Part 23

That meaning—just as much as the sensory image of an object—is part of the conscious content of an idea becomes apparent at once, the moment the setting becomes altered and an object is collocated with a new set of experiences (knowledge regarding it). X, for example, has been known to the world as a pious, god-fearing, moral man, a teacher of the Christian religion. My perception of him, so far as made up of images, is, properly speaking, that which distinguishes him anatomically from other men of my acquaintance, that by which I recognize him as X and not as Y. But my perception also has a distinctly conscious meaning, that of a Christian man. This meaning also distinguishes him in his qualities from other men. Now it transpires to every one’s astonishment that X is a foul, cruel, murderer of women—a Jack-the-Ripper. My perception of him is the same but it has acquired an entirely different meaning. A bestial, villainous meaning has replaced the Christian meaning. So almost all objects have different meanings in different persons’ minds, or at different times in the same person’s mind, according to the settings (experiences) with which they are collocated. My perception of A has the meaning of physician, while one of his family perceives him as father or husband. My perception of a snake, it may be, has the meaning of a loathsome, venomous animal, while a naturalist’s perception may be that of a vertebrate representing a certain stage of evolution, and a psychologist holding certain theories may perceive it with a meaning given by those theories, viz.: as a sexual symbol.

This fact of meaning becomes still more obvious when we reflect that the meaning of a perception, as of A’s personality as a physician or father, may occupy the focus of attention while the images of his face, voice, etc., may sink into the background.

Every one is agreed then that every idea or combination of ideas has “meaning” of some sort. Even nonsense syllables have in a psychological sense some meaning, which may be an alliteration of sound, or a symbolism of nonsense (e. g., “fol-de-rol-di-rol-dol-day”) or as suitable tests for psychological experiments. I am speaking now, of course, of meaning as dealt with by psychology as a content of consciousness, and not as dealt with by logic. Every one also will probably agree that the content of an idea is a composite of sensory elements (images) and meaning—I would like to say of perception and meaning; but the use of two abstract terms is likely to lead to a juggling with words by turning attention away from the concrete facts for which the terms stand, and by connoting a sharp distinction between perception and meaning which, as I observe the facts, does not hold. Indeed the common though useful habit of psychologists of treating meaning as an abstract symbol without specific reference to those elements of the content of consciousness for which it stands has, it seems to me, led to considerable confusion of thought.

Mr. Hoernlé, who has given us one of the clearest expositions of _idea and meaning_ that I have read,[159] designates that constituent of an idea which is the psychical image of an object (e. g., “the visual perception of a horse”) by the term “sign.” “Signs,” he states “are always sensational in nature, whether they are actual sensations (as in sense-perception) or ideas (images or ‘revived’ sensations).” Accordingly an idea is a composite of sign and meaning, or, as Mr. Hoernlé has well expressed it: “Both the idea[160] and its meaning, then, must be present in consciousness. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they form together a complex psychical whole, a ‘psychosis,’ of which the different elements, however, enjoy different degrees of prominence in consciousness or draw upon themselves different amounts of attention.... Normally we apperceive merely the meaning, and the image or sign remains in the background, in the shade as it were. But of course we can make the image or sign the special object of attention; we can apperceive it and correspondingly the meaning falls into the background. But it does not disappear; it remains in consciousness.” And again, “every idea is a concrete whole of sign and meaning, in which the meaning, even when unanalyzed and ‘implicit’ is what is essential and prominent in consciousness. The sign on the other hand which we saw reason to identify with certain sensational elements in this conscious experience is normally subordinate and I have called this concrete idea a ‘psychic whole’....”

I quote these passages from Mr. Hoernlé as they are admirably clear statements of the theory, but as descriptions they are a very incomplete analysis of the content of ideas, and fall far short of what we require to know when dealing with the problem of mental mechanisms. It is all very well to speak of meaning in this general way; but to rest content with such an abstract term is to only present the problem and there stop short. Mr. Hoernlé rests content with the negative statement that meaning “does not consist in images and other words.” What then does it consist in?

It must be admitted that the problem is a very difficult one and therefore it is, I suppose, that most psychologists, as if scenting danger, seem to dodge the question and rest content to use meaning as a symbol like the unknown _x_ and _y_ of algebra. If meaning is a part of the content of consciousness it must be analyzable into specific conscious elements (images, thoughts, words, feelings or what not) representing to some extent and in some way past experiences.

Obviously a full rounded-out psychology of meaning must include an analysis of the content of meaning.[161] I have no intention of entering upon this task here and it is not my business. It would, however, be of very great assistance in solving many of the problems of abnormal psychology if the psychology of meaning were better worked out. But conversely, I would say, considerable light on the psychology of meaning can be derived from the study of abnormal conditions, and of the mental phenomena artificially provoked by hypnotic procedures. Some of the observations which I shall presently cite contribute, I believe, to this end.

Permit me also to point out—as the point is one which has considerable bearing on our theme—that the descriptive statement that ideas are a composite of two distinct elements, perception (images, signs) and meaning, is inadequate in another respect; it is too static and schematic. Although it is convenient to distinguish between perception and meaning, they shade into one another and indeed there does not seem to be any justification for regarding them as other than one dynamic process. As we have seen, perception is made up of a primary sensory image of an object combined with a number of secondary images. This in itself is a “psychic whole”, and, as I view it, contains meaning. My perception of a watch contains secondary images which give it the meaning of a watch and make it something more than a visual image. It may have a still larger and different meaning, that of a souvenir of a dead friend, and in this larger meaning the perception of the watch becomes subordinate, as a sign or group of images, and sinks into the background, while the added meaning occupies the focus of attention. Indeed the primary image of a perception may sink into relative insignificance in the background, while the secondary images become all-important and practically constitute the actual perception (or idea) as a psychic whole. Consider, for instance, what different secondary images (and meaning) are in the focus and how the primary image of the word “son” (spoken or written) almost disappears, according as the context shows it to be _my_ son or _your_ son; and how correspondingly different are those ideas. And so with a wider filial meaning of son. It is safe to say that King Lear’s idea of “daughter” had not the filial meaning conventionally ascribed to that relationship.

If all this that I have said is valid the difference between that which we call perception and that which we call meaning is one of complexity. The less complex we call perception, the more complex, meaning. Both are determined by past experiences the residua of which are the settings.

This may be illustrated by the following: We will suppose that three persons in imagination perceive a certain building used as a department store on a certain street I have in mind now, in a growing section of the city. One of these persons is an architect, another is an owner of property on this street, and the third is a woman who is in the habit of making purchases in the department store. When the architect thinks of the building he perceives it in his mind’s eye in an architectural setting, that is, its architectural style, proportions, features, and relations. His perception includes a number of secondary images of the neighboring buildings, of their styles of architecture, and of their relations from an æsthetic point of view. In the perception of the owner of property there are also a number of secondary images, but these are of the passing people and traffic, of neighboring buildings as shops and places of business. In the perception of the woman the secondary images are of the interior of the store, the articles for sale, clothes she would like to purchase and possibly bargains dear to every woman’s heart. Plainly each perceives the building from a different point of view. Each might perceive the building from the same point of view, but the point of view differs because of the differences in the past experiences of each.

In the case of the architect these experiences were those of previous observations on the architecture of the growing neighborhood. In the case of the property owner they were of thoughtful reflections on the future development of neighboring property, on the industrial relations of the building to business, and on the speculative future value of the property. In the case of the woman they were of purchases she had made, of articles she had seen and desired, of scenes inside the shop, etc. Out of these experiences respectively a complex was built and conserved in the mind of each. The idea of the building is set in these respective experiences which therefore may be called its setting. The imaginal perception of the building obviously has a different meaning for each of our three observers, and it is plainly the setting which governs the meaning, i.e., an architectural, industrial, or shopping meaning, as the case happens to be; and we may further say the setting determines the point of view or attitude of mind or interest. _Either the perception proper of the building or the meaning may be in the focus of attention and the other recede into the background or the fringe of awareness._

Further, different _affects_ may enter into each setting and, therefore, into the perception. With the architectural perception there may be linked an æsthetic joyful emotion; with the industrial perception a depressing emotion of anxiety; with the shopping perception perhaps one of anger. (This linking of an emotion, of course, has a great importance for psychopathic states.)

The dependence of perceptions upon their settings for meaning has been very beautifully expressed by Emerson in “Each and All”:

“Nothing is fair or good alone. I thought the sparrow’s note from heaven, Singing at dawn on the alder bough; I brought him home, in his nest, at even; He sings the song, but it cheers not now, For I did not bring home the river and sky; He sang to my ear—they sang to my eye. The delicate shells lay on the shore; The bubbles of the latest wave Fresh pearls to their enamel gave, And the bellowing of the savage sea Greeted their safe escape to me. I wiped away the weeds and foam, I fetched my sea-born treasures home; But the poor unsightly, noisome things Had left their beauty on the shore With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.”

=The practical application of the theory to emotional outbreaks of everyday life.=—The significance of these principles for our purpose lies in the fact that they enable us to understand numerous psychological events of everyday and pathological life that otherwise would be unintelligible. It is worth while then to study a little more closely the practical application in everyday life of this principle of settings before applying it to the more difficult problem of imperative ideas or obsessions.

No psychological event, any more than a physical event, stands entirely isolated, all alone by itself, without relation to other events. Every psychological event is related more or less intimately to antecedent events, and the practical importance or value of this relation depends for the individual partly upon the nature of the relation itself, and partly upon the ontological value of those anterior events, i.e., the part they played and still play in the personality of the individual. No event, therefore, if it is to be completely interpreted, should be viewed by itself but only in relation to preceding ones. For example: a husband good humoredly and thoughtlessly chaffs his wife about the cost of a new hat which she exhibits with pride and pleasure. The wife in reply expresses herself by an outburst of anger which, to the astonished bystander, seems an entirely unjustifiable and inexplicable response to an entirely inadequate cause. Now if the bystander were permitted to make a psychological inquiry into the mental processes of the wife, he would find that the chaffing remark had meaning for her very different from what it had for him, and probably also for the husband; that it meant much more to her than the cost of that hat. He would find that it was set in her mind in a number of antecedent experiences consisting of criticisms of the wife by the husband for extravagance in dress; and perhaps criminations and recriminations involving much angry feeling on the part of both, and he would probably find that when the hat was purchased the possibility of criticism on the ground of extravagance passed through her mind. The chaffing remark of the husband therefore in the mind of the wife had for a context all these past experiences which formed a setting and gave an unintended meaning to the remark. The angry response, therefore, was dictated by these antecedent experiences and not simply by the trivial matter of the cost of a hat, standing by itself. The event can only be interpreted in the light of these past conserved experiences. How much of all this antecedent experience was in consciousness at the moment is another question which we shall presently consider.

I have often had occasion to interpret cryptic occurrences of this kind happening with patients or acquaintances. They make quite an amusing social game. (A knowledge of this principle shows the impossibility of outsiders judging the rightness or wrongness of misunderstandings and contretemps between individuals—particularly married people.) To complete the interpretation of this episode of the hat—although a little beside the point under consideration: plainly the anger to which the wife gave expression was the affect linked with and the reaction to the setting-complex formed by antecedent experiences. To state the matter in another way, these experiences were the formative material out of which a _psychological torch_ had been plastically fashioned ready to be set ablaze by the first touch of a match—in this case the chaffing remark or associated idea. This principle of the setting, which gives meaning to an idea, being the conserved neurograms of related antecedent experiences is strikingly manifest in pathological and quasi-pathological conditions. I will mention only two instances.

The first, that of X. Y. Z., I shall have occasion to refer to in more detail in connection with the emotions and instincts in a later lecture.[162] This lady, on the first night of her marriage, felt deeply hurt in her pride from a fancied neglect on the part of her husband. The cause was trivial and could not possibly be taken by any sensible person as an adequate justification for the resentment which followed and the somewhat tragic revenge which she practiced (continuous voluntary repression of the sexual instinct during many years). But the fancied slight had a meaning for her which did not appear on the surface. As she herself insisted, in attempted extenuation of her conduct, “You must not take it alone by itself but in connection with the past.” It appeared that during the betrothal period there had been a number of experiences wounding to her pride and leading to angry resentment. These had been _ostensibly but not really forgiven_. The action of her spouse on the important night in question had a meaning for her of a slight, because it stood in relation to all these other antecedent experiences, and through these only could its meaning (for her) be interpreted. As a practical matter of therapeutics it became evident that the cherished resentment of years and the physiological consequences could only be removed by readjusting the setting—the memories of all the antecedent experiences with their resentment.

The second instance was a case of hysteria of the neurasthenic type with outbreaks of emotional attacks in a middle-aged woman. It developed immediately, in the midst of good health, out of a violent and protracted fit of anger, almost frenzy, two years ago, culminating in the first emotional or hysterical attack. Looked at superficially the fit of anger would be considered childish because it was aroused by the fact that some children were allowed to make the day hideous by firing cannon-crackers continually under her window in celebration of the national holiday. When more deeply analyzed it was found that the anger was really _resentment_ at what she considered unjustifiable treatment of herself by others, and particularly by her husband, who would not take steps to have the offense stopped. It is impossible to go into all the details here; suffice it to say that _below the surface_ the experiences of life had deposited _a large accumulation of grievances_ against which resentment had been continuous over a long series of years. Although loving and respecting her husband, a man of force and character, yet she had long realized she was not as necessary to his life as she wanted to be; that he could get along without her, however fond he was of her; and that he was the stronger character in one way. She wanted to be wanted. Against all this for years she had felt anger and resentment. She had concealed her feelings, controlled them, repressed them, if you will, but there remained a general dissatisfaction against life, a “kicking against the pricks,” and a quickness to anger, though its expression had been well controlled. These were the formative influences which laid the mine ready to be fired by a spark, feelings of resentment and anger which had been incubating for years. Finally the spark came in the form of a childish offense. The frenzy of anger was ostensibly only the reaction to that offense, but it was really the explosion of years of antecedent experiences. The apparent offense was only the manifested cause, symbolic if you like so to express it, of the underlying accumulated causes contained in life’s grievances.[163] After completion of the analysis the patient herself recognized this interpretation to be the true meaning of her anger and point of view.

Similarly in everyday life the _emotional shocks_ from fear in dangerous situations, to which most people are subject and which so often give rise to traumatic psychoses, must primarily find their source in the psychological setting of the perception of the situation (railroad, automobile, and other accidents). This setting is fashioned from the conserved knowledge of the fatal and other consequences of such accidents. This knowledge, deposited by past mental experiences—that which has been heard and read—induces a dormant apprehension of accidents and gives the meaning of danger to a perception of a present situation, and in itself, I may add, furnishes the neurographic fuel ready to be set ablaze by the first accident.[164]

Footnote 155:

In that it takes into account only a limited number of the data at our disposal and neglects methods of investigation which afford data essential for the understanding of this psychological process.

Footnote 156:

It is of interest to note again in this connection that these secondary images may emerge from a subconscious process to form the structure of an hallucination. Various facts of observation which I have collected support the thesis advanced by Sidis (loc. cit.) on theoretical grounds “that hallucinations are synthesized compounds of secondary sensory elements dissociated completely or incompletely from their primary elements.” It would carry us too far away from our theme to consider here this problem of special pathology. Sidis further insists that hallucinations are not central, but always “are essentially of peripheral origin,” a view which, it seems to me, is incompatible with numerous facts of observation.

Footnote 157:

I once dictated into a phonograph a passage of a published work. Whenever I read that passage now I hear the sound of my own voice as it was emitted by the phonograph.

Footnote 158:

I intentionally do not here say idea _of_ a horse because the use of the preposition (while, of course, correctly used to distinguish horse as an idea from a material horse, or the former as a particular idea among ideas in general) has led, as it seems to me, insidiously to specious reasoning. Thus Mr. Hoernlé (Image, Idea and Meaning, _Mind_, January, 1907) argues that every idea has a meaning because every idea is an idea _of_ some thing. Although this is true in a descriptive sense, psychologically idea-of-a-horse is a compound term and an imagined horse. The idea itself is horse. The speciousness of the reasoning appears when we substitute horse for idea; then the phrase would read, a “horse is always a horse of something.” I agree, of course, that every idea has a meaning, but not to this particular reasoning by which the conclusion is reached, as when, for example, Mr. Hoernlé when traversing James’ theory cites “image _of_ the breakfast table” to denote that the breakfast table is the meaning of the image. The image _is_ the (imagined) breakfast table. They are not different things as are leg and chair in the phrase, “leg of the chair,” where chair plainly gives the meaning to leg.

Footnote 159:

R. F. Hoernlé, Image, Idea and Meaning, _Mind_, January, 1907.

Footnote 160:

Idea, according to Mr. Hoernlé’s context, is here used in the sense of a word, image or sign.

Footnote 161:

Of course the constituents of the content must vary in each individual instance, but the kind of conscious elements that in general give meaning to the sensory part of the idea can be determined.

Footnote 162:

P. 462, Lecture XIV.

Footnote 163:

Prince: The Mechanism of Recurrent Psychopathic States, with Special Reference to Anxiety States, _Journal of Abnormal Psychology_, June-July, 1911, pp. 153-154.

Footnote 164: