CHAPTER III

FEELING

I. AFFECTION

FEELING must be defined first in its elementary aspect as affection, and then in its complicated phase as emotion. The term "affection" in modern psychological usage means certain fundamental or elementary aspects of consciousness, namely, pleasantness and unpleasantness. (Some writers add other elements to this list, as "indifference," but the more general tendency seems to be to accept this twofold classification.) We can most easily indicate the nature of affection by comparing it briefly with cognition.

Affection and Cognition. All mental processes, according to one view, are divided into two great classes, knowing or the cognitive class, and feeling or the affective class. In the former belong the processes of sensation, perception, imagination, memory, reasoning; in the latter, agreeableness and disagreeableness, feelings, emotions, moods, passions, sentiments. To distinguish these two classes it is common to say that cognition has an objective reference, that it tells one about the objects, events, conditions of an external world; whereas feeling has a subjective reference, and expresses a personal reaction, or records the subject's manner of receiving a cognitive stimulus. Moreover, cognitive processes can be referred

ATTRIBUTES OF AFFECTION

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to some specific sense-organ, while affective processes involve more markedly the organism as a whole.

Attributes of Affection. The attributes of affection are intensity, duration and quality. It does not represent spatial extent. In this it is unlike visual, tactile and muscular processes, but is like hearing, smell, taste and some organic sensations. Affection may vary, by many stages, from an extremely intense to a very mild experience. As with sensation, it is proper to speak of a threshold of feeling. Sometimes the neural basis of feeling is so slightly excited that no feeling emerges into consciousness and the feeling is then said to be below the limen. Again, the excitement may be so great as to cause fainting, and then the feeling is said to have passed the upper limen. The duration of affection is harder to investigate than the duration of sensation, because, for one thing, the stimuli are harder to control. In working with color, for instance, it is easy to note when a patch of blue is shown and when withdrawn, but the adequate stimulus to a pleasurable feeling for blue is a more complex affair. It is true that the same patch of blue might be the occasion of the feeling, but we cannot count on its remaining so under slightly different circumstances. It is almost impossible to state definitely the instant when a feeling appears and when it disappears. The quality of an affection is the characteristic part of it which cannot be varied without destroying the affection, and which cannot be analyzed.

Relation of Affection to the Duration and Repetition of Sensations. In any concrete moment of living we always find affection and cognition associated. Very often

the judgment of "pleasant" or "unpleasant" is made about or attached to a specific sensory process, the duration of the process influencing the duration, intensity and nature of the affection. Very brief sensory stimuli are likely to be unpleasant, because they are gone before they are clearly apprehended, and this is tantalizing. Very long stimulation, if continuously attended to, is unpleasant; for even when a stimulus is not bad to begin with, it becomes tedious, and sometimes painful. The case is not quite the same when a stimulus instead of being continuous is frequently repeated. If the repetitions come rapidly they may be very disagreeable, as in case of a flickering light; but if they come at long intervals there is a chance that the experience may become more agreeable, as in case of acquired tastes. There is a tendency, however, not to attend to a stimulus which is continuous or often repeated, and when this tendency is operative we say that one has become indifferent or habituated.

Relation of Affection to Intensity of Sensations. In general it may be said that very weak sensory impressions are either indifferent or slightly disagreeable, because they are hard to perceive. Extremely intense sensations are disagreeable and often painful. A moderate intensity of sensation, like a moderate duration, is usually necessary for an agreeable result. Enough has been said to show that sensory and affective processes do not follow the same laws.

The Nature of Pain. Pain, though not itself an affection, is unique among sensations for its close connection with the affective life. Pain is a sensation, a pure and simple quality. It is often described as cutting, burn

ing, pricking, stabbing, but these terms merely indicate the experiences which accompany it, and there is no way to describe it except to point it out when it occurs. Like any ultimate quality, it must be experienced to be known. Like other sensations, it can be localized with some accuracy. Pain shows a closer kinship with emotion than with the intellectual processes. Like emotion, it is characterized by intensity and impulsive power. Emotion, which means conflict, frequently involves pain. Finally, the physiological accompaniments of pain are like the basis of emotion; for along with strong emotion of any kind there goes a general disturbance of organic processes, alterations in breathing, circulation, glandular secretions, and sometimes faintness, trembling and nausea.

Pre

cisely these things are present in the case of hard pain: broken breathing, altered heart-beat, tears, sweat, trembling and nausea. In point of intensity pain seems to hold a unique place among sensations, since in vividness and keen reality it has no equal.

Significance of Pain in Mental Life. Nothing is more certain than the unpleasantness of severe pain, and hence it seldom fails as a stimulus to attention and to mental activity. The characteristics of pain mark it out as the best adapted of any of our mental processes to be a medium of comparison or a measure of values. In the first place it is a simple definite sensation which is common enough in our experience to be readily recognized and appreciated. It is, further, capable of a great range of intensities, and, finally, it is the most reliable of all experiences in prompting a reaction. There is, of course, no mental content which is so constant and fixed in its

relationships as physical standards are, but pain seems to be better than any other mental content that we have. That pain actually is used in a rough way as a measure of value or interest we may infer from the following facts: Among savage tribes it is generally required that the young men pass through painful initiation ceremonies before they are deemed worthy to have full membership in the tribe. The medieval ascetics were regarded as holy in proportion to the austerities which they endured. Again, we find that the degree of attention which we give to any object, or the interestingness of it, can be roughly indicated by the amount of painful stimulus which must be applied in order to draw us away from it. Pain has a function, not only as a stimulus to action and measure of value, but also as a foil to pleasure. The existence of pain gives point and significance to the existence of pleasure, for, in order to discriminate anything, there must be something to discriminate from.

Pain and Unpleasantness. Pain is a sensation and unpleasantness an affective tone. There are many unpleasant things which are not painful, e.g., bad color combinations. On the other hand it is almost universally true that pain is always unpleasant. We said above that nothing was more certain than the unpleasantness of pain, and yet there seem to be occasional exceptions to this. One writer (Hirn) discusses the "enjoyment of pain," and it appears that slight degrees of pain are at least sufficiently interesting to be welcome, under some circumstances, to some people.

Function of Pleasantness and Unpleasantness. It is commonly agreed that there is a general correspondence