CHAPTER VI

OF THE WILL AND INTELLIGENCE AS CONSTITUENTS

OF CHARACTER

IN attempting to understand the systems of the emotions and sentiments we have to isolate them. We have to abstract them at first from that mind, or self, to which they belong, or else our problem becomes too complicated to deal with. In isolating them in this way we shall, in a certain sense, personify them. As we have already noticed, we are so accustomed to regard the emotions as merely feelings, that in taking a comprehensive view of their systems we seem to be attributing to them qualities that only belong to the mind or self as a whole. For we shall assume that an emotion includes (1) a cognitive attitude-in the sense of a perception or a thought; (2) a conative attitude-in the sense of an impulse and end;1 and (3) a feeling-attitude of a peculiar kind which we cannot fully analyse. It has, therefore, the three essential attitudes of the mind as self; while, through the instinct or innate tendency connected with it, those bodily actions or behaviour are elicited which are necessary for the attainment of its end. An emotion is, then, a self, or microcosm, of the entire mind; and this, as we shall see hereafter, is still truer of a sentiment. Such a personification of emotions and sentiments does not falsify their nature, so long as we do not attribute to them qualities which they do

1 'Every special kind of emotion essentially involves a characteristic end or direction of activity, mental or bodily.' (G. F. Stout, 'Manual of Psy.,' bk. iii. ch. v., 3.)

2 'It is a unique kind of feeling-attitude towards an object.' (G. F. Stout, ibid.)

not possess, so long as we do not confuse them with the total self to which they belong. At least, this is the conception which we shall provisionally adopt and attempt to justify in the same way as other leading conceptions, by applying it to the facts and judging how far it interprets them.

In the account given in the preceding chapters, of the principal forces of character as exemplifying the fundamental law of Organisation which pervades mental life, we made no mention of the Will and the Intelligence as among the most important of such forces. The varieties of strong and of weak wills-the difference between those who seem born to rule and those who are as naturally submissive; between those who exercise great self-control and those who are impulsive, which distinguishes not only individuals but nations; between those who pursue the same object from day to day, from year to year, and sometimes through the greater portion of a lifetime, and those who can never be long constant in anything;—all these varieties may spring as much from innate dispositions as do the varieties of primary emotion. But it may be reasonably urged that the will is not an independent force-at least, in the beginning, or before it develops the power of real choice; that it is an expression of the tendencies of emotions and sentiments; that in them its innate qualities are manifested, and its acquired qualities developed. And thus we find that the will of emotions is always impulsive, that of sentiments more reflective and self-controlled. In the sentiments alone are resolutions formed, and choice manifested between their sometimes conflicting ends; they only give the will to control emotion, and to be steadfast unto the end. Strength or weakness of will, other things equal, varies with the strength or weakness of the emotion or sentiment to which it belongs; and hence it is that we find the same man strong in some directions and weak in others. Yet there are some men who bring an innate power of will to the pursuit of everything they love, and others whose weak wills bring their strongest sentiments to inconstancy and failure. Such innate differences may be ineradicable; but every strong sentiment has a tendency to develop a strong will in its support. The

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weakness of so many minds is either that they cannot love anything strongly and exclusively enough to pursue it steadfastly, or that they are innately predisposed to some discouraging emotion, as fear, or despondency, or sorrow, which they never learn to control. And thus the strength or weakness of the will is largely due to the sentiment in which it is organised, or to the direct influence of some emotion.

Yet if the conclusion were stated absolutely, that there is no will but that which belongs to some emotion or sentiment, we might be charged with overlooking the fact that, when sentiments conflict, we sometimes reflect on those with which we habitually identify ourselves and which ordinarily rule us without question. Thus respect for conscience often conflicts with ambition or sexual love, so that we are forced to reflect on both, and ask ourselves which we shall decide for. Now a decision does not always mean that one of these systems has at length triumphed over the other. We seem able sometimes to distinguish those cases in which we follow the will of a sentiment because we are absorbed in it, from those cases in which we suspend its activity, and regard it from the outside, doubting whether we shall follow it or some opposite system which we have tried in vain to reconcile with it. Then, if in the end we choose between them, and once more become identified with the first system, and with its will which pursues no other end but its own, this identification has been produced by a will which belonged essentially to neither system.

Now supposing that such volitions occur in fact, even if rarely, from what do they proceed? What higher systems are there than self-love, on the one side, and love of others, or respect for conscience, on the other? What other system can estimate theirs, and choose between their alternatives? Yet our personality does not seem to be the sum of the dispositions of our emotions and sentiments. These are our many selves; but there is also our one self. This enigmatical self which reflects on their systems, estimates them, and, however loath to do it, sometimes chooses between their ends, seems to be the central fact of our personality.

If this be the fact, it is not the kind of fact which we can take into account. The science of character will be the science of our sentiments and emotions,-of these many selves, not of this one self. It will try to understand those forces with which our personality has to reckon; to trace the laws of their organisation, of their growth and decline, of their action and interaction; but it will leave out of account the mystery which lies behind them.

And the science of character will deal with the Intellect as with the Will. It will regard the one no more than the other as an independent existence; but as organised in and subserving the system of some impulse, emotion, or sentiment. The powers of the intellect, like those of the will, are partly innate, partly acquired; but they will only be elicited in one or other of these systems, and be dominated by its end. As under the influence of emotion our will is impulsive, so is our intellect precipitate, and incapable of calm deliberation. Only where emotions are organised in sentiments, and subordinated to their central control, are the higher powers of the intellect developed.

Yet if this conclusion were stated absolutely it might raise an objection like that we considered in relation to the Will. For is there not sometimes manifested in us a pure intelligence, free from all admixture of emotion or sentiment -the Reason which, ever since Plato wrote, has been opposed to Passion—and with which our highest will works in accord? But again, if this be the fact, a science of character cannot deal with it. For here we must assume that even where the intellect attains its highest development, and is most pure, disinterested, and independent, it still belongs to a sentiment, and draws from the noble love of Truth its purity and its disinterestedness.

Thus the working assumption of our science must be the acceptance of this law, even if it be contradicted by certain facts: (6) All intellectual and voluntary processes are elicited by the system of some impulse, emotion, or sentiment, and subordinated to its end.

CHAPTER VII

OF THE METHOD OF A SCIENCE OF CHARACTER (I)

1. Of the "Laws of Mind"

We have now advanced sufficiently far in our study of the primary forces of human character to be able to consider with advantage the methods by which we may guide our future course, and whether among those open to us there is any one that will afford us a fair prospect of establishing a science of character. We shall first return to the method which Mill himself advocated in his chapter on the Logic of the Moral Sciences, and inquire how far it is fitted to promote this aim.

Two conceptions appear to have been prominent in his mind in the writing of this chapter: one that there is already to be found in literature a sufficient number of the "empirical laws" to serve as the inductive base of the science; the other, that a sufficient number of "laws of mind" are known to serve as principles of deduction, so as both to interpret these empirical laws, and to fix the limits of the reliance to be placed on them. With regard to the "laws of mind" we have already seen in what respect he was in error. There was neither a sufficient number of them discovered in his time, nor were those even which were discovered suitable for his purpose.

Mill appears also to have assumed that the laws of mind would not have the defect attaching to the empirical laws of being only "approximate generalisations." He regarded them as laws of "tendency": they would "not assert that something will always, or certainly, happen; but only that such and such will be the effect of a given cause, so far as it