2feui fork Hate Qfalbge of l^gritulture %t Qfnrnell MmaecaitH Strata, H. g. Cornell University Library BF 511.H36 The feelings of man; their nature, functi 3 1924 014 094 225 The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014094225 THE FEELINGS OF MAN THE FEELINGS OF MAN Their Nature, Function and Interpretation By NATHAN A. HARVEY State Normal College, Ytsilanti, Michiean BALTIMORE WARWICK & YORK, Inc. 1914 Copyright, 1914 By WARWICK & YORK, Inc. CONTENTS. Preface vii Chapter I. Meaning of the Terms 1 Chapter II. Theories of Feeling 13 * Chapter III. The Data 27 Chapter IV. The Hypothesis 45 Chapter V. The Expression of Feeling 61 Chapter VI. The Properties of Feeling 81 Chapter VII. The Classification of Feelings 105 Chapter VIII. The Problem of Esthetics 125 Chapter IX. The Relation of Feeling to Intellect 141 Chapter X. The BelatioD of Feeling to Consciousness . . . 157 VI CONTENTS. Chapter XI. The Relation of Feeling to Memory 179 Chaptee XII. The Relation of Feeling to Attention 193 Chaptee XIII. The Relation of Feeling to Will 211 Chaptee XIV. The Relation of Feeling to the Ego 227 Chapter XV. Mental Ontogeny 243 Chapter XVI. Feeling as Motive 259 Index 273 PREFACE. The New Psychology is distinguished from the Old especially by the greater emphasis it is inclined to lay upon physiological processes. The past twenty or thirty years have seen greater progress in the development of psychology tlian has been made before since 1691, when Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding was pub- lished. This progress has been accomplished largely by the study of physiological changes as they are associated with psychological processes. But the physiology is still physiology, and the psychology is still psychology, and no thorough amalgamation of the two series of processes has yet been successfully accomplished. In the present book an attempt is made to bring about a closer union of the two series of phenomena than is ordinarily undertaken. The doctrine of parallelism, or correspondence, is invoked to furnish a tentative justifi- cation for an interpretation of mental processes in physi- ological terms. It must be recognized that the doctrine of parallelism asserts no finality, but represents rather an armistice be- tween two hostile philosophical camps. Psychology can well afford to assume this position which the doctrine of parallelism represents, for it professedly deals with phenomena, and not with ultimate finalities. The plan of the book demands the postulation of a physiological hypothesis, which is incapable of direct verification, but which is demanded to explain the rela- tion of directly observed phenomena to each other. Such an hypothesis is of the same nature for psychology as Til Vlll FSBFACD the atomic theory or the electron theory is for chemistry, and has the same value for psychology that the repre- sentation of forces by lines has for physics. In no other way does it seem possible to bring the full effect of the studies in physiology for the past twenty-five years to the interpretation of psychological phenomena. Psychology may be written without reference to physio- logical processes, just as physics and chemistry may be studied without referring to atoms or electrons or the parallelogram of forces; but so helpful are the connota- tions of these physical hypotheses that nearly all teach- ers use them. We shall find equal or greater value aris- ing from the employment of a physiological hypothesis in psychology. In developing a hypothesis of this nature, it will read- ily be recognized that much modification of the simple hypothesis may be necessary in order to make it accurate throughout, and applicable to every case, or capable of explaining all observed phenomena. As complex as our hypothesis may seem, it is probable that the physiological changes that occur are many times as complex as the statement of the simple hypothesis will indicate. As there is no method of demonstrating the hypothesis by direct observation of the physiological changes, its truth or falsity must be judged by its ability to explain all the observed phenomena. In so far as we are able to explain by the hypothesis all observable phenomena, we may accept it as true. Certainly such an hypothesis is within the bounds of possibility, and we are by its means able to bring the results of physiological investigations to the proper understanding of phenomena universally recognized as psychical. Nathan A. Habvbt. Ypsilanti, Michigan, October 8, 1913. THE FEELINGS OF MAN Their Nature, Function and Interpretation Chapthr I. MEANING OF THE TERMS. The word feeling is used in various ways to signify many different things. It has a weU recognized meaning nearly synonymous with the sense of touch. We may tell by feeling whether a surface is smooth or rough, hot or cold, wet or dry. While this is a very common meaning, it is not the meaning generally employed in psychology. Peeling also describes the general state of health; as when we say that we feel bad, or sick, or well. It desig- nates the general sensation which scarcely permits of being localized. It refers to the state of the body as a whole, and not to any special mental process. Closely related to this use of the word is one that indicates cer- tain special sensations, as when we say that we feel cold or hungry. Cold and hunger are strictly sensations, and the use of the word feeling to describe them is no longer in conformity with the prevailing usage that discrimi- nates sensation from the affective process. This use of the word feeling cannot be described as psychological, nor one in which it will be employed as a psychological term. Feeling also has a use in the description of a picture, or other work of art. As there employed, it means a par- ticular characteristic of the artistic production that renders it capable of appealing to the emotional or feel- ing side of the nature of the individual. It is rather a figurative use, and not at all scientific in its application. It is not truly a psychological meaning. 1 2 THE PEELINGS OP MAN As a psychological term, the word feeling is used with many different shades of meaning, and it is necessary to discriminate them clearly in order to avoid confusion while reading the works of different writers upon psy- chology. We shall obtain a wrong impression of an au- thor's thought if we put the same meaning into the word feeling in reading his works that we do when reading those of another. So serious is this discrepancy that many psychologists refuse to employ the term feeling, and seek some word that is not so well known, and which has not so many diverse connotations. But the advantage to be obtained from its use seems to justify the attempt to free it from undesirable associations and to make its meaning clear and definite. One use of the word makes it mean merely pleasure and pain. Nothing else is feeling, and all feelings are either pleasures or pains. It would appear that this use of the word is too limited to meet general approval, and it is incompatible with the analysis of feeling that is made in this book. It implies that we may have a feel- ing of pain rather than a painful feeling; it asserts that pain is the feeling, rather than merely a property of it. Hence we shall not adopt this meaning. Another use of the word designates by it an affective process of a particular degree of complexity. It is less complex than an emotion and more complex than an af- fection. The attempt is made to discriminate affective processes by means of their complexity, and to classify them upon that basis. It is doubtful if such an attempt can be satisfactory or very successful. It would be dif- ficult to discriminate a complex feeling or affective process from a simple one, and even if it could be done, the rela- tion so exhibited would scarcely contribute anything of value to our knowledge of the subject. It is necessary for us to recognize, however, that the word is sometimes thus employed, although such use may not commend itself to us. MEANING OF THE TEEMS ill he accom- plished; and with a given amount of nervous energy, the less the feeling, the more intellectual work will he accom- plished. 156 THE FEELINGS OF MAN 2 — With a given nervous arc, the greater the feeling experienced, the more intellectual work will ie done; and with a given nervous arc, the less the jeeling, the less intellectual work will he accomplished. 3 — Attention presents a third condition that may modify either feeling or intellectual work. 4 — Interest in our work is advantageous, if hy interest we mean a pleasant feeling, and if it is the concomitant of increased resistance arising from the liberation of a greater amount of nervous energy. 5 — Habit by decreasing resistance and its concomitant feeling enables a greater amount of intellectual work to be done with the expenditure of a given amount of ner- vous energy. 6 — Children experience much feeling as a consequence of liberating much nervous energy which is directed through poorly organized brain centers. There is much resistance from a summation of both conditions. Chapter X. THE RELATION OF FEELING TO CONSCIOUSNESS. The entire matter of consciousness is in a more confused and disordered state than that of almost any other division of psychology. The confusion arises largely from the use of the word consciousness in two distinct senses, with a strong tendency to adopt the one that is least to be com- mended. The first use of the word means a knowledge of our own mental states and processes that are in progress at any one time; or we may mean by it the process by which our mental states become known ; or the property of a mental process by which it becomes known to us. Any of these descriptions is indicated by the word awareness to discriminate it from another use of tlie term. This is the common meaning for the word. When we speak of losing consciousness, we mean that we cease to be aware of the mental processes that are going on. We are unconscious when we are asleep, and when we awaken we become conscious. Chloroform brings on a condition of unconsciousness, and equally effective in producing the same result is a blow on the head. Unconsciousness may be produced in many ways, and the difference between con- sciousness and unconsciousness is always the same. But another meaning for the word consciousness has come into very general use among psychologists, and by it is meant any kind of a mental process that may be ex- perienced. It is used as a synonym for mind, and psy- chology is often defined as the science of consciousness. Any mental process is a state of consciousness, and when consciousness is wanting there can be no mental process of any kind. 157 158 THE] FEELINGS OF MAN A critical examination will show that the meaning of awareness is the primary use of the word and the second meaning is derived from the first by a figure of speech. When we say that every mental process is a state of con- sciousness, we are compelled to employ the word with the first meaning. The argument used to justify this use of the word is that there can be no mental process without awareness, or of which we are unconscious, or without consciousness. From this arbitrary assumption psychology is defined as the science of consciousness. It would be equally possible to show that every mental process is accompanied by feeling and, therefore, every mental process is a state of feeling, and psychology may be defined as the science of feeling. Or it might be shown that every mental process is accompanied by muscular movement, therefore, every mental process is a muscular movement ("All consciousness is motor") and psychology may be defined as a state of movement or behavior. Or it might be shown that every mental process is accompanied by attention, therefore, every mental process is a state of attention, and psychology may be defined as the science of attention ; or, that every mental process involves an act of will, therefore, every mental process is a state of will, and psychology might be defined as the science of will. Any one of these statements has the same kind of justification or lack of justification, as has the definition of a mental process as a state of consciousness. The second use of the word grows out of the arbitrary doctrine that no unconscious process can be mental, and such unconscious state does not constitute a proper sub- ject for discussion in psychology. Those who employ the second meaning of the word assert that there is no differ- ence between a sensation and the consciousness of a sensa- tion, and that an unconscious mental process is a contra- diction in terms. What should be stated by those psychol- ogists who assert that every mental process is a state of EBLATION OF FEELING TO CONSCIOUSNESS 159 consciousness is that every mental process is accompanied by consciousness, or that every mental process is a con- scious state. Instead, for example of defining memory as a state of consciousness, having specified characteristics, these writers should say that memory is a mental process having the specified characteristics and accompanied by consciousness. This is what is really intended, and the usual form of defining a mental process as a state of con- sciousness substitutes the differentia for the genus. This employment of the word consciousness with the second meaning is attributed to Descartes, who argued vigorously for the identity between a sensation and the consciousness of a sensation. His argument was designed to furnish a means of discriminating the mental processes of man from that of other animals, and he used it as a postulate in his argument that animals are automata. Locke defined consciousness as the perception of that which passes in our own minds, (Bk. I, Ch. 1) but he also insists that there can be no mental process without con- sciousness. He uses such expressions as " — hard to con- ceive that anything should think and not be conscious of it." — "For to be happy or miserable without being con- scious of it seems to me utterly inconsistent and impos- sible." (Bk. II, Ch. 1, Sec. 11.) Hamilton is generally credited with using the word in the first sense, for he defines consciousness as "The recog- nition by the thinking subject of his own acts and affec- tions." But he also sees no inconsistency in saying that "A feeling of which we are not conscious is no feeling at all" {Metaphysics, p. 125). But a tabulation of all the expressions involving the employment of the word con- sciousness shows that Hamilton habitually uses the word in two senses. Notwithstanding the fact that no one has yet been able to use the word in the Cartesian sense without involving himself in contradiction, and that in defining a mental 160 THE FEBLINGS OS* MAN process as a state of consciousness one necessarily employs a petitio prindpii, the influence of Wundt and Ziehen has been suf&cient in this country to make this use of the word the common one, even among physiological psychologists. Ziehen is particularly emphatic. He says : "Let us repeat it — psychical and conscious, are for us, at least at the be- ginning of our investigations, identical" {Physiological Psychology, J}. 5). And again: "From the outstart, the conception unconscious psychical process is an empty conception" (p. 5). "Consciousness is merely an abstrac- tion. The association of ideas with its accompanying sensations and images is consciousness" (p. 29). Even Hoffding says : "The strictly psychological standpoint is confined to the phenomena of conscious life. We know directly just so much of the mental life as we know of the phenomena of consciousness" (Psychology, jf. 2B) . But he does not hesitate to refer to the sensations and perceptions that are experienced unconsciously, and the elements of mental life that grow out of the unconscious. If we employ the word in this sense, we must assert that the producing of Kubia Khan was not a mental process; that the phenomena of dreams do not belong to the psychic life; that the thousand and one adjustments, sensations, judgments, and decisions that constitute the larger part of our daily life cannot be considered in psychology, and that the more skillful we become in doing any kind of intel- lectual work, the farther it is removed from a psychic process. To these propositions it is difficult to assent The inadvisability of making consciousness the general form of psychic Ufe that is difiEerentiated into several kinds of processes has been recognized by many persons. Spen- cer says : "The error has been in confounding two quite different things, having a sensation and being conscious of having a sensation" (Psychology, Vol. II, p. 372). Karl Pearson says : "I can receive a sense impression without recognizing it, for a sense impression does not involve EELATION OF FEE5LING TO CONSCIOUSNESS 161 consciousness" {Grammar of Science, ^. 4:^) . Binetsays: "Consciousness accompanies the physiological processes of reasoning, sensation, recollection, etc. It does not constitute them. It is an epiphenomenon and nothing more" (Psychology of Reasoning, p. 91). Haeckel states his opinion that: "The greatest and most fundamental error committed by modern physiology is the baseless dogma that all sensation must be accompanied by con- sciousness" ( Wonders of Life, p. 289) . And again, "Those familiar facts [speaking, walking, eating] prove of them- selves that consciousness is a complicated function of the brain, by no means inseparably connected with sensation and will" (p. 291). So also Saleeby says: "We have lately learned that consciousness and mind are by no means synonymous. Consciousness is to be regarded in- deed, as the effloresence of mind" (Evolution, The Master Key, p. 172). As holding the same view of consciousness we may mention Romanes, Fritz Muller, Schultze, Paulsen. The most vigorous and aggressive movement in psy- chology today is that which is represented by Freud and his disciples, and the entire Freudian system is based upon a principle which asserts that consciousness is not a necessary element in a mental process. In his Interpre- tation of Dreams, Freud says that "so long as psychology settled this question with the explanation that the psychic is the conscious, and that unconscious psychic occurrences are an obvious contradiction, a psychological estimate of the observations gained by a physician from abnormal states was precluded" (p. 485, Trans, by Brill). And again rather sarcastically he asserts that "The physician can but reject with a shrug of his shoulders the assertion that 'consciousness is an indispensable quality of the psychic' He may assume, if his respect for the utterings of the philosophers still be strong enough, that he and they do not treat the same subject, and do not pursue the 162 THE FBEiUNGS OF MAN same science." "For a single intelligent observation of the psychic life of a neurotic, a single analysis of a dream, must force upon him the unalterable conviction that the most complicated and correct mental operations, to which no one will refuse the name psychic occurrences, may take place without exciting the consciousness of the person" (p. 485.) Even more emphatic is the statement that "we must also steer clear of the distinctions superconscious and sub- conscious, which have found so much favor in the more recent literature on the psychoneuroses, for just such a distinction seems to emphasize the equivalence of the psychic and the conscious" (p. 488.) It appears that the idea that mental action and con- sciousness are inseparable grew out of the desire of Des- carte to prove that man constituted a different order of beings from animals. As that notion was consistent with the ulti-a religious spirit of earlier psychologists, holding their peculiar views of the nature of mind, it was easy of adoption by them. Recent physiological psychologists have accepted it without suflicient examination, perhaps in consequence of the difficulty of framing any hypothesis of a physiological nature by which the phenomena of con- sciousness could be presented in uuderstandable terms. It is difficult to propose such an hypothesis. Feeling and the consciousness of a feeling are declared by Hamil- ton, Locke, Ziehen, and many other psychologists to be inseparable. But though the relation is such that the two vary together, it is possible to distinguish them by a process of abstraction, and to picture them in understand- able terms. While it is true that feeling and conscious- ness are inseparable in practice, and vary with each other, it is equally true that feeling and intellect are likewise inseparable. So are feeling and attention, feeling and will, and, in fact, none of the fundamental processes that we discriminate can appear alone. Yet, the one is not the other ; nor is the other, the one. RELATION OF PEELING TO CONSCIOUSNESS 163 Let us note in the first place, that consciousness is not necessary to a mental act. Consciousness is most intense when the mental processes are most imperfect and hesi- tant. When we are learning to skate, or play the piano, or whet a razor, we are intensely conscious of all the steps that must be taken in learning. But as we become familiar witli the process, and acquire skUl in doing it, the intensity of consciousness diminishes until when we have attained the highest degree of skill, consciousness seems almost completely to have disappeared. This is one of the fundamental data that we shall have to consider in expressing the relation between feeling and consciousness, and demonstrating a physiological hypothesis for it. Another fact that must be considered is that we can never be merely conscious. We must be conscious of some- thing. Consciousness can never exist alone. Conscious- ness is the accompaniment of an intellectual process, such as a perception, or the discovery of a relation, or a feeling which it must accompany. The consciousness may be in- tense or feeble, it may vary in its intensity without any corresponding variation in the intensity of the process which it accompanies. We shall expect, then, to find the physiological concomitant of consciousness some element of the nervous current, or of the transmission of a nervous impulse through a nervous arc whose concomitant is an intellectual act. A third fact that must accord with any theory that we may present, is that in nearly every experience of which we are conscious, there is a shadowy background of other facts, events, processes, less vivid than the one that we may consider in the focus, as representing the mental process for which consciousness is the accompaniment. This shadowy background is not necessarily present, and may be very much narrowed or altogether omitted, but its frequent presence materially assists us in suggesting a probable hypothesis for consciousness. These three facts 164 THB FEELINGS OF MAN will enable us to frame such an hypothesis when we con- sider them all together. I propose to use the word psychon to express the sum of all the psychological elements that taken together con- stitute the concomitant of the nervous current. Thus the intellectual process is one of the elements of the psychon; feeling is another ; and consciousness is a third. A descrip- tion of its physiological concomitant will be the most suc- cessful means of discriminating feeling from conscious- ness, and exhibiting their relations to each other. The determination of the physiological concomitant of con- sciousness is already made for us, in part at least, by our hypothesis of feeling. We have described feeling as the concomitant of the resistance that a nervous impulse encounters in passing through a nervous arc. But we have recognized the fact that when a nervous impulse encounters resistance, it has a tendency to spread out into the surrounding cells. We have seen that this spreading out into the surrounding cells of the motor region and the glandular centers is the nervous correlate of the expression of feeling. But not aU the impulse that radiates out of the braia center passes into the motor and glandular centers. Some of it passes into the fringing cells around the brain center that are neither motor nor glandular. When this is the case, that portion that so radiates does not produce motion nor glandular activity. If the radiating portion of the nervous impulse were to traverse these fringing cells as if they were other brain centers, each brain center so trav- ersed by the radiating impulse would give rise to an intel- lectual process, fainter than the original, as the radiating impulse is weaker than the main impulsa It is in some such supposition as this that we can picture the dim, faint, fringe of perceptions and other mental processes that ac- company the conscious act. This would be the physiolog- ical interpretation of the things that are in the fringe of consciousness. RELATION OF FEELING TO CONSCIOUSNESS 165 But this backgi'ound of faint perceptions and indefinite mental processes is not necessary to a conscious act. We may be conscious of the mental process in the focus, with- out any of the fringing percepts. The nervous impulse may, and sometimes does, radiate out into the fringing cells without passing through them as a brain center, and completing their circuit. We may say that it radiates into the fringing cells without radiating through them. This will stand to us for the concomitant of consciousness. The radiation of the nervous impulse out of the brain center into the fringing cells that are neither motor nor glandu- lar, then, we may consider as an hypothesis for the nervous concomitant of consciousness. This will give us an inter- pretation of the process enabling us easily to understand and to express the relation that it holds to feeling. It is evident that the nervous impulse will not radiate out into the fringing cells unless some resistance is encoun- tered in the brain center. The resistance itself is the con- comitant of feeling, but the radiation which follows upon the resistance is the concomitant of consciousness. It follows, then, that if our interpretation of the physio- logical concomitant is correct, consciousness and feeling will vary together. Other things being the same, the greater the feeling, the more intense wiU be the conscious- ness. The less the feeling, the less intensity of conscious- ness. This result arises, not in consequence of any causal connection with each other, but because the two — con- sciousness and feeling — are both similarly related to the same circumstance, the resistance encountered. What- ever increases the resistance will at the same time increase both feeling and the intensity of consciousness. Whatever decreases the resistance, will by that very fact decrease both feeling and the intensity of consciousness. Feeling is not the cause of consciousness, nor is consciousness the cause of feeling, but both of them are related in the same way to the antecedent condition of resistance. 166 THE FEELINGS OF MAN This is a more satisfactory interpretation of the con- comitant of radiation than is that of Bain and Eichet, who interpret radiation as the concomitant of feeling. Bain says (Mind and Body, p. 52) : "When an impression is accompanied by feeling, the aronsed currents diffuse them- selves [radiate] freely over the brain, leading to a general agitation of the moving organs, as well as affecting the viscera." So Eichet, (quoted by Hoffding, Psychology, p. 223) says: "Pain without memory and without radiation would be no pain at all." This seems to justify our asser- tion that Bain, Eichet, and other psychologists recognize the fact of radiation out of the brain center, and would identify it with feeling. But it will be seen that to identify it with consciousness explains phenomena that the other identification will not do. One other remark ought to be made concerning the asso- ciation of consciousness with radiation. We have ex- plained the expression of feeling by the radiation of the nervous imprilse out of the primary brain center into the motor and glandular centers, as a consequence of the re- sistance encountered. In the radiation out into the fring- ing cells that are neither motor nor glandular, we believe that we have the concomitant of consciousness. It ap- pears, then, that consciousness and the expression of feel- ing arise from the same cause, and are consequences of the same condition. The difference between the two is merely the radiation of the impulse into different kinds of cells and centers. Therefore, coneciousnese and expression of feeling may in a certain sense be considered homologues of each other, and both of them vary with each other and with feeling. If we choose to stretch a point, we may assert that consciousness is as truly an expression of feel- ing as is muscular movement itself. This is one way in which, if we choose to do so, we can read a meafiing into the phrase, a favorite one with some writers, that all con- sciousness is motor. RELATION OF FEELING TO CONSCIOUSNESS 167 This interpretation of consciousness will enable us to understand two other phenomena which have before seemed incapable of explanation. The first is that con- sciousness is always involved in the process of learning a new thing, and the second is that consciousness is com- monly believed to be the process by which the human race adapts itself to new situations. The process of learning demands that the nervous im- pulse should find a passage through new and unaccus- tomed channels. If the path of a nervous impulse were immutably fixed, and there was no possibility of its flow- ing over into untraversed combinations of cells, no new process could ever occur and learning a new thing would be impossible. The condition which renders radiation and its concomitant consciousness possible is sometimes described as plasticity. It is upon this plastic quality that the learning process depends. The fact that a human being consciously adapts himself to new situations has been so diflScult of explanation that it is not strange that consciousness has been described as a distinct entity, capable of making adjustments, and unexplainable on any physiological or mechanistic hypothesis. Adjustment to new conditions implies rapid changes in the nervous arcs through which the impulses flow. When impulses radiate, and consciousness is concomitantly ex- perienced, there is an opportunity for choice between large numbers of possible actions, and the selection of that which is most nearly accordant with the situation. If it were not for this radiation, which we have associated with consciousness, there would not be an opportunity for selecting the most appropriate course of action. Hence we see that radiation, consciousness, functional selection, plasticity, learning of new things and adaptation to new situations are correlative to each other, and depend upon the same neuronic condition. While it is commonly be- 168 THE FEELINGS OF MAN lieved that consciousness makes adjustments, in reality consciousness follows as only one of the results of the plastic condition which enables radiation to occur. Many elaborate experiments have been made to show that every mental process is accompanied by some muscu- lar movement. It has been conclusively demonstrated tliat many mental processes are so accompanied, and the gen- eral conclusion that all are similarly accompanied is reached deductively. But another conclusion is deduced from the last, and that is that the muscular movement is a necessary condi- tion of the mental process, or state of consciousness, in- stead of being an inevitable accompaniment This conclu- sion is not justified by the premises, for it can be shown that another explanation is possible. The only mental processes in which the demonstration of the muscular accompaniment has been attempted are those that are the accompaniments of rather strong ner- vous impulses. But such impulses, strong enough to be accompanied by consciousness and feeling, are very likely to overflow into the motor centers and give rise to an accompanying movement. So we have movement, feeling, and consciousness attending the intellectual process, but neither of them is a necessary condition. We have in this fact the explanation of the phenomena that is expressed by the phrase : "All consciousness is motor," as well as an explanation of the phenomena from whidi is derived the statement that every mental process is a state of conscious- ness. Consciousness and feeling vary together, and it is a recognition of this fact that has led many psychologists to identify the two, and to assert that feeling and conscious- ness are identical. It is perhaps a consideration of this fact — for it is a fact — ^that is at the bottom of the propo- sition that feeling and the consciousness of the feeling are inseparable, and then follows the assertion that they are EBIATION OF FEELING TO CONSCIOUSNESS 169 identical. It seems that in our physiological hypothesis we have a means of discriminating the two, and explain- ing the source of the errors into which psychologists have been led. We have already observed more than once, that feeling tends to disappear from an habitual act. Consciousness also tends to disappear from an habitual act. Habit de- creases directly the resistance that a nervous impulse encounters in a nervous arc, and by that decrease tends to diminish at the same time, consciousness and feeling. The things that we do as the result of habit, or a great deal of practice, come to be done so skillfully that we say we do not need to think about them, and we do them uncon- sciously. In fact, when a thing is done with the highest degree of skill, we find that an effort of attention which renders them conscious, diminishes the skill and accuracy with which they are performed. The writer has often at- tempted to discover if he could become conscious of the pressure and movement of the thumb that turns a razor over when it is stropped, but not a single indication of any feeling or consciousness of the movement of the muscles is observable. Practice every day for years in stropping the razor has resulted in the complete disappearance of consciousness from the muscular contraction involved in the process. Nevertheless, this is a truly voluntary act which, as the result of habit has lost all resistance in the brain center, has dropped out consciousness, and all feel- ing has disappeared. At first, in the process of learning, the consciousness was intense and the feeling was painful. This phenomenon of the loss of consciousness from a muscular movement as the result of practice is frequently explained by saying that the act ceases to be a voluntary act, becomes a secondary reflex, the nervous concomitant is relegated to the lower nerve centers ; and that the ner- vous impulse which accompanies such an act does not pass through any cerebral center. There is no direct 170 THE FEELINGS OP MAN evidence that the neryous impulse accompanying snch an action does not pass through the same cerebral center that it did in the proems of learning, and the hypothesis does not explain the facts very weU. Not only is consciousn^s not essential to a mental process, but it is really detrimental to an action. The highest degree of skill has not yet been attained when we have to think how the action should be performed. Con- sciousness bears about the same relation to the other elements of the psychon that the noise which a wagon makes in moving bears to the effective movement of the wagon. The old conundrum : ''What is it that is no part of a wagon and yet that the wagon cannot go without'' is directly illustrative of the point here. The wagon that makes the greatest noise is not the one that is the most effective wagon for the purposes for which a wagon is employed, nor is it in the most satisfactory condition for use. The wagon that makes the least noise, other things being the same, is in better condition for work. There is less energy lost in overcoming the resistance. It is true that we may tell something about the rate of speed of the wagon by listening to the noise that it makes in moving. We may even order the driver to make his wagon rattle more than it does, compliance with which direction may necessitate a more rapid movement of the wagon, but the noise is not the cause of the more rapid movement, nor is it anything to be proud of if one is the owner. Our actions, mental and muscular, performed without consciousness and without feeling are better done, with the same amount of nervous energy, than if feeling and consciousness accom- panied them. Less resistance is to be overcome, and more energy is available for doing the work. Hence it is that without consciousness and without feeling, the same amount of nervous energy will do more work. Consciousness varies in intensity as truly as does feel- ing. Sometimes we are intensely conscious, and again we RELATION OF FEELING TO CONSCIOUSNESS 171 are relatively unconscious. There are all variations of the intensity of consciousness to be observed. Sometimes we are half asleep and again we are half awake, and the dif- ference between the two states reduces itself to zero. Con- sciousness and unconsciousness are relative terms. We call sleep a condition of unconsciousness, but experiment shows that there are wide variations in the depth or in- tensity of sleep. The line between sleeping and waking is not a sharp and definite one, and yet, typical conditions of the two states are easily discriminated. Sleep is a condition in which consciousness is relatively feeble and of low intensity. The unconsciousness of sleep results from the lack of resistance arising from the libera- tion of a smaller quantity of energy. Always in sleep less energy is generated. The brain is usually more or less anemic, a smaller quantity of blood is sent to the brain, the heart beats slower, less blood is sent out at each pulsa- tion, the skin receives more blood, secretion from the skin is increased. Also, less oxygen is carried to the brain, the breathing is slower, the respirations are less voluminous. Impure air makes us sleepy. So does a hot bath, deter- mining the blood to the sldn and away from the brain. Food taken into the stomach induces sleep by determining the blood to the stomach. We avoid the stimulation of the sense organs, shut our eyes, sleep in the dark, get away from the noise, desire to be neither too hot nor too cold, and obviate the irregularities in our couch. By the con- currence of a dozen circumstances we can be assured that in sleep less nervous energy is generated. As a result of the diminished amount of nervous energy, both feeling and consciousness are lessened. We forget our troubles in sleep, even physical pain does not annoy us if we can go to sleep and consciousness is so much diminished that we apply the term unconscious to our condition. We cannot go to sleep when we are experien- cing an emotion of great intensity. And, although from a 172 THB FEBUN6S OF MAN dream we sometimes wake in terror, we do awake^ when we experience as mnch feeling as is indicated, and the feeling is not nearly so strong as it appears to be. That this is true can be shown by the readiness with which it is forgotten, and the fact that our terror is not nearly so great as it would have been in the circumstances pictured in our dream, if we had been awake. We sometimes have what we call a vivid dream. In general, the dreams that we experience which are best remembered and the most vivid are those which occur when we are nearest to the waking point, when the largest amount of energy consistent with our sleeping condition is generated. Then we remember them best because they have happened most recently just before waking .^p, and hence are most easUy recalled. But if a dream is not re- called, reinstated, and rehearsed, scarcely any dream is so vivid as to be remembered twenty-four hours. The vividness of a dream is purely relative or merely an illusion. That this is true can be observed by recalling the bright- ness of a landscape that is seen. The phenomena of a vivid dream were noted, which included the sun shining upon a snow-covered landscape. CJomparison of the brightness of the landscape seen in the dream, immediately after waken- ing, indicated that the brightness seen in the dream was about equivalent to that of a moonlit snow-covenxl land- scape seen in a waking condition. It is probable that this is a fair estimate of the rdative intensity of the mental processes, especially feeling and consciousness, in sleep. That tlds is a true interpretation of consciousness is shown also by the action of narcotics, such as opium, not chloroform, in inducing sleep. Opium and morphine have the property of diminishing the amount of nervous tissue oxidized and the nervous energy generated. Hence the condition of sleep is induced as the nervous energy is diminished. Even before sleep occurs, there is a decrease RELATION OF FEELING TO CONSCIOUSNESS 173 in the feeling that is experienced, hence it is that we have the evidence of the concomitant of feeling in the concur- rence of diminution of feeling and the coming on of sleep as the result of a dose of opium. Alcohol has something of the same effect. The man who goes out to "drown his sorrows in drink," does so by diminishing the amount of nervous energy that he is capable of generating. We can scarcely wish for a better corroboration of the concomi- tance of feeling, consciousness, and resistance than the example of the effect of narcotics. The mental processes occurring in sleep are identical with those in a waking condition, after we have made allowance for their diminished intensity and have realized that attention is wanting. The lack of attention from all dream processes is sufficient to account for the fantastic nature of dreams. Some such hypothesis as is here proposed will obviate the necessity of inti-oducing into psychology such a con- ception as a subconscious, unconscious, subliminal or sub- jective self to explain important phenomena, which the definition of every mental process as a state of conscious- ness has rendered necessary. As soon as we have limited psychology to conscious experience we are compelled to invent some kind of an explanation for the unconscious processes upon which the conscious life is conditioned. We immediately involve ourselves in a maze of mytho- logical assumptions which are incapable of demonstration or disproof, which become more complex with each de- mand, and which open the gates to all kinds of charlatanry. Since feeling and consciousness vary together, it is not strange that one may be mistaken for the other, or that they have been considered as identical. But it is possible to separate the two processes by abstraction and to picture them as the concomitants of different elements of a cur- rent. But we may have occasion to inquire whether or not it is possible to experience one without the other. Is it 174 THE FEELINGS OF MAN possible to be conscious and still experience no feeling? Or is it possible to experience feeling without being con- scious? The relations are so delicate and so difficult to understand and to interpret that we shall have difficulty in making the phenomena that are significant appear to be so. However, the phenomena come within the experi- ence of every one. Does a person who is unconscious experience any feel- ing? It is scarcely adequate to limit the feeling to one having a painful tone. As we have seen, a painful tone of feeling implies a resistance that is very great But there must be a certain amount of resistance in order that there shall be any degree of feeling, whether it be one having a pleasurable tone or a painful or monotonous tone. Pain and pleasure are merely qualities of feeling, and there may be a feeling experienced, even when there is neither a painful nor a pleasurable tone belonging to it. Next, if the nervous impulse can be kept from radiating out of the brain center, we may still have the resistance in the brain center itself, and this is the concomitant of feeling. In order to experience feeling without conscious- ness we need to prevent radiation witiiout destroying the resistance. This is a condition that may be brought about in two ways : first, by the action of drugs, such as chloro- form, and second, by a process of attention. The action of chloroform can best be understood by mak^ ing an assumption, which all observations bearing upon the point will corroborate, that the effect of chloroform is to cause a contraction and shrinking of the dendrites, as it causes the withdrawal of the pseudopodia when a rhizo- pod is treated with it. This would prevent the radiation of the impulse out of the brain center. At the same time it probably causes the withdrawal of the terminal arboriza- tions of the cells that constitute the center from each other, so that the resistance is increased. But the radiating effect is diminished more than the resisting effect is in- RELATION OF FEELING TO CONSCIOUSNESS 175 creased, and the net result is a loss of radiation and con- sciousness without a complete destruction of resistance in the brain center. This phenomenon is complicated by a change in gen- erating power, which, however, seems to be not so great as in case of morphine. Here we are in position to under- stand what seems at least a very probable hypothesis, that under the influence of chloroform a very considerable feel- ing is experienced, of which we are unconscious. Certainly the phenomena of chloroform narcosis are very different from those of morphine sleep. There is at first a wHd dis- turbance of the sensory images, a dancing of colors before the eyes, unlike that which occurs in going to sleep. The movements of a person under the influence of chloroform, although probably much less than they would be without the checking effect on radiation, are evidence corroborating the hypothesis. It seems pretty definitely established that feeling of which we are unconscious may be experienced under the influence of chloroform. Attention diminishes, or may diminish both feeling and consciousness. The mechanism must be explained in a later chapter, but when attention is positive, either feeling or consciousness may disappear. A person who has an arm shot off may in the rapt attention which we call the excitement of the moment, fail to know that he has been wounded. But the resistance has been or may be experi- enced, and the feeling may, not necessarily must, be very great while the consciousness is lacking. It is the same question of experiencing a sensation witi- out being conscious of the sensation. The difference, how- ever, is that consciousness does not vary directly with the intensity of the sensation, but inversely with it. WhUe in feeling, varying directly as the two do, and arising out of the same condition, the separation is difficult to see. There can be no doubt that we do experience sensations without any consciousness of them. We step over an 176 THE FEELINGS OF MAN obstruction in the path, and are unable after we have stepped over it, to remember that there was any obstruc- tion there. The fact that we stepped over it implies, posi- tively, that we perceived it The fact that we are unable to state as soon as the action is completed that there was an obstruction implies that there was no consciousness of the experience. In case of feeling, the separation is less easy to see. It appears, however, that we have abundant grounds for be- lieving that we may experience a feeling without any con- sciousness of that feeling. In fact, nearly all feelings that are monotonous rather than indifferent, neither painful nor pleasurable, accompanying resistances that are below the limit even of a pleasurable tone, are usually uncon- scious. It appears that in order to experience even the least degree of consciousness, there must be a slightly higher degree of resistance. This is largely theory, the proof of which will from the very nature of the case be difficult to get, but aU observations bearing upon the mat- ter would seem to imply that this hypothesis is probable. All feeling in sleep may be said to occur without con- sciousness, but consciousness is so completely a relative term that we are scarcely justified in using the term un- conscious to describe all sleeping conditions. If we permit ourselves to do so, we shall say that all feelings experi- enced in sleep are unconscious. When we reverse the question, is it possible to experi- ence consciousness without any feeling, it is probable that we cannot. The feeling may not be attended by a painful tone, nor by a pleasurable tone, but pain and pleasure are not necessarily inherent in the definition of feeling. But if there is a sufficient amount of resistance to be the concomitant of consciousness, the probability is that the resistance is sufficiently great to accompany some feeling. relation of feeling to consciousness 177 Synopsis. 1 — The word consciottsness is used in two senses: first, the awareness of our own mental states and actions; sec- ond, as a synonym for mind, to mean any form of mental process. It is the first meaning that is adopted in this iook. 2 — Consciousness is not a necessary concomitant of every mental process, and many mental processes are un- attended by it. 3 — Consciousness is the psychological concomitant of the radiation of a nervous impulse out of the brain center into the fringing cells that are neither motor nor glandu- lar. The radiation depends upon the resistance encoun- tered. 4 — Feeling and consciousness vary with each other, al- though the relation is not a causal one. Both are simi- larly related to the resistance encountered in the brain center. 5 — Consciousness is correlative to motor expression, and might even be regarded as itself an expression of feeling. 6 — It is possible to experience feeling without conscious- ness, but we are scarcely likely to be conscious without experiencing feeling. Chapter XI. THE RELATION OF FEELING TO MEMORY. It is a matter of common observation that we remember best those things that we have learned with much feeling. If we are interested in any subject of study, we learn it better and remember it longer. Interest, as the word is generally employed, is understood to mean a pleasurable feeling, but a thing that is learned with a painful feeling is even more readily remembered and recalled more vividly. The story is told tiiat in Ancient Greece, when it was de- sired to establish and record the boundary between the territory of two cities, a good, lusty boy was taken to the place whose location it was desired to mark, and there he was given a terrible beating. This rendered him a living record of the location, for it was believed that he would not readily forget the place of his agony. So numerous and so easily observed are the illustrations of the greater readiness of remembering the things that we learn with feeling, that we must recognize the close relation between the two processes. And there have not been wanting psychologists who assert that feeling is nec- essary to memory, even if not identical with it. It shall be our purpose to set forth as clearly as possible, what appears to be the actual relation between the two. It may be said in the first place that nothing is remem- bered that is not learned with some degree of feeling. We may explain this by tracing out the process by which a thing that is remembered is learned, In order to remem- ber anything it must be reproduced and recognized as having been experienced before. There are, therefore, two elements in memory — omental reproduction and mental 179 180 THE FEELINGS OF MAN rcognition. The mental process must be reinstated with the same conscious elements. If the mental process is to be reinstated, it seems quite evident that the physiological concomitant must also be reproduced. The nervous im- pulse that was involved in the original experience must be repeated. A nervous impulse must pass through the same combination of cells that was traversed in the original experience. This is the concomitant of mental reproduc- tion. The nervous impulse in the remembering must pass through the same combination of cells. There can be but little doubt of the accuracy of this statement, although some psychologists have sought to call it into question, assuming that a different combination is traversed by an impulse when we experience an idea of a thing from that which is traversed when we experience a percept of the same thing. The association areas are called in to explain this difference. Such a device would seem to be an un- necessary multiplication of machinery and but little confi- dence can be placed in the validity of such an assumption. The statement of Bain is worthy of credence here, that "It must be considered as almost beyond a doubt that the renewed feeling (reinstated process) occupies the same parts and in the same manner as the original feeling, and no other part and in no other manner that eam be assigned" (Mind and Body, p. 89). Pillsbury says that "The treat- ment of centrally aroused ideas is rendered easier by the present-day assumption that memory images and the orig- inal sensations are of precisely the same character" (^It- tention, p. 95). To insist that when anything is remem- bered, the nervous impulse must pass through some other combination of cells, is to repeat the error of the phrenolo- gists that there is a memory center ; or to do what is worse, to assume that there is some Mnd of a room in the brain where the ideas are laid away in cold storage. Still worse is it to make the assertion, that some psychologists have RELATION OP FEELING TO MEMORY 181 not hesitated to make, that ideas are packed away in cells. One element, then, in memory is tiie mental reproduc- tion, which has for its concomitant the transmission of a nervous impulse through the same combination of cells that it went through befora Psysiologically, then, men- tal reproduction is the concomitant of the reinstatement of a nervous impulse in the same brain center. There is, however a difference between a remembered experience and the original experience. The original experience is stronger and more vivid than is the remembered experience, and this difference is usually associated with the peripherally initiated impulses which nearly always accompany in some manner the original experience. The peripherally initi- ated impulse is stronger, more intense, and the accom- panying psychological experience is more vivid. The re- membered experience is usually accompanied only by cen- trally initiated impulses which are comparatively feeble. Hence arises the difference in vividness between the re- membered experience and the original one. Faint and vivid are two terms used by Spencer to discriminate the original from the remembered experience. This distinction furnishes an explanation for two series of phenomena that properly belong to this discussion. The first is, that the remembered experience is accompanied by very much less feeling than is the original vivid one. So pronounced is this difference that psychologists generally assert that it is impossible to remember a feeling, in the proper sense of the word. "When we remember that there is almost no such thing as a memory for feelings them- selves, but only for the conceptions that accompany them, or are reinforced by them, we can see how the reminiscences of adults upon this point must be received with caution. (Hall, Adolescence, Vol. II, p. 38.) It is possible to remember that a feeling has been experi- enced when the original of the remembered process was in progress, but it is impossible to reinstate the feeling. While 182 THE FEELINGS OP MAN this is not strictly true, as everyone knows that it is pos- sible to reproduce the feeling by a process of remember- ing in a slight degree, it is true that the feeling attached to the reinstated experience is much feebler than that be- longing to the original. In a good many cases, the original experience was accompanied by a feeling having a painful tone, but the reproduction of the experience is altogether pleasant. This is merely a result of the same difference in resistance accompanying the original and the remembered experience, between the faint and the vivid. But the feel- ing even of the remembered experience, may be so vivid as to be painful, although the painful character wiU. ulti- mately disappear as the result of habit. Everyone recalls with pleasure some of the incidents of his childhood, which, when they occurred, were anything but pleasant. Here we have the psychological explanation of the old say- ing that distance lends enchantment to the view. It is often very pleasant to contemplate past experience, and this would not be true if it were impossible to reinstate a feeling. The pleasure becomes less as the recollections are indulged in frequently, and never is it as vivid as the original. The taste of a dish of ice cream affords more pleasure than does the recollection of a dish that once was eaten. It is much less unpleasant to remember the dose of quinine that was taken, once upon a time, than it is to take another. Faint and vivid, peripherally initiated and centrally initiated, strong and weak, little resistance and much resistance, pleasurable and less pleasurable, is a series of circumstances functionally related to each other in the domain of the feelings. If the original experience be one that is accompanied by centrally initiated impulses only, as when we are reading books of travel, stories of incident and occurrences, or his- torical narrations and expositions, there is not likely to be the same difference in vividness between the feelings ac- companying the remembered and the original experience. RELATION OF FEELING TO MEMORY 183 There is a difference, but the difference is not so great. Our most intense feelings, whether they be pleasurable or painful, are those accompanying mental processes that are attended by peripherally initiated impulses. This leads us to a discussion of the second series of phe- nomena ; that the processes that are best remembered are those in which a personal experience with the things them- selves is involved. If the original experience involves many sensations, and is accompanied by many peripherally ini- tiated impulses, the object or perception is likely to be best remembered. An examination of the structure of a grasshopper, or a machine, or piece of apparatus is much more likely to fix in mind the structure of the object ex- amined than is merely a description of the thing. Every teacher knows that a part of the value in laboratory work comes from the fact that the things seen are better remem- bered than the things read about. The impulses are stronger, the percepts clearer, the feelings more intense, and the experience is more easily reproduced. Many writers upon psychology speak of retentiveness as a property of memory. A man is said to have a retentive memory if he remembers well. The mind is said to retain its impressions, and this figure is similar to that one which speaks of the ideas or impressions being stored up in the brain. It may be well for us to examine this matter of retention, for it involves an hypothesis of the nature of the memory process that is far removed from anything that can be properly conceived. There is no doubt that every mental experience modifies every subsequent experience. The subsequent experience is something different from what it would be if the antecedent experience had not occurred. But this does not mean that a portion of the original experience is left in the mind. Every nervous impulse that traverses the brain center pro- duces a modification of the center and of the cells that compose it. But this modification is not properly de- 184 THE FEELINGS OF MAN scribed by saying that the cells retain a portion of the former experience. A pavement may be worn out by the feet that walk over it Every time that I walk upon a sidewalk I produce some slight modification of the material of which the walk is composed, and remove a few particles of the matter of which it is made. But the sidewalk does not retain me nor any part of me. I have produced a modification in the walk, but that is not a part, or a trace of me that is re- tained and stored up. The walk has been modified, and may have become slightly better or worse to walk upon, but the few particles that have been removed cannot be caUed a trace that is retained. In the same manner, the modification of the brain center that has been produced by the transmission of an impulse through it cannot be called a trace of the experience. This is the answer to the old conundrum, that is still troubling a few psychologists : "Where is the idea when it is no longer in the mind?" "Where is the light when the candle is blown out?" The question involves a wholly pernicious notion of the idea, and a clear understanding of what its nature really is will assist much in solving many problems in psychology. No such clear conception of the nature of the idea can be obtained in any other way than by thinking of it in terms of a nervous impulse passing through a brain center. We may discard tiie term retention as an improper and misleading expression of the change that occurs in the brain center, which favors the memory process. We are brought face to face again with the problem that has con- fronted us so many times : "What is the law of habit, or what is its neural basis?" We are compelled to think of it as some modification of mental exjmrience which has for its concomitant some change in the nervous arc through which an impulse is regularly transmitted. We shall seek an explanation of psychological habit in its neural con- comitant RELATION OF FEELING TO MEMORY 185 We have already suggested the possibility that the nerv- ous impulse consists of the transfer of atoms, molecules, corpuscles, or ions from one cell to another of the nervous arc. Let us think of it as consisting of the transfer of the atoms in the molecules of one cell to the molecules of an- other cell so changing the nature of the molecules that make them up. When an atom, or a large number of atoms, is jarred loose from its combination in the molecules of one cell, it flies to the molecule of an adjacent cell. There is a replacement of one quantity of atoms by another, and a necessity for the rearrangement of the atomic structure. We may conceive the atoms attaching themselves to one side of the molecule, while the atoms that are jarred loose by the impact escape from the opposite side. The atoms that constitute the nervous wave, or stream, will be pre- vented from flying off from the path of the conductor by the insulating material, although many may be lost in striking against the insulating walls. Thus the atoms that constitute the nervous stream will pass to the mole- cules in the path of the conductor. It is not necessary to suppose that every atom that is jarred loose, at least in the early currents in any conductor, reaches the next mole- cule or the molecules of the next cell. But if there is a regular stream of atoms, entering a molecule on one side, and corresponding atoms leaving it on the other, the molecules will ultimately become polar- ized. One pole will be the place of entrance and the other will be the place of exit of the atoms. This polarization will in all probability take the form of growth, so that we may think of the experienced molecules having a different shape, possibly elongated, which the inexperienced mole- cules do not have. This hypothesis concerning the change in the shape of molecules will explain the processes of growth in cells, and the elongation of the dendrites and axons. It is corroborated by the very limited evidence that an axon or a cell transmits impulses in one direction only. 186 THE FEELINGS OF MAN At any rate, it is easy for us to suppose that as a result of repeated impulses through a cell, and its constitutent molecules, the cells and molecules change their shape, and this change renders them a more efficient conductor of the impulse. The molecules escape from their combinations more readily, they attach themselves to the next with greater facility, a larger number of atoms are transferred, and a smaller number are lost in transmission by impact against the walls of the insulator, or other source of failure to find their places in the molecules. Change in shape and elongation of the cell or molecules enables us to under- stand the phenomena of improved conduction, and may be considered as a theory of the neurological basis of habit. Memory, then, resolves itself into the concomitant of the neurological basis of habit. But the process which is so clearly manifested by the delicate psychic tests of the sensitiveness of nerve tissue is displayed in other tissues, except that the other tissues are not so sensitive, and do not respond so readily to the changes of growth. The tis- sues of plants change their shape by growth, which is modified by surrounding circumstances. Light, heat, moisture, gravitation, all have an effect in modifying the growth of plants and shaping their organs and tissues. Every experience of a plant with light, heat, and moisture modifies its growth, and the subsequent activities of the plant are determined in part by these modifications. Hence in a certain sense of the word we may say that a plant manifests the phenomena of memory, but this is an unfor- tunate expression, since confusion inevitably arises in con- sequence of using the same term to express two different things. Memory must be limited to a psychic experience, and must not include a physiological process. Let us now return to the original question from which we have diverged. Why do we remember best those things whose learning has been attended with feeling? Feeling is the concomitant of resistance. Great resistance may be RELATION OF FBBLING TO MEMORY 187 occasioned by great strength of impulse. The greater the nervous impulse, the larger the number of atoms that shift from one molecule to another, and the greater the amount of change in the shape of the ceU and the mole- cules. Let us suppose that in one impulse, an average of ten atoms are exchanged between any two cells. One de- gree of resistance will be encountered, and a corresponding amount of feeling will be experienced, a similar amount of change in shape will be manifested, and a proportionate amount of growth will occur. Let us suppose that in an- other impulse, the number of atoms exchanged bet\*een any two molecules is 100. A greater degree of resistance will be encountered, let us suppose ten times the amount, ten times the amount of feeling will occur, the shape of the molecules will be changed ten times as much, ten times the amount of growth wUl be exhibited, the facility of transmission will be increased ten times as much by the larger impulse as by the smaller. Consequently the next impulse will pass through the same arc ten times as easily after the larger nervous impulse as after the smaller. Amount of current, number of atoms changed, degree of resistance, quantity of feeling, change in shape, rate of growth, facility of transmission, readiness of remember- ing — all of these seem to be functions, in the mathematical sense, of each other. Hence it is that what is learned with feeling is likely to be best remembered. Here we have the general law for remembering, and an explanation of all rules and processes that are recom- mended for becoming skillful in the process. Also we have an explanation why it is that it seems impossible for us to remember at certain times. Anything that prevents our generating and driving through the nervous arc as large an impulse as usual, detracts from our ability to remem- ber. We remember poorly when we are fatigued. The fatigue prevents the liberation of as much energy as is necessary, and it increases resistance to such an extent 188 THE FEELINGS OP MAN that less energy is driven through. We may experience much feeling in learning, even painful feeling, when we are fatigued, but the thing that is learned is not well re- membered. So when we are in poor health and feeling bad, we are in condition to liberate little energy, and we do not remember well. We do not remember well what we learn when we are sleepy, since sleepiness is a condi- tion in which little energy is generated. We remember best what we learn when giving the greatest amount of atten- tion to the subject, for attention is the process by which the largest possible amount of energy is directed into and through a brain center. Hence, with the same amount of energy generated, we may by a process of attention learn a thing so that it will be remembered well. Usually, a thing that is learned to the accompaniment of peripherally initiated impulses is best remembered, since peripherally initiated impulses generally consist of a greater amount of nervous energy than do centrally initiated ones. A great nervous impulse will modify the nervous arc and enable us to remember better than a small one. Eepetition assists in remembering, because several impulses have a greater effect in modifying the nervous arc than does a single one. So while it is a general rule that we remember best what is learned with the most feeling, the rule applies strictly only to those cases in which the greater resistance, which is the concomitant of the great feeling, arises from the transmission of a strong nervous current through a nerv- ous arc. If the feeling comes from a diseased condition of the arc, or from the nature of the arc itself, instead of from the strength of the current, the feeling is no satisfac- tory indication of better remembering. Too much feeling, a painful tone, may be of such a nature as to interfere with the growth of the cells of the arc, and instead of enabling us to remember better, it may diminish our power to re- member. Children who learn something as a task that is RELATION OF FEELING TO MEMORY 189 exceedingly disagreeable to them do not remember it better in consequence of the greater feeling with which it is learned. Intensity of feeling is not always and under all circumstances, evidence of facility or certainty of remem- bering. So far, our discussion of feeling in its relation to mem- ory has been limited to the factor of mental reproduction alone. Retentiveness we have excluded from the discus- sion as not a factor at all. But mental reproduction is not in itself memory. Mental reproduction may exist without any mental recognition, and the result cannot be called memory. Much more frequently then we are aware, we reproduce ideas that we have obtained from other per- sons, and we believe them to be our own and original with us. Probably most of our brilliant ideas are of this kind. It seems as if in the organization of our knowledge, it is necessary that the element of mental recognition shall drop out, and the reproduced ideas be brought into juxta- position as if they had really originated with our own thinking processes. Certain it is that the element of re- production may occur without the element of mental rec- ognition, and it is possible that mental recognition may occur without mental reproduction. Before we can say that a thing is remembered, it must be recognized as the subject of a former experience. Men- tal reproduction and mental recognition are both neces- sary to memory. Consciousness of the experience as hav- ing been in the mind before constitutes the element of mental recognition. What is its physiological concomi- tant ? The proper logical answer to this question wUl en- able us to perceive the true relation between recognition and feeling. Memory is the reproduction of a past experi- ence with all its conscious elements. In order to remem- ber a thing, we must be conscious of the thing when it is experienced. But we have interpreted consciousness as the concomitant of the radiation of the nervous impulse 190 THE FEELINGS OF MAN out of the brain center into the fringing cells, and the con- comitant of mental recognition, then, will be the radiation of the nervous impulse out of the center into the same fringing cells into which it spread on the primary occasion. This will comply with our definition of memory as the re- instatement of an experience with the same conscious ele- ments and we may recognize the physiological concomitant in the transmission of a nervous impulse through the same brain center that it went through before, and the spread- ing out into the same fringing cells. When we are trying to remember a man's name, we have a feeling of familiarity. We know what it is that we are searching our memory for ; we are acquainted with many of the attending circumstances that were in the fringe of consciousness when we learned the name, but we fail to recall it. We drive the nervous impulse tiirough the cen- ters corresponding to each of these attending circum- stances, trying to make it slip over into the center which, when traversed, will accompany the name, but we fail to make it go through the name center. Finally we come to some circumstance, from which it seems that the passage over into the name center is easier than it was from the others, and the impulse passes over and we remember the name. The name is reproduced. It seems as if in this ex- perience of the fringing circumstances and the feeling of familiarity, we have the element of mental recognition without that of mental reproduction. Everything is ready to recognize the name as soon as it is reproduced. This fact of mental recognition without reproduction is men- tioned by several \\Titers. Colvin and Bagley speak clearly about it. "WhUe as a rule, recall is accompanied by recog- nition, recognition often takes place without recall." (Jff«- man Behavior, p. 246.) If this hypothesis is a valid one, the role of feeling in memory is at once apparent, and the question why we re- member best the things that we learn with feeling is easily RELATION OP FKHLINQ TO MEMOET 191 answered. In order that there shall be a radiation of the impulse out of the center into the fringing cells, there must be resistance encountered, and feeling will inevitably ac- company it. Anything that was learned without con- sciousness would not be recognized even if it were repro- duced. Consequently, feeling, the concomitant of resist- ance, is almost inevitable in the learning of anything that is remembered. But the feeling is not the cause of the re- membering, but is rather an inevitable accompaniment. There is no causal relation between memory and feeling. The above consideration will enable us to account for the fact that mental recognition is likely to disappear much sooner than the element of mental reproduction. As an experience is reinstated a good many times, the passage through the brain center becomes easier, there is less re- sistance, the reproduction is more eflfective and accom- plished with greater ease, but in consequence of the dimin- ished resistance, the nervous impulse is not compelled to radiate out into the fringing cells. Hence the element of recognition is likely to disappear sooner than is the ele- ment of reproduction, and even to disappear as the element of reproduction increases in certainty and force. Just as in the case of mental reproduction, however, this feeling is the accompaniment of mental recognition only when it comes as the result of a large and strong nervous current. If the resistance occurs in consequence of the natural inertness of the brain tissue, or some pathological condition of the centers, the resistance and the concomi- tant feeling will have no effect in increasing the probability of the element of mental recognition arising. Synopsis. 1 — Memory is the reinstatement of a previous mental experience with the same conscious elements. Its physio- logical concomitant is the reinstatement of a nervous im- 192 THE PEELINGS OP MAN pulse in the same irain center that it passed through be- fore, and its radiation into the same fringing cells. 2 — The rememlered experience is less vivid than the original, and is accompanied by less feeling. 3 — We remember best the things we learn with feeling if the concomitant resistance arises as the result of a large amount of nervous energy transmitted. If the concomi- tant resistance arises from fatigue, disease, or some other property of the nervous arc itself, we do not remember better the things that we learn vnth feeling. 4 — The memory process resolves itself into the concomi- tant of neural habit. 5 — It is scarcely proper to speak of memory in connec- tion with plants, or with animals that do not manifest the phenomena of mental activity. Chapter XII. THE RELATION OF FEELING TO ATTENTION. In entering upon the study of attention in any of its relations, we are undertaking one of the most difficult problems in the whole range of the science of psychology. It involves some of the most refractory materials in the psychological complex. Fortunately, it appears that there is a possibility of applying the methods of experiment to its investigation, so that ultimately it may appear not so obscui'e as it seems to be at present. A probable hypothesis for directing observation and experiment is very much needed in the study of attention, perhaps even more than in any other phase of the subject. It appears that much energy is being devoted to lines of observation that can prove profitable only by demon- strating what it is not. Fortunately also for our study, the probable hypothesis of attention is necessarily in- volved in that of feeling. A nervous impulse is caused to follow its path in trav- ersing the brain center, and in passing from one center to another, by the degree of resistance which exists in the possible patlis that it may take. The current follows the path of least resistance, and when this is considerable, it appears to be divided. While the main portion passes directly through the nervous arc, another radiates into other cells than those immediately involved. We may be perfectly assured that the nervous impulse, in a general way, follows the path of least resistance. Any process by which the resistance may be varied between brain centers will direct the impulse, and we are unable to suppose any other process by which it can be directed. In this con- 193 194 THE FEEUNGS OF MAN sideration, we have the key to an explanation of attention. Attention is a mental process, but we shall best under- stand it by means of its physiological concomitant, if we can determine what that concomitant is. We may be quite safe in asserting that attention is the concomitant of a process by which a nervous impulse is directed into and through a brain center. But this is a double process, manifesting two phases, both of which are involved in every act of attention. In order to direct an impulse into a brain center, the resistance must be decreased between the center where the impulse is and the center into which it is to go. But at the same time the resistance must be increased between the center in which the impulse is and the center into which it is not to go. The process by which the resistance is decreased is the concomitant of positive attention, and that by which the resistance is increased is the concomi- tant of negative attention. In every act of attention, then, we have these two processes of increasing the resistance in one place and decreasing it in another. Attention is a double process, and its physiological concomitant must manifest the same duplex character. If our explanation of the general character of attention is at all plausible, it is at once seen that there is no possi- bility of localizing the process of attention, in any portion of the brain. There is no such thing as an attention cen- ter, as there is a sight center and a hearing center, for attention is a process whose function is manifested in any center and between any two. Some experimental evidence has been adduced which is interpreted to indicate that the process of attention is located in the frontal lobes. The nature of this evidence is to show that when the frontal lobes are removed or injured, there is a failure of atten- tion. We may admit the fact without admitting the cor- rectness of the interpretation. The strong probability is that the excision of any considerable portion of the cortex RELATION OP FEELING TO ATTENTION 195 in which nervous energy is generated would result in the failure of attention in an equal degree. The indications of a weakening of attention will manifest themselves whenever and wherever there is a lack of nervous energy. We may pass by the theory of the location of attention in the frontal lobes, as not only unwarranted by the evidence, but as highly improbable from the nature of the case, and contradicted by other well observed phenomena. There are several suppositions that may be made con- cerning the nature of the process by which the resistance may be varied. We have already seen reason to believe that the resistance is encountered at the synpases, or points of junction of the neurons, where an impulse leaves one neuron and enters another. We have spoken of the neuroglia as being an insulating substance, meaning that it ofifers more resistance to the passage of a nervous im- pulse than does the cell substance. Although difl&cult of demonstration, this is in all probability true. The prob- lem, then, of decreasing resistance depends upon varying the conducting capacity of that small portion of the neu- roglia which separates the arboral terminations of the neurons from each other. At least two methods are conceivable. We may suppose that the neuroglia changes its conductivity at the point of nearest approach of the neurons, something as the insu- lating material of an electric conductor may have its con- ductivity increased by becoming wet. This is the hypoth- esis advanced by Sherrington, who conceives of the neu- roglia surrounding the neuronic extensions as a synaptic membrane whose osmotic conductivity is variable, and functional in only one direction. No supposition is ad- vanced about the mechanism by which the osmotic con- ductivity can be varied, and the hypothesis seems less probable than the next to be considered. Instead of this we may suppose that the tips of the axonic and dendritic terminations of two cells may ap- 196 THE PEELINGS OF MAN proximate each other more closely so as to bring them into physiological communication, though not likely into physical contact. This would be the condition of positive attention, whUe a wider separation of the tips of the dendrites would be the condition of n^ative attention. The shifting of the dendrites, then, either toward each other to accompany positive, or away from each other to accompany negative, would be the physiological concomi- tant of attention. This second hypothesis is more easily understood, and wiU be adopted provisionally in these explanations. Whether this shifting of the dendrites is the actual process by which the resistance is increased or decreased, or not, cannot be positively affirmed, but the psychological facts that are observed would all be ex- plained by the operation of this process. There is some evidence, based upon the observations of Rabl-Ruckard, M. Duval and others, that the dendrites do shift their position. The principal value of their observa- tions for us, however, is to demonstrate that there is such a possibility. The amount of movement observed by them would necessarily be altogether inadequate to account for such phenomena as we find manifested in attention. The phenomena of attention demand a quick movement through molecular distances, or distances so small as scarcely to come within the limits of microscopical observation. And the observation would have to be made upon some animal in which the attentive processes were as rapid as those of man, and probably in very few animals that could be ob- served do such processes occur. Hence it is very doubtful if the phenomena of movement that this theory of atten- tion demands could ever be observed. It is like the dance of the atoms that no one has seen, but the phenomena that we can observe demand such a movement for their ex- planation. The movement of the dendrites has been appealed to by several writers to explain various things, so that the idea RELATION OF FEELING TO ATTENTION 197 is not a new one. Morat says {Physiology of the Nervous System, p. 23) : "If the neurons are fixed, they are neces- sarily immobile. If they are free from attachment, they are capable of receding and approaching each other under conditions tliat are not yet ascertained. Eabl-Euckard, Lepine, Tanzi, M. Duval, have appealed to displacements of this kind to explain the dissociations, variations, func- tional paralyses which are observed in health and in cer- tain maladies." Wundt {Physiological Psychology, Vol. I, p. 46) asserts that: "They [the fibers] never mediate a connection di- rectly bet\\'een cell and cell. Whenever such a connection occurs, it appears to be mediated solely by the contact into which the dendrites and collaterals are brought with one another throughout the gray substance. This view finds support in the observations made upon the peripheral ter- minations of the nerve fibers." Also, (p. 51) : "The anatomical plan of neuron connections is evidently more adequate than this older view to the physiological results which prove that there exists along with certain localiza- tions of function, a very considerable capacity for adapta- tion to changed conditions." Again, (p. 54) : "Amoeboid movements of the dendrites were first described by Rabl- Ruckard." So we shall find that quite a number of psy- chologists have observed dendritic movements of various kinds, and the conclusions that we may draw from their observations is that the tips of the dendrites are not fixed. The determination of the dendritic movement as the con- comitant of attention is altogether hypothetical, and is perhaps beyond the limits of observation. We may call this theory of attention, the brain-cell movement, or the dendritic movement theory of attention. It will account nicely for the process of varying the resist- ance between centers and for directing the current. All the phenomena of attention will find an easy explanation upon this theory. But the difficult matter is to account 198 THE FEELINGS OF MAN for the movement of the dendrites. Why should they move? Here we touch upon the fundamental problem in psychology and, like the question "Why anything is", we shall have to set it aside without discussion until happily we may be able to answer other ultimate questions. The phenomena of dendritic movement appears to be of the same order as that of the movement of any other organic unit. Why does an amoeba move as it does? Why does a sensitive plant droop its leaves? Why does a nervous impulse invariably accompany a mental process? These are questions of tiie same order, and at present a discus- sion of them will be found unprofitable. In cases of voluntary attention, there is always experi- enced a consciousness of effort. Investigations of the phe- nomena of attention have been directed largely upon it, and the conclusion has often been reached that the feeling of effort is associated with muscular tension. So much impressed have some investigators been with these mus- cular phenomena, influenced also probably by James's theory of feeling, that they have not hesitated to declare that the muscular tension accompanying the feeling of effort is attention ; that attention consists of the muscular movement and nolliing else. Instead of agreeing that muscular tension is the origin of the feeling of effort, others have believed it possible to demonstrate that it was the feeling of muscular innerva- tion instead. The evidence in support of this view is found in the fact that when a muscle is paralyzed, the feel- ing of effort is as strong as it ever was. It seems that the muscular contraction is not at all necessary to the feeling of effort. This is a fact that can be testified to by very many persons. Hence it is argued that it must be the innervation rather than the muscular contraction that is the origin. Although the facts cannot be denied, and the advocates of the muscular contraction theory of effort in attention cannot explain them, nevertheless the theory EBLATION OF PEELING TO ATTENTION 199 that it is the muscular innervation instead of muscular contraction is not very generally accepted. It is without any doubt, in cases of partial paralysis, the nerve fiber that is deprived of function and not the muscle. Hence the muscle is not innervated, and the nervous im- pulse reaches only into the fiber so far as its function is not destroyed. There is no reason to suppose that in such cases the nervous impulse passes out of the brain center, and we may with as much reason locate the origin of the feelings of effort in the brain center as in the nerve itself. It seems in the light of the evidence, that the real feeling of effort is not in the contracting muscle, but is a central, nervous function, Ribot localizes the feeling of effort in the head, and be- lieves that it is caused by the contraction of the muscles on the outside of the skull. It will probably be found that the feeling of effort is localized in the head, but instead of being on the outside of the skull, it is on the inside. We may be pretty certain that it is associated in some manner with the movement of the dendrites, not with the contrac- tion of the muscles of the face nor of the body. We may agree that muscular contraction many times, if not every time, accompanies the process of effortful, vol- untary attention, and yet not be willing to admit that the muscular contraction is attention. It seems rather easy to demonstrate that instead of being attention, the mus- cular contraction accompanying it is, in so far as it exists, a failure of attention. If there is a decided feeling of effort, we shall nearly always find a vigorous muscular contraction. But if there is a feeling of effort in attention, it will easily be under- stood that much resistance is encountered in the brain center through which the nervous impulse is passing. Efl'ortful attention is a painful and fatiguing process, since great resistance is encountered. But when resistance is encountered in the brain center, the nervous impulse tends 200 THE FEELINGS OF MAN to spread out into other centers, and to go over into those that are most easy of access, which as we have previously found are likely to be the motor centers, and muscular con- traction results. If attention were to be perfect, directing the nervous impulse into and through the brain centers, decreasing the resistance in the center itself, and increas- ing the resistance between the one center and the surround- ing cells, the nervous impulse would not escape from the brain center, there would be no overflow, hence muscular movement would not occur. The muscular movement that is observed in attention, then, results from a failure of attention to confine the impulse to the brain center, and permitting it to escape. Also, if the attention is not successful in confining the impulse to the brain center by diminishing resistance in it, we shall have much resistance, and the muscular contrac- tion that follows will be accompanied by vivid conscious- ness. Consciousness, muscular contraction, much feeling accompany effortful attention that is not thoroughly suc- cessful. Consciousness, muscular contraction, much feel- ing are not marks of successful attention, but rather indi- cations of the failure of attention to accomplish its most perfect work. If the attention is successful in directing the nervous impulse through the brain center, without letting any large proportion of it escape, we shall be ahlo to accomplish very much more intellectual work with the expenditure of the same amount of energy than if the attention is not so successful. We may be very sure that if much feeling is manifested in doing intellectual work, much muscular con- traction that has been called the expression of feeling, and a vivid consciousness of what we are doing, the attention is not succeeding so well as it might in doing the work it is capable of accomplishing. Did you ever see a large boy learning to write? He grips his pen hard, bends his head down to his work, twists RELATION OF FEELING TO ATTENTION 201 his feet around each other, moves his head in unison with the movement of his pen, his whole body sways, his tongue is thrust out and follows the stroke of his pen. He must, according to the muscular movement theory, be giving great and successful attention to his work. But his writ- ing does not show that attention has been successful. When he has learned to direct his energy more skillfully, he is able to sit up straight, to move his pen without mov- ing his head or swaying his body, and his pen is not gripped so hard. Attention is more successful, the ex- traneous movements disappear, and the writing is better done. Feeling is diminished, writing becomes a less pain- ful process, he can write without being so intensely con- scious of what he is trying to do, and more work is accom- plished with the expenditure of the same energy. The closeness of the relation between feeling and atten- tion is involved in the muscular movement theory of atten- tion. We have already considered muscular movement as an expression of feeling, and the advocates of the muscular movement theory assume that the movements we have described as the expression of feeling constitute attention. Attention, then, is nothing more than the expression of feeling. It seems that this is a legitimate deduction from the premises adopted by the advocates of the muscular contraction theory. But attention and feeling are closely related, although we cannot admit that they are identical, nor that atten- tion is notliing more than the expression of feeling. We have described attention as the psychological concomitant of the process by which the resistance in the brain center and from one center to another is varied. It is evident, then, that attention is a process by which feeling may be varied, and this is one of the most striking phenomena of attention. The fact that attention is a double process involving both positive and negative attention, makes it a difficult 202 THG FEELINGS OF MAN process to study. We have no means of discriminating positive from negative except by results, and we can image the two processes only by means of their physiological con- comitant. When we speak of attention, it is seldom that the speaker distinguishes which kind, positive or negative, is meant. Hence it is that the most contradictory con- clusions are drawn concerning the function and the effect of attention. Any satisfactory theory of attention must harmonize the apparently contradictory experiences, and any theory that does so has in this fact much evidence in its favor. It will conduce to clearness if we limit our definitions somewhat more than we have previously done, and assume that attention is the concomitant of the process by which the resistance is varied in a brain center and the impulse conducted through it. We may omit for the time the con- sideration of the physiological concomitant in directing the impulse from one brain center to another. Positive attention is the concomitant of the process by which the resistance to transmission in the brain center is dimin- ished, and negative attention is the concomitant of the process by which the resistance in the brain center is in- creased. In positive attention the dendrites are shifted closer together, and in negative attention they are shifted farther apart. It will be seen that negative attention increases feeling. That many of our ills, discomforts, and diseases are imag- inary, or manifestations of hysteresis is well known, and known best by those who have studied the matter the most. We can conjure up a pain or an ache in almost any part of the body at any time. A steady examination of the end of the finger for a minute or two will engender a decidedly peculiar feeling in that part, and if it is continued long enough, doubtiess pathological symptoms will appear. If we look at a single letter or figure on the page of a book for a few minutes, with the proper kind of attention, we RELATION OF PEELING TO ATTENTION 203 shall come to the feeling that this is the most peculiar let- ter or figure that was ever printed. So not only in our physical sensations, but in our social relations and mental operations negative attention is the occasion for most of our discomforts. Jealousy, suspicion, envy, malice, nearly all of the malevolent feelings are accompanied by a process of negative attention. The general name for this whole class of symptoms that verge on the pathological is worry. Worry may be defined as the feeling accompanying the process of continued negative attention. Perhaps one-half of all the discomforts that we endure arise from this condition. We give negative attention, increase resistance in the brain center through which the nervous impulse is passing, use up energy in overcoming resistance, and while we experience a painful feeling, we diminish the amount of intellectual work that we are capable of doing. On the other hand, positive attention decreases the re- sistance in the brain center and is capable of decreasing feeling. If the source of our discomfort is a previous condition of negative attention or if in common phrase our disease is imaginary, or caused by worry, this is all that is needed to cure the disease. Since perhaps half of all of our discomforts are of this kind, the various faith cures and Christian Science and miracle shrines do work that goes far to redeem them from the charge of charlatanry. Every real faith cure, or mind cure, or Chris- tian Science healing, finds its ready explanation in the phenomena of attention. It is a simple explanation, and is scarcely suflacient to justify the founding of a new re- ligion, nor to render less worthy of condemnation the vari- ous mummeries and mysteries that are adjudged to be necessary in the operations of saints relics and healing shrines. The various paraphernalia and mysteries and ceremonies and incantations connected with the modus operandi of all forms of healing of this kind are merely 204 THE FEELINGS OF MAN devices by means of which the proper kind of attention may be induced. Not one of them can have any effect except as it induces the proper kind of attention, and one is just as effective as the other when, by its means, the proper kind of attention is secured. What is commonly designated as faith healing, prayer cure, magnetic healing, and Christian Science has been described as really effective only when applied to the diseases and discomforts arising from the process of negative attention. Equally successful is the treatment of a regular physician when his medicines produce their greatest effect, as they frequently do, by in- ducing the proper kind of attention in the patient. In such cases, bread pills are as effective as any other, and fre- quently to be preferred. But there are pathological cases involving a lesion of the tissues, toxic products arising from bacterial growth, destruction of functional activities or some other cause, which, no matter how it may be directed, attention will not and cannot heal. Attention will have no effect upon the growth of the germs of diphtheria, nor consumption, and a broken leg will not respond to prayer. And yet, even in these cases, when the lesion is obscure, the painful feeling may be caused to disappear even from the most violent, dangerous and painful of them by a process of attention. Attention of the proper kind may actually decrease the resistance in the brain center until all feeling of discom- fort disappears. Then the danger is that the patient re- ports perfect faith healing and may die the next day. Attention may cause the pain to disappear, but the re- moval of the pain is not a cure of the disease. Usually, however, the faith healers apply no other criterion to test whether the disease is cured or not, except the elimination of pain. Pain is, as we have seen, a beneficial device by means of which we are informed of a dangerous pathological con- dition that may threaten the life and safety of the indi- RELATION OF FEELING TO ATTENTION 205 vidual. To destroy the pain, either by diminishing the amount of nervous energy by means of opiates, or by faith working through attention, is not to heal the disease, but to remove the test that we might apply to determine its presence, condition or improvement. In such a case, faith cure is on a par with opium. It is like covering the crack in a broken beam with paint. We have thus made clear the relation between feeling and attention, and we have seen how exceedingly intimate is their connection. We have been able to discriminate the two processes clearly by means of their physiological concomitants whose determination is of necessity alto- gether hyi)othetical. However, since the hypothesis has shown itself able to explain all the phenomena of attention, we may assume that it is true until we find facts that con- tradict it. The utility of the hypothesis does not depend upon the possibility of demonstrating its truth. The relation between intellect and feeling is a reciprocal one. With a given amount of nervous energy the more feeling the less intellectual work is done, and the less feel- ing the more intellectual work may be done. But atten- tion is a double process, so we shall expect to find that the law of the relation between attention and the intellectual process will partake of this duplex character. If we consider positive attention, the relation is easily understood. Positive attention diminishes feeling, and renders the amount of work that can be done greater than if the attention is not so successful. Positive attention may heighten perception or sensation to a very great amount. We can hear a clock tick at a distance many times as great when we are attending as when we are not attending. When we know what to look for, we can see or discover the lost thing with a much greater facility than when we do not know exactly what it is. Hence it is that the problem of apperception resolves itself largely into a problem of attention. 206 THE FEGLINGS OF MAN The process by which the perception is heightened by attention seems to be as follows : When I am listening for the clock to tick, I am already imagining how the tick of the clock will sound. I am reproducing the ticking sound that I have heard before, and am already sending a cen- trally initiated impulse through the clock-ticking center by a process of attention. It requires a much smaller peripherally initiated impulse to pass through the clock- ticking center when the dendrites are all set by the process of attention, thus facilitating the transmission, than if the same setting had not occurred. Hence I can hear the clock ticking much farther away, or a much fainter tick than if I am not attending. The slight peripherally initiated impulse travels the nervous arc, and this constitutes the difference between the percept and the idea. In the same way we may explain the seeing of what we expect to see. The centrally initiated impulse is already traversing the brain center tliat corresponds to that object, and a very slight peripherally initiated impulse will pass readily over it. The dendrites are all set so as to facilitate the passage, by the process of attention. The perception of the slight changes in the tension of the muscles by means of which blindfolded persons find articles hidden by others, the so-called muscle reading, together with other mystifying performances find tlieir explanation in the very much heightened perception result- ing from perfect attention. Even the phenomena of hypno- tism is best explained by the supposition that it is a process of perfect attention. This is the explanation given of it by Braid, its founder, and although the explanation has been much criticised, it has not been examined in the light of this dendritic move- ment theory, and no other explanation has been made that is anything like so satisfactory. Negative attention has just the opposite effect. We can- not see what we do not expect to see. Every observer picks EBLATION OF FEELING TO ATTENTION 207 out that to which he attends and is unable to perceive the rest. The puzzle in a puzzle picture arises from the fact that we do not know exactly what to look for, are unable to attend to it, do not set the dendrites, so it is difficult to see that which the picture presents. This is the explana- tion of all that passes under the name of apperception, and it is not a new nor unheard of process. Consciousness and feeling are directly related. Hence we shall expect to find that the process of attention which increases feeling will increase consciousness, and that which decreases feeling will decrease consciousness. Posi- tive attention tends to decrease consciousness, as will be readily recognized by everyone who has given very close attention to any matter for some time. Under a process of close positive attention, the person finds that time passes rapidly. He becomes so much absorbed in his work that he is almost unconscious of what he is doing. This is one of the ways that we have spoken of in Chapter X by which consciousness becomes diminished. Attention may de- crease consciousness by confining the impulse to the nerv- ous arc, permitting little or none of it to escape into the fringing cells. Here we have the explanation of the phe- nomena often adduced as evidence in favor of the James theory of feeling. A person who is in danger escapes from that danger, and only after the escape does he experience any feeling. At the time of danger, his positive attention processes are very successful in preventing the radiation of the nervous impulse, by diminishing the resistance in the brain center. He escapes from the danger by what seems a miracle. His actions are so perfectly adjusted to the exigencies of the case that they are called instinctive. This is merely perfect attention directing the nervous impulse without waste, accomplishing extraordinary intel- lectual results, and diminishing feeling and consciousness. Afterward, when the attention is diminished to the ordi- nary effectiveness, consciousness and feeling appear in 208 THE FEELINGS OP MAN intense form. Even the unconsciousness of the hypnotic state seems to find its interpretation in the lack of radia- tion occasioned by perfect, or nearly perfect positive at- tention. Sometimes, however, unconsciousness is occasioned by intense feeling. A person is said to faint from excess of emotion. Here it seems as if the nervous arc is interrupted in its continuity, and the current is broken. When the current is no longer passing, then none of it can radiate out into the fringing cells, and unconsciousness results. Intense feeling, extraordinary resistance, great negative attention, interruption of all current-— all of these seem to be associated with each other. The action of negative attention in producing unconsciousness is similar to that of chloroform, which as we have previously stated, is best accounted for by supposing that the action of chloroform produces a retraction of the dendrites until they are be- yond the point of physiological communication, the circuit is broken, the nervous impulse fails to pass, there can be no radiation, and unconsciousness follows. It seems as if we have in these considerations an ex- planation of contradictory facts. How the process of positive attention can produce much or little feeling. How both positive and negative attention may bring about a condition of relative unconsciousness. The explanation seems to be satisfactory, and the hypothesis is accordingly helpful. The relation between feeling and memory we have seen to be generally one of direct relation. That thing is re- membered best which is learned with feeling, if the feeling arises as the result of the transmission of the largest pos- sible amount of nervous energy through the brain center, and attention is the process by which it is directed. Hence it is that attention rather than feeling is the determining factor in the process of mental reproduction. If atten- tion were absolutely perfect, it seems as if there might be RELATION OP FEELING TO ATTENTION 209 a possibility of learning a thing so that it should never be forgotten. Synopsis. 1 — Attention is the psychological concomitant of the process iy which a nervous impulse is directed into and through a hrain center. It is the concomitant of the proc- ess hy which resistance in the train center is varied. 2 — Attention has two phases: positive, which is the con- comitant of the process iy which resistance is decreased; and negative, the concomitant of the process iy which resistance is increased. Both phases are involved more or less in every act of attention. 3 — There are two possible theories: one, that resistance is varied iy changing the conductivity of the synaptic memirane; the other, that resistance is varied ly shifting the dendrites through molecular distances; toward each other in positive attention, away from each other in nega- tive attention. The second theory is adopted in this look. 4 — Positive attention may decrease feeling, and this is the explanation of the decrease of pain in faith cures and mind cures. Negative attention increases feeling, and this is the source of pain in worry, hysteria, and imaginary Chapter XIII. THE RELATION OF FEELING TO WILL. That there is a phenomenon of mental life called will which every one recognizes as a constituent element in his own experience, no one wUl deny. That its nature is very complex and difficult to conceive in any way, is equally evident. That most of the discussions of will have in- volved inconceivable propositions, and have been largely beside the question, is quite as demonstrable. The reason for presenting the question in its present connection is found in the fact that there is a recognized relation be- tween feeling and will, and that no discussion of feeling can be altogether satisfactory which does not show the harmony between the theory of feeling and the recognized phenomena of will. To the older psychologists, will was a simple matter. It was merely a self determination of the substantial entity and was conditioned by no necessary laws. The self activity of the mind and its self determination was will. The "Will determined itself." It was not neces- sarily determined by anything else. It was a fundamental power of the mind, and no other explanation was neces- sary or possible. As psychology, such a conception of will belongs in the section of the psychological museum that corresponds to the cases containing the Great Auk and the Dodo. They are immensely valuable, veritable treasure houses of ideas that once existed, but have failed to survive in the strug- gle for existence, and have had to resign their places to those conceptions less out of harmony with the facts that have been more recently accumulated. 211 212 THE FEELINGS OF MAN But even among the older psychologists, there were those who regarded any decision that was made by the will as determined by the feelings. It was a common expression that feelings formed the will. By this was meant that the actions of a person were determined by the will in accordance with the feelings. If one kind of feeling was experienced, the will acted, of its own accord, in one way. But if another kind of feeling was expe- rienced, the will acted in another way, although, had it been so disposed, it might have acted differently. This is merely another statement of the proposition that feel- ings are the motive powers and lead to action ; that feel- ings determine what the action shall be, whether it is of a mental or a physical character. In opposition to this at the present time, the opinion is widely prevalent that it is the intellectual idea that determines the action and which works itself out. This is the law of dynamogenesis, and it seems to be supported by satisfactory observations. Either position may be defended by observations that all will acknowledge to be true, but this merely shows the complexity of the phenomena grouped together as will, and the inadequacy of the theory of will as at present understood. The full complexity of the phenomena not even yet has been fully recognized. All that it is possible for us to do is to point out the complexities, to show how observations apparently contradictory may be harmon- ized, and to exhibit the phenomena of feeling as mani- fested in an operation of the wiU. Will is a double process, one of whose elements is the process of attention, which has already been discussed; but there is a second element that has not been suflBciently considered. We can best make it clear by a r6sum6 of the propositions that have been advanced in previous chapters. In every current there are certain elements which are necessary to constitute it a current. The elements RELATION OF PEELING TO WILL 213 that are common to all currents will very likely indicate the essential components, while those characters which are peculiar to the individual currents will be left out of the number that enter into the conception of a current in general. In the first place, we have assumed that all the psy- chological processes that can be discriminated from each other have their concomitants in the elements of a cur- rent. It will help us, then, very much to determine what the essential elements of a current are. Every current must have some kind of a conductor. In the case of a river current, the river bed itself is the conductor; in the electric current, the conductor is usu- ally a wire; in the nervous current, the conductor is a nervous arc which in its simplest form consists of a nerve, two ganglion cells, and another nerve. Every current must have some kind of an insulator for the conductor, or some method by which the current is kept from leaving it. In the case of a river, the banks serve the function of an insulator; in the electric cur- rent, the insulator is a covering over the wire, or it may be that the air itself serves as the insulating ma- terial; in the case of the nervous current, we have as- sumed that the neuroglia, and along the course of the nerve, the medullary sheath serve the function of the in- sulator. It will be seen, of course, that neither the ner- vous conductor nor the insulator has any psychological concomitant. Every current encounters some resistance. In the river current, the resistance is the friction of the water against the banks, the inequalities in the river bed, or obstruc- tions that are encountered. The effect of the resistance is to warm the water in the river. In the electric current, we call the resistance merely resistance, and we measure it in ohms. The effect of the resistance is to produce heat. In a nervous current, the resistance has no other 214 THE PEELINGS OF MAN name. We are tinable to measure its amount, but we de- tect it by means of the chronoscope, and its psychological concomitant is feeling. Every current produces some effect upon the bodies in the space near it. We may call this space in which it produces such an effect, its field of influence. In the case of the river current, the field of influence is indicated by the water that is drawn by capillarity out of the river into the soil along its banks. Also it is shown by the cur- rent of air that is dragged along with the water in contact with its surface. In the electric current, the field of in- fiuence is called the magnetic field, and it is mapped with a magnetic needle. In the case of the nervous current, the field of influence is the radiation of the nervous im- pulse out of the brain center into the fringing cells, and its physiological concomitant is consciousness. Every current is capable of doing some work. In the river, the work may take the form of driving water wheels, and turning machinery. It is measured in foot pounds or horse power. In the electric current, the work done is the turning of motors and driving machinery. In the nervous current, the physiological work is the transmis- sion of a nervous impulse through a nervous arc, and its psychological concomitant is intellectual work, such as solving problems, memorizing, perceiving, etc. Every current is directed by changing the degree of resistance to be overcome, making it greater in one path than in another. In the river current it is directed by dams and gates. In the electric current, by switches and shunts. In the nervous current, by the shifting of the dendrites, and its psychological concomitant is attention. Every current must have some kind of driving force. In the river current, this is provided by the fall of the river or, in case of water wheels, the force of the water is provided by the difference in level between the water EEIiATION OF FEELING TO WILL 215 above the dam and the water below, which is called the head. In case of the electric current, the driving force is called the electromotive force, and is measured in volts. In the nervous current, we have no means of measuring it, and no name for the force. The fact that there is a nervous current is well recognized, but its driving force has not been considered. It is in some way connected with the oxidation of tissue, and after the analogy of the electric current I propose to call this force the nervo- motive force. The psychological concomitant of this nervo-motive force, directed by attention, I propose to de- scribe as will. It will be seen from this determination, that will is a double process, one of whose elements is the psychological concomitant of the nervo-motive force, and the other is attention, both positive and negative. As we have al- ready discussed attention, it will facilitate matters if we leave it out of consideration for the present, and, using a brief expression, speak of will as the concomitant of nervo-motive force alone. We have thus described the elements of the nervous current, and have determined the psychological concom- itants of each. As we have one word, current, to ex- press the sum of all current elements, so we need one word to express the sum of all the psychological concomitants. The word mind will not be satisfactory, for it has many improper associations. The stream of consciousness is unsatisfactory, for it is based upon a different concep- tion of consciousness. Neither is the general term con- sciousness available for our purpose. Let us coin a new term to fit the new conception, and call the combination of all the psychological concomitants of the current ele- ments-intellect, feeling, consciousness, attention, will, — the Psychon. As this is a new conception in psychology, it is proper to employ a new word to express it. It will be found very helpful to speak of the different element 216 THE FEELINGS OP MAN of the psychon, instead of the different states of conscious- ness. In order to make this determination of will at all prob- able, we need first to demonstrate that there is a nervo- motive force, and second, we shall need to present evi- dence in favor of the assumption that this force is the concomitant of will. The strongest evidence of the existence of the nervo- motive force is the existence of the current itself. By cur- rent, we mean the change in successive molecules of the nervous conductor. No one will deny the existence of the current, and no one will believe that the current will flow and successive molecules change without the mani- festation of some force. The nature of the force is be- yond our comprehension. Whether it is some form of energy similar to one already described in text books on physics, or whether it is a difiEerent force from any there recognized, is beyond our province to discuss. Whether it is capable of being transformed into one of the recog- nized forces and has a quantitative equivalence to them is also beside our present question. But that there is a force, the fact of a current abundantly proves. Another evidence of the existence of a nervo-motive force is found in the fact that brain tissue is oxidized and the resulting products have a lower degree of complexity than those which they replace. Whenever substances undergo a chemical change resulting in the production of substances of a lower degree of complexity, energy is liberated. The change is a katabolic change, and results in the liberation of energy. In the next place, we find that all mental processes stop almost instantly when the conditions for this chemical action in the brain are not present. Pressure on the carotid arteries results in unconsciousness in thirty sec- onds. Hemorrhage induces fainting. The brain weighs only about one-fiftieth as much as the body, but it draws RELATION OF FEELING TO WILL 217 usually from one-twelfth to one-eighth of all the blood sent out from the heart. It is not necessary, however, to stop the supply of blood in order to stop mental action. All that is necessary is to shut oflE the supply of oxygen to the brain, and this may be done by cutting off the supply of oxygen to the blood. The blood may continue to flow, but if the person is in an atmosphere that contains no oxygen the same results follow as if the blood supply were cut off. More than this, we find that when severe mental work is accomplished, there is a greater amount of katabolic substances pro- duced in the brain and excreted from the system. The next question is, why do we determine this energy liberated in the brain to be the concomitant of will? The reason is not far to seek. The evidence is found in the facts of concomitant variation between the nervo-motive force and the psychological phenomena of will. When we are able to make proper allowance for all modifications of the nervous current that arise from the variations in resistance, character, and modifications of brain tissue, and of the substance of the nervous arc, for the effect of habit, and the variations in attention, we shall always find that the strength of will varies directly as the amount of nervous energy liberated. The facts that constitute this evidence may be grouped under three heads. The first group of facts are those derived from an ex- amination of pathological conditions of will. We find in every case of weakened will that the bodily conditions are such as to diminish the amount of tissue oxidized in the brain. Some of these pathological conditions are cases of habitual users of alcohol, morphine, opium, co- caine. In every case, the formation of a habit of this kind results in weakened will. Why does not the drunk- ard of morphine-eater or cocaine fiend discontinue the habit ? Every one not so afflicted is sure that under simi- lar conditions he could quit, so why does not the drunk- 218 THE FEELINGS OF MAN ard? The drnnkaxd could if he had the present ability to generate energy that the normal person has, but he does not have it and his will is weak, so the breaking of the habit is a chemical impossibility with him. Indul- gence in a narcotic habit always results in lessened oxida- tion of tissue in the brain. The entire range of metabolic processes in the body is circumscribed, and this can usually be recognized in the paler complexion, ascribed to the lessened number of blood corpuscles which are the carries of oxygen; in the loss of appetite; in the slu^ish- ness of the circulation ; in fact, in almost all the processes that we have found to be essential to the liberation of nervous energy. We have a classical example of this weakening of the will from the use of opium in De Quincey. He tells us that when he was addicted to opium, letters would lie for months on his table unanswered. He knew that they should be answered, knew exactly what to say in answer, but he could not bring himself to do it. ffis wiU was weak. Many of us have unanswered letters, or some- thing else that corresponds to it, and the reason is the same. Our wills are temporarily weak, not perhaps from indulgence in opium, but from other causes. In such a case, when we feel disinclined to work and to do what we ought to do, the only proper thing is to do something that will enable us to liberate more nervous energy. We need to take a vigorous walk, to start the blood to mov- ing more rapidly to the brain, to breathe more fresh air so as to oxygenate the blood. In this way, by liberating more nervous energy, we strengthen the will. The proper treatment of a narcotic habit is indicated by its effect. The treatment is to do anything that will cause more nervous energy to be lib- erated. Good food, plenty of exercise to quicken the cir- culation but not enough to induce fatigue, pure air, and it may be necessary, although it may not, to discontinue RELATION OF PEELING TO WILL 219 the drug immediately. Anything that will cause more energy to be liberated will strengthen the will. Some cases of weakened wUl do not arise from a narcotic habit. Some diseases have for their principal symptom a weak- ness of will. Eibot, in his Diseases of the Will, gives many examples. When one is fasting for several days, the most notice- able and persistent psychological symptom is a weakness of will. Nothing that is not done by the force of habit, and this indicates little resistance, can be undertaken. This fact of little resistance which can arise only from the small amount of nervous energy liberated, accounts for the fact also, that not only the painful feeling of hun- ger almost disappears after the third day, but all other sensations are diminished in intensity. Notes of the psy- chological condition of a man completely abstaining from food for seven days continually emphasize the fact of weakness of will. No other condition of a pathological nature was present, but weakness of will was a most pronounced psychological manifestation. When food is lacking to repair the waste of tissue, oxidation cannot pro- ceed with its usual rapidity, and less energy is generated. Fernald presented to the Psychological Association in 1911, what he described as a "Kinetic Will Test." It was a device by which a person was induced to stand as long as he could without letting his heels touch the floor. By the device employed, the limit of mental persistence was reached before the limit of muscular resistance was en- countered, and the time that a person could stand in this position was taken as a measure of the strength of will. This method of measuring the will conforms exactly to the hypothesis advanced in this chapter, and the name "kinetic will test" is thoroughly appropriate; although the name of the test, perhaps by the advice of some per- sons who would not be in accord with the present hypo- thesis, has been changed to "an achievement capacity 220 THE FEELINGS OF MAN test," which is a sufl&ciently meaningless and vapid name to satisfy the least radical. Another line of evidence is derived from an examina- tion of the intensity of sensation in cases of weakened will. We find that whenever there is a clear case of weakened will the senses are not so acute nor the sensa- tions so vivid as when the will is not weakened. In meas- uring the acuteness of the sense of touch, the dividers must be spread farther apart in order that they shall be perceived as two points than is the case with the same person at a time when his will is strong. The person with a weakened will cannot detect so small diflferences in light nor color. He cannot detect so faint sounds, nor are any of his senses so acute. We know that a sensation is accompanied by an impulse peripherally initiated of a considerable strength. Periph- erally initiated impulses which accompany sensations are always strong, and it is by means of this fact that we are enabled to distinguish a percept from an idea. So we shall find that if the amount of nervous energy available for psychological processes at any time is less than the usual amount, the impulses originating in the sense or- gans will be less than they usually are, and that we shall be unable to experience sensations of the ordinary degree of intensity. The argument is this : Intensity of sensa- tion depends upon the quantity of nervous energy which is manifested by the nervous impulse. The weakened will is always accompanied by a diminished intensity of sen- sation. The conclusion is that tie weakened will is the concomitant of the diminished amount of nervous energy, or nervo-motive force. It is now necessary to consider the relation between attention and the will. Many writers on psychology assert that there is no difference between them, and that a thing is willed merely by a process of attention. That attention is an act of the will, and willing to do anything RELATION OP PEELING TO WILL 221 means attending to that thing. Let us try to make the relation clear. The nervous energy that has been generated by the oxidation of tissue must be gathered up and driven through a brain center. It is liberated, probably, in all of the developed brain cells. This is the concession made to those writers who insist that the whole brain is involved in all mental processes, and that the doctrine of localization of function is, if not a gross error, at least very misleading. We may allow that every portion of the brain does participate, in general, in every mental process, by furnishing the nervous energy which must be gathered up and driven through a brain center. It is like the diffused electricity generated on the plates of a battery. The gathering up of the nervous energy and directing it through the brain center is the work of the concomitant of attention, thus making of it one of the two parts of the double process of will. The nervous energy liberated may fail to be gathered up and driven through the brain center when the effect is as bad as if it had not been liberated at all. This sufiBciently explains the facts that have led persons to assert that attention is will. Attention alone is not will, but no act of the will can occur without attention. Voluntary attention is one of the phases of will. This determination of will also involves an explanation of the phenomena that have led many persons to assert that feelings form the will; without feeling there can be no will ; and that feelings are the motive powers. Our previous study has shown us that the resistance which is the concomitant of feeling is determined by two factors, each varying independently, and producing the resistance as the resultant. The first of these factors is the strength of the current, or nervo-motive force; sec- ond, the nature of the arc itself, which may be modified by habit, attention and pathological conditions. In the 222 THB FEELINGS OF MAN production of some feelings, one of these factors will be the principal determinant, and in the other classes of feel- ing, another. Hence we shall discover that the most con- tradictory phenomena find their proper explanation in the independent variability of these two factors. If we limit the study of the will to the single element of nervo-motive force, we shall be able to discover the ex- planation of the phenomena that lead to the belief that feelings form the will. If we suppose the other factor constant, the feelings will vary with the nervo-motive force. The person who manifests a strong will, then, will be the person who experiences much feeling. When the will is weak, littie feeling will be manifested. Attention and the nature of the conductor remaining the same, the strength of will may be reckoned in terms of feeling; much feeling, strong will ; weak feeling, little will. As we have previously seen, the person who is capable of generating littie nervo-motive force is not likely to ex- perience intense feeling. The intoxicated person does not experience very much feeling, and does not have very much will. He is easily induced to do things at the solicitation of others, and experiences none of the feelings of shame or remorse that he would if he were not intoxi- cated. The victim of a narcotic habit, while under the influence of the drug, is relieved of all his painful feeling, mental and physical. The vividness of his feelings and his strength of will disappear at the same tima An in- toxicated man is not unaware of what he is doing, but his feelings are so weak that he does not care. The same thing is true of a very sick person. A per- son who is approaching the point of death, is not suffer- ing very much, either physically of mentally. He has no mental or physical feelings of any great strength and vividness, and does not will to live. The persons who are watching at his bedside are probably enduring more anguish of spirit than is the dying man himself, for he has RELATION OF FEELING TO WILL 223 passed the point where he is able to will or to experience feeling. The amount of nervous energy that he is capable of generating is not great enough to encounter much re- sistance in any part of the brain. Strength of will and vividness of feeling are asso- ciated with each other, although not in a causal way. The feelings are not the cause of the will, nor is the will the cause of the feelings; but both feelings and will are the concomitants of the same process, the liberation of a large amount of nervous energy, which encounters re- sistance in passing through a nervous arc. The strength of will is generally judged by means of the amount of activity that the person is capable of ex- hibiting. The person who generates the largest amount of nervo-motive force is the person who, other things being the same, will have the largest amount of energy to expend in activity, and also will be the one to manifest the greatest amount of feeling. Hence we have the condition that corresponds to the direct relation between feeling and will. But it appears that under certain conditions when we are least capable of manifesting the activity that is indi- cative of will, we experience the greatest amount of feel- ing. When we are fatigued or sick, and are incapable of generating energy in so great quantities as usual, we seem to experience more than the ordinary amount of feeling. Circumstances that ordinarily would not occasion anxiety or worry, annoy us greatly. We are unable to endure the same amount of physical pain, and anger is more easily aroused than before. Anger, worry, physical and mental pain often seem to be excessive in a situation when we are incapable of generating energy in quantity, and when we recognize our condition as that of weakened will. Evidently this situation is directly contrary to the theory that feelings form the will, or that feelings and will vary directly with each other. The explanation of 224 THE FEELINGS OP MAN the discrepancy and the difference between this series of phenomena and the preceding will be fonnd in the effect of attention in the production of feeUngs. Whatever the basis of the physical nervous concomitant of atten- tion may be, it is evidently something that is fatiguing and demands the expenditure of nervous energy. One of the first indications of the failure of nervous supply is the inability to fix the attention steadily upon the matter in hand. Hence it is that when there is a dimin- ished amount of nervous force, the failure of attention may be sufficient to increase resistance, and feeling will increase. It is corroborative of this that, in such cases, feeling is increased only in the processes that are unusual and out of the ordinary routine. So long as nothing oc- curs to disturb our equanimity there is no manifestation of increased feeling; but when an unusual, non-habitual situation arises, and an effort of attention is needed to prevent the increase of feeling up to the painful point, then we fail and the feeling is intensified. It remains for us to consider will in its relation to feeling as determined by the nature of the conducting material, as it is modified by habit or pathological condi- tions. We can say but little concerning the relation of will to feeling as thus determined, except to recognize that this factor may completely conceal the operation of attention and the strength of the current. We can estab- lish no law except that, with a given amount of nervo- motive force and a constant capacity for attention, the modification of the conductor by habit will tend to dimin- ish resistance and its concomitant feeling. The law that expresses the relation between feeling and will, when stated in terms of the other factor, will need modification when we take this second factor into account. Pathological conditions usually tend to increase re- sistance and feeling, with a given amount of nervous energy. But it apears that there are pathological con- RELATION OF FEELING TO WILL 225 ditions in which reaction time is diminished, and we might draw the conclusion that resistance is diminished in corresponding amount. Such pathological conditions are those usually associated with inflammation of the nervous tissue of the brain or nerves and when such dis- turbance becomes very great, the corresponding mental condition is acute mania or delirium. It would seem that the resistance itself is not diminished, but rather in- creased, and the feeling is very great, but the amount of nervous energy generated is in excess and the mechanism of attention is thrown out of order. The phenomena of feeling in its relation to the intel- lectual process has already been described. But it re- mains to consider that relation in the light of our de- termination of the concomitant of will. The larger the quantity of nervous energy that is transmitted through a nervous arc, the greater will be the amount of intellectual work accomplished. Hence it will be seen that there is a direct relation between will and intellectual work. An action is determined by the clearness with which it is perceived before the action is accomplished. This fact is sometimes well stated by calling the idea of an action the motive. The clearer the idea of the action, the more certain the action is to follow. If a large amount of nervous energy is already traversing a nervous arc, the dendritic movements are already made that direct it through, and the additional nerve force finds its way easily over the same path. So we find, as a general rule, subject to modification by other circumstances, that the person with great intel- lectual power is a person of strong will. As the will is weakened, the intellectual ability is diminished. The modifications to which the law is subject are those aris- ing from the fact that the relation between intellect and feeling is a reciprocal one. We have just described feel- ing and will, in one aspect of the case, directly related, 226 THE FEELINGS OP MAN and feeling and the intellectual process as reciprocally related. Hence we have a modification of the law to in- clude the effect of feeling, in so far as the feeling arises from the increase in the strength of will. This modifica- tion is one whose effect is included in the discussion of the apparent direct relation between intellect and feeling on page 49. Synopsis. 1 — The essential elements of a current are the con- ductor, insulator, work done, resistance, field of influence, methods of directing the current, and driving force. 2 — Each of these elements of the nervous current, ex- cept the first two, has its psychological concomitant. All the psychological concomitants taken together may 6e called the psychon. 3 — Will is the concomitant of the driving force of a nervous current, plus attention, which directs the force. 4 — That there is a driving force, or nervo-motive force, is shown l>y the fact that there is a current, and that the metaiolic processes result in products of a lower degree of complexity. 5 — That the will is the concomitant of nervo-motive force is shown hy the weakened wUl in cases of narcotic haMt, hy pathological cases of weakened will, and iy the fact that whenever the will is weaker than usual, the sen- sations are diminished in intensity. 6 — Feeling and will are directly related to each other if the resistance arises from an increased amount of ner- vous energy; they are reciprocally related if the resist- ance is due to a modification of the nervous arc itself. Chapter XIV. THE RELATION OF FEELING TO THE EGO. Many persons believe that the presence of feeling of any kind is conclusive evidence of an independent, self active entity that thinks, feels, and wills, which is not a part nor a function of the body, and is not dependent upon the body for its existence. Feeling is considered to be more satisfactory evidence than any other mental process, because it is more completely subjective, and testifies to the condition of the self rather than furnishes information of an external object. This is essentially the statement of Mr. H. R. Marshall, who says : "Feeling is subjectivity, and bears a close relation to the empirical ^o. It is the empirical ego which has not yet become explicit." While this statement would probably not be satisfactory to many dualists, it does, nevertheless, em- phasize the importance of feeling in demonstrating the existence of the ego. The doctrine of the ego asserts in a general way that there is an entity, or a substantial existence residing in the body and using the body as its instrument. The body is not a part of the ego, but serves merely as a means by which the ego exerts an influence upon material things. All mental processes are activities of the ego, and are de- termined by it. The growth of the body, the organization of the brain, the development of the human being, are all dependent upon the ego, which exists independently of them, employing the brain and nervous system merely as a means of acting upon the material world. As feeling does not in itself act upon the external world, it is as- 227 228 THE FEELINGS OP MAN sumed to be the best evidence of the existence of the ego. There is little distinction made between mind, soul, ego, in this system of philosophy. The three terms are prac- tically synonymous. Since feeling is commonly assumed to be evidence of the existence of this independent, self active entity, it is necessary to examine the matter somewhat carefully, to see what is the real significance of feeling in the dis- cussion. A careful examination will show that instead of being an evidence of the existence of an independent ego, whatever testimony feeling has to offer, is rather opposed to the doctrine. The independent, self active entity called the ego or mind, is that which is left after all the properties that pertain to the body have been taken away from the com- plex unity of body and mind. This is the ground on which the distinction is made between mental feeling and physi- cal pain. Physical pain belongs to the body, and is not an essential constituent of the mind. Mental pain be- longs to the mind and not to the body. If we subtract all those properties that belong especially to the body, we shall discover the essential nature of the mind. Let us consider the mind as existing apart from the body, retaining only those characteristics which are nec- essary to manifest its real nature, and dropping all those feelings that have been experienced in consequence of its physical connection. Physical pain cannot be considered an essential constituent of it. Physical pain has its function in preserving the body, and by it the mind could take cognizance of injurious conditions. Besides physical pain, there are many egoistic feelings, whose function is to preserve the body from destruction in dangerous situations. Hunger, thirst, nausea may be considered as belonging to the physical sensations^ but the feeling of fear is a mental pain, and its only function is the preservation of the individual. In a state where fiELATION OF FEELING TO THE EGO 229 the body has already been destroyed, the retention of the feeling of fear would be meaningless and absurd. Hence we readily see that fear, and all other self-preserving feelings belong to the physical organism, or to the com- plex association of mind and body, and not to the con- ception of the soul or the mind. Next, there is a large group of community preserving feelings that have been considered especially marks of the soul. We readily think of pity, charity, and sym- pathy as examples; but equally so are anger, hate, and revenge. The entire group of community preserving feel- ings has been developed out of the necessity for preserv- ing the community and preventing it from being de- stroyed. When all necessity for preserving the commu- nity has disappeared, the retention of these feelings would be devoid of significance. Hence it is that we can- not think of them as constituting an essential element in the organization of the mind. Certainly revenge, hate, and anger would be willingly discarded, but they are no less feelings of this community preserving group than are the others and if one may be thought of as necessary, all the others must be. The holiest feeling of the human heart is mother love. But mother love is one of the race perpetuating feelings, developed out of the necessity for preserving the race and perpetuating the species. When the occasion for per- petuating the species is past, and the physical conditions that render it possible are removed, there can by no pos- sibility be a retention of the feelings appropriate to the functions. Hence the entire group of the race perpetuat- ing feelings must be conceived as having no function, ex- cept as they belong to the physiological complex of the body as it manifests mental processes. These race per- petuating feelings belong, not to the essential nature of the mind, but to the physical connection of the mind with the body. 230 THE FEELINGS OF MAN We have now had reason to discard from the essential nature of the mind, all the self preserving, community preserving, and race perpetuating feelings, and it would appear that there is very little left that any one would care to retain. All of these discarded feelings have their reason for being, not in the nature of the mind, but the physical processes of the individual complex. They be- long to the physical organism as a means for its preserva- tion and perpetuation. They give warning of danger, fur- nish a means of multiplying its efllciency, and insure its reproduction, multiplication, and improvement. No one of these feelings could by any possibility have any mean- ing, or justification for its existence, were it not for the physical organism through which they manifest them- selves, and which they preserve. Hence it is that the feelings, when properly understood, furnish not an evi- dence of the existence of an independent, self active en- tity, but so far as they testify at all, they demonstrate the inadequacy of such a conception. Instead of uphold- ing the hypothesis that they are cited to prove, their testi- mony is rather against it. The fundamental principle of psychology, as in all other biological subjects, is that every mental process is now or has been in the recent past, of some advantage to the individual, the race, or the species. But every advantage that is furnished by feeling accrues to the physical complex, and not to the mind con- sidered apart from it. The problem of accounting for the feelings is not so simple a matter as the doctrine of the ego would make it appear. The feelings are assumed to be the most con- clusive evidence of an ego, but the ego is considered to be self active, and every mental process a manifestation of its activity. Feeling, then, is an activity of the ego, and is accomplished by some change in itself, not at all deter- mined by external conditions. The ego feels as it decides or wishes to feel. It is virtually independent of nervous RELATION OF PEELING TO THE EGO 231 and material conditions. This means that feelings are determined by the will, and those persons are consistent, if nothing more, who assert that the ego is will, instead of feeling. But even if the will determines the feelings, the will itself is self caused activity, not determined by anything else, and moves from one condition to another without any cause, which is an unthinkable proposition. One other circumstance is believed to demonstrate the existence of the independent, self active entity called the ego, and that is the fact of a continuity of experience throughout all the years of the individual life. This is the phenomenon of personal identity, and is rather an effect of the functions of memory than of feeling. It is worthy of note that the continuity is not complete nor absolute. It is rather apparent than real, for the in- dividuality of the person does change. Not only are there rapid conversions, but a slow change is constantly in progress. We fail to recognize it as a change, just as we fail to see the hour hand of a clock move, but the change and disruption of unity is constantly going on. But there are periods of rapid change, turning points in one's life, such as the climax of adolescence, which are easily observed, when, as the result of rapid growth the entire nature seems to change and the person to be made over anew. We fail to recognize the ordinary changes in con- sequence of their slowness, but nevertheless they are real and important. Two stages in the life of the same indi- vidual separated by a period of years are more widely different from each other than the stages of two indi- viduals of the same age. A boy of seven and the man of twenty-five into which the boy develops, are more widely different than two boys of seven. The only thing that consciousness, or cognition, can report is a mental process. These are the ultimate facts, and that there is an ego of which these processes are activities is clearly an inference. That feeling is any 232 THE PEELINGS OF MAN more an evidence of a self active ego than any other men- tal process cannot be admitted. One mental process is quite as conclusive or inconclusive as another. There is a very proper use for the term ego and for the term mind. The ideas which these terms connote are important and necessary. The concept of the ego is formed by a process of abstraction and comparison. If we compare all the activities of the human being, the in- separable complex of the physical organism and the men- tal processes, and abstract from all the activities that it manifests the common elements, we shall have a combina- tion of the characteristics common to all the activities. This is a general abstract notion which we may designate as the ego. The ego, then, may be defined as the sum of the characteristics that are common to all the activi- ties of the human being. By a similar process, abstract- ing from all the mental processes their common character- istics and combining them into one whole, we shall have the general abstract notion of mind. That the concept of mind is a general abstract notion is shown in many ways. Neither feeling, consciousness, nor intellection gives us any direct knowledge of mind. The only ego that is perceived in any manner is that which is manifested in the inseparable complex of body and mental processes. No mental process has ever been expe- rienced nor observed separated from body and brain, and we have no justification for assuming that any such separation is possible. No inference can possibly be legitimate which carries thought farther than its connec- tion with a nervous system. But a general abstract notion has no actual, tangible thing to correspond to it It is merely a name for the sum of qualities and not for an actual independent ex- istence. Life, nature, mind, spirit, reason, justice, are such ideas. They are important and necessary for think- ing, but the mistake occurs when we accept these crea- RELATION OF FEELING TO THE EGO 233 tions of the natural consciousness as actual objects. When we give them a tangible existence and apply them as causes to the explanation of phenomena, then we do violence to truth and block the way to progress. Happily, in other departments of science, we have al- ready passed this critical point, and no longer seek to explain the phenomena by an appeal to the abstract. We are no longer content to explain the rush of air into an exhausted receiver by saying that nature abhors a vacuum. We are not satisfied to account for any natural phenom- enon by saying that nature acts in that particular way. Nature as a cause is not sufiflcient to account for the phe- nomena that we see. No physicist regards gravitation as anything more than an abstraction, and the law of gravi- tation as a statement of the uniformity in the activities of bodies. It is not conceived to be an actually existing thing that serves as a cause. Neither is it a satisfactory explanation of mental phe- nomena to say that the mind acts in such or such a way, nor that the mind interprets certain appearances. Mind and the ego are as much obstructions in the way of prog- ress as are nature, gravitation, and life, when they are described as real entities and employed as tangible exist- ences to explain natural phenomena. The actual things that do exist are the phenomena observed. So in psychol- ogy, the actual things that we are called upon to study explain and account for are the feelings, rememberings, and willings. So psychology becomes the science of mental phenomena, not the science of the mind. It is not neces- sary to develop a theory of the mind before undertaking the study of the phenomena. The science of physics is not built upon any theory of the constitution of matter nor the nature of force. Such theories are constantly changing without in the least modifying the phenomena observed nor iuterfering with the value of the laws that have been established. 234 THE FEELINGS OF MAN The concept of mind is derived by a process of abstrac- tion from the phenomena, the phenomena are not deduc- tions from the nature of the mind. Only by means of an approach to the subject in this way is psychological prog- ress possible. To assert that mental phenomena are the manifestations of mind, and that these phenomena exist because the mind acts in such and such a way, is similar to the method of studying geology that accounts for the position of a mountain range by saying that God made it there, and reasoning from the Nature of God that he would naturally locate it where it is. All recent advances in psychology have been made by a practical discarding of the conception of mind as an entity and no progress is possible so long as it is retained. Prog- ress in psychology has been made by a study of mental phenomena, not by speculations upon the nature of the mind. The method of writing psychology that begins with a definition of mind, its nature, and properties, corre- sponds closely to the method of writing history which be- gins with tracing the genealogy of the earliest kings of the country from Adam down. So numerous and important are these limitations of the doctrine of the ego, that as a scientific doctrine it must be discarded, and no longer be considered in the discussion of psychological subjects, but it remains for us to account in some way for the phenomena that were believed to ren- der it credible. We have already seen that feeling, so far from being any evidence of the truth of the doctrine of the ego, and the independent existence of the mind, is not favorable to the theory it is called upon to support. It remains, however, to point out the significance of feeling, and to interpret it in a way that is consonant with all the phenomena of physical and mental life. There can be no question that feeling and every other element of the psychon, has been developed by the processes of variation, fixed by natural selection and transmitted by RELATION OP PEELING TO THE EGO 235 heredity. Each of these elements of the psychon has con- tributed some advantage that rendered a person better fitted to survive in the circumstances in which he waa placed. There are many devices employed to adapt differ- ent organic beings to their environments, and many others that might have been employed instead of those that were. Feeling seems to be one of those devices by which the human being has been adjusted and enabled to survive in the struggle for existence. The self preserving feelings enabled the individual to escape danger, the community preserving feelings multiplied the strength of the indi- vidual by the strength of the entire community, and the race perpetuating feelings guaranteed the continuance of the race and the pressure upon subsistence that enabled natural selection to operate. The feeling of fear led the human being to escape from his enemies, but fear is only one of the many devices that might have been employed to accomplish the same result. In animals such as the social insects, in whom the social organization is more pronounced, and the length of life is shorter, there seems to be no indication of such a self pre- serving feeling as fear. In the human being, love of off- spring is one of the most influential feelings, while in many animals no such feeling exists, but a different device is employed to continue the species. Such a device is mani- fested by some fishes, where a single fish may lay ten thousand eggs, and no parental care or parental feeling is manifested. The entire group of feelings may be considered as a series of devices to accomplish the purpose of adapting the individual and the race to its environment. Why is it that these particular devices were selected out of all the multiplicity of possible devices that might have been em- ployed, and which are shown in the constitution of other organic beings, is one of the ultimate questions. There is no essential reason why feeling should have been the par- 236 THE FEELINGS OP MAN ticular device employed in man to adapt him to his situa- tion, any more than that the number of his arms should be limited to two instead of extended to five, as in the star fish. Neither can we explain why man has become adapted to his environment through the device of moving from place to place, instead of procuring his food while remain- ing stationary, as plants do. Consciousness is another device by which man becomes adjusted. It seems rather a clumsy, inefflcient device, available for a transition period, but which tends to dis- appear as the adjustment becomes perfected. However, it enables an adjustment to be made in situations where, without it, the race would be compelled to die out, or aban- don certain localities. It stands in the place of reflexes and ready-made instincts. Hence it is that plasticity of organization instead of fixity of structure is associated with the highest forms of consciousness. While it is rather a condition of less efficiency, it is sometimes demanded by the necessity for meeting the conditions of a changed and rapidly changing environment. In no other way and by no other device with which we are acquainted, could the race so quickly adapt itself to changed conditions. This accounts for the fact that many other animals have much more completely fixed instinctive adjustments than man, and the extreme plasticity of organization that is asso- ciated with the lack of fixed instincts makes it necessary for man to remain longer in the period of infancy. Every manifestation of life consists of the operation of some device by which an individual becomes adjusted. Man is the best example of adjustment by means of consciousness, feeling, and intellection. It is doubtful, however, if the human species is at all better adjusted to its environment, or stands a better chance of surviving in the struggle for existence, than do many of the plants. The ragweed is protected from being eaten by a bitter taste, while its branching habit, terminal spikes, laciniate leaves, and fourteen or fifteen other devices, are so correlated with RELATION OF FEELING TO THE EGO 237 each other as to render the plant admirably adapted to its environment, and to insure its propagation in large num- bers, by which it is more likely to survive. A single plant may produce five thousand seeds, and for every seed it pro- duces about five hundred thousand pollen grains. Yet the plant is without intelligence as we understand the term, and without feeling. Intelligence and feeling are devices by which animals, and especially man, have become adapted to their environment. Plants have become ex- tremely specialized in another direction which does not include intelligence and feeling. This is the origin and significance of feeling. It ranks in the constitution of the human being, with the terminal spikes and bitter taste of the ragweed. Both have a cor- responding origin, and both are explainable on the same principle. We have tried to show how it is associated with the brain and nervous system, and the function it per- forms. It is necessary for us also, in discussing the relation of feeling to the ego, to consider the second series of phe- nomena that are relied upon to demonstrate the existence of a substantial entity of mind, or the ego. That is the phenomena of personal identity, and the persistence of the individual through all the years of his natural life. We have already seen that this continuity is not so nearly absolute as it is commonly assumed to be, and it is our purpose to explain how such continuity occurs, and the limits that are possible to it. This element of personal identity was formerly sup- posed to be the result of an intuition, and immediate knowledge different from the ordinary processes of per- ception and reason. The mind knows itself immediately. It is a function of its self activity. Various explanations are assigned for it, but if we are to place psychology on a natural science basis, it is necessary to show a foundation in physiology for this function of identity or sameness in the different stages of individual life. We must be able 238 THE FEELINGS OP MAN to account for it in some way, to discover its physical and nervous concomitant for the basis of all its mutations, changes, transformations, and developmental stages. It is not difficult to show that every intellectual process is capable of being reduced to a single form, that of the perception of resemblance. The ordinary sense i)erception is of this kind, and a simple judgment is nothing more. A syllogism involves the perception of resemblance between two concepts compared indirectly, and every other form of reasoning — whether inductive, deductive, analogy, recognition, naming, or classification — ^involves the same thing. It is, therefore, the one process that is essential to any act of the intellect. We have an easy interpretation in physiological terms of the perception of resemblance. It woidd appear that in every case where a resemblance is perceived, its concomi- tant is the transmission of an impulse through some cells that are common to the two centers traversed in the per- ception of the two objects compared. Two ideas that are totally unrelated seem to have for their concomitants the transmission of an impulse through two centers that have no cells in common. In making a simple judgment, whose expression is a proposition, the idea which Ls the subject has for its con- comitant the transmission of an impulse through one com- bination of cells. The idea whose expression is the predi- cate has for its concomitant the transmission of an im- pulse through another combination of cells, some of which at least, belong to the same combination of cells that was traversed when the idea which is the subject was experi- enced. The element of resemblance has for its concomi- tant, then, the transmission of the impulse through the cells that are common to the two combinations, which may be many or few as the resemblance is great or small When this proposition is carried out to its legitimate con- clusion, it will appear that every intellectual process has for its psychological concomitant the transmission of an RELATION OF FEELING TO THE EGO 239 impulse through a combination of cells, some of which, at least, have been traversed on one or more previous occa- sions. But this will assist us to conceive of the concomitant of the idea of personal identity, or the ego, in terms of the old psychology. Every mental process has something in common with some other, or every other mental process. We recognize a similarity or we should not call them mental, and there are further resemblances. It is evident that the first impiilses that traverse the brain ^vill pass through isolated centers. There must be two or more combinations of cells traversed before an im- pulse will pass from one to the other, or before ideas are associated. Later, nervous impulses pass from one center to another and association of ideas begins. Ultimately it will come about that when a larger number of cells have been developed, and association fibers are numerous, that it will be impossible for a person to have an experience that does not involve as its concomitant the transmission of an impulse through centers, some cells of which have been traversed before. No unrelated experience is possible. When this condition arises, a personality is born, the feel- ing of personal identity is aroused, all subsequent experi- ences have something more or less in common with every other, and there is a continuous connection between earlier experiences and all later ones. This is the ex- planation of the fact that while two boys of seven are more nearly alike than is a man of twenty-five and the boy of seven from whom he has developed, that there is a kind of resemblance or continuity between the man and the boy that cannot exist between the two boys. If it were possible to open up a new system of brain cen- ters, and to interrupt the connections that are now formed between the sense organs and the sense centers to bring into operation cells that had never been traversed before, then we should expect the continuity to be interrupted and a new personality to appear. This explanation seems to 240 THE FEELINGS OF MAN be possible, and is able to account for the physiological connection between mental processes, and for the facts that were believed to necessitate the postolation of an entity called mind. It would seem, then, that the recognition of an ego in the naive sense of the term, is an illusion of the first order. The problem is much more complex than has been assumed. It involves an answer to the question why any nervous impulse is accompanied by a mental process, and this we have found to be unapproachable by any means at our command. For the science of psychology, it is imi>os8ible to admit ^ the introduction of such an hypothetical entity as the ego. We have become able to study physiology without assuming the presence of an hypothetical entity called life of which all vital activities are manifestations, and we are able to describe the phenomena of a living body in terms of chemistry, force, and matter without introducing life as a cause. We cannot be too frequently reminded that such a method of studying physiology was not attained without much struggle and much opprobrium heaped upon the heads of the physiologists. The dis.section of the human body was forbidden by law in some countries, and the physiologists who treated the matter from the standpoint of natural science were subject to many material and ver- bal indignities. So we have become able to study botany and zoology without introducing into it an external cause of which every structure and function is an expression. Only in some manner as this has it become possible to establish a science of physics, chemistry, geology, botany, zoology, and physiology. No science is possible unless we assume at the beginning of it that nature is uniform in aU respects, and all activities that we see manifested are neither capri- cious nor uncaused, but that each has an antecedent which it is possible for us to discover by an examination of nat- ural laws. RELATION OP FEELING TO THE EGO 241 Thus it is that psychology must conform to the uniform- ity of natural laws if it is ever to become a science. No factor must be introduced into the discussion that would make of mental processes phenomena completely outside of the order of nature and non-conformable with it. Psy- chology is the science of mental phenomena, not of the ac- tivities of an hypothetical entity introduced for the pur- pose of explaining them. By regarding psychology in this way, progress is possible, while without it there is no hope. Otherwise we shut the door deliberately against all at- tempts to increase our knowledge, and we waste our ener- gies in useless speculations upon the nature, origin and destiny of this entity of mind. Only by regarding psychology as a natural science and applying to its elaboration the same principles of scientific study that have been so laboriously worked out in other subjects, can we see a possibility of developing a science of education. If there were to be postulated an independ- ent, self active entity that is determined in all its activi- ties by itself alone, and not by the conditions of its sur- roundings and its physical connection, all educational laws would be limited to the capricious determination of the self active entity. But if we regard the human being as part of the natural world, subject to the same laws and conditions as are other parts of creation, then we discover the possibility of a science of psychology and of education. Synopsis. 1 — Feeling is regarded iy many persons as the iest evi- dence of a self active entity called ego, or mind. Feeling is considered as the activity of this self active entity and a proof of its existence. 2 — Tt can he shown that the evidence of feeling is directly contradictory to this supposition, and feelings find their raison d'etre in the physical organism. 3 — The distinction between physical and mental feeling 242 THE FEELINGS OP MAN originates in the recognition that some of the feelings exist as a consequence of the necessities of the physical organ- ism. But equally well it may 6e shown that all feelings originate in the same necessity. All egoistic feelings have their reason for being in the effect they have in preserving the body; the community preserving feelings arise as a consequence of the necessity for preserving the community, and the race perpetuating feelings from the necessity for perpetuating the race. None of these feelings would have any reason for being if the mind were an entity capable of acting in a feeling way, and existing apart from the bodily organism. 4 — Knowledge of the ego is not given directly. It may be understood a^ arising from the perception of sameness among all mental processes, which has its concomitant in the transmission of an impulse through cells that have been traversed before. 5 — This same transmission of impulses through cells that have been traversed before, accounts for the conti- nuity of the individual. If it were possible to experience mental processes which were accompanied by impulses traversing cells and centers, none of which had ever been traversed before, the continuity would be interrupted and a new personality would be bom. 6 — Psychology is a natural science, and rests upon the assumption that nature is uniform throughout. The meta- physical conception of a self active, independent ego, of which the feelings are manifestations, must be discarded as has been discarded the conception of nature, or of life, as an explanation for phenomena in biology and physics. 7 — Consciousness, feeling, and intellect are devices which have been adopted to enable the individual and the species to survive. Other organisms have adopted other devices, but consciousness, feeling and intellect seem to be the most effective in enabling an animal to make quick and prompt adjustment to the exigencies of changed and chang- ing conditions. Chapter XV. MENTAL ONTOGENY. If we can establish the truth of the proposition that feeling is the concomitant of the resistance encountered by a nervous impulse in passing through a nervous arc, and that all other mental processes have their concomi- tants in some of the elements of the nervous current, we shall have a means of pushing our investigations into the origin of the mental processes of a child much farther than if we had no such hypothesis to guide our researches. It seems highly desirable that we shall make the application of the doctrine herein enunciated to the beginnings of mental processes, since, for the teacher at least, the study of the mental processes of the child is the most important part of psychology. We shall proceed upon the assumption that the theory of feeling, and the other processes associated with it, has been demonstrated or rendered highly probable by the line of argument and evidence adduced in the preceding pages. If this can be shown to be not true, our specula- tions concerning the origin of the mental processes will likewise have to be discarded, and the corroborative cir- cumstances will of necessity seek another explanation. We find in the infant at birth, no mental processes es- tablished. It would seem like an error in judgment for Hoffding to assert that the "Beginnings of conscious life are to be placed, probably before birth." [Psychology, p. 4.) What we do find is that the only processes estab- lished at birth are certain reflexes, and these are such as are necessary for the immediate continuation of the in- dependent life of the child. The reflexes that move the 243 244 THE FEELINGS OF MAN lips and organs of the mouth are present, and these are necessary to enable the child to take his first nonrishment. The reflexes that move the respiratory muscles are already well established, for without these movements the child would be unable to survive the first five minutes of an independent existence. The reflexes of grasping with the hands are weU established, and we find that the child in the first half hour of his independent life is able to grasp a stick or finger, and by means of this grasping reflex, to support the weight of his body for a period vary- ing from two seconds to a minute and a half. This reflex persists for several days or weeks, but finally diminishes. Its presence points us back to the time when the ancestors of the human race lived in trees. Such a reflex was without any doubt of serious importance to the preserva- tion of the life of the child in the arboreal, primitive con- dition of man, although it is no longer of essential value. It is a vestigial reflex, and is historical rather than of immediate utility. The crying reflex is also established, and is imme- diately available. This reflex is essential to the cMld, for it is a demand upon the parent for assistance, with- out which the life of the child is impossible. It is sig- nificant that this first signal of the child for assistance is an auditory rather than a visual one. Correlated with this fact is the fact that the ears of the parent manifest no device by which the sound stimulus may be shut out, as the eyelid shuts out the light from the eye. The auditory signal of the child is not affected in its stimulat- ing properties by the change of day and night. All of these reflexes (not instincts) are present at birth, and are of essential importance for the preservation of the child's life in the first few minutes or few hours of his independent existence. They have been established by variation, fixed by natural selection, and transmitted by heredity. Like all other reflexes, they involve no mentjd MENTAL ONTOGENY 245 activity. It is extremely probable that no one of these reflexes is accompanied by the transmission of an impulse through a cortical center, but that only what are called the lower centers participate in their production. It is characteristic of a true reflex to be accompanied by no mental process. It has no motive in the psychological sense of the term, and cannot be considered as an expres- sion of any element of the psychon. If any action does involve a mental process, it cannot be considered a reflex. We must look for the beginnings of mental life in the activities of the senses. The senses at birth are inactive. The child is born deaf and blind. He cannot taste or smell. It may be questionable if the sense of touch or temperature is capable of functioning. All of these senses must acquire their proper activity after birth. Let us study the development of the sense of hearing, and that may serve as a type for the other senses. At birth the child is deaf. The ear itself is not ready to function. The external auditory meatus is closed, and its edges are in contact with each other. Before the ear can function, it must open and permit the air to come into contact with the tympanic membrane. The middle ear is filled with liquid which must be carried away before it can become functional. When these changes have been ac- complished, the ear is ready to function, but the child cannot yet hear. The vibration of the air strikes the tympanic membrane, but until a nervous impulse is es- tablished in the terminal filaments of the auditory nerve, there is is no possibility of hearing. We have no means of judging how many repetitions are necessary before the vibrations will establish an impulse. After a nervous impulse has been established in the terminal filaments of the auditory nerve, it must be trans- mitted to the hearing center in the brain before there is any possibility of a sensation of hearing. It may be that the first impulse which is established in the terminal flla- 246 THE FEELINGS OF MAN ments is transmitted to the brain center, and goes through a combination of cells, but from what we know of the rate of transmission of a nervous impulse in a nerve, and the improvement by practice through a nervous arc, it would seem reasonable to suppose that the first impulse which is started gets only a little way in the nerve. The second impulse would travel the same path, and would proceed farther along the auditory nerve than did the first one. The third and succeeding ones would travel along the course of the first impulse, each encountering less resist- ance than the preceding until finally a nervous impulse would succeed in getting into the brain center. But we know that in the brain center, a much greater degree of resistance is encountered than in the nerve itself. Hence we should expect it to take a much longer time to establish a pathway through the brain center than through the nerve. The first impulse that enters the brain center would, in all probability, be lost completdy and not succeed in making a complete circuit. Hence its concomitant would be all feeling, and not an intellectual process, a sensation. This is the interpretation that, in the light of the present day knowledge, we might put upon Mr. Spencer's statement that, all intellectual processes grow out of feeling. Finally there comes a time when the nervous impulse succeeds in overcoming the resistance and gets through the nervous arc in the hearing center. A hearing center is thus organized and the sensation of hearing is estab- lished. This process of organizing the brain center, over- coming the resistance, establishing a nervous impulse, and modifying the nervous tissue until it wiU permit a nervous impulse to pass through, demands some time. Hearing may be established in the first two days of life, but it is more likely to be three or five days. A child may be deaf for four weeks and still ultimately become able to hear, although, if it cannot hear at the end of the fourth MENTAL ONTOGENY 247 week of life, the probability ia strong that it will never hear. The process which we have illustrated by means of the sense of hearing, is the same process that is manifested in the original functioning of every other sense. It may be that the sense of touch, the most fundamental of all the senses, is organized at birth, but the reflexes that are adduced as evidence do not prove it to be so. It is prob- able that the brain center for touch is not more easily permeable for the nervous impulse than is the center for hearing. Whether promptly or slowly, we must recognize that all the senses become functional in the first few days or weeks of life. It remains for us to inquire what mental processes are involved in their activity. Assuming that the preceding propositions can be es- tablished, it will appear that the first mental process that occurs is feeling, coming even before the intellectual process of sensation. The resistance that is to be over- come in a brain center in process of organization is rela- tively great. It has already been shown that the prin- cipal difference between a feeling that has a painful tone and one that has a pleasurable tone is associated with a greater or less degree of resistance. Since the resistance that accompanies the transmission of the first impulses through a nervous arc is a great one, we may say with a good deal of probability that the first feelings are painful in tone. We reach this conclusion in a theoretical way, thus corroborating the observations of many persons who have believed that they recognized in the first cries of a child the expression of pain. Thus Hoflfding speaks of the "Cry of pain with which the infant begins its life." (Psychology, p. 4) ; and Darwin says that "Infants scream from pain directly after birth." {Expression of Emotions, p. 352.) It is certainly questionable whethfer this interpretation of an infant's cry is justified, but we do know that the 248 THE FEELINGS OP MAN cry of a child is an expression which later is associated with a feeling having a painful tone, and not with a pleas- urable feeling. It much precedes the laugh, which later we learn to interpret as an expression of pleasure. Many observers refuse to recognize in the cry an expression of pain, but certainly it is not an expression of pleasure. In fact, aU that we can say, if we refuse to recognize in the cry an expression of pain, is that the cry is a reflex, and not an expression of feeling at all. This is certainly a reasonable interpretation, and the cry is not an evidence that the first feelings are painful. Nevertheless, it is probable that the first feelings are painful, and that the reflex cry comes to be adopted as an expression of a pain- ful feeling because it is already well established when the first painful feelings are experienced. There is one way of looking at the matter in which we may say that the first mental process is not a painful feeling. If we consider feeling a form of consciousness, and assert that there can be no mental process of which we are not conscious, then the first mental experiences are not painful feelings. The child does not manifest any consciousness at the time that the first nervous impulses are passing through the brain centers. But we have seen that this use of the word leads us into very great difficul- ties, and it seems much better and more in accordance with the facts, even though in opposition to the prevail- ing custom, to say that there are many mental processes without the accompanying phenomena of consciousness, or awareness, of the process. We need to ask whether the child manifests any con- sciousness in connection with the process which we have described as a painful feeling. We have little to guide us here except our theoretical considerations again. If we think of consciousness as the concomitant of the radiation of the nervous impulse out of the brain center into the fringing cells, which radiation is occasioned by the resist- MENTAL 0NT0GE3NY 249 ance which the nervous impulse encounters, we have the conditions for consciousness. But at the same time, the resistance that is encountered in an attempt to pass into the fringing cells is also very great, so that it is doubtful if in the first nervous impulses there is any radiation, and consequently if there is any consciousness. The probable conclusion is that the first impulses that enter the brain center are not accompanied by radiation, that feeling is experienced without any consciousness, and that a feeling of a painful tone exists. We may have the same kind of a mental process tliat is experienced by a person asleep who is afflicted with nightmare. The person may be un- conscious, but every one who observes him will feel con- fident that he is experiencing some kind of a painful feel- ing. Similarly, when a person is undergoing a surgical operation under the influence of chloroform, the condi- tions of pain are there — ^if the narcosis is not too deep — but the consciousness is wanting. It seems more nearly in accordance with the facts for us to think of these expe^ riences as pain, rather than a total absence of all mental processes. Feeling, then, appears in the psychon before conscious- ness. When repeated attempts to pass through a brain cen- ter and as frequently repeated attempts to radiate out into the fringing cells have so modified the brain centers that the nervous impulse can escape, then we have the physiologi- cal conditions of consciousness, and this third element of the psychon has become established. The first conscious- ness is naturally very vague and indefinite, and this fact of itself modifies the expressions that tell of the presence of other elements, and renders the determination of the first appearance of consciousness in the psychon impos- sible. At the very best, the first appearance of conscious- ness must bear about the same relation to a fully devel- oped consciousness that the acorn bears to the tree that springs from it. 250 THE FEELINGS OP MAN From a single sense a child gets a single sensation. Tliis is scarcely complex enough to be called a perception, but the difference is not very great. Prom every sense he may receive a sensation when aU of them become ac- tive. There comes a time after many sensations have been received from different senses that the nervous im- pulse established in one end-organ combines with the im- pulses established in other sense organs according to the law of the attraction of the impulse. We have, then, two or more impulses which run together, and we have two sensations established at the same time that modify each other. This is the physiological condition of perception. The running together of two or more impulses estab- lished in different places, some of which are peripherally and some of which are centrally initiated, is the physio- logical concomitant of perception. The two or more sen- sations are associated by that form of the law of resem- blance which is called coexistence. When two or more nervous impulses are established at the same time, as when we see a bell and hear its sound, or see and feel an apple, the combination of these two or more sensations constitute the process of perception. It can be shown that all knowledge is relative, and that nothing is known except as it is related to something else. Perception, as weU as every other mental process, depends upon the per- ception of relations. The formation of the general abstract notion, judgment, reasoning, are different degrees of com- plexity in the perception of relations. They aJl have one common element, and when one, such as perception, is established, we have in it the germ of every other intel- lectual process, no matter how complex the process may ultimately become. The first experience that leads to perception is not a perception in itself. Perception involves the recognition of relations, and since it is possible to use the term re- semblance in a sense broad enough to cover all forms of JIENTAL ONTOGENY 251 relation, we may say that perception involves the recog- nition of resemblance. This recognition of resemblance implies that a nervous impulse traverses some of the brain cells that have been traversed before. We shall never have a perception unless some of the cells involved have been traversed by an impulse on a previous occasion. Memory is not a new or really different process. It becomes established in consequence of the modification of the nervous arc by the transmission of a nervous im- pulse through it. The process of memory described in Chapter XI may be considered as having its concomitant in the transmission of a nervous impulse through the same brain center that it traversed before, and the radiating out into the same fringing cells. However, in order to constitute the process a process of memory, the impulse must be centrally initiated and not peripherally, other- wise it would be a repetition of the original experience, and vivid ; instead of a remembered experience, and faint. As repeated experiences which are accompanied by the transmission of a nervous impulse through a nervous arc become numerous, and the nervous impulse spreads out into the fringing cells, the arc becomes modified in such a manner that it is very easily traversed by even a feeble impulse, such as a centrally initiated one always is. When such a centrally initiated impulse is able to trav- erse such an arc, and to spread out into the same fring- ing cells, we have the physiological concomitant of mem- ory in its two phases, mental reproduction and mental recognition. There is no new element introduced. The nervous impulse goes through the brain center, the con- comitant of the intellectual process; it encounters resist- ance, the concomitant of feeling; it radiates out into the fringing cells, the concomitant of consciousness. It will be seen, then, that there is but little difference in the times at which the three elements of the psychon become established in the germ. Feeling is probably the 252 THE FEELINGS OF MAN first, and is very shortly followed by consciousness and sensation. Out of sensation, by an association of sensa- tions, and running together of nervous impulses, grows perception, and this involves the perception of relation, or resemblance, in which is the germ of every other intel- lectual process, which develops from it by an increase in complexity. By a manipulation and modification of these three, we come to experience every other possible process and modification of the mental life. The consciousness of self does not develop so soon as does consciousness. A child is conscious long before he is conscious of himself as exercising the mental processes. The personality is not born for some time after the mental processes of feeling, consciousness, and perception have become established. The explanation of the process of the development of personality is to be inferred from the description of it In chapter XIV. The first recollections of a person are usually of something that has been expe- rienced somewhere between the ages of one and three years, although in extreme cases reports have been made that seem to be well established as any others, of some- ting remembered at the age of ten months. When such an event occurs that is thus remembered, we may be satisfied that the consciousness of self, or per- sonality has become fully established. The time at which a child discovers that he has hands, or that his hands belong to him, is an important epoch in his life. It is a phenomenon that is seldom overlooked by a mother, or other person who has intimate knowledge of a baby. The probability is that the consciousness of self, or person- ality, has become established sometime before the first remembered experience, or even before the child has found his hands. After a child has arrived at a certain stage in his de- velopment, which point is reached before he has attained the age of two years, or even a year and a half, his brain MENTAL ONTOGENY 253 centers have been traversed by so many different impulses, and so many different brain cells have been traversed, that no subsequent experience is likely to involve a wholly new set. The feeling of familiarity or resemblance, is to be found in every subsequent experience however diverse. Every experience has an elemnt of sameness which is associated with the employment of the same braia cells. It is this element of sameness in every experience, which, when abstracted, constitutes the feeling or idea of per- sonal identity. We may picture the matter to ourselves in this way. We have in our brains perhaps seven hundred million brain cells. It is probable that no large proportion of them is ever traversed by an impulse. Let us suppose that one hundred millions have at some time been traversed. Let us represent this number and group of cells by A. Let us represent another hundred millions of cells by B, and so on. All of our previous experiences have been confined within the limits of the hundred million cells designated by A. Let us suppose that we could have a totally unrelated experience, open up a new set of brain centers which would involve none of the cells in the por- tions designated by G, etc. Then we should undergo a series of experiences in which there would be no feeling of familiarity and a new personality would be born. Such a conception will enable us to explain the phe- nomena of double, or alternating personality, although we cannot account for the mechanism by which such a transformation of centers, pathologically developed, might be attained. Such a conception is considerably more satisfactory than it is to describe the alternating personality as a "Portion of the consciousness that has split off." Whenever there comes a time that it is im- possible to have an unrelated experience, we may say that a personality has been born. UntU an unrelated experience is impossible, personality, or the consciousness of self, is still undeveloped. 254 THE FEELINGS OP MAN The ozidatioii of nervous tissue liberates nervo-motive forca We must suppose that this liberation of nervo- motive force occurs wherever brain tissue is oxidized. This process of oxidation and liberation of force, no doubt, begins as soon as oxygen is carried directly by the blood to the brain tissue. Hence we have from the very begin- ning of life, perhaps, antecedent to the independent exist- ence of the child, the physiological process whose concomi- tant we have recognized as one of the elements of will. It is the nervo-motive force that drives the impulse through the brain center, but it is scarcely capable of originating a centrally initiated impulse sufficiently strong to pass through a brain center until the center has been modified by previous experiences brought about by the stronger peripherally initiated impulses. Hence^ although nervo-motive force is available immediately at the beginning of independent life, nevertheless, there is no possibility of an act of the will until after the estab- lishment of the other elements of the psychon. Nervo-motive force is only one element of the will. Attention, which directs the nervous impulse through the brain center, is another, and we shall find the element of attention appearing along with the other elements of the psychon. Whatever it is that directs the nervous impidse through the brain center and prevents its spreading out into other paths, is the concomitant of rudimentary at- tention. In all early experiences this directing of the nervous impulse is essentially of the same nature as a re- flex. The nervous impulse foUows the path of least re- sistance as that is determined by the structure of the brain, and the nervous pathways already organized. There is no effort involved in the process, and in all respects this early process of directing the nervous impulse corre- sponds to the description of spontaneous attention. It depends upon the constitution of the brain centers, it is a matter of heredity, and spontaneous attention appears MENTAL ONTOGENY 255 in a rudimentary form as soon as a nervous impulse is directed into and through a brain center. All forms and degrees of attention are derived from this primary, fun- damental condition. But there is still a difficult process to study, and to show that it harmonizes with the other propositions laid down in this chapter. We have already studied the begin- nings of rudimentary will, by means of its physiological concomitant, but we need to study the process by which a conscious voluntary act manifests itself. We shall need to trace the development out of a reflex, through imita- tion into the conscious voluntary condition. A reflex is not a mental process. A muscle may con- tract reflexly by means of a stimulus applied either di- rectiy to the muscle itself or, much better, by a stimulus applied to the motor nerve which produces a much more vigorous contraction. It is possible, and even decidedly probable, that the flrst reflex contractions of the muscles of a child involve none of the cerebral motor centers. But when a muscle contracts reflexly, there is established in the sensory nerves of the contracting muscle an impulse that is carried backward to the brain center for muscular sensation. We do not know the location of the muscular sensation center, as we do that of the sight and hearing centers, but, reasoning by analogy, one exists, and the sensory impulse originating in the muscular contraction is carried to it. The muscular sensation center becomes organized by repeated experiences of this kind. The next step in the process is one in which the chUd comes to perceive the movement of his hand, or other organ that is moved by the muscular contraction. The muscular sensation is experienced, the child sees his hand moving, and perhaps experiences the sensation of touch from the movement. The combination of all these sensa- tions and the recognition of their resemblance, coexist- ence, and contiguity, constitutes the perception of the movement of the hand. 256 THE FEELINGS OP MAN As a result of the organizatioii of the muscular seiisation center, a nervous impulse runs through it easily, and flows over into other centers most easy of access. These are likely to be the motor centers, although it is prob- able that many other centers are innervated to a greater or less d^iree. The first movements that foUow upon the overflow of these impulses from the muscular sensation centers are not likely to be limited to the movement of the hand, if that is the organ that has moved, but many mus- cles, of the head, legs, body and hand, may all move as a result of this overflow. These movements may be con- sidered as expressions of feeling, although they are not commonly so regarded. The next step in the process is imitation. Imitation manifests itself in children long after the reflex move- ments have occurred, and there is abundant time for the organization of the motor centers in the manner just de- scribed. Imitation is believed to be manifested by a little child some time between the age of three (Preyer) and nine months. (Baldwin.) Suppose that a parent waves his hand at a littie child. The muscular sensation centers, and the sight center for the waving of the child's hand have already been organized by previous experiences. They have been associated in the process of perceiving the movement of the child's hand. The impulse traverses the sight-hand-waving cen- ter, it may pass over into the muscular sensation center for the contraction of the muscles that move the hand, and then it flows over into the motor centers for the wav- ing of the hand, and the hand moves in response. The hand waves in response, because of the similarity between the parent's hand and the child's hand. The similarity exists in the hand, and it has its concomitant in the cells of the sight and the muscular sensation centers. It is in this way that the chUd perceives that it is the parent's hand that moves and he interprets and knows the mean- MENTAL ONTOGENY 257 ing of the action by this process which has for its concomi- tant the transmission of the impulse through the sight center, the muscular sensation center, and the motor center. This is imitation, but it is not a conscious volun- tary act. A sufficient number of such experiences lead to a modifi- cation of the different centers involved in the imitative act until finally a weak, centrally initiated impulse may travel the same path. When this is the case and a cen- trally initiated impulse does traverse the sight center, and passes over into the muscular sensation center, and over- flows into the motor center, then the child is able to see and feel his hand waving before it moves. He has an idea of the movement before the movement is made. This is an antecedent mental act, which constitutes the motive to the action itself. It is just this antecedent mental proc- ess, which has its concomitant in the nervous impulse passing through the hand waving center, that makes the diflference between the reflex, or the imitative act, and the conscious voluntary act. Also, in just this situation, the nervous impulse overflows into the motor center especially if there is a sufficient amount of current to accompany considerable resistance, and the movement follows. This movement is a conscious voluntary act, and comes as the result of previous experiences of a reflex and imitative nature. This last point, the establishing of a conscious volun- tary act, is the point, at which in general, will is believed to originate. As we have already seen, will is established before, when there is a liberation of nervo-motive force and the direction of it by an effort of attention. The will is established before there is any conscious voluntary act. Synopsis. 1 — The theory that feeling is the concomitant of resist- ance, and that other elements of the psyohon are concomi- 258 THE FEELINGS OF MAN tants of corresponding elements of the nervous current, enahles us to study the phenomena 6y icMch the mental processes of a child begin. 2 — The only processes established at birth are reflexes which are necessary to enable a child to survive the first few hours or first few days of an independent existence. 3 — We must seek the beginnings of mental life in the activities of the senses. The sensations are not expe- rienced until a sense organ hOrS become functional, a ner- vous impulse established in the peripheral nerve endings, carried to a brain center, and the nervous arc traversed. 4 — Much resistance is encountered in the initial passage through a brain center, and much concomitant feeling experienced. The feeling is probably decidedly painful. 5 — Consciousness is not established until after repeated trials a nervous impulse is not only able to enter a brain center, but to radiate out into fringing cells. This is probably accomplished before an impulse succeeds in pass- ing properly through a brain center. 6 — When an impulse succeeds in traversing a brain center, sensation is established. When two or more sen- sations are established at the same time, and their concom- itant impulses run together, we have the conditions of per- ception. 7 — By a modification of nervous arcs, weaker centrally initiated impulses are capable of being transmitted through the brain center, and memory is awakened. At- tention is involved in any process by which the impulse is directed through a nervous arc. Will exists in germ as soon as nervous energy is liberated. 8 — Personality and the consciousness of self is estab- lished as soon as there have been a sufficient number of experiences so that it is impossible to have an unrelated one. When it is impossible to pass a nervous impulse through centers, none of whose cells have ever been trav- ersed before, a personality has been born. Chapter XVI. FEELING AS MOTIVE. Every conscious voluntary act is preceded by some kind of a mental process which is called the motive. The action follows upon the motive as an effect follows a cause. The motive must always precede, and it is an erroneous con- ception of a motive to consider an action as induced by the effect which follows upon the action itself. The mo- tive may be such a mental process that it anticipates the result of the action, but in order to constitute a motive, the mental process must be experienced before the action is performed. A reflex differs from a conscious voluntary act in the fact that no mental process accompanies it. Many psychologists consider that every conscious vol- untary act is motivated by feeling, and that feeling con- stitutes the essential antecedent condition, without which no action follows. They would regard the proposition as self evident that without any feeling there would be no occasion, desire, disposition, or possibility of moving. A common expression is that "Feelings form the will," and no conscious voluntary action can be conceived except as the result of some feeling experienced. Dr. McCosh speaks of feelings as the Motive Powers, and it is believed that feelings have their principal functions as motives to action. On the other hand, there are psychologists who believe that the idea is the motive and the only essential ante- cedent mental process. An idea is an intellectual process, and may be discriminated sharply from the affective process of feeling. An idea is the psychological concomi- tant of the transmission of an impulse through a brain 259 260 THE FEELINGS OF MAN center and, strictly interpreted, the impulse must be one that is centrally initiated. Those who regard the idea as the motive, point to the fact that every idea tends to work itself out into action. Whenever an idea is enter- tained, the action which corresponds to it is already be- gun. If the idea is faint and obscure, the action is feeble and manifested only slightly. If the idea is clear and definite, the complete and vigorous actions follows. The idea of an action is the b^inning of the action itself. If there is only feeling without the idea, any action that follows is merely reflex, spasmodic, and uncoordinated. Every idea will manifest itself in some way; if not in positive, vigorous action, then in slight movements that can be detected by an automatograph. Here, then, we have two contradictory theories ap- parently irreconcilable. The advocates of feeling as a motive fail to discover any motivating force in the idea, while the advocates of the motivating force of the idea, even if they acknowledge the presence of the feeling, fail to discover that it is necessary to the action, but regard it rather as a hindrance. The more nearly perfect an action becomes, the more nearly free from feeling is the antecedent mental process. The proposition that feeling is the motivating force was advanced before any special consideration was given to the physiological processes accompanying it, and when we undertake to describe the manner in which feeling brings about a conscious voluntary act, we find it is impossible to do so. No one has ever described in a satisfactory way, the manner in which a mental process of feeling can cause a nervous impulse to run out into a muscle and produce a contraction. Still less is it possible to show how feeling can direct a nervous impulse into a particular musde, thereby selecting the action to be performed. Hence it is that we find the psychologists who consider feeling to be the motive, minimizing the importance of the physio- FBBLING AS MOTIVE 261 logical processes involved, emphasizing the lack of knowl- edge concerning them, and relying for explanation upon a metaphysical assumption altogether out of harmony with the fundamental conception of a natural science. In consequence, also, of the felt difficulty of this position and its extreme importance, inadequate theories of feeling are received with a degree of favor far beyond the merits of the theories themselves. In this respect, the advocates of the idea as the motive maintain a much more satisfactory position. It is a fun- damental proposition in psychology that the idea is the concomitant of a nervous impulse passing through a brain center, and that after having passed through one center, it is transmitted to another through which it also passes. If this second center is a motor center, an action follows, and it is well understood that the idea center is closely connected with the corresponding motor center, if not in part identical with it. But the statement of the motive as made by the new psychologists, is far from being satisfactory in conse- quence of its lack of appreciation of the function of feel- ing. Even if it is recognized that feeling is experienced at the same time with the motivating idea, no reason can be assigned for its presence, and no function for it is per- ceived. It seems very difficult to bring the two processes into one scheme of action and to show the function of each. If the idea alone is the motive, then feeling has no func- tion in determining action, and our fundamental assump- tion in the preceding pages is inaccurate and the argu- ment is non-sequential. Here, then, we have the problem clearly set forth be- fore us. Is feeling the motive, the essential antecedent mental condition of an action, or is the motive an intel- lectual, ideational process, without which no action is pos- sible? If, as seems probable in view of the conflicting evi- dence, we sbaU feel it necessary to assert that both feeling 262 THE PEELINGS OF MAN and idea are necessary constitaents in the motive, it is in- cumbent upon us to show what is the function of each, and in wliat manner each enters into the composition of the motive. The problem is a difficult one, and one concerning which there is the largest amount of data seemingly defy- ing all attempts to reduce it to an orderly arrangement. It appears, however, not to be insoluble, although many things about it will need to be supplied from hypothesis, rather than from direct observation. The assumption made in the preceding pages is that in some way feelings have been serviceable in the preserva- tion and development of the individual and the race. A feeling is not advantageous in itself, but can have an ad- vantageous function only as it induces, causes, modifies an action or renders it more eflftcient. The names that we have applied to the different classes of feelings are mean- ingless and absurd unless it can be shown that they are specifically related to action. The self preserving feelings can assist in the preservation of the individual only by inducing some action that leads the individual out of danger, or by rendering some danger-escaping action more efficient. The community preserving feelings can con- tribute to the preservation of the community only by means of some action to which they hold some essential relation, and the race perpetuating feelings could have no effect in perpetuating the race, did not some action follow directly upon the feeling itself. From such considerations it appears that so long as we uphold the doctrine that feelings have been important processes in the development of the race, we must place ourselves with those who consider the feeling as the mo- tive to an action. Such conclusion, however, would be premature. One consideration has apparently been overlooked by the advocates of feeling as a motive — that is that no feel- ing is ever experienced except in connection with an FEELING AS MOTIVE 263 idea. The feeling is an accompaniment of an idea, and can never be experienced without it. I say in general this is true. In Chapter XV we have seen reason to be- lieve that the earliest mental processes are feelings with- out accompanying ideas. But the resulting actions are not conscious, voluntary actions, but purposeless, uncon- scious, unwilled movements, motivated by feeling and differing from reflexes only in the fact that the impulses which innervate the contracting muscles are transmitted to the muscles from a brain center instead of from a spinal or non-cerebral ganglion. This action that is com- pletely motivated by feeling cannot be considered a typi- cal action, whose explanation it is necessary for us to seek, nor will it be adduced as an example by any person who considers feeling as the motive. Our admission that there are actions completely motivated by feeling will bring no satisfaction to the advocates of the theory. Such actions are, indeed, unusual and extraordinary, and must be regarded as the limit toward which feeling as the motive tends. On the other hand we have a series of conscious volun- tary actions performed under the influence of a motive in which feeling is reduced to a minimum. We have re- iterated the statement in previous pages that feeling tends to disappear from an habitual act. As a result of repeti- tion, an action comes to be performed without any feeling and even without any consciousness, but it is not thereby deprived of its voluntary character. Instead of calling such actions secondary reflex, it is a much more nearly accurate designation of their character to call them un- conscious voluntary. AH feeling and all consciousness may have disappeared from the antecedent motivating process, and the idea alone constitutes the motive. Here we have the other limit toward which the motive tends, and when an action has approached the motivation of this limit, we may assert heartily to the proposition that the motive is the idea and not the feeling. 264 THE FEELINGS OF MAN Between these two limits is the great body of actions whose necessary mental antecedents indnde both feeling and idea, together with other elements of the psychon. This is to say that the motive of any typical action in- dndes both feeling and idea, and that any interpretation of the motive that exdndes either is at best only partial and incomplete. It now remains to determine what is the function of each in the motive, and so substitute a complete and satisfactory statement of the motive for one that is only partial and incomplete. Feeling and idea, affection and intellect, are experienced at the same time as the concomitants of different elements of the same nervous impulse. There is no necessary rela- tion between the relative intensities of the two processes, and the psychon may show at any instant a varying in- tensity between the two, from a limit of pure feeling to the limit of pure idea. AVe have interpreted the feeling as the concomitant of the resistance encountered in pass- ing through a nervous arc, which resistance is the result- ant of two factors producing contradictory effects, and de- manding two laws to state them. One of these laws has been stated by saying that with a given amount of ner- vous energy the feeling varies as the resisting power of the nervous arc. When the resistance is determined largely by this factor, there is a reciprocal relation be- tween intellect and feeling. The greater the feeling, the less exact, effective, and vigorous will be the action. When the nervous arc itself furnishes much resistance, the re- sulting ideational process is likely to be feeble, obscure, and unlikely to result in certain, definite, well directed voluntary action. Much feeling will be experienced, and littie effective action will follow. In our discussion of esthetic feelings we learned that, in general, the esthetic feelings are the accompaniment of resistance arising from bringing new cells into the circuit, and we recognized that a large part of the resistance accompanying esthetic PEELING AS MOTIVE 265 feelings depends upon the nature of the nervous arc. As a general rule, persons of esthetic temperament are un- able to get things done. Few artists are men of affairs, or capable of manifesting the highest executive ability, and persons generally of an emotional temperament are not likely to carry out to completion a long continued and diflftcult course of action. So long as there is much feeling arising as the concomi- tant of resistance depending upon the nervous system itself, the mental processes and the muscular movements are erratic, hesitating, and ineffective. As the muscular movements become positive, efficient, and emphatic, the feeling diminishes. Activity itself seems to have the effect of diminishing feeling; feeling diminished, the action be- comes more effective. Any person who is experiencing intense feeling of any kind, finds in action a method of diminishing its intensity. From all these things it ap- pears that so long as feeling constitutes any large part of the antecedent mental process, the action is not highly effective. The above considerations are relied upon to justify the assertion that it is tlie idea, and not the feeling, in the antecedent mental process that constitutes the essen- tial factor in leading to action, and is the real motive. Our analysis shows that this position is capable of being maintained only in cases in which the feeling that pre- cedes the action is the concomitant of resistance which has its origin in the nature of the nervous arc itself. If only such actions are to be considered, the argument in favor of the idea as the motive could be maintained with a high degree of plausibility, and would be difficult to overthrow. But there is another series of actions to which such an argument will not apply. There is another factor which determines the amount of resistance, and that is the strength of the current. The nervous arc remaining the same, the greater the current 266 THE FEELINGS OF MAN strength the greater the resistance will be. The greater the current strength, the larger the amount of nervous energy that will pass through the arc. But the greater resistance is the concomitant of increased feeling, and the larger quantity of transmitted energy is the concomitant of greater intellectual work and clearer ideas. The clearer the idea becomes, the more certain it is to result in action, and the more effective the action will be. Hence it is from this condition alone, the more effective and vigorous ac- tion is accompanied by more intense feeling. There is a direct relation, instead of inverse, between intellect and feeling, between feeling, idea, and action. We have many examples of men of action who are at the same time men of deep feeling. We expect the orator and the preacher to manifest considerable emotion, and his discourse is not likely to be effective unless he does. It appears that in such persons, a lack of emotional dis- play is likely to be considered as indicative of a mind in which the mental processes are feeble and hesitant Simi- larly, gesture and movement in a speaker are taken to be indicative of a high nervous tension, much feeling, vigor- ous ideas. And so we have examples every day of men who feel keenly and act resolutely and effectively. It is upon examples of such actions that those psychologists rely who assert that feeling is the motive, and that the more intense the feeling the more vigorous the action will be. We thus see that the contradictory theories arise from partial views of the function of feeling. Our hypothesis enables us to see how each party has deceived itself by a partial view, and that neither is wholly right nor wholly wrong. Feeling is the concomitant of resistance which is the resultant of two opposing factors having contradic- tory effects and varying independently of each other. What the resultant will be in any particular set of cir- cumstances it is impossible to calculate or predict. Be- PEELING AS JIOTIVE 267 sides this, the resultant is modified by a process of atten- tion, or attention constitutes a third factor which still more seriously complicates the problem. In view of the fact that every action in its origin is motivated by feeling, that feelings have undoubtedly been advantageous in the development of the race, that they can be advantageous only by means of their influence upon actions, we are justified in asserting that feeling is, in general, an essential constituent of the motive. Then again, in view of the fact that, with the exceptions noted, no feeling can be experienced except as the accompani- ment of an intellectual process, that there can be no con- scious, voluntary action without an antecedent idea, that feeling diminishes and almost disappears as actions be- come more skillfully performed, we ai-e equally justified in asserting that the idea also enters as an esential con- stituent into the motive. Neither feeling nor idea alone is the motivating force, but feeling and idea are both essential constituents in the antecedent mental process which results in action. But the most important question remains to be an- swered. Having decided by evidence of the highest de- gree of probability that both feeling and idea belong in the motive, it is incumbent upon us to show the function of each. Unless this is done, we shall have aided little in the solution of the problem. It is certain with two diverse processes, neither of which can be omitted from the mo- tive of a typical action, that both canot perform the same function. The resistance encountered by a nervous impulse in passing through a brain center for the first time, causes it to spread out into various undetermined, fortuitous di- rections. The result is a series of uncoordinated, pur- poseless movements motivated only by feeling, and con- stituting emotional expression, rather than voluntary acts. However, these primary, uncoordinated, purpose- 268 THE FEELINGS OP MAN less movements are necessary to the development of the voluntary actions, since it is by means of such impulses that the brain centers become organized and cerebral transmission paths are marked out. These uncoordi- nated movements are a necessary preliminary to any con- scious, voluntary act. In general, these expressive, purposeless acts, motivated by feeling alone, are useless and unserviceabte. But some of them are or may be advantageous, and are preserved by natural selection, or by that particular form of it which, in this case, has been called functional selection. The nervous organization that renders them ultimately inevitable is transmitted by heredity. It is in this way that we may account for the origin of those emotional expressions that we have recognized as beneficial to the individual and to the race. An idea, in the proper sense of the word, is the concomi- tant of a centrally initiated impulse. The centrally initi- ated impulse is always weaker than one that is peripher- ally initiated, and the idea is fainter than the percept. No idea can be experienced that is not the concomitant of an impulse passing through a brain center that has been traversed before. No idea of an act can be expfr rienced before the act itself has been performed. Before the idea of an act can be entertained so as to constitute a motive, the act itself must have been previously accom- plished. The first time that any action is performed, it is done without the antecedent, motivating idea, and has the form merely of an emotional expression. The above conclusions, which seem to be supported by reliable observations, put some serious limitations upon the possible actions, and upon the interpretation of their origin that have been made. If the preceding statements are true, as they seem to be, every action must originate in feeling, and, upon its first appearance, must be moti- vated by it. No idea can originate an action entirely new. FEELING AS MOTIVE 269 It is impossible for a wholly new action to be willed by that hypothetical entity called mind. The wUl is help- less in such a situation, and no psychologist who believes in the all-sufflciency of the will is able in the least degree to account for the failure of the wUl to lead to an action that is wholly new. The will is utterly unable to originate a new action or to organize a new brain center. Even the speech center is organized, not by will, but by means of impulses originating in sense organs and overflowing into it, running out into expressive movements, of which ultimately the useful are selected and the useless are finally eliminated. The organization of the brain center is accomplished by means of impulses transmitted through it. The idea of an action is obtained from the action itself. The asso- ciation of sensation centers and motor centers becomes closer and more definite by a repetition of the actions. The principal sensation centers involved in the idea of an action are the sight centers and the muscular sensation centers, although others are included. When the organi- zation of these cerebral centers has been carried to such an extent that a centrally initiated impulse will be trans- mitted through these particular combinations that have been traversed before as a result of the perception of the action, then an idea of the action will be properly experienced. Whenever the organization of the action centers, in- cluding both motor and sensation centers, has reached the condition in which a centrally initiated impulse can traverse the sensation centers and result in a clear idea of the action, an impulse is already traversing the com- bination of which the motor cells constitute a part. Hence it is that the idea of an action is the beginning of the action itself, and that any clear idea will work itself out into action, unless it is positively inhibited. A nervous impulse is directed by means of the resist- 270 THE FEELINGS OF MAN ance it encounters, and the brain centers which it trav- erses is determined by the d^ree of resistance that it meets. There is no other possible way by which its course can be decided. The nervous impulse wUl follow the path of least resistance as inevitably as water flows down hill. But resistance is the concomitant of feel- ing, and this fact furnishes us the solution of the most puzzling problem in all psychology. The action follows the idea, but feeling is that element which exercises a selective function, and determines whether one idea or another shall be entertained. A pleasurable action will be performed rather than a painful one, because the ner- vous impulse wUl encounter less resistance in passing into the center whose resistance accompanies a pleasur- able feeling, than into a painful center. The selective function of feeling is manifested through- out the whole range of muscular activity. The conscious voluntary actions following upon ideas, are those that have survived out of a very much larger series of for- tuitous, erratic, purposeless, expressive actions. The sur- vival of some forms of action in preference to others, is the result of a process of functional selection in which it appears that feeling, or its concomitant resistance, has been the principal factor. Functional selection is a process originating in feeling and its concomitant. Here, then, at the very source and origin of voluntary, conscious activity, we recognize the importance and all-determining character of the process which we call feeling. Not merely in the origin of activity, but wherever con- scious voluntary activity is manifested, we may discover the operation of feeling in its selective function. Feeling itself does not determine that an action shall be per- formed, but when a condition arises in which an action is bound to follow, feeling is the process that determines whether the following action shall be one or the other. The condition that makes an action inevitable is lie con- FUELING AS MOTIVE 271 dition whose concomitant is an idea. Leaving aside all circumlocution that contributes to accuracy of expression, and seeking only definiteness, we may say that the idea is the driving force that leads to action, and feeling is the guiding, selecting agency, that determines that one action in preference to another shall be performed. We thus see that every conscious, voluntary action in- cludes in its motive both feeling and idea, and that the functions of both are diflferent, but equally essential. Since feeling and idea vary independently of each other, we shall find the two elements entering into the motive in various and varying degrees. This does not prevent, however, our discovering the nature of the important function that each performs. Synopsis. 1 — There are two theories of the nature of motive. One theory regards feeling as motive, and the other considers that all actions are motivated iy the idea alone. 2 — Facts are appealed to hy advocates of each theory, and the arguments of one seem to demolish the arguments of the other. 3 — We have assumed that feelings have been advan- tageous to the individual and to the species, and it is nec- essary to show how feeling has resulted in ienefit to society as a whole. 4 — A nervous impulse is always directed in its course iy the resistance it encounters, and we have recognised resistance as the concomitant of feeling. 5 — It appears, then, that the idea or its concomitant is the driving force, which determines that an action shall or shall not he performed, and that feeling is the con- comitant of the selective function that determines whether one action or the other shall he performed. 6 — Feeling and idea both appear in the motive, each exercising its function, and neither constituting the mo- tive alone. INDEX Advantage of esthetic feelings, 139. Affective process, 11. Altruism, 112. Ants, 109. Antithesis, principle of, 78. Apperception, 205. Association areas, 180. Attention, 190. positive, 201. negative, 201. Awareness, 157. Axis cylinder, 53. Bagley, 190. Bain, 25, 166, 180. Baldwin, 66. Beauty, 126, 127, 129. Bees, 109. Bell-Magendie law, 73. Binet, 160. Brain center, 84. Brooks, 142. Common theory of feeling, 13. Community preserving feelings, 108, 111. Consciousness, 157, 236. of self, 252. Conscious voluntary act, 257. Continuity, 231. Consumption, 101. Cortex, function of, 22. Courage, 113. Crying, 75. Crying reflex, 244. Current, 30, 212. strength of, 50. elements of, 213. Darwin, 4, 66, 75, 78, 247. Descartes, 159. DeQuincy, 218. Dendritic movement theory, 198. Dream, 172. Dualists, 29. Central theory of feeling, 23. Centrally initiated impulse, 4, 50, 89. Children, 40. rection time of, 39. Chronoscope, 34, 50. Chloroform, action of, 49, 174. Christian Science, 100, 203. Classification of feelings, 105. Cocaine, 9. Colvin, 190. Ego, 227, 232, 240. Egoism, 112. Electrons, 33. Emotion, 2, 4. End organs, 50. Epicureans, 99. Esthetics, 125. Expression of feeling, 61. Expression, determined by re- sistance, 66. Expression center, 73. 273 274 TtlE FEELINGS OF MAN Faith cure, 203. Fatigue, 98. Fernald, 219. Fear, 76. Fear paralysis, 76. Feeling, definition of, 1, 10, 12. number of, 85. center, 85. self-preserving, 108, 109. esthetic, 125. race perpetuating, 108, 118. community preserving, 108, 111. moral, 113. malevolent, 114. religious, 121. pseudo-esthetic, 130. laws of, 145. Feigning death, 77. Fissure of Rolando, 68. Function of feeling, 107. Functions of the neuron, 54. Functional selection, 167, 268, 270. Freud, 161. Gardiner, 143. Glandular expression. 63, 64 Goldscheider, 7. Growth, 150. habit, effect of, 38, 149. Haeckel, 160. Hall, 181. Hamilton, 23, 159. Haven, 142. Helmholtz, 35. H8£Cding, 11, 18, 26, 43, 46, 72, 144, 243, 247. Hutchinson, Woods, 100. Hypnotism, 206, 208. Hypothesis, 27, 45. Idea, 259, 268. Idiots, 41, 42. Imitation, 256. Indifference, 97. Inhibition, as expression, 70. of expression, 18. of activity, 65, 70. Isomeric change, 32. Intellect, 141. Interest, 153. Intensity of feeling, 87. James, 35, 52. James' theory, 16, 72. Judgment, 238. Katabolic change, 216. Kinetic will test, 219. Knee jerk, 37. Krafft-Ebing, 23. Ladd, 7, 35, 46. Laws of resistance, 48, 49. of feeling, 145. Weber's, 52. Leprosy, 101. Loeb, 102. Locke, 159. Madonna, gistlne, 30. Malevolent feelings, 114. Marshall, 24, 227. Martin, 155. McCosh, 259. Medullary sheath, 52. Memory, 179, 186. INDEX 275 Mental recognition, 189. reproduction, 186. ontogeny, 243. Mental pain, 93. Meyer, 26. Meynert, 23. Mind, 14, 232. Moral feelings, 113. Mother love, 118. Motive, 257, 259. Motive powers, 259. Motor centers, 67. Morat, 9, 54, 197 Miiller, 34. Muscular sense, 21. expression, 62. Narcotics, 172. Natural selection, 59, 107. Natural classification, 105. Negative attention, 201. Nervous current, 32, 51. Nerve fiber, 53. Nervo-motive force, 215, 254. Neuritis, 37. Neurons, 53. Neural habit, 88. Neuroglia, 195. Nordau, 151. Opposum, 76. Origin of expression, 74. Pain, advantage of, 98, 100. Pain sensation, 6, 7, 8. Paralysis as expression, 54. Parallelism, 29. Pearson, 160. Peripheral theory of feeling, 23. Peripherally initiated impulse, 50, 89. Personal identity, 237. Perception of resemblance, 238. Perception, 250. Philoprogenitiveness, 120, 133. Physical pain, 93. , Pillsbury, 180. Pleasure and pain, 3, 92. Pleasure-pain, 6. Plasticity, 167. Positive attention, 201. Practice, 38, 169. Protagon, 31. Pressure of light, 50. Principle of antithesis, 78. Properties of feeling, 81. Pupillary reflex, 37. Pure feeling, 43. Puzzle picture, 207. Psychon, 164, 215. Psychology, 241. Pseudo-esthetic feelings, 130. Radiation, 66, 67, 164. Race perpetuating feelings, 108, 118. Rattlesnake, 87. Ragweed, 236. Reaction time, 33, 34. in children, 39. Reflex action, 37. Reflex, crying, 244. Religious feelings, 121. Retentiveness, 183. Resistance, 46, 47, 91. Resistance, laws of, 48, 49. nature of, 50, 51. Ribout, 23, 35, 46, 92, 144, 199, 219. 276 THE FEELINGS OF MAN Eichet, 26, 46, 16a Romanes, 16L Saleeby, 161. Saponin, 9. Sensibility, 4. Sensation, 4, 42. Sensori-motor arc, 21. Self-preserving feelings, 108, 109. Selfish feelings, 110. Sle^, ITL Spencer, 23, 31, 57, 66, 86, 106, 137, 144 160, 181. Specific character of feelings, 83. Sollier, 25. Strength of current, 50. Synapse, 195. Synaptic membrane, 54. Theories of feeling, 13. Titchener, 46, 85. Tone of feeling, 92. Unpleasantness, 93. Unconscious voluntary act, 263. Utility of expression, 75, 77. Utility as beauty, 134. Warning colors, 115. Weber's law, 52. WUl, 211. Worry, 203. Wundt, 35, leo, 197. Ziehen, 46, 160.