The Science of Human Nature: A Psychology for Beginners

by William Henry Pyle

So it is always. The biologically important situations in life bring about, through hereditary connections in the nervous system, certain typical reactions. These reactions are largely the same for the same type of situation, and they give the particular coloring to each emotion. It is evident that the emotions are closely related to the instincts. The reflexes that take place in emotions are of the same nature as the instincts. Each instinctive act has its characteristic emotion. There are fear instincts and fear emotions. Fear is unpleasant. In addition to its unpleasantness there is a multitude of sensations that come from the body. The hair stands on end, the heart throbs, the circulation is hastened, breathing is interrupted, the muscles are tense. This peculiar mass of sensations, blended with the unpleasantness, gives the characteristic emotion of fear. But we need not go into an analysis of the various emotions of love, hate, envy, grief, jealousy, etc. The reader can do this for himself.[3]

[3] See James’ Psychology, Briefer Course, Chapter XXIV.

Nearly every organ of the body plays its part in the emotions: the digestive organs, the liver, the kidneys, the throat and mouth, the salivary glands, the eyes and tear glands, the skin muscles, the facial muscles, etc. And every emotion is made up of pleasantness or unpleasantness and the sensations produced by some combination of bodily reactions.

It is well for us to remember the part that bodily conditions and states play in the emotional life. The emotional state of a man depends upon whether he has had his dinner or is hungry, whether the liver is working normally, and upon the condition of the various secreting and excreting organs and glands. In a word, it is evident that our emotions fall within a world of cause and effect. Our feeling states are caused.

Importance in Life. Our feelings and emotions are the fountains from which nearly all our volitional actions flow. Feeling is the mainspring of life. Nearly everything we do is prompted by love, or hate, or fear, or jealousy, or rivalry, or anger, or grief. If the feelings have such close relation to action, then the schools must take them into account, for by education we seek to control action. If the feelings control action, then we must try to control the feelings. We must get the child into a right state of mind toward the school, toward his teacher, and toward his work. The child must like the school, like the teacher, and want to learn.

Moreover, we must create the right state of mind in connection with each study, each task. The child must come to feel the need and importance of each individual task as well as of each subject. The task is then desirable, it is to be sought for and worked at, it is important for life.

This is merely enlisting the child’s nature in the interest of his education. For motive, we must always look to the child’s nature. The two great forces which pull and drive are pleasure and pain. Nature has no other methods. Formerly the school used pain as its motive almost exclusively. The child did his tasks to escape pain. For motive we now use more often the positive influences which give pleasure, which pull instead of drive. What will one not do for the loved one? What will one not do to the hated one? The child who does not love his teacher gets little good from school while under that teacher. Moreover, school work is often a failure because it is so unreal, has so little relation to an actual world, and seems foreign to any real needs of the child. No one is going to work very hard unless the work is prompted by desire. Our desires come from our needs. Therefore, if we are to enlist the child’s feelings in the service of his education, we must make the school work vital and relate it, if possible, to the actual needs of the child.

It must not be forgotten, however, that we must build up permanent attitudes of respect for authority, obedience, and reverence for the important things of life. Neither must it be forgotten that we can create needs in the child. If in the education of the child we follow only such needs as he has, we will make a fine savage of him but nothing else. It is the business of the school to create in the child the right kind of needs. As was pointed out in our study of the instincts, we must make the child over again into what he ought to be. But this cannot be a sudden process. One cannot arouse enthusiasm in a six-year-old child over the beauties of higher mathematics. It takes ten or fifteen years to do that, and it must be done little by little.

Control of the Emotions. Without training, we remain at the mercy of our baser emotions. The child must be trained to control himself. Here is where habit comes in to modify primitive action. The child can be trained to inhibit or prevent the reactions that arise in hatred, envy, jealousy, anger, etc. For a fuller discussion of this point we must wait till we come to the discussion of habit and moral training.

Mood and Temperament. A mood is a somewhat extended emotional state continuing for hours or days. It is due to a continuance of the factors which cause it. The state of the liver and digestive organs may throw one for days into a cross and ugly mood. When the body becomes normal, the mood changes or disappears. Similarly, one may for hours or days be overjoyed, or depressed, or morose, or melancholy. Parents and teachers should look well to the matter of creating and establishing continuous and permanent states of feeling that are favorable to work and development.