The Psychology of the Emotions

by Th. Ribot

Here the connection between the affective disposition and the somatic state is quite clear, and seems to be referable to a tropho-neurosis of the brain (Schüle, Krafft-Ebing). It must be recognised that this disease, which is the extreme form, and the alternations of personality, which are modified forms, supply us with none but pathological examples; but the germs of morbid manifestations are present in normal life. Unfortunately, these alternations are only perceptible where strongly marked, and therefore none but exaggerated cases can be quoted. Compared to the successive characters, where the second has destroyed the first, the alternating characters mark a new stage on the road to dissolution, and form a transition to our second group—the coexistent contradictory characters.

II.

They consist in the coexistence of two opposite tendencies of equal force and mutually incompatible; there are two characters, two contradictory springs of action, and, tested by our practical criterion, there are, in any given circumstances, two possible and equally probable courses to be foreseen. They differ, both from the successive characters, in which the second man has eliminated the first, and from the alternating characters, which occupy the stage, in turn, exclusively, and for some time. They present themselves under two principal forms.

1. The first form is not a pure or complete type. It is the result of a contradiction between thought and feeling, between theory and practice, between principle and tendency. Nothing is less rare, and I need scarcely adduce examples: the contrast between a man’s private and public life, between his aspect as a scientific man and his aspect as a believer. One who, in a question of scientific proof, is quite intractable, will show, in religion or in love, an unparalleled simplicity and ingenuousness. As for those who loudly profess any given doctrine, and contradict it by their actions, there is no lack of them. Schopenhauer, in theory a pessimist and misogynist, penetrated with compassion for all living beings, a professed ascetic, was nothing of the sort in practice. He is an instance of unreconciled contradiction, to which we may oppose the perfect unity of a Spinoza.

A man who was, ex hypothesi, entirely intellectual, and yet (if that were possible) capable of acting, would, by his constitution, escape this contradictory duality. The magistrate, observed by Esquirol, who, though perfectly lucid in mind, had lost all sensibility, and was “as indifferent to his family and everything else as to a theorem of Euclid,” approximates to it. We find modified forms of the same in the apathetic-intellectual division.

But this contradictory duality is so common that we should not venture to insist on it were it not that it completely exposes the inanity of the widespread prejudice that it is sufficient to inculcate principles, rules, and ideas, in order to make them result in action. No doubt, authority, education, law, have no other means of influencing men; but these means, by themselves, are not efficacious; they may succeed, or they may fail. The question which the experiment is intended to solve amounts to this: Do the intellectual character (if there are, as some writers admit, such things as intellectual characters, properly speaking) and the emotional keep an even rate of progress?

2. The second form is pure and complete; it involves a deeper contradiction because subsisting between two ways of feeling, two tendencies, two modes of action, one of which is the negative of the other. These characters bring us to our last group, the unstable; there are incoherent beings who will not or cannot resolve the contradiction in them. One of the commonest instances is that of those men who carry to an extreme degree both religious sincerity and licentiousness of conduct. Popular opinion judges them severely and considers them hypocrites, thus confounding two very distinct cases, that of voluntary dissimulation and that of incurable contradiction. The religious and the sexual sentiment, both deeply rooted in their natures, act on them, each in its turn; and they make no attempt to reconcile the two. We may also mention those men who are divided between the craving for activity and that for repose, passing incessantly from the one to the other; the lover who feels for his mistress at the same time an ardent love and a violent contempt. In towns and countries where the monarchical sentiment is still deeply rooted we find an analogous state of mind in some subjects, who feel an unutterable loyalty to the throne and a profound contempt for the person of the king. In studying the “composite characters,” Paulhan reminds us that Rubens, calm, tranquil, and of decent behaviour in practical life, became a prey to a tragic fermentation as soon as he seized his brush. It has been said of a celebrated contemporary (Wagner) that he had in him “the instincts of an ascetic and of a satyr, cravings for love and hatred, an appetite for enjoyment and a thirst for the ideal, a haughty dignity and a cringing courtiership, a mixture of devotion and base treachery.” This portrait might suit many others. It denotes something more than a contradictory duality, for it cannot be reduced to two essential points; but it is not yet the genuine type of the unstable.

If we might trust certain authors, the cause of simultaneous contradictory characters would be very simple, being due merely to the dual form of the brain. It is known that the two cerebral hemispheres, even when normal, are asymmetrical, differing in weight, in the distribution of the arteries, and in functional importance, the left having the preponderance; that hallucinations may be unilateral or bilateral, vary in character, etc. In short, cerebral dualism is undeniable; but that it should suffice to explain the duality of character is a hypothesis of such exceeding naïveté that I am unwilling to waste any time in discussing it.

An explanation drawn from psychology is less simple, but also less easily overthrown. To understand how characters are constituted, the following process seems to me the best. Let us take as our starting-point the well-balanced, “completely unified” characters, which present a graduated co-ordination of the various tendencies. The first step towards a break is marked by the predominance of a single tendency: the character is active, contemplative, sensitive, etc. It is still a unity; but, instead of a convergent unity which may be compared to a federation, we have a unity of preponderance reminding us of an absolute monarchy. A second decisive step is marked by the appearance of two dominant tendencies, but, to fulfil the conditions, they must be contradictory. Thus, Miguel Cervantes, who, after a life of chivalrous adventure, became the great novelist, gives us an instance of a complex and composite but by no means contradictory nature. The contradiction is found in cases analogous to that of the devout libertine, because, while asserting in words the rule of morals prescribed by his religion, he denies it by his acts. Hence two un-coordinated tendencies. Yet this is only the exaggeration of a perfectly normal occurrence. A man of grave demeanour may have sudden fits of mad spirits; another may be seized upon by a passion at variance with all his habits. If this transitory, episodic state becomes stable and permanent, the contradictory character is established. This transformation may be assigned to circumstances. I believe that it is still more dependent on innate tendencies inherent in the individual constitution, which are only developed by opportunity.

Speaking decisively, we may maintain, without paradox, that these characters are or are not contradictory, according to the point of view adopted. They are so for the logic of the intellect, but not for the logic of the feelings.