SWIFT. The poet Dryden was his grand-uncle. TROLLOPE, Mrs., the novelist;

Two sons, Anthony and Thomas, novelists.

The list might easily have been extended, but the names here given are probably sufficient for our purpose.

CHAPTER VI.

HEREDITY OF THE SENTIMENTS AND THE PASSIONS.

I.

MAN is situated in the midst of the universe, which acts upon him only by its properties. Colours, odours, savours, forms, resistances, movements, become modes of our organism, producing therein a shock to the nerves. Then all these peripheric impressions pass to the brain, probably into the optic thalami; and, being thence transmitted to the cortical substance of the brain, they are transformed, we know not how, into facts of consciousness: the physiological phenomenon becomes psychological, constituting that state of the mind which we denominate cognition. But this is not all. The nerve-vibrations produced by material objects not only make us acquainted with something outside of us, but they also produce within us a certain agreeable or disagreeable state, which we call feeling. If there were no such reverberation of pleasure or pain within us, then our experiences of the external world would be, as Bichat says, 'only a frigid series of intellectual phenomena.'

Those phenomena of sensation of which the subjective character is opposed to the objective character of the phenomena of cognition may have an ideal as well as a real cause. Experience shows that pure concepts-simple ideas-may not only be acts of consciousness, but may also produce in us agreeable or painful conditions. Thus, whoever conceives the ideal of a future state of society, with a larger measure of justice, morality, science, and happiness, simultaneously with his perception of this fair vision is pleasurably affected by the sight of what might be, painfully by the sight of what is.

If we add that pleasure and pain may be excited in us either

by some state of our organs dependent on the vital processes, or by recollections suggested by memory, we have enumerated every mode of cognition which can produce phenomena of sensation. Causes-real and ideal-present and past—all these elements are added to each other, placed in juxtaposition and fusion, and neutralize each other, so as to produce these complex sensations, which make their appearance very slowly, both in the individual and in the species. Thus, the sentiment of nature in a poet of the nineteenth century, a Byron or a Goethe, is the result of so great a number of actual perceptions, recollections, and ideas blended together, that it defies the analysis of the most accomplished psychologist. The psychology of the sentiments, moreover, is far from being as advanced as that of the intellect.

In studying the sentiments, we may do so either as naturalists or as metaphysicians. In the former case, we describe and classify the various phenomena of sensibility; this is the work of the psychologist. In the other case, we strive to reduce all these phenomena to their law, their ultimate cause; and this is the work of the philosopher.

The descriptive method is much indebted to contemporary physiologists and psychologists, and particularly to Mr. Bain in his great work, The Emotions and the Will. Still, there is no definite classification of phenomena of the affections, for this can only be founded on an embryology of the sentiments, which has, as yet, no existence. Every naturalist knows that a natural classification is based on anatomy, physiology, and embryology. So, too, in psychology, until we have investigated and described the manifestations of sentiment in the animal kingdom, and in the lower races, with a view to a comparative psychology; until we have traced the evolution of the sentiments, in the individual and in the species, in order to ascertain its genesis, it will be impossible to arrive at a natural, objective, stable classification.

Since Spinoza, no essential contribution has been made to a philosophical study of the ultimate reason of sensible phenomena. Physiologists—those, at least, who are acquainted with philosophyappear to have the same opinion; for Müller copies the third book of Spinoza's Ethics, and Dr. Maudsley, in his recent work,

G

The Physiology and Pathology of Mind, says 'the admirable explanation of the passions given by Spinoza has never been surpassed, and certainly it will not be easy to surpass it.'

6

As the author of the Ethics profoundly observes, the ultimate explanation of all sensible phenomena is found in the fact of desire, 'desire meaning appetite with self-consciousness,' and appetite being the very essence of man, in so far as it is directed to acts which tend towards his conservation.' Desire is the physical and moral constitution of man, inasmuch as it strives towards being and well-being, towards existence and development. It has its ultimate root in the region of the unconscious; nor do we know how it becomes conscious, under that form of tendency which characterizes it. Desire is, like thought, one of the forms of the unknowable it is the unknown quantity, the x which serves to explain for us all phenomena of the affections. We may, indeed, reduce the endless variety of passions, emotions, and sentiments to two very broad states, viz. pleasure and pain—that is to say, an augmentation or diminution of being-but the cause of the two states is desire. It is just because there are in us tendencies that may be satisfied or opposed, that we feel pleasure or pain. In fact, when we experience pleasure or pain, we wish to preserve the one and to destroy the other; but this conscious desire, sometimes regarded as the effect of the primitive unconscious desire, is, in reality, only a continuation of it. That state of tension which we call desire, and which lasts as long as we live, is modified each instant-and hence our joys and our sorrows; these are but moments of a continuous process, and desire is, as it were, the woof on which the chances of life embroider all our emotions.

In sensibility everything tends first of all and directly towards ourselves; later and indirectly towards others. 'The love of self is the root of all the passions; it is the supreme law of sensibility, the nature of which is to look only to its own good.' We love only ourselves; or, in others, that which is like ourselves. Our sympathetic tendencies, manifold and strong though they be, are derived from, and may be ultimately reduced to, love of self without egotism. Sympathy being, in its genuine sense, 'the tendency of one individual to fall in with the emotional or active

states of others,'1 to have a community of sentiments with a man or an animal is to resemble him in one respect; it means being at once ourselves and another. Our selfish and our sympathetic tendencies are, therefore, both equally natural, but the former are based upon our own nature, the latter on an analogy with it. The admirable researches of physiologists on the sympathetic contagion of nervous diseases, may some day serve as the basis for new studies on the emotions. This is not the place to enter on them; we would merely show that phenomena of the affections pertain to our inmost being. By this fact of cognition the outer world is let in upon us, and is reproduced in miniature, for thought is nothing but existence arriving at self-consciousness; but our feeble personality is associated with this impersonal state by the pleasures and pains it produces in us; for sensation and volition make us what we are. The modes of sensibility are so intimately connected with the organs, and with the whole constitution, that, a priori, we might conclude that they are transmitted by heredity. Experience will be found to verify this hypothesis.

II.

We can cite only striking facts-that is to say, passions so violent or so extravagant as to attract the attention of the physician or the historian; yet any one, by questioning his own memory, may easily see that certain modes of sensation, and, consequently, of action, may be preserved hereditarily in families too obscure for notice.

First, then, in animals the transmission of individual character is a fact so common as scarcely to need illustration. 'A horse that is naturally vicious, sulky, and restive,' says Buffon, 'will beget foals with the same character.' Every horse-breeder has

verified this fact in regard to his stud.

'Heredity,' says Girou de Buzareingues, may, even in animals, extend to their most whimsical peculiarities. A hound taken from the teat, and bred far away from either parent, was incorrigibly obstinate and gun shy in circumstances where other dogs were

1 Bain, The Emotions, ch. xii., 'On Sympathy.' The entire chapter should be studied.

eagerly excited. When a bystander expressed his surprise, he was told that there was nothing remarkable, "his father was the same."

Nor is the transmission of characters less striking when races and species are crossed. As we have seen, when the domestic pig and the wild boar, or the wolf and the dog are crossed, some of the progeny inherit the savage, and others the domestic instincts. Similar facts have been observed by Girou in the crossing of different races of dogs and cats. 'Lord Orford, as is well known,' says Darwin, 'crossed his famous greyhounds, which failed in courage, with a bull-dog-this breed being chosen from being deficient in the power of scent. At the sixth or seventh generation there was not a vestige left of the form of the bull dog, but his courage and indomitable perseverance remained.'1

The heredity of propensities, instincts, and passions in animals is very good evidence for this form of heredity in man, inasmuch as it does away with all superficial explanations drawn from education, example, habit, and all those external causes which are supposed to stand in lieu of heredity. And we may remark that this circumstance shows the value of a comparative psychology.

If, now, we consider man, the first phenomena of the affections with which we meet are those of organic sensibility, or cœnæsthesis, a kind of inner sense of touch whereby we are cognizant of the state of our organs, of the tension of our muscles, and of all muscular exertion in general, of the state of weariness, of pleasure, etc. This universal consciousness of existence, this Gemeingefühl, is the result of an infinite number of internal sensations proceeding from the nerves, the muscles, the circulation, the nutrition-in a word, from all those functions the sum of which constitutes what we call our manner of being.

It cannot be doubted that heredity transmits these sensations; and it is probably in them that we must look for the true source of all resemblances of character. But these internal states are of so indeterminate a nature that it is almost impossible to prove their transmission. Nevertheless, we believe that the heredity of certain strange propensities, instincts, and dislikes, may

1 Variation, etc., i. 57.