All uniting or relating is, however, more than a bare connecting; it is a definite mode of relating, it has a form; and the first and fundamental form is that of time and space, by which all relating has the inductive quality of relying upon the past for the interpretation of the future. But thought as self-active mentality is specially stimulated and controlled by the form of reality. All relatings are not, however, influenced by sense of reality, and hence belief is not coincident with judgment in the large sense. Affirmation or denial of actuality or reality is a kind of joining, but is not joining per se. The infant joins taste of sweetness with percept round-yellow for the first time and for many following times with no reference to reality or unreality. “This round-yellow is this sweet” expresses a mere connecting, a bare relating, but as neither real nor unreal. There is no emphasis laid on the copula by which it expresses more than a mere joining. But let the perfect tranquility of the child’s experience be broken in upon by discord of appearance and reality, let the child once have a bitter experience with a round lemon, then its future conjoinings of round-yellow and sweet will be more or less tinged by sense of possibility of error, and emphasis will be laid on the copula, “That is sweet.” Through other such experiences with other of its thought-groups, the child generalises to the universal significance of reality and unreality for all its thinking; hence, all conjoinings with their copula-expressions attain a new force and quality from this induction. In the light of fallibility as making up a part of the concept “experience,” all thought-experience modifies itself by this self-relation. Reality becomes so constant and universal for all thought-life that mature thought can never escape it. Hegel tried to rise superior to the notion of existence, but psychologically, at least, he failed. The conception or induction of reality becomes a necessary form of thought by being united with all unitings. Judgment in the narrow sense may be defined as all those relatings in which the reality of the relation is affirmed or denied.
Lastly a word on the nature of reasoning. Reasoning is mediatorial; the joining is accomplished through one or more mediates. Most if not all thinking is by mediating; joining proceeds only upon ground or basis, whether recognised or not as such. “Kings are mortal” is the language-expression of a conjoining effected either through the particular mediate term, John, or terms, John, Peter, etc., or through the general mediate term men. In both cases the conjoining is effected through subjoining of the mediate term to both the elements to be conjoined. In the first case the process is: “John is mortal, John is king, therefore kings are mortal.” This relating of king and mortal is strengthened by subjoining for other particular mediates, Peter, James, etc. In the second case the process is: “Men are mortal, kings are men, therefore kings are mortal.” In both cases the appeal is to constancy of coherence of a quality to a quality-group, in the first, mortality coherent with king John, hence coherent with kings; in the second, kings have mortality because mortality is coherent with the group man = kings + others. In both cases the generalising tendency, that is, the inductive quality, is the main point and not the method of mediation. In both processes the concept king is filled out by the additional quality mortality, and there is real gain in generalising and concept-forming, whether the mind accomplishes it by the more special or more general reference. Induction in the large sense is thus inclusive of both induction and deduction in the restricted sense as determined by the mode of mediation. Inductive thinking, as we have treated it, is the joining which generalises, whatever be the means used to this end. Induction as generalising tendency is imbedded in experience, and is the largest factor in all its development. All cognition as interpretation is induction.
That induction, as giving the experience value of things on basis of previous experience, is fundamental to all emotions about the things, has been implied throughout our discussion. But the inductive act may itself be emotively considered and intellectual emotion may arise. How and why induction came to be a pleasurable act and carried on for its own sake is, perhaps, not explainable by biologic evolution. It is certain that the inductive act, like other functions, arises as painful effort and as a mere means of serving life. Identifying and recognising is accomplished only under pressure of the struggle for existence. Animals in general, and, indeed, most human beings exercise their intelligence, make inductions, only as compelled by the demands of life. The Australian savages who guided Lumholtz in his search for new marsupials knew about the animals solely in a practical way, and were totally unable to comprehend Lumholtz’s motive. So geologists examining stones are entirely misapprehended by savages and the semi-civilized, though these people are sufficiently acquainted with stones so far as they are a source of mineral wealth, are useful for building, etc. And from the point of view of natural selection pure science, the pursuit of knowledge solely for its own sake, without the least reference to its appreciation, is unexplainable.
Nevertheless, it is a fact that at a certain point in psychism the intellectual life develops for its own sake; the inductive act is pleasurable, and the desire arises to continue it as such, that is, here is true intellectual emotion, an emotion arising about an intellectual act represented as such. This feeling about induction may rise to an absorbing passion, as with Charles Darwin. He liked nothing better than making inductions, until he finally came to like little else. If the reason is asked for induction becoming pleasurable, and an end in itself psychology at present has no answer.
It is plain that when intellectual activity is desired, not as a means, but as an end in itself, it excludes much intellectual emotion which is commonly associated therewith. Surprise and wonder, for instance, are intellectual emotions at contemplating a conjuncture very contrary to expectation, entirely opposite to some pre-formed induction, but they do not imply devotion to intellectual activity as such. The visitor to a biological laboratory who, on first seeing blood corpuscles, cries “Wonderful! Who would have thought it! One’s blood all full of such things! Let me look again!” is hardly actuated by the scientific motive. All phenomena are equally wonderful or wonderless—which amounts to the same thing—to the scientist; for him everything is simply natural, he forms no expectations not founded on facts. The “wonders of science” are wonders only to the outsider: the scientist takes them as matter of fact. It is no more wonderful to him that the blood should be full of corpuscles than that it should fall in drops. The tyro does not wonder at a drop of blood; he wonders to see the drop filled with myriads of animated corpuscles; the scientist wonders at neither. He who, on being told of blood corpuscles, exclaims, “I want to know,” plainly desires knowledge, but is not impelled by a pure thirst for knowledge. The scientific items appearing in the newspapers generally appeal merely to seekers for marvels and lovers of intellectual sensation. Surprise and wonder are then extraneous impulses to knowledge, the impulse to knowledge for its own sake being quite distinct. As based on intellectual shock they imply a considerable intellectual integration, and hence are by no means primitive in mental life, yet far from being as late as emotion for knowledge per se. Wonder gives birth to the Arabian Nights and to Jules Verne’s romances, but it always hinders true science.
Again, the pleasure and desire of achieving and achievement often plays a large part in intellectual pursuits, as in a wide variety of activity. Reaching an end merely for the sake of accomplishment, an emotion about any end, as, for instance, a wide generalisation to be attained, merely as end, intellectual action has in common with all other teleological action, but the teleologic emotion is not distinctly intellectual. The desire to achieve for achievement’s sake, to reach the satisfaction of accomplishment, is extremely multiplex in its application. The man who does a thing just to see if he can do it, who does feats of any kind is obviously impelled by a different emotion from the one who performs the same activity for the pleasure of the activity itself. He who plays a game to succeed, and he who plays for the pleasurable activity involved, are in very different frames of mind. And emotion for achievement is generally complicated by desire to be thereby superior to one’s fellows. The intense competitive struggle is plain in all departments even among scientists. The emotion of competition, the earnest desire to surpass others in interpreting nature and life is a tremendous force among all scientific workers, and not even Darwin himself, exceptional though he was, could keep out every vestige of amour propre.
We note also that love of any intellectual activity for its own sake, as induction, must be distinguished from the love of truth. Here induction is exercised, not for itself, but as a means to an end, truth; inducing is not merely a pleasing exercise, but a means to accomplishment of a definite result. Darwin, of course, a trained and habitual inductionist, worked both from the pleasurability of the activity and from his devotion to truth, to which this induction was the true method. Though both these motives, love of an activity and love of some definite end thereby attained, as truth, reputation, etc., are closely connected, they are perfectly distinct modes of emotion, as the least reflection convinces. Truth is some very wide permanent and significant conjuncture of experience discovered and set forth, such as the origin of species in progressive modification, or the intensity of light in inverse proportion to the square of the distance, and this is the kind of induction or conjoining demanded by the love of truth.
CHAPTER XVII
THE ÆSTHETIC PSYCHOSIS
The problem of the origin and nature of æsthetic feeling is a definite psychological problem to be solved only by introspection careful and prolonged. We must take simple cases and closely scrutinize them to discover the distinctive quality, we must seek the cognitive, feeling, will elements, we must note its kinship to other psychoses, we must endeavour to analyse and determine whether it be simple or complex. Analysis, indeed, as chemical analysis, e.g., is a reducing the manifold to a comparatively few elements, from which by composition an indefinite number of substances are formed. But in psychological study we must proceed without any bias from physical investigation. We cannot reduce mind to the mechanical development of a few simples as we survey the development of matter chemically. If mind be essentially self-activity, will effort, then conjunction of psychoses is due to a conjoining activity, and is not mere aggregation. So in case of fear we found a great complexity of conditions, yet fear in itself seems an unanalyzable emotion wave. In taking up æsthetic psychosis we attempt an unbiassed introspective study.
The æsthetic psychosis has been by many evolutionists connected with sexual appetite and emotion. The evidence for this is that among animals the brilliant-hued, and, as we term them, beautiful mates are chosen in pairing time. Also graceful movements and melodious tones are then employed. In mankind the æsthetic feeling, as every one may recall in his own case, arose, and became prominent when near or in the teens. The rude boy and the hoyden girl then dress and adorn themselves, and a glamour of beauty is thrown about one who was once an entirely indifferent object. All the surroundings, artificial and natural, of the beloved object are looked upon and thought about in a new way of feeling, an air of attractiveness and beauty envelops all. The period of life of strongest sexuality, from twenty to forty, is also the period of strongest æsthetic emotion. Further, sexuality is notedly strong among those who professionally cultivate the æsthetic psychosis, as artists, musicians, and poets: indeed, many of the very greatest of these have been so carried away by the tender passion as to transgress the conventions and laws on sexual matters. In cases of precocious sexuality a feeling for the beautiful makes itself apparent; while with those who slowly mature, the æsthetic feeling is similarly delayed. But does not the infant who holds out a rose to you and cries “pretty,” have a feeling for beauty? And it is surely unaffected by sexuality. What may be in the mind of a child speaking thus is hard to make out, but the activity is probably largely mimetic merely, and the term “pretty” is probably used substantively rather than qualitatively; it is the name of thing rather than quality. We certainly cannot assert of a child that because it uses certain words it attaches to those words the proper meanings. This is evident from the fact that a child taught to say “pretty” will bring you any and every object and use the word, or if it learns to take merely a class of objects, as rose, it does this at dictation. The child is, however, obviously attracted by some objects rather than others, but it would be hasty to say that it perceives their beauty, when it is quite sufficient to regard them as conspicuous only, and striking. But we have to touch on sensing later; and we only add to the evidence of connection of feeling for beauty with sexual feeling, that with the old and with eunuchs the æsthetic sense is but slight or tends to vanish. Thus positively and negatively there seems to be evidence that feeling for beauty originates in connection with sexual passion, either that the object of the passion is always regarded as beautiful, or that a feeling for beauty excites the passion. A girl adorns herself to attract lovers, knowing that to admire beauty is the first step to love. This close connection is recognised in common consciousness in that “lovely” is synonymous with beautiful, thus a “lovely” landscape or picture is a beautiful one.