Studies in the Evolutionary Psychology of Feeling

by Hiram Miner Stanley

It must, indeed, be granted that change from monotonous or confining circumstances is appreciated and appreciated pleasurably by lower animals, though they may not know enough to seek change for its own sake. Animals certainly suffer from ennui, and enjoy variety within certain limits, but change is not newness, and absolute change or novelty in strict sense hardly appeals to them, that is, they do not appreciate the novelty of a situation. The really novel disturbs them, they do not desire it nor are pleased with it. It is only in fact in the higher ranges of human mind that experience of any kind, novel or various, comes to be sought for its own sake. To say, “this is a novel sensation,” or “how novel and delightful,” and all similar expressions, denotes a frame of mind which is artificial, that is, lies away from and beyond the common course of psychism under natural selection. The changefulness of experience and the novelty of an experience are in reality two distinct elements. One who has been ill in bed for weeks enjoys the change in sitting up in his arm chair, but there is no real novelty or sense of novelty. Everything, we say, is novel and interesting to the child, tiresome and a bore to the blasé man of the world. The world is, in truth, fresh and new to the child, but the sense of the novel per se is very slowly developed, and the rarer the novel becomes, the more keen our appreciation of it. Where all is novel, there can be no sense of novelty, for this is purely a contrast type of psychosis. The zest and eagerness of the child proceeds from radically other sentiments than the feeling for novelty; it is absorbed in things for themselves and what they directly give, and does not stop to reflect and feel about the relations of experiences, and so feel the novel as such. Further we note that pleasing novelties are far from being equally pleasing as such. It may be as novel to carry a potato in my pocket as a double eagle, but not equally pleasing. The real value of novelty for emotion must always be carefully determined by subtracting accessory feelings.

With regard to the relation of novelty to pleasure and pain, the novel and the sense of the novel is always in its inception under evolution by natural selection unpleasant and painful. A novel experience is one which can only originate in painful struggle, and the new is always per se distasteful to early mind, which is ever conservative in its instincts and tendencies. A perfect life, biologically speaking, is one which is perfectly adapted to its environment, and so goes through its evolution with mechanically exact adjustment to circumstances; and the novel would break in upon the unconscious rhythm which is here perfected. Habituation becomes so iron fast that the novel, even when distinctly pleasurable in itself, is resented, much less is the novel sought for its own sake. However, so far as a novel experience may come rather by way of regressiveness than progressiveness, it may delight us by its novelty whenever the mind becomes capable of appreciating novelty. Thus purely hereditary tendencies, which we do not accomplish but which are accomplished in us during youth, as, for instance, the sexual evolution, may charm, not only in themselves, but for their novelty as well. But this experience which is not merely novel to the individual as springing up spontaneously by impetus from the past, but which is novel for the race, and requires effort to assimilate, and so is in the distinct line of higher evolution, as, the achieving a high spiritual sentimentality in love; this, the real novel, is inevitably and naturally painful. The first time the emotion of humility—a comparatively recent evolution—was experienced by a human being was a truly novel experience, though it is quite uncertain whether there was with it either sense or sentiment of novelty.

If the novel and the novel experience—and these terms are practically identical—are essentially painful, whence and how arises the peculiar pleasure which we undeniably may experience in connection with the novel appreciated as such? Must all such pleasure be placed to the account of regressiveness? But pleasure of this kind is intrinsic in the act itself and not for its novelty per se. There is a wide variety of experience intrinsically either pleasurable or painful, which may be pleasurable to us solely by reason of its novelty. I may enjoy the novel experience of tasting a pomegranate, be the actual experience agreeable or disagreeable, merely enjoying the novelty as such. What is this novelty, why is it noticed, and why does it give occasion to pleasure or pain in emotional form?

As we have already pointed out, the sense of the novel and emotion about it cannot be said to arise with novel experiences in general. The novel in the objective sense is the first occurrence of any given definite kind of psychosis, as humility or pity, in the history of mind, and this novelty is probably not at first appreciated.

Bain says that novelty is not an emotion, but “merely expresses the superior force of all stimulants on being first applied.” But from the point of view of psychic history the initial force of stimulants is always very inferior and slight. For example, to taste and to qualitatively distinguish tastes is an extremely slow growth in the race, and by no means suddenly completed even in the offspring of the most advanced individuals. Place a drop of wormwood extract on an infant’s tongue and it may have a novel sensation and a disagreeable one, as evidenced by the reaction, yet the real force of the sensation is certainly quite inferior to that of a ten year old child in the given case. The absolutely new impression is always slight, for mind is, in the natural course of evolution, always slow at fully experiencing things, it is by effort and by effort alone that it attains the several orders of sensation and perception, and it is only by effort that they are realized with greater and greater force and clearness. By the very nature of psychic evolution as a progressive process toward helping adjustability the novel exercises at the first but a slight reaction. However, in the exigencies of existence the most wide awake, those most susceptible to perceiving novelties and new circumstances and to being suitably affected by them, have the advantage. Hence the apprehension, interpretation, and application, of novelties is the path of progress which finally culminates in the achievements of human invention. An openness to the novel is thus of prime importance in a practical way, though this is quite distinct from the pleasing sense of novelty. However, the novel is not primarily attractive and interesting in and for itself, but this must be accounted a late evolution in an artificial period. The novel is at the first anything but charming. The absolutely novel is never pleasant for its own sake.

It is only in a relative way that the objectively novel pleases, that is, in the way of variety and change. Where overflowing mental energy by reason of habituation finds no full and easy diverse activity the mind is hampered and constrained. Thus youth in particular finds delight and relief in new sights and sounds, in fresh experiences of all kinds. Quickly wearied and exhausted in one channel and yet full of active power, the mind springs rapidly from object to object along those lines which ancestral experience has rendered the lines of least resistance, thus especially in the plays and sports of childhood.

While the novel in this way as change pleases, yet there is no pleasing sense of novelty. Sensations, sights, sounds, tastes, etc., please by their novelty, there is a pleasure in the sensations not merely intrinsic but relative to previous experiences, but the mind is not yet capable of the emotion of novelty which belongs to reflective consciousness. The child may be pleased by the novel, but is not consciously charmed by the novelty. The sense of experience as novel, and as such pleasing, belongs to a higher grade of consciousness than the naïve direct consciousness of the child. Novelty consciously known, appreciated, and sought for its own sake is a decidedly late evolution. There is an emotion and emotion of pleasure which we may feel in view of the novel per se. Not merely the new object becomes the stimulant of a new and refreshing experience, but this experience being known as novel by the reflecting consciousness, and contrasted with other experiences, there comes therewith a peculiar ripple of pleasurable emotion, the emotion of the novel. The first emotion of novelty is itself thereby a novel consciousness which might be, to a very reflective self-conscious mind, an object for another emotion of novelty. In touching upon the emotion of novelty we have thus risen beyond the common course of natural selection, to the point where experience values itself for its own sake.

In contrast to the emotion of novelty is the emotion of familiarity. This might be discussed in a strictly parallel way to our discussion of the emotion of novelty. It is founded upon likeness, being the sentiment of likeness. An absolute novelty, the perfectly new, is of course imperceptible as such, and by the law of continuity cannot occur in nature. Some correlation with past experience is required to make the thing cognizable at all, as is also some measure of unlikeness to make it distinguishable and so familiar. The emotion of familiarity is much neglected by psychologists, yet it forms a more important and a larger element in the pleasures of advanced mind than the emotion of novelty. Many of the delights of home and domestic life are tinged by it. The pleasing sense of familiarity is, of course, most felt in contrast after some long experience of novelties, as when the traveller returns home from a prolonged journey. Delight in the familiar for its own sake often largely prompts to the revisiting old scenes and renewing old habits. The emotions of novelty and familiarity have a constant contrasting play in many men. The familiar which is painful in itself may yet, like the novel painful in itself, be pleasurable. We often welcome the familiar and novel purely for their own sake whatever be their actual hedonalgic[C] content.

[Footnote C: This adjective, which I used before seeing Mr. Marshall’s “algedonic,” more exactly expresses pleasure—pain quality.]

Noticed familiarity like novelty may be painful. The disgusting emotion by which we may meet the unwelcome novelty, has its correlate in the wearing sense of monotony from the regular return of the familiar even though it be intrinsically pleasurable.