were the same; but at other times something in us arouses disgust or shame at our acceptance of it. Let us now contrast the law of the bodily pleasure or pain with that of the emotion: (48) Bodily pleasure and pain, after they have exceeded a certain intensity, tend to attract attention to themselves; but pleasant and painful emotions tend to attract attention more to their objects than to themselves. Thus joy is in this too distinguishable from bodily pleasure; it makes us think of the absent friend who has returned to us, or the good fortune that has at length arrived, rather than of the fact of joy itself; and even if the emotion have for a time no such object, it still makes us project our thought beyond itself, until we have found something to which it may be referred. We have now to consider those degrees of the bodily pain and pleasure below the degree at which they begin to draw attention to themselves and have these effects. When we observe the mass of bodily sensation faintly pleasant or painful, that is or may be included in an actual emotion, we notice that this does not spontaneously attract attention to itself or become an object of thought, but gives greater fulness to the emotion. Not only is this the case, but we know that certain faint and diffused bodily pains are apt of themselves to arouse emotional moods, and to become part of their emotions. Physical depression and weakness set up the emotion of sadness or melancholy; another kind of faint and undistinguished pain, sometimes felt in the head or viscera, sets up a mood of irritability, which now and again breaks out into weak emotions of anger. Similarly the vague and diffused bodily pleasure that accompanies states of good health tends to arouse joy, and when we think of the future, hope or confidence, and when we think of ourselves, pride. Hence the joy, confidence, and pride, to which good health disposes us, make us value almost anything rather than itself, to which they pay no attention; because vague sensations of pleasure arouse emotion, but do not become an object of it. There is then a complementary law that governs the weak or faint degrees of bodily pleasure and pain, which is opposite to the law that governs their intense or strong degrees: (49) Bodily pleasure or pain when it falls below a certain strength or intensity, tends to arouse some emotional mood, and to become part of this mood. Thus all varieties and degrees of bodily pleasure and pain tend to arouse some emotion, sometimes being merged in the attitude of this emotion, sometimes being constituted as its object. While then the distinction between bodily pleasure and pain, on the one side, and joy and sorrow, on the other, should in principle be sufficiently clear, the distinction between what are called 'mental' pleasure, displeasure and pain, and emotions is that between a part or element and the whole to which it belongs. Mental pleasure and pain are always parts of some emotional attitude, although this emotional attitude may not reach the degree of intensity to which the term 'emotion' is usually confined. An emotional system may hardly be felt, or weak emotions may blend together, and the result be a confusion of feelings that we cannot analyse; but the same emotional forces, whether distinguished or not, whether alone or in combination, are still operative. Now as we are interested in Joy because, however quiet it may appear, it is a force of character, and has important.functions in our sentiments, so we have to take the term in a very broad sense to include all varieties, high or low, intense or faint, and weak or strong. All are substantially the same force operating in character with different degrees of strength, and the less prominent and intense varieties are frequently the stronger, and exercise a steadier, a better, and more important influence upon us. Our chief problem, as in the case of fear and anger, is to study the innate tendencies of joy through a comparison of its varieties, and to judge how far these are modified by any tendencies that are acquired. We need hardly trouble to consider formal definitions of joy: according as we contract or extend the fluctuating denotation of the term, a number of such definitions are possible, and within their own domain may be sufficiently useful. Not subtlety, however, but a sound judgment is necessary to fix the denotation of the term, to discern the important differences that alone justify us in marking off the group of facts that we are going to study, and conferring upon them a distinctive name. But the aim we set before ourselves will partly determine what are important differences for us. Now as we shall adopt a very broad use of the term we cannot accept the old definitions of Descartes and Spinoza, because they make class-distinctions of differences that do not go to the root of the facts. Thus Descartes' definition restricts the emotion to certain of its later developments. "The consideration of present good," he tells us, "arouses in us joy; that of evil, sorrow; when it is a good or an evil which is represented to us as our own."1 Hence it follows that we cannot feel joy before we have developed the abstract conception, "good," and of "self" as "owning" something good. But it is not our purpose so to restrict the meaning of the term that we have to deny that animals and young children are capable of experiencing joy. Spinoza's definition is that “Joy is pleasure accompanied by the idea of something past, which has had an issue beyond our hope."? Hence it follows that the later emotion, Hope, dependent on desire and ideas of future events, must be held to precede the primitive emotion, Joy, which animals seem so conspicuously to feel in their play. 2. The Common Varieties of Joy There are many different pleasant states of mind; and these determine different varieties of joy. Pleasure enters into work and into rest, into excitement and into peace. Hence there is a joy of work different from the joy of rest, and a joy of peace different from the joys of excitement. Thinking has its own pleasures of novelty, of unimpeded advance, and of achievement, when the mind is fresh and adapted to its work; and these determine the joys of the intellectual life. There is a different joy in physical activities, -in those activities which are predominantly muscular, not How well the average Englishman knows them, nervous. 1 'Les Passions de l'Ame,' 'Deuxième Partie,' Art, 61. who thinks they have no equal. But these are not merely due to the pleasures of muscular sensation. The activity must be systematised and have variety: its different actions must be directed to an end. The joy of it is not to be found in walking to and fro on a railway platform. It is cricket or golf, or hunting or shooting. The pleasure appertains to the thought of the game or sport as a whole, or there would be no joy in it. So there is a joy in physical rest, when the body feels warm and at ease, and all its sensations are pleasant. How well the indolent know it; but there are restless natures that resist it, and render it difficult of attainment to those who live with them. But sensations, however pleasant, do not constitute joy, and are at most among its conditions or constituents. Here the joy is in the thought of rest or comfort. And how comes it that this thought is sometimes not a joy? We need not appeal to the ascetic tendencies in human nature for confirmation of this fact. It is sometimes sufficient that a man knows that he has not done his work, that he thinks himself idle, to transform the emotional character of his state. And the chief difference is in the feeling and tendencies of his thought, and not of the qualities of his sensations. It is an attitude no longer in harmony with, but in opposition to these pleasant sensations. It is penetrated with a sense of weakness, and the emotion is disgust, shame, or indignation. But how can a weak man tear himself from the sensuous enjoyment? The joy returns and masters him; but the reaction of disgust or shame follows, and excludes it. Two opposite emotions referring to the same bodily sensations as part of their objects, interpreted by the one as ease and comfort, by the other as idleness and luxury. Besides these there are many other varieties, as the joys accompanying the satisfaction of the appetites, the aesthetic joys of beauty, and the joys of laughter, some being the mere outburst of health and good spirits, others having the intellectual element of wit or humour, all conditioned by their respective sensations. For as the sensations of hearing are different from the sensations of vision, so the joy of music is different from the joy of a landscape. Many of these joys are primary, in the sense of being underived from one another or any other emotion; others are late products of evolution. Thus, it is possible that man alone possesses a stream of thoughts in the mind, which he sometimes distinguishes as representing past occurrences, sometimes as representing possible events in the future. Hence the joys which depend on these new activities are themselves new varieties: the joy of remembering past joys, the joy of anticipating future achievement or happiness; the one consoling the old, the other inspiring the young. Some of these later joys are secondary to our acquired sentiments, yet have a uniqueness of their own, as the 'cold' joys of self-love, the joy of meeting an old friend, the joy of reconciliation with one whom we love, and the joy of being at length at peace with our conscience. There are, then, many distinct varieties of joy. But on comparing them we do not find that they have been distinguished by the same principle as we adopted in distinguishing the varieties of fear and anger. For no conspicuous differences of instinct or tendency stand out in our different joys, to engage us to make that the basis of our classification. We therefore distinguished them by the differences of their objects, as the joy of rest, of work, of play, of knowledge and of beauty. And these differences we found were correlated with a qualitative difference of the joys connected with them, because they involve a difference of sensation or of mental activity. Has then joy no varieties dependent on differences of instinct and impulse? Has it indeed any impulse at all? Now if we compare fear and anger with joy we are impressed by the fact that an impulse is conspicuously present in each of the former, and absent from or at least obscure in the latter. But if joy have no impulse, it has no end, and without an end it cannot be an emotional system. Yet joy seems to be an emotion and no abstraction. It is held to be one that stimulates functional activity, and at least many of its varieties have this effect. The organic changes which it tends to set up, and by which it is conditioned, are accompanied by an increase of pleasant bodily sensations. Intense joys thrill us, and this thrill is a pleasant sensation. Yet we cannot make the constitution of joy clear to ourselves by |