[227]. The only attempt in this direction I am acquainted with is Nordau’s book, Degeneration (Entartung), which is limited to the present day, and, moreover, treats of other questions as well.
[228]. There is, with regard to this point, a very complete observation of Grant Allen’s (“Note Deafness,” in Mind, iii. 1878). The subject, a young man of great intellectual cultivation, had studied music during his childhood without result. It was discovered, later on, that he was incapable of distinguishing one note from another, except at intervals which were sometimes as much as an octave, or even more. He was quite unconscious of harmonies and discords, or the timbre of instruments. The distinctive features of the latter were, for him, only clearly perceived noises of different kinds—a sound of wire-work for the piano, a scraping for the violin, a puff of air for the organ. He was very sensitive to the rhythm of poetry. It is not known whether anomalies of this kind originate in Corti’s organs or in the cerebral centres.
[229]. Bain, The Emotions, ch. iv. pp. 85, 86; Sully, Psychology, vol. ii. p. 126.
[230]. Descartes, Traité des Passions, Part ii., § 70.
[231]. I have given further details on this point in my Psychologie de l’attention.
[232]. See for facts as to the curiosity of animals, Romanes, Mental Evolution, pp. 283-351.
[233]. Principles of Sociology, i. pp. 98, 99.
[234]. Psychology, vol. ii. p. 131.
[235]. In the following, reported by a traveller, we have an instance of this spontaneous transition to disinterested curiosity, in the case of an intelligent Basuto. “Twelve years ago” [the man himself is speaking] “I went to feed my flocks. The weather was hazy. I sat down upon a rock and asked myself sorrowful questions; yes, sorrowful, because I was unable to answer them. Who has touched the stars with his hands? On what pillars do they rest? I asked myself. The waters are never weary; they know no other law than to flow without ceasing,—from morning till night, and from night till morning; but where do they stop? and who makes them flow thus? The clouds also come and go, and burst in water over the earth. Whence come they? Who sends them? The diviners certainly do not give us rain; for how could they do it? and why do I not see them with my own eyes, when they go up to heaven to fetch it? ... I cannot see the wind; but what is it? Who brings it, makes it blow? ... Then I buried my face in both my hands.”—Quoted by Vignoli, Mito e Scienza, p. 63. This passage is from The Basutos, by the French missionary Casalis (p. 239).
[236]. I give a specimen, choosing a classification which is neither one of the longest nor one of the shortest: (1) Emotions arising from logical relations (reasonable, unreasonable, contradictory, logical satisfaction, ignorance, the unknown, the hypothetical; possibility or impossibility of coming to a conclusion). (2) Emotions arising from relations of time (present, past, future, anticipation, hope, presentiment; feeling of the irremediable, of opportunity, of routine, etc.). (3) Emotions arising from relations of space (size, nearness, distance, etc.). (4) Emotions arising from relations of coexistence and non-existence, quantity, identity, etc. This is a much abridged catalogue; there are thirty-two subdivisions in all.