If we admit that our sympathies are lodged in certain specific organs, we must consider that we are the slaves of organism; whereas it is pretty positive that to a certain extent we are the slaves of habit. Even the most ardent and prevailing passions, the indulgence in which has become an absolute necessity, cease to be brought into action when they have long remained dormant. To associate our moral sympathies with physical consents of parts is to level man with the brute creation; although we hourly see the most decided instinctive dislikes in animals overcome by education. A mouse may be brought up with a cat, and a hawk with a sparrow; although a chicken has been known to dart at a fly the moment its head was out of the egg.
Nor can we view in the same light the affinities of inorganic bodies. They are subject to chemical laws; each is endowed with specific qualities that seldom or never vary, and some other body must be interposed to check their attraction; and that body, in the relation of inorganic matter, may be compared to the influence of the mind in intellectual beings. In animals, the very laws of nature are not unfrequently unheeded; and in these instances natural instincts appear less powerful than the mechanical discrimination that we witness in vegetable life, where germs, and molecules, and fibrils not only select each other, according to nature’s harmonic institutions, but actually attract each other from distant situations. This attractive power is beautifully illustrated in the mysterious vegetation of the vallisneria spiralis, an aquatic plant, in which the male and female are distinct individuals. The organization of the male qualifies it to adapt itself to the surface of the water, from the bottom of which the plant shoots forth, and to float in the middle of the deep and rapid tide. The female, on the contrary, is only found in shallow waters, or on shores where the tide exerts but little influence. Thus differently formed and situated, how does their union take place? It is a wonderful mystery. As soon as the male flower is perfect, the spinal stem dries away, and the flower thus separated sails away towards the shore in pursuit of the female, for the most part driven by a current of wind or the stream; yet as soon as it arrives near its destination it obeys a new influence, and is attracted towards the object of its pursuit, despite the powers of that wind and tide which until then directed it. No hypothesis, however ingenious, can explain this phenomenon.
Notwithstanding the doctrines of various writers, I am of opinion that our passions are clearly instinctive, but fortunately more or less under the control of our mental faculties in well-regulated individuals, who do not yield to these instinctive feelings an unbridled course; and I doubt much if there does exist a single passion, however inordinate it may appear, that cannot be mastered. Both good and evil qualities are frequently artificial, and arise from peculiar moral and physical conditions. Self-preservation is an instinctive feeling; yet man will wantonly risk his existence from false views regarding his social position. Courage has been considered as differing in its quality (if I may use the term), and arises sometimes from a natural animal or brute propensity, at others from calculation and reflection; and the latter most unquestionably may temper the former. Duclos’ distinction between what is called the courageous heart and the courageous mind, is by no means as objectionable as some of his opponents maintain. If courage is an instinctive faculty, residing in a certain organ, how comes it that this organism varies at different periods? How comes it, moreover, that this variety depends upon circumstances? I have seen a desperate duellist disgrace himself by a cowardly flight in the field of battle. I have known an arrant poltroon defend himself desperately against robbers; and a man, considered of undoubted courage, surrender his arms to a single footpad. In our instincts, our sympathies, we are to a certain extent the children of circumstances; and it would be as absurd to maintain that we cannot control our moral sympathies, as to excuse the commission of murder or of theft.
Our physical sympathies are of a nature totally different. Here they are brought into action according to certain laws of the organization, as uncontrollable as chemical affinities; and I doubt much whether our unaccountable antipathies may not be considered as appertaining to this category: they seem to depend upon certain laws of attraction and repulsion. The channel of this communication, as I have already observed, will perhaps remain for ever in utter obscurity. To this day we know not in what manner certain articles of food and medical substances find a path to the kidneys with such a rapidity as to render it improbable that it was through the medium of the circulation. The nature of other physiological phenomena is equally unexplained. Through what channel of communication does the cat-hater know that one of these animals is in the room, although unseen by him? Yet these antipathies might be conquered. A man was wont to fall into fits at the sight of a spider; a waxen one was made, which equally terrified him. When he had recovered his faculties, his error was pointed out, the wax figure was put into his hand without inspiring dread, and shortly the living insect no longer disturbed him.
Certain antipathies appear to depend upon a peculiarity of the senses. The horror inspired by the odour of certain flowers may be referred to this cause. Amatus Lusitanus relates the case of a monk who fainted when he beheld a rose, and never quitted his cell when that flower was blooming. Scaliger mentions one of his relations who experienced a similar horror when seeing a lily. In these instances it is not the agreeableness or the offensive nature of the aroma that inspires the repugnance; and Montaigne remarked on this subject, that there were men who dreaded an apple more than a musket-ball. Zimmerman tells us of a lady who could not endure the feeling of silk and satin, and shuddered when touching the velvety skin of a peach. Boyle records the case of a man who felt a natural abhorrence to honey. Without his knowledge, some honey was introduced in a plaster applied to his foot, and the accidents that resulted compelled his attendants to withdraw it. A young man was known to faint whenever he heard the servant sweeping. Hippocrates mentions one Nicanor who swooned whenever he heard a flute: our Shakspeare has alluded to the effects of the bagpipe. Julia, daughter of Frederick, king of Naples, could not taste meat without serious accidents. Boyle fainted when he heard the splashing of water; Scaliger turned pale at the sight of water-cresses; Erasmus experienced febrile symptoms when smelling fish; the Duke d’Epernon swooned on beholding a leveret, although a hare did not produce the same effect. Tycho Brahe fainted at the sight of a fox, Henry the Third of France at that of a cat, and Marshal d’Albert at a pig. The horror that whole families entertain of cheese is generally known. Many individuals cannot digest, or even retain certain substances, such as rice, wine, various fruits, and vegetables.
There are also antipathies that border upon mental aberration. Such was the case with a clergyman who fainted whenever a certain verse in Jeremiah was read. I lately dined in company with a gentleman who was seized with symptoms of syncope whenever a surgical operation or an accident was spoken of. St. John Long’s name happened to be mentioned, and he was carried out of the room. I have also known a person who experienced an alarming vertigo and dizziness whenever a great height or a dizzy precipice was described. A similar accident has been occasioned by Edgar’s description of Dover Cliff in King Lear. All these sympathies may be looked upon as morbid affections, or rather peculiar idiosyncrasies, beyond the control of our reason or our volition, although it is not impossible that they might be gradually checked by habit. Our dislikes to individuals are often as unaccountable, when we are obliged to confess with the poet Martial:
Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare;
Hoc tantùm possum dicere, Non amo te.
It is the same with our affections. The ancients, amongst others Empedocles, fancied that attraction and repulsion constituted the principal actions of life, and harmonized the universe. Hesiod dispels Chaos through the agency of Love. Aversions were attributed to the influence of an evil eye. To avoid its direful effects, strange practices were adopted, according to Tibullus; and to check the malefices of wicked crones, it was customary to spit three times in an infant’s bosom,
Despuit in molles et sibi quisque sinus;
while the well-known amulet representing the god Fascinus, was suspended round the child’s neck. Maidens were veiled to guard them against this noxious power, and secrecy and retirement were deemed the most effectual means of security.