[3.] Irradiation of Feeling
We mentioned above that feeling is easily transferred from one percept or idea—its substratum—to another one which is associated with the first. A special form of this law of feeling may be called irradiation of feeling. A disagreeable message received early in the morning may spoil the whole day; the news of a great success may for some time give to every other experience a joyful aspect. Not that the unpleasant or pleasant event is constantly recalled. It is recalled now and then; and the feeling may be more intense at these moments. But the feeling does not depend on this recall. It attaches itself to any other substratum, even to one which is scarcely in any way related to the first. I have been vexed by an employee’s failure to carry out an order in the proper way and by the resulting consequences. Now I am provoked to anger by everything that happens, by a harmless question of a child, by the visit of a friend who is ordinarily welcome, by the happy looks of a neighbor, by the fly on the wall, not least by myself, being so stupid and so deficient in self-control that I give room to all this unpleasantness.
So many-sided are the complications of our life of feeling. The contents, their mutual relations, their connections in the past, the prevailing impressions of the present, all these are conditions on which our feeling depends.
QUESTIONS
179. Illustrate the independence of form feeling and content feeling.
180. Explain the pleasantness of unity in variety.
181. Give examples of unity in variety.
182. Illustrate feeling based on association of ideas.
183. What examples are given in the text of transference of feeling?
184. What are the two relations between the I and the rest of our thought, important for our feeling?