give their significance here, where they have their origin, in the direct emotions of hope and fear; for at this point we are at the very springs of action, and it is here if at all that action can be properly analysed. Every state of consciousness consists of a formal and a material element; every emotion consists of a representational framework and its pervading emotion; every desire contains the feeling of some degree of certainty in addition to the emotion; and the total of these two elements, when balanced against the same two elements in another desire, determines the choice of the one desire, or desired object, as a thing to be done or possessed in preference to the other. Every step just described is a cognition as well as a feeling; it is a cognition in virtue of its formal element and its representational framework; and the connection between representations is cognition, and capable of expression in propositions. Desire, choice, volition, repulsion, are expressed in propositions the terms of which, their subject and predicate, lie respectively in consciousness on one side and the objects of consciousness on the other; the predicates of the affirmative propositions are taken up into consciousness, those of the negative are excluded, and thus form severally two modes or domains of consciousness, the True Ego and its opposite. Again, all action is included and described in this analysis; there is nothing left outside for action to be; there is no residuary Dingan-sich of action; form and matter, thought and feeling, representation and emotion, constitute the whole of existence and of consciousness. It is action itself which is thus analysed. When in consequence of a desire I act, what happens is, that a presentation Воок І. CH. II. PART III. § 20. Imaginative emotions arising from the matter. BOOK I. CH. II. PART III. $ 20. Imaginative emotions arising from the matter. or a new representation follows upon the representation which is desire; "following" however is juxtaposition in time. This sequence is action, and the action is capable of exhaustive analysis into form and matter, thought and feeling; and the different modes of these, whether separately or in combination, are different modes of action, such as, for instance, reasoning, volition, muscular movement for a purpose, attention. Again, I may act blindly or without choice, without any balancing of desires against each other; this is spontaneous action, as opposed to voluntary, a mere continuation of the chain of states of consciousness; and this spontaneous action is obviously capable of analysis into the same elements, with the exception of those constituting choice and comparison. Regarded as a cognitive movement expressed by a proposition, action, whether spontaneous or voluntary, is affirmative between objects the terms of which, their subject and predicate, lie where those of desire lie, namely, in consciousness already existing on the one side and in possible objects of consciousness on the other. The action adds one more state of consciousness to those already belonging to it; it is an added moment of conscious life; what it omits to do or to think or to feel it excludes, and thereby impliedly denies. All action is affirmation of a new object belonging to the Ego; whether or not to the True Ego can only be determined by reflective action afterwards. There is then no opposite to action taken simply, as repulsion is opposite to desire; the opposite of action is omission; hence the only implied character of its negative. Its negations, being mere omissions, are all non-existent. Spontaneous action is the forward movement of con sciousness simply, voluntary action its forward movement on one road chosen out of several. BOOK I. CH. II. PART III. § 20. Imaginative emotions arising from 5. Some degree of uncertainty is requisite to hope and fear; when imagination is exercised on past events which have been pleasureable or pain- the matter. ful, but of which we know not only that they have been, but also how they have been decided, the resulting emotions are very different. For instance, when we remember the past as it has actually been, and imagine at the same time what it might have been, we feel either grief, joy, aversion, or fondness, but not as carried up into either hope or fear. In the known past these feelings become the counterparts of hope and fear which are in the unknown past or in the future; and may be called congratulation and regret. If the actual past remembered is better than the image we compare it with, we congratulate ourselves and rejoice; if worse, we regret it. The pleasures and pains of the four emotions, hope, fear, congratulation, regret, like those of the four which they have combined with them, joy, grief, fondness, aversion, are pleasures and pains of enjoyment not of admiration. Regret and congratulation have also, like the rest, their reflective modes. Mirth § 21. 1. It remains to examine that group of emotions which are the different modes of wonder and of mirth when carried up into imagination. Mirth itself, it has been seen, is founded on wonder, and therefore includes comparison. When comparison is made between any objects for the mere sake of the pleasure of comparing them, new points of resemblance and difference being sought for in them, or when a new representation is sought in order to compare it with an old one, the movement of thought Воок І. PART III. § 21. Imaginative emotions arising from the form. is called Fancy; and fancy is therefore the common parent of all modes of imaginative mirth. The pleasure or interest of fancy lies solely in itself, and it is in this respect similar to poetry, for all poetry is "dedicated to joy," and has no purpose beyond itself, does not aim at proving or inculcating anything, but is an energy ors whose end is in itself and in its own movement. This circumstance being common to fancy and poetry, it happens that the best instances of fancy will be found in poetry. Fancy has been distinguished from poetical imagination by both Wordsworth and Coleridge; its characteristics are that it arbitrarily connects the most dissimilar and disjoins the most similar images, is sportive, discursive, inventive; and secondly, that it is intellectual in respect of the mode of its passing from one image to another, comparison and analogy being its means. Its purpose is not, like that of poetical imagination, to find and express emotional truth, but, under the stimulus of any emotion, to exercise the faculty of comparison of images, which will certainly thus be coloured by emotion, but will not be its adequate expression. For instance, under the stimulus of love, Romeo says of Juliet at her window at night, "Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, Having some business, do entreat her eyes a fancy which shows the activity and the kind of acti- Again, under the stimulus of grief, Arthur to Hu bert in King John, "Ah, none but in this iron would do it! The iron of itself, though heat red-hot, Approaching near these eyes, would drink my tears, And quench his fiery indignation Even in the matter of my innocence; Nay, after that, consume away in rust, But for containing fire to harm mine eye." The beauty of these and similar passages must not mislead us to set them down as instances of poetical imagination. The emotion under which they are spoken gives them interest. But it is one thing for words to be prompted by emotion, another to express and describe that emotion themselves. Emotion prompts utterances of all kinds; it prompts, as will be shown, humour and irony to become sarcasm and invective; it prompts wit, which is fancy become antithetical. The intensity of the feeling stimulates the activity of the intellectual or comparing powers, but the shapes which these comparisons assume are modes of fancy not of poetical imagination. Another form of fancy is the simile. For instance, in King John again, Salisbury. The colour of the king doth come and go Between his purpose and his conscience, Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles set: Personification again is usually a mode of fancy, for 66 Grim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front." 2. Fancy, then, is the exercise of intellect in comparing images when there is no other motive be BOOK I. PART III. § 21. Imaginative emotions arising from the form. |