generalisations, and liable to exceptions. It is an essential part of our method to formulate them, because they are the hypotheses we need to direct our observation and research in collecting the facts that bear on them, and especially in discovering those contradictory cases from which alone we can elicit the limiting conditions of the empirical law and raise it to a higher level of exactitude and truth. Now, with regard to the function of Confidence, we find a number of observations that seem to contradict those which we have already noticed. Confidence is held to be a very important quality of character, without which no great undertakings can be accomplished. Confidence," says Milton, "imparts a wondrous inspiration to its possessor. It bears him on in security, either to meet no danger, or to find matter of glorious trial."1 "Confidence in oneself," says Sir Philip Sidney, "is the chief nurse of magnanimity.” “A persuasion that we shall overcome any difficulty that we meet with in the sciences, seldom fails to carry us through them," observes Locke.3 "Confidence," says Cicero, " is that feeling "is by which the mind sets out upon great and honourable courses with a sure hope and trust in itself." 4 "Confidence," La Rochefoucauld remarks, “supplies more to conversation than does intellect." 5 "So soon as you feel confidence in yourself, you know the art of life," observes Goethe." "Reputation," says Alfred de Vigny, 7 "has only one good point, it allows a man to have confidence in himself, and to speak his thought." It is often remarked of armies, after a succession of victories, that the confidence they have acquired in themselves and their general renders them almost invincible. Thus while the law derived from the first list of observations is that Confidence tends to relax industry and care, as well as the higher intellectual and voluntary processes in the service of Desire, these second observations seem to point to a contrary law, that Confidence imparts to these powers a 1 Quoted by J. Wood, ' Dictionary of Quotations.' 2 Op. cit. Art. 'Confidence.' 3 'The Conduct of the Understanding, § 39. 4 Hoyt, 'Cyclopædia of Practical Quotations,' Art. 'Confidence.' 6 'Maximes,' 421. Faust. 76 'Journal d'un Poète.' greater energy and efficiency than they had before. But we have first to notice that the observations in this second list refer to confidence in oneself, which, though it be derived from success in desire, has become a general fact not dependent on the situation of a particular desire; whereas that to which the first observations refer is dependent on the situation of a particular desire, the end of which appears certain of accomplishment, and is not specially a confidence in oneself. The one confidence does not essentially involve the other. If a man is confident in his powers, that does not make him always confident that his particular desire will be accomplished. The confidence in himself is no more than a power that he brings to the service of his desires in general. It counteracts the tendency to despondency and over-anxiety, that would impede the pursuit of their ends. It does not give him the special qualities which a particular desire may need. He may be confident in himself without being confident that some end, which requires for its successful pursuit peculiar qualities of talent or skill, as well as good fortune, will be accomplished. Thus the law that confidence in one's powers increases their energy and efficiency does not contradict the law that confidence in the accomplishment of a particular desire relaxes the powers that are instrumental to it. Nor is it true in all cases that confidence in oneself is beneficial. There is an over-confidence, or one not founded in fact; and it is commonly held that ambitious men, who have been uniformly successful, sooner or later develop such over-confidence. In the famous soliloquy of Wolsey 1 on his fall, he recognises it in himself:— "I have ventur'd, Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, This many summers in a sea of glory; But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride For if a moderate self-confidence makes difficult ends. appear less difficult, an excessive self-confidence makes them 1 Shakespeare, 'Henry VIII.,' A. iii. Sc. ii. appear too easy. At this stage self-confidence tends to develop the confidence that whatever end we desire is certain of accomplishment, and thereby relaxes care and industry. We have, then, found that the empirical law, that self-confidence increases the power at our disposal for accomplishing the ends of desires to which this power is applicable, is not true in all cases. And we seem also to have discovered the condition which limits its range. The ends must still appear difficult. The apophthegms on the beneficial efforts of selfconfidence have in view such ends. But ends appear to us difficult in proportion as they make us doubtful whether we can realise them; and when we desire them our doubts arouse anxiety, which, unchecked by hope, produce despondency and discouragement. Now it is here that such great value is attributed to self-confidence. For the belief in our powers makes us hopeful of accomplishing even difficult ends, and strengthens and renders more efficient our powers themselves; because it arouses and sustains this stimulating emotion of hope, and counteracts the depressing influence of despondency and discouragement. The empirical law is, then, more complicated than it seemed to be. It is not true that self-confidence alone increases the power at the service of desire. It only does so, so far as there is recognition of the difficulty of the end with consequent doubt and anxiety. But as confidence makes difficult ends appear less difficult, so it is always tending to displace this salutary doubt. Let it once succeed, and confidence that the end is certain displaces doubt, and carelessness succeeds vigilance. We are now in a position to formulate the law of selfconfidence in its relation to desire, so as to define the point at which it becomes excessive: (124) Self-confidence, when restrained by the difficulty of the ends that we desire to realise, and balanced by doubt and anxiety, always tends to strengthen and to render more efficient our power to realise these ends. But confidence that such ends are certain to be realised tends, on the contrary, always to relax our power. It is, then, only under the conditions we have named that self-confidence has the beneficial effects so commonly attributed to it. And we are reminded of the wise maxim of Gratian to "attempt easy tasks as if they were difficult, and difficult, as if they were easy. In the one case that we may not fall asleep through confidence, in the other that we may not be dismayed." 1 Thus confidence and self-confidence have useful functions to perform in desire, but they have to be held in check by the system as a whole and balanced by its opposing emotions. 4. The Tendencies of Disappointment Disappointment, unlike Despondency, is combined with surprise, and implies that we have hitherto been hopeful of the issue, if not confident. We speak of the ' pangs of disappointment,' for it brings to our cognisance a sudden check or failure. In Despondency we have been slowly accumulating failure, or failing to make progress, and hope deferred maketh the heart sick'; for Despondency arrests the process of desire. But in Disappointment an unexpected event seems suddenly to arrest it; and Disappointment registers the fact. What tendency has this emotion? It seems to correct the excesses of hope and confidence; which are moderated by an adequate experience of the course of desires, as of life in general, and of the many disappointments they sustain, both in respect of their means and ends. There is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip,'-this maxim disappointment teaches. We come therefore to expect failures and disappointments, and to feel them less keenly because we have expected them. And as the experience of former failures is stored for the use of future desires, so the memory of disappointments becomes the occasion of anxiety, before we have as yet met with any inauspicious circumstance, and therefore represses rash confidence. Both anxiety and a restrained hope in new desires are the indirect consequence of the checks and failures experienced in old ones. Unless we had these painful experiences, we should not remember them; we should not 1 'Maxims,' cciv. Mr. Jacobs translates the second sentence as follows: 'In the one case that confidence may not fall asleep, in the other that it may not be dismayed.' 'Art of Worldly Wisdom,' by Gratian, trans. by J. Jacobs. learn to anticipate their recurrence, and to obviate it. The young are generally more rash in pursuit than the old. They are more disposed to hope and confidence. They expect to satisfy their desires, as they fervently anticipate happiness in life. The experiences of disappointment lead them to expect similar experiences in the future. Thus it seems probable that, as the prospective emotions of desire are dependent on thought, it is the thoughts resulting from the painful emotions of disappointment and despondency that are the conditions on which a rational anxiety and hope are dependent, and which exclude rash confidence. Our desires become more efficient through disappointments, because they acquire a better and more trained intelligence which dissects the grounds of hope and confidence. appointment turns life from false dreams to stern realities: it prompts to an investigation of causes, and arouses cognition to a full understanding of the situation. Hope thereby, becomes more rational and realisable." 1 Though Disappointment has this useful function in desire, its bad effects are more frequently recognised. Certainly, keen and repeated disappointments tend so much to discourage us that the heart becomes deadened to desire—as we see in some old persons; or the desires become confined to petty events that recur regularly with little or no co-operation on our part -as the desire for the change of the seasons, and the change at fixed times from one place to some other accustomed place, and the desire for meals, and for rest, and for the visits of old friends-which have not often the disasters attendant on great desires. The temper, too, is said often to become permanently soured' or 'embittered' by disappointments. For these tend to arouse anger, being due to a sudden arrest of desire, and all impulses, which are abruptly interfered with, tend to arouse anger. And if frequent disappointments exclude confidence from desire, they also tend to diminish hopes, which are proportionate to the degree in which we do not expect failure; so that if we become habituated to expect it, hope may be altogether excluded. 1 Stanley, Evolutionary Psychology of Feeling,' ch. xi. |