Psychology and morals; an analysis of character 1923

Front matter

Sivie Shei *

Pg, a pe as oh ipiglalataty er) ta F—-§

McMASTER UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Preface

(| ee substance of the following chapters was delivered as the Dale lectures at Mansfield College, Oxford, in 1920.

I have refrained from discussing the more debatable theories of the ‘‘ new psychology,” and have confined myself to those, such as “conflict” and “repression,” which are most generally accepted not only by psycho-physicians but also by psychologists.

Nor have I stayed to point out where I agree or differ from the schools of Psychoanalysis (Freud) and of Analytical Psychology (Jung). Those who are not acquainted with their writings would find such a discussion tedious, and those who are so - acquainted will be able to detect the differences for themselves.

In spite of the dogmatic tone I have had to assume for the sake of brevity, I fully recognize that on the theoretical side the book is only tentative and suggestive. It attempts merely to present a point of view and makes no claim to be a systematic treatise on ethical theory—that is the province of the philosopher and the divine. Its object is rather to set out facts and principles revealed by modern Psychology, especially in its application to nervous disease, some knowledge of which is of vital importance to all who, like parents, teachers; — clergy, and general practitioners, are called upon to give practical direction and advice to individuals — in regard to the actual problems of life and caus? duct. In doing this I have ventured from time to time to indicate ways in which these facts and principles may modify, at any rate, the expression,

Vv tite vi PREFACE if not also in some respects the nature, of ethical theory. As a practical physician I neither claim the equipment, nor acknowledge the obligation, to produce a complete and intellectually rigid system of moral philosophy. The psychologist, however, is in a position to speak of facts which neither the moral philosopher nor the practical pastor or teacher can afford to ignore.

In this revised edition I have transferred the original Chapter XVIII on Libertinism, and Chapter XIX on Biology and Morality, to stand in their present position as Chapters XIV and XV. I have also made some additional observations, particularly in the sections on the Sex Instinct, pp. 203 ff.

However inadequate, therefore, the theoretical treatment of the subject may be, the principles which I attempt to set forth have stood the test of practical experience. They are the result not of work in the study or laboratory but are the outcome of many years’ experience in dealing with the practical needs and problems of men and women.

Where I have quoted cases from my patients, I have either obtained their permission to do so, or have so disguised them that they cannot possibly be identified. To them and to the various friends who have assisted me in the preparation of this book I] desire to express my gratitude.

To my mother, who taught me the ways of freedom, and to my wife and boys, through whom I have realised joy and happiness, I gratefully dedicate this book.

J. A: Ls ig

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE 1 INTRODUCTORY Be eis : wy oh I Il. THE DETERMINANTS OF CHARACTER: THE HEREDITARY FACTOR: THE ENVIRON-

MEM teE BACTOR Wey Sng III. SENTIMENTS, DISPOSITIONS, AND COM-

VY. COMPLEXES AND CONDUCT: PROJECTION: TEMPTATION AND CONSCIENCE: HABITS 44 VI. ““NERVOUS’’ DISEASE, MORAL DISEASE AND

Chapter 1 Introductory

F one visits the wards of a “‘ shell-shock ” hospital,

one sees there men paralysed, blind, deaf, dumb, and suffering from severe headaches and other pains. It seems incredible, and yet such is the fact, that all these men are suffering from disorders which, though physical in their symptoms, originate not in the body, but in the mind—disorders due, in fact, to disturbances of the emotions. One may visit a ward of another hospital and find men suffering from what appear to be: exactly the same symptoms—they, too, are paralysed and blind—but the disease in these cases is of an entirely different nature, being due to some bodily injury or sickness. The former are ‘‘ psychogenic”’ disorders, that is, disorders originating in the mind, and are variously distinguished as the ‘‘ psychoneuroses,”’ ‘‘ functional nervous disorders,’ or, more popularly, ‘‘ nervous diseases.’ They include neurasthenia, hysteria, anxiety neuroses, phobias, and obsessions, all of which conditions are ultimately due to disturbances of emotional life. In the Psychoneuroses the disorder is not primarily a disorder of structure, but of

I function. ‘‘ Organic”’ diseases on the other hand, as distinct from ‘‘ functional” diseases, are preponderatingly physical in origin, their cause being — found in some defect of bodily structure.

It is a fact of common observation that emotional disturbances can produce physiological changes. / man is said to be, and may actually be, blind with rage, speechless with terror, dumb with grief, paralysed with fear, and sick with disgust. ‘The psychoneuroses are of this character; they, too, are due to emotional disturbance. But whereas under ordinary conditions—-when, for instance, a man is sick at a horrible sight—the symptoms are temporary, _ and normally pass off with the passing of the excitation—in the psychoneuroses the symptoms are more permanent, as though there were some foul spring of repressed emotion which continually discharges itself. Thus the ‘‘ shell-shocked” soldier continues to be ill long after the war is ended#

When we go deeper and investigate the origin of | the psychoneuroses, we often find that they are concerned with problems essentially moral.

The breakdown of the shell-shocked man, for instance, is the result of the conflict between the sense of duty and self-preservation. Nervous pains, tics, terrors, phobias, paralyses, and fatigue are due ~ to conflicts such as that between duty and fear, between moral sense and sex desire, self-display and modesty, between self-assertion and humiliation. The soldier’s functional paralysis of the leg is due to | the failure of will to control his repressed fear; a woman’s pain in the back is found to be a manifestation of her repressed self-pity. In other words, these

INTRODUCTORY 3 physical and mental symptoms are due to defects of _ character.

' In dealing with the psychoneuroses the physician is thus compelled to face the moral problems which lie.at the root of these disorders.

But not only is the physician called upon to deal with the moral problems which lie at the root of ‘““nervous’”’ ailments, he is often called upon to deal directly with moral diseases, such as uncontrollable temper, sex perversions, stealing, cruelty, despondency, irritability, and vanity. Such diseases (which we shall later distinguish from sins),are not in any sense physical, for they are moral both in origin and also in their manifestation. Yet patients suffering from such ailments frequently present themselves to the physician instead of seeking the aid of the clergyman or moralist. Nor is this an accidental choice. They feel, rightly or wrongly, that the moralist will blame them or tell them to exert their wills. ‘They feel, rightly or wrongly, that they are not to blame for their condition. They have, moreover, already exerted their will to no purpose; they have turned their attention to other things; they have been blamed, condemned, threatened; they have been treated with sympathy and love, and all in vain. They then begin to realize that they are suffering from a ‘“‘ moral” disease, and go to a physician, who will treat them as sick and not as sinful.

The psycho-physician is anxious to help the morally sick; he shrinks from nothing; he is shocked at nothing; and no word of blame ever falls from his lips.

In treating nervous disorders like “ shell-shock ” or neurasthenia, the psycho-physician has developed a technique of his own, known as psychotherapy, which deals directly with the emotional conflicts from which they spring. But having learnt and developed this method of dealing with functional nervous diseases, the psycho-physician applies the same method to the treatment of moral diseases, bad tempers, sexual obsessions, and morbid fears. The method differs in many respects from that of the orthodox moral teacher, but it is one which has proved a most effective form of treatment for moral as well as nervous ills. It is the purpose of this book to give a brief account of this method and of the principles underlying it.

Several strong objections have been raised to this invasion of the physician into the sphere of morals.

(1) The moralist and the pure psychologist both maintain that the psychologist, as such, has no concern with moral questions.

It is true that the psychologist, as such, is not concerned with standards of right and wrong. Psychology is the descriptive science of mental processes—it merely observes, describes, and draws generalized conclusions; it does not consider what is right or what ought t@ be. Ethics, on the other hand, is a normative science of moral conduct; it has a certain standard; it seeks to define what is right and wrong, and how we ought to behave. Strictly speaking, the term “‘ moral”’ signifies that which is concerned with a standard of conduct or ideal. Psychologically, a ‘‘ moral”’ struggle involves a conflict between will and impulse, or between two impulses,

HNTRODUCTORY: ©: i a and from this conflict physical or “‘moral’’ disorders may arise. In either case, the psycho-physician who deals with such nervous disorders is compelled to deal with moral problems, if he is to cure his patient. He seeks to apply a scientific method to the solution of these problems, and he aims at a certain standard of health for the individual.

The psycho-physician cannot, therefore, detach himself in a condition of splendid isolation from moral standards of life, whether or not they be the ones accepted by society as a whole. The psycho-analyst who says you “ought not”’ to repress has at one leap sprung clean out of the realm of pure science. Unlike the pure psychologist the physician has a standard, namely, the health of the individual. If psychotherapy aims at curing abnormal individuals, it has already set up a standard or norm. For what is an abnormal individual? Before we can speak of the abnormal we must already have a conception of the normal.

The practice of psychotherapy, therefore, forms the connecting link between pure psychology and the science of morals.

(2) Another objection is raised to the psychophysician dealing with moral problems. It is said that the physician deals only with abnormal men and women, and that to derive principles and form judgments by studying morbid cases will pervert and yitiate our conclusions. ‘This is not as serious an objection as it at first appears. For after all, who of us is normal? ‘The greatest difficulty in studying the psychology of the normal individual is to discover him. From time to time we are called upon to analyse physicians and others who are considered to be, and consider themselves, perfectly normal, but who seek to be analysed in order themselves to practise psychotherapy. They may come as ‘‘normal”’ men but they do not remain “ normal” for long! We find, in fact, that these “healthy ”’ people have complexes, repressions, and abnormalities of character, differing very little from those of patients; and, indeed, one soon forgets that they are not patients. ‘The distinction between a sick man and a healthy man is a practical one, depending on how far he is able to meet the biological responsibilities of life.

Again, in further defense of the study of morbid conditions of conduct, we would point to the fact that in medical science it has frequently happened that the study of diseased conditions has produced discoveries, and added greatly to our knowledge of normal processes. ‘The most notable case of this was the discovery of the function of the thyroid gland, the significance of which was unknown to physiology until it was discovered by the study of diseases traceable to this gland, cretinism and myxoedema—a discovery which has proved to be of immense value in the treatment of imbecility. So the study of abnormal people has helped us enormously to realize the underlying motives of conduct of normal people, and to discover the necessary conditions of healthiness of mind and strength of character. After all, it is only because of abnormalities of conduct that the subject of morality is of any interest at all, and only because every one is more or less abnormal that every one is interesting.

INTRODUCTORY aL AMT a

(3) Again, it is objected that the psycho-physician studies only the individual and his happiness, whereas ethics deal with an objective standard of right and wrong which should be applicable to all men at all times. It is said that one may find an ethic or mode of life which may be perfectly satisfactory for the health and happiness of the individual, but yet is out of keeping with the moral ideal, since this is essentially social.

We maintain, on the contrary, that the most effective way of solving problems concerning the health and happiness of society as a whole is by the study of the health and happiness of the individual. Man is not merely an individual; he is a world, a society, in miniature. He is made up of instincts and emotions, sentiments and complexes, which in no way differ from the emotions and sentiments which prevail in society as a whole. Society is but the reflection of the individual seen in a curved mirror, in which all the essential features are reflected, but in larger proportions, and with varied emphasis. Even instincts like the herd instinct or maternal instinct, which are regarded as distinctively “social,” are really individual instincts, though they operate and manifest themselves in social life. Apart from the individual, they do not exist. The herd instinct is not the instinct of the herd, but the instinct in the individual which compels him to be concerned with the opinions and demands of the herd. The moral demands of society on the individual, which forbid him stealing, killing, or lying, would have little force were it not for this instinct which urges the individual to submission. It is true that we

, g PSYCHOLOGY AND MORALS may learn a great deal about these instincts from the study of their operations in society and in family life, but we may learn a great deal more about them from the direct study of their sources in the soul of the individual, where we may observe all the seething ferments which strive and thrive in the life of the universe. The soul of the individual is the laboratory in which we may observe and even experiment with emotional forces of cosmic significance. The passions that sway the mind of the individual, avarice, vanity, ambition, sex and fear, are the same as those which — arouse the antagonisms of man to man and disturb the peace of society, and it is in the individual that they may be most effectively studied at first hand. We cannot adequately deal with revolutions until we understand the abnormalities and the psychology of the revolutionist: we cannot solve the problem of “evil”? in the world until we understand the impulses from which evil springs in the individual. On the other hand, the ideal which can produce happiness in the individual by harmonizing all his instincts and bringing them under his control will, at the same time, be the ideal which can produce happiness in the community. If by producing perfect harmony in his soul I could make but one of my patients completely happy, I should have the key to the problem of the world’s happiness and goodness. Social and moral problems are essentially psychological. |

The study of the individual is the most promising road to the solution of the problems of society. The plagues that ravage mankind can be fought only by their study under the microscope. We build our

& g

INTRODUCTORY ee bridges by experimenting with mcdels; we engage in sub-calibre practice before firing the big guns; so we should study the facts and problems of individual psychology before making laws for society or treating the ills of the race.

The purpose of this book is to approach the moral problem as a problem of the individual, to set out the psychological factors which constitute character, to study the causes of unrest of spirit, and to suggest lines along which ills may be cured, and the soul made free to realize happiness in a community of moral beings.

CHAPTER ft

THE DETERMINANTS OF CHARACTER: THE HERED- ITARY FACTOR: THE ENVIRON MENTAL FACTOR

Tue HEREDITARY FACTOR

T is generally assumed that the law of heredity

operates as decisively in the mental sphere as in the physical, that the son inherits not merely his father’s features, but also his father’s traits of character and nervous habits. This is an assumption which is now largely discredited.

It is constantly said of some habit or trait of character: ‘‘ My father had it before me; I must have inherited it from him.’”’ Or, again: “ He has had a cruel disposition, a vicious temper, a mean temperament, all his life; he must have been born with it.” But to say “I have had it as long as I can remember ” is no proof that a trait of character is inherited or congenital. Such an assumption was excusable before modern psychological methods opened up to us the earliest years of life. But many things may happen in the first four or five years of life, of which we have no memory, but which nevertheless may influence us for life. Since the development of methods of investigation like hypnosis and psychoanalysis, these early years of life are no longer hidden, but can be recovered to consciousness.

Io

When the experiences of our earliest years are _ exposed, it is found that many of those symptoms _and characteristics, which were previously considered hereditary, are in reality caused by early environmental conditions. Indeed, modern investigation encourages us to believe that few if any psychoneuroses and defects of character are inherited. Those who believe in the hereditary view have yet to prove their case. It is astonishing the way it is assumed in statistics of family traits.?

Two illustrations will make this clear. A man had since childhood a tremor of the hand, which came on after any hard piece of work, physical or mental. His father had had it before him, and it was therefore considered hereditary. Analysis of the origin of the symptom, however, brought to light an incident at three years of age, when the patient had a severe accident to his foot and he was held down by his father while the surgeon probed and cleaned the wound. ‘The father’s tremor was transmitted to the boy’s hands, and became linked up and associated in the boy’s mind with an emotional conflict, in which there was a futile struggle against insuperable odds. The incident was forgotten, but the association between this feeling of struggle against fate and the tremor of the hands remained, and in after life any occasion which demanded strained effort revived by association the tremor of the hand. His condition was

*We must exclude, of course, all conditions of “mental deficiency” in which there is a defect of nerve structure such as an undeveloped brain or other organic disturbance. These conditions though styled “mental” are really physiological and are usually hereditary or congenital.

not hereditary, although his father had had it before him, and he was said to have had it “all his life”’; it was found to be due to this early environmental experience.*

Traits of character, as well as nervous habits, are found to be due to similar experience of early life. A patient suffered from an overbearing conceit which he vainly attempted to overcome; he was “born proud,” with a lofty scorn of his fellows. This was found to be due to the fact that in childhood he was delicate and a “ funk,” but he was encouraged by his fond parents to believe that this was because he was of different clay, of more sensitive breed, of bluer blood than the common herd, and therefore could not be expected to join in their — rough games. This suggestion he absorbed and maintained unconsciously through adult life in order to excuse and hide his excessive but unrecognized timidity. He was not ‘‘ born proud,” but had had pride thrust upon him by foolish parents.

It is true that such conditions may be transmitted

+A man of about twenty-eight years of age had never been able to take milk as long as he could remember. It had always been attributed to a congenital idiosyncrasy of his physiological system. On analysis under hypnosis, it was discovered that at the age of three he was being given a powder (probably Gregory) in milk, which he found too horrible to swallow. At the sixth attempt, as soon as he had taken the mixture into his mouth, the doctor seized his jaw and held his mouth closed, to compel him to swallow it. He choked badly, and was nearly suffocated. Thus, the taste of milk and Gregory was associated in his mind with this terror. The incident was forgotten, but the link of association remained and made it impossible for him to take milk. ‘The morbid associations, being discovered, were broken, , and before he left the room he was given a glass of milk, a meal he thoroughly enjoyed, remarking, “It does not taste like milk at all.” The cause of his idiosyncrasy was not congenital, but environmental.

from the parent, but when this is the case, the ‘transmission is not by way of inheritance but by means of imitation or suggestion in early life, and the exact point of its development during life may be discovered by analysis. ‘The same law seems to operate in this sphere as in a-disease such as tuberculosis, which at one time was considered to be hereditary; we may inherit a predisposition, we cannot inherit the disease. The whole tendency, then, of modern investigation is to minimize the exaggerated importance previously accorded to the hereditary, and to emphasize the importance of the environmental as the important factor in the determination of character. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that we do not inherit bad temper, pride, meanness, alcoholism, or sexual perversions.

This principle is of the greatest practical importance. If the nervous or moral disease is ingrained, it leaves the patient in bondage and servitude to his disease, with very little hope of deliverance. Indeed, there is nothing more calculated to perpetuate such disorders than the false conviction that they are ingrained, and that we can be “tainted” with them.

_ If, on the other hand, we establish the view here maintained, that the abnormal moral and “nervous’”’ conditions are the result of early environmental coniditions, we still regard the individual as sick and ‘therefore free from the full weight of responsibility, but since his sickness is no longer ingrained, we can give him encouragement to hope for cure. ‘The theory of “original sin’? has lost its prominence in the pages of theological writings, and it is time it took its flight from medical literature.

But, whilst emphasizing the fact that we cannot inherit diseases of a moral or psychological character, we must remember that there are important hereditary ‘‘predisposing’”’ factors which, though not themselves morbid, play an important part in the development of abnormal traits of character. These are (a) a “nervous temperament”; (Db) the instincts.

THE Nervous TEMPERAMENT

Nervousness runs in families; some people are born with a nervous temperament. But in the first place, nervousness is not a disease; it is only an ill if it is ill-used. Secondly, it is due to physiological rather than psychological factors, and therefore dots not contradict the principle that “psychoneuroses and moral diseases are not inherited.” 3

(a) The nervous temperament or highly strung disposition depends on the high excitability of the nerves and is physiological in origin. [he nerve impulse as it passes along the nerve meets with certain resistances, especially at the bridges or synapses, between one nerve and another. In some people the resistance is great, and it takes time for the impulse to pass along the nerve path. Such people are therefore slow in thought, phlegmatic in temperament, but steady and reliable in character. They are well-balanced people who never do anything outré—nor anything great. On the other hand, in nervous people, the synapses are “open,”

and the impulse passes rapidly along the nerve paths. They are the rapid thinkers, in whom emotion is closely wedded to thought; they are sensitive but not always sensible, erratic and mercurial in disposition, unstable in character, revolutionary in politics—imaginative like Maeterlinck, witty like Wilde, impulsive like Peter. These, the people of nervous disposition, often draw round them a generous following, but they cannot lead, and the crusade degenerates into a cult. Such men of genius are predisposed to both moral and nervous disorders. Their genius easily turns into madness, for both are based upon the same instability of nervous constitution.

(b) In itself, a nervous temperament is not a disease; everything depends on what we make of it. Thus in a nervous family the father and mother are both highly strung; of the children, one becomes an artist, one a neurotic, another a poet who commits suicide, another an alcoholic, and another a great preacher. The man of nervous temperament may be over-sensitive to the hurts of life, but he is also more sensitive to the beauties and exquisite delights of nature, which the more phlegmatic can only behold with cow-like stolidity. If nervous people are the “‘crocks’’ of the earth, they are also the salt of the earth. A neurotic is often a potential genius.

THE INSTINCTS We also inherit the instincts. These are the chief raw material in the formation of character, for environmental influences would have no effect upon our lives were it not for the instincts which — spring out to meet them. It is the fusion of environmental factors and inherited instinct which conditions experience.*

The most important of the instincts with which we shall be concerned are those of fear-flight, sex, curiosity, parenthood, the herd or social instinct, the instincts of self-display, pugnacity, self-assertion and ambition. We do not propose to consider the nature of instincts, but in view of our further discussion, we must remind ourselves of certain characteristics of the instincts in general.

(a) The instincts are inherited and not acquired; this, indeed, is the one point of agreement in all definitions of instinct or instinctive behaviour. We therefore cannot be held responsible for having them.

(b) Every one, except the mentally deficient, has alj the instincts. It is often said of someone: ‘“ He is without fear’; of another, ‘She has no sexual instincts.”’ It may be true so far that their instincts do not manifest themselves as such in conscious life, and may, therefore, escape recognition, but all the instincts are nevertheless present and operative in every normal life. ‘Their influence may be detected in conduct in disguised forms, as when a man by his

*There is considerable discussion at the present time as to the nature and quality of the instincts; indeed, the question is raised as to whether there are any instincts as such, or whether we should speak only of instinctive activity or instinctive behaviour. For our purpose, I shall accept the view held by most psychologists, and assume the existence of innate instincts which — give rise to instinctive behaviour; and, further, for the sake of simplicity, I shall follow in the main McDougall’s classification of the primary instincts in his “Social Psychology.”

excessive bravado demonstrates the fear he represses, or when a woman betrays her sexual curiosity by her prudery. When repressed, the instincts may give rise to nervous and moral diseases. Their presence can then be demonstrated by mental analysis, which removes the repression and so permits their emergence into conscious life.

(c) Whether the instincts, though present in all normal people, are found in equal measure in every individual, is another question. The question is of particular interest in the determination as to whether there is a difference in the balance of instincts between men and women, whether for instance, men are “naturally” and instinctively more dominating than women.

Even when a special instinct seems excessively strong in any individual, say, the pugnacious or the acquisitive instincts, it is often found that this preponderance of the instinct is due not to its having been more strongly inherited, but to the fact that the instinct was excessively developed in childhood. The acquisitive instincts of a Brighton boardinghouse keeper and a Balkan brigand are probably equally strong; but the fact that the former has his social, and the latter his pugnacious, instincts more highly developed, is probably due to his early training and to the necessities of his calling. ‘The conditions which develop the boy’s acquisitive instinct and another boy’s instinct of display, forming what we call the boy’s “bent,” are largely fortuitous or suggested in childhood. But having once been so developed, it is most important that this instinct should be fully expressed and employed in the future career of the individual. The boy with the strong tendency to display would never be happy in an © ofice, whereas to make the youth with a strong acquisitive instinct into an impecunious artist, 1s obviously to court disaster.

On the other hand, and in spite of the specific development of instincts under environmental influences, it seems probable that, as we are born with different temperaments, so we are born with our — instincts variously developed. If pugnacity and anger are associated with the secretion of the adrenalin glands, and sex instinct with the gonads or sex glands, it would seem that these instincts would vary in strength according to the various endowments of these glands. ‘There are certain types of men in whom the sex instinct, or pugnacious instinct, 1s temperamentally strong or weak; that is, dependent on their physiological organisms, whilst in others the strength or weakness of these instincts depends on the development of these instincts by environmental conditions and early experiences.