The conclusion we have reached in this chapter is that William James was right in his views on “consciousness”. No mental occurrence has, in its own intrinsic nature, that sort of relational character that was implied in the opposition of subject and object, or of knower and known. Nevertheless we can distinguish “mental” events from others, and our most indubitable knowledge is concerned with a certain class of mental events. We have arrived at this result by following out to its logical conclusion the behaviourist definition of knowledge which we gave in [Chapter VIII]. We have had to modify considerably the point of view which originally led us to that definition, the modification having been forced upon us by the physical knowledge which, starting from a common-sense realism, has been gradually driven, through the causal theory of perception, to a view of cognition far more subjective than that from which physicists, like the rest of mankind, originally set out. But I do not see how there can be any escape from this development.
[CHAPTER XXI]
EMOTION, DESIRE, AND WILL
Hitherto, in our investigation of man from within, we have considered only the cognitive aspect, which is, in fact, the most important to philosophy. But now we must turn our attention to the other sides of human nature. If we treat them more briefly than the cognitive side, it is not because they are less important, but because their main importance is practical and our task is theoretical. Let us begin with the emotions.
The theory of the emotions has been radically transformed by the discovery of the part played by the ductless glands. Cannon’s Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage is a book whose teaching has come to be widely known, though not more so than its importance warrants. It appears that certain secretions from the glands into the blood are the essential physiological conditions of the emotions. Some people say that the physiological changes correlated with these secretions are the emotions. I think this view must be received with some caution. As everyone knows, the adrenal glands secrete adrenin, which produces the bodily symptoms of fear or rage. On one occasion my dentist injected a considerable amount of this substance into my blood, in the course of administering a local anæsthetic. I turned pale and trembled, and my heart beat violently; the bodily symptoms of fear were present, as the books said they should be, but it was quite obvious to me that I was not actually feeling fear. I should have had the same bodily symptoms in the presence of a tyrant about to condemn me to death, but there would have been something extra which was absent when I was in the dentist’s chair. What was different was the cognitive part: I did not feel fear because I knew there was nothing to be afraid of. In normal life, the adrenal glands are stimulated by the perception of an object which is frightful or enraging; thus there is already a cognitive element present. The fear or rage attaches itself to the object which has stimulated the glands, and the full emotion arises. But when adrenin is artificially administered, this cognitive element is absent, and the emotion in its entirety fails to arise. Probably if it were administered in sleep it would produce a dream of terror, in which the dreamer’s imagination would supply an object for fear. The same thing might happen on waking life with animals or young children. But with an adult of average rationality, the knowledge that there is nothing to be afraid of inhibits the full development of the emotion. Fear and rage are both active emotions, demanding a certain kind of behaviour towards an object; when this behaviour is obviously not called for, it is impossible to feel either emotion fully.
There are, however, other emotions, such as melancholy, which do not demand an object. These, presumably, can be caused in their entirety by administering the proper secretions. A disordered liver may cause melancholy which is not relieved by knowledge of its source. The emotions which do not require an object are those which do not call for any appropriate line of action.
Emotions are subject to “conditioning”, so that the stimuli which call them out become more various as a result of experience. Dr. Watson has found only two original stimuli to fear in young infants, namely loud noises, and lack of support; but anything associated with either of these may become terrifying.
The separation of an emotional element in our integral reaction to a situation is more or less artificial. No doubt there is a definite physiological concomitant, namely stimulation of a gland; but fear, for example, involves a mode of action towards an object, for which mode of action the secretion of adrenin is helpful. There is, however, something in common among a number of occasions that have a given emotional tone; this may be seen from the fact that they are associated. When we are feeling some emotion strongly, we tend to think of other occasions when we have had similar feelings. Association by means of emotional similarity is a characteristic of a great deal of poetry. And this accounts for the fact that, if our blood is in a state usually associated with terror, we shall, if our critical faculty is in abeyance, be very likely to imagine some cause of fear so vividly as to believe that it is really present:
In the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear.
But in a rational man, if he is not drunk or sleepy, other associations are too strong for this production of imaginary terrors. That is why it is possible to show the physical symptoms of fear under the influence of adrenin, without actually feeling the emotion.