Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

and sufficiency of it will be appreciated without much difficulty. Moreover, I mean to defer the metaphysical consideration of Consciousness itself, with the problems suspended therein, to a future period. Most of the individual states and varieties of consciousness can be sufficiently well determined and described without raising controversies as to the definition of consciousness in the abstract; while the handling of an abstraction so intensely debated as this has been, demands some previous preparation.

9. Having seen fit to commence the present Book with Movements and Muscular States, the Feelings that come first to be enumerated, are those connected with Muscularity and Movement. We have already recognised three distinct classes of these, namely :—

(1.) Feelings connected with the organic condition of the muscles; as those arising from hurts, wounds, diseases, fatigue, rest, nutriment. These affections the muscles have in common with the other tissues of the body; and the feelings that they

It may facilitate the comprehension of the method, if I offer a few explanatory remarks as to the scope of it. The reader is sufficiently acquainted with the threefold partition of mind into Emotion, Volition, and Intellect. If this partition be complete and exhaustive, every mental fact and phenomenon whatsoever falls under one or other of these heads; nothing mental can be stated that is not either a feeling, a volition, or a thought. It must, nevertheless, be observed, that mental states need not belong to one of these classes exclusively. A feeling may have a certain volitional aspect, at the same time that it possesses all the characters of a true emotion: thus the mental state caused by intense cold, is of the nature of a feeling in the proper acceptation of the term; we recognise it as a mode of consciousness of the painful kind, but inasmuch as it stimulates us to perform actions for abating or freeing ourselves from the pain, there attaches to it a volitional character as well. In like manner every state that can be reproduced afterwards as a recollection, or retained as an idea, has by that fact a certain intellectual character.

Now, in describing states that come properly under the general head of emotion or feeling, we are called upon to bring forward in the first instance the peculiarities, or descriptive marks, that characterize them as feelings. This done, we may carry on the delineation by adverting to their influence on action, or volition; and, lastly, we may specify anything that is distinctive in the hold that they take of the intellect. It is clear that if a Natural History of the human feelings is at all possible, we must endeavour to attain an orderly style of procedure, such as Naturalists in other departments have had recourse to. If the fundamental divisions of mind have any validity in them, they ought to serve as the basis of a proper descriptive method; in fact the description should accord with them.

ORGANIC MUSCULAR FEELINGS.

85

give birth to, have nearly the same general character everywhere.

(2.) Feelings connected with muscular action, including all the pleasures and pains of exercise. These are the emotions most peculiar to the muscular system.

(3.) The Feelings that indicate the various modes of tension of the moving organs. According as a muscle is tense or relaxed, according as much or little energy is thrown into it, and according to the quickness or slowness of the contraction, we are differently affected, and this difference of sensibility enables us to judge of the positions of our active members and of many important relations of external things. These are the feelings of muscle that enter most directly into our intelligence; they have little of the character of mere emotion, and a very large reference to Thought.

All through the present chapter, and through the following chapter, on Sensations, we shall require to keep in view this distinction between feelings that yield a large measure of the distinctive character of feeling or emotion, and others whose emotional character is feeble, and whose function it is to supply the materials of the intelligence. In the eye, for example, the effect of a blaze of sunshine is of a very different nature from the sight of a watch. The one serves for the purpose of immediate enjoyment or emotion, the other is nothing in itself and derives its value from intellectual applications and the rational guidance of our life. The contrast between music and speech expresses the same distinction among effects on the ear.

I. Of Organic Muscular Feelings.

10. In a quotation already given from Dr. Sharpey, it is remarked that muscular sensibility is manifested by the pain which is felt when a muscle is cut, lacerated, or otherwise violently injured, or when it is seized with spasm.' These forms of pain are so many states of consciousness, having their seat or origin in the muscular tissue; the integrity of the nerves and nerve centres being likewise essential to this, as to every other kind of sensibility.

When we come to describe the states of feeling arising through the Senses, named Sensations, it will be proper to assign in each case the external agent that causes the Sensation (light, sound, &c.); to follow this up with an account of the action or change effected on the sensitive surface, (as the skin, the tongue, &c.); and then to proceed with a delineation of the feeling itself, according to the forms made use of for this purpose. In the case of the muscular sensibilities, however, neither the exciting cause, nor the changes produced on the tissue, constitute in the generality of cases a part of the delineation. There is no external agent to act on the muscular tissue, during bodily exercise, in the way that light acts on the eye, or hard surfaces on the skin.

But with reference to the first class in Dr. Sharpey's enumeration, 'cuts, lacerations, and violent injuries,' we discern both an external agent and an assignable change in the substance of the muscle. There is in those circumstances a sudden break in the continuity of the fibre, which is an effect productive of pains in almost any tissue of the body. This is manifestly one of the effects calculated to give an intense shock to the nerves, originating a most energetic and pungent stimulus, which is transmitted to the centres, and there wakens up both consciousness and activity in very violent forms.

The character of the feeling or conscious state thus produced is clear and unmistakeable. Such feelings are described

*The peculiarities properly belonging to Emotion or Feeling are attempted to be exhibited as the first item of our systematic delineation. The first of these is the nature of the conscious state as pleasure or pain, and the degree and mode of the one or the other. Likewise, anything that can be laid hold of as marking agreement or disagreement with other feelings, looked at in their passive aspect, or as pure emotion, is seized upon to aid in the description. The more extensively we can compare any one state with others, the better able shall we be to give an exact and characteristic account of it.

The nature of the inward consciousness being thus described, the outward manifestations, or the Expression, are a proper subject of notice, in so far as they present any distinctive peculiarities. The expression I look upon as part and parcel of the feeling. I believe it to be a general law of mind, which I shall endeavour to prove on another occasion, that along with the fact of inward feeling or consciousness, there is a diflusive action,

[blocks in formation]

by such names as pain, suffering, agony, torture. To use a term that has something of precision attached to it, they are of a most intense character; they are acute in their nature. Their generic name is 'pain,' which expresses an ultimate fact of human consciousness, a primary experience of the human mind resolvable into nothing more general or more fundamental than itself. The specific designation is 'intense' or 'acute;' the phrase 'acute pain,' is thus a tolerable description of the species of feelings in question. The peculiar distinction of quality, between the pains of cut muscle and the pains determined by lacerations of the skin, broken bones, burns, blisters, &c., I do not here undertake to reduce to language. Nor is it absolutely necessary for the ends of mental science to enter nicely into the varieties of acute physical suffering; although for the purposes of the medical man the attempt might come within the scope of a treatise of Pathology.

Acute pain, then, may be characterised in language such as the following, if any expansion or commentary is requisite in addition to the name itself. Being of the class of feelings recognised by the general term, pain, (which with its contrast, pleasure, may be said almost to comprehend the entire sum of conscious states) the acuteness or intensity of it is manifested by overpowering the vast proportion of other pains and emotions, so that these although present are for the time being submerged and lost to the consciousness. This comparison alone determines the degrees of intensity of pains; and physical suffering such as the cases now under consideration stands very high in the scale, there being few pains that surpass it, and few pleasures that can neutralize it. It is their nature either to pass speedily away or else to require active measures

or excitement, over the bodily members. I may at present cite, as an illustration, the effect of a blow; it being well known that in proportion as this is felt as a pain, it causes a shock and agitation over the whole body, manifested in the convulsive start, the cry, the contortion of feature, so familiar to us in our experience of men and animals. According to this view, every variety of consciousness ought to have a special form of diffusive manifestation. It is not every state, however, that carries this diffusive action far enough to be ostensible as a characteristic outward display.

for allaying them, otherwise they soon wear out the strength and even the life of the sufferer.

The description of their character as Emotion is not complete, unless we advert to the Expression that they stimulate, or the effects of that diffusive influence which I look upon as a concomitant of feeling. These effects render the mental state apparent to others, while the purely conscious phase is known only to the individual's self. The expression of acute pain is strong and characteristic. There is not, however, much difference in this respect between one form and another. The body is driven into movements and attitudes of a violent, intense character; sometimes the ordinary movements are quickened and at other times contortions and unusual gestures are displayed. The suddenness, quickness, intensity, of the bodily action, rather than the peculiar direction or form of it, constitutes the distinctive character of the situation. Artists, in giving the bodily expression of pain, as in the Laocoon, or the Crucifixion, differ according to the stage they fix upon, that is, according as they take the first moments when the energies are still fresh, or the subsequent state of drooping and exhaustion, which last gives more room for characteristic expression. In the early stage violent convulsive movement and intensity of attitude, such as any strong passion might bring out, are the points to be noted. If next, we turn to the features, whose chief use is expression, we find a much more distinctive manifestation. There is a well-known form of the countenance that marks the condition of pain,—being produced by certain movements of the eyebrows and the mouth to be afterwards analyzed; and in the case of acute pains these movements have the same appearance of violence and intensity that belongs to the bodily gestures at large. The voice, also a medium of expression, sends out acute cries sufficient to suggest suffering to every listener.

.

Besides instigating these various moving organs with an intensity that measures the acuteness of the feeling, the state we are describing awakens other manifestations of our emotional nature. The outburst of grief and tenderness, tears and sobs—is brought on by pain. The irascible condition,

« ForrigeFortsæt »