Studies in the Evolutionary Psychology of Feeling

by Hiram Miner Stanley

While the comparative estimate of opposing force with one’s own is general ingredient in anger, anger being fear-limited, it is not, as Mercier would indicate (Mind, ix., p. 346), a constant element in anger. We often see cases of anger, and have perhaps, ourselves, experienced anger which is totally unrelated to a sense of power. Some animals seem at times utterly fearless and utterly unaware of the tremendous crushing force they angrily oppose. It is, moreover, altogether probable that anger and fear originated and received a certain measure of development before any capacity of measuring comparative force of antagonist arose in mind. However, the discrimination between overwhelming and slight force is certainly tolerably early, and is obviously a very necessary factor in self-conservative action. Yet it is very unlikely that this was an element in primitive fear or anger, which must have been no more than a simple emotional reaction to perceived injury without any reference to whether pain-giver is more or less strong than pain-receiver. The earliest fears and angers of infants seem to be quite devoid of any guidance from sense of powerlessness or power, but merely direct, unthinking reactions.

A marked and constant element in anger is hostility. This is the aggressive fighting attitude of will which is exercised toward and against the perceived pain-giving object. Anger can never subsist without this volition element, and it always appears as direct simple reaction to anger-provoking object. Anger always exhibits itself as hostility, openly and freely in lower life, and in higher life, which is often disingenuous, the hostility as real psychic act remains, though somewhat concealed in physical manifestation as long as angry mood exists. The will tendency is always toward the violent removing and destroying of the offending object. However, naïve primitive anger does not include in its hostility giving pain for pain received, making the object suffer in turn, which is, indeed, far removed from the capacity of primitive mind to conceive. Anger in its earliest form does, of course, inflict pain where its object is pain-susceptible; but this, it may confidently be said, cannot lie in the intent of the pain-inflicter. The simple original ebullitions of anger do not include intent in any form. Volition is powerfully and directly incited by the emotion without the intervention of any idea. The only representation in the simplest anger is the representation of pain experience impending which occasions the excitement, which then directly and violently starts will-activity; but the representations of destructiveness and pain-infliction as ends become guiding ideas only in the slow evolution of anger toward more intelligent forms.

Pain is certainly a prominent element in anger. This pain is the emotional pain, the pain at pain, whose nature and origin we have commented on in the chapter on fear. The mere representation of pain to be starts a violent pain quite distinct from the fear-pain, yet like it, pre-eminently central and subjective. Precedent, however, to both fear and anger-pain, is the simple pain which immediately arises on representation of pain, the prospect of pain being immediately and peculiarly painful in itself. This commonly continues throughout, and gives a dominant pain tone. But there immediately succeeds a rush of either fear or anger emotion, each intensely painful in opposite ways. The pain which results from the anger, which is by the anger occasioned in me, is again distinct from the pain in and of the anger. Anger is itself a state of pain. In its earliest forms, as rarely and with difficulty attained, there is still another pain connected with anger, the pain of exertion and stress. But all the pain factors, as more or less continuous, make anger, as emotion in general, a complex pain state. Thus, when angered by a man shaking his fist in my face, we trace first a purely subjective pain at prospect of pain, then a rush of aggressive emotion which embodies in it a pain of its own, then a pain which reacts from the peculiar tension of the anger state. Of course, in our stage of evolution, anger has become such an inwrought factor that it arises spontaneously, it overtakes and overcomes us, not we reaching it; and so the stress or labour pain is absent. It is never or very rarely an effort for us to get angry, but it must have been for our very remote psychical ancestors.

While it may be said with truth that some people are never so happy as when mad, yet we must remember this does not alter the fact that anger is radically a pain state. There may be a pleasure from anger excitement, and from successful anger; there may be a pleasure in the mere exercise of aggressive power; but the happiness meant is mostly the excitement pleasure plus the delight which always comes from freely following out one’s nature. Especially when the outflow of natural force in an irascible man has been pent up and restrained for some time, a fit of anger is altogether a delightful experience, the pleasure of relief in a habitual function. Thus an occasional fight is necessary to the pugnacious amongst both animals and men; it is an inbred function and tendency which must work itself out, or render the being as miserable as a rodent kept from gnawing. But all this does not interfere with the analysis of anger as fundamentally painful. Happiness is a very late evolution, and, as the reaction from freely working out one’s strongest tendency, it is unfelt by early minds, which only gradually attain inwrought tendencies and so the capacity for being happy or unhappy. To witness a fight is likewise to a large class of minds a supreme felicity. This is largely the pleasure which comes at second hand from representation of participancy. And so, to have a fight described, or to read about it even, is a source of considerable representative pleasure to many, a spurious and reflected anger, and an ideal fighting in the fray. However, all this leads far away from primitive emotion, which is now our main concern.

We may grant then that sense of the object giving pain, sense of comparative power, hostility, and pains of various kinds, are usual elements in anger; yet it is evident that anger is explained by no one or all of them. It is not a mere aggregation and mixture of states, it is essentially a compound which has in some unexplained way a peculiar quality which is not in any of its constituent elements. When I am angry, there occurs a phenomenon which, while based on and inclusive of these factors, is yet peculiar in itself. The flush of anger, the wave of emotion, the tempest of passion, bases itself on and includes cognition, hostility, and pain; but it is more—it is a deep psychic disturbance of a peculiar and undefinable kind which we recognise when we have it, but which we cannot analyse. We express the nature of anger metaphorically, indeed, when we speak of an angry man being “hot,” “boiling with rage,” etc., as opposed to being chilled and frozen stiff by fear. The being angry is obviously a kind of being pained at pain quite opposite to that of fear. It is also true that I may see threatening injury, I may be pained, I may combat, but not be angry. There are other and higher motives which may bring about the violent will offensive activity so often required in the struggle of life; but we may take it that anger is the most primitive, and throughout the whole range of psychism the most common offensive motive, and so of the utmost importance as a life factor.

Which shall we regard as the more primitive, anger or fear? Were animals at first universally timid, and subsequently acquired anger as an advantageous variation, or was anger the first, and fear the complementary and later evolution, or may we suppose that they developed in strict correlation? The earliest manifestations of emotion with some animals, and with some human infants, seem to be anger. Everything perceived to be painful irritates and makes them mad, and they are quite fearless in the presence of overwhelming danger. These but slowly learn to fear; by hard experience they learn the hurtfulness and inutility of combatting in many cases, and occasions which would once make them mad now cause them to fear. On the other hand, we observe many of the very young who seem to be universally fearful, and but slowly acquire “spunk” and spirit. Mental embryology thus, at least with our present very imperfect knowledge, is quite indecisive on the question. If fear and anger were wholly determined by relation of predacious and prey, then we might suppose correlated simultaneous origin; but we know that obstacles and injuries, not from competitors, but from elements, forces, and objects of nature, were the first environment and the first field for struggle. Organism began as a weak thing planted amongst manifold opposing forces, where fear was quite the most salutary emotion and anger useless. If, as we must deem probable, mental function in general and emotion in particular reaches back toward primitive organism, it is likely, on merely general grounds, that fear is the more ancient and original emotion, though anger was closely subsequent. The general conditions of life at the first would demand the development of fear more imperatively than anger. Certainly, however, both emotions are sufficiently primitive, as is shown by their being so ingrained and dominant forces in the whole range of lower psychic life.

All higher animals, moreover, are peculiarly sensitive to and observant of signs of anger and fear. Rarey, a most excellent judge, made it an axiom of his method that horses are extremely acute in detecting either fear or anger in those who deal with them, and this is also noticeably true of animals in general. These are also the emotional attitudes which are earliest interpreted by children. Now what is soonest, easiest and surest interpreted by psychisms above the lowest may be taken to be fundamentally primitive and such are fear and anger. To discover with readiness and certainty the emotional states of organisms about them, because these states are the motives of very important activities, is clearly an advantage early gained in the struggle of existence. It means preparedness, and there is a nascent anger to break forth against the fearful, or fear or counter-anger prepared against the fear discerned or suspected. The inter-related activity of these two emotions is the chiefest and most interesting spectacle we see in all lower psychic phases.

But we must notice now a form which seems on the whole to belong to the anger group, and that is hate. Hate often precedes and succeeds anger, and the object of anger is peculiarly apt to be the object of hate. The man whom we hate very easily angers us, and he who provokes us is one whom we are apt to hate. Yet a person may be very provoking, even exasperating, and not be hateful, and vice versâ for hate. It is obvious then that while the object of anger and hate is apt to be the same, yet it is viewed from very different standpoints, and the emotion reactions are somehow very different. “I hate him,” and “I am angry at him,”—these expressions denote very distinct emotions. While anger and hate are both aggressive emotion reactions against the pain-giver, yet in their nature they are essentially diverse. In general we hate him who deliberately and constantly provokes us, who establishes himself as a deliberate enemy. It is harmful, opposed intent that particularly stimulates hate. But anger is most generally a sudden flash of feeling leading to violent repulsive effort against pain-giver, but without any insight into intent. The immediacy of reaction is accomplished through anger; but hate, having more of insight and foresight, is more slowly generated, and is not so directly and promptly active. I may be angry at one who casually pinches me in sport, but I will hate him who continually pinches me in spite. I may be angry at the child who in its childish play often interrupts my studies, but I do not hate it; this I reserve for the malicious boys who continually put tick-tacks on my windows. And so also inanimate things often arouse anger; but we hate only the animate, and then mainly when we discern deliberate, purposed offence. To be sure we often hear some such expression as, “I hate the very sight of that house”; but here the term hate denotes loathing, and is only a little less flagrant misuse than when I say “I hate ham, but love beefsteak.”

Hate, then, marks in a very noticeable way the growth of psychic responsiveness. A prevision of psychic attitude of others, especially the emotional and volitional, is of the utmost service as helping to and preparing for an appropriate response. Thus we may believe that quite early in mental evolution there came an appreciation and interpretation of the psychic modes of others as affecting the interests of the individual. We may judge that this is probable by the very apparent difference of reaction of even certain of the lower animals in the presence of threatening dangers from common material things, and from animate beings capable of being not merely crushed or pushed away, but intimidated and frightened away. Young children learn quickly to distinguish between mere physical events and psychic expressions, and to feel and to act toward the psychic in the peculiar manner which will best serve them. Thus it becomes of very definite value to excite fear in enemies, but even a low animal learns speedily that it cannot terrify a large stone which prevents access to food. Now fear and anger obviously do not specially belong to the rather advanced class of emotions which are always psychically responsive, for, in earliest phases at least, both fear and anger may be taken to have no reference to the psychic quality of the object, but only to the physical quality as painful and injurious. However, later fear and anger become cognizant of the psychic attitude and responsive thereto; but it may be said that hate from the first is a psychic responsive, it is an answer to the psychic attitude of others as interpreted by the individual as turned towards itself. Hate is always against evil intent; anger and fear may be. Hate and anger are both intensified by hate and anger in the object—though this may often occasion fear—but fear, on the contrary, is greatly weakened, and sometimes turned into hate or anger, by perceiving its object as fearing it. I naturally hate those and am angered with those whom I perceive as having the same passions against me; but he whom I see fearing me does not thereby inspire my fear for him, but tends in quite the contrary direction. Yet mutual fear in equally matched opponents is consistent with mutual anger and hate. Fear, with those who are capable of inflicting about equal losses on each other, acts as a check upon anger and hate, and gives caution and wariness to passion itself.

The object of hate then differs from that of anger and fear, as being invariably a psychic quality in another as injurious to one’s own interests. Injuriousness per se does not excite hate as it may anger and fear. Animals, indeed, often seem to hate that which has no psychic attitude toward them, and may be wholly incapable of it; but this is error of judgment, just as we ourselves often find ourselves wrong in hating where we supposed there was evil feeling toward us, but where we now see there is none. Hate disappears the moment we discover our mistake of interpretation.