CHAPTER III

COMPLICATIONS OF MENTAL LIFE

_A. THE INTELLECT_

§ 14. PERCEPTION

1. _Characteristics of Perception_

At every moment of waking life a multitude of impressions are received by the mind through the eyes, the ears, the cutaneous and all other senses, giving information about processes in the external world and in the subject’s own body. However, because of the peculiar laws of mental activity, the actual conscious experience differs greatly from a mere sum of all those impressions--from what would be the content of consciousness if mind were nothing but an accumulation of senses. In order to distinguish the actual consciousness from the abstractly conceived sum of sensations, we use as a specific term the word _perception_.

Does not a newspaper look different if held in the right way or turned upside down, a landscape if seen in the ordinary way or through our legs? In the latter case there are in our consciousness a multitude of incomprehensible details, lines, figures, colors; in the former we are conscious of one thing, a landscape, with its divisions, each of these divisions with its subdivisions, and so on. The one consciousness is practically the result only of simultaneous sensory stimulations; the other consciousness, in addition to these stimulations, is determined by the laws of organized mind, by attention, memory, practice.

A percept contains both less and more than the sensations corresponding directly to the stimulations. According to the conditions discussed under attention, certain sensations become focal at the expense of others which become marginal. For example, of all things impressing themselves upon my retina, only a few--usually, but not always, those in the center of the field of vision--attain a high degree of consciousness. And of these things again not all the qualities, but only a few become highly conscious. If, as in this case, the visible things happen to become highly conscious, the simultaneously existing audible or tastable things are apt to remain at a low degree of consciousness. That which is important for the needs of our daily life is specially favored and becomes a part of the percept. That which has no practical importance does not easily become a highly conscious part of the present mind. The variations in color of a gown forming many folds are rarely noticed. All parts of the gown are perceived as parts of the same substance. That the whole gown is made of one kind of cloth is practically important. That the various folds appear to the eye--because of the variation of the illumination--somewhat different, is of no practical consequence. Many quite common phenomena, after-images, overtones, difference tones, are never known by the majority of people, because of their practical unimportance.

But a percept contains not only less, but also much more than the sensations corresponding to the stimuli of the moment. Numerous images are woven into this system of sensations and thus give additional meaning to it. We may be said to _see_ that the things are hot or cold, rough or smooth, heavy or light, although our eyes as mere sense organs cannot give us any such information. In the same way we may be said to see that the things are at this or that distance from our head, and that this thing is nearer, that thing farther from us, although our inherited ability to see things spatially does not give us any other information than that of shape and size in the field of vision. By incessantly repeated experiences we have learned, at an early age, that changes in the distance of things which in this or that way have come to our knowledge, are regularly accompanied by definite changes in their size, their coloring, their appearance when the right eye’s image is compared with the left eye’s image, and many similar changes of the impression. Whenever such signs of changes in the distance are impressed upon our mind, we immediately supplement them by ideas of the distances themselves. Thus our original two-dimensional perception of space is expanded into a three-dimensional perception.

All knowledge of things, of their properties, their names, their uses, their meanings, consists in supplementing our consciousness of those qualities which they present to our senses, by images previously obtained through any senses. The force of this supplementing can be understood from the drawings of children and primitive peoples. That which appears in the field of vision is often left unrepresented. Linear perspective, for instance, does not exist in such drawings, although it is a part of the sensory impression. On the other hand, many things are given by the draughtsman which are invisible under the circumstances of the situation, but which he regards as essential parts of the thing because of their practical importance: for instance, both eyes of a person seen in profile, equal length of all the legs of tables and chairs, equal size of things at a distance and things near by.

The significance of this supplementing by ideas is illustrated also in pathological cases. It happens that some of the associative connections in the brain are destroyed by disease, reducing the mind to a condition like that of early childhood, when direct sense impressions alone determined action. Patients may see the shape and color of a thing correctly, may even be able to draw it or paint it, but are unable to tell the name of the object, although they are perfectly familiar with it. They cannot answer our question as to what purpose the thing serves; possibly they give ridiculous answers, fitting an altogether different thing. Only when they are permitted to use the kinesthetic and tactual senses by taking the thing in their hands, do they recognize it. In other cases the patient, although possessing his normal sensibility to touch, is unable to recognize things by his hands alone, but recognizes them at once when permitted to open his eyes.

A particularly characteristic feature of our perception is the grouping together into a mental unit of elements which are not united either spatially by contiguity or nearness, or by similarity of their coloring, or their other attributes. The grouping of such elements into a unitary mental state is often the result of a repeated necessity for reacting upon this sum of impressions by a unitary movement. The newspaper held upside down does not invite the reaction of reading. Parts which are separated by blank spaces or by black bars, are separately perceived. But the words and sentences are not perceived, because we have not previously been obliged to read under such conditions. Looking into a furnished room I perceive at once tables, chairs, and other pieces of furniture, although the legs of a chair, for example, are spatially and by their coloring better connected with the carpet than with the back of the chair. When I am looking at a portrait standing upside down, the dark hair and the dark background become a mental unit, a percept of a dark area. The light face is another mental unit. In upright position the hair separates from the background and unites with the face. I then perceive a person before a dark background, in spite of the similarity of coloring between some parts of the figure and the background, in spite of the difference of coloring between some parts of the figure and other parts. The grouping of the elements in perception is therefore widely different from that which would result from the stimuli directly. It is determined by our habits of reaction upon such groups as frequently appear together in the world in which we live.

Let us illustrate this by two figures. Figure 16 may be perceived as a rabbit’s or as a duck’s head. When we perceive the figure as a rabbit’s head, the white streaks to the right of the eye are two separate sensation groups, each of them unified with respect to the effect produced by them in our nervous system. They are then the animal’s lips. At the same time the protrusions to the left make us conscious of softness, warmth, flexibility. Now perceive the figure as a duck’s head. Immediately those white streaks cease to be two separate units for our mind. Together with the darker parts surrounding them, they affect our mind as a single unit, the variegated back part of the duck’s head. And at the same time the protrusions to the left make us conscious of hardness, cold, rigidity. The sensory stimulations are exactly the same, but they are differently grouped together, and they bring about further nervous activities which greatly differ in these two perceptions.

Figure 17, when shown to a person, is perceived as the result of a child’s careless handling of his ink bottle, as an ink spot. But ask this person if he does not see a boy falling downstairs, and immediately certain elements are grouped together and affect us as being the legs, other elements of sensation are perceived as the arms, and so on. And now suggest to the same person to turn the page slightly to the right and see a man trying to put on his shirt. Quickly the perception changes again; but this time not so much by the breaking up of the former units into their sensory elements and the formation of new units, as by a change of the accompanying ideas. The previous suggestion tends to make us perceive these sensations in one or the other way because it guides our attention. But this guidance is possible only because certain groups of sensational elements (for example, the groups illustrated by our figures) have very often occurred in our mind in consequence of the fact that they originate from external objects which have often been presented to our sense organs among greatly varying surroundings. Thus we have learned to group these elements together and to neglect, more or less, all other elements which may be presented simultaneously.

The total process of selective grouping and of furnishing the groups formed with additional mental contents has often been called _apperception_. But this meaning of the term apperception is not universally adopted. Some mean by apperception mainly the selective grouping of the elements, others mean by it exclusively the furnishing with ideational contents. Because of its ambiguity the term _apperception_ has been entirely omitted from the present book, and the term _perception_ is used in its broadest sense, including both the processes just mentioned. Perception thus means the working over by the mind of any aggregate of sensational elements given at the time through the sense organs.

2. _Illusions_

While the laws of perception are, on the whole, of the greatest benefit to the organism surrounded by a confusing multitude of physical elements bound together into a large number of more or less stable compounds, of things, there are exceptional cases in which these same laws lead the mind into a reaction not suitable to the situation presented.

That which has often occurred is likely to recur. But it does not regularly recur in the same manner. There are exceptions. It happens that certain things occur in surroundings different from their usual surroundings. These things are then perceived, that is, grouped together and supplemented by images, in harmony with their usual surroundings. But the perception is then in discord with the actual surroundings. To the inhabitant of the plains the colors of things appear rather saturated, and the outlines sharp, when these things are at a small distance from the observer. Walking toward them, he is soon able to lay hands on them. But when the air happens to be unusually moist, and because of its diminished weight, free from the particles of dust which have settled because of their weight, things look unusually near, and on walking toward them he discovers that it takes more time to reach them than he expected. The same happens when he goes to the mountains for his vacation, because there the air is always comparatively free from dust. We have here a foreseeing of what ordinarily becomes the subsequent experience, but fails to become it in this instance.

There is another kind of illusion based on the fact that sensations which have been imagined just before the stimuli became effective, are thereby favored and become unusually vivid. This law of attention holds good also when the stimuli are not in exact correspondence with the preceding images. In such a case the perception is more or less assimilated to those images, so that the same stimuli result in somewhat different percepts according to circumstances. “How heavy it is!” said a friend of Davy’s, when the discoverer of potassium placed a little piece of this metal on his finger. Potassium is so light that it floats on water, but the metallic appearance produced the image of pressure and changed the sensation into a percept of something heavy. When two pieces of gray paper, equally bright but of slightly different coloring, are put before me side by side, and I ask myself: is not the yellowish paper lighter than the bluish paper, immediately it seems to be lighter. But I begin to doubt and ask myself: is not the yellowish paper darker than the other; and immediately it looks darker.

Let no one say that this is only “imaginary,” meaning by this word that there are in my mind both the objectively true impression and an incorrect image of something similar. Such is not the case. There is no duality of consciousness. There is one unitary experience. Only scientific reflection reveals the fact that this unitary experience has two sources, one in the external stimulation, the other in the central nervous excitation. The result of these sources, the percept, does not betray the doubleness of its origin any more than a stream at its mouth shows the doubleness of its sources. It is a universal property of perception to be determined not by sensory stimulation alone, although this is the primary factor, but also by images, by nervous dispositions. The more vivid such images, the greater is their influence--now and then their _deceptive_ influence--on our consciousness of the objectively existing. Suggestion is a name which has recently been accepted for such an influence. Illusion is another name for it, in case it is rather pronounced and ill adapted to the object.

QUESTIONS

125. What kinds of mental states are called perceptions?

126. Illustrate the change of a percept into a mental state not worthy of the name, caused by a change of the situation which involves neither a subtraction nor an addition of stimuli.

127. What impressions become a part of the percept, and what impressions do not?

128. Show that a percept contains not only less, but also more than the sensations corresponding to the stimuli of the moment.

129. What can we learn about perception from the drawings of children?

130. Illustrate the perception of a thing whose parts appear spatially separate. (None of the illustrations in the text strictly answers this question.)

131. What changes occur when a rabbit’s head is perceived as a duck’s head?

132. Are illusions signs of mental abnormality? What are they?

133. What two classes of illusions are distinguished in the text?

§ 15. IDEATION

The same laws which govern the supplementing of impressions by images, govern also the supplementing of images by other images. We refer to the appearance of images supplementing other images by the word _remembering_, or _ideation_.

What we remember is always deficient in details compared with what we perceive. Remember a landscape, a street scene, a well-known person. Innumerable details are always lacking in the idea, although they were present in the corresponding percept. These details which are lacking may be either parts separable from the object, or mere attributes of sensation inseparable from the sensation. On the other hand, ideas are richer than percepts. They contain elements obtained from other similar perceptions and added by association, as when the idea of a landscape is enriched by a tower, the idea of a person by a beard, which actually are not present at these places.

Ideas are also strongly influenced and altered by other ideas which happen to be in consciousness at the same time (“set of the mind”); for instance by questions, particularly by questions in the negative form--“did you not,” “was this not,”--by the wish to make a good impression upon others, and by similar factors. We may have no intention of exaggerating, in Falstaff’s fashion, the significance of our deeds; nevertheless our memories become gradually modified so that the uncommon, the important, the valuable in them is emphasized, and the common, the insignificant, the unpleasant is obliterated. Wherever our memories are fragmentary and indefinite, they offer but slight resistance to questions attacking this point, for instance: Do you believe that the gentleman was as tall as you are?

Memories are thus, not exceptionally, but universally inaccurate representations of that which has been perceived. This has recently been proved by direct experimental tests. Since percepts, although they rest on a foundation of external stimulation, are so strongly influenced by the mind’s own manner of functioning, the existence of this influence in the case of imagery, lacking such a foundation, is not surprising. Although memories are but rarely totally misleading, mankind has long ago learned to rely upon memory in all important business and legal transactions only when there is agreement between the memories of several witnesses. The changeableness of memory is particularly strong in the child’s mind. The perceptual experiences have not been so often repeated as in the adult mind, and the practical importance of accuracy of remembering has not made itself so much felt. For both reasons the child’s memory is very unreliable.

The word _imagination_ is frequently used to signify a specially strong ability to modify memories by associated images. Thus we speak of the imagination of the child--but also of the artist and the scientist. Without imagination the scientist would not succeed in his task of making the phenomena of nature more comprehensible by showing the consequences of the remotest relations between things. It is clear, however, that imagination is not a fundamental “faculty” of the mind, separable from other “faculties,” but a result of the fundamental laws governing mental functions.

Let us turn to the fragmentary nature of reproduced experience and discuss its significance. That previous experience can be reproduced only in fragments is the direct result of the selective power of attention, which asserts itself in both perception and ideation. Not every quality of a thing presented is equally interesting. A child having a watch takes interest mainly in the ticking and in the glitter of the golden case. Meeting a dog, he gives attention to the terrifying bark and the multiplicity of legs. Suppose now that the dog regularly occurred together with a special impression, perhaps a spoken word; then the recurring of this symbol will tend to reproduce in the child’s mind the image of the dog. But the pressure of many competing tendencies does not permit the reproduction of all the qualities of the dog which have become conscious on former meetings with this animal. Only an extract, so to speak, of these qualities is reproduced, and this is made up of those which were formerly especially interesting,--the bark and the legs.

Another factor determining the selection of special qualities of a thing for reproduction is the frequency with which each quality reappears in things which are different in certain respects, but in other respects belong to the same class. The trees of a forest beside which I am walking have many individual differences. But certain features are common to all the trees. These common features reappear again and again, while each of the other features appears only now and then. The same can be said of various dogs met on the street, of various tones of a violin, and so on. If the perception of the trees is experienced together with a certain other percept which may serve as a symbol for the trees, for example the word _tree_, the association of the symbol with those regularly repeated qualities becomes firmly established, whereas the association with the other, more or less varying qualities, remains comparatively feeble. The result is that the symbol tends to reproduce almost exclusively the former qualities. These come to make up a separate group of images, a general idea.

The laws of attention, practice, and memory, together with the simple uniformity of nature just mentioned, produce thus a peculiar result. They remove ideation from the accidents of external events in an incomparably higher degree than perception. They bring about ideas of the separate qualities of the things perceived, _abstractions_, and ideas of common features, _general ideas_. In many cases an idea is both an abstraction and a general idea. Examples of such ideas to which no equally simple concrete object corresponds, are the idea of a mere length, the color red, sight, a dog in general, a tree in general.

These ideas are of eminent importance for all higher mental development. Mind, in them, departs from that which nature presents, but only in order to take possession of it more securely by systematization and by overcoming the narrow limits of the capacity of consciousness.

By separating the common qualities of things from those which vary we classify the things into kinds and species, we think of them as being in various ways related. Instead of having an incomprehensible mass of things standing side by side, we have a system of coördinated and subordinated things, of groups formed according to closer or remoter relationship; and thus it becomes a comparatively easy matter to survey the multitude of things of which nature consists. Not only order, but law too is thus brought into the phenomena of nature. If we collect sticks of wood and set fire to the pile, we notice that some of them burn lustily, others smolder and smoke, still others do not burn at all. Why so? Repetition of similar experiences is necessary before we can give an answer; but mere repetition of the same event does not enable us to give the answer. The event must be broken up and general ideas must be formed out of the elements of the event. Then only can we answer the question. Some of the sticks burn because they are dry. Others do not burn so well or do not burn at all because they are wet. Neither shape nor color nor origin nor many other qualities of the sticks have any causal connection with the difference of burning and not burning. Both order and law in nature are recognized by abstraction.

Equally important is the overcoming of the narrowness of consciousness by abstraction and generalization. When I am thinking of trees, the contents of my mind are very few. There may be a word image, a visual image of something tall and branching; hardly more. All the special features of trees of all kinds are absent from consciousness. So I can easily think of additional things, for instance of the age which trees may reach, or the elevation at which trees cease to grow. But the moment I begin by accident to think of a thing which does not harmonize with those features of the tree which thus far have been absent from consciousness, immediately those features become conscious and inhibit the contradictory thoughts. They have been unconscious and yet we cannot say that they have been sheer nothing. The consciousness of the general idea has in some way prepared the path for the special features from which it has been abstracted. They have been carried close to the door of consciousness, so to speak, and the slightest impulse coming from an associated idea will cause them to enter. This is our meaning when we say that within the general idea of which we are conscious all those special features are included. They are included by representation, the general idea being the deputy taking care of their interests. Thus our mind is freed from the necessity of carrying at any moment a heavy load of actual states of consciousness and is nevertheless able to act as reasonably as if those mental states were present. In using representative ideas, our mind has actually at its service the enormous number of all those individual ideas which are represented by them.

QUESTIONS

134. Enumerate in what different respects ideation is (more or less) similar to perception.

135. Why are reproduced experiences fragmentary?

136. How does a general idea originate?

137. What is the difference between abstractions and general ideas?

138. Can an idea be both an abstraction and a general idea?

139. Illustrate the formation of a natural law by means of abstraction and generalization.

140. With what feature of political life may the service of a general idea in mental life be compared?

§ 16. LANGUAGE

1. _Word Imagery_

There can be no doubt that animals are to some extent able to generalize. A dog or a cat is trained to distinguish between indoors and outdoors and to adjust its behavior accordingly. This would be impossible if the dog possessed no general notion of room or street.

But these generalizations remain rather insignificant so long as they are not connected with one definite image which stands as a symbol for the whole class of things. Nature scarcely presents to us any images which could be used as symbols of this kind. What are we invariably conscious of when thinking of books, or of trees, or of houses--something that is not only invariable, but also readily separable in our imagination? It is difficult to name anything which fulfills these conditions. But man created what he did not find in nature, symbols which can be used as meaning whole classes of objects and relations of objects. The totality of these symbols is human language.

These symbols are normally divided into four classes of imagery, four languages, so to speak, in such a manner that each class of objects has a symbol in each of the four languages. The first of these languages acquired by the child is the auditory language, made up of the sounds of the words spoken by others. Soon after having begun to understand spoken words, the child begins to speak himself. Thus he acquires a second language, made up of kinesthetic imagery of his vocal organs. These languages are the only ones possessed by illiterates. In school the child learns to read, that is, he acquires a third class of symbols, consisting of visual images of written and printed words. One might of course speak of these as two visual languages, since the sight of written words differs somewhat from the sight of printed words. Finally the child learns to write, and thus acquires a fourth language, made up of kinesthetic images of the writing hand.

These are, of course, not the only languages possible. The blind-born, unable to acquire visual imagery, substitute tactual word imagery by learning to read raised letters or the raised point script generally taught in institutions for the blind. But a seeing person, too, may acquire this tactual language in addition to the other four. The deaf-born acquire a visual language made up of the images of the hand and the fingers representing symbolically letters and words. But it is hardly worth while to enumerate all these minor languages. The most important ones practically are these four: the auditory, the visual (written and printed), the kinesthetic of the vocal organs, and the kinesthetic of the writing hand.

We saw that the origin of all these languages, that is, classes of word images, is to be found in speech. How speech itself originated in the human race is a problem which thus far is not solved, or at least, of which no proposed solution has thus far been universally accepted. Some light is shed upon it by the answer to the simpler question as to the origin of speech in childhood. Only during the last few decades has this question been given attention, obviously because this growth of speech, as an everyday occurrence, seemed to ask for no explanation. The child imitates!--what else should be said about it? But in order to imitate, the child must first be able to produce the elements of the things to be imitated. And by imitation speech only is acquired, but not the full significance of language.

2. _The Acquisition of Speech_

(1) Speech originates from instinctive activities of the vocal organs. As a child, when left to himself and feeling well, plays with his hands and kicks, he also, in response to all kinds of external and internal stimulations, moves instinctively (that is, because of his inherited nervous connections) lips and tongue, larynx and chest, and produces a great number of different sounds and sound combinations--not only those which are used in the language of his people, but also the strangest crowing and smacking and clucking sounds. He cannot produce speech sounds without immediately hearing them. Thus an association is formed between sound perception, kinesthetic perception, and motor activity; and soon the sound of his own voice stimulates the child to further production of these speech sounds. This explains why the same sounds are often so many times repeated in an infant’s babble, and why baby talk contains so many reduplications like papa, mama, byby, and so on.

(2) The sounds invented by the child are used by the parents and other people in their communications with the child. They select from the large number those which are like speech sounds of their own language. They address the child with these words again and again, forming also brief sentences, and thus stimulate the child to produce at will the words which he has at his command, in these combinations and sentences. The child thus becomes more and more skillful in the production of these words. Meanwhile the numerous other baby words which have no significance for the people surrounding him, are gradually lost from the child’s mind, so that later they can no longer be produced voluntarily. Practically every child can, on the basis of his articulating instinct, learn any language spoken anywhere on earth. But in later years, when this instinct has weakened and has been replaced by the habit of producing the sounds of a particular language, it is a difficult matter to learn to speak a new language. The sound perception as well as the sound production is then assimilated to the “native” speech, and the words of the foreign language are consequently spoken in a manner similar to the words of the native language. This is meant when we say that foreign languages acquired in adult life are, as a rule, spoken with an “accent.”

The activity of grown people influences the child’s talking in yet another way. The child hears those words which are selected by the people surrounding him, usually in the presence of the persons and things and events for which the words serve as symbols. Thus new associations are formed. To the kinesthetic and auditory word images is added imagery of the word’s meaning. The child comes to experience the words as symbols and to reproduce ideas of the words when the things appear as percepts or images. Only then can we say that the child has really learned to speak, to express his perceptions, his images, and his feeling and willing in speech.

(3) When the child has reached this stage when he begins to comprehend the practical importance of this activity of his vocal organs, he begins to imitate voluntarily, eagerly, the speech of grown people. This imitation is to some extent mechanical, without involving any comprehension of the meaning of the words. The child simply enjoys being able to produce the same words which grown people use. This imitation is in many cases at first very imperfect, because many elementary sounds necessary for these words have not been produced instinctively thus far and therefore cannot be produced voluntarily, the kinesthetic imagery being lacking. But soon even the more difficult sounds are produced accurately. The vocal organs acquire the habit of assuming certain normal positions, from which the special activity of speech in each case of pronunciation proceeds. In a few years the total number of words necessary for a command of the language is acquired. But voluntary imitation is not restricted to mere pronunciation. It is applied also to the modes of uniting words into compounds, phrases, sentences. The result of this application is the creation of new compounds out of the words which the child has at his command at the time, of new methods of applying inflection, to the amusement of those who surround him. The following are a few examples of such creations: _goed_ for _went_, _chair_ for _sitting_, _more pencil_ for _I want the other pencil_, _mussing down_ as the antonym of _mussing up_.

Voluntary imitation, therefore, does not altogether mean assimilation to the language which the child hears spoken; to some extent it means departure from that language, resulting from the mental capacities with which he has been endowed by nature. In another way too the child’s language must differ from that of grown people. All acquisition of speech is based on perception and is subject to the laws of perception. We have previously seen that perception is largely dependent on the interest of the person who perceives, on his previous experiences.

A child’s interests are totally different from those of a grown person, so that many words cannot assume in the child’s mind the meaning which they possess in the adult’s mind. At a later stage this difficulty can to some extent be overcome by the aid of language itself, by explaining in words the meaning of a new word. At the beginning this is of course impossible. So a large number of words used by adults remain for a long time entirely meaningless to the child, especially abstract words, relative words (_to-day_, _here_, _I_), and words meaning things with which the child does not come in contact. Even those which he seems to understand perfectly have a different meaning. A watch is to the child something which ticks and sparkles. The adult’s meaning of the word can in no manner be conveyed to the child. The name of a particular article of food may be used for all things which are edible, also for eating, for hunger, and so on. A certain baby called his father, mother, nurse, sister, all by the same name, _dada_, then applied this word also to his bottle, and finally to every interesting object.

This does not mean that children generalize more than adults, that they have a superior logical capacity. The meaning of the child’s words is often more general than that of adults because the child takes interest in fewer qualities, and naturally finds these in a greater number of objects. But the difference is not that of a greater power of generalization. Very often the child’s words have a more special meaning. A child is not likely to use the word _animal_ as meaning worms, birds, and horses. The difference lies in the fact that the child uses the word as a symbol for a thing or quality which is conspicuous to _him_, interesting to _him_. A child’s language is amusing to grown people only because they do not know the meaning which the words have in the child’s mind, and are inclined to substitute the meaning which they have in their own minds.

(4) In spite of all imitation, the individual’s language is largely his own creation adapted to his individual needs. To the extent to which the children of a community, of a nation, have similar interests and similar experiences, these individual creations must be similar. But to the extent to which interests and experiences differ, language must differ. Baby talk which is quite comprehensible to the members of one family is incomprehensible to those of another family. Similarly, the language of one tribe of the human race has come to differ from that of another tribe, one nation’s language from that of another nation. Family differences, of course, cannot last long. The child’s language assimilates itself to the language of the people at large as soon as the child comes under the influence of people outside of the family. This is the fourth stage in the development of an individual’s language, lasting much longer than the three preceding stages, indeed practically never ending. From mistakes in comprehending others, from mistakes of others caused by his own language, or from special instruction in school, the individual learns how the words which he uses are to be understood in order to agree with the general usage of language, and thus approaches more and more the ideal of uniformity of speech.

This uniformity, however, can never become complete. The number of words of which various individuals have command always differs. Their meanings always differ slightly, sometimes considerably. Accordingly the phrases and sentences which one uses differ from those of others. Every one has his own linguistic style. For most practical purposes the actual uniformity of language is sufficient. Not a few misunderstandings, discussions, quarrels, however, have their source in the insufficiency of this uniformity. This is regrettable, but unavoidable. The nature of mind creates language such as it is, and mind has to make the best of it. It is only on a very high level of mental development that men succeed in creating for definite purposes definite languages which admit of almost no differences of meaning; for instance, the symbolic systems of mathematics and chemistry. But these systems prove that the very perfection carries with it an imperfection. The specific power, the art and beauty of language, are not to be sought in mathematical and chemical treatises. They depend on the speaker’s and hearer’s individuality.

3. _The Growth of Language_

Just as one individual’s language differs from that of another individual, the language of one time differs from the same nation’s language at another time. The words of a language change or are replaced by new ones. The inflections change, are probably simplified, or as in the case of the English language, almost completely lost. The manner of forming compounds, phrases, and sentences is altered. The meaning of the words is no more fixed; many words change their original meaning entirely, even to the opposite. Changes of the former kind--changes of the sounds, their inflections, and their combinations--are brought about partly by external and fortuitous conditions, such as the Danish invasion of England or the Norman conquest, also by greater ease of pronunciation. But here the laws governing mental life are also determining factors, and in the changes of meaning every growth depends on these laws. The same forces which build up the child’s language in conformity with his experiences, thoughts, interests, and needs, bring about also the gradual changes of a nation’s language in conformity with the changing experiences, thoughts, and needs.

Under special circumstances one among all the properties or features of a person or thing may occupy the mind almost exclusively, as of Julius Cæsar the despotic power which he obtained, of Captain Boycott the ban which was placed upon him. In such cases, when the name is heard and pronounced, the special feature impresses itself upon the mind. The speaker thinks of little else than this. And when the necessity arises of expressing in a word that peculiarity in another place under different surroundings, the individual name offers itself, since its original meaning has already been modified, since it has already lost most of its individual significance. The part of its meaning which is retained is now generally applied. An expansion of the special meaning has taken place.

On the other hand, words which were originally applied to many things in many different situations come to signify a particular thing under particular circumstances. This change of meaning is illustrated by the names which the state or nation gives its officers. President, secretary, general, captain, had originally a very broad meaning, but when applied to the officers of the state have a very special meaning. It is easy to explain this. The word _captain_, meaning originally merely the chief of any aggregation of people, is naturally applied by the speaker most frequently to the chief of that company of men in which he is particularly interested. The chief of another company of men is then no longer called by this simple name, but additional names are used. The word when used without additional words comes to mean exclusively the chief of the special group which is of main interest to the speaker. Similarly, _city_ assumes for the person living in the country the meaning of the city near by. _Gas_ means for the man who is not a physicist only the ordinary illuminating gas.

Other changes of meaning resulting from associative connection and a transference of attention are the metaphors and metonymies. A metaphor is a figure of speech in which one object is spoken of as if it were another; for example, when St. Luke says, “Go ye, and tell that fox,” meaning Herod. A metonymy is the exchange of names between things related. _Toilet_ meant originally a small cloth, a napkin, spread over a table. Then it came to mean the table itself, used in the process of dressing. Then it meant the process of dressing one’s hair, later the general process of dressing one’s self. It also assumed the meaning of a person’s actual dress, his costume; also the style of dress. More recently it has come to mean the toilet room, the lavatory.

Many changes in the meaning of words result from certain secondary purposes of the speaker. We usually address another person in order to obtain something from him. In order to succeed, we must keep or make him good humored, give him his proper honors and titles, flatter him rather than call attention to his faults. The consequence of this exaggeration of the person’s value is that all titles, all forms of appellation, especially those addressed to the female sex, tend to deteriorate, to lose their original value. _Lady_ no longer means the wife of a nobleman, but is applied to a washerwoman. _Sir_ is used in a letter addressed to any man, however low his rank.

Deterioration of the meaning of words is not restricted to those used for appellation. Whenever we desire to convey any thought to others, we must make it appear important enough to have people give attention to it. We therefore choose terms which mean more than we intend to say, rather than terms which mean exactly as much or less. We call things lovely or horrid when we mean only agreeable or disagreeable, we speak of heaven or hell when we mean only a good or a bad place. The inevitable result is, of course, that the impressive words become insipid. We call a student fair who is only mediocre, merely because of our good will towards him. _Fair_ then comes to mean mediocre, and we call a student fair who is a poor student. Finally, a fair student comes to mean a poor student.

Those who are particularly anxious to use impressive language--young people, students, soldiers--often use the other extreme for the same purpose. They use words which signify low or bad things and relations (slang) in order to refer to the things and relations of ordinary life to which they want to call attention. “Grub” comes to mean human food. “Being plucked” takes the place of “being rejected at an honor examination.” _Puritan_ and _quaker_ are slang terms of the seventeenth century which have entirely lost their original meaning of contempt and ridicule. In the same way words of low meaning are all the time being raised into the realm of good language.

Speech depends as much on the totality of mental life as perception. A person’s choice of words, their forms and their connections, are determined by previous habits of using words, by experience concerning those qualities of things which are most important to his own interests, by his consciousness of his present needs and ends. The general purpose of communication between the members of society tends to obliterate differences between individuals and between generations. But it never does this perfectly. Individuality, circumstances, and special purpose give to the language of each person an individual stamp; and the succession of individuals, of historical conditions, of the varying needs of successive generations, brings about unavoidably alterations in the language. These alterations are retarded by the existence of a written language, of literature. They may also be retarded artificially by training and compelling the members of a community to use the same words and the same rules of grammar and syntax. Such artificial remedies, however, are not without serious disadvantages. They take the life out of language. Force, beauty, and particularly truthfulness in representation of thoughts are likely to be sacrificed unless we are willing to admit a certain amount of lawlessness, which, after all, is the outcome of the fundamental laws of the mind.

4. _The Significance of Language_

Aside from its social significance as the almost exclusive means of communication among the members of society, language has its significance for purely individual mental activity and mental growth. This has already been referred to above. Language makes possible an almost unlimited refinement of abstract thought, a complete analysis of the data of perceptual, ideational, and affective life into their elements, and the construction out of them of new concepts, first according to their similarities, then according to purposes. Such concepts as acceleration, pitch of tone, irrational number, atomic heat, justice, bliss, would be impossible without language. To the invention of such abstract concepts mankind owes its subjugation of nature. It is difficult to think of the exact manner in which bodies fall when they are dropped; some fall slowly, others with great velocity, some do not fall at all, but rise. But think of them as being in space from which the air has been exhausted, and apply the concept of acceleration. At once the matter is very simple, and it includes even the heavenly bodies with which we never come in direct contact: all bodies fall with _constant acceleration_.

This is but one of innumerable instances. Practically all laws of physics, chemistry, philology, psychology, and all the other sciences are stated in terms of highly abstract concepts. Imagine, for example, the sine or tangent of an angle, electromotor force, molecular weight, consonants and vowels, intensity of sensation. None of these abstract concepts and none of the laws in which they appear could have been invented without the aid of language. How restricted, further, would be our knowledge without language! How limited the exchange of opinions! Think of such a phrase as “the events of the last thirty years.” What a multitude of ideas is suggested by it in the most economical manner! Few of these ideas actually become conscious; but all of them are made ready to serve if their services should be needed.

Language further enables us to overcome, whenever this is necessary, the ambiguity of its own elements (the words) which results from the individual and historical conditions influencing the growth of speech. The meaning of words can be fixed by definition. Such words as _circle_, _energy_, _freedom_, have many different meanings (a circle of friends, the energy of style, the freedom of a city). The physicist defines energy as the capacity for performing mechanical work, excluding any and all other meanings. The philosopher defines freedom as the possession of the power to act in accordance with one’s inherent nature, independent of external causes. Because of the association between the defined and the defining words, the latter keep the defined word from being used wrongly, by entering consciousness when the defined word happens to be used in an improper connection. It is true that, in order to insure constancy of meaning, the defining words, too, should be defined again by others, and so on. A perfect definition is therefore an ideal which can be approached, but never reached. In spite of this, the value to human thought and knowledge of clearly defined concepts is immeasurable.

QUESTIONS

141. Why does generalization play such an insignificant part in the mental life of animals?

142. What are the four languages of educated normal people?

143. Which of these languages is acquired first by the child?

144. How does baby talk originate?

145. How are the reduplications of baby talk to be explained?

146. What is the origin of “a foreign accent” in speech?

147. Why does voluntary imitation of speech sounds by a baby develop at first very slowly?

148. Illustrate the inventiveness of children in learning to speak.

149. What could make one think that children surpass grown people in the ability to generalize?

150. What are the four stages in the development of an individual’s language?

151. What is the advantage or disadvantage of uniformity and individuality in the use of language?

152. Illustrate how a word of individual meaning changes to a general meaning.

153. Illustrate how a word of general meaning changes to an individual meaning.

154. Explain the psychological origin of a metaphor and a metonymy.

155. Illustrate and explain the deterioration of words.

156. Illustrate slang and explain its origin.

157. Is it desirable that the written language should retard the growth of the spoken language? Give reasons for your answer.

158. What significance has language besides serving as a means of communication?

159. What is a definition? Why can a definition never become perfect?

§ 17. JUDGMENT AND REASON

1. _Coherent Thought_

When I receive a letter from a friend, I perceive its words, I become conscious of their meaning, I remember my relations to him; for instance, the time of our first meeting. But my thought proceeds. I wonder how he is getting along now, whether better or worse than myself, whether he has succeeded in overcoming through his greater energy the obstacles which retarded my progress. This is more than perception, imagination, or abstract consciousness. It is a _coherent process of thinking_. The best way of describing its characteristics is to tell what the opposite of _coherent_ thought is.

First, coherent thought is not dreaming. The elements of a dream are of course united by something. But they are united only like the links of a chain. If the second link were removed, nothing would hold the first and the third together. This chain-like thought is frequent in the insane. The following is an example from Diefendorf’s _Psychiatry_:--

“My mother came for me in January. She had on a black bombazine of Aunt Jane’s. One shoestring of her own and got another from neighbor Jenkins. She lives in a little white house kitty corner of our’n. Come up with an old green umbrella ’cause it rained. You know it can rain in January when there is a thaw. Snow wasn’t more than half an inch deep, hog-killing time, they butchered eight that winter, made their own sausages, cured hams, and tried out their lard. They had a smoke house. [Question: But how about your leaving Hartford?] She got up to Hartford on the half-past eleven train and it was raining like all get out. Dr. Butler was having dinner, codfish, twasn’t Friday, he ain’t no Catholic, just sat with his back to the door and talked and laughed and talked.”

In other cases, mere similarity of words of different meaning, rhyme, familiar questions, or spatial contiguity of things lead consciousness from one idea to a second, from the second to the third, and so on, without any common tie which would unite all these ideas into one system.

Coherent thought, secondly, is no endless recurring of the same few ideas, as when I am brooding over something, when a song which I have heard occupies my mind and gives me no peace, when the thought of having possibly failed to lock the door properly prevents me from sleeping. This recurring kind of thought, too, is a frequent symptom in cases of mental derangement; for example, as a continuously present desire to kill somebody, or as the permanent idea of one’s own sinfulness and worthlessness.

Coherent thought is intermediate between the two extremes just mentioned. It is a train of thought regulated by the associative connections between all the separate ideas and one central idea which dominates and unifies the whole. The thought of a football game or of the destiny of the United States branches out into innumerable partial thoughts, each one leading to another one. But they are all united by their relation to this game or to this nation. Such a coherent thought need not possess a considerable length. Sometimes, as in unconstrained conversation or in letter writing, it may soon be followed by another coherent thought, this by a third, and so on, and these may be related to each other merely like the links of a chain. Sometimes, however, it lasts for hours, as in lecturing on a definite subject, or in writing or reading a chapter of a book or a whole book.

Coherent thought depends largely on _memory_, on associative connections. But it depends also on those conditions which determine _attention_: unless the thoughts have an affective value, unless they are interesting to the individual in question, they are not likely to enter consciousness. Because of this dependence on the conditions of attention, certain persons are capable of coherent thought in some lines, but not in others. Whenever the purely _associative_ function predominates over the conditions of _attention_, or conversely, those abnormalities occur of which we have just spoken, mere chain-like thought, or obsession by a single idea.

Nothing else favors coherent thought so much as the possession of language. The simplicity of a word or phrase and its connection with experiences of unlimited complexity enable the mind to keep within one system of thought in spite of temporary deviations, numerous and winding though they be. Such complicated ideas, inexhaustible to him who tries to describe them, as propriety, honor, duty, may guide and determine a long-continued train of thoughts and actions. The most important one of all these guiding ideas, crystallizing around a single word, is the idea of self, of _I_.

2. _The Self and the World_

Among the impressions received by a child through his sense organs, some must very early distinguish themselves from the rest. (1) When the child is carried about or creeps about, the majority of his impressions change from moment to moment: instead of a wall with pictures, seen a few seconds ago, he sees windows with curtains; instead of tables and chairs he sees houses, trees, and strange people. Certain impressions, however, hardly change. Whatever else he may see, he almost invariably sees also his hands and some of the lower parts of his body. Whatever may be the position of his body, sensations from his clothing, from the movements of his limbs, from the processes in his digestive and other organs are always present. (2) Another impressive phenomenon is this. The things seen often move, and thus cause alterations in the field of vision. But when these moving things are his own arms and legs, yielding to the pull of their muscles, there is an additional experience, made up of kinesthetic and usually also tactual sensations. Certain experiences are therefore a kind of twofold experience as compared with others which are of one kind only: visual plus kinesthetic-tactual. (3) In still a third way certain experiences distinguish themselves. Whenever the child’s hands and feet come in contact with external things, a tactual sensation is added to the visual impression. But when one hand touches the other hand or a foot or another part of the body, even a part which is not seen, a peculiar double tactual impression is received. That this double tactual sensation is particularly interesting may be concluded from the concentration with which an infant plays with his feet, and the enjoyment which a kitten seems to get from biting its tail.

For various reasons, therefore, the sensations of a child’s _own body_, visual, tactual, organic, etc., become experiences of a special class. By various peculiarities they distinguish themselves from all others and become a special, unitary group. But the child’s _ideas and feelings_, when compared with his perceptions, also form a peculiar system, often keeping unchanged while the perceptions change because of movements of the objective things or of the body itself. It is quite natural, then, that in opposition to the external world _a dual system_ is conceived, made up of the bodily sensations on the one hand and the ideas and feelings of frequently repeated or especially impressive experiences on the other. But in spite of this unison between the complex of bodily sensations and the complex of ideas, forming a personal world as opposed to the external world, there remains an opposition between the constituents of the personal world as between a material and a spiritual half of the whole.

This complex idea of a personal world, of personality, which constantly increases in content, is given a special name, John or Mary, and still later another name, _I_. The unity of the idea of personality, the readiness of its appearance in consciousness in spite of the multitude of its contents, is greatly enhanced by this name. The idea _I_ becomes the omnipresent and dominating factor in consciousness. I can see nothing, hear nothing, imagine nothing without, however vaguely, thinking that it is _I_ who reads, _I_ who answers, _I_ who designs. It is altogether impossible to express such thoughts in language without reference to the _I_ or the _mine_. In the ecstasy of the mystic or the mental exaltation of the insane, the idea of _I_ may be absent, but never under normal conditions at an age beyond that of infancy. Consciousness in which the idea of _I_ is rather pronounced is commonly called self-consciousness.

It is plain enough that thinking of the other half of the world, other than the self, is also facilitated by such names as “the world,” “the external world.” But the concept of the external world does not easily attain the unity of the concept of self, because the experiences referred to are too changeable in comparison with those referred to by _I_. We speak of the external world chiefly in order to distinguish it from the self, not because of the unity of its conception.

The extraordinary support which the consciousness of self receives from language has had also a certain undesirable consequence. We have mentioned in an earlier chapter the universal desire to imagine the world as being under the power of innumerable demons. The consciousness of the self thus leads naturally to the thought of a demon who inhabits the human body. When a person under ordinary conditions is conscious of the _I_, there is no time for its content to unfold itself to any considerable extent. Usually one small group of ideas enters consciousness, even when I ask myself the question as to what I am: ideas of a certain visual appearance, a certain position in society, a certain age, certain aims in life. It seems then that the concept of self is exceedingly simple. This apparent simplicity gives aid to the idea of the existence of a simple demon, independent of time, eternal, inhabiting and governing this body as long as its organs are held together by their normal physiological functions, after the body’s death going elsewhere--whither, we do not know. But this conclusion as to the existence of a simple, unitary subjective reality is no more justifiable than the statement that, because of the simplicity of the idea _it_ in ordinary language, there must be an absolutely simple objective reality which corresponds to it.

Mind may justly be called a unity. But it is not a simple, indescribable unity, a unitary something separable from the sum of the parts of which it consists. It is, rather, a unity comparable to the unity of an animal organism or a plant, which may be well described as consisting of so many different parts functioning together according to definite laws. Within the unity of the mind there are smaller groups which may also be called unities, though in a restricted sense. The _I_ is one of these subordinate unities. It, too, is not simple, but consists of parts, sometimes a greater, sometimes a smaller number. It may expand and include almost as much content as mind itself, provided that time is given for such an expansion, and a sufficient stimulus. Usually the _I_ is very poor in content, hardly anything else than the word-idea which is the representative of the whole concept.

3. _Intelligence_

It is but natural that thought is largely in harmony with the actual facts. Its contents are derived from sensory experiences, are molded by sensory experiences, and must therefore often be anticipations of sensory experiences. With reference to its agreement or disagreement with the actual facts, we give our thought the name of truth, knowledge--or error. Both truths and errors, like perceptions and illusions, are the results of the laws governing mental functions. But truths are more common in the mental life of certain individuals than in that of others. Youth is more apt than mature age to give free rein to its imagination, no matter whether it agrees with reality or not. This is partly the result of the mature man’s realizing the high value of this agreement and therefore striving for it; partly the unintended consequence of innumerable pleasant and sad experiences, of adaptations which have proved now more, now less successful. But aside from such differences developing during life, there are immense differences of a similar kind resulting from native capacities. We speak of such capacities as reason, judgment, intelligence.

Intelligence does not consist merely in a good memory, making possible the exact reproduction of experiences of long ago. A good memory in this sense contributes much toward a high degree of intelligence, but is not identical with it. Even the feeble-minded are often found to possess an astonishing capacity for retaining dates, poetry, music. But memory adapts the thought processes only to very simple and frequently recurring events. When the circumstances become complicated, it soon proves inadequate.

Imagine a servant sent on an errand. He finds it impossible to execute the instructions received from his master. That ends it, if he is deficient in intelligence. No instructions have been given for this case; thus there is nothing to do but to return home. But the thought of an intelligent servant is more comprehensive. He recalls his master’s situation and analogous cases; the probable purpose of the master’s order; other possibilities of realizing the same end. Thus he succeeds perhaps in reconstructing the totality of the conditions which led his master to send him, and in meeting these conditions.

Take another example. Of several physicians, all but one are mistaken in the diagnosis of a case. Why do they differ? Every disease is characterized by a multitude of symptoms. Some of them are obvious, so that no one can fail to notice them: the complaints of the patient. Others are more hidden, but no less important. The physician must search for them. Each symptom, for example, fever, lack of appetite, dizziness, megalomania, may appear in very different diseases. A definite group of symptoms in definite degrees of intensity is characteristic of a particular disease. Two conditions, therefore, must be fulfilled to make a correct diagnosis. The symptoms which are hidden must be called up by those which are obvious, so that the physician can search for them and determine whether they are present or absent; for without first thinking of them he cannot search for them. Secondly, the thought of the present and absent symptoms must reproduce the idea of the disease which is characterized by the presence or absence of just these symptoms. This reproduction is possible only in a mind in which all these ideas are very closely connected, forming a well-organized system. Where this is not the case, the less obvious symptoms cannot influence the decision, and the correctness of the diagnosis becomes a matter of chance.

Lack of intelligence, then, means a _deficiency in the organization of ideas_, a lack of those manifold interconnections by which a large number of ideas may enter into a unitary group--no matter how _effectively_ each idea is associated with a small number of others, that is, how excellent the person’s _memory_. Intelligence means organization of ideas, manifold interconnection of all those ideas which ought to enter into a unitary group, because of the natural relations of the objective facts represented by them. The discovery of a physical law in a multitude of phenomena apparently unrelated, the interpretation of an historical event of which only a few details are directly known, are examples of intelligent thought which takes into consideration innumerable experiences neglected by the less intelligent mind. Neither memory alone nor attention alone is the foundation of intelligence, but a union of memory and attention. Energy of concentration must be combined with breadth of interest. It is clear that thought determined by both these conditions is more likely to agree with the enormously complicated events in the external world than thought which is governed mainly by one of them.

How does human intelligence differ from that of animals? That man is immeasurably superior to animals cannot be doubted. But human superiority does not consist in the possession of a higher faculty--let us call it reason--in no way dependent on the lower, animal faculties, to which it is added as a jeweler’s tools might be added to a blacksmith’s tools. The difference between the animal mind and the human mind is simply this: that the imaginative anticipation of possible experiences of the future is brought about in the human mind by means of more abstract and therefore more comprehensive ideas than in the animal mind. Man’s mind is by natural inheritance far more capable of forming abstract ideas than is the mind of the highest animals. Man is further immensely aided in abstract thought by language--his own invention--which furnishes him with symbols taking the place of the most complicated ideas, and because of their simplicity, effecting economy in mental work as tools and machines do in manual labor. Animals, too, possess symbols, cries; but their number is insignificant. The difference between man and animals is therefore only one of degree in properties which are common to both. But these degrees are indeed very far apart in the scale.

QUESTIONS

160. How does coherent thought differ from dreaming?

161. How does coherent thought differ from mere recurrent thought?

162. What are the conditions on which coherent thought depends?

163. What is the significance of language for coherent thought?

164. What are the two sources of the idea of self?

165. What influence has language on the concept of the unity and indivisibility of self?

166. What is the true concept of the unity of mind?

167. How does intelligence differ from memory?

168. How does the text describe “lack of intelligence”?

169. How does human intelligence differ from that of animals?

§ 18. BELIEF

It seems, then, that all our knowledge is a mere adaptation to external circumstances, that truth is entirely relative, being only a fitting relation between the subject and his surroundings. But are there no truths whose evidence is inherent in them? Are there no axioms which are immediately evident? Is it not our task to derive all other truths from these axioms by means of logical rules the correctness of which we are obliged to admit? Or, if there are also secondary truths, which we recognize as such only because they suit our experience, are not those immediately evident truths a superior kind, preëminently worthy of the name? For example, the logical, mathematical, and religious truths?

Our previous discussion of truth and knowledge is indeed insufficient. We called truth any mental state which is in harmony with objective reality, no matter whether this relation of harmony is itself thought of in the truth or not. But we may use the word _truth_, or _knowledge_, in a subjective sense, meaning by it a complex mental state which _includes the thought of its agreeing_ with objective reality; that is, a state which includes the _belief_ of its objective counterpart. Most people take it for granted that knowledge is mental activity which has its objective counterpart. However, there are very many subjective truths to which an objective reality cannot correspond. Christian, Jewish, pagan, and philosophical martyrs have testified with their blood to their faiths, which in certain respects contradict each other. They must, therefore, have sacrificed their lives partly for something objectively untrue. On the other hand, there are objective truths which are not believed; for instance, theories which are rejected for some time, but later prove to be right.

We have seen how objectively correct thought originates. Let us now consider the origin of thought which includes the thought of the existence of its objective counterpart; that is, the origin of belief.

An infant has no consciousness of either reality or unreality. He has simply conscious states, without any such distinction. But he cannot fail to learn the distinction. He is hungry. He cries. He becomes conscious of reproduced former experiences of food and of the mother bringing the food. And, indeed, the door opens, the mother enters with the food, very similar to the imagined mother, and yet differing in vividness, in permanence, in number of details. At a later time the child imagines strange compositions: animals with legs both below and on their backs, so that they can turn over and continue running when one set of legs is tired; princes and princesses with golden crowns on their heads; fairies carrying marvelous gifts in their hands. But nothing of this kind appears with the vividness, permanence, and distinctness characteristic of the mother entering the door. Human beings who appear with a similar vividness, permanence, and distinctness, either are bareheaded or wear plain-looking hats; and their gifts amount to but little. When the child imagines the experience with his mother, he recalls the substitution of the vivid and stable consciousness for the feeble and fleeting image of the mother and the food. When he imagines his dreams of princes and fairies, he recalls the substitution of those vivid but homely mental states for less vivid but more beautiful ones. When such experiences have been repeated hundreds of times, the child begins to realize that there is a distinction of the greatest importance between the two classes. He forms the abstract concepts of sensory perception and of fancy--of consciousness of various sensory qualities and characterized by indescribable vividness, permanence, and distinctness; and on the other hand, of consciousness of various sensory qualities and characterized by feebleness, fleetingness, and vagueness, and in this respect flatly contradicted by the mental states of the other kind. _In these abstract conceptions consists the consciousness of reality and unreality._ Reality and unreality are not logical opposites, but merely relative concepts.

As soon as the ideas of reality and unreality are once formed, ample opportunity is found for their application. They are applied also to cases which do not belong to either of the extremes of vividness, permanence, and distinctness, or feebleness, fleetingness, and vagueness. Finally, they are applied by mere analogy to cases which do not directly call for their application--as in a discussion of historical truths. At this point another distinction is made. Trees with leaves of silver are never presented to our sense organs. But the elements which make up even the most contradictory compounds of fancy have been known through the sense organs and become known again as sensory impressions. Trees with a foliage of silver are not seen in everyday life; but trees are seen, and leaf-like things of silver, too. Even if all our ideational thought were fancy, its elements would tend to make us conscious of the concept of reality rather than of unreality because separately the elements have often been experienced with a high degree of vividness, permanence, and distinctness. The opportunities for thinking of reality are incomparably more numerous in human life than those for thinking of unreality. We develop the habit of conceiving our thoughts as real, unless there is a positive force compelling us to accept the opposite concept. Thus we understand why the child, as soon as he has formed these two concepts, is immensely credulous.

Tell the child that the moon is going to drop from heaven, and he will look up, expecting to see it fall. The child’s experience is limited. There is but rarely a positive force tending to reproduce in his consciousness the concept of unreality. Where there is no such force, the child does not remain neutral, skeptical, but conceives his thought as including objective reality. Language assists in this tendency, for the first words acquired by the child mean objective realities, persons, clothes, furniture, and so on. The frequent use of these words strengthens the habit of thinking of things as realities. Of much influence is also the use of the verb _to be_ as a mere copula and also in the sense of _to exist_. The child is thus induced to regard a thing as existing because it is thought _to be_ yellow, round, etc. That _to be_ is used in this ambiguous manner in all languages seems to be additional proof of what is historically certain, that the human race, like the human child, has passed through a period of extreme credulity. This racial credulity through the traditional usage of language contributes now to the credulity of the individual.

Gradually the child’s experience becomes more extensive and begins to exert upon the multitude of original beliefs an influence which sometimes continues all through life, although ultimately the progress becomes very slow. Experience steadily encroaches upon the realm of belief, driving it from ground which it previously occupied. It also gives additional authority to belief, enabling it to hold more firmly that to which previously it possessed but a doubtful title.

Much that contradicts frequent experiences is taken out of the realm of belief and called a fairy tale or a story. Trees with golden apples? There is no such thing, the real apples assert--we are all mellow and meaty, not hard as gold. A Santa Claus who distributes gifts to all the children everywhere at the same time? Impossible, says everyday experience. He who is here cannot also be yonder and in a thousand other places.

On the other hand, experience gives strength to the child’s belief. Single matters of belief are connected mutually and with the absolute basis of all knowledge, the sensory perceptions of the present. When I am obliged to think, however briefly and vaguely, that as really as I now see this paper and perceive the words printed on it, I was at that particular time, previous to those and those events of the meantime, at a certain place witnessing a certain act, my belief in the reality of this event is unshakable. Whatever can be connected in this manner with this fixed point, is itself fixed, placed beyond doubt.

Why can I believe my dreams while I am dreaming them, but not after waking up? Because consciousness is limited during sleep. There are _no perceptions_ with their normal vividness, permanence, and distinctness, with which the dream may be compared as to its reality. There are but _few other ideas_ accompanied by a vivid idea of reality, with which the dream may be compared. The dream has therefore the _maximum of reality_ of all mental states present at that time in the mind. This is meant when we _believe_ our dreams while we dream them. In a dream it may seem real to be shot toward the moon in an immense shell in company with other people, as in Jules Verne’s story. But in waking life this thought is altogether devoid of reality. In comparison with the reality of my present experience and of my ideas of the limits of engineering, of the low temperature of interstellar space, and so on, that thought of a journey in a shell immediately makes me conscious of the vivid idea of unreality. I cannot believe that story.

We call a verbal statement _proved_ as soon as the connection between it and our present experience has been established in such a manner that the idea of reality is aroused in our mind. The believing of that which has been proved is called _knowing_. Belief is often used in a narrower sense, excluding that which is known and including only that which does not arouse either an idea of reality or an idea of unreality. Both usages are justifiable, the narrower one and also the wider one. Knowledge and belief are opposed as well as related. It is of much practical importance to distinguish that which has been proved from that which has not been proved. But it is also of practical importance to distinguish that which is surely unreal from that which is merely unproved. It is quite impossible in human life to prove every statement before we permit it to affect our thought and our action.

The chief thing which a man must have learned when he arrives at maturity is this: that the number of facts to be believed is very much smaller than he thought originally. The belief of childhood and youth is subject to continuous losses. Something is, indeed, confirmed and strengthened by growing experience; but it was believed before it was known, and cannot properly be called an additional belief. Much that has been believed for some time is recognized as unreal. That apparent errors have to be recognized as truths happens much more rarely. Experience makes a man more and more skeptical, cautious. This is of great advantage to him in his adaptation to the world, and higher institutions of learning to a large extent have their purpose in aiding the young to develop cautious, critical habits of thinking. A student goes to college not merely in order to cram himself with bare facts, but to be trained in the habit of seeing men and things in the abundance of their relations, of asking for their passports before granting them free passage.

Thus the original tendency to believe is gradually limited, more in one individual, less in another. But it is never perfectly eradicated. This, indeed, would not be advantageous. A limited tendency to believe is indispensable. Two conditions contribute chiefly toward the retention of a belief which can be neither proved nor disproved: authority and personal needs.

“He told us so” is reported to have been a common remark among the disciples of Pythagoras. And to the present time disciples of any master have not failed to quote their master. It is not even necessary to be a master in order to be a prophet. A strong voice, significant gesticulation, and impressive speech are sufficient to guide the belief of the masses of the people. When everybody holds a certain belief and gives expression to it, no member of the crowd can escape the influence of the constant repetition of the thought. I cannot help believing what my friends or my associates in a profession believe. Even if I begin to reflect on the reasonableness of accepting as a truth what I have merely often heard, I can hardly free myself of the belief. Is it not highly improbable that all of them should have been led into error without noticing it? On the consensus of everybody, philosophers have frequently founded their highest doctrines. Cicero calls it the voice of nature. On the other hand, narrow-minded people often attempt to fight a truth which they dislike by pointing out partial disagreements among its adherents.

But the belief in statements which are neither proved nor disproved is not always based on authority; that is, produced by emphatic and often-repeated expression of these statements by the people among whom we live. It is frequently the result of strong and deep-seated needs of the human mind. As long as these needs make themselves felt, they call up in the mind ideas of remedies and means in harmony with analogous experiences; and unless these remedies and means are contradicted by other experiences, they are believed. One may call this, in distinction from the authoritative belief, practical or emotional belief.

Every one believes in his own destiny. Every mother believes in her son. Napoleon believed in his star. A general who doubts if he is going to win the impending battle has already half lost it. Can he prove it, that is, can he interpret what he sees and what is reported to him in such a manner that the idea of his winning the battle cannot appear in his mind without the idea of reality? He is probably very far from giving his experiences such an interpretation. Of course, he will do his best in order to make victory come his way. But his knowledge constantly informs him that the outcome is dubious. Yet this knowledge does not keep him from believing that it is not dubious. He cannot help believing it. His whole existence depends on this belief. His honor, his future career, his nation, all is lost unless he wins. The idea of loss is impossible. It is inhibited by the idea of success, by that idea which alone can give him the prudence and presence of mind that are needed.

Or the mother who believes that her son will turn out a respectable man, does she do it because of her experiences? Her experiences are perhaps opposed to her belief; she believes, nevertheless. Circumstances were unfavorable to her son, his father does not understand his real nature, he merely enjoys his youth: thus she comforts herself. Experience is not the foundation of her belief, but her belief interprets her experience. The belief is founded on the fact that she needs it. The idea of a wayward son would deprive her of the most valued part of her existence. Therefore she cannot believe it.

Misfortune of any kind has a marvelous belief-creating power, because it constantly revives ideas of remedying the misfortune. “Whoever has lived among people,” says Spinoza, “knows how full of wisdom they feel, insulted if any one should offer any advice, as long as their affairs are prosperous. But let misfortune overpower them, and they are willing to ask any one’s advice, and to accept it, however senseless and ill-considered it may be.”

Experiential, authoritative, and practical belief differ according to their sources, but they appear in life in various combinations. However, one of three kinds can usually be found to be the chief component in a system of conviction. That we cannot escape the authoritative belief is plain. Who could repeat every observation made by others in order to avoid the possibility of accepting erroneous reports? Practical belief has different limits according to the amount of experience possessed by each individual. And a whole class of people having about the same kind and amount of experience may thus be distinguished from another class by their practical beliefs. A practical belief of one, which is not shared by another, is called by the latter a superstition. How much superstitions differ and how much they change is well known. Recall, for example, a superstitious means of improving one’s looks, of curing diseases, of regaining a lost love. But wherever a superstition is difficult to contradict because it is so stated as to concern only that which is beyond experience (spiritualism), or when it is supported by a famous name, it may successfully resist all attempts at overthrowing it.

We saw that practical belief is not altogether independent of experiential belief. Neither is the latter independent of the former. When two theories agree equally well with experiential facts, we accept the one that is simpler. Not because we know that it is nature’s obligation to proceed in the simplest manner possible, and that therefore the simpler theory is more likely to be correct; but because our practical needs compel us to accept a simpler theory whenever we can. We believe the Copernican theory of the solar system and reject the Ptolemaic system. Not because one is more correct than the other; but because the Copernican system combines the same objective fitness with an immeasurably greater simplicity. The simple we desire; the simple, therefore, we believe. A simple connection of a variety of things is pleasant, beautiful. It is easy to survey it. It takes but a small amount of mental energy to imagine it. Whenever our experiences leave us a choice, we choose what is simpler. In other cases, too, practical belief comes to the aid of experiential belief. In the border regions of knowledge and within the blank spaces found within the field of knowledge, belief must take the place of knowledge.

QUESTIONS

170. What is the difference between objectively correct thought and belief?

171. What is the wider and what the narrower meaning of “belief”?

172. How do the ideas of reality and of unreality originate in the child?

173. Why are we more inclined to apply the concept of reality than that of unreality?

174. What is the double influence of experience on the child’s belief?

175. Should authoritative belief be eradicated? Give reasons for your answer.

176. Should practical belief be eradicated? Give reasons for your answer.

177. What is a superstition?

178. Why do we believe the Copernican theory and reject the Ptolemaic theory?

B. _Affection and Conduct_

§ 19. COMPLICATIONS OF FEELING

1. _Feeling Dependent on Form and Content_

Perception and ideation rarely, if ever, occur in the isolation in which they were shown above in order to make clear their structure: they are accompanied by, interwoven with, feelings. A summer landscape not only looks different from the same landscape when covered with snow, but also arouses different feelings. I may look forward to the same event--an ocean voyage or an automobile tour--as a danger or as a pleasure; I may regard an assertion as a truth or as doubtful. The ideas of which I am conscious surely differ much in the alternative cases. But still greater is the difference of feeling to which we refer by such terms as _fear_, _low spirits_, _disquietude_, _comfort_, _joy_. The exact make-up of these complexes of feeling is difficult to describe, but we may try to point out the conditions on which they depend. We shall first consider form and content.

Sensations, images, perceptions, and so on, give rise to feelings, not only on account of what they are, but also and indeed chiefly because of their manner of connection, of succession, and of spatial relation. Colors which we regard as most beautiful separately may compose a carpet whose color scheme we dislike and call inharmonious; on the other hand, the most uninteresting gray dots may compose a beautiful design. A piece of music is beautiful not alone because of the clearness of the single tones, but chiefly because of the relations of these tones in melody, harmony, and rhythm.

One principle is generally applicable to this class of feelings: a variety of mental contents is bound together into a unity for our perception and imagination. A multitude of unconnected things is not easily perceivable or thinkable; therefore it is unpleasant. A single thing, so simple that it cannot be analyzed into component parts, cannot occupy our mind for any length of time; it is tedious, unpleasant. A combination of variety and unity is able to keep us mentally busy without overburdening the mind; therefore it is pleasant.

The general principle, however, admits of a great many different applications. The unity may consist, for example, in the similarity and regularity of arrangement of the pickets of a fence. The unity may consist in subordination of a number of equal elements to a dominating element, as the larger fence post taking the place of a picket at regular intervals, or the accented element in a rhythm. The unity may consist in organic unity of the elements of a living thing. It may be logical unity, as in a sentence or a lecture. Several of these and other kinds of unity may appear simultaneously in the same matter; and one of these unities may be subordinate to another, this again to another, and so on, as in a Gothic cathedral, a symphony, or a drama.

Thus the variety and complication of the feelings based on the principle in question is immensely great, depending on all these unities, their harmonious relation or opposition, and the contents of impression or imagination directly. This complication is further increased by the conditions discussed below.

2. _Feeling Dependent on Association of Ideas_

Why does a sunny spring landscape give us pleasure? What is its advantage over a gloomy winter landscape? Possibly green is a pleasanter color than brown or gray, which predominate in the winter landscape. Possibly the curved outlines of the trees in their foliage are more beautiful than the naked branches appearing like a system of dark veins on a gray sky. But these are hardly the main causes of the difference in feeling, which are found rather in the different ideas associated with the one and the other percept. The spring landscape reminds one of life, warmth, travel, picnics; the winter scene suggests death and decay, cold, moisture, overheated and ill-ventilated rooms. The feelings aroused by these things when we actually experience them are likely to be aroused now when these thoughts, however fleetingly, are reproduced. For the same reason the cold sensation of touching a corpse is accompanied by a feeling differing from that of touching a piece of ice. It is a different thing to see a stream of blood or of cherry juice, and in a lesser degree even of cherry juice or milk. In every case a multitude of memories influence our feelings, or lead us directly into a train of thought of pleasant or unpleasant character. Thus the feelings which have their first origin in a simple percept may become exceedingly complicated.

An especially important consideration is that these feelings increase in intensity and finally become more conspicuous than the memories by which they are aroused. A house in which I experienced an unpleasant scene finally arouses unpleasantness directly, without any mediation by the consciousness of that event. This kind of transference of feeling is particularly noticeable when the same feeling is aroused by many different memories, quite unconnected among themselves, though attached to the same percept. No better illustration of this law can be found than the feelings accompanying the thought of money. From early childhood all through life man learns that it is money and again money on which the realization of his desires depends. A definite memory of any of these special experiences soon becomes impossible because of the competition among them. But the pleasantness originally aroused by them is not lost. It attaches itself directly to money. In a similar manner our love for our parents, our friends, our home, and so on, originates. A reverent child may reject as a brutal theory the statement that he loves his parents because of the innumerable benefits received from them, that this love is but a kind of precipitation of all the pleasures derived from the actions of his parents and from his living with them. This rejection is in so far justified as the child’s love is not a conscious deduction from the memory of benefits received. Nevertheless, it is quite certain that his love is in some way naturally derived from them. Children who are brought up by foster parents, if they are as well taken care of as by real parents, love them equally well.

We have pointed out that the idea of _I_ is almost omnipresent in our thought, and that it constantly influences our feelings. To understand this influence better, we may distinguish two relations between _I_ and the rest of our thought, according as this or the _I_ is the predominant part of our consciousness. The former case may be illustrated by our perceiving the movements, gestures, and voice-sounds of a person or of an animal as the expressions of conscious motives. Even into the percepts of inorganic things the idea of _I_ is carried in a similar manner. We speak of a bridge boldly swinging across the river, a mountain rising proudly to the clouds, a beam resting heavily on columns, lines crowding together or leaning against each other, tones hiding before and seeking each other. We attribute contents of the _I_ to the things which we perceive; we give them mental life, feeling, and conduct, and experience in consequence further responses of our own life of feeling. In such cases, the influence of the _I_ on our thought is obvious, but it does not predominate. On the other hand, the idea of _I_ may be predominant, but may receive its special coloring from the data presented: as when I feel the tragic fate of a hero, not merely through the sympathy or admiration which it arouses in me, but as my own pain; when in the stress and striving of a Faust I feel my own dreams and desires; when the precipice pulls me down or the towering rock uplifts me.

Since the idea of _I_ is so influential for our life of feeling, it is to be expected that the opposite idea, the idea of the external _world_, is also of considerable importance in this respect. Very often we refer to a thing by merely emphasizing that it is opposed to, different from, or independent of the _self_. We frequently speak of _the world and its ways_, of _the course of the world_, meaning all its sense and nonsense, its kindness and cruelty. Naturally, this idea of the world also gives rise to many complicated feelings.

3. _Irradiation of Feeling_

We mentioned above that feeling is easily transferred from one percept or idea--its _substratum_--to another one which is associated with the first. A special form of this law of feeling may be called irradiation of feeling. A disagreeable message received early in the morning may spoil the whole day; the news of a great success may for some time give to every other experience a joyful aspect. Not that the unpleasant or pleasant event is constantly recalled. It is recalled now and then; and the feeling may be more intense at these moments. But the feeling does not depend on this recall. It attaches itself to any other substratum, even to one which is scarcely in any way related to the first. I have been vexed by an employee’s failure to carry out an order in the proper way and by the resulting consequences. Now I am provoked to anger by everything that happens, by a harmless question of a child, by the visit of a friend who is ordinarily welcome, by the happy looks of a neighbor, by the fly on the wall, not least by myself, being so stupid and so deficient in self-control that I give room to all this unpleasantness.

So many-sided are the complications of our life of feeling. The contents, their mutual relations, their connections in the past, the prevailing impressions of the present, all these are conditions on which our feeling depends.

QUESTIONS

179. Illustrate the independence of form feeling and content feeling.

180. Explain the pleasantness of unity in variety.

181. Give examples of unity in variety.

182. Illustrate feeling based on association of ideas.

183. What examples are given in the text of transference of feeling?

184. What are the two relations between the _I_ and the rest of our thought, important for our feeling?

185. What is irradiation of feeling?

§ 20. EMOTIONS

Our preceding discussion shows that an exhaustive description of all our complicated feelings is an enormous task. We cannot enter upon it here. But certain classes of feelings may be described in more detail; namely, emotions and moods.

Those feelings which are based on associated ideas, and which rise at once to great intensity, are called emotions. This definition is somewhat deficient in so far as it is difficult to draw the line which exactly separates great from small intensity and a quick from a slow rise of intensity. Nevertheless, the stormy character of certain feelings not directly attached to sensory stimulation is so conspicuous that a special name is desirable. Anger, fright, distress, and hilarity are such feelings: hilarity distinctly pleasant, fright and distress equally unpleasant; anger also unpleasant, yet mixed sometimes with a certain amount of pleasure. The feeling and the consciousness of its cause are usually so intense in an emotion that there is little room for coherent thought. The judgment of a person in a state of emotion is narrow; his actions may be called shortsighted.

Those feelings which become separated from their original perceptual or ideational substratum and attach themselves to any other kind of perception or ideation--no matter what feelings properly belong to these--are called moods. They are usually, probably because of the separation mentioned, of small intensity. But their duration is often very extended. As typical examples may be mentioned grudge, worry, dejection, and cheerfulness.

Like all feelings, emotions and moods are in some way related to motor activity. Of particular interest here are not the purposive movements, which are by no means absent, but a large number of muscular activities seemingly of little or no usefulness, resulting from inherited nervous connections. In so far as these muscular activities become outwardly noticeable they are called the expressions of the emotions or moods. The angry man instinctively clinches his fist, the hilarious fellow dances about. Laughing, weeping, wrinkling of the forehead, and blushing are further expressions of this class. Contraction of the muscle fibers in the skin causes goose flesh, or the hair to stand on end. Breathing undergoes changes, becoming quicker or slower than normal. The blood vessels expand or diminish in size through the activity of the muscle fibers in their walls, causing the subject to look red or pale, to feel warm or cold, and in the latter case to shiver. Secretion of saliva, perspiration, and secretion of the lachrymal glands may result from the changes in the circulation of the blood. Fatigue, nausea, lack of appetite, and other symptoms of internal processes may occur.

These phenomena were almost entirely neglected by the older psychology, although their significance was understood by physicians. More recently their psychological import has been recognized and even overestimated. It has been said that these phenomena not only occur in emotions, but _are_ the emotions; that the emotions consist in the organic sensations resulting from these reflex muscular activities (theory of James and Lange). We do not weep because we are sorry, but we are sorry because we weep. We do not tremble because we fear a pistol held up before us, but we are frightened because we tremble. Two arguments favor this view. Let all bodily symptoms be gone, and the strongest emotion is gone too. Anger without clinching the hand is no anger. While I am sitting calmly on a chair, smiling, I cannot be angry. And further, when the bodily symptoms are exactly imitated or produced by drugs or by nervous disease, the emotion is there. Alcohol makes a person hilarious and courageous without any perception of the kind which usually produces this effect. Certain poisons or mania cause rage very much like that produced by an insult.

However, these facts do not prove that an emotion contains nothing else than organic sensations. It is obvious that, according to the laws of association, the contents of an emotion must be reproduced by those organic sensations which were present innumerable times when that emotion was present. The organic sensations resulting from poisons or mania perhaps call up an idea of an insult, and the complete emotion of anger naturally follows. Because of the firmly established associations, it is also to be expected that the voluntary substitution of a different set of organic sensations interferes with a present emotion. Introspection makes it clear that an emotion contains much more than a mere group of organic sensations.

The instinctive motor activities characteristic of the various emotions may be classified under two headings: excitation and depression. The difference is especially noticeable in unpleasant emotions: anger is an emotion of excitement; fear, as a rule, of depression. But this distinction is not entirely absent in pleasant emotions. The joy of a grateful memory is characterized, not indeed by depression, but by a restfulness very distinct from the excited joy of expectation or the delight at a present experience, although the pleasantness felt may be of exactly the same degree of intensity. A careful analysis of these motor activities must distinguish, not only excitement and depression, but also their occurrence in either the skeletal or the involuntary muscles, the muscles of the vascular system. Thus one may distinguish four classes of emotions, as characterized chiefly by heightened activity of the skeletal or of the vascular muscles, or by weakened activity of the skeletal or of the vascular muscles. Symptoms resulting from abnormal contraction or relaxation of the vascular muscles are, for example, a person’s growing pallid, or blushing, and the corresponding sensations of cold and warmth.

Two other concepts relating to the emotional life deserve to be mentioned, temperament and passion. Temperaments are inherited tendencies of the life of feeling in special directions. Since ancient times four have been distinguished: the sanguine, bilious (choleric), melancholic (atrabilious), phlegmatic (lymphatic). The ancients held that temperament is conditioned on the predominance of one of the four humors, the blood, lymph, yellow bile, and black bile. This is of course pure speculation of a prescientific period. But the distinction of the four classes agrees well with common observation, although mixed forms of temperament are more common than the pure types. People are either optimistically or pessimistically inclined. The sanguine and the phlegmatic are the optimists, the bilious and the melancholic the pessimists. On the other hand, some people are excitable, impetuous, others are not easily aroused. The sanguine and the bilious are quickly excited, the melancholic and the phlegmatic are calm and sluggish.

Passions are acquired dispositions toward special kinds of pleasant experiences. We might say that they are foreseeing, voluntary emotions. We speak of the passion of the gambler, the smoker, the collector, the lover. One may also compare an emotion with an acute disease, a passion with a chronic disease. Animals, too, possess emotions, as joy, fear, and rage. But it seems that they are not sufficiently capable of anticipating emotions to be said to possess passions.

QUESTIONS

186. How are emotions defined?

187. How does an emotion influence coherent thought?

188. How are moods defined?

189. Mention a number of moods and an equal number of emotions, each comparable to one of the moods.

190. What four classes of motor activities characteristic of emotions are distinguished in the text?

191. What motor activities are called expressions?

192. Give examples of expressions of emotion.

193. Give examples of motor activities which are not expressions of emotion, but nevertheless of much significance for the subject’s experience of an emotion.

194. What is temperament?

195. What is a passion?

§ 21. COMPLICATIONS OF WILLING

We have shown in an earlier chapter how voluntary--that is, foreseeing--actions develop out of instincts. Sensations result from the instinctive action, are associated with those other impressions which called forth the instinctive response, can then be reproduced by them, and can themselves produce the action. When an action is thus foreseen, it is called voluntary. Such simple voluntary actions are then combined into complicated groups and chain-like progressions. The conscious result of the first movement calls up the idea of a further movement, its execution that of a third movement, and so on. Serial activities of this kind often go on for a long time; for example, walking, eating, dressing, writing, sewing, rowing. As experience of the relations between the external things and practice in the performance advance, such serial actions become more and more perfect in several respects. Their conscious anticipation is more and more extended, so that they may be adapted to very remote consequences, the occurrence of which is not expected until days or weeks afterward. They are more and more refined in that they adjust themselves accurately in direction, speed, and force to the special circumstances of each case. They are performed in less time and more economically; all detail movements which are either wrong or merely superfluous come to be entirely omitted.

That the conscious processes in voluntary movements tend toward simplification has been mentioned in § 10. A whole series of movements, which was originally performed by each movement being consciously anticipated in order, is now performed without further consciousness as soon as the series has once begun. One fact, however, is highly interesting in this connection because it shows how the several movements of the series are actually caused. Although consciousness of all those anticipations of the movements is no longer required, the physiological sensory functions must run their course in the normal order or disturbances occur in the movement. This may be demonstrated in an animal by cutting all the sensory nerves of a limb, but carefully leaving all the motor nerves intact. The limb nevertheless appears paralyzed. A similar case in man has been described by Strümpell. A workman received a knife wound in the spinal cord. Complete recovery occurred, with the exception that the right hand and lower arm remained perfectly anesthetic: no kind of cutaneous or organic sensation was any longer perceived. The muscles of the hand and arm functioned almost normally. But movements, even very moderately complicated, could no longer be performed unless the man saw his hand and its movement. The illustration (figure 18) shows his behavior when requested to form a ring with his thumb and index finger. He could do this fairly well when permitted to look at his hand. Otherwise it was impossible, in spite of his will and the muscular capacity to perform this action. We see, then, that the peripheral impressions are necessary to bring about the several partial movements in this case of acquired serial activity, although these impressions have long ceased to become conscious whenever the act is done.

When we anticipate a final result of an extended series of movements, it frequently happens that the movement which directly leads to that result is, for one cause or other, not immediately possible. Imagine that a person for the first time sees some one pulling a cork from a bottle, pouring some of the contents into a glass, and inviting him to drink. Seeing the bottle again calls up in his mind the idea of a delicious beverage and the movement of drinking. But drinking is impossible, for there is no glass, and the bottle is corked. In such a case the idea of the result, which because of its importance is being kept constantly in mind, unrolls the total series of ideas in the reverse order. It calls up first the thoughts directly preceding the final result, then the thoughts preceding these, and so on, until an idea is reached which can be realized by a movement. In our example the person becomes conscious of the idea of pulling the cork, of the corkscrew used for this purpose, the place where the corkscrew was found hanging, the movements of preparing it for the task, and a similar set of ideas for the glass; and he thus becomes able to carry out the whole series of movements which result in the taste of the beverage.

QUESTIONS

196. Give examples of serial activities of the foreseeing kind.

197. In what ways are activities of the kind just mentioned perfected?

198. What is the relation of sensory activity, consciousness, and performance in perfected serial movements?

199. Illustrate by a pathological case the relation just spoken of.

200. What rule is illustrated by the example in the text of pulling a cork from a bottle?

§ 22. FREEDOM OF CONDUCT

As experience of the connections, complications, and consequences of things advances, the ideas called up by any impression must clearly become very numerous. Ideas of near and remote, probable and improbable, desirable and undesirable, consequences,--ideas of fit and unfit, direct and indirect means of bringing about or preventing those consequences,--ideas of difficulties and obstacles, facilities and openings must tend to appear, to compete with each other, to disappear and reappear in rapid succession, or merely to approach consciousness ready to appear when their services should be needed. We refer to these various mental states, according as they appear in one or another form of connection, by such terms as _reflecting_, _considering_, _choosing_, _desiring_, _rejecting_, _intending_, _deciding_, and many others, all having in common the foreseeing of something to be experienced in the future as the result of our action.

What action occurs in each possible case depends on the relative force of the factors coming into play. The actual sensory impression is as a rule a rather insignificant factor. It sets free the ideas derived from innumerable previous sensory impressions. The resulting action is then nearly always extremely different from the instinctive reaction belonging to the sensory stimulation. Such actions, resulting essentially from factors _within_ the mind, not from external factors which happen to impress the mind at the moment, are called _free_ actions. Their freedom does not mean that they have no causation, that they are free of causes, but they are free of the compulsion exerted by the external stimuli of the moment. They are free actions as opposed to instinctive actions, which are not free of these stimuli of the moment, but on the contrary, completely determined by them.

Scholastic philosophy--and popular thought, which is still largely under the influence of that philosophy--recognizes still another kind of freedom of the mind. It assumes that mind, under the impression of perfectly definite external conditions and with perfectly definite internal motives of thought and action, possesses the faculty of deciding in favor of the action opposed to its own motives and of enforcing this action. This faculty of an absolutely causeless willing is assumed to be added to all the other external and internal factors determining action or, as the case may be, suppressing action. Such a faculty we cannot accept, since according to our most fundamental conceptions _mind_ is not a being added to its experiences, but the totality of its experiences, in so far as it knows itself; whereas it is called _brain_ in so far as it is known by other minds. The arguments brought forward in favor of a freedom of the will in the sense of a possibility of causeless action are inacceptable to the psychologist because they would make a psychological science impossible. Nevertheless, it is worth while to discuss the more important ones briefly.

Three arguments are most commonly offered. First, immediate experience tells us that, whenever we decide in favor of one action, we could have decided differently. We were conscious of the possibility of acting otherwise. The second and third arguments are of a practical nature. According to the second, the idea of a uniformly effective causation of our actions paralyzes our activity. If everything takes place by necessity, the idea of influencing the physical world or human society becomes meaningless. No one can believe in determination of our action and at the same time make an effort to instruct and educate people to act differently. Thirdly, no one can be held responsible for his actions if he could not help performing them. If all actions are causally determined, punishment becomes mere cruelty.

The first argument fails because our immediate experience under no conditions informs us exactly as to what caused and what did not cause our actions. We have just seen that a serial movement cannot be carried out unless constant sensory impressions are received from the progress of the partial movements. Immediate experience gives us no information about this necessity, which was entirely unsuspected until physiological experiment and pathological observation revealed the fact. Immediate experience tells a person who in his boarding house praises a very ordinary dinner in exaggerated terms, that _he might have kept silent_ as he usually does--he does not remember that the evening before when he was in a state of hypnosis a suggestion was given to him to praise his dinner the following day. Everybody else knows that he will, that he must, do it. He alone thinks, on the basis of his immediate experience, that it was an act of free will without causation. It was free, uncaused, in the same sense in which the issue of a disease, the outcome of a war, the weather, the crops, are free and uncaused; that is, _he was ignorant of the cause_.

Paralysis of activity is said to be the consequence of a belief in universal causation. But surely the energetic and ambitious man is not paralyzed by this belief. He feels that he is the tool used by nature to shape the destinies of the world. How could a consciousness of his importance in the causal connections of events paralyze his activity? The idle and indolent may excuse his lack of activity by saying that it is his nature to love inactivity, that he cannot help it. But who would have any more respect for him on that account? Of course it is not his belief in universal causation that makes him indolent. The lesson from history is very significant in this respect, but it must not be read one-sidedly. It is all right to point out that the fatalistic Islam is losing piece after piece of its dominion. But the same fatalistic Islam also conquered a world and for centuries kept all Europe in terror. Thus it cannot be its fatalism that determined both its rise and its downfall. In recent years, did the belief in predestination make the Boers less energetic than the belief in freedom the orthodox Spaniards?

We must say, then, that in general neither belief is of much practical significance. But as a guide in special cases the belief in universal causation is by far preferable. What can give more encouragement to the educator than the conviction that his efforts will bear fruit in one way or other because they must help to shape and direct his pupil’s activities in later life? What can be more discouraging than the belief that, whatever may be his efforts, they are just as likely to be lost on his pupil as to be effective, since the latter has the faculty of causelessly acting either in one way or in the opposite way?

The third argument asserts that universal causation is incompatible with responsibility. But what do we mean by responsibility? Nothing but the fact that society, if it can do so, will punish its members for certain deeds. Why should a belief in universal causation prevent society from punishing its members? Bismarck writes in a letter to his sister: “It is not the wolf’s fault that God has created him as he is. That does not prevent us from killing him whenever we can.” Holding a person responsible, punishing or rewarding him, does not lose its meaning if we regard his actions as being determined by causes. We do not then hold him responsible for the single act, but for his being so natured that under such circumstances he cannot help committing such a deed. The question becomes this: What is the more plausible reason for punishing a person, his abnormal deed or his abnormal, unsocial nature which made this deed possible?

It is true that punishment dealt out by an individual or a small group is often merely an instinctive act of revenge for a single deed. If a person beats me, do I have less pain if I beat him and cause him pain too? Should a gambler beat the roulette because it makes him lose and the other man gain? Would the roulette act differently for having been beaten? Am I sure that the person whose beating me was undetermined by causes will treat me better the next time? If his actions are caused, he probably will treat me better because the memory of the blows received from me will act as a cause. The instinct of returning blows would be incomprehensible if human action were independent of causes.

But the legal punishment dealt out by the officers of a nation has lost the significance of an instinctive act of revenge. Does this fact make it compatible with the doctrine of causeless activity? Would not punishment, under this doctrine, be cruelty pure and simple? Punishment can be justified only if it can act as a cause determining human behavior. Society introduces fear of threatened punishment and memory of suffered punishment as motives into the mental life of its members, in order to inhibit criminal actions in those who are so natured that they will commit acts inimical to society when occasion offers, or when they are tempted. The degree of the penalty is adapted to the effectiveness of the temptation under different circumstances. Children and intoxicated and insane persons are treated in a different manner because the fundamental condition of punishment--the existence of an idea of punishment capable of serving as a motive of action--is not fulfilled in them. All this becomes entirely purposeless, meaningless, if we accept the doctrine that human actions are not completely determined by causes. Responsibility, social order, and law, far from being called in question by determinism, are, on the contrary, dependent on it for their justification.

Indeterminism, the doctrine of causeless activity of the mind, of freedom of a will which is regarded as an entity added to the contents of the mind, is no better supported by these special arguments than by general considerations. More than a hundred years ago Priestley said of this doctrine: “There is no absurdity more glaring to my understanding.”

QUESTIONS

201. Give at least a dozen words all meaning the foreseeing of a future experience resulting from action.

202. How are free actions defined?

203. What other name is mentioned in the text for unfree, compulsory action, a name which has already been much used in a previous chapter?

204. What are the three arguments mentioned in favor of the assumption that causeless action is possible?

205. What do we learn from a post-hypnotic suggestion with respect to the question of free will?

206. Give examples from history showing that both energy and indolence are independent of theories about the will.

207. Can the belief in causeless activity be expected to contribute to educational endeavor? Give reasons for your answer.

208. What is the aim of legal punishment? How is this aim related to the doctrine of causeless activity?

209. Why are children not made subject to legal punishment?