasures of despots in every age. The horrid cruelty of barbarous times was not confined to selfish aggrandisement, it contained besides the delight in the spectacle of agony. The Roman amphitheatre was the every-day pleasure of the staid citizen; the tastes of a Nero required a more extending sphere of gratification.* The public punishment of criminals was a holiday treat to the most debased of our population. In the records of savage life, we have in* See the description of Rome in the third Satire of Juvenal. The climax is reached when the drunken reveller that has passed a night without breaking some one's head, feels all the regret of Achilles at the death of Patroclus:Ehrius ac petulans, qui nullum forte cecidit Dat poenas: noctem patitur lugentis amicum Pelidae-cubat in faciem, mox deinde supinus. BEING INJURED DESTROYS SYMPATHY. 179 stances of the extreme delight evinced by a multitude of spectators at the struggles of a drowning man that has done them no harm. 7. Considering, then, the existence of this susceptibility in every bosom, what happens when another person puts us to pain? How does this affect our ordinary state of mind considered as under the opposing solicitations of the pleasures of causing suffering on the one hand, and the sentiments that confer a sanctity upon the persons of our fellow-beings on the other? My only answer is, that the effect of an injury received is to suspend for the time the feelings of compassion, sympathy, and dutiful respect, and to leave the field free to the other passions. It is declaring the individual an outlaw, withdrawing the barriers of a flood always ready to overflow, opening a battery constantly charged, whence only one result can ensue. The protection that habitually surrounds a man, without which he might be at any time a victim of the sport of every other man, is for the moment removed when he is the cause of pain to some one; and he is rendered liable to the uncounteracted swing of the excitement of inflicting suffering, and the sentiment of power in the person aggrieved. I am prevented by the humane side of my nature, and by my sense of duty, from kicking a dog that passes by; an effect which would, doubtless, gratify other feelings in me. But if the animal bites, or barks at me, the pain and apprehension tend to destroy my tender feeling towards it, arid suspend my sense of its rights as a sentient being; whereupon I am prompted to repay myself for the suffering by a glut of the pleasure of inflicting pain. I might even go farther, and use the occasion as a pretext for deriving far more pleasure than was equivalent to the pain; but this would be to exceed the measure of ordinary human exigency. SPECIES OF ANGER. 8. To commence with the Lower Animals. While these manifest in abundance the fury of the destructive passion upon prey and upon rivals, probably few of them attain the 180 'EMOTION OF ANGER. last refinement of deriving pure pleasure at the sight of suffering. They put forth their weapons of attack with abundance of vigour, and are necessarily delighted with their success. They scarcely enjoy the sweets of revenge apart from the more substantial benefits of food and love. Something approaching to the delight in malevolence, pure and simple, may probably be traced in the animals at the top of the scalethe monkeys, and the more intelligent quadrupeds, as the dog and especially the elephant. We have anecdotes of the cunning revenge played off by the elephant for affronts. Monkeys are quite capable of enjoying the agonies of their victims. When a number of them combine by linking together in a chain across a stream, to give a passage to their fellows, the crossing monkeys are often mischievous enough to pinch the brethren that make the bridge, being safe from retaliation. It must, however, be pronounced genuine Anger, when an animal in consequence of any provocation given by another creature-any sort of pain that comes within its susceptibilities, is roused to put forth all its destructive energies upon the offender. This is not mere protective volition; it is the Will inspired by the sentiment of Anger. Probably most animals'put themselves in form', by assuming in their own minds that the offence is in the direction of an attack on person or property, and is therefore a case proper for being met vi et armis. 9. In the wrath of Infancy and Childhood, we may trace the passion in its clearest characters. 'Young children, when in a violent rage, roll on the ground on their backs or bellies, screaming; kicking, scratching, or biting everything within reach.' Such is the picture in our own homes; and it seems almost superfluous in Mr. Darwin to cite an authority to prove that the Hindoo children are no better than ourselves. More instructive is the observation that the resemblance is perfect between children and the young of the anthropomorphous apes. 1.0. The varieties of the emotion in mature life turn in part SUDDEN OUTBURST. 181 upon the varied character of the pain, hurt, or injury constituting the original stimulus. There are wrongs inflicted on the person, on the property, on the reputation, on the sympathetic relationships, and in other ways. Sometimes the injury is confined to a single act, at other times a door is opened to an indefinite series of wrongs. Moreover, the view taken of the intention of the offending party has very much to do with the feeling engendered. An unintended harm is easily satisfied, as far as moral reparation is concerned; whereas the indications, of a set purpose of doing us evil stir our resentment to the depths. The forms of angry feeling differ greatly among individuals and races, and are modified by civilization and historic changes. Out of all these possible differences we shall select for illustration some of the wellrecognized species, such as have received characteristic designations. And first, of the distinction between Sudden and Deliberate resentment. The Sudden outburst is what arises from an unexpected blow or shock, and depends on the excitability of the constitution. Some temperaments are described as quick, meaning that the operation of all the passions and movements is rapid. Not only anger, but fear, wonder, and the other passions, as well as the voluntary impulses, are propagated with energy and' speed in such temperaments. The term nervous is applied to characterize the same mode of mental discharge, from the supposition that the nerves by their superior susceptibility are somehow involved in the effect. The aspect of the angry feeling, when suddenly aroused, corresponds to the more natural, that is, the more deeply ingrained, impulses of the individual. When we are abruptly forced into action of any kind, both the original instincts and the confirmed habits show themselves without disguise. In such a case, too, the prompting arises solely from the actual blow, and excludes all reference to circumstances or collaterals. Hence, sudden.resentment is very apt to be excessive, as well as hasty, from which circumstance arises the principal evil attaching to it, 182 EMOTION OF ANGER. In the complicated relations of life, instantaneous decisions must often be bad, and the hurried impulses of a sudden resentment only furnish matter for repentance. Nevertheless, the equanimity of the temper is, as already remarked, especially liable to be disturbed by anything either acute or sudden; the preventive volition, the flow of bitterness from violated personality, and the temper of retaliation, are roused into a vehement gush, aggravated in intensity when the tenmperament is quick or nervous. Thus, while on the one hand, these sudden impulses stand in need of the check of a promptly summoned resolution from within, let all men beware of needlessly provoking them from without. 11. The widest range of illustration applies to Deliberate anger. Implying, as this does, a consideration of all the circumstances attending the original injury, as well as all the consequences of retaliation, we may consider it the generic name for the passion as displayed in cultivated minds and among civilized communities. It gives room for the introduction of some principle of procedure, such as a rule of justice, the dictates of religion, or the received maxims of society. The punishment of offenders and the maintenance of discipline belong to this head. The term Reve'nge expresses the angry passion carried to the full length of retaliation. The need of inflicting pain for appeasing the offended person is strongly suggested by this designation. Where the passion exists in great force, the spirit of revenge is sure to display itself, being in fact the course of conduct whereby anger is attested. Where an injury of great magnitude has been committed, or where the magnitude is simply imagined, and when the wounded personality is difficult to be satisfied, there are no natural limits to the retaliation. Very often actual revenge is beyond our means, and we are driven to indulge in prospective, circuitous, and imaginary retaliations, from thence deriving a few drops of satisfaction in the ideal form. The implacable temper is exemplified on the widest scale in past history. The wars of extermination between tribes and people, the vengeance of REVENGE. 183 the conquering side, the proscription of rivals in power, fill the pages of every country's annals. Sometimes revenge has the aspect of mere satisfaction applied to a rankling wound, a relief from real misery; at other times, it would seem as if the wound were purposely kept open in order to enjoy the sweets of vengeance. Numerous instances may be brought to attest the reality of this species of luxury. The case of the Carthaginian general Hannibal may be quoted in point.* 12. The formidable state of mind named Antipathy ought * Hamilkar, the grandfather of Hannibal, had been slain at Himera, in Sicily, and his grandson, in the year 409 B.C., in a successful invasion of the island, captured this town by storm. He checked the slaughter of the citizens by his sdldiery in order to a signal demonstration of his wrath, described and commented on as follows by the historian of Greece:'It was a proud day for the Carthaginian general when he stood as master on the ground of Himera; enabled to fulfil the duty, and satisfy the exigencies, of revenge for his slain grandfather. Tragical, indeed, was the consummation of this long-cherished purpose. Not merely the walls and temples (as at Selinus), but all the houses in Himera, were razed to the ground. Its temples, having been first stripped of their ornaments and valuables, were burnt. The women and children taken captive were distributed as prizes among the soldiers. But all the male captives, 3000 in number, were conveyed to the spot where Hamilkar had been slain, and there put to death with indignity, as an, expiatory satisfaction to his lost honour. Lastly, in order that even the hated name of Himera might pass into oblivion, a new town called Therma (so designated because of some warm springs) was shortly afterwards founded by the Cathaginians in the neighbourhood. 'No man can now read the account of this wholesale massacre without horror and repugnance. Yet we cannot doubt, that among all the acts of Hannibal's life, this was the one in which lie most gloried, that it realized in the most complete and emphatic manner his concurrent inspirations of filial sentiment, religious obligation, and honour as a patriot; that to show mercy would have been regarded as a mean dereliction of these esteemed influences; and that if the prisoners had been even more numerous, all of them would have been equally slain, rendering the expiatory fulfilment only so much the more honourable and efficacious. In the Carthaginian religion, human sacrifices were not merely admitted, but passed for the strongest manifestation of devotional fervour, and were especially resorted to in times of distress when the necessity for propitiating the gods was accounted most pressing. Doubtless the feelings of Hannibal were cordially shared, andi the plenitude of his revenge envied, by the army around him. So different, sometimes so totally contrary, is the tone and diiection of the moral senti. ments, among different ages and nations.' 184: EMOTION OF ANGER. not to be omitted in this connexion; being one of the many shades or varieties of malevolent passion. It is not the author of an offence against person, property, or good name, that rouses this extreme manifestation; something that affronts our mere eesthetic sensibilility, as certain animals and human beings that create disgust, will provoke the requisite suspension of protective sympathy. The usages, customs, and opinions of foreigners often rouse the sentiment. The exercise of free thought in dissenting from the doctrines that we hold in especial reverence, is a common source of our antipathy. Here, however, there creeps out the wounded pride of power, which, by prompting to signal revenge, repays itself, as it were, in kind. An infusion of fear is a potent element in antipathy. This is partly owing to the greater susceptibility of the mind under fear, and partly owing to the need of preventive efforts against harm. The animals that rouse the greatest force of aversion are those that not only wear a repulsive aspect, but also sting or poison. Antipathy once excited against any one, can be very much inflamed by suggesting a certain amount of dread; this, however, must not be carried too far, else another effect will arise, namely, the subjugation of the active energies, under which the irascible feeling can no longer be sustained. 13. Hatred is the name for a permanent afection grounded on the irascible, as liking is on tenderness. The sense of some one wrong never satisfied, the recognition of a standing disposition to cause harm, an obstructive position maintained, are among the ordinary causes of hatred. A mere aversion to the character and conduct, or even the appearance of another person, without reference to their being hostile, will often engender an habitual dislike. The repetition of occasions of angry feeling ends in a permanent.attitude of resentment, under which the individual is always prepared for acts of retaliation, and for relishing occasions of discomfiture. To be a good hater one needs only to be irascible by nature, and to be placed in some relationship of frequent encounter with the authors of offence. Hence rivalry, the exercise of authority, PARTY SPIRIT1 185 great inequalities of condition, are among the causes of hatred. Party spirit is one of the most notable species. Under the influence of this sentiment, men are affected in all the ways wherein strong emotion can manifest itself. They derive a portion of their happiness from their feelings of animosity, they are powerfully prompted to action for the sake of this pleasure, they retain the feeling by an intellectual hold, and have their minds frequently occupied with the objects of it. Last of all, they are led to believe of the opposing party whatever suits, or chimes in with, their hatred. The banding together into sects or factions gives scope for a large body of sentiment; on the one hand engaging the sympathies of fellowship, and on the other provoking the equally natural outbursts of dislike. Hence people's relations to their party or sect, whether religious, political, or otherwise, usually constitute one of the large interests of their life. The existence of the spirit of sectarian bitterness through all periods of history proves how congenial to man is the passion of hatred. 14. Some further elucidations of our present subject may be gathered, by a survey of the situation of Hostility, Warfare, or actual Combat between opposing parties. This brings us to the position Wherein the passion first arose; and where it must ever find its scope and gratification. The remark is often made, that by rivalry and polemic, the utmost stimulus is given to the human energies; which is another mode of expressing the radical connection between activity and hostility. The hostile attitude in human beings varies according to the view taken of the other party. Involuntary offence may cause a sudden or momentary outburst, which usually subsides and is easily satisfied. As soon as we know that no harm is intended, we accept an apology and are appeased. Aware that absolute inviolability is impossible in this world, and that we are all exposed by turns to accidental injuries from our fellows, we have our minds disciplined to let unintended evil go by without the satisfaction of inflicting some counter evil upon the offender. Since the wrathful sentiment is not necessarily unappeasable without a full exercise of vengeance, the 186 EMOTION OF ANGER. same discipline could be extended, if need were, to all other. cases. Again, when involuntary offence is of the nature of carelessness, the wounded personality is not so readily appeased. We then look upon the offender as omitting the proper line of precautions, to which we are all equally bound, and which, if universally neglected, would produce extensive mischiefs; and, feeling that an injury is done to ourselves and to others, we are exempted from the obligation to suppress our anger unappeased. A third case is that presented when another person, not wishing or intending us harm, still pursues his own ends in utter disregard of our feelings and interest. This is an exceedingly common source of injuries. Persons that harbour no ill-will to their fellows are often nevertheless entirely reckless of other people's happiness in the pursuit of their own, feeling no compunction at the misery they cause. We consider ourselves still less called upon to suppress our wrathful sentiments towards this species of offenders; our legitimate indignation seems the right and proper check to such selfish disregard of others. The fourth and highest species of wrong is the case of deliberate and intended offence, limited or unlimited in its character. This opens before us such a state of mind, and such a range of possible damage, that our angry sentiments are deeply moved and call for vengeance. Nothing is wanted to complete the provocation but the consciousness on our part that we have given no cause for such a demonstration, and are deliberately and gratuitously wronged by a fellow-being. When, in retaliating upon the object of our anger, we encounter resistance and opposition, the state of warfare ensues. Each party, inflamed with a sense of injury, directs his whole might to bring about the ruin of the other,. That prompting to extraordinary efforts of volition, which we have noted as a consequence of pain, and still further of resistance, is seen at the uttermost pitch in actual combat. Even without the bitterness of wounded personality demanding vengeance, the position of the combatant so stimulates the voluntary energy as to exhibit the human powers at their highest WARFARE. 187 point. The superadded spirit of vengeance brings out the fury of a fiend. The weapons of hostility change greatly according to the circumstances and characters of the contending parties. Passing from the physical encounter of men engaged in mortal conflict, we remark the substitution of other modes of attack for bodily damage. Calumny and abuse is the favourite weapon of factions and rivals living in the same society; and we have all seen to what lengths this will go. Any contested election, a local dispute, or a family quarrel, will recall examples to any one's recollection. With intellectual refinement, sarcasm and innuendo take the place of open slander and vulgar scurrility. Sometimes a lawsuit is the arena of the struggle. Still farther removed from the grossness of a bodily: combat is the struggle of debate between opposing views or doctrines. The spirit of hostility is here unchanged, but the mode of action has taken an altered shape. A turn for polemics, the love of contradiction and a fondness for paradox, are modifications of irascible feeling. 15. Dr. Chalmers, in a dissertation entitled 'The Inherent Misery of the Vicious Affections,' &c., has adopted a line of illustration that implies doubts as to the genuineness of the Pleasures of Malevolence.* But although the exercise of * 'Kindness, and honesty, and truth, are, of themselves, and irrespective of their rightness, sweet unto the taste of the inner man. Malice, envy,. falsehood, injustice, irrespective of their wrongness, have of themselves, the bitterness of gall and wormwood'. 'The most ordinary observer of his own feelings, however incapable of analysis, must be sensible, even at the moment of wreaking the full indulgence of his resentment on the man who has provoked or injured him, that all is not perfect within; but that, in this, and indeed in every other malignant feeling, there is a sore burden of disquietude, an unhappiness tumultuating in the heart, and visibly pictured in the countenance. The ferocious tyrant who has only to issue forth his mandate, and strike dead at pleasure the victim of his wrath, with any circumstance too of barbaric caprice and cruelty which his fancy, in the very waywardness of passion unrestrained and power unbounded, might suggest to him-he may be said through life to have experienced a thousand gratifications, in the solaced rage and revenge, which, though ever breaking forth on some new subject, he can appease again every day of his life by some new execution. But we mistake it if we think otherwise than, that, in spite of these distinct 188 EMOTION OF ANGER. resentment is beset with numerous incidental pains, the one feeling of gratified vengeance is a pleasure as real and indisputable as any form of human delight. The injury and and very numerous, nay daily gratifications if he so choose, it is not a life of fierce internal agony notwithstanding'. Far more just and true to actual experience are the reflections quoted above from the most philosophical historian of Greece, on Hannibal's sacrifice of prisoners at Himera. With a like dispassionate accuracy does the same author depict the luxury of gratified revenge experienced by the Athenians on the condemnation of Phokion. After the subversion of the Athenian democracy by the Macedonian general Antipater (B.c. 322), Phokion lent himself to the execution of the victor's decrees for humiliating and prostrating his country, and continued to administer her affairs as the principal agent of the Antipatrian rule. On the death of Antipater, another Macedonian general (Polysperchon) acquired the ascendency in Greece. He restored the numerous political exiles, and granted free constitutions to the various cities, Athens included. This event brought Phokion before the Athenian people as a prisoner accused of the criminality of his past conduct. The Assembly before which he stood was composed in great part of citizens just returned from all the hardships of the exile that Antipater had condemned them to. "When these restored citizens thus saw Phokion brought before them, for the first time after their return, the common feeling of antipathy against him burst out in furious manifestations. Agonides, the principal accuser, supported by Epikurus and Demophilus, found their denunciations welcomed and even anticipated, when they had arraigned Phokion as a criminal who had lent his hand to the subversion of the constitution-to the sufferings of his deported fellow-citizens-and to the holding of Athens in subjection under a foreign potentate; in addition to which, the betrayal of Peir'eus to Nikanor, constituted a new crime, fastening on the people the yoke of Kassander, when autonomy had been promised to them by the recent imperial edict. After the accusation was concluded, Phokion was called on for his defence; but he found it impossible for him to obtain a hearing. Attempting several times to speak, he was as often interrupted by angry shouts; several of his friends were cried down in like manner; until at length he gave up the case in despair, and exclaimed, 'For myself, Athenians, I plead guilty; I pronounce against myself the sentence of death for my political conduct; but why are you to sentence these men near me, who are not guilty?' ' Because they are your friends, Phokion,' was the exclamation of those around. Phokion then said no more; while Agonides proposed a decree, to the effect that the assembled people should decide by a show of hands, whether the persons now arraigned were guilty or not; and that if declared guilty, they should be put to death. Some persons present cried out that the penalty of torture ought to precede death; but this savage proposition, utterly at variance with Athenian law in respect to citizens, was repudiated not less by Agonides than by the Macedonian officer, Kleitus. The decree was then passed; after which LUXURY OF RESENTMENT. 189 violation involved in the original offence, the further damage incurred in chastising the offender, are only part of the evils belonging to the case. The presence in the same breast of tender sympathies and warm affections is often the cause of an exceedingly painful struggle in addition to those other sources of pain. But if we were to admit contrariety of impulses as a proof of the inherent misery of angry emotion, we must equally consider it a proof of the misery of tender emotion. There are times when the exercise of our affections is exceedingly painful, the object of them having excited our wrathful sentiment. At those moments, it is a great misery to harbour tender feelings, and it were better for us to have nothing but irascibility in our constitution. Accordingly, in cases where the sympathies and affections are little developed in the character, and where the contrary passions possess an unusual vigour, the enjoyment derivable from pure malevolence is intense and unalloyed. Nothing but the retribution accruing from a course of mischief and wrong inflicted upon others, can occur to interrupt the joys of gratified resentments; so that, with precautions for his own safety, the actor might be truly happy. Instances of this devil-like character are not unfrequently to be met with in real life; and in romance it often occurs as a creation. The Quilp of Dickens is a recent and highly-instructive specimen. The irascible temper, in a state of surcharge, does not need an actual offender; any person or anything, the most innocent or irrelevant, receives the shock. the show of hands was called for. Nearly every hand in the Assembly was held up in condemnation; each man even rose from his seat to make the effect more imposing; and some went so far as to put on wreaths in token of triumph. To many of them, doubtless, the gratification of this intense and unanimous vindictive impulse-in their view not merely legitimate, but patriotic-must have been among the happiest moments of life." The above is perhaps the most remarkable instance afforded by the ancient world. In modern times it is even surpassed by the burst of furious exultation that accompanied the execution of Robespierre. See the description in Michelet, Histoire de la tRevolution Franqaise, Liv. xxi. chap. 10. Dr. Young's tragedy, entitled Zanga; or, T'he Slave's _Revenge, is a poetic handling of the same theme. 190 EMOTION OF ANGER. 16. The resentful feeling occasionally receives the name of 'Righteous Indignation,' from the circumstance that some great criminality or flagrant wrong has been the instigating cause. The open law-breakers that encroach upon the rights of the orderly citizen, and the tyrants and oppressors of mankind on the great scale, are examples of the fair application of the sentiment. A nation rousing itself to shake off the yoke of a despot may well be moved with a righteous anger. This form of the passion has always been considered as not unbecoming in the greatest and most high-minded of men, being justified by the occasion that called it forth. Somewhat different, although akin, is the meaning of 'Noble Rage,' which represents the interesting, engaging, or poetic aspect of anger; being what makes a fine display, an attracting spectacle, or a stirring drama. The wrath of Achilles was, not a righteous, but a theatrical indignation. The developments of irascible passion are interesting to behold from the point of view of a mere spectator; and we dignify by the term 'noble' what inspires a lofty aesthetic interest. The very tyrant who has kindled a flame of righteous indignation, becomes by his carriage and demeanour when standing at bay before the excited populace, a subject for the poets and painters of after times; such is the difference between our moral and our artistic sentiments. 17. In Morality, and in preserving the order of the world, resentment is a powerful instrument. Not merely the hurt that anger prompts to, but the very expression or aspect of the passion, inspires dread and makes men exert themselves to avoid rousing it. Our anger is a wall of fire around us. In the government of human beings, the display of angry feeling is a check on disobedience. On the other hand, this passion is one grand spring of the disorders that trouble human life. Injury, real or supposed, excites the thirst for vengeance, the outgoings of which, if unable to crush the offended, only stimulate new acts of aggression. Thus, by a process of action and re-action, the evil goes on multiplying itself, while every step puts the hope MORAL DISORDER. 191 of reconciliation at a greater distance. Slight irritation grows to irreparable feud, individuals are injured, the laws are broken, and the evil principle reigns triumphant. CHAPTER X. EMOTION OF POWER. 1.* IN my preceding volume, I have dwelt upon the * Dugald Stewart is unusually happy in his rendering of the workings of the sentiment of Power:'In general, it may be observed, that, whenever we are led to consider ourselves as the authors of any effect, we feel a sensible pride or exultation in the consciousness of power, and the pleasure is in general proportioned to the greatness of the effect, compared with the smallness of our exertion. * What is commonly called the pleasure of activity is in truth the pleasure of power. Mere exercise, which produces no sensible effect, is attended with no enjoyment, or a very slight one. The enjoyment, such as it is, is only corporeal. 'The infant, while still on the breast, delights in exercising its little strength on every object it meets with, and is mortified when any accident convinces it of its own imbecility. The pastimes of the boy are, almost without exception, such as to suggest to him the idea of his power. When he throws a stone or shoots an arrow, he is pleased with being able to produce an effect at a distance from himself; and, while he measures with his eye the amplitude or range of his missile weapon, contemplates with satisfaction the extent, to which his power has reached. It is on a similar principle that he loves to bring his strength into comparison with that of his fellows, and to enjoy the consciousness of his superior prowess. Nor need we search in the malevolent dispositions of our nature for any other motive to the apparent acts of cruelty which he sometimes exercises over the inferior animals-the sufferings of the animal, in such cases, either entirely escaping his notice, or being overlooked in that state of pleasurable triumph which the wanton abuse of pozoer communicates to a weak and unreflecting judgment. The active sports of the youth captivate his fancy by suggesting similar ideas-of strength of body, of force of mind, of contempt, of hardship, and of danger. And accordingly such are the occupations in which Virgil, with a characteristic propriety, employs his young Ascanius:" At puer Ascanius mediis in vallibus acri Gaudet equo; jamque hos cursu, jam prseterit illos; Spumantemque dari pecora inter inertia votis Optat aprum, aut fulvum descendere monte leonem." As we advance in years, and as our animal powers lose their activity and vigour, we gradually aim at extending our influence over others by the superiority of fortune and station, or by the still more flattering superiority of intellectual endowments, by the force of our understanding, by the extent of PLEASURES OF ACTIVITY. 193 various feelings begotten in the exercise of the muscular organs. These are highly pleasurable when the body is healthy, strong, and fresh, and are one ingredient in the agreeable consciousness growing out of active pursuit. There is, too, a corresponding pleasure in mental effort, considered merely as the exercise of an activity of the system. Again, we have a satisfaction in attaining the Ends of our active pursuit; the fact of their being ends implies as much. In all voluntary effort, therefore, there is a double influence upon the mind-the influence of the state of activity or exercise, and the influence of the end or thing aimed at. The animal roaming for its food, the peasant tilling his ground, experience this twofold effect. Thus, labour, which is exercise for attaining a gratification, or for the avoidance of an evil, is a complicated or compound situation, and the consequent emotion is likewise compound. The great variety of modes of active exercise on the one hand, and of agreeable effects on the other, leads to a numerous class of composite emotions referable to the region of our activity. When some very congenial exertion on our part produces an effect also very gratifying, the confluence of the two pleasures must needs beget an intense delight. Such happy combinations are not the usual case; either the kind of exercise that delights us most brings little other fruit; or, to attain our favourite ends, we must take up with uninviting labours. The proper pleasure of Power is something beyond mere exertion for ends. It arises on comparing the easy with the our information, by the arts of persuasion, or the accomplishments of address. What but the idea of power pleases the orator in managing the reins of an assembled multitude, when he silences the reason of others by superior ingenuity, bends to his purposes their desires and passions, and, without the aid of force, or the splendour of rank, becomes the arbiter of the fate of nations! 'To the same principles we may trace, in part, the pleasure arising from the discovery of general theorems in the sciences. Every such discovery puts us in possession of innumerable particular truths or particular facts, and gives us a ready command of a great, stock of knowledge of which we could not, with equal ease, avail ourselves before. It increases, in a word, our intellectual power in a way very analogous to that in which a machine or engine increases the mechanical power of the human body.' 13 194 EMOTION OF POWER. difficult performance of operations. When the laboriousness of an operation is of a uniform character, the feelings connected with it are the two above-mentioned-the pleasure (or pain) of the exercise, and the pleasure of the end. But let us suppose a work at first performed with great pain or difficulty, and afterwards with ease; in that case, the transition from one state to the other, gives rise to a new feeling, of the class founded on Relativity or Comparison-a joyous and hilarious rebound, intense accordirng to the greatness and the suddenness of the change; there being a corresponding depression of mental tone when the course is in the opposite direction, or from ease to difficulty. So, when after a protracted and doubtful struggle, we are victorious, there is an outburst of joyful excitement peculiar to the situation of contrast. I formerly described this emotion as the consciousness of superior POWER, energy, or might; there being present to the mind some inferior grade to give the comparison. 2. The feeling of the possession and the exercise of power, without immediate reference to other ends, is a first-rank pleasure. The supposed genesis of it appears inadequate. The simple situation assumed is a person failing to do something to-day, and succeeding to-morrow; or being conscious of an increase in some bodily or mental aptitude: such are the feelings of the growing youth, which are undoubtedly grateful and cheering. But is this a sufficient basis for the enormous gratification of exercising large control in the world? I am inclined to think that any pleasure gained by succeeding against one's self is but flat; as in playing a game alone. The situation where the joy of power and superiority rises to the characteristic pitch, is success as against some other person. The personal or sociable element seems necessary to the sweetness, the unction of power. One of the thlings that makes man interesting to man is the exercise of sway. All the examples of the noted delights of power are in favour of this view. COINCIDENCE OF MALEVOLENCE AND POWER. 195 3. Under the Emotion of Tenderness was illustrated the sociable interest in its best, and perhaps most intelligible form-attachment and reciprocated fondness. Under the Irascible Emotion, pleasurable feelings of the first magnitude are engendered under social relations that are the reverse of amicable. Which of these does Power most readily attach to? There is plausibility in Stewart's suggestion that power is the foundation of malevolent pleasure. The facts, however, equally bear out the converse supposition-that malevolence is the basis of the delight of power. There is, to say the least of it, an extensive coincidence between the two states. That we have a deep-rooted gratification accruing from Revenge, is patent and undeniable. The obverse pain includes, besides the misery of the retaliation, a sense of degradation and humiliation from being the victim of another's wrath. Now, it is an incident in the possession of Power to be the avenger and not the avenged. In fact, with abundance of Power, we can get the primary gratification of seeing others in pain, with or without the pretext of injury; while we can equally escape being ourselves the victims of the like wantonness. I apprehend that the pleasure of Power in its coarsest and brutal form, which is also its most piquant form, and level to the meanest capacity, is the pleasure of putting others to pain; doing without justification what Anger does with justification. The two feelings are, therefore, at bottom, almost identical. Malevolence in its purest form would thus correspond less closely with Anger than with the worst excesses of Power. 4. But Power is the name for many things besides the pleasure of rampant cruelty. It has much in common with the aggregate named Property or Wealth; it signifies the means of gaining the agreeables of sense and warding off the disagreeables. This may be done by the direct control of others, as when a man has at his beck servants to do whatever he wants; or it may be done indirectly by laying hold of property or possessions, like a freebooter. Again, power brings adulation and submission, which is only a more refined form of the primary sentiment. 196 EMOTION OF POWER. Moreover, the. pleasures of Love are at the call of Power. Rivals are driven off, protectorship is held out, affection is gained. And if a man's aims are lofty, generous, philanthropic, power is needed to vanquish opposition; and may, therefore, be as sweet to the benevolent mind, as to the coarse and brutal despot. We can thus see that the enormous value rightly attributed to the pleasure of Power is attainable, not through the paltry feeling of one's being able to-day to move a stone that one could not move six months ago, but by being identified with all the three prime sources of human sensibility-Sense Agreeables, Anger, and Love. An accession of strength is prized as opening up anew one or more of these three fountains of gratification. 5. Of the aggregate called Sense Agreeables, containing the means of obtaining sense pleasures, and keeping off sense pains, there is one item more specially identified than the rest with the possession of power; namely, the muscular element, as cohtaining the two extremes of painful labour and delightful exercise. When, by an advance in power or means of any kind, we mount from laboriousness to ease, the rebound is grateful and cheering; augmented, no doubt, by,observing others in our old condition. Inasmuch as toil (far beyond the delight of exercise) is still the curse of our existence, anything that does away with this is inexpressibly welcome; and whatever name we may give to the deliverance will designate one of life's blessings. The genius of Addison, as depicted by Pope, is indeed enviable, however improbable'Born to live, converse, and write with ease.' The sentiment of the Sublime does not seem necessarily to contain the sense of power over the destinies of living beings (in many varieties, this is present); but it involves at lowest the grateful reaction from the oppressiveness of toil. When, after straining our powers to the utmost verge of endurance, we are still unable, or barely able, to gain our ends, the transition to a state where we obtain all that we want, by an amount POWER AS RE-ACTION FROM TOIL. 197 of exertion within the limits of pleasurable exercise, is a very great satisfaction, and represents the utmost delight that can accrue from the simplest form of the feeling of strength. It is, however, the delight of being relieved from a great depth of physical suffering; and with this is unavoidably mixed up the feeling of other privations, which carry us into the remoter regions of sensibility. The hard-worked labourer, transferred to an' easy situation, experiences much more than the remission of muscular fatigue, with the accompanying organic depression; he obtains, farther, a cheerful sense that he is secured in all his home comforts, including, perhaps, the luxury of being superior to some envious rival. Easy locomotion, as compared with a toilsome foot march, the command of effective tools, the subjection of animals and of the physical forces to our service,-all contain the reaction from muscular fatigue. There is a grateful feeling in the discharge of the far-darting weapon that can extend our influence by knocking some one down at a distance. 6. If Power be thus a derived or composite passion, its PHYSICAL side will not include any novel manifestation. As connected with possessions, and the release from labours and other sense privations and disagreeables, it takes on necessarily a cheerful or beaming expression, without specific characteristics. In the aspect nearest to Anger-the malevolent exercise of power, whether the trampling down of rivals, or the sport with inflicted pain,-it has the expression corresponding to the attitude, as we have already seen it, in connection with Anger. The erect and lofty carriage of a man conscious of superior might is a proof of the exhilaration and invigorating effect of the situation, and of its alliance with the putting forth of activity, as contrasted, not only with weakness, but also with the repose of tender feeling. Success in a trial of strength, and the discomfiture of an opposing host, are specific causes of LAUGHTER. The only account that can be given of the connection is, that, under a 198 EMOTION OF POWER. fit of activity, when our work is done, we need to let off the steam, and this is done by the spasmodic outburst of laughter. By long association, amounting, it may be, to hereditary transmission, the laugh has acquired such a special alliance with might, possession, and victory, that it is the mode of giving vent to our acute pleasures generally; while, from the same association, one of the greatest of our pains is to be laughed at. 7. It is only at intervals that we enjoy the pleasure of power in actual exercise. By ideal extension, it occupies a much greater area in our minds. The memory of the past, the anticipation of the future, the conception of the possible, -increase the sweets of power ten or twenty-fold. The signs and suggestive circumstances of superior might are never long absent from the view of the possessor, and, whenever he is mentally disposed to revel in the ideal luxury, there are ways and means of stimulation. If, however, the satisfaction were limited to the actual possessor, the pleasures of power would be very confined in their operation; seeing that power in one is subjection in a great many others. But the emotion is of the kind that may be idealized without actual possession; its sphere is thus extended, and it becomes, though in a feebler form, a universal pleasure. So grateful to one's self is the possession of adequate physical strength, that to witness the signs of such strength, in the brawny figure and easy movements of a powerful man, gives us an agreeable thrill. We feel as if the contemplation and idea of such vigour, for the instant, raised ourselves in the scale of power. So decided is the effect, that we find ourselves arrested by the spectacle of a physically powerful man outdoing all his fellows in exercises of strength. On this propensity have been based such notable institutions as the Grecian games; a wonderful testimony to the fascination of power even when only in idea. So great a fascination must be made up of elements of notable magnitude; there must enter (in the notion) the very choicest of the sense agreeables INTEREST OF WITNESSED POWER. 199 and exemptions, with contributions from one or both of the great emotional fountains-Love and Malevolence. We have already seen that superiority to fatigue is a great re-action of delight. We can also imagine the vast agency of protectorship locked up in a powerful personality; and we are equally, if not more, affected with the malevolent efficiency of such a being. To make the highest charm of contemplated power, all these streams of ideal feeling run together. When a tribe elects as its chief the most physically powerful member, and submits to his authority in that capacity, the sentiment of deference and loyality is made up of these several ingredients; and we are not surprised to be told that the victors at the Olympian games, on their return, became frequently the chiefs, and even the despots, of their cities. 8. All the signs, appearances, or suggestive circumstances of power, have an interest to the beholder. The physiognomy of strength is the strongest circumstance, as containing personality; this we can look up to and admire. But the various effects or results of strength, the works performed, and the changes produced, are suggestive too, though in a less degree. A massive rampart withstanding the fury of the waves, a stately tree that has survived innumerable storms, the lines of Torres Vedras,-fill our minds with the sense of might as resistance. As regards external nature, however, the most suggestive circumstances are the moving agents themselves, as having a still greater resemblance to the personal physiognomy; such are the seas, the floods, the cataracts, the volcanic fires, and in some measure the winds, which we do not see, but can conceive, in motion. 9. The drawbacks to ideal power and fortune are envy and the fear of being the victim. On the other hand, there is, in mankind, an inherent slavishness, the offspring of weakness, unequally manifested in races and in individuals; and the upshot is a worship of power for the sake of protection. People renounce as hopeless the actual possession of imposing might, and ensconce themselves under the might of another, taking all the risks. 200 EMOTION OF POWER. Such a disposition to live in the greatness of a second person-whereby we resign ourselves to a position of inferiority and subjection, withdrawing from the contest for the great prizes of the world,-has an ignoble side, in compounding by submission for ease and physical comfort; it has a more worthy side in love and devotion, which is often displayed by the weak to the strong, in return for love and protection. In either case, it illustrates the mind's capability of sustained interest in ideal or contemplated greatness. All the forms of manifested power influence the beholder, according as he is able to enter into their workings, and is not repelled by rivalry and fear. Specially remarkable is the admiration of moral power,'in the shape of ascetic self-denial, which has had a great charm for men in all ages. We surrender ourselves more willingly to this form of might than to any others. We see in it the apparent means of solving the greatest difficulty of life-the reconciliation of clashing demands. Hence we approve sentimentally of an ethical ideal that is severe and self-denying, even though we are compelled in some measure to adopt it ourselves. CHAPTER XI. EMOTIONS OF SELF. 1. THERE are various important meanings attached to the term ' self', besides the one specially intended in the present chapter. I. It being impossible to recognize existence in any shape, except as related to the individual mind, each one's universe may be looked upon as coinciding with self. This is the doctrine usually termed Idealism. II. It is common to recognize a distinction between the Subject mind, and a something supposed to be distinct from, external to, acting upon that mind, called matter, the external or extended world, the object, the non-ego, or not-self. There is undoubtedly a distinction between the mind as sentient and the thing felt, between the percipient and the perception, the concipient and the conception, and so forth; but not, as I imagine, amounting to self in the one case and the negation of self in the other. The real difference will be adverted to in the concluding chapter of this volume. III. There is an act of Introspection whereby we regard the feelings and operations of the mind as something to be controlled or to be studied; presenting a contrast to the employment of the organs upon outward things. When we restrain our fears, or our anger, with a view to mental discipline, or when we study the laws of thought and feeling as a matter of information, we are sometimes said to be selfconscious, as opposed to ploughing, spinning, building, or other acts and operations performed upon the outer world. IV. The Impulsiveness, spontaneity, or original tendencies of our nature, viewed in contrast with the check, guidance, or influence of impressions from without, is an aspect of self. The difference is great between the outburst of natural vigour, reckless and uncontrolled, and Circumspection, or restraint imposed by a lively sense of consequences. 202 EMOTIONS OF SELF. V. The total pleasures and pains, wants, desires, aims, and actions of an individual, constitute self in contradistinction to all indifferent things. What touches our own welfare, and still more, what we feel and act upon as such, is our end of life, the collective engrossment of our being. This Life-interest is a well-characterized meaning of the term in question. VI. Of our collective interests, a certain portion in no way includes the interests of any other beings, whether simply passing these by, or positively detracting therefrom; there being left out of account sympathy and self-devotion. Self-love (or, when intended to be blamed, Selfishness) is the specific designation of this contracted sphere of regards. Even when we adopt one or more living beings into the circle of our affections, we may, in our devotion to them, put on a selfish aspect to all beyond. As members of a domestic group we may renounce self, one to another, but assume it in a high degree towards strangers. Self-love, therefore, starts, not simply from the individual, but from the smaller societies in whose separate interiors devotion may reign. 2. We are at present to consider a class of emotions still more narrow and select, having reference to our possessing in ourselves the qualities that, when seen in other men, inspire the sentiments of love, admiration, reverence, esteem, or the opposites of these. Whatever attributes impress our minds as displayed by our fellow-men, produce also a peculiar effect as put forth by ourselves. There is a great pleasure in observing and contemplating our own excellence, power, grandeur, or other imposing characteristics. This is a very special mode of self-regarding emotion; the names used for it are Selfcomplacency, Self-gratulation, Self-esteem, Self-conceit, Pride. The emotion takes a somewhat different turn, and is usually much more satisfying and intense, when our conduct or character calls forth open manifestations of admiration, love, or esteem from those around. For this gratification, and for the desire that it begets, we have such names as Vanity, Love of Approbation, Desire of Fame or Glory. REFLECTED EMOTIONS. 203 SELF-WORTH, SELF-ESTEEM, SELF-GRATULATION. 3. It is easy to understand the self-regarding feelings in the primary form of the avidity for sense agreeables and sense exemptions, with the farther emotional pleasureslove and anger. Whether we view them individually, as pleasures of the several senses in detail, or collectively in the aggregates, Property, Power, Liberty, Social Estimation (as regulating the awards of our fellows), the phenomenon we have to deal with is the operation of pleasures and pains upon the will, in pursuit and avoidance. Our Egotism is simply our devotion to the good things of life, as a whole; our determination to get the best of whatever is going. The names Selfishness, Self-love, mean nothing more. 4. But when we enquire into the meanings of the termsSelf-worth, Self-pity, Self-esteem, Self-complacency, Self-gratulation, Self-Admiration,-we encounter a somewhat different aspect of the self-regarding emotion. There is a self-reflecting, self-conscious, self-measuring, process, not implied in simple egotism as above defined. The attention is turned inward upon self, as a Personality, and we are putting forth towards ourselves the kind of exercise that properly accompanies our contemplation of other persons. We are accustomed to scrutinize the actions and conduct of those about us, to set a higher value upon one man than upon another, by comparing the two; to pity one in distress; to feel complacency towards a particular individual; to congratulate a man on some good fortune, that it pleases us to see him gain; to admire greatness or excellence as displayed by any of our fellows. All these exercises are intrinsically social, like Love and Resentment; an isolated individual could never attain to them, nor exercise them. By what means then, through what fiction, can we turn round and play them off upon self? Or how comes it that we obtain any satisfaction by putting self in the place of the other party? 5. Perhaps the simplest form of the reflected act is that expressed by Self-Worth and Self-Estimation; based and begun upon observation of the ways and conduct of our 204 EMOTIONS OF SELF. fellow-beings. We soon make comparisons among the individuals about us; we see that one is stronger and does more work than another, and in consequence, perhaps, receives more pay. We see one putting forth more kindness than another, and in consequence receiving more love. We see some individuals surpassing the rest in astonishing feats, and drawing after them the gaze and admiration of a crowd. We acquire a series of fixed associations towards persons so situated; favourable in the case of the superior, and unfavourable towards the inferior. To the strong and laborious man we attach an estimate of greater reward, and feel that to be in his place would be a happier lot than falls to others. Desiring as we do, from the primary motives of our being, to possess good things, and observing these to come by a man's superior exertions, we feel a respect for such exertion, and a wish that it might be ours. We know that we also put forth exertions for our share of good things; and on witnessing others, we are apt to be reminded of ourselves, and to make comparisons with ourselves; which comparisons derive their interest from the substantial consequences. Having thus once learned to look at other persons as performing labours, greater or less, and as realizing fruits to accord; being, moreover, ourselves in all respects like our fellows;-we find it an exercise neither difficult nor unmeaning, to contemplate self as doing work and receiving the reward. In Astronomy, the idea of a planet was first gained upon Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and the rest; it was from these extended to our own earth, on which by itself we could not have formed it. As we decide between one man and another,-which is worthier, which is to receive the largest share of life's blessings, so we decide between self and all other men; being, however, in this decision under the bias of our own desires. Our feeling of Self-worth, when indulged to a vice or an excess, is simply our unregenerate appetite for good things, our preferring meuum to tuutm, in the comparison of deserts. Our implication is that we wish a large share for ourselves; SELF-REFLECTED PITY. 205 under that wish we delude ourselves into believing that our title, our accomplished works, and our powers of working, are such as to deserve that superior share. An estimate of self that ended in nothing would be flat and unprofitable. Selfestimation is our claim put forth in the division of life's valuables. The opprobrious name Self-Righteous implies an inordinate demand for the deference and estimation attaching to the highest moral excellence. 6. A farther stage in the reflective operation is designated by Self-Pity, an appropriation for our own solacement of the pleasure arising in pity for the distresses of others. When a man is the victim of spoliation or injustice, when he is deprived of his earnings or his rights, every well-minded spectator pities him; it is one of the situations peculiarly calculated to inspire pity. Now pity has an element of pleasure, although beginning in pain, and perhaps conducting to pain, as in rendering assistance; the pleasure is a certain reward for entering into the distresses of the unfortunate. We can extend to self a like operation. When deprived of our own rights, what we consider as our deserts, or when openly despoiled, the misery of the situation brings on the effect experienced in viewing like misery in others. The primary stimulation, the sense of injury, is at its maximum in our own case; so that the pity is still more profusely roused, although in a manner that we may term fictitious and unreal. Still, as we can view self in the light of another person, we can feel towards it the emotion of pity called forth by others in our situation. And there is a certain consolation derived from this Self-Pity; it makes what is termed the Luxury of Grief. The pleasure of Pity, of which the pronounced manifestation is Tears, has its beginning in an organic relief from pain, but it has been transferred, by a link that we can barely understand, to the love display, and from that derives its more peculiar sweetness and geniality. Having, by the interchange of love, cultivated the expression to the pitch of a pleasure, we derive the benefit of its assuagement in our own distresses. 206 EMOTIONS OF SELF. As, however, the indulgence is a relaxation of the strings of energy, it is regarded as a defect of character, and is justified only in feebler natures. 7. By the terms Self-complacency, Self-gratulation, is indicated a positive enjoyment in dwelling upon our own merits and belongings. As in the other modes, so here, the startingpoint is the contemplation of excellence or pleasing qualities in another person, accompanied more or less with fondness or love. In one view, there is a marked inferiority in turning the regards upon self; for the very essence of love is to have a second person to embrace; 'self-love' is only a figure of speech. But in another view, there is the same attraction as in self-worth,-the looking out for a larger share of benefits. This is what constitutes, at bottom, the charm of self-complacency. In the particular form of contemplating the extent of one's advantages and possessions, there is scarcely a reflective operation at all; there is simply the consciousness of one's superior resources. 'Is not this great Babylon which I have built', may be called 'self-complacency'; but it is nothing more than the feeling of vast power and possession. We do not need personal merits to support the self-complacent sentiment in this shape; our unearned wealth, advantages, and trappings, may give birth to the sentiment. According to Aristotle, the gods did not trouble themselves with human affairs, but were happy in the perpetual contemplation of their own greatness. This also is pure complacent satisfaction with grandeur and possessions, and needs no reflective operation, such as self-gratulation implies. 8. The title Self-Respect designates a loftier feeling than any implied in the foregoing designations; expressing, not a mere egotistic eye for good things, but a noble or estimable quality. It has a tacit reference to doing something for others; which comes about thus. A man forms a high estimate of himself, implying expectations of advantage in accordance therewith. He also recognizes the fact, that such expectations on his part suppose legitimate expectations on the part of others; and these he is resolved to fulfil as a part of the SELF-RESPECT.-SELF-SUFFICINGNESS. 207 situation. He will do nothing that would, in other people's eyes, be incompatible with the high estimate that he has made of his own merits and claims. A man of rank and consequence respects himself, when he keeps aloof from plebeian indulgences, and abstains from paltry gains. The same idea is expressed by Pride, in its best signification. While there is a certain egotistic indulgence, there is also, in Pride, a reserve of conscious merit, for which no claim is made. The proud man remains to the last society's creditor: in this capacity he feels that he is entitled to obtain, without cavil, his abated demand; that he has thus placed his merits on a firm foundation. The pride that does not contain the redeeming and noble quality is termed Haughtiness; mere assumption of superiority, without grace, condescension, or renunciation at any point. 9. The same idea is stated with still more emphasis by Self-Sufficingness; the extreme form of renouncing dependence upon other people, whether for worldly means, for guidance, or for good opinion. Nobody can be self-sufficing, in an absolute sense; it is merely a question of manner and degree. If a man stands apart from his fellows, avoiding as much as possible the interchange of assistance, being neither borrower nor lender, he is self-sufficing in one sense of the word, but not in any meritorious form. Society neither gains nor loses by him. The virtue of Self-Sufficingness supposes a man rendering a full share of help to others, and asking little in return. In a still more august manifestation, it signifies standing alone and unsupported, in great emergencies; and even braving a mass of hostile opinions. Diogenes the Cynic and Socrates were self-sufficing men, in different ways. There is nothing subtle, or difficult to state, in such an attitude; it does not contain the reflective process as exemplified in self-worth and self-pity. APPROBATION, ADMIRATION, PRAISE. 10. The sentiment of Approbation carries us back to the 208 EMOTIONS OF SELF. primitive situation of human beings growing up under the influence of society. In so far as infants are affected by the smile and the frown, there is a hereditary or instinctive feeling of approbation and disapprobation. This is prolonged in education by the constant associating of pleasant consequences with one and of painful consequences with the other. The moral sentiment is formed (it is believed) in the course of this education. The degree of intensity of the feelings, growing out of expressed approval or disapproval, follows the degree of our dependence for good and for evil on those that we associate with. At all times, and under all circumstances, this is a powerful element of human life, a powerful motive to men's conduct. Living under the sway of these sentiments, we are perpetually shaping our course in accordance with them. When the complexity of our position exposes us to counter blasts, -approbation from some and disapprobation from others for the same acts-as in party warfare, we strive to harden ourselves against disapproval on one side, for the sake of approval on the other. At this stage we form an estimate of the substantial value of the approval and disapprovalthe good and evil consequences to our larger interests that follow upon each,-and so dissolve the association, as far as our primitive nature will allow, between the signs of displeasure and the farther consequences. We can never entirely rid ourselves of the susceptibility to other men's expressed dissatisfaction; which shows how strongly the link has been forged by the long-continued experience of the evil that follows in its train. 11. As regards our important life interests, the painful effect of disapproval, and the counterpleasure of approval, depend first on the degree of our subjection to the party expressing it. It depends next on our sympathy, attachment, or respect; and in this follows all the laws that govern our sympathies. The disapprobation of a superior gives a shock that is for the time bitter and unhinging; no less severe, in a different way, would be the censure of one that we are much attached to, or admire. In the comparison of our FEELING OF BEING ADMIRED. 209 states of pleasure and pain, these are to be esteemed first-class pains. The usual mode of lessening the shock of disapprobation or disesteem is to contract, if possible, a low estimate of the persons that inflict it. This is our remedy for the unjust censures of party spirit, as well as of personal malignity. 12. The feeling of being Admired is something different from that of being approved. It relates more especially to the sentiment of personal excellence, and is the extension, by sympathy, of the self-complacent feeling above delineated. To be superior to others in any of the qualities that people take an interest in, whether from usefulness or from aesthetic charm, is to evoke admiration or praise in support of our self-complacency, and so to extend and intensify the pleasure. The more useful qualities, as the performance of duties, win approbation; the shining qualities win admiration. The highest influence of man upon man combines both; the feeling bestowed upon an illustrious benefactor-a Timoleon, or a King Alfred-is an outpouring of the loftiest sentiments of approval and admiration. Being admired may constitute the first occasion of our being self-conscious as to our own superiority. - The elder Mill, on sending his son from home, sought to obviate this consequence by a prophylactic against yielding to admiration. Farther, an offering of praise is one of the stimulants for evoking a burst of self-complacency. The happy statesman 'reads his history in a nation's eyes'. The more usual stimulants are all those occasions when our own ability is manifested in act, as by some new exertion, or by some new results of what we have already done. 13. Flattery and Adulation imply excess, if not untruth, in the matter of compliment. The bestowal of these (within certain assignable limits) is cultivated in polite society as a pleasure-giving art. Glory expresses the most open and ostentatious form of human admiration. The triumphal procession, the crowning in the Capitol, the trumpet notes, 'the tumult of acclaim', thrill and intoxicate the susceptible bosom 14 210 EMOTIONS OF SELF. beyond every known influence. For such rewards, pain is despised, fatigue endured, danger braved, life perilled. Reputation, Fame, may be bestowed in public ovation, or in the multiplied echoes of a wide society. To extend one's name over the world, and to distant ages, fires the human breast as the sublimest destiny that any mortal can achieve. Posthumous fame, indeed, has been treated as an absurdity and a paradox, since it does not begin till the subject of it is dead. But this is only one of many forms of ideal satisfaction. The heir of fame is fired, while yet alive, by the honours that will attend his name; and the acts of homage paid to those already departed operate in reality upon him. In Honour are included all those tokens of respect, consideration, and deference instituted in society for those in elevated place, whether through office, rank, or reputation. The Applause may come from the many, as in the theatre, or from the few, as in the more recondite walks of the human intellect. There are less demonstrative forms of giving honour. The mere gaze of the eye is a symbol of esteem, accepted as such by the praisethirsty soul. Compliment can be conveyed by implication or Innuendo, and in this form is free from the objection to open flattery, which often shocks a sensitive mind. The invidia that accompanies high honours is probably one of the circumstances that make us revolt from the grosser forms of praise. Modern society has thrown a certain discredit on the enjoyment of the self-gratulatory pleasures, and hence a feeling of shame is apt to be engendered when a person is marked out as the subject of formal applause. For all these reasons, the transformation of the open into the more covert modes of paying honour has been thought a refinement. Vanity and Vainglory signify that the individual is active in the cultivation of self-importance, canvassing, as it were, for distinction. The open boaster, not satisfied with his own feelings of esteem, insists on the concurrence of others, and, if people do not choose of their own accord to pay him regard, he detains them on every opportunity with the circumstantials of his own glorification. DISAPPROBATION AND SHAME. 211 14. The arts of Politesse lie mainly within the circle of our present subject. The courtesies of life to a certain extent manifest kindliness and sympathy, but the larger portion refers to the amour propre of the person addressed. The direct compliment, the demonstration of respect, the tendering of honour, and the expression of deference, are the positive forms of politeness; while an equal attention is enforced to all the methods of avoiding whatever might wound the self-importance of our fellows. The self-complacent sentiment is the basis of one of the great ' interests' of society, like life or property, and laws are made for protecting it.. It is not allowable even to declare one's honest convictions when the dignity of others would suffer mortification. People are not always at liberty to speak the truth to 'ears polite'. 15. As applause is but the agreeable heightening of selfgratulation by sympathy, and reflected heat, so Censure, Disapprobation, Dispraise, Abuse, Scorn, Infamy, increase the feeling of self-humiliation, or at least increase the pain of it. According as the opposites of these make! the warmth and sunshine of existence, do they themselves affect the mind with misery and terror, and the sense of outer darkness. If any one is conscious of wrong, of some crime against society, of a gross failure in undertakings, of remissness in duty, or of assuming undeserved privileges, the public indignation crushes him to the dust; seized with penitence and remorse he resigns all claim to consideration, and is ready to compound with the offended powers by a criminal's doom. 16. The feeling of Shame is resolved by a reference to the dread of being condemned, or ill thought of, by others. Declared censure and public infliction, by inviting the concurrent hostile regards of a wide circle of spectators, constitute an open shame. One is also put to shame by falling into any act that people are accustomed to disapprove, and will certainly censure in their own minds, although they may refrain from actually pronouncing condemnation. This is the most frequent case in common society. Knowing the hard judg 212 EMOTIONS OF SELF. ments passed upon all breaches of conventional decorum, we are mortified when conscious of a slip; we can too easily imagine the sentence that we do not actually hear. The character of the pain of all such situations exactly accords with the pains of expressed disapprobation. 17. We may remark, before concluding, on the bearing that education and culture should have on the emotion now passed in review. Having personal excellence for its principal object, and being a large source of human gratification, this feeling prompts powerfully to self-cultivation and active usefulness. Whatever good qualities strike our own minds, or impress the community that we live in, are sure to be sought after with especial ardour, while those that are in bad odour are kept in subjection. On the other hand, the sentiment of self-esteem, like all other egotisms, is indulged to excess; that is to say, there is a tendency to engross an unfair amount of the common stock of praise, honour, or admiration. In general it is much easier for us to fall into the comtemplation of bur own character and actions than to be arrested by the good qualities of others. The check or counterpoise to excessive amour propre is the susceptibility to be fascinated, and to sympathize, with our fellows, and with things away from self. Admiration, love, and sympathy in general, are powers that take us out of ourselves, and enable us to find pleasure in seeing, if not in adding to, the good that others possess. 18. I observed at the outset of this chapter that Self-love and Selfishness embrace a much larger circle of feelings than those now discussed. A few remarks upon these designations are not out of place in the present connexion. Self-love is a species of self-consciousness or self-regard, that makes the collective wants and pleasures of existence an aim and a solicitude. A sentient being not only feels hungry, but retains the recollection of the hungry state, and of its steady recurrence from day to day. This memory of conscious states, with a view to acting upon it, is a mode of self-consciousness. Present SELF-LOVE AND SELFISHNESS. 213 hunger prompts to present action; that constitutes a single or isolated fact of animal consciousness or feeling. When, however, the sensation of hunger is remembered and noted as a recurring appetite, and when means are taken on the large scale to meet the sum total of its demands for many months, the regards take a higher sweep, and some term is needed to express this totalized object that is operating upon the will. The word 'self' is used for this purpose, and self-love becomes identical with forethought and prudence. A man treats self, in this acceptation, as he does his child, or his horse, foreseeing their wants, and providing for them in the gross. We are here, therefore, brought face to face with that exceedingly important phase of human conduct implied under such terms as 'forethought', 'prudence', calculation', which, although admitted to be in the main an essential virtue of humanity, is sometimes stigmatized as if it were a vice. The worship paid on particular occasions to blind self-abnegation, or even to the blindness of the self-abnegation, shows that there is something interesting in costly sacrifice that more than makes up for the bad calculation often attending it. The fond mother wastes herself profusely in attention to her sick infant, and no one ever reproaches her for the permanent loss to herself, and to the rest of her family, which a little considerate calculation might have saved, without, perhaps, leaving the other duty unperformed. 19. Of the narrow love of self called Selfishness, I think it worth while to remark again that nothing implied in it can ever favour the notion of any one's being actuated by motives entirely apart from themselves. If a man has been so moved by his tender sentiments, his philanthropic leanings, his love of justice, to include among the objects of his pursuit a large mass of good to others, or if, like Howard, he makes the relief of foreign misery the one aim of his life-he is still evidently following out the impulses of his own personality, while deserving to be ranked with the noblest and best of men. The selfishness that we reproach not only does not comprehend others, but actually robs them of what is their 214 EMOTIONS OF SELF. own-as in the reckless pursuit of gain, the suppression of freedom by unbounded authority, and the insatiable grasping at attention, honour, or applause. CHAPTER XII. EMOTIONS OF INTELLECT. 1. THE operations of the Intellect give occasion to a certain select class of feelings, which concern both our pleasures and our actions. The expanded illustration of the processes of intelligence in my former volume has brought into view the greater number of those feelings, and all that is needful at present is to resume them in a consecutive order, and to note their characteristic properties. The trains of Contiguous association, as exemplified in memory and routine, present no special stimulant of the emotions. They constitute a case of mere exercise, and gratify or pain the individual according to the condition of mental vigour and freshness at the time. It is under Similarity that the great fund of emotion-giving situations is placed. Those identifications of likeness in remote objects, and under deep disguises, strike the mind with an effect of surprise, brilliancy, exhilaration, or charm. This may not be precisely the same for all the different subjects that the identifying faculty has to work upon; original discoveries in science do not affect us in the way that we feel under felicitous comparisons in poetry; and the sentiments of proportion and fitness in industry and in design have to be discriminated from both. Again, Inconsistency, want of Unity, positive Discord, are forms of pain that influence us to a considerable degree, and that derive importance from inspiring the virtues of Truth, Integrity, and Justice; being, in fact, a constituent element of the Moral Sense. 2. The emotion of Similarity, or the feeling excited by a flash of identification between things never before regarded as like, is generically of the nature of agreeable Surprise; being, in fact, an outburst of Novelty. When we suddenly discover, or have pointed out to us for the first time, a likeness 216 EMOTIONS OF INTELLECT. between two objects lying wide apart, and never considered as of the same class, we are arrested, startled, and excited into a pleasing wonderment. Travelling in new countries where nature is different in nearly all her phases-climate, vegetation, animal life, being all changed-an unexpected coincidence arouses us, as when we recognize the same genera and species under greatly altered modes of development. Similarity in manners affects us when the whole basis of society is distinct, as when we read the history of past ages, or the habits of strange races. A characteristic trait of our common humanity has a striking effect where we are wound up to look for the extraordinary and superhuman; poetical and mythical antiquity furnishes many such surprises. Ac-' customed as we are by our earliest impressions to see great diversity among the things around us, every new identification gives a pleasing stimulus. When the young plant rises with all the characters of the old, when we see in children the features and characters of their parents, when likeness is traced in unrelated individuals, an agreeable interest is felt in the circumstance; our attention is awakened and held fast upon the objects with a sort of temporary fascination. Recurring forms in plants and animals, repetitions in the structure and stratification of the globe, give an analogous excitement. 3. The peculiar mode of the pleasurable surprises varies with the subject, and I shall therefore touch upon the several classes of identifications already delineated in the second chapter of the exposition of the INTELLECT. In the identities struck by Science-the generalizations, abstractions, classifications, inductions, and deductions that constitute scientific discovery-the sudden shock of wonder is accompanied with a marked degree of the pleasure of rebound, the lightening of an intellectual burden, or the solving of a difficulty that formerly weighed on the mind. I have dwelt upon this result in speaking of these operations. The labour of intellectual comprehension is reduced by every new discovery of likeness; and the first feeling of this gives a rush of delight, the delight we experience when relieved of some long-standing burden or PLEASURES OF KNOWLEDGE. 2.17 discharged from a laborious obligation. If the effect is to solve an apparent contradiction, there is the same gladdening reaction from the depression of embarrassment. Great generalizations, such as the atomic theory of Dalton, give a sense of enlarged power in dealing with the multiplicity of nature, and are more than a momentary surprise. When new knowledge has a Practical bearing, the emotion is that produced by the more easy fulfilment of practical ends, and is a deliverance from labour, or an enlargement of effect. The invention of the steam-engine, besides displaying novelty of contrivance, took off incalculable burdens from the shoulders of humanity, and immensely increased the efficiency of labour. This is the literaL fact expressed in the apophthegm-Knowledge is Power. A similar intellectual relief is afforded by Illustrative comparisons, when they succeed in their aim of making an obscure fact plain and easy. The pleasures of Knowledge include all these forms of satisfaction, and some other effects besides. The mere novelty of impression from bringing forward such a vast array of facts and conceptions is a large factor in the total. And the greater the multitude of the facts surveyed, the greater the scope for condensing and simplifying them by happy generalizations. The emotions of knowledge rise still higher under such names as Wonder, Curiosity, the interest in finding the Causes of things. This is a complex and vague emotional aptitude. We may trace in it, besides novelty of impression and simplification of grasp, a satisfaction in subjecting the unknown to the known; in reducing under our own type of causation, what is as yet unexplained. This is an addition to our sense of Power, an emotion that comes up again and again in the analysis of the pleasure of knowledge. Once more. The grateful feeling of Wonder and Curiosity rises to its height when indulging in grand, vague, undefined possibilities. Our aspirations after new insight are stimulated by the anticipation of something mightier than we have yet achieved. This is the secret of the elation of mind that meni 218 EMOTIONS OF INTELLECT. have often felt in the pursuit of knowledge; it makes the moment of intellectual bliss; a splendid illusion, with just sufficient fulfilment to enable it to be supported. 4. Leaving any further remarks on this head to a succeeding chapter devoted to Fine Art in general, we shall next consider the feeling produced by Inconsistency, which seems naturally to centre in the intellect. Contrary statements, opinions, or appearances, operate on the mind as a painful jar, and stimulate a corresponding desire for a reconciliation. When we hear the same event described by two persons that contradict each other, we are said to be distracted, or pulled two ways at once. This susceptibility is most felt in minds where the intelligence is highly developed; indeed, with the great mass of men it counts for very little except with reference to further consequences. Any strong emotion is sufficient to make the untutored mind swallow a contradiction with ease; but they that have been accustomed to sift opinions, and to reject the contradictory and untenable, feel an intellectual revulsion when conflicting doctrines are propounded. This intellectual sensitiveness usually leads to the abandonment of one of the contraries, or else to a total suspension of judgment, that is to say, a repudiation for the time of both the one and the other. The above, however, is not the only way that contradiction wounds our sensibilities. A far more operative evil is that bound up with the practical consequences. The traveller bent upon his destination, and directed oppositely by equally good authorities, feels much more than the pain of an intellectual conflict. The obligation to act, with the inability to decide, causes a torment of opposing volitions, than which in extreme cases no agony can be more acute or heart-rending. This is what gives such importance and emphasis to the virtue of truth and accuracy in statement as to make mankind in general urgent in enforcing it. It is not that contradiction lacerates the sensitive intellect, but that, without consistencyin the various shapes of punctuality, fulfilment of promises, correspondence of statement with fact-the operations of daily LOVE OF TRUTH. 219 life would be frustrated, and every society pass into disorganization. The regard to Truth, therefore, besides the positive attractions inspired by the great discoveries that comprehend the vastness and illuminate the obscurity of nature, is fortified by two deterring beacons; one influential according as intellect is prominent in the character, the other acting upon the practical interests of all mankind. When we speak of the love of truth for its own sake, we mean to exclude the practical motive, and to put the stress upon the others. No form of the feeling can be more pure or disinterested than the desire to attain knowledge coupled with the revolt at inconsistency as such. The genuine affection for the true implies a laborious testing of evidence founded on an acquaintance with the canons and criteria of sound decision. A meretricious image of Truth has often been decked out by poets and rhetoricians, and much sentimental homage has been rendered to the goddess; but by bringing to bear the touchstone of painstaking inquiry, and the mastery of evidence, we can soon expose the hollowness of this kind of worship. CHAPTER XIIII. EMOTIONS OF ACTION--PURSUIT. 1. IN the situation of voluntary activity, or working for ends, we have enumerated three kinds of feeling-the satisfaction of the end, the pleasure (or pain) of the exercise, and the pleasure of superior (or pain of inferior) power. There remains the mental attitude under a gradually approaching end, a peculiar condition of rapt suspense, termed Pursuit and Plot interest. The congeniality of the bodily and mental attitude described in this chapter, is conformable to what we should expect on the hypothesis of Evolution. From the very beginning of animal life, locomotion with an end in viewthe search after food and other desirables-is the standing occupation, the habitual activity, of every individual. By incessant iteration, this might become an engrained habit of the animal system, a second nature in the fullest meaning. So deeply rooted would be the tendency, that an animal, however well provided for, and deprived of the original pretext, would find the pursuit of something a necessity of its being; an artificial want, and a remedy against ennui and depression. If we were to follow Mr. Spencer in ascribing the pleasures of landscape to ancestral associations with hunting and fishing, we might attribute part of the fascination of plot and pursuit to the faint echoes of pleasure from countless foregone generations of animals whose flush of being was the chase. 2. The situation of Pursuit, in order to be pleasurable, needs certain conditions. An interesting end, the occupation of the powers in working for that end, its gradual approach and final attainment, are the main requisites. But to make the most of the situation, the degree of these various conditions needs to be delicately adjusted. CONDITIONS OF THE INTEREST OF PURSUIT. 221 While the interest of the end should not be too trivial or insignificant, it must not be overpowering or excessive. An overpowering interest does not allow the patient suspense that is necessary to agreeable pursuit. An enormous stake-as when a man's whole status in life is hanging doubtful on the chances of an election-fills up the interval with unrelieved misery. The occupation should be suitable to one's powers, as when an animal embarks in the chase, or brings into exercise its special endowment. This is in itself an element of congeniality. So, the amount of the expenditure should be conformable to the resources and strength of the system; which makes all the difference between amusing or recreating occupation and toil. By a stealthy transition, the moralist often describes the second in terms belonging to the first. The end should approach gradually; every stroke of exertion counting for a step. To be making no visible progress, is to encounter the pains of baffled exertion; one of the miseries of the curse. A too rapid approach, on the other hand, closes the chase while the powers are yet equal to farther suspense. We have a certain disposable force for exertion, and a certain mental capability for enduring the strain of eager outlook, and the pursuit should continue until these powers are fully used up, and not longer. 3. Every end of pursuit will support a certain amount of ideal anticipation and outlook; that is, will make the mind happy and contented upon the mere idea when coupled with the approach of the reality. It is bad economy not to intersperse the occasions of real gratification with these ideal tracts. Now a steady pursuit for a certain time, not too long, gives the ideal satisfaction in its most favourable mode; the nearing prospect stimulates and re-stimulates the idea, so as to gratify the mind to the utmost degree short of fruition. Hence we do not always wish to have our wants appeased instantaneously; we prefer to hold the pleasure for some time in the prospect. The more purely animal demands least admit of this suspense; but even in them we pass agreeably through 222 EMOTIONS OF ACTION-PURSUIT. a series of approaches before attaining the climax of satisfaction.* 4. An element of Uncertainty increases the interest of pursuit by making it more exciting. This trenches on fear, and must not be carried far. Absolute certainty unduly relaxes the bodily and mental strain that is needed for the maximum of gratification. We do not bring forth all our resources of pleasurable consciousness without dipping slightly in the waters of dread possibility. To be in a momentary danger, is to emerge with a burst of high-toned delight. Moreover, uncertainty is the realm of ideal possibility, the scope for imaginative outgoings. While nothing is decided one way or the other, every thing is admissible, and the mind indulges in numerous ideal pursuits, cheered and elated by such as promise well. The highest form of uncertainty is Mystery, whose charm is due to the ideal chase that it opens up. Still, uncertainty has always its bad side; namely, terror, or a balance of probabilities in favour of evil. It is only in so far as the mind can sustain the elation of hopeful prospects, that the unknown is an occasion for purely pleasurable suspense. * 'The attraction of a plot, in its narrowest sense, is due, largely, to the play of intellect and of will in curiosity and imaginative anticipation. Any spectacle which involves great uncertainty of issue, however little value this issue may have in itself, may stimulate in a pleasurable manner the activities of attention and expectation. The highest degree of this gratification is obtained when the event is neither too improbable and unexpected, nor too certain. In the former case, there may be a pleasurable shock of surprise, but the impulse to follow out the sequence of events is discouraged, and the mind is simply bewildered. On the other hand, if the issue appears too certain, there is no room for the excitement of suspense, and consequently the attention flags. Hence, the purest form of this pleasurable excitement is afforded by a set of circumstances which opens up a number of possible issues, though we have not knowledge enough to determine which is the most probable. Thus all spectacles of struggle between pretty equal forces, whether moral or physical, excite this feeling. In watching a twig moving down a stream amid a number of antagonistic eddies, and in viewing a great battle, the observer derives a like pleasure in trying to forecast a doubtful result, and in watching the gradual unfolding of a dimly-conjectured event.' (Sully, 'Sensation and Intuition', p. 298.) OCCASIONS OF PLEASURABLE SUSPENSE. 223 5. All occupation, and especially occupation directed to the outer world, puts us into the Object attitude, takes us out of self, or subjectivity. The advantages of this attitude have often been adverted to in the course of our exposition. Now the objective strain is especially promoted in pursuit, and grows with the intensity of the look-out for the goal. 6. The pleasures of Sport are based upon agreeable exertion for an agreeable end; to which is added the interest of suspense in pursuit. The huntsman loves a good run. In shooting, the search and the uncertainty make a charmed interval of delay. A small degree of pleasurable suspense may occasionally accompany the industrial avocations. But in the majority of cases, the conditions are not favourable. The hard-toiled workman tries to mitigate his state by watching the approach of his periods of remission; 'as a servant earnestly desireth the shadow, and as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work'. A certain imitation of industrial pursuit, with all the fatigue and anxiety extracted, is found to give an agreeable avocation to the rich and the idle. A man of superabundant wealth condescends to the level of a common farmer, in order to put forth his skill in the work, and watch the effect of his several operations. The pursuit of knowledge and truth occasionally yields the kind of satisfaction we are now considering. By Sir W. Hamilton, the pursuit of truth was considered worth more than the possession. This would apply only to a select class of subjects, where the labour happens to be congenial, and the results of little practical moment. The looser kinds of erudition and a good deal of philosophical speculation, possess these characters; but researches conducted with the precision that entitles them to the epithet 'exact', are too arduous to be greatly cherished for the mere exercise; while they are likely to be intrinsically valuable as possessions. The earliest philosophers were most elated by the ideal charms of knowledge. Plato and Aristotle could not fully realize the diffi 224 EMOTIONS OF ACTION-PURSUIT. culties of scientific investigation, and they had intoxicating glimpses of the possible grandeurs of philosophic insight. 7. The same sympathetic aptitude that enables us to find a charm in witnessing the powers and excellences of our fellows, gives us an interest in their pursuits. We can watch with eagerness the approaching goal of another man's exertions. This is a grand extension of our ideal pleasures. If our interest is small compared with the feelings of the man in actual pursuit, we are spared his toil and his dread of failure. Our sociable interest contains this situation in large amount. The aims, the labours, the contests, the successes, the failures, of those within our ken, the rise and fall of individuals, families, states,-are the subjects of a persistent charm. This is extended by literary narrative, as in History. A still greater opening is made by Poetry and Fiction; where the arts and conditions of Plot-interest are studied with a view to the greatest amount of agreeable stimulation. CHAPTER XIV. THE AýSTHETIC EMOTIONS. 1. By the above title I understand the group of feelings involved in the various Fine Arts, and constituting a class of pleasures somewhat vaguely circumscribed, but yet in various respects contradistinguished from our, other pleasures. A contrast has always been considered to exist between the Beautiful and the Useful. And we can readily inquire wherein the difference is conceived to lie. The gratifications of eating and drinking, and the other indulgences called sensual, are excluded from the present class, and indeed are set in opposition to them, on several assignable grounds. In the first place, as our frame is constituted, these bodily functions, while incidentally ministering to our pleasure, are in the main subservient to the maintaining of our existence, and, being in the first instance guided for that special end, they do not necessarily rank among gratifications as such. In the next place, they are connected with the production of what is repulsive and loathsome, which mars their purity as sources of pleasure. And in the third place, they are essentially confined in their influence to the single individual; for the sociability of the table is an added element. Two persons cannot enjoy the same morsel of food, or the same draught of exhilarating beverage. Now a mode of pleasure subject to one or more of these three conditions, may belong in an eminent degree to the list of utilities, and the ends of industry, but does not come under the class now propounded for discussion. Again, the machinery of precautions against pain, disease, and death, -our clothes, our houses, our parapet walls, our embankments, our lightning-conductors, physic and surgery- having in themselves nothing essentially pleasing, are placed in the category of the useful. So bodily or mental cultivation is not pleasurable in itself; very often the contrary. Wealth is disqualified by the third condition, inasmuch as, while in the 15 226 THE AESTHETIC EMOTIONS. shape of money, it is confined to some single proprietor. The same may be said of power and dignity, whose enjoyment cannot be divided or diffused,* except under one aspect to be presently noticed. Affection is nearly in the same predicament, from the difficulty of extending it towards any great number. Anything so restricted in its sphere of action as to constitute individual property, and give occasion to jealousy and envy, is not a pleasure aimed at by the producer of fine art. For there do exist objects that can give us delight as their primary end, that have no disagreeable or revolting accompaniments, and whose enjoyment cannot be restricted to a single mind; all which considerations obviously elevate the rank of such objects in the scale of our enjoyments. Though they are not so intense as some of those other agencies of the monopolist class, their diffusion makes them precious, like the free air and the light of heaven. 2. The Eye and the Ear are the great avenues to the mind for the esthetic class of influences; the other senses are more or less in the monopolist interest. The blue sky, the green woods, and all the beauties of the landscape can fill the vision of a countless throng of admirers. So with the pleasing sounds; these certainly may be artificially monopolized, but in their nature they are capable of being enjoyed alike by a numerous multitude. Other things there are that do not perish with the using, but that nevertheless cannot operate upon a plurality of minds at one time, as for example, the whole class of tools and implements employed in our pleasures. An easy chair is too limited in its application to be an esthetic object. 3. The muscular and sensual elements can be brought into art by being contemplated in the idea, in place of being enjoyed in the reality. A painter, or a poet, may depict a feast, and the picture may be viewed with pleasure. Contemplated at a sufficient distance, the objects of sensual delight * National power may be enjoyed as a collective sentiment, thereby approaching to the condition of one of the msthetical feelings. So may family pride, or the pride of rank. PROBLEM OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 227 can assume the esthetic phase. They are no longer obnoxious to the disqualifying conditions above specified. In such a shape they do not minister to our necessities; their disagreeable accompaniments need not be admitted into the picture; and they are not restricted to the individual consumer.* So with the elements of wealth, power, dignity, and affection, which in their actuality want the liberal character of the true artistic delight. Provided we can derive pleasure from seeing them in the hands of the select number of their possessors, they become to us an enjoyment that may be shared with the general multitude. And it is really the fact, that mankind find a charm in contemplating the wealthy, the powerful, the elevated, the illustrious, and take an interest in seeing displays of strong affection wherein they have no part. The gratification of the spectacle of sovereign dignity, has usually been stronger than the invidia of so much grandeur and distinction conferred upon a fellow-mortal; and we may doubt whether history would retain half its interest with the majority, in the absence of kings. 4. Ever since the dawn of philosophical speculation, the nature of the Beautiful has been a matter of discussion. In the conversations of Sokrates, and in the composed dialogues of Plato, this inquiry had a place side by side with others conducted in a kindred spirit, as into the Good, the Just, the Fit. Most of the inquirers laboured under a fallacy or misapprehension, rendering the discussion futile as regarded analytic results; they proceeded on the supposition, that some single thing could be found entering as a common ingredient into the whole class of things named beautiful. Now, excepting the feeling itself, which may be presumed to have a certain * These three conditions are the only comprehensive circumstances that I can adduce for distinguishing the esthetic pleasures. I do not affirm that they include everything that makes certain pleasures 'elevating' and refined, in contrast to others that are sensual and 'degrading'; because, if from no other consideration, a mere arbitrary convention may sometimes make all the difference. The ideal representation of the sensual pleasures comes strictly under the province of Art, but, for prudential and moral reasons, is kept within narrow limits, varying in different ages and countries. 228 THE IESTHETIC EMOTIONS. uniform character, from the circumstance of the employment of the same name to denote it throughout, there is no one thing common to all the objects of beauty. Had there been itci, we should have known it in the course of two thousand years. 5. Sublimity, Beauty, Grace, Harmony, Melody, Ideality, Picturesqueness, Proportion, Order, Fitness, Keeping-though they do not all relate to the beautiful, are all involved in the circle of pleasures now before us; and it is quite obvious that no one fact can run through such a variety of designations. There must be a great multitude of agents working to produce these different impressions, which are related to one another only by attaching in common to the Testhetic class of compositions. Doubtless, several of the names may be partially synonymous; as Beauty and Grace,-Proportion, Fitness, and Keeping; but hardly any two terms are synonymous throughout, and there are distinct conceptions implied in Sublimity, Beauty, Picturesqueness, Fitness, and the Ludicrous. 6. Throughout the preceding exposition, in this and in my former volume, I have adverted to the employment in Art of the various elements passed in review-the sensations, the intellectual associations, and the special emotions. The first thing to be done here, therefore, is to collect these various allusions, and see how far they exhaust the catalogue of aesthetic effects. The Laws of all Pleasure have to be supposed, in the first instance. The nature of the subject demands that these laws should be most fully understood. The primary Law of Vitality is not specially applicable to Fine Art. The Law of alternate and proportionate Stimulation has the directest bearing upon the whole compass of Art productions. The Law of Relativity is so far included in the Law of Stimulation; but there is a subtle and independent application of it to the case where pleasure is sought in reaction from pain. The Laws of Ideal Pleasure need also to be considered; as, for example, the fit proportion of Ideality to Actuality. More PRIMARY PLEASURES OF LIGHT. 229 over, as Art, while seeking the pleasurable, aspires also to the noble, the conditions of sympathetic pleasure should be fully appreciated. 7. Of the Senses, we may fitly start with Sight, whose primary pleasures take rank in the aesthetic class. The elementary optical effects are mere Light, Colour, and Lustre: these, in their sum, have a great amount of pleasure-giving capacity. How far their efficacy is borrowed or derived from associations is a curious enquiry. As regards the peculiar charm of Lustre, I think there is an aid from the suggestion of personality. Whether certain Colours may not have their primary organic influence heightened from extraneous connections, I hesitate to pronounce; but I think it not improbable. If there be a hereditary prepossession in favour of the face of Nature, it would impart an interest to blue and green, in preference to yellow; and from living beings there would be a perennial interest in red. Were colours indifferent as regards associations, the sole condition of a pleasing colour would be its intermission or alternation with the other colours; and I have a difficulty in accounting for all our preferences and partialities on this ground alone.* * 'The first ideas of beauty formed by the mind are, in all probability, derived from colours. Long before infants receive any pleasures from the beauties of form or of motion (both of which require, for their preception, a certain effort of attention and of thought), their eye may be caught and delighted with brilliant colouring, or with splendid illumination. I am inclined, too, to suspect that, in the judgment of a peasant, this ingredient of beauty predominates over every other, even in his estimate of the perfections of the female form; and, in the inanimate creation, there seems to be little else which he beholds with any rapture. It is, accordingly, from the effect produced by the rich painting of clouds, when gilded by a setting sun, that Akenside infers the existence of the seeds of Taste, when it is impossible to trace them to any hand but that of Nature. ' "Ask the swain Who journeys homeward from a summer-day's Long labour, why forgetful of his toils, And due repose, he loiters to behold The sunshine gleaming, as through amber clouds, O'er all the western sky; full soon, I ween, His rude expression, and untutor'd airs, 230 THE AESTHETIC EMOTIONS. A concurring factor, equal in power to the optical effects, is Visible Form, whether in motion or in still life. Some part of the pleasure of form certainly is pure muscular sensibility in the highly-endowed muscles of vision; but much the larger part is a mass of association with personal and other effects. We see this plainly by the dependence of the charm on the circumstances; the straight line is agreeable in one situation, the curve in another. The other asthetic sense is Hearing. The primary pleasures of hearing include, not merely the agreeable effects of simple tones, but concords, and melodious sequences. These are varied by time, intensity, volume, and emphasis; and, as such, constitute the groundwork of the musical art. 8. Next, as to the co-operation of the Intellect in giving birth to the fitting materials of asthetic emotion. I have already hinted, that sensations of an inferior rank are capable of being elevated into ideal pleasures. Thus, when Muscular exercise, repose, fatigue, are merely suggested to the mind, as when we look at gymnastic feats, dancing, skating, &c., they become sources of a more refined interest. Losing altogether their egotistic nature, they may affect any number of persons alike, so that they have the feature of liberality, so essential to Art. The sensations of Organic Life are exalted in the same way. While they are confined to our actual experience, or "even our recollected, or anticipated, experience, they are excluded from the present domain; but, when viewed in such a manner as to be no one person's property, they are fit subjects for the artist. Thus, the interest that we Beyond the power of language, will unfold The form of Beauty smiling at his heart." '"Among the several kinds of beauty," says Mr. Addison, "the eye takes most delight in colours. We nowhere meet with a more glorious or pleasing show in nature, than what appears in the heavens, at the rising or setting of the sun, which is wholly made up of those different stains of light that show themselves in clouds of a different situation. For this reason we find the poets, who are always addressing themselves to the imagination, borrowing more of their epithets from colours than from any other topic." '-Stewart On the Beautiful, page 275. SENSE ELEVATED BY INTELLECT. 231 take in the nutrition and subsistence of animal life, is an unexclusive interest. The circumstances suggestive of the free and fresh air, bringing to the mind the idea of exhilarating respiration, are highly interesting, and are yet sufficiently elevated for the artist's pencil. Indeed, a painter could have no more striking success, than in contriving scenes and effects so as to make this feeling powerfully present from the sight of his picture. The actual enjoyment of warmth or coolness is, so to speak, sensual, but the suggestion of those effects to the mind of beholders at large by associated circumstances, as by colour, light, and shade, is refined and artistical. Our own states of hunger, and the taking of our own food, are an inferior kind of interest, although perhaps to us individually among our most intense experiences; our contemplation of Sancho Panza losing his dinner by the physician's orders, belongs to the elevated sphere of an exclusive interest. The appearances that indicate cleanliness, or the absence of whatever causes loathing or disgust, are agreeable associations of deliverance from organic pains. Sweet Odours, in picturesque allusion, rise into the region we are now discussing. The fragrant bosom of Andromache, and of Aphrodite, finds a place in Homer's poetry. A warm, delicately soft Touch, may be ideally reproduced by representations made to the eye, as in a picture, and is then a purely aesthetic pleasure. The objects of Hearing and Sight, in their own nature able to constitute liberal and common pleasures, may be still more elevated and refined upon by ideal suggestion, as when the word-painter steps in to bring before the mind scenes of natural beauty. Whatever gives a more intellectual stamp to the objects of delight, provided they are still within the range of easy comprehension by the many, is said to elevate their character while more widely diffusing them. This is the superiority of the Literary over all the other Fine Arts. 9. To advert next to the Emotions. And here it is proper, once more, to dwell upon the commanding sweep of the opposed pair-Love and Malevolence. Their bearings upon Art correspond with their ramified operation as pleasures. 232 THE AESTHETIC EMOTIONS. In their first exercise they are unaesthetic, as being limited to the individuals; the love of a parent for his or her child is exclusive. But they readily assume the ideal character; and, as depicted in art or in story, they give pleasure all around. Not only do they make up the absorbing interest of Personality, but they extract this interest from the impersonal world, by working out, to an extraordinary degree, the personal similitudes. There are, doubtless, sources of emotion of a minor kind, over and above these two masters of the soul. For example, Plot-interest or Pursuit does not directly involve either, and yet it is a great addition to Art, as well as to other pleasures. But Pursuit is not purely an emotion; it is chiefly a means of husbanding and manipulating our susceptibilities to emotion. The so-called Emotion of Power enters largely into aesthetic effects; it takes in both the Sublime and the Ludicrous. I have regarded this emotion as a compound of Malevolence, Love, and Sense Agreeables; which ingredients, in the diversity of their proportions, may impart great variety to the combined effect. 10. The peculiarly esthetic influence of Unity in multitude supposes the workings of the Intellect, and yields a considerable charm; the essence of the effect being relief from a mental strain. In all great works abounding in detail, we crave for some comprehensive plan that enables us to seize the whole, as well as to survey the parts. The effect of Likeness in Diversity is often made use of in Art, as will be noticed presently. It yields the emotional pleasure due to strokes of Similarity; which is probably also, in its mental foundations, an effect of relief. Variety is an essential feature of esthetic pleasure, being the primary condition of consciousness; but variety has a tendency to load and oppress the mental comprehension, and there is consequently a demand to have it lightened by the detection of similarities. 11. A special observation is needed on the last of the simple emotions, as I have enumerated them, those of the SCIENCE NOT ESTIIETIC. 233 Intellect. The feelings of truth and consistency, and the love of knowledge and science, might be conceived as preeminently deserving of being ranked with cesthetic sentiments, if these court an alliance with dignity and refinement. And it is freely admitted that nothing could be more liberalizing, or more open, than such objects. Unfortunately, however, they labour under two special disqualifications of their own, by which they are kept from a place in the artistic circle, as men are at present constituted. In the first place, they demand a painful preparatory training, such as only a small number of persons can ever be induced to pass through. And, secondly, truth is not the cause of unmingled delight, any more than surgery or discipline; and pleasure is not its immediate end. Any classes of truths that do not fall under the ban of these two disqualifications are made welcome by the artist, and by the caterer of our amusements. The more intelligible and popular discoveries of science are introduced into the evening lecture, the newspaper, the book of the day, or the poet's illustrative simile; and there is a considerable respect generally entertained for the idea of the True, if no disagreeable instances are presented to the mind. But high scientific knowledge manifestly transcends the sphere of Art, just as a highly artistic form transcends the sphere of science. If it could be otherwise, we should be great gainers. If what gives us knowledge and certainty as regards the world were also of easy comprehension, and the source of a light and fascinating amusement, we should be saved from many pains, and take much higher strides of advancement in the happinesss and security of life.* 12. Combinations of Sound.--Music. On the sensations of Hearing, is based the large department of Art named Music, * Mr. Spencer makes great use of the notion of play as the point of departure of Tsthetic pleasures; remarking justly that where there is a surplus of muscular vigour, after the necessities of life are supplied, it will find vent in some fictitious exercise analogous to its primary function. This, however, is a good way from Art, as I have defined it; it expresses rather the function of Sport or Recreation, and does not become Art until first idealized. It should 234 THE AESTHETIC EMOTIONS. vocal and instrumental; together with the pleasurable effect of Speech, considered as Sound. I have alluded to the elementary sensations of agreeable sound, which, as now demonstrated, especially by the researches of Helmholtz, are found to include harmony. Since a sweet note is already a harmony, the influence of the recognized musical concords is not something absolutely new, but an extension of the same harmonizing process. Hence, we now regard the simple harmonies and melodic sequences as sense effects; the operation of intellect coming in at a farther stage. To an ear of average susceptibility, these primary effects are highly pleasing; and musical composition contrives to yield them in variety and abundance, while contributing intellectual charms in addition. The ultimate foundation of the agreeableness of the elementary sounds is too subtle to be assigned. All normal sensation, in due alternation and degree, is pleasurable; and, when combination adds to the pleasure, the only explanation to be offered consists in assuming a mutual support or concurrence, which increases the consciousness without increasing the nervous waste. We find that regularity is an essential condition of agreeable sensation; and the musical note is made up of a succession of beats that are equal in time. When several notes are conjoined in harmony, there is still the regularity of recurrence, with the increase of the stimulation. The simple numerical ratios (2,.,3, &c.) express the best chords, and, as the ratios are farther removed from simplicity, the harmonious effect gives place to discord, which is at last painful. 13. The second stage of musical effect arises by bringing into play the intellectual delight of Unity in Variety. This is termed by Mr. Sully the beauty of musical form. 'Contrast also be remarked that the interest of sport is due not solely to the unexhausted vigour in the active organs, but to the extraordinary intensity of the emotions of pursuit, that is to say, the predatory and destructive passions. But for these, the surplus vigour might be allowed to waste through disuse. Nevertheless, it would be interesting and profitable to exhaust all the mental bearings of Sport, as a preparation for surveying the sesthetic pleasures. MUSICAL FORM. 235 and symmetry, variety and unity, are common to all kinds of beautiful objects, whether natural or artistic.' 'The development of music may, indeed, be regarded as a gradual expansion of musical form. Without doubt, the progress of the art has added distinct sensations of tone and harmony, notably by the enlargement of the whole scale, by the invention of instruments of widely different timbre, and by the introduction of many new elements of harmony and melody. But in a yet larger measure, all successive invention has aimed at a higher beauty of structure, at some new mode of combining musical elements which may supply a larger delight through th conscious appreciation of the like in the diversified.' In his very subtle and original analysis, Mr. Sully traces the attribute of unity in variety through all the various guises assumed in musical compositions. First and most conspicuous, as a means of unity, is Time. To make a sequence of tones all equal in time, gives the simplest impression of unity in variety. Next is a sequence where the tones are alternated with their sub-divisions-a semibreve with two crotchets, and so on. This is carried up to the Foot or Bar, which confers on music its distinguishing rhythmic character, as triple, quadruple, &c. Next, and in close connection with time, is Emphasis or Accent. But the quality that gives widest scope for intellectual effects is the proper musical element of Pitch or Height of tone. Definite pitch leads to definite musical Intervals, or the movements up and down the scale. These intervals have in the first place the effect of simple melody, but in their symmetrical groupings they give room for the added effects of unity in variety. As an example, we may have 'the recurrence of a melodic interval or series, in precisely the same order, an element of variety being supplied by the introduction of subordinate and ornamental notes'. Another form is presented 'when a given movement is transported into another region of tone, by the selection of a new initial note related to the first'. Finally, from Harmony is obtained a great extension of 236 THE ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. musical form. When the mind is capable of discriminating definite shades of harmony, it is prepared for new contrasts and transitions, and consequently for new forms of unity in variety. A change from pure harmony to disturbing discord constitutes the strongest form of musical contrast, while sequences of chords of similar harmonic character manifest a certain aesthetic unity. 14. The third and last power of music is derived from expression, or the reflex of the human emotions. Music is not imitative, like painting and sculpture; it does not refer us to the visible world. But it imitates the tones of the human voice, which are the most flexible and expressive signs of human feeling. We have acquired in our life-time innumerable associations between tones and emotions; and there may be, if Evolution be granted, ancestral associations that precede our wakening into living consciousness. Any sounds, however arising, that approximate to these suggestive tones, and sequences of tone, become the means of awakening the feelings themselves. Among the points of direct resemblance between music and natural vocal sounds, arepitch of tone, intensity or emphasis, timbre, change of pitch or interval, greater or smaller, and duration and rapidity of tone. As indirect resemblance, we may include the fact that happy and peaceful expression would tend to fall into forms agreeable to the ear. Music is capable of representing emotional strength or intensity. A powerful passion is shadowed forth by the energetic elements of tone--emphasis, rapidity, range of interval and duration. Again, the difference between pleasure and pain can be dimly expressed through the indirect associations of melody and harmony. When energy of will, rather than emotion, is to be expressed, the musician resorts to increase of accent and heightening of pitch, followed by abruptness of termination. When a series of tones is effectual in stimulating human passions and energies, by a natural illusion, it suggests a living soul behind, partly revealed and partly mysterious, with which we enter into a kind of sym EFFECTS OF COLOUR. 237 pathy. Still farther, from our habit of recognizing sounds as emanating from the visible world, we are carried by their means to visible objects and activities. In this way we are led to conceive a hurricane, a battle, or impressive natural scene; hence such compositions as Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony. The limitations of these various powers, through the necessities of musical form, bring out the conflicting aims of the composer.* 15. The melody of Speech has an element peculiar to itself, namely, facility of Pronunciation, the principles of which lie on the surface. The ear i3 sympathetically affected with what is easy or difficult to pronounce, and has besides an independent satisfaction in Variety (articulate and musical), in Rhythm or regularity, and in Cadence or the melodious inflexion of the voice. The details are best given in treatises on Rhetoric and on Elocution. There is no new artistic principle at work. 16. Harmonies of Sight. The simple effects of vision are Light and Shade, Colours and their contrasts, Lustre; visible Movements and Forms. Light and Shade are pleasurable from alternation of stimulus. Colour introduces a new effect, and is pleasurable as such. After gazing for a time on a country scene, we are delighted with a coloureds sky; in such circumstances, it matters not what the colour is; variety being the main point. For the same reason, the transition from one colour to another, and from one shade to another, enlarges the basis of stimulation; and in the dearth of effects, any colour is welcome. Hence instead of a monotonous green or red, we like a variety of shades and tints, and the more the better. When we have had so much of a colour as to feel sated with one effect, it is then a relief to change the colour. And * I would refer to Mr. Sully's three essays on Music ('Sensation and Intuition', pp. 163-245) for the full expansion and illustration of these topics. 1 have merely picked out a few of his leading ideas, to enable the reader to perceive the drift of the explanations. 238 THE 2ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. here comes in the law of the composition of light, which shows that the most agreeable stimulus is the complement of any given colour; whereby we restore the perfect balance of the primary colours. Thus the transition from red to green, is better than from red to yellow; green is formed of yellow and blue; and red, yellow, and blue are needed to exhaust the spectrum. But, until the eye is jaded by unbalanced colours, the completing of the spectrum is not a necessity, although it becomes a pleasure to the cultivated eye. It is usual to protect weak eyes by glasses of green or blue. If the object were only to mitigate the glare of light generally, a darkened tint would be enough. But it would seem that the nerves of vision find repose in throwing these colours over all objects whatsoever. This is a notable exception to the principle of balancing the colours according to their proportions in white light. Excepting the influence of habituation to the green earth and the sky, I do not know how the fact is to be explained. The simple effects of visible Movement and Form represent muscular pleasures. Straight and curved forms, the alternations of these, the changes of curvature, the waning forms,-all appeal to muscular sensibility duly varied and alternated. 17. The Intellectual beauties of Sight, the realizing of Unity in Variety, are numerous in proportion to the multiplicity of visible effects. Where we have to arrange a plurality of similar objects, we place them at equal intervals, as in rows, tiers, mosaic work, and uniform array. We may go a step farther and constitute smaller groups, at equal distances from each other, and subordinate the whole to a simple form or type. Wherever any linear object is divided with a view to pleasing the eye, the division must observe some rules of proportion, the determination of which belongs to Fine Art. At first, such proportions were guided solely by the effect; as melodies were composed to please the ear, without reference INTELLECTUAL BEAUTIES OF SIGHT. 239 to musical ratios. At a later period, strict numerical laws were sought.* * The laws of proportion that reign in admired works of art, such as the remains of Grecian Sculpture and Architecture, are not obvious, and different modes of reaching them have been proposed. To take the simple case of a vertical elevation, harmoniously divided (as a cross). The German critics have laid down a rule, called the 'golden section', namely, that the shorter part shall bear the same proportion to the longer, as the longer to the whole; the same rule to hold, in farther subdivisions of the parts, as must happen in a great Architectural front. A second law must regulate the proportions of breadth to height, as the arms of the cross compared with the height of the pillar, and the breadth of a front compared with the divisions of the height. Considerable latitude prevails as to this last relation, but one case may be given as an example of an agreeable and simple proportion; namely, when the half breadth is a mean proportional between the short and long divisions of the vertical height. (See Wundt's Menschen und Thierseele, Vol. II., p. 82.) Mr. D. R. Hay maintains that the numerical proportionality of the perfect works of art is to be found, not in the lines, but in the angles subtended by the different linear divisions. Thus in a rectangle, the angles made by the diagonal, should have a simple proportion to a right angle, as ~ (in a square), 3, j, -, &c.; which, of course, gives the two parts of the right angle simple ratios to each other,-1 to 1, 1 to 2, 1 to 3, 2 to 3, &c. Mr. Hay named these proportions according to those notes of the musical scale that have the same ratios in their number of vibrations; although it is not apparent what he obtains by the comparison, seeing that both cases fall under the same rule of simplicity of ratios. The human face and head are, by Mr. Hay's method, resolved thus. An ellipse is formed, whose greater axis is the whole length of the head, from the crown to the chin. The width, or lesser axis, is determined by harmonic considerations, as follows; the extremities of the major and minor semiaxes are joined, so as to make a right angled triangle, and the acute angles are rerespectively 30~ and 600, or as 1 to 2; this yields a dominant ellipse, based on a dominant triangle, being the same concord as a fifth in music. But now to give the expansion of the cranium. A circle of the same character as the width of the ellipse overlies it, and touches it at the apex. The combined figure of circle and ellipse gives the perfect harmonic outline of the face, with a little smoothing away here and there, for greater approximation to nature. As regards the features, the operation is this. From the apex of the head, or upper extremity of the ellipse, a series of lines are dra vn on both sides, making the respective angles J (30'), J (22~o), - (180), (15~), and - (12'~). Through the points where they severally meet the circumference cf the ellipse, horizontal lines are drawn across the face, making a series of isosceles triangles. Beginning at the outer lines, with the largest angle, namely, J or.300; the line joining these passes through the centre of the eyes, and consequently is 240 THE XSTHETIC EMOTIONS. 18. The principle we are now discussing applies alike to the two elements of Number and Space, giving to both an artistic capabiiity. In the case of a multitude of objects, we arrange in equal and proportionate intervals; and we subdivide in the same way a blank uninteresting expanse. And there is much of the effect of Outline due to the same feeling, especially as regards right-lined figures-squares, oblongs, parallelograms, triangles, equilateral polygons, &c., and the symmetrical curves-the circle and the ellipse. In all these, the eye is supposed to trace equality, or commensurability, in the different sides or dimensions. A triangle or quadrilateral, with all the sides unequal, gives no pleasure to the eye as a form or outline (unless it were, like a discord in music, occasionally introduced); while the square and the parallelogram comply with the exigencies of the mind. Parallelism is sustained equality, as much as the equality one element in determining their position. The line at the angle of, (22-17) touches the outer circumference of the orbit, and is a second element in determining the eye; the horizontal junction of the two lines gives the vertical position of the nose. The horizontal jnnction of the lines of - (180) crosses the top of the upper lip. The lines of. (150) pass through the centres of the eyes, and complete the determination of place and size of the orbits; the horizontal junction gives the lower boundary of the mouth. The horizontal junction of the lines of the angle of - give the superior edge of the chin. By a similar scheme of proportioned angles, Mr. Hay determines the beauty of the Human Figure. He applies the method to the proportions of the Parthenon, and to Architecture generally. Whether such a device approximately represents the proportions of a beautiful object, or of a work of art, is to be proved or disproved solely by the experimental test of measurement. But if Mr. Hay means to insinuate that the pleasurable feeling of proportion in the mind of the spectator is a feeling of the proportion of imaginary angles, he advances an incredible hypothesis. It is not to be supposed that the mind, in judging of a face, constructs an ideal diagram, and thereby enjoys a pleasing melody of angles. What the eye fastens upon must be something more within its usual habits of judging than this: the deep angular melody can be accepted only as a mathematical equivalent of some more apparent charm, which Mr. Hay has failed to give any account of. We have still, so far as his views are concerned, to fall back upon the old theory of the sensuous pleasure of curves, as regards curved surfaces; while as regards rectilineal dimensions, we must seek a more palpable order of proportions than his theory provides. EXPRESSIVENESS OF FORM AND OUTLINE. 241 of intervals in a row of objects. When lines converge, as in a pediment, we look for equality in the two converging sides, and are pleased to discern some further regard to proportion, as in the equality of three sides of the triangle, or the equality or commensurability of the base and perpendicular height. When an angle prominently arrests the attention, we prefer 45~ to 30~ as being aliquot parts of a right angle. The oblique equal-sided parallelogram, with the angles 450 and 1350, is an agreeable subdivision of the smallpaned window. Unity in variety may be sought in coloured groupings or arrangements, just as in music. There would be the same intellectual pleasure in detecting resemblances in diversities; and the element of visible form would never be wanting. In decoration and design the most complicated figures become pleasing by repetition and orderly arrangement. 19. Following the order laid down for sound, we come to the third and last department-exrpression, or the suggestion by visible objects of feelings and emotions beyond the proper sensibility of the eye. This subject is far larger for visible than for audible sensation. Its details are distributed under all the heads that follow. An example or two may be given in the first instance. The associations that give beauty to colours have been abundantly cited. All those tints that are connected with health, with infancy and youth, with the charms of the fair sex, with energy and vigour,-are agreeable by expressing those qualities. The lustre of the eyes, the hair, the skin, the teeth, is suggestive of personality. The sight of a teardrop awakens pathetic feeling. The appearances that indicate a soft, smooth skin bring to mind the embrace. 20. The expressiveness of Form and Outline is a large department of -esthetics. After allowing for the intrinsic muscular pleasures of the eye, which are the smallest part of the case, we have to take note of the associations of the curved forms with Ease, and of the straight forms with constraint and severity. The interest of the relief from labour, 16 242 THE zESTHETIC EMOTIONS, fatigue, and effort, is copiously reflected from outward things. Now, the moving members of the body, being levers fixed at one end, describe curves when acting freely; to make a straight line, needs a laborious adjustment of different members like the rods in Watt's parallel motion, and the very idea of it brings home the sense of painful constraint. In another connection, a rope or chain stretched horizontally, cannot be made straight without an enormous tension; the absence of this is shown in a downward curve. But in all matters of Art, the interest of personality exceeds every other; and the supreme charm of the curved outline is relative to the human form, as adapted for love. So deeply-rooted is this interest, that we must pronounce it instinctive and hereditary; while, in degree or amount, it is transcendent. In some situations, straight lines are aesthetic We have already seen that a series of agreeable effects, of unity and proportionality, can be operated upon right-lined objects and forms. In the human figure there underlies the curved outline a certain element of rigidity and straightness, indicating strength in the supporting limbs and spine. Whenever firmness is required, there must be a solid structure, and straightness of form is a frequent accompaniment of solidity. The straight nose and the flat brow are subsidiary to the movements and the stability of the face. 21. The dimension of up and down has its outline determined by the paramount condition of sustaining objects against the force of gravity; thus bringing in the elements of Pressure and Support. We are so unremittingly subjected to that great power, and so much occupied in counteracting it, that the providing of sufficiency of Support on every needful occasion is our foremost solicitude. Experience soon teaches the infant in arms the evil of a failing prop; the fear of falling manifests itself so early as to be very generally accounted an instinct. But no other explanation of it is necessary than the very decided monitions of falls, and bruises, and stunning pains, of fractures and scatterings, of confusion BEAUTY OF SUPPORT. 243 and loss,--from the giving way of stability. So anxious do we become on this head, that the slightest appearance or suggestion of the unstable afflicts us with the misery of an apprehended fall. Hence we desire every thing about us to fulfil the requirements that our experience has shown to be needful for their stable footing. A firm foundation, a broad base, a tenacious and solid framework,-are known to be the only safeguards against a crushing gravitation, and it is distressing to witness any deficiency in those respects. The pyramid is the form that most completely fulfils these conditions. The sloping wall lowers the centre of gravity, and makes an erection exceedingly difficult to overturn. The upright wall is less stable, and demands expedients that are unnecessary in the other: we must not carry it too high; there must be sufficient thickness, strength, and tenacity of material to make up for narrowness of base. The walls of a house, connected by girders and a roof, are differently situated; the entire bulk of the building is as one mass, and the stability is then very great. A similar effect is produced when a row of pillars is surmounted by lintels and a pediment. 22. While massive and well-founded edifices satisfy the mind, and give the agreeable feeling of sufficiency, or even superfluity of resistance to gravitating pressure, which would otherwise crush and destroy, there is another motive that comes into play to modify the forms of solid erections, namely, the desire to see great effects produced with the smallest expenditure of means, and the appearance of Ease on the part of the agent. This is an aspect of the love of power, which is gratified when small efforts operate large changes, or great effects. The pyramid we are apt to account gross, heavy, awkward, clumsy, when used merely to support its own mass. We feel in that case that a very large amount of material and of space has been used up for a disproportionate end; (as a sea-wall, or a fortification to resist cannon, the case is otherwise). We are greatly pleased if an object can be raised aloft to a great elevation without such expenditure of material, and such amplitude of base; we being at the same time 244 THE AESTHETIC EMOTIONS. assured that the support is adequate. The obelisk is, in this respect, a grand refinement upon the massive pyramid. The column is a still higher effort, inasmuch as its lofty summit is capable of being crowned with a mass to be sustained by it. The devices that reconcile us to this bold proceeding are principally-a widening of the foundation, and an expansion of thle summit in the lightest way, that is, with the least material that will answer the purpose. Thus the column has the slightly expanded base, and the spreading capital for receiving the superincumbent weight of the architrave and frieze. The pilaster is lightened by being cut away at the lower part, reserving breadth of base, as being the primary element of stability. A slender stem, on an expanded base, may thus prove an efficient support, and gratify the mind with a large effect produced at a small outlay. All our graceful forms in objects that give support, such as vases, drinking-cups, and table ware in general, proceed upon these principles, affording at the same time the additional pleasure of curved forms, which is not dependent upon this particular association. The noble tree with its slender and yet adequate stem, its spreading roots and ample base, supporting a voluminous and expanded foliage,-is a telling example of the reconciliation of adequate sustaining power with small outlay of material, and a striking contrast to the grossness of the pyramid.* 23. Symmetry is a demand in some cases for mere proportion, and at other times for support. There is a disagree* The light tripod is a good amelioration of the heavy solidity of the pyramidal mass. The artist judges how far it is safe to go in reducing grossness of dimensions, without detracting from the appearance of adequate support. Strict adherence to the perpendicular in a wall owes its urgency to the sentiment now discussed. A tall object declining to one side gives the painful impression of an expected fall. The leaning tower of Pisa is quite stable, from having the centre of gravity within the base; but such a declension from the perpendicular is disagreeable to behold. It was formerly remarked (Contiguity, ~ 30), that the Architectural proportions that satisfy the mind must differ according to the material; beauty of design is very different in stone, in wood, and in iron. BEAUTY OF FITNESS. 245 able effect of violated proportions when the two halves of a human face are not alike; a wasted, or unequal limb maims the prop of the figure. A tree with the foliage grown to one side is unsymmetrical in both respects. 24. Beauty of Movement grows out of the cases now considered, in conjunction with the primary susceptibility of the mind to moving objects as seen by the eye. The curved and straight outlines respectively suggest the same emotions in still forms, and in the tracks of moving bodies. A curvilinear movement, as the flight of a projectile, or of a bird, or the paces of a graceful dancer, is intrinsically pleasing; straight movements are rendered artistic only by associations of power, regularity, fitness, or some other circumstance that commends them to our regards. An upward flight is the analogy to support in still life-the putting forth of a power to counteract gravity; and, by giving us an idea of great propulsive energy, becomes a striking spectacle. 25. Fitness, the Xýsthetic of Utility. The case of Support just discussed is really a case of the fitting of machinery to a mechanical end, namely, counteracting gravity. So much pleasure do we derive from this being effectually, and yet, as it appears to us, lightly done, that we set up structures for the mere sake of seeing them so supported. But all the machinery of human industry is capable of appealing to the same sentiment of power, in the production of effects with a small expenditure of toil. A workman, combining great strength with great skill, will execute with ease what another man finds difficult, and the beholder derives a sympathetic pleasure from his power. The possession of superior tools gives the same agreeable distinction. In consequence of the gratification so derived, an actor on the stage feels bound to suppress all the appearances of labour and fatigue, and to put out of sight, as much as possible, the apparatus of the scenes. In machinery, we desiderate a clean polish and a noiseless action, because rust and noise suggest harsh obstruction and laborious effort. We personify the powers of nature, and sympathize with the apparently easy or difficult attainment 246 THE ZESTHETIC ETMOTIONS. of ends. The gentle breeze, giving motion to a huge mass of solid material, affects us with the delightful sentiment of a light finger impelling a heavy body. The noisy thunder, on the other hand, is thought to labour in accomplishing its work. A gunpowder explosion would be grander without the uproar; stillness, or a quiet action, having so much to do with our sentiment of exerted power, unless when the noise is itself a token of the power. The presence of the scaffolding whereby a great work has been reared, takes off from the pleasure of the work itself, by introducing the unacceptable association of painful and protracted labour. Hence the art of concealing art, so long ago announced as a critical maxim. We love to have removed from our sight every aspect of suffering, and none more so than the suffering of toil; we cherish, on the other hand, every appearance, however illusive, that suggests the easy attainment of the ends of toil. 26. There are certain things, subordinate to the successful prosecution of work, that have an interest to the spectator. We have seen already that regularity and proportion appeal to a primary sensibility of the mind. They come also to be valued, and greatly extended, from considerations of utility. Under the general name Order, we include all the precision, regularity, and suitability, in the array of separate objects, so eminently favourable to the march of industrial operations. Straight forms become -esthetic from their manifold subservience to useful ends. The agreeable sentiment that fills the mind of the mere looker-on is cultivated in many seats of industry, where a degree of orderliness and finish beyond the actual necessities of the case, is given to all the apparatus concerned. We see this in the trimness of a well-kept house, a cotton-mill, or a shop, and in the rigorous discipline and high condition of a man-of-war. Cleanliness is based originally upon the removal of matters intrinsically injurious, and loathsome to the view. Going one step farther, it aims at giving lustre, brilliancy, or pure whiteness of surface, where those constitute pleasing effects, taking care to wipe off what SUBLIMITY ALLIED TO POWER. 247 ever stains a naturally fine surface. The polishing of tools has both an original effect of brilliancy, and the derived pleasure of suggested ease. The neat, tidy, and trim, gratifies us as a part of Order, and, even when non-essential tb practical industry, gives evidence of a mind alive to the importance of this great subsidiary. It would be absurd to go the length of some writers in affirming that beauty always implies mind; but it is a fact of sober observation, that objects are often interesting from their suggesting to the beholder useful mental qualities. The reverse also holds. Two or three pieces of chopped straw on a carpet, or a small hole in a stocking, would not interfere with any useful operation, or impair the lustre of any other present beauty; but by suggesting a mind loose and indifferent to orderly qualities, on which so much is dependent on the whole, a great offence may be given to the observer. 27. The Sublime. This quality has been generally accounted more simple than Beauty. And so in one point of view it is, being principally a result of the single attribute of superior power. But then power, as we have often seen, is a very complex fact; it comprises the delights of maleficent action, the pleasures of protectorship (a form of tender sentiment), and the relief from toil in all its ramifications. Now, for the purposes of Art, these modes of power are considered not as actually possessed, but as sympathetically viewed. There is a pleasure in merely entering in, as eye-witnesses, to the spectacle of manifested power. The most direct influence of the situation is our being ideally raised to a fictitious notion of greater power in ourselves. The remark has already been made, that the sight of others manifesting any capability that we ourselves possess, recalls our consciousness in the same act. As a recall, this is pleasing; it makes a fraction of our agreeable interest in our fellow-workers, present and past. Yet the attendant circumstances may be such as to qualify the pleasure. For one thing, we may have the pleasing illusion of being equal or superior to the exalted person that we witness; this is the most acceptable form of the 248 THE ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. sympathetic feeling of power. Or, we may be humbled and mortified by conscious inferiority, in which case the spectacle is positively repugnant. There is a third case, where we cheerfully admit that we are surpassed, and yet enjoy the idea of so great power in a region where we are at home. This is disinterested admiration, and contains an element of genuine sympathy or fellow-feeling, with renunciation of rivalry; it is an emotion based on friendship and love. The homage that we give to superior qualities, intellectual or moral, has this congenial character. A fourth case demands more special consideration. We look at overpowering strength in the consciousness of our own littleness, weakness, or infirmity; and, instead of being lifted by the spectacle, we feel humbled and depressed. This is not the agreeable sentiment of the sublime, but very much the reverse. The worst form is being in dangerous subjection; in which case we can experience only unmitigated terror. The favourable side is to be under protection; in that situation, our feeling assumes the aspect of tenderness, verging on awe. This is the emotion suited to a benign earthly power, and to an object of worship. 28. Human might is the true and literal sublime, and the point of departure for the sublimity of other things. A man that towers above his fellows in force, will, endurance, courage, self-denial,-strikes the spectator with an exalted idea of power, which may take any of the forms just mentioned; most of them being pleasures of considerable amount. Maleficent human power is sublime, and agreeable to behold, if our natural delight in the production of suffering has free course; but, according as there is danger to ourselves, or as our pity is aroused towards the victims, it becomes an object of horror and loathing. Still, constituted as we are, the highest charm of power supposes painful infliction in the distance; the mind scarcely avows the fact to itself, but yet cannot help a latent reference to it. The deities of the ancient world owed their lofty grandeur more to the SUBLIME OF SUPPORT.-SPACE.-TIME. 2 249 punishment of enemies than to the helping of their own subjects. Inanimate objects by remotely imitating human energies, impart a peculiar mode of the feeling of sublimity. Distant though the resemblance be, between a man and a volcano, a hurricane, or a cataract, we overlook the difference for the sake of the vast superiority in the one circumstance of moving force. 29. We may take an example first from the sublime of Support. We have already seen what opportunity gravity affords, for the putting forth of either a resisting might or a propelling power. Our own unceasing experience tells us, that every elevation of matter above the ordinary level demands an expenditure of force; and consequently wherever we see lofty piles, we imagine the superhuman energy that raised them. An upheaved mountain mass, and a projectile shot high in air, equally suggest a mighty operating cause. Mere height is thus an incident of sublimity; the earth's surface being our standard, we suppose everything above the common level carried there, and maintained in its place, by some exertion of power. Accordingly, the forms of elevated masses that are most sublime are the lofty and precipitous, as implying the most intense effort of supporting might. Precipitous depth below the surface has the same effect, and from the same causes; by comparison with the bottom of a deep pit, the surface of the ground appears sustained at an elevated height. 30. The Sublimity of Space is vastness, magnitude, or expanse. It has been supposed that this, and not power, is the fundamental fact of the material sublime. There can be no great material agency without a certain amplitude of space; but sublimity may appear within a comparatively small compass, by virtue of the intensity of the forces at work. A lion, a steam engine, a nine-pounder gun, a smelting furnace, a sixty feet cataract, are sublime, although their space dimensions are not great. Still, every natural agent or effect is magnified according as it is extended; the river Amazon is 250 THE /ESTHETIC EMOTIONS sublime by its width and volume of water; Etna is sublime from the amplitude of its base, as well as from its height, both qualities conspiring to determine the force of upheaval represented by it. Extent of space implies corresponding energy to traverse, compass, or occupy it. But irrespective of active energy, space is sublime from the mere volume or magnitude of its contents. The mind is filled, and as it were distended, with voluminous sensation and feeling; and the large body of agreeable emotion has an elevating effect. There is an exact parallel in sound; voluminous sounds, as of a great multitude, a full band, the thunder, the winds, the roar of the sea, exercise a similar power. A mountain prospect is sublime, not from mere extent of vacuity, but, from embracing within a single glance a large area of solid ground with all its activities, interests, and associations. Nor can we entirely separate the notion of power in the strictest sense from a vast prospect; the epithet 'commanding' implies that we have a superiority of intellectual range, with the resulting elation of conscious might. As regards the Sublimity of Space, therefore, we have to admit both Voluminous Sensation, and the Sentiment of Power; the two also suggesting and supporting each other. The starry expanse is the crowning grandeur of space, to a mind that can in some degree enter into the amplitude of its dimensions. 31. Greatness of Time has an effect of Sublimity. Not, however, mere duration in the abstract; but time as filled with known, transactions and events, which, when suggested in mass, have the elating influence of the voluminous. Here, too, there is the accompaniment of intellectual power, fron the vast survey of the course of centuries. The mere ability to grasp, in one conception, the destinies of many generations elevates us with a species of intellectual might, no less than the wide-reaching prospect of peopled cities. Hence those objects that are able to remind us forcibly of a far by-gone time, or of a distant future, affect us with the sublimity of Duration. The relics of ancient empires, the antiquities of the BEAUTY OF THE INANIMATE WORLD. 251 Geological ages,-waken up this sentiment in the reflecting mind, and the more so that the memory is able to recall the intermediate events. A tinge of melancholy and pathos is natural to the retrospect of so many scenes of desolation, and the extinction of so many hopes. 32. Of Natural objects in general. A brief survey of the principal forms and objects of Nature, notable for Pesthetic qualities, will advantageously contribute to the elucidation of the foregoing doctrines. The Mineral kingdom furnishes principally specimens of colour, lustre, and symmetrical forms; our gems and precious stones having no other intrinsic qualities to recommend them. Vegetable nature is much more various in its effects. Colours-pleasing, dazzling, and even gorgeous, are embodied in forms and structures that affect us not less powerfully through other susceptibilities. The curved outline prevails over straight lines. Proportion, symmetry, and harmony, are found in the two halves of the leaf, in the repetition of the same form in each species, and in the structure of the flower; while a certain whole, or unity, is made out of the multitude of parts. Some plants, by their tall and slender proportions, are tender and graceful; others, by massiveness and size, have a sort of architectural grandeur and beauty. Poets and painters have often dwelt on this region of nature, till a sort of delirious idolatry has overwhelmed their faculty of discrimination; and it is hardly allowed to say that any vegetable species is not instinct with beauty. The mountains, valleys, rivers, plains, and the general surface of the globe, owe their influence to effects already noticed. The mountain masses are nature's pyramids, and, whether we view them from below and contemplate their elevation, or stand on the summits to look down upon the wide expanse beneath, we feel the sentiment of power, or the sublime. The rivers display a vast moving mass, glistening in the light, and bending in graceful curves. The still lake operates differently, its force lying chiefly in composition with the entire landscape. Of landscape beauties at large, we 252 THE AESTHETIC EMOTIONS. can only remark that a number of the effects above detailed are accumulated into one whole, while there may be superadded a certain harmony or keeping that heightens the general emotion. To find out these harmonies is the vocation of the painter, to which the taste of the spectator responds. 33. The Animal kingdom contains objects of msthetic interest in considerable measure, and also the largest part of nature's deformities. Melody of sound, pleasing colours, outlines, forms, and movements may be found among the animal species; and associations heighten the effects. On the other hand, there is something to account for in the repugnance that we entertain towards not a few of the animal tribes. In some cases, the cause is obvious and intelligible, being simply the presence of mischievous qualities, or the power of inflicting palpable damage to person or property; the beast of prey, the destructive vermin, the sharp tooth, the poisoned fang, are abhorred as our natural enemies. Towards others we feel a sentiment of ugliness or deformity, from their exhibiting qualities in pointed opposition to those we call beautiful. The dingy, sluggish, slimy snail excites a general dislike. The earthworm is less repulsive; but the crawling centiped excites a wide-spread sentiment of loathing. The frog is the antipathy of some persons. A black beetle, appearing suddenly on the floor, will make a child scream with terror. The earwig is also very much disliked. It is not always easy to give a reason for these effects. A vague sentiment of fear is manifestly stirred up, from our conceiving the possible infliction of unknown evil by those creatures; for familiarity reconciles us more and more to their presence. One grand source of terror is their power of invasion: it is very much proportioned to the rapidity of their motions; a black beetle is the nimblest of creatures. It is possible, too, that our sense of dignity may be offended by their crossing our path, or lighting on the person uninvited. After all other reasons have been exhausted, we may still have to fall back upon the active principle of disgust and antipathy belonging to our nature, which, directed in the first instance upon objects that really offend the sense and inspire THE HUMAN FORM. 2 253 loathing, extends itself to others where the pretext is very slender, or entirely wanting. Our inherent sociability finds numerous outgoings in our intercourse with the animal tribes. Some we take as pets, others gratify the human propensity to chase and destroy. As sentient and active creatures, we watch with interest their movements and their ways, so like and yet so unlike our own. Collections of living animals are among our standing public amusements. 34. In the Human Form, the intrinsic effects of primary sensation are overlaid by the suggestiveness of the whole with reference to the love emotions. The graceful figure is approved on the architectural grounds of adequate, yet light support. The curvature of the outline passes repeatedly through points of contrary flexure, turning from curves to concave, and again resuming the prevailing convex. The Face contains certain essential features that we are habituated to, as the human conformation. These admit of varieties, and some types are more pleasing than others. The explanation of the difference is the theory of facial beauty. The Greek type adopts a certain proportion based on the coinmparative prominence to be assigned to the different features. According to Bell, remoteness from the animal type was the ruling consideration; to which we may add remoteness from the forms of the inferior races of men. A sort of aristocratic model was devised, and the taste of after ages has been constrained into following it. In movement and in expression, the suggestiveness of the feelings, and especially love, is the ruling consideration of the beautiful. Nothing short of stirring the most powerful emotions can amount to the praise of supreme beauty. There is, however, a qualifying consideration of the highest importance, which I will presently advert to. 35. Beauty of Character is a large subject. The points of detail are numerous, but one or two circumstances dominate the whole. We have still the everlasting centre of interest -Love. The entire compass of altruistic conduct has the 254 THE AIESTHETIC EMOTIONS. charm of imparting benefits, to which no mind can ever be -indifferent.* 36. Something must now be said on the truly artistic operation included under Imagination and Idealizing, by which the more powerful elements of feeling are refined from their grossness, while retaining their charm. The intensest of the primary susceptibilities of the mind are sensuality and malevolence. By a delicate handling these may be kept at a distance, and yet impart a subtle fascination. There is a magic whereby the grosser feelings may be so exquisitely manipulated, as almost to banish desire for the literal indulgence. Great beauty in the human form, movement, and expression, must involve in its depths the sensuality of love; and yet we may so transform it as to reprove the very thought of the actuality. It is the charm of the infant and youthful figure to foreshadow the mature type, while rendering impossible the least supposition of sensuality, which can with difficulty be suppressed in the contemplation of the full-grown form. It was the triumph of Greek Art to divert the mind from the purely sensual considerations, by entertaining us with the charm of proportions and support, and other collateral attractions, which, though unable entirely to submerge the greatest attraction of all, could yet keep it at a respectful distance. Applied to the other great source of powerful feeling, still more dangerous in its grossest outgoings-the malevolent and sanguinary impulse,-the creative imagination supplies veiled modes of stimulation, which contain the essential charm without encouraging the reality. This comes within the art of the Poet. By the portraiture of crime, there is roused within us an indignation that may lawfully be gratified, and that from its very circumstances tends to repress the sentiment of pure malevolence. Perhaps the greatest triumph of art in dealing with the * The reader will once more derive much instruction in the Psychology of Art from a perusal of Mr. Sully's exhaustive essay entitled 'The Esthetic Aspects of Character'. The considerations involved are too numerous for dis. cussion in the present work. IMITATION IN ART. 255 resentful passion is seen in the well-known effect that we designate Humour. Here opposites are reconciled; the lion is made to lie down with the lamb. The charm of overpowering might is undoubtedly most acute when viewed in its destructive effect. A mountain mass affects us in many ways; not least is the supposition of the multitude of living beings that it might crush or imprison in its bosom. This is a feeling so remote from any possible realization, that it may be allowed a purely harmless indulgence. 37. A certain number of the Fine Arts derive their subjects from natural things, which they copy and adapt; and these are called the IMITATIVE arts. They are principally,-Imitative (as opposed to effusive) Poetry, Painting, and Sculpture; the Stage and Pantomime; and a small portion of the art of Decoration The remaining members of the class, namely, Architecture, Decoration, Music, Refined Address, are only in a slight degree imitative of originals in nature; they apply themselves at once to the gratification of our various sensibilities, without being encumbered with any extraneous condition, such as fidelity to some prototype. I cannot regard the imitation of nature occurring in-the first-named class, in any other light than as an accident; but, the fact once occurring, a certain deference has to be paid to it. Where we profess to imitate, we ought undoubtedly to be faithful. Not, I imagine, because a higher artistic charm thereby arises, but because of the revulsive shock that misrepresentation is liable to produce. If the poet draws from reality, he ought not to give a misleading picture, seeing that we receive his composition, not solely as pleasing melodies and touching images, but also as narratives and descriptions of human life. There is, doubtless, a limit to what we are to expect from an artist, who must be mainly engrossed with the effects proper to Art, and cannot be, at the same time, a botanist, a zoologist, a geologist, a meteorologist, an anatomist, and a geographer. Although I conceive that fidelity, in the imitative class of arts, is to be looked upon, in the first instance, as 256 THE zESTHETIC EMOTIONS. avoiding a stumbling-block, rather than imparting a charm, there are still some respects wherein the esthetic pleasure is enhanced by it. We are drawn by sympathy towards one that has attended to the same objects as ourselves, or that has seized and put into vivid prominence what we have felt without expressing to ourselves. The coincidence of mind with mind is always productive of the lightening charm of mutual support; and, in some circumstances, there is an additional effect of agreeable surprise. Thus, when an artist not merely produces in his picture the ordinary features that strike every one, but includes all the minuter objects that escape common notice, we sympathize with his attention, we admire his powers of observation, and become, as it were, his pupils in extending our study and knowledge of nature and life. We feel a pungent surprise at discovering, for the first time, what has long been before our eyes. Moreover, we are brought forward as judges of the execution of a distinct purpose; we have to see whether he that is bent on imitation does that part of his work well or ill, and, if our verdict is favourable, admire the power displayed. There is, too, a certain exciting effect in the reproduction of an appearance in some foreign material, as when a plane surface yields the impression of solidity, and canvas or stone imitates the human appearance. Lastly, when fidelity of rendering is allied with artistic charm, the sentiment of reality and truth, as opposed to fiction or falsehood, appealing to our practical urgencies, disposes us to derive an additional satisfaction, and to assign a superior value to the work. Thus Imitation, which, properly speaking, is immaterial to art as such,-just as there is little or no place for it in music, architecture, or the decoration of the person,-becomes the centre of a class of agreeable or acceptable effects. These effects are the more prized, that we have been surfeited with the purely asthetic ideals. We turn refreshed from the middle age romance to the graphic novel of our own time. 38. Of the Ludicrous.-The causes of Laughter are first physical, including cold, some kinds of acute pain, tickling, THE LUDICROUS NOT MERE INCONGRUITY. 257 and hysteria. In the next place, among mental causes, hilarity or animal spirits assumes this expression, among other modes of joyous manifestation; the laughter of the gods, described in Homer, was the mere exuberance of their celestial joy after their daily banquet. The outburst of liberty in a young fresh nature, after a time of restraint, is an occasion for wild uproarious mirth and glee. The smile accompanies the pleasurable emotion of the tender and kindly sentiment, and is a mode of signifying that state to others. Self-complacent feeling likewise assumes the same outward display. We have seen also that the sentiment of power, awakened by the production of great and striking effects, stimulates the expression of laughter, as observed more especially in the young; the mere sight of such effects caused by others having the same tendency. It is commonly said that the ludicrous is caused by incongruity; 'that it always implies the concurrence of at least two things or qualities that have some sort of oppositeness of nature in them'. But the question comes, what kind of incongruity or oppositeness is it that inevitably causes laughter? There are many incongruities that may produce anything but a laugh. A decrepit man under a heavy burden, five loaves and two fishes among a multitude, and all unfitness and gross disproportion; an instrument out of tune, a fly in ointment, snow in May, Archimedes studying geometry in a siege, and all discordant things; a wolf in sheep's clothing, a breach of bargain, and falsehood in general; the multitude taking the law into their own hands, and everything of the nature of disorder; a corpse at a feast, parental cruelty, filial ingratitude, and whatever is unnatural; the entire catalogue of the vanities given by Solomon,-are all incongruous, but they cause feelings of pain, anger, sadness, loathing, rather than mirth. 39. The occasion of the Ludicrous is the Degradation of some person or interest possessing dignity, in circumstances that excite no other strong emotion. Amid the various theories of Laughter, this pervading fact is more or less recognized. According to Aristotle, Comedy is an illustration 17 258 THE.ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. of worthless characters, not, indeed, in reference to every vice, but in reference to what is mean'; the laughable has to do with what is deformed or mean; it must be a deformity or meanness not painful or destructive (so as to produce pity, fear, anger, or other strong feelings). He would have been nearer the mark if he had expressed it as causing something to appear mean that was formerly dignified; for to depict what is already under a settled estimate of meanness, has "little power to raise a laugh; it can merely be an occasion of reflecting our own dignity by comparison. Some of Quintilian's expressions are more happy. ' A saying that causes laughter is generally based on false reasoning (some play upon words); has always something low in it; is often purposely sunk into buffoonery; is never honourable to the subject of it.' 'Resemblances give great scope for jests, and, especially, resemblance to something meaner or of less consideration.' Campbell ('Philosophy of Rhetoric'), in reply to Hobbes, has maintained that laughter is associated with the perception of oddity, and not necessarily with degradation or contempt. He produces instances of the laughable, and challenges any one to find anything contemptuous in them. 'Many', he says, 'have laughed at the queerness of the comparison in these lines" For rhyme the rudder is of verses, With which, like ships, they steer their courses." who never dream't that there was any person or party, practice or opinion, derided in them.' To my mind, on the contrary, there is an obvious degradation of the poetic art; instead of working under the mysterious and lofty inspiration of the Muse, the poet is made to compose by means of a vulgar mechanical process. The theory of Hobbes is well-known, and has been greatly attacked. 'Laughter', he says, 'is a sudden glory arising from sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.' In other -words, it is an expression of the pleasurable feeling of superior power. Now, there are many cases where this will afford a complete explanation, as in the laugh of vic THE COMIC AND THE SERIOUS. 259 tory, ridicule, derision, or contempt, against persons that we ourselves have humiliated. But we can also laugh sympathetically, or where the act of degrading redounds to the glory of some one else, as in the enjoyment of comic literature generally, where we have no part in causing the humiliation that we laugh at. Moreover, laughter can be excited against classes, parties, systems, opinions, institutions, and even inanimate things that by personification have contracted associations of dignity; of which last, the couplet of IHudibras upon sunrise is a sufficient example. And, farther, the definition of Hobbes is still more unsuitable to Humour, which is counted something genial and loving, and as far removed as may be from self-glorification and proud exultation at other men's discomfiture. Not, however, that there is not, even in the most genial humour, an element of degradation, but that the indignity is disguised, and, as it were, oiled, by some kindly infusion, such as would not consist with the unmitigated glee of triumphant superiority.* Reverting to the statements in the preceding section, that Laughter is connected with an outburst of the sense of Power or superiority, and also with a sudden Release from a state of constraint, we shall find that both facts occur in the multitudinous examples of ludicrous degradation. The foregoing observations apply to the reflection of superior power, actual and ideal, and they might be much extended. One frequent occasion of laughter is the putting any one, or the seeing any one put, into a fright; than which there is no more startling reflection of superiority on the part of some agent. Next to a fright, is the making any one angry, which, if not dangerous, also gratifies the agent's sense of power. 40; Let us next consider ludicrous degradation as a mode of Release from constraint. In this view the Comic is a reaction from the Serious. The dignified, solemn, and stately * In a Manual of Rhetoric, I have illustrated fully what appear to me the special conditions of Humour, and shall not occupy space by repeating them here. 260 THE )ESTHETIC RMOTIONS. attributes of things require in us a certain posture of rigid constraint; and if we are suddenly relieved from this posture, the rebound of hilarity ensues, as in the case of children set free from school. If we feel at heart the sentiment either of worship, or of self-importance-that is, if we are thoroughly inspired with either, so as to take to it of our own goodwillthere is no restraint in the case, and no wish to be delivered from the attitude and formalities of respect. On the contrary, we resent any interference with the sacredness of the occasion. The sincere worshipper at church is shocked by the intrusion of a profane incident, while the irreverent and unwilling attender is convulsed with mirth. So it is with the sentiment of self-importance. The mind wherein this is strongly cherished is deeply offended at the contact of anything degrading or vulgarizing, whereas any one that feels the sentiment lightly will join in the laugh at his own expense. It is the coerced form of seriousness and solemnity, without the reality, that gives us that stiff position, from which a contact with triviality or vulgarity relieves us to our uproarious delight. We are sometimes obliged to put on a dignity that we perhaps do not feel, as in administering reproof or correction to inferiors; and still oftener have we to assume an attitude of respect and reverence that does not possess our inward feelings. Both the one and the other situation is a fatiguing tension of the system, and we have all the pleasure of a 'blessed relief' when anything happens to give a relaxation. The element of the genuine comic is furnished by those dignities that, from some circumstance or other, do not command serious homage. False or faded deities and dignities; splendour and show withoutmeaning; the unworthy occupants of high office; hollow pretensions, affectation, assumption and self-importance, vanity, airs and coxcombry; all the windings of the hypocrisy that aims at seeming greater than the reality; painful strivings to gain glittering positions,-are among the things that commonly induce laughter, when brought into the embrace of meanness and degrading inferiorities. It is true tha, for the sake of the mirthful pleasure, we are occasionally THE MIRTHFUL DISPOSITION. 261 disposed to waive even our serious feelings of respect, and to hail the descent of a true dignity with lively countenance; but it is against our better nature to do so, and we are glad when the case is of the other sort. So intense among the majority of persons is the titillation arising from being suddenly set loose from this peculiar kind of restraint, that they are willing to be screwed up into the serious posture for a moment, in order to luxuriate in the deliverance. The comic temperament is probably determined by a natural inaptitude for the dignified, solemn, or serious, rendering it especially irksome to sustain the attitude of reverence, and very delightful to rebound from it. Be this as it may, the best mode of giving the desired relief is to plunge the venerated object into a degrading conjunction, the sight of which instantaneously liberates the mind and lets the emotions flow in their own congenial channel. The serious and the mirthful are in perpetual contrast in human life; in the characters of men, and in the occasions and incidents of our everyday experience. The mirthful is' the aspect of ease, freedom, abandon, amid animal spirits. The serious is constituted by labour, difficulty, hardship, and the necessities of our position, which give birth to the severe and constraining institutions of government, law, morality, education, &c. It is always a gratifying deliverance to pass from the severe to the easy side of affairs; and the comic conjunction is one form of the transition.* * 'In a court of justice, or in an assembly of more than ordinary gravity, a trifling incident causes laughter. We are screwed up into an expression of gravity and dignity that we do not feel at heart, and the slightest vulgarity, such as a loud snore, lets us down immediately. All forced dignity of demeanour, as that imposed upon children and giddy people in certain places, is very apt to explode. In a mirthful mood, every attempt to assume the decorous and dignified is the cause of new outbreaks, as when a merry party on the road is interrupted for a moment by a grave and awful passer-by. Children mimicking the airs, and strut, and weighty actions of grown men are ludicrous; but in this they are surpassed by the monkey, from its being a ereature so much more filthy, mean, and grovelling, and which therefore in performing human actions, presents a wider contrast of dignity and debasement. Stage mimicking is made ludicrous by introducing some vulgarizing accompaniments of manier or dress. 262 THE zESTHETIC EMOTIONS. ' A common device for causing laughter is to make a person pass at once from an elevated to a common or degrading action, as in Pope:"Here thou great Anna, whom three realms obey, Dost sometimes counsel take, and sometimes tea." ' Or in the remonstrance to a lady: "Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love, But why did you kick me down stairs?" 'But the more perfect the fusion of the two hostile ingredients, or the more impossible it is rendered to think of them separately, the surer is the ludicrous effect'.-' Wit and Humour', Westminster Reviezw, Oct., 1847. In the article now quoted, I have exemplified at length the different kinds of comic effect; but what is here given in the text, as being what I now reckon an important part of the case, is not well brought out there. The posture of artificial and constrained seriousness demanded by the grave necessities of life, and occasionally imposed without any great necessity, is, as it seems to me, one point of departure in the production of the ludicrous. Our struggles, difficulties, and dangers, screw us up into an attitude of earnest attention as well as of laborious effort, and the remission of both the one and the other is a. joyful relief. A man is grave in the prospect of misfortune or death; in disposing of weighty interests, as legislator, judge, or military commander; in setting out on a difficult enterprise or taking up a responsible position. Those that are merely witnesses of such transactions are enjoined to assume a grave demeanour. If fully possessed of the solemn import of the occasion, neither actors nor spectators are disposed to shrink from the solemn attitude, even although severe and exhausting; but if they are only acting an imposed part, they welcome any mode of relief. Some constitutions fail in aptly with the air of solemnity, and to them abandon is nowise entertaining such persons keep up the corresponding forms for their own sake, and render themselves the butt and sport of those of an opposite temperament, who also abound in all societies, and predominate in the light-hearted races. The young are the greatest sufferers by the impositions of gravity, and the most disposed to burst free from them. Hence their habitual irreverence towards superiors, and their indifference to the solemnity of important interests. They entertain a mock solemnity for the intense delight of rebounding from it, just as they toil to the top of an eminence for the sake of the downward run, or dam up a stream to see the barrier suddenly swept away by the current. in a paper on the Physiology of Laughter, in Macmillan's Magazine, March, 1860, Mr. Herbert Spencer has brought forward an explanation based on the physiological distribution of nervous power. When the mind and the body are raised up to a state of high tension, the power must work itself out in some direction or another, and, in one set of circumstances, it takes the direction of laughter. The general principle is undeniable, and Mr. Spencer has made some instructive and original applications of it. I think, however, that he has been incautious in rejecting the fact of Degradation as the governing circumstance of the ludicrous. He says there are 'many instances, in which no one's dignity is implicated, as when we laugh at.a good pun '. I very DEGRADATION ESSENTIAL TO LAUGHTER. 263 much wish he had produced such a pun, as I have never yet met with one of the sort. The Jest-boo7k published by Mark Lemon is an ample storehouse to choose from, yet I cannot find in it a single instance where a laughable effect is produced without degradation. I quite understand the laugh of pleasure and admiration at a felicitous stroke of mere wit; but no one confounds this with the genuinely ludicrous. Wit, with all its brilliancy and ingenuity, is sadly wanting in unction, if it takes no one down. None of the well-remembered sayings of Sydney Smith and Douglas Jerrold are without the effect cf humiliation. Mr. Spencer has quoted (p. 399) certain situations calculated to produce laughter, which, he says, contain no degrading element; I think moat people would say that they do. CHAPTER XV. THE ETHICAL EMOTIONS; OR, THE MORAL SENSE. 1. IT is scarcely possible to enter upon an analysis of the peculiar sentiment or feeling termed the Moral Sense, or Moral Approbation and Disapprobation, without first propounding some intelligible doctrine in reference to the great Ethical inquiry, viz., what constitutes Morality, Duty, Obligation, or Right? I consider that the proper meaning, or import, of these terms refers to the class of actions enforced by the sanction of punishment. People may dislike a certain mode of conduct; but, uniess they go the length of punishing such as pursue it, they do not reckon the abstention obligatory. I am aware that this definition assumes a point in dispute; but my intention is, at the very outset, to lay down what I deem a vital distinction, and afterwards to vindicate the propriety of it. If a man takes the property, or slanders the good name of a neighbour, our dislike goes the length of insisting upon his suffering a penalty; but if the same person merely refrains from comining forward actively to minister to the distresses of that neighbour, we still dislike his conduct, but not so as to demand his punishment. The powers that impose the obligatory sanction are Law and Society, or the community acting through the Government by public judicial acts, and, apart from the Government, by the unofficial expressions of disapprobation and the exclusion from social good offices. The murderer and the thief are punished by the law; the coward, the adulterer, the heretic, the eccentric person, are punished by the community acting as private individuals, and agreeing by consent to censure and excommunicate the offender. A third power concerned in obligation is Conscience, which is an ideal resemblance of public authority, growing up in the Tldin idual mind. and VARIETY OF ETHICAL THEORIES. 265 workingto heameJ To elucidate this self-constituted variety of moral government is the final intention of the present chapter. Assuming provisionally that the imposition of punishment (taken in the large sense above defined) is the distinctive property of acts held to be morally wrong, we are next to enquire on what grounds such acts are forbidden and hindered by all the force that society or individuals possess. What are the reasons or considerations requiring each one to abstain from the performance of certain actions, and to concur in a common prohibition of them, enforced by stringent penalties? The answer to this is the Theory of Morals. 2. A variety of foundations have been assigned for the exercise of this compelling authority; in other words, there are many contending moral theories. The Will of the Deity, Propriety, Right Reason, the Fitness of Things, the Decision of the Civil Magistrate, Self-Interest, the unreasoning dictates of a special faculty called the Moral Sense or Conscience, Utility or the common Good of Mankind, have been severally assigned as determining what is to be authoritatively enjoined or forbidden-in other words, right or wrong. In remarking upon these different views of the origin of moral distinctions, we must bear in mind that it is one thing to inquire what has been the motive for setting up the rules that we find existing in any community, and another thing to settle the motive that we think ought to govern the imposition of those rules. To explain historically the rise of institutions is different from the endeavour to settle the best principles for modifying the old, or for forming new. It may be that some portions of the existing morality have been generated by considerations or motives that we dissent from, although we cannot deny that such motives have operated to produce the result. 3. The arbitrary Will of the Deity, as expressed in Revelation, is seriously maintained by many as the true fountain of right. But many other defenders of the Christian religion have looked upon this view as not only untenable, but full of dangerous consequences to religion itself. 266 THE ETHICAL EMOTIONS; OR, THE MORAL SENSE. Propriety, Right Reason, the Fitness of Things,-are phrases pointing to a Rational or Intellectual theory of Morals. The determination of right and wrong is made an act of Intellectual discernment, like perceiving equality or inequality in two compared magnitudes, or deciding on the truth or falsehood of a statement of fact. Now if morality is a system of Rules, an act of intelligence is undoubtedly necessary to apply them; when we are told not to injure the person, property, or good name of others, we need the power of distinguishing what is injurious from what is not. It is another thing, however, to maintain that the rules themselves are founded solely on an operation of judgment; the abstinence from injury to our fellows requires at bottom some motive not intellectual. The intellect can determine the fitness of means to secure an end; but the end itself must, in the last resort, be some feeling, something desirable or undesirable, some pleasure to be sought, some pain to be avoided, some impulse to be followed out. The Rational Moralists (Cudworth, Wollaston, Clarke, Price) give no account of the final end of morality. The same criticism applies to the dictum of Kant:--' Act in such a way that your conduct might be made a law to all beings'. Here is an important attribute or condition of right conduct; no actions can be approved that might not be generally followed. Still, there is something not expressed; and that something contains the real essence of morality. As fully expanded, the dictum should run thus; 'Act in a way that might be followed by all, consistently with the general safety, or happiness, or other exigence of society.' The generalizing of the action puts all men on the same level, and enables the full consequences to be seen; but it does not say what ends should be sought by this uniformity of procedure. It settles no difference between moral usages; between Monogamy and Polygamy, between Castes and Equality. Wherever a moral rule prevails, there must attach to it the condition of universal obedience; what is permitted to one, must be permitted to all the members of the same equal society. TIE SELFISH THEORY UNTENABLE. 267 According to Hobbes, the Sovereign, acting under his responsibility to God, is the ultimate judge of right. If he had meant merely that Morality is.an Institution of Society, maintained by the authority and punishments of Society, he would have stated what I believe to be the fact. His theory of government, however, was that when men, to escape the evils of a state of nature, formed themselves into society, they made, or should have made, their last will and testament in favour of some single despotic ruler. This was the practical question of Hobbes's time, and was decided against him by the events. 4. Several authors have promoted a system of morals based upon exclusively Self-regarding motives. They mean to affirm that men perform the social or moral duties from a regard to their own individual interests, and consequently that the rules. of right are adapted to these interests. But if by 'self' is here understood the gratifications of each person that are not shared by other persons,---such as the sensual pleasures, the love of wealth, power, and dignity, and all other exclusive pleasures,-we may safely deny the alleged constitution of human nature whereon the system is founded. (I include here in the term 'constitution of human nature', the pleasures that have grown up by constant and wide-spread association, as well as the original and primordial pleasures; since both together go to constitute and determine the internal man.) There is a class of pleasures whose nature it is to take in other sentient beings, as is implied in all the social affections. We have further a tendency to enter into the pains of those about us, to feel these as if they were our own, and to minister to their relief exactly as we should treat our personal sufferings. This power of sympathy is a fact in human nature of very extensive operation, and is constantly modifying, and running counter to, the selfish impulses properly so called. It is not true, therefore, that men have always performed their duties only so far as the narrow self was implied in them, although, of course, these other impulses belonging to our constitution are likewise our 'self' in another acceptation. 268 THE ETHICAL EMOTIONS; OR, THE MORAJ. SENSE. The theory of Self-Interest is still farther falsified by the existence in the human mind of disinterested Antipathies, which prompt us to inflict harm upon others without gaining anything to ourselves. We shall afterwards have to put in evidence those sentimental aversions, of which our fellowbeings are the subj 3ets, and on account of which we overlook our own interest quite as much as in displaying our sympathies and affections. Accordingly, we may say, not only that selfishness has never been the sole foundation of men's views of right, but that, if we were to propose it for acceptance as such, it would be rejected. Those fountains of the unselfish, now named, so relate us to our fellow-beings, that our ends in life always include more or less of their interests, and we are disposed on some occasions to sacrifice everything we possess, and life itself, to the well-being of others. The comparative force of the two classes of motives varies in different individuals; and the direction taken by the sympathetic motives may also vary; A may be prompted by his affection for B to kill or injure C. But we may be well assured that both will exert their sway in the various arrangements of human life, the social and moral regulations included. 5. The most generally received doctrine concerning the foundations of right is the theory of a Moral Sense. According to this, there is a certain faculty in the human mind, that enables us to define what is right to be done in each particular case, and that has given birth to the rules and maxims of morality in common currency. The affirmative is that human nature is universally endowed with this instinctive power of discriminating right and wrong, which is the cause of an alleged uniformity of the moral sentiments, so decided as to constitute an 'eternal and immutable morality'. This theory, undoubtedly the favourite one, is liable to very serious objections, which have been often urged, and never completely met. 6. Although the rigorous mode of viewing the moral sense, which compares it to the sense of hot and cold, or the THE MORAL SENSE THEORY. 269 power of discriminating between white and black, would almost dispense with education, yet this view has never been thoroughly carried out; for the necessity of enlightening conscience, by religious and moral teaching, has been universally insisted on. Accordingly, the following passage from Dr. Whewell's Elements of Morality may be taken.to represent the qualified doctrine of the innate sense of rectitude:'It appears from what has just been said, that we cannot properly refer to our conscience as an ultimate and supreme authority. It has only a subordinate and intermediate authority, standing between the supreme law, to which it is bound to conform, and our own actions, which must conform to it, in order to be moral. Conscience is not a standard, personal to each man, as each man has his standard of bodily appetite. Each man's standard of morals is a standard of morals, only because it is supposed by him to represent the supreme standard, which is expressed by the moral ideas, benevolence, justice, truth, purity, and wisdom. As each man has his reason, in virtue of his participation of the common reason of mankind, so each man has his conscience, in virtue of his participation in the common conscience of mankind, by which benevolence, justice, truth, purity, and wisdom, are recognized as the supreme law of man's being. As the object of reason is to determine what is true, so the object of conscience is to determine what is right. As each man's reason may err, and thus lead him to a false opinion, so each man's conscience may err, and lead him to a false moral standard. As false opinion does not disprove the reality of truth, so the false moral standards of men do not disprove the reality of a supreme rule of human action.' What then is this standard? Where is it to be found? Until it is produced, we have nothing to discuss, affirm, or deny. Is it some one model conscience, like Aristotle's' serious mai' (6 orrovSa^o(), or is it the decision of a public body authorized to decide for the rest of the community? We have no difficulty in knowing what is the standard in matters of true and false, but what is the standard conscience? 270 THE ETHICAL EMOTIONS; OR, THE MORAL SENSE. This must be got at, or morality is not a subject to be reasoned or written about. 7. Dr. Whewell appears to presume the existence of certain moral ideas not having reference to any individual mind whatsoever, correcting every one and yet originating with none. He sets up for morality a standard having a degree of independent existence, such as can hardly be conceived, and which does not exist with reference to anything else. We have standards of length, of measure, and of weight, which, even although embodied in material objects, can scarcely be said to have the independence here contended for. In constructing the imperial yard, gallon, or pound weight, a certain number of persons concur in adopting a definite unit; and these persons, being either themselves the governing body of the nation, or being followed by the actual governing body, give the law, or dictate the standard for themselves and for all others. It is quite true that individuality is controlled and overruled in this matter, but not by any abstract, unseen, unproducible power. What we have is one portion of the community agreeing upon a certain choice, and the rest falling in with that. Every dealer must bring his weights aid measures to be tried by the authoritative standard, but he is at no loss to say who are the authors and maintainers of that standard. So with Time. When we are all called upon to adapt our watches to Greenwich time, it is not to a standard beyond humanity. The collective body of astronomers have agreed upon a mode of reckoning time, founded upon the still more general recognition of the solar day, as the principal unit. At Greenwich Observatory, observations are made that determine the standard for this country; and the population in accepting that standard know, or may know, that they are following the Astronomer Ioyal with his staff, and the body of astronomers generally. 8. I must remark still farther upon the alleged uniformity of men's moral judgments in all ages and countries, as indicating a special faculty in our constitution, analogous to one of the senses. UNIFORMITY OF ME NS MORAL JUDGMENTS. 271 Tn order to bring such an assertion to the proof, there ought to ba formed for our inspection, a complete collection of all the moral codes that have ever existed. We should then have experimental evidence as to the agreement actually prevailing. In the absence of such a collection or digest, I will take it upon me to affirm that the supposed uniformity of moral decisions resolves itself into the two following particulars. First, the common end of Public Security, which is also individual preservation, demands certain precautions that are everywhere very much alike, and can in no case be dispensed with. Some sort of constituted authority to control the individual impulses, and to protect each man's person and property, must exist wherever a number of human beings live together. The duties springing out of this necessary arrangement are essentially the same in all societies. VWhether we look at them as the duties of each man towards his fellows, or as summed up in the comprehensive form of obedience to the constituted authority, they have a pretty uniform character all over the globe. If the sense of the common safety were not sufficiently strong to constitute the social tie of obedience to some common regulations, society could not exist to tell the tale of an exception to the universality of a common standard of right. Man could no more live without social obedience, and some respect for 'mine and thine,' than the race could be continued without sexual love, or maternal care. It is no proof of the universal spread of a special innate faculty of moral distinctions, but of a certain rational appreciation of what is necessary for the very existence of every individual human being living in the company of others. Doubtless, if the sad history of our race had been preserved in all its details, we should have many examples of tribes that perished from being unequal to the conception of a social system, or to the restraints imposed by it. We know enough of the records of anarchy to see how difficult it often is for human nature to comply in full with the social conditions of security; but if this were not complied with at all, the result would be mutual and 272 THE ETHICAL EMOTIONS; OR, THE MORAL SENSE. swift destruction. There must, therefore, be admitted to exist a tolerably uniform sense of the necessity of recognizing some rights of individuals living together in society, and of the obligation of civil obedience, which is merely another form of respecting those rights. There are to a certain point 'eternal and immutable' moral judgments on those heads,in the repudiation of the thief, the manslayer, and the rebel,* but their origin implies no peculiar internal faculty, but only a comm:n olntward situatibon As well might we contend for a universal intuition as suggesting the uniformity of structure in human dwellings. Morality is natural to man in the same sense as Language; both grew out of the social situation. 9. In the second place, mankind have been singularly unanimous in the practice of imposing upon individual members of societies some observances or restraints of purely Sentimental origin, having no reference, direct or indirect, to the maintenance of the social tie, with all the safeguards implied in it. Certain maxims founded in taste, liking, aversion, or fancy, have, in every community known to us, been raised to the dignity of authoritative morality, being rendered so to speak 'terms of communion', and have been enforced by punishment. The single instance of the Mussulman women's being required to cover their faces in public will suffice for the present to illustrate what is here meant. I shall dwell upon the point in detail a few pages hence. Nobody could pretend to associate the common safety with this practice, which is as authoritative in the mind of the Mussulman as any moral obligation whatever; sanctioned alike by the general community and by the educated conscience. In other societies, the same species of obligations may be traced. Here, however, the uniformity lies only in the fact of imposing somethiTng * We must not, however, be too strenuous in urging even this limitedposition. The rebel, if successful, is admired and honoured. Thieves and manslayers were hardly disapproved of in the Homeric times and in the middle ages. If seized, they suffered the full measure of private revenge from the parties concerned; but were not punished, as a matter of course, by law and society. RULES NOT ESSENTIAL TO SOCIETY. 273 not essential to the maintenance of society; the observances imposed differ as widely as human actions can be conceived to differ. Not only variety, but often contrariety, marks the detail of the special moral maxims thus originated. The ancient Greek held it as a sacred obligation to drink wine in honour of the god Dionysus; while the Nazarites among the Jews, and the Mahometans, held the opposite sentiment. The alimentary laws among various nations have been equally authoritative-often ceremonial laws, and even sumptuary prescriptions. The modes of regulating the relations of the sexes, which have been usually a subject of very stringent morality, have been various in the extreme; the only agreement has lain in making some one mode a matter of compulsory observance. The feelings respecting caste have generally got the footing of authoritative prescription, but there has been nothing constant in the special enactments on that subject. It would appear, therefore, that, in the rules suggested by public and common necessities, there is a certain uniformity, because of the similarity of situation of all societies; in the rules founded on men's sentiments, likings, aversions, and antipathies, there is nothing common but the fact that some one or more of these are carried to the length of public requirement, and mixed up in one code with the imperative duties that hold society together. We cannot obtain a clear insight into the foundations of morality, until we disentangle this complication, and refer each class of duties to their proper origin, whether in the good order of society, or in some sentiment that has become so predominant, as to be satisfied with nothing less than being imposed upon every member of the community, under the same penalties as those sanctioning the common protection. 10. Adam Smith, in his 'Theory of Moral Sentiments' has given a different turn to the doctrine of the Moral Sense, by laying down as the criterion of right, 'the sympathetic feelings of the impartial and well-informed spectator'. He considers, that when a person imagines to himself, how his 18 274 THE ETHICAL EMOTIONS; OR, THE MORAL SENSE. actions would appear to a disinterested witness knowing the whole circumstances, he thereby gains a correct estimate of their moral quality. One remark to be made on this modification of the intuitive theory of moral judgments is that, while allowance is made for the bias of the agent, the assumption is that the critic is free from error or mistake. But if we look at the matter closely, we shall see that there are dispositions to misjudge on the part of the spectator, as well as on the part of the actor. The desire of imposing restraints, or prohibitions, is stronger in the minds of most men than the sympathy with enjoyment, and the impartial umpire is apt to insist on an indefinite amount of self-denial. Another weakness of the spectator is the looking at an action as a piece of stage effect, or at what is called the interesting side, under which aspect the happiness of the agent is made of little account.* To constitute a good moral judge, one ought to have the same qualifications as are sought in a good legal judge,-special education, experience, coolness, impartiality, and the observance of all the maxims of evidence set up to protect the innocent. But the chief consideration remains. The objection against the Rational theories of Morals applies with all its force to Smith's theory. Where does the impartial spectator get his standard'? Where does he find the rules that he is impartially to interpret? A judge is provided by competent authority with a legal code; and the arbitrating spectator is supposed to be provided with a moral code. Now the whole point in dispute is the source or foundation of the moral code itself. 11. Next as to the principle of Utility. This is opposed to the doctrine of a Moral Sense. It sets up an outward standard in the room of an inward, being the substitution of a regard to consequences for a mere unreasoning sentiment, * 'A good man struggling with adversity is a sight for the gods'. A curious illustration this of the wish to make a striking spectacle out of the conduct of our fellows. Thus it is that the Spartan or the young American Indian would undergo physical torture, to gain the applause bestowed upon the exhibition by the members of his tribe. THEORY OF UTILITY. 275 or feeling. Utility is also opposed to the selfish theory, for, as propounded, it always implies the good of society generally, and the subordination of individual interest to that general good.* But what is the exact import of Utility as concerns * The statement of the principle by Jeremy Bentham as the 'the greatest happiness of the greatest number', has the merits, and some of the defects, if an epigram. A wrong bias is given from the very outset, in assuming it as Right to take away the happiness of a few to give the greater happiness to the many. Morality ought surely to treat all men alike. In its real province, which is, not the total Happiness as a whole, but Security or Protection, it actually does so. Bentham aimed the principle originally at class interests in Legislation, under which the greatest happiness of the smallest number was the determining motive of public policy. In Morals, Bentham opposed to Utility, first, Asceticism, and next what he called Sympathy and Antipathy, or the decisions of mere feeling, including the theories of the Moral Sense, the Fitness of Things, Right Reason, &c. He assumed that the production of pleasure, and the avoiding of pain, were the only positive ends, never to be set aside in any instance, except in order to secure them in some gTeater amount. To aid the requisite calculation, he endeavoured to classify and enumerate our pleasures and pains. I have elsewhere stated some of the difficulties attending the principle of Utility as thus expressed, but which do not affect its soundness as opposed to a Moral Sense. (See p. 88 of the Moral Philosophy of Paley, with additional Dissertations. W. and R. Chambers, Edinburgh.) Bentham would have contributed still more to the promotion of sound ethical discussion, if he had reversed the plan of his work, and entitled it 'On Legislation and Morals'. He would thus have put forward the more tangible, and more formally and officially constructed department of obligation, to elucidate clearly the less tangible and unofficial department. There is, as he saw, a precise parallelism between the moral legislation of society in its private action on individuals, and the public legislation through the government; and if this parallelism were closely traced, we should have a much clearer conception of moral obligation, properly so called. In both cases, punishment is the instrument and the criterion of the obligatory. Where the law does not prescribe a penalty, it does not make a duty; and so where other authorities and society generally do not think proper to punish, they do not constitute a moral rule. Then as to the origin of moral enactments, and the proper enacting authority, we ought to insist on having some positive declaration. Who is it that gives the law in this department to a community, and what is their right to do so founded upon? Is the authority a despotism, a limited monarchy, or a republic? Is public opinion appealed to, and open discussion permitted, before a moral bill becomes a moral law? Or have we received our code from a venerable antiquity, embodied in our religion, and shut up for ever from 276 THE ETHICAL EMOTIONS; OR, THE MORAL SENSE. morals? Some limit must be assigned to the principle, for it is obvious that we do not make everything a moral rule that we consider useful. It is useful to make experiments in Chemistry; but this is not a point of morality, unless it be a part of a man's professional duty undertaken and paid for. Jeremy Bentham wrote many useful books, but not because of his being obliged to do so under a high moral sanction. Many actions pre-eminently useful to society are performed out of the free-will and choice of individuals, and not from any fear, either of punishment, or of inward remorse. A distinction must therefore be drawn between Utility made compulsory, and what is left free. There are very different degrees of urgency in things known to be useful. The extinction of a blazing house, the arrest of a riot or tumult, the resistance to an invading army, are actions that press before all others. Among social actions, the first degree of urgency belongs to those already alluded to as essential to the very existence of society. 'Social security must be maintained as the highest necessity of men's existence in common fellowship; and whatever militates against it must be considered wrong. On this foundation we establish right, duty, or obligation-as attaching to obedience to law, fulfilment of compacts, justice, and truth; and we employ the sanction of punishment in favour of those classes of actions. reconsideration or change? Whatever the case is, let it be stated exactly as we describe the political foundations of our legal code. Moreover, we ought to have a written code of public morality, or of the duties imposed by society, over and above what parliament imposes, and this should not be a loosely written moral treatise, but a strict enumeration of what society requires under pain of punishment by excommunication or otherwise,-the genuine offences that are not passed. over. A system of morals for the guidance of the individual member of society, ought to be composed on the plan of excluding all the virtues that bring rewards, just as the articles of war omit all reference to the virtues of the soldier, and merely enumerate offences and crimes. The very interesting field of human virtue and nobleness should be treated apart, with all the aids that eloquence can bestow, a quality of composition that has no business to be present in a strict moral treatise, any more than in a criminal code, or a digest of justice-of-peace pro-cedure. UTILITY MUST BE QUALIFIED. 277 'Moreover, men desire, not the lowest security compatible with civil order, but a high and increasing security; and for this end, they put an especial stress on the comprehensive virtue of integrity. 'When something more than social security is maintained as an end carrying rightness and compulsion along with it, that something must be.a clear case of the promotion of the general happiness without any material sacrifice of individual happiness. A mere increase of the sum of enjoyment is not to be put on the same footing as the common safety'.* It is usual to distinguish between the necessary and the optional functions of government. Defence, security, the administration of justice, &c., are necessary; but whether the government shall undertake the support of churches, schools, theatres, pauperism, or the administration of roads, railways, or the post-office, depends upon a balance of considerations in each case. So it is with morals. Society must keep men to their word and punish the promise-breaker; but there is no absolute necessity for hereditary distinctions and castes, although it is quite open to any one to adduce arguments in their favour so strong as to justify a compulsory respect towards the favoured class, or to constitute this one of the terms of social communion. 12. It will be seen at a glance that one great objection to the enforcement of utility without exception, or qualification, is the consideration of individual Liberty. (A still greater objection is the fallibility of the social authority.) Every public enactment is a restraint put upon the free will of individuals; and the sum total of the pain and privation thus arising must be set against the positive utility of the measure. There are cases where public authority can do much positive good, at the expense of a small and unimportant amount of individual restraint, as, for example, carrying on postal communication; and in these instances interference is justified. There are other cases of a more debatable kind, such as religious and educational establishments, and the regulation of labour. In * Edition of Paley above quoted, p. 87. 278 THE ETHICAL EMOTIONS; OR, THE MORAL SENSE. a country where questions are settled by the general voice, after free and open discussion, it is difficult to find any other standard than the happiness of the population, as calculated by themselves. The common dislike to Utility as the standard, resolves itself into a sentimental preference, amounting to the abnegation of reason in human life. A man refuses to embrace some lucrative occupation because of family pride, and chooses a life of privation and misery instead; this is the false choice of sentiment as regards the private welfare of an individual. From a feeling of aversion not founded on any reason, I refuse the professional assistance of some one specially qualified to extricate me from a situation of misery; so presenting an example of the same antithesis of sentiment and utility. But there are sentiments reckoned so lofty, dignified, and ennobling, and there are utilities reckoned so low and grovelling, that it is conceived no comparison exists between the two. Thus the principles of justice, truth, and purity, considered in a certain ideal form, are supposed to predominate immeasurably over worldly prosperity. 'Let justice be done though nature should collapse', is the highest flight of sentimentalism.* In the case of the individual that would rather starve than abate a jot of his family pride, there is really nothing to be said; as a free man, he has made his own choice. If he does not involve any other persons in his destitution, his friends may remonstrate with him, but no one is entitled to go any farther. And so with any number of men, each carrying out in his own case, without detriment to others, a sentimental preference. Even supposing them to be much less happy than the emancipation from their peculiar liking or dislike would make them, still, as men beyond the state of tutelage, they must decide for themselves. A philanthropic reformer would doubtless wish, by an improved education, or in other ways, to free his * See an admirable criticism by James Mill, on the saying of Andrew Fletcher, that 'he would lose his life to serve his country; but would not do a base thing to save it '.-Fraciment on Mackintosh, p. 267. DOUBLE FOUNDATION OF EXISTING MORAL RULES. 279 fellow-citizens from the incubus of a deleterious sentiment, superstition, antipathy, or the like; but, so long as each one confines the operation of the feeling to himself, liberty is in favour of abstaining from anything like interference in the matter. But when one man endeavours to impose his likings or dislikes upon another, or when a mere sentimental preference entertained by the majority is made the law for every one, there is a very serious infringement of individual freedom on the one hand, with nothing legitimate to be set against it in the way of advantage. Herein lies the real opposition of the two principles, as applied to legislation and morality. If a man has a strong antipathy (like what prevails among large sections of mankind) to a pig, this is a good reason to him for not keeping pigs, or eating pork; but if a sufficient number join in the antipathy to make a ruling party in the society that they belong to, and carry the thing so far as to compel everybody to put away this animal, they convert a mere physical dislike into a moral rule, and thereby commit a gross outrage on individual liberty. This is very different from such an act as the public prohibition of the sale of arsenic. Nay, if one were to legislate for the American Indians, it might become a grave question whether or not alcoholic liquors should be utterly forbidden, simply because of the want of moral power in the natives to resist the indulgence, to their ruin. Such a measure would have utility for its plea. 13. The foregoing observations on the different Ethical Theories are intended to pave the way for this conclusion, namely, that the moral rules found to prevail in most, if not in all communities, are grounded partly on Utility* and partly on Sentiment. If we put aside the question as to the * Mr Mill, in the work above quoted, remarks that 'moral and immoral' were termns applied by men, primarily, to acts, 'the effects of which were observed to be beneficial, and which, therefore, they desired should be performed.' This is to affirm that all moral rules originally had reference to utility, well or ill considered. This impression is not an uncommon one. We observe a tendency in many writers to seek out some practical intention in the merest ceremonial usages, as in the system of ablution so prevalent as a religious rite. It is sometimes said in defence of the antipathy of the 280 THE ETHICAL EMOTIONS; OR, THE MORAL SENSE. legitimate and defensible basis of Morals, and ask simply what has given birth to the codes now, or. formerly, existing, we are, I think, compelled to admit that Utility is not the sole explanation, although forming a very important factor. If, however, we add Sentiment-and Tradition, which is the continuing influence of some former Utility or Sentiment-we can render a comprehensive account of the existing practices. The rules manifestly founded on Utility are all those that protect the persons, property, good name, &c., of the members of each society from violation; that enforce justice and the fulfilment of bargains and engagements; that uphold veracity and integrity; that maintain obedience to constituted authority;* that extend protection to the helpless; and so forth. 14. As already remarked, the cases of Sentiment converted into law and morality differ widely according to place and time. Some have their origin in sentimental likings carried to the length of public consecration, as the veneration of the Hindoos for the cow, out of which has arisen a compulsory homage, with severe penalties for disrespect. The Buddhist reverence for animal life is of the same nature. The abstinence of the Brahmins from animal food has been prompted by this sacredness.t Still more numerous are the moral white population of the United States to the persons of the free blacks, that this springs out of a wholesome dread of deteriorating the whole breed by mixture with an inferior race; to which the reply is, that the consideration of bringing forth a vigorous progeny has never been a ruling consideration in any known community, excepting ancient Sparta. It is usual enough to advance utilitarian pretexts for sentimental requirements, but the emptiness of such pleas is usually apparent. * Sentiment often lends itself to aid the duty of social obedience, whose real foundation is in the highest degree practical or utilitarian. The sanctity and divine right of monarchs and dynasties are scarcely extinct as feelings in the present day. Indeed, it is frequently said, that without the help of the religious sentiment, civil order could not be maintained. The question of retaining our Colonies is made to rest equally on Utility and on Sentiment. t The conflict of sentiment and utility is painfully exemplified in our position with the animal tribes. No feeling of our nature is more important to be cherished- than sympathy with other sentient beings, and yet, for our own preservation, we daily kill vast numbers of innocent and happy creatures. SENTIMENTAL ENACTMENTS. 281 enactments founded on dislikes, disgusts, or antipathies, to which human nature appears to have a peculiar apti--de and proneness. The natural cause of disgust is the putriO and loathsome filth accompanying animal life, the removaiof which constitutes cleanliness. The expression of aversion to these matters is the most energetic repugnance that we are in the habit of displaying. Strange to say, however, we are remarkably ready to give way to this strong expression, and even to get up cases of factitious uncleanness, having no real connexion with the above-named source. The enunciation of disgust is a favourite exercise, creating for itself objects to be vented on; precisely as the temperament overflowing with tender emotion finds many things to love. The objects thus sought out, need not offend the senses in any way; if they can only furnish a slight pretext for being called nasty or unclean, it is enough for letting off the charged battery of the powerful organ of disgust. Among strong antipathies made into moral rules, we need only refer to such instances as the dislike to the pig above alluded to. Many others may be quoted. For a Greek to disclose the mysteries would have been the worst of crimes. The Hindoo ritual is full of the means of purification from actions deemed unclean. The hatred to classes of men has often acquired the force of moral enactments. The system of castes implies an outcast population, which the privileged order prohibit their members from dealing with beyond certain limits. Foreigners have often come under this sentiment, as in the feeling of the Jews towards idolaters, and of white men towards negroes. The sentiment of detestation felt by a good Catholic of the fifteenth century towards a heretic was intense to a high degree; no crime against civil society could kindle so furious a flame. As regards unbelievers, the antipathy has persisted to this day. The Jews have come in for a plentiful share of the dislike of Christendom. Not only were these antipathies strong to the hurt of the objects of them, but some of them were enacted as obligatory upon all members of the community, so that any one harbouring the proscribed class, 282 THE ETHIICAL EMOTIONS; OR, THE MORAL SENSE. was made liable to the severest penalties. The hatreds of opposit/'religious sects have been sometimes so intense, that any ziddividual member showing a coolness on the point, exposed himself to serious danger at the hands of his co-,eligionists; we have seen this in the case of Roman Catholics and Protestants. There have usually been certain modes of indulgence, not at all affecting the welfare of society, that have excited feelings of dislike so strong and so influential, as to place them under the ban of authoritative morality. Wine and animal food have been the subjects of total prohibition. There has been a very prevailing disposition to restrict the indulgences of sex. Some practices are so violently dbhorred, that they are not permitted even to be named. Society is apt to look with a severe eye at unshared enjoyments generally, using odious terms, such as "glutton," to stigmatize a large eater, and denouncing the pursuit of wealth, and the love of praise, as unworthy springs of action. 15. I shall now advert, in farther illustration of the views here advanced, to the process of enactment of moral rules. This will bring into light what the advocates of a moral sense leave in the dark, the real imposing power, or the supreme standard to which the individual conscience has to adapt itself. History enables us to get at the origin of some parts of our actual morality, and by analogy we can surmise the growth of others. One well-known source of moral rules is the dictatorship of a religious prophet like Mahomet. Gaining somehow or other a commanding influence over a large community, such a one is enabled to prescribe the practices that shall bind the actions, and shape the consciences, of his own and future generations. The likings and dislikings personal to himself are mixed up with his views of public utility in the moral code that he carves out. Ask a Mahometan what is the standard to settle any differences that may arise among individual consciences, and he refers you to the Koran-in other words, to the dictatorship of Mahomet, modified only by THE MORAL LEGISLATOR. 283 the authorized interpreters of his writings. So, in China, Confucius is known to have given the moral tone and specific precepts to a section of the Chinese; and if we knew the origin of Brahminism and Buddhism, we might find in them too a similar dictatorial authority. But moral enactments have also sprung from civil authority embodied in a single person, who has rendered his judgments and feelings matters of obligation. Whether summoned, like Solon or the traditional Lycurgus, to settle a distracted society, or gaining power by hereditary ascendency or conquering might, a civil despot may sometimes not only regulate the public laws, but mould afresh the moral sentiments of his time. Thus it was that the religion of Europe, and the accompanying moral code, were changed by imperial potentates; in this case adopting what had been already promulgated from other sources. The assent of the community at large is necessary to complete the legislative process, while every new generation must be disposed to hold fast what has thus been delivered. The proper answer, therefore, to the question-' What is the moral standard?' would be, the enactments of the existing society, as derived from some one clothed in his day wqith a moral legislative authority. The very same remarks apply to reformers, and the founders of new sects generally, who, from causes quite assignable by history, have obtained influence over a body of followers. The conscience of the Quaker is regulated by the moral code received from George Fox, and continued in the society from his time. In such an instance as this, the popular concurrence was more self-prompted than in the ancient religious dictatorships, and there was tacitly reserved by the society a right to reconsider the original tenets. That part of our moral code relating to marriage, and the relations of the sexes, can be historically traced for the most part, and the responsibility of maintaining it in its present shape can be brought home to the proper parties. It is mere trifling to fill our imagination with an unseen, unproducible standard of morality; we need only to look about us and read history, to get at the real authority that now maintains, and the i1hat 284 THE ETHICAL EMOTIONS; OR, THE MORAL SENSE. originally prescribed, almost any moral precept now recognized as binding. Instead of treating morality as a whole, one and indivisible, let us take the enactments in detail:; and we can with reasonable probability ascend to the fountainhead in almost every case. 16. The change that has come over men's sentiments on the subject of Slavery, would prove an interesting example of the growth of new moral feelings. Until less than two centuries ago, the abhorrence of the usage of holding human beings as slaves did not exist; and now, the repugnance to the practice has almost reached the height of a moral sentiment. The process whereby this new and more liberal theory of the rights of humanity first shaped itself in the minds of scattered individuals, and came by degrees to leaven the mass, might probably be (and has been partially) traced out by the historian; and if so, we should have a sufficient account of the origin of one prevailing moral idea of the present time. This is a case that has just stopped short of the compulsory stage. Many people among us would willingly go the length of making anti-slavery opinions a 'term of communion,' and prohibit all intercourse with persons concerned in the practice; but the class holding such extreme views is not sufficiently numerous or influential to carry their point, and therefore the development of the feeling into a moral sentiment is not complete. The bill has not become law. Yet the example is no less good as an illustration; for any considerable addition made to the intensity of the feeling would probably suiffce to place it in the rank of the obligatory. 17. The abrogation of moral rules may next be adduced as a most illustrative fact. Either something has happened to modify the sentiments of the mass of the community, or a minority, becoming stronger, has made a successful revolt. Epochs like the Protestant Reformation, and the first French Revolution, are pregnant with such changes. When a restriction is kept up, not by the force of the law, but by the diffused feelings and usages of society, a number of persons banding together may set the general opinion at defiance, and trust to CONSCIENCE MOULDED ON AUTHORITY. 285 themselves for the mutual sympathy and support that we seek for in society. They will be excommunicated from the mass, they must look for no favours, but for the reverse, out of their own communion; but if their cause is a growing one, they may at last vindicate to themselves a full toleration, and so succeed in breaking up one item of social domination. It is thus that Dissent has got a footing in the midst of ecclesiastical establishments, that the Quakers have stood out against war-taxes, and the marriage laws. It was thus that Christanity broke up Judaism. 18. I have purposely deferred the consideration of CONSCIENCE, as a distinct attribute or faculty, from a conviction that this portion of our constitution is moulded upon external authority as its type. I entirely dissent from Dugald Stewart ^ai tne great majority of writers on the Theory of Morals, who represent Conscience as a primitive and independent faculty of the mind, which would be developed in us although we never had any experience of external authority. On the contrary, I maintain that Conscience is an imitation within ourselves of the government without us; and that, eveninen differing in wha it prescribes from the current morality, the mode of its action is still parallel to the archetype. The first lesson that a child learns as a moral agent is obedience, or acting according to the will of some other,person. There can be nothing innate in the notion thus acquired of command and authority, inasmuch as it implies experience of a situation with other human beings. The child's,,susceptibility to pleasure and pain is made use of to bring about this obedience, and a mental association is rapidly formed between disobedience and apprehended pain, more or less magnified by fear. The peculiarity attending the kind of evil inflicted, as a deterring instrument, is the indefinite continuance, or it may be, increase of the infliction until the end is secured. The knowledge of this leaves on the mind a certain dread and awful impression, as connected with forbidden actions; which is the conscience in its earliest germ, 286 THE ETHICAL EMOTIONS; OR, THE MORAL SENSE. or manifestation. The feeling of encountering certain pain, made up of both physical and moral elements,-that is to say, bodily suffering and displeasure-is the first motive power of an Ethical kind that can be traced in the mental system of childhood. There are other impulses in the mind that induce a regard to the feelings of others; but with respect to duty, strictly so called, the infant conscience is the linking of terror with forbidden actions. As the child advances in the ex-. perience of authority, the habit of acting and the dread of offending acquire increased confirmation; in other words, the sense of duty grovws stronger and stronger. New elements come to be introduced to modify this acquired repugnance to whatever is prohibited by parents and teachers, and others in authority. A sentiment of love or respect towards the person of the superior, infuses a different species of dread from what we have just supposed, the dread of giving pain to a beloved object. Sometimes this is a more powerful deterrent than the other. We call it a higher order of conscience to act from love than to act from fear. When the young mind is able to take notice of the use and meaning of the prohibitions imposed upon it, and to approve of the end intended by them, a new motive is added, and the conscience is then a triple compound, and begirds the action in question with a threefold fear; the last ingredient being paramount, in the maturity of the sympathies and the reason. All that we understand by the authority of conscience, the sentiment of obligation, the feeling of right, the sting of remorse-can be nothing else than so many modes of expressing the acquired aversion nd dread towarda, certain actions associated in the mind with the consequences now stated. Trace oufaswe may the great variety of fonrms assumed by the sentiment, the essential nature of it is still what we have said. The dread of anticipated evil operating to restrain before the fact, and the pain realized after the act has been performed, are perfectly intelligible products of the education of the mind under a system of authority, and of experience of the g6od and evil consequences of actions. If the conscience be moulded prin VARIETIES OF CONSCIENCE. 287 cipally upon the fear of punishment, the agony of remorse means simply the apprehension of the penalty incurred, as when the soldier has lapsed into a breach of military discipline, or when the worshipper under a religion of fear pourtrays to himself inflictions by the offended deity. If love, esteem, and reverence enter largely into the case, the remorse will correspond to the suffering endured from inflicting a wound on those we love, respect, or venerate. If the duty prescribed has been approved of by the mind as protective of the general interests of persons engaging our sympathies, the violation of this on our part affects us with all the pain that we feel from inflicting an injury upon those interests. 19. The Varieties assumed by the sentiment of obligation in individuals are quite endless, but every one of them may be referred to some intelligible origin in the constitution, or the experience and education, of each. The reference to a' narrow or a wide circle of interests marks out one important distinction; the opposition of the family to the community, and of the small society to the general welfare of mankind, brings out the relative strength of the contracted and the expanded regards. The feeling of obligation growing up in the smaller societies is very illustrative of the position I am contending for. Professional honour, or etiquette, in the soldier, or the lawyer,sometimes even conflicting with the general law, as in regard to duelling,-and the sentiments peculiar to special sects, or fraternities, are among the most obvious instances of the acquired nature of the sentiment of obligation. It is purely by means of the discipline exercised in each society over its members, and by the habitual ascription of praise to some actions and of blame to others, that the code of the society is stamped, on the individual mind, and gives birth to a conscience corresponding. The Religious conscience is characterized by the presence and predominance of the religious sentiment of mingled love and fear towards the Deity; and owes its power to this circumstance. The feeling of disapprobation would resolve itself 288 THE ETHICAL EMOTIONS; OR, THE MORAL SENSE. into the pain of displeasing an object of intense reverence. Again, when the benevolent impulses are the strongest part of one's being, the feeling of obligation is most severely ruptured by anything tending to inflict harm. Sometimes the mind inclines with special tenacity to the letter of the precepts of morality, so that a breach of form gives a violent shock of remorse; while others accustom themselves to look at the intention and spirit of the requirement, and feel most acutely any departure from this. If there were in the human mind a faculty of conscience by itself, we should not meet with such wide differences in the stress laid upon particular duties; the disposition rather would be, to obey with nearly equal strength of determination whatever was commanded by any recognized authority. 20. We must next take special cognizance of the selfformed or Independent conscience, or that variety of the moral sentiment that is not influenced either by fear of, or by reverence to, any superior power whatsoever. On the supposition that external authority is the genuine type and original of moral authority within, the difficulty would lie in explaining the cases where the individual is a law to himself. But there is nothing very formidable in this apparent contradiction. The sentiment, at first formed and cultivated by the relations of actual command and obedience, may come at last to stand upon an independent foundation, just as the student educated by the implicit reception of what he learns from his teachers, comes by and by to believe them, or disbelieve them, on evidence of his own finding. When the young mind, accustomed at the outset to implicitly obeying any set of rules, is sufficiently advanced to appreciate the motives-the utilities or the sentiment that led to their imposition-the character of the conscience is entirely transformed; the motive power issues from a different quarter of the mental framework. Regard is now had to the intent and meaning of the law, and not to the mere fact of its being prescribed by some power.,An intelligence of superior energy will occasionally detect some inconsistency.between the end professed and the precepts imposed, THE INDEPENDENT CONSCIENCE. 289 and take a position hostile to the existing authority in consequence. I will cite a few instances of the growth of independent judgments in matters of duty, to show how the mind, in emancipating itself from the trammels of-the derived sentiment of the obligatory, still adheres to the type of outward authority. A common case is the discovery of some supposed or real inconsistency between a-rule imbibed in the course of education, and some practice encountered in the world. The contradiction shocks the mind at first, but in the generality of cases is got over by the same implicit acquiescence that received the rule. There are, however, exceptional minds that cannot swallow contradiction in this easy way; they accordingly take an independent stand, by choosing either to abide by the rule, and repudiate what is opposed to it, or to fall in with the practice and repudiate the rule. Thus, for example, the literal interpretation of the precept 'swear not at all', has led the Society of Friends to refuse an oath in every form. Again, a person fancies that a moral rule is not so fully applied as it ought to be, and suggests cases where an extension should take place. For instance, some consider that the obligation of monogamy, as a Christian institution, implies that neither party should marry a second time. Having made up their minds to such an inference, they feel constrained to comply with it, in opposition to the common usage, with all the strength of:sentiment that they have imbibed from that usage in favour of the original doctrine. They are thus the followers of the prevailing opinions, even in the act of dissenting from them in some single instance.* * A man may, in the exercise of independent judgment, embrace views of duty widely at variance with what prevails in the society he lives in, and may impose these upon himself, although he cannot induce anybody else to accept them. This is the only case where conscience is a thing entirely detached from the sanction of the community, or some power external to the individual. Even then the notion, sentiment, or form of duty is derived from what society imposes, although the particular matter is quite different. Social obedience develops in the mind originally the feeling and habit of obligation, and this remains when the individual articles are changed. In 19 290 THE ETHICAL EMOTIONS; OR, THE MORAL SENSE. 21. I may next remark upon the sense of duty in the Abstract, under which a man performs all his recognized obligations, without referring to any one of the special motives above adverted to. There may not be present to his mind either the fear of retribution, the respect to the authority commanding, affection or sympathy towards the persons or interests for whose sake the duty is imposed, his own advantage indirectly concerned, his religious feeling, his individual sentiments in accord with the spirit of the precept, the infection of example,-or any other operating ingredient prompting to the action, or planting the sting for neglect. Just as in the love of money for its own sake, one may come to form a habit of acting in a particular way, although the special impulses that were the original moving causes no longer recur to the mind. This does not prove that there exists a primitive sentiment of duty in the abstract, any more than the conduct of the miser proves that we are born with the love of gold in the abstract. It is the tendeneS of association to erect new centres of force, detached from the particulars that originally gave them meaning; which new creations will sometimes assemble round themselves a more powerful body of sentiment than could be inspired by any one of the constituent realities. Nothing that money could purchase affects the mind of the money-getter so strongly as the arithmetical enumeration of his gains. So it is with the habitual sentiment of duty in a certain class of minds, and with the great abstractions of truth, justice, purity, and the like. These cannot be proved to be primordial sentiments; nevertheless, we find them in a very high degree of predominance in particular instances; and persons unaccustomed to mental analysis are apt to suppose that they must be implanted in our constitution from the first. such self-imposed obligations the person does not fear public censure, but he has so assimilated in his mind the laws of his own coining to the imperative requirements of society, that he reckons them of equal force as duty, and feels the same sting in falling. The votary of vegetable diet on principle has the same kind of remorse, after being betrayed into a meal of butcher-meat, that would be caused by an outburst of open profanity, or the breach of a solemn engagement. MORAL DISAPPROBATION, 291. The comparative rarity of such high-toned sentiments towards abstract morality, if duly reflected on, would satisfy any candid inquirer that they are not provided for in the original scheme of the mind; while the possibility of accounting for their development, wherever they occur, renders it unphilosophical to resort to such an hypothesis. 22. Hitherto, I have supposed the conscience to operate solely on the individual's own self-inciting to act, or punishing for neglect. But the exposition is not complete without referring to our moral judgments respecting the conduct of others, although there is nothing abstruse or difficult to explain in this new case. I must premise, however, in this connexion, that the inquiry should be as to the sentiment, not of moral approbation, but of moral disapprobation. I have said already, that a moral rule in the strict sense is not an optional thing, but is enforced by the sanction of some penalty. It is true that practical ethics is made to embrace precepts of human virtue and nobleness, which undoultey..deserve to be inculcated; but the compliance with those precepts constitutes merit and earns rewards, while the non-compliance does not entail punishment or censure. The question as to the morality of some line of conduct is-Does it inspire a feeling of disapprobation, as violating the maxims recognized to be binding? If so, the supposition is that the same sense of duty that operates upon one's own self, and stings with remorse and fear in case of disobedience, should come into play when some other person is the guilty agent. The feeling that rises up towards that person is a strong feeling of displeasure or dislike, proportioned to the strength of our regard to the violated duty. There arises a moral resentment, or a disposition to inflict punishment upon the offender. It is the readiness to punish, that forms the criterion of moral disapprobation, or marks the boundary between a moral sentiment and an allowable difference of opinion. This brings us round again to the first imposition of moral rules. A particular line of conduct is so intensely disliked for some reason, or for none, that we are prepared to resent it 292 THE ETHICAL EMOTIONS; OR, THE MORAL SENSE. and to hinder its performance with all our might. A majority of our fellow-citizens take the same strong view, and actually employ their power as the majority, to prevent it absolutely; whereby a new article in the moral code, of that community is set up. As a matter of course, any one committing the forbidden deed is disapproved of, and handed over to be punished. Every man, whose own conscience tallies with the prevailing moral rules, visits with his indignation the violations of these; whereas the man of independent views of duty, judges according to his own special convictions, whether in his own case, or as regards other persons; only, not having the community with him, he is powerless to enforce his judgments, inasmuch as the sentiment of an individual, though never so well founded, does not amount to law. 23. The phrase 'moral approbation', strictly considered, is devoid of meaning. As well might we talk of 'legal approbation'; it being known that the laws never approve, but only condemn. When a man does his duty, he escapes punishment; to assert anything more is to obliterate the radical distinction between duty and merit. It is freely admitted that there may be merit in the performance of duty, when the circumstances are such as to render this so very arduous that the generality of people fall short of it. A man may thus distinguish himself, and rise into the order of merit; but the exception here proves the rule, as showing that we praise what we think it would be hard or unreasonable to exact, require, or expect from everybody. Merit attaches itself only to something that is not our duty, that something being a valuable service rendered to other human beings. Positive beneficence is a merit. So with good offices, and with every kind of gratuitous labour for beneficial purposes. These are the objects of esteem, honour, *reward, but not of moral approbation. Positive good deeds and self-sacrifice are the preserving salt of human life; but they transcend the region of morality proper, and occupy a sphere of their own. What society has seen fit to enforce with all the rigour of positive inflictions, has nothing essentially in common with those voluntary efforts of human disinterested PERFECT AND IMPERFECT DUTIES. 293 niess and generous feeling that we characterize as virtuous and noble conduct, and reward with eulogy and monumental remembrance.* 24. In the present state of Ethical discussion, the objection most frequently urged against the doctrine of Utility is, that it supplies no motive but what is self-regarding, and therefore is not an adequate foundation of morals. There is some confusion of ideas on this matter; and perhaps the best preparation for clearing it up is to advert to the present position of the question concerning the existence of disinterested motives in the human mind. Under whatever name-sympathy, disinterestedness, social feel* There is a seeming conflict between the definition of duty here adopted, and the distinction between duties of perfect and imperfect obligation, corresponding to perfect and imperfect rights. 'An imperfect law,' says Mr. Austin, 'in the sense of the Roman jurists, is a law which wants a sanction, and which, therefore, is not binding. Consequently, it is not so properly a law, as counsel, or exhortation addressed by a superior to inferiors. 'Many of the writers on morals, and the so-called law of nature, have annexed a different meaning to the term imperfect; speaking of imperfect obligations, they commonly mean duties which are not legal; duties imposed by commands of God, or duties imposed by positive morality, as contradistinguished from duties imposed by positive law. An imperfect obligation in the sense of the Roman jurists, is exactly equivalent to no obligation at all; for the term imperfect denotes simply that the law wants the sanction appropriate to laws of that kind. An imperfect obligation, in the other meaning of the expression, is a religious or a moral obligation, The term imperfect does not denote that the law imposing the duty wants the appropriate sanction. It denotes that the law imposing the duty is not a law established by a political superior; that it wants that perfect, or that surer or more cogent sanction which is imparted by the sovereign or the state.' (Austin's Province of Jurisprudence Determined, pp. 23-25.) As thus explained, the so-called imperfect duties may still be duties in the fullest sense of the word; they may be enforced by society, if not by the law. They may, however, have this peculiarity, which is what Paley and others mean by the term, that they do not create corresponding rights. It may be a duty enforced by the social sanction (that is, by blame for neglect), to give charity, though no particular needy person can claim it from us. But, in the case of benevolent and philanthropic services, it is more correct to say that they are prompted by the rewards of society, and therefore come under merit, and not under duty. I must also advert to the doctrine, maintained more especially among Calvinists, that the utmost that even a perfect human being could do is strictly duty, and consequently that there is no such thing as merit. Upon this I would remark that such a tenet is not Ethical but Theological. 294 THE ETHICAL EMOTIONS; OR, THE MORAL SENSE. ings and regards, altruistic conduct,-I have always contended for our possessing impulses to act for the good of others. All utilitarians, so far as I know, have held the same view, although with some important differences. The reality of those feelings that carry us out of ourselves, and identify us with our fellow-members of Society, could not be more strongly nor more aptly expressed than in Mill's chapter on the Sanctions of Utility ('Utilitarianism', chap. III.). The firm foundation of the utilitarian morality, he says, is 'the social feelings of mankind; the desire to be in unity with our fellow-creatures, which is already a powerful principle in human nature, and happily one of those which tend to become stronger, even without express inculcation, from the influences of advancing civilization. The social state is at once so natural, so necessary, and so habitual to man, that, except in some unusual circumstances, or by an effort of voluntary abstraction, he never conceives of himself otherwise than as the member of a body', &c. The whole passage should be conned by every student of Ethics. With so strong an assertion of our social impulses, it may seem a matter of little consequence, how they are resolved, in the final psychological analysis. This would be so, provided the analysis given does not allow them to slip through. After displaying his usual subtlety in the discussion of the question, whether or not the disinterested impulses are, at bottom, egotistical, Mill arrives at the following conclusion: 'It results from the preceding considerations, that there is in reality nothing desired except happiness. Whatever is desired otherwise than as a means to some end beyond itself, and ultimately to happiness, is It springs not out of the relations between man and man, but out of the relations between man and God. I am aware that some have endeavoured to make the two fields of Ethics and Theology coincident. Thus Dr. Wardlaw, in his Lectures on Christian Ethics, censures the whole series of Ethical writers without exception-including men (such as Butler) no less attached to Christianity than himselffor not making the doctrine of the corruption of human nature the cornerstone of their respective systems. But to deprive morality of its independent foundation and make it repose upon religion, has been repeatedly shown to constitute a vicious circle. The science of Ethics ought, I conceive, to be constructed on broad human grounds, such as are acknowledged by men of every variety of religious opinion, and with reference to what one man can exact from another, as fellow-beings. Now, man must work by praise and blame, reward and punishment. When he works by punishment or blame, it is duty; when by praise or reward, it is merit; such are the very meanings of the words. So, if praise and reward are proper instruments, there must be such a thing as merit in a human point of view. SOURCE OF DISINTERESTED IMPULSES 295 desired as itself a part of happiness, and is not desired for itself until it has become so. Those who desire virtue for its own sake, desire it either because the consciousness of it is a pleasure, or because the consciousness of being without it is a pain, or for both reasons united; as in truth the pleasure and pain seldom exist separately, but almost always together, the same person feeling pleasure in the degree of virtue attained, and pain in not having attained more. If one of these gave him no pleasure, and the other no pain, he would not love or desire virtue, or would desire it only for the other benefits which it might produce to himself or to persons whom he cared for.' This conclusion may, or may not, be sufficient for the purpose of upholding the social feelings; but, so far as I am able to judge of our disinterested impulses, they are wholly distinct from the attainment of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. They lead us, as I believe, to sacrifice pleasures, and, incur pains, without any compensation; they positively detract from our happiness. It will be allowed that in any action deserving of the name disinterested', we surrender a certain portion of our own pleasure, for the benefit of another. It will also be allowed, that in such surrender, it often happens that we do not, as a matter of course, attain an equal pleasure. Sometimes we do; as in rare cases of strong affection, and in cases where the sacrifice can be made up by the mere pleasure of pity, or by the thankfulness of the recipient. Mill's position is tenable only on the ground, that the omission of a disinterested act that we are inclined to, would give us so much pain that it is on the whole for our comfort that we should make the requisite sacrifice. There is plausibility in this supposition. If we feel ourselves urged to perform a certain act, the not doing it gives us pain. But as in the former case-the attainment of pleasure by beneficent conduct-the doctrine breaks down when we try it upon extreme cases. A man goes forward to certain death, like the sergeant that suspended the bag of gunpowder on the gate of Delhi. Are we to suppose that if he had kept back, and survived, his remorse would have been so great that all his future life would have been worse than death? Or when any one resigns a congenial position, for a distasteful one, to gratify a parent's whim, is it solely because the pain of refusal would be greater than the dislike of the new situation. All that people usually suffer from stifling a generous impulse is too slight and transient to be placed against any important sacrifice. If Howard had remained at home, enjoying the pleasures of his position, he would, I doubt not, have been a much happier man, in spite of his longings to relieve the miseries of mankind. These longings would have been an abatement from his pleasures, but need not have made his life miserable as compared with his actual career. 296 THE ETHICAL EMOTIONS; OR, THE MORAL SENSE. It seems to me that we must face the seeming paradox-that there are, in the human mind, motives that pull against our happiness. It will not do to say that because we act so and so, therefore our greatest happiness lies in that course. This begs the very question in dispute. The theory of disinterested action, in the only form that I can conceive it, supposes that the action of the will and the attainment of happiness do not square throughout. There is an exceptional corner, not very large in the mass of men, where motive and happiness come into conflict. When once we allow this, human action becomes intelligible; there needs no straining to account for the extreme instances of disinterested conduct, the greatest nobility of virtue. This is the only view compatible with our habit of praising and rewarding acts of virtue. If a man were in as good a position, under an act of great self-denial, as if he had not performed it, we might leave him unnoticed. If he has rather gained than lost by the transaction, he could dispense with any reward from us. No doubt it might be said that the anticipated public approbation was part of the case, the turning circumstance that made the action not a losing one. Here again, however, the observation recurs, that while for small sacrifices, the motive may be sufficient, for great sacrifices, it is wholly inadequate; while some of the greatest sacrifices of all have failed to gain public approbation. Our genuinely disinterested acts are often performed without calculation, without a thought of what we are to gain or lose; and, if there be calculation, the consciousness that we shall lose does not deter us. It is impossible that what we do, under those circumstances, shall be exactly compensated in pleasures and in exemptions. Whether they will or will not, is no part of our consideration; does not count in our motives. In our less purely devoted moods, we do calculate and consider, and the loss to ourselves enters into our decision. Even then, we may deliberately incur uncompensated loss; we seldom suppose that the pain of an omitted act of beneficence would be so hard to bear, that the heaviest loss is not too much to buy it off. I hold, therefore, that human actions include all the following classes, over and above purely self-seeking conduct, or what is called selfishness:-First, actions done to others for the positive pleasure they bring. Second, actions done to others, because their omission would leave a sting behind. Third, actions done to others, irrespective of either pleasure or pain; this alone is the pure or typical form of disinterested conduct, and without a certain share of this, society would not be held together. What is the relative proportion of the three classes could hardly be stated for an individual mind; and there are the greatest differences between one man and another. But each class is a sensible quantity in the sum of human action. RECONCILIATION OF DUTY AND INTEREST. 297 In the antithesis between Selfishness and the Social feelings, all the three must be counted: so that, practically speaking, their sum total constitutes our disinterested regards in the widest sense. When there is a question between the narrowest exclusive selfishness and a beneficent act, any one of the three kinds of motives may turn the scale. Now, when the existence of beneficent regards is conceded, and especially, if we admit the last of the above-named classes of motives, beneficent actions must follow as a matter of course. They are not dependent upon the theory of Ethics that we choose to adopt; they are, in fact, above all theories. The Utilitarian does not make them, he counts upon them. Neither does he, or can he, abolish them. The system that tampers with them most seriously is the Theological. On one view, Theological Ethics seems the most beneficent of all; it is most stringent in requiring individual self-denial for the sake of others. But in so far as this is enforced by the rewards and punishments either of the present life, or of a future life, the operation of the system is purely self-regarding. In the thunders of eternal reward and punishment, there cannot be heard the still small voice of a purely disinterested motive. The attempt to condemn the principle of Utility in particular, as supplying no motive to do good to others, can be retorted upon the holders of every known theory. Altruistic conduct springs out of the constitution of the mind, and this cannot be altered by theories. If the disinterested motives are weak, something may be done to educate them, and to evoke them; but for us to apply reward and punishment, is to set them aside. We may by rewards and punishments make men perform their social duties; but such performance is by that fact rendered self-regarding. To obtain virtue in its highest purity, its noblest hue, we have to abstain from the mention of both punishment and reward. 25. A much graver difficulty is brought out at the conclusion of Mr. Sidgwick's admirable work, entitled, ' The Methods of Ethics.' It is one of the best achievements of that work to have for ever disposed of the opposition between Intuitional Ethics and Utility. Yet, as the end of the whole matter, Mr. Sidgwick is obliged to confess that there is a fundamental contradiction, an insoluble difficulty-the difficulty of reconciling duty and interest. The meaning of Duty is something 'good for others,' not 'good for me'; and why should I be sacrificed to another man? Even though there is a motive in my constitution that urges me to self-sacrifice, why am I in particular to be oppressed with another man's burdens? Let every one bear his own burden, is the dictate of reason and justice. It is rather too much for an ethical philosopher either to charge himself with this great problem, or to challenge any of his fellow 298 THE ETHICAL EMOTIONS; OR, THE MORAL SENSE. workers to solve it. A difficulty so great cannot be new. Indeed, it is but a branch of the oldest of all questions-the existence of evil. It admits of no exact solution. As the difficulty has always been felt, let us ask in what ways it has been met. For one thing, society, being well aware that duty often involves sacrifice, has always endeavoured to make compensation by rewards. That good men should suffer for the shortcomings of bad men, has been deemed an anomaly to be rectified to the utmost possible degree. The framework of human life has been considered as in need of being improved, until such time as all men should have their deserts. Next to the attainment of perfect justice is the distributing of defalcations equally, instead of making victims of a few. Thus, one of the ways of dealing with the difficulty is the ideal perfecting of society. Another mode is'exactly represented by Mill's theory of virtue, to which, according to him, mankind are to be educated more and more, namely, to derive a real pleasure from noble conduct, so that it shall not be felt as a sacrifice. If any large number of persons could attain the state of mind implied in Mill's glowing picture of the future, the overplus of spontaneous good actions would make up for all the deficiencies; and self-sacrifice in the literal sense would be unnecessary. There have been rare instances of martyrs and heroes so intoxicated with their own virtue, that they were happier in their self-devotion than in any sphere of successful worldly selfishness. It is too much to say that this is the usual operation of great virtue upon the mind. Such men are exceptionally constituted, and the kind of self-denial must be such as to chime in with their peculiar bent. A third device is to regard Self-denial, and not happiness, as the end of being. We are constituted, it is said, to bring about the good of others, and to find in that our own good. This, however, is merely a more confusing form of the previous statement. Instead of solving, it only repeats, the difficulty. Yet it has satisfied many persons who have been shocked by St. Paul's declaration that, if there were only a present life, Christians were of all men the most miserable. No doubt the question still recurs, what is B more than C, that C should make up for B's deficiencies 7 To increase happiness is an intelligible position; and one of the most effectual modes of increase is mutual interchange of benefits. But the interchange should be mutual and equal; the taking from one simply to give to another is unproductive labour, aggravated by injustice. The inculcation of unbounded Self-denial is to be regarded as an extreme statement of the happiness value of reciprocal good offices. It is found that, to reap the precious fruit, disinterestedness must sow the seed. Like putting water into a pump to make it draw, we must make a venture in order to gain a return; and the DUTY RECOMPENSED BY SOCIETY. 299 best venture of all is to be under a disinterested impulse. That is the best state of mind for the initiating of the work. On the other side, the recipient should so respond that the giver is not allowed to lose by his action. There should be a mutual rivalry; the giver not thinking of reward, the recipient determined not to be behind with reciprocal services. The situation involves something of a psychological paradox, not without parallel in the workings of the mind. There should be disinterested conduct freely offered and bestowed, and yet it should not pass uncompensated. The giver should not expect compensation, and should, nevertheless, obtain it. We cannot dispense with the disinterested initiative, and we are bound to see that the actor has his recompense. It would appear, therefore, that the standing determination on the part of society to make such arrangements as to repay all sacrifices, is the only solution yet offered of Mr. Sidgwick's enigmathe only Moral Cosmos. That this determination has been deplorably weak and ineffective in the past, must be granted; innumerable hecatombs of victims have been sacrificed, and we have not yet seen the end of it. We acknowledge that all this is not as it ought to be; and we strive to do better for the future. Whether the victims of by-gone ages have had, or will have, any recompense, is a question that must be met by considerationra beyond the sphere of Ethics. THE WILL. CHAPTER I. THE PRIMITIVE ELEMENTS OF VOLITION. IN my former volume, I sketched briefly what seems to me the foundation or germ of volition, in our mental constitution. (INSTINCTS, ~ 24.) In a subsequent page (CONTIGUITY, ~ 51), I adverted to the acquired character of the voluntary control of our movements in mature life. The soundness of these views will be put to a severer test in the course of the present Book, in which it is proposed to go into a full detail of the various classes of volitions. In this preliminary chapter, I shall examine at length the two fundamental component elements of the Will,.set forth in the passages above referred to. These are, first, the existence of a spontaneous tendency to execute movements independent of the stimulus of sensations or feelings; and, secondly, the link between a present action and a present feeling, whereby the one comes under the control of the other. THE SPONTANEITY OF MOVEMENT. 1. Both the character of this Spontaneity, and the proofs of its existence, have been stated in Book I., Chap. I., of the previous volume. It is there laid down, that movement precedes sensation, and is at the outset independent of any stimulus from without; and that activity is a more intimate and inseparable property of our constitution than any of our sensations, and, in fact, enters as a component part into every one of the senses, giving them the character of compounds, while itself is a simple and elementary property. A series of proofs is offered in favour of this position,-such as the physiological fact of a central discharge of nervous energy where no stimulus from without is present as a cause; the activity of the involuntary muscles displayed in the maintenance of the respiration, the circulation of the blood, &c.; the 304 THE PRIMITIVE ELEMENTS OF VOLITION. circumstances of awakening from sleep, wherein movement, as a general rule, appears to precede sensation; the early movements of infancy, and the activity of young animals in general; the activity of excitement; the occurrence of temperaments of great activity with comparatively low sensibility. These facts were dwelt upon, as leading irresistibly to the conclusion, that there is in the constitution a store of nervous energy, accumulated during the nutrition and repose of the system, and proceeding into action with, or without, the application of outward stimulants or feelings anyhow arising. Spontaneity, in fact, is the response of the system to nutrition-an effusion of power of which the food is the condition. A farther illustration of the doctrine is furnished by what takes place in parturition. Here the uterus is prepared for the final act by the growth of muscular fibres, which are by degrees developed to a mature state, and at. the moment of their maturity begin to contract of their own accord for the expulsion of the foetus. No circumstance can be assigned of the nature of a stimulus to commence this act. Neither the size attained, nor the pressure of the fluid, nor any other agency that might be supposed to operate, by mechanical contact or otherwise, upon the surface of the uterus, can be fairly assigned as the condition that determines the womb to contract. We have therefore no alternative, but to suppose that when the active apparatus has reached the point of perfect maturity, the inherent power of the organ spontaneously discharges itself in the act of parturition. Nor is there anything intrinsically improbable, or unreasonable in this mode of considering the manifestation of active power in the animal frame. The muscles when fed with their proper aliment, and the nervous centres when charged with their peculiar power, are in a condition predisposed to give forth any active display; and, although this activity is most usually and most abundantly brought into play by the stimulus of our various feelings, there is no reasonable ground for supposing that a dead stillness would be maintained, and all this pent-up energy kept in, because every kind of outward prompting was withheld. ELEMENT OF SPONTANEITY. 305 But besides this, the facts of the case are so strong as not to be easily gainsaid. Perhaps the most striking are those furnished by the initial movements of infancy, and the restless activity of early years generally, and of the young and active members of the brute creation. The bursting and bounding spirit of exercise, in these instances, is out of all proportion to any outward stimulants, and can be accounted for only by a central fire that needs no stirring from without. Next in point of evidence is the state of delirium, under which a rush of power flows from the centres with an almost total insensi-- bility to all around. The only mode of representing such diseased excitement, is to suppose that the nervous system is in an extraordinary degree disposed to pour out its vital energy; just as, in the state of health, there is a proneness to keep up a moderate discharge. I have a difficulty in imagining any strong case against the doctrine in question, nor can I seize upon any fact to show that the animal system waits for something to affect the senses, and to rouse up a painful or pleasurable excitement, before it can pass into activity. On the contrary, experience proves that the active tone and tension of the moving members is never entirely at a stand while life remains; not in rest, nor in sleep, nor in the most profound insensibility that ever overtakes us. We must thus recognize central energy or activity as a fundamental and permanent property of the system; and, being once established, we are at liberty to suppose that it may show itself in a variety of ways. 2. What I mean to affirm, therefore, with a view to explain the origin of voluntary power, is that, taking the different regions of activity, or the different groups of moving members, these begin to play of their own accord, and continue in action so long as the central stimulus is unexhausted, or until a new direction is given to it. The most notable of the groups of moving members is the Locomotive apparatus, on whose spontaneity I have already remarked. 'This involves (taking vertebrate animals in general) the limbs, or the anterior and posterior extremities, with their numerous muscles, and the trunk of the body, which, in all animals, chimes in 20 306 THE PRIMITIVE ELEMENTS OF VOLITION. more or less with the movements of the extremities. In the outburst of spontaneous action, locomotive effort (walking, running, flying, swimming, &c.) is one of the foremost tendencies, having the advantage of occupying a large portion of the muscular system, and thus giving vent to a copious stream of accumulated power.' The varied muscular endowment of the human arms and hands is prompted into action in the same way, and leads to the execution of many different gestures, and to the assumption of complicated positions. The movements of the trunk, neck, and head, which usually chime in with locomotion, may also take place apart from it. The alternation of the jaw is an independent prompting of the spontaneity. The mouth and features, where so many muscles participate, may be played upon by a distinct emanation; and the very important movements of the eyes, to which a large amount of cerebral power is devoted, can doubtless spring up in isolation from the general activity of the frame. 'The utterance of the voice is unequivocally owing, on many occasions, to mere profusion of central energy, although more liable than almost any other mode of action to be stimulated from without. In man, the flow of words and song; in animals, the outbursts of barking, braying, howling-are often manifestly owing to no other cause than the "fresh" condition of the vocal organs.' * 3. As a condition of the commencement of voluntary power, the organs that we afterwards command separately or * Other groups are, the muscles of the abdomen, which, besides their connection with the play of the trunk, have important functions in relation to the alimentary canal. 'When the pelvis and thorax are fixed, the abdominal muscles can constrict the cavity, and compress its viscera, particularly if the diaphragm be made to descend at the same time, as occurs in vomiting, or in the expulsion of the foetus, of ftaces, or urine.' These actions, though sometimes automatic, are also voluntary in their nature, and have to be acquired from the same original element of spontaneity as the rest. The perinual group could be dwelt upon as illustrative of the different points now under consideration. They are so far voluntary in their character as to be brought into play to serve the purposes of the animal, but they are incapable, it would appear, of being separately commanded. It seems not to be in our power to put forth an effort in regulating one of the outlets of this ISOLATED SPONTANEITY OF THE MOVING ORGANS. 307 individually, should be capable qof isolation fromn the outset. For example, I can direct the fore-finger to perform any movement by itself; I cannot do so with the third finger. We have seen that from the original organization of the system, the muscles are grouped and connected in various classes, so that it is much easier at first to perform a plurality of movements together, then to prompt one member while all the rest of the body is still. But if this principle of connexion were absolute, no such thing as an isolated action could ever be started; there behoves to be also a certain degree of separation and independence, such as to render it possible for a wave of energy to affect one or a small number of muscles without extending to others. Such separateness manifestly exists, although in very different degrees, throughout the system. The isolation of the forefinger is an instance of the highest degree. We can see in the crude movements of infancy, that this finger receives an independent stimulation from the nerve centres, while the other fingers generally go together. The isolation of the thumb is something intermediate, being less than what distinguishes the fore-finger. The toes go all together, and, although it is not impossible to isolate them, as we may see from cases where, in the want of hands, human beings have learnt to write and manipulate with their toes, there is so little original separateness to proceed upon, that the acquisition must be very laborious. The four limbs are grouped so as to be available for locomotion, more especially in quadrupeds, but still the structure is such as to render it possible to isolate the movements of each limb; a central stimulus can proceed to one, without involving the whole. The fore limbs, in quadrupeds, are more endowed in this particular than the hind limbs; while, in the human subject, the arms are but slightly conregion withQut affecting the muscles of the other at the same time; a fact implying that the link of primitive connexion is not broken through by an individualizing discharge of the spontaneous influence. Possibly, however, the individualizing impulse may occur at rare intervals, so that, if the mind were on the watch at those times, a beginning of separate action might be made; but this is not a region where we are interested to make such special acquirements. 308 THE PRIMITIVE ELEMENTS OF VOLITION. nected with the lower extremities in the locomotive rhythm, and are extremely impressible by impulses of the individualizing kind. The linking of the two arms is a primitive conjunction, causing them sometimes to alternate, and sometimes to be raised and lowered in conjunction; yet, in the depths of the nervous organization, there is an arrangement permitting either to be acted on without the other. The flow of cerebral power can occasionally reach the single channel requisite for raising the right arm, while the other remains unmoved; were this not the case, we should never attain the voluntary command of them singly. The movements of the trunk and head are apt to go in union, but not so as to exclude the possibility of isolating them; single movements may be performed as well as combined ones; implying distinct primitive currents from the organs of central power. The flexions and extensions of the trunk, and the various motions of the head, are of this independent character in the higher animals, although belonging to an organized system of rhythmical action. The separability of the different groups of active members is of a very high order, notwithstanding the tendency of the entire bodily framework to act together whenever any one part takes a lead. Thus the Voice is in a great degree isolated, so as to be the subject of an exclusive stimulation. The same may be said of the Tongue, the Mouth, and the Jaw. The tongue is an organ of great natural activity, being endowed with many muscles, and having a wide range of action; the nervous communications between it and the brain are considerable; and the isolation of its movements in the primitive discharges of spontaneous power, corresponds to the remarkable degree of voluntary control subsequently acquired. A like capability of isolation belongs to the movements of the eyeballs, which come very early to the stage of mature volition. If these movements were so closely linked with others as the five toes are linked together, it would be exceedingly difficult to attain a voluntary command of the act of vision. We see the proof of this in the united action of the two balls, which can NECESSITY OF A SPONTANEOUS BEGINNING. 309 never be broken up; no provision apparently existing for confining a nerve current to one at a time. The case is different with the eyebrows and eyelids, which, although prone to act together in opening and closing the eyes, are yet so far liable to separate promptings, that we are able ultimately to command each without the other. The group of activities contained under the designation of the features of the face, are both conjoined and separate. The mouth, the nasal muscles, and the eyebrows are disposed to work together, and the two corresponding sides have, as just remarked, a very great tendency to conjoint action; but there is still a sufficient amount of occasional isolation, to furnish a basis for a confirmed voluntary command of any one apart from the rest, as in the education of the actor. It is thus manifest as a fact, without which the growth of volition seems altogether inexplicable, that the central brain can discharge its power in solitary streams for the stirring up of single movements, and that, while a great number of outlets may appear to be open, one is preferred to the exclusion of the rest. This property of exclusiveness in the currents is compatible with other attitudes of the nervous centres, under which entire groups of members are moved simultaneously, or in orderly alternation. In some organs, as we have seen, the possibility of isolation is very limited; in others, the opposite holds true: in the first, voluntary control comes with difficulty, in the second, with ease. To illustrate the necessity of spontaneous beginning of movement, as a prelude to the command of the will over the particular organ, I may cite the External Ear, which in man is usually immovable, although possessed of muscles. Here we have the absence of a central stimulus from the commencement, and consequently no power of bringing about the effect. Instances sometimes occur of persons able to move their ears, as most quadrupeds can do very readily, and the only account that we can render of this exceptional operation of the will, is to suppose that, from the outset, a proper nerve communication has been established between the brain and 310 THE PRIMITIVE ELEMENTS OF VOLITION. the aural muscles, whereby these have shared the spontaneous stimulation of the other voluntary muscles. Should the organ at any time be moved of its own accord, that is the instant for establishing a beginning of voluntary control, and if the attention were directed upon it every time the spontaneous impulse was repeated, we should in the end bring this part of the system into the same subjection as the other voluntary organs. Circumstances governing the spontaneous discharge. 4. It is requisite for the further prosecution of the present inquiry, to advert specifically to the conditions that determine the degree of vigour of the central discharge. We have to prepare the way for rendering an account of those occasions when the will operates with a promptness of energy resembling the explosion of gunpowder. The first circumstance deserving of mention is the Natural Vigour of the constitution. There are, as we have seen, men and animals so constituted as to give forth a more than usual stream of activity; and all creatures have their periods of greater or less abundance of discharge. Youth and health, the plentiful nourishment and absence of drain, the damming up of the accumulating charge by temporary restraint,-are predisposing causes of a great and sudden outburst, during which the individual's active capability is at the highest pitch. We see this well illustrated in the daily experience of children, whose exuberance is manifested at their first awakening in the morning, after meals, and on release from lessons. On all such occasions, we see evidently nothing else than the discharge of an accumulated store of inward energy. It is not any peculiar incitement from without that is the cause of all this vehemence. The effect is explosive, like a shot, or the bursting open of a floodgate. It would not be difficult at those moments, indeed it would be the natural thing, to perform some great feat. The boy let out from school, incontinently leaps over ditches, breaks down barriers, and displaces heavy bodies; and should these operations be required at the GRADUATION OF THE SPONTANEOUS DISCHARGE. 311 moment, no special or extraordinary stimulus would be needed to bring the requisite power into play. The next circumstance to be considered is what is termed Excitement. This means an unusual flow of the central nervous energy, brought on by various causes, and followed by exhaustion or premature loss of strength. It is a property apparently co-extensive with mental life, that, by some means or other, the ordinary and enduring currents of activity can be converted into an extraordinary discharge of short duration at the expense of the future. When we speak of an excitable nature, we mean an especial proneness to this fitful or spasmodic exaltation. The exciting causes are sometimes physical, as intoxicating drugs and stimulants, disease, &c., and sometimes mental, or such as operate through the senses and emotions, including a large proportion of our pleasures and pains. Whatever may be the cause of a state of excitement, one effect arising from it is an increase in the vehemence of all the spontaneous impulses occuring at the moment. Any action then performed, is done with might. Hence, when an occasion for a vigorous display springs up, one way of preparing the system to meet it, is to induce a general excitement of the system; this, directed into the requisite channel, supplies the additional succour that is wanted. The class of proper mental stimulants demands a special consideration. First in order, we must place the causes of Pleasure. Whether under the law of Self-Conservation, or under the supplementary law of Stimulation not conservative, whatever gives us pleasure gives at the same time an exalted tone to some portion of our vitality (INSTINCTS, ~ 18). If the pleasure be great, a general excitement overtakes the system, in which the muscular energies must participate. If it be acute, and still more, if it be sudden, the stimulus is of a very powerful kind. A sudden stroke of success elates both mind and body, and prepares for a discharge of active energy. In the second place, mere Pungency is a stimulus. A 312 THE PRIMITIVE ELEMENTS OF VOLITION. smart shock not pleasurable, and yet not painful, wakens up activity and quickens all the movements for the time. A horse may be stimulated to a leap by a touch of the whip or spur at the right moment. The rattling drum, a loud bell, sharp screams, sudden flashings of light,-excite the whole body through the single sense. The exciting effect of quick movements, even when limited to a single organ, has been formerly dwelt upon. A hurried articulation, or rapid glances, throw the body into a general fervour; all the movements are quickened. Thirdly, Pain is a stimulus, within certain narrow limits. If we keep out of view its action on the will, which is the phenomenon to be explained, the more nearly it is confined to neutral pungency, the better it answers its end. Resistance, obstruction, or opposition, is a stimulus to the active powers; this, however, is probably not an original, but a derived effect. Any contact upon a sense surface excites reflex and other movements, and the more intense the contact (with qualifications), the more violent the movements. Again, being thwarted or baulked in some object, inspires renewed efforts; which may be farther augmented by the rousing emotions--Pride and Anger. 5. These various circumstances prepare the way for an explanation of the compass and flexibility, so to speak, of the spontaneous outflow of nervous influences. We see various modes of prompting large effusions to meet those emergencies where an ordinary or average flow would be insufficient. Nor is it difficult to understand how we may contract habits of emitting the higher discharges upon particular occasions; for this part of our constitutioni is as much subject to the great principle of adhesive association as any other. To bring on an active burst in the first instance, the presence of some of the powerful agents now described would be necessary; but after a time, the effect would come at the instance of some other circumstance having of itself no efficacy to exalt the active tone. The horse at first demands the spur and the whip to prepare him for a leap; by-and-by the sight of the EMOTIONAL PROMPTINGS TO MOVEMENT. 313 barrier, or the ditch, is enough of itself to draw out an augmented stream of cerebral energy. To strike a heavy blow with a hammer implies an association between a mere ideathe breaking down of a barrier, or the driving of a bolt-and a rush of nervous energy towards the muscles of the arms and trunk; but even with the firmest association, such as is found in the educated artizan, if it is attempted in cold blood, a little time is required to work up the system to the due strength of discharge. A very sudden blow can be struck, either after being once in heat through a certain continuance, or under a passionate burst, as fright or rage. In a hand-tohand fight, for example, when the blood is up, the combatants are already under a torrent of excitement. What may be called the volitional constitution is identical with a copious central emanation of active power; the volitional acquisitions are such as connect firmly the different degrees of central discharge with the signs and signals denoting the amount called for by the various emergencies of life. LINK OF FEELING AND ACTION. 6. The mode of operation now supposed, although, as I conceive, absolutely essential as a part, is certainly not the whole fact that we term volition. A second element is wanting for giving direction to those spontaneous workings, in order to invest them with the character of purpose or aim, belonging to the proper actions of the will. In my former volume (INSTINCTS, ~ 26), I endeavoured to find out the rudiment of the LINK BETWEEN FEELING AND ACTION, and traced it to the law that connects pleasure with increased vitality, and pain with diminished vitality-the law of Self-Conservation. From this root there are two branches, which diverge, but yet occasionally come together. One branch is the proper Emotional manifestations, the other enters into Volition. The Emotional manifestations have been fully described. They consist partly of movements, of all degrees of energy; and, consequently, in them we have one link at least between 314 THE PRIMITIVE ELEMENTS OF VOLITION. Feeling and Action. A painful smart awakens us to activity; a refreshing draught gives rise to vivacious movements, called the expression of pleasure. But these movements, while distinct from central spontaneity, are not movements of volition. Their selection follows one law, the preference of the will follows another law. 7. It may be demanded, whether a movement commenced under emotional excitement is fitted for eventually coming under voluntary control. Almost all the members of the body are brought into action, in displaying the stronger degrees of emotion; the arms gesticulate in many modes, the limbs are thrown out and retracted, the trunk and head are agitated in many ways, the features are especially acted on, the voice is stimulated, the muscles of respiration are affected; in short, it would seem as if no movement were left dormant in the round of our various manifested feelings. Why, then, it may be asked, have recourse at all to the doctrine of pure spontaneity, in order to obtain a first commencement of action, in the members destined for subjection to voluntary control? As the chief difficulty seems to be to make the muscles act anyhow at the outset, or previous to that cementing process which gives them a definite and purposed direction, it is but natural to inquire if these promptings of the emotional excitement would not furnish the needful starting-point. Thus there are two views presented of this preparatory stage in the development of volition; one, the indeterminate spontaneity expounded above, the other the determinate expression of our special emotions. Notwithstanding that this latter hypothesis provides one veritable origin of movements, I still think it necessary to recognize the other and more primordial source, namely, the spontaneous occurrence of central discharges independent of emotional excitement. In support of this view, I refer in the first place, to the proofs already adduced for the fact of spontaneity, amounting to a force of argument not to be set aside. We have direct and sufficient evidence, that there is such a thing as a tendency to put forth muscular power, in the STONTANEITY THE PREFERABLE START. 315 absence of any emotional wave whatsoever; and this being a genuine and distinct fact of our constitution, we shall find in it a more suitable starting-point for the will than in the emotional movements. If an additional argument.were necessary, I might recur to a circumstance already insisted on, as appertaining to those movements that are developed into volitions; namely, the need of an isolated prompting in the first instance, as distinguished from an aggregate prompting. It is the character of an emotional wave to impart movement to a number of organs at once; while there seems no possibility of initiating voluntary control, unless we can catch an opportunity of a member moving by itself. We have seen that this last is the distinction of the fore-finger, and of several other parts; but the concurrent stimulation of many organs at the same moment, which is the peculiarity of an emotional wave, makes the feelings a bad school for beginning the work of voluntary ascendency over every separate individual member of the active system. 8. This preliminary question being disposed of, I turn to the second, or volitional branch of the Law of Conservation (see INSTINCTS, ~~ 28-31). We suppose movements spontaneously begun, and accidentally causing pleasure; we then assume that with the pleasure there will be an increase of vital energy, in which increase the fortunate movements will share, and thereby increase the pleasure. Or, on the other hand, we suppose the spontaneous movements to give pain, and assume that, with the pain, there will be a decrease of energy, extending to the movements that cause the evil, and thereby providing a remedy. A few repetitions of the fortuitous concurrence of pleasure and a certain movement, will lead to the forging of an acquired connection, under the law of Retentiveness or Contiguity, so that, at an after time, the pleasure or its idea shall evoke the proper movement at once. This is the thesis to be made good by a full detail of examples, in the two following chapters. Let us now attend mere particularly to the operation 316 THE PRIMITIVE ELEMENTS OF VOLITION. of pleasures and pains for stimulating activity for ends, in other words, volition. We find the assumed primordial tendencies at work all through life, and in that circumstance we have the best proof of the doctrine that assumes them. And, first, of Pleasure. It is known that a delight tasted urges us to continue and add'to it, and that without deliberation or delay. Approaching an agreeable warmth when chilly, we find ourselves giving way to an immediate impulse; we do not wait for the formalities supposed to attend a decision of the will: it takes an effort on our part to resist the movement so long as the pleasure is increasing. An equally convincing example is seen in the act of eating. The taste of food, by an immediate response, adds energy to mastication; the relish of extreme hunger, conjoined with a savoury morsel, operates with a species of fury. So in any other sense. The turning of the eyes to a light is a remarkable instance; the attraction for a flame works from the first dawn of volition and never ceases; humanity seems to share in the fascination of the moth. In the pleasures of children, we see how energetically they run after a tasted delight, whether exercise, sport, or the enjoyments of sense. In the transformation of Will named Desire, the primitive ugency is convincingly apparent. When we can no longer follow in act the lead of pleasure, we are spurred ideally into unbounded longings. There is no limit to the urgency of pleasure begun. Satiety means, not that the system has ceased to be moved by enjoyment, but that we have run up to the bristling point of some pain. Such I conceive to be the general statement of the facts. The exceptional appearances may be accounted for. Thus, there are pleasures that calm down our active excitement; as warmth, repletion, and the massive pleasures generally. But these cases still conform to the law. There is an arrest put on a painful or morbid activity; a new action or attitude is assumed in accordance with the pleasure, and is kept up and adjusted for increasing it to the utmost. We seem to be passive; but, in point of fact, repose is the essential condition LAW OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. 317 of our enjoyment. Let any one endeavour to drive us out of our quiescent and comfortable state, and our action would prove.by the energetic resistance and return, how great is the power of the pleasurable stimulus. The awakening of one asleep is sufficiently illustrative of the point. Still these pleasures have something exceptional in the fact that, under them, we are satisfied and contented, and in a measure exempted even from the longings of desire. One reason may be that we have attained the maximum of delight belonging to them, and can only spoil it by farther exertions, real or ideal. But there is probably another reason. The states of massive enjoyment, not acute, are accompanied with a gradual quiescence of the nerve currents, in other words they are of a soporific character; neither active exertions nor ideal longings are promoted by them. They are our serene, satisfying, unexciting pleasures. They are the pleasurable obverse of smarting pains. Another case where pleasure does not stimulate activity, is when the strength is exhausted. Voluntary pursuit implies a certain freshness of the active organs involved. When worn out with fatigue, hunger, or disease, our limbs do not readily answer to the spur, and the relish of felt pleasure is counterworked by the pain that active exertion would induce. Thus it is, that even under a considerable excitement in the way of agreeable fruition, our weakness or our indolence may keep us quiescent. Next, as to Pain. We have seen that the primary and general influence is to abate energy. The exceptional operation of acute smarts in stimulating energy, has been sufficiently dwelt upon. In pain, the vitality altogether is lowered; but the state being one of irritation and unrest, movements of some sort are kept up. Still, the typical effect of pain is what is seen when any activity of ours is the cause of pain, and when the abatement of that activity follows as the remedy; as when we are stopped by a prickly hedge, or by knocking against a stone wall. The infliction of pain seldom fails as a cure for over-action. 318 THE PRIMITIVE ELEMENTS OF VOLITION. The case of too great inertness or inactivity, is not so directly met by pain, unless by the rousing efficacy of the smart, inducing a spasmodic and temporary effort. The difficulty here lies in showing how pain can resign its function of abating the active energy, to take up the proper function of pleasure, and stimulate continuous exertion. My opinion is that the operating element in this case is not the pain, but the relief from pain, which is, in effect, pleasure. In the state of suffering, any movement bringing a partial remission is kept up and augmented, exactly as when pleasure starts up out of indifference. A diminishing pain and a growing pleasure are the same as regards the raising of vital power, and the continued plying of the happy instrumentality. In labouring whether for the actual, or for the ideal, abatement of pain, the sustaining influence is the feeling of relief, in fact or in prospect. The exhausted traveller, if he gave way to the direct agency of the sensations of fatigue, would sit down by the road; his flagging powers are kept up by the idea of the better rest at the end of the journey. We all know what a powerful tonic to the depressed system is the promise of speedy relief, and that, in the absence of hope, pain puts forth in naked display, its real function of damping the active energies. It is to be considered how far the theory of the Will here advanced is affected by the doctrine of Evolution, as stated by its chief expositors. My leading postulates-Spontaneity, the Continuing of an action that gives Pleasure, and the Contiguous growth of an accidental connexion,-are all involved in Mr. Spencer's explanation of the development of our activity. It would be strange to me if they were not. The spontaneous commencement is expressed by him as a diffused discharge of muscular energy ('Psychology ', v 1. I., p. 544). He considers that as nervous structures become more complicated, every special muscular excitement is accompanied by some general muscular excitement. Along with the concentrated discharge to particular muscles, the ganglionic plexuses inevitably carry off a certain diffused discharge to the muscles at large; and this diffused discharge may lead to the happy movement suitable to some emergency. THE WILL AS EXPLAINED BY EVOLUTION. 319 This is the doctrine of Spontaneity in a very contracted shape; too contracted, in my judgment, for the requirements of the case. I have adverted to the inferiority of the diffused wave accompanying a central impulse, whether active or emotional, such as is here assumed. If another source of chance muscular movements can be assigned, and if that source presents advantages over the diffused discharge, we ought to include it in our hypothesis. The question then resolves itself into the sufficiency of the proofs that I have urged in favour of the doctrine of Spontaneity, as I have repeatedly explained it. Mr. Darwin expresses what is tantamount to the spontaneity of movement thus:-' When the sensorium is strongly excited, the muscles of the body are generally thrown into violent action'. 'Involuntary and purposeless contractions of the muscles of the chest and glottis, excited in the above manner, may have first given rise to the emission of vocal sounds' ('Expression', pp. 82-3). This is spontaneous commencement under circumstances of strong excitement; but I have endeavoured to show that excitement is unnecessary, and that spontaneity is a fact of the ordinary working of the organs. The second indispensable requisite to voluntary acquisition, as well as to the consolidation of instinctive powers, is some force that clenches and confirms a successful chance coincidence. M.Spe ncer's view of this operation is given thus:-'After success will immediately come certain pleasurable sensations with an accompanying large draught of nervous energy towards the organs employed'. 'The lines of nervous communication through which the diffused discharge happened in this case to pass, have opened a new way to certain wide channels of escape; and, consequently, they have suddenly become lines through which a larger quantity of molecular motion is drawn, and lines which are so rendered more permeable than before.' 'The tendency for the diffused discharge to follow these will obviously be greater than before.' Here is assumed the Law of Pleasure and Pain. Pleasure is accompanied by heightened nervous energy, which nervous energy finds its way to the lines of communication that have been opened up by the lucky coincidence. There is assumed as a consequence, the third of the above postulates-the contiguous adhesion between the two states, the state of feeling, and the appropriate muscular state. The physical expression given by Mr. Spencer to tlhis result, is, I have no doubt, correct-' the opening up of lines of discharge that draw off large amounts of muscular motion'. There is a stage in the growth of the will when, under the spur of pleasure or of pain, we consciously put forth some trial movements, and consciously change and vary them, till the end is attained. This is not, so far as I can make out, a primary fact of the constitution. I have assumed it to be acquired in the individual's life-time. It may, however, be an instinct; that is, on the theory of evolution, 320 THE PRIMITIVE ELEMENTS OF VOLITION. an inherited experience. What is more likely still, it may exist at birth as a feeble tendency, quickly matured by experience. The course of growth that we have assumed would in time lead up to this point; and, being once established in the individual, might become hereditary and instinctive. Probably it appears too soon in the infant to be wholly acquired. This is the earliest form of the consciousness of efforqt, which is so often introduced into the transcendental explanatlii;~sT the will. An end is in view; there is a motive urgency present, but an absence of directing power. We know from experience that movement of some kind is the bringer of pleasure and the dispeller of pain; we are therefore urged to begin moving, although quite at random: if the movement succeeds, it is kept up without conscious effort, although it may also be aided by conscious effort. If it fails or makes bad worse, there is the same double influence to stop it; the primordial feeling, and the conscious exertion. This conscious effort is no doubt the prominent fact of the will in mature life; but instances in abundance have been given to show that the primitive link of feeling and action is never suspended. Another form of Effort is exemplified in struggling against obstacles, or doing what our powers are scarcely equal to. A strong motive is present, but there is also a strong resistance. We are ready to give up the attempt, and but for the strength of motive would do so. We are said to make a great effort, to exert ourselves, to show great resolution, determination, or strength of will; all which means that the motive is matched by the opposition. Again, a motive is often counterworked, not by a physical difficulty, but by another motive; as when we struggle against the temptation of some present pleasure, which it is imprudent or otherwise vicious to indulge in. We are urged by the virtuous motive on one side, and opposed by the allurement of pleasure on the other. If the resistance to our good impulse be nearly, but not quite equal, to the power, we suffer the pain of conflict, or have the feeling of a struggle; in other words, we are conscious of a great moral effort. Another important aptitude of our mature Will-the Graduation of expended force--may be in part instinctive. It must be so in the lower animals; their powers of locomotion, and the various exertions that they are soon capable of, in shifting for themselves, involve, not only the selection and grouping of the appropriate movements, but also the instinctive graduation of energy. The power of readily assuming different degrees of discharge would be acquired in the course of spontaneous and random trials, but if utterly wanting at birth, it would probably take a very long time to grow. Yet it is not sufficiently confirmed to assert itself without a number of experiences, conducted upon 'the old rule, the ancient plan' of trial and error, in which it first had its being. CHAPTER II. GROWTHII OF VOLUNTARY POWER. 1. THE foundations of Voluntary Power being thus assumed to be (1) Spontaneity, (2) Self-Conservation, and (3) Retentiveness, I now proceed to show the rise of the superstructure. What we have to explain is the educational process of connecting definite feelings with definite actions, so that, in the furtherance of our ends, the one shall command the other. As in the exposition of the Feelings, we commence with Muscular Exercise. Here we have the pleasures of exercise in the fresh condition of the muscles, and the pains of fatigue. The operation of these upon the will is remarkably simple. Thus, as regards Exercise. Spontaneous movements being commenced, there follows a pleasurable consciousness, with the accompaniment of heightened vitality, or a greater stimulation than mere spontaneity would give birth to. The law of Conservation here operates in its primitive simplicity; prior to any education, it suggests the course that the educated will would follow. The link between action and feeling, for the end of promoting the pleasure of exercise, is the precise link that must exist from the commencement; the pleasure results from the movement, and responds, by sustaining and increasing it. The delight thus feeds itself. The same simple character belongs to the operation of the pains of Fatigue. Without the protracted groping and tedious acquisition necessary in most instances, the pain brings its own remedy under the influence of self-conservation. Muscular expenditure is the cause of the evil, the diminution of this is the remedy, and is what the pain directly involves. Every sentient being, under the experience of painful fatigue, passes into quietude of its own accord. We can, however, find instances, in connexion with the 21 322 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. muscles, exemplifying the acquired powers of the will. Take the pain of Restrained movements, as when spontaneity is checked by confinement. Under self-conservation, this pain would not suggest the true remedy, but would rather work the contrary way; action, and not quiescence, is the thing needed. We must here suppose the rise of an accidental movement, of such a kind as to extricate the creature from the confined position; as when, by turning itself round, an animal finds an open door; the movement once commenced is kept up under the elation of relief, until perhaps another obstacle re-instates the pain. The round of spontaneity brings new tentatives, and the successful are again singled out and promoted, so long as they yield relief. If, now, we suppose that some one definite movement is a constant remedy for the pent-up irritation, as when an animal has every day to make a way out of the same confined spot, the repeated connexion between the feeling and this one movement (at first accidentally stumbled on) would end in a firm association between the two; there would be no more fumbling and uncertainty; the random tentatives, arising through spontaneity and the spasmodic writhing of pain, would give place to the one selected and appropriate movement, and we should have a full-grown volition adapted to the case. 2. Proceeding next to the Sensations proper, we begin with Organic Life. The muscles, besides the feelings belonging to their distinctive function, are liable, in common with the other tissues, to pains from injury and disease. These pains were used to typify the whole class of acute physical pains, and a full description was given of the characters of the class. We shall here notice their alliance with voluntary action. At the outset of life, no special connexion exists between any one kind of physical suffering and the actions calculated to relieve it; there is the general tendency to abate vitality on the whole, qualified by spasmodic outbursts from nervous irritation. All the special remedies must arise through the usual procedure of the education of the will. For illustration, let us suppose a hurt in any part of the body exter SENSATIONS OF ORGANIC LIFE. 323 nally, as by a sharp point or a scald. The spasmodic excitement accompanying the pain (partly reflex and partly emotional), would tend to movements that might withdraw the member, but that possibly might aggravate the mischievous contact., I cannot look upon these movements under a reflex stimulus, or under the excitement of an emotional wave, as at all protective; they might be so on one occasion, and not on another. I conceive that the rise of a protective volition, in the above case, is typically shown by supposing that a limb is in pain through proximity to a hot body, and that in the course of random spontaneity the limb is withdrawn by an isolated impulse. The sense of relief would then operate to continue and heighten the impulse. Let a similar conjunction happen a second time. We should still have to wait upon the accidents for the commencement of the proper retractation, and might long wait in vain; but once the commencement did take place, bringing with it the same fedling of relief, there would begin to be formed a link of association, which would go on strengthening with each subsequent conjunction. It is by some such procedure that we at last learn definitely to withdraw each member of the body from a painful contact. A mere reflex stimulus might operate the wrong way; the educated will operates with equal energy, and with the needful precision. This constitutes one class of our voluntary acquirements in connexion with acute pains. It is impossible to say what number of chance conjunctions are requisite to generate a contiguous adhesion strong enough to raise us above the uncertainties of the spontaneous commencement. Much depends on the felicitous singling out of the proper movements; any irrelevant accompaniments would stand in the way of the correct union. If the proper movement is never wholly separated from others, the isolating association must depend on its being present more frequently than any one else. This obstacle being got over, the progress would be favoured by the mental excitement of the feeling of relief We know how, in after life, a happy conjunction, 324 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. following after many ineffectual trials, strikes home at once and solves the difficulty for ever. A curious example of volition at a loss is seen in one of the characteristic muscular pains. An attack of cramp in the limbs does not suggest the alleviating movements. Owing perhaps to the rarity of the experience, we have not usually a full-formed volition whereby the state of suffering induces at once the best mode of attaining relief; we are thus thrown upon the primitive course of trial and error. This proves, by contrast with the last-named examples of retractation from a painful contact, the dependence of voluntary power on education. An established link between a cramp in the calf of the leg and the proper actions for mitigating the agency, is as great a desideratum as drawing up the foot when the toe is pinched or scalded.; yet no such link exists, until forged by a course of painful experience. The connection in the other case is so well established from early years, that it is commonly regarded as instinctive; yet why should there be an instinct for one class of pains and none for another of even greater average severity? The likely explanation is that we are more favourably situated for the process of acquisition in the one case than in the other. Among sensations of organic life, I may cite Thirst as remarkable for the urgency of its pressure upon the will. Infants cannot at first perform the act of drinking liquid from a vessel. In the lower animals the proper acts have been established as instincts. 3. The feelings of the Lungs have been seen to be extremely intense. The most characteristic state in connexion with the organ is suffocation, in its various degrees of virulency. The voluntary action required for aiding in such an emergency is to reinforce the movements of the chest. The ability to do this is not likely to be possessed in early infancy. Probably the requisite command of the chest by voluntary agency is first got in some other connexion, and transferred to the present case. One cannot always undertake to state precisely the feeling that brought each voluntary movement first into regular VOLITIONS OF THE ALIMENTARY CANAL. 3256 use; because when a movement has got established in one connexion, we then find it much easier to bring it into other connexions than to make the start from the original void. It may be that the child first learns to make forced inspirations and expirations to relieve the pains of oppressed breathing; seeing that these pains are very urgent, and that spontaneous impulses are very likely to come towards the muscles of the chest on some of these occasions. There can be no doubt that any alleviating impulse, co-existing with such intense suffering, would be maintained and speedily associated for after times. Possibly, too, the grateful feeling of fresh air, newly encountered after in-door confinement,. may be the occasion of learning to heighten the breathing, action, by superadding the voluntary impetus to the involuntary movements of the chest; the opportunity being favourable for the rise of spontaneous impulses. The use of those voluntary efforts of breathing is so exceedingly various, that the order of their acquisition may not be at all uniform. The feelings of Warmth and Chillness inspire the mature animal to numerous precautions. The commencement of some definite procedure dates from an early period of life. I formerly quoted the case of the infant drawing close to the warm body of the nurse. Animals soon find out that the crouching attitude promotes warmth. By a like experience, accidental in the commencement, adhered to by the spur of felt relief and the operation of the associating bond, other devices are attained. Lying close to one another, creeping into holes and shelters, are portions of the acquired experience of the animal tribes, employed to stave off the miseries of cold, or to retain the satisfaction of warmth. 4. I come next to sensations of the Alimentary Canal. These are necessarily the centre of a wide circle of voluntary exertions, and furnish apposite examples of that obscure initial stage of the will which I am now labouring to bring to the light. The earliest actions involved in imbibing nourishment are to a great degree reflex, but a certain amount of volition is present at the very beginning, and rapidly extends its sphere. 326 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. The act of Sucking is generally said to be purely reflex in the new-born infant. The act of swallowing remains reflex to the last. But, as I have said before, the giving over of sucking, when there is no longer any relish, is volition in the germ,that very typical fact that I have all along insisted upon as representing the whole. The proceedings of the infant at this stage are most instructive. The volitional stimulus, sustaining a movement once begun, so long as pleasurable gratification is the consequence, must be pronounced to be in operation from the first hour of life, if it be a fact that the ceasing to suck is at all dependent on the child's own feelings. It may be that the purely reflex action that upholds the first efforts is not amenable to the feelings, and that some time elapses ere those spontaneous impulses that arise from the cerebrum, operate and come under the control of a concurring wave of sensation. But whatever be the exact moment when a present feeling first influences a present action, that is the moment of the birth of volition. We reach this point by inward growth. Having reached it, the education of the will is thenceforth a process actually begun, and ready for improvement. Sucking is the only power exerted by the infant in connection with its own nourishment, at the opening of sentient existence. There is, in the act, a participation of the movement of the lungs; for it is the partial vacuum, created in the expansion of the chest during inspiration, that determines the flow of milk to the mouth. If all the actions concerned,-viz., the closing of the lips and nostrils against the ingress of air, the aiding movement of the tongue, which by an air-tight contact with the opening of the nipple would cause a flow of liquid on being pulled away, the inspiration made a little stronger to make up for the extra resistance to be overcome,-were purely and wholly reflex, both on the first application of the mouth to the breast and on succeeding occasions, they never could become voluntary, any more than the action of the heart or the intestines. As in the breathing action in general, there must be a certain amount of reflex or automatic movement, with a mixture of VOLITIQN IN SUCKING. 327 spontaneous impulses from the cerebral centres, ready to be seized by the concurring painful or pleasurable wave that they are found to tell upon. The muscles of the mouth, the tongue, and the chest, are pre-eminently voluntary in their nature-the tongue especially; as is seen, both from the great range of their acquired effects, and from the disposition of the youngest infant to move them copiously and variously. I rely on these considerations as explaining why the act of sucking is so soon adopted from the reflex into the voluntary, and made subject to the feelings of relish and satiety. We see from an early date that the child does not suck merely because it is put to the breast; showing that volition proper has commenced, that in fact the automatic impulse is no longer the sole cause. Probably a regular course has been gone through, whereby the digestive feelings have been completely associated with the active mechanism of sucking, so that hunger brings that mechanism into play, and satiety or distaste suspends its action. We cannot directly verify the stages of the acquisition in this particular instance; at least, I cannot pretend to have done so by any specific observations of my own. The stages subsequent to the very earliest are more open to observation. Thus the child at first, although able to suck when the nipple is placed in its mouth, is utterly powerless to find the breast, just as in the case of the newly-dropped lamb. After some time, we see it directing its head properly and applying the mouth exactly to the nipple. A wide compass of acquisition has been gone through in the meantime. I can describe the process only, as I have already done many times over, by saying, what seems to me consistent with all the appearances, that the child makes spontaneous movements of the body, and finds that these bring it towards the breast and the nipple; that the primordial nexus supports these movements when they are felt to bring gratification in their train; and that they at last become so well associated with the sensation as to be brought on at once when that is present. There is an additional element here, which I am anxious not to introduce yet, namely, acting for a prospective pleasure, 328 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. and going through a process of several steps, of which the last alone yields the result sought. 5. Next to sucking comes the process of Mastication. Here we have, in the first instance, the play of the tongue for rolling the morsel in the mouth. The full maturity of the will is soon arrived at in this case; the strong feeling of taste and relish on the one hand, and the peculiar readiness of the tongue to come into action on the other, speedily develop a fixed joint alliance. The tentatives are accompanied with less than usual complication or ambiguity. We must suppose that, for fostering the association of the two elements in question, the most favourable case is when a feeling strong and unmixed co-exists with the one single movement that immediately tells upon it, all other organs being perfectly still. The circumstance that indicates cause and effect in experimental philosophy-the isolation of the sequence-is the thing that enables the primitive volitional instinct to operate fairly, and to begin the permanent alliance that constitutes voluntary power. Now the movements of the tongue seem to be remarkably distinguished for independence or individuality. There is no other organ less disposed, either to be a follower of collateral organs, or to drag those into action with itself. The child has got in its mouth a sugary morsel. If no movement of the tongue arises at that moment, as is quite possible, the morsel will simply melt away at random. No doubt every infant passes through a number of those experiences during its pre-volitional age. Should, however, an impulse arise at such a moment to elevate the tongue, so as to press the morsel to the roof of the mouth, an accession of pleasure is instantly felt, which accession is the antecedent for inducing the continuance of that special movement. As I have repeatedly said, the more isolated the active impulse has been, the more unmistakable is the conjunction. Should the child, for instance, by a burst of cerebral spontaneity, execute at the same time some other movement, perhaps even more decided than the one supposed, the augmented pleasure might lead in the first instance to the continuance of that movement. MASTICATION. 329 It might be a movement of the fingers, or of the arm, or of the eye-balls. The mistaken coincidence would for a moment sustain and perpetuate the wrong impulse. But then comes in the correcting power of the situation; for the absence of any farther enhancement of the agreeable sensation would permit the false accompaniments to drop, from the want of farther encouragement, and the true cause might then make itself apparent. The use of the jaw in chewing is necessarily late with the human infant. This circumstance counts in favour of the easy commencement of the voluntary effort; inasmuch as practice improves all the spontaneous tendencies. When the child begins to chew, the same feeling of enhanced pleasure that promoted the activity of the tongue sustains the co-operation of the jaw; experience then cements the connection between the sensation and the movements proper to prolong and increase it. A nauseating or bitter morsel has exactly the opposite tendency, arresting and almost paralyzing the concurring action of the jaw and tongue at that moment, and vehemently stimulating any other that may happen to arise of a kind to give relief. The entire process of mastication is thus an example of the spontaneous passing through the usual stages into the voluntary. The members employed have in a high measure the characteristic of individualizing spontaneity; while the sensibility developed is of that strong and commanding sort that renders the experiments very telling and decided. The consequence is, that after a brief probation, marked with the usual struggles, the child enters upon the full voluntary control of the masticating organs; as soon as a morsel is felt in the mouth, it is moved about, and carried backwards, under the increasing relish, until it finally passes into the pharynx. Throughout the alimentary canal, the propulsion is involuntary until the termination, when the will again comes into play. In this final act, also, we might elucidate the general principles of voluntary acquisition, all which are fully applicable to the case. The commencing helplessness, the spontaneous movements laid hold of and 330 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. sustained, when happening at the right moment, the confirming of the link of association after repetition, and the fullgrown volition at last, might all be pointed out as belonging in a very manifest way to this part of our mature ability. In these observations on the influence of the alimentary sensations, I have so far involved the sense of Taste, as to leav,. little to be said regarding it. Sweet and bitter tastes operate in the same way as relishes and disgusts. In addition to the exertions of the tongue and jaw now described, we acquire at a later period the more difficult act of ejecting an ill-tasting substance from the mouth. Prior to this attainment, the child can do nothing but cease to masticate, and with an open wry mouth hold the morsel suspended, perhaps let it flow out of the lips, as we see constantly. In vain do we tell an infant to spit the thing out; we anticipate its voluntary education, which has not yet reached that point. It is affirmed by Hartley that children cannot hawk, spit, or blow the nose for some years. 6. The sensations of Smell contribute their quota to the elucidation of our theme. The sweet and agreeable odours prompt to the exertion for continuing the enjoyment of them, if such an exertion is once hit upon. Hence we contract the habit of snuffing the air when laden with freshness or balmy scent. This is an energy of the lungs, coupled with the closing of the mouth to confine the stream to the channel of the nose. The reinforced action of the lungs is probably one of the spontaneous discharges that come to be linked very early with the feelings that are influenced by it; I have alluded to it already in the case of relief from suffocation. If this were the only act necessary to inhale a fragrant odour, the young child, or animal, would soon have the necessary connexion established for the performance of it on the right occasion. But, as just remarked, when two acts quite independent of each other must concur to an effect, the probability of their doing so at the right conjuncture is so much less as to delay the commencement of the acquisition. If there were any cause, besides random spontaneity, at work SMELLING. 331 for bringing about the embrace of feelings and actions appropriate to them, these compounded movements might be initiated as quickly as the simple ones. The tardiness in their case coincides perfectly with what we should expect under a system of chance beginnings, but not with any theory that affirms the existence of a more express provision for getting the voluntary powers under way. The snuffing up of a pleasant odour would soon be attained, if the lungs alone could do it; the spontaneity of an increased respiratory action is frequent enough to come into the lock of the pleasurable sensation, and to be thereupon sustained until an alliance for the future has made some progress. The inhalation of air, however, with never so much vigour, is of no avail with an open mouth, and the firm closure of the lips is not at all likely to happen at the same moment. Hence the power of smelling actively is a late acquirement, as observation shows. Usually, I think, this power is delayed until the child is far enough advanced to be amenable to instruction, or, at all events, until the mouth is subject to voluntary command through other connections. Nearly the same remarks apply to ill smells. To abate the pain caused by them, a strong expiration has to be guided exclusively into the nostrils by closing the aperture of the mouth. This is the proper voluntary accompaniment of the state. The emotional manifestations, so distinctly marked through the untiring play of the muscles that elevate the wing of the nose, have seemingly nothing to do with the mitigation of the cause of the evil. No tendency grows out of these to check the course of the deleterious current; if any, the contrary result would arise. 7. We approach next the fertile theme of the sense of Touch. The sensations of this sense that serve as antecedents in volition, are numerous, and of great practical moment. Some of them were adverted to under the general class of acute pains, but the consideration of them was not exhausted. The characteristic pleasure of touch has been seen to be soft and extended contact, as with the underclothing of the body, or the bed-clothes at night. To these we must add the further 332 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. feelings of the love embrace. The movements for bringing on the requisite contact are the most elementary of any, the earliest to commence by spontaneity, and the most liable to be stirred up in the discharge of the daily store of gathered power. The swing of the limbs, arms, and trunk, is never neglected for a single day in the healthy state; the central power collected over night in a robust infant, would not find adequate vent if it had not an opening towards the larger muscles of locomotion. Thus it is that the spontaneity of these parts is regular in its occurrence. Consequently, when a feeling of an agreeable kind-such as a soft warm contact-is induced under some movement, it is not difficult to unite the two into a matured volition. The chances of a tolerably frequent concurrence, and the decided nature of the conscious result, are the two conditions that specially promote a speedy bond of association. The least favourable part of the case, perhaps, is the want of uniformity in the effect of the action. The contact being sometimes on one side, and sometimes on the other, we cannot associate it with any one motive impulse. We must, in fact, associate it with a great many, until such time as we learn to localize our sensations, that is, to connect each part of the surface of the body with the special movements that protrude or retract that particular part. Before this point is reached, we must resort to the never-failing resource of trial and error. Hitherto I have supposed that the warmi contact is of something outward, implying definiteness of direction in order to retain, or to work up to it; as when the infant closes upon the nurse, or upon its own wrappings, or as when the animal lies down on the soft grass, under a warm shelter, or by the warm bodies of its fellows. There is another mode of securing the same effect, namely, huddling the limbs and body close together. The result in this case being attained always in the same way, an alliance between the sensations and the appropriate motor impulses is probably matured in a short time. The young quadruped, taught by a very early experience, would soon learn to seek warmth by crouching close upon TRAINING OF THE WHIP. 333 the ground. At a later stage, it would find out the connexion between warmth and a sheltered situation. The pungent and painful sensations of touch are those involved in the important department of the education of the whip. When we desire to control the movements of an animal, we apply external pain so long as a wrong movement goes on, and withhold the hand when all is correct. But for the fundamental link of the volitional nature, leading the sentient creature to desist from a present active exercise under pain, the whip would be utterly useless as an instrument of training. The animal knows nothing of the hidden purposes of its driver; all that is present to its mind is a series of acute smarts, and its own active energies for the time being. The soreness of the pain disturbs the flow of energy; other impulses come from the irritated centres, and when under any one of these the infliction ceases, that one is retained in preference. If the cessation of the pain had no power to induce a continuance in one course rather than in another, the training of a young horse would be impracticable. The animal would go on suffering, and perhaps increasing the violence of its spontaneous actions, but would not be deterred from any single course. The training of the whip could not commence at the moment of birth. A certain amount of voluntary development in other ways must be gone through, in the first instance. We have good reason to suppose that the forming of one volitional link renders it easier to fall into a second, although in a quite different region. The increasing facility may grow out of various circumstances, some of them to be afterwards dwelt upon; but I apprehend that the mere experience in associating movements with feelings gives a growing distinctness to the act, and that the earliest are in every point of view the most difficult. Hence there is a certain cruelty in forcing on the discipline of a young animal too soon; not that we might not succeed in the attempt, but that the suffering imposed would necessarily be much greater. It is not usual to commence the discipline of children in the first year of life, because of 334 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. the obscurity that still shrouds the connexion of pain with actions, and because in the undeveloped state of the activities there is a difficulty in bringing out the one that is sought. The first attempts at infant discipline are suppressive; and the case most commonly presented is intemperate crying and grief. The training of a young animal affords an opportunity of estimating the time required to complete the associating bond between a sensation of pain and the movement that gives a deliverance. The educated horse quickens its pace at once to the touch of the whip or the spur, and checks it to the tightening of the bridle in the mouth. The application of these agents to the colt leads to no definite action. After much suffering, the animal connects in its mind certain movements with the pause of its tormentor; that is the first step. In another lesson, nearly the same course of various struggles is repeated; the desired action emerging at last, accompanied, as in the former case, with a release from pain. The iteration of this coincidence produces by-and-by a contiguous adhesion, and every day fewer struggles and errors precede the true impulse. At last, after a length of time and repetition, which might be exactly observed in every case, the two elements are so firmly associated, that the desired pace comes on at once with the sensation of the smart. In this way is accomplished one stage of the education of the animal. Nevertheless, when doubts and ambiguities chance to arise, or, when perverse inclination comes in as a disturbing power, it is always easy to fall back upon the primitive force of nature, and to apply a persistent smart till the wrong course is desisted from, and the right one assumed. In the greatest maturity of the acquired volitions, the original tendency of a present pain to suppress a present movement, still remains to be appealed to, and, indeed, up to the last moment of life, is not to be dispensed with. 8. The illustrations from the sense of Hearing may be shortly indicated. As regards sounds painfully loud, harsh, or discordant, there is no obvious movement of protection MOVING TO THE LIGHT. 335 that the infant creature can readily fall upon; and consequently no volitional alliance of this kind is to be counted among those that grow up in the first epoch. When the power of locomotion is matured, an animal runs away from a disagreeable sound, or is checked while chancing to run up to it. This implies the estimate of direction, which is formed after a certain experience of sounds. But should this not exist, the primordial law of volition will sustain the animal's career under the lessening sound, and restrain it when the pain is increasing. The same thing happens, with allowance for the difference, when a highly pleasurable sound falls on the ear. The listener is detained within reach of the influence; any impulse to move away is suppressed, and the attitude of intent repose, which gives the maximum of delight, is maintained by preference. Even the child acquires the power of becoming still to enjoy agreeable sounds, owing to the felt increase of pleasure thus accruing, and the felt diminution arising from restlessness.* 9. The pleasures and pains of Sight fall into an early alliance with specific movements; the reason being that some of our primitive spontaneous impulses tell directly upon those sensations. When a cheerful light is before the eye, a privation is felt on its being moved to one side. The pleasure, however, can be secured by certain very easy movements, which probably every infant performs many times in the course of each day, they being principal outlets of the active spontaneity. The rotation of the head seems to come as naturally as any movement that can be named; and a chance concurrence of this with the withdrawal of the light would commence an alliance between the two circumstances, with the usual effects. Mr. Abbot ('Sight and Touch', p. 164) gives the following statements, as the result of careful observations, bearing on the * Apollonius R!hodius describes the Argonautic heroes listening to the harp and song of Orpheus. So strongly did they feel the charm of it that, even after he had finished, they continued immovable, with beads stretched forward and ears pricked up, expecting more.-App2ollon. Rhod. Argonazutica, i. 516. 336 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. acquirement of the voluntary control of the eyes. At the very first, he says,' the vivid impression of light from a candle, holds the gaze, so that, though the body is moved, the head remains still'. Now I am not in a position to dispute this, but before reasoning from it, I should like it to be confirmed by very extensive observations. I can hardly suppose that it is an invariable effect; and if not, its comparative preponderance would have to be measured. He goes on:-' At three weeks, the light and other objects when distinguished are sought by the motions of the head'. I apprehend that the previous fact almost implies as much. If a child keeps its head still when its body is moved, it must put forth a volition to move the head as it is carried round with the body, so as to continue to face the light; the felt disappearance of the light is the stimulus to revolve the head counter to the motion of the body, so as to retain the departing impression. An infant capable of this, should be capable of bringing the head round to the light when, not facing it directly, but seeing it by a side-long gaze. Either fact would, to my mind, show that the power to follow a moving object, or to turn round to face anything seen sideways, is instinctive. His next observation is that, in the seventh week, 'objects are followed by the eye without turning the head; and when seen sideways, the eye is turned to them'. It is curious that the power of turning the head should precede the power of turning the eye; the first being so early as to amount to a full-formed instinct; while the second takes time to mature. It would seem as if our education. was guided by the law of parsimony. Beginning with the cumbrous swing of the whole head, we at length discover that 'with easy eye we may behold' what is sought. It would be interesting to note the steps gone through in the seven weeks; being the period for completing the education of the eye with regard to the two superficial dimensions of visible space-the sweep over the field of view, right and left, up and down. Possibly, however, farther observation might show that the power of turning the eye readily upon all points indifferently, is still immature. Mr. Abbot's next observations refer to the adjustments for Distance. The only basis that we can assign for this adjustment, the motive to change the eyes from one adjustment to another, is the superior distinctness of the image; which supposes some pleasure connected with the better-defined form of a familiar object. The adjustment with the single eye operates only within the distance of three feet; and is most marked when we are endeavouring to look at things within a few inches of the eye. Without any adjustment, an object at two or three feet or more is practically distinct enough. For all distances, from the nearest to a considerable remove, binocular adjustment takes place, and the penalty of not making this adjustment is a double image. INTERMEDIATE ACTIONS. 337 Now, according to Mr. Abbot, 'when objects, faces, &c., begin to be recognized, it is at first only at short distances of one to three feet, but gradually they are known at three or four yards (fourth month)'. The light of a candle has not a character to lose by bad adjustment, and that is observed from the first at a much greater distance. This shows that the adjustment of the eyes is not absolutely instinctive; it must, therefore, go through the tentative process, like the other voluntary powers. The acquisition is rapid; and we are of course at liberty to assume an instinctive or hereditary predisposition; but the readiness to adjust the eyes at once to every varying distance supposes a host of associations too numerous to be retained in the hereditary framework. 10. Intermediate Actions and Associated Ends.-In the complete development of voluntary power, the ends in view are often means to farther ends, and the pursuit of the one is sustained by the impulse derived from the other. Even at the early stage now under review, something of this kind begins to appear. When, along with a sensation of pain or pleasure, there is some accompanying object to arrest the attention, that object is linked in the mind with the sensation, and acquires the same kind of influence. The connexion between a scald and the sight of a flame may be fixed at a very early date in the mind of the infant, or the young animal; so that the near approach of the flame shall inspire the activity in the same way as the present pain. There is here implied, no doubt, a certain advance beyond the very initial state of the mind. Some progress in intellectuality has occurred to modify the constituents of volition. We suppose a certain persistence of the pleasurable, or painful, feeling, and likewise of other sensible impressions, such as those of sight; and we assume the ideal fixity and efficacy of these to be so far confirmed as to operate like the reality. Such unquestionably is the case. While those various trials are going on whereby voluntary power is working its way through difficulties, the impressions of objects of sense are acquiring persistence by iteration, and the life in ideas is entered upon. One notable circumstance in the ideal life is this association of marked pains and pleasures with their 22 338 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. habitual accompaniments, and the adoption of these accompaniments as volitional ends. I have remarked how speedily an enduring bond may grow up under the excitement of strong pain; and examples of this kind are frequently to be noted in the experience of the young. Very often an irrelevant thing is fixed upon, merely because of its presence at -the time, there being no means of establishing the real cause in the midst of the various accompaniments. Repetition, however, or uniform agreement, does attest the true cause; and, when an object has many times kept company with a strong feeling, there is a presumption in favour of necessary connexion, as well as an adhesive link in the mind between the two. Thus, to take again some of the primitive and perennial sensations. The child associates the agreeable state of warmth with the fire, its clothing, the bath, or other collaterals; and its movements are determined in the direction of these various objects. The all-important sensations of satisfying hunger are seen to connect themselves with many various objects and arrangements. To the infant, not merely the sight of the breast, but the face and figure of the mother, and her various actions in giving suck, are a part of the association. Somewhat later the appearance of the other kinds of food administered, the dishes and different preparations, are firmly associated with the alimentary feelings. The voluntary activity of the child, or the animal, now addresses itself to some of those intermediate effects that hold the principle in train. The opening of the mouth to receive the morsel is an act of the intermediate character, implying a step of association between the main effect and one that has been found subsidiary to it. Still more advanced is the effort of seizing a morsel in the hand to convey it to the mouth. Much must be gone.through before so complex a succession can be formed into a chain. A secondary feeling of an indifferent nature has become an end; and an action remote in its influence, is the machinery made use of. What now rules the volition is the sight of a moving thing approaching the mouth; the impulse that determines this approach is sustained by virtue MOVEMENTS OF THE HAND TO THE MOUTH. of the fundamental link so often set forth in this discussion, while an impulse in any other direction is arrested or paralyzed. This is an entirely new case, but the operating principle is still the same. The progress of the morsel of food, in the direction of the mouth, is to all intents a pleasure, kindling a bright expression, and sustaining whatever movements favour it. It is, so to speak, a factitious, artificial, derived, associated pleasure; and involves to the full the power of voluntary stimulation. Innumerable pleasures of this sort enter into the life of the full-grown creature, whether man or brute; the pursuit is as fervent, and the energy of the volitional spur as sure, as when an original sensation fires up a movement directly increasing or diminishing it. I quote, from Mr. Abbot's observations already referred to, the early history of the movements of the hand. About the eleventh week, the child begins to carry its hand to the mouth with accuracy. The first motions towards a desired object are not of the hand but of the head, which seems to be more amenable from the outset. 'At four, and up to six months, the attempts to seize objects are of a tentative character, often unsuccessful; and for some time after this, and when near objects are seized with tolerable accuracy, the motions of the hands are of a rough, irregular, and wild character.' I should mention in quoting these observations, that they are used by the author, not as illustrating the growth of the will, but to refute the Berkeleian hypothesis of vision. I am not here concerned with that controversy; but Mr. Abbot's argument is all the stronger, according as he can make out that the eyes are early, and the hands late, in coming under voluntary control. CHAPTER III. GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER.-(Continued.) 1. -WE have now to pursue the farther development of the will up to the perfect command of every voluntary organ. Allusion has already been made to the transferring of a movement, established in one connexion, to other connexions and uses. Any constituted bond between an act and a feeling brings that act more frequently into play than if it were left to mere spontaneity, and thus adds to the chances of new alliances. The same movement may happen to answer several emergencies, and introductions being once effected, no matter how, the groundwork of future unions is laid. The motions of the head and trunk, at first purely spontaneous, bring about agreeable effects of warmth, &c., and are very soon associated with those sensations so as to be called out at their instigation. On such occasions, other effects are discovered attending them, as, for example, the exposure to light; and they are now therefore espoused by a new influence, which in time commands them exactly as the first did. The self-conserving tendency is always ready to catch at the coincidence of an active impulse with a heightened pleasure or an abated pain; and the probabilities of such coincidences are increased as the various movements are more frequently led out. Take the fertile theme of animal locomotion. This power is at first purely spontaneous, but certain particular modes of it soon form links of attachment with the animal's sensations; these modes are then longer sustained and oftener evoked than if there were nothing but spontaneity in the case. The accidents of further connexions are thus greatly extended, just as a more abundant stream of the unprompted cerebral discharge would enlarge the openings for acquisition. I have formerly remarked that great natural activity is singularly favourable to the growth of associated actions, from the number of trials TRANSFERENCE OF ACQUIRED MOVEMENTS. 341 that are made in consequence. Without the primordial instinct that sustains and reproduces what chimes in with a present pleasure or present relief from pain, these trials would end in nothing; but with this, they are in the highest degree fruitful in those special connexions that make up our voluntary power. An action from the first highly spontaneous, like the case of locomotion now supposed, becomes rapidly associated with a number of sensations, and rendered open to various solicitations which can never be far off. In any difficulty, it will start- up to be tried, and whatever use can be served by it, is not likely to be long ungratified. The child soon possesses a number of those actions, the recurrence of which is made more frequent by association with its various feelings. Such parts as the hand, the tongue, the mouth, the jaw, together with the head, trunk, and limbs-having attained that partial degree of voluntary control constituted by special alliances, are so much the more open to an extension of the same process. Every active organ goes on in this way enlarging its bonds of attachment to states of pain or pleasure, so as to wake up at their instigation, and becomes thus an instrument of free-will to the extent that this detailed acquisition has been carried. Such instances of subjection to separated feelings might be so multiplied as to answer every end of the animal's existence; and the education of the will would then be practically complete. But, in human beings especially, the control of the will becomes, so to speak, generalized by a series of acquirements different from those hitherto described, to supply the special wants of the living system. This general control has now to be traced to its component elements. 2. I commence with the Word of Command, since that applies to the guidance of animals as well as of men. This is a step removed from the discipline of the whip, which, however, serves as a starting-point in the acquisition. A certain sound falling on the ear of the animal may be in itself so painful as to spur its movements; whether this be true of the crack of the French postillion's whip, I am unable to say. 342 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. The harsh, abrupt, and stunning sounds of the human voice are probably painful to the ear of an animal under training, and therefore serve the same end as the smarting of the skin. But the mediation of the whip enables us to associate sounds, quite indifferent in themselves, with the actions that we desire to bring about. The animal soon learns to connect each utterance with the movement intended by it, being stimulated to that movement by the accompanying application of an acute smart. Thus the horse is taught to advance or to halt, to deviate right or left, to quicken or slacken its pace, at the instance of the rider's language of command. The animal once initiated in this vocabulary by the schooling of pain, a process of association gives to the mere sound all the force of the inflicted suffering. Any defect in the goodness of the bond is supplied by reverting to the original instrumentality, which the best education may not wholly supersede. By a careful process of training, a very great number of those connexions between language and movements can be established in the minds of the more docile species. The course of proceeding is the same for all; but the difference of susceptibility to such training between individuals is wide. The explanation is essentially what would be given for human beings, according to the Law of Contiguity. A good ear for the characteristic tones and articulations made use of, so as unequivocally to discriminate each from all the rest, is one requisite. The other condition is the purely intellectual one of adhesive growth after a certain frequency of coincidence, a property belonging in various degrees to the animal organization generally. Granting these two elements, instruction in answering to the word of command may be carried to any length. In the human subject, a very large number of such connexions are formed; the discrimination of vocal sounds by the ear being probably superior to what belongs to the most highly endowed of the brutes, while the rapidity of acquisition is also great. The earliest instances of this department of training show all the peculiarities of commencing volition. If we want to associate in the infant mind a movement with a sound, we must wait the opportunity THE WORD OF COMMAND. 343 for the spontaneous occurrence of the movement, and then endeavour to provoke its continuance. Thus, if we sought to make the opening of the mouth amenable to command at a very early period, we should have to use a method similar to that for the lower animals, and, by a discipline of pain, establish a union between the action and the command. With children, the tones and gestures accompanying the first attempts to influence them by language, are like the whip to the young horse; they paralyze the actions going on at the time, and encourage any movement that makes the torment to cease. Accordingly, the infant, hard pressed in this way, would suppress by turns the various movements that failed to abate the urgency, and abide by the one that brought a sensible relief The same crudeness of perception and inextricable perplexity that cloud the initial step everywhere, are here observable; but after a little time things become clearer. When once the child has distinctly connected the action intended with the audible sound and the accompanying tones of painful urgency, a beginning is made, and a permanent alliance will in due time ensue. All that there is to guide it at the outset are the harsh and painful tones that fall on the ear while in the wrong course, and the soft and placid enunciation of the same command when the right course is fallen upon. It is this difference solely that constitutes the determining motive power in the case; and just as it is felt, so will be the hopes of the experiment. Accordingly, when the child has made some advance in appreciating the distinction of the two modes of address, and has a decided sensation of pain from the one, and.of pleasure from the other--a sensation that is enhanced by various associations-we are able to proceed rapidly with this part of the voluntary education. The infant of a few months can be made to do many simple actions at command, to open and close the mouth, to keep its hands out of the way while fed, to stand erect, and so on. Movements that have as yet formed no other link whereby to instigate them, are made amenable to audible direction, which is therefore to be reckoned as one important species of the antecedents for 344 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. evoking the energies of the will. Very often it may happen that an infant, or an animal, fails to perform movements in obedience to urgent necessities, while these will spring up atl once if the accustomed direction falls upon the ear; the association in the one case by no means implying that in the other. The will is a machinery of detail; the learning of a foreign tongue is not more a matter of multiplied and separate acquisitions. The fancied unity of the voluntary power, suggested by the appearance assumed by it in mature life, when we seem able to set going any action on the slightest wish, is the culmination of a vast range of detailed associations whose history has been lost sight of, or forgotten. This subjection of the various members of the body to vocal direction has been achieved step by step, through a long series of struggles and laborious iterations, which all disappear from the view when we are practising upon full-grown humanity. 3. The next great stride in voluntary power is achieved through the acquired faculty of Imitation. I have formerly (CONTIGUITY, ~ 52) adduced arguments in refutation of the supposed instinctive origin of this faculty; and in so doing, have briefly illustrated the gradual formation of it, through a series of struggles such as attend every voluntary commencement. Imitation implies the establishment of a bond of connexion between the appearance presented by a movement as executed by another person, and an impulse to move the same organ in ourselves. This is so far as regards the action of the limbs, trunk, head, mouth, eyes, and features; for the case of vocal. imitation, the alliance is between a sound on the ear, and an impulse directed to the mechanism of speech. There is no better example for setting forth the process of voluntary acquirement than is afforded by the beginnings of the imitative faculty. If we make observations upon the first efforts to speak, we shall find that the course so often described above is the one invariably followed. Spontaneous articulation takes the lead; while a sound once uttered impresses the ear as an effect, and if that is a pleasing one, the vocal stimulus is likely to be sustained. A few repetitions ACQUIRED POWER OF IMITATION. 345 cause an adhesive association to grow up between those two elements, so that the order may at last be inverted, and the hearing of the sound provoke the utterance. This would be the course pursued if the child were left to itself; but a forcing process is usually brought to bear, in order to quicken the acquisition. The method already described for teaching subjection to the language of command, is made use of to promote imitation. The child is made to hear certain sounds with those tones of urgency that have the effect of pain in stimulating active exertion. Such attempts are usually begun so prematurely as to be for a long time fruitless. The utter want of a specific connexion between sounds heard and movements of the larynx, renders the lessons entirely abortive. If, however, the proper sound should chance to come out, the stream of nervous power flowing in that direction may be kept up, and a certain advance may be made in associating it with the audible effect. Two or three favourable accidents of this kind render the two elements that have to be conjoined less strange to each other. It is not then such a hopeless business to force on the right direction of cerebral power, by the urgent presentation of the sound desired. We may still fail in the attempt, but the chances of success are increasing. Every occasion that brings the active utterance and the distinct perception of the sound into company, in the mind disengaged by good fortune for the purpose, is a moment favourable to the work of adhesion; and a limited number of those occasions renders the adhesiveness complete. The first articulations that the child is able to command so as to produce them imitatively, are some of the simpler class, or those that the little range of the organs can readily give birth to. Such sounds as bah, tai, nah, arising out of easy situations of the tongue and mouth, are the initial efforts of speech. A great deal of spontaneous play of these very mobile memnbers must precede even this elementary stage; and we find that it is towards the end of the first year that the preliminary spontaneities usually break out. There is no fixed order in the manifestation of those simple articulations; the labials 346 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. (involving b or P), and the dentals (involving d, t, or n), seem about equally accessible to the dawning aptitudes. The gutturals (r, g) are, on the whole, perhaps, more difficult and later, but often very little so. The material fact, however, for our present purpose is, that the utterance in every case must first come by nature, in order to be coupled with its effect on the mind, and so to furnish a handle for being imitatively reproduced. I know no case better adapted for proving, or disproving, the theory herein maintained respecting the will than these vocal acquisitions. They are particularly open to inspection; no part of the process is shrouded in the recesses of the child's own consciousness. The epoch of their occurrence is neither too early nor too late. The primitive germ of volition is still in sufficient purity to manifest its true character. All the circumstances concerned in the establishment of a link of voluntary control are apparent to the viewthe spontaneous commencement, the repetitions made each time with less difficulty through a growing attachment, and the link finally become complete. It can be seen whether the interval elapsing between the first random utterance and the imitative facility consummated, is such as would be necessary for the growth of an adhesive association according to the usual rate of such growth. A series of observations carefully conducted, in a variety of individual cases, might settle, beyond the possibility of disputte, the actual order and genesis of our voluntary energies. The first utterances are necessarily the best for the purpose in view; but every new advance must needs repose upon the same original principle, slightly modified by the antecedent acquisitions. The modifying circumstance consists in this, that, after the child has learned to bring forth a variety of vocal utterances on the instigation of the audible sound, there will be a tendency to make some vrocal exertion when new articulations are urged home, whereas, at the outset, the connexion between hearing and voice was unformed. Indeed, I am disposed to admit that there is a certain instinctive tendency in this direction (see p. 320). It is something to have gained a few threads of VOCAL ACQUIREMENTS. 347 union between the two regions. A road to the stimulation of the voice is thus established. We therefore expect to bring about new sounds for trial, with greater readiness, and with less waiting upon fortuitous spontaneities. The circle of wide possibility is narrowed, when we can get the activity to flow to the proper organ instead of running indeterminately over the system. Still, allowing for this advantage, the process described for each additional acquirement is the same. We cannot force on the exact utterance, by never so much importunity; we can only clutch the occasion of its spontaneous rise, and drive home the associating nail. We may keep up the stimulation of the voice for this end, but we have no means of ordaining the exact movement to arise in preference to others. After a time, the child takes the work of imitation into its own hands, adapting its own movements to chime in with those about it. This is peculiarly the case with Accent, which is never taught by express lesson, as the alphabetic utterances are taught. The child in articulating necessarily uses some modulation; at the same time the ear is impressed and occupied with the particular modulation of those around. There is a certain satisfaction in falling in with this strain, to which the ear is so strongly tuned, and a certain pain of discord in the contrary case. The tendency, therefore, is to abide by each intonation that chimes in with the model strain; and it is surprising to notice how sure and steady the course of approximation is, through this single instrumentality of holding fast by every accidental coincidence. The case of learning to Sing offers no peculiarities to reward our dwelling upon it. The first imitation of notes musically pitched can be nothing but tentative. A good ear knows when the sound uttered agrees with the sound heard, and the volitional stimulus sustains the exact vocal impulse of that moment; association sets in, and ultimately unites the two mental elements-the sensory and the active, and the imitation can in future be struck at once. Prior to this final stage, trial and error must be resorted to; the sense of discord 348 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. represses the wrong vocalization, the sense of unison fosters and maintains the right one. 4. The imitation of Movements at sight includes a large part of our early voluntary education. The process is still the same. The child moves its arms, hands, and fingers by natural spontaneity, and sees the appearance of them so moved. Such appearances leave a distinct recollection or image on the mind, and are a part of the store of intellectual impressions, persisting and recoverable as ideas. Among a variety of other uses, these ideas become ultimately the handle for rendering the actions themselves amenable to voluntary control. Seeing the movements executed by those around it, the child discerns when they coincide with its own, and if any pleasure happens to attend this coincidence, or any relief from pain, there is a motive for continuing the proper act, and refraining from the rest. Thus, in the case of bringing the two hands together, as for holding something between them, it is very easy to perceive when the effect is produced; and if a pleasure arises in consequence, or a pain is arrested, the posture once hit upon is adhered to as a matter of course. All the movements of the arms are so broadly apparent to the eye, that after a few months' development of the senses, and their intellectual concepts, there is a good foundation laid for imitational progress in this department. The forcing system may also be resorted to with advantage. The imitative Will cannot work without an appropriate stimulus; either some pleasure must result from bringing about an identity with the model, or some pain be got rid of. If we can bring to bear one or other of those motive causes, we shall soon attain the desired end. Let there be a well-marked gratification attending the lifting of the arm, the closing of the hand, the joining of the two hands, and this, although not at the outset sufficient to bring on the movement, will keep it going if once commenced. Imitation for its own sake is barren to the infant mind; some palpable effect must come of it in order to create a stimulus. When the child sees any one doing something very IMITATION OF MOVEMENTS SEEN. 349 startling and piquant, the pleasure of doing the same is so strong as to be an active spur to its own exertions; and if imitation is the medium, there will be a motive to resort to it. The early efforts of copying usually have reference to some agreeable effect seen to arise from a particular action; as for example, putting a ball in motion, producing a sound, tampering with a flame, getting something to the mouth. In those imitations, and in voluntary actions generally, it is not merely a proper direction that we want; there must likewise be a certain strength of impetus. This does not alter the nature of the case, or the steps of the acquirement. We must wait for the moment of a strong impulse happening spontaneously, and keep up that degree of energy by the sustaining nexus of volition, just as we must keep up the stream in the right direction. We attain a command of graduated emphasis, exactly as. we command the right muscles to be moved. The sense of effect is ever at hand, as the corrective of the still imperfect learner; and when the degree is wrongly pitched, the present impulse is made to give place to some other, until the urgency of the moment is finally satisfied. We might carry on the exposition of imitation into all the postures, gesticulations, and motions of the body at large. As regards the lower limbs and the trunk, there is no essential difference from the case already dwelt upon. The feet seem much less prepared originally for varied voluntary movements than the hands; their accomplishments are both more limited and more laborious, as we see in dancing. The difficulty of imitation is greatest of all in those parts not within the sweep of the eye, as the head and features. Some other medium of discerning the movements must be had recourse to in these parts. A mirror is one way of overcoming the difficulty. Anothdr way is to have some one always at hand to say when the proper movement is hit upon. Among the best examples of the employment of an artificial medium of guidance, is the teaching of the deaf to speak. Being themselves incapable of knowing when their vocal efbforts correspond with the alphabetic sounds, as heard and pronounced, it is necessary 350 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. to indicate to them by some plan that they are right or wrong. Suppose a deaf man taught a visible alphabet by the usual methods employed for the deaf; the next thing is to make him articulate something, and, should this coincide exactly with any alphabetic sound, he is directed to keep it up, and to repeat it, being made aware at the same time which letter he has articulated. An association thus grows up between the various utterances and the characters as they appear to the eye. 5. I must now advert to a still farther advance in the department of general command, namely, the power of acting in answer to a Wish to have a certain organ moved in a definite way, as when I will to raise my hand, to stand up, to open my mouth, and so on. This case reaches to the summit of voluntary control; it may, however, be pronounced only one degree in advance of the foregoing. Instead of an actual movement seen, we have for the guiding antecedent a movement conceived, or in idea. The association now passes to those ideal notions that we are able to form of our various actions, and connects the ideas with the actions themselves. All that is then necessary is a determining motive, to put the action in request. Some pleasure or pain, near or remote, is essential to every volitional effort, or every change from quiescence to movement, or from one movement to another. We feel, for example, a painful state of the digestive system, with the consequent volitional urgency to allay it; experience direction, and imitation, have connected in our minds all the, intermediate steps, and so the train of movements is set on. On the table before me, I see a glass of liquid; the infant, never so thirsty could not make the movement for bringing it to the mouth. But in the maturity of the will, a link is formed between the appreciated distance and direction of the. glass, and the movement of the arm up to that point; and under the stimulus of pain, or of expected pleasure, the movement is executed. The mind is largely filled with associations of this nature, connecting every conceivable motion or position of all the organs with the precise impulse for realizing them, ACTING TO A WISHI, 351 provided only that the proper instigator of the will is present. It takes a long time to perfect such a multifarious acquisition as this, and there is only one road and one set of means. With every action performed by the hands, arms, or other visible parts, there is an appearance to the eye, and also an appreciation to the muscular sensibility, and these become connected with the central impulse that gives the direction and degree proper for the performance of the act; the result is, that a mere idea suffices for the guiding antecedent of the voluntary operations, if duly accompanied with the motive or prompting antecedent. What was an entire blank at the opening of the active career is now supplied; channels of communication are established where there existed only blind impulse. 6. From the fact that such is the character of the will in maturity, we are so familiar with it as to reckon it the typical form of the faculty. A somewhat fuller exposition may, therefore, not be superflous. There is in it an element of conception, ideation, or intellectual retentiveness, whereby we store up impressions of the external positions of things, and of the movements of all the organs in every direction, extent, and degree. We have distinct recollections of the open hand, the closed hand, the spread fingers, the close fingers, the arms straight, the bendings at every angle; we can conceive movements slow, rapid, varying; we can further entertain the idea of much or little force expended. All these particulars, originally experienced only as present and actual, are in the end self-sustaining ideas or conceptions of the mind. I have no difficulty in recalling and retaining the entire image of a firm grasp of the hand, or of the swing of the foot in giving a kick. These are a part of our mental possessions, growing out of our unavoidable experience in life. We may not give much heed to them, but silently they play an indispensable part in our various operations. They enter into associations with the movements that we picture to the mind; and so firm and secure are these ties, that the ideal exertion can determine the occurrence of the real. The hand closed in idea can guide the nervous power into the channels necessary for closing it 352 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. in reality. I have said that this is a guiding or determining association, because, in fact, we find that the proper stimulus of the will, namely, some variety of pleasure or pain, is needed to give the impetus. That primary constitution, so much insisted on, under which our activity is put in motion by our feelings, is still the same to the last. However well a connexion may be formed between the conceiving and the doing of an action, the intellectual link is not sufficient for causing the deed to rise at the beck of the idea (except in case of an 'idee fixe'); just as, in imitation, we do not necessarily fall in with everything that is done in our presence by others. Should any pleasure spring up, or be continued, by performing an action that we clearly conceive, the causation is then complete; both the directing and the moving powers are present. The idea of giving a kick, concurring with an obstacle at the foot, is enough, in the absence of counteracting motives, to bring on the act. Among the instincts of the quadruped, rapidly matured by its experience, are the alliances between its locomotive movements and the appearances of things approaching to, or receding from, the eye. In birds, the connection between movements and visible appearances would seem still more secure from the first; at least within the narrow range of pecking for food. There may be, in man, a certain amount of instinctive tendency of the same kind, but acquisition plays by far the larger part. This is one of the speediest and surest of our acquirements; inasmuch as all our movements bring about definite changes of view, which are at once associated with them. The knowledge of space relations implies these acquired connections between movement and visible change. 7. The acquired actions of human beings are more various and complicated; for which reason, among others, man is a late learner. The movable parts of our framework are greatly more numerous, and in the end more variously brought into play, so that the mere ideas that we have to form as the handmaids of the will, range over a great compass. Moreover, VOLITION GUIDED BY PRECONCEIVED EFFECTS 353 it is to be noted that these intellectual accessories to volition are not confined to ideas of the appearances of the moving organs; the will to raise the arm is not necessarily led by the notion, or mental picture of a raised arm, although this is one way of inducing the act. We come to look at the effects produced on external things, and associate the appearance of these with the action that brings them on. Thus, to pluck a flower, we have, as the intellectual antecedent, the idea of the flower held in the hand and moved away; there being at the same time a notion of power exerted in some definite muscles. We have now departed from the picture of the movements of the hand and arm, and fastened the mental tie between the changes made on the thing to be operated on, and the operating action. So in driving a nail; although one may put forth this energy under the lead of the ideal motion of the arm and the hand, it is done in fact under the lead of the nail conceived as sinking in the wood at every stroke. In walking from one end of a street to the other, under some stimulus of feeling, the guiding antecedent is the picture of the street through the various phases encountered as we pass along it. This is the intellectual element of- the volitional association, which, along with the prompting or motive, gives the power of effectively willing to go from one place to another. Such is the general case in all our mechanical proceedings, being, in fact, the last stage of volitional acquirement. I have a motive for drawing a circle; after an educational career of many different steps, I find that the mental conception of the desired circle is associated in me with a series of movements and configurations of the hand and arm; and this makes up my ability to draw the figure, when instigated to do so by the motive of pleasure or pain I am under at the time. The sense of chillness urges me to some action for removing it; the instrumentality at the moment is stirring the fire; the intellectual antecedent, initiating the requisite movements, is the appearance of the fire now, coupled with the vision of a brighter blaze, and of the application of the poker. The substitution of these antecedents for the picture 23 354 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. of the play of the arm, is owing to the circumstance that the attention is fixed upon that point where we can judge of the effect produced. In lifting a window to admit the air, we have in the mind the size of opening to be made, which is sufficient to give the lead to the proper muscles, and to impart the proper amount of impulse to each, subject to the correcting power inherent in the original organization of the will; which correcting power is always at hand to supply every deficiency in the volitional associations. The workman, looking at, the mass before him, has in his mind an association between the fracture he is to make and the precise impetus to be thrown into the muscles of the arm, and at one blow he produces the exact effect. Another person, less experienced in this particular department, does too little or too much; but, having in view the end, continues to operate until hb sees it accomplished. 8. We might pursue the examples through the gratification of every sense, and the providing against every pain incident to human nature; but the principles involved would still be the same. We have to deal with pleasure and pain in the state of idea as well as of act. But it is a property of our intellectual nature, that for all purposes of action the remembrance, notion, or anticipation of a feeling, can operate in essentially the same way as the real presence. The bitter taste in the mouth inspires the efforts of riddance; the same thing foreseen in idea checks the movement that would bring it near. The child, enjoying the sugary savour, keeps it up by every means within the range of its volitional attainments; after the actual stimulation of the sense has completely subsided, the lively recollection may urge a fury of endeavour to revive the full enjoyment. As we make progress in years, we have more and more the ideal presence of things that give us delight, or suffering; consequently, our voluntary impulses come into a new service, while their character remains the same. Without some antecedent of pleasurable, or painful, feeling-actual or ideal, primary or derivative-the will cannot be stimulated. Through all the disguises that wrap ANTECEDENT PLEASURE IS PAIN IN IDEA. 355 up what we call motives, something of one or other of these two grand conditions can be detected. The exceptions to this rule are those furnished by never-dying spontaneity, habits and fixed ideas; but these do not affect the integrity of the principle contended for. I shall afterwards advert to their effect upon the proper course of the will. For the present, I hold it as a rule, beyond all dispute, that there is at the bottom of every genuine voluntary impulse, some one variety of the many forms wherein pain or pleasure takes possession of the conscious mind. Nor is there any intermediate machinery between the one fact, the antecedent, and the other fact, the consequent-between a smart and an effort of extrication. Very often in our voluntary operations, we are conscious of an interval of suspense between the moment of painful urgency and the moment of appeasing execution, and in this interval we interpolate a number of impulses having various namesmotive, desire, belief, permission, free agency, self-determining impulse, and so on; but these are artificial and accidental complications. Illustrations without number might be adduced to show the instantaneous operation of this causative link, if not interfered with; interference, however, is very frequent, and leads to an aspect of the problem demanding separate consideration. No physical law is more sure and decided in its operation than the checked movement inspired by sudden agony. No consideration, no intervention of the 'me,' no deliberation of free-agency, no passing of resolution through successive stages, is employed in the voluntary suspension that follows a smart. It is the primitive and perennial manifestation of our volitional nature, the unfailing bond between the susceptibilities and the concurring activity, that decides for us at that moment. Only when we have to overbear this native and firmly-rooted prompting, is the other machinery called for; showing that resistance is what introduces complication and suspense into the region of our voluntary determinations. 9. I shall cite a few examples from the Voice, before concluding the present chapteb We have already seen what 356 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. the power of imitation implies, namely, the linking of a sound falling on the ear with the precise vocal impulse that reproduces it. In our further progress, however, we can dispense with the actual hearing of the note or articulation; we can summon up the vocal exertion at the lead of the mere idea or recollection of the sound. A still higher education connects the movements of the larynx with the sight of the musical stave, and the place of the note thereon. So with articulation. We pass from the state of imitating a present utterance to the reproducing of one remembered; the volitional associations having taken another stride. Then comes the power of pronouncing words through the sight of their visible characters, which power is merely a further stage of our volitional acquirements. Usually the voluntary command of speech may be said to consist in a series of associations, formed between the words of our language in their ideal state, and the actual enunciation. This ideal form may either be aural, or vocal, or both; that is to say, the notion of the name 'Sun' may be the idea of the sound of it on the ear, or the idea of its articulation by the voice, or of the sight of it on a printed page. When we will to pronounce this word there is already present the idea of it in some of these shapes, and there being a well-knit tie of contiguous adhesion between such notion or idea and the select stream of cerebral power flowing to the articulating members, all that is wanted is a motive urgency, of the nature demanded by the will, in order to consummate the act. When we have any pleasure to procure, or pain to ward off by uttering this word, the train of intellectual connexion is so well laid as to bring on the result at once. This is as regards the maturity of our education in speech; for it is easy to go a little way back, and come upon a time in our individual history when this association was but half-formed, or did not exist at all. The voluntary powers of speech go out likewise in the direction above intimated regarding the mechanical acts. Language being instrumental in guiding our operations, we form connections in our mind between the various phases of an operation and the language of direc EXAMPLES FROM VOCAL ACQUIREMENTS. 357 tion, approbation, or disapprobation. Without having before us any notion of a word to be used, we give utterance to it merely on the lead of some objects that it refers to. We call a work well or ill done, we give orders, ask questions, impart information, through a direct link of connexion between the subject matter and the vocal current. In this sense the work of voluntary acquisition is advancing during the whole of life; every new active faculty that we take on, is a branch of the education of the will, which is homogene us in its character throughout. We must have, in every case, the two elements-a proper motive, and a channel of communication formed between the present notion and the desired action. The motive is usually a modification of our pleasurable or painful sensibility; the other element is the fruit of education. Every object that pleases, engages, charms, or fascinates the mind, whether present, prospective, or imagined, whether primitive or generated by association,-is a power to urge us to act, an end of pursuit; everything that gives pain, suffering, or by whatever name we choose to designate the bad side of our experience, is a motive agent in like manner. In a certain number of cases, experience has prepared within us the very sequence through which to secure our end; in many other cases this is wanting. To the beginner the intellectual link is absent in every case; education is constantly cementing the proper associations, which, however, by the very nature of things, are never all complete. The position of entire inability to attain our ends in securing pleasure and evading pain, leads us into a new region of mental deportment, which it also belongs to our subject to notice. CHAPTER IV. CONTROL OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS. 1. IN the development of the foregoing chapter we have seen volition crowned with powers of general command. The gradual subjection of the organs to intermediate ends, to language, to imitation, and to the preconceived notions of movements, and of the changes to be operated on outward things,-completes the education of the will, and we seem then competent to anything; or, at all events, there is nothing (within certain limits) that we may not be rendered capable of doing by instruction and direction from others. I may not be able to play on the German flute, but my mouth, my chest, and my fingers have become so far amenable to imitation and the word of command, that I can be put on a course of acquiring the power, without going through the full initial process of working my own way by trials and failures. Not that we can ever wholly dispense with the necessity for such corrections inherent in our constitution; but, by being able to follow the lead of another person, we approximate at once to the right action, and limit the range of tentatives or gropings. The associations that have enabled us to go so far, do not supersede the native stimulus of the will; they are directive and not impulsive. They are 'reason the card', not 'passion the gale '. Much yet remains to be considered. We have not adverted to the obstructions that may be encountered by the volitional prompting; having all along assumed that if only the way has been prepared to the proper action, that action is certain to ensue. But various circumstances may occur to disappoint this expectation. The physical framework may be too much exhausted to make the effort. The organs may be vehemently engaged in some other direction; as when, under a rapid walk, we are indisposed to stop and examine a wayside DIRECT CONTROL LIMITED TO MUSCLES. 359 object. Lastly, there may be some counter motive, whereby a rival power is set up in the mind itself. All these cases must be fully done justice to. I shall, however, in the present chapter, consider two applications of voluntary power that present some peculiarities: I mean, first, the control of our Emotions, and, secondly, the command that we are able to exercise over our Intellectual trains. CONTROL OF THE FEELINGS. 2. It is a fact that we can restrain and regulate the course of our feelings. We can, under ordinary circumstances, arrest the diffusive stimulation of the muscles, so as to put on a calm exterior while a fire is raging within. This is the most simple and direct mode of bringing the will to bear upon a state of mental excitement. The muscular part of an emotional wave can be met by a counter current proceeding to the same muscles. The tossing up of the arms, and the stare of the eyes under a surprise, can be prevented, if there be a sufficient motive to remain still. The two forces being homogeneous, that is to say, being both of them in the nature of stimulants to voluntary muscles, the one may overbear the other by the power of the stronger, But when we pass to the other influences of the emotional wave, namely, the effects upon involuntary muscles, such as the heart and the fibres of the alimentary canal, and those further effects upon the secretions and excretions, the operation of the will is not so clear. In fact, the question has to be fairly met, whether or not the will has any power out of the circle of the recognized voluntary muscles. The presumption from facts is all in favour of the one view, namely, that our direct control is limited to those muscles. Indirectly, other influences can be exerted, but it seems quite possible to show that, in all such cases, the muscles are the medium of operation. I shall have to advert to this more particularly in the latter half of the chapter, when speaking of the voluntary control of the thoughts. At present it may suffice to remark, that various organic functions CONTROL OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS. are so connected with muscular movements, that we can often stimulate or check them by means of those. Thus the evacuation of the lacrymal sac, of the bladder, &c., is under the influence of muscles. The involuntary action of sobbing, which the actor on the stage can command without any emotion corresponding, might be forced on by voluntary movements of the parts concerned; although some of the movements are of muscles not voluntary. Where the connexion between an organic process and the voluntary organs is wanting, or very remote, as in the heart's action, the gastric secretion, &c., no voluntary power is possessed. Blushing cannot be induced or restrained by the will. From such natural connexions as those above noticed, and from others that grow up artificially, the range of voluntary control is extended a considerable way beyond its original sphere, and yet without disparagement to the view now insisted on as to the original limits of its sway. We hear of such extraordinary things as people simulating a swoon or an epileptic seizure, and of the still more singular power of some of the Hindoo Fakeers, who can induce the state of trance, and allow themselves to be buried in the earth for several weeks; but still, in all probability, the medium of inducing so great changes in the organic conditions, is some mode of. directing the voluntary organs. 3. As regards, then, the command of the emotional states, the one thing clearly practicable is to check or to further all that part of the diffusive manifestation that is made up of the movements of voluntary organs. The play of the features, the vocal exclamations, the gesticulation of the arms, &c., come under the domain of our volition. By motives sufficiently powerful, a hilarious demonstration can be arrested, or, on the other hand, all the movements entering into it can be put on, without the inward feeling. It is a point of considerable interest, both theoretical and practical, to determine how far the other constituents of a state of emotional excitement are allied with the muscular diffusion, so as to receive a check when that is checked, or the contrary. The movements are not the whole of the physical embodiment; there are organic effects in addi RESTRAINT OF DIFFUSIVE MANIFESTATIONS. 361 tion, and, moreover, there is the agitation of the whole nervous system leading to the outward display. This last circumstance is probably the most important. By an impulse, voluntary in its origin, the action of the various muscles may be suspended, but it does not follow that the nerve-currents of the emotional wave shall at once cease because the free course of them is obstructed. Experience alone can tell us what happens under those circumstances. We find that a feeble wave, the product of a moderate or faint excitement, is suspended inwardly by being arrested outwardly; the currents of the brain, and the agitation of the centres, die away if the external vent is resisted at every point. It is by such restraint that we are in the habit of suppressing pity, anger, fear, pride-on many trifling occasions. If so, it is a fact that the suppression of the actual movements has a tendency to suppress the nervous currents that incite them, so that the external quiescence is followed by the internal. The effect would not happen in any case, if there were not some dependence of the cerebral wave upon the free outward vent or manifestation. An opinion, however, prevails that for very intense excitement it is better, even with a view to the most rapid mode of suppression, to give free course for a time to the full external display. Under a shock of joy or grief, a burst of anger or fear, we are recommended to give way for a little to the torrent, as the safest way of making it subside. In so far as this view is correct, there is nothing more implied than the fact that an emotion may be too strong to be resisted, and we only waste our strength in the endeavour. If we are really able to stem the torrent, there is no more reason for refraining from the attempt than in the case of weaker feelings. And, undoubtedly, the habitual control of the emotions is not to be attained without a systematic restraint extended to weak and strong. It is a law of our constitution that the inward wave tends to die away by being refused the outward vent; and with this the feeling itself disappears from the mind-if it be true, as I believe and have endeavoured to prove, that the diffused nerve-currents are indispensable to 362 CONTROL OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS. the mental or conscious element of the phenomenon. The exceptional cases do not invalidate the rule; they merely indicate some speciality of circumstance that needs to be allowed for. Under the pain of a great loss, or calamity, a certain free vent to the feelings is necessary, from the consideration that indulgence blunts our sensibility to the sting, so that we are able after a time to recur to the painful incident without a renewal of the distress in all its pristine severity. I will not undertake to say how far a system of restraint and suppression would be of use in such a state of things, because I cannot measure the exact range of the principle now alluded to. After great indulgence, pleasure to a certain degree loses its charm and pain its sting; excitement of every sort produces at last a dulness of the sensibility, from which consequences, favourable and unfavourable, ensue; and this would seem in some measure to justify a free expression of sorrow under an irreparable calamity. Accordingly, we spread our lamentation for lost friends over a wide surface, by superadding the paraphernalia of mourning to the natural language suggested by the privation. It would thus appear that the will, operating through its own proper instruments, the voluntary muscles, reaches the deep recesses of emotion, and, by stilling the diffused wave, can silence the conscious state maintained by it. A resolute determination, that is to say, a powerful motive impulse, may trample out entirely a burst of pity, of anger, or of remorse; there being a proper allowance of time and perseverance. By the very same interposition, we may summon up a dormant feeling. By acting out the external manifestations, we gradually infect the nerves leading to them, and finally waken up the diffusive current by a sort of induction ab extra. This is the result partly of an original tendency to draw out the nerve centres by commencing the movements, precisely analogous to "the above-mentioned, principle of restraining them, and partly, doubtless, of association, which brings into relation the external and internal still more closely. Thus it is that we are sometimes able to assume a cheerful tone GROWTH OF CONTROL OF EMOTIONS. 363 of mind by forcing a hilarious expression. A few pages later, I shall have to advert to a still more efficacious mode of evoking any given passion. It is not, however, to be supposed that the personation of a feeling, as by a player on the stage, necessarily calls up the reality. Without doubt there is a certain tendency to do so, but various things may come between the outward manifestation and the mental state-in accordance with it. The appearances put on for the sake of display, in the presence of other persons, are not precisely coincident with the genuine diffusive manifestation; they are rather adaptations to suit the eye of the spectator. In short, they are a sort of voluntary construction on the model of the natural display, with additions and suppressions in order to make a work of art. 4. Having made these preliminary observations as to the extent of the interference of the will, in submerging or in evoking our various emotions, we must now attend to the usual mode of growth in this department of voluntary power. Were we to imagine a person attaining all the species of voluntary command indicated in the preceding chapter, merely by such experience as was therein implied, we could easily comprehend the application of those various acquirements to the present case. The submission of the various muscular members to motives operating on the mind, might be easily extended to displays of feeling. The control arrived at over the features, the voice, the upper and lower extremities, and the rest, is available for any purpose of restraining or inducing action that can ever arise. The stare of astonishment might be checked by a sufficiently strong impulse of pain or pleasure. Even the convulsive outburst of laughter could be repressed by the command attained over the diaphragm and other voluntary muscles engaged. Usually, however, the control of the feelings is not postponed till the volition is fully educated in all other respects. We commence it when still labouring under the struggles of a yet unformed connexion between the promptings of pain or pleasure and the executive machinery of the system. The infant has 364 CONTROL OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS. to be indoctrinated betimes into the suppression of at least violent emotion, a~nd is fit to be disciplined to this when very few volitional links are as yet established. By a strong motive, brought to bear in the shape of pain or pleasure, impulses tending to neutralize the movements of a fit of crying may be encouraged and sustained till the end is accomplished. No doubt the case is one of a more serious difficulty than that assumed in the other commencing movements. Not merely are there wanted spontaneous impulses of the right sort, which have here also to be waited for in the round of chances, but an extraordinary degree of energy must be thrown into them to overcome the violence of the emotional wave. Severe practice must be had recourse to at this critical stage. Strong motives of pleasure on the one hand, and of pain on the other, must be plied to make the nascent powers of volition a match for the play of a strong emotion. Nevertheless it is quite possible to initiate the babe of ten or twelve months into the suppression of its noisy outbursts. In the second year, a very considerable progress is attainable. The manner of proceeding is precisely that so often described; the difficulties are the same as regards the getting of the right impulse under weigh; the method of keeping that impulse at work, when once found, is likewise the same, with the difference now specified. The treatment adapted for the young restive horse would apply to the beginnings of self-control in the infant. In proportion to the fury of the manifestations to be suppressed must be the spur applied to the counteracting movements. The difficulties of the case are not to be concealed. That spontaneity that we count upon for first bringing together in fitting conjunction a feeling and a movement, is favoured by the stillness of the system as regards strong emotion. Being the discharge of surplus power into the various active members, if the system is otherwise drawn upon, it is liable to subside; and without some extraordinary stimulation we cannot hope to call it adequately forth. Still, the elements of success in this important endeavour are within the compass of the organization even at a very early age, and, EARLY DISCIPLINE. 365 as in the other departments of volition, the facility grows with time. If we disregard the suffering occasioned by forcing on the development of the link between a suppressive effort and a certain indication backed by pain, we may begin the discipline when we please. After a few abortive trials, the child will fall upon the connexion desired to be established, and will hold by it when driven by suffering and fear. What we want principally to act upon is the fury of the vocal outburst in a child, as being both an evil in itself, and the key of the entire manifestation. Accordingly, we apply ourselves to the task of quelling the excitement at this point, and by concentrating the endeavours so, we can very soon establish a definite link of power with this special region. A certain number of repetitions will enable the child to connect the impulse of vocal suppression with the cessation of the painful urgency brought to bear upon it; and, although it is a hard.thing to convert a crude volition into a power able to compete with a violent wave of emotion, yet by the grand instrumentality of acute suffering, the will may be goaded into equality in the contest. The discipline may be commenced on an entirely independent footing, that is, without waiting for any other volitional acquisitions to found it upon. Or we may delay it until a few links have been established, such as those beginnings in the subjection of the voice to external command made for other purposes. If we suppose the child already familiar with the direction to hush to silence, or if the channel has been formed between certain impressions made on the ear and a stimulus to the voice, this medium can be had recourse to in reducing a fit of inordinate crying. The intellectual bond being prepared, we need only to supply the proper impulse of the will in sufficient intensity to meet the occasion. When the child distinctly comprehends the meaning of the term 'silence', or 'hush', or 'hold your tongue', this implies that the way has been laid open to the exact organs to be moved,-that the random spontaneity has been reclaimed into a regular road. A sufficient degree of volitional prompting will then give the 366 CONTROL OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS. needful power. The determination put forth to escape from the smartings inflicted, will raise a conflict with the fury of the emotion, and may at last gain the day. We cannot but feel a certain relenting pity, in urging the suppressive effort at the early stage of unformed alliance between our indications and the movement intended; when the child, so to speak, has no knowledge of what we require; in other words, when no association has been formed for guiding the course of power into the true channel. We inspire struggles indeed, and energetic movements, but it may be long ere the fitting one is lighted on; and hence an interval of suffering to no purpose. Still, pain is a surprising quickener of the intellectual progress. The coincidence between the cessation of suffering and the movement at that instant, will be an impressive one, and not many such coincidences will be wanted to complete the adhesion for the future. The first lessons in the control of the passionate outbursts are unavoidably severe. Every considerate person naturally tries to probe the reason of a child's giving way to a fit of grief; and when it is found that the fury of the outburst is a greater evil than the pain that it helps to soothe, a determined suppression should be attempted. 5. The overcoming of grief, anger, incontinent animal spirits, &c., continues to be a part of the discipline of selfcontrol, and is carried on through the medium of the various motives available in each case. The intellectual bond for giving a right direction to the course of power is very soon completed, and there remains only the application of a volitional spur, strong enough for the emergency. One of the most common difficulties with children of a certain temperament is to restrain laughter; the outburst being made up of involuntary, as well as of voluntary, movements, the control is but partial, and occasionally breaks down. The same may be said of a fit of sobbing, which is a series of convulsive spasms extending to parts that are not under the government of the will. There is a peculiar interest in studying this whole department of self-restraint from the circumstance that, under POWER OF WILL MEASURED. 367 it, we can put in evidence the volitional power of the individual character. What is termed 'force of will' is very fairly brought to the test, by a regard to the greater or less facility in suppressing the outbursts of emotion. When one determination of a voluntary kind overbears another of the same kind, as when a man avoids luxurious living for the sake of health, we have no measure of the energy of the will as a whole, but merely a comparison of two species of motives. But when we array the volitional energy in general against the diffusive current of emotion, we obtain a relative measure of the two great departments of mind in their totality. If we find a person exceedingly deficient in the command of his feelings, being under all the ordinary motives that would inspire restraint, we must represent the fact by saying either that the emotional wave is unusually vehement, or that the volitional link is naturally or habitually feeble. Supposing two individuals equally urged towards the manifestation of feeling, and prompted to repression by the same pain or the same pleasure, the one that succeeded in the work of control when the other failed, would be said to have the higher volitional endowment. A larger share of the cerebral power is shown to flow towards the region of will in the case supposed. The feeble will is one that needs to be worked upon by a more powerful motive; a greater severity of pain, or a greater charm of pleasure, must be had recourse to. This is constantly seen in the government of children, in families and in schools, as well as over mankind at large. There is no fairer criterion to be had in this matter than the control of outward displays of feeling; the only ambiguity attaching to the test is the unequal degrees of the natural diffusive energy of a wave of emotion. THE MIXED EXPRESSION OF THE FEELINGS. 6. The strict and proper Expression of the Feelings is exemplified in the smile, the frown, the laugh, the sob. These arise at once along with the corresponding mental states; they are the embodiment or diffusion characteristic of the feelings. 368 CONTROL OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS. They are wholly purposeless; they are in no respect volitional; they are devoid of conscious end or intention. It matters not that, in their first origination, they were, as Darwin supposes, volitional. We may grant that the scream of pain was primarily the exertion of the voice with a view to procure assistance; but, as the system is now constituted, it arises as mere expression without any such end; although, by a separate impulse, the animal may still employ it for that purpose. A dog howls through the mere uneasiness of being chained up; while the hope of procuring release will lead to a new and distinct outburst. So, the frown may have been originally a volitional effect, to protect the eyes from too much light; it is now an emotional effect, and an accompaniment of pain under very various circumstances. Likewise, sobbing is to be pronounced a truly emotional expression, whatever may be its primary explanation. When we are in pain, however, we put forth truly volitional efforts, which are superadded to these various expressions, and are guided by the resulting feeling of relief. Hence there are many voluntary actions and attitudes that are so frequently associated with certain mental states, that they are reckoned part and parcel of their regular expression. Among these, I may specify, in the first place, the ordinary movements of protection from attack. An extreme instance is furnished by a combatant in the posture of defence; a posture very expressive, but wholly arising out of the operation of the will, under a particular end. In any apprehended danger, the attitude taken is such as to cover the parts likely to be injured; the hand is raised to protect the head; the body stoops or inclines to one side to be off the line of assault. The act of wincing under an impending blow is of the same class, and it extends even to a remote or ideal danger; we wince under disagreeable possibilities suddenly suggested, or even under the recollection of past incidents of a distressing kind. The expressive gesture of turning away the head is volitional in its origin; it is a mode of getting out of the way of something that displeases us. Looking up to the roof is a THE WILL IN THE EXPRESSION OF FEELING 369 variety of the same attempt to evade a disagreeable object. The gesture of loathing is chosen with a view to signify the act of repelling; the head is turned away, and the hands held up in a propulsive attitude. The culprit slinking out of sight exemplifies a voluntary determination united with emotional signs. The attitude of supplication shows a similar mixture. To turn about restlessly from one side to the other, to get up and walk to and fro, although to a spectator expressive of mental struggle-are still of the nature of voluntary acts. What is called 'fidgets' is purely volitional; consisting of movements for delivering us from organic uneasiness, and especially from the discomfort of retarded circulation at the places where the body is pressed. Scratching the head when puzzled, is resorting to a pungent sensation to console the mind in its harrassed condition. So, many things of the same tenor. Putting the fingers to the mouth, for instance, is often meant to soothe us in our distress by a pleasure of touch. On the side of pleasure, there is the same mixture of the emotional and the volitional. The attitude of intently gazing or listening is voluntary, and yet signifies pleasure as decidedly as the instinctive or truly emotional effect of smiling. To grasp at, stretch towards, beckon to something in the distance -proves that we are 'deriving pleasure thereby. The artist employs all these significant voluntary determinations as freely as he does the primary expressions of a strictly emotional kind. Tlhe upward gaze of the pious devotee is an act of the will; the solemn cast of the features is of the nature of emotion I roper. COMMAND OF THE THOUGHTS. 7. This is the place to handle more explicitly the topic already introduced under the Law of Compound Association (~ 13), namely, the influence of the will over the thoughts or ideas. It is a fact that, by a voluntary endeavour, we can modify or divert the stream of images and recollections arising in the mind. While I am engaged in a pursuit, I find it 24 370 CONTROL OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS. possible to keep out irrelevant thoughts, although arising in the current of associations. My power in this respect. is not unlimited, any more than my power of self-control in the suppression of feeling; but I do possess it in a certain measure-have more of it, perhaps, than some men and less of it than others. I refer to a book on a particular subject, look up the table of contents or the index; this starts me off in a great many different trains of intellectual reproduction, all which I refuse and suppress, except the one answering to my purpose or end at the time. It was said in the place above quoted, that this influence, although genuine and decided, is still only indirect. What the will can do is to fix the Attention. As we can, under an adequate motive, observe one point in the scene before us, and neglect everything else; as we can single out one sound and be deaf to the general hum; as we can apply ourselves to the appreciation of one flavour in the midst of many; or be aware of a pressure on a particular part of the body to the neglect of the rest; so in mental attention, we can fix one idea firmly in the view, while others are coming and going unheeded. On the supposition, that the influence of the will is limited to the region of the voluntary muscles' and parts in alliance therewith, something needs to be said in explanation of this apparent exception to the rule. It is not obvious at first sight, that the retention of an idea in the mind is operated by voluntary muscles. Which movements are operating when I am cogitating a circle, or recollecting St. Paul's? There can be no answer given to this, unless on the assumption that the mental, or revived, image occupies the same place in the brain and other parts of the system, as the original sensation did; a position supported by a number of reasons adduced in my former volume (CONTIGUITY, ~ 10). Now, there being a muscular element in our sensations, especially of the higher senses-touch, hearing, and sight-this element must somehow or other have a place in the after remembrance or idea. The ideal circle is a restoring of those currents that would prompt the sweep of the eye round a real circle; the difference lies VOLUNTARY CONTROL OF IDEAL MOVEMENTS. 3i71 in the last stage, or in stopping short of the actual movement performed by the organ. We can direct the currents necessary for keeping an imagined circle in the view, by the same kind of impetus as is required to look at a diagram in Euclid. Not that we should have had any title to say beforehand, that the volition could operate, as a matter of course, under the restriction now implied; but, seeing that it is a fact, we treat it as of the same nature with the power of voluntary attention directed to present realities. This is not by any means an. early or an easily-attained aptitude; but when the time arrives for possessing well-formed ideas of things-things seen, heard, touched, &c.,-there is scope for the process of voluntary selection; a spontaneous power in the right direction manifests itself, and is held fast by the urgency of some present feeling. The infant at school can be trained to fix the volatile gaze upon the alphabet before it; a little later the master can compel an arrest of the thoughts upon a sum propounded as an exercise in mental arithmetic. The youthful mind, as yet averse to concentration, may require a pretty sharp goad; but the schoolmaster ultimately triumphs. The power grows with well-directed exercises, and in the various intellectual professions is so matured as to dispense with artificial spurs. Indeed, none but an idiot (and he not always) is found wholly incapable of mental attention; for this is implied in listening to, and answering the commonest question, or giving the most ordinary information in the proper forms of language. There are very high efforts of the kind belonging to the student, the contriver, the man at the head of complicated affairs; and for such men the qualifying endowment is a mixture of the volitional element with intellect proper. A great profusion of remembered images, ideas or notions, avails little for practical ends without this power of arrest and selection, which is in its origin purely voluntary. We may have the luxuriousness of a reverie or a dream, but not the compjiance with a plan of operations, or with rules of composition.* " The common observation as to the plodder taking the start of the man of great natural endowment is in point here. By the phrases 'plodding,' 372 CONTROL OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS. An exercise of volition not so obviously consisting of ideal muscular movements, is fixing the mind upon one quality rather then upon another, in the same complex whole. A concrete object, as a rose, besides possessing extension, which gives scope for ideal movements, has properties that co-inhere at every point; for example, colour, softness to the touch, odour. To pass from contemplating one to contemplate another, we do not assume a new muscular position, as in turning the view from the flower to the leaves; we keep the same attitude, and conceive the same points (as regards extension), but yet we pass from one mental effect to another. This we can do voluntarily, or upon any motive or suggestion to do it. So, we can abide by the consideration of one effect -the odour-and not be diverted to the others. A similar case is presented in Sounds, which have little to do with extension, and much with co-inhering or concurring effects. A sound has pitch, sweetness, intensity, timbre-all affecting the ear, but not all equally affecting the mind at each instant. We can be fully conscious of one, and comparatively unconscious of the others; as is the case in every exercise of abstraction. An act of the will, under a motive, can make us change from considering the pitch to consider the intensity. So, when we are listening to a harmony, we are not equally conscious of all the concurring notes; our attention shifts from one to another, sometimes without an obvious motive, at other times, under an express purpose. In listening to a full band, there is a still greater complexity, and a still more frequent exercise of selective attention. Yet the change of attention does not obviously involve even an ideal muscular movement. If we are looking at the performers we can change from one to another by moving the eyes, and in so doing will probably concentrate attention on the effect produced by the one we are looking at. But we might, if we pleased, look at 'industry,' 'application,' 'steadiness,' and the like, is clearly indicated the energy of the will in commanding the intellectual faculties. A mind little retentive by nature of a given subject, as for example, languages, can make up by protracted application or study, under a volitional resolve monopolized by one subject. So, as regards the aptitudes growing out of the emotional part of our nature, of which the most notable are acting, engaging demeanour, and address; the same difference may be remarked between natural gifts adapted to the purpose from the first, and aptitudes that are the reward of study. We have a born actor, like Kean, when the primitive and untutored expression of the feelings, and the general bearing, coincide almost exactly with the maximum of stage effectiveness. When a person of much inferior endowments, seized with the passion for becoming an actor or an orator, 'scorns delights, and lives laborious days,' in training the defective parts of the organization, the force of the will is the power evoked for the occasion. SELECTIVE ATTENTION IN SENSATIONS. 373 one and listen to another; and we might give one the preference, without knowing the local situation of the instrument. When we are freely venting random impulses, being under no specializing motives, the course seems to be this. There is a complex solicitation of the sense or senses; some one effect, however, is more agreeable than the rest, and, by the primary law of our voluntary framework, will attract our attention, to the neglect of the others. After a time, sensibility is exhausted or enfeebled, and the act of attending ceases; the other effects now rise into prominence, and some circumstance gives a superior impressiveness to one of these. Pleasure is not the only specializer; mere intensity of effect will take hold of us; so also will Pain, for a different reason, namely, the interest of avoidance. The intellectual basis of a selective attention is known to be the process of identification of the present with the past. We think of the round form of a shilling, when the shilling recalls the collective past impression of round things. On this ground, the occurrence of some other round things along with the shilling, as a ring and a circular stamp upon the table, would make us tend to think rather of the roundness of the shilling than of its colour or its weight. This is a purely intellectual determination; yet it is often the cause of our attending to one quality rather than to another for the time being. Short of this effect of an identity with the past, we do not make any property an object of attention. When a voluntary preference induces attention, it induces this effect of reviving by similarity the past accumulated impression: roundness with accumulated round figures, silvery whiteness with the accumulated visible effects of the same whiteness, and so on. Thus, on the one hand, an intellectual suggestion may be the proximate cause of the selective attention; and, on the other hand, a volitional impulse under the attraction of a feeling may be the cause. Now, we have the power to overbear all these commanding attractions-pleasure, intensity, pain, intellectual coincidence-in favour of some property that has nothing in itself to force it upon our notice. This power, however, means nothing but the existence of other motives still, having a superior degree of force; for example, the motive of some great utility, as when we are looking at a signal post, and attending to nothing but the characteristic movement that conveys the message. To reduce all these changes of mental view to voluntary muscular changes is the difficulty of the case: and, generally speaking, our problem is to show-that in selecting a quality out of a complex effect; in maintaining the attention upon one of several images that rise to the view; in a word, in all voluntary control of the thinking trains,-there is a muscular intervention. Supposing there is always a muscular instrumentality, it must often be indirect. Thus, in the contemplation of a rose, we think 374 CONTROL OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS of the form by a direct muscular sweep of its outline. To think of the colour we should have to restrain this sweep, or keep our ocular movements in abeyance. To think of the soft touch, we should probably need to conceive the movement of the hand and fingers in the act of touching; which would be a muscular impetus (in idea). To think of the odour, we should, in like manner, have to suppose ourselves smelling it; and this also turns upon a muscular conception. The difficulty is at its greatest in the case of sounds. To think of the sweetness, the pitch, or the intensity apart, or to turn from one to the other, does not apparently involve a muscular exercise, because it does not obviously require us to move any organ, to begin or to suppress any muscular act. What we may do is to work the intellectual condition of preference. When we wish to think of the sweetness and to neglect the rest, we carry the attention away in search of sounds marked by sweetness, and make this a prominent impression by the accumulating of past impressions. There is thus scope for ideal movement, in our ideal search for former known sounds; a round-about process, it will be said, but still one that may be speedily gone through. So in the multitudinous din of a great hubbub, we are driven from one sound to another, by the causes already mentioned-sweetness, loudness, pain, mere alternation by exhausted sensibility, intellectual suggestion. When we pass from sweetness to loudness by the subsidence of the one and the strength of the other, there may be a total absence of volition; the supposition of movement is unnecessary. Equally is this so, if the loud sound were suddenly seconded by another of its own kind; this would also be a cause of prominence apart from will or movement. If, again, a melodious sound were suddenly to burst forth, the previous sound would be set aside in its favour. Here we must allow the influence of the will, under the attraction of a pleasure; and, therefore, we must find room for an exercise of muscular movement. By observation it is shown that to think of a sweet sound in the presence of a loud one is far from easy; the volitional machinery can scarcely cope with the situation. Excepting the intellectual method-the search for memories of sweet sounds to support it,-I am not able to assign any outgoing of voluntary action that would meet the case. We are often placed in an analogous position; the attention overpowered by the vehemence of one impression, while our wishes are bent upon some other. 8. We may now see in what way the control of the intellectual trains provides a touchstone for the degree of development of volition as a whole, in the individual character. In the case now supposed, the force of the will is set in array against a power of a different sort, the power of the intellec WILL IN THE CONSTRUCTIVE PROCESS. 375 tual asibciations. Contiguous adhesion, and similarity, call up foregone states with a certain amount of energy. Against this we place the voluntary detention of the inward view upon some one object, and the result shows which is the stronger., I am engaged in watching the demeanour of a person, whom I address with the view of informing or persuading; the appearance of that person tends by association to suggest places and times of former connexion, or other persons having points of resemblance. The earnestness of my purpose, that is to say, the strength of motive growing out of some pain or pleasure, present or apprehended, utterly quells all those resurrections of the associative faculties, and voluntary power is in the ascendant. If it be a usual experience with any one to restrain at all hands the rush of associated ideas, at the instigation of ends, such a person may be said to possess energy of a superior degree. 9. In the intellectual process termed, in my former volume, ' constructive association', I have maintained that there is no new law of association, the additional fact being only an exercise of the will moved by some end to be attained. When I wish to put together a sentence of language, differing from any that I have learnt, I proceed upon some known form, and strike out, or put in, words, also known, till the result answers the effect desired. If I am under the hand of the schoolmaster, the spur of his disapprobation on the one side, and of his approbation on the other, keeps my faculties at work, trying and erring; and when, in the course of the flow of ideas, brought up by associations, a combination emerges corresponding with the conditions imposed, I adhere to that, and put a stop to all further currents of associative reproduction. This is the exact tendency of the volitional mechanism so often described, namely, to adhere to what relieves a pain or yields a pleasure, when that something is once present, and to depart from other objects or movements that have the opposite effect, or no such effect. The higher constructions of the intellectual ingenuity exhibit in the fullgrown individual nearly the situation of the infant beginner, 376 CONTROL OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS. for in them there is no established channel leading to the movements demanded; and a series of tentatives have to be made, with only the certainty that, if the true thing occur, the primordial instinct of our nature will fasten upon it, and conclude the search. When Watt invented his 'parallel motion' for the steam-engine, his intellect and his observation were kept at work, going out in all directions for the chance of some suitable combination rising to view; his sense of the precise thing to be done was the constant touchstone of every contrivance occurring to him, and all the successive suggestions were arrested, or repelled, as they came near to, or disagreed with, this touchstone. The attraction and the repulsion were purely volitional effects; they were the continuance of the very same energy that, in his babyhood, made him keep his mouth to his mother's breast while he felt hunger unappeased, and withdraw it when satisfied, or that made him roll a sugary morsel in his mouth, and let drop, or violently eject, what was bitter or nauseous. The promptitude that we display in setting aside, or ignoring, what is seen not to answer our present wants, is volition pure, perennial, and unmodified; the same power is shown in our infant struggles for nourishment and warmth, or the riddance of acute pain, and that presides over the final endeavours to ease the agonies of suffering. No formal resolution of the mind, adopted after consideration or debate, no special intervention of the 'ego', or the personality, is essential to this putting forth of the energy of retaining on the one hand, or of repudiating on the other, what is felt to be clearly suitable, or clearly unsuitable, to the feelings or aims of the moment. The inventor sees the incongruity of a proposal, and forthwith it vanishes from his view. There may be extraneous considerations happening to keep it up in spite of the volitional stroke of repudiation, but the genuine tendency of the mind is to withdraw all further consideration, on the mere motive of unsuitability; while some other scheme of a likely character is, by the same instinct, embraced and held fast. In all these new constructions-be they mechanical, verbal, scientific, practical, or esthetical-the outgoings of the FEELINGS CONTROLLED TIROUG:I THIE THOUGHTS. 377 mind are necessarily random; the end alone is the thing that is clear to the view, aud with that there is a perception of the fitness of every passing suggestion. The volitional energy keeps up the attention, or the active search; and, the moment that anything in point rises before the mind, it springs upon that like a wild beast on its prey. I might go through all the varieties of creative effort, detailed under the law of constructive association, but I should only have to make the same remark at every turn. 10. Reverting now to the first division of the present chapter, we have to consider shortly the additional lever, gained by the power possessed over the thoughts and ideas, in attempting to control the feelings. From the fact that our various emotions are wont to spring up on some definite occasion, or on the occurrence of some distinct object, or cause,-as when the re-appearance of an absent friend wakens tenderness, or an injury rouses resentment,-we are to some extent able to bring out the play of those passions by directing the mind upon their objects, or causes. We can work ourselves up into a loving mood, by forcing the attention and the train of ideas upon all the kindness and affection that we may have experienced in the past. By a similar impulse of the will, selecting, out of the current of intellectual reproduction, the various wrongs that have been inflicted on us, we succeed in warming up the glow of indignation. When, in like manner, we dwell on the catalogue of our good actions and qualities, we thereby nurse the self-complacent condition into being. So, we can do something to turn aside a gush of feeling that has come over us, by diverting the attention from the exciting cause, and, still more effectually, by forcing the thoughts into the opposite channel,-as when we silence a querulous fit by coercing the mind into the act of considering the favourable side of our situation.* We do for * Dr. Chalmers has, in different parts of his writings, expanded this theme with various illustration and eloquent language. Many writers have touched upon it, and we see it employed practically in the attempts made to change the prevailing temper and feelings of men's minds under all the 378 CONTROL OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS. ourselves what our friends, advisers, comforters, the public preacher, and the moralist, endeavour to do for us, that is, present forcibly the thoughts, the facts, and the reflections bearing upon the temper that we desire to put in the ascendant. The operation, if successful in any case of real importance, is usually a hard one; in fact, transcending the voluntary power of the generality of mankind. We are not for that reason to omit it from the list of aptitudes falling under our present department; for even the rare instances of manifesting it in a high degree, are to be cherished as precious. 11. The quenching and the rousing of emotional displays, which we have seen to be practicable to a certain length by a direct impulse towards the parts concerned, are very much assisted by means of our control over ideas. It may not be easy to arrest a hilarious outburst by a mere volition addressed at once to the muscles; but, by carrying the mind away to some quarter of seriousness, the central emotion is allayed, and the currents dried up at the fountain-head. When we have to calm down a very troublesome agitation, we commonly bring both methods into play-the direct restraint of the muscular movements, and the transfer of the mental attention to ideas suggestive of the opposite mental condition. The custom of coercing the flow of ideas and the attitude of attention, is an emergencies of life. With Dr. Chalmers the grand specific for altering a wrong bias or disposition is what he calls 'the expulsive power of a new affection'. This is a much easier case than the one supposed in the text; one emotion may be suppressed by the spontaneous rise of the opposite (by which I mean the occurrence of some natural stimulus or occasion), without the intervention of the will (so also the counter trains of thought just mentioned in the text might arise independently of volition, as when suggested by some. passing event, or by something heard or read at the time). When, under a state of timidity in approaching some strange person of dread presence, we are addressed in the tones and language that inspire confidence and ease, the first emotion is overpowered by the rise of the second. But when we turn aside or suppress a torrent of excitement, because of some harm that we are suffering, or are likely to suffer, by the continuance of it, or because of some pleasure directly or indirectly accruing from arresting it, the effect is a purely voluntary one. The expenditure of power in the case has to be entered in the column of the account that is headed ' Will'. FEELINGS SWAYING THE THOUGHTS. 379 extremely valuable one, both for purposes purely intellectual and for the general government of the temper and the feelings. We may consider it as belonging to the highest branch of self-discipline. In restoring some past state of feeling, with all the diffusive manifestation proper to it-a thing not often wanted by people generally, but important in special avocations, as the platform or the stage,-the intervention of ideas is more thorough-going than the muscular command of the organs of expression, seeing that if we can only resuscitate the feeling itself, all the diffusive accompaniments are sure to follow. True, this is a more costly process than the other, owing to the occurrence in that way of organic and other effects not wanted for the purpose in hand, as well as owing to the wear of the emotion itself. But if an actor cannot personify terror or indignation by a simple volition extending to the features, the voice, the gestures, or to the outward display simply, he may, by some recollection of his own, induce the reality of the state with all the collaterals apparent or concealed. 12. While speaking of the ability to summon or expel modes of excitement through the medium of ideas, we are reminded of the contrary tendency, namely, the fact more than once adverted to, that our feelings themselves govern our ideas. It is notorious to observation, that nothing is harder than to introduce successfully into a mind roused in some one direction, thoughts or considerations of an opposite kind. This is the way that our feelings lord it over our beliefs or convictions. When, by a stroke of the will, we aim at diverting the current of reflections in profound sorrow or intense anger, we have to fight, by means of this one power, the two remaining forces of our nature leagued against us; we have to resist the currents of association or intellect proper, and the fury of excited feeling at the same time. But an interesting question is here presented for consideration, whether this power of the emotions to rule the ideas be not, properly speaking, in part, and on various occasions, a volitional effect 380 CONTROL OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS. When some intense pleasure keeps the attention fixed exclusively upon one thing, as when listening to music or gazing on objects of deep interest, or when the same process is repeated ideally in the reminiscence, I call this a purely voluntary influence; it is the proper stimulant of the will impelling to voluntary acts. Some acute pain to be warded off would prove an equally energetic spur to the bodily or mental attention. Now is not this exactly what happens when a burst of strong emotion, such as tenderness, admiration, selfexaltation, or plot-interest, possesses the mind? Is it not that we cleave to whatever sustains the charm of the moment (which is nothing else than volition) and shrink from whatever would interrupt or do away with it? Clearly, when an emotional state is the bubbling up of pure delight, the will is strongly engaged to maintain that condition.* Yet every mode of excitement cannot be described so. We find that an exceedingly painful condition will sometimes operate so as to detain the very causes of the pain. The passion of fear is an instance in point. Happy would it be for the terrified wretch, if the agony of his condition could drive away from his excited vision the imagery and objects that originated his fears. The usual course of volition is manifestly here perverted and paralyzed by some foreign influence. So, again, with anger. I do not doubt that pleasure is experienced in giving full sway to the outgoings of resentment, but the energy of retaliation is often out of proportion to the pain averted or pleasure sought. I speak not of the calculation of future consequences, which in the great majority of cases would show that in so far as concerns the happiness of the individual the angry ebullition is a mistake; for, even as regards the moment, the actions prompted are not according to the measure of a genuine estimate of pain or pleasure. In short, there is in the excitement of the strong feelings a power different from the * In cases of pleasurable emotion, emotion and volition act in the same direction. In cases of painful emotion, the two act in different and opposite directions, as regards the control of attention, or the retaining or dismissing of ideas and thoughts. FEELINGS DISTURBING THE JUDGMENT. 381 will, and which yet exercises a control over action and thought. It is certainly not from a pleasurable stimulus that all the thoughts entertained by the mind towards the person we are angry with are of the unfavourable kind. This is a property of the feeling in its strictly emotional character, and not as one of the motives of the will. An emotion persists in the mind and dominates the course of the thoughts, not because it is pleasurable or painful, but because it is strong. This is the aspect of emotion that we express by the name 'excitement'. The nervous pressure is accumulated in some one region of the brain, in connection with one class of thoughts; any ideas belonging to that class will arise with facility, others of an incompatible kind are kept back. Under a state of elation, the thoughts are cheerful and sanguine; only such are allowed to come into the field of view. In depressed or melancholy excitement, the thoughts correspond. When the elation or depression is in any one special interest, as when the excitement is due to some fluctuation in business, the thoughts that come forward are by preference those related to that single subject. In such a state, the mind is no longer in its calm centre; the judgments and convictions are liable to perversion or bias. A sound decision supposes that the considerations on all sides come forward in their proper strength; which is possible only when the nervous currents are of equal intensity everywhere, giving birth to the condition denominated coolness, composure, the perfect balance of the mental and nervous system. The disturbance of an emotion, a special excitement, a fixcd idea, -at once interferes with the equal representation of the various interests; and any decision that is come to is partial or one- sided.* The succeeding chapter will contain farther illustrations of emotional perversion, as bearing on the motives to the Will. Thus it is that, in the voluntary control of the thoughts, we have frequently two powers against one-the tendency of * The physical side of this situation is happily rendered by Mr. Spencer (' Psychology', vol. I., p. 596). 382 CONTROL OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS. the intellect to flow in the direction of the strongest associations, and the tendency of the peculiar excitement of the moment to cherish one class of thoughts and banish the contrary sort. It is not the first of these two influences that renders self-control so difficult, as regards the thoughts; it is the backing given by an emotion that renders some one kind of considerations omnipotent in the mind. CHAPTER V. MOTIVES OR ENDS. 1. THE discussion raised in the concluding paragraph of the last chapter shows that it is time to consider explicitly, and in detail, the various kinds of Motives. Hitherto we have confined our attention to the general designations, pleasure and pain, as summing up all the causes that have an influence on voluntary action. We see, however, from what has just been said respecting the effect of excitement, that there are important modifying circumstances to be taken into account in estimating the course of action that a human being will pursue. Those passions of tenderness, fear, anger, avail themselves of the instrumentality of the voluntary organs, while urging us on apparently without regard either to pain or to pleasure. A fuller explanation on this head is therefore called for. Independently of any anomaly or exception to the general law of the will, there is great room for variety in the operation of motives, according as the pleasure is actual or merely in prospect. The element of intellectual retentiveness is obviously a matter of importance when pain or pleasure operates only in the idea, or anticipation, based on past experience. Moreover, we work largely with the view of compassing ends that of themselves are indifferent, but that derive a value from something beyond; which ulterior object, however, wve often let drop entirely from the sight, being wholly engrossed by those mediate objects. The farmer is as eager about getting his crops gathered in to his farm-yard, as he can be about eating his food or protecting his body from the winter chill. Life is full of those intervening or derived ends. 2. If the enumeration that I have given of our various feelings is thoroughly complete, we should now have touched upon every object, circumstance, or agent, that can constitute a simple, ultimate, or underived MOTIVE, or END, of volition. 384 3MOTIVES OR ENDS. Either among the Muscular feelings and the Sensations, brought forward in the first division of the exposition of mind, or among the Emotions, considered in the present volume, we should find an account of all the susceptibilities, pleasurable or painful, that can operate as stimulants, in the manner supposed in the foregoing chapters. The proper employment of the active part of our frame may be said to be-the warding off of the large army of possible pains, which threatens us at those numerous points, and the cherishing, retaining, and reproducing of the pleasures attainable through the same channels. To refer briefly to the enumeration as actually given. We encounter, first of all, a host of troublesome susceptibilities of our Muscular system in the shape of acute pains arising from injuries, and another class of pains consequent on too much exertion. All these are so many points for avoidance, whether actually incurred or only seen approaching. Out of the same region springs a tolerable body of enjoyment, to be cherished and cultivated. The Sensations of Organic life involve a certain amount of pleasure, with enormous capabilities of pain, to occupy our averting volition. The protection from starvation, hunger, thirst, cold, and suffocation, usurps a large surface of solicitude and endeavour. Here, too, we have the catalogue of ills that flesh is heir to, and here lies the grand stake of life and death. The urgency of the ends thus included is necessarily great and engrossing, commanding a large share of every one's voluntary labour. The cultivation of pleasure is materially trenched upon by the amount of toil expended in warding off organic suffering and disease, with their consequences. The interests of the other senses are but second in point of urgency to those comprised in the organic group; still, according to their several forms of pleasure and pain, do they engage our volitional expenditure. We have to repudiate bitter Tastes, to flee bad Odours, while we are attracted by the opposite species. The pleasures of warm, soft Touches are cherished by us with considerable force of purpose, while we have to repel the pungent and smarting contacts by every means in our power. So with the pleasurable and the painful in MOTIVES ARE SENSATIONS AND EMOTIONS. 385 Sound, to which most natures are sufficiently sensitive to be urged within range of the one class, and to be deterred from the vicinity of the other. Last of all, Light has its proper pleasures, no less than its utility as the condition of attaining many other ends; while the varieties of spectacle, movement, scenic effect, and pictured display, enter deeply into the habitual enjoyment of life. We are also liable to many painful and revolting sights, as well as to the gloom of outer darkness; and our volitional energy is kept alive in warding off such predicaments. Passing next to the special Emotions, as laid out in the preceding division of mind, we might name under every one of them states of well marked pleasure or of the opposite, at whose instance the will must frequently take proceedings. Novelty and the Marvellous are frequently invested with the highest charm, and are to that degree ends of our voluntary exertions. To pass from restraint to Liberty is an occasional object to every one, and is a greatly prized blessing. The Sexual feelings exercise their share of influence. Under the Tender emotion, there are decided pleasures, which one is disposed to use means for reaping in abundance, as when one surrounds one's self with family and friends, and enters into the society of one's fellows. Malevolence, in its various forms, is a first-class motive. Self-complacency, approbation, praise, the sentiment of Power and superiority, are productive of intense relish, prompting the will with ardour, and inciting to some of the greatest efforts that human nature is capable of; there being a corresponding energy of revulsion from their opposites. The active part of our nature, as we have seen, furnishes an extensive round of gratification, centering in the attitude of Pursuit; so that there grows up, incidentally to the successful working out of our ends, a pleasure superadded to actual fruition. The delight, growing out of the Intellect, connected with knowledge and truth, is largely developed in some minds, which are also deeply stung with falsehood or inconsistency, and rendered sad by ignorance; whereupon the active power is set to work in the direction of intellectual enquiry. The large group of 25 386 MOTIVES OR ENDS. aEsthetic sensibilities divide the energies with our other pleasures, and engross a considerable share of our means. Finally, under the Moral sentiments, we have much to attain and to avoid. In one or other of those classes, everything that can constitute a motive or end to a voluntary creature ought to be contained; otherwise the classification of human sensibilities is not complete. Every state denominated pain or pleasure, and tested by operating on the will, is either a muscular feeling, a sensation, or one of the special emotions; there being also modes of feeling of a neutral or inert character, as regards the will. 3. A specific reference must next be made to the ideal persistence of those various feelings, whereby they are rendered efficacious while the reality is still remote. I have noticed this peculiarity throughout the descriptions of the feelings. The point is essential, as regards the power of any object to engage the will in its behalf. A pain that takes little hold of the memory may inspire our utmost endeavours at the moments of its occurrence; but, between times, small attention will be paid to prevent it. On the other hand, when the recollection of some form of misery is good, that recollection will be a spur to our voluntary determinations, whenever there is any opening for a precautionary stroke. Thus it is, that we are constantly keeping up a guard against the causes of disease, against accidents to our property, our good name, our dignity, or against whatever is likely to interrupt our favourite enjoyments, or to plunge us into our special aversions. There are some things in everybody's life that maintain a constant efficacy in determining the conduct, whether really present or merely conceived. There are other things that have next to no influence except in the actual contact. There are, finally, a large intermediate class of pleasures and pains that stimulate us strongly in the reality, but whose stimulus dies away as the reality goes farther and farther into the distance. All kinds of suffering tend to persist in the memory, and to keep alive the attitude of precaution for the future; but it is not always the most intense kinds that are best retained. Many cir IDEAL PERSISTENCE OF FEELINGS. 387 cumstances, besides intensity in the actual, concur to deter-. mine the ideal hold that we have of our miseries and delights. Referring to the chapter on IDEAL EMOTION for a full account of the laws that govern the intensity of resuscitated and imagined feelings, I will here advert to the remembrance of pleasures and pains as motives, or with reference to their power over the will. On the effectiveness of this recollection hangs the great mental quality named Prudence or Forethought. We need to recall past delights, according to their measure,. with a view of securing them in full actuality, and to as great an extent as possible. We need to recall previous suffering, in order that the reality, so much worse than the idea, may not be again reproduced. The difference between a lax and a severe prudence is very much owing to the general tenor of the actual experience of pleasure and pain. An abundant flow of present pleasure,. and the absence of numerous and marked pains, dispense with considerations as to the future, and with labours for ideal ends. Prudence finds place in the character when the actual pleasures are not numerous or great, when the actual pains are considerable, when our own exertions are competent to alter the situation in a material degree, and, lastly, when our frame and disposition are naturally active. A good volitional memory for pain belongs to him that needs to work hard for his pleasures and immunities, and that has little repugnance to labour. In short, it is the predominance of the Active and the Intellectual, over the Emotional departments of the mind. The special directions taken in Pursuit and in Avoidance are all explained by the circumstances that make us more susceptible to some pleasures and pains than to others. A man has to exert himself, in the way of precaution, at whatever points he is most vulnerable; and the ideal motive corresponds to the frequency or imminency of the real evil. The prudence necessarily grows with repetition of the pain in the actual. So on the side of Pleasure; our greatest efforts are 388 MOTIVES OR ENDS. directed to what pleases most, and has by repetition been stamped on our recollection according to its worth; there being, in addition, the fact of great inferiority of the ideal to the actual. Certain circumstances, easily understood, may augment the motive efficiency of pleasure and pain, irrespective of the intensity and the repetition. We may be so situated that the idea of the pleasure or the pain is unduly made to recur as, when we have frequent occasion to see others affected with either the one or the other. The constant presence of the wealthy on one hand, and of the struggling poor on the other, keep alive the volitional ardour in the direction of worldly abundance. The course of volition under apprehended pain or pleasure is thus as intelligible as under the pressure of the actual state. The mediation of the intellect renders an approaching evil as effective a stimulant as one present. The horse obeys the rider's whip because of the actual smart; the boy at school learns his lessons in the evening to avert the master's cane in the morning. The more completely our intelligence serves us in realizing future consequences, good or bad, the more do we approximate to the state of things wherein a real pleasure or a real suffering prompts the will for continuance or for cessation. Modes of feeling that are in their nature little remembered in any way, or that the individual happens to have no aptitude for remembering, do not, while at a distance, count among the motives that sway the present conduct, and so we miss the good, or incur the evil, accordingly. 4. Of grouped, or aggregated, derivative and intermediate ends. The ultimate ends above enumerated, as found in any complete classification of our susceptibilities, and as rendered operative in idea as well as in fruition, are, in our daily pursuits, frequently grouped together, and represented by some one comprehensive aim or end. The most familiar of these is the all-purchasing Money, the institution of civilized communities. So there is a general pursuit of what we term Health, implying a certain number of arrangements for keep AGGREGATE ENDS. 389 ing off the organic pains and securing the opposite condition. These aggregate ends, for the most part, set up some intermediate goal to be looked to as guiding our exertions. The labourer stepping out into the fields to commence his day's work, is occupied not so much with the ultimate sensations of existence, as with the piece of land that has to be ploughed before evening. This it is that guides his voluntary energies, and it is expedient for him to confine his attention to that particular object. The more artificial human life becomes, the more are we called upon to work for ends that are only each a step towards the final ends of all our voluntary labours. Social Security is one of those vast intermediate ends, that we have learned to value for the sake of the ultimate consequences, and that we strive to compass with all our energy. Each person's enterprises include a small number of comprehensive objects, representative of a much larger number of elementary objects, of pain removed and pleasure gained. Besides those already mentioned, we may specify Education, Knowledge, Professional success, Social connexion and position, Power and Dignity, and an opening for one's Special Tastes. Every one of those things contains under it a plurality of human susceptibilities gratified, by reference to which the will is inspired to maintain the chase. Without the ultimate elements, directly affecting the human mind, such proximates as wealth, a professional avenir, the membership of a society, would have no efficacy to move a single muscle of the body; they are all a species of currency, having their equivalent in a certain amount of the agreeables of the human consciousness. Properly speaking, therefore, their motive value should exactly correspond to an accurate estimate, gained from past experience or from competent information, of the exact amount of ultimate pleasure likely to be realized, or suffering averted, through their means. This is the only measure that a rational being can set up for governing the acquisition of money, of position, of knowledge, of power, of health, or of any of the stepping-stones to these or other ends. Such would undoubtedly be the measure made use of, if one had perfect precon 390 MOTIVES OR ENDS. ceptions of the results, in substantial enjoyments and protections, accruing in each case. But, a very large intervention of the department of intelligence, and a considerable experience already had of good and evil, are necessary to foreshadow the future to the will with a fidelity that shall be justified when that future becomes present. 5. Of excited, impassioned, exaggerated, irrational ends: fixed ideas. There are activities wherein we cannot discover any connexion between pleasure enjoyed, or pain averted, and the energy manifested in pursuit. Infatuation, fascination, irresistible impulse, are terms indicating this circumstance. The temptation that seizes many people, when on the brink of a precipice, to throw themselves down, is strongly in point. The infatuation that leads the singed moth back to the flame is something of the same nature. There are sights that give us almost unmitigated pain, while yet we are unable to keep away from them. I have already explained (CONTIGUITY, ~ 11) that we must look for the explanation of this influence, which traverses the proper course of volition, in the undue or morbid persistency of certain ideas in the mind. The obliquity is intellectual in the first instance, and thence extends itself to action. A certain object has, by some means or other, gained possession of us; we are unable to dismiss it: whence, by persisting in the view and excluding other things, it may at last find its way into execution, through that power whereby every conceived act has a certain tendency to realize itself. In looking down a precipice, the idea of a falling body is so powerfully suggested as to give an impulse to exemplify it with one's own person. In the mesmeric experiments of Mr. Braid, and others, the influence is seen in the ascendant; there being something in the mesmeric trance that withdraws the counteractive agencies.* * Mr. Braid, I believe, was the first to adduce this fact as the explana. tion of table-turning. He remarked that certain constitutions were especially prone to fall under the influence of a fixed idea, which worked itself out quite apart from the will, and therefore with no consciousness of voluntary exertion. IMPASSIONED ENDS. 391 6. As regards the averting stimulus of Pain, which on certain occasions causes greater efforts than the pain properly justifies, while there may be various causes to determine the disproportion, the one great and general cause is the emotion of Fear. Evil felt, or apprehended, in a cool estimate, exercises a just amount of precautionary motive power; let the perturbation of terror arise, and the object fixes itself in the mind with increased force, monopolizes the view so as to exclude other considerations equally important to the welfare of the individual, and induces him to act out at all hazards the line of conduct that has seized the excited vision. Give a child a fright in connexion with a place, and the idea of avoiding that place will haunt its mind so vividly that hardly any voluntary inducement will suffice to overcome the reluctance. It is the peculiarity of all the modes of the perturbation of terror, to cause an unusual flow of excitement towards the senses and the intellectual trains, at the same time confining the range of their operation to the one subject that caused the alarm. Hence the strong influence on belief, through fixing the view upon one class of considerations to the exclusion of all others. Hence, too, the motive influence on action of these exaggerated conceptions. Seized with panic, we magnify the danger, and project a scheme of defence on a corresponding scale. A general may appreciate the force of his enemy with cool precision, and be heavily pressed with the difficulty of his position, without any such disturbing excitement. He is moved to do neither more nor less than is warranted by the fair calculations of the case. This is the unexcited, unimpassioned, rational, justly calculated operation of the will. The state of active disgust, abhorrence, or Antipathy, is a case of excitement, instigated as an accompaniment to particular modes of painful sensibility, and driving on the energies at an exaggerated pace. There is no limit to the lengths that a man will sometimes go, if once roused to this manifestation in good earnest. Every interest, except one, is cast into the shade, and the individual is urged as if there were 392 MOTIVES OR ENDS. nothing besides to divide the forca of the constitution. It is not, however, that the will proper is acted upon directly, as under a genuine pain, it is more that the idea of inflicting suffering on some one has taken such a rooted hold of the mind as to exclude all other ideas, and thereby to act itself out to the fullest measure. The murderous prepossessions of the monomaniac are the thorough-going illustrations of a force usually more or less concealed by the regular operation of the will. There are not wanting instances of minds that are an easy prey to whatever suggestions are made to them, and that feel strongly impelled to put in force any scheme that is once fully entertained. 7. On the side of Pleasure also, there are modes of undue excitement. Any sudden and great delight may give rise to an exaltation of the physical functions of the nature of passion, leading to a disproportionate strain of intellectual and active power in that one direction, while the fit lasts. The proper frame of mind under delight, as well as in the former case, is to inspire no endeavours beyond what the genuine charm of the moment justifies, and not to cast into the shade other pleasures, nor to bind us to coming pains. The man that can conform to this rule is in one view passionless, although very far from being devoid of sensibility to enjoyment or suffering. In reality, he it is that has the justest sense and the greatest amount of fruition. It is not true, therefore, it is grossly untrue, that passion* is the best or most valuable stimulant of the will. Momentary efforts beyond the justice of the case are roused, but some other end, also valuable in its turn, goes to the wall. Nevertheless, it is a fact that almost every human being has one or more pleasures that are never enjoyed or contemplated in perfect coolness. They may not be the greatest of our possible delights; although it may be fairly supposed that the intensity of them is a principal circumstance. * The name 'passion,' as a synonyme for emotion, must be considered as indicating the intense degrees of emotional excitement, such as destroy the coolness and balance of the system. Under strong emotion of any kind, the object of the feeling will become a ' fixed idea '. Fear, Anger, Love, are the commonest examples of emotions rising to the passionate pitch. EVILS OF IMPASSIONED MOTIVES. 893 Whatever this pleasure be that touches the sensibility so as to agitate the frame, we are to a certain extent victims to it. Great and valuable may be the contribution arising to our happiness from such a cause, but the pursuit that is kept up is out of due proportion. This element of our well-being is over-rated and the rest under-rated. Among the ends that commonly induce a heated atmosphere around them, we may rank as usual and prominent,-personal affection, wealth, ambition, fame, knowledge, sport, or some variety of the aesthetic circle of emotions. Sexuality is a striking instance, perhaps the most striking. Any one of these may be sought after with an energy proportioned to the gratification reaped from it; or there may be a tendency to take on an excited and exaggerated conception, in which case there is a loss of pleasure or an accession of pain in some other quarter. The susceptibility of special inflammation on some one point, as sexual love, dignity, reputation, or favourite sport, is a peculiarity of human nature more or less developed in most individuals. When very much so, we have what is called the passionate temperament, for which a good deal has been advanced in the way of commendation. It is, however, a somewhat ominous circumstance that the extreme development of this character is one of the phases of insanity. We hear of persons being hurried on by some demon or infatuation, in spite of present and prospective misery. These are all so many abnormal positions of human nature, and yet the foundation of them all is very much alike. It is the temporary exaltation of the brain and allied functions in favour of some one object, sometimes, but not necessarily, an object of intense pleasure; the effect of which is to magnify all that is related to it, and to reduce the estimate of what is not. The poet and the moralist are in the practice of dilating on the importance of this disturbance of the mental equilibrium, provided only the object appears to them a good or noble one. Either despairing of the endeavour to induce a calm and equable current, and a strictly estimated regard in the pursuits of life, or not considering such to be the ' beau ideal' of cha 394 MOTIVES OR ENDS. racter, they have been marvellously accordant in praise of a ruling passion well placed. Now, it is impossible to gainsay certain advantages that may be urged in support of this prescription. If we are strongly bent upon securing some one special end, and are to set at nought every other in comparison, the plan is, not merely to depict the pleasing and valuable results growing out of it, which would be to give it a fair, and only a fair, chance with the will; but to kindle a blaze of excitement and fury which over-rides all comparisons and annihilates all counter motives. This is the proceeding of a Peter the Hermit, a Daniel O'Connell, or other impassioned advocate of a cause. As regards the work to be done, nothing can be more effectual; as regards the happiness of the agent, the immolation is often remorseless.* An impassioned pleasurable end is tested, not merely by the glow of ecstatic excitement, but also by the display of the painful passions when anything comes to thwart it. The fear, anger, and abhorrence, inspired by opposition, are a just measure of the undue exaltation of the system in favour of the object. Very often these extreme antipathies are directed in the defence of something that does not give any extraordinary sensation of delight, as when they are let loose upon the violators of some venerated ceremonial, having nothing but usage to commend it intrinsically, and deriving an extrinsic support through the inflammation of these modes of antipathy. The repulsion of the Jewish and Mahometan minds to the pig is a case in point. So much for the consideration of Ends, or Motives, under the various modifications that they undergo. Present pleasure or pain, future and therefore conceived pleasures or pains, * In the case of feelings that concern the good of others, or even our ownl good, when there has been an insufficient cultivation of these from the first, the standard of action is not the pleasure or pain that the agent derives from this source. It is desirable to foster those feelings, and the poet or orator may for this purpose laudably endeavour to inflame the mind to a passionate pitch. The case somewhat resembles the use of terror in education and in government, and the employment of Rhetoric generally in the cause of truth. The grand difficulty is, and always will be, to confine the arts of producing exaggerated impressions to these laudable designs. SUMMARY OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. 395 aggregated ends, intermediate and derivative ends, and, finally, impassioned or exaggerated ends,-act on the volition, each according to distinct laws that present no vital exception to the motor efficacy of the two great opposing states of the conscious mind, as assumed throughout the preceding exposition. The point now reached, in the development of the general subject, is this. In the foregoing chapters, we have traced the rise and progress of the executive part of the will, through the guidance of the great fundamental instinct that causes a present condition of delight or suffering to sustain or to arrest a present action. We have seen in what manner experience and association establish channels of communication between the separate feelings and the actions demanded to satisfy them, so as to evoke at once a dormant exertion. Farther, it appears that the intelligence represents, more or less vividly, feelings that are merely impending, whereby the will is roused in almost the same way as by an actual sensation. Our most protracted labours and most incessant solicitudes have reference to what is only looked forward to. The animal pursued maintains its flight, suffering and moved only by an idea. Every step that we take from morn to night is influenced or directed by some foreseen pain or pleasure; or if an intermediate end is the stimulus, the force of that is derived from some ultimate sensibility of our nature, which can live in the remembrance as well as operate in the actual impression. Having thus traced out the fully-formed executive, and a series of motives capable of impelling it into action, we may be said to have given an account, however imperfect, of the essential phenomena of volition, as they appear in the life of men and animals. There are, however, a number of applications of the general doctrines, interesting in themselves, and serving to elucidate the theory. Indeed, one whole department of the subject still remains untouched, and that perhaps the most fruitful both in vexed problems and in practical 396 MOTIVES OR ENDS. considerations. I mean the conflicts of volition. The motives that influence living beings are so numerous, that we should expect beforehand the occurrence of frequent collisions, when of course either no result ensues, or one of the forces gives way. This leads to the denominating of some motor states as stronger than others. A scale of motives is constructed, with reference to individuals, or to classes of sentient beings, according to the relative power of stimulating the executive, as tested by the actual encounter. The inner life of every one is a sort of battle ground, or scene of incessant warfare; and the issues of those recurring contests are momentous both to the person's self and to other beings. The estimate that we form of any creature as an agent, depends upon the motives that predominate in the actions of that creature. The training of the young has a principal reference to the development of certain motives into superiority over the rest. In short, the great departments of Duty, Education, and the Estimate of Character, centre in considerations relative to the rank assigned to particular motives in the outgoings of the voluntary executive. Accordingly, it is necessary for us to set forth these conflicts of the will in some degree of detail. CHAPTER VI. THE CONFLICT OF MOTIVES. 1. WHEN two states of feeling come together, if they are of the same nature, we have a sum total-as when the occurrence of two pleasures gives a greater pleasure. When a pain concurs with a pleasure, we find, as matter of fact, that the one can neutralize the other. An agreeable relish, in the shape of some sweet taste, soothes the infant's irritated mind; and all through life we apply the grateful to submerge the disagreeable. In the conflict of the two, one will be extinguished and the other lowered in its efficacy; the first being pronounced the weaker, and the second the stronger. When the charm of the landscape makes us insensible to hunger and fatigue, the pleasurable part of the consciousness is counted more powerful than the painful; if an interesting romance failed to subdue the same painful solicitations, we should say that the landscape gave more delight than the romance; a fair and usual mode of estimating the comparative influence of objects of delight. I am here assuming the volition as dormant the while, and describing what happens in the meeting of opposite states considered purely as Feeling. Nor is this a mere hypothetical case. Many of our pains are counteracted by enjoyments, and never proceed to the stage of stimulating the will. We use by turns, according to circumstances, either mode of alleviation. Much depends upon the individual constitution. Some of us, from having great excess of voluntary energy, deal with suffering by active measures of removal and prevention; others, more lethargic, and developed principally on the side of the emotional manifestations, seek to overcome misery by frequenting the sources of delight, or by indulging in a various and soothing expression of woe. 2. We will consider first the conflict of a voluntary stimulus with the Spontaneous impulses considered in their primitive 398 THE CONFLICT OF MOTIVES. character, as growing out of the purely physical conditions of the nervous and muscular systems. In this respect, spontaneity is a separate agency to the very last. After every night's repose, and after the nourishment of a meal, the active organs are charged with power ready to explode in any direction. I will not reiterate the proofs already produced on this head. Suffice it to say, that this element of our activity is brought into frequent collision with the genuine impulses of the will, those derived from pleasures and pains. The discharge of exuberant activity is opposed by such motives as urge one to remain in stillness and confinement. The conflict is seen when the healthy boy has a hurt, rendering him unfit to join the sports of his playmates. It is seen when the horse or the hound is kept in check, in the fulness of the morning's vigour. The more active the animal, or the more highly-conditioned in all that regards health, nourishment, and preparatory repose, the greater is this explosive tendency that carries it into action without any reference to ends, or motives of the true voluntary character; and the greater is the stimulus, whether of smarting pain or of pleasurable charm, necessary to check 'the outburst. To reconcile the young to a day of indoor confinement, we have to cater largely for their amusement. Whatever anyone's peculiar activity consists in, a considerable force of motive has to be supplied in order to restrain the exercise of it when the organs are fully refreshed. It is so with mind as well as with body-with the exercise of the manual and the intellectual powers alike. Long restraint prepares the way for a furious demonstration at the moment of liberty. The conflicts thus arising are among the pains of early discipline; for it is impossible to reconcile the process of education with the free discharge of all the centres of power exactly at the moment of their plenitude. Some part of the irksomeness of every professional pursuit, of every continuous undertaking, and of the fulfilment of every course of duty, is owing to the same cause.. In so far as we have the regulation of our daily life in our 'own hands, we endeavour to suit our times of active exertion to those periods of natural vigour; SPONTANEITY RESISTED. 399 but this adjustment will often fail; we are obliged to restrain the flow of power when at its height, and force it into play when at the lowest ebb. The irregular operations of the soldier's life continually bring about these crosses; whence, among other reasons, arises the need of that stringency of painful discipline peculiar to the military system. After a lapse of time, a second nature grows up, and renders the subjection of the spontaneity less arduous; but the physical fact remains, that at certain stated times each organ attains a fulness of power, and a readiness for action, not possessed at other times, and demanding a counter motive to withhold it from proceeding to act. The very same thing is true of the spontaneity bred, not of repose and nourishment, but of an exciting cause, as the infection of a multitude, or of some other powerful example. Such, also, is the nature of a passionate stimulus, as fear; and such the morbid persistence arising from fatigue carried beyond the point of repose. It is of no consequence what is the origin of the current that sets in strongly to rouse the various members into action. If we would neutralize it, we must provide some adequate counteractive in the form of an incitement to the will, and the spontaneity is measured by the degree of the pain, or the pleasure, found equal to checking it. The struggle that arises when we goad an exhausted system into action, is an interesting study in various respects. We see in this case the extreme importance of physical condition. It is not simply repugnance to the pain arising from working under fatigue, but a positive inaptitude to exertion, that appears in that case. A time comes when no amount of pain will procure a single muscular contraction. The inability is now physical and not moral. The condition of spontaneous overflow, indispensable as a preliminary in the formation of the innumerable links of voluntary control, is still of great moment in the complete establishment of those links; and, although it is possible at the mature stage to whip up action where there is but a very scanty central stimulus, yet, according as the nervous batteries grow feeble, the prompting 400 THE CONFLICT OF MOTIVES. cause has to be increased, until at a certain pitch of depletion no farther discharge is possible. The associations established in the growth of volition bring forth action where none would appear otherwise; the horse that has parted with all his surplus power and would prefer to lie quiet, can, under the prick of a sharp pain give forth an additional amount; this is the stage of conflict, growing more and more painful, until the animal drops down. 3. Let us next proceed to consider in detail the case of Opposing Volitions proper, where two pleasures or two pains, or a pleasure and a pain, solicit the voluntary executive in opposite ways. The instances of this conflict may be as numerous as the various concurrences of the human feelings. In every separate point or region of our susceptibility, an opposition may arise, and the arena of conflict may be indefinitely extended by the concurrence of impressions on different parts of our sensitive framework. The muscular feelings may be divided against themselves; the organic group may be mutually opposed; tastes or smells may conflict with one another; so with touches, sounds, or sights. Under the same emotion-tender, irascible, egotistic, esthetical, &c., there may be encountering objects drawing the system in contrary ways. The emotions that incite us to duty and prudence are notoriously liable to inimical attacks, both from one another and from the rest of the feelings; we may have opposing duties, as well as opposing affections or tastes. A brief exemplification will suffice for the case of two actual states, pleasurable or painful, concurring at the same moment to suggest incompatible acts. The sensations of Organic Life furnish cases in point. The pleasures and pains of cold and heat are especially liable to run counter to other organic interests. In a warm room, we are subject to depression from the close and heated air. Out of doors, in a winter day, the case is reversed: the lungs and nerves are then exhilarated, while perhaps the misery of chillness is superinduced. Now, the relative strength of these contradictory impulses in any case is shown by the result. For supposing no TWO PRESENT SENSATIONS. 401 third sensation, or motive, to step in, one will carry the day, and so will be deemed the more powerful. If I remain out of doors, incurring the winter chillness, it is because the pleasurable exhilaration through the lungs is more than a balance for the pains of cold. Another person in the same circumstances acting differently, must needs be constituted differently; the experiment determines a fact of character as regards relative sensibility to those influences. In the same way, wherever two present sensations dictate opposite courses, there is an experiment upon the relative strength of the two. The resulting volition discloses the stronger, and is the ultimate canon of appeal. A creature left to free will under two influences gives evidence which is the more, and which the less, acceptable. By free will, I here mean that the ground is clear of all other moving causes whatsoever, except the two under trial. Place food before a bird in a cage, and at the same time open the cage and the window, and the choice between a repast and liberty represents the greater pleasure. In crossing a dirty street, we are solicited by two opposing motives-one to get direct to our destination, the other to avoid being bespattered. The enthiusiast for sport, disregarding, for a long day, fatigue, cold, wet, hunger, proves to us as a fact that the one pleasure outweighs the many pains. It is from these conjunctures that we obtain our knowledge of one important region of character, the region of likings and dislikings, in other words, of comparative motive influences upon the will. In circumstances favourable to a good experiment, that is, on an average condition of the individual, and in the absence of extraneous adjuncts and fixed ideas, the result gained is looked upon as conclusive, and rarely needs to be reversed; such is the constancy of the mental character. Each animal has its favourite amount of exercise, temperature, relishes, tastes, smells, and so on; and whole tribes are found to agree in their choice on these heads. So with pains, when set against pleasures, or against other pains; we measure the intensity by the impulses surmounted. Extreme hunger is attested when an animal 26 402 THE CONFLICT OF MOTIVES. keeps up a chase under great fatigue, enters upon a dangerous contest, or overcomes some great aversion. 4. If we compare the voluntary stimulation, under pleasure or pain, taking place on different occasions, we are liable to fall into mistake, from the varying condition of the active organs. It does not follow, that, because one thing wakens up the activity in the morning, while another fails to excite any effort in the evening, the first is intrinsically a stronger feeling. There are times when the executive of the will is especially prone to stimulation, and times when the opposite happens. We must, therefore, make the experiment as nearly as possible in the same bodily and mental condition, or repeat it so frequently as to obtain an average under all conditions. Having seen the predominating effect of some one pleasure, such as bodily exercise, food, warmth, music, sociability, self-complacency, power, or knowledge,-under circumstances so various as to eliminate all the differences of general or constitutional activity,-we pronounce one or other of those to have a superior rank in the scale of sensibility of the subject. Excepting that the active ability lies more in some organs than in others,-in limbs, hands, voice, &c.,-the will is one, while the sensibilities are many; the executive is common, and open alike to all, and the one that carries it for the moment is properly estimated the strongest at the time. The comparison between one person and another brings in the element of variety in the constitution of the will itself; in consequence of which two men unequally moved under the same sensation or emotion, are not thereby shown to differ in emotional susceptibility. In some, as often remarked, the activity is especially developed. We pronounce this to be the case when we see a disposition to be put in action by all motives indifferently; and the opposite character is read in a general inactivity of tone under every variety of stimulation. One man will bestir himself and go through industrial toil; but his feelings of cold and hunger need not be a whit stronger than, nor even so strong as, those of another man that makes no effort at all. We cannot therefore judge between the THE ACTUAL AND THE IDEAL. 403 one man's pains or pleasures and the other's, until we are able to make allowance for the difference in the degree of the voluntary discharge, or the determination of vital power to the region of activity. This difference we can ascertain by the same system of averages as described above. An industry strongly manifested under motives generally, whether small or great, is the proof of a high development of the will; in a mind of that class, a trifle will overcome the disposition to rest, as effectually as a powerful spur in a constitution of a different stamp. 5. In the foregoing illustration, I have supposed a conflict and comparison of actual impressions; as when under present sensations of bodily pain or appetite,-a taste, a touch, or sound, agreeable or disagreeable, or any emotion upheld by the pressure of its object. The next step takes us to ideal motives, and their conflict with the actual, and with each other. We here open up a much wider field of operations. All the long list of delights and sufferings are things to remain more or less in the memory, and to instigate voluntary acts to bring on, or to ward off, the reality, as yet in prospect. A counter stimulus of actual sensation may also be present, and the rivalry takes place between such ideal ends and the real one. I remember the pains of excessive muscular fatigue, and am now enjoying the pleasure of some exciting game or sport; there is a hostile encounter within; if the pleasure of the sport be very intense, that carries the day; if the pain, as remembered on former occasions, was very acute, and the memory of it now so fresh and lively as to present it in nearly all its living power to the present view, that will probably prevail, and I shall desist from the present pleasure. The comparison no longer faithfully represents the relative force of the opposing impressions at the moment of their actual occurrence, inasmuch as the ideal retentiveness may be so bad as to do no justice to the force of the actual; what was severely felt at the time when it happened is not severely felt as a mere anticipation. The pains of our various excesses in food, stimulants, and other sensual delights, are often very 404 THE CONFLICT OF MOTIVES. great, sometimes acute, and sometimes massively depressing; but, if the recollection of the suffering vanishes with the reality, there is nothing to counteract the pleasurable impetus to repeat the whole round of indulgence. The thoroughly educated man in this respect is he that can carry with him at all times the exact estimate of what he has enjoyed, or suffered, from every object that has ever affected him, and, in case of encounter, can present to the enemy as strong a front as if he were then runder the genuine impression. Such is one of the points of superiority that age confers; but, as formerly remarked, there may be a special retentiveness on this head, so as to bring on a precocious maturity of practical wisdom, just as we may see a precocious mathematician, painter, poet. When we find persons manifesting energetic volitions on all the points bearing upon the maintenance of Health, we may interpret their conduct on various grounds. There may be in the constitution a remarkably acute sensibility to derangements of every kind, so that the voluntary actions are strongly solicited in the way of preventing such infractions of the sound condition; the same circumstance of acute sensibility also leads to an abiding recollection that serves in absence. If to this be added a prudential tendency (as formerly analysed), the cause of protection is still farther strengthened; while every fresh experience of tlhe evils of ill-health adds force to the ideal representation. In such a state of things, the motive of present pleasure must be strong, indeed, to overthrow a bulwark so confirmed; and very acute pain in other departments will be borne rather than surrender this fortress. Take another case. Poverty brings with it a round of discomforts and privations felt in some degree by every human. being, although constitutions differ exceedingly in the acuteness of the susceptibility. Scanty or indifferent food, poor shelter and clothing, few delights, a position of contumelyare all painful; but they do not actually operate at every moment. The stimulus of the will to ward them off by industry, frugality, temperance, or any of the other 'ways to wealth', is at certain moments supplied from the pressure of OPPOSING MOTIVES BOTH IDEAL. 405 the actual, while, for the remaining time, the ideal form of the miseries must be the sustaining spur. If there be a natural dulness of sensibility to all those evils, conjoined with a repugnance to continuous and regular labour, only one result can ensue, the slothfulness and degradation of the lowest races. There may, however, be a considerable sense of the sufferings of penury under the actual pressure of hunger, cold, or privation, with an intelligence so deplorably unretentive as not to represent those miseries to the will in the intervals of their cessation. The consequence is, that the preventive efforts are fitful, uncertain, and therefore inadequate. An intelligence of another cast keeps them ever in the eye of the mind, confronting them with each counter motive of pleasurable ease and painful toil; whence emerges the man of unfaltering, persevering industry. 6. The pleasures of Affection, Amity, Peace, and Goodwill, constitute one of our leading motives. By some they are felt and represented strongly; by others very slightly. When strong, they overbear much of the inferior kind of selfishness, and suppress all hasty ebullitions that disturb our peaceful relations. Although these pleasures count among our noblest impulses, they do not rise to the pitch of purely disinterested conduct; yet we must recognize, in the well-constituted mind, the existence of disinterestedness, pure and simple,-a power in perpetual conflict with all the self-regarding impulses. Such conflict is almost, but not altogether, coincident with the eternal struggle between Duty and Interest. It is in the consideration of Sympathy that we can bring to light the circumstances that augment the force of the disinterested motives. (See also chap. X.) 7. In what has now been said, I have put the case of a conflict of the ideal with the actual, as when a present gratification of the sense is opposed to a future represented by the intellect. We can easily extend the illustration to other conflicts. The opposing motives may both be ideal, as when a prospective day of pleasure is coupled with the array of sub 406 THE CONFLICT OF MOTIVES. sequent pains. Our decision depends,-first on the comparative intensity of the two as formerly experienced, next on the faithfulness of the recollection of each. If memory has retained the pleasure in all the colouring of the original, while the painful part is scarcely at all remembered in its deterring power, we shall be sure to give way to the promptings of the side of indulgence, even although in an actual conflict the other were strong enough to prevail. Neither is the case uncommon of a prospective pain debarring us from a course of enjoyment, owing to the circumstance that the enjoyment is feebly represented in comparison of its rival. I may underrate the satisfaction that I shall derive from joining in some amusement, because I have not a sufficient recollection of my previous experience, while I retain strongly the pain of loss of time, or the remission of some other occupation that engages my mind. We are thus the victims of unfair comparisons. The well-stamped and familiar pleasure is apt to move us to set aside some still greater delight, not adequately conceived, because it is seldom repeated, and lapses into a remote and forgotten past. He that has had few occasions of exciting sport may not do justice to this pleasure as a motive, especially when the very latest experience is now long gone by. It is no doubt possible to make up for the want of repetition in the actual, by repetition in the ideal; as when one or two days of successful pleasure are able to sustain themselves in the fond recollection of many succeeding years. 8. As regards the Aggregated or Comprehensive endsProperty, Health, Society, Education, Worldly position, &c.not much needs be said. Their force depends upon the ultimate pleasures that they supply and the pains that they rebut, and we are urged by them, according to our sense of these; allowance being made for the tendency of some of them to take on an independent charm, from the particular character of the aggregate. We may be too little moved by these great objects of pursuit as well as too much. One may sometimes slight the acquisition of wealth, not because of IMPASSIONED MOTIVES IN CONFLICT. 407 being naturally insensible to purchaseable delights and safeguards, but because the intellect has not been so impressed with those as to keep them before the mind in absence. This is one of the errors of the young, as avarice is said to be a vice of the old. So it is with knowledge and valuable acquirements. The pleasure of their fruition, and the ill consequences of the want of them, may be at times acutely felt; but, from too little repetition of the actual, the mind has not that abiding sense that, through a long period of application to the means, can sustain the will, against all the countervailing stimulants occurring from day to day. 9. The Impassioned or Exaggerated ends, from their very nature, inflame the conceptive faculty on one point to such a degree that the opposing interest is not adequately presented. Strong indeed must be the retention of a very sharp pain that is able to cope with an unduly inflamed prospect of delight. The mind excited at the instance of possessions, pride, fear, or antipathy, is to that extent incapacitated from admitting rival considerations. No doubt, even an actual pain or pleasure of a rival sort is most completely quelled under the storm of an undue excitement; but the influence as against what is merely matter of memory and anticipation is still more overwhelming. Enthusiastic fervour for a cause shuts out the view of difficulties and consequences. Passionate love between persons has the same blinding tendency. To meet those impulses with success, a motive must be armed with triple powers: in the first instance, the good or evil of it must be something deeply affecting us; next the force of intelligence that is to keep it alive in idea, must be of a high order; while, thirdly, the confirming power of a frequent repetition, or the freshness of some recent experience, would likewise be required. The present subject will have its illustration prolonged in the two succeeding chapters. I here close the remarks upon the general case, in order to introduce the consideration of the deliberative process, so much identified in the common view with the operations of free will. CHAPTER VII. DELIBERATION.-RESOLUTION.-EFFORT. 1. DELIBERATION is a voluntary act, under a concurrence or complication of motive forces. There is implied, in the first instance, at least one opposing couple of feelings, neither being so commanding as to over-ride the other. It is a supposable case, embodied in the immortal illustration of Buridan, that the two hostile motives may be so evenly balanced, that no action ensues. The animal's hunger is baulked, because the two bundles of hay are so equal in attraction that he cannot turn to either. A pleasure may be opposed to a pain with such a precisely adjusted equivalence, that we remain at rest. This is called being undecided, and is a very usual event. But, during the moments of abeyance or suspended action, the current of the thoughts brings forward some new motive to throw its weight into one scale; whence arises a preponderance. A first presentation of the case gives an equality, second thoughts establish a superiority; or, if the first view presents a great inequality that would lead to immediate decision, yet, if the action is not at once entered on, subsequent considerations may lead to equality and suspense. Knowing all this from our own experience, we come to see that it is dangerous to carry into effect the result of the first combat of opposing forces; and this apprehension of evil consequences is a stimulant of the will like any other pain. Accordingly, I term the deliberative process voluntary. The prompting of probable evil, from giving way to hasty decision arrests action, even although a great preponderance of other impulses is in favour of a particular course. In many instances, a third element is introduced of sufficient power to neutralize the ascendancy of the stronger of the two others. Thus, then, either in an equal balance, which nullifies all action, or in an unequal contest, where experience suggests the possi THE MOTIVE TO DELIBERATION. 409 bility of there being other considerations than those at present before the mind, there is a period of suspense, and an opportunity for the rise of new suggestions through the trains of association or new observations of relevant fact; yet in this operation of delaying the final action, there is nothing extraneous to the nature of the will as hitherto described. It is the memory of past pains, from too rapidly proceeding to act, that constitutes a stimulus to the voluntary organs, by suggesting the renewal of those pains, as a breaker a-head. This is nothing more than the remembrance of a sleepless night restraining one from repeating the mistake that caused it. The motive of the deliberating volition is sometimes an excited one; for, the evil of a too quick decision being only a probable and imagined evil, there is room for the perturbation of terror, with its exaggerated influence upon the thoughts, and, through them, upon the will; and the postponement of action may be carried to an absurd length. It is one of the properties of a well-trained intellect, to make at once a decisive estimate of the amount of time and thought to be. allowed for the influx of considerations on both sides of the case, and, at the end of such reasonable time and thought, to give way to the side that then appears the stronger. Among the errors that men in general are liable to, are hasty decision on one hand, and protracted indecision on the other. The difficulty of allowing space for deliberation is manifestly increased, according as the motive for instant procedure is very great. The impetuosity of youth and of passion brooks no delay; the feebler sensibilities of age and languor of temperament make hesitation a matter of little annoyance. We may say, notwithstanding, that the ill fruits of acting before all the opposing pleasures and pains involved have been fairly arrayed in the view, constitute an end of avoidance of the Intermediate class, which finds a place in the list of prompters to the will in every well-constituted human being. A door is thus opened to a very great enlargement of the sphere of voluntary action. This one motive originates impulses to prevent many painful consequences, of which, indeed, 410 DELIBERATION. it is but the summary, or the representative. From its operation, springs the opportunity for our various sources of suffering or delight, to confront one another ideally, before coming to a, conflict actually. We are then less and less the slaves of isolated or individual impulses, or, to use the common language, we take a higher rank as 'free agents'. By introducing the process of deliberation and suspense of judgment, our decisions approximate more to our interests or happiness on the whole. 2. To take a simple example. A demand suddenly rises for our assistance to a relative, friend, or some one in the circle of our sympathy and esteem. We are here placed between a sacrifice involving pain or privation to self, and the impulse springing out of our tender feeling towards another. An instantaneous decision would show which feeling was strongest, at the moment of the first presentation of the case. Experience, however, has taught us that painful consequences are apt to ensue from those instantaneous decisions; and, without perilling the interest that may be at stake, we stop for a little time and permit the influx of other considerations arising out of the case. The deserts and conduct of the person in question are looked at on all sides. Perhaps, the assistance demanded will be wastefully employed without rendering substantial good; which constitutes a motive force against the demand. Perhaps, we ourselves have been the recipient of frequent benefits at the hand of the same person; which consideration, rising up to the mind, strengthens the impulse on the other side. Again, what is wanted may amount to a serious reduction of our own means, so as to affect our independence or the discharge of other obligations. Then comes some fact to neutralize some preceding one, and to reduce the magnitude of the opposing array. Every new suggestion tends to add to, or to subtract from, one side or the other. At One moment a motive appears in great force, at the next a circumstance comes to view that takes away half its urgency. The welldisciplined deliberative Will meanwhile resists the prompting of the stronger side, until nothing new any longer presents EVILS OF HASTY AND OF PROTRACTED DECISIONS. 411 itself; the case is then closed, and the restraining power suggested by the anticipation of evil from rashness of judgment ceases to operate, leaving the will to follow out the side of the case that has mustered the strongest sum total of motives. To allow the proper time for this process, and no more, is one of the highest accomplishments of the combined intellect and will. In such a consummation, we have to be duly alive, in the first instance, to the evils of hurried conclusions, and so to oppose all promptings of that nature; in the next place, we have to feel adequately the further evil of protracted decisions, so as to overcome the weakness of excessive dread of committing mistakes. Both one and the other are genuine motives operating on the will; they are pure pains, and deter from the actions that would incur them, as much as any other kind of suffering that we have felt already, and may again be liable to. They are highly ideal in their nature, being, in the majority of cases, represented by the intellect as not certain, but merely probable. Nevertheless, no amount of complication is ever able to disguise the general fact, that our voluntary activity is moved by the two great classes of stimulants; either a pleasure or a pain, present or remote, must lurk in every situation that drives us into action. The deliberative suspense is born of pain; the termination of it at the right time is also stimulated by anticipation of evil; and the development of those two kinds of suffering into motive powers paramount on every occasion, however the storm of potent impulses may rage, is a great accession to the practical wisdom and well-guarded happiness of life.* 3. The deliberative position is open to another remark in the same general direction. By keeping a conflict suspended, new motives come successively into view; but, in most minds, the last fresh arrival is ever the strongest, from the very fact of its being last, while the others are put into the background. As an actual pain is naturally much more powerful in instigating the will than the same pain in the * For interesting illustrations of the Deliberative process, see Chap. XXIII. of Sir G. C. Lewis's 'Methods of Observation and Reasoning in Politics'. 412 DELIBERATION. ideal distance, so the first moment of the rise of a motive into view is the most efficacious; and a training is wanted to prevent our acting this out to the injury of the others. The sense of bad consequences must, therefore, be our monitor here too. Many a sharp experience has taught us that the latest thought is not necessarily the best; and the feeling so arising is a prompter of the will to resist the too great impressiveness of the newly-sprung up suggestion. The mind, by degrees, undergoes a discipline to keep back the impulse of the strong present and put it on a level with the fading past, in the decisions that lead to action. Thus, to take an easy example. There is proposed to one the alternative of a life of liberty with small means, and a life of constraint with considerable affluence. Supposing that there is no overpowering strength of feeling on either side, such as an inveterate love of freedom, or an all-absorbing love of wealth, the case demands a certain deliberation. Time being allowed for the survey and estimate of all the particulars, favourable and uhfavourable, on both sides, there is gradually accumulated a sum of motive power pro and con; and, when everything that can affect the decision has come forward, the account is closed, and the resolution adopted shows which side is the stronger. It may happen that either the pain or restraint, or the miseries of poverty, may stand forth in accidental prominence at the time of the decision, and turn the scale on the side that is weaker on the whole. A knowledge of this possibility would induce an experienced person to postpone the final resolution. We see the danger of deciding in such circumstances constantly exemplified, both by single individuals and by public bodies. So difficult does it appear to be to conquer the tendency, that we are often obliged to accept as a sufficient excuse for some wrong judgment, that the minds of men were unduly impressed with some stirring event that just then happened. The condemnation, by the Athenians, of the ten generals after the battle of Arginusee, because, in a furious storm, they had not rescued from drowning the seamen of their disabled ships, was decided on under FRANKLIN'S MORAL ALGEBRA. 413 the strong burst of family feeling that accompanied the festival of the Apaturia. The historian, speaking of the Athenian people generally, while rebutting the charge of fickleness and inconstancy made against them, accuses them of the weakness -for weakness it is-of being too strongly urged by the impression uppermost at the moment.. Any exciting question raised them to the impassioned pitch, and the result was something that they had often to repent of.* 4. It is, in truth, no easy matter, in a complicated case nicely balanced, to retain in the mind the just values of all the opposing considerations, so as, at the instant of closing the account, to have a true sum total on each side. The great genius of prudential calculation, Benjamin Franklin, has left on record a remarkable letter addressed to Joseph Priestley entitled Moral Algebra, or method of deciding doubtful matters with one's-self, in which he recommends the use, in daily-life questions, of the artificial methods practised in money accounts. I quote the letter entire:-: In the affair of so much importance to you, wherein you ask my advice, I cannot, for want of sufficient premises, counsel you what to determine; but, if you please, I will tell you how. When those difficult cases occur, they are difficult, chiefly because, while we have them under consideration, all the reasons pro and con are not present to the mind at the same time'; but sometimes one set present themselves, and at other times another, the first being out of sight. Hence the various purposes or inclinations that alternately prevail, and the uncertainty that perplexes us. 'To get over this, my way is, to divide half a sheet of paper by a line into two columns; writing over the one pro and over the other con; then, during three or four days' consideration, I put down, under the different heads, short hints of the different motives, that at different times occur to me,for or against the measure. When I have thus got them altogether in one view, I endeavour to estimate their respective weights; and when I find two (one on each side) that seem equal, I strike them " Grote's Greece, Part II., Chap. LXIV. 414 DELIBERATION. both out. If I find a reason pro equal to some two reasons con, I strike out the three. If I judge some two reasons con equal to some three reasons pro, I strike out the five; and thus proceeding, I find where the balance lies; and if, after a day or two of further consideration, nothing new that is of importance occurs on either side, I come to a determination accordingly. And though the weight of reasons cannot be taken with the precision of algebraic quantities, yet, when each is thus considered separately and comparatively, and the whole lies before me, I think I can judge better, and am less liable to take a false step; and, in fact, I have found great advantage from this kind of equation, in what may be termed moral or prudential algebra.' 5. Such a method of aiding the understanding, by the artifices of formality, is not to be despised. In business and in science, auxiliaries of this nature are found indispensable; the human mind could not have taken the strides of improvement that we now benefit by, without a very large amount of formal procedure. Having this conviction, I will venture to suggest another device of a similar nature, which may be resorted to in difficult deliberations. It is more particularly aimed at the weakness last described,-our being too much impressed by the motives present at the moment when the case is closed. I will suppose that we have a certain length of time allowed for deciding between two different courses of action, say a month of thirty-one days, and that the mind is at work every day entertaining the considerations and feelings on the two opposite sides. We may or may not employ Franklin's method of using a balance sheet; that has its separate advantages without interfering with the plan here intended. What I should suggest is that every evening we record the impression of the day, or put down the side which preponderates according to the balance of motives passing through the mind in the course of that day; and that this record should be continued during the whole period that the deliberation lasts. It would happen that some days we feel the pressure of the motives more acutely on one side DAILY RECORD OF IMPRESSIONS. 415 than on others; the preponderance being liable to be reversed from day to day in a question where the total of pleasures or pains is very nearly equal. But, by allowing a lapse of time, we should reduce the casual or accidental biases to a general average; and at the end of the period, we have only to sum up the records of the days, and see which side has the majority. If we found such a result as twenty to eleven, or nineteen to twelve, our decision would probably be a safe one, while fifteen to sixteen would be of course indecisive, but also of value as showing that no great blunder would be likely to arise in either course. As the essence of this procedure lies in its taking account of all the states of mind that we pass through in reference to the opposing questions, the judgments should be deferred until we have described a complete cycle in this respect. In discussing the choice of a profession, we must look at it through all variety of seasons, circumstances, and states of body and of mind, and this cannot be done in a day. Even if the consideration is carried over many weeks or months, the mind may be untrustworthy in recording the successive impressions, and may thus leave us at the mercy of those occurring last; it is to counteract such a danger that the method of recording and summing up the separate decisions is here recommended. Another advantage would be that periodical re-hearings of the question, with interlocutory summings up, always advance it nearer to decision, and prevent any of the considerations, that have at any time occurred to the mind, falling again out of sight. 6. The deliberative process is very different in its chances of a good result, according as we deal with things experienced or things unexperienced. Having once gone a long voyage, we can readily decide on going to sea again; but when a youth that has never been on shipboard, is carried away by longings for the seafaring life, we have no criterion as to the likelihood of his being satisfied with the reality. There is a difficult, and often impossible, operation of constructiveness to be gone through, for determining how we shall actually feel in the situation that we are imagining to ourselves. Not only is 416 DELIBERATION. time wanted for this, but also a good method of going to work. The recording of the daily impressions is of some use, as showing how the thing appears to the mind in the majority of days, but there may be a false colouring prevalent from first to last. To get at the actual experience, or genuine feelings, of a number of persons that have passed through the same career, is one valuable datum; and if we can find any one constituted very nearly like ourselves, so much the better. We can never have too much matter-of-fact information, when committing ourselves to an untried career. The choice of a profession, the change of one's country by emigration, the undertaking of an extensive work that we cannot go back from, the contracting of the irrevocable tie of domestic life,ought all to be looked at with reference to the facts, and the foregone experience of trustworthy narrators; while the deli-. beration may be fitly aided and protected by formalities such as those now set forth. The feelings of the moment must be resisted by the machinery of the intelligence, at least to this extent that the resolution dictated by three days' consideration shall not have equal weight with the decisions come to in five others. 7. In this whole subject of Deliberation, therefore, there is no exception furnished against the general theory of the Will, or the doctrine, maintained in the previous pages, that, in volition, the executive is uniformly put in motion by some variety of pleasure or pain, present or apprehended, cool or excited. When, instead of acting out the result of the first class of motives, we resist the impulses to action, and await the incursion of the other motives appertaining to the case, the exertion is a truly voluntary act; a pain apprehended or conceived, namely, the pain suggested by foregone experience as likely to arise from hurried action in a complicated matter, spurs the activity to resist the prompting of the stronger of two present impulses. There is no essential difference between this operation of a deterring impulse, and the voluntary prompting to keep out of any other mode of impending harm. The distinction lies in the highly intellectual character of the sen DELIBERATION NO EXCEPTION TO THE WILL. 417 sibility involved. Either a careful series of observations on the consequences of our own actions and the actions of other people, or the imbibing of the narrated experience of the past, has impressed us with a feeling of evil or mischief arising from precipitate decisions-by no means a usual educationand the conception of bad consequences takes the rank of a pain influencing the will, and casting its weight into every conflict of motives. In the earlier stages of life, this artificial sensibility is but feebly developed; time, careful training, one's own observations and reflections, bring on the effective maturity of the feeling, and give it that enduring hold of the intellect whereby it takes its stand in arresting a hasty judgment. 8. Let us now make a few observations on the meaning of RESOLUTION, as a phase of our voluntary actions. The close of the deliberative process implies that the prompting to delay, begotten of the sense of danger now discussed, ceases; its exigencies being fully satisfied. There would then follow a course of action in accordance with the motives that prevail. Just as, having examined several articles in a shop, we purchase the one that pleases us most, so in every other case of terminated conflict, action follows as a necessary result. There are no intermediate steps to be described, nor any power to be consulted, in passing from a felt pleasure or pain to the action recognized as proper to the emergency. It is the nature of the will to connect, at once and decisively, a pleasure with the exertion that sustains or increases it, and a pain with the exertion that relieves it. When suspense arises, it is through some new influence that checks the regular and ordinary course of the voluntary faculty. The deliberative veto is a mode of giving the check; but, this withdrawn, action ensues. There is, nevertheless, one situation of suspense that leads us to recognize an intermediate state of decision without execution -namely, when we have deliberated on a course of proceeding still future, so that the execution must wait till a given time has elapsed. In this condition of things, we give a name to the unexecuted determination; we term it a Resolution. The mind, having formed a resolution, that is, having delibe27 418 RESOLUTION. rated and felt which side is the stronger on the whole, is thereupon urged to a course of action, but cannot at once proceed upon it; in other words, the train of executive impulses undergoes a certain modification, which may be described as follows. Instead of doing at once what is suggested, a preliminary volition takes place, namely, the act of looking out for, watching or waiting the moment, known as proper to commence the main operations. When a youth is destined for the university, his parents or guardians deliberate beforehand which classes he shall enter. The decision is probably come to some time previous to the day of opening. Execution therefore is suspended, but meanwhile a volition is actually working itself out, namely, the act of counting the days and keeping note of the time, and other circumstances appertaining to the act of enrolment. We may say properly that a decision of the will never goes to sleep. If we cannot follow instantaneously the natural prompting of the stronger impulse, left in the ascendant by the cessation of the deliberative veto, we assume the attitude of attention to the time when execution is to begin. Resolution, therefore, means the preliminary volition for ascertaining when to enter upon a series of actions necessarily deferred. The interruption arising in this way is a purely accidental circumstance, and in no degree changes the proper character of the will, which is to execute at once whatever a motive exists for. 9. In following out a decision of importance, it most frequently happens that the operations are protracted over a long time. I undertake a piece of work, likely to occupy me six months, and my resolution must sustain my active energies all that time. Nay, we have resolutions continuing throughout our lives, as in those rules that we propose to ourselves as the means of abating the evils and enhancing the satisfasctions of life. Virtue was defined by Cicero as a perpetual will of acting out virtuous precepts. Volitions of this continuous character are in danger of being occasionally overpowered by indolence, the sense of fatigue, passing pleasures, and solicitations of various kinds; whence it RESOLUTIONS NEED TO BE REFRESHED. 419 comes to be a characteristic of Resolutions to need occasional aliment or stimulus, as by reminding ourselves, or by being reminded, of the important ends that led to their adoption. Indeed, it may happen that they are utterly overthrown long before they have accomplished the work intended. The intermediate state under resolution is a state of trial and uncertainty. The strong sense of good to be gained, or of evil to be quashed, that originally presided over the determination of the will, may fade away, or give place to other feelings leading to an opposite line of conduct. My resolve to rise every morning at a certain hour for a year to come, is prompted at the outset by a certain force of motive which suffices to get me up for a week, but is no longer strong enough to encounter the inducement that keeps me in bed; that is to say, the resolution is broken through. Every one's life contains a number of sudden or hasty resolutions, conceived under the pressure of an emergency, and wanting that full deliberation above alluded to. It is impossible that a volition requiring protracted labour can be sustained by the prompting of a temporary cause. I feel very much mortified and humbled on some one occasion by meeting a rebuff from being too forward in tendering advice; in the smarting of the moment, I am urged strongly to avoid this danger in future. If on the same day I am brought into a similar predicament, I act out my chosen attitude of neutrality. Time passes, and the painful experience dies away; an occasion arises where I-am prompted again to intrude my opinion into another person's affairs. Perhaps the intrusion is well received in this case, and away go the last vestiges of the former mortification and the resolution begotten of it. Perhaps, however, I am met by a repetition of the former rebuff; this would infallibly revive the old resolution with new energy, and the memory would retain for a much longer time the shock of pain, and would keep it alive for the protection of the future. But a temporary resolution, formed without reference to the states of mind that one is likely to pass through, naturally fails before the execution is accomplished; 420 RESOLUTION. other occasions occur, prompting the contrary course, with quite an equal force, and so neutralizing what seemed at the time an all-powerful influence. 10. We exist from day to day under a host of resolutions. The intelligence-itself put in motion by a grand volition, having for its end the harmony of the whole life, which means the avoidance of clashings and failures-arranges the work to be done for each day, and the action to be performed under every situation; and, as the successive moments arrive, the memory presents the operation with its animating motive, and the organs are inspired accordingly. The result of the whole is manifold and complex, but the mental laws are few and simple. We must have a certain development of the intelligence, in the shape of memory of the succession to be observed, of the behaviour to be adopted under each definite circumstance, and of the pains and pleasures that sustain the requisite labour. We must have an educated executive, or an association between the various sensations of outward things and the acts properly suited to each case, as when the soldier obeys the word of command or the sound of the trumpet. Each man sent out for a day's work and actually fulfilling it, is provided with all these requisites. He knows what to take up first, second, and third; a particular hour is specified for one thing, and his memory retains the connexion, so that when the hour strikes, he proceeds with that; and, should a certain eventuality happen, he is provided with an association suggesting what change or adaptation he must make to meet it; and he is also alive to the pleasure of doing, or the pain of not doing, the appointed act, so that a volitional spur equal to the occasion is not wanting. Such is a rough description of our industrial life from day to day. An educated activity, motives to the will, and an intelligence to represent those motives when they are not actual pains or pleasures, and to harmonize the succession of our operations,are the general foundations of all those multifarious doings that constitute the stream of our active life. 11. I have reserved for the close of this chapter the farther MUSCULAR CONSCIOUSNESS DURING ACTION. 421 consideration of the feeling of EFFORT, upon which so much stress is laid in the theoretical questions arising on the subject of the will. A voluntary act (as well as some acts not voluntary) is accompanied with consciousness, or feeling; of which there may be several sorts. The original motive is some pleasure or pain, experienced or conceived. The active exertion is accompanied with the muscular consciousness, agreeable in states of vigour, painful under exhaustion or fatigue, and often, as regards pleasure or pain, indifferent. Now, which of these modes of consciousness is properly designated by the term' Effort'? Probably it includes all the phases of expended energy-pleasurable exercise, the pain of acting under fatigue, and the tracts of mere indifference; but more particularly the sense of fatigue. There is a common phrase 'costing no effort,' used in contrast to ' labour,' pains,'' taking trouble,' which are modes of effort. So that 'effort' really means the muscular consciousness accompanying voluntary activity, and more especially in the painful stage. It is a case of conflict between a motive urging us to act, and a muscular or other pain that would keep us from acting. The consciousness of Effort has been put forward as a decisive consideration in favour of the mental origin of all moving power. In a passage in Sir John Herschell's Astronomy occurs the following sentence. 'It is our immediate consciousness of effort, when we exert force to put matter in motion, or to oppose and neutralize force, which gives us this internal consciousness of power and causation so far as it refers to the material world, and compels us to believe that whenever we see material objects put in motion from a state of rest, or deflected from their rectilineal paths, and changed in their velocities if already in motion, it is in consequence of such an EFFORT somehow exerted, though not accompanied with our consciousness.' This raises two very great issues. First, the author holds mind to be a purely immaterial existence, yet able to originate or exert physical force; a supposition that cannot we]he,-. aintained in the present day, But, farther, he asserts that the moving power in the inanimate world 422 EFFORT. originates in some accompanying mental energy; thus, gravity is not a property of matter, but the exertion of a concealed mind: a hypothesis still more gratuitous; having, indeed, nothing at all to rest upon, except the analogy between the inanimate world and sentient beings, on the mere point of putting forth mechanical force or moving power. In a separate work ('Mind and Body') I have discussed at full the concomitance of physical operations with mental processes, and do not here reprint the arguments in reply to Herschell, in my previous editions. Another application of the consciousness of Effort is to make a case for Free-Will, as against 'Determinism,' or the exclusive determination of the voluntary actions by prior states of feeling, that is, motives. The bearing of the point upon this controversy will be considered in the chapter devoted to the subject. At present I remark, that Effort has a strict connexion with motives in the proper sense of the word. If we are resisted in some object, and if the object is of little value, we succumb or yield to the opposition. If the object is of great value, we do not succumb, but ' make an effort'. The greatness of the effort, the persistence in it, the renewal of it, with accumulated energy, are (to appearance at least) governed by the strength of the motive, and the chances of finally overcoming the resistance. Our strivings after anything are the measure of the value we put upon it. Efforts beyond the value would be altogether irrational on our part; if we were moved by any extraneous cause, or by no cause at all, to put forth an exertion not justified by a suitable motive, our conduct would be, not prudence or duty, but insanity. If we do not put forth an effort in accordance with the value of a thing, it is because we do not adequately feel it; and the motive needs to be strengthened by a course of reflection. If we do feel the motive, and do not act accordingly, there is something defective in our constitution, which may or may not be remediable; but the remedy, whatever it is, can be assigned and reasoned about, like any other phenomenon of cause and effect. CHAPTER VIII. DESIRE. 1. DESIRE is that phase of volition where there is a motive, but not ability to act upon it. The inmate of a small gloomy chamber conceives to himself the pleasure of light and of an expanded prospect; the unsatisfying ideal urges the appropriate action for gaining the reality; he gets up and walks out. Suppose, now, that the same ideal delight comes into the mind of a prisoner. Unable to fulfil the prompting, he remains under the solicitation of the motive; and his state is denominated craving, longing, appetite, Desire. If all motive impulses could be at once followed up, desire would have no place. The state of craving is thus, in the first place, a want or: deficiency, an inferior level of happiness. In the second place, there is the idea or conception of some delight, with the notion that the ideal form is much below the realized condition; consequent on which is a motive to the will to compass the reality. And, thirdly, there is a bar in the way of acting, which leads to the state of conflict, and renders desire a more or less painful frame of mind. 2. We have a form of desire in all our more protracted operations, or when we are working for distant ends. The suppression of the state of craving is complete, only when the gratification is under the hand; as, when I become thirsty, having a glass of water on the table before me. If I have to ring a bell, and send some one off to fetch the water, I remain under the urgency, but in a modified shape, seeing that I am bringing about my sure relief. In such cases, Desire is synonymous with pursuit, industry, or voluntary action for distant, intermediate, or comprehensive ends. Many of our pleasures and pains have names that denote them, not in their actuality, but in the condition of desire and pursuit. Thus, 424 DESIRE. 'avarice' expresses, not the fruition, but the pursuit of wealth. There is no name for the pure pleasure of knowledge; 'curiosity' signifies the state of active desire. So with 'ambition;' to indicate the real gratification we are obliged to use complex phrases, as ' the pleasure of power,' 'the sentiment of power possessed and exercised'. It would be to repeat what has been already said respecting the regular operation of the will, to exemplify desire in connection with active pursuit. The only form remaining to be considered is the case where the thing sought is out of reach. The question thus arises-What are the courses open to us? Very frequently we experience pains that prompt to action in vain, as regards their alleviation; or we feel actual pleasures slipping away before we have had our fill of them; or we conceive ideal pleasures not to be realized. Neither by present exertion, nor by postponed, but sure, opportunities of action, can we obey the mandate to work for pleasure or to remove pain. 3. The first alternative is described by the names endurance, resignation, contentment, acquiescence, patience, fortitude. In consequence of the pain of the conflict, and the impossibility of terminating it by fruition, the will is urged to suppress the longing itself, by dismissing the idea from the thoughts. The craving for unattainable wealth, or for a hopeless affection, may be met by a grand effort not to entertain the ideal as a subject of contemplation. This is to induce the state of contentment. When the longing is for fancied bliss, as when people sigh after honour, splendour, power, or unusable wealth, the coercion of the intellectual trains may be such as to restore the quiet of the mind. It is different when we are under the pressure of some actual pain-as physical agony, destitution, contumely, oppression, the privation of what we are accustomed to; for granting that we suppress the thought of relief, we have still to bear up against the irritation. The counter-volition of endurance now consists in our being urged, by the pains of spasmodic gesticulation and fruitless endeavour, to remain still; restraining both ENDURANCE. 425 the diffusive manifestations and the vain attempts at relief. Under this stern regimen, the system more quickly adapts itself to the new situation, and the fortitude is rewarded by a mitigation of the pain. The misery of fruitless endeavour is not the sole motive inspiring this forced composure of the irritated frame. The waste of valuable strength in these struggles, the feeling of dignity associated in the mind with endurance, the approbation that it brings, and the reprobation so often given to the.impatient temper,-all concur in moving the counter resolution of forced quietism. The history of the world is full of wonderful feats of endurance, and these not limited to civilized peoples. The fortitude of the old Spartan in physical suffering and privation is rivalled or surpassed by the Indian fakeer, and the American savage. Endurance is talked of as being either physical or moral. The fact is, that it applies to every one of the long catalogue of our possible pains, whether those that are so in their first origin, or those that arise from the privation of some pleasure. All the disagreeables reaching us through the senses, and all the modes of emotion that belong to the side of suffering, stimulate the will into action, and, if an effectual means of alleviation is known, that is followed out. If the means are unknown, one attempt after another will be entered upon; and, if nothing succeeds, the secondary vexation of conflict, disappointment and unrest, will overtake us. Rather than go on with this new evil, we fall back upon the quiet endurance of the first; which, however, cannot be done except by a new act of will, dictated and kept up by the suffering of abortive action, and by those other considerations that make up a powerful array of motives in favour of the patient attitude. The same counteractive may be brought into play, when we are torn and exhausted by the extreme outbursts of the emotional manifestation. It has been seen that pain may, in one set of circumstances, run out into violent expression, and, in others, to volition. In both cases, we may incur new evil, to a greater extent than we obtain relief, and hence arises a 426 DESIRE. motive for the total suppression of both outgoings. It is within the power of the will to suppress the diffusive movements of a strong emotion, by bringing a force to bear upon the voluntary members in the first instance, and by that control of the thoughts, that is the most direct method accessible to us for affecting the states of consciousness in their inmost recesses. It may indeed be a question, whether or not the secondary force be strong enough to cope with the primary, that being either a voluntary stimulus or an emotional wave. Anything like the complete endurance of all the incurable pains that come over the human being is not a usual endowment, nor can it be bred without a superior force of voluntary determinations generally, as compared with the other impulses of the system, together with a protracted education on this special head. There are some minds specially sensitive to those secondary pains now alluded to, with whom, therefore, the motive to quietism has more than ordinary efficacy. Goethe may be quoted as a case in point. Being so constituted as to suffer acutely the nervous exhaustion of internal conflict, such minds are strongly induced to throw the whole weight of the voluntary impetus into the scale of prevention, or to concentrate in one conflict the decision of the mind, instead of suffering the distraction of many. It is possible even to form a passionate attachment to a serene mode of life, so as to surrender many positive pleasures rather than not realize the end. 4. So much for one solution of the problem of ungratified impulse or desire.* It is not given to every one to suceed in * I have not introduced into the text any notice of those antidotes common to Desire with all other forms of pain. The uneasiness of ineffectual craving may be quenched by drawing upon some of our stores of pleasure. It is in this way that we appease the longings of infancy, and prevent the mischiefs of a too rampant appetite. As it is the prerogative of pleasure to neutralize the sting of pain, we apply pleasure to silence the restlessness secondary to suffering, as well as the primary irritation. The mind accepts a substitute for what is longed for. Another device of familiar application is the diversion of the thoughts from the subject that has caused the state of craving. When this originates IMAGINARY ACTION. 427 this method, as bearing on the whole compass of desires, however much we may deem it the preferable course. We have now to consider what other solution can be resorted to, of a less severe character as regards the demand for energetic efforts of the will. There is an easier mode, which may be designated by the general title of ideal or imaginary action. We all know what is meant by day-dreaming, castle-building, and such like terms; as implying that one finds scope in an imaginary world for the gratification of longings that are not answered by anything in the realities of one's lot. This method of proceeding, however, is not of the same universal application as the preceding; it is not every desire that can be even partially satisfied by imaginary outgoings. If, for example, we take any of the bodily appetites-hunger, thirst, sleep, &c., or any of the other organic sensations-heat, cold, nervous depression, we find that no ideal or imagined relief is of any practical avail:Who can hold a fire in his hand By thinking on the frosty Caucasus? On the other side, the craving for a return of scenes and days of bygone pleasure, sometimes contains so much of the 'pleasures of memory' of the foregone emotions, as to make imagination to a great degree satisfying. So, when any one has deeply offended us, being yet beyond the reach of our retaliation, we have still some fraction of the full measure of in the conception of some pleasure, and not in a real want or suffering, the remedy may be found where the evil arose; namely, in the intellect. The seeing or hearing of some one's good fortune on a point that we ourselves are susceptible to, quickens our longings, if not our envy, and leaves us very much out of sorts with ourselves and with the world. It is at such a moment that the advent of a friend, the arrival of some stirring news, the necessity for falling to work at a task, or some other influence suggesting an entire change of subject, will prove a healing balm. New associating links can always more or less turn aside the stream of pre-existing ideas, and there are many occasions when this fact exercises a benign power. The consolation afforded by a spiritual adviser, or a wise friend, has no other basis to proceed upon, and yet great effects may be operated by the skilful management of this resource. Nevertheless, there is nothing of special adaptation to the pains of thwarted desire in the present method any more than in the foregoing. 428 DESIRE. revenge, by going over in the mind what we should do if the offender were to cross our path. Any sentiment that is naturally luxuriant in the constitution, being not likely to be met in all its fulness by the reality, makes up for the defect by a series of ideal volitions corresponding to its demands. The sentiment of power is a signal example of this. Each one whose sphere falls below what this feeling leads him to wish, finds in imagined domains an outlet for the insatiable craving; and such may be the peculiarity of the individual, that empire in conception may go some way to supply the void. 5. The comparison now instituted between the physical wants and certain of the emotions or sentiments, suggests at once what the circumstance is that enables us to find gratification or relief in imaginary actions. Referring to a former chapter (IDEAL EMOTION), it will be remembered that a feeling persisting after the fact, or recovered by mere association, without the presence of the proper stimulus, can sometimes approach the fulness of the real experience; so much so, that we are content in many instances with this bare conception, or ideal resuscitation. The recollection of a time of gaiety and excitement, of some interesting conversation or discourse, or of a book that we have read, may give such an amount of the feeling of actual experience that we rest satisfied with that, and wish nothing farther. On a matter, therefore, where we have a power of restoring mentally the full-toned delight of a real experience, it is easy to convert memory into imagination, and to construct future gratifications of the same sort, with or without a basis of reality. We speak occasionally of such and such a one having a strong imagination, when we mean that he can so body forth an ideal pleasure, as to derive from it an entire satisfaction of the want of the moment. In the physical cravings, this is an impossibility. Something may be done to stave off for a little the insupportable agony of thirst, hunger, drowsiness, or cold, or to lull the acute pinch of a neuralgic pain; but the actual in these cases is too strong for the most highly stimulated counter-ideal. We have thus two opposite extremes among our multitudinous sensibilities; IDEAL OUTGOINGS EXEMPLIFIED. 429 one where actuality alone can fill up the aching void, the other where the mere idea amounts to the full demands of the system; and between those extremes lies the whole range of imaginary volition, put in motion at the instance of pains or pleasures, such as we cannot work for in the regular compass of our voluntary exertion. So wide is the operation of these ideal outgoings, that the chief difficulty lies in selecting a good instance to show how faithfully a course of voluntary action is repeated in the idea. Take the desire of Wealth. The motive growing out of pleasure secured, and pain turned aside, by worldly abundance, stimulates, perhaps, the largest share of the activity of mankind. To work, to husband the fruits of toil, to combine intelligence with handicraft, to exercise self-denial, and surmount the love of ease,-are the genuine manifestations of our volitional nature under this cumulative end. The motive, however, may exist, where the means of attainment are, from various causes, restricted. A man may feel very keenly the sufferings that wealth could alleviate, and many have an appetizing conception of pleasures that it could command, but may be so situated as to be unable to compass the desirable object. It is then that imagination overleaps the barrier, and fills the mind with the ideas of those transactions that in other circumstances would be reproduced in reality. If the young man's obstacle at starting is the want of a certain capital to trade upon, his imaginings take the form of chalking out his line of operations, were he in actual possession of the amount desiderated. If the difficulty is to obtain a certain office exactly adapted to his abilities, he is occasionally led to assume this difficulty overcome, and to sketch in his mind the active proceedings consequent thereon. It is still the stimulus of volition that is the prime mover of the activity; and the activity itself is essentially voluntary, although transferred from the actual operations, to the ideal rehearsal of them. This ideal volition is, in point of fact, an essential prelude to the lifting of the hand, and the performing of the actual business as it arises. The man that has gained his capital, or his office, 430 DESIRE. has to spend a certain time in the mental work of deliberation under conflicting impulses, before taking the real proceedings; and the dreamer, moved by the same original motives, goes through these ideal preliminaries, even when they can end in nothing real. The tender affections, complacency, honour, and the sentiment of power, as existing in the average of persons, are all suited to imaginary activity. So are the artistic feelings, and the love of knowledge. But there is, perhaps, hardly any sensibility of human nature that may not prove a basis for day-dreaming in some minds; while in many cases the feelings now mentioned may fail in that respect. It may give no pleasure at all to imagine the recovery of a lost friend, or to dream of fame, fortune, and power. As mere ideas, these may fail to bring on an agreeable glow; they may simply reproduce the pain of privation, as when we suffer fatigue, hunger, or cold. There is, moreover, a sentiment of our nature that revolts from excessive ideality, namely, the dislike to extreme disparity of the ideal and the actual. In minds alive to the contradiction, the suffering that it gives is so acute, as to be a motive power hostile to the outgoings of the mind in vain imaginings. We call this a healthy check, from the fact that the duties and the interests of life are put in peril by the license of roaming desire. It is easy to understand how Pain generates avoidance in the ideal as well as in the actual. The only requisite is that the recollection of the painful quality be tolerably vivid, as when we earnestly reflect how to keep at a distance penury or shame. But as regards the motives from Pleasure, there is something to be explained. If I have in my mind the vivid conception of some favourite delight-as of music, spectacle, or social intercourse,-why should I not remain content with what I remember of it? It is quite true that there may be still higher degrees of gratification than mine, but such would be the case, whatever felicity I might attain to. This leads us to consider more closely the nature of that state of mind wherein a pleasure in idea craves to become one in reality. SENSE OF SHORTCOMINGS OF PLEASURE. 431 There must be something in it different from the mere impulse to add to a present delight up to full satiety. It is a fact that I am much more satisfied with a plain and moderate meal than with the imagination of a feast. There would seem to be a certain pain mixed up with imagined good, resembling the pain of a bodily craving. We are sometimes said to set our heart upon a particular enjoyment; which is a mode of signifying that we have been worked up to such a condition respecting it, as to feel the deprivation to be a real want of the system. The desire of pleasure, in this sense, contains in it the mental sting of an acute suffering. We are thus brought back to the great distinction made above between pleasures whose memory or conception is satisfying, and pleasures of an opposite sort. In cases where we can remember that we were at a certain time very much elated, but where the remembrance contains in itself no elation whatsoever, there starts up a painful feeling urging us to realize that time again, even though the entertaining of the mere remembrance is an empty notion. We can take hold of a past emotion by a present effort of the intellect, so as to recognize intellectually the distinguishing qualities of it-to compare it with others agreeing or disagreeing with it, while yet nothing of the genuine thrill is reproduced. It is in such a predicament, that volition and desire are roused by a motive power that we may concede as in part made up of pleasure-namely, the very small share that still clings to the memory, or notion,-but that, I believe, springs mostly out of the pain of so imperfect a realization of what we know to have been a state of high delight. The ardent Greek, remembering the excitement of an Olympic gathering, has a certain elated feeling stirred up by the mere remembrance; but at the same time he recognizes the great difference between his present tone of enjoyment and that full tide of hilarious glee that belonged to the days of the great celebration; and it is upon this sense of difference that he is moved to be present at another festival, or failing that, to visit it in imagination. The pleasurable part of the state urges the will for an 432 DESIRE. additional draught; the sense of the shortcoming of the recollection is of the nature of a pain, and operates for its own removal. If that amount of excitement stirred up by the memory of some happy day gone by, could exist in the mind without any comparative reference, we might probably feel gladdened, without any spur of desire; it is the idea of still greater delights that mars the peace of the mind. 6. Let us enquire next into the Provocatives of Desire, which involve many subtle considerations. To clear the way, we may notice first the physical desires, called Appetites. In these the provocation is primarily the physical conditions of the several organs. In the more prominent instances, as food, muscular exercise and repose, rest,-the nervous system holds only a second place. It is the condition of the digestive organs that brings on hunger; of the muscular organs that brings on the desire of exercise, or the opposite, and so forth. The nervous centres are indirectly or secondarily concerned in muscular appetite; they are more immediately and primarily concerned in the appetite or desire for mental exertion or mental rest. The nerve centres go through the same alternation of expenditure and repletion as the muscles; when they are in the replenished condition there is a certain urgency to discharge the energy, and an accompanying pleasure; when they are exhausted, there is an urgency to become quiescent; sleep includes the nerves as well as the muscles. In whatever terms we may express this fact,* it is the first law of happiness and of desire; it is qualified and modified, yet not set aside, by other laws, more especially by those that express the workings of stimulation and excitement. Starting from the alternation of nervous expenditure and renewal, viewed comprehensively, we have next to allow for specific modes of expenditure; there being in each constitution some directions where activity is above average, either by nature or by cultivation. There may, for example, be a high order of manual activity, of vocal activity, of the activity of the senses; and where these exist, the tendency to renew SSpencer, 'Psychology', I., 126. CRAVING FOR TASTED PLEASURE. 433 and continue them will be a more than ordinary appetite or desire. At present, we are not including the consideration of the special modes of pleasure that may accompany these. It is a more complicated aspect of the problem, to extend the general principle of nervous exercise and repose to the feelings and emotions. The element of pleasure and pain, in its simplest form, comes under the general law of the will; when pleasure is present, its continuance is desired, when pain is present, its abatement is desired,-under all circumstances. In order to provoke desire under this principle, it is simply requisite to give the taste of a pleasure, or the taste of a pain. In the total absence of both, there is no desire; and there are circumstances that may neutralize them, even when present. It is a notorious fact that the standing source of Desire is pleasure tasted. Our Desires, instead of being confined to the general aim of getting pleasure somehow, and of ridding ourselves.of pain, take specific and individual forms, in con. nection with particular kinds of pleasure and pain that have been once experienced. Mere capabilities of pleasure do not evoke desire; we may be so constituted as to take pleasure in music, in pictures, in science, but, if we have been utterly debarred from the slightest taste of such things, desire does not arise. The law of nervous charge and discharge does not bring out a craving where there has never been a stimulation applied. Possibly if one were constituted with a number of special faculties of pleasure, and if all of them were refused even so much as an appetizing taste, we should live a life of joylessness or of ennui; the remaining aptitudes, although stimulated and provided for, being too limited to be a satisfying portion. The element of experienced pleasure enters into the Appetites, and increases their force as motives. Their gratification ordinarily yields positive satisfaction, as well as relief from uneasiness; so that life is happier with them than without them. If the craving is allowed to develop itself to the point that produces a grateful reaction, and no farther, and if the 28 434 DESIRE. gratification is ample, not to say piquant and select, then the mere physical appetites become a considerable part of our enjoyment. At this stage, Desire, in its strictest sense, is predominant. The craving is not the mere volitional urgency to conquer pain; there is the memory of pleasure, and the desire to revive that pleasure in the fulness of actuality. Moreover, the desire fastens on specific things that gratify the appetite in the most pleasure-giving form; we do not crave for any food, but for a select kind of food; we wish to exercise ourselves in particular ways. Desire being thus grounded on experienced gratification, it is raised from dormancy to activity by the suggestion of a past pleasure. This is to be tempted or inflamed. The manner of the suggestion will regulate the form of the desire, on the grounds already mentioned; a pleasure recalled vividly, but yet with the consciousness that the idea is inferior to the reality, operates as desire. The lamed youth kept at home. when his brothers are out on sport, has an anguish of desire. 7. Still higher complications are encountered, when we enquire into the longings connected with our various Emotions. The aptitude for a particular emotion would, by the law of nervous charge and discharge, seem to demand its exercise. I have already said that, as regards our sensuous pleasures, and many of our emotions, there is no proof that we should desire them, if they were never felt. Great are the pleasures of Self-Complacency, of Revenge, and of Domination, but there does not appear to be an inborn craving for them. Practically, tlhis is no great matter, because we cannot be long in the world without the tasting requisite to induce desire. The nicest questions are those attaching to the sociable emotions. A hypothetical being cast adrift alone might not crave for fellowship or society; although the absence of companionship would lead to much inexplicable misery. Being born in society, we know its gratifications, and so desire them. The infant learns the joys of the loving embrace; it has a certain fund of nervous susceptibility determining for what length of time, and at what intervals, the pleasure can DESIRE FOR THE UNEXPERIENCED. 435 be sustained. It feels a recurring want, which may be precipitated by reminders or opportunities, but, without these, would come forward as an uneasy feeling, pointing to a definite requirement. More mysterious are the longings for special gratifications that have never been experienced; as in the sexual passions. From infancy upward, there has been a clear conception' of love or tender feeling, arising from its gratification in certain spheres; but the new demand for the intercourse of the sexes precedes experience. True, there is no clear forecasting of the precise character of what is craved for; there is simply a flutter indicating some overflow of power, which it is distressing to curb, with vague pleasurable sensations that seem to admit of enormous increase. The doctrine of inheritance makes short work with this difficulty. The hereditary experience of the love sensations would count as desire set on by pleasure, no less than by present uneasiness. It would teach that there is associated with the opposite sex a mass of agreeable sensibility, which is awakened ideally by the outward aspect of the sex, and takes the form of a powerful craving. But before invoking this aid, let us endeavour to' make the most of the other sources of explanation. It is known that we long abundantly for things that we have no experience of. What are the dreams of young ambition, but longings after things entirely unknown, and, it may be, grossly misconceived? The case is one that admits of the easiest explanation. Our experience contains enough to set going the constructive imagination; we have certain known delights, and certain known pains, and we can easily suppose a state of things where the delights have the fullest play, and. the pains the least. Partly from our knowledge, and partly from our ignorance, we attribute this state of things to a certain worldly position, although we have not occupied that position. The materials of our desire are all found in experience, there being nothing new but the grouping of them, and the illusion that connects them with a certain specific 436 DESIRE. object. The desire of immortality after death cannot be founded on fact; it is nourished solely by the longing for what is pleasurable. The constructive imagination has perfectly understood limits; it would not apply to any radically new pleasure, such as the sexual or the maternal. These are, doubtless, modifications of the general love feeling; but the particular mode and intensity cannot be constructed out of prior states. It is not necessary to be a mother to take delight in caressing a child; but it would be sheer presumption for anyone to preconceive the real experience of maternity. Another law has still to be cited. The present experience of one pleasure is often the beginning of a series of waves or echoes of many other pleasures, with a corresponding volume of desire. This is a law of Ideal Emotion, whereby a present stimulant counts for much more pleasure than what is due to itself. But remembered or ideal pleasures being, in so many instances, consciously inferior to the actual, to suggest them is to bring on Desire. Whence it happens that our highest moments of bliss are mixed up with longings; not that desire is necessary to pleasure, but that a great volume of pleasure, the resultant of multitudinous echoes of the past, contains at many points the sense of delights realized imperfectly. An interesting discussion has arisen on the point as to whether, in Desire, we have always in view a pleasure or a pain. It is remarked, for instance, that the object of the appetite of Hunger is not the relief of pain and the attainment of pleasure, but simply Food. It is farther observed that, instead of desire following pleasure, pleasure often follows desire. This line of remark was greatly used by Butler, as a means of proving the existence of disinterested motives. It has been taken up, with nearly the same view, by Mr. Sidgwick (' Methods of Ethics', Book I., Chap. IV.). 'Hunger (he says) is an impulse which terminates in the eating of food. Its indulgence is no doubt commonly attended with an agreeable feeling of more or less intensity; but it cannot, I think, be strictly said that this agreeable feeling is the object of hunger, and that it is the representation of this pleasure which stimulates the will of the hungry man. Of course hunger is frequently and naturally accompanied with anticipation of the pleasure of eating; but careful introspection seems to show BUTLER ON THE OBJECT OF DESIRE. 437 that the two are by no means inseparable; and that even when they occur together the pleasure of the object is not the primary appetite, but of a secondary desire which is to be distinguished from the power.' Again, Pursuit, as such, is often pleasurable. Take for example, fox-hunting. 'Nobody, before entering on the chase, represents to himself the killing of the fox as a source of gratification, apart from the eagerness produced by pursuit.' Indeed, to enjoy the pursuit, the hunter must not think too much of his pleasure; he must be in full chase after the fox. 'Here comes into view what we might call the fundamental paradox of Hedonism, that the self-regarding impulse, if too predominant, defeats its own aim'. This is true, not merely of sport, but of thought and study; 'these can only be really enjoyed by those who have an ardour of curiosity which carries the mind temporarily away from self and its sensations'. So with the exercise of the creative faculty in all kinds of Art; in order to get the pleasures we must forget them. There is truth in all these observations; but they are noways at variance with the general law of the Will. They depend upon certain modifying circumstances that can be readily understood. In the first place, although Pleasure and Pain are the final ends of the Will (with recognized exceptions), they are not the tangible ends; they are not the things that the active organs can lay hold of. We cannot lay hold of a pleasure with the hand, and lodge it in the brain; we cannot with the bodily fingers pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow. So we cannot gratify hunger, except by manipulating upon its material object-food. Our purpose is to get rid of pain, but our operative endeavours are directed to a portion of the outer world, which is therefore made a co-equal interest. Without the pain or pleasure, we should never think of the food; we should not make it an object of desire. But, seeing that it has such marked effects upon our subjective consciousness, we strain every nerve to procure it. In this straining, we seem occasionally oblivious of the pleasure we are to reap; our whole mind is engrossed with the sensible appearances of the viands. It is not necessary, however, it is not a condition of our enjoyment, that we should be every moment occupied with the thought of the subjective pleasure or pain connected with our pursuits; we are set in motion by these, and then we let them drop out of view for a time. Indeed, it is a well-known law of the mind, more than once adverted to in the previous exposition, that we cannot be occupied objectively and subjectively at one and the same instant; our habit is to pass by rapid turns from one to the other. It is an advantage to intermit our subjectivity, even although that means the cessation of pleasure; we, thereby, return to it with renewed zest. Hence, it is a merit and recommendation of certain exercises that they take us out of ourselves for the time; it is not 438 DESIRE. good to be always self-conscious: if we are in pain, objectivity is remedial; if we are in pleasure, it prevents the too speedy exhaustion of the pleasurable sensibility. There is nothing in all this to interfere with the law of the Will, nor to destroy the strict proportion between our strength of desire or energy of pursuit and the pleasure expected from it; in short, nothing to destroy our character as rational beiigs whichjs to desieanzy hingexactly~ c Ji g it value. A man has a desire for food; usually for some special kinds of food; but when these lose their relish, or bring on indigestion, the desire for them ceases. The food is a means to an end, and is looked at with a view to the end; there being a certain disposition in the mind occasionally to set the means above the end, which, so far as it goes, produces irrationality of conduct. I do not think that any argument for disinterested impulses can be drawn from this consideration. The most selfish man that ever lived must interpolate, for the gratification of his appetites, their outward objects or causes; and, in the act of taking food, must be, for moments, oblivious of its subjective consequences. The same with the fox-hunter, the student, and the artist. No argument for the existence of pure virtuous motives, or for their beneficial influences to the virtuous agent's self, can be obtained from this source. It is as chimerical a venture as the philosopher's stone. I have, on every opportunity, contended for our possessing a certain share of purely Disinterested Motives. In so doing, I refer for proof, not to Butler's sleight-of-hand manipulation, but to the induction from the facts. I find various occasions (and I could wish them to be more numerous) where individuals act for the good of others, in opposition to their own interest, and without thinking of compensation. I do not know how, on any other supposition, the dominion of Rome could ever have been established, or England have attained her present power. I do not see that the innumerable devotees of these great results found any pleasure at all commensurate'with their devotion, or were under the illusion that they were getting, or were to get pleasure..The second premiership of the late Lord Derby, in all probability, shortened his life; it certainly curtailed his pleasures and increased his pains; yet I cannot assign any corresponding good, either in this world or in the next, that could serve to buoy him up in his sacrificing toil. I concur with Mr. Sidgwick in his remark that the self-regarding impulse, if too predominant, defeats itself. I have already observed upon the somewhat paradoxical position, that a certain amount of disinterestedness is a furtherance of our happiness, especially in the point of obtaining other people's services and regards. A spontaneous generosity, prompting us always to be ready to do a good action, without thinking of any return, is the best way of obtaining consideration from those about us. The generosity must not be too DESIRE INSEPARABLE FROM PLEASURE AND PAIN.. 439 heedless or indiscriminating; otherwise we shall have more loss than gain. We must, after a few trials, cease to work for unthankful subjects. But a readiness to show kindness at all hands is a good investmentt when kept under the check of a rational regard to one's own happiness. It would appear that a thoroughly selfish person is never so far-seeing as to gain the most that is to be got by consulting the welfare of others. A little honesty by nature is usually found in those that make honesty pay. While allowing, therefore, that 'the pleasure of virtue is one that can only be obtained on the express condition of its not being sought,' I do not admit that this has anything whatever to do with the law of Desire. It is merely one of a hundred melancholy proofs of the feebleness and short-sightedness of our nature. Our desires do indeed fasten upon the indifferent objective accompaniments of our pleasures, because in the nature of things they could not do anything else; but they do not set up these indifferent accompaniments as ends of pursuit, even when divorced from the pleasures that brought them into notice. When a man loses his enjoyment in hunting, he does not continue to desire hunting; long habit and association will give him a certain interest in the idea of the chase, but he will not actually ride out after he has ceased to be consciously pleased in the act. The attempt to discover among human motives some that do not involve pleasure and pain may be well-meant; it may be all in the interest of virtue. The same may be said of the Free-will doctrine, which goes a step farther, and seeks to establish actions without any motives whatever. Both schemes are open to` one common remark n avoiding selfishness, by this means, are we thrown into the arms of virtue? When a man's motive is not selfish, or when he works without motive, are we sure that virtue receives the whole benefit? Is it not rather a casting-loose upon uncertain accidents, leading, it may be, to vice, as often as to virtue 1 What I should desire in the interest of mankind, would be, not a pursuit of things indifferent, nor yet action without a specific prompting, but a motive having the good of mankind for its express object, and always to be counted on in that direction. Of this nature are our sympathies, so far as they are developed within us: these carry us in the right course, and, when they cease, there is no other security that I can discover for our good conduct, except where our selfishness and the good of others happen to coincide. These fetches of indifferentism that offer no guarantees for virtue, I, for one, would much rather dispense with; just as I would, in the interest of mankind, rather be without the Free-will impulses that transcend all assignable motives. Promptings to indifferent things, and actions without motive, must, in the long run, be counted equally for virtue and for vice. By them, we renounce the pursuit of pleasure to self, and do not secure the welfare of any one else. CHAPTER IX. THE MORAL HABITS. 1. IN my former volume, I gave a full exposition of the principle of our constitution that lies at the basis of all our acquired powers; reserving, however, the case of moral acquisitions till a later stage. It is well known that the plastic process, expressed under the Law of Contiguity, operates in the conflicts of the will, so as to increase the power of one motive over the other. The child is torn asunder with the difficulty of fixing attention for a length of time upon one thing; the fullgrown man or woman ceases to have even the semblance of a struggle. The applications of the process to confirm both prudential volitions of mental growth, and those that respect the interests of others, constitute an important chapter of the human mind. The principle of cohesiveness is precisely the same in the present class of acquisitions as in those formerly treated of. There must be a certain amount of repetition, which may be aided by other favouring circumstances (See CONTIGUITY and also IDEAL EMOTION.) The most considerable of these accessory conditions, apart from natural differences of character, is the disengagement of the mind from other things, and the absorption of it in the matter in hand. Other aiding circumstances are nutrition, health, and youth. The peculiarity of the moral habits, contra-distinguishing them from the intellectual acquisitions, is the presence of two hostile powers, one to be gradually raised into the ascendant over the other. It is necessary, above all things, in such a situation, never, if possible, to lose a battle. Every gain on the wrong side undoes the effect of many conquests on the right. The essential precaution, therefore, is, so to regulate the two opposing powers that the one may have a series of uninterrupted successes, until repetition has fortified it to such a degree as to enable CONTROL OF SENSE AND APPETITE. 441 it to cope with the opposition, under any circumstances. This is the theoretically best career of moral progress. 2. Commencing then at the natural beginning of our subject, I shall first remark upon the control of the volitions of Sense and Appetite. We find, when we come to balance the conflicting interests of life, that the pleasures of sense stimulate us too far in pursuit, and the pains of sense too far in avoidance. The delights of exercise, repose, nourishment, warmth, sweet tastes, fragrant odours, soft contacts, melodious sounds, and the'host of various influences operating through the eye,-cannot be followed out to all lengths without trenching on other interests present or future; and we want, therefore, to have those interests represented with power sufficient to interpose a check at the proper point. For that end, we aim at bringing the influence of habit to assist the force of volition; and this is best done by means of an unbroken series of decisions on one side. In like manner, we fly such pains as muscular fatigue, acute smarts, thirst, hunger and indifferent fare, cold or excessive heat, bitter tastes, repulsive odours, &c.; there being, however, valuable interests on whose account we occasionally submit to those painful irritations. What is to be done, therefore, is to mark certain objects as paramount to certain others, and to initiate each person into the deliberate preference by gentle stages. We gain nothing by leaving a hungry child within reach of forbidden fruit; the education not yet being sufficiently advanced to give strength to the motive of restraint. We begin by giving slight temptations on one side, while we strongly fortify the motives on the other; and, if there are no untoward reverses to throw back the pupil, we count upon a certain steady progress in the ascendency that we aim at establishing. Each case has its special difficulties. Sometimes we have to deal with sensual impulses of inordinate strength, and at other times we find individuals precociously disposed to take on prudential volitions, and to be susceptible to those interests of other living beings on whose account so much of this discipline is called for. The one general fact in the case is, that by a series 442 THE MORAL HABITS. of exercises, where some one consideration is made to overbear sensual solicitations in an unbroken series of trials, a confirming stream of the nervous power will give new force to the victorious side, enabling it to cope with stronger adversaries, while the sense of struggle and effort gradually dies away. The control over appetite demanded by a regard to health, so difficult in early life, or even in middle age, may by the aid of habit, become so complete, that the individual scarcely suffers the twinge of temptation. 3. Take the practice of regular early rising. Here we have, on the one hand, the volitional solicitations of a massive indulgence, and on the other, the stimulus of prudential volition as regards the collective interests of life. I will avoid all extreme suppositions that would mar the illustration of the point in hand, and will assume that there is neither an unusual indifference to the indulgence of lying late, nor an unusual force of determination in favour of the pursuits and interests of the day. In order, then, to consummate a habit of early rising, we require, in the first place, a strong and decided initiative. This is not a case for an easy and gradual training. I should not count much upon the plan of fixing a certain hour not difficult to get up at, and after a time advancing by a quarter of an hour, and so on. The proper means is, either a very strong putting forth of volition on the part of the individual, or an imperative urgency from without; while the hour that is to be final, should also be initial. Some necessity that there is no escaping, compels a man from his early youth to be out of bed every morning at six o'clock. For weeks and months, and perhaps, years, the struggle and the suffering are acutely felt. Meanwhile, the hand of power is remorseless in the uniformity of its application. And now it is that there creeps on a certain habitude of the system, modifying by imperceptible degrees the bitterness of that oftrepeated conflict. What the individual has had to act so many times in one way, brings on a current of nervous power, confirming the victorious, and sapping the vanquished, impulse. The force of determination that unites the decisive EXAMPLE OF EARLY RISING. 443 movement of jumping out of bed with the perception of the appointed hour, is invigorated slowly but surely. Iteration is softening down the harsh experience of the early riser, and bringing about, as time advances, an approach to the final condition of mechanical punctuality and entire indifference. Years may be wanted to arrive at this point, but sooner or later the plastic element of our constitution will succeed. Not, however, I think, without the two main conditions of an adequate initiative, and an unbroken persistence. If the power applied in the first instance is inconstant or merely occasional, and if periods of indulgence are admitted to break the career of the learner, there is very little hope of ever attaining the consummation described. A great change in the direction of the vitality of the system is needed in order that the feeble spur of daily duty may overpower, without an effort, one of the strongest of our fleshly indulgences; and, in ordinary circumstances, we can calculate upon nothing less than the persistence of years to establish such a diversion. Here, as in the intellectual acquisitions, there are great individual differences of plastic power. Moreover, the circumstances of life may favour or impede the efficacy of it in such an instance as the present. If a man's existence is regular, free from overwork and harassing trouble, his moral habitudes will prosper accordingly. Eating cares, and excessive toil injure the system at some point or other, and the injury may happen to light upon the property of plastic adhesiveness. Further, it is to be considered that the general temper and feelings of the mind may concur with a special discipline, or may not. It may be an object congenial to my prevailing emotions and tastes to fall into a mechanical punctuality of life, and to reclaim the morning hours for favourite pursuits. If so, this will enhance the currents that tend to the habit in question. Should I, on the contrary, never feel any liking or interest in the attainment of this habit, the absence of any such supporting stimulation will make the acquirement proportionally tedious. 4: The above example contains all the leading elements of 444 THE MORAL HABITS. the acquisition of habits running counter to strong appetites. The difficulties to be overcome are very much the same in the other instances; namely, the power of the appetite itself, the inadequacy of the initiative, the occasional backslidings, and the want of any strong inclination in the mind towards the points to be gained by a complete control. With regard to the initiating influences, the most powerful undoubtedly is external compulsion; next to which we may rank example, moral suasion, and those other modes whereby we are acted on by fellow-beings without absolute coercion. Lastly, in a large number of instances, the sole agency must be the mind's own volitions, determined by the pleasures and pains of its own experience, and by motives wherein other men's views have no part. When those that have gone before us dictate for our guidance the maxims resulting from their experience, we trust our future to their wisdom rather than to our own choice; and this is necessarily the predicament of the young. Rousseau, in his Emnile, has carried out to extreme lengths the opposite principle of purely self-determining forces. He proposed that no inclination of a child should ever be directly curbed, but that some method should be found of bringing it under a course of trial and error in every instance, so that its own revulsion from pain should be the sole check. He would allow it to feel actually the injurious consequences of misplaced desires, instead of thwarting these by the hand of authority. Unquestionably, much may be said in favour of the superior force of dear-bought experience, as compared with mere advice, persuasion, or example; but the scheme of Rousseau is utterly impracticable, if from no other reason than the impossibility of realizing in sufficient time all the evil consequences of imprudences. Besides, some of these are so severe that it is an object to save the child from them. We cannot, by any amount of ingenuity, place infancy in the position of free self-determination occupied in mature life. Moreover, although authority may be carried too far in human life generally, yet as no human being is ever emancipated from its sway, an education in submission is as essential a prepara CONTROL OF THE ATTENTION. 445 tion for going out into the world, as is an education in a sound bodily regimen. 5. To the present head belong Habits of Temperance generally, and their illustration might be given in detail if necessary. A strong commencing volition founded on the pains of excesses, and the pleasures of a healthy frame, would of itself induce acts of self-restraint, and the individual might then be said to be temperate simply by the force of will. If the practice of a rigid self-denial were merely rare and occasional, there would be nothing else in the case; nothing would occur to render the volition more easy as life advanced. When, however, the volition is so strong on the point as to operate on all occasions for a lengthened period, the plastic force adds a concurring power that supersedes the necessity of high resolve. This alone is a habit of temperance. 6. I shall advert now to a different class of habits based on resistance to the solicitations of sense, namely, the habitual control of the Attention, as against the diversions caused by outward objects. The senses are incessantly open to impressions from without, and whenever anything pleasurable occurs, the power of volition cherishes and retains the effect, and takes away the active energies and dispositions from any thing that is not so pleasing; and, on the other hand, a painful impression stimulates the voluntary operation of getting out of its reach. Now, although the occurrence of intense pleasures, or of intense pains, among the sensations arising at random through the various senses, is not very frequent, we are liable to a large number of petty pleasures and pains from the objects that strike our sight, hearing, touch, or smell. Every one of these petty impressions has its volitional stimulus, and, if there be not the presence of some more powerful agency, either of volition, or of habit, the mind and the activity are constantly tossed about by it in a multitude of directions. In children, this is seen in full operation. We have to be put under training to resist those various solicitations, and to keep the mind as steadily fixed upon the work in hand as if they did not happen. The process here consists 446 THE MORAL HABITS. in becoming indifferent to what at the outset caused pleasure or pain. We can never be free from impressions of touch, but we contract the habit of inattention to them. The occupation of the mind upon things foreign draws off the currents of power from the tactile susceptibility, which, in consequence, becomes so starved, that even when there is little else to engross the attention, we are scarcely at all alive to the extensive action of our clothing upon the surface of the body. A still more remarkable instance is presented by the ear. Sounds being, in general, more acute in their impression than touches, it is not so easy to contract an insensibility to them. We may, however, acquire this power under favourable circumstances. It is possible to contract the habit of not attending to noises and conversation. To arrive at this point, we must not be over-sensitive to sound from the first, otherwise the initiation would be extremely difficult. There should be some one thing so far capable of engrossing the attention as to overpower, for the time, the buzz of conversation, or the distraction of noise. Some minds are so susceptible to sound, that nothing can ever place them in this situation of insensibility, even for a single half-hour; and, in their case, the acquisition would be impracticable, for want of a commencement. If we can but make a beginning, or find any occasion where indifference can be induced for a short time, the habit will follow. The solicitations of sight have to be met in the same way, and the very same remarks are applicable. We have to assume an attitude of indifference to the great expanse of the visual scene, every feature of which probably stirs the infant mind with strong and engrossing emotion. We learn to withstand the volitional impulse that would divert the eyes to a more pleasant point of the scene around us, and to abide by the unattractive object under our hands. Living in a neighbourhood full of objects of beauty, we walk about in nearly total indifference to the charm, excepting in those special moments when we give ourselves permission to dwell upon them. 7. Many of our habits are directed against the primitive CULTURE AND SUPPRESSION OF EMOTIONS 447 or instinctive movements of the body. I have endeavoured to show that the rhythm of the limbs is an original provision of the organization, and also that there is a primitive tendency to community of action throughout the entire system (INSTINCTS, ~ 5). This last especially demands educational control. We* have to suppress those movements of the limbs that instinctively accompany the play of the voice; to resist that inflammatory action whereby a mere local excitement kindles a general activity. These acquirements, however, are so much akin to the mere mechanical education already discussed under the Law of Contiguity, that I do not dilate upon them in this place. 8. The Emotions present a wide field for the elucidation of the growth of habit. We have had to consider the control and suppression of emotions by voluntary power; an effort rendered more or less easy according as suppression or indulgence is the prevailing fact. The various demands of life are the motives for diverting the emotional currents; and, after a lapse of years, the commencing struggles are modified by the plastic force now under consideration. A few remarks upon the emotions in detail will bring out their distinctive peculiarities, as concerned with the initiation and formation of habits. An observation may first be made, applicable to emotional culture in general. It is possible, by education, to raise or to lower the position of emotion relatively to the two other divisions of the mind. Each person comes into the world with a certain relative proportion of the three great departments of the mental nature, and this proportion may be either retained or departed from in after-life. The primitive rush of power in some one direction may be checked or encouraged by the circumstances that the individual is placed in. The natural consequence, in the absence of interference from without, is that the prevailing bent strengthens itself, and what was originally feeble becomes feebler still. The originally powerful intellect, by asserting its own exercise, more and more deepens the penury of the emotional nature; while two of the elements, 448 THE MORAL HABITS. once in the ascendant, leave little room for the third. A person constitutionally weak in the emotional region, as shown by such tests as-being little fired by the common pleasures of mankind, little given to the profuse display of demonstration and expression, not consoled under pain by the resources of laughter or tears,-may be taken in hand so as to be educated into a higher development in that region. The most effective mode of commencing operations would be to ply the influence of example, sympathy, and multiplied pleasures, in such a manner as to encourage the weak side and discourage the others. Mere authority would not be relevant, and the individual's own volition is not likely to be exerted to change the very foundations of his character. In like manner, by a judicious starving regimen, an over-emotional nature may be toned down, and fuller play given to intellect and volition; an operation, perhaps, more trying to the patient. An exceedingly useful part of our moral discipline relating to this head is the restraint of those exciting motives, more than once referred to, whereby the will is prompted to act to a degree disproportioned to the real enjoyment or suffering of the individual. Every initiative within reach should be brought to bear for the establishment of so valuable a habit; and the difficulty of the case renders all of them not too much. The systematic calming down of physical excitement cannot be over-inculcated in education, nor too strongly aimed at by each one's own volition. The human powers attain their maximum of efficiency only when a confirmed superiority is gained over flurry, excitement, needless fears, and extravagant ebullitions; but, as this is a triumph over one of the very greatest of human weaknesses, the whole force of favouring circumstances must chime in with the acquisition. Good initiatives, supported by the aids to plastic growth in their full measure, must be invoked to the struggle. 9. Next, as regards the emotions in detail, something of what has now been said, on the general subject, applies, more or less, to each. We can, by the instrumentality of education, alter the degree of prominence of one of them in relation THE SPECIAL EMOTIONS. 449 to the rest; while the naturally strong, left to itself, will grow still stronger. In every instance, the course of habit will be either to increase or to diminish an original susceptibility. Take the example of Liberty. The indulgence of the natural roaming impulses, confirmed by habit, will prove an insurmountable bar to a life of regulated industry. By a wellplaced discipline, on the contrary, the pleasure of mere freedom, and the irksomeness of encountering checks, may be sapped by discouragement, and by withdrawing the mind from entertaining them, until they are esteemed as of no account. Such is the condition of the contented slave, and the man or woman whose life is made up of artificial impositions. 10. The state of Terror affords the strongest instance, in support of the point insisted on at the opening of the chapter, as to the importance of an unbroken career in the formation of a habit. If we have to deal with a mind naturally susceptible to fear, it is a notorious fact, that we must do our utmost to avoid every incident that will of a certainty bring on fright. The initiation should be gradual, and the trial never beyond the acquired strength. A single fright may put back the subject of our training for an indefinite period. The case resembles the inuring of the body to fatigue, hardship, or exposure, where the stress should always be within the strength attained. In developing the frame to bear up against muscular fatigue, no wise trainer pushes it beyond the limits of safety to the organism; and, in accustoming ourselves to endure the severity of cold and wet, we are almost sure to go backward a good many points, every time that we contract an illness. There is every reason to believe that this is a general principle, applicable to the fortifying of the system against disease and dissolving tendencies; and, as respects the passion of fear, there is ample confirmation of it. A decided fright, taking hold of the mind, scathes and weakens the courageous tone for a very long time, if, indeed, it be ever entirely got over. To exercise and try the system up to the point of acquired endurance, and yet not to pass that point, is the maxim never to be lost sight of. One must be exposed to occasions of fear in order 29 450 THE MORAL HABITS. to have the natural bravery strengthened, but a premature-or excessive exposure might leave the subject more susceptible than ever. The initiatives in carrying on this particular discipline need to be very good. Example, encouragement, gentleness, health, and an undistracted mode of life,-are the great requisites in the present, as in every other, difficult moral acquisition. Judging from the physiological differences of animals and of the sexes, it would appear that the quality of courage reposes upon a peculiar mode of nervous vigour, and consumes a definite portion of the nourishment of the frame. To instil this quality, where by nature it is but feeble, would probably demand a considerable diversion of the growing and plastic energy of the system, and hence few examples occur of very successful attempts to erect it on an acquired basis. 11. The Tender Emotion supplies a theme (so also would the Sexual) for repeating a similar course of remarks, as to the possibility of exalting or depressing the original development, assigned to it by nature. If strong from the commencement, and supplied with objects to cherish it, there would inevitably follow a progressive enlargement of the susceptibility. A person so situated would find a great and increasing enjoyment in affection, sociability, and humane impulses, and would, as a part of the same endowment, be able to keep up the excitement over comparatively lengthened periods. The currents of energy would go largely into this one channel, leaving other regions, such as intellect and volition, so much less supplied with power. On the other hand, a character deficient in tenderness from the first, might be cherished 'nto an average development, provided attractions are given, and the mind not suffered to be too much absorbed in the direction of greatest strength. We may thus raise or lower the sensibility as a whole, and render it a more or less important item in the sources of enjoyment or suffering; which is an effect entirely distinct from the habitual direction of it towards particular persons or things, termed objects of attachment or affection. No doubt the one effect is ready to go along with the other, but the two are not therefore the same. TENDER EMOTION.-MALEVOLENCE. 451 As there are certain things that inspire tenderness at the very first presentation, as for example, infancy, so association constitutes many new objects, and increases the influence of all. Any circumstances that determine the emotion to be frequently felt in one connexion, cause a powerful adhesion to grow up, so as to develop in that special quarter a pre-eminent power to stir up the feeling; and we may have a certain number of those strong' attachments to persons or to inanimate things, without rising above our original share of the general susceptibility. For example, self-complacency is a habitual tender regard to self as an object displaying attractive and admirable qualities. The primitive fund of tenderness may not be very great, but in consequence of its flowing incessantly in this particular channel, there may arise a considerable glow of excitement in that relation, not experienced in any other. Few persons undertake to control it, either in themselves, or even in others; nor would it be very easy to resist its insinuating progress when once the bent has set in. The outward expression can be checked, but the inward course is not much affected thereby. Following close upon self-tenderness, we find vanity and all the forms of love of admiration and applause; and here there is more scope for control. By indulgence, the feeling of praise may be pampered beyond all limits, while, by a careful stinted regimen, there is a possibility of keeping it very much under. The individual's own volition, however, is wanted to concur in the suppression; it being so easy to get out of sight of a second person, acting as monitor, and to fall into stealthy indulgences. 12. The Malevolent sentiment, in the form of lust of Power, is one of the gigantic egotisms of the human mind. Moral culture is applied to curtail its development; but the efforts of the instructor are baffled by the hydra-headed character of this feeling. Strong self-repression will, after a time, obtain the aid of habituation, and make some way in toning down the violence of the emotion. For the mass of mankind, open resistance is the principal check applied to the domineering spirit. 452 THE MORAL HABITS. 13. Among the pleasures incident to Action, we ranked Pursuit and Plot-interest, whose fascination sometimes becomes too great, and requires to be restrained. A certain check must be placed upon the excitement of sport and the engrossment of story in youth, as engendering a species of dissipation inconsistent with the sober engagements of life. When allowed to run riot, the interest in mere narrative and plot becomes a source of serious annoyance. It is needless to say what are the means of initiating a habit of restraining this appetency; I have already more than once mentioned all the modes of initiation, and all the circumstances favourable to a successful issue. 14. The Emotions of Intelleat, like Intellect itself, are for the most part more in want of being cherished than of being checked. A congenial atmosphere of society, access to books and means of culture, freedom from cares, and the absence of strong competing tastes, would enable one to cultivate to advantage the original germs of curiosity, and of the love of truth and consistency, implanted by nature. 15. The region of Taste and zEsthetic culture is subject to the same general laws of plasticity and habit. These emotions as a whole may be nourished or stinted, or some one may be selected for especial aggrandizement. Take a man moderately endowed by nature in this department, and place him in the artistic atmosphere of Rome, or Florence, without much to engross him otherwise, and without any peculiar bent in a different direction, and he will by degrees warm up under the influences around him, and end in being a man of decided msthetic tastes and susceptibilities. On the other hand, place an artistic nature in an age of high Puritanism; withdraw every influence that would foster the love of art; spur the mind into discrepant pursuits;-and, in all probability, the original proportions of the constitution will ultimately be reversed. It is within possibility to implant, and to root up, the most deep-seated of human pleasures and dispositions. We must not forget, however, that operations so revolutionary are not performed without very great cost, AESTHETIO FEELING. 453 and that more than one such rarely takes place in a single life. The power of education is limited, because the upbuilding force is itself limited. We cannot concentrate the plastic power and array the outward circumstances, upon two or three diverse objects of great magnitude. It would hardly be possible to impart artificially to the same person the spirit of science and the love of art, both being feebly cast in the mind originally; nor could. we hope to make head against two distinct moral weaknesses, so as to make moral powers out of both. The cultivation of the poetic interest is one of the sources of a refined pleasure. This belongs to our modern development. Our great nature poets, as Byron, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, are the chief instruments in this culture. It is a pre-eminent example of the increase of an emotional susceptibility by assiduous training. The progress in this culture is exactly defined by the laws of Ideal Emotion; and the leading circumstance that makes iteration fruitful is the disengagement and devotion of the mental energies for the work. To find pleasure in virtue is a much harder task than to work up asthetic feeling. Spinoza remarked in himself a growing ability to contemplate with delight the verug bonum;n; but this referred rather to the sentiment than to the practice of truth and virtue. 16. It may be expected that I should say a few words on those great and sudden changes, sometimes operated in the human character, changes that are in striking contrast to the laborious pace according to which habits are built up. The explanation of sudden conversions is no doubt to be sought in some overpowering impression upon the mind that supplies a new and energetic motive to the will, thereby initiating a new line of conduct. If we can only strike a blow with such power as to seize possession of a man's entire thoughts and voluntary dispositions for a certain length of time, we may succeed in launching him in a new career, and in keeping him in that course, until there be time for habits to commence, and until a force is arrayed in favour of the present state of 454 THE MORAL HABITS. things, able to cope with the tendencies and growth of the former life. Such changes occasionally happen, but not without terrific struggles, which prove how hard it is to set up the volitions of a day against the bent of years. 17. We may next illustrate the class of habits related to the more purely volitional impulses of our nature. The Spontaneity formerly dwelt upon as an essential element of the will is modified in various ways during the apprenticeship to life. Originally, the spontaneous outbursts must be supposed to follow the course of nutrition and accidental stimulants. We have to learn to suppress movements, at times when the replenished condition of the centres would bring them on, and at other times to protract them beyond the period when they would be disposed to cease. The operations of Industry cannot be sustained without great additions of power to some centres, perhaps at the expense of others. The sustained use of one organ, such as the voice of a singer or a public speaker, or the arm of a blacksmith, implies that, after a number of years, a flow of vital power, many times greater than the original measure, now takes place towards every part involved in these activities. It is an element in every man's professional acquirement, to be able to continue, without fatigue, the activity of some special organ, much longer than would be possible without a special education. There is such a thing, too, as changing the natural temperament with regard to the manner of acting. A spontaneity prone to vehement and exhausting discharge may be toned down to a slower pace, although, considering the deep-seatedness of the peculiarity to be changed, it must be a work of no little time and effort. 18. The subject of Desire brings to our notice various important moral acquisitions. A habit of Endurance, as against irremovable pains generally, or against special pains of more than usual recurrence, may be established under the usual conditions. It is a hard thing to support acute, or massive suffering, by a mere unaided volition; and, accordingly, various helps are sought out, in those circumstances. Sympathy, SUPPRESSION OF DESIRE. 455 diversion, hope, are resorted to; and, if only we are able to maintain the struggle a number of times with tolerable success, we may count upon a certain contribution from the principle now under consideration. The attitude of mind designated Contentment, points to a very large field of operations, where habit is thrown into the scale of good resolutions. The quieting of the mind, under the endless solicitations of desires that cannot be satisfied, must needs occupy a considerable share of every man's moral force; and in no quarter does the plastic process interpose to greater effect for individual happiness. Good monitions must be well backed by an individual sense of the evil of frettings and longings, and the mind must have a certain freedom for devoting itself to the work of combating them. Every one is liable to possess some special susceptibility in more than ordinary degree, which, perhaps, the outward circumstances are the farthest from gratifying; whence arises the necessity of a strong discipline directed upon that single point. The love of splendour bursting out in a contracted lot, or ambition in the mind of a serf, opens scenes of contradiction that sometimes interest the poet and writer of romance, but are in reality harrowing to the unfortunate subject. We do not often reflect what pains it has taken to arrive at virtues that make very little show, being but mere negations of conduct. The decisions of frugality as against expenditure, if made with ease, are frequently the crowning display of years filled with mental struggles. 19. Our present theme might be illustrated by the domestications of the animal tribes. It is both curious and instructive to find out what those peculiarities are that render some animals docile, in contradistinction to so many others. The great property of mental adhesiveness is equally owned by all the higher vertebrata, if not in equal degree; and, could we but initiate the animal with sufficient energy into any artificial course, a habit would emerge sooner or later. The horse, the dog, and the cat, are not singular in taking on acquisitions. The distinction among animals in this respect must be sought for in some other circumstances. The impossibility of taming 456 THE MORAL HABITS. the lion or the tiger may be ascribed, perhaps, to the extraordinary intensity of their natural impulses, while they are probably less endowed with the plastic quality of the brain than the members of the canine family. The imparting of a habit of domestication to these ferocious creatures would simply require a very long-sustained and severe discipline, such as we do not choose to enforce. A creature must be subject to the passion of fear, in order to be effectually tamed by the hand of man. The horse and the dog have a certain amount of timidity in their disposition, which we largely avail ourselves of; whereas we seldom take in hand the taming of animals endowed with great natural courage. 20. The opposition to Intellectual trains, or to the stream of ideas ushered in by Contiguity and Similarity, is within the range of volition, and may be confirmed into habit. Two interesting cases may be specified. The first is the concentration of the thoughts upon one subject as against wanderings, digressions, and chance solicitations, a thing difficult to compel in early life and in untutored minds. Where there is frequent occasion for the exercise of the faculty, and strong motives in addition, the lapse of time will find the effort gradually diminishing, and, at last, the power will become completely dominant. This is a part of the apprenticeship of every highly intellectual profession, and merely follows up into the morld of ideas the ability to command the attention against the diverting influence of objects of sense. The second instance is the power of dismissing a subject from the mind at pleasure. To be absorbed with a matter of b usiness, after it has ceased to be of any practical import, or to keep the thoughts going upon it, is a weakness to be overcome if possible. The force of the will can be interposed to clear out subjects loitering unnecessarily in the field of vision, and, although the first attempts of this kind will be met with considerable resistance, a fair amount of perseverance will not be without its reward. In the active business of life, men are frequently called upon to turn rapidly from one subject to another, forgetting what has just been settled, THE IMPORTANT CONDITIONS OF MORAL ACQUIREMENT. 457 and applying the whole mind to the thing next in turn. The mere act of the will, in absolutely suspending all consideration of what has been engrossing the ideas for several consecutive hours, is a high and imperious dictation, not by any means obeyed in the early stages of one's apprenticeship. 21. In bringing this chapter to a close, I conclude, at the same time, the exposition of the force of Contiguity, Retentiveness, or Acquisition. It has not been the object of the present discussion, to bring forward every power of the nature of a moral habitude belonging to our constitution. I might have introduced the mention of a variety of others not inferior to any of those selected. For example, habits of Obedience are created in opposition to self-will, and to the instinctive tendency to follow out one's prevailing temper. Habits of Authority have to be acquired, in spite of the disposition to sympathize with our fellow-beings under all circumstances. Habits of Promptitude, Activity, and Alertness are frequently the result of a long-continued contradiction of the natural character. Habits of Grace and Polite demeanour are, in many persons, a growth forced entirely from without, and not coinciding with a single tendency of the natural man. My purpose was to bring out into prominence the conditions that the growth of habit mainly depends upon; for, although some of those are sufficiently well understood, there are others that we do not always lay sufficient stress upon. It is admitted that repetition sustained for a length of time is a sine qua non; there is not the same adequate recognition of the need of an initiative, so strong and so well managed as to carry the day in every separate conflict, until such time as a considerable growth has taken place. Nor do we always advert in practice to the clearing of the mind from strong pre-occupations, the avoiding of feverish distractions and over-tasking of every sort. I am not sure whether we do full justice to the fact that 'to him that hath shall be given,' and that, obversely, where there is a weak disposition naturally, the training must be very slow, gentle, and persevering. Some natures are distinguished by plasticity or the power of acquisition, and 458 THE MORAL HABITS. therefore realize more closely the saying that' man is a bundle of habits'. The vital energies of the constitution would seem, in their case, to avoid imparting strong natural bents, and to flow towards the consolidation of every artificial or communicated bias. The opposite extreme may likewise be seen in the circle of any careful observer. The operation of habit is found to take two opposite courses; in one, deadening or suppressing emotion, in the other, heightenling or intensifying it. This opposition is turned to good account by Butler, as a persuasive to active virtue. He remarks that while habit comes to our aid in action, increasing our aptitudes for the performance of work, it has the opposite effect upon passive impressions, or sentiments indulged without being acted on. Being accustomed to danger lessens fear; being accustomed to distress lessens pity; being familiar with the mortality of others lessens the apprehension of our own. On the other hand, if we practice the relief of distress, benevolence as a principle of action will be strengthened. This remark of Butler has been much extolled; and it does honour to his sagacity, but does not give the exact state of the case. We need to distinguish, not two situations only, but three. The simplest case is the operation of habit upon activity or actual exertion of any kind; as in manual labour, or in intellectual labour; the feelings being left entirely out of the account. Here the working of habit is all in one way. The apparent contradiction is connected exclusively with the feelings, whether sensations or emotions; and in them, we may trace,-at one time a deadening, and, at another time, a quickening effect. The principles already laid down are fully adequate to resolve the difficulty. A deadening effect arises under the Law of Accommodation (RELATIVITY), whereby an impression is at its greatest when experienced for the first time. The repetitions of a pleasure are less influential than the first shock; yet there is a limit to the decay, as stated in the discussion of the principle. So, the after impressions of a pain are, as a rule, less than the first; but, in extreme cases, the effect is quite the contrary. I have shown, in this chapter, that the conquering of pains and of wasting excitement by the influence of habit demands certain favourable conditions, and, without these, the operation entirely fails. Fear or flurry may be increased, instead of being diminished, by habituation. There are persons that never get over stage fright, just as there are physical constitutions that cannot conquer sea-sickness. I have also had to notice, what is universally admitted, that our emotions may be steadily increased by culture; as in the taste for natural beauty, the interest of knowledge, and the pleasures of love and benevolence. HTABIT MAY INTENSIFY FEELINGS. 459 Even the, pleasures of the senses do not diminish by repetition, unless they are greatly overdone. The first freshness of a new pleasure cannot be, maintained; but after a small number of recurrences, a sense pleasure, settles down to a fixed and steady amount, which, if the indulgence be duly regulated, will be upheld all through life: while a long privation will raise it very near the intensity of the pristine shock. What is tenable in Butler's position seems to be this,-that the repeated indulgence of pity as a sentiment, without any corresponding action, grows into a sentimental habit. The sentimental pleasure does not diminish, as his doctrine about passive impressions would make us suppose; what diminishes is the active tendency, which belongs naturally to our impulses of pity, and would be strengthened by exercise, while in the absence of exercise it may become feebler than it originally was. CHAPTER X. PRUDENCE.-DUTY.-MORAL INABILITY. 1. IN the present chapter, I propose to illustrate the collective motives to Prudence and to Duty. The principal arena of the conflict of ends is indicated under those designations; and there is, morever, the attendant practice of forging motives as make-weights to throw into one side of the scale, with a view to determine the result in that exclusive direction. Prudence.-It has been now abundantly seen, that the constitution of the will, from the very commencement, provides for warding off pains and for retaining pleasures. The following out of those instigations, the comparing of pleasures and pains with one another when a plurality concur, the having respect at each moment to the future as well as to the present,-are the foundation elements of prudence and the pursuit of happiness. tecognizing evil and good in the distance, we work for remote ends, no less than for present sensations and emotions. We have before us the catalogue of possible evils, on one hand, and of possible pleasures, on the other, and we know, at the same time, which of the two we are more likely to find on our path. We are aware, too, of certain objects, that will afflict and pain us in an extraordinary degree, and of certain other objects that will give us an intense flow of pleasure. All these different sources and varieties of the two great opposing inspirations play alternately upon our voluntary mechanism, and give the direction to our labours and pursuits. We are constantly avoiding physical injuries, organic disease, cold, hunger, exhaustion, fatigue, and the list of painful sensations and feelings; we are seeking after the opposites of all these generally, while we are devoted with express assiduity to something that has a distinguishing charm to our minds. These are the motives personal to each individual, suggested by the EXTERNAL MOTIVES TO PRUDENCE. 461 contact of each one's susceptibilities with surrounding things. The upshot of the whole, the balance struck in the midst of conflict, is the course of prudence and the search for happiness that we should severally steer by, if left entirely to ourselves. The stronger impulses of our nature would have their ascendency increased by repetition, and our character would be made up from those two great sources-the original promptings and the habits. 2. We are not suffered, however, to pursue a course so entirely self-prompted as that now described. Foreign influence is brought to bear in determining the will, on points whereon one's own feelings have not yet given the cue. We are put under instruction and discipline as to the attainment of pleasurable ends, and the avoidance of painful. We are taught at first to eat and to drink, to take exercise and to rest, independently of our own promptings. Besides being under compulsion, we are in the presence of persons whose example we imbibe; and thus the traditions of the past, facing us in the customs of the present, take the initiative of life out-of our own hands, and mould it according to a pre-established model. When this system has done its work, we are altered beings. The natural impulses of the individual are not wholly rooted out, but they are modified and overborne by new powers; and the calculation of our character must apply itself to the resultant of the two sets of impelling forces. The influence begun in tender years, by the authority and example of elders, masters, and associates, is continued in after-life by preaching, admonition, advice, persuasive address from tongue and pen, information to warn and to guide, the exhibition of bright examples and great successes, with their contrasts. The friend in private, and the authorized monitor in public, are besetting us with motive power to sway our decisions. There are others that seek merely to supply us with information to assist our judgment, without dictating the use we are to make of it. One man teaches us the means of preserving health, another lays down the rules of economy and the acquisition of wealth, a third points out the ways wherein a good name is 462 PRUDENCE. won and lost, a fourth guides us to the sources of knowledge. Having applied ourselves to some special end, we adopt all trustworthy suggestions as to the means, and act accordingly. There is nothing in all this of the lawless, the capricious, the uncertain, the unpredictable. There may be a combination of influences at work, but each has its characteristic and settled consequence, the same to-day as it was yesterday. It is difficult to say absolutely that the repetition of the same motive will lead to the same act, but that is only because we are not quite sure that some other motive may not have arisen to intrude its efficacy upon the first. 3. The case is not complete until we add the devotion of a certain amount of mind, thought, leisure, to dwelling upon the motives on the side of prudence, and on the calculations and resolutions founded upon them. This is one of the ways whereby an accession of power passes to the side so favoured. When it is known that any one has this reflecting bent, there is confidently expected a greater degree of adherence to prudential resolves, on that account. Distant and future interests are impressed, on a mind given to entertaining them, during periods of deliberate meditation, and are, in consequence, all the more strongly represented in times of conflicting motives. No law of the physical world is more sure than the consolidation of the prudential incitements by such a procedure. lIe that is devoted to the pursuit of wealth and fortune, by thinking often of such ends both as principal and as subordinate, is strengthened in his adhesion to them when attacked by the solicitations of ease or of indulgence. 4. There is, as before remarked, such a thing as a character moulded at the first for a prudential career. A concurrence of strongly acting Will with an Intellect retentive of good and evil, as actually experienced, are the main features of this cast of mind. If the principal end be health and physical sensation, it is necessary that all the pains of disease and low vitality should be strongly remembered by the intellect, and represented powerfully in idea, when there is any danger of THE GENIUS OF PRUDENCE 463 incurring them. So with any other end, or with the sum total of objects of pursuit. The intellect must lend itself to the purpose of vividly retaining those ends in their full magnitude, to give them the power of resisting present impulses that conflict with them. There may be, as I have already said, a prudential genius, as well as a mathematical or a musical genius; the fact of intense persistence in idea of the characteristic impressions of the department being common to all. Now, whenever we have the evidence of such an endowment, we take for granted that the person will certainly act in a way corresponding, and in striking opposition to all that class of minds that have little effective remembrance of the sweet and bitter experiences of life, for the future control of the actions. Our genius of prudence has imbibed a thorough sense of the good and the evil consequences of actions; has submitted to instruction and example in favour of a course of careful living; has given good heed to advice, warning, and persuasive address in the same direction; has-laid up store of information availing for the furtherance of collective interests against partial and temporary good; is disposed to the practice of meditation above mentioned; and in all ways is employed in building up an immense fortress, a mental stronghold of prudential forethought. The operations of such a mind are singularly amenable to calculation. We know that it is in vain to seduce it into the commonplace dissipation of the unthinking, light-hearted throng. 5. Such being the moving forces on the side of prudence, the counter forces are not difficult to assign. They are chiefly our actual and pressing sensations and emotions, which are by nature stronger than such as are merely remembered or anticipated, and so gain the day until these others have been artificially invigorated. Intemperance, indolence, prodigality, neglect of opportunities, giving offence to those that would assist us, and all sorts of reckless behaviour,-are sins against prudence, incurred simply because the sense of our lasting interests does not move the will with the same energy as the relish for stimulants, for ease, for indulgence of emotions, 464 PRUDENCE. and such like. There is a volitional or moral weakness in the case, which, if once fairly manifested and put in evidence, can be assumed as the law of our being, just as it is the law of smoke to ascend, and of water to descend. True enough, we are under no compulsion, in the common sense of the word, like the compulsion whereby a child is made to take physic, or a vagrant sleeps in the open field, because there is no shelter accessible. But the law.of action is just as sure in the one case as in the other, allowance being made for the varied susceptibility of the mind to varied motive agencies. The person that cannot withstand temptations to self-injury may be properly said to be under a moral weakness or inability, because the defect may possibly be supplied by moral means, or by raising new feelings having in them strong volitional promptings. The weakness of intemperate indulgence is not such as can be met only by shutting a man up, and limiting his meals by the strong hand. This would be to pass beyond mere moral inability into the domain of infatuation or insanity. You may make up for any ordinary weakness by adding new motives on the side of restraint, and, when this is possible, the weakness consists simply in the character of the impulses that act upon the will. You may represent to the person's mind the evil consequences more vividly than they occur to himself; you may interpose authority, which means the laying on of new evils of a deterring kind; you may announce the promise of some pleasure as an incitement to the same effect; you may preach, warn, exhort, and fill the mind with examples of the horrors of indulgence, and the felicity of moderation. By some or all of these means you rescue your victim, or you do not. If you do, you have simply been able to add motives enough to supply the deficient side; very much as you fortify a building to withstand the tempests, or increase the power of artillery to demolish a citadel. 6. As regards any object that a person takes up, as the great or crowning end of life, he will be disposed, more or less, to subordinate all other motives to it. His character is complete as regards the carrying out of the chief end, when nature, PRUDENTIAL CHARACTER PREDICTABLE. 465 force of will, habits, and concurring circumstances, have succeeded in securing a total subordination. The observations now made with reference to prudential ends apply equally to the ambition of Alexander, the philanthropy of Howard, the career of any devotee to literature, science, or political amelioration. As a general rule, no one is equal to the full maintenance of the crowning object, against every conflicting solicitation. Nevertheless, we know full well that agencies could be brought to bear that would make up for the insufficient power of a principal end. A man is betrayed by his feeling of fatigue, by his love of some sensual pleasure, by his fears, his affections, his anger, his sensibility to the charms of fine art,-to throw away an opportunity of furthering his cause. We note the circumstance, and expect that, if all things are the same, he will show the same inability at another time. We know further, however, that if any friend, monitor, or person having authority with him, take to heart the failure thus exhibited, he may ply him with extra motives, which may possibly secure the right determination. We know besides, thatr.if the person himself feels remorse and self-crimination at his own moral weakness, the recollection will be a new motive in favour of his high purpose on the next occasion. After a few experiments, we can tell pretty closely what is the value of repentance as a motive upon the individual supposed. In some, we find that remorse is a powerful spur to the will for a long time after, and in others we have to set it down as nothing at all. As our opportunities of watching a person are increased, we are to that degree enabled certainly to foretell how he will behave, and to take our course accordingly. If the event ever disappoints us, we do not ascribe it to any uncertainty in the sequences of motive and action, but to our not being able to foresee accurately the motives that were present. In speculating beforehand on the decisions of a deliberative body, we may know the opinions and inclinations of each member with absolute certainty; but we may not be able to say who are to be present on a given day. Very much the same thing holds in our attempting to predict 30 466 DUTY. the decisions of a single mind. We can know from a tolerable experience what will be the result of any one motive when we are aware of its being present, but it is not always within our power to ascertain beforehand what number of susceptibilities shall be acted upon on each occasion. An untoward event may render a man of open sympathies for a moment obdurate. The irascible temperament may accidentally pass by an affront; or the penurious man may surprise us by his liberality. No one ever supposes that these exceptions imply that the connexion between motive and act is for the time suspended by a caprice of nature, or the relaxation of the usual link of antecedent and consequent. The only explanation that we ever think of entertaining, is the presence of some second motive that for the time holds the prevailing bias in check. We should not think of countenancing the supposition, that a man intensely avaricious in the main current of his life, does, nevertheless, on certain days, become paralyzed to the love of money, behaving in all things as if the character could never be attributed to him. We know the uniformity of human actions too well to maintain the possibility of an absolute suspension of motive, while we are not less prepared for the occasional defeat of some of the strongest of men's usual impulses: 'The rogue and fool by fits is fair and wise'. 7. Dut/y.-The illustration here is of an exactly parallel nature. The various branches of what is termed duty, or obligation, all point to the interests of our fellow-beings, which we have to respect while in the pursuit of our own. Justice, truth, fulfilment of contracts, abstaining from violence to the person or character of our neighbour, respect to other men's property and rights, obedience to legal authority,-are so many modes of conduct enforced upon us as members of a community bound together for common protection. There are in human nature certain primary impulses that would dictate actions falling under the heads now indicated. Our Affections and Sympathies identify us with the pleasures and pains of sentient beings at large, and supply a motive to work for these to some extent, as if they were our own. In the small MOTIVES TO OBEDIENCE. 467 group of Intellectual emotions, there is a feeling hstile to inconsistency, inequality, and unfairness, ministering therefore to the support of the duties of Truth and Justice. These are the chief contributions of our nature to the cause of social duty. Much more formidable is the array of the anti-social motives. Fortunately, however, the purely self-regarding impulses can be wrought upon in this cause, otherwise it is very doubtful if the multifarious exigencies of duty or morality could be at all complied with. 8. I have given it as my deliberate opinion (ETHICAL EMOTIONS, ~ 1) that authority, or punishment, is the commencement of the state of mind recognized under the various names-Conscience, the Moral Sense, the Sentiment of Obligation. The major part of every community adopt certain rules of conduct necessary for the common preservation, or ministering to the common well-being. They find it not merely their interest, but the very condition of their existence, to observe a number of maxims of individual restraint, and of respect to one another's feelings in regard to person, property, and good name. Obedience must be spontaneous on the part of the larger number, or on those whose influence preponderates in the society; as regards the rest, compulsion may be brought to bear. Every one, not of himself disposed to follow the rules prescribed by the community, is subjected to some infliction of pain to supply the absence of other motives; the infliction increasing in severity until obedience is attained. It is the familiarity with this rigime of compulsion, and of suffering constantly increasing, until resistance is overborne, that plants in the infant and youthful mind the first germ of the sense of obligation. I do not know of any fact that would prove the existence of such a sentiment in the primitive cast of our mental constitution. An artificial system of controlling the actions is contrived-the system of using pain to deter from particular sorts of conduct. A strong line of distinction is drawn in every human mind between actions that bring no pain except what may arise out of themselves, as when we encounter a bitter taste or a scalding touch, and 468S DUTY. actions that are accompanied with pains imposed by persons about us. These last, and the circumstances attending them, make a deep and characteristic impression; we have a peculiar notion attaching to them, and to the individual persons, the authors of the attendant pains. A strong ideal avoidance, not unmixed perhaps with the perturbation of fear, is generated towards what is thus forbidden by penalties rising with transgression. The feeling inspired towards those that administer the pain is also of the nature of dread; we term it usually the feeling of authority. From first to last, this is the essential form and defining quality of the conscience, although it is mixed up with other ingredients. As duty is circumscribed by punishment, so the sense of obligation has no other universal property than the ideal and actual avoidance of conduct prohibited by penalties. This discipline indoctrinates the newly-introduced member of society with the sentiment of the forbidden, which by-and-by takes root and expands into the sentiment of moral disapprobation; he then joins with the other members of the community in imposing and enforcing the prohibitions that have been stamped and branded in the course of his own education. Duty, then, may be said to have two prime supports in the more self-regarding parts of our nature-the sense of the common preservation and well-being operating upon a preponderating majority, and the sense of punishment brought to bear upon individuals (who must be the smaller number) not sufficiently prompted by the other sentiment. Order being once established in a society, that is to say, the practice of obedience being habitual to the mass of the community, it is only necessary to apply a disciplining process to the young to prepare them for the same acquiescence in the public morality. The imposition of penalties begets at once the sense and avoidance of the forbidden and the awe of authority, and this is retained through life as the basis of the individual conscience, the ever foremost motive to abstain from actions designated as wrong. 9. It is not implied that conscience is never anything else DISINTERESTED IMPULSES NECESSARY. 469 than the actual and ideal avoidance and dread of punishment. Other elements concur, sometimes so largely as to obliterate in the view the primary germ and characteristic type of the faculty. There are motives that supersede the operation of punishment in a variety of instances; as when we contract a positive sentiment of good-will towards those that the law forbids us to injure. Even then we do not lose the strong feeling implanted in us respecting the forbidden and the authoritative; we simply are no longer in the position of being moved by that alone. Our tender feelings, our sympathies, our sentiments of the fair, the equal, and the consistent, if liberally developed and well directed, impel us, as it were of our own accord, to respect those interests of our fellow-beings that are protected by the enactments of society. Moreover, as already said, there is a certain mature stage of the well-disposed mind at which we enter the company of that majority, spontaneous in their own obedience from a recognition of the common safety, and compelling dissentient minorities by force or punishment. The conscience, which was at first derived and implanted, is now independent, or self-sustaining. The judgment of the individual approves of the common prohibition against falsehood, injustice, breach of bargain, and other injuries, as a prohibition essential to his own security in company with the rest of the society; and conscience, therefore, passes into a higher grade of the prudential motive. At this stage however, it is hardly possible to exclude entirely the generous or disinterested impulses as elements in the case. The most consummate prudence would do no more than make each man look to himself, in the totality of his own interests. So long as his public duties coincided with his private welfare, he would perform them to the full, but, if the contrary, he would not necessarily do so. If he saw that by some act of violence to a neighbour, or some act of defiance to the supreme authority, he would, besides running the risk of punishment, incur the chance of a state of things wherein his own security would perish, his prudential sense would be a 470 DUTY. restraint upon him. Not so when a crime would bring him large gain, without either punishment to himself or danger to the common security that he shares in. There are many cases where a man's social obedience-the fulfilment of his bargains, his justice, veracity, respect to other men's rightscosts him a sacrifice without a return, while the omission does not lead to a penalty. Simple prudence would at such a moment suggest the criminal course. We see men constantly evading obligations, because the law is unable to enforce them, not to mention the crimes committed in the belief of a shroud of secrecy. If each one were disposed to act on a strict calculation of what was for his own individual gratification, all social duties that brought no more good than repaid the outlay, would be surrendered, while no self-sacrifice for public objects would ever happen. In a society of intelligent self-seekers, some virtues might be better attended to than we actually find them to be as men are constituted. It is often remarked, how a certain kind of truthfulness enables a man to prosper in his business, from the sense of confidence created thereby; not that any one needs be a worshipper of truth in the abstract, or go all lengths with the maxim, that 'honesty is the best policy'; but that he should see clearly how far truth and honesty really served him, and there limit his devotion. On the whole, however, it may be fairly questioned, whether society could be maintained on the principle of a rigorous and far-seeing selfishness, if it were only for this circumstance, that each generation must pay some respect to the interests of those that are to follow. We must include in that sentiment of the mature mind that adopts the social duties as its own approved conduct, a mixture of prudence as regards self, and of generosity as regards others. The element of generosity-whic.h, as I have often said, is, in the final analysis, Sympathy-might be almost entirely wanting, and then we should have a member of the ideal society of intelligent self-seekers conceived above. Or the generous impulses may have a high and ascendant development, giving birth to acts of self-sacrifice and devotion. TIE CITIZEN CONSCIENCE. 471 In actual experience, neither extreme is usual. The mass of civilized men, as we find them-Englishmen, Frenchmen, Turks, Chinese, &c.-are constituted by a certain balanced mixture of the self-regarding and the vivre pour autrui, which rarely permits either a total self-annihilation, or a total disregard to every.interest beyond self. The conscience of the average individual of the commanding majority of each society, contains in it, therefore, a certain concurrence in the social duties, partly for his or her own sake, and partly for the sake of relatives, friends, fellow-citizens, humanity generally, and future generations. We adopt into self the interests, more or less, of a certain number of other beings that awaken our tender regards, or our sympathies. The decisions that we come to are influenced by these adopted interests, which sometimes entirely submerge the interests of the isolated self. It is enough for us, under these circumstances, to know that a breach of social duty will injure some individuals, or class, that we are generously disposed to. We refrain from the act in ourselves, and join in disapproving and punishing it in others. Such, I conceive, is the nature of the. citizen conscience, as distinguished from the conscience of the child, or of the criminal and the rebel, who know nothing but the avoidance of punishment. We must all pass through our novitiate in this last-named form, and we may never be able to rise above it. Yet there must be in society a preponderating number that at last adopt the social duties as agreeable to their own judgment and sentiment, that do not need the fear of punishment themselves, and that are sufficiently strong to punish where punishment is needed. In a free and equal society, a clear majority of the full-grown members must be of this mind. In many societies, a government once in the ascendant, and vested in a very limited number of persons, has been able to keep up a sentiment of authority and a dread of punishment, without the concurrence of the rest of the community. Temporal and spiritual despotisms have established themselves, and maintained a sense of law and dispositions to obedience, that the general community, freely consulted and not over 472 DUTY. awed, would never have responded to. The conscience of a Russian serf, as of a subject of Xerxes or Tiberius, is a sentiment of pure dread; the conscience of an Englishman, or an Anglo-American, must contain a certain approval of the laws he is called on to obey. 10. Having thus distinguished two leading modes of the sentiment of moral obligation-the Slavish Conscience and the Citizen Conscience-it is proper further to recognize a third mode,-a mode of rarer occurrence,-namely, the Independent, Self-originating, or Idiosyncratic Conscience. When an individual dissents from the notions of duty entertained in the community that he belongs to, either renouncing what they impose, or constituting for himself new obligations, he may be said to have a conscience purely his own. That such a conscience is very uncommon, proves in the strongest manner how little this part of our nature is innate. Regarded as the dissenting conscience, it is generally the product of a superabundance of study and reflection-that is, of a more than ordinary exercise of the mature observation and intelligence-when it is not generated simply by a spirit of rebellion against social restraints. Most certainly, the man that obeys all the laws in force in his society, while adopting obligations of his own in addition, does not exemplify the ordinary type of the moral sense. Still he takes the sentiment of authority engendered by his education as the model of those self-originating obligations. If a European came to the conclusion that the destruction of animal life in any shape is sinful or wrong, it would be by finding in this a case of exactly the same nature as the destruction of human life; whereupon he transfers the sentiment of prohibition from the recognized case to the one not recognized, and makes, not so much a new law, as a new application of what is law already. The abstinence from destroying sentient life becomes a point of conscience by extension or deduction, and is carried into practice by the individual's own promptings, there being a revulsion of remorse every time he sins against it. The remorse is fed from the same fountain as a breach of the citizen AIDS TO DUTY. 473 conscience, where the mind has adopted or acquiesced in the rules imposed by the society; and there is the same mental satisfaction in complying with the dictates of each. 11. So much, then, for the power of motive belonging to the faculty of conscience. The same supporting adjuncts, detailed with reference to prudence, operate in the sphere of duty, in forming the conscience itself and in strengthening it to conquer opposition. The instruction and example brought to bear upon early years; the usages of society in punishing and stigmatizing the forbidden acts and extolling those that are enjoined; the pressure of admonition, warning, and advice; the systematic preaching and reminders embodied in religious worship; the literature of moral inculcation; the setting forth of illustrious virtue and of the infamy of crime; the poetic beauty associated with the conduct that is approved,are among the influences from without that constitute a strong prepossession and motive in favour of social duty. Religious fears and hopes, and the ascendency of revered individual men, classes, castes, or dynasties, fall in with the other contributing impressions. Nor must we omit here, any more than in the search for individual happiness, the effect of the mind's own leisurely reflections upon all these various motive forces, through which every one of them takes an increased hold of the system, and adds to the moral strength in the moment of conflict. When the bent for revolving all the considerations of duty is spontaneous or natural to the mind, and when the intellect is strongly retentive of all the pains and pleasures arrayed in behalf of social duty, there emerges a moral genius, as we have already spoken of the genius of prudhi.ce. 12. The counter impulses to duty include, as in the former head, a number of strong temporary and passionate risingsthe excitement of some strong sensations, appetites or emotions, which have to be conquered both for our interest and for our duty. But the calculations of prudence itself, and the deliberate pursuit of our own happiness, or chief ends, are in many instances opposed to our duties, no less than are the more 474 DUTY. temporary cravings or passions. A power has to be built up to deter us from seeking our own good in another man's loss or harm. Every one knows well how serious is the task of rearing any human being to that maturity of self-restraint wherein the egotistic and passionate influences are in easy subordination to the social obligations. We are aware of the multitude of hard struggles with bare success; of occasional slips amid general conformity, and of downright failures with open defiance. In such instances, however, we are not without a clear and intelligible theory of what has occurred and a distinct notion of what is proper to be done in practice; neither the theory nor the practice conceding for one moment a want of uniform causation in the sequences that make up the human will. When any one that we are concerned with has failed in a point of duty, we accept it as a fact of character that will certainly re-appear, if in the meantime no change takes place in the mind or the circumstances, and we address ourselves to the task of making some changes sufficient to break the uniformity. We throw new motives into one side, and withdraw them from the other; in other words, by presenting pains and pleasures that were not presented on the former occasion, we hope to avert the repetition of the error or fault. There is no metaphysical perplexity in the mind of the parent, the tutor, the master, the military commander, the civil authority, when punishing for an offence committed, with a view to prevent its renewal, and increasing the severity, if the first application is not powerful enough to deter. As little perplexity hampers the moral teacher, who knows that by judicious and well-sustained lessons he can create a power that shall anticipate punishment by timely obedience. It is possible to calculate the general effect of all the various aids to the performance of duty in opposition to the ordinary counter-motives; but, without uniformity of sequence, calculation is impossible. A fit of remorse tells for a certain length of time on one person, a rebuke or admonition has a definite extent of influence upon another; and these causes are of the same efficacy in the same circumstances. Every one can tell WEAKNESS OF MOTIVE REMEDIABLE. 475 what to expect from a child neglected and starved; the action of the moral agencies at work is sure in its issue, when we know enough to make allowance for original differences of character. The right-minded parent has no doubt as to the contrast between such a case and the result of a careful application of all the modes of building up a character of moral self-restraint. 13. In duty, therefore, as in prudence, Moral Inability is simply weakness of motive, and can be remedied by the aid of new motives. If the avoidance of a fine of five shillings does not deter from an act of insult or violence to a fellow-citizen, a higher penalty is imposed. In the family, duty is supported by rewards as well as by punishments, by instruction and admonition, and by the evoking of the generous, in opposition to the egotistic, sentiments. Moreover, the unformed mind is carefully withheld from strong temptations. It is considered unfair to place a child under very strong motives to disobey, while the opposing sentiment has as yet gained little strength, and when nothing short of the dread of some very severe penalty would be equal to the occasion. Moral inability is a matter of degree, admitting of every variety up to the point where no amount of available motive is enough. Still the inability may not pass out of the character of mental or moral. The incontinent and incorrigible thief may not be restrained by all the terrors of the law,-by imprisonment, servitude, or infamy, nor by the persuasive address of kind monitors, nor by remorse and reflection of his own; yet, after all, the weakness that everything fails to make up for, is only moral. True, nothing that can be done at the stage arrived at, is of sufficient force to reform the character so degraded; nevertheless, had influences been brought to bear sufficiently early, the incorrigible state would have been averted, and there are conceivable promptings that would even now effect a reformation. There is necessarily a limit to the power of the law in surrounding the individual with motives, seeing that its power lies in punishment, and it must work by general rules. After a certain trial made of moral influences, the magistrate 476 MORAL INABILITY. proceeds to inflict a physical disability by taking away the liberty or even the life of the delinquent. In the condition of insanity, we have examples of inability going beyond the bounds of the moral, by passing out of the reach of motives. We may imagine such a weakness of intellect as would make a man forget the consequences of his actions; in such a case it would be useless to hold out either punishment or reward as a motive. Similarly, under delusions, the intellect is so perverted as to give a false direction to everything suggested to it. What is most difficult to deal with in the way of legal responsibility, is the state termed moral insanity, where the subject is not beyond being influenced by motives of prospective pain or pleasure, but has contracted such a furious impulse towards some one crime, that the greatest array of motives that can be brought to bear is not sufficient. If the orgasm were somewhat less, the motives might be sufficient; they have their due weight, but are overpowered by a mightier force. A nice legal question arises when a monomaniac, not being put under timely restraint, has committed an outrage against the law. An attempt is always made by his counsel to represent him as irresponsible, and not a subject for punishment. The case is a somewhat complicated one, from the circumstance that the magistrate must bear in mind, as a principal consideration, the effect of a present punishment in preventing future crime generally. On this ground, he is not justified in allowing the escape of any man who is not clearly in that state wherein motives have lost all their influence. Moral insanity is merely the extreme form of passionate fury, which, for the time being, obliterates in the mind all sense of consequences and all deterring motives; yet, inasmuch as the person can be influenced by future consequences in ordinary moods, the law will not take as an excuse the frantic condition that caused the crime. Any one that has to deal, not with a whole community, but with separate individuals apart, and out of sight, does make allowance for moral inability and for inequality of moral attainment. We are bound to prevent every sort of disobedience, but in private life we do not treat every person in THE OFFENDER'S PLEA UNTENABLE. 477 the same way. The public administration is hampered by general rules, and is therefore unable to make the same degree of allowance. 14. There is one form of stating the fact of ability that brings us face to face with the great metaphysical puzzle. It not uncommonly happens that a delinquent pleads his moral weakness in justification of his offence. The schoolboy, on being found guilty of a breach of discipline, will sometimes defend himself by saying that he was carried away and could not restrain himself. In other words, he makes out a case closely allied to physical compulsion. He is frequently answered by the assertion that he could have restrained himself if he had chosen, willed, or sufficiently wished to do so. Such an answer is really a puzzle or paradox, and must mean something very different from what is apparently expressed. The fact is, that the offender was in a state of mind such that his conduct followed according to the uniformity of his being, and, if the same antecedents were exactly repeated, the same consequent would certainly be reproduced. In that view, therefore, the foregoing answer is irrelevant, not to say nonsensical. The proper form, and the practical meaning to be conveyed is this, 'It is true that, as your feelings then stood, your conduct resulted as it did; but I am now to deal with you in such a way, that, when the situation recurs, new feelings and motives will be present, sufficient, I hope, to issue differently. I now punish you, or threaten you, or admonish you, in order that an antecedent motive may enter into your mind, as a counteractive to your animal spirits or temper on another occasion, seeing that, acting as you did, you were plainly in want of such a motive. I am determined that your conduct shall be reformed, and therefore every time that you make such a lapse, I will supply more and stronger incentives in favour of what is your duty.' Such is the plain unvarnished account of what the master intends in the address to his erring pupil. Though he may not state it so, he acts precisely in the spirit of the language I have now supplied. Finding a delinquency, he assumes at once that a repetition will occur if the same 478 MORAL INABILITY. feelings and ideas arise under the same outward circumstances; and; accordingly, there is nothing left for him but to vary the antecedents, and make sure that a new and potent spur shall be mixed up with the previous combination, so as to turn the conduct in the direction sought. I have now brought the discussion of the will to the verge of the last problem connected with it,. the problem of Liberty, for which this chapter has been intended to prepare the way. CHAPTER XI. LIBERTY AND NECESSITY.0 1. THE assumption involved in all that has been advanced respecting the voluntary actions of living beings, is the prevalence of Uniformity, or Law, in that class of phenomena, making allowance for the complication of numerous antecedents, not always perfectly known. The practice of life is in general accordance with the theory; so much so, that if any other theory had been broadly propounded, the experience and procedure of mankind would, in all probability, have offered a negative. Ever since men came to live in society, they have been in the habit of predicting the future conduct of each other from the past. The characters affixed to individual men, covering the whole of their mature life, could not be sustained except on such a principle of uniformity. When we speak of Aristides as just, of Socrates as a moral hero, of Nero as a monster of cruelty, and of the Czar Nicholas as grasping of territory, we take for granted a certain persistence and regularity as to the operation of certain motives, much the same as when we affirm the attributes of material bodies, -that bread is a nourishing article of food, or that smoke ascends. How comes it then, to what fatality is it owing, that an enormous theoretical difficulty, a metaphysical dead-lock, a puzzle and a paradox of the first degree, an inextricable knot, should have been constituted where in practice the worst to be said is, that the number and complication of motiva. forces. may elude our knowledge, and render prediction uncertain and precarious? There are problems connected with the world that have severely tried the human intelligence; but then the difficulties have been felt alike in theory and in * On the efficacious plan of tracing an error to its roots, Mr. James Sully has done great service to philosophy by his searching review of the growth of the Free Will Doctrine. See 'Sensation and Intuition', Essay V. 480 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. practice. The explanation of the conditions of health and disease in the animal body, was from the first, and is now, very hard to arrive at; and the consequence is, that the healing art has progressed or evolved slowly, and is still in its infancy. The prediction of the places of the sun, moon, and planets for practical ends, has gone along with theoretical astronomy. In like manner the problems of human society, the philosophy of history, and the theory of statesmanship, are very uncertain; the deficiency being as great in practical insight as in theoretical comprehension. 2. There are not wanting examples of another class of difficulties, so far parallel to the question before us, as to make it worth while to refer to them by way of elucidation. On certain subjects, there have grown up theoretical and factitious puzzles, that have not interfered with practical applications, while tasking speculative ingenuity to the utmost. The sophisms of Zeno, the Eleate, respecting motion, are exactly in point. This philosopher originated a demonstration, as he conceived, of the impossibility of motion, although the fact itself is felt by every one as among the most certain of all human experiences. He said that a body must move either in the place where it is, or in the place where it is not; but that in neither case is motion possible. On the first supposition, the body leaves its place; and the second is manifestly absurd, for how can a thing move in the place where it does not lie?* Here is, on the one hand, an obvious fact; and on the other, a theoretical demonstration that belies it. * The extrication of the fact of motion from this puzzle of language is, after all, by no means hard of accomplishment. It will be seen that Zeno, in expressing the condition of a moving body, employs terms that utterly preclude motion, and apply only to the state of rest. He puts the supposition that the body must be in a place, but this is the definition of rest, and extinguishes movement as much as if we were to use the phrase 'at rest '. A moving body is not in a place: the essence of the phenomenon is change of place, and we cannot resort to the language of Zeno without denying motion itself. His demonstration is tantamount to saying, it is impossible for a body to move, provided it is at rest or not moving; which is evident enough, being only a repeating of the same fact in other language. FACTITIOUS QUESTIONS EXEMPLIFIED. 481 Again, the same philospher gave birth to the famous argument that if Achilles and a Tortoise were to begin a race, Achilles would never beat the tortoise. Our sense shows us the contrary, and yet it has not been an easy thing to refuto the argument. An attempt has been made to prove, by reasoning, tha., matter must be infinitely divisible, while there is nothing in our actual knowledge or experience to justify such a conclusion; which, as having reference to a matter of fact, ought to have the countenance of a certain amount of inductive proof. Ever since the time of Archimedes, there has been employed in mathematics a system of quantities called 'Infinitesimal', or infinitely small, which have given rise to no small amount of discussion and dispute. The Fluxional or Differential Calculus, invented by Newton and Leibnitz, assumes that questionable order of quantities, and yet no practical error has ever been committed by the use of them, while they have lent new power to the solution of the most difficult problems in Mechanics, Astronomy, and other branches of Physical Science. Very severe and acrimonious criticism has been brought to bear on the irrationality of a method, that passes out of the region of finite and intelligible magnitudes. Bishop Berkeley denounced the looseness and credulity of Mathematicians in using the fluxional calculus, which was burdened with this sort of auxiliary, and even now there are scruples as to the legitimacy of devices that lead to no practical errors. I believe the fact to be, that Mathematicians are more under the control of verification from practice than almost any other class of reasoners; their results, being numerical, can generally be brought to a rigorous experimental test, and they square their machinery accordingly. Even what is called 'impossible quantities' can be so used as to minister to sound conclusions, in the sphere of the possible and the real. In the question of Liberty and Necessity, much of the apparent mystery lies in the employment of unsuitable language, 31 482 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. and much of it in the subtlety of.the phenomenon to be expressed. I admit that it is not an easy matter to render an exact account of the operations of the human Will, but no more is it easy to seize the abstruser phases of the understanding. There may be a little more or a little less pains requisite to solve the one problem or the other; but I deny that there is any such peculiarity in the will as to render it insoluble, supposing (what to be sure has not always been admitted) other parts of the mind to be susceptible. of scientific explanation. The whole of the present Book is my justification for saying so; and, granting any amount of imperfection in the exposition here attempted, I apprehend that there is no radical inferiority in it as compared with the explanation given of the remaining departments of the human mind. I shall now go over in detail the different phrases in use on the subject of free will and necessity, with the view of showing, that they are, for the most part, inapt expressions of a phenomenon that is neither inconsistent nor unintelligible. 3. Liberty, Freedom, Free- Will.-The notion of a man's being free in his actions appears first among the Stoics, and afterwards in the writings of Philo Judaeus. The virtuous man was said to be free, and the vicious man a slave; the intention obviously being, by a strong metaphor, to pay a lofty compliment to virtue, and to fix a degrading stigma on vice. In so far as explaining the human will is concerned, nothing could be worse chosen than these names,-an application, however, never meant by those that originated the names. It would be quite as correct, and in some instances more correct, to say that the virtuous man is the slave, and the vicious man free, seeing that the man that acknowledges fewest restraints has the greatest liberty. The doctrine of Freedom was first elaborated into a metaphysical scheme, implying its opposite Necessity, by St. Augustine against Pelagius; in a later age it was disputed between Arminians and Calvinists; and for centuries it has been a capital controversy both in Theology and in Metaphysics. One answer to be made to the advocates of Free-will is, I conceive, the utter inappro FREEDOM AN UNSUITABLE TERM. 483 priateness of the name, or notion, to express the phenomenon in question. We may produce any amount of mystery, incomprehensibility, insolubility, transcendentalism,-by insisting on keeping up a phraseology, or a theoretical representation, that is unadapted to the facts. I can imagine some votary of the notion, that polar force (as in the magnet) is the type and essence of all the powers of nature, finding the difficulty of bringing gravity under it, and thereupon declaring that the case of gravity is an insoluble problem. Now it so happens, that the theory of gravitation exemplifies the perfect form of attainable knowledge; it is impossible that any natural phenomenon can ever be more thoroughly comprehended by the human mind, than this has been since the time of Newton. We might render this intelligibility obscure by twisting the phenomenon into some unnatural shape, such as polarity; as it now stands, nothing is more simple. In like manner, I believe that to demand that our volitions shall be stated as either free orP not free, is to mystify and embroil the real, case, an to superadd factitious difficulties to a problem not in its own nature insoluble. Under a certain motive, as hunger, I act in a certain way, taking the food that is before me, going where I shall be fed, or performing some other preliminary condition. The sequence is simple and clear, when so expressed; bring in the idea of Freedom, and theres s instantly a chaos, an imbroglio, a jumble. What is to be said, therefore, is that this idea ought never to have come into the theoretical explanation of the will, and ought now to be summarily expelled. The term ' Ability' is innocent and has intelligible meanings, but the term 'Liberty' is brought in by main force, and is altogether incommensurable with the phenomenon. By the adoption of a course similar to what has taken place in the history of this word, namely, by converting a metaphor into scientific language, we might have had controversies as to whether the will is rich or poor, noble or ignoble, sovereign or subject; seeing that virtue has been said to make men, rot only free, but rich, noble and royal; all which would have ended in tran 484 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. scendental mysteries from the same impossibility of reconciling them with the facts, or of assigning a decisive reason in favour of one or other of the contrasting epithets. We understand the difference between slavery and free-citizenship, between a censorship and a free press, and between despotism in any shape and the liberty of the subject; but if any one asks whether the course of volition, in a man or an animal, is a case of despotism, or a case of freedom, I answer that the terms have no application whatsoever to the subject. The. question put into some one's mouth by Carlyle, 'Is virtue then a gas V?' is not too ridiculous a parody upon the foregoing. 'Let each phenomenon be expressed in the language exactly suited to its nature,' is surely a maxim of sound philosophy. 'Let a phenomenon be twisted into a scheme of expression at variance with its very essence,' cannot be the policy of any one but an author of chaos and confusion.* 4; I do not affirm that the question of Liberty is wholly verbal, or that, if the present terms were set aside and the subject discussed in other language, all the disputants would come to a speedy agreement. There have prevailed, and there * As another example of problems created out of inappropriate phraseology I may quote the application, in the Philebus of Plato, of the terms 'true' and 'false' to pleasures and pains. Mr. Grote well remarks on this point:-' This is one main defect pervading the Platonic Philebus-the violent pressure employed to force Pleasures and Pains into the same classifying framework:as cognitive Beliefs-the true and the false.' In the Appendix to my former volume, I expressed great misgivings as to the propriety of applying the terms External and Internal, derived from the Extended or Object world, to express the fundamental contrast of Object and Subject. I cannot help accounting this also as a case of the 'violent pressure' of an unsuitable metaphor. All that we can strictly say of the relationship of the two great opposing constituents of the universe, is that mind is allied with matter-with a nervous mechanism, &c.,-but not that it is enclosed in that mechanism, in the manner of the enclosure of the brain in the skull. Those theories respecting the nature of mind itself-as in much of the early materialism-that imply an extended substance, were guilty of the blunder of',. inappropriate predication. The contrast of matter and mind turns upon the attribute of Extension; this is the fundamental quality of the object. Accordingly, it was an advance in correct thinking (made by St. Augustine anti others in the 5th century) to declare in favour of the Unextended mind. INTELLIGIBLE NEGATION OF LAW IN THE WILL. 485 still prevail, views opposed to the doctrine of uniform causation as applied to human actions. I may instance, as an example in point, the Socratic doctrine that, as regards human knowledge, some portions were attainable by human study, while others the gods reserved for their own department. In the one class of subjects, a man, by informing himself of the usual sequence of events, might predict with certainty what would happen, and act accordingly; as regarded the other class, human study was of no avail, and the only resource was to consult the gods. Here then is a distinct and intelligible negation of an intelligible doctrine; the universal prevalence of law and uniform causation, is met by the counter-affirmation of that prevalence& being only partial. In the theology of modern times, instances might be adduced where a position almost similar is taken up. It is obvious, however, that the dispute here is not the handling of a puzzle, but a matter of fact, experience, or induction. Can it be made out, that there are in human actions any class unpredictable from their very nature, apart from the complication that they involve, or the obscurity that surrounds them? One field expressly excepted by Socrates from the domain of human study, is now the crowning instance of human prediction, namely, the motions of the heavenly bodies. There is a greater certainty, at the present day, in anticipating celestial events than there is in those very matters quoted by Socrates as so thoroughly within man's own study that it would have been mere impiety to refer to the gods respecting them. The doctrine of invariable sequence in human actions might be opposed by various negatives, still shutting out the obnoxious terms 'liberty' and 'necessity'. Considering the law of causation as nothing more than an induction of observed instances of uniformity, with no unequivocal exception, it might be said, that we never can be sure that an exception shall not arise. Until we have experimentally proved the law throughout all departments of nature, and throughout every corner of each department, we cannot tell whether there may not lurk some nest of irregularity, and 486. LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. therefore we cannot affirm the law of causation as absolutely. certain. Granting this, however, it is enough that we have examined a very wide portion of natural phenomena, both in matter and in mind, and that no case of anarchy has ever yet been lighted on. Until a decided exception has been made manifest, we are entitled to presume the universality of the rule, according to the maxim of philosophizing laid down by Newton, and accepted in the schools of science. Still, it is competent for any one to constitute the human Will a region of anarchy, provided he thinks there are facts that bear out the conclusion. What I most strongly contend for at present is, the discarding of the old drapeau under which the contest has been so long carried on; being persuaded that the controversy will then assume a very different aspect, and, if it be not speedily adjusted, will at least be divested of all its paradox, trscendentalism, and incomprehensibility. 5. Necessity.-A similar line of criticism may be pursued with reference to this word. In so far as it expresses the negation of Freedom, it is exposed to the very same objections. Moreover, I very much doubt whether the word ought to be retained in any of the sciences, physical or moral; nothing is ever gained by it. We speak of 'mathematical necessity,' but we might convey the same idea by language equally good, if not better. In common life, the word has a tolerably fixed meaning, suited to ordinary emergencies; and to that sphere we should do well to confine it. I cannot but think that every scientific discussion whereinto people have intruded it, has been perplexed by it. I see nothing but confusion in such questions as 'whether the axioms of Mathematics are necessary,' and 'the necessary connexion of cause and effect;' the disputes on such points would probably be shortened by agreeing to depart from the present form of predication. Because a term has once got footing in science, it surely does not follow that a vested interest has been created, compelling us to retain that word after we have discovered its unsuitability to the purpose in hand, and leading to laborious contortions, with a view to abate in a slight degree WHAT CHOICE PROPERLY MEANS. 487 the excess of the malapropos! The tenderness that we show to the feelings of living men cannot be requisite towards inanimate instruments. I consider the word 'necessity' as nothing short of an encumbrance in the sciences of the present day.* 6. Choice.-Deliberation.--The word 'choice' gives us one of the modes of designating the supposed liberty of voluntary actions. The real meaning of this word, that is to say, the only real fact that can be pointed at in correspondence with it, is the acting out one of several different promptings. When a person purchases an article out of several submitted to view, the recommendations of that one are said to be greater than of the rest, and nothing more needs really be said in describing the transaction. It may happen that for a moment the opposing attractions are exactly balanced, and decision is suspended thereby. The equipoise may even continue for a long time; but when the decision is actually come to, the fact and the meaning are that some consideration has risen to. the mind, giving a superior energy of motive to the side that has preponderated. This is the whole substance of the act of choosing. The designation 'liberty of choice' has no real meaning, except as denying extraneous interference. If I am interfered with by another persorwicompelling me to act in one way, then it may be said, intelligibly enough, that I have not liberty of choice; the child may be taken to the shop where a dress is to be purchased, but some one else makes the selection. But, as between the different motives of my * It is not meant that the term should be wholly excluded from speech and composition. What I contend for is, that, as a principal term in scientific affirmations, it ought to be dropped, as being incurably inappropriate. There are names whose meaning is adapted to the phenomena of the world, as explained scientifically at the present day; I may quote as examples, 'uniform,' 'conditional,' 'unconditional,' 'sequence,' 'antecedent,' 'consequent,' all which have a precision of meaning, and an absence of confusing associations. If terms of this class are employed in the leading propositions, it matters less that vaguer words are occasionally introduced in conneýions that show the exact sense intended. The rhetorical conditions, imposed even upon scientific exposition, do not allow that the one ap'pIiropriate word hIlZ be repeated on every occasion. 48S LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. own mind, there is no meaning in 'liberty of choice'. Various motives-present or prospective pleasures and pains -concur in urging me to act; the result of the conflict shows that one group is stronger than another, and that is the whole case. Any person watching me at that moment, and knowing exactly the different prompting considerations, would take a lesson as to my character from the trial, and would have some guidance as to what might be expected from me on similar occasions. He would never think of either liberty or necessity, unless in the exceptional case of my being so overpowered by compulsion from without, that my own likings or dislikings had nothing to do with the conclusion. Even then 'necessity,' would be a bad title to employ; it would be more correct to say that my will was completely suspended in the matter, that I was no party in the decision. The question in such circumstances really is, not 'whether my will is free, but whether the action is mine at all, or whether it belongs to some other person, using me as an executive instrument. The expression, in common speech, that 'such a one has no will in the matter' is correct and intelligible, on the supposition of an irresistible power from without. When a strong motive is brought to bear, in the shape of command or dictation under penalties, and when that command is.resisted, we can only pronounce that the counter-motives arestonger than the deterring prospect of punishment. So that, in whatever predicament a man or an animal may be placed, there is a simple and strictly apposite mode of expressing the conflict of motives and the issuing decision. In very few circumstances are the terms 'liberty' and 'necessity' in any way suitable, and in none are they the best; while in the great mass they serve only to breed confusion. Nothing could have been more fatal than to clothe the most general and fundamental fact of volition, so often set forth in the foregoing chapters, in such a phraseology. The following up of pleasure, and the recoil from pain, are the ultimate facts, and most comprehensive types, or representations of volition; but I am unable to see how they can be brought under any description involving DELIBERATION NO EXCEPTION TO THE WILL. 489 those names. I can fancy an equal appropriateness in styling the mind's proceeding circular or oval, wet or dry, up-stairs or down-stairs. In truth, the terms in question have weighed like a nightmare upon the investigation of the active region of the mind. It is a fact that the progress made in explaining the will bears no proportion to what has been achieved in the other departments-the senses, the understanding, the affections, the emotions of taste, &c.-and my only explanation is, that the authors that have contributed towards our enlightenment on the subject of the human mind have had their strength wasted, and their pages usurped, by a problem that is in great part spurious.* As regards the phrase 'deliberation,' I have already explained at length what is comprised, under it (Chap. VII.). There is no exception to the general theory, when the mind deliberates for a certain time before acting. If the opposing ends are equally balanced, there is a state of indecision, until such time as new motives gather round one or other of the two sides. This suspense, under equal and opposing pressures, is one form of deliberating,-the occasion when additional time for the occurrence of motive considerations is essentially called for. It generally happens that the course of the thoughts, continuing upon the question, brings up something on one side or the other, converting the equipoise into a preponderance; the fact that a decision is at last come to implies as much. Here, as in the supposed exercise of choice, there is nothing but an accession of motive; no simpler or more exact description can be given. The other mode of delibera* Locke, after stating his view of the nature of Free-will (summed up in the remark that Voluntary is opposed, not to necessary, but to Involuntary), goes on to say:-' I leave it to be considered, whether it may not help to put an end to that long agitated, and I think, unreasonable, because unintelligible question, viz., Whether Man's Will be free or no? For if I mistake not, it follows from what I have said, that the Question is altogether improper: and it is as insignificant to ask, whether Man's Will be free, as to ask whether his Sleep be swift, or his virtue square; Liberty being as little applicable to the Will, as Swiftness of Motion is to Sleep, or Squareness to Virtue.'-(' Essay on the Human Understanding', Book II., Chap. 21.) 490 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. tion supposes the mind acted on by a decided preponderance of inclination to one of two or more courses; but also subject to the consideration of the evil consequences of deciding too quickly. A new and distinct motive is thus present, to counterwork for a certain period the strong inclination that would otherwise bring about immediate action. There is the same general fact of volition exemplified in postponing an act from the avoidance of prospective evil, as in any other circumstance where pleasure or pain prompts to secure the one, and to escape the other. After a proper interval, the sense of danger from precipitate execution is satisfied, and ceases to operate; whereupon the action is taken, according to the strongest urgency; or, as the fact might be more correctly rendered, the action shows which is the stronger, decision being the only attainable criterion of strength of motive. 7. Spontaneity.-Self-determination.-These names are introduced into the discussion of the will, as aids to the theory of liberty, which they are supposed to elucidate and unfold. That there is such a thing as 'spontaneity,' in the action of voluntary agents, has been seen in the foregoing pages. The spontaneous beginnings of movement are a result of the physicalmechanism, under the stimulus of nutrition; and they are laid hold of, and linked to the pleasurable and painful feelings, in the manner above indicated at full length. The spontaneous tendency operates all through life, and has a definite influence upon the actions. In studying the conflict of volitions, we found it requisite to allow for this element. After nutrition and rest, every animal tends to break out into some form of active display; if the other motives are indifferent, or equal for movement and for stillness, the central energy decides for movement. To resist it, a certain motive for rest must be present. There is nothing in all this that either takes human actions out of the sweep of law, or renders liberty and necessity appropriate terms of description. The physical, or nutritive, stimulus is a fact of our constitution, counting at each moment for a certain amount, according to the bodily condition; and if any one knew exactly the condition of a man or SELF-DETERMINATION COMPATIBLE WITH MOTIVES. 491 animal in this respect, a correct allowance might be made in the computation of present motives. In a general way, we do calculate this element in the instances of pronounced spontaneity, as in youth and activity of temperament. The schoolmaster knows well the times when his pupils are restive; the horseman knows the troubles of managing a steed too long confined to the stable. 'Self-determination' assumes something more than spontaneity, having a lurking reference to some power behind the scenes, which cannot be stated under the form of a specific motive or end. There is one sense of the term that represents a genuine fact, or distinction of character, to which a brief allusion may be made; that is, the opposition of permanent and enduring motives to temporary and passing solicitations. When a person continues at one task under a variety of temptations to leave it; or retains a fixed character through many vicissitudes, or a fixed purpose under every variety of outward circumstances,-one way of expressing the character is to represent it as having great self-determination. Not that any new and distinct species of voluntary action is implied; but the motives growing out of the distant, the future, and the collective ends, are so powerfully retained and set forth by the tenacity of the intellectual hold, that they are a match for all counter-motives of present and living sensation. This peculiar case could not have been omitted from an exposition of the will pretending to anything like completeness; and abundant allusion has been already made to it. The opposition of the comprehensive ends of life to the desires generated by things passing around us, is one large region of volitional conflict, which ought not to pass unnoticed. One man is said to be the 'creature of circumstances,' another not so. The difference is made by the presence of deep-seated ends, adheredto through all the varying ciic-uinstances and moods of the outward life. 8. If Self-determination is held- to imply something different from the operation of the motive forces of pleasurable and painful sensibility, coupled with the central sponta 492 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. neity of the system, there is an imputation on the sufficiency of the common analysis of the mind. Feeling, Volition, and Intellect, as explained with full detail in the present work, must still leave a region unexplored. A fourth or residual. department would need to be constituted, the department of 'self' or Me-ation, and we should set about the investigation of the laws (or the anarchy) prevailing there, as in the three remaining branches. The preliminary question, however, has yet to be disposed of, whether there be any residuum when the phenomena comprised under the common division are taken away. I cannot light _uponnhing of the sort; and in the setting up of a determining power under the name of 'self,' as a contrast to the whole region of motives generated in the manner described, I see only an erroneous conception of the facts. The proper meanmi of self can be nothing more than my corporeal existence, Loupjle d' witfi^ my giations tlgts;t emotionsand volitions-supposing the classification exhaustive, and thsum of these in the past, present, and future. Everything of the nature of a moving power belonging to this totality is a part of self. The action of the lungs, the movements of the heart, are self-determined; and when I go to the fire to get warm, lie down under fatigue, ascend a height for the sake of a prospect, the actions are as much self-determined as it is possible for actions to be. No one can vouch for an inscrutable entity in the depths of one's being, to which the name I is to be distinctively applied, and which consist not of any bodily organ or function, or any one mental phenomenon that can be specified. We might as well talk of a mineral as different from the sum of all its assignable properties. A piece of quartz is an aggregate of inertia, specific gravity, crystalline form, hardness, transparency or opacity, colour, infusibility, chemical re-agency, conjoined in one definite situation; and, if there be any other known property, we include it in the list. The aggregate is the quartz's own self, essence, or whatever other designation marks it off from other minerals. It is impossible that any object can be more than the assemblage of its known properties; if there PERVERSITY NOT MOTIVELESS FREE-WILL. 4.93.1,.) were any remainder, the enumeration would simply be incomplete. A self-determining power, therefore, in a voluntary agent, is merely another, and not a good, expression for the ordinary course of the will, as we understand it. The pains personal to the agent, incite actions also personal to that agent; the pleasures, making a portion of the collective self, operate likewise, according to their nature. It is quite plain that the great mass of our voluntary actions have antecedents that can be traced and assigned, and the presumption is that the whole agree in kind with the majority. If any acts can be pointed out as unconnected with motives, or antecedents, of the character that we have recognized throughout our inquiry into the will, the exception ought to be made good, and admitted as a new element of voluntary determination. But, before giving the supposed residual phenomenon an ambiguous title, its existence should first be esta blished, a thing very far from being achieved in the present position of our( knowledge. The only instance that I can fix upon, as having the semblance of a power contradistinguished from the ordinary motives, is the perverseness sometimes exhibited by individuals, for the sake of showing that their actions are not to be predicted by every looker-on. We sometimes take a fancy to feeling humbled in being the sndbject of easy calculation by our neighbours, and go out of our usual course to preplex their intrusive speculations. There is nothing in this. however, but a new motive, springing out of our sense of humiliation, or of pride, one of the most hackneyed of all human impulses. An observer of a still shrewder stamp might predict the occurrence of this element also. Turn whichever way we may, there is no escape from the antecedence of motives when we perform voluntary acts; if we seem to evade one, wve find ourselves in the arms of another. 9. Consciousness of Free-ipill.-The argument from Consciousness has been often appealed to, and often met, in the course of this great controversy. It has been again put forward, by Mr. Sidgwick, with new point and explanations, 494 LIBERTY AND NECESTITY. after an overwhelming demonstration in favour of Determinism, as the law of human conduct. 'This almost overwhelming cumulative proof seems, however, more than balanced by a single argument on the other side; the immediate affirmation of consciousness in the moment of deliberate volition. It is impossible for me to think, at such a moment, that my volition is completely determined by my formed character and the motives acting upon it. The opposite conviction is so strong as to be absolutely unshaken by the evidence brought against it.' 'I am conscious that I habitually think upon this subject in two conflicting moods, between which I cannot pretend to offer any reconciliation. But it seems possible to reduce this conflict within narrower limits than it sometimes occupies, by scrutinizing carefully this consciousness of Freedom, and ascertaining exactly the extent of its affirmation.' Accordingly, Mr. Sidgwick points out that the moments of Deliberation are those when the consciousness of Freedom is present; and especially if the self-consciousness is intense. He farther admits that freedom does not show itself (1) in mere muscular movements for changing things in the outer world, nor (2) even in the control of our trains of thought and of our feelings. The peculiar effect that he puts the stress upon is the "alteration of character". This fact he considers to have been overlooked by Psychologists. And yet it is practically the most important for testing the power of the will. Doubtless, of all the things that a man has got to do, the most vital is to improve his character. It is allowed that each resolve has only a limited effect; yet it would be contrary to experience to deny altogether this effect of volition. Such resolves do sometimes suddenly change old habits; and, when they fail of this, they generally substitute for smooth and easy indulgence a painful struggle. Now this effect seems to be often strictly volitional. Sometimes, indeed, it is due to extraneous causes, operating by a powerful emotional shock; and hence the inference might be that, in all cases, a powerful emotional impression is what works the change: the will merely co VOLUNTARY CHANGE OF CHARACTER. 495 operating by fixing the attention on the benefits to be gained and the evils to be avoided, thereby intensifying the impression. But granting the value of such voluntary contemplation as an auxiliary, we can distinguish between this and the resolution to make the change. 10. Such is Mr. Sidgwick's case. I would remark upon it, in the first place, that the interpretation here put upon our consciousness is considerably different from the views of the usual supporters of Free-will. I do not infer that, therefore, it must be wrong; but any argument from consciousness is much impaired when there is non-agreement as to the contents of the consciousness. I would myself prefer Mr. Sidgwick's reading to most other men's; but a good many observers ought to concur in the same reading to make it of any great weight. Now the old supporters of Free-will gave it a much wider scope; they did not restrict it to the single point of willing to change the character. They certainly took in the sphere of good and bad actions generally: when a man gets intoxicated, indulges malice, or overreaches a neighbour, they would tell him that his will was free to avoid these faults. And I think that so long as Free-will is invoked as a lever to virtuous conduct, the abstinence from particular bad actions, is as important as a general resolution; being, one would say, a perfectly homogeneous proceeding. Second. Although I am quite aware of the difference between voluntarily thinking over good and evil consequences, so as to inflame the motives for good, and the peculiar movement, jerk, or jump, that constitutes a decisive Resolution,I cannot draw between them the very broad line that Mr. Sidgwick draws; leaving one to be disposed of by Determinism, and reserving the other for Free-will. I cannot emancipate the second case from the influence of every mental antecedent. I think the onus lies upon him to show that this is a case of Free-will, according to some definite statement of what is meant by the doctrine. Between the two cases put, on whose fundamental opposition Free-will is to stand or fall, I see only two different 496 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. stages in the operation of the will. While dwelling upon the bad consequences of an evil habit, the motive to conquer it gets stronger and stronger; still there remains the fact, that it is a habit, that it has swayed us up to this point, and cannot be overcome without a painful conflict. The situation of the moment is deliberation and indecision; it may end in nothing; it may, however, end in taking a resolution to thwart and conquer the habit. In all this, I see only the usual course of the will, under conflict of motives; exactly such a conflict as a burglar might suffer before risking a robbery. I cannot discern-what ought to be broadly apparent-the distinction between making a resolve to conquer a habit, and making a resolve to emigrate, or to become a freemason. The ordinary, and, I think, sufficient explanation of a man's changing his character for the better, by the force of a resolution, is that such a man, although the victim of bad habits, has in him virtuous susceptibility; and that this may, in a certain assignable situation, be powerfully wrought upon, so as to attain a high pitch of motive efficiency. Whether any given person would be so wrought upon, might almost be predicted by an intimate companion; there are symptoms whereby to discriminate hopeful from hopeless subjects. Still easier would it be to say whether thie supposed person would adhere to his resolution; nothing about a man is more open to observation than his tenacity of purpose. Thus, the possibility of these reforming resolutions is a fact of character, as predictable as any other fact of the like amount of complication. 11. The opponents of Free-will point out, with seemingly overpowering force, the inextricable absurdities attending every form of stating the doctrine in definite language. Does it affirm that our best resolutions spring from nothing? That in a perfectly identical situation, we form a totally different resolution? Or that there comes from an unknown source, and on no law or rule of coming, an accession of strength to a weak motive? If we could believe this last view, our course would be to wait for the invisible messenger, and make NATURAL DIFFICULTY IN VIEWING THE WILL. 497 the virtuous resolution under the proper aid. The supposition involves us in all the difficulties of Election and the Permission of Evil. Free-will, thus interpreted, is no longer a doctrine of the inductive science of mind; it is adopted into Theology; it is scarcely even rational Theology. More consistent with all our preconceptions of human dignity and virtue, is the view that regards virtue as an end, instigated by virtuous motives and presentations; and that holds that its attainment follows the known means of intensifying these motives. This opens up a plain path; whether we are trying to improve our own character or are influencing other people. All the known arts of moral suasion repose upon this groundwork. It will ever be a difficulty to reconcile the course of human action viewed ab extra, as in observing other men, with the conscious procedure of each one's own mind. The points of view are so altered, that we appear not to see the same phenomenon. The case resembles the eye looking at itself. The difficulty occurs, in some degree, in the self-conscious observation of our thoughts: the thought to be observed ceases when we begin to reflect upon it; a new mental act has displaced the old. This difficulty is got over, as is well known, by memory; the thought that is superseded is still remembered, and as such we can describe it. Try the same plan with the Will. After a decision has been come to, let us, instead of thinking of self, in the moment of deciding, review the course that has been gone through. We shall then see that we were under the play of various solicitations and motives; one urging one way, another, another. For a time, none seemed to preponderate. But the course of the thoughts brought up new motives on one side, or new circumstances increasing abated the force of the old; thus altering the balance of power between the opposing urgencies. The process was allowed to go on; new suggestions still came forward, but the state of the balance seemed unaffected, and not likely to be affected by anything that could still arise; thereupon, 32 498 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. we gave way or decided in favour of one alternative. We cannot remember that we made a bolt in the direction of virtue without feeling a corresponding strength of virtuous motive. We believe, that if the same situation were to recur, we should act in the same way; we do not remember being under any mysterious visitation that took us out of the play of the opposing motives, and made us decide for virtue without reference to these. 12. In an article in the 'Dublin Review', April, 1874, the arguments for and against Free-will are clearly summarized, and some new aspects opened up. The writer, however, too much identifies Determinism with the Utilitarian Theory of Morals, or indeed with pure selfishness; for he regards Freewill as the only known counterpoise to selfish actions. Now it is true that, in illustrating the operation of motives, the opponents of Free-will describe these usually as 'pleasures' or 'pains'; being a convenient summary and representation of all possible motives. But they do not therefore maintain that all conduct is necessarily self-seeking;, many anti-libertarians assert in the strongest manner the existence of purely disinterestedainmpulses. But the quoting of these disinterested motives,-for example, pity and heroic self-devotion, would not alter one whit the state of the argument. As motives, these have a power to urge the will, and, when present alone, they determine it; in the case of a conflict, one side will succeed, which is thereby shown to be the stronger, and will prove so again, should the situation be repeated. Remarking upon the assertion of the Determinists,-that the number and the complexity of the motive forces are the only obstacles to our -foreseeing the course of any one's voluntary decisions,-the writer throws upon us the burden of showing that any uncertainty or precariousness of prediction is due to this and not to the freedom of men's will. We reply that this burden, on every principle of evidence, lies upon him. The rule in Nature is uniformity; this is to be accepted in all doubtful cases, until an exception is made good. The writer is surprised that no one has remarked, what he STRENGTHENING A MOTIVE INTELLIGIBLE. 499 admits to be, a difficulty in Free-will, namely, that the power of resisting vicious impulses is so rarely exercised. The truth is, in the eyes of the scientific psychologist, Free-will, maintained purely as an aid to virtue, is an anomalous position, and is not capable of being argued on the ordinary grounds of mental doctrines. If our consciousness seems to show something distinct from the uniform sequence of motive and act, it shows that equally for all sorts of conduct; the restriction to virtuous conduct is purely arbitrary, and, as already said, is not a psychological, but a theological assumption. Libertarians admit that to strengthen a virtuous motive (by good education, inculcation, or other means), and obversely, to weaken some vicious motive, would have the very same effect as the supposed outburst of free and uncaused will. Why not, therefore, be content with an assumption that is thoroughly consistent with the whole of nature's working, rather than introduce an exceptional principle that hardly admits of intelligible wording? The writer in the ' Dublin Review' allows that 'in proportion as men have passed through the earlier part of their probation and established firm habits of virtue, in that proportion their resistance to predominant temptation (but only within certain limits) may be predicted with much confidence '. But if good habits and good training do so much, how do we know that they are not the sole and sufficient cause of moral goodness; and how can we find out where their influence ceases, and the influence of an unpredictable volition begins? The existence of such an uncertain power is as likely to discourage, as to encourage, the understood means of virtuous training; unless we suppose that the Free-will impulse is a grant proportioned to the goodness of the previous training. On this supposition, it is an encouragement to virtuous education, but then it loses its Free-will character; it has no longer the mysterious uncertainty that baffles all prediction. So that, according as we reduce Will to law, we foster good habits; according as we withdraw it from regularity and prediction, we unsettle the pursuit of virtue. 500 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. There are many occasions when an aid given to volition, in reinforcement of weak motives, would be very desirable. To take a bitter draught of physic is a dreadful trial to the Will; by strength of motive, we get through it. A burglar endures the agonies of a long night of cold; needing no other fortifying consideration than the hope of a prize. The benign gift of an accession of moral power cannot be assumed in his case; why, then, may not a saint, or a missionary, in whom devotedness is strong, face hardships upon mere adequacy of motive? Where are we to draw the line between Will-aided virtuous actions and unaided selfish or indifferent actions? Was the heroic perseverance of Livingstone due to a heroic nature, well fortified by grand aspirations; or did he go out believing in the caprices of a Free Will; something that no man could predict, and, therefore, that no man could trust to? What if this inscrutable self-determination came to him at the time when he committed himself to go to Africa, and forsook him in some critical moment, when he most wanted it; leaving him only his calculable strength of motive? There may be subtleties in conceiving the mode of action of the Will; but a power that comes from nothing, has no beginning, follows no rule, respects no known time or occasion, operates without impartiality,-is repugnant alike to our intelligence and to our moral sentiment. In practice, we never trust such a power. To strengthen a motive,-this we can understand; but if, after we have strengthened a motive-a good motive, there comes a power behind to say which of several present motives we are to go by, without reference to their strength, we are baffled by an influence that we can take no account of; that we do not know how to conciliate, or appease; an inscrutable fate, realizing all the worst results that have ever been attributed to the sternest deliverances of the Necessitarian or the Fatalist. 13. Moral Agency.-Responsibility.-By a common phrase, human beings are described as moral and responsible agents. The word 'moral' has here obviously two meanings, the one narrow, as opposed to immoral, the other wider, as opposed to MEANINGS OF MORAL AGENCY. 501 physical. The same ambiguity occurring in the designation 'Moral Philosophy,' gives to that subject a wide or a contracted scope, according to which of the two meanings is understood; being, on one supposition, confined to Ethics or Duty, and comprehending, on the other, if not the whole of the human mind, at least the whole of the Emotions and Active Powers. In the large sense, I am a moral agent when I act at the instigation of my own feelings,- pleasurable or painful, and the contrary when I am overpowered by force. It is the distinction between mind and the forces of the physical world, such as gravity, heat, magnetism, &c.; and also between the voluntary and involuntary activities of the animal system. We are not moral agents as regards the action of the heart, the lungs, or the intestines. Every act that follows upon the prompting of a painful or a pleasurable state, or of the associations with these, is a voluntary act, and is all that is meant or can be meant by moral agency. Every animal that pursues an end, following up one object and avoiding another, comes under the designation. The tiger chasing and devouring his prey, any creature that lives by selecting its food, is a moral agent. It would be well if the same word were not indiscriminately applied to two significations of such different compass; for there can be little doubt that perplexity and confusion of idea have been maintained thereby. Still, nothing can be better established than the recognition of both significations, and we are bound to note the circumstance that the 'moral', which at one time coincides with the 'ethical,' at other times is co-extensive with the 'voluntary'. 14. The term ' Responsibility' is a figurative expression, of the kind called by writers on Rhetoric metonymy; whereby a thing is named by some of its causes, effects, or adjuncts, as when the crown is put for royalty, the mitre for the episcopacy, &c. Seeing that in every country where forms of justice have been. established, a criminal is allowed to answer the charge made against him before he is punished; this circumstance has been taken up, and used to designate punishment. We shall find it conduce to clearness to put aside the figure, and 502 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. employ the literal term. Instead, therefore, of responsibility, I will substitute punishability; for a man can never be said to be responsible, if you are not prepared to punish him when he cannot satisfactorily answer the charges made against him. The one step denoted by responsibility necessarily supposes a previous step, accusability, and a subsequent step, liability to punishment. Any question, therefore, growing out of the term in discussion is a question of accusing, trying, and punishing some one or more individual beings. The debatable point arising here is as to the limits and conditions of the imposition of punishment. There are certain instances where punishment is allowed to be just and proper, as in the correction of the young, and the enforcing of the law against ordinary criminals. There are other instances where the propriety of punishing is disputed; as in very young infants, the insane, and the physically incapable. There are, however, two very different grounds of objection that may be taken. The first and principal ground is, that the action required under menace of punishment is not one within t1he capability of the individual, not a voluntary action; in other words, no amount of motive can instigate such an action. It may not be within the range of the individual's powers. One may be asked to do a work that surpasses the physical strength, under the strongest spur that can be applied; an unskilled workman may be tasked with an undertaking requiring skill; a mechanic skilled in his art may be deprived of his tools, and yet expected to do his work. All these are obvious cases of the inadmissibility of punishment. So, too, a state of mind that cannot comprehend the meaning of an enactment or a penalty-as infancy, idiocy, insanity, ignorance of the dialect spoken, excuses the individual from punishment. A second ground of objection is, not the impossibility of bringing about the action by a mere motive urging to it, but the very great severity of motive necessary. You may exact from a man something that he can barely compass, even when urged to the very utmost by the strongest motives that it is possible to provide. You may threaten to RESPONSIBILITY. 503 take away the life of your slave, if he does not exert himself beyond the point of utter exhaustion; whereby you will probably succeed in getting a little more out of him. The question now is one of justice, expediency, and humanity, and not of m etaphysical possibility. Punishment is a thing competent, a thing not nugatory, whenever the act can be induced by mere urgency of motive; nevertheless, there may be great and grave objections, on the score of just and humane principle, to the application of it. Draconian codes and barbarous inflictions may answer their end, they may confine themselves to what men have it in their power to do or to refrain from, when overawed by such terrors; they are not on that account to be defended.*" * Responsibility for Belief, The dictum of Lord Brougham, that 'man is no longer accountable to man for his belief, over which he has himself no control,' was the occasion of a serious controversy at the time it was uttered (See, among others, Wardlaw's 'Treatise on Accountability'). Reduced to )precise terms the meaning is-a man's belief being involuntary, he is not punishable for it. The point, therefore, is, how far is belief a voluntary function? for it is known to every one that the will does to some extent infuence it. I. Whatever may be true of the internal conviction, the outward profession of belief is voluntary, and so are the actions consequent upon what we believe. Now it is these external manifestations alone that society can lay hold of, and as they are suppressible, on sufficient motive, the law can supply that motive, and lead to their suppression accordingly. It is not, therefore, nugatory or absurd, to make laws against belief; for if every expression of opinion, or consequent proceeding, can be kept down, the purpose is fully served. II. It has been always open to remark, how completely human beings are the slaves of circumstances in the opinions that they entertain upon all subjects that do not appeal directly to the senses and daily experience. We see in one country one set of beliefs handed down unchanged for generations, and in another country a totally different set equally persistent. Seeing, then, that there is so little self-originating, or independent, judgment amnong mankind, it is evidently possible, by external means, and the power of motives, to make some one opinion prevail rather than another. I might be a Roman Catholic born, yet with a mind so constituted as irresistibly to embrace the Protestant faith on examining its creed. But if I am under a rigime that appends heavy penalties to my becoming a Protestant, the effect might be to deter me from ever reading a book, or listening to a preacher, or hearing any argument on the Protestant side. It is t,popc. f y,.il to open or shut my eyes, although what I am to see when I do open them is 504 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. not voluntary. The legislator, therefore, in hedging one belief round with heavy penalties, may be a tyrant, but he is not a fool. There are many arts of swaying men's convictions. Look at the whole array of weapons in the armoury of the skilful rhetorician. Look at the powers of bribery and corruption in party warfare. Consider also the effect of constantly hearing one point of view to the exclusion of all others. There is the greatest scope for the exercise of arts in swaying men from their own genuine tendencies into some prescribed path. It would be in the last degree incorrect to say that punishment cannot succeed in inducing belief, but whether it be right to employ it for that purpose is merely the old question of political and social liberty. There is a length that external pressure cannot go in compelling a man's convictions. It is not possible for any power to make me believe that three. times four is six. I may for once so far succumb to a tremendous threat as to affirm this proposition in words, but I feel that, if I amn to assent to propositions of a like nature generally, I may as well go to the stake at once, for life under such an arithmetic is not worth a week's purchase. If every bargain that I engage in is to be subject to such reasoning, all my security has vanished, and the sooner I quit the better. There are, however, so many affirmations constantly afloat, ahd never brought to any practical test, that we may swallow a great many inconsistencies without difficulty. So long as action is not entered on, we are not obliged to be consistent; and, accordingly, it is very usual for a man to assent to a number of propositions irreconcilable with one another; while it is still true that, in a matter of plain experience, involving one's immediate actions and welfare, it is beyond the power of motive to change one's decided convictions. Sovereign power, whether legal or social, has plenty of room in the outworks of belief, without affecting this inner sanctuary, of pressing and practical experience. The greatest despot stops short of the pence table; he knows that religion, political theories, and many other departments of belief are at his mercy, and to these he applies the screw. After all, therefore, the gist of Lord Brougham's dictum is nothing else than the issue, contested now for centuries, as to freedom of thought and opinion. BELIEF. 1. THE state of mind called Belief, Expectation, Confidence, Trust, Assurance, Conviction, involves obviously our intellect, or ideas: we must know or conceive the fact that we believe in. But knowledge is not the whole of the state; we may equally know what we believe and what we disbelieve-truth and error. Belief is often accompanied by strong emotion, yet emotion, as such, does not amount to believing. Fictitious narratives may stir the mind more strongly than real; we may disbelieve and yet tremble. Moreover, we are often under strong conviction, while yet we are devoid of emotional excitement; the mathematician is as cool as he is convinced, when declaring his belief in a proposition of Euclid. 2. We are thus driven to the alternative query-Is, or is not, Belief essentially related to Action, that is, volition? I answer, It is. Preparedness to act upon what we affirm is admitted on all hands to be the sole, the genuine, the unmistakable criterion of belief. Columbus shewed his belief in the roundness of the earth, and in the existence of an unbroken ocean between Europe and the east coast of Asia, when he undertook his voyages. In the primitive form of the Will, which is operative all through life, an action once begun, and bringing pleasure or alleviating pain, is persisted in. One might, by fiction, say we believe that the action is giving us pleasure; but the expression is forced, not to say inapplicable. In the working of this primordial impulse, there is no place for belief, any more than for deliberation, resolution, or desire; the believing state is not yet evolved or differentiated. It may be there, in the germ, but if all our actions were of this primitive type, there would never have been any mention of the state. Only when performing acts that do not afford immediate gratification, but 506 BELIEF. are reckoned on as bringing gratification in the future, are we properly said to be manifesting our belief. The animal that makes a journey to a pool of water to relieve thirst believes that the object signalized by the visible appearance of water quenches thirst. 3. While, therefore, Action is the basis, and ultimate criterion, of belief, there enters into it as a necessary element some cognizance of the order of nature, or the course of the world. In using means to any end, we proceed upon the assumption of an alliance between two natural facts or phenomena, and we are said to have a trust, confidence, or faith, in that alliance. An animal, in judging of its food by the mere sight, or in going to a place of shelter, recognizes certain coincidents of natural properties, and manifests to the full a state of belief regarding them. The humblest insect that has a fixed home, or a known resort for the supply of its wants, is gifted with the faculty of believing. Every new coincidence introduced into the routine of an animal's existence, and proceeded on in the accomplishment of its ends, is a new article of belief. The infant, who has found the way to the mother's breast for food, and to her side for warmth, has made progress in the power of faith; and the same career goes on enlarging through the whole of life. Nothing can be set forth as belief that does not implicate in some way or other the order, arrangements, or sequences of the universe. Not merely the sober and certain realities of every man's experience, but also the superstitions, dreams, vagaries, that have found admittance among the most ignorant and misled of human beings, are conversant with the same field. When we people the air with supernatural beings, and fill the void of nature with demons, ghosts, and spirits; when we practise incantations, auguries, charms, and sacrificial rites, we are the victims of a faith as decided and strong as is our confidence in the most familiar occurrences of our daily life. In all such cases, the genuineness of the state of belief is tested by the control of the actions, while the subject-matter of it is some supposed fact, or occurrence, of nature. The intellect must BELIEF SUPPOSES THE ORDER OF NATURE. 507 take hold of a certain co-existence, or succession, of phenomena through the senses, or the constructive faculty, and the mind be, as it were, occupied with this, as distinct from being occupied with mere feeling, or mere volition. The state in question, then, having its roots in voluntary action, has its branches spreading far and wide into the realms of intelligence and speculation. As the intellectual functions are developed, and become prominent in the mental system, the materials of belief are more and more abundantly reaped from their proper field; nevertheless, we must not depart from their reference to action, and the attainment of ends, otherwise they lose their fundamental character as things credited, and pass into mere fancies, and the sport of thinking. It is true, however, that, as the sphere of pure intelligence grows larger, there is a progressive storing up of facts and laws, without any immediate regard to practical ends; as in the vast encyclopredia of ascertained knowledge accumulated to the present time, of which a large amount is possessed by individuals without being turned to any account in the pursuit of pleasure or the banishing of pain; and it has to be shown, that there lurks a tacit appeal to action in the belief entertained respecting all that unapplied knowledge. The readiness to act is thus what makes belief something more than fancy. We may act upon very imperfect knowledge, but that knowledge must be believed by us. We may have perfect knowledge without acting on it; much of our highest theoretic knowledge is seldom reduced to practice. The reason is, not want of faith, but want of opportunity. The preparedness to act is still the only test of this highest kind of knowledge.* 4. Since then, we are beings that look before and after, the * It is common to say, that I cannot have a sensation without believing that I have that sensation, which belief seems to grow out of the consciousness, and not to involve any action. In point of fact, however, we are constantly acting upon our sensations, as when we avoid the painful and cherish tho pleasurable. The spectator relies upon my actions as the surest evidence of my sensations. If I am thirsty, I may say that I believe myself to be thirsty, because I act accordingly. I cannot assure myself, or any other person, that 508 BELIEF. state of belief has in us an extensive footing, and an incessant control over the temper for happiness or for misery. In anticipating a want, we forecast at, the same time the natural sequence that is to be the medium of supplying it, and, in that predicament wherein we are said to have confidence or trust in such a medium, we enjoy a positive satisfaction in the total absence of painful forebodings. So with pleasure that has taken the form of vehement desire. The fruition is future, but the mind cannot easily assume a present indifference to the subject; we are either disquieted by seeing no prospect of attaining the wished-for good, or elated and comforted by the assurance of its being within reach. In all that regards our future happiness, therefore, and the future of all those interests that engage our sympathy,-belief, when the assurance of good in the distance, is the name for a serene, satisfying, and happy tone of mind. Through it, as has been said, we have already the realizing of what we long for. Ideal emotion is consummated in its happiest phase, by this condition being secured. In discussing the emotion of Terror, it was impossible not to be struck with the contrariety, or inverse relationship, between that emotion and the subject of the present chapter; so much so that it was necessary to take both facts together I anm not under a dream, an imagination, or a hallucination, in any other way than by a course of voluntary exertion corresponding to the supposed sensation. And when I affirm that I was thirsty yesterday, it is supposed that I am prepared to act out that supposition also; as when I make it the basis of an inference that I shall be thirsty on some future day, and use means to provide for that emergency. When no action can be indicated as directly or indirectly following on the affirmation, the belief in it may be still held as genuine, if I feel in the same way to it as I do towards those sensations that I am ready to act upon. I believe that I yesterday ran up against a wall, to keep out of the way of a carriage. I have no disposition to do anything in consequence of that conviction; yet I call it a conviction, and not a mere notion, because I am affected by it in the same way as I am by another recollection that I do act upon. I feel that if there were any likelihood of being jammed up in that spot again, I should not go that way if I could help it, which is quite enough to show that, in believing my memory, I have still a reference to action, more or less remote. THE OPPOSITE OF BELIEF IS DOUBT. 509 for the elucidation of one. Speaking logically, or with regard to the form of the subject-matter, the opposite of belief is disbelief; but as a mental fact these two states are identical. Coming to a place where two roads meet, I believe that the one will conduct me to my home, and disbelieve the same affirmation respecting the other. In either view, my mind is in the condition of certainty, conviction, or faith, and I derive both the means of reaching my dwelling, and the cheering tone that a conviction gives to a person looking forward to a wished-for end. The real opposite of belief as a state of mind is not disbelief, but doubt, uncertainty; and the close alliance between this and the emotion of fear is stamped on every language. Not that doubt and fear are identical facts, but that the situation called uncertainty, ignorance, hesitation, vacillation, is at all times prone to excite the perturbation of fear. The idea of Pleasure, in most shapes, diffuses in the mind that state denominated Joy, which is recognized by every one as characteristic, and distinct from the reality of a sensuous gratification. The idea of good approaching, with confidence in its ultimate realization, is the most powerful stimulus of this condition. A wedding, the birth of an heir, the obtaining of an office, a victory, are styled joyful events from their reference to pleasures in prospect. Hence, in familiar language, the conjunction of Joy with faith and Hope. The idea of a Pain, on the other hand, produces the condition termed Depression, which, and not sorrow, is the true opposite of joy. The more strongly the idea takes hold of the mind, the greater is the influence. But here also, the effect is most decided when it is the idea of pain believed as coming to ourselves. In such circumstances, the mind is apt to be filled with gloom; and is not unlikely to pass one stage farther into the condition of terror. It is possible to stop short of this final stage; but even courage does not necessarily imply the absence of depression. The strength of the conviction is measured by its power of casting down the mind 510 BELIEF. from the joyful, to the depriessed, tone. A less strong belief would be less dispiriting. When it is said 'the devils believe and tremble,' the subject-matter of the belief is some evil fate, which it would be better to doubt. The belief in our mortality is the reverse of comforting. Ill news operates a shock of depression, if not of alarm; and if the assurance amounts to certainty, so much the worse. The mind depressed finds it hard to believe in coming good, and easy to be convinced of coming evil. Such is the action and reaction of the two states-of dread and depression, as above remarked of the connexion between the hopeful, or sanguine, and the joyful. o. Thus, then, belief varies in Degree: we believe strongly that the sun will rise to-morrow,-weakly, perhaps, that it will rise without clouds. The strength of Belief is tested in two ways. First, in the pursuit of our ends, if we work as strongly for the means, as we do for the end, we have a perfect confidence in the connection of the two. Our belief that money will feed, clothe, and otherwise gratify us, is proved by our working for money, with all the force of our wish to be fed, clothed, and gratified. A sick man has little faith in a remedy, if he will not take all the trouble to procure it, that he would do to be made well. The second test of strength is the elation caused by attaining the means to a given end; or the depression caused by a prognostic of calamity. When a general witnesses the first swaying of the enemy's front, he has already the elation of victory; Cromwell did not wait till the end of the day for his exulting burst-' The Lord hath delivered them into our hands '. When Keats saw on his pillow the patch of arterial blood that came from his lungs, he exclaimed, 'That's my death warrant'. Assuming that Belief is of the nature of a force, governing our actions, and affecting our mental tone for good or for evil, let us now trace out its sources. At first sight, one would suppose that a motive force can MENTAL FOUNDATIONS OF BELIEF. 511 be found only in the departments of Feeling and Volition. The intellectual trains furnish guidance, or direction, but not motive power; the only exception hitherto noticed is the tendency of the idea to become an actuality, a very important exception, bearing upon our voluntary agency, and therefore upon our belief. 6. We have seen that Belief, in its most ordinary aspect, means our confidence in the order of the world, or the course of events, whether material or mental. This confidence is very variable; not only are some affirmations more strongly believed than others, but the same affirmation is believed in different degrees by different persons, and by the same person on different occasions. For all this, some psychological explanation is desired. There are also, however, a number of curious and subtle points that have exercised metaphysicians even more than the main thesis. For example, the mind is often the victim of Illusion, or Delusion, mistaking the reality of things, and believing in semblances and shadows; as in Superstitions, the delusions of the Insane, Dreams or Visions, and the mistakes of rational minds. Another nice problem is the belief in Memory, or the grounds of the distinction that we make between outideas of what has been, and our imaginary conceptions; in which also is implicated the belief in our Personal Identity. The great question of the existence of an independent Material World contains a reference to the laws of Belief. The best course for the Exposition to follow is, to deal first with the phenomenon in its typical or normal character. Taking it, then, in this character, I shall give the sources or foundations of Belief under four heads:-(1) Intuitive tendencies, (2) Intellectual forces, (3) the Feelings, (4) the Activity. 7. I. The leading fact in Belief, according to my view of it, is our Primitive Credulity.Q We begin by believing everything; whatever is, is true. If this mode of regarding belief be challenged as a paradox or else a mere epigram, inasmuch 512 BELIEF. as to believe everything is to believe nothing, I reply that the state of belief is distinguished when we suffer the shock of a contradiction, a check or disappointment in some career of activity. The supposition underlying belief is that we are working to a lead, following out some end, by the means that experience suggests, and that, so long as we are successful, we raise no questions as to truth or falsehood; we believe without knowing it. The animal born in the morning of a summer day, proceeds upon the fact of daylight; assumes the perpetuity of that fact. Whatever it is disposed to do, it does without misgivings. If in the morning it began a round of operations continuing for hours, under the full benefit of daylight, it would unhesitatingly begin the same round in the evening. Its state of mind is practically one of unbounded confidence; but, as yet, it does not understand what confidence means. 8. The pristine assurance is soon met by checks; a disagreeable experience leading to new insight. To be thwarted and opposed is one of our earliest and most frequent pains. It develops the sense of a distinction between free and obstructed impulses; the unconsciousness of an open way is exchanged for consciousness; we are now said properly to believe in what has never been contradicted, as we disbelieve in what has been contradicted. We believe that, after the dawn of day, there is before us a continuance of light; we do not believe that this light is to continue for ever. Thus, the vital circumstance in belief is never to be contradicted-never to lose prestige. The number of repetitions counts for little in the process: we are as much convinced after ten as after fifty; we are more convinced by ten unbroken, than by fifty for and one against. After we have often seen fair openings suddenly blocked, we contract a state of painful misgiving about appearances generally; and the cure for this state is frequent repetition or continuance. The number of examples testifying in one direction is used as our best criterion of uniformity, our best preservative against the painful anticipation of a check. PRIMITIVE CREDULITY AND ACQUIRED SCEPTICISM. 513 9. In our beliefs, therefore, we are placed between two urgencies; the primitive tendency to accept whatever has not yet been contradicted, and the depressing or discouraging effect of contradictions. The adjustment or compromise first suggested to the mind, under this situation, should be to proceed wherever we have not been checked, to stop where we have. But this does not exactly meet the difficulties. There may be occasional checks that are not fatal: in some cases we feel insecure, although never stopped; in others we are confident, in spite of occasional contradiction. It is curious to observe the balancing of the two opposing tendencies-primitive" credulity, and acquired scepticism. Only the actual study of human beings can reveal to us the relative strength of the two. Probably few minds ever attain the exact adjustment; we have either too much of the primitive credulity, or are too deeply stung by the reverses. In the mass of mankind, the credulity is in excess: there is an overweening belief in the uniformity of nature; too little laying to heart the jars of interrupted expectations. The great master fallacy of the human mind is believing too much -believing without or against evidence. The signal and decisive example is over-generalization, the vice of every human being for the early part of life, and of more than nineteentwentieths to the last. There may be emotional forces working to this result, but it can be shown that these would not succeed as they do, but for the natural tendency to suppose that what we see and know is the measure of the unseen and unknown. It is quite conceivable that the mind might be so adjusted as to work the other way, to have too little belief in the resemblance of the future, the distant, and the past, to the present. Much sensitiveness to the shocks of hostile experience would be tantamount to such a character. In the great variety of human beings, examples are not wanting. The sceptical tendency is in some instances excessive and morbid; being a phase of the gloomy or rmelancholic temperament, the predominance of painful susceptibility over pleasurable. In 33 514 BELIEF. the sanguine or joyous temperament the shock of contradiction is lightly taken, and soon obliterated; in the opposite frame of mind, the same shock has an abiding hold. 10. Let us now look more closely at the operation of Experience in strengthening belief. It might seem a natural supposition that belief begins with experience, is at first very slight, but grows steadily with repetition of the facts; in a word, that conviction is in the exact ratio of knowledge. This, however, is an untenable view. It would be more easy to uphold the very opposite: belief is frequently greatest where knowledge is least; as in the credulity of the ignorant. Still, there is reason to suppose that experience confirms the tendency to proceed in a given direction; the connection formed in the mind between an antecedent and a consequent must become stronger by iteration; the intellectual link is capable of being a moral power. The test of the invigorating process is to overcome the shock of an exception; to proceed in the old path, notwithstanding a reverse. Experience and repetition would not originate what is implied in belief; would not give the disposition to act in a particular way with firm assurance or anticipation of a given consequence. But, there being a primordial tendency to follow out a lead, to accept whatever opening is presented, to do again what has once been successful, the effect of repetition would go to confirm that bent; the confirmation being unnecessary and unapparent, until there is an obstacle. Hence all natural facts that have been steadily and incessantly witnessed, such as the rising of the sun, the fall of bodies, the growth of plants from the seed, the routine of animal life, attain in the mind the position of overwhelming assurance. Occasional appearances to the contrary are easily got over, when there is such manifold iteration. In these cases we are tempted to assign a purely intellectual origin to belief, or to account a strong association sufficient for building up the firmest assurance. The more appropriate function of Experience, however, is to deal with hostile shocks, to rescue the mind from the clash of contradictions. Repetition strengthens our belief by raising FUNCTION OF EXPERIENCE. 515 us above the dread of those checks that we so often encounter in following out a fair commencement, After a few such checks, our generalizing impetus (the primitive credulity) makes us suspect a lion in every path; confidence is shaken even in courses that have never been obstructed. The unexpected discovery of villainous treachery in a single instance, for the time lowers one's confidence in human nature; that is, in people whose good behaviour has been unfaltering. It is the function of intelligence and of enlarged experience to teach us the difference between many repetitions and few; the many repetitions raise us above the dread, of meeting contradictory instances, the few do not. Accordingly, the affirmation is correct (with suitable allowances) that belief grows with experience; but the process, instead of being simple and direct, is complex and circuitous. The mental state of ignorance or of small experience is a state of exaggerated impulses,over-credulity or over-scepticism; perhaps the one as regards some things, the other as regards other things; and both in the same mind. The same primitive credulity that passes beyond the reality of things, when there has been no apparent check, under-estimates the consistency of things, when there is a check. The only basis of arbitration is comparative frequency, and this is what the mind must resort to, and what is suggested to the practised intelligence, so far as the meddling of the emotions will allow. In the early stages of the human mind, there is too. much belief at one point and too little at another. The anthropomorphic explanation of nature is an over-belief in a particular uniformity; the doctrine of so-called free-will is an under-belief in fixed laws of human action. 11. Experience, in the form of careful attention and Discrimination, has an all-important function with reference to belief. In those checks and interruptions of the primitive tendency, experience comes to the rescue by purifying and correcting the sequence, and giving it a shape that no longer brings disappointment. Water is found to allay thirst, to supply a refreshing coolness under great heat; but water from a boiling kettle fails in these respects. Experience, 516 BELIEF. that is to say, better knowledge, tells us that our expectation should be narrowed to water under certain limits of temperature; and, with this limitation, we may go on believing and acting to the end of our days. A visible appearance is always found to be followed by a tangible, until we have experience of a mirror. We allow for this case, and retain our first conviction in the sequence. Yet, it is not proceeding from the right end, to say that the extended knowledge that enables us to substitute sure uniformities for hasty assumptions is the cause or essence of our believing disposition; it is rather the pruning operation that saves it from destructive checks. Many of our primitive expectations, being wholly false, soon suffer total shipwreck in the contradictions that they encounter. At first, we are just as ready to take up with a casual coincidence, as with a law of nature. By and by, we are disabused of the one, and confirmed in the other. Yet, as a coincidence may be casual and yet constant, we are apt to transfer causation to unconnected things; while a uniformity, being masked by accompanying circumstances, may be disbelieved. The higher degrees of knowledge obtained from advanced researches are necessary to dispel these mistakes. We do not now connect the positions of the planets with human destiny; and we see that the tides are uniformly connected with the rotation of the earth in connection with the moon and the sun. When, on the one hand, we have got hold of an invariable sequence, and on the other, have discovered a want of sequence, we are in the extreme phases of belief-total assurance, and total distrust. If knowledge were perfect, if we had the gift of omniscience, these would be our two alternatives. There is but a single mood of mind for an unvarying uniformity, and a single mood for total disconnection. But, in the imperfect state of our knowledge, we occupy intermediate positions; we exist in many gradations of confidence, and are not always equally affected by the same case. An omniscient mind would be in only one of the two extreme moods as to the issue of an impending battle. In all that region of facts RATIONAL VIEW OF PROBABILITY. 517 called probable, ordinary minds cannot attain the highest believing state; and they are variable in the degree of assurance. It is in this situation that account has to be taken of other forces in belief, besides the primitive credulity, and its modifications through better knowledge. 12. The Theory of Probability, as systematically given under Logic, shows what ought to be the position or attitude of the mind in cases not absolutely certain, nor yet absolutely uncertain. There ought to be one unvarying degree of expectation due to each case according to the facts for and against; the only legitimate source of change is the influence of new facts. Before setting out on a day's excursion, we look at the glass and observe the wind, we take into account the weather of the last few days, we refer to the usual characters of the time of the year, and, as the result of the whole, we decide that the day will almost to a certainty be fine. We ought to adhere to this estimate and to the corresponding frame of elation or hope, either until an actual change sets in, or until there is some sure prognostic of change that did not exist when we formed our judgment. Yet the best disciplined mind is liable to fluctuations of belief without any change in essential circumstances. The passing of a cloud across the sun, although quite compatible with our calculations, and admitted by us to be so, for the moment depresses our tone of confidence; while the dispersion of the cloud, for the time, unduly elates us. The kind of day that we expect may even allow a few sparkles of rain; yet, if these actually come, we experience painful misgivings as to the value of our deliberate estimate. This typifies one class of influences on Belief. The same situation would show others of a different kind. Thus, anything quite unconnected with weather appearances, as fatigue, a depressing incident, or some mental shock, would sensibly diminish one's confidence in a fair day. On the other hand, the robust members of the party, in the fulness of their energy and the scope for its exercise, would possess an overweening assurance that all would go well. If we consider that all beliefs short of certainty, are a com 518 BELIEF. promise or adjustment of two opposing sides or tendencies, each of which has a certain efficacy, we shall see that any circumstance that tends to alter our estimate of one, disturbs the balance, and must change the mental attitude. For example, we may utterly forget the cases of interruption to some sequences; in which state we should treat the rule as invariable or uniform, and believe or act accordingly. On the other band, we may have a very vivid recollection of the exceptional cases, and remember only a very few of those that constitute the rule; which would reduce the faith in the rule to a faint expectation corresponding to a small probability. Now we know eno.ugh to be aware that our recollections are tampered with in a variety of ways. Some of the influences are properly and strictly Intellectual, others arise in the Feelings; while a certain amount of the same effect may be due to the Activities. This leads us to the consideration of the three remaining sources or foundations of Belief. 13. II.--Under Intellect, the most impressive situation is actual or present experience of a fact. The absorbing power of the present has always to be counted with, in any attempt to sway a man's conduct and belief. On going to a new place, we are strongly biased by first experiences, although we may know that most of the incidents are purely temporary and accidental. It is a standing weakness of the human mind, to pronounce general opinions upon the pressure of the passing moment; reversing them, of course, under an altered state of things. This fact, already encountered in other connections, as under Conflict of Motives, is with special propriety cited in connection with Belief, for it has a paramount ascendency in our assurance as to the order of nature. It is met by the same culture as is required for prudential conduct, namely, by giving persistence and power to past or remembered experiences. While under a present experience, pointing in one direction, we are not easily induced to subscribe to a decision involving opposed facts, notwithstanding that these also have been experienced by us. When all things are going smoothly, we do not allow for disaster. This holds irrespective of the INFLUENCE OF A PRESENT FACT. '519 influence of the emotional tone, which is a co-operating power in deciding between hopeful and dejected views. A present fact is, by its very nature, stronger than the idea of an absent one; so much so that, even in a depressed moment, we are buoyed up by the present- reality of good. The gloomy shareholder takes a much less unfavourable view of the prospects of a Company, the day he has received an eight per cent. dividend. 14. Next to the reality of an experience in one direction, is the powerful suggestion of it by the intellectual forces. This needs little comment at the present stage of the exposition of mind. Indeed, our discussion of the Associating forces should have made it entirely superfluous, but for the circumstance, that we had not much occasion to consider differences of degree in the intensity of a revived idea. It is enough for most purposes that the idea is revived: in the present subject, however, our attention is called to the contrast between a faint or meagre representation, and one that is strong or engrossing. The difference becomes important when an idea is liable to be jostled and pushed aside by others, or has to stand its ground against sensation or actuality. When the mind is perfectly unbiased, the suggestion of an idea in its distinctive character is all that we need; but, when there is a fight going on, whatever is not ushered in by a loud knocking at the door, is unheeded. Under such circumstances, we look to the energy of the associating links, and we find, that when there is either some powerful present sensation, or a concurrence of several sensations, the suggested idea takes a better position, keeps a better hold, than when the suggesting circumstance is only an idea; while, of course, a strongly possessed idea is better than a weak one. A man coming down in the morning and seeing no preparations for breakfast, although he may have been promised it at a certain hour, feels that his faith is heavily tried; the mercury goes down in him. When, however, the cloth is laid, and the kitchen sends forth sensible indications, the suggestion of what is to follow is sufficiently strong to make a full assurance. Something of the same 520 BELIEF. effect is produced by verbal announcements. One messenger is enough to state a fact; but, when it is iterated by messenger after messenger, it takes possession of the mind with multiplied energy; we then know what it is for a mere idea to possess the attribute most suitable to feelings or emotionsforce or intensity: and this is due to causes properly intellectual, not unfrequently re-inforced by emotion. The cumulative messages to Richard when the day was going against him, and the re-iterated disasters announced to the tempted patriarch, left fixed ideas extraordinary in their intensity, not from emotion simply, but from the suggesting force of a plurality of associations. The resuscitating force of Similarity could be quoted as contributing, not simply to the presence of an idea, but to its power in withstanding displacement by sensations or by other ideas. Even analogical or metaphorical similarities may affect belief, through their efficacy in the vivid presentation of ideas. The vicissitudes of life, the moral order of things, may be made strongly present by witnessing a storm followed by a calm; and the state of belief will be correspondingly affected. The influence of a continuous stream of one-sided oratory is a common example of the efficacy of intellectual suggestion (with or without emotion) in making a certain class of ideas unduly powerful for the time. 15. III.-Let us next consider the influence of Feelings or Emotions on Belief. The fact is notorious and pronounced; and we have here to trace the manner of its operation according to laws of the mind, as well as to indicate the magnitude of its workings. I must repeat that there is never any question of Belief, until a contest arises between opposing appearances. In an unbroken uniformity, we need not refer to either experience or emotions; both may be present, but the effect would be the same without them. When, however, there is a conflict of tendencies, when checks have been encountered, the emotions, no less than experience, will play a part. The feelings have nothing to do with the sun's rising to-morrow, but they may EMOTION ADVERSE TO:DISCRIMINATION. '521 - have a considerable power over our belief as to the variable element of the day-its being hot or cold, wet or dry. To begin at the very beginning, we must note first that general reciprocity of the Emotional and the Intellectual energies, whereby the one lives at the expense of the other. A small portion of feeling or emotion is essential to intellect, as giving an interest in the exercise of Discrimination, and in the other intellectual functions. But this need be very little, and the required amount is soon exceeded: anything amounting to excitement, in the common meaning of the term, passes beyond the mark, and begins to tell against the intellectual vigour. One mode of the effect may be to heighten discrimination and retentiveness in a narrow and favoured range of ideas, at the expenseaof all others. As the emotional fervour grows warmer, discrimination grows feebler and feebler; the mind is then a prey to confusion of thought, and all its consequences. Propriety and rationality of conduct subsist upon delicate distinctions; any one in a fury of excitement is disqualified from such delicacy. The passionate Lally, one of the French commanders in last century's contest between Britain and France for the dominion of India, executed as spies six Brahmans that he found lounging at the Pagoda of Kiveloor when he plundered it. This was the act of a mind inflamed with suspicion and incapacitated for nice intellectual discrimination. Othello could not see the difference in Desdemona's conduct between what might arise from a friendly interest in Cassio, and the promptings of an amour; an egregious confusion, almost too great for the qualified probabilities of romance. The inability to discriminate and to identify the delicate features of things, whether from natural defect, or from the blinding of emotional excitement, has wide-reaching consequences for evil, the effect on belief being only one. The confounding of things that differ, and the refusal to identify things that agree, being a bar to the correct knowledge of the world, deposit in the mind error for truth, seeming for reality; and the belief takes a corresponding turn. This failure of discrimination has to be viewed, in the first 522. BELIEF. instance, as a general fact, as operative in every sphere of thought. Among its more special modes, we may signalize the confounding of ideas of Imagination with ideas of Memory, one great cause of illusion and delusion. Occasions arise when the ideas of Imagination take on something of the vivacity and circumstantiality of ideas of the Memory, and a mind disqualified by emotion for fine distinctions is led to confound the two. In a less excited state of mind, the difference would be felt. 16. It is scarcely a separate fact, although having a separate aspect, that Emotion or Feeling heightens the intensity of an idea, contributing to that persistency of hold already described as a result of intellectual forces. An idea is a very poor thing as compared with its original; notwithstanding that for many purposes it answers as well. But, by emotional influences, it may be intensified till it approach nearer in character to the original; until, for example, it root itself in the present consciousness more firmly than any other influence existing at the time. It is possible by heightened nervous pressure to raise the currents connected with an idea to the pitch of reality; the extreme case being febrile or other diseased excitement, under which the derangement amounts to illusion. An ordinary emotion is far below this; yet it has an efficacy in raising the intensity of the idea much beyond its state under a cool or unimpassioned revival. In the figure of speech called Vision, a scene or person merely thought of is supposed to be so vivified under emotion as to seem actually present. When, as in all doubtful matters, there are appearances for and against a given uniformity, emotion, lending itself to one side, makes that side appear the strongest for the time, and sways belief accordingly. What is commonly called love of the Marvellous, which is really the ideal emotion of Sublimity or greatness, disdains all appearances that give a humble account of anything; as in the treatment of characters and historical events. 17. The effect of Emotion in intensifying an idea cannot OTHER INFLUENCES OF EMOTION. 523 be detached in practical working from the influence of the feelings in keeping back all incompatible ideas. The two mental processes are different, but both unavoidably work together. Whenever a feeling strongly occupies the mind, the objects in harmony with it are maintained in the view, and a1l others are repelled and ignored. There is a fight between a. emotional excitement and the natural course of the intellectual associations; facts, considerations, and appearances that would arise by virtue of these associations are kept back, and a decision is come to in their absence. It is not that the mind declares that to be a fact, whereof the contradiction is actually before it; it is that, under a one-sided fury, the contradiction that would otherwise come forward remains in oblivion. Emotion tampers with the intellectual trains, as a culprit would fain do with the witnesses in his case, keeping out of the way all that are against him. 18. Whatever cause raises the animal spirits, raises at the same time the confident side of the uncertain future. It is the nature of some constitutions to maintain the high buoyant tone as a prevailing quality through all vicissitudes of events. Physical causes may co-operate or may be in antagonism with this happy disposition: so too with what is termed 'moral' causes, meaning thereby the mental emotions; of which success and failure in enterprises may be mentioned as familiar examples. With regard to matters of experimental or demonstrative certainty, these fluctuations of mental tone are at the lowest point of influence; they neither confirm nor impair our confidence in the refreshing power of food and sleep, or in an arithmetical computation. As we pass from the highest order of certainty, through the stages of probability, down to the depths of total uncertainty, we come more and more under the domination of the physical and moral causes that maintain or destroy the cheerful, buoyant, and happy frame of mind. The man of much knowledge and experience, inured to reflection and to the handling of evidence, with habits of submission to proof, carries his tone of rational conviction a considerable way into the region of probability, 524 BELIEF. reclaiming a larger track from the domain where the feelings of the moment give the cue; but in this, as in other things, there is only an approximation to the absolutely perfect. The soldier in a campaign, cherishing and enjoying life, is unmoved by the probability of being soon cut off. If, in spite of the perils of the field, he still continues to act in every respect as if destined to a good old age, his conviction is purely a quality of his temperament, and will be much less strong at those moments when hunger and fatigue have depressed his frame, or when the sight of dying and dead men has made him tremble with awe. I formerly quoted a happy expression of Arthur Helps, 'where you know nothing, place terrors;' but, given the sanguine, buoyant, and courageous temperament; given youth, spirits, and intoxication; given a career of prosperity and success,-and where you know nothing, you will place high hopes. Under this hypothesis of no positive evidence, elevation of tone and belief of good to come, are the same fact. Where the acquired trust in evidence does not find its way in any degree, belief is the same thing as happy emotion. Ply the resources that sustain the bright class of feelings, and you sustain a man's trust in the favourable view of the unknown; let the system sink down to nervous and mental depression, and hope passes to despondency. 19. IV.-We glance, lastly, at the way that belief is swayed by Activity. We must here distinguish between Spontaneous Activity and Volition. The chief effect of Spontaneity, or rather the disposition to act, which is unequal in different persons, and in the same person at different times, is to constitute a motive or predilection for any course that gives scope for action. Other things being the same, a person in the fulness of active energy has an inclination towards the side that promises an opening for this superabundant force. The same person will make light of difficulties and obstructions. The energetic temperament, as such, is sanguine of success in any active enterprise; and not readily acquiescent in Fabian or dilatory tactics. The bias of this temperament in pronounced cases is INFLUENCES OF THE WILL. 525 quite equal to a first-class emotion, rendering the person. intractable to the arts of counter-persuasion. 20. The power of the Will, properly so-called, is another aspect of the power of the Feelings. It is most pointedly shown in the operation of pleasure and pain, pure and simple; that is, without any emotional characteristics such as distinguish fear, love, or anger. Inasmuch as we move towards what we like, and away from what we dislike, our belief comes under a similar control. No better example can be given of the power of the Will, as representing our likings and dislikings, to shape our creeds, than our being ready to believe in the healthiness of the particular regimen that we are inclined to. Equally strong is the tendency to believe that what is for our own interest is also for the interest of others, and fulfils our duties towards others. The cool pursuit of self-interest amounts to perhaps one-third of the force of an ordinary man's conviction of what is right. The Free-trader and the Protectionist may not merely affect to believe, but believe really, that their own interest is fully coincident with the interest of the entire nation. The class bias makes men sincere believers, and not necessarily hypocrites. Moreover, the Will, as an influence on the Attention, assists in that undue selection of circumstances that creates a prepossession on one side. In this view, however, it is hardly possible to regard as two distinct mental operations, the working of Emotion, as such, and the working of Emotion, as a voluntary motive. The only real difference, in this respect, between Emotion and Will, is the difference between impas-v sioned states and the cool estimate of pleasure and pain; the first we term an emotional bias, strictly so-called, the second a volitional bias. In extreme cases, they will readily be distinguished; while in ordinary cases, as love or hatred, the control of the belief is not sensibly greater than the motive power as pleasure or as pain. All that is said of Will applies to that modification of it named Desire. We are disposed to believe in the attainment of whatever we strongly desire; a tendency that is heightened 526 BELIEF. by the sanguine temperament, and may be neutralized or reversed by mental depression. Our ambitious longings as regards our future career carry with them a certain amount of conviction, so long as we are ignorant of the realities of things. Desire and temperament supply the dashing adventurer with what he is pleased to call his 'star'. 21. Reverting to our original position respecting Belief-as innate credulity tempered by checks-we can easily understand how the Feelings and the Activities may either palliate or exaggerate the bearing of these checks upon the mental tone. For example, cheerful emotion readily obliterates the pains of being thwarted in an agreeable expectation; a melancholy tone aggravates the impression, rendering it more influential in disintegrating the primary belief. Contradictions have a very light effect upon the sanguine and emotional mind; they press most severely upon a mind little buoyant and unable to afford the risks of bad calculation. A certain neutrality or medium frame can be imagined, wherein the influence of hostile shocks would be valued aright; in which condition the intellect would make a cold computation of probabilities, and the resulting conviction and conduct would be in the highest degree rational. Some such neutral condition is necessary before we can decide any portion of the question-Is Society improving steadily or the reverse? In like manner, Activity carries us over the discouragement of checks; the unmuscular or fatigued pedestrian easily loses faith in his course, under the appearance of barriers; not so his energetic companion. It is needless to repeat the same strain of remarks for Will and Desire. 22. In our views as to the World, in our scientific theories and maxims of evidence, all these different agencies are at work. The most interesting, and least generally admitted source, is what we have called the primitive credulity-the assumption that the uncontradicted is true. Many striking examples could be given on this head. Our belief in Cause PERVERTED VIEWS OF THE WORLD. 527 and Effect, or in the Uniformity of Nature, is far beyond our experience. For not only do we affirm that every effect has a cause, but that every effect mnusthave a cause. Again, starting from our first experiences of action, as following on our own will, we affirm that all movement and force originates and must originate in mind; in which conclusion the primitive tendency is supported by certain factitious associations of the superior dignity of mind. A curious example of belief reposing upon absence of contradiction is seen in the maxim of Sufficient Reason, employed as a basis of proof in science. The first principle of Probability affords a similar case. Speaking of the authorship of the Eudemian books of Aristotle's Ethics, Sir A. Grant remarks, 'there is no really strong argument in favour of attributing these books to the direct authorship of Aristotle, beyond a habit of belief which has depended on the question never being mooted '. When James Mill represented Belief as the offspring of 'inseparable association ', he put the stress upon the wrong point. If two things have been incessantly conjoined in our experience, they are inseparably associated, and we believe that the one will be followed by the other; but the inseparable association follows the number of repetitions, the belief follows the absence of contradiction. We have a stronger mental association between 'Diana of the Ephesians ' and the epithet ' great ', than probably existed in the minds of Diana's own worshippers; yet they believed in the assertion, and we do not. It is from primitive credulity, and not from any of the other agencies of belief, that we constitute ourselves the measure and standard of other people, as regards everything; extending the hie et nune to the ubique et semper. This is a very powerful belief, but its source is human weakness and not human strength. It has to be assailed and fought at every step, and only in the wisest of mankind, if in any one, is it ever entirely conquered. The Feelings have very little to do with it, unless, perhaps, something were to be put down to love of ease, and something also to pride. 23. As regards our reception of particular doctrines that 528 BELIEF. may be wanting in demonstrative certainty, besides the working of the primitive credulity (shown chiefly in our believing implicitly what has been often iterated and little contradicted), the emotions and self-interest exercise a commanding sway. In the Idola of Bacon, the prompting of Emotion is conspicuous. The excessive predilection for Unity and Simplicity, which has so often influenced philosophical theories, points quite as much to our primary instinct as to our emotions. To make one rule and one idea prevail everywhere, exactly chimes in with the credulous impulses, while it saves us intellectual labour, which is in itself a strong temptation to it. Among the forms of bias arising through the Feelings, is the proneness to conceive lofty ideals of the world, and to expect them to be fulfilled. Nobody willingly acquiesces in low, narrow, penurious estimates of things. Mankind are notoriously susceptible to glittering promises. Any chance of bettering our condition is for the moment embraced; minds not well fortified by knowledge of the realities of things are sure at one time or other to be victimized by delusive enterprises. Perhaps the most powerful of the agents that habitually pervert our views of the world are the two now mentionedthe primary credulity in conjunction with intellectual feebleness and love of ease, and the desire to make things better than they are. These influences are universal and omnipresent. Next to them are the emotions of Sociability and Personality, that is to say, Love, Admiration, Reverence; Hatred, Dislike, Antipathy; Power, Vanity, Self-importance. The operation of these is apparent at a glance. The emotion of Fear is a great power in belief, but not as a primary motive, like love or self-interest. It is an influence that adds to the weight of whatever depresses the tone and debilitates the energies. There must be some other evil to commence with; some suffering, privation, loss, or infliction. The co-operation of Terror doubles or triples the efficacy in unhinging, depressing, and enfeebling the mental THE SUPERNATURAL. 529 energies, destroying the belief in good, aggravating the belief in evil. 24. The belief in the Supernatural would seem the most inexplicable of all. We might naturally suppose that the feeble intellect of the inferior races would be narrow, matterof-fact, and prosaic; and would rebel against the notion of a river god, or an invisible being. There is seemingly a great deal to get over in confounding a blast of wind with a dead man. The obvious fact is that a man dies; that in this fact is involved loss of all bodily power, inability to eat or drink, and rapid decay with offensive putridity. Yet food and arms are consigned with the corpse to the tomb, in the belief that both will be used, and that the dead man can still put forth living powers. Now, if any one were to start such a notion suddenly, he would be placed in confinement as a lunatic; the lower the state of civilization, the more intolerable would be the suggestion, and the more summary the fate of the proposer. Yet whole races of men, neither insane, nor extraordinarily gifted with imagination, have held such beliefs. The fact is, however, that such positions could not have been taken up at once: they are the last stage of a long series of growths; each being explicable on some of the ordinary laws of the growth of belief. Judging from the experience of human progress, which shows that any one step is ordinarily due to a man of superior mentalaa. h, we may conjecture that the way to the full-formed supernatural was led by individual minds unusually susceptible to the illusion required at each stage; while the condition of success was that too much should not be proposed at once. Moreover, an adequate starting point had to be furnished, in what is now regarded as the ori~n of the conception of Spirit, namely, the Dream or Apparition, in conjunction with the Shadow. Irrational as may be the attributing of mind to the inanimate world, the primitive mind seems to have been led to it step by step, through an almost unavoidable interpretation of Dreams. 25. The every-day cases of Delusion and Illusion are attended with some extraordinary disturbance of the mind's 34 530 BELIEF. balance, whereby one suggestion stands forth dominant for want of a counterpoise. We have already seen by what means an idea may be raised to the force of the sensation or actuality, how one side may obtain an overpowering representation by keeping the other entirely out of sight, Insanity, somnambulism, mesmerism, are the abnormal modes; while dreaming is so familiar as to seem natural and easy. 26. HoPE is the well-known name for belief in some contingent future bringing good. Whatever object intensely pleases us, is thought of by us; and if the mere idea is not all-satisfying, the reality is desired. There may be as yet nothing of the nature of a conviction. When an event happens to place this object within reach,, so that we have only to put forth some effort of our own to attain it, or to wait a certain time, at the lapse of which we shall possess it, the state of belief is generated. We then make the effort with the same ardour as we perform any voluntary act under immediate realization of the end, and we already enjoy in foretaste the full fruition. The hard-worked official, with no prospect of liberation, has an occasional gloomy satisfaction in merely conceiving a holiday. He may allow himself to fall into the state of desire with imaginary gratification, and rehearse to himself all the delights that he would follow out if he had the reality. But let him be told by authority, that on the execution of a certain task he shall obtain a release, he, believing this declaration, proceeds to the work with the alacrity of person gaining at every moment the very sensations of the future. Or let him be told simply that on a certain day he shall be set free, and instantly the ideal picture brightens, and he feels already as if he had begun to realize what he has just been imagining. If, instead of a promise on good authority, he has but a surmise with some probability, he makes only a small progress towards the elated tone of full realization. The value of belief, as Hope, is tested simply by the elation of the mental tone; it is a pleasure-giving agency, and nothing more. Hence any cause of pleasure occurring at the HOPE. 531 moment conspires with the state of hope to increase the happy emotion. We may then say that our belief has been augmented, and in one sense this is true; but the real fact is that our pleasure has been augmented. The only unambiguous contribution to the state of Hope, in its proper character, is by the working of some of the other sources of belief, for example, intellectual causes-such as new matters of fact, fresh testimony, or greater impressiveness given to the favourable side of the case. A purely intellectual communication may, as affecting belief, have the greatest emotional consequences. When an epidemic disorder has broken out, the evidence for or against its being directly contagious, when brought before a mind habituated to scientific evidence, is a power to quiet apprehensions, totally different from those accidental influences that cheer or depress the spirits. 27. The antithesis of Hope is, not Fear, but DESPONDENCY; of which the highest degree is Despair. This is belief, as applied to coming evil. It is painful to think of misery or calamity; the pain increasing with the strength of the conception. This merely exemplifies Ideal Emotion. When such misery is in store for us, and sure in its approach, the ideal representation assumes a new character; the suffering is immensely increased, and there may or may notbe the accompaniment of the emotion of Fear, properly so called. Less than a full assurance is an alleviation; and, in this case, the suffering may be very much affected by extraneous causes. Any cheering influences would be said to diminish the force of the belief, because it lightened the pressure of the misery. But an influence more strictly operative upon the state of belief, would be sure evidence of fact or reasoning to show that the calamity, after all, would not, or might not overtake us. A litigant mournfully anticipates the loss of.his suit: his feeling, however, fluctuates at different times of the day, according as his spirits may be affected by other causes. But the discovery of a document, or of a.witness, that tells in his favour, changes his state of belief, irrespective of all emotional causes, and dispels at once his miserable apprehensions. 532 BELIEF. 28. FAITH, in the religious sense, is mainly supplied from the fountains of human feeling, and, in point of fact, is cherished as itself a mode of consoling, cheering, alrd elating emotion. Direct experience can have but little to do with the subject-matter of spiritual essences. Testimony, and the accordance of fellow-beings, may go far to stir up the state of confidence in a present, presiding, and benignant Deity, and in a state of future blessedness. Nevertheless, the culture of strong feelings and affections must ever be the main instrumentality in gaining the comfort of such assurances. It was said by Jeremy Taylor, 'Believe and you shall love'; he should have said rather, 'Love and you shall believe'; or, still better, 'learn to love, and you will learn to believe'. Religious truth cannot, therefore, be imparted, as has sometimes been supposed, by an intellectual medium of verbal exposition and theological demonstration. Being an affair of the feelings, a method must be sought adapted to heighten the intensity of these. Still, we must make some allowance for a man thoroughly practised in metaphysical and other reasonings, and fully convinced of his conclusions on their intellectual grounds. Doubtless, Aquinas, Calvin, and Butler, had a considerable amount of comfort from their intellectual convictions, apart altogether from their emotional culture, in which probably they were much below many Christians that could give no reason at all for the faith that is in them. As in other things, the belief here also may refer to the side of evil, and consist in realizing strongly the threatenings of future misery. The terms 'faith' and 'believer,' are commonly used to express the comforting aspect of religion, but the fact of belief is as much exemplified-in the opposite side. The strongest conviction there, is what casts on the mind the deepest gloom. 29. The chief metaphysical subtlety connected with the subject is the nature of Belief in Memory. How do we distinguish between an idea that represents a former fact or actuality, and an idea that is pure imagination, and corre BELIEF IN MEMORY. 533 sponds to no fact? I believe that I have been in St. Paul's, I can imagine being in St. Peter's, but do not believe that I have been there. In a note to the new edition of James Mill's 'Analysis', I followed very closely the author's explanation of this difference, and am satisfied with that explanation. On the other hand, John Stuart Mill, in his note on the same subject, affirms that the difference between Memory and Imagination is inexplicable. There are three things that the mind, in normal states, never fails to distinguish-(1) a Sensation, (2) an Idea of what has been a sensation or actuality, and (3) an Idea of what has never been a sensation, but is artificial, though constructed out of sensations. It requires an extraordinary degree of excitement to confound the first and the second-the Sensation with its Idea or remembrance; it is not so unusual to confound the second and the third. The differences between the Sensation and the Idea are, I should think, sufficiently numerous and strong; in the concluding chapter (CONscIousNESS) they are given at some length; and I am disposed to assign these as sufficient grounds for keeping them distinct. But Mill (J. S.) thinks the two must somehow be felt to be distinct, apart from all the assignable differences, and indeed as a preliminary to taking on these differences. And, undoubtedly, he detects his father's inconsistency in defining sensations by their being related to sensations, and finds flaws in his modes of laying out other differences. It seems to me, however, that if we take account of all the powerful contrasts between the Sensation and the Idea, we shall have an amount of difference that dispenses entirely with an inexplicable residuum such as John Stuart Mill contends for. Moreover, I should say that, supposing these assignable differences wanting in any case, there would be nothing to prevent the two from being confounded; and these differences, being present, are in themselves of such overpowering amount as not to be susceptible of any apparent increase from an ultimate sensibility. The number and the intensity of the con 534 BELIEF. trasts between the sensation and the idea constitute the great distinction between the Object and the Subject, which is the broadest distinction known to the human intelligence. The difference between an idea of a past sensation, and an idea not representing a sensation-between Memory and Imagination-is much smaller and more open to confusion. If there be an ultimate inexplicable distinction here, it often fails to assert itself; for we do, not unfrequently, confound the two. The remark made in reply to an innate moral sense, namely, that its voice is too feeble to assert itself when it is most wanted, is applicable here also; for in the absence of the explicable differences between a recollection and an imagination the inexplicable difference is to all intents mute. The principal distinction between Memory and Imagination lies in the setting of the respective ideas. Ideas of Memory have a place in the continuous chain of our remembered life: ideas of Imagination correspond to nothing in that chain; or rather, they are consciously combined from different ideas of Memory taken out of their Memory-setting, and aggregated under a special motive. The unbroken continuity of our mental life holds together the past and the present in a sequence that we term Order in Time. Yesterday's events are remembered as a past reality, from their contiguity to the present reality. Our life is made up of present experiences constantly becoming past experiences, in which character they assume certain points of difference from the present, while retaining a large amount of similarity. These perpetuated experiences impress us with the characters of remembered states; we know what the memory of the recent is, and we know what changes arise as the recent becomes more and more remote. We are thus well familiarized with the peculiarities of our past life as remembered; which peculiarities seem to be the setting in the order of time, and in the fulness of a concrete experience. Until memory so far fades as to permit its being confounded with Imagination, a remembered scene or incident has its place in the chronology of our life, and has a large abundance of collateral SULLY'S VIEW OF BELIEF. 535 associates. My being in St. Paul's is a fact with a date or position in my remembered history; it is associated with the full concrete setting of the interior of London. The best imagination that I could form of the interior of St. Peter's would not find a place in my history; and that imagination, laboriously got up, would not carry with it local surroundings. I do not urge as a primary and essential difference the superior vivacity and ease of the ideas of memory, although that is well marked in ordinary circumstances, while on extraordinary occasions it is capable of being overcome. When the feebleness of age or disease affects the continuous memory of the past, and reduces the concrete fulness to mere scraps and detached glimpses, there is nothing to save us from mistaking imagination for memory. Old men often confidently affirm as experienced facts what they merely imagine.* By the loss of cohesiveness, the checks are removed, and no recondite or inexplicable virtue of Memory saves us from delusion, when long past events cease to cohere in the recollection. 30. In Mr. Sully's remarkably searching and exhaustive discussion of Belief, in his volume of Psychological Essays, the essential nature of the state is referred to the subtle transition from a sensation to an idea. In belief, there is, he says, 'the reproduction of a past sensation by the medium of a present idea felt to be like it'; in other words, an idea (of memory) has an innate efficacy to refer us to a past sensation. 'The present idea distinguished from the absent sensation gives the state of belief that the absent was once present'; there is something in the idea that is different from the sensation, but yet the resemblance and the difference combined point to a sensation as the origin or forerunner of the idea. ' A present idea carries on its face the mark of its origin', by means of the similarity under a certain admitted diversity: * A late distinguished man, who lived to a great age, some time before his death, positively declared that he had seen Mirabeau in London; although the known facts of Mirabeau's history were entirely against him. 536 BELIEF. an idea of imagination has not the same likeness in the midst of unlikeness, as an idea of memory. Farther, 'it is the inherent tendency of a present idea to approximate in character and intensity to the sensation that it sprang from'; it being a question of power in the nervous currents, on the one hand, and of the cessation of competing actualities on the other. 'Vivid ideas are mistaken for real impressions'; provided they can be expanded and intensified, and are not brought into comparison with real impressions. 'There is a constant striving in the idea to simulate the forms of the sensation, checked by a recognition of the difference'; a compromise is struck, the idea is regarded as not now real, but as having been real, or as about to become real. Very 'vivid ideas are mistaken for real impressions'; less vivid ideas portend a near and coming reality; anything that very much heightens the force of an idea that expresses something future, increases the belief or anticipation of that future; the sight of food greatly intensifies the assurance that hunger will soon be satisfied. Mr. Sully urges, against the view promulgated by me, that Belief is purely an incident of our activity-spontaneous and voluntary; and points out what I deem valid objections to that way of putting the case. The mere spontaneity may be accompanied with belief, or it may not; there may be a disposition to believe or to anticipate, in moments of pure quiescence, although Mr. Sully admits that the spontaneous and voluntary action qualifies the force of our belief. In referring belief to our Activity, I have always included in the statement a reference to what I call primitive credulity, which, however expressed, I still account the first germ and perennial substance of the state. I have here regarded belief as a primitive disposition to follow out any sequence that has once been experienced, and to expect the result. It is thus an incident of our intellectual constitution; for it first shalpes and forecasts the order of the world, and then proceeds upon that, till a check occurs. With the mental conception of a sequence experienced, there is involved BELIEF IMPLICATES SEQUENCES. 537 the assumption that what the past has been the future will be. We may if we please, call it an impotence of thought; for, without some positive interference from without, there is no other way of doing or thinking. It is not made up, in the first instance, by either activity or emotion, but is largely magnified by both. There is nothing incompatible with this view in Mr. Sully's exposition; in fact, he is obliged to assume it, although he does not give any explicit statement of it. The general strain of his exposition is a dwelling upon all those causes that modify the force of our ideas so as to give them greater power to induce conviction. In following out this, he presents a series of most instructive examples, showing how belief is affected by the intellectual associates, the emotions, and the activities. Starting from his primary position, he proceeds by a direct route to the explanation of illusory beliefs, which consist in doing away with the distinction between the sensation and the idea. I do not consider that Mr. Sully's handling brings into full prominence the circumstance that belief essentially implicates the sequences of nature, or the order of the world. His key-note is that the present idea (of memory) was once a sensation. This is true, but not the entire truth. The sensation supposed should be more fully stated as a sequence. I have now the idea that water would alleviate my thirst; I trace that idea back to a sensation, or repetition of sensations, made up of the sequence of the state of thirst and of its alleviation by water. There is the greatest relevance in enquiring whether an idea points us back to a sensation or not; for if it does not, we are in a totally different position as to belief in the future; but there is no case for belief, unless the subject matter of the idea and the sensation is some sequence. As his exposition advances, Mr. Sully necessarily finds that the order of nature is the correlative of belief; and he has to deal with the difference between memory of the past, with the anticipation of the same in the future, and memory, without this anticipation. As a matter of course, he falls into the 538 BELIEF. only explanation-the occurrence of checks or disappoint.ment. I cannot too strongly recommend the careful study of this essay to whoever is interested, whether from theoretical or from practical motives, in the great questions mixed up with the origin and consolidation of our beliefs. CONSCIOUSNESS. 1. I HAVE reserved for a closing dissertation the subject of Consciousness, as a whole, being of opinion that the subtleties and complications involved in it demand, as a preparation, a survey of the detailed phenomena of the mind. I assumed at the outset a provisional definition; but it would have been inexpedient, at so early a stage, to enter into a discussion of the various problems of deep importance that have been suspended upon that term. As a preface to the systematic exposition of the subject, let me first gather together the various acceptations of the word in current speech. A scientific definition is not to be controlled by unscientific usage; but at the same time we must, for the sake of being intelligible, keep as closely as we can to the meanings that have obtained currency. We want to make those meanings precise, so far as that is possible; where that is not possible, we may then have to adopt a new phraseology. First. Consciousness is a term for the waking, living mind as distinguished from dreamless sleep, fainting, insensibility, stupor, anoesthesia, death. The total cessation of every mental energy is expressed by unconsciousness, among other phrases. In reviving or becoming awake to sensation, emotion, idea, or voluntary action, we are said to become again conscious. The term is thus identified with the whole range of functions included under mind.* * 'The meaning of a word is sometimes best attained by means of the word opposed to it. Unconsciousness, that is, the want or absence of consciousness, denotes the suspension of all our faculties. Consciousness, then, is the state in which we are when all or any of our faculties are in exercise. It is the condition or accompaniment of every mental operation.'-Professor Fleming's 'Vocabulary of Philosophy', Art. 'Consciousness.' The concluding sentence quoted is not in harmony with those preceding. 540 CONSCIOUSNESS. Second. Our feelings of pain and pleasure are recognized more especially as modes of consciousness. If we are unconscious, there is a complete negation both of the one state and of the other. There are some operations truly mental, that may be performed while we are affirmed to be unconscious of them; but unconsciousness utterly excludes pain and pleasure. Pain is perhaps the most intense and decided manifestation of consciousness. According to the degree of either pain or pleasure, is the degree of feeling or consciousness. When we are strongly excited about a thing, without reference to pleasure or pain, we may be described as in a highly conscious condition. The mental function is, for the time being, exalted into unusual energy. I am very languid, indifferent, or sleepy, over a task, or in presence of a spectacle; another person is animated, excited, roused: I am declared to be scarcely conscious, half asleep, or the like; the other is regarded as more than ordinarly alive, awake, conscious. The meanings now given-namely, pain, pleasure, and excitement generally-correspond to the mental department of Feeling. Third. Attending, observing, noticing, in opposition to passing by unheeded, is often characterized by the name consciousness. The clock strikes, and a person sitting near is not aware of it. I survey the objects in a room, but it afterwards appears that several things, whose picture must have fallen on my retina, have not been recognized by me. It is common to class these facts under the unconscious. They and their opposites, are, however, still better described by the other terms-inattentive and attentive, observant, noticing, and the like. With reference to the special senses, we might say that we do, or do not, hear, see, &c.; or that we do not perceive the effect, or object, in question. Fourth. The taking note of difference or agreement among things. People often say they are not conscious of a distinction We cannot properly describe as the condition or as the accompaniment of a thing what is the thing itself, conceived and denominated in its highest generality. MEANINGS OF THE TERM. 541 between two tints, two sounds, two sizes, two persons, &c. So we may be unconscious of agreement, or similarity, in two things that are like. This meaning can be otherwise expressed by saying that the difference or agreement is not felt or perceived, that it does not strike us, and so on. An increase of knowledge respecting a matter is not uncommonly described by the tei'm before us. Some one tells us that he remembers in former days having periods of bodily and mental depression, of whose cause he was then unconscious, but he has found out since that the effect was due to the east wind. Fifth. A passive, contemplative, dreaming, indolent existence, as contrasted with the active pursuit of some outward and tangible object, is spoken of as an over-conscious life. I have already had occasion to remark, that the attitude of objectivity suspends or arrests, to a certain degree, the stream of feelings and thoughts, having thereby an anaesthetic tendency. More particularly, the absence of aim leaves the mind a prey to its own inward activity, or occupation with mere ideas, apart from present sensations or actualities. Sixth. Consciousness is put in opposition to latent trains of thought, and to actions that by habit become so mechanical as to be comparable to our reflex movements. A rapid intellect, unaccustomed to note the succession of its own thoughts, arrives at remote results, without being able to reproduce the intermediate stages. Something of this kind is attributed to Newton, who, in the demonstrations of the Principia, leaves wide gaps to be supplied by the mind of the reader. It is thought doubtful if he would have been able himself to quote the intermediate reasonings, unless by an express effort of study. In that last consummation of the acquired habits, when a person can carry on an operation while the mind is engrossed with something else, we not unfrequently say that the performance is nearly, if not entirely, unconscious. At all events, wide is the distinction between the state of the beginner, whose whole mind is painfully concentrated upon his first lessons, and the experienced workman 542 CONSCIOUSNESS. whose mind is almost entirely at his disposal for other things. The change may be represented as a transition from intense consciousness to something not far off from total unconsciousness. Compare the child's earliest attempts at a sum, with the arithmetical processes of an experienced accountant. Seventh. One man acts out spontaneous and unthinking imrpulses, careless and heedless of the result, or of the manner of acting, while another is anxious both as to the result and as to the manner. The difference is described as a less or a greater degree of consciousness. If I fire a shot at random, not troubling myself where the ball is to strike, I exemplify the quality in its faint degree. If I have a mark before my eyes, and gaze steadily upon that with intent to strike it, I may be said to be more conscious. If, in addition, I have in my mind certain rules or directions for the attitude I am to assume, and the manner of holding my gun, so as to be observant of my own motions and postures, I am then most conscious of all. It is a practice of some writers to lavish great praise upon actions unencumbered with the thinking of rules, models, or guidance, in the manner of them; and, in styling this last accompaniment 'being conscious,' they imply a reproach. Nobody denies that it is better if one can work without burdening the attention with the consideration of rules; the only question is what is requisite to have the work well done. The usual course is obviously that mentioned in the foregoing paragraph,-beginning in one predicament, and ending in the other; and, to stigmatize a recruit at his first day's drill, because he is intensely conscious, is mere absurdity. There is another case where consciousness is a disturbing element in the mental processes. When performing a very delicate operation involving complex adjustments of the organs, any excitement occurring at the moment is apt to induce failure. There is nothing in this but the withdrawal of nervous pressure from the organs that have to be stimulated and adjusted. In crossing a chasm on a narrow plank, it is MEANINGS. 543 best lo look at the far end, and not to think of our steps; these are more correctly adjusted by trusting to previous habits, than by studying them at the moment. Eighth. It is a variety of the foregoing idea when self-examination as to one's motives, merits, guilt, or innocence, is designated consciousness. A man not only acts, but institutes a study of his actions and motives, by comparing them with such and such examples, standards, or rules. We now approach, however, more and more closely to the most special acceptation of the term, namely, the occupation of the mind. with oneself as a subject of consideration or study. Ninth. The indulgence of the emotions that have self for their object is a case for the employment of the same word. The state of self-complacency, or the opposite, the thinking of how we appear in the eyes of others, the hunting for approbation, the mixing up with an operation the view of our own demeanour or merit in it,-are being conscious, in one prevalent meaning of the word. A person little given to any one of these emotions, not entertaining them as ends or intruding them into the common business of life, is occasionally described as little conscious. Tenth. The three last meanings bring me to the definition of consciousness that has been adopted by many of the writers on the human mind. Let me quote from Dugald Stewart. This word denotes the immediate knozuledge which the mind has of its sensations and thoughts, and, in general, of all its present operations.' (See Fleming's ' Vocabulary of Philosophy' for a number of quotations to the same effect). The study of the human mind is thus said to be an affair of consciousness; implying that the study of the external world does not involve the same property. Eleventh. Certain of our beliefs, termed intuitive, are said to be grounded on our consciousness. This also is a signification peculiar to the science of the human mind, and to the metaphysical doctrines mixed up with it. Here, however, there is clearly a step in advance upon the definition last quoted; for the mere cognition of our own mental processes 544 CONSCIOUSNESS. does not contain the knowledge involved in those intuitive judgments. When Stewart says-' The changes which I perceive in the universe impress me with a conviction that some cause must have operated to produce them. Here is an intuitive judgment involving the simple idea of causation '-he points to something beyond the mere study of the mental operations. It is impossible, by never so much attention to the phenomena of my own mind, to gather information as to the order of events in the so-called external universe. The best that we can hope for, is to attain a thorough knowledge of our own mental life. It is, therefore, something new and distinct to say that consciousness affirms such a judgment as that now quoted. Twelfth. It is a natural transition from' the foregoing to attach the meaning of belief generally to the word consciousness. A strong affirmation is now and then expressed by the phrase 'being conscious of so and so'% It is the instinctive tendency of our nature to believe a number of things, before we have gone through any large teachings of experience. The believing function is thus a prominent attribute of mental activity. We are scarcely able to feel or to act without the operation of belief, or without making assumptions in anticipation of the reality. We believe first, and prove or disapprove afterwards. Far from denying intuitive judgments and assertions to be an original and spontaneous emanation of the mind, I admit that the mind generates them in great profusion; I only refuse to them validity, certainty, or authority, in the absence of good positive evidence. Thirteenth. Lastly, memory is occasionally denoted by the term in question. We say, when we do not remember something that has happened, we are not conscious of its having taken place. The connection of the two meanings is an explicable one, for, in order to an abiding and future impression of an object, it is necessary that the first impression should be distinctly conscious, or should fully engross the waking mind for a certain time. If a sound falls unheeded PERVADING ACCEPTATION OF THE WORD. 545 upon my ear, it is only the natural consequence that I should not afterwards possess an idea of it. What I remember vividly in after times are those things that have, in their original shock, excited and engrossed me for a considerable period to the exclusion of other things. 2. Such is a tolerably complete enumeration of the significations attached to the name. There is a general drift or tendency common to them all. Nevertheless, we may class them under distinct heads, inasmuch as there are one or two very decided departures from what is evidently the primitive and radical signification. I. The capital and pervading idea is the one that we commenced with; of which those that follow as far as the seventh, with the exception of the fifth, are mere ramifications. The word consciousness is identical with mental life, and its various energies, as distinguished from the mere vegetable functions, and the condition of sleep, torpor, insensibility, &c. Anything that renders the mental activity more intense (such as feelings of pain and pleasure, mental engrossment with a subject, rapid flow of imagery and ideas) is designated by the positive term; the absence, or the lower shades, are expressed by the negative, by unconsciousness. The actof attending, as against listlessness, is simply a more intense exercise of the mental functions. Even that more peculiar signification-the observation of rules, examples, &c., in contradistinction to mere unthinking impulse, is really a branch of the same meaning, as implicating a larger amount of mental activity in the case; the more the considerations I bring to bear upon a particular action, the more conscious may I be said to be. My mind is wakened up in a greater number of directions; the brain is more heavily taxed, and the ideas that remain will be all the more vivid. Consciousness is thus co-extensive with mental life, and is stated more or less strongly as that life is considered to rise or to fall in degree. II. There are certain of the meanings (5, 8, 9, 10) that point to the occupation of the mind with itself, in contrast to its being occupied with the object world. The relation of this 35 546 CONSCIOUSNESS. to the principal signification is not difficult to explain. We have formerly had occasion, more especially with reference to Pursuit and Plot interest, to advert to the anoesthetic character of the object regards. It is in the remission of those regards, that feeling, and other states of the ego, attain their full development. Even Pleasure and Pain are in abeyance during a moment of intense objectivity, as in aiming a blow or in watching a race. A nice question is thereupon suggestedAre we conscious in any shape when engaged exclusively upon the object world? It seems to me that we are, and I designate this the object-consciousness, to distinguish it from the elements of the subject-consciousness. CONSCIOUSNESS, AS FEELING. 1. The Passive States. 3. That we are conscious when under Pleasure or Pain is admitted on all hands. These are our states of feeling, by pre-eminence. I have always contended, in addition, for the existence of states of Neutral excitement; where we are mentally alive, and, it may be, to an intense degree. Perhaps the best example of these is the excitement of a surprise. There are pleasurable, and also painful, surprises, but there are many that are neither; and yet they are genuine emotions. And even our emotions that have pleasure or pain for their usual character, often pass into neutral phases, without disappearing, or ceasing to operate as mental excitement. I may be under an attack of fear, and something may occur that takes away the painful part of the state, but I am not. thereby restored to the quiescent indifference that preceded the shock. So our moments of pleasurable elation very often lose the element of delight, long before the system subsides into the condition of perfect calm. We feel mentally alive on all those occasions, but neither enjoy nor suffer. Again, neutral excitement has its emotional wave, or diffusion, as much as the other kinds. The shock of a surprise causes an animated expression and stir of movements and PROPERTIES OF NEUTRAL EXCITEMENT. 547 gestures, which are very much the same whether we are pleased or otherwise. When the tremor of a great excitement is thoroughly roused, the system continues to be agitated with it for a long time, no matter whether we like it or not. The inward or conscious condition is allied with the corresponding outward embodiment, and the two are sustained together. Whence, the physical characters or expression, which are the natural accompaniment of an emotional wave, show themselves in connexion with the neutral, as well as with the pleasing, or the painful. Next it. is to be noted that, as regards the occupying of the mind, to the shutting out of other states, the neutral sort of excitement avails quite as much as pain or pleasure. Under any kind of stimulation we are mentally roused and engrossed, and so much the less open to subsequent impressions. A stimulation, in itself indifferent as regards enjoyment, may indirectly contribute to our pleasure by displacing a painful mode of occupation, and, on the other hand, it may prevent our falling under a real pleasure. The mind can thus be taken up with what is neither agreeable nor disagreeable, and it may be a matter of difficulty to find room for any object possessing one or other of these qualities. 4. Further, the wave of neutral excitement has an efficacy as regards the intellect, which should by no means be omitted as a positive characteristic. It is not merely pleasure and pain that keep the mind alive to intellectual impressions, and that deepen the stamp of them for after times; the state now before us has the very same power. An object that can strike us with surprise seizes hold of our mind, to the exclusion of other objects. To rouse the attention to a particular thing does not imply necessarily either suffering or delight, but merely a degree of mental animation. The astronomer, Tycho, walking out one evening, came upon a group of persons gazing on a new star. They were arrested and detained under the emotion of surprise; they could not quit the thing that had so powerfully wakened their attention. We cannot say whether they were pained or pleased; they may have 548 CONSCIOUSNESS. passed through moments of both the one condition and the other. Such moments, however, would be accidental to the occasion; what was essential was the excited detention of the gaze, resulting in a proportionate depth of enduring impression of the object that gave the surprise. All through life the remembrance of that night would probably be fresh. Without either sensibly adding to their happiness, or causing them misery, the new star would occasionally recur to their recollection, and occupy the mental trains and determine the mental attitude for a certain time, as did the original on the night it first broke up on their view. They might rise to the pleasurable pitch of the state of wonder, or they might experience some of the pains of terror; but, without either, there would be an emotion aroused, and an idea engrained. 2. The Active States. 5. I have frequently spoken of the consciousness of energy put forth as the basis of the objective attitude, the medium of cognizing Extension, Force, and the other attributes of the so-called External World. This does not involve pleasure or pain; there may be pleasures and pains of exercise, but the mind, when given up to these, has lapsed into a purely subject condition. It is a kind of neutral excitement, having for its speciality the feeling of degrees of expended energy; to which is added, in the cognition of the Extended Universe, a vast range of associations of potential or possible energy. THE INTELLECTUAL CONSCIOUSNESS.* 6. The gravamen of the present subject centres in the intellectual aspect of consciousness. There is a great transition *The Volitional Consciousness. It miaht be expected, on some show of plausibility, that a characteristic form of consciousness should attach to Volition, as well as to the two other departments of mind, where a marked antithesis exists. It is not so, however. The modes of consciousness growing up in the course of voluntary action are fully described as either emotional or intellectual. We have, in the first place, all the pleasures and pains connected with the exercise of the active organs, witli the pursuit of ends, with desire, DISCRIMINATION FUNDAMENTAL. 549 made in passing from the emotional to the intellectual; and no small difficulty is experienced in determining, on the one hand, the common groundwork, and, on the other, the special peculiarities of the two. As suggested by Sir William Hamilton, there is often an inverse relationship, or mutual exclusion, of one by the other. We are mentally alive when engaged in intellectual operations, and yet, as regards pleasure or pain, we may be in a state of indifference. What is there, then, that can be a common foundation of two mental modes whose extreme manifestations diverge to opposite poles? At what point do the two pass into each other, supposing them to shade gradually; or, where is the abrupt separation, on the contrary supposition? The bridge is to be found in property of neutral excitement just explained. Sense of Difference. 7. As more than once expressly stated in former parts of our exposition (INTELLECT, Introduction), the basis or fundamental peculiarity of the intellect is Discrimination, or the feeling of difference between consecutive, or co-existing, impressions. Nothing more fundamental can possibly be assigned as the defining mark of intelligence; and emotion, as such, does not necessarily imply any such property. When I am differently affected by two colours, two sounds, two odours, two weights, or by a taste as compared with a touch or a sound, I am intellectually conscious. By such distinctiveness of feeling am I prepared, in the first instance, for imbibing the various experience that is implied in the term knowledge, and that is essential even to the lowest forms of voluntary action. There need be nothing of the agreeable or the disagreeable in this discriminative sensibility; pleasure and pain and the opposite. There are, further, states of excitement and occupation of mind without either pain or pleasure. Then, again, as to the appreciation of degrees of expended energy, on which is based the sense of weight, resistance, force, extension, rate of movement, &c.; these are varieties of the intellectual consciousness. The states of Deliberation, Resolution, Desire, Belief, in which the volitional impetus is under arrest, are states of ideal exertion. 550 CONSCIOUSNESS. in this connexion are mere accidents, and not essentials. The fact that I am differently affected by blue and red, by the bark of a dog and the crowing of a ceock, may be accompanied with pleasure; but the mental phenomenon is there in all its fulness, in the absence alike of pleasure and of pain. We are awake, alive, mentally alert, under the discriminative exercise, and, accordingly, may be said to be conscious. The point is to connect, if possible, this new mode of consciousness with what is certainly the broad typical form of it represented by emotional states. 8. It is a general law of the mental constitution, more or less recognized by inquirers into the human mind,* that change of impression is essential to consciousness in every form. This is the Law of Relativity, so often alluded to in the present work. There are notable examples to show that one unvarying action upon the senses fails to give any perception whatever. Take the motion of the earth about its axis, and through space, whereby we are whirled with immense velocity, but at a uniform pace, being utterly insensible of the circumstance. So in a ship at sea, we may be under the same insensibility; whereas, in a carriage, we never lose the feeling of being moved. The explanation is obvious. It is the * 'Sense, therefore, properly so called, must necessarily have in it a perpetual variety of phantasms, that they may be discerned one from another. For if we should suppose a man to be made with clear eyes, and all the rest of his organs of sight well-disposed, but endued with no other sense; and that he should look only upon one thing, which is always of the same colour and figure, without the least appearance of variety, he would seem to me, whatsoever others may say, to see, no more than I seem to myself to feel the bones of my own limbs by my organs of feeling; and yet these bones are always and on all sides touched by a most sensible membrane. I might perhaps say he was astonished (?) and looked upon it; but I should not say he saw it; it being almost all one for a mcan to be always sensible of one and the same thing and not to be sensible at all of anything '. 'For seeing the nature of sense consists in motion; as long as the organs are employed about one object, they cannot be so moved by another at the same time, as to make by both their motions one sincere phantasm of each of them at once. And therefore two several phantasms will not be made by two objects working together, but only one phantasm compounded from the action of both '.-Hobbes, 'Elements of Philosophy, Body', Chap. XXV. Sees. 5, 6. LAW OF CHANGE OF IMPRESSION. 551 change from rest to motion that wakens our sensibility, and, conversely, from motion to rest. A uniform condition, as respects either state, is devoid of any quickening influence on the mind. Another illustration is supplied by the pressure of the air on the surface of the body. Here we have an exceedingly powerful effect upon one of the special senses. The skin is uader an influence exactly of that nature that wakens the feeling of touch; but no feeling comes. Withdraw any portion of the pressure, as in mounting in a balloon, and sensibility is developed. A constant impression is thus, to the mind, the same as a blank. Our partial unconsciousness as to our clothing is connected with the constancy of the object. The smallest change at any time makes us sensible, or awake, to the contact. If there were some one sound of unvarying tone, and unremitted continuance, falling on the ear from the first moment of life to the last, we should be as unconscious of the existence of that influence as we are of the pressure of the air. Such a sonorous agency would utterly escape the knowledge of human beings, until, as in the other case, some accident, or some discovery in experimental philosophy, had enabled them to suspend, or to change the degree of, the impression made by it. Except under special circumstances, we are unconscious of our own weight; nevertheless our weight can never be absent. It is thus that agencies might exist without being perceived; remission or change being a primary condition of our sensibility. It might seem somewhat difficult to imagine us altogether insensitive to such an influence as light and colour; and yet if some one hue had been present on the retina from the commencement of life, we should incontestably have been blind, as far as that was concerned. 9. Proceeding, then, upon the principle of change as the condition of consciousness, let us suppose a sudden shock supervening upon unconsciousness; for example, a light bursting out in darkness. The awakening that takes place may be pleasurable, it may be painful, or it may be mere excitement. In any case it is a Feeling; an emotional, rather than an intellectual, state. We may term it a shock, a start, 552 CONSCIOUSNESS. a surprise. There is the diffused wave of physical effects, and there is a mental effect whose characteristics we are familiar with. In this bold transition from the unconscious to the conscious, or from feeble consciousness to such as is intense, there is of course a grand difference of state, and the mind is necessarily aware of the difference; but it does not dwell upon that aspect; the outgoings are purely and properly emotional; the consciousness of difference is in abeyance. Let us next suppose a new transition, sufficiently sharp or sudden to make an impression, but not enough to make a new emotional wave. Viewed as emotion, this would be of no value; as mere variety of state, it might have a value. Whenever consciousness changes, there is the fact of discrimination, whether or not we make any account of it. The question arises-What is it that induces us to put stress upon the act of discriminating, so as to give importance to a transition, change, or start, whose power was not sufficient to create an emotional wave? Fegeigsensation emotion, are the final end of life; to receive the pleasurable, to avoid the painful, to nmalnipulate the neutral. Discrimination, in the case supposed, gives no pleasure. Great transitions are discriminated; but their worth is in their emotional excitement, and not in their discrimination. Small changes that just suffice for being discriminated are in themselves unimportant. In our mature life, the value of discrimination, as such, lies in being the means to ends. When we aim at pleasure indirectly, or by circuitous routes, we need discrimination. Our pleasures come to us through media that require us to exercise the sense of difference; and thus discrimination rises into importance. We have, from the first, the aptitude for discriminating with more or less delicacy, but we do not put it into active operation, till we have to draw distinctions in the course of gaining pleasure or relieving pain. Thus, while the larger differences are emotional, those that are too small for emotion or feeling suffice for intelligence applied to remote ends. EMOTION AND DISCRIMINATION RECIPROCAL. 553 It is not impossible, however, that the same difference that is enough for emotion is also important for discrimination. Doubtless, if the emotion is pleasurable or painful, it will engross us in those characters, and will not allow discrimination, unless under the pressure of a powerful motive. But here lies the value of neutral or indifferent feeling, mere excitement or surprise. Unless very violent, this does not interfere with discrimination; it rather encourages discrimination by its want of other interest. Should there be any useful instrumentality concerned, the mind would readily concentrate itself on the act of distinguishing. Such feeling either is discriminated or it is nothing; it is, for the most part, a barren awakening of the mind. As we apply ourselves to discriminate, the emotional wave subsides, the diffusive manifestations are still, the sense of distinction is in the ascendant. Neutral excitement is thus the transition to the intellectual consciousness. Pleasure and pain are inimical to this consciousness; they assert themselves too strongly; they are the final and dominant interest of life; to them all else is only mediate.* * There is a wide distinction between the first shock of a difference, and the degree of excitement of the same transition at later stages of our education. When red and blue are first seen together, they give a start that fills the mind with an acute thrill of surprise; being to all intents and purposes a wave of emotion. At after times, the same contrast is passed over with a comparatively faint excitement; the discrimination still remaining and serving some purposes in our economy, without rousing any shock of surprise. When red is reduced to the function of acting as a signal to perform one operation, and blue another, the emotional excitement attending their original manifestation fades away to very narrow limits. The effect still occupies the mind, or is a conscious effect, but so feebly and for so short a time as to be next thing to unconscious. It is in this way, that what began as emotion and full consciousness, ends as mere discrimination and virtual indifference. We might never commence the act of discriminating, if we were aL the outset as little excited with the difference of red and blue, as we ultimately become, when we use them as mere distinctive marks or signals in some every-day routine operation; and it is nob fair-in fact, it is an error--to regard this abated and transformed manifestation as the type of primitive sensation. It is one of the effects of habit, easily traceable, to pass from the primordial excitement to the final indifferentism; that indifferentism still retaining the substantiality of discrimination. 554 CONSCIOUSNESS. 10. There is thus an important difference between feeling, as pleasure or pain, and the excitement that stamps intellectual difference. Intense delight absorbs the mental energies, and the chief intellectual consequence is a certain impressive ness lent to the objects that contribute to the state. When feeling is strongly roused in either of the two opposite forms that constitute our happiness and misery, the neutral forms are thrown into the shade. A mere surprise, that has no effect to impress a difference between two feelings, is but coldly entertained at such a time. We must, to a certain extent, both forego delights, and be free from eating cares, in order to dwell largely among the neutral excitements that stamp difference upon the mind. There is thus, upon a common mental basis, a specific difference of kind, amounting to antithesis, between the pleasurable or painful excitement and the intellectual excitement. This conclusion is not founded on any a priori consideration, but on an induction from facts. There is a large experience that cannot be interpreted in any other way. The devotion of the mind to incessant pleasure, and the pressure of misery and care, are wholly adverse to the general cultivation of the intellect,-a cultivation that, in the last resort, reposes on the ready sensibility to difference. The best atmosphere for a high culture is a serene condition of mind, with no more pain than is necessary to stimulate pursuit, and no more pleasure than imparts an inducement to go on with life. The energy of the brain is thus reserved for the neutral stimulation that impresses every kind of difference, and in this way stores the intellect with distinctive images. The maximum of intellectual excellence implies at once a sparing resort to pleasure, and a tolerable exemption from misery.* * While admitting that both pleasure and pain have a certain intellectual efficacy in impressing on us what concerns themselves, as when a man retains a lively impression of a scene that delighted him, simply because of the delight, or of a person that injured him, simply because of the injury, we must also admit that even a neutral excitement may sometimes stand apart from the discriminative sense of change. A stirring novelty may set me off in a fit of surlrise, SIMILARITY A MODE OF DIFFERENCE. 555 Sense of Agreement. 11. The foregoing remarks proceed on the assumption, that a continuous or unbroken impression supplies no element of the consciousness, and that change, novelty, variety, are what incite the mental being into wakeful manifestation. There are, nevertheless, cases where Agreement imparts the shock requisite for rousing the intellectual wave. It is, however, agreement in a qualified sense, indeed, so qualified as to be really a mode of difference. We have seen at large, in the exposition of the Law of Similarity, that the discovery of identity comes upon the mind with a flash or shock, of the nature of surprise; but the identity in such cases must be surrounded with diversity. It gives no surprise to waken every morning, and see the same objects in the same positions, but it does surprise us to go away into a distant place, where everything is altered and where we are prepared for changes, and find a prospect exactly resembling a familiar scene at home. We are not surprised by seeing friends in their wonted haunts, the surprise is given when we meet them in some region far remote. Agreements of this sort are in reality differences; they are breaches of expectation, and give us a start exactly as would a difference arising where we looked for agreement. The mind once accustomed to a certain fixed routine of change, is startled by the substitution of uniand yet I may very soon pass from the thing itself, and transfer the benefit of the excitement to something else. Such a transferable, or mobile excitement, is not the true intellectual species. A few hours spent in hurry, bustle, and noise, put the brain into a fever of unnatural energy, under which everything felt or done has more than ordinary power. Such a state is no more favourable, in the long run, for the storing up of differences (and resemblances) than the extremes of pleasure and pain. The smart that a change of impression makes should simply sustain the currents belonging to that impression, stopping short of a general animation of the brain. It should not prevent the cessation of the wave, and the taking on of another at a short interval; the mind all the while being what would be termed perfectly cool. The stirringup of a vague and wasting excitement, which follows on too many stimulants being applied at once, is as fatal to intellect, as pleasurable dissipation or wasting misery. 556 CONSCIOUSNESS. formity. Having often been in a room hung with pictures, and otherwise richly furnished, one feels a rupture of expectation and a violent surprise on encountering naked walls and an empty floor. It is still change, or a discrepancy between a past and a present attitude of mind, that is the exciting cause of the awakened consciousness; although it sometimes happens that the change consists in producing an old familiar impression in an unlooked-for connexion. Having premised thus much, we have next to study the influence of this new class of surprises on the growth of our intelligence. It so happens that the noticing of agreement in the midst of difference is an exceedingly useful function as regards our knowledge of the world, where, amid great variety, there is much resemblance. A long chapter having been devoted to the exposition of that fact, and its consequences, any laboured demonstration in this place would be superfluous. What concerns us at present, is to notice how we are made alive to those agreements, so as to stamp them on the mind and make them a part of the permanent intellectual furniture. To illustrate our meaning take a simple case of classification. The young mind looking again and again at one tree acquires an impression of it merely through the sensibility to difference. W hen we are at last familiarized with the repetition of the very same aggregate of differences, so to speak, there is an end of any special surprise on the presentation of the object, and a gradual tendency to the indifferentism that monotony induces. Let the mind, however, encounter another tree smaller in dimensions, but similar in all else; the similarity recalls the old tree, while the difference gives the.stimulus of surprise. We are then awakened, as it were, to a new circumstance, as important as the original fact of difference, and a flow of excitement accompanies the experience, rendering it vivid at the moment, and laying the basis of a permanent recollection. Thus, besides accumulating differences, and enlarging the stock of intellectual imagery grounded upon these, we enter on a new class of impressions, the impressions of agreement in diversity. Had these agree SHOCK OF AGREEMENT ESSENTIAL TO KNOWLEDGE. 557 ments fallen upon the mind perfectly flat, like the unbroken continuance of one impression, I doubt whether we should have been able to take any cognizance of the great fact of recurrence in the midst of change, on which depend the operations of classifying, generalizing, induction, and the rest. In order to impress upon the mind the existence of a class of houses, trees, men, and so on, it seems essential that the recurrence of similarity should give a smart or fillip to the system, quite as much as the transition from action to rest, from light to shade, or from rough to smooth. I do not see how those valuable elements of knowledge that we term generalities, general ideas, principles, could have found a standing in the intellectual consciousness but for the shock of surprise that, in common with change in general, they the recurrence of the same feeling in were able to affect us with. If we. were totally indifferent to the recurrence of the same feeling in connection with a number of different objects, the faculty of classifying and generalizing would never to all appearance be manifested in our minds. It is the liveliness of that thrill of surprise, caused by likeness in the company of unlikeness, that rouses us to the perception or impression of recurring properties, and of uniform law among natural things. There is a depth of stupidity exhibited by some individuals, amounting almost to total indifference, on this particular; and, in such cases, the power both of generalizing and of comprehending generalities, of forming and of applying analogies, will to that extent be found wanting. Just as a keen sensibility to difference determines the lively cognition of the variety of natural properties, which a blunter sense would confound, so the corresponding sensitiveness to the shock of similarity in diversity, leads to the appreciation and the storing up of nature's generalities and comprehensive unity of plan. In our definition of mind, we assigned three distinct functions, setting up, as it were, a division instead of giving a definition. The nearest approach that we can make to a Unity in mind, is to treat Volition as a complex fact made up of feeling and bodily acti 558 CONSCIOUSNESS. vity, and so to reduce the ultimate phenomena to two-Feeling and Intellect. But now we have seen thatthese cannot be maintained in absolute separation, they are onld raspectsof the me'~enoIinenoi "3'ther words, every fact of consciousness has two s des-rne Feeling, the other Intellect or Discrimination. Some of our conscious experiences show the side of Feeling in the ascendant, and the side of Discrimination at the minimum; these, by courtesy, we call Feelings. So with the converse. When discrimination is in the ascendant, feeling is in abeyance, and is practically non-existent; in reality it is still there, but in a feeble form. The monad of consciousness.is thus a two-sided phenomenon, with capability of indefinite increase on either side; the rise of one being the subsidence of the other. There is not a state that is purely and wholly Feeling, -Feeling, that is, to the entire exclusion of discrimination; and there is not a state that is entirely Discrimination,-Discrimination to the exclusion of feeling. Mr. Spencer expresses the great antithesis of the Emotional and the Intellectual by Feelings and Relations of Feelings. Something is gained by this wording; but I think the contrast is, on the whole, more pointedly indicated by Feeling and Discrimination. Of course, Discrimination is not the whole of Intellect, but it is the groundwork, and is peculiarly suited to put in contrast to the emotional side of our being, as typified by Pleasure and Pain. The word 'Relation' has the advantage of being comprehensive, with the disadvantage of being vague and unsuggestive; it is, in fact, the.widest term in our vocabulary. Another mode of expression is to call Feeling the substance, and Intellect the form. The distinction of Matter and Form has been greatly overdone in philosophy; and, in the present instance, we are better without it. Sensation and Pergception. 12. Into the contrast of Sensation and Perception there enter rlore than one consideration. In the first place, it involves the distinction between the Emotional and the Intellectual aspects of the Senses. The pleasure or the pain that we have through a sight or a sound, a pleasurable or a painful sensation, is emphatically a sensation as opposed to a perception; it is ultra-sensational, in being not intellectual. Some sensations are mere pleasure or pain,-nothing else: such are the feelings of organic life, and the sweet and bitter tastes and odours. All through the Senses, we had to distinguish the pleasures and pains of PERCEPTION MORE THAN SENSATION. 559 sensation from the discriminative sensibility of each, yielding intellectual or knowledge-giving sensation. It is under this contrast that Sir W. Hamilton signalizes the inverse proportion of Sensation and Perception; for, with certain qualifications, it is true that Emotion (or Feeling) and Intellect are opposed and are mutually exclusive; the extreme manifestation of the one being more or less incompatible with the other. 13. But this is not all. After much contact with the sensible world, a new situation arises, and a new variety of the consciousness, which stands in need of some explanation. When a child experiences for the first time the sensation of scarlet, there is nothing but the sensibility of a new impression, more or less intense, according to the intensity of the object, and the susceptibility of the mind. It is very difficult for us to realize or to define this original shock, our position in mature life being totally altered. It is the rarest thing for us then to come under a radically new impression, and we can only, by the help of imperfect analogies, form an approximate conception of what happens at the first shock of a discriminative sensation. The process of engraining these impressions on the mind after repetition, gives to subsequent sensations a character quite different from what belonged to the first. The second shock of scarlet, if it stood alone, would doubtless resemble the preceding; but such is the nature of themindlthat the new shock will not stand alone, ti1restores the notion, or idea, or trace that survived the other. The sensation is no longer the primitive surprise, but the coalition of a present shock with all that remains of the previous occasions. Hence, when we see, or hear, or touch, or move, what comes before us is really contributed more by the mind itself than by the object present. The consciousness has three concurring elements-the new shock, the flash of agreement with the sum total of the past, and the feeling of that past as revived in the present. In truth, the new sensation is apt to be entirely overriden by the old; and, in place of discriminating by virtue of our susceptibility to what is. charac 560 CONSCIOUSNESS. teristic in it, our discrimination follows another course. For example, if I have before me two shades of colour, instead of feeling the difference exactly as I am struck at the moment, my judgment resorts to the roundabout process of first identifying each with some reiterated series of past impressions; and, there being two sum-totals in my mind, the difference that I feel is between those totals. If I make a mistake, it may be attributed, not so much to a wrong act of discrimination, as to a wrong act of identification. It is as if I could judge between two substances on the chemist's table, only by first finding lout, by an effort of identification, which drawer or which bottle each belonged to; I should then judge, not by comparing the specimens, but by comparing the drawers, or bottles containing the entire stock of each. If I made a wrong identification to begin with, my conclusion would be sure to be wrong; while, the similarity being accurate, so would be the difference. All sensations, therefore, after the first of each kind, involve a flash of recovery from the past, which is what really determines their character. The present shock is simply made use of as a means of reviving some one of the past shocks in preference to all the others; the new impression of scarlet is in itself almost insignificant, serving only as the medium of resuscitating the cerebral condition resulting from the united force of all the previous scarlets. If, by some temporary hallucination, a scarlet were to bring up the impression of ultramarine blue, the mind would really be possessed with blue, while the eyes were fixed upon scarlet; just as, in putting an account upon a wrong file, we lose sight of the features of the account itself, and declare its character according to the file where it is. Sensation thus calls into operation the two great intellectual laws, in addition to the primitive sensibility of difference. The endurance of the impression after the original is gone, is owing to the plastic w set forth under the law of contiguity. The power of the new shock, to bring back the trace of the first, is aj genuine exercise of the power of similarity. When we ponsider ourselves as performintie PERCEPTION MORE THAN SENSATION. 561 most ordinary act of seeing, or hearing, we are bringing into play those very functions of the intellect that distinguish its highest developments. This process gives birth to bad observation and illusion. An object imperfectly caught by the eye suggests some previous image, which image once suggested persists by its natural hold, and, perhaps also, by the aid of emotion. The present appearance is thus completely overlaid, and we continue misinterpreting, that is, miscomparing it, until something happens to heighten the influence of the present, and abate the pressure of the past.* 14. The more that sensation involves cognitive or intellectual processes, the more liable is it to be designated Perception, Thus, in sensation, we are object and subject by turns. We are obect when attending to the form and magnitude of a conflagration; we are subject when we give way to the emotional effect of the luminous blaze. Now, although the name Sensation is used for both states, Perception is the better word for the object attitude. Again, what has just been said regarding the intervention of intellectual forces in sensation, indicates the same tendency. Supposing the first impression of scarlet is called a sensation, the combined trace of thirty impressions, revived in the presentation of the thirty-first, would be a perception, as being something more than the effect strictly due to the present * The operation is happily expressed by Coleridge, in the following quotation given by Mr. Venn in his 'Hulsean Lectures ', p. 15. " In aid of the present case, I will only remark, that it would appear incredible to persons not accustomed to these subtle notices of self-observation, what small and remote resemblances, what mere hints of likeness from some real external object, especially if the shape be aided by colour, will suffice to make a vivid thought consubstantiate with the real object, and derive from it an outward perceptibility. Even when we are broad awake, if we are in anxious expectation, how often will not the most confused sounds of nature be heard by us as articulate sounds? For instance, the babbling of a brook will appear for a moment the voice of a friend for whom we are waiting, calling out our own names." Coleridge's Friend, I. 189. The principle is there applied in a very interesting way to account for Luther's vision of the devil in the tower at Wartburg. 36 562 CONSCIOUSNESS. stimulus. When 'more is meant than meets the eye,' we are said to perceive rather than to feel. Not that feeling, consciousness, and sensation, are at all restricted to the minimum signification of present effect, unheightened by contributions from the recovered past; but, when the two words are compared, perceiving is feeling, and something more. The term 'sensation' might be so narrowed as to exclude the intellectual operations above specified as involved in it; not so 'perception'. On any view, the intellect participates in every act of perceiving, and when such intellectual participation accompanies a sensation of the senses, it would be allowable to say that a perception took place. The recovery of the past sum-total of sensibilities of redness, green, blue, of the sound of$ a ell or of a voice, of the touch of marble, or of the taste of a peach,-being in each case an effect far exceeding the special range of the new encounter by itself, we are at liberty to style the mental state thus produced a 'perception,' or something transcending the mere sensation, as narrowed to the shock of the moment. 15. The tendency to reckon perception a larger mental product than sensation, is still better seen in another of its well-established meanings, of which the best example, perhaps, is furnished under sight. When we talk of perceiving the distances and magnitudes of things about us, more is implied than the sensations can possibly contain. All that I ever can really feel regarding a house before me, is a certain union of optical and muscular sensibility, in which the notion of distance can have no part. That notion is derived through other parts of the system, more especially the locomotive members, and could no more come through the eye, than through the olfactory organs. Experience, however, recognizes coincidences between certain optical impressions and certain movements, and, after a time, the occurrence of the'one is able to suggest the other. I may perceive distance by the eye, as I may perceive a mail-coach in the next street by the sound of the horn. Association gives additional meaning to my sensations, and I am thus made to know or perceive what it is impossible for AGREEMENTS OF THE SENSATION AND THE IDEA. 563 me to feel. This word has now a range of application that usage does not impart to the other; for, although the term sensation may extend to the mind's contribution from the past, at the instance of the present feeling, we should not be disposed to include all those other collateral impressions that may concur, and be associated with, that sum-total. It would scarcely be correct to say that I see the distance of a hill. On the same principle, we ought not to speak of seeing the size, meaning the absolute size, for all that we see is the angular expansion measured on the retina. Having made certain comparisons as to the indications for judging of size, we may say, we perceive it to be of a certain amount. It is by virtue of exceeding the narrow limits of strict sensation, that perception goes so far as to mean things neither felt nor inferred as experienced adjuncts, but simply assumed or believed to exist. Such is the supposed perception of an external and independent material world.* What is here said to be perceived is a convenient fiction, which by the veryj nature of the case transcends all possible experience. It i stealing a march upon our credence to use the term perception, whichT ~its first ald proper sense, means something decidedl within the domain of past or present experience, to avouch ari entity of imagination. The Sensation (Intellectual) and the Idea. 16. The points of distinction between the Sensation and the Idea relate, first, to their comparative force, intensity, or vividness as mental constituents, and, next, to their meaning or interpretation as regards Object and Subject. * The step here made may be described thus. I observed above that the term perception applies to the sum-total of the many past similar sensations, recovered by association with the present sensation. These being all blended in one act of mind, in which the constituent items are not separately discernible, we mistake this sum-total for a unit, and imagine a Something that makes them all one-an object, one and the same, whence each emanates. Such transformation of a sum-total of association into a self-existent unit, is a frequent mental illusion. This supposed object is an entity, not of sense, but of imagination and belief, to which we erroneously apply the word perception. 564 CONSCIOUSNESS. The Sensation and the Idea are at one in the following particulars:First, as conscious or mental elements. Under each of them, we are conscious, or mentally alive. Second, in physical embodiment; if the reasoning is satisfactory whereby it is attempted to be shown that the nervous currents accompanying ideas are in the same tracks as the more intense currents allied with the sensations. (See CONTIGUITY, Ideas of Movement.) Out of this identity must proceed common effects of a physical kind, with allowance for inequality of degree. It may be assumed that such identity in embodiment is connected with the fact that associations formed between sensations, persist between the corresponding ideas; and, as the occurrence of the first sensation of a train brings up the next in idea, so the occurrence of the idea of that first sensation brings up the remainder of the series. Whether we hear the letters a, b, c, fully pronounced, or only conceive them, we are led on to the recollection of d, e, f. Third, as Intellectual or Discriminative elements; by which each has a character or individuality. As we distinguish the sensation of the sun from the sensation of the moon, so we distinguish the ideas of these. In like manner we trace Agreements both in sensations and in ideas. In consequence of the individuality or distinctiveness attaching to ideas, no less than to sensations, ideas can be used as guides in action. We can work upon the memory of plans or models, just as we can do with these before our eyes. We can construct ideal arrangements among things, and then reduce them to actual arrangements. 17. In viewing the differences between the two mental elements, we remark, first, that the Sensation is prior and original; the Idea, posterior and copy. In the next place, the Sensation and the Idea most obviously differ in force, vividness, or intensity; the one is a strong effect, the other a weak. There is a great distinction THE IDEA LESS VIVID THAN THE SENSATION. 565 between the sight of a flame and what remains in the mind when it ceases; between the sound of a trumpet and our recent remembrance or after-recollection of it; between the taste of sugar and the idea of that taste; between the odour of musk and our mere conception of that odour. The inferiority of the idea as compared with the sensation, although very marked, is not in any one constant ratio. It is not, for example, one fifth, one tenth, or one fiftieth; it varies according to circumstances. Repetition, as has been seen, increases the hold and vividness of the idea. Also, great natural endowment connected with any of the senses intensifies the ideas or recollections of their objects. Moreover, there is a pitch of morbid excitement of the nerves that so intensifies the nerve currents as to give to ideas the force of realities. It is most easily produced under circumstances that suspend sensation, as in dreams, and in abnormal states of the system-somnambulism, mesmeric sleep, and the like. In cases where a sensation has physical consequences, we might measure, from the physical side, the comparative strength of the sensation and the idea. Thus the contact of food with the tongue and cheeks causes a flow of saliva; so does the idea or anticipation. But the flow under the sensation is at least several times greater than the flow under the idea. The glare of the sun makes the eyes water; the idea would have the same effect, in a slight degree. We may also measure subjective consequences. The sight of a beautiful object, a scene, a picture, a living face, gives a definite amount of charm; the recollection gives an inferior charm; the comparison of the two in amount would be the comparison as to strength of the sensation and the idea. The effect signified by vividness, intensity, force, strength, is shown in, the first instance, by mere superiority in the degree of consciousness, by seizing hold of the mind's regards and excluding other states. When a sensation starts up, ideas show their inferiority by withdrawing from the view; they cannot come forward until the sensation ceases, or is somehow in abeyance. 566 CONSCIOUSNESS. 18. More specifically, the superior strength of the sensation is shown in the number, the fulness, and the minuteness of the lineaments. While viewing an actual scene, we are aware of a vast variety of points, lines, and features; while thinking of the same, when the original is withdrawn, we lose hold of a very large majority of these, retaining only such as are salient, or have been specially impressed. The loss of detail in the idea, or mere conception, of a scene may be compared to the effect of dimness of light, or of remoteness, in causing obscurity. The idea of a well-seen object is something like the sensation of the same object dimly seen. Still the two are not confounded; for we are aware that the dimly seen object falls into a still lower vagueness, when it is no longer sensation, but passes into idea. This inferiority of fulness renders the idea insufficient to replace the original, when minute inspection is necessary. An artist needs to work in the presence of his original for a certain time, in order to bring out a faithful resemblance. The inequality of different minds shows itself in the greater or less fulness of the recollection or idea of things that have been a matter of previous sensation. Another circumstance equally characteristic of the sensation, in its contrast with the idea, is the steady hold of a scene or impression made upon the actual sense; the mental effect is persistent and sustained. On the other hand, the idea is unsteady and fitful, drops out of the view, and needs an effort to recover it. Hence the notable difference between the ease in sensation, and the strain in ideation. This, too, would prevent our mistaking a dim or feeble sensation, a remote sight or sound, for the idea of a bright and vivid scene. The remark above made as to the inequality of minds in their power of sustaining an idea applies to this circumstance also. Frequent repetition of any subject, great natural tenacity for that subject, and likewise morbid or other excitement of the nervous currents, substitute a greater for a less steadiness, ease, and persistence, in holding an idea before the mind. Such are the chief points of difference between the ELEMENTS OF KNOWING. 567 Sensation and the Idea, as regards the nature of the consciousness of each taken simply, or without reference to their manner of coming and going, to the groups that they form, and to the meanings that they suggest. These farther distinctions, enter, along with the foregoing, into the great fact or antithesis whereby the sensation is the Object world, the idea the Subject world. The nature of Cognition. 19. It is a problem of no small difficulty, and no light import, to ascertain precisely what is the real nature of the act of knowing, so very familiar to our experience. What is it that we do when we are said to know or to be cognizant of a thing? I apprehend that the actual subtlety of the question, which is not inconsiderable, is aggravated by the. looseness of terminology that afflicts the whole region that we are now traversing. The power of knowing is subject to the limitations above detailed with refeirence to consciousness or sensation; it being clear, whatever else may be doubted, that some mental excitement or consciousness is indispensable to anything that we should call knowledge. Seeing that change is a condition of wakefulness of mind, a thing cannot be known unless the action of that thing on the mind is varied or remitted. We had no knowledge of the pressure of the air on our bodies until means were found to alter its degree; the blank of consciousness is the blank of knowledge. 20. A leading dispute that has agitated the schools of philosophy on the present subject, has lain between two opinions,-one affirming that all knowledge is derived through sensation, the other that the mind itself contributes a constituent part. Nihil est in intellectu, quod non prius fuerit in senszi, expresses the first of these opinions; to which Leibnitz added, nisi intellectus ipse,-which constitutes the the second. I do not enter here into this particular controversy, having discussed the origin of most of our simple notions in my previous volume. The reference of many of 568 CONSCIOUSNESS. those elementary notions, such as Extension, Figure, Solidity, to the muscular system, alters entirely the state of the question, as originally propounded. If sensation includes all that we derive from the feelings of movement, the first thesis is tenable; exclude movement, and it is wholly untenable. 21. At present our concern is, not so much with the first beginnings or sources of knowledge, as with the meaning, or nature of it, at any stage. Now, most that has been above advanced respecting Sensation and Perception may be used to explain cognition. It is evident that the lowest or most restricted form of sensation does not contain an element of knowledge. The mere state of mind, called the sensation of scarlet, is not knowledge, although a necessary preparation for it. We must be discriminatively conscious of different mental states, before we can either perceive or know, in any acceptation of these terms. Nay, farther, we may have everything that is implied in the full meaning of sensation, as taking in the past with the present, and yet not rise to knowledge. The sensation of thunder, produced by revivilg all the former experiences to enhance the new effect, is a true intellectual element of the mind, and a constituent part of knowledge, without itself amounting to knowledge. So with the lowest meaning of perception, which is identical with this. When, however, we pass to the higher meanings of perception, we enter upon the field of genuine cognition. When two different impressions concur in the mind, and by repetition become associated together, the one recalling the other; and when we not only have a present experience of their concurrence, but a belief of it,-we are then said to know something. A single notion by itself does not make knowledge; two notions coupled will not make knowledge, in the absence of belief. Knowledge, therefore is identical with affirmation and belief. In what manner the believing element springs up, and occupies the merely notional groundwork of our experi4nce, as when we not only feel a present concurrence of lightning and thunder, but predict similar occurrences in the future, I have already endeavoured KNOWLEDGE NOT CO-EXTENSIVE WITH SENSATION. 569 to show. Still there are certain points relating to the merely intellectual constituents of knowledge that afford scope for animadversion, as they have given occasion to wide discrepancy of opinion. 22. In the first place, I should remark that knowledge is far from being co-extensive with sensation, or with distinguishable consciousness. Taking all the varieties of sensible effect, through all the avenues whereby impressions are made upon the mind,-the great range of distinguishable muscular feelings, and the innumerable changes or differing sensibilities of the senses,-hardly any arithmetic could sum up the number of ways wherein we are made discriminatively conscious. It is only a very small selection of these that any one person converts into knowledge, or couples into credible affirmations. Consider the complicacy of the scene that presents itself to the infant eye, opened upon the outer world. The child may be said to feel, or be conscious of, all that enters the eye or the ear; but a secializingorselctie, nciosess is needed in order to convert any portion of this into knowledge. The c) that we term attention, observyation nceatraion of the. view, &c., must supervene upon mere discriminative consciousness, before knowledge commences. The co~g0itieprQe.ss essentially a process of selection, and takes place as the mind is moved to special, or monopolized, consciousness of certain portions of its various experience. Of all the sounds that fall upon our ear in the general din of the elements above, and the bustle of human beings beneath and around, only a very few ever attain the position that would constitute them knowledge. The articulate voices, the sounds betokening human purposes that concern us, the indications noted as preceding the storm on its way,-are a few select impressions that take the rank of knowledge in most minds. Others there are, which are unheeded by some and noticed by others, as the buzz of the insect, or the rush of the rivulet. Manifestly, different minds have different motives for selecting from the countless multitude of impressions that we are all alike open to. It is, therefore, part of the problem of knowledge, to ascertain what are 570 CONSCIOUSNESS. the motives to the specialized consciousness, or the forces governing attention, as something over and above disinterested and equal sensation. In addition to the primitive shock of difference that makes us variously susceptible to different movements, tastes, odours, touches, sounds, sights, and emotions, there are needed some great inequalities in the surprises that come upon us from so many sides, to determine the occupation of the mind with some decided preferences, so that, while five hundred stars are painted on the retina, only two or three are in actual possession of the mind, determining its emotions and its trains of thought and imagery. 23. These specializing forces are nothing new in the exposition of the mind. They are mostly retucble to a greater degree of those general influences alrdec'et-ailed, as essential to consciousness in the faintest manifestation of it. Where we have a bolder difference, it rouses wakefulness in that individual instance, overpowering the solicitations of the weaker transitions. A cannon fired in the silence of night gives the predominating sensation for the time. The senses may be open alike for every impression, but some impressions are calculated to obtain the monopoly of the mind, as giving the greater shock of surprise; and these are singled out as the more likely to enter into credible affirmations, or to emerge into knowledge. Not that they have become so yet; there are other stages, previous to the final result. In the same manner, the shock of agreement is a specializing or concentrating consciousness; understanding agreement as of the sort already defined, namely, similarity in diversity. If I cast my eyes over a large crowd of persons assembled before me, the recognition of a face resembling some one familiar to me arrests my attention, gives me a special or select impression. 24. It is not enough to call these the forces that determine special consciousness; it is further necessary to affirm, that the circumstances implied under them are essential to the very nature of knowledge. We know only relations; an absolute, properly speaking, is not compatible with our know KNOWLEDGE IS SELECT CONSCIOUSNESS. 571 ing faculty. The two great fundamental relations are difference and agreement.* To know a thing is to feel it in juxtaposition w.ith some other thing,, differing from it, or. agreeing with it. To be simply impressed with a sight, sound, or touch, is not to know anything in the proper sense of the word; knowledge begins, when we recognize other things in the way of comparison with the one. My knowledge of redness is my comparison of this one sensation with a number of others differing from, or agreeing with it; and, as I extend those comparisons, I extend that knowledge. An absolute redness per se, like an unvarying pressure, would escape cognition; for, supposing it possible that we were conscious of it, we should not be said to have any knowledge of it. Why is it that the same sensation is so differently felt by different * The very general attributes that we denominate Co-EXISTENCE and SUCCESSION are not so fundamental as the feelings of difference and agreement. They are, properly speaking, an opposed, or antithetic, couple; the transition from an instance of the one to an instance of the other, affects the mind by the change, and so develops the two contrasting cognitions. I am affected in one way, by two birds on the same bush at once, and in another way, by one departing and the other coming. If the separate facts made an identical impression, I should not be conscious either of co-existence or of succession. As it is, the sense of difference gives rise to the perception of both attributes, and imparts to each its proper meaning, namely, the negation of the other. If all things in nature preserved an eternal stillness, and if it were possible for the eye to have simultaneous, instead of successive vision, there would be no fact of the nature of succession, and no cognition of the one prevailing fact, co-existence. We generalize all cases of particular coexistence into the abstract attribute; and all individual successions into succession in the abstract; but, without the shock of difference felt when we pass from an instance of the one to an instance of the other, we should have no cognition of either; and our cognition, as it stands, is explained as a mutual negation of the two properties. Each has a positive existence, because of the presence of the other as its negative, like heat and cold, light and dark. Under Succession, we have the related couple, Antecedent and Consequent-the one giving both meaning and existence to the other, as in the more comprehensive case. An antecedent supposes a consequent, and conversely; annihilate either, and the entire cognition disappears. Being distinctively conscious of a succession, it is implied that we are conscious of a difference between the member preceding and the member following; and the two make an item of our knowledge; neither, standing alone, could constitute a cognition. 572 CONSCIOUSNESS. persons-the sensation of red or green by an artist and an optician-but that knowledge relates, not to the single sensation itself, but to the others brought into relation with it in the mind? When I say I know a certain plant, I indicate nothing until I inform my hearers what things stand related to it in my mind, as contrasting or agreeing. I may know it as a garden weed; that is, under difference from the flowers, fruits, and vegetables, cultivated in the garden, and under agreement with the other plants that spring up unsought. I may know it botanically; that is, under difference and agreement with the other members of the order, genus and species. I may know it artistically, or as compared with other plants on the point of beauty of form and colour. As an isolated object in my mind, I can have no knowledge regarding it at all. Thus it is that, in the multifarious scene and chaos of distinguishable impressions, not only do different minds fasten upon different individual parts, but, fastening on the same parts, arrive at totally different cognitions. Like the two electricities, which cannot exist the one without the other, or the two poles of the magnet, which rise and fall together, no mental impression can exist and be called knowledge, unless in company with some other as a foil wherewith to compare it. Left to a single unit of consciousness, the mental excitement vanishes. In the intellect, as in the emotions, we live by setting off contrasted states, and, consequently, no one impression can be defined or characterized, except with reference to its accompanying foil. We see how difficult it is in language to make meaning explicit by a brief announcement; interpretation, as applied to laws, contracts, testaments, as well as to writing generally, consists in determining what things the writer excluded as opposites to, and what he looked at as agreements with, the thing named. It is thus, everywhere in cognition. A simple impression is tantamount to no impression at all. Quality, in the last resort, implies Relation; although, in Logic, the two are distinguished. Red and blue together in the mind, affecting it differently, keep each other alive as mental excitement, and KNOWLEDGE DEPENDENT ON CONTRAST AND AGREEMENT. 573 the one is really knowledge to the other. So with the red of to-day and the red of yesterday; an interval of blank sensation, or other sensations, coming between. These two will sustain each other in the cerebral system, and will mutually be raised to the rank of knowledge. Increase the comparisons of difference and agreement, and you increase the knowledge; the character of it being settled by the direction wherein the foils are sought. 25. The present train of reflection might receive illustration from the course of literature, art, and science, in selecting portions and phases of the countless host of things that people the universe of the mind. There is no limit to the modes of knowing the world, when we superadd the sphere of art to the more narrowly-defined sphere of science. It is a theme of common remark, how an original genius makes us see what has always been before our eyes. The truth is, that having a thing before the eyes is not seeing, far less knowing. The man of genius, be he Homer or Shakespeare, supplies the foil -the complement that raises the thing to knowledge. The happy comparison-by classification, analogy, or simile,-and the pointed contrast, are the agents that vivify the mind with reference to what formerly lay unheeded before the open eyes. The use of language is a means of fixing the attention upon select impressions, out of the great total that makes our universe. Whatever has received a name is, as it were, pointed at by the finger; and any one hearing the name in connexion with the thing, is made specially alive to that, and, in consequence, has the chance of knowing it, in the proper acceptation of the term-that is to say, through difference and agreement. The stars and constellations, whose names are familiarly disseminated, are better known from that very circumstance. Hence to be born undgr a copious language, or to live in the circles of learned converse, is to be rendered mentally alive to a larger class of our.impressions. 26. The essentials of Cognition, or Knowledge, may be summed up thus: 574 CONSCIOUSNESS. First. To know any single thing, we must be conscious of it as Differing from some things, and as Agreeing with others. To this extent, knowledge involves only what belongs to Sensation and Perception. Secondly. When Knowledge amounts to Affirmation, there are at least two things taken notice of; and not only so, but the couple must be farther viewed, as coming under a third property, namely, one of the Universal predicates of Propositions-for example, Co-existence or Succession. 'The sun is a luminous body'; 'night follows day';-are higher combinations than the mere knowledge of 'Sun,' 'Night,' 'Day': they unite simple or elementary cognitions into affirmations or propositions; and the binding circumstance is one of the comprehensive generalities called Co-existence and Succession. Thirdly. Into these Affirmations, there must enter the active state or disposition termed Belief (or Disbelief). SUBJECT AND OBJECT.-THE EXTERNAL WORLD. 27. The last point to be adverted to, in our rapid summary of the meaning of cognition, is the important distinction of Subject and Object, involving the greatest of all the problems of metaphysical philosophy-the problem of self and an external world. What is true of each item of knowledge within the whole compass of the knowable, namely, that there must be a plurality of impressions under comparison, with difference and agreement, has to be remarked in reference to subject and object. An object has no meaning without a subject, a subject none without an object. One is the complement or correlate of the other; drop the one to exalt the other into prominence, and you behave like him that would- cancel the south pole of a magnet to make it all north. Subject and object are one of the innumerable couples, mutual- foils, polar pairs, coined among the universe of our impressions as portions of our knowledge. An everlasting light in the eye SUBJECT AND OBJECT AS CORELATIVES. 575 would be equivalent to no light at all; it is the privative darkness that keeps us conscious of, or mentally awake to, positive illumination. Yet, as we can think and speak of the light by itself, without express mention of its foil or indispensable contrast, as we can direct attention to the north end of the magnet leaving the south out of account for the time, -so we can think of the object while the subject is tacitly understood, or of the subject, the object being understood. We never could have come to the notion of externality without its contrast, but, the notion being once formed, we have the power of abstracting the attention, and looking at one while sinking the other. An absolute object or an absolute subject is a pure absurdity, irrelevance, or impossibility. Not more so, however, than light without darkness, redness without any other colour, high without low, straight without curved, greater without less. 28. I gave in my previous volume (CONTIGUITY, Perception), as what appeared to me the leading features of the ultimate distinction of the Subject and the Object,-I. Movement (object) as contrasted with Passive Sensation (subject); II. Definite Feelings connected with Definite Movements (object); Feelings independent of our movements (subject); III. Experience common to all (object), as against Experience special to each (subject). Under the first head, is implied that peculiar sensibility that we term the Feeling, of Resistance, which has been very commonly regarded by metaphysicians as the essence and turning point of the object world; John Stuart Mill being almost singular in omitting it from his explanation. The second head includes the distinction of the Sensation and the Idea, which might be very much enlarged upon; including, as it does, a host of circumstantial differences. The third head seldom receives full justice; but, practically, it is one of the handiest tests to distinguish reality from illusion. 29. A very minute analysis of the Subject and Object distinction has been given by Mr. Spencer. 576 CONSCIOUSNESS. He unfolds the distinctions in the following series of contrasts; giving first a group of ten, and then supplementing these by certain others. The ten distinctions are as follows:1.-Object states, vivid; Subject, faint. 2.-Object, predecessors in time; Subject, successors. 3.-Object, by volition, unchangeable in their qualities; Subject, changeable in their qualities. 4.-Object, by volition, unchangeable in simultaneous order; Subject, changeable. 5.-Object, by volition, unchangeable in successive order; Subject, changeable. 6.-Object, form parts of a vivid aggregate never known to be broken; Subject, a faint aggregate never known to be broken. Here there is no contrast, except the initial contrast of faint and vivid. 7.-Object, independence of the faint aggregate complete; Subject, independence of the vivid partial. 8.-Object, laws originating in themselves; Subject, laws partly belonging to themselves, partly derived from the other. 9.-Object, antecedents may or may not be traceable; Subject, antecedents always traceable. 10.-Object, belong to a whole of unknown extent; Subject, belong to a whole of restricted extent-called memory. Mr. Spencer adds to these distinctions certain other considerations, which, however, are more or less implicated. He supposes himself physically passive while noting these differences, yet he admits that the differences involve remembrances of former activities. Still he contends that, under a rigid passivity of attitude, there would be a very sharp separation of the object aggregates from the subject aggregates. The procession of the vivid states would have even a more marked independence of the procession of the faint states. Some of the other antitheses-as between originals and copies; unchangeability and changeability by will; antecedents traceable and untraceable; unlimited and limitedalso show themselves in passive contemplation. SUBJECT AND OBJECT DISTINCTIONS. 577 Next, as to states of pleasure and pain; connected sometimes with the vivid states, and sometimes with the faint; and themselves very various in degrees of intensity. On which side do these range themselves? On the Subject side;. for these reasons. While a few are connected with the vivid states, as the pleasures of sight and sound, the greater number are related to faint states (ideas), as the emotions and the memories. Again, the laws of these states are the laws, not of the vivid series, but of the faint series. The laws of emotion are laws of association with ideal groups; anger with injury, and so forth. Finally, these elements have the limitation characteristic of the faint states. A further character of this special class is the instigating of bodily movements. The changes thus rendered apparent make a line of distinction between the select portion of the vivid aggregate that we call our body, and the remainder of our visible sphere. We are led to discern a permanent connection between the faint aggregate and this portion of the vivid aggregate. The author next turns to the effect of our movements in determining the presence or the absence of the other portion, as in shutting and opening the eyes; and in farther modifying the scene. This is the distinction that he dwells least upon. HIe returns to the experiments on the body itself, and in connection with these, evolves the all-important feeling of Resistance. Grasping the knee with the hand, we combine the consciousness of muscular exertion with the sensation of touch and pressure-the two varying together. Making the two hands clasp each other, we have exertion and pressure from both sides, by turns. The one hand makes exertion, the other offers resistance (also a kind of exertion); out of which we get the important conjoined couple, used for stating the energies of the outer world-power and resistance. 30. Were I to imitate Mr. Spencer in the minuteness of his specification of Object and Subject contrasts, I would pro37 578 CONSCIOUSNESS. pose the following expansion of my three leading antitheses, above quoted. I. RESISTANCE-the feeling of Expended Muscular Energy, as against sensations wholly Passive. Instead of ending with this contrast, I am disposed to put it at the very commencement, as the simplest, the most primitive or primordial of experiences that enter into the great contrast. Mr. Spencer uses the same emphatic language. He calls Resistance-' the primordial, the universal, the ever-present constituent of consciousness'. By the supposition of a man pulling against himself, Mr. Spencer obtains two aspects of the experience of resistance, the energy put forth on one side, and the resistance felt on the other. The 'mutual exploration of our limbs, excited by ideas and emotions, establishes an indissoluble cohesion in thought between active energy as it wells up from the depths of our consciousness, and the equivalent resistance opposed to it; as well as between this resistance opposed to it and an equivalent pressure in the part of the body which resists. Hence the root conception of existence beyond consciousness, becomes that of resistance plus some force which the resistance measures'. For my own part, I am unable to see anything in the double strain-the action of one arm, and the re-action of the other,-beyond two separate muscular acts, connected with different parts of the body. It is quite true that these are brought into comparison, and measured against each other, but this does not alter the character of either. I do not see, therefore, that the situation intimates anything as to an 'existence beyond consciousness'. II. The contrast between INDIFFERENT FEELING and PLEASURE or PAIN fuses itself with the Object and Subject contrast. The most pure and perfect objectivity is a state of neutrality or indifference; while subject is infallibly marked by pleasurable and painful feeling. Even in muscular effort, we have to recognize this distinction. The muscular effort that gives the object side, is SUBJECT AND OBJECT DISTINCTIONS. 579 mere expended energy; when we experience the pleasure or pain of exercise, we are in a truly subject attitude. In saying that the object attitude is neutral, we do not imply the converse-that all neutrality is objectivity. So, in saying that all pleasure and pain is subject, we do not say that all subjectivity is pleasure and pain. III.---The contrast of INTELLECT and FEELING coincides to a very large extent with the contrast of Object and Subject. This is really a complement of the foregoing. Intellect is typified by Discrimination; an object consciousness is emphatically a discriminative consciousness. When we bar ourselves from pleasure or pain, when we refuse to give way to a pleasurable or painful consciousness, our alternative is to discriminate, compare, or measure. Expended energy, in its object aspect, is discriminated, or estimated in amount. If we do not take it in this aspect, we take it in an emotional or subjective aspect; if it is not pleasure or pain, it is mental emotion (subjective). The same holds of one and all of our senses: when we are discriminating, we are in our object character; while we are giving way to emotion, we assume the garb of the subject. At the instant of comparing two shades of colour, we are all object; when we remit the judging-exertion and allow ourselves to feel the pleasure that the colour gives, we relapse into the subject. IV.-The two last antitheses are well suited to introduce what is the first in Mr. Spencer's table-the antithesis of the VIVID STATES and the FAINT STATES. The distinction is a very great one; and I described it in detail on a former page (p. 563). The most notable circumstances, however, are not those suggested by the terms used; rather, they are these two,-(1) the number and fulness of the lineaments, and (2) the easy and persistent hold of them; both take the Object side. The number, fulness, and easy consciousness of the lineaments, chime in with the two preceding characteristics of the Object-Indifference and Intellectuality. To overtake a complex and variegated scene, we must be put upon the utmost 580 CONSCIOUSNESS. stretch of neutrality and discrimination; where there is little to discriminate,--in a vague or characterless scene,-we sink back into the emotional and subject condition. So, in cognizing the object, it is essential that we should be at our ease and no more; positive pleasure sends us back into the subject attitude; while effort, or strain, by being painful, does the like. The dim, faint, comparatively featureless, and often strained consciousness, that we call Ideas, memory, conception, in the broad contrast with the fulness of Sensation,-is well adapted to confirm us in the distinction between the two worlds of being. t.-We may justly signalize among our contrasts, although it is merely the following out of what has already been given, VISUAL EXTENSION as opposed to the UNEXTENDED consciousness. I do not as yet assume the full meaning of Extension or Space, which implicates the head following, but merely quote the important constituent furnished by the eye through its combined optical and muscular functions. This is one of our pre-eminently object experiences in sensation; while senses that give unextended feelings, as sounds, odours, heat, are more subject than object. These sensations are rendered objective by muscular additions. VI.-The immeasurable VASTNESS and the inexhaustible contents of the Object World are powerfully contrasted with the LIMITED SPHERE of the Subject World. This is Mr. Spencer's tenth antithesis, and deserves to be signalized as one of the imposing differences. It is, however, more or less involved in the circumstances already stated; and, especially, in the play given to Intellect or Discrimination. Along with this great distinction, might be enumerated some of the other members of Mr. Spencer's series, namely, that the Object is prior, original, and independent, while the Subject is posterior, copied, and partly dependent on the Object. These distinctions, however, are applicable solely to the part of the Subject consisting of our Ideas, which are posterior to sensations, copies of them, and dependent on SUBJECT AND OBJECT DISTINCTIONS. 581 them. The terms would have to be reversed, if we were speaking of pleasures and pains; for these, while they are never copies of the vivid states, often precede and control our object experiences. The FIXITY of the arrangements in the Object world is obtrusive and wide-ranging; the fixity in the Subject is less obvious, and compatible with much apparent irregularity. In the Object world, we soon discern a vast extent of perfectly unbroken uniformity, which disguises a considerable amount of irregularity. In the Subject world, there are few of those unbroken groupings; the uniformity is deep and subtle, and is for a long time disclaimed by mankind. In the Object sphere, the passing cloud interrupts the distant view; but, when this is recovered, everything stands related as before. The space arrangements of the sky and of the earth are a thousand to one in favour of eternal uniformity. The emotions produced by the same scene have no necessary identity. VII.-Notwithstanding the powerful influence of these last-mentioned contrasts, we cannot, it seems to me, dispense with the law of uniform connexion between Definite Muscular Exertions and Definite Changes of Feeling, as a mark of the Object World, being wholly absent from Subject States. Indeed, until this circumstance is taken into account, the fixity just mentioned is very much limited and qualified; in fact, holds only for one department of the Object, the remote aspects. The Extended World is not set forth, in its proper character, until we have acquired innumerable associations between movement and sense, and have realized the uniformities that they present. Mr. Spencer's first supposition, a spectator i. absolute physical inactivity, would bring in several very effective contrasts between object and subject, as we have seen, but would leave a great deal of puzzle, if the spectator were in a confined place, full of bustle, as a market, instead of sitting on a cliff by the sea shore engrossed by the distant view. No doubt the objectivity of the visible world is already 582 CONSCIOUSNESS. strongly propped up by the circumstance already cited. The present addition would seem necessary only to overcome a few difficulties and irregularities; yet it co-operates unconsciously from the very beginning. It is by opening the eyes, by keeping them open, and by maintaining an attitude of engrossment with the act of seeing, that we take in these vivid states, with all their amplitude, variety and fixity, constituting our Object world. Without being able to make due allowances for our own bodily changes, we do not account for the increase and diminution of the retinal images, for the coming and going of our visual prospects, which, unallowed for, and unreconciled, would interrupt the consolidation of the object sphere. The vividness, the multiplicity, and a certain region of fixity, would remain, and would save us from confounding object and subject, as a whole; but would leave a dreaminess in many of our object scenes. The connection with Definite Energies, if less necessary for the visual sphere, is all-important for such sensations as hearing, odour, and warmth, which are regarded as object or subject, according as they can comply with the movement test. An object sound-the sound of a waterfall, varies in character with our locomotion; a morbid hissing in the ear, does not vary with our movements. An object source of warmth answers to the same criterion; a fever warmth does not. VIII. Finally, it is impossible to dispense with the contrast of what is COMMON TO ALL with what is SPECIAL TO EACH. The Object World adds to its other distinctions this notable condition, that in it, different minds, in the same situation, are affected in exactly the same way: the Subject World admits of great variety of modes in identical circumstances. The perspective of a street gives the same image to different persons occupying the same point of view; the changes of perspective in moving up and down are the same: but the emotions and ideas awakened may fail to resemble in any two persons. Of all the tests of Objectivity, I doubt if there be any one THE METAPHYSICAL PROBLEM. 583 so searching, so critical, as this. The popular Realism consciously reposes upon an absolute identity of sensation in all men as they observe the same scene; any serious disparity would be felt to be staggering. Even the known differences of optical sensibility, as typified by the broad case of colour blindness, gives a painful uncertainty as to the character of the external world, considered as self-subsisting, independent, and the same whether perceived or unperceived. It obliges us to regard this world beyond perception, as having form attributes, but no one fixed aspect of light and colour; and altogether afflicts the realistic creed with disagreeable misgivings. For if colour is unstable, who can be sure, that even form and resistance are absolute, that is, the same to all? 31. So much for the Psychological Analysis of the distinction of Subject and Object. There remains the Ontological or Metaphysical Problem, which is wholly distinct from the other, although the writer's manner of solving it is generally foreshadowed by his mode of treating the psychological distinction. To extricate the popular Realism, the socalled 'Common Sense' view, from self-contradiction, has hitherto, in my judgment, been found impracticable. Mr. Spencer has given, instead of it, a 'Transfigured Realism', which postulates an ultra-phenomenal existence on two grounds. One has been already mentioned in connection with Resistance, the duality of Force and Resistance. As in the mutual pull of the two hands, there is force put forth by the one, and resistance felt by the other; so, when we encounter a moving body, while the resistance is in us, the force resides in it. 'The unknown correlative of the vivid state we call pressure, symbolized in the known terms of our own efforts, constitutes what we call material substance'. The second property of the ultra-phenomenal agent is the property of binding together the infinitely varied vivid states that we have in connection with body; an unseen and unthinkable nexus, without which the vivid states would tumble altogether into a worse jumble than the wildest confusion of 584 CONSCIOUSNESS. the faint states. What certainly and perdurably exists, is not the vivid states, but this nexus or groundwork for setting them in-the. principle of their order or method. Amid all the changes, there is something permanent-the something that never became a vivid state of consciousness, the something that kept together the vivid states, that bound them into a group. Force_ and Order are thus the two properties of the Absolute, the self-existent entity that makes up the Object side of Being. 'Mysterious as seems the consciousness of something which is yet out of consciousness, the enquirer finds that he alleges the reality of this something in virtue of the ultimate law-he is obliged to think it'. For my own part, I feel misgivings as to any process of reasoning that contains in it this obligation. But as I do not intend to enter here upon the wide ontological discussion as to the Reality or Unreality of an Independent External World, I shall merely remark that what recommends Realism to the acceptance of mankind is the great facility that it offers for summing up and expressing the contrast of the Object and the Subject sides of our experience. If Berkeley had contrived a machinery of expression for keeping the two distinct, as easily worked as the old method, his Idealism might have been received with only the faintest murmur. But the magnitude, the fulness, and the fixity of the Object world seemed to collapse, under the feeble rendering-esse est percipi, there appeared to be an unconditional surrender, a coming down from the comforting assurance of mankind that the world was there before them and might remain long after them: and how this could be, if it were merely the perceptions of a succession of fugitive percipients, they did not understand. The familiar case of the rising and setting of the sun and stars is a good example of the facility for common uses of a mode of expression at variance with the fact. To indicate the cycle of day and night by expressing it in terms of the real fact-that all the motion is in the ground that we stand upon - would be very much against the grain; and we prefer the THE POPULAR REALISM. 585 untrue statement, taking care only that we never allow it to lead us into practical error. Now both the convenience of the contradiction, and the cumbersomeness and repugnance of the fact, are immensely greater in the question presently before us. We use the language of common Realism, as the easiest way of keeping up in full force the distinction of the two worlds; we are not, however, bound to hold that this language, because practically convenient, is philosophically sound. 32. The Realism that best suits the purposes of common expression consists in declaring the absolute, permanent, and unconditional existence of an outer world-resisting, extended, and containing in itself the energies that rouse our various sensations. In order to get rid of confusing subjective varieties as regards the secondary qualities, we should have to assume some prevailing, average, or typical standard, in the perception of colour, heat, and other sensible effects. This would be Reality, Self-Existence, the world as viewed by a typical mind -Divine or other. This would exist whether perceived or not; it preceded sentient life, and, for anything we know, may outlast it. To the Speculative Reason, the entire conception is incoherent and untenable; to the Practical Reason it is everything that can be desired. 33. The following extracts from Destutt Tracy are an excellent statement of our position in reference to the perception of an external world: 'Nous ne connaissons notre existence que par les impressions que.nous eprouvons: et celle des autres etres que nous, que par les impressions qu'ils nous causent. 'Aussi, de meme que toutes nos propositions peuvent 'tre ramendes a la forme de propositions enonciatives, parcequ'au fond elles expriment toutes un jugement: de mime, toutes nos propositions dnonciatives peuvent tre toujours reduites h n'etre qu'une de celles-ci: Je pense, je sens, ou je perCois, que telle chose est de telle maniere, ou que tel etre produit tel effet--propositions dont nous sommes nous-meme le sujet, parcequ'au fond nous sommes toujours le sujet de tous nos 586 CONSCIOUSNESS. jugements, puisqu'ils n'exprirent jamais qu''une impression que nous eprouvons. 'Ii s'ensuit de lh Que nos perceptions sont tout pour nous; que nous ue connaissons jamais rien que nos perceptions, qu'elles sont les seules choses vraiment reelles pour nous, et que la re~alite que nous reconnaissous dans les ftres qui nous les causeut, n'est que secondaire, et ne consiste que dans le pouvoir permanent de faire touijours les m:emzes impressions dans les me'mies circonstanees, soit h nous, soit ' d'autres etres sensibles qui nous en rendent compte, encore par des impressions qu'ils nons causent quand nous sommes parvenus a nous mettre en communication avec eux par des signes.''Ide'ologie', Vol. IV., p. 164-165, ed. 1825. 'On peut meme dire que comme nous ne sentons, ne savons, et ne connaissons rien que par rapport h nous, l'ide'e, sujet de la proposition est toujours en definitif notre nmoi: car quand je dis, cet arbre est vert, je dis reellemeut, je sens, je sais, je, vois, qgve cet arbre est vert. Mais, precise'meut parceque ce preambule se trouve toujours dans toutes nos propositions, nous le supprimons quand nous voulons: et toute idee peut etre le sujet d'une propositiou.'-' Principes Logiques,' Vol. IV., p. 231. A PPEN D I X APPEND IX. A.--On the most general physical conditions of Consciosness.-p. 46. As regards the most general laws of connexion of the mental and the physical functions, I will add the following observations. I have repeatedly alluded to the great mental Law of Relativity. Although we cannot with certainty assign the physical counterpart of this law, the following statement is in harmony with our present knowledge both of mental and of physical phenomena. The nervous equilibrium, disturbed by the application of a stimulus, is perpetually restoring itself. This is an elementary law. of all material forces known to us; comprehending Mechanical force, Heat, Chemical force, Electricity, &c. The disturbance of a liquid at rest, is an easy example; as in the Tides. The Winds exemplify the same principle, in the atmosphere. No reason can be assigned why it should not apply to the nerve force. We may fairly presume that, when all the currents of the brain are in a balanced condition, when no one is commencing, increasing, or abating, consciousness or feeling is null,-mind is quiescent. A disturbance at any point wakens up consciousness for the time, a second disturbance continues it from another point, and so on; the variety of stimulus, in the waking state, forbidding the perfect equilibrium of the mind. In full harmony with this view, is the really fitful nature of mind; the stream of consciousness is a series of ebullitions rather than a steady flow. In the calmer moods of the mind, this is not so apparent; but our experience of any intense excitement is in favour of the doctrine. The second general condition of consciousness is the Law of Diffusion, fully expounded in the text. Coupling with this the physical side of Relativity, we should have to lay down the most general physical condition of Consciousness as follows:An increase or diminution of the nerve-currents circulating in the interior of the brain, sufficiently diffused to affect the combined system of outcarrying nerves. The concluding clause,-' sufficiently diffused to affect the corn 590 APPENDIX. bined system of outcarrying nerves '-besides embodying the Law of Diffusion, is intended to point to the development of a collective and united consciousness, as will be illustrated in the following remarks:Mr. G. H. Lewes, in his 'Physiology of Common Life', has argued, with great ability, and with apparently irresistible cogency, in favour of the position that Sensation or Feeling, that is, Consciousness, is a property of all nervous ganglia. He denies the existence of unconscious circuits of stimulation and action, as in the so-called ' RIeflex Acts,' sustained by the agency of the spinal cord; and adduces numerous observations and experiments of the same tenor as the one quoted in THE SENSES (p. 45, 3rd edit.) from Pflilger; drawing the inference that, in reflex stimulation, there are found the essentials of voluntary action. So far as I am able to see, the weight of evidence is on his side. That every ganglionic excitement whatever (cerebral, spinal, sympathetic) gives birth to sensibility, seems a more likely supposition than that sensibility should attach to certain ganglia (those in the cerebrum) and be absent from others made up of exactly the same combination of the same nervous elements. Mr. Lewes's theory is not in any way incompatible with the conditions of consciousness here laid down. I presume that, when he attributes sensibility to the ganglia in common, he means-in conjunctiorn with the nerves: ganglia without nerves are nothing; they would be railway stations without rails. It would no more do to localize mind in ganglionic cells than to place it in the pineal gland; the sensibility co-exists with the completed circles of nervous action, of which the ganglia are an indispensable part. Again, the theory must be held subject to the Law of Change, or Relativity. Mr. Lewes tacitly assumes this throughout, and occasionally states it in express terms. Speaking of visceral sensibility, he says:-' And it is to the variety of states which may be determined by changes in the circulation, and the conditions of the viscera, that the great variety in the actions of decapitated animals must be attributed.' (Vol. II., p. 240.) We may contend for the sensibility of all the organs of the system that are in any way connected by nerves to nerve-centres; nevertheless, without a fluctuating condition of these organs, they would fail seemingly to yield consciousness. But, farther, Mr. Lewes's position is not at variance with the Law of Diffusion. Translated into his language, this law would be that ' sensibility increases according to the extent of the ganglia affected.' The real subtlety here is to lay down the circumstance determining the Unity of Consciousness. It may be quite true that, whenever a ganglion completes a nerve circuit, there is a sensibility or consciousness in connection therewith; APPENDIX. 591 but, if the circuits perform their functions apart, there are so many separate sensibilities like so many distinct animals. In order to unity, they must somehow run together; the local feelings must fuse into a collective feeling, or a combined tone, the resultant of all the separate tones. If a reflexion from the spinal cord perform an act substantially amounting to volition, as in the decapitated frog, without in any way relying on cerebral assistance, there may be sensibility or consciousiless, as well as volition, in the act, but then it is not, as Mr. Lewes himself admits, the consciousness of the animal, as we understand and interpret that; it is the consciousness of a separate and inferior animal. And why so? Because our recognized consciousness is what employs our voice to describe it to others, our mouth, eyes, &o., to embody it in outward manifestation, our collective members to work for it. To whatever extent an outlying nervous centre performs an organic or protective function by its unassisted agency, its consciousness does not properly become our consciousness; it is like the consciousness of a parasite, or of the foetus in the mother's womb. It seems to me, therefore, that what determines the unity of consciousness, as showing which local currents have found means to actuate the collective currents, is the unity of the executive; that is to say, the active mechanism and the higher senses. We can employ our organs of expression to express only one feeling at a time; we can employ our senses in only one act of attention, our body generally in only one act of the higher volitions. In so far as these propositions are not rigidly true, to that extent consciousness is not a unity, but in some sort a plurality. Detached operations, as walking, which we may carry on while the attention is available for something else, may have their own consciousness; but they do not affect the central consciousness, whose properties are-to be localized in the cerebrum, to possess unity, and to be alone recognized as constituting our mental history. B.-Classification of the Emotions.-p. 77. Mr. Herbert Spencer, in an article reviewing 'The Emotions and the Will' (Essays, 2nd Series), has adverted more especially to the classification of the Emotions. He states the governing principle, in conformity with Evolution, as follows:'Thus we may, in the first place, study the evolution of the emotions up through the various grades of the animal kingdom: observing which of them are earliest and exist with the lowest organization and intelligence; in what order the others accompany higher endowments; and how they are severally related to the con 592 APPENDIX. ditions of life. In the second place, we may note the emotional differences between the lower and the higher human races-may regard as earlier and simpler those feelings which are common to both, and as later and more compound those which are characteristic of the most civilised. In the third place, we may observe the order in which the emotions unfold during the progress from infancy to maturity. And lastly, comparing these three kinds of emotional development, displayed in the ascending grades of the animal kingdom, in the advance of the civilised races, and in individual history, we may see in what respects they harmonize, and what are the implied general truths. ' Having gathered together and generalized these several classes of facts, analysis of the emotions would be made easier. Setting out with the unquestionable assumption, that every new form of emotion making its appearance in the individual or the race, is a modification of some pre-existing emotion, or a compounding of several preexisting emotions; we should be greatly aided by knowing what always are the pre-existing emotions. When, for example, we find that very few, if any, of the lower animals show any love of accumulation, and that this feeling is absent in infancy-when we see that an infant in arms exhibits anger, fear, wonder, while yet it manifests no desire of permanent possession, and that a brute which has no acquisitive emotion can nevertheless feel attachment, jealousy, love of approbation; we may suspect that the feeling which property satisfies is compounded out of simpler and deeper feelings. We may conclude that as, when a dog hides a bone, there must exist in him a prospective gratification of hunger; so there must similarly at first, in all cases where anything is secured or taken possession of, exist an ideal excitement of the feeling which that thing will gratify. We may further conclude that when the intelligence is such that a variety of objects come to be utilized for different purposes-when, as among savages, divers wants are satisfied through the articles appropriated for weapons, shelter, clothing, ornament; the act of appropriating comes to be one constantly involving agreeable associations, and one which is therefore pleasurable, irrespective of the end subserved. And when, as in civilized life, the property acquired is of a kind not conducing to one order of gratification in particular, but is capable of administering to all gratifications, the pleasure of acquiring property grows more distinct from each of the various pleasures subserved-is more completely differentiated into a separate emotion.' Mr. Spencer divides the Feelings, as a whole, into four classes:I. ' Presentative feelings, ordinarily called sensations, are those mental states in which, instead of regarding a corporeal impression as of this or that kind, or as located here or there, we contemplate it APPENDIX. 593 in itself as pleasure or pain; as when eating.' This division corresponds to the Muscular Feelings and Sensations. II. ' Presentative-representative feelings, embracing a great part of what we call emotions, are those in which a sensation, or group of sensations, or group of sensations and ideas, arouses a vast aggregation of represented sensations; partly of individual experience, but chiefly deeper than individual experience (that is, vague inherited experience), and consequently indefinite.' He gives Terror as an example, and remarks as to the presence of inherited pains in the state of fear. He does not offer any other example; but the description would apply to the elementary emotions generally-as Love and Malevolence. III. ' Representative feelings, comprehending the ideas of the feelings above classed, when they are called up apart from the appropriate external excitements. As instances of these may be named the feelings with which the descriptive poet writes, and which are aroused in the minds of his hearers.' IV. ' Be-Representative feelings, under which head are included those more complex sentient states that are less the direct results of external excitements than the indirect or reflex results of them. The love of Property is a feeling of this kind. It is awakened not by the presence of any special object, but by ownable objects at large; and it is not from the mere presence of such objects, but from a certain ideal relation to them, that it arises.' ' The higher sentiments, as that of Justice, are still more completely of this nature.' I will next advert to some of the other modes of classifying the Emotions. In Reid's ' Active Powers,' Emotion is handled in a very defective way. Under what he calls 'ANIMAL PRINCIPLES OF ACTION,' he includes Appetites, Desires (Power, Esteem, Knowledge), Benevolent Affections, Malevolent Affections, Passion, Dispositioin, and Opinion; and under 'RATIONAL PRINCIPLES OF ACTION,' he brings in Regard to Good upon the Whole, and the Moral Sense. There is no allusion to Wonder or Fear. There is a total omission of Belief in its bearings upon Action. The AEsthetic Emotions are slightly touched on, in the concluding chapter of the Intellectual Powers. Dugald Stewart, as usual, builds upon Reid's foundation. His 'Active Powers' are cast into two chief divisions. I. INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLEs OF ACTION (Reid's 'Animal' Principles). These are1. The Appetites; 2. The Desires (Knowledge, Society, Esteem, Power, Superiority); 3. The Affections, Benevolent and Malevolent. II. RATIONAL AND GOVERNING PRINCIPLES OF ACTION, including Self38 594 APPENDIX. Love or Prudence, and the Moral Faculty; to which he appends certain other principles that influence our conduct, namely, Decency, or a regard to Character, Sympathy, the Ridiculous, Taste. It is a defect inherent in the two-fold division of the mind (Intellectual Powers and Active Powers) that the Feelings cannot be discussed apart from their prompting the Will; the pleasures of Esteem, Society, Power, Knowledge, &c., are considered not purely as pleasures, but under the guise of Desire, which is a compound of Feeling and Will. Thomas Brown, in entering on the consideration of the Emotions, is in doubt whether to arrange them according to their ultimate elements, or in the complex forms familiurly recognized. He decides on the last course, remarking that, if he were to lay them out in the order of the elementary feelings, these would be Joy, Grief, Desire, Astonishment, Respect, Contempt, and the Moral Sentiment. In arranging the complex emotions, he proceeds upon their relation to Time, and divides them into-IMMEDIATE, including Cheerfulness and Melancholy, Wonder, Languor, Beauty, Sublimity, the Ludicrous, the Moral Feeling, Love and Hate, Sympathy, Pride and Humility; RETRO - SPECTIVE, Anger, Gratitude, Simple Regret, and Gladness, Remorse and its Opposite; PROSPECTIVE, the Desires (continued Existence, Pleasure, Action, Society, Knowledge, Power, Affection, Glory, the Happiness of Others, Evil to others). By such a scheme, the author departs from the simplicity of Reid and Stewart, without remedying any of their defects. He was still less:likely, from his point of view, to see the impropriety of bringing forward our chief pleasures in their complication with the action of the Will or Desire. Sir W. Hamilton has the advantage of starting from the threefold division of the mind: (in which division, however, he places Knowledge or Intellect first, and Feeling second). He classifies the feelings as (1) Sensations, and (2) Mental or Internal Feelings, the Sentiments. His subdivision of the Sentiments, that is, the Emotions, is into CONTEMPLATIVE-having reference to the Cognitive Powers or Intellect, and PRACTICAL-having reference to the Powers of Conation, or the Will. It seems somewhat singular that Emotion should have no locus standi, except as a mere incident of the two other powers of the mind; a circumstance that may be justified on one ground, namely, that the Emotions are generated from the Sensations, through the operation of intellectual forces; but this Hamilton does not affirm. The CONTEMPLATIVE Feelings are again subdivided into those of the Subsidiary Faculties, and those of the Elaborative Faculty; the first being again subdivisible into those of Self-con APPENDIX. 595 sciousness, and those of Imagination. Under Self-consciousness he gives Tedium, and its opposite. Under Imagination, by itself, are placed Order, Symmetry, and Unity in Variety. Connected with Understanding, or the Elaborative Faculty, are Wit, the pleasures of Truth and Science, and the gratification of adapting Means to Ends. The joint energy of the Imagination and the Understanding gives birth to Beauty and Sublimity, in their fullest scope. The PRACTICAL Feelings relate to (1) our Self-Preservation; (2) the Enjoyment of our Existence; (3) the Preservation of the Species; (4) our Tendency towards Development and Perfection;. and (5) the Moral Law. Self-Preservation includes Hunger and Thirst, Loathing, Sorrow, Bodily Pain, Repose, Fear, Anxiety, Shuddering, Alarm, Security, and the state aroused by the Representation of Death. The Enjoyment of Existence is connected with Joy and its opposites, Fear, Anxiety, Sorrow, &c. The Preservation of the Species implies Sexual Love, Family and Social Affections, Sympathy, Vanity, Shame, Pride, Indigiiation, Resentment, Anger, Scorn, &c. The Tendency towards Perfection embraces the consciousness of Power and of Impotence, Emulation, and Envy. The regard to the Moral Law comprehends Respect to others, Self-Respect, Self-Abasement, the Moral Feeling, Conscience, Remorse. This must be considered a hasty sketch, a mere beginning, which the author never followed up. The weaknesses of the classification are many and obvious. It is characteristic of Hamilton's inversion of, what I think, the natural order of (1) Feeling, and (2) Knowledge, that Beauty is made to grow out of Imagination, instead of Imagination catering for Beauty. The prevalence of the Triple division of the Mind in German philosophy, from the end of last century, might be expected to show itself in the scheme of the Emotions. Kant adopted the triple division, but he did little to carry it out into the the subdivisions, from which alone we can see what the main heads are intended to imply. In his 'Anthropology,' he divides Pleasure and Pain (that is, Feeling) into SENSUAL and INTELLECTUAL, which do not exactly coincide with Sensations and Emotions. The SENSUAL pleasures (or pains) come either through Sense (Enjoyment), or through Imagination (Taste). The pleasures and pains of Sense include Tedium, Contentment, &c. The INTELLECTUAL pleasures and pains arise in connexion with the Concepts of the Understanding, and with the Ideas of the Reason. This is not unlike Hamilton's method. But it is under the Appetitive Power, CONATION, or, as we should say, the Will, that he includes the ordinary emotions Love, Hatred, &c., thus reproducing, in spite of his more auspicious starting-point, the vice 596 APPENDIX. attaching to our own philosophers, who proceeded on the twofold division of mind. In connection with the Appetitive or Active Faculty, he distinguishes Affections and Passions. An Affection is a present feeling of pleasure or pain whereby the power of reflection is for the time overcome. It is a sudden coring-on of sensation, destructive of the equanimity of the individual. Passion is inclination too strong for the Reason. The passions are natural (Liberty, Sexual passion, &c.), or acquired (Ambition, Avarice). Herbart and his followers are of more importance than Kant in all that regards Psychology, and especially the analysis and classification of the Feelings. Herbart, in adopting the threefold division of the mind, does so with the express proviso that the three parts, although scientifically divisible, are mutually involved and inseparable in their workings, being all based on one primary element, or primitive mental state, which is the Presentation (Vorstellung), viewed as cognition or knowledge-the Sensation in what we should call its intellectual aspect. The other states, intellectual, emotional, and volitional, are of secondary origin. The Feelings arise -amid the munti.al reaction of the presentations, above or under the 'threshold' of clear consciousness; the reaction being either Arrest and Obstruction, or Furtherance and Harmony; in other words, Feeling is wholly subjected to the Law of Harmony and Conflict. The definition of Feeling is ' Immediate Perception of Hindrance or Furtherance among the presentations extant at any moment in consciousness'; and, as the presentations express the only active forces of the mind, by which its vital activity can be measured, Feeling may be called 'the immediate consciousness of the momentary rising or sinking of the mental vital activity.' The distinction between Sensation and Feeling is variously stated by Herbart's followers Nahlowsky defines Sensation as the state depending on the mere perception of an organic stimulus; and Feeling as the resultant, not of immediate stimulation of the nerves, but of presentations simultaneously concurring in the consciousness. Waitz says that Feelings are produced necessarily in the course of the succession of presentations, but are not mere nodified presentations, or reducible to such; which, in spite of his disclaimer, comes very near to a recognition of a distinct element of Feeling; the Emotional is grounded, without being altogether merged, in the Intellectual. Wundt, influenced by Herbart though not a disciple, goes still closer to the mark, when he says that Feeling is every state having a purely subjective reference, thereby including the subjective aspect of the Sensation. The great defect of Herbart's views is the common defect of philosophical systems, over-simplicity: his unity of the mind is a thorough carry APPENDIX. 597 ing out of the idea (adopted by Hamilton) of basing everything on knowledge or cognition. The classification of Feelings suggested in part by Herbart, and carried out by Waitz, and others of his disciples, is into FORMAL and QUALITATIVE Feelings. The FORMAL are not bound exclusively to any one mode of subject-matter, but depend solely on the manner of coming together of the presentations (the mutual hindrance or furtherance). The QUALITATIVE depend on the special characters of the presentations. I quote the various subdivisions, and the complementary heads, as given by Nahlowsky (Das Gefiihlsleben, pp. 50-1, 214-5.) I.-FEELING PROPER. A. Formal. a. The general, or more elementary Formal Feelings--Oppression and Relief; Exertion and Ease; Seeking and Finding; Success and Defeat; Harmony and Contrast; Power and Weakness, b. The special or more complicated Formal Feelings-Expectation; Hope, Apprehension, Astonishment; Doubt; Tedium; Entertainment (Diversion, Recreation). B. Qualitative. a. The lower feelings, or those of Sense-the pleasures and pains of single colours and sounds, b. The higher or Intellectual Feelings (Truth and Probability); the 2Esthetic; the Moral; the Religious. II.-COMPLEX EMOTIONAL STATES. 1. Emotional states involving Conation (Desire or Aversion). a. Sympathetic Feeling (properly qualitative, but not classified under B, because involving both the Sensual and the Ideal element). b. Love (both Sensual and Ideal, also complicated with Desire). 2. States essentially resting on an Organic foundation. a. The Disposition, mood or frame of mind-the collective or general tone, admitting neither the prominence of special feelings, nor a reference to any distinct agency-general Hilarity in all degrees, &c. b. Affections (not in the sense of love), opposed to the foregoing as the transitory to the permanent. It was a speciality of Herbart to note under this name the transitory disturbance of the internal equilibrium by some sudden unexpected impression (Fear, Anger, &c.) whereby the organism is sympathetically affected, with loss of calm reflection and free self-determination. These affections have been variously classified: (1) according as 598 APPENDIX. the intellectual activity is heightened or arrested (Drobisch); (2) according as the emotional element is varied-or as the feeling is one of satisfaction or dissatisfaction, agreeable or disagreeable; (3) according to their influence on action-as they give rise to desire or aversion (Kant's division into Sthenic and Asthenic); (4) according as the bodily tone is heightened or depressed. From a still different point of view (Nahlowsky's, p. 258), they are arranged in two groups. A. Affections of the Active, or B. Affections of the Passive, or Plus-side. Minuis-side. Pleasurable Surprise. Helpless Amazement. Sudden Mirth. Embarrassment. Jollity. Perplexity. Frolicksomeness. Painful Surprise. Joyful Transport. Fits of Sorrow and Sadness. Rapture. Apprehension. Courage. Depression. Rage. Faintheartedness. Vexation. Shame. Admiration. Fear. Enthusiasm. Anguish. Ecstasy. Terror. Horror. Repentance, Despair. The active nature of the affections in the first column announces itself in the general rise, the massive flow, and the quicker rhythm, of the Presentations involved; along with a feeling of Power, of Iiuscular Elasticity, of Readiness to Act, of general increase of Vitality. From the Affection, finally, the Passion has to be distinguished. As the affection arises out of violent sensations, so does the Passion out of unguarded desires. When any higher feeling is hurt, an affection ensues; when any inclination is thwarted, a passion is excited. Passion is a fixed predominant disposition towards a certain kind of desire that refuses the control of the Reason. This distinction is to me a quibble: it would not exist but for the arbitrary repetition of the very same states under the heading of Desires. iMoreover, any one of the so-called affections rising to intensity, in my opinion, does everything that characterizes passion. Wundt, in his work, Vorlesungen ilber die Menschen und Thierseele, Vol. II. (1864), enters elaborately into the nature of Feeling and APPENDIX. 599 Emotion. Ile is at great pains to discriminate the Objective from the Subjective consciousness, which last is the domain of the Feelings. lie recognizes the pleasures and pains of sense as at the foundation of all feeling, and avoids the Herbartian resolution of feeling into cognition. The Emotions, he remarks, are described in the very terms applied to sensations-Love burns, Care oppresses, Remorse gnaws. Moreover, the emotions are accompanied with sensible effects-muscular or visceral-so that they are only another form of bodily excitation. The Emotions, like the lower feelings of Sense, fall under the grand division of Pleasure and Pain. They may also be divided into pleasant and painful Affections and Moods; the Affection being the more transitory state, the IVood the more lasting. The Affections in their intenser moments rise to Passion; which is the transition to Desire. The other Affections are, all of thefm, varieties of the two fundamental and least definite states-Sorrowz and Joy. Sadness, Trouble, Concern, Grief, Affliction, Melancholy, Distress, Mourning, are all different kinds of Sorrow. Some have a more objective reference, or fasten on a specific cause, as Concern, Trouble, and Affliction; others are more purely subjective, as the Affection of Grief, and the Mood of Melancholy; while Distress and Mourning incline now to one side and now to the other. Joy has its different forms; but language does not supply the same range of designations for it, as for sorrow. As a lasting mood, it is called Joyfulness. It is, the author remarks, a characteristic circumstance that there is no word to express a distinction of objective and subjective joyful affections; joy is, on the whole, he thinks, more purely subjective than sorrow. When either state is a direct result of an impression of some outward thing, it gives birth to the objective reference expressed by Liking or Dislike. We have an affection, as well as a sensation, of Disgust; which last of course implies objectivity. YWundt, like the others, takes notice that the Affections and Moods differ from the Sensations in requiring a plurality of intellectual presentations; sorrow for the death of a friend is the complicated result of many thoughts and recollections. An emotion may be excited on a single presentation; but the force and character of it depend on the ideas awakened. We may pass beyond the simple Affections and Moods to other complications of Sensation and Idea. We have a class depending not on the matter of the presentations, as the foregoing are, but on the mode of their interconnection, viz., as harmonious or discordant. We are very differently affected, according as the flow of the thougghts is 600 APPENDIX. smooth, free, and uninterrupted, or as it is laborious or broken. We have thus the two classes-(1) Feeling of the free flow of thoughtthe feeling of pleasure joined to thought unrestrained, and yet not too swift; (2) the opposite Feeling of the restrained flow, which includes also the too violent or rapid flow. Under these we have a variety of special forms:-Feelings of Exertion and Ease, as regards both bodily and mental operations, corresponding to the feelings of sense in laborious or easy muscular motion, with which indeed, in a weak form, they are accompanied even when most purely mental. Feelings of Diversion and fTedium, which specially involve the sense of time; in Tedium, there is a sort of indeterminate expectation. Feelings of Success and Failure; Seeking and Finding; Agreement and Contradiction on the comparison of two sets of ideas; there may be also, in the same connexion, the middle states of Doubt and Indecision; Harmony and Discord, in their mesthetic bearings, are applied in the first instance to the sense of sound, but are thence extended to other senses and feelings. Harmony (in sound) is expressed, by Wundt, as a number of sounds falling together into a permanent union; Discord arises when the simultaneous tones give riso to fluctuating accompaniments, which we endeavour in vain to bring to unity; both affections in the heightened forms have an affinity with Dizziness, which is a regular feeling of sense, arising from an excessive stimulation of the brain by a sensible object. Expectation is the hurrying forward of the thoughts into the future; another form of it is Lying-in-wait (Plot-interest). When the result arrives and is favourable, we have Satisfaction; in the opposite case, Disappointment. When something ensues differing from what we expected, then we feel Surprise, which, according to the circumstances, is pleasurable, painful, or indifferent. When there is a difficulty in reconciling the mind to what has happened, the state is called Astonishmenet, and this continued is Amazement. Allied to Harmony is Rhythm, definable as "the feeling wherein Expectation and Satisfaction always coincide "; there is a jar of Disappointment when the rhythm is destroyed. Hope and Fear are special forms of Expectation, containing an element of the indeterminate; Hope is the expectation of a wished-for event, Fear the expectation of one not wished-for. Anxiety is the fear of a great evil immediately to follow; to it Fright stands related as Surprise to Expectation. Consternation and Terror are more intense forms of Fear; Care is continued Fear. Wundt, while recognizing the existence of affections that arise on occasion of the free or restrained flow of the ideas, controverts Herbart's position, that all feelings whatsoever are grounded on this circumstance. He maintains that not only the first-named Affections, and still more the feelings of Sense, depend absolutely on the matter APPENDIX. 601 or contents of the presentations whereby they are occasioned, but that the last-mentioned Affections-Hope, Fear, &c., are also more than merely formal, being in reality compounds of both qualitative and formal affections. His exposition of the Feelings is completed by a review of the still more involved emotional states, known as the AEsthetic, the Moral, and the Intellectual Feeling's. I refrain from occupying space with a minute criticism of these various arrangements of the Feelings; their points of agreement and of difference with the scheme in the text will be obvious to the attentive reader. In all of them, I should have to remark, more or less, on the redundancy of the designations; the same phenomenon being often expressed under different heads. I have more than once noticed the repetition of an identical state under the form of Desire; besides which, the mode of introducing the element of Belief (Hope and Fear) is, I conceive, hostile to a correct analysis of the emotions. Mr. Shadworth H. Hodgson (' Theory of Practice' vol. I.) classifies the Emotions under three heads. First. DIRECT EMOTIONs. Of these, the class A has three subdivisions. 1. Emotions arising from the matter of the object represented, with pleasures or pains of enjoyment: namely, Joy, Fondness, Grief, Aversion. 2. Emotions that arise from the form of the object represented, with pleasure or pain of admiration: the vesthetic emotions, or sense of Beauty in sights or sounds; to which corresponds the sense of ugliness or deformity. 3. Emotions arising in comparison of two or more complete objects represented, with pleasures or pains partly of enjoyment, and partly of admiration: Wonder, Surprise, Astonishment, Terror or Dread, Eeriness; Joyful Surprise, Mirth; Curiosity or Logical Instinct; Ennui, emotional and intellectual. Class B is 'Imaginative and Direct Emotions'. 1. Emotions of 1st group of Class A with addition of desire or passion: Hope, Congratulation, Fear, Regret. 2. Emotions arising in imagination of feelings of the 2nd and 3rd groups of Class A: Fancy, Wit, Humour-Grave and Gay, Fun, Irony, Sarcasm, Naivete. Second. REFLECTIVE EMi TIONS. Class A: arising from the Matter. 1. The sympathetic group: Good-will, Affection, Love, Friendship, Gratitude, Pity, Rejoicing in good. 2. The antipathetic group: Ill-will, Hate, Anger, Bitterness, Revenge, Rejoicing at evils, Malice. 3. Belonging to both groups: Passion of benevolence, of affection; High spirit; Rage; Courage; Rashness, Audacity. 4. Emotions of the comparison of Having: Ashamedness, Admiration of externals, Vanity, Contempt, Passions 602 APPENDIX. of Envy and Jealousy. 5. Emotions of the comparison of *Being: Humility, Admiration of essentials, Self-complacency, Scorn, Passions of Emulation and Humour. 6. Emotions of Reflection on Self alone: Shame, Self-respect, Pride. B: arising from the Form. Justice and Injustice, Veracity,. Equity, Mercy, Indignation. C: arising from Matter and Form together. The Emotion of the Moral Sense; Good Conscience; Remorse; Modes-Expedience, Duty or Moral Right. Third. REFLECTIVE AND IMAGINATIVE EMOTIONS. Group 1. The poetical Emotions. Group 2. The religious Emotions: primary-Worship, Sin, Sense of Justification; secondaryFaith, Hope, Charity. M1any felicitous and interesting remarks occur in the exposition of the foregoing scheme in detail. I think, however, there is a disadvantage in separating so broadly the social (Reflective) emotions from the rest; and especially in constituting an mesthetic group in advance of the feelings of sociability. I do not see much that is gained by carrying the abstract and antithetic couple 'matter-form', throughout the whole scheme. In many instances, I fail to discover the relevance of the distinction: hardly anywhere does it appear to me to have more than a superficial adaptation. We can understand the form of Justice, in the sense of an exceedingly general definition; while the matter would be its application to classes of actions, as civil justice (equal rights), criminal justice (proportion of punishment to crime); but I do not feel the propriety of treating Justice as form, Love and Anger being the matter. C.--Meanings of Consciousness.-p. 549. The great mystification, as it seems to me, in regard to Consciousness, has reference to the attribute of knowledge. ' Consciousness,' says Hamilton, 'is the recognition by the mind of its own acts or affections,' which to an ordinary reader suggests Consciousness, not in the large sense of our mental life, but in the narrow sense of the study of our own mind-the definition of Stewart. A pleasure merely enjoyed, and not studied or reflected on, would not be consciousness, according to this view. Again, Hamilton says:-' It is evident that every mental phenomenon is either an act of knowledge, or only possible through an act of knowledge; for consciousness is a knowledge-a phenomenon of cognition; and on this principle, many philosophers-as Descartes, Leibnitz, Spinoza, Wolf, Platner, and others-have been led to regard the knowing, or representative faculty, 'as they call it-the faculty of cognition, as the fundamental APPENDIX. 603 power of the mind, from which all others are derivative.' This he considers going too far. 'These philosophers did not observe that, although pleasure and' pain-although desire and volition, are only as they are known to be; yet, in these modifications, a quality, a phenomenon of mind, absolutely new, has been superadded, which was never involved in, and could therefore never have been evolved out of, the mere faculty of knowledge. The faculty of knowledge is certainly the first in order, inasmuch as it is the conditio sine qua non of the others; and we are able to conceive a being possessed of the power of recognising existence, and yet wholly void of all feeling of pain and pleasure, and of all powers of desire and volition.' (Mietaphysics, Lect. XI.) Thus, of the three great functions of mind, Knowledge is reckoned first and fundamental; it is independent of the two others, while these others are dependent on it. Hamilton, therefore, is to be held as affirming that every mental state must be at the bottom a state of knowledge; that a pleasure is not a pleasure, is not possible as pleasure, unless we are somehow or other taking note of the fact that we are pleased: that it is not the intensity of the feeling that makes the consciousness, but the operation of recognizing the feeling as a fact, or a phenomenon of our being. This doctrine is not confined to Hamilton and his followers; it is extensively maintained in Germany. For myself, I cannot concur in it; it seems to me to pervert the facts. I fully admit, that if we have a feeling-say a pleasure or a pain-it is in our power to attend to that feeling; to study it, to recognize it as a fact, to compare it with other feelings; and that no state is a conscious state, unless there be this possibility of cognizing it; but I do not admit that the circumstance of knowing it is the fundamental fact, the conditio sine qua non, of the feeling. It is the nature of an intense feeling to call attention to itself; but the attention does not make the feeling: if it did, the more attention we give, the more we should feel; while, in point of fact, in the case of any strong emotion, the study of it has a sedative efficacy, by employing the forces of the mind in a purely cognitive process. It appears to me most accordant with the facts, to treat Feeling as a conscious element, whether cognized or not, whether thought of much or little. The three functions of mind are so interwoven that it is scarcely, if at all, possible to find any one of them in exercise by itself absolutely: we cannot be all Feeling, without any vestige of a cognitive element; it is impossible to be mentally awake without leaving some deposit of an intellectual kind, something that instructs us either of ourselves, or of the extended world. So, we cannot be all Will, without either feeling or knowledge. It is, however, maintained by Hamilton that we can be all Knowledge, or exist in a cog 604 APPENDIX. nitive state, without either feeling or will. This I dispute. We may be in a state of knowing consciousness without either pleasure or pain, and, consequently, without a motive to the will; but not without something, more or less, of a neutral excitement, which I regard as a shade of Feeling, an accidental moment when the pleasurable or painful elements of feeling happen to be neutralized. Professor Ulrici, of Halle, in a lengthened criticism of my two volumes in the Zeitschrift flir Philosophie und Philosophische Kritik (38th Vol., Part II., 1861), takes great objection to my employing the term Consciousness as synonymous with Feeling and Emotion; contending that to feel is one thing, to know that we feel is another thing, and that only this last is proper Consciousness. With respect to the identity in meaning of Feeling, Emotion, and Consciousness, I have altered my views; for reasons already explained ('The Senses and the Intellect,' 3rd edit., p. 668). I have in this volume used 'Feeling' as the name for the genus, of which Sensation (with VMuscular Feeling) and Emotion are the two species; and I use ' Consciousness' as comprehending every state of mental life, both the subject life, and the object life. In how far consciousness, as Feeling, is related to consciousness, as Intelligence, I have endeavoured to explain above (p. 548): I regard the state of neutral excitement as the transition between the two. Professor Ulrici's contrast between feeling and knowing that we feel, as expounded by him, is tantamount to the difference between so-called reflex stimulation, and sensation with feeling, in the ordinary acceptation; and he attributes the first to animals as their sole mental existence, and reserves the second for man. This I take to be, in the first place, a license of speech, and, in the second place, a gratuitous and unprovable assumption in matter of fact. The common use of the word 'feeling' is, being mentally awake, or conscious,being pleased, pained, or excited; and the only real question at issue is the question above discussed, with reference to Hamilton's views: -Is Feeling based on Knowing, or are Feeling and Knowing coordinate, although inseparable, functions of the Mind? A. KING AND COMPANY, PRINTERS AND STEREOTY'PERS, ABERDEEN.