[_First published in_ The Medico-Chirurgical Review _for January,_
1860.]
After the controversy between the Neptunists and the Vulcanists had been
long carried on without definite results, there came a reaction against
all speculative geology. Reasoning without adequate data having led to
nothing, inquirers went into the opposite extreme, and confining
themselves wholly to collecting data, relinquished reasoning. The
Geological Society of London was formed with the express object of
accumulating evidence; for many years hypotheses were forbidden at its
meetings: and only of late have attempts to organize the mass of
observations into consistent theory been tolerated.
This reaction and subsequent re-reaction, well illustrate the recent
history of English thought in general. The time was when our countrymen
speculated, certainly to as great an extent as any other people, on all
those high questions which present themselves to the human intellect;
and, indeed, a glance at the systems of philosophy that are or have been
current on the Continent, suffices to show how much other nations owe to
the discoveries of our ancestors. For a generation or two, however,
these more abstract subjects have fallen into neglect; and, among those
who plume themselves on being "practical," even into contempt. Partly,
perhaps, a natural accompaniment of our rapid material growth, this
intellectual phase has been in great measure due to the exhaustion of
argument, and the necessity for better data. Not so much with a
conscious recognition of the end to be subserved, as from an unconscious
subordination to that rhythm traceable in social changes as in other
things, an era of theorizing without observing, has been followed by an
era of observing without theorizing. During this long-continued devotion
to concrete science, an immense quantity of raw material for abstract
science has been accumulated; and now there is obviously commencing a
period in which this accumulated raw material will be organized into
consistent theory. On all sides--equally in the inorganic sciences, in
the science of life, and in the science of society--we may note the
tendency to pass from the superficial and empirical to the more profound
and rational.
In Psychology this change is conspicuous. The facts brought to light by
anatomists and physiologists during the last fifty years, are at length
being used towards the interpretation of this highest class of
biological phenomena; and already there is promise of a great advance.
The work of Mr. Alexander Bain, of which the second volume has been
recently issued, may be regarded as especially characteristic of the
transition. It gives us, in orderly arrangement, the great mass of
evidence supplied by modern science towards the building-up of a
coherent system of mental philosophy. It is not in itself a system of
mental philosophy, properly so called; but a classified collection of
materials for such a system, presented with that method and insight
which scientific discipline generates, and accompanied with occasional
passages of an analytical character. It is indeed that which it in the
main professes to be--a natural history of the mind. Were we to say that
the researches of the naturalist who collects and dissects and describes
species, bear the same relation to the researches of the comparative
anatomist tracing out the laws of organization, which Mr. Bain's
labours bear to the labours of the abstract psychologist, we should be
going somewhat too far; for Mr. Bain's work is not wholly descriptive.
Still, however, such an analogy conveys the best general conception of
what he has done; and serves most clearly to indicate its needfulness.
For as, before there can be made anything like true generalizations
respecting the classification of organisms and the laws of organization,
there must be an extensive accumulation of the facts presented in
numerous organic bodies; so, without a tolerably-complete delineation of
mental phenomena of all orders, there can scarcely arise any adequate
theory of mind. Until recently, mental science has been pursued much as
physical science was pursued by the ancients; not by drawing conclusions
from observations and experiments, but by drawing them from arbitrary _a
priori_ assumptions. This course, long since abandoned in the one case
with immense advantage, is gradually being abandoned in the other; and
the treatment of Psychology as a division of natural history, shows that
the abandonment will soon be complete.
Estimated as a means to higher results, Mr. Bain's work is of great
value. Of its kind it is the most scientific in conception, the most
catholic in spirit, and the most complete in execution. Besides
delineating the various classes of mental phenomena as seen under that
stronger light thrown on them by modern science, it includes in the
picture much which previous writers had omitted--partly from prejudice,
partly from ignorance. We refer more especially to the participation of
bodily organs in mental changes; and the addition to the primary mental
changes, of those many secondary ones which the actions of the bodily
organs generate. Mr. Bain has, we believe, been the first to appreciate
the importance of this element in our states of consciousness; and it is
one of his merits that he shows how constant and large an element it is.
Further, the relations of voluntary and involuntary movements are
elucidated in a way that was not possible to writers unacquainted with
the modern doctrine of reflex action. And beyond this, some of the
analytical passages that here and there occur, contain important ideas.
Valuable, however, as is Mr. Bain's work, we regard it as essentially
transitional. It presents in a digested form the results of a period of
observation; adds to these results many well-delineated facts collected
by himself; arranges new and old materials with that more scientific
method which the discipline of our times has fostered; and so prepares
the way for better generalizations. But almost of necessity its
classifications and conclusions are provisional. In the growth of each
science, not only is correct observation needful for the formation of
true theory; but true theory is needful as a preliminary to correct
observation. Of course we do not intend this assertion to be taken
literally; but as a strong expression of the fact that the two must
advance hand in hand. The first crude theory or rough classification,
based on very slight knowledge of the phenomena, is requisite as a means
of reducing the phenomena to some kind of order; and as supplying a
conception with which fresh phenomena may be compared, and their
agreement or disagreement noted. Incongruities being by and by made
manifest by wider examination of cases, there comes such modification of
the theory as brings it into a nearer correspondence with the evidence.
This reacts to the further advance of observation. More extensive and
complete observation brings additional corrections of theory; and so on
till the truth is reached. In mental science, the systematic collection
of facts having but recently commenced, it is not to be expected that
the results can be at once rightly formulated. All that may be looked
for are approximate generalizations which will presently serve for the
better directing of inquiry. Hence, even were it not now possible to say
in what way it does so, we might be tolerably certain that Mr. Bain's
work bears the stamp of the inchoate state of Psychology.
We think, however, that it will not be difficult to find in what
respects its organization is provisional; and at the same time to show
what must be the nature of a more complete organization. We propose here
to attempt this: illustrating our positions from his recently-issued
second volume.
* * * * *
Is it possible to make a true classification without the aid of
analysis? or must there not be an analytical basis to every true
classification? Can the real relations of things be determined by the
obvious characteristics of the things? or does it not commonly happen
that certain hidden characteristics, on which the obvious ones depend,
are the truly significant ones? This is the preliminary question which a
glance at Mr. Bain's scheme of the emotions suggests.
Though not avowedly, yet by implication, Mr. Bain assumes that a right
conception of the nature, the order, and the relations of the emotions,
may be arrived at by contemplating their conspicuous objective and
subjective characters, as displayed in the adult. After pointing out
that we lack those means of classification which serve in the case of
the sensations, he says--
"In these circumstances we must turn our attention to _the manner
of diffusion_ of the different passions and emotions, in order to
obtain a basis of classification analogous to the arrangement of
the sensations. If what we have already advanced on that subject be
at all well founded, this is the genuine turning point of the
method to be chosen, for the same mode of diffusion will always be
accompanied by the same mental experience, and each of the two
aspects would identify, and would be evidence of, the other. There
is, therefore, nothing so thoroughly characteristic of any state of
feeling as the nature of the diffusive wave that embodies it, or
the various organs specially roused into action by it, together
with the manner of the action. The only drawback is our comparative
ignorance, and our inability to discern the precise character of
the diffusive currents in every case; a radical imperfection in the
science of mind as constituted at present.
"Our own consciousness, formerly reckoned the only medium of
knowledge to the mental philosopher, must therefore be still
referred to as a principal means of discriminating the varieties of
human feeling. We have the power of noting agreement and difference
among our conscious states, and on this we can raise a structure of
classification. We recognise such generalities as pleasure, pain,
love, anger, through the property of mental or intellectual
discrimination that accompanies in our mind the fact of emotion. A
certain degree of precision is attainable by this mode of mental
comparison and analysis; the farther we can carry such precision
the better; but that is no reason why it should stand alone to the
neglect of the corporeal embodiments through which one mind reveals
itself to others. The companionship of inward feeling with bodily
manifestation is a fact of the human constitution, and deserves to
be studied as such; and it would be difficult to find a place more
appropriate than a treatise on the mind for setting forth the
conjunctions and sequences traceable in this department of nature.
I shall make no scruple in conjoining with the description of the
mental phenomena the physical appearances, in so far as I am able
to ascertain them.
"There is still one other quarter to be referred to in settling a
complete arrangement of the emotions, namely, the varieties of
human conduct, and the machinery created in subservience to our
common susceptibilities. For example, the vast superstructure of
fine art has its foundations in human feeling, and in rendering an
account of this we are led to recognise the interesting group of
artistic or aesthetic emotions. The same outward reference to
conduct and creations brings to light the so-called moral sense in
man, whose foundations in the mental system have accordingly to be
examined.
"Combining together these various indications, or sources of
discrimination,--outward objects, diffusive mode or expression,
inward consciousness, resulting conduct and institutions,--I adopt
the following arrangement of the families or natural orders of
emotion."
Here, then, are confessedly adopted, as bases of classification, the
most manifest characters of the emotions; as discerned subjectively, and
objectively. The mode of diffusion of an emotion is one of its outside
aspects; the institutions it generates form another of its outside
aspects; and though the peculiarities of the emotion as a state of
consciousness, seem to express its intrinsic and ultimate nature, yet
such peculiarities as are perceptible by simple introspection, must also
be classed as superficial peculiarities. It is a familiar fact that
various intellectual states of consciousness turn out, when analyzed, to
have natures widely unlike those which at first appear; and we believe
the like will prove true of emotional states of consciousness. Just as
our concept of space, which is apt to be thought a simple,
undecomposable concept, is yet resolvable into experiences quite
different from that state of consciousness which we call space; so,
probably, the sentiment of affection or reverence is compounded of
elements that are severally distinct from the whole which they make up.
And much as a classification of our ideas which dealt with the idea of
space as though it were ultimate, would be a classification of ideas by
their externals; so, a classification of our emotions, which, regarding
them as simple, describes their aspects in ordinary consciousness, is a
classification of emotions by their externals.
Thus, then, Mr. Bain's grouping is throughout determined by the most
manifest attributes--those objectively displayed in the natural language
of the emotions, and in the social phenomena that result from them, and
those subjectively displayed in the aspects the emotions assume in an
analytical consciousness. And the question is--Can they be correctly
grouped after this method?
We think not; and had Mr. Bain carried farther an idea with which he has
set out, he would probably have seen that they cannot. As already said,
he avowedly adopts "the natural-history-method:" not only referring to
it in his preface, but in his first chapter giving examples of botanical
and zoological classifications, as illustrating the mode in which he
proposes to deal with the emotions. This we conceive to be a
philosophical conception; and we have only to regret that Mr. Bain has
overlooked some of its most important implications. For in what has
essentially consisted the progress of natural-history-classification? In
the abandonment of grouping by external, conspicuous characters; and in
the making of certain internal, but all-essential characters, the bases
of groups. Whales are not now ranged along with fish, because in their
general forms and habits of life they resemble fish; but they are
ranged with mammals, because the type of their organization, as
ascertained by dissection, corresponds with that of mammals. No longer
considered as sea-weeds in virtue of their forms and modes of growth,
_Polyzoa_ are now shown, by examination of their economy, to belong to
the animal kingdom. It is found, then, that the discovery of real
relationships involves analysis. It has turned out that the earlier
classifications, guided by general resemblances, though containing much
truth, and though very useful provisionally, were yet in many cases
radically wrong; and that the true affinities of organisms, and the true
homologies of their parts, are to be made out only by examining their
hidden structures. Another fact of great significance in the history of
classification is also to be noted. Very frequently the kinship of an
organism cannot be made out even by exhaustive analysis, if that
analysis is confined to the adult structure. In many cases it is needful
to examine the structure in its earlier stages; and even in its
embryonic stage. So difficult was it, for instance, to determine the
true position of the _Cirrhipedia_ among animals, by examining mature
individuals only, that Cuvier erroneously classed them with _Mollusca_,
even after dissecting them; and not until their early forms were
discovered, were they clearly proved to belong to the _Crustacea_. So
important, indeed, is the study of development as a means to
classification, that the first zoologists now hold it to be the only
absolute criterion.
Here, then, in the advance of natural-history-classification, are two
fundamental facts, which should be borne in mind when classifying the
emotions. If, as Mr. Bain rightly assumes, the emotions are to be
grouped after the natural-history-method; then it should be the
natural-history-method in its complete form, and not in its rude form.
Mr. Bain will doubtless agree in the belief, that a correct account of
the emotions in their natures and relations, must correspond with a
correct account of the nervous system--must form another side of the
same ultimate facts. Structure and function must necessarily harmonize.
Structures which have with each other certain ultimate connexions, must
have functions which have answering connexions. Structures which have
arisen in certain ways, must have functions which have arisen in
parallel ways. And hence if analysis and development are needful for the
right interpretation of structures, they must be needful for the right
interpretation of functions. Just as a scientific description of the
digestive organs must include not only their obvious forms and
connexions, but their microscopic characters, and also the ways in which
they severally result by differentiation from the primitive mucous
membrane; so must a scientific account of the nervous system include its
general arrangements, its minute structure, and its mode of evolution;
and so must a scientific account of nervous actions include the
answering three elements. Alike in classing separate organisms, and
in classing the parts of the same organism, the complete
natural-history-method involves ultimate analysis, aided by development;
and Mr. Bain, in not basing his classification of the emotions on
characters reached through these aids, has fallen short of the
conception with which he set out.
"But," it will perhaps be asked, "how are the emotions to be analyzed,
and their modes of evolution to be ascertained? Different animals, and
different organs of the same animal, may readily be compared in their
internal structures and microscopic structures, as also in their
developments; but functions, and especially such functions as the
emotions, do not admit of like comparisons."
It must be admitted that the application of these methods is here by no
means so easy. Though we can note differences and similarities between
the internal formations of two animals; it is difficult to contrast the
mental states of two animals. Though the true morphological relations of
organs may be made out by observation of embryos; yet, where such organs
are inactive before birth, we cannot completely trace the history of
their actions. Obviously, too, pursuance of inquiries of the kind
indicated, raises questions which science is not yet prepared to answer;
as, for instance--Whether all nervous functions, in common with all
other functions, arise by gradual differentiations, as their organs do?
Whether the emotions are, therefore, to be regarded as divergent modes
of action that have become unlike by successive modifications? Whether,
as two organs which originally budded out of the same membrane have not
only become different as they developed, but have also severally become
compound internally, though externally simple; so two emotions, simple
and near akin in their roots, may not only have grown unlike, but may
also have grown involved in their natures, though seeming homogeneous to
consciousness? And here, indeed, in the inability of existing science to
answer these questions which underlie a true psychological
classification, we see how purely provisional any present classification
is likely to be.
Nevertheless, even now, classification may be aided by development and
ultimate analysis to a considerable extent; and the defect in Mr. Bain's
work is, that he has not systematically availed himself of them as far
as possible. Thus we may, in the first place, study the evolution of the
emotions up through the various grades of the animal kingdom: observing
which of them are earliest and exist with the lowest organization and
intelligence; in what order the others accompany higher endowments; and
how they are severally related to the conditions of life. In the second
place, we may note the emotional differences between the lower and the
higher human races--may regard as earlier and simpler those feelings
which are common to both, and as later and more compound those which are
characteristic of the most civilized. In the third place, we may observe
the order in which the emotions unfold during the progress from infancy
to maturity. And lastly, comparing these three kinds of emotional
development, displayed in the ascending grades of the animal kingdom,
in the advance of the civilized races, and in individual history, we may
see in what respects they harmonize, and what are the implied general
truths.
Having gathered together and generalized these several classes of facts,
analysis of the emotions would be made easier. Setting out with the
assumption that every new form of emotion making its appearance in the
individual or the race, is a modification of some pre-existing emotion,
or a compound of several pre-existing emotions, we should be greatly
aided by knowing what always are the pre-existing emotions. When, for
example, we find that very few of the lower animals show any love of
accumulation, and that this feeling is absent in infancy--when we see
that an infant in arms exhibits anger, fear, wonder, while yet it
manifests no desire of permanent possession, and that a brute which has
no acquisitiveness can nevertheless feel attachment, jealousy, love of
approbation; we may suspect that the feeling which property satisfies is
compounded out of simpler and deeper feelings. We may conclude that as,
when a dog hides a bone, there must exist in him a prospective
gratification of hunger; so there must similarly at first, in all cases
where anything is secured or taken possession of, exist an ideal
excitement of the feeling which that thing will gratify. We may further
conclude that when the intelligence is such that a variety of objects
come to be utilized for different purposes--when, as among savages,
divers wants are satisfied through the articles appropriated for
weapons, shelter, clothing, ornament; the act of appropriating comes to
be one constantly involving agreeable associations, and one which is
therefore pleasurable, irrespective of the end subserved. And when, as
in civilized life, the property acquired is of a kind not conducing to
one order of gratification in particular, but is capable of
administering to all gratifications, the pleasure of acquiring property
grows more distinct from each of the various pleasures subserved--is
more completely differentiated into a separate emotion.
This illustration, roughly as it is sketched, will show what we mean by
the use of comparative psychology in aid of classification. Ascertaining
by induction the actual order of evolution of the emotions, we are led
to suspect this to be their order of successive dependence; and are so
led to recognize their order of ascending complexity; and by consequence
their true groupings.
Thus, in the very process of arranging the emotions into grades,
beginning with those involved in the lowest forms of conscious activity
and ending with those peculiar to the adult civilized man, the way is
opened for that ultimate analysis which alone can lead us to the true
science of the matter. For when we find both that there exist in a man
feelings which do not exist in a child, and that the European is
characterized by some sentiments which are wholly or in great part
absent from the savage--when we see that, besides the new emotions which
arise spontaneously as the individual becomes completely organized,
there are new emotions making their appearance in the more advanced
divisions of our race; we are led to ask--How are new emotions
generated? The lowest savages have not even the ideas of justice or
mercy: they have neither words for them nor can they be made to conceive
them; and the manifestation of them by Europeans they ascribe to fear or
cunning. There are aesthetic emotions common among ourselves, which are
scarcely in any degree experienced by some inferior races; as, for
instance, those produced by music. To which instances may be added the
less marked but more numerous contrasts that exist between civilized
races in the degrees of their several emotions. And if it is manifest,
both that all the emotions are capable of being permanently modified in
the course of successive generations, and that what must be classed as
new emotions may be brought into existence; then it follows that nothing
like a true conception of the emotions is to be obtained, until we
understand how they are evolved.
Comparative Psychology, while it raises this inquiry, prepares the way
for answering it. When observing the differences between races, we can
scarcely fail to observe also how these differences correspond with
differences between their conditions of existence, and consequent
activities. Among the lowest races of men, love of property stimulates
to the obtainment only of such things as satisfy immediate desires, or
desires of the immediate future. Improvidence is the rule: there is
little effort to meet remote contingencies. But the growth of
established societies having gradually given security of possession,
there has been an increasing tendency to provide for coming years: there
has been a constant exercise of the feeling which is satisfied by a
provision for the future; and there has been a growth of this feeling so
great that it now prompts accumulation to an extent beyond what is
needful. Note, again, that under the discipline of social life--under a
comparative abstinence from aggressive actions, and a performance of
those naturally-serviceable actions implied by the division of
labour--there has been a development of those gentle emotions of which
inferior races exhibit but the rudiments. Savages delight in giving pain
rather than pleasure--are almost devoid of sympathy; while among
ourselves, philanthropy organizes itself in laws, establishes numerous
institutions, and dictates countless private benefactions.
From which and other like facts, does it not seem an unavoidable
inference, that new emotions are developed by new experiences--new
habits of life? All are familiar with the truth that, in the individual,
each feeling may be strengthened by performing those actions which it
prompts; and to say that the feeling is _strengthened_, is to say that
it is in part _made_ by these actions. We know, further, that not
unfrequently, individuals, by persistence in special courses of conduct,
acquire special likings for such courses, disagreeable as these may be
to others; and these whims, or morbid tastes, imply incipient emotions
corresponding to these special activities. We know that emotional
characteristics, in common with all others, are hereditary; and the
differences between civilized nations descended from the same stock,
show us the cumulative results of small modifications hereditarily
transmitted. And when we see that between savage and civilized races
which diverged from one another in the remote past, and have for a
hundred generations followed modes of life becoming ever more unlike,
there exist still greater emotional contrasts; may we not infer that the
more or less distinct emotions which characterize civilized races, are
the organized results of certain daily-repeated combinations of mental
states which social life involves? Must we not say that habits not only
modify emotions in the individual, and not only beget tendencies to like
habits and accompanying emotions in descendants, but that when the
conditions of the race make the habits persistent, this progressive
modification may go on to the extent of producing emotions so far
distinct as to seem new? And if so, we may suspect that such new
emotions, and by implication all emotions analytically considered,
consist of aggregated and consolidated groups of those simpler feelings
which habitually occur together in experience. When, in the
circumstances of any race, some one kind of action or set of actions,
sensation or set of sensations, is usually followed, or accompanied, by
various other sets of actions or sensations, and so entails a large mass
of pleasurable or painful states of consciousness; these, by frequent
repetition, become so connected together that the initial action or
sensation brings the ideas of all the rest crowding into consciousness:
producing, in some degree, the pleasures or pains that have before been
felt in reality. And when this relation, besides being frequently
repeated in the individual, occurs in successive generations, all the
many nervous actions involved tend to grow organically connected. They
become incipiently reflex; and, on the occurrence of the appropriate
stimulus, the whole nervous apparatus which in past generations was
brought into activity by this stimulus, becomes nascently excited. Even
while yet there have been no individual experiences, a vague feeling of
pleasure or pain is produced; constituting what we may call the body of
the emotion. And when the experiences of past generations come to be
repeated in the individual, the emotion gains both strength and
definiteness; and is accompanied by the appropriate specific ideas.
This view of the matter, which we believe the established truths of
Physiology and Psychology unite in indicating, and which is the view
that generalizes the phenomena of habit, of national characteristics, of
civilization in its moral aspects, at the same time that it gives us a
conception of emotion in its origin and ultimate nature, may be
illustrated from the mental modifications undergone by animals. On
newly-discovered lands not inhabited by man, birds are so devoid of fear
as to allow themselves to be knocked over with sticks; but in the course
of generations, they acquire such a dread of man as to fly on his
approach; and this dread is manifested by young as well as by old. Now
unless this change be ascribed to the killing-off of the less fearful,
and the preservation and multiplication of the more fearful, which,
considering the comparatively small number killed by man, is an
inadequate cause; it must be ascribed to accumulated experiences; and
each experience must be held to have a share in producing it. We must
conclude that in each bird which escapes with injuries inflicted by man,
or is alarmed by the outcries of other members of the flock (gregarious
creatures of any intelligence being necessarily more or less
sympathetic), there is established an association of ideas between the
human aspect and the pains, direct and indirect, suffered from human
agency. And we must further conclude that the state of consciousness
which impels the bird to take flight, is at first nothing more than an
ideal reproduction of those painful impressions which before followed
man's approach; that such ideal reproduction becomes more vivid and more
massive as the painful experiences, direct or sympathetic, increase; and
that thus the emotion in its incipient state, is nothing else than an
aggregation of the revived pains before experienced. As, in the course
of generations, the young birds of this race begin to display a fear of
man before yet they have been injured by him, it is an unavoidable
inference that the nervous system of the race has been organically
modified by these experiences: we have no choice but to conclude that
when a young bird is thus led to fly, it is because the impression
produced on its senses by the approaching man, entails, through an
incipiently-reflex action, a partial excitement of all those nerves
which in its ancestors had been excited under the like conditions; that
this partial excitement has its accompanying painful consciousness; and
that the vague painful consciousness thus arising, constitutes emotion
proper--_emotion undecomposable into specific experiences, and therefore
seemingly homogeneous_.
If such be the explanation of the fact in this case, then it is in all
cases. If emotion is so generated here, then it is so generated
throughout. We must perforce conclude that the emotional modifications
displayed by different nations, and those higher emotions by which
civilized are distinguished from savage, are to be accounted for on the
same principle. And concluding this, we are led strongly to suspect that
the emotions in general have severally thus originated.
Perhaps we have now made sufficiently clear what we mean by the study of
the emotions through analysis and development. We have aimed to justify
the positions that, without analysis aided by development, there cannot
be a true natural history of the emotions; and that a natural history of
the emotions based on external characters can be but provisional. We
think that Mr. Bain, in confining himself to an account of the emotions
as they exist in the adult civilized man, has neglected those classes of
facts out of which the science of the matter must chiefly be built. It
is true that he has treated of habits as modifying emotions in the
individual; but he has not recognized the fact that where conditions
render habits persistent in successive generations, such modifications
are cumulative: he has not hinted that the modifications produced by
habit are emotions in the making. It is true, also, that he occasionally
refers to the characteristics of children; but he does not
systematically trace the changes through which childhood passes into
manhood, as throwing light on the order and genesis of the emotions. It
is further true that he here and there refers to national traits in
illustration of his subject; but these stand as isolated facts, having
no general significance: there is no hint of any relation between them
and the national circumstances; while all those many moral contrasts
between lower and higher races which throw great light on
classification, are passed over. And once more, it is true that many
passages of his work, and sometimes, indeed, whole sections of it, are
analytical; but his analyses are incidental--they do not underlie his
entire scheme, but are here and there added to it. In brief, he has
written a Descriptive Psychology, which does not appeal to Comparative
Psychology and Analytical Psychology for its leading ideas. And in doing
this, he has omitted much that should be included in a natural history
of the mind; while to that part of the subject with which he has dealt,
he has given a necessarily-imperfect organization.
* * * * *
Even leaving out of view the absence of those methods and criteria on
which we have been insisting, it appears to us that meritorious as is
Mr. Bain's book in its details, it is defective in some of its leading
ideas. The first paragraphs of his first chapter, quite startled us by
the strangeness of their definitions--a strangeness which can scarcely
be ascribed to laxity of expression. The paragraphs run thus:--
"Mind is comprised under three heads,--Emotion, Volition, and
Intellect.
"EMOTION is the name here used to comprehend all that is understood
by feelings, states of feeling, pleasures, pains, passions,
sentiments, affections. Consciousness, and conscious states also
for the most part denote modes of emotion, although there is such a
thing as the Intellectual consciousness.
"VOLITION, on the other hand, indicates the great fact that our
Pleasures and Pains, which are not the whole of our emotions,
prompt to action, or stimulate the active machinery of the living
framework to perform such operations as procure the first and abate
the last. To withdraw from a scalding heat, and cling to a gentle
warmth, are exercises of volition."
The last of these definitions, which we may most conveniently take
first, seems to us very faulty. We cannot but feel astonished that Mr.
Bain, familiar as he is with the phenomena of reflex action, should have
so expressed himself as to include a great part of them along with the
phenomena of volition. He seems to be ignoring the discriminations of
modern science, and returning to the vague conceptions of the past--nay
more, he is comprehending under volition what even the popular speech
would hardly bring under it. If you were to blame any one for snatching
his foot from the scalding water into which he had inadvertently put it,
he would tell you that he could not help it; and his reply would be
indorsed by the general experience, that the withdrawal of a limb from
contact with something extremely hot, is quite involuntary--that it
takes place not only without volition, but in defiance of an effort of
will to maintain the contact. How, then, can that be instanced as an
example of volition, which occurs even when volition is antagonistic? We
are quite aware that it is impossible to draw any absolute line of
demarcation between automatic actions and actions which are not
automatic. Doubtless we may pass gradually from the purely reflex,
through the consensual, to the voluntary. Taking the case Mr. Bain
cites, it is manifest that from a heat of such moderate degree that the
withdrawal from it is wholly voluntary, we may advance by infinitesimal
steps to a heat which compels involuntary withdrawal; and that there is
a stage at which the voluntary and involuntary actions are mixed. But
the difficulty of absolute discrimination is no reason for neglecting
the broad general contrast; any more than it is for confounding light
with darkness. If we are to include as examples of volition, all cases
in which pleasures and pains "stimulate the active machinery of the
living framework to perform such operations as procure the first and
abate the last," then we must consider sneezing and coughing as examples
of volition; and Mr. Bain surely cannot mean this. Indeed, we must
confess ourselves at a loss. On the one hand if he does not mean it, his
expression is lax to a degree that surprises us in so careful a writer.
On the other hand, if he does mean it, we cannot understand his point of
view.
A parallel criticism applies to his definition of Emotion. Here, too, he
has departed from the ordinary acceptation of the word; and, as we
think, in the wrong direction. Whatever may be the interpretation that
is justified by its derivation, the word emotion has come generally to
mean that kind of feeling which is not a direct result of any action on
the organism; but is either an indirect result of such action, or arises
quite apart from such action. It is used to indicate those sentient
states which are independently generated in consciousness; as
distinguished from those generated in our corporeal framework, and known
as sensations. Now this distinction, tacitly made in common speech, is
one which Psychology cannot well reject; but one which it must adopt,
and to which it must give scientific precision. Mr. Bain, however,
appears to ignore any such distinction. Under the term emotion, he
includes not only passions, sentiments, affections, but all "feelings,
states of feeling, pleasures, pains,"--that is, all sensations. This
does not appear to be a mere lapse of expression; for when, in the
opening sentence, he asserts that "mind is comprised under the three
heads--Emotion, Volition, and Intellect," he of necessity implies that
sensation is included under one of these heads; and as it cannot be
included under volition or intellect, it must be classed with emotion;
as it clearly is in the next sentence.
We cannot but think this a retrograde step. Though distinctions which
have been established in popular thought and language, are not
unfrequently merged in the higher generalizations of science (as, for
instance, when crabs and worms are grouped together in the sub-kingdom
_Annulosa_); yet science very generally recognizes the validity of these
distinctions, as real though not fundamental. And so in the present
case. Such community as analysis discloses between sensation and
emotion, must not shut out the broad contrast that exists between them.
If there needs a wider word, as there does, to signify any sentient
state whatever; then we may fitly adopt for this purpose the word
currently so used, namely, "Feeling." And considering as Feelings all
that great division of mental states which we do not class as
Cognitions, we may then separate this great division into the two
orders, Sensations and Emotions.
* * * * *
And here we may, before concluding, briefly indicate the leading
outlines of a classification which reduces this distinction to a
scientific form, and develops it somewhat further--a classification
which, while suggested by certain fundamental traits reached without a
very lengthened inquiry, is yet, we believe, in harmony with that
disclosed by detailed analysis.
Leaving out of view the Will, which is a simple homogeneous mental
state, forming the link between feeling and action, and not admitting of
subdivisions; our states of consciousness fall into two great
classes--COGNITIONS and FEELINGS.
COGNITIONS, or those modes of mind in which we are occupied with the
_relations_ that subsist among our feelings, are divisible into four
great sub-classes.
_Presentative cognitions_; or those in which consciousness is occupied
in localizing a sensation impressed on the organism--occupied, that is,
with the relation between this presented mental state and those other
presented mental states which make up our consciousness of the part
affected: as when we cut ourselves.
_Presentative-representative cognitions_; or those in which
consciousness is occupied with the relation between a sensation or group
of sensations and the representations of those various other sensations
that accompany it in experience. This is what we commonly call
perception--an act in which, along with certain impressions presented to
consciousness, there arise in consciousness the ideas of certain other
impressions ordinarily connected with the presented ones: as when its
visible form and colour, lead us to mentally endow an orange with all
its other attributes.
_Representative cognitions_; or those in which consciousness is occupied
with the relations among ideas or represented sensations; as in all acts
of recollection.
_Re-representative cognitions_; or those in which the occupation of
consciousness is not by representation of special relations that have
before been presented to consciousness; but those in which such
represented special relations are thought of merely as comprehended in a
general relation--those in which the concrete relations once
experienced, in so far as they become objects of consciousness at all,
are incidentally represented, along with the abstract relation which
formulates them. The ideas resulting from this abstraction, do not
themselves represent actual experiences; but are symbols which stand for
groups of such actual experiences--represent aggregates of
representations. And thus they may be called re-representative
cognitions. It is clear that the process of re-representation is
carried to higher stages, as the thought becomes more abstract.
FEELINGS, or those modes of mind in which we are occupied, not with the
relations subsisting between our sentient states, but with the sentient
states themselves, are divisible into four parallel sub-classes.
_Presentative feelings_, ordinarily called sensations, are those mental
states in which, instead of regarding a corporeal impression as of this
or that kind, or as located here or there, we contemplate it in itself
as pleasure or pain: as when eating.
_Presentative-representative feelings_, embracing a great part of what
we commonly call emotions, are those in which a sensation, or group of
sensations, or group of sensations and ideas, arouses a vast aggregation
of represented sensations; partly of individual experience, but chiefly
deeper than individual experience, and, consequently, indefinite. The
emotion of terror may serve as an example. Along with certain
impressions made on the eyes or ears, or both, are recalled in
consciousness many of the pains to which such impressions have before
been the antecedents; and when the relation between such impressions and
such pains has been habitual in the race, the definite ideas of such
pains which individual experience has given, are accompanied by
the indefinite pains that result from inherited effects of
experiences--vague feelings which we may call organic representations.
In an infant, crying at a strange sight or sound while yet in the
nurse's arms, we see these organic representations called into existence
in the shape of dim discomfort, to which individual experience has yet
given no specific outlines.
_Representative feelings_, comprehending the ideas of the feelings above
classed, when they are called up apart from the appropriate external
excitements. As instances of these may be named the feelings with which
the descriptive poet writes, and which are aroused in the minds of his
readers.
_Re-representative feelings_, under which head are included those more
complex sentient states that are less the direct results of external
excitements than the indirect or reflex results of them. The love of
property is a feeling of this kind. It is awakened not by the presence
of any special object, but by ownable objects at large; and it is not
from the mere presence of such object, but from a certain ideal relation
to them, that it arises. As before shown (p. 253) it consists, not of
the represented advantages of possessing this or that, but of the
represented advantages of possession in general--is not made up of
certain concrete representations, but of the abstracts of many concrete
representations; and so is re-representative. The higher sentiments, as
that of justice, are still more completely of this nature. Here the
sentient state is compounded out of sentient states that are themselves
wholly, or almost wholly, re-representative: it involves representations
of those lower emotions which are produced by the possession of
property, by freedom of action, etc.; and thus is re-representative in a
higher degree.
This classification, here roughly indicated and capable of further
expansion, will be found in harmony with the results of detailed
analysis aided by development. Whether we trace mental progression
through the grades of the animal kingdom, through the grades of mankind,
or through the stages of individual growth; it is obvious that the
advance, alike in cognitions and feelings, is, and must be, from the
presentative to the more and more remotely representative. It is
undeniable that intelligence ascends from those simple perceptions in
which consciousness is occupied in localizing and classifying
sensations, to perceptions more and more compound, to simple reasoning,
to reasoning more and more complex and abstract--more and more remote
from sensation. And in the evolution of feelings, there is a parallel
series of steps. Simple sensations; sensations combined together;
sensations combined with represented sensations; represented sensations
organized into groups, in which their separate characters are very much
merged; representations of these representative groups, in which the
original components have become still more vague. In both cases, the
progress has necessarily been from the simple and concrete to the
complex and abstract; and as with the cognitions, so with the feelings,
this must be the basis of classification.
The space here occupied with criticisms on Mr. Bain's work, we might
have filled with exposition and eulogy, had we thought this the more
important. Though we have freely pointed out what we conceive to be its
defects, let it not be inferred that we question its great merits. We
repeat that, as a natural history of the mind, we believe it to be
the best yet produced. It is a most valuable collection of
carefully-elaborated materials. Perhaps we cannot better express our
sense of its worth, than by saying that, to those who hereafter give to
this branch of Psychology a thoroughly scientific organization, Mr.
Bain's book will be indispensable.