FOOTNOTE:

[13] The action of the brain is far from being preserved in somnambulism. The thread of ideas, on the contrary, is completely broken, and this is the most striking character which distinguishes every kind of sleep from wakefulness. The mind then cannot reflect upon the sensations which it receives, it abandons itself successively and without any resistance to all those which are presented, without examining the connexion which they can have between them. In ordinary sleep, the senses are almost entirely blunted, the mind receives no other sensations than those which have been derived from memory; but they present themselves in a confused manner, without order and in such a way as often to form the most strange and incoherent images. In somnambulism the action of many senses, and that of hearing in particular is preserved; the judgment of the sleeper can then exercise itself not only upon its reminiscences, but also upon the impressions which are transmitted to it from without. The sound of a bell or a drum, being heard while we are in a dream, will immediately modify it. In this way a person may gain the attention of a somnambulist, and as the latter possesses the use of his voice, it will be seen by his answers that his ideas can be directed at will, and led in this way wherever it is wished; for the impressions that he receives from without, being stronger than those which come from memory, he will almost always obey the first.

[CHAPTER V.]
GENERAL DIFFERENCES OF THE TWO LIVES WITH RESPECT TO HABIT.

Another of the great distinguishing characters of the two lives of the animal, consists in the independence of the one, and in the dependence of the other on habit.

I. Of habit in the animal life.

In the animal life every thing is modified by habit. The functions of this life, whether enfeebled or exhausted by it, according to the different periods of their activity, appear to assume a variety of characters: to estimate the influence of habit, it is necessary to consider two things in the effect of all sensation, the sentiment, or immediate feeling, which we have of external objects, and the judgment which is the result of one or more comparisons made with respect to them. An air, for instance, strikes the ear; the first impression made upon the organ is, we know not why, agreeable or painful. This is sentiment—at present let us suppose the air to be continued. We may now endeavour to appreciate the different sounds of which it is composed, and to distinguish their accords. In this we exercise the judgment. Now, on these two things, the action of habit is inverse. It enfeebles our sentiment of things, it improves our judgment of them; the more we regard an object, the less are we sensible of its agreeable or painful qualities, the better, at the same time, may we judge of its attributes.

II. Habit blunts the sentiment.

Let us dwell a little on the foregoing proposition; we have said that it is the property of habit to enfeeble our sentiments of things, to bring us into a state of indifference, the middle term betwixt pain and pleasure. But before we set about to prove an assertion so remarkable, it will be well to fix the sense of it with some precision. Pain and pleasure are absolute and relative.[14] The instrument which tears us in pieces is a cause of absolute pain. Sexual connexion is a pleasure of the same nature. Again, the view of a beautiful country delights us, but here the enjoyment is relative to the actual state of the mind only; its charms have long since been indifferent to the inhabitant of the spot. A bougie when for the first time passed into the urethra is painful to the patient; eight days afterwards he is no longer sensible of it. Here we have comparative pain. Whatever destroys the texture of the organ is always productive of an absolute sensation; the simple contact of bodies at no time produces any other than a relative sensation.

Hence it is evident that the domain of absolute pleasure or pain, is much less extensive than that of these feelings when relative. The very words agreeable, or painful, imply a comparison made between the impression received by the senses, and the state of mind on which it is received. Now it is manifest that we could have referred only to relative pain and pleasure, as being submitted to the influence of habit. On these we shall occupy ourselves awhile.

And to shew that they are gradually worn away by habit as we have said, to the point of indifference, a variety of proofs may be adduced. Every foreign body in contact for the first time, with a mucous membrane, is creative of a disagreeable sensation, which by repetition, is diminished, and at last becomes altogether imperceptible. Pessaries in the vagina, tents in the rectum, the canula made use of for tying polypi of the nose, or the uterus, bougies, in the urethra, in the œsophagus, or trachea, styles and setons in the lachrymal passages, present us every day with these phenomena. The impressions of which the cutaneous organ is the seat, are all of them subjected to the same law. The sudden passage from cold to heat, or from heat to cold, is always the occasion of a disagreeable sensation, but such sensation gradually and at last entirely disappears, if the temperature of the atmosphere be within a certain range and constant. From hence proceed those various sensations, which we have from the change of climate, or season. Similar phenomena in the same way are the result of our successive perceptions of the dry or humid, the soft, or the hard qualities of bodies, and in general the same may be said of all our relative sensations, of what kind soever.

With respect to pleasure, we shall repeat what we have said of pain. The perfumer and the cook are by no means sensible in their several professions of those pungent enjoyments of which they are dispensers. In them the habit of perceiving has blunted the sentiment. The same is the case with all agreeable sensations whatever. Delightful views and delicious music are productive of a pleasure, the vivacity of which is soon lessened; for harmony and beauty if they for a long time continue to solicit our attention, are successively the sources of pleasure, of indifference, of satiety, nay even of disgust and aversion. This remark has been felt by all; Philosophers and Poets have all of them turned it to their account.

From whence arises this facility, which our sensations have of undergoing so many different, so many contrary modifications? To conceive it, let us first remark that the centre of these revolutions of pleasure, of pain, and of indifference, is by no means seated in the organs, which receive or transmit the sensation, but in the soul. The affections of the eye, of the tongue, and the ear, are at all times the same from the same objects, but to these affections at different times, we attach a variety of sentiments. In the second place we shall observe, that the action of the mind in each several sentiment of pain or pleasure, which has been the effect of a sensation, consists in a comparison between this sensation, and that by which it has been preceded, a comparison, which is not the result of reflection, but the involuntary effect of the first impression of the object. Now, the greater the difference between the actual and the past impression, the livelier will be the sentiment. The sensations which affect us the most, are those which we never before have experienced.

The consequence is, that in proportion as the same sensations are repeated, the less impression do they make upon us, because the comparison between the present and the past becomes less sensible. Pain then and pleasure naturally tend to their own annihilation. The art of prolonging our enjoyments, consists in varying their causes. Indeed were I to regard the laws of our material organization only, I might almost say, that constancy is but one of the happy dreams of the poet, and that the sex to which we at present bend, would possess but a very weak hold upon our attentions were their charms too uniform; I might almost assert that were every female cast in the same mould, such mould would be the tomb of love. But here let us forbear to insist upon the principles of physiology, where they tend to the destruction of those of morality. The one, and the other are equally solid, though sometimes at variance. We shall only notice, that at times the former unhappily are our only guides. It is then, that love disappears, with the pleasure which it has procured, and leaves us but disgust. It is then, that recollection too often carries us aside from our duties in rendering uniform that which we feel and that which we have felt, for such appears to be the essence of physical happiness, that past pleasure enfeebles the attraction of that which we enjoy.

The consequences are clear. Physical pleasure is nothing but a comparative sentiment; it ceases to exist when uniformity supervenes between the actual and past impression. By means of this uniformity habit must bring down pleasure to indifference: Such is the secret of the very great influence which it exercises over our enjoyments.

Such also is its mode of action on our pains. Time flies, it is said, and carries away sorrow; time is the true remedy of grief; and wherefore? The reason is, that the more sensations it accumulates upon that which has been painful, the more does it enfeeble the sentiment of comparison between what we are, and what we were. At last this sentiment becomes extinct. There are no eternal sorrows.

III. Habit improves the judgment.

I have just now proved that the sentiment is enfeebled by the effect of habit. It is as easy to demonstrate, that habit improves and enlarges the judgment.

When, for the first time, the eye wanders over an extensive country, or the ear is struck by a succession of harmonious proportions; when the taste, or the smell for the first time are affected by any very compound savour or scent, there arise from these sensations only confused and inexact ideas. We represent to ourselves the whole, its parts escape us. But let these sensations be repeated, and in proportion as they are so, will the judgment become precise and rigorous, and the knowledge of the object be perfected.

Let us for instance observe the man, who a stranger to theatrical amusement of every kind is introduced to the Opera. He will have but a very imperfect notion of it. The dancing, the music, the scenery, the actors, the splendor of the whole will be all confounded within his mind in a sort of delightful chaos. But let him be present at many representations, and whatever in this charming whole belongs to the several arts, will assume its separate place. He will have seized its detail, may form a judgment of it, and this he will do the more accurately in proportion to his opportunities of observation.

The above example affords us an abridgment of the picture of the man, who enjoys for the first time the spectacle of nature. The child, at its birth, is only capable of general impressions, but habitude, by gradually blunting these impressions, enables him to seize the particular attributes of bodies, and teaches him to see, to hear, to smell, to taste and to touch, by making him in each sensation descend successively from the confused notion of the whole to the precise idea of its parts. The animal life needs education, and this is one of its great characters.

Habit then while it hebetates our sentiments, improves our judgments of things. An example will render this truth indisputable. Most persons may recollect that in traversing a meadow, embellished with a variety of flowers, they have been sensible of a general fragrance only, the confused assemblage of all the particular odours which are exhaled from each individual flower; but in a short time from habit this first sentiment is weakened, it is soon afterwards altogether effaced. They then may have distinguished the odour of each particular plant, and formed a judgment at first impossible.

The two contrary operations thus of habit on our sentiments and judgments, tend as we see to one common end, the improvement, namely, of the animal life.

IV. Of habit in the organic life.

Let us at present compare the above-mentioned phenomena with those of the organic life, and the latter we shall see as constantly withdrawn from the influence of habit, as the former are subject to it.—Habit has never modified the circulation, or respiration, has never changed the mode of the processes of exhalation, absorption, or nutrition. A thousand causes would every day endanger our very existence, were these essential functions under the influence of habit.

The excretion of the urine and fecal matter may, nevertheless, be suspended, accelerated, and return according to laws determined by habit. The action of the stomach with respect to hunger, and its contact with certain aliments, appears also to be subordinate to habit; but here let us remark, that these different phenomena hold, as it were, a middle place between the two lives, are found on the limits of the one and the other, and participate almost as much of the animal as the organic life. In fact, they all of them take place on mucous membranes, a species of organ, which being at all times in relation with bodies foreign to our nature, is the seat of an inward tact, in every way analogous to the outward tact of the skin. The two must be necessarily subject to the same laws.—Can we be astonished at the influence of habit on both of them?

We cannot, and let us remark also, that the greater part of these phenomena, which begin as it were, and terminate the organic life, are connected with motions essentially voluntary, and in consequence, under the dominion of the animal life.