Among the most relational relations, as among the most- relational feelings, the present impedes remembrance of the past in the smallest degree; and among these, too, we find presented relations interfering in the smallest degree with the representation of relations of the same order. Yisual relations, no matter how vividly impressed, never absolutely exclude from consciousness other visual relations of which we choose to think. We saw that a very intense visual feel- ing temporarily prevents us from calling to mind another visual feeling; but though it is impossible to gaze at the sun and think of green, it is quite possible to gaze at the sun and think of a square. Similarly, a trial will show that if while contemplating any scene we think of some other scene, we recall the distribution of its parts more readily than we recall its colours.
Relations of Sequence, much less relational as they are, show us a greater interference of the present with remem- brance of the past. Though while looking at one slaape we can easily think of another quite unlike it, we cannot, without difficulty, if at all, call to mind a rhythmical com- 210 THE INDUCTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY.
bination of intervals wholly different from another to which we are listening — cannot bring into consciousness the move- ment of a melody in f-time while listening to a melody iu common time. When the rhythm we hear is very simple, as the splash of oars while rowing, it is, indeed,, possible to think of some complex rhythm disagreeing with it entirely; but only the disciplined musician can attend at once to ideal and real rhythms that are both complex and quite unlike one another.
It is obvious that presented relations of Difference be-, tween simple feelings, stand very much more in the way of represented relations of Difference between simple feelings — especially where the differences are between, feelings of the same order.
§ 108. A kindred truth to be here noticed (the counter- part to which should have been noticed when dealing with the revivability of feelings) is that the representation of any relations is hindered by the presence in consciousness of other represented relations; and that the hindrance, while either great or insuperable if the two sets of relations are of the same order, is comparatively small if they are of different orders.
The most relational of relations may bo superposed in thought,, one set upon another: we can imagine the out- lines of a face, and then, without losing consciousness of it. may imagine a geometrical figure described over the same visual area. We cannot, however, deal similarly with unlike sets of sequences. The rhythm of some tune which has taken possession of ns, and of which we vainly try to rid ourselves by thinking of other things, may be effectually, expelled by rehearsing in thought another tune.
But when the relations are of different orders, their re- presentations have but little power of mutual exclusion. We see this in the case just referred to; for the tune that pesters us keeps running on through consciousness while THE EEVIYAB1LITY OF RELATIONS. 247 we are thinking of places,' or actions, or matters of business. Hence, too, results the frequent failure of the receipt- for obtaining sleep when excited — that of counting; for after a short time the counting becomes almost automatic,, and is carried on while consciousness is still chiefly occupied by the exciting thoughts.
§ 109. From the mental conditions that affect the re- vivability of relations, we pass now to the physical condi- tions that affect their revivability. As might be expected, those which hold with feelings hold also with the relations between feelings. It is needless to trace out their in- fluences as fully as before. A single illustration of each will suffice.
Proof that relations established in consciousness at a time when the nervous centres are worn by long-continued action, have a comparatively small revivability, is furnished by the familiar experience that knowledge acquired by (C cramming" is soon lost. That relations impressed when the circulation is vigorous are more re- vivable than those impressed when the circulation is feeble, we see in the decaying receptivity of age. Dur- ing youth and early manhood, it is easy to recall the various events on each of the successive days recently passed, and there is never any doubt what is the day of the month; but as life advances and the heart's action flags, these relations of recent times and actions quickly fade. Similarly, relations impressed when the circulation was strong and that were once easily reek1- able, become difficult to recall when the circulation has been. rendered abnormally feeble. Thus, it is a common symptom with nervous subjects to make mistakes in spelling quite simple words; and in states of extreme prostration such persons, as well as those greatly reduced by illness, forget where they are, and even who they are.
Quality, as well as quantity, of blood has an influence.
24-8 THE INDUCTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY.
A fact before referred to as illustrating the relativity of relations, may here "be again named as illustrating the variations of their revivability thus caused — the fact, namely, that opium produces intensified and exaggerated representations of spaces and times.
§ 110. On comparing these subjective truths with the ob- jective truths presented by the nervous system, we may trace, as in other cases, a general congruity.
That relations of any order, presented or represented, greatly hinder, or wholly prevent, the representation of rela- tions of the same order, but hinder much less, or scarcely at all, the representation of relations of other orders, might be inferred from the data with which we set out. If, through a plexus of nerve-fibres, there is propagated the particular set of nervous discharges which answers physically to what is psychically a certain set of perceived or conceived rela- tions, an obstacle is thereby put to the simultaneous propa- gation through them of a different set of nervous discharges answering to a different set of conceived relations. But a separate plexus of nerve-fibres, the discharges through which answer to relations of another order, may be simul- taneously excited without producing the same confusion, and may yield to consciousness its partially-independent train of ideas — partially-independent we must say, because the actions of the two plexuses having to "be co-ordinated at some common centre (for otherwise the corresponding ideas would not belong to one consciousness) there must always result some interference.
That the revivability of relations varies with the state of repair of the nervous centres and the supply of blood to them, is also a fact harmonizing with physiological inference. For be it high repair, or much blood, or special quality of blood, it is clear that whatever conduces to a powerful nervous discharge through any plexus of nerve-fibres, the physical changes in which answer to the psychical changes THE EEVIV ABILITY OF RELATIONS. 2 t(J known as certain relations,, must cause a corresponding vividness of the relations — must alike give great clearness to the consciousness of the more familiar relations of the cluster, and bring into consciousness those remoter and less frequently -repeated relations of the cluster which, with feebler nervous discharges,, would not conie into conscious- ness at all.
CHAPTEE YIL THE ASSOCIABILITY OF FEELINGS.
§ 111. In preceding chapters, a good deal lias been said by implication about the phenomena usually treated under the head of Association. When tracing out the composi- tion of Mind, we saw that feelings cohere in unlike degrees in different tracts of consciousness; and what were there described as cohesions may be otherwise described as asso- ciations. More recently, too, in the chapter on the Reviva- bility of Feelings, much was tacitly asserted resp^ 'ng the Associability of Feelings; since, other things equal, rt^va- bility varies as as sociability.
The truths thus observed from points of view already passed, we must nevertheless here briefly glance at afresh from a more advanced point of view, before we go on to consider certain further truths covered by the title of this chapter.
§ 112. We divided feelings into the central, commonly called emotions, and the peripheral, commonly called sensa- tions; which last we re-divided into those internally initiated, which we may conveniently call ento-peripheral, and those externally initiated, or epi-peripheral. Of these three great groups of feelings the first are extremely unre- lational; the second are somewhat more relational; and the third are relational in a comparatively high degree. Be- THE ASSOCIABILITY OF FEELIXGS. 231 ginning with the central or least relational feelings, which have no limitations in space and are but vaguely bounded in time, we found that, passing through the ento-peri- pheral to the epi-peripheral, we come to feelings more and more definitely limited by one another in space, or time, or both: the sharpest limitations being among the feelings that are epi-peripheral in the highest degree. And along with this increasing definiteness of mutual limitation we saw that there goes an increasing tendency to mutual cohesion.
This, then, represents the order of associability of the feelings. The relational are the mutually-limited, which are the mutual! v-cohereDt, which are the associable. Feelings of the central or of the ento-peripheral kinds which have been experienced together or in succession, either do not recall one another into consciousness at all or do it but feebly after many repetitions; while feelings of the epi-peri- pheral kind which occur together or in succession but a few times, become linked in such a way that the vivid or the faint form of one arouses the faint forms of the rest.* Indeed among the auditory and visual feelings, single presentations in serial or simultaneous groups cause such connexions, that one member of a group being afterwards presented or repre- sented, representations of the other members follow it, often with few or no omissions.
Manifestly, associability and revivability go together; since, on the one hand, -we know feelings to be associable only by the proved ability of one to revive another, and since, on the other hand, the revival of any feeling is effected only through the intermediation of some feeling or feelings * Though a vivid or faint antecedent feeling usually brings into con- sciousness as its consequent only a faint feeling, yet it is not true, as com- monly supposed, that tbe consequent is never a vivid feeling. Ideas do, in some cases, arouse sensations. Several instances occur in my own experi- ence. I cannot think of seeing a slate rubbed with a dry sponge without there running through me the same cold thrill that actually seeing it pro- duces.
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with winch it is associated. Hence the conditions that favour revivability are those which favour associability. These, both psychological and physiological, having been enumerated in the last chapter., may be passed over.
§ 113. There remains to be here considered the ultimate law to which the association of feelings conforms. Leaving out all the variable concomitants of any simple association, there are two constant elements directly presented by it — • the feelings and the relations between them; and two con- stant elements indirectly implied by it — previously -experi- enced similar feelings and previously-experienced similar relations. Hence, respecting the structure of the entire cluster,, there arises the question — Which, are the primary or original connexions and which are the secondary or deriva- tive connexions? For, to use a symbolic illustration, it may a b happen that in the coherent cluster i i the elements a, 6, c—J, apparently held together by some bond, are not themselves connected at all, but are kept in juxtaposition by the links which hold them, respectively to the coupled elements c-cZ. Let us state the matter more specifically.
The consciousness of two feelings presented together, or one just after the other, implies, first, the consciousness of each feeling as such or such — implies recognition of it as like, in some or all of its characters, to a feeling previously experienced. Even where one of the two feelings (say the taste of a new wine or of a new drug) is unexperienced, it is still assimilated to some genus of feelings — is known as sweet, or bitter, or sour. The consciousness further in- cludes two relations between the feelings — their relation of difference, and their relation of co-existence or of sequence; and the knowing each of these relations as such or such implies past} like relations to which it is assimilated. Now the question to be asked is, whether the association estab- lished between the two feelings results immediately from the cohesion of the one to the other, or results med:ately THE AS30CIABILITY OP FEELINGS. 253 from the cohesion of each feeling and each relation be- tween them,, to their respective similars in experience. The usual supposition is that the cohesion is immediate; but we shall find good reason for concluding that it is mediate. The inquiry is divisible into two inquiries — how the feelings, past and present, comport themselves towards one another, and how their relations, past and present, comport themselves towards one another. These must be dealt with apart, though some inconvenience attends the separation of them; for neither can be fully answered with- out both being answered. Such large gaps as the instructed reader perceives in this chapter on the Associability of Feel- ings, he will find filled up in the next chapter on the Associ- ability of the Relations between Feelings.
This premised, let us consider in what way feelings, real and ideal, behave when separated, so far as may be, from particular relations.
§ 114. Members of the three great groups of feelings severally associate themselves primarily with members of their own group. Of the central feelings, or emotions, this proposition is less manifestly true than of the rest, for the sufficient reason that they are the least relational of feel- ings: cohering but little with feelings of any kinds, the differences in their cohesive tendencies are the least de- cided. Still, it is observable that a central feeling when it arises, is known as belonging to the class we call emo- tions, and not to the class we call sensations. Peripheral feelings being all localized, vaguely if not definitely, these central feelings, not being localized, are in this respect antithetical to them; and each, in the act of recognition, aggregates with the class of unrealizable feelings, instead of with the class of localizable feelings. It is true that in consequence of the disturbances of certain viscera which powerful emotions produce, the ento-periplieral feelings thence resulting, are, in common speech, partially confounded 254 THE INDUCTIONS or rsrcnoLOCY.
with the central feelings; but though, the sensation due to disturbed action of the heart is often metaphorically iden- tified with the emotion causing the disturbance,, yet every one really distinguishes between the consequence and the cause., and classes the cause apart. When we pass to the ento-peripheral feelings it is at once obvious i hat each, in the instant of presentation, is known as initiated within the body. Be it one of the least localizable of these feelings, such as hunger, or be it a more localizable one, such as a pain in the bowels, or be it one localizable with comparative defmiteness, as an ache in the finger, it is, as having a place more or less bounded within the bodily framework, at once separated in consciousness from the central feelings on the one hand and from the epi-peripheral feelings on the other. The only cases where this associa- tion is indefinite, are cases where the feeling is initiated near the division between the two kinds of peripheral feel- ings; as wrhen an itching just below the surface is con- founded with a tickling upon the surface, or as where the sensation of heat due to sub-cutaneous congestion is undis- tinguished from the sensation of heat due to adjacent hot matter. The epi-peripheral feelings show us this instant integration of each with its class, even more con- spicuously. The sensation produced by a blow, by some- thing grasped, by an odour, by a flash, or by a sonorous vibration^ cannot arise in consciousness without being- grouped with the general assemblage of sensations initiated at the surface and ascribed to objective actions. The asso- ciation is not a matter into which thought or will enters: it is instantaneous and absolute.
A further fact of kindred meaning may now be noted. Each feeling as it arises associates itself instantly not with its class only, but also with its sub-class. The central feelings are but indefinitely divisible into sub- classes; and hence among them there is but little manifestation of this truth. We may pass over them. The ento-peri- THE ASSOCIABiLITY OF FEELINGS.
pheral feelings illustrate this sub-classification and cohesion (j_uite clearly. On thrusting itself into consciousness, one of these, while known as originating within the body, is at the same time known as a craving, or as a pain, or as a mus- cular strain: it falls into its secondary group while falling into its primary group. Similarly with the epiperipheral feelings. A colour the moment it is perceived, not only irresistibly aggregates with the class of feelings that originate on the outer surface and imply outer stimuli, but also with the sub-class of visual sensations, and cannot be forced into any other sub-class. While being recog- nized, a sound falls simultaneously into the general assem- blage of feelings derived from the senses which hold converse with the external world, and also into the more special assemblage of feelings distinguished as auditory; and no effort will separate it from this special assemblage. And to say that a smell cannot be thought of as a colour or a sound, is to say that it associates itself indissolubly with previously-experienced smells. - A sub-sub-classification of like nature is no less in- stantaneous. This is traceable to a considerable extent among the feelings excited within the body: hunger is at once known as hunger and not as thirst; an acute pain coheres in thought with acute pains, and not with what we distinguish as aches. But it is among the feelings yielded by the special-sense organs that the sub -sub-classing is most conspicuous. When we look at the sky, we think of its colour as a feeling of external origin, as belonging to the sub -division of externally-originated feelings called visual, and also as belonging to the group of these called blues: it does not suggest reds or yellows, and refuses to unite with them in consciousness. A mouse's squeak as- similates itself in thought with sounds of high pitch., and not with sounds like the bellowing of a bull. The taste of honey aggregates with sweet tastes in general, of which it is one — not with such tastes as those of quinine, or of castor oil.
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There is a still greater speciality of these associations; as where bright colours of each kind connect themselves in thought with bright colours of the same kind and not with dull ones, or as where loud sounds of any pitch sug- gest other loud sounds of that pitch and not faint ones. But without further instances the reader will see that the law holds down to the minutest sub-divisions of kind and quality.
§ 115. "What is the most general statement of these facts? It is that be there or be there not any other kind of association^ the primary and essential association is between each feeling and the class,, order, genus, species, and variety, of preceding feelings like itself.
This association is automatic — is not an act of thought that may or may not take place, but constitutes the very recognition of each feeling. A feeling cannot form an element of Mind at- all, save on condition of being associated with predecessors more or less the same in nature. In the process of this automatic association each feeling coheres instantly with the great group to which it belongs; in- stantly., too, with its sub-group within this; and, among the relational feelings, goes practically at the same time into its sub-sub-group. The automatic character of the process is qualified only when we come to the smallest groups, its association with one or other of which may occupy an appreciable interval. Thus, the sensation of red passes in a moment to its class as epi-peripheral, in the same moment to its order as visual, and with equal rapidity to the genus of colours distinguished as reds; but it falls into the species known as scarlet or that known as crimson less promptly, and it is a matter of deliberation and uncertainty whether we think of it as like the scarlet of a soldier's coat or like that of a poppy — like the crimson of a peony or liks taut of a carnation.
Now this cohering of each feeling with previously-ex- THE ASSOCIAEILITY OF FEELINGS. 257 perlenced feelings of the same class, order, genus, species, ar»d, so far as may be, the same variety, is the sole process of association of feelings. All other phenomena of associa- tion of feelings are consequent on the union of this process with a parallel and simultaneous process to be described in the next chapter.
§ 116. Before passing to this next chapter, let us briefly note the congruity between these facts disclosed by intro- spection and the facts disclosed by outward observation, which were set down among* our data.
The associability of feelings with those of their own kind, group within group, corresponds to the general arrange- ment of nervous structures into great divisions and sub -divi- sions. The central feelings arise within the great cerebral masses; and the subjective connexion shown in the instant association of each with its class, answers to the ob- jective connexion between one set of nervous actions occur- ring in these great masses and other sets of nervous actions that have occurred in the same masses. The peripheral feel- ings, again, initiated by disturbances upon or within the body, have their seat in the subjacent nervous mass (or masses, but probably the medulla ollongata is the sole sensational centre); and the classing of one of these feelings with sensa- tions in general, instead of with emotions, answers to the connexion between one nervous change in this subjacent mass and other nervous changes in it. Similarly with the leading sub-classes. The particular parts of that developed end of the spinal cord in which peripheral feelings of unlike kinds are localized, remain at present un- determined. But if we remember that great sub-classes of the peripheral feelings, as the visual, have great bundles of nerve-fibres which carry the disturbances arousing them from surface to centre, and that other such great sub- classes, as the auditory, have other such bundles, we may be sure that each sub -class of peripheral feelings has its s 25S THE INDUCTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY.
own sub-division of central vesicular structure. And if so, the instant automatic aggregation of eacli peripheral feeling with those of its own order, answers psychically to the local- ization of the nervous excitement causing it, within that sub- division of vesicular structure which is the seat of other feel- ings of its order. That the like holds of still smaller groups of feelings arid clusters of vesicles,, is an obvious inference.
What is the implication? If the association of each feel- ing with its general class,, answers to the localization of the corresponding nervous action within the great nervous mass in which all feelings of that class arise — if the association of this feeling with its sub-class, answers to the localization of the nervous action within that part of this great nervous mass in which feelings of this sub-class arise, and so on to the end with the smallest groups of feelings and smallest clusters of nerve-vesicles; then, to what answers the asso- ciation of each feeling with predecessors identical in kind? It answers to the re-excitation of the particular vesicle or vesicles which, when before excited, yielded the like feeling before experienced. The appropriate stimulus having set up in certain vesicles the molecular changes which they undergo when disturbed, there is aroused a feeling of the same quality with feelings previously aroused when such stimuli set up such changes in these vesicles. And the association of the feeling with preceding like feelings, corre- sponds to the physical re-excitation of the same structures. Whence we see clearly that the ultimate law of association of feelings, as above described, has a definite physical counterpart; and that there is no room for any other law of association of feelings.
CHAPTER VEX THE ASSOCI ABILITY OF RELATIONS BETWEEN FEELINGS.
§ 117. Tlie associability of relations, like tlie associability of feelings, lias been to some extent implicitly dealt with under preceding heads. When considering the composition of Mind, we saw that relations as well as feelings cohere with one another in consciousness; and what was there de- scribed as cohesion of relations is otherwise describable as association of relations. Again, in the last chapter but one, different classes of relations were observed to be revivable in different degrees,, which implies that, other things equal, they are associable in different degrees. Moreover, we saw how the revivability of relations varies in degree according to the fulfilment of sundry conditions, psychical and physi- cal; whence it follows that their associability similarly varies.
Though these truths need not be again contemplated in detail from our present point of view,, there are one or two leading aspects of them which we must glance at before passing on k) the general law remaining to be set forth.
§ 118. That the most relational of relations are the most associable is a truism; for the relations which enter into relation with one another most easily are the relations most easily associable with one another.
The most relational of relations are, as we before saw, 260 THE INDUCTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY.
those of Co-existence as visually presented; and these aro associable with, extreme facility. We sleep in a strange bed- room,, and getting up in the dark to reach the water-bottle,, recall at once the position of the washing-stand. We read a book, and without having specially observed the fact, remember that a passage we want to find lies near the bottom of a left-hand page. So quickly do these relations of co-existent positions connect with one another, that those of many things seen at the same instant can be simulta- neously reproduced in thought.
Kelations of Sequence are associable into simple com- binations with considerable facility, though with less facility. Two or three successive motions made by a person we are watching are readily remembered, though we fail to re- member the order of many such motions. After hearing the first bar or the first phrase of a new melody, it is easy forthwith to repeat the rhythm in thought; but the series of rhythms which the entire melody presents, do not (in most minds at least) recur correctly without repetitions more or less numerous. This smaller assoeiability is, how- ever, chiefly shown in the contrast between our ability to recall many co-existences presented together, and our in- ability to recall many sequences presented together. We look into a room and instantly connect in consciousness the relative positions of two or three persons, the table, the sofa, &c., so that we can afterwards describe how they stood; but we cannot in the same way take in at a glance, and re- produce in thought, the several combined movements of a horse in trotting: we can clearly think of the alternate swings of the fore-legs by themselves or of the hind-legs by themselves; but, unless after specially observing it, we cannot remember which hind-leg comes to the ground after the near fore-leg.