These manifestations collectively express a lowering of the vital

tone which in no other emotion is so complete and so clearly marked.

It has been maintained with reason that fear has a teleological

character, that it is adapted to an end—that of withdrawing,

escaping, exposing one’s self as little as possible to attack, and

remaining on the defensive in view of possible approaching evil.

However, the case is not so simple as it appears. The slight or

moderate forms of fear, through the feeling of weakness produced by

them in the consciousness, are a protection against hurtful actions

by inducing withdrawal or flight. But the grave forms, such as

terror and fright, accompanied by trembling and motor annihilation,

place us face to face with a great difficulty. When existence is

menaced, at the most decisive moment, when attack, defence, or

flight is urgently demanded, we see men and animals, paralysed with

agitation, fall victims, unable to make any use of what strength

they have. Darwin confines himself to remarking that the problem is

very obscure (ch. xiii.). Mantegazza (_op. cit._, ch. vii.) alleges

that trembling is extremely useful, because it tends to produce heat

and warm the blood, which, under the influence of terror, would soon

grow cold. Mosso has very good reasons to oppose to his compatriot’s

thesis. He considers the “cataplexy” which accompanies the extreme

forms of fear as a grave imperfection of the organism. “One would

think that nature, in making the brain and spinal cord, was unable

to devise a substance of extreme excitability which should at the

same time, under the influence of exceptionally strong stimuli, be

capable of never passing in its reactions beyond the limits needful

for the preservation of the animal.” In short, terror and fright

appear to him in the light of morbid phenomena. From the

naturalistic point of view this extra-teleological position is

perfectly admissible. A finalist conception of the world admits of

no exceptions, and has to explain everything according to its own

principle; but if we content ourselves with saying that the

conditions of existence of a living being are sometimes given,

sometimes absent, we have no more to do but verify the cases in

which they are wanting and the occurrences logically following

therefrom.

The psychology of fear includes two stages, to be studied quite

distinctly. There is a primary, instinctive, unreasoning fear

preceding all individual experience, and a secondary, conscious,

reasoned fear posterior to experience. They are generally confounded

with one another, and as the second is by far the most frequent, it

serves as the typical form in descriptions.

_First Stage._—Numerous observations prove the existence of an

innate fear, not attributable to any individual experience. In

children, Preyer[133] maintains the existence of “a hereditary fear

manifesting itself on occasion.” Many are afraid of dogs and cats,

though they have never been bitten or scratched; thunder makes them

cry out—why? The fear of falling, says the same author, during first

attempts at walking, is as strange as the fear shown towards

animals. At fourteen months, this writer’s son could not venture to

take a step without support, and was full of terror if the person

holding him let go; yet he had never experienced a fall. He

concludes, very justly, that “it is quite erroneous to think that

the child who has not been taught to fear things does not know fear.

The courage or fearfulness of the mother certainly exercises a great

influence; but there are in children so many cases of motiveless

fear that we must admit some hereditary influence.” The same fact

has been observed in young animals: Spalding’s experiments on

newly-hatched chickens and their instinctive terror of the hawk are

well known. Preyer repeated this experiment, with like results.

Gratiolet, as I have already said, relates that a little dog, who

had never seen a wolf, on smelling a piece of the skin of that

animal, was seized with indescribable terror. Adult man, though his

fears are in general based on experience, sometimes manifests (at

least this is the case with ignorant and primitive people) vague,

unconscious fears of the unknown, of darkness, of mysterious powers,

witchcraft, sorcery, magic, etc. Ignorance is a great source of

terror; and Bain has said, not without reason, that knowledge is the

great remedy against fear.

Footnote 133:

_Die Seele des Kindes_, chap. vii.

How shall we explain the apprehension of an evil which has never

been experienced? Even if we admit that fear may sometimes, and from

the very beginning of life onward, start from analogies,

resemblances, associations of ideas, there remain many cases which

can be reduced to no simple form. We have seen that Preyer,

following Darwin, Spencer, and other evolutionists, admits the

influence of heredity. It is a well-known fact that birds on

uninhabited islands show no fear when they see man for the first

time; they are taught by hard experience to distrust him, and the

acquired fear is, on this theory, transmitted to their descendants.

According to this hypothesis, fear would be, always and everywhere,

the result of experience, whether individual or ancestral, and what

we have called the second stage would be the first, and indeed the

only one.

This explanation is naturally rejected by those who refuse to

believe in the inheritance of acquired qualities, though they have

nothing satisfactory to propose in its place. Besides, this is a

question of origin, on which experimental psychology may well

recognise its incompetence. Not to remain on debatable ground, we

must admit—since individual experience cannot be appealed to—that

the bases of fear exist in the organism, form part of the

constitution of animals and men, and help them to live by a

defensive adaptation, which in most cases proves useful. As for the

obscure mechanism of this instinctive fear, we may suppose that

certain sensations produce a painful shock which excites the

organic, motor, and vaso-motor relations constituting emotion, and

that the conservative instinct, in order to escape _actual_ pain,

reacts blindly, with or without profit. This makes it impossible to

explain certain innate fears by reason.

For my own part, I consider the hypothesis of a hereditary

disposition to certain fears as extremely probable.[134]

Footnote 134:

Since the above was written the same conclusion has been reached

by Professor Stanley Hall in a report founded on a statistical

inquiry into the fears (some 6500 in number) of 1700 children and

young persons. He concludes that “we must assume the capacity to

fear or to anticipate pain, and to associate it with certain

objects and experiences, as an inherited _Anlage_, often of a far

higher antiquity than we are wont to appeal to in psychology.” He

considers that such fears are analogous to rudimentary physical

organs, though they still retain a certain use. (“A Study of

Fears,” _American Journal of Psychology_, vol. viii., No. 2,

1897.)—ED.

_Second Stage._—The definition given above may be unrestrictedly

applied to conscious and reasoned fear posterior to experience. It

is based, not on the intellectual, but on the emotional memory. The

attempts of the earlier associationists to account for fear as a

mere product of association, as in James Mill’s doctrine that it is

the idea of a painful sensation associated with the idea of its

being future, were wholly inadequate through ignoring the essential

factor, the emotional element, the organic disturbance.[135] If I am

to be afraid of the extraction of a tooth, it is necessary that, in

the memory of a former operation, its painful colouring should be

revived, at any rate in a modified form; if I have only a dry

recollection, with no physiological vibration, fear will not arise.

There is no need to insist on a point already fully treated of in

the First Part.

Footnote 135:

J. Sully, _op. cit._, ii. 91.

It results from this that we are accessible to fear in proportion as

the representation of future evil is intense, _i.e._, emotional and

not intellectual, felt and not understood. In many persons the

absence of fear only amounts to the absence of imagination. This

explains how it is that every lowering of vitality, whether

permanent or temporary, predisposes to this emotion; the

physiological conditions which engender (or accompany it) are all

ready; in a weakened organism fear is always in a nascent condition.

The emotion which now occupies us exists in all degrees, from such

feeble forms as suspicion and apprehension to the extreme ones of

panic and terror. These gradations, fixed by language, cannot have a

distinct psychological description made of each of them.

Nevertheless, Bain has attempted to enumerate the different kinds of

fear, and some experiments of Féré’s indicate the different

physiological effects following each degree of fear.[136] When an

owl, a serpent, or a spectre was caused to appear, by suggestion,

the muscular reaction, shown in graphic tracings, was different in

every case.

Footnote 136:

_Dégénérescence et Criminalité_, pp. 28 _sqq._, with the

illustrative figures.

II.

To draw a distinction between the normal and morbid forms of fear is

a task which, at first sight, might appear tolerably difficult. We

have, however, a criterion to guide us. Every form of fear which,

instead of being useful, becomes hurtful, which, ceasing to be a

means of protection, becomes a means of destruction, is

pathological. We have already (Part I., chap. iv.) indicated the

marks which enable us to discriminate between the healthy and the

morbid; I recall them once more.

Morbid emotion presents one or more of the following

characteristics: it is apparently disproportionate to its cause; it

is chronic; its physical accompaniments are of extraordinary

intensity.

On the question of morbid fears, now known by the name of _phobias_,

there exists a great mass of observations, notes, and papers, which

is increasing day by day, and contains far more enumerations and

descriptions than attempts at explanation. J. Falret and Westphal

(in his essay on agoraphobia, 1872) seem to be the first who have

entered on this path. To Westphal’s fear of open spaces and Falret’s

fear of contact may be added many others; and we pass through a

first period, where we find a veritable deluge of _phobias_, each

having its special name; one person fears needles, another glass,

one low places, another high places, one water, another fire, etc.

Every morbid manifestation of fear is immediately fitted

with a Greek designation, or one so reputed, and we have

aïcmophobia, belenophobia, thalassophobia, potamophobia, etc., even

siderodromophobia (the fear of railways) and triakaidekaphobia (fear

of the number 13!). The list of these _phobias_ would fill pages,

and it is clear that there is no reason why it should ever stop; all

the objects in creation might be included in it, if clothed in

pseudo-Greek garb.

Accordingly, a reaction has taken place. Instead of, as was at first

done, considering each phobia separately, naming it after its

object, and so losing one’s self in endless varieties, the tendency

now is to regard them only as individual cases of a general morbid

disposition, whose essential psychological characteristics are a

fixed idea or obsession, and symptoms of fear sometimes reaching the

dimensions of a paroxysm, and expressing themselves in convulsions

and hysterical attacks.

Several classifications have been proposed, with a view to

introducing some order into this multiplicity. Some proceed

subjectively, classifying according to the sensations, perceptions,

images, ideas, or feelings which form the basis of the fear. Thus

the fear of contact is connected with touch, agoraphobia with sight,

and so on. Others proceed objectively; Régis proposes five groups:

(1) the fear of inanimate objects; (2) of living beings (fear of

crowds, solitude, inoffensive animals); (3) of spaces (agoraphobia,

claustrophobia); (4) of meteorological phenomena; (5) of illness

(nosophobia, with its very numerous varieties). To be accurate,

these classifications, though they may be useful to the clinical

lecturer, are of no great advantage to the psychology of fear; the

interesting problem lies elsewhere.

Before reaching this, let us remark that, apart from any particular

fears, there exist some observations on a vague but permanent state

of anxiety or terror, which has been called panphobia, or

pantophobia (Beard). This is a state in which the patient fears

everything or nothing, where anxiety, instead of being riveted on

one object, floats as in a dream, and only becomes fixed for an

instant at a time, passing from one object to another, as

circumstances may determine.

If, leaving aside the endless enumeration of the kinds of fear and

their description, we seek—for this is the task incumbent on

psychology—to determine their derivation from normal fear, and the

causes which excite them, we enter an almost unexplored region and

pass from riches to indigence.

As far as concerns their psychological origin, _i.e._, the

determination of the normal type from which they are deviations, I

propose reducing them to two groups.

The first is directly connected with fear, and includes all

manifestations implying in any degree whatever the fear of pain,

from that of a fall or the prick of a needle to that of illness or

death. The second is directly connected with disgust, and seems to

me to include the forms which have sometimes been called

_pseudophobia_ (Gélineau). Such are the fear of contact, the horror

of blood, and of innocuous animals, and many strange and causeless

aversions.

Let us remark, furthermore, that fear and disgust have a common

basis, being both instruments of protection or defence. The first is

the defensive-conservative instinct of the relative life, the second

the defensive-conservative instinct of the organic life. As both

have a common basis of aversion, they show themselves in equivalent

ways: fear by withdrawal, departure, flight; disgust by vomiting or

nausea. The reflexes of disgust are the succedanea of flight; the

organism cannot escape by movement in space from the repugnant body

which it has taken into itself, and goes through a movement of

expulsion instead.

After having traced back all morbid fears to two sources—which may

indeed be reduced to one—we have to seek for their causes. One very

general cause, with which most authors content themselves, is

degeneracy. I shall speak of this elsewhere (see Conclusion); but as

it is constantly brought in to explain the most dissimilar

manifestations, it assumes such a general character that it becomes

necessary to supplement it. Let us then, if any importance is

attached to this, assume degeneracy as the soil on which morbid

fears spring up and multiply; then let us seek the complementary

causes, which are less vague and nearer to the facts. I would

propose three such.

1. The cause is in some event of a man’s previous life _of which he

retains the recollection_. For example: A man walking on a terrace

on the top of his house failed to perceive that the balustrade was

missing at one spot; he was walking backwards, and would have fallen

over the edge had he not been stopped; he contracted permanent

agoraphobia.[137] A morbid fear of railways is frequently found in

overworked engineers, and especially in men who have narrowly

escaped with their lives in a railway accident. The well-known case

of Pascal seeing an abyss at his left side, which prevented him from

walking forward unless some one held him by the hand, or a chair was

placed for him to lean on, was a consequence of his accident at the

bridge of Neuilly. It is also said that Peter the Great, having been

nearly drowned when a child, felt, on passing a bridge, a fear which

he had some difficulty in overcoming.

-----

Footnote 137:

Gélineau, _Des peurs maladives_, p. 34; see also pp. 18, 109, 126,

169, etc.

-----

We can easily see that many _phobias_ come under this category. Now,

the cause here is only the exaggeration of a normal fact. Every

serious accident leaves behind it a recollection, which, for some,

is merely a bald record of the event and the circumstances

(intellectual memory), for others, a revival in some degree of the

fear formerly experienced (emotional memory); for “phobic” subjects

it is (at least potentially) a permanent state, ready to arise when

suggested by some association.[138]

-----

Footnote 138:

Many “phobias” seem to me fresh proofs in favour of the existence

of a true emotional memory.

-----

2. Some morbid fears have their origin in occurrences of childhood

_of which no recollection has been retained_. When appealing to the

unconscious memory, we place ourselves in a fatally unfavourable

position; we enter the domain of the obscure and hypothetical, and

lay ourselves open to criticism of all sorts, all the more so as

some writers have made an excessive use of the explanation by the

unconscious. A minute inquiry into each particular case would be

needed. If, however, this hypothesis is difficult to justify by

means of positive proof, the part played by the unconscious in

psychic life, and particularly with regard to the memory, is so

incontestable that we may legitimately admit its sure though secret

action. Perhaps those who are seized by strange fears might, if they

questioned themselves, discover the cause in some past occurrence.

Here, at least, is a case which I give as typical of this group.

Mosso asked a soldier, aged seventy, what he had been most afraid of

in his life, and the man’s reply was, “I have been face to face with

death in many battles; but I am never so frightened as when I come

across a lonely chapel in a remote part of the mountains; because,

when quite a child, I once saw in such a place the corpse of a

murdered man, and a maidservant wished to shut me up with it as a

punishment.”[139] Supposing the conscious recollection to be

gradually effaced with years, the impression might well remain

indelible, though latent, becoming active under given circumstances.

Is it rash to say that there are many cases of this kind, with this

difference, that the traces leading back to the original cause have

vanished?

-----

Footnote 139:

_Fear_, chap. xi.

-----

Cases of strange and insurmountable fear or antipathy have been

noticed in some celebrated men: Scaliger was seized with nervous

trembling at the sight of water-cress, Bacon fainted during

eclipses, Bayle at the sound of running water, James I. at the sight

of a naked sword (Morel). Among average human beings many like cases

occur, but never become known, for lack of biographers to record

them. I am inclined to think that there lies at the root of them

some impression of early childhood, embedded in the constitution of

the individual, and originating a repulsive tendency which acts as

though it were natural.

3. The morbid fear may be the result of the _occasional_ passage of

a vague and indeterminate state into a precise form. Panphobia,

mentioned above, might be a preparatory stage, an undifferentiated

period, to which chance, a sudden shock, for instance, may give a

direction and fix it, as in the fear of epidemics, of microbes, of

hydrophobia, etc. This is the passage from a diffused emotional

state to the intellectualised state, _i.e._, one concentrated and

embodied in a fixed idea: an analogous process to that of the

“delusions of persecution,” in which the suspicion, at first vague,

attaches itself to an individual and will not be diverted from him.

The cases, much less frequent than others, in which several distinct

fears coexist, seem to me to be distinguished from this group. In

short, the true cause is a general state (an emotive condition of

fear), but chance plays a great part in it.

I do not pretend to explain everything by means of these three kinds

of causes. When we come to examine the legion of morbid fears we are

often greatly embarrassed by cases which refuse to come under any of

the rules. Here is a well-known and very trite one: the sight of

blood producing _malaise_ or even syncope. This is inexplicable by

reason, since the blood is the life; but reason has nothing to do

with the matter. Let us seek elsewhere. It might be said that blood

recalls violent pain, destruction, slaughter; but its sight affects

children who can have no such recollections. Some have tried to

explain it by constitutional weakness or nervousness, but syncope

sometimes takes place in very vigorous subjects,[140] while

neuropaths remain unaffected. Heredity has been called in, but I

fail to see what it explains, for, going back from generation to

generation, we must come at last to the primitive men, fighters who

were not afraid of blood. Many other explanations might be proposed,

which might be met by other criticisms.

-----

Footnote 140:

See a curious case in Gélineau, _op. cit._, p. 99.

-----

I have cited this single fact in order to show that, so soon as we

pass beyond the enumeration and description of morbid fears, and try

to trace their origin, we enter on a part of the subject which is

almost untouched.

CHAPTER III.

ANGER.

_Anger the conservative instinct in its offensive

form—Physiology—Psychology—Anger passes through two stages, one

simple, the other mixed—Its evolution—Animal form, or that of

actual aggression—Emotional form, or that of simulated

aggression—Appearance of a pleasurable element—Intellectualised

form, or that of deferred aggression—Pathology: Epileptic

insanity, corresponding to the animal form; the maniacal state,

corresponding to the affective form—Disintegrated forms of

anger—Overpowering tendencies to destructiveness—How do they

arise and take a definite direction?—Return to the reflex

state—Essential cause: temperament—Accidental causes._

I.

The instinct of individual conservation, under its offensive form,

is the origin of anger—the type of violent and destructive

tendencies. This emotion is the second in chronological order,

appearing at two months, according to Perez, and, definitely, at ten

months, according to Darwin and Preyer.

Bain defines it as “a conscious impulse which drives one to inflict

suffering and to draw a positive enjoyment from the fact.” This

definition does not seem to me strictly applicable to the inferior

or animal forms of anger, as we shall see presently.

Considered objectively, or from without, anger presents itself with

very clearly defined characters as regards its physiology and its

mode of expression.[141]

-----

Footnote 141:

For detailed descriptions see Darwin, chap. x.; Lange, _op. cit._;

Mantegazza, _op. cit._, chap. xiii. The latter transcribes the

picture drawn by Seneca in his _De Ira_, and is of opinion—in

which I agree with him—that it is traced by a master hand.

-----

1. Dilatation of the blood-vessels, augmentation of the cutaneous

circulation, redness and swelling. This is also found in joy, but,

remarks Lange, with less intensity. Besides, anger has a special

manifestation of its own—_i.e._, the distention of the greater

veins, especially on the face and forehead. In its extreme form

(rage) it may cause nasal or pulmonary hæmorrhage, the rupture of

vessels, and death.

2. The innervation of the voluntary muscles is increased, but in an

un-coordinated and spasmodic form; the voice is broken and harsh,

the body leans forward in the attitude of aggression, the movements

are violent and destructive; “one strikes blindly,” the breath comes

in gasps with the well-known symptom of the dilated nostrils, the

object of which, according to Piderit, is that of taking a full

breath while the mouth is shut and the teeth clenched. According to

Charles Bell, it is due to the habitual co-action of all the

respiratory muscles, as the nostrils of an angry man may be seen to

become dilated, although his mouth is open.

3. According to Lange, and in spite of popular opinion, there is no

increase in the biliary secretion; but this is not the case with the

saliva, as is proved by the phrase, “foaming with wrath.” It is

important to note that anger sometimes gives the secretions a toxic

character. Van Swieten, Bichat, Trousseau, and others have verified

this in the case of the saliva, when the quantity of ptomaine is

augmented; and it has long been known that the bite of furious

animals is dangerous, while analogous facts have been ascertained in

the case of one human being bitten by another in a fit of rage. The

lacteal secretion may also become toxic, and produce on the nursling

the effect of poison. These facts once more show the close relations

between emotion and physiological or even chemical phenomena.

In short, the organism in general, and the active organs in

particular, being excited, we may say with Spencer, “that what we

call the natural language of anger is due to a partial constriction

of the muscles which actual combat would call into full activity,

all signs of irritation, beginning with the rapid shadow which

passes over the brow when some slight cause of irritation occurs,

being different degrees of the same contractions.”

Anger and fear form an antithesis, but the former has, both

physiologically and psychologically, a more complex character. In

fact, fear, in all its degrees and throughout its whole duration,

invariably remains within the category of painful emotions, while

anger passes through two stages. The first, or asthenic, corresponds

to the cause, the external occurrence, the immediate shock, and

consists in a short depression, which is an entirely painful state;

the second, or sthenic, corresponds to the offensive reaction, and,

by its symptoms, approaches much more closely to pleasure than to

pain. We need only remember the sardonic laughter which accompanies

not merely the outbreak of anger, but some of its mitigated forms,

and expresses the joy of seeing others suffer. Anger is therefore a

mixed emotion; it does not belong altogether to the category of

painful states of consciousness, though the painful side is

predominant.

Considered as an internal and purely psychical phenomenon, it eludes

description, like every state which defies further analysis, and, in

its acute forms, cannot be seized by internal observation. It

scarcely admits of retrospective examination. Its psychology is the

history of its evolution, comprising three principal periods:—

1. The _animal_ form, or that of real aggression. It is primitive

and general. In animals it is seen in a pure state, because there

are no antagonistic, alterative, or restraining tendencies. Those

which live by prey, the voracious carnivora, present the complete

type. Besides the physiological phenomena already described there is

the actual attack, each species using its natural weapons—teeth,

claws, poisonous liquids. The feeling has the violence of a

hurricane, of an unchained force of nature. This is because it is

connected with extremely powerful instincts; that of nutrition,

which requires its prey, the struggle for life under its most

implacable form, that of attack—the necessity of destroying or being

destroyed. At this stage the element of pleasure is _nil_, or very

slight, because the destruction has a blind and unconscious

character. Bain thinks that monkeys are almost capable of enjoying

the agonies of their victims, and perhaps elephants also. If this is

correct, the fact is only met with in the case of the higher

animals. It is needless to add that this animal form of anger is

seen not merely in savage, but also in civilised man.

2. The emotional form properly so called, or that of simulated

aggression. Much less general than the preceding, this is peculiarly

human. Through the preponderance of the psychic element, or at

least, the relative effacement of the destructive impulses, it

appears to me the typical stage of anger as an emotion. It is

frequently seen in the higher animals; the dog, meeting his enemy,

stops, growls, erects his hair, and offers all the symptoms of

aggression in the nascent stage. Man most usually confines himself

to threats, with some degree of violence, unaccompanied by

destructiveness. The affinity of this form with the first is

evident, and evolutionists have drawn from it a psychological

argument in favour of descent from animals; those beings nearest to

nature—_i.e._, the lowest in evolution—are continually exercising

their anger: children on animals and weak people; savages,

coarse-natured people, idiots and imbeciles on any one who does not

resist them.

But the important point to note at this stage of evolution is the

definite appearance of a new element—the pleasure of seeing

suffering. With this, anger begins to grow refined. “There seems

little doubt,” says Bain, “that the primary fact in the pleasure of

anger is the _fascination for the sight of bodily affliction and

suffering_. Singular and horrible as the fact may appear, the

evidence is incontestable” (_The Emotions_, p. 178). The author goes

on to give instances which need not be repeated.

In my opinion, the fact is not so “singular” as the author supposes,

it can be explained if we notice that, at this juncture, _another

instinct_ makes its appearance—one we have not yet studied, that of

domination. We find here the first germ of a more slowly evolved

emotion, that of triumphant power, of strength, superiority, pride.

Henceforth, so far as psychological analysis is concerned, anger is

no longer in a perfectly pure state. We have the destructive

instinct _plus_ a variable dose of the satisfied instinct of

domination.

3. The intellectualised form, or that of deferred aggression. We may

also say that this is the civilised form of anger. The principal

representatives of this group are hatred, envy, resentment, rancour,

etc. We have here two antagonistic forces confronting one another:

on one side the aggressive instinct which urges forward, on the

other, reason and calculation, which obstruct and restrain the

tendency to attack. The result is an _arrest of development_. I do

not wish to insist on a point which will be freely treated later on,

in studying the transition from simple to composite emotions; a few

brief remarks will suffice. In biology, the arrest of development

modifies the organ in its function and structure, and often acts by

rebound on other organs; in psychology the same thing happens, and,

in addition, the arrested development of a tendency modifies its

nature and its reaction on cognate phenomena. Mantegazza (_op.

cit._, chap. xiii.) has drawn up a good synoptic table of the

mimicry of hatred. Those who will take the trouble to study it in

detail, comparing it with the expression of outspoken anger, will

understand, better than by means of any dissertation, what

constitutes an arrest of development in the psychological order, and

the modifications which it involves. I note, among others, one

accurately observed point: the suffering which one inflicts on one’s

self, such as biting one’s hands or gnawing one’s nails; the

destructive tendency when repressed, expends itself internally, at

the cost of the envious man.

In this intellectualised form of anger, the feeling of the pleasure

of destruction, realised, or merely imagined, becomes acute, as

proved by the expressions, “tasting his hatred,” “enjoying his

revenge,” etc.

Such are the three stages in this ascending evolution, and their

identity of nature and common basis are clearly shown by the fact

that hatred, if the power of arrest ceases, becomes outspoken anger;

and the latter, if it increases, assumes the form of actual

aggression, thus coming back to the primitive type.

II.

The ancients defined anger as a short madness, which would relegate

it at once and entirely to the region of pathology. Without

qualification, this formula cannot be accepted. So long as anger is

not injurious either to the individual himself, or to others, it is

normal, and even useful; for an animal or man devoid of any instinct

for active defence and reprisals, would be very poorly provided.

However, it must be recognised that the area of normal anger is

exceedingly restricted, and that no emotion more quickly assumes a

morbid character. Of the three tests which permit us to judge

whether it does so or not, one—that of violent reaction on the

organism—is of no use, because it gives too much scope to personal

estimates and conjecture. There remain two others: the absence of

rational motives, and chronicity, or excessive duration, normal

anger being only a passing affection. Now, we find among mental

diseases two derivatives of anger, two heightenings of this

condition in paroxysmal form, and we have to establish between them

a psychological difference which is the repetition of the normal

state.

Epileptic madness corresponds to the blind, animal, often bestial

form of anger, composed entirely of violent movements and painful

feelings.

The maniacal state corresponds to the violent and conscious form of

anger, mingled with a pleasurable element.

1. I have nothing to say of the numerous varieties of epilepsy, its

concomitant hallucinations, and its intellectual and moral

consequences; I confine myself to those aspects which assimilate it

to anger.

Even in periods of calm, the universally noted psychological traits

reveal a sombre, morose, irritable, but above all, irascible

disposition—the “choleric” character _par excellence_. In the

paroxysmal period, we find the symptoms of anger carried to

extremity: “The patient” (I borrow Schüle’s description) “throws

himself on his surroundings with a blind rage, a bestial fury; he

spits, strikes, bites, breaks everything he can reach, shouts and

storms. His face is congested, his pupils are sometimes contracted,

sometimes—and more frequently—dilated, the conjunctivæ are much

injected, the look is fixed; there is abundant salivation, pulsation

of the carotid, acceleration of the pulse.” Where is the

starting-point of these discharges of fury, and by what mechanism

are they produced? The authorities are not at one on this question,

some attributing the principal share in this activity to the bulb,

others to the brain. Recently an auto-intoxication of the nervous

centres has been admitted. However, all this is only indirectly

concerned with psychology. In the ensuing period of stupor, the acts

of blind violence usually leave no trace in the memory; for it is a

sort of psychological law that the intensity of consciousness should

vary inversely as the intensity of the movements produced.

2. Mania presents many varieties. Let us take the typical form,

acute mania, the nearest to anger. After a period of incubation,

during which melancholia prevails, a violent reaction takes place,

in sudden paroxysms. The maniacal state may pass through all

degrees, from simple excitement to fury. Externally, it shows

itself, in its milder form, by continual goings and comings, by an

incessant craving for motion, a possibility of performing active

exercise without feeling fatigue; in the intense form, we have the

symptoms of rage already described: congestion of the vaso-motor

system, redness of the face, violent palpitations of the heart,

foaming at the mouth, furious and destructive impulses, etc.

Internally the case is analogous; it is “chaos in motion”

(Esquirol): and as the principal external symptom consists of motor

disturbances, the principal internal symptom consists in an

intellectual exuberance, a flux of ideas so disorderly and rapid

that they succeed each other by no fixed rule, and the laws of

association seem to be suspended, and speech, in its impetuous

course, betrays the swiftness and discontinuity of thought. But

there is besides, though not always, an expansive humour, a state of

satisfaction, a feeling of pleasure scarcely in accordance with the

rest. Many, after recovery, declare that they never felt so happy as

during their illness.

The cause of this unexpected tendency to joy has been much

discussed. Some attribute it to the superabundance of ideas, and

consequently assign to it an intellectual origin. This is a fresh

example of intellectualist prejudice which sees but a single effect

in the modifications of the emotional life. Besides, as Krafft-Ebing

remarks (vol. ii., sec. 1, chap. 2), in delirious fever-patients

there is a flow of ideas without accompanying joyousness, and,

inversely, alcohol may produce gaiety without accelerating the

course of thought; and, accordingly, this author admits—and rightly,

as it seems to me—that these two phenomena, viz., increased

intellectual activity and pleasurable feeling, are subordinated to a

deeper cause; they have their functional basis in an easier

expenditure, and a deceptive sense of power and vigour, depending on

pathological over-activity.

These two morbid forms, which have their psychological prototype in

anger, suggest one remark. They are not evoked by any external

excitement, such as the sight of an enemy, injury, or disobedience.

Their cause, whatever it may be, is internal; it sets going a

pre-established mechanism identical with that of anger (violent and

disordered movements, vaso-motor phenomena, etc.), and the psychic

state which follows is anger, or an analogous emotional form, with

or without a concomitant state of pleasure. This seems to me a new

argument in favour of James’s and Lange’s theory.

Epileptic and maniac rages are not the only ones to be entered under

the heading of anger; there is besides these a group of irresistible

impulses of a destructive character which ought, psychologically, to

be included in the same class. With a difference, however: in the

epileptic and maniac, the physical and psychical symptoms constitute

a complexus similar or analogous to the normal form, and only to be

reckoned as pathological on account of the want of adaptation and

rational motives, while the irresistible impulses are only partial

manifestations—_disaggregated forms of anger_.

Among overpowering tendencies we can only examine at present those

which concern the offensive instinct. I therefore eliminate those

grafted on another stem (dipsomania, erotomania, kleptomania, etc.)

and those which, by their nature, are inoffensive, ridiculous, or

puerile (the incessant craving for travelling, for counting, for

discovering the names of men and things), and confine myself to

those which have the violent and destructive character of anger,

such as the impulses to wound, kill, destroy, or set on fire

(pyromania). The fatal impulse to suicide will be studied under

another heading (Chap. V.). It is needless to describe these violent

impulses separately, or to recapitulate observations which may be

found almost anywhere; a sketch of the characteristics common to all

will be sufficient.

1. They pass through a physiological period of incubation, marked by

palpitations and vaso-motor disturbances, rushes of heat to the

head, headaches, præcordial anxiety, insomnia, agitation, fatigue,

_malaise_, and undefined suffering. 2. The entrance into the

psychological period is marked by the appearance of a fixed idea.

Why one rather than another? This question will be examined later.

The fixed idea, reigning as a tyrant in the consciousness, gives an

aim to the tendency, determines its orientation. Some maintain that

there are such things as purely intellectual fixed ideas, with no

emotional accompaniment. Others think that the fixed idea always

includes in some degree an emotional state. I share this second

opinion, since every fixed idea is the beginning of an impulse. 3.

The third period is that when it passes into action, sometimes

sudden, more often preceded by a violent struggle between the

overmastering impulse and the arrestive power of the will.[142]

There are some cases where the fixed idea never passes beyond the

second stage; these are abortive forms, of incomplete development.

The passage into action is the rule, it being a psychological law

that every intense representation of a movement or an act is the

beginning of a movement. The act, whatever it may be, is

accomplished, and there results a feeling of satisfaction, peace,

and relief.

-----

Footnote 142:

Tamburini distinguishes three kinds of fixed ideas: simple,

emotive, and impulsive, according as the obsession determines

forced attention, a state of anguish, or an action.

-----

As regards those destructive tendencies which are to anger what

phobias are to fear, a problem presents itself, the only

psychological problem: that of their origin or cause. This question

I divide into two: How do they arise? How do they take a determinate

direction?

I. To explain the origin and appearance of irresistible impulses,

most writers have recourse to the hypothesis of degeneration. As it

is also called in to explain the converse phenomenon of phobias, it

becomes necessary to be a little more precise. Without entering for

the moment on the discussion of the different interpretations of

this vague word, degeneration, let us take it as synonymous with

dissolution or regression.

The ideal of heredity, as a conservative principle, is to transmit

under a healthy form a healthy organisation, _i.e._ (so far as our

subject is concerned), one with harmonious and convergent

tendencies. If dissolution is total, we have the idiot, or the

dementia patient. If it is partial, we have a breach of equilibrium

in favour of one or more tendencies. This disaggregation is not

fortuitous; it has a retrogressive character, it is a return to the

reflex movements. It approaches the character of the animal, the

idiot, or the imbecile; it goes back to that stage of psychic life

when the will under its higher form, the arrestive power, was not

yet constituted.

II. In any case, there remains the principal question: Why was such

a tendency predominant? What causes determined the particular

direction taken by retrogression—homicide in one case, suicide or

erotomania in another? Attempts have been made to explain this by

alleging that every irresistible impulse results from the excessive

irritation of an _isolated_ group of brain-cells. Besides being

purely hypothetical, this explanation is, in spite of its apparent

precision, extremely vague. Is there an isolated group of homicidal,

or one of kleptomaniac cells? This explanation is really too simple.

As far as we can penetrate the very obscure psychological genesis of

the destructive impulses (and this may be held to apply to the whole

group of irresistible tendencies), we find two sorts of causes at

work, the essential and the accidental.

1. The essential, principal, fundamental cause which, after the

period of physiological incubation, gives a determinate direction to

the tendency is constitution, temperament, character. It may be

admitted, at least theoretically, that _all_ tendencies exist,

actually or potentially, in every one of us. In ordinary cases, one

or more predominate. Contemporary research has familiarised us with

the fact of the varieties of memory. Such and such a person has an

excellent one for figures, or music, or colour, or form, but only

moderate for everything else. This is a natural gift singularly

capable of being developed by exercise. This fact has its equivalent

in the motor order, or that of tendencies: there exist natural

dispositions only wanting an opportunity to become preponderant, and

morbid conditions are the culture-medium which favours their

development. The most violent tendency has its source in normal

life. “There is,” says Gall, “an inclination gradually rising from

the pleasure of seeing anything killed to the most overpowering

desire to kill.” This is not put strongly enough; it is possible to

pass, by imperceptible gradations, from the extreme case to the

normal state in the following order: the pleasure of killing, the

overpowering desire to kill, the pleasure of looking on at killing

(the sight of a murder, gladiatorial combats, etc.), the pleasure of

seeing the blood of animals shed (bull-fights, cock-fights, etc.),

the pleasure due to the representation of violent and bloodthirsty

melodramas (this is only in appearance, but the stage always

presents a momentary illusion of reality); lastly, the pleasure of

reading bloodthirsty novels, or hearing accounts of murders, which

is purely an affair of the imagination. We thus pass from the act to

the perception, the simulacrum, the mere image suggested by signs

read or heard. I do not wish to assert, assuredly, that the

spectators of the drama or readers of the novel are all potential

murderers; but, as there are other men to whom such sights and such

reading are abhorrent, we must recognise certain differences of

natural disposition. Now the peculiarity of retrogression (or

degeneration) is to act on the line of the strongest attraction or

the least resistance, which is a characteristic of reflex action and

the opposite of the inhibitive will, which acts on the lines of

weakest attraction and strongest resistance.

2. The accidental causes which determine the direction of a tendency

cannot be enumerated, because they vary for every individual case:

we may note sex, social position, degree of culture, various

maladies, etc. Tendencies to homicide and suicide are apt to spring

up in a melancholic nature; alcoholism favours the incendiary

impulse (pyromania); the epileptic and the general paralytic are

more inclined to theft, and so on. Still more: the same impulse is

variously modified, according to the soil in which it germinates;

“the epileptic kills in a different way from the hypochondriac, the

latter otherwise than the alcoholic or paralytic” (Schüle).

This shows the part played by accidental and consequently

unassignable causes, and is still better shown in the abrupt

substitution of one irresistible tendency for another in the same

individual. Ordinarily, each shows his own special peculiarity; one

constantly repeats his attempts at suicide, another at theft. But in

cases of deep-seated dissolution, the direction is uncertain. The

author of the theory of degeneration gives an excellent example of

this: a hypochondriac possessed in turn by irresistible impulses to

suicide, homicide, sexual excesses, dipsomania, and pyromania, and

who finally gave himself up to justice, saying that he was “happy,

because his sufferings were about to end.”[143] We may say of all

these overmastering impulses, _in radice conveniunt_; and thus the

study of those which tend to destruction has led us, more than once,

to speak of the other kinds.

-----

Footnote 143:

Morel, _Maladies mentales_, pp. 420 _et seq._

-----

CHAPTER IV.

SYMPATHY AND THE TENDER EMOTIONS.

_Sympathy is not an instinct, but a highly generalised

psycho-physiological property—Complete sense and restricted

sense—Physiological phase: imitation—Psychological phase: first

stage, psychological unison; second stage, addition of tender

emotion—Tender emotion—Its physiological expression—Its

relations with touch—The smile—Tears: hypotheses as to their

causes—Tender emotion indecomposable._

Sympathy is not an instinct or a tendency, _i.e._, a group of

co-ordinated movements adapted to a particular end, and showing

itself in consciousness as an emotion, such as fear, anger,

sex-attraction; it is, on the contrary, a highly generalised

psycho-physiological property. To the specialised character of each

emotion, it opposes a character of almost unlimited plasticity. We

have not to consider it under all its aspects, but as one of the

most important manifestations of emotional life, as the basis of the

tender emotions, and one of the foundations of social and moral

existence.

I.

Sympathy, in the etymological sense (σῦν, πάθος), which is also the

complete one, consists in the existence of identical conditions in

two or more individuals of the same or a different species; or,

according to Bain, the tendency of an individual to enter into the

active or emotional states of others, these states being revealed by

certain media of expression. In its general and original form it is

that and nothing else. We must therefore begin by getting rid of a

prejudice, consecrated by usage in various languages, which

identifies sympathy with pity, tenderness, benevolence, and the

feelings which establish a tie of concord and a state of reciprocity

between two beings. Thus understood, in its restricted sense, the

term sympathy is neither accurate nor sufficient; for in all

benevolent inclinations there are, besides the general fact of

sympathy, other emotional elements, which will be determined in

their proper place.

Before it becomes moral, before even it becomes psychological, it is

biological. At bottom, it is a property of life, and its complete

study would be a chapter of general psychology. If, limiting

ourselves to what is strictly necessary, we try to follow the

evolution of sympathy, from its most rudimentary to its highest

forms, we distinguish three principal phases. The first, or

physiological, consists in an agreement of motor tendencies, a

_synergia_; the second, or psychological, consists in an agreement

of the emotional states, a _synæsthesia_; the third, or

intellectual, results from a community of representations or ideas,

connected with feelings and movements.

_First Phase._—In its primitive form sympathy is reflex, automatic,

unconscious, or very slightly conscious; it is, according to Bain,

the tendency to produce in ourselves an attitude, a state, a bodily

movement which we perceive in another person. This is imitation in

its most rudimentary form. Between sympathy and imitation, at any

rate in this primitive period, I see only one difference of aspect:

sympathy everywhere marks the passive, receptive side of the

phenomenon—imitation, its active and motor side.[144]

Footnote 144:

The psychology of imitation does not form part of our subject.

Baldwin has made an excellent study of it (_Mental Development in

the Child and Race_, pp. 263-366). He defines it as "a

sensori-motor reaction, which finds its differentia in the single

fact that it imitates; that is, its peculiarity is found in the

locus of its muscular discharge. It is what I have called a

‘circular activity’ on the bodily side,—brain-state due to

stimulating conditions, muscular reaction which reproduces or

retains the stimulating conditions,—same brain-state again, due to

same stimulating conditions, and so on." Imitation appears early

in the child, at fifteen weeks (Preyer) or four months (Darwin).

Are we to consider it as an instinct? Popular opinion is inclined

to do so, as are also several psychologists—Stricker, James, and

others. The contrary is maintained by Preyer, Bain, Sully, and

Baldwin—a view I am myself inclined to take. Imitation does not

present the true characteristics of an instinct; it is not adapted

at the first attempt; it gropes its way, it is tentative, it fails

again after success, it retrogrades, or progresses but slowly. It

is an ideo-motor reflex; it takes its place above instinct (a

blind and innate tendency inferior to the voluntary activity for

which it prepares the way), because it is the first attempt at

convergence towards an end.

It manifests itself in animals forming aggregates (not societies),

such as a flock of sheep, or a pack of dogs who run, stop, bark all

at the same time, through a purely physical impulse of imitation: in

man, infectious laughter or yawning, walking in step, imitating the

movements of a rope-walker while watching him, feeling a shock in

one’s legs when one sees a man falling, and a hundred other

occurrences of this kind are cases of physiological sympathy. It

plays a great part in the psychology of crowds, with their rapid

attacks and sudden panics. In nervous diseases, there is a

superfluity of examples: epidemics of hysteric fits, convulsive

barking, hiccup, etc. I omit the mental maladies (epidemics of

suicide, double or triple madness) since we are only considering the

purely physiological stage.

To sum up, sympathy is originally a property of living matter: as

there is an organic memory and an organic sensitiveness, being those

of the tissues and ultimate elements which compose them, there is an

organic sympathy, made up of receptivity and imitative movements.

The _second phase_ is that of sympathy in the psychological sense,

necessarily accompanied by consciousness; it creates, in two or more

individuals, analogous emotional states. Such are the cases in which

we say that fear, indignation, joy or sorrow are communicated. It

consists in feeling an emotion existing in another, and is revealed

to us by its physiological expression. This phase consists of two

stages.

1. The first might be defined as psychological unison. If, during

this period of unison, we could read the minds of those who

sympathise, we should see a single emotional fact reflected in the

consciousness of several individuals. L. Noiré, in his book,

_Ursprung der Sprache_, has proposed the theory that language

originated in community of action among the earliest human beings.

When working, marching, dancing, rowing, they uttered (according to

this writer) sounds which became the appellatives of these different

actions, or of various objects; and these sounds, being uttered by

all, must have been understood by all. Whether this theory be

correct or not (it has been accepted as such by Max Müller), it will

serve as an illustration. But this state of sympathy does not, by

itself, constitute a tie of affection or tenderness between those

who feel it: it only prepares the way for such an emotion. It may be

the basis of a certain social solidarity, because the same internal

states excite the same acts, of a mechanical, exterior, non-moral

solidarity.

2. The second stage is that of sympathy, in the restricted and

popular sense of the word. This consists of psychological

unison, _plus_ a new element: there is added another emotional

manifestation, tender emotion (benevolence, sympathy, pity,

etc.). It is no longer sympathy pure and simple, it is a

_binary_ compound. The common habit of considering phenomena

only under their higher and complete forms often misleads us as

to their origin and constitution. Moreover, in order to

understand that this is a case of duality—the fusion of two

distinct elements—and that our analysis is not a factitious one,

it is sufficient to point out that sympathy (in the etymological

sense) may exist without any tender emotion—nay, that it may

exclude instead of exciting it. According to Lubbock, while ants

carry away their wounded, bees—though forming a society—are

indifferent towards each other. It is well known that gregarious

animals nearly always shun and desert a wounded member of the

herd. Among men, how many there are who when they see suffering

hasten to withdraw themselves from the spectacle, in order to

escape the pain which it sympathetically awakens in them. This

impulse may go the length of aversion, as typified by Dives in

the Gospel. It is therefore a complete psychological error to

consider sympathy as capable, unaided, of delivering men from

egoism; it only takes the first step, and not always that.

_Third Phase._—Under its intellectual form, sympathy is an agreement

in feelings and actions, founded on unity of representation. The law

of development is summed up in Spencer’s formula, “The degree and

range of sympathy depend on the clearness and extent of

representation.”[145] I should, however, add: on condition of being

based on an emotional temperament. This last is the source _par

excellence_ of sympathy, because it vibrates like an echo; the

active temperament lends itself less to such impulses, because it

has so much to do in manifesting its own individuality that it can

scarcely manifest those of others; finally, the phlegmatic

temperament does so least of all, because it presents a minimum of

emotional life; like Leibnitz’s monads, it has no windows.

Footnote 145:

_Principles of Psychology_, vol. iv. p. 565.

In passing from the emotional to the intellectual phase, sympathy

gains in extent and stability. In fact, emotional sympathy requires

some analogy in temperament or nature; it can scarcely be

established between the timid and the daring, between the cheerful

and the melancholic; it may be extended to all human beings and to

the animals nearest us, but not beyond them. On the contrary, it is

the special attribute of intelligence to seek resemblances or

analogies everywhere, to unify; it embraces the whole of nature. By

the law of transfer (which we have already studied) sympathy follows

this invading march, and comprehends even inanimate objects, as in

the case of the poet, who feels himself in communion with the sea,

the woods, the lakes, or the mountains. Besides, intellectual

sympathy participates in the relative fixity of representation: we

find a simple instance of this in animal societies, such as those of

the bees, where unity, or sympathy among the members, is only

maintained by the perception or representation of the queen.

II.

Tender emotion marks an important stage in the evolution of

affective life; with it we pass beyond the period of the purely

egoistic emotions. The date of its appearance, as I have said, is

not fixed with certainty; it may be at two months, according to

Darwin, who noted at this age one of his characteristic modes of

expression, the smile; more probably about nine months (Darwin) or

twelve months (Perez), according to definite observations.

The physiological expression of tenderness, as far as movements are

concerned, is reducible to a single formula—attraction. It shows

itself either by elementary movements of approach, or by contact, or

by the embrace which is its ultimate end, of which all the rest are

but mitigated and arrested forms. It therefore stands in relation to

the primordial sense, touch, of which Bain says, “Touch is both the

alpha and the omega of affection.”[146] The movements have a general

character of relaxation, contrasting greatly with that of anger. One

mode of expression which is specially, if not exclusively,

appropriated to it is the smile. Is this the initial stage of

laughter? or is it, on the contrary, only a weakened form of it, an

arrest of development? This question has been discussed without much

advantage. Darwin adopts the former view, which scarcely seems

reconcilable with the general law of evolution; the child smiles

before it laughs, whereas we should expect to meet with the inverse

order of phenomena. Tender emotion approximates to joy; and its

circulatory and respiratory modifications are analogous. There is

acceleration, as in the case of pleasure, but to a less degree;

tenderness suiting better with moderate and reposeful sensations.

Footnote 146:

The point has been very well treated by this author (_The

Emotions_, chap. vii. p. 127). See also Mantegazza, chap. xi.

Lange does not mention it.

It is also accompanied by an increase in the secretions, especially

in that of the mammary glands in the woman. In the case of the

lachrymal glands this symptom is more difficult to explain. It is

known that tenderness often moistens the eyes; but tears are

produced under conditions so varied, and sometimes so contradictory,

that, even after all the recent work which has appeared on the

expression of the emotions, the question of the causes seems to me

very far from being exhausted. The pressure of the blood has a

direct influence on this secretion, which is always accompanied by

an increase in the circulation; but the simplicity of the mechanism

is not incompatible with a diversity of causes. Tears may be

provoked by mechanical or physiological acts: irritation of the

conjunctiva, coughing, effort, vomiting; and by totally distinct

psychic states, sorrow, joy, tenderness. In fact, all attempts at

explanation relate to the painful states only; cases of this kind

being, though not of exclusive occurrence, more frequent than

others. Darwin admits that screaming, in infants, causes the vessels

of the eye to become gorged with blood, and this produces a

contraction of the orbicular muscles as a means of protection,

whence a reflex action on the lachrymal glands; the shedding of

tears continuing even after the suppression of the screams. Wundt

rejects this explanation, seeing in the lachrymal glands

_derivative_ organs assuaging pain; this secretion, which is

permanent, cleanses the eye from foreign bodies, such as dust and

insects, etc. As the visual images are the most important of all,

the shedding of tears would be an unconscious effort to drive away

sad representations, having for its foundation an analogy between

the painful sensations and the images. Whatever one may think of

these hypotheses, they consider tears as signs of pain exclusively.

The augmentation of the lachrymal secretion depends on the increase

in the pressure of the blood; now, the circulation is accelerated by

joy and tenderness, as is proved by the shining of the eyes. The

appearance of tears—not very abundant, however, in such cases—would

be the natural consequence. Sorrow, on the contrary, is accompanied

by a lowering of the circulation, and very often, in the early

stage, tears are entirely wanting. The shedding of tears produces

relief, it is a safety-valve; it would answer to a second stage—that

of slackened tension—in which the return of vitality has begun. In

other words, the tears of joy and tenderness would correspond to the

stage of action, the tears of sadness to the stage of reaction.

The psychology of tender emotion seems to me reducible to a single

question—that of its origin. The description of its varieties is

without interest, and may be found elsewhere. We have stated it as

simple and primary. Being the source of all altruistic, social, and

moral manifestations, it will be worth our while to consider its

nature at the period of its appearance.

In children, and the higher animals, the first manifestation of

tenderness is towards the mother or the nurse.

"The relation involved in the sustenance of the child, a relation

only a degree less close than that of the fœtus to the maternal

organism, constitutes in itself the chief source of the feeling.

Along with the supply of nutriment there goes that of warmth,

support, or propping, which again is a continuation of the fœtal

dependence. This first instinctive or sensuous attachment of the

child grows into what we call fondness by the complication of this

instinctive feeling with numerous “ideal” or transferred feelings,

the product of the many pleasurable sensations, including those of

the eye and of the ear, of which the mother is the source."[147] The

primary tendency, therefore, is directed, in children and animals,

to those who have been pleasant to them, or who have done them good,

and from whom they hope to receive it again. This is an emotion

which, in Herbert Spencer’s nomenclature, might legitimately be

called ego-altruistic, or even one with a marked preponderance of

egoism. It must be so, for altruism cannot be innate.

-----

Footnote 147:

Sully, _The Human Mind_, ii. pp. 104, 105.

-----

The faculty of knowledge begins with an undifferentiated period, in

which there is neither subject nor object, but only the

consciousness of something without qualification. The separation of

the ego and the non-ego in the order of cognition is the stage

corresponding to the division, in the emotional order, between

conscious egoism and altruism. How does this partial alienation from

ourselves come about? How can it arise and be consolidated? These

questions will be discussed later, when treating of moral emotion

(Chap. VIII.). For the moment, I confine myself to a single

question: Are we confronted with a veritable instinct—with an innate

tendency incapable of being analysed, showing itself in the

consciousness by the tender emotion or its varieties?

We know all the efforts made (especially in the eighteenth century)

to reduce altruism by analysis to an extremely refined egoism, to a

calculation; thus the tenderness of parents for their children was

explained by the expectation of services to be rendered by them in

the future. I think it needless to insist on this point.

In favour of inneity, the best argument that can be alleged, because

founded on fact, is, that affection and attachment are met with even

among animals, to whom we cannot attribute calculation or interested

foresight. Apart from maternal love, which manifests itself

energetically in very low stages of the animal kingdom, we find

examples of benevolent and active sympathy between animals of the

same species, and even (though this is rarer) of different

species,[148] apart from any sexual attraction. Let us add, if

necessary, in the case of human beings: “the instantaneous,

unreflecting impulses of pity to creatures in distress, although

strangers, enemies, criminals, noxious beasts, the absence of all

balancings of immediate loss with ultimate gain.... Long-sighted

selfishness does not explain the conduct of the Good Samaritan.

Again, the hosts of human beings that in all ages have voluntarily

given up their lives for their country, could not be influenced by

their own advantage. For, although many of these have been taught

the hopes of a future existence, this has been by no means

universal; and there could be little certainty in the mass of minds

that the surrender of this life would receive a full compensation in

another.”[149]

-----

Footnote 148:

For these facts see Romanes, _Mental Evolution_, chap, xx., and

Lloyd Morgan, _Animal Life_, pp. 397, 398.

Footnote 149:

Bain, _Emotions_, chap. vi. p. 111.

-----

The inneity of the altruistic instinct, therefore, seems to me

proved beyond the possibility of reply. It may be very energetic in

some individuals, or very weak in others; in this it only resembles

all instinctive tendencies. As a genus, this instinct comprises

several varieties, of a general character, such as benevolence,

affection, pity, etc. Finally, it is one of the elements which make

up several composite emotions—veneration, admiration, sexual love,

etc.

It remains only to inquire in what form it first made its entry into

the world, what was its earliest manifestation. With regard to this

matter, there are only three possible hypotheses: those of maternal

love, gregarious instinct, and the very improbable one of sexual

instinct. The value of these hypotheses will be discussed later on,

in the chapter on moral emotion, which is the natural complement to

the present one.[150]

-----

Footnote 150:

The pathology of tender emotion does not offer sufficient interest

to detain us. The altruistic tendency may be totally wanting in

certain hypochondriac and demented patients, who, entrenched in an

impenetrable egoism, have undergone a real “moral ossification.”

Tenderness may become _sentimentality_ towards persons, animals

(zoophily), and things (nostalgia), etc. Morel (_Études

cliniques_, vol. ii. sec. 4) quotes the case of a man of high

intellectual capacity, in whom the most futile and ridiculous

causes excited absurd _accès de sensibilité_. “The loss of

domestic animals which he had reared threw him into a state of

bewilderment and convulsions of tears, as if it had been the death

of his best friends. I saw him one day almost delirious with grief

at the death of one of the numerous frogs which he kept in his

garden.” This morbid emotivity, coinciding with congenital or

acquired weakness, and with convalescence or other adynamic

states, throws into relief, by its exaggerated character, that

state of relaxation which is, as we have seen, one of the

principal marks of the tender emotion.

-----

CHAPTER V.

THE EGO AND ITS EMOTIONAL MANIFESTATIONS.

_Reducible to one primary fact: the feeling of strength or

weakness—Positive form: type, pride. Its physiological

and psychological characteristics. Its relation to joy

and anger. Its evolution—Negative form: humility. Its

semi-social character—Pathology, positive form: monomania

of power, megalomania—Extreme negative form: suicidal

tendency—Psychological problem of this practical negation of the

fundamental instinct._

I.

The English designate by the term of _self-feeling_, and the Germans

by that of _Selbstgefühl_, a group of sentiments directly derived

from the _ego_. I scarcely know what to call them: “personal” would

be too vague a term, “egoistic” too ambiguous (“egotistic” would be

better). To identify them with pride and its opposite would be to

restrict them too far, for they have other forms. We might, for want

of a better, include them under the term _amour-propre_ (in its

etymological meaning, _amor proprius_), _i.e._, satisfaction or

dissatisfaction with one’s self, with its different varieties.

Whatever name we may give them, these emotional forms are reducible

to one primary fact of which they are the embodiment in

consciousness—viz., the feeling (well-founded, or not) of personal

strength or weakness, with the tendency to action or arrest of

action which is its motor manifestation. We can also, but in a less

direct manner, connect them with the instinct of conservation, and

say, with Höffding, that they result from that instinct “arrived at

the full consciousness of itself and incarnated in the idea of the

Ego.”

This group has its peculiar characteristics. It is almost, if not

quite, exclusively human, while the emotions hitherto studied have

been as much animal as human. It is late in making its appearance

(about the end of the third year), and is the last in chronological

order, except the sex-instinct. This is because it soon assumes a

reflective character, and because it implies that the _ego_ is

constituted and that the individual is conscious of himself as such.

The _self-feeling_ has two forms, one positive, the other negative,

of which pride and humility may respectively be taken as the types.

Under its positive form, it has a well-known physiological

expression,[151] which consists of a series of movements tending to

two ends—(1) Increase in size: the respiration is deep, the thorax

greatly dilated, the gestures eccentric, and, as it were,

aggressive, whence the popular expressions “puffed up” or “swollen”

with pride. (2) Increase in height: the body and head are held more

erect, the gait is assured, the mouth firmly closed, the teeth

clenched; in megalomaniacs, who present, so to speak, the caricature

of pride, these traits are still further emphasised. Some writers

note, besides, as a specific character, the action of the _musculus

superbus_, which everts the lower lip.

Footnote 151:

See Darwin (chap. xi.) and Mantegazza (chap. xiv.).

Psychologically, the feeling of strength is _sui generis_ and

irreducible. It is related on one side to joy, being the sthenic

emotion _par excellence_, on the other to anger, because the feeling

of superiority soon leads to contempt, insolence, brutality, and the

exercise of strength under its aggressive form. Let us remember that

we have, on a previous occasion, connected with this feeling the

pleasure which frequently accompanies satisfied anger. As it

depends, more than any other primary emotion, on reflection, its

development is determined by intellectual conditions.

Is there any equivalent to it among animals? Certain facts allow us

to suppose that there is. The courteous contests of pretended

battle, the song, the dances by which the males attempt to captivate

the females, the triumph of some and the defeat of others, must

produce some states analogous to pride and humiliation. The arrogant

attitudes of the cock and the turkey-cock, the ostentatious display

of the peacock, are taken as symbols of _naïf_ pride; and if the

expression of an emotion is that emotion objectivised, we can easily

suppose that it exists in some manner. In children, the personal

feeling is at first connected with the exercise of physical strength

expended in struggling with each other and in games; later on, with

personal appearance, clothes and ornaments, especially in girls. In

consequence of an increasing irradiation, the self-feeling envelops

everything entering into its sphere of action which may help to

swell its importance—house, furniture, relations. Later on comes the

consciousness of intellectual force, and the advantages procured by

it—fame, power, riches, etc.

As derivative, or different aspects of egotistic emotion, under its

positive form, we find pride, vanity, contempt, love of glory,

ambition, emulation, courage, daring, boldness, etc. The special

study of each of these feelings belongs rather to the moralist than

the psychologist.[152]

Footnote 152:

Consult James, _Psychology_, ii. 305, 329; Bain, _Emotions_, chap.

x., xi.; J. Sully, _Psychology_, ii. 97 _et seq._

Under its negative form, personal emotion cannot detain us long, as

it would only be a repetition of what we have previously studied

under the converse aspect. It has for its basis a feeling of

weakness and impotence. It shows itself by diminution or arrest of

movement; its gestures are concentric, and it consists in belittling

instead of aggrandising, of lowering instead of raising. It is

related on one side to sadness, and on the other to fear; in short,

it is the complete antithesis to the positive form.

From this source flow, with different adaptations, humility,

timidity, modesty, resignation, patience, meanness, cowardice, want

of self-confidence, etc. Most of these manifestations are not

simple, but result from the combined action of several causes, as we

shall see later on.

II.

The positive or negative feeling of personal strength is a normal

and healthy emotion when it remains within the limits of adaptation;

for it has an individual and even social utility.

For the individual, it is the instinct of conservation become

reflective, and by the consciousness of his strength or weakness, it

permits him to measure his pretensions by his degree of power.

Socially, it makes us in a certain measure dependent on others.

Although strictly egoistic in its origin, _self-feeling_ cannot

develop unless it becomes ego-altruistic, or semi-social. According

to Bain, self-esteem is a reflective sentiment which consists in

judging ourselves as we judge others. This opinion has been

criticised and scarcely seems tenable, in so far, at least, as it

takes away from _amour propre_ its instinctive and self-generated

character and considers it as a return action. However, it is

certain that the desire of approbation and the fear of blame are the

_external_ elements which count in the constitution and

consolidation of the feeling of self-complacency; praise gives it

extension, criticism impairs and mutilates it. This does not imply

any great amount of reflection or culture. The child is extremely

sensitive to the judgment of his equals. Primitive man is imprisoned

in a network of custom, tradition, and prejudice which he cannot

break without incurring excommunication; and those people are very

rare who content themselves with their own approbation only.

But from a semi-social feeling, the love of ourselves can easily

become an anti-social feeling. There is no emotion which passes so

simply and definitely from the normal form to passion, and from

passion to madness. At the bottom of the tendency of the _ego_ to

affirm itself there is a potentiality of limitless expansion and

indefinite radiation. A man whose self-feeling is vigorous resembles

those species of animals and vegetables which—prolific and of

tenacious vitality—would, if left to themselves, cover the whole

surface of the globe; his expansion is only kept in check by that of

others.

Our path towards the pathology of the subject is already marked out.

We have, first, the semi-morbid forms which have been called the

monomania of power. Place a man in conditions where this tendency to

unlimited expansion meets with no obstacle, and it will go to any

extreme. This is the case with absolute power. No doubt this unique

and, so to speak, superhuman position is not of itself sufficient.

The madness of power (_folie du pouvoir_) is the resultant of two

factors: first, the character, _i.e._, the violence of the egoistic

appetites, which, continually satisfied, continually increase; while

the will, the antagonistic, inhibitive force, keeps on diminishing;

and next, external circumstances—the absence of all restraint, of

any equal power which might overawe by threats. A religious

sanction, or the fear of a political catastrophe, has restrained

more than one, and limited that unbridled tendency which is only the

_ego’s_ feeling of its own power carried to the acute stage. It is

needless to give examples from history, for they are known to every

one.[153]

Footnote 153:

For details on this point the reader should consult Ireland, _The

Blot on the Brain_, p. 88 (where he will find a study of the

Cæsars, the Hindoo Sultans, Ivan the Terrible, etc.), and Jacoby,

_Études sur la sélection et l’hérédité_.

Self-feeling, under its positive form, has its ultimate incarnation

in a well-known pathological manifestation—the delusion of

greatness, or megalomania. Perhaps, indeed, in this case, the

exaggeration produced by disease shows itself most clearly and

without altering the original.

Megalomania is met with in general paralysis of the insane as a

transitory phase; but especially in systematised chronic delusions

(_paranoia_). We may pass over the period of incubation, which is

often melancholic; thus, in a case of persecution-delusions, the

patient is at first tormented by vague suspicions; he accuses no one

in particular, he has as yet no accredited enemies; but one day he

discovers them, and nothing will ever divert his thoughts from them

again. Then, in some cases, the disease passing through another

evolutionary stage, he arrives, by logical deduction, at the

conclusion that it is his great merit, his high position, which are

exciting jealousy. Thenceforth megalomania is fully developed; the

subject thinks himself a millionaire, an unrecognised genius, a

great inventor, a king, the pope, or even the Deity.

There is nothing more characteristic than such a description as the

following, which has often been drawn up, and is yet another proof

that emotion, its expressive and its physiological bases, are but

parts of the same phenomenon. “He walks with head erect, with

assurance; his speech is laconic and imperious, he seeks solitude,

and is full of contempt for the society which surrounds him. His

style of dress is in accordance with the tendency of his aberration.

Like the maniac, he is restlessly active; but, in him, no movement

is fortuitous or without a motive; his will is always active, his

actions have a definite aim; if he shows violence, it is in order to

ensure the execution of his commands, to show that he has strength

sufficient to annihilate everything; it is not a destructive spirit

which animates him, but the necessity for showing his power. The

functions of the assimilative life have undergone no alteration;

they take place, as a rule, with perfect regularity. It seems as if

the expansive form of their feelings, their contentment with

themselves, the extreme and unbroken satisfaction surrounding their

life, imparted to the organic vital apparatus a surplus of activity,

resulting, in a manner, in an excess of health.” Frequent cases of

longevity among megalomaniacs have been noted. Finally, the

following observation has its value, on account of the change—at

once organic and psychic—there recorded:—"We have watched a patient

who, after having suffered from melancholia for several years,

suddenly became megalomaniac. His constitution had undergone great

alterations, and his health was much weakened, so that he became a

chronic melancholic; but so soon as his mental affection took on the

character of megalomania he was not long in acquiring new

vigour."[154]

Footnote 154:

Dagonet, _Traité des maladies mentales_, pp. 360 _et seq._

We might add that the tendency of men is rather to pride, of women

to vanity, which favours the views of those who maintain that

madness is often only the exaggeration of the habitual character: it

is sufficient to have shown that the feeling (though illusory) of

personal strength in an extreme degree is only the normal state

amplified, but not changed.

III.

It may seem strange to close this chapter by some remarks on a

phenomenon which, both by its internal and external characteristics,

belongs to the class of irresistible tendencies—the fatal impulse to

suicide. Its affinity with homicidal obsession is undeniable, as is

proved by the persons who are tormented, in turn, by the craving to

kill others and to kill themselves. However, if self-love, in its

positive form, reaches its culminating point in megalomania, it

seems to me quite legitimate to maintain that self-feeling, under

its negative form, attains its supreme negation in suicide.

Without insisting on a merely accessory point, it is certain that

suicide, as a manifestation of emotional life, brings us face to

face with a psychological problem as yet insufficiently noticed. If

there is an incontestable fact—one which, even among the ancients,

was familiar to triteness—it is that in every animal the

fundamental, ineradicable instinct is that of self-preservation, of

existing, and persisting in existence. Now, suicide, whether

voluntary or unreflecting, deliberate or impulsive, is the negation

of the fundamental tendency, not a theoretic or partial negation, or

one in word only, but in deed and absolute. And the sacrifice of

life is not subordinated to some other end which acts by superior

attraction, such as devotion to a belief, to friends, to humanity,

to one’s country, it is a suppression pure and simple, a liberation

desired in and for itself.

The ethnological, moral, and social study of suicide does not form

part of our subject, having already been fully worked out.[155] Our

aim is merely the psychological problem, which we must now define

with more precision.

Footnote 155:

Among the very copious existing literature on suicide I must

mention Morselli’s monograph, _Il Suicidio_, in which the various

causes—cosmic, ethnic, social, biological, and psychological—are

studied in great detail. His principal theoretical conclusions

are—(1) Among all civilised nations suicide increases more rapidly

than the geometrical ratio of the population and the general

mortality; (2) suicides are in inverse proportion to homicides at

any given time or in any given country. This last “law” has been

strongly contested by Tarde and others.

The act of suicide results from two very different mental states,

that of reflection and that of impulsion.

In deliberate, reflective, voluntary suicide there is a struggle

between two factors: the instinct of conservation and the

insupportable state caused by pain (incurable disease, ruin, misery,

grief, frustrated ambition, dishonour). Reflection decides, and as

pain is always a beginning of destruction, it prefers a total and

rapid destruction to a partial and slow one. The act is rational,

since it tends towards the lesser evil, or at least what is judged

to be such.

Impulsive suicide is harder to explain. A man throws himself

suddenly out of a window, poisons himself, cuts his throat. In some

cases death has been premeditated, but always appears as a

compelling, inevitable force, inexorably claiming its victim; the

epithet “irresistible” says everything. To the outside spectator the

act appears motiveless, without reason, without cause. It is all the

more surprising that the struggle, in this case, is no longer

between instinct and reflection, but between two instincts, the

conservative and the destructive, of which the one which usually is

the strongest succumbs, and the individual turns against himself the

destructive tendency originally destined to act on others.

Yet the psychology of deliberate suicide gives us the key to that of

the impulsive variety. What in the first case results from

conscious, clear, reasoned motives, results in the second from

blind, obscure, unconscious states: it is an act of organic life,

and its cause is found in cœnæsthesia. Impulsive suicide is the

expression of the destructive process, slow, permanent, dimly felt,

going on in the depths of the organism. Any one who presses in rage

on an aching tooth, who rolls on the ground, strikes his head

against the wall, or mutilates himself, is attempting an instinctive

though absurd reaction in order to get rid of his pain. These are

modified forms, it is true, but they will serve to show that the man

who yields to an overmastering impulse to strangle or drown himself

seeks a deliverance of the same kind.

Leaving degeneration (which is perpetually being dragged into this

question) out of account, observation shows us that the difference

between the two forms of suicide is reduced to that between psychic

and purely organic causes. Impulsive suicide flourishes best on the

soil of melancholia and hypochondria—_i.e._, in states which involve

deep dejection and a disorganisation of vital action. We may also

notice the part played (as was long ago pointed out) by heredity,

the descendants of suicidal ancestors often killing themselves at

the same age and in the same manner as the latter;[156] now,

psychological heredity is based on organic. Finally, the automatic

character of these impulses approximates them to the class of reflex

actions, attempts at suicide being repeated in the same form during

a recurrence of the same circumstances—_e.g._, somnambulism,

intoxication, the menstrual period. All these characteristics assign

to irresistible suicide an organic origin, which is equivalent to

saying that its ultimate cause lies in temperament. The conservative

instinct exists in all men, but it may exist in any degree. In some

there is an innate joy of life capable of resisting all disasters;

in others, a constitutional melancholy, or (which comes to the same

thing) _the conservative instinct is very weak_ and yields to the

least shock. Impulsive suicide represents self-feeling at its last

stage of regression, or, in other words, at its negative extreme.

Footnote 156:

For further details see my _Hérédité psychologique_, Part I.,

chap. viii.

CHAPTER VI.

THE SEXUAL INSTINCT.

_Its physiology—Its evolution: Instinctive period—Emotional period

(Individual choice)—Intellectual period (Platonic love)—Its

pathology—How can sexual instinct deviate from the normal

course?—Anatomical and social causes—Psychological causes: (a)

unconscious, (b) conscious._

I.

The sex-instinct, the last in chronological order with man and the

higher animals, gives rise to the emotion of love with its numerous

individual varieties. Most psychologists have been very sparing of

details where it is concerned, and one might mention certain

voluminous treatises which contain no mention of it. Is this through

exaggerated delicacy? Or is it because the authors think that their

place has been usurped by the novelists who have so obstinately

confined themselves to the study of this passion? But the novelist’s

mode of analysis is different from the psychological mode, and does

not exclude it.

Sexual love being an emotion whose evolution is complete, it is

impossible to determine the physiological and psychical signs

suiting all cases, from the blind instinct to the most refined and

intellectualised forms. Nevertheless, there are certain specific

characters which it always preserves, one special mark which is

never effaced throughout its various metamorphoses, and that is, its

origin. For the moment, let us take as typical the common and

average forms which, as we shall see later on, are met with

half-way, as we follow the evolution of sexual love from the lowest

to the highest.

1. Though neither James nor Lange has cited it among his typical

cases, love is certainly one of the emotions which express most

clearly the state of the organism, and offer the clearest proof in

favour of their theory. Let the reader suppress, in imagination, all

the physiological manifestations which accompany it. What remains?

not even the consciousness of a vague attraction, for that supposes

an actual or nascent movement.

Love, as a sthenic emotion, presents physical characteristics which

connect it on the one hand with joy, on the other with tenderness,

which have already been described. The circulation is accelerated,

sometimes to an extreme degree, the respiration likewise, and they

react on the organic functions. (We have already seen how, in many

animals, the period of love corresponds to deeply-seated chemical

modifications—usually of a toxic character—in the organism.) We

find, further, movements of mutual repulsion, or of mutual

attraction, the dominant part played by touch resumed in its

essential organ, the hand, caresses, embraces, fusion; the movements

of attraction being all the more noisy and violent, in proportion as

the instinct predominates. Finally, as the specific mark, we find a

particular state of the sexual organs, varying from slight

excitement to paroxysm. This disturbance,—whether strong or

weak,—even when it has no echo in the consciousness, influences the

unconscious activity.[157]

Footnote 157:

M. Pierre Janet mentions the case of a woman in whom “the family

feelings, the affective emotions, modesty, and the sensitiveness

of the genital organs appeared and disappeared simultaneously.” He

adds: “Which of these phenomena brings the others in its train? Is

genital sensibility a centre round which other psychological

syntheses are constructed? I draw no conclusion.”—_État mental des

Hystériques_, i. pp. 217, 218.

If from the organic, motor, and vaso-motor manifestations we pass to

the nervous centres, where impressions are received and movements

initiated, we can find scarcely anything but hypotheses. One point

only has been fixed since Budge’s researches: the existence in the

spinal cord of a centre or an area on the level of the fourth lumbar

vertebra, which governs the movements of the sexual act. Its

psychological function is slight or non-existent: it is properly an

instinctive centre, whose action is not obstructed by the removal of

the cerebral hemispheres and the cerebellum, in the inferior

vertebrates, and even in the dog, as proved by the experiments of

Goltz and others. Some authors admit, without precise localisation,

a second centre, situated near the ganglia at the base of the

encephalon, which they suppose to be the seat of the brute

sensations and their corresponding movements, and in relation with

the centres of olfactory and visual sensations. This centre would

have a psychological value. Lastly, a third and last centre in the

cortical layer, the organ of perception properly so called, and of

the revival of images. Nothing precise is known as to its position,

whether it is localised in a certain area, or diffused. On this

point we find nothing but hypotheses—if so much as that. The

occipital lobes, the neighbourhood of the olfactory centre, have

been suggested, but these are extremely doubtful. We have to be

content with the admission that, from the genital organs,

impressions are first transmitted to the lower or spinal centre,

which exercises a reflex action on the corresponding systems of

vascular, motor, and secretory innervation, and thence—whether there

is an intermediate centre, or not—reach the cerebral cortex, where

they produce a more or less definite state of consciousness,

according to circumstances.

Anatomy and physiology are not the only sciences concerned in this

question; for if the existence of these superposed centres,

connected with each other, though distinct in function, were

thoroughly established, this would give us certain landmarks, and

lay down fixed conditions, or stages, in the development of sexual

emotion, which may result from a state of the organs (instinctive

form) or from an external perception, or from a pure representation

(imaginative love). In the absence of an anatomical basis which

might serve for the normal psychology of the subject, and still

better for the comprehension of the pathological facts, let us

follow the evolution of sexual love so far as observation enables us

to do so. It has already been sketched in the Introduction, but too

briefly for our present purpose.

2. We have distinguished, in this psychological evolution, three

principal periods: the instinctive, the emotional, and the

intellectualised.

Taking the question at its remotest origin, some naturalists and

philosophers assert that the equivalents of sexual attraction exist

in living beings devoid of nervous systems, in vegetable or animal

micro-organisms. “It is curious,” says Balbiani, “to find, in beings

who from their small size, and the external simplicity of their

organisation, have been placed by all zoologists at the furthest

limit of the animal world, actions denoting the existence of

phenomena analogous to those by which the sex-instinct manifests

itself in a great number of metazoa.... Thus, with the paramæcids,

at the moment of propagation ... a higher instinct seems to govern

these little animals; they seek and pursue each other, they go from

one to another, feeling each other with their cilia, cling to one

another for some instants in the attitude of sexual approach, and

then let go in order to seize each other again. These singular

games, by which these animalcules seem in turn to provoke one

another to the act of copulation, often last for several days before

the act becomes definitive.” Other facts of the same nature have

been cited. Finally, it has been said that “the coupling of the two

sexual elements is analogous to the coupling of the two animals

whence these elements are derived: the spermatozoid and the ovule do

on a small scale what the two individuals do on a large one; the

spermatic element, in directing itself towards the ovule which it is

to fertilise, is animated by the same sexual instinct which guides

the complete being towards the female of the same species.”[158]

-----

Footnote 158:

This psychological thesis has been maintained, in all its rigour,

by Delbœuf: “That girl and that young man, in being attracted to

one another, obey the will, unknown to both, of a spermatozoid, an

ovule. But it may be taken as certain that this will is not

unknown either to the spermatozoid or the ovule; both know what

they want, and seek it. To this end they give their orders to

their respective brains through the medium of the heart, and the

brain obeys without knowing why. Sometimes it imagines that it has

been convinced by reason and explains its own choice to itself. At

bottom it has been but an _unconscious_ instrument in the hand of

an imperceptible workman who knew both what he wanted and what he

was doing.” (_Revue philosophique_, March 1891, p. 257.)

-----

If we confine ourselves to the micro-organisms, these facts of

sexual attraction have been interpreted in two ways, as we have

already seen—one psychological, the other chemical. Some, as we have

just heard, admit a desire, an elective action, a choice, quoting in

support of this not only the phenomena of generation, but several

others: as the habitat, the use of a certain substance in the

formation of the carapace, the movements of certain micro-organisms

in seeking and seizing a determined prey. Others reject this

psychology, which they call anthropomorphism, and maintain that

chemical action is sufficient to explain the whole. Pfeffer had

already shown, as far as generation is concerned, that the

spermatozoids of the cryptogamia are attracted by certain chemical

substances varying according to the vegetable species. More

recently, Maupas and Verworn, who have successively studied the

alleged cases of choice, eliminate all psychical elements and reduce

the whole to a purely mechanical process. I am inclined to adopt the

second opinion, while recognising that, as far as problems of origin

are concerned, we decide by probabilities rather than proofs.

Above this chemical or organic attraction we find the sex-instinct

properly so called, which, with its numberless adaptations, embraces

the whole animal world. It is useless to prove that this instinct is

fatal, blind, not acquired, anterior to all experience; but, as by

its nature it consists essentially of motor manifestations, its

psychology is scanty enough. Some remarks on this point may not be

without advantage. In fact, as regards the problem of instinct, an

entirely new position has been taken up.

During the first half of this century the inneity of instinct was

placed in the order of cognition, while recent psychology places it

in the order of movements, or, to be more accurate, in a fixed

relation between certain states of consciousness and certain

movements. According to the first hypothesis, stated in a masterly

manner by F. Cuvier, instinct consists in images, or innate and

constant sensations, which determine to action in the same manner as

ordinary sensations; it is “a sort of vision, a dream, analogous to

somnambulism.” According to the second hypothesis, sensations,

perceptions, and images excite movements determined by the

organisation, as in the case of ducklings when they see the water,

the kitten scenting a mouse, the squirrel laying up its winter

store. There are no innate representations, or even innate

movements, but a pre-established relation between some fortuitous

impressions and a group of movements: instinct is the _innate motor

reaction_ to an external or internal excitement; it results from the

nature of the animal. The impression only pulls the trigger and the

shot is fired. Like every other instinct, that of sex consists in a

fixed _relation_ between internal sensations coming from the genital

organs, or tactile, visual or olfactory perceptions on the one hand,

and movements adapted to an end on the other. As far as it is an

instinct, it is that and nothing but that. In the immense majority

of animals, and frequently in men, it does not rise above this

level; in plainer words, it is not accompanied by any tender

emotion. The act once accomplished, there is separation and

oblivion. More than this, in some cases there is not even

indifference, but hostility: the males of the queen bee are put to

death as useless, and it is well known that the mate of the female

spider often runs the risk of being devoured.

Sexual _love_ corresponds to a higher form of evolution. Over and

above instinct, it implies the addition of a certain degree of

tender feeling. It is not therefore a simple emotion, even in the

tolerably numerous species of animals in which it can be studied. In

man, more especially in civilised man, its complexity becomes

extreme. The analysis made by Herbert Spencer is well known and

somewhat lengthy, yet I do not hesitate to transcribe it, since I

can find no other to equal it, nor any point which could be added or

subtracted:—

“... The passion which unites the sexes ... is habitually spoken

of as though it were a simple feeling; whereas it is the most

compound, and therefore the most powerful, of all the feelings.

Added to the purely physical elements of it are first to be

noticed those highly complex impressions produced by personal

beauty, around which are aggregated a variety of pleasurable

ideas, not in themselves amatory, but which have an organised

relation to the amatory feeling. With this there is united the

complex sentiment which we term affection—a sentiment which, as it

can exist between those of the same sex, must be regarded as an

independent sentiment, but one which is here greatly exalted. Then

there is the sentiment of admiration, respect, or reverence; in

itself one of considerable power, and which, in this relation,

becomes in a high degree active. Then comes next the feeling

called love of approbation. To be preferred above all the world,

and that by one admired beyond all others, is to have the love of

approbation gratified in a degree passing every previous

experience, especially as there is that indirect gratification of

it which results from the preference being witnessed by

unconcerned persons. Further, the allied emotion of self-esteem

comes into play. To have succeeded in gaining such attachment

from, and sway over, another, is a proof of power which cannot

fail agreeably to excite the _amour propre_. Yet again, the

proprietary feeling has its share in the general activity: there

is the pleasure of possession; the two belong to each other. Once

more, the relation allows of an extended liberty of action.

Towards other persons a restrained behaviour is requisite. Round

each there is a subtle boundary that may not be crossed—an

individuality on which none may trespass. But in this case the

barriers are thrown down, and thus the love of unrestrained

activity is gratified. Finally, there is an exaltation of the

sympathies. Egoistic pleasures of all kinds are doubled by

another’s sympathetic participation, and the pleasures of another

are added to the egoistic pleasures. Thus, round the physical

feeling forming the nucleus of the whole, are gathered the

feelings produced by personal beauty; that constituting simple

attachment, those of reverence, of love of approbation, of

self-esteem, of property, of love of freedom, of sympathy. These,

all greatly exalted, and severally tending to reflect their

excitements on one another, unite to form the mental state we call

love. And as each of them is itself comprehensive of multitudinous

states of consciousness, we may say that this passion fuses into

one immense aggregate most of the elementary excitations of which

we are capable; and that hence results its irresistible

power.”[159]

-----

Footnote 159:

_Principles of Psychology_, vol. i., § 215.

-----

This evolutionary moment gives the complete type of love. As it goes

on, a breach of equilibrium is produced at the expense of the

physiological and instinctive elements, which gradually efface

themselves before a more and more intellectualised image.

Certainly, there lies at the root of all love the unconscious search

for an ideal, but for an ideal perceived in a concrete, personal

form, incarnate for the moment in an individual. By a process of

mental abstraction similar to that which draws from perceptions the

most general ideas, the concrete image is transformed into a vague

scheme, a concept, an absolute ideal, and we have a purely

intellectual, Platonic, mystical love; the emotion is totally

intellectualised. Let us remark that this last stage of evolution is

not so very rare. Not only do we meet with it sporadically, but it

has been fixed and expressed, at certain moments of history, in

institutions, such as the chivalric love, of which Geoffrey Rudel

seeking the Lady of Tripoli is the most perfect example; the

troubadours, the Provençal Courts of Love, deciding that true love

cannot exist in marriage, and excludes all cohabitation, etc. We

must not, however, allow ourselves to be misled by appearances.

Platonic and mystic lovers have always maintained that their

sentiment is perfectly pure, and has nothing in common with the

senses; the contrary opinion seeming to them a profanation and a

sacrilege. Yet how could love exist without physical conditions,

however attenuated we may suppose them? If they are wanting, all we

have or can have is a purely intellectual state, the representation

of an ideal conceived but not felt. Besides, we have more

satisfactory evidence than suppositions and arguments; facts of

tolerably frequent occurrence show how rapidly we may fall from the

ideal plane. It is only because all the circumstances are in its

favour that the fall is so easy.[160]

Footnote 160:

For some curious observations on this point see especially Moreau

(of Tours), _Psychologie morbide_, pp. 264-278.

In this ascending evolution from the instinctive to the idealistic

form there is a decisive moment—viz., the appearance of

the individual choice. This is the special criterion which

differentiates instinct from emotion. Sexual instinct contents

itself with a specific satisfaction; sexual love does not. And as

choice manifests itself among the superior representatives of the

animal kingdom, not only by sanguinary combats between the males, or

by the more pacific tournaments which precede sexual selection, but,

in the absence of all rivalry and competition, by the exclusive

preference of one male for one female, chosen among many others whom

he might possess, we may admit _a fortiori_ that primitive humanity

must very soon have left behind the stage of _Venus Volgivaga_. We

know that Schopenhauer, and after him Hartmann, have tried to

determine the reasons of choice; but such attempts must always be

partial failures, because we can never be sure of discovering all

the unconscious factors.

For the rest, the psychology of love contains many other mysteries.

Whence comes the blind violence which astonishes and sometimes

terrifies the calm spectator? Bain thinks it can be explained by the

concentration of the attention on an individual, and by the fact

that intensity and unity of object are associated in love. But this

applies also to other passions, such as ambition and hatred. Herbert

Spencer, in the analysis already quoted, attributes it to the

complexity of the passion, love being an aggregate of heterogeneous

tendencies all converging to one end and carrying the individual in

the same direction. At bottom, the irresistible element is in the

sexual instinct, and only exists in virtue of it; instinctive

activity alone has such power. This is what Schopenhauer calls, in

metaphysical terms, the Genius of the species, which makes of the

individual an instrument for the furtherance of its ends. We might

also call it, in biological terms, according to the hypothesis of

Weismann now in vogue: the continuity of the germ-plasm which

energetically manifests and affirms itself, safeguarding the rights

of the species against individual fancies. But all these metaphors

explain nothing, add nothing to the simple verification of the fact.

Sexual instinct remains the centre round which everything revolves;

nothing exists but through it. Character, imagination, vanity,

imitation, fashion, time, place, and many other individual

circumstances or social influences give to love—as emotion or

passion—an unlimited plasticity. It is the task of the novelists to

describe all its various shapes, and one which they have not failed

to perform.

II.

Though love, even in its average manifestations, is inseparable from

obsession and impulsion, I see in these two characteristics no

legitimate reason for placing it unrestrictedly—as some writers have

been pleased to do—in the category of pathology.[161] It has its

natural end, and tends to fulfil it by appropriate means. Every one

knows that it sometimes reaches the confines of madness; but in this

it does not differ from the majority of the emotions. There are the

impulsive and irresistible forms of love (erotomania), but they

remain within natural limits; the true pathology of love is

elsewhere—outside nature.

Footnote 161:

See Danville, _Psychologie de l’amour_, ch. vi., for a detailed

discussion of this question, which the author also answers in the

negative.

On the deviations and interversions of the sexual instinct so many

observations have been published,—especially in our own day,—so many

books written, so many medico-legal theses discussed, that we might

think the psychology of the subject had thereby been cleared up.

Nothing of the sort; and it is this alone which interests us.

Reduced to its simplest expression, the psychological problem

is this: The sex-instinct having a clearly-defined and

easily-verifiable end, how can it deviate therefrom? Other

instincts—that of conservation under its offensive and

defensive forms, that of self-feeling—have no mechanism

exclusively appropriated to them, and are susceptible of

various and multiple adaptations. This, on the contrary, is

confined by nature within strict limits. No doubt every

instinct has its oscillations; but it is only the means which

vary, the end remains the same. The ant, the bee, the beaver,

the spider, modify their manner of acting in accordance with

their environment, because they are confronted with the

dilemma that they must either adapt themselves or perish; but

they always arrive at the same end. The nutritive instinct in

man utilises animals and vegetables—the raw caterpillars of

the savage or the scientific cookery of the civilised man—but

the same end is always aimed at and attained. With the

deviations—at least the extreme ones—of the sex-instinct it is

otherwise: everything changes, means and end alike. The normal

end, generation and the perpetuity of the species, is ignored

or annihilated. This aspect of the question does not appear to

me to have been sufficiently noticed. How can an instinct so

solidly based, and having its own special mechanism, go

astray?

This subject deserves a purely psychological monograph, a very

difficult piece of work for which this is not the proper place. I

would only seek to inquire into the principal causes of the

alteration of this instinct. I shall cite no facts—they are

sufficiently well known, or will suggest themselves; besides, the

choice lies between excessive abundance and nothing. I pass over the

extreme cases, those of necrophily, or of sexual erethism

accompanied by a craving for violence, destruction, or blood. These

are the equivalent of the animal manifestations already mentioned,

in which the state of general excitement, so far from producing

tenderness, awakens by preference the aggressive tendencies. These

are merely insane impulses. I am limiting myself to deviations and

interversions—_i.e._, to cases where the natural mechanism of

instinct is falsified (excitations caused by impressions having

nothing to do with sexuality, attraction towards the same sex,

etc.).

We may pass over in silence the general causes, which are not

particularly instructive: degeneracy, brought in, as usual, to serve

as an explanation, and heredity, which is no explanation at all,

being merely a repetition, and brings us back to the primary case,

which states the question afresh. The inquiry can only be profitable

when directed to particular causes.

1. One principal anatomical and physiological cause is found in the

conformation of the genital organs: arrest of development,

incomplete sexuality, hermaphrodism, malformations, etc. This is the

simplest and most easily verifiable cause, and is found to be

sufficient in some cases. The action, from below upwards, of the

organ and its lower centre on the brain, is no longer normal; the

conditions of existence of the instinct are absent or altered.

2. Other causes are not so easily assignable. One of a sociological

order may be indicated: it is known what takes place when a number

of individuals of the same sex are shut up together, as in

boarding-schools, convents, prisons, barracks, ships on long

voyages. But the most numerous causes are of psychological origin,

and we may divide them into unconscious and conscious.

3. The existence of the unconscious, and therefore involuntary,

causes is rather suspected than proved. They consist in strange

associations of ideas formed at the period of puberty, whose

ultimate reason eludes observation; they might be compared to

certain cases of _audition colorée_, when a connection is formed

between a sound and a colour, apparently fortuitous, but in reality

resting on a common emotional basis. More than this, observation

seems to show that, at a much earlier age, in the fifth or sixth

year, there are apt to occur “unconscious genital impulses provoking

associations of ideas which frequently serve, in later years, as a

_substratum_ to our sentiments and volitions. Most of these

associations are unstable, and remain outside the consciousness. In

the degenerate they take on the impulsive and overpowering character

which distinguishes their psychology; their intensity expresses the

degree of consciousness which accompanies them, the recollection

which is still connected with them, even the importance they assume

in later existence. The existence of an unconscious sub-personality

directing the conscious one manifests itself here rather than

elsewhere with undeniable clearness.”[162]

Footnote 162:

Dallemagne, _Dégénérés et Déséquilibrés_, p. 327.

4. There remain the conscious voluntary causes which are the

converse of the physical causes, representing an action from above

downwards of the superior centres on the inferior centre and the

organs. It is here that instinct finds itself in conflict with its

most redoubtable enemy, the intense and persistent image. In

predisposed subjects the creative power of the imagination works at

some construction on an erotic theme, as in others it produces a

mechanical invention, a work of art, a scientific discovery. Every

vivid image tends to realise itself; in the present case it has the

power to divert instinct from its natural channel if its motor power

is stronger, and the sexual instinct has not in all men an equal

stability.

I do not think, however, that these causes are sufficient to explain

everything, even if we take account of imitation which fixes itself

in custom, and of the contagion of example. If the facts were taken

in detail, omitting nothing, we should meet with more than one

embarrassing complication. Thus, sexual aberrations are found in

animals, though of but moderate intelligence and living quite free

from constraint. Can we, considering this, throw all the blame on

imagination? They are also found among primitive races: the Huns,

say ancient historians, had made of unnatural love a regular

institution; can we blame civilisation? Many other difficulties of

this kind might be raised; but I may remind the reader that

pathology is only introduced into this work by way of elucidation,

and it seems to me that, in the present subject, it receives from

normal psychology more light than it throws on it.

CHAPTER VII.

TRANSITION FROM THE SIMPLE TO THE COMPLEX

EMOTIONS.

_The complex emotions are derived from the simple (1) by way of

complete evolution; in a homogeneous form: Examples—In a

heterogeneous form: Examples—(2) by arrest of development—(3) by

composition; two forms—Composition by mixture; with convergent

elements; with divergent elements—Composition by combination

(sublimity, humour)—Modesty—Is it an instinct?—Hypotheses as to

its origin._

Having studied in succession each of the tendencies which we look

upon as incapable of further analysis, together with the simple

emotion which expresses each, we now pass to the composite

emotions. There is no need to point out that a simple emotion

(fear, anger, etc.) is, in itself, a very complex phenomenon, and

that “simple” means irreducible by analysis to any other emotion.

All those which do not present this characteristic are complex.

The problem to be stated, then, is this: How have the secondary

and derivative emotions arisen from the primary or principal ones?

Since it is admitted that these are typical emotions, and, on the

other hand, the observation of human life shows us numerous

emotional states, with their individual varieties and gradations,

their transformations in the course of ages, how has this

multiplicity been produced?