As further illustrating the origin and nature of the more abstract emotions, let me add one still in course of evolution 490 SPECIAL SYNTHESIS.
among civilized men; and as yet but imperfectly developed. I refer to the desire for liberty — the sentiment of personal rights. A relation like that which the love of property bears to the gratifications which property brings,, this love of un- restricted action bears to the gratifications derivable from property and from all other things. As the satisfaction of the one is in securing the material objects directly or in- directly ministering to life; so the satisfaction of the other is in securing those non-material conditions without which the material objects can neither be obtained, nor preserved, nor used. While the possession of certain kinds and com- binations of matter is a very general pre-requisite to the ful- filment of the desires; a still more general., and indeed uni- versal, pre-requisite is that freedom of motion without which it is not only impossible to get and utilize such matter, but is impossible to perform any action whatever. This senti- ment of personal rights, answering to certain complex rela- tions in which the members of a society stand to one another — being a gratification in the maintenance of such relations with other men as involve the least restraint on individual action — is manifestly far more abstract,, and far wider in its co-ordinations, than any other. As uniting in one general sentiment the desire for liberty of person, liberty of acqui- sition and possession, liberty of movement from place to place, liberty of speech, liberty of trade, and so on, it sup- poses an extremely extensive aggregation of psychical states. It could not begin to be organized until mankind grew into permanent social relations, and it has manifestly long been in process of development.
It remains to add the qualification which, as above said, must be made to the assertion that these central feelings or, emotions grow in power as they grow in complexity and in extent of integration. For though, other things equal, the power of an emotion thus compounded out of clusters of ele- mentary feelings ideally revived, is proportionate to the number of such elementary feelings united in it; yet, very THE FEELINGS. 491 often other things are not equal. Along with, greatness of number there may be lowness of intensity. Where, as in the above case, the connexions established in experience are extremely intricate, comparatively infrequent, and very varied, the co-ordination of the states of consciousness is so weak that they render one another nascent in but a feeble way; and hence, the total effect is in many cases less than that produced by a smaller aggregate more strongly ex- cited.
§ 216. After what was said at the close of the last chapter, I need -hardly say that this evolution of composite feelings through the progressive integration of psychical states that are connected in experience, is effected by thejnheritance of continually-accumulating modifications.
The J.aw_qf development of the mental activities considered: under their cognitive aspect, equally applies to them con- sidered under their emotional aspect. That gradual organi- zation of forms of tliougBF which we saw results from the experience of uniform external relations, is accompanied by the organization of forms of feeling similarly resulting.*** Given a race of organisms habitually placed in contact with: any complex set of circumstaixes, and if its members are already able to co-ordinate the impressions made by each of the various minor groups of phenomena composing this set of circumstances, there will slowly be established in them a co-ordination of these compound impressions corresponding to this set of circumstances. The ^constant, experiences of/' successive generations will gradually strengthen the ten-[ dency of all the component clusters of psychical states to V make one another nascent. And when ultimately the union of * them, expressed in the inherited organic structure, becomes ' } innate, it will constitute what we call an emotion or senti- I* ment, having this set of circumstances for its object.
In their more involved phases these compound forms of feeling differ from the compound forms of thought partly 492 SPECIAL SYNTHESIS.
in this, that the assemblages of external attributes and actions and relations to which they answer,, are immensely more extensive, far more concrete, and extremely miscel- laneous and variable in their ultimate components. One consequence of this is that they never lose their em- pirical character. A further difference similarly implied, is that in each form of feeling thus compounded, answering as it does to successive sets of external circum- stances which have only a general resemblance, the rela- tional elements are never twice alike, and therefore cannot become distinctly fixed; whence it follows that the cogni- tive character of the aggregated states remaining feeble, their sentient character remains strong. A third differential trait of these central feelings must be added. As the clusters of elementary feelings out of which they are formed, do not recur in exactly the same combinations — are not, as it were, super-posed so that their components fit with the like previous components; it necessarily happens that the successive clusters blur one another, and the com- pound feeling produced becomes, though massive, very dim or vague. An illustration will make this effect compre- hensible. Imagine that representations of many different sunsets, painted, let us say, on glass, were placed over one another, and looked at by transmitted light — what would be the result? Disagreeing in the outlines of their horizons, their clouds, their special objects, these super-posed repre- sentations would make a confused and hazy combination, in which no particular thing and no defined portion of colour would be visible; but in which, nevertheless, there would be these general characters — a glow in the middle region, a duller region above it, and a comparatively dark region below. Similarly, as the successive impressions produced om an individual, and a series of individuals, by manifesta- tions of anger in those they coine in contact with, have general but not special resemblances — as the harsh tones, the contorted features, and the pains that are apt to bo THE FEELING?. 493 suffered from the acts which, follow, always differ in their details though they have a family likeness; it results that the general impression left unobliterated by the disagreeing details must be very indefinite: the gradually-organized compound feeling which we call fear, will have a character nothing like so specific as that of a simple peripheral feeling.
Such being the differences that naturally arise between \ the organized forms of feeling and the organized forms of thought in the course of their evolution, let us now observe the likenesses that naturally arise.
As jhej'orms of thought, or the accumulated and trans-* mitted modifications of structure produced by experience, lie* latent, in each newly-born individual, are vaguely disclosed; a|ong;jvith the first individual experiences, and are gradually; made definite by multiplication of such individual experi- ences; so the forms of feeling, likewise lying latent, are; feebly awakened by the first presentations of the external: circumstances to which they refer, and gradually gain that! degree _of distinctness which they are capable of, through^ often-repeated presentations of these circumstances. Thus the infant, as soon as its perceptions are developed enough to allow of even an imperfect discrimination of faces and of sounds, is made to smile automatically by the laughing face and tender tones of its mother or its nurse. An organized relation has been established in the race between the percep- tion of this natural language of kind feeling and the subse- quent experience of benefits from those who manifest it. This natural language being impressed on the infant's senses, a dim feeling of pleasure is awakened while it is still incap- able of knowing what the natural language means. But in course of time personal experiences teach it the connexion that exists between these appearances assumed by other persons and the receipt of gratifications from them; and I then the vague body of the emotion which it has inherited / assumes a more intelligible form.
That the experience-hypothesis as ordinarily understood.
SPECIAL SYNTHESIS.
is inadequate to account for emotional phenomena, will be sufficiently manifest. If possible, it is even more at fault in respect to the emotions than in respect to the cognitions. The doctrine that all the desires, all the sentiments, are generated by the experiences of the individual, is so glar- ingly at variance with facts, that I cannot""but wonder how any one should ever have entertained it. Not to dwell on the multiform passions displayed by the infant before there has been such an amount of experience as could possibly suffice for the elaboration of them, I will simply point to , the most powerful of passions — the^amatory passion — as one which, when it first occurs, is absolutely antecedent to all i relative experience whatever.
CHAPTER IX.
THE WILL.
§ 217. All who have followed the argument thus far, will see that the development of what we call Will, is but another aspect of the general process whose other aspects have been delineated in the last three chapters. Memory, Reason, and Feeling, simultaneously arise as the automatic actions become complex,, infrequent, and hesitating -3 and Will, arising at the same time, is necessitated by the. same conditions. As the advance from the simple and indissolubly-coherent psychical changes, to the psychical changes that are involved and dissolubly coherent, is in itself the commencement of Memory, Reason, and Feeling; so, too, is it in itself the commencement of Will. On passing from compound reflex actions to those actions so highly compounded as to jae imperfectly reflex — on passing from the organically - determined psychical changes which take place with extreme ra- pidity, to the psychical changes which, not "being organi- cally determined, take place with some deliberation, and therefore consciously; we jpa:ss to a kind of mental action which, is one of Memory, Reason, Feeling, or Will^ accord- ing to the side of it we look at.
"Of this we may be certain, even in anticipation of anyl special synthesis. For since all modes of consciousness cari be nothing else than incidents of the correspondence be-| s 496 SPECIAL SYNTHESIS. f I tween the organism and its environment; they must all be j different sides of, or different phases of,, the co-ordinated t groups of changes whereby internal relations are adjusted to ^ external relations. Between the reception of certain impres- f sions and the performance of certain appropriate motions, J there is some inner connexion. If the inner connexion is •, 1" organized, the action is of the reflex order, either simple or; f compound; and none of the phenomena "of consciousness |j proper, exist. If the inner connexion is not organized, then f the psychical changes which come between the impressions f and motions are conscious ones: the entire action must I have all the essential elements of a conscious action — must simultaneously exhibit Memory, Reason, Feeling, and Will; for there can be no conscious adjustment of an inner to an outer relation without all these being involved* Let us consider the matter more nearly.
§ 218. When the automatic actions become so involved, so varied in kind, and severally so infrequent, as no longer to be performed with unhesitating precision — when, after - the reception of one of the more complex impressions, the appropriate motor changes become nascent, but are pre- vented from passing into immediate action by the antago- nism of certain other nascent motor changes appropriate to some nearly allied impression; there is constituted a state of consciousness which, when it finally issues in action, displays what we term volition. Each set of nascent motor changes arising in the course of this conflict, is a weak re- vival of the state of consciousness which accompanies such motor changes when actually performed — is a representa- tion of such motor changes as were before executed under like circumstances — is an idea of such motor changes. We have*, therefore, a conflict between two sets of ideal motor changes which severally tend to become real, and one of which eventually does become real; and this passing of an ideal motor change into a real one, we distinguish as THE WILL. 497 Will. In a voluntary act of the simplest kind, we can_find nothing beyond a.mental representation of tlie act followed by a performance of it — a rising of that incipient psychical change which constitutes at once the tendency to act and the idea of the act, into the complete psychical change which constitutes the performance of the act, in so.. fir as it is mental. Between an involuntary movement of the leg and a voluntary one, the difference is that whereas the involuntary one occurs without previous consciousness of the movement to be made, the voluntary one occurs only after it has been represented in consciousness; and as the representation of it is nothing else than a weak form of the psychical state accompanying the movement,, it is nothing else than a nascent excitation of the nerves concerned, pre- ceding their actual excitation. Involuntary movement im- plies that the psychical states accompanying the impression and the action, are so coherent that the one follows the other instantly; while voluntary movement implies that they are so imperfectly coherent, that the psychical state. accompanying the action does not follow instantly — is par-; tially aroused before it is fully aroused; and so occupies consciousness for an appreciable time. Thus the cessation of automatic action and the dawn of volition are one and the same thing.
It is quite true that as we advance from the earliest and simplest manifestations of Will to its later and more in- volved manifestations, the composite state of consciousness by which any act is preceded includes much beyond the nascent motor changes, and even much beyond the ideal - sensory impressions which the act will immediately render real ones. It further includes an extensive aggregate of ideal sensory impressions such as have before been more or less remotely realized by the act; and which constitute representations of the various consequences of the act. Even when Will is but incipient, there must be some accompaniment of this kind. Along with any two con- % SPECIAL SYNTHESIS.
flic-ting sets of motor changes produced by an indistinctly cognized impression, there will become nascent the several pleasurable or painful psychical states which have in expe- rience been respectively connected with such motor changes. These are partially integrated with the other psychical states,, actual and nascent, which the impression immedi- ately or mediately excites; and by increasing the group of psychical states which cohere with the appropriate motor changes, they add to the tendency which those motor changes have to take place. By that ever-progressing fusion of psychical states described in the last chapter, these ideal sensory impressions representing distant conse- quences, come to form the greater part of the composite psychical state which precedes the act — constitute the mass of what we call the desire to perform the act; and thus obscure that original relation between sensations and mo- tions which is their nucleus. But the general nature of the process remains the same. Feelings, immediately de- rived from the senses or mediately suggested by such, make nascent certain appropriate motor changes, and the ideal feelings connected with such changes; these, again, make nascent other changes and other ideal feelings; and so on to many degrees of remoteness: producing a complicated group of imagined actions and consequences. All of these having, directly or indirectly, connexions in experience with the motor changes, or with antagonist motor changes, tend to produce or to prevent the action. An immense number of psychical states are partially aroused, some of which unite with the original impression in exciting the action, while the rest combine as exciters of an opposite action • and when eventually, from their greater number or intensity, the first outbalance the others, the interpretation is ihat, as an accumulated stimulus, they become sufficiently strong to make the nascent motor changes pass into actual motor changes. 1 That Will conies into existence through the increasing f THE WILL. 499 complexity and imperfect coh.eren.ce of automatic actions, is clearly implied "by the converse fact, that when actions which were once incoherent and voluntary are very fre- quently repeated, they become coherent and involuntary. Just as any set of psychical changes originally displaying Memory, Reason, and Feeling, cease to be conscious, ra tional, and emotional, as fast as by repetition they grove closely organized: so do they at the same time pass beyond the sphere of volition. Memory, Reason, Feeling, and Will,} simultaneously disappear in proportion as psychical changes \ become automatic. Thus, the child learning- to walk, wills each movement before making it; but the adult, when setting out anywhere, does not think of his legs but of his destination, and his successive steps are made with no more volition than his successive inspirations. Every one of those vocal imitations made by the child in acquiring its mother tongue, or by the man in learning a new language, is voluntarily made; but after years of practice, conversa- tion is carried on without thought of the muscular adjust- ments required to produce each articulation: the motions of the larynx and mouth respond automatically to the trains of ideas. Similarly with writing, and all other familiar processes. Not only is this so with actions daily occurring in the lives of all, but it is so with special habits. From time to time curious results hence arise; as in the case of the old soldier who let fall the pie he was carrying home for his Sunday' s dinner, when the word " attention " was shouted behind him. The same general truth is re- cognized in the common remark, made of any one who has long persisted in some evil practice, that " he has lost power over himself " — " can no longer control himself:" that is to say, by frequent repetition certain psychical changes have more or less passed from the voluntary into the automatic.* * Dr. Hughlings Jackson narrates of an animal an action analogous to I that of the old soldier. "Some years ago," he says, " I was on an omnibtis,| ,'500 SPECIAL SYNTHESIS.
§ 219. Long before reacliing this point,, most readers must have perceived that tlie doctrines developed in the last two parts of this work are at variance with the current tenets respecting the freedom of the."WjlL That every one is at liberty to do what he desires to do (supposing there are no external hindrances), all admit; though people of confused ideas commonly suppose this to be the thing denied. But that every one is at liberty to desire or not to desire, which is the real proposition involved in the dogma of free will, is negatived as much by the analysis of consciousness as by the contents of the preceding chapters. From the universal law that, other things equal, the cohesion of psychical states is proportionate to the frequency with which they have followed one another in experience, it is an inevitable corollary that all actions whatever must be determined by those psychical connexions which experience has_ generated — either in the life of the individual, or in that general antecedent life of which the accumulated results are organized in his constitution.
To go at length into this long-standing controversy re- specting the Will, would be alike useless and out of place. I can but briefly indicate what seems to me the nature of the current illusion, as interpreted from the point of view fit which we have arrived. We will look at it first subjec- tively and then objectively.
Considered as an internal perception, the illusion results from supposing that at each moment the ego, present as such in consciousness (I exclude the implied, but unknown, substratum which can never be present), is and we were kept some time, as one of tlie horses would not start. Various plans were tried to overcome its stupidity, but without success. At last the Driver directed the conductor to shut the door violently (this is a usual signal for starting). To my great surprise the horse went on at once." Lond. Hosp. Reports. Vol. L, 186 i, p. 45 i. Here the once voluntary act of starting after hearing the sound, had become so automatic that an antagonist volition could not prevent it.
THE WILL.
THE WILL.
something more tlian the aggregate of feelings and ideas which then exists. When, after a certain compo- site mass of emotion and thought has arisen in him, a man performs an action,, he commonly asserts that he deter- mined to perform the action; and by speaking as though there were a mental self, present to his conscioutiness, yet nou included in this composite mass of emotion and thought, he is led into the error of supposing that it was not this composite mass of emotion and thought which determined the action. But while it is true that he determined tho action, it is also true that the aggregate of his feelings and ideas determined it; since, during its existence., this aggregate constituted his entire consciousness — that is, constituted his mental self. Either the ego which: is supposed to determine or will the action, is present in ' consciousness or it is not. If it is not present in con- sciousness, it is something of which we are unconscious — something, therefore, of whose existence we neither have nor can have any evidence. If it is present in conscious- ness, then, as it is ever present, it can be at each moment nothing else than the total consciousness, simple or com- pound, passing at that moment. It follows, inevitably, thu,j when an impression received from without, makes nas- cent certain appropriate motor changes, and various o£ the feelings and ideas which must accompany and succeed them; and when, under the stimulus of this composite psychical state, the nascent motor changes pass into actual motor changes; this composite psychical state which excites the action, is at the same time the ego which is said to will the_action. Naturally enough, then, the subject of such psychical changes says that he wills the action; since, psychically considered, he is at that moment nothing more tEan^Tilie composite state of consciousness by which the action is excited. But to say that the performance <rf the action is, therefore, the result of his free will, is to say that he determines the cohesions of the psychical states which 502 SPECIAL SYNTHESIS.
arouse the action; and as these psychical states con- stitute himself at that moment, this is to say that these psychical states determine their own cohesions, which is absurd. Their., cohesions have been determined by expe- riences— the greater part of them, constituting what we call his natural character, by the experiences of antecedent organisms; and" the rest by his own experiences. The changes which at each moment take place in his conscious- ness, and among others those which he is said to will, are produced by this infinitude of previous experiences regis- tered in his nervous structure, co-operating with the imme- diate impressions on his senses: the effects of these combined factors being in every case qualified by the physical state, general or local, of his organism.
This subjective illusion in which the notion of free will commonly originates, is strengthened by a corresponding objective illusion. The actions of pther individuals, lacking ;as they do that uniformity characterizing phenomena of Hvhich the laws are known, appear to be lawless — appear to be under no necessity of following any particular order; and are hence supposed to be determined by the unknown independent something called the Will. But this seeming indeterminateness in the mental succession is consequent on the extreme complication of the forces in action. The composition of causes is so intricate, and from moment to moment so varied, that the effects are not calculable. These effects are, however, as conformable to law as the simplest reflex, actions. The irregularity and apparent freedom _ are _ineyitable results "of the complexity; and equally arise in the inorganic world under parallel con- ditions. To amplify an illustration before used: — A body in space, subject to the attraction of a single other body, move* in a direction that can be accurately predicted. If subject to the attractions of two bodies, its course is but approximately calculable. If subject to the attractions of three bodies,, its course can be calculated with still less pre- THE WILL. 503 THE WILL. 503 cision. And if on all sides of it there are multitudinous "bodies of various sizes at various distances,, as in the middle of one of the great star-clusters, its motion -will appear un- influenced by any of them: it will move in some indefinable way that looks self-determined: it will seem to be free. Similarly, in proportion as the cohesions of each psychical | state to others, become great in number and various in degree, the psychical changes will become incalculable and. apparently subject to no law.
§ 220. To meet objections that have been raised, let me add here some explanations.
If we spoke of Henry VIII. as defying the Pope, and then said that the English King also defied the Pope, there would be a manifest mistaking of words for tilings. The kingly power we know to be nothing bat the permanent name for the power of a person, who i« now of one nature and now of another. But in the case of mental government, this confusion between words and things is almost universal. The permanent name for the holder of power, is supposed to imply an entity additional to that implied by the name of the temporary holder of power. We speak of Will as something apart/; from the feeling or feelings which, for the moment, prevail'1' over others; whereas it is nothing but the general name' given to the special feeling that gains supremacy and*: determines action. Take away all sensations and emotions, \j and there jpemains.no.."Will. Excite some of these, and' Will, becoming possible, becomes actual only when one of them, or a group of them, gains predominance. Until there is a tnotwQ (mark the word) there is no ^Will. That is to say, WHT'is no more an existence separate from the predominant feeling, than a king is an existence separate from the man occupying the throne.
That the ego is something more than the passing group \ of feelings and ideas, is true or untrue according to the \ 504 SPECIAL SYNTHESIS.
degree of comprehension we give to the word. It is true if we include the body, and its functions; but it is untrue if we include only what is given in consciousness.
Physically considered, the ego is the entire organism, including its nervous system; and the nature of this ecjo is pre-determined: the infant had no more to do with the structure of its brain than with the colour of its eyes. Further,, the ego considered physically,, includes all the functions carried on by these structures, when supplied with the requisite materials. These functions have for their net result to liberate from the food, &c., certain latent 'forces. And that distribution of these forces shown by the activities of the organism, is from moment to moment caused partly by the existing arrangement of its parts and partly by the environing conditions.
? The physical structures thus pervaded by the forces thus : obtained, constitute that substantial ego which lies behind ; and determines those ever-changing states of consciousness we call Mind. And while this substantial ego, unknowable in ultimate nature, is phenomenally known to us under its