[124] It is not so much the case that the object, on the one side, excites in the agent's consciousness, on the other, the "sensations of resistance" which have played such a part in recent controversy on the subject, as that (1) the object in certain of its promptings is "resisting" certain other of its promptings, or that (2) certain "positive" activities of the agent are being inhibited by certain "negative" activities, thereby giving rise to the "emotion of resistance." That "positive" and "negative" are here used in a teleological way will be apparent. It is surely misleading to speak of "sensations of resistance" even in deprecatory quotation marks, except as "sensation" is used in its everyday meaning, viz., experience of strongly sensory quality.
[125] The general theory of emotion which is here presupposed, and indeed is fundamental to the entire discussion, may be found in Professor Dewey's papers on "The Theory of Emotion," Psychological Review, Vol. I, p. 553; Vol. II, p. 13.
[126] Such is, in fact, the teaching of the various forms of ethical intuitionism, and we find it not merely implied, but explicitly affirmed, in a work in many respects so remote from intuitionism in its standpoint as Green's Prolegomena to Ethics. See pp. 178-81, and especially pp. 355-9.
[127] Sermon II.
[128] Not to imply of course that psychologically or logically the distinction of conditions and means is other than a convenient superficial one.
[129] Manifestly we have here been approaching from a new direction the "Recognition coefficient" of reality described above. See p. 266.
[130] This, if it were intended as an account of the genesis of psychology as a science and of the psychological interest on the part of the individual, would doubtless be most inadequate. We have, for one thing, made no mention of the part which error and resulting practical failure play in stimulating an interest in the judgmental processes of observation and the like, and in technique of the control of these. Here, as well as in the processes of execution of our purposes, must be found many of the roots of psychology as a science. Moreover, no explanation has been offered above for the appropriation by the "energetic" self of these phenomena of interruption and retardation of its energy as being, in fact, its own, or within itself. The problem would appear to be psychological, and so without our province, and we gladly pass it by.
[131] We can, of course, undertake no minute analysis of the psychological mechanism or concatenation of the process here sketched in barest outline. Our present purpose is wholly that of description. Slight as our account of the process of transition is, we give it space only because it seems necessary to do so in order to make intelligible the accounts yet to be given of the conscious valuation processes for which the movement here described prepares the way.
It will be observed that we assume above that the purpose is successful as planned and by succeeding brings about the undesirable results. Failure in execution of the purpose as such could only, in the manner already outlined, prompt a more adequate investigation of the factual conditions.
[132] The case is not essentially altered in logical character if for the Levitical law be substituted the general principles of the new dispensation read off details by an authoritative church or by "private judgment."