MR. BAIN ON THE EMOTIONS AND THE WILL.*
How are we to do justice to a book like this in the Space at our command ? Six hundred and four pages on the Emotions and- the Will—every page as full of matter as an egg is full of meat— what can be said about them to the purpose in a newspaper- article? Not only does Dr. Bain range over an immense number of topics, but each of them might be discussed at an indefinite length. The emotions are simply the most variable things that can be named, not the same in any two persons, and not the same for two successive minutes in the same person ; and men have been discussing the freedom of the will for something like three thousand years in this world, not to mention the voluminous controversies, happily not preserved, which, according to Milton, beguile the leisure and relieve the discomforts of existence in Pandemonium. Our general impression of the book is that it is not easy reading, yet that there is some strong attraction in it. There is less of flow in Professor Bain's style than in that of any writer we can think of,—Berkeley, Paley, or Adam Smith (in his 7'heory of Moral Sentiments) have, when com- pared with him, the lightness of novelists. And yet we do not tire of the book, though, perhaps, enjoying it best by taking a little at a time ; and when we lay it down, we are not reluctant to return to it. This is probably due in part to the fact that the emotions and the will touch on a thousand points of practical in- * The Emotions and the Witt. By Alexander Baia, LL.D.. Professor of Logic in the Univerity of Aberdeen. Third Edition. • London : Longmans and Co. terest, and the metaphysician, in writing about them, becomes as discursive as the popular essayist. Remarks constantly occur in this volume which are so suggestive of differences of opinion, that they might serve to promote vivacity in after-dinner chat. Here is one such remark :—"Paky's doctrine that a man finds no plea- sure in comparing himself with his inferiors, and is gratified only when he surpasses his equals, is not conformable to observation." Is it not? Paley may have stated his opinion somewhat too strongly, and it is undoubtedly the fact that a certain complacency is experienced, especially by weak and vain men, in the habitual contemplation of their inferiors ; but it is equally true, and it strikes us as a far more important illustration of human nature, that "superiority, where there is no competition, is seldom con- templated ;" that most men are unconscious of pleasure derived from its contemplation ; and that it is in emulation, rivalry, triumph, that the really pungent pleasure of superiority con- sists. Dr. Bain himself declares that we are unconscious of un- remitted impressions, and this is the very principle of Paley's doctrine. "We soon cease," says Paley, " to look back upon those we have left behind ; new contests are engaged in, new prospects unfold themselves ; a succession of struggles is kept up, while there is a rival left within the compass of our views and profession, and when there is none, the pleasure, with the pursuit, is at an end." When he wrote these words, Paley was perhaps thinking too exclusively of keen, strong, ambitious natures, but his observation, instead of being at fault, had detected one of the great, impelling principles of human action, one of the chief dynamic factors in human progress. With still more peremptory decision does Dr. Bain reprimand Swift. "The following remark of Swift must be pronounced incorrect : —' All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or languor ; it is like spending this year part of the nerd year's revenue.'" The words are coloured by Swift's constitutional melancholy, and his habitual exaggeration of the despotism of pain; but Dr. Bain must be a man of rarely equable tempera- ment, and must possess an enviable capacity of basking in the sunshine of happiness, if they have for him no significance. In point of fact, we think that unless they are taken to mean that there is exactly as much misery as happiness in life—if they are confined to the statement that " fits " or paroxysms of joy are ordinarily followed by equal degrees of languor—the words of Swift are true. We shall quote one more of those general re- marks, in which Dr. Bain, while writing metaphysics, is led by the nature of his subject into the discursiveness of the magazine essayist :—"A very powerful intellect is apt to be accompanied with less than the average both of activity and of emotion." Is this the rule, or the exception to the rule ? Does powerful in- tellect commonly imply apathy and inertness ? Or is demon- strated and healthy faculty of one kind a pledge, not infallible, but yet to some extent trustworthy, of faculty in general? There is an immense deal to be said. on both sides, it is an accepted common-place that a fool has no heart. Pope tells us that "no creature smarts so little as a fooL" The man who can think strongly is generally found to be the man who can feel deeply. We do not say that it is always so. Careful thinkers would pro- bably admit that Mr. Carlyle is too dogmatic and indiscriminate in accepting power of brain as the sole test of mental quality. It is equally impossible to deny either that Napoleon had a good head, or that he had a bad heart. Most people, also, have met the kind of men Dr. Bain seems to have had in his eye when he penned the remark we have quoted,—large-brained, often large-bodied fel- lows, given to lounging and thinking, who, when roused by con- versational stimulants, display immense power of logic or of memory, and convince all who know them that they could do great things, if they were not so sluggish and apathetic. The subject would obviously require an essay to itself, if its discus- sion were to be even approximately exhaustive ; but we lean to the belief that, though the exceptions are numerous, a pro- portionate degree of power, emotional, intellectual, and volitional, is the rule. Our object, however, in quoting these remarks, and making one or two comments upon them, is to illustrate our meaning when we say that a part of the charm which unquestion- ably, in spite of its somewhat arid and discontinuous style, belongs to this book, is due to the extreme suggestiveness of its theme, or rather of its multitude of themes. It is a charm similar to that of Bacon's essays, which differ from Euclid's demonstra- tions in this, among other respects, that whereas Euclid forces us to assent to some one truth, and to confine our regards, for the time, to it, Bacon opens the cage of our own thoughts, and per- mits and impels them to fly abroad with the swiftness and the fantastic freedom of swallows. Professor Bain is no Bacon, but
his chapters on the physical accompaniments of feeling, on the tender emotions, on anger, on power, on the assthetic emotions,. the ethical emotions, and so forth, are at least as effective in awakening thought as in directing it.
This volume is a sequel to Professor Bain's preceding one, on the senses and the intellect, and completes a systematic exposi- tion of the human mind, on what he defines as the natural' history method. Apart from the question whether this is the best method, there need be no dispute that it is one method which deserved to be applied to the subject, and for the applica- tion of which modern physiological science affords special ad- vantage. Whatever may be their relation to spiritual influence, the intellectual and emotional faculties have a connection both with man's physical constitution and with the history of the race. It is interesting from a scientific point of view to trace the associating links between those appetites which man shares with the savage, and of which there are analogues, if not counter- parts, in the gorilla and the dog, and the crowning attributes of loving, reasoning, aspiring, in one word, civilised humanity ; but we are not sure that this is a highly valuable kind of know- ledge. There is danger of our exaggerating the importance of the animal side of man's nature, while lingering on the germs- of his developed passions and attributes.
Dr. Bain, as self-portrayed in these pages, is evidently a man of gentle temper and elevated character, but we can- not help thinking, or at lowest, hoping, that he assigns to, the brute principles in our nature a potency greater than in average instances belongs to them. The view he takes is very- dark ; our impression is that, even if it be granted that our noblest qualities have their germ in brutish propensities, he has paid less than due attention to the effect of the developing and transforming process in changing these into things substan- tially different from what they originally were. "The intensest of the primary susceptibilities of the mind are," he says, "sen- suality and malevolence." He speaks of "the primary gratifica- tion of seeing others in pain." He discards, as refuted by ex- perience, Dr. Chalmers's theory that kindness, honesty, and truth are "sweet to the taste of the inner man," whereas envy,. malice, and falsehood have "the bitterness of gall and worm- wood." He will not admit that the life of the tyrant, whose- rage is daily fed by new executions, is one of "fierce, internal agony." .The only qualification to the enjoyment of the- malevolent and furious passions which he recognises is the discomfort arising from the presence of tender emotions in the mind, and the consequent struggle between rage and compassion. "In cases," he says, "where the sympathies- and affections are little developed in the character, and where the contrary passions possess an unusual vigour, the en- joyment derivable from pure malevolence is intense and unalloyed. Nothing but the retribution accruing from a course of mischief and wrong inflicted upon others can occur to interrupt the- joys of gratified resentments, so that, with precautions for his own safety, the actor might be truly happy." Such are the views which Dr. Bain takes of human nature, and if our readers agree with us in thinking them dark to excess, they will perhaps also agree with us in accounting for their blackness by the fact that Dr. Bain's method leads him to look fixedly at the brute in the man, rather- than at man triumphing over and extinguishing the brute,—at man transfigured and ennobled, out of whom "the ape and tiger have all but died.
On the question whether the malignant affections are in them- selves pleasurable or the reverse, there is a good deal to be said in support of Dr. Chalmers's view, as distinguished from Dr. Bain's. It must, of course, be admitted that, in the moment when revenge attains its end, or hatred strikes its object, there is a. thrill of satisfaction ; but does not the unlimited gratification of these passions lead, not to higher enjoyment, but to madness ? If Professor Bain rejoins that in this madness there is joy, we can only answer that it seems to us more probable that there is anguish. There are in lunatic asylums happy maniacs and miserable maniacs, and unless we are mistaken, the former are those who live in an imaginary world of kindly and generous affection, the latter those who fancy themselves transformed into torturing devils. In order to establish his case against Dr. Chalmers, Professor Bain must distinguish far more lucidly than we find him doing between malevolent passions, as such, affording pleasure, and malevolent passions affording exultant delight when applied to their proper objects (injustice and falsehood), or when believed by those putting them in exercise to be applied to their proper objects. We can all sympathise with Lear in his wish to be touched with noble anger, and not fooled with patience. That a Carthaginian General
ahould have satisfaction in slaughtering thousands to propitiate the manes of his grandfather, that the Athenians should have rejoiced in wreaking their patriotic rage on Phocion, that the Parisian re- latives of those who fell in the Reign of Terror should have shouted round the tumbril in which Robespierre was being dragged to the guillotine, are instances which by no means suffice to prove that the tyrant who quaffs daily draughts of innocent blood is not the unhappy -prey of his own evil passions. The delight taken by boys in the torture of animals is elsewhere referred to by Dr. Bain as evi- ' -deuce that the sight of pain is one of man's primary gratifications; but in the first place, we maintain, on the strength of a somewhat long and extensive acquaintance with boys of various classes, that this delight is exceedingly rare, and in the second place, we agree with Dugald Stewart that it is, to say the least, generally trace- -able to pleasure taken in the exhibition of their own power by the boys. The gladiatorial sports of the Romans, and the incidents of the bull-ring in Spain, seem to tell conclusively on the side -of Professor Bain. We are not anxious to extenuate the proof these melancholy spectacles afford that there is an element of diabolical callousness and recklessness in human nature ; but before estimating their precise force, to demonstrate that the malevolent passions are in themselves pleasurable, we demand that a sharp analysis shall be applied to discriminate, in the bighly complex emotions with which they have been regarded, 'between sympathy with courage, interest in adventure, delight in energetic and agile motion on the one hand, and on the other, pure satisfaction in inflicted pain. The only instance known to us of gratification derived from the simple exercise of malevolent passions are those of such men as Gilles de Retz and Count Cenci, ibut these persons we hold to have been maniacs, whom it was as wrong to leave at large as it would be to unchain a tiger in Cheapside. And though they may have had moments of pleasure, they were, on the whole, unhappy maniacs. Envy, hatred, malice, cruelty scorch and calcine the heart, which is their furnace; whereas no man is unhappy in loving, even when he loves his enemies.- The typical specimen of human kind is not the savage, but the civilised man, and whatever may have been the case at earlier stages of our .development, it is the fact that the exercise of the benevolent affections are now sources of pleasure in a sense in which the malevolent passions are not.
It is characteristic of Professor Bain, as a singularly clear, pre- cise, and honest thinker, that though confessing himself unable to prove the reasonableness of duty, he rejects, as simply incon- sistent with fact, Mr. J. S. Mill's hypothesis "that there is in aeality nothing desired but happiness." Our disinterested im- pulses are, he believes, wholly distinct from the attainment of pleasure and the avoidance of pain." "They positively -detract from our happiness." He holds that there is a funda- mental contradiction, an insoluble difficulty, involved in the re- lation of duty to interest. "The meaning of duty is something- good for others' not good for me,' and why should I be sacri- ficed to another man ? Even though there is a motive in my constitution that urges me to self-sacrifice, why am I in particular to be oppressed with another man's burdens ? Let every man bear his own burden, is the dictate of reason and justice." Pro- fessor Bain gives it up. "A difficulty so great cannot be new. Indeed, it is but a branch of the oldest of all questions,—the existence of evil. It admits of no exact solution." Cordially agreeing with the writer that it is impossible to identify virtue with any form of selfishness, we are not sure that this fact warrants the statement that there is a contradiction between duty and reason. Does reason require or permit the statement of the problem in the form in which Professor Bain gives it ? "What is B more than C, that C should make up for B's deficiencies?" Taking the verdict of reason to mean the decision, accounted for or unac- counted for, of our whole mind, is it true that if an absolute -equality could be made out between the claims of B and C, reason would bid B sacrifice himself for C, or C sacrifice himself for B? We think not. Itis difficult to find an instance in which the poising of the scales between one human life and another human life is so even that the question can be put in the concrete. If an expectant mother had to choose between her own life and the life of the child to whom she was about to give birth, would not reason acquit her of the smallest dereliction of duty in choosing to be the living mother of a dead child? If we say that it would be nobler in her to die in order that her child might live, are we -sure that sympathy with her maternal instinct, and our general conception of the importance, in the interests of society, that the maternal instinct should be powerful, do not interfere with the precision of the interrogatory which we address to our reason in the case ? Practically, it is impossible to separate the indi-
vidual so completely from the race that two individuals can stand te each other in the relation of algebraic symbols ; but if there were only two men in the world, and they were physically, intel- lectually, morally, and in all other respects equal, reason would not, we think, command one of the two to give his life to save that of the other. So soon as there were three in the world, the whole affair would, from reason's point of view, be altered. The scale in which two were placed would, in strict count, outweigh the scale in which one was placed ; and it would, with perfect reason- ableness, become the duty of any one of the three, if necessary, to die for the others. The meaning of duty may be "good for others, not good for me," but it is not necessarily "good for one other, whose claims are precisely commensurate with mine, in- stead of good for me." In other words, there is a legitimate and important mime in which a man can be said to have a duty to himself; and it is not meritorious, or reasonable, or approved by any sound instinct of his nature, that he should be unjust to him- self. The utmost claim of duty, either instinctive or reasonable, is that a man shall count himself one among a million, or a million million, of brethren, and love his neighbour as himself. This ethical scheme, unassailable by reason, is perfect for all practical purposes, because the individual cannot be isolated from his fel- lows, and it will always remain noble for him to sacrifice his own interests for those of his country, his clan, his family, his friends. The problem, therefore, of the reconciliation of duty and interest is not insoluble on grounds of reason, and the supremely rational teacher of ethics was Christ. Consideration of our own interest is just and right, but, in the eye of reason, the interest of one man counts for precisely the same as the interest of another. The man who has no regard for his own interest is a sentimentalist ; the man who has no regard for the interests of others is a knave : both offend against reason.
Professor Bale's book has some admirable qualities. We know no manlier or more careful writer, no one more free from affecta- tion. Often dissenting from his conclusions, we feel that he always puts us to our mettle to defend our own, and that his re- marks open up to us many vistas of thought and speculation.
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