customers.

He was one of the biggest swindlers they ever knew, but when he hired a man to do any work he always paid him what he asked without a word, but if he made a bargain with any one that could afford to lose without breaking him up he would 'beat' him almost every time. The iron columns in front of his building are an example. He never paid a cent for them and beat them in three courts. His gas business and using the city water for two years and making them believe it was artesian water were other instances. Bringing the city gas through a tank of water, he put stuff in the water to color the flame until the gas inspectors declared that it was not theirs."

Letter from a prison chum.- "It

is very little information that I can give you regarding H. I met him for the first time in the jail, and was only with him for some three or four weeks while he remained in jail in St. Louis. . . . I know nothing about him, but what he told me of some of his former exploits before I met him. Of course you know that he told me all about the scheme to rob the insurance company, and that it was for introducing him to a lawyer who could be trusted to be allowed to know that the scheme to rob the insurance company was a fraud, etc., that I was to have $500 to enable me to fight my case or secure my liberty."

[Query Of what crime was this man found guilty, when his case was studied by Dr. MacDonald ?] 1

99. ALFRED SCHWITOFSKY'S CASE. [Printed post, as No. 381.]

Topic 2. Emotion (Motive) 2

101. JAMES SULLY. The Human Mind. (1892. Vol. II, p. 196.) Desire. The phenomenon known as desire has, as we have seen, its dim prototype in instinctive impulse. . . . The Analysis of Desire. (1) Since all definite desire is of some object or perceptible result, one obvious element in the physical state is an idea or representation. When a child desires an object, say an orange, or a playmate's society, he is imagining this object as actually present or realized. In this way all desire is related to the intellectual side of mind. Where there is no knowledge there can be no desire. . . . (2) A closer inspection shows us that all representations do not excite desire. Many images, e.g. those of familiar objects in our surroundings, other people's doings, and the like, may arise without any appreciable accompaniment of mental craving or desire. This peculiar psychical state is only aroused by the representation of objects so far as they excite our feeling, and more particularly are thought of as fitted to benefit us or bring us pleasure. In desiring a succulent fruit a child represents the delight of eating it in desiring a good social position or a high reputation a man represents the coveted situation on its pleasurable side. . . . (3) While desire thus stands in relation to each of the two other phases of mind, it is sufficiently marked off as an active phenomenon. It is in virtue of this [Answers to Nos. 97 and 98:

No. 97. Petty larceny.

No. 98. Murder. This was Holmes, one of the most ruthless murderers of his generation; ten or more murders were traced to him, and his "Castle" in Chicago was a veritable charnel-house. He was convicted and executed in Pennsylvania; see Official Report of Commonwealth v. Mudgett, alias Holmes. -- Ed.]

2 [Compare the analysis of Motive and Emotion in No. 29, ante. — ED.]

characteristic that it constitutes the connecting link between knowing and feeling on the one side, and willing on the other. In desiring a thing, say an approaching holiday, we are in a state of active tension, as if striving to aid the realization of that which is only represented at the moment, and recognized as such. This innermost core of desire has been variously described as a movement of the mind (e.g.) by Aristotle, and more commonly as a striving towards the fruition or realization of the object.

This element of active prompting in desire appears under each of the two phases which, as we have seen, are always present in our active states, viz. attention, and muscular consciousness. . . . We thus see that there is in the very process of mental concentration, as soon as this becomes consciously directed to the representation of something agreeable and desirable, the germ of a purposive activity, the striving towards an end. . . . Desire and Aversion. The great contrast in the region of feeling between pleasure and pain has its counterpart in the domain of activity. While the representation of what is pleasurable excites the positive form of desire, that is, longing to realize, the representation of what is painful awakens the negative form of aversion, or the longing to be rid of. We strive towards what gives us pleasure, and away from what gives us pain. . . .

Desire and Motive. Hitherto we have dealt with desire merely as a state of craving without any reference to the nature of the desire as realizable or non-realizable. It is evident that we have many desires which do not go beyond this stage. . . . A desire when thus transformed into a practical incentive, or excitant to action, is what we call a motive.

A motive is thus a desire viewed in its relation to a particular represented action, to the carrying out of which it urges or prompts. . . . As the feelings grow in number and the higher forms of emotion begin to appear, the conative process is prompted by a larger variety of desires. Thus the child begins to act for the sake of earning praise, of giving pleasure to others, or of doing what is right for its own sake. In this way each new advance in emotional development tends to widen the range of desire in a corresponding measure. . . . There now appears as a result of this development of ideation and feeling a new form of conative stimulus, which we can describe as Motive-Idea. . . . The development of reflection and selfconsciousness leads to an organization or unification of action into a connected system. Thus, ambition when fixed as a steady incentive means a recurring motive-idea, leading to a succession of progressive actions, the whole constituting the pursuit of a permanent end. . . .

Nature of Permanent Ends: Desiring Means as Ends. The pursuit of these permanent ends illustrates in a specially distinct form a common tendency in all states of desire to the fixing of attention not so much on the end itself as on the conditions of its realization. As was pointed out above, the desire for an object begets a desire for the action which is seen to lead on to the realization of it. In order to carry out any line of action, it seems necessary that we should fix attention on the immediate result of the act, as that which guides and controls the process. Hence the tendency to erect this proximate result into a kind of secondary "end" of the action. Thus if a person feels cold and goes to shut the door, realization of the idea of the closed door becomes the immediate object of his action. That is to say, for the moment he loses sight of the initial stimulus, feeling of

cold and the idea of the desired warmth, and is occupied in shutting the door. If an obstacle occurs, as when the latch does not answer, he becomes wholly absorbed in this secondary end. In the case of pursuing a permanent end, as riches, or health, this preoccupation of the mind with the means of obtaining our object becomes still more marked. . . .

In

Complex Action. Our action, as we have seen, gains in representativeness as we take remote consequences into account. And this increase of representativeness implies an increase in the complexity of the action. a special sense we may call an action complex when it is not the result of a single impulse but involves a plurality of impulses, a representation of a number of objects of desire or aversion. . . . This expansion of the representative stage of action assumes one of two contrasting forms. In the first place, the desires or impulses simultaneously called up may be harmonious and coöperative, converging towards one and the same action. In the second place, the desires may be discordant and opposed, or diverging into different lines of action.

(a) Coöperation of Impulses. The combination of two or more elements of desire or impulse in one conative impulse is exceedingly common, and may be said, indeed, to be the general rule. Many actions which seem at first sight to have but one impelling motive will be found on closer inspection to have a number. So simple an action as going out for a walk may be motived by a number of concurrent impulses, as desire for locomotion, fresh air, and a change of scene. . .

...

(b) Opposition of Impulses. The second variety of complex action, in which two (or more) impulses come into antagonism, is of yet greater importance. . . . Arrest of Action: Inhibition. This variety of complex action is characterized by the clearer emergence of an element in the conative process hitherto neglected, viz. the arrest or inhibition of action. . . It is when we are simultaneously prompted by a plurality of impulses leading in distinct directions, that is, to different external actions, that the process of inhibition becomes manifest. The opposition of motor forces in this case produces an arrest of action which may be temporary only, leading to a delay of postponement of the action, or may end in its complete suppression. . . .

(1) Action Arrested by Doubt. The simplest case of arrested or inhibited action is that in which the belief necessary to the carrying out of an impulse is checked. In the early stages of action we are prone to be confident in our powers. We can easily observe in children's first experiments in movement that they are carried out boldly, that is, with a full assurance of success. To these hopeful tyros in the domain of human action failure comes as a shock. The child looks perplexed, confounded, when he first encounters an object too heavy to be removed. These failures suggest uncertainty, and this sense of uncertainty or doubt will serve to arrest or temporarily paralyze the child's action. .

(2) Recoil of Desire: Deterrents from Action. A second and in general more effective form of arrest occurs when desire prompts to a certain action with which is associated some painful accompaniment or consequent. In this case the impulse to realize a pleasure is opposed by an aversion to what is disagreeable. And so far as this shrinking from a painful experience frustrates the positive impulse, we are said to be deterred from the action.

The deterring force in this case may reside either in the representation of the action itself as disagreeable, or in the anticipation of some disagreeable result. . . . Here, again, the effect of the prevision of evil in repressing impulse will vary according to a number of circumstances, such as the relative strength of the attractive and deterrent forces, and the strength of the general disposition towards activity at the time. Here, too, we may note marked differences of effect according as the temperament is wary or cautious, and highly susceptible to the deterrent effects of anticipated evil; or, on the other hand, heedless of unpleasant consequences and impatient of delay a contrast well illustrated in the case of Macbeth and his wife when planning their ambitious crime.

(3) Rivalry of Impulses. As a third type of arrest, we may take the case where there arises a plurality of positive impulses. When a man is at one and the same moment stimulated to different lines of action by two disconnected desires, conflict arises through the prompting of incompatible impulses. . . . This rivalry of impulses or desires may assume different forms. Thus two actual feelings may prompt in different directions, as when, tired and hot after a walk, we are at once compelled to rest, and to procure a draft of water.

102. G. F. ARNOLD. Psychology applied to Legal Evidence. (1906. pp. 38, 87.) ... We must next explain "Motive" and what it is that determines conduct. By "motive" is usually meant an ulterior end. But what actually moves us is a felt contradiction, and a thought or idea moves us by exciting desire: desire there is the real stimulus. It is the feeling excited by the idea of the end, or, as Wundt describes it, motives are internal causes of volition, and a motive is a particular idea with an affective tone attaching to it, and the combination of idea and feeling in motives only means that an idea becomes a motive as soon as it solicits the will, feeling itself being simply a definite voluntary tendency. It will be well to dwell for a moment on the part played by desire. "Where, however," says Professor Sully, "circumstances allow of a gratification of the desire, this passes into a new form, viz. an impulse to carry out a particular line of action. A desire when thus transformed into an incentive or excitant to action is what we call a motive. A motive is thus a desire viewed in its relation to a particular represented action, to the carrying out which it urges or prompts."

Now desire does not always follow knowledge, but, on the contrary, "instances are by no means wanting of very imperious desires accomplished by the clear knowledge that their gratification will be positively distasteful."...

The writers are unanimous to the effect that what determines conduct, voluntary and impulsive alike, is not intellect or ideation, but feeling; and that although in will there is an ideational element, it is through feeling that it influences action. Thus Ribot quotes with approval the saying of Spinoza that "appetite is the very essence of man. . . . Desire is appetite with consciousness of self. . . . From this it results, that the foundation of effort, volition, appetite and desire, is not the fact that a person adjudged a thing to be good; but on the contrary, a person deems a thing good because he tends towards it from effort, will, appetite and desire."