LIBRARY ehoo WuRtai ,^omin a v i| PRINCETON, N. J. No. Case,' Division. 'No. Shelf, No. Bool;. 1 c THE EMOTIONS AND THE WILL. BY / ALEXANDER BAIN, M.A., PROFESSOR OF LOGIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN, SECOND EDITION. LONDON: LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1865. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/emotionswill00bain_0 PREFACE. THE present publication is a sequel to my former one, on the Senses and the Intellect, and com¬ pletes a Systematic Exposition of the Human Mind. The generally admitted hut vaguely conceived doctrine of the connexion between mind and body has been throughout discussed definitely. In treating of the Emotions, I include whatever is known of the physical embodiment of each. The Natural History Method, adopted in deli¬ neating the Sensations, is continued in the Treatise on the Emotions. The first chapter is devoted to Emotion in general ; after which the individual kinds are classified and discussed ; separate chapters being assigned to the ^Esthetic Emotions — arising on the contemplation of Beauty in Nature and Art — and to the Ethical, or the Moral Sentiment. Under this last head, I have gone fully into the Theory of Moral Obligation. It has been too much the practice to make the discussion of the Will comprise only the single metaphysical problem of Liberty and Necessity. IV PREFACE. Departing from this narrow usage, I have sought to ascertain the nature of the faculty itself, its early germs, or foundations in the human constitution, and the course of its development, from its feeblest indications in infancy to the maturity of its power. Five chapters are occupied with this investigation ; and five more with subjects falling under the domain of the Will, including the Conflict of Motives, De¬ liberation, Resolution, Effort, Desire, Moral Habits, Duty, and Moral Inability. A closing chapter em¬ braces the Free-will controversy. As in my view, Belief is essentially related to the active part of our being, I have reserved the com sideration of it to the conclusion of the Treatise on the Will. The final dissertation of the work is on Con¬ sciousness. Although it was necessary at the outset to assume a provisional definition, I considered it unadvisahle to discuss the subtle problems involved in Consciousness in the abstract, until the detailed survey of the facts of mind had been completed. Whatever opinion may he formed as to the conclu¬ sions, I think the expediency of the method will be admitted. London, March , 1859 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. IN the present edition, I have introduced extensive emendations into both divisions of the work. The chapter on Emotion in general has been wholly re-cast; and the deriving of emotion from sensation, according to general laws of the mind, has rendered it possible to define and classify the emotions more precisely. The analysis of the special emotions has been carried out in conformity with the general views. I have added, in the Appendix, an account of the various classifications of the Feelings, both Eng¬ lish and German. Under the Will, the chapters on the first com¬ mencement of voluntary power have been considerably modified ; and numerous amendments will be found throughout. The discussion of the meanings of Consciousness has received additions and corrections. And, finally, all that regards the connexions of mind with physical processes has undergone careful revision. Aberdeen, November , 1865. « TABLE OF CONTENTS. THE EMOTION S. CHAPTER I. OF FEELING IN GENERAL. PAGE 1. Divisions of Mind. Subdivisions of Peeling . . 3 2. General principle of the concomitance of mind and body — Law of Diffusion . . . . . ib. 3. Examples of the law ...... 4 4. Bearing on the Unity of Consciousness . . . ib. 5. Counter-doctrines to the theory of Diffusion . . 5 (I.) Independence of mind and body . . ib. (2.) Sensation dependent on the lesser ganglia . ib. (3.) Restriction of the wave to the encephalic mass ....... 6 6. The theory of the Reflex Actions in accordance with the law ........ ib. 7. Also the Habitual or routine actions . . . ib. 8. Circumstances that limit the diffused manifestations of feeling ........ 7 (1.) A certain energy of stimulation necessary ib. (2.) Physical condition of the active organs . ib. (3.) Different emotions have different manifesta¬ tions ....... 8 (4.) Primitive outbursts modified by education ib. (5.) There may be voluntary suppression . ib. 9. Stimulus of an Active Impulse .... ib. Till TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE 10. Concurrence of organic effects with mental states — the capillary circulation ; Blushing .... 9 CHARACTERS OF FEELINGS. 11. Feelings may have other characters besides Pleasure and Pain ........ 11 Emotional Characters of Feeling. 12. Every feeling has a Physical Side and a Mental Side 13 13. Feeling as Happiness or Misery. Pleasure a state of transition. Pain a Disturbance of the system ; modes of restoration ...... ib. 14. Feeling as Indifference or neutral excitement. Tested by engrossing the mind ...... 14 Volitional Characters of Feeling. 15. Feelings may be estimated and described by their in¬ fluence on voluntary action or conduct . . 16 Intellectual Characters of Feeling. 16. The persistence, and recurrence in idea, of feelings, their intellectual property . . . . . 17 17. The revival of a feeling in idea depends on the intel¬ lectual forces . . . . . . . 18 Mixed Characters of Feeling. 18. The power of sustaining volition in the absence of the object, a compound of Volition and Intellect . . 19 19. Control of the Intellectual Trains and Acquirements. Attention stimulated by pleasure, by pain, and by neutral excitement . . . . . . 21 20. Retentiveness stimulated by feeling, distinct from the natural retentiveness, — Taste and Faculty do not necessarily go together . . . . . 23 21. Influence of Feeling on Belief. The feelings act partly through the Will, and partly through the trains of Thought ........ 24 TABLE OF CONTENTS. IX PAGE 22. Examples of operation of the feelings on Belief. In¬ tellectual perversion thereby engendered in common affairs, in History, and in Science ... 25 CRITERIA FOR INTERPRETING FEELING. 23. Means of ascertaining and estimating the feelings of others ........ 28 24. The fixing on some standard feeling, or common measure ........ 31 25. Interrogating other men as to their experience . . ib. REMARKS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF EMOTIONS. 26. An emotional wave has a certain continuance . . 32 27. The Periodicity of the feelings .... 33 CHAPTER II. THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION. 1. The Emotions are secondary, derived, or compound feelings ........ 35 2. Rules for their classification ..... 3. Enumeration of Classes, Families, or Natural Orders . 36 4. Pleasure and Pain not a distinction to found classes upon 39 CHAPTER III. EMOTIONS OF HARMONY AND CONFLICT. 1. Consequences of our being liable to plurality of im¬ pressions . ....... 41 2. Physical basis of mental Harmony and Conflict . ib.. 3. Harmony promotes mental elation, on the law of Self¬ conservation . . . . . . .ib. 4. Conflict painful. Situations of harmony and conflict 42 X TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. EMOTIONS OF RELATIVITY. PAGE 1. Certain Emotional states are specially dependent on Universal Relativity ...... 48 2. Novelty. — Objects ...... . ib. 3. Physical circumstances of Novelty .... ib. 4. The Emotion one of pleasure. Counter pain of Monotony ib. 5. Species of Novelty ...... 44 6. Variety ......... 45 7. Wonder. — Examples of the Wonderful . . . ib. 8. In some respects an emotion of conflict ib. 9. Wonder as an aesthetic pleasure requires surpassing excellence, and is allied to the Sublime . . 46 10. Elation of tone caused by the emotion . . . ib. 11. Every-day wonders ....... 47 12. Wonder a corrupting emotion in matters of truth and falsehood. Alleged decay of Wonder. Effect of advancing science on the emotion . . . ib. 13. Freedom and Restraint. — Restraint a case of conflict ; the system may become adjusted to a continued restraint ........ 49 14. Freedom the deliverance from restraint. — Circum¬ stances necessary to the feeling of rebound. Plea¬ sures associated with Liberty . . . . 50 15. Power and Impotence. — Their importance requires a distinct chapter . . . . . . . 51 CHAPTER V. EMOTION OF TERROR. 1. Terror defined. Its object the apprehension of com¬ ing evil . 53 2. Physical side of Terror. — A sudden transfer of nervous energy ........ 54 3. Likely mental consequences of a diversion of vital energy . 55 TABLE OF CONTENTS. XI PAGE 4. Mental Side. — Characters as Feeling ... 55 5. Volitional aspect . . . . . . • 56 6. Relations to Intellect. — Undue impressiveness of ob¬ jects of terror. Influence on Belief . . . ib. 7. Species of Terror. — Timidity of the Lower Animals . 57 8. Fear in Children ....... ib. 9. Influence of Strangeness on Animals and on Children — admits of two interpretations .... 58 10. Slavish Terror ........ ib. 11. Forebodings of Disaster and Misfortune ... 59 12. Anxiety ......... 60 13. Suspicion ......... ib. 14. Panic ......... 61 15. Superstition ........ ib. 16. Fear of Death ........ 62 17. Distrust of our Faculties in unfamiliar operations . 63 18. The being Abashed by the human presence . . 64 19. Counteractives of Terror. Courage .... 65 20. Instrumentality of Terror in Government and Education 66 21. Use of the passion in Art ..... 67 The Eleusinian Mysteries, Note ..... 68 CHAPTER VI. TENDER EMOTIONS. 1. Objects of Tenderness.- — The stimulants of the feeling are massive pleasures, great pleasures, pains, touch in certain localities, the wail of grief, lustrous ob¬ jects, associations with weakness ... 70 2 Physical side. — The organs involved are the Lachrymal Gland and Sac, the Larynx, and probably the Digestive organs generally ; the Lacteal secretion in women ... .... 73 3. Link of sequence, physical and mental, between the stimulants and the manifestations . . . 74 4. Mental side. — As Feeling, a voluminous pleasure suited to inaction and weakness . . . . ib. '' 5. Volitional attributes, — The soothing of undue excite¬ ment ........ 75 Xll TABLE OF CONTENTS. 6. Relating to the Intellect. — A feeling easy to sustain and to recall, and ready to form associations, called Affections ........ 7. Mixed characters. — Operating on the will in absence . 8. Tenderness in the state of Desire .... 9. Influence on Attention ...... 10. Influence on Belief ...... SPECIES OF TENDER EMOTION. 11. The feeling vents itself on human beings and on the companionable animals ..... 12. Its outgoings or demonstrations suppose another per¬ sonality ........ Family Group. 13. Mother and Offspring ...... 14. Explanation of the vicarious operations of Tenderness, or the pleasure of working for the beloved object . 15. Relationship of the Sexes . The Benevolent Affections. 16. Sympathy the essential constituent of Benevolence. Pleasures of Benevolence ..... 17. Compassion or Pity . . . . . 18. Gratitude. Spectacle of Generosity 19 Benevolence between equals . 20. The Lower Animals inspire tender feeling and warm attachments ....... 21. Form of Tenderness towards Inanimate things . Sorrow. 22. Pains that we are liable to in connection with beloved objects. — Consoling influence of tender feelings 23. Social and Ethical hearings of Tenderness 24. Tender affection a moral lever for the elevation of mankind PAGE ib. 76 ib. 77 ib. ib. 72 78 79 80 82 83 84 85 ib. ib. 86 87 ib. TABLE OF CONTENTS. xiii Admiration and Esteem. PAGE 25. Admiration the response to superior excellence . . 88 26. Esteem has reference to useful qualities not necessarily pre-eminent ....... ib. Veneration — the Religious Sentiment. 27. Components of the Religious Sentiment, ‘wonder, love, and awe.’ Religion of the early Greeks, Note. Supernatural government the essential of Religion. Veneration towards human beings and the past . 90 CHAPTER VII. EMOTIONS OF SELF. 1. Meanings of the term ‘ Self’ ..... 94 2. Meaning intended in the present chapter ... 95 SELF-GRATULATION AND SELF-ESTEEM. 3. Object of the emotion, some excellence beheld in self. 97 4. Physical side ....... 98 5. Mental side. — Tender emotion directed upon self as a personality ....... ib. 6 Characteristics of self-complacent sentiment generally 102 7. Specific forms : — Self-esteem, Self-conceit, Self-confi¬ dence, Self-respect, Pride . . . 103 v 8. Self-pity ........ 104 9. Emulation, Superiority, Envy . .... ib. 10. Modesty and Humility ...... 105 11. Humiliation and Self-abasement, Remorse . . ib. LOVE OF ADMIRATION. 12. Ways in which Approbation, Admiration, and Praise, operate on the sentiment of self .... 106 13. Approbation ..... . . 108 XIV TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE 14. Praise and Admiration ; Flattery and Adulation ; Glory, Reputation, and Fame ; Applause, Compli¬ ment ; Vanity and Vainglory . . . . 108 15. Arts of Politesse ....... 110 16. Censure, Disapprobation, Dispraise, Abuse, Libel, Scorn, Infamy ....... Ill 17. Shame ......... ib. 18. Bearing of education or culture on the emotions of self 112 19. Employment in Art ....... ib. 20. Self-love and Selfishness. Prudent calculation . 113 21. The most disinterested actions still a part of Self . 114 CHAPTER VIII. EMOTION OF POWER. 1. Pleasure of mere exercise. Farther pleasure of the ends of pursuit ....... 115 2. Proper pleasure a rebound from weakness or difficulty 117 3. Different modes of transition or comparison . . 118 4. Physical Side. — Increase of energy ; erect attitude ; Laughter ........ 119 5. Mental Side. — Characters of the pleasure . . 120 6. Specific, forms. — Position of headship in industrial operations ........ 121 7. Working for objects of affection ... ib. 8. Bending the Wills of other men .... 122 9. State office ; wealth ; leadership of a party ; adviser in affairs ........ ib. 10. Command given by Science . . . . .123 11. Superiority in the effects of Fine Art; Eloquence . ib. 12. Love of influence working in society generally . 124 13. Summary view of the pleasure of Power . . ib. 14. Pains of Impotence. — Failure ; sense of Littleness . ] 25 15. Jealousy . 126 Relation of sentiment of power to emotions of self, Note TABLE OF CONTENTS. XV CHAPTER IX. THE IRASCIBLE EMOTION. PAGE 1. Objects of tbe emotion persons, the authors of pain or injury ........ 127 2. Physical side. — An outburst of excitement and activity; manifestations due to the pain of tbe offence, and the pleasure of retaliation. Acute shocks most exciting ........ 128 3. Mental side. — The pleasures of Malevolence . . 129 4. Analysis of the pleasure. — (1.) Fascination for suffer¬ ing ; (2.) the pleasure of power ; (3.) prevention of farther pain by inducing fear .... 132 5. Volitional, intellectual, and mixed qualities of the emotion ....... 133 6. Anger in the Lower Animals .... ib. 7. Demonstrations in Children . . . . .134 8. Sudden resentment ....... 135 9. Deliberate resentment. — Revenge .... 136 Revenge of Hannibal cn the inhabitants of Himera, Note ......... 137 10. Antipathy . . . . . . . .138 11 Hatred . ........ 139 12. Hostility ......... 140 13. Question as to the genuineness of the pleasure of Malevolence ....... 141 14. Righteous Indignation : Xoble Rage . . . 144 15. Relation of the passion of anger to Morality . . 145 16. Education needed as a check on the passion . . ib. 17. Artistic handling ....... 146 CHAPTER X. EMOTIONS OF ACTION. — PURSUIT. 1. Attitude under a gradually approaching end. — Pursuit and Plot-interest ... . 148 XVI TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE 2. Physical side of the situation. — Intent occupation of one of the senses, with or without active exertion . 148 8. Mental side. — Abeyance of Self-consciousness in the intensity of the objective regards. Other anaesthetic influences ....... 4. Uncertainty or Chance heightens the interest . . 152 5. Animals chasing their prey ..... 152 6. Field Sports ........ ib. 7. Contests ......... 153 8. Games of Chance ....... 154 9. Operations of industry as involving the emotion of pursuit ........ 155 10. Positions occurring in the sympathetic relationship . 156 11. Pursuit of knowledge ...... ib. 12. Position of the spectator of a chase . . . .158 13. Literature of Plot- interest ...... 160 14. Pain connected with pursuit. — The end unduly pro¬ tracted ........ 161 CHAPTER XI. EMOTIONS OF INTELLECT. 1. The operations of the Intellect give rise to feelings . 163 2. Emotion of similarity in diversity a species of surprise ib. 3. Emotions arising out of Science .... 164 4. Illustrative comparisons. Pleasures of knowledge . 166 5. Comparisons in Poetry. Harmony in the Fine Arts generally ........ 167 6. Feeling of Inconsistency ; regard to Truth . . 168 SUMMARY OF THE SIMPLER EMOTIONS. Recapitulation of the simpler emotions with reference to the general laws of Association, Relativity, and Harmony ........ CHAPTER XII. SYMPATHY AND IMITATION. 1. Ground tion 172 TABLE OF CONTENTS. XVII 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. Tendency to assume attitudes or movements observed in others, or in any way suggested to the mind Assumption of a mental state through its physical accompaniments ....... Character for infectiousness proper to the various simple emotions ....... Fellow-feeling in great part the echoing of pain or plea- sure • •••••••• Alliance and Contrast between sympathy and tender emotion ........ Sympathy a source of pleasure and mental support to the receiver. Not necessarily pleasurable to the giver ......... Consequences in human life. Tendency to uniformity of character and opinions . . . . . Obstructives of Sympathy . ... . Imitation. Relates to voluntary actions . Circumstances that promote imitation Contrast between the imitative and the sel f- ori gdnati n g O O temperaments ....... Examples of imitation ...... Mimicry ......... Intellectual imitation ...... Imitative Arts. Some of the Fine Arts imitative, others not ........ Interest arising out of faithful imitation by an Artist PAGE 174 177 178 179 ib. 180 182 183 184 ib. 185 186 187 ib. ib. 188 CHAPTER XIII. OF IDEAL EMOTION. 1 . Persistence of an emotional wave after the cessation of the cause ........ 190 2. Purely ideal subsistence of states of feeling . . 191 3. First condition, the state of the physical organs . ib. 4. Specific tempei ament as regards emotion . . .193 5. Individuals are constituted so as to entertain some emo¬ tions in preference to others . . . .194 6. Repetition and habit may give an emotional bent . 196 XY111 TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE 7. Influence of physical stimulants, narcotics, &c. . 197 8. Other physical circumstances ..... 198 9. Mental agencies concerned in supporting a wave of ideal emotion ....... 200 10. Operation of the intellectual forces of Contiguity and Similarity ....... 201 11. Application of the foregoing considerations, to explain the predominance of the Ideal, over the Actual, in human life ........ 202 12. Day-dreams and illusions of the fancy, based upon the strong emotions ....... 204 1 8. Pleasures of the Imagination ..... 205 14. The Emotional life ....... ib. 15. Influence of the ideal in the Ethical appreciation of conduct ........ 206 16. The Religious sentiment an outgoing of the ideal . 207 17. Fine Art must adapt itself to ideal longings. Imagina¬ tive sensibility . . . . . . .208 CHAPTER XIY. TIIE AESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 1. Peculiarities that circumscribe the aesthetic pleasures 210 2. The eye and the ear the avenues of Artistic impres¬ sions ......... 211 3. The muscular and sensual feelings may be brought in when contemplated in idea . . . . 212 4. Problem of the Beautiful ...... 213 5. Circle of aesthetic qualities . . . . .214 6. No one comprehensive generalization attainable . 216 7. Element of Sensation in Art : — Senses of Hearing and Sight ........ ib. 8. Co-operation of the Intellect ..... 218 9. Simple Emotions touched by the Artist . . . 220 10. Reasons why the Emotions, of Science do not enter into Art equally with the others ..... 221 SPECIFIC EMOTIONS OF ART. 11. Melody and Harmony in Sound. — Pleasing and con¬ cordant sounds ....... 222 TABLE OF CONTENTS. xix PAGE 12. Time in music ....... 224 13. Varying Empliasis ....... 225 14. Cadence ......... ib. 15. Composition ........ 226 16. Melody of Speech ....... ib. 17. Harmonies of Sight. — Harmony of Colours. Light and Shade. Lustre. . . . . . 227 18. Muscular susceptibility of the Eye. Harmony of Movements, Intervals, and Proportions. Laws of Proportion ; the German critics ; D. R. Hay . ib. 19. Straight Outlines ....... 229 20. Curved Outlines ....... 230 21. Pressure and Support . . . . . .231 22. Appearance of Ease in objects employed in giving sup¬ port ......... 232 23. Symmetry ........ 233 24. Beauty of Movement ...... 234 Note on Complex Harmonies. Unity ; Variety . ib. 25. Fitness, the ^Esthetic of Utility ..... 235 26. Order ; Cleanliness ; Polish ..... 236 27. The Sublime. Objects and emotion . . . 237 28. Sublime of Support. The mountain, precipice, and abyss ......... 238 29. Sublimity of Space. Commanding prospects in scenery 239 30. Greatness of Time. Relations of Terror to the Sublime 240 31. Sublime of the Human Character. Human Power the literal Sublime ...... ib. 32. Natural Objects in general. Mineral and Vegetable Kingdoms. Surface of the globe . . . 242 33. The Animal Kingdom ; its beauties and deformities . 243 34. The Human form ....... 244 35. Beauties of Movement and Expression . . . 245 36. Beauty and grace in Human Character . .. . 246 37. The Ludicrous. — Causes of Laughter . . . 247 38. All Incongruity is not Ludicrous. Degradation es¬ sential to the Ludicrous. Degradation viewed as reflecting Superior Power . .... ib. 39. Ludicrous Degradation as a mode of Release from constraint. — The Comic a rebound from the Serious 250 XX TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER XV. THE ETHICAL EMOTIONS ; OR THE MORAL SENSE. PAGE 1. Punishment the test of Moral Obligation . . . 253 2. Variety of Moral Theories ..... 255 3 Right Reason ; the Fitness of Things ; the Will of the Deity ........ ib. 4. Self-interest ........ 258 5 The Doctrine of a Moral Sense .... 259 6. Qualified form of the doctrine of an innate sense of rec¬ titude, as set forth by Dr. Whewell . . . ib. 7 There is no abstract standard, either of Truth, or Rec¬ titude ........ 260 8. All propositions are propositions affirmed or believed by some individual minds . . . . .263 9. Truth in the Abstract is correlative with Belief in the Abstract ........ 265 10. There is no such thing as a Universal Conscience . 266 11. Alleged Uniformity of men’s moral judgments. The uniformity consists, first, in the common necessities of society ........ 268 12. Secondly, mankind have been unanimous in imposing restraints of sentimental origin .... 269 13. Theory of Adam Smith . . . . . .271 14. Principle of Utility . . . . . .272 15. Utility must be qualified by Liberty . . . 275 Objections to Utility principally resolve themselves into sentimental preferences .... ib. 16. Existing moral rules founded partly on Utility, and partly on Sentiment . . . . . .277 1 7. Examples of Sentiment converted into law and morality 2 78 18. Process of enactment of moral rules . . . 280 19. Example from the anti- slavery opinion . . .281 20. The abrogation of moral rules . 282 21. Conscience follows and imitates external authority, instead of preceding it . 283 22. Development of Conscience in the individual . . 284 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 23. Varieties of the sentiment of obligation : the narrower and the wider regards . 24. Other varieties of conscience . 25. The self-formed, or Independent conscience 26. Sense of duty in the abstract ..... 27. Moral judgments on the conduct of others 28. Virtue and merit ....... THE WILL. CHAPTER I. THE PRIMITIVE ELEMENTS OF VOLITION. THE SPONTANEITY OF MOVEMENT. 1. Recapitulation of the arguments in favour of the spon¬ taneous beginning of movements . 2. Review of the groups of moving organs in the animal body .... 3. Necessity of an isolated spontaneity, as a prelude to separate voluntary control 4. Supposed cerebral conditions of isolated discharges . 5. Instance of the external ear . Circumstances governing the spontaneous discharge. 6. Natural vigour of the constitution 7. Excitement ...... 8. Mental stimulants. — Pain ; Pleasure ; Opposition 9. Explanation of the occurrence of the larger outbursts LINK OF FEELING AND ACTION. 10. Necessity of something more than spontaneity to ac¬ count for volition ..... 11. Self-conservation furnishes the rudiment of the Link connecting Action and Feeling 12. Question whether emotional movements may offer the beginning requisite for voluntary control . 13. Volitional branch of the Law of Self- conservation. Summary of the foundations of the Will . xxi PAGE 286 287 288 290 291 292 297 299 301 303 304 ib. 305 306 307 308 ib. 309 310 / xxii TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE 14. Prompting of tlie will by Pleasure. Apparent excep¬ tion of soothing Pleasures. Exhaustion of the strength. Prompting of Pain directly arrests action ; the relief from pain, like pleasure, promotes action . . . . • .311 CHAPTER II. GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. 1 . Growth of volitional associations with the Muscular Feelings ...... 315 2. Organic Sensations. — Pains of Muscle. — Cramp . 316 I. Appeasing of Thirst ..... 318 4. Feelings of Respiration. — Warmth and Chillness . 319 5. Sucking ...... 320 6. Mastication ...... 323 7. Snuffing sweet Odours, and recoiling from the opposite 326 8. Cherishing agreeable sensations of Touch . .327 9. Avoiding painful Touches .... 329 10. Training of the whip . . . . . il, 11. Avoiding painful, and courting pleasurable, sounds . 331 12. Movements to attain the pleasures, or avoid the pains of Sight.- — Beginnings of Attention . . ib. 13. Appetites and their gratification. — Sex . . 333 14. Movements to the lead of the special emotions . 334 15. Intermediate Actions and Associated Ends.— Associates of warmth, food, &c. . . . .335 16. Chase for food by the lower animals . . . 337 CHAPTER III. GROWTH OF VOLUJsTARY POWER — continued. 1. Transference of acquired connexions between move¬ ments and sensations to new uses . . . 339 2. Acquirement of a more general control of the volun¬ tary organs. — The word of command . . 341 3. Faculty of Imitation . ... 343 4. Imitation of movements at sight . . . 347 TABLE OF CONTENTS. XX1U 5. Graduated command of the muscles for the execution of nice operations .... 6. Imitation of movements of the features. — -Teaching the deaf to speak ..... 7. Power of acting on a wish to move a member 8. The idea of a movement must be the antecedent for bringing it into play .... 9. Association of movements with the effects produced on outward things .... 10. Working .to pleasure or from pain in idea 11. Examples from the Voice. — Associations entering into the voluntary power of speech CHAPTER IV. CONTROL OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS. 1. Volition crowned with powers of general command . CONTROL OP THE FEELINGS. 2. The direct power of the will confined to the muscular organs .... . . 3. How to control the portions of the emotional wave that are not muscular .... 4. Growth of this department of voluntary power 5. Control of the feelings a good test of the volitional energy of the individual character THE MIXED EXPRESSION OF THE FEELINGS. Examples of Expression of Feeling determined by voluntary action ..... COMMAND OF THE THOUGHTS. C. Instrumentality of the will in directing the current of the thoughts or ideas .... 7. Command of the thoughts a test of volitional energy 8. Constructive association a voluntary process 9. Aid afforded by the command of the thoughts, in con¬ trolling the feelings .... PAGE 348 350 351 352 354 356 357 360 361 362 365 369 371 372 375 376 378 XXIV TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE 10. Suppressing or rousing emotional displays, by the as¬ sistance of ideas . . . . .379 11. Converse fact, of the feelings governing the thoughts 380 CHAPTER Y. OF MOTIVES, OR ENDS. 1. Various forms taken on by the things operating as motives ...... 384 2. The ultimate ends of pursuit ought all to be found in the enumeration of feelings of movement, sensa¬ tions, and special emotions . . . 385 3. Ideal persistence of the various feelings that operate on the will ..... 387 4. Of aggregated , derivative, and intermediate ends . 392 5. Adoption as a final end of what was originally a means. — Money ; Formalities in Business and in Science 394 6. Association of feelings with things more persisting in the mind than themselves . . . 396 7. Excited, impassioned, exaggerated, irrational ends : Fixed Ideas. — Passion may mean only intense pleasure or intense pain . . . . .397 8. Cases where action is out of proportion to pleasure or pain. Disturbing force the tendency of a vivid idea to force itself into action. — Fear . . . ib. 9. State of antipathy or disgust . . . 399 10. Undue excitement on the side of pleasure. — A ruling passion ..... . ib. 11. Statement of the point attained in the exposition . 402 CHAPTER VI. THE CONFLICT OF MOTIVES. 1. What happens when two states of feeling come to¬ gether, viewed simply as emotions . . 404 2. Conflict of a voluntary stimulus with the spontaneous impulses of the system .... 405 3. Struggle between a voluntary stimulus and physical exhaustion ..... 406 TABLE OF CONTENTS. XXV PAGE 4. Opposition of two states of present pleasure or pain. — The result shows a fact of character . .407 5. The same pleasure or pain acting on different occa¬ sions, and in different persons . . . 410 6. Conflict of the actual with the ideal . . .411 7. Ideal emotions supported by associations . . 414 8. Conflict between ideal ends . . . .416 9. Aggregated ends in conflict . . . .417 10. Impassioned ends . . . . . ib. CHAPTER VII. DELIBERATION. — RESOLUTION. — EFFORT. 1. Deliberation a voluntary act, prompted by the known evils of hasty action . . . .419 2. Example . . . . . .421 3. The deliberative position gives opportunity for all the elements of decision to come up . .423 4. Franklin’s Moral Algebra .... 424 5. Method of recording impressions from day to day during a period of deliberation . . .425 6. Deliberative process different as it deals with things experienced or unexperienced . . .427 7. Deliberation in full accordance with the theory of the Will ...... ib. 8. Resolution. — Action suspended till a certain time has elapsed ...... 428 9. Resolutions often extend over wide periods, and are therefore liable to fall through . . . 430 10. The order of human life a train of resolutions . 431 11. Effort. — Feelings connected with voluntary acts . 432 12. Supposition that all mechanical power must originate in mind . . .... ib. 13. There is usually a certain consciousness accompanying volition ...... 434 14. The real antecedent of power put forth is the expendi¬ ture of the material organism . . . ib. XXVI TABLE OF CONTEXTS. PAGE 15. There can be neither consciousness nor voluntary power without the processes of physical renovation and decay . . . . .435 16. When we say Mind is a source of power, we must mean mind together with body . . . 436 17. The habitual actions tend to become unconscious . 437 CHAPTER Yin. DESIBE. 1. Desire supposes a motive to the will without the ability to act ..... 438 2. Form of Desire in protracted operations for ends . 439 3. Question as to the courses open when no volition is possible ...... ib. 4. Endurance ..... . ib. 5. The stimulus to endurance is the pain of conflict . 440 6. Ideal or imaginary action .... 441 7. Persistence of a feeling in absence, a condition of imaM- nary gratification .... 443 8. Examples of ideal activity .... 444 9. Emotions suited to imaginary gratification . . 446 10. The memory of pleasure has a sting of pain from the sense of its being below the reality . .447 11. Provocatives of desire .... 449 12. Susceptibility to ideal inflammation . . . 451 13. Desire most effectually stimulated by growing pleasure 453 CHAPTER IX. THE MORAL HABITS. 1. The force of plastic adhesiveness operates to increase or diminish the strength of motives . . . 455 2. Control of Sense and Appetite . . .456 3. Examples. — The habit of early rising . .457 4. The proper initiatives of habits . . . 459 5. Habits of Temperance .... 460 6. Control of Attention . . . . . ib. 7. Suppression of Instinctive movements . . 462 TABLE OF CONTENTS. XXVI 1 PAGE 8. Changing the emotional nature as a whole . . 462 9. Lowering1 or raising of special emotions . . 464 10. Habit of Courage . . . . ib. 11. Tender Emotion . . . . .465 12. Sentiment of Power. — Command of the Temper . 467 13. Pleasures of Sport and Plot-interest. — Emotions of Intellect ..... . 468 14. Taste and ^Esthetic culture .... ib. If. Sudden conversions, as opposed to the slow course of habit ...... 469 16. Habits modifying the original spontaneity . . 470 17. Repression of Desire. — Contentment . . ib. 18. Domestication of the animal tribes . . .471 19. Habits in opposition to intellectual trains. — Concen¬ tration of thought . . . .472 20. The more important conditions of the growth of habit ib. CHAPTER X. PliUDENCE. — DUTY. — MOKAL INABILITY 1. Prudence. — The bearing of the constitution of the will on this - — Self-promptings . . . 474 2. Promptings supplied from without . . .475 3. Leisurely meditation an element of prudence . 476 4. Characters moulded on the prudential cast . . ib. 5. Eorces hostile to prudence .... 477 6. It is possible to predict the future conduct of an indi¬ vidual from the past . . . .479 7. Duty. — Self-promptings .... 480 8. Prohibition by penalties the first source of the Moral Sentiment. — The Slavish Conscience . .481 9. Elements that concur to form the Citizen Conscience 483 10. The Independent Conscience . . . 486 11. Aids to conscience ..... 487 12. Counter-impulses to duty .... 488 13. Moral Inability ..... 489 If. Plea of moral inability put forward by an offender . 491 XXV111 TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER XI. LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. PAGE 1. The practice of mankind involves the assumption of the uniformity of human actions . . . 493 2. Examples of problems surrounded by factitious diffi¬ culties. — The question of the Will affected in this way 495 3. The phrases Liberty , Freedom , Free-will ■ — Their inap¬ propriateness as applied to volition . . 498 4. There is a real contrariety of opinion as respects the Will. — The doctrine of invariable sequence in human actions may be denied, as it was in substance by Socrates ..... 500 5. Necessity ...... 503 6. Choice, Deliberation, as bearing on the question of Liberty ...... 504 7. Meanings of Spontaneity and Self-determination . 507 8- Self can only mean the sum total of motives . . 509 9. Consciousness of Free-will- — Is consciousnessan infallible testimony? ..... 511 10. Where consciousness is infallible knowledge is not, wkei’e knowledge begins consciousness is fallible . 513 11. Assertions that have bee.i put forward under the infal¬ lible attestation of consciousness . . .517 12. The doctrine of Free-will not of the kind that conscious¬ ness can testify . . . . 518 13- Moral Agency ..... 519 14. Responsibility. — Limits to the imposition of punishment 520 15. Punishment may be efficient for its end, but objection¬ able on the score of humanity . . -521 Responsibility for Belief, Note . . 522 BELIEF. 1. In the primitive aspect of Volition, belief has no place 524 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 2. It appears in the performance of actions that are but means . 3. Belief implies some cognisance of the order of nature 4. Affirmations may be detached from actions or im¬ mediate ends . 5. Belief is a source of happiness or misery 6. Relationship of Belief to Terror. — Doubt 7. Belief in coming evil ..... 8. Joy and Depression as caused by belief 9. Sources of belief ..... 10. The different sources are apt to be mixed together 11. I. Intuitive tendencies .... 12. Belief accompanies action and precedes experience 1 3. Fallacies grounded in instinctive beliefs 14. II. Experience as a source of belief 15. III. Influence of Emotion 16. Opposition of Confidence and Fear 17. Emotions considered as operating to elevate or depress the mental tone ..... 18. Belief in Testimony ..... 19. Agency of Desire in producing conviction 20. Hope, Fear, Despondency 21. Religious Faith ..... 22. Line of demarcation between belief and notions with¬ out belief ..... 23. How can we be said to believe in things beyond the scope of possible action p 24. Belief in our own sensations, present and past CONSCIOUSNESS. 1. Prevalent meanings of the term Consciousness 2- General tendency of the several meanings- First, mental life, and its degrees. Second, the occupa¬ tion of the mind with itself. Third, Belief CONSCIOUSNESS AS FEELING. 1. The Passive States. 3. Pleasure and Pain. Characteristics of Neutral Excite¬ ment .... xxix PAGE 525 526 527 529 ih. 532 533 534 535 537 539 540 541 544 546 547 548 549 ih 550 551 553 554 555 561 563 XXX TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE 4. Neutral excitement can stamp impressions on tlie intellect ...... 564 2. The Active States. 5. Consciousness of energy. Cognition of the Extended Universe- The Volitional Consciousness, Note . 565 THE INTELLECTUAL CONSCIOUSNESS. 6. The great problem lies in defining the common ground of Emotion and Intellect .... 565 Sense of Difference. 7. Discrimination the fundamental fact of Intelligence . 566 8. Change of impression essential to consciousness in every form ...... 567 9. The transition that wakens up discrimination may be described as a shock of surprise . . . 569 10. We are conscious in proportion to the greatness or abruptness of the transition . . . 571 11. Points of contrast of the emotional and intellectual consciousness. — Occupation of the mind with plea¬ sure or pain excludes discrimination. Neutral excitement may not always be intellectual. Note . 572 12. The most intellectual minds are the most discriminative with the least emotional shock . . .574 13. Discrimination is the intellectual property of all our sensibilities , . . . .575 14. It is a part of our intellectual culture to form new sus- ceptibilies to difference . . . .576 15. The feeling of difference precedes the operation of the laws of association . . . .577 Sense of Agreement. 16. Agreement causes a mental shock, if accompanied with diversity . . . . . .578 17. The feeling of Agreement underlies those elements of knowledge termed generalities, &c. . . ib. Sensation and Perception. 18. Sensation differs greatly as it inclines to the Emotional or the Intellectual side .... 580 TABLE OF CONTENTS. XXXI 19. A sensation is, in every view, a conscious element of the mind . . <. 20. Perception means sensation and something more 21. Illustration from the acquired perceptions of sight 22. Supposed perception of an external and independent material world ..... The Nature of Cognition. 28. How are we affected when we are said to know a thing ? 24. Dispute as to the origin of our knowledge in sense 25. Sensation and perception pre-supposed 26. Knowledge is not co-extensive with sensation. — It is select or specialized sensation 27. Specializing forces . 28. Relation, or comparison, essential to knowledge Relations of Co-existence and Succession. Note 29. Illustrations derivable from literature, art, and science 30. The use of language fixes attention on select impressions 31. Summary of the essentials of Cognition Subject and Object. — The Exteimal World. Note APPENDIX. A. On the most general 'physical conditions of Consciousness. — Laws of Relativity and Diffusion- Combined statement. Mr G. H. Lewes on Reflex Acts B. Classification of the Emotions. — Mr. Herbert Spencer’s criticism and classification ; Reid’s classification ; Dugald Stewart : Thomas Brown ; Sir W. Hamil¬ ton ; Kant ; Herbart ; Waitz ; Nahlowsky ; Wundt C. Distinction of Reflex and Voluntary Acts. — Mr. Spencer’s criticism. The doctrine of hereditary transmission applied to the Will and to other supposed In¬ stincts ...... D. Meanings of Consciousness. — Hamilton on the priority of Knowledge or Cognition in the divisions of the mind. Ulrici on Consciousness PAGE 581 583 584 585 ih. 586 ih. 58 7 588 589 ih. 591 592 ih. 593 599 601 613 611 THE EMOTIONS. * But, although such a being (a purely intellectual being) might perhaps he conceived to exist, and although, in studying our internal frame, it be convenient to treat of our intellectual powei’s apart from our active propen¬ sities, yet, in fact, the two are very intimately, and indeed inseparably, connected in all our mental operations. I already hinted, that, even in our speculative inquiries, the principle of curiosity is necessary to account for the exertion we make ; and it is still more obvious that a combination of means to accomplish particular ends presupposes some determination of our nature, which makes the attainment of these ends desirable. Our active propensities, therefore, are the motives which induce us to exert our intellectual powers ; and our intellectual powers are the instruments by which we attain the ends recommended to us by our active propensities : “ Reason the card, but passion is the gale.” ’ Bugald Stewart, Philosophy of the Active Powers, p. 2. / CHAPTEB I. OF FEELING IN GENERAL. 1. ]l/riND is comprised under the three heads — Feeling, _jx Volition, and Intellect. Feeling includes all our pleasures and pains, and certain modes of excitement, to be afterwards defined, that are neutral as regards pleasure and pain. Under the Muscular Feelings and the Sensations of the Senses, I reviewed in detail those feelings of a primary character, due, on the one hand, to the putting forth of muscular energy, and, on the other, to the action of the outer world on the organs of sense. There remains a department of secondary, derived, or complicated feelings, termed the Emotions. ‘ — — “ 2. In my former volume, I adduced facts to prove the dependence of all tha mental workings on bodily organs ; and, in treating of the sensations, gave in each instance the physical side as well as the mental ; all which is applicable to the Emotions. The most general principle that we are able to lay down- respecting the concomitance of mind and body may be called the Law of Diffusion. It is expressed thus : ‘ When an impression is accompanied with Feeling, or any kind of \ consciousness, the aroused currents diffuse themselves freely .! over the brain, leading to a general agitation of the moving / organs, as well as affecting the viscera.’ I may quote, as an illustrative contrast, the so-called Reflex actions (breathing, &c.), which have no feeling, and are operated through a narrow aud confined nervous circle. It is not meant that every fibre of the brain is affected in 4 OF FEELING IN GENERAL. the course of the diffusion, but that a spreading wave is produced enough to agitate the collective bodily organs. The organs first and prominently affected, in the diffused wave of nervous influence, are the moving members, and of these, by preference, the features of the face, whose movements constitute the expression of the countenance. But the influence extends to all the parts of the moving system, voluntary and involuntary ; while an important series of effects are pro¬ duced on the glands and viscera — the stomach, lungs, heart, kidneys, skin, together with the sexual and mammary organs. 3. The facts that establish the companionship of feeling and diffusive action have been abundantly quoted in the description of the sensations. Each of us knows in our own experience that a sudden shock of feeling is accompanied with movements of the body generally, and with other effects. So well are we convinced of this, that we judge of the intensity of feeling in others by the extent and energy of their mani¬ festations. Sleep is accompanied with stillness of the bodily movements ; the waking to consciousness has for its physical side the renewal of the active energies of the system, with a series of changes in the organic functions. It is well known that impressions fail to produce con¬ sciousness, when the mind is strongly pre-engaged. In the heat of a battle, wounds may be for a time unfelt. A person very much engrossed with a subject gives no heed at the moment to words addressed to him, but should his attention be relaxed before the impression fades from the ear, he will probably return an answer. One of the remedies for pain or uneasiness is to divert the attention and activity, or even the current of the thoughts. We are able in some degree to restrain the feelings by the power of the will. Now as the will can act only on muscles, it follows that the moving organs must participate in the embodiment of the feelings. 4. This doctrine has an important bearing on the Unity of the Consciousness. A plurality of stimulations of the nerves may co-exist, but they can affect the consciousness DOCTRINES OPPOSED TO DIFFUSION. 5 only by tarns, or one at a time. The reason is that the bodily organs are collectively engagecLwT;h...eac.lu distinct conscious state, and they cannot be doing two things at the same instant. The eyes cannot minister to one feeling, the ears to another, and the hands to a third ; for, although the feeling may not be strong enough to involve the activity of all the organs, yet those unemployed must either be at rest or engaged in mere routine functions, such as walking, that are not necessarily accompanied by consciousness. 5. The counter-doctrines to the theory of Diffusion are the following : — First. It may be maintained that the mind is not dependent on bodily processes throughout. Admitting that there is an occasional accompaniment of outward agitation with inward feelings, one may hold that this is merely casual and in¬ cidental, and not at all essential to the existence of the feelings. It may be said that, although certain energetic emotions have bodily manifestations, a great many feelings rise up without affecting any bodily organ. Some of our emotions, it may be contended, are of so tranquil a nature as to have only a pure mental existence, and produce no disturbance in any part of the physical system. It is here maintained, on the contrary, that no feeling, however tranquil, is possible without a full participation of the physical system ; the apparent tranquillity merely signify¬ ing that the diffused wave is too feeble to produce observable effects. Secondly. The uniform connexion of mental states with bodily conditions may be admitted, but with the supposition that one or other of the ganglia, or lesser grey centres of the brain, is all that is necessary to sensation. The corpora quadrigemina have been called the ganglion of the sense of sight, as the olfactory bulb is the ganglion of smell ; and it lias been supposed that these are enough for mere sensa¬ tion. I, on the contrary, am disposed to maintain that the hemispheres are requisite to consciousness in every shape; and that these hemispheres are the medium of the accom- 6 OF FEELING IN GENERAL. panying diffusion of stimulus to the collective system of muscles and glands. Thirdly. It is not uncommon with those that fully believe in the participation of the brain in every mental experience, to restrict it to the brain. To this view, I oppose the doctrine of the farther participation of the outcarrying nerves, the muscles, and the viscera. If we suppose, for example, that a shock of Fear could be prevented from actuating the moving organs, the stomach, the skin, the heart, or any other organ usually affected, our mental experience would not be what is characteristic of the emotion. 6. The theory of Reflex, or Automatic, actions is in strict accordance with the view now taken of the physical accom¬ paniments of feeling or consciousness. These automatic actions, such as the movements of the heart and lungs, the movements of the intestines, &c., are proved to depend upon the spinal cord and medulla oblongata, to the exclusion of the cerebral hemispheres. A reflex action is an isolated response from some one single centre, or some limited portion of grey matter, and not a diffused influence over the system at large. With such local restrictions is associated the property of unconsciousness, or want of feeling, attaching to this class of actions. 7. The Habitual, or routine, actions, which make up the acquired ability and skill of men and animals, have sometimes been termed * secondarily automatic.’ The reason is that they resemble in a great degree the actions just alluded to, the reflex, or primary automatic. They are performed almost unconsciously ; that is to say, the more thoroughly they attain the character of routine, or habit, the less is the feeling that attends their exercise. Such actions as walking, turning a wheel, stitching, may be sustained without giving rise to any but a feeble conscious impression, so as to leave the mind free for other exercises or emotions. How, the only view that we can take of the physical machinery of those actions, is to sup¬ pose that the originally diffused wave that accompanied them has become contracted within some narrow circles of the brain, LIMITS TO DIFFUSED MANIFESTATIONS. 7 which just suffice for the bare performance of the operations implied in them. The first time that the hand clenches a wooden or iron handle, a sensation is produced having all the characters of a feeling fully manifested. There is, perhaps, a pleasurable or neutral consciousness, an occupation of the mind, a responsive expression and attitude of the whole body. All sensations have originally these characters ; they are conscious states, and for the time being constitute the exclusive mental experience, and impart movements of expression to the members that are in alliance with the cerebral system. But at a later stage, such an action as the grasping of a handle agitates the brain almost through one solitary channel of in¬ fluence — that, namely, which suffices for stimulating certain muscles of the arm concerned in rotatory motion. This re¬ markable narrowing of the sphere of influence of a sensational or active stimulus is one of the effects of education ; and the comparison between the routine and the reflex operations seems most just and accurate. The character of unconscious¬ ness would appear to arise exactly as the cerebral wave gets contracted. 8. Let us now attend to the circumstances that limit and control the diffused manifestations of feeling. In the firsTpTace, a certain energy of stimulation is neces¬ sary to produce those gestures, changes of feature, vocal out¬ bursts, and alterations in the state of the viscera, that are apparent to an observer. One may experience a certain thrill of pleasure, without even a smile ; it is nevertheless a fair inference that a nervous wave is diffused to the muscles of the face, and to all the other muscles ; the failure in expres¬ sion being due to the mechanical inadequacy of the central stimulus. A certain degree of emotional excitement is pos¬ sible without the full and proper display, but not without the tendency in that direction. In the second place, something depends on the character of the active organs themselves. Irrespective of the inten¬ sity of the feelings, the energy of the demonstrations may vary in different individuals, and in the same person at dif- 8 OF FEELING IN GENERAL. ferent times. There is a certain vigour and freshness of limb, featuie, and voice, disposing those parts to activity, and seeking only an occasion to burst forth. Age, feebleness, and exhaustion, paralyse the display, without destroying the sus¬ ceptibility of feeling. There are individuals and races charac¬ terised by the vivacious temperament ; we may instance the ancient Greeks and the modern Italians. It does not follow that the strength of the feeling corresponds in all such cases to the degree of demonstration. We need other criteria be¬ sides this to determine the intensity of the mental excitement. Thirdly. The different emotions differ in their manifesta¬ tions. The distinct modes characterising pleasure and pain have been formerly described and accounted for. (See In¬ stinctive play of feeling, § 20.) There are other distinctions besides. Wonder is different from self-complacency; the pain of fear and the pain of a bodily hurt do not manifest themselves alike. Acute emotions, as wonder, stimulate the movements ; massive, as tender feeling, are more connected with glandular effects. Fourthly. The primitive outbursts of emotion may be greatly modified by education. Articulate speech and song are new and refined outlets for the emotional wave. In the exaltation of triumph, instead of savage laughter and frantic gestures, the hero of cultivated society vents his emotions in magniloquent diction or splendid music. The natural language of the feelings is cast into a mould in a great degree conventional ; so that the same emotions would be differently manifested by a Frenchman and by an English¬ man, by a man of society and by a boor. Fifthly. It is possible, by force of will, to suppress the more prominent manifestations of feeling — namely, the move¬ ments depending on voluntary muscles. The organic effects, such as blushing, are beyond our power. The suppression of display may become habitual, but the feelings will still occur, although not unmodified by the refusal to allow them the natural vent. 9. Stimulus of an Active Impulse. — The law of diffused DIFFUSION FROM AN ACTIVE IMPULSE. 9 manifestation accompanying consciousness is seen in start- ingTromTnovenient, as well as when the impulse is a sensa¬ tion. So strong is the tendency for other parts to join with the one immediately called upon to act, that we often find it difficult to confine the energy to the proper locality. Thus an infant attempting any operation with its hands always displays a great many movements that are not necessary to the thing aimed at. So in speech, any outburst of utterance is sure to carry with it a number of involuntary movements and gestures, as if it were impossible to isolate the course of the nervous current, or restrict it to the proper instruments of the volition put forth. The awkward gestures of a child learning to write are one of the cares of the schoolmaster. Beginners in every art are in the same way encumbered with the uncalled-for sympathies of irrelevant members. The sup¬ pression of these accompaniments is the work of education, and the distinction of mature life. But this extinction is never complete at any age. All that is deemed ungraceful in the extraneous accompaniments of speech is repressed among the cultivated classes of society, but gestures that have not this character are preserved, and even superadded, for the sake of the increased animation that they impart to the human presence. Thus it happens that the diffused cerebral wave, whereby some one action rouses the outlying members into co-operation, is made available in the Fine Art of theatrical and oratorical display, and in the graceful accompaniments of every-day converse. In the uncultivated ranks of society, and more especially in races of low artistic sensibility, the instinctive diffusion of an active impulse produces very harsh effects. We may at all times note individual instances where the secondary actions are of the oddest kind. We shall find persons who cannot answer a question without scratching the head, rubbing the eyes, or shrugging up the whole body. In the excitement of energetic speech, no one is able to keep the other members tranquil. 10. In the volume on The Senses, I reviewed the parts of the body concerned in the expression of emotion, and endea- 10 OF FEELING IN GENERAL. voured to generalize the physical adjuncts of pleasure and pain. The concurrence of organic effects, or of alterations in the action of the viscera, with mental states, has not been ob¬ served with the care that it deserves. One important fact, however, has been determined experimentally, namely, the in¬ fluence of mental causes on the capillary circulation. The small blood-vessels by which the blood is brought into proximity with the various tissues of the body are kept in a state of balanced distension between two forces, — the one the propulsive power of the heart’s action which tends to en¬ large them ; the other an influence derived from the nervous centres, and acting upon the muscular fibres so as to contract the vessels. The first of the two agencies, the heart’s action, is so evident as to need no farther demonstration. The other reposes upon the following experimental proofs : — When the sympathetic nerve proceeding to the vessels of the head and face of an animal is cut, there follows congestion of the blood¬ vessels, with augmented heat over the whole surface supplied by the nerve. The ear is seen to become redder ; a thermo¬ meter inserted in the nostril shows an increase of tempera¬ ture, the sign of a greater quantity of blood flowing into the capillaries. The inference from the experiment is that, the counterpoise being withdrawn, the force that distends the small blood-vessels has an unusual predominance. It is farther proved that this nervous influence acting upon the minute muscular fibres of the small vessels is of central origin, for by cutting the connexion between the brain and the ganglion on the neck, from which the above-mentioned nerve proceeds, the restraining influence ceases, and conges¬ tion takes place. By stimulating the divided nerve galvani¬ cally, the suffusion disappears, the vessels shrinking by the contraction of their muscular coats. The agency now described is of a piece with the action of the cerebrum upon involuntary muscles, such as the heart and the intestinal canal, and through it many organic functions, namely, digestion, nutrition, absorption, &c., may be affected INFLUENCE ON THE CAPILLARY CIRCULATION. 11 by those cerebral waves that are the concomitants of mental states. It is well known that mental excitement has an im¬ mediate influence upon all those functions ; one set of pas¬ sions, such as fear, have a deranging effect, while exhilaration and joy within moderate bounds would appear to operate favourably upon them. The specific expression of blushing is no doubt due to this mode of action. The region affected by blushing is the face and neck ; and the effect arises from the suspension of the cerebral influence that keeps up the habitual contraction of the smaller blood-vessels over that region. It is a point not yet finally determined, whether the nervous centres can act upon the organic processes of secre¬ tion, absorption, &c„ by an immediate agency, or a power apart from the control of the circulation as now described. Various physiologists have affirmed that there is such an im¬ mediate influence, and Ludwig has recently endeavoured to establish it by experiment ; but as this implies an altogether new and distinct function of the nerves in the animal economy, other physiologists suspend their judgment on the matter for the present. It is almost certain that the cerebral agency put forth in the exercise of the will can tell only upon muscles ; and by analogy it is probable that the emotional wave is confined to muscles also. Nevertheless, the existence of a more direct kind of influence upon the organic processes is open to experimental proof. CHARACTERS OF FEELING. 11. In my previous volume (p. 88, 2d edit.) I have given the scheme of a full description of the Feelings. A few remarks may be added here, as preparatory to the de¬ partment now to be entered on. The most palpable distinction among our feelings is the contrast of Pleasure and Pain. Next to that is the difference of degree in both kinds. Thus far the matter is plain. Paley, in taking what he considers the practical view of 12 OF FEELING IN GENERAL. human happiness, holds that pleasures differ only in con¬ tinuance and intensity. His words are : — ‘ In which inquiry (into the nature of happiness) I will omit much usual declamation on the dignity and capacity of our nature ; the superiority of the soul to the body, of the rational to the animal part of our constitution ; upon the worthiness, refinement, and delicacy of some satis¬ factions, or the meanness, grossness, and sensuality of others ; because I hold that pleasures differ in nothing but in con¬ tinuance and intensity; from a just computation of which, confirmed by what we observe of the apparent cheerfulness, tranquillity, and contentment of men of different tastes, tempers, stations, and pursuits, every question concerning human happiness must receive its decision.’ — Moral Philo¬ sophy , Book I., Chap. 6. For my own part, I doubt the completness of a theory of happiness restricted to the consideration of those two attri¬ butes. The distinction in pleasures (and in pains) between the acute and voluminous or massive (Intensity and Quantity) is pregnant with vital results. Then, again, the attribute of Endurability, or continuance without fatigue, and the farther, and related attribute of ideal persistence, are grounds of superiority in pleasures, being the main circumstances im¬ plied in refinement. Even with all these points taken into account, the problem is still burdened with serious compli¬ cations that a man like Paley would rather not grapple with ; I mean more particularly the nature of disinterested action, and the sway of mixed ideas. The characters of Feeling are, 1st, those of Feeling proper, as Pleasure and Pain, which we call Emotional ; * 2dly, Volitional characters, or the influence on the Will; 3dly, Intel¬ lectual characters, or the bearings upon Thought; we may add, 4thly, certain mixed characters, such as the relations to Forecasting or Sustained Volition, Desire and Belief. * See, on the use of this adjective, The Smses and the Intellect , second edition, p. 625. FEELING AS HAPPINESS. 13 Emotional characters of Feeling. 12. Every Feeling lias its physical side, to which, a certain share of attention is, in my judgment, always due. In the Sensations of the Senses, we can point to a distinct physical origin or agency, as well as to a diffused wave of effects. In the Emotions, the physical origin is less definable, being a supposed coalition of sensational effects with one another and with ideas ; and our knowledge is clearest as regards the diffusion, or outward manifestations. The notable contrast, on the physical side, lies between the Pleasurable and the Painful, and between their various gradations ; but our power of discrimination does not stop here. Wonder, Love, and Power are all pleasurable, and yet differently embodied, or expressed : Fear, Anger, and Grief are painful, hut with out¬ ward characters special to each. On the mental side, we recognise Quality, that is, Pleasure, Pain, or Indifference ; Degree, in its two modes of Intensity and Quantity; and Speciality, or points that may distinguish states substantially equivalent in quality and in degree. These distinctions have been largely illustrated under the Muscular Feelings and the Sensations ; and a very few ad¬ ditional observations will here suffice. 13. Feeling as Happiness or Misery. Our conscious life is made up of Pleasures, Pains, and states of Indifference. Our Happiness may be considered either as the sum of our pleasures, leaving the pains out of account, or as the surplus of pleasure over pain, representing, as it were, the value of existence to us. The aptitude for Pleasure is the aggregate of all the sensi¬ bilities of the constitution in the degree special to each person ; and the pleasure realized is according to the extent of stimulus accorded to these, with the observance of due limit and alternation. The state of Pleasure, strange as the assertion may seem, is a state of transition and unrest; it is always coming or going; there is no complete repose except under Indifference, 14 OF FEELING IN GENERAL. The proofs are found in the nature of the state, which originates in sudden change, begins to fade as soon as mani¬ fested, and urges the will for continuance or increase. That Pain is a state of unrest will he more willingly con¬ ceded. Here, too, there is a shock of change in some organ, the brain being necessarily included, with collateral dis¬ turbances, and a series of promptings to voluntary action for relief. The course run through is a complicated one ; and it is interesting to survey the various outgoings of the system for restoring the equilibrium. In severe pain, the violence of the gesticulations has a derivative and sedative, although exhausting, effect ; the stimulus of the glandular organs brings into play some of the sources of pleasurable emotion, as in grief; the voluntary powers are engaged in alleviation ; all available pleasures are sought for their neutralizing efficacy ; and, finally, the nervous system, disturbed by the shock, com¬ mences a process of adjustment and adaptation to the new state of things, proceeding, it may be, to insensibility, or to death. These rectifying measures put a limit to possible agony. In attaining the maximum of pain, as of pleasure, the infliction must be remitted, the healthy condition restored, and the irritation applied to some different sensibility. It is to be hoped that the ministers of the Inquisition never under¬ stood the full bearings of the principle of Relativity as applied to human suffering. The shock of a great irreparable loss rectifies itself in a similar manner. At first, the agony is extreme and wasting ; in time, the system, adjusting itself to the altered condition, assumes a tranquil but reduced tone ; there may be com¬ paratively little pain, but the moments of pleasure, few in number and feeble in intensity, are scattered over sterile tracts of indifference; while a great expansion is given to the workings of the tender sentiment. 14. Feeling as Indifference or neutral excitement. We may be mentally alive without either pleasure or pain. A state of feeling may have considerable intensity, and yet be neutral. Surprise is a familiar instance. Some surprises give us NEUTRAL EXCITEMENT. 15 delight, others cause suffering, but many do neither : yet in all cases we are emotionally moved. The diffusive wave is present ; the mind is awake, alive, stirred ; we are not made either happy or miserable, but we are occu¬ pied and engrossed for the time being. So Fear, essentially a painful emotion, may chance to be deprived of the sting, with¬ out ceasing to exist. The Tender feeling, which is a principal source of our happiness, may be strongly roused in circum¬ stances devoid of that accompaniment. The mother, in her love for her child, may have much more excitement and oc¬ cupation of mind than she has pleasure or pain. A man’s aspirations towards a high position are not necessarily pro¬ portioned to the enjoyment he either feels or anticipates in that connexion ; all that can be certainly affirmed is, that the sentiment of honour or love of power has got a footing in the mind. There is such a thing as being laid hold of, through a sort of infatuation, by a feeling that in no way contributes to our happiness. We may be unable to discard from our thoughts the image of a person that we hate ; or we may be goaded on to a pursuit merely because we cannot shake ourselves free of a certain train of ideas. The fascination of a precipice, or of a serpent, belongs to this species of emotional influence. When an emotion reaches the pitch termed ‘ passion,’ it sometimes happens that the pleasurable element, supposing that to be the character of it, rises to the same high degree, but it may also happen that the excitement is far beyond the pleasure. Insanity illustrates this position. The victim of a delusion is not happy to the degree that his mind is possessed with a fixed idea of grandeur or power, nor unhappy according as he supposes himself enchained to some horrible destiny. An emotion may seize any one as a fixed idea, and exert by that means a disproportionate influence on the conduct ; be it love, self-complacency, power, malevolence, wealth, or knowledge. We shall afterwards see how the action of the Will is indirectly influenced by these pre-occu¬ pations. The excitement now supposed having neither a pleasurable 16 OF FEELING IN GENERAL. nor a painful quality, cannot be estimated or described other¬ wise than by a reference to its detaining or engrossing the mind. A shock of surprise, which may neither please nor pain me, lays hold of my mental framework, my attention and regards, preventing other influences from developing themselves, and leaving a certain impression behind, which becomes one of my recollections afterwards. A great intel¬ lectual efficiency belongs to these emotions, albeit they are neither pleasurable nor painful. Awakened attention is a consequence of every state of excitement, whether neutral or otherwise. Volitional Characters of Feeling. 15. Although the operations of the Will are conceived by us as something distinct from, or superadded to, the operation J of Feeling proper, yet in every volition, rightly so named, the stimulus, or antecedent, is some feeling. The genuine ante- / cedents are pleasure and pain. The neutral emotions just discussed, have no immediate power of stimulating activity — their efficacy is indirect. A pleasure, present or prospective — a feast, a concert, or an acquisition of property — makes me go forth in a course of active pursuit ; an impending evil makes me alike active in a career of avoidance. A neutral feeling spurs me in neither way by the proper stimulus of the will ; nevertheless, by keeping a certain object fixed in the view, it is liable to set me to work, according to a law of the constitution different from the laws of volition, namely, the tendency to convert into actuality whatever strongly pos¬ sesses us in idea. I am possessed with the notion of becom¬ ing acquainted with a secret, which, when revealed, would add nothing to my pleasure ; yet, by virtue of a sort of morbid occupation of my mind on the subject, the idea shuts out my more relevant concerns, and so w'orks itself into action. Thus our conduct is ruled by our pleasures and pains, through the proper and legitimate operation of the Will, and by our other emotions, through the stand they take as per¬ sisting ideas. Hence, by marking the line of action dictated PERSISTENCE OF FEELINGS IN IDEA. 17 by an emotion, we have a further means of characterizing it. If it he a pleasure intensely felt, the fact is shown by the efforts made to secure the continuance of the delight ; if a pain, a corresponding energy, with a view to deliverance, attests the circumstance. The volitional character of a feeling, therefore, is an indication of its pleasurable or painful nature, liable only to the disturbing influence of a fixed idea. All our pleasures stimulate us more or less to active pursuit ; all our pains to precautionary efforts. When we see a man’s avocations, we infer what things give him satisfaction, or cause him suffering. We read the pangs of hunger, cold, and disease, and the pleasures of exercise and repose, repletion, warmth, music, spectacle, affection, honour, and power, in the everyday industry of mankind. The freely-chosen conduct of any living creature is the ultimate, though not infallible, criterion of its pleasures and pains. Accordingly, I shall still abide by the method observed in discussing the sensations, of specifying under each emotion the conduct flowing from it, or the manner and degree of its stimulation of the Will Intellectual Characters of Feeling. 1G. In describing the successive classes of sensations, I adverted to the power that they possess of continuing as ideas after the actual object of sense is withdrawn. This property of Persistence, and also of recurrence in Idea, belong¬ ing more or less to sensational states, is their intellectual property ; for intellect is made up of ideas, and these are first stimulated in the mind by realities. The same distinction applies, although in a less marked degree, to the emotions generally ; some are more disposed than others to leave traces and be recovered without the original exciting cause. TheJ Tender emotion, as a general rule, has an easy persistence, while Anger more speedily exhausts itself. The emotions of Fine Art are said to be ‘refined,’ owing partly to the circum¬ stance of their existing as remembered, or anticipated, emotions more readily, and at less expense to the system, than some of B OF FEELING IN GENERAL. 18 the other pleasures. Moreover, each separate emotion has modes of manifestation both gross and refined — as in the contrast of vulgar marvels with the novelties of scientific dis¬ covery. 17. The revival of an emotion in idea depends upon various conditions, such as have been discussed under the law of association by contiguity. Besides the circumstance just alluded to, namely, that some kinds of feeling are, by nature, more persisting, it is a peculiarity of Individual Characters to retain certain emotions in preference to others. One man, for example, has a facility in keeping up the emotion arising from the love of gain, another lives more easily in family pride, and a third in fine art. Then, there is to be taken into account the fact of Repetition, so largely concerned in acquisi¬ tion in general. An emotion often felt, is apt, in consequence, to be more readily remembered, imagined, or acted upon, than one that has been but rarely experienced. And in addition to all these permanent causes, there are Temporary Circumstances that affect the restoration of an emotional state. The prevail¬ ing lone and temper of the moment favours the assumption of one class of feelings, and repudiates other sorts. The state of fear is necessarily hostile to the feeling of confidence ; love, in the ascendant, renders it difficult to revive even the idea of hatred or indignation. We may note, lastly, the state of the Bodily Organs, and the nervous system generally ; for a cer¬ tain freshness or vigour in those parts is requisite both for emotions in their full reality, and for their easy recurrence in idea. The recovery of an emotional state after a lapse of time, independent of the original stimulus, implies some link of Association between it and other things, through whose instru¬ mentality the revival takes place. When we remember the feelings experienced during the recital of some stirring tale, we do so in consequence of the presence of an associated object or circumstance — such as the place, a person present at the same time, or otherwise. There must, therefore, be a process of Contagious adhesion between emotions and the imagery of CAUSING A SUSTAINED VOLITION. 19 the world at large. This is one of the intellectual properties of emotion, and has been exemplified in the exposition of the law of contiguity (§ 46). The more intellectual classes of feelings are the most disposed to this alliance with things in general. The same peculiarity that fits an emotional state for existing as an idea, fits it also for being linked with places, persons, names, and all sorts of objects, so as to put it in the way of being resuscitated. The re-instating force of Similarity in difference applies to the Emotions no less than to the Emotional Sensations (i Similarity , § 15). The same emotional state may arise some¬ times in one connection, and sometimes in another ; a certain shade of Fear, Anger, or Self-complacency, may be developed in a variety of circumstances ; it will then happen that, by the attraction of similars, the one occasion will suggest the others. This is a strictly intellectual process, although relative to the workings of emotion.* Mixed Characters of Emotion. 18. There are certain important aspects and characteristics of our feelings that do not belong exclusively to any one of the three foregoing heads, but which are of a mixed or com¬ pound nature. When a feeling prompts the will strongly, as, for example, hunger, it is farther to be ascertained whether the same power belongs to it as an idea, a recollection, or an anticipation. This last circumstance obviously involves the property of intellectual continuance ; if the feeling is one that does not persist, the action on the will ceases when the pres¬ sure of the reality ceases. If, on the contrary, the feeling is retained as an idea, the influence on the will is a more endur¬ ing nature ; we have then a perpetual resolution and not a mere impulse of a moment. The 'power of causing a sustained voli¬ tion, or perpetual will, is therefore a compound attribute, in¬ volving both a volitional and an intellectual property. * The whole subject of Ideal Emotion is so important, that at a later stage I shall devote a chapter to the elucidation of it in detail. 20 OF FEELING IN GENERAL. All the systematic provisions and precautions of human life grow out of feelings tint spur us to action, both when they are present in reality, and while existing only as ideas. The constant labour for food implies that the sensation of hunger has an intellectual persistence as well as an active stimulus. There are not a few examples of states of sensa¬ tion, very powerful in prompting action while they last, but having scarcely any force when the reality becomes a mere idea. Our organic pains are often of this nature ; a fit of neuralgia or dyspepsia, for whose removal no sacrifice would be thought too great, if happening but seldom, is apt to be unheeded after having passed away. It is the frequent re¬ currence of such attacks that at last produces the perpetual will of precautionary prudence ; repetition makes up for the natural deficiency in the intellectual property of existing as an idea. There are other pains that from the very first take a deeper hold on the mind, and maintain their volitional in¬ fluence in the absence of the reality. The feeling of dis¬ grace is an instance. Most people retain a lively sense of this danger, so as to be always ready to avoid whatever is likely to incur it. The pain of disgrace may not be greater for the moment than the pain of toothache ; but, to whatever circum¬ stance owing, the ideal persistence of the one is so much be¬ yond the persistence of the other, as to make the enormous difference between the preventive measures maintained against the two evils. Individual constitutions differ considerably in respect to the classes of pains that take the greatest hold of the intel¬ lect, and thereby influence the course of action. In some minds, the physical sensations of organic pain are forgotten as soon as passed, and consequently the least possible care is taken to obviate them ; with others, a lively sense of their misery presides over all the actions of life. In the conflict of opposite motives, it is common to have one feeling in the actual opposed to another in the idea. This is the case when present gratification is restrained by the consideration of remote consequences. In order that the CONTROL OF TITE THOUGHTS. 21 dread of tlie future may prevail over the present, it is neces¬ sary that the intellectual hold of the absent evil should he sufficient to keep alive the volitional spur belonging to the reality. Thus it is that what is termed self-control, pruden¬ tial restraint, moral strength, consists in the intellectual per¬ manency of the volitional element of our feelings. A parallel illustration holds with reference to pleasures. Weakly remembered, they do not, in absence, stimulate the voluntary efforts for securing them ; more strongly remem¬ bered, they become standing objects of pursuit. It may be said, in this case, that if we had the memory of them in full, more is needless ; just as a man that has a book by heart cares not to take up the volume ; but memory in matters of enjoyment is seldom, if ever, full actually. The usual case is to have the remembrance of the pleasure, with the con¬ sciousness that it falls short of the reality ; and this is a spur to obtain the full fruition. Such is Desire. 19. Control of tlie Intellectual Trains and Acquirements. — Among the effects produced by states of feeling are to be reckoned those that enable us to store up impressions of the outer world, constituting the materials of our knowledge or intelligence. The exercise of the senses upon things around us is a mode of voluntary action, and is governed more or less by the accompanying feelings. Objects that please the eye receive in turn a protracted gaze ; and in consequence they are more deeply stamped upon the recollection. Things utterly indifferent to us pass unheeded, and are forgotten. A painful spectacle repels the vision ; but in this case the state of revulsion so excites the nervous susceptibility that a very strong impression may be left, although the glance has been never so transient. Thus it is that both pleasure and pain are, although in different ways, stimulants of the atten¬ tion and aids to intellectual retentiveness. We hence become conversant with all things that have the power of kindling agreeable or disagreeable emotion ; our minds are stored with recollections of what we love or hate. There is something at first sight anomalous in the pro- 99 OF FEELING IN GENERAL. duction of a common effect, such as that now described, by two agencies opposed to one another in their general influ¬ ence on the conduct. It is only the natural and proper opera¬ tion of the will, when we are arrested and detained by objects that give us delight. I keep my eyes directed upon a pleas¬ ing picture, exactly as I drink an agreeable beverage ; but the carrying out of the same law of volition would lead me to turn away from a painful spectacle, and, if it had already im¬ pressed me before I was aware, make me attempt to dismiss it for ever from my thoughts ; so that the greater the pain, the deeper the forgetfulness. Here, however, the action of the will is liable to be crossed and rendered impotent ; not from any exception to the general principle of courting the agreeable and repelling the disagreeable, but because of the property belonging even to neutral emotions — namely, the power of possessing the mind and remaining in the recollec¬ tion. Whether a feeling be pleasing, painful, or neither, it holds the attention for the time being, and leaves a trace be¬ hind it, the effect being greater according to the intensity of the excitement In the case of pleasure, there is the addi¬ tional force of the voluntary detention, whereby all things having any charm receive an additional stamp. In pain, on the other hand, the will operates to withdraw the active re¬ gards and diminish the time allowed for taking in an impres¬ sion, but does not annihilate the one already received. I go away as fast as I am able from what revolts my view, but I cannot divest myself of all thought and recollection of what I have seen. If the disgust I experienced was intense, I have a more abiding remembrance of it than of most things that give me pleasure, although the will would be stimulated, in the one case, to resist the impression, and, in the other, to nurse and deepen it. Given equal degrees of delight and suf¬ fering, the occasion of delight would acquire the deepest hold, the volition making the difference ; but volition does not give to the first all its impressiveness, and endeavours, but in vain, to deprive the last of any. The same thing applies to neutral emotions, which the will RETENTIVENESS STIMULATED BY FEELING. 16 neither favours nor discourages. They all have the power of stamping the memory as well as occupying the present atten¬ tion, in proportion as they are intense, or exciting. An effect of the marvellous may neither please or displease, hut it will impress. Unaided by a volitional spur, these emotions will detain us less than pleasing emotions equally exciting, and more than painful emotions discountenanced by the will. 20. We see, therefore, that it is a property of feeling to attract and detain the observation upon certain objects by preference, the effect of which is to possess the mind with those objects, or to give them a prominent place among our acquisitions. The abundance of the associations thereby formed leads to their recurrence in the trains of thought ; and the same fascination causes them to be dwelt upon in recol¬ lection, and largely employed in the mind’s own creations. The poet, and the man of science, if they are so by natural disposition, dwell each respectively in their own region of objects and conceptions; and a stinted place is left in the mind for all other things. Whence it is that the direction taken by the spontaneous gaze, and the easily recurring trains of the intellect, afford a clue to the predominant emotions. The interested, charmed, or stimulated attention to things, is frequently seen in contrast with what may be called the natural retentiveness of the brain, which often inclines towards a different region from the other. It is a true and common remark that Taste and Faculty, or power, do not always go together. The objects that please and fascinate us may not be those that take the deepest hold of our minds, so as to constitute our highest intellectual grasp. One may feel a deep charm for the conceptions of science, without possessing that tenacity of mind in scientific matters which is indispen¬ sable to high attainments in them ; and the same person may have a really powerful intellect in some other department without experiencing a corresponding charm. We may exert real power in one field, and derive pleasure in another. A great statesman like Richelieu finds a superior fascination in composing bad tragedies ; an artist of incontestible genius is 24 OF FEELING IN GENERAL. supremely happy in abortive mechanical inventions. Granted that a certain pleasure must always flow from the exercise of our strongest faculties, it still may happen that we take a far higher delight in a class of things where we could hardly at¬ tain even to mediocrity. There is no law of mind to connect talent and taste, or yet to make them uniformly exclude each other ; all varieties of relationship may exist, from the closest concurrence to wide separation. When the two happen to coincide very nearly, or when the thing that fascinates the attention most, also coheres in the intellect best independently of this fascination, we have then the most effective combina¬ tion that can exist for producing a great genius. Through¬ out the exposition of the law of contiguity, there was assumed, in the first instance, a natural adhesiveness for each different species of objects ; and, in the second place, the efficacy of the emotions to inspire the attention. 21. Influence, of Feeling on Belief — In a subsequent chapter we shall have to enter fully into the nature of the state of mind denominated Belief. The full investigation of the subject would be premature in this place ; still it would be a great omission not to allude here in explicit terms to the property of swaying our convictions common to all kinds of strong emotion. The influence is of a mixed character. In the first place, it would arise in the ordinary action of the Will. A thing strongly desired, in other words, an object of intense pleasure, is pursued with corresponding urgency ; obstacles are made light of, they are disbelieved. We cannot easily be induced to credit the ill effects of a favourite dish. If I am right in my view of belief, it is strictly a phase of action ; to act strongly cannot be separated from believing strongly for the time. In the second place, the influence is farther connected with the power of the Feelings over the Trains of Thought, When we are under a strong emotion, all things discordant with it are kept out of sight. A strong volitional urgency will subdue an opposing consideration actually before the INFLUENCE ON BELIEF. mind ; but intense feeling so lords it over the intellectual trains that the opposing considerations are not even allowed to be present. One would think it were enough that the remote considerations should give way to the near and pressing ones, so that the ‘ video meliora ’ might still remain with the ‘ deteriora sequor but in truth the flood of emotion sometimes sweeps away for the moment every vestige of the opposing absent, as if that had at no time been a present reality. Our feelings not merely play the part of rebels or innovators against the canons of the past, they are like destroying Vandals, who efface and consume the records of what has been. In a state of strong excitement, no thoughts are allowed to present themselves except such as concur in the present mood ; the links of association are paralyzed as regards every¬ thing that conflicts with the ascendant influence ; and it is through this stoppage of the intellectual trains that we come into the predicament of renouncing, or, as it is called, dis¬ believing, for the moment, what we have formerly felt and acted on. Our feelings pervert our convictions by smiting us with intellectual blindness, which we need not have even when committing great imprudence in action. It depends upon many circumstances what intensity of emotion shall be required to produce this higher effect of keeping utterly back the faintest recollection of whatever discords with the reigning fury. The natural energy of the emotional temper on the one hand, and, on the other, the feebleness of the forces of effective resuscitation, conspire to falsify the views enter¬ tained at the moment. 22. Intense Pleasure or Pain, while inspiring the actions and influencing the intellectual acquisitions, also tells upou the judgment of truth and falsehood. The emotion of Terror proves the greatness of its power, by inducing the most ir¬ rational beliefs. In the extreme manifestations of Anger, a man will be suddenly struck blind to his most familiar ex¬ periences of fact, and will for the moment deny what at other times he would most resolutely maintain. Take also Self- complacency. The habitual dreamer is not instructed by a 26 OF FEELING IN GENERAL. thousand failures of pet projects ; he enters upon each new attempt as full of confidence as if all the rest had succeeded. We note with surprise, in everyday life, that an indivi¬ dual goes on promising to himself and to others, with sincere conviction, what he has never once been known to execute ; the feeling of self-confidence lords it over the experience of a life. He has not stated to himself in a proposition the conflicting experience. He does not know that he never ful¬ fils his purposes. So with the Affections that have others for their objects ; love’s blindness is the world’s oldest pro¬ verb. The falsehood, mistakes, confusion, and fatality grow¬ ing out of this property of the feelings, ramify in every province of affairs and every relation of human life. I speak not at present of the conscious lie — to that our illus¬ tration does not now extend. The perverted views of matters of common business, the superstructure of fable that envelopes the narration of the past, the incubus of superstition and blind faith, have their foundation and source in the power of emotion to bar out the impressions of reality. The deep-seated intellectual corruption due to the ascen¬ dancy of the Feelings has been a theme for reflecting minds to dilate upon, and yet wTe cannot say that it has been suffi¬ ciently set forth. The cloud of legend and fable, unhesita¬ tingly accepted for ages as the genuine history of foregone times, has only just begun to be dispersed. The pages of early Greek and Koman story had been filled with narra¬ tives relying solely on faith and feeling ; and the introduction of the canons of evidence appealed to in all matters of recent date, is felt as a cruel and remorseless operation, by which the keenest susceptibilities, and most favourite fancies, are cut to the quick. Warm emotion had bred and nursed those ancient stories ; and in an early uninquiring age, the realities of nature were set at naught by the very minds that had to face them as the experience of every hour ; such experience being unable to restrain the creations of an unbridled fancy, PERVERSION OF SCIENTIFIC TRUTH. or to check the reception given to the wildest tales and most extravagant inventions * In the sciences, the perverting influence of the feelings has been no less conspicuous. It is the nature of scientific truth to express with punctilious accuracy the order and sequences of the world, so that its statements shall hold good at all times and to all observers. The mind that is engaged in collecting the facts of nature for this purpose ought, so far as they are concerned, to he utterly devoid of emotional bias. Neither liking nor disliking, favouritism nor repulsion, should show any traces in the result ; the eye, cold and indifferent, should see nothing that cannot always be seen the same, and the mind should keep record in like manner. But this atti¬ tude of observing and generalizing the phenomena of the * See Grote’s History of Greece , Yol. I., Chapters 16 and 17, where the author, in entering at large into the mental tendencies determining the crea¬ tion and reception of the early Grecian legends, illustrates the principle set forth in the text. In an article in the Westminster Review, No. 77, tor May, 1843, the subject is taken up by the same hand. From that article I extract the following paragraph. ‘ Father Malebranche, in discussing the theory of morals, has observed, that our passions all justify themselves — that is, they suggest to us reasons for justifying them. He might, with equal justice, have remarked, and it is the point which we have sought to illustrate by the preceding remarks on the Byronian legends, that all our strong emotions, when shared in common by a circle of individuals, or a community, will not only sanctify fallacious reasonings, but also call into being, and stamp with credulity, abundance of narratives purely fictitious. Whether the feeling be religious, or political, or aesthetic — love, hatred, terror, gratitude, or admiration — it will find or break a way to expand and particularise itself in appropriate anecdotes ; it serves at once both as demand and supply ; it both emboldens the speaker to invent, and disposes the hearers to believe him without any further warrant. Such anecdotes are fiction from beginning to end, but they are specious and impressive fictions ; they boast no acknowledged parentage, but they are the adopted children of the whole community ; they are embraced with an intensity of conviction quite equivalent to the best authenticated facts. And let it be always recollected — we once more repeat — that they are radically distinct from half-truths or misreported matters of fact ; for upon this distinction will depend the different mode which we shall presentl) propose of dealing with them in reference to Grecian his¬ tory.’ 28 OF FEELING IN GENERAL. world is not natural to the human intellect, as the generations of actual men have been constituted. In primitive times, the scientific spirit had no existence ; the strong emotions always interfered with the observation of nature in everything but the matters of routine industry for supplying the wants of life. The representation of surrounding nature was left to the poet, or the religious seer, whose professed purpose it was to gratify, instead of suppressing, the prevailing tone of feeling. Even when cool accuracy was brought to bear on the examination of the order of the world, the progress was slow, as of a cause labouring under a heavy load of obstruction. Mechanical science has not been long constituted with philosophical rigour; the subjects of chemistry and physiology belong to the last and the present century. The first book of the ‘Novum Organum’ of Lord Bacon stands out distinguished among his remarkable writings as an almost singular expo¬ sure of the mental corruption wrought by the intrusion of the feelings in scientific speculation. The ‘ fallacies’ recog¬ nised by the logician are inadequate to characterise scientific errors, implying, as they do, little else than the feebleness, want of training, or other involuntary deficiency of the in¬ tellect. CRITERIA FOR INTERPRETING FEELING. 23. It belongs to the present subject to consider the indi¬ cations whereby the emotional states of individuals can be ascertained with some degree of definiteness and precision. To observe and estimate the different modes of human feel¬ ing, as they display themselves in actual life, is an indispen¬ sable portion of the task of an expositor of mind. Each man has the full and perfect knowledge of his own consciousness; but no living being can penetrate the con¬ sciousness of another. Hence there may be modes of feeling belonging to individual minds which can never be made known to mankind in general. Only such aspects of the consciousness as have some external characters to distin¬ guish them, can be recognised by fellow-beings. Even with INTERPRETATION OF FEELING. 29 those states that do distinctly manifest themselves by outward act or gesture, it must always be a doubtful point whether the same expression means precisely the same mental condi¬ tion in different individuals. But for our purposes, and for all purposes, two states of feeling must be held as identical when an identity exists between all the appearances, actions, and consequences that flow from, or accompany them. If there be any peculiar shade, tone, or colouring of emotion that has no outward sign or efficacy, such peculiarity is inscrutable to the inquirer. It is enough for us to lay hold of the out¬ ward manifestations, and to recognise all the distinctions that they bring to light. The various properties of feeling that we have been en¬ gaged in discussing are, each and all of them, criteria for dis¬ criminating individual feelings. The expressive gestures growing out of the diffusive stimulus, the volitional energies stimulated, the influences upon the intellectual trains, and the appearances that result from various combinations of these, are our means of judging of what is passing in the interior of the mind. When to these we apply our own consciousness as a medium of interpretation, we have done what the case admits of. Having lain on the watch for all the significant acts of another man’s mind, we refer to our own feelings, and endeavour to arrive at some one mode of consciousness in ourselves that would have exactly the same accompaniments. This is to us what the other man feels. In using any one class of external manifestations as our principal medium of interpretation, we require to check the reading by some of the other classes, and the more checks we employ, the surer is our result. Thus, if we refer to the emotional expression, properly so called, or to the various gesticulations prompted by the diffusive tendency, we are liable to err, owing to the circumstance that the same feeling (as evidenced by the signs) does not prompt a similar or equal display in different persons. We cannot, for example, esti¬ mate physical pain by expression alone ; neither do the same pleasures manifest themselves alike in the variety of human 30 OF FEELING IN GENERAL. characters. We must not, therefore, trust to outward demon¬ stration solely ; we must include also the resulting conduct. Looking to the power that a feeling has to stimulate the wTill either for conservation or for abatement, we can thereby cor¬ rect mistakes that we might be led into by trusting to the demonstrative aspect.' When we see a man strongly im¬ pelled to action by his feelings, we conclude that he feels strongly. If expression and volition concur, we are much more safe in any inference that we may draw. Still the ex¬ perience of the human constitution shows us that both the demonstrative apparatus and the volitional apparatus may work unequally under an identical stimulus of emotion, and other checks have still to be invoked. We might then refer to the modes of operation upon the intellect — the persistence, the effect upon belief, and so forth — by which we should approximate still more to the reality of the case. Another course of proceeding is open to us. The ambiguity of the demonstrative manifestation taken by itself, or of the volitional and intellectual effects viewed separately, is owing, as already said, to the fact that in some minds these effects are more strongly manifested than in others, when there is reason to believe that the conscious¬ ness is not much different. Now this must arise from a peculiarity of constitution, pervading the whole manifestations of the individual ; and means may be taken, once for all, to ascertain the degree and manner of it so as to make a proper allowance for it on every occasion. We have in fact to gather, by an inductive process, the demonstrative, volitional, or intellectual temperament of the person in question, and having arrived at this, we are in a position to give the true reading of any class of indications. We find some minds excessive in demonstration ; and, accordingly, we are not carried away by any violence of outburst on their part into the belief that they are necessarily suffering under violent emotion. In like manner there is such a thing as a tempera¬ ment active, or volitional, in the extreme, and a slight amount of emotion may give the rein to very energetic proceedings. STANDARD OF COMPARISON OF FEELINGS. 31 And although strong feelings impress themselves more on the intellect than weak ones, there are yet differences of quality in the intellectual constitutions of individuals, whereby a weak emotion in one will persist as tenaciously as a stronger in another. Likewise in that fatal power of obliteration of the past, through which the feelings pervert the view of the present, more resistance is offered, according as the intellec¬ tual training has been good ; and emotion in this case does not produce the full effects that would otherwise arise from it. 24. The thing to be desired in reality is to fix if possible upon some case wherein every one, as far as can be ascer¬ tained, feels almost alike ; and, using this as a standard, we can determine the peculiarities of individuals as regards these various points of character. It is difficult to say whether any good standard exists ; for, even with regard to the most common physical sensations, there may be great differences both in the degree and in the kind of susceptibility. The sweetness of sugar, the exhilaration of wine, the gratification of hunger, do not affect all persons alike. We are therefore at last reduced to the method of taking the average of a great number of cases. It is in this way that we form our judg¬ ment of demonstrative, volitional, or intellectual tempera¬ ments. By such a system of averages, we have the only means of discriminating between the general temperament and the energy of particular emotions. It is the difference between one expression and another, or between one volition and another, in the same individual, that is the surest criterion of intensity of feeling. 25. We obtain much of our knowledge of other men’s feelings by interrogating themselves as to their own ex¬ perience. There is in this case also a necessity for some standard, or common measure, between their consciousness and ours. The thing that a person can really do when interrogated as to Iris modes of feeling is to compare one of them with another ; he can tell us which of a number of tastes is to him the sweetest ; he cannot compare his con- 32 ON FEELING IN GENEEAL. sciousness with ours until something like a common measure has been set up between us. But for the purpose of declar¬ ing agreement or difference among the feelings of the same person, the plan of interrogation goes farther than any other method, inasmuch as there are many states of feeling that never attain to visible manifestation. Our not being able to question the inferior animals is one great disadvantage that we labour under with them ; another is the wide difference that separates them from us. Separation is our difficulty with our fellow-men ; it is owing to constitutional differences that we are debarred from interpreting at once their con¬ sciousness by our own — the short and easy method of un¬ tutored minds. Supposing that we are able to obtain a common standard between ourselves and those whose feelings we are endea¬ vouring to estimate, the leading precaution to be observed in dealing with the generality of mankind is, not to put too much reliance upon the accounts that may be given us of past, or remembered, states' of feeling. Any veracious person may be trusted to represent an emotion actually present, but there are few that have the power of representing faithfully on all occasions an emotion that exists only in the memory. REMAKKS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF EMOTIONS. 26. An emotional wave once roused tends to continue for a certain length of time. Both the physical tremor, and the mental consciousness, pass through the successive stages of rise, culmination, and subsidence. There is no one rule for regulating the course that is thus passed through, there being the greatest variety observable regarding it. In some tem¬ peraments the fury of excitement is intense for the moment, but quickly subsides. In others a feebler wave, lasting longer, is what we observe. Each constitution has a certain total of feeling which it can afford to keep up, and this may be expended either in violent gusts or in more tranquil per¬ sistence. The moral, usually drawn from the cycle, or successive PERIODICITY OF EMOTION. 3:> phases ot an emotional outburst; is to avoid the moment of culmination of a feeling that we have to oppose, and take it rather on the subsiding phase. 27. Another observation to be made, regarding the de¬ velopment of emotions, is their disposition to assume a certain periodicity, so that their return comes to be a matter of rule and prediction. This does not apply to all possible modes and varieties of human feeling ; still with reference to the more fundamental aspects of our emotional nature, there is good evidence for the remark. The recurrent craving of the bodily appetites — hunger, exercise, rest, &c. — extends to the affections, likings, or tastes, that seem to have no regard to mere bodily preservation. The feelings of tender affection have in all probability a tendencv to recur in the same manner as the sexual, or other appetites, and from a similar cause in the bodily organization. There being a well-marked glandular secretion associated with this emotion, we are subject to the alternations of ful¬ ness and discharge, and to corresponding moments of sus¬ ceptibility to the associated mental states. If this be the fact, the emotions in question will have a real, or natural, periodicity as distinguished from the still larger number of cases where the recurrence is determined by habit. Our regular gratifications are known to engender a periodical craving or susceptibility, almost of the nature of a physical want; but most of all such as are based upon the real or organic cycles, like those above mentioned. The alternation of exercise and repose, which gives a periodic character to the outward bodily life, extends to the inward depths of the mental life. Every emotion whatsoever both exercises and exhausts some one portion of the physical framework of mind. Certain circles of the brain, certain muscles and organic processes are involved in each case, and these are liable to weariness after a time, while by repose they become charged with new vigour. Hence every depart¬ ment that has been severely drawn upon, ceases to support its associated mental condition, and every department that c OF FEELING IN GENERAL. 34 has been long dormant is ready to burst forth on the appli¬ cation of the proper stimulus. We all know the delight of a feeling long restrained ; the dullest emotions can yield a moment of ecstasy when their strength has been allowed to accumulate, instead of being incessantly dribbled off. A very ordinary amount of affection for one’s native land rises to a fervid burst of delight on returning after years of absence. The feelings that are discharged from day to day are hardly appreciated from the smallness of the amount, but the slender current dammed up for weeks or months rises at last to a mighty overflowing. Some of the intensest moments of pleasure ever enjoyed by man are preceded and prepared by long privation ; they are exceeded only by the sudden relief from some lasting pain. (Some additional observations on the laws of Feeling in general are given in the Appendix, A.) CHAPTER II. THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION. 1. mHE Emotions, as compared with the Sensations, are secondary, derived, or compound feelings. The emotion of wonder, for example, inspired by a human being of gigantic size, is the result of a comparison of the present impression on the sight with our recollected impressions of ordinary men and women. The coalescence of sensations and ideas, involved in an emotion, may assume various aspects. The simplest case is a plurality of sensations in the same sense, or in different senses, in mutual harmony or in mutual conflict ; such are the pleasures of concord or harmony in the one case, and the pains of discord or distraction in the other. In many instances, r the harmony or discord is between something present and some past recalled by it ; as in Wonder, the feeling of Contra¬ diction, and in discoveries of Identification. A second mode is the transfer of feelings to things that do not of themselves excite them ; as in the instances of the Sublime and the Beautiful by association. A third mode, very extensive in its operation, is the coalition of a number of separate feelings into one aggregate or whole ; as in the Tender Emotion, Sexual Love, the Irascible Emotion, and the Moral Senti¬ ment ; the fusion of elements in these cases being such as to make them appear simple feelings, until analysis shows them to be compound. The sentiment of Property is a remarkable case of aggregate feelings ; in its form of the pleasure of Money there is also a transference or derivation. If the foregoing statement be correct, the theory of 36 THE EMOTIONS AND TIIEIR CLASSIFICATION. Emotion will consist in the statement of the general laws that regulate the concurrence, coalition, transfer, or aggrega¬ tion of the primary feelings' — the Muscular states and the Sensations ; and the analysis of the several Emotions will he the account of the component feelings in each, and the mode ! of their composition under some of these general laws. Now in addition to the adhesive property of Contiguous Associa¬ tion, two great principles operate in the concurrence of different feelings : — the Law of Harmony and Conflict, and the Law of Relativity. I will, therefore, begin by stating and illustrating these two laws, in which illustration several species of emotion will rise at once to the view, and receive their appropriate handling. I will then enumerate the re¬ maining species in the order that seems most natural ; and, in the detailed explanation, it will be seen how far the origin of each can be accounted for in the manner now supposed. 2. In the endeavour to classify the Emotions, a knowledge of the origin and composition of each variety, so far as attainable, is an important clue to their distinctive characteristics, but does not supersede a reference to our own direct consciousness of them, and our observation of tlieir workings in other beings. We must proceed on the golden rule of classification, which is to bring together under one head such as agree in the greatest number of important characteristics, and to keep apart such as most widely differ on points of importance. There are a few well marked genera that have always been recognised, for example, Love, Anger, Fear; and there are some, as Beauty and the Moral Sentiment, that have been erroneously considered as ultimate and irresolvable sensibilities or feelings. 3. I. We will begin with the Law of Harmony and Conflict. The principle that Harmony is connected with Pleasure, and Conflict with Pain, is probably an offshoot of the Law of Self-Conservation. II. There are certain emotions essentially depending on The Law of Relativity. Such are Novelty, Wonder, and the feeling of Liberty. These are all purely relative to certain TENDEKNESS. — SELF-COMI,L^CENCY. 37 other states that go before ; Novelty and Wonder presuppose the ordinary, or the common; Liberty implies foregone re¬ straint. The emotion of Power also subsists upon comparison with some allied state of impotence. III. The emotion of Terror is a wide-spreading influence in human life. The revulsion from suffering implied in our volitional nature, instead of producing always the simple effect of inspiring actions for relieving the pain, not unfrequently excites a convulsive trepidation of the whole system, accom¬ panied -with a new state of suffering, and with other important consequences. This special outgoing belongs to certain modes of pain rather than to others ; and all sentient beings are subject to the condition although in very unequal degrees. As a general rule, the susceptibility to terror is a weakness and an evil, and the consideration of the means of avoiding or subduing it is of great practical moment. IV. The extensive group of feelings implied under the title of the Tender Affections constitute a well-marked order or genus of emotion. Being principally manifested towards living beings, their first development in the child comes with the recognition of personality. When they are once made to flow freely, human attachments begin to be formed ; and a considerable portion of the pleasure of life springs from this fountain-head. If it were permitted to writers on the human mind to advert specifically to the feelings of the sexual relations, these would find an appropriate place anterior to the present divi¬ sion. Y. When a human being recognises or imagines in him¬ self the qualities that draw forth admiration, love, reverence, esteem, when seen in others, he is affected by a peculiar kind of emotion, which passes current under such names as Self- complacency, Self-gratulation, Self-esteem. I am disposed to think that there is here only a special offshoot or diversion of the tender sensibility. A still further emotional effect is produced by being the subject of the admiration or esteem of our fellows, which is 38 THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION. commonly denominated by the phrases Approbation, Praise, Glory, Reputation, and the like. VI. The elation of superior Power is a very marked and widely ramifying sentiment of our constitution : implying as its correlative, the depression of Impotence, inferiority, and in¬ significance. VII. The Irascible Emotion is a notable attribute of our humanity, the peculiar characteristic of which is the pleasure arising from malevolent action and sentiment. VIII. Under Action there are certain distinct modes of feeling to be mentioned, as contributing largely to the interest of life. Besides the pleasures and pains of Exercise, and the gratification of succeeding in an End, with the opposite mor¬ tification of missing what is laboured for, there is in the attitude of Pursuit a peculiar state of mind, so far agreeable in itself, that factitious occupations are instituted to bring it into play. When I use the term Plot-interest, the cha¬ racter of the situation alluded to will be suggested with to¬ lerable distinctness. IX. The Exercise of the Intellect gives birth to certain species of emotions which it is interesting to study. The routine operations sustained by mere contiguity evolve no feeling ; the more perfect the intellectual habits, the less con¬ sciousness is associated with them. A practised accountant approaches to a calculating machine. Bat in the operation of the Law of Similarity, where new identifications are struck out, there is an emotion of agreeable surprise accompanying the flash. Hence, although routine is unconscious, originality is intensely stimulating. Part of the pleasure of works of genius proceeds from this effect, and we shall see in it one of the rewards of intellectual pursuit. Under the same head is to be reckoned the very charac¬ teristic pain produced by Inconsistency, on the susceptibility to which temperaments differ greatly. The genuine love of Truth is greatly fostered by the desire of escaping from con¬ tradictions. X. The foregoing classes have in them each a certain T11E MORAL SENSE 39 unity and distinctness as respects their origin in the human constitution. The next class is one that has been very com¬ monly regarded as a unity in the investigations of philoso¬ phers. I mean the emotions of Fine Art, expressed by the single term Beauty, or the Beautiful. There is doubtless a strong individuality in the feeling that mankind have agreed to designate by the common phrase, ‘ the feeling of beauty,’ but this community of character implies little more than a pleasurable sentiment. If we take the productions of Fine Art, and examine the sources of the delight that they give tis, we shall find a very great variety of species, notwithstand¬ ing the generic likeness implied in classifying them to¬ gether. M any of our simple sensations, and many of the feelings belonging to the different heads just enumerated, are brought into play by artistic compositions. XI. The Moral Sense in man, like the sense of beauty, has been very generally looked upon as one and indivisible. But whether we search into the roots of this sentiment in human nature, or survey the field of outward objects embraced by it, I feel satisfied that we shall discern various kinds of influence at work. The generic peculiarity that circumscribes the moral sentiment is the fact termed moral obligation, or duty, the precise nature of which we are called upon to define. The feelings concerned in right or wrong are not only capable of acting on the will like many other feelings, but they are required to have a paramount force in the case of a conflict ; and wdien this superiority of volitional stimulus does not exist in the individual mind, we supply the defect by stimulants from without, namely, the sanctions, or punish¬ ment, of society. 4. A very natural remark may occur on the perusal of the above scheme, which is, that the vital distinction of Pleasure and Pain is nowhere apparent as constituting a line of demarcation. The answer is, that this distinction pervades all the feelings of the mind — Sensations and Emotions ; it enters into the species and individuals of every class. Both pleasures and pains are contained in each one of 40 THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION. the eleven families now enumerated, just as the natural orders of plants may each contain food and poison, sweet aromas and nauseating stinks.'* In constituting our natural families, we endeavour to bring together species that have the greatest number of points of resemblance, instead of sinking nearness of kindred in some one distinction that happens to have a great practical interest. Accordingly, I shall treat our pleasures and pains as species arising in the different orders or families as we have set them forth. Inas¬ much as suffering treads always on the heels of delight, and each kind of sweet has its cognate bitter, it would be divorcing the closest relationship to partition the human feelings into pleasures and pains as the primary division of the whole. (For remarks on the principles and modes of classifying the Emotions, see Appendix, B.) * To take an instance or two. The natural order solcmecc includes both the wholesome potato, and the deadly nightshade ; celery and hemlock are members of the order of mnbelliferce ; and the genus orchis contains, with species distinguished for fragrance, one of the most fetid plants in nature (orchis feetido). CHAPTER TIL LAW OF HARMONY AND CONFLICT. 1. TATE are constantly liable to a plurality of impressions ’ " — whether sensations or ideas ; sometimes these are harmonising or mutually supporting ; at other times they pull, as it were, in opposite ways. The one position is attended with pleasure, the other with pain. Artistic har¬ monies and discords, success and failure in pursuit, sympathy and hostility, consistency and inconsistency in matters of truth and falsehood — come under this general head. 2. We may, with great probability, suppose that the phy¬ sical basis of the situation is made up of conspiring nerve currents on the one hand, and of conflicting currents on the other. The nervous energy is economised in the first case, and, in the second, wasted. According to the Law of Self- Conservation, there would be a corresponding opposition in the mental effects. Two concurring stimulants, in them¬ selves agreeable, must become more so, when pointing to a common attitude, and thereby rendering mutual support. 3. Whether or not this be the true account of the physi¬ cal situation, harmonising impressions are a source of plea-i surable elation, great or little, acute or massive, according to the circumstances. Devoid of any marked or characteristic peculiarity of consciousness, such as belongs to the muscular feelings and the sensations of the five senses, we may describe it as a general exhilaration of mental tone, like the effect of a / stimulant. There is, for the time, a real increase of vital energy, as is proved by the increased capabilities of the in¬ dividual, bodily and mental. 42 LAW OF HAKMONY AND CONFLICT. 4. Equally well marked are the pains of Conflict. Discordant impulses, while enfeebling the vitality, depress the mental tone in the same manner as exhaustion of the nervous system. In some instances, the pain is highly acute, as in the jarring of discords to a musical ear ; in others there is a general de¬ pression, as in the failure of an enterprise. The physical influence of the shock may be so great as to occasion nervous derangement, and accompanying neuralgic aches. The situations of harmony and conflict will often appear in the detail of the various emotions. The ^Esthetic Harmonies are treated of in the Fine Art Emotions. The pleasures of successful, and the pains of unsuccessful Pursuit come under the Emotions of Action. A separate chapter is devoted to the workings of Sympathy. Consistency and Inconsistency in truth and falsehood give rise to emotions that are related to the exercise of the Intellect. In the following chapter, the general situations will be farther illustrated in conjunction with another comprehen¬ sive law of our constitution — the law of Pelativity. CHAPTER IV. EMOTIONS OF RELATIVITY. 1. HPHE fact or property expressed under the Law of Univer- •*- sal Relativity, besides being the basis of all conscious¬ ness whatever, developes itself in certain specific emotional states, which are also more or less connected with the situa¬ tions of harmony and conflict just described. The emotion called the pleasure of Novelty, and the closely-connected emotion of Wonder, are pure instances of Relativity. Also, the feelings of Power and Impotence, of Liberty and Restraint, are correlated pairs. 2. The Objects of the Emotion of Novelty are as well un¬ derstood as any definition could make them. No one needs to be told the difference between the stale and the fresh in sensation, between what has tired us by repetition, and what has come upon us for the first time. 3. The Physical circumstance accompanying the mental fact of agreeable novelty, is doubtless the change in the locality of the nervous action — one set of fibres and cells relapsing after excitement, into comparative quiescence, and another set, formerly quiescent, commencing to operate. The alternation may extend to the organs of the senses, and to the muscles. That pleasure should arise from varying the parts and organs stimulated, is a necessary consequence of the fact that stimu¬ lation is pleasurable. 4. As to the Emotion itself, we may pronounce it a pleasure, considerable in degree, often rising to charm and fascination. Change of impression being the condition alike of feeling, and of knowledge or intellect, the pleasure of No- 44 EMOTIONS OF RELATIVITY. velty is mixed up with the acquisition of knowledge, and is hence called an intellectual pleasure. It is a leading induce¬ ment to intellectual labour, as well as to many other kinds of exertion and adventure. This pleasure is, in fact, the primitive charm of all sensa¬ tion, before it has been dulled by continuance and satiety. The first thrill of the virgin fibres of the brain, gives the utmost pitch of attainable delight. It is only by long- intervals of remission, that we approach to the same state afterwards. The counter pain of Monotony is a species of weariness, arising from certain parts being fatigued, while others are never called into play. The uneasiness is aggravated by the desire of enjoyments formerly known and now withheld. 5. In illustrating the species of the Emotion of Novelty, we may allude first to the simple Sensations, as tastes, odours, sounds, &c. Such of these as are in their nature pleasing, are, in the first experience, pre-eminently so. The youthful initia¬ tion into the various pleasures of sense — as, for example, stomachic relishes, and alcoholic stimulants — is a time of high enjoyment. The new emotions of puberty are at their maxi¬ mum on newly bursting forth. The first thrill of a success is never reproduced in the same degree. The primary sensations are speedily gone through, and fall into the ordinary routine of pleasures, which by being re¬ mitted or alternated, continue to afford a certain measure of delight. The charm of novelty then belongs only to new and varied combinations, and in that form it may be sustained, although with decreasing force, to the end of life. New scenes, new objects, new persons, and new aspects of life, con¬ stitute the attractions of travel. Novelty in incidents and events, is furnished by the ongoings of life, and by the pages of story. Inventions in the Arts, and discoveries in Science, have the initial charm of novelty, as well as the interest of permanent utility. In Fine Art, whose end is pleasure, the powerful effects of novelty are earnestly invoked ; pleasurable surprises are expected of the artist in every department NOVELTY. 45 beauty must be enhanced by originality : and the passion for chancre, uncontrolled, leads in the end to decadence. Last of all, in Fashion, Novelty is supreme. Throughout the whole, but one rule prevails ; other things the same, the greater the novelty, the greater the pleasure. 6. Nevt to Novelty is Variety, alternation or change. Be¬ sides catering for the new, we can find gratification in varying the old. Stimulants tend to recover their efficacy after being for a time in abeyance ; and by a long interval of suspension, we may even come near the pristine charm. Our happiness must rely mainly on the rotation of familiar pleasures ; some of us enjoying but a small round, others a large. It is tire proof of our aptitude for a particular form of delight that it can be long sustained, and easily refreshed ; but the demand for remission is absolute. It is needless to enter into the details illustrative of this phase of the Law of Relativity. The summary above given for pure Novelty, applies also to Variety. After due intervals, we can go back upon the same work of Art, time after time, with little diminution of zest. 7. The emotion of Wonder likewise derives its essential character from Relativity. It is, however, something more than mere novelty, or change. The Wonderful is whatever startles us by deviating from its kind, something that rises above, or falls beneath, what we have been accustomed to. The dweller in provincial towns finds the metropolis wonderful. St. Peter’s and the Falls of Niagara are wonderful. These are on the side of greatness. An unusually stupid man, a superior force allowing itself to be defeated, are wonderful on the side of littleness. The correlative state to Wonder is the Common, customary, ordinary, or average standard of the class ; the opposition or conflict of the two leads to a shock of Surprise. 8. Thus, while Wonder is an emotion of Contrast or Relativity, it is besides an emotion of Conflict, the suddenness of which makes the stimulation more lively. As a general rule, Conflict brings pain ; and, in many instances, wonder, 46 EMOTIONS OF RELATIVITY. astonishment, and surprise are names for painful disappoint¬ ment. When baulked in any fond expectation, we are apt to signify our astonishment, but the direct mode of describing the state is some expression of pain or acute distress. On the other hand, an unexpected piece of good fortune, giving at first the painful shock of a momentary collision, is followed by a more acute pleasure through the excitement of the conflict. Yet it is known that persons have died from being suddenly made rich, the violence of the transition being more than could be redeemed by the genial effects of joy. 9. It is not, however, in these examples that the dis¬ tinctive features of the Wonderful are to be seen. We must inquire into the circumstances rendering it, like novelty, one of the aesthetic pleasures. We then discover it to consist of things occurring in nature, in life, or in history, such as to surpass the ordinary routine of our experience. The Ad¬ mirable is the aesthetic wonderful. In our habitual immersion in things stale, insipid, and commonplace, we seek in the first instance for novelty, and next for the additional seasoning of the Marvellous.* With all this variety in the forms of Wonder, there can he no common Physical Embodiment. Painful astonishment is accom¬ panied with loss of nervous power and outward collapse ; pleasurable surprise is an acute stimulant like all sudden pleasures ; the elated tone of Admiration supposes the accession of a favour¬ able stimulus, perhaps best studied in the emotion of the Sublime. When a thing falls below its kind, the spectacle is depressing in the first instance, but we often console ourselves by contempt, or by ridicule. 10. The characteristic feature of Wonder is thus an elation of tone connected with the spectacle or contemplation of superior qualities, whether natural grandeur or human ex- * Among the various meanings of Wonder, we find some illustrating the transitive application of words. Thus it sometimes expresses mere ignorance and uncertainty with the desire of being informed: we wonder who was the author of Junius. Again, it indicates the interest of a plot: we wonder how a story is to end. WONDER. 47 cellence. It supposes us already to appreciate those qualities and to know their indications ; in regarding them, we feel, as it were, raised towards their high level, and rejoice in the conscious elevation. The pleasure is one of considerable value in human life. 11. The every-day wonders are chiefly manifestations of power. The acrobat and the rider in the circus astonish by their feats of muscular strength. The singer and the actor inspire us with admiration of their rare gifts while imparting the peculiar charm of their art. Every man that can impress us in a more than ordinary degree is looked at with a feeling of wonder. Small causes producing great effects are tokens of power and occasions of wonder, — a spark exploding a mine, a few strokes of a pen convulsing the world. The emotion of Wonder as thus defined does not essentially differ from what is termed the sentiment of the Sublime. 12. In matters of truth and falsehood, wonder is one of the corrupting emotions. The narrations of matter of fact are constantly perverted by it ; while in science Bacon might have enrolled it among his ‘ idola.’ * * ’The love of the marvellous is remarkable for its influence in corrupt¬ ing our faculties in the search after natural truth. From the fascination and stimulus of this class of objects they are purposely brought together in romantic and other compositions intended for agreeable excitement. What is familiar, ordinary, common, being apt to lose its interest and become stale, we take delight in encountering what is extraordinary, startling, and opposite to our usual experience. The stars cease to arrest our gaze, but a meteor flashing across the sky draws every eye upon its course. The sun and moon become objects of intense interest when in the rare and striking situation of an eclipse. Events either strongly contrasting with the usual run of things, or rising far above ordinary in magnitude, grandeur, or imposing effect, are the seasoning of life’s dulness. To see, and afterwards to relate, uncommon occurrences and objects at variance with all experience, is delightful to wise and ignorant alike; but to rude ages and uncultivated minds, novelties, rarities, and marvels are especially agreeable. ‘ Now this itch for marvels is very apt to interfere with the cool observa¬ tion of facts, and still more with the record and narration of them to others. Of course in phenomena of a rare and striking kind the difficulty of avoiding exaggeration is increased. In such things as earthquakes, meteors, eclipses, and rare and extraordinary productions, none but a highly-disciplined mind 48 EMOTIONS OF RELATIVITY. Carlyle has uttered a lament over the decay of wonder following on the scientific explanation of the world* But it is capable of giving unvarnished statements to others, or forming an accurate conception to itself. ‘ There are two subjects where the love of the marvellous has especially retarded the progress of correct knowledge — the manners of foreign countries, and the instincts of the brute creation. To exaggerate and make known signs and wonders is the standing vice of travellers, even when they do not absolutely manufacture fictions. The early travellers, going abroad with the notions of superstitious ages, and with little discipline in the arts of observa¬ tion and correct writing, could in general be so little trusted that the cautious part of the public looked with suspicion upon marvellous statements in general, and in some instances discredited what was actually true. The greatest traveller of antiquity, and the earliest accurate historian (Herodotus) repeatedly and expressly refrains from mentioning what he saw from antici¬ pating the incredulity of his readers, who, while delighting in certain kinds of the marvellous, might bring into play another instinct of uncultivated human nature — namely, the tendency to measure the whole world by the narrow standard of their own limited experience. ‘ It is extremely difficult to obtain true observations of the instincts of animals from the disposition to make them subjects of marvel and astonish¬ ment. Many people take delight in storing up tales of the extraordinary sagacity of dogs, cats, horses, birds, &c. in doing things quite incomprehen¬ sible and inexplicable on any law of nature whatsoever. It is nearly as impossible to acquire a knowledge of animals from popular stories and anecdotes, as it would be to obtain a knowledge of human nature from the narratives of parental fondness and friendly partiality.’ — What is Philosophy ? Chambers's Papers for the People, No. 92. * ‘ You remember that fancy of Aristotle’s, of a man who had grown to maturity in some dark distance, and was brought on a sudden into the upper air to see the sun rise. What would his wonder be, says the Philosopher, his rapt astonishment at the sight we daily witness with indifference ! With the free open sense of a child, yet with the ripe faculty of a man, his whole heart would be kindled by that sight, he would discern it well to be Godlike, his soul would fall down in worship before it. Now, just such a childlike greatness was in the primitive nations. The first Pagan Thinker among rude men, the first man that began to think, was precisely the child-man of Aristotle. Simple, open as a child, yet with the depth and strength of a man. Nature had as yet no name to him ; he had not yet united under a name the infinite variety of sights, sounds, shapes, and motions, which we now collec¬ tively name Universe, Nature, or the like — and so with a name dismiss it from us. To the wild deep-hearted man all was yet new, unveiled under names or formulas; it stood naked, flashing in on him there, beautiful, awful, unspeakable. Nature was to this man what to the Thinker and Prophet it for ever is, jwefcrnatural. This green, flowery, rock-built earth, the trees, FREEDOM AND RESTRAINT. 49 is the nature of all changes of view to abolish some emotions and substitute others in their stead, which to minds partial to the old is always felt as depravation. The discovery of uniform laws makes wonder to cease in one way by showing that nothing in nature is singular or exceptional ; but even out of this very circumstance the scientific expositor will often find out new matter of surprise. How the same force can produce effects very unlike and far removed from one another is an impressive theme in the mouth of Faraday. Indeed, the ‘ wonders of science ’ have in our day come into rivalry with the marvels of fiction. It is, nevertheless, the case that science and extended study naturally bring a man more or less to the position of ‘ nil admirari,’ depriving him of the stimulating emotion bred of inexperience. Even the unexplained phenomena can be looked at with composure by the philosophic mind. 13. Let us next advert to the Emotions of Freedom and Restraint, which involve both Conflict and Relativity. To commence with Restraint. This appears at the first glance a pure case of conflict. When we are checked in any of our impulses, we suffer all the distress and depression of opposing forces within. The active spontaneity repressed, the mountains, rivers, many-sounding seas ; that great deep sea of azure that swims overhead; the winds sweeping through it; the black cloud fashioning itself together, now pouring out fire, now hail and rain : what is it ? Ay, what ? At bottom we do not yet know ; we can never know at all. It is not by our superior insight that we escape the difficulty ; it is by our superior levity, our inattention, our want of insight. It is not by thinking that wo cease to wonder at it. Hardened round us, encasing wholly every notion we form, is a wrappage of traditions, hearsays, mere words. We call that fire of the black thunder-cloud * electricity,’ and lecture learnedly about it, and grind the like of it out of glass and silk ; but what is it ? Whence comes it ? Whither goes it ? Science has done much for us ; but it is a poor science that would hide from us the great, deep, sacred infinitude of Nescience, whither we can never penetrate, on which all science swims as a mere super¬ ficial film. This world, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle ; wonderful, inscrutable, magical and more, to whosoever will think of it. — Lectures on Heroes, p. 10. D 50 EMOTIONS OF RELATIVITY. the free vent of emotional diffusion arrested, the voluntary movements opposed, the aims and wishes thwarted — are cases of intestine conflict, and are painful according to the energy- neutralized, which measures the waste of nervous power. It is an aggravation of the pain of Restraint that sudden opposition is a stimulant, and evokes new power ; thus rendering the conflict still more exhausting, if the obstacle is not thrown down. The operation of the principle of Relativity on the position of restraint is interesting to study. In the first place, a prompting steadily thwarted, may at last cease to be generated. The system is perpetually adjust¬ ing itself to new impulses (another way of stating the law of Relativity), and in long-continued conflicts the weaker, as it were, gives up the struggle. The process of suppression may be a work of time ; and there may be impulses that, however opposed, are never quashed ; but the general law still holds good ; and to it we refer the great fact of our becoming re¬ conciled to inevitable destiny. 14. The second application of the law of Relativity to the condition of Restraint is to give origin and meaning to the counter state of Treedom. Freedom is the deliverance from a foregone bondage, the loosening of a restraint, the cessation of a conflict. The joyous outburst of feeling on the release from some great bondage is not simply the restoring of the position antecedent to the bondage. It is a state determined by the I emergence from a painful restraint. The system was in the process of becoming reconciled to a lessened standard, without altogether forgetting the previous condition ; and now there is a sudden giving way of opposition currents, and enlarge¬ ment of the vital energy, which (on the law of Relativity) is the condition of a lively and pleasurable consciousness. If the subject of the restraint continues to kick at his bonds, and to oppose nature’s efforts at adjustment, deliverance is merely the remission of the conflict and the restoration of the previous state. And if, in the other extreme, a restraint power and impotence. 51 has been so long kept up, and so thoroughly acquiesced in, that the antecedent state is effaced from the mind, freedom brings no joyous rebound to the slave. This fact was singularly exemplified in the overthrow of the Bastille ; many of the poor wretches, moulded by long confinement, failed to realize the enlargement of libertv. It is a circum- stance of great moral and political import, that men can become accustomed to servitude beyond even the wish for change. The pleasure of Liberty is thus not merely relative to fore¬ gone restraint, but is also dependent on the way that the restraint has operated. The intensity of the pleasure will be according to the amount of vital energy released, and suddenly bursting forth ; by the law of conservation, every such rise is accompanied with an elated mental consciousness. With the stirring name of Liberty, we associate effects far beyond the thrilling moment of actual emancipation. It is in the power to work out our own pleasures in our own way, that we obtain, or think we obtain, our greatest happiness : and those that are fortunate to enjoy much of this privilege, are perpetually made conscious of it, by knowing what it is to be restrained, and by seeing the restraints of others. 15. The emotions of Power and Impotence, like the fore¬ going, depend on transition or contrast, in other words, Rela¬ tivity. A rise in the consciousness of our own might or ;■ energy, is attended with elation of mind, a fall brings depres¬ sion ; an even continuance of the same state is indifferent. Any circumstance occurring to reflect or illustrate our superiority, as success in a competition, gives a thrill of satis¬ faction ; the unsuccessful are correspondingly mortified and depressed. The physical circumstance of these emotions must still be considered as an increase or diminution of vital or nervous energy, in accordance with the Law of Conservation. The situation of Power has much in common with Liberty ; / restraint or opposition so far as it extends, and is successful, is tantamount to impotence. But power has a wider range ; 52 EMOTIONS OF RELATIVITY. bodily and mental energy, high command, leadership, wealth, are not fully expressed by mere liberty. This emotion is of sufficient importance to receive a de¬ tailed illustration, which will be given in a succeeding chapter. In the two preceding chapters, I have adverted to the two great laws that pervade the composition of the Emotions generally ; these, together with the law of Contiguous Associa¬ tion, will frequently appear in our analysis of the remaining species. CHAPTER V. EMOTION OF TERROR. 1. rnHE emotion of Terror originates in the apprehension of coming evil. Its characters are — a peculiar form of pain or misery ; the prostration of the active energies ; and the excessive hold of certain ideas on the mind. Adverting first to the object, or cause, of the emotion — the apprehension of coming evil — we may remark that it is doubtful liow far present or actual pain, uncoupled with anticipation, can give rise to the state of fear. Nothing surpasses in efficacy a present smart viewed as the foretaste of a greater infliction to follow ; but this is apprehension in its most impressive form. The apprehension may arise under a variety of circum¬ stances. In the first place, there may be the prospect of known and certain evil, as when a penalty has been incurred, a painful operation decided on, or some loss or privation an¬ nounced. The mere idea of suffering brings depression, but when accompanied with belief in an approaching reality, the idea acquires both intensity and persistence. Unavailing volitions and desires make it all the more distracting and engrossing. A second case is when the giving way of a support leaves us to uncertain dangers, or evil possibilities, as in the partial reverses of a campaign, or in the desertion of allies. Here it is not certain mischief on the wing, but an abatement of the state of security, which is accompanied with a painful and haunting impression. The condition of security or confidence may be represented as a balance of good against evil, the first 54 EMOTION OF TERROR. preponderating ; a sudden withdrawal on the side of good gives an unhinging shock, which must depress the mental tone, and fasten attention on the cause. i\ ny new form of danger, as an epidemic, operates in this way. Whenever we are plunged into uncertainty, darkness, or strangeness, we come under the liability now described. A habitual state of ignorance has not the same effect ; the power of adjustment, implied under the Law of Relativity, accomo¬ dates us to the permanent. Fear has to do with ‘ new monsters,’ — grave ne rediret Seculum Pyrrhse nova monstra quest® — 2. We will now consider expressly the physical side of Terror. No passion is more marked in outward display. The great fact pervading all the manifestations is a sudden transfer of nervous energy. Power is withdrawn from the general system to he unduly concentrated in the organs of perception, on a particular class of ideas, and in the move¬ ments corresponding to these. Accordingly, the appearances may be distributed between effects of relaxation and effects of tension. The relaxation is seen, as regards the Muscles, in the dropping of the jaw, in the collapse overtaking all organs not specially excited, in tremblings of the lips and other parts, and in the loosening of the sphincters. Next as regards the Organic Processes and Viscera. The Digestion is everywhere weakened; the flow of saliva is checked,* the gastric secretion arrested (appetite failing), the bowels deranged. The Expiration is enfeebled. The heart and Circulation are disturbed ; there is either a flushing of * This circumstance is the foundation of the custom in India of subjecting suspected criminals to the ordeal of the morsel of rice. The accused is made to take a mouthful of rice, and after a little to throw it out. If the morsel is quite dry, the party is believed to he guilty — his own evif conscience operating to paralyse the salivating organs. It is needless to observe that this would he an effect of fear which, like blushing, might overtake an in¬ nocent as well as a guilty person under such an ordeal. PHYSICAL ACCOMPANIMENTS. 55 the face, or a deadly pallor. The skin shows symptoms of derangement — the cold sweat, the altered odour of the perspiration, the creeping action that -lifts the hair. The kidneys are directly or indirectly affected. The sexual organs feel the depressing influence. The secretion of milk in the mother’s breasts is vitiated. The increased tension is shown in the stare of the eye and the raising of the scalp (by the occipito -frontalis muscle), in the inflatijn of the nostril, the shrill cry, the violent movements of protection or flight. The stare of the eye is to be taken as an exaggerated fixing of the attention on the dreaded object ; and there concurs with it an equally intense occupation of the thoughts in the same exclusive direction. Whatever movements of expression, or of volition, are sug¬ gested by these thoughts, have a similar intensity. 3. If we wish to account physically for this diversion of the vital energies under a stroke of terror, we must look to the circumstance of sudden deprivation of nervous power at one point, which may not unnaturally, from our experience of the human system, lead to undue excitement there, at the expense of other parts. But in the obscurity of the subject, we can do little beyond offering a plausible conjecture. That such a physical condition of combined relaxation and tension, proceeding upon loss of nervous energy, should be accompanied with intense mental depression, is in accordance with the great law of Self-conservation. We saw ( Instincts , § 20) what are the organs that, in their altered vitality, most powerfully affect the mental tone ; namely, the digestion, the skin, and other glandular organs ; while in mere muscular excitement there may be little or no pleasure. Now in the case of Terror, the sensitive viscera are all suddenly deprived of nervous stimulus and blood ; and, on the other hand, the augmentation of energy is intellectual and muscular, which is no atonement for organic depression. 4. Let us next advert in detail to the mental side of the emotion. Considered as Feeling, we can only repeat that it is painful in quality, and in degree a mass of misery, which we 56 EMOTION OF TERROR. can in some degree estimate by the amount of pleasure or hap¬ piness that a shock of fright can destroy or submerge. 5. As regards Volition, the important circumstance is the great defalcation of energy for active exertion, except in the one direction where it is morbidly concentrated. It is matter of notoriety that fear cows the spirit of men, paralyzing their power of action. Panic in the field is defeat. Fear, as some¬ thing apart from the mere infliction of pain, is of old the engine of domination, temporal and spiritual. 6. The relations of fear to the Intellect are of special moment. The power diverted from the organic functions flows towards the perceptive powers and the intellectual trains. Hence the extraordinary impressiveness of objects of alarm. One of the effects of acute pain in general is to quicken the memory. The whipping of boys at boundary lines was intended to in¬ grain the remembrance of the landmarks. But the perturba¬ tion of fright, in its excitement of the perceptive powers, makes a more indelible stamp than even an acute bodily infliction. An instance came within my knowledge of a person whose house had taken fire, and who was ever afterwards preter- naturally sensitive to the odour of burning wood. It is in Pear, that we see the extreme case of the f fixed idea,’ or the influence of the feelings upon the conduct, through the medium of the intellectual trains. It is not the regular action of the will, leading us from pain and to pleasure, on the whole, but the action following from the engrossing persistence of an idea, that blinds the view to consequences generally, and overturns all rational calculation. When a man is thoroughly terrified, his intellect is no longer at his command. The minor forms of fear, expressed by anxiety, watchfulness, care, use up the powers of thought, and ex¬ clude all impressions of a foreign nature. The poor man whose daily bread is in constant uncertainty, the mother of numerous children, the trader deep in speculations, are unapt subjects for liberal culture or enlarged mental ac¬ quisitions. The influence of Fear on Belief follows from its character- THE LOWER ANIMALS. — CHILDREN. 57 istics, as a depressing passion, and as engrossing the intellectual view. Mental depression, however arising, is exaggerated distrust of good and anticipation of evil ; and an idea that cannot he shaken off, is believed for the time to be the true representation of the facts. 7. We pass now to the consideration of the forms, or Species, of the emotion of Terror. The lower Animals furnish some salient illustrations of the working of this feeling. Numerous tribes are characterized by timidity as a part of their nature, while others present a contrast equally illustrative. The panic and the flight induced, by a very small demonstration, upon the feathered multitude, the awe impressed upon the most powerfid of the quadrupeds by the touch of a whip or a commanding tone of voice, show how completely the exaggerations of fear can take possession of the animal mind. The mental system of such creatures is discomposed, and the diversion and discharge of the nervous currents brought about, by the slightest influences. To their weak and limited understanding every strange or sudden appearance rouses the state of apprehension ; and it is only in select instances that this can be overcome by arti¬ ficial means. The taming of birds and quadrupeds consists in part in conquering the dread of the human presence. The susceptibility to panic is perhaps the greatest disadvantage attaching to the condition of the lower animals. 8. The operation of fear in Children corresponds with the peculiarities of their position. The first manifestations of the state are seen in the general perturbation caused by over¬ excitement, or mere intensity of sensation. A sudden glare of light, a loud sound, a rough contact, or any other pungent effect, without being necessarily painful, is discomposing to the nervous system, much in the manner of a fright. When the infant is so far advanced as to recognise familiar objects, anything strange that arrests the attention gives rise to the perturbation of fear. The child revolts from the grasp of an unknown person, and manifests all the quakings of genuine terror. At the still later stage, when pain is connected with 58 EMOTION OF TERROR. specific causes, as when the child knows what it is to be plunged into cold water, to take a bitter draught, to be scolded, or to be punished, the emotion appears in its proper form, as the apprehension of coming evil ; the only speciality in the case being what is due to the weakness of the subject. Darkness is not necessarily a source of terror to children, or to any one, although very easily becoming so. The reasons must be sought, (1) in its being a cause of mental depression, or the withdrawal of a source of exhilaration, (2) in the increase of the subjective consciousness, by abolishing the objective re¬ gards, and (3) in its giving unbounded scope to any cause of apprehension. 9. The influence of mere Strangeness, as a cause of terror in Animals and in Children, admits of two different interpretations. On the one hand, we may suppose that there is, in the animal, and in the human constitution, a primitive nervous susceptibility, whereby the functions are at first easily disturbed by any cause ; while experience and habit enable the weakness to be conquered. Many of the facts undoubtedly favour this view. In children especially, there are many liabilities to derangement that dis¬ appear in the adult. The overcoming of fear would seem to be a hardening process of like nature with habituation to cold, fatigue, flurry, or the acquirement of self-command generally. On the other hand, it has been suggested by Mr. Herbert Spencer, as in accordance with the hypothesis of development, and also as consonant to facts, that the animal and infantile fear of strange appearances, and particularly of the human presence, is the transmitted experience of evil encountered from human and other agency. It would thus conform to the generic character of the passion — apprehension of evil. The commonly alleged fact that, in uninhabited islands, animals show no fear at the approach of man, is a striking testimony in favour of Mr. Spencer’s view ; for in such a case the strangeness is at its maximum. 10. We may enumerate Slavish terror as a notable species of the emotion. Any one placed in subordination to the will of another, has constantly before his eyes the risk of incurring displeasure and punishment. When the power of the superior has a distinct limit, the subordinate can clearly comprehend SLAVISH TERROR. 59 the worst evil that can happen to him, and, in the cool exer¬ cise of his active faculties, can take an amount of precaution exactly corresponding to this amount of evil. This is the position of the citizen of a country governed by written laws, and of a servant in a free community. The subject of a government by law has before him a more or less definite penalty for each offence, and is moved to avoid that penalty exactly in proportion to the degree of pain implied in it. This is not fear, but a motive to the will, like hunger, or curiosity. So the servant in a free community, has before his mind the loss of his connexion with his present master as the limit of the master’s power ; and, notwithstanding his subor¬ dination, may rise superior to the incubus of terror. Slavish terror takes its rise under a superior unlimited in power, capricious in conduct, or extreme in severity. The possibility of some great infliction is itself necessarily a cause of terror. That uncertainty which one knows not how to meet, or provide against, is still more unhinging. It is not possible to preserve composure under a capricious rule, except by being in a state of preparation for the very worst. The Stoical pre¬ scriptions of Epictetus, himself a slave, are in harmony with such a situation. Another circumstance tending to beget slavish fear is the conscious neglect of duty on the part of the inferior, he at the same time being unprepared calmly to face the consequences. The state of slavery is a state of terror from the power and arbitrary dispositions of the master ; the free-born servant has mainly to fear the effects of his own re- missness. 11. The Forebodings of disaster and misfortune, in our future prospects generally, deserve to be mentioned as one of the prevalent forms of the passion. Every one’s mind is oc¬ cupied more or less with his future. A clear prospect of the attainment of what we most desire, yields that confidence already dwelt upon as the opposite of terror. On the other hand, Misfortune, announced as at hand, unhinges the system in the manner described under the present emotion, until such time as we find means of neutralizing the blow. But Un- 60 EMOTION OF TERROR. certainty, with a tinge of probable evil, is to the generality of men the most disquieting situation. It takes much natural courage, or else a light-hearted temperament, to anticipate with calmness some likely hnt undeclared calamity ; to know the worst is generally esteemed a relief. 12. The condition of mind termed Anxiety relates itself to our various interests in the distance. There is here the same ambiguity and confounding of different facts, as belongs to other names connected with the present subject. The rational and measured exertions to meet our known emergencies may be said to indicate anxiety of mind. But the phrase is not properly applicable unless something of the perturbation of fear be present.* The anxious condition of mind is a sort of diffused terror, a readiness to take fright on all occasions of apprehension or uncertainty. As no one’s future can be clear throughout, there is never wanting the matter of anxiety to a mind susceptible of the state. The lives of some are spent in a constant flutter of agitation, varied by moments of inexpressible relief, when the dark shadows disappear, or the mind rises into a vigorous or buoyant mood. 13. Suspicion is a mode of our present passion, represent¬ ing the influence of our fears upon Belief. The state of alarm * There is a well-known anecdote related, if I remember aright, of some great general who read on a tombstone the inscription — ‘ Here lies one who never knew fear and upon this, remarked, * Then such a one could never have snuffed a candle with his fingers.’ Here the revulsion from pain, operating in every sane mind, at every moment of life, is confounded with the perturbation of terror, which is only occasional, and may he almost entirely absent from the character. The same ambiguity is seen in Dr. Thomas Brown’s exposition of what he calls the prospective emotions. (Lecture 65.) With him fear is simply the contrary of desire. These are seme of his ex¬ pression. : — ‘Our fears, which arise equally from the prospect of what is disagreeable in itself, and from the prospect of the loss of what is in itself agreeable.’ ‘ We/ear to lose any source of pleasure possessed by us, which had long been an object of our hope.’ The want of a good term for the op¬ posite of desire is probably the reason of this abused application of ‘ fear ’ to denote simply what stimulates efforts of avoidance. The true antithesis lies between fear and coolness, composure, or measured expenditure. PANIC. — SUPERSTITION. 61 being by its very nature the breaking up of confidence, things in general become the objects of distrust. Slight incidents that the mind in its ordinary coolness would pass by, as un¬ meaning or irrelevant, are interpreted as ill omens ; and the persons whom we never doubted stand forth as compassing our ruin. These effects are ascribable solely to the disturbance wrought by fear. As affecting the conduct towards others, the outgoings of suspicion are most disastrous. We witness them constantly in private life, and they are exhibited on a great scale in the proceedings of nations. Times of political disorder like the civil wars of Rome, or the first French Re¬ volution, are rendered more calamitous by the exaggerations of suspicion, and the credit given to the suggestions of fear.* 14. Panic is an outburst of terror affecting a multitude in common, and rendered more furious by sympathy or infection. When an army is seized with panic, all is lost. The habits of discipline are paralysed by the draining off of nervous power. The strength of a human being is turned into weak¬ ness at such a moment ; what vigour remains is expended in a disordered flight. Courage, which gives to man a pointed superiority over the lower animals, is notoriously of more worth than numbers in the emergencies of war, or the trials of public disaster. The nerve that can surmount a popular panic is of genuine stuff. 15. I shall include under one comprehensive species, the terrors of Superstition. Man’s situation in the world contains all the elements of fear. The vast powers of nature dispose of our lives and happiness with irresistible might and awful aspect. Ages had elapsed ere the knowledge of law and uni¬ formity, prevailing among those powers, had been arrived at by the human intellect. The profound ignorance of primitive man was the soil wdierein his early conceptions and theories * It is well known that in new epidemic disorders, the physicians in ignorant countries are usually suspected of poisoning the wells. Alexander the Great crucified the physician that attended his friend Hepbmstion. This was a despot’s wrath inflamed by suspicion. 62 EMOTION OF TERROR. sprang up ; and the fear inseparable from ignorance gave them their character. The essence of superstition is expressed by the definition of fear. An altogether exaggerated estimate of things, the ascription of evil agency to the most harmless objects, and false apprehensions everywhere, are among the attributes of superstition. The fictions embodying men’s ter¬ rors in the presence of nature, have assumed an endless variety. The personification of natural powers uncertain and often des¬ tructive — the winds and the thunder, the rivers and ocean, — makes part of the ancient worship of our race, a worship largely prompted by men’s fears. The ritual of sacrifice and expiation asserts the prevailing sentiment. The creation of malign deities, evil spirits, and the inferior class of tenants of darkness, described under the names of ghosts, hobgoblins, evil genii, imps, and fairies, all bear the impress of terror ; and under that influence do they make their way into the general mind. While even the regular and ordinary march of things — the alternations of day and night, summer and winter, seed¬ time and harvest, birth and death — keep up a certain mystic dread, the exceptions to use and wont, reanimate the sense of terror to the intensity of panic. A solar eclipse fills every bosom with awe ; a comet is a portent of horrible calamity ; an irregularity of season begets a crushing sentiment of the anger of the gods. The life of infant humanity is over¬ shadowed with terrors ; the wild gleams of rejoicing shoot out of a diffused blackness.* 16. The Fear of Death is naturally the crowning manifes¬ tation of the feeling under discussion. Still the aspect of the last enemy is so exceedingly different in different circum¬ stances, that the sentiment produced has little of a common character. The one fact of the situation is the unknown future that the being is ushered into.-f* The loss of life’s * ‘ Where you know nothing place terrors,’ sajs Helps, speaking of the po¬ pular notions respecting remote countries, previous to the voyages of Columbus. In the quarters of vast and unknown possibility, the soil is already prepared, f Ay, but to die, and go we know not where • To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot ; FEAR OF DEATH. 63 pleasures, interests, and relationships, is felt according to the value set upon these ; the darkness of the shadow of death is essentially calculated to strike terror. This is the deepest midnight gloom that the human imagination can figure to itself ; and from that quarter emanate the direct forms of apprehension and dread. It is the fact respecting death com¬ mon to the whole human family. If we were to specify individual varieties, we should find every degree between the extremes of placid courage or pious exultation on the one hand, and the depth of horror and despair on the other. 17. I shall conclude the detail of specific forms of the emo¬ tion with two other examples of frequent occurrence, the one the dread on entering on a new operation, the other the dis¬ comfiture felt on appearing in a new presence. The Distrust of our Faculties in unfamiliar operations is a true case of fear. The element of uncertainty, with the apprehension of failure in consequence, has the tendency to unhinge the mind, and induce the quakings and the disturb¬ ance that we have been describing. The amount of the evil involved in the failure, and the degree of conscious imperfec¬ tion on our part, are the two circumstances operating to pro¬ duce the effect. The attempt to leap a chasm, or a stream of such width that the utmost effort can barely suffice to gain the bank, induces the agitation of fear. In all untried situa¬ tions, in the exercise of imperfect powers and acquisitions, This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod ; and the delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice ; To be imprison’d in the viewless winds, And blown with restless violence round about The pendent world ; or to be worse than worst Of those, that lawless and uncertain thoughts Imagine howling ! — ’tis too horrible ! The weariest and most loathed worldly life, That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment Can lay on nature, is a paradise To what we fear of death. 64 EMOTION OF TERROR. ancl in the commencement of enterprises where we can only partly see our way, we are liable to a certain degree of terror manifesting itself in proportion to the stake and the uncer¬ tainty combined. The word ‘ danger’ expresses both circum¬ stances. The state of apprenticeship, in general, has this situation frequently repeated. New trades, new tools, new exercises in every art, employment, or occupation of life, dis¬ compose the mind often with severe terrors and mental anguish. This is one of the disadvantages of early years, and a source of both weakness and misery, to be set off against the superior vigour and spirits of youth. The pain of a young surgeon at his first capital operation may amount to agony. Great responsibility maintains the excitement of apprehension in minds alive to the sense of it, even although well-experi¬ enced iu the operations required. Anxiety is apt to attend all great posts. 18. The being Abashed before a strange face, or a new company, is remarkable as one of the manifold influences of the human presence upon the human kind. The principal circumstance is unquestionably the feeling caused by the aspect of power, with the uncertainty belonging to the exercise of it. In every human being there is a vast possibility of action beneficial or hurtful ; and it takes much familiarity to be assured of each person’s dispositions and tendencies. The infant, in its helplessness, is the subject of many misgivings. Being dependent on other persons for everything, the child associates safety with the care of the nurse ; but with a strange hand, and a new face, there is an apprehension not yet over¬ come. It is the same with later years. AVe get to know more and more the power for evil that lies wrapt up in a living- being ; while we require a distinct experience of each one to give us confidence. It is the nature of apprehension not to wait till hurtful dispositions are actually manifested, but to demand decisive assurances that such do not exist. The dread inspired by the aspect of man, or beast, na¬ turally grows with the estimate we are led to form of their power. A child going to school for the first time is awed by COUNTERACTIVES OF TERROR. 65 the presence of the master, from having heard so much of his high-handed proceedings towards its elders. Persons in power are approached with dread by the mass beneath them. But more discomposing than almost any single human being is the presence of an assembled company. The power of the concentrated gaze of many faces is something appalling to any one making a public appearance for the first time. The state commonly known as f stage fright ’ is agonizing and unsettling in the last degree.* The dread that we all live in from the censure of other persons, or the loss of good opinion, keeps up a certain tremu¬ lous circumspection of manner in general society, until ex¬ tensive usage has set us at our ease. The uncertainty of our position with the persons that we come in contact with, the not knowing what dispositions to ourselves we inspire them with, is a great source of disquiet and pain in our intercourse with others. Hence the comfort of the long familiarity that has set all doubts of this nature at rest. The shyness of manner induced between the sexes is of the same nature, and proves the influence of mutual regard, by the apprehension on either side of not standing well with the other. 1 9. The characteristics of Terror are farther illustrated by its opposites and counteractives. In the first place, .Robustness of Constitution is a means of overcoming fear, in common with the other depressing passions. Everything that supports the natural health and vigour of the system, is in favour of composure of mind ; while exhaustion, disease, and pain, have the opposite ten¬ dency. In the next place, the Active or Energetic Tem¬ perament is naturally related to courage ; a large stock of energy holds out longer than a small. Again, the Sanguine Temperament rises superior to the disturbing passion, by casting off serious cares and burdensome obligations, and * In my own case, the first attempt to address a large audience produced a momentary loss of vision and a feeling as of sinking through the ground. E x 66 EMOTION OF TERROR, by making too liglit of real calamity, actual or prospec¬ tive. Once more, the quality of Resoluteness of Mind, the moral strength that carries men through labours and diffi¬ culties to their ends, includes a superiority to fear as part of its nature. Courage is one of the results of education, or habit. The soldier has the cannon fever in his first engagement, but, at length, meets danger with coolness. The public speaker disporting himself at ease before a large assembly, is a striking instance of acquired composure. When terror springs from ignorance, the remedy is know¬ ledge. Supernatural fears are dispelled by the discoveries that reveal the laws of the world. Eclipses, comets, and meteors have no terrors in the present day. Our experience of life enables us to rise superior to shocks and surprises ; and when baffled ourselves, we are reassured by the knowledge of others. The bodily ills we are accustomed to, cease to unsettle the mind ; but a new symptom fires up our alarms, until the ex¬ perienced practitioner has sounded its depths. The arduous laboiirs of the intellect in storing up knowledge, find one source of reward in composing the fears ; and the share that we take in the turmoil of life has a similar good consequence. Courage is one of the most essential, the most comforting, the most striking characteristics of the human mind. The physical courage of the soldier, the nerve that can submit calmly to a surgical operation, or remain cool on the rack, uncomplaining in the agony of disease ; the moral courage that can appreciate danger unmoved, and retain composure under vast responsibility, that can cling to convictions in spite of opposition, that can remain immovable in adversity, and retain faith in the midst of apprehensions, that can go to the stake for conscience, or live a life of trial, — are appearances among the sublimest that humanity presents ; being among the most impressive of all exhibitions of the might and great¬ ness of the spirit of man. 20. In Government and Education, it is an object to over¬ come individual impulses, and this is done both by definite TERROR IN GOVERNMENT. f » hr o i punishments, and by indefinite terrors. Nations must be governed, and the young disciplined somehow ; still the em¬ ployment of unbounded fears is a reckless waste of men’s energies and happiness. Those in government have a natural partiality for an instrument that wakens up the careless and tames the proud. Terror has a specific effect upon the self- will, the haughtiness, and the independent spirit of human beings — not merely supplying a motive for submission, but sapping and debilitating that part of our nature where these qualities have their root. The quakings of fear are incom¬ patible with the self-erectness and personal dignity of man. In fact, this is surrendered when fear has crept in. Hence, to engender the virtue of humility, recourse is had to terror. The definite penalties of a regular government, or a consi¬ derate teacher, are simple motives to guide the conduct ; but irregularity of procedure, uncertainty and caprice, inspire the feelings of apprehension. Likewise the suggestion of vague and intangible evils, such as the wrath of the supernatural powers and the punishments of a future life, is calculated to terrify and take hold of the mind. The Religious Sentiment might be introduced here, as being a compound, of which fear is a principal ingredient. I prefer, however, to notice it in the following chapter, when we shall have all the elements before us. 21. Our concluding observations relate to the use of the passion in Art. The expression of fear makes a subject for the artist, whether painter or poet* The actor brings it on the stage both in tragic and in comic exhibitions. Pictures and tales of thrilling interest are sometimes created out of the deepest horrors that reality or imagination can furnish. A genuine fright is undoubtedly an experience of pure * ‘ I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul ; freeze thy young blood ; Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres ; Thy knotted and combined locks to part, And each particular hair to stand on end, Like quills upon the fretful porcupine.’ 68 EMOTION OF TEKEOK. misery ; but a slight fear, with speedy relief, occurring in times of dullness and stolid composure, acts like a stimulant on the nervous system. In the flush of high bodily vigour, danger only heightens the interest of action and pursuit. The hunting of tigers is the most exciting of sports. The steeple¬ chase is the highest achievement of this kind at home. But it is in the fictitious terrors that the sting of pain is most effectually extracted, and only the pleasurable stimulus left behind. In proportion as the reality of evil is removed far from ourselves, we are at liberty to join in the excitement produced by the expression of fear. The skilful dramatist is able to adjust the dose — although the greatest of all has not always done so. The genius of Shakspeare has not been able to submerge the painful horrors of Lear. Some minds can endure a large amount of this element, having that robustness of nerve that can throw off the pain, and not be too much excited by the depicted horrors. Murder, calamity, and mis¬ rule, are no more than interest to such minds. For others, the misery-causing element would predominate. The spec¬ tacle of gladiators, bull-fights, contests in the ring, &c., contains both pain and exciting interest ; and the taste for them is determined according as the one or other prevails. The ancient f mysteries’* are generally supposed to have had terror * ‘ The Eleusinian mysteries were celebrated every year, in September, and the festival occupied ten days. Both sexes and all ages were admitted ; but foreigners and bad characters at home were excluded. It was con¬ sidered a duty of every Athenian citizen to go to Eleusis at least once, for the sake of being initiated. The intending communicants on each occasion formed themselves into a procession, and marched on foot from Athens to Eleusis, a distance of ten or twelve miles. Yarious ceremonies of purifi¬ cation were gone through, and sacrifices ordered, with solemn processions, and the carrying about of lighted torches. Sports and contests, as was usual at all festivals, were regularly exhibited. The ceremony of initiation was nocturnal, and took place in a large building called the Temple of the Mysteries. The candidates entered with myrtle crowns and clean garments, dipping their hands in the holy water at the door as they passed. The hierophant, or chief actor of the mysteries, received them with a solemn admonition to preserve their minds pure and undefiled on so august an occasion ; and then read out of a book the import of the mysteries. He next FICTITIOUS TERRORS. 69 for their basis, and their influence was considered favourable, as well as stimulating to the mind. put certain questions to them, as to whether they had duly prepared them¬ selves by fasting, &c. ; to all which they returned answers in a set form. A vast exhibition of strange objects and scenes then opened up before them ; thunders and lightnings alternating with pitch darkness, noises and bellow - ings, apparitions of horror, and dramatic spectacles of the most terrible ex¬ citement. The sad mythical history of the goddess was represented, it would appear, with an exaggeration of details that struck dread into the spectators. Obscene rites and symbols seem also to have been mixed up with the revela¬ tions. The shock given to the spectators must have been terrible. The whole scene was an extreme instance of tragedy, according to Aristotle’s account of its intention — namely, to purify the heart by pity and terror. It was an accumulation of all the objects and stimulants of the most tumultuous passions of pathos and terror. The motive of the display would appear to have been to operate as a counteractive to these passions in ordinary life, by the abiding remembrance of one volcanic outburst of emotion. There was a saying, that persons that had once visited the cave of Trophonius, where a similar dish of horrors was served up, were never known to smile afterwards ; and perhaps some permanent solemnizing effect was anticipated from the ex¬ hibition of the mysteries.’ CHAPTER VI. TENDER EMOTION. 1. rTENDERNESS is an outgoing of pleasurable emotion, comprehending the warm affections, and benevolent sentiments, and drawing human beings into mutual embrace. The objects, causes, or stimulants of this emotion, are, properly speaking, human beings, and other sentient creatures. A species of it seems to be developed towards inanimate things ; but that must be pronounced a figurative, or ana¬ logical form of the sentiment. To speak more particularly. Among the stimulants of tender feeling, wre are to include, first, all the pleasures that are massive or voluminous, rather than acute. We have re¬ cognised, under this head, slow movements, dying movements, repose after exercise, repletion, agreeable warmth, pleasing odours not acutely sweet, soft contacts, gentle and voluminous sounds, mild sunshine. All such pleasures have the double effect of soothing or calming down the activity, and of inclin¬ ing to tenderness ; and the relationship thus brought out, between the passive or reposing condition of the animal system and the tender emotion, is a notable fact of our con¬ stitution. In the next place, very great pleasures incline to tender¬ ness. Under the agitation of extreme joy, the affections burst out into warm displays, and demand a response from others. Occasions of rejoicing are celebrated by social gather¬ ings and profuse hospitality. Further, we have to enumerate pains among the causes of the tender effusion. This is the singular paradox connected OBJECTS OF TENDER EMOTION. 71 with, the present subject. All discrimination of exciting causes would seem to he at an end when pleasures and pains are declared to operate exactly alike. But when we look a little deeper, the seeming contradiction is a real agreement. In times of pleasure, tender emotion flows as a tributary to the stream of enjoyment. In the agony of pain, the same influence rises in mitigation of the suffering. Any pleasure coming within the range of the human susceptibility may be used in the very same way to drown the sense of pain ; and the tapping of the fountains of tenderness is one of the most universally accessible of the assuaging influences that can be employed for this end. In children, in weak natures, in cases where fortitude is undermined by disease, and in persons with largely-developed affectionateness — the resort is a very frequent one. Moreover, it is but natural that pains involving the affections, such as domestic calamity, should be more ready than others to stir up this source of consolation. Besides those three classes of general causes — massive sensation, great pleasures, and great pains — we have to re¬ cognise certain things that have a more specific influence in raising the feeling now before us. Thus, with regard to Movement and Touch, there is a peculiar local region of the body that is immediately related to tenderness. The breast, neck, mouth, and the hand are more especially devoted to this emotion, in conjunction with the movements of the upper members ; whereas sexual excitability is localized in the surfaces and movements of the inferior members. These local associations are no doubt owing to the sreneral arrange- ment whereby any organ is more liable to be acted on by a stimulus applied to its immediate vicinity ; the form of the affectionate embrace is determined by the special suscep¬ tibilities now mentioned, if it be true that the organs of tender emotion are those stated afterwards. There are also some notable specialities among the sensations of Hearing and Sight. The high and mellow note, occurring sometimes in the wail of grief, and adopted in order to give pathos to the address of the preacher, has especial efficacy in touching the tender 72 TENDER EMOTION. chords. In virtue of this coincidence, by which one of the notes in the instinctive utterance of grief is also an instinctive cause of tender feeling, there is a primitive power in the outburst of grief to rouse the tender feeling in others. The same effect does not belong to all the utterances prompted by suffering ; the sharp and shrill tones of a more violent out¬ burst close up the issues of compassion in the bystander. There are cadences in music that belong to the pathetic class. The c dying fall ’ may be noted as a peculiar instance. Com¬ positions in the minor key are supposed to have this character throughout. I think these effects are to some extent primitive, although extended by subsequent associations. Finally, among sensations of Sight, we cannot omit the remarkable power of objects seen through a transparent covering to operate in the same way. I. have already alluded (Sight, § 11,) to the superior fascination of this class of objects, and I cannot doubt that it is connected with the influence we are now considering. The clear rivulet not only charms, but seems almost to melt and subdue the sensitive mind, very much in the manner of objects of tender affection. The fascination of the human eye is owing to the same cause ; and the super- added tear-drop is merely a repetition of the influence. In situations quite unconcerned with humanity, the sight of the clear water-drop often stimulates the watery secretion of the eye. This, too, is another of those pre-established coincidences by whose means the state of tender emotion in one human being is instantly awakened in another. It is only by ex¬ perience that we can interpret the expression put on by the features, remarkable as that may be ; but the pathetic wail, and the watery eyeball, have an original tendency to affect other minds with the same feeling. Association imparts to a variety of other things the power of exciting this emotion. The alliance of tenderness with inaction renders it suitable to the condition of weakness. A strong man laid prostrate is apt to feel this emotion as being the one most kindred to his state. The dying Nelson craved to be kissed. The feeling of anger implies a certain vigour PHYSICAL SIDE. 73 without which it cannot he sustained as an emotion ; when the last remains of active power have flowed out, and a con¬ dition entirely passive has supervened, tenderness is the only mood compatible with the situation. Hence, whatever readily suggests to the mind a predicament of extreme weakness is liable to induce this emotion. The helplessness of infancy, of age, and of the sick bed, stimulates it. Even among inanimate objects, slender and fragile forms take hold of our minds on the same side. The interest thus kindled towards the delicate in natural objects has been reckoned a point of beauty ; and the beautiful was identified by Burke with the slender, the feeble, and the diminutive. 2. The physical side of Tender emotion is characteristic, and in no small degree complicated. The full and outspoken manifestation of the feeling, the goal that it always tends to, is the loving embrace. Keeping this before us, we will re¬ view the bodily organs and processes concerned. Foremost of all is the Lachrymal Gland and Sac, which is specifically acted on during an outburst of tender feeling. It is to be presumed that during the genial exercise of the emotion, all that happens is a slight increase of the healthy secretion; the Profuse flooding of the eyes in pain and grief is a morbid stimulation of the gland. Next are the movements of the Pharynx, or muscular cavity where the food is swallowed. In violent grief these muscles are so convulsed as to be unable to swallow the food ; in ordinary tenderness they are the seat of an indescribable sensibility, characteristic of the emotion. Considering that these muscles are but the commencement of the series of muscular fibres embracing the alimentary canal throughout its whole length, and harmoniously co-operating in the same function ; considering also the popular testimony implied in the phrase 1 bowels of compassion,’ we may surmise that the digestive organs at large participate advantageously in the wave of tender feeling. Lastly, as regards the Muscular manifestations. The features, voice, and carriage take on a pleased and tranquil expression ; the conspicuous movements end in the embrace. 74 TENDER EMOTION. The Lacteal secretion in women no doubt co-operates with the lachrymal, as a physical basis of tender feeling. Even without the stimulus of maternity, the mammary glands may be supposed to he in a state of fluctuating activity; and any rise in the degree is likely to be accompanied with a genial feeling, entering into the aggregate of tenderness, and con¬ summated by finally squeezing some living object to the breast. If this be so in the ordinary state, we can imagine the increased development given to it in the mother giving suck to the child. 3. The link of sequence, both physical and mental, between the objects or stimulants of tender feeling and the allied manifestations, must be sought in the common character of the two sets of phenomena, and in the tendency of any pleasurable stimulus to feed itself from all available sources. If we happen to be under any of the influences of massive and serene enjoyment, we are urged, through the law of Con¬ servation, to retain and enhance the state by tapping the allied fountains. Balmy odours, sunshine, and soft music suggest living companionship as a congenial extension and harmonious accompaniment of the same condition. 4. Let us, then, consider more fully the mental side ^ Tenderness. Pleasurable in quality, and massive in degree, it is not merely a tranquillizing emotion, but is fitted to main¬ tain itself in periods of repose and exhaustion. Great as the intensity of it may sometimes be, the capability of being sustained over long tracts of time, and under a condition of the lowest vitality, is more remarkable than the degree attainable at any one moment. This renders it the refuge after toil, and the solace of the sick bed. It may be doubted whether the human constitution can yield the same amount of pleasure at so little cost by any other means. The extent of pleasurable influence diffused over life, from the employ¬ ment of the tender affections, may be vaguely estimated by the extent of toil and privation cheerfully incurred to keep up the flow, as in the mutual devotion exhibited in families happily constituted. Not only can the emotion be frequently RELATIONS TO WILL AND INTELLECT. 75 stimulated without painful satiety, hut the vibration from each stimulus is able to persevere long after the stroke. W ere this source of sentiment withdrawn from human life, the manner of our existence on the earth would be wholly revolutionized. It is the character of a voluminous excitement to affect lightly a large surface, as opposed to an acute pleasure, which stimulates intensely a small ; the tender feeling in all its forms is pre-eminently of the voluminous character, and we need look no farther for the foundation of the property now described. 5. As regards Volition , or action, the tender feeling, while operating like other pleasures as a motive for its own continuance, has the efficacy belonging to all voluminous feelings, of soothing or tranquillizing undue active excitement. The effect is doubtless due to the substitution of a new stimu¬ lant for one that we willingly forego as soon as we have the requisite aid to conquer it. 6. The relations of Tenderness to the Intellect are worthy of attention. The expenditure of nervous force in maintaining it being small, it can be easily kept up, and also, by means of association, recovered in idea. Hence, when any of the objects are strongly recalled to mind, the feeling will revive with them. But there is something farther. It is to be carefully noted that this feeling is an effect co¬ operating with, and enhancing, the proper pleasures of the senses ; as Terror is something superadded to the mere anti¬ cipation of pain, and poetic description an addition to the delight of scenery. A beautiful person, a generous action, or a work of Art, might give sensuous pleasure without inspiring T ender emotion ; but, in minds so disposed, they cause the farther effects whose culminating point is the living embrace of some fellow being. Now, when any one person has repeatedly drawn forth the stream of tenderness, there occurs a process of adhesion, or association, whereby the feeling arises on the mere presence or mention of the person, without the circumstances that 76 TENDER EMOTION. originally caused it ; which habitual or associated Tenderness is what we mean by Affection. It is easy to understand, how, under the principle of Contiguity, the Affection may pass to collateral persons and accompaniments such as of themselves have no power to stimulate tender feeling; by which means these indifferent objects then become pleasing and consoling influences on the mind. 7. Of the more mixed and various characters attaching to our tender feelings, the first to he noted is that combination of volition and intellect which gives them a power to operate on the will when not present in reality. It is necessary for this end that they should persist as ideas or recollections, and carry along with them into this ideal state something of the volitional prompting that characterizes their actual presence. When we affirm that the ideal continuance of the tender emotion is naturally great, we imply a corresponding power of ruling the conduct, or of dictating a sustained course of action. That is to say, according as we consider this feeling to contribute to the pleasures of our being, do we maintain an active career with the view to its fruition. It is found, in fact, that persons susceptible in a high degree to the tender influence, are prone to expend a very large share of their energy in that direction. Any illustration that this position may seem to want, will occur in the subsequent detail. 8. The same combination of the volitional and the intel¬ lectual yields the state of Desire, or longing, without active pursuit. In circumstances when no exertion on our part can bring us within reach of the objects of our affection, there is nothing left but that ideal form of action termed desire. Such a state of craving comes to stimulate the imagination, or to substitute action in idea for action in reality. There is a mixture of the pleasurable and the painful in this condition ; pleasurable, in so far that the emotion is still maintained in its proper character by intellectual retention ; painful, from the labour of feeding upon ideas, and from the poverty of mere imagined bliss. But in an easily sustainable feeling like the present, a sensible amount of happiness may be derived INFLUENCE ON ATTENTION AND BELIEF. 77 from the mere contemplation of the objects, while in other feelings the painful craving may predominate over the plea¬ sure. Love is often satisfied with objects purely ideal ; im¬ plying a wonderful power of keeping up the flow of the feeling upon a very slight suggestion. But human nature is not fairly dealt with when so great a strain is placed upon the intellectual forces ; a mixture of the real with the imagined is the happiest arrangement for our constitution. 9. The influence of the feeling upon the Attention, or the tendency of it to control the observation and the thoughts is one of its important aspects, and an apt criterion of its power in general. The storing of the intellect with a certain class of images and recollections, and the occupation of the mental trains with the same class of thoughts, are the results of any predominant emotion. These consequences are remarkably shown in the stronger relations of tender feeling. 10. Lastly : We must notice the influence on Belief, which also manifests the power of the feeling. The strong- partialities induced by affection and friendship, the blindness to obvious facts, the incapability of entertaining injurious interpretations, are among the most notorious and irresistible characteristics of human nature. The stronger kinds of affec¬ tion are able to sustain the wildest hopes, and to convert dreams into convictions. The mind dwells in other worlds with as much certainty as on anything seen or realised around it. SPECIES OF TENDER EMOTION. 1 1. Leaving the description of generic characters, we now proceed to the various forms or species of the feeling. As its nature is to vent itself on persons, we trace it principally in the relationships of human beings, while the companionable animals are not excluded from its range. A human being combines, within a small compass, a plurality of the influences above described as stimulants of tenderness. The soft touch, the rich and glossy tints appearing on the surface, the lustre of the eye, and certain strains of vocal utterance, — unite with 78 TENDER EMOTION. the rounding of the form, and the more graceful of the move¬ ments, in making up a complex whole, capable of awakening the sentiment with great force. These causes, common to the generality of human beings, are very much heightened in par¬ ticular instances, by a more than usually felicitous conforma¬ tion, or by a relationship that adds other influences besides. We have seen with what power the element of weakness operates as an exciting cause ; a circumstance which tells more especially in the case of infancy. 12. The special outgoings or demonstrations that constitute Tenderness, as something added to sensuous pleasure, suppose another person. The shake of the hand, the embrace, under which the special organs of the sensibility are stimulated — the lachrymal gland, the pharyngeal muscles, &c. — occur between two living personalities. The more intellectual manifestations of soft and unctuous speech involve the mental development of human beings ; while the additional operation of sympathy, in whose absence we should consider the feeling incomplete, requires the attribute of sentient life. Family Group. 13. Beyond all question the relation of Mother and Off¬ spring is the most replete with tender feeling. Nor is it difficult to indicate the elements and distinguishing features of the relationship. The infant, as a sensuous object, is conspicuously endowed with the properties that excite the feeling. The skin soft and pure, the eye fresh and clear, the outline rounded ; the diminutive size and helplessness ; the interest of the comparison showing so much likeness to the full-grown individual ; the action so different and yet so similar ; — render the child an impressive object of tenderness to every one. And in the case of the mother, there is super- added a powerful element of regard, arising out of the original relation to herself, and the special engagement of her energies in supporting the infant’s existence. Such a combination of self-interest and the associations of a strong solicitude would, under any circumstances, stamp an object on the mind ; a MATERNAL FEELING. 70 house, or a garden, so situated grows upon the feelings of the possessor. When, however, the object is a human being of the age most fitted to act on the tender susceptibilities, wye can easily understand how this relationship becomes the crowning instance of intense personal regard. If we cite in detail the various properties of emotion, we shall find our experience attesting that every one of them is strongly mani¬ fested by the maternal mind. The expression is copious and persisteut ; and there being no disguise observed, this alone is a sufficient criterion in the case. Other indications concur in showing that the feeling is large in quantity, sustainable in an eminent degree, and capable of imparting a valuable stock of satisfying pleasure. Being trained, or attuned, to this special stimulant, the mind thrills with a sort of fascina¬ tion under its influence. The action on the Will is an equal proof of the intense development of the feeling. The ordinary observation sets the child-regarding motives as above all others in the maternal breast ; so strong, indeed, that a struggle is scarcely felt when conflict ensues. In the Intellectual aspect we note a degree of retentiveness corresponding to the present power of the excitement, and sustaining both the feeling and the conduct through the intervals when the object is not actually present. The Desire, or longings of the state, contain more of the pleasurable than of the painful, from the same cause. The influence on the Attention — the obser¬ vation, the trains of recurring thought, the constructions and imaginations of the mind — is all-powerful; things andideas find a sure access to the intellect, if they can claim connexion with filial interests. There is occasionally an engrossment of mind, probably much beyond the pleasure that is imparted, exagge¬ rating the relationship to the pitch of irrationality, a pro¬ perty of emotion noticed already, and to be still farther dwelt upon afterwards. And in the last place, the power to control Belief is no less signal ; the mother’s faith in the child passes every other form of credulity. 14. It is requisite, before going farther, to consider specially the prompting to labour for the good of the beloved one, 80 TENDER EMOTION. which usually characterizes Tender emotion, and constitutes its high social value. The superficial observer has to be told that the feeling in itself is as purely self-regarding as the pleasure of wine or of music. Under it we are induced to seek the presence of beloved objects and to make the requi¬ site sacrifices to gain the end ; looking all the while to our own pleasure and to nothing beyond. As incidental to the pursuit, v7e must perform good offices ; we cannot obtain the desired fruition otherwise. But to enter into the feelings of another person, and to seek the gratification of these, in pre¬ ference to our own, to live the vicarious life of affection, so ■well shown in the mother, is a result, not of Tenderness, but of Sympathy. Closely as the two facts are allied, they are not inseparable ; there may be great Tenderness with little Sympathy (as in children), and great Sympathy with little Tenderness. What we can affirm is that where the power of sympathy exists, beloved objects, by gaining a hold on the attention, receive the largest share ; affection is one cause determining the direction that sympathy takes. A strong attachment may be the means of arousing disinterested im¬ pulses generally ; any one emancipated from exclusive self- regard, by this means, is in some degree disposed to enter into the feelings of indifferent persons. This, too, is shown in the maternal disposition. The Paternal relationship involves essentially the same modes of feeling and acting, with some few variations. If there be less of personal contact, there is the damming up of the excitement for stronger outbursts ; and if the maternal temperament is more alive to tenderness, the father is more struck with the effect of contrast.* 15. The relationship of the Sexes is grounded in the first instance on the sexual constitution, out of which grows an * ‘ Children,’ says Hobbes, ‘ are a man’s power and bis honour.' See in Mill’s Analysis of the Human Hind, Chapter XXI. $ 2, a delinea¬ tion of the Family feelings, in which full justice is done to them without sentimental inflation. relationship of the sexes. 81 intense appetite, and a special form of physical enjoyment. The element of mere sensual pleasure has always had great potency in human life, as is shown by the institutions and manners of every people. There is, besides, that difference of personal conformation, which makes the one sex a variety as it were to the other, possessing a distinct order of attractions. There can be no doubt of the extensive working of this principle, which puts a limit to the influence of the most per¬ fect forms, and the highest excellence. The merits that we carry about with us are apt to pall upon our taste, and the objects that interest us must be something different, even al¬ though inferior.* The greatest affinities grow out of the strongest contrasts ; with this important explanation that the contrast must not be of hostile qualities, but of supplemental ones. The one person must not love whakthe other hatp.s but the two must mutually supply each other’s deficiencies. Affections grounded on disparity so qualified exist between individuals of the same sex. The Platonic friendship was manifested chiefly between men of different ages, and in the relation of master and pupil. But in the two sexes there is a standing contrast, the foundation of a more universal in¬ terest. The ideal beauty arising from conformation is on the side of the woman : the interest of the masculine presence lies more in the associations of power. The feelings stirred by this relationship have been more dwelt upon than any other human sentiment ; showing the hold that they take of the human breast both present and in idea, as well as the aptness that there is in them for artistic handling. The real power is not, however, to be measured by poetic language. We can set aside the habitually exag¬ gerated modes of expression, and appeal to the criterion of conduct, to the labours and sacrifices that they give birth to, and the evident satisfaction that they furnish. The excite- * It will be seen, when we come to examine the nature of Self-com¬ placency in the following chapter, that this principle is not unlimited in its operation. F 82 TENDER EMOTION. rnent at its highest pitch, in the torrent of youthful sensations and ungratified desire, is probably the most furious and elated experience of human nature. By every test applied to estimate the force of a state of feeling, this condition ranks supreme. Even at a later stage, under the influence of famili¬ arity, matter of fact, and occasional discords, an amount of interest is maintainable between the opposite sexes that, more than any other circumstance, attests the force that draws them together. Of the attracting bonds, the most constant and enduring is the element of tender emotion. Whatever other feelings are excited, they never fail to evoke this accompani¬ ment, which always remains as the staple of the relationship. Ceasing to be fed by the charms of sense, and quenched by the growth of dislike, affection may come to an end ; but so long as there is anything to attract, the relation is one of tenderness, and all its fruits and manifestations are such as have been described. The Benevolent Affections. 16. In Benevolence, the main constituent is Sympathy ; which, however, as we have seen, is peculiarly liable to be excited by the tender emotion. The displays familiarly designated Love, Compassion, Kindness, the Heart, are in fact compounded of Sympathy and Tenderness. Love is tender feeling awakened by an object possessed of charms. Under it the attention is gained, and the sym¬ pathies evoked in their fullest measure. Our best energies are at the service of those we love, whatever be the form of the relationship. It is common to speak of the pleasures of Benevolence, the delight of doing good, but there is a complication here, which the following considerations may help to resolve. In the first place, love or tender feeling, is by its nature pleasurable, but does not necessarily cause us to seek the good of the object farther than is needful to gratify ourselves in the indulgence of the feeling. It is as purely self-seeking PLEASURES OF BENEVOLENCE. 83 as any other pleasure, and makes no enquiry as to the feelings of the beloved personality. In the second place, from a region of the mind quite apart from the tender emotion, arises the principle of Sympathy, or the prompting to take on the pleasures and pains of other be¬ ings, and act on them as if they were our own. Instead of being a source of pleasure to us, the primary operation of sympathy is to make us surrender pleasures and to incur pains. This is that paradox of our constitution, already dwelt on (Senses and the Intellect, p. 350) and to be again more fully considered. Thirdly. The engagement of the mind by objects of affec¬ tion gives them, in preference to others, the benefit of our sympathy ; and hence we are specially impelled to work for advancing their pleasures and alleviating their pains. It does not follow that we are made happier by the circumstance ; on the contrary, we may be involved in painful and heavy labours. Fourthly. The reciprocation of sympathy and good offices is a great increase of pleasure on both sides ; being indeed, under favourable circumstances, one of the greatest sources of human delight. This is not difficult to understand, as will appear when we come to the full explanation of sympathy. Fifthly. It is the express aim of a well-constituted society, if possible, never to let good offices pass unreciprocated. If the immediate object of them cannot or will not reciprocate in full, as when we relieve the destitute or the worthless, others bestow upon us approbation and praise. Of course, if benevolent actions, instead of being a tax, were self-rewarding, such acknowledgment would have no relevance. Sixthly. There is a pleasure in the sight of happy beings, and we naturally feel a certain elation in being instrumental to this agreeable effect. 17. Compassion or Pity means sympathy at the instance of weakness or distress. The first step here, too, is an out¬ burst of tenderness. There may be an absence of fascination from sensuous or other charms, and therefore of love in the 84 TENDER EMOTION. full meaning of the word, hut it is the peculiarity of the ten¬ der feeling, as already explained, to connect itself with states of weakness in ourselves, and to he stimulated in consequence by weakness or distress in others. It is in this situation that the two separate facts of tender feeling and sympathy are so fused as to be indistinguishable ; the same name signifying both. An act of discernment is required, such as makes the first step in sympathy, to be aware that a fellow-being is in distress ; and becoming aware of it, we are affected by the emotion suitable to distress in ourselves, namely, tenderness, which towards others is compassion, or ‘ heart/ and puts on the usual display of tender feeling, and also prompts to the completed act of sympathy in rendering assistance or good offices. In tender-hearted constitutions, the melting mood is abundant ; in constitutions where sympathy proper is highly developed, the good offices are the chief fact ; the one extreme is pointed at by the reproachful term ‘ sentimentality the other, hard and business-like, seems to carve too little interest from the occasion. The tender-hearted will always bestow a tear ; the man of un-tender sympathy would provide a remedy if he could, but failing that he does nothing, and ap¬ pears wanting in heart. The difference is the same as between the person that in his own distresses sits down to bewail his fate, and him that begins a course of exertion for his recovery, deriving no consolation from the other source. 18. The receipt of favours inspires Gratitude, which, simple and natural as it appears, has all the complication that runs through the emotions we are now considering. In one of its aspects it is pure tender feeling, but its real foundations are in sympathy, while it touches on the highly complex sen¬ timent of Justice. The situation of receiving benefits is one of pleasure, and calls forth warm emotion towards the giver, in proportion to the greatness of the pleasure ; the unsympa¬ thizing mind of childhood stops at this point, the point of thorough selfishness. But with sympathy developed, we enter into the pleasures and pains of the person that has thus engaged our regards, in all respects as with any object of affec- GRATITUDE. 85 tion. With reference to the highest form of gratitude, which induces us to reciprocate benefits and make acknowledgment in some proportion to the benefits conferred, this must be pronounced an application of the principle of Justice, and, so far from being innate, is an elaborate product, formed for us by society, and varying with social growth and improvement. The tender feeling is illustrated in a salient manner by the operation of a stroke of signal and unexpected gen eroity. When an enemy, or an injured party, renders good offices, even the indifferent spectator is touched and melted. The mind being totally unprepared, the stimulation would appear to operate as a shock, apart from which circumstance, 1 see nothing beyond the usual tendency of benevolent actions to inspire a loving outburst. 19. In the equal relationships of life, as in brotherhood, friendship, co-membership of the same society, the occurrence of positions of inequality makes room for the mutual play of benevolence and gratitude ; and the effect is to soften the severe business intercourse of mankind. 20. The Lower Animals are fit subjects of tender feeling, and inspire warm attachments. Their total dependence for¬ bids the rivalries that introduce the taint of anxious watch¬ fulness into the relationships between human beings. By their sensuous charms, their vivacity, their contrast to our¬ selves, their services, and their devotion, the domestic species are able to touch the chord of tenderness, and enlarge the sphere of our affectionate interests. 21. There is not wanting towards Inanimate things a form of tender sentiment. A man comes to look upon his house, his fields, his wealth, the implements of his trade, his collec¬ tions of art and curiosity, his local environment, with some¬ thing of the associated emotion shown to his family or friends. His regard for these things assumes the character of affection ; vhen he is deprived of them, the pain is a kind of sorrow. It is, doubtless, from their original power to give pleasure that such things instigate the tender passion, but as they are unsuited to its proper consummation, the indulgence is ima- 86 TENDER EMOTION. ginary or fictitious, like tlie love felt towards a person beyond our reach. We derive a certain satisfaction from personifying the impersonal objects that give us delight, since by comply¬ ing with the forms, we can in some measure experience the reality, of tender regard. Sorrow. • 22. The pains inflicted upon human beings through their tender sentiments are of various grades, from the gentle long¬ ings of brief absence, to the overwhelming sorrow of the new-made grave. They are as manifold as the ills that can happen to any belovedfobject. They may be mainly summed up in two classes. On the one hand, our own loss by the withdrawal of those we love, and, on the other, our share in the evil that befals them, are the twTo sides wherein we are vulnerable through our affections. With respect to the first case — the deprivation of what we have become attached to — the pain is deep and intense, accord¬ ing to the power of the attachment, and the pleasure it affords. When we have cultivated an object of tenderness as a principal ingredient of our life’s comfort, the cutting off of that object has a reaction of misery and distress, and charges a cup of bitterness to be drained to the dregs. There is in this effect much that is common to the pain of severe loss or disappoint¬ ment in any region of things. The baulking of a dear revenge, an insult to personal dignity, the wreck of some cherished hopes, pecuniary losses, a sudden check in anything that the heart is bent upon, the failure of a prop — all lead to an in¬ tensity of mental conflict, constituting one of the severest forms of human suffering, A large range of associations that used to yield pleasure and support have suddenly stopped payment ; the cheerful future is all at once darkened. To the first shock succeeds a physical depression of the brain, rendering it unfit to be the medium of any ray of comfort ; the spirits are weighed down as with an atmosphere of lead. Although the first effect of the situation we are supposing is of a kind common to most forms of heavy loss, the after SORROW. 87 stages assume a character peculiar to the present class of emotions. When time has healed the rupture, and adapted the mental currents to the new state of things, the tender affection still survives as one of the pleasures of life. The property of ideal persistence that belongs to it, renders it a possession even when the objects have ceased to be. Doubt¬ less the regret continues to have a mixture of the sting with the tenderness, which is what we mean by Sorrow ; but the one may abate while the other remains. Grief and lamenta¬ tion give way to cherished memory. 23. The Social and Ethical bearings of Tender feeling are of high importance, although the best part of the effects is due to the co-operation of sympathy proper. The mere cir¬ cumstance that we take pleasure in the contact with other beings, makes us court society, and labour to attract, instead of repelling our human kindred. The brutes are moved to this extent, and for the most part prefer companionship to solitude. The effect would be more uniform through all grades of sentient beings, were it not for the presence of other strong passions tending to disunion, which only the higher forms of civilization have been able to subdue in a partial degree. 24. So marked is the influence offender affection in creating a counter affection in the object of it, that this is naturally considered a great moral lever for the elevation of mankind. Unfortunately it fails with the lowest natures ; owing to the nearly total absence in them of the aptitude for sympathy. An infant, a savage, or even a wild beast, in the act of receiv¬ ing benefits, embraces the giver, and after repeated kindnesses, may contract a species of affection ; but it is all mere selfish¬ ness ; the power of sympathy does not exist, and is not to be evoked; moral virtue in the proper sense makes no progress. It cannot be too much reflected on that sympathy is an intellectual endowment, and flourishes only under a certain development of intelligence ; the amount requisite being scarcely attained in many individuals and tribes of the human familv. 88 TENDER EMOTION. Admiration and Esteem. 25. We may treat as supplementary to the present chapter certain feelings that are not exclusively based upon tender emotion, but either contain it as a principal element, or come into easy alliance with it. When the feeling of the Sublime suggests a responsive expression to the object of it, we call that response Admira¬ tion. I mean by the sublime the elation of mind from the spectacle of superior might or excellence, or anything that raises us above our ordinary standard ; although the word usually implies only the higher degrees of the feeling. This pleasurable elation easily inspires love as well as wonder, unless the object is marred by ingredients inimical to affection, as when great powers are ill employed. The physical strength of a Hercules, manual skill and dexterity of a high order, artistic power, intellectual force, eminent moral qualities, beauty and refinement, and even the adventitious circum¬ stances of wealtli and rank — all tend to raise us above our¬ selves ; and the resulting expression is wonder mixed with love, that is, Admiration. The recognition of superior ex¬ cellence, in some quality or characteristic that we are strongly alive to, is a frequent beginning of love. 26. Esteem is a sentiment applicable to many tilings that can hardly be said to rouse our admiration. Referring to useful qualities principally, we do not demand for it the attri¬ butes of rarity or surpassing excellence. The feeling excited in us towards those that perform their part suitably and well in the relations of life, however numerous they may be, is esteem. We do not compare one man with another ; we rather com¬ pare a work to be done with the manner of executing it. The objects of our esteem, therefore, may be said to be all those about us that fulfil the tasks imposed upon them by their situation, or display the virtues that make men useful in society. Industry, independence, fidelity to trust, integrity, truthfulness, practical good sense, are qualities that command our esteem, although they may have no charm to excite ad- ESTEEM. 89 miration. The utilities of life, in the narrow sense of the phrase, imply those precautionary offices valuable only for the prevention of evil, and having in themselves no immediate power of fascination. An artist touches the sources of pleasure by an immediate impulse, a magistrate, lawyer, or physician is valued because of the evil that he can ward off or remove. The emotion of esteem is a reflected or associated feeling, growing out of our sense of the mischief prevented, and the good achieved, by the performance of the social virtues. Knowing well the miseries that accrue from neglect and care¬ lessness of every description, we feel a lively and cheering sensation of relief from an opposite kind of conduct, which easily passes into a certain tender regard towards the persons. The feeling of being saved from impending or possible mise¬ ries is a very prevalent one, varying chiefly in degree according to the nature of the danger. There is always a distinct trace of pleasure, and a cheering tone connected with it, and in extreme cases the effect may rise to a burst of delight. The removal of actual pain yields the condition in the most effec¬ tive form ; next to that is the prevention of anticipated pain. This ideal form of the pleasure is what connects itself with the labours and precautions of human industry, and makes us feel an interest in the character of our fellow-workers. The cheering sentiment of misery prevented rises up when we see a man skilled in his Avocation, and faithful to all his engage- ments. The prompting of tenderness that the pleasure involves with it, helps to constitute our esteem or regard for the individual. The sentiment of esteem, although not of itself a first-class emotion in respect of contributing to our happiness, is never¬ theless a calculable element ; and the more so that we are keenly alive to the evils of careless living. When at all strongly developed, as in the case of persons coming much under our observation, a current of considerable strength flows habitually in the presence or recollection of those per¬ sons. Not only do they give us that amount of pleasure signified by the phrase ‘ causing an interest/ but they become 90 TENDER EMOTION. a power over our actions, opinions, and sentiments. All this is implied in the meaning of the words f regard/ 1 respect/ which indicate an interested gaze with a deferential disposi¬ tion. In the bustle of life, where every one is struggling to maintain a position, we make room for those we esteem, showing them preference, and finding a pleasure in serving them. Our illustration of the state of fear, or terror, may have served to lay open still more fully the roots of this emotion of regard, by showing the condition of mind that we are delivered from on the occasion when it is felt. The blessings of the state of confidence ought there to have appeared in a strong light. Admiration and Esteem are emotions well suited to pro¬ mote our happiness as members of society. Not only do they bind us in warm relationship to a number of our fellow-beings, but their expression in language is an easy and agreeable effort, and a bond of sympathy between us and third parties. Our conversation is frequently made up of allusions to those that we esteem and admire ; and when we address persons sharing in the same feelings, the effect is animating and agreeable. Veneration — the Religious Sentiment. 27. The sentiment of Veneration is a compound of tender feeling with other emotions. I postponed the discussion of the Religious Sentiment to the present chapter, that we might have all the ingredients of it clearly before us. The composition of this feeling is well expressed by the familiar collocation, c wonder, love, and awe/ The vastness of the power presiding over the world stretches the feeling of wonder, or the Sublime, to the utmost limit. The paternal and benign aspect of Deity prompts a Tender sentiment. The sense of Dependence, the irresistible might and the governing hand, working under the shroud of darkness, inspire Fear and submission. The elevation and purification of the religious sentiment consist in making the ELEMENTS OF THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. 91 two first elements predominate over the third. The grossest and most grovelling superstitions are those where terror prints its deepest mark.* * The following remarks relate to some of the influences that seem to have operated in drawing forth the religious regards of the early Greeks. 1. The grand and imposing powers of nature, including all the objects that act on the human mind through the sense of might, terror, fascination, or other subduing emotions. The aspect of immense power, force, or energy, always tends to put the beholders into a submissive mood, and to impress upon them the main feature of religious regard. The will and power of the individual man is utterly abashed and confounded in presence of the stormy winds or the ocean billow ; and the contemplative mind cannot but feel that a superior and overruling might dwells in the sun, the moon, and the firmament of stars. The gerin of religious feeling is found in the first outgoings of the subdued spirit towards these mighty objects. Not only is there an irresistible inducement to how the head and bend the proud will before the vastness of nature, hut there is also a strong feeling of comfort and delight in the exercise. Moreover, the submissive mind readily passes to the conception of the benignity and kindness of the supernatural powers, while the stubborn spirit can count upon nothing hut fiery hostility and indigna¬ tion. Man, feeling himself weak, naked, ignorant, in the midst of a vast and terrible creation, is in general hut too glad to acknowledge and feel his weakness and dependence, and to express this feeling in whatever way he is able. The aspect of might and power is thus the foremost of all religious in¬ fluences. The effect of this is enhanced by every species of danger, or by the additional influence of terror, which in the early stages of the world is almost inseparable from the contemplation of nature. Terror is the fruit of uncer¬ tainty. If we see a large agency at work, we feel ourselves subdued into deferential feeling by the sight ; but if we understand clearly its whole cha¬ racter and the course of its proceeding — if we can tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth — we feel no terror at the movement. But this clear know¬ ledge of the course of the world, was impossible in the early ages ; no man could tell all the consequences bound up in an eclipse, or assign the causes of an epidemic, and the painful uncertainty as to the larger operations of the world, kept up a perpetual susceptibility to fear or terror. But terror is pre¬ eminently a subduing influence ; it can drive the mind of man to the most debilitating prostration ; it produces an amount of submission approaching to abjectness, and the loss of all self-reliance and independence of spirit. Hence this, in addition to the natural influence of mere might and majesty, readily explains the suhmissiveness of tone so early assumed towards the great powers and aspects of the world. The sun, the moon, the stars, the windo, the seas, the mountains, the rivers, have all a naturally subduing in¬ fluence upon minds susceptible to grandeur and power, and would inevitably 92 TENDER EMOTION. Veneration is the name given to the state of mind com¬ prehending both religious regard, and a sentiment drawn out by the more commanding and august of our fellow-beings. The emotion is directed towards objects of majesty and great¬ ness, that have also the power of touching the mind with awe. An element of love is essential also, seeing that we are drawn with a certain fondness to whatever we venerate. That atti¬ tude, and those actions implied in worship, are the embodi¬ ment and outgoings of the emotion, and all have their spring induce feelings that could readily take the shape of religious reverence and awe. There is, over and above the subduing effects of might and terror, an in¬ fluence of irresistible fascination exerted by some objects over the human mind. Probably every one has had experience of some object or other whether a person or an inanimate thing, which attracted the attention, and regards with a power of complete entranccment and fascination ; and this effect, although most commonly occurring towards persons, is not unfrequent towards natural objects. Dr. Ivitto, in his work on Deafness— a calamity which had befallen himself — informs us that there were two objects that always acted on his mind with a power of fascination so intense that it took an effort to prevent him from regarding them as divinities (this, but for his rational convictions, he would have done with the greatest zest and delight) : these were the moon and a tree. With reference to these two things, not only could he conceive the facility of their becoming objects of divine wor¬ ship, but he had a difficulty in conceiving the possibility of resisting their fascination. The worship of the heavenly bodies, and the consecration of groves and plantations in minds constituted like his, would have been un¬ avoidable. Much of the fascination that now expends itself in poetic feeling and mere sensuous enjoyment, would, in the early ages, form an inducement to that submission of heart and soul which led to the deification of nature. Words¬ worth states, that to his mind everything in nature seemed clothed icith being , or induced in him a train of thoughts and feelings corresponding to life, acti¬ vity, and animation, which effects he endeavoured by his poetry to induce on other minds, that thereby the face of the world might become more rich, suggestive, and stirring. Prohibited from attributing actual vitality and personal functions alike to the grandest and the meanest of material things, the poet now-a-days must do so by conscious fiction ; but in times when the actual properties of objects were little known, when a bewildering haze of mystery and terror overspread everything, and when the minds of men cherished rather than discouraged this mode of looking at nature, a far bolder flight was admissible, and the agreeable fiction might be set forth with all the air of truth and reality. RELIGION IMPLIES GOVERNMENT. 93 in one or other of the component elements now assigned. The language of admiration is coupled with expressions of fond regard and profound homage ; and the symbolical acts and detailed ritual are of the same character. The feeling itself is deep, powerful, and engrossing in minds once attuned to it, constituting much of the happiness or misery of life — ruling the conduct, directing the thoughts, and influencing the belief to an extent corresponding to the magnitude of the emotions that enter into it. The task of reducing the proud mind to the requisite tone of submissive reverence, makes the great struggle of the religious life ; and it is only after this is accomplished, that the warm and comforting character of de¬ votion is a matter of experience. An absolute power over the human destiny is the essential feature of any religion. There may he combined with this an ethical code for the guidance of men’s conduct in their earthly relations ; there may also be added a highly artistic ritual, and a poetic strain of conceptions ; but religion is different from morals, and is not to be confounded with fine art. It is the rule of a supernatural governor that makes the wide distinction between devotion and theatrical excitement. Human beings are occasionally objects of veneration, as wdien power is mixed with benignity, and wisdom sits upon age. To parents and benefactors we pay this homage. Those that are long dead affect our imagination with a mystic awTe, which swells the sentiment of reverence by the dread power connected with death. To nations, such as a large portion of the Chinese, who refrain from the conception of supernatural government, and therefore are devoid of religion, the Past has still a power to awe and fascinate ; departed ancestry receives the attentions of worship. CHAPTER VII. EMOTIONS OF SELF. 1. rip HERE are various important meanings attached to the term ‘ self/ besides the one specially intended in the present chapter. I. It being impossible to recognise existence in any shape, except as related to the individual mind, each one’s universe may be looked upon as coinciding with self. This is the doc¬ trine usually termed Idealism. II. It is common to recognise a distinction between the Subject mind, and a something supposed to be distinct from, external to, acting upon that mind, called matter, the external or extended world, the object, the non-ego, or not-self. There is undoubtedly a distinction between the mind as sentient and the thing felt, between the percipient and the perception, the concipient and the conception, ' and so forth ; but not as I imagine amounting to self in the one case and the negation of self in the other. The real difference between the subject and the object self, I have already endeavoured to indicate ( Contiguity , § 38). III. There is an act of Introspection whereby wTe regard the feelings and operations of the mind as something to be controlled or to be studied; presenting a contrast to the employment of the organs upon outward things. When we restrain our fears, or our anger, with a view to mental dis¬ cipline, or when we study the laws of thought and feeling as a matter of information, we are sometimes said to be self- conscious as opposed to ploughing, spinning, building, or the acts and operations performed upon the outer world. MEANINGS OF SELF. 95 IV. The Impulsiveness, spontaneity, or original tendencies of our nature, viewed in contrast with the check, guidance, or influence of impressions from without, is an aspect of self. The difference is great between the outburst of natural vigour, reckless and uncontrolled, and Circumspection, or restraint imposed by a lively sense of consequences. There is here a fundamental difference in the characters of individuals ; some abounding in spontaneity, and little sensible to good or bad results, while others are sensitive in the extreme, and perhaps deficient in natural impulse. The vice of the one is rashness, and of the other, inaction. Y. The total pleasures and pains, wnnts, desires, aims, and actions of an individual, constitute self in contradistinction t,o all indifferent things. What touches our own welfare, and still more, what we feel and act upon as such, is our end of life, the collective engrossment of our being. This Life-inte¬ rest is a well-characterized meaning of the term in question. YI. There is a certain class of our collective interests that does not include the welfare of any other beings, either simply passing them by, or positively detracting from them ; the sentiments of friendship, love, devotion, our sympathies and duties being left out. Self-love (or, when intended to be blamed, Selfishness) is the specific designation of this region of our regards. Even when we adopt one or more living beings into the circle of our regards, we may in our devotion to them oppose a selfish aspect to all who are beyond, i^s members of a family we may renounce self, one to another, but assume it in a high degree towards strangers. Self-love, therefore, starts, not simply from the individual, but from the smaller societies in whose separate interiors devotion may reign. 2. We are at present to consider a class of emotions still more narrow and select, having reference to our own posses¬ sion of the qualities that, when seen in other men, inspire the sentiments of love, admiration, reverence, esteem, or the opposites of these. Whatever attributes impress our minds 96 EMOTIONS OF SELF. as displayed by our fellow-men, produce also a peculiar effect as belonging to ourselves. There is a strong pleasure in observing and contemplating our own excellence, power, gran¬ deur, or other imposing characteristics. This is a very special mode of self-regarding emotion ; the name ‘ self-gratulation ’ is not inappropriate to express it. ‘ Pride ’ and ‘ conceit ’ are other names. c Self-esteem ’ implies the habitual or formed estimate that each person has of self. ‘ Self- complacency ’ brings into view the pleasure or delight ex¬ perienced in contemplating one’s own good qualities. The emotion takes a somewhat different turn, and is usually much more satisfying and intense, when the charac¬ teristic excellencies of the individual call forth open mani¬ festations of admiration, love, or esteem from those around. For this gratification, and for the desire that it begets, we have such names as c vanity/ 1 love of approbation,’ ‘ desire of fame or glory/ and so forth. The situation of being admired by others would seem at first sight to be more simple and elementary than being admired by self ; but I think it will turn out that this last is the more elementary of the two. There is a third sentiment differing from either of the above, although liable to be mixed up with them, namely, the feeling of the possession and exercise of Power of any sort. The passion for influence, domination, and the produc¬ tion of large effects on the face of the world, is a marked form of egotism not to be confounded with either self-gratulatiou or the love of glory, both which may follow in the train of the sentiment of power, although they may also be absent from it. The pleasure of disposing of vast interests, and moving a wide machinery, may be so absorbing as to induce a complete disregard alike to self-approbation and to the voice of the multitude. The exposition of that sentiment will be taken apart. The present chapter will comprise the two other groups of feelings, with a slight reference to the more extended self-interest and egotistical promptings indicated in the fifth meaning above referred to. OBJECT OF SELF-COMPLACENCY. 97 SELF-GRATULATION AND SELF-ESTEEM. 3. Here, as already said, the object of the emotion is some quality, excellence, or distinction, beheld in one’s self, of such a nature as to draw forth demonstrations of lively admiration, reverence, love, or esteem, when displayed by a fellow-being. We have seen, in discussing these last-named forms of mani¬ fested emotion, wdiat are the things that call them into exer¬ cise. Beginning with Bodily Strength, we find it both admired when seen, and also exciting in the possessor a feeling of satisfaction. So Mechanical Skill, ingenuity, dexterity, strike a beholder with wonder, and to a similar extent please the individual’s self. The various modes of Intellectual Power have the same twofold efficiency. Accord¬ ing as we are moved to astonishment and ecstaey by a great display of intellectual power, whether in thought or in speech, in originality, or in acquired knowledge, we are apt to receive delight from the notion of ourselves as exerting those powers. In like manner, the Artist feels elated by the production of a work such as he would account great if another man were the author. In short, any kind of pro¬ ductive talent or ability, in whatever region manifested, is a source of pleasure to the possessor, provided he is of a mature to be impressed and pleased with the particular effects. The youth, whose soul is charmed by military achievements, is already formed for taking pleasure in the profession of arms. There is another class of objects of the emotion, different from the putting forth of imposing active energies, namely, those accompaniments of the person that impress the beholder, without any expenditure of bodily or mental force, such as personal attractions, the decorations of dress and equipage, material splendour, property, rank, high connections, and dig¬ nified associations. By these artificial adjuncts, a human being destitute of active ability, and abstaining from every mode of useful exertion, may still be an imposing object of regard. The Great Lama of Thibet, and the monarch that G 98 EMOTIONS OF SELF. reigns, but does not govern, have this kind of impressiveness over and above any derived from their own qualities. By these attributes, too, the owmer is affected with the pleasur¬ able feeling of complacency when naturally susceptible to their influence. 4. The physical side of self-complacency is a mere variety of the expression of pleasure. If the emotion is not an ultimate phase of the mind, neither is its embodiment. The elements that we resolve it into, will determine it physically as well as mentally. What appears to the spectator, is a certain pleasing, cheerful expression, a look of serene satisfaction and passive enjoyment, with close relations to the aspect of tender feeling, but wanting the element of outward regards. Perhaps the strongest feature in the expression is the smile. 5. To come now to the mental side, or the emotion itself. I cannot reckon it one of the primitive emotions of the human mind. It seems impossible that it should be so, considering that the circumstances do not arise until a certain develop¬ ment of the individual powers has been reached. We must first have that appreciation of bodily or mental superiority which inspires us with admiration, fascination, or awe ; we are then prepared for the further effect begotten when wre discern, or think wre discern, such high qualities in ourselves. The question therefore arises, whether the pleasure accruing from the situation is a distinct mode of consciousness arising for the first time, or whether some emotion already operating is made to vibrate in a new manner. If we can resolve the feeling into one more general, we make the desirable step of shortening the description by a reference to known, or pre¬ viously ascertained properties. I am of opinion that the self-complacent feeling results from a burst of the tender emotion, directed upon self as a personality or as an object of habitual regard, solicitude, and affection. As the mother contracts a constant bent of care and fond attentions to her infant, so any one may build up a framework of associations with their own collective personalitv. A man may not only be the subject of successive emotions. EMOTION OF SELF-COMPLACENCY. 99 pleasurable or painful, and the author of a series of acts and operations, but may also form in his mind an idea of the totality of those feelings and energies, and make that total the root, origin, or centre, of a strong sentiment, such as that of the mother, just alluded to. For example, each of us bestows certain attentions upon our outward person, being moved thereto by the pains incurred through neglect, and the pleasures resulting from acts of cleansing, &c. Now it is possible, in consequence of these recurrent attentions, to fall into a train of special sentiment or regard towards this por¬ tion of self, to allow our tender emotion to flow, and the mind to be engrossed, during those operations, until at last an exceedingly strong bond of affection is knit between our mental regards and that element of our corporeal concerns. Or the individual may be so constituted as that this peculiar growth may never be formed. The impulses to perform the daily routine of bodily purification may exist and prompt the needful observances ; but the bent of the mind, and the flow of tender feeling, may never take a direction towards this ] (articular object. In such a case, the motives that one com¬ mences with remain without being added to ; no new or associated pleasure is generated, and no tendency to enlarge the spot occupied by this department is found to exist. To take another example : one may be stimulated by a natural curiosity to go forward in the acquisition of knowledge, so as to sustain the pursuit, day after day, throughout a whole life. The same motive of curiosity may continue unchanged and unmodified from the first to the last. The mental situation is here a very simple one. There is a renewed pleasure from every additional piece of information, a craving growing out of absence from the sources of knowledge, and an exercise of voluntary energy to read, observe, or study, as the opportunity presents itself. But now, as in the former case, the repeated exercises of the body and mind in this field of pursuit may themselves occupy the attention and regard. Along with the original emotion of the love of knowledge, there may spring up an associated or acquired emotion towards the machinery 100 EMOTIONS OF SELF. and operations of the individual mind whereby the search is maintained. This is not more wonderful than the factitious feeling towards books in general that grows up in the mind of the student, or towards money in the miser. Besides the interest taken in the primary end, there is an interest also taken in that part of the personality that has so often realized for us our desired pleasure. There are, then, a number of original stimulants planted in our constitution, each working its own proper course towards a distinct object — appetite for food, for warmth, for knowledge, &c. There is a superadded effect when these various operations are themselves made a subject of attentive interest and regard, as we might regard a fascinating natural object, or as the mother is attracted to the child. The bent of the constitution may be such as to abstain from this secondary reference, being entirely engrossed and satisfied by the primary pursuit. Cases approaching to this exclusive externality of regard may be met with. There are persons so completely engaged in following out their first impulses, as scarcely ever to attend to themselves in the act of doing so. Such persons are destitute of self-consciousness ; they neither constitute self into an object of affectionate regard, nor would they be qualified to render any account of their thoughts and feelings as a department of knowledge. On the other hand, there is a tendency in men more or less to form out of them¬ selves a certain portion of the self-conscious interest — to look with a warm eye upon some portion of their activity, and acquire a tenderness for that as for a second person. This favoured region may be some select part of the individual — as the manual vigour, or the personal display ; or the tendency may become general, and embrace all the principal phases of the emotional and active life. A new interest is thus formed ) a centre of gratification and of disappointment, with appro¬ priate stimulants and applications. The original impulses remain in their strength, while an addition is made to their number by the habit of taking cognizance of them at their work. There is thus a broad and solid distinction between TENDER EMOTION TURNED TOWARDS SELF. 101 tlie conscious and the self-conscious, between the human being that simply feels and acts accordingly, and the human being that has made that train of feeling and acting itself an o o o object of affection and consideration, as if it were another personality. This is a step to he gone through, a process that is often, though not always, fallen into ; but when once entered upon, we are then not only conscious, but are, over and above, self-conscious. When the acquisition is made, the individual is a fit subject for the peculiar sensibilities discussed in this chapter. The collective amount of all the regions of our being that have drawn forth these regards, constitutes that self wherein we can feel complacency and enjoy admiration. If, as is quite possible, we do not contract any fond interest in some portion of self, the susceptibility is not generated. We may instead have concentrated all our attentions and all our warm feeling upon another being — a child, or beloved person ; that, with the primary interests of our own being, may absorb our mental resources. We should then derive our pleasures partly from our original susceptibilities, and partly from the exercise of fondness towards this other being. We should enjoy the spectacle of its excellences, and the ap¬ probation conferred upon it from without ; while in conse¬ quence of not having cultivated a similar strain of fondness towards our own personality, we should have little delight in the excellences displayed, or the approbation earned in that quarter. In the explanation of the feeling before us, therefore, we start from the case of tender emotion developed and made habitual towards an outward object, whether a person or a thing. The affection thus formed and cultivated is a source of delight ; we receive a throb of satisfaction every time the beloved object appears to the view, or rises to the thoughts ; the constant presence of it is a cheering and supporting influ¬ ence diffused over the life. All the good that comes to it is so much additional pleasure conferred upon us. If we can discover in our friend any qualities that would excite our ad¬ miration towards a stranger, a twofold delight is experienced ; 102 EMOTIONS OF SELF. ancl the greater the affection, the greater the delight. The same remarks equally apply to the case of the tender regard contracted to self. This object of our attention, consideration, and fond love, supposing we have made it such, has all those properties now described as belonging to a child, a friend, a pet, a piece of property, &c. The tenderness of our being is thereby stimulated ; the discovery of good qualities in self causes a glow of mingled admiration and fond love ; an occa¬ sion of special good towards thi$ object is a moment for the outburst of elation and tender feeling. The two cases are parallel, not to say identical. The real source of the emotion is the copious fountain denominated tenderness, which over¬ spreads the whole environment of our being, attaching us to a wide circle of living persons, inanimate instruments, memories of the past, ideas of the distant, and imaginations of the future. Allowed to run often, and long, in one favoured direction, that emotion knits a threefold cord, and fascinates and sways our daily career. This is true whether the exagge¬ rated current tends outwards, or overflows one’s own per¬ sonality. Wherever the sentiment exists, one or more of those intense links is sure to be forged ; and circumstances will determine whether an egotism or an altruism is reared. Most commonly both the one and the other are found, although with varying proportions. 6. If such be the proper account of self-complacency as a sentiment of our nature, it is not necessary to dwell at great length upon the systematic description of its character. Iie- ferring to the characteristics of the generic sensibility as set forth in the foregoing chapter, and to the familiar experience of ourselves and our fellows, we need not hesitate to pronounce it as eminently pleasurable in quality and large in quantity ; as remarkably enduring in continuance, and enjoyable at little cost. When we are unfit for everything besides, in the depths of exhausted nature, and in the last throbs of sinking exist¬ ence, complacency, as well as love, may glow and burn. Both as a stream of positive gratification, and as neutralizing pain, disappointment, and sorrow, the well-developed passion at- SELF-ESTEEM. 103 tests its power. In counting np the catalogue of his own excellences, the self-complacent man may beguile a weary hour ; from the multitude and splendour of his outward ap¬ pendages, he may find solace in the midst of pain. As regards Volition, everything advanced respecting the tender sentiment in general is applicable here ; while the mode of Intellectual persistence is the same in both. The feeling is one mighty to direct the attention, and influence the current of the re¬ collections and thoughts ; thus storing the mind, and quick¬ ening the memory wdtli incidents bearing upon self. Notable, too, is the power of this, as of every strong emotion, upon Belief ; in putting forward the favourable aspect of self, and so utterly excluding other aspects, that we can only take ac¬ count of the good side. 7. Let us now attend shortly to the specific forms of the feeling before us. What is expressed more particularly by Self-complacency, is the act of taking pleasure in the contemplation of one’s own merits, excellences, productions, and various connexions ; the carving out of morsels of delight from the indulged affection towards all that relates to self. There is an open display of the feeling, accompanied at the same time by the desire of sympathy, when one endeavours to engage the interest of others by narrations and details relative to one’s individual history and concerns. Self-esteem and Self-conceit imply a settled opinion and habitual estimate of the value of our own capabilities, to which follows a train of consequences exactly similar to what we have noted on the subject of esteem generally. The prefer¬ ence of self to those less esteemed, the respect for our own good qualities, is shown in various ways, and perhaps most conspicuously in the feature of Self-confidence. The trust in our own powers, and the conviction in our own opinions, because they are ours, if not a sign of mere sanguine tempera¬ ment, are criteria of our self-esteem. A still further test is supplied by the contentment derived from the estimate of self, and the independence of any concurring estimate from 104 EMOTIONS OF SELF. other persons. This Self-sufficing affection is respectable, as evincing moral strength, although somewhat repulsive from its isolation. Self-respect and Pride indicate the force of the feeling as a volitional spur, or a motive in the conduct. Having em¬ braced a high valuation of our own character, we are induced to save that intact, by avoiding every course incompatible therewith. It becomes an aim to honour the esteem that we feel for ourselves by acting up, on all occasions, to the stan¬ dard thus fixed ; and our actions, in addition to their primary intention, have a charm through their keeping with this self- estimation. The workman has a proper pride in not dismissing from his hands a performance unworthy of his character for skill in his own eyes. The man that values his own integrity, takes proportional pains not to impair it. 8. A marked variety of the emotion here treated of is Self-pity, which strongly illustrates and confirms the above view of the emotion generally, since it is an unequivocal effu¬ sion of genuine tender feeling towards self — a most real feeling, not well understood by superficial observers and often very strong in the sentimentally selfish, but quite real in all who have any tender susceptibilities, and sometimes their only outlet. 9. Emulation and the sense of Superiority are related to the present head. Rigorously speaking, there is no such thing as positive or absolute excellence. Comparison is the means of determining merit, and the occasion of awakening the susceptibility to worth. A tool may be well adapted to its end, and for that reason may cause us to value and esteem it ; but we become alive to the circumstance by seeing the great superiority it has by the side of a number of others. This feeling of superior merit is, therefore, the ladder whereby we ascend to the highest elevation of self-esteem — as the highest mountains are elevated in appearance by those beneath them. No doubt there are other sentiments mixed up with the comparison, besides the one occupying us at pre¬ sent, but they are not such as to impair the force of the above observation. HUMILITY. 105 The feeling of Envy is much more general in its applica¬ tion. Beferring to everything that is desirable in the condi¬ tion of some more fortunate personage, there is combined a strong wish for the like good to self, with an element of male¬ volence or hatred towards the favoured party. 10. There is now another side of the emotion which needs to be glanced at. And first of Modesty and Humility ; which imply the absence or suppression of those various forms of self-gratulatory feeling. The modest or humble man draws but moderately on the pleasure arising from complacency, and keeps within the mark, in the estimate formed of his own virtues. The beauty of this character, in the view of the spec¬ tator or critic, lies in the sort of generosity in renouncing a considerable portion of one of the prized luxuries of human life. To pretend to take no pleasure in self, and to set no value on one’s good qualities, is completely to overstretch possibility ; but exactly as a generous man surrenders to others a share of his worldly means, a modest man remits a portion of his self-esteem to allow a freer scope to his esteem for others. 11. Humiliation and Self-abasement result from a lively sense of the weakness, worthlessness, and demerits of the individual. This is a state of positive pain — the pain of wounded self-tenderness — which may be compared to what we feel when a beloved object has turned out worthless. The flow of affection usually carries with it a sentiment and belief of good qualities inhering in those we love, and the discovery of the opposite, is a shock of revulsion of a most distressing kind. The situation is not confined to the present case, but arises whenever any strong feeling is violently checked. The anguish of a sense of demerit is severe, because of its being liable to recur indefinitely. Just as the death of a friend is more easily surmounted than his disgrace, so a fall in our own eyes leaves a rankling sting behind ; perhaps the very worst quality that can belong to suffering. The term Self-abase¬ ment implies the consequence, and, in some measure, the remedy, of a sense of demerit ; inasmuch as it supposes that 106 EMOTIONS OF SELF. the individual has surrendered the previous estimate of self, and adopted one suitable to the altered circumstances. By Remorse, we understand the strongest form of self-reproach, arising from the deep downfall of self-respect and esteem. The awakened criminal drinks a cup of bitterness from this source, before experiencing the other fruits of his misdeeds. The intensity of the infliction is great, in proportion to the pitch of self-respect, and to the degree that the act in ques¬ tion runs counter to it. The Hindoo betrayed into tasting animal food is visited with the pangs of remorse, while iterated perjury leaves his mind at peace. Sometimes for real crimes against society, and at other times (like CEdipus) for involuntary offences, or ceremonial infringements, human beings have given themselves up to a life of incurable remorse, presenting some of the sternest and most tragic exhibitions of human history. The Greek drama has immortalized more than one development of this melancholy situation. LOVE OF ADMIRATION. 12. It is next to he seen in what way Approbation, Admi¬ ration, and Braise operate upon the sentiment of self. It is a fact that one of the most intense human delights grows out of the commendation of our fellows ; the pleasure being akin to the foregoing, but greatly heightened in amount. As on a former occasion, we must here revert to the working of the great principle of sympathy, by which every feeling of our nature may be increased in degree and protracted in duration. There are many cases where pleasure is limited by the inabi¬ lity of the system to support more than a given amount. The emotions all tend to consume the vital energies ; and apart from the introduction of various and far-fetched stimulants, the capability of happiness (or of unhappiness), might be inde¬ finitely augmented by adding to the strength, or in some way economizing the expenditure of the physical powers. Now, the sympathy and support of others have an effect in lighten¬ ing the pressure of any excitement, thus enabling it to burn SUPPORT GIVEN BY APPROBATION. 107 brighter and last longer* Just as the faltering courage is reanimated by the confident and emphatic assurances of a friend, and as a sentiment of hope may be kindled in despair by the elation of a multitude, so the feebly-felt satisfaction of self-complacency may become a power of joy when a second party joins in sympathetic accord. The susceptibility to other men’s expressed emotions is a thing acquired during early ex¬ perience, and there are very various degrees of its develop¬ ment, as I shall afterwards illustrate ; but so far as the pro¬ perty has been evolved, there is attaching to it this power of extending the support and diminishing the waste of emotional excitement. Such is the main operation of an influence from without. Not only is the power of enjoying our self-gratulatory sen¬ timent extended by sympathy, but we are also confirmed in that estimate of self, and in that fond affection which is the foundation of the whole. Indeed, it is possible that the impulse to self-consciousness may have its start in foreign influence ; our own good qualities, bodily or mental, may become for the first time the object of attention and regard by the notice taken of them by those about us. The self- regarding tendency may be checked in the bud by the chilling discouragement of parents and teachers, or exaggerated and fostered by a system of lavish approbation. In the very same way would our attachment to a second person be promoted by the influence of a third. We may remark farther that an offering of praise makes an occasion for the self-complacent emotion to flow out, being one of the appropriate stimulants of the emotion. As a sweet odour to the sense of smell, and a melodious sound to the ear, so is a compliment to self-complacency. The opportunities for this feeling partly arise within one’s own circle of avoca- * Sympathy may, however, operate as a new or exciting cause, and make a sum total still more exhausting. I mean that it is easier to keep up a certain amount of self-gratulatory feeling with the aid of other people’s expressed approbation and support, than by contemplating our merits in lonely isolation 108 EMOTIONS OF SELF. tions, as in tlie various displays that we make of our powers and appendages. The notice of our fellows contributes an additional round of stimulants. Nor must we overlook a circumstance that renders one’s need of the good opinion and favourable sentiments of others more near and direct than the need of one’s own good opinion ; which is the association of numerous substantial benefits with that favourable expression, and of equally, if not more, numerous evils from the opposite. Although this is a secondary, or derived, effect, we cannot easily over-estimate the influence of it on the human mind, so habituated to the dread of possible, probable, and actual suffering from other beings, as to feel a cheering glow whenever anything is con- veyed that gives assurance of the contrary. The pleasure of Approbation, and the counter pain of Dis¬ approbation, belong manifestly to the general group of emo¬ tions of Harmony and Conflict ; and accordingly their respec¬ tive characteristics are fitly described as elation and depression of mental tone. Likewise, as emotions of Relativity, their degree is essentially governed by comparison or contrast ; there must be novelty in the circumstances to give the full effect to a tribute of praise. 13. Having premised these general observations upon the altered character of the sentiment of self under foreign stimulation, we must now glance rapidly at the new aspects thus evolved, as we find them signified in the current phraseology. Mere Approbation implies the lowest, or most moderate form of intimating a favourable opinion. There is supposed by it a certain doubt that has to be set at rest ; and frequently, as in the case of superiors with their servants, nothing more is intended than that a piece of work has come up to the mark. Approbation may, therefore, mean only that we have passed an ordeal without incurring censure or rebuke. 14. Praise and Admiration are always something positive, and usually give rise to a throb of self-complacent feeling in the person addressed. Compliment is a name for the more APPLAUSE. — FAME. 109 familiar forms of praise, sucli as any one may be supposed capable of earning. Flattery and Adulation imply excess, if not untruth, in the matter of compliment. The bestowal of these (within certain assignable limits) is cultivated in polite society as a pleasure -giving art. Glory expresses the most open and ostentatious form of human admiration. The triumphal procession, the crowning in the Capitol, the trumpet notes, ‘ the tumult of acclaim,’ thrill and intoxicate the sus¬ ceptible bosom beyond every known influence. For such rewards pain is despised, fatigue endured, danger braved, life perilled. Reputation, Fame, may be bestowed in public ova¬ tion, or in the multiplied echoes of a wide society. To extend one’s name over the world, and to distant ages, fires the human breast as the sublimest destiny that any mortal can succeed to. Posthumous fame, indeed, has been treated as an absur¬ dity and a paradox, since it does not begin till the subject of it is dead. But this is only one of a thousand forms of ideal satisfaction, or the pleasure derived from anticipation, and the imagined. The heir of fame is fired, while yet alive, by the honours that will attend his name ; and the acts of homage paid to those already departed operate in reality upon him. Honour includes all those tokens of respect, considera¬ tion, and deference instituted in society for those in elevated place, whether through office, rank, or reputation achieved. Applause may come from the many, as in the theatre, or from the few, as in the more recondite walks of the human intel¬ lect. In either case, the effect on the recipient is materially determined by his reciprocal feeling towards his admirers. The hurras of the mob have in all civilized nations been dis¬ tinguished from the esteem of qualified judges. There are a number of less demonstrative forms of giving honour. The mere gaze of the eye is a symbol of esteem, accepted as such by the praise-thirsty soul. Compliment can be conveyed by implication or innuendo, and in this form is free from the objection to open flattery, w hich often shocks a sensitive mind. The invidia that accompanies high honours is strongly felt by some constitutions, and is probably one of the circum- 110 EMOTIONS OF SELF. stances that make one revolt from the grosser forms of praise. Modern society has thrown a certain discredit on the enjoy¬ ment of the self-gratulatory pleasures, and hence a feeling of shame is apt to he engendered when a person is marked out as the subject of formal applause. For all these reasons, the transformation of the open into the more covert modes of pay¬ ing honour has been thought a refinement. Vanity and Vain¬ glory signify that the individual is active in the cultivation of self-importance, canvassing as it wrere for distinction. The open boaster, not satisfied with his own feeling of esteem, insists on the concurrence of others, and, if people do not choose of their own accord to.pay him regard, he detains them on every opportunity with the circumstantials of his own glorification. 15. The arts of Politessc lie mainly within the circle of our present subject. The courtesies of life to a certain extent manifest kindliness and sympathy, but the larger portion refers to the amour jpropre, of the person addressed. The compliment direct, the demonstration of respect, the tender¬ ing of honour, and the expression of deference, are the posi¬ tive forms of politeness ; while an equal attention is enforced to all the methods of avoiding whatever might wound the self-importance of our fellows. The self-complacent sentiment is the basis of one of the great ‘ interests ’ of society, like life or property, and laws are made for protecting it. It is not allowable even to declare one’s honest convictions when the dignity of others would suffer mortification. People are not always at liberty to speak the truth to ‘ ears polite.’ * We are thus led to recognise the present emotion as giving birth to a pretty large fraction of the gratifications and delights of human life. Founded, as we have seen, in the great region of tender feeling, the outgoings of the sentiment are a pleasure superadded upon the affectionate relationships. * It is worth remarking here that this restraint on sincerity is carried too far ; and in more barbarous times and places, still farther, as in Oriental politeness. DISAPPROBATION. Ill A man’s happiness, says Paley, is very much dependent upon the reception he everywhere meets with. To have so impres¬ sed those about us with feelings of love and esteem, as to he continually encountering the tokens of their regard, is a grand object to aspire to, and a rich harvest of fruition, There is a reciprocal effect of admiration in drawing forth the kindly sentiments, and as it were the gratitude, of the admired object. Hence a mode of conciliating the favour of others, and also of corruption for the gaining of ends. 16. As applause is but the agreeable heightening of self- gratulation by sympathy, and reflected heat, so Censure, Dis¬ approbation, Dispraise, Abuse, Libel, Scorn, Infamy, increase the feeling of self-humiliation, or at least increase the pain of it. According as the opposites of these make the warmth and sunshine of existence, do they themselves affect the mind with misery and terror, and the sense of outer darkness. If any one is conscious of wrong, of some crime against society, of a gross failure in undertakings, of remissness in duty, or of assuming undeserved privileges, the public indignation crushes him to the dust ; seized with penitence and remorse he resigns all claim to consideration, and is ready to com¬ pound with the offended powers by a criminal’s doom. It is to be noted, however, that disapprobation has usually more in it than merely taking down the self-complacency of the indi¬ vidual. In many cases the tender feelings are outraged as well, while often, as above remarked, it is but a prelude to more substantial evils. As we are accustomed to follow up admiration with other advantages, so when a man has strongly roused our disfavour, we are not content with slighting his personal qualities, but are ready to damage his happiness in many ways besides. 17. The feeling of Shame is resolver! by a reference to the dread of being condemned, or ill-thought of, by others. De¬ clared censure and public infliction, by inviting the concurrent hostile regards of a wide circle of spectators, constitute an open shame. One is also put to shame by falling into any act that people are accustomed to disapprove, and will cer- 112 EMOTIONS OF SELF. tainly censure in their own minds, although they may refrain from actually pronouncing condemnation. This is the most frequent case in common society. Knowing the hard judg¬ ments passed upon all breaches of conventional decorum, we are mortified when conscious of a slip ; we can too easily imagine the sentence that we do not actually hear. The character of the pain of all such situations exactly accords with the pains of expressed disapprobation. 18. We may remark before concluding, on the bearing that education and culture should have on the emotion now passed in review. Having personal excellence for its principal object, and being a large source of human gratification, this feeling prompts powerfully to self-cultivation and active usefulness. Whatever good qualities strike our own minds, or impress the community that we live in, are sure to be sought after with especial ardour, while those that are in bad odour are kept in subjection. On the other hand, the sentiment of self-esteem is one exceedingly liable to over-indulgence ; that is to say, there is a tendency to engross an unfair amount of the general stock of praise, honour, or admiration. We might probably furnish an explanation of the indulgence of self-regard and complacency, by remarking how much easier it is in general to fall into the contemplation of our own character and actions, than to be arrested by the good qualities of others. It is the susceptibility to be fascinated, and to sympathize, with our fellows, and with things away from self, that constitutes the check or counterpoise to excessive amour propre. Admiration, love, and sympathy in general, are powers that take us out of ourselves, and enable us to find pleasure in seeing, if not adding to, the good that others possess. 19. There is a language and expression of the self-com¬ placent feeling that finds its way into Art, and more especially into comedy. Boasting and self-praise are the outright mani¬ festations of self-complacency. The usurping of men’s atten¬ tion on all occasions in season or out of season, the constant desire to show off, the gloating over praise, the recollection SELF-LOVE AND SELFISHNESS. 113 and retail of compliments, the turning of every incident in the direction of one’s own glory, — all enter into the embodi¬ ment of an obtrusive self-gratulation. Inflation, as a substi¬ tute for real dignity, is peculiarly adapted for ludicrous effects, and hence the abundant use of this characteristic in comic literature. Vainglorious fools, bragging cowards, are good stage subjects ; witness Sir John Falstaff and the Bombastes Furiosos of the comic drama. Indeed, a spice of bombastic self-importance is a principal ingredient in most of the dra¬ matic personages formed to be laughed at. The same remark applies to romance, as we may see in Don Quixote and his squire, and in Addison’s finest creation. 20. I observed at the outset of this chapter that Self-love and Selfishness embrace a much larger circle of feelings than those now discussed. A few remarks upon these designations are not out of place in the present connexion. Self-love is a species of self-consciousness or self-regard, that makes the collective wants and pleasures of existence an aim and a soli¬ citude. A sentient being not only feels hungry, but retains the recollection of the hungry state, and of its steady recurrence from day to day. This memory of conscious states, with a view to acting upon them, is a mode of self-consciousness. Present hunger prompts to present action ; that constitutes a single or isolated fact of animal consciousness or feeling. When, how¬ ever, the sensation of hunger is remembered and noted as a re¬ curring appetite, and when means are taken on the large scale to meet the sum total of its demands for many months, the regards take a higher sweep, and some term is needed to express this totalized object that is operating upon the will. The word * self’ is used for this purpose, and self-love becomes identical with forethought and prudence. A man treats self, in this acceptation, as he does his child, or his horse, foreseeing their wants, and providing for them in the gross. We are here, therefore, brought face to face with that exceedingly im¬ portant phase of human conduct implied under such terms as ‘ forethought,’ ‘ prudence,’ ‘ calculation,’ which, although ad¬ mitted to be in the main an essential virtue of humanity, is H 114 EMOTIONS OF SELF. sometimes stigmatized as if it were a vice. The worship paid on particular occasions to blind self-abnegation, or even to the blindness of the self-abnegation, shows that there is some¬ thing interesting in costly sacrifice that more than makes up for the bad calculation often attending it. The fond mother wastes herself profusely in attention to her sick infant, and no one ever reproaches her for the permanent loss to herself, and to the rest of her family, which a little considerate calcu¬ lation might have saved, without, perhaps, leaving the other duty undone. 21. Of the narrow love of self called Selfishness, I think it worth while to remark again that nothing implied in it can ever favour the notion of any one being actuated by motives entirely apart from themselves. If a man has been so moved by his tender sentiments, his philanthropic leanings, his love of justice, to include among the objects of his pursuits a large mass of good to others, or if, like Howard, he makes the relief of foreign misery the one aim of his life — he is still evidently following out the impulses of his own personality, while deserving to be ranked with the noblest and best of men. The selfishness that we reproach not only does not comprehend others, but actually robs them of what is their own — as in the reckless pursuit of gain, the suppression of freedom by unbounded authority, or the insatiable grasping of attention, honour, or applause. This is the self of a conquer¬ ing Alexander. CHAPTER VIII. EMOTION OF POWER. 1.* TN my preceding volume, I have dwelt upon the various feelings begotten in the Exercise of the muscular organs. These are highly pleasurable when the body is healthy, strong, and fresh, and are one ingredient in the * Dugald Stewart has stated, with great perspicuity and accui'acy, the general workings of this sentiment, and I therefore transcribe his account, by way of introduction to the view I have here taken of the foundation, or origin, of the feeling in our constitution : — ‘ In general, it may bo observed, that, whenever we are led to consider ourselves as the author of any effect, we feel a sensible pride or exultation in the consciousness of power , and the pleasure is in general proportioned to the greatness of the effect, compared with the smallness of our exertion. ‘ What is commonly called the pleasure of activity is in truth the pleasure of power. Mere exercise, which produces no sensible effect, is attended with no enjoyment, or a very slight one. The enjoyment, such as it is, is only corporeal. ‘ The infant, while still on the breast, delights in exerting its little strength on every object it meets with, and is mortified when any accident convinces it of its own imbecility. The pastimes of the boy are almost, without excep¬ tion, such as suggest to him the idea of his power. When he throws a stone or shoots an arrow, he is pleased with being able to produce an effect at a dis¬ tance from himself ; and, while he measures with his eye the amplitude or range of his missile weapon, contemplates with satisfaction the extent to which his power has reached. It is on a similar principle that he loves to bring his strength into comparison with that of his fellows, and to enjoy the consciousness of his superior prowess. Nor need we search in the malevolent dispositions of our nature for any other motive to the apparent acts of cruelty whichhe sometimes exercises over the inferior animals — the sufferings of the animal, in such cases, either entirely escaping his notice, or being overlooked in that state of pleasurable triumph which the wanton abuse of power com¬ municates to a weak and unreflecting judgment. The active sports of the youth captivate his fancy by suggesting similar ideas — of strength of body, of 116 EMOTION OF POWER. agreeable consciousness growing out of active pursuit. There is, too, a corresponding pleasure in mental effort, considered merely as the exercise of an activity of the system. This may not only be observed as a fact, but is also a natural con¬ sequence of the view we have taken of the mechanism of ideal action. Repeating words in idea is to perform the same round of nervous movements as repeating them aloud, and ought to yield the same feeling slightly modified. When the nervous system is in good condition, both the one and the other exercise are exhilarating and delightful. The difference between them is perhaps this, namely, that in the purely mental exertion the circles of the brain are most excited, and the resulting consciousness is more intense and more exhaust¬ ing ; tending to a species of painful fatigue peculiar to mental exercise. On the other hand, the muscles, when brought powerfully into action, draw the circulation off from the brain, force of mind, of contempt cf hardship and of danger. And accordingly such are the occupations in which Virgil, with a characteristic propriety, employs his young Ascanius : — ‘ “At puer Ascanius mediis in vallihus acri Gaudet equo ; jamque hos eursu, jam prmterit illos; Spumantemque daii pecora inter inertia votis Optat aprum, aut fulvum descendero monte leonem.’’ * As we advance in years, and as our animal powers lose their activity and vigour, we gradually aim at extending our influence over others by the superiority of fortune and station, or by the still more flattering superiority of intellectual endowments, by the force of our understanding, by the extent cf our information, by the arts of persuasion, or the accomplishments of address. What but the idea of power pleases the orator in managing the reins of an assembled multitude, when he silences the reason of others by superior ingenuity, bends to his purposes their desires and passions, and, without the aid of force, or the splendour of rank, becomes the arbiter of the fate of nations ! ‘ To the same principles we may trace, in part, the pleasuro arising from the discovery of general theorems in the sciences. Every such discovery puts us in possession of innumerable particular truths or particular facts, and gives us a ready command of a great stock of knowledge of which we could not, with equal ease, avail ourselves before. It increases, in a word, our intellectual poxcev in a way very analogous to that in which a machine or engine increases the mechanical power of the human body.’ PROPER PLEASURE OF POWER. 117 and their fatigue induces a soothing repose. The exercise of the senses is midway between purely mental activity and bodily exercise. In long-continued acts of attention with the eye, or the ear, the preponderance of pressure is upon the circles of the brain, the muscles engaged being too small in bulk to operate a diversion. The same observation applies to much speaking. All these various modes of exerting the 1 human powers are agreeable within the limits proper to each, and disagreeable when carried beyond those limits. There is, besides, a satisfaction in attaining the Ends of our active pursuit ; the fact of their being ends implies as much. In all voluntary effort, therefore, there is a double influence upon the mind — the influence of the state of activity or exercise, and that of the end, or tiling aimed at. The animal roaming for its food, the peasant tilling his ground, experience this two-fold effect. Thus, labour, which is exer¬ cise for attaining a gratification, or for the avoidance of an evil, is a complicated or compound situation, and the conse¬ quent emotion is likewise compound. The great variety of modes of active exercise on the one hand, and of agreeable effects on the other, lead to a numerous class of composite emotions referable to the region of our activity. When some very congenial exertion on our part produces an effect also very gratifying, the confluence of the two plersures must needs beget an intense delight. Such happy combinations are not the usual case ; either the kind of exercise that delights us most brings little other fruit ; or, to attain our favourite ends, we must take up with uninviting labours. 2. The proper pleasure of Power is something beyond mere exeition for ends. It arises on comparing the easy with the difficult performance of operations. When the laboriousness of an operation is of a uniform character, the feelings connected with it are the two above-mentioned — the pleasure (or pain) of the exercise, and the pleasure of the end. But let us sup- i pose a work at first performed with great pain or difficulty, and afterwards with ease ; in that case, the transition from the one state to the other, gives rise to a new feeling, of the 118 EMOTION OF POWER. class founded on Relativity or Comparison, — a joyous and hilarious rebound ; intense according to the greatness and the suddenness of the change ; there being a corresponding de¬ pression of mental tone when the course is in the opposite direction, or from ease to difficulty. So, when after a pro¬ tracted and doubtful struggle, we are victorious, there is an / outburst of joyful excitement peculiar to the situation of con¬ trast. 3. I formerly described this emotion as the consciousness of superior power, energy, or might ; there being present to the mind some inferior grade to give the comparison. This is the most general way of expressing the numerous and varied as¬ pects of the emotion. One mode of transition has been quoted — the passing from difficulty to ease in performing the same work, as happens in the growth of the powers, and in the progress of the learner. Every advance in physical strength, skill, or mental accom¬ plishment, is accompanied with a thrill of elation, which is one of the pleasures attending our progress from infancy on¬ wards. The consciousness of sclf-improvenrent is grateful and cheering ; the decline of our powers is one of the gloomy adjuncts of age. A second mode of transition is the increased productive¬ ness of the same efforts, as when we obtain better tools, or when we transfer our labours to a more genial soil, or a more bending material. Any circumstance that enables us to ob¬ tain a greater return for exertions, besides conferring the en¬ joyments of greater material abundance, gives the agreeable stimulation of enlarged power. The teacher of a promising pupil enjoys the effect of contrast in the better yield of his labours. To this form of the sentiment belongs also a rise in the position of command. The third mode of obtaining the requisite transition, is the comparison with others. When we try our strength against an equal, and come off superior, we are elated with the joy of power. The man of superior endowments, as he passes his fellows in the race of life, is the subject of this grateful senti- PHYSICAL ACCOMPANIMENTS. 119 ment. The situation of permanent superiority to other men, gives a certain degree of elation, although much less than ap¬ pears to the looker-on, who rarely allows, in the case of others, for the inexorable subsidence of the emotion in a state of sameness. By every advance in ability or in position, we raise at the same time the standard of comparison, and are no longer elated by the same class of effects. The slave com¬ pares himself with his fellow-bondsmen, and rejoices in his points of superiority ; becoming a free citizen, he quits the for¬ mer comparison, and is now affected, only as he can excel his new associates. 4. The physical accompaniments of the emotion of power are well marked, and in full accordance with the general law that connects pleasure with increased vitality. A certain erect and lofty carriage, denoting surplus vigour, is looked upon as the natural consequence, and the fitting demeanour, of supe¬ riority to others ; while inferiority, dependence, and defeat, ' are betokened by an attitude of bending or collapse, the too obvious renderings of impaired vital energy. But we must advert to the appearances on a fresh outburst, to judge what the accession of power does to raise the vital forces. At the moment of overcoming a difficulty, of rising a step in the consciousness of might or skill, of defeating a rival, of promotion to command, — the flush of pleasurable elation is represented by a burst of physical energy, as if some tonic or stimulant had been administered. Compare the successful with the unsuccessful man, in a contest, and the difference is not to be mistaken. The physical and the mental tone will be found to rise and fall together. The successful man is invigorated for his next undertaking ; the unsuccessful man, in being mentally dispirited, is physically disabled. There is a specific tendency in the elation of a stroke of power to stimulate the outburst of Laughter. Some forms of the expression rebut the hilarious manifestation as unsuitable or unbecoming ; but, throughout the multifarious instances of y the wide-spread emotion before us, laughter is found as a ready concomitant. The elation of the spirits accompanying 120 EMOTION OF POWEll. a stroke of superior energy would seem to ally itself with this special manifestation. When we come to enquire into the feeling of the ludicrous, we shell find the sentiment before us at work under many disguises ; and although Hobbes’s ex¬ planation may not be literally correct, yet he has touched upon the chief point of this much disputed phenomenon. There are a plurality of causes of the hilarious outburst, some purely physical, and the rest mental ; among these last the production of a telling effect is one that cannot be disputed. We see it in the glee of children, in the spcrt of youth, and in the demeanour even of grave old age. Not in physical effects alone, but in everything where a man can achieve a stroke of superiority, in surpassing or discomfiting a rival, is the dis¬ position to laughter apparent. The chuckle of a rogue at a successful piece of knavery is prompted not simply by the acquisition that it brings, but also by the success of the enter¬ prise, as illustrating his superior powers. The effect of the sudden attainment of power in liberating nervous energy may be brought under the general law of Harmony and Conflict. Difficulty or Impotence is obviously a conflict of the forces ; the sudden cessation of which, that is, the attainment of harmony, cannot be otherwise than a re¬ deeming of nervous power. 5. As regards the mode of consciousness of the emotion we are discussing, little need be said except to resume what has already come out in the course of the foregoing paragraphs. We are to regard it as a feeling intensely pleasurable, great both in amount and in degree. It is a pleasure of the elating or intoxicating class, inasmuch as it produces a general rise of tone, a superior mental energy for the time being, and an atmosphere of excitement wherein other pleasures burn brighter. The thrill is apt to persist as a grateful tremor for a considerable time after the actual occasion, and to be readily revived as an ideal satisfaction. The intensity of the hold that it takes of the mind is shown in inspiring the will to pursue objects corresponding to it ; such as station, office, or other instrumentality of superior command. Ambition in- CHARACTERS OF THE EMOTION. 121 volves the attainment of power as a principal signification ; even honour is not a satisfying good unless there attach to it a certain amount of real influence. Thus it is that power may be described as a sentiment born of our active energies, and qualifying them for still higher efforts ; as a copious spring of human pleasure, operating on the will, and persisting in the intellect in no ordinary degree ; giving a place in the thoughts to everything appertaining to one’s own superiority ; and largely swaying the convictions. It is an emotion of the first magnitude ; the favourable side is shown in laudable efforts to attain bodily and mental efficiency, and to promote the general good ; the unfavourable aspects, if fully enumerated, would bring to view many of our most odious vices. Arro¬ gance, insolence, cruelty, tyranny, oppression, persecution, derision, scorn, abuse, contempt, opprobrium, antipathy, ex¬ cessive interference, and the passion of anger — fall under that black catalogue. 6. Let us now pursue the exemplification of specific forms of the sentiment. When, by the command of animal power, of natural agencies, or of other human beings, a single person can accomplish Large Operations for his own sole behoof, not only has he a greater yield to his activity, but he has also that exalted sense of power and efficiency now described. Having constantly before his eyes the much lower efficiency of the endeavours of the generality of men, he takes his own measure by the comparison, and feels elated by the wider response to all his movements. The proprietor of land and capital, the owner of manufactories, and ships, and warehouses, receives in return for his toil, or perhaps without any toil, a large share of the good things of life ; but besides this, he feels himself elevated when he sees the extent of his command, and the multitude of effects resulting from his will. The chief in a business establishment is no less jealous of his position of mastery than of his actual property. 7. Even in the matter of working for those we love, there is room for the supplementary element of superiority. The mother exerting her powers for her children has all the happi- 122 EMOTION OF POWEK. ness of exercise to a favourite end ; but she may also aim at the distinction of surpassing the generality in what she does for them. In working to secure the affection, admiration, esteem, or following of others, there is already the twofold satisfaction of putting forth our active energies, and compass¬ ing a highly gratifying return ; yet at no point of our nature does the extra ingredient insinuate itself more forcibly. It is not simply the pleasure of being loved, admired, esteemed, followed, but the being one or all of these in superior measure that the human breast often craves for. The enjoyment of love and esteem is not enough without distinction and monopoly. At least such is the tendency of the unchecked pursuit of the luxury of power. This is one form of Jealousy. 8. There is a great pleasure in Bending the Wills of other men by force, authority, terror, or persuasion. This comes home at once to the feeling of superiority. We measure our¬ selves by another person whom we utterly subdue and pros¬ trate, and feel elated by the degree that our agency passes his. The terrified aspect, and the submissive gestures, of the weaker party feed the sentiment of power in the stronger, and that quite apart from the comparison with third parties incapable of such effects. The conventional bearing of inferiors to their superiors is meant to echo and acknowledge power by submission. The headship of a family gives scope for the sentiment of power in various ways ; and in some minds this is the principal enjoyment of the position. The schoolmaster can both command and form his pupils. Every grade of wealth and rank, above the lowest, brings in the pleasure of influence. The action of man upon the lower animals extends the position of power in humanity generally. To command the service of some animals, and to trample upon and destroy others, are modes of exercising the pride of ascendancy. The sports of the field would be neutralized by men’s tender sympathies, but for the gush of exultation felt in bringing a living creature to the dust, 9. The possession of State Office gives in a high degree the sentiment of power, and this is the return for the labours STATE OFFICE. — SCIENCE. 123 of government to the inheritors of wealth and fortune. The sovereign, the minister, the official, the military officer, the judge, the magistrate, the ecclesiastic, have each their quota of the sweets of authority. When a man wielding the power of a nation goes forth to conquer other nations, he but panders still farther to this boundless craving. The acquisition of enormous wealth has no other fruit than the luxury of power. The millionaire feels the ascendancy that he exercises, and has often a still more intense delight in imagining the many pos¬ sible ways that he could make his influence tell. In a free community, the price of power is perhaps by no one more enjoyed than by the chosen leaders of large parties. Men that have attained an influence from their eloquence, or their wisdom, naturally plume themselves by a comparison with inherited power. It is grateful to be consulted in matters of high importance, and to be permitted to suggest or originate large schemes and operations. Without being called in, men are exceedingly prone to offer counsel to the state, or to in¬ terfere in cases of imposing interest. 10. The position that Science gives is occasionally of a very commanding kind. The application of scientific laws sometimes imparts great power in practical operations ; and at other times gives a solution to perplexing enigmas. Hence a feeling of elation may be generated by the discovery of new facts or principles, by the possession of extensive knowledge, or by the opportunity of promulgating ascertained truth. The pleasure thus derived is shown by the desire to get at new truths, for the sake of the effect experienced through having the lead in so great an agency. Pretenders to discoveries generally go in advance of the real discoverer, and the anxiety for success relaxes the attention to evidence. 11. The masterstrokes of Fine Art peculiarly affect the artistic mind with the feeling of superior and commanding ability. Before the public are admitted to judge, the artist has judged for himself, and has been elated with the senti¬ ments of power and complacency. In proportion as the effects in fine art are more telling than many other effects, the plea- 124 EMOTION OF POWER. sures of the operating mind are more intense. Take, as a familiar example, the gifts cf speech, as in oratory or colloquial brilliancy. The charm of such effects is so great, and, because the reward is immediate, reacts so powerfully on the mind lhat can produce them, as to give a more than ordinary ela¬ tion, and to lead to the employment of unscrupulous means. It is only necessary to indicate the practice of sacrificing truth to point and effect both in oratory and in conversation. 12. The operation of the love of influence may be traced deep in the familiar habits of society. The expansion of one’s sphere is sought by interference with the liberty of our fellows ; by censoriousness and judicial assumption over the conduct of others ; and by the tendency to meddle and push one’s self forward in everything that happens. Intolerance has its firmest root in the passion for the exercise of power. It is not enough that people form opinions and contract likings or aversions to act upon for themselves, they must also impose the same line of conduct upon all around them. The love of power shows itself as paramount over the love of sensual in¬ dulgence ; in the exercise of ascetic self- control, men have found a compensation for the loss of other enjoyments. This choice would be shown in its purity, if such persons were always content with imposing privation on themselves, but when they require also the concurrence of every one else, it is at best but the relinquishing of individual indulgence in re¬ turn for a wide command. 13. We have thus rapidly indicated a few of the prominent examples of the sentiment in question, and in so doing have signalized the features of the emotion. The quality of it is remarkable, not merely for intensity of pleasure, but for en¬ durability and continuance, both in reality and in idea. Being connected with the exercise of our active power, as decidedly as tender emotion allies itself with repose, we naturally expect to find it developed in the active temperaments. Indeed, we may pronounce it the essential sweetness of activity. Banking as a first-class emotion, there is in it something remarkably cheering, supporting, and hilarious, giving an erect carriage, PAINS OF IMPOTENCE. 125 and an easy bearing as of one well-sustained by inward vitality unabated by obstruction. According to the intensity of the feeling in any one case, do we find it operating to inspire voluntary efforts, possessing the mind, directing the trains of thought, and influencing the convictions. There is, how¬ ever, a peculiarity attending it of great practical importance ; namely, the circumstance dwelt upon from the outset — that being essentially a feeling of reaction and relief, it subsists upon comparison, and dies away as the contrasting condition ceases to be felt. Hence it inflames the imagination of minds labouring under obstruction, difficulty, and inferiority, these having the most lively estimate of that which power gives a deliverance from. Such minds utterly exaggerate the pleasure of a position of actual sway and unchecked abun¬ dance. This consideration has not been overlooked by moralists and preachers, in attempting to supply correctives to ambitious fancies and dreams of bliss attainable through the removal of some actual pressure. The moment of suc¬ cess gives a thrill that is not exaggerated ; but this can be renewed only through the renewal of the foregone struggle, or the lively presence of the contrast. A still more grave consideration attaches to the sentiment of power as a habitual gratification, which is, that no high measure of it can be en¬ joyed except by a small number of persons at the cost of the great mass of living beings.* 14. The pains of Impotence are shown under resistance, frustration, difficulty not overcome. The misery of Failure, besides the loss of some wished-for advantage, is liable to contain the farther mortification of a disclosed weakness. In the case of a menial or inferior position, there is the sense of littleness in the result of one’s labours ; the whole existence * There is room for much additional remark upon the simple concurrence of agreeable exertion with agreeable results (apart from the sentiment of ela¬ tion at superior might), wherein lies a good part of the substantial happiness of life. To be successful in a congenial profession, or pursuit, expresses a large volume of felicity. A succeeding chapter will incidentally contribute to the examples of this position. See Chap x. 126 EMOTION OF POWER. of one person being spent in contributing to, perhaps, the hundredth part of the existence of another person * Still worse is the position of absolute dependence, which aggravates powerlessness by terrors. But perhaps the situation of greatest chagrin is to be defeated in a fairly matched contest. 15. I shall notice farther only one other aspect of the painful side of the exercise of power ; namely, the form of Jealousy experienced when one’s importance is interfered with, or detracted from, by other persons. It applies to every species of superiority, command, influence, ascendancy, direc¬ tion, and to the love, admiration, or esteem falling to one’s share. In proportion as these are cherished by the mind, does one feel hurt, shocked, grieved, or enraged by the attempt to derogate from them in any way. This sentiment of jealousy is the most odious aspect of exaggerated self-importance. Great superiority of position is at best an invidious thing, from im¬ plying so much inequality among mortal men, and rather needs to be softened by bearing one’s honours meekly, than made more stem by jealous exaction. f * A great expended force with a trifling result has a contemptible effect in the eyes of a spectator, unless pity, anger, or some other passion is roused as an antidote. This is one of the occasions of many-caused laughter. ‘ Par- turiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.’ f Something, perhaps, is needed to define more clearly the relations of the feeling now discussed with the egotistic sentiments forming the subject of the foregoing chapter. I am of opinion that Self-complacency and the exultation of the consciousness of Power have totally distinct roots in our system — the one springing from tender emotion turned self-wards, the other occurring in the exercise of our activity — and yet the two mingle their branches together in actual experience. A man, not much given to self-consciousness and self-regard, may still have, in a high degree, the pleasurable sentiment of his own superior efficiency ; if he has, besides, indulged a fond affection towards his own personality, as he would to a son or a friend, there is a feeling of complacency and self-admiration superadded. The tender and passive emotion is in this case evoked to supplement the emotion of activity. It depends upon the tone of the individual constitution whether the sentiment of power shall be enjoyed in its singleness, or whether a tributary from the fountain of tenderness shall mingle largely in the current. Hard natures, little prone to warm afiection in any shape, uwell in the active emotion. These are the men, like the elder Dionysius, the despot of Syracuse, who enjoy power to such a degree as to despise public approbation, and possibly also self-approbation. CHAPTER IX. THE IRASCIBLE EMOTION. E now proceed to the consideration of an emotion in T * nearly all respects the contrast of one already handled. Instead of pleasure begetting pleasure, as in the case of the Tender affections, we have here suffering terminating in suf¬ fering, while a certain stage of the feeling is still capable of affording delight. The analysis of this phase of our consti¬ tution is both interesting and important ; and the varieties of the state include some of the most formidable manifestations of the human mind. 1. The objects of Irascible feeling are persons, the authors of pain or injury. Pain arising from an impersonal cause, as in the rise of the wintry blast, leads to the usual manifesta¬ tions of feeling, and to alleviating efforts of volition ; but pro¬ ceeding from a person, or in any way assignable to personal agency, it kindles anger. The general rule is, the greater the pain, the greater the anger ; but there are various exceptions and qualifications ; and the study of these casts light on the workings of the passion. It may happen that pain causes terror, or grief, and not anger ; the result depending more upon the constitution of the individual than upon any specific distinction between different sorts of injury. Naturally enough, suffering inflicted on the tender side of human nature vents itself by preference in grief. So when the agent is some being of irresistible might, feai is more likely to be inspired than anger. Or, we may note, as a possible case, that the injured person may 128 THE IRASCIBLE EMOTION. coolly set to work to find a remedy without any ebullition of angry feeling. 2. As regards the physical mechanism, there is consider¬ able obscurity as well as complication. We cannot trace in the human subject any specific glandular secretion, such as the lachrymal flow in the case of tenderness, or the still more decided example in connection with the sexes ; nevertheless, there is evidence to prove that the state of anger is associated with extensive derangement of the general secretions of or- ganic life. The nature and amount of this derangement cannot be defined, and are possibly not constant ; but both in the alimentary group of organs — the stomach, intestines, liver— and in the exhalations of the skin, most palpable changes are manifested under this excitement. The popular notion as to ‘ bile ’ being in excess during angry passion, is not much to be trusted. Nor are we to take in the analogy of the discharge of poison by some of the lower animals, although apparently very close to our purpose ; that discharge I am obliged to look upon as a proper exercise of volition, and not as the mere diffusion arising from feeling. In fact, the muscular expression, and the influence on the breathing, the circulation, and the secretions, are a compound of emotional diffusion and the voluntary activity that is so apt to be mixed up with this passion. If wre set aside, on the one hand, the manifestation due to mere pain, and on the other hand, the acts having retaliation for their object, — the feeling of pure resentment, being in the main a pleasure, really gives birth to a pleasurable expression, well understood as the grin of a satisfaction that is devoid of tenderness. The various demonstrations of scorn, sneering, loathing, correspond to different turns of the sentiment. The excitement of the Activity, often to a frenzied pitch, is a characteristic deserving of special attention. There are many ways of bringing on an active outburst; — Spon¬ taneity, after rest and nourishment; more irritation of the nerves anyhow; a pleasurable stimulus ; an acute smart; op¬ position not insurmountable ; a shock of fear (causing excita- CHARACTER OF THE EMOTION. 129 lion in some parts, with depression in others). In pure Anger, the two prominent causes are the disturbing shock of pain, and the thirst for retaliation and revenge. .An acute shock is efficacious as being more exciting ; and anger is essentially a mode of excitement. Again, a sudden and unexpected attack is eminently disturbing to equanimity of mind, and on that ground favours the rise of the angry state. On the other hand, a crushing blow kills the sentiment of anger ; the destruction of vital power is the loss of the all- important requisite of active energy. Proverbially, small grinding inflictions are the most irritating. OO O 3. Next as to the character of the emotion itself. The first and natural effect of a painful stimulus, after showing itself in the ordinary wave of diffusion, is to excite the will, or to inspire some actions for escaping from the infliction. It is the nature of any sharp and sudden stroke to prompt some very violent exertion by way of relief. There is nothing more in this than that primordial link between feeling and action, which is the foundation of all voluntary power. We are not to confound either the contortions expressive of pain, or the violent endeavours to escape from it, with angry passion, although all the three are very apt to be mixed together. In children we see the two first from an early period ; the last does not appear until the notion of per¬ sonality, and the sense of the effects of action on others, have been developed. The distinctive feeling of anger implies the impulse knowingly to inflict suffering upon another sentient being, and to derive a positive gratification from the fad of suffering inflicted. We must first be able to read, and to enter into, the pleasures and pains of our fellow-creatures ; and then as the pleasure enjoyed by another gratifies our tender sensibility, so may suffering manifested by another gratify our irascible sensibility. The satisfaction thus derivable from malevolent sympathy is a means of soothing the original wound. What we have really to explain, therefore, is, not the fury and vehemence of angry excitement, but the root or origin of the pleasure of malevolence, which, however we may disguise I 130 THE IRASCIBLE EMOTION. it, is a fact of the human constitution. We had to perform a nice and circuitous analysis to find out by what steps the ' tender feeling leads us to take delight in the enjoyment felt by others, and we found that the intervention of sympathy was a part of the process ; and now we have to apply a similar analysis to the contrasting phenomenon of pleasure growing out of other men’s pains. Starting from the circumstance that we ourselves are put to pain, through the agency of another person, the mere voli¬ tional impulse would lead us to react upon that person, so as at least to deprive him of the power of injuring us. This is the course we take with offensive animals ; we put them hors dc combat for our own protection, and having once felt pain and peril, we experience in onr deliverance a corresponding satisfaction. Still this does not reach the essence of the irascible sentiment. To get at the true character of anger we must look at the feeling that remains after our enemy has been deprived of the means of committing farther injury. The fact that we have suffered harm at the hands of another person leaves a sting behind in the violation of the sanctity of our feelings. This presupposes doubtless the sentiment of self-regarding pride, the presence of which gives birth to the best developed forms of anger, although we may have genuine specimens without such co-operation. In any case, the pain actually inflicted upon us by a personal agent, with the contemplation of de¬ liberate purpose in the act, gives us, in addition to the actual pain, a degree of mental discomposure that survives the mere mischief. We forget the suffering caused by inanimate things, or by the mere inadvertence of our fellow-beings. But injury done us with design, or from neglect, is not so easily wiped away. Some positive application is needed to heal a wound that is of the nature of a fretting sore. Two kinds of appli¬ cation are found to answer the end ; the one the voluntary self-humiliation of the wrongdoer, the other a compulsory humiliation inflicted upon him. True anger thus supposes a discomposure of mind through harm received from another CONSTITUENTS OF ANGER. 131 person, and the cure of that discomposure by the submission or suffering of the agent. 4. In endeavouring to explain the phenomenon of the pleasures of Anger, we may remark, in the first place, that a fascination for the sight ofbodily inflict ion and suffering is one part of the complex interest in personality. Singular and horrible as the fact may appear, the evidence is incontestible. It is enough to quote the delight of children in torturing animals, and the zest of multitudes in witnessing public executions. In the absence of an adequate counteracting sympathy, the writhings of pain seem to furnish a new variety of the aggregate of sensual and sensuous stimulation due to living beings. The indications of a state of suffering that we are happily exempt from, and do not choose to conceive in its dread reality, instead of revulsion, impart a species of excite¬ ment pleasurable to many. In the next place, I conceive that the pleasure of power, enters as a very large ingredient of malevolent feeling. The putting of other beings to pain is a startling illustration of power and superiority. The childish delight in making a sensation is at the extreme point, when some one gives evi¬ dence of being put to pain. The rampant fury of boyhood exults in victimizing an animal or a beggar in the streets. The orator does not feel his own power, till he see, in the wincing of his opponents, that his thunders have told. But for our compassionate sympathies, our fears of retaliation, punishment, or censure, and the other elements of conscience, the delight in such manifestations would be unrestricted and universal. Now, what happens when another person puts us to pain ? How does this affect our ordinary state of mind considered as under the opposing solicitations of the pleasures of causing suffering on the one hand, and the sentiments that confer a sanctity upon the persons of our fellow-beings on the other ? I answer, the effect of an injury received is to suspend for the time the feelings of compassion, sympathy, and dutiful respect, and to leave the field free to the other passions. It 132 THE IRASCIBLE EMOTION. is declaring the individual an outlaw, withdrawing the har¬ riers of a flood always ready to overflow, opening a battery constantly charged, whence only one result can ensue. The protection that habitually surrounds a man, but for which he might be at any time a victim of the sport of every other man, is for the moment removed when he is the cause of pain to some one, and he is liable to the uncounteracted swing of the excitement of inflicting suffering, and the sentiment of power in the person aggrieved. I am prevented by the hu¬ mane side of my nature, and by my sense of duty, from kick¬ ing a dog that passes by ; an effect which would, doubtless, gratify other feelings in me. But if the animal bites, or barks at me, the pain and apprehension tend to destroy my tender feeling towards it, and suspend my sense of its rights as a sentient being, and I am thereupon prompted to repay myself for the suffering by a glut of the pleasure of inflicting pain. I might even go farther, and use the occasion as a pretext for deriving far more pleasure than was equivalent to the pain ; but this would be to exceed the measure of ordinary human exigency, which is to seek an amount of gratified superiority corresponding to the suffering received. A third circumstance is the association of preventing farther pain to ourselves by inducing fear of us, or of con¬ sequences, in the person causing the pain. There is always a great satisfaction in being relieved from the incubus of terror, one of the most depressing agencies that human life is subject to. Many minds that neither boil up in savage excitement, nor take especial delight in manifested superiority, are yet very much alive to this sort of satisfaction, it being only the rebound consequent on deliverance from oppressing appre¬ hensions. These three considerations are all that I can find at the bottom of the irascible sentiment considered as a source of pleasurable indulgence. One of them will be the prominent circumstance in one person, and another in a second ; but taken altogether they seem to me to amount to an explana¬ tion, so far complete as to dispense with assuming an inde- AN GET? IN THE LOWER ANIMALS. 133 pendent foundation in our constitution for this peculiar vein of emotion.'*' 5. The volitional, intellectual, and mixed qualities of the irascible emotion merely illustrate farther the degree of hold that it takes of the mind as a source of pleasure. The intellectual persistence is probably of that medium kind that distinguishes the stronger emotions from the organic feelings on the one hand, and from the sensations of the higher senses on the other. Only in natures specially prone to the state, or under special cultivation, can pure resentment become a standing pursuit for the mere sake of the pleasure. So in the attributes of occupying the attentions and thoughts, and of influencing the belief, we may consider that there is a tolerably close proportion to the general intensity of the feeling. In the detail of species that we are next to enter upon, the generalities now advanced will receive their exem¬ plification. 6. The recognised modes of the operation of Anger are very various, and some of them are not pure instances of the passion. I shall commence with the Lower Animals, many of whom exhibit in a marked form what passes for violent irascibility. The beasts of prey destroy and devour their victims with all the outward symptoms of a furious wrath. Even herbivorous animals, as the bull and the stag, fight to the death the members of their own tribe. The poisonous reptiles and insects discharge their venom on whatever creature encounters them. But in none of all those cases am I able to recognise anything beyond the putting forth of the * The advocate of the hypothesis of evolution might suggest that the irasci¬ ble outburst in civilized man is a counterpart of the destructive propensities essential, in an earlier stage, to the struggle for existence. To the phrenolo¬ gists also, Destructiveness still appears the appropriate heading of the senti¬ ment, which shows that there is something to be said for that mode of viewing it. Still, I see nothing either in the evolution hypothesis, or in the phreno¬ logical examples, to make me depart from the view, prevailing alike in ancient and in modern times, that puts forward, as the central fact of anger, the pleasure of malevolent infliction. For a criticism of the phrenological handling of the passion, see The Study of Character , p. 79. 134 THE IRASCIBLE EMOTION. volitional energies of the animal under the stimulus of some sensation or feeling. There being, in the system, destructive weapons and an active temperament, the weapons are put in action at first spontaneously, and afterwards at the instance of the animal’s various sensibilities, such as hunger and the like. These powers are the active machinery proper to the constitution of the creature, and in the use of them no emotion is implied beyond the ordinary physical sensations and wants of the individual. In the more highly endowed quadrupeds such as the dog, some notion of personality is gained ; and when we see the attacks that sexual jealousy will sometimes inspire, we may there suppose that the victo¬ rious animal has a certain pleasure beyond the mere getting rid of a rival by the exercise of a superior might. The anima¬ tion of two fighting cocks has in it some of the genuine • elements of rage, — the stimulated energies, and, on the part of the victorious animal, probably the sensual excitement, and the glut of power. 7. In the wrath of Infancy and Childhood, we may trace a gradual unfolding of the different features of the passion. In the first months of infant existence, pain gives birth to purely emotional displays, more or less energetic accord¬ ing to the intensity of the pains and the physical vigour of the constitution ; after the commencement of volitional power, the voluntary action has a corresponding energy ; but neither of the two modes can be termed anger. Another appearance that may be noted, is the effect of opposition or thwarting in adding to the violence of the demonstrations — a stimulating influence whose workings are especially apparent in child¬ hood, being probably a mixture of reflex stimulus with volition proper. A somewhat different aspect is presented, when the irritated infant energetically refuses every proposal of the nature of a substitute for what it is bent upon. The proper feeling of Anger passes beyond all these ; beginning only when the notion of another person’s suffering is attained, and the signs of it understood ; a state fully manifested at the SUDDEN PRESENTMENT. 135 age of from two to three years, at which period genuine sym¬ pathy may also commence. 8. The varieties of the emotion in mature life turn in part upon the various character of the pain, hurt, or injury consti¬ tuting the original stimulus. There are wrongs inflicted on the person, on the property, on the reputation, on the sympathetic relationships, and in other ways. Sometimes the injury is confined to a single act, at other times a door is opened to an indefinite series of wrongs. Moreover the view taken of the intention of the offending party has very much to do with the feeling engendered. An unintended harm is easily satisfied as far as moral reparation is concerned ; whereas the indications of a set purpose of doing us evil, stir up our resentment to the depths. The forms of angry feeling differ greatly among individuals and races, and are modified by civilization and historic changes. Out of all these possible differences we shall select for illustration some of the well- recognised species, such as have received characteristic desig¬ nations. And first, of the distinction between Sudden and Delibe¬ rate resentment. The Sudden outburst is what arises from an unexpected blow or shock, and depends on the excitability of the consti¬ tution. Some temperaments are described as quick, meaning that the operation of all the passions and movements is rapid. Not only anger, but fear, wonder, and all other passions, as well as the voluntary impulses, are propagated with energy and speed in such temperaments. The term nervous is applied to characterize the same mode of mental discharge, from the supposition that the nerves by their superior susceptibility are somehow involved in the effect. The aspect of the angry feeling, when suddenly aroused, corresponds to the more natural, that is, the more deeply ingrained, impulses of the individual. When we are abruptly forced into action of any kind, both the original instincts and the confirmed habits show themselves without disguise. In such a case, too, the prompting arises solely from the actual blow, and excludes all 136 THE IRASCIBLE EMOTION. reference to circumstances or collaterals. Hence sudden resentment is very apt to be excessive as well as hasty, from which circumstance arises the principal evil attaching to it. In the complicated relations of life, instantaneous decisions must often be bad, and the hurried impulses of a sudden resentment only furnish matter for repentance. Nevertheless the equanimity of the temper is, as already remarked, espe¬ cially liable to be disturbed by anything either acute or sudden ; the preventive volition, the flow of bitterness from violated personality, and the temper of retaliation, are roused into a vehement gush, aggravated in intensity when the tem¬ perament is quick or nervous. Thus, while on the one hand, these sudden impulses stand in need of the check of a promptly summoned resolution from within, let all men be¬ ware of needlessly provoking them from without. 9. Under Deliberate anger we might include a wide range of illustration. Implying, as this does, a consideration of all the circumstances attending the original injury, as well as all the consequences of retaliation, we may consider it the generic name for the passion as displayed in cultivated minds, and among civilized communities. It gives room for the introduction of some principle of procedure, such as a rule of justice, the dictates of religion, or the received maxims of society. The punishment of offenders, and the maintenance of discipline, belong to this head. We shall speak of these presently. The term Revenge expresses the angry passion carried to the full length of retaliation. The need of inflicting pain for appeasing the offended person is strongly suggested by this designation. Where the passion exists in great force, the spirit of revenge is sure to display itself, being in fact the course of conduct whereby anger is attested. Where an injury of great magnitude has been committed — or where the magnitude is simply imagined, and when the wounded per¬ sonality is difficult to be satisfied — we are accustomed to see the workings of a retaliation that knows no bounds. The implacable temper is exemplified on the widest scale in past REVENGE. 137 history. The wars of extermination between tribes and peoples, the vengeance of the conquering side, the proscrip¬ tions of rivals in power till the pages of every country’s annals. Sometimes revenge has the aspect of mere satisfac¬ tion applied to a rankling wound, a relief from real misery ; at other times, it would seem as if the wound were purposely kept open in order to enjoy the sweets of vengeance. Nume¬ rous instances may be brought to attest the reality of this species of luxury. The case of the Carthaginian general Hannibal may be quoted in point.* * Hamilkar, the grandfather of Hannibal, had been slain at Himera, in Sicily, and his grandson, in the year 409 n.c., in a successful invasion of the island, captured this town by storm. He checked the slaughter of the citi¬ zens by his soldiery in order to a signal demonstration of his wrath, described and commented on as follows by the historian of Greece : — ‘ It was a proud day for the Carthaginian general when he stood as master on the ground of Himera ; enabled to fulfil the duty, and satisfy the exigencies, of revenge for his slain grandfather. Tragical, indeed, was the consumma¬ tion of this long-cherished purpose. Not merely the walls and temples (as at Selinus), but all the houses in Himera, were razed to the ground. Its temples, having been first stripped of their ornaments and valuables, were burnt. The women and children taken captive were distributed as prizes among the soldiers. But all the male captives, 3000 in number, were conveyed to the spot where Hamilkar had been slain, and there put to death with indignity, as an expiatory satisfaction to his lost honour. Lastly, in order that even the hated name of Himera might pass into oblivion, a new town called Therma (so designated because of some warm springs) was shortly afterwards founded by the Carthaginians in the neighbourhood. ‘No man can now read the account of this wholesale massacre without horror and repugnance. Yet we cannot doubt, that among all the acts of Hannibal’s life, this was the one in which he most gloried ; that it realized in the most complete and emphatic manner his concurrent inspirations of filial sentiment, religious obligation, and honour as a patriot ; that to show mercy would have been regarded as a mean dereliction of these esteemed influences ; and that if the prisoners had been even more numerous, all of them would have been equally slain, rendering the expiatory fulfilment only so much the more honourable and efficacious. In the Carthaginian religion, human sacrifices were not merely admitted, but passed for the strongest mani¬ festation of devotional fervour, and were especially resorted to in times of distress when the necessity for propitiating the gods was accounted most pressing. Doubtless the feelings of Hannibal were cordially shared, and 138 THE IRASCIBLE EMOTION. 10. The formidable state of mind named Antipathy ought not to be omitted in this connexion ; being one of the many shades or varieties .of malevolent passion. Implying, as it does in the first instance, some exceedingly painful exciting cause, although the pain may be of a fanciful or factitious nature, it is followed up by demonstrations of the most furious hostility, and the most destructive wrath. When we would designate hatred in its strongest forms, we make use of this word. Our antipathies are various, according to the points of greatest sensibility ; but it is not mere pain that determines the degree of them ; there is the farther circumstance that for some things more than others we are in the habit of pro¬ nouncing that sentence of outlawry preparatory to the hunting down of a victim. It is not always the author of an offence against person, property, or good name, that rouses this ex¬ treme manifestation ; something that affronts our mere aesthe¬ tic sensibility, as certain animals and human beings that create disgust, will provoke the requisite suspension of protective sympathy. The usages, customs, and opinions of foreigners often rouse the sentiment. The exercise of free thought in dissenting from the doctrines that we hold in especial rever¬ ence, is a common source of our antipathy. Here, however, there creeps out the wounded pride of power, which, by prompting to signal revenge, repays itself, as it were, in kind. Dissenters, heretics, schismatics, have always had their full measure of hatred from the mother Church, whose communion and government they have renounced. An infusion of fear is a potent element in antipathy. This is partly owing to the greater susceptibility of the mind under fear, and partly owing to the need of preventive efforts against harm. The animals that rouse the greatest force of aversion, are those that sting or poison, as well as present a repulsive aspect. Antipathy once excited against any one, can the plenitude of his revenge envied by the army around him. So different, sometimes so totally contrary, is the tone and direction of the moral senti¬ ments, among different ages and nations.’ HATRED. 139 be very much inflamed, by suggesting a certain amount of dread ; this, however, must not be carried too far, else another effect will arise, namely, the subjugation of the active energies, under which the irascible feeling can no longer be sustained. 11. Hatred is another name for malevolent emotion. We recognise under this title a permanent affection grounded on the irascible, as love is on tenderness. The sense of some one wrong never satisfied, the recognition of a standing dis¬ position to cause harm, an obstructive position maintained, are among the ordinary causes of hatred. A mere aversion to the character and conduct, or even the appearance of another person, without reference to their being hostile, will often engender an habitual dislike. The repetition of occasions of angry feeling ends in a permanent attitude of resentment, under which the individual is always prepared for acts of retaliation, and for relishing occasions of discomfiture. To be a good hater one needs only to be irascible by nature, and to be placed in some relationship of frequent encounter with the authors of offence. Hence rivalry, the exercise of authority, great inequalities of condition, are among the causes of hatred. Party spirit is one of the most notable species. Under the influence of this sentiment men are affected in all the wrays wherein strong emotion can manifest itself. They derive a portion of their happiness from their feelings of animosity, they are powerfully prompted to action for the sake of this pleasure, they retain the feeling by an intellectual hold, and have their minds frequently occupied with the objects of it. Last of all they are led to believe of the opposing party whatever suits, or chimes in with, their hatred. The banding together into sects or factions gives scope for a large body of sentiment ; on the one hand engaging the sympathies of fellowship, and on the other provoking the equally natural outbursts of anti¬ pathy. Hence people’s relations to their party or sect, whether religious, political, or otherwise, usually constitute one of the large interests of their life. The existence of the spirit of sectarian bitterness through all periods of history proves how congenial to man is the passion of hatred, and how much 140 THE IRASCIBLE EMOTION. satisfaction is mixed up with the painful element of angry feeling. 12. Some further elucidations of our present subject may be derived, if we survey the situation of Hostility, Warfare, or actual Combat between opposing parties. This I shall preface by some remarks on the point of view wherefrom the offend¬ ing party is regarded. Involuntary offence may cause a sudden or momentary outburst, which usually subsides and is easily satisfied. As soon as we know that no harm is intended, we accept an apology and are appeased. Aware that absolute inviolability is impossible in this world, and that we are all exposed by turns to accidental injuries from our fellows, we have our minds disciplined to let unintended evil go by with¬ out the satisfaction of inflicting some counter evil upon the offender. Since the wrathful sentiment is not necessarily unappeasable without a full exercise of vengeance, the same discipline could be extended, if need were, to all other cases. Again, when involuntary offence is of the nature of careless¬ ness, the wounded personality is not so readily appeased. We then look upon the offender as omitting the proper line of precautions to which we are all equally bound, and which, if universally neglected, would produce extensive mischiefs ; and feeling that an injury is done to ourselves and to others, we are exempted from the obligation to suppress our anger unappeased. A third case is that presented when another person, not wishing or intending us harm, still pursues his own ends in utter disregard of our feelings and interest. This is an exceedingly common source of injuries. Persons that harbour no ill-will to their fellows are often nevertheless en¬ tirely reckless of other people’s happiness in the pursuit of their own, feeling no compunction at the misery they cause. We consider ourselves still less called upon to suppress our wrathful sentiments towards this species of offenders ; our legitimate indignation seems the right and proper check to such selfish disregard of others. The fourth and highest species of wrong is the case of deliberate and intended offence, limited or unlimited in its character. This opens before us STATE OF WARFARE. 141 such a state of mind, and such a range of possible damage, that our angry sentiments are deeply moved and call for ven¬ geance. Nothing is wanted to complete the provocation, but the consciousness on our part that we have given no cause for such a demonstration, and are deliberately and gratuitously wronged by a fellow-being. When, in retaliating upon the object of our anger, we encounter resistance and opposition, the state of warfare ensues. Each party, inflamed with a sense of injury, directs his whole might to bring about the ruin of the other. That prompting to extraordinary efforts of volition, which we have noted as a consequence of pain, and still further of resistance, is seen at the uttermost pitch in actual combat. Even with¬ out the bitterness of wounded personality demanding ven¬ geance, the position of the combatant so stimulates the volun¬ tary energy as to exhibit the human powers at their highest point. The superadded spirit of vengeance brings out the fury of a fiend. The weapons of hostility change greatly according to the circumstances and characters of the contending parties. Passing from the physical encounter of men engaged in mortal conflict, we remark the substitution of other modes of attack for bodily damage. Calumny and abuse is the favourite weapon of factions and rivals living in the same society ; and we have all seen the lengths that this will go. Any contested election, a local dispute, or family quarrel, will recall examples to any one’s recollection. With intellectual refinement, sarcasm and innuendo take the place of open slander and vulgar scurrility. Sometimes a lawsuit is the arena of the struggle. Still farther removed from the grossness of a bodily combat is the struggle of debate between opposing views or doctrines. The spirit of hostility is here unchanged, but the mode of action has taken an altered shape. A turn for polemics, the love of contradiction and a fondness for paradox, are modifications of irascible feeling. 13. Dr. Chalmers, in a dissertation entitled ‘ The Inherent Misery of the Vicious Affections,’ &c., has adopted a line of 142 THE IRASCIBLE EMOTION. illustration that implies doubts as to the genuineness of the Pleasure of Malevolence.* But although the exercise of resentment is beset with numerous incidental pains, the one feeling of gratified vengeance is a pleasure as real and indis¬ putable as any form of human delight. The injury and * ‘ Kindness, and honesty, and truth, are, of themselves, and irrespec¬ tive of their rightness, sweet unto the taste of the inner man. Malice, envy, falsehood, injustice, irrespective of their wrongness, have of themselves, the bitterness of gall and wormwood.’ ‘The most ordinary observer of his own feelings, however incapable of analysis, must be sensible, even at the moment of wreaking the full indulgence of his resentment, on the man who has pro¬ voked or injured him, that all is not perfect within ; but that, in thi3, and indeed in every other malignant feeling, there is a sore burden of disquietude, an unhappiness tumultuating in the heart, and visibly pictured in the countenance. The ferocious tyrant who has only to issue forth his mandate, and strike dead at pleasure the victim of his wrath, with any circumstance too of barbaric caprice and cruelty, which his fancy, in the very waywardness of passion unrestrained and power unbounded, might suggest to him — he may be said through life to have experienced a thousand gratifications, in the solaced rage and revenge, which, though ever breaking forth on some new subject, he can appease again every day of his life by some new execution. But we mistake it if we think otherwise than that, in spite of these distinct and very numerous, nay daily gratifications if he so choose, it is not a life of fierce internal agony notwithstanding.’ Far more just and true to actual experience are the reflections quoted above, from the most philosophical historian of Greece, on Hannibal’s sacrifice of prisoners at Himera. With a like dispassionate accuracy does the same author depict the luxury of gratified revenge experienced by the Athenians on the condemnation of Phokion. After the subversion of the Athenian democracy by the Macedonian general Antipater (b.c. 322), Phokion lent himself to the execution of the victor’s decrees for humiliating and prostrating his country, and continued to administer her affairs as the principal agent of the Antipatrian rule. On the death of Antipater, another Macedonian general (Polysperchon) acquired the ascendancy in Greece. He restored the numerous political exiles, and granted free constitutions to the various cities, Athens included. This event brought Phokion before the Athenian people as a prisoner accused of the criminality of his past conduct. The Assembly before which he stood was composed in great part of citizens just returned from all the hardships of the exile that Antipater had condemned them to. ‘ When these restored citizens thus saw Phokion brought before them, for the first time after their return, the common feeling of antipathy against him burst out in furious manifestations. Agonides, the principal accuser, supported by Epikurus and Demophilus, found their denunciations wel¬ comed and even anticipated, when they had arraigned Phokion as a criminal REALITY OF THE PLEASURE OF MALEVOLENCE. 143 violation involved in the original offence, the further damage incurred in chastising the offender, are only part of the evils belonging to the case. The presence in the same breast of tender sympathies and warm affections is often the cause of an exceedingly painful struggle in addition to those other sources of pain. But if we were to admit contrariety of impulses as a proof of the inherent misery of angry emotion, we must equally consider it a proof of the misery of tender emotion. There are times when the exercise of our affections is exceedingly painful, the object of them having excited our who had lent his hand to the subversion of the constitution — to the sufferings of his deported fellow-citizens — and to the holding of Athens in subjection under a foreign potentate ; in addition to which, the betrayal of Peirseus to Nikanor, constituted a new crime, fastening on the people the yoke of Kas- sander, when Autonomy had been promised to them by the recent imperial edict. After the accusation was concluded, Phokion was called on for his defence ; but he found it impossible for him to obtain a hearing, Attempting several times to speak, he was as often interrupted by angry shouts ; several of his friends were cried down in like manner ; until at length he gave up the case in despair, and exclaimed, ‘ Por myself, Athenians, I plead guilty ; I pronounce against myself the sentence of death for my political conduct ; but why are you to sentence these men near me, who are not guilty ?’ * Because they are your friends, Phokion,’ was the exclamation of those around. Pho¬ kion then said no more ; while Agonides proposed a decree, to the effect that the assembled people should decide by a show of hands, whether the persons now arraigned were guilty or not ; and that if declared guilty, they should be put to death. Some persons present cried out that the penalty of torture ought to precede death ; but this savage proposition, utterly at variance with Athenian law in respect to citizens, was repudiated not less by Agonides than by the Macedonian officer, Kleitus. The degree was then passed ; after which the show of hands was called for. Nearly every hand in the assembly was held up in condemnation ; each man even rose from his seat to make the effect more imposing ; and some went so far as to put on wreaths in token of triumph. To many of them, doubtless, the gratification of this intense and unanimous vindictive impulse — in their view not merely legitimate, but patriotic — must have been among the happiest moments of life. ’ The above is perhaps the most remarkable instance afforded by the ancient world. In modem times it is even surpassed by the burst of fuiious exulta¬ tion that accompanied the execution of Robespierre. See the description in Michelet, Histoire de la Revolution Frmgaise, Liv. xxi. chap 10. Dr. Young’s tragedy, entitled Zanga ; or, The Slave's Revenge, is a poetic handling of the same theme. 144 THE IRASCIBLE EMOTION. wrathful sentiment. At those moments, it is a great misery to harbour tender feelings, and it were better for us to have nothing hut irascibility in our constitution. Accordingly, in cases where the sympathies and affections are little developed in the character, and where the contrary passions possess an unusual vigour, the enjoyment derivable from pure malevo¬ lence is intense and unalloyed. Nothing but the retribution accruing from a course of mischief and wrong inflicted upon others, can occur to interrupt the joys of gratified resentments, whence, with precautions for his own safety, the actor might be truly happy. Instances of this devil-like character are not unfrequently to be met with in real life ; and in romance it often occurs as a creation. The Quilp of Dickens is a recent, and highly illustrative specimen. The irascible temper, in a state of surcharge, does not need an actual offender ; any person or anything, the most innocent or irrelevant, receives the shock. 14. The resentful feeling sometimes receives the name of ‘ Righteous Indignation/ from the circumstance that some great criminality or flagrant wrong has been the instigating cause. The open law-breakers that encroach upon the rights of the orderly citizen, and the tyrants and oppressors of man¬ kind on the great scale, are examples of the fair applica¬ tion of the sentiment. A nation rousing itself to shake off the yoke of a despot may well be moved with a righteous anger. This form of the passion has always been considered as not unbecoming in the greatest and most high-minded of men, being justified by the occasion that called it forth. Somewhat different, although akin, is the meaning of ‘ Noble Rage/ which represents the interesting, engaging, or poetic aspect of anger ; being what makes a fine display, an attractive spectacle, or a stirring drama. The wrath of Achilles was a theatrical, rather than a righteous, indignation. The developments of irascible passion, as we shall presently notice, are interesting to behold from the point of view of a mere spectator ; and we dignify by the term ‘ noble ’ what inspires a lofty aesthetic interest. The very tyrant who has DISORDERS RISING OUT OF ANGER. 145 kindled a flame of righteous indignation, becomes, by his carriage and demeanour when standing at bay before the ex¬ cited populace, a subject for the poets and painters of after times ; such is the difference between our artistic and our moral sentiments. 15. In Morality, and in preserving the order of the world, resentment is a powerful instrument. Not merely the hurt that anger prompts to, but.the very expression or aspect of the passion inspires dread and makes men exert themselves to avoid rousing it. Our anger is a wall of fire around us. In the government of human beings the display of angry feeling is a check on disobedience. On the other hand, this passion is one grand spring of the disorders that trouble human life. Injury, real or supposed, excites the thirst for vengeance, the outgoings of which, if unable to crush the offender, only stimulate new acts of aggression. Thus, by a process of action and reaction, the evil goes on multiplying itself, while every step puts the hope of reconciliation at a greater distance. Slight irritation grows to irreparable feud, individuals are injured, the laws are broken, and the evil principle reigns triumphant. Strong remedies are called for to avert consequences such as these. Some powerful third party must lay his hand upon both, and oblige them to retrace. The interference of an acknowledged superior is never more wanted than in allaying quarrels. A different method, applicable where the other is not, consists in the mediatorsliip of one disposed to bear the brunt of either party’s resentment. The spread of the angry flame may be checked when some one appears who is not only indisposed to kindle at offence, but ready to make sacrifices and render good for evil. Such are the peace-makers of society. 16. Education is especially needed to act upon the revengeful passion, with a view to restraining it. The ebulli¬ tions of wrath in children have to be held in check, and themselves disciplined to bear up against offences. The purely malevolent aspect of the feeling, the delight in taking vengeance, should be compressed within the narrowest limits. 146 THE IRASCIBLE EMOTION. Self- protection and good order may be served by extending to human life generally the cool and calculating spirit of the law in dealing with wrong-doers. The policeman, the judge, the legislator, display nothing of the wrathful in their pro¬ ceedings. Having a certain end in view, the preservation of the public, they go calmly to work in adapting their means accordingly. So, in private life, it is possible to take whatever steps are necessary for our protection, up to the infliction of salutary pain, without the sting of malevolence. The outburst of resentful vengeance is not wanted so much for others as for ourselves. As with the flow of tears, we derive a great relief from opening the flood-gates of our anger ; while, in both cases, it is in general preferable to restrain the current. The immediate effect of soothing the wounded spirit is pur¬ chased at the cost of exhaustion to ourselves as well as annoyance to others. Irascible people, ill-tempered men and women, scolds, are justly accounted the pests of life. Theirs is ignoble wrath. 17. Our concluding observations on the subject of this chapter refer to the Artistic handling of the passion of anger. In addition to the natural expression of the feeling, there is a range of artificial or cultivated expression, whereby civilized men are wont to display their anger. Threats, curses, oaths, and intense language generally, are the spoken manifestations, still farther expanded in denunciation, calumny, or abuse. More ingenious and theatrical devices are also resorted to. The withdrawing of oneself into sullen isolation, the inflic¬ tion of indirect annoyances, are happily pourtrayed by the masters of comedy in representing the passion on the stage. The artistic interest growing out of the developments of the irascible sentiment is of various kinds. The mere dis¬ play of marked human expression arrests and fascinates the gaze ; the peculiar intensity of this passion giving a grand prominence to its outward appearance. Hence, when digni¬ fied by a fitting occasion, the wrathful demeanour is appro¬ priate to the hand of the painter or the sculptor. The poet, too, finds it a theme for energetic description and imposing ARTISTIC INTEREST. 147 phraseology. The wrathful ebullitions and lofty indignation of gods and men have often been depicted in epic and tragic metres ; while less worthy forms have found a place in comic art. The interest that we take in the display of the passions of human beings is complicated, and perhaps difficult to analyse — there is, nevertheless, a real foundation for it in human nature. The personified principle of evil ought, pro¬ perly speaking, to cause usbnly dread and loathing. Never¬ theless, the artist has often worked up his most interesting- creations by the employment of this as a subject. Not in the Paradise Lost alone is the malign personage the real hero of the piece. Another form wherein this passion enters into Art, is in the exhibition of vicious characters and mischief-workers to excite our wrath by their crimes, and gratify it by their punishment. In the plot of an ordinary romance, the sinner after many doublings, is made to feel ‘the strong hand of poetical justice’ at last. Even in history we have such a thing as ‘ celebrated crimes,’ and the procedure of our courts of justice occupies a notable share of the interest we take in what is passing around us. CHAPTER X. EMOTIONS OF ACTION.— PURSUIT. 1. TN the situation of voluntary activity, or working for ends, we have already counted three kinds of feeling — the satisfaction of the end, the pleasures (or pain) of the exercise, and the pleasure of superior (or pain of inferior) power. There remains the mental attitude under a gradually ap¬ proaching end, a peculiar condition of rapt suspense, termed Pursuit and Plot interest. Some desirable end spurs us into action : we wish, for example, to cross a ferry, to go into the country, or to visit some object of interest. In proceeding along, we keep a look¬ out upon the goal, and watch it coming nearer and nearer ; our attention is increasingly engrossed, rising to a climax at the final consummation. With the full attainment of the end, the watching attitude dies away and gives place to the state of fruition. Much use is made of this situation in the recreations of life. As an incident of our industrial pursuits, it furnishes a certain relief to tedium, and at times rises to a positive zest. It contributes to our interest in the affairs of the world at large ; and it is brought into play in the various arts of plea¬ sure and amusement, as in the literature of plot-interest — the drama and the romance. 2. On the physical side, the situation of pursuit is marked chiefly by the intent occupation of one or other of the senses, accompanied with a fixed attitude generally, so far as the concurring active exertions will allow. The fixed stare of the eye, the alertness of the ear, the groping touch, are well known rilYSICAL ATTITUDE. 149 manifestations. If, as sometimes happens, we have no share in the active proceedings, we are ‘ all eye, all ear,’ all observa¬ tion ; the attitude being one of stillness, and of suitability to the process of seeing, hearing, touching, or other sensibility engaged ; as, for example, when we are the spectators of a race, or the listeners to a judicial decision. If, on the other hand, we are agents as well, we are divided between observa¬ tion and productive exertion, as in hitting a mark. In either case, there is a strong and concentrated activity ; the stray currents of energy are recalled for a special effort ; recipiency of impressions is reduced to a point ; the system is open at a single avenue and closed at the others. The currents of the brain are not available for the diffusion of an emotional wave ; and hence the feelings are kept under, if not altogether sup¬ pressed. Bodily exercise, or muscular action generally, is antago¬ nistic to the development of feeling. Were it not for the occasional remission of the active strain, the muscular feelings themselves would remain unmanifested. .Acting and feeling tend to exclude one another. Every kind ot bodily labour restricts the play of emotion ; it is only in the unavoidable intervals, that w7e can become fully awake to our feelings. It is not enough that v7e are stimulated to pleasure or to pain, v7e must lapse into muscular quiescence to realize either. 3. Our consciousness under pursuit is found to accord with wdiat has now7 been said. The great intensity of the object- regards — into which a muscular strain necessarily enters — excludes the subject-regards, the feelings proper, as pleasure and pain. According as v7e are engrossed with things beyond ourselves, self-consciousness is in abeyance ; and if the en¬ grossment attains an extreme pitch, there is an almost entire suspension of feeling or emotion ; pleasure and pain, even though arising out of the situation, cannot be felt, until there is some intermission or relaxation of the attention to the objects. When anew scene bursts on the view7, calculated to give astonishment and delight, so long as we are occupied in scanning its dimensions and follow'ing its details, we are 150 EMOTIONS OF ACTION. — PURSUIT. restrained from indulging in these emotions ; we cannot he, in a high degree, object and subject at once ; we must remit the object tension to let feeling arise ; the scrutinizing gaze being renewed, there is a renewed suppression of the feeling. Consequently, our most powerful instrument of controlling the development of feeling, of varying the mental attitude, of checking the wear and tear of the emotional consciousness, — is the engagement of the mind objectively, that is, with out¬ ward things. The situation of pursuit, or Plot-interest, has the power of attracting the outward regards in a special degree. Doubtless, the motive, in the first instance, is a feeling, the interest in the end ; hut when an activity so engrossing is prompted, the mind is, for the time, transported out of feeling. This temporary abeyance of the subject-states is valuable from the circum¬ stance that the object-regards are much less exhausting ; be¬ ing a welcome interruption even to our pleasurable outbursts. Objectivity is of the nature of an anaesthetic* * The means of allaying and diverting mental excitement, either totally or partially, possess a high practical interest. The physician has a class of drugs for quelling the fever of the brain, and for bringing on sleep under morbid wakefulness. Opium, in its numerous preparations, and Hyoscyamus, have this special virtue. The stimulants, Alcohol, Chloroform, Chlorodyne, &c., are also narcotics. Changes of Temperature have a lulling efficacy, within certain limits. Cold, in such measure as makes it a healthy stimulant, reduces the congestion of the brain. Genial warmth, as in the hot bath, diminishes the undue cerebral excitement, by lowering the circulation generally, and by increasing the action of the skin. Among mental causes, we must give the foremost rank to the massive or voluminous pleasures. I have already remarked on their sedative efficacy, and have endeavoured to assign the link of physical causation (p. 75). If the over-excitement is simply due to pain, the abatement of the pain, or a neutralizing pleasure, is the obvious remedy. Excessive excitement, unac¬ companied by pleasure or pain, is best subdued by some gentle continued diversion ; the difficulty being to find a stimulation such as will not increase the evil. Hence the efficacy of the pleasures characterized by quantity or extent of stimulus, rather than by intensity — slow movements, repose after exercise, warmth, repletion, balmy odours, soft touch, gentle music, agreeable and un exciting spectacle, tender feeling, sclf-complacency, &c. INFLUENCE OF PURSUIT ON TIIE MIND. 151 That there is, in the background, a feeling of more or less in¬ tensity, repressed and asserting itself by turns, must be pro¬ nounced a part of the case. Ordinarily the feeling is some good or evil in tbe distance, an ideal end prompting us to labour for realizing it ; the regards are intent upon the end, and more es¬ pecially when its approach is rapid and near. Such a moment is favourable to that entranced attention, under which the mind is debarred from feeling, and from all thoughts extraneous to the situation. Nevertheless, we remit, at short intervals, the objective strain, falling back into emotion or self-consciousness; we then experience the full intensity of the primary motive, until such time as we are once more thrown upon the out¬ ward stretch. Through the need that there is of upholding a certain pro¬ portion of objective regards, wre can see how even pain might increase a man's happiness. We have only to suppose a state of inaction, and the total absence of pursuit, with or without abundance of gratifications ; the consequence would be the drag of an unbalanced subjectivity ; and the introduc¬ tion of a pain such as to stimulate exertion, and a forward look, might be more than compensated by the abatement of ennui. After an absence from one's home, spent in turmoil and worry, the return to the usual routine, and to the old associations, is highly soothing, and the more so, that these associations are on the side of pleasure. The power of change of scene and circumstances, as in foreign travel, new society, and unwonted amusements, is explicable entirely on the principle of relativity or change of impression. The power of self-control, originating in an energetic effort of the will, and confirmed into habit, may serve to suppress on many occasions, the over¬ excitement of the brain. No better application of voluntary power, and no better subject for self-discipline, could be suggested to those that have the infirmity of too susceptible nerves. It is impossible not to desire a much greater extension of our catalogue of anaesthetic agents. It is, I think, a matter of regret that the mesmeric sleep is not more cultivated in this application, having nothing of the draw¬ back of the drugging opiates. I have gladly adopted the term ‘ anaesthesia’ into the phraseology of men¬ tal science. 152 EMOTIONS OF ACTION. — PUKSUIT. 4. It is known that an element of Uncertainty, or Chance, heightens the interest of pursuit. The operation is twofold. In the first place, uncertainty, as an agency of terror, throws the mental energies into the organs of perception ; and in the second place, certainty of attainment, being almost as good as possession, relaxes the attention to the approaching goal. A small infusion of uncertainty, and a moderate stake, render tire situation perfect as a source of interest. On the other hand, a great risk is attended with too much fear to he agree¬ able ; the spur to objectivity is intense, but the moments of remission give full play to the misery of dread. 5. Whenever an interval occurs between the conceiving of an end and the fruition of it — the interval of action — there is scope for the situation now described. Hence we may study it in the Lower Animals. A beast of prey, actuated by hunger, and seeing in the distance one of its victims, commences the pursuit. The gaze is fixed on the fugitive, the remaining energies are occupied with the run. The emotions in the hack ground are furious, but they drop out of consciousness at that moment of engrossment, when the eye is measuring a nearer and nearer approach. Such at least is the interpretation that we should put upon the mental state of the animal, from the analogy of our own experience. If the yelping of a pack of hounds were taken as expressing the emergence of feeling proper, it would he for observation to determine at what points this is manifested, and at what repressed. There might, how¬ ever, he a certain vocal accompaniment in the general tumult of the energies, such as would not betoken genuine feeling. 6. Field Sports are the imitation by human beings of the exciting circumstances of the life of the wild beast. The end in view, namely, the killing or catching some species of quad¬ ruped, bird, or fish, is one extremely grateful to the sporting mind ; while the pursuit is one that prominently contains the peculiar elements of interest. The active exertion required is agreeable and healthful, and both this and the condition of suspense are protracted by the flight of the animal, or by its non-appearance giving a necessity for search. With the oh- FIELD SPORTS. 153 ject pleasurable, tbe exercise congenial, and the end nearing in the view, and yet not too soon attained, the situation is complete. A fair amount of success attending on a day’s sport gives a very high exhilaration to the spirits — bright points of victorious achievement separated by intervals of of suspense and emotional stillness, like brilliant stars over the azure spaces* Danger and difficulty, as in boar or tiger hunting, let loose a more fiery interest upon the mind. In Shooting, the piquancy of the destructive interest is perhaps at the highest. There is something fascinating to the sense of power in the distant shot ; the far-darting Apollo was an eminently imposing personation. Deer-stalking is reckoned one of the best of the sports of the gun, because the animal is of a superior order, difficult to track, and seldom exposing itself to an easy aim. Angling is flat in com¬ parison ; but with many minds there is in the handling of the rod a wonderful power of sustaining the pleasurable sus¬ pense. In such cases the pleasure of each successful throw needs to exert a lasting influence on the mind, rendering it easy to go on for a long time without a take. All those ends that support a protracted pursuit must have this power of easily occupying the mind in idea, and of spontaneously maintaining the rapt attention and suspense characteristic of the state. Snaring and Trapping have much of the interest of angling. The physical expenditure is small, but the ex¬ ercise of cunning, skill, and circumvention, is one of the agree¬ able forms of self-elation, and sustains the ‘ patient thought ’ of the operator. In the Chase, the ultimate effect is small and pitiful ; the pleasure lying in a long-sustained run, for which the animal furnishes a pretext. The high excitement is mainly caused by the multitude, the race, and the animation of the hounds. There is something of the stir of a battle-field without the danger. 7. Contests present the situation of suspense and pleasur- * All this applies eminently to the chase, guiltless of blood or suffering, sustained by the botanist. 154 EMOTIONS OF ACTION. — PURSUIT. able engrossment in considerable force. The end being a very keen emotion, — the manifesting of one’s superiority in the snatching of some advantage away from another party, — it is not surprising that the mind should be deaf to everything while the issue is pending. Two combatants, actually engaged, have their whole disposable force thrown into the two ener¬ gies of ptying their weapons and of rapt attention to the approaching termination of the struggle. Hence combats are introduced for the mere purpose of creating moments of intense interest, as in youthful play, and in the amusements of grown men. Athletic contests put the physical powers to the utmost stretch, and are suitable to muscular constitutions. The games of the field, and the green, combine skill with strength, and are to that extent more mental in their character. In the operations of the Intellect, combats may spring up, as in disputation, controversy, or pleading before an assembly. Here, too, there is that state of stillness of the mind from all foreign emotions, with a fixed gaze in the near¬ ing moment of decision. The intellectual Greeks introduced the contests of wit into the programme of their banquets. 8. The presence of Chance, as already remarked, makes the occasion more exciting. In Games generally, there is a combination of skill and chance ; the last, while giving hopes to an inferior player, stimulates the circumspection of the most skilled. Cricket, football, golf, bowls, are contests affected by chance, and leading to sanguine hopes and excited calculations. A corresponding energy of the state of suspense is manifested while the result of a stroke is pending. Billiards is a game of skill with just enough of good or bad luck to keep up the interest between two unequal players, and, as it were, to re-open what would be otherwise a settled question. Chess and draughts are contests of almost pure skill. But when we come to Cards, the element of chance is a large determining agency, and uncertainty keeps up the suspense and the interest. In dice, roulette, and the like, hazard is triumphant, and the bad characteristic of gambling is com¬ plete. The kindling of insane hopes out of the wide possibilities PUKSUIT IN INDUSTRY. 155 of such games is their demoralizing feature. On the other extreme, it is to be remembered, in connexion with the emotion of pursuit, that, in proportion as the end is clearly foreseen, the interest of suspense dies away, and what is sure of being realized, although still future, is already enjoyed. The con¬ test of a strong man with a weak has little exciting interest. 9. The extended occupations of life afford scope for the interest of pursuit, even without this being their principal design. The business of war notoriously contains this element ; the end is exciting and yet uncertain ; a series of actions brings it nearer step by step, sustaining the attention to the very close. The desires of each human being engage him oi¬ lier in action for attaining their objects, and involve also, to a more or less degree, the attention and suspense towards the approaching end. The commencement of any career generally sees the mind already fixed upon the goal; the starting on an adventure clears the attention of all foreign matters to await the one issue at stake. Moreover, it is to be remarked that the more lengthened undertakings are made up of sequences of minor ends, plots, and adventures, subdividing the large periods into short cycles of near accomplishment. The life of the agriculturist is divided into seasons, having the harvest¬ time for the principal prospect. Every season has its stages of ploughing, sowing, &c., each containing the interest of a forward look. The artisan has his separate fabrications, and in every one the interest of a beginning, middle, and conclu¬ sion. We are so apt to feel languid and discouraged under toil that has no end nor definite term, that we make artificial terms to give the awakened attention and suspense that enable us to pass the time more easily. On a long journey by sea or land, we look out for the minor stages in succession. The labourer in a monotonous and stageless employment is driven for interest to the expectation of his meals, the end of his day, and the receipt of his wages * In all professions, the cheerful * ‘As the servant looketh towards the shadow (on the dial), and the hireling to the reward of his work.’ — Job. 156 EMOTIONS OF ACTION. — PURSUIT. effect of nearing a conclusion is experienced. The physician has his patients, whom he sees through, one after another, to some termination. The attorney’s business is made up of his cases, disposed of in succession. Minds, dissatisfied with the degree of excitement arising in an ordinary business profes¬ sion, have recourse to the more uncertain avocations of war, navigation, and the discovery of new regions. This is to stake high, and leave a large scope to chance, in short, to gamble. The profession of the miner often exemplifies this species of hazard. 10. In the Sympathetic relationships we may experience the interest of pursuit. In addition to the union of occupation and end, as in the mother working for her child, there is a plot-interest attending every stage and crisis of the beloved object. The epochs, the trials, the successes and the triumphs occurring in the development of each human being, are looked forward to by parents and friends with earnest anticipation, and at times with breathless attention. The gratifying of our affections being of itself an end, as keenly pursued as any other felt in the same degree, the turnings and windings, and progressive fulfilment of our longings can keep up the interest of the passing day, and operate in the room of actual enjoy¬ ment. As in other cases, the requisites are some object of strong emotion, capable of being sustained as an idea, and in the way of being actually realized — conditions often found together in affairs of the heart. The characteristics of the tender feeling fit it for constituting an easy plot-excitement, as well as a congenial and satisfying emotion. It is, however, too well known, in all these cases, that depressing uncertainties often mar the good of the situation. 11. The love of Knowledge, in minds susceptible thereto, is a good instance of an end adapted to stimulate the forward look, and the growing intentness of the chase. Curiositv once awake, the earnest student is on the alert, until a mystery is unravelled, a truth demonstrated, a discovery achieved. The subject matter of knowledge being something for the intellect to lay hold of, we find it easy to retain in the PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE. 157 mind, as an abiding desire, the tiling that we wish to know. No mother can sustain the interest in her progeny more enduringly, than a mind of intellectual cast can keep up the freshness of the attainment of knowledge. The character of refinement belongs in an eminent degree to such an aim as this. Original research, introducing an element still more capable of arresting the forward regard, is by no means a gentle excitement, but capable of making up a powerful life interest, and yielding moments of almost unnerving suspense. The art of the Teacher is shown in rousing the feeling of curiosity, and thereby securing the attention. When we speak of the influence of pursuit in producing a partial lull, or amesthesia, of the feelings and thoughts, it is not meant that the mind is made torpid or put to sleep. What happens is the calling in of the stray movements or wanderings of the faculties, the instituting of one engrossing outlet with a shut¬ ting up of all the rest. This must often be a real economy of the mental energy. By substituting the tension of the eye for the numerous currents of the brain, involved in the wandering of the thoughts under excitement, we perform an important service to the overworked machine. The fixing of a single organ has a tendency to fix all the rest, and although these effects imply a certain draft upon the central brain, they are less costly than the maintenance of the waves of emotion. It is in this sense that I understand the advantage gained on the whole, by inducing the state, of suspense cha¬ racteristic of the present emotion.* Nothing, therefore, can * We have here one point of contrast between subjective, and objective or outward regards, showing the more healthy tone accompanying the out¬ ward. There is undoubtedly a quieting influence in the steady gaze inspired by an approaching consummation. We feel it often when the mind is suf¬ fering from inward distractions and wanderings : anything that, as the phrase goes, takes us out of ourselves, has a medicinal efficacy in stilling the tumult of brain. But the interest attaching to the diverting object ought to he just enough to make a nucleus, or point of subsidence, and no more. One’s morbid trains would he all too effectually diverted by being told that the house was on fire. It is common to prescribe some employment as a cure for sorrow, ennui, 158 ] MOTIONS OF ACTION. — PURSUIT. well be more suited to the imbibing of intellectual impres¬ sions, tlian this attitude when inspired towards the exact object of study. We have seen the power of terror to stimu¬ late the intellectual attention, but awakened curiosity is in every way a preferable instrumentality. 12. We pass now to the position of the Spectator of a chase. Much interest and amusement are derived from standing by, and seeing others moving on to some goal a-head. We are capable of - entering into the situation of the actors, of becoming invested for the time with their mode of excitement, and of thereby sharing in the inspira¬ tion of the plot. The case follows the usual laws of sym¬ pathy, one of which is that we are most ready to assume through outward contagion the states belonging to our own individuality. The ambitions man is easily excited by the spectacle of a fellow-man struggling to rise to power ; the sportsman looks on with suspense, while his companion is aiming a difficult shot. The kind of interest attending this position, is of the same character as the other ; making allow¬ ance only for the difference between being actually engaged, or satiety. A chase will often extricate the mind from melancholy broodings, and reanimate the flagging interest of over-indulgence. I doubt not that this is a fact in human nature, as well as a favourite theory of our poets. Tennyson’s Maude, the comedy of Used Up, lately in voguo, and the character of the Duke of Buckingham in Peveril of the Peak, show the estimate formed by the authors of the efficiency of a stirring object of pursuit for the purposes now mentioned. As an incitement to active exercise, when other motives are wanting, and as enabling the mind to derive satisfaction from pleasures, merely by seeing them on the way, thus diluting fruition with anticipation — the setting up of some distant goal to be laboriously reached is a device to be tried, when other means fail to stem the downward career towards settled melancholy and despondency. Physicians warn their patients against too much attention to their mala¬ dies ; a practice favoured by the unoccupied condition of the invalid. Sir Henry Holland remarks (Mental Physiology, chap, iii.) that ‘ the symptoms of the dyspeptic patient are exceedingly aggravated by the constant and earnest direction of his mind to the digestive organs, and the functions going on in them it being in fact the case that such introspection relaxes the nervous influence that aids the digestive process. THE SPECTATOR OF A CHASE. 159 and ideal engagement. In tlie present case, the stress is more upon the mind, and the excitement not being counter¬ balanced by actual exertion, is apt to be more exhausting. Stirring contests are the most resorted to, for interest as a spectacle. Horse-racing brings out all the features of a begun and completed pursuit, and stands as such to every individual of the assembled throng. With an end in view that strongly engages the feelings, there is a string of preparations intently watched ; the start is the commencement of a still higher stretch of attention, which is then kept up, and increased with every new situation of the race, till the grand result has released the breathless suspense. This extreme instance can scarcely be looked • upon as lulling the mind, although the power of diversion is complete : the reason being that the diverting influence, is itself a furious excitement, and the in¬ tensity of the stiffened gaze is a greater expenditure than any ordinary state of unchecked wandering. Still, the intentness upon the end is made to expand an interest over a length of time, and a great variety of transactions, sustaining a tone and condition of mental engrossment that is esteemed happiness by those concerned. The other contests that have been drawn into the circle of public amusements, as athletic games, gladiatorship, bull-fights, and the like, differ in no essential feature. Sometimes the spectator has a high stake upon the issue ; while, perhaps, to the general multitude, the end is only to resolve a doubt, or be confirmed in a belief, of com¬ parative superiority. But to all there comes the excited gaze, the moments of elation, or dread, as the action inclines to one side or another, and the growing concentration of the mind on the eve of the final blow. In the fights where life and limb are concerned, there is the coarse excitement of destructive¬ ness, in seeing some creature laid low in the midst of its vigour ; a feeling that it is to the credit of modern refinement, to have somewhat discouraged. All the conflicts formerly mentioned, as inducing the interest of suspense in the com¬ batants themselves, are coveted as spectacle by some class of lookers-on. A lawsuit, a contested election, a debate, the de- 160 EMOTIONS OF ACTION. — PURSUIT. cision of a public assembly, a controversy between opposing parties — arouse the attention, both of those concerned in the result, and of the lovers of plot-excitement. People will sometimes work up for themselves a factitious interest in some pending decision, in order to enjoy the animation, and experience the diversion, of the struggle. It is needless to say that all other kinds of pursuit may engage the sympa¬ thizing looker-on to the same degree as the instances now dwelt upon. We may follow with excited gaze the operations of another man’s industry, and view with breathless anxiety the approaching completion of some great design, the success of an enterprise, or the discovery of a truth. 13. Before quitting the subject, the Literature of Plot- interest claims some notice. The position of the spectator of moving events, is greatly enlarged by language, which can bring before his mind, scenes witnessed by other men ; and, in so far as he is able to conceive what is thus related, he catches the fire of the actual witness. This is the interest of story, which is such a widely-spread source of excitement. The narrative of a chase, a battle, an adventure, places the hearer under the dominion of the situation we are considering. The interesting stake, at first remote and uncertain, but gra¬ dually brought nearer, as the successive incidents are re¬ counted, keeps up thatanimated suspense, felt alike by theactor, the spectator, and the hearer or reader, rendering it difficult for the mind to entertain any new subject, till the declaration of the final issue. The recital of what befalls our friends, and the men and societies belonging to our generation, is the commonest and directest mode of stirring up our attention and suspense. We can also be affected by the narratives of past history, some of which are more particularly adapted for this kind of interest. The struggles that have preceded vast changes, contests, revolutions, keep the reader in a state of thrilling expectation ; while the inner plots and minor catas¬ trophes serve to discharge at intervals the pent-up currents, and vary the direction of the outlook. Whatever the achieve¬ ments are that rouse the feelings of a reader — whether wars, LITERATURE OF PLOT-INTEREST. 161 conquests, human greatness, or progress and civilization, — the moments when these were pending in doubtful issue, are to him moments of earnest engrossment. While the historian is bound by fact and reality, the poet or romancer is able to accommodate his narrative so as to satisfy the exigencies of plot-interest by devices suited thereto. Calculating how much suspense the mind of a reader can easily bear, and how7 this can be artificially sustained and prolonged ; casting about also for the class of events best able to awaken agreeable emotions in a story ; the artist in narrative weaves together a tissue of incidents aiming at some one conclusion, which, however, is to be accomplished through many intermediate issues. Epic and dramatic poetry wrere the first forms of plot fiction ; the prose romance or novel is the more modern and perennial variety. Many strings of interest may be touched by a highly- wrought romance, but the dissolution of the plot would destroy wdiat is essential in the structure, and leave the composition lifeless and tedious to the mass of readers. 14. The chief form of pain mixed up with the situation of pursuit, is that arising from the pursuit being unduly pro¬ tracted. The failure in the thing aimed at causes the suffering due to the loss sustained, whatever that may be ; by failing in a contest, v7e experience the sense of deprivation of the prize contended for, as w7ell as the humiliation of defeat. But as far as the pursuit goes, we are made miserable w7hen expec¬ tation once aroused is baulked by postponement. I go a long journey to see a contest, and find that it does not take place ; 1 am roused by a great issue at stake, and no movement is making towards the decision ; or hear the commencement of an exciting story, and am left to w7ait for the conclusion. This is one of the modes of the pain of disappointment and thwarted aims, which we have had more than once to bring into view. The mind put on the stretch for a certain object and that object not attained, there is produced a regurgitation and jar of the system, causing for the moment a shock of acute distress, which, how7 ever, in the present instance, is not L 162 EMOTIONS OF ACTION. — PURSUIT. very severe or lasting. The mental attitude is soon readjusted to something else, and no permanent wound is made. The very full discussion to be given of the active and volitional part of our nature in the second part of this volume will bring out incidentally other cases of the pleasures and pains related to Action, and likewise set in a clearer light those now expounded. The element of ‘ Belief ’ has not been brought forward as yet ; and therefore I have not dwTelt, in the present chapter, on the emotional state of Hope, which is the forward look in combination with a certain amount of confidence in the result. CHAPTER XI. EMOTIONS OF INTELLECT. 1. mHE operations of the Intellect give occasion to a cer- A tain select class of feelings, which concern both our pleasures and our actions. The expanded illustration of the processes of intelligence in my former volume lias brought into view the greater number of those feelings, and all that is needful at present is to resume them in a consecutive order, and to note their characteristic properties. The trains of Contiguous association, as exemplified in memory and routine, present no special stimulant of the emotions. They constitute a case of mere exercise, and gratify or pain the individual according to the condition of mental vigour and freshness at the time. It is under Simi¬ larity that the great fund of emotion-giving situations is placed. Those identifications of likeness in remote objects, and under deep disguises, strike the mind with an effect of surprise, brilliancy, exhilaration, or charm. This may not be precisely the same for all the different subjects which the identifying faculty has to work upon ; original discoveries in science do not affect us in the way that we feel under felici¬ tous comparisons in poetry ; and the sentiments of proportion and fitness in industry and in design have to be discriminated from both. Again, Inconsistency, want of Unity, or positive Discord, are forms of pain that influence us to a considerable degree, and derive importance from inspiring the virtues of Truth, Integrity, and Justice ; being, in fact, a constituent element of the Moral Sense. 2. The emotion of Similarity, or the feeling excited by a 164 EMOTIONS OF INTELLECT. flash of identification between things never regarded as like before, is generically of the nature of agreeable Surprise ; being, in fact, an outburst of Novelty. When we suddenly discover, or have pointed out to us for the first time, a like¬ ness between two objects lying wide apart, and never con¬ sidered as of the same class, we are arrested, startled, and excited into a pleasing wonderment. Travelling in new countries where nature is different in nearly all her phases — climate, vegetation, animal life, being all changed — an unex¬ pected coincidence arouses us, as when we recognise the same genera and species under greatly altered modes of develop¬ ment. Similarity in manners affects us when the whole basis of society is distinct, as when we read the history of past ages, or the habits of strange races. A characteristic trait of our common humanity has a striking effect where we are wound up to look for the extraordinary and superhuman ; poetical and mythical antiquity furnishes many such surprises. Ac¬ customed as we are by our earliest impressions to see great diversity among the things around us, every new identification gives a pleasing stimulus. When the young plant rises with all the characters of the old, when we see in children the features and characters of their parents, when likeness is traced in unrelated individuals, an agreeable interest is felt in the circumstance ; our attention is awakened and held fast upon the objects with a sort of temporary fascination. Recur¬ ring forms in plants and animals, repetitions in the structure and stratification of the globe, give an analogous excitement. 3. The peculiar mode of the pleasurable surprise varies with the subject, and 1 shall therefore touch upon the several classes of identifications already delineated in the second chapter of the exposition of the Intellect. In the identities struck by Science — the generalizations, abstractions, classifi¬ cations, inductions, and deductions that constitute scientific discovery — the sudden shock of wonder is accompanied with a marked degree of the pleasure of rebound , the lightening of an intellectual burden, or the solving of a difficulty that for¬ merly weighed on the mind. I have dwelt upon this result in ADVANCE OF KNOWLEDGE. 1G5 speaking of these operations* The labour of intellectual comprehension is reduced by every new discovery of likeness ; and the first feeling of this gives a rush of delight, the delight we feel when we are relieved of some long-standing burden, or discharged from a laborious obligation. If the effect is to solve an apparent contradiction, there is the same gladdening reaction from the depression of embarrassment. Great gene¬ ralizations, such as the atomic theory of Dalton, give a sense of enlarged power in dealing with the multiplicity of nature, and are more than a momentary surprise.! When new knowledge has a Practical bearing, the emotion is that produced by the more easy fulfilment of practical ends, and is a deliverance from labour, or an enlargement of effect. The invention of the steam-engine, besides novelty of contri¬ vance, took off incalculable burdens from the shoulders of humanity, and immensely extended the efficiency of labour. In whichever of the two lights we may choose to regard it, the contemplation is pleasurable. Whether we reduce a man’s toil or increase the produce of it, we give him a feeling of elation and joy. Truth is tested by application to practice. The naviga- * To vary the expression to the reader, let me quote a paragraph on tho same theme from Mr. James Mill: ‘First, the operation of classing; when the philosopher endeavours to range the objects of his consideration under heads, and as many of them as possible under one head ; so that he may obtain propositions true of as great a number of them as possible. Such propositions are found to be of the greatest utility. And the man who in this way subjects tho largest province of human knowledge to the fewest prin¬ ciples, is universally esteemed the most successful philosopher. This is what Plato called “ seeing the one in the many,” and “ the many in the one.” And ho said ho would follow to the end of tho world the man whom he should dis¬ cover to be master in that art.’ f The love of truth, consistency, and simplicity is the proper emotion of puro philosophy. Beside the gratification that may arise from the active exercise of intellect in its peculiar sphere, we may lawfully derive all the enjoyment that accrues from the tracing of similarity in apparent diversity, of unity in variety, of simplicity in complexity, of order in confusion. The clearing up of mysteries, and the successful comprehension of what seemed utterly beyond the ken of our faculties, may likewise delight the spirit even to ecstacy.’ — Chambers' s Papets for the People , ‘ What is Philosophy 1GG EMOTIONS OF INTELLECT. tion of the seas by means of lunar distances is the triumphant and telling demonstration of the theory of the moon’s motion. The prediction of eclipses is a coincidence between calculation and experience, which both strikes with surprise and exalts the sense of human power. All discoveries that have this prophetic accuracy are a secure foundation for practical operations, and give that confidence in issues, so cheering to the mind beset with many fears. 4. To pass next to Illustrative comparisons, or those strokes of identity whereby an abstruse or obscure notion is rendered lucid by some familiar parallel. When the lungs are com¬ pared to a common bellows, we are made in an instant to comprehend their mechanical working. The obscure process of communicating disease by infection is in some degree illus¬ trated by the action of yeast. Nervous action is made more intelligible by comparison with the Electric Telegraph. Now in these cases also, the emotion accompanying the surprise is of the nature of intellectual relief. The mind, labouring and struggling to understand what is difficult, is suddenly illumi¬ nated by the help of the well-chosen analogy, and enjoys the buoyant reaction. Such is the pleasure of a felicitous exposi¬ tion. Whatever the device may be that brings the unintel¬ ligible within the reach of comprehension, we experience the lightening sense of a deliverance from toil. We may sum up the pleasures of Knowledge in the fol¬ lowing particulars. First, the feeling of mere intellectual novelty, from being brought face to face with a succession of new objects, new properties, and new operations. The field of nature, as explained by science, is enough to occupy a life with new wonders. Secondly, the flash of agreeable surprise from the great discoveries of identification that exhibit similarity in diversity, and unity in multitude, enlarging the intellectual grasp, and diminishing the toil of comprehending the universe. Lastly, the interest in those applications to practice that extend the conveniences and comforts of life. Nor should we omit the counteraction of the terrors insepar¬ able from ignorance. COMPARISONS OF FINE ART. 167 5. The comparisons of ornament and Poetic beauty are next to be considered. The metaphors, similes, and parallels, which every great poet originates to adorn his composition withal, besides the surprise of novelty, have at least two distinct effects ; the one is the pleasure of having presented to view some interesting object or image ; the other and main effect, is something quite different, and comes under the most characteristic property of the productions of fine art. First, the striking objects of nature, the remarkable events of history, and the touching incidents of human life, excite our feelings not only in the actual encounter, but in any reference made to them ; and the literary artist avails himself of this circumstance. ‘ Like a star unhasting, unresting what habitually acts on our feelings in the reality, has an influence in the mere citation. The second property of poetic comparison goes much farther than the mere recall of what has often stirred us. There is an effect produced in the various fine arts which is, in fact, the very essence and cream of art itself, or the most genuine artistic impression. It is what is called harmony and melody in music ; picturesqueness in painting ; keeping in poetry; and fitness and suitableness of the parts, exquisite adaptation, and the essence of beauty, in all the regions of art. When we put a number of like things together, as soldiers in a line, there is an agreeable feeling of order and uniformity ; but the force of art lies still more in joining two or more things of different composition and make, so as to produce a harmonious feeling. It is in Greek architecture, the harmony of the columns and the entablature ; in Gothic, the harmony of the spire with the arch ; and in all styles, the harmony of the decorations with one another and with the main body. In sculpture, it is the suiting of expression to mind, and of attitude and drapery to expression. ‘ In painting, it is the composing and grouping of things such as will in different ways excite the same emotion. In speech, it is the suiting of the action to the word, the sound to the sense. In poetry, which combines the spirit and effect of music and painting, the scope for fine harmonies is unbounded. 163 EMOTIONS OF INTELLECT. I have already referred to the general law of Harmony and Conflict (Chap. III.). In accordance with it we are pre¬ pared to expect that impressions from different quarters con¬ curring to the same effect should economise power, while conflicting or discordant impressions are attended with waste. In a march or a dance, the accompaniment of the music is an aid or support, as well as a pleasure on its own account. Harmonising circumstances in an artistic group have an efficiency in sustaining the feeling of the main situation. If Ave are desirous to body forth to ourselves the gloomy feelings of a mind plunged in tragic despair, such illustrations as the folio Aving are calculated to aid and sustain the attempt ; Avliere, besides the excitement of the subject, we haA'e the feeling of being powerfully ministered unto in our endeavours to grasp it : — • ‘ ’Tis now the very witching time of night ; AVhen churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world : Now could I drink hot blood, And do such hitter business as the day AVould quake to look on.’ 6. Leaving any further remarks on this head to a succeed¬ ing chapter devoted to fine art in general, Ave shall next con¬ sider the feeling produced by Inconsistency, which seems naturally to centre in the intellect. Contrary statements, opinions, or appearances, operate on the mind as a painful jar, and stimulate a corresponding desire for a reconciliation. When Ave hear the same event described by tAvo persons that contradict each other, Ave are said to be distracted, or pulled two ways at once. This susceptibility is most felt in minds where the intelligence is highly deA^eloped ; indeed, with the great mass of men it counts for very little except with re¬ ference to further consequences. Any strong emotion is sufficient to make the untutored mind swallow a contradic¬ tion with ease ; but thev that have been accustomed to sift opinions, and reject the untenable and contradictory, feel an intellectual revulsion when conflicting doctrines are pro¬ pounded. This intellectual sensitiveness usually leads to the abandonment of one of the contraries, or else to a total LOVE OF TRUTH. 160 suspension of judgment, tliat is to say, a repudiation for the time of both the one and the other. The above, however, is not the only way that contradiction wounds our sensibilities. A far more operative evil is that bound up with the practical consequences. The traveller bent upon his destination, and directed oppositely by equally good authorities, feels much more than the pain of an intel¬ lectual conflict. The obligation to act with the inability to decide, causes a torment of opposing volitions, than which in extreme cases no agony can be more acute or heart-rending. This is what gives such importance and emphasis to the virtue of Truth and accuracy in statement as to make mankind in general urgent in enforcing it. It is not that contradiction lacerates the sensitive intellect, but that without consistency — in the various shapes of punctuality, fulfilment of promises, correspondence of statement with fact — the operations of daily life would be frustrated, and every society pass into dis¬ organization. The regard to Truth, therefore, besides the positive attrac¬ tions inspired by the great discoveries that comprehend the vastness, and illuminate the obscurity of nature, is fortified by two deterring beacons ; the one influential according as intel¬ lect is prominent in the character, the other acting upon the practical interests of all mankind. When we speak of the love of truth for its own sake, w7e mean to exclude this last motive, and to put the stress upon the first. No form of the feeling can be more pure or disinterested than the desire to attain knowledge coupled with the revolt at inconsistency as such. The genuine affection for the true, implies a labo¬ rious testing of evidence founded on an acquaintance with the canons and criteria of sound decision. A meretricious image of Truth has often been decked out by poets and rhetoricians, and much sentimental homage has been rendered to the goddess ; but by bringing to bear the touchstone of pains¬ taking inquiry, and the mastery of evidence, we can soon expose the hollowness of this kind of worship. 170 EMOTIONS OF INTELLECT. SUMMARY OF THE SIMPLER EMOTIONS. Having defined an Emotion as a plurality or coalition of some of the primary elements of feeling — the muscular states and the Sensations — governed by certain great laws of the mind, as Association by Contiguity, Relativity, and Harmony ; we may now recapitulate the simpler Emotions, and consider how far it has been possible to resolve them according to this view. Novelty, Wonder and Liberty, were given as direct applications of the principle of Relativity. Power also, which, on account of its importance, had a chapter devoted to it, is a pure example of the same principle. In the total of the sen¬ timent of Power, as we usually recognise it, there is, besides the gratification of exercise for some agreeable end, and the elation peculiar to felt superiority, the feeling of the attain¬ ment of our desires generally. It is therefore intensely as¬ sociated with the general pervading sense of enjoyment which accompanies or follows the state of gratified desire. The various emotions arising in the exercise of the In¬ tellect have been also shown to spring from the operation of Relativity upon simpler feelings of the mind. Terror was defined as a state caused by the idea of evil} known as such from past experience, and believed to be ap¬ proaching. Here we have (1) a primary feeling of pain, or a pain compounded of primary feelings ; (2) the operation of Intellectual Retentiveness, constituting an idea of pain, and giving ideas of the collateral circumstances so as to suggest its recurrence ; and (3), an element of Belief, which will be afterwards examined, but which is here considered to be a pro¬ perty of our active or volitional nature, modified by intellect and by feeling. Lastly, we found that the physical derange¬ ment and mental depression characteristic of fear would, under the circumstances, be a consequence of the general law of Self-conservation. The Tender Emotion was regarded as a harmonious coali- o tion of sensations having the character of massive pleasure. ANALYSIS OF THE EMOTIONS, 171 The sensations of the ordinary senses having this character evoke a kindred group of organic feelings — those connected with the lachrymal secretion, the pharynx, and probably other digestive organs — and the two sets are fused into a complex whole. A similar coalition may be studied in the Sexual Emotion ; the organic sensibility that enters into the com¬ pound being unmistakeable. The Emotions of Self and the Irascible Emotion were considered as not formed directly from primary sensibilities, but as compounded of other emotions. As regards Pursuit and Plot-interest, the only remain¬ ing species, we have, not so much the production of a special kind of feeling, as a mode of controlling our emotions, with the view of abating their painful, and enhancing their pleasurable efficacy ; ail which takes place under recognised laws of the mind. In Tenderness and in Irascibility, the growth of affections or moods founded on these emotions had to be traced. It may be remarked, however, that this operation of Contiguity or Petentiveuess is general ; we may have affections of Eear, of Power, of Wonder or the Sublime, &c. The circumstance limiting the growth of affections is the law of Pelativity ; the joyful outbursts of Liberty or the Marvellous fade away ; but in so far as the feeling can persist, it may be associated with the objects in the form of an affection. This is well seen in Admiration and Reverence. CHAPTER XII. SYMPATHY AND IMITATION. rrHERE remain now two groups of emotions to complete the classification laid down in the second chapter ; those, namely, relating to Fine Art, and those that enter into the Moral Sense. But, previous to handling these, I propose to make a digression for the purpose of taking up the important operation termed Sympathy, already referred to several times in the course of the exposition. 1. Sympathy and Imitation both mean the tendency of one individual to fall in with the emotional or active states of others, these states being made known through a certain medium of expression. To rejoice with them that rejoice, and weep with them that weep, to he carried away by the enthu¬ siasm of a throng, to conform to the society that we live among, and to imbibe the beliefs of our generation, are a part of the human constitution capable of being generalized under one commanding principle. The foundation of sympathy and imitation is the same ; but the one applies itself more to our feelings, the other to our actions. We sympathize, with grief, anger, or astonishment ; we imitate the handicraft, or the beha¬ viour, the elocution, or the language, of one that we consider a model. Imitation, too, is more frequently voluntary on our part, and a very large number of our acquisitions is obtained by this means. I have already endeavoured to show that both the power of interpreting emotional expression, and the power of moving our organs, as we see others do, are acquired. But it has likewise come under our notice as a fact, that some of the MEDIA OF SYMPATHY. 173 manifestations of feeling do instinctively excite the same kind of emotion in others. The principal instances occur under tender emotion ; the moistened eye, and the sob, wail, or whine of grief and pathos, by a pre-established connexion or coincidence, are at once signs and exciting causes of the same feeling. There is, too, something in the pace of movement of one person that induces a corresponding pace in the movements of the beholder, or listener. The medium of con¬ nexion in this case is not difficult to specify, and I have already alluded to it in my former volume, (p. ?75). The tendency to a harmonious pace of action throughout the moving system is one of the primitive facts or instinctive arrangements of our constitution. ‘ Rapid movements of the eye from exciting spectacles make all the other movements rapid. Slow speech is accompanied by languid gestures. In rapid walking, the very thoughts are quickened.’ Now, in the infection of the passions, this fact will often count for a great deal. The violent expression of extreme joy, rage, or astonishment, will induce a disposition to active excitement in the spectator, which needs only to be guided into the channel specific to the passion. Along with these primitive helps to the understanding and assumption of the manifested emotions of others, we have the still wider range of acquired, or experimental connexions between feeling and expression (. Law of Contiyuity, § 50). By a process of observation and induction, every child comes to know the meaning of a smile or a frown, of tones soft and mild, or harsh and hurried. The young learner observes in himself these connexions, and extends his knowledge by the observation of others. This is the earliest of our acquisitions respecting our own nature. The child connects the state of acute pain or distress with the violent outburst that accom¬ panies it, and presumes the presence of the feeling on wit¬ nessing the expression ; while the effect of such observations is not confined to mere knowledge, or to the cold recognition of the circumstance that a companion is elated with joy or plunged in sorrow’ ; there is a further tendency to put on the 174 SYMPATHY AND IMITATION. very expression that we witness, and, in so doing, to assume the mental condition itself. The power of the idea of a state to generate the reality, of which so many illustrations can be given, leads to the assumption of the exact movements, ges¬ tures, tones, and combinations, made strongly present to the mind by an actual display ; and when the expression is assumed, it is difficult to resist the corresponding emotion. 2. There are, therefore, two steps in the sympathetic pro¬ cess, involving two different laws, or properties, of our nature. The first is the tendency to assume a bodily slate, attitude, or movement, that we see enacted by another person, the result of an association between the actual movements in ourselves, and the appearance they give to the eye as seen in operation. The effect of this association is not by any means absolute or unconditional ; that is to say, because a link is established between each sound that we utter, or each vocal exertion, and the sensation of that sound through the ear, rendering the sensation a power to stimulate the act, it does not follow that on every occasion the one must necessarily give birth to the other. All that can be said is that there is a disposition to fall in with the manifested emotions and actions of those about us, and when other circumstances are favourable, the assump¬ tion actually takes place. (1) The leisurely and unabsorbed frame of the mind at the time is one condition of our being easily acted on in this way ; a strong prepossession operates as a bar to the effect. We may be so much occupied with our own thoughts and affairs as to be incapable of entering into the distresses or joys of any second person, while in a moment of disengaged attention the same exhibition of feeling would at once cause a sympathetic response. (2) In the next place, it is to be taken into account that some modes of feeling are more natural, habitual, or easy to us than others ; conse¬ quently these are assumed on the instigation of another person, in preference to what is unfamiliar or remote from our experience. The mother easily feels for a mother. (3) Further, the energy of the expression may be such as to over¬ power the influence that holds us for the time ; the violence CONDITIONS OF SYMPATHY. 175 of extreme agony, or grief, arrests and detains every passer-by. (4) Moreover, the expression of feeling is more influential as the person stands nearly related to us, or ranks high in our affection and esteem ; in those cases a habit has been con¬ tracted of giving a place in our minds to such persons, so much so that a slight indication on their part is enough to realize, as far as need be, the corresponding attitude in our¬ selves. (5) Something also is to be said respecting the character of the expression that we witness, there being the widest disparity in the power of manifesting emotion strongly, clearly, and characteristically, so as to render it infectious to all beholders. Some constitutions, by reason of the lively diffusibility accompanying their emotions, are what is called demonstrative — that is, have all their organs decisively pro¬ nounced in the expression that they give forth ; and the culti¬ vation that art and society bestow contributes still farther to the same expressiveness. This is the talent of the actor and the elocutionist, and the groundwork of an interesting mode of address in society. It is a common remark that if a man himself feels, he can make others feel ; but this takes for granted that he has an adequate power of outward manifesta¬ tion — a thing wherein human beings are far from being alike. It is true that Kean, Kemble, or Macready, when affected by strong emotion, could so express themselves as to kindle a corresponding flame in those about them ; but it is not true that any Dorsetshire ploughman could stir the fervours of an assemblage of people merely because his own emotion was strong and genuine* Given both the inward excitement and the gifts of an expressive language and demeanour, and we have undoubtedly the power to move as we are moved ; while a great actor can dispense with the first, and produce the effect by an outward demonstration that has no emotion cor¬ responding. (6) Finally, there is a susceptibility, greater in * It is proper, however, to remark that the Dorsetshire ploughman, if his strong feeling shows itself unmistakeahly in any form, will call forth a certain amount of sympathy, unless counteracted by a vein of contrary feeling in his audience. 176 SYMPATHY AND IMITATION. some men than in others, to the outspoken feelings of their fellows. The tendencies and habits of an individual may he, on the one hand, to follow out strongly the impulses personal to himself, or, on the other hand, to give way to the lead and indications of other men ; making the contrast between the egotistic and the sympathetic temperaments. The principle now stated is exemplified, in an extreme degree, by those cases where, through disease, or artificial means, a patient incontinently acts out to the full any idea that may he impressed upon the mind from without. By an artificial process, the tendency of the mind to act from within may he overpowered or suspended, leaving the system under the sway of impressions suggested externally. This is one of the effects of the mesmeric sleep. It is a peculiarity accom¬ panying great nervous weakness to take on the movements displayed before our eyes, instead of maintaining a resolute tone of our own. Hence, persons in feeble health have to he withheld from exciting spectacles, and the view of violent emotions. The quietness so much recommended to the invalid is not merely an absence of harsh and stunning sensation, such as the noise of hustling streets, the discharge of ordnance, or the clang of machinery ; but also great moderation in the displays of feeling on the part of human beings. The occur¬ rence of an angry brawl in a sick-room might be fatal to the repose of the patient, by exciting in his weakened system a diseased impression of the scene. The sound of clearing the throat reminds us so forcibly of the action, or brings the idea of it so vividly before the mind, that it is difficult to resist passing to the full reality. When an expression is so strong and mrrked as in this instance, there is a natural readiness to form the requisite association between the movement and the sound and sight of it, so that the link comes early to maturity ; and in the next place, the actual suggestion is made comparatively easy. This is only what happens in the contiguous association of all very impressive effects. The yawn is in like manner highly infectious. Laughter, too, is one of the catching expressions, ASSUMPTION OF A STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 177 and in part from tlie same circumstance. A loud explosion occupies the ear, and tlie broad grin arrests the eye ; and the compound indication is very hard to withstand ; still more so when a whole company is moved to a hilarious outburst. We find ourselves disposed to follow the glance of other persons, so as to give our attention to the same things. We also obey readily a direction given by the hand to look, or go somewhere. The child learns very soon to guide its eyes so as to keep up with a moving object. This is one of the earliest associations constituting a voluntary act ; and all our life we are liable to be influenced in like manner even involuntarily, especially if the movements are quick, and the object attractive. 3. The second of the two mental properties recognisable in the completed act of sympathy, is the assumption of a mental state of consciousness, through the occurrence of the bodily accompaniment. Having said so much already on the connection of the mental with the physical, I here take for granted that if the entire physical condition accompanying any feeling could be aroused anyhow, the feeling itself would co-exist. Could we put on, by suggestion ab extra, the out¬ ward gesticulation, the play of feature, the vocal tones, the altered secretions, the interior nerve currents — excited in a burst of grief, we should have the very emotion, as if inspired by its proper antecedent. But it is only an approximation that is possible in any case ; a sincere and thorough sympathy will penetrate a great way ; while the player learns to draw a line between the visible manifestations and the invisible movements in the interior of the brain. We can acquire a habit of assuming the amount of expression that appears out¬ wardly, and no more ; thus checking the course of the sym¬ pathetic process, and setting up a merely mechanical echo of other men’s sentiments. A consummate actor, as remarked above, is not supposed to feel in himself that emotion exter¬ nally pourtrayed by his stage declamation and demeanour ;* * It may be true that an actor has had, originally, secondary emotions raised up by the idea of the situation which the author conceived. a 78 SYMPATHY AND IMITATION. The organs of expression prompted under emotion are nearly all under the control of the will, and may therefore he made to simulate the manifestations of the feelings, while the per¬ son is really at heart unmoved. Still it is to be reckoned a general tendency of our constitution, that when the outward signs of emotion are in any way prompted, the wave, passing into the interior, inflames all the circles concerned in the em¬ bodiment of the feeling, and gives birth more or less power¬ fully to the accompanying conscious state. The possibility of sympathizing fully with other minds depends upon this fact in addition to the foregoing. 4. I shall next glance rapidly at the infectious character proper to the various simple emotions. Wonder is peculiarly catching from the boldness and energy of the expression belonging to it, and from the easy susceptibility of most natures to the state. The Tender emotion is also highly infectious ; we have already seen that there is here a natural or instinctive power of begetting the feeling in one mind, by the signs of its manifestation in another. Irascibility, anger, indignation, have that pronounced and violent commotion of feature, voice, and frame, calculated to impress the mind of the beholder at one time with fear, at another time with sym¬ pathy. An orator is never more successful than in attempt¬ ing to bring a multitude into unison with himself in that energetic circle of emotions. The state of Terror is too easily spread, while its opposite, Courage, needs to be backed by the most commanding influences, in order to take possession of a mind already discomposed. The emotions of Action and Pursuit, are so natural to our constitution, that they are inspired not solely by actual display, as in the chase, or the battle-field ; the printed page is able to kindle them to a high pitch. In sympathizing with Egotistic feeling generally, there is an obstacle to be overcome, arising from the egotism of the sympathizer. A certain predisposition to love, admire, or venerate another being is necessary to our entering cordially into an outburst of self-gratulation. The more tranquil de¬ lights of the Intellectual workings are difficult to impart SYMPATHY AND TENDER EMOTION. 179 except to minds prepared by much actual experience of them ; and in proportion as any feeling is quiet in its exterior mani¬ festation, do we need the assistance of language and art to evoke it by the force of sympathy. 5. A large part of our fellow-feeling with our kindred is shown in echoing some form of Pain or Pleasure. When we see a wound inflicted we are reminded of some past wound of our own, with the attendant suffering ; and this is the sub¬ stance of our sympathetic unison with the sufferer. When we hear, by report, of human beings exposed to hunger, cold, and fatigue, we gather together our recollections of those miseries as experienced by ourselves, and thereby enter into the pangs of the situation. So with pleasure ; although in this case there is not the same call for our ready response. The steady and general sympathy with the pleasures of children and of the lower animals, even in persons in whom similar sympathy with those of grown persons is destroyed by egotisms and jealousies, is a source of gratification to the sympathizer’s self. 6. Having alluded to the instrumentality of the sympa¬ thetic process in human nature, we may now advert more at large to the various aspects and developments of it in ordi¬ nary life. And in the first place, we may remark again on the close alliance between sympathy and tender emotion, which has led to the application of the same names to both ; as may be seen in the use of the words ‘ compassion,’ ‘ fellow- feeling,’ &c. But our sympathetic impulses extend much wider than our tender affections, for whenever we see strong emotion manifested, we feel ourselves carried away by the current, although our tender feelings would point some other way. The disposition to take on the states of others, irrespective of the warm attachments and likings of our nature, is, as we saw, the real source of our vicarious im¬ pulses, and of our generous, humane, and social sentiments ; it is the disinterested element of the moral sense. A man may not find much in his fellow-men to attract his tender regards, or inspire the charm of a true love ; but, coming within the circle of their wants and miseries, he cannot rest 180 SYMPATHY ANP IMITATION. without contributing a mite to their common well-being. Philanthropy may thus arise out of strong sympathies with suffering, without much positive love towards the sufferers. Indeed, in the most conspicuous examples this must be so. A Howard could not delight in the company of the thief or the felon, however much he might be moved to exert himself to mitigate their doom. It was a remark of Mr. James Mill, that some of the best men that have ever lived have had their social feelings weak, which might be interpreted to mean that they have laboured for the good of mankind through sym¬ pathy with their sufferings and pleasures, and not from any special charm inspired by human relationships. To be a good man, it is not necessary to have a strong taste for the society of other men ; it is only requisite to have an open sympathy, and a corresponding disposition to act for others, as well as to feel for them ; all which may consist with an absence of the special affections. Whatever merit there may be in working for those we love, there is merit still greater in not being able to shut our eyes and ears to the necessities of our fellow- beings, whether we love them or not. It is an outburst of pure sympathy that leads one to rescue a drowning man ; it is a more sustained and deliberate exercise of the same part of our nature that inspired the life-long labours of Howard and Bentham for the amelioration of their time.* 7. Hitherto we have looked upon sympathy as an im¬ pelling power simply, or as the surrender of self to others. The direct and immediate tendency of it is to sacrifice or give up a portion of one’s own personality or happiness, without a * As on the one hand affection disposes to sympathy, so on the other, the exercise of mutual sympathy leads to tender feeling, and is in fact one of the sources and beginnings of love. When two people are thrown together and commence a mutual interchange of sentiment, alternately responding to each other, there gradually arises a suffusion of tender emotion, to enhance the pleasure of the relationship. Thus it is, that community of opinions, senti¬ ments, situations, or fortunes, by begetting sympathy, may end in the strongest affection. The ‘ idem sentire de republica,’ is recognised as the basis of friendship between public men. SYMPATHY A SURRENDER OF SELF. 181 thought of reciprocity or reward. To resolve it into selfish¬ ness, on the ground of certain indirect results of a pleasurable kind, is to abolish it as a fact of human nature, and to deny the reality of disinterested action. Some moralists have at¬ tempted such a resolution ; but I think without success. Still, we are able to show that, under certain circumstances, sympathy is a source of pleasure to the giver, as it certainly is to the receiver. The circumstances are very obvious. The receiver must reciprocate according to his power and oppor¬ tunity, and then there is a gain on both sides. This is one of the modes of engendering affection, of making one person an object of tender regard to another. Without reciprocation in some form, it is hard to see how sympathy can be other than a pure loss to the giver. Sometimes, its exercise is a diversion to a mind otherwise a prey to ennui ; the taking one out of one’s self may be a positive advantage, even at some cost. Still, the first principle of sympathy is abnegation or sacrifice ; and, unless either the individual benefited, or some one else, or society at large, requite the favour, it stands as so much loss to the author. His own approbation will be but a feeble make-weight against any considerable sacrifice, unless it reflect to his mind the approbation of some of the higher powers. Sympathy may lead to substantial good offices, as in con¬ tributing to the wants of the needy, and in furthering the worldly interests of our friends. It finds a still wdder sphere in chiming in with, and supporting, men’s emotions, likings, and opinions. To find another person giving powerful ut¬ terance to some of our favourite sentiments and views, is an especial charm. Many examples of this could be given. The preacher, the poet, the actor, each exercises the power of reviving in men’s minds the emotions that they especially delight in ; and the machinery they employ is some form of the instrumentality we are now discussing. Foreign aid comes in to kindle up a flame which the individual standing alone, does not easily sustain at the same pitch, or for the same length of time. Thus it is that devotion is kept up by the preacher, the crowd of worshippers, and the presence of 182 SYMPATHY AND IMITATION. the symbols and ceremonial suggestive of its objects ; and when the mind is wearied, and sick of dwelling on a cherished pursuit, the entry of a friend, ardent and fresh, seems to give new oil to the dying lamp. Often it happens that we take delight in a mode of feeling, that we find a difficulty in keep¬ ing up b}^ unassisted strength ; as when one finds a charm in science, without possessing scientific force or cultivation. In that case we love to come under the influence of one that wields with ease the matter, and the emotions of scientific truth, and we may in fact have the greater enjoyment of the two. In like manner, the responsive feelings of an assembly, a party, or a nation, tell with accumulated force ; and whether it he for encouragement in arduous struggles, or for condolence in the depths of distress, we are sensibly alive to the value of a wide circle of friendship. 8. It is difficult to estimate in any precise form the entire influence of mutual sympathy in human life; but the character and tendency of the influence are easily understood. Individu¬ ality is softened down into uniformity, and even to slavish acquiescence in the prevailing turn of sentiment and opinion. Each one of us being brought under the constant influence of other minds, first in the close relationship of the domestic circle, and next in the wide echo of general society, we con¬ tract habitual modes of feeling, entirely independent of our innate impulses. Hence the conservation of traditional modes of thinking and feeling, and the difficulty there is in attaining a point of view repugnant to the atmosphere we live in. The tenacity of inherited notions and sentiments in a family, or a people, proves the strength of the sympathetic disposition ; while innovation may arise either from obtuseness to the ex¬ pression of other men’s feelings, or from the self-originated tendencies being unusually powerful. It is to be observed, however, that the concurrence of each new generation in the received sentiments of the past, is not always or wholly due to spontaneous fellow-feeling, for compulsion is also used to secure the same end. The constant subjection to foreign influence falsifies the OBSTRUCTIVES OF SYMPATHY. 183 natural likings and dislikings of the individual to such an extent, that we rarely follow out our own pleasures in their genuine purity. Acquiring a habit of calling objects agreeable or disagreeable, according to the prevailing standard, the language we use is not always to be interpreted as expressing our real feelings. In designating a landscape, or a picture, beautiful, charming, or the like, we may be echoing what we have heard, and feel no disposition to controvert, but it does not follow that we really enjoy the pleasure that the words imply. Some different criterion must be appealed to, in order to judge of the depth of the real feeling in such a case, as, for example, the power of the object to detain the gaze, to occupy the thoughts, to console in misery, or to stimulate efforts in pursuit of the pleasure. 9. Although it is easy enough to chime in with the current of the ordinary emotions, pains, and pleasures of those around us, many cases arise where a laborious effort is requisite to enable us to approach in our own feelings the state of mind of another person. Two notable disqualifications are found in Disparity of nature, and aversion or Antipathy. As to Disparity : the timid man cannot comprehend the composure of the courageous, in the face of peril ; the cold nature cannot understand the pains of the ardent lover ; the impulsive mind will not sympathize with cautious deliberation. Then, again, we cannot be induced to enter into sentiments that we hate ; the very name ‘ antipathy ’ implies the deathblow to fellow- feeling. In the one case the difficulty is intellectual, in the other moral. When we are far removed in natural constitu¬ tion, in habits, and associations from another mind, and still desire to possess ourselves of the emotions belonging to that mind, as when a historian deals with the hero of a past age, or a poet presents a far-fetched ideal to our view, a laborious constructive process has to be gone into, of which mention was made in a former chapter. In many ways this exercise is exceedingly valuable and instructive ; sympathy enabling us to know other men, as self-consciousness enables us to comply with the precept * know thyself.’ 184 SYMPATHY AND IMITATION. 10. I turn now to the consideration of the Imitative process, which relates itself to our voluntary actions, and sup¬ poses on our part a desire to repeat or copy another person. The instrumentality of imitation is acquired, as I formerly en¬ deavoured to show (Law of Contiguity, § 52). We commence with the performance of actions spontaneously, and see the effect and appearance of those actions in ourselves ; whence an association is formed between each movement, and the appearance presented by it. By untaught and random spon¬ taneity, the child closes its hand ; the act of closing is im¬ pressed upon the observing eye, and, after a sufficient amount of repetition, the appearance is able to suggest the movement. That is to say, the closing hand of another person recalls the mental situation wherein the same act was performed by self, and if there be any desire in the case, certain movements are commenced, and, if need be, varied until the proper one has been hit upon. The process of trial and error is the grand corrective of crude and nascent imitation. In endeavouring to vocalize a sound heard, the first attempts may be very far from the original, but, by persisting, some suitable movement of the larynx occurs, and the coincidence being once felt, the learner maintains the successful effort ; and, in consequence, a fusion takes place between the impression on the ear and the action of the voice, so that on a future occasion it is un¬ necessary to beat about before hitting the effect. 11. Several circumstances contribute to the power of imi¬ tation. (1) The Active Spontaneity of the special organs is a prime condition. A disposition to exercise the hand, prepares the way for handicraft associations ; a copious flow of cerebral pow'er towards the vocal apparatus, and a consequent pro¬ fusion of vocal exercises, soon briug forward those specific acquirements now adverted to. It is a fact that languages are most rapidly learned by them that boldly attempt to speak, leaving themselves to be corrected, instead of waiting till they can speak correctly. It is on the same principle, that I should be disposed to account for much of what is deemed instinctive in those of the lower animals that are actively disposed from the CONDITIONS OF IMITATION. 185 moment of birth. In' the alertness to move, every movement brings forth an experience, and the accumulation of these soon makes an education. (2) The Delicacy of the Sense peculiarly involved in the case, is the second principal condition of a good imitative aptitude. ‘ A fine and retentive musical ear is one of the essentials of musical imitation ; the natural or spontaneous production of musical tones being the other essential.’ (3) The third cir¬ cumstance is the adhesive power of Contiguity, on which depends the growth of the bond between the two elements — the sensible impression on the one hand, and the active im¬ pulse on the other. Besides these three conditions, which apply expressly to imitation as distinguished from sympathy, there are to be included the influences that favour both alike (§ 2). The being disengaged at the time, some familiarity with the operations imitated, the pronounced and energetic character of the original, the clearness of the expression or action, our feelings of admiration and respect, and the natural disposition to come under influences from without — all these are inducements to our copying the actions, as well as imbib¬ ing the feelings, manifested in our presence. Moreover, the child falls into the tones, movements, and peculiarities of action of the parent, through the circumstance of their being constantly presented to its imitation ; and finds a peculiar satisfaction in guiding the spontaneous activity into some prepared channel. This last is probably the secret of the childish delight in the imitation of the actions of the grown¬ up person ; these actions are imposing to the young mind, and to realize them himself, or to make his own activity tally with theirs, is a highly gratifying result. The dramatizing of the actions and scenes around is, perhaps, the most charm¬ ing of youthful sports ; exercise has, then, besides its own pleasure, the charm of realizing an impressive effect. 12. We may now remark generally on the contrast of different minds, as respects sympathy and imitation, — being one of the many phases of the opposition between self and not-self. Some men are moved principally by impulses 186 SYMPATHY AND IMITATION. peculiarly their own. Instead of copying others, they edu¬ cate themselves mainly by their own experience wherever this is available. They cannot entertain the suggestions of others nor take in new ideas, until these arise in the course of their own observations or reflections. Theirs is the active, self- impulsive, self-originating, egotistic temperament, as opposed to the passive, susceptible, or impressionable. A more marked antithesis of character can hardly be named. In the one case, the fountains of cerebral power are flowing constantly towards the active organs ; in the other, the prevailing cur¬ rents are toward the senses, and seats of recipiency ; action waits, instead of preceding, the guidance of sensation. Illus¬ trations of this contrast will occur to every observant person ; life affords both kinds, even to morbid extremes. The over¬ reflecting Hamlet is seen in company with a man that will not ‘ look before a leap.’ 13. Adverting now to some of the chief instances of the imitative tendency, there is no need for saying much on mere mechanical copying, as in handicraft operations, military drill, dancing, posture, and the like. Granting a sufficient flexi¬ bility and variety of the spontaneous movements, that is to say, facility, the observant and imbibing eye is the next grand requisite. Whether this aptitude arise from the susceptibility of the sense itself, or from a deep charm that detains the mind upon the effect to be produced, no rapid strides can be made without it. We find surprising examples of the overwhelm¬ ing hold that the mind will sometimes take of an action, or a form, a hold so great that the active members concerned can fall into no other channel but that one. We may see a child imbibe forms so rapidly and vigorously, as to copy them in a moment, as if by an instinct ; the explanation being no other than that now given. The imitation of handwriting is a gift arising in the same way. The forms of the original take possession of the eye and the brain, and prevent the hand from following any other course but a faithful representation of them. Substituting the ear for the eye, we can apply the same explanation to musical and articulate acquirements. MIMICRY. 187 * Individuals are sometimes so constituted that their articula¬ tion is always a pure copy of some one else. The pre-occupa¬ tion of the mind is so great as to guide all the vocal efforts into a set channel. 14. Mimicry supplies interesting illustrations of the prin¬ ciples now in discussion. The mimic needs in himself a large compass of actions and movements, or a various spon¬ taneity, and adds thereto a well-marked susceptibility to the actions and demeanour of other men. In truth, if his talent is of the highest order, it is because his mind and his actions are not his own ; wdiatever he does, he is haunted by some other person’s example, Or some foregone model. It is related of Mathews that, while he could imitate the manners and even the language and thoughts of the greatest orators of his time, he was incapable of giving a simple address, in his own person, with any tolerable fluency. 15. The case of Intellectual imitations is in no respect essentially different from the other kinds. In copying a style of composition, we absorb the original through either involun¬ tary attraction, or express study ; and in this mood all efforts of our own, fall under the control of the guiding model. Some¬ times we imitate what has seized hold of our mind by a special charm, as with our favourite authors ; at other times we get possessed of another man’s ideas, from a natural bent and impressibility, and reproduce them as a consequence. A large proportion of literature and art must necessarily consist of copies and echoes from the great originals. 16. A certain number of the Fine Arts derive their sub¬ jects from natural things which they copy and adapt ; and these are called the Imitative arts ; they are principally Imi¬ tative (as opposed to effusive) Poetry, Painting, and Sculpture ; the Stage and Pantomime ; and a small portion of the art of Decoration. The remaining members of the class, namely, Architecture, Music, Decoration in general, Eefined Address, are but in a very slight degree imitative of originals in nature, and apply themselves at once to the gratification of our various sensibilities, without being encumbered with any extraneous 188 SYMPATHY AND IMITATION. condition, such as fidelity to some prototype. I cannot regard the imitation of nature occurring in the first-named class, in any other light than as an accident ; hut the fact once occur¬ ring, a certain deference has to be paid to it. Where we profess to imitate, we ought undoubtedly to be faithful. Not, 1 imagine, because a higher artistic charm thereby arises, but because of the revulsive shock that misrepresentation is liable to produce. If the poet draws from reality, he ought not to give a misleading picture, seeing that we receive his composi¬ tions, not solely as pleasing melodies, and touching images, but also as narratives and descriptions of human life. There is, doubtless, a limit to what we are to expect from an artist, who must be mainly engrossed with the effects proper to Art, and cannot be, at the same time, a botanist, a zoologist, a geologist, a meteorologist, an anatomist, and a geographer. 17. Although I conceive that fidelity, in the imitative class of arts, is to be looked upon, in the first instance, as avoiding a stumbling-block, rather than imparting a charm, there are still some respects wherein the aesthetic pleasure is enhanced by it. We are drawn by sympathy towards one that has attended to the same objects as ourselves, or that has seized and put into vivid prominence what we have felt with¬ out expressing to ourselves. The coincidence of mind with mind is always productive of the lightening charm of mutual support ; and, in some circumstances, there is an additional effect of agreeable surprise. Thus, when an artist not merely produces in his picture the ordinary features that strike every one, but includes all the minuter objects that escape common notice, we sympathize with his attention, we admire his powers of observation, and become, as it were, his pupils in extending our study and knowledge of nature and life. We feel a pungent surprise at discovering, for the first time, what has been long before our eyes ; and so the realistic and minute artist labours at this species of effect. Moreover, we are brought forward as judges of the execution of a distinct pur¬ pose ; we have to see whether he that is bent on imitation, does that part of his work well or ill, and admire the power IMITATIVE FINE AETS. 189 displayed in it, if our verdict is favourable. There is, too, a certain exciting effect in the reproduction of an appearance in some foreign material, as when a plane surface yields the im¬ pressions of solid effect, and canvas or stone imitates the human appearance. Finally, the sentiment of reality and truth, as opposed to fiction or falsehood, appealing to our practical urgencies, disposes us to assign a value to every work where truth is strongly aimed at, and to derive an additional satisfaction, when fidelity of rendering is allied with artistic charm. Thus Imitation, which, properly speaking, is immate¬ rial to art as such, just as there is little or no place for it in music, architecture, or the decoration of the person, becomes the centre of a class of agreeable or acceptable effects. These effects are the more prized, that we have been surfeited with the purely aesthetic ideals. We turn refreshed from the middle age romance, to the graphic novel of our own time. The mental peculiarity of being strongly arrested by his subject original, must attach to the imitative artist. The face of nature must seize his eye, engross his mind, and kindle his feelings ; his pencil is then constrained to follow the outer world, rather than an inner, or ideal one. A Michael Angelo invents forms not found in nature, although observing a certain consistency with what nature presents. Such a man is the reverse of an imitative artist, and provides none of the effects specified in the last paragraph, al¬ though abounding in an impressiveness and grandeur of his own. CHAPTER XIII. OF IDEAL EMOTION. 1. rpHE object of the present chapter is to resume and ex- pand what has been said in the introduction respecting the persistence of emotional states in idea ; the continuance of the tremor and excitement for a certain length of time after the object has ceased, or the stimulus is withdrawn. Much of our pleasure and pain is of this persisting kind ; being the prolongation of a wave once commenced, and not immediately subsiding. The pleasurable impression of a work of art, a piece of music, a friendly interview, may vi¬ brate for hours, or cast a radiance over an entire day ; while the depression of some mortifying occurrence may cast a sha¬ dow of like duration. A distinction is to be made between the emotion persist¬ ing of itself, and the persistence of it by virtue of the ideal continuance of the object. If, in the cases above quoted, we retain a vivid intellectual impression of the thing that awakened the pleasure or pain, as the picture, the story, or the mortifying incident, we retain in our mind, although in an ideal form, the exciting cause of the feeling, and therefore the emotional tremor is not properly self-sustaining. As often as we remember the objects of our agreeable associations, we are liable to recover a certain gleam of their peculiar delight ; but here the ideality is, strictly speaking, in the objects themselves. The pleasures and pains of the ideal life, are thus a mixture of two modes of persistence — the one the imagery of outward things, or whatever is the antecedent, PHYSICAL CONDITIONS. 191 or cause, of an emotional wave ; tlie other the wave, or excited consciousness itself. Throughout our whole exposition of the feelings, we have been careful to note this character of continuance, or recoverability in idea, as belonging to each in a greater or less degree. We have seen that the muscular feelings and organic sensations have little of the quality, that the sensa¬ tions of hearing and sight have it in a higher degree, and that the special emotions treated of in the present book are in general endowed with a considerable share of endurability. 2. It is now to be considered what are the circumstances and conditions affecting the ideal subsistence of states of feeling; on which subject we find a considerable complication, amounting even to apparent contradiction. At one time a present feeling will suggest and support one of its own kindred, at another time the present condition will urge powerfully the revival or recollection of some opposite one. The actual sensation of cold will, in some circumstances, permit only ideas of cold, in other circumstances ideas of warmth. There are modes of misery that allow of recollec¬ tions only of misery. There are also modes of actual suffer¬ ing compatible with ideal bliss. We must endeavour, by a minute investigation, to clear up and reconcile these para¬ doxical results. 3. The continuance of the emotional tremor has obviously for its first condition the state of the physical organs involved in the act of maintaining it. The central brain, and the different muscles and secreting glands concerned in each case, are the medium and instrumentality for sustaining the excitement, after the stimulus, as well as during its presence. There is a power natural to each constitution of persisting, for a certain length of time, in a wave once commenced. The persistence is, as often remarked, unequal for different emo¬ tions ; and the nervous system is not always prepared to give a uniform support to the same emotion. A certain health, freshness, and vigour are requisite for the proper carrying on of this, or of any other mental function ; and as the 192 OF IDEAL EMOTION. natural tone of the physical members is abated by the fatigues of the clay, by the absence of nourishment, by disease, or by general decay, it becomes less easy to sustain either an actual or an ideal excitement. The young mind can sustain hours of buoyant elation ; the brain, the limbs, the voice, the features, the senses, being all charged with active vigour ; while the aged are obliged to alternate moments of excitement with hours of lassitude or stillness. Respecting this primary condition of constitutional vigour, a distinction is to be drawn between the energy of the brain itself and the vigour of the other organs concerned in the emotional wave. The various parts of the bodily system exist in very unequal degrees of strength. The muscular system may be powerful with a feeble brain ; the brain may be vigorous while the muscles and secreting organs are below the average ; the chest may be strong, and the action of the skin weak. Now, in the full development of a wave of emotion there is a concurrence of the cerebral centres, and the muscular and other outlying members ; and the prevailing kinds of feeling will be governed by the relative vigour of the two departments. When the muscular frame is powerful, the more violent and demonstrative feelings can be sustained if sufficiently prompted from within ; when the nervous system is powerful and the muscles weak, the emotional life, although equally intense, will flow less outwardly, leaving the exterior calm and quiet. Whence it is, that constitutions physically weak, as it is called (the meaning being that digestion, muscle, &c., are not highly developed), may yet maintain a vivid and sustained emotional life ; in this case, the endowments of the cerebrum proper must be of a high order. All experience shows that whatever part of the system may languish, there must be no want of lierve-power, when the mental manifes¬ tations are unusually fervid. Very often what seems a feeble and worn physical frame is really a good average constitution, where every atom of available substance is expended in feeding an energetic brain. This is really at bottom the import of the observation, when we speak of a strong mind in THE EMOTIONAL TEMPERAMENT. 193 a weak body, a conjunction of very frequent and not sur¬ prising occurrence.* 4. Next to the general circumstance of cerebral efficiency, we must place the fact of specific temperament as regards emotion. Some constitutions are so framed that the power of the brain runs mainly to the current of feeling. In them, a wave once generated sustains itself for a long period ; the same stimulus yielding a more prolonged excitement than in minds of a different cast. There is a certain adjustment of the three sides of our in¬ ward being that might be pointed out as the best for the individual on the whole — a just balance of the powers, which we often speculate upon, as securing all the interests, and conciliating all the exigencies of our complicated existence ; this balance being frequently missed, through the preponder¬ ance of some one over the other two. As there are painful as well as pleasing emotions, the question may be asked whether the same organization will favour the continuance of a painful impression, as well as of the other sort. This is answered in part by referring to the elucidation formerly given of the nature and instrumentality of the emotions (Chap. I. § 2). The diffusive wave prompted by every state of feeling, and essential to its mani¬ festation, assuages, by the secondary waves rising out of the action of the various organs brought into play, all kinds of painful consciousness ; and the more powerfully the diffusion operates, the more efficient will this assuaging operation be. Hence a vigorous emotional nature is one that has resources at once for prolonging the thrill of pleasure, and overpowering the shock of pain. The cerebral organization, employing its vigour mainly for emotional excitement, gives full tone to all * Dr. Johnson’s definition of Genius, ‘ Largo general powers operating in a particular direction,’ would not be inapt as a figure for representing the physical fact implied in great mental capacity. A good physical constitution in general, concentrating all its spare vitality in a good cerebrum, is the best notion we are at present able to give of the corporeal foundations of every kind of mental greatness. 194 OF IDEAL EMOTION. the notes of joy, and by an abundant and various exercise of the parts ministering to the emotional wave, evolves assuaging stimuli from within itself to overpower the pinch of suffering. The furious gestures, the vehement movements, the stem grimace, the piercing wail, are all fountains of a new excite¬ ment, which by itself would be exhilarating to a strong and healthy frame, and which is of avail in lulling the irritation that called them forth. When these natural outbursts are guided and attuned by refinement, by poetry, music, or other art, tire means at the disposal of the temperament now sup¬ posed for overlaying misery with sources of delight, are most extensive and efficient, and do not pertain to characters of a different stamp.* 5. We must also take into account the undisputed fact that individuals are variously constituted in reference to dif¬ ferent kinds of emotion ; the same person keeping up one emotion with ease, and another with difficulty. According to the primitive conformation of the brain, and other organs engaged in supporting states of feeling, there is a preference shown towards some of the leading modes of pleasurable excitement, or a tendency to particular modes of painful excitement. One mind falls in easily with the tremor pecu¬ liar to Wonder. An object of this class awakens a powerful current, which continues to run for a length of time after the stimulation has ceased. The person so constituted naturally goes after the wonderful, in other words, chooses this as a main gratification and pursuit. Terror I pass by in the illus¬ tration, as being more properly a mode of human weakness, and a source of mental waste and pain, than an emotion counting among our phases of pleasure.-f- The Tender emotion * It would be necessary still farther to discriminate between temperaments joyous by nature and the opposite, both being varieties of the emotional class. It is also true, as remarked before, that there are depths of misery beyond the power of the assuaging influences above described. t In each individual temperament there are special modes of pain that take a more than ordinary possession of the mind, causing it to succumb to their influence to an excessive degree, and so persisting after the fact as to ENDOWMENT OF SPECIAL EMOTIONS. 195 usurps largely a considerable proportion of mankind, being so alimented by the natural conformation of the system as to maintain its characteristic wave with considerable persistence. This gives great capacity for the affections, great power of sustaining the pleasures of love, friendship, and social inter¬ course, and great aptitude for the kindly and compassionate sentiments. No one can tell what part of the brain, if it be a local division, or what pervading property, determines the vital power to flow in this direction ; nor can we say to what extent the structure of the glandular organs, excited by the wave of tender feeling, is concerned in giving it the requisite support. We are, nevertheless, assured that this emotion is the groundwork of one of the best marked distinctions of the human character. So with the charm of exerted Power, to which some minds are keenly susceptible, leading to the wor¬ ship of might in self and others. The passion for control and influence may be largely developed in the original consti¬ tution, whence it M'ill be easy to dwell upon the objects of it in idea, as well as delightful to attain the reality. Irascibility may draw to itself a large share of the vital sap, by which the feeling will receive an undue prominence in the inner life of the individual. The power of hate, of malice, and revenge, is thus extensively developed ; and that aptitude for antipathy, which is strong in general human nature, is still farther increased. Wfe have then a positive fondness for the indul¬ gence of dislikes, and a great reluctance to subside from a resentment once kindled. If the general temperament be occupy an extensive and commanding position in the ideal life. In some cases this is merely a phase of the predominating pleasures, whose privation affects us painfully according as their position contributes to our delight ; as when the lover of knowledge is for a time banished from books and sources of information. In other cases, it is that particular kinds of pain prey deeply upon the organism, like the tendency of some constitutions to severe inflam¬ matory or febrile attacks ; as when one is more than usually unhinged by disappointed expectations. The pain in this instance may be so severe at the time, and so abiding in the impression, as to keep the person in a continual frame of dread and precaution on this one head, disposing him to incur the loss of a great amount of pleasure rather than risk so trying a shock. 19G OF IDEAL EMOTION. emotional, as described in the preceding paragraph, and if the specific channel made for it is the present, we have a type of malignity and hatred that may give birth to the worst ex¬ cesses of misanthropic ill-will. Instances of the kind come within the catalogue of every generation of living men. And, finally, to close the illustration, the feelings of Intellect may be those specially fed in the distribution of the cerebral nourishment. And, as in the case of the pleasures of action, it is not necessarily a vigorously developed intelligence that thrills with the most protracted note to the objects of intel¬ lectual pursuit. The speciality lies in some conformation of our purely emotional nature, although doubtless modified to some extent by the other. The pleasures of knowledge, the pursuit of truth, and the sciences in general, are the occasions for the outburst of this peculiar variety of emotion.* 6. Repetition and habit increase still further the tendency to special kinds of emotion. If this implied only the confir¬ mation of a bent that originally predominated in the constitu¬ tion, it would scarcely amount to any new fact ; for, as a matter of course, whatever we are naturally prone to, we exercise most freely, and thereby develope into still greater ascendancy. But influences from without are brought to play * The same characteristics in the mental system that enable an impres¬ sion to survive its original, and he recovered by mental suggestion indepen- dently of that original, are doubtless those that enable us to endure a large amount of any one sort of emotion, or to take on the frequent stimulation of it, without fatigue. In the case of tender emotion, for example, the cerebral support and other circumstances, causing this to persist as an ideal gratifica¬ tion, are what enables one to hear a great repetition of the actual indulgence as well. A mind so constituted is not exhausted by much society, and the iterated draught upon the affections arising therefrom. The powers of the system being assumed to run largely in this particular channel, the actual stimulation can be borne to great lengths of continuance, and the ideal con¬ dition supported to a corresponding degree. On the other hand, a system soon fatigued by any mode of actual pleasure, is not likely to retain the ideal state, unless it be that the actual exhausts the bodily organs too much, as in physical exercise, and the exhausting physical pleasures, in which cases the ideal is the more supportable of the two, especially in a constitution more vigorously constituted in the cerebrum than in the other organs. STIMULATING DRUGS. 197 upon the mind of every one more or less, and the power of habit reduces the natural prominence of one bent, and brings forward another. It is thus that we come to identify out¬ standing pleasures and most congenial sentiments with those that surround us. A constitution little disposed by nature to vehement antipathies, can be made to take on this character¬ istic in a community very much given to their exercise. In the same manner, a disposition to dwell in the atmosphere of intellectual pleasures may be worked up by assiduous cultiva¬ tion. There is a certain length that we may always go in changing the primitive arrangements of the system, develop¬ ing tendencies naturally weak, and abating such as are power¬ ful ; it is on this circumstance that we are able to explain the unanimous prevalence of a common vein of sentiment through a wide society. 7. We cannot omit allusion to the wide-spread fact of arti¬ ficial stimulation of the nervous system, by which currents of strong emotion are generated and kept up, out of all propor¬ tion to what would otherwise be produced. It stands to rea¬ son, that the proper support of the brain is the nutriment conveyed to it for restoring the daily waste of the nerve sub¬ stance, but every nation has discovered, among the natural productions of the globe, some agent or other, to quicken the cerebral activity, by an action not necessarily connected with the supply of nutriment.* These are the wide class of * ‘ Siberia has its fungus — Turkey, India, and China their opium — Persia, India, and Turkey, with all Africa, from Morocco to the Cape of Good Hope, and even the Indians of Brazil, have their hemp and haschisch — India, China, and the Eastern Archipelago, their betel-nut and betel pepper — the Polynesian Islands their daily ava — Peru and Bolivia their long used coca— New Grenada and the Himalayas their red and common thorn-apples — -Asia and America, and all the world we may say, their tobacco- — the Florida Indians their emetic holly — Northern Europe and America their ledums and sweet gale — the Englishman and German their hop — and the Frenchman his lettuce. No nation so ancient, but has had its narcotic soother from the most distant times — none so remote and isolated, but has found within its own borders a pain-allayer, and narcotic care- dispeller of native growth — none so savage, which instinct has not led to seek for, and successfully to employ, this form 198 OF IDEAL EMOTION. Stimulants , intoxicating drugs, narcotics, which have the common effect of exalting for the time the tone of the cerebral O and mental life, making all pleasures more intense, and utterly subduing suffering and pain. Alcohol, Tobacco, Tea, Opium, Hemp, Betel, and the other narcotics, are the resort of millions, for the production of mental elation, or soothing irritation and pain. Even in our plainest food, elements occur that are sup¬ posed to exercise a stimulating influence on the nervous system. That ingredient of flesh, ‘ called Kreatine, which is rich in nitrogen, has a certain chemical relation to the peculiar principle of Tea and Coffee (Theine), and exercises a special tonic and exhilarating influence upon the system, in¬ dependent of any directly nutritive quality it may possess.’* The characteristic effects of different stimulants are hut imperfectly understood. Their agreement in elevating the mental tone co-exists with great variety in the manner. Phy¬ siologists and physicians draw a line between the stimulating, narcotic, and poisonous doses of drugs. Thus, Alcohol, in a small quantity, would appear to heighten the powers ge¬ nerally ; causing both mental elation, and increase of all the physical forces. In greater quantities, it paralyzes the nerve centres, diminishing both the mental and the bodily aptitudes, while there may still remain a certain joyousness of feeling. The maudlin of semi-intoxication is a curious feature, whether from stimulating the organic accompaniments of tender emo¬ tion, or from the passively pleasurable condition of the mind. 8. In connexion with this subject, there are circumstances different from the action of drugs, capable of exercising an in¬ fluence on the nervous centres. Cold invigorates the nerves, while warmth relaxes their tone; whence arise the’effects of the cold bath on the one hand, and of extreme heat on the other. of physiological indulgence. The craving for such indulgence, and the habit of gratifying it, are little less universal than the desire for, and the practice of, consuming the necessary malerials of our common food.’ — Johnston’s Chemistry of Common Life, vol. ii. p. 182. * Johnston’s Chemistry of Common Life. PHYSICAL CIRCUMSTANCES. 199 There is an exact analogy to this in electricity and magnetism High temperature deprives a magnet of its polarity, and destroys the conducting power of an electric wire. The agency of cold, when employed within safe limits, seems to improve the quality of the nerves, without any of the bad consequences of narcotic drugs. Although, in general, an ample supply of nourishment is the main source of cerebral and mental vigour, yet it sometimes happens that light meals, and even fasting for a time, will give a temporary elation. One consideration helping to account for this result is the large amount of ner vous power demanded for the digestive process. By relieving the system temporarily from this great draught, there may be an interval of exuberance of high feeling before the coming- on of the depression from want of nourishment.* Some such temporary elation, as well as pain and mortification, may have been contemplated in the observance of times of fasting by religious devotees ; the mental brilliancy of the moment being the reward of the self-denial. It is farther to be noted that the nervous system, in all probability, goes through a round of different phases of its own accord, as a mere property of its organic life, and without any reference to the use of stimu¬ lants. From no assignable circumstance whatever, it happens that the mental tone is now light and buoyant, while at another time shadows and gloom overspread the prospect. We have no means of accounting for many periods of depres¬ sion that occur in the best regulated life ; while, on the other hand, moments of intense pleasure and brightness burst out without any seeming cause in lives of protracted suffering. * Thomson, the African traveller, who explored the regions contiguous to the Cape of Good Hope, in describing his experience of protracted hunger, remarks that, when he had been for days almost entirely deprived of food his dreams at night took the form of the most delicious repasts. While the subject most strongly presented to his mind, and therefore likely to be dreamed about, was the obtaining of food, the nervous system had got into such a state as to favour a kind of delirious intoxication during sleep, and to give a corresponding character to the mental reveries. This is a curious and illustrative contrast to the miserably depressing dreams expe¬ rienced after an actual repast too abundantly partaken of. 200 OF IDEAL EMOTION. As tlie outward agencies and the course of fortune alternate between good and evil, so the tissues of the body itself, ner¬ vous and the rest, have their cycles and changes favourable and unfavourable to mental gaiety and animation.* In certain temperaments the vibration from joy to woe tabes a much wider sweep than in others, but it is impossible that the in¬ ner life of any human being can have a perfectly equal flow. 9. Leaving the discussion of physical agents and influences, it remains for us now to take account of the agencies properly Mental, that may serve to sustain an emotional wave once commenced. We find often that one feeling can pave the way for a second, or aid in supporting an excitement in actual operation. The manner of rendering this assistance needs to be particularly examined. If, after the action of one exciting- cause, such as the meeting of a long absent friend, we come under some second stimulant, as the successful issue of an undertaking, there must needs arise a compound excitement, each of the two promptings working out its natural effect. In such a case we should only say that the mind was doubly excited, there being present two powerful conspiring streams of elation. There would be no propriety in saying that the one emotion fed, or maintained, the other. But there is often presented to our notice, a phenomenon more peculiar than this simple concurrence of two congenial feelings. The second stimulant, instead of producing its own proper hue of emotion, will be found frequently to add to the flame of another and more favourite mode of excitement. The lover, listening to a strain of music, will probably be moved entirely in the direction of the predominating passion. So the votary of ambition is liable to find every source of pleasure acting merely as a stimulant to sustain this one mental attitude, no other enjoying a sufficient cerebral support for its proper mani- * The acute neuralgic pains, as toothache and tic douleureux, come and go without any assignable change of outward circumstances. Many per¬ sons subject ^o nervous disease have attacks at regular periods, which can be counted on. MENTAL AGENCIES. 201 festation. I imagine that few persons enjoy the pure charm of music, without being led away into some dream of a ruling- passion. In this view a certain number of the causes of strong- feeling are in reality quicken era of the cerebral activity, whereby the dominant emotion of the individual can come forth into a more potent sway. The minor susceptibilities are so many means of general elation or general depression, giving- support to, or withdrawing it from, the great monopolist and master of the mind. Nothing is seemingly more delightful than the burst of relief when a gnawing pain has ceased, or a heavy burden is lifted away ; and yet at that moment we shall often find a man reverting with all the might of the new stimulus to his business gains, ambitious pursuits, or some object of personal affection.* 10. The Intellectual forces, or the associating bonds of Contiguity and Similarity, may be properly reckoned as ministering to the support of an emotional wave. As to con¬ tiguous association, the fact is very obvious, and has been noticed already. When ‘ patriotism is kindled on the plains of Marathon, and piety burns brighter amid the ruins of Iona,’ it is the force of a pre-established connexion between objects and emotions that constitutes the energy of the stimulation. We find it much easier to sustain a feeling at its full strength in the presence of its associates ; as tenderness by the graves of departed friends, or through the possession of relics of their friendship * The influence of the will is also a power operating in the same direc¬ tion, as the physical and mental agencies now passed in review. The mental tone of the individual is to a certain degree within the limits of voluntary con¬ trol ; by an effort of resolution, we often resist or stave off depression, and keep up a degree of cheerfulness not at all in accordance with surrounding circumstances. Some minds have this power to a surprising degree, and there are few cases where the natural strength of the will is brought to a severer proof. It is an interesting inquiry, which I shall take up at the proper place, to find out through what medium the instruments of the will (these being solely the members moved by muscles) can be brought to operate upon the pervading emotional tone of the individual. The fact itself is one not to be doubted. 202 OF IDEAL EMOTION. There are other instances of the quickening of emotion that may be referred to the law of similarity. If a passion of our own is fired by the display of the same passion in others, we may call this the suggestion of likeness, or we may term it sympathy ; in either case the force is an intellectual one. When we read the lives of men whose actions and position were exactly what we ourselves delight in, we are fired by our favourite emotions, through the strong presen¬ tation of what so closely resembles them in others. This is one of the ways wherein man becomes interesting to man. The spectacle, or account, of those persons that have borne a part in life similar to our own, is capable of moving us with the emotions of our position at times when these would otherwise lie entirelv dormant in the mind, or of making them burn with a brighter flame. The enormous actual achieve¬ ments of Alexander did not dispense with his copy of the Iliad, from which he drew an ideal stimulus to his sentiment of military heroism. 11. The foregoing considerations are introduced to explain the enormous predominance of the Ideal over the Actual, in human life. Instead of yielding ourselves up to real and present influences, as they arise in turn, we not only find it easy to resist impressions coming from these present realities, but even set them at nought in favour of something absent and remote, as we wrould brush off a fly that alighted on the hand. Such is the difference between one feeling and another, that the full actuality in the one case is as nothing compared with a shadowy recollection in the other. In some sudden memory of long past years, we become for a time so com¬ pletely absorbed, as not to be impressed with the gayest spectacle, or the most stirring drama. Something, in the con¬ dition of the cerebral centres at that moment, favours to such a degree the resuscitation of that bygone experience, that the mind is dead to the solicitations of the senses, and the potency of an actual scene. This apparent anomaly of the human constitution, or rather this great inequality in the power of different emotions, shows itself in several well-known THE IDEAL AND THE ACTUAL. 203 classes of phenomena. One of these is the often remarked contrariety of mind and fortune, of inward feeling and out¬ ward condition, so common in every generation of mankind. The environment of the individual may he blank and cheer¬ less, or may bristle up with positive evils, and yet the mind, fastening upon some choice object, and enabled by some forti¬ fying influence, or natural vigour, to sustain the note thereby struck, may rise superior to the sum total of the depressing influence. To state the opposite case, would only be to con¬ descend upon the rankest commonplace. Not only may ideal delight co-exist with actual pain, and vice, versa, but, as just noted, the veritable delights of the mind may run in a tune quite different from what is played in our sphere of reality. Natural temperament, special conformation, nourishment, stimulants, habit, concur to arm the inner being on some one side, and give a persistence to what accords therewith, in spite of very powerful present influences addressed to the less sus¬ ceptible portions of the mental constitution. There is much truth in the general doctrine that reality is stronger than idea, and present influences more impressive than recollections, but this supposes that the different things compared are pretty nearly equal in the regards of the mind. If we are equally attached to two friends, the one now with us will probably have more weight for the moment in determining our inclina¬ tions than the one that is absent ; the freshly-uttered living voice has naturally more sway than what exists only in the memory. But this advantage on the side of the actual object now before us, is completely overpowered and nullified, by the disparity that so often exists among our affections and likings. Our absent friend may have such an ascendant place in our esteem, that his words recollected through a lapse of years, are more influential than the most eloquent utterances of our present adviser. This fact is no disparagement to the superior efficacy of present impressions as such, for the superiority of the present is unquestionable, and often mischievous ; it only proves the immense hold that some things take of the mind in preference to others. 204 OF IDEAL EMOTION. 12. The struggle of the Ideal with the Actual is forcibly illustrated in the day-dreams and illusions that raise the mind into an elevated region, where present evils have no place. Fastening eagerly upon some striking quality in our future prospects, we are so engrossed by the feeling thereby inspired, as to see no accompaniments to mar the looked-for felicity. Another instance is the comparison we make of our lot with some other person’s. Admiring in a high degree what we are destitute of, we refuse to entertain the other side of the picture, or to figure to ourselves the never-failing drawbacks of the most fortunate conditions. The mental forces at work, in this very familiar class of facts, relate principally to the great fundamental property of strong emotion, more than once dwelt upon, to exclude incompatible ideas, and rule the con¬ victions of the moment. A battle constantly rages on the field of intellect, between the force of the feelings to retain their own imagery, and the other associating agencies which bring forward the views connected with a cool, intellectual apprecia¬ tion of the whole case. When feeling is strong, and intel¬ ligence weak, there is but one issue possible. The ardent emotions of a young mind, with little experience of life to set against the current, construct the most gorgeous and insane delusions, with a full disposition to risk everything in acting them out. We may enjoy our favourite emotions, in suitable creations of the fmicy, without believing in the reality of such creations ; there being a sufficient counterpoise in our rational nature, in our knowledge of the actual, and in the power of making this knowledge always felt, to stem the torrent of ex¬ cessive emotion, and prevent the total absorption of the mental being by the one strong feeling. A man may dream of becoming prime minister, and may have an hour’s genuine delight in ideally occupying that illustrious position ; but he may stop short at the end of the hour, and go to the perfor¬ mance of his humble duties as if his thoughts had never wandered from them. The power of a rampant emotion may, or may not, be held in check by other forces, emotional, voli¬ tional, or intellectual ; but whether it gains or loses the day, PLEASUKES OF THE IMAGINATION. 205 the double property of controlling the thoughts, and influen¬ cing the belief, is equally put in evidence. 13. Another remark on this hackneyed subject may be introduced for the sake of completing the round of illustra¬ tive observations. There are many things that owe their entire mental influence to their ideal efficacy. This is the case with wealth never employed. A man enjoys the imagi¬ nation of putting forth his property to this and the other application, although in fact he may never go beyond the mere design. We find a great deal of pleasure in scheming plans that do not come to execution, and in forecasting results that are not substantiated. I have formerly remarked, that the paradoxical longing for future fame connects itself with this extensive capability of keeping up ideal emotions. If the enjoyment of human praise be intense in the bosom, and if the cerebral forces go largely to sustain this peculiar thrill, we shall find ourselves able to keep up the charm and the delight long after a time of actual fruition, and to con¬ struct occasions and times purely imaginary. W e shall see in vision approving smiles never to be seen by the eye, and have our inward ear filled by acclamations that will not pass in by the outward sense. Any strong stimulation applied to a ruling passion, such as this, may intoxicate the mind to the pitch of delirium, with no real occasion or actual cause. These are the ‘ pleasures of the Imagination,’ to which there are counterpart ‘ pains,’ and their groundwork is the existence of emotional waves that have no more than a cerebral, or subjective, support. Remaining after the disturbing stone has sunk to the bottom, they may be equally reproduced by purely inward or mental causes, and may flourish on the imagery that they themselves give birth to. 14. Tt is difficult to do full justice to the power of self- sustaining emotion in the human mind, adhering at the same time to something like scientific statements and accurate generalizations. A man or woman with an emotional tempe¬ rament somewhat above the average, and in the habit of giving way to it, presents, in the course of an ordinary day, 206 OF IDEAL EMOTION. an inward career that persons cast in another mould rarely succeed in conceiving to themselves. With the waking hour a torrent sets in, a fire is kindled, an engine is put in motion, in certain directions, and gives a character to every decision of the day. One or more ruling passions, with certain sub¬ sidiary ones, dominate each passing hour, constituting the inner life — the enjoyment and the suffering of the individual, presiding over the conduct, guiding the thoughts and swaying the convictions. Whatever conflicts with the current of the moment is either rudely swept away, or leads to a violent recoil. Duties out of keeping with it are apt to he distasteful, and to get neglected ; actions in accord with the dominant stream make the hours fly like minutes. Every¬ thing is measured by emotion. Strong likings are engendered, and equally strong antipathies ; and both are manifested with pronounced energy. He that has to make a stand against the onward roll of the movement needs a stout heart ; for reason is unequal to the combat. In the words of Cowley, applied to times of fervid political excitement, ‘ the stream of the current is then so violent that the strongest men in the world cannot draw up against it ; and none are so weak but they may sail down with it.’ 15. The contrast of Idea and Actuality shows itself in a remarkable manner in the Ethical appreciation of conduct. Practically, human nature revolts at severe restraint and self- denial, while, theoretically, asceticism has w7ith many nations exercised a powerful charm. I cannot doubt that the foun¬ dation of the worship of self-denial lies in the pleasure that manifested Pow'er excites, both in the person displaying it, and in the beholder. This is one of the strono; emotions "rowing out of our active constitution, and as such has already come under review. The case now mentioned exemplifies in a signal vray the intensity of the feeling. For the sake of this elated consciousness, men will sometimes submit to priva¬ tion and suffering of the most galling kind. This, however, is not the most usual turn that the sentiment takes in prac¬ tice. The pleasure of reflected moral energy is not always THE IDEAL IN ETHICS. 207 purchased by actual efforts of repressed appetite and crucified desire. The more common method is, to set up moral theories involving this in a high degree, to be contemplated and admired, with the admission that human nature is not equal to their full realization. So much are we disposed to hug moral strength as an idea, that we are greatly more indig¬ nant at any attempt to relax ethical theory than to see the derelictions of practice. It has been remarked that ‘ any man who should come to preach a relaxed morality would be pelted,’ which is only a mode of expressing the adhesion of the mind to the ideal of high moral energy, notwithstanding all the shortcomings of actual conduct. The morality im¬ posed by a community upon individuals partakes of the same admiration of power in the idea. There is, too, the farther satisfaction that each person has, as a member of the society, in imposing rigid rules upon his fellows, which seems more than a compensation for the hardship of being likewise sub¬ jected to them. The agreeable sentiment of the exercise of power is thus seen, in more ways than one, surmounting the pleasures of sense, the love of personal liberty, and the sympathy with pleasure generally, which have all very con¬ siderable standing in human nature. It would seem a usual tendency of the mental system to run in the channel of the emotions of power ; and it is certain that many of the cerebral stimulants, both physical and other, enhance the same general tendency. Under the elation of wine, when the actual exercise of great moral energy, or of anything else, is at the very lowest, the imagination of this quality and the agreeable excitement of it are at the very highest. Under stimulation generally the same effect is liable to occur ; in truth, the period of total disqualification for the real is the very acme of the ideal. 16. The outgoings of the Eeligious sentiment have a reference to the want of accordance between the mind and the world as now constituted ; and a portion of the ungratified emotion takes the direction of the supernatural. Nothing could be more accurately expressed than the phrase ‘ worldly 208 OF IDEAL EMOTION. minded ’ as opposed to ‘ religiously minded.’ The state of the affections exactly suited by the persons and in¬ terests of the present life, gives no footing to the religious nature ; the heart completely tilled and gratified with the terrestrial, naturally abides in that limited sphere. But the history of humanity shows that this is not the general rule of our constitution. There has always existed a vein of strong emotion, — wonder, love, or awe — that would be satisfied with nothing less than a recognition of some great Power above. 17. In the region of Pine Art the ideal enters as an im¬ portant ingredient, for reasons that must now be pretty obvious. The creations of art, being intended solely for gratifying the human susceptibilities to pleasure, must needs have respect to those that are not otherwise sufficiently provided for. The imitative artist may, as we have seen in the previous chapter, interest us by effects incidental to able or skilled imitation ; but this has never wholly satisfied the human mind. The poet, while working on the subjects of nature and human life, is expected to improve his original by well-managed additions and omissions, thereby furnishing a more ade¬ quate vent for our strong sentiments, than the real world affords. This is admitted in all times to be the poetic func¬ tion. I may here remark, in conclusion, on imaginative sensi¬ bility, and its differences from sensibility to the real. Some of the most sentimental writers, such as Sterne (and Byron), seem to have had their capacities of tenderness excited only by ideal objects, and to have been very hard-hearted towards real persons. Of Wordsworth, again, it has been remarked, that his sensibilities were excited by a thing only after he had ‘ passed it through his imagination.’ The counterpart of Byron’s tenderness is Southey’s indignation, which, as his friends said (not incredibly to those that have seen him), was wholly imaginative ; the man being singularly free from bitter¬ ness or antipathy, even such as his opinions made him think were right and becoming. LIVING IN TWO WORLDS. 209 Such men live in two distinct worlds, their behaviour in one being no clue to their behaviour in the other. In medi¬ tation, and in composition, they enter their ideal sphere, and converse with imagined beings ; in real life, they encounter totally different elements, and are affected accordingly. 0 CHAPTER XIV. THE AESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 1. T) Y the above title I understand the group of feelings -L* involved in the various Fine Arts, and constituting a class of pleasures somewhat vaguely circumscribed, but yet in various respects contradistinguished from our other pleasures. A contrast has always been considered to exist between the Beautiful and the Useful, and between Art and Industry. And we can readily inquire wherein the difference is conceived to lie. The gratifications of eating and drinking, and the other indulgences called sensual, are excluded from the present class, and indeed set in opposition to them, on several assignable grounds. In the first place, as our frame is constituted, these bodily functions, while incidentally minis¬ tering to our pleasure, are in the main subservient to the keeping up of our existence, and being in the first instance guided for that special end, they do not necessarily rank among gratifications as such. In the second place, they are connected with the production of what is repulsive and loathsome, which mars their purity as sources of pleasure. And in the third place, they are essentially confined in their influence to the single individual ; for the sociability of the table is an added element. Two persons cannot enjoy the same morsel of food, or the same draught of exhilarating beverage. Xow a mode of pleasure subject to one or more of these three conditions, may belong in an eminent degree to the list of utilities, and the ends of industry, but does not come under the class now propounded for discussion. Again, the machinery of precautions against pain, disease, and death, DISTINCTIONS OF FINE ART PLEASURES. 211 — our clothes, our houses, our parapet walls, our embankments, our lightning conductors, physic and surgery, — having in themselves nothing essentially pleasing, are placed in the category of the useful. So bodily or mental cultivation is not pleasurable in itself; very often the contrary. Wealth is disqualified by the third condition, inasmuch as, while in the shape of money, it is confined to some single proprietor. The same may be said of power and dignity, whose enjoyment cannot be divided or diffused, * excepting under one aspect to be presently noticed. Affection is nearly in the same pre¬ dicament, from the difficulty of extending it over any great number. Anything so restricted in its sphere of action as to cons' itute individual property, and give occasion to jealousy and envy, is not a pleasure aimed at by the producer of fine art. For there do exist objects that can give us delight as their primary end, that have no disagreeable or revolting accompaniments, and whose enjoyment cannot be restricted to a single mind ; all which considerations obviously elevate the rank of such objects in the scale of our enjoyments. Though they are not so intense as some of those other agencies of the monopolist class, their diffusion makes them precious like the free air aud the light of heaven. 2. The Eye and the Ear are the great avenues to the mind for the aesthetic class of influences ; the other senses are more or less in the monopolist interest. The blue sky, the green woods, and all the beauties of the landscape can fill the vision of a countless throng of admirers. So with the pleasing sounds, which certainly may be artificially monopolized, but which in their nature are capable of being enjoyed alike by a numerous multitude. Other things there are that do not perish with the using, but that nevertheless cannot operate upon a plurality of minds at one time, as for example, the whole class of tools and implements employed in our plea- * National power may be enjoyed as a collective sentiment, thereby ap¬ proaching to the condition of one of the aesthetical feelings. So may family pride, or the pride of rank. 212 THE .ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. sures. An easy chair is too confined in its scope to be an which, of course, give3 the two parts of the right angle simple ratios to each other, — 1 to 1, 1 to 2, 1 to 3, 2 to 3, &c. Mr. Hay named these proportions according to those notes of the musical scale having the same ratios in their number of vibrations ; although it is not apparent what he obtains by the comparison, seeing that both cases fall under the same rule of simplicity of ratios. The human face and head are, by Mr. Hay’s method, resolved thus. An ellipse is formed, whose greater axis is the whole length of the head, from the crown to the chin. The width, or lesser axis, is determined by harmonic considerations, as follows ; the extremities of the major and minor semiaxes are joined, so as to make a right angled triangle, and the acute angles are re¬ spectively 30° and 60°, or as 1 to 2 ; this yields a dominant ellipse, based on a dominant triangle, being the same concord as a fifth in music. But now to give the expansion of the cranium. A circle of the same character as the width of the ellipse, overlies it, and touches it at the apex. The combined figure of circle and ellipse, gives the perfect harmonic outline of the face, with a little smoothing away here and there, for greater approximation to nature. LAWS OF PROPORTION. 229 19. The principle we are now discussing applies alike to the two elements of Number and Space, giving to both an artistic capability. In the case of a multitude of objects, we arrange in equal and proportionate intervals ; and we subdivide in the same way a blank uninteresting expanse. And there is much of the effect of Outline due to the same feeling, especially as regards right-lined figures, — squares, oblongs, parallelograms, triangles, equilateral polygons, &c., — and the symmetrical curves, the circle and the ellipse. In all these, the eye traces equality, or commensurability, in the As regards the features, the operation is this. From the apex of the head, or the upper extremity of the ellipse, a series of lines are drawn on both sides, making the respective angles, | (30°), p (22JQ), | (18°), } (15°), and \ (12?,°). Through the points where they severally meet the circumference of the ellipse, horizontal lines are drawn across the face, making a series of isosceles triangles. Beginning at the outer lines, with the largest angle, namely £ or 30° ; the line joining these, passes through the centre of the eyes, and consequently is one element in determining their position. The line at the angle of \ (22§Q), touches the outer circumference of the orbit, and is a second element in de¬ termining the eye ; the horizontal junction of the two lines, gives the vertical position of the nose. The horizontal junction of the lines of } (18°), crosses the top of the upper lip. The lines of ^ (15°), pass through the centres of the eyes, and complete the determination of place and size of the orbits ; the horizontal junction gives the lower boundary of the mouth. The horizontal junction of the lines of the angle of \ give the superior edge of the chin. By a similar scheme of proportioned angles, Mr. Hay determines the beauty of the Human Figure. He applies the method to the proportions of the Par¬ thenon, and to Architecture generally. Whether such a device approximately represents the proportions of a beautiful object, or of a work of art, is to be proved or disproved solely by the experimental test of measurement. But if Mr. Hay means to insinuate that the pleasurable feeling of proportion in the mind of the spectator, is a feeling of the proportion of imaginary angles, he advances an incredible hypothesis. It is not to be supposed that the mind, in judging of a face, constructs an ideal diagram, and thereby enjoys a pleasing melody of angles. What the eye fastens upon must he something more within its usual habits of judging than this : the deep angular melody can he accepted only as a mathematical equivalent of some more apparent charm, which Mr. Play has failed to give any account of. We have still, so far as his views are concerned, to fall hack upon the old theory of the sensuous pleasure of curves, as regards curved sur¬ faces ; and as regards rectilineal dimensions, we must seek a more palpable order of proportions than his theory provides. 230 THE AESTHETIC EMOTIONS. different sides or dimensions. A triangle or quadrilateral, with all the sides unequal, gives no pleasure to the eye as a form or outline (unless it were, like a discord in music, occa¬ sionally introduced) ; while the square and the parallelogram comply with the desire in question. Parallelism is sustained equality, as much as the equality of intervals in a row of objects. When lines converge, as in a pediment, we look for equality in the two converging sides, and are pleased to discern some further regard to proportion, as in the equality of the three sides of the triangle, or the equality or commensnrability of the base, and perpendicular height. When an angle pro¬ minently arrests the attention, we prefer 45° or 30° as being aliquot parts of a right angle. The oblique equal-sided parallelogram, with the angles 45° to 135°, is an agreeable subdivision of the small-paned window. 20. On the subject of Form and Outline, we must advert to other principles regulating our appreciation of the effects. We have seen that a curved line is intrinsically pleasing, like a waxing or waning sound, and that a varying curvature is preferable to the rigid uniformity of the circle. The oval is thus a pleasing curve ; and still more so is a waving or changing curve, as the outline of a pilaster, or vase. There is an original charm, operated through the muscular sensibility of the eye, in the curved outline, to which are superadded associations of ease, freedom, or the absence of restraint. Ac¬ cordingly, straight forms are unpleasing in themselves ; they refuse the gratification that the eye receives from the other, and they suggest a severe and rigid constraint. The mechanical members of the human body, being chiefly levers fixed at one end, naturally describe curves with their extremities ; a labo¬ rious cultivation alone enables us to describe a straight line with the hand or foot. Whence, straight forms are apt to suggest this painful discipline.* On the other hand, there are * A rope or chain running horizontally, and tightened to straightness, re¬ minds us of one of our most difficult mechanical attempts ; the catenary curve, or the slack rope, is a form suggestive of ease and abandon. BEAUTY OF OUTLINE. 231 circumstances where rectilinear forms are highly acceptable. A straight path is agreeable, because of its contributing to a manifest convenience. In orderly arrangements of every kind, right lines are essential ; or if we depart from these, it is in favour of the regular and symmetrical curves, the circle being the chief. I shall speak presently of the peculiar case of Support ; I am now alluding to the regular and methodical distribution of objects on a horizontal plane, with a view to convenience in all our operations. We should never think of partitioning fields with waving fences, or making the ground plan of buildings of a zigzag curvature. The facility of calcu¬ lation recommends right-lined surfaces, and they also serve the end of compactness, when things are to be crowded into little space. These various considerations, of utility and every-day convenience, induce us to regard with a certain satisfaction the straight outline, even when the eye, in con¬ sulting its own primitive sensibility, would turn away from it.* 21. The dimension of up and down has its outline deter¬ mined by the paramount condition of sustaining objects against the force of gravity ; thus bringing in the elements of Pressure and Support. We are so unremittingly subjected to that great power, and so much occupied in counteracting it, that the providing of sufficiency of Support on every needful oc¬ casion is our foremost solicitude. Experience soon teaches the infant in arms the evil of a failing prop ; the fear of falling manifests itself so early as to be very generally ac¬ counted an instinct. But no other explanation of it is neces¬ sary than the very decided monitions of falls, and bruises, and stunning pains, — of fractures and scatterings, confusion and loss, — from the giving way of stability. So anxious do we become on this head, that the slightest appearance or suggestion of the unstable, afflicts us with the misery of an * There is something to be explained in the circumstance that all early taste in gardening runs to the rectilineal. Possibly the considerations in favour of the straight line, alluded to in the text, recommend it in the first instance. 232 THE AESTHETIC EMOTIONS. apprehended fall. Hence we desire all things about us to fulfil the requirements that our experience has shown to be needful for their stable footing. A firm foundation, a broad base, a tenacious and solid framework, — are known to be the only safeguards against a crushing gravitation, and it is distressing to witness any deficiency in those respects. The pyramid is the form that most completely fulfils these con¬ ditions. The sloping wall lowers the centre of gravity, and makes an erection exceedingly difficult to turn over. The upright wall is less stable, and demands expedients not necessary in the other ; we must not carry it too high, there must be sufficient thickness, strength, and tenacity of material to make up for narrowness of base. The walls of a house, connected by girders and a roof, are differently situated ; the entire bulk of the building is as one mass, and the stability is then very great. A similar effect is produced, when a row of pillars is joined together by lintels and a pediment. 22. While massive and well-founded edifices satisfy the mind, and give the agreeable feeling of sufficiency, or even superfluity of resistance to gravitating pressure which would otherwise crush and destroy, there is another motive that comes into play to modify the forms of solid erections, namely, the desire to see great effects produced with the smallest expenditure of means, and the appearance of Ease on tire part of the agent. This is an aspect of the love of power, which is gratified when small efforts operate large changes, or great effects. The pyramid we are apt to account gross, heavy, awkward, clumsy, when used merely to support its own mass. We feel in that case that a very large amount of material and of space has been used up for a disproportionate end ; (as a sea-wall, or a fortification to resist cannon, the case is other¬ wise). We are greatly pleased if an object can be raised aloft to a great elevation without such expenditure of material, and such amplitude of base ; we being at the same time assured that the support is adequate. The obelisk is, in this respect, a grand refinement upon the massive pyramid. The column is a still higher effort, inasmuch as its lofty summit is BEAUTY OF SUPPORT. 200 oo capable of being crowned with a mass to be sustained by it. The devices that reconcile us to this bold proceeding are principally — a widening of the foundation, and an expansion of the summit in the lightest way, that is, with the least material that will answer the purpose. Thus the column has the slightly expanded base, and the spreading capital for receiving the superincumbent weight of the architrave and frieze. The pilaster is lightened by being cut away at the lower part, reserving breadth of base as being the primary element of stability. A slender stem, on an expanded base, may thus prove an efficient support, and gratify the mind with a large effect produced at a small outlay. All our graceful forms in objects that give support, such as vases, drinking-cups, and table ware in general, proceed upon these principles, giving at the same time the additional pleasure of curved forms, which is not dependent upon any association. The noble tree with its slender and yet adequate stem, its spreading roots and ample base, supporting a voluminous and expanded foliage — is a telling example of the reconciliation of adequate sustaining power with small outlay of material, and a striking contrast to the grossness of the pyramid.* 23. Symmetry is a demand in some cases for mere pro¬ portion, and at other times for support. There is a disagree¬ able effect of violated proportions when the two halves of a human face are not alike ; a wasted, or unequal limb maims * The light tripos is a good amelioration of the heavy solidity of the pyramidal mass. The artist judges how far it is safe to go in reducing grossness of dimen - sions, without detracting from the appearance of adequate support. Strict adherence to the perpendicular in a wall owes its urgency to the sentiment now discussed. A tall object declining to one side gives the painful impression of an expected fall. The leaning tower of Pisa is said to be quite stable, from having the centre of gravity within the base, but such a declen¬ sion from the perpendicular is disagreeable to contemplate. It was formerly remarked ( Contiguity , § 30), that the Architectural propor¬ tions that satisfy the mind must differ according to the material ; beauty of design is very different in stone, in wood, and in iron. 234 THE .ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. the prop of the figure. A tree with the foliage grown to one side is unsymmetrical in both respects. 24. Beauty of Movement grows out of the cases now con¬ sidered, in conjunction with the primary susceptibility of the mind to moving objects as seen by the eye. The curved and straight outlines respectively suggest the same emotions in still forms, and in the tracks of moving bodies. A curvilineal movement, as the flight of a projectile, or a bird, or the strides of a graceful dancer, is intrinsically pleasing ; straight move¬ ments are rendered artistic only by associations of power, regularity, fitness, or some other circumstance that commends them to our regards. An upward flight is the analogy to support in still life — the putting forth of a power to counter¬ act gravity, — and by giving us an idea of great propulsive energy, becomes a striking spectacle. Much illustration might be given of this class of effects, hut we have no space for more than the bare enunciation of principles. The complex harmonies brought out in the decorative arts, wdiere colour is suited to form, and both to movement, would be exceedingly difficult to reduce to laws, although attempts are sometimes made with that view.* * I doubt whether any laws of harmony exist between colours and forms in general, such as obtain between colours themselves, and between the different notes of the musical scale. We cannot say that red suits straight forms, or green rounded ones; or that white intrinsically harmonizes with quick movements, and black with slow. In the circumstances of each par¬ ticular case, we can assign a propriety in the adjusting of particular colours and forms, from there being a common aesthetic character in the two elements for the time being. On an occasion of stately solemnity we can make all the decorations suit the main purpose — bright colours, stately motions, and up¬ right and imposing objects. So in a ballet divertissement, the stage master knows how to adjust scenes, dresses, and motions to one pervading character attaching to the piece. Music may be chosen so as to chime in with other effects, without supposing any fundamental concord between certain sounds, colours, forms, and movements. Thus we have the two conspicuous varieties of composition, marking on the one hand the solemn, grave, or melancholy, and on the other the gay or sprightly ; to attempt more minute subdivisions leads into the regions where no agreement of individual tastes is to be found. There is in one respect a deep concord among widely different effects, arising in virtue of the common presence of the muscular element with its charac- BEAUTY IN MACHINERY. 235 25. Fitness , the Esthetic of Utility. — The crse of Support just discussed is really a case of the fitting of machinery to a mechanical end, namely, the counteraction of gravity. So much pleasure do we derive from this being effectually, and yet, as it appears to us, lightly done, that we set up structures for the mere sake of seeing them so supported. But all the machinery of human industry is capable of appealing to the same sentiment of power, in the production of effects with a teristic sensibility. To this I attribute the similarity of effect between the dying fall in music and the waving curve in vision ; and the harmony between the pace of music, movements seen, and one’s own movements, as in the dance. Moreover, there are analogous modes of striking the different senses ; the dis¬ tinction between acute or pungent, and the massive or voluminous, reigns throughout. The voluminous sound of the ocean fills the ear in the same way that a wide expanse fills the eye, whence a certain concord may be imagined between the two. In the arts of decoration and design, the suiting of colour to form must be governed by the taste, fancy, or caprice of the individual. There may be in this, as in many other situations, nothing more than the mere cumu¬ lation of pleasing effects, neither lending support to each other, nor intro¬ ducing discord. Among the susceptibilities touched by artistic arrangements may be noticed the sense of Unity in multitude, arising when a great number of things are brought under a comprehensive design, as when a row of pillars is crowned by a pediment. This simplification of the mind’s grasp is one of the lightening effects, so often alluded to as a prime source of pleasure. The use of simple figures — the triangle, square, circle, &c. — for enclosing and arraying a host of individuals, has this tendency to make an easily apprehended unity out of a numerous host of particulars. In all great works abounding in detail, we crave for some comprehensive plan that enables us to seize the whole, as well as to survey the parts. A poem, a history, a dissertation in science, a lecture, or speech, should have a discerni¬ ble principle of order throughout Variety has likewise to be studied as a means of gratification of the {esthetic species. Uniformity is the highest virtue of what we use as means — in the arrangement of tools and apparatus, but in things enjoyed as ends, we get satiated by the continuance of the same sights and sounds. Some minds (those of high intellectual susceptibility) feel strongly the ennui from repetition, while others lean to Custom, and prefer the appear¬ ances they have been habituated to ; suffering no tedium from iteration, and enjoying the ease that flows from working in a beaten track. Both principles have their influence in determining men’s minds in the estimation of objects and in the ascription of beauty or the opposite. 236 THE .ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. small expenditure of toil, A workman, combining great strength with great skill, will execute with ease what another man finds difficult, and the beholder derives a sympathetic pleasure from his power. The possession of superior tools gives the same agreeable distinction. In consequence of the gratification so derived, an actor on the stage feels bound to suppress all the appearances of labour and fatigue, and to put out of sight as much as possible the mechanism of the scenes. In machinery, we desiderate a clean polish and a noiseless action, because rust and noise suggest harsh obstruction and laborious effort. We personify the powers of nature, and sympathize with the apparently easy or difficult attainment of ends. The gentle breeze, giving motion to a huge mass of solid material, affects us with the delightful sentiment of a light finger impelling a heavy body. The noisy thunder, on the other hand, is thought to labour in accomplishing its work. A gunpowder explosion would be grander without the uproar; stillness, or a quiet action, having so much to do with our sentiment of exerted power, unless when the noise is itself a token of the power. The presence of the scaffolding whereby a great work has been reared, takes off from the pleasure of the work itself, by introducing the unac¬ ceptable association of painful and protracted labour. Hence the art of concealing art, so long ago announced as a critical maxim. We love to have removed from our sight every aspect of suffering, and none more so than the suffering of toil ; and cherish, on the other hand, every appearance, however illu¬ sive, that suggests the easy attainment of the ends of toil. 26. There are certain things, subordinate to the successful prosecution of work, that have an interest to the spectator. We have seen already that regularity and proportion appeal to a primary sensibility of the mind. They come also to be valued, and greatly extended, from considerations of utility. Under the general name Order, we include all the precision, regularity, and suitability, in the array of separate objects, so eminently favourable to the march of industrial operations. The agreeable sentiment that fills the mind of the mere BEAUTY OF ORDER. 237 looker-on is cultivated in many seats of industry, where a de¬ gree of orderliness and finish beyond the actual necessities of the case, is given to all the apparatus concerned. We see this in the trimness of a well-kept house, a cotton-mill, or a shop, and in the rigorous discipline and high condition of a man-of-war. Cleanliness is based originally upon the removal of matters intrinsically injurious, and loathsome to the sense. Going one step farther, it aims at giving lustre, brilliancy, or pure whiteness of surface, where those constitute pleas¬ ing effects, taking care to wipe off whatever stains a naturally fine surface. The polishing of tools has both an original effect of brilliancy, and the derived pleasure of sug¬ gested ease. The neat, tidy, and trim, gratifies us as a part of Order, and, even when non-essential to practical industry, gives evidence of a mind alive to the importance of this great subsidiary. It would be absurd to go the length of some writers in affirming that beauty always implies mind ; hut it is a fact of sober observation, that objects are often interesting, from their suggesting to the beholder useful mental qualities. The reverse also holds. Two or three pieces of chopped straw on a carpet, or a small hole in a stocking, would not interfere with any useful operation, or impair the lustre of any other present beauty ; hut by suggesting a mind loose and indiffe¬ rent to orderly qualities, on which so much is dependent on the whole, a great offence may be given to the observer. 27. Of the Sublime.— This quality has been generally ac¬ counted more simple than Beauty. And justly so, for it is principally a result of the one attribute of superior Power. We have already traced the associations of Power, in Support, and in the Aesthetic of Utility. These become sublime by elevation in degree. The objects of sublimity are, for the most part, such aspects and appearances as betoken great might, energy, or vastness, and are thereby capable of elating the mind with a borrowed sentiment of power. The feeling of our own might is expanded for the moment by sympathy with the might displayed to our view. The towering Alpine summits, the starry concave, the vast ocean, the 238 THE AESTHETIC EMOTIONS. volcanic fires, the hurricane’s fury, impress us with an ideal emotion of transcendent power, which has come to re¬ ceive the name of sublimity. So enjoyable is the sense of power, that we welcome every mode of making it present. When we have it not in the actual, through manifested energy of our own, we seek for it in the ideal by witnessing the energy displayed around us. The great effects produced in the world are compared in our minds with effects of ours, and we transfer to ourselves in some vague fashion, a sense of the mighty agency that is supposed to be at work. This gives birth to a pleasurable elation of the kind arising from power, in a mind suited to that particular mode of stimulation. When fully and fairly manifested, we have in it .all the characters of a highly pleasurable emotion; being, however, of the ideal stamp, there is liable to accompany it a sort of boundless craving for indescribable enlargements of one’s scope and con¬ dition, sometimes termed the sentiment of the Infinite, which introduces a certain element of pain from the conflict with the actual. It is an essential component of the Religious feeling. 28. In touching upon a few of the leading varieties of the sentiment, the first thing that offers itself to our notice is the sublime of Support. Wr e have already seen what opportunity gravity affords, for the putting forth of either a resisting might or a propelling power. Our own unceasing experience tells us, that every elevation of matter above the ordinary level demandsan expenditure of force; and consequently wherever we see lofty piles, we imagine the superhuman energy that raised them. An upheaved mountain mass, and a projectile shot high in air, equally suggest a mighty operating cause. Mere height is thus an incident of sublimity ; the earth’s surface being our standard, we suppose everything above the common level carried there, and maintained in its place, by some exer¬ tion of power. Accordingly, the forms of elevated masses that are most sublime are the lofty and precipitous, as imply¬ ing the most intense effort of supporting might. Precipitous depth below the surface has the same effect, and from the same causes ; by comparison with the bottom of a deep pit, THE SUBLIME. 239 the surface of the ground appears sustained at an elevated height. 29. The Sublimity of Space is vastness, magnitude, or expanse. It has been supposed that this, and not power, is the fundamental fact of the material sublime. There can be no great material agency without a certain amplitude of space ; but sublimity may appear within a comparatively small com¬ pass, by virtue of the intensity of the forces at work. A lion, a steam engine, a nine-pounder gun, a smelting furnace, a sixty feet cataract, are sublime, although their space dimen¬ sions are not great. Still, every natural agent or effect is magnified according as it is extended ; the Amazons river is sublime by its width and volume of water ; Etna is sublime from the amplitude of its base, as well as from its height, both qualities conspiring to determine the force of upheaval represented by it. Extent of space implies corresponding- energy to traverse, compass, or occupy it. But irrespective of active energy, space is sublime from the mere volume or magnitude of its contents. The mind is filled, and as it were distended, with voluminous sensation and feeling ; and the large body of agreeable emotion has an elevating effect. There is an exact parallel in sound ; volu¬ minous sounds, as of a great multitude, a full band, the thunder, the winds, the roar of the sea, exercise a similar power. A mountain prospect is sublime, not from mere ex¬ tent of vacuity, but, from embracing within a single glance a large area of solid ground with all its activities, interests, and associations ; the volume of feeling is of the highest order. Nor can we entirely separate the notion of power in the strictest sense from a vast prospect ; the epithet ‘ commanding’ implies that we have a superiority of intellectual range, with the resulting elation of conscious might. As regards the Sub¬ limity of Space, therefore, we have to admit both Voluminous Sensation, and the Sentiment of Power, the two also suggest¬ ing and supporting each other. The starry expanse is the crowning grandeur of space to a mind that can in some de¬ gree enter into the amplitude of its dimensions. 240 THE .ESTHETIC EMOTION'S. 30. Greatness of Time has a.11 effect of Sublimity. Not, however, mere duration in the abstract, but time as filled with known transactions and events, which, when suggested in mass, have the elating influence of the voluminous. Here, too, there is the accompaniment of intellectual power from the vast survey of the lapse of centuries. The mere ability to grasp, in one conception, the destinies of many generations elevates us with a species of intellectual might, no less than the wide-reaching prospect of peopled cities. Hence those objects that are able to remind us forcibly of a far by-gone time, or a distant future, affect us with the sublimity of Duration. The relics of ancient empires, the antiquities of the Geological ages, — waken up this sentiment in the reflecting mind, and the more so that the memory is able to recall the intermediate events. A tinge of melancholy and pathos is natural to the retrospect of so many scenes of desolation, and the extinction of so many hopes. The relations of Terror to the Sublime, have been much discussed. The two were treated by Burke as cause and effect : but if the sublime gives the elation of power, and fear depresses the energy, they must be mutually destructive. In¬ cidental to the sublime, there may be a depressing feeling of our own littleness and dependence, but so far as this operates, it will detract from, and not constitute, the agreeable elation of the sublime. In an object of worship, both sentiments co¬ exist, but either would be more strongly manifested in the absence of the other. 31. Without dwelling, as I might, on the associations and adjuncts of sublimity — the sound of the hurricane and the thunder, the wreck caused by a storm, the remnants of a battle-field, or a conflagration — we may notice the case of the sublime of Human Character. This is obviously allied with great power or energy* Any human being that towers * * The same considerations appear to me to throw a satisfactory light on that intimate connexion between the ideas of Sublimity and of Energy which Mr. Knight has fixed on as the fundamental principle of his theory. The direction in which the energies of the human mind are conceived to be ex- SUBLIME OF HUMAN CHAEACTEE. 241 above bis fellows in force, resolution, courage, or endurance, strikes the spectator with an exalted idea of power. We are for a moment ideally elevated by the contemplation of heroic human beings, and are in some measure worked upon, and permanently influenced, by their great example. Superior intellect also affects us with the sentiment in question. Such minds as Newton and Aristotle, Homer and Shakspeare, — are the standing wonder and admiration of the human race, and it is the custom to illustrate them by comparisons with every¬ thing great, lofty, or vast in the external world. Human power is the true and literal sublime, and the point of departure for the sublimity of power in all other things. Nature, by a bold analogical stretch, is assimilated to humanity, and clothed with mental attributes ; and then, far outstripping human limitations, it elevates us beyond the level of our kind. erted will, of course, Be in opposition to that of the powers to which it is sub¬ jected ; of the dangers which hang over it ; of the obstacles which it has to surmount in rising to distinction. Hence the metaphorical expressions of an unbending spirit ; of bearing up against the pressure of misfortune ; of an as¬ piring or towering ambition ; and innumerable others. Hence, too, an addi¬ tional association, strengthening wonderfully the analogy, already mentioned, between Sublimity and certain Moral qualities ; qualities which, on examina¬ tion, will be found to be chiefly those recommended in the Stoical School ; implying a more than ordinary energy of mind, or what the French call Force of Character. In truth Energy, as contradistinguished from Power, is but a more particular and modified conception of the same idea ; comprehend¬ ing the cases where its sensible effects do not attract observation ; but where its silent operation is measured by the opposition it resists, or by the weight it sustains. The brave man, accordingly, was considered by the Stoics as partaking of the sublimity of that Almighty Being who puts him to the trial ; and whom they conceived as witnessing with pleasure the erect and un¬ daunted attitude in which he awaits the impending storm, or contemplates the ravages which it has spread around him. * Non video quid habeat in terris Jupiter pulchrius, quam ut spectat Catonem, jam partibus non semel fractis, stantern nihilominus inter ruinas publicas rectum’ — (Seneca, de Providentia, I. 6.) * It is this image of mental energy, bearing up against the terrors of over¬ whelming Power, which gives so strong a poetical effect to the description of Epicurus in Lucretius ; and also to the character of Satan, as conceived by Milton.’ — Stewart, Essay on the Sublime, Chap. III. Q 242 THE AESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 32. Of Natural objects in general. — A brief survey of the principal forms and objects of nature, notable for aesthetic qualities, will advantageously contribute to the elucidation of the foregoing doctrines. The Mineral kingdom furnishes principally specimens of colour, lustre, and symmetrical forms ; our gems and precious stones having no other intrinsic qualities to recommend them. Vegetable nature is much more various in its effects. Colours, pleasing, dazzling, and even gorgeous, are embodied in forms and structures that affect us no less powerfully through other susceptibilities. The curved outline prevails over straight lines. Proportion, symmetry, and har¬ mony, are found in the two halves of the leaf, in the repeti¬ tion of the same form in each species, and in the structure of the flower ; while a certain whole, or unity, is made up out of the multitude of parts. Some plants, by their tall and slender proportions, are tender and graceful, others, by massiveness and size, have a sort of architectural grandeur and beauty. The poet and painter have often dwelt in this region of nature, till a sort of delirious idolatry has overwhelmed their faculty of discrimination ; and it is even at this moment hardly allowable to say, that any vegetable species is not instinct with beauty. The mountains, valleys, rivers, plains, and the general surface of the globe, owe their influence to effects already noticed. The mountain masses are nature’s pyramids, and whether we view them from below and contemplate their elevation, or stand on the summits to look down upon the wide expanse beneath, we feel the sentiment of power, or the sublime. The rivers display a vast moving mass, glistening in the light, and bending in graceful curves. The still lake operates differently, its force lying chiefly in composition with the entire landscape. Of landscape beauties at large, we can only remark that a number of the effects above detailed are accumulated into one whole, while there may be super- added a certain harmony or keeping that heightens the general emotion. To find out these harmonies is the vocation O of the painter, to which the taste of the spectator responds. THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 243 33. The Animal kingdom contains objects of aesthetic interest in considerable measure, and also the largest part of nature’s deformities. Melody of sound, colours, outlines, forms, and movements — graceful or sublime, — may be found among the quarter of a million of estimated animal species ; and associations heighten the effect in numerous instances. All this has been a theme of admiration time out of mind. Perhaps it would now be more instructive, in the way of casting light upon the human mind, to analyse the sources of the repugnance that we entertain towards not a few of the the animal tribes. In some cases, the cause is obvious and intelligible, being simply the presence of mischievous qualities, or the power of inflicting palpable damage to person or pro¬ perty. The beast of prey, the destructive vermin, the sharp tooth, or poisoned fang, are abhorred as our natural enemies ; but to many animals there attaches a sentiment of ugliness or deformity, from their exhibiting qualities in pointed opposition to those we call beautiful. The dingy, sluggish, slimy snail excites a pretty general dislike. The earthworm is less repul¬ sive ; but the crawling centipede excites a wide-spread senti¬ ment of loathing. The frog is the antipathy of some persons. A black beetle appearing suddenly on the floor will make a child scream with terror. The earwig is also very much dis¬ liked. It is not always easy to give a reason for these effects. A vague sentiment of fear is manifestly stirred up, from un¬ known evil conceived as possible to be inflicted by those creatures ; for familiarity reconciles us more and more to their presence. One grand source of terror is their power of inva¬ sion ; it is very much proportioned to the rapidity of their motions ; a black beetle is the nimblest of creatures. It is possible too, that our sense of dignity may be offended, by their crossing our path or lighting on the person uninvited. After all other reasons have been exhausted, we may still have to fall back upon the active principle of disgust and anti¬ pathy belonging to our nature, which, directed in the first instance upon objects that really offend the sense and inspire loathing, extends itself to others where the pretext is very 244 THE AESTHETIC EMOTIONS. slender, or entirely wanting. It is the nature of a strong emotion to vent itself in some way or other ; and the senti¬ ment of disgust is an exceedingly powerful principle, showing its active spontaneity even in children, and remaining in force through the whole of life. 34. The Human form is a fertile theme of aesthetic analysis. A number of the effects are obvious and admitted ; the elements of colour and brilliancy — in the skin, the eyes, the hair, the teeth, — of a well-complexioned man or woman, are pleasing both here and elsewhere. The graceful figure is approved on the architectural grounds of adequate, and yet light, support ; with the modifications due to forward move¬ ment, which determines the shape of the foot and limb. The curvature of the outline passes repeatedly through points of contrary flexure, turning from convex to concave, and again resuming the prevailing convex. This fluctuation is much coveted in the smallest detail, as may be inferred from the value set upon the dimpled cheek, or elbow. The general proportions of the frame are looked at with more or less refer¬ ence to the ends of movement and action. The masculine type is thus distinguished from the feminine, which last has usually been made use of for the embodiment of the intrinsic charms of support, of curvature, and of numerical harmony, termed the ideal beauties. To great physical strength, a more solid framework is necessary, and for the sake of this we are willing to abandon the flowing; outline. The beauties of the head and face are very complicated. Nature having furnished a certain aggregate of features, sym¬ metrically developed, we are moved by a variety of conside¬ rations, in accounting any one individual instance beautiful or otherwise. The ancient model evidently pointed to propor¬ tion in the first instance, allowing no one feature to be exaggerated beyond a certain prominence, so as to take off attention from the others. The Greek sculptor took upon himself to assign the fair and reasonable dimensions of each part, and the taste of subsequent ages has in the main acquiesced in that measurement. Other races, however, differ- THE HUMAN FORM. 245 ently proportioned, and accustomed to their own proportions, would probably dispute the decision. A larger mouth, a smaller chin, a shorter nose, a more retreating forehead, may be deemed just and becoming by the Negro, or the Mongol, and the Greek would not be able to make good his case in opposition to the type thus constituted. It would be absurd, in any people, to set up an ideal form widely at variance with the specimens occurring among themselves, and probably this has never been done. The ancient type is allowed to be a good one, but we can permit considerable departures from it and yet recognise great beauty. Indeed, the allocation of the relative size of forehead, eyes, nose, mouth, chin, is very different to different tastes, and it may be doubted whether the Grecian arrangement has the majority of adherents. There is no fundamental rule to appeal to, for determining the proper proportion of the nose to the rest of the face. It has been surmised (by Sir Charles Bell) that the Greek sculptor took his cue from the points of difference between the human head and the head of the animals next in rank, increasing that difference as far as he safely could without misrepresenting humanity entirely. It is the following out of a similar line of considerations, to account some of the organs more dignified in function than the others, as being more intellectual, or less animal. Thus, the eye is said to surpass the nose and mouth in this respect. But nothing could be more flimsy than such a reason. The mouth, it is true, serves the purpose of eating; but the instrumentality of speech ought to redeem it from any inferiority that may attach to the animal function of receiving and masticating the food. Neither can it be said that there is anything unworthy in the organ of smell. Indeed, I utterly despair of finding any standard, beyond the preference of in¬ dividuals based on a comparison of the specimens they are accustomed to see. 35. The beauties of Movement and Expression are much more explicable. They belong in part to the primitive effects of movements, in which curves are preferable to straight lines, and in part to associations well understood. The attitudes of 246 THE ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. a person gracefully formed are unintentionally graceful, being merely different ways of exhibiting the original form. In the expression of the face, the formation of agreeable curves and undulations is naturally pleasing. The eye being intrin¬ sically the most dazzling feature, the movements that uncover it widely are apt to impress us. But both the eye and the mouth, being concerned in the indications of pleasure and pain, love and anger, are interpreted so much with reference to these passions, that we have a difficulty in assigning any movements in them that are intrinsically pleasing. A face is often reckoned beautiful, because the features take on, in an especial manner, the expression of kindly feeling ; in other words, the smile in the mouth and the expansion of the eye. There is nothing difficult to account for, in what consti¬ tutes an agreeable manner or carriage in society, or in the still more energetic and pronounced demeanour of the actor on the stage. Reposing in part upon what strikes us origi¬ nally, and in part upon conventional modes of address, the actor studies every artifice that renders the human presence effective and imposing ; and needs to have a natural frame¬ work of body adapted to the purpose. I have already dis¬ posed of the superficial notion that mere feeling in an orator, or actor, is enough to inspire such an expression as will make others feel ; the power of a rich elocution and a commanding presence, with some appropriate language and ideas, being an indispensable aid in stirring up other minds. 36. Much is said and felt respecting beauty and grace in Human Character, aud here, too, there is a mixture of the primitive with the associated or conventional. Undoubtedly the great foundation of the pleasing in character, is the dis¬ position to surrender self to others. We see this plainly in the virtues of liberality and generosity, of affection and kindness, and, not less than any, in modesty and humility, which mean the surrender or merging of the amour-propre. While self-assertion, arrogance, and self-will, are eyed with dislike, almost every form of submission has come to be counted a virtue and a beauty. The cause is apparent. Our THE LUDICROUS. 247 selfish interest in some cases, our affections and sympathies in others, are touched by benefits conferred or implied ; and those sacrifices of importance or free-will, made by one man, enable others to stand forward in dignity and domination, or, at all events, go to the abatement of the multitude of conflict¬ ing claims that burden human life. 37. Of the Ludicrous. — The causes of Laughter are first physical, including cold, some kinds of acute pain, tickling, and hysteria. In the next place, among mental causes, hila¬ rity or animal spirits assumes this expression among other modes of joyous manifestation ; the laughter of the gods, de¬ scribed in Homer, was the mere exuberance of their celestial joy after their daily banquet. The outburst of liberty in a young fresh nature, after a time of restraint, is an occasion for wild uproarious mirth and glee. The smile accompanies the pleasurable emotion of the tender and kindly sentiment, and is a mode of signifying that state to others. Self-complacent feeling likewise assumes the same outward display. W e have seen also that the sentiment of power, awakened by the pro¬ duction of great and striking effects, stimulates the expression of laughter, as observed more especially in the young ; the mere sight of such effects caused by others having the same tendency. It would thus appear that whatever imparts a sudden elation to the spirits, by withdrawing restraint, or increasing the conscious energy, raises an emotion of the plea¬ surable kind, of which laughter is one manifestation. And, farther, it would appear that tender feeling prompts the more subdued form of the outburst, if it be proper to designate the smile as a species of the laugh. 38. It is commonly said that the ludicrous is caused by incongruity ; ‘ that it always implies the concurrence of at least two things or qualities, that have some sort of opposite¬ ness of nature in them. But the question comes, what kind of incongruity or oppositeness is it that inevitably causes laughter ? There are many incongruities that may produce anything but a laugh. A decrepit man under a heavy burden, five loaves and two fishes among a multitude, and all unfit- 248 THE AESTHETIC EMOTIONS. ness and gross disproportion ; an instrument out of tune, a fly in ointment, snow in May, Archimedes studying geometry in a siege, and all discordant things ; a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a breach of bargain, and falsehood in general ; the multitude taking the law in their own hands, and everything of the nature of disorder ; a corpse at a feast, parental cruelty, filial ingratitude, and whatever is unnatural ; the entire catalogue of the vanities given by Solomon, — are all incongruous, hut they cause feelings of pain, anger, sadness, loathing, rather than mirth The occasion of the Ludicrous is the Degradation of some person or interest, possessing dignity, in circumstances that excite no other strong emotion. Amid the various themes of Laughter, this pervading fact is more or less recognised. Ac¬ cording to Aristotle, Comedy is an illustration of worthless characters, not, indeed, in reference to every vice, but to what is mean ; the laughable has to do with what is deformed or mean ; it must be a deformity or meanness not painful or de¬ structive (so as to produce pity, fear, anger, or other strong feelings). He would have been nearer the mark if he had expressed it as causing something to appear mean that was formerly dignified ; for to depict what is already under a settled estimate of meanness, has little power to raise a laugh : it can merely be an occasion of reflecting on our own dignity by comparison. Some of Quintilian’s expressions are more happy. ‘ A saying that causes laughter is generally based on false reasoning (some play upon words) ; has always some¬ thing low in it ; is often purposely sunk into buffoonery ; is never honourable to the subject of it! ‘ Resemblances give great scope for jests, and, especially, resemblance to something meaner or of less consideration! Campbell ( Philosophy of Rhetoric ) in reply to Hobbes, has maintained that laughter is associated with the perception of oddity, and not necessarily with degradation or contempt. He produces instances of the laughable, and challenges any one to find anything contemp¬ tuous in them. 4 Many,’ he says, ‘ have laughed at the queerness of the comparison in these lines, — “ For rhyme the rudder is of verses, \V ith which, like ships, they steer their courses. ” LAUGHTER CONNECTED WITH DEGRADATION. 249 who never dream’t that there was any person or party, practice or opinion, derided in them.’ To my mind, on the contrary, there is an obvious degradation of the poetic art ; instead of working under the mysterious and lofty inspiration of the Muse, the poet is made to compose by means of a vulgar mechanical process. The theory of Hobbes is well-known, and has been greatly attacked. ‘ Laughter,’ he says, ‘ is a sudden glory arising from sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own for¬ merly.’ In other words, it is an expression of the pleasurable feeling of superior power. Now, there are many cases where this will afford a complete explanation, as in the laugh of vic¬ tory, ridicule, derision, or contempt, against persons that we ourselves have humiliated. But we can also laugh sympathe¬ tically, or where the act of degrading redounds to the glory of some one else, as in the enjoyment of comic literature generally, where we have no part in causing the humiliation that we laugh at. Moreover, laughter can be excited against classes, parties, systems, opinions, institutions, and even inanimate things that by personification have contracted associations of dignity ; of which last, the couplet of Hudibras upon sunrise, is a sufficient example. And, farther, the definition of Hobbes is still more unsuitable to Humour, which is counted some¬ thing genial and loving, and as far removed as may be, from self-glorification and proud exultation at other men’s discom¬ fiture. Not, however, that there is not even in the most genial humour, an element of degradation, but that the indig¬ nity is disguised, and, as it were, oiled, by some kindly infu¬ sion, such as would not consist with the unmitigated glee of triumphant superiority.* Pievertirig to the statements in the preceding section, (§ 37) that Laughter is connected with an outburst of the sense of * In a Manual of Rhetoric, I have illustrated fully what appear to me the special conditions of Humour, and shall not occupy space by repeating them here. 250 THE .ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. Power or superiority, and also with a sudden Release from a state of constraint, we shall find that both facts occur in the multitudinous examples of ludicrous degradation. The fore¬ going observations apply to the reflection of superior power, actual and ideal, and they might he much extended. One frequent occasion of laughter is the putting any one, or the seeing any one put, into a fright : than which there is no more startling reflection of superiority on the part of some agent. Next to a fright, is the making any one angry, which (if not dangerous) also gratifies the agent’s sense of power. 39. Let us next consider ludicrous degradation as a mode of Release from constraint. In this view7 the Comic is a re¬ action from the Serious. The dignified, solemn, and stately attributes of things require in us a certain posture of rigid constraint ; and if we are suddenly relieved from this posture, the rebound of hilarity ensues, as in the case of children set free from school. If we feel at heart the sentiment either of worship, or of self-importance — that is, if we are thoroughly inspired with either, so as to take to it of our own goodwill — there is no restraint in the case, and no wish to be delivered from the attitude and formalities of respect. On the contrary, vre resent any interference with the sacredness of the occasion. The sincere worshipper at church is shocked by the intrusion of a profane incident, while the irreverent and unwilling attender is convulsed with mirth. So it is wdth the sentiment of self-importance. The mind wherein this is strongly cherished is deeply offended at the contact of anything de¬ grading or vulgarizing, whereas any one that feels the senti¬ ment lightly will join in the laugh at his own expense. It is the coerced form of seriousness and solemnity, without the reality, that gives us that stiff position, from which a contact with triviality or vulgarity relieves us to our uproarious delight. We are sometimes obliged to put on a dignity which we perhaps do not feel, as in administering reproof or correc¬ tion to inferiors ; and still oftener have we to assume an attitude of respect and reverence that does not possess our LAUGHTER A RELIEF FROM CONSTRAINT. 251 inward feelings. Both the one and the other situation is a fatiguing tension of the system, and we have all the pleasure of a ‘ blessed relief’ when anything happens to give a relaxa¬ tion. The element of the genuine comic is furnished by those dignities that, from some circumstance or other, do not com¬ mand serious homage. False or faded deities and dignities ; splendour and show without meaning; the unworthy occupants of high office ; hollow pretensions, affectation, assumption and self-importance, vanity, airs and coxcombry ; all the windings of the hypocrisy that aims at seeming greater than the reality , painful strivings to gain glittering positions, — are among the things that commonly induce laughter, when brought into the embrace of meanness and degrading inferiorities. It is true that, for the sake of the mirthful pleasure, we are occasionally disposed to waive even our serious feelings of respect, and to hail the descent of a true dignity with sparkling countenance ; but it is against our better nature to do so, and we are glad when the case is of the other sort. So intense among the majority of persons is the titillation arising from being suddenly set loose from this peculiar kind of restraint, that they are willing to be screwed up into the serious posture for a moment, in order to luxuriate in the deliverance. The comic temperament is probably determined by a natural inaptitude for the dignified, solemn, or serious, rendering it especially irksome to sustain the attitude of reverence, and very delightful to rebound from it. Be this as it may, the best mode of giving the desired relief is to plunge the venerated object into a degrading conjunction, the sight of which instantaneously liberates the mind and lets the emotions flow in their own congenial channel. The serious and mirthful are in perpetual contrast in human life ; in the characters of men, and in the occasions and incidents of our everyday expe¬ rience. The mirthful is the aspect of ease, freedom, abandon, and animal spirits. The serious is constituted by labour, difficulty, hardship, and the necessities of our position, which give birth to the severe and constraining institutions of govern¬ ment, law, morality, education, &c. It is always a gratifying 252 THE ^ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. deliverance to pass from the severe to the easy side of affairs ; and the comic conjunction is one form of the transition* * ' In a court of justice, or in an assembly of more than ordinary gravity, a trifling incident causes laughter. We are screwed up into an expression of gravity and dignity that we do not feel at heart, and the slightest vulgarity, such as a loud snore, lets us down immediately. All forced dignity of de¬ meanour, as that imposed upon children and giddy people in certain places, is very apt to explode. In a mirthful mood, every attempt to assume the decorous and dignified is the cause of new outbreaks, as when a merry party on the road is interrupted for a moment by a grave and awful passer-by. Children mimicking the airs, and strut, and weighty actions of grown men are ludicrous, but in this they are surpassed by the monkey, from its being a creature so much more filthy, mean, and grovelling, and which therefore in performing human actions, presents a wider contrast of dignity and debase¬ ment. Stage mimicking is made ludicrous by introducing some vulgarizing accompaniments of manner or dress. ‘ A common device for causing laughter is to make a person pass at once from an elevated to a common or degrading action, as in Pope : — “ Here thou great Anna, whom three realms obey, Dost sometimes counsel take, and sometimes tea.” * Or in the remonstrance to a lady : — “ Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love, But why did you kick me down stairs?” * But the more perfect the fusion of the two hostile ingredients, or the more impossible it is rendered to think of them separately, the surer is the ludicrous effect.’ — ‘Wit and Humour,’ Westminster Review. In the article now quoted, I have exemplified at length the different kinds of comic effect ; but what is here given in the text, as being what I now reckon an important part of the case, is not well brought out there. The posture of artificial and constrained seriousness demanded by the grave necessities of life, and occasionally imposed without any great necessity, is, as it seems to me, one point of departure in the production of the ludicrous. Our struggles, difficulties, and dangers, screw us up into an attitude of earnest attention as well as of laborious effort, and the remission of both the one and the other is a joyful relief. A man is grave in the prospect of misfortune or death; in disposing of weighty interests, as legislator, judge, or military com¬ mander ; in setting out on a difficult enterprise or taking up a ] responsible position. Those that are merely witnesses of such transactions are enjoined to assume a grave demeanour. If fully possessed of the solemn import of the occasion, neither actors nor spectators are disposed to shrink from the solemn attitude, even although severe and exhausting ; but if they are only acting an imposed part, they welcome any mode of relief. Some constitutions fall in aptly with the air of solemnity, and to them ‘ abandon’ is nowise entertaining; CHAPTER XV. THE ETHICAL EMOTIONS; OR, THE MORAL SENSE. 1. TT is scarcely possible to enter upon an analysis of the peculiar sentiment or feeling termed the Moral Sense, or Moral Approbation and Disapprobation, without first pro- such persons keep up the corresponding forms for their own sake, and render themselves the hutt and sport of those of an opposite temperament, who also abound in all societies, and predominate in the light-hearted races. The young are the greatest sufferers hy the impositions of gravity, and the most disposed to hurst free from them. Hence their habitual irreverence towards superiors, and their indifference to the solemnity of important interests. They entertain a mock solemnity for the intense delight of rebounding from it, just as they toil to the top of an eminence for the sake of the downward run, or dam up a stream to see the barrier suddenly swept away by the current. In a paper on the Physiology of Laughter, in Macmillan's Magazine, March, 1860, Mr. Herbert Spencer has brought forward an explanation based on the physiological distribution of nervous power. When the mind and the body are worked up to a state of high tension, the power must work itself out in some direction or another, and, in one set of circumstances, it tabes the direction of laughter. The general principle is undeniable, and Mr. Spencer has made some instructive and original applications of it. I think, however, that he has been incautious in rejecting the fact of Degradation as the governing circumstance of the ludicrous. He says there are * many instances, in which no one’s dignity is implicated, as when we laugh at a good pun.’ I very much wish he had produced such a pun, as I have never yet met with one of the sort. The Jest-book published by Mark Lemon is an ample storehouse to choose from, yet I cannot find in it a single instance where a laughable effect is produced without degradation. I quite understand the laugh of pleasure and admiration at a felicitous stroke of mere wit ; but no one confounds this with the genuinely ludicrous. Wit, with all its brilliancy and ingenuity, is sadly wanting in unction, if it takes no one down. None of the well -remem¬ bered sayings of Sydney Smith and Douglas Jerrold are without the effect of humiliation. Mr. Spencer has quoted (p. 399) certain situations calculated to produce laughter, which he says contain no degrading element ; I think most people would say that they do. 254 THE ETHICAL EMOTIONS; OK, THE MOEAL SENSE. pounding some intelligible doctrine in reference to the great Ethical inquiry, viz., what constitutes Morality, Duty, Obliga¬ tion, or Eight. I consider that the proper meaning, or import, of these terms refers to the class of actions enforced by the sanction of 'punishment. People may dislike a certain mode of conduct, but, unless they go the length of punishing such as pursue it, they do not reckon it obligatory. I am aware that this de¬ finition assumes a point in dispute, but my intention is, at the very outset, to lay down what I deem a vital distinction, and afterwards to vindicate the propriety of it. If a man takes the property, or slanders the good name of a neighbour, our dislike goes the length of insisting upon his suffering a penalty ; but if the same person merely refrains from coming forward actively to minister to the distresses of that neighbour, we still dislike his conduct, but not so as to demand his punishment. The powers that impose the obligatory sanction are Law and Society, or the community acting through the Govern¬ ment by public judicial acts, and apart from the Government by the unofficial expressions of disapprobation and the exclu¬ sion from social good offices. The murderer and the thief are punished by the law ; the coward, the adulterer, the heretic, the eccentric person, are punished by the community acting as private individuals, and agreeing by consent to censure and excommunicate the offender. A third power concerned in obligation is Conscience, which is an ideal resemblance of public authority, growing up in the individual mind, and working to the same end. To elucidate this self-constituted variety of moral government is the final intention of the pre¬ sent chapter. Assuming provisionally, that the imposition of punish¬ ment (taken in the large sense above defined) is the distinctive property of acts held to be morally wrong, we are next to enquire on what grounds such acts are forbidden and hindered by all the force that society or individuals possess ? What are the reasons or considerations requiring each one to abstain THEORIES OF MORALS. 255 from the performance of certain actions, and to concur in a common prohibition of them, enforced by stringent penalties ? The answer to this is the Theory of Morals. 2. A variety of foundations have been assigned for the exercise of this compelling authority ; in other words, there are many contending moral theories. The will of the Deity, Propriety, Right Reason, the Fitness of Things, the Decision of the Civil Magistrate, Self-Interest, the unreasoning Dictates of a Special Faculty called the Moral Sense or Conscience, Utility or the Common good of Mankind, have been severally assigned as determining what is to be authoritatively enjoined or forbidden — in other words, right or wrong. In remarking upon these different views of the origin of moral distinctions, we must not forget that it is one thing to inquire what has been the motive for setting up the rules that we find existing in any community, and another thing to settle the motive that we think ought to govern the imposition of those rules. To explain historically the rise of institutions is different from the endeavour to settle the best principles for modifying the old, or forming new. It may be that some portions of the existing morality have been generated by con¬ siderations or motives that we dissent from, although we cannot deny the fact of such motives having operated to pro¬ duce the result. 3 The arbitrary Will of the Deity, as expressed in Reve¬ lation, is seriously maintained by many as the true fountain of right. But many other defenders of the Christian religion have looked upon this view as not only untenable, but full of dangerous consequences to religion itself.* * ‘ But whatsoever was the true meaning of these philosophers that affirm justice and injustice to he only by law, and not by nature, certain it is that divers modern theologers do not only seriously but zealously contend in like manner that there is nothing absolutely, intrinsically, and naturally good and evil, just and unjust, antecedently to any positive command or prohibition of God, hut that the arbitrary will and pleasure of God (that is an Omnipotent Being, devoid of all essential and natural justice), by its commands and pro¬ hibitions, is the first and only rule and measure thereof. Whence it follows 256 THE ETHICAL EMOTIONS; OR, THE MORAL SENSE. Propriety, Riglrt Eeason, the Fitness of Things, — -are phrases pointing to a Rational or Intellectual theory of Morals. The determination of Right and Wrong is made an act of intellec¬ tual discernment, like perceiving equality or inequality in two compared magnitudes, or deciding on the truth or falsehood of a statement of fact. If morality is a system of Rules, an act of intelligence is undoubtedly necessary to apply them ; when we are told not to injure the person, property, or good unavoidably that nothing can be imagined so grossly wicked, or so foully unjust or dishonest, but if it were supposed to be commanded by this Omni¬ potent Deity, must needs, upon that hypothesis, become holy, just, and righteous. For, though the ancient fathers of the Christian Church, were very abhorrent from this doctrine, yet it crept up afterwards in the scholastic age ; Ockham being among the first that maintained that there is no act evil, but as it is prohibited by Cod, and which cannot be made good if it be com¬ manded by him. And herein Petrus Alliacus, and Andreas de Novo Castro, with others, quickly followed him. ‘ Now, the necessary and unavoidable consequences of this opinion are such as these, that to love God is by nature an indifferent thing, and is morally good only because it is enjoined by his command. That holiness is not a conf ormity with the divine nature and attributes. That God hath no natural inclination to the good of his creatures, and might justly doom an in¬ nocent creature to eternal torment, all which propositions, with others of the kind, are word for word asserted by some late authors. ’ — Cudworth, quoted by Dugald Stewart, Active Powers, Yol. I. p. 247. ‘ In the passage which was formerly quoted from Dr. Oudworth mention is made of various authors, particularly among the theologians of the scho¬ lastic ages, who were led to call in question the immutability of moral distinc¬ tions by the pious design of magnifying the perfections of the Deity. I am sorr}' to observe that these notions are not as yet completely exploded; and that, in our own age, they have misled the speculations of some writers of considerable genius, particularly of Dr. Johnson, Soame Jenyns, and Dr. Paley. Such authors certainly do not recollect that what they add to the divine power and majesty they take away from his moral attributes ; for, if moral distinctions be not immutable and eternal, it is absurd to speak of the goodness or of the justice of God. “Whoever thinks,” (says Shaftesbury) “ that there is a God, and pretends formally to believe that he is just and good, must suppose that there is independently such a thing as justice and in¬ justice, truth and falsehood, right and wrong, according to which eternal and immutable standard he pronounces that God is just, righteous, and true. If the mere will, decree or law of God, be said absolutely to constitute right and wrong, then are these latter words of no signification at all.’” — Stewart, p. 266. RATIONAL MORALISTS. 257 name of others, we need the power of distinguishing what is injurious, from what is not. It is another thing, however, to maintain that the rules themselves are founded solely on an operation of judgment ; the abstinence from injury to our fel¬ lows requires at bottom some motive not intellectual. The intellect can determine the fitness of means to secure an end / but the end itself, must, in the last resort, be some feeling, something desirable or undesirable, some pleasure to be sought, some pain to be avoided, some impulse to be followed out. The Rational Moralists (Cud worth, Wollaston, Clark, Price) give no account of the final end of morality. The same criticism applies to the dictum of Kant : — f act in such a way that your conduct might be made a law to all beings.’ This is an important attribute or condition of right conduct ; no actions can be approved, that might not be ge¬ nerally followed. Still, there is something not expressed, and that something contains the real essence of morality. As fully expanded, the dictum should run thus ; ‘ Act in a way that might be followed by all, consistently with the general safety or happiness, or other exigence of society.'' The genera¬ lizing of the action puts all men on the same level, and enables the full consequences to be seen, but it does not say what ends should be sought by this uniformity of procedure. It settles no difference between moral usages ; between Mono¬ gamy and Polygamy, between castes and equality. Wherever a moral rule prevails, there must attach to it the condition of universal obedience ; what is permitted to one, must be per¬ mitted to all the members of the same equal society. According to Hobbes, the Sovereign, acting under his re¬ sponsibility to God, is the ultimate judge of right. If he had meant merely that Morality is an Institution of Society, main¬ tained by the authority and Punishments of Society, he would have stated what I believe to be the fact. His theory of go¬ vernment, however, was that when men, to escape the evils of a state of nature, formed themselves into society, they made, or should have made, their last will and testament in favour of some single despotic ruler. This was the practical ques- R 258 THE ETHICAL EMOTIONS ; OR, THE MORAL SENSE. tion of Hobbes’s time, and was decided against him by the events. 4. Several authors have promoted a system of morals based upon exclusively Self-regarding motives. They mean to affirm that men perform the social or moral duties, from a regard to their own individual interests, and consequently that the rules of right are adapted to these interests. But if by c self ’ is here understood the gratifications of each person that are not shared by other persons, — such as the sensual pleasures, the love of wealth, power, and dignity, and all other exclusive pleasures, — we may safely deny the alleged constitution of human nature whereon the system is founded. I include here in the term * constitution of human nature/ the pleasures which have grown up by constant and wide-spread associa¬ tion, as well as the original and primordial pleasures : since both together go to constitute and determine the internal man. There is a class of pleasures whose nature it is to take in other sentient beings, as is implied in all the social affec¬ tions. We have further a tendency to enter into the pains of those about us, to feel these as if they were our own, and to minister to their relief exactly as we should treat our personal sufferings. This power of sympathy is a fact in human nature of very extensive operation, and is constantly modifying, and running counter to, the selfish impulses properly so called. These two principles of our constitution, Affection and Sym¬ pathy, serve as the main foundations of disinterestedness ; and a very large amount of this quality is seen actually reposing upon them. It is not true, therefore, that men have always performed their duties, only so far as the narrow self was im¬ plied in them, although, of course, these other impulses belonging to our constitution are likewise our c self ’ in another acceptation. The theory of Self-Interest is still farther falsified by the existence in the human mind of disinterested Antipathies, which prompt us to inflict harm upon others without gaining anything to ourselves. We shall afterwards have to put in evidence those sentimental aversions, of which our fellow- THEORY OF A MORAL SENSE. 259 beings are the subjects, and on account of which we overlook our own interest as much as in the exercise of our sympathies and affections. Accordingly, we may say not only that selfishness has never been the sole foundation of men’s views of right, but that if we were to propose it for acceptance as such, it would be rejected. Those fountains of the unselfish, now named, so relate us to our fellow-beings, that our ends in life always include more or less of their interests, and we are disposed on some occasions to sacrifice everything we possess, and life itself, to the well¬ being of others. The comparative force of the two classes of motives varies in different individuals; and the direction taken by the sympathetic motives may also vary ; A may be prompted by his affection for B to kill or injure C. But we may be well assured that both will exert their sway in the various arrangements of human life, the social and moral regulations included. 5. The most generally received doctrine concerning the foundations of right is the theory of a Moral Sense. This means that there is a certain faculty in the human mind, enabling us to define what is right to be done in each parti¬ cular case, and which has given birth to the rules and maxims of morality in common currency. It is affirmed that human nature is universally endowed with this instinctive power of discriminating right and wrong, which is the cause of an alleged uniformity of the moral sentiments, so decided as to constitute an ‘ eternal and immutable morality.’ This theory, undoubtedly the favourite one, is liable to very serious objections, which have been often urged, and never com¬ pletely met. 6. Although the rigorous mode of viewing the moral sense, which compares it to the sense of hot and cold, or the power of discriminating between white and black, would almost dispense with education, yet this view has never been thoroughly carried out ; for the necessity of enlightening con¬ science, by religious and moral teaching, has been universally insisted on. Accordingly, the following passage from Dr. 260 THE ETHICAL EMOTIONS ; OK, THE MORAL SENSE. Whewell’s Elements of Morality may be taken to represent tlie qualified doctrine of the innate sense of rectitude : — 'It appears from what has just been said, that we cannot properly refer to our conscience as an ultimate and supreme authority. It has only a subordinate and intermediate autho¬ rity, standing between the supreme law, to which it is bound to conform, and our own actions, which must conform to it, in order to be moral. Conscience is not a standard, personal to each man, as each man has his standard of bodily appetite. Each man’s standard of morals is a standard of morals, only because it is supposed to represent the supreme standard, which is expressed by the moral ideas, benevolence, justice, truth, purity, and wisdom. As each man has his reason, in virtue of his participation of the common reason of mankind, so each man has his conscience, in virtue of his participation in the common conscience of mankind, by which benevolence, justice, truth, purity, and wisdom, are recognised as the supreme law of man’s being. As the object of reason is to determine what is true, so the object of conscience is to determine what is right. As each man’s reason may err, and thus lead him to a false opinion, so each man’s conscience may err, and lead him to a false moral standard. As false opinion does not disprove the reality of truth, so the false moral stan¬ dards of men do not disprove the reality of a supreme rule of human action.’ What then is this standard ? Where is it to be found ? Until it is produced, we have nothing to discuss, affirm, or deny. Is it some one model conscience, like Aristotle’s ' serious man ’ ( 6 ottovccuo *t follows from what I have said, that the Question is altogether improper : and it is as insignificant to ask, whether Man’s Will he free, as to ask whether his Sleep be swift, or his Virtue square ; Liberty being as little applicable to the Will, as Swiftness of Motion is to Sleep, or Squareness to Virtue.’ — ( Essay on the Understanding, Book II., Chap. 21. SPONTANEITY AND SELF-DETERMINATION. 507 on one side or the other, converting the equipoise into a pre¬ ponderance ; the fact that a decision is at last come to implies as much. Here, as in the supposed exercise of choice, there is nothing but an accession of motive ; no simpler or more exact description can be given. The other mode of delibera¬ tion supposes the mind acted on by a decided preponderance of inclination to one of two or more courses ; but also subject to the consideration of the evil consequences of deciding too quickly. A new and distinct motive is thus present, to coun¬ terwork for a certain period the strong inclination that would otherwise bring about immediate action. There is the same general fact of volition exemplified in postponing an act from the avoidance of prospective evil, known from past experience to be likely to follow, as in any other circumstance where pleasure or pain prompts to secure the one, and escape the other. After a proper interval, the sense of danger from precipitate execution is satisfied, and ceases to operate ; where¬ upon the action is taken according to the strongest urgency ; or as the fact might be more correctly rendered, the action shows which is the stronger, decision being the only criterion attain¬ able of strength of motive. O 7. Spontaneity, — Self-determination. —These names are introduced into the discussion of the will, as aids to the theory of liberty, which they are supposed to elucidate and unfold. That there is such a thing as ‘ spontaneity/ in the action of voluntary agents, has been seen in the foregoing pages. The spontaneous beginnings of movement are a result of the phy¬ sical mechanism under the stimulus of nutrition ; and they are laid hold of, and linked to the pleasurable and painful feelings, in a manner above indicated at full length. The spontaneous tendency operates all through life, and has a defi¬ nite influence upon the actions. In studying the conflict of volitions, we found it requisite to allow for this element. After nutrition and rest, every animal tends to break out into some form of active display ; if the other motives are indifferent, or equal for movement and for stillness, the central energy decides for movement. To resist it, a certain motive for rest must be 508 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. present. There is nothing in all this that either takes human actions out of the sweep of law, or renders liberty and neces¬ sity appropriate terms of description. The physical, or nutri¬ tive, stimulus is a fact of our constitution, counting at each moment for a certain amount, according to the bodily condi¬ tion ; and if any one knew exactly the condition of a man or animal in this respect, a correct allowance might be made in the computation of present motives. In a general wTay, we do calculate this element in the instances of pronounced spon¬ taneity, as in youth and activity of temperament. The school¬ master knows well the times when his pupils are restive, the horseman knows the troubles of managing a steed too long confined to the stable. f Self-determination’ assumes something more than spon¬ taneity, having a lurking reference to some power behind the scenes, that cannot be stated under the form of a specific motive or end. There is one sense of the term that repre¬ sents a genuine fact, or distinction of characters, to which a brief allusion may be made ; that is, the opposition of perma¬ nent and enduring motives to temporary and passing solici¬ tations. When a person remains at one task under a variety of temptations to leave it ; or retains a fixed character through many vicissitudes, or a fixed purpose under every variety of outward circumstances, — one way of expressing the character is to represent it as having great self-determination. Not that any new and distinct species of voluntary action is implied ; but the motives growing out of the distant, the future, and the collective ends, are so powerfully retained and set forth by the tenacity of the intellectual hold, that they are a match for all counter-motives of present and living sensation. This peculiar case could not have been omitted from an exposition of the will pretending to anything like completeness ; and abundant allusion has been already made to it. The opposition of the comprehensive ends of life to the desires generated by things passing around us, is one large region of volitional conflict which ought not to pass unnoticed. One man is said to be the ‘ creature of circumstances,’ another NO SEPARATE REGION OF * SELF.’ 509 not so. The difference is made by the presence of deep- seated ends, adhered to through all the varying circumstances and moods of the outward life. 8. If Self-determination is held to imply something different from the operation of the motive forces of pleasur¬ able and painful sensibility, coupled with the central sponta¬ neity of the system, there is an imputation on the sufficiency of the common analysis of the mind. Feeling, Volition, and Intellect, as explained with full detail in the present work, must still leave a region unexplored. A fourth or residual department would need to be constituted, the department of ‘ self’ or Me-ation, and we should set about the investigation of the laws, (or the anarchy) prevailing there, as in the three remaining branches. The preliminary question, however, has yet to be disposed of, whether there be any residuum when the phenomena comprised under the common division are taken away. I cannot light upon anything of the sort ; and in the setting up of a determining power under the name of ‘ self,’ as a contrast to the whole region of motives generated in the manner described, I see only an erroneous conception of the facts. The proper meaning of self can be nothing more than my corporeal existence, coupled with my sensations, thoughts, emotions, and volitions, supposing the classification exhaustive, and the sum of these in the past, present, and future. Everything of the nature of a moving power belong¬ ing to this totality is a part of self. The action of the lungs, the movements of the heart, are self-determined ; and when I go to the fire to get warm, lie down under fatigue, ascend a height for the sake of a prospect, the actions are as much self-determined as it is possible for actions to be. I am not able to concede the existence of an inscrutable entity in the depths of one’s being, to which the name / is to be distinc¬ tively applied, and not consisting of any bodily organ or func¬ tion, or any one mental phenomenon that can be specified. We might as well talk of a mineral as different from the sum of all its assignable properties. A piece of quartz is an aggre¬ gate of inertia, specific gravity, crystalline form, hardness, 510 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. transparency or opacity, colour, infusibility, chemical re-agency, conjoined in one definite situation ;,and, if there be any other known property, we include it in the list. The aggregate is the quartz’s own self, essence, or whatever other designation marks it off from other minerals. It is impossible that any object can be more than the assemblage of its known pro¬ perties ; if there were any remainder, the enumeration would simply be incomplete. A self-determining power, therefore, in a voluntary agent, is merely another, and not a good, expression for the ordinary course of the will, as we understand it. The pains, personal to the agent, incite actions also per¬ sonal to that agent ; the pleasures making a portion of the collective self operate likewise, according to their nature. It is quite plain that the great mass of our voluntary actions have antecedents that can be traced and assigned, and the presumption is that the whole agree in kind with the majority. If any acts can be pointed out as unconnected with motives, or antecedents, of the character that we have recognised throughout our inquiry into the will, the exception ought to be made good, and admitted as a new element of voluntary determination. But, before giving the supposed residual phe¬ nomenon an ambiguous title, its existence should first be established, a work very far from being achieved in the pre¬ sent position of our knowledge of the subject in hand. The only instance that I can fix upon, as having the sem¬ blance of a power contradistinguished from the ordinary motives, is the perverseness sometimes exhibited by indivi¬ duals, for the sake of showing that their actions are not to be predicted by every looker-on. We sometimes take a fancy to feel humiliation in being the subject of easy calculation by our neighbours, and go out of our usual course to preplex their intrusive speculations. There is nothing in this, how¬ ever, but a new motive, springing out of our sense of humi¬ liation, or pride, one of the most hackneyed of all human im¬ pulses. An observer of a still shrewder stamp might predict the occunence of this element also. Turn whichever way we may, there is no escape from the antecedence of motives when ARE WE CONSCIOUS OF FREE-WILL? 511 we perform voluntary acts ; if we seem to evade one, we find ourselves in the arms of another. 9. Consciousness of Free-will, Self-determination, &c. — A hold appeal is made by some writers to our Consciousness, as testifying, in a manner not to be disputed, the liberty of the will. Consciousness, it is said, is our ultimate and infallible criterion of truth. To affirm it erring, or mendacious, would be to destroy the very possibility of certain knowledge, and even to impugn the character of the Deity. Now this infal¬ lible witness, we are told, attests that man is free, wherefore the thing must be so. The respectability and number of those that have made use of this argument compel me to examine it. I confess that I find no cogency in it. As usual, there is a double sense in the principal term giving origin to a potent fallacy. I am not inquiring minutely at present into all the meanings of the term consciousness, a task reserved for the dissertation that is to conclude this volume ; it is enough to remark, that for the purpose now in view the word implies the knowledge that we have of the successive phases of our own mind. We feel, think, and act, and know that we do so ; we can remember a whole train of mental phenomena mixed up of these various elements. The order of succession of our feelings, thoughts and actions, is a part of our information respecting ourselves, and we can possess a larger or a smaller amount of such information, and, as is the case with other matters, we may have it in a very loose, or in a very strict and accurate shape. The mass of people are exceedingly careless about the study of mental co-existences and succes¬ sions ; the laws of mind are not understood by them with anything like accuracy. Consciousness, in this sense, resembles observations as regards the world. By means of the senses we take in, and store up, impressions of natural objects, — stars, mountains, rivers, plants, animals, cities, and the works and ways of human beings, — and, according to our opportunities, ability, and disposition, we have in our memory a greater or less number of those impressions, and in greater or less preci¬ sion. Clearly, however, there is no infallibility in what we 512 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. know by either of these modes, by Consciousness as regards thoughts and feelings, or by Observation as regards external nature. On the contrary, there is a very large amount of fallibility, fallacy, and falsehood, in both the one and the other. Discrepancy between the observations of different men upon the same matter of fact, is a frequent circumstance, the rule rather than the exception. What makes it so diffi¬ cult to establish even simple matters of experience, in science and in courts of law, if there does not belong to the ordinary mind a great natural deficiency in the power of seizing the exact truth of any phenomenon or incident ? There are a few points whereon the senses give a tolerably exact appre¬ ciation from the first, and all through ; the principal being the comparison of Magnitude or Size. When two rods are placed side by side, there is an entire unanimity among observers in settling the greater or the less, when the diffe¬ rence is not microscopically minute, and perhaps no other quality is so decisively rendered in one way by the multitude of observers. Next in order we may place the appreciation of force, as in the case of Weight, or in the encountering of a moving obstacle. The human system seems to yield on all occasions a distinguishable response to the increase or dimi¬ nution of force, or pressure, brought to bear upon the moving organs, so as to call forth a greater or less degree of muscular expenditure. I scarcely know of any anomaly, or any mode of derangement, that would make the feeling of a four pound weight seem less than the feeling of a two pound. Next in order may be ranked the discrimination of Colour, which, how¬ ever, with prevailing agreement, is liable to exceptional dis¬ crepancy. I allude to the well-known instances of colour¬ blindness, and to the differences of power manifested by indi¬ viduals in marking the gradations of tint. The sensibility to the property of Heat, although in the main uniform, is ex¬ ceedingly fluctuating. The want of accuracy and unanimity of perception, in these last, and in other properties, such as hardness, softness, roughness, smoothness, taste, odour, musical pitch, has led to the invention of modes of mechanism for SUPPOSED INFALLIBILITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 513 reducing the mensuration of all properties to the first- named property, or criterion, namely extension. Witness the balance, the thermometer, the photometer, &c. If such be the case with the objects of the external senses, what reason is there to suppose that the cognisance of the mental operations should have a special and exceptional accuracy ? Is it true that this cognisance has the definiteness belonging to the property of extension in the outer world? Very far from it ; the discre¬ pancy of different men’s renderings of the human mind is so pronounced, that we cannot attribute it to the difference of the thing looked at, we must refer it to the imperfection in the manner of taking cognisance. If there were any infal¬ lible introspective faculty of consciousness, we ought as least to have had some one region of mental facts, where all men were perfectly agreed. The region so favoured must of neces¬ sity be the part of mind that could not belong to meta¬ physics ; there being nothing from the beginning to controvert or to look at in two ways, there could be no scope for meta¬ physical disquisition. The existence of metaphysics, as an embarrassing study, and an arena of dispute, is incompatible with an unerring consciousness. 10. Let us examine for a moment, whether there be at bottom any, the smallest, fact, or pretext, for the assumption that consciousness is the ultimate and infallible criterion of truth. Is there any point of view that can be taken, under which consciousness is to be assumed as evidence above all dispute ? The only case of the sort that I am able to specify is the testimony that each individual gives as to the state of his or her own feelings at any one moment. If I feel pain, and say that I feel it, my consciousness and testimony are final. If the pain disappears, my mind has gone into a new phase, which it may please me to take notice of as a fact or phenomenon, and declare as such ; and there, too, my testimony is final. No appeal can be made from it, no contradiction can be given to it. If, again, I have the consciousness of a blaze of sunshine, followed by another state — darkness, this is to me an ultimate experience — indisputable, undeniable ; and so 514 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. with all my feelings, whether of pleasure or pain, or of dis¬ criminative sensibility without pleasure or pain, if I confine myself to expressing simply my own momentary changes. Be it observed, however, that this knowledge which, if not infal¬ lible, is at least final and unanswerable, is to the last degree special and confined. Being applicable in strictness only to my individual mind, at some one single instant, it contains the very minimum of information, the smallest portion of fact that it is possible to express. As regards what we commonly understand by knowledge, it bears something of the same proportion that an atom does to a tangible mass. Grant to it the highest order of certainty, or even the august title of infallibility, what have you got under it ? It enables you to predict nothing, to affirm nothing beyond the single experience of a single instant in a single mind ; you are not one whit better or worse for the information. In fact, knowledge, in the larger and more applicable sense, although reposing upon this ultimate experience, does not begin to exist until some step has been taken beyond it. We must make a march of advance, in order to constitute the smallest item of what is properly termed information, and although the primitive experience were never so sure, it is quite another question how far fallacy may creep in with the new move that consti¬ tutes the beginning of knowledge, as commonly conceived. While infallibility reigns, knowledge is not ; where knowledge commences, fallibility lias crept in. Some one informs me that he at present feels a comfortable soothing sensation. 1 grant it ; there is no disputing his consciousness to this extent. He says, moreover, that along with this feeling he is conscious of an active state, namely, the act of inhaling tobacco fumes ; which I likewise concede, as on this point also consciousness is final. (I waive the consideration of the outward appearances corresponding to action, as being no part of the illustration.) It is incompetent for me, or for any one, to deny that the attesting party possesses at the moment the twofold consciousness spoken of. The testimony is final. But then what avails it ? The affirmation conveyed extends MERE CONSCIOUSNESS CANNOT ATTEST OUR KNOWLEDGE. 515 not beyond one period of the life of one person; it neither recalls the past nor points to the future. It has no applica¬ tion to any one else. A statement so limited, therefore, is but the minimum of knowledge. Anything that we term infor¬ mation must be of avail beyond the one moment, or the one locality, where it originally grew. To pursue the foregoing illustration. The same person goes on to affirm, that on former occasions, the same conjunction of mental states has occurred to him. By this step he makes one advance from the barren infallibility of his first declaration to a declaration that involves something like knowledge, although as yet in a sort of inchoate condition. But by the very act of extending the affirmation he trenches upon the region of fallibility. For now he needs a faithful memory to support him in the advance that he has made ; and we know that memory is anything but infallible. The farther back be goes in the sweep of his assertion, the less sure are we of the certainty of it. Thus, exactly in propor¬ tion as knowledge is involved, the testimony of consciousness departs from its primitive certainty. Let the subject of our illustration declare that, on every occasion throughout his past life, the two kinds of consciousness supposed have gone together, or that the consciousness of the activity has been always followed with the other feeling; and although we admit that the sweep of the affirmation is now so considerable as to constitute a genuine fraction of knowledge, we cannot help being aware at the same time, that the testimony of the indi¬ vidual to this point is not to be absolutely relied on. And if he goes on extending his assertion, and raising the value of it as an item of information, by affirming that in after times the same sequence will hold ; we thank him very much for putting us on the high altitude of prophetic power, but we plainly see that he has now far transcended in his affirmation what his present, and only infallible, consciousness can reveal to him. In assuming the attitude of the seer, he has come down to an exceedingly humble position as regards infallibility. In order to be trusted now, he must discard entirely the reliance on a present consciousness, and rest his claims upon a 516 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. laborious comparison of many past states, and a laborious method of surmounting the errors and weaknesses that crowd in at every point of the operation. So, if progressing still in the compass of the matter included in the statement under discussion, the supposed individual tells me that in me also the same sequence would occur ; in other words, if by any chance I were to induce the consciousness of the action, there would succeed in me the consciousness of the pleasurable sen¬ sation, — this is to me a real and solid donation. It is know¬ ledge in the completest and best sense of the term, seeing that it guides my volition for my practical advantage. But by what infallible consciousness of his, can my friend assure me of what is to happen in my consciousness, which never has been and never will be present to him, and on a point not even experienced by myself ? I freely grant, that there is an ample disposition in the human mind, to extend in this way the application of each one’s own narrow point of consciousness at a single moment to remote places and times ; but in admit¬ ting it, I, in common with the generality of men that have thought on the subject, have to deplore it as a weakness, and the source of innumerable errors. The labour to be gone through, before any fellow-man can carry his own conscious¬ ness into mine, is understood only by those that have largely reflected upon the grounds of certainty in knowledge. To whatever extent an affirmation is wide-ranging and fruitful in consequences, to that extent does it pass out of the sphere of immediate consciousness into the domain of hard and trouble¬ some verification. The infallible revelation of consciousness is an atom (or, if you will, it is zero, which is the commence¬ ment of a series), while every step made in that series is a step towards uncertainty, fallibility, and, without numerous precautions, positive error.* * See the remarks on Observation and Description in Mill’s Logic, Book IV., Chap. I., which strongly corroborate the tenor of what is said above respecting Consciousness, and the ascertaining of true descriptions of mental phenomena. DOCTRINES HELD ON THE AUTHORITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 517 11. Now let us consider for a moment the nature of some of those metaphysical assertions that have been put forward under the infallible attestation of consciousness. It is to be seen whether they are contained within the very narrow limit, where consciousness, immediate and direct, is really infallible, or, I should rather say, final. The existence of an External Material world independent of the percipient mind is one of those doctrines ; but does this doctrine confine itself to what my consciousness infallibly assures me of, namely, a certain series of feelings — sensations, ideas, emotions, volitions ? Certainly not. There is a manifest extension of the actual consciousness beyond what it can possibly reveal. There may be good grounds for believing the doctrine, as there are for believing many things that pass beyond immediate and infallible intuition, but it cannot be correct to say that consciousness, pure and simple, is the foundation of the belief. It is not within the sphere of any immediate cog¬ nition of mine, that some unknown cause is the necessary antecedent of my sensations, which cause persists when I am no longer affected by it. The persistence of the supposed agency is an assumption beyond the present con¬ sciousness, very natural as human beings are constituted, but very fallible, as we know from other things. Innate Moral distinctions are also said to receive the attestation of an un¬ erring consciousness. It cannot require much reflection to show how far such a doctrine steps beyond any single imme¬ diate cognition. That I feel at any one moment a sentiment of the kind called 1 moral disapprobation,’ may be true enough. It is quite another thing to maintain, that there is revealed to me at that moment the mode whereby I became possessed of the sentiment. It is like saying that a New Zealander touring in the British Isles sees that we are an aboriginal population. We do not doubt that a characteristic impression is produced upon the mind of a traveller in Britain, and that he is con¬ scious and convinced of the difference between it and the impression of another country ; but it wants much more than observation to shape historical theories. 518 LIBEKTY AND NECESSITY. 12. To return to the case of Freedom. A man may well he conscious of the concurrence, or immediate sequence, of a pleasurable sensation and an action, of a painful sensation and another action, and so on, through the whole sphere of volition. Tf he confines himself to one instant, or to a short interval of time, and relates exactly the experience of that interval, we give him credit for being upon very sure ground. Yet in this simple operation, there are already two different openings for mistake. His expression, even in that small matter, may not succeed in representing the truth, and he may be nnconscien- tious, and have a motive for deceiving us. How then, when he goes to assemble his past experiences, and generalize them into a theory of the Will? For, say what we may, the doc¬ trines of Freedom and Necessity are generalized theories, affirming a character common to all the volitions of all men. Granting an entire infallibility to the consciousness of a single mental act, it is too much to select one especially diffi¬ cult generalization, as infallibly conducted by the human mind, which we know to be constantly blundering in the easiest generalizations. The notion of Freedom, for example, is not an intuition, any more than the notion of the double decom¬ position of salts. There is a collection of remembered volitions, and a comparison drawn between them and one peculiar situa¬ tion of sentient beings, the situation of being unloosed from an overpowering compulsion from without, as when the dog is loosed from his chain, or the prisoner set at liberty. The theorists that we are supposing compare the whole compass of voluntary acts with this single predicament, and find, as they think, an apposite parallel, under which the will is gene¬ ralized and summed up for good. But comparison is not an infallible operation of the human intellect. Very far other¬ wise. Nothing gives us more trouble to obtain and substantiate than a thoroughly suitable comparison, when a great multitude of particular facts of varying hue is concerned. Our existing systems of knowledge have numerous bad comparisons, and these have been probably preceded by still worse. My own judgment, or if you will, my Consciousness, which really means MOEAL AGENCY. 519 all the collective energies of my intellect addressed to the study of the mind, tells me that the comparison of Will in general to the special idea of Freedom is especially had. I will even venture the opinion, that it is an unlikely and far¬ fetched comparison, and does not spontaneously occur to any one’s mind. We inherit it as a tradition, which we venerate, and strive to reconcile it with the facts from motives of respect. No doubt if the counter-doctrine of Necessity is dressed up in a repulsive garb, and if we are represented as being in all our actions like the dog chained, or the captive physically confined to a given routine of life, we may readily feel the inappro¬ priateness of that comparison, and repudiate it with some vehemence, declaring that, on the contrary, we are free. In the sense of denying a hypothesis of compulsion, there may be a momentary suitableness in the term liberty ; which does not, however, go to prove that the faculty of the will is fairly resumed, or correctly generalized and represented, by the notion of Liberty. It is a great stretch of asseveration to call the construction of an enormous theory a function, or act, of consciousness, so simple and easy that we cannot make a slip in performing it, being practically and theoretically infallible the while. 13. Moral Agency. — Responsibility. — It is a common phrase to describe human beings as moral and responsible agents. The word ‘ moral ’ has here obviously two meanings, the one narrow, as opposed to immoral, the other wider, as opposed to physical. The same ambiguity occurring in the designation ‘Moral Philosophy,’ gives to that subject a wide or a contracted scope, according to which of the two meanings is understood ; being on one supposition confined to Ethics, or Duty, and on the other comprehending, if not the whole of the human mind, at least the whole of the Emotions and Active Powers. In the large sense, I am a moral agent when I act at the instigation of my own feelings, pleasurable or painful, and the contrary when I am overpowered by force. It is the distinction between mind and the forces of the phy¬ sical world, such as gravity, heat, magnetism, &c. ; and also 520 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. between the voluntary and involuntary activities of the animal system. We are not moral agents as regards the action of the heart, the lungs, or the intestines. Every act that follows upon the prompting of a painful or pleasurable state, or the associations of one or other, is a voluntary act, and is all that is meant or can be meant by moral agency. Every animal that pursues an end, following up one object, and avoiding another, comes under the designation. The tiger chasing and devouring his prey, any creature that lives by selecting its food, is a moral agent. It would be well if the same word were not indiscriminately applied to two significations of such dif¬ ferent compass ; for there can be little doubt that perplexity and confusion of idea have been maintained thereby. Still, nothing can be better established than the recognition of both significations, and we are bound to note the circumstance that the ‘ moral ’ which at one time coincides with the ‘ ethical,’ at other times is co-extensive with the 'volantary.’ 14. The term ‘ Besponsibility,’ is a figurative expression, of the kind called by writers on Bhetoric ‘ metonymy,’ where a thing is named by some of its causes, effects, or adjuncts, as when the crown is put for royalty, the mitre for the episcopacy, &c. Seeing that in every country, where forms of justice have been established, a criminal is allowed to answer the charge made against him before he is punished ; this circumstance has been taken up, and used to designate punishment. We shall find it conduce to clearness to put aside the figure, and employ the literal term. Instead, therefore, of responsibility, I shall substitute punishability ; for a man can never be said to be responsible, if you are not prepared to punish him when he cannot satisfactorily answer the charges made against him. The one step denoted by responsibility necessarily supposes a previous step, accusability, and a subsequent step, liability to punishment. Any question, therefore, growing out of the term in discussion is a question of accusing, trying, and punishing some one or more individual beings. The debateable point arising here is as to the limits and conditions of the imposition of punishment. There are certain RESPONSIBILITY. 521 instances where punishment is allowed to be just and proper, as in the correction of the young, and the enforcing of the law against the generality of criminals. There are other instances where the propriety of punishing is disputed ; as in very young infants, the insane, and the physically incapable. There are, however, two very different grounds of objection that may be taken. The first and principal ground is that the action required under menace of punishment is not one within the capability of the individual, not a voluntary action ; in other words, no amount of motive can instigate such an action. It may not be within the range of the individual’s powers. One may be asked to do a work that surpasses the physical strength under the strongest spur that can be applied ; an unskilled workman may be tasked with an undertaking requiring skill ; a mechanic skilled in his art may be deprived of his tools, and yet expected to do his work. All these are obvious cases of the inadmissibility of punishment. So, too, a state of mind which cannot comprehend the meaning of an enactment or a penalty — as infancy, idiotcy, insanity, ignorance of the dialect spoken, excuses the individual from punishment. 15. A second ground of objection is, not the impossibility of bringing about the action by a mere motive urging to it, but the very great severity of motive necessary. You may exact from a man something that is barely compassable by him, when urged to the very utmost limit, by the strongest motives that it is possible to provide. You may threaten to take away the life of your slave if he does not exert himself beyond the point of utter exhaustion, and you will probably succeed in getting a little more out of him. The question now is one of justice, expediency, and humanity, and not of metaphysical possibility. Punishment is a thing competent, a thing not nugatory, whenever the act can be induced by mere urgency of motive ; nevertheless, there may be great and grave objections, on the score of just and humane principle, to the application of it. Draconian codes and barbarous inflic¬ tions may answer their end, they may confine themselves to what men have it in their power to do or refrain from, when 522 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. overawed by such terrors ; they are not on that account to be defended. The vexed question of punishability is raised by certain forms of insanity. Intellectual delusion is the one decisive circumstance that usually exempts from punishment, while placing the patient under adequate restraint ; as when an un¬ fortunate being fancies that every one that he meets is a con¬ spirator against him. The difficult case is what is called ‘ moral insanity/ where there are impulses morbidly strong, which can yet be to some degree counterworked by motives, or the apprehension of consequences. There is a shading off here into the region of mere passionate impulse, such as persons counted perfectly sane may fall victims to. It is im¬ possible to deal with such cases by a theoretical rule. They must be treated on their individual merits as they occur.* * Responsibility for Belief. The dictum of Lord Brougham, that ‘ man is no longer accountable to man for his belief, over which he has himself no control,’ was the occasion of a serious controversy at the time it was uttered (see, among others, Wardlaw’s Treatise on Accountability). Reduced to precise terms the meaning is — a man’s belief being involuntary, he is not punishable for it. The point, therefore, is how far is belief a voluntary function, for it is known to every one that the will does to some extent in¬ fluence it. I. Whatever may be true of the internal conviction, the outward profes¬ sion of belief is voluntary, and so are the actions consequent upon what we believe. Now it is these external manifestations alone that society can lay hold of, and they being suppressible, on sufficient motive, the law can supply that motive, and lead to their suppression accordingly. It is not, therefore, nugatory or absurd, to make laws against belief ; for if every expression of opinion, or consequent proceeding, can be kept down, the purpose is fully served. II. It has been always open to remark, how completely human beings are the slaves of circumstances in the opinions that they entertain upon all sub¬ jects that do not appeal directly to the senses and daily experience. We see ia one country one set of beliefs handed down unchanged for generations, and in another country a totally different set equally persistent. Seeing, then, that there is so little self-originating, or independent, judgment among man¬ kind, it is evidently possible, by external means, and the power of motives, to make some one opinion prevail rather than another. I might be a Roman Catholic born, yet with a mind so constituted, as irresistibly to embrace the Protestant faith on examining its creed. But if I am under a regime that RESPONSIBILITY FOR BELIEF. 523 appends heavy penalties to my becoming a Protestant, the effect might he to deter me from ever reading a hook, or listening to a preacher, or hearing any argument on the Protestant side. It is in the power of my will to open or shut my eyes, although what I am to see when I do open them is not volun¬ tary. The legislator, therefore, in hedging one belief round with heavy penalties may be a tyrant, but he is no fool. There are many arts of swaying men’s convictions. Look at the whole array of weapons in the armoury of the skilful rhetorician. Look at the powers of bribery and corruption in party warfare. Consider also the effect of constantly hearing one point of view to the exclusion of all others. There is the greatest scope for the exercise of arts in swaying men from their own genuine tendencies into some prescribed path. It would be in the last degree incorrect to say that punishment cannot succeed in inducing belief, but whether it be right to employ it for that purpose is merely the old question of political and social liberty. There is a length that external pressure cannot go in compelling a man’s convictions. It is not possible for any power to make me believe that three times four is six. I may for once so far succumb to a tremendous threat, as to affirm this proposition in words, but I feel that if I am to give in to propo¬ sitions of a like nature generally, I may as well go to the stake at once, for life under such an arithmetic is not worth a week’s purchase. If every bargain that I engage in is to be subject to such reasoning, all my security has vanished, and the sooner I quit the better. There are, however, so many affirmations constantly afloat, and never brought to any practical test, that we may swallow a great many inconsistencies without difficulty. So long as action is not entered on we are not obliged to be consistent ; and accordingly it is very usual for a man to assent to a number of propositions irreconcileable with one another ; while it is still true that in a matter of plain experience, involving one’s immediate actions and welfare, it is beyond the power of motive to change one’s decided convictions. Sovereign power, whether legal or social, has plenty of room in the outworks of belief, without affecting this inner sanctuary, of pressing and practical experience. The greatest despot stops short of the pence table ; he knows that religion, political theories, and many other departments of belief are at his mercy, and to these he applies the screw. After all, therefore, the gist of Lord Brougham’s dictum is nothing else than the issue, contested now for centuries, as to freedom of thought and opinion. BELIEF. 1. T~T will be readily admitted that the state of mind called Belief is, in many cases, a concomitant of our activity. Bnt I mean to go farther than this, and to affirm that belief has no meaning, except in reference to our actions; the essence, or import of it is such as to place it under the region of the will. We shall see that an intellectual notion, or conception, is likewise indispensable to the act of believing, but no mere conception that does not directly or indirectly implicate our voluntary exertions, can ever amount to the state in question. The present chapter is devoted to set forth this position in all its consequences. In the primitive aspect of volition, which also continues to be exemplified through the whole of life, an action once begun by spontaneous accident is maintained, when it sensibly alle¬ viates a pain, or nurses a pleasure. Here there is no place for belief, any more than for plot-interest, deliberation, re¬ solution, or desire. The feeling, that is. the end, prompts at once the suitable exercise of the voluntary organs, and that is all. In this primitive and elementary fact, we have the foundation of the most complicated forms of voluntary pro¬ cedure, but as yet we have no indication of those subsequent developments. The process in that rudimentary stage might be termed reflex, although differing in a most vital conside¬ ration from the reflex actions commonly recognised, namely, the presence of consciousness as an essential link of the se¬ quence. There is an instantaneous response to the state of pleasure or pain, in the shape of some voluntary movement modifying, or sustaining, that state, according as the case may be. Circumstances arise, however, to prevent this immediate¬ ness of response, or to interpose delay between the occurrence of the feeling that is the motive and the movements that answer INTERMEDIATE ACTIONS INVOLVE BELIEF. 525 to it. We have seen that this condition of suspense is the occasion of those new phases of the will described by the terms desire, deliberation, intention, resolution, choice, and the like ; and the very same condition of suspense is necessary to the manifestation of Belief. If every pain could be met by an appropriate movement for relieving it on the instant, and the same with every pleasure, we might still talk of doing or acting, but there would be no place for believing. When I imbibe the water in contact with my lips, under the pain of thirst, I perform a voluntary act in which belief might by a fiction be said to be implied ; but if all my actions were of this nature, the state of belief would never have been sig¬ nalized as a phenomenon of the human mind, just as no place would be given to deliberation. 2. When the matter is examined closely, we find that it is the class of intermediate actions, of themselves indifferent, that give origin to the phenomenon now before us. By the ultimate action of the will, I imbibe the w’ater that sensibly appeases my thirst, but there is nothing in the primordial endowment that would provoke me to lift a cup of liquid to my mouth, or that would inspire the thirsty animal to run to the brook. These movements must be sustained by something else than the feeling of pain relieved, for as yet no such feel¬ ing comes of them. That something which keeps the energy of an animal alive, with no immediate fruition, is a new power not involved in the original mechanism of our voluntary nature, but arising more or less as a result of experience. In whatever way it originates, the name that we principally designate it by is Belief. The primordial form of belief is expectation of some contingent future about to follow on our action. Wherever any creature is found performing an action, indifferent in itself, with a view to some end, and adhering to that action with the same energy that would be manifested under the actual fruition of the end, we say that the animal possesses confidence, or belief, in the sequence of two different things, or in a certain arrangement of nature, whereby one phenomenon succeeds to another. The glistening surface of 526 BELIEF. a pool, or rivulet, presented to the eye, can give no satisfac¬ tion to the agonies of thirst ; hut such is the firm connexion established in the mind of man and beast between the two properties of the same object, that the presentation to the eye fires the energies of pursuit no less strongly than the actual contact with the alimentary surface. An alliance so formed is a genuine example of the condition of belief. 3. While, therefore, Action is the basis, and ultimate cri¬ terion, of belief, there enters into it as a necessary element some cognisance of the order of nature, or the course of the world. In using means to any end, we proceed upon the assumption of an alliance between two natural facts or pheno¬ mena, and we are said to have a trust, confidence, or faith, in that alliance. An animal, in judging of its food by the mere sight, or in going to a place of shelter, recognises certain coin¬ cidences of natural properties, and manifests to the full a state of belief regarding them. The humblest insect that has a fixed home, or a known resort for the supply of its wants, is gifted with the faculty of believing. Every new coincidence introduced into the routine of an animal’s existence, and proceeded on in the accomplishment of its ends, is a new article of belief. The infant, who has found the way to the mother’s breast for food, and to her side for warmth, has made progress in the power of faith ; and the same career goes on enlarging through the whole of life. Nothing can be set forth as belief that does not implicate in some way or other the order, arrangements, or sequences of the universe. Not merely the sober and certain realities of every man’s expe¬ rience, but also the superstitions, dreams, vagaries, that have found admittance among the most ignorant and mis-led of human beings, are conversant with the same field. When we people the air with supernatural beings, and fill the void of nature with demons, ghosts, and spirits ; when we practise incantations, auguries, charms, and sacrificial rites, we are the victims of a faith as decided and strong as our confidence in the most familiar occurrences of our daily life. In all such cases, the genuineness of the state of belief is tested by the BELIEF IMPLICATES THE ORDER OF THE WORLD. 527 control of the actions, while the subject-matter of it is some supposed fact, or occurrence, of nature. The intellect must take hold of a certain co-existence, or succession, of phenomena through the senses, or the constructive faculty, and the mind he, as it were, occupied with this as distinct from being occu¬ pied with mere feeling, or mere volition. The state in ques¬ tion, then, having its roots in voluntary action, has its branches spreading far and wide into the realms of intelligence and speculation. As the intellectual functions are developed, and become prominent in the mental system, the materials of belief are more and more abundantly reaped from their proper field ; nevertheless, we must not depart from their reference to action, and the attainment of ends, otherwise they lose their fundamental character as things credited, and pass into mere fancies, and the sport of thinking, It is true, however, that that enlarging of the sphere of pure intelligence, which we encounter as we pass to the so-called superior animals and races, leads to the collecting and the storing up of natural coincidences, sequences, and similarities, without any imme¬ diate regard to practical ends ; as in the vast encyclopaedia of ascertained knowledge accumulated to the present time, of which a large amount is possessed by individuals without being turned to any account in the pursuit of pleasure or the banishing of pain ; and it has to be shown, that there lurks a tacit appeal to action in the belief entertained respecting all that unapplied knowledge. 4. The beliefs above illustrated, as involved in the pursuits of the inferior creatures, are never separated from the actions and ends where they serve as guides. The stag believes in a connexion between the glistening surface of the brook and the satisfaction of its own thirst, but the intellectual conception has no place except in this one relation. It is only at the moment of thirst that the sequence is produced in the mind ; when that has disappeared, the affirmation vanishes, and never recurs until the recurrence of the appetite. The intel¬ ligence is av7akened solely for the sake of the physical wants and pleasures, and has no detached or independent standing. 528 BELIEF. Still, in that state of vassalage, there is a genuine display of intellectual power and acquisition. Without those associating forces, and that power of discriminative sensibility, whereby the loftiest flights of reason and imagination are sustained, an animal could not employ the smallest item of mediation in the accomplishment of its ends. But it is possible to restrict the scope of our higher faculty to the exigencies of the physical system. It is also possible to detach those conceptions of sequence, and give them a local habitation out of the routine of practical life. I can suppose a contemplative stag reposing by the brink of a lake, and, without feeling thirst at the moment, recalling to mind past occasions of drinking from the source before him. This would be to entertain a mere reminiscence, or idea, to put forth intelligence without the spur of an end, to view a sequence of nature as pure knowledge. Whether any animal indulges in such disinterested exercises of the intellectual function, it may not be easy to affirm. We should probably be more safe in assigning to such of their con¬ ceptions of nature as have no present application, a bearing on the future, as when the same stag chooses his lair with reference to the proximity of a pool to quench his thirst, whereby he manifests an abiding recollection of the connexion of the two things, although the interest that keeps it alive is still practical. It is, however, in the operations of the human intelligence, that the detaching of natural conjunctions and sequences is carried to the greatest lengths. The intervention of language, the coupling of the ‘ name ’ with the ‘ local habi¬ tation ’ gives a distinct existence to those experiences of ter¬ restrial phenomena, and they become a subject of mental manipulation on their own account. We have thus the extensive machinery of propositions, affirmations, abstrac¬ tions, deductive reasonings ; we have, together with names given to all the characteristic objects of nature, a part of speech devoted to the expression of belief, that is to say, the Verb. All the cognisable universe is laid out into departments, each having a body of affirmations, according to the conjunc¬ tions and sequences therein relied upon, or accepted as suffi- THE REALIZING OF FUTURE GOOD. 529 cient for tlie guidance of such actions as involve them. Sciences, branches of knowledge, theoretical and practical, are the piled-up accumulation of these manifold cognitions of the natural laws; and we attach ourselves to them with no indifferent attitude or empty apprehension, but with a sense of inherent power, a consciousness of the mastery exercised by them over all that we prize in life. 5. As beings, then, that look before and after, the state of belief has in us an extensive footing, and an incessant control over the temper for happiness or misery. In anticipating a want, we forecast at the same time the natural sequence that is to be the medium of supplying it, and in that predicament wherein we are said to have confidence or trust in such a medium, we enjoy a positive satisfaction in the total absence of painful forebodings. So with a pleasure that has taken the form of vehement desire. The fruition is future, but the mind cannot easily assume a present indifference to the subject ; we are either disquieted by seeing no prospect of attaining the wished-for good, or elated and comforted by the assurance of its being within reach. In all that regards our future happi¬ ness, therefore, and the future of all those interests that engage our sympathy, — belief, when the assurance of good in the distance, is the name for a serene, satisfying, and happy tone of mind. Through it, as has been said, we have already the realizing of what we long for. Ideal emotion is consummated in its happiest phase, by this condition being secured. If a man thinks merely of his present, or of the work that is under his hand, the sphere of belief is confined to the narrowest limits, having reference only to the instrumentality of actual operations. In proportion as we dwell in the prospective, we give to the influences that inspire confidence a very large prerogative in relation to our enjoyment. 6. In discussing the emotion of Terror, it was impossible not to be struck with the contrariety, or inverse relationship, between that emotion and the subject of the present chapter; so much so that it was necessary to take both facts together for the elucidation of the one. Speaking logically, or with 530 BELIEF. regard to the form of the subject-matter, the opposite of belief is disbelief ; but as a mental fact these two states are iden¬ tical. Coming to a place where two roads meet, I believe that the one will conduct me to my home, and disbelieve the same affirmation respecting the other. In either view, my mind is in the condition of certainty, conviction, or faith, and I derive both the means of reaching my dwelling, and the cheering tone that a conviction gives to a person looking forward to a wished-for end. The real opposite of belief as a state of mind is not disbelief, but doubt, uncertainty ; and the close alliance between this and the emotion of fear is stamped on every language. Not that doubt and fear are identical fact^, but that the situation called uncertainty, ignorance, hesitation, vacillation, is at all times prone to excite the perturbation of fear. Even when stopping short of this effect, owing to the great natural vigour of the mind in retaining its composure, this state is one of discomfort in most cases, and sometimes of the most aggravated human wretchedness. The constituents of it may be to a great extent discriminated by analysis, and we may be able to account for the peculiarity on some of the broad principles already recognised ; still, there is in the phenomenon an exceedingly patent and well-marked phy¬ siognomy. In this predicament of Doubt, there is necessarily involved the baulking of some end sought after with more or less earnestness. An uncertainty as to the means is, to say the least of it, tantamount to failing in the end. We may go even farther, and maintain that the failure is accompanied with an aggravation that does not attach to downright impossibility of attainment. When we are assured that some object is alto¬ gether out of our reach, we sit down and endeavour to become reconciled to the privation ; but when the only obstacle is uncertainty as to the choice of means, we are kept on the tenter-hooks of alternate expedients, encouraged and baffled by turns. Distracted by opposing considerations, keeping up an aim, and yet not making any progress towards it, we suffer all the acute misery so well known to accompany CONDITION OF DOUBT. 53? such situations of contradicting impulses. The wretchedness can be subdued only by either abandoning the pursuit, or coming to a decision in favour of some one road. Irrespec¬ tive, therefore, of the additional pains of the state of terror so frequently succeeding to great uncertainty, there is a charac¬ teristic form of suffering begotten by the condition of doubt ; of which the parallels are the cases, wherever occurring, of being obliged to act while equally poised between opposing solicitations. When fear is excited, the misery is deepened by a new element, and decision still more effectually paralysed. It is hardly necessary to cite particular instances of one of the very commonest of human experiences. Men may be found that can boast of never knowing fear ; but who has ever passed through a busy life without knowing what it is to doubt? With all the inequality of characters in respect of constitutional self-confidence and the opportunities of obtain¬ ing knowledge, there lives not a human being adequate to the instantaneous solution of every enigma that he encounters in the course of life ; and no one can be exempt from moments of painful uncertainty such as now described. The temper of belief, confidence, or assurance in coining good is, in the first place, the total exclusion of all this misery ; in so far the influence is simply preventive or remedial. As¬ suming the mintf to be cheerful and serene, an emergency of doubt would plunge it into acute suffering proportioned to the importance of the crisis. All this is saved, if clear con¬ viction and unhesitating decision as to the course to be pursued are possessed by the mind. The believing and decided temper is ever and anon arresting us on the brink of some abyss of distraction and terror, and thereby conserving in their purity our times of enjoyment, and interfering to save us from new depths of despondency. In this view alone, we derive, from our various sources of confidence as to means, the ends being still supposed desirable, a large addition to the happiness of existence ; which would of itself account for the greater buoyancy and serenity of mind belonging to such as are seldom afflicted with uncertainty and doubt. Even 532 BELIEF. if no positive pleasure were imparted through the possession of certainty and assurance in all occasions of emergency, we should still pronounce the condition of belief to be a source of pleasurable elation ; but, besides withdrawing the incubus of the opposite condition, we must give it some credit for stimu¬ lating the sentiment of power, which is also one of our cheer¬ ing influences. As there is a certain humiliation in being G o placed at bay through ignorance and hesitation, so there is apt to arise a flush of elation at the consciousness of being equal to whatever end we have in view. Beyond these two ingredients, I do not know any other marked way wherein the state of faith operates to sustain and elevate the pleasure- able tone of the mental consciousness. Quite enough is herein contained to render the condition a great moral power in the human mind, and to account for all those wonderful effects so often attributed to it in the many forms of its manifestation. 7. I have hitherto confined the illustration to the case of coming good as an object of confidence. Let us now advert to the opposite state of things, the case of coming evil, more or less firmly relied on. The line of observations is here very much the same, allowing for the points of difference. When a future evil is believed as certain, we display as much energy in the corresponding course of action as if it were actually present ; and we realize all the misery of the actual, in so far as we are capable of conceiving it. The mere idea of pain is apt to be painful, as when I see another person in distress ; the more thoroughly we are possessed with that idea, the more are we afflicted or depressed by it. But the affliction and the depression are much deeper, when the evil is one approaching ourselves, and believed to be certain to overtake us. In so far as this conviction is complete, wre have already the evil upon us ; we act and feel as if it were really come. The greater the belief now, the greater the misery; doubt is less harrowing than conviction. Any loophole of escape, anything that would invalidate the evidence of the approach¬ ing pain, is as welcome as, in the opposite case, an addition BELIEF CAUSING JOY OE DEPRESSION. 533 to the evidence would be. The comfortable condition of belief, and the suffering of doubt, suppose good in the dis¬ tance ; substitute evil and all is changed. The man mortally wounded in the prime of life, is not at the maximum of his misery so long as the fatal issue is in anywise doubtful. In one sense, doubt is painful even in the matter of future evil, namely, when it paralyses action. There is sometimes a comfort, as commonly remarked, in knowing the worst ; the comfort lying in this, that we then address ourselves to the task of meeting it by active operations, or by a resigned spirit. But, as a general fact, doubt is a less evil than conviction, when the subject-matter is ill-fortune ; and a weaker convic¬ tion is preferable to a stronger. 8. The idea of Pleasure, in most shapes, diffuses in the mind that state denominated Joy, which is recognised by every one as characteristic, and distinct from the reality of a sensuous gratification. The idea of good approaching, with confidence in its ultimate realization, is the most powerful stimulus of this condition. A wedding, the birth of an heir, the obtaining of an office, are styled joyful events from their reference to pleasures in prospect. Hence, in familiar lan¬ guage, the conjunction of Joy with Faith and Hope. The state of Joy is, in itself, one of our happy phases of mind, and is, besides, when produced, an exhilarating atmosphere for other pleasures, and an aid to the maintenance of the con¬ viction of coming good against unfavourable appearances ; ministering in turn to the cause of its own existence. The con¬ dition is one habitual to some constitutions, through organic and other agencies ; and is then identical with the sanguine temper. The idea of a Pain, on the other hand, produces the con¬ dition termed Depression, which, and not sorrow, is the true opposite of joy. The more strongly the idea takes hold of the mind, the greater is the influence. But here also, the effect is most decided when it is 'the idea of pain believed as coming to ourselves. In such circumstances, the mind is apt to be filled with gloom ; and is not unlikely to pass one stage farther into the condition of terror. It is possible to stop 534 BELIEF. short of this final stage ; but even courage does not necessa¬ rily imply the absence of depression. The strength of the conviction is measured by its power of casting down the mind from the joyful, to the depressed, tone. A less strong belief would be less dispiriting. When it is said ‘ the devils believe and tremble,’ the sub¬ ject-matter of the belief is some evil fate, which it would be better to doubt. The belief in our mortality is the reverse of comforting. Ill news operate a shock of depression, if not of alarm ; and if the assurance amounts to certainty, so much the worse. The mind depressed finds it hard to believe in coming good, and easy to be convinced of coming evil. Such is the action and reaction of the two states, of dread and depression, as above remarked of the connexion between the hopeful, or sanguine, and the joyful. 9. I must advert to the sources of this efficacious attribute of our active nature. Looking at the cases intro¬ duced at the commencement of this chapter, in which a certain natural conjunction was relied upon in the employment of an instrumentality suitable to certain wants, we should say that the proper, and indeed the only possible foundation of such a belief, is experience of the various conjunctions so trusted to. Unless it could be shown, that there are some instincts of the nature of antecedent revelations of what we are to meet with when we come into the world, there seems no way of rising to the platform of knowledge and belief, except the actual trial; at least until we become the subjects of instruction and guidance by those that have gone before us, in which case it is merely the substitution of one experience for another. It is, however, a matter of fact that other influences are at work in determining our convictions, and it is our business to survey these also. There are instinctive tendencies partly co-operating, and partly conflicting with the principal monitor ; and we have had to recognise, in discussing the emotions, a power belonging to every one of them to mould our received opinions in opposition to the interpreta- SOURCES OF BELIEF. 535 tions of experience. Delusion, fallacy, and mental perversion could not have obtained so great a sway over mankind, but for the intervention of agencies operating without any regard to what we find in the world as the result of actual experi¬ ment and observation. 10. We may divide the sources of belief into three differ¬ ent classes as follows : — First, the Intuitive or Instinctive ; second, Experience, with the reasonings and inferences supple¬ mental thereto ; third, the Influence of the Feelings. It is not usual to find cases where these different methods act pure and apart ; the greater number of the ordinary convictions of men involve a mixture of the different sorts ; and hence a strictly methodical exposition of the three classes is scarcely practicable. Experience is very generally modified by instinctive tendencies, while no mere instinct can constitute a belief in the entire absence of the other. In these circum¬ stances, I will first indicate briefly the manner of deriving convictions from actual contact with the world, and then pro¬ ceed to a minute consideration of the three sources in the order now given. Au animal sees the water that it drinks, and thereby couples in its mind the property of quenching- thirst with the visible aspect. After this association has acquired a certain degree of tenacity, the sight of water at a distance suggests the other fact, so that, from the prospect, the animal realizes to some degree the satisfying of that craving. Then it is that water seen by thirsty animals inspires the movements preparatory to actual drinking ; the voluntary organs of locomotion are urged by the same ener¬ getic spur on the mere distant sight, as the organs of lapping and swallowing under the feeling of relief already commenced. This is the state of mature conviction as to the union of the two natural properties of water. I cannot doubt that an animal attains this crowning belief by a gradual process, and that there are stages, when it is proper to say that a less strong assurance is possessed. The criteria of initial inferiority are always these two circumstances, at bottom substantially one, namely, that the pursuit of the means is less energetically 536 BELIEF. stimulated than the realizing of the end actually in the grasp ; and secondly, that the attainment of the means does not give that strong mental satisfaction that is felt at a higher stage of assurance. When we have reached the highest certainty as to the characteristic appearance of water or food, our preli¬ minary operation, for getting the objects themselves, is hardly to be distinguished from the activity manifested in following up the first tasting ; and, moreover, the mental agony is to a great degree done avrny wTith by the sight and anticipation. With a glass of water actually in hand, I may be almost said to have terminated the state of suffering due to thirst. All that depression of mind caused by the privation has vanished, through the certainty that relief is now come. This is a sure and striking characteristic of the state of belief, marking it out as a thing of degree, and indicating the highest point in the scale. The young animal, little experienced in the great natural conjunction now cited, follows up the lead of the few observations already impressed on the mind, but does not display the same energy of voluntary pursuit on the mere appearance, or feel the same sense of relief in anticipation, as at a later stage. Repetition, and especially unbroken unifor¬ mity, are the obvious causes that bring this conviction to maturity. The adhesive influence of Contiguity is in this respect a moral power, giving rise to a certain proneness to pass from the one thing to the other. Still, it would be a great mistake to lay it down as a rule, that indissoluble asso¬ ciation of two ideas constitutes by itself an assurance of their connexion, such as to render the one a sure indication of the other. The second circumstance just mentioned, namely, unbroken uniformity, is a most vital ground of our security in a sequence of events. A single breach of expectation will unhinge all that a long series of repetitions has established. Moreover, as regards indissoluble association, there may exist along with this the temper of disbelief. There is an indisso¬ luble association in most minds educated in the New Testa¬ ment between ‘Diana of the Ephesians’ and the epithet ‘ great,’ but without attaching any credit to the proposition INTUITIVE TENDENCIES. 537 thus affirmed. In fact, to appreciate exactly the power of repetition and association in this matter, we must advert to certain instinctive tendencies operating in alliance with our experience, and I will therefore proceed to discuss that class of influences. 11. I. The foremost rank, among our Intuitive tendencies involved in belief, is to be assigned to the natural trust that we have in the continuance of the present state of things, or the disposition to go on acting as we have once begun. This is a sort of Law of Perseverance in the human mind, like the first law of Motion in Mechanics. Our first experiences are to us decisive, and we go on under them to all lengths, being arrested only by some failure or contradiction. Having in our constitution primordial fountains of activity, in the spon¬ taneous and voluntary impulses, we follow the first clue that experience gives us, and accept the indication with the whole force of these natural promptings. In other words, the more strongly we are urged into action by those primitive ener¬ gies, the more strongly do we cling to that particular line of proceedings that an experience as yet uncontradicted has chalked out. The hungry beast having fallen on a road to some place yielding food, on the faith of a single experiment, goes with the whole impetus of its voluntary nature on that particular tract. Being under the strongest impulses to act somehow, an animal accepts any lead that is presented, and, if successful, abides by that lead with unshaken confidence. It is the very essence of our volition to sustain us under pleasure tasted, or pain mitigated, and this applies to our adherence to means as well as to the fruition of ends ; so that there is con¬ tained, in the fundamental properties of the will, a source of the confident temper wherewith we follow up a single success¬ ful trial without waiting for repeated confirmations. This is that instinct of credulity so commonly attributed to the infant mind. We are ready to act and follow out every opening, accepting as a sure ground of confidence any one that answers the end on the first experiment. Thus the tendency to act carries with it the state of confidence, if only the smallest 538 BELIEF. encouragement is present, and there he a total absence of ill- success. It is not the single instance, or the repetition of two or three, that makes up the strong tone of confidence ; it is the mind’s own active determination, finding some definite vent in the gratification of its ends, and abiding by the disco¬ very with the whole energy of the character, until the occur¬ rence of some check, failure, or contradiction. All the considerations involved in the primitive constitution of the will, and all the observations of the first start of the intellectual and voluntary powers, are in favour of this view of intense primitive credulity. At the commencing stage, the measure of credulity is the measure of the spontaneous and voluntary energies. The creature that wills strongly believes strongly at the origin of its career. The general ten¬ dencies of mankind, as exhibited in their mature convictions, show the continued operation of the same force. To be satis¬ fied that this is so, we have only to look at such facts as these : — Every man, until convinced of the contrary, believes in the permanence of the state of things that he is born into. Not only do we expect that what is will remain, but we con¬ clude that other places and times must resemble our own. It is constantly noted as a peculiarity of ignorant tribes, to refuse credence to anything different from what they have been accustomed to. The earliest experiences are generalized so as to override the whole unexperienced world, and present a for¬ midable obstacle to the admission of new facts at a later period. The mind shows an obstinacy in maintaining that the absent must resemble the present, and that other minds are of the same mould with itself. Those first impressions, under which action took place in all the vigour of pristine freshness, have acquired a hold and a confidence that it is difficult to compete with afterwards ; and although contrary appearances happening early would prevent their consolidation into beliefs, they become at last too strong to be unseated by any amount of contradiction. Although repetition cannot but strengthen the confidence in a particular course, it is not true that five repetitions give exactly five times the assurance of one. A WE BELIEVE FIRST AND PROVE AFTERWARDS. 539 single trial, that nothing has ever happened to impugn, is able of itself to leave a conviction sufficient to induce reliance under ordinary circumstances. It is the active prompting of the mind itself that instigates, and in fact constitutes, the believing temper ; unbelief is an after-product, and not the primitive tendency. Indeed, we may say that the inborn energy of the brain gives faith, and experience scepticism. After a number of trials, some of our first impressions are shaken, while those that sustain the ordeal of experiment are all the more confirmed by contrast with the others which have given way. As we become familiar with the breaking down process, we cling the more to whatever impressions have stood every trial. 12. The force of belief then is not one rising from zero to a full development by slow degrees according to the length of experience. We must treat it rather as a strong primitive manifestation, derived from the natural activity of the system, and taking its direction and rectification from experience. ‘The anticipation of nature/ so strenuously repudiated by Bacon, is the offspring of this characteristic of the mental system. In the haste to act, while the indications imbibed from contact with the world are still scanty, we are sure to extend the application of actual trials a great deal too far, producing such results as have just been named. With the active tendency at its maximum, and the exercise of intel¬ ligence and acquired knowledge at the minimum, there can issue nothing but a quantity of rash enterprises. That these are believed in, we know from the very fact that they are undertaken. In an opposite condition of things, where intellect and knowledge have made very high progress, and constitutional activity is feeble, — a sceptical, hesitating, incredulous temper of mind is the usual characteristic. The respectable name ‘ generalization/ implying the best products of enlightened scientific research, has also a different meaning, expressing one of the most erroneous impulses and crudest determinations of untutored human nature. To extend some familiar and narrow experience, so as to comprehend cases 540 BELIEF. the most distant, is a piece of mere reckless instinct, demand¬ ing the severest discipline for its correction. I have men¬ tioned the case of our supposing all other minds constituted like our own. The veriest infant has got this length in the career of fallacy. As soon as we are able to recognise per¬ sonalities distinct from ourselves, we presume an identity between them and us ; and, by an inverse operation, we are driven out of this over- vaulting position after the severe findings of contrary facts. Sound belief, instead of being a pacific and gentle growth, is, in reality, the battering of a series of strongholds, the conquering of a country in hostile occupation. This is a fact common both to the individual and to the race. Observation is unanimous on the point. The only thing for mental, philosophy to do on such a subject, is to represent, as simply and clearly as possible, those original properties of our constitution that are chargeable with such wide-spread pheno¬ mena. It will probably be long ere the last of the delusions attributable to this method, of believing first, and proving afterwards, can be eradicated from humanity. For, although all those primitive impressions that find a speedy contradic¬ tion in realities from which we cannot escape, cease to exercise their sway after a time, there are other cases less open to correction, and remaining to the last as portions of our creed. 1 3. The common notions with reference to Causation are, in the judgment of many persons, with whom I concur, tainted with the primitive corruption of this part of our nature. The method of rational experience would lead us by degrees to recognise with reference to every event, or new appearance, some other assemblage of events or appearances that preceded it, as an established rule ; while, in some cases, the same event has a plurality of causes. We should find that this arrangement prevails in a very great number of instances, while there would be a considerable class wherein no prior invariable antecedent was discernible. A just expe¬ rience would simply confine itself to mentioning the cases of either sort ; and if it so happened that, while many appear- EXPERIENCE. 541 ances that at first sight could not he connected with any antecedent, came afterwards to show such a connexion, on the other hand, those so connected from the first, continued to be so, there would arise a fair presumption that the existence of antecedents to phenomena or events was the rule, and that the exceptions were likely to disappear as our knowledge was extended. I can conceive no other course to be taken on this matter by the human mind, gathering its conviction solely by the course of experience ; but would this lead to the astounding assumption, made even previous to the detailed survey of the world, that everything that exists, not only has, but must have a beginning ? No amount of experience can either lead to, or justify, this affirmation ; and the origin of it is therefore some intuition or instinct. The notion, already commented upon, that mind must needs be the primitive cause of natural changes, could not arise from any large experience. The agency of men and animals, beings endowed with mind, is, of course, a fact to be admitted, but there are other natural agencies, — wTind, water, heat, gravity, &c. — each good in its own sphere, without any accompani¬ ment of mental facts. Experience unbiassed by foreign im¬ pulses would simply put these down as causes side by side with animal power, without resolving them into that agency. But the generalizing impetus of the untutored mind makes use of the near and familiar to explain everything else ; and the type of activity closest at hand, is the activity of the animal’s own volition. This is to us the most conceivable of all forms of causation, and we presume that it must prevail everywhere, and over all kinds of effects. There is no better authority for the assumption than for the belief that other minds are in all respects like our own, or that water, which is liquid to the dweller in the tropics, is liquid everywhere else. 14. II. So much as regards the intuitive as a source of belief. The second source has been also dwelt upon by way of a con¬ trasting illustration to the first. I must now remark farther, on the subject of the growth of conviction from Experience, that the instinctive impulse of Perseverance above explained, 542 BELIEF. seems requisite to give the active element, without which there is no effectual belief. I can imagine the mind receiving an impression of co-existence or sequence, such as the coin¬ cidence of relish with an apple, or other object of food ; and this impression repeated until, on the principle of association, the one shall without fail at any time suggest the other ; and yet nothing done in consequence, no practical effect given to the concidence. I do not know any purely intellectual pro¬ perty that would give to an associated couple the character of an article of belief ; but there is that in the volitional promptings which seizes hold of any indication leading to an end, and abides by such instrumentality if it is found to answer. Nay more, there is the tendency to go beyond the actual experience, and not to desist until the occurrence of a positive failure or check. So that the mere repetition of an intellectual impress would not amount to a conviction with¬ out this active element, which, although the source of many errors, is indispensable to the mental conditions of belief. The legitimate course is to let experience be the corrector of all the primitive impulses ; to take warning by every failure, and to recognise no other canon of validity. This does not exclude the operations termed induction, deduction, analogy, and probable inference ; because these are to be pursued exactly to the length that experience will justify, and no farther. We find, after may trials, that there is such a uniformity in nature as enables us to presume that an event happening to-day will happen also to-morrow, if we can only be sure that all the circumstances are exactly the same. I cut down a tree, and put a portion of it into water, observing that it floats ; I then infer that another portion would float, and that the wood of any other tree of the same species ■would do so likewise. It is a part of the intuitive tendencies of the mind to generalize in this way ; but these tendencies, being as often wrong as right, have no validity in themselves ; and the real authority is experience. The long series of trials made since the beginning of observation has shown how far such inferences can safely be carried ; and we are now in CRITERIA OF SOUND BELIEF. 543 possession of a body of rules, in harmony with the actual course of nature, for guiding us in carrying on these operations.* * It is the province of works different from mine to deal with the entire subject of scientific method and proof. The explanation of the mental state of belief must include alike the cases of assurance well-founded, and assurance ill- founded ; the mere mental fact being precisely the same in all. The state of confidence in the astronomer’s mind, as to the occurrence of a calculated eclipse, is not different from the wildest anticipation of a deluded day-dreamer or fanatic. The real distinction between the two is important in the highest degree, but the full account of it belongs more to the theory of evidence, than to the theory of belief. I indicate, in what follows in the text, the sources of misplaced confidence, having indeed already done so to a great extent in the exposition of the emotions in detail, and in the foregoing account of the intuitive tendencies. Still it is not my object to argue fully the position that experience is the ultimate and only valid authority in matters of belief; the controversies therewith connected are too extensive and weighty to be handled in a comer of a single chapter of a work, whose business it is rather to explain the mental processes, than to adjudicate upon their merits, as regards the practice ot life. There are those who contend for an a priori origin of scien¬ tific first principles, although, to say the least of it, such principles are suf¬ ficiently accredited by experience to justify us in relying on them ; I mean such first principles as the axioms of Mathematics. There is also a doctrine current that the law of Causation has an authority derived from intuition, on which the same remark may be made as to the superfluity of any addition to the actual verification. Another class of beliefs relates to matters altogether beyond experience, and therefore purely and exclusively subjective ; such is the metaphysical doctrine of the Infinite — a doctrine believed in even while the substance of it is pronounced to be unthinkable by the human intelligence. With regard to these various convictions, a priori, as they are called, or grounded solely in the internal impulses of the human mind, a remark com¬ mon to them all may be here suggested. It must be conceded that some intuitive beliefs are unsound, seeing that we are obliged to reject a greater or less number, because of the contradiction that experience gives them. But if any are rejected as unsound, why may not all be, and what criterion, apart from experience, can be set up for discriminating those that we are to retain ? Man undoubtedly has boundless longings ; and the metaphysical doctrine of the Infinite corresponds in a manner to these. But in actual life, we find very few of our desires fully gratified, not even those most honourable to the human mind, such as curiosity, the passion for self-improvement, and the desire for doing good. How then are we to ascertain which of the longings carries with it its own necessary fulfilment ? Moreover, the intuitive ten¬ dencies are exceedingly various in men ; and all cannot be equally true. The theory of the instinctive vouching of natural laws and properties seems to me to lie under a load of insuperable difficulties ; although I am unable to give 544 BELIEF. 15. III. The influence of Feeling as a source of belief, has been repeatedly touched upon in the previous exposition. In the commencing chapter of this volume, I spoke of the matter generally, and, under each separate emotion, traced specific consequences arising from that influence. Any strong feeling possessing the mind, gives such a determination to the thoughts and the active impulses as to pervert the convictions, and dis¬ pose us to trust or distrust at that moment things that we should not trust or distrust at another time. In the elation of a successful enterprise just achieved, we are apt to have a degree of confidence in our own powers that we do not feel in ordinary times, and very much in contrast to what we feel under some miscarriage or failure. The fact as to a man’s powers is constant, allowing for the known fluctuations of health and circumstances, not so is his estimate of them. I have sought the explanation of this variability of our convic¬ tions, on matters where the reality is unchanged, in the power of the feelings to control the intellectual trains, or to determine what things the mind shall entertain at the time. It happens, in the present class of convictions, that the evidence for them is only probable, there being appearances both for and against the conclusions supposed. In things of experimental, induc¬ tive, or deductive certainty — the rise of to-morrow’s sun, the flow of the tides, the mortality of living beings — there is no room for the influence of fluctuating states of feeling. Under the highest elation, and the deepest gloom, we count alike on these events. But, in the many cases where exact knowledge of the future cannot be had, we are at the mercy, not merely of conflicting appearances, but of our own changing moods. The prospective tranquillity of Europe, the coming harvest, the issue of a great trading speculation, the behaviour of some an adequate expansion to the subject in this place. Everybody admits that our only practical safety in the operations of life, lies in our close adherence to what we find when we make the experiment ; and surely this circumstance ought to give experience an exclusive place in our estimation as the canon of credibility. — See Mill’s Logic, Book III., and more especially Chap. XXI. INFLUENCE OF FEELING ON BELIEF. 545 individual or body in matters affecting us, the recovery of a patient from a critical illness — being unascertainable by any process with certainty, are termed cases of probable evidence, and we decide them differently at different times according to the aspect that turns up. The Stock Exchange measures the daily variation of the public estimate of the probable future of every corporate interest. Now, without any refer¬ ence to men’s feelings, the anticipation of what is likely to happen in this class of events, changes with the new appear¬ ances. A political difficulty has passed away, the funds rise in consequence. A distressing symptom has ceased in a patient; the hopes thereupon predominate. But when the speculator in the Stock Exchange, on a day when no new occurrence has influenced the money market, takes of his own accord a more sanguine view of foreign securities than he did yesterday, the cause is some variation in his own temper of mind, or manner of viewing the face of affairs. A change from high spirits to low, or the contrary, a sudden inspiration of esteem or dislike to some Minister or person in power, an accidental stroke of fear having no reference to the subject in hand, and many other causes, are able to modify the estimate that a person shall form of the very same outward facts. I conceive that this happens entirely from the circumstance, that these various emotions, while they do not alter the facts themselves, alter the mode of looking at them ; determining the mind to dwell upon one class of appearances, and to overlook another class as completely as if those did not exist. It is to no purpose that some significant symptom shows itself in the aspect of the future, if there be an agency capable of making us ignore the very existence of it ; which is, I apprehend, the real point where a strong feeling does its work. It is needless to repeat the instances of love blinding us to the defects, or hatred blinding us to the merits of an object ; to the marvel¬ lous delusions of self-interest, vanity, and pride ; to the per¬ versions’ of the strong sesthetic sentiments, or to the effects of passion in every form. The careful examination of these phenomena leads to no other conclusion than this, that, when 2 M 546 BELIEF. a feeling strongly occupies the mind, the objects in harmony with it are maintained in the view, and all others repelled and ignored. There is a fight between an emotional excite¬ ment and the natural course of the intellectual associations ; facts, considerations, and appearances that would arise by virtue of these associations are kept back, and a decision come to in their absence. It is not that the mind declares that to be a fact, of which the contradiction is actually before it ; it is that, under a one-sided fury, the contradiction that would otherwise come forward, remains in oblivion. Emotion tampers with the intellectual trains, as a culprit would fain do with the witnesses in his case, keeping out of the way all that are adverse to the interest of the moment. 16. These remarks apply to the feelings generally, but we cannot part from this branch of the subject without noticing again the antithesis between belief and the condition of Fear. I have said that the opposite of confidence is Doubt, which is akin to fear, in the sense of being a principal cause of pertur¬ bation. Confidence and doubt cannot co-exist any more than hot and cold, fire and water, or acid and alkali. As we establish the one we necessarily quench the other. The con¬ fident tone of mind with reference to some event, may be utterly destroyed by a fright from a quite foreign cause, and a restoration of confidence may take place through a mere physical tonic applied to the disturbed nerves. In the case of future good we cannot both fear and believe ; it is only when the subject is coming evil that belief, by first operating depression, may pass on to apprehension, in other words — fear. It is difficult to have a strong assurance of any merely probable good fortune under the condition of alarm, and on the other hand, in a tone of high confidence, we do not give way even to probable evil. There is thus a close alliance between courage, the antithesis of fear, and confidence. In a courageous mood, we are apt to be affected in both the ways characteristic of belief ; that is to say, we go forward into action for a distant fruition as if every step realized the object itself ; and we feel an elation in the prospect as if the reality STATES OF DEPRESSION. 547 were at hand. The general, believing that a certain force would infallibly enable him to defeat the enemy, makes his attack when he has got the force ; and when he is sure of that force reaching him, he feels already the excitement of victory ; at least such would be the tests of a perfect confidence. 17. These observations apply not simply to the passion of fear and its opposite, but to the emotions generally, so far as they may be classified under the contrasting heads of elators and depressors of the mental tone. Whatever cause raises the animal spirits, raises at the same time the confident side of the uncertain future. It is the nature of some consti¬ tutions to maintain the high buoyant tone as a prevailing quality through all vicissitudes of events. Physical causes may co-operate or may be in antagonism with this happy dis¬ position; and there are also what is termed ‘moral’ causes, meaning the mental emotions. Success and failure in enter¬ prises may be mentioned as familiar examples of the last- named class. With regard to matters of experimental or demonstrative certainty, these fluctuations of mental tone are at the lowest point of influence ; they neither confirm, nor impair our confidence in the refreshing power of food and sleep, or in an arithmetical computation. As we pass from the highest order of certainty, through the stages of probabi¬ lity, down to the depths of total uncertainty, we come more and more under the domination of the physical and moral causes that maintain or destroy the cheerful, buoyant, and happy frame of mind. The man of much knowledge and experience, inured to reflection and the handling of evidence, with habits of submission to proof, carries his tone of rational conviction a considerable way into the region of probability, reclaiming a larger track from the domain where the feeling of the moment gives the cue ; but in this, as in other things, there is only an approximation to the absolutely perfect. The soldier in a campaign, cherishing and enjoying life, is unmoved by the probability of being soon cut off. If he still continues to act in every respect as if destined to a good old age, in spite of the perils of the field, his conviction is purely 548 BELIEF. a quality of his temperament, and will be much less strong at those moments when hunger and fatigue have depressed his frame, or when the sight of dying and dead men has made him tremble with awe. I formerly quoted a happy expression of Arthur Helps, ‘ where you know nothing, place terrors but, given the sanguine, buoyant, and courageous tempera¬ ment — given youth, spirits, and intoxication — given a career of prosperity and success — and where you know nothing, you will place high hopes. Under this hypothesis of no positive evidence, elevation of tone and belief of good to come, are the same fact. Where the acquired trust in evidence does not find its way in any degree, belief is no other than happy emotion. Ply the resources that sustain the bright class of feelings, and you sustain a man’s trust in the favourable view of the unknown ; let the system sink down to nervous and mental depression, and hope passes to despondency. The con¬ dition of belief thus has two great opposite poles, Evidence and Feeling. The nature of the subject, and the character of the individual mind, determine which is to predominate ; but in this life of ours, neither is the exclusive master. 18. There are various other points of the present subject that must be despatched with a brief notice, although some of them are worthy of a more extended illustration. Belief in Testimony contains all the elements of intuition, experience, and emotion, in varying degrees. We are disposed to accept as true in the first instance whatever we are told to act upon, until we incur the shock of an opposing experience. After many trials, we ascertain the persons whose testimony exposes us to no collision with fact ; the intuitive tendency to believe is in ‘their case consolidated by repetition into a strong assurance. So far the case of testimony, therefore, is in no Tespect different from any other mode of deriving conviction from the actual facts of the world. But there is in testimony an additional source of influence, arising from the peculiar force exerted by one man upon another. All those circum¬ stances that lend impressiveness to a speaker, and render the orator an artist, dispose the hearers to accept his statements HOPE. 549 with more than the deference due to the mere testimony of a single person. Emotion here exercises an interference of its own kind. In like manner, the loud asseveration of a multi¬ tude operates beyond its intrinsic worth, by virtue of an emo¬ tional ascendancy. 19. There can be now little difficulty in comprehending the agency of Desire in producing conviction. When anything strongly excites our feelings, making us long for the full possession of it, the mind is so much under the sway of the emotion as to suffer the blinding effect peculiar to such a situation. We then refuse to entertain the obstacles in the way of our desire, and eagerly embrace every view and appear¬ ance favourable to our wishes. Such is the tendency of any intense longing, and such is the result in a mind not strongly disciplined to hunt out all sides of a question, in spite of the feelings. Desire may, however, be accompanied with even unreasonable doubt as to success ; the tone and temper of the individual being unduly depressed, as at other times too much elated. 20. Hope is the well-known name for belief in some con¬ tingent future bringing good. Whatever object intensely pleases us, is thought of by us ; and if the mere idea is not all-satisfying, the reality is desired. There may be as yet nothing of the nature of a conviction. When an event happens to put this object wilhin reach, so that we have only to put forth some effort of our own to attain it, or to wait a certain time, at the lapse of which we shall possess it, the state of belief is generated. We then make the effort with the same ardour as we perform any voluntary act under imme¬ diate realization of the end, and we already enjoy in foretaste the full fruition. The hard-worked official, with no prospect of liberation, has a certain gloomy satisfaction in merely con¬ ceiving a holiday. He may allow himself to fall into the state of desire with imaginary gratification, and rehearse in his mind all the delights that he would follow out if he had the reality. But let him be told by authority, that on the execution of a certain task he shall gain a release, he, believing 550 BELIEF. this declaration, proceeds to the work with the alacrity of a person gaining at every moment the very sensations of the future. Or let him be told simply that on a certain day he shall he set free, and instantly the ideal picture brightens, and he feels already as if he began to realize what he has just been imagining. If, instead of a promise on good authority, he has merely a surmise with some probability, he makes very little progress towards the elated tone of full realization. The strong desire and the sanguine temper may make up to him for the want of unexceptionable evidence ; but in either way, the transition from a mere imagined delight to the elation corresponding to a reality in hand, is the measure of the power of belief. The opposite condition is usually named fear ; the proper title is Despondency, of which the highest degree is Despair. The belief in approaching evil is an unhinging and depressing condition of mind, as the belief in approaching good causes a joyous elation. Likewise, as the joyful mood, already in existence, disposes to that confidence of good on the way constituting Hope, so a mind depressed from any cause is dis¬ posed to the belief in coming evil. The exhaustion of long watching by a sick bed is unfavourable to a hopeful view of the patient ; whence the advent of the physician is a moral support to an afflicted household. The perturbation of fear is related to despondency, only as being a depressing agency. The one state passes into the other through this community of character. 21. Faith, in the religious sense, is mainly supplied from the fountains of human feeling, and is, in fact, cherished as itself a mode of consoling, cheering, and elating emotion. Direct experience can have but little to do with the subject- matter of spiritual essences. Testimony, and the accordance of fellow-beings, may go far to stir up the state of confidence in a present, presiding, and benignant Deity, and in a state of future blessedness. Nevertheless, the culture of strong feelings and affections must ever be the main instrumentality of gaining the comfort of such assurances. Religious truth cannot, there- RELIGIOUS FAITH. 551 fore, be imparted, as has sometimes been supposed, by an intellectual medium of verbal exposition and theological demonstration. Being an affair of the feelings, a method must be sought adapted to heighten the intensity of these. As in other things, the belief here also may refer to the side of evil, and consist in realizing strongly the threatenings of future misery. The terms ‘ faith ’ and ‘ believer,’ are com¬ monly used to express the comforting aspect of religion, but the fact of belief is as much exemplified in the opposite side. The strongest conviction there is what casts on the mind the deepest gloom. 22. It remains to consider the line of demarcation between belief and mere conceptions involving no belief — there being instances where the one seems to shade into the other. It seems to me impossible to draw this line without referring to action, as the only test, and the essential import of the state of conviction. Even in cases the farthest removed in appear¬ ance from any actions of ours, there is no other criterion. We believe a great many truths respecting the world, in the shape of general propositions, scientific statements, affirmations on testimony, &c., which are so much beyond our own little sphere that we can rarely have occasion to involve them in our own procedure, or to feel any hopeful elation on their account. We likewise give credit to innumerable events of past history, although the greater number of them have never any conse¬ quences as regards ourselves. Yet, notwithstanding such remoteness of interest, the criterion assigned in this chapter must hold ; otherwise there is no real conviction in any one instance. Every one recognises the old distinction of potentiality and actuality ( posse and esse ) as a true account of two states of mind that we practically assume. Besides actually doing a thing, we know what it is to be in an attitude or disposition of preparedness to act, before the emergency has arisen, or while the emergency is still at a distance and uncertain. When 1 say, if ever I go to America I will visit Niagara, I have put myself into an ideal attitude, perhaps never to be realized. 552 BELIEF. but still existing as a fact or phenomenon of my mind. So it is with a proposition that I believe in, although without any actual prospect of founding action, or staking my welfare, upon it. When I believe in the circumference of the earth being twenty-five thousand miles, if I am not repeating an empty sound, or indulging an idle conception, I give it out that if any occasion shall arise for putting this fact in practice, I am ready to do so. If I were appointed to circumnavigate the globe, I should commit myself to this reckoning. If I were to walk due east, from one meridian of longitude to another, I should take all the consequences of the same computation. If there were any hesitation in my mind as to running those risks, my alleged belief would be proved hollow, no matter how often I may have heard the statement, or repeated it, with acquiescence. In truth, the genuineness of a conviction is notoriously open to question, until an opportunity for acting presents itself. Is not this alone sufficient to show the sound¬ ness of the criterion that I have insisted on throughout this discussion ? Very often we deceive ourselves and others on the point — whether we are in full potentiality or preparedness in some matter of truth or falsehood. There is a very large amount of blind acquiescence, or tacit acceptance, of proposi¬ tions, which never become the subject of any real or practical stake. These pseudo-convictions, beliefs falsely so called, con¬ fuse the line of demarcation now spoken of, and seemingly constitute cases where no element beyond a mere intellectual notion is certainly present. Such is the acceptance that the unthinking multitude give to the statements about things that they are accustomed to hear from the better- informed class. They do not dispute or disbelieve what passes current respecting the facts of science or the transactions of history ; much of it they do not understand ; yet as they would not of their own accord commit any serious interest to such state¬ ments, they have no belief in the proper sense of the word. Nearly the same may be said as to the state of belief in the religious creed that has come down by tradition from parent to child. Some are found believing in the full import of the BELIEF IN MATTERS REMOTE FROM ACTION. term ; others, opposing no negative in any way, yet never perform any actions, or entertain either hopes or fears, as a consequence of their supposed acceptance of the religion of their fathers. To all intents and purposes, therefore, the belief of these persons is a nonentity. 23. Within the last few years, astronomers have been able to measure the distances of a number of the fixed stars. The distances so ascertained are believed in by all who are satisfied of the methods pursued for this end, yet it would not be easy to reduce this belief directly to the criterion of action, as in the case of the magnitude of the earth. We shall never make the actual journey to Sirius or any of the others, or stake anjr interest of ours upon the computations relative to those stars. Nevertheless, the belief may still be shown in the last resort to have the criterion that 1 have contended for; inasmuch as the same observations and calculations that we ground action upon on this earth are applied to the new case. It is an instance of belief, if I maintain that, supposing Sirius a sphere, his cir¬ cumference is somewhat more than three times his diameter. I shall never have to proceed upon that affirmation respecting him, but as I am constantly proceeding upon the same affirmation regarding spheres and circles, it is right to say that my belief, in the case removed from any possible action of mine, is still measured by action. My conviction of the events of bygone centuries is nearly in the same predicament. I may show my belief in the history of the Homan empire by using those events as experience to found political maxims upon, which maxims I apply to the conduct of such present affairs as I may have any hand in. Here the criterion of action is unequivocal. But supposing I make no such appli¬ cation of these recorded events, i may still show my belief in them by acting upon precisely the same kind of evidence — namely, that of testimony preserved by written documents — with regard to recent events. 1 read the history of Napoleon’s wars, and travel over Europe, expecting to encounter the fields and the monuments of all the great battles ; so, when I con¬ sider that a like strength of testimony exists with reference to 554 BELIEF. the wars of the Boman republic, I may be fairly said to be in the state of belief on the subject of those wars, although I do not take any proceedings thereupon. 24. The last case to be noticed is the belief in our own sensations, present or past. It is common to say, that I cannot have a sensation without believing that I have that sensation, which belief seems to grow out of the consciousness, and not to involve any action. In point of fact, however, wTe are constantly acting upon our sensations, as when we avoid the painful and cherish the pleasurable. The spectator relies upon my actions as the surest evidence of my sensations. If I am thirsty, I may say that I believe myself to be thirsty, because I act accordingly. I cannot assure myself, or any other person, that I am not under a dream, an imagination, or a hallucination, in any other way than by a course of voluntary exertion corresponding to the supposed sensation. And when I affirm that I was thirsty yesterday, it is supposed that I am prepared to act out that supposition also ; as when I make it the basis of an inference that I shall be thirsty on some future day, and use means to provide for that emergency. When no action can be indicated as directly or indirectly following on the affirmation, the belief in it may be still held as genuine, if I feel in the same way to it as I do towards those sensations that I am ready to act upon. I believe that I yesterday ran up against a wall to keep out of the way of a carriage. 1 have no disposition to do anything in consequence of that conviction ; yet I call it a conviction, and not a mere notion, because I am affected by it in the same way as I am by another recollection that I do act upon. I feel that if there were any likelihood of being jammed up in that spot again, I should not go that way if I could help it, which is quite enough to show that, in believing my memory, I have still a reference to action, more or less remote. CONSCIOUSNESS. 1. T HAVE reserved for a closing dissertation the subject of Consciousness as a whole, being of opinion that the subtleties and complications involved in it demand, as a pre¬ paration, a survey of the detailed phenomena of the mind. 1 assumed at the outset a provisional definition, but it would have been inexpedient, at so early a stage, to enter into a dis¬ cussion of various problems of deep importance that have been suspended upon that term. To clear up the most diffi¬ cult of all general notions, without first providing an adequate array of particulars, I look upon as hopeless. As a preface to the systematic exposition of the subject, let us first gather together the various acceptations of the word in current speech. A scientific definition is not to be con¬ trolled by unscientific us ge ; but at the same time we must, for the sake of being intelligible, keep as closely as we can to the meanings that have obtained currency. We want to make those meanings precise, so far as that is possible; where that is not possible, we may then have to adopt a new phraseology. (1.) Consciousness is a term for the waking, living mind as distinguished from dreamless sleep, fainting, insensibility, stupor, anaesthesia, death. The total cessation of every mental energy is expressed by unconsciousness, among other phrases. In reviving or becoming awake to sensation, emotion, idea, or voluntary action, we are said to become again conscious. The term is thus identified with the whole range of functions in¬ cluded under mind.* * ‘ The meaning of a word is sometimes best attained by means of the word opposed to it. Unconsciousness, that is, the want or absence of con¬ sciousness, denotes the suspension of all our faculties. Consciousness, then, is 556 CONSCIOUSNESS. (2.) Our feelings of pain and pleasure are recognised more especially as modes of consciousness. If we are unconscious, there is a complete negative both of the one state and of the other. There are some operations truly mental, that may be performed while we are affirmed to be unconscious of them ; but unconsciousness utterly excludes pain and pleasure. Pain is perhaps the most intense and decided manifestation of consciousness. The excitement of the brain is at the maxi¬ mum under irritation, or suffering. According to the degree of either pain or pleasure, is the degree of feeling, or con¬ sciousness. When we are strongly excited about a thing, without refer¬ ence to pleasure or pain, we may be described as in a highly conscious condition. The mental function is, for the time being, exalted into unusual energy. I may be very languid, indifferent, or sleepy, over a task, or in presence of a spectacle ; another person may be animated, excited, roused ; I am declared to be scarcely conscious, half asleep, or the like ; the other is more than ordinarily alive, awake, conscious. The meanings now given — namely, pain, pleasure, and excitement generally — correspond to the mental department of Feeling. (3.) Attending, observing, noticing, in opposition to passing by unheeded, is often characterized by the name consciousness. The clock strikes, and a person sitting near is not aware of it. I survey the objects in a room, but it afterwards appears that several things, whose picture must have fallen on my retina, have not been recognised by me. It is common to call these facts, being unconscious. They and their opposites, are, how¬ ever, still better described by the other terms, inattentive and attentive, observant, noticing, and the like. With reference the state in which we are when all or any of our faculties are in exercise. It is the condition or accompaniment of every mental operation.’ — Professor Fleming's Vocabulary of Philosophy, Art. ‘ Consciousness.’ The concluding sentence quoted is not in harmony with those preceding. We cannot properly describe as the condition of a thing what is the thing itself, conceived and denominated in its highest generality. MEANINGS OF THE TERM. 557 to the special senses, we might say that we did, or did not, hear, see, &c. ; or that we did not perceive the effect, or object, in question. (4.) The taking note of difference or agreement among things. People often say they are not conscious of a distinction between two tints, two sounds, two sizes, two persons, &c. So we may be unconscious of agreement, or similarity, in two things that are like. This meaning can be otherwise expressed by saying that the difference is not felt or perceived, that it does not strike ns, and so on. An increase of knowledge respecting some matter is not uncommonly described by the term before us. Some one tells me that he remembers in former days having periods of bodily and mental depression, the cause of which he was then unconscious of, having found out since that the effect was due to the east wind. (5.) A passive, contemplative, dreaming, indolent exist¬ ence, as contrasted with the active pursuit of some outward and tangible object, is spoken of as an over-conscious life. I have already had occasion to remark, that the attitude of objectivity suspends or arrests, to a certain degree, the stream of feelings and thoughts, having thereby an anaesthetic ten¬ dency. The absence of aim leaves the mind a prey to its own inward activity, or occupation with mere ideas, apart from present sensations or actualities. (6.) Consciousness is put in opposition to latent trains of thought, and to actions that bv habit become so mechanical as to be compared with our reflex movements. A rapid intellect, unaccustomed to note the succession of its own thoughts, arrives at remote results, without being able to reproduce the intermediate stages. Something of this is attributed to Newton, who, in the demonstrations of the Principia, leaves wide gaps to be supplied by the mind of the reader. It is thought doubtful if he would have been able himself to quote the intermediate reasonings, unless by an express effort of study. In that last consummation of the acquired habits, when a person can carry on an operation 558 CONSCIOUSNESS. while the mind is engrossed with something else, we not un- frequently say that the performance is nearly, if not entirely, unconscious. At all events, wTide is the distinction between the state of the beginner, whose whole mind is painfully con¬ centrated upon his first lessons, and the experienced workman whose mind is almost entirely at his disposal for other things. The change may be represented as a transition from intense consciousness to something not far off from total un¬ consciousness. Compare the child’s earliest attempts at a sum, with the arithmetical processes of an experienced ac¬ countant. (7.) One man acts out spontaneous and unthinking im¬ pulses, careless and heedless of the result, or the manner of acting, while another is anxious both as to the result and the manner. The difference is described as a less or greater degree of consciousness. If I fire a shot at random, not troubling myself where the ball is to strike, I exemplify the quality in its faint degree. If 1 have a mark before my eyes, and gaze steadily upon that with intent to strike it, I may be said to be more conscious. If, in addition, I have in my mind certain rules or directions for the attitude I am to as¬ sume, and the manner of holding, my piece, so as to be ob¬ servant of my own motions and postures, I am then most conscious of all. It is a practice of some writers to lavish great praise upon actions unencumbered with the thinking of rules, models, or guidance, in the manner of them ; and, in styling this last accompaniment being ‘ conscious,’ they imply a reproach. Nobody denies that it is better if one can work without burdening the attention with the consideration of rules ; the only question is what is requisite to have the work well done. The usual course is obviously that men¬ tioned in the foregoing paragraph, to begin in the one predi¬ cament, and end in the other ; and to stigmatize a recruit at his first day’s drill, because he is intensely conscious, is mere childish absurdity. (8.) It is partly a variety of the same idea when self- examination as to one’s motives, merits, guilt, or innocence, CONSIDERATION OF SELF. 559 is designated consciousness. A man not only acts, but insti¬ tutes a study of his actions and motives, by comparing them with such and such examples, standards, or rules. We now approach, however, more and more closely to the most special acceptation of the term, namely, the occupation of the intellect with oneself as a subject of consideration or study. (9.) The indulgence of the emotions that have self for their object is a case for the employment of the same word. The state of self-complacency, or the opposite ; the thinking of how we appear in the eyes of others, the hunting for appro¬ bation, the mixing up with an operation the view of our own demeanour or merit in it, — are to be conscious in one pre¬ valent meaning of the word. A person little given to any one of these emotions, not entertaining them as ends or intruding them into the common business of life, is occa¬ sionally described as little conscious. (10.) The three last meanings brings me to the definition of consciousness that has been adopted by many of the writers on the human mind. Let me quote from Dugald Stewart, ‘This word denotes the immediate knowledge which the mind has of its sensations and thoughts, and, in general, ot all its present operations’ (see in Fleming's Vocabulary of Philosophy a number of quotations tn the same effect). The study of the human mind is thus said to be an affair of consciousness ; im¬ plying that the study of the external world does not involve the same property. I shall have to animadvert upon this presently. (11.) Certain of our beliefs, termed intuitive, are said to be grounded on our consciousness. This also is a signification peculiar to the science of the human mind, and the meta¬ physical doctrines mixed up with it. Here, however, there is clearly a step in advance upon the definition last quoted; for the mere cognition of our own mental processes does not contain the knowledge involved in those intuitive judgments. When Stewart says, — The changes which I perceive in the universe impress me with a conviction that some cause must have operated to produce them. Here is an intuitive 560 CONSCIOUSNESS. judgment involving the simple idea of causation ’ — he points to something beyond the mere study of the mental operations. It is impossible, by ever so much attention to the phenomena of my own mind, to gather information as to the order of events in the so-called external universe. The best that we can hope for, is to attain a thorough knowledge of our own mental life. It is, therefore, something new and distinct to say that consciousness affirms such judgments as that now quoted. And even as regards certain theories of the mind, such as the liberty of the will, and an innate moral sense, I have lately had to show that something more than a simple act of consciousness at any one moment is requisite. (12.) It is a natural transition from the foregoing to attach the meaning of Belief generally to the word consciousness. A strong affirmation is now and then expressed by the phrase being conscious of so and so. It is not difficult to show how the term in question has extended itself to signify belief. It is the strong instinctive tendency of our nature to believe a number of things, before we have gone through any large ‘teachings of experience. The believing function is a pro¬ minent attribute of mental activity. We are scarcely able to feel or act without 'the operation of belief, or without making assumptions in anticipation of the reality. We believe first, and prove or disprove afterwards. Far from denying intuitive judgments and assertions to be an original and spontaneous emanation of the mind, I admit that the mind generates them in great profusion ; I only refuse to them validity, certainty, or authority, in the absence of good positive evidence. (13.) Lastly, Memory is occasionally denoted by the same term consciousness. We say, when we do not remember something that has happened, we are not conscious of its having taken place. The connexion of the two meanings is an explicable one, for in order to an abiding and future impression of an object, it is necessary that the first impres¬ sion should be distinctly conscious, or should fully engross the waking mind for a certain time. If a sound falls unheeded upon my ear, it is only the natural consequence that I should PERVADING IDEA ATTACHED TO THE TERM. 561 not afterwards possess an idea of it. What I remember vividly in after times are those things that have, in their original shock, excited and engrossed me for a considerable period to the exclusion of all else. 2. Such is a tolerably complete enumeration of the signi¬ ficant ideas attached to the name in question. There is a general drift or tendency common to them all. Nevertheless we may class them under distinct heads, inasmuch as there are one or two very decided departures from what is evidently the primitive and radical signification. First, the capital and pervading idea is the one that we commenced with, of which those that follow as far as the seventh, with the exception of the fifth, are mere ramifi¬ cations. The word consciousness is identical with mental life, and its various energies, as distinguished from the mere vegetable functions, the condition of sleep, torpor, insen¬ sibility, &c. Anything that renders the mental activity more intense, that increases the whirl of the brain (such as feelings of pain and pleasure, mental engrossment with a subject, rapid flow of imagery and ideas) is designated by the positive term ; the absence, or the lower shades, are expressed by the negative, or unconsciousness. The act of attending as against listlessness is simply a more intense exercise of the mental functions. Even that more peculiar signification — the obser¬ vation of rules, examples, &c., in contradistinction to mere unthinking impulse, is really a branch of the same meaning, as implicating a larger amount of mental activity in the case. The more considerations I bring to bear upon a parti¬ cular action, the more conscious may I be said to be. My mind is wakened up in a greater number of directions ; the brain is more heavily taxed, and the ideas that remain will be all the more vivid. Consciousness is thus co-extensive with mental life, and is expressed more or less strongly as that life is considered to rise or fall in degree. Secondly, there are certain of the meanings (5, 8, 9, 10), pointing to the occupation of the mind with itself, in contrast to being occupied with the object world. The relation of this 2 n 562 CONSCIOUSNESS. to the principal signification is not difficult to explain. We have formerly had occasion, more especially with reference to Pursuit and Plot interest, to advert to the anaesthetic character of the object regards. It is in the remission of those regards, that feeling, and other states of the eg o, attain their full development. Even Pleasure and Pain are in abeyance during a moment of intense objectivity, as in aiming a blow or in watching a race. A nice question is thereupon suggested — Are we conscious in any shape when engaged exclusively upon the object world ? It seems to me that we are, and I have called this the object-consciousness, to distinguish it from the elements of the subject-consciousness. The only other important restriction of the meaning of the word consciousness is the employment of it to signify Belief. Most disastrous have been the effects of this limita¬ tion. People have been thereby led to suppose not only that the human mind evolves beliefs of its own accord without refe¬ rence to, or in anticipation of, actual trial (which is very true) ; but that these beliefs carry their own evidence with them, and dispense with the confirmation of experience — -which is a different proposition, noway admissible. The term conscious¬ ness has been the medium for playing off this piece of jug¬ glery. There being one acceptation wherein the name means the final criterion of knowledge, the credit due to that is trans¬ ferred to a number of cases where the meaning is entirely changed. Let us once dismiss this equivocation, and we shall come face to face with the realities of the questions that con¬ cern human knowledge, belief, and certainty. (See also Ap¬ pendix, D.) Having thus surveyed the common acceptations of the term in dispute, and commented upon the shifting quicksands introduced by means of it into philosophy, I shall now proceed in a more systematic way to the consideration of the entire subject brought into view by its employment. CHARACTERS OF NEUTRAL EXCITEMENT. 563 CONSCIOUSNESS AS FEELING. 1. The Passive States. 3. That we are conscious when under Pleasure or Pain is admitted on all hands. These are our states of feeling by pre-eminence. I have always contended, in addition, for the existence of states of Neutral excitement, where we are mentally alive, and, it may he, to an intense degree. Perhaps the best example of these is the excitement of a surprise. There are pleasurable, and also painful, surprises, hut there are many that are neither ; and yet they are genuine emotions. And even our emotions that have pleasure or pain for their usual character, often pass into neutral phases without dis¬ appearing, or ceasing to operate as mental excitement. I may be under an attack of fear, and something may occur that takes away the painful part of the state, hut I am not thereby restored to the quiescent indifference that preceded the shock. So our moments of pleasurable elation very often lose the element of delight, long before the system subsides into the condition of perfect calm. We feel mentally alive on all those occasions, but neither enjoy nor suffer. Again, neutral excitement has its emotional wave, or dif¬ fusion, as much as the other kinds. The shock of a surprise causes an animated expression and stir of movements and gestures, which are very much the same whether we are pleased or otherwise. When the tremor of a great excitement is thoroughly roused, the system continues to be agitated with it for a length of time, no matter whether wre like it or not. The inward or conscious condition is allied with the corres¬ ponding outward embodiment, and the two are sustained together. Whence the physical characters or expression, which are the natural accompaniment of an emotional wave, show themselves in connexion wTith the neutral, as well as with the pleasing, or painful. Next it is to be noted that as regards the occupying of the mind, to the shutting out of other states, the neutral sort of 564 CONSCIOUSNESS. excitement avails quite as much as pain or pleasure. Under any kind of stimulation we are mentally roused up and en¬ grossed, and so much the less open to subsequent impressions. A stimulation, in itself indifferent as regards enjoyment, may indirectly contribute to our pleasure by displacing a painful mode of occupation, and, on the other hand, it may prevent us from falling under a real pleasure. The mind can thus be taken up with what is neither agreeable nor disagree¬ able, and it may be a matter of difficulty to find room for any object possessing one or other of these qualities. 4. Further, the wave of neutral excitement has an efficacy as regards the intellect, which should by no means be omitted as a positive characteristic. It is not merely pleasure and pain that keep the mind alive to intellectual impressions, and deepen the stamp of them for after times ; the state now before us has the very same power. An object that can strike, us with surprise, raises around it a condition of the brain so active as to retain the impression to the exclusion of other objects. We speak of rousing the attention to a particular thing, which does not imply necessarily either suffering or delight, but merely a degree of mental animation. The astro¬ nomer, Tycho, walking out one evening, came upon a group of persons gazing on a new star. They were arrested and detained by the emotion of surprise ; they could not quit the thing that had so powerfully wakened their attention. We cannot say whether they were pained or pleased ; they may have passed through moments of both the one condition and the other. Such moments, however, would be accidental to the occasion ; what was essential was the excited detention of the gaze, resulting in a proportionate depth of enduring impres¬ sion of the object that gave the surprise. All through life the remembrance of that night would probably be fresh. Without either sensibly adding to their happiness, or causing them misery, the new star would occasionally recur to their recollec¬ tion, and occupy the mental trains and determine the mental attitude for a certain time, as did the original on the night of first breaking on their view. They might rise to the pleasur- CONSCIOUSNESS OF ACTIVITY. 565 able pitch of the state of wonder, or they might experience some of the pains of terror, but without either there would be an emotion roused, and an impression engrained. 2. The Active States. 5. I have frequently spoken of the consciousness of energy put forth as the basis of the objective attitude, the medium of cognising Extension, Force, and the other attributes of the so-called External World. This does not involve pleasure or pain ; there may be pleasures and pains of exercise, but the mind, when given up to these, has lapsed into a purely sub¬ ject condition. It is a kind of neutral excitement, having for its speciality the feeling of degrees of expended energy ; to which is added, in the cognition of the Extended Universe, a vast range of associations of potential or possible energy. THE INTELLECTUAL CONSCIOUSNESS.* 6. The gravamen of the present subject centres in the in¬ tellectual aspect of consciousness. There is a great transition made in passing from the emotional to the intellectual ; and no small difficulty is experienced in determining, on the one hand, the common groundwork, and, on the other, the special peculiarities of the two. As suggested by Sir William ITaniil- * The Volitional Consciousness. It might be expected on some show of plausibility, that a characteristic form of consciousness should attach to Voli¬ tion, as well as to the two other departments of mind, where a marked antithesis exists. It is not so, however. The modes of consciousness growing up in the course of voluntary action are fully described as either emotional or intellectual. We have, in the first place, all the pleasures and pains con¬ nected with the exercise of the active organs, with the pursuit of ends, with desire, and the opposite. There are, further, states of excitement and occu¬ pation of mind without either pain or pleasure. Then, again, as to the appreciation of degrees of expended energy, whereon are based the sense of weight, resistance, force, extension, rate of movement, &c. ; these are varieties of the intellectual consciousness. The states of Deliberation, Desolation, Desire, Belief, wherein the volitional impetus is under arrest, are states of ideal exertion. 566 CONSCIOUSNESS. ton, there is often an inverse relationship, or mutual exclusion, one of the other. We are mentally alive while engaged in intellectual operations, and yet, as regards pleasure or pain, we may be in a state of indifference. What is there then that can he a common foundation of two mental modes whose extreme manifestations diverge to opposite poles ? At wThat point do the two pass into one another, supposing them to shade gradually, or where is the abrupt separation on the contrary supposition ? The bridge is to be found in that pro¬ perty of neutral excitement just explained. Sense of Difference. 7. As more than once expressly stated in former parts of our exposition (Intellect, Introduction) the basis or funda¬ mental peculiarity of the intellect is Discrimination, or the feeling of difference between consecutive, or co-existing, im¬ pressions. Nothing more fundamental can possibly be assigned as the defining mark of intelligence, and emotion itself does not necessarily imply any such property. When I am dif¬ ferently affected by two colours, two sounds, twm odours, two weights, or by a taste as compared with a touch or a sound, I am intellectually conscious. By such distinctiveness of feeling am I prepared, in the first instance, for imbibing that various experience implied in the term knowledge, and essential even to the lowest forms of voluntary action. There need be nothing of the agreeable or the disagreeable in this discrimi¬ native sensibility ; pleasure and pain in this connexion are mere accidents, and not essentials. The fact that I am dif¬ ferently affected by blue and red, by the bark of a dog, and the crowing of a cock, may be accompanied with pleasure, but the mental phenomenon is there in all its fulness, in the absence alike of pleasure and pain. We are awake, alive, mentally alert, under the discriminative exercise, and accord¬ ingly may be said to be conscious. The point is to connect, if possible, this new mode of consciousness with what is certainly the broad typical form of it represented by emotion. CHANGE OF IMPRESSION ESSENTIA!,. 567 8. It is a general law of the mental constitution, more or less recognised by inquirers into the human mind,* that change of impression is essential to consciousness in every form. This is the Law of Relativity so often alluded to in the present work. There are notable examples to show that one unvarying action upon the senses fails to give any per¬ ception whatever. Take the motion of the earth about its axis, and through space, whereby we are whirled with immense volocity, but at a uniform pace, being utterly insensible of the circumstance. So in a ship at sea, we may be under the same insensibility, whereas in a carriage we never lose the feeling of being moved. The explanation is obvious. It is the change from rest to motion that wakens our sensibility, and conversely from motion to rest. A uniform condition, as respects either state, is devoid of any quickening influence on the mind. Another illustration is supplied by tire pressure or the air on the surface of body. Here we have an exceedingly powerful effect upon one of the special senses. The skin is under an influence exactly of that nature that wakens the feeling of touch, but no feeling comes. Withdraw any por¬ tion of the pressure, as in mounting in a balloon, and sensi- * ‘ Sense, therefore, properly so called, must necessarily have in it a per¬ petual variety of phantasms, that they may be discerned one from another. For if we should suppose a man to he made with clear eyes, and all the rest of his organs of sight well-disposed, but endued with no other 3ense ; and that he should look only upon one thing, which is always of the same colour and figure, without the least appearance of variety, he would seem to me, what¬ soever others may say, to see, no more than I seem to myself to feel the bones of my own limbs by my organs of feeling ; and yet these bones are always and on all sides touched by a most sensible membrane. I might perhaps say he was astonished (?) and looked upon it ; but I should not say he saw it ; it being almost all one for a man to be always sensible of one and the same thing and not to be sensible at all of anything.' ‘ For seeing the nature of sense consists in motion ; as long as the organs are employed about one object, they cannot be so moved by another at the same time, as to make by both their motions one sincere phantasm of each of them at once. And therefore two several phantasms will not be made by two objects working together, but only one phantasm compounded from the action of both.' — Hobbes, Elements of Philosophy, Body, Chap. XXV. Secs. 5, 6. 568 CONSCIOUSNESS. bility is developed. A constant impression is thus, to the mind, the same as a blank. Our partial unconsciousness as to our clothing is connected with the constancy of the object. The smallest change at any time makes us sensible, or awake, to the contact. If there were some one sound of unvarying tone and unremitted continuance, falling on the ear from the first moment of life to the last, we should be as unconscious of the existence of that influence as we are of the pressure of the air. Such a sonorous agency would utterly escape the knowledge of mankind, until, as in the other case, some accident, or some discovery in experimental philosophy, had enabled them to suspend, or change the degree of, the impres¬ sion made by it. Except under special circumstances, we are unconscious of our own weight, which fact nevertheless can never be absent. It is thus that agencies might exist without being perceived ; remission or change being a primary condi¬ tion of our sensibility. It might seem somewhat difficult to imagine us altogether insensitive to such an influence as light and colour ; and yet if some one hue had been present on the retina from the commencement of life, we should incontestably have been blind as far as that was concerned.* * To pursue the illustration of this important theme a little farther. The mountain sheep is entirely destitute of those respiratory pleasures and pains familiar to human beings, who spend their time partly in the confined air of houses, and partly out of doors. It is the transition that developes at one time the oppressive sensation of closeness, and at another time the exhilaration of fresh air. The animal whose days and nights are spent alike on the mountain or the plain has no experience of confined air, and therefore no sense of a pure atmosphere. This does not debar the animal from the good effects following from uninterrupted purity of respiration, as regards its general health, hut it prevents the possibility of any consciousness growing out of respiratory action in the manner familiar to us. Again, the fishes in the tropical seas are without the sensation of warmth. Living in an invariable temperature, the sensibility of that temperature is dormant for want of varying the experience by a greater or a less. Never to feel cold is never to feel heat; a transition from one grade to another is indispensable to consciousness. In like manner, sightless animals, whom our imagination pictures as living in the gloom of deepest midnight, in reality have no sense of darkness as we understand it. It is the loss of light, or of the power of vision, that makes the dark ; the INTELLECTUAL CONSCIOUSNESS A SURPRISE. 569 9. Considering, then, that change is indispensable to our sensibility, let us see how we are likely to be affected in passing from one impression to another. Suppose a person in darkness, and suddenly exposed to the light. How shall we describe the way that the new influence is likely to affect the cerebral and mental system ? Putting pleasure or pain out of the account, as a mere accident, might we not fairly call the effect a shock, start, or surprise, and would not this have very tenants of the Mammoth cave of Kentucky, where no ray of light ever entered, know nothing of darkness. We have repeatedly seen pleasures depending for their existence on previous pains, and pains on pleasures experienced or conceived. Such are the contrasting states of Liberty and Restraint, Power and Impotence. Many pleasures owe their effect as such to mere cessation. For example, the plea¬ sures of exercise do not need to be preceded by pain ; it is enough that there has been a certain intermission, coupled with the nourishment of the ex¬ hausted parts. These are of course our best pleasures. By means of this class, we might have a life of enjoyment without pain; although, in fact, the other is more or less mixed up in every one’s experience. Exercise, Repose, the pleasures of the different Senses and Emotions might be made to alternate, so as to give a constant succession of pleasure, each being sufficiently dormant, during the exercise of the others, to reanimate the consciousness when its turn comes. It also happens that some of those modes of delight are increased, by being preceded by a certain amount of a painful opposite. Thus confinement adds to the pleasure of exercise, and protracted exertion to that of repose ; fasting increases the enjoyment of meals, and being much chilled prepares us for a higher zest in the accession of warmth. It is not necessary, however, in those cases that the privation should amount to positive pain, in order to the existence of the pleasure. The enjoyment of food may be experienced, although the previous hunger may not be in any ways painful ; at all events, with no more pain than the certainty of the coming meal can effectually appease. The pleasures of warmth may count for a share of one’s enjoyment, without being alternated with such degrees of cold as to amount to positive suffering ; this is the case, in all probability, with the majority of healthy persons enjoying the means of warmth, although there are instances wherein the pains of chillness preponderate. There is still another class of our delights depending entirely upon previous suffering, as in the sudden cessation of acute pains, or the sudden relief from great depression. Here the rebojund from one nervous condition to another, is a stimulant of positive pleasure ; constituting a small, but altogether inadequate, compensation for the prior misery. The pleasurable sensation of good health presupposes the opposite experience in a still larger measure. Uninterrupted health, although an instrumentality for working out many enjoyments, of itself gives no sensation. 570 CONSCIOUSNESS. much the character of a neutral emotion? We cannot well regard the sudden stroke as a mere agitation of a limited corner of the brain, called the ganglion of vision, or by any other name. I should rather say that there would be a free diffusive influence over the cerebral mass, or a pervading cere¬ bral embodiment, showing itself in the more extreme cases by a lively demonstration. We know, as an experimental fact, that the loss of the cerebral hemispheres leads to blindness, in common with the deprivation of every other form of con¬ sciousness. Does not this indicate that a Luminous impression must have the cerebrum at large to diffuse itself in, in order that we may be made alive by it ? Here, then, is a common ground of the two kinds of consciousness, the emotional and the intellectual. In the shock of an impression of sense, as in the shock of an object of emotion proper, there is at first a cerebral participation, and a diffusive agency, extending to the active extremities of the body. In order to produce any effect on the senses there must be a change, and everything of the nature of change thrills through the brain as a kind of surprise. After a certain exposure to the light, the sudden withdrawal of it is a new change, and a new surprise. The gradations of colour, in passing from one object to another, are ;so many starts or surprises. Wherever we are sensitive to a difference, we must experience a species of cerebral shock as the accompaniment of the new sensation, and the greater the shock, the more alive do we become. It is in every way im¬ probable that an effect so great as to waken and engross the mental life, and remain stamped as an indelible impression, should be operated in a small locality of the brain. Such a thing would hardly be credible in itself, apart from the con¬ tradiction that experiment has given to it. Everything new that strikes us through any one of the senses, must be assumed to prompt the emotional wave, with the consequences accruing therefrom, namely, mental occupation, or detention with that peculiar impression. If I am looking for a length of time on a green surface, and suddenly turn to a red, I am, so to speak, startled, shocked, surprised, and held possessed for the time MEASURED BY INTENSITY OF TRANSITION. 571 by that one effect. Such is the intellectual consciousness, and, so viewed, the fundamental identity between it and the emotional consciousness is apparent. When feeling is divested of the accidents of pleasure and pain, and looked at in its most general form of mental excitement and diffused mani¬ festation, there is no essential point or peculiarity to distinguish it from those shocks of surprise that we must receive, in order to be conscious of any impression of sense. At one time I am engaged with objects of vision ; my attention, as it is called, is suddenly drawn away by sounds falling on the ear. The change of avenue to the brain gives a character of difference to the sensibility or the consciousness, being one of the ways of stimulating or surprising us. Like the influence charac¬ teristic of feeling generally, the change from the eye to the ear takes possession of the brain and the mind by the impetus of novelty, and the attitude now assumed remains for a cer¬ tain time, so as more or less to preclude other modes of occupying the mental organism, and to take on a certain hardening or confirming process, which enables it to persist in the future without the renewal of the outward shock. The method is precisely the same in listening to a succession of different sounds, or to the alternations of sound and silence. Every change imparts the cerebral thrill that makes us mentally alive with that one mode. Passing from acute to grave, from feeble to intense, from simplicity to complexity, from harmony to indifference, we are startled at every transi¬ tion, with only a lower degree of what happens under what is admitted on all hands to be a genuine emotion, namely, sur¬ prise, wonder, or astonishment. 10. It is a well-known fact that we are conscious, awake, made sensible, or roused to attention, just in proportion to the greatness or the abruptness of the transition that we are sub¬ jected to. This is only another mode of saying that the brain is more sharply stimulated, and more forcibly detained in the new attitude, or in the new currents, by reason of the novelty of the impression. There is a common set of phrases for de¬ scribing the emotion of wonder, or astonishment, and the 572 CONSCIOUSNESS. distinctness or impressiveness of a sensation of the senses. The clear, distinctive discrimination that we obtain of different things that strike ns, which is the very foundation of our intellectual development, is originally bred from those cerebral shocks, not improperly styled surprises. The change from an existing, to a new condition of the mind may not be very great, but if great enough to be felt at all, and to leave a mark behind it, a certain impetus or shock must cause a thrill through the cerebral system.* 11. Having thus recognised a common ground in the two great leading modes of consciousness, let us now consider the points wherein they stand contrasted with each other. There are several such points to be noted. It is incumbent on us to probe to the bottom that inverse relationship, more than once adverted to, of the emotional and the intellectual, and to reconcile it with the common foundation of the two. In the first place, then, there is an important difference of mode between feeling as pleasure or pain, and the surprises above delineated, as (although not exclusively), stamping intellectual difference. If the mind is very thoroughly alive on the point of enjoyment as such, or of pain as such, it is not in a favour¬ able state for being struck with the shades of discrimination of its feelings. Intense delight absorbs the energies of the cere¬ bral and mental system, and the only intellectual consequence arising from it is a certain impressiveness lent to the objectsthat chime in with, or contribute to, the pleasure. When feeling is strongly roused in either of the two opposites that constitute the happiness or the misery of our being, the neutral forms are # There is a wide distinction between the first shock of a difference, and the degree of excitement of the same transition at later stages of our educa¬ tion. When red and blue are first seen together, they give a start that fills the mind with an acute thrill of surprise, being to all intents and purposes a wave of emotion. At after times, the same contrast is passed over with a comparatively faint excitement, the discrimination still remaining and serving some purpose in our .economy, without rousing any shock of surprise. When red is reduced to the function of acting as a signal to perform one operation, and blue another, the emotional excitement attending their original manifes¬ tation fades away to very narrow limns. The effect then still occupies the INTELLECT AND EXCITEMENT INVERSELY RELATED. 573 thrown into the shade. A mere surprise, that has no effect to impress a difference between two feelings, is but coldly enter¬ tained at such a time. We must, to a certain extent, both forego delights, and be free from eating cares, in order to dwell largely among the neutral excitements that stamp differ¬ ence upon the mind. There is thus, upon a common mental basis, a specific difference of kind, amounting to antithesis, between the pleasurable or painful excitement and the intel¬ lectual excitement. This conclusion is not founded on any a 'priori consideration, but on an induction from facts. There is a large experience that can be interpreted in no other way. The devotion of the mind to incessant pleasure, and the incum¬ bency of misery and care, are wdiolly adverse to the general cultivation of the intellect, — a cultivation which, in the last resort, resposes on the ready sensibility of difference. The best atmosphere for a high culture is a serene condition of mind, with no more pain than is necessary to stimulate pur¬ suit, and no more pleasure than imparts an inducement to go on with life. The energy of the brain is thus reserved for the neutral stimulation that impresses every kind of difference, and in this way stores the intellect with distinct impressions. The maximum of intellectual excellence implies at once a sparing resort to pleasure, and a tolerable exemption from misery. The inverse relationship thus implied is, moreover, a confirmation of the previous doctrine of the common emo¬ tional basis. For why should the two states be to a certain mind, or is a conscious effect, but so feebly and for so short a time as to be next thing to unconscious. It is in this way, that what began as emotion and full consciousness, ends as mere discrimination and virtual indifference. Wo could never commence the act of discriminating, if we were at the outset as little excited with the difference of red and blue, as we become ultimately in using them as mere distinctive marks or signals in some every-day routine operation; and it is not fair — in fact, not true — to regard this abated and transformed manifestation as the type of primitive sensation. It is one of the effects of habit, easily traceable, to pass from the primordial excitement to the final indifferentism, that indifferentism still retaining the substantiality of discrimination. 574 CONSCIOUSNESS. extent incompatible, if they do not, to that extent, avail them¬ selves of a common cerebral diffusion ?# 12. The illustration of the points of contrast or antithesis of the emotional and the intellectual, is not complete without signalizing another circumstance. The true intellectual nature is what takes on the present sensibility and the abiding im¬ pression of difference (and resemblance) with the least emo¬ tional shock. To feel distinctly a faint transition, as of a slight gradation of tint, or a small alteration of the pitch of a sound, is tire mark of a brain discriminative by nature. On the other hand, when the consciousness is not awake, except under a very broad difference, we consider the mental consti¬ tution the opposite of intellectual. In whatever department of impressions the nicest sensibility to difference prevails, in that department will reside, in all probability, the intellectual aptitude of the individual. It may be in the delicate appre¬ ciation of degrees of muscular force, giving birth to dexterity of manual or other bodily execution ; it may be in taste or smell, so as to confer an aptitude for testing substances that affect those senses ; it may be tactile, and contribute to the * While admitting that both pleasure and pain have a certain intellectual efficacy in impressing what concerns themselves, as when a man retains a lively impression of a scene that delighted him, simply because of the delight, or of a person that injured him because of the injury, we must also admit that even a neutral excitement may sometimes stand apart from the discriminative sense of change. A stirring novelty may set me off in a fit of surprise, and yet I may very soon pass from the thing itself, and transfer the benefit of the excitement to something else. Such a transferable, or mobile excitement, is not the true intellectual species. A few hours spent in hurry, hustle, and noise, put the brain into a fever of unnatural energy, under which everything felt or done has more than ordinary power. Such a state is no more favour¬ able, in the long run, for the storing up of differences (and resemblances) than the extremes of pleasure and pain. The smart that a change of impression makes should simply sustain the currents belonging to that impression, stop¬ ping short of a general animation of the brain. It should not prevent the cessation of the wave, and the taking on of another at a short interval, the mind all the while being what would be termed perfectly cool. The stirring- up of a vague and wasting excitement, which follows on too many stimulants being applied at once, is as fatal to intellect, as pleasurable dissipation or wasting misery. DISCRIMINATION UNDER A SLIGHT SHOCK. 575 discrimination of solid substances from the texture of their surface ; it may lie in some one or other of the properties of sounds, musical or articulate ; or, finally, in the wide domain of the sense of vision. To be markedly sensitive to very minute shades of difference, or to have a distinctive conscious¬ ness under a very slight shock of change, is the first property of the intellect on any species of subject-matter. We cannot assign any fact more fundamental in the constitution of our intelligence. The laws of association, and the storing-up and engraining of various impressions, imagery, and ideas, pre¬ suppose the primitive susceptibility to every various mode or degree of primary sensations or feelings. 13. In describing the muscular sensibilities, and the sensa¬ tions of the senses, I have uniformly adverted to the intellec¬ tual or discriminative property. We have found, for example, that, besides the pleasure and pains of muscular exercise, there is a discriminative sensibility to degree of expended energy of all the voluntary muscles. There is a distinct shock given to the mental consciousness on passing from cpiietude to action, and another in relapsing to quietude again. There is also a series of distinctive impressions made through all the varying degrees of force expended, the mind assuming, as it were, a different attitude under each. When I am holding in my hand a weight of four pounds, if some one adds two more, the additional putting forth of muscular energy imparts a certain shock to the cerebrum, and gives a new character to the cur¬ rents of the brain. The same language describes what happens throughout all the senses, wherever discrimination is to be found. Even in the regions of pleasurable and painful sensi¬ bility proper, we may be couscious of degree, which is the true intellectual consciousness. When, in tasting something sweet, I find in the course of turning the thing in my mouth, that the sweetness increases or diminishes, that is properly an in¬ tellectual consciousness ; although the really extensive deve¬ lopment of the intellectual susceptibility is among sensations and impressions that are quite neutral as regards pain or pleasure. This is evident by looking at the classes of proper- 576 CONSCIOUSNESS. ties, under the different senses, put down as discriminative — the discrimination of a plurality of points in touch, of articu¬ lateness in sounds, and of symbolical or arbitrary forms in sight. Such things are hardly ever reckoned either agreeable or disagreeable, and yet they waken and occupy the mental energy, and monopolize the forces of the cerebrum. We are distinctly affected merely by a change from one sense to another sense, and yet there is nothing in that circumstance to please us or otherwise. Such is the true type of the intel¬ lectual consciousness.* 14. An important part of our intellectual culture, consists in forming new susceptibilities to difference by artificial methods. What is called the improvement of the senses, means this, in the first instance ; as when the wine-taster acquires a delicate palate, or the chemist a fine nose for the odours that characterize different volatile bodies. By merely practising the organs, they become more discriminative, and differences are felt after a time that would originally have been unfelt. The musician experiences a steady improvement in the quality of his ear, as well as in liis execution ; the painter is by degrees more and more alive to tints of colour. In the higher intellectual education, much of the acquired * I have adverted in my former volume ( Contiguity , § 45) to what is per¬ haps the crowning instance of discriminative sensibility, namely, the bringing- out of difference between an impression on the right hand, and one on the left, or between touches on different parts of the body. Originally, on com¬ paring the two impressions right and left, supposing them of the same char¬ acter, it is impossible to say that there is any difference, yet the fact of their distinct origin and transmission through separate nerves, enables them to suspend separate trains of association, and by this means we localize the dif¬ ferent impressions made all over the body. Here is an originally latent difference made patent by subsequent associations. At first, the common say¬ ing is applicable to us all, that we do not know our right hand from our left, the distinction in this case being an acquired one ; hut the acquisition would not he possible without a certain independence and separateness of tho.nerves, rendering the cerebral attitude, put on by a communication from one, capable of being clearly distinguished from that put on by a communication from the other. Thus, states of consciousness, perfectly identical as regards the in¬ tensity of the mental shock, yet maintain an available distinctness according to the quarter whence the impression comes. ACQUIRED DISCRIMINATION. 577 power lies in tracing differences in matters where the uninitiated feels none. A person untaught in Logic would perhaps see no distinction between two arguments coming under different moods and figures, or between a truth arrived at deductively and one arrived at inductively. The term ‘ Judgment ’ ex¬ presses those higher forms of discrimination, and also not unfrequently the lower ; and Sir W. Hamilton remarks that Judgment is implied in every act of consciousness, which is quite true on the supposition of its being merely one of the synonyines of discrimination. But, as we shall see presently, there is another mode of the intellectual consciousness, whose mention is requisite preparatory to the full explication of these higher judgments of the mind. 15. The only farther observation to be made under the present head, refers to the impressing of the mind with distinc¬ tive forms, notions, and imagery, to be connected by the laws of association, and made use of in guiding present action, and in preparing those higher combinations, designated under the faculties of Beason, Imagination, &c. Were it not for the primitive shock that difference gives, there would be no basis for the intellect. All colours would be alike ; sounds would not be distinct from touches or smells, and there would be no cognition possible in any sense. The feeling of difference, therefore, is the first step ; the impressing of that into an endur¬ ing notion, under the plastic property of the mind, is the next. We begin by being alive to the distinctive shocks of red and green, of round and oval, small and large ; by-and-bye, we attain the fixed notion of a rose on its stem ; thence we go on combining this with others, until the mind is full of the most variegated trains of imagery. The law of contiguous association follows up, and does not necessarily imply, or contain in itself, the primordial sense of difference, which is the most rudimentary of all the properties of our intellectual being. Analysis can descend no deeper, explanation can go no farther ; we must take a stand upon this, as the prelimi¬ nary condition of all intelligence, and merely seek to place its character in a clear and certain light. 578 CONSCIOUSNESS. Sense of Agreement. 16. The foregoing remarks proceed on the assumption, that a continuous or unbroken impression supplies no element of the consciousness, and that change, novelty, variety, are what incite the mental being into wakeful manifestation. There are, nevertheless, cases where Agreement imparts the shock requisite for rousing the intellectual wave. It is, how¬ ever, agreement in a qualified sense, indeed, so qualified as to be really a mode of difference. We have seen at large, in the exposition of the Law of Similarity, that the discovery of identity comes upon the mind with a flash or a shock of the nature of surprise, but the identity in such cases must be surrounded with diversity. It gives no surprise to waken every morning, and see the same objects in the same positions, but it does surprise us to go away into a remote place, where everything is altered and where we are prepared for changes, and find a prospect exactly resembling a familiar scene at home. We are not surprised by seeing friends in their wonted haunts, the surprise is given when we meet them in some region far remote. Agreements of this sort are in reality dif¬ ferences ; they are breaches of expectation, and give us a start exactly in the same way as a difference arising where we looked for agreement. The mind once accustomed to a cer¬ tain fixed routine of change, is startled by the substitution of uniformity instead. Having often been in a room hung with pictures, and otherwise richly furnished,- one feels a rupture of expectation and a violent surprise on encountering naked walls and an empty floor. It is still change, or a discrepancy between a past and a present attitude of mind, that is the exciting cause of the awakened consciousness ; although it sometimes happens that the change consists in producing an old familiar impression in an unlooked-for connexion. 17. Having premised thus much, we have next to study the influence of this new class of surprises on the growth of our intelligence. It so happens that the noticing of agree- OUR KNOWLEDGE CONTAINS AGREEMENTS. 579 ment in the midst of difference is an exceedingly useful function as regards our knowledge of the world, where amid great variety there is much resemblance. A long chapter having been devoted to the exposition of that fact, and the consequences of it, any laboured demonstration in this place is superfluous. What concerns us at present, is to notice the manner whereby we are made alive to those agree¬ ments, so as to stamp them on the mind and make them a part of the permanent intellectual furniture. Take a simple case of classification to illustrate our meaning. The young mind looking again and again at one tree acquires an impres¬ sion of it merely through the sensibility to difference. We be¬ ing at last familiarized with the repetition of the very same aggregate of differences, so to speak, there is an end of any special surprise on tbe presentation of the object, and a gradual tendency to the indifferentism that monotony induces. Let the mind, however, encounter another tree smaller in dimensions but similar in all else ; the similarity recalls the old tree, while the difference gives the stimulus of surprise. We are then awakened as it were to a new circumstance as important as the original fact of difference, and a flow of excitement accompanies the experience, rendering it vivid at the moment, and laying the basis of a permanent recollec¬ tion. Thus, besides accumulating differences, and enlarging the stock of intellectual imagery grounded upon these, we enter on a new class of impressions, the impressions of agree¬ ment in diversity. If these agreements fell upon the mind perfectly flat, like the unbroken continuance of one impres¬ sion, I doubt whether we should have been able to take any cognisance of the great fact of recurrence in the midst of change, on which depends the operations of classifying, generalizing, induction, and the like. In order to impress upon the mind the existence of a class of houses, trees, men, and so on, it seems essential that the recurrence of similarity should give a smart or fillip to the cerebral organism, quite as much as the transition from action to rest, from light to shade, or from rough to smooth. I do not see how those valuable 580 CONSCIOUSNESS. elements of knowledge that we term generalities, general ideas, principles, could have found a standing in the intellec¬ tual consciousness hut for the shock of surprise that, in com¬ mon with change in general, they are able to affect us with. If we were totally indifferent to the occurrence of the feeling of sweetness in a number of different objects, the faculty of classifying and generalizing would never to all appearance be manifested in our minds. It is the liveliness of that thrill of surprise, caused by likeness in the company of unlikeness, that rouses us to the perception or impression of recurring pro¬ perties, and uniform law among natural things. There is a certain depth of stupidity exhibited by individuals, amounting almost to total indifference on this peculiarity ; and in such cases the power both of generalizing and of comprehending generalities, of forming and applying analogies, will to that extent be found wanting. Just as a keen sensibility to diffe¬ rence determines the lively cognition of the variety of natural properties, which a blunter sense would confound, so the cor¬ responding sensitiveness to the shock of similarity in diversity, leads to the appreciation and the storing up of nature’s gene¬ ralities, and comprehensive unity of plan. Sensation and Perception. 18. It is proper to take notice of the precise meanings of these names in relation to the present subject. As regards Sensation there is a certain complexity to be unravelled, owing to the circumstance that sensations extend between the extremes of emotion and intellect, and have therefore no uniform character except in their mode of origination. Some sensations are mere pleasures or pains and little else ; such are the feelings of organic life, and the sweet and bitter tastes and odours. Others stretch away into the region of pure intellect, and are nothing as respects enjoyment or suffering ; as, for example, a great number of those of the three higher senses. A sensation in the signification of one extreme is quite a different matter from one in the SENSATION. 581 other extreme. The tendency of most writers on Mental Philosophy has been to put an almost exclusive stress on the intellectual, discriminative, or knowledge -giving class ; which meaning, if consistently adhered to, could not be censured. But, occasionally, the other or more emotional class is intended by the term, which is then used in contrast, or contradis¬ tinction, to the discriminative element of the mind. Sir William Hamilton’s doctrine of the inverse relation of Sensa¬ tion and Perception involves this meaning ; for he really means to contrast the Emotional with the Intellectual aspect of the senses. 19. A sensation is, under any view of it, a conscious element of the mind. As pleasure or pain, we are conscious in one way, as discrimination, we are conscious in the other way ; namely, in a mode of neutral excitement. A balmy odour wakens up the mind with a certain charm ; the odour of camphor gives no charm and no pain, while causing a certain excitement and a characteristic attitude of the cerebral system. But this is not all. After much contact with the sensible world, a new situation arises, and a new variety of the consciousness, which stands in need of some explanation. When a child experiences for the first time the sensation of scarlet, there is nothing but the sensibility of a new impres¬ sion, more or less intense, according to the intensity of the object, and the susceptibility of the mind. It is very difficult for us to realize or define this original shock, our position in mature life being totally altered. It is the rarest thing for us then to come under a radically new impression, and we can only, by the help of imperfect analogies, form an approxi¬ mate conception of what happens at the first shock of a dis¬ criminative sensation. The process of engraining these impressions on the mind after repetition, gives to subsequent sensations quite different character as compared with the first. The second shock of scarlet, if it stood alone, would doubtless resemble the preceding ; but such is the nature of the mind that the new shock will not staud alone, but restores the notion, or idea, or trace that survived the former. The 582 CONSCIOUSNESS. sensation is no longer the primitive stroke of surprise, but a coalition of a present shock with all that remains of the pre¬ vious occasions. Hence it may properly be said, when we see, or hear, or touch, or move, that wThat comes before us is really contributed more by the mind itself than by the object present The consciousness is complicated by three concurring elements — the new shock, the flash of agree¬ ment with the sum total of the past, and the feeling of that past as revived in the present. In truth, the new sensation is apt to be entirely over-riden by the old ; and in place of discriminating by virtue of our susceptibility to what is characteristic in it, our discrimination follows another course. For example, if I have before me two shades of colour, instead of feeling the difference exactly as I am struck at the moment, my judgment resorts to the roundabout process of first identi¬ fying each with some reiterated series of past impressions ; and, having two sum-totals in my mind, the difference that I feel is between those totals. If I make a mistake, it may be attributed, not so much to a wrong act of discrimination, as to a wrong act of identification. It is as if I could only judge between two substances on the chemist’s table, by first finding out, by an effort of identification, which draw7er, or which bottle each belonged to ; I should then judge not by comparing the specimens, but by comparing the drawers or bottles containing the entire stock of each. If I made a wrong identification to begin with, my conclusion would be sure to be wrong ; the similarity being accurate, so would be the difference. All sensations, therefore, after the first of each kind, involve a flash of recovery from the past, which is what really determines their character. The present shock is simply made use of as a means of reviving some one past in preference to all others ; the new impression of scarlet is in itself almost insignificant, serving only as the medium of resuscitating the cerebral condition resulting from the united force of all the previous scarlets. If, by some temporary hallucination, a scarlet vTere to bring up the impression of ultramarine blue, the mind would really be possessed with PERCEPTION MORE INTELLECTUAL THAN SENSATION. 583 blue, while the eyes were fixed upon scarlet ; just as, in putting an account upon a wrong file, we lose sight of the features of the account itself, and declare its character according to the file it has got to. Sensation thus calls into operation the two great intellectual laws, in addition to the primitive sensi¬ bility of difference. The endurance of the impression, after the original is gone, is owing to the plastic power denominated under the law of contiguity. The power of the new shock, to bring back the trace of the first, is a genuine exercise of the power of similarity. When we consider ourselves as per¬ forming the most ordinary act of seeing, or hearing, we are bringing into play those very functions of the intellect that make its development and its glory in its highest manifes¬ tation. 20. Perception has various meanings, and great questions hinge upon some of them. The more that sensation involves cognitive or intellectual processes, the more liable is it to fall under the title of Perception. Thus, in sensation, we are subject and object by turns. We are object when attending to the form and magnitude of a conflagration ; we are subject when we give way to the emotional effect of the luminous blaze. Now, although the name Sensation is used for both states, Perception is the better word for the object attitude. Again, what has just been said regarding the intervention of intellectual forces in sensation, indicates the same tendenev. Supposing the first impress of scarlet is called a sensation, the combined trace of thirty impressions, revived in the presenta¬ tion of the thirty-first, would be a perception, as being some¬ thing more than effect strictly due to present stimulus. When ‘ more is meant than meets the eye/ we are said to perceive rather than to feel. Not that feeling, consciousness, and sensation, are at all restricted to the minimum signification of present effect, unlieightened by contributions from the re¬ covered past; but, when the two words are compared, perceiving is generally feeling, and something more. The term sensation might be so narrowed as to exclude the intellectual operations above specified as involved in it ; not so perception. On any 584 CONSCIOUSNESS. view, the intellect participates in every act of perceiving, and when such intellectual participation accompanies a sensation of the senses, it would be allowable to say that a perception took place. The recovery of the past sum-total of sensibilities of redness, orange, blue, of the sound of a bell or a voice, of the touch of marble, or the taste of a peach, being in each case an effect far exceeding the special range of the new encounter by itself, we are at liberty to style the mental state thus produced a ‘ perception,’ or something tran¬ scending the mere sensation, as narrowed to the shock of the moment. 21. The tendency to reckon perception a larger mental product than sensation, is still better seen in another of its well-established meanings, of which the best example, perhaps, is furnished under sight. When we talk of perceiving the distances and magnitudes of tilings about us, more is implied than the sensations can possibly contain. All that I ever can really feel regarding a house before me, is a certain union of optical and muscular sensibility, in which the notion of distance can have no part. That notion is derived through other parts of the system, more especially the locomotive members, and could no more come through the eye, than through the olfac¬ tory organs. Experience, however, recognises coincidences between certain optical impressions and certain movements, and after a time the occurrence of the one is able to suggest the other. I may perceive distance by the eye, as I may per¬ ceive a mail-coach in the next street by the sound of the horn. Association gives additional meanings to my sensations, and I am thus made to know or perceive what it is impossible for me to feel. The word has now a range of application that usage does not impart to the other ; for, although the term sensation may extend to the mind’s contribution from the past, at the instance of the present feeling, we should not be disposed to include all those other collateral impressions that may concur, and be associated with, that sum total. It would scarcely be correct to say that I see the distance of a hill. On the same principle, we ought not to speak of seeing the size, COGNITION. 585 meaning tlie absolute size, for all that we see is the angular expansion measured on tlie retina. Having made certain comparisons as to tlie indications for judging of size, we may say, we perceive it to be of a certain amount. 22. It is by virtue of exceeding the narrow limits of strict sensation, that perception goes so far as to mean things neither felt nor inferred as experienced adjuncts, but simply assumed or believed to exist. Such is the supposed perception of an external and independent material world* What is here said to be perceived is a convenient fiction, which by the very nature of the case transcends all possible experience. It is stealing a march upon our credence to use the term perception, which in its first and proper sense, means something decidedly within the domain of past or present experience, to avouch an entity of imagination. The case resembles the elastic use of the chief term consciousness itself ; the same name being employed to denote the highest certainties of the human mind, and the wildest longings of illimitable desire. The Nature of Cognition. 23. It is a problem of no small difficulty, and no light import, to ascertain precisely what is the real nature of the act of knowing, so very familiar to our experience. What is it that we do when we are said to know or be cognisant of a thing ? I apprehend that the actual subtlety of the question, which is not inconsiderable, is aggravated by the looseness of terminology, which afflicts the wdrole region that we are now * The step here made may be described thus. I observed above, that the term perception applies to the sum-total of the many past similar sensations, recovered by association with the present sensation. These being all blended in one act of mind, in which the constituent items are not separately dis¬ cernible, we mistake this sum-total for an unit, and imagine a Something which makes them all one— an object, one and the same, from which all and each emanate. Such transformation of a sum-total of association into a self- existent unit, is a frequent mental illusion. This supposed object is an entity, not of sense, but of imagination and belief, to which we erroneously apply the word perception. 586 CONSCIOUSNESS. traversing. The power of knowing is subject to the limitations above detailed with reference to consciousness or sensation ; it being clear, whatever else may be doubted, that some mental excitement or consciousness is indispensable to anything that we should call knowledge. Seeing that change is a condition of wakefulness of mind, a thing cannot be known unless the action of that thing on the mind is varied or remitted. We had no knowledge of the pressure of the air on our bodies until means were found to alter its degree ; the blank of con¬ sciousness is the blank of knowledge. 24. One great dispute, that has agitated the schools of philosophy on the present subject, has been between two opinions, the one affirming that all knowledge is derived through sensation, the other that the mind itself contributes a constituent part. Nihil est in intellect, quod non erat in sensu, expresses the former opinion, to which Leibnitz added, nisi intellects ipse. I do not enter here into this particular controversy, having discussed the origin of most of our simple notions in my previous volume. The reference of many of those elementary notions, such as Extension, Figure, Solidity, to the muscular system, alters entirely the state of the ques¬ tion as originally propounded. If sensation includes all that we derive from the feelings of movement, the first thesis would not be difficult to maintain ; exclude movement, and we render it wholly untenable. 25. At present our concern is, not so much with the first beginnings or sources of knowledge, as with the meaning, or nature of it, at any stage. Now, most that has been above advanced respecting Sensation and Perception applies to explain cognition. It is, I hope, sufficiently evident from the discussion of consciousness, incidentally raised in a preceding chapter (. Liberty and Necessity, § 10), that the lowest or most restricted form of sensation does not contain an element of knowledge. The mere state of mind, called the sensation of scarlet, is not knowledge, although a necessary preparation for it. We must be discriminatively conscious of different mental states, before either perceiving or knowing in any COGNITION IS MORE THAN SENSATION. 587 acceptation. Nay, farther, we may have everything that is implied in the full meaning of sensation, as taking in the past with the present, and yet not rise to knowledge. The sensa¬ tion of thunder, produced by reviving all the former expe¬ riences to enhance the new effect, is a true intellectual element of the mind, and a constituent part of knowledge, without itself amounting to knowledge. So with the lowest meaning of perception, which is identical with this. When, however, we pass to the higher meanings of perception, we enter upon the field of genuine cognition. When two different impres¬ sions concur iii the mind, and by repetition become associated together, the one recalling the other ; and when we not only have a present experience of their concurrence, but a lelief of it, we are then said to know something. A single notion by itself does not make knowledge, twTo notions coupled will not make knowledge in the absence of belief. Knowledge, there¬ fore, is identical with affirmation and belief. In what manner the believing element springs up, and occupies the merely notional groundwork of our experience, as when we not only feel a present concurrence of lightning and thunder, but pre¬ dict similar occurrences in the unknown future, I have already endeavoured to show. Belief derives its very existence from the active or volitional region, and not from the region of intellect proper. Still there are certain points relating to the merely intellectual constituents of knowledge that afford scope for animadversion, as they have given occasion to wide dis¬ crepancy of opinion. 26. In the first place, I should remark that knowledge is far from being co-extensive with sensation, or with distinguish¬ able consciousness. Taking all the varieties of sensible effect, through all the avenues whereby impressions are made upon the mind, — the great range of distinguishable muscular feel¬ ings, and the innumerable changes or differing sensibilities of the senses, — hardly any arithmetic could sum up the number of ways wherein we are made discriminatively conscious. It is only a very small selection of these that any one person converts into knowledge, or couples into credible affirmations. 588 CONSCIOUSNESS. Consider the complicacy of the scene that presents itself to the infant eye, opened upon the outer world. The child may be said to feel, or be conscious of, all that enters the eye or the ear, but it demands a specializing, or selective, conscious¬ ness, in order to form any portion of this into knowledge. The act that we term attention, observation, concentration of the view, &c., must supervene upon mere discriminative conscious¬ ness, before knowledge commences. The cognitive process is essentially a process of selection, as the mind is moved to special, or monopolized, consciousness of certain portions of its various experience. Of all the sounds that fall upon our ear in the general din of the elements above, and the bustle of human beings beneath and around, only a very few ever attain the position that would constitute them knowledge. The articulate voices, the sounds that betoken human pur¬ poses that concern us, the indications noted as preceding the storm on its way, — are a few select impressions that take the rank of knowledge with most minds. Others there are, which are unheeded by some and noticed by others, as the buzz of the insect, or the rush of the rivulet. It would appear, in fact, that different minds have a different motive of selection out of the countless multitude of impressions that we are all alike open to. It is, therefore, a material conside¬ ration in the problem of knowledge, to ascertain what are the motives to the specialized consciousness, or the forces govern¬ ing attention, as something over and above disinterested and equal sensation. In addition to the primitive shock of diffe¬ rence that makes us variously susceptible to different move¬ ments, tastes, odours, touches, sounds, sights, and emotions, there are needed some great inequalities in the surprises that come upon us from so many sides, to determine the occupation of the mind with some decided preferences, so that while five hundred stars are painted on the retina, only two or three are in actual possession of the mind, determining its emotions and its trains of thought and imagery. 27. These specializing forces are nothing new in the expo¬ sition of the mind. They are mostly reducible to a greater COGNITION IS SELECTION. 589 degree of those general influences already detailed, as essential to consciousness in the faintest manifestation of it. A bolder difference than the rest rouses wakefulness in that individual instance, overpowering the solicitations of the weaker transi¬ tions. A cannon fired in the silence of night gives the pre¬ dominating sensation for the time being. The senses may be open alike for every impression, hut some are calculated to obtain the monopoly of the mind, as giving the greater shock of surprise, and these are singled out as the more likely to enter into credible affirmations, or to emerge into knowledge. Not that they have become so yet ; there are other stages previous to the final result. In the same manner, the shock of agreement is a special¬ izing or concentrating consciousness ; understanding agree¬ ment as of the sort already defined, namely, similarity in diversity. If I cast my eyes over a large crowd of persons assembled before me, the recognition of a face resembling some one familiar to me arrests my attention upon one point of the scene. 28. It is not enough to call these the forces that deter¬ mine special consciousness ; it is further necessary to affirm, that the circumstances implied under them are essential to the very nature of knowledge. We know only relations ; an absolute, properly speaking, is not compatible with our knowing faculty. The two great fundamental relations are difference and agreement.* To know a thing is to feel it * The very general attributes that we denominate Co-Existence and Succession are not so fundamental as the feelings of difference and agree¬ ment. They are, properly speaking, an opposed, or antithetic, couple ; the transition, from an instance of the one to an instance of the other, affects the mind by the change, and so develops the two contrasting cognitions. I am affected in one way, by two birds on the same bush at once, and in another way by one going away, and the other coming. If the two facts made an identical impression, I should not he conscious either of co-existence or of succession. As it is, the sense of difference gives rise to the perception of both attributes, and imparts to each its proper meaning, namely, the negation of the other. If all things in nature preserved an eternal stillness, and if it were possible for the eye to have simultaneous, instead of successive vision, 590 CONSCIOUSNESS. in juxtaposition with some other thing differing from it, or agreeing with it. To be simply impressed with a sight, sound, or touch, is not to know anything in the proper sense of the word ; knowledge begins, when we recognise other things in the way of comparison with the one. My knowledge of redness is my comparison of this one sensation with a number of others differing from, or agreeing with it ; and as I extend those comparisons, I extend that knowledge. An absolute redness per se, like an unvarying pressure, would escape cog¬ nition ; for supposing it possible that we were conscious of it, we should not be said to have any knowledge. Why is it that the same sensation is so differently felt by different persons — the sensation of red or green to an artist and an optician — if not that knowledge relates not to the single sensation itself, but to the others brought into relation with it in the mind ? When I say I know a certain plant, I indicate nothing until I inform my hearer what things stand related to it in my mind, as contrasting or agreeing. I may know it as a garden weed ; that is, under difference from the flowers, fruits, and vegetables, cultivated in the garden, and under agreement with the other plants that spring up unsought. I may know it botanically ; that is, under difference and agreement with the other members of the order, genus and species. I may know there would be no fact of the nature of succession, and no cognition of, the one prevailing fact, co-existence. We generalize all cases of particular co¬ existence into the abstract attribute ; and all individual successions into suc¬ cession in the abstract ; but, without the shock of difference felt when we pass from an instance of the one to an instance of the other, we should have no cognition of either ; and our cognition, as it stands, is explained as a mutual negation of the two properties. Each has a positive existence because of the presence of the other as its negative, like heat and cold, light and dark. Under Succession, we have the related couple, Antecedent and Conse¬ quent — the one giving both meaning and existence to the other, as in the more comprehensive case. An antecedent supposes a consequent, and con¬ versely ; annihilate either, and the entire cognition disappears. Being dis¬ tinctively conscious of a succession, it is implied that we are conscious of a difference between the member preceding and the member following ; and the two make an item of our knowledge ; neither, standing alone, could con¬ stitute a cognition. KNOWLEDGE NECESSARILY IMPLIES RELATION. 591 it artistically, or as compared with other plants on the point of beauty of form and colour. As an isolated object in my mind, I can have no knowledge regarding it at all. Thus it is that in the multifarious scene and chaos of distinguishable impressions, not only do different minds fasten upon different individual parts, but, fastening on the same parts, arrive at totally different cognitions. Like the two electricities, which cannot exist the one without the other, or the two poles of the magnet, which rise and fall together, no mental impression can exist and be called knowledge, unless in company with some other as a foil wherewith to compare it. Left to a single unit of consciousness, the mental excitement vanishes. In the intellect, as in the emotions, we live by setting off contrasted states, and consequently no one impression can be defined or characterized, except with reference to its accompanying foil. We see how difficult it is in language to make meaning ex¬ plicit by a brief announcement ; interpretation, as applied to laws, contracts, testaments, as well as to writing generally, consists in determining what things the writer excluded as opposites to, and looked at as agreements with, the thing named. It is thus everywhere in cognition. A simple im¬ pression is tantamount to no impression at all. Quality, in the last resort, implies Relation ; although, in Logic, the two are distinguished. Red and blue together in the mind, actu¬ ating it differently, keep one another alive as mental excite¬ ment, and the one is really knowledge to the other. So with the red of to-day and the red of yesterday, an interval of blank sensation, or of other sensations coming between. These two will sustain one another in the cerebral system, and will mutu¬ ally be raised to the rank of knowledge. Increase the com¬ parisons of difference and agreement, and you increase the knowledge ; the character of it being settled by the direction wherein the foils are sought. 29. The present train of reflections might receive illusta- tion from the course of literature, art, and science, in selecting portions and phases of the countless host of things that people the universe of the mind. There is no limit to the modes of 592 CONSCIOUSNESS. knowing the world, when we superadd the sphere of art to the more narrowly- defined sphere of science. It is a theme of common remark, how an original genius makes us see what has always been before our eyes. The truth is, that having a thing before the eyes is not seeing, far less knowing. The man of genius, be he Homer or Shakspeare, supplies the foil — the complement that raises the thing to knowledge. The happy comparison — by classification, analogy, or simile, — and the pointed contrast, are the agents that vivify the mind with reference to what formerly lay unheeded before the open eyes. 30. The use of language is a means of fixing the attention upon select impressions, out of the great total that makes our universe. Whatever has received a name is, as it were, pointed at by the finger ; and any one hearing the name in connexion with the thing, is made specially alive to that, and in consequence has the chance of knowing it in the proper acceptation of the term — that is to say, through difference and agreement. The stars and constellations, whose names are familiarly disseminated, are better known from that circum¬ stance. Hence to be born under a copious language, or to live in the circles of learned converse, is to be mentally alive to a larger class of our impressions. Space, however, does not permit me to dilate on this topic, or to exemplify in full the other forces that govern the rneutal attention, so as to coin select impressions into knowledge. 31. The essentials of Cognition, or Knowledge may be summed up thus : — Hirst. To know any single thing, we must be conscious of it as Differing from some things, and as Agreeing with other things. To this extent, knowledge involves only what belongs to Sensation and Perception. Secondly. When Knowledge amounts to Affirmation there are usually at least two things taken notice of ; and not only so, but the couple must be farther viewed, as coming under a third property, namely, one of the Universal Predicates of Propositions — for example, Co-existence or Succession. ‘ The EXTERNAL PERCEPTION 593 sun is a' luminous body ‘ night follows day;’ — are higher combinations than the mere knowledge of ‘Sun’ ‘Night’ ‘ Day ;’ they unite simple or elementary cognitions into affir¬ mations or propositions ; and the binding circumstance is one of the comprehensive generalities called Co-existence and Succession. Thirdly. Into these Affirmations, there must enter the active state or disposition termed Belief (or Disbelief).* * Subject and Object. — The External World. The last point to be adverted to, in our rapid summary of the meaning of cognition, is the important dis¬ tinction of Subject and Object, involving the greatest of all the problems of metaphysical philosophy — the problem of self and an external world. In my formervolume ( Contiguity , \ 38) I endeavoured to state the sources of our notions of an external and material world, although a much more extensive handling would doubtless be desirable to place those views beyond the reach of dispute. As happens with all the other vexed questions of mental science, there is a cer¬ tain amount of real difficulty, and a still greater amount of factitious diffi¬ culty, created by unsuitable language, which every one considers himself bound to preserve. What is true of each item of knowledge within the whole compass of the knowable, namely, that there must be a plurality of impressions under com¬ parison, with difference and agreement, is the thing to be remarked in refe¬ rence to subject and object. An object has no meaning without a subject, a subject none without an object. The one is the complement or correlate of the other ; drop the one to exalt the other into prominence, and you behave like him that would cancel the south pole of a magnet to make it all north. Subject and object are one of the innumerable couples, mutual foils, polar pairs, coined among the universe of our impressions as portions of our know¬ ledge. An everlasting light in the eye would be as good as no light at all. It is the privative darkness that keeps us conscious of, or mentally awake to, positive illumination. Yet as we can think and speak of the light by itself, without express mention of its foil, or indispensable contrast, as we can direct attention to the north end of the magnet leaving the south out of account for the time, so we can think of the object while the subject is tacitly understood, or of the subject, the object being understood. We never could have come to the notion of externality without its contrast, but the notion being once formed, we have the power of abstracting the attention, and looking at one while sinking the other. An absolute object or an absolute subject is a pure absurdity, irrelevance, or impossibility'. Not more so, however, than light with no darkness, redness with no other colour, high without low, straight without curved, greater without less. I have already expressed the opinion, that the contrast of subject and object springs originally from the contrast of movement and passive sensation. 2 P 594 CONSCIOUSNESS. The impressions that we call feelings of movement, or active energy put forth, are recognised by us as different from the impressions of passive sen¬ sation ; and through this difference a light, so to speak, is struck up in the mind, an effect of knowing is produced in the transition made, or the com¬ parison instituted. Were our impressions all movement, we should know nothing of movement as a whole, for want of the contrasting alternative. Our knowledge would then he confined to qualities wherein movements dif¬ fered, or where there was a remission of effect, as quick and slow, action and inaction. So, were our impressions all sensation, there would be no know¬ ledge of sensation altogether, it being impossible to know what cannot be passed from, contrasted, or varied ; we should know sensations of sight because we had sensations not of sight, we should know the presence and absence of sensation, the pleasurable and the painful, and so on ; but of sen¬ sation in general, as now known by the contrasting impression of inborn movement, we should have no notion whatsoever. Movement and sense are the most marked antithesis among all our present feelings. The change of character experienced, when we pass from the put¬ ting forth of energy to passive sensation, is greater, imparts more of the shock of difference, than the passing from smell to taste, or from one sound to another sound. In the presence of the feeling of movement as a foil, we dis¬ cern something common to all sensation, in spite of the many individual varieties. By being cognisant of movement, therefore, we are cognizant of sensation on the whole, and by being cognisant of sensation on the whole, we are cognisant of movement on the whole. Cut off the one, and the cognition of the other vanishes, being reduced to the cognition of contrasting details. This antithesis is an essential preliminary to the one in question, without entirely amounting to it. In the perception of the Extended, there is involved the world of ideas, or of impressions enduring after the fact ; and the contrast, in my judgment, greatly turns upon the difference between the state of things called the present, or actual, and the subsequent state of things called the ideal. There is a marked transition from the state of looking at the sun in the actual to one of the consequences of that, namely, the persistent, or revivable state termed the idea of the sun. I have described already what seems to me the characteristic difference of the two states. The actual im¬ pression changes with all our movements, and is thus, as it were, embodied in a group or series of moving energies. The closing of the eye, the turning of the head, the raising of the hand, and a great many other movements of ours, would at once extinguish the sensation, or the state called the actual. We must go through a certain amount of bodily exercise to secure and retain it ; when it becomes ideal, all that is dispensed with. The transition is thus a very marked one, and impresses the mind with a confrast or mutual foil, in short, a cognition of the first degree. If there were no persisting impressions, that is, no ideas ; if actuality were our sole world, we should, to say the least of it, lose one means of attaining to the cognition of subject and object, although we should have still other contrasts, and consequent cognitions ; that is, supposing, for the sake of illustration, what is in reality not possible namely, that knowledge could exist without an impression enduring after the OBJECT AND SUBJECT INSEPARABLE. 595 fact. Around this primary antithesis of the actual and the ideal, other con¬ trasts are grouped so as to widen and deepen the resulting cognition. When the same class of movements leads to and controls the sensations of a plurality of senses, as when by the movements of the arm and hand I derive a touch, an odour, a taste, a sight ( e.g . handling an orange), the cognitive contrast of the situation in the actual, and the subsequent ideal is very much increased. We are compelled to recognise a difference so bold as that between the reality and the imagination of a feast, and our language for the purpose is external and internal, subject and object. It is, however, an extravagance of fancy to project the one into a sphere of independent existence, apart from our whole mental life. The real fact seems to be, that two greatly differing experiences develop between them a cognition, as in every other item of knowledge, and we call this cognition by two names according to the one that is principal for the time. Having emerged from an actual to an ideal, we have the cognition of mind. Having emerged from an ideal to an actual, as above interpreted, we have the cognition of the extended, or not-self. Take away the prior experience, and there being then no transition, there is no cognition. The great mistake in the ideal theories of the last century, from Berkeley downwards, lay in doing away with the cognitive antithesis, and resolving the state called the actual into the state called the ideal ; at all events, the reality of the distinction was not kept up with sufficient care. It is impos¬ sible ever to identify the two positions any more than to identify the two magnetic poles. There would be no knowledge of either but for the contrast of the two. In rebutting the assumption of a world totally separated from mind, in the largest signification that we can give to mind, we must not use language to imply that actuality is the same as ideality ; the two experiences are experiences of our own, aspects of self, but so widely distinct as to give a shock of consciousness when we pass between them, and thereby to develop a cognition. We shall never be able to sink this cognition, and it is a logical fallacy to convert the two constituents of it into absolute and independent existences. The comparing of our experiences with other men’s, through the signs of communication, enables us to recognise elements of agreement, and elements of difference, in the same predicament of the actual. Take, for example, the attribute of extension or length, made up of sensation under movement ; we find that the effect of the same predicament is the same upon all minds. A foot is a foot to everybody’s experience. There are other experiences of a very different kind ; thus, the sensation of relish is found not to be uniform in different minds, nor even in the same mind, all other things being the same. A new distinction emerges here which we attach to the one already formed of actual and ideal, and the whole is compounded into the object- subject cognition. Metaphysicians have called the elements of universal agreement primary qualities of body, and have properly classed them with the object pole. Such are Extension in all its modes, including Figure and Position ; also Inertia and Solidity, and Movement. Where the agreement is less general, and more precarious, a number of qualities are designated as secondary, and made to cluster round the subject pole ; such are Colour, 596 CONSCIOUSNESS. Sound, Taste, Odour, Heat, and some others. These are said to give no in¬ dication of externality, and fall in with the subject. The remark to he made respecting them is simply this, that there is a less universal agreement between different minds, and between the same mind at different times re¬ specting them, than respecting the primary qualities. In proportion as we find agreement of feeling in a like situation, we recognise the circumstance by the names externality and independence ; in proportion as we find the same movement yielding different sensations in different individuals, we ex¬ press the fact under internality and dependence. It will he obvious to any one studying the detail of the primary7 and secondary qualities, that the first are connected with our feelings of movement ; extension, figure, solidity, and inertness, are modes of our own active energies ; and it is in those that the appreciation of different minds is most nearly identical. The secondary qualities are the impressions due to sensation proper ; they7 are the optical, audible, tactile, odorous, sapid, and organic, impressions ; in all which, and more especially in those last named, mankind are very differently7 affected. Even colour is found to he by no means a uniform sensation. The remark¬ able instances of colour-blindness show the want of unanimity in optical effect. The contrast therefore between the unanimous or the invariable, and the idiopathic and variable feelings, is one to generate a decided and impor¬ tant cognition, and to receive an adequate designation in language. We place this distinction side by side with the distinction of actuality7 and ideality, and fuse the two into a kind of whole, described by the contrasting phraseo¬ logy that has been repeatedly quoted. There are other minor cognitions that go to swell the great aggregate. The contrast between the pleasurable or painful on the one hand, and the indifferentism of intellectual emotion on the other, joins in with the previous mass, the first tending to the subject- pole, and the last to the object. It has ever been the popular fallacy, sanctioned and propped up by one portion of the philosophic schools, to carry this great cognition far beyrnnd the limits of mere cognition, and to resolve the members of it into absolute and independent existences. A material universe, entirely independent of mind on the one side, and an independent mind on the other, have been postulated and assumed ; and, notwithstanding the manifold difficulties in philosophy that have been the result, it is with great reluctance that the hypothesis is surrendered. That universal tendency of the human mind to make belief constantly7 outstrip experience, and to presume largely upon the distant and the future, has led to the easy reception of the notion of two ab¬ solutes, created as it were apart, and brought together in the way of casual encounter. The mind would seem to take a certain comfort in supposing the two independent existences, as if the relativity were something too little to re¬ pose upon. No theory of the ultimate nature of cognition can alter the practice of life, the ends that men pursue, and the means that they adopt. It is nevertheless proper to put our knowledge upon its true foundation, and to rebut the fallacious tendencies of the natural mind on this as on all other subjects. Professor Ferrier, in his Institutes of Metaphysics, has contributed very materially towards bringing home the theory of relative cognition, as against ferrier’s institutes. 597 the Absolutists in philosophy, and the exaggeration of the case by the popular mind. Nothing could exceed the clearness and force of his exposure of the fallacy in question. I allude more particularly to Section I., Propositions third fourth, fifth, and many other passages that I cannot specify in detail. I regret that I cannot coincide with the wording of his first and fundamental proposition, which undoubtedly, in a Geometrical system of exposition like his, ought to be free from the slightest flaw. The proposition is expressed thus : ‘ Along with whatever any intelligence knows, it must, as the ground or condition of its knowledge, have some cognisance of itself.’ What I dissent from is the plac¬ ing of self in the relationship of a factor or foil in all our cognitions. I grant it to the fullest extent in the great cardinal cognition, subject-object, mind versus matter, internal and external. I maintain, however, that this is only one of innumerable cognitions of the human mind, although a very com¬ manding one. Moreover, I grant that everything that we know ultimately takes a part in that great comprehensive antithesis, ranging itself with one or the other pole. Still things might have been known although the subject- object distinction had never emerged at all ; it being enough for cognition that any sort of contrast should exist. I can know' light simply by the transition fr