Now that the principle of the interindividual diffusion of feeling has been stated and explained, we may return to our main line of research and examine its bearings on the expressional impulse. We have seen that in the social surroundings of the individual there is enacted a process resembling that which takes place within his own organism. Just as functional modifications spread from organ to organ, just as wider and wider zones of the system are brought into participation in the primary enhancement or inhibition, so a feeling is diffused from an individual to a circle of sympathisers who repeat its expressional movements. And just as all the widened “somatic resonances” contribute to the primary feeling-tone increased strength and increased definiteness, so must the emotional state of an individual be enhanced by retroactive stimulation from the expressions by which the state has, so to say, been continued in others. By the reciprocal action of primary movements and borrowed movements, which mutually imitate each other, the social expression operates in the same way as the individual expression. And we are entitled to consider it as a secondary result of the general expressional impulse, that when mastered by an overpowering feeling we seek enhancement or relief by retroaction from sympathisers, who reproduce and in their expression represent the mental state by which we are dominated.
In point of fact we can observe in the manifestations of all strong feelings which have not found a satisfactory relief in individual expression, a pursuit of social resonance. A happy man wants to see glad faces around him, in order that from their expression he may derive further nourishment and increase for his own feeling. Hence the benevolent attitude of mind which as a rule accompanies all strong and pure joy. Hence also the widespread tendency to express joy by gifts or hospitality. In moods of depression we similarly desire a response to our feeling from our surroundings. In the depth of despair we may long for a universal cataclysm to extend, as it were, our own pain. As joy naturally makes men good, so pain often makes them hard and cruel. That this is not always the case is a result of the increased power of sympathy which we gain by every experienced pain. Moreover, we have need of sympathetic rapport for our motor reactions against pain. All the active manifestations of sorrow, despair, or anger which are not wholly painful in themselves are facilitated by the reciprocal influence of collective excitement. Thus all strong feelings, whether pleasurable or painful, act as socialising factors.[120] This socialising action may be observed at all stages of development. Even the animals seek their fellows in order to stimulate themselves and each other by the common expression of an overpowering feeling. As has been remarked by Espinas, the flocking together of the male birds during the pairing season is perhaps as much due to this craving for mutual stimulation as to the desire to compete for the favour of the hen.[121] The howling choirs of the macaws[122] and the drum concerts of the chimpanzees[123] are still better and unmistakable instances of collective emotional expression. In man we find the results of the same craving for social expression in the gatherings for rejoicing or mourning which are to be met with in all tribes, of all degrees of development. And as a still higher development of the same fundamental impulse, there appears in man the artistic activity.
The more conscious our craving for retroaction from sympathisers, the more there must also be developed in us a conscious endeavour to cause the feeling to be appropriated by as many as possible and as completely as possible. The expressional impulse is not satisfied by the resonance which an occasional public, however sympathetic, is able to afford. Its natural aim is to bring more and more sentient beings under the influence of the same emotional state. It seeks to vanquish the refractory and arouse the indifferent. An echo, a true and powerful echo—that is what it desires with all the energy of an unsatisfied longing. As a result of this craving the expressional activities lead to artistic production. The work of art presents itself as the most effective means by which the individual is enabled to convey to wider and wider circles of sympathisers an emotional state similar to that by which he is himself dominated.
We propose in the next chapter to indicate the way in which art in its various forms has served the expressional craving.
CHAPTER VII
DEDUCTION OF ART-FORMS
In the science of art many hypotheses have been advanced as to the order in which the different art-forms have made their appearance. We do not intend to bring forward any new arguments on this much-debated question. Even if our knowledge of prehistoric man were so complete and trustworthy as to entitle us to draw any conclusions as to the earliest stages in art-development, such an appeal to history would in the present connection constitute a grave confusion of standpoints. As long as we are occupied with that abstract datum, the purely artistic activity, we cannot possibly find any support for our reasoning in existing works of art, concerning which the question may always be raised whether the motive was or was not a purely autotelic art-impulse. We shall therefore in the following pages entirely ignore the question of historical sequence and restrict our attention to the various degrees of theoretical priority. Starting from the interpretation of artistic activity which was postulated, but not yet proved, in the preceding chapter, we shall consider those art-forms as most primordial which stand in the closest connection with the expression of feeling. By comparing those manifestations of art-activity which are from our standpoint elementary, with the non-æsthetic expression of emotional states, we shall try to isolate the peculiarly artistic qualities in their simplest possible form. If the result of such a treatment prove consistent with general æsthetic ideals, as exhibited in the literature of art, this fact will naturally go to the credit of our explanation.
The purest and most typical expression of simple feeling is that which consists of mere random movements. Those activities, whether of the whole body or of special parts,—the larynx, for instance,—which follow immediately upon, or rather accompany, a state of pleasure or pain, are in themselves entirely non-æsthetic. Thus it is impossible to see anything artistic in the spectacle of a man leaping or shouting for joy. Yet the lowest kind of lyrical music and lyrical “gymnastic” dance may be almost as directly connected with the original state of feeling as these purely expressional activities. The only difference is that in music and dance the movements have been limited and restrained by the adoption of a fixed sequence in time. This fixed sequence in time—the rhythm—must therefore, from our point of view, be considered as the simplest of all art-forms.
If we were to give a complete account of the psychology of rhythm, it would be impossible not to resort to a sociological and historical mode of treatment. By Dr. Wallaschek’s researches on primitive music it has been conclusively shown how important a part rhythm, as a means of facilitating co-operation, has played in the struggle for existence.[124] And this utilitarian explanation has recently been carried even farther by Professor Bücher, who points out the invaluable saving of effort which the individual obtains by regulating his movements in a fixed sequence of time.[125] We may think that Professor Bücher has stretched his point too far in endeavouring to derive almost all music and poetry from the economical exigencies of labour;[126] but there can be no doubt that in whichever way the ultimate origin of musical arts be explained, their development is largely due to the practical advantages of rhythm. These considerations, however, which will be developed in the following chapters, need not detain us here, where we have to do with the presumably non-utilitarian and purely æsthetic work of art. If the practical advantages of economy and co-operation can be eliminated,—if we can imagine a dance and a song which has not for its aim the facilitation or regulation of some form of work or the stimulation of some effort, which, in short, has its sole aim and purpose in itself,—then the art-element in this dance or song must be explicable without reference to “foreign” purposes.
The only explanation we have been able to find is one which brings us back to the standpoint of the last chapter. Looking upon art as an essentially social activity, we naturally bestow our main attention upon rhythm as a factor of unification. But as we are not allowed to take into account its importance for practical co-operation, we can only interpret it as a means of bringing about emotional community. And it is evident that the fixed sequence in time, when used for the purpose of communicating a state of feeling, must produce the same effect as when it serves the purpose of diffusing and regulating the impulses to work.
This fact can also be observed in all cases of social expression. The most general and simple states of emotional excitement, such as a festive mood or a warlike intoxication, may indeed be diffused with sufficient efficacy by simple contagious imitation. But even with regard to such eminently infectious feelings, if a great mass of men is to be collectively and simultaneously stimulated by a common execution of the appropriate expressive movements, these movements must be regulated by the adoption of a rhythm. On the other hand, as soon as the expression is fixed in rhythmical form its contagious power is incalculably increased. By its incessant and regular recurrence, the rhythm takes a ruthless hold of the attention, and thereby compels even the most recalcitrant to yield to the power of the transmitted feeling.[127]