Little as emotion, as generally understood, may have to do with the
criminalist, it is, in its intention, most important for him. The motive
of a series of phenomena and events, both in prisoners and witnesses, is
emotion. In what follows, therefore, we shall attempt to show that
feeling, in so far as we need to consider it, need not be taken as an
especial function. This is only so far significant as to make our work
easier by limiting it to fewer subjects. If we can reduce some one
psychic function to another category we can explain many a thing even
when we know only the latter. In any event, the study of a single
category is simpler than that of many.[239]
Abstractly, the word emotion is the property or capacity of the mind to
be influenced pleasantly or unpleasantly by sensations, perceptions, and
ideas. Concretely, it means the conditions of desire or disgust which
are developed by the complex of conditions thereby aroused. We have
first to distinguish between the so-called animal and the higher
emotions. We will assume that this distinction is incorrect, inasmuch as
between these classes there is a series of feelings which may be counted
as well with one as with the other, so that the transition is incidental
and no strict differentiation is possible. We will, however, retain the
distinction, as it is easier by means of it to pass from the simpler to
the more difficult emotions. The indubitably animal passions we shall
take to be hunger, thirst, cold, etc. These are first of all purely
physiological stimuli which act on our body. But it is impossible to
imagine one of them, without, at the same time, inevitably bringing in
the idea of the defense against this physiological stimulus. It is
impossible to think of the feeling of hunger without sensing also the
strain to find relief from this feeling, for without this sensation
hunger would not appear as such. If I am hungry I go for food; if I am
cold I seek for warmth; if I feel pain I try to wipe it out. How to
satisfy these desiderative actions is a problem for the understanding,
whence it follows that successful satisfaction, intelligent or
unintelligent, may vary in every possible degree. We see that the least
intelligent--real cretins--sometimes are unable to satisfy their hunger,
for when food is given the worst of them, they stuff it, in spite of
acute sensations of hunger, into their ears and noses, but not into
their mouths. We must therefore say that there is always a demand for a
minimum quantity of intelligence in order to know that the feeling of
hunger may be vanquished by putting food into the mouth.
One step further: In the description of the conduct of anthropoid apes
which are kept in menageries, etc., especial intelligence is assigned to
those who know how to draw a blanket over themselves as protection
against cold. The same action is held to be a sign of intelligence in
very young children.
Still more thoroughly graded is the attitude toward pain, inasmuch as
barely a trace of intelligence is required, in order to know that it is
necessary to wipe away a hot liquid drop that has fallen on the body.
Every physiological text-book mentions the fact that a decapitated frog
makes such wiping movements when it is wet with acid. From this
unconscious activity of the understanding to the technically
highest-developed treatment of a burn, a whole series of progressively
higher expressions of intelligence may be interpolated, a series so
great as to defy counting.
Now take another, still animal, but more highly-developed feeling, for
example, the feeling of comfort. We lay a cat on a soft bolster--she
stretches herself, spreads and thins herself out, in order to bring as
many nerve termini as possible into contact with the pleasant stimuli of
the bolster. This behavior of the cat may be construed as instinctive,
also as the aboriginal source of the sense of comfort and as leading to
luxury in comfort, the stage of comfort which Roscher calls highest. (I.
Luxury in eating and drinking. II. Luxury in dress. III. Luxury in
comfort.)
Therefore we may say that the reaction of the understanding to the
physiological stimulus aims to set it aside when it is unpleasant, and
to increase and exhaust it when it is pleasant, and that in a certain
sense both coincide (the ousting of unpleasant darkness is equivalent to
the introduction of pleasant light). We may therefore say generally,
that feeling is a physiological stimulus indivisibly connected with the
understanding’s sensitive attitude thereto. Of course there is a far cry
from instinctive exclusion and inclusion to the most refined defensive
preparation or interpretation, but the differences which lie next to
each, on either side, are only differences in degree.
Now let us think of some so-called higher feeling and consider a special
case of it. I meet for the first time a man who is unpleasantly marked,
e.g., with badly colored hair. This stimulates my eyes disagreeably, and
I seek either by looking away or by wishing the man away to protect
myself from this physiologically-inimical influence, which already
eliminates all feeling of friendship for this harmless individual. Now I
see that the man is torturing an animal,--I do not like to see this, it
affects me painfully; hence I wish him out of the way still more
energetically. If he goes on so, adding one disagreeable characteristic
to another, I might break his bones to stop him, bind him in chains to
hinder him; I even might kill him, to save myself the unpleasant
excitation he causes me. I strain my intelligence to think of some means
of opposing him, and clearly, in this case, also, physiological
stimulus and activity of the understanding are invincibly united.
The emotion of anger is rather more difficult to explain. But it is not
like suddenly-exploding hatred, for it is acute, while hatred is
chronic. I might be angry with my beloved child. But though at the
moment of anger, the expression is identical with that of hatred, it is
also transitive. In the extremest cases the negating action aims to
destroy the stimulus. This is the most radical means of avoiding
physiological excitation, and hence I tear in pieces a disagreeable
letter, or stamp to powder the object on which I have hurt myself. Where
persons are involved, I proceed either directly or symbolically when I
can not, or may not, get my hands on the responsible one.
The case is the same with feeling of attraction. I own a dog, he has
beautiful lines which are pleasant to my eye, he has a bell-like bark
that stimulates my ear pleasantly, he has a soft coat which is pleasant
to my stroking hand, I know that in case of need the dog will protect me
(and that is a calming consideration), I know that he may be otherwise
of use to me--in short my understanding tells me all kinds of pleasant
things about the beast. Hence I like to have him near me; i.e., I like
him. The same explanation may be applied to all emotions of inclination
or repulsion. Everywhere we find the emotion as physiological stimulus
in indivisible union with a number of partly known, partly unknown
functions of the understanding. The unknown play an important rôle. They
are serial understandings, i.e., inherited from remote ancestors, and
are characterized by the fact that they lead us to do the things we do
when we recognize intelligently any event and its requirements.
When one gets thirsty, he drinks. Cattle do the same. And they drink
even when nobody has told them to, because this is an inherited action
of countless years. If a man is, however, to proceed intelligently about
his drinking, he will say, “By drying, or other forms of segregation,
the water will be drawn from the cells of my body, they will become
arid, and will no longer be sufficiently elastic to do their work. If,
now, by way of my stomach, through endosmosis and exosmosis, I get them
more water, the proper conditions will return.” The consequences of this
form of consideration will not be different from the instinctive action
of the most elementary of animals--the wise man and the animal drink. So
the whole content of every emotion is physiological stimulation and
function of the understanding.
And what good is all this to the criminal lawyer? Nobody doubts that
both prisoners and witnesses are subject to the powerful influence of
emotional expression. Nobody doubts that the determination,
interpretation, and judgment of these expressions are as difficult as
they are important to the judge. And when we consider these emotions as
especial conditions of the mind it is indubitable that they are able to
cause still greater difficulty because of their elusiveness, their very
various intensity, and their confused effect. Once, however, we think of
them as functions of the understanding, we have, in its activities,
something better known, something rather more disciplined, which offers
very many fewer difficulties in the judgment concerning the fixed form
in which it acts. Hence, every judgment of an emotional state must be
preceded by a reconstruction in terms of the implied functions of the
understanding. Once this is done, further treatment is no longer
difficult.
Topic 9. THE FORMS OF GIVING TESTIMONY.