Is aesthetics of practical value?
§ 100. The Practical Utility of ^Esthetics. — At first sight, nothing appears to be more useless, a greater mental superfluity, than the aesthetic sentimentv^ People of aesthetic temperament enjoy certain things more than others do; but they suffer more, also, and their enjoyment does not seem to bring them any practical advantage. What is it, then, that has kept the aesthetic sentiment alive.-^ Why has it not simply died out, — disappearing as, e.g.^ the power to move the ears has disappeared?
§ lOO. Practical Utility of Esthetics 241 Perhaps we should not assume that the sentiment is useless. Movement of the ears was useful once: we see that it is so still to some animals. Esthetics too, then, may have been useful once. And indeed, the very fact that it has not died out, while ear- movement has, should make us hesitate to take its uselessness as a matter of course. Let us look at its development historically.
In primitive times, the body was decorated with Primitive art. a view to attracting a mate. Just as the male bird comes out in gorgeous plumage in the pairing sea- son, so the savage decked himself with ochre and shells and feathers to make his person attractive. Then, by slow degrees, decoration travelled from person to surroundings: first, from the body to the clothes, and then again from clothes to house. But as the primitive house is a rude structure, and its owner poor, not much can be done by way of indi- vidual house-adornment; and so we find the members of a tribe clubbing together, so to speak, to decorate the common house, the temple. Esthetics now enters into the service of religion.
Again: as the tribes settled down to agricultural The art of ,...T civilisation.
pursuits, man became a labourer; systematic and regu- lar work grew to be a necessity. But work means play; if we labour, we must have recreation. What games, though, shall grown-up people play } They have lost their pleasure in children's games. Es- thetics comes to the rescue: art is the play, the proper recreation, of grown-up workers. We speak, and rightly speak, of the ' plays ' of Shakespeare, and of ' playing ' the violin. Esthetics has now lost R 242 Sentiment R 242 Sentiment its religious meaning, and has been turned to secular purposes, — purposes of the very highest utility.
In no less than three ways, then, has the aesthetic sentiment proved itself of practical importance. It has been useful in courtship; it has been useful as enhancing the impressiveness of religious ceremo- nies; it is still eminently useful as the play of adults.
Esthetics It may seem strange that a form of judgment, i.e., of as play. effortful attention, should serve as recreation. Esthetics would appear to be rather a kind of work than of play. But we must remember (i) that primitive aesthetic judgments were inseparably connected with social and religious judg- ments, and that these latter judgments had to be passed; men were forced to take thought of their neighbours and to propitiate their gods. Hence the aesthetic attitude became a natural one at a very early stage of human development, and is a traditional * of course ' attitude with ourselves. And (2) we know that that play is most effectual, most recreative, which consists in a less serious copy of work. By repeating our work in lighter form, we get the maximum of refreshment with the minimum of mental wrench. Hence for the intellectual man, the man whose work is the work of judging, aesthetics, judging in play, is the very best sort of holiday-taking.
Moreover, the aesthetic sentiment, like all the sentiments, is liable to lapse into emotion, and the aesthetic judgment to lapse into a simultaneous association of ideas. We c'an enjoy now as the result of past judgments: the hearing of Tannhduser, the sight of a Velasquez or of the Venus of Milo, may give us a perfectly effortless pleasure. Indeed, art owes a good deal of its vogue in modern times to the fact that we have, up to a certain extent, an inherited capacity for enjoying it without judging it at all. A sym- phony can be enjoyed only after judgment passed; but a waltz takes possession of us at once, Paderewski's playing Questions and Exercises 243 can be appreciated only by a few: but thousands will pay large prices to ^ see his fingers move/ just as they will to see trapeze-work at a circus. All this, of course, helps to keep art alive, — gives it a real usefulness, if not that higher usefulness which it has for those who use it aright.
Questions and Exercises (i) Can you name any moods that correspond to the social sentiments mentioned in § 98? Describe a typical situation in which each of the sentiments of the list might arise.
(2) Give six instances of ugliness — three of ugly sights and three of ugly sounds — from your usual surroundings. Why are they ugly?
(3) Have some argumentative passage (§ 100 of this book, e.g.^ read aloud to you. Notice how the intellectual sentiments arise and disappear, as the argument proceeds. Write out the names of the sentiments that you feel, and mark the sentences which call them forth.
(4) Compare the list of intellectual sentiments with the list of emotions given in §§ 63 and 64. Pick out the emotion into which each of the sentiments might pass, if active attention lapsed into passive.
(5) Draw two series of crosses, varying (i) the length of the cross-bar, and (2) its position upon the stem of the cross. Lay the series in turn before a class, and let each member pick out the most pleasing cross. See how closely the chosen proportions approach those of the golden section or of symmetry. — Are there any objects in constant use whose proportions seem to have been arbitrarily decided, but which when measured give the proportion (6) Can you recall any characters, in history or fiction, who might stand as embodiments of some social or religious senti- ment?
(7) Why does a man cough, when embarrassed; and rub his eyes, pass his hand over his forehead, or scratch his head, when perplexed? Name some of the other characteristic expressions of sentiment.
(8) How does ^curiosity' differ from ^inquisitiveness'?
244 Sentiment (9) It is said above that aesthetics '- has been ' useful in court- ship and rehgion. Is it still useful in either? If so, how does its present differ from its primitive usefulness?
(10) If my artistic sentiments have once become emotions, how am I to rise to new activity, — to move forward to new senti- ments on the basis of my emotion material?
» References G. Santayana, The Sense of Beauty^ 1 896.
Sully, Hitjnan Mind, vol. II., ch. xvi.
Titchener, Outline, §§ 86-91.
Wundt, Ethics, vol. I., 1897, ch. iii.
Wundt, Lectures, pp. 378-380.
CHAPTER XIII The Complex Forms of Action § I o I. The Development of Action beyond the Impulse. Action with — The most complicated action that we discussed in act^ive at^en- Chapter IX. was the full-formed hnptdsive action, — ^^^^• an action whose motive, given in the state of passive attention, contained the idea of own movement, the perception or idea of the object moved to or from, and the idea of the result of movement. We have now to see what actions are performed in the states of active and of secondary passive attention.
Active attention occurs when there are at one and the same time two or more claimants for the foremost place in consciousness (§ 32). One idea fits in with one aspect of the mental constitution or disposition of the moment, and another with another; one exci- tation runs into certain open tendency-channels, and another into others. There is thus a conflict of exci- tations in the cortex, and a conflict of ideas in con- sciousness. We have a see-saw of attention for a while, and then, at last, some one of the contestants wins the day.
The conflicting processes need not be ideas: they Selective may be perceptions or assimilations or groups 01 ideas of any degree of complexity. Suppose, now, that we have at the same time two rival impulses^ two impulses which cannot both be acted out because their movements are antagonistic. There will be a The Complex Forms of Action Volitional action.
Secondary ideomotor action.
Automatic movement.
conflict, an effortful see-saw of attention, until the one or the other wins. Action which is motived in this way is termed selective action.
Suppose, again, that the claimants for the attention are one of them an impulse and one of them an idea (or group of ideas) that has never formed part of a motive, that does not * prompt to action ' at all. In this case, too, there may be a conflict: we may move, or we may remain inactive and attend to the second claimant. If we move, we perform what is called a volitional action.
Selective and volitional actions are the highest, the most complex, that we know; they are the only forms that appear in the state of active attention. Both alike are simplified by the lapse of active into secondary passive attention. And the simplifica- tion that they undergo is merely a repetition of the simplification of the impulse itself. We have, first, the change into ideo-^notor action, and then a final descent into secondary reflex or (as it is better named) antomatic movement.
It is with these four types that we are concerned, therefore, in the present Chapter.
The conflict of impulses.
§ 102. Selective Action. — Selective action has its root in alternating impulsive actions. When a young child suddenly comes face to face with a strange dog, the impulse towards {cf, the instinct of inquisitive- ness) and the impulse away from {cf. the instinctive fear of the unknown) are realised in quick succession. The child goes up to the dog, runs back to its father, approaches the dog again, and so on. Later in life, when active attention has become habitual, there is but one movement: the conflict of impulses is out- wardly manifested only in the slowness with which movement follows upon the presentation of the motive, and (perhaps) in a puzzled and perplexed expression of face. In other words, we have in the conduct of adults selective action, and not alternate impulsive actions.
Sometimes, however, the alternation of impulsive actions takes place even in adult life. Thus it has^ happened to the author, in face of the two impulses (i) to shut a door on the right hand and (2) to seat himself at his typewriter-table on the left, actually to begin a right-hand movement towards the door, and then all at once to slue round to the typewriter, without having closed it. — In hi«> story of '^ Dite Deuchars '' Mr. Barrie has drawn a vivid picture of conduct permanently arrested at this half-way house between impulsive and selective action.
The impulses whose conflict ends in selective Complex action may, however, be very much more complex than the impulses which we have described hitherto. We have assumed that the 'object' of the impulse is quite simple; something that can be grasped by a perception or idea or assimilation. Suppose that the object is a situation, of the kind that gives rise to emotion, — that the impulse consists of idea of own movement, of ideas of a situation (idea of object), and of idea of result of movement: the consciousness that is made up of rival impulses will then be a very complicated affair. And again: suppose that the 'object ' of the impulse is a situation of the kind that gives rise not to an emotion, but to a sentiment, a situation that has to be dissected by active attention before it can be grasped as a whole: consciousness The Complex Forms of Action The most becoines Still more complicated. We are actively typeofseiec- attentive to a mass oi ideas, parts or which (the tive action, situations) themselves demand active attention if they are to be adequately met. In such a case, selective action is a most momentous matter; the drain upon the organism's strength is very great, and the choice exceedingly fatiguing. This is selective action at its highest point of development. It is rarely performed.
The reader will remember what we said in § 90 of the rarity of judgment, and of the facility with which we all of us take judgments ^ on trust ' from those who have already done the work of thinking. Remembering this, he will understand how tangled a set of processes the various forms of selective action are, and how difficult it is, in any given instance, to say whether active attention has been involved or not. Thus many choices in the sphere of moral conduct, which wear the look of extremely complex selective actions, may have resulted in actual fact from the conflict of simple impulses. Take the case of a rivalry of duties; of impulses, /.<f., whose objects are duty-performances. We do not know what to do; but still we choose, very often, without thought. " I shall feel better if I do that^^'' we say, and do it almost offhand. Now if we had acted selectively, as we appear to have done, we should (i) have analysed the situation that called for the doing of the one duty, (2) have dissected that which demanded the doing of the second duty and (3) have^ weighed the two resulting judgment-impulses against each other, — all in the state of active attention.
The simplification, as always, has its good side. There are times when we must strain our active attention to the utmost; and the more lightly we take the clash of situations in lesser matters, the more energy we have left for the great occasions. If we refused to accept our neighbours' experi- ence, and insisted on judging for ourselves, we should proba- The selective action of daily life.
bly be too tired to act efficiently when the call came for really selective action. It is also true, in many cases, that the ' right ' action is the action which realises the impulse that is strongest at the moment when the alternatives are suggested, and which is therefore, so to say, an instinctive action. If we scrupulously weigh consequences, and con- sider all the pros and cons, we are liable to lose our moral balance, to cut ourselves adrift from the moral anchorage of social tradition and public opinion, and so to act against our ' better nature.'
Any biography that goes at all minutely into details furnishes examples of selective action. Thus when Napoleon was free to turn his thoughts to England, after the treaty of Schonbrunn (1809), he found two possibilities of action: he might himself take in hand the conduct of the war in Spain, or he might devote himself to heightening the rigour of the blockade in the north and northwest. He chose the latter course. Again: when war with Russia became inevitable (181 1), he deliberated whether to restore Poland and begin a campaign upon the Lithuanian fron- tier, or to strike a sudden and decisive blow by invasion with an overwhelming force. The latter course was chosen.
§ 103. Volitional Action. — Volitional differs from The conflict /\ selective action merely in the fact that the conflict and"idea^^ is carried on, not between impulse and impulse, but between an impulse and an idea (or group of ideas) which does not contain any inducement to action. I am reading a novel, when the thought strikes me that I ought to be working: the impulse to rise from my chair and set about writing comes into conflict with the passive interest of the story. My rising, if it takes place, is a volitional action.
Volitional action is subject to the same degeneration that instance' we have just traced out in the case of selective action, o^ volitional •^ action.
Suppose, e.g.^ — to quote a much- discussed instance, — that a well-to-do citizen, a man holding municipal office, the 250 The Complex Forms of Action father of a family, the administrator of important trusts, is walking by a river-side, and sees a child fall from a wharf into the water. He has the impulse to jump in after it. On the other side are ranged the ideas of the seriousness of a wetting and the certainty of influenza to follow, the thought that his life is worth something to the community while the child has not yet proved itself honest or capable, the remembrance of duties owed to wife and children, etc. If all these considerations are reviewed, it is highly probable that no action will follow. In most cases, however, the jump is taken, and taken impulsively. Society praises the bravery of the act, and accounts it as volitional: and, indeed, it wears all the appearance of a volitional action. Nevertheless, there was no conflict, or at most a very weak one. Nature has seen to it that the men who inspire trust are the men who perform actions of this sort ^instinctively'; for nature looks to the good of the whole; and the keeping alive by example of the spirit of self-sacrificing courage is more for the good of the whole than the loss of a single member of society, however valuable, is for its harm.
So it may be in the sinrpler case given above. I may rise and begin to write without realising that the struggle has fairly begun. The novel was less interesting than usual for an instant; my attention flagged, and was seized by the idea of working; and here I am, with my pen travelling over the paper. There can be no doubt that many volitional acts, so called, are really impulsive. Nevertheless, there are times, as every reader must be able to assert from his own experience, when true volitional action is required o? each one of us.
We have a typical instance of volitional action in the crossing of the Rubicon, i.e.^ the invasion of Italy, by Julius Caesar (b,c. 49). The alternative to this step was the passive resig- nation of the two Gauls and the dismissal of the army.
Shakespeare pictures volitional action, e.g.^ in Juliefs drinking of the potion prepared by Friar Laurence {Ro?neo and Juliet^ Act iv., sc. 3). Juliet deliberates: § 104. CJioice and Resolve 251 "What if this mixture do not work at all?...What if it be a poison?...How if, when I am laid into the tomb, I wake before the time?...''^ and so on; but finally drinks. — Cf. Desdemona's resolve to follow her husband rather than stay with her father (Othello^ Act § 104. Choice and Resolve. — Selective and voli- tional action are characterised, we said, by the slozv- ness with which movement follows the formation of a motive. The period of inaction which intervenes be- tween thought of action and action itself has received different names, according as the conflict of ideas goes on in the state of active or in that of passive attention. If we have a merely passive alternation of motives (as in the case of the child in presence of the dog; or in cases where the rival impulses are more complicated, but still do not require to be actively dissected, — where the situations that stand for the - object-ideas are such as to call forth emotions only, yi not an oscillatory sentiment), we speak of a period of hesitation. If we have an active weighing of motives. Hesitation, as happens when the situations of the impulses are too complex to be passively apprehended, we speak of a period of deliberation. Hesitation is accompanied Deliberation. by the mood of uneasiness or depression or dissatis- faction; perhaps even by the emotion of melancholy or care. Deliberation is attended by the sentiment of obscurity, confusion, doubt, etc.
Deliberation, then, is the series of judgments or Choice and resolve of active imagings that precedes selective and voli- tional action. But before movement can take place, deliberation must have been replaced by something The Complex Forms of Actio7i else; conflict must have been changed into victory for the one side and defeat for the other. The emer- gence of the victorious judgment is termed choice in the case of selective and resolve or decision in the case of volitional action.
Instance of choice with active atten- tion.
The appearance of choice or resolve, since it means that the conflict is over, means that active has lapsed into sec- ondary passive attention. But this does not necessarily mean that thought has ceased. Since the victorious judg- ment is a judgment, we may still be actively thinking, after we have chosen or decided. Hence the end of deliberation may be accompanied by a sentiment (belief, ease, justice, compassion, etc.). More often, however, the judgment has become so familiar that active thought is not required: we have the emotion of relief or disappointment. — Further, to make the complication still worse, the fact of choice or resolve may itself become the topic of judgment: we may be proud, ashamed, etc., just because we have chosen or decided. ^^- An instance may help to make the argument clear. Sup- pose that, after doubting whether to include an account of certain facts in this book or to leave it out, I decide to include it. My writing it down is a volitional action. What are the processes that constitute its mental antecedents?
( 1 ) I have two conflicting situations before me: the put-in and the leave-out situations. Both are thought-situations, and each requires active attention; there are many argu- ments on either side.
(2) I deliberate: that is, I attend actively to both situ- ations, with the sentiment of doubt. This means much effort.
(3) I decide: the effort of dehberation ceases, and the put-in judgment wins. At this point I may experience simply the emotion of relief; but, on the other hand, I may have the sentiment of agreement or truth that belongs to § 104- Choice and Resolve 253 the judgment as a judgment. If the put-in judgment was thoroughly familiar when I began to dehberate, the senti- ment will not arise: if it was not, the situation may demand further thought.
(4) The process may stop here, or may continue. Let us suppose that it continues. I may think that it was fool- ish of me to spend so much time and trouble in deliberating, or that my deliberation showed that I was underestimating the reader's capacity; in that case I am ashamed. Or I may think that I need not have worried, for I have thought out the subject so completely, and made it fit in so well with what comes before and after it, that every one can understand it: in that case I have the sentiment of pride or of aesthetic fitness.
Not till all these processes have run their course does the actual writing begin. Four times over I have had to think: first, about each of the situations ', secondly, about both of them together; thirdly, about the situation decided upon; and fourthly, about my own decision. Notice that all these processes may equally well be present when there is no action whatever. If, e.g.^ I decide to leave out the account, (i), (2) and (3) will still necessarily be there, and (4) may j occur also.
occur also.
A very common form of choice is that pictured by Tennyson in The choice " CEnone/' Paris is to give the golden apple to the fairest of the ° everyaay three chief goddesses. Here comes first, making "proffer of royal power.'' Paris, moved by the single impulse, " held the costly fruit Out at arm's length, so much the thought of power Flatter'd his spirit "; but, before the action was performed, Pallas had intervened with the promise of wisdom. There is a conflict of impulses: "' she ceased, And Paris pondered."
His deliberation is interrupted by Aphrodite's offer of " The fairest and most loving wife in Greece "; The Complex Forms of Action Will.
The psy- chological arguments for freedom and this motive, forming just as the other two have been weak- ened by mutual struggle, carries the day.
The taking of a resolve is portrayed in the opening scenes of Macbeth. Beginning in the " suggestion whose horrid image doth unfix the hair/' it culminates in the words: " I am settled, and bend up Each corporal agent to this terrible feat."
§ 105. The Freedom of the Will. — The psychology of attention and action is often termed the psychology of the Will: just as that of affection, feeling, emotion and sentiment is termed the psychology of Feeling, and that of sensation, perception, idea, association and thought the psychology of Intellect. Now one of the most debated questions in philosophy is that of the * freedom of the will/ It is evident that we can- not answer a philosophical question by appeal to our own single science: answers must be obtained from ethics and logic and the other philosophical sciences, as well as from psychology, and the whole list of answers compared and summed up. But as there is a psychology of will, as psychology is one of the sciences appealed to by those who discuss this question, it will be well for us to ask here what psychology has to say upon the matter.
The psychological arguments in favour of the free- dom of the will are two. In the first place, it is said, we choose and decide even when the rival groups of ideas are of equal strength, when the two conflicting situations are equally attractive or equally repulsive. This shows that the mind is free to choose or resolve as it pleases. Secondly, after we have chosen or decided, we are confident that we might have chosen differently; a reexamination of the motives shows § 105. The Freedom of the Will 255 that there was nothing in them that could force or compel us to choose as we did. But if the motive upon which we acted did not compel us to act, the mind must itself have added to the power of that motive, must have turned freely to the one situation rather than to the other.
There are, however, two criticisms to be made and their upon these arguments, (i) They both speak of the mind as if it were a living, acting creature. That is the popular view of mind: but we have given it up for the scientific view, which is that mind is a stream of mental processes (§ 4). It is natural, perhaps, to think of a mind-creature as choosing freely; it is very difficult to think of a stream of processes as making a choice. Yet this is what we should be obliged to think, if the arguments held. But they do not hold: for (2) they both assume that the conscious motives to action are the sole conditions of action. Now this - is a wholly unwarrantable assumption: the arguments y have missed the fact that bodily tendency, natural and acquired,- — the trend of the whole nervous system, to which no conscious process corresponds, — helps the conscious motives to determine action. The tendency-channels in which some cortical excitations run are deep and well-worn; those which others find open are shallow and difficult. Naturally, then, the motives that correspond to excitations of the former sort gain the victory over their rivals of the latter sort (§ 32). While there is all the appearance of fair play, nature is working behind the scenes, favouring the one contestant and hindering the other.
As psychologists, therefore, we cannot accept the The Co7nplex Foi^ms of Action Secondary ideomotor action.
Instance.
freedom of the will unless (i) we throw away our scientific definition of mind, and return to the popular notions held about it. And further, (2) as psycholo- gists we are able to explain, by means of nervous tendencies, certain phenomena of choice which are commonly supposed to furnish a basis for the belief in freedom. On the other hand, we must always re- member that psychology is not the sole judge of the question.
§ 106. Ideomotor Action and Automatic Movement. — The ideomotor action that we have now to discuss is derived from selective or volitional action. Some particular impulse is habitually victorious in the con- flict of deliberation, and gradually degenerates as the result of victory. Hence this ideomotor action differs from that of § 71 in two circumstances. In the first place, it is of higher parentage: the impulsive action from which it descends is an action whose motive is of the complex kind described in § 102, — an impulse in which the object-perception is replaced by an object-situation. Secondly, this complex impulse is not one of the universal animal impulses, such as food-taking, but an impulse which has been put together in the course of a single lifetime. In orL^. gin, then, and in matter, there is a difference; in all other respects the actions are identical.
An extremely good instance of this secondary ideomotor action is to be found in the playing of a skilled pianist. When we are learning to play the piano, our actions are one and all selective; we have to think which dot upon the score stands for which note upon the keyboard, and which finger is to be set down where. As we become § io6. Ideoniotor Action, Automatic Movement 2^"j