The Psychology of the Emotions

by Th. Ribot

We might say in clearer and simpler terms that religion tends to become a religious philosophy, which is an entirely different thing, for each corresponds to a distinct psychological condition, one being a theoretic construction of argumentative reason, the other the living work of a group of persons or an inspired great man, involving the whole man, his thoughts and feelings. This distinction is extremely important and throws light on our subject.

It would be easy to show that the great religions, at the height of their development, become transmuted into a subtle metaphysic, accessible to philosophers only. For the sake of impartiality, and not to shock any one, let us place ourselves in a remote period. In India, the religion which begins with the naturalism of the Vedas is organised, becomes social and moral with Brahmanism, and attains a transcendental ideality in the Bhâgavad-Gitâ. Take the following passage, chosen at random among a hundred similar ones:—"I am [Krishna is speaking] incomprehensible in form, subtler than the subtlest of atoms. I am the light of the sun and moon; beyond the darkness I am the brightness of flame, the rays of everything that shines, sound in the ether, perfume on the earth, the eternal seed of all that exists, the life of everything. As wisdom, I live in the hearts of all. I am the goodness of the good, I am the beginning, the middle and the end, eternity of time, the death and birth of all."

Is this religion, or metaphysics, or rather a beautiful philosophical poem, which moves us by the splendour of its images? For such a doctrine to become a real religion it must be concreted and condensed. That we may not, however, seem to cavil and dispute about words, or come to an arbitrary decision that the one thing is a religion and the other a religious philosophy, we may state the question in an objective form. As soon as religious thought ceases to have a worship or a ritual, and indeed finds itself incompatible with such, it is a philosophical doctrine. Stripped of all external and collective character, of all social form, it ceases to be a religion, and becomes an individual and speculative belief. Such is the deism of the eighteenth century, with all analogous conceptions, where feeling is only present in a very slight, almost imperceptible, degree.

Let us note, however, that in these periods of intellectual refinement, feeling does not lose its rights: it has its revenge in mysticism. In all great religions which have reached their highest point, the antagonism between the two elements of belief, the rational and the emotional, shows itself in the opposition between dogmatists and mystics. History is full of their mutual antipathy: in Christianity we find it, from the Gnostics, through the schools of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, to the “pure love” of the seventeenth century and later. The same may be said of other religions: Islam, in spite of its dry monotheism and the poverty of its ritual, has not escaped the universal law; it has had, and still has, its mystical sects. When we study them we find that, for all the differences of time, place, race and belief, the mystics, caring little for rigorous dogmatism, all show a singularly strong family likeness to each other. In this case it is argument which divides and feeling which unites.

We have still to examine one question relating to the emotional element alone: is religious emotion a complete emotion? It is worth while lingering over this, since many writers (not to mention those who omit it altogether) set it down as a variety of the intellectual feelings—i.e., of the coldest form of emotional life.

A complete emotion, as we know, includes, besides the purely psychic state, a somatic resonance, a vibration of the organism, consisting (a) of changes in the circulation, the respiration, and the functions in general; (b) of movements, gestures and actions which constitute its proper mode of expression. Without these, there is merely an intellectual state. Does religious emotion fulfil these two conditions?

(a.) It has its physiological accompaniment; it penetrates as far into the organism as any other. Since by its very nature it contains, though in varying proportion, two elements, depression and exaltation, let us very briefly survey their physiological relations.

Depression is related to fear and under its acute forms has been confounded with it. Does not the worshipper entering a venerated sanctuary show all the symptoms of pallor, trembling, cold sweat, inability to speak—all that the ancients so justly called sacer horror? Physical and mental weakness makes us religious through consciousness of human frailty. Austerities, macerations—in short, the asceticism which is an institution in the so-called pessimistic religions—though springing from a multitude of causes which need not here be inquired into, prove at least that the physiological factor is not regarded as indifferent. The Hindoo ascetics of the early ages were able, by their insensate mortification, to dethrone the gods and take their places—gods in their turn. The widespread belief that austerities contribute to salvation is a very much modified form of this.

Exaltation is related to love and tends to union, to possession. The history of all ages abounds in physiological procedures made use of for the artificial production of enthusiasm in the etymological sense of the word, which implies having the deity within one’s self.

There are inferior forms: the mechanical exaltation produced by dancing, or by the rhythmical music of primitive tribes, which excites them and places them in a favourable mental attitude for inspiration. Toxic exaltation: soma, wine, the Dionysiacs, the Mænads. The sanguinary means so widespread in the cults of Asia Minor: the Bona Dea and Atys, the Corybantes, the Galli, who mutilated and gashed themselves with sword strokes; in the Middle Ages, the Flagellants; and in our own day, Fakirs, dervishes, etc.