Now that the principle of the interindividual diffusion of feeling has been stated and explained, we may return to our main line of research and examine its bearings on the expressional impulse. We have seen that in the social surroundings of the individual there is enacted a process resembling that which takes place within his own organism. Just as functional modifications spread from organ to organ, just as wider and wider zones of the system are brought into participation in the primary enhancement or inhibition, so a feeling is diffused from an individual to a circle of sympathisers who repeat its expressional movements. And just as all the widened "somatic resonances" contribute to the primary feeling-tone increased strength and increased definiteness, so must the emotional state of an individual be enhanced by retroactive stimulation from the expressions by which the state has, so to say, been continued in others. By the reciprocal action of primary movements and borrowed movements, which mutually imitate each other, the social expression operates in the same way as the individual expression. And we are entitled to consider it as a secondary result of the general expressional impulse, that when mastered by an overpowering feeling we seek enhancement or relief by retroaction from sympathisers, who reproduce and in their expression represent the mental state by which we are dominated.
In point of fact, we can observe in the manifestations of all strong feelings which have not found a satisfactory relief in individual expression, a pursuit of social resonance. A happy man wants to see glad faces around him, in order that from their expression he may derive further nourishment and increase for his own feeling. Hence the benevolent attitude of mind which as a rule accompanies all strong and pure joy. Hence also the widespread tendency to express joy by gifts or hospitality. In moods of depression we similarly desire a response to our feeling from our surroundings. In the depth of despair we may long for a universal cataclysm to extend, as it were, our own pain. As joy naturally makes men good, so pain often makes them hard and cruel. That this is not always the case is a result of the increased power of sympathy which we gain by every experienced pain. Moreover, we have need of sympathetic rapport for our motor reactions against pain. All the active manifestations of sorrow, despair, or anger which are not wholly painful in themselves are facilitated by the reciprocal influence of collective excitement. Thus all strong feelings, whether pleasurable or painful, act as socialising factors. This socialising action may be observed at all stages of development. Even the animals seek their fellows in order to stimulate themselves and each other by the common expression of an overpowering feeling. As has been remarked by Espinas, the flocking together of the male birds during the pairing season is perhaps as much due to this craving for mutual stimulation as to the desire to compete for the favor of the hen. The howling choirs of the macaws and the drum concerts of the chimpanzees are still better and unmistakable instances of collective emotional expression. In man we find the results of the same craving for social expression in the gatherings for rejoicing or mourning which are to be met with in all tribes, of all degrees of development. And as a still higher development of the same fundamental impulse, there appears in man the artistic activity.
The more conscious our craving for retroaction from sympathisers, the more there must also be developed in us a conscious endeavor to cause the feeling to be appropriated by as many as possible and as completely as possible. The expressional impulse is not satisfied by the resonance which an occasional public, however sympathetic, is able to afford. Its natural aim is to bring more and more sentient beings under the influence of the same emotional state. It seeks to vanquish the refractory and arouse the indifferent. An echo, a true and powerful echo—that is what it desires with all the energy of an unsatisfied longing. As a result of this craving the expressional activities lead to artistic production. The work of art presents itself as the most effective means by which the individual is enabled to convey to wider and wider circles of sympathisers an emotional state similar to that by which he is himself dominated.
E. SUGGESTION
1. A Sociological Definition of Suggestion[151]
The nature of suggestion manifestly consists not in any external peculiarities whatever. It is based upon the peculiar kind of relation of the person making the suggestion to the "ego" of the subject during the reception and realization of the suggestion.
Suggestion, is, in general, one of many means of influence of man on man that is exercised with or without intention on persons, who respond either consciously or unconsciously.
For a closer acquaintance with what we call "suggestion," it may be observed that our perceptive activities are divided into (a) active, and (b) passive.
a) Active perception.—In the first case the "ego" of the subject necessarily takes a part, and according to the trend of our thinking or to the environmental circumstances directs the attention to these or those external impressions. These, since they enter the mind through the participation of attention and will and through reflection and judgment, are assimilated and permanently incorporated in the personal consciousness or in our "ego." This type of perception leads to an enrichment of our personal consciousness and lies at the bottom of our points of view and convictions. The organization of more or less definite convictions is the product of the process of reflection instituted by active perception. These convictions, before they become the possession of our personal consciousness, may conceal themselves awhile in the so-called subconsciousness. They are capable of being aroused at any moment at the desire of the "ego" whenever certain experienced representations are reproduced.
b) Passive perception.—In contrast to active perception we perceive much from the environment in a passive manner without that participation of the "ego." This occurs when our attention is diverted in any particular direction or concentrated on a certain thought, and when its continuity for one or another reason is broken up, which, for instance, occurs in cases of so-called distraction. In these cases the object of the perception does not enter into the personal consciousness, but it makes its way into other spheres of our mind, which we call the general consciousness. The general consciousness is to a certain degree independent of the personal consciousness. For this reason everything that enters into the general consciousness cannot be introduced at will into the personal consciousness. Nevertheless products of the general consciousness make their way into the sphere of the personal consciousness, without awareness by it of their original derivation.