Sentiments are remembered and recollected like objects. For instance,
a boy is punished for doing wrong and has _pain_; he does wrong again
and is haunted with the _fear_ of being punished again, which is
the recollected and anticipated pain. We have thus two species of
sentiment corresponding exactly to object and idea. The word 'feeling'
is appropriate to the first, 'emotion' to the second. 'Passion' is a
strong degree of either.
Objects that are associated with feelings are better remembered than
those that merely affect the intellect, for there is a double memory
at work--one in the core and one on the surface of our mind.
Sentiments are not susceptible of the same degree of analysis as
objects. The inner matrix is more fluid and does not keep details.
Apart from the objects associated with feelings, there is not much
opportunity or need for classifying them. We are happy, wretched, or
indifferent--that sums up the sentimental experience.
No two moral philosophers give the same list of sentiments. Some
are satisfied with two--pain and pleasure. Spinoza gives a list of
forty-seven[9] sentiments, which includes luxury and drunkenness. It
is evident that luxury is a general term which covers many different
forms of feeling, and if the feeling of intoxication by alcohol is
worth mentioning, so also must be the intoxications by opium and
tobacco; and if these are included we must admit the feeling of
nausea, which brings us to the sentiments associated with all diseased
conditions of body or mind. Such distinctions are superfluous, for if
the sentiment is purely personal and not associated with an external
object, it is not of any general interest; if associated with an
object and common to many persons it is best defined by reference to
the object--as the pleasure of smelling a _rose_.
We have sometimes feelings of elation and depression for which we
cannot find an internal reason nor yet an objective sign. Many of
the so-called religious experiences are of this sort. So also are the
sudden sympathies and aversions we feel towards certain people and
places. Here there is an object, but we cannot find anything in the
object that can be taken as specially significant of the feeling. We
are said not to be able to 'analyse' our feeling, that is, assign it
an object as cause.
These abnormal feelings may be explained by supposing that some
external influences succeed in reaching our sentiment without exciting
our intellect. Considering that intellect is artificial and may be
very imperfect, and also that its efficiency depends to some extent
on its being less sensitive than the original mental nature, it is
reasonable to conclude that subtle emanations from our surroundings
may occasionally affect us without exciting the intellectual
consciousness. Panic, inspiration, mesmerism, and other 'occult'
influences are probably due to this cause. If we further assume that
sentiments so excited may then, by association, excite appropriate
_ideas_ in the intellect of the recipient, we have a likely
explanation of what is called 'thought-transference.' Since ideas
excite emotions, it is reasonable to suppose that feelings may excite
ideas, or even the illusion that objects are being perceived.