The psychology of thought and feeling; a conservative interpretation of results in modern psychology

Preface

This book is the outgrowth from a series of lectures, the reception of which has flattered the author into believing that he may, by their publication, satisfy the wants of a larger circle. Such a judgment is, of course, open to suspicion, but the basis for it lies in the fact that psychology, with its wide appeal, has heretofore been treated in its entirety only in the textbook manner. Psychology, while complex, is not abstruse ; its conclusions are open to all ; no other attributes of mind are required for its understanding than receptivity and common sense. Moreover, its conclusions are too important socially to be neglected in these troublous times, and should be in the possession of all. It is proposed, then, here to give a reasonably complete survey of the whole field, treating the matter briefly, indeed, but, it is hoped, so suggestively that the thought may be led beyond the compass of this small book. The social and educational bearings of the subject will be kept in the foreground throughout, while technicalities and, so far as is possible, controversial and

yii

PREFACE

metaphysical problems will be omitted. No Don Quixote ever fought more windmills than has the older school of psychologists. It is the recognition of the windmills, and the agreement to pass them by as unworthy of combat, that is the excuse for this present writing.

Having been prepared originally for lecture purposes, it has been found difficult now to give that careful attention to "authorities" which the written word demands, but effort will be made in the following pages to place credit where due. I take occasion here to express my especial obligation to Dr. Henry Herbert Goddard and to Prof. William McDougall. Hillbrook, C. P.

Ardmore, Pa.

vni

Contents

Preface

CHAPTER

I Fundamental Conceptions, Ana

Chapter I

Man, unlike other animals, is curious as to himself. The why of his actions, the how of his thought, the what of his ego — these are the problems which have ever dangled tantalizingly before him. Know thyself, commanded the portals of Apollo's temples, and man has ever striven earnestly to obey the behest. Nor has the endeavour been always futile— practical results have been attained even in the philosophical-metaphysical past; Socrates was subtile in analysis; Montaigne, twenty centuries later, was admirable in description; and Browning has been unsurpassed in the expression of intuitive feeling. But, there was something wrong — the problems were too ambitious. With the Ego was sought Consciousness, and, soon, Time, and Space, and the Soul. Abstracts, in

PSYCHOLOGY OP THOUGHT AND FEELING

general, enveloped the seeker in so dense a mental fog, and led him plunging along so miry a way, that he was able to extricate himself only after abandoning all that he had gained. The metaphysical discussion commonly came out the same road it had entered, or, if it did not so emerge, it remained a mere mental gymnastic of most limited appeal. It would seem that the seeker in metaphysical psychology set out, he the most complex and artificial of men, to study himself by a process of introspection. His effort was to get outside of himself, to study himself from without, but the fact remained that what he studied was that which he studied with. It was a lifting of one 's self by the boot-straps, and, as the gentle Philosopher of Chelsea said of it, ' ' a hopeless struggle for the wisest as for the foolishest," adding, by way of pertinent commentary, "an Irish saint once swam the Channel carrying his head in his teeth, but the feat has never been imitated. ' '

Then came Darwin and a new biology. Doors were opened, and psychology timidly peeped through with interested longing glances at the new world revealed. These doors were labelled Ethics, and Morals, Social and Political Economy, Law, Criminology, Medicine, Business, History, and Education — they offered much promise. But no, the psychologist must not venture to pass — the authority of society excitedly prevented. "Our social structures are complete; these doors lead to error.' ' The church shrieked its horror at what had been glimpsed, and law, medicine, and economics, and even pedagogy, quick shut their eyes. With prompt understanding, the Existing-Concepts recognized that what the seeking psychologist was making toward would shake their very foundations. The new thought, then, must of course be wrong; and the psychologist, if he wished to retain his place in society (if he wished, for instance, to retain his chair in the university) , must keep hands off. In the face of this universal bow-wow what was the poor student to do ? The result, the first product of the possibilities of a broader science, was a retirement from the affairs of society altogether; a withdrawal to the laboratory, and devotion there, of time and thought, to artificial experiment. Psychology became a thing of apparatus and remained barren before the world. Charted curves of reactions took the place of metaphysical discussion, and the result was even less interesting than before. So was psychology one generation ago.

What has brought about the present change 1 3

I do not know, but I suspect the world unrest, and the doubt, beginning to form in man's mind, that all was not so well as had been proclaimed. The phase which we are now passing through socially may be characterized as the Phase of the Militant Minorities. Now minorities are not always wrong, and whether, with Henry Adams and others, we should apply to society the second law of thermodynamics, the law of the degradation of energy, may still well be doubted, but, on the other hand, such evidence as society can produce would not seem to be very encouraging. Indolent majorities have everywhere bowed to the pathological energies of small abnormal groups. The political economists have seen their well-planned structures tumbled about them, and are even now being driven to explain. It is a time for taking inventory— it is more than this, it is a time when our understanding of affairs must become more real; when man must make a complete readjustment of the social mechanism — "If we do not mend the machine, there are forces moving in the world that will break it." * Possiblydifficult thought! — the existing economies may not have been founded on elemental truth after all!

* Stephen Leacock, The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice.

The above is one way of looking at it. There is another. Possibly the machine is all right, and the trouble is with ns. Possibly we are not using the machine to advantage, and it is ourselves that need the mending. What we may need is not a readjustment of the social mechanism, but a readjustment to it. At any rate, let us study man once again and not rest on our present formulas. Biology in its investigations seeks the simpler manifestations of a life form, and builds from these to the more complex. Let us do the same. Let us study the child; and let us study man, too, but in the more primitive environment of savagery ; and let us study the idiot and the imbecile, whom we may take as the permanent children of the race, willing to stand still while we study. The savage is not necessarily primitive, nor is the imbecile the same as the child, but the relation in each case is a real one, and based upon it is much of the reasoning that follows.

Whatever the cause of the new attitude toward the science, the doors are now flung wide, and psychology has come to its being. What William James defined as "the description and explanation of states of consciousness, as such," William McDougall, in the modern spirit, defines as "the science of behaviour and of conduct. ' ' The evolution of the last generation in psychology is seen in these two definitions. The principles of organic evolution, the facts of anatomy, and the interpretations of physiology and pathology, are all called into service, and useful work in practical fields begins.

Let us adopt as a general thesis : — that man has certain tendencies or dispositions; that these determine his actions ; that most of these dispositions are innate, inherited, and are, in one sense, unchangeable; that they may, however, be modified in their expression by education and experience. Further, we will conceive society, as we find it, to be a product of these innate tendencies of the individual — a composite of the individuals composing it. And, finally, we will recognize that while society is so composed, it, in turn, reacts upon the individual, directing and modifying his every action. The individual is what he is because of his innate tendencies as modified by society. Society — institutions, customs, parties, ideals, morals, all these — is what it is, under normal conditions, in response to the needs of the individual.

It is true that individuals are many, and 6 types are many, but similar-minded men tend to come together, so that, in fact, society presents not one composite, but many — the composite groups of like-minded. Thus a certain small group of thoughtful people unite to form a Unitarian Fellowship, while a vastly larger group unite to form the Roman Catholic Church. One baby is bom a Conservative, another is born a Liberal. And this means far more than just being born into a conservative family, or into a liberal family, or into a Unitarian family; it means, literally, being born with the innate tendencies appropriate to one or the other of these attitudes. It means, too, therefore, though fortunately this does not often happen, that a Unitarian may be born into a Catholic family, or a Catholic into a Unitarian family, or a conservative into a liberal family. I say that it is fortunate that this does not often happen, for when it does it must result either in but lukewarm adherence to the family traditions, or in severance from the same, amid family laments. The accident of birth may determine, at least temporarily, a man's classification, but it is the luggage the baby brings into the world, his potential brain patterns, which will decide what he is really to be.

I have adopted the term innate tendency, or 7 disposition, where the term instinct is commonly used, but this latter word I prefer to reserve for a more specific and limited application. By innate tendency I mean an inherited psychological and physiological disposition which determines that its possessor shall react in a particular manner to a given stimulus. These dispositions will vary all the way from simple nerve reflexes, such as the knee-jerk, to the most highly complex emotional reactions, and in this range, of course, the instincts will be included; but I follow Bergson in making instinct a specific evolutionary product— a diverging tendency, not a linear antecedent of man's intellectuality. This will be referred to later, under sex. It is with the innate tendency in general that we are now concerned, especially with its higher manifestations. It is assumed that the stimulus, being received, excites a prepared brain pattern which, in turn, gives origin to an emotional state. This emotional state may itself rise but faintly into consciousness; but the two together, the brain pattern reinforced by the emotion, result in characteristic action.

The word pattern will be frequently used in this book. Let us get, to start with, a clear conception of this convenient term, and for this purpose let me review, in the briefest possible manner, the structure of the nervous system. We shall omit as irrelevant to our aim all the refinements of modern physiological research.

There are in the human body, and in the bodies of all the higher animals, two related systems of nerves, the cerebro-spinal and the sympathetic, the former being directly associated with our voluntary movements, and the latter more intimately associated with the life process itself, and, therefore, with the more involuntary acts of the body.

Starting with the cerebro-spinal system, and its centre, the brain, we find this latter to be a bulk of nerve tissue containing, as its essential elements, myriads of nerve cells from which pass off tentacle-like processes of varying length. There are in all some ten thousand million of these cells, or neurons, as they are called, arranged in certain fairly defined but merging groups, each with its specific function. The brain is placed in a bony compartment, the skull, and is thereby protected from direct interference from without, but it is connected with the rest of the body, and, in a sense, with the external world, by the nerves, the prolongations of the nerve cell processes just mentioned. Certain of these cell processes, the cranial nerves, pass through openings in the skull to the face and neighbouring regions, while others, the spinal nerves, unite to form the cable of the spinal cord, to be later given off to the body at regular intervals through apertures in the spinal column.

The spinal cord itself contains nerve cells, these acting as relays to the transmission of the nerve impulse, much as in telegraphy the electric impulse is carried long distances by means of relay batteries. Thus, a nerve impulse does not pass over a continuous "wire" from the point of stimulation to the receptive area in the brain, but, after travelling a longer or shorter distance, the "wire" is broken, and the impulse picked up and relayed on by another nerve cell. Several such interruptions may occur in the total path.

In this manner the brain is connected with the rest of the body; certain of the nerves carrying afferent or incoming currents, and certain others, the efferent or outgoing. The afferent nerves carry to the brain stimulations received by their distal extremities; the brain receives this stimulation, reacts in a certain manner, and then sends out an appropriate answer, an impulse over the efferent nerves. Thus, the hand has been placed upon a hot plate

— a stimulus passes over certain nerves, whose function it is to receive impressions of temperature, and this stimulation, reaching the brain, there causes a reaction which results in the activating of certain cells in the motor area. From these motor cells there passes out an impulse over the efferent nerves by which the proper muscles are set in motion, and the hand is withdrawn. In the same manner the stimuli of sight, hearing, smell, touch, pain, and pressure, are brought to the brain, and, there being appreciated, give rise to appropriate action.

In certain nerve actions, notably in those known as reflex, it may be that the nerve impulse will not reach the brain until after the action, its purpose, has been already accomplished. Here it would seem that under certain conditions, as, for instance, for safety's sake, where delay would be dangerous, the duty of the brain may be taken over by the nerve cells of the spinal cord, as being usefully nearer to the source of stimulation. Your hand comes into contact with the point of a pin, and it is instantly jerked away, but the pain may not be felt until after the action is completed, or at least until after it has been begun. Here the motor impulse was supplied by motor cells in the spinal cord, though the stimulus did still

n pass on to the brain where it was duly received and registered — in explanation, as it were, of the usurped function. It would seem reasonable to assume that all reflexes have, or have had, a purpose, but some of the reflexes now possessed by man are not explainable by any present known need. They probably remain with us as vestiges of the past. In a general way there has been a tendency in animal development to put more and more of the burden of life on the brain. Many of the functions there seated with us, in less developed animals are performed habitually under the control of the spinal nerve centres. Thus, a frog from which the brain has been removed will still behave much as a perfectly good frog should do. It will "strike out" when placed in water; it will creep up an inclined plane; it will endeavour to brush off a drop of acid placed upon its skin.

James has said that the animal takes in and gives out, while man takes in, turns over, and gives out — the turning-over process being the mental appreciation of a stimulus as an antecedent to action. But, aside from the spinal reflexes common to both man and beast, both man and beast do "turn over" in the brain all received stimulation, whether the process be a conscious one or not. All brain action is not necessarily conscious, and many actions styled reflex are really unconscious brain actions — unconscious because so established by habit that they no longer need our attention for their performance. Of these automatic actions, as they should properly be called, other animals undoubtedly possess more than does man.

It is to be remembered that in all of this flow of the nerve current, incoming and outgoing, and within the brain itself, the path of the flow becomes frequently broken. The nerve force, the neurokyme, flows through a process of the nerve cell, through the body of the cell, and through another process or extension for a greater or lesser distance, and then comes a break — leaping now a microscopic gap it passes on to the process of another cell to be, in turn, relayed by this on its farther course. At each of these breaks a choice presents itself — which of the close-lying neighbouring cells shall it be that shall pick up the current and thus pass it on? It is here that the innate disposition steps in. The evolutionary development itself has determined in a general way the direction of the nerve path, but its minor deviations depend upon the particular inheritances of the individual.

Now a path once travelled is the path most easily retra veiled. The path once used becomes the path of choice. Herein lies the root of habit, and indeed of life itself ; for were chance only to determine the path of the nerve current, no life, on our complex plane, would be possible. This, then, is our conception of the neuron pattern — a pathway formed, and inviting to subsequent travel. As regards its development and the cause of its persistence through the generations, it may be noted that the innate pattern is one which has " worked' ' in the past. Things done in a certain way, reactions of a certain kind, if successful and conducive to survival perpetuate themselves, for those who have such reactions last best, and have more children than those who react in some less useful manner. Of the thousands of possible reactions, by far the greater number, the poor ones, tend to die out — they do not work — and those who use them die out too. It is ever the successful useful pattern that survives and becomes the race tendency, though it may, too, of course, long outlive its period of usefulness.

It has been objected to this pattern conception that if a Chinese baby be brought up in England with English children it will behave as they do, and not as do the Chinese. But this signifies nothing — the major patterns with which we are chiefly concerned antedate all divergence of race and were undoubtedly common to the primitive ancestors of all. And as regards the minor differences in our inheritances, it must be remembered that a pattern is not believed to be a compelling control, but merely a preferred pathway — it does not function if the appropriate stimulus be lacking.

From the educational and developmental standpoint the pathways of especial importance are those laid down in the brain. The new-born babe has certain motor areas developed, and also certain perception areas — notably that of light vision, and, a little later, that of hearing— but these are all practically unconnected, and life begins on the simple reflex plan. The new-born babe takes in and gives out, but does not take in, turn over, and give out. As the days pass, however, these areas do gradually become connected, by what are called association fibres, until, soon, a stimulation received in one area is promptly passed on to the others, and the brain now begins to act as a whole. Thus, certain pictures produced in the visual, or auditory fields become associated with certain body sensations, as, for instance, with the discomfort of hunger, and, in turn, give rise to certain motor responses, such as the cry, and the extended hands.

It may be safely said that all life's development, all mental education, consists in adding to the associations possible, and in establishing those of most practical value to us. Pure sensation is possible only to the youngest infant — to all others sensation becomes a matter of appreciation, and is elaborated by associations until it attains to the appropriate response. Illustration seems superfluous, but to give just one — a gently turning door-knob makes no very frightful sound, but if you have supposed yourself to be alone in the house a door-knob so turning will not unlikely cause a cold chill of alarm. It is the association, of course, that arouses the response, and not at all the actual stimulus. The difference between the child and the adult, and between the feebleminded and the normal, as well as between the beast and the man, lies in the relative perfection of their associations and in the elaboration of the pathways formed and available.

To reiterate, each of the pathways, whatever its elaboration of detail, constitutes a brain pattern, and if we go back to the thesis with which we began this chapter, it will be recognized that the innate disposition, there spoken of, is but an inherited tendency of pattern — a tendency to form certain brain patterns more easily than others. From ten thousand million cells an almost infinite variety of pattern is possible. Ten thousand million — just think what this figure means ! It means, numerically, one cell for every six seconds of time since the first moment, of the first day, of year One of our era! But by physical inheritances in brain development, and in the spinal nerves as well, we obtain tendencies which lead the nerve force more aptly in certain directions than in others and make it more likely to be picked up by certain of the possible connecting cells. Why may a posthumous son stand and walk like his father? Why are some of us born Unitarians, and others of us Eoman Catholics? The answers are obvious.

All the diversities of life trace back to the inherited, or acquired, brain pattern, and these, too, in their elaboration by association constitute the whole of psychology. Through all life the pattern remains, like a set-piece of fireworks, awaiting the spark — not always, of course, in consciousness, but ready always when the appropriate stimulus arrives.

In all this I have spoken only of the cerebro- 17 spinal nerves, but it must be remembered that besides the cerebrospinal system we have another, the sympathetic, and this, too, shares in the formation of the inherited patterns. It is this sympathetic system — a fine network of delicate nerve fibrils — which controls chiefly the involuntary actions, the blood vessels, the digestive, glandular and other organic functions; and it is to the activities of these sympathetic nerves, the oldest, in a developmental sense, of our bodies, that we owe our life process itself. It is from them, too, that we derive our emotions, for an emotion is but a sense appreciation by the brain of the action of the various glands and other organs.

Anatomically and physiologically the two systems of nerves are distinct, and yet they are connected — the sympathetic system having its origins in a series of nerve ganglia (groups of nerve cells) placed just in front of the spine, which ganglia directly connect with the cerebrospinal system through the cord. So close is this connection that while the sympathetic nerves may, theoretically, be independently active, it is doubtful whether in man this ever actually occurs. It would seem, rather, that practically there is no operation of the one set of nerves without some reflected action of the other. A stimulus comes to us from without, is received by the cerebro-spinal nerves, is carried to the brain where it activates certain cells, and these, in turn, as we have already seen, send out currents over the motor nerves to the muscles. But part of this efferent force, also, it must be noted, flows through the connecting nerve filaments into the sympathetic system, and it is by this diverted current that the various glandular and other visceral changes are brought about. The "a/fect" of these organic changes, the sensation of them felt by the brain, is what we call an emotion; the immediate result of the changes — their effect — is a reinforcement of the action set up by the cerebrospinal system. Thus, a situation arises provocative of anger — the organic changes here seem due chiefly to sympathetic excitation of the adrenal glands — the blood pressure rises, the respiration is quickened, the heart beats more strongly and more rapidly, and the blood content is altered in the direction of providing an increase in elements conducive to muscle activity. In other words the body, sympathetically as well as consciously, prepares for increased self-expression — for fight.

Probably, as we have said, all mental experiences involve some stimulation of the sympathetic, but it is only when this stimulation becomes considerable that its effects rise into consciousness. The effects may there be entirely unregistered, or they may be sensed as mere "feeling," the result of a moderate stimulation; but again, this same stimulation, or another, sufficiently intensified, may rise to full consciousness with strong emotional value. Interest may be regarded as the mild pleasing affect associated with the motor state of attention and the innate disposition of curiosity; but with marked increase in intensity, with powerful stimulation, a true emotional state may develop. We have, then, in the body two sets of nerves, the central or cerebro-spinal, and the visceral or sympathetic, these systems being independent, and yet related an4 connected to a degree that makes it possible, for all purposes of applied psychology, to treat of them as one. "When a stimulus is received a nerve impulse darts here and there throughout the entire nervous system, and this impulse, or current, follows a path which has become preferred and established largely by the needs of our ancestors. Further, these inherited, preferred pathways of flow constitute for us the foundation of our innate dispositions. To understand our reactions fully, the sympathetic and cerebrospinal systems must both be considered, but in this inheritance from the remote past it is the sympathetic, with the emotion it gives rise to, which is of first importance. As Bergson says : "We think with only a small part of our past, but it is with our entire past, including the original bent of our soul, that we desire, will, and act, ' '

Chapter II

INHERITED DISPOSITIONS! FEAR AND ANGER

With the understanding of the nature of our inheritances as laid down in the first chapter, let us consider some of those which have a major importance both to man and to society. No exhaustive study can here be made, but let us get an idea of the psychological attitude in what must be but a paragraphic review.

We have found that physiologically the emotion is the result of gland action — a sensing of this action by the consciousness. Any stimulus may excite directly, or through some more or less realized idea, one or several of the glandular activities, and the glands so set in action will be those which by racial or individual experience have proven useful in similar situations. The sensing of the gland action, we say, constitutes the emotion. Now the sensations or affects most familiar to man have been dignified by names, but it must be evident that such naming is only a matter of convenience, that it can have no other significance. In fact the naming and classifying of the simple emotions, and the analysing of the more complex, is an exercise of ingenuity rather than of science.

In view of this fact it might be more truly scientific to effect our classification of the innate tendencies by reference to the instinctive purposes aimed at; but here at once we meet with the practical difficulty that there are too few such purposes to be useful for descriptive analysis. Going back in a search for the instinctive purpose, we find no ground to stand on until we arrive at those two primal urges — the striving, more or less consciously, toward self-preservation; and the striving, more or less unconsciously, toward the continuance of the race. A division into but two classes is not helpful, and yet, when we begin to further subdivide, when we begin to note the kinds and qualities of strivings, and the varied methods by which the instinctive longings are satisfied, then we find ourselves back on the emotional basis, and once again our classification becomes a matter of language. As usual, man reads his own ideas of "order" into the great complex of nature, but, as by so doing he makes it more comprehensible to his finite mind, the method can not yet be abandoned.

There is a tendency with laboratory psychologists to deny the primitive nature of many of the emotions now to be considered, but their judgment is largely based upon the study of the infant and is, therefore, inadequate. The infant has not the physiological and anatomic development of neurons necessary to reveal all of its instincts. Such development is to be obtained by growth only, and will arrive, in a normal child, as the need becomes established. But whether actually primitive or only " early conditioned, ' ' the significance of these reactions is the same, for they could not have been so uniformly developed throughout the race were they not the product of preferred, i.e. inherited patterns.