When you are sure at the outset of your general proposition, and need

only to see its application to special cases, your reasoning is said

to be "deductive". Such reasoning is specially used in mathematics.

But in natural science you are said to employ "inductive reasoning".

The process has already been described. You start with particular

facts demanding explanation or generalization, and try to find some

accepted law that explains them. Failing in that, you are driven to

guess at a general law, i.e., to formulate a hypothesis that will fit

the known facts. Then, having found such a conjectural general law,

you proceed to deduce its consequences; you see that, _if_ the

hypothesis is true, such and such facts must be true. Next you go out

and see whether these facts are true, and if they are, your hypothesis

{475} is verified to that extent, though it may be upset later. If the

deduced facts are not true, the hypothesis is false, and you have to

begin all over again.

The would-be natural scientist may fail at any one of several points.

First, he may see no question that calls for investigation. Everything

seems a matter-of-course, and he concludes that science is complete,

with nothing left for him to discover. Second, seeing something that

still requires explanation, he may lack fertility in guessing, or may

be a poor guesser and set off on a wild-goose chase. Helmholtz, an

extremely fertile inventor of high-grade hypotheses, describes how he

went about it. He would load up in the morning with all the knowledge

he could assemble on the given question, and go out in the afternoon

for a leisurely ramble; when, without any strenuous effort on his

part, the various facts would get together in new combinations and

suggest explanations that neither he nor any one else had ever thought

of before. Third, our would-be scientific investigator may lack the

clear, steady vision to see the consequences of his hypothesis; and,

fourth, he may lack the enterprise to go out and look for the facts

that his hypothesis tells him should be found.

Psychology and Logic

Psychology is not the only science that studies reasoning; that is the

subject-matter of logic as well, and logic was in the field long

before psychology. Psychology studies the _process_ of reasoning,

while logic checks up the result and shows whether it is valid or not.

Logic cares nothing about the exploratory process that culminates in

inference, but limits itself to inference alone.

Inference, in logical terminology, consists in drawing a conclusion

from two given premises. The two premises are the "two facts" which,

acting together, arouse the {476} perceptive response called

inference, and the "third fact" thus perceived is the conclusion.

[Footnote: The "two facts" or premises need not be true; either or

both may be assumed or hypothetical, and still they may lead to a

valid conclusion, i.e., a conclusion implicated in the assumed

premises.] Logic cares nothing as to how the premises were found, nor

as to the motive that led to the search for them, nor as to the time

and effort required, nor the difficulty encountered; these matters all

pertain to psychology.

Logic sets forth the premises and conclusion in the form of the

"syllogism", as in the old stand-by:

Major premise: All men are mortal

Minor premise: Socrates is a man

Conclusion: Therefore, Socrates is mortal

The syllogism includes three "terms", which in the above instance are

"Socrates", "mortal", and "man" or "men". Logic employs the letters,

S, P, and M to symbolize these three terms in general. S is the

"subject" (or, we might say, the "object" or the "situation") about

which something is inferred. P is the "predicate", or what is inferred

about S; and M is the "middle term" which corresponds to our

"yardstick" or "point of reference", as we used those words at the

beginning of the chapter. S is compared with P through the medium of

M; or, S and P are both known to be related to M, and therefore (when

the relations are of the right sort) they are related to each other.

It is part of the business of logic to examine what relations are, and

what are not, suitable for yielding a valid inference.

In symbols, then, the syllogism becomes:

Major premise: M is P

Minor premise: S is M

Conclusion: Therefore, S is P

{477}

Without confounding logic and psychology in the least, we may take

this symbolic syllogism as a sort of map, on which to trace out the

different exploratory processes that we have already described under

the head of "varieties of reasoning". To do so may make these

different processes stand out more distinctly.

In problem-solution, we start with S, a situation unsolved, i.e.,

without any P. P, when found, will be the solution. We explore the

situation, and find in it M; i.e., we observe that S is M. Now M

recalls our previously acquired knowledge that M is P. Having then

before us the two premises, we perceive that S is P, and are saved.

In rationalization or explanation, we know, to start with, that S is

P, and wish to know _why_ this is so. As before, we explore S, find M,

recall that M is P, and see that S, therefore, is P. Our final

conclusion is, really, that S is P because it is M; that January is

cold because it gets little sunlight.

In application, doubt or verification, we start with the major

premise, M is P, and explore our memories for an S which, being M,

should therefore be P according to our hypothesis. If we find an S

which is _not_ P, then our final conclusion is that the major premise

is false.

Reference to our "map" indicates that there might be several other

varieties of reasoning, and there are, indeed, though they are

scarcely as important as those already mentioned. Reasoning sometimes

starts with the observation of P, which means something that might

prove useful on some future occasion. Your attention is caught by

these prominent words in an advertisement, "$100 a week!" That might

come in handy on some future occasion, and you look further to see how

all that money can be attached to S, yourself on some future occasion.

You soon learn that you have only to secure subscriptions for a

certain magazine, {478} and that income may be yours. P is the money,

and M is the occupation that gives the money, while S is yourself

supposedly entering on this occupation and earning the money. This

type of reasoning is really quite common. If we see a person making a

great success of anything, we try to discover how he does it,

reasoning that if we do the same, we shall also be successful; or, if

we see some one come to grief, we try to see how it happened, so as to

avoid his mistake and so the bad consequences of that mistake. We plan

to perform M so as to secure P, or to avoid M in the hope of avoiding

P.

Sometimes, not so rarely, we have both premises handed out to us and

have only to draw the conclusion. More often, we hear a person drawing

a conclusion from only one expressed premise, and try to make out what

the missing premise can be. Sometimes this is easy, as when one says,

"I like him because he is always cheerful", from which you see that

the person speaking must like cheerful persons. But if you hear it

said that such a one "cannot be a real thinker, he is so positive in

his opinions" or that another "is unfeeling and unsympathetic from

lack of a touch of cruelty in his nature", you may have to explore

about considerably before finding acceptable major premises from which

such conclusions can be deduced.

Finally, in asking what are the _qualifications of a good reasoner_ we

can help ourselves once more by reference to the syllogistic map. To

reason successfully on a given topic, you need good major premises,

good minor premises, and valid conclusions therefrom.

(a) A good stock of major premises is necessary, a good stock of rules

and principles acquired in previous experience. Without some knowledge

of a subject, you have only vague generalities to draw upon, and your

reasoning process will be slow and probably lead only to indefinite

conclusions. {479} Experience, knowledge, memory are important in

reasoning, though they do not by any means guarantee success.

(b) The "detective instinct" for finding the right clues, and

rejecting false leads, amounts to the same as sagacity in picking out

the useful minor premises. In problem solution, you have to find both

of your premises, and often the minor premise is the first to be found

and in turn recalls the appropriate major premise. Finding the minor

premise is a matter of observation, and if you fail to observe the

significant fact about the problem, the really useful major premise

may lie dormant, known and retained but not recalled, while false

clues suggest inapplicable major premises and give birth to plenty of

reasoning but all to no purpose. Some persons with abundant knowledge

are ineffective reasoners from lack of a sense for probability. The

efficient reasoner must be a good guesser.

(c) The reasoner needs a clear and steady mental eye, in order to see

the conclusion that is implicated in the premises. Without this, he

falls into confusion and fallacy, or fails, with the premises both

before him, to get the conclusion. The "clear and steady mental eye",

in less figurative language, means the ability to check hasty

responses to either premise alone, or to extraneous features of the

situation, so as to insure that "unitary response" to the combination

of premises which constitutes the perceptive act of inference.

{480}

EXERCISES

1. Outline the chapter.

2. In what respects does the animal's solution of a problem fall

short of reasoning?

3. Give a concrete instance of reasoning belonging under each of

the types mentioned in the text.

4. How is it that superstitions such as that of Friday being an

unlucky day persist? What would be the scientific way of testing

such a belief?

5. What causes tend to arouse belief, and what to arouse doubt?

6. Introspective study of the process of thinking. Attempt to

solve some of the following problems, and write down what you can

observe of the process.

(a) What is it that has four fingers and a thumb, but no flesh

or bone?

(b) Why does the full moon rise about sunset?

(c) If a book and a postage stamp together cost $1.02, and

the book costs $1.00 more than the stamp, how much does the

stamp cost?

(d) A riddle: "Sisters and brothers have I none, yet this

man's father is my father's son."

(e) Prove that a ball thrown horizontally over level ground will

strike the ground at the same time, no matter how hard it is

thrown.

(f) If no prunes are atherogenous, but some bivalves are

atherogenous, can you conclude that some prunes are not

bivalves?

(g) Deduce, as impersonally as possible, the opinion of you

held by some other person.

REFERENCES

William James, _Principles of Psychology_, 1890, Vol. II, pp. 325-371.

John Dewey, _How We Think_, 1910.

{481}

CHAPTER XIX

IMAGINATION

MENTAL AS DISTINGUISHED FROM MOTOR MANIPULATION

From discovery we now turn to invention, from exploration to manipulation.

The human enterprise of exploration, which we have examined under the

headings of perception and reasoning, as well as earlier under

attention, runs the gamut from simple exploratory movements of the

sense organs in looking and listening, to the elaborate scientific

procedure followed in testing hypotheses and discovering the laws of

nature. Inventive or manipulative activity runs a similar gamut from

the child's play with his toys to the creation of a work of art, the

designing of a work of engineering, the invention of a new machine, or

the organization of a new government. The distinction between the two

lines of activity is that exploration seeks what is there, and

manipulation changes it to something else. Exploration seeks the facts

as they exist, while invention modifies or rearranges the facts. The

two enterprises go hand in hand, however, since facts must be known to

be manipulated, while on the other hand manipulation of an object

brings to light facts about it that could never be discovered by

simple examination. Invention is based on science and also contributes

to the advance of science.

Manipulation and exploration certainly go hand in hand in the little

child's behavior. The baby picks up his new toy, turns it about and

examines it on all sides, shakes it and is pleased if it makes a

noise, drops it and is pleased {482} with its bang on the floor. This

is manipulation, certainly; but it is also a way of exploring the

properties of the toy.

Beginnings of Imagination in the Child

Beginning with grasping, turning, pushing, pulling, shaking and

dropping of objects, the child's manipulation develops in several

directions. One line of development leads to _manual skill_. The child

learns to manage his toys better.

A second line of development is in the direction of

_constructiveness_. Taking things apart and putting them together,

building blocks, assembling dolls and toy animals into "families" or

"parties" setting table or arranging toy chairs in a room, are

examples of this style of manipulation, which calls less for manual

dexterity than for seeing ways in which objects can be rearranged.

_Make-believe_ is a third direction followed in the development of

manipulation. The little boy puts together a row of blocks and pushes

it along the floor, asserting that it is a train of cars. The little

girl lays her doll carefully in its bed, saying "My baby's sick; that

big dog did bite him". This might be spoken of as "manipulating things

according to the meanings attached to them", the blocks being treated

as cars, and the doll as a sick baby.

Perhaps a little later than make-believe to make its appearance in the

child is _story-telling_ the fourth type of manipulation. Where in

make-believe he has an actual object to manipulate according to the

meaning attached to it, in story-telling he simply talks about persons

and things and makes them perform in his story. He comes breathless

into the house with a harrowing tale of being pursued by a

hippopotamus in the woods; or he gives a fantastic account of the

doings of his acquaintances. For this he is sometimes accused of being

a "little liar"--as indeed he {483} probably is when circumstances

demand--and sometimes, more charitably, he is described as being still

unable to distinguish observation from imagination; but really what he

has not yet grasped is the _social_ difference between his

make-believe, which no one objects to, and his story-telling, which

may lead people astray.

Both make-believe and story-telling are a great convenience to the

child, since he is able by their means to manipulate big and important

objects that he could not manage in sober reality. He thus finds an

outlet for tendencies that are blocked in sober reality--blocked by

the limitations of his environment, blocked by the opposition of other

people, blocked by his own weakness and lack of knowledge and skill.

Unable to go hunting in the woods, he can play hunt in the yard;

unable to go to war with the real soldiers, he can shoulder his toy

gun and campaign all about the neighborhood. The little girl of four

years, hearing her older brothers and sisters talk of their school,

has her own "home work" in "joggity", and her own graduation

exercises.

Preliminary Definition of Imagination

In such ways as we have been describing, the little child shows

"imagination", or mental manipulation. In story-telling the objects

manipulated are simply _thought of_; in make-believe, though there is

actual motor manipulation of present objects, the attached _meanings_

are the important matter; and in construction there is apt to be a

_plan_ in mind in advance of the motor manipulation, as when you look

at the furniture in a room and consider possible rearrangements.

The materials manipulated in imagination are usually facts previously

perceived, and to be available for mental {484} manipulation they must

now be recalled; but they are not merely recalled--they are rearranged

and give a new result that may never have been perceived. A typical

product of imagination is composed of parts perceived at different

times and later recalled and combined, as a centaur is composed of man

and horse, or a mermaid of woman and fish. Imagination is like

reasoning in being a mental reaction; but it differs from reasoning in

being manipulation rather than exploration; reasoning consists in

seeing relationships that exist between facts, and imagination in

putting facts into new relationships. These are but rough distinctions

and definitions; we shall try to do a little better after we have

examined a variety of imaginative performances.

"Imagination" and "invention" mean very much the same mental process,

though "imagination" looks rather to the mental process itself, and

"invention" more to the outcome of the process, which is a product

having some degree of novelty and originality.

Imagination, like association and like attention, is sometimes free,

and sometimes controlled. Controlled imagination is directed towards

the accomplishment of some desired result, while free imagination

wanders this way and that, with no fixed aim. Controlled imagination

is seen in planning and designing; free imagination occurs in moments

of relaxation, and may be called "play of the imagination". The free

variety, as the simpler, will be considered first.

Our study will have more point if we first remind ourselves what are

the psychological _problems to be attacked_ in studying any mental

activity. What is the _stimulus_ and what the _response?_ These are

the fundamental questions. But the study of response breaks up into

three subordinate questions, regarding the _tendency_ that is

awakened, regarding the {485} _end-result_ obtained, and regarding the

often complex _process_ or series of responses, that leads to the

end-result.

The response in imagination we have already defined, in a general way,

as mental manipulation, and the end-result as the placing of facts

into new combinations or relationships. The stimulus consists of the

facts, either perceived at the moment or recalled from past

perception, that are now freshly related or combined. The more precise

question regarding the stimulus is, then, as to what sort of facts

make us respond in an inventive or imaginative way; and the more

precise question regarding the end-result is as to what kind of

combinations or new relationships are given to the facts--both pretty

difficult questions. In regard to process, the great question is as to

how any one can possibly escape from the beaten track of instinct and

habit, and do anything new; and in regard to tendency the question is

as to what motives are awakened in inventive activity and what

satisfaction there is in the end-result. This last question, as to

_why_ we imagine, is about the easiest to answer.

Play

Free imagination was spoken of a moment ago as a kind of play; and we

might turn this about and say that play, usually if not always,

contains an element of imagination or invention. Sometimes the child

makes up new games, very simple ones of course, to fit the materials

he has to play with; but even when he is playing a regular game, he

has constantly to adapt himself to new conditions as the

game-situation changes. We may take the child's play as the first and

simplest case of free invention and ask our questions regarding it.

What are the child's play-stimuli (toys), how does he manipulate them,

what end-results does he reach, and what satisfaction does he derive

from {486} playing? We can ask these questions, but it is not so sure

that we can answer them.

_What is a toy?_ Anything to play with. But what characteristics of an

object make it a real toy, which shall actually arouse the play

response? First, it must be such that the child can move it; and

almost anything that he can move serves, one time or another, for a

plaything. But the surest stimulus is a _new_ toy, the element of

novelty and variety being important in arousing manipulation as it is

in arousing exploration. However, to define a toy simply as something

moveable, and also new if possible, fails to satisfy the spirit of

inquiry, and about the only way to progress further is to make a long

list of toys, and classify them from the psychological point of view.

Thus we get the following classes of play-stimuli:

Little models of articles used by adults, such as tools, furniture,

dishes; and we might include here dolls and toy animals. The child's

response to this class of toys is imitative. Some psychologists have

been so much impressed with the imitative play of children and animals

(as illustrated by puppies playing fight), that they have conceived of

all play as a sort of rehearsal for the serious business of life; but

this conception does not apply very well to some of the other sorts of

toy.

Noise-makers: rattle, drum, bell, horn, whistle, fire-cracker.

Things that increase your speed of locomotion, or that move you in

unusual ways, as bicycle, skate, sled, rocking-horse, swing, seesaw,

merry-go-round. Here belong also such sports as hopping, skipping,

jumping, dancing, skipping rope, vaulting, leapfrog, whirling,

somersault. The dizzy sensation resulting from stimulation of the

semicircular canals is evidently pleasant to young children, and some

of their sports seem aimed at securing a good measure of it.

{487}

Things that increase your radius of action; balls to throw or bat, bow

and arrow, sling, mirror used to throw sunlight into a distant

person's eyes; and we might include the bicycle here as well as in the

preceding class.

Things that resist the force of gravity, floating, soaring, balancing,

ascending, instead of falling; or that can be made to behave in this

way. Here we have a host of toys and sports: balloons, soap bubbles,

kites, rockets, boats, balls that bounce, tops that balance while they

spin, hoops that balance while they roll, arrows shot high into the

sky; climbing, walking on the fence, swimming, swinging, seesaw again.

Things that move in surprising ways or that are automatic: toy

windmills, mechanical toys.

Things that can be opened and shut or readjusted in some similar way:

a book to turn the leaves of, a door to swing or to hook and unhook, a

bag or box to pack or unpack, water taps to turn on or off (specially

on).

Plastic materials, damp sand, mud, snow; and other materials that can

be worked in some way, as paper to tear or fold, stones or blocks to

pile, load or build, water to splash or pour; and we might add here

fire, which nearly every one, child or adult, likes to manage.

Finally, playmates should really be included in a list of playthings,

since the presence of a playmate is often the strongest stimulus to

arouse play.

_Such being the stimulus, what is the play response?_ It consists in

manipulating or managing the plaything so as to produce some

interesting result. The hoop is made to roll, the kite to fly, the

arrow to hit something at a distance, the blocks are built into a

tower or knocked down with a crash, the mud is made into a "pie", the

horn is sounded. Many games are variations on pursuit and capture (or

escape): tag, hide-and-seek, prisoner's base, blind {488} man's buff,

football, and we might include chess and checkers here. Wrestling,

boxing, snowballing are variations on attack and defense. A great many

are variations on action at a distance, of which instances have

already been cited from children's toys; in adult games we find here

golf, croquet, bowling, quoits, billiards, shooting. Many games

emphasize motor skill, as skipping ropes, knife, cat's cradle, usually

however with competition in skill between the different players. This

element of manual skill enters of course into nearly all games. Mental

acuteness appears in the guessing games, as well as in chess and many

games of cards. Many games combine several of the elements mentioned,

as in baseball we have action at a distance, pursuit and escape, motor

skill and activity, and a chance for "head work".

The Play Motives

Now, what is the sense of games and toys, what satisfactions do they

provide? What instincts or interests are thrown into activity? There

is no one single "play instinct" that furnishes all the satisfaction,

but conceivably every natural and acquired source of satisfaction is

tapped in one play or another. In the games that imitate fighting,

some of the joy of fighting is experienced, even though no real anger

develops. In the games that imitate pursuit and escape, some of the

joy of hunting and some of the joy of escape are awakened. In the

"kissing games" that used to be common in young people's parties when

dancing was frowned upon, and in dancing itself, some gratification of

the sex instinct is undoubtedly present; but dancing also gives a

chance for muscular activity which is obviously one source of

satisfaction in the more active games. In fact, joy in motor activity

must be counted as one of the most general sources of

play-satisfaction. Another {489} general element is the love of social

activity, which we see in dancing as well as in nearly all games and

sports. Another, akin to the mere joy in motor activity, is the love

of manipulation, with which we began this whole discussion.

The "escape motive" deserves a little more notice. Though you would

say at first thought that no one could seek fear, and that this

instinct could not possibly be utilized in play, yet a great many

amusements are based on fear. The "chutes", "scenic railways", "roller

coasters", etc., of the amusement parks would have no attraction if

they had no thrill; and the thrill means fear. You get some of the

thrill of danger, though you know that the danger is not very real.

Probably the thrill itself would not be worth much, but being quickly

followed by _escape_, it is highly satisfactory. The joy of escape

more than pays for the momentary unpleasantness of fear. The fear

instinct is utilized also in coasting on the snow, climbing, swimming,

or any adventurous sport; in all of which there is danger, but the

skilful player escapes by his own efforts. If he lost control he would

get a tumble; and that is why the sport is exciting and worth while.

He has his fear in check, to be sure, but it is awakened enough to

make the escape from danger interesting. Nothing could be much further

from the truth than to consider fear as a purely negative thing,

having no positive contribution to make to human satisfaction. Though

we try to arrange the serious affairs of life so as to avoid danger as

much as possible, in play we seek such dangers as we can escape by

skilful work. The fascination of gambling and of taking various risks

probably comes from the satisfaction of the fear and escape motive.

But of all the "instincts", it is the self-assertive or masterful

tendency that comes in oftenest in play. Competition, one form of

self-assertion, is utilized in a tremendous number of games and

sports. Either the players compete {490} as individuals, or they

"choose sides" and compete as teams. No one can deny that the joy of

winning is the high light in the satisfaction of play. Yet it is not

the whole thing, for the game may have been worth while, even if you

lose. Provided you can say, "Though I did not win, I played a good

game", you have the satisfaction of having done well, which is the

mastery satisfaction in its non-competitive form.

When the baby gets a horn, he is not contented to have somebody else

blow it for him, but wants to blow it himself; and very pleased he is

with himself when he can make it speak. "See what _I_ can do!" is the

child's way of expressing his feelings after each fresh advance in the

mastery of his playthings. Great is the joy of the boy when he,

himself, can make his top spin or his kite fly; and great is the

girl's joy when she gets the knack of skipping a rope. Great is any

one's joy when, after his first floundering, he comes to ride a

bicycle, and the sense of power is enhanced in this case by covering

distance easily, and so being master of a larger environment. As boys,

I remember, we used to take great delight in the "apple thrower",

which was simply a flexible stick, sharpened at one end to hold a

green apple. With one's arm thus lengthened, the apple could be thrown

to extraordinary distances, and to see our apple go sailing over a

tall tree or striking the ground in the distance, gave a very

satisfying sense of power. All of those toys that enable you to act at

a distance, or to move rapidly, minister to the mastery impulse.

Imitative play does the same, in that it enables the child to perform,

in make-believe, the important deeds of adults. Children like to play

at being grown-up, whether by wearing long dresses or by smoking, and

it makes them feel important to do what the grown-ups do; you can

observe how important they feel by the way they strut and swagger.

{491}

All in all, there are several different ways of gratifying the

self-assertive or mastery impulse in play: always there is the toy or

game-situation to master and manage; often self-importance is

gratified by doing something big, either really or in make-believe;

and usually there is a competitor to beat.

Empathy

There is still another possible way in which play may gratify the

mastery impulse. Why do we like to see a kite flying? Of course, if it

is _our_ kite and we are flying it, the mastery impulse is directly

aroused and gratified; but we also like to watch a kite flown by some

one else, and similarly we like to watch a hawk, a balloon or

aëroplane, a rocket. We like also to watch things that balance or

float or in other ways seem to be superior to the force of gravity.

Why should such things fascinate us? Perhaps because of _empathy_, the

"feeling oneself into" the object contemplated. As "sympathy" means

"feeling with", "empathy" means "feeling into", and the idea is that

the observer projects himself into the object observed, and gets some

of the satisfaction from watching an object that he would get from

_being_ that object. Would it not be grand to be a kite, would it not

be masterful? Here we stand, slaves of the force of gravity, sometimes

toying with it for a moment when we take a dive or a coast, at other

times having to struggle against it for our very lives, and all the

time bound and limited by it--while the kite soars aloft in apparent

defiance of all such laws and limitations. Of course it fascinates us,

since watching it gives us, by empathy, some of the sense of power and

freedom that seems appropriate to the behavior of a kite. Perhaps the

fascination of fire is empathy of a similar sort; for fire is power.

Having thus found the mastery impulse here, there, and {492} almost

everywhere in the realm of play, we are tempted to assume a masterful

attitude ourselves and say, "Look you! We have discovered the one and

only play motive, which is none other than the instinct of

self-assertion". Thus we should be forgetting the importance in play

of danger and the escape motive, the importance of manipulation for

its own sake, and the importance of the mere joy in muscular and

mental activity. Also, we should be overlooking the occasional

presence of laughter, the occasional presence of sex attraction, and

the almost universal presence of the gregarious and other social

motives. Play gratifies many instincts, not merely a single one.

Further, it is very doubtful whether the whole satisfaction of play

activity can be traced to the instincts, anyway, for play may bring in

the native "likes and dislikes", which we saw [Footnote: See p. 180.]

to be irreducible to instinctive tendencies; and it may bring in

acquired likes and interests developed out of these native likes. Play

gives rise to situations that are interesting and attractive to the

players, though the attraction cannot be traced to any of the

instincts. The rhythm of dancing, marching, and of children's

sing-song games can scarcely be traced to any of the instincts.

The sociability of games goes beyond mere gregariousness, since it

calls for acting together and not simply for being together; and at

the same time it goes beyond competition and self-assertion, as is

seen in the satisfaction the players derive from good team work. It is

true that the individual player does not lay aside his self-assertion

in becoming a loyal member of a team; rather, he identifies himself

with the team, and finds in competition with the opposing team an

outlet for his mastery impulse. But at the same time it is obvious

that self-assertion would be still more fully gratified by man-to-man

contests; and therefore the {493} usual preference of a group of

people for "choosing sides" shows the workings of some other motive

than self-assertion. The fact seems to be that coördinated group

activity is an independent source of satisfaction.

If the self-assertive impulse of an individual player is too strongly

aroused, he spoils the game, just as an angry player spoils a friendly

wrestling match or snowball fight, and just as a thoroughly frightened

passenger spoils a trip down the rapids, which was meant to be simply

thrilling. The instincts are active in play, but they must not be too

active, for human play is an activity carried on well above the

instinctive level, and dependent on motives that cannot wholly be

analyzed in terms of the instincts.

Day Dreams

Daydreaming is a sort of play, more distinctly imaginative than most

other play. Simply letting the mind run, as in the instances cited

under free association, where A makes you think of B and B of C, and

so on--this is not exactly daydreaming, since there is no "dream", no

castle in the air nor other construction, but simply a passing from

one recalled fact to another. In imaginative daydreaming, facts are

not simply recalled but are rearranged or built together into a story

or "castle" or scheme. A daydream typically looks toward the future,

as a plan for possible doing; only, it is not a serious plan for the

future--which would be controlled imagination--nor necessarily a plan

which could work in real life, but merely play of imagination. If we

ask the same questions here as we did regarding child's play, we find

again that it is easier to define the end-result and the source of

satisfaction in daydreaming than it is to define the stimulus or the

exact nature of the imaginative process.

{494}

Daydreams have some motive force behind them, as can be judged from

the absorption of the dreamer in his dream, and also from an

examination of the end-results of this kind of imagination. Daydreams

usually have a _hero_ and that hero is usually the dreamer's self.

Sometimes one is the conquering hero, and sometimes the suffering

hero, but in both cases the recognized or unrecognized merit of

oneself is the big fact in the story, so that the mastery motive is

evidently finding satisfaction here as well as in other forms of play.

Probably the conquering hero dream is the commoner and healthier

variety. A classical example is that of the milkmaid who was carrying

on her head a pail of milk she had been given. "I'll sell this milk

for so much, and with the money buy a hen. The hen will lay so many

eggs, worth so much, for which I will buy me a dress and cap. Then the

young men will wish to dance with me, but I shall spurn them all with

a toss of the head." Her dream at this point became so absorbing as to

get hold of the motor system and call out the actual toss of the

head--but we are not after the moral just now; we care simply for the

dream as a very true sample of many, many daydreams. Such dreams are a

means of getting for the moment the satisfaction of some desire,

without the trouble of real execution; and the desire gratified is

very often some variety of self-assertion. Sometimes the hero is not

the dreamer's self, but some one closely identified with himself. The

mother is prone to make her son the hero of daydreams and so to

gratify her pride in him.

The "suffering hero" daydream seems at first thought inexplicable, for

why should any one picture himself as having a bad time, as

misunderstood by his best friends, ill-treated by his family, jilted

by his best girl, unsuccessful in his pet schemes? Why should any one

make believe to be worse off than he is; what satisfaction can that

{495} be to him? Certainly, one would say, the mastery motive could

not be active here. And yet--do we not hear children _boasting_ of

their misfortunes? "Pooh! That's only a little scratch; I've got a

real deep cut." My cut being more important than your scratch makes

me, for the moment, more important than you, and gives me a chance to

boast over you. Older people are known sometimes to magnify their own

ailments, with the apparent aim of enhancing their own importance.

Perhaps the same sort of motive underlies the suffering hero daydream.

I am smarting, let us suppose, from a slight administered by my

friend; my wounded self-assertion demands satisfaction. It was a very

little slight, and I should make myself ridiculous if I showed my

resentment. But in imagination I magnify the injury done me, and go on

to picture a dreadful state of affairs, in which my friend has treated

me very badly indeed, and perhaps deserted me. Then I should not be

ridiculous, but so deeply wronged as to be an important person, one to

be talked about; and thus my demand for importance and recognition is

gratified by my daydream.

Usually the suffering hero pictures himself as in the right, and

animated by the noblest intentions, though misunderstood, and thus

further enhances his self-esteem; but sometimes he takes the other

tack and pictures himself as wicked--but as very, very wicked, a

veritable desperado. It may be his self-esteem has been wounded by

blame for some little meanness or disobedience, and he restores it by

imagining himself a great, big, important sinner instead of a small

and ridiculous one. In adolescence, the individual's growing demand

for independence is often balked by the continued domination of his

elders, and he rebelliously plans quite a career of crime for himself.

He'll show them! They won't be so pig-headedly complacent when they

know they have driven him to the bad. You can tell by the looks of

{496} a person whose feelings are hurt that he is imagining something;

usually he is imagining himself either a martyr or a desperado, or

some other kind of suffering hero, often working up into a conquering

hero in the end, when, his self-esteem restored, he is ready to be

friends again. The suffering hero daydream is a "substitute reaction",

taking the place of a fight or some other active self-assertion. The

conquering hero daydream is often motivated in the same way; for

example, our friend the milkmaid would not have been so ready to scorn

the young men with a toss of the head if she had not been feeling her

own actual inferiority and lack of fine clothes. The daydream makes

good, in one way or another, for actual inability to get what we

desire. The desire which is gratified in the play of imagination

belongs very often indeed under the general head of self-assertion;

but when one is in love it is apt to belong under that head. Love

dreams of the agreeable sort need no further motivation; but the

unpleasant, jealous type of love dream is at the same time a suffering

hero dream, and certainly involves wounded self-assertion along with

the sexual impulse. Probably the self-asserting daydream is the

commonest variety, take mankind as a whole, with the love dream next

in order of frequency. But there are many other sorts. There is the

humor daydream, illustrated by the young person who suddenly breaks

into a laugh and when you ask why replies that she was thinking how

funny it would be if, etc., etc. She is very fond of a good laugh, and

not having anything laughable actually at hand proceeds to imagine

something. So, a music lover may mentally rehearse a piece when he has

no actual music to enjoy; and if he has some power of musical

invention, he may amuse himself, in idle moments, by making up music

in his head; just as one who has some ability in decorative design may

fill his idle moments by concocting new designs on paper. {497} When

vacation time approaches, it is hard for any one, student or

professor, to keep the thoughts from dwelling on the good times ahead,

and getting some advance satisfaction. Thus all kinds of desires are

gratified in imagination.

Worry

Do we have fear daydreams, as we have amusements utilizing the fear

and escape motive? Yes, sometimes we imagine ourselves in danger and

plan out an escape. One individual often amuses himself by imagining

he is arrested and accused of some crime, and figuring out how he

could establish an alibi or otherwise prove his innocence. But fear

daydreams also include _worry_, which seems at first to be an

altogether unpleasant state of mind, forced upon us and not indulged

in as most daydreams are. Yet, as the worry is often entirely

needless, it cannot be said to be forced upon a person, but must have

some motive. There must be some satisfaction in it, in spite of all

appearance.

Some abnormal cases of worry suggest the theory that the fear is but a

cloak for unacknowledged desire. Take this extreme case. A young man,

"tied to the apron-strings" of a too affectionate and too domineering

mother, has a strong desire to break loose and be an independent unit

in the world; but at the same time, being much attached to his mother,

he is horrified by this desire. She goes on a railroad journey without

him--just an ordinary journey with no special danger--but all the time

she is away he is in an agony of suspense lest the train may be

wrecked. Such an abnormal degree of worry calls for explanation.

Well--did not the worry perhaps conceal a wish, a wish that the train

_might_ be wrecked? So he would be set free without any painful effort

on his part; and he {498} was a young man who shrank from all effort.

The psychopathologist who studied the case concluded that this was

really the explanation of the worry.

If, however, we take such extreme cases as typical and cynically apply

this conception to all worries, we shall make many mistakes. A student

worries unnecessarily about an examination; therefore, he desires to

fail. A mother worries because her child is late in getting home;

therefore, she wants to be rid of that child. Thus, by being too

psychopathological, we reach many absurd conclusions in everyday life;

for it is the child that is loved that is worried over, and it is the

examination that the student specially wishes to pass that he fears he

has flunked.

Worry is a sort of substitute reaction, taking the place of real

action when no real action is possible. The student has done all he

can do; he has prepared for the examination, and he has taken the

examination; now there is nothing to do except wait; so that the

rational course would be to dismiss the matter from his mind; if he

cannot accomplish that, but must do something, then the only thing he

can do is to speculate and worry. So also the mother, in her

uncertainty regarding her child, is impelled to action, and if she

knew of any real thing to do she would do it and not worry; but there

is nothing to do, except in imagination. Worry is fundamentally due to

the necessity of doing something with any matter that occupies our

mind; it is an imaginative substitute for real action.

But worry may be something of an indoor sport as well. Consider

this--if the mother really believed her child had fallen into the

pond, she would rush to pull him out; but while she is worrying for

fear he may have fallen in, she remains at home. Really she expects to

see him come home any minute, but by conjuring up imaginary dangers

she is getting ready to make his home-coming a great relief instead

{499} of a mere humdrum matter. She is "shooting the chutes", getting

the thrill of danger with escape fully expected.

The normal time for a daydream is the time when there is no real act

to be performed. A strong man uses it as the amusement of an idle

moment and promptly forgets it. But one who is lacking in force,

especially the personal force needed in dealing with other people, may

take refuge in daydreams as a substitute for real doing. Instead of

hustling for the money he needs he may, like Micawber, charm himself

with imagining the good opportunities that may turn up. Instead of

going and making love to the lady of his choice, he shyly keeps away

from her and merely dreams of winning her. He substitutes imaginary

situations for the real facts of his life, and gratifies his mastery

motive by imaginary exploits. He invents imaginary ailments to excuse

his lack of real deeds. He conjures up imaginary dangers to worry

over. All this is abuse of imagination.

Dreams

Let us turn now from daydreams to dreams of the night. These also are

play of imagination, even freer from control and criticism than the

daydream. In sleep the cortical brain functions sink to a low level,

and perhaps cease altogether in the deepest sleep. Most of the dreams

that are coherent enough to be recalled probably occur just after we

have gone to sleep or just before we wake up, or at other times when

sleep is light. At such times the simpler and more practised

functions, such as recall of images, can go on, though criticism, good

judgment, reasoning, and all that sort of delicate and complex

activity, do not occur. Daytime standards of probability, decorum,

beauty, wit, and excellence of any sort are in abeyance; consistency

is thrown to the winds, the scenes being shifted in the middle of a

{500} speech, and a character who starts in as one person merging

presently into somebody else. Dreams follow the definition of

imagination or invention, in that materials recalled from different

contexts are put together into combinations and rearrangements never

before experienced. The combinations are often bizarre and

incongruous.

Perhaps the most striking characteristic of dreams is their seeming

reality while they last. They seem real in spite of their incongruity,

because of the absence of critical ability during sleep. In waking

life, when the sight of one object reminds me of another and calls up

an image of that other, I know that the image is an image, and I know

I have thought of two different things. In sleep the same recall by

association occurs, but the image is forthwith accepted as real; and

thus things from different sources get together in the same dream

scene, and a character who reminds us of another person forthwith

becomes that other person. We are not mentally active enough in sleep

to hold our images apart. Associative recall, with blending of the

recalled material, and with entire absence of criticism, describes the

process of dreaming.

What is the _stimulus_, to which the dream responds? Sometimes there

is an actual sensory stimulus, like the alarm clock or a stomach ache;

and in this case the dream comes under the definition of an illusion;

it is a false perception, more grotesquely false than most illusions

of the day. A boy wakes up one June morning from a dream of the Day of

Judgement, with the last trump pealing forth and blinding radiance all

about--only to find, when fully awake, that the sun is shining in his

face and the brickyard whistle blowing the hour of four-thirty a.m.

This was a false perception. More often, a dream resembles a daydream

in being a _train of thoughts and images_ without much relation to

present sensory stimuli; and then the dream {501} would come under the

definition of hallucination instead of illusion.

Sometimes a sensory stimulus breaks in upon a dream that is in

progress, and is interpreted in the light of this dream. In one

experiment, the dreamer, who was an authoress, was in the midst of a

dream in which she was discussing vacation plans with a party of

friends, when the experimenter disturbed her by declaiming a poem; in

her dream this took the form of a messenger from her publisher,

reciting something about a contract which seemed a little disturbing

but which she hoped (in the dream) would not interfere with her

vacation. Maury, an early student of this topic, was awakened from a

feverish dream of the French Revolution by something falling on his

neck; this, under the circumstances, he took to be the guillotine.

Now, _why_ is a dream? What satisfaction does it bring to the dreamer?

Or shall we say that it is merely a mechanical play of association,

with no motivation behind it? Dreams are interesting while they last,

sometimes fearful, sometimes angry, sometimes amorous, otherwise not

very emotional but distinctly interesting, so that many people hate to

have a dream broken up by awaking. It seems likely, then, that dreams

are like daydreams in affording gratification to desires. They are

"wish-fulfilling", to borrow a term from Freud's theory of dreams,

soon to be considered.

A boy dreams repeatedly of finding whole barrels of assorted

jackknives, and is bitterly disappointed every time to awake and find

the knives gone; so that finally he questions the reality of the

dream, but pinching himself (in the dream) concludes he must be awake

this time. An adult frequently dreams of finding money, first a nickel

in the dust, and then a quarter close by, and then more and more, till

he wakes up and spoils it all. Such dreams are {502} obviously

wish-fulfilling, as are also the sex dreams of sexually abstinent

persons, or the feasting dreams of starving persons, or the polar

explorer's recurring dream of warm, green fields. An eminent

psychologist has given a good account of a dream which he had while

riding in an overcrowded compartment of a European train, with the

window closed and himself wedged in tightly far from the window. In

this uncomfortable situation he dropped asleep and dreamed that he had

the seat next to the window, had the window open and was looking out

at a beautiful landscape. In all these cases _the wish gratified in

the dream is one that has been left unsatisfied in the daytime_, and

this is according to the famous passage, slightly paraphrased, "What a

man hath, why doth he yet dream about?" The newly married couple do

not dream of each other. We seldom dream of our regular work, unless

for some reason we are disturbed over it. The tendencies that are

satisfied during the day do not demand satisfaction in dreams; but any

tendency that is aroused during the day without being able to reach

its conclusion is likely to come to the surface in a dream.

Any sort of desire or need, left unsatisfied in the day, may motivate

a dream. Desire for food, warmth, sex gratification, air, money, etc.,

have been exemplified in dreams already cited. Curiosity may be the

motive, as in the case of an individual, who, having just come to live

in Boston, was much interested in its topography, and who saw one day

a street car making off in what seemed to him a queer direction, so

that he wondered where it could be going and tried unsuccessfully to

read its sign. The next night he dreamed of seeing the car near at

hand and reading the sign, which, though really consisting of nonsense

names, satisfied his curiosity during the dream.

The mastery motive, so prominent in daydreams, can be detected also in

many sleep dreams. There are dreams in {503} which we do big

things--tell excruciatingly funny jokes, which turn out when recalled

next day to be utterly flat; or improvise the most beautiful music,

which we never can recall with any precision, but which probably

amounted to nothing; or play the best sort of baseball. The gliding or

flying dream, which many people have had, reminds one of the numerous

toys and sports in which defiance of gravity is the motive; and

certainly it gives you a sense of power and freedom to be able, in a

dream, to glide gracefully up a flight of stairs, or step with ease

from the street upon the second-story balcony. One dream which at

first thought cannot be wish-fulfilling perhaps belongs under the

mastery motive: The dreamer sees people scurrying to cover, looks up

and sees a thunderstorm impending; immediately he is struck by

lightning and knocked down in the street; but he finds he can rise and

walk home, and seems to have suffered no harm except for a black

blotch around one eye. Now, any man who could take lightning that way

would be proud to wear the scar. So the dream was wish-fulfilling, and

the wish involved was, as often, the self-assertive impulse.

This last dream is a good one, however, for pointing another moral. We

need not suppose that the dreamer was aiming at the denouement from

the beginning of the dream. Dreams have no plot in most instances;

they just drift along, as one thing suggests another. The sight of

people running to cover suggested a thunderstorm, and that suggested

that "I might get struck", as it would in the daytime. Now, the dream

mentality, being short on criticism, has no firm hold on "may be" and

"might be", but slides directly into the present indicative. The

thought of being struck is _being_ struck, in a dream. So we do not

need to suppose that the dreamer pictured himself as struck by

lightning in order to have the satisfaction of coming off {504} whole

and bragging of the exploit. In large measure the course of a dream is

determined by free association; but the mastery motive and other

easily awakened desires act as a sort of bias, facilitating certain

outcomes and inhibiting others.

But there are unpleasant dreams, as well as pleasant. There are fear

dreams, as well as wish dreams. A child who is afraid of snakes and

constantly on the alert against them when out in the fields during the

day, dreams repeatedly of encountering a mass of snakes and is very

much frightened in his sleep. Another child dreams of wolves or

tigers. A person who has been guilty of an act from which bad

consequences are possible dreams that those consequences are realized.

The officer suffering from nervous war strain, or "shell shock", often

had nightmares in which he was attacked and worsted by the enemy.

Since Freud has never admitted that dreams could be fear-motived,

holding that here, as in worry, the fear is but a cloak for a positive

desire, some of his followers have endeavored to interpret these

shell-shock nightmares as meaning a desire to be killed and so escape

from the strain. To be consistent, they would have also to hold that

the child, who of all people is the most subject to terrifying dreams,

secretly desires death, though not avowing this wish even to himself.

This would be pushing consistency rather far, and it is better to

admit that there are real fear dreams, favored by indigestion or

nervous strain, but sometimes occurring simply by the recall of a

fear-stimulus in the same way that anything is recalled, i.e., through

association.

A large share of dreams does not fit easily into any of the classes

already described. They seem too fantastic to have any personal

meaning. Yet they are interesting to the dreamer, and they would be

worth going to see if they could be reproduced and put on the stage.

Isn't that sufficient {505} excuse for them? May they not be simply a

free play of imagination that gives interesting results because of its

very freedom from any control or tendency, and because of the

vividness of dream imagery?

Freud's Theory of Dreams

Just at this point we part company with Freud, whose ideas on dreams

as wish-fulfilments we have been following, in the main. Not that

Freud would OK our account of dreams up to this point. Far from it. It

would seem to him on too superficial a level altogether, dealing as it

does with conscious wishes and with straightforward fulfilments. It

has left out of account the "Unconscious" and its symbolisms. The

Freudian would shake his head at our interpretation of the lightning

dream, and say, "Oh, there is a good deal more in that dream. We

should have to analyze that dream, by letting the dreamer dwell on

each item of it and asking himself what of real personal significance

the stroke of lightning or the scar around the eye suggested to him.

He would never be able by his unaided efforts to find the unconscious

wishes fulfilled in the dream, but under the guidance of the

psychoanalyst, who is a specialist in all matters pertaining to the

Unconscious, he may be brought to realize that his dream is the

symbolic expression of wishes that are unconscious because they have

been suppressed".

The Unconscious, according to Freud, consists of forbidden

wishes--wishes forbidden by the "Censor", which represents the moral

and social standards of the individual and his critical judgment

generally. When the Censor suppresses a wish, it does not peaceably

leave the system but sinks to an unconscious state in which it is

still active and liable to make itself felt in ways that get by the

Censor because they are disguised and symbolic. An abnormal worry

{506} is such a disguise, a queer idea that haunts the nervous person

is another, "hysterical" paralysis or blindness is another.

In normal individuals the dream life is held by Freud to be the chief

outlet for the suppressed wishes; for then the Censor sleeps and "the

mice can play". Even so, they dare not show themselves in their true

shape and color, but disguise themselves in innocent-appearing

symbolism. That lightning may stand for something much more personal.

Let your mind play about that "being knocked down by lightning and

getting up again", and ask yourself what experience of childhood it

calls up.--Well, I remember the last time my father whipped me and I

came through defiant, without breaking down as I always had before on

similar occasions.--Yes, now we are on the track of something. The

lightning symbolizes your father and his authority over you, which as

a child you resented. You were specially resentful at your father's

hold on your mother, whom you regarded as yours, your father being a

rival with an unfair advantage. Your sex impulse was directed towards

your mother, when you were a mere baby, but you soon came to see (how,

Freud has never clearly explained) that this was forbidden, and that

your father stood in the way. You resented this, you hated your

father, while at the same time you may have loved him, too; so this

whole complex and troublesome business was suppressed to the

Unconscious, whence it bobs up every night in disguise. You may dream

of the death of some one, and on analysis that some one is found to

represent your father, whom as a child you secretly wished out of the

way; or that some one may stand for your younger brother, against whom

you, had a standing grudge because he had usurped your place as the

pet of the family. These childish wishes are the core of the

Unconscious and help to motivate all dreams, but more recently

suppressed {507} wishes may also be gratified in dream symbolism. A

man may "covet his neighbor's wife", but this is forbidden, unworthy,

and false to the neighbor who is also his friend. The wish is

disavowed, suppressed, not allowed in the waking consciousness; but it

gratifies itself symbolically in a dream; the neighbor's wife not

appearing at all in the dream, but the neighbor's automobile instead,

which the neighbor cannot run properly, while the dreamer manages it

beautifully.

Freud has claimed the dream as his special booty, and insists that all

dreams are wish-fulfilments, even those that seem mere fantastic play

of imagination, since, as he sees it, no mental activity could occur

except to gratify some wish. Further, he holds, most if not all dreams

are fulfilments of suppressed wishes, and these are either sex or

spite wishes, the spite wishes growing out of the interference of

other people with our sex wishes.

The objection to Freud's theory of dreams is, first, that he fails to

see how easy-running the association or recall mechanism is. It isn't

necessary to look for big, mysterious driving forces, when we know

that A makes you think of B, and B of C, with the greatest ease. The

dreamer isn't laboring, he is idly playing, and his images come

largely by free association, with personal desires giving some steer.

Another objection is that Freud overdoes the Unconscious; suppressed

wishes are usually not so unconscious as he describes them; they are

unavowed, unnamed, unanalyzed, but conscious for all that. It is not

so much the unconscious wish that finds outlet in dreams and

daydreams, as the unsatisfied wish, which may be perfectly conscious.

Another very serious objection to Freud is that he overdoes the sex

motive or "libido". He says there are two main tendencies, that of

self-preservation and that of reproduction, but that the former is

ordinarily not much subject to suppression, while the latter is very

much under the {508} social ban. Consequently the Unconscious consists

mostly of suppressed sex wishes. Evidently, however, Freud's analysis

of human motives is very incomplete. He does not clearly recognize the

self-assertive tendency, which, as a matter of fact, is subjected to

much suppression from early childhood all through life, and which

undoubtedly has as much to do with dreams, as it has with daydreams.

Freud has given an "impressionistic" picture, very stimulating and

provocative of further exploration, but by no means to be accepted as

a true and complete map of the region.

Autistic Thinking

Dreaming, whether awake or asleep, is free imagination. It does not

have to check up with any standard. So long as it is interesting at

the moment and gratifies the dreamer in any way, it serves its

purpose. Sometimes the daydreamer exercises some control, breaking off

a spiteful or amorous dream because he thinks it had better not be

indulged; but in this he ceases to be simply a daydreamer.

Daydreaming, by itself, is an example of what is called "autistic

thinking", which means thinking that is sufficient unto itself, and

not subjected to any criticism. Autistic thinking gratifies some

desire and that is enough for it. It does not submit to criticism from

other persons nor from other tendencies of the individual, nor does it

seek to square itself with the real world.

Autistic thinking, indulged in by every imaginative person in moments

of relaxation, is carried to an absurd extreme by some types of insane

individuals. One type withdraws so completely from reality as to be

inaccessible in the way of conversation, unresponsive to anything that

happens, entirely immersed in inner imaginings. Others, while living

in the world about them, transform it into a make-believe {509} world

by attaching meanings to things and persons as suits themselves. This

institution, in which the subject is confined, is his royal palace,

the doctors are his officials, the nurses his wives, "thousands of

them, the most beautiful women in creation". Or the delusion may take

the line of the "suffering hero", the subject imagining himself a

great man shut up in this place by the machinations of his enemies;

the doctors are spies and enemy agents, and the nurses also act

suspiciously; his food is poisoned, and he is kept in a weak and

helpless condition, all out of fear of him. It is impossible to argue

the patient out of his delusions by pointing out to him how clearly

they conflict with reality; he evades any such test by some

counter-argument, no matter how flimsy, and sticks to his dream or

make-believe.

Autistic thinking is contrasted with realistic thinking, which seeks

to check up with real facts; it may be contrasted also with socialized

thinking, which submits to the criticism of other people; and it may

even be contrasted with self-criticized thinking, in which the

individual scrutinizes what he has imagined, to see whether it is on

the whole satisfactory to himself, or whether it simply gratified a

single or momentary impulse that should be balanced off by other

tendencies.

Invention and Criticism

"Criticism"--the word has been used repeatedly, and it is time it gave

an account of itself. Criticism evidently demands balancing off one

desire by another. One tendency gets criticized by running afoul of

another tendency, one idea by conflicting with another idea. We

concoct a fine joke to play on our friend; but then the thought comes

to us that he may not take it kindly; we don't want to break with our

friend, and so we regretfully throw our promising invention on the

scrap heap. That is self-criticism, the {510} balancing off of one

impulse by another. Self-criticism is obnoxious to the natural man,

who prefers to follow out any tendency that has been aroused till it

reaches its goal; but he learns self-criticism in the hard school of

experience. For plenty of criticism is directed upon the individual

from without.

Criticism is directed upon him by the facts of the real world, so soon

as he tries to act out what he has imagined. Often his invention will

not work, his plan does not succeed, and he is involved in chagrin and

even pain. He must perforce cast away his plan and think up a new one.

At this point the "weak brother" is tempted to give up trying, and

take refuge in autistic thinking, but the stronger individual accepts

the challenge of reality. He sees that an invention is not

satisfactory unless it will really work, and sets about learning what

will work and what not, so accumulating observations that later enable

him to criticize his own ideas, to some extent, before trying them out

on real things.

Criticism is directed upon the individual from the side of other

people, who from the day he first begins to tell his childish

imaginings, are quite free with their objections. Humiliated by this

critical reception of his ideas, the individual may resolve to keep

them to himself for the future, and draw away, again, towards autistic

thinking; or, more forcefully, he may exert himself to find some idea

that will command the approval of other people. If he can take rebuffs

goodnaturedly, he soon finds that social criticism can be a great

help, that two heads are better than one in planning any invention

that needs to work. He accumulates knowledge of what will pass muster

when presented to other people, and thus again learns self-criticism.

Self-criticism is helped by such rules as to "think twice", to "sleep

on it before deciding", to "drop the matter for a time and come back

to it and see whether it still looks {511} the same". When you are all

warmed up over an idea, its recency value gives it such an advantage

over opposing ideas that they have no chance, for the moment, of

making themselves felt in the line of criticism.

I once heard the great psychologist, and great writer, William James,

make a remark that threw some light on his mode of writing. In the

evening, he said, after warming up to his subject, he would write on

and on till he had exhausted the lead he was following, and lay the

paper aside with the feeling, "Good! Good! That's good". The next

morning, he said, it might not seem good at all. This calls to mind

the old advice to writers about its being "better to compose with fury

and correct with phlegm than to compose with phlegm and correct with

fury". The phlegmatic critical attitude interferes considerably with

the enthusiastic inventive activity. Give invention free rein for the

time being, and come around with criticism later.

Some over-cautious and too self-critical persons, though rather

fertile in ideas, never accomplish much in the way of invention

because they cannot let themselves go. Criticism is always at their

elbow, suggesting doubts and alternatives and preventing progress in

the creative activity, instead of biding its time and coming in to

inspect the completed result. For a similar reason, much of the best

inventive work--writing, for example, or painting--is done in

prolonged periods of intense activity, which allow time for invention

to get warmed to its task, when it takes the bit in its teeth and

dashes off at a furious speed, leaving criticism to trail along

behind.

Invention in the service of art or of economic and social needs is

controlled imagination, realistic, socialized, subjected to criticism.

It cannot afford to be autistic, but must meet objective or social

standards. Mechanical inventions must work when translated into

matter-of-fact wood and iron, and {512} must also pass the social test

of being of some use. Social inventions of the order of institutions,

laws, political platforms and slogans, plans of campaign, must "work"

in the sense of bringing the desired response from the public. Social

imagination of the very important sort suggested by the proverbs,

"Seeing ourselves as others see us", or "Putting ourselves in the

other fellow's place"--for it is only by imagination that we can thus

get outside of our own experience and assume another point of

view--must check up with the real sentiments of other people.

The Enjoyment of Imaginative Art

It requires imagination to enjoy art as well as to produce it. The

producer of the work of art puts the stimuli before you, but you must

make the response yourself, and it is an inventive response, not a

mere repetition of some response you have often made. The novelist

describes a character for you, and you must respond by putting

together the items in the description so as to conceive of a character

you have never met. The painter groups his figures before you, but you

must get the point of the picture for yourself. The musical composer

provides a series of chords, but you must get the "hang" of the

passage for yourself, and if he has introduced a novel effect, it may

not be easy to find any beauty in it, at least on the first hearing.

Art, from the consumer's side, is play. It is play of the imagination,

with the materials conveniently presented by the artist. Now, as art

is intended to appeal to a consumer (or enjoyer), the question as to

sources of satisfaction in the enjoyment of art is fundamental in the

whole psychology of art, production as well as consumption.

We have the same questions to ask regarding the enjoyment of a _novel_

as regarding a daydream. Novel-reading is daydreaming with the

materials provided by the {513} author, and gratifies the same

motives. A novel to be really popular must have a genuine hero or

heroine--some one with whom the reader can identify himself. The

frequency of novels in which the hero or heroine is a person of high

rank, or wins rank or wealth in the course of the story, is a sign of

appeal to the mastery motive. The humble reader is tickled in his own

self-esteem by identifying himself for the time with the highborn or

noble or beautiful character in the story. The escape motive also is

relied upon to furnish the excitement of the story, which always

brings the hero into danger or difficulty and finally rescues him,

much to the reader's relief. Love stories appeal, of course, to the

sex impulse, humorous stories to laughter, and mystery stories to

curiosity. Cynical stories, showing the "pillars of society" in an

ignoble light, appeal to the self-assertive impulse of the reader, in

that he is led to apply their teaching to pretentious people whom he

knows about, and set them down a peg, to his own relative advancement.

But here again we have to insist, as under the head of sports and

daydreams, that interests of a more objective kind are also gratified

by a good work of fiction. A story that runs its logical course to a

tragic end is interesting as a good piece of workmanship, and as an

insight into the world. We cannot heartily identify ourselves with

Hamlet or Othello, yet we should be sorry to have those figures erased

from our memories; they mean something, they epitomize world-facts

that compel our attention.

The appeal of art is partly emotional.

A very great work of art, the Apollo Belvedere or the Sistine Madonna,

when you suddenly come upon it in walking through a gallery, may move

you almost or quite to tears. Beautiful music, and not necessarily sad

music either, has the same effect. Why this particular emotion should

be aroused is certainly an enigma. "Crying because you are so happy"

is similar {514} but itself rather inexplicable. In many other cases,

the emotional appeal of art is easily analyzed. The pathetic appeals

straightforwardly to the grief impulse, the humorous to the laughter

impulse, the tragic to fear and escape. The sex motive is frequently

utilized in painting and sculpture as well as in literature.

Art makes also an intellectual appeal.

It is satisfying partly because of this appeal, as is clear when we

remember that many great works of art require mental effort in order

to grasp and appreciate them. You must be wide-awake to follow a play

of Shakespeare; you must puzzle out the meaning of a group painting

before fully enjoying it; you must study some of the detail of a

Gothic cathedral before getting the full effect; music may be too

"classical" for many to grasp and follow. Unless, then, the artist has

made a great mistake, the mental activity which he demands from his

public must contribute to the satisfaction they derive from his works.

If his appeal were simply to their emotions, any intellectual labor

would be a disturbing element. The intellectual appeal is partly to

objective interests in the thing presented, partly to interest in the

workmanship, and partly to the mastery motive in the form of problem

solution.

Perhaps we do not often think of a fine painting or piece of music as

a problem set us for solution, but it is that, and owes part of its

appeal to its being a problem. To "get the hang of" a work of art

requires some effort and attention; if the problem presented is too

difficult for us, the work of art is dry; if too easy, it is tame.

The mastery motive is probably as important in the enjoyment of art as

it is in play and dreaming. It comes in once in the joy of mastering

the significance of the work of art, and again in self-identification

with the fine characters portrayed.

{515}

Empathy in art enjoyment.

At first thought, some forms of art, as architecture, seem incapable

of making the just-mentioned double appeal to the mastery motive.

Architecture can certainly present problems for the beholder to solve,

but how can the beholder possibly identify himself with a tower or

arch? If, however, we remember the "empathy" that we spoke of under

the head of play, we see that the beholder may project himself into

the object, unintentionally of course, and thus perhaps get

satisfaction of his mastery impulse.

Look at a pillar, for example. If the pillar is too massive for the

load supported, it gives you the unsatisfactory impression of doing

something absurdly small for your powers. If on the contrary the

pillar is too slender for the load that seems to rest upon it, you get

the feeling of strain and insecurity; but if it is rightly

proportioned, you get the feeling of a worthy task successfully

accomplished. The pillar, according to empathy, pleases you by

arousing and gratifying your mastery impulse; and many other

architectural effects can be interpreted in the same way.

Empathy can perhaps explain the appeal of the _big_ in art and nature.

In spite of the warnings put forth against thinking of mere bigness as

great or fine, we must admit that size makes a very strong appeal to

something in human nature. The most perfect miniature model of a

cathedral, however interesting and attractive as it rests on the table

before you, fails to make anything like the impression that is made by

the giant building towering above you. Big trees, lofty cliffs, grand

canyons, tremendous waterfalls, huge banks of clouds, the illimitable

expanse of the sea, demonstrate cogently the strong appeal of the big.

Perhaps the big is not necessarily grand, but the grand or sublime

must be big or somehow suggest bigness. The question is, then, what it

is in us that responds to the appeal of the big.

{516}

Perhaps it is the submissive tendency that is aroused. This great

mountain, so far outclassing me that I am not tempted in the least to

compete with it, affords me the joy of willing submission. The escape

motive may come in along with submissiveness--at the first sight of

the mountain a thrill of fear passes over me, but I soon realize that

the mountain will not hurt me in spite of its awe-inspiring vastness;

so that my emotion is blended of the thrill of fear, the relief of

escape, and the humble joy of submission. That is one analysis of the

esthetic effect of bigness.

Empathy suggests a very different analysis. According to this,

projecting myself into the mountain, identifying myself with it, I

experience the sensation of how it feels to be a mountain. It feels

big--I feel big. My mastery impulse is gratified. To decide between

these two opposing interpretations ought to be possible from the

behavior or introspection of a person in the presence of some big

object. If he feels insignificant and humble and bows reverently

before the object, we may conclude that the submissive tendency is in

action; but if the sight of the grand object makes him feel strong and

fine, if he throws out his chest and a gleam comes into his eye, then

everything looks like the mastery motive. Quite possibly, the effect

varies with the person and the occasion.

We have to think of art as a great system or collection of inventions

that owes its existence to its appeal to human nature, and that has

found ways, as its history has progressed, of making its appeal more

and more varied. Art is a type in these respects of many social

enterprises, such as sport, amusement, and even such serious matters

as politics and industry. Each of these is a collection of inventions

that persists because it appeals to human impulses, and each one

appeals to a variety of different impulses.

{517}

The Psychology of Inventive Production

To the consumer, art is play, but to the producer it is work, in the

sense that it is directed towards definite ends and has to stand

criticism according as it does or does not reach those ends. What is

true of the producer of art works is true also of other inventors, and

we may as well consider all sorts of controlled imagination together.

In spite of the element of control that is present in productive

invention, the really gifted inventor seems to make play of his work

to a large extent. Certainly the inventive genius does not always have

his eyes fixed on the financial goal, nor on the appeal which his

inventions are to make to the public. It is astonishing to read in the

lives of inventors what a lot of comparatively useless contrivances

they busied themselves with, apparently from the pure joy of

inventing. One prolific writer said that he "never worked in his life,

only played". The inventor likes to manipulate his materials, and this

playfulness has something to do with his originality, by helping to

keep him out of the rut.

That "necessity is the mother of invention" is only half of the truth;

it points to the importance of a directive tendency, but fails to show

how the inventor manages to leave the beaten path and really invent.

Necessity, or some desire, puts a question, without which the inventor

would not be likely to find the answer; but he needs a kind of

flexibility or playfulness, just because his job is that of seeing

things in a new light. We must allow him to toy with his materials a

bit, and even to be a bit "temperamental", and not expect him to grind

out works of art or other inventions as columns of figures are added.

When inventive geniuses have been requested to indicate their method,

they have been able to give only vague hints. How does the musical

composer, for example, free himself of {518} all the familiar pieces

and bring the notes into a fresh arrangement? All that he can tell

about it is usually that he had an "inspiration"; the new air simply

came to him. Now, of course the air did not really come to him from

outside; he made it, it was his reaction, but it was a quick, free

reaction, of which he could observe little introspectively.

Perhaps the best-studied case of invention is that of the learner in

typewriting, who, after laboriously perfecting his "letter habits" or

responses to single letters by appropriate finger movements on the

keyboard, may suddenly find himself writing in a new way, the word no

longer being spelled out, but being written as a unit by a coördinated

series of finger movements. The amazing thing is that, without trying

for anything of the kind, he has been able to break away from his

habit of spelling out the word, and shift suddenly to a new manner of

writing. He testifies that he did not plan out this change, but was

surprised to find himself writing in the new way. He was feeling well

that day, hopeful and ambitious, he was striving for greater speed,

and, while he was completely absorbed in his writing, this new mode of

reaction originated.

We see in this experimentally studied case some of the conditions that

favor invention. Good physical condition, freshness, mastery of the

subject, striving for some result, and "hopefulness". Now, what is

that last? Confidence, enterprise, willingness to "take a chance",

eagerness for action and readiness to break away from routine? Some of

this independent, manipulating spirit was probably there.

A soldier, so wounded as to paralyze his legs but capable of recovery

by training, had advanced far enough to hobble about with a cane and

by holding to the walls. One morning, feeling pretty chipper, he took

a chance and left the wall, cutting straight across the room; and

getting through without a fall, was naturally much encouraged and

{519} maintained this advance. This might be called invention; it was

breaking away from what had become routine, and that is the essential

fact about the inventive reaction. This playful spirit of cutting

loose, manipulating, and rearranging things to suit yourself is

certainly a condition favorable to invention. It does not guarantee a

valuable invention, but it at least helps towards whatever invention

the individual's other qualifications make possible.

Another condition favorable to invention is youth. Seldom does a very

old person get outside the limits of his previous habits. Few great

inventions, artistic or practical, have emanated from really old

persons, and comparatively few even from the middle-aged. On the other

hand, boys and girls under eighteen seldom produce anything of great

value, not having as yet acquired the necessary mastery of the

materials with which they have to deal. The period from twenty years

up to forty seems to be the most favorable for inventiveness.

Imagination Considered in General

Finally, we must return to the question of definition or general

description that was left open near the beginning of the chapter.

There seem to be two steps in the inventive response, one preliminary,

the other strictly inventive. The preliminary step brings the stimuli

to bear, and invention is the response that follows.

Typically, the preliminary stage consists in recall; and association

by similarity, bringing together materials from different past

experiences, is very important as a preliminary to invention. Facts

recalled from different contexts are thus brought together, and

invention consists in a response to such novel combinations of facts.

The two steps in invention are, first, getting a combination of

stimuli, and second, responding to the combination.

{520}

Sometimes it has been said that imagination consists in putting

together material from different sources, but this leaves the matter

in mid-air; recall can bring together facts from different sources and

so afford the stimulus for an imaginative response, but the response

goes beyond the mere togetherness of the stimuli. Thinking of a man

and also of a horse is not inventing a centaur; there is a big jump

from the juxtaposition of the data to the specific arrangement that

imagination gives them. The man plus the horse may give no response at

all, or may give many other responses besides that of a centaur; for

example, a picture of the man and the horse politely bowing to each

other. The particular manipulation, or imaginative response, that is

made varies widely; sometimes it consists in taking things apart

rather than putting them together, as when you imagine how a house

would look with the evergreen tree beside it cut down; always it

consists in putting the data into new relationships.

Imagination thus presents a close parallel to reasoning, where, also,

there are two stages, the preliminary consisting in getting the

premises together and the final consisting in perceiving the

conclusion. The final response in imagination is in general like that

in reasoning; both are _perceptive reactions_; but imagination is

freer and more variable. Reasoning is governed by a very precise aim,

to see the actual meaning of the combined premises; that is, it is

exploratory; while imagination, though it is usually more or less

steered either by a definite aim or by some bias in the direction of

agreeable results, has after all much more latitude. It is seeking,

not a relationship that is there, but one that can be put there.

{521}

EXERCISES

1. Outline the chapter.

2. Make a list of hobbies and amusements that you specially enjoy,

and try to discover the sources of satisfaction in each.

3. Recall two stories that you specially enjoyed, and try to

discover the sources of satisfaction in each.

4. How far does the account of daydreams given in the text square

with your own daydreams, and how far does it seem inadequate?

5. An experiment on the speed of revery or of daydreaming.

Beginning at a recorded time, by your watch, let your mind wander

freely for a few moments, stopping as soon as your stream of

thoughts runs dry. Note the time at the close. Now review your

daydream (or revery), and tally off the several scenes or

happenings that you thought of, so as to count up and see how many

distinct thoughts passed through your mind. How many seconds, on

the average, were occupied by each successive item?

6. Why do dreams seem real at the time?

7. Analysis of a dream. Take some dream that you recall well, and let

your thoughts play about it, and about the separate items of

it--about each object, person, speech, and happening in the

dream--with the object of seeing whether they remind you of

anything personally significant. Push the analysis back to your

childhood, by asking whether anything about the dream symbolizes

your childish experiences or wishes. To be sure, the psychoanalyst

would object that the individual cannot be trusted to make a

complete analysis of his own dream--just as the psychologist would

object to your accepting the recalled experiences and wishes as

necessarily standing in any causal relation to your dream--but, at

any rate, the exercise is interesting.

8. Problems in invention. Solve some of these, and compare the

mental process with that of reasoning.

(a) Devise a game to be played by children and adults together,

to everybody's satisfaction.

(b) Imagine a weird animal, after the analogy of the centaur.

(c) Imagine an interesting incident, bringing in an old man,

a little girl, and a waterfall.

(d) Design the street plan for an ideal small town, built on

both sides of a small river.

9. Show how empathy might make us prefer a symmetrical building to

one that is lop-sided.

{522}

REFERENCES

On the imagination and play of children, see Norsworthy and Whitley's

_Psychology of Childhood_, 1918, Chapters IX and XII.

For Freud's views regarding dreams, see his _Interpretation of

Dreams_, translated by Brill, 1913.

For a view which, though psychoanalytical, diverges somewhat from that

of Freud, see Maurice Nicoll, _Dream Psychology_, 1917; also C. W.

Kimmins, _Children's Dreams_, 1920.

For studies of play, see Edward S. Robinson, "The Compensatory

Function of Make-Believe Play", in the _Psychological Review_ for

1920, Vol. 27, pp. 429-439; also M. J. Reaney, _The Psychology of the

Organized Group Game_, 1916.

On invention, see Josiah Royce, "The Psychology of Invention", in the

_Psychological Review_ for 1898, Vol. 5, pp. 113-144; also F. W.

Taussig's _Inventors and Money-Makers_, 1915.

{523}

CHAPTER XX

WILL

PLANNED ACTION, ACTION IN SPITE OF INTERNAL CONFLICT,

AND ACTION AGAINST EXTERNAL OBSTRUCTION

If the psychologist were required to begin his chapter on the will

with a clean-cut definition, he would be puzzled what to say. He might

refer to the old division of the mind into the "three great faculties"

of intellect, feeling, and will, but would be in duty bound to add at

once that this "tripartite division" is now regarded as rather

useless, if not misleading. It is misleading if it leads us to

associate will exclusively with motor action, for we also have

voluntary attention and voluntary control in reasoning and inventing,

and we have involuntary motor reactions. "Will" seems not to be any

special kind of response, but rather to refer to certain relationships

in which a response may stand to other responses--but this is

certainly too vague a definition to be of use.

"Will" is not precisely a psychological term, anyway, but is a term of

common speech which need not refer to any psychological unit. In

common speech it has various and conflicting meanings. "Since you urge

me", one may say, "I _will_ do this, though much against my _will_."

Let the dictionary define such words. What psychology should do with

them is simply to take them as a mining prospector takes an

outcropping of ore: as an indication that it may pay to dig in the

neighborhood.

{524}

Voluntary and Involuntary Action

About the first thing we strike when we start digging is the

distinction between voluntary and involuntary. A man has committed

homicide, and the question in court is whether he did it "with malice

aforethought", i.e., with full will and intention, whether he did it

in a sudden fit of anger, i.e., impulsively rather than quite

voluntarily, or whether it was an accident and so wholly unintentional

or involuntary. The court wishes to know, since a man who has

committed one sort of homicide is a very different character from one

who has committed another sort; different acts can be expected from

him in the future and different precautions need to be taken

accordingly.

It is a fact, then, that an act may be performed either with or

without foreknowledge--a remarkable fact both ways! An intentional act

is remarkable from the side of physics or chemistry or botany--which

is to say that it is very exceptional in nature at large. On the other

hand, a completely involuntary act is rather exceptional in human

behavior and perhaps in animal behavior as well, for almost always

there is some striving towards an end, some impulse. The simplest

reflexes, to be sure, are completely involuntary. The pupillary

reaction to light is not done with malice aforethought, cannot be so

done. The lid reflex, or wink of the eye, occurs many times in the

course of an hour, without foreknowledge, or after-knowledge for that

matter, though the same movement can be made voluntarily. Sneezing and

coughing are not voluntary in the full sense, but they are distinctly

impulsive, they strive towards desired relief. To sneeze voluntarily

is to sneeze when you don't want to, and to sneeze involuntarily is to

sneeze when you want to--which seems queer, since we usually think of

a voluntary act as one done to further our wishes. The solution of

this puzzle is, {525} of course, that a voluntary sneeze is desired

not because of a direct impulse but to gain some ulterior end, such as

to prove we can do it, or for histrionic purposes--in short, for some

purpose beyond the immediate satisfaction of an impulse.

Thus we may classify acts as wholly involuntary or mechanical, as

impulsive, and as distinctly voluntary or purposive. Or, we may

arrange acts in a scale from those that have no conscious end, through

those aimed directly at an immediate end, up to those done to

accomplish an ulterior end which is imagined beforehand. The last

class of fully voluntary acts belongs under the general head of

manipulation, just as imagination does. We _imagine some change_ to be

produced in the existing situation and then proceed to put our

imagination into effect; and this is a typical voluntary act.

We seldom, however, picture a _complete_ act in imagination before

executing it. Even so simple an act as closing the fist cannot be

completely pictured beforehand; for if you try to imagine how the

closed fist is going to feel and then close it, you will find that you

left out of your image many details of the actual kinesthetic

sensations. What we imagine and intend is _some_ change in the

situation, and we then proceed to execute that change and other

changes incidentally.

Besides the simple reflexes, there is another sort of involuntary and

mechanical action. Through practice and repetition, an act may become

so habitual as to be done automatically, that is, without being

imagined beforehand, and even without conscious impulse. The practised

typist responds in this way to the words he is copying. We should

notice, however, that this does not mean that the total behavior and

state of mind of the typist is mechanical and devoid of impulse. The

typist may write the letters {526} mechanically, and if expert may

write even words in this way, but all the time he is consciously

aiming to copy the passage. His attention and impulse have deserted

the fully mastered details and attach themselves to the larger units.

In the same way, in signing your name you have no conscious intention

or impulse to write each successive letter; but you fully intend to

sign your name.

Development of Voluntary Control

The child's actions are at first impulsive but not voluntary in the

full sense, since obviously he cannot imagine and intend an act till

he has had experience of that act, and he must usually have

experienced doing the act himself before he can effectively imagine

it. At least, this is true of the simpler movements; compound

movements, made up of familiar elements, may be first observed in

other persons and then voluntarily imitated. The child's process of

acquiring voluntary control over a movement is illustrated by the

story of how the baby learned to put his hand in his mouth. He first

made this movement in the course of "aimless" throwing of his arms

about, liked the sensation of the hand in the mouth, tried apparently

to get it there again, and in the course of a few days was able to put

it there at will. The child's "aimless" movements at the start were

probably impulsive, but they were not directed towards any

preconceived end. Then, having observed a desirable result of one

movement, he worked towards that result by trial and error, till

finally he had the necessary movement so closely linked to the thought

of the result as to follow directly upon the thought.

Once brought under voluntary control, a movement becomes with further

repetition habitual and mechanical, and no longer voluntary or even

impulsive. Thus the voluntary {527} performance of an act intervenes

between the native or instinctive doing of it and the later habitual

doing of it. Blowing out a match affords another example of this

course of events. A child can of course blow out, instinctively, when

he has the natural stimulus for strong expiration, but he cannot at

will blow at the lighted match. Being prompted and shown, he comes by

degrees to be able to blow out the match; during the learning stage he

has to try, and the act is voluntary; but with further practice it

becomes involuntary, though it may still be executed as part of a

larger voluntary act, such as preventing a burning match from setting

fire to something on which it has fallen.

A complex act, or series of movements, may be voluntary as a whole,

being directed towards some preconceived result, while the single

movements that constitute the series are mechanical, their particular

results no longer being thought of separately. This is well

illustrated by the instances of typewriting, speaking, and signing the

name, mentioned a moment ago. With practice, the interest in a

performance goes more and more to the final result and deserts the

elements of the act.

It is during the organization of reactions that they require attention

and must be thought of before being executed. Organization goes on and

on, a thoroughly organized reaction being later combined with others

into a still bigger act. New demands constantly made upon the

individual prevent him, however well organized, from ever reaching the

condition of a wholly automatic machine. Will, in the sense of action

aimed at the accomplishment of foreseen results, stays with him to the

end.

Ideomotor Action

Involuntary movement is not always "sensorimotor", which means

directly aroused by a sensory stimulus; oftener {528} it is

"ideomotor", or directly aroused by an idea or thought. It may be so

aroused and still be involuntary. We think of a certain result and our

muscles produce this result, though we did not really mean to do this

act ourselves. The thought arouses the movement because it has

previously been linked with the movement. A thought which has

previously served as the stimulus to an act will tend to have this

effect again, unless inhibited by some contrary stimulus. There is no

need of a definite _consent_ to the act, provided there is nothing

present to inhibit it.

Good examples of ideomotor action can be observed among the audience

at an athletic contest. You are watching one of your team do the pole

vault, for instance, and are so much absorbed in his performance and

so desirous for him to succeed that you identify yourself with him to

a degree. He is rising to clear the high bar, and the thought of his

clearing it, monopolizing your mind and leaving no room for the

inhibitory thought that the performer is down there in the field and

you up here in the stand, causes you to make an incipient leg movement

as if you yourself were vaulting.

Voluntary action, in the fullest sense, occurs when you realize the

situation and are definitely conscious of yourself, that is to say,

when you differentiate yourself clearly out of the total situation,

and not only imagine some change to be made, but think of that change

as to be produced _by you_, without at the same time having any

contrary thought to inhibit actual execution.

Conflict and Decision

It appears that in our "digging" we have now struck another vein, for

here we have the fact of one tendency running contrary to another and

inhibiting it. Conflict of desires and the consequent necessity of

_choosing_ between {529} them, is thus brought vividly to our

attention. Every one would at once agree that "will" and "choice"

belong closely together. The most distinctly voluntary acts occur when

two alternatives are thought of, and one of them is chosen.

Organized as we are by nature, that is to say, on a large scale, but

incompletely--environed as we are, with multitudinous stimuli

constantly playing on us and arousing contrary tendencies--we cannot

hope to escape conflict of motives and the necessity of making

decisions. Every decision made, every conflict resolved, is a step in

the further organization of the individual. It may be a step in a good

direction, or in a bad direction, but it is a step in organizing the

individual's reaction-tendencies into what we call his

_character_--the more or less organized sum total of his native and

acquired tendencies to reaction, with emphasis on those reactions that

affect his life and social relations in a broad way.

The lowest animals, having few reaction tendencies, and being

responsive to only a narrow environment, show little sign of internal

conflict, and when it does occur it is resolved very simply by the

advantage going to one of the opposing tendencies, with perhaps a

shift later to the other, in the way described in our earlier

consideration of attention. [Footnote: See p. 251.] This type of

decision is fundamental. In the behavior of higher animals, we

sometimes detect signs of a longer-persisting conflict, as between

curiosity and fear, when a wild creature seems poised between his

inclination to approach and examine a strange object and his

inclination to run away, veering now towards the one and now towards

the other alternative, and unable, as it seems, to reach a decision.

Conflict between the enterprising tendency to explore, manipulate or

somehow launch forth into the new, and the negative tendencies of

fear, inertia, shyness, etc., is {530} something that recurs again and

again in human experience, as illustrated by making up your mind to

get up in the morning, or to plunge into the cold water, or to speak

up and have your say in a general conversation. There is a _hesitancy_

in such cases, due to a positive and a negative tendency. The conflict

may be resolved in favor of the negative tendency by simple

prolongation of the hesitation till the occasion for action has

passed, or it may be resolved in favor of the positive tendency when

this is strong enough for an instant to enable the individual to

commit himself to the enterprise, after which he usually stays

committed. The positive motive must for an instant be stronger than

the negative, in order to get action.

A somewhat different type of conflict, which may be called

_vacillation_, occurs when two positive tendencies are aroused that

are inconsistent with each other, so that gratification of the one

entails renunciation of the other. Old Buridan's celebrated problem of

the ass, placed equally distant from two equally attractive bundles of

hay, and whether he would starve to death from the exact balance of

the two opposing tendencies, is a sort of parable to fit this case.

Probably the poor ass did not starve--unless he richly deserved his

name--but he may conceivably have ended the very uncomfortable state

of vacillation by running away altogether, as a human being, who is

really more subject to vacillation than any other creature, is

sometimes so much disturbed at having to decide between two

invitations for the same day as to decline both, and go fishing.

Vacillation is certainly a very unpleasant state of mind. We want

action, or else we want peace, but vacillation gives us neither. In

spite of its irksomeness, we seem sometimes almost powerless to end

it, because as soon as we have about decided on the one alternative,

what we shall miss by not choosing the other comes vividly to mind,

and swings the pendulum its way.

{531}

However it comes about that a decision is reached, it usually is

reached, and the curious fact then is that it usually sticks. A

student may vacillate long between the apparently equal attractions of

two colleges, but when he finally decides on one, the advantages of

the other lose their hold on him. Now he is all for one and not at all

for the other. Having identified himself with one college, he has

completely altered the balance of attractions, his self-assertion now

going wholly on the side of the chosen college, and even leading him

to pick flaws in the other as if to reinforce his decision. In other

words, he "rationalizes", justifies, and fortifies his decision, once

he has reached it. Some people, indeed, are abnormally subject to

vacillation and seem never to accept their own decisions as final, but

normally there are strong influences tending to maintain a decision,

once it is made: the unpleasantness of the state of vacillation and

relief at having escaped from it; the satisfaction of having a

definite course of action; and self-assertion, because we have

decided, and now this course of action is _ours_. During vacillation,

neither of the alternatives was identified with ourselves, but now we

have decided and are not going to be so weak as to change. X is our

college now and anything you say against it you say against us. Thus

the person who has decided defends himself energetically against

reopening the question.

The state of indecision and the state of decision seem thus fairly

well understood, but the process of passing from the one to the other

is often obscure. It differs from one case to another. In one case we

find the rational process of deliberation, in which each alternative

is weighed and the decision awarded to the one that promises best.

This is essentially a work of imagination: you imagine that you have

adopted the one alternative, and see how it suits you, then you do the

same with the other alternative. You think each {532} alternative

through to see how satisfactory it will be, balance one against the

other, and choose accordingly. This is ideal, but often impracticable,

since we have not the time for full deliberation, or since we cannot

trust imagination to give us a correct picture, or since we have no

common measure by aid of which to balance off different sorts of

satisfaction. Even when practicable, the deliberate way of reaching a

decision is likely to seem irksome, because of the delay involved and

the natural propensity for impulsive action. Perhaps the most common

process is a sort of partial deliberation, the two alternatives

appealing to us by turns till at some moment one makes a strong enough

appeal to secure action.

Sometimes there is a deadlock, and then we either give up deciding for

the moment, and, sleeping over the matter, find when we next take it

up that one alternative has lost its momentary attractiveness and the

other has the field; or else, feeling the irksomeness and humiliation,

almost, of being unable to make up our mind, we say, "Any decision is

better than none; here goes, then; _this_ is what I will do", so

breaking the deadlock by what seems like an arbitrary toss-up.

At other times, without such a distinct "act of will", and without any

observable change in the attractiveness of either alternative, we

simply find, after awhile, that a decision has emerged, and that we

now know what we are going to do. What has happened in us to bring

about the decision we cannot see, but here we are with a decision made

and perhaps with the act already performed. The two alternatives

remain theoretically equal, but one has somehow got hold of us, while

the other has lapsed.

Then there is the case where we "see the better, but follow the

worse", or are in great danger of so doing. The "worse" is usually

something that appeals to the {533} "old Adam" in us, something that

strongly arouses a primitive instinctive response; while the "better"

is a nobler, more dutiful, or more prudent course. The lower motive

being the stronger, how can it ever be that the higher motive gets the

decision? Well, the fight is not just a contest between these two.

Other motives are drawn into the fray, the whole man is drawn in, and

it is a question which side is the stronger. Fear of ridicule or

criticism, sense of duty, self-respect, ambition, ideals of oneself,

concern for the welfare of another person, loyalty to a social group,

may be ranged on the side of the "weaker" motive and give it the

advantage over the stronger.

_What becomes of the rejected motives?_ If unimportant and s

superficial, they simply lapse into an inactive state and are gradually

forgotten, perhaps recurring to mind once in a while with a faint

tinge of regret, since after all we should have liked to gratify them.

"As a boy, I wanted to be a sailor; well, I would rather like to try

it for once." When a motive is deeply rooted in our nature, it cannot

be so easily eliminated. Sometimes it is simply _deferred_ and remains

dormant, content to bide its time; "there will be time enough for that

later on". Sometimes it is _disguised_ and then gratified, as when an

apparently courteous deed contains an element of spite. Sometimes it

is afforded a _substitute gratification_, as when the boastful boy,

after having his "conceit taken out of him" by his mates, boasts of

his school, profession, town or country. This is often called

"sublimation". Sometimes, though denied, it remains insistent, and

"_defense mechanisms_" have to be devised to keep it down; the "sour

grapes" mechanism is an example, which may be used not only when the

"grapes" are physically out of reach but also when for any reason we

decide to leave them alone.

The psychoanalytic school lays great stress on {534} "suppressed"

desires, holding that they become _unconscious while still remaining

active_, and that they find gratification symbolically in dreams, and

at times break into waking life in a disturbing way.

The most adequate way of handling rejected motives is to _coördinate_

them with other, accepted motives--to harness them into teams and put

them to work. This cannot always be done; for example, if a young

woman has two attractive suitors, she might find difficulty in

harnessing them together, and will have to say good-by to one, at

least. But when the boastful boy becomes a loyal and enthusiastic

member of a school, his self-assertive motive is harnessed up with

social motives into a very effective team. Probably a tendency can

only be "sublimated" by being thus combined and coördinated with other

strong tendencies.

These various ways of handling a rejected motive could be nicely

illustrated from the case of the sex instinct. It so happens, partly

because modern economic and educational conditions enforce a delay in

marriage--and in part simply because there are so many attractive

people in the world--that the cravings of sex must often be denied.

What becomes of them? Of course the sex instinct is too deep-seated to

be eradicated or permanently to lapse into a dormant state. But the

fascination for particular individuals may so lapse or be forgotten.

Certain people we remember, once in a while, with half-humorous and

certainly not very poignant regret. Deferring the whole matter till

the time is ripe works well with many a youth or maiden. Combined with

social interests, the sex motive finds sublimated satisfaction in a

great variety of amusements, as well as in business associations

between the sexes. Introduce a nice young lady into an officeful of

men, and the atmosphere changes, often for the better,--which means,

certainly, that the sex motive of these men, combined with ordinary

business {535} motives, is finding a sublimated satisfaction. The sex

motive thus enters into a great variety of human affairs. "Defense

mechanisms" are common in combating unacceptable erotic impulses; the

sour grapes mechanism sometimes takes the extreme form of a hatred of

the other sex; but a very good and useful device of this general sort

is to throw oneself into some quite different type of activity, as the

young man may successfully work off his steam in athletics. This is

not sublimation, in any proper use of that term, for athletic sport

does not gratify the sex tendency in the least, but it gratifies other

tendencies and so gratifies the individual. It is the individual that

must be satisfied, rather than any specified one of his tendencies. As

regards coördination, the fact was illustrated just above that this

method would not always work; but sometimes it works immensely well.

Here is a young person (either sex), in the twenties, with insistent

sex impulses, tempted to yield to the fascination of some mediocre

representative of the other sex. Such a low-level attachment, however,

militates against self-respect, work, ambition, social sense. Where is

the "coördination"? It has to be found; some worthy mate will harness

all these tendencies, stimulating and gratifying sex attraction,

self-respect, ambition, and others besides, and coördinating them all

into the complex and decidedly high-grade sentiment of love.

Obstruction and Effort

The term "will" is used to designate the response to external

obstruction as well as the response to internal conflict. In fact,

nothing is so characteristically "will" as the overcoming of

resistance that checks progress towards a desired result. As

"decision" is the response to internal conflict of tendencies, so

"effort" is the response to external {536} resistance encountered in

executing a desire that has been adopted. The obstruction may be

purely physical, as the underbrush that impedes your progress through

the woods; or it may be another person's will running counter to

yours; or it may be of the nature of distraction of attention from the

end in view.

The resistance may also be internal, and consist in your own lack of

skill in executing your intentions, or in the disturbing effect of

some desire which, though rejected, has not gone to sleep but still

pulls you another way than the way you have decided to go.

In all these cases, the individual is moving towards a certain goal,

but encounters obstruction; and his response is effort, or increased

energy put into his movement towards the goal. So long as the tendency

towards a goal finds smooth going, there is not the same determination

that appears as soon as an obstruction is encountered. The "will", in

common usage, will not brook resistance--the "indomitable will".

Now effort and determination, in our chapter on the native impulses,

were put under the head of the assertive or masterful tendency; and it

does seem that "will", in this sense, is almost the same thing as the

instinct of self-assertion. Certainly, in the case of adults, an

obstruction puts the individual "on his mettle", and superimposes the

mastery motive upon whatever motive it may have been that originally

prompted the action.

The mastery motive came clearly to light in an experiment designed to

investigate "will action". The subject of the experiment was first

given a long course of training in responding to certain stimulus

words by other certain words that were constantly paired with them;

and when his habits of response were thus well fixed, his task was

changed so that now he must respond to any word or syllable by any

{537} other that _rhymed_ with it. A series of stimuli now began with

words for which no specific response habit had been formed, and to

these the subject reacted with no great difficulty. But then,

unexpectedly, he got a stimulus word to which he had a fixed habit of

response, and before he could catch himself he had made the habitual

response, and so failed to give a rhyme as he had intended. This check

sometimes made him really angry, and at least it brought him up to

attention with a feeling which he expressed in the words, "I can and

will do this thing". He was thus put on his guard, gave closer

attention to what he was doing, and was usually able to overcome the

counter tendency of habit and do what he meant to do. Some subjects,

who adapted themselves readily and fully to the rhyming task, i.e.,

who got up a good "mental set" for this sort of reaction, made few

errors and did not experience this feeling of effort and

determination; for them the effort was unnecessary; but the average

person needed the extra energy in order to overcome the resistances

and accomplish his intentions.

Other good instances of effort are found in the overcoming of

distraction, described under the head of attention, [Footnote: See p.

259.] and in the work of the beginner at any job. When the beginner

has passed the first cautious, exploratory stage of learning, he

begins to "put on steam". He pounds the typewriter, if that is what he

is learning, spells the words aloud, and in other ways betrays the

great effort he is making.

Ask a child just learning to write why he grasps the pencil so

tightly, why he bends so closely over the desk, why he purses his

lips, knits his brow, and twists his foot around the leg of his chair,

and he might answer, very truly, that it is because he cannot do this

job easily and has to _try hard_. All these unnecessary muscular

movements and tensions {538} show the _access of energy_ that has been

liberated in his brain by the obstruction encountered.

Any learner, once he has mastered the difficulties of the task,

reaches an easy-running stage in which effort is no longer required,

unless for making a record or in some way surpassing himself. With

reference to effort, then, we may speak of three stages of practice:

the initial, exploratory stage, the awkward and effortful stage, and

the skilled and free-running stage. These are identical with the three

stages in the development of attention to a subject, which were

described [Footnote: See p.258] as the stage of spontaneous attention

or curiosity; the stage of forced attention, or effortful attention,

controlled by such motives as fear or self-assertion; and the final

stage of objective interest and absorption in the subject, which is

evidently the same as the free-running condition.

Effort is not a good in itself; it is an unpleasant condition; but it

is a natural response to difficulty and is often necessary in order to

get the individual into the free-running condition which is both

efficient and pleasant. It is often required to get the individual out

of the easy-going condition into the free-running condition, which is

something entirely different. In free-running action there may be even

more energy expended than in effortful action, but it is better

directed and produces no strains and jolts.

Intelligence, in the sense of adaptability and "seeing the point", may

often take the place of effort. Consider the way two different people

react to a sticking door: the one puts in more strength and forces it,

the other by a deft thrust to the side opens it without much extra

force. You can't say absolutely which mode of attack is better, for

your stubborn one may waste his strength on an obstruction that really

cannot be forced, while your clever one may waste his {539} time on a

door that needs only a bit of a push. Persistence _plus_ adaptability

is what efficient activity demands.

Thought and Action

"Men of thought" and "men of action" are sometimes contrasted--which

is hardly fair to either, since the great man of action must have the

imagination to conceive a plan, and must know exactly what he is

aiming to accomplish, while the great thinker must be persistent in

thinking and must get into action by way of writing or somehow making

his thoughts count in the world. But we do find men who are impatient

of thought and want to get into action at once, even without knowing

just what they are about, and other men who seem quite contented to

think and plan, without any definite intention of ever putting their

plans into execution. The former type, the impulsive individual, is

not difficult to understand, his behavior fits in so well with the

primitive trial-and-error sort of activity; but the mere thinker seems

an anomaly, in view of the general psychological principle that

thought tends toward motor action.

In accounting for the inactive thinker, we have to remember, first,

that some inhibition of immediate action is often necessary, in order

to have time to think the matter over; this prudent attitude becomes a

habit with some individuals. Besides, there are the negative motives

of fear, shyness and laziness that tend to deter from the actual

execution of a plan. Hamlet's "conscience" that makes "cowards of us

all", so that "the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the

pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pith and moment . . .

lose the name of action" turns out, if we look a few lines further

back, to be the "dread of something" unknown, that "puzzles the will,

and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we

know not of". {540} Fear--fear of unforeseen consequences, fear of

committing ourselves, fear of ridicule--is one great inhibiter of

action, and inertia is another, since it is much less strenuous to sit

in the armchair and plan than to get out and put the plan into effect.

Besides this, some people who are good at planning come to take so

much pride and satisfaction in the thinking part of an enterprise that

they do not feel the need for action. Moreover, you can "plan" in a

large way, without bothering about details, but once you start to

execute your plan you encounter details and preliminaries which are

apt to rob the enterprise of its zest. Here is where persistence and

effort are needed.

_Abulia_--"no will"--is an abnormal degree of lack of zest for action.

Along with it go timidity and lack of social force, proneness to

rumination and daydreaming, and often a feeling of being compelled to

perform useless acts, such as doing everything three times or

continual washing of the hands. Abulia is not just a comfortable

laziness, but is attended by a sense of humiliation and inferiority.

It shows itself in excessive hesitation and vacillation and in failure

to accomplish anything of consequence. Sometimes the subject expends

much effort, but fails to direct the effort towards the execution of

his purposes. Some authorities have ascribed abulia to inertia or "low

mental tension", some to an overdose of fear and caution, some to the

paralyzing effect of suppressed desires still living in the

"unconscious". Mild degrees of it, such as are not uncommon, seem

sometimes to be due to the hiatus that is bound to exist between the

end one has in view and the means one must take to start towards that

end. One has zest for reaching the goal, but not for the

preliminaries.

An author, whose case was studied because he was accomplishing so

little, was found to follow a daily program about as follows. He would

get up in the morning full of {541} confidence that this was going to

be a good day, with much progress made in his book. Before starting to

write, however, he must first have his breakfast, and then a little

fresh air, just to prepare himself for energetic work. On returning

from his walk, he thought it best to rest for a few moments, and then

one or two other little matters seemed to demand attention; by the

time these were done, the morning was so far gone that there was no

time for a really good effort, so he optimistically postponed the

writing till the afternoon, when the same sort of thing happened, and

the great performance had to be put over till the next day. This man

did better under a regime prescribed by his medical adviser, who

commanded him to write for two hours immediately after rising, and

make this his day's work--no more and no less than two hours. The

definiteness of this task prevented dawdling.

Other writers have noted a curious tendency to "fight shy" of the

passage actually being written and let the thoughts move ahead and

plan out the later passages. Sometimes it is necessary to trick

yourself if you are to get anything done; you say, "I can't write this

properly just now; I'll just sketch out a preliminary draft"--on which

understanding you may be able to write, whereas you could not if you

thought you were writing "for keeps"; but when you have got well

started and warmed to the task, you may find your work good enough to

keep, after all. Judging by these mild cases, abulia may be due partly

to distaste for the details of actual performance, and partly to a

dread of committing oneself to anything that has the stamp of

finality.

Securing Action

No chapter in psychology offers more in the way of practical

applications than this chapter on the will--if we only {542} knew more

on the subject! How to get action, either from yourself, or from

others if you are responsible for their action, is a big practical

problem. A few hints on the matter are suggested by what precedes.

How to get action from yourself--how to liberate your latent energies

and accomplish what you are capable of accomplishing. A definite

purpose is the first requirement; without that one merely drifts, with

no persistency and no great energy. The goal should be something that

appeals vitally to you, and something which you can attain; not too

distant a goal; or, if the ultimate goal is distant, there must be

mileposts along the way which you can take as more immediate goals;

for a goal that can be reached by immediate action enlists more

present effort. The student puts more energy into his study when the

examination is close at hand; and, although this is regrettable, it

reveals a fact in human nature that can be utilized in the management

of yourself or others. A well defined and clearly visible goal is a

much better energy-releaser than vague "good intentions".

The more clearly you can see and measure your approach towards the

goal, the more action; thus it has been found in many different lines

that the "practice curve method" of training gives quicker and better

results than ordinary drill. In the practice curve [Footnote: See p.

321.] you have a picture of your progress; you are encouraged by

seeing how far you have advanced, and stimulated to surpass your past

record, and thus your immediate goal is made very definite. You cannot

do so well when you simply "do your best" as when you set out to reach

a certain level, high enough to tax your powers without being quite

out of reach. You cannot jump so high in the empty air as you can to

clear a bar; and, to secure your very best endeavor, the bar must not

be so low {543} that you can clear it easily, nor so high that you

cannot clear it at all.