CHAPTER II

THE LAWS OF THE EMOTIONAL SYSTEM OF DESIRE

THE Conception of Desire as such an emotional system as we have described in the last chapter, suggests new problems, and directs us to the search for new laws. In distinction from the primary emotions which in their earliest forms are aroused only by sensations or perceptions, the prospective emotions of desire are aroused only by ideas, and refer to ideal objects. For they depend on desire, and on the thought of its end. They are conditioned by some change in this thought. If we did not think differently in despondency from what we do in hope, and in confidence from what we do in despair, and if in all these cases our thought did not differ from the mere thought of the end desired, none of these emotions would be possible. We might be in a sinking ship, or shut up in a burning house, and, like an animal, perceive our situation, and be possessed by primitive fear; but unless we interpreted this situation-unless the desire for life arose, and with it the further thought that no escape was possible-we could not despair; nor could we there feel hope without the thought of escape. And thus it is with all the emotions of desire: each has a thought of its own, and each makes some addition to the bare thought of the end. We may then lay it down as the first empirical law of desire that: (106) The prospective emotions of desire are only aroused by thoughts: being first dependent on the thought of the end and, secondly, on some modification of this thought, which operates as the special stimulus of one or other of these emotions.

There is also a second law which has been partly implied in the last chapter. Just as we found that desire must be

obstructed before the intellectual side of its system can be developed, so also it must be obstructed before its prospective. emotions can be elicited. Many of our desires are accomplished so rapidly that there is neither sufficient delay nor variety of situation for emotions to arise. We desire to go out, and we go out; we desire to rest, and we sit down; we desire to go to sleep, and we break away from our book or our companion; we desire change of scene, and we readily fulfil this desire. But to feel hope or anxiety, our desire must be held some time in suspense. We cannot measure this time; but we know that it must be sufficiently long for the thoughts to arise on which the prospective emotions depend. Let us then attempt to formulate a law, which, in respect of such interval, must be left indefinite: (107) The prospective emotions of desire depend on the occurrence of some obstacle to its satisfaction, which may provide a delay sufficient for the thoughts specifically determining those emotions to be elicited. But delay is only one of the conditions on which these thoughts depend: and of the others the most important is that which the situation is understood to be; for this is different when we are hopeful and when despondent. There is then a second law: (108) The prospective emotions of desire depend on some supposed change of situation, affecting the prospective fulfilment of its end, to which their thoughts respond. For such a change of situation, if not a real one, must still be supposed to exist. What shall we say of these thoughts themselves, and can we define them? It is difficult to define them because they may be themselves so vague. Thus if we were to assume that in Hope there must be a probability of attaining the end desired, there would be some cases that would contradict it. For the probability may be on the other side, yet we may cling in hope to a bare chance: like people that take a ticket in a lottery. Nor need the thought be so defined that the event which we hope for is conceived of as either probable or possible. We may hope that it will come to pass without further defining the chances in favour of it. But one negative condition we may particularise: we must not conceive that this event is impossible, or despair will replace hope.

We do not then seem able to enunciate the law of the H H

occurrence of hope, because we cannot define the thought which is an essential condition of it. It is neither true in all cases that such a vague thought as we have described will elicit hope, nor that a more definite thought of the chances in our favour is always necessary; because there is another condition which co-operates, and is not fully manifested in consciousness. The state of the body gives rise to moods of the mind; and these dispose us sometimes to hope, sometimes to despondency. When we are well we are more disposed to the former; when ill, to the latter. But we have no precise knowledge of these physiological conditions. And the tempers of some persons predispose them more to the one emotion than to the other. And thus it happens that when our bodily state or temper is favourable, we can hope with fewer chances in our favour that when it is adverse, and that it then requires a greater present failure or a greater probability of failure in the future to make us despondent. For these reasons it does not seem possible to define the kind of thought that essentially gives rise to hope, because this thought is so variable. We can only lay down this law: (109) We tend to feel hope when we think and believe that the chances in our favour are good, or have become better than they were; but the influence of this thought is often counteracted by the mood or temper, and something less than it is often sufficient. It is the same with despondency. At one time it takes a little cause to make us despondent, at another, a greater. And the thought too is variable, and often obscure failure to attain the end, or to make progress toward it, prolonged delays, adverse circumstances: these experiences, though accompanied by ill-defined thoughts, are the common causes of the emotion. But (110) In proportion as we think that the chances in our favour are bad, or are less good than they were, we tend under all circumstances to feel despondent; though the influence of this thought is often counteracted by our mood, or our temper, as well as by courage or patience.

In Despair and Confidence it seems that the subjective conditions are always more definite. We do not despair unless we believe that the event desired cannot be accomplished. Belief is essential to it. In confidence, we must believe that

this event will certainly be accomplished. Belief is also essential to it. Yet these beliefs are furthered or counteracted by bodily and mental conditions, so that under some conditions, of the precise nature of which we are ignorant, we may form these beliefs with little or no justification, while under other conditions, we seem to be influenced by what we call 'reason.' Let us, then, state this provisional law: (111) We cannot despair or feel confidence unless we believe, in the first case, that the end desired cannot be achieved, or, in the second case, that it certainly will be.

In Disappointment there is the thought and expectation of an end being realised followed by its sudden frustration; or the experience of the end being realised, and of its falling below expectation. The event being always unexpected, surprise enters into the emotion. The law of Disappointment is therefore that, (112) Whenever we think and expect that the end desired, or any process auxiliary to it, will be realised, or that, being realised, it will attain to a certain character, then, when it is not realised, or does not attain to this character, we tend to feel disappointment.

In anxiety we have the thought of two alternatives: we hope that the end desired will be realised, but we are anxious because it may not be. We cannot get away from this thought, and are torn between it and the other, and in a state of suspense so painful that we sometimes say that any certainty is preferable to it. Here, too, certain moods and tempers tend to fix the unfavourable alternative in the mind so that we become anxious when there is little cause for anxiety; whilst there are other moods in which we are so foolishly confident that good grounds for anxiety can obtain no hold of us. The law of Anxiety is therefore that, (113) Whenever the hope of attaining the end desired is in conflict with the thought that it may not be attained, and this thought obtains some hold of the mind, then we tend to feel anxiety.

This seems to be as far as we can at present go in the attempt to define the thoughts which are essential conditions of these emotions. We must now attempt to make clear the nature of these emotions themselves and certain curious relations in which they stand to one another. The primary

emotions which we considered in the last Book had all of them, with the exception of Surprise, their particular impulses, and ends which these impulses subserved, and even organised in sentiments, these ends were seen to be still operative. Is it the same with hope, despondency, anxiety, disappointment, despair and confidence? Have these their own ends each distinct from the others; or, on the other hand, have they not all the same end, and is not this the end of the desire to which they belong? For in desire we hope that this end will be accomplished; we are despondent when we make no progress toward this same end; we are anxious when we feel it to be uncertain; we are disappointed when we have expected it, or some result contributory to it, to be realised, and it is not; and we feel confidence, or despair, according as we believe that this same end will, or will not, of a certainty be accomplished. And there seems to be no other end of all these emotions. They do not seem to contribute to desire any special impulses and ends of their own, or, if they do, these become confused with the end of desire itself. For if hope has a strong impulse toward its end, this is the impulse of desire and if despondency has a slackened impulse, this is still the impulse of desire. These emotions modify its impulses, strengthen or weaken them, stimulate one and depress another. For beside its central impulse,—which persists until its end is realised or the desire is extinguished,—desire has a number of subordinate impulses which occur at different stages of its process,-as to get up, to sit down, to take a train, to change the course of its ideas, to converse with this. person or with that, to vary its methods. These do not seem specially to belong to hope more than to anxiety, nor to despondency more than to disappointment. They simply occur because desire has to organise its means in relation to changes in the situation, and these means require particular impulses to accomplish them. Yet if these emotions have no impulses of their own, they must be different not only from the primary emotions, but from all those of which we have hitherto made no mention,-as shame and humiliation, pride and vanity, awe, reverence, aspiration, remorse, repentance,— all of which have impulses and ends of their own.