Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education Part 26

FEELING

=Sensuous and Ideal Feeling.=--We have noted (Chapter XXIV), that in addition to the general feeling tone accompanying an act of attention, and already described as a feeling of interest, there are two important cla.s.ses of feeling known respectively as sensuous and ideal feeling.

When a person says: "I feel tired" or "I feel hungry," he is referring to the feeling side of certain organic sensations. When he says: "The air feels cold" or "The paper feels smooth," he is referring to the feeling side of temperature and touch sensations. These are, therefore, examples of sensuous feeling. On the other hand, to say "I feel angry"

or "I feel afraid," is to refer to a feeling state which accompanies perhaps the perception of some object, the recollection or antic.i.p.ation of some act, or the inference that something is sure to happen, etc.

These latter states are therefore known as ideal feelings.

=Quality of Feeling States.=--The qualities of our various feeling states are distinguished under two heads, pleasure and pain. It might seem at first sight that our feeling states will fall into a much larger number of cla.s.ses distinguished by differences in quality, or tone. The taste of an orange, the smell of lavender, the touch of a hot stove, the appreciation of a fine piece of music, and the appreciation of a lofty poem, seem at first sight to yield different feelings. The supposed difference in the quality of the feelings is due, however, to a difference in the knowledge elements accompanying the feelings, or to the fact that they are discriminated as different experiences. The idea of the music or the poem is of a higher grade than the sensory image of taste, and accordingly the feelings _appear_ to be different. The feelings may, of course, differ in intensity, but in _quality_ they are either pleasant or unpleasant.

CONDITIONS OF FEELING TONE

=A. Neural.=--The quality, or tone, of a feeling will vary according to the intensity of the impression. Great heat stimulates the nerves violently and the resultant feeling state is painful; warmth gives a moderate stimulation and the resultant tone is pleasant. Excessive cold also, because it stimulates violently, produces a painful feeling. Since the intensity of a stimulus varies according to the resistance encountered in the nervous arc, the quality of a feeling state must, therefore, vary according to the resistance. It is for this reason that an experience, at first very painful, may lose much of its tone by repet.i.tion. By repet.i.tion the nerve centres are adapted to the experience, resistance is lessened, and the accompanying pain diminished. In this way, some work or exercise, which is at first positively unpleasant, may at least become endurable as the organism becomes adapted to the occupation. From this point of view, it is sometimes said that any impressions to which we are perfectly adapted give pleasurable feelings, while, in other cases the resultant tone will be painful.

=B. Mental.=--The law of perfect adaptation also explains why ideal feelings may at one time result in a pleasant, and at another time in a painful, feeling tone. According to the principle of apperception, the new experience must organize itself with whatever thoughts and feelings are now occupying consciousness. It necessarily happens that a given experience does not always equally harmonize with our present thoughts and feelings. The recognition of a friend under ordinary circ.u.mstances is agreeable, but amid certain a.s.sociations or in a certain environment, such recognition would be disagreeable. So, too, while an original experience may have been agreeable, the memory of it may now be disagreeable; and vice versa. For instance, the memory of a former success or prosperity may, in the midst of present failure and poverty, be disagreeable; while the recollection of former failure and defeat may now, in the midst of success and prosperity, be agreeable. What is it that makes a sensation, a perception, a memory, or an apprehended relation pleasant under some circ.u.mstances and unpleasant under others?

The rule appears to be that when the experience harmonizes with our present train of thought, when it promotes our present interests and intentions, it is pleasant; but when, on the other hand, it does not harmonize with our train of thought or thwarts or impedes our interests and purposes, it is unpleasant.

=Function of Pleasure and Pain.=--From what has been noted concerning co-ordination between the adaptation of the organism to impression and the quality of the accompanying feeling, it is evident that pleasure and pain each have their part to play in promoting the ultimate good of the individual. Pain is beneficial, because it lets us know that there is some misadjustment to our environment, and thereby warns us to remove or cease doing what is proving injurious. In this connection, it may be noted that no disease is so dangerous as one that fails to make its presence known through pain. Pleasure also is valuable in so far as it results from perfect adaptation to a perfect environment, since it induces the individual to continue beneficial acts. It must be remembered, however, that so far as heredity or education has adapted our organism to improper stimuli, pleasure is no proof that the good of the organism is being advanced. In such cases, redemption can come to the fallen world only through suffering.

=Feeling and Knowing.=--Since the intensity of a feeling state is conditioned by the amount of resistance, an intense state of feeling is likely to be accompanied by a lowering of intellectual activity. For this reason excessive hunger, heat or cold, intense joy, anger or sorrow, are usually antagonistic to intellectual work. The explanation for this seems to be that so much of our nervous energy is consumed in overcoming the resistance in the centres affected, that little is left for ordinary intellectual processes. This does not, of course, imply that no one can do intellectual work under such conditions; nor that the intellectual man is always devoid of strong feelings, although such is often the case. Occasionally, however, a man is so strongly endowed with nervous energy, that even after overcoming the resistance being encountered, he still has a residue of energy to devote to ordinary intellectual processes.

=Feeling and Will.=--Although, as pointed out in the last paragraph, there is a certain antagonism between knowing and feeling, it has also been seen that every experience has its knowing as well as its feeling side. Because of this co-ordination, the qualities of our feeling states become known to us, or are able to be distinguished by the mind. As a result of this recognition of a difference in our feeling states, we learn to seek states of pleasure and to avoid states of pain or, in other words, our mere states of feeling become desires. This means that we become able to contrast a present feeling with other remembered states, and seek either to continue the present desired state or to subst.i.tute another for the present undesirable feeling. In the form of desire, therefore, our feelings become strong motives, which may influence the will to certain lines of action.

SENSUOUS FEELINGS

While the sensations of the special senses, namely, sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell, have each their affective, or feeling, side, a minute study of these feelings is not necessary for our present purpose. It may be noted, however, that in the more intellectual senses, namely, sight, hearing, and touch, feeling tone is less marked, although strong feeling may accompany certain tactile sensations. In the lower senses of taste and smell, the feeling tone is more p.r.o.nounced. Under muscular sensation we meet such marked feeling tones as fatigue, exertion, and strain, while a.s.sociated with the organic sensations are such feelings as hunger and thirst, and the various pains which usually accompany derangement and disease of the bodily organs. Some of these feelings are important, because they are likely to influence the will by developing into desires in the form of appet.i.tes. Many sensuous feelings are important also because they especially warn the mind regarding the condition of the organism.

EMOTION

=Nature of Emotion.=--An emotion differs from sensuous feeling, not in its content, but in its higher intensity, its greater complexity, and its more elaborate motor response. It may be defined as a succession of interconnected feelings with a more complex physical expression than a simple feeling. On reading an account of a battle, one may feel sad and express this sadness only in a gloomy appearance of the face. But if one finds that in this battle a friend has been killed, the feeling is much intensified and may become an emotion of grief, expressing itself in some complex way, perhaps in tears, in sobbing, in wringing the hands. Similarly, a feeling of slight irritation expressed in a frowning face, if intensified, becomes the emotion of anger, expressed in tense muscles, rapidly beating heart, laboured breathing, perhaps a torrent of words or a hasty blow.

=Emotion and Instinct.=--Feeling and instinct are closely related. Every instinct has its affective phase, that is, its satisfaction always involves an element of pleasure or pain. The satisfaction of the instincts of curiosity or physical activity ill.u.s.trates this fact. On the other hand, every emotion has its characteristic instinctive response. Fear expresses itself in all persons alike in certain characteristic ways inherited from a remote ancestry; anger expresses itself in other instinctive reactions; grief in still others.

CONDITIONS OF EMOTION

An a.n.a.lysis of a typical emotion will serve to show the conditions under which it makes its appearance. Let us take first the emotion of fear.

Suppose a person is walking alone on a dark night along a deserted street. His nervous currents are discharging themselves uninterruptedly over their wonted channels, his current of thought is unimpeded.

Suddenly there appears a strange and frightful object in his pathway.

His train of thought is violently checked. His nervous currents, which a moment ago were pa.s.sing out smoothly and without undue resistance into muscles of legs, arms, body, and face, are now suddenly obstructed, or in other words encounter violent resistance. He stands still. His heart momentarily stops beating. A temporary paralysis seizes him. As the nervous currents thus encounter resistance, the feeling tone known as fear is experienced. At the same time the currents burst their barriers and overflow into new channels that are easy of access, the motor centres being especially of this character. Some of the currents, therefore, run to the involuntary muscles, and in consequence the heart beats faster, the breathing becomes heavier, the face grows pale, a cold sweat breaks forth, the hair "stands on end." Other currents, through hereditary influences, pa.s.s to the voluntary muscles, and the person shrieks, and turns and flees.

Or take the emotion of anger. Some fine morning in school everything is in good order, everybody is industriously at work, the lessons are proceeding satisfactorily. The current of the teacher's experience is flowing smoothly and un.o.bstructedly. Presently a troublesome boy, who has been repeatedly reproved for misconduct, again shows symptoms of idleness and misbehaviour. The smooth current of experience being checked, here also both a new feeling tone is experienced and the wonted nerve currents flow out into other brain centres. The teacher stops his work and gazes fixedly at the offending pupil. His heart beats rapidly, the blood surges to his face, his breathing becomes heavy, his muscles grow tense. In these reactions we have the nervous currents pa.s.sing out over involuntary channels. Then, perhaps, the teacher unfortunately breaks forth into a torrent of words or lays violent hands upon the offender. Here the nervous currents are pa.s.sing outward over the voluntary system.

These ill.u.s.trations indicate that three important conditions are present at the appearance of the emotion, namely, (1) the presence of an unusual object in consciousness, (2) the consequent disturbance of the smooth flow of experience or, in physiological terms, the temporary obstruction of the ordinary pathways of nervous discharge through the great resistance encountered, and (3) the new feeling state with its concomitant overflow of the impulses into new motor channels, some of which lead to the involuntary muscles and others to the voluntary. The emotion proper consists in the feeling state which arises as a result of the resistance encountered by the nervous impulses as the smooth flow of experience is checked. The idea that I shall die some day arouses no emotion in me, because it in no way affects my ordinary thought processes, and therefore it in no way disturbs my nervous equilibrium.

The perception of a wild animal about to kill me, because it suddenly thwarts and impedes the smooth flow of my experience through a suggestion of danger, produces an intense feeling and a diffused and intense derangement of the nervous equilibrium.

=Development of Emotions.=--The question of paramount importance in connection with emotion is how to arouse and develop desirable emotions. The close connection of the three phases of the mind's manifestation--knowing, feeling, and willing, gives the key to the question. Feeling cannot be developed alone apart from knowing and willing. In fact, if we attend carefully to the knowing and willing activities, the feelings, in one sense, take care of themselves. Two principles, therefore, lie at the basis of proper emotional development:

1. The mind must be allowed to dwell upon only those ideas to which worthy emotions are attached. We must refuse to think those thoughts that are tinged with unworthy feelings. The Apostle Paul has expressed this very eloquently when he says in his Epistle to the Philippians: "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."

2. The teacher's main duty in the above regard is to provide the pupil with a rich fund of ideas to which desirable feelings cling. An impressive manner, an enthusiastic att.i.tude toward subjects of study, an evident interest in them, and apparent appreciation of them, will also aid much in inspiring pupils with proper feelings, for feelings are often contagious in the absence of very definite ideas. How often have we been deeply moved by hearing a poem impressively read even though we have very imperfectly grasped its meaning. The feelings of the reader have been communicated to us through the principle of contagion.

Similarly, in history, art, and nature study, emotions may be stirred, not only through the medium of the ideas presented, but also by the impressiveness, the enthusiasm, and the interest exhibited by the teacher in presenting them.

3. We must give expression to these emotions we wish to develop.

Expression means the probability of the recurrence of the emotion, and gradually an emotional habit is formed. An unselfish disposition is cultivated by performing little acts of kindness and self-denial whenever the opportunity offers. The expression of a desirable emotion, moreover, should not stop merely with an experience of the organic sensations or the reflex reactions accompanying the emotion. To listen to a sermon and react only by an emotional thrill, a quickened heart beat, or a few tears, is a very ineffective kind of expression. The only kind of emotional expression that is of much consequence either to ourselves or others is conduct. Only in so far as our emotional experiences issue in action that is beneficial to those about us, are they of any practical value.

=Elimination of Emotions.=--Since certain of our emotions, such as anger and fear, are, in general, undesirable states of feeling, a question arises how such emotions may be prevented. It is sometimes said that, if we can inhibit the expression, the emotion will disappear, that is, if I can prevent the trembling, I will cease to be afraid. From what has just been learned, however, the emotion and its expression being really concomitant results of the antecedent obstruction of ordinary nervous discharges, emotion cannot be checked by checking the expression, but both will be checked if the nervous impulses can be made to continue in their wonted courses in spite of the disturbing presentations. The real secret of emotional control lies, therefore, in the power of voluntary attention. The effect of attention is to cause the nervous energy to be directed without undue resistance into its wonted channels, this, in turn, preventing its overflow into new channels. By thus directing the energy into wonted and open channels, attention prevents both the movements and the feeling that are concomitants of a disturbance of nervous equilibrium. By meeting the attack of the dog in a purposeful and attentive manner, we cause the otherwise damming-up nervous energy to continue flowing into ordinary channels, and in this way prevent both the feeling of fear and also the flow of the energy into the motor centres a.s.sociated with the particular emotion. But while it is not scientifically correct in a particular case to say that we may inhibit the feeling by inhibiting the movements, it is of course true that, by avoiding a present emotional outburst, we are less likely in the future to respond to situations which tend to arouse the emotional state. On the other hand, to give way frequently to any emotional state will make it more difficult to avoid yielding to the emotion under similar conditions.

OTHER TYPES OF FEELING

=Mood.=--Our feelings and emotions become organized and developed in various ways. The sum total of all the feeling tones of our sensory and ideational processes at any particular time gives us our _mood_ at that time. If, for instance, our organic sensations are prevailingly pleasant, if the ideas we dwell upon are tinged with agreeable feeling, our mood is cheerful. We can to a large extent control our current of thought, and can as we will, except in case of serious bodily disturbances, attend, or not attend, to our organic sensations.

Consequently we are ourselves largely responsible for the moods we indulge.

=Disposition.=--A particular kind of mood frequently indulged in produces a type of emotional habit, our _disposition_. For instance, the teacher who permits the occurrences of the cla.s.s-room to trouble him unnecessarily, and who broods over these afterwards, soon develops a worrying disposition. As we have it in our power to determine what habits, emotional and otherwise, we form, we alone are responsible for the dispositions we cultivate.

=Temperament.=--Some of us are provided with nervous systems that are predisposed to particular moods. This predisposition, together with frequent indulgence in particular types of mood, gives us our _temperament_. The responsibility for this we share with our ancestors, but, even though predisposed through heredity to unfortunate moods, we can ourselves decide whether we shall give way to them. Temperaments have been cla.s.sified as _sanguine_, _melancholic_, _choleric_, and _phlegmatic_. The sanguine type is inclined to look on the bright side of things, to be optimistic; the melancholic tends to moodiness and gloom; the choleric is easily irritated, quick to anger; the phlegmatic is not easily aroused to emotion, is cold and sluggish. An individual seldom belongs exclusively to one type.

=Sentiments.=--Certain emotional tendencies become organized about an object and const.i.tute a _sentiment_. The sentiment of love for our mother had its basis in our childhood in the perception of her as the source of numberless experiences involving pleasant feeling tones. As we grew older, we understood better her solicitude for our welfare and her sacrifices for our sake--further experiences involving a large feeling element. Thus there grew up about our mother an organized system of emotional tendencies, our sentiment of filial love. Such sentiments as patriotism, religious faith, selfishness, sympathy, arise and develop in the same way. Compared with moods, sentiments are more permanent in character and involve more complex knowledge elements. Moreover, they do not depend upon physiological conditions as do moods. One's organic sensations may affect one's mood to a considerable extent, but will scarcely influence one's patriotism or filial love.

CHAPTER x.x.x

THE WILL

VOLUNTARY CONTROL OF ACTION

=Types of Movement.=--Closely a.s.sociated with the problem of voluntary attention is that of voluntary movement, or control of action. It is an evident fact that the infant can at first exercise no conscious control over his bodily movements. He has, it is true, certain reflex and instinctive tendencies which enable him to react in a definite way to certain special stimuli. In such cases, however, there is no conscious control of the movements, the bodily organs merely responding in a definite way whenever the proper stimulus is present. The eye, for instance, must wink when any foreign matter affects it; wry movements of the face must accompany the bitter taste; and the body must start at a sudden noise. At other times, bodily movements may be produced in a more spontaneous way. Here the physical energy stored within the system gives rise to bodily activity and causes those random impulsive movements so evident during infancy and early childhood. When these movements, which are the only ones possible to very early childhood, are compared with the movements of a workman placing the brick in the wall or of an artist executing a delicate piece of carving, there is found in the latter movements the conscious idea of a definite end, or object, to be reached. To gain control of one's movements is, therefore, to acquire an ability to direct bodily actions toward the attainment of a given end.

Thus a question arises as to the process by which a child attains to this bodily control.

=Ideas of Movements Acquired.=--Although, as pointed out above, a child's early instinctive and impulsive movements are not under conscious control, they nevertheless become conscious acts, in the sense that the movements are soon realized in idea. The movements, in other words, give rise to conscious states, and these in turn are retained as portions of past experience. For instance, although the child at first grasps the object only impulsively, he nevertheless soon obtains an idea, or experience, of what it means to grasp with the hand. So, also, although he may first stretch the limb impulsively or make a wry face reflexively, he secures, in a short time, ideas representative of these movements. As the child thus obtains ideas representative of different bodily movements, he is able ultimately, by fixing his attention upon any movement, to produce it in a voluntary way.

=Development of Control: A. Ideo-motor Action.=--At first, on account of the close a.s.sociation between the thought centres and the motor centres causing the act, the child seems to have little ability to check the act, whenever its representative idea enters consciousness. It is for this reason that young children often perform such seemingly unreasonable acts as, for instance, slapping another person, kicking and throwing objects, etc. In such cases, however, it must not be a.s.sumed that these are always deliberate acts. More often the act is performed simply because the image of the act arises in the child's mind, and his control of the motor discharge is so weak that the act follows immediately upon the idea. This same tendency frequently manifests itself even in the adult. As one thinks intently of some favourite game, he may suddenly find himself taking a bodily position used in playing that game. It is by the same law also that the impulsive man tends to act out in gesture any act that he may be describing in words. Such a type of action is described as ideo-motor action.

=B. Deliberate Action.=--Because the child in time gains ideas of various movements and an ability to fix his attention upon them, he thus becomes able to set one motor image against another as possible lines of action. One image may suggest to slap; the other to caress; the one to pull the weeds in the flower bed; the other, to lie down in the hammock.

But attention is ultimately able, as noted in the last Chapter, so to control the impulse and resistance in the proper nervous centres that the acts themselves may be indefinitely suspended. Thus the mind becomes able to conceive lines of action and, by controlling bodily movement, gain time to consider the effectiveness of these toward the attainment of any end. When a bodily movement thus takes place in relation to some conscious end in view, it is termed a deliberate act. One important result of physical exercises with the young child is that they develop in him this deliberate control of bodily movements. The same may be said also of any orderly modes of action employed in the general management of the school. Regular forms of a.s.sembly and dismissal, of moving about the cla.s.s-room, etc., all tend to give the child this same control over his acts.

=Action versus Result.=--As already noted, however, most of our movements soon develop into fixed habits. For this reason our bodily acts are usually performed more or less unconsciously, that is, without any deliberation as to the mere act itself. For this reason, we find that when bodily movements are held in check, or inhibited, in order to allow time for deliberation, attention usually fixes itself, not upon the acts themselves, but rather upon the results of these acts. For instance, a person having an axe and a saw may wish to divide a small board into two parts. Although the axe may be in his hand, he is thinking, not how he is to use the axe, but how it will result if he uses this to accomplish the end. In the same way he considers, not how to use the saw, but the result of using the saw. By inhibiting the motor impulses which would lead to the use of either of these, the individual is able to note, say, that to use the axe is a quick, but inaccurate, way of gaining the end; to use the saw, a slow, but accurate, way. The present need being interpreted as one where only an approximate division is necessary, attention is thereupon given wholly to the images tending to promote this action; resistance is thus overcome in these centres, and the necessary motor discharges for using the axe are given free play. Here, however, the mind evidently does not deliberate on how the hands are to use the axe or the saw, but rather upon the results following the use of these.

VOLITION

=Nature of Will.=--When voluntary attention is fixed, as above, upon the results of conflicting lines of action, the mind is said to experience a conflict of desires, or motives. So long as this conflict lasts, physical expression is inhibited, the mind deliberating upon and comparing the conflicting motives. For instance, a pupil on his way to school may be thrown into a conflict of motives. On the one side is a desire to remain under the trees near the bank of the stream; on the other a desire to obey his parents, and go to school. So long as these desires each press themselves upon the attention, there results an inhibiting of the nervous motor discharge with an accompanying mental state of conflict, or indecision. This prevents, for the time being, any action, and the youth deliberates between the two possible lines of conduct. As he weighs the various elements of pleasure on the one hand and of duty on the other, the one desire will finally appear the stronger. This const.i.tutes the person's choice, or decision, and a line of action follows in accordance with the end, or motive, chosen. This mental choice, or decision, is usually termed an act of will.