distinction some of which are irrelevant to most of the turns of mental
life. We therefore neglect the irrelevant points and take many objects
as copies of one another. This process is _not_ the formation of the
concept or notion but it suggests and prompts that formation. We cannot
but regard it as an error to take a conception as a _sum_ of individuals.
It seems to us to be rather in the nature of a _locus_. A curve contains
an infinity of points and yet the curve is not any sum of points even
though it is often allowable to speak of it as the sum of all its points.
So any concept, say, man, is not all the men that now live nor yet all
the men that eternity both backwards and forwards has contained and will
contain. A concept is a manifold and strictly universal and infinite
in respect to the particulars it subsumes. We speak of the infinitive
mood of a verb because the meaning of the word as thus taken is not put
under any modification. In like manner the meaning of any concept though
subject to various limitations in its applications is as a concept merely
to be regarded as obtaining in a purely infinitive sense. Professor
Jevons found a difficulty in classifying what he called _material_
terms, such as stone, sand, water, etc. Other logicians have put such
terms as singular terms, while still others have classed them as general
terms. There is a great variety of such terms. Potatoes, wheat, butter,
ice, cattle, water, hydrogen, the names of all the elements, ether,
electricity, time, space, love, virtue, etc., are instances. It seems to
us that such terms are the normal types of general terms and that the
canonical forms of our universal propositions ought to be unquantified
not only as regards the predicates but also as regards the subjects. Why
not “man is animal” just as “lard is grease” or “man is mortal” just as
“butter is cheap”?
Moreover the distinction between a general concept and one that is called
singular is only one of degree and not of kind. Every so-called singular
term is potentially at least only an individual instance under a possible
general or universal concept. A striking example of this potentiality is
furnished by the modern generalisations of that formerly singular term,
space. If these observations are well founded, the universals of thought
even though arising out of the facts of experience and rigidly beholden
to experience for every last element out of which they are constructed,
form nevertheless a Formal-Thought-World, and the mind of man in virtue
of its powers of imaginative construction and generalisation has a
constitution that enables it to subsume the actual objective universe as
only one particular of a universality of a higher rank.
Under such a conception of the objective world and the world of thought
and their relations the old dispute of realism versus nominalism would
take a new aspect. _Universals in re_ even though they were admitted
to exist would become universals no longer in the higher universe of
thought. True universals would only subsist as universals of the world
of mind. The laws of Form and Formal Thought would thus become of chief
moment in philosophy and no one could be recognised as properly laying
claim to the title of philosopher without proficiency therein.
XI. FALLACY OF THE SPENCERIAN AXIOM.
Concerning the “axiom of symmetry” only a few examples of its fallacy are
needful. Mutual friendship is certainly a “symmetrical” relation, but _A_
and _C_ may be mutual friends and _B_ and _C_ mutual friends also, but it
in no wise follows that _A_ and _B_ are friends. They may be decidedly
unfriendly as we often see the case. Take a case of equilibrium the
cases of which seem to be favorite ones with M. Mouret. We suppose that
planets may be regarded as in a relation of equilibrium with the sun and
yet these mere equilibrations with the sun do not make any equilibrium
between them. They do not knock together it is true but this is due to
their own direct relations and not their relations of equilibrium with
the sun.
The distances of points from each other is a “symmetrical” relation and
yet point _A_ may be from point _C_ the very same distance that point _B_
is from _C_, but the distance of points _A_ and _B_ from one another may
vary from coincidence to double the distance _A C_-_B C_.
XII. NATURE OF ARITHMETICAL EQUALITY.
Concerning the relation of “mathematical equality” there is no single
relation that obtains throughout mathematics as such. There is numerical
equality upon which the equality in service in numeric algebra is
founded, and there is geometric equality, the equality of vectors, etc.,
all different from one another. M. Mouret seems to have only numeric
equality in view. He claims this relation to be not only of a very simple
nature but that it is the very foundation of the notions of magnitude and
quantity. He even declares that mathematics could not exist without this
relation. Did he lose sight of the usual proof of Fourier’s celebrated
theorem?
As we have explained, things that are distinguished are not really alike
but only for certain turns taken to be so. This assimilation of things is
of various grades. In arithmetic, meaning arithmetic in its most general
sense, the only logical comprehension that the various numbers possess
is respectively their greater or less partitionability; _m_ is the same
as _n_ means in arithmetic that whatever has the numerical rank of _m_
has also precisely the numerical rank of _n_ no matter what summations
or other numerical operations _m_ or _n_ may represent. Identity of
this sort is arithmetical equality. It seems a simple relation for the
reason that its intervention very decisively simplifies our arithmetical
comprehensions. It is however a coincidence of two relations that are
converse to one another. These relations are “not less than” and “not
greater than.” It is universally admitted that the more inclusive a
notion or concept is in extension, the more simple and primary it is than
any other notion or concept included as an instance under it. Now all
equality is “not less than” but not all “not less than” is necessarily
equality; hence, “not less than” is a wider and more primary notion than
equality. On the same considerations “not more than” is in the same
case. Equality is the limiting case between the variable and logically
more simple cases of “not less than” and “not more than.” The notion of
quantity emerges on comparison however vague between any two objects that
have size, independently of the notion of equality. If this were not true
how could we have the notions of infinitely large and infinitely small.
It is indeed true that without the notion of equality the theory of
numbers and the mathematical analysis could subsist in a rudimentary
state only, but to say that they would not exist at all is rash and
not maintainable. The relations “not less than” “not more than” would
still allow of some truly mathematical propositions, operations, and
calculations. In that essentially qualitative notation that is ordinary
language the relation that corresponds to equality is of very limited
range but a relation that is analogous to “not less than,” viz.,
supersumption, is very efficient.
With a theory of numbers and a mathematical analysis using only the
relations “not less than” “not more than” in lieu of the relation of
equality the fundamental operations, addition and substitution, would
find some scope of application and hence the derivative operations,
multiplication, powering, etc., and their inversions, subtraction,
division, etc., would obtain in some fashion and to some extent. This
can readily be seen by any one who is familiar with the way in which
expressions of inequality are used in modern mathematical analysis.
FRANCIS C. RUSSELL.
OBSERVATIONS ON SOME POINTS IN JAMES’S PSYCHOLOGY.
II. EMOTION.
Nothing in Professor James’s work will be likely to strike the average
reader as more paradoxical than his views on the subject of Emotion,
which he must be allowed to state in his own words. After premising that
he will limit his discussion, in the first instance, to what may be
called the coarser emotions, as fear, grief, rage, love, in which every
one recognises a strong organic reverberation, he goes on to say:
“Our natural way of thinking about these coarser emotions is
that the mental perception of some fact excites the mental
affection called the emotion, and that this latter state of
mind gives rise to the bodily expression. My theory, on the
contrary, _is that the bodily changes follow directly the
perception of the existing fact, and that our feeling of the
same changes, as they occur, is the emotion_. Common sense
says, we lose our fortune, are sorry and weep; we meet a bear,
are frightened and run; we are insulted by a rival, are angry
and strike. The hypothesis here to be defended says that this
order of sequence is incorrect, that the one mental state
is not immediately induced by the other, that the bodily
manifestations must first be interposed between, and that the
more rational statement is that we feel sorry because we cry,
angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble, and not
that we strike, cry, or tremble, because we are sorry, angry or
fearful, as the case may be. Without the bodily state following
on the perception, the latter would be purely cognitive in
form, pale, colorless, destitute of emotional warmth. We might
then see the bear and judge it best to run, receive the insult
and deem it right to strike, but we should not actually _feel_
afraid or angry.
“Stated in this crude way, the hypothesis is pretty sure
to meet with immediate disbelief. And yet neither many nor
far-fetched considerations are required to mitigate its
paradoxical character, and possibly to produce conviction of
its truth.
“To begin with, no reader of the last two chapters will be
inclined to doubt the fact that _objects do excite bodily
changes_ by a preorganised mechanism, or the farther fact
_that the changes are so indefinitely numerous and subtle
that the entire organism may be called a sounding-board_
which every change of consciousness, however slight, may make
reverberate....
“The next thing to be noticed is this, that _every one of
the bodily changes, whatsoever it be, is FELT, acutely or
obscurely, the moment it occurs_....
“I now proceed to urge the vital point of my whole theory,
which is this: _If we fancy some strong emotion, and then try
to abstract from our consciousness of it all the feelings of
its bodily symptoms, we find we have nothing left behind_, no
‘mind-stuff’ out of which the emotion can be constituted, and
that a cold and neutral state of intellectual perception is
all that remains. It is true that, although most people when
asked say that their introspection verifies this statement,
some persist in saying that it does not. Many cannot be made
to understand the question. When you beg them to imagine away
every feeling of laughter and of tendency to laugh from their
consciousness of the ludicrousness of an object, and then to
tell you what the feeling of its ludicrousness would be like,
whether it be anything more than the perception that the object
belongs to the class ‘funny,’ they persist in replying that
the thing proposed is a physical impossibility and that they
always _must_ laugh if they see a funny object. Of course the
task proposed is not the practical one of seeing a ludicrous
object and annihilating one’s tendency to laugh. It is the
purely speculative one of subtracting certain elements of
feeling from an emotional state supposed to exist in all its
fulness, and saying what the residual elements are. I cannot
help thinking that all who rightly apprehend this problem
will agree with the proposition above laid down. What kind of
an emotion of fear would be left if the feeling neither of
quickened heart-beats nor of shallow breathing, neither of
trembling lip nor of weakened limbs, neither of goose-flesh nor
of visceral stirrings, were present, it is quite impossible
for me to think. Can one fancy the state of rage and picture
no ebullition in the chest, no flushing of the face, no
dilatation of the nostrils, no clenching of the teeth, no
impulse to vigorous action, but in their stead limp muscles,
calm breathing and a placid face? The present writer, for one,
certainly cannot. The rage is as completely evaporated as the
sensation of its so-called manifestations, and the only thing
that can be supposed to take its place is some cold-blooded
and dispassionate sentence, confined entirely to the judicial
realm, to the effect that a certain person or persons merit
chastisement for their sins. In like manner of grief: what
would it be without its tears, its sobs, its suffocation of the
heart, its pang in the breast-bone? A feelingless recognition
that certain circumstances are deplorable, and nothing
more. Every passion in turn tells the same story. A purely
disembodied human emotion is a non-entity.” (P. 449 seq.)
It is, of course, impossible for me to give all the arguments by which
Professor James attempts to establish his position; the above quotations
will make it clear what it is—namely, that all our “feelings” are
sensations.
Before proceeding to consider some of the objections to this view of the
matter, it may be well to notice briefly what seems to be a gap in the
author’s treatment of it. In adult human beings, very few, comparatively,
of what are ordinarily recognised as emotions follow directly upon the
perception of their objects, in the ordinary sense of the word. His
theory might perhaps suffice, without further explanation for such cases
as the “spitting” of blind kittens at the smell of a dog, or the rage
of a bull at the sight of a red cloth, or the startled feeling that we
experience at a loud and unexpected sound, if the latter should be called
an emotion. But in the immense majority of instances the emotions of
which he treats arise in a very different way.
Some of his own illustrations will serve as well as any to show this. For
instance, neither running nor any other of the symptoms of fear which he
enumerates is the necessary result of seeing a bear. A chained or caged
bear may excite only feelings of curiosity, and a well armed hunter might
experience only pleasurable feelings at meeting one loose in the woods.
It is not, then, the perception of the bear that excites the movements
of fear. We do not run from the bear unless we suppose him capable of
doing us bodily injury. Why should the expectation of being eaten, for
instance, set the muscles of our legs in motion? “Common sense” would
be likely to say it was because we object to being eaten, but according
to Professor James, the reason we dislike to be eaten is because we run
away. So, again, striking is not a reflex act, following on the hearing
of an insult as sneezing does on taking snuff. Whether the muscular
movements or the emotions are the primary thing, what both shall be
depends on many things besides the words that are spoken. To be accused
of drunkenness or unchastity, for instance, would dispose some persons to
violence, but others might feel only the stirrings of pride at what they
would consider a tribute to their manhood. In those who considered such
a charge opprobrious, it might excite feelings of amusement, contempt,
pity, or grief towards the one making it, according to the estimation in
which he was held. To say that if it makes us strike we shall be angry,
if it makes us laugh we shall be amused, if it makes us weep we shall
be grieved, does not go to the bottom of the matter. According to the
theory, the thought of the estimation in which we are held by others
is, in itself, entirely indifferent to us, and only affects our feelings
through the muscular movements it excites.
In view of the variety of these movements in response to the same
physical stimulus in a case like this, the statement that objects excite
bodily changes by a preorganised mechanism explains nothing. We want to
know why in one case a given perception excites one set of movements,
and in another an entirely different set. Without attempting to decide
whether or not a satisfactory explanation can be given on Professor
James’s hypothesis, I will only say, that, so far as I can see, he
nowhere attempts it. In his section on “The Genesis of the Various
Emotions,” (pp. 477 seq.), he only discusses the question how the various
feelings come to be associated with their respective movements. How the
movements come to be associated with the perceptions, he does not discuss
at all.
Turning now to the considerations which Professor James urges in support
of his theory, quoted above, the first two—that objects excite bodily
changes and that these changes are more or less distinctly felt—may
pass unchallenged. I am disposed to go as far with him as to admit
that these feelings, in the cases which he describes, may properly
be considered components of the emotional state. But when he affirms
that there is nothing else—that if we subtract our consciousness of
peripheral sensations there would be no emotion left—it seems to me that
he is going very much too far. I should have no hesitation in saying
that such a statement of the case is contradicted by my consciousness,
but as that would be merely setting up my consciousness against his,
without the possibility of an umpire, I will call attention to some other
considerations which seem to me to render it improbable.
In the first place, it is to be noticed that the cases he instances in
illustration of his position are all of violent emotions. Admitting that
we cannot have these emotions, in such degree, without movements such as
he describes, nor even imagine how they would feel if such a thing were
possible, it does not follow because they cannot be separated that they
are identical. We do not reason in this way in regard to those feelings
which are not commonly called emotions. I can no more imagine myself in
intense bodily pain without a tendency to groan and writhe than deeply
grieved without a tendency to weep, and yet no one, probably, would say
that the pain consisted solely in my consciousness of the groaning and
writhing. If grief is a kind of pain, it is to be expected that, in a
high degree, it will produce bodily movements more or less similar to
those excited by other sorts of pain. All these emotions, however, are
capable of infinite gradations in intensity. The fear of losing one’s
pocket handkerchief is an emotion of the same kind as the fear of losing
one’s fortune. In Professor James’s description of fear, it is evident
that he has abject terror in mind; I hardly think it probable that he
has any such sensations, when he fears, for instance, that he will be
late to dinner, and yet he must be differently constituted from many of
his fellow-men if his state of mind in such a case is merely a cold,
intellectual cognition of the fact that such a state of affairs would be
undesirable.
The same is true of the other emotions he mentions. The feeling of the
ludicrous is, perhaps, the strongest case he cites, but in my own case
slight degrees of amusement do not excite laughter, or even any conscious
disposition to laugh. There is, at the most, in such cases, a tendency
to smile, which may be overpowered by some other emotion, without in the
least impairing my feeling of amusement. It seems to me certain that
slight degrees of all the emotions mentioned may be unaccompanied by any
distinct consciousness of reflex movements. In such cases it is only
by a pretty strong effort of attention that we are able, if at all, to
determine what the bodily changes are, although we are distinctly aware
of the emotion.
Again, it is to be noticed that many actions, similar in character to
those we have been considering, are not associated with what are commonly
called emotions. Laughing and sobbing, for instance, are spasmodic
movements of the muscles of respiration, not strikingly different from
hiccuping, and there seems no good reason why the consciousness of
the former two should usually be felt as strong emotional excitement,
while the latter is not. In some cases, movements identical with those
accompanying particular emotions may occur entirely independently of
them. Shivering from cold, for instance, is the same sort of a movement
as may occur in violent fright, but it does not make us feel frightened.
The laughter excited in children and sensitive persons by tickling of the
skin is not necessarily accompanied by any mirthful feelings. The act of
vomiting may be the accompaniment of the most extreme disgust, or it may
occur without a trace of such emotion. Professor James himself gives an
instance of this sort that can hardly be bettered:
“The writer well remembers his astonishment, when a boy of
seven or eight, at fainting when he saw a horse bled. The
blood was in a bucket, with a stick in it, and if memory does
not deceive him, he stirred it round and saw it drip from the
stick with no feeling save that of childish curiosity. Suddenly
the world grew black before his eyes, his ears began to buzz,
and he knew no more. He had never heard of the sight of blood
producing faintness or sickness, and he had little repugnance
to it, and so little apprehension of any other sort of danger
from it, that even at that tender age, as he well remembers, he
could not help wondering how the mere physical presence of a
pailful of crimson fluid could occasion in him such formidable
bodily effects” (p. 457).
Here we have a condition such as is sometimes experienced in connection
with the most extreme degree of fear or grief unaccompanied by any
emotion except astonishment at its occurrence. I presume that if a person
should faint on hearing bad news, Professor James would consider that one
of the causes of his intense emotion. Why did it have no such effect in
this case?
Assuming that the emotions are the effects and not the causes of what
are usually reckoned as their “expression,” it seems evident that a
given movement or set of movements must uniformly, at least in the same
subject, give rise to the same feeling, and that in the case of opposite
emotions such as joy and grief, hope and fear, the more intense the
emotion, the more unlike must be the actions from which it arises.
Neither of these is the case. On the contrary, it would seem to be the
fact that the actions accompanying emotion tend to become more alike in
proportion to its intensity. It is not at all uncommon for people to
weep from excess of joy as well as of grief. Pallor and trembling are
frequent accompaniments of the extremes of hope as well as fear. The
naturalist Wallace gives an account of his feelings on capturing a rare
and beautiful butterfly, which is worth quoting in this connection:
“The beauty and brilliancy of this insect are indescribable,
and none but a naturalist can understand the intense excitement
I experienced when I at length captured it. On taking it out
of the net and opening the glorious wings, my heart began to
beat violently, the blood rushed to my head, and I felt more
like fainting than I have done when in prospect of immediate
death. I had a headache the rest of the day, so great was the
excitement produced by what will appear to most people a very
inadequate cause” (“Malay Archipelago,” p. 342).
Here it is evident that a feeling of intense exultation gave rise to
sensations very similar, to say the least, to those of extreme fear.
One other argument brought forward by the author deserves special notice
in this connection: