REVIEWS

THE FOUNDATIONS OF CHARACTER. By A. F. Shand. Macmillan and Company,

London, 1914. Pp. xxx, 532.

In his preface the author says: "A great difficulty which I have found in

the course of my work has been to collect the facts or observations of

character on which I had to rely. Such material as I have obtained has been

drawn much more from literature than from any other source; and this was

inevitable, because psychology has hardly begun to concern itself with these

questions." This reproach levelled against psychology rebounds on the

author, for throughout the book he shows himself evidently unacquainted with

those branches of psychology, notably the medical ones, that have

contributed so brilliantly and extensively to the science of characterology.

It need hardly be pointed out, further, that to rely on second-hand

material, which cannot be checked, analysed, or immediately studied, as the

living facts can is a procedure that is open to insuperable objections.

The author repudiates any analytical approach to his problems, preferring

what he terms "a concrete and synthetic conception of character," and so

"avoids breaking up the forces of character into their elements, and being

driven to consider the abstract problem of their mutual relation." His

method consists in assuming the existence of these forces, as part of his

working hypothesis, and in formulating general laws based on a study of

them. As he himself puts it, "It is in the first place a method of

discovery rather than of proof;--a method reaching no further than a

tentative formulation of laws; for organising the more particular under the

more general; for interpreting the generalised observations which every

great observer of human nature forms for himself, and by this interpretation

making some advance towards their organization. "It follows from this that

the book is predominantly descriptive in nature, and in this field it must

be said that the author has accomplished great work, one that will be of

almost indispensable value to future students of the various emotions.

The book is really a study of the emotions rather than of character, and so

we have to pay special attention to what the author has to say concerning

them. As is well known, he formulated some years ago a special

conception--it can hardly be called a theory--of the emotions, and the most

novel part of the present work is the way in which this conception is

expounded and elaborated in detail. He rejects the usual sense of the term

in which it is taken to express a certain degree of elaboration of the

affective aspect of the mind, and adopts a much wider definition in which

the conative, affective, and cognitive aspects are all represented.

"'Emotion' for us will connote not feeling abstracted from impulse, but

feeling with its impulse, and feeling which has essentially a cognitive

attitude, however vague, and frequently definite thoughts about its object."

He distinguishes, none the less, between an emotion and the entire system to

which it belongs. It is the part of the system that is present in

consciousness, there being two other parts that are not; namely, the

processes connected with it in the body, and the executive part concerned

with its outward expression and modes of behaviour. The three main primary

emotions are fear, anger, and disgust; other are curiosity, joy, sorrow,

self-display, and self-abasement. The four emotional systems of anger, fear,

joy and sorrow have an innate connection not only with one another, but also

with every other primary system. Most of the book is taken up with a very

detailed study of the emotions just enumerated, and in this study the author

insists on the functional point of view, constantly enquiring into the

dynamic aspects and tendencies of the emotion under consideration. This is

perhaps the only respect in which it could be seen that the book was written

within the last forty years.

Mr. Shand's view of the relation between the emotions and the instincts has

led to an animated controversy with Dr. McDougall, published in the

Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society for 1914-1915. According to the

latter writer, every emotion has a corresponding instinct, and is merely the

affective aspect of this instinct. Mr. Shand, on the contrary, holds that

there are vastly more instincts than emotions, that a given instinct may

enter into several different emotional systems, and that each emotional

system may at various times, and according to its needs, make use of almost

any number of different instincts. The reviewer is unable to determine

whether these different points of view have any further implications than a

difference in the definitions adopted by the two writers. McDougall

obviously employs the term instinct in a much more comprehensive and

inclusive sense than Shand does.

In the discussion of this interrelation there occurs, by the way, the

following suggestive passage: "There are no fears so intense as those which

arise in situations from which we cannot escape, where we are forced to

remain in contemplation of the threatening events. There is no anger so

intense as when the blood boils and all the sudden energy that comes to us

cannot vent itself on our antagonist. The arrest of an instinct is that

which most frequently excites the emotion connected with it; and therefore

we feel the emotion so often before (or after: Reviewer) the instinctive

behaviour takes place, rather than along with it." This seems to

after-shadow the modern views on intrapsychical conflict and abreaction.

Another conception peculiar to the author, first propounded in 1896, is that

regarding the sentiments. Sentiments, in the author's sense, are "those

greater systems of the character the function of which is to organize

certain of the lesser systems of emotions by imposing on them a common end

and subjecting them to a common cause." A constant conflict seems to go on

between the organizing tendency of these sentiments and the tendency of the

constituent emotions to achieve freedom and autonomous action, a conception

quite in harmony with the modern views of "complex-action," although Shand's

"sentiments" are far from being synonymous with either "complexes" or

"constellations" in our sense. The implications that follow from his

conception of the sentiments, and the importance he attaches to it, are well

shown by the following interesting passages. "The result of the modification

which the systems of the emotions undergo in man, and especially the

multiplication of the causes which excite and sustain them, is (1) to make

man the most emotional of animals, and (2) to render possible the debasement

of his character. For that which is a condition of his progress is also a

condition of his decline,--the acquired power of ideas over emotions, and

the subsequent power of each indefinitely to sustain the other. Hence the

existence of the emotions constitutes a serious danger for him though not

for the animals, and the balance which is lost when the emotions are no

longer exclusively under the control of those causes which originally excite

them can only be replaced by the higher control of the sentiments. There are

then three stages in the evolution of emotional systems; the first and

primitive, in which they are under the control of the stimuli innately

connected with their excitement, undergoing a certain change through

individual experience, but not radically altered; the second, in which they

become dangerous and independent systems; the third, in which they are

organized under the control of the new systems which they are instrumental

in developing." "There are three principal stages in the development of

character. Its foundations are those primary emotional systems, in which the

instincts play at first a more important part than the emotions; in them,

and as instrumental to their ends, are found the powers of intelligence and

will to which the animal attains. But even in animals there is found, some

inter-organization of these systems, or, at least, some balance of their

instincts, by which these are fitted to work together as a system for the

preservation of their offspring and of themselves. This inter-organization

is the basis of those higher and more complex systems which, if not peculiar

to man, chiefly characterize him, and which we have called the sentiments,

and this is the second stage. But character, if more or less rigid in the

animals, is plastic in man: and thus the sentiments come to develop, for

their own more perfect organization, systems of self-control, in which the

intellect and will rise to a higher level than is possible at the emotional

stage, and give rise to those great qualities of character that we name

"fortitude," "patience," "steadfastness," "loyalty," and many others, and a

relative ethics that is in constant interaction with the ethics of the

conscience, which is chiefly imposed upon us through social influences. And

this is the third and highest stage in the development of character, and the

most plastic, so that it is in constant flux in each of us; and the worth

that we ascribe to men in review of their lives, deeper than their outward

success or failure, is determined by what they have here accomplished."

We have given some indication of the positive side of the book, one which

deserves great praise for both its matter and style. On the negative side we

have to remark on the following important omissions. As was mentioned to

start with, no acquaintance whatever is shown with either the methods or

findings of what may broadly be called medical psychology, the only

psychology that has at its disposal the material on which a science of

character could be founded. That the important work of Klarges on

characterology is not considered may be accounted for by the fact that there

is not a single German reference given in the whole book. In the second

place, the genetic point of view is almost completely overlooked, one of

cardinal importance in such a field. Thirdly, the whole subject of the

unconscious is treated as non-existent. It is a complete misnomer to entitle

a book on descriptive psychology "The Foundations of Character" when no

notice whatever is taken of that region of the mind where the very springs

of character take their source, and where the most fundamental features of

character are to be found. Last, but not least, is the absence of any study

of the sexual instinct and emotions, surely of cardinal importance for any

investigation of character. Apart from the general contributions made by

this instinct to character, one thinks of such clearly-cut pictures as the

masochistic, voyeur, and anal types of character.

An inadequate index closes an unsatisfactory, though in many respects

valuable, book. We note no fewer than twelve references to "Seneca," but

none to "sex" or "shame;" sixteen to Hudson, but none to Freud, Janet,

Prince, Adler, or Klarges. ERNEST JONES.

AN INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY. By William McDougall. Published by

John W. Luce & Co., Boston, 1910.

Although this book was published a few years ago, nevertheless it seems

sufficiently important to the reviewer to have it brought prominently before

psychopathologists.

In the introduction McDougall reminds us that the instincts are the prime

movers, the mental forces, the sources of energy, the springs of human

action, the impulses and motives which determine the goals and course of all

human activity, mental and physical. These instincts, being the fundamental

elements of our constitution, must be clearly defined, and their history in

the individual and the race determined. For this purpose, comparative and

evolutionary psychology is necessary, for the life of the emotions and the

play of motives in mental life are the least susceptible of introspective

observation and description. "The old psychologising," says McDougall, "was

like playing 'Hamlet' with the Prince of Denmark left out, or like

describing steam-engines while ignoring the fact of the presence and

fundamental role of the fire or other sources of heat." A knowledge of the

constitution of the mind of man is a prerequisite for any understanding of

the life of society in any or all of its many aspects. And this applies to

psychopathology. I venture to assert that had certain individuals read and

digested a book of this sort it might have been a prophylactic against an

exclusively sexual conception of human conduct.

The work is divided into two sections. Section one deals with the mental

characteristics of man of primary importance for his life in society, while

section two is concerned with the operation of the primary tendencies of the

human mind in the life of societies. The successive chapters of the first

section take up in order the following questions: the nature of instincts

and their place in the constitution of the mind, the principal instincts and

the primary emotions of man; some general or non-specific innate tendencies,

the nature of the sentiments and the constitution of some of the complex

emotions; the development of the sentiments; the growth of

self-consciousness and of the self regarding sentiment; the advance to the

higher plane of social conduct; and volition. In the second section the

author considers the reproductive and the parental instincts, the instinct

of pugnacity, the gregarious instinct, the instincts through which religious

conceptions affect social life, the instincts of acquisition and

construction, and there is a final chapter on imitation, play and habit.

McDougall dividends the instincts into specific tendencies or instincts and

general or non-specific tendencies. He calls attention to the abuse of the

term "instincts" and himself defines an instinct as an inherited or innate

psychophysical disposition which has the three aspects of all mental

processes: the cognitive, the affective and the conative--or a knowing of

some object or thing, a feeling in regard to it, and a striving towards or

away from that object. "The continued obstruction of instinctive striving

is always accompanied by painful feeling, its successful progress towards

its end by pleasurable feeling, and the achievement of its end by a

pleasurable sense of satisfaction." He reminds us that "the emotional

excitement, with the accompanying nervous activities of the central part of

the disposition, is the only part of the total instinctive process that

retains its specific character and remains common to all individuals and all

situations in which the instinct is excited." We may experience the

emotional excitement and the impulse to the appropriate movements of an

instinct or the re-excitement of an instinctive reaction in its affective

and conative aspects without the reproduction of the original idea which led

to its excitation. Pleasure and pain but serve to guide these impulses or

instincts in their choice of means towards these ends.

One of McDougall's important conclusions is that "each of the principal

instincts conditions some one kind of emotional excitement whose quality is

specific or peculiar to it, and the emotional excitement of specific quality

that is the affective aspect of the operation of any one of the principal

instincts may be called a primary emotion." This is McDougall's definition

of emotion.

McDougall then takes up for discussion and analysis the principal instincts

and the primary emotions of man which include the following: the instinct of

flight and the emotion of fear; the instinct of repulsion and the emotion of

disgust; the instinct of curiosity and the emotion of wonder; the instinct

of pugnacity and the emotion of anger; the instincts of self-abasement (or

subjection) and of self-assertion (or self-display) and the emotions of

subjection and elation (or negative and positive self-feeling); the parental

instinct and the tender emotion, and such other instincts of less

well-defined emotional tendencies as the instinct of reproduction (with

sexual jealousy and female coyness), the gregarious instinct, the instincts

of acquisition and construction; and the minor instincts of crawling,

walking, rest and sleep. McDougall denies the existence of such instincts as

those of religion, imitation, sympathy and play.

There then follows a consideration of some general or nonspecific innate

tendencies or pseudo-instincts which are not specific instincts with special

accompanying emotions, and this leads to the analysis of sympathy or the

sympathetic induction of emotion, suggestion and suggestibility, imitation,

play, habit, disposition and temperament.

The sentiments are now taken up for analysis and definition. A sentiment,

according to McDougall, who accepts Shand's definition, is an organized

system of emotional tendencies or dispositions centred about the idea of

some object. Among the complex emotions not necessarily implying the

existence of sentiments McDougall includes admiration, awe and reverence,

gratitude, scorn, contempt and loathing, and envy. Among the complex

emotions implying the existence of sentiments he considers reproach,

anxiety, jealousy, vengeful emotion, resentment, shame, joy, sorrow and

pity, happiness, surprise. The nature and the constitution of the sentiments

and the complex emotions comes in for very illuminating analysis. The

chapters on the growth of self-consciousness and of the self-regarding

sentiment, the advance to the higher plane of social conduct, and volition

are to be considered among the best chapters of this very excellent work.

The discussion and analysis is very penetrating and clear. It is well worth

while presenting the following abstract of the chapter on volition: All

impulses, desires and aversions, motives or conations are of one of two

classes: (1) from the excitement of some innate disposition or instinct; and

(2) from excitement of dispositions acquired during the life of the

individual by differentiation from the innate dispositions, under the

guidance of pleasure and pain. When in the conflict of two motives the will

is thrown on the side of one of them and we make a volitional decision, we

in some way add to the energy with which the idea of the one desired end

maintains itself in opposition to its rival. The idea of the self, or

self-consciousness, is able to play its great role in volition only in

virtue of the self-regarding sentiment. The conations, the desires and

aversions, arising within this self-regarding sentiment are the motive

forces which, adding themselves to the weaker ideal motive in the case of

moral effort, enable it to win the mastery over some stronger, coarser

desire of our primitive animal nature and to banish from consciousness the

idea of the end of this desire.

Volition, therefore, following McDougall, may be defined as the supporting

or re-enforcing of a desire or conation by the cooperation of an impulse

excited within the system of the self-regarding sentiment. The sentiment of

self-control is the master sentiment for volition and especially for

resolution. It is a special development of the self-regarding sentiment. The

source of the additional motive power, which in the moral effort of volition

is thrown upon the side of the weaker, more ideal impulse, is ultimately to

be found in that instinct of self-display or self-assertion whose affective

aspect is the emotion of positive self-feeling. These remarks are given more

or less verbatim.

McDougall next analyzes strength of character which he differentiates from

disposition and temperament which are innate. In section two, as stated

previously, the author takes up for separate and more minute analysis the

family (the reproductive and the parental) instincts, the instinct of

pugnacity, the gregarious instinct, the instinctive bases of religion, and

the instincts of acquisition and construction. Imitation, play and habit

receive separate treatment in the final chapter.

The reviewer can freely recommend this book as one of the best, if not the

best book of this sort that has come into his hands. His personal opinion is

that it is the best. McDougall presents us with an acceptable and clean-cut

classification of the instincts, emotions and sentiments, he accurately

defines these terms, he gives the analysis and constitution of these

instincts, emotions and sentiments, and develops the motive sources of human

conduct. He adopts many original and novel standpoints. He is an

independent thinker. He has here presented us with a book which, because of

its clearness and its frank meeting of the problems, is of the utmost value

to the psychopathologist and the psychiatrist. In fact the contents of just

such a work as this should be the first lesson of every worker in this

field. In this way only can he really begin to understand human conduct.

This work should find its place in the forefront of those books which should

be read and digested by all workers in any of the social sciences.

For the reviewer it has been a genuine pleasure to read and to review this

book and he most heartily recommends it to the reader of these pages. MEYER

SOLOMON.