The Psychology of the Emotions

by Th. Ribot

In passing from physical pain to moral pain we by no means change our subject, or enter another world. Languages with their special terms—“tristesse,” “chagrin,” “sorrow,” “Kummer,” etc.—create an illusion by which psychologists for the most part seem to have been duped—the illusion that between these two forms of pain there is a difference of nature. In any case they do not explain themselves clearly on the point, and seem to share the common opinion.[^[29]] It is the object of this chapter to establish that, on the contrary, there is a fundamental identity between physical and moral pain, and that they only differ from each other in the point of departure, the first being connected with a sensation, the second with some form of representation, an image or an idea.

I.

At first sight it seems paradoxical, and to many even revolting, to maintain that the pain caused by a corn or a boil, that expressed by Michelangelo in his sonnets concerning his inability to reach his ideal, or that felt by a delicate conscience at the sight of crime, are identical in their nature. I purposely bring together these extreme cases. Yet there is no call for indignation if we remember that we are concerned with the pain alone, not with the events which provoke it, these latter being extra-affective phenomena. The best method of justifying our thesis, however, is to follow the evolution of moral pain in its ascending march from its lowest to its highest point. It will suffice to note the chief stages.

First Period.—Moral pain is at first connected with an extremely simple representation, a concrete image—that is to say, the immediate copy of a perception. It may be defined as the ideal reproduction of physical pain. It only presupposes a single condition, memory. The child who has had to swallow an unpleasant remedy, or who has had a tooth extracted, experiences when the next occasion approaches a pain which may be called physical, since it is connected with a simple image, of which it is the weakened copy and echo. It may be said in the language of mathematicians, that in this case the moral pain is to the physical pain as the image is to the perception. This form is so simple as to be found in many animals not reckoned among the highest. It is not yet moral pain—grief or sorrow—in the complete and rigorous sense, but it must be noted, because it corresponds to what naturalists call a transitional form.

Second Period.—It is connected with complex representations and forms a very large class, the manifestations of which are the only ones met with in average human beings. At this stage moral pain presupposes reflection, or, more explicitly, first the faculty of reasoning (deductive or inductive), and secondly constructive imagination. It would be possible to quote a crowd of examples, taken at random: the news of a death, of an illness, of ruin, of frustrated ambition, etc. The point of departure is a dry and simple fact, but the pain attaches itself to all the perceived results which flow from it. Thus ruin means a series of privations, wretchednesses, labours begun over again, fatigues, and exhaustions. It is in this detailed translation, varying according to individuals and cases, that moral pain lies. It is clear, and is proved by observation, that the man endowed with an ardent and constructive imagination will feel intense pain when another, with a poor and cold imagination, remains indifferent, seeing nothing in his misfortune but the present actual fact—that is to say, a very little thing; the sum of pains evoked is proportional to the sum of representations evoked. The child remains insensible at the news of death or ruin; if he is moved it is through imitation; there is nothing in his experience enabling him to deduce what these fatal words contain, and to represent the future.

Moral pain presents itself under various forms—positive, negative, or mixed.

In the positive form it is an expenditure of movement, the representation of an exhaustive labour, of an incessant effort to begin again what is already felt in consciousness by anticipation. Such is the case of the candidate who fails at an examination to which he must go up again.

In the negative form it is an arrest of movement, a lessening, the consciousness of a deficit, a privation, cravings ceaselessly arising and ceaselessly disappointed. The death of a beloved person is the most perfect example.

In the mixed form we may see it in the ruined millionaire, the dethroned king, who set to work again to reconstruct the past. On the one hand the representation of the long labour of a new conquest; on the other, tendencies of all sorts which were formerly satisfied, and are now inexorably brought to a stop.

A complete study of the second group of moral pains would include two moments: the egoistic form, the first in date, and the sympathetic or altruistic form. The latter seems to appear early, since Darwin noted it at the age of six months and eleven days in one of his children, who was much affected when his nurse pretended to be unhappy and cry. Preyer even alleges, as we have seen, that grief appears at the age of four months. This sympathetic form of pain is found in certain animals, especially those living in society. In certain monogamous couples the death of one of the partners may cause the other to perish. I will not pause here at present to describe these two great forms of the affective life which will occupy us so often in the course of this study.