To Coleridge love appears to organise the entire mind and heart: All thoughts, all passions, all delight And feed his sacred flame." 1 A corrective of this too inclusive conception is found in St. Paul's description of love, where some of the emotions which it excludes are indicated. "Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked,..." 2 Now contrast this conception of the poets with the theoretical opinions of the philosophers. "Love," says Descartes, "is an emotion of the soul ... which urges it willingly to unite with objects that appear suitable." "Love," says Spinoza, "is nothing else but pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause." "4 "Tis altogether impossible," says Hume, "to give any definition of love and hatred; because they produce merely a simple impression, without any mixture or composition."5 And lastly we have Bain's identification of love with tender emotion. We could hardly have a stronger contrast than between the insight of the poets into the complex nature of love,—in which they find so many emotions and desires, as well as other constituents, that the difficulty is to define it on account of its complexity, and the lack of insight of the philosophers, 1 'Miscellaneous Poems,' 'Love.' 2 First Epistle to the Corinthians, ch. xiii. (Quoted also by Prof. B. Gibson, God with Us,' ch. viii.) Among the divines Robert South thus describes Love. The leading Affection of all the Passions is Love. . . Love is such an affection, as cannot so properly be said to be in the Soul, as the Soul to be in that. It is the whole man wrapt up in one Desire; all the Powers, Vigours and Faculties of the Soul abridged into one Inclination. . . . The Soul may sooner leave off to subsist, than to Love; and like the vine, it withers and dies, if it has nothing to embrace.' ('Maxims and Sayings, etc., from Dr. South.' Edit. 1717, p. 3.) 3 Les Passions de l'Ame,' Deuxième Partie, art. 79. 4 'Ethics,' Part iii, Prop. xiii. Note. 5 Treatise of Human Nature,' B. ii. pt. ii. sec. i. who reduce this complexity to a single emotion, which, in the view of Hume, cannot even be defined because it produces "merely a simple impression." Spencer, alone, approximates to a true theory. His analysis of sexual love has been justly praised.1 Love, he observed, "is habitually spoken of as though it were a simple feeling; whereas it is the most compound, and therefore the most powerful, of all the feelings."2 Among its constituents, he enumerates the sexual instinct, affection, "admiration, respect, or reverence," self-approbation and self-esteem, "the pleasure of possession," the sense of freedom, and, finally, an "exaltation of the sympathies." But, while he discerns so well the constituents, he conceives of them, not as combining into a system, but as being compounded into a single feeling. Now there is all the difference between these two conceptions. The compound feeling, so far as its composition remains unchanged, acts in all times, places, and situations in the same way. However greatly the situation may change, it can only respond to this situation with the same behaviour evoked by its compound emotion. Such a theory cannot account for the great diversity of the behaviour of love in different situations, as well as the corresponding diversity of its emotions. Several of these emotions may indeed blend into one where the situation is such as to evoke them together; but how often do different situations evoke different emotions? For the situation of presence contrasts with that of absence, and prosperity with adversity, and love responds to the one with joy, and with sorrow and longing to the other. The anticipation of the future changes; and, in correspondence with it, love is sometimes full of hope and sometimes sunk in despondency. The remembrance of the past changes; and, responding to it, love is sometimes filled with thankfulness, and sometimes with remorse. The situation of danger contrasts with the situation of security; and, responding to the first, love feels anxiety, and to the second, confidence. The plots of enemies contrast with the help of 1 See 'The Psychology of the Emotions,' by T. H. Ribot, part ii, ch. vi. 2 'Prin. of Psy.,' vol. i. part iv. ch. viii. p. 487. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. friends; and love responds in the one case, with suspicion and anger, and in the other with trust and gratitude. The situation in which Love is placed may be any one of those referred to; and, in the course of its history, it may pass successively through all of them. Love, therefore, cannot be reduced to a single compound feeling; it must organise a number of different emotional dispositions capable of evoking in different situations the appropriate behaviour. Adopting, then, this conception of love as our working theory, and the theory of the sentiment of which it is a part, we shall, in the next section, apply it to the interpretation of the different sentiments of human character. 2. Of the Sentiments that are most commonly found among Men. While we can enumerate with some approach to accuracy the primary emotions and impulses which are universal constituents of all normal characters, when we come to treat of those greater systems of the higher level of character, we find that they vary much more from one man to another than do these lesser systems. For while there are one or two stimuli which appear to be innately connected with the excitement of love-as the presence of offspring, and, after puberty, of some individuals of the opposite sex-with these exceptions, our love for all other individuals appears to be acquired. And therefore the sentiments of one man differ from those of another; for the love has not only different objects, but itself varies with the varying nature of these objects. And although there is an innate system at the base of all varieties of love, so that we may even speak of the disposition of love as being as much inherited as the disposition to the primary emotions, yet love is only fully constituted when it has found its objects, and is rendered active on behalf of them. Yet sooner or later everyone develops some sentiments of this kind. There is this innate system within him which impels him to form them, and not to remain subject to the passing impulses. His "cool selflove," as well as his "better self," is an effort of his nature to rise into one of these self-controlled systems, and greatly as the characters of men differ in degree of organisation, there are probably none among even the most impulsive who do not sometimes control the present emotion with a view at least to their own advantage. In all normal individuals, then, there is a love of something to give some order and unity to their lives; and the system which is found generally pre-eminent is the great principle of self-love or the self-regarding sentiment, analogous to the chief bodily systems in respect of the number of subsidiary systems which it is capable of containing-not merely emotions but even sentiments-as pride and vanity, avarice or the love of riches, sensuality or the love of sensual pleasures; of these the self-love of any particular man probably contains several. And joined to this self-love in subtle and intimate ways which we cannot here attempt to understand, are a variety of disinterested sentiments: as conjugal and parental love, filial affection, friendship, the sentiment for some game or sport, and in the higher characters one or other of the great impersonal sentiments, patriotism and the love for some science or art. There is finally a system of unique importance,-very imperfectly developed in most men, and seldom attaining to the warmth and intimacy of love, which is known as 'respect for conscience.' It is ever contesting both the supremacy of self-love and the attractiveness of the present inclination; and in most men it is combined with the religious sentiment. Of the peculiar character of its organisation, and of the secondary and derived emotions which make their appearance in it, we can here give no account; we can only indicate the presence of the same four fundamental emotions as in all varieties of love. That there is a calm joy in fulfilling the dictates of conscience, and a peculiar sorrow in our failure to fulfil them, is familiar to everyone. When we rebel against it, and persist in our evil courses, this sorrow becomes remorse. Its fear is that apprehension of punishment which follows the violation of its laws; and its anger is known as 'righteous indignation.' Two other sentiments closely connected with one another belong to this same class: self-respect, and respect for others. Among these greater systems must also be classed the opposite of love, hate. Sometimes love develops a complementary hate; as the love of knowledge, the hatred of ignorance, the love of beauty, the hatred of ugliness, the love of goodness, the hatred of evil, the love of country, the hatred of foreign nations. Whether hate is actually developed depends on the circumstances of the case; but some antagonistic attitude to ignorance, ugliness, baseness, always accompanies the love of their opposites. 3. Analysis of Hatred. It has seemed to some that, with the progress of civilisation, hatred is becoming rarer. Tolerance, or indifference, has diminished religious hatred; the knowledge of foreign countries and their abandonment of aggressive policies, have diminished the hatred of foreigners; just laws, and a firm and impartial administration, have diminished the frequency of personal hatreds. But new forms of social hate have sprung up in their place: the hatred of the capitalist and the professional classes by the manual labourers in place of the old respect felt for them. That hatred is a system that, however much it may be held in check by other forces of character, works for the destruction of the hated thing, as anger does only in its extreme forms, and in human beings works with a deliberate and selfcontrolled activity as one of its distinctive marks, is generally recognised. Shylock says, "Hates any man the thing he would not kill?"1 Destruction then becomes the prominent end of hatred. All means may be adopted for this end, even that of prayer: "Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I pray, Hate is not anger; and anger is not hate, though it may develop into hate. And fear is not hate, though it may develop into hate. Hate has, indeed, its bursts of anger; but resists them unless the occasion be suitable. And anger 1 'Merchant of Venice,' a. iv. sc. i. 2 Richard III,' a. iv. sc. iv. |