It is generally agreed that emotions proper (as distinguished from other affective states) may be divided into those which are primary (anger, fear, disgust, etc.), and those (jealousy, admiration, hatred, etc.), which are compounded of two or more primary emotions. McDougall has made a great contribution to our knowledge in having made clear that a primary emotion is not only instinctive, but is the central or psychical element in a reflex process consisting, besides, of an ingoing stimulus and an outgoing impulse. The whole process is the instinct.[[220]] It is of course innate, and depends on congenital prearrangements of the nervous system. The central element, the emotion, provides the conative or impulse force which carries the instinct to fulfilment. It is the motive power, the dynamic agent that executes, that propels the response which follows the stimulus. Though we speak of anger and fear, for example, as instincts, McDougall is unquestionably right in insisting that more correctly speaking the activated instinct is a process in which the emotion is only one factor—the psychical. The instincts of anger and fear should more precisely be termed respectively “pugnacity with the emotion of anger” and “flight with the emotion of fear.” In the one case, the emotion, as the central reaction to a stimulus, by its conative force impels to pugnacity; in the other fear impels to flight; and so with the other instincts and their emotions which I would suggest may be termed arbitrarily the emotion-instincts, to distinguish them from the more general instincts and innate dispositions with which animal psychology chiefly deals, and in which the affective element is feebler or has less of the specific psychical quality. For brevity’s sake, however, we may speak of the instinct of anger, fear, tender feeling, etc. Of course they are biological in their nature.
This formulation, by McDougall, of emotion as one factor in an instinctive process must be regarded as one of the most important contributions to our knowledge of the mechanism of emotion. It can scarcely be traversed, as it is little more than a descriptive statement of observed facts. It is strange that this conception of the process should have been so long overlooked. Its value lies in replacing vagueness with a precise conception of one of the most important of psychological phenomena, and enables us to clearly understand the part played by emotion in mental processes. It also shows clearly the inadequacy of the objective methods of normal psychology when attempting to investigate emotion by measuring the discharge of its impulsive force in one direction only, namely, the disturbances of the functions of the viscera (vasomotor, glandular, etc.). It discharges also along lines of mental activity and conduct.
When studying the organization of complexes, and in other lectures, we saw, as everyone knows in a general way, that affects may become linked with ideas, and that the force derived from this association gives to the ideas intensity and conative influence. Further, it was developed that the linking of a strong affect tends to stronger registration and conservation of experiences. This linking of an affect to an idea is one of the foundation stones of the pathology of the psycho-neuroses. One might say that upon it “hangs all the law and the prophets.”
Inasmuch as a sentiment, even in the connotations of popular language, besides being an idea always involves an affective element, it is obvious that a sentiment is an idea of an object with which one or more emotions are organized. But, obvious as it is, it remained for Mr. Shand, as McDougall reminds us, to make this precise definition. It is hardly a discovery as the latter puts it, as the facts themselves have been long known; but it is a valuable definition and its value lies in helping us to think clearly. Nearly every idea, if not every idea, has an affective tone of some kind, or is one of a complex of ideas endowed with such tone. This tone may be weak so as to be hardly recognizable, or it may be strong. Now, if emotion is one factor in an instinctive process, it is evident that a sentiment more precisely is an idea of an object linked or organized with one or more “emotion-instincts.” As McDougall has precisely phrased it, “A sentiment is an organized system of emotional dispositions centered about the idea of some object.” The impulsive force of the emotional dispositions or linked instincts becomes the conative force of the idea, and it is this factor which carries the idea to fruition. This is one of the most important principles of functional psychology. Its value can scarcely be exaggerated. Without the impulse of a linked emotion ideas would be lifeless, dead, inert, incapable of determining conduct. But when we say that an emotion becomes linked to, i.e., organized with that composite called an idea, we really mean (according to this theory of emotion) that it is the whole instinct, the emotional innate disposition of which the emotion is only a part that is so linked. The instinct has also afferent and efferent activities. The latter is an impulsive or conative force discharged by the emotion. Thus the affective element of an instinctive process—a process which is a biological reaction—provides the driving force, makes the idea a dynamic factor, moves us to carry the idea to fulfilment. As McDougall has expressed it:
"We may say, then, that directly or indirectly the instincts are the prime movers of all human activity; by the conative or impulsive force of some instinct (or of some habit derived from some instinct), every train of thought, however cold and passionless it may seem, is borne along toward its end, and every bodily activity is initiated and sustained. The instinctive impulses determine the ends of all activities and supply the driving power by which all mental activities are sustained; and all the complex intellectual apparatus of the most highly developed mind is but a means toward these ends, is but the instrument by which these impulses seek their satisfactions, while pleasure and pain do but serve to guide them in their choice of the means.
“Take away these instinctive dispositions with their powerful impulses, and the organism would become incapable of activity of any kind; it would lie inert and motionless like a wonderful clockwork whose mainspring had been removed, or a steam engine whose fires had been drawn. These impulses are the mental forces that maintain and shape all the life of individuals and societies, and in them we are confronted with the central mystery of life and mind and will.”[[221]]
Furthermore the organization of the emotions with ideas to form sentiments is essential for self-control and regulation of conduct, and becomes a safeguard against mental, physiological, and social chaos.
“The growth of the sentiments is of the utmost importance for the character and conduct of individuals and of societies; it is the organization of the affective and conative life. In the absence of sentiments our emotional life would be a mere chaos, without order, consistency, or continuity of any kind; and all our social relations and conduct, being based on the emotions and their impulses, would be correspondingly chaotic, unpredictable, and unstable. It is only through the systematic organization of the emotional dispositions in sentiments that the volitional control of the immediate promptings of the emotions is rendered possible. Again, our judgments of value and of merit are rooted in our sentiments; and our moral principles have the same source, for they are formed by our judgments of moral value.”[[222]]
Summing up, then, we may say one of the chief functions of emotion is to provide the conative force which enables ideas to fulfill their aims, and one of the chief functions of sentiments to control and regulate the emotions.
Besides the instinctive dispositions proper there are other innate dispositions which similarly provide conative force and determine activities. For the practical purposes of the problems with which we are concerned, the conative or impulsive forces of all such innate dispositions and the sentiments which they help to form are here, it should be understood, considered together and included under instincts.