CHAPTER III

THE SYSTEMS OF THE EMOTIONS

1. Of the Constitution of Character

We have come to recognise that the Laws of Mind that we require for interpreting empirical generalisations concerning character must be organic and not mechanical laws, and that without such, and with merely the mechanical laws of Association to replace them, there can be no foundation for the science of Character. But these laws of Mind are not ready to hand, like the laws of Association; we have to find them. Still if it is the essential nature of Mind, and the most general fact that we can assert about it, that it tends always to organise its process, then, wherever we examine mental process, we should find some organic law, whether the force present be that of the play-impulse, or one of the serious sentiments of our life, as that for our family or profession. These organic laws are in fact the laws of our instincts, emotions and sentiments. Men considering us from the outside, observe the manifestations of these same systems. They come to the same conclusion that there are forces in us which always pursue some end; and the wisest of them, observing our conduct, formulate empirical laws of our character, as that "Love is blind," or that "Forbidden fruit is sweetest," or disguise these laws in Fables, as that of "the Fox and the sour grapes," or "the Dog in the manger,"-which are again and again applied to characterise the same kind of conduct, and to make men recognise in themselves what is so evident to those who watch them. Thus we have to seek for two kinds of law about the same kind of force or system: the one

derived from popular observation, liable to exceptions, unscientific, but recognised and formulated; the other, belonging to the inner nature of these systems, organic laws, not liable to exceptions, for the most part not formulated, either because they elude discovery, or because psychologists have never systematically studied them. Both kinds of laws are indispensable to a science of character, and the possibility of its foundation depends on the discovery of a sufficient number of them.

These forces which are also systems, these systems which are forces, with their laws and subsidiary components, constitute our character. For with them and in them everything else that belongs to it is organised: our thoughts and volitions, even the virtues and vices that distinguish us.

We may attempt to make this conception clearer by contrasting character with circumstances. We see on the one hand the circumstances in which a man is placed, and a stream of experiences in the mind corresponding to them; on the other hand, character and its forces. How much of this stream is attended to and gives rise to clear perceptions depends, in great part, on these forces or systems of the character. They control and direct attention. Hence it is pointed out that the doctor, the lawyer, the priest, and the soldier, notice different kinds of fact, because their interests are divergent.

Beside this stream of perceptual experiences, often very sluggish or relatively fixed, there is another and more mobile stream of ideas. And here too we notice the same thing; those of our ideas which are attended to, arrested, recalled, are largely under the control of these same forces or systems of our character, whose organic laws organise and direct them. But interwoven with them, counteracting and sometimes neutralising their influence, are those other and mechanical laws of association. Both streams are thus subject to two opposite kinds of influence; and so far as their composition and order is determined by the laws of association, and is not modified by these organic laws, it cannot be said to belong to character. It does not form part of any system. Its order is casual and unmeaning. But it

still forms part of the mind. It belongs to those mental processes which are the ever-changing material from which the systems of character select what they need, by which they are brought into touch with changes of the environment, and warned to adjust themselves to them. But character is centred in this organising activity itself, and is manifested in every one of its systems.

In contrast with this conception it is curious to observe to what a poor collection of detached qualities we often reduce the living characters of men. Such a man we judge, has a strong will, is energetic, is industrious; but reserved, disobliging, and unsociable. Another is complaisant and sociable; but weak and insincere. These summaries of men's natures are chiefly of use for practice. For as with those whom we are asked to employ, we want to know first whether they are honest, sober, industrious, and understand the work they profess to do; so we expect to be helped by knowing something of those with whom we are likely to be brought into contact. But such lists of qualities do not tell us anything of their inner connection, and to what limitations they are subject, and what are the chief systems of the mind which elicit, develop, and organise them, whilst allowing other qualities to perish.

Abstract and disconnected qualities of character are then subordinated to its unified systems, and we have first of all to understand these systems and their laws.

We shall in the remainder of this chapter describe one of the principal orders of these systems, but without giving evidence for our conclusions, which we reserve for the second book. For we have first of all to form a conception of character in order to know what the science is at which we are to aim. And we shall find, step by step, as we add to our initial conception of character, that the problems of the new science will unfold themselves, and become progressively defined. And thus the future science may be regarded from this point of view as dependent on the progressive definition of an initially vague and abstract conception, and its transformation into conceptions that become ever more adequate to the wonderful and intricate object represented by

them. And this will be an essential feature of our method: this working conception that grows with and adapts itself to the knowledge of the facts. For here no one could formulate a true and adequate conception all at once.

2. Of the Nature of an Emotional System, and of the different Primary Emotions.

Now as there are in the body certain greater systems and certain lesser systems, so there are such also in the character. And as in the body the greater systems include certain subsidiary organs or systems,-as the nutritive system, its various organs, and the nervous systems, other systems, as the sympathetic, the peripheral, and the central nervous system,-so in the character also there are certain principal systems which organise others subsidiary to them. Now among these lesser systems that are, or may be, organised in greater, are the primary emotions with their connected instincts. And here we may refer to the fact, which is well recognised, that the systems of the mind, as mental systems, cannot be separated from certain bodily systems. Every system of the mind is incomplete, and has part of its system in the body, and every system of the body, which is not merely reflex, is also incomplete, and has part of its system in the mind. Whatever stimulus may be given to an instinctive system by an emotion of the mind, the executive part of it is in the body, and there also is another or receptive part which arouses the emotion. Thus the instincts of flight and concealment, involving so many co-ordinated movements for the fulfilment of their ends, are a part, and at first the largest and principal part, of the emotional system of fear, as imposing the end at which the system aims. And that part of the system which is in the mind includes not only the feeling and impulse of fear, but all the thoughts that subserve escape from danger. As we advance in life these acquired constituents, which modify the inherited structure of fear, become ever more numerous and important in correspondence with the growth of our experience.

The same is also true of anger and disgust, two emotions whose systems also include instincts. But while disgust is included among the recognised emotions-although in origin, and in respect of its most prominent side, it is the negative instinct which leads to the rejection by the organism of substances that are unsuitable or dangerous-yet the positive and complementary instinct is not held to belong to an emotion. The feeling and impulse which accompanies and controls the search for and absorption of food is known as the appetite, not as the emotion of hunger. An appetite is aroused by internal rather than by external stimulation, has a greater regularity of recurrence than an emotion, and becomes more urgent the longer it remains unsatisfied; but in other respects the psychological difference between them is unimportant. Both are psycho-physical systems, both include instincts and emotional impulses.

sex.

We must place therefore in these lesser mental systems not only certain emotions, but also the appetites of hunger and There are other systems which we call neither emotions nor appetites, but loosely refer to as impulses, needs, or wants. Among them are the impulses connected with exercise and repose. Whether these include instincts may be more open to question. But the mode in which an animal takes the exercise characteristic of its species is recognised to be an instinct as the flight of birds, the swimming of ducks, or the sinuous movement of snakes. And this instinct is connected with the impulse for exercise, and cooperates sometimes with hunger, sometimes with anger or fear, sometimes with the play-impulse.

The impulse for repose or sleep seems also to include an instinct. Different groups of animals have different ways of pursuing rest and sleep. Some make lairs, some perch on boughs, and bury their heads under their wings; some, like snakes, coil up. And the impulse is no mere impulse, but includes its own feeling. The longing for rest when we are forced to work, and the body feels tired, the longing for exercise when it feels fresh, and we are pent up in the house, reaches a high degree of emotional intensity. It was, we may surmise, for this reason that the old writers included Desire