Possibly it may be objected, that to describe the group of nascent psychical changes produced by some complex impression, as constituting at once a memory of the psychical changes which had before followed this impression and a desire again to go through such changes, is absurd; • since the subject-matter of memory is retrospective, while that of desire is prospective. The reply is, that though, when a high degree of intelligence has been reached, these nascent changes are joined with a consciousness of time past and time future, and so come to have different aspects; yet, at the stage in which automatic action merges into the higher forms of action, no such abstract conception as that of Time can exist, and no such duality of aspect in these groups of nascent psychical changes can arise. And a further reply is, that even in ourselves, acts and feelings which become nascent in connexion with the idea of something prospective, are at the same time retrospective; since they cannot be represented at all unless they have been previously presented in experience, and the representation of anything previously presented is memory.
§ 214. The progress from these forms of feeling considerably compounded to those highly-compounded forms of fgeling seen in human beings, equally harmonizes with the general principles of evolution that have been laid down. We saw that advance from the simplest to the most complex cognitions, is explicable on the principle that the outer rela- 4St SPECIAL SYNTHESIS.
tious produce the Inner relations. We shall see that this same principle supplies an explanation of the advance from the simplest to the most complex feelings.
For when the development of Life reaches this repeatedlydescribed stage in which automatic actions merge into actions that are at once conscious, rational,, and emotive; what must be the effect of farther experiences? The effect must bo that if, in connexion with a group of impressions and the nascent- motor changes resulting from it, there is habitually experienced some other impression or group of impressions, some other motor change or group of motor changes, this will, in process of time, be rendered so coherent to the original group, that it, too, will become nascent when the original group becomes nascent, and will render the original group nascent if it is itself induced. Let us take a case. If along with the running down of certain prey, a certain scent has been habitually experienced, then, the presentation of that scent will render nascent the motor changes and impressions which accompany the running down of the prey. If the motor changes and impressions that precede and accompany the catching of prey, have been constantly followed by destructive actions, then, when they are rendered nascent, they will in their turn render nascent the psychical states implied by destructive actions. An.d if these have been followed by those connected with eating, then those connected with eating will also be made nascent. So that the simple olfactory sensation will make nascent those many and varied states of consciousness Involved in the running down, catching, killing, and eating of prey: the sensations, visual, auditory, tactual, gustatory, muscular, that are Abound up with the successive phases of these actions, will be present to consciousness as what we call ideas — will, in their aggregate, constitute the desires to catch, kill, and devour — and will, in conjunction with that olfactory sensation which aroused them all, form, the impulse which sets going the limbs in pursuit. The entire genesis of these emotions thus results from successive complications in the groups of psychical states that are co-ordinated; and is just as much determined by experience as is the union of any two simple sensations that constantly occur together.
A like explanation may be given of emotions, which leave the, subject of them comparatively passive; as,, for instance, that produced by scenery. By compounding groups of sensations and ideas there are at length formed those vast aggregations which a grand landscape excites and suggests. An infant taken into the midst of mountains, is totally unaffected; but is delighted with the small group of attributes and relations presented in a toy. Children can appreciate, and be pleased with, the more complicated relations of household objects and localities — of the garden, the field, and the street. But it is only in youth and mature age, when individual things and small assemblages of them have become familiar and are automatically cognizable, that those immense assemblages which landscapes present can be adequately grasped, and the highly integrated states of consciousness produced by them, experienced. Then, however, the various minor groups of states that have been in earlier days severally produced by trees and flowers, by fields and moors and rocky wastes, by streams, by cascades, by ravines and precipices, by blue skies and clouds and storms, are aroused together. Along with the immediate sensations there are partially excited the myriads of sensations that have been in times past received from objects such as those presented; further, there are partially excited the multitudinous incidental feelings that were experienced on these many past occasions; and there are also excited certain deeper, but now vague, combinations of states which were organized in the race during barbarous times, wh?en its pleasurable activities were chiefly among the woods and waters. And out of all these excitations, some of them; actual but most of them, nascent, is composed the emotion which a fine landscape produces in us.
§ 215. One of the corollaries from the foregoing doctrines Is that, other things equal., feelings are strong in proportion as they include many actnal sensations, or nascent sensations^ or both. As every one of the elementary states of consciousness aggregated in the way described, is originally a feeling of some kind; and as progressive integration though it abbreviates each, leaves it to the last a feeling, however infinitesimal in amount; it follows that the greater the accumulation of such infinitesimal amounts of feeling, the greater must be the sum total of feeling experienced. Quantity of feeling is of two kinds — that which arises from intense excitation of few nerves, and that which arises from slight excitation of many nerves. Thus, an unbearable sensation results if the tip of a finger be held in boiling water. Conversely, though there is no difficulty in holding the tip of a finger in water above 110° Fahrenheit, an unbearable sensation results if the whole body be plunged into water of that temperature. So that the moderate excitation of all the nerves distributed over the surface of the body, is equivalent, as measured by its motor effects, to the extreme excitation of a few of them.
Similarly, though a very faint colour cannot be discerned when it covers only a very minute surface; yet, when it covers a great surface it can be discerned with ease. And that the truth thus holding with actual sensations, holds also with those nascent sensations which, as aggregated into masses of ideas, distinct and indistinct, constitute the emotions, will be manifest on calling to mind how actions are continually determined by the accumulation of motives; that is, by the accumulation of such nascent feelings. r From this corollary there is a second corollary. With a; qualification to be hereafter made, the higher the evolution ] rises, the stronger..dp._the_-emotions become. For~"Sthe increasingly-complex emotions successivelyr*"developed, result from integration of pre-existing groups of actual and nascent sensations, the resulting totals must grow continually larger. A marked illustration of this truth is furnished by the passion which unites the sexes. This is habitually spoken of as though it were a simple feeling; whereas it is the most.compound, and therefore the most powerful, of all the feelings. Added to the purely physical elements of it, are first to be noticed those highly complex impressions produced by personal beauty; around which are aggregated a variety of pleasurable ideas, not in themselves amatory, but which have an organized relation to the amatory feeling. With this there is united the complex sentiment which we term affection — a sentiment which, as it can exist between those of the same sex, must be regarded as an independent sentiment, but one which is here greatly exalted. Then there is the sentiment of admiration, respect, or reverence: in itself one of considerable power, and which in this relation becomes in a high degree active. There comes next the feeling called love of approbation. To be preferred above all the world, and that by one admired beyond all others, is to have the love of approbation gratified in a degree passing every previous experience: especially as there is added that indirect gratification of it which results from the preference being witnessed by unconcerned persons. Further, the allied emotion of self-esteem comes into play. To have succeeded in gaining such attachment from., and sway over, another, is a proof of power which cannot fail agreeably to excite the amour propre. Yet again, the proprietary feeling has its share in the general activity: there is the pleasure of possession — the two belong to each other. Once more, the relation allows of an extended liberty of action.
Towards other persons a restrained behaviour is requisite. Round each there is a subtle boundary that may not be crossed — an individuality on which none may trespass. But in this case the barriers are thrown down; and tbus the love of unrestrained activity is. gratified. Finally, there is an exaltation of the sympathies. Egoistic pleasures of all kinds are doubled by another's sympathetic participation; and the pleasures of another are added to the egoistic pleasures. Thus, round the physical feeling forming the nucleus of the whole, are gathered the feelings produced by personal beauty, that constituting simple attachment, those of reverence, of love of approbation, of self-esteem, of property, of love of freedom, of sympathy. These, all greatly exalted, and severally tending to reflect their excitements on one another, unite to form the mental state we call love. And as each of them is itself comprehensive of multitudinous states of consciousness, we may say that this passion fuses into one immense aggregate most of the elementary excitations of which we are capable j and that hence results its irresistible power.
Other emotions than those which arise by the simple aggregation of large groups of psychical states into still larger groups, are similarly interpret able. There goes on at the same time, and as a result of the same cause, an evolution of emotions that are not only more complex, but also more abstract. Of this, the love of property supplies a,n example. When the development of intelligence has rendered time and locality cognizable; and when, by consequence, an uneaten portion of food can, when hunger next makes nascent the psychical states that accompany eating, be remembered as having been left in a particular place; then, repetition of these experiences of a satiated hunger, and a subsequently-recurring hunger that prompts return to the remaining food, will establish an organized connexion between the remembrance of such remaining food and the various states of consciousness produced by a return to it. Thus will be constituted an anticipation of a return to it — a tendency to perform all such actions accompanying a return to it as are not negatived by satiety — a tendency, therefore, to take possession of it. An analogous process will develop a tendency to take possession of some habitual place of shelter; and afterwards to take possession of things serving for artificial shelter and for clothing. Later still, things indirectly connected with personal welfare will come to be included; as, for instance, the club used for a weapon, the impressions produced by which will make nascent the various pleasurable feelings that have accompanied its successful use, and the conception of further use. The same process rising to still higher complications, will generate a propensity to take possession not only of various weapons and appliances of daily life, but also of the tools and materials required to make such weapons and appliances; afterwards of the materials required to make such tools • and so on until the things accumulated for one purpose or other become numerous and varied. But now observe that in proportion as these things become numerous and varied, and in proportion as the acts of acquiring them and preserving them become frequent, a great variety of pleasurable excitements will come to be associated with the act of taking possession or holding possession. Hence this act itself, being continually the initiator of pleasurable excitements, will become a source of pleasurable excitement.
And as the excitement thus caused must be more habitual than that caused by any particular order of objects; as, further*, the special excitements attaching to special objects possessed, must, in virtue of their variety, prevent the excitement of possession from being connected with any one of them in particular; it results that the excitement of possession will grow into one of a new kind, uniting into a large but vague aggregate the various excitements to which it ministers. And when money comes to be the representative of value in general — value as abstracted from special objects — the miser shows us how the desire of possession in the abstract may become almost independent of those from which it arose; and may exceed in strength any of them individually.
As further illustrating the origin and nature of the more abstract emotions, let me add one still in course of evolution 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 unrestricted 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 indirectly 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 combinations of matter is a very general pre-requisite to the fulfilment of the desires; a still more general., and indeed universal, 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 sentiment of personal rights, answering to certain complex relations 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 acquisition and possession, liberty of movement from place to place, liberty of speech, liberty of trade, and so on, it supposes 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 elementary feelings ideally revived, is proportionate to the number of such elementary feelings united in it; yet, very 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 excited.
§ 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 considered under their emotional aspect. That gradual organization 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 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 miscellaneous and variable in their ultimate components. One consequence of this is that they never lose their empirical character. A further difference similarly implied, is that in each form of feeling thus compounded, answering as it does to successive sets of external circumstances which have only a general resemblance, the relational elements are never twice alike, and therefore cannot become distinctly fixed; whence it follows that the cognitive 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 compound feeling produced becomes, though massive, very dim or vague. An illustration will make this effect comprehensible. 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 representations 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 manifestations 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 experiences; 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 perception of this natural language of kind feeling and the subsequent 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 incapable 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.
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 glaringly 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.
§ 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 rapidity, to the psychical changes which, not "being organically 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^ according 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