of visual sensations,- — the whole overlaid with an af- fection. Your 'self,' the self that you perceive at this moment, is probably composed of pressures, tempera- tures, strains, breaths, etc.; that is, a certain total effort or comfortableness or headachiness: together with the visual perception of hands and clothes. That is yoiL^ as you perceive yourself. Perhaps you were not thinking of yourself at all until you began to read this Section; but now that your attention is called to yourself, the perceived self comes out plainly: you realise that your glasses need adjust- ing, that your position must be shifted, that your forehead had better be relaxed, that your collar is sitting too tightly, that you have set about reading too soon after dinner, and so on. All this mass of felt sensations is yourself.
Dr. Charles Mercier, writing of the perceived self from the medical standpoint, emphasises the part played by sensations from the alimentary canal. "Self means stomach,'' he says. "The function of assimilating food is the most fundamental of all the functions; it is antecedent even to locomotion and propa- gation. Hence anything which directly affects the organism as a whole affects the stomach," — and it is the alimentary organic sensations that loom largest in the perception of self.
(2) The idea of self consists principally of a visual The idea of self, picture of one's body and its usual surroundings. You see yourself seated in your accustomed chair, clothed in your usual way, busied about your usual occupations. This self-figure is seen upon a dim and shifting background made up of memory-images of past experiences.
It is not often, however, that the self comes to mind so definitely as this description would imply. Q ThotigJit and Self-conscioitsness The abstract The idea is for the most part an abstract idea: the figure IS more shadowy, and the background clearer. What precisely the background is will depend upon the direction of thought at the time: it may be a professional or a social or a moral or a national or a religious background. In other words: the self- consciousness is made up of the verbal idea ' I ' (the concept), of a vague picture of the clothed figure, and of a mass of images of professional experiences, social incidents, etc., How shadowy the figure-self may become is amusingly illus- trated by a story that Professor Mach, of Vienna, tells in his book on the Analysis of Sensations. ^^ I got into an omnibus one morning," he writes, " after a tiring night on the train, just as some one else was entering from the far end. ' Some broken- down schoolmaster,' I thought. It was myself: there was a large mirror opposite the omnibus door." The professional figure was recognised before the personal figure.
(3) Finally we have^the logical self, the bare con- cept of the * I ' or the *ego.' This has been gained by abstraction from the social, professional, moral, etc., self-concepts; it is a sort of short-hand term for them all. Its meaning differs very considerably in different philosophical systems. Psychologically regarded, it stands on the same level with the con- cepts of relation, etc.: it does not correspond to a«^y thing or process of the outside world, — the self-con- cept which does that is the concept discussed above under (2), — but stands simply for the philosopher's special interpretation of selfhood, i.e.^ for a thought- object.
The difference between this ' I ' and the preceding ' I ' may not be quite clear, at first. It becomes clear, when The logical self.
once the two I-experiences have been compared. How- ever far the first I-concept is removed from the perceived self, it is still the concept of oneself, — you ^ feel ' that it is you that are meant. As you read about the other ^ 1/ you are left quite cold; it does not strike you that the author means yoic: the * I ' is just an indifferent word with an indif- ferent meaning, like ^reality' or any other philosophical term.
consciousness m which the concept or idea of self, or ^ess.
some phase or part of it, is present in the state of at- tention, and thus serves as a centre of association for other ideas. Thus the introspective consciousness is a self-consciousness: the psychologist attends to some mental process which belongs to himself, which forms part of his experience and can never form part of that of another man (§ 5). In everyday life, the self-con- sciousness is usually a highly affective consciousness; when we think of ourselves, it is with marked self- satisfaction or with equally marked humiliation. These processes, * sentiments ' as they are called, will occupy us in the following Chapter.
The discussion of self-consciousness filled a large place The problem in the older psycholo2fy, in which the mind was supposed <^^seif-consomehow to turn inwards upon itself and observe itself, — the old being endowed with a pecuhar ' inner sense ' which enabled it to do this. Modern psychology makes no mention of an inner sense: for it, introspection means simply attentive experiencing, attentive remembering and attentive trans- lation into words (Ch. II.).
For us, therefore, the problem of self-consciousness re- and in the solves itself into the question how the idea and concept ^^^ psychol- of self are formed. We have seen that the earliest idea of self is the idea of the bodily self; and the body, whether it be our own body or another, is an object of perception, 228 Thought and Self -consciousness an object of the outside world (Ch. VI.; cf, § 58). The idea of self is therefore formed at the bidding of nature, as all ideas are. On the other hand, the question how the concept of I-ness, of selfhood, came to be formed is much more difficult. The answer to it involves an elaborate en- quiry into the conditions of primitive life and the growth of language {cf, the concept of * attribute '). There can be no doubt that the social form of life and (what is a result of this) the giving oi proper names to individuals are among the principal conditions under which the concept took shape.
^Self-consciousness' in the popular sense of nervousness, awkwardness, bashfulness, etc., is one of the instinctive fears (see § 75). A good account of it is given by Professor Mosso, in the Introduction of his work on Fear.
Questions and Exercises 1. What animals do you know to be capable of articulate speech? Have you ever observed an animal signal to another by sound? What did the signal mean? How many different signal-sounds have you known an animal to employ?
2. Can you give instances of ^suggestion] — of the catching of an idea or emotion by a number of individuals, as if by infec- tion— in human society?
3. We said that " articulate speech has far outrun its primi- tive associate, objective gesture, in usefulness,'' and gave reasons. But we saw in § 61 that the sour look (subjective gesture) per- sists after the word-metaphor has disappeared: the development has proceeded in just the opposite direction. Why should this 4. It is said that the letters of the alphabet are derived from hieroglyphics, i.e.j pictures of actual objects in the external world, and have only by very slow degrees become sound-symbols. What psychological process would this evolution illustrate?
5. Can animals reason?
6. Suppose that you ask someone a question, and receive an answer. The answer will have the form of a judgment. Can you tell, by the way in which the answer is given, whether it is a true judgment or a mere hearsay answer? — How, in your own Questions and Exercises 229 experience, does a judgment that you have formed by effort of attention differ from a statement taken ^on trust \^ 7. What was the aggregate idea in the author's mind when he set to work to write the first Section of this chapter?
8. What method would you use, if you were enquiring into the psychological development of the concepts of Mikeness ' and ^ difference '?
9. Write out a careful introspective description of (i) the perception, (2) the idea and (3) the abstract idea that you have of yourself.
10. Whenever the abstract self of § 93 (2) comes clearly to consciousness, the idea is accompanied by a special group of sen- sations. These are at times so vivid as almost to change the idea of self to a perception of self. What are they?
11. Animals maybe actively attentive, actively imaginative. Man stands above them, in this sphere, because he thinks, i.e.^ uses words to symbolise the images actively attended to. Man, also, has passed beyond active to secondary passive attention; the animals have not. — What biological reasons can you offer for this progress from active imaging to active symbolising, and from this again to secondary passive attention?
References James, Textbook^ chs. xii., xiv., xv., xxii.
Sully, Human Mind^ vol. I., chs. xi., xii.
Wundt, LectiireSy pp. 250, 251; Lects. XXL, XXIV.
Consult also: A. H. Sayce, Introdtiction to the Science of Lang2iage^ 1S83; W. D. Whitney, Life and Growth of Lan- guage^ 1880; Language and the Study of Language^ 1S91; and pt. i. of the art. Philology in the Encyc, Brit., 9th. ed.
CHAPTER XII Sentiment Sentiment § 95, Sentiment. — The emotion bears precisely the same relation to the sentiment that the assimilation bears to the judgment, or passive to active attention. In emotion we are brought face to face with an inci- dent or situation, which overwhelms us, takes posses- sion of us, — in other words, is passively attended to. A very strong and very complex feeling is formed, and rendered still stronger and still more complex by the organic sensations that come with our bodily atti- tude towards the situation. In sentiment, we are also Formation brought f acc to f acc with an incident or situation; * - but it is of a kind tha,t demands active attention, effortful attention now to this part and now to that. We take possession of it, so to speak, in place of its taking possession of us. Otherwise, the sentiment re- sembles the emotion. A strong and complex feeling is formed, and reinforced by organic sensations. The bodily expression of sentiment is of the same kind as that of emotion. ^ The core of an emotion, then, is a simultaneous as- sociation of ideas; the core of a sentiment is a judg- ment or an active imaging. The sentiment stands upon a higher level of mental development. There is no other difference.
We find the same difficulty in investigating sentiment that we found in investigating thought. Just as there are many ap- § 96. The Fonns of Senthnent 231 parent judgments that are not really thought at all, but mere associations, so there are many apparent sentiments that are based not on a true judgment-process but on assimilation. And again 0 just as active attention lapses into secondary passive attention, so does an affective state that begins as sentiment lapse into emotion. Hence in describing and identifying the sentiments we must be constantly on our guard against confusing them with emotions based upon ready-made judgments, and with emotions based upon judgments which were once really judgments, but have now become matters of habitual association.
For instance: my ' sentiment ' of honour may never have Tradition cost me a moment's effort of attention. A definition of ^?-^.^'^^\ their effect honourable conduct has come down to me, by tradition, and upon senti- I accept it without thought. Conduct-situations take pos- "^^^*- session of me: I face them by an emotion. Or again: my ' sentiment ' of beauty may have once been a real sentiment.
I may have laboriously studied art-canons, and studiously dissected art-forms by active attention. Now, twenty years after this labour, I have nothing but an emotion of beauty; I am instinctively pleased or displeased by works of art, without making the least effort to analyse them. — In form, / then, I have a moral and an aesthetic sentiment; in reahty, I have two emotions.
Here as everywhere in mental life the lapse of active into passive may be very good or very bad for us. If we pass on to new activity, as soon as the once-active has become pas- sive,— using the old material as the foundation of new judg- ments, and so rising higher and higher in knowledge the more of this passive material we accumulate, — then we are turning human endowment to its full and proper account. If we are content with the passive, resting on the founda- tion built for us by our ancestors, we are no better than the animals.
§ 96. The Forms of Sentiment. — There are four groups or classes of sentiments: the intellectual or Sentiment Intellectual, social, religious and aesthetic sentiments.
logical, the moral or social, the religious and the aesthetic.
(i) The situation which calls forth the intellectual sentiments is made up, not of coexistent objects and concurrent processes of the outside world, but of thought-objects, of our own interpretative processes. We never look at a scientific ' fact ' except through the eyes of a theory. It is the theory, the thought- situation, the group of concepts, that calls out the intellectual sentiment. And the central judgment, round which the affective processes gather, is the judgment *This is true' or *This is untrue.'
(2) We have our ideals of social conduct, as we have our scientific theories. The situation that evokes a social sentiment is a behaviour-situation, the agree- ment or disagreement of actual conduct with our ideal of conduct. A man's actions as member of a family or profession, as citizen of a town or nation, etc., give rise to the judgment ^ This is good' or *This is bad behaviour.' This judgment forms the core of the social sentiments.
(3) The situation in the religious sentiment, like those in the intellectual and social sentiments, is an ideal situation, made up of thought-objects and inter- pretations. The central judgment differs very con- siderably in different religions, and in the same religion at different levels of development. In general terms it runs * This is right ' or * This is wrong in the eyes of God.'
(4) The judgment that underlies the aesthetic sen- timents is *This is beautiful' or 'ugly.' The situation which calls out the judgment may be wholly ideal § 96. The Forms of Sentiment 233 (a * pretty ' theory, a ^ neat ' argument), or may be partly perceptual and partly ideal (a beautiful land- scape, symphony, etc.).
Two points call for notice here, (i) Notice that there Practical is an obvious reason for the existence of the first three kinds ii^po^t,^"^^ of sentiof sentiment. It is of great practical importance for us to ments. know whether theories are true or untrue, whether our con- duct will be approved or disapproved by our friends and acquaintances, and whether we are living our whole life rightly or wrongly. If our theory is untrue, if it has out- run or neglected the facts of the world, we shall not be able to adjust ourselves to these facts; our inventions will not work, our crops will not come up, etc. If we act badly, life will be made unpleasant for us, by imprisonment, by withdrawal of friendship, etc. If we believe in a divine retribution, and yet direct our whole life amiss, run counter to the divine will, we must expect to suffer for it. — On the other hand, there seems to be no such reason for the exist- ence of the aesthetic sentiments. We cannot say, offhand, what their practical value is; we must make a special inves- tigation (§ 100) to discover it.
(2) Notice that the sentiments, like the feelings and Affective emotions, fall into two sets: a pleasurable and an unpleasur- ^^^^^^^^^ ^^ ^ ^ ^ sentiments.
able set. They give evidence of the two affective quahties, pleasantness and unpleasantness, but not of any others.
Not very much is known about the sentiments. More work has been done upon the aesthetic group than upon the social, intellectual or religious; but even there our knowledge is uncertain.
The sentiments are sometimes spoken of as the ^higher' feel- Higher and ings, in contradistinction to the emotions and the feelings proper, Jo^'^r feel- which are Mower' feelings. We may accept the words Miigher' ^ ' and Mower,' if we interpret them to mean simply Mnore complex' and ^ less complex.' On the other hand, we may not use them in the sense of ^ more commendable' and Mess commendable': such an interpretation takes us out of the sphere of psychology into that of ethics (§ 121).
Sentiment Intellectual sentiments: qualitative, temporal and oscilla- tory.
§ 97. The Intellectual Sentiments. — These senti- ments show very clearly how nearly related senti- ment in general is to emotion. We have qualitative and temporal sentiments, as we had qualitative and temporal emotions. More than that, we have a dis- tinction of objective and subjective forms among the qualitative sentiments, just as we had among the qualitative emotions.
At the same time, the difference between senti- ment and emotion is brought out with equal clear- ness. There can be no 7nidway emotion: an emotion is either joy or sorrow, either hope or fear; there is no new emotion that is something between the two, but is neither the one nor the other. This is a neces- sary consequence of the fact that the emotions are formed in the state of passive attention; we are ab- sorbed, overwhelmed by the situation. But suppose that we face the situation by a judgment, by active attention. It is clear that, as the various incidents are attended to, different predicates may suggest themselves. Here is a theory: is it true or untrue 1 Facts a^ b, c speak for it; facts;r, j/, z against it. The attention oscillates, uncertainly, between the two predicates; and the result is an oscillatory senti- ment. __ The following are the principal qualitative intellectual sentiments, so far as they have been worked out. The names of the pleasurable sentiments are printed in capitals; the oscillatory forms in italics.
(i) Objective Sentiments: (a) Objective forms: agreement, obscurity^ contradiction.
(p) Subjective forms: ease, confusion^ difficulty. (2) Subjective Sentiments: (a) Subjective forms: belief, doubt^ disbelief.
(^) Objective forms: truth, ambiguity^ falsehood. The series belief, doubt, disbelief is perhaps that of the greatest practical importance. The corresponding moods have all received names: acquiescence, indecision, incredulity.
Chief among the temporal intellectual sentiments is that of curiosity. It is resolved upon qualitative sentiments as follows: Curiosity (fulfilled) (deferred) (unfulfilled) Successful thought Baffled thouglit Failure of thought Curiosity, the desire to know for the sheer sake of knowing, is a human offshoot of the instinct of inquisitiveness. This latter is one of the universal animal instincts; life depends upon having a full knowledge of one's surroundings.
The intellectual attitude has grown to be so habitual with civilised man that, unless we have a thorough grasp of the way in which active attention passes over into secondary passive attention, we may be tempted to look upon it as something primi- tive and original, rather than as the final product of the accumu- lated judgments of generations. Take the case of belief, ^.^. The psy- What could be simpler, at first sight, than the consciousness ecology of belief which finds expression in the phrase '^ I feel sure "? ' Feeling 'sure ' seems as natural as ' feeling cold.' So we find Hume say- ing that belief is nothing else than the having of a clear idea: when we have a clear idea, then we are believing. " Belief," he declares, ''is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object than the imagination alone is ever able to attain." And Professor James, making out a list of the char- acteristics that an idea must have if it is to be believed, puts down in the first place " coerciveness over attention, or the mere power to possess consciousness."
Now it is true that we, to-day, may ' believe ' without judging, and ^ feel sure ' without having the sentiment of belief. We approach every fact with centuries of belief and disbelief upon us; we fall, instinctively, into a believing or disbelieving or doubting attitude. Nevertheless, there was a time when there was no belief. Animals do not believe or disbelieve; they have 236 Sentiment 236 Sentiment not advanced far enough in mental development. They just accept things: pleasantly, if the things are familiar, unpleasantly, if they are unfamiliar. Belief arises much later, and falls back into the ' feel-sure ^ attitude much later still. As reflex movement developes out of impulsive action, so does the reflex feel-sure attitude develope out of numberless true beliefs, the sentiments of our dead ancestors.
Social senti- § 98. The Social and the Religious Sentiments. — The "^^" ^' social sentiments also fall into subjective and objective groups: the former including the various forms of self- approval and self-disapproval, the latter indicating differences of attitude towards the behaviour of others. They are, however, exceedingly difficult of classifica- tion, for the reason that they are exceedingly liable to lapse into emotions. The duties that every member of a society owes to its other members are so drilled into us, in early life, that later on we take social situ- ations for granted, and react upon them by passive attention. It would be impossible, in most cases, to find a difference, e.g., between guilt (sentiment) and fear (emotion), or between shame (sentiment) and chagrin (emotion).
We may distinguish the follovi^ing social sentiments: (i) Subjective: (a) subjective: pride, modesty; objective: power, im- potence. ~^ (J?) subjective: innocence, guilt; objective: justice, in- justice.
(c) subjective: dutifulness, undutifulness; objective: honour, dishonour.
{d) subjective: vanity, shame; objective: emulation, self-effacement. (2) Objective: {a) objective: trust, distrust; subjective: security, in- security.
§ 9^. Social and Religious Sentiments 237 (J?) objective: patronage, indebtedness; subjective, free- dom, restraint.
(c) objective: magnanimity, jealousy; subjective: dis- interested PLEASURE, envy.
{d) objective: forgiveness, revenge; subjective: com- passion, hard-heartedness.
There are, doubtless, many others. But the very fact that sympathy and antipathy are emotions — that certain social situations appeal by rights only to the passive attention — makes it difficult to draw any hard and fast line of division between social senti- ment and emotion.
It is still a matter of debate whether the close con- Religious nection that obtains between religion and morals in modern society is a recent development, or has persisted from the earliest forms of human com- munity to the present day. In all probability, how- ever, the roots of religion and of morals are planted in different soil, and the growing together of the two is a matter of comparatively recent occurrence (see § 120). Theoretically, therefore, we must distinguish the religious from the moral sentiments, however closely they may be interwoven in our everyday experience.
The following are some of the religious sentiments: (i) Objective.
Obj. form.
Subj. form.
Awe Humility Reverence Unwortbiness Rebellion Disobedience Faith Exaltation.
(2) Subjective.
Subj. form.
Obj. form.
Sinfulness Remorse Spiritual Pride Self-righteousness Contrition Repentance.
Sentiment Symmetry and the golden sec- tion.
Esthetic § 99. The ^Esthetic Sentiments. — There are two beauty. pure or Simple aesthetic sentiments, those of beauty and of ugHness. And the aesthetic judgment may be passed in two perceptual fields, those of sight and of hearing. We find beauty in visual form (architec- ture, statuary, natural scenery), in colour (painting, stage grouping, landscape), and in visual movement (dancing); as well as in musical form (rhythm, etc.), harmony and melody.
A good deal of work has been done in psychological laboratories upon what is called ^ the aesthetics of simple forms.' Series of figures are prepared (crosses, ovals, rec- tangles, etc.), the proportions varying slightly from figure to figure, and the subject is required to say which figure in the series is the most pleasing. It is found that the proportions chosen are (a) those of i: i, i.e.^ those of sym- metry, and (^) those of (approximately) 5: 8, those of the ' golden section,' as it is termed. Taste, that is, is by no means so variable as i§ commonly supposed.
The precise explanation of these facts is uncertain: we are not even quite sure whether the judgments are really aesthetic judgments, or whether they depend upon such things as ease of eye-movement. The history of music, however, gives us a parallel. The harmony that was judged to be most beautiful in the primitive stage of har- monic music was that of the octave. Nowadays, the octave seems thin and poor: the most beautiful har^ mony to us is that of the major third {^c-e). It may be, then, that the equal division of symmetry represents the primitive standard of beauty, and that we have grown to see the beauty of the golden section, as we have to hear that of the major third.
Sublimity, There is a third sentiment, that of sublimity, which comedy. IS partly aesthctic and partly intellectual, social or religious. A fourth, that of tragedy, is part aesthetic and part social; and a fifth, that of comedy, is part aesthetic and part intellectual.
When we say that a scene or an action is ^ sublime/ we usually mean that our sentiment of beauty is mixed with the religious sentiment of awe. Sometimes, however, it is mingled with the sentiment of truth or of power. In no case is sublimity a pure aesthetic sentiment.
The tragic sentiment has as its central judgments ' This is beautiful ' and ^ This is unmerited.' Tragedy is therefore a mixture of beauty and injustice (social sentiment). The sentiment of the comic or the ludicrous appears to be of the oscillatory character (§ 97). We have the judgments ' This is pretty ' and ' This is contradictory ' in quick suc- cession.
Psychologists have always found it easier to give illustrations of these sentiments than to explain them. As a matter of fact, full explanation is at present impossible. We must wait (i) till the experimental method has finally decided for us how many qualities of affection there are, and (2) till the historical develop- ment of art, in all its branches, has been more thoroughly worked out.
In the meantime, we may look at some instances of aesthetic Instances, sentiment in literature. The figures of Hamlet and of Lear in Shakespeare, and of Antigone in Sophocles, are eminently tragic. Even at moments when we are most fully appreciating the beauty of the presentation, the sentiment of injustice crops up: why should these people suffer so? we ask; what have they done to deserve their fate? Dogberry and Verges, the ^two foolish offi- cers ' in Mjich Ado about Nothings are unsurpassably coinic. There is an aesthetic fitness or rightness about what they say; but when we consider the sense, all is contradiction, — we have what Professor Sully calls a ^' delicious incongruity of ideas." To take one case: ^'Dogb. (to the Watch). You are to bid any man stand, in the prince's name. Watch. How, if a' will not stand? Dogb. Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go."
S Sentiment For instances of the sentiment of sublimity, the reader must search his own experience. The author has felt it most keenly, in its form of awesome beauty, when hearing Beethoven^s Ninth Symphony or Wagner's Gdtterddmmer7mg; when standing on a mountain-top, watching a thunder-storm pass beneath him; when at sea, on a calm starlight night; when passing through a deeply cleft ravine, etc. There is a solemnity pervading the beauty in all such experiences. — An instance of sublimity, in the sense of mingled truth and beauty, which will appeal to all who have the artistic temper, is afforded by the Venus of Milo. The figure is so perfectly beautiful that we should feel awed by it, were there not with • all the stateliness a womanly touch, a winningness, that puts us at our ease in its presence. The Dorian Girl (the ' Diana of Gabii ') is beautiful, graceful; but we do not feel her beauty in the same way as we do that of the Venus. The same sentiment arises when one stands before a Velasquez. ^' Everything Velasquez does," says Mr. Ruskin, '' may be taken as absolutely right by the student." We have perfect beauty, then, as in the Milo; and, as with her too, it is not awe, but rather a friendliness towards the artist, confidence in his utter truthfulness, that suggests itself to the spec- tator. — Lastly, we experience the sublimity that is compounded of the sentiments of power and beauty when we look down from a mountain-top upon a landscape that shows the marks of man's dominion over nature, or when we ride a stormy sea in a stout ship, or when we read of heroic deeds and feel a personal eleva- tion that reflects their heroism.