The Psychology of the Emotions

by Th. Ribot

The false or abstract memory of feeling is only a sign, a simulacrum, a substitute for the real occurrence, an intellectualised state added to the purely intellectual elements of the impression, and nothing more.

2. The true or concrete memory of impressions consists in the actual reproduction of a former state of feeling, with all its characteristics. This is necessary—at least in theory—if it is to be complete. The nearer it approaches to totality, the more accurate it is. Here the recollection does not consist merely in the representation of conditions and circumstances, in short, of intellectual states, but in the revival of the state of feeling itself as such, i.e., as felt. I have already given instances of this: Fouillée’s experiment, the cases of Littré and Sully-Prudhomme; those numbered III. and IV., so clear and precise, show that a true memory of impressions, independent of its intellectual accompaniment, is no chimera.

Bain says that the emotions, “in their strict character of emotions proper, have the minimum of revivability; but being always incorporated with the sensations of the higher senses, they share in the superior revivability of sights and sounds.” On which Professor W. James makes the following comment: "But he fails to point out that the revival of sights and sounds may be ideal without ceasing to be distinct; whilst the emotion, to be distinct, must become real again. Professor Bain seems to forget that an ‘ideal emotion,’ and a real emotion prompted by an ideal object, are two very different things."[^[106]]

I maintain, on the contrary, that we have here only two different stages of the same thing; the first ineffectual and abortive, the second complete; and the subject which now occupies us must either have been in a very confused state, or very negligently treated, for a clear mind like that of W. James not to have seen that affective memories, like others, aim at becoming actual states of feeling. We ought not, however, to forget the indisputable fact that our consciousness only exists in the present. For a recollection, however distant, to exist, as far as I am concerned, it must re-enter the narrow area of present consciousness; otherwise it is buried in the depths of the unconscious and equivalent to the non-existent. We have thus (not to speak of the present-future) a present-present and a present-past—viz., that of memory; and this is only distinguished from the other by certain additional marks which it is needless to enumerate, but which consist principally in its appearing like an initial state, though, in general, less intense. Now these indispensable conditions of memory are the same for both intellectual and emotional states. If, with my eyes shut, I can call up the vision of St. Peter’s at Rome (if I were an architect, with a good visual memory, I should see it in all its details), my impression is an actual one, and only becomes a memory by the addition of secondary characteristics, such as repetition and a lower degree of intensity. The two cases are similar; in both, the revived impression, according to the law formulated by Dugald Stewart and Taine, is accompanied by a momentary belief which places it in the position of an actual reality. But the recollection of a feeling, it will be said, has this special property, that it is associated with organic and physiological states which make of it a real emotion. I reply that it must be so, for an emotion which does not vibrate through the whole body is nothing but a purely intellectual state. To expect that we should actually revive a state of feeling without reviving also its organic conditions, is to expect the impossible, to state the problem in contradictory terms. We should, in that case, simply have its substitute, its abstraction, i.e., the false affective memory which is a variety of intellectual memory; the emotion will be recognised, not revived.

Finally, the ideal of every recollection is that, while keeping its character of being already experienced, it should be adequate in such measure as was possible for the original impression. The revival of impressions is an internal operation, whose extreme form is hallucination. For the two forms of memory, intellectual and emotional, the ideal is the same, only each has its special mechanism for realising it.

There are all possible degrees of transition from the simple bald representation of the words pleasure or pain, love or fear, to the acute, fully and entirely felt representation of these states. In a crowd of people taken at random, one might, with the help of adequate information, determine all the intermediate degrees, from the abstract to the concrete. Still more, these may be met with in the same individual. When the poet says that “Sadness departs upon the wings of Time,” his meaning, in psychological language, is that the affective memory is gradually transformed into an intellectual memory. We know that certain artists, in order to get rid of the memory of a sorrow or a passion, have fixed it in a work of art. This was Goethe’s method; every one knows the story of Werther, to quote but one example. One of my correspondents employs the same procedure with success; i.e., in the case we are dealing with, the question is how to transfer emotion to the region of the imagination, and, consequently, intellectualise it.

I have said that in certain persons the revival of emotional states seems to be complete. Is it so in fact? I believe that it is impossible to give a precise answer to this question; and here we have a point where the emotional memory differs from the intellectual memory.

A given recollection is considered accurate; but in the majority of cases this is only an illusion. Nearly always, in revived impressions, there are deductions and losses, sometimes additions; sometimes they include plus, sometimes minus factors. At any rate, in the intellectual order, there are certain cases where one can say that the recollection is perfect, without the least gap or error; and this affirmation is legitimate because verifiable. It is quite sufficient to compare the copy with the original. If I enter a hall of the Alhambra with my eyes closed, I can ascertain whether the inner vision which I have retained from a former visit is adequate to the reality. I can check my recollection of a passage of music by the actual hearing of the same. The painter mentioned by Wigan who executed his portraits from memory, Mozart reconstructing Allegri’s Miserere, are the classic examples of perfect cases where the impression is revived with irreproachable exactitude.

But in the region of the feelings this comparison is impossible, because two subjective states, of which one is the original and one the copy, cannot co-exist in the same individual, and because the primary impression cannot be objectivised. I see but one way of getting over the difficulty so as to arrive at an approximately correct answer. This would consist in comparing the revived emotional state with a written document dating from the moment of the first impression; and even this impression is open to doubt. J. J. Rousseau, speaking of the enthusiasm aroused by the love-letters of the Nouvelle Héloïse, tells us that they were inspired by his own love for Madame d’Houdetot, and adds, “What would they have said could they have read the originals!” It is possible that Rousseau was more or less mistaken; but this is a comparison of the kind I am suggesting. A correspondent, well equipped for psychological observations, and accustomed to note down the day’s impressions, had promised me to attempt such a comparison between the actual recollection and the written document; but various causes have prevented the accomplishment of this purpose. One might possibly, without much trouble, chance to recover a letter written under the impression of the moment, and compare it with the present emotional recollection which, rightly or wrongly, we consider most correct. For my part, I am inclined to doubt whether, in the case of feelings, there is ever a complete correspondence between the original and the copy; but this is merely a hypothetical view.

It still remains to say a few words on forgetfulness in the region of the emotions. Affective amnesia is found in two forms—one pathological, the other normal.