Did not experience prepare one to find everywhere a degree of irrationality remarkable in beings who distinguish them selves as rational, one might have assumed that, before devis ing modes of dealing with citizens in their corporate relations, special attention would be given to the natures of these citi zens individually considered, and by implication to the na tures of living things at large. Put a carpenter into a black smith's shop, and set him to forge, to weld, to harden, to anneal, etc., and he will not need the blacksmith's jeers to show him how foolish is the attempt to make and mend tools before he has learnt the properties of iron. Let the carpenter challenge the blacksmith, who knows little about wood in general and nothing about particular kinds of wood, to do his work, and unless the blacksmith declines to make himself a laughing-stock, he is pretty certain to saw askew, to choke up his plane, and presently to break his tools or cut his fingers. But while everyone sees the folly of supposing that wood or iron can be shaped and fitted, without an apprenticeship dur ing which their ways of behaving are made familiar; no one sees any folly in undertaking to devise institutions, and to shape human nature in this way or that way, without a pre liminary study of Man, and of Life in general as explaining Man's life. For simple functions we insist on elaborate spe cial preparations extending through years; while for the most complex function, to be adequately discharged not even by the wisest, we require no preparation!
How absurd are the prevailing conceptions about these matters, we shall see still more clearly on turning to consider that more special discipline which should precede the study of Sociology; namely, the study of Mental Science.
CHAPTER XV.
PREPARATION IN PSYCHOLOGY.
PROBABLY astonishment would make the reporters drop their pencils, were any member of Parliament to enunciate a psychological principle as justifying his opposition to a pro posed measure. That some law of association of ideas, or some trait in emotional development, should be deliberately set forth as a sufficient ground for saying " aye " or " no " to a motion for second reading, would doubtless be too much for the gravity of legislators. And along with laughter from many there would come from a few cries of " question: " the entire irrelevancy to the matter in hand being conspicuous. It is true that during debates the possible behaviour of citizens under the suggested arrangements is described. Evasions of this or that provision, difficulties in carrying it out, probabili ties of resistance, connivance, corruption, &c., are urged; and these tacitly assert that the mind of man has certain charac ters, and under the conditions named is likely to act in certain ways. In other words, there is an implied recognition of the truth that the effects of a law will depend on the manner in which human intelligence and human feeling are influenced by it. Experiences of men's conduct which the legislator has gathered, and which lie partially sorted in his memory, fur nish him with empirical notions that guide his judgment on each question raised; and he would think it folly to ignore all this unsystematized knowledge about people's characters and actions. But at the same time he regards as foolish the pro posal to proceed, not on vaguely-generalized. facts, but on facts accurately generalized; and, as still more foolish, the proposal to merge these minor definite generalizations in gen- PREPARATION IN PSYCHOLOGY. 325 eralizations expressing the ultimate laws of Mind. Guidance by intuition seems to him much more rational.
Of course, I do not mean to say that his intuition is of small value. How should I say this, remembering- the im mense accumulation of experiences by which his thoughts have been moulded into harmony with things? We all know that when the successful man of business is urged by wife and daughters to get into Parliament, that they may attain a higher social standing, he always replies that his occupations through life have left him no leisure to prepare himself, by collecting and digesting the voluminous evidence respecting the effects of institutions and policies, and that he fears he might do mischief. If the heir to some large estate, or scion of a noble house powerful in the locality, receives a deputation asking him to stand for the county, we constantly read that he pleads inadequate knowledge as a reason for declining: perhaps hinting that after ten years spent in the needful studies, he may have courage to undertake the heavy responsibilities proposed to him. So, too, we have the familiar fact that when, at length, men who have gathered vast stores of political in formation, gain the confidence of voters who know how care fully they have thus fitted themselves, it still perpetually hap pens that after election they find they have entered on their work prematurely. It is true that beforehand they had sought anxiously through the records of the past, that they might avoid legislative errors of multitudinous kinds, like those com mitted in early times. Nevertheless when Acts are proposed referring to matters dealt with in past generations by Acts long since cancelled or obsolete, immense inquiries open before them. Even limiting themselves to the 1126 Acts repealed in 1823-9, and the further 770 repealed in 1861, they find that to learn what these aimed at, how they worked, why they failed, and whence arose the mischiefs they wrought, is an arduous task, which yet they feel bound to undertake lest they should re-inflict these mischiefs; and hence the reason why so many break down under the effort, and retire with health destroyed. Nay, more — on those with constitutions vigorous enough to carry them through such inquiries, there continually presses the duty of making yet further inquiries. Besides tracing the results of abandoned laws in other societies, there is at home, 326 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
year by year, more futile law-making to be investigated and lessons to be drawn from it; as, for example, from the 134 Public Acts passed in 1856-7, of.which all but 68 are wholly or partially repealed.1 And thus it happens that, as every autumn shows us, even the strongest men, finding their lives during the recess over-taxed with the needful study, are obliged so to locate themselves that by an occasional day's hard riding after the hounds, or a long walk over the moors with gun in hand, they may be enabled to bear the excessive strain on their nervous systems. Of course, therefore, I am not so unreason able as to deny that judgments, even empirical, which are guided by such carefully-amassed experiences must be of much worth.
But fully recognizing the vast amount of information which the legislator has laboriously gathered from the accounts of institutions and laws, past and present, here and elsewhere; and admitting that before thus instructing himself he would no more think of enforcing a new law than would a medical student think of plunging an operating-knife into the human body before learning where the arteries ran; the re markable anomaly here demanding our attention is, that he objects to anything like analysis of these phenomena he has so diligently collected, and has 110 faith in conclusions drawn from the ensemble of them. Not discriminating very correctly between the word "-general " and the word " abstract," and re garding as abstract principles what are in nearly all cases general principles, he speaks contemptuously of these as be longing to the region of theory, and as not concerning the law-maker. Any wide truth that is insisted upon as being im plied in many narrow truths, seems to him remote from reality and unimportant for guidance. The results of recent experi ments in legislation he thinks worth attending to; and if any one reminds him of the experiments he has read so much about, that were made in other times and other places, he re gards these also, separately taken, as deserving of consideration. But if, instead of studying special classes of legislative experi ments, someone compares many classes together, generalizes the results, and proposes to be guided by the generalization, he shakes his head sceptically. And his scepticism passes into ridicule if it is proposed to affiliate such generalized results on PREPARATION IN PSYCHOLOGY. 327 the laws of Mind. To prescribe for society on the strength of countless unclassified observations, appears to him a sensible course; but to colligate and systematize the observations so as to educe tendencies of human behaviour displayed through out cases of numerous kinds, to trace these tendencies to their sources in the mental natures of men, and thence to draw con clusions for guidance, appears to him a visionary course.
Let us look at some of the fundamental facts he ignores, and at the results for ignoring them.
Rational legislation, based as it can only be on a true theory of conduct, which is derivable only from a true theory of mind, must recognize as a datum the direct connexion of action with feeling. That feeling and action bear a constant ratio, is a statement needing qualification; for at the one extreme there are automatic actions which take place without feeling, and at the other extreme there are feelings so intense that, by deranging the vital functions, they impede or arrest action. But speaking of those activities which life in general presents, it is a law tacitly recognized by all, though not distinctly for mulated, that action and feeling vary together in their amounts. Passivity and absence of facial expression, both implying rest of the muscles, are held to show that there is being experienced neither much sensation nor much emotion. While the degree of external demonstration, be it in move ments that rise finally to spasms and contortions, or be it in sounds that end in laughter and shrieks and groans, is habitu ally accepted as a measure of the pleasure or pain, sensational or emotional. And so, too, where continued expenditure of energy is seen, be it in a violent struggle to escape or be it in the persevering pursuit of an object, the quantity of effort is held to show the quantity of feeling.
This truth, undeniable in its generality, whatever qualifica tions secondary truths make in it, must be joined with the truth that cognition does not produce action. If I tread on a pin, or unawares dip my hand into very hot water, I start: the strong sensation produces motion without any thought intervening. Conversely, the proposition that a pin pricks, or that hot water scalds, leaves me quite unmoved. True, if to one of these propositions is joined the idea that a pin is 328 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
about to pierce my skin, or to the other the idea that some hot water will fall on it, there results a tendency, more or less decided, to shrink. But that which causes shrinking1 is the ideal pain. The statement that the pin will hurt or the water scald, produces no effect so long as there is nothing beyond a recognition of its meaning: it produces an effect only when the pain verbally asserted, becomes a pain actually conceived as impending — only when there rises in consciousness a repre sentation of the pain, which is a faint form of the pain as before felt. That is to say, the cause of movement here, as in other cases, is a feeling and not a cognition. What we see even in these simplest actions, runs through actions of all degrees of complexity. It is never the knowledge which is the moving agent in conduct; but it is always the feeling which goes along with that knowledge, or is excited by it. Though the drunkard knows that after to-day's debauch will come to-morrow's headache, yet he is not deterred by con sciousness of this truth, unless the penalty is distinctly repre sented — unless there rises in his consciousness a vivid idea of the misery to be borne — unless there is excited in him an adequate amount of feeling antagonistic to his desire for drink. Similarly with improvidence in general. If coming evils are imagined with clearness and the threatened suffer ings ideally felt, there is a due check on the tendency to take immediate gratifications without stint; but in the absence of that consciousness of future ills which is constituted by the ideas of pains, distinct or vague, the passing desire is not opposed effectually. The truth that recklessness brings dis tress, fully acknowledged though it may be, remains in operative. The mere cognition does not affect conduct — conduct is affected only when the cognition passes out of that intellectual form in which the idea of distress is little more than verbal, into a form in which this term of the proposition is developed into a vivid imagination of distress — a mass of painful feeling. It is thus with conduct of every kind. See this group of persons clustered at the river side. A boat has upset, and some one is in danger of drowning. The fact that in the absence of aid the youth in the water will surely die, is known to them all. That by swimming to his assistance his life may be saved, is a proposition denied PREPARATION IN PSYCHOLOGY. 329 by none of them. The duty of helping fellow-creatures who are in difficulties, they have been taught all their lives; and they will severally admit that running a risk to prevent a death is praiseworthy. Nevertheless, though sundry of them can swim, they do nothing beyond shouting for assistance or giving advice. But now here comes one who, tearing off his coat, plunges in to the rescue. In what does he differ from the others? Not in knowledge. Their cognitions are equally clear with his. They know as well as he does that death is impending; and know, too, how it may be prevented. In him, however, these cognitions arouse certain correlative emo tions more strongly than they are aroused in the rest. Groups of feelings are excited in all; but whereas in the others the deterrent feelings of fear, &c.,' preponderate, in him there is a surplus of the feelings excited by sympathy, joined, it may be, with others not of so high a kind. In each case, however, the behaviour is not determined by knowledge, but by emo tion. Obviously, change in the actions of these passive spec tators is not to be effected by making their cognitions clearer, but by making their higher feelings stronger.
Have we not here, then, a cardinal psychological truth to which any rational system of human discipline must con form? Is it not manifest that a legislation which ignores it and tacitly assumes its opposite, will inevitably fail? Yet much of our legislation does.this; and we are at present, legislature and nation together, eagerly pushing forward schemes which proceed on the postulate that conduct is determined not by feelings, but by cognitions.
For what else is the assumption underlying this anxious urging-on of organizations for teaching? What is the root- notion common to Secularists and Denominationalists, but the notion that spread of knowledge is the one thing needful for bettering behaviour? Having both swallowed certain statistical fallacies, there has grown up in them the belief that State-education will check ill-doing. In newspapers, they have often met with comparisons between the numbers of criminals who can read and write and the numbers who can not; and finding the numbers who can not greatly exceed the numbers who can, they accept the inference that igno- 330 TIIB STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
ranee is the cause of crime. It does not occur to them to ask whether other statistics, similarly drawn up, would not prove with like conclusiveiiess that crime is caused by absence of ablutions, or by lack of clean linen, or by bad ventilation, or by want of a separate bed-room. Go through any jail and ascertain how many prisoners had been in the habit of taking a morning bath, and you would find that criminality habit ually went with dirtiness of skin. Count up those who had possessed a second suit of clothes, and a comparison of the figures would show you that but a small percentage of crim inals were habitually able to change their garments. Inquire whether they had lived in main streets or down courts, and you would discover that nearly all urbane crime comes from holes and corners. Similarly, a fanatical advocate of total abstinence or of sanitary improvement, could get equally- strong statistical justifications for his belief. But if, not accepting the random inference presented to you that igno rance and crime are cause and effect, you consider, as above, whether crime may not with equal reason be ascribed to various other causes, you are led to see that it is really con nected with an inferior mode of life, itself usually conse quent on original inferiority of nature; and you are led to see that ignorance is simply one of the concomitants, no more to be held the cause of crime than various other con comitants.
But this obvious criticism, and the obvious counter-conclu sion it implies, are not simply overlooked, but, when insisted on, seem powerless to affect the belief which has taken pos session of men. Disappointment alone will now affect it. A wave of opinion reaching a certain height, cannot be changed by any evidence or argument: but has to spend itself in the gradual course of things before a reaction of opinion can arise. Otherwise it would be incomprehensible that this confidence in the curative effects of teaching, which men have carelessly allowed to be generated in them by the re iterations of doctrinaire politicians, should survive the direct disproofs yielded by daily experience. Is it not the trouble of every mother and every governess, that perpetual insisting on the right and denouncing the wrong do not suffice? Is it not the constant complaint that on many natures reason- PREPARATION IN PSYCHOLOGY. 33!
ing and explanation and the clear demonstration of con sequences are scarcely at all operative; that where they are operative there is a more or less marked difference of emotional nature; and that where, having" before failed, they begin to succeed, change of feeling rather than difference of apprehension is the cause? Do we not similarly hear from every housekeeper that servants usually pay but little atten tion to reproofs; that they go on perversely in old habits, regardless of clear evidence of their foolishness; and that their actions are to be altered not by explanations and reasonings, but by either the fear of penalties or the ex perience of penalties — that is, by the emotions awakened in them? When we turn from domestic life to the life of the outer world, do not like disproofs everywhere meet us? Are not fraudulent bankrupts educated people, and getters-up of bubble-companies, and makers of adulterated goods, and users of false trade-marks, and retailers who have light weights, and owners of unseaworthy ships, and those who cheat in surance-companies, and those who carry on turf -chicaneries, and the great majority of gamblers? Or, to take a more extreme form of turpitude,— is there not, among those who have committed murder by poison within our memories, a considerable number of the educated — a number bearing as large a ratio to the educated classes as does the total number of murderers to the total population?
This belief in the moralizing effects of intellectual culture, flatly contradicted by facts, is absurd a priori. What imag inable connexion is there between the learning that certain clusters of marks on paper stand for certain words, and the getting a higher sense of duty? What possible effect can ac quirement of facility in making written signs of sounds, have in strengthening the desire to do right? How does knowledge of the multiplication-table, or quickness in adding and divid ing, so increase the sympathies as to restrain the tendency to trespass against fellow-creatures? In what way can the at tainment of accuracy in spelling and parsing, &c., make the sentiment of justice more powerful than it was; or why from stores of geographical information, perseveringly gained, is there likely to come increased regard for truth? The irrela- tion between such causes and such effects, is almost as great 332 TUE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
as that between exercise of the fingers and strengthening of the legs. One who should by lessons in Latin hope to give a knowledge of geometry, or one who should expect practice in drawing to be followed by expressive rendering of a sonata, would be thought fit for an asylum; and yet he would be scarcely more irrational than are those who by discipline of the intellectual faculties expect to produce better feelings.
This faith in lesson-books and readings is one of the super stitions of the age. Even as appliances to intellectual culture books are greatly over-estimated. Instead of second-hand knowledge being regarded as of less value than first-hand knowledge, and as a knowledge to be sought only where first hand knowledge cannot be had, it is actually regarded as of greater value. Something gathered from printed pages is sup posed to enter into a course of education; but if gathered by observation of Life and Nature, is supposed not thus to enter. Reading is seeing by proxy — is learning indirectly through another man's faculties instead of directly through one's own faculties; and such is the prevailing bias that the indirect learning is thought preferable to the direct learning, and usurps the name of cultivation! We smile when told that savages consider writing as a kind of magic; and we laugh at the story of the negro who hid a letter under a stone, that it might not inform against him when he devoured the fruit he was sent with. Yet the current notions about printed infor mation betray a kindred delusion: a kind of magical efficacy is ascribed to ideas gained through artificial appliances, as compared with ideas otherwise gained. And this delusion, injurious in its effects even on intellectual culture, produces effects still more injurious on moral culture, by generating the assumption that this, too, can be got by reading and the repeating of lessons.
It will, I know, be said that not from intellectual teaching but from moral teaching, is improvement of conduct and diminution of crime looked for. While, unquestionably, many of those who urge on educational schemes believe in the moralizing effects of knowledge in general, it must be ad mitted that some hold general knowledge to be inadequate, and contend that rules of right conduct must be taught. Al ready, however, reasons have been given why the expectations PREPARATION IN PSYCHOLOGY. 333