Perception and ideation rarely, if ever, occur in the isolation in which they were shown above in order to make clear their structure: they are accompanied by, interwoven with, feelings. A summer landscape not only looks different from the same landscape when covered with snow, but also arouses different feelings. I may look forward to the same event—an ocean voyage or an automobile tour—as a danger or as a pleasure; I may regard an assertion as a truth or as doubtful. The ideas of which I am conscious surely differ much in the alternative cases. But still greater is the difference of feeling to which we refer by such terms as fear, low spirits, disquietude, comfort, joy. The exact make-up of these complexes of feeling is difficult to describe, but we may try to point out the conditions on which they depend. We shall first consider form and content.
Sensations, images, perceptions, and so on, give rise to feelings, not only on account of what they are, but also and indeed chiefly because of their manner of connection, of succession, and of spatial relation. Colors which we regard as most beautiful separately may compose a carpet whose color scheme we dislike and call inharmonious; on the other hand, the most uninteresting gray dots may compose a beautiful design. A piece of music is beautiful not alone because of the clearness of the single tones, but chiefly because of the relations of these tones in melody, harmony, and rhythm.
One principle is generally applicable to this class of feelings: a variety of mental contents is bound together into a unity for our perception and imagination. A multitude of unconnected things is not easily perceivable or thinkable; therefore it is unpleasant. A single thing, so simple that it cannot be analyzed into component parts, cannot occupy our mind for any length of time; it is tedious, unpleasant. A combination of variety and unity is able to keep us mentally busy without overburdening the mind; therefore it is pleasant.
The general principle, however, admits of a great many different applications. The unity may consist, for example, in the similarity and regularity of arrangement of the pickets of a fence. The unity may consist in subordination of a number of equal elements to a dominating element, as the larger fence post taking the place of a picket at regular intervals, or the accented element in a rhythm. The unity may consist in organic unity of the elements of a living thing. It may be logical unity, as in a sentence or a lecture. Several of these and other kinds of unity may appear simultaneously in the same matter; and one of these unities may be subordinate to another, this again to another, and so on, as in a Gothic cathedral, a symphony, or a drama.
Thus the variety and complication of the feelings based on the principle in question is immensely great, depending on all these unities, their harmonious relation or opposition, and the contents of impression or imagination directly. This complication is further increased by the conditions discussed below.
[2.] Feeling Dependent on Association of Ideas
Why does a sunny spring landscape give us pleasure? What is its advantage over a gloomy winter landscape? Possibly green is a pleasanter color than brown or gray, which predominate in the winter landscape. Possibly the curved outlines of the trees in their foliage are more beautiful than the naked branches appearing like a system of dark veins on a gray sky. But these are hardly the main causes of the difference in feeling, which are found rather in the different ideas associated with the one and the other percept. The spring landscape reminds one of life, warmth, travel, picnics; the winter scene suggests death and decay, cold, moisture, overheated and ill-ventilated rooms. The feelings aroused by these things when we actually experience them are likely to be aroused now when these thoughts, however fleetingly, are reproduced. For the same reason the cold sensation of touching a corpse is accompanied by a feeling differing from that of touching a piece of ice. It is a different thing to see a stream of blood or of cherry juice, and in a lesser degree even of cherry juice or milk. In every case a multitude of memories influence our feelings, or lead us directly into a train of thought of pleasant or unpleasant character. Thus the feelings which have their first origin in a simple percept may become exceedingly complicated.
An especially important consideration is that these feelings increase in intensity and finally become more conspicuous than the memories by which they are aroused. A house in which I experienced an unpleasant scene finally arouses unpleasantness directly, without any mediation by the consciousness of that event. This kind of transference of feeling is particularly noticeable when the same feeling is aroused by many different memories, quite unconnected among themselves, though attached to the same percept. No better illustration of this law can be found than the feelings accompanying the thought of money. From early childhood all through life man learns that it is money and again money on which the realization of his desires depends. A definite memory of any of these special experiences soon becomes impossible because of the competition among them. But the pleasantness originally aroused by them is not lost. It attaches itself directly to money. In a similar manner our love for our parents, our friends, our home, and so on, originates. A reverent child may reject as a brutal theory the statement that he loves his parents because of the innumerable benefits received from them, that this love is but a kind of precipitation of all the pleasures derived from the actions of his parents and from his living with them. This rejection is in so far justified as the child’s love is not a conscious deduction from the memory of benefits received. Nevertheless, it is quite certain that his love is in some way naturally derived from them. Children who are brought up by foster parents, if they are as well taken care of as by real parents, love them equally well.
We have pointed out that the idea of I is almost omnipresent in our thought, and that it constantly influences our feelings. To understand this influence better, we may distinguish two relations between I and the rest of our thought, according as this or the I is the predominant part of our consciousness. The former case may be illustrated by our perceiving the movements, gestures, and voice-sounds of a person or of an animal as the expressions of conscious motives. Even into the percepts of inorganic things the idea of I is carried in a similar manner. We speak of a bridge boldly swinging across the river, a mountain rising proudly to the clouds, a beam resting heavily on columns, lines crowding together or leaning against each other, tones hiding before and seeking each other. We attribute contents of the I to the things which we perceive; we give them mental life, feeling, and conduct, and experience in consequence further responses of our own life of feeling. In such cases, the influence of the I on our thought is obvious, but it does not predominate. On the other hand, the idea of I may be predominant, but may receive its special coloring from the data presented: as when I feel the tragic fate of a hero, not merely through the sympathy or admiration which it arouses in me, but as my own pain; when in the stress and striving of a Faust I feel my own dreams and desires; when the precipice pulls me down or the towering rock uplifts me.
Since the idea of I is so influential for our life of feeling, it is to be expected that the opposite idea, the idea of the external world, is also of considerable importance in this respect. Very often we refer to a thing by merely emphasizing that it is opposed to, different from, or independent of the self. We frequently speak of the world and its ways, of the course of the world, meaning all its sense and nonsense, its kindness and cruelty. Naturally, this idea of the world also gives rise to many complicated feelings.