THE MUTUAL RELATIONS OF THOUGHT, FEELING, AND WILL IN EVOLUTION
Hume, in his essay on the Passions, writes: "What is commonly, in a
popular sense, called reason, and is so much recommended in moral
discourses, is nothing but a general and calm passion which takes a
comprehensive and a distant view of its object, and actuates the will,
without exciting any sensible emotion. A man, we say, is diligent in his
profession from reason; that is, from a calm desire of riches and
fortune. A man adheres to justice from reason; that is, from a calm
regard to public good, or to a character with himself and others. The
same objects which recommend themselves to reason in this sense of the
word, are also the objects of passion, when they are brought near to us,
and acquire some other advantages, either of external situation, or
congruity to our internal temper; and by that means excite a turbulent
and sensible emotion. Evil at a great distance is avoided we say from
reason; evil near at hand produces aversion, horror, fear, and is the
object of passion." We know no state of consciousness from which
elements of thought are excluded; consciousness is not a state of rest,
but a continual passage from percept to concept, or from concept to
percept, or if from percept to percept even then with the intervention
of concepts. Judgment, exclusion and inclusion, has part in all
consciousness; and thus pleasure and pain must be regarded as always
accompanied by thought-elements, though the thought-factors may escape
notice because of the prominence of violent emotion, just as, in like
manner, feeling may draw less attention when of a less turbulent nature.
This is not equivalent to saying that emotion must always be accompanied
by a representation of its object. To this last statement might be
objected that emotion may not be, at first, connected with its proper
object, just as so-called purely physical pain may not be, in the
beginning, combined with any perception of the object producing it, may
not even be localized, in fact. But to this objection may be answered
that our conception of "its" object, in the case of emotion, is similar
to our conception of "the" end of any particular act; that which we
regard as "the" object of the emotion may be entirely different from the
object in the consciousness of the being subject to the emotion. That is
to say, emotion speedily connects itself with _some_ object, or even if
felt for some time as vague want is yet combined with thought, in that
we make mental search for its object or, where it is too faint to induce
this action, tend to turn to memories or imaginations sad or joyful,
according as the feeling tinges our mood with exhilaration or sadness;
but the objects with which it connects itself in thought may be quite
other than those which onlookers regard as its proper object. Into many
an emotion of childhood and growing adolescence, for instance, the adult
reads a meaning and object of which he is aware the individual subject
to the emotion has no thought. Physical feeling may not be connected
with any distinct perception of the object producing it (as, for
instance, when one bruises oneself in the dark), but it is never
unconnected with thought-images. The intermediate links between this
outwardly stimulated physical feeling and so-called purely mental
emotion are represented by localized organic feelings, passing by
imperceptible degrees into non-localized feeling experienced as mood.
But feeling on any plane is not, as conscious, uncombined with thought.
It follows that, as connected with the human will, emotion is never
uncombined with thought. This fact is implied in the definition of will
as the conscious determination on some definite course of conduct which,
as definite, is an exclusion of other courses, and thus involves
judgment. Where action takes place without conscious predetermination,
we call it "organic," "automatic," "reflex," or "involuntary," the pain
or pleasure connected with the act rising into our individual,
centralized consciousness when the action has already taken place or
during its progress. In the latter case, part of the act rises into
consciousness as result, as already performed, and the will may then
interpose to check and prevent the elements not yet performed.
The question as to whether thought is always accompanied by feeling, at
least by feeling as pleasure or pain, may appear more difficult than the
previous one. That thought is not always connected with violent emotion
as pleasure or pain is evident. But, as Hoeffding says, "feeling may be
strong and deep without being violent." If we examine carefully any
train even of abstract and apparently, at first glance, wholly
unemotional reasoning, we can generally trace a distinct vein of varying
feeling accompanying the thought,--perhaps extreme interest in the
problem involved and pleasure in its solution, hope as we seem to be on
the point of finding the key to it, disappointment when the hope proves
a delusive one, shame or impatience at our failure, or pride in our
readiness, and exultation when we have finished our work. All these
feelings may relate to the mere solution of the problem as end, or may
pass beyond it to ends more or less distant and complicated, to which
the solution of the problem then appears as means. Even if we could
suppose all other feeling to be excluded, we cannot conceive of a train
of thought untinged with mood,--interest or weariness, exhilaration or
depression,--the dim complex of perhaps many elements, but admitting of
general classification on the side of either the pleasurable or the
painful, the agreeable or the disagreeable.
Is feeling the result of thought, or thought the result of feeling?
which of the two is to be accorded the greater importance with regard to
the will? and what is the significance of feeling as pleasure and of
feeling as pain with respect to the will? These are some of the
questions generally considered in one form or another in the discussion
of the relations of mental functions. The first question may be
interpreted in any one of several different ways. It may be regarded as
referring to particular excitations, objects, or ends, or to precedence
at the earliest beginning of consciousness in general, or to the initial
state of consciousness in the case of the individual organism. Since we
are not able to determine as to where consciousness does begin, either
absolutely in nature as a whole or relatively in the individual, whether
there is, indeed, any such thing as an initial state, and since we can
predicate nothing certainly as to the nature of such a state if there be
one, the interpretation of the question which has reference to this
relative or absolute beginning of consciousness cannot be answered. If
we regard the question, however, as having reference to particular
excitations, objects, or ends, it is evident that sometimes one,
sometimes the other of the two functions appears more prominent in the
beginning; pain or pleasurable excitation sometimes makes itself felt
before it is connected in consciousness with any distinct object, and
again perception may give us thought-images which only consideration
renders painful or pleasurable. But there is no real beginning in either
case; in consciousness as we know it, thought and feeling are
continually intermingled, and only their direction varies with varying
excitation, now thought, now feeling, assuming the greater prominence.
This last consideration has important bearings on a question which we
have previously discussed and to which we may, at this point, revert for
a moment. The fact alone that we know nothing of a beginning of
consciousness, but only its variation, is sufficient to make us doubt
whether we are in possession of any data from which to pronounce
dogmatically on the absence of consciousness in the case of organisms
differing from our own, or even in the case of inorganic matter. Why may
we not equally well suppose merely a difference in the direction of
consciousness corresponding to differing organization and function in
the one case and differing composition or constitution and corresponding
motion in the other? Our error begins in assuming no ends possible in
action except such as we ourselves would set, and so in assuming no end
to be present in cases where no end would exist for the human being, or
where the end which would be involved for us cannot have come within the
experience of the organism performing the act. In the latter case, we
speak of "blind instinct" or of "automatism." We forget that an "end" is
merely some one of such constant results of function as are brought
within the circle of our experience; which end may come to lie farther
and farther away, for the same act, as the circle of experience widens
and varies in direction, even in beings as similar as individuals of the
human species. With the attainment of manhood and womanhood, whole
regions of thought and feeling, whole classes of motives, are opened up
which are wholly unknown to the child and would be incomprehensible to
him; the ends of the scientist, the man of letters, the idealist in
morals, the sensualist, and the boor, may differ radically in performing
the same or very similar acts. However, there is a certain community of
ends in human beings, due to common organization and experience, which
enables them to judge to some extent of each other's ends. But these
data of organization and experience fail us when we come to judge of
beings not human, and hence we are liable to error in their case. A
superior being of an entirely different species from our own might be
greatly puzzled to discern the motives which could govern some of our
acts,--those, for instance, which incite the miser to starve in misery
with a fortune hidden in the cellar. A superior being of another species
gifted with pessimistic views, if we can suppose such, regarding our
action externally as we regard brute-action and plant-function, might
imagine our whole action to be directed to the attainment of our own
death, since that is what we finally achieve as the result of action,
and sometimes with most purposeful rapidity; and he might suppose the
suicide, and the miser, and the opium-eater, and the drunkard, and the
glutton, to be only the more intelligent members of the species, the
others to be led chiefly by blind instinct. It is a fundamental mistake
to suppose that there can be no "ends" but those of which we are
conscious.
The question as to the existence of any causal relations in the old
sense between thought and feeling has already been answered in previous
considerations; all we can assert is sequence or simultaneity. Indeed,
as psychology has rarely troubled itself with any direct question of
this sort, its introduction may appear foolish. Yet feeling is
sometimes, by imputation, treated as a mere attribute of thought, while
again, as we shall see, it is often considered as an independent,
directing, if not perception, at least the subsumption of percepts in
thought. And, indeed, it is difficult to perceive why, if feeling and
thought be regarded as two quite distinct yet simultaneous activities,
the same problem as to precedence might not arise, under the concepts of
cause and effect, as in the case of physiological process and
consciousness as a whole.
But a question with which Psychology and Ethics have occupied themselves
as a most important one is that of the relation of pleasure and pain to
the will. A point around which strife particularly rages is the problem
as to whether it is the pleasurableness of the end which moves the will
to seek it; and on the view taken as to the truth on this point theories
of freedom or determination of the will are often based, the advocate of
free will arguing that the power of choosing the painful proves his
theory, the determinist declaring that the invariable might of the
pleasurable over the will shows the subordination of the latter. But I
cannot, for my own part, see how the demonstration of the fact that the
will may be moved by the imagination of a painful end rather than, or
as well as, by that of a pleasurable one is a proof of its freedom; as I
also fail to perceive how it is proved that the will is determined
because it invariably chooses the pleasurable rather than the painful
end. In either case, choice may be said equally to depend on motive, and
in either case the will may be said equally to choose. It is true in
either case that the strongest motive moves; it is true in either case
that the will decides upon the act with a feeling of its own spontaneity
and freedom, and guides the movement of the body in the performance of
the act. That which is shown in an invariable connection of the will
with pleasurable motives is a constancy which we find elsewhere in
nature and which forbids us to regard will as something outside and
above the rest of nature. As we have seen, however, the theory of a
compulsion of nature anywhere by constancy or law, or of the compulsion
of one particular part by the rest, is untenable.
In speaking of the pleasurable and painful, we have introduced the
conception of ends into our considerations, and may emphasize, in
another form, the fact that we cannot consider indefinite feeling alone
as the mover of the will to an end. The pleasurableness or painfulness
is predicated of some definite object or event, and corresponds to
definite actualities perceived in the object or imagined with the help
of former experience. Thought and feeling are thus inextricably
commingled in the state of consciousness leading to choice, and the
nature of the acting individual and that of the external objects
concerned are equally essential to the result.
We have hitherto treated thought, feeling, and will, as separate parts
of consciousness, defining each, by implication, much as we would define
wheel, tongue, and whiffletree, as parts of a wagon. But the three are
indissolubly connected in the act of the will, and thought and feeling
are not, as we have seen, ever disconnected. Nor can we say that it is
one part of consciousness that feels, another that thinks, and still
another that wills. Further, a closer analysis may render it doubtful
whether that which we call will is only an occasional act of
consciousness, or whether it is not rather involved in all operations of
consciousness as we have seen thought and feeling to be. The identity of
will and that which is often called involuntary attention has already
been asserted by some authors, and not the identity of will and outward
attention alone, but also of will and attention to the inner process of
consciousness. Here, however, the dividing line generally sought between
willed and unwilled, involuntary, or, as we say, drifting thought,
becomes dim and uncertain. But it is evident that attention is given to
that which interests us for one reason or another; and the question
logically presents itself as to whether thought ever follows a direction
wholly uninteresting to us, or whether it does not the rather always
turn from such direction to one which has for us at least some degree of
interest, whether, in short, the will does not in this manner, as the
innervation of attention, accompany and direct all mental process. The
sense of effort involved in choice, in the struggle of interfering
impulses, may bring into prominence mental activity at points where such
obstacles and interferences occur; but is not the mental force which we,
in this case, especially notice the same with that involved in all
processes of consciousness? Just as the physiological process in nerve
and muscle with which the limbs are moved in action, or eye or ear
innervated in the effort of attention, is only the outcome of the
processes which are constantly going on in the brain, so the concomitant
process of will or attention is but the expression, in another form, of
the activity involved in all consciousness.
The division of consciousness into separate entities or parts has often
been carried much further than this threefold one; the division has
varied with the particular theory and fancy of the student, until some
one has suggested that we might, on the principle used, assume a
distinct faculty for dancing, for eating, sleeping, dressing, reading,
writing, and so on, _ad infinitum_,--the faculty, in each case, being
defined as the special activity that discharges the particular function
assigned to it by the name. Only by abstraction and by the investiture
of our abstractions with a life of their own do we arrive at a theory of
thought, feeling, and will, as separate entities, or parts; in the
mental process itself, they are indissolubly united.
We have seen that thought acquires new directions with the evolution of
the individual, that pleasure and pain attach themselves to new objects,
and that will is directed to new ends. If we can discover in these
changes any uniformities of relation everywhere manifest as far as
experience extends, the constancy of nature may admit of our conclusion
that the relation is fundamental, and we may be able to formulate thus
a general law of evolution with respect to the mental processes. Such a
law must, of course, be interpreted, not as governing the changes which
it regards, but simply as the expression of general facts of their
development. Our considerations on this point are in a line with those
of Chapter I; indeed, they are only a more special application and more
careful derivation and expansion of points there noticed.
If we begin with our own experience, and study the growth of this or
that particular habit gradually acquired, we notice that it not only
becomes stronger with time, acquiring an intensity less and less easy to
check, but also that this increasing strength of tendency is accompanied
with a corresponding increase of pleasure in the performance of the act.
The drunkard may have derived no especial pleasure from his first glass;
he may, indeed, have found the taste little to his liking, and the
slight succeeding dizziness disagreeable; but, with habituation, both
gradually become agreeable. The first fit of intoxication may be felt as
unpleasant, not only in the succeeding shame and physical depression,
but in itself; though it is also conceivable that the state of thorough
intoxication may have been led up to so slowly, by such imperceptible
degrees, that it may be combined, even in the first instance, with a
certain degree of pleasure. It is, however, evident that this pleasure
increases with further lapse of time. If we study the habits of
individuals, we shall find a thousand little peculiarities of habit in
which others than their performers would be puzzled to discover anything
attractive, and in which, indeed, the latter themselves would find
difficulty in pointing out the source of the gratification that they
nevertheless experience. Our habits are things we are loth to break
with; and we grow more loth as time passes, until finally no
consideration, no shame of scorn or pain of punishment in any form, can
suffice to counterbalance the craving of desire and the fierce pleasure
of satisfaction, or the less turbulent but not less strong impulse that
carries us steadily in the course which past custom has worn for us.
Customary acts are themselves agreeable to us, though their results may
bring with them disagreeable factors.
Again, this same principle is directly traceable in heredity. We say,
for instance, of the drunkard whose father and grandfather were
drunkards before him, that he has inherited a "taste" for intoxicants,
meaning, not that he can feel their attraction before he has tasted them
and experienced their influence, but that the habit of drunkenness is
one more easily formed in him than in the average individual,
constitutional peculiarities corresponding to a pleasure derived from
the alcohol. We often notice striking resemblances, not only in general
appearance but also in mental characteristics and habits, extending even
to attitude and gesture, between children and parents deceased when the
children were yet infants. I have known very peculiar physical habits to
appear, in one instance in three, in another in four, generations, with
the avowal of satisfaction in their practice on the part of the persons
subject to them, although neither they could explain, nor onlookers
comprehend, the pleasure derived from them. Imitation is not always
possible in such cases; in one case of these two just cited, it was, in
the third generation at least, impossible; and even where there is
imitation, it is by no means proved that an innate tendency does not
lend readiness to the formation of the habit. It may here be objected
that we are venturing on too uncertain ground in endeavoring to
formulate any general law of the growth of habit in relation to
heredity, opinions differing so much as to the relative importance to be
accorded to environment and innate tendency in the formation of
character, and especially as to the possibility of the inheritance, by
succeeding generations, of new peculiarities not common to the species
as a whole but acquired by individual parents. As far as the former
question is concerned, it may be said that the whole development of
plant or animal in organization and corresponding functions must be
regarded as directly dependent upon present environment, never
independent of it; but that, while it must be conceded that the
environment is greatly concerned in the development of habit, and that
no innate tendency can manifest itself unless the complementary
conditions of its appearance are presented by circumstance, it may
likewise be claimed that the influence of environment no more excludes
heredity than heredity excludes the influence of the individual
environment. We tend, generally, to emphasize heredity in the case of
the plant and the animal, and environment in the case of the human
being. This is because our knowledge of species other than our own is
merely an outward one, while the ideas of heredity in our own case are
confused by our consciousness of the influence that even minute
circumstances may have upon our inner life and character. And yet just
those who are inclined to lay most stress upon the power of good
influences are generally, strange to say, the very ones who would most
protest at the assertion of the superiority of outer conditions over
inner ones. It can scarcely be supposed that any law of heredity which
applies to the rest of the animal kingdom does not apply to man also.
With respect to the second of the two questions noticed above, something
has already been said from one point of view, and more will be said
later from another. At present it will be sufficient for our purpose to
notice some generally admitted facts. Darwin uses a certain caution when
he comes to the consideration of the conditions of inheritance, and
makes the general statement that the tendency to inheritance of any
function is increased by the continuation of the action of the inducing
conditions of environment for several generations. But it may be
questioned whether an innate tendency may not have favored and assisted
the action of the environment in the later of these generations,
whether, indeed, the continuity everywhere supposed in evolution does
not compel us to assume, between the first appearance of any function,
trait, or habit, and its attainment, after several generations, of
sufficient strength to render its hereditary character noticeable,
intermediate degrees of strength in the intermediate generations. On the
same principle on which we accept the theory of evolution as a logical
necessity, despite the gaps in the proof, we must also, I believe,
consider development of any sort to be continuous increase.
But even the theory of the increased probability of the inheritance of
any mark, function, trait, or habit, after several generations of
inducing environment, is sufficient for our present purpose. It still
remains true, if we regard the development of function or habit in its
broad features, that the tendency to inheritance, the organic
significance of any function or habit is increased with increased
exercise. Merely in the one case we regard the increments of increase as
infinitesimal, while, in the other case, we regard them as of much
greater than infinitesimal value. Even the theory of Weismann, which
regards everything as present in the germ, must formulate some such
theory as this of the environment as the condition of the development of
germinal possibilities.
Not only are the strongest and most infallibly recurring functions those
which have been most strongly and longest exercised, but these strongest
functions, those to which, as we say, the tendency is strongest, are
connected with the strongest pleasures of gratification and the most
extreme pain of denial. The sexual appetite is an example of such a
function fundamental to all the higher forms of animal life. Hunger and
thirst, if long unsatisfied, are connected with intensest suffering and,
if not dulled by general ill-health or too great satiety, involve a keen
pleasure of satisfaction. Muscular exercise is a source of keen
enjoyment, and physical inaction results in general depression that may
become extreme if the inaction be long continued.
In this pain of inaction, a new conception has been introduced into our
considerations. The converse of this pain is that involved in the
over-exercise of any function. We thus perceive that the pleasure
involved in the exercise of function lies between two extremes, beyond
either of which is pain, discomfort. Such pain is connected with the
vacillations in the relations of food-assimilation to the use of
accumulated energy. These two general processes or functions of all
organic matter are reciprocal or complementary, and the too much or too
little on either side which involves pain may be looked upon as a
disturbance of equilibrium. Excess on either side means want on the
other.[135]
And this brings us again to the conception of normal function as a
stable form of motion. Long-exercised function, fundamental functions of
animal or plant life are forms of motion that for a very long period
have found their sufficient complementary conditions in the environment,
have met with but little interference in this environment. And thus we
attain a conception of pleasure as that form of feeling accompanying
forms of physiological motion with which there is a minimum of
interference. Pleasure appears as the accompaniment of unimpaired and
unimpeded function everywhere as far as our knowledge extends. Function
and habit are essentially the same; habit is merely function. The
functions of the species furnish the foundation of the habits of the
individual, which vary according to individual surroundings and the
family peculiarities acquired through peculiar circumstances. The degree
of pleasure in the exercise of any function or habit bears constant
relations to the strength of the acquired function, while this again
bears constant relations to degree of exercise, in which the time
relation plays a prominent part. Here we have, too, by implication, the
explanation of the disagreeable character of the strange and new except
as it corresponds to some tendency of the organism, some capability not
yet exercised, in which case it appears as nothing strictly new but only
as pleasing variety. From a physiological point of view, the new appears
as that which demands a readjustment involving the fresh action of
natural selection, and the possible destruction of the organism in case
the readjustment demanded is too great. From the physical and mechanical
view, the new may be regarded as a disturber of equilibrium.
To this analysis the objection may possibly be urged that obstacles
often increase pleasure. If, however, a definition of obstacle be
demanded, it will soon appear that what is meant by an obstacle that
increases pleasure is not anything that interferes with function but
rather that which is exactly its occasion and opportunity. To a man in
health and vigor who sets off for a walk through the fields, a hedge or
fence in the way is no real obstacle, but furnishes rather an agreeable
diversion, a new method of trying his strength and getting rid of
superfluous muscular secretions; it adds but the spice of some slight
variety to his exercise. That which is an interruption of one function,
may be the opportunity of another; and if the demands of the first
function for satisfaction are not too imperative, the interruption of
too great duration, the obstacle may not be felt to be disagreeable. But
pain and pleasure are often mixed, since the satisfaction of one
function may be the prevention of another. If, in this case, the
function which is satisfied is a fundamental one, the function which is
prevented a subordinate one, the pleasure exceeds the pain. If, on the
other hand, the function prevented is a fundamental one, the function
satisfied a merely subordinate one, the pain exceeds the pleasure.
With the ideas of unimpaired and unimpeded function as pleasurable, and
of the new as demanding readjustment, we arrive at the consideration of
health and disease. The free performance of any particular function is
the first condition of the health of the organ of which it is the
function, the regular performance of all physical functions according to
the mutual adjustment of the organs of the body the condition of the
health of the organism as a whole. And thus again we come round to the
conception of pleasure as connected with the action that accords with
the health of the organism. And this leads us to some remarks concerning
the act of food-taking which may answer a possible objection to the
statements made above with regard to the pleasure involved in the act.
The moralist and idealist are wont to protest against any theory that
may seem to give prominence to "the purely animal" side of human life.
But first, we have to do, at present, merely with facts on which ethical
theory may be founded, not as yet with such theory itself. Furthermore,
the selection of the appetites of hunger, thirst, and sex, as
illustrating the general theory of the relations of pleasure and pain to
function is not made in order to lay special stress upon these appetites
but because they afford, as fundamental, especially good examples. And,
finally, it may be noticed that the pleasure connected with the stilling
of hunger and thirst is not that of taste alone, though doubtless there
are many with whom this pleasure is one of the most important of life;
on the taking of sufficient and proper nourishment depends the pleasure
involved in the general health of the body; the pain of non-satisfaction
in this case is not simply that of a single organ but that of the whole
organism. Even the deferment of a single meal beyond the usual hour
often lowers the "tone" of the whole body, and the variations of too
much or too little strongly influence the mood and general happiness of
the individual. On the right use of nourishment depend, in great
measure, the ability to cope with circumstances and the moral power of
cheerfulness.
In connection with the idea of a certain equilibrium between exercise
and nourishment, waste and repair, as normal, healthful, and
pleasurable, Rolph's principle of the Insatiability of life may be
considered. Evidently the facts of evolution demonstrate the power of
the organism to advance by slow degrees beyond its original normal. But
the progress is an exceedingly slow one, and the power of advance in the
individual organism, at any particular point, by no means limitless, but
very definitely limited. The limitations of the power of assimilation
are evidenced by the evil results of over-eating, of over-satiety of
function in any direction. Even at an early period of life, when growth
is most marked, the capacity for assimilation is by no means limitless.
The idea of insatiability is advanced by Lewes[136] in a somewhat
different form. It may possibly be an aid to the comprehension of the
process of growth to regard one factor, namely the organism, as the
active side of the development tending to indefinite growth in all
directions, and the other factor, the environment, as the regulating,
resisting factor, limiting such growth; the conception may, perhaps, be
legitimately resorted to as we resort to various other devices which
bring into prominence some one side of a process to the neglect of
others but to the simplification of our concepts and calculations. A
similar device is used by Zoellner in his consideration of
sun-spots.[137] But these representations should not be mistaken for
actuality. The limitless expansion of the organism is as much a fiction
as a theory of the limitless coercion of the environment resisted by the
organism would be. The latter fiction is involved in one interpretation
of the Struggle for Existence. Either view is one-sided; environment and
organism both alike represent active forces, of both which combined,
growth is, at each moment, the exactly conditioned resultant.
We may notice another assertion of Rolph's, namely, that growth is
produced by increase of nourishment rather than that it demands[138]
increase of nourishment as the Darwinians state. I do not know how the
Darwinians come to be accredited with this statement in the sense which
is evidently criticised by Rolph. In so far as the statement may be
interpreted as meaning that growth takes place first, and without
nourishment, and that the demand for nourishment then ensues on this
growth, the criticism is evidently valid. But the word "demands" may be
interpreted in quite a different way as designating the need of growth
for its conditions, or rather (for this is the ultimate significance of
the word in this sense) the logical demand of the reason, which cannot
suppose anything to take place in the absence of its conditions. Any
other signification of the word is contrary to the whole spirit of
Darwinism, and would accord much better with a theory of Insatiability
or with other forms of theory that imply a special vital principle of
some sort. If, when Rolph makes the assertion that increase of
nourishment produces growth, he refers, by "increase of nourishment,"
to the mere act of mastication, it is true that growth must be regarded
as following upon this as its condition; but growth and the assimilation
of nourishment are identical. And, in fact, assimilation begins in the
action of the saliva in the act of mastication. Analysis of assimilation
gives us sequence in one sense, since the parts of the act follow upon
one another; but any interpretation which tends to draw a distinct line
at any point in the physiological process, or to distinguish between
assimilation as active, performed, and growth as passive, suffered,
should be avoided.
We may return to the consideration of pleasure and pain as connected
with function in general, with a view to a solution, if possible, of the
problem of its especial connection with the will. The brain may be
defined, from the point of view of the theory of evolution, as the organ
of centralization through which the unity of the organism is
established, and the adaptation of parts or the development of special
function becomes the adaptation or function of the whole. With this
physiological adaptation, an increasing breadth of knowledge by
experience, the deviation of feeling from old into new channels, and the
attainment of new ends of action, are associated. Just as past
adaptations must have their physiological representation in
brain-organization, so psychical experience is stored up to be
remembered on sufficient suggestion, and finds, thus, its expression in
conscious will, just as its physiological concomitants must be supposed
to find their expression in nervous and muscular action. As we have
seen, pleasure follows the line of evolution of function, strongest
pleasure appearing in the direction of most strongly developed function,
so that, just as any conflict of tendencies to function in the brain
must result in conquest by the strongest tendency, the line of action
must always correspond with that of the greatest pleasure. And just as
the most strongly inherent function is combined with the greatest
pleasure, so the representation of the performance of this most strongly
inherent function is, in the conflict of tendencies before action,
combined with the greatest pleasure of anticipation. This statement
coincides with Stephen's remark that it is not the representation of the
greatest pleasure, but the pleasantest representation, which furnishes
the decisive motive to will. Contingent circumstances may introduce into
the actual carrying out of the act determined upon an element of pain
not before experienced, in which the wish may arise that the act had not
been performed; and the strength of the tendency to action in this
direction is thus diminished.
With regard to this analysis, several things are to be noted. (1) It is
no more claimed that the strongest pleasure of anticipation is
unmitigated pleasure than that the pleasure involved in the attainment
of the end is necessarily unmitigated. Wherever there is interference,
there is also pain. Where any struggle is involved, where any conflict
of tendencies and wishes precedes choice, the struggle itself and the
relinquishment of one or more courses in favor of the one chosen involve
disagreeable elements, and the fiercer the struggle the greater the
pain. Where two extremely strong tendencies thus come into collision,
the pain involved may amount to agony. Our statement that the more
pleasurable end or rather the one the imagination of which is the more
pleasurable is the one sought by will needs therefore to be put into a
somewhat different form, since, among all the methods of action open to
choice in any case, there may be none the thought of which involves any
positive pleasure, though there is in all or most cases some one which
promises at least a negative excess of pleasure, that is, least pain.
(2) No assumption is made as to the particular kind of representation or
the particular kind of end with which the greatest pleasure of
anticipation or of realization is combined, whether these are "higher"
or "lower," sensual or intellectual, moral or immoral. It is not by any
means asserted that the most moral end may not be that which is chosen.
(3) It is not asserted that any direct calculation of the pleasure to
self involved in any course of action necessarily contributes to choice.
(4) The pleasure or pain connected with the imagination of a future
event is not to be confused with the actual pleasure or pain of the
event itself. The feeling experienced in the event may be wholly
different from that of anticipation.
In connection with the second point, reference may be made to an
assertion of Sidgwick's in his attack upon Hedonism. He writes as
follows, "We have to observe that men may and do judge remote as well as
immediate results to be in themselves desirable, without considering
them in relation to the feelings of sentient beings."[139] The question
for us here is, first, whether the emphasis of the assertion is on the
word "considering,"--a question the context does not answer. It is
certainly true that decisions are reached, judgments pronounced, without
introspection and self-analysis, and without long reflection of any
sort. It is true that, even where reflection does take place, there is
not necessarily any distinct attachment of the concept "pleasurable" to
results considered, whether with relation to self or to others. The dog
who snatches at a piece of meat does not probably waste any time in
reflecting on the pleasure he will experience in eating it; and yet we
do not the less believe that if the act were not pleasurable to him he
would not perform it. It may also be true that a man often pronounces
results to be desirable without noting or caring for their relations to
other sentient beings; but if these results are regarded by him as
desirable, then they must be in some way desirable to himself, that is,
must have a pleasurable relation to his own feelings. Desire appertains
to sentient beings and to sentient beings as such; a thing which is
desirable must be desirable to a sentient being; the desirable which is
not desirable to a sentient being is the desirable which is
not-desirable, a self-contradiction.
In connection with the third of the points above noticed, Rolph's
assertion that not pleasure but pain is the motive to action, may be
considered. The author does not mean anything else than that action is
in the direction from "want," "hunger," "pain," to ends involving
pleasure, so that this theory does not, when analyzed, differ
fundamentally from theories which assume the motive to will to be
furnished by the most pleasurable end or by the most pleasurable
representation of an end. The chief point of difference is the
conception of the state of consciousness preceding will as invariably
one of pain, the want of the end willed as invariably painful. Now it is
evident that the satisfaction of a function may be so long deferred as
to involve the severest pain; hunger, thirst, may reach a degree of
intensity that is frenzy, muscular inaction, in an ordinarily active
individual, if long persevered in, may be combined with extreme
discomfort and depression. And it is also true that all desire involves
want in the sense that an end is sought because its absence is felt as
undesirable. But want in this sense means merely desire, and is not
necessarily combined with any real pain of deprivation. The state of
consciousness preceding action may be, on the contrary, one of
exhilaration, of exceeding joy of anticipation; the gratification of a
desire may take place so soon after the first appearance of the desire,
or the gratification of the desire become so certain so soon after the
desire is first felt, that no pain of want is felt at all. Rolph,
indeed, finds great difficulty in demonstrating his theory, and finally
resorts to the definition of the pain which, as he asserts, furnishes
the motive to action as "the pain of the absence of pleasure." He says,
moreover, that not all pain is felt as such, since much feeling is below
the threshold of consciousness.[140] But "unconscious pain" and "feeling
below consciousness" are mere self-contradictions. Specification of that
of which, as unconscious, we know nothing is a very easy way of
delivering oneself from the necessity of positive proof, but it is a
very unscientific one. With respect to Rolph's assertion that pain can
not be dispensed with, since it is everywhere the motive to action, it
may be remarked that this statement seems to accord ill with Rolph's
other theory that never the struggle for existence but always states of
plenty and comfort are the conditions of growth, and the lengthy
demonstration that periods of want must condition decline,
retrogression, and finally the extinction of the species suffering the
want. From the standpoint of Darwin, the struggle for existence is not
inconsistent with the possession of plenty on the part of favored
individuals and species, but Rolph expressly denies the compatibility of
the two principles.
In his theory of want as the universal motive to action, Rolph cites
suicide as an extreme case of this want. Our analysis has already taken
into consideration some of the cases of mental struggle and postponement
of the satisfaction of desire involving pain. But where one end greatly
desired is unattainable, choice may yet be possible of another end
affording partial satisfaction of the function corresponding to the
desire, and, in cases where choice is necessary between two or more
conflicting ends, the gratification of one may be attended with a
sufficient degree of pleasure to cause partial forgetfulness of the
disappointment in the necessary relinquishment of the other ends. Where,
however, the function denied is one of the most fundamental of the
organism, its denial may be combined with intensest pain and a gradual
physical degeneration, or even a sudden collapse of the organism, ending
in death; or it may induce an act that secures this end through the
mediation of self-conscious will. What is true, in this case, of the
denial of some one fundamental function, is true also of an accumulation
of coincident denials of a number of lesser ones. Our desires are,
indeed, in all cases, more or less complex, and involve the fulfilment
of various functions; but we can easily imagine such an accumulation of
small ills as to lead to desperation. Where no choice of action seems
left us by which we may attain some one end deeply desired, or where a
coincidence of obstacles makes it appear as if there were no choice of
action towards any desirable ends, death may be chosen as a lesser evil
than life, the equivalent of a lesser pain in the absence of feeling
altogether. It may be noted, however, that where suicide is prevented in
the first moment of desperation, the individual planning it may not only
never again attempt it, but may afterwards even find much pleasure in
life. As there is a high degree of pleasure connected with the
performance of deeply rooted function or habit, so the performance of
all function is attended with some modicum of pleasure, except in such
isolated moments as render suicide possible. Every end desired is one of
function, and all function furnishes ends to the will. The pessimist
lays emphasis upon the fact of the speedy loss of pleasure in ends
attained. But herein lies the higher pleasure of life, that it is not
rest but progress. The pleasures we attain may be continually renewed if
rightly sought, but they cannot be unintermittently sustained. We cannot
rest at ends attained and find unlessened rapture in them. Rest is not
an attribute of life; life is essentially motion, that phase of it which
we term rest being mere change of function for a time. The intimate
relation, between pleasure and an equilibrium of waste and repair
renders it impossible to obtain pleasure except as occupation is varied
in order to afford opportunity of recuperation to organs and cells
before used. Proper variation, however, may enable us to return to old
pleasures with ever renewed and even increased enjoyment. But it is
conceivable that the pleasures of gratification and the pains of
disappointment may be so nearly balanced as to make life possible and
yet endow it, at least for a period, with but little joy. It is to be
noticed, however, that intense pain cannot endure, unmodified, for any
great length of time. As pleasure follows the line of customary action,
so pain diminishes with long-continued lack in any direction, unless
this direction be that of too fundamental function, in which case the
organism succumbs entirely and perishes. Either we grow gradually used
to our disappointment and forget it to a great degree in other
gratification, or we die under it. Certainly there are losses the pain
of which is never entirely forgotten, after which life is never quite
the same again; but the first agony of such losses is materially
modified with time; and many of the losses which have seemed worst to us
at the time they occurred are later looked back upon without regret. We
progress to another stage, and the ends we desire to gain are changed.
The habitual misanthrope, indeed, generally derives a great deal of
satisfaction from his own misery; and this leads us to the apparently
anomalous remark that even pain as function may come to be combined with
pleasure; we feel a satisfaction in our own capacity of emotion. The
sensitivity of the poet to pain as well as his sensitivity to pleasure
is a source of often very keen gratification and pride to him. Of the
weak and aged who have no especial pleasure in life, it may be said that
they have also, in general, no fierce pains, at least seldom such as
bring desperation in youth. Having learned from experience, they are not
subject to such exaggerated expectations, and hence disappointments, as
accompany youth, vigor, and ignorance of the realities of life; and
often they derive enjoyment from things which would have no attraction
for the young.
The old question as to the relation between health and happiness may be
answered by the statement that the two coincide. The statement is not
meant, however, in the sense that the happiness which we at present
attain is coincident with health in an absolute sense or that, _vice
versa_, perfect happiness is, or can be, coincident with that which we
ordinarily term health. The two terms are generally very ill-defined;
sometimes the one, sometimes the other, is used in an absolute sense in
connection with the discussion of the parallel term in a comparative
sense. Perfect happiness must coincide with perfect health; for perfect
health must coincide with perfect fulfilment of all function, and this
coincides with the gratification of all desire. At present desires
conflict, and the gratification of one is bought at the expense of
others. This partial gratification corresponds to a partial health; but
we too often forget, in the discussion of health and happiness, that
health is no more perfect than is happiness. The individual is not yet
in harmony with himself. But this means that he also is not in harmony
with the environment.
In the development of thought, feeling, and will, we have noticed a
certain parallelism, the attainment of new knowledge, the deviation of
feeling into new channels, and the direction of will to new ends;
indeed, our analysis must bring us to regard this development as
something more than a parallelism, since, as we have seen, thought,
feeling, and will, cannot be defined as separate organs of mind. And we
are here led to notice a theory sometimes advanced, that the feelings of
one individual can never be changed by another. You may present a man
with arguments, say the advocates of this theory, but this is all; you
cannot bring him to act on the arguments unless his feeling is already
of the right sort before you present your arguments; if it is not, you
cannot in any way alter it. Now a certain general foundation of
character, of fundamental feeling, must always be conceded; but this is
not what these theorists mean when they say that arguments can never
alter feeling. "Of what use would it be to argue with my child and tell
her that this or that act of hers is selfish," said a man to me not long
ago of his three-year-old daughter; "if she is selfish, arguing with her
will not make her less so; showing her that she is selfish will never
have any effect upon her selfishness; you may change opinions by
argument, but not feelings." The theory reminds us of the old idea of
the will as something above other phases of nature and so supreme above
their influence; it replaces this theory of the uncaused nature of the
will by one of the like absolute independence of feeling. And yet,
strange to say, this theory is oftenest advanced by just those who
assert the variability of will in accordance with law, under the
influence of the environment, and unite with these already incongruous
theories the wholly contradictory one that it is feeling which furnishes
the motive to will. To appeal to any one except through the medium of
thought is certainly impossible; the feelings cannot be influenced
except by representation and argument. Feeling cannot be taken by itself
and so influenced. But the person endeavoring to convince does not
desire to arouse indefinite feeling; he invariably wishes to excite it
with regard to some definite end. To change opinion is also to change
feeling in some degree. Whether an appeal to another is successful or
not depends on the nature of the appeal and upon the consciousness of
the individual to whom the appeal is made; but this means that not the
nature of consciousness alone decides the result. In any excitation by
the environment, the result is conditioned, not by the one factor alone
but by both; and no excitation can leave the individual entirely
unchanged; the multiplication of infinitesimal single excitations
constitutes the whole of evolution. A first appeal or argument may be
felt only as disagreeable interference; but an accumulation of appeals
at first disagreeable and met only with rebuffs may eventually result in
total change of both ends and feelings. The amount of appeal necessary
differs with the person appealed to; it may be large or small,
excessively large or excessively small, but the general fact remains,
that feelings vary as thought widens, and that an accompanying change of
ends takes place. Thought and feeling are not two separate and
independent things, but are, on the contrary, vitally united.
We may put our old familiar question with regard to cause and effect in
a new form in respect to the development of thought, feeling, and will.
In considering the process of evolution, will, and, therefore, the
conscious exercise of function, is ordinarily treated as the effect of
pleasure; but our course of analysis identifies function and its
exercise and rather brings function into the foreground, though the
assertion of precedence in importance has been avoided. The course was
chosen partly because it affords an opportunity of propounding the
following questions: Is lapse of time, amount of exercise, or pleasure,
the cause of habit? Or is habit the cause of function? Or is pleasure
the cause of continued exercise of function? Or is function the cause of
pleasure? Or is a minimum of interference the cause of pleasure and of
function in a particular direction? Or is not, rather, continued
exercise of function the cause of the absence of interference wherever
and as far as it exists? We find all these various suggested theories
advocated, by direct statement or by implication, in the treatment of
the evolution of function by different authors, and indeed we frequently
find several of the theories included, by implication, in the work of
the same author. The vital connection of unimpeded function and pleasure
is apparent, and the necessity of the time element in the development of
function may also be asserted; but there is not, according to our
theory, any reason for introducing the concept of cause into the
relations.
Our analysis of the development of thought, feeling, and will, has an
important bearing on the teleological argument. If all habit comes, in
time, to be pleasurable, if pleasure merely follows the line of
exercise of function, _whatever that line may be_, and ends are thus
mere matters of habit, and habit, exercise, is a matter of the action
and reaction of all conditions, then it is evident that the force of the
teleological argument is at once destroyed. We cannot pass beyond
nature, by this route, to the inference of a transcendental cause. Man's
action being a part of nature and the result of all conditions as much
as is the motion of the wind or the waves, the results he produces, like
theirs, only change and never creation, the only inference we could make
from his will to other will must be an inference to will that is a part
of nature, a result if also a condition, a link in the chain of nature,
its ends cooerdinate with habit but not the cause of it, and no more
determining than determined.
FOOTNOTES:
[135] See Avenarius' formulae of "complete vital maintenance":
f(R) = -f(S); f(R) + f(S) = o, "Kritik der reinen Erfahrung."
[136] "Problems of Life and Mind," Ser. II. p. 103.
[137] See essay by Petzoldt above considered.
[138] "Biologische Probleme," p. 96; "erfordern."
[139] "Methods of Ethics," 4th ed. p. 97.
[140] "Biologische Probleme," p. 177 _et seq._