Chapter XVI: Part IX: , p. 475, 1890), Dr. Johnstone Stoney, F. R. S., published an (6)

As his study of the topic of relations is professedly for the purpose of enabling him the better to solve the nature of the relation of mathematical equality, his success may be estimated by reference to his conclusions in regard to that relation. These are as follows: “The relation of equality is formed of undetermined matter, it possesses a binary form, and has for a condition a relation of indiscernibility between the two elements.”

Such conclusions appear to us to be impotent not to say erroneous. If two things obtain at all, they obtain as two and not one, in very virtue of being distinguished the one from the other. Except with regard to some more or less arbitrary distinctions, like the distinction between coincident points, all distinctions obtain only in virtue of some relation that can be nothing else than a point of _discernibility_. Numbers and other mathematical things are taken as not-different not because they are in truth indiscernible but because for the turn in hand their points of difference are irrelevant.

Concerning the much mooted question of the proper field of logic as a science M. Mouret holds it to be the “science of relations and general concepts.” Although we hold that logic is particularly concerned with the lore that is more directly related to the phenomena of erroneous thinking and its correction, the view of M. Mouret is not unacceptable. “Reasoning consists in the observation that where certain relations subsist certain others are found,” as Mr. Peirce has remarked.

VI. CONCERNING MEANINGS AND EXPLANATIONS.

As preliminary to our account of relations we will make an observation which seems to us of considerable use in connection therewith. It is not without its bearing on the theory of definition or rather upon the broader theory of explanation. With M. Mouret we hold that every concept and relation resolves into a compound of relations. Since relations are data that are absolutely elementary at least so far as we are at present instructed they are of course not subsumable under any other sort of data that are better known. Moreover, whatever explanation we here make must needs be made by means of written words. Thus an important question arises as to what method is to be pursued in this special exigency. The theory of definition leads us to the same difficulty, for although the meanings of many words can be defined in terms that are more proximate to the elementary relations, we will always come at last to terms that admit of no improved explanation by such a method. There is no device of words that can evade or supersede the ultimate recourse to things. Now the significations of words are learned in most cases not so much by definitions and verbal descriptions as by _the observation of the various applications of the words_. Indeed this is the primitive way in which the meanings of words are found out. The child knows nothing of what, say, the word _horse_ means until some one shows it an actual horse and may be pointing to it says repeatedly, _horse_, in such a way as to excite the observation of the child to the intended application of the word to the thing. This is because the relation of every general sign to its object subsists only in consequence of a mental association, and until this mental association is created the sign has no meaning. The methods of evoking these mental associations are at present quite unmethodical and do not receive the attention which their importance merits. One feasible method is to present or to state a number of scenes that shall present the object in various ways in connection with the sign thereof, and thus to excite attention to the proper application of the sign. The geometer does this by means of his diagrams without which or their mental counterparts all his mere words would be in vain.

Mr. Edward T. Dixon has lately published a work on the “Foundations of Geometry” in which he would introduce as a fundamental datum what is really an altogether new and exceedingly abstract conception which he calls by an old name, that of _direction_. The old term has never been as yet taken in any abstract universal sense because apart from definite right lines showing it as an attribute any abstract universal meaning is wholly unassignable. But the conception that Mr. Dixon would instal is removed in abstractness from such a universal yet one more step in universality. A three-fold infinity of right lines differing in direction can be drawn in ordinary space to each of which pertain two corresponding universals of direction, one converse to the other. Now the conception of direction that Mr. Dixon proposes for service as an elementary geometrical datum is the universal that subsumes all these lower ranking universals as particulars. Of course he has difficulty in even trying to explain what he means. Realising the impossibility of subsuming it in any way he takes a method which if it were more thoroughly applied, and wholly emancipated from the lingering notion of definition, might have been more successful. As he actually left the matter his real meaning can only be drawn from close study of the way in which he applies the term in his discourse in general.

Owing to its excessive abstractness his conception is wholly unfit for service in elementary geometry. One has to become a good geometer before the conception can even be approached.

VII. ANOTHER THEORY OF RELATIONS.

We shall proceed to explain what we regard as a true and adequate notion of a relation by stating some scenes that display the same. We do not regard it as needful to state many of them and we take for our first one, the common transaction of making a donation. We have here for relational elements or terms as they are usually called a set of three. Separately, or as not yet brought into relation in virtue of the giving, there may be, say _G_ an owner of _W_ a watch and _R_ the intended beneficiary. The plural fact of the giving is the _relationship_ or the _foundation_ of the _relations_ that arise in virtue of said giving. This _foundation_ becomes to be in virtue of the creation of such relations by the giving. Either one of the set of three may be taken as the datum of reference and according to the election in this respect, the relations may differ and the technical names we are about to give will vary in their application. Since simplicity will be gained thereby and also our present turn fully subserved we will take _G_ as the datum term of reference. So taking it _G_ is called the _relate_ and both _W_ and _R_ are called the _correlates_. For this present turn and in very virtue of the giving and only in virtue thereof _G_ becomes related to _W_ and _R_ in a certain relation one of the names of which is giver. When _W_ or _R_ are taken as relates certain other relations appear, some of the names of which are respectively _present_ and _recipient_. In relation to the relation of giver the relations of present and recipient are named _converse_ relations, as are likewise the relations of present and giver to the relation of recipient and the relations of giver and recipient to the relation of present. Here are three distinct relations growing out of the same relationship or foundation. As each relational element has its corresponding negation, the true logical system of a set of three terms involves not less than eight relations.

We take for our second scene the case of a boundary. This might be a surface or a point but we will take the special case of a line on a surface. Here we have again a set of three, the spread on one side, _A_, the opposite spread, _B_, and the line _L_. _A_ has a certain relation, say above, to _L_ and _B_, _B_ has the certain relation, below, to _A_ and _L_, which relation is converse to the relation above: and _L_ has the certain relation, boundary, to _A_ and _B_ which relation is converse to the relations above and below.

The two examples now given are cases of the _conjugative_ kind. The relationship is a conjugative one and the relations are conjugative relations. The distinguishing characteristic of a conjugative case is the fact essentially involved of the mediation between relational elements by another certain element, or in other words the bringing of diverse relational elements into relation by the function of another relational element. Without the mediation or function of this conjugating element neither the relationship nor the conjugative relations can exist. There is reason to believe that all conjugative cases can be certified as cases of three relational elements or as compounds of a number of such sets of three. To ordinary uncritical thought which is largely constrained by the trammels of ordinary language the most abundant sort of relations appears to be of that sort that are taken to involve only two relational elements. These are cases of what are called _dual_ relationships and the relations that arise out of them are called _dual_ relations. Such are those like father, son, husband, wife, etc. Strictly viewed they ought to be regarded as _degenerate_ relationships and relations just as a pair of lines is regarded as a degenerate conic.

VIII. CAUTIONS AND APPLICATIONS.

Now besides the error of confounding relations with relationship, it is a very common fault to think and speak of a relation as being _between_ two or more terms. This imports into thought the thoroughly misleading idea of an intervening independent existence for relations. Relations are attributive predicates of terms and each one of them pertains strictly to its proper term or combination of terms, in the same sense for this turn (_pro hac vice_) that qualities are held to pertain to their so-called substances. And yet relations so pertain to their proper terms not in virtue of such terms separately but in virtue of their membership in the plural fact which obtains as the _relationship_ or _foundation_. The notion of a relation as a “betweenness” has perhaps been fostered by the exact coincidence of relations pertaining to the several members of the same relationship. When on contemplating the connection, say of two points, we observe that the distance of one from the other is apparently indistinguishable from the distance of the other from the one, we naturally overlook the fact that we are truly to regard the connection as the coincidence of two really distinct relations, and regarding the pair of relations as one thing and finding it not attributable to one point more than to the other we dissociate it from both. But when we consider a pair of relations that are converse to one another and that arise out of a dual relationship like that of husband and wife we may see that there is _no_ betweenness, no single relation that interlies, but two relations, one the relation of husband and the other the converse relation of wife.

An interaction, say like that of approach under the influence of gravitation, is a relationship. Each body stands in the relation of a _puller_ of the other and the mediating term which we find impossible to argue out of the account we call the attraction of gravitation. In this case the relation of action of the one body is not usually distinguished from the relation of action of the other one. Indeed this is the case in all cases of mechanical action and we lay it down as a maxim that action and reaction are equal but they are not alike since their directions are opposite. Sensation is a relationship, since it is our interaction. The object interacts with the brain. As to the conjugating term we are as yet in the dark and so we are in the habit of regarding this case as a dual relation. The relation of the brain to the object is that of a _knower_ and that of the object to the brain that of a _stimulater_. Each character or mark of the object that becomes apparent gives rise to relations and their respective converses each correlative pair of which are respectively so many distinct interactions of detail in the entire interaction. Whatever an object as known to us is, it is in virtue of those relations of brain action and detailed object stimulation, which are relations and always relations. Since consciousness exists only by the arising of relations of distinction, supposably in consequence of internal brain interaction, is it presumptuous to allege that consciousness consists of relations or a complex of relations?

IX. NATURE OF OBJECTS.

With regard to the object no one can prevent whoever may be so disposed, from imputing to it various points of possession that do not and cannot interact with the brain. So far as such imputed points are regarded as merely not yet interacting but possible to interact with knowing substance such points in no wise differ in essential nature from the known attributes. They are potential relations and nothing else. But in so far as they are regarded as essentially impossible of ever interacting with knowing substance in any possible stage of its development such regard is pure nonsense and utterly without any assignable meaning. There is no occasion whatever for such an imputation, for the existence of interaction actual or potential is fully adequate to explain all that will ever present itself to be explained.

At this point let us instruct ourselves with an example of the reasonings of a much and deservedly honored philosopher. He says:

“In the most general predicate which is determined Being
or existence—for all things in the universe are determined
beings—we have an evident two-foldness (a composite nature)
which allows of a further analysis into pure Being and
determination.”

We will parallel this analysis. For the sake of simplicity we will take a limited right line. It has the determinations straight and long, not length in the sense of measure, for length is ambiguous in its intent, but length in its qualitative sense—its linearity so to speak. Now separate from it first its straightness without however giving to it any other determination, and then its quality of longness. We have then a _pure_ line, that is neither straight, nor long, nor anything else. Such is an example of “Pure Being.” _We_ say however that its very being as a line is absolutely dependent on its determination as a long line; that such a determination alone constitutes it a line, is at once its determination and its being, that there is no two-foldness at all but only two names, and that as one-fold its determination as long and its being vanish together. What is true of a line is true of all relations and compounds of relations whatever.

Thus not only all knowledge but all existence so far as that term can ever have any meaning is relative; relative to all intents and for every possible turn.

To those who accept the essentials of this account of relations it will be easy to see what is the nature of an object and that of a concept or notion. An object is a relation or some congeries of relations that usually present themselves as a coherent whole to our sensibility or to consciousness. This is primarily effected in virtue of some efficacy which we cannot appropriate to ourselves, and so we distinguish our own personality from that manifold that we call the objective world. It is pure self-stultification after having made this most useful distinction to try and abolish it. Nothing but an utter abolition of all useful thought can result from so taking the data of experience.

X. NATURE OF A CONCEPT.

But objects are individual and generally found with various points of distinction some of which are irrelevant to most of the turns of mental life. We therefore neglect the irrelevant points and take many objects as copies of one another. This process is _not_ the formation of the concept or notion but it suggests and prompts that formation. We cannot but regard it as an error to take a conception as a _sum_ of individuals. It seems to us to be rather in the nature of a _locus_. A curve contains an infinity of points and yet the curve is not any sum of points even though it is often allowable to speak of it as the sum of all its points. So any concept, say, man, is not all the men that now live nor yet all the men that eternity both backwards and forwards has contained and will contain. A concept is a manifold and strictly universal and infinite in respect to the particulars it subsumes. We speak of the infinitive mood of a verb because the meaning of the word as thus taken is not put under any modification. In like manner the meaning of any concept though subject to various limitations in its applications is as a concept merely to be regarded as obtaining in a purely infinitive sense. Professor Jevons found a difficulty in classifying what he called _material_ terms, such as stone, sand, water, etc. Other logicians have put such terms as singular terms, while still others have classed them as general terms. There is a great variety of such terms. Potatoes, wheat, butter, ice, cattle, water, hydrogen, the names of all the elements, ether, electricity, time, space, love, virtue, etc., are instances. It seems to us that such terms are the normal types of general terms and that the canonical forms of our universal propositions ought to be unquantified not only as regards the predicates but also as regards the subjects. Why not “man is animal” just as “lard is grease” or “man is mortal” just as “butter is cheap”?

Moreover the distinction between a general concept and one that is called singular is only one of degree and not of kind. Every so-called singular term is potentially at least only an individual instance under a possible general or universal concept. A striking example of this potentiality is furnished by the modern generalisations of that formerly singular term, space. If these observations are well founded, the universals of thought even though arising out of the facts of experience and rigidly beholden to experience for every last element out of which they are constructed, form nevertheless a Formal-Thought-World, and the mind of man in virtue of its powers of imaginative construction and generalisation has a constitution that enables it to subsume the actual objective universe as only one particular of a universality of a higher rank.

Under such a conception of the objective world and the world of thought and their relations the old dispute of realism versus nominalism would take a new aspect. _Universals in re_ even though they were admitted to exist would become universals no longer in the higher universe of thought. True universals would only subsist as universals of the world of mind. The laws of Form and Formal Thought would thus become of chief moment in philosophy and no one could be recognised as properly laying claim to the title of philosopher without proficiency therein.

XI. FALLACY OF THE SPENCERIAN AXIOM.

Concerning the “axiom of symmetry” only a few examples of its fallacy are needful. Mutual friendship is certainly a “symmetrical” relation, but _A_ and _C_ may be mutual friends and _B_ and _C_ mutual friends also, but it in no wise follows that _A_ and _B_ are friends. They may be decidedly unfriendly as we often see the case. Take a case of equilibrium the cases of which seem to be favorite ones with M. Mouret. We suppose that planets may be regarded as in a relation of equilibrium with the sun and yet these mere equilibrations with the sun do not make any equilibrium between them. They do not knock together it is true but this is due to their own direct relations and not their relations of equilibrium with the sun.

The distances of points from each other is a “symmetrical” relation and yet point _A_ may be from point _C_ the very same distance that point _B_ is from _C_, but the distance of points _A_ and _B_ from one another may vary from coincidence to double the distance _A C_-_B C_.

XII. NATURE OF ARITHMETICAL EQUALITY.

Concerning the relation of “mathematical equality” there is no single relation that obtains throughout mathematics as such. There is numerical equality upon which the equality in service in numeric algebra is founded, and there is geometric equality, the equality of vectors, etc., all different from one another. M. Mouret seems to have only numeric equality in view. He claims this relation to be not only of a very simple nature but that it is the very foundation of the notions of magnitude and quantity. He even declares that mathematics could not exist without this relation. Did he lose sight of the usual proof of Fourier’s celebrated theorem?

As we have explained, things that are distinguished are not really alike but only for certain turns taken to be so. This assimilation of things is of various grades. In arithmetic, meaning arithmetic in its most general sense, the only logical comprehension that the various numbers possess is respectively their greater or less partitionability; _m_ is the same as _n_ means in arithmetic that whatever has the numerical rank of _m_ has also precisely the numerical rank of _n_ no matter what summations or other numerical operations _m_ or _n_ may represent. Identity of this sort is arithmetical equality. It seems a simple relation for the reason that its intervention very decisively simplifies our arithmetical comprehensions. It is however a coincidence of two relations that are converse to one another. These relations are “not less than” and “not greater than.” It is universally admitted that the more inclusive a notion or concept is in extension, the more simple and primary it is than any other notion or concept included as an instance under it. Now all equality is “not less than” but not all “not less than” is necessarily equality; hence, “not less than” is a wider and more primary notion than equality. On the same considerations “not more than” is in the same case. Equality is the limiting case between the variable and logically more simple cases of “not less than” and “not more than.” The notion of quantity emerges on comparison however vague between any two objects that have size, independently of the notion of equality. If this were not true how could we have the notions of infinitely large and infinitely small.

It is indeed true that without the notion of equality the theory of numbers and the mathematical analysis could subsist in a rudimentary state only, but to say that they would not exist at all is rash and not maintainable. The relations “not less than” “not more than” would still allow of some truly mathematical propositions, operations, and calculations. In that essentially qualitative notation that is ordinary language the relation that corresponds to equality is of very limited range but a relation that is analogous to “not less than,” viz., supersumption, is very efficient.

With a theory of numbers and a mathematical analysis using only the relations “not less than” “not more than” in lieu of the relation of equality the fundamental operations, addition and substitution, would find some scope of application and hence the derivative operations, multiplication, powering, etc., and their inversions, subtraction, division, etc., would obtain in some fashion and to some extent. This can readily be seen by any one who is familiar with the way in which expressions of inequality are used in modern mathematical analysis.

FRANCIS C. RUSSELL.

OBSERVATIONS ON SOME POINTS IN JAMES’S PSYCHOLOGY.

II. EMOTION.

Nothing in Professor James’s work will be likely to strike the average reader as more paradoxical than his views on the subject of Emotion, which he must be allowed to state in his own words. After premising that he will limit his discussion, in the first instance, to what may be called the coarser emotions, as fear, grief, rage, love, in which every one recognises a strong organic reverberation, he goes on to say:

“Our natural way of thinking about these coarser emotions is
that the mental perception of some fact excites the mental
affection called the emotion, and that this latter state of
mind gives rise to the bodily expression. My theory, on the
contrary, _is that the bodily changes follow directly the
perception of the existing fact, and that our feeling of the
same changes, as they occur, is the emotion_. Common sense
says, we lose our fortune, are sorry and weep; we meet a bear,
are frightened and run; we are insulted by a rival, are angry
and strike. The hypothesis here to be defended says that this
order of sequence is incorrect, that the one mental state
is not immediately induced by the other, that the bodily
manifestations must first be interposed between, and that the
more rational statement is that we feel sorry because we cry,
angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble, and not
that we strike, cry, or tremble, because we are sorry, angry or
fearful, as the case may be. Without the bodily state following
on the perception, the latter would be purely cognitive in
form, pale, colorless, destitute of emotional warmth. We might
then see the bear and judge it best to run, receive the insult
and deem it right to strike, but we should not actually _feel_
afraid or angry.

“Stated in this crude way, the hypothesis is pretty sure
to meet with immediate disbelief. And yet neither many nor
far-fetched considerations are required to mitigate its
paradoxical character, and possibly to produce conviction of
its truth.

“To begin with, no reader of the last two chapters will be
inclined to doubt the fact that _objects do excite bodily
changes_ by a preorganised mechanism, or the farther fact
_that the changes are so indefinitely numerous and subtle
that the entire organism may be called a sounding-board_
which every change of consciousness, however slight, may make
reverberate....

“The next thing to be noticed is this, that _every one of
the bodily changes, whatsoever it be, is FELT, acutely or
obscurely, the moment it occurs_....

“I now proceed to urge the vital point of my whole theory,
which is this: _If we fancy some strong emotion, and then try
to abstract from our consciousness of it all the feelings of
its bodily symptoms, we find we have nothing left behind_, no
‘mind-stuff’ out of which the emotion can be constituted, and
that a cold and neutral state of intellectual perception is
all that remains. It is true that, although most people when
asked say that their introspection verifies this statement,
some persist in saying that it does not. Many cannot be made
to understand the question. When you beg them to imagine away
every feeling of laughter and of tendency to laugh from their
consciousness of the ludicrousness of an object, and then to
tell you what the feeling of its ludicrousness would be like,
whether it be anything more than the perception that the object
belongs to the class ‘funny,’ they persist in replying that
the thing proposed is a physical impossibility and that they
always _must_ laugh if they see a funny object. Of course the
task proposed is not the practical one of seeing a ludicrous
object and annihilating one’s tendency to laugh. It is the
purely speculative one of subtracting certain elements of
feeling from an emotional state supposed to exist in all its
fulness, and saying what the residual elements are. I cannot
help thinking that all who rightly apprehend this problem
will agree with the proposition above laid down. What kind of
an emotion of fear would be left if the feeling neither of
quickened heart-beats nor of shallow breathing, neither of
trembling lip nor of weakened limbs, neither of goose-flesh nor
of visceral stirrings, were present, it is quite impossible
for me to think. Can one fancy the state of rage and picture
no ebullition in the chest, no flushing of the face, no
dilatation of the nostrils, no clenching of the teeth, no
impulse to vigorous action, but in their stead limp muscles,
calm breathing and a placid face? The present writer, for one,
certainly cannot. The rage is as completely evaporated as the
sensation of its so-called manifestations, and the only thing
that can be supposed to take its place is some cold-blooded
and dispassionate sentence, confined entirely to the judicial
realm, to the effect that a certain person or persons merit
chastisement for their sins. In like manner of grief: what
would it be without its tears, its sobs, its suffocation of the
heart, its pang in the breast-bone? A feelingless recognition
that certain circumstances are deplorable, and nothing
more. Every passion in turn tells the same story. A purely
disembodied human emotion is a non-entity.” (P. 449 seq.)

It is, of course, impossible for me to give all the arguments by which Professor James attempts to establish his position; the above quotations will make it clear what it is—namely, that all our “feelings” are sensations.

Before proceeding to consider some of the objections to this view of the matter, it may be well to notice briefly what seems to be a gap in the author’s treatment of it. In adult human beings, very few, comparatively, of what are ordinarily recognised as emotions follow directly upon the perception of their objects, in the ordinary sense of the word. His theory might perhaps suffice, without further explanation for such cases as the “spitting” of blind kittens at the smell of a dog, or the rage of a bull at the sight of a red cloth, or the startled feeling that we experience at a loud and unexpected sound, if the latter should be called an emotion. But in the immense majority of instances the emotions of which he treats arise in a very different way.

Some of his own illustrations will serve as well as any to show this. For instance, neither running nor any other of the symptoms of fear which he enumerates is the necessary result of seeing a bear. A chained or caged bear may excite only feelings of curiosity, and a well armed hunter might experience only pleasurable feelings at meeting one loose in the woods. It is not, then, the perception of the bear that excites the movements of fear. We do not run from the bear unless we suppose him capable of doing us bodily injury. Why should the expectation of being eaten, for instance, set the muscles of our legs in motion? “Common sense” would be likely to say it was because we object to being eaten, but according to Professor James, the reason we dislike to be eaten is because we run away. So, again, striking is not a reflex act, following on the hearing of an insult as sneezing does on taking snuff. Whether the muscular movements or the emotions are the primary thing, what both shall be depends on many things besides the words that are spoken. To be accused of drunkenness or unchastity, for instance, would dispose some persons to violence, but others might feel only the stirrings of pride at what they would consider a tribute to their manhood. In those who considered such a charge opprobrious, it might excite feelings of amusement, contempt, pity, or grief towards the one making it, according to the estimation in which he was held. To say that if it makes us strike we shall be angry, if it makes us laugh we shall be amused, if it makes us weep we shall be grieved, does not go to the bottom of the matter. According to the theory, the thought of the estimation in which we are held by others is, in itself, entirely indifferent to us, and only affects our feelings through the muscular movements it excites.

In view of the variety of these movements in response to the same physical stimulus in a case like this, the statement that objects excite bodily changes by a preorganised mechanism explains nothing. We want to know why in one case a given perception excites one set of movements, and in another an entirely different set. Without attempting to decide whether or not a satisfactory explanation can be given on Professor James’s hypothesis, I will only say, that, so far as I can see, he nowhere attempts it. In his section on “The Genesis of the Various Emotions,” (pp. 477 seq.), he only discusses the question how the various feelings come to be associated with their respective movements. How the movements come to be associated with the perceptions, he does not discuss at all.

Turning now to the considerations which Professor James urges in support of his theory, quoted above, the first two—that objects excite bodily changes and that these changes are more or less distinctly felt—may pass unchallenged. I am disposed to go as far with him as to admit that these feelings, in the cases which he describes, may properly be considered components of the emotional state. But when he affirms that there is nothing else—that if we subtract our consciousness of peripheral sensations there would be no emotion left—it seems to me that he is going very much too far. I should have no hesitation in saying that such a statement of the case is contradicted by my consciousness, but as that would be merely setting up my consciousness against his, without the possibility of an umpire, I will call attention to some other considerations which seem to me to render it improbable.

In the first place, it is to be noticed that the cases he instances in illustration of his position are all of violent emotions. Admitting that we cannot have these emotions, in such degree, without movements such as he describes, nor even imagine how they would feel if such a thing were possible, it does not follow because they cannot be separated that they are identical. We do not reason in this way in regard to those feelings which are not commonly called emotions. I can no more imagine myself in intense bodily pain without a tendency to groan and writhe than deeply grieved without a tendency to weep, and yet no one, probably, would say that the pain consisted solely in my consciousness of the groaning and writhing. If grief is a kind of pain, it is to be expected that, in a high degree, it will produce bodily movements more or less similar to those excited by other sorts of pain. All these emotions, however, are capable of infinite gradations in intensity. The fear of losing one’s pocket handkerchief is an emotion of the same kind as the fear of losing one’s fortune. In Professor James’s description of fear, it is evident that he has abject terror in mind; I hardly think it probable that he has any such sensations, when he fears, for instance, that he will be late to dinner, and yet he must be differently constituted from many of his fellow-men if his state of mind in such a case is merely a cold, intellectual cognition of the fact that such a state of affairs would be undesirable.

The same is true of the other emotions he mentions. The feeling of the ludicrous is, perhaps, the strongest case he cites, but in my own case slight degrees of amusement do not excite laughter, or even any conscious disposition to laugh. There is, at the most, in such cases, a tendency to smile, which may be overpowered by some other emotion, without in the least impairing my feeling of amusement. It seems to me certain that slight degrees of all the emotions mentioned may be unaccompanied by any distinct consciousness of reflex movements. In such cases it is only by a pretty strong effort of attention that we are able, if at all, to determine what the bodily changes are, although we are distinctly aware of the emotion.

Again, it is to be noticed that many actions, similar in character to those we have been considering, are not associated with what are commonly called emotions. Laughing and sobbing, for instance, are spasmodic movements of the muscles of respiration, not strikingly different from hiccuping, and there seems no good reason why the consciousness of the former two should usually be felt as strong emotional excitement, while the latter is not. In some cases, movements identical with those accompanying particular emotions may occur entirely independently of them. Shivering from cold, for instance, is the same sort of a movement as may occur in violent fright, but it does not make us feel frightened. The laughter excited in children and sensitive persons by tickling of the skin is not necessarily accompanied by any mirthful feelings. The act of vomiting may be the accompaniment of the most extreme disgust, or it may occur without a trace of such emotion. Professor James himself gives an instance of this sort that can hardly be bettered:

“The writer well remembers his astonishment, when a boy of
seven or eight, at fainting when he saw a horse bled. The
blood was in a bucket, with a stick in it, and if memory does
not deceive him, he stirred it round and saw it drip from the
stick with no feeling save that of childish curiosity. Suddenly
the world grew black before his eyes, his ears began to buzz,
and he knew no more. He had never heard of the sight of blood
producing faintness or sickness, and he had little repugnance
to it, and so little apprehension of any other sort of danger
from it, that even at that tender age, as he well remembers, he
could not help wondering how the mere physical presence of a
pailful of crimson fluid could occasion in him such formidable
bodily effects” (p. 457).

Here we have a condition such as is sometimes experienced in connection with the most extreme degree of fear or grief unaccompanied by any emotion except astonishment at its occurrence. I presume that if a person should faint on hearing bad news, Professor James would consider that one of the causes of his intense emotion. Why did it have no such effect in this case?

Assuming that the emotions are the effects and not the causes of what are usually reckoned as their “expression,” it seems evident that a given movement or set of movements must uniformly, at least in the same subject, give rise to the same feeling, and that in the case of opposite emotions such as joy and grief, hope and fear, the more intense the emotion, the more unlike must be the actions from which it arises. Neither of these is the case. On the contrary, it would seem to be the fact that the actions accompanying emotion tend to become more alike in proportion to its intensity. It is not at all uncommon for people to weep from excess of joy as well as of grief. Pallor and trembling are frequent accompaniments of the extremes of hope as well as fear. The naturalist Wallace gives an account of his feelings on capturing a rare and beautiful butterfly, which is worth quoting in this connection:

“The beauty and brilliancy of this insect are indescribable,
and none but a naturalist can understand the intense excitement
I experienced when I at length captured it. On taking it out
of the net and opening the glorious wings, my heart began to
beat violently, the blood rushed to my head, and I felt more
like fainting than I have done when in prospect of immediate
death. I had a headache the rest of the day, so great was the
excitement produced by what will appear to most people a very
inadequate cause” (“Malay Archipelago,” p. 342).

Here it is evident that a feeling of intense exultation gave rise to sensations very similar, to say the least, to those of extreme fear.

One other argument brought forward by the author deserves special notice in this connection:

“The best proof that the immediate cause of emotion is
a physical effect on the nerves is furnished by _those
pathological states in which the emotion is objectless_. One of
the chief merits, in fact, of the view which I propose, seems
to be that we can so easily formulate by its means pathological
cases and normal cases under a common scheme. In every
asylum we find examples of absolutely unmotived fear, anger,
melancholy, or conceit, and others of an equally unmotived
apathy, which persists in spite of the best of outward reasons
why it should give way. In the former cases we must suppose
the nervous machinery to be so ‘labile’ in some one emotional
direction that almost every stimulus (however inappropriate)
causes it to upset in that way, and to engender the particular
complex of feelings of which the psychic body of that emotion
consists. Thus, to take one special instance, if inability to
draw deep breath, fluttering of the heart, and that peculiar
epigastric change felt as ‘precordial anxiety,’ with an
irresistible tendency to take a somewhat crouching attitude and
to sit still, and with perhaps other visceral processes not now
known, all spontaneously occur together in a certain person;
his feeling of their combination is the emotion of dread, and
he is the victim of what is known as morbid fear” (p. 458).

Now, it is evident, of course, in such a case as this, that such a combination of feelings as is here described is not a fortuitous coincidence of so many independent sensations. They must have a common starting-point, which cannot well be elsewhere than in the brain. But if this is the case, it seems to me to be begging the question to assume that the sensations and not the emotion are the primary thing. On the assumption that fear, in the normal condition, is the cause of the disturbances of respiration, circulation, and the like, which accompany it, it is as easy to formulate normal and pathological cases under a common scheme, by supposing it to be the cause of the like disturbances in cases of morbid fear, as on the theory of Professor James.

It seems to me, then, that the theory does not satisfactorily account for the facts, so far as the involuntary, reflex accompaniments of motion are concerned.

The difficulty is greatly increased when we consider the relations of emotion to voluntary action. We have seen that reflex acts, similar to, or identical with those in which Professor James believes emotion to consist, may occur independently of emotion, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, at least. Strictly voluntary acts, on the contrary, are always the concomitants of emotion of some sort. In the great majority of the ordinary actions of life, they are the only motor phenomena of which we are aware in this connection. Our whole daily conduct, in our business and pleasure, our incomings and our outgoings, our downsittings and uprisings, is inseparably associated with our likings and dislikings, our hopes and fears. What is the nature of this association?

Under the theory we are considering, two relations of voluntary acts to emotion are possible. They may, like the involuntary reactions, constitute the emotion, or unlike them, result from it. Professor James does not express himself on the general question, but some of his illustrations seem to favor the former view. If the man who meets a bear is frightened because he runs, or the one who is insulted, angry because he strikes, the voluntary acts of running and striking must, in part, at least, constitute the emotions of fear and anger in these cases. Let us, then, consider this case first.

If I see a shower coming up, and run for a shelter, the emotion is evidently of the same kind, though perhaps less in degree, as in the case of the man who runs from the bear. According to Professor James, I am afraid of getting wet because I run. But supposing that, instead of running, I step into a shop and buy an umbrella. The emotion is still the same. I am afraid of getting wet. Consequently, so far as I can see, the fear, in this case, consists in buying the umbrella. Fear of hunger, in like manner, might consist in laying in a store of provisions; fear of poverty, in shoveling dirt at a dollar a day, and so on indefinitely. Anger, again, may be associated with many other actions than striking. Shylock’s anger at Antonio’s insults induced him to lend him money. Did the anger, or revengefulness, or whatever we may call the passion, consist in the act of lending the money? I hardly think it necessary to multiply instances in illustration of the fact that the same act is often associated with the most contradictory emotions, and acts which are ordinarily indifferent with the most intense feeling; that, in fact, there is no such uniformity in the associations of emotion with voluntary conduct as the hypothesis would seem to require. I incline to think that most people will believe, in the cases cited by Professor James, that the running and the striking are the results, not the causes of the fear and anger.

If we assume such to be the case, we are no better off under the hypothesis we are considering. Excluding voluntary movements, there is nothing left of the emotion, according to Professor James, but the consciousness of involuntary, reflex acts resulting from perception. The voluntary acts must, then, be directly caused by these. Now, in the first place, it is often difficult, if not impossible, to tell what these actions are. What are the involuntary muscular contractions that impel a day-laborer to go to the place of his work, and keep his voluntary muscular system in strenuous activity all day, enduring fatigue and all the discomforts of the summer’s heat or winter’s cold? It would probably puzzle him very much to tell, although he has a very clear idea of why he does it. I doubt if, on his own hypothesis, Professor James himself would find it easy to explain the constituents of the emotions which impel him to go to the class-room at the appointed hour and conduct a recitation. But even in cases in which we are distinctly conscious of involuntary action, there seems to be no connection between it and the voluntary acts accompanying the emotion. In the case of the man running from the bear, for instance, trembling lips, weakened limbs, goose-flesh and visceral stirrings have nothing to do with running, but, on the contrary, would rather tend to prevent it. In fact, it may be said, in general, that the two classes of emotional activities are mutually antagonistic. The more involuntary the action, the less efficient the voluntary activity is apt to be, as any one knows who has had an attack of the “buck ague.” We should have, therefore, diminution of the effect with increase of the cause.

It seems, then, on the hypothesis, impracticable to account for the association of voluntary action with emotion either on the supposition that the former is the cause or the result of the latter. A third alternative—that there is no relation of cause and effect in the case, and that the phenomena of emotion and action, although constantly associated, are really independent, I will not discuss, as it does not commend itself to my mind, and Professor James, elsewhere, expressly repudiates it. It seems to me that the only reasonable conclusion is that emotion is something different from either involuntary or voluntary muscular activity, and which may be the cause of either or both.

Professor James, after admitting that the view of the subject which he advocates is only a hypothesis, and that much is lacking to its definitive proof, goes on to say:

“The only way coercively to _dis_prove it, however, would be to
take some emotion and then exhibit qualities of feeling in it
which should be _demonstrably_ additional to all those which
could possibly be derived from the organs affected at the time.
But to detect with certainty such purely spiritual qualities of
feeling would obviously be a task beyond human power....

“A positive proof of the theory would, on the other hand, be
given, if we could find a subject absolutely anæsthetic inside
and out, but not paralytic, so that emotion-inspiring objects
might evoke the usual bodily expressions from him, but who,
on being consulted, should say that no subjective emotional
affection was felt. Such a man would be like one who, because
he eats, appears to bystanders to be hungry, but who afterwards
confesses that he had no appetite at all.” (P. 455.)

Whether the truth of the first of the above paragraphs is to be conceded or not, depends, I suppose, on the strength of proof necessary for coercion. The only way, for instance, coercively to disprove the once prevalent theory that “lunacy” is due to the influence of the moon would be to abolish the moon. Most intelligent people, however, at the present day, accept the fact that there seems to be no coincidence between the moon’s phases and the phenomena of insanity as sufficient proof for practical purposes of the incorrectness of that theory. It seems to me that the facts to which I have called attention show a somewhat similar lack of correspondence in the case we have been considering. I am, however, unable to see why a case of complete anæsthesia, such as is supposed in the second paragraph, would not answer nearly as well for one side of the question as the other, according to the presence or absence of emotion. To suppose that cutaneous and visceral sensations are preserved unimpaired for purposes of emotion, while absolutely abolished for all other purposes, would be putting a pretty severe strain on the faculty of belief.

Such cases, as Professor James says, are hard to find. He refers to one, reported by Strümpell, in which a boy, anæsthetic within and without, with the exception of one eye and one ear, was stated to have manifested shame, grief, surprise, fear, and anger. He goes on, however, to say: “In observing him, however, no such theory as the present one seems to have been thought of; and it always remains possible that, just as he satisfied his natural appetites and necessities in cold blood, with no inward feeling, so his emotional expressions may have been accompanied by a quite cold heart.”

Since Professor James’s work was published, two cases have been reported by Berkley,[57] which, although not, perhaps, conclusive, are of interest in this connection. In the first, the patient, a woman of English birth, age not stated, had complete loss of sense of pain, heat and cold, pressure and equilibrium, of smell, taste, and sight. The sense of touch, although not completely abolished, was very greatly impaired. She recognised a hat, for instance, only after feeling of it for a long time and then seemed doubtful about it. Her sense of the position of the extremities was also very imperfect, although not entirely abolished; and there was some deafness, although not enough to render her incapable of conversation. With regard to her mental state, Dr. Berkley says:

“The psychical condition has undergone but slight change, she
is possibly a little apathetic, with some slight tendency
towards a melancholic tone, but when aroused and induced to
converse for some time, this in great measure passes away. The
memory is quite good.”

Dr. Berkley was kind enough to give me the following additional information about this patient, who, at the time of writing, was still under observation:

“Since the coming on of the dullness in hearing there has been
a considerable degree of apathy manifest. She is no longer
conscious of the smaller noises that occur around her, but is
very readily aroused by the voice, and then takes a lively
interest in what is said to her: for instance a few days ago
the resident physician remarked to her that he was going to
obtain a pair of crutches for her use; she laughed heartily
at the idea, and said she would fall and break her leg at the
first step.”

In response to further inquiries, he writes as follows:

“1) Visceral sensations. The clearest evidence of visceral
sensation I have noted in my article,” [warning of the
necessity of evacuating the bowels and bladder by a pricking
pain in the lower part of the abdomen,] “no others were
sufficiently definite to be described. For two years there has
been no feeling of hunger or thirst, and as the diet has only
been a few mouthfuls of milk at a time for nearly that period,
there has been no feeling of repletion.

“2) When the patient laughs at a joke, there is a slight
flushing of the face, besides the ordinary contraction of the
facial muscles; she is aware that she is laughing, but besides
acknowledging that she perceives no difference between the
act now, and some years ago, she is unable to describe the
sensation further.