Chapter I Nature, Difficulty, and Importance of This Department of the Science
Previous Analysis.—In entering upon the investigation of a new department of our science, it may be well to recur, for a moment, to the analysis and classification of the powers of the mind which has been already given in the introduction to the present volume. The faculties of the mind were divided in that analysis, it will be remembered, into three grand departments, the Intellect, the Sensibilities, and the Will; the first comprising the various powers of thinking and knowing, the second of feeling, the third of willing. The first of these main divisions has been already discussed in the preceding pages. Upon the second we now enter.
Difference of the two Departments.—This department of mental activity differs from the former, as feeling differs from thinking. The distinction is broad and obvious. No one can mistake it who knows any thing of his own mental operations. Every one knows the difference, though not every one may be able to explain it, or tell precisely in what it consists. But whether able to define our meaning or not, we are perfectly conscious that to think and to feel are different acts, and involve entirely different states of mind. The common language of life recognizes the distinction, alike that of the educated and of the uneducated, the peasant and the man of science. The literature of the world recognizes it.
Relation of the two.—As regards the relation of the two departments to each other, the intellect properly precedes the sensibility. The latter implies the former, and depends upon it. There can be no feeling—I speak, of course, of mental feeling, and not of mere physical sensation—without previous cognizance of some object, in view of which the feeling is awakened. Affection always implies an object of affection, desire, an object of desire; and the object is first apprehended by the intellect before the emotion is awakened in the mind. When we love, we love something, when we desire, we desire something, when we fear, or hope, or hate, there is always some object, more or less clearly defined, that awakens these feelings, and in proportion to the clearness and vividness of the intellectual conception or perception of the object, will be the strength of the feeling.
Strength of Feelings as related to Strength of Intellect.—The range and power of the sensibilities, then, in other words, the mind’s capacity of feeling, depends essentially upon the range and vigor of the intellectual powers. Within certain limits, the one varies as the other. The man of strong and vigorous mind is capable of stronger emotion than the man of dwarfed and puny intellect. Milton, Cromwell, Napoleon, Webster, surpassed other men, not more in clearness and strength of intellectual perception, than in energy of feeling. In this, indeed, lay, in no small degree, the secret of their superior power. In the most eloquent passages of the great orators of ancient or modern times, it is not so much the irresistible cogency and unrelenting grasp of the terrible logic, that holds our attention, and casts its spell over us, as it is the burning indignation that exposes the sophistries, and tears to shreds the fallacies of an opponent, and sweeps all argument and all opposition before it like a devouring fire. The orations of Demosthenes, of Burke, of Webster, furnish numerous examples of this.
Influence of the Feelings on the Intellect.—On the other hand, it is equally true that the state of the intellect in any case depends not a little on the nature and strength of the mind’s capacities of feeling. A quick and lively sensibility is more likely to be attended with quickness and strength of intellectual conception; imagination, perception, fancy, and even reasoning, are quickened, and set in active play, by its electric touch.
A man with sluggish and torpid sensibilities, is almost of necessity a man of dull and sluggish intellect. A man without feeling, if we can conceive so strange a phenomenon, would be a man, the measure of whose intellectual capacity would be little above that of the brutes.
Importance of this Department of the mental Faculties.—Such being the nature of the sensibilities, the importance of this department of mental activity becomes obvious at a glance. The springs of human action lie here. We find here a clue to the study of human nature and of ourselves. To understand the complicated and curious problem of human life and action, to understand history, society, nations, ourselves, we must understand well the nature and philosophy of the sensibilities. Here we find the motives which set the busy world in action, the causes which go to make men what they are in the busy and ever changing scene of life’s great drama. It is the emotions and passions of men which give, at once, the impulse, and the direction, to their energies, constitute their character, shape their history and their destiny. A knowledge of man and of the world is emphatically a knowledge of the human heart.
Extract from Brown.—The importance of this part of our nature is well set forth in the following passage from Dr. Thomas Brown:
“We might, perhaps, have been so constituted, with respect to our intellectual states of mind, as to have had all the varieties of these, our remembrances, judgments, and creations of fancy, without our emotions. But without the emotions which accompany them, of how little value would the mere intellectual functions have been! It is to our vivid feelings of this class we must look for those tender regards which make our remembrances sacred, for that love of truth and glory, and mankind, without which to animate and reward us in our discovery and diffusion of knowledge, the continued exercise of judgment would be a fatigue rather than a satisfaction, and for all that delightful wonder which we feel when we contemplate the admirable creations of fancy, or the still more admirable beauties of the unfading model, that model which is ever before us, and the imitation of which, as has been truly said, is the only imitation that is itself originality. By our other mental functions, we are mere spectators of the machinery of the universe, living and inanimate; by our emotions, we are admirers of nature, lovers of man, adorers of God....
Less attractive Aspects.—“In this picture of our emotions, however, I have presented them in their fairest aspects; there are aspects which they assume, as terrible as these are attractive; but even terrible as they are, they are not the less interesting objects of our contemplation. They are the enemies with which our mortal combat, in the warfare of life, is to be carried on; and of these enemies that are to assail us, it is good for us to know all the arms and all the arts with which we are to be assailed; as it is good for us to know all the misery which would await our defeat, as well as all the happiness which would crown our success, that our conflict may be the stronger, and our victory, therefore, the more sure.
“In the list of our emotions of this formidable class, is to be found every passion which can render life guilty and miserable; a single hour of which, if that hour be an hour of uncontrolled dominion, may destroy happiness forever, and leave little more of virtue than is necessary for giving all its horror to remorse. There are feelings as blasting to every desire of good that may still linger in the heart of the frail victim who is not yet wholly corrupted, as those poisonous gales of the desert, which not merely lift in whirlwinds the sands that have often been tossed before, but wither even the few fresh leaves, which on some spot of scanty verdure, have still been flourishing amid the general sterility.”
Difficulty of the Study.—With regard to the difficulty attending the study of this part of our nature, a word seems necessary in passing. It has been supposed to constitute a peculiar difficulty in the way of the successful investigation of this department of mental activity, that the sensibilities are, in their very nature, of such an exciting character, as to preclude the calm, dispassionate observation and reflection so necessary to correct judgment. At the moment of exercising any lively emotion, as hope, fear, anger, etc., the mind is in too great perturbation to be in any condition for accurate self-observation, and when the excitement has subsided, the important moment has already passed. Mr. Stewart has particularly noticed this difficulty in his Introduction to the Active and Moral Powers, and quotes Hume to the same effect.
Not peculiar to this Department of the Science.—The difficulty in question, however, is one which, in reality, pertains to all mental science, and not to this department of it alone; and so Hume, in the passage cited by Mr. Stewart, seems to intend. It is true that while we are under the influence of any exciting emotion, we are in no mood, and in no suitable state to observe, with critical eye, the workings of our own minds; neither are we in any condition to do so when engaged in the less exciting, but not less absorbing intellectual occupation of reasoning, or imagining, or remembering. The moment we begin to observe ourselves as thus engaged, the mind is no longer employed as before, the experiment which we wish to observe is interrupted, and instead of reasoning, imagining, or remembering, we are only observing ourselves. Our only resource, in either case, is to turn back and gather up, as well as we can from memory, the data of our mental activity and condition while thus and thus employed. And this we can do with regard to the action of the sensibilities, as well as of the intellect, provided only the degree of emotion and excitement is not so great as to interfere with the present consciousness, and so with the subsequent recollection of what was passing in our own minds.
Sources of Information.—Nor are we dependent entirely on self-observation. Our sources of information are twofold, the observation of our own minds, and of others. From the latter source we may learn much of the nature of this department of mental action. The sensibilities of others are more open to our inspection, and less readily mistaken, than their intellectual states. Nor do we meet, in this case, with the same difficulty; for however excited and incapable of self-inspection, at the moment, the subject of any strong emotion or passion may be, the spectator, at least, is able to observe the effect of that passion, and note its phenomena, with calm and careful eye.
Chapter II
Analysis and Classification of the Sensibilities
Certain Distinctions may be noticed.—Including, under the term sensibility, according to the definition already given, whatever is of the nature of feeling, in distinction from thought or cognition, and limiting the term also to feelings strictly mental, in distinction from merely physical sensation, it is obvious that there are certain leading distinctions still to be observed in this class of our mental states, certain great and strongly marked divisions or differences, by which we shall do well to be guided in our arrangement and classification of them. Our feelings are many and various; it is impossible to enumerate or classify them with perfect precision; yet there are certain points of resemblance and difference among them, certain groups or classes into which they naturally divide themselves.
A general Distinction indicated.—One general distinction lies at the outset, patent and obvious, running through all forms and modes of sensibility, namely, the difference of agreeable and disagreeable. Every feeling is, in its very nature, and of necessity, one or the other, either pleasing or painful. In some cases the distinction is much more strongly marked than in others; sometimes it may be hardly perceptible, and it may be difficult to determine, so slight is the degree of either, whether the feeling under consideration partakes of the character of pleasure or pain; sometimes there is a blending of the two elements, and the same emotion is at once pleasing and painful to the mind that experiences it. But I cannot conceive of a feeling that is neither agreeable or disagreeable, but positively indifferent. The state of indifference is not an exercise of sensibility, but a simple want of it, as the very name denotes by which we most appropriately express this state of mind, i. e., apathy (α παθος).
Simple Emotions.—Passing this general and obvious distinction, we find among our sensibilities a large class which we may denominate simple emotions. These comprise the joys and sorrows of life in all their varieties of modification and degree, according as the objects which awaken them differ. Under this class fall those general states of the mind which, without assuming a definite and obvious form, impart a tinge and coloring of joyousness or sadness to all our activity. Under this class, also, must be included the more specific forms of feeling, such as the grief or sorrow we feel at the loss of friends, sympathy with the happiness or sorrow of others, the enjoyment arising from the contemplation or persuasion of our own superiority, and the chagrin of the reverse, the enjoyment of the ludicrous, of the new and wonderful, of the beautiful, to which must be added the satisfaction resulting from the consciousness of right action, and those vivid feelings of regret in view of the wrong, which, in their higher degree, assume the name of remorse, and fall like a chill and fearful shadow over the troubled path of earthly life. These all are simple emotions, and all, moreover, are but so many forms of joy and sorrow, varying as the objects vary which give rise to them.
Further Difference of instinctive and rational Emotion.—It will be observed, however, that of these several specific forms of simple emotion, some are of a higher order than the others. Such are those last named in the series, the feelings awakened in view of the ludicrous, in view of the new and wonderful, in view of the beautiful, and in view of the right, or, in general, the æsthetic and moral emotions. These, as seeming to possess a higher dignity, and to involve a higher degree of intellectual development, we may denominate the rational, in distinction from the other simple emotions, which, to mark the difference, we may term instinctive.
Emotions of a complex Character.—Passing on in our analysis, we come next to a class of emotions differing from that already considered, in being of a complex character. It is no longer a simple feeling of delight and satisfaction in the object, or the reverse, but along with this is blended the wish, more or less definite and intense, of good or ill, to the object which awakens the emotion. The feeling assumes an active form, becomes objective, and travels out from itself and the bosom that cherishes it, to the object which calls it forth. In this desire of good or ill to the object, the simple element of joy or sorrow, the subjective feeling, is often merged and lost sight of; yet it ever exists as an essential element of the complex emotion.
Further Subdivision of this Class.—Of this class are the feelings usually denominated affections, which may be further subdivided into benevolent and malevolent, according as they seek the good or the ill of their respective objects. As the simple emotions are all but so many modes and forms of the feeling of joy, and its opposite, sorrow, so the affections are but so many different modifications of the one comprehensive principle of love, and its opposite, hate.
Various Objects of Affection.—The affections vary as the objects vary on which they rest. Of the benevolent class, the more prominent are, love of kindred, of friends, of benefactors, of home and country. Of the malevolent affections, so called, the more important are the feeling of resentment in view of personal injury, of indignation at the wrongs of others, the feeling of jealousy, and the like.
The Passions.—These various affections, both malevolent and benevolent, when they rise above the ordinary degree, and become impatient of restraint, imperious, no longer under the control of reason and sober reflection, but themselves assuming the command of the whole man, and impelling him toward the desired end, regardless of other and higher interests, become the passions of our nature, with which no small part of the self-conflict and self-discipline of this our mortal life is to be maintained.
The Desires.—There is still another class of emotions, differing essentially in their nature from each of the two leading divisions already mentioned, that is, our desires. These are of two sorts. Those which are founded in the physical nature and constitution of man—as the desire of food, of muscular exertion, of repose, of whatever is adapted to the animal nature and wants—are usually denominated appetites: those, on the other hand, which take their rise from the nature and wants of the mind, rather than of the body, may be termed rational, in distinction from animal desires or appetites. Of these the more important are the desire of happiness, of knowledge, of power, of society, of the esteem of others.
As joy has its opposite, sorrow, and love its opposite, hate, so also desire has its opposite, aversion; and the objects of aversion are as numerous as the objects of desire. The desire of wealth has its counterpart, the aversion to poverty and want; the desire of life and happiness stands over against the aversion to suffering and death. The two are so to speak, the positive and negative poles of feeling.
Hope and Fear.—There is yet another and important class of our emotions, having not a little to do with the happiness or misery of life, casting its lights and shadows over no small part of our little path from the cradle to the grave, our hopes and our fears. These, however important in themselves, are, nevertheless, but modifications of the principles of desire and aversion, and are, therefore, to be referred to the same general division of the sensibilities. Hope is the desire of some expected good, fear the aversion to some anticipated evil.
Summary of Classes.—To the three comprehensive classes now named, Simple Emotions, Affections, and Desires may be referred, if I mistake not, the various sensibilities of our nature; or, if the analysis and classification be not complete and exhaustive, it is at least sufficiently minute for our present purpose.
Historical Sketch of the leading Divisions of the Sensibilities adopted by different Writers.
Important to know the Principles of Division adopted by others.—The discussion of the present topic would be incomplete without a glance at the history of the same. It is of service, having obtained some definite results and conclusions of our own, to know also what have been the views and conclusions of others upon the same matter. As with regard to the intellectual powers, so also with respect to the sensibilities, different principles of division and classification have been adopted by different writers. Our limits will allow us to glance only at the more important of these.
General Principles of Classification.—Of those who have written upon the sensibilities, some have placed them in contrast to each other, as hope and fear, love and hate, etc., making this the principle of division; others have classed them as personal, social, etc.; others as relating to time, the past, the present, and the future; others as instinctive and rational; while most who have had occasion to treat of this part of our mental constitution, have considered it with reference solely or mainly to the science of ethics or morals, and have adopted such a division and arrangement as best suited that end, without special regard to the psychology of the matter.
Of the Greek Schools.—Among the Greeks, the Academicians included the various emotions under the four principal ones, fear, desire, joy, and grief, classing despair and aversion under grief, while hope, courage, and anger were comprised under desire.
To denote the passivity of the mind, as acted upon, and under the influence of emotion, the Greeks named the passions in general, παθος, suffering, whence our terms pathos, pathetic, etc., whence also the Latin passio and patior, from which our word passion. The Stoics, in particular, designated all emotions as παθη, diseases, regarding them as disorders of the mind.
Hartley’s Division.—Among the moderns, Hartley divides the sensibilities into the two leading classes of grateful and ungrateful ones; under the former, including love, desire, hope, joy, and pleasing recollection; under the latter, the opposites of these emotions, hatred, aversion, fear, grief displeasing recollection.
Distinction of primitive and derivative.—Certain other English writers, as Watts and Grove, derive all the emotions ultimately from the three principal ones, admiration, love, and hatred, which they term the primitive passions, all others being derivative.
Division of Cogan.—Cogan, whose treatise on the passions is a work of much interest, divides the sensibilities into passions, emotions, and affections; by the first of these terms designating the first impression which the mind receives from some impulsive cause; by the second, the more permanent feeling which succeeds, and which betrays itself by visible signs in the expressions of the countenance and the motions of the body; while by affections, he denotes the less intense and more durable influence exerted upon the mind by the objects of its regard. The passions and affections are, by this author, further divided into those which spring from self-love and those which are derived from the social principle.
Classification of Dr. Reid.—Dr. Reid divides the active principles, as he terms them, into three classes, the mechanical, the animal, and the rational, including, under the first, our instincts and habits, under the second, our appetites, under the third, our higher principles of action.
Of Stewart.—Dugald Stewart makes two classes, the instinctive or implanted, and the rational or governing principles, under the former including appetites, desires, and affections, under the latter, self-love and the moral faculty. The desires are distinguished from the appetites, in that they do not, like the former, take their rise from the body, nor do they operate, periodically, after certain intervals, and cease after the attainment of their object. Under the title of affections, are comprehended all those principles of our nature that have for their object the communication of good or of ill to others.
Of Brown.—Dr. Brown divides the sensibilities, to which he gives the general name of emotions, with reference to their relation to time, as immediate, retrospective, and prospective. Under the former, he includes, as involving no moral feeling, cheerfulness and melancholy, wonder and its opposite, feelings of beauty and the opposite, feelings of sublimity and of the ludicrous; as involving moral feeling, the emotions distinctive of vice and virtue, emotions of love and hate, of sympathy, of pride and humility. Under retrospective emotion he includes anger, gratitude, regret, satisfaction; under prospective emotion, all our desires and fears.
Of Upham.—Prof. Upham divides the sensibilities into the two leading departments, the natural and the moral, the former comprehending the emotions and the desires, the latter, the moral sentiments or conscience. Under the class of desires, he includes our instincts, appetites, propensities, and affections.
Of Hickok.—Dr. Hickok classes the sensibilities under the departments of animal, rational, and spiritual susceptibility; the former comprehending instincts, appetites, natural affections, self-interested feelings, and disinterested feelings; the second, æsthetic, scientific, ethic, and theistic emotions; while the latter or spiritual susceptibility differs from each of the others, in not being, like them, constitutional, but arising rather from the personal disposition and character.
Remarks on the foregoing Divisions.—Our limits forbid, nor does the object of the present work require, a critical discussion of these several plans of arrangement.
It is but justice to say, however, that no one of these several methods of arrangement is altogether satisfactory. They are not strictly scientific. The method of Cogan, for example, derives all our sensibilities ultimately from the two principles of self-love, or desire for our own happiness, and the social principle, or regard for the condition and character of others; which again resolve themselves, according to this author, into the two cardinal and primitive affections of love and hate. This division strikes us at once as arbitrary, and, therefore, questionable; and, also, as ethical rather than psychological. There are many simple emotions which cannot properly be resolved into either of these two principles. On the other hand, the psychological distinction between the emotions and desires is overlooked in this arrangement. The same remarks apply substantially to several of the other methods noticed.
Objection to Stewart’s Division.—The arrangement of Mr. Stewart is liable to this objection, that the principle of self-love, and also the moral faculty, which he classes by themselves as rational principles, in distinction from the other emotions as implanted or instinctive principles, are as really implanted in our nature, as really constitutional or instinctive, as any other. Appetite, moreover, is but one form or class of desires; self-love is but another, i. e., the desire of our own happiness.
To Upham’s Division.—The division of Mr. Upham is still more objectionable on the same ground. The natural and the moral sentiments, into which two great classes he divides the sensibilities, are distinct neither in fact nor in name; the moral sentiments, so called, are as really and truly natural, founded in our constitution, as are our desires and affections; nor is the term natural properly opposed to the term moral as designating distinct and opposite things. The terms instinctive and rational, which Mr. Stewart employs, though not free from objection, much more accurately express the distinction in view, could such a distinction be shown to exist.
Difference of ethical and psychological Inquiry.—In a work, the main object of which is to unfold the principles of ethical science, it may be desirable to single out from the other emotions, and place by themselves, the principle of self-love, together with the social principle and the moral sentiments, as having more direct reference to the moral character and conduct. In a strictly psychological treatise, however, in which the aim is simply to unfold, and arrange in their natural order, the phenomena of the human mind, such a principle of classification is evidently inadmissible. The different operations and emotions of the mind must be studied and arranged, not with reference to their logical or ethical distinctions, but solely their psychological differences. Viewed in this light, the moral sentiments, so far as they are of the nature of feeling or sensibility at all, and not rather of intellectual perception, are simple emotions, and do not inherently differ from any other feelings of the same class. The satisfaction we feel in view of right, and the pain in view of wrong past conduct, differ from the pain and pleasure we derive from other sources, only as the objects differ which call forth the feelings. They are essentially of the same class, the difference is specific rather than generic. They are modifications of the one generic principle of joy and sorrow, and differ from each other not so much as each differs from a desire, or an affection of love or hate.
Objection to Brown’s Arrangement.—The classification of Dr. Brown, if not ethical, is, perhaps, equally far from being psychological. The relation of the different emotions to time is an accidental, and not an essential difference, and it is, moreover, a distinction wholly inapplicable to far the larger portion of the sensibilities, viz., those which he calls immediate emotions, or “those which arise without involving necessarily any notion of time.” This is surely lucus a non lucendo.