ous, and the like. Such a judicial state of mind as this is
to be classed among cognitive rather than among emotional
acts.
Description of Fear. — For the reasons given on p. 374, 1
will ajtjicnd no inventory or clac-sification of emotions oi
description of their symptoms. The reader has practically
almost all the facts in his own hand. As an example,
however, of the best sort of descriptive work on the symp-
toms, I will fjuote Darwin's account of them in fear.
"Fear is often preceded ])y astonishment, and is so far
akin to it that both lead to the senses of sight and hearing
being instantly aroused. In both cases the eyes and moutli
arc widely opened and the eyebrows raised. The fright-
ened man at first stands like a statue, motionless and
breathless, or crouches down as if instinctively to escape
observation. The heart jcats cjuickly and violently, so that
it palpitates or knocks against the ribs; but it is very doubt-
ful if it then works more efficiently than usual, so as to
send a greater supjdy of blood to all parts of the body; for
the skin instantly becomes pale as during incij)ient faint-
ness. This ])al('ness of the surface, however, is ])robabiy
in large part, or is exr-lusively, due to the vaso-motor cen-
tre being afTcftcd in su<'h a nnmner as to cause the con-
traction of the small arteries of the skin. 'J'hat the skin
is much affected under the sense of great fear, we see in
the marvellous manner in whifdi perspiration iiinpcdialcly
exurlcH from it. This exudation is all the more remark-
able, as tlie surface is (hen cold, and hem-e the term, a cold
sweat; whereas the sudorific glands are ])ropcrly excited
into action wlien the surface is heated. The hairs also
on the skin stand erect, and the superficial muscles shiver.
386 PSTCHOLOOY,
In connection with, the disturbed action of the heart the
breathing is hurried. The salivary glands act imperfectly ;
the mouth becomes dry and is often opened and shut. I
have also noticed that under slight fear there is strong
tendency to yawn. One of the best marked symptoms is
the trembling of all the muscles of the body; and this is
often first seen In the lips. From this cause, and from the
dryness of the mouth, the voice becomes husky or indis-
tinct or may altogether fail. * Ohdiqmi steteruntque
comce, et vox faucibus hmsit.' ... As fear increases into
an agony of terror, we behold, as under all violent emo-
tions, diversified results. The heart beats wildly or must
fail to act and faintness ensue; there is a death-like pallor;
the breathing is labored; the wings of the nostrils are
widely dilated; there is a gasping and convulsive motion
of the lips, a tremor on the hollow cheek, a gulping and
catching of the throat; the uncovered and protruding eye-
balls are fixed on the object of terror; or they may rolj
restlessly from side to side, Inic illuc volena oculos totiimque
per err at. The pupils are said to be enormously dilated.
All the muscles of the body may become rigid or may be
thrown into convulsive movements. The hands are alter-
nately clenched and opened, often with a twitching move-
ment. The arms may be protruded as if to avert some
dreadful danger, or may be thrown wildly over the head.
The Rev. Mr. Hagenauer has seen this latter action in a
terrified Australian. In other cases there is a sudden and
uncontrollable tendency to headlong flight; and so strong
is this that the boldest soldiers may be seized with a sud-
den panic.'**
\y Genesis of the Emotional Reactions. — How come the va-
rious objects which excite emotion to produce such special
and different bodily effects ? This question was not asked
till quite recently, but already some interesting suggestions
towards answering it have been made.
Some movements of expression can be accounted for as
'*Origm of the Emotions (N Y. «»4.), p.
EMOTION. 387
treal-ened repetitions of movements which formerly (when
they were stronger) were of ntilifi/ to the st(bject. Others
are similarly weakened repetitions of movements which
under other conditions were phi/siuloyioilli/ necessary con-
comitants of the useful movements. Of the latter reactions
the respiratory disturbances in anger and fear might be
taken as examples— organic reminiscences, as it were,
reverberations in imagination of the blowings of the man
making a series of combative elTorts, of the pantings of
one in precipitate flight. Such at least is jc suggestion
made by Mr. Spencer which has found approval. And he
also was the first, so far as I know, to suggest that other
movements in anger and fear could be explained by the
nasciiiit excittiiioii-^ formerly useful acts.
*'To have in a slight degree," lie says, "such psychical
states as accompany the reception of wounds, and are ex-
perienced during flight, is to be in a state of what we call
fear. And to have in a slight degree such psychical states
as the processes of catching, killing, and eating imply, is
to have the desires to catch, kill, and eat. That the pro-
pensities to the acts are nothing else than nascent excita-
tions of the psychical state involved in the acts, is. proved
by the natural language of the propensities. Fear, when
strong, expresses itself in cries, in efforts to escape, in pal-
pitations, in tremblings; and these are just the manifesta-
tions that go along with an actual suffering of the evil
feared. The destructive passion is shown in a general ten-
Bion of the muscular system, in gnashing of teeth and pro-
trusion of the claws, in dilated eyes and nostrils in growls;
and these are weaker forms of the actions that accompany
the killing of prey. To such objective evidences every one
can add subjective evidences. Everyone can testify that
the psychical state called fear consists of mental represen-
tations of certain painful results; and that the one called
"nger consists of mental representations of the actions and
improRgions which would occur whilo inflicting some kind
of tai'^ "
388 PSYCHOLOGY.
The principle of revival, in iveahened formy of reacfiom
oisefid in more violent dealings with tlie object insjnring
the emotlojif has found many applications. So slight a
symptom as the snari or sneer, the one-sided uncovering
of the upper teeth, is accounted for by Darwin as a sur-
vival from the time when our ancestors had large canines,
and unfleshed them (as dogs now do) for attack. Similarh
the raising of the eyebrows in outward attention, the open
ing of the mouth in astonishment, come, according to tho
same author, from the utility of these movements in ex-
treme cases. The raising of the eyebrows goes with tho
opening of the eye for better vision; the opening of the
mouth with the intensest listening, and with the rapid
catching of the breath which precedes muscular effort.
The distention of the nostrils in anger is interpreted by
Spencer as an echo of the way in which our ancestors
had to breathe when, during combat, their "mouth was
filled up by a part of an antagonist's body that had been
seized" (!). The trembling of fear is supposed by Mante-
gazza to be for the sake of warming the blood (!). The
reddening of the face and neck is called by Wundt a com-
pensatory arrangement for relieving the brain of the
blood-pressure which the simultaneous excitement of the
heart brings with it. The effusion of tears is explained
both by this author and by Darwin to be a blood-withdraw-
ing agency of a similar sort. The contraction of the mus-
cles around the eyes, of which the primitive use is to pro-
tect those organs from being too much gorged with blood
during the screaming fits of infancy, survives in adult life
in the shape of the frown, which instantly comes over the
brow when anything difficult or displeasing presents itself
either to thought or action.
" As the habit of contracting the brows has been fol-
lowed by infants during innumerable generations, at the
commencement of every crying or screaming fit," says
Darwin, " it has become firmly associated with the incip-
ient sense of something distressing or disagreeable. Hence.
KMOTioy. ^^89
onder similar circumstances, it would be apt to be con-
tinued during maturity, although never then developed,
into a erving tit. Screaming or weeping begins to be volun-
tarily restrained at an early period of life, whereas frowning
is hardly ever restrained at any age."
Another principle, to which Darwin perhaps haraly
does suf!icient justice, may be called the principle of
reacting siinilarli/ to nnnhif/ous-feeli'in/ .'<fiiiiitli. There is
ft whole vocabulary of descriptive adjectives common to
impressions belonging to dilTerent sensible sjdieres — exjie-
ir-iences of all classes are sweet, impressions of all classes
rich or solid, sensations of all classes sliarp. AVundt and
V^iderit accordingly explain many of our most expressive
reactions upon moral causes as symbolic gustatory move-
ments. As soon as any experience arises which has an
affinity with the feeling of sweet, or bitter, or sour, the
same movements are executed which would result from
the taste in point. "All the states of mind which lan-
guage designates by the metaphors bitter, harsh, sweet,
coml)ine themselves, therefore, with the corresponding
mimetic movements of the mouth." Certainly the emo-
tions of disgust and satisfaction do express themselves in
this mimetic way. Disgust is an incipent regurgitation
or retching, limiting its expression often to the grimace of
the lips and nose; satisfaction goes with a sucking smile,
or tasting motion of the lips. The ordinary gesture of
negation — among us, moving the head about its axis from
Kide to side — is a reaetion originally used by ])abies to keep
ilisagreeables from getting into their mouth, and may bo
observed in perfeetion in any nursery. It is now evoked
where the stimulus is oidy an unwelcome idea. Simi-
larlv tlie nod forward in aHirmation is after the analogy of
takinfr food into the mouth. Tbe connection of the ex-
pression of moral or social disdain or dislike, especially in
women, with movements having a perfec^tly (Ictinitc^ origi-
nal olfactory function, is too obvious for comment. Wink-
390 PSTGHOLOOT.
ing is the effect of any threatening surprise, not only of
what puts the eyes in danger; and a momentary aversion
of the eyes is very apt to be one's first symptom of response
to an unexpectedly unwelcome proposition. — These may
suffice as examples of movements expressive from analogy.
But if certain of our emotional reactions can be ex-
plained by the two principles invoked — and the reader will
himself have felt how conjectural and fallible in some of
the instances the explanation is — there remain many reac-
tions which cannot so be explained at all, and these we
must write down for the present as purely idiopathic effects
of the stimulus. Amongst them are the effects on the
viscera and internal glands, the dryness of the mouth and
diarrhoea and nausea of fear, the liver-disturbances which
sometimes produce jaundice after excessive rage, the
urinary secretion of sanguine excitement, and the bladder-
contraction of apprehension, the gaping of expectancy,
the 'lump in the throat' of grief, the tickling there and
the swallowing of embarrassment, the ' precordial anxiety '
of dread, the changes in the pupil, the various sweatings
of the skin, cold or hot, local or general, and its flushings,
together with other symptoms which probably exist but
are too hidden to have been noticed or named. Trem-
bling, which is found in many excitements besides that of
terror, is, pace Mr. Spencer and Sig. Mantegazza, quite
pathological. So are terrors other strong symptoms : they
are harmful to the creature who presents them. In an
organism as complex as the nervous system there must be
many incidental reactions which would never themselves
have been evolved independently, for any utility they might
possess. Sea-sickness, ticklishness, shyness, the love of
music, of the various intoxicants, nay, the entire aesthetic
life of man, must be traced to this accidental origin. It
would be foolish to suppose that none of the reactions
called emotional could have arisen in this g'wasi-accidental
way.
CHAPTER XXV.
INSTINCT.
Its Definition. — Instinct is usunlly defined as thefacittt//
cf acting in such a wai/ as to produce certain ends, witliout
foresight of the ends, and u'ithout previous education in
the performance. Instincts are the functional correlatives
of structure. With the presence of a certain organ goes,
one may say, almost always a native aptitude for its use.
The actions we call instinctive all conform to the gen-
eral reflex type; they are called forth by determinate
Bensory stimuli in contact with the animal's body, or at
a distance in his environment. The cat runs after the
mouse, runs or sL ows fight before the dog, avoids falling
from walls and trees, shujis fire and water, etc., not
because he has any notion either of life or of death, or of
self, or of preservation, lie has probably attained to no
one of these conceptions in such a way as to react definitely
upon it. lie acts in each case separately, and simply
because he cannot help it; being so framed tiuit when that
particular running thing called a mouse appears in his
field of visifjn he must })ursue; that wiien tliat })articular
barking and obstreperous tiling called a dog ai)i)ears tlieru
he must retire, if at a distance, and scratcii if close by;
that he jnust withdraw liis feet from water and bis face
from flame, etc. His nervous system is to a great extent a
preorganized l)undle of sucli reactions— they are as fatal as
sneezing, and as exactly correlated to their special excitants
tm it is to its own. Although the naturalist may, fur his
own convenience, class these reactions under general heads,
he must not forget that in tlu; animal it is a particular sen-
Batioii or i)erce])tion or image which calls them forth.
392 PSYCHOLOOT.
At first this view astounds us by the enormous number
of special adjustments it supposes animals to possess ready-
made in anticipation of the outer things among which they
are to dwell. Can mutual dependence be so intricate and
go so far ? Is each thing born fitted to particular other
things, and to them exclusively, as locks are fitted to their
keys ? Undoubtedly this must be believed to be so. Each
nook and cranny of creation, down to our very skin and
entrails, has its living inhabitants, with organs suited to
the place, to devour and digest the food it harbors and to
meet the dangers it conceals; and the minuteness of adap-
tation thus shown in the way of structure knows no
bounds. Even so are there no bounds to the minuteness
of adaptation in the way of conduct which the several
inhabitants display.
The older writings on instinct are ineffectual wastes of
words, because their authors never came down to this defi-
nite and simple point of view, but smothered everything
in vague wonder at the clairvoyant and prophetic j)ower of
the animals — so superior to anything in man — and at the
beneficence of God in endowing them with such a gift.
But God's beneficence endows them, first of all, with a
nervous system; and, turning our attention to this, makes
instinct immediately appear neither more nor less wonder-
ful than all the other facts of life.
Every inptinct is an impulse. Whether we shall call
such impulses as blushing, sneezing, coughing, smiling, or
dodging, or keeping time to music, instincts or not, is a
mere matter of terminology. The process is the same
throughout. In his delightfully fresh and interesting
work, ' Der Thierische Wille,' Herr G. H. Schneider sub-
divides impulses [Triehe) into sensation-impulses, percep-
tion-impulses, and idea-impulses. To crouch from cold is
a sensation-impulse; to turn and follow, if we see people
running one way, is a perception-impulse j to cast about
for cover, if it begins to blow and rain, is an imagination-
impulse. A single complex instinctive action may involve
JASTIXCT. 393
successively the awakening of impulses of all three classes.
Thus a liungry lion starts to geek prey by the awakening
in him of imagination coupled with desire; he begins to
sfalk it when, on eye, ear, or nostril, he gets an impression
of its presence at a certain distance; he ,y)riti</s upon it,
either when the booty takes alarm and flees, or when the
distance is suthcicntly reduced; he proceeds to lear and
ilevdur it the moment he gets a sensation of its contact
with his claws ami fangs. Seeking, stalking, sjiringing, and
devouring are just so many dilTcrent kiiuls of muscular
contraction, and neither kind is called forth by the stimu-
lus ajvpropriate to the other.
ytjic, iclty do the various animals du icliaf seem to us such
siramje thiu(js, in the presence of such outlandish stimuli ?
Why does the hen, for example, submit herself to the
tedium of incubating such a fearfully uninteresting set of
objects as a nestful of eggs, unless she have some sort of a
prophetic inkling of the result? The only answer is ad
Immiueui. We can only interpret the instincts of brutes
by what we know of instincts in ourselves. Why do men
always lie down, when they can, on soft beds rather than
on hard floors ? Why do they sit round the stove on a
cold day ? Why, in a room, do they place themselves,
ninety-nine times out of a hundred, with their faces
towards its middle rather than to the wall ? A\ hy do they
prefer saddle of mutton and cham})agne to hard-tack and
ditch-water? Why does the imiiden interest the youth so
that everything ab(Mit hrr seems more important ami sig-
nidcant than anything else in the world '' Nothing more
can be said than that these are human ways, and that
every creature likes its own ways, and takes to the follow-
ing them as a matter of course. Science may come and
consider these ways, and find that most of thcin are useful.
Hut it is not for the sake of tlieii- utility that they are fol-
lowed, but because at the mt»ment of following them wo
feel that tiiat is the oidy apitropriate and natural thing to
do. Not one man in a i)iilion. when taking his dinner,
394 PSYCHOLOO T.
ever thinks of utility. He eats because the food tastes
good and makes him want more. If you ask him ivhy he
should want to eat more of what tastes like that, instead
of revering you as a philosopher he will probably laugh at
you for a fool. The connection between the savory sensa-
tion and the act it awakens is for him absolute and selhst-
verstdndlich, an 'a priori synthesis' of the most perfect
sort, needing no proof but its own evidence. It takes, in
short, what Berkeley calls a mind debauched by learning
to carry the process of making the natural seem strange,
so far as to ask for the ivhy of any instinctive human act.
To the metaphysician alone can such questions occur as:
Why do we smile, when pleased, and not scowl ? Why are
we unable to talk to a crowd as we talk to a single friend ?
Why does a particular maiden turn our wits so upside-
down ? The common man can only say, " Of course we
smile, of course our heart palpitates at the sight of the
crowd, of course we love the maiden, that beautiful soul
clad in that perfect form, so palpably and flagrantly made
from all eternity to be loved !"
And so, probably, does each animal feel about the par-
ticular things it tends to do in presence of particular ob-
jects. They, too, are a jorion" syntheses. To the lion it is
the lioness which is made to be loved; to the bear, the she-
bear. To the broody hen the notion would probably seem
monstrous that there should be a creature in the world to
whom a nestful of eggs was not the utterly fascinating and
precious and never-to-be-too-much-sat-upon object which
it is to her.
Thus we may be sure that, however mysterious some
animals' instincts may appear to us, our instincts will
appear no less mysterious to them. And we may conclude
that, to the animal which obeys it, every impulse and
every step of every instinct shines with its own sufficient
light, and seems at the moment the only eternally right
and proper thing to do. It is done for its own sake exclu-
sively. What voluptuous thrill may not shake a fly, when
INSTINCT. 395
she at last discovers the one particular leaf, or carrion, or
bit of dung, that out of all tlie world can stimulate hor
ovipositor to its discharge? Does not the discharge then
seem to her the only titting thing? And need she care or
know anything about the future maggot and its food ?
Instincts are not always blind or invariable. Nothing
is commoner than the remark that man differs from lower
creatures by the almost total absence of instincts, and tlie
assumption of their work in him by 'reason.' A fruitless
discussion might be waged on this point by two theorizers
who were careful not to define their terms. AVe must of
course avoid a quarrel about words, and the facts of the
case are really tolerably plain. Man has a far greater
variety of impuhes than any lower animal; and any one
of these impulses, taken in itself, is as ' blind ' as the
lowest instinct can be; but, owing to man's memory,
power of reflection, and power of inference, they come
each one to be felt by him, after he has once yielded to
them and experienced their results, in connection with a
foresight of tiiose results. In this condition an innnilse
acted out may be said to be acted out, in part at least, /or
the sake of its results. It is obvious that every instinctive
act, in an animal with memory, must cease to he 'lAind'
after being once repeated, and must be accompanied with
foresiglit of its ' end ' just so far as that end may have
fallen under the animal's cognizance. An insect that lays
her eggs in a place where she never sees them hatcht'd
must always do so 'blindly'; but a hen who has already
hatched a brood can hardly be assumed to sit with j»erfect
* blindness ' on her second nest. Some exj)ectation of con-
sequences must in every ca«e like this be aroused; and
this expectation, according as it is that of something
desired or of something disliked, must necessarily either
re-enforce or inhibit the mere impulse. The hen's idea of
the chickens would probably encourage her to sit; a rat's
memorv, on the other hand, of a former escape from a trap
would neutralize his irii|ii-1sf to take Imit from anything
396 FS7CH0L0GT.
that reminded him of that trap. If a boy sees a fat hop-
ping-toad, he probably has incontinently an impulse (espe-
cially if with other boys) to smash the creature with a
stone, which impulse we may suppose him blindly to obey.
But something in the expression of the dying toad's
clasped hands suggests the meanness of the act, or
reminds him of sayings he has heard about the sufferings
of animals being like his own ; so that, when next he is
tempted by a toad, an idea arises which, far from spurring
him again to the torment, prompts kindly actions, and
may even make him the toad's champion against less
reflecting boys.
It is plain, then, that, no matter lioio ivdl endoived an
animal may originally he in the ivay of instincts, liis
resultant actions will be much modified if the instincts
combine loith experience, if in addition to impulses he have
memories, associations, inferences, and expectations, on
any considerable scale. An object 0, on which he has
an instinctive impulse to react in the manner A, would
directly provoke him to that reaction. But has mean-
time become for him a sign of the nearness of P, on which
he has an equally strong impulse to react in the manner
B, quite unlike A. So that when he meets 0, the immedi-
ate impulse A and the remote impulse B struggle in his
breast for the mastery. The fatality and uniformity said
to be characteristic of instinctive actions will be so little
manifest that one might be tempted to deny to him alto-
gether the possession of any instinct about the object 0.
Yet how false this judgment would be! The instinct
about is there; only by the complication of the associa-
tive machinery it has come into conflict with another
instinct about P.
Here we immediately reap the good fruits of our simple
physiological conception of what an instinct is. If it be a
mere excito-motor impulse, due to the preexistence of a
certain ' reflex arc ' in the nerve-centres of the creature, of
course it must follow the law of all such reflex arcs. One
liability of such arcs is to have their activity ' inhibited ' by
otlier processes going on at the same time. It makes no
difference whether the arc be organized at birth, or ripen
spuntaneously later, or be due to acquired habit; it must