Shand, Alexander F. 1914. The Foundations of Character: Being a Study of the Tendencies of the Emotions and Sentiments. London: Macmillan and Co.
A scientific treatment should not diminish, but increase the general interest taken in character. To bring together the various aspects of the subject, - which, in literature, are treated in isolation from one another; to lead up to a general conception of it; to study the methods by which the knowledge of it may be increased in accuracy and extent; these are to make approaches to a scientific treatment of character. (Shand 1914: vii)
Oh lord, what have I gotten myself into. 572 pages!
One of the principal hypotheses in this book is the theory of the sentiments which I published in Mind nearly twenty years ago. I have to thank Prof. G. F. Stout who was the first to adopt it, and to make it more widely known in his admirable "Manual of Psychology." Since then it has been accepted, or at least found serviceable, by a number of eminent writers, among whom I may mention Prof. E. Westermarck, [|] Prof. James Sully, Mr. W. McDougall, F.R.S., Prof. Boyce Gibson, Prof. A. Caldecott. I have specially to thank Mr. McDougall for the generous praise in his "Social Psychology," of what little I had accomplished, which, coming to me at a time when I was uncertain as to the plan of my book, was a great encouragement and help. (Shand 1914: viii-ix)
I should equally read Trotter's papers before they were made into that book. McDougall is not surprising, but Westermarck is. Increases the probability of reading his book on morals. Others here I would leave for a later date.
In a strict sense we can never isolate the emotions. Each is bound up with others. Each subsists and works in a mental environment in which it is liable to be interfered with by the rest. Nor do these forces keep themselves, like human beings in the social environment, always distinct. On the contrary, they frequently become blended together, and often what we feel is a confused emotion which we cannot identify. (Shand 1914: 2)
Very much the stuff of Paul Ekman's study of emotions, including the universal basic emotions. On the whole, the fact that emotions are so blended is likely one reason why verbalizing, even theoretically, the stuff of feelings, is so vague and slushy.
The literary observer has to meet a corresponding difficulty. The conduct which he is observing may be variously interpreted; but if he is able to observe the living man he may reach a definite conclusion. He believes that each emotion has its characteristic expression and gestures. He passes from the expression to the emotion and gestures. He passes from the expression to the emotion often with the utmost confidence. What he sees he calls anger or fear or joy or sorrow. And, besides, a man's speech betrays his thoughts, and these his motives. And finally, when he surveys the man's action as a whole, and the ends to which it appears to be directed, he can often judge what are his dominant sentiments. And thus from a man's expression and gestures, from his speech and conduct, we may be able to refer results to motives, the ends accomplished to their determining emotions and sentiments. (Shand 1914: 3)
That's one way of putting the communication of ideas. I should be happier that this discussion of emotions involves so much nonverbal communication. Maybe I should re-read Darwin's Expressions. Sentiments, it would appear, can also be treated as a functional hierarchy.
But setting aside those cases already referred to, in which one emotion so blends with others as to produce an emotional state that we cannot name or identify, still, fear, anger and other emotions, though their bodily sensations undergo some change, preserve their identity. (Shand 1914: 3)
I was just thinking that the foregoing spoke a lot about emotion being a process, so what's to make of an expression like "state of mind". Would it be an emotion of duration, i.e. mood?
Yet Lange confusing the control of emotions, - which so often strengthens them, as far as their depth or persistence is concerned, - with their suppression, looks forward to the day when through "the results of education and the intellectual life," we may end by realising the ideal of Kant of man as a pure intelligence for whom "all of the emotions" if he is still subject to them, will be looked upon as "mental troubles little worthy of him." (Shand 1914: 4)
How is this different from Trotter's dynamics between instinct and intelligence? The whole argument is also available in Peirce, i.e. self-control.
If the abstract laws of character were taught in permanent connexion with old and new observations which illustrate them, the knowledge obtainable in youth would not be merely abstract, and would sometimes approximate to the vividness of experience. Great dramatists and novelists impress the experiences of their characters so vivily upon us as almost to seem like our own experiences; and through the power of imagination, even in youth, we may have lived many lives. (Shand 1914: 8)
O.G. empathy (Einführung in German aesthetics). The latter cliche usually comes up in connection with fantasy. It's a staple when relating literature and education. I believe I've heard Stephen Fry say something like it on Q.I.
Mill conceived that the science of Character should be "founded on the laws of Psychology," and should connect the many popular generalisations about character with these laws. He speaks of these generalisations as "the common wisdom of common life," and calls them "empirical," because they are based on experience, and distinguishes them from the scientific or "causal laws," because they are not universally true. (Shand 1914: 13)
That's the deal with those big serial tomes, they have chapters on interesting stuff in them but on the whole they're intimidatingly big, and mostly out-dated, sometimes even before they're published. The common wisdom of common life consists of common sense phrases, i.e. folk knowledge or folk psychology.
"The empirical laws," he says, "have been formed in abundance by every successive age of humanity..." Literature is full of them; and the original mind of Goethe, reflecting on this common wisdom of life, is compelled to admit that "Everything that is wise has been thought already; we can only try to think it over again." (Shand 1914: 15)
Says Gosper in Steven Levy's Hackers: "It's your life story if you're a mathematician: every time you discover something neat, you discover that Gauss or Newton knew it in his crib." I've been standing on the balcony and thinking about Baxtin, how every meaning will have its homecoming festival and how good ideas have a habit of returning.
Yet numbers of books of quotations have been published and selections of the "wit and wisdom" or "favourite passages" of various authors, wherein we might expect to find a collection of the empirical laws of character ready to hand if not classified on any scientific basis; but they have been compiled without psychological interest, and present a confused mass of prudential maxims, witticisms, moral exhortations, consolations in misfortune, platitude, with only here and there one of those laws of character of which we are in search. (Shand 1914: 16)
I've read one such book of quotations back in '16 in a Latvian Mājās store parking lot. It was horridly self-contradictory. "A confused mass" is a perfect description.
Now of what service are these laws of Association for deducing laws of character, and for determining the "limiting principle of our reliance" on the "empirical laws" of popular opinion? Is the familiar blindness of sexual love due to association by contiguity or to association by similarity? Does any principle of association raise the empirical law to a scientific truth by revealing the limits of its application? (Shand 1914: 16)
Frisky. Virk. The same format can be used to examine someone's knowledge of Jakobson and Peirce, both following the laws of association in their own way (Jakobson through his Polish influences, Peirce by Mill directly).
Shall we be more likely to deduce this uniformity of experience from the law of Association by Similarity? The law of association by similarity lays it down that where any sensation or idea has some point in common with a second idea, the one has a tendency to arouse the other. Now we need not concern ourselves with the theory that these two laws of association are reducible to a single law of Redintegration; we may take them as they were generally held by the [|] older psychologists, as independent laws, and we have only to consider whether any bond of similarity can account for the conjunction between love and inattention to defects of its objects? (Shand 1914: 17-18)
Shand wrote many papers about attention so I expect to meet such discussions in more detail. But would it be too much or too slapdash to treat communization as bond of similarity and socialization as bond of contiguity?
No competent person in the present day, would think of applying these laws to such purposes. The extravagant hopes which they once aroused have long since been dissipated. It remains for us only to draw the obvious conclusions: the "laws of mind" which were known to psychologists at the time at which Mill wrote did not suffice to interpret the "empirical laws" or "approximate generalisations" concerning character, to be found in literature and the common speech of mankind, or to lead to our [|] discovery of "the limiting principle" of their truth. (Shand 1914: 18-19)
Is there something redeeming about incompetence?
There are in all of us two kinds of forces or activities, the one making for organisation, the other for disorganisation; the one making us free in the higher sense, or free from slavery to impulse, the other making us free in the lower sense, or free from disagreeable restraints. These forces are referred to in the popular distinction between Principle and Inclination. We shall also interpret them by the distinction, to be presently explained, between Sentiment and Emotion. Notwithstanding the theoretic distinction between these two kinds of force, and the profound significance of their opposite effects on character, they are in one respect identical: both pursue ends, and select the means to them: both are systematic; but the systems of the one and relatively comprehensive and permanent, those of the other relatively restricted and temporary. (Shand 1914: 20)
Something very elementary and fundamental. It looks like he's attempting the distinction between positive and negative freedom. It also looks like sentiments have more to do with the intellect and emotions, of course, with instinct.
We shall now attempt to show that the most simple and general fact concerning our conative activity, is that it tends in all its manifestation to form some degree of organisation. For, being directed to ends, neither the stream of ideas, nor the field of perception, wholly preserved that chance-order which, apart from this organising activity, it would exhibit, but approximates to a systematic order, as a condition of fulfilling the ends pursued. (Shand 1914: 21)
Maybe this "organisation" is the difference between intention and attention? In any case "the stream of ideas" accompanies the "flow of language", and "the field of perception" encompasses the immediate visual environment.
The organisation of the body and all its parts is reflected in the mind. If the mind did not also tend to organise itself, how would its development have helped in the struggle for life? The most perfect types of mind and character are the most highly organised. This seems to be the fundamental law underlying all other laws of character: (1) Mental activity tends, at first unconsciously, aftewards consciously, to produce and to sustain system and organisation. Let us then adopt this law provisionally as our working conception. (Shand 1914: 21)
Mind is autopoietic. Mind grows.
Why is it that most people find walking without an object so disagreeable? or waiting on a platform for a train that is late, or in an office for an appointment? It is not merely that a previous occupation has been suspended, but also because mind and body cannot, in such situations, readily find a new occupation to replace the former one. Aimless movements, random thoughts, turning over the pages of a magazine in which you are not interested, replace the preceding organised activity. But let a friend be met unexpectedly, and at once his presence excites the sentiment of friendship, and the mind finds a new occupation in all the fresh facts concerning it. What again is 'ennui' or boredom? It is the painful fatigue of idleness, when we will not throw ourselves into the occupations we have, or have not those we want. (Shand 1914: 22)
What about talking without an object?
But these laws of Mind are not ready to hand, like the laws of Association; we have to find them. Still if it is the essential nature of Mind, and the most general fact that we can assert about it, that it tends always to organise its process, then, wherever we examine mental process, we should find some organic law, whether the force present be that of the play-impulse, or one of the serious sentiments of our life, as that for our family or profession. These organic laws are in fact the laws of our instinct, emotions and sentiments. Men considering us from the outside, observe the manifestations of these same systems. They come to the same conclusion that there are forces in us which always pursue some end; and the wisest of them, observing our conduct, formulate empirical laws of our character, as that "Love is blind," or that "Forbidden fruit is sweetest," or disguise these laws in Fables, as that of "the Fox and the sour grapes," or "the Dog in the manger," - which are again and again applied to characterise the same kind of conduct, and to make men recognise in themselves what is so evident to those who watch them. (Shand 1914: 24)
Both the play-impulse and the serious sentiments of our life are present in PC. Also, the looking glass self.
Thus we have to seek for two kinds of law about the same kind of force or system: the one [|] derived from popular observation, liable to exceptions, unscientific, but recognised and formulated; the other, belonging to the inner nature of these systems, organic laws, not liable to exceptions, for the most part not formulated, either because they elude discovery, or because psychologists have never systematically studied them. Both kinds of laws are indispensable to a science of character, and the possibility of its foundation depends on the discovery of a sufficient number of them. (Shand 1914: 24-25)
Discourse and empiricism. This problem vexed me when I was dealing with body language in literature. It boils down to what we know and what we don't know. It could be taken further even with Clay's abdication - what we can know and what we can't know. Also, note the similarity with Tynyanov and Jakobson's (1928d) theses with their historical and comparative literary criticism on the one hand and yet undiscovered "immanent laws" of a literary genre on the other.
These forces which are also systems, these systems which are forces, with their laws and subsidiary components, constitute our character. For with them and in them everything else that belongs to it is organised: our thoughts and volitions, even the virtues and vices that distinguish us. (Shand 1914: 25)
The systems thinking here is getting awfully tynyanovian.
We may attempt to make this conception clearer by contrasting character with circumstances. We see on the one hand the circumstances in which a man is placed, and a stream of experiencees in the mind corresponding to them; on the other hand, character and its forces. How much of this stream is attended to and gives rise to clear perceptions depends, in great part, on these forces or systems of the character. They control and direct attention. Hence it is pointed out that the doctor, the lawyer, the priest, and the soldier, notice different kinds of fact, because their interests are divergent. (Shand 1914: 25)
Selective attention? Shand took part of a symposium on the contrasting influences of character and cirtumstances. That people notice different kind of fact is certainly a well-trotten path in social psychology but it is also what makes the study of human Umwelten, our Weltanschauung so taunting and tacit.
In contrast with this conception it is curious to observe to what a poor collectino of detached qualities we often reduce the living characters of men. Such a man we judge, has a strong will, is energetic, is industrious; but reserved, disobliging, and unsociable. Another is complaisant and sociable; but weak and insincere. These summaries of men's natures are chiefly of use for practice. For as with those whom we are asked to employ, we want to know first whether they are honest, sober, industrious, and understand the work they profess to do; so we expect to be helped by knowing something of those with whom we are likely to be brought into contact. But such lists of qualities do not tell us anything of their inner connection, and to what limitations they are subject, and what are the chief systems of the mind which elicit, develop, and organise them, whilst allowing other qualities to perish. (Shand 1914: 26)
The civilized and the primitive are not alike. The latter portion approaches social information, the currency of social capital, renown.
Now among these lesser systems that are, or may be, organised in greater, are the primary emotions with their connected instincts. And here we may refer to the fact, which is well recognised, that the systems of the mind, as mental systems, cannot be separated from certain bodily systems. Every system of the mind is incomplete, and has part of its system in the body, and every system of the body, which is not merely reflex, is also incomplete, and has part of its system in the mind. Whatever stimulus may be given to an instinctive system by an emotion of the mind, the executive part of it is in the body, and there also is another or receptive part which arouses the emotion. (Shand 1914: 27)
Mind-body dualism solved.jpg and the receptive part of the mind which arouses emotion sounds like William James running from a bear. Shand wrote lots about emotion so I expect to understand this better by the end of this book.
The appetites and primary impulses, some of which we have noticed, we shall provisionally class with the primary emotions. Their fellows have not often the individual distinctness of fear and anger; and there are other differences which the course of our enquiry will elicit; but they belong to those lesser systems of the mind with which we are here concerned. They contain instincts, or, at least, innate tendencies. They are primary, or underived from any other existing impulse or emotion. They, therefore, belong to those fundamental forces of character, without a knowledge of which it were in vain to attempt to understand its later and more complex developments. (Shand 1914: 29)
"Many instincts and innate trends, such as fear or pugnacity" (PC 3.3). Clever Bronio replaced tendencies with trends, and anger with pugnacity.
Of the primary emotions we have as yet noticed only fear, anger, and disgust; we must now briefly refer to those which remain; premising only that the attempt to furnish an exhaustive list must be provisional, and that we may come to include in the end many impulses or emotions that we overlooked in the beginning. Among those which we have been able to recognise, Curiously is one of the most important. It presents more the character of an impulse than of an emotion as generally understood; but it is none the less a primary system, and the basis of the intellectual life. It appears to include a well-formed instinct, and to the susceptible of some degree of emotional excitement. This instinct induces animals to make such movements as are necessary for a fuller acquaintance with an object, as to approach it closely, to sniff at it, to regard it with attentive scrutiny. (Shand 1914: 29)
While Malinowski happily lists "all the types of social sentiments such as ambition, vanity, passion for power and wealth" (PC 3.3), he completely neglects both disgust and curiosity. The latter, as "interest", was also excluded by Ekman and Friesen (1969).
The next two systems, Joy and Sorrow, in contrast with Curiosity, present rather the character of emotions than that [|] of impulses or wants. They have been commonly regarded as primary, and it is improbable that any one will succeed in deriving them from other existing emotions. They are manifested very early in child-life. They include, if not instincts, at least innate tendencies. The general innate tendency of all enjoy is directed to maintain some process already existing. We attend to some stimulus perhaps accidentally, or because of its unusual intensity, but if it gives us joy or delight, we continue to attend to it. One of the earliest joys common to both men and the higher animals is that of satisfying hunger; as one of the earliest sorrows is that caused by the lack of food. Through hunger the young animal seeks the teat, and sucks at it when found: that is the instinct of its hunger. The enjoyment which it feels leads it to suck as long as the enjoyment is felt; that is the innate tendency of the emotion. And this enjoyment sometimes outlasts the satisfaction of appetite, and some men continue eating through gluttonous enjoyment. (Shand 1914: 29-30)
Something amazing. The joy of conversation and the purposeless prolongation of an awkward conversation finds an explanation. Note also that joys and sorrows are thymic categories.
Thus the child continues gazing at the light because he enjoys it, and cries to get back to it when he is turned away, because the gloom in front of him is distasteful; the cat who has lain curled up on the rug after a little time climbs up on a piece of furniture to look out of the window, where, if not warmth, is compensating cheerfulness. And we too avoid 'gloomy' people and 'gloomy' parties where the guests sit lost in their own reflections, and we use the term 'gloomy' to describe these things because they are immediately repugnant to us. (Shand 1914: 31)
Incredible. This passage ties together the disagreeable vices of bad conversation, the unreflective nature of free social intercourse, and even the bright flame of fame (φωτεινά φλόγα). "Let us get nearer to the fire, so that we can see what we are saying." (cf. Ogden & Richards 1923: 1)
But often our repugnance is obstructed. We have to stay in places repugnant to us, or to live with people repugnant to us, or to do work repugnant to us. (Shand 1914: 31)
Oww, oof, ouchie, "pidgin-English is a very imperfect instrument for expressing one's ideas [...] free communication in it with the natives will never be attained" (Malinowski 1922: 5).
For as the stimuli of curiosity and fear often differ only in degree, - a slighter degree of strangeness arousing the former, and a greater, the latter, - so the obstruction of an impulse may arouse either anger or sorrow according to the degree of its strength. (Shand 1914: 31)
Strangeness makes the ethnographer interesting and curious, and unknown people speaking an incomprehensible language is frightful and repugnant. Anxiogenic? I've started thinking of agoraphobia.
The sorrow of children appears to be connected with a peculiar cry, different from that of fear or anger, and one which mothers can distinguish - the dumb expression of weakness and failure, and of the appeal for help. This appeal is the essential impulse of sorrow. (Shand 1914: 31)
Expressions of sympathy and the first linguistic function infants acquire blown open. This is an awfully derogatory view to take of the interrogative and directive appeals.
There are two other impulses of great importance which [|] Prof. Ribot and Dr. McDougall have the merit of distinguishing as among the primary forces of character. The one is the impulse of self-display, the other the impulse of self-abasement. They have been excellently described by Dr. McDougall. The former "is manifested by many of the higher social or gregarious animals, especially, perhaps, though not only, at the time of mating. The muscles of all parts are strongly innervated, the creature holds himself erect, his neck is arched, his tail lifted, his motions become superfluously vigorous and extensive, he lifts his hoofs high in air as he parades before the eyes of his fellows. Many animals, especially the birds, but also some of the monkeys, are provided with organs of display that are specially disposed on these occasions. Such are the tail of the peacock and the beautiful breast of the pigeon. The instinct is essentially a social one, and is only brought into play by the presence of spectators." (Shand 1914: 31-32)
It is no wonder that Goffman found instant affinity in PC with his theory of self-presentation. Though he admittedly took a narrow, communication theory view of it, something akin to preconceived possibilities and prefabricated representations. Here, "a flow of language" is that superfluously vigorous and extensive stream of communication. On the presence of spectators see how "the hearing given to such utterances is as a rule not as intense as the speaker's own share [but] it is quite essential for his pleasure" (PC 5.6).
We have called these primary systems impulses rather than emotions. They are at least primary impulses; but they are probably not the emotions with which they are apt to be identified. The impulse of display cannot be at once both of the emotions of pride and vanity; nor can the impulse of self-abasement be both of the emotions of humiliation and shame. They seem to belong to an earlier and more [|] undifferentiated stage from which one or other of these later and more definite emotions developed. In respect of this later stage we notice that vanity only, not pride, can possess the instinct of self-display. And with respect to the impulse of self-abasement, do we find it present in either humiliation or shame? Humiliation is painful. A sullen anger accompanies the degrading situation; but it has no impulse of self-abasement. Other of our later emotions have this impulse in some cases, notably awe, admiration, and revenance; and we notice that in all three the emotion is pleasant. (Shand 1914: 32-33)
Vanity, perhaps unsurprisingly, makes a relatively early appearance. We don't parade around things we are proud of. That would be vain. The pleasant emotions are what the audience should feel towards a good conversationalist, according to Mahaffy.
And here also we shall have little opportunity to furnish evidence in support of our several conclusions; our aim throughout this first book being to carry forward continually to fresh stages of fullness and definiteness the vague and inadequate conception of character from which we started. (Shand 1914: 35)
Metatheoretical phraseology.
Again there are many animals who play with their young, like the apes and monkeys, and the Fælidæ, and this also involves other instincts in the form of play. All of these instincts, nutritive, offensive, defensive, sportive, are organised in the so-called 'parental instinct,' making it in fact what it is, - a system of instincts. (Shand 1914: 39)
Compare this list with Trotter's.
But from this point of view we can claim that every primary emotion is an instinct, because innately organised to pursue a [|] certain end, whether or not the behaviour in which it is expressed has that stereotyped and definite character to which we usually restrict the term 'instinctive.' (Shand 1914: 39-40)
Simple but insightful word-association. Stereotyped utterances and social automatism are connected with instinctiveness.
A second theory which has often confused with this one, has become more distinct in recent time, - namely that all disinterested actions have their source in tender emotion. For at first we should naturally, assume that sympathy was tender, and that tender emotion was sympathetic. Nor should we be likely to form any clear distinction between either of them and love. Thus Bain speaks of "The warm, tender emotion, the reality of love and affection." For love is the principle of disinterestedness; and the source of its disinterestedness is assumed to be sympathy or tender emotion. And thus we make one or other or both the epitome and essence of love. (Shand 1914: 44)
Like C.Z.'s take on the positive bond trope. I have a hunch that interestedness and disinterestedness approximately follow Clay's homogeneous and heterogeneous sympathy.
The other system is that of parental love, called sometimes the 'parental instinct,' sometimes the 'instinct of the preservation of the race.' And we may now contrast the way in which these same emotions function in it with the way in which they function in what Shaftesbury named the "self-system." (Shand 1914: 46)
So it is. 'Characteristics,' 'An Enquiry concerning Virtue,' B. ii. pt. i. sec. i.
Yet it is precisely here that the current theory intervenes, and assumes the presence of another primary emotion, Pity, to account for the fact of disinterestedness; and then regards that as the sole source of disinterested action. Yet pity is only a particular kind of sorrow that has become 'tender.' But this theory supposes that sorrow cannot become disinterested until it is first differentiated as pity, connecting, as we have alleged, the source of disinterested action with the particular nature of the emotion, and not with the cause which arouses it and the system to which it belongs. (Shand 1914: 47)
Pity is heterogeneous sympathy.
The way in which a sympathetic emotion is produced, namely, by perceiving the expression of emotion of another mind, does not make it disinterested. Whether it is disinterested or not depends on the system which it excites. For instance, the signs of fear expressed by one bird in a flock induce a sympathetic fear in other birds, which fly away, and secure their own safety; and the depression that we see so marked on some faces induces a sympathetic depression in us, so thta we turn away from them. (Shand 1914: 48)
Here we have homogeneous sympathy but also what amounts to the suggestion in the protective herd.
Now pity seems to be an essentially disinterested emotion. For pity is the name of a sorrow that we feel on behalf of another person; but its disinterestedness is not dependent on the tenderness of this sorrow. There are many aching sorrows felt on behalf of another which are neither sweet nor tender. (Shand 1914: 48)
This "behalfness" Clay would describe as vicarious.
All of the emotions are the same in this respect, and obey the same law; and this law we shall now attempt to formulate: (3) Every emotion has a potential disinterestedness, so far as among the stimuli which excite it are some which excite it on behalf of another individual instead of on behalf of oneself. (Shand 1914: 49)
M. i. r. r. o. r. · N. e. u. r. o. n. s.
These higher systems we shall call "sentiments" to distinguish them from the letter systems of the emotions. All varieties of love belong to the former class. [...] Since 1896 when this theory was first put forward (see 'Mind,' N. S. vol. v. art. 'Character and the Emotions') those who have adopted it have agreed that this term with all its defects is on the whole better than the term 'passion' or any other that could be used to replace it (see 'Manual of Psy.,' by G. F. Stout, bk. iv. ch. ix. 5. Also E. Westermarck, 'Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas,' vol. i. ch. v. p. 110, Note. Also W. McDougall, 'Social Psycho.' ch. v. I have only come across one exception. Prof. Boyce Gibson in his account of the theory adopts the term 'passion.' See his 'God with Us,' ch. viii, 'The Passion of Love,' in which a sympathetic and very penetrating study of the theory is given. For the arguments in favour of the term 'sentiment' see 'Mind,' N. S. vol. xvi. 'M. Ribot's Theory of the Passions,' by A. F. Shand. (Shand 1914: 50)
Character and Emotions (Shand 1896). Introduction to Social Psychology (McDougall 1908).
While in the last chapter we considered the biological theory that maternal love was a single instinct, in this chapter we shall have to notice, on the psychological side, a complementary theory that Love is a single emotion. This theory which has been generally held by psychologists as well as philosophers, regards Love and Hate as belonging to the same class of feelings as joy, sorrow, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust. Love and hate were included in Descartes' list of the primary emotions, or "passions," as they were then named. (Shand 1914: 51)
And although it is more frequently sexual love which dramatists refer to, yet all kinds of love are, in the variety of their emotional constituents, the same. (Shand 1914: 52)
Much the same as what Freud (1922) wrote about libido.
To Coleridge love appears to organise the entire mind and heart:'All thoughts, all passions, all delightA corrective of this too inclusive conception is found in St. Paul's description of love, wher 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, ..." (Shand 1914: 54)
Whatever stirs this mortal frame
All are but ministers of love
And feed his sacred flame."
The triad in poetic form. The marriage vow language is also neat.
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 th echief bodily systems in respect of the number of subsidiary systems which it is capable of containing - not merely emotions not 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. (Shand 1914: 57)
Finally, "all the types of social sentiments such as ambition, vanity, passion for power and wealth" (PC 3.3) find an explanation, in self-love and self-regard, no less. And "a tie of some social sentiment or other" (PC 7.8) is a disinterested sentiment.
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. (Shand 1914: 58)
Shand also wrote a paper on the principle of antithesis.
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. (Shand 1914: 58)
It seemed wrong. This evaluation is disasterously off the mark.
Another of the characteristic oppositions between the systems of love and hate is due to their relation to the sympathetic emotions. We observe that where love is the sympathetic emotions are much more frequent than where there is no love; but in hate they are not merely absent in most cases, but replaced by opposite or antipathetic emotions. (Shand 1914: 59)
The bonds of antipathy.
The second is the fundamental law of the growth and decline of character, and is due to the constant interaction between its greater and its lesser systems. For as in the body there are certain "anabolic," and "katabolic" processes in constant operation, the one building up and the other breaking down its organic structure, so in the character there are certain tendencies working toward a higher form of organisation, and others working toward a lower form of organisation. (Shand 1914: 62)
Tendencies towards union and disunion, integration and disintegration, communization and differentiation, the Appollonian and the Dionysian, order and disorder, cosmos and chaos.
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; 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. (Shand 1914: 64)
This is elaborated in the second book (the second part of this book). The idea itself is enticing: an emotion is a miniature "mind".
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. (Shand 1914: 65)
One aspect as to why the sentiment is of a higher order than the emotion.
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 enigmatic 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. (Shand 1914: 66)
Well, I think that the true Self, that original Self, that first Self, is a real, mensurate, quantifiable thing, tangible and incarnate, and I'm going to find the fucker.
Thus the working assumption of our science must be the appearance 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. (Shand 1914: 67)
Makes sense in the Peircean paradigm, Firstness determining Secondness and Thirdness, though not very frequently instigated by Peirceans.
In fact the laws of association, which he always had in mind, had not the defect of merely approximate truths. Properly expressed, as laws of tendency, they are universally true. Every idea does tend to revive any other idea with which it has been conjoined in experience, with a force, other things equal, proportionate to the strength of the preformed bond between them. (Shand 1914: 69)
A brief statement on the laws of association.
Could anyone say at once to what end his love of another human being is directed? It would seem to be governed by different ends, in different situations, and some of them escape our notice. There is the preservation and health of the body; and the preservation and welfare of the mind also. And what does such a vague phrase as the welfare of the mind import? In its lowest interpretation it may be identified with enjoyment; in its highest with the supremacy of the moral nature. (Shand 1914: 71)
A healthy mind is a joyful one.
The laws of the constitution of love will then have to take into account the multiplicity of its ends, their vagueness, their plasticity, their incompatibility in certain situations, so that sometimes one may have to be sacrificed to another. (Shand 1914: 72)
Phraseology.
When we turn to the other side of Mill's method, to consider the popular or literary generalisations about character which he remarks have been formed in abundance by every successive age of mankind, we have to notice that he did not himself make a collection of these laws, and that no one else ever has. The making of such a collection is a much more difficult task than he seems to have anticipated. It is [|] not merely, or mainly, the labour involved in extracting the laws from the literatures of the world: though this would require the co-operation of many able men; for no index will inform us at what page in a given work we shall find them, and there is no work of literature in which they may not be found; and here, the books of quotation will be found of little service. But there is a difficulty which no mere labour can overcome. Literature is full of great thoughts; but these do not often enunciate laws of characte: the "common wisdom of common life" to which Mill refers, is not primarily concerned with them. (Shand 1914: 72-73)
I faced similar issues with "body language in literature". There's nary a book in the world that doesn't say something about our bodies and their communicative movements.
Rarely is a writer so impressed by one of these laws that he is moved to collect the evidence in its favour, as was Montaigne in respect of the law that difficulty gives all things their value. (Shand 1914: 73)
Essais, Livre ii. ch. xv.
In the fable of "A Fox and a Stork," the fox asks his friend to dinner, which, as it is served on plates, the stork cannot partake of. The latter in return asks the fox to a repast which is served in long glasses. Now if this represents a common type of behaviour of selfish persons who, when they wish to appear generous, offer their friends what these will not accept because they cannot use, still this is only one of the common modes of behaviour of self-love, not the only one. So with regard to the punishment meted out to it; it is sometimes, and most appropriately, 'repaid in its own coin.' (Shand 1914: 75)
Makes me wish to examine such fables in detail to find the basis for the fox's rumoured cleverness.
The conception of character common to those who succeeded Mill in attempting to treat it scientifically, was formed under the influence of analytical psychology, and this influence fastened attention on the three abstract elements - feeling, conation, cognition - assumed to be united in every state of consciousness, so that the conception of character reached along these lines was much the same as that of mind in [|] general. The problem of a science of character suggested by this conception, will be, therefore, to understand how these three 'elements,' called also 'aspects,' and sometimes 'functions,' are related to one another in the different characters of men. Thus arises the conception of a predominance of one or other of them as furnishing a key to the classification of characters. (Shand 1914: 82-83)
Analytical philosophy sounds about right when compared to "rational psychology" or "philosophical psychology". That these three aspects constitute the mind is known through A. Bain. And here we also see the beginnings of hierarchical functionalism.
We are taken away from concrete and fruitful problems to follow others which are abstrat and even artificial, such as is that of the 'predominance' of one of the fundamental aspects of mind over another from which it is inseparable; and, meanwhile, pre-occupied with them, we lose sight of the concrete facts, and the power of handling them. (Shand 1914: 83)
A powerful prediction of the folly of functional linguistics, where the inseparable functions are indeed separated for ideal categories.
It seems then grandiose to describe our aim as being to discover and organise the laws of character, since it is rather to restate and to refine them; but still we have to discover those limiting conditions which poular thought is too simple and hasty to discriminate. (Shand 1914: 87)
Phraseology.
It is a fundamental principle of the teaching of Confucius and his disciples that Filial Piety is the basis both of loyalty and of patriotism. "The duty of children to their parents is the foundain whence all other duties spring"; and this duty is centred in that reverential love of [|] parents whence this piety proceeds. And we can connect this ancient teaching which has overspread China and Japan with the modern teaching of Darwin. In his "Descent of Man," he says, "The feeling of pleasure from society is probably an extension of the parental and filiar affections, since the social instinct seems to be developed by the young remaining for a long time with their parents; and this extension may be attributed in part to habit, but chiefly to natural selection." (Shand 1914: 91-92)
That's one way to root the social instinct in something more concrete.
It was made a reproach to the Faculty-psychologists that they interpreted the processes of the mind, such as remembering, reasoning, willing, and the like, as due to a faculty of the mind to perform them. Thus, remembering was supposed to be due to a faculty of memory, reasoning to a faculty of reason, willing to a faculty of will. Similarly, the meanness or generosity we observe as a quality of some men's conduct is explained by the meanness or generosity we attribute as a quality to their characters. (Shand 1914: 96)
A brief statement on faculty psychology.
The celebrated "Characters" of Theophrastus are most of them personifications of one or other of these qualities of conduct. He tells us that having lived to the age of ninety-nine years, he had seen all sorts of persons, and had had time enough to know them. His method is to take some kind of conduct which he has observed, to distinguish the quality of it, to separate that from all other qualities belonging to the same man, and to form a character of it by itself, thereby obtaining both clearness and simplicity for his portrait, and making it life-like by representing its behaviour in a variety of situations. Of its secret springs, he tells us almost nothing. Among his characters are the Boor, the Dissimulator, the Flatterer, the Impertinent, the Complaisant man, the Rascal, the great Talker, the Newsmonger. (Shand 1914: 97)
I should revisit Theophrastus' Characters.
Why is it that all men who love themselves to excess grow 'hard-hearted,' except that the tender emotions have seldom any function to perform in self-love and atrophy for want of exercise? The same is also true of the sympathetic emotions. In all our affections they are in [|] constant demand, because they give us that insight into the minds of others which subserves the good we would do to them; whereas in the sentiments we develop toward impersonal objects, such as the inorganic sciences, the accumulation of wealth, or the increase of our power, the tender emotions are absent, and the sympathetic are present only so far as our end requires us to deal with and to understand human beings. In hatred not only are the sympathetic and tender emotions absent, or only present if at all under exceptional conditions, but they are replaced by the antipathetic emotions. For if our end requires us to injure, to degrade, to give pain, or to destroy life, it is obvious that to rejoice when the hatred object suffers, to suffer when he rejoices, hinders the incoming of those pitiful emotions that would relieve him in the first case and deter us from pursuing his destruction in the second. Shakespeare makes Richard III. say of himself: "Tear-falling pity dwells not in his eye." Again, even the various forms of self-love have their distinctive emotional organisations. The pleasure-lover, though he may be as egoistic as the ambitious man, does not develop pride, and tends to lose what pride he has. Nothing more hindres the success of sociable entertainments than an arrogant spirit. Hence it is a law of all society which organises itself for pleasure that everyone must endeavour to be amiable; but amiability and haughtiness are incompatible qualities. On the other hand, the proud man requires a firmer will than the pleasure-lover. The one has to sustain his power or superiority in the face of much opposition and enmity; the other requires only the flexible will to seize the moment's pleasure, and to drop it when it is at an end. The vain man again must display himself because he delights in applause; he must court it, and feel it sympathetically: but to court admiration would humiliate the proud man. (Shand 1914: 106-107)
Quite possibly one of the most significant passages in this book, again concerning "all the types of social sentiments such as ambition, vanity, passion for power and wealth" (PC 3.3). A deeper analysis is necessary with the context of the rest of this book in mind.
There is another quality we expect from those who love us: loyalty; we expect that they will defend our reputation and not allow it to be questioned in our absence. There are some natures that have not the courage to fulfil this office of friendship - weak characters who cannot oppose any strong expression of opinion; who endeavour to prepossess in their own favour all those with whom they are brought into relation; who fear to offend anyone in position or power. Yet here even, and against the natural bent of their characters, love does what it can, and when it fails makes them ashamed of their cowardice. (Shand 1914: 108)
Malinowski yelling out something to the effect of "why have I such a bad character?" comes to mind.
For from the [|] earliest times virtue has been associated in our thought with what is difficult to attainment, vice, on the contrary, with a rapid decline, as something into which we 'fall' or 'slide.' (Shand 1914: 111-112)
Good conversation is difficult to attain?
Hence in all sentiments that continue to grow or even to maintain themselves, a second stage tends to occur in which we become conscious of their qualities, and reflect on them, and strive after them with effort; because we recognise that these qualities are in danger of not advancing with the growth and needs of the sentiment, or of even falling away. From this cause arise the Ideals of a sentiment. [...] When we have a great love of anything, it seems as if we could never do enough for it; and what we actually do seems to us too little. And thus from 'devotion,' which is the quality of love in general, as shown in its behaviour, we form the ideal of perfect devotion. And this ideal is not only or principally fostered by sex-love, which has such a strong, egoistic desire of possession, but conspicuously by the mother's love, and also by the way men 'devote' themselves to some science or art until their life seems absorbed in it, and other sentiments decay from insufficient exercise. And all the other qualities of sentiments tend to generate ideals of themselves, and thus we have ideals of constancy, courage, sincerity, perseverance, [|] patience, and loyalty. And we, who are engrossed in these sentiments, are induced to form these ideals for our own use, not only through experience of the defects of such qualities in ourselves, but also by observing the superior degree in which other men manifest them. For when we are not intent on distinguishing the vices of men, and are well-disposed toward them, we notice the qualities in which they excel ourselves. (Shand 1914: 112-113)
Something for the age of leisure when mankind should be able to pursue such ideals.
For the pursuit of its ideals the sentiment requires certain special and secondary emotions, and which it therefore tends to develop or acquire. These special emotions which, in addition to the primary emotions, it tends to include in its system, are Aspiration, Admiration, and Remorse, Self-reproach or Shame. Thus the hero reads of the great deeds of the heroes of old, and thirsting for glory admires their indominable courage, their perseverance and resourcefulness, and aspires after these virtues himself; the lover reads poems of love "faithful unto death," and thrilled with admiration aspires after inviolable constancy, truth, and purity; the friend reads stories of true friendship, and aspires after fidelity and companionship; the father, after wisdom, patience, and self-control; the lover of knowledge, after intellectual conscientiousness, impartiality, and exactitude; some pursuing a virtue common to the rest, others one peculiar to themselves; but all, where the love is great, urged to the pursuit of some Ideal. And as these emotions excite them to the pursuit, so for their neglect and backsliding are they punished by remorse, self-reproach, or shame. (Shand 1914: 113)
The admirable qualities of the lover of knowledge (the philosopher).
It is because love develops its own duties, ideals, and virtues that we find them in the social atmosphere around us, whence they come back to us with a still stronger voice. If often they are first made known to us through our social environment, and being suggested to us on all sides, are naturally accepted, yet it is only when we have developed the sentiments to which they belong, that we feel and adequately realise their obligations. (Shand 1914: 114)
It is no great leap to identify the interchangeability of "atmosphere" and "environment" but it's still neat to have it down.
That man only who loves knowledge or truth will feel the wrong of exaggeration, of loose thinking, of careless work, as well as the duty of precision of thought, of weighing evidence, of proportioning belief to it; and all these duties are summed up in that intellectual conscientiousness which the true thinker alone recognises. (Shand 1914: 115)
Reminiscent of Peirce's qualms against "loose thinkers".
The conscience, though so detached from the private interests of all other sentiments, has still its limitations. How much it depends on the ethics of a man's own age, country, and sex, with all their defects, is now recognised. Its "prickings" are largely confine to a man's dealings with members of his own tribe or nation; its rules are not extended to protect all men; and few of them are taken to include the lower animals. (Shand 1914: 120)
The ethical dimension of the us/them distinction.
If a man has become a liar through vanity and desire for applause, the influence of the habit extends to other systems, and induces him to lie, not only to escape detection and punishment, but when no advantage is to be goined by it. (Shand 1914: 121)
Possibly one explanation as to why vanity is a bad quality in an informant.
Various writers emphasise the general superficiality of the feelings in the sanguine type, referring to the qualities of inconstancy, of lack of perseverance, of impulsiveness. (Shand 1914: 132)
Asymmetry of sympathy.
With regard to the phlegmatic temperament: in any given case slowness usually pervades certain processes, but not all. There are men who walk slowly whose minds are quick and active; and when their thoughts are most active and concentrated, their movements are slowest or stop altogether, when not agitated by emotion. There are men who are slow to form resulations because their minds are quick to foresee consequences that escape other men; or who are slow of speech because they think before they speak; or who appears slow of thought because they discern difficulties and contradictions, and exercise self-control to avoid precipitate judgments. All self-control delays action, and, apart from other influences, those are quickest who are the most impulsive. (Shand 1914: 140)
Reminds me of an interviewee who wishes to read the questions and actually think before answering, yielding the best thought out answers.
We say that a man is silent, reserved and unsociable, or that he has little capacity for affection, is ungrateful and an infliction to those who love him. Such statements are not scientific; but they have a certain practical value. (Shand 1914: 145)
Taciturnity.
For whereas we find that able men congregate together, and lawyers and doctors seek each other's society, because the joy to which they are sensible is to be found along certain lines of activity, joyous natures feel joy in all company that is not disobliging; even with dull people they can feel joy because, being so sensitive, they can extract it from almost anything. (Shand 1914: 151)
Gregariousness and character. It would appear that "the well-known tendency to congregate, to be together, to enjoy each other's company" (PC 3.2) is not as universal as Malinowski purports.
When we are in an irascible mood we are disposed to get angry on the smallest pretext, and to find justifications for our anger on all sides. Our sensibility to anger is increased both in range and in delicacy. Things and persons seem contrary. We are ready to blame them [|] and to exaggerate their defects. Our judgment becames warped and valueless. This diffusiveness of the angry mood is accounted for by the fact that the anger to which it disposes us is not aroused in the ordinary way by some external event, but is inwardly excited. It has therefore no object already formed, but has to form one for himself. As this object is more or less artificial, and si not in any case the cause, but only a specious justifictaion of the emotion, it has little stability; and having fulfilled its function, after a little time gives place to some new object. Thus in an illtempered mood a man complains of his dinner, of the lack of attention he receives, of violations of his orders, of disagreeable people he has met, passing from one of these objects, when its insufficiently is exposed, to some other. For while the mood persists, if it can find no single object to justify it, a succession of objects must replace that one. (Shand 1914: 151-152)
Apt. It is also reminiscent of Lotman's discussion of collective fear, which constructs its fearful object artificially.
It would be difficult or impossible to find anyone capable of experiencing in the presence of human beings a joy as broad and impartial as that which some derive from nature, and some poets and artists from their respective arts. For trees and mountains do not frown at us and treat us as enemies; and however wide a man's enjoyment of society, it is inhibited by countenances that express an ill disposition toward him. Toward them, naturally, there tends to be evoked repugnance or anger. Still, we find that some individuals and nations are by nature so sociable, that they are inclined to feel enjoyment in the presence of most persons, and this temper in proportion to the breadth of its sensibility, does tend to efface the sorrow that may be occasioned by absence of any one, and to exclude the repugnance that is so marked in morose and misanthropical natures. (Shand 1914: 156)
National characteristics again. Experience tells that even such a naturally joyous person will seek and easily find escape from an extremely morose and irascible company.
In a great many cases the emotion of joy is instrumental in effecting this connection in the first instance, because joy directs or holds attention to the object. This is especially clear in such sentiments as those of maternal and of sexual love. The delight of the mother in the presence of her child, of the lover at the sight of his mistress, not only rouses a wave of emotion which is diffused through the whole system of awakens it to activity, but connects or begins to connect it with a particular object. But joy alone can never form a durable bond, so as to render us 'attached' to this person rather than to another. (Shand 1914: 158)
Some justification for the critique of the positive bond hypothesis. Just because someone brings us joy does not mean that we're automatically attached to that person. Like that Facebook slogan to the effect that "friendship is made out of unique moments", whereas here and elsewhere it is constant association that makes a friendship, as opposed to mere acquaintance.
Sorrow in absence being eliminated, the momentary connection formed with an object is quickly obliterated, and nothing is loved because nothing is "missed." (Shand 1914: 159)
Here, "sorrow in absence or disaster is essential to the formation of a durable connection". It's a variation on the theme of absence makes the heart grow fonder.
There are other familiar examples. There are sociable persons who derive an equal enjoyment from the society of many acquaintances; who day after day seem open to receive this same enjoyment, and go forward to meet it; who number their friends by hundreds, and find them all 'charming'; but for the same reason have no particular attachment to any one; who, if they are rich, live for society so that it becomes their chief delight, and to be separated from it their chief affliction; while yet to be separated from any one person involves no appreciable repugnance or affliction. And thus with them the love of individuals is as superficial as the love of society is lasting. (Shand 1914: 161)
What is autophobia?
He who delights in good conversation, and, like Madame de Sevigné, thinks that there is no joy equal to it, cannot experience it in ordinary company, or with those who lack animation, wit, and amiability. And as our special endowment and training here restrict our sensibility to joy, so they render us more sensitive to repugnance from the common members of the class. (Shand 1914: 164)
Note that animation, wit, and amiability are also parts of Mahaffy's treatment of good conversation, though he goes much deeper.
These two uses of the term 'instinctive' are quite consistent with one another. The same conception penetrates both: that that which is instinctive is not acquired through experience, but is due to inherited endowment. (Shand 1914: 181)
Nature vs. nurture.
We have distinguished three parts in the system of an emotion: (1) that part which is in consciousness and is alone the felt emotion; 92) that part which is ordanised in the body; (3) and that part which is present in our behaviour and accessible to external observation. (Shand 1914: 185)
Thorough. Though, since the first two follow the mind-body dualism, wouldn't the fourth be how the behaviour is interpreted as an expression of emotion in the observer?
It is because the emotional forces are so organised that they constitute systems, and the results to which their actions are instrumental we shall call their 'ends.' In this sense the discovery of the 'end' of an emotion or of an instinct is that which alone enables us to interpret its system. It is the same with the organs of the body. Their activities are coordinated to effect certain results. Their tendencies to effect them are called 'functions,' and these functions prevail when their systems are not interfered with or deranged. We cannot understand the organs of the body without a knowledge of their functions, nor the emotions without a knowledge of their ends. (Shand 1914: 198)
So much for "aimlessness". A social function must have an end result if it is to be called a function.
By the term 'object' we shall understand that to which the person who feels the emotion refers it, and by the term 'cause,' some condition, often merely the most conspicuous, [|] condition, which has been instrumental in arousing the emotion, and these are perhaps the most usual meanings of these terms. There are emotions that in this sense are said to be sometimes objectless. We feel fear, and know not why we feel, nor to what to refer it. It is often caused by some pathological state. Borrow describes how he was afflicted by it after illness. "Oh, how dare I mention," says he, "the dark feeling of mysterious dread which comes over the mind, and which the lamp of reason, though burning bright the while, is unable to dispel!" (Shand 1914: 198-199)
The exact criticism I had of Brentano's system where emotions necessarily must have an object. He, turns out, confused object and cause.
Man, however, as he evolves, invents other ends than the preservation of life, and develops also sentiments directed to them. Besides the love of life he has the love of power, the love of property, the love of reputation, the love of pleasure. Besides thinking of the existence of his offspring, he thinks also of their happiness and welfare. Besides loving them, he loves also his friends and country. In all these sentiments the system of fear is an essential constituent. He can fear on behalf of any one of their objects with a strength, which, if it is not equal to the fear of death, is adequate to the safeguarding of their interests. (Shand 1914: 206)
Somehow it feels like Shand is glossing over these as carelessly as Malinowski does. Are they elaborated anywhere within the next three hundred pages? As to safeguarding the interests of the group, see Trotter.
In the love of others there is a corresponding variety: parents in fear for their children, shield them not only from injury to their health, but also from injury to their character, by excluding dangerous companions and contaminating literature; and we fear to lose not only the companionship of those we lose, but also their belief in us, and reciprocating love; nd the last fear leads to a peculiar mode of behaviour: watchfulness over ourselves, correction of defects, appeals for forgiveness. (Shand 1914: 210)
Censorship and respect.
Something acts as an instinctive stimulus of fear, a loud noise, or a sudden or rapid approach. (Shand 1914: 211)
A possibility to reroute "the stranger" episode.
And whether it is the love of wealth, or power, or position, or pleasure, these objects can in a sense be also unjured or destroyed; and the fears connected with them further their escape from such injury or destruction. (Shand 1914: 212)
These are beginning to form a definite set.
Again, if we take that variety which is characterised by inhibition, in which the proximate end of fear is to do nothing, the ulterior end is still to escape from some event that may, metaphorically speaking, injure or destroy something we love. For instance, if we fear to speak in public, that may be because we fear to injure or lower our self-valuation, and both pride and vanity recoil from that. If we fear sometimes to know the truth, that is because the ulterior result may be to injure the high value we attach to someone we love or, where it refers to our own case, to lower our own. (Shand 1914: 212)
Thus "social pleasure and self-enhancement" have an opposite aspect.
The opinion dates only from modern times; and one of the most remarkable differences between ancient and modern writers on the emotions is the denial by the former that fear and anger are primary emotions. They are found neither in the lists of the primary emotions of Descartes and of Spinoza, nor, to come to more modern times, in those of Hutcheson and Hume. But these writers except the last, makes no careful attempt to trace fear to the primitive emotions at its source. A curious error runs through all of them. Too much influenced by introspection, they take into account only the later or ideational fears which spring from derise, and overlook the primitive forms aroused by sensations. (Shand 1914: 220)
Spinoza: 'The Ethics," part iii. 'The Definitions of the Emotions,' xiii. Hutcheson: 'The Nature and the Conduct of the Passions and Affections,' sect. iii. Hume: 'Essays,' 'A Dissertation on the Passions', sect. 1, 3. Compare also 'A Treatise of Human Nature,' book ii., 'Of the Passions,' part iii. sect. ix. Descartes: 'Les Passions de l'Ame,' 'Troisième Partie,' Art. 165.
And he [Hume] proceeds with a fine psychological observation: "The imagination is extremely quick and agile; but the passions, in comparison, are slow and restive: For which reason, in comparison, are slow and restive: For which reason, when any object is presented, which affords a variety of views to the one and emotions to the other, though the fancy may change its views with great celerity, each stroke will not produce a clear and distinct note of passion, but the one passion will always be mixed and confounded with the other. (Shand 1914: 221)
Swiftness of movement.
It is an anger of ideas and reflection, and essentially belongs to the sentiment. (Shand 1914: 245)
These two go organically together.
There is an anger which has a still more chilling effect. It is the anger of pride. Like the former it springs in a world of ideas, reflection, and self-control, and is dependent on a performed sentiment, - the self-love which is pride. (Shand 1914: 246)
A novel yet unsurprising addition.
To a subtle mind, dealing with [|] general terms of loose and flexible meanings, it is easy to force a definition, designed to apply to certain cases, on others that at first had been overlooked. (Shand 1914: 247-249)
From loose thinkers to loose meanings.
Now whether our definition be broad or narrow, it should not be justified by verbal artifice. We must frame it differently according as our purpose is different. It is not wholly a question of truth. There is not one answer only that is true. There is not even one answer only that is serviceable or fruitful. But the answer that we give in our theory of the emotion. (Shand 1914: 249)
Truisms abound.
[...] of the sentiment as moderating its intensity or restraining its irreflective, spontaneous outbursts, the emotion, as in the case of fear, comes to assume a position of predominant importance, liking together, as it does, a number of instincts and aquired tendencies. (Shand 1914: 252)
The opposite of reflective thought.
The emotion of pathos is sorrowful; but the joy of beauty is fused with it. In the emotion of reverence two emotions with antagonistic tendencies are blended together. (Shand 1914: 256)
Haven't seen that many definitions of pathos. This is only a proximate analogy of phaticity.
But sexual love cannot be separated from self-love, with which it constantly interacts; and it is due to the desire of self-love to possess certain things exclusively for self, such as women, power, and reputation, that jealousy principally arises. (Shand 1914: 258)
Not all that different from what Trotter and Freud say about libido. Compare this set (women, power, reputation) with other similar ones in this book. "Women" is most curious, seeming to replace love of wealth.
In other cases the action of love is not clearly implied. Brave men often endanger their own lives for one whom they do not even know. It is sometimes pity which induces thhem to do this, and sometimes a disinterested fear. If we see another in a position of danger, as on the border of a precipice, or too near an approaching train, a sudden fear impels us to rush forward and to pull him back. How do we come to feel this disinterested fear? how do we likewise feel disinterested anger if he is wrongfully attacked? how do we come to feel pity for him in his distress? But if the same man who feels the disinterested fear for a stranger would also feel disinterested anger on his behalf (if instead of being in imminent danger, he were unjustifiably attacked), and pity if he saw him in bodily suffering, or overtaken by sudden misfortunes - acting in all cases disinterestedly on his behalf, according to the situation, - then there is already present in that man a system of emotional dispositions that, as inferred from its behaviour, cannot be distinguished from love, - a kind of love for our fellow-men as such, strangers though they be, - a natural humanity ready to be evoked under exceptional conditions, though remaining latent in the ordinary situations of life. This humanity has not indeed the peculiar characteristics of sex-love, family affection, and friendship, which all imply some familiarity with the loved object, and delight in his presence and companionship, and sadness or sorrow in separation from him, and which [|] are not only evoked under exceptional conditions; but it is a kind of love that is even more disinterested. In its later and more reflective development, it is called universal benevolence; because it shows no partiality for persons, is not dependent on acquaintanceship, and a reciprocating affection. (Shand 1914: 266-267)
Here, "the stranger" episode takes a more civilized and realistic turn. It calls to mind the datum that Malinowski was speaking generally about the "primitive" or "a natural man". Note also that he is describing ordinary life whereas this touches upon exceptional circumstances.
And he concludes that "this evil takes its rise from anger; for anger, after it has by long use and indulgence made a man forget mercy, and driven all feelings of human fellowship from his mind, passes finally into cruelty. (Shand 1914: 270)
Could do with a bit more specification on those feelings.
Our general assumption and point of view, that all emotional systems are concrete facts and forces of the mind, and not abstract elements torn from their contect, affords us a preliminary basis for distinguishing between pleasure and joy. Pleasure is an element that we abstract from the total fact to which it belongs: joy is one of the facts from which be abstract it. Joy is a system which indeed contains pleasure, and if there were no pleasure in it, it would not be joy. But joy has other things in its system. To consider first its emotional side, joy is an emotion, and, like all emotions, is an attitude of mind, - a perception or a thought, - not merely sensation; and its perception or thought is pleasant to us. It is only afterwards, and through psychological analysis, that we discover that pleasant bodily sensation may be also comprised in it. Thus the joy of meeting a friend or of looking at some beautiful scene, includes the perception of the object, and the joy of success includes the thought of it. (Shand 1914: 272)
Enlightening. There's "social pleasure" and "to enjoy each other's company", which amounts to the same but something slightly different.
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 advantage, 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 nervous. (Shand 1914: 276)
Neat in itself, and tangentially connected, again, with the ages of leisure.
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 futurue. 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. (Shand 1914: 277-278)
Probably because Malinowski held a low opinion of his native subjects, laughter and wit are not included in his treatment of their "convivial gregariousness". Here is also one of the earliest I've found (though it probably reaches to antiquity) of man being elevated as the only species capable of retrospection and prospection.
Take, for instance, the most quiescent, the joy of rest. Here it is the pleasant state of our body which attracts attention, and gives rise to this sensuous joy or enjoyment. Now if, after our attention had been attracted to the pleasant sensation of the body, joy were not also felt, we should not continue to attend to it, unless some other emotion replaced the joy. Thus, too, the joy of the lover directs his attention to the beloved, so that he "cannot take his eyes off her"; the joy of the miser, to his money; of the proud to their own superiority or power. (Shand 1914: 280)
The "attention" component of vanity. This could be elaborated with examples drawn from the frequent (above) set of sentiments that includes power.
There is a second law which belongs neither to fear nor anger: (51) Joy tends to maintain the self in its present relation to the object. This law is most clearly exemplified in relation to moving objects. Thus if we take delight in the flight of a bird or the motion of water, we follow it with our eyes. For the object quickly passes out of the field of vision if the eyes and body do not turn to follow its movements. Thus we maintain those bodily processes on which the continued attention to the object is dependent. (Shand 1914: 281)
"Don't go."
There is a third law which brings out still more clearly the characteristic tendency of joy. It is this: (52) Joy tends to maintain the object itself as it is. On its negative side this law means that in joy we tend to avoid altering the object. When enjoying rest we tend to maintain that state of rest, and not to alter the position of our body. When enjoying exercise we tend to maintain that state of exercise, and avoid changing it for some other kind of exercise. (Shand 1914: 281)
That is one way of framing the "prolongation", though communicative incompetence seems to be a better explanation.
The enjoyment of the game comprises a series of enjoyments, that do not seem to be felt in those moments in which we feel a strong impulse or striving, but in the moments of complete or partial success; and in the enjoyment of the exercise or of muscular sensation, of the air, of the novelty, and of the presence and co-operation of other human beings. And these fuse in retrospect, in our 'enjoyment on the whole.' (Shand 1914: 285)
That we enjoy cooperation rather than mere presence is a valuable addition to the general scheme of things.
For the difference between play and work or 'serious' activities strikes every one. Spencer goes so far as to call play a "tendency to superfluous and useless exercise," and Groos, for whim it has a very important use, still speaks of it as "an instinct, producing activity without serious motive." (Shand 1914: 287)
Aimlessness. Futility.
The surprising thing in play is that these instincts, so necessary to the satisfaction of the appetites, to anger and the triumph over enemies, to fear and the escape from all kinds of danger, are found divorced from the practical ends of these systems, and apparently obtain no others in exchange for them, but are exercised merely for their own sake. (Shand 1914: 290)
Themes already quite familiar.
It is not until the desires of this sentiment, - its desires of union and companionship, and reciprocating [|] sympathy and love, - are felt to be frustrated that the sorrow arises. (Shand 1914: 313-314)
Right keywords with no sensible connection at hand.
We have now considered the system of Sorrow, and the peculiar instinct which belongs to it, and the utility of this instinct, - the only one that could be of service to it in its situation of weakness, - and how, through experience and the growth of the mind, this instinct acquires a more complex behaviour, and how the expressions of weakness, - the tears [|] and sighs and sobs, - subserve this instinct, and move even the stranger to pity and disinterested service; and yet how often all the means at its disposal, original or acquired, are fruitless, because the situatino does not admit of remedy, or only with time, so that we call sorrow 'vain.' (Shand 1914: 317-318)
Greatly fleshing out the asymmetry of sympathy in pity. Sorrow cries are vain because there is nothing the onlooker can possibly do (except express empty condolences).
Are these tendencies instincts? Our answer will depend on the latitude of meaning we attach to the term. (Shand 1914: 332)
A turn of phrase I might re-employ.
And people are aware of this; for when they come into the presence of anyone afflicted with sorrow, they repress the expression of enjoyment, and replace it by one of sympathy and sadness. (Shand 1914: 336)
I recently met an interesting argument on reddit: on Facebook, people don't adjust this way. You may be financially crushed and depressed to the bottom but your "friends" post their happy vacation pictures from exotic places. In other words, on Facebook people act in ways they would not, were they face-to-face.
It has been usual in modern times to refer this diminution of sorrow to the influence of sympathy. Sympathy in this sense means something more than the mere fact that the emotion of another corresponds with our own, though even the knowledge of this correspondence tends, as we have seen, to diminish sorrow. But the sympathy referred to means the disinterested use to which such sympathetic emotion is put, as shown by the readiness of the other to afford us help in misfortune. (Shand 1914: 341)
In E. R. Clay's system this is homogeneous sympathy.
Amiel in his Journal represents himself as casting contempt even on his literary ambition: - "The book would be my ambition [...] if ambition were not vanity, and vanity of vanities." (Shand 1914: 354)
'Journal Intime," quoted by Matthew Arnold, 'Essays in Criticism.'
We commonly distinguish between intrinsic value and value in use. There are many things which we only value so far as they are instrumental to other things, the furniture of our house, the house itself, health, and even money and power, so far as we do not come to love them. But there are other things that we value intrinsically because we love them: our friends, our family, our country. And these two kinds of value, though we distinguish them in analysis, are often united in the same things; and it is a great art of life so to combine them. If workmen are only regarded as instruments, their relation to their employers and social life in general are not likely to be harminous; but the sentiment of respect confers on them intrinsic value. The craftsmen of the past knew how to impart a charm and beauty to the common utensils of life, and thus gave them an intrinsic value beyond their utility. (Shand 1914: 354b)
A rather primitive theory of value. Recording it in case I should ever take up Morris' other works, particularly those dedicated to value. At base, this is a serviceable distinction for differentiating between aimlessness and social functioning.
We may say that in joy there is present an implicit valuation of its object. The tendency of joy to maintain the union with its object implies that this object is valued; and this judgment of valuation, where the mental development is adequate, may always be elicited. The diffused enjoyment due to good health and youth, in making us enjoy even common things, makes us value human life. (Shand 1914: 355)
"Prolonging", thus, contains this element of valuation, of maintaining something intrinsically valuable.
Our natural tendency in respect of things and persons to which we are indifferent is to withdraw attention from them, and not to trouble to form judgments about them; but they are often thrust upon us, and then we exchange indifference for repugnance or contempt. Thus when dull persons and places surround us, we abuse them as 'wretched,' 'poor,' 'mean,' 'insignificant,' 'worthless,' - terms which, in opposition to those which belong to the natural exclamation of joy, indicate that a very low or even a negative value is attributed to their objects. (Shand 1914: 356)
Highly significant for understanding the "pejorative" aspect of PC, that it is a mode of communication which is "thrust upon us" and from which there is little escape. See, for example, "The Phatic Man".
Nothing is commoner than to hear sorrow spoken of by some as vain and useless, and as the source of all that is best in us by others. (Shand 1914: 361)
Phraseology
"Scar'd at thy frown terrific, fly(Shand 1914: 364)
Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood,
With Laughter, noise, and thoughtless Joy
And leave us leisure to be good."
From Thomas Gray's "Hymn to Adversity".
And, as in the first sorrows of love, which pass when the presence so much desired is restored to us, so sorrow, having formed a new bond of union, is effaced or mitigated, In "In Memoriam," Tennyson has returned to this problem. (Shand 1914: 366)
Present but meaningless.
Here we see the wisdom of sorrow is refusing consolation according to the way of the world. For love, accepting its suffering, triumphing over self-love that desires relief from pain, at length, through its sorrow, establishes a new union of thought in place of the sensuous union, and that which is lacking now it hopes to recover hereafter. (Shand 1914: 366)
What?
For everything that is derived for self, - existence, wealth, power, reputation, pleasure, and happiness, - when lost, is loved the more; and its value for self is enhanced, so far as the sorrow at the less is strong and persistent. (Shand 1914: 367)
This set keeps on shrinking and expanding.
Pride and vanity, - though here we cannot enter upon any analysis of them, are always concerned with self-valuation; and sorrow, because it forces a man to recognise his weakness, and urges him to appeal for help, is a profound humiliation for pride. Yet, loving power and position, pride must be affected with sorrow, as well as humiliation, at their loss; and if the loss cannot be remedied, sorrow and humiliation persist. How can that self-valuation, which is the single preoccupation of pride, be restored? Evny is one solution of the problem. All valuations are relative; and if a man cannot regain his ascendancy, he may secretly aim at depreciating others. (Shand 1914: 368)
One possibility as to why "ordinary gossip" is detestable. There is much here that could be developed further.
Enough! we cry out to the man who repeats again and again the same statement. Enough! we say in disgust with the factitious amusements which society pours upon us, and turn away for relief to Nature. (Shand 1914: 382)
Stahp.
It is a noteworthy fact that we have no single term to express this emotion, but rather a variety of terms of which we sometimes employ one, sometimes another, according to the situation. These terms are 'displeasure,' 'distaste,' 'antipathy,' 'aversion,' 'repugnance,' 'repulsion,' and even sometimes 'dislike,' where we emply it to express an immediate feeling that we have sometimes in the presence of certain persons and things. (Shand 1914: 396)
Reading this at a time when Youtube is considering removing the dislike button because their rewind video is the most downvoted video on the site. Facebook was wise enough to not even offer an option to express this emotion.
So also people whom we have met, and with whom we have felt ourselves embarrassed, and unable to engage in an easy conversation, or people whom we see frequently in some club or other public place without ever accosting, it displeases us to meet again; so that we feign not to recognise them or get away as soon as we can. (Shand 1914: 399)
Avoidance. We cannot engage in easy conversation on such occasions because of psychological interference.
But the term 'antipathy' has another employment to which we shall here confine it. It suggests the opposite of all sympathetic emotions, and its range is coextensive with them. For if in sympathy there is identity of feeling between two persons, here there is opposition or antagonism. It is perhaps for this reason that antipathy suggests hate? (Shand 1914: 401)
Thus, "an incidental disagreement [...] creates the bonds of antipathy" (PC 5.3).
From this point of view we cannot confuse the difference between desiring fame, desiring power, and desiring money, however alike they are in respect of their impulses. (Shand 1914: 441)
Yet again this set is malleable, even in its descriptors - whereas above they are sentiments, here they are desires.
Inexplicable things and events are the natural objects of astonishment and wonder: new things, to children and the less reflective minds; old things, to the most thoughtful. (Shand 1914: 447)
Compare with similar statements concerning the young and the old, above.
If, for instance, we desire wealth, or power, or fame, we alternate from time to time between hope and anxiety; we are sometimes confident; we are liable to despondency and despair. (Shand 1914: 462)
Why won't they stand still?
"Confidence," La Rouchefoucauld remarks, "supplies more to conversation than does intellect." "So soon as you feel confidence in yourself, you know the art of life," observes Goethe. "Reputation," says Alfred de Vigny, "has only one good point, it allows a man to have confidence in himself, and to speak his thought." (Shand 1914: 484)
Interesting suggestions. Though gut feeling says that there are probably better ways to approach the rather complicated matter of renown and its psychological aspects.
Only gradually, and by the accumulation of fresh facts, can all the conditions be brought to light, and successively interpreted. To deal with all of them together, even were they known, might be a problem too complicated for the human mind. Here our method must be that of a slow advance from the abstract to the concrete, dealing girst with those problems which are simplest, and abstracting from many of the operative conditions, until at length we are able to interpret those dynamical relations which are the most complex. And this seems to be the method which the human mind naturally adopts. (Shand 1914: 504)
Good advice.
The impulse for activity is satisfied by the kind of activity we have found for it. Besides this impulse, there is in an addition a conscious desire which is directed not to this activity as its end, but to some ulterior results to which this activity is instrumental. We do not care to walk for the sake of walking: and if there is no place to which we must go, we still choose one that will furnish an 'object' for our walk. Nor do we care to exert ouc minds without having some aim in view; or, rother, we do not call it exercise unless we have one; since the mind, when awake, is always in some degree active. We must read a book, or, as in day-dreaming, imagine that our desires are fulfilled, or attempt to solve some of the intellectual difficulties that oppress us. (Shand 1914: 513)
Can the same be said of our talk?
And in most cases there is something of both earnest and play; and we remind ourselves in defeat that it is only a game, and that its end is the exercise, enjoyment, and recreation we have obtained. But the law of these mixed cases appears to be that (143) In all games, the less we desire the end, the more we can enjoy the means. (Shand 1914: 517)
Very well put, and speaks deeply to the issue of aimlessness.
Yet there are some desires so important that they seem to furnish the chief characteristics of a man, as the desire of fame, of power, or of wealth. (Shand 1914: 519)
Pretty bold.
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