successive association ab\_cd'\xy-\ab'\cdpq; the two supple- mented ideas associate, because of the association of abed in the original complex. — Or we have the original complex, abed. Some one part-process, r, attracts the attention, and is supplemented. We then have the successive association abcd-exy.
The chord e-e-g is given. It is divided up into its three notes, and each of the notes is supplemented by a word, the name of the note. The three notes are then associated, the ground of their connection lying in the fact of their having been together in the chord. — Or a hot room is given, and the heat attracts the atten- tion. The heat-idea is supplemented, and this supplemented idea associated to the whole complex.
We can, then, express the law of association by the formula ab — be. One idea calls up another when it contains elements which are common to it and that other. Connections once formed (be^ tend to persist even when the conditions of their formation are not realised (when only ab is given).
All connections set up between sensations by the for- mation of ideas tend to persist. It is the business of psychology to discover under what conditions they actu- ally do persist, — why it is that now this and now that idea is associated to the same impression. The conditions of persistence are partly external and partly internal. On the one hand freqiteney of association in the outside world assures stability of connection in consciousness; on the other, our mental constittitio7i decides what shall be the line of least associative resistance. In a given instance, these conditions may vary somewhat: the recency of an occurrence, e.g., may give it the same power, of connec- tion that it would have gained by frequent repetition, and the pleasantness or unpleasantness of an event, i.e., its hold over the attention, may give it the same power of connection that it would have possessed in its own right had it appealed to our specific mental constitu- tion.
Method. — The special conditions of the association of ideas in a particular consciousness at a particular time can be deter- mined only by a careful analysis of experimental results, carried out along the lines indicated in the foregoing Section. At present so few investigations have been made that it is hardly possible to say anything more than has been said, in general terms, in the text. Another method for testing the quickness of different associations will be described in Ch. XIV.
In the older psychologies various laws of association were recognised: association by similarity, association by contiguity, association by cause and effect, etc. These are in reality not laws, in the true sense of the word, but sub-forms of one type of succes- sive association, — the train of ideas. If the association took the form abcd-bcde, it was called an association by similarity; if it took the form abcd-axyz, an association by contiguity; if axyz happened to be the effect of abed, an association by cause and effect.
Thus suppose that the idea of ' Alexander the Great ' suggests that of * Napoleon.' This would have been called an association by similarity. But its formula evidently is: Alexander, general, conqueror, — Napoleon, general, conqueror. There is no new * law ' involved; it is our own law ab-bc with the b elements pre- ponderant. Or suppose that the idea ' cow ' suggests that of ' milk- maid.' This would have been called an association by contiguity. But its formula is: cow, cow in field, cow being milked, — milk- maid, cow being milked. Again, there is no new law involved; it is our law ab-bc, with the a and c elements preponderant.
It is, then, a mistake to speak of these forms of association as ' laws.' The mistake arose from the habit of considering ideas as permanent wholes, ' bits ' of mind, which were joined together as wholes. The fluidity of the idea, and all the facts of associa- tive supplementing, were unnoticed.
212 The Association of Ideas Very little is known in detail of the physiological processes which correspond to the mental processes of association. We know that the more frequently any organ has been in action, the more easily is it set in action; the tendency to act grows with action. We must suppose, further, that the tendency of two parts of the brain to act together grows with every instance of joint action. The supposition is borne out by what we know of the brain's mode of working. We shall return to the point in § 76.
CHAPTER IX Feeling and Emotion § 56. The Nature and Forms of Feeling. — Consciousness can never be wholly affective, to the exclusion of all sen- sation processes. This can be shown in two ways. On the one hand, consciousness is always complex, consists always of more than one elementary process. But the affection of any particular moment is a single affection; however numerous the stimuli which are presented at that moment, their pleasantness or unpleasantness is one in our experience (§ 32). And as there are no 'mixed feelings,' no simultaneous associations of pleasantness and unpleasantness, there must be something besides affection present to constitute a consciousness. On the other hand, it follows at once from the definition of affection that an affective process cannot be the whole of consciousness. An affection is the conscious repre- sentative of the way in which the organism takes certain impressions. But there can be no way of taking unless there are impressions to take, — i.e., unless sensations are set up at the same time as the affection.
Although, therefore, consciousness may very well con- sist solely of sensation processes, — ideas or connections of ideas which are of such slight intensity as not to excite pleasantness, or of so habitual occurrence as to have be- come indifferent, — no consciousness is exclusively affec- 214 Feeling and Emotion tive. Ideas can stand alone, without affection; affection cannot stand alone, without the support of sensation or idea.
The simplest concrete process in which affection pre- ponderates is th.Q. feeling. The feeling stands on the same level of mental development as the perception or idea; it is in reality a complex process, composed of a perception or idea and affection, in which affection plays the princi- pal part. As a rule, the greater number of the constituent sensations are either indifferent, or but weakly pleasant or unpleasant, while a minority stand out distinctly as the supporters of an intense affection. Thus the feeling that arises when we cut our finger contains visual and cutane- ous sensations, which are indifferent; the common sen- sation of pain, which stands out above these; and a strongly unpleasant affection, which attaches to the pain. We term the feeling, in so many words, a 'feel- ing of pain.* And we say in the same way, that we 'feel warm,' 'feel tired,' ' feel thirsty,' 'feel giddy,' etc., naming the feeling in each case from the strongest sensation or group of sensations in the complex.
The strongest sensation, it must be remembered, is not so strong as the affection. The fact can best be shown symboli- cally. It we denote sensation by s and affection by a, and fur- ther employ large and small letters to express different degrees of intensity in these processes, we can indicate the composition of the feeling by the formula ssA.
The compound sS would then be an indifferent perception. We often have, in experience, sSa or sSa; a complex in which the strongest sensation is stronger than the affection. In such cases, we speak not of a feeling, but of an ' affectively toned idea.' Suppose, e.g., that we cut our finger with a razor. We might be struck, at the moment, rather by the extreme sharp- § 5 6. The Nature a7id Fonns of Feeling 215 ness of the blade than by the pain of the wound. We should then have not a feeling of pain, but an unpleasantly toned idea of sharpness.
Practically, it is not hard to draw the distinction between feeling and affectively toned idea; the two are sufficiently well- marked in actual experience. In scientific analysis, however, they differ only in the amount of their affective constituent; and, as we have no means of measuring this amount at all accurately, psychology can distinguish them only by the general statement that the feehng is more affection than it is idea, the affectively toned idea more idea than it is affection.
We have noticed the fact that impressions which are frequently repeated become indifferent. The organism adapts itself to them, and their pleasantness or unpleasant- ness 'wears off.' It is an evident corollary to this that the ideas which are of greatest service to us as the sources of knowledge of the physical world, and which are therefore most often ' handled ' by us in acquiring or imparting knowledge, are least likely to play any large part in the formation of feelings. They become stereotyped, so to speak; they are attended to not for their own sake, but for the sake of what they mean. They are, as a matter of fact, always in process; their composition varies, and the relative intensity, duration, etc., of their components also change. But we take them for granted, supplementing them as the proof-reader supplements misspelled words (§ 53). And at the same time that we overlook slight changes in their contents, we lose the pleasantness or unpleasantness which once attached to them.
There can be no question of the correctness of this corollary as regards sight and hearing. These two senses are in constant exercise; sight for reading, and hearing for conversation, listening to lectures, etc. We are perfectly indifferent to the great major- 2i6 Feeling and Emotion ity of the visual impressions which we receive in the course of a day. It is only when they are too strong, as when snow dazzles the eye, that they are markedly unpleasant; and only by contrast, as ' restful ' or ' quiet,' that they are markedly pleasant. It is true that we speak of ' feeling blue,' ' feeling dull,' etc., and say that 'things have a black look.' But these are metaphorical expres- sions, referring to the promise of bad weather in a lowering sky, etc. — Just the same thing holds of clangs and noises.
But there seem to be important exceptions to the rule in cer- tain organic sensations (not in all: </ §§ 17, 44 ff.)j ^^^ i^ ^^ ideas founded upon smell and taste. So far are these ideas from being indifferent, that we ordinarily classify smells and tastes as agreeable and disagreeable, while the organic sensations are merged in the feelings of bodily comfort and discomfort. Yet all three are of frequent occurrence.
The difficulty disappears when we consider the conditions under which the ideas and sensations in question arise, (i) Organic sensations give us knowledge of a very important part of the phys- ical world, our own body; they are set up by some change within a bodily organ, not by any outside stimulus. Now a change in any of the principal organs must stand in intimate relation to the state of the nervous system; and the state of the nervous system, anabo- lism or catabolism, is the physical condition of affection. Hence if the organic sensations attain to any considerable degree of intensity, we imist attend to them, and imist feel them to be pleasant or unpleasant. An organism which could disregard them would have carried its indifference too far, and would quickly perish. On the other hand, if the sensations are weak, they pass unremarked, i.e., are indifferent. — We have here, then, no real exception to the rule. Any intensive impression attracts the attention. The apparent exception is due to the fact that certain organic sensations, owing to the peculiar conditions under which they arise, attract the attention more forcibly and exclusively than do the sensations of sight and hearing. (2) Smells and tastes may become indifferent: the surgeon does not notice the smell of the dissecting room, the gardener the fragrance of the hothouse, the smoker the tobacco-laden air of his study; and those whose § $6. The Nature and Forms of Feeling 2iy diet is regular take their accustomed dishes day by day without thought of the pleasantness or unpleasantness of what they eat and drink. But smell and taste, like the organic sensations, occupy a peculiar position among the senses. In the first place, they are of extreme practical importance to the organism, standing guard as they do over respiration and digestion. Hence a small variation in a smell-taste complex, anything unfamiliar in a familiar setting, will attract the attention more quickly and forcibly than would a much larger difference in other sense departments. We cannot afford to neglect smells and tastes. Secondly, however, affections are often ascribed to smell and taste which really belong to the organic sensations. Thus, a meal may be very pleasant, despite the accustomedness of the dishes set before us. The pleasantness is in this case a digestive pleasantness, derived from the satisfac- tion of hunger; but it may very well be referred to the ' appetis- ing ' smell and agreeable taste of the meats.
It may be said, too, that smells, tastes and most of the organic sensations, familiar as they are, are not so entirely habitual as sights and sounds. They are not used as symbols for the recep- tion or imparting of general knowledge, as written and spoken words are. Where this is the case, where they are thought-coun- ters which can be passed from man to man, as coin is passed in exchange for goods of all kinds, they lose a large part of their intrinsic capacity to evoke affection. Thus the savage, who uses the sense of smell, much more frequently than civilised man, to gain knowledge of the outside world, is far less affected by the pleasantness or unpleasantness of odours. An attempt has been made, experimentally, to develope a smell-arithmetic; and it has been found that simple additions and subtractions can be per- formed by the help of smell-ideas alone. If any one were to take the trouble to carry this arithmetic still further, there can be little doubt that the smells employed in it would grow entirely indif- ferent, — as indifferent as articular pressures.
Touch, as might be expected, stands midway between these two groups of senses. The tactual differences of roughness and smoothness, stiffness and softness, dryness and wetness, etc., prove to be distinctly pleasant or unpleasant, if the attention is directed 21 S Feclinz ctfid Emotion i> to them. Nevertheless, we touch a great many objects in the course of a day with complete indifference.
The feeling is a mixture of perception and affection, in which the affection preponderates. Hence feelings can- not be satisfactorily classified except in terms of affection, the strongest part-process. Now there are only two quali- ties of affection: pleasantness and unpleasantness; and there are, accordingly, only two kinds or classes of feel- ings: pleasant feelings and unpleasant feelings. But as very many different perceptions may enter into one class of feelings, there will be many shades or varieties of feel- ing within each class. Thus the feeling of warmth and the feeling of satiety are both pleasant feelings, feelings of the same kind; but the difference of the sensation pro- cesses contained in them makes a difference in the whole feeling. Language, as we have seen, avails itself of such differences; feelings are named after the strongest con- stituent sensation.
It is often asserted that there are a great number of different feeling qualities; that affective experience is as rich in qualities as sensible experience. It is rather true, as stated in the text, that there are only two quahties of feeling, — the qualities of pleasantness and unpleasantness; but the complexity of sensible experience shows through the affective overlay in the various concrete feelings. The differences between feeling and feeling within each class are entirely due to differences in the quality of component sensations; but as the predominant quality of the whole is an affective quality, these differences are — naturally, but quite wrongly — attributed to affection. The difference between the ' feeling of giddiness ' and the ' feeling of suffocation ' lies in their sensible factors, not in their affective constituents. They differ as giddiness and suffocation differ: as unpleasantness, they are the same.
We may speak of illuso7-y feelings, in the sense that there is an affective contrast observable when feelings of different kinds follow one another in consciousness. Affective contrast appears under the same conditions as sensation contrast. If a moderately pleasant is followed by a moderately unpleasant feeling, the un- pleasantness of the latter is intensified, and vice versa. Very weak feelings do not contrast: there is not enough affection present. And very strong feelings shake the nervous system too violently for contrast effects to be manifested. The criminal, reprieved from death, cannot realise his good fortune at first; he is merely dazed.
§ 57. The Nature of Emotion. — The emotion stands upon the same level of mental development as the simul- taneous association of ideas. On the side of sensation, consciousness advances beyond the stage of a patchwork of perceptions or ideas; the- factors in different ideas run together and form larger wholes, each of which corre- sponds, not to an object or process, but to what we may call a siUiation or incident in the physical world. On the side of affection, consciousness advances beyond the simple feeling to the emotion. The organism does more than ' feel cold ' and ' feel unwell ': it feels the pleasant- ness or unpleasantness of a certain total situation or pre- dicament, of the whole complex of ideas which represents a certain concurrence of processes or collocation of objects in the outside world. On the one hand, we have a rum- bling noise, interrupted by a shrill scream: these ideas are supplemented by the ideas of a child and a wagon: and the whole complex of ideas suggests at once that an accident has happened. On the other, this accident is felt, in its totality; we have the emotion of pity or of fear.
The conditions under which an emotion arises will, then, be somewhat as follows. We set out with a consciousness, 220 Feeling and Emotion composed of a number of ideas, more or less distinct, and more or less pleasant or unpleasant. This consciousness is suddenly interrupted by an idea to which the attention is forcibly attracted (passive attention). The idea is immediately supplemented by other ideas, and a simulta- neous association is formed, reflecting a scene or situation in the physical world. The situation is of such a kind that the organism, in obedience to biological law, must feel it to be pleasant or unpleasant. At this stage we have, there- fore, a complicated feeling set in the midst of the original consciousness. The feeling is so powerful, however, that the original processes are now upon the verge of disap- pearance.
An organism which is called upon to face a particular situation must do so by a particular bodily adjustment, a special bodily attitude or set of bodily movements. This adjustment is taking place at the same time that the com- plicated feeling, just described, is ousting the processes of which the original consciousness was composed. As it takes place, various organic sensations are set up, — the direct results of the changes in the position, tension, etc., of the various bodily organs involved. These organic sensations associate to the mass of ideas contained in the feeling, and together with that feeling constitute the emotion.
It is essential, then, for the formation of an emotion: (i) that a train of ideas shall be interrupted by a vivid feeling; (2) that this feeling shall mirror a situation or incident in the outside world; and (3) that the feeling shall be enriched by organic sensations, set up in the course of bodily adjustment to the incident. The emotion itself, as experienced, consists of a strong affection, and § 5^. The Forms of Emotion 221 a simultaneous association of ideas, some of the part- processes in which are always organic sensations.
In adult life, an emotion is hardly ever found ^ pure '; con- sciousness is too complex, and the habits of connection formed by the part-processes in ideas too numerous. Thus the 'angry consciousness ' described in § 4 contains a good deal more than the pure emotion of anger. — The formation of an emotion occu- pies so short a time that it is impossible to experience separately the two stages depicted in the text. Feeling and bodily adjust- ment come together; their association is simultaneous. Logi- cally, and in primitive experience, the feehng comes first, and the adjustment afterwards.
The feeling, which makes up the body of the emotion, differs somewhat in composition, according as it is pleasurable or un- pleasurable. The having of a pleasant experience means that the physical conditions are favourable to the arousal of a large number of ideas; the having of an unpleasant experience, that they are unfavourable (§ 38). Hence, the feeling contained in a pleasurable emotion is extremely rich in ideas, while that con- tained in an unpleasurable emotion is comparatively poor. In joy, ideas crowd in upon us; our thoughts fly hither and thither. In sorrow, we brood upon one narrow set of ideas.
The importance of organic sensations as factors in emotion is shown in many current words and phrases which describe the emotive state. We are ' oppressed ' by care; we ' cannot bear ' certain people; we are ' cast down ' by bad fortune; ' mortified ' (bruised or pounded) or ' exasperated ' (roughened) by a friend's conduct, etc. ' Anger ' means a choking or strangling, — a group of organic sensations which we now attribute rather to baffled or impotent anger than to anger itself. ' Fear ' is the state of mind (and body) of the way/^/rr/ etc. — Cf. also § 59.
§ 58. The Forms of Emotion. — Just as there are two kinds or classes of feeling, so there are two of emotion: the pleasurable and the unpleasurable. Within each kind or class there are a large number of special emotive forms, 222 Feeling and Emotion as there are a large number of special 'feelings.' Can we name these forms, and so classify emotions, as we classi- fied sensations and ideas? Or must we be content with the general distinction of the two classes, as we were com- pelled to be in the case of feeling?
An emotion arises when a situation or predicament arises. If, then, we could ascertain the typical situations which an organism, placed in the world of nature, must face, — the simplest and most inevitable situations of the physical world, — we could determine the fundamental emotions. And we could then attempt to derive the other emotions from the standard emotions, and thus obtain a complete table of emotive forms.
Although there is no reason to suppose that this prob- lem is insoluble, it has not yet been solved. Animal psychology and child psychology, the biological method and the method of introspection, have hitherto failed to give us an answer to it. All that can be done at present is to indicate one or two of l:he ways in which classification has been tried, with more or less of success, but with no final result.
(i) Emotions fall into two great groups, as emotions of the present and emotions of the future. Thus hope is an emotion of the future, which may become an emotion of the present in the form of satisfaction (hope fulfilled) or disappointment (hope unfulfilled) or despair (hope de- ferred). Fear is an emotion of the future, which may become an emotion of the present either as alarm (fear fulfilled) or relief (fear unfulfilled) or suspense (fear deferred).
(2) Emotions fall into two great groups, as subjective and objective emotions. The subjective emotions are r § 58- The Forms of Emotion 223 those in which the central feehng is made up principally of ideas about oneself; the objective emotions those in which the central feeling is made up principally of ideas derived from outside objects or processes. The most gen- eral forms of subjective emotion are joy and sorrow; the most general forms of objective emotion, like and dislike. The objective emotions may be again subdivided, accord- ing as the object is a person or a thing. The most gen- eral forms of objective person-emotions are sympathy and antipathy; the most general forms of objective thing- emotions are attraction and repulsion. Further, many of the subjective and objective emotions occur in a more sub- jective and a more objective form. Thus sorrow, a subjec- tive emotion, has a more objective form, care, and a more subjective form, melancholy. Antipathy, an objective emotion, has a more objective form, hatred, and a more subjective form, exasperation.
There can be no such thing as an '■ emotion of indifference,' since there is no third affective qiiaUty, ' indifference.' But just as a feeling or an affectively toned idea may pass, in course of time, into an indifferent idea, — the affection * wearing off' with custom, — so a situation, which would naturally give rise to an emotion, may leave us indifferent. This state of indifference is due to the frequent repetition of a situation, to the conquering of natural by acquired tendencies. Every ' dangerous ' profession puts its fol- lowers in situations which would call up the emotion of fear in persons unaccustomed to them: no one could do off-hand what is constantly done by miners, sailors, steeple-jacks, etc. And a life of perpetual trouble blunts the susceptibilities. We have an instance of this in Tennyson's poem of * The Grandmother ': — " You think I am hard and cold; But all my children have gone before me, I am so old: I cannot weep for Willy, nor can I weep for the rest." — 224 Feeling and Emotion The indifference which Hes midway between joy and sorrow is called composure; that which lies between like and dislike, un- concern. Sympathy and antipathy become apathy; attraction and repulsion, insensibility.
§ 59. The Expression of the Emotions. — By the ' expres- sion ' of an emotion we mean the bodily effects following from the change in the nervous system which is the physi- cal condition of the emotion. The various forms of emo- tive expression may be classified under four heads.
(i) Since the core of every emotion is a vivid feeling, we shall expect to find in emotion all the bodily manifesta- tions of the simple affection. We find, as a matter of fact, that every emotion brings with it changes in pulse, respi- ration, volume and muscular strength.
Method. — Suppose that the subject is in position, as described in § 33 (2). After a short time has elapsed, he is informed, say, that he may smoke. The pleasure of the unexpected news shows itself at once in the records of pulse, breathing and volume; and if the dynamometer be squeezed while the cigar is being cut and lighted, it also gives evidence of the affective process. After another brief interval, the cigar is flicked out of the subject's mouth by the assistant, apparently as a practical joke. The resultant un- pleasantness is clearly marked upon the instruments. — The mani- festations of the emotions of pleased surprise and resentment are here identical with those of simple pleasantness and unpleasantness.
(2) But the emotion is the conscious way of taking not an impression, but a situation, a number of simultaneous impressions; and the situation is a far more serious matter to the organism than the separate impression. The bodily changes set up directly by the change in the nervous sys- tem are therefore more intensive and more far-reaching than those just mentioned: they extend beyond heart.
§ 59- ^^^^ Expression of the Emotions 225