The Psychology of the Emotions

by Th. Ribot

The pathology of each emotion has been sketched to complete and throw light on the study. I have tried to show that beneath an appearance of confusion, incoherence, and promiscuity, there is, from the morbid to the normal, from the complex to the simple, a conducting thread which will always bring us back to the point of origin.

A work which has for its aim to set forth the present situation of the psychology of feeling and emotion might have been made very long. By eliminating every digression and all historical exposition, it has been made as short as possible.

TH. RIBOT.

CONTENTS.

		PAGE
Introduction—The Evolution of the Affective Life		[1]
	In all affective manifestations there are two elements: the motor states or impulses, which are primary; the agreeable or painful states, which are secondary—Unconscious (organic or protoplasmic) sensibility; micro-organisms—Chemical interpretation; psychological interpretation—Are there pure states of feeling?—Affirmative facts—The period of needs, the instinct of conservation-The period of primitive emotions—How they may be determined; the genetic or chronological method—Fear, anger, affection, the self-feeling, sexual emotion—Are joy and grief emotions?—The abstract emotions and their conditions—The passions are the equivalent in feeling of an intellectual obsession.
Part I.—GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY.
CHAPTER I.
Physical Pain		[25]
	Its anatomical and physiological conditions; pain nerves, transmission to the centres—Modifications of the organism accompanying physical pain: circulation, respiration, nutrition, movements—Are they the effects of pain?—Pain is only a sign—The analgesias: unconsciousness of pain and intellectual consciousness—Retardation of pain after sensation—Hyperalgesia—Nature of pain: theory that it is a sensation; theory that it is a quality of sensation—Pain may result from the quality or the intensity of the stimulus—Hypotheses regarding its ultimate cause: it depends on a form of movement, a chemical modification.
CHAPTER II.
Moral Pain		[42]
	Identity of all the forms of pain—Evolution of moral pain: (1) the pure result of memory; (2) connected with representations; positive form, negative form; (3) connected with concepts—Its external study; physical signs—Therapeutics—Conclusions—A typical case of hypochondriasis.
CHAPTER III.
Pleasure		[48]
	Subject little studied—Is Pleasure a sensation or a quality?—Its physical concomitants: circulation, respiration, movements—Pleasure, like pain, is separable: physical and moral anhedonia—Identity of the different forms of pleasure—The alleged transformation of pleasure into pain—Common ground of the two states—Hypothesis of a difference in kind and in degree—Simultaneity of two opposite processes: what falls under consciousness is the result of a difference—Physiological facts in support of the above.
CHAPTER IV.
Morbid Pleasures and Pains		[61]
	Utility of the pathological method—Search for a criterion of the morbid state; abnormal reaction through excess or defect; apparent disproportion between cause and effect; chronicity—I. Morbid pleasures, not peculiar to advanced civilisation—Different attempts at explanation—This state cannot be explained by normal psychology: it is the rudimentary form of the suicidal tendency—Classification—Semi-pathological pleasures: those destructive of the individual, those destructive of the social order—II. Abnormal pains—Melancholic type—Whence does the painful state arise in its permanent form? from an organic disposition? or from a fixed idea?—Examples of the two cases.
CHAPTER V.
The Neutral States		[73]
	Two methods of study—Affirmative thesis founded on observation, deduction, and psycho-physics—Negative thesis: the psychological trinity; confusion between consciousness and introspection—Diversity of temperaments.
CHAPTER VI.
Conclusions on Pleasure and Pain		[80]
	The beginning of life—I. Conditions of existence of pleasure and pain; lowering and heightening of vital energy—Féré’s experiments—Meynert’s theory—II. Finality of pleasure and pain—Exceptions: explicable cases; irreducible cases.
CHAPTER VII.
The Nature of Emotion		[91]
	Analogy between perception and emotion—Constituent elements of emotion—Summary of the theory of James and Lange—Application of this theory to the higher emotions (religious, moral, æsthetic, intellectual)—Illegitimate confusion between the quality and intensity of emotion—Examination of a typical case: musical emotion—The most emotional of all the arts is the most dependent on physiological conditions—Proofs: its action on animals, on primitive man, on civilised man; its therapeutic action—Why certain sensations, images, and ideas awaken organic and motor states, and, consequently, emotion—They are connected either with natural or social conditions of existence—Differences and resemblances between the two cases—Antecedents of the physiological theory of emotion—Dualist position, or that of the relation between cause and effect—Unitary position; its advantages.
CHAPTER VIII.
The Internal Conditions of Emotion		[113]
	Confused state of this question—Popular versus Medical Psychology—Part played by the brain, the centre of psychic life—Hypotheses on the “seat” of the emotions—Part played by the heart, the centre of vegetative life—Popular metaphors and their physiological interpretation—Are the internal sensations reducible to a single process?—Part played by chemical action in the genesis of emotion—Cases of the introduction of toxic substances—Auto-intoxication—Modifications in the course of mental maladies.
CHAPTER IX.
The External Conditions of Emotion		[124]
	Empiric period—Pre-Darwinian period of scientific research—Examination of Darwin’s three principles—Wundt and his explanatory formulas: Innervation directly modified, Association of analogous sensations, Relations of motion with sensory representations.
CHAPTER X.
Classifications		[130]
	Their discrepancies—Reduced to three types: (1) Classification of pleasures and pains—(2) Classification of emotions: two forms, empiric and analytico-comparative—(3) Classification of representations, intellectualist form—Critical remarks—Impossibility of any classification.
CHAPTER XI.
The Memory of Feelings		[140]
	Can emotional images be revived, spontaneously or voluntarily?—Summary of scattered facts relating to this subject—Inquiry into this question, and method followed—Emotional and gustative images—Internal sensations (hunger, thirst, fatigue, disgust, etc.)—Pleasures and pains; observations—Emotions: three distinct forms of revivability according to observations—Reduction of the images to three groups: revivability, direct and easy, indirect and comparatively easy, difficult and sometimes direct, sometimes indirect—The revivability of a representation is in proportion to its complexity and the motor elements included in it—Reservations to be made on this last point—Is there such a thing as a real emotional memory?—Two cases: false or abstract, and true or concrete memory—Peculiar characters and differences of each case—Change of the emotional into an intellectual recollection—Emotional amnesia: its practical consequences—There exists a general emotional type and partial emotional types—Confirmatory observations—Comparative revivability of agreeable and disagreeable states—To feel acutely and to recall an acute impression of the feeling are two different operations.
CHAPTER XII.
The Feelings and the Association of Ideas		[172]
	The function of the feelings, as the cause of association—The law of affective association, conceived as general, and as local—I. Function of unconscious feeling: ancestral or hereditary unconsciousness; personal unconsciousness arising from cœnæsthesia; personal unconsciousness arising from the events of our life—Law of transference by contiguity, by resemblance: wide or narrow—II. Function of the conscious feelings: accidental cases, permanent cases, exceptional or rare cases.
Part II.—SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY.
Introduction		[187]
	Importance of the study of special feelings—Utility of historical documents—Causes of the evolution of the feelings: (1) intellectual development; (2) hereditary influence, perhaps reducible to influences of environment—Cases in which the evolution of ideas precedes that of feelings—Inverse cases—The intellect swayed by the principle of contradiction; feeling by that of finality—Classification of primitive tendencies—Method to be followed—Group I.: physiological (reception, transformation, restitution)—Group II.: psychophysiological—Group III.: psychological—Their enumeration.
CHAPTER I.
The Instinct of Conservation in its Physiological Form		[199]
	Hypothesis regarding the relation between the nutritive organs and the brain—Perversion of the instincts relating to nutrition—Pathology of hunger and thirst—Proofs furnished of the priority of these tendencies in relation to pleasure and pain—Facts in support of this—Negative tendency; disgust—Its biological value as a protective instinct.
CHAPTER II.
Fear		[207]
	Fear the conservative instinct under its defensive form—Physiology—Psychology—First stage: Instinctive fear—Hypothesis of heredity—Second stage: Fear founded on experience—Pathology—Morbid or pathological fears—Two periods in their study—Attempts at classification—How are they derived from normal fear? Two groups, connected respectively with fear and disgust—Inquiry into the immediate causes: events in life of which a recollection has been retained; of which no recollection has been retained—Occasional transformation of a vague state into a precise form.
CHAPTER III.
Anger		[218]
	Anger the conservative instinct in its offensive form—Physiology—Psychology—Anger passes through two stages, one simple, the other mixed—Its evolution—Animal form, or that of actual aggression—Emotional form, or that of simulated aggression—Appearance of a pleasurable element—Intellectualised form, or that of deferred aggression—Pathology: Epileptic insanity, corresponding to the animal form; the maniacal state, corresponding to the affective form—Disintegrated forms of anger—Overpowering tendencies to destructiveness—How do they arise and take a definite direction?—Return to the reflex state—Essential cause: temperament—Accidental causes.
CHAPTER IV.
Sympathy and the Tender Emotions		[230]
	Sympathy is not an instinct, but a highly generalised psycho-physiological property—Complete sense and restricted sense—Physiological phase: imitation—Psychological phase: first stage, psychological unison; second stage, addition of tender emotion—Tender emotion—Its physiological expression—Its relations with touch—The smile—Tears: hypotheses as to their causes—Tender emotion indecomposable.
CHAPTER V.
The Ego and its Emotional Manifestations		[239]
	Reducible to one primary fact: the feeling of strength or weakness—Positive form: type, pride. Its physiological and psychological characteristics. Its relation to joy and anger. Its evolution—Negative form: humility. Its semi-social character—Pathology, positive form: monomania of power, megalomania—Extreme negative form: suicidal tendency—Psychological problem of this practical negation of the fundamental instinct.
CHAPTER VI.
The Sexual Instinct		[248]
	Its physiology—Its evolution: Instinctive period—Emotional period (Individual choice)—Intellectual period (Platonic love)—Its pathology—How can sexual instinct deviate from the normal course?—Anatomical and social causes—Psychological causes: (a) unconscious, (b) conscious.
CHAPTER VII.
Transition from the Simple to the Complex Emotions		[260]
	The complex emotions are derived from the simple (1) by way of complete evolution; in a homogeneous form: Examples—In a heterogeneous form: Examples—(2) by arrest of development—(3) by composition; two forms—Composition by mixture; with convergent elements; with divergent elements—Composition by combination (sublimity, humour)—Modesty—Is it an instinct?—Hypotheses as to its origin.
CHAPTER VIII.
The Social and Moral Feelings		[275]
	Origin of the Social Feelings—Animal societies—Nutritive societies—The individual and society—Domestic societies—Social instinct has its source neither in sexual nor in maternal love—Gregarious societies—Attraction of like for like—Origin of social tendencies—Accidental and transitory unions, of variable duration, and voluntary—The social tendencies arise from the conditions of existence—Social life does not spring from domestic life—The higher societies among animals: they exclude family relations—Human societies—Two opposite theories of their origin: the family, the horde—Evolution of the family-Evolution of social life—The family and the clan not similar institutions—The moral sense. Two views of its origin: (a) the intellectual, (b) the emotional—They correspond to two stages in its development—Its innateness and its necessity belong to the motor, not the intellectual order—Genesis of the benevolent feeling. Psychological analysis of its generative elements. Facts in support of this—Discoverers in morality—Genesis of the sense of justice—Phases of its development—Conclusion: complexity of the moral sense—Pathology. Elimination of the questions of criminal anthropology. Moral insensibility.
CHAPTER IX.
The Religious Sentiment		[304]
	Importance of the subject—Its Divisions. First Period: origin of the religious feeling—Primitive notions of the Infinite (Max Müller); Ancestor-worship (H. Spencer)—Fetichism, animism; Predominance of fear—Practical, utilitarian, social, but not moral character—Second period: (1) Intellectual evolution; Conception of a Cosmic Order first physical, then moral—Function of increasing generalisation; its stages; (2) Emotional evolution; Predominance of love; addition of the moral sentiment—Third Period: Supremacy of the rational element; Transformation into religious philosophy; Effacement of the emotional element—Religious emotion is a complete emotion—Manifold physiological states accompanying it; ritual, a special form of the expression of emotion—The religious sentiment as a passion—Pathology—Depressive forms: religious melancholy, demonomania—Exalted forms: ecstasy, theomania.
CHAPTER X.
The Æsthetic Sentiment		[328]
	Its origin: the theory of play, and its variants—Æsthetic activity is the play of the creative imagination in its disinterested form. Its instinctive nature—Transition from simple play to aesthetic play: primitive art of pantomimic dancing—Derivation of the arts in motion; of the arts at rest—Why was æsthetic activity evolved?—Art had, in the beginning, a social utility—Evolution of the æsthetic sentiment—Its sociological aspect: progression from the strictly social character towards individualism in the different arts—Its anthropological aspect: progress from strictly human character towards beings and things as a whole—The feeling for nature—The feeling for the sublime only partially belongs to æsthetics—Its evolution: it is not æsthetic in its origin, but becomes so—Why there are not two æsthetic senses—The sense of the comic—Psychology of laughter—It has more than one cause—Theory of superiority. Theory of discord—These correspond to two distinct stages, one of which is foreign to æsthetics—Physiology of laughter. Theory of nervous derivation—Theory of tickling—Pathology. Are there cases of complete æsthetic insensibility? Difficulties and transpositions of the subject—Pathological function of emotion: pessimistic tendencies, megalomania, influence of unconscious activity—Pathological aspects of the creative imagination; its degrees—Reason why the intense image, in artists, does not pass into action; ways in which it is modified—Cause of this deviation; its advantages.
CHAPTER XI.
The Intellectual Sentiment		[368]
	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.
CHAPTER XII.
Normal Characters		[380]
	Necessity of the synthetic point of view in psychology—Historical summary of theories of character: physiological direction, psychological direction—Two marks of the real character: unity, stability—Elimination of acquired characters—Classificatory procedure: four degrees—Genera: the sensitive, the active, the apathetic—Species—Secondary function of the intellect: its mode of action—Sensitives: the humble, the contemplative, the analytical, the purely emotional—Active type: the medium, the superior—Apathetic type: pure type, intelligent type, calculators—Varieties: the sensitive-active, the apathetic-active, the apathetic-sensitive, the temperate—Substitutes for character: partial characters; (a) intellectual form, (b) emotional form.
CHAPTER XIII.
Abnormal and Morbid Characters		[405]
	Are all normal characters mutually equivalent?—Attempt at classification according to their value-Marks of abnormal character: absence of unity, impossibility of prevision—Class I. Successive contradictory characters: anomalies, conversions; their psychological mechanism. Alternating characters—Second class: Contradictory coexistent characters. Incomplete form: contradiction between principles and tendencies. Complete form. Contradiction between one tendency and another—Third class: Unstable characters. Their physiological and psychological characters—Psychological infantilism.
CHAPTER XIV.
The Decay of the Affective Life		[423]
	Law of Decay: its formula, and its general application in psychology—Difficulties where the affective life is concerned—Successive disappearance of the disinterested emotions (the æsthetic and intellectual), of the altruistic (moral and social), the ego-altruistic (religious feeling, ambition, etc.), and lastly, the egoistic—Converse proof: cases of arrested development—Theory of degeneration—Its relation to decay.
Conclusion		[438]
	The place of the feelings in psychic life—They come first—Physiological proofs—Psychological proofs.

INTRODUCTION.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE AFFECTIVE LIFE.

In all affective manifestations there are two elements: the motor states or impulses, which are primary; the agreeable or painful states, which are secondary—Unconscious organic protoplasmic sensibility; microorganisms—Chemical interpretation; psychological interpretation—Are there pure states of feeling?—Affirmative facts—The period of needs, the instinct of conservation—The period of primitive emotions—How they may be determined; the genetic or chronological method—Fear, anger, affection, the self-feeling, sexual emotion—Are joy and grief emotions?—The abstract emotions and their conditions—The passions are the equivalent in feeling of an intellectual obsession.

At the outset it may be useful to sketch in rough outline the general evolution of the life of feeling from its humble origin in organic sensibility to its highest and most complex forms. Afterwards we shall present the corresponding and inverse picture, that of its dissolution.

If we take at random, in the form in which daily experience gives them to us, the states known under the vague names of “sentiments,” “emotions,” “passions”: joy and sorrow, a toothache, a pleasurable perfume, love or anger, fear or ambition, æsthetic enjoyment or religious emotion, the rage of gambling or benevolence, the shudder of the sublime or the discomfort of disgust, and so on, for they are innumerable, one first observation is obvious even on a superficial examination: all these states, whatever they may be, offer a double aspect, objective or external, subjective or internal.

We note in the first place the motor manifestations: movements, gestures, and attitude of the body, a modification in the voice, blushing or pallor, tremors, changes in the secretions or excretions, and other bodily phenomena, varying in different cases. We may observe them in ourselves, in our fellows, and in animals. Although they may not always be motor in the strict sense, we may so call them, since they are all the result of a centrifugal action.