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For art-philosophy as a distinct science even this non-committal conclusion is of vital importance. It gives us a right to regard all the forms and developments of art as witnesses to an activity which tends to become more and more independent of the immediate utilities of life. This tendency, on the other hand, not only affords us a point of unity from which to start upon a research into the general philosophy of art; it also presents to us one of the greatest problems of the same science. How it is that mankind has come to devote energy and zeal to an activity which may be almost entirely devoid of a utilitarian purpose is indeed the riddle, sociological as well as psychological, which would seem in the first place to claim the attention of the philosopher. To the writer of this book, at any rate, it appeared that a discussion, and an attempt at solution, of this seeming paradox was a task sufficiently important and interesting to form of itself the subject of a special investigation.

But although the aspects of autotelic artistic activity give us at once a datum and a problem on which we may confidently base our research, we must not overlook the peculiar difficulties that will necessarily arise from the exclusively psychological, non-historical character of this basis. A historic study of art shows us that the artistic activity proper can never be explained by examining concrete works as we meet them in reality. Whenever we have to deal with art as autotelic, the need of theoretical abstraction forces itself upon us with irresistible cogency. It is of no avail to argue from the data of art-history, because we can never fully know the mental origin of the works. The problem presented to us by the tendency to engage in artistic production and artistic enjoyment for their own sake can only be solved by studying the psychology both of artists and of their public. The "art-impulse" and the "art-sense," as referring to subjective tendencies in creators and spectators, are the chief notions with which we have to operate in such an investigation. And when we are obliged to introduce the notion of the "work of art" we have to remember that this term, strictly speaking, refers to an abstract and ideal datum. Only by thus restricting our attention to the psychical facts can we attain any clear conception of that autotelic aspect of art on which so much stress has been laid in all aesthetic philosophy.

THE ART-IMPULSE

In the historic interpretation of art it is of no less importance to study its productive side. It is only by considering art as an activity that we can explain the great influence which it has exercised on social as well as on individual life. These are, however, views which can only be properly established in the later chapters. Here we have merely to dwell on the aspects which present themselves to the psychological observer; and there is no doubt that from his point of view the impulse to produce works of pure art constitutes the chief aesthetic problem. If once the creation has been satisfactorily accounted for, it is relatively easy to explain the subsequent enjoyment of art. Accordingly, by concentrating our attention on the art-impulse we approach the art-problem at its very core.

It has, however, been contended by some authors that the independence of external motives is nothing peculiar to art-production. There is, undoubtedly, a certain kind of scientific study--for instance, some departments of higher mathematics--which may be carried on entirely for its own sake without any regard to practical application, or even to increased knowledge of nature. And it is even more impossible to find any immediate utilitarian purpose for all the intense activity, mental and physical, which is devoted to sports and games. Every one knows that the "end in itself" which any of these affords may in many cases exercise as great an attraction as any of the utilitarian aims in life. Chess is said to have a demoniac power over its devotees, and the attachment of a golfer to his game can only be described in the language of the most intense passion. The same sacrifice of energy and interests to a one-sided and apparently useless purpose, which in art seems so mysterious, may thus, as Professor Groos remarks, be found in activities of far less repute. It is evident that if artistic creation were in no wise different from these other examples of autotelic manifestations, there would be no ground for considering the art-impulse as a separate or distinctive problem.

We can scarcely believe, however, that even Professor Groos himself would seriously maintain the parallel between art-production and the last-mentioned activities. There are indeed cases in which a man of science devotes his whole energy to a task which is so abstract that it seems to give no satisfaction to the craving for positive truth. But it is always an open question whether the attractiveness of such researches is not, strictly speaking, more aesthetic than scientific. Higher mathematics is perhaps, for those that live in the world of abstract quantities, only an abstract form of art, a soundless music or a wordless poetry. In other cases the eagerness with which pure science is pursued as an autotelic end may be explained as a result of acquired habits. Like the miser, the passionate researcher may often gradually lose sight of the ultimate aim of his activity and concentrate all his attention on the means. There can be no question of denying the emotional value and the great attractive force which thus comes to be attached to these secondary purposes. But in comparing such autotelic activities to those of art we have to remember that the passion, however intense it may be, is probably not primary but derived; and it is in any case self-evident that it can be developed only in exceptional cases and in peculiarly predisposed individuals.

If, moreover, we take into consideration the eagerness and devotion which is lavished upon artistic activity--not least, perhaps, by those who have never appeared as artists--we shall be compelled to admit that the art-impulse is not only commoner, but also stronger and deeper, than any of the above-mentioned non-utilitarian impulses. If it can be explained at all, it is only by deriving it from some great and fundamental tendency of the human mind. This fact has, naturally enough, not been realised by those writers on aesthetic who only study the ideal work of art as it appears among civilised nations. In short, the great systems of aesthetic philosophy have never expressly stated the problem of finding an origin for the art-impulse; and any interpretation of that impulse which may be derived constructively from their speculations upon the work of acknowledged artists is irreconcilable with the wider notion of art as a universal human activity. If the aim of every artist really were, as Vischer must have thought, to reinstate by the creation of a semblance the Idea in the position from which it is in Reality always thrust by material accidents; if he desired, for instance, to show a human character as it would be but for the accidents of life; or if, to use the language of Taine, the artist's main object were to produce a representation of nature in which the essential characters enjoy an absolute sovereignty; if he strove to depict a lion in such a way to emphasise specially these leonine traits which distinguish the lion from any other great cat,--then it would be hard to understand the attraction which art has exercised on people who are almost devoid of intellectual cravings. We could not possibly find any connection between modern and primitive art. Nor could we explain why, for instance, poetry and music are so often cultivated by persons who do not otherwise show the slightest eagerness to understand the hidden nature of things, who do not meddle with ideas or "dominating faculties." Even in the case of philosophically-minded artists such motives are probably somewhat feeble. The intellectualistic definitions may perhaps explain the aesthetic qualities of the work of art itself. But they can never account for the constraining force by which every genuine work of art is called into existence.

It seems equally superfluous to emphasise the fact that no genuine artist has made it his sole object to please. The fatal confusion between art-theory and the science of beauty has indeed led some writers on aesthetic to derive artistic activities from an impulse to "produce objects or objective conditions which should attract by pleasing." Such views will especially recommend themselves to those who believe in an animal art called forth by sexual selection. Nor can it be denied that the means of attraction employed in the competition for the favour of the opposite sex supply a part of the material which is used in the various arts. With the artistic impulse itself, which, according to its very definition, is independent of external motives, the various means of attraction have no connection whatever.

From the theoretical point of view it is undoubtedly easier to defend Professor Baldwin's way of stating the case, in which the "self-exhibiting impulse" takes the place of the "instinct to attract by pleasing." Figuratively speaking, an element of self-exhibition is involved in every artistic creation which addresses itself to a public. And without a public--in the largest sense of the word--no art would ever have appeared. But it seems somewhat difficult to make this self-exhibiting--in a sense which implies an actual audience--the aim and purpose of, for instance, the most intimate and personal examples of lyrical poetry.

It may of course be contended, by those who advocate the importance of the last-mentioned interpretations, that the variety of art-forms compels us to assume, not one, but several art-impulses. At this stage of our research we cannot enter upon a discussion of such views; but it will at least be admitted that explanations which can be applied in the whole field of art must be preferable to partial definitions.

This merit of universality, at least, cannot be denied to the theories which derive art from the playing impulse. The notion of a sportive activity involves precisely that freedom from external, consciously utilitarian motives which, according to the consensus of almost all writers on aesthetic, is required in every genuine manifestation of art. It is not surprising, therefore, that it was by reference to the play-impulse that Schiller tried to distinguish artistic production from all "unfree" forms of activity. It is true that the notion of "play" as used by Schiller and Spencer--who has given the theory a physiological foundation--is chiefly important as a negative demarcation. But even Schiller brings in a positive factor when he speaks of the force by which "overflowing life itself urges the animal to action" . In Spencer's theory, on the other hand, the "excessive readiness" to nervous discharge which accompanies every surplus of vigour, and which, in his view, accounts for play, represents a motor element, the impelling force of which must be considered as very strong. As is well known, Spencer, Wallace, and Hudson have applied this principle of surplus energy to explain so-called animal art, rejecting the theory which ascribes aesthetic judgment to the female.

At lower stages of social evolution, where instincts are more in harmony with life, the play-element in art must evidently be of still greater importance. Artistic production and artistic enjoyment provide exercise for those very functions which are most important in real life. Art fulfils a great social mission, and is developed in subservience to the struggle for life. The play-theory, as formulated by Professor Groos, affords, therefore, in many cases an explanation of the high artistic level reached by the lower tribes. In our historical treatment of primitive dances and dramas we shall be continually obliged to have recourse to this theory. And it will thus appear that it is no deficient appreciation of its importance which compels us to look elsewhere for an explanation for the artistic impulse.

Play and art have indeed many important characteristics in common. Neither of them has any immediate practical utility, and both of them do nevertheless serve some of the fundamental needs of life. All art, therefore, can in a certain sense be called play. But art is something more than this. The aim of play is attained when the surplus of vigour is discharged or the instinct has had its momentary exercise. But the function of art is not confined to the act of production; in every manifestation of art, properly so called, something is made and something survives. It is true that in certain manifestations--for instance in the dance or in acting--the effect is destroyed as soon as created; it survives only in the rhythm devised by the dancer, or in the spectator's memory of the part played. But this is accidental, not essential to the nature of the arts as arts. On the other hand, there is nothing in the nature of the play-impulse to call for a stereotyping of the state of mind and feelings to which it gives rise. Still less can the artistic qualities, such as beauty and rhythm, which, however difficult to define scientifically, always characterise works of art, be interpreted as a result of the play-impulse. The theories of Schiller, Spencer, and Groos may indeed explain the negative criterion of art, but they cannot, any more than the imitation theories or the Darwinian interpretation, give us any positive information as to the nature of art.

In order to understand the art-impulse as a tendency to aesthetic production, we must bring it into connection with some function, from the nature of which the specifically artistic qualities may be derived. Such a function is to be found, we believe, in the activities of emotional expression.

It is therefore to the psychology of feeling and expression that we shall turn for the solution of the problem of the art-impulse.

THE FEELING-TONE OF SENSATION

Before attempting to prove that the impelling force in art-creation is to be explained by the psychology of feeling, we must first pay some attention to the general theory of emotional states. It would be impossible to assert anything about the aesthetic importance of such activities as have their origin in emotional conditions without first having made out the relation between feeling and movement.

In this purely psychological investigation it is advantageous to postpone all aesthetic considerations. The important thing is to get hold of the mental factors in their simplest possible form. Even the lowest feelings, therefore, the feeling-tones of mere physical sensation or the vaguest emotional states, such as comfort or discomfort, which are overlooked in all works on aesthetic proper, may be of great value in this preliminary discussion.

These results have been corroborated in the main by the later researches of Lehmann. He has not, however, restricted his attention to the development of energy, but has also measured the changes in pulsation and respiration which occur under the influence of various stimuli. His conclusions are these:--

"Simple pleasurable sensations are accompanied by dilatation of the blood-vessels, and perhaps also by an increase in the amplitude of heart-contraction, together with an increase in the innervation of the voluntary muscles, at least of those connected with respiration. In sensations of pain one has to distinguish the first shock of irritation from the subsequent state. At the moment of irritation there ensues a deeper inhalation, and, if the irritation is strong, also an increase in the innervation of voluntary muscles. Then there generally follows a relaxation."

The physiological theory of pleasure and pain which can be deduced from these experiments is, however, neither new nor original. F?r? has himself pointed out that his researches only serve to prove the views which have been advanced with more or less explicitness by Kant, Bain, Darwin, and Dumont. All authors who have closely studied the movements of expression have also remarked that pleasurable feelings are accompanied by a tendency towards increased activity . And the popular views on pleasure and pain, as we find them expressed in literature, all agree on this point: "La joie est l'air vital de notre ?me. La tristesse est un asthme compliqu? d'atonie." Every one knows that movement and unchecked increased activity generally create pleasure. And, on the other hand, functional inhibition is in our experience closely connected with feelings of pain.

Although these broad facts are universally recognised, there is nevertheless no unanimity with regard to their interpretation. It may be held, on the one hand, that the perception of those objective conditions which call forth pleasure is accompanied by a tendency to movement. That, conversely, movement creates pleasure would thus be the result of an association. But it may also be contended that the functional enhancement, the stimulation itself, when present to consciousness, is perceived as pleasure, and that the feeling-tone created by movement is thus not indirect and secondary, but, on the contrary, is a typical pleasure.

We do not by any means deny the influence which associative processes exercise on all our feelings and on the activities connected with them. As has been shown by Darwin, animals as well as primitive man have earned their chief enjoyment, outside their delight of warmth and repose, by violent actions, such as hunting, war, and pairing fights. And if it be objected that memories from those distant times cannot now influence our feelings, it must at least be admitted that within the life of the individual a firm foundation is laid for association between pleasure and activity. Independently of all general theories, we must therefore reckon with association as a factor by which the motor element of pleasure is greatly increased. But it seems to us impossible to make the remembrance--conscious or unconscious--of earlier similar states the only ground of the activity which is connected with pleasurable feelings.

It is at least far more simple and consistent to explain, with Hamilton and Bain, the activity itself as the physiological condition of pleasure. If any increase of function--whether brought about by chemical, mechanical, or psychical influences--be considered as a physiological condition of pleasure, and any arrest of function in the same way be considered as a counterpart of pain, then all states of pleasure or pain may be included in one common interpretation. Only it must be remembered that the increase of function can never be measured by any absolute standard. The same stimulus which in one individual calls forth pleasure may in another individual cause pain, and the same bodily activity which we enjoy when in a vigorous state of health may occasion suffering when we are weak or ill. Such variations are evidently conditioned by the varying functional powers of the organs involved. When these powers are reduced, a stimulus, or a movement which usually produces a stimulating effect, may instead call forth depression and pain.

In every explanation of pleasure-pain, attention must therefore be paid not only to the claims which are made on the several organs by the objective causes , but also to the capacity of the organs to meet these claims. This capacity, on the other hand, is evidently dependent upon the supply of energy afforded by the nutritive processes. In the endeavour to pay due attention to both these factors Lehmann has been led to this conclusion: "Pleasure and pain may in all cases be assumed to be the psychical outcome of the relation between the consumption of energy which at a given moment is demanded from the organs, and the supply of energy which is afforded by nutrition." In the course of a lengthy and laborious investigation Marshall has arrived at a very similar result: "Pleasure and pain are determined by the relation between the energy given out and the energy received at any given moment by the physical organs which determine the content of that moment." Pleasure is experienced, according to Marshall's definition, whenever a surplus of stored energy is discharged in the reaction to the stimulus; pain is experienced whenever a stimulus claims a greater development of energy in the reaction than the organ is capable of affording.

The pain arising from restricted activity can equally be explained in terms of movement. If we believe that our system has a limited amount of energy which--as long as life is maintained--must necessarily be active in some direction or other, then we shall also understand that anything which closes the natural and usual outlet of this energy will give rise to activities in related organs, the nutritive state of which does not present the conditions of pleasurable function. Mr. Marshall has tried to indicate the details of the transition by which inactivity in one organ causes excessive activity in other organs. His description of the "gorging of the nutritive channels," "the calling for aid of the disabled elements," etc., is, however, too figurative and poetical to be of any importance in a psychological argument. Taken as a vague and necessarily coarse metaphor, this physiological image may, however, illustrate a process which perhaps can never be exactly analysed, but which is nevertheless familiar to everybody. No one who has experienced in any higher degree the diffused sensation of gnawing inactivity can doubt the active element in this corroding feeling. One seems to feel how the checked and thwarted impulses devouringly turn themselves inward. Poetical literature is full of passionate outcries against the tortures which imposed inaction inflicts on active spirits; and modern autobiographies give us pathetic examples of the sufferings of those whose intellectual activity has been diverted from outward aims to internal analysis. The candid confessions of Amiel and Kierkegaard show the inevitable necessity with which mental energy, if arrested in its natural course, finds itself an outlet in destructive activity. This truth had already been expressed in simple and drastic form in Logau's old epigram:--

Ein M?hlstein und ein Menschenherz wird stets herumgetrieben. Wenn beides nicht zu reiben hat, wird beides selbst zerrieben.

The displacement of mental attention corresponding to the transference of energy from one organ to another in the inevitable search for a channel of outlet causes arrested activity to be felt as an unbearable massive pain; but this process implies at the same time a possibility of relief. If the sufferings of restriction can be considered as brought about by arrested impulses which have turned inwards, then it is evident that any outward activity may overcome the obstruction. Pleasure can perhaps not be achieved before the checked organ resumes its functions; but even a vicarious activity in some related organ may relieve the pain. Hence the diffused, undirected movements by which we instinctively try to get rid of a feeling of restriction. Every high-strung emotional state which has not yet found its appropriate expression affords an instance of this sensation. Exalted delight therefore often manifests itself in ecstatic dances and songs, which, properly speaking, rather relieve an incipient pain than express a pleasure. Violent movements act as unconscious expedients by which the organism restores itself to its normal balance.

A similar instinct ought, one would expect, to operate in sensations of acute pain. In point of fact, an obscure consciousness of the limitation of functional energy, or, to put it in psychological terms, of attentive power, leads us to seek and find relief from pain in violent movement. Some of the frantic dances of savage tribes undoubtedly serve to deaden the sufferings inflicted by ritual tortures. But it is, of course, only in exceptional cases that these anaesthetic expedients are intentionally resorted to. As a rule they are to be considered as a radiation of nervous tension, and are so little conscious that we can scarcely even call them instinctive. Besides all the motor manifestations which thus follow upon a sensation of severe pain in almost direct physiological sequence, some pantomimic activity of defence or avoidance will generally be called forth by the notion of an objective source of pain. Owing to associations derived from earlier similar states, this reaction may often appear even when there is no definite object which can be assigned as the cause of the feeling. Among primitive people the pantomime of pain undoubtedly has its ground in a mythological conception of the nature of feeling. Pain is regarded as a concrete thing which the body may be capable of shaking off or avoiding. Crude as it may seem, this illusion is so closely bound up with our instinctive reactions that even the most enlightened man can never completely emancipate himself from its influence. There is thus nearly always an intellectual factor which co-operates with the physical tendency towards energetic reaction to pain.

Thus pain, notwithstanding its inhibitive character, may act, especially when it is acute, as a motor incitement. Hence the curious cases of favourable medical effects produced by severe physical suffering, which may serve not only as a distraction of the attention, but also as a positive stimulation of sinking vitality. Hence also the enhanced intellectual activity which often follows upon pain. There was perhaps more malignity than truth in the remark of Michelet that Flaubert might imperil his talent by curing his boils; but there are unquestionable instances to prove that wounds and acute diseases have exercised a powerful exciting influence on certain artistic temperaments.

The life-preserving tendency which, under the feeling of pleasure, leads us to movements which intensify the sensation and make it more distinct for consciousness, compels us in pain to seek for relief and deliverance in violent motor discharge. In either case the activity is called expressional, and it seems difficult to avoid this equivocal usage. But it is indispensable to make a strict distinction between the expression which operates in the direction of the initial feeling itself, and the expression by which this feeling is weakened.

This distinction will appear with greater clearness in the following chapter, where we shall apply the laws of expression to the complex emotional states. Then it will also be possible for us to point out some aesthetic result of the psychological survey which perhaps may seem for the moment a departure from our proper subject.

THE EMOTIONS

For a satisfactory explanation of our emotions it would no doubt be desirable to have all the complicated physiological concomitants reduced to simple terms of functional enhancement and functional arrest. Such a reduction can, however, be undertaken only in a few favourable cases. We can easily see, for instance, that in pride and humiliation a series of perceptions and ideas have brought about conditions of facilitated and checked activity similar to those which, in sensational pleasure-pain, are created by simple physiological stimuli. We may also agree with Lehmann when he endeavours to prove that the pain a child experiences when its mother leaves its bedside can be reduced to a sensation of arrested activity. And we may in the same way explain our own feelings after losses which, from our point of view, are more serious, as largely due to the fact that an occasion of activity for our senses, thoughts, or bodily powers has been suddenly withdrawn. But it would be too laborious to enter upon such an analysis of all our compound emotions, and it is also superfluous. Even when the organic conditions of pleasure and pain cannot be detected among the intricate mass of intellectual and volitional elements which make up what we can observe of an emotion, we must still, from analogy, conclude that some kind of functional enhancement or arrest corresponds to the feeling-tone.

With regard to anger, for instance, we can in theory, at all events, distinguish the activity which follows as a purely physiological reaction upon the initial inhibition, and which therefore is quite undirected by any idea of attacking an enemy, from the conscious reaction by which we strive with all our powers to overcome and annihilate a real or imaginary foe. But we know that both these kinds of expression produce similar mental effects. Whether we concentrate our attention on the element of pure feeling and its accompanying activities, or on the intermixture of intellectual and volitional elements by which the emotion is distinguished from simple pleasure-pain, we shall thus find that active manifestations always enhance the positive tone of feeling, which is in itself the counterpart of a functional enhancement, and relieve the negative tone, which is the counterpart of functional arrest.

To prove this assertion with regard to all the different emotions would mean an unnecessary repetition of the arguments adduced in the preceding chapter. We need therefore only dwell on a few individual cases in which the effects of expression, owing to the complex nature of all fully developed emotions, are subject to misinterpretation. It has, for instance, often been contended in psychological literature that pleasurable emotions lose in strength in the same degree as they are expressed. Mr. Spencer, who finds the physiological basis of all emotion in nervous tension, has tried to prove that joy is always strongest when most restrained. But the argument he adduces is by no means unimpeachable. He says that people who show the finest appreciation of humour are often capable of saying and doing the most laughable things with the utmost gravity. In this instance joy has, however, been confounded with the sense of the comic, which is of course a purely intellectual gift, and which does not even presuppose a cheerful disposition. The less the expenditure of nervous force on outward activity, the greater is the efficiency with which the work of thought can be carried on. There is thus a physiological reason why he who laughs least utters the best jokes. But all the fools whose mouths overflow with laughter may no doubt often be happier than the most talented humourist. No sane man would say that Swift was happy.

When the physiological counterpart of an emotion takes the form of an inhibition, the feeling-tone will of course gain in intensity in the same degree as wider and wider areas of activity come under the influence of the arrest. This law can also be observed in the course of development of all pain-emotions. Sorrow, despair, humiliation, and so on, are relatively mild as long as the inhibition is restricted to the voluntary muscles. They acquire their full and proper strength as feeling only when the involuntary activities take part in the functional disturbance. And we can often notice in ourselves how, in the same degree as a painful emotion increases, the inhibition cuts its way deeper and deeper into the organism. Humiliation, which of all emotions is the most hopelessly and irredeemably painful, is in its higher degrees always accompanied by functional changes which make themselves felt even in our digestive organs. Literature, to which in questions of emotional psychology we must apply for the information which no experiment can supply, proves that it is hard to swallow. It has a bitter taste, and is sickening even in purely physical sense. The greatest grief, on the other hand, that man has been able to imagine manifests itself physiologically as a complete internal as well as external paralysis, such as is suggested by the Greek myth of the sorrowing mother turned into stone.

The progress of functional inhibition from organ to organ and the accompanying increase of the pain-emotion does of course generally take place without the co-operation of volition. But the increase of an incipient pain-sentiment can also be facilitated by voluntary efforts. As Professor James remarks, we may effectively strengthen a mood of sadness if we only consistently arrest the activity of all the organs which are under the control of our will. And it is well known that much is possible in the way of working up feelings of melancholy. It may seem somewhat strange that the cultivation of such painful states has attained so high a development in man. But the apparent paradox is solved if we direct our attention to the secondary tones of pleasure which can always be derived from artificial moods of suffering. Sentimental reflection is able to extract from them a peculiar satisfaction which is highly appreciated by certain temperaments. We need only refer to the literature of romanticism, which gives us most instructive instances of pride in sensibility. Another kind of enjoyment is attained when persons who consider themselves unfairly treated by cruel fortune deliberately feed upon their own sufferings. As Spencer has shrewdly pointed out, they will infallibly derive a pleasurable sensation of their own value when contrasting their fate with the happiness which they consider their due. Melancholy people, on the other hand, may perhaps be inclined to make themselves as helpless and unfortunate as possible for the sake of experiencing both sides of that "love of the helpless" which, according to Spencer, is the most primordial form of altruistic feeling. The expressions and pantomimes of sadness often strike us as a kind of self-caressing in which the sufferer, by division of his own personality, enjoys the double pleasure of giving and receiving.

According to the most consistent terminology, this tendency to enhance feeling by voluntary co-operation with functional inhibition ought perhaps to be considered as the characteristic expression of painful emotion. It is, however, as has already been pointed out in our treatment of sensation-feeling, more in conformity with ordinary usage--and also with etymology--to apply the word expression to those active, outward manifestations by which the inhibition is relieved. There can be no inconvenience in doing so if we only keep constantly in mind the distinction between the expression which enhances and the expression which relieves. As long as these two notions are confounded, a consistent explanation of emotional states is quite impossible. The contradictions in Professor James' brilliant chapter on the emotions furnish us with a ready proof of this impossibility. If he had based his theory upon a close discrimination of either class of expression, as they can be distinguished in simple sensational feeling, he would probably not have contended that sorrow is increased by sobbing, while admitting in another passage that "dry and shrunken sorrow" is more painful than any "crying fit."

It is, however, impossible to deny that sighing, sobbing, twisting the hands, and other active manifestations are often effectively used, by actors, for example, as means for working up despair or sorrows. But it seems to us indubitable that these movements when they succeed in creating the real feeling do so by help of association. A pain-emotion which has been called into existence by such dramatic mechanism is therefore seldom quite genuine. Real sorrow, hate, or anger, as pain-feelings, are on their physiological side much more deeply seated than these surface expressions, which, properly speaking, are merely a reproduction of the usual reactions upon the primary feeling. They are therefore not to be easily stirred up by aid of mimetic action.

It may perhaps be contended that these remarks apply only to the artificial creation of pain-emotion. When under the sway of veritable sorrow we undoubtedly feel as if the mental state were really intensified during its expression by the direct influence of the muscular activities, which constitute the sighing, sobbing, or crying. As far as the compound emotion is concerned, this observation is unquestionably correct. Sorrow, with all its intellectual and volitional elements, may become more distinct for consciousness the more it is actively expressed. But the pain itself, which constitutes the primary and initial state of this emotion, has by no means been increased. On the contrary, a crying fit, for instance, as even Professor James admits, may be accompanied by a kind of excitement which has a peculiar tone of pungent pleasure.

The same process can be observed in the course of all the so-called pain-emotions. During active expression, while the general mental state increases in definiteness, the purely "algedonic" element of pain is gradually weakened or changed. Anger, which begins with an inhibition and a vascular contraction, to which, on the mental side, corresponds a feeling of intense pain, is thus in its active stage a decidedly pleasurable emotion. Fear, which in its initial stage is paralysing and depressing, often changes in tone when the first shock has been relieved by motor reaction. And to some extent the same may be said even of despair. In every pain-emotion where there is a development of active energy involved in the reaction upon the initial feeling, the tone of this feeling is apt to undergo some change owing to the influence of this activity.

This circumstance explains why expression for expression's sake as a life-preserving principle occupies so important a place in the life of man. But it also accounts for another phenomenon which, although not directly connected with the expressional impulse, is aesthetically so important that it cannot properly be passed over in this work. We refer to the apparent paradox that anger, fear, sorrow, notwithstanding their distinctly painful initial stage, are often not only not avoided, but even deliberately sought. Taken in connection with those perhaps even more curious cases, in which sensation-feelings of pain are intentionally provoked, this apparent inversion of the normal course constitutes one of the most important problems in emotional psychology. The question of such "luxuries of grief," or, to use a more appropriate German phrase, "Die Wonne des Leids," is, however, so complicated that its treatment will require a chapter to itself.

THE ENJOYMENT OF PAIN

We have pointed out that enjoyment can be derived by sentimental reflection on moods of sadness. Such refined forms of the "luxury of grief" presuppose a certain intellectual development and a tendency to introspection, which cannot possibly be assumed in primitive man. But as the active forms of the so-called pain-emotions are highly appreciated--we may even say indulged in as enjoyments--by the lower tribes of man, there must evidently be some more immediate cause of this delight. And we are the more tempted to look for this cause in the emotional process itself, by the fact that even bodily pains, which do not admit of any sentimental interpretation, may be deliberately excited.

We remarked in our treatment of the simple emotional elements, that pleasure and pain can in no case be estimated by any absolute measure. Now that we have to find some explanation of the delight in pain, which applies to purely physical as well as to mental pain, we begin by admitting that the relative character of feeling probably accounts for many instances in which the pain is merely apparent. The same external stimulus which acts on one individual with hypernormal strength, and therefore evokes pain, may in the case of another individual who has duller senses, produce a weaker impression, and thus call forth a pleasurable reaction. The taste and smell anomalies of hysterical patients afford us good examples of such abnormal pleasure. And, on the other hand, there are plenty of instances, too familiar to be enumerated, in which an impression which a sick person would call painful brings pleasure to a healthy one.

It is probable that a similar influence of repeated exercise may also operate in the department of compound emotions. Lehmann, who explains the transformation of originally painful impressions into pleasurable ones in a somewhat different way, viz. by his law of "the indispensability of accustomed things" refers to this law those instances in which persons who have had many troubles grow so accustomed to them, that in a moment of ease they feel a kind of loss. The validity of this law will be recognised by every one who has any opportunity of observing the vaguely and weakly unpleasant feeling which sometimes appears when we are suddenly liberated from some pursuing anxiety. And the indispensability of accustomed sensations may impel persons to create new mental pains or worries to replace the old ones.

However barbarous this kind of amusement may seem to us, it is by no means certain that we have completely outgrown such pleasures. The delight in witnessing the performance of a tragedy undoubtedly involves the enjoyment of a borrowed pain, which, by unconscious sympathetic imitation, we make partially our own. And the same phenomenon appears in a yet cruder form in the custom, so general among the lower classes of most countries, of visiting funerals and similar ceremonies where sorrow can be contemplated and shared. Even civilised man is thus able to enjoy the pleasure which may be connected with emotions of sorrow and despair, at least in second-hand reproduction.

The sufferings of insensibility, this highest possible form of tedium, which--if we are to judge from the descriptions in literature and poetry--may in themselves be unbearable enough, must needs be unusually keen in individuals who are given up to philosophic reflection. The feeling of inanity which is caused by a suspense of vital sensations is apt to spread itself over the whole field of sense-experience. In default of strong impressions, with their subsequent reactions, we may lose the sense not only of our own existence, but also of that of the external world. The relatively neutral evidence of our higher senses does not afford us the same assurance of reality as is given by grosser impressions, which affect us more directly in the way of pleasure or pain. On purely physiological grounds there may thus be produced a morbid conception of the universe which, having neither ego nor non-ego to rely on, lacks the conviction either of subjective or objective existence. From this vertiginous inanity, which must bring every philosophic temperament into despair, life delivers us by the same means which Moli?re uses to confute the Pyrrhonists. Pain is the most convincing reality we can imagine. It may therefore, even when it is not deliberately sought for, afford a welcome support to thought.

"Suffice it thee Thy pain is a reality." .

In this connection, however, we have not to dwell on the philosophical importance of pain. We are here only concerned with its significance for the immediate sense of life. And in this respect we believe that an artificial creation of pain may play some part not only in anger, but in the expression of all high-strung emotions. It is well known that the orgiastic state of mind, whether originally caused by religious exaltation or by erotic delirium, may often, when it has reached its highest stage, express itself in self-laceration. These facts are no doubt difficult to interpret. But it seems justifiable to assume that a tendency towards the creating of pain-sensations may have been derived from the emotional process itself. Explained in this way, orgiastic self-tortures may be adduced as the most remarkable proofs of this desire for an enhanced sense of life which lies at the bottom of all our appetence.

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