This is the clearest part of the subject, but there is one obscure point which must detain us, the more that it is connected with the fundamental phenomenon of emotional life: tendency. If there is one psychological law more firmly established than another, both by facts and argument, it is that every intense representation of an act tends to realise itself; which is inevitable, since the vivid image of a movement is the beginning of a movement—a revival of motor elements included in the image. A man who, standing on the top of a tower, is fascinated by the idea of a possible fall, runs the risk of throwing himself over; the attraction of the abyss is nothing else but this. On the other hand, artists naturally have intense representations and feel things violently; they dream of orgies, love adventures, sanguinary dramas, self-devotion, virtues and vices of all sorts. How comes it that all this is merely imagined, and never passes into action, or becomes a reality?
It is because in their case the law is subject, not to an exception, but to a deviation. The intense representation must be objectivised—i.e., from being internal become external, and it may arrive at this result in two ways: by a real action, as in the case of ordinary people, or by the creation of a work of art which delivers one from the haunting idea: this is the peculiarity of artists. If, besides this, a physiological reason is required, it might be admitted, merely as a hypothesis, that in these cases the motor centres have not, usually, sufficient energy for practical realisation, whence it comes that their satisfaction is a purely æsthetic one.
To keep strictly to our subject, we have a large body of testimony to show that many have only been delivered from their haunting ideas by creative production, as I have already mentioned when treating of memory. It is fixed in a poem, a novel, a drama, a symphony, on the earth, or in stone; we may remember Michelangelo and the sculptures of the Medici chapel, Schiller’s early manner and the “Robbers.” Is not Byron, whose psychological state has been so well analysed by Taine (born for action and adventure, returning, perhaps, to his true vocation when he went to die at Missolonghi), the poet of pirates, of strange and doubtful enterprises? The reader will think it needless for me to enumerate further instances.
This rule, however, is not without exceptions. The law which requires that the intense image shall be actualised is always satisfied; but sometimes this happens in two ways, artistically and practically, at once. Many have lived out their dreams of love, orgies, adventures, violence, and have produced a work of art besides; a double stream has flowed from the same source. Some of the romantic school have revived the aspect of past ages in their houses, their furniture, their lives. Artistic sovereigns have been able to realise their imaginations to the full: Nero, Hadrian, Ludwig II. of Bavaria, and others.
An Italian anthropologist, Ferrero, has pointed out, with some justice, that, in spite of our complaints of the pessimistic, satanic, macabre, or neurotic character of contemporary art, this evil is not without its accompanying good; it is a safety-valve, an overflow channel. Morbid art “is a defence against abnormal tendencies, which, otherwise, would tend to transform themselves into action.” Many content themselves with a literary, plastic, or musical satisfaction. This seems to be indisputable. We may also grant to this author that the suggestion of a work of art has not the power of direct suggestion, that of the actually perceived fact, and that, so far, it is less dangerous. But as it is more widely diffused and acts especially on subjects predisposed to it, it may be questioned whether, in the long run, the gain is serious.
This is a sociological question which it would be out of place to discuss here, and which, consequently, we may dismiss with a bare reference. Our conclusion is that the pathology of the æsthetic sentiment has no independent existence. It is one among many forms of expression (of which we have already pointed out several) of a morbid predisposition which can only follow this track in a small minority of persons—those possessed of the power of creative imagination.
CHAPTER XI.
THE INTELLECTUAL SENTIMENT.
Its origin: the craving for knowledge—Its evolution—Utilitarian period: surprise, astonishment, interrogation—Disinterested period: transition forms—Classification according to intellectual states—Classification according to emotional states: dynamic forms, static forms—Period of passion: its rarity—Pathology—Simple doubt—Dramatic doubt—"Folie du doute"—Mysticism in science: deviation comes, not from the object, but from the method of research.
I.
This name stands for the emotional states—agreeable, disagreeable, or mixed—which accompany the exercise of the intellectual operations. Intellectual emotion may be connected with images, ideas, reasoning, and the logical course of thought; in a word, with all the forms of knowledge. Except in some rare cases, which will be pointed out later on, it scarcely ever rises beyond a medium tone, especially in its higher manifestations.