Book I. CH. III. § 58. Distinction of functions in the speculative functions and their objects, the posterior to the affective, and the intermediate to the contemplative. Accordingly, we may place the most abstract images and reasonings, such as the mathe- the cerebrum. matical, at the anterior extremity, the most abstract emotions and passions at the posterior; while the contemplative emotions will occupy the middle portion. Farther than this there seems no ground at present to venture, by attempting, for instance, to assign portions of the cerebral surface to particular emotions or particular images; although it may be true that the point at which we now stop is not destined to be the final limit of science in this direction. NOTE REFERRED to at § 53. 6. There is a singular circumstance in dreams, which may be paralleled with the phenomenon of seeing things upright though the image of them is thrown inverted on the retina. There is an account of a dream given by M. Alfred Maury in his work Le Sommeil et les Rêves, p. 133, which I will quote at length. "Mais un fait plus concluant pour la rapidité du songe, un fait qui établit à mes yeux qu'il suffit d'un instant pour faire un rêve étendu, est le suivant: J'étais un peu indisposé, et me trouvais couché dans ma chambre, ayant ma mère à mon chevet. Je rêve de la Terreur; j'assiste à des scènes de massacre, je comparais devant le tribunal révolutionnaire, je vois Robespierre, Marat, Fouquier-Tinville, toutes les plus vilaines figures de cette époque terrible; je discute avec eux; enfin, après bien des événements que je ne me rappelle qu'imparfaitement, je suis jugé, condamné à mort, conduit en charrette, au milieu d'un concours immense, sur la place de la Révolution ; je monte sur l'échafaud; l'exécuteur me lie sur la planche fatale, il la fait basculer, le couperet tombe; je sens ma tête se séparer de mon tronc; je m'éveille en proie à la plus vive angoisse, et je me sens sur le cou la flèche de mon lit qui s'était subitement détachée, et était tombée sur mes vertèbres cervicales, à la façon du couteau d'une guillotine. Cela avait eu lieu à l'instant, ainsi que ma mère le confirma, et cependant c'était cette sensation externe que j'avais prise, comme dans le cas cité plus haut, pour point du départ d'un rêve où tant de faits s'étaient succédé. Au moment où j'avais été frappé, le souvenir de la redoutable machine, dont la flèche de mon lit représentait si bien l'effet, avait éveillé toutes les images d'une époque dont la guillotine a été le symbole." M. Maury cites this instance chiefly to show the extreme rapidity of dreams. But must we not also conclude from it, that dreams, when suggested by external agency, and referred to past time, are suggested in inverted order of time, which is corrected and changed into the real order of history by a process harmonising them with the order of events in actual life? Just as we judge of the top and bottom of a visible image by associating it with sensations of touch, and as we arrange the events of ancient history in real historical order, though we reason back to them, retracing that order, from events which have been their effects, so in dreams we see the events in real historical order though they are suggested to us successively in that order precisely reversed. The image of death by the guillotine was the last thing in the apparent order of the dream; the movements supporting that image were the first things in the real order of suggestion. And we can hardly suppose, as M. Maury might seem to do from his concluding words, that the image of the guillotine called up the image of the Revolution generally, and that then this image developed itself into a special story or sequence of events, because, in the first place, the dream did not appear to begin but to end with the guillotine, and, in the second place, because this would give no reason for the person guillotined being the dreamer himself; the general image of the Revolution might just as well end with the execution of any one else, or without an execution at all. It seems that we must either suppose an inverse order of suggestion, or suppose what is at least unlikely, first, that the image of the guillotine should have immediately suggested the image of the Revolution generally or of prominent scenes in it, and secondly, that the story into which this image developed itself should have ended with the execution of the spectator himself. CHAPTER IV. COMBINATION OF FEELINGS AND FORMATION OF CHARACTER. Fürwahr es ist Homunculus. Goethe. $59. 1. THE statical analysis of feelings has been completed in Chapter ii., and their dynamical analysis, the analysis of redintegration, in Chapter iii. But the most difficult and complicated part of our task remains still before us, the analysis and classification of Character. Character may be defined, at least provisionally, as that combination of feelings and emotions, and that mode of redintegration of emotions and their frameworks, which together are dominant or preponderant in any individual person. The first question is this, What feelings and emotions are found usually in combination, or, What are the affinities of feelings? The second, What modes of redintegration are found usually in combination with each of those groups of feelings which are connected by affinity? The answer to both these questions together is the answer to the question, What BOOK I. $ 59. What the character is. BOOK I. $ 59. What the character is. are the chief kinds or classes of character. The problem consists, therefore, in combining the two analyses, statical and dynamical; and the result will be an analysis and a classification of individuals, of men as complete wholes; an analysis, because the character will be analysed into its favourite modes of working, and its favourite kinds of feeling; and a classification, because all kinds of characters will be grouped together under several heads, according to these affinities and modes. This double analysis and classification will complete the First Book, the analytical part, of the whole enquiry. 2. The character of any individual consists, strictly speaking, in the kind of his favourite representations and his favourite modes of redintegrating them. Of the three portions of the nervous organism, distinguished in § 52, supporting severally presentations, mixed representations, and pure representations, character attaches primarily and immediately to the last alone; for it is in these representations only that selfconsciousness arises; and therefore it is the organ of these representations only which supports the character of the self-conscious individual. Sever the connection between this organ and the organs of sense and motion below it, and then, although these lower organs might continue to have sensations and mixed representations, and to produce movements and sounds, their perceptions would no longer be known as perceptions of, their movements would no longer be dependent as effects upon, the reflecting consciousness seated in the organ of pure representation. When we enquire into character, we mean the character of the self-conscious individual; no other than this can be the object of Ethic. But in prac tice and in life, this organ, its redintegrations, its representations and emotions, its self-consciousness, and its character, are not isolated from the other organs of the body; they are modified by and built up out of the perceptions and nervous influences coming from these; and these in their turn they modify and guide, in reaction upon the body and, through the muscles of the body, upon the external world. We have then to hold fast this distinction, namely, the character itself as the special object of analysis, on the one hand, and on the other the causes influencing the formation, and the effects produced by the reaction, of the character. But these three things must first be distinguished with greater minuteness. 3. First as to the character itself, and the representations and emotions constituting it. Few persons are aware of the enormous comparative importance of the domain of pure representations. Not only do the emotions which arise in them colour the whole of life, a circumstance which has been long observed, but the far greater part of the world in which we habitually live consists of representations and representations only. In consequence of our usual empirical method of thinking, we set down all representations of physical objects to presentative perception, under the title of objects of sense or material objects, on the tacit assumption that they might become presentations if we were within sight or hearing of them, or, as it is sometimes expressed, that they are material in their nature, though we have only their images in the mind. Metaphysically, however, every object is material, that is, contains feeling as well as form; and this circumstance is VOL. I. GG Воок І. $ 59. What the character is. |