THE RELATIVITY OF FEELINGS. 203 per day. Hence, in a degree appreciably under certain con- .ditions, the nature of the feeling excited by luminiferous undulations, varies according to the relative motion of the observer and the body emitting them. / . Of quantitative variations arising fronk relative motion, we have "Unfamiliar instance in the different feelings of heat or of cold produced in us by surrounding media, when we are at rest and when we move. In;a bath above 100°, .the water seems hotter to a limb that stirs than to one that is stationary; and every bather knows how much colder running water of a given temperature feels than still water of the same temperature — a contrast that becomes very great when the velocity of the water is much raised, as in a douche. Similarly with the air. A greater chill is felt by those who, instead of standing still, are ex- posed in a carriage to "the wind of their own speed." Though the explanation of these differences is, that the medium in contact with the skin is ^continually changed in the one set of cases and not in the other, yet it remains true that the sensation varies in intensity as the relative motion of the medium varies.
I § 85. Thus far we have limited onr attention to the feel- \ ings excited by external things acting; on the organism. We \ { must not, however, pass over the feelings i which accompany Iji actions. of the organism on external things. Though ' •' here the relation between subjective and objective changes does noti obviously vary qualitatively, it varies very much quantitatively.
If, in muscular action, there took place a transformation of the feeling of muscular effort into an equivalent of mechanical effect; then a given amount of such feeling would always generate the same amount of such effect, through what- ever muscles expended. But the fact is quite otherwise. The. conscious exercise of force required when a stone weight is lifted by the little finger, far exceeds that re- 2*4 THE ilXDlTCTJGXS OF PSYCHOLOGY.
faired when the £tone weight is grasped in the hand, ancl lifted by the linn. Or again, the gymnastic feat of raising the body ujp a ladder hand over hand, implies a T ^A \io-lier decree? of the subjective state we call exertion tli:-i is implied by Climbing up the ladder in the usual way. CIc-criv, therefore", k given amount of feeling gives rise to an 'amount of racblar motion which is large or small ac- cording to the muscles used. This relation is also dependent on age.; The sense of effort which a child expe- riences in raising a ^weight, greatly exceeds in intensity the sense of effort it will experience in raising the same weight by the same muscles twenty years afterwards. At maturity, a like amount of sensation is the correlate of an increased amount of produced motion. Similarly, this relation varies quantitatively as the constitutional state varies. After a prostrating illness, the feeling of strain that accom- panies the raising of a limb, is as great- as that which in health accompanies a considerable feat of strength.
§ 86. Were it not that already as much space as can be afforded has been occupied, it would be well here to illus- trate the ways in which both the peripherally - initiated feelings that arise in internal organs and the centrally- initiated feelings or emotions, have also their several forms of relativity. But it must suffice just to indicate these ex- tensions of the general truth that has been set forth.
For present purposes we may fitly limit ourselves to the relativity of those peripherally - initiated feelingis directly traceable to environing agencies. Their relativities we find to be of manifold kinds. The quality and the quantity of the sensation produced by a given amount of a given external force, vary not only with the structure of the organism, specific and individual, as well as the struc- ture of the part affected, but also with the age, the con- stitutional state, the state of the part as modified by tem- perature, circulation, and previous use, and even with the TTTE RELATIVITY OF FEELINGS. 205 relative motion of subject and object. l^Thus we may count up nine different causes which affect qualitatively or quanti- tatively or both, the relation between t lie exciting physical agent and the produced psychical modification. These dif- ferent causes co-operate in ever-changing proportions. And when we remember that any change in any one of them results in some alteration in the kind- or degree of feeling,^ aroused, we become strongly impressed? with the trath_ t subjective consciousness, determined as it is wholly b; subjective nature, state,, and circumstances, is no measur of objective existence.
Indeed, the primitive belief that redness exists as such out of the mind, and that sound possesses apart from our- selves that quality which it has to ou* perception, is thus rendered as hard for the psychologist to entertain as its opposite is hard to entertain for the 'uncultivated. After learning that when a tumbler is strubk the blow causes in it a change of form, instantly followed by an oppo- site change of form, after which thfere recurs the first form, and so on — after perceiving thati each of these rhyth- mical changes of form gives an impact to substances in contact with the tumbler, generating! visible waves on the surface of its contained liquid, and wayes having like periods in the surrounding air — when it has jbeen proved to us that the feeling of tone results only when jSuch mechanical oscil- lations of adjacent matter recur with a certain speed, and varies in quality according to the speed — when, further, we find that these mechanical oscillations produce this feeling only when they fall on a particular structure, and that, when they fall on other structures, they produce feelings of totally unlike kinds; we become filly convinced that tj^ef form of objective action we call sound, has not the slightest i kinship in nature jo jhj^sensatio^ ' injis^ Sipailarly withjin^latipns ' of.±lie.,.etherial^ medium, Now that we know heatj^and light tctb$ nearly-allied forms i. of insensible motion, which may arise by transformation of \ 206 THE INDUCTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY.
sensible motion ands mar be re-transformed into it, we are convinced that amo£ng the outer actions which arouse in us the feelings of light,? heat, and sensible motion, there can be no such intrinsic differences as among the feelings we know by these names; an-.<d that hence these feelings cannot be like them. There.^follows irresistibly the conclusion that the same holds of t;}istes and smells — that a bitter flavour implies in the substance yielding it nothing like what we call bitterness, and t:hat there is no intrinsic sweetness in the exhaled matter yiVhich we distinguish as a sweet odour; but that, in these cashes as in the others, the.objective action which sets up the s^'ubjective state, no more resembles it Ithan the pressure wl^iich mores the trigger of a gun resem- jSles the explosion wFiich follows.
; Finally, the induction extends itself to the sensations of i tension and pressure l which we ascribe to mechanical force, ordinarily so-called. The same weight produces one kind of feeling when it re^sts on a passive portion of the body, and another kind of: feeling when supported at the end of the outstretched arm.- Or, to take a better case — if, one hand being opened oui; on the table, a knuckle of the other hand is thrust down ]with some force on the back of it, there results a sensation of pain in the back of the hand, a sensation of pressure in* the knuckle, and a sensation of mus- cular tension in the active arm. Which of these sensations does the mechanical force in action resemble, qualitatively or quantitatively? Clet'irly, it cannot be assimilated to one more than another of them; and hence must in itself be something alien from, or unrepresentable by, any feeling. $ t Thus we are brought,to the conclusion that what we are • Iconscious of as properties of matter, even down to its •weight and resistance, are but subjective affections pro- duced by objective agencies that are unknown and UIL- Sowable. All the sensations produced in us by environ^ ling things are but symbols of actions out of ourselves, the Inatures of which we cannot even conceive. • • - THE EELATIVITY OF FEELIXG3. 207 § 87. Tliis conclusion fully harmonizes with; and is in- deed an obvious corollary from, those icruths which Physi- ology supplies as data to Psychology.: Let us briefly note how the structural and functional facts set down in the pre- ceding part, yield deductively the inferences above reached inductively.
A nerve is a thread of unstable nitrogenous substance running from periphery to centre or from centre to peri- phery, along which, when one of its ends is disturbed, there runs a wave of molecular change to the other. The w:ave of change set up by a peripheral disturbance is not like the action which causes it; and the waves of change set up in different nerves by different peripheral disturbances have no such unlikenesses as have the disturbances them- selves. Hence being obliged to conclude that the kind of feeling depends either on the character of the nerve-centre, or on the way in which the molecular disturbance is brought to the nerve-centre, or on both; it becomes incon- ceivable that any resemblance exists between the subjective effect andjjhat objective cause which arouses it through the intermediation of changes resembling neither.
Similarly with the quantitative variations. Seeing, as we did, that every nervous disturbance propagated from peri- phery to centre undergoes a multiplication, the degree of which depends primarily on the particular multiplying structures passed through, and secondarily on the changeable physiological conditions which favour or hinder the multipli- cation; ' it is clear that, if what on its physical side is a central nervous disturbance, is on its psychical side a feeling, there cannot be constant proportions between feelings and the environing stimuli to which they answer. Quantita-. tively as jrolljas qualitatively^ feeling must be relative to the nature and state of the subject.
§ 88.. But now let us not overlook an all-important im- plication very generally overlooked, and the overlooking of 203 THE IK-T)UCTIOXS OP PSYCHOLOGY.
which leads to elaborate systems of erroneous inferences of verr remarkable, not-* to say astonishing, kinds.
All the foregoing ai -'guments, and all arguments of kindred Inatu7'^, *et out bv"as"stiming objective existence. Not a step can b^ 'taken towards* the truth that our states of conscious- r --- a-e tlie ra]v things we can know, without tacitly or . 3 an unknown something beyond con- The proposition that whatever we feel has an Vxi>renee which is Relative to ourselves only, cannot be oroveil. nav cannot e^11 ^e intelligibly expressed, without ••^-e^rii^ " direct! v or'-' "DJ implication, an external existence ' which is not relative to ourselves. "When it is argued that what we are conscious!* °^ as sound has no objective reality a> sueli. since its antecedent is also the antecedent to what we are conscious of i as jar, and that the two consequents, ' being unlike one another, cannot be respectively like their 'common antecedent;* ^-e validity of the argument depends whnllv on the existence of the common antecedent as some- thing that- has rem4^ne<3- unchanged while consciousngss ha~s been changing. 'K after finding that the same tepid water niav feel warm Ho one hand and cold to the other, it is inferred that warr&th is relative to our own nature and our own state; the inference is valid only supposing the activity to which these: different sensations are referred, is an activity out of ourselves which has not been modified by our own activities. ' One of two things irn^st be asserted: — Either the ante- cedents of each feeling, £r state of consciousness, exist only as previous feelings or states of consciousness; or else they, or some of them, exist apart from, or independently of, con- sciousness. If the first is asserted, then the proof that what- ever we feel exists relatively to ourselves only, becomes doubly meaningless. Tc> Sa7 that a sensation of sound and a sensation of jar cannot ' ^ respectively like their common antecedent because they. are no^ like one another, is an empty proposition; since the two feelings of sound and jar THE IlELATIVITY OF FEE&INGS. 209 ne^er liaye a common antecedent in; consciousness. Tlie combination of feelings that is folloiwed by the feelino- of jar, is never the same as the combination of feelings that is followed by the feeling of i sound; and hence, not having a common antecedent, ivfc cannot be argued that they are nnlike it. Moreover,.' if by antecedent is: meant constant or uniform antecedent (and any other meaning is suicidal) then the proposition that the ante- cedent of sound exists only in consciousness, is abso- lutely irreconcilable with the fact that the feeling of sound often abruptly breaks in upon the series of feelings otherwise determined, where no antecedent of the specified kind has occurred. The otlier alternative, there-* fore, that the active, antecedent of each primary feeling exists independently of consciousness, is th^ only thinkable one| Ib is the one implicitly asserted in the very proposition that feelings are relative to our own natures; and it is taken for granted in every step of every argument by which this proposition is proved. j Thus^we come once more by anotlier route to the con- clusion already twice reached. BT "(the first part of First Principles, when treating of the relaiivity of knowledge, it was shown that the existence of a nfrn-relative is unavoid- ably asserted in every chain of reasoning by which relativity is proved. In the second part o£ {First Principles y when dealing with the Data o£ Philosophy^ it was shown that the co-existence of subject and object ifs a deliverance of con- sciousness which, taking precedence! of all analytic examina- tion, but subsequently verified by analytic examination, is a truth transcending all others in certainty. And here again, the validity of the conclusion that whatever we feel exists as we feel it only in ourselves, we find to depend entirely upon the postulate that feelings have antecedents out of ourselves.
' i CHAPTER IT* i THE RELATIVITY <)P BELATIOXS BETWEEN FEELINGS, i § S9. The mildest jcriticism on tliis title will probably "be thai it is an awkwarcf. combination of words; and an out- spoken critic will retry likely condemn it either as non- sensical or as meaningless. ^Nevertheless it has a definite meaning not properly; expressible by any other title.
Hind we found to be composed of feelings and the rela- tions between feeling's. In the last chapter, it was shown that the kinds and amounts of feelings are determined by the nature of the subject — exist, as we know thenx, only in consciousness, and have no resemblance to the agents beyond consciousness; which cause them. And^it^is the {purpose of this chapter to show that in like manner the •forms and degrees of Delations between feelings are deter- mined by the nature of the subject — exist, as we know them, • only in consciousness, and no more resemble the connexions between outer agents than the feelings they unite resemble these outer agents.
The most highly compounded relations between feel- ings, are those in which they are present to conscious- ness not simply as co- existing but as co-existing in certain relative positions — ^existing, that is, along with many of those intervening and surrounding positions, which are the units o£ our conception of Space. The relativity of these compound relations o£ Co- existence, as we may call them, must be dealt with first. After them we will pass to THE RELATIVITY OF RELATIONS. 211 the compound relations of §£qa£ac-e> or those m whicli feelings are known not simply as", having occurred in succession, but as occupying certain "positions in the series of states of consciousness, between which there are inter- vening positions occupied by other, states — relations of Sequence, that is, in which Time, regarded as having an assignable quantity, is an eletnent. We will next consider the compound relations of Difference, or those iu which beyond the mere consciousness of;Difference, there is a consciousness of the degree of Difference — relations of Difference, that is, in which the related feelings are con- ceived as differing in strength b}7 assignable amounts. The relations of Co-existence, of Sequence, and of Difference, considered under their simplest aspects apart from quanti- tative implications, may then occupy us.
§ 90. l?o great effort of imagination is required to see that the consciousness of space of three dimensions, consti- tuted of trebly-compounded relations of Co-existence, is a consciousness that varies qualitatively according to the structure of the species. It needs but to call to mind how greatly our conception of space is itiodified when we are in a dark place of which we know not the bounds, to perceive that those inferior creatures which liave no eyes, and cannot, as we do in the dark, supplement present tactual experiences by remembered visual experiences, must have concep- tions of space quite unlike int quality to our own, which are abstracted in so large a degree from visual I experiences. Not only must the consciousness | of trebly-compounded relations of Co-existence be quali- I tatively different in such inferior creatures, but also those of doubly-compounded and singly-compounded relations of Co-existence. A creature with eyes is capable of having all the relative positions constituting an area, impressed on consciousness with apparent simultaneity; but a creature •without eyes can become conscious of these multitudinous .- '.i ft.Hr AUCTIONS Of PSYCHOLOGY.
.:.. J,/..-,-«.:.,,,, T_n^of them in distinct succession. And J: * % 'dimension is knowable bv the seeing .,™^_-> 0^ Qp^m:nj-ly-instantaneous consciousness of the -.^.v^.^.:.: Of j-^-o things impressing it, the conscious- „..,.,...-.V.^ ^e]cffre ^positions in a creature without ej^es /.,,.-.,. ^ -Wo-;: <,,,e so close as to be touched at the same ;, ^n,-~ ]-^ two^p?llt=i °^ ^e creatlire^s body) cannot be -.^,.n,viri.-y i^^tanraneof 5^ ^u^ must ^ast Curing the appreci- s,T;\a.,-,^.;*-.^ reciniT"ed fc)r Illllscu^ar niovement of a lirnb, or of t: e V;dv from ore to t^e other. Of course such qualitative j: -V,v^, £P, amoncy coriipound relations of Co-existence as present to consciousnf ss^ musti ^ave coun^ess gradations, determined by the perfectio11 of ^t and the range of s^cr^t It niay ^e added that there is even a srieeics of qualitative * variation that occurs in the same ci-oature usinsr the saPe senses. Take two objects suf- £-:-->n*lv far apart to -§^ve standing room between them. H'lvin^ contemplated \ ^e^ relation of position jfrom a distance, contemplate if a^es^ a^er having so placed the I.GUV that one of them Is ^n ^rOD-^ an<^ OI3e °^ them is behind. I: will be found that wh,at is conceived as a single relation in the one case cannot l}e so Conceived in the other. While standing between the twro objects, it is possible to think of their relative positions or1^ bF thinking successively of their two relations of positicl11 witil self- That compound relations of Co-e?istence as conceived by dijGferent species, vary quantitatively ^th the structures of the species, s/cins. to say the least, VG1T probable. Animals having great locomotive powersi are nofc ^eij to have the same conceptions of given spnpes as a^iinals whose locomotive powers are very small. TV a creature so constructed that its experiences of the larger sPaces around have been gained by long and quick boun^-3^ distances can scarcely present the aspects they do to a feature which traverses them by slow and many steps.
THE RELATIVITY OP LEIATIOXS* £1?, The dimensions of our bodies and the spaces moved through by our linibs, serve us as standards of comparison with en- vironing dimensions; and conceptions of smallness or laro-e- ness result according as these environing dimensions are much less or much greater than the organic dimensions. Hence, the consciousness of a given relation of two positions in space, must vary quantitatively with variation of "bodily bulk. Clearly, a mouse, -which has to run many times its own length to traverse the space which a man traverses at a stride, cannot have the same conception of this space as a man. Quantitative changes in these com- pound relations of Co-existence are traceable by each person in his own niental history, from childhood to maturity. Distances which seemed great to the boy seem moderate to the man; and buildings once thought imposing in height and mass, dwindle into insignificance.
The physiological state of the organism also modifies quantitatively this form of consciousness to a considerable extent. De Quincey, describing some of his opium-dreams, says that " buildings and landscapes were exhibited in pro- portions so vast as the bodily eye is not fitted to receive. Space swelled) and was amplified to an extent of unutterable infinity." It is not an uncommon thing with nervous subjects to have illusive perceptions in which the body seems enormously extended: even to the covering an acre of ground.
A more special modification of bodily state also affects the conception. Like all other nervous structures, the nervous structures employed in the apprehension of space have their receptivity temp orarily diminished by action. As the appreci- ation of a delicate taste is hindered when the palate has just been excited by a very strong taste; so a small or moderate magnitude is under- estimated when a great magnitude has just before occupied the attention. Abuilding that appeared large when it stood amid smaller buildings, loses much of its seeming largeness if a far larger building is erected close TEE JXD CCTIOXS OF PSYCHOLOGY.
to it. Or, to take a bet ter case— when the Sun is seen in the mid*" of the <kv wi ta norLe but great angular spaces between it and the hor'izon> it} looks yeiT muc]l less tlia11 ifc does when close to the, horizon, where the angular space it subtends is comparably6 side b-y side wit]l sma11 Angular spaces.
* Yet a-^ain, compound relations of Co-existence vary with the position of the^obse^6^ not °ll]J quantitatively, but, in a certain sense, qualita -t^ely; for so only can we express the truths that api)are!n* s*ze depends.on distance from the eye, and that apparent -^orm changes with every change in the Doint of view. ^ne impressions made on us by two objects to both X ^hich we are close, are consider- ablv removed from ont^ another in consciousness. But as we recede from such tw<D objects, that compound relation of Co-existence which forfms our conception of their relative positions, diminishes quantitatively, and at last disappears altogether: the two impressions they give us merge into one. The facts t-Iaa* ^e co-existent positions forming a circle become to perception an ellipse when viewed obliquely, and a straight* ^ne when viewed edgeways, illustrate the truth that * compound relations of Co- existence undergo a species of quar-itat^ve variation as the place of the percipient varies. This i^ind of variation is doubtless due to differences among the' rates of -quantitative variation of the many component relaT.-^ons j ^u^ ^ ^s none the less to be regarded as a qaalitatrv;6 variation, since differences ot quality in general are Resolvable into differences in the ratios of the co-operative i-aetors.
We are thus driven to ti*16 conclusion that what w^con- ;ceive as space-relations, ca nnot ^e, either in their, natures or 'degrees, like those eonneo^oas among external tMngs.,J;o jwhich they are due, The-J change both qualitatively and .quantitatively with the st ructure, the size, the state, and •the position, of the percipu;11^ ^d- when we see that what is, objectively considered/ ^e saQle connexion between THE JSELATIYITY OP RELATIONS. 215 •fcliiiigs, may,, as a space-relation in consciousness., be single OT- double — when we remember that,.according as we are XL ear or far off, it may be too large >to be simultaneously perceived or too small to be perceived at all; it becomes iimpossible to suppose any identity be?tween this objective connexion and some one of the multitudinous subjective eolations answering to it.. = § 91. The compound relations of Sequmce. or those in •vsrliich we conceive phenomena as having occurred, not slxnply one after another, but a§; occupying places in con- sciousness between which there are intervals measured by Intervening places, and from which,^ "by abstraction, we dorive our conception of Time, do ne^t at first sight appear to vary qualitatively. Eeasons may,: however, be assigned for suspecting qualitative variations ini them.
Such qualitative variations as profeably occur, are deter- mined by differences of specific structure. A stationary cx-eature without eyes, receiving; distinct sensations from external objects only by contacts whhch happen at long and irregular intervals, cannot have in, its consciousness any compound relations of sequence save] those arising from the slow rhythm of its functions. Even -in ourselves the respi- z-atory intervals, joined sometimes wit*h the intervals between -fclie heart's pulses, furnish part of tfye materials from which our consciousness of duration is derived; and had we no continuous perceptions of external changes, and conse- quently no ideas of them, these rhi^hmical organic actions •would obviously yield important dajfca for our consciousness of Time: indeed, in the absence of locomotive rhythms, our sole data. Eemembering this, and remembering that the sequences with which we are chiiefly occupied, and from -v^Mch our conception of Time is chiefly abstracted, are not •tliese sequences derived from internal actions, but the sequences in our impressions of external actions, it will be manifest that there is most lifcfely a marked qualitative difference between derived solely from tliat developed com outer changes, but] AUCTIONS OP PSYCHOLOGY.
that undeveloped sense of dtrration the experiences of inner changes., and ijeption of Time derived mainly from conceived to be a form of "botli 1 S~\ J * », m outer and inner cfhanges. Quantitative variations in compoWd relations of Sequence as existing in consciousness, &kQ manifestly caused by the stmc- tural differences whfich constitute differences of species. Subjective rhythms, partly of the vital functions and partly of the locomotive i functions,, mark out consciousness into tolerably regular intervals; thus yielding measures between states of consciousness otherwise caused — standards of duration. Hence" a small creature, in which. tJfa.es e rhythms are very rapid, must have a consciousness of a given objective internal widely unlike the consciousness of it possessed by a liirge animal, whose rhythms are rela- tively very slow. A gnfat/s wings make ten or fifteen thousand strokes per second, i Each stroke implies a separate nervous action. Eacli- such nervous action, or cliange in a nervous centre, is c probably as appreciable by the g-nat as is a quick movement!- of his arm by a man. And if tliis, I or anything like this,;* is the fact, then the Jime occupied [ by a given external chi^ge, measured by many movements ' in the one case, must ^eem much longer than it seems^ jm, ; the olher^case, when mt^asure(^x^J.Hig}£ ^I?.331611^ How ao-e determines u quantitative variations in compound relations oiSequence, isvt a matter of common remark. Pro- bably these are in part d^e to differences of size, and con- comitant differences in $he rhythms of the functions, vital and locomotive: it requires a greater number of a cblld-'s movements than of a mien's movements to measure a day. But that the change in athe estimation of intervals is not wholly thus caused, is ^manifest from the fact that after maturity is reached, thery, or at any rate the longer ones, continue to undergo a seei^i^g abbreviation. Months to o^Jjcoanagpear no longer! %§.9--, THE RELATIVITY OE RELATIONS. 217