Chapter VI: The Feelings and Emotions (2)

There can be no question that special modes of behaviour often characterize the pairing situation, and that these not only exemplify an instinctive tendency, but from their constancy and relative definiteness constitute types of instinctive behaviour. They would form parts of any definition of a species founded not on structure but on behaviour. And if animals have feelings and emotions at all--if they are not Cartesian automata, which merely _seem_ to be guided in their actions by consciousness--there can be but little question that the behaviour which characterizes the sexual situation is unusually charged with feeling-tone, and accompanied by all those adjuncts which distinguish an emotional state, broadly considered. This matter is of no little importance in our interpretation of the phenomena described as courtship. Do the accompanying feeling-tone and the state of emotional exaltation influence the behaviour, or would it run a similar course in the absence of any such accompaniments? If, as we can scarcely doubt, the consciousness attending the situation does profoundly influence the behaviour, the further question arises--Is this influence mainly the result of the presence and behaviour of an individual of the opposite sex? To this, again, we must answer that, so far as we can learn by observation, behaviour unquestionably is determined by such influence in the serious business of courtship. And then the further question arises--Is it a matter of indifference what the appearance and behaviour of the individual of the opposite sex may be? Are A., B., C., and the rest of the male alphabet, precisely alike in stimulating in a similar manner, and to a similar degree, the sexual impulse of the female? If we admit any differential influence, and if this influence takes effect in the sexual union to which courtship is preparatory, we so far admit the efficacy of that which Darwin termed sexual selection.

Let us, however, before proceeding with general considerations, present one or two examples of the facts which observation has furnished with regard to specialized modes of behaviour at the time of pairing. Speaking of American night-hawks, Audubon says, “Their manner of flying is a good deal modified at the love season. The male employs the most wonderful evolutions to give expression to his feelings, conducting them with the greatest rapidity and agility in sight of his chosen mate, or to put to rout a rival. He often rises to a height of a hundred metres and more, and his cries become louder and louder as he mounts; then he plunges downward with a slanting direction, with wings half open, and so rapidly that it seems inevitable that he should be dashed to pieces on the ground. But at the right moment, sometimes when only a few inches from it, he spreads his wings and tail, and, turning, soars upward once more.”[137] Mr. Strange, quoted by Darwin[138] says of the satin bower-bird, “at times the male will chase the female all over the aviary, then go to the bower, pick up a gay feather or a large leaf, utter a curious kind of note, set all his feathers erect, run round the bower and become so excited that his eyes appear ready to start from his head; he continues opening first one wing, and then the other, uttering a low, whistling note, and, like the domestic cock, seems to be picking up something from the ground, until at last the female goes quietly towards him.”

Darwin describes how, in the Argus pheasant,[139] “the immensely developed secondary wing-feathers are confined to the male, and each is ornamented with a row of from twenty to twenty-three ocelli, each above an inch in diameter. These beautiful ornaments are hidden until the male shows himself before the female. He then erects his tail, and expands his wing-feathers into a great, almost upright, circular fan or shield, which is carried in front of the body. The ocelli are so shaded that, as the Duke of Argyll remarks, they stand out like balls lying loosely within sockets. But when I looked at a specimen in the British Museum, which is mounted with the wings expanded and trailing downward, I was,” adds Darwin, “greatly disappointed, for the ocelli appeared flat or even concave. Mr. Gould, however, soon made the case clear to me, for he held the feathers erect, in the position in which they would naturally be displayed, and now, from the light shining on them from above, each ocellus at once resembled the ornament called a ball and socket.” The primary wing-feathers are scarcely, if at all, inferior in beauty to the secondaries, though the markings are quite different, the chief ornament being a space parallel to the dark-blue shaft, which in outline forms a perfect second feather lying within the true feather. “Now the secondary and primary wing-feathers are not at all displayed, and the ball and socket ornaments are not exhibited in full perfection, until the male assumes the attitude of courtship.”

It is unnecessary to describe the song of birds which is generally, but not always, at its best during the period of pairing. Bechstein, who kept birds during his whole life, and studied them with care, asserts that “the female canary always chooses the best singer, and that in a state of nature the female finch selects that male out of a hundred whose notes please her most.”[140]

Thus we are led back to sexual selection. If we are satisfied that the males of certain species do as a matter of fact behave in specific and distinguishable ways at the breeding season, and in presence of their would-be mates, the question is, What, if any, is the biological value of such behaviour? What has fostered and guided it in the course of its evolution? From the case of the Argus pheasant, which is only a sample of the large class of cases in which the male has special adornments, we see that the behaviour has often direct relation to the display of such plumage, or, in some apes, of coloured surfaces, so that behaviour and ornamentation must be taken together. The essence of Darwin’s contention is, that the adornments and behaviour give rise to a situation through which the female is stimulated or excited to accept the male; that the male in which they are best developed gives rise to the most effective situation, produces most excitement, and therefore has the best chance of acceptance, being “unconsciously preferred;”[141] and that he thus begets offspring which inherit his adornments and modes of behaviour, such inheritance being, however, confined to the males. Thus sexual selection takes effect through preferential mating, whereby certain hereditary traits are transmitted and become racial characteristics. And this is brought about through an appeal to consciousness, and seems to involve choice--generally that of the female.

Now, as I have elsewhere urged,[142] the hypothesis of sexual selection has often been placed in a false light by the introduction of the unnecessary supposition that the hen bird, for example, must possess a standard or ideal of æsthetic value, and that she selects that singer which comes nearest to her conception of what a songster should be. Darwin occasionally expressed himself unguardedly in the matter; he says, for example, that the female appreciates the display of the male, and places to her credit a taste for the beautiful.[143] But he also distinctly states that “it is not probable that she consciously deliberates; she is most excited or attracted by the most beautiful, or melodious, or gallant males.”[144] This is all that is really necessary for the theory of sexual selection. The hen accepts that mate which by his song or otherwise excites in sufficient degree the pairing impulse; if others fail to excite this impulse, they are not accepted. Even Mr. A. R. Wallace, who rejects the theory save in a very subordinate form, says[145] that “it may be admitted, as highly probable, that the female is pleased or excited by the display,” and speaks[146] of a possible choice of “the most vigorous, defiant, and mettlesome male,” giving, moreover,[147] several telling examples of preferential mating. Stripped of all its unnecessary æsthetic surplusage, at any rate so far as this implies an æsthetic ideal, or æsthetic motive, the hypothesis of sexual selection suggests that the accepted mate is the one which adequately evokes the pairing impulse.

Here Dr. Groos makes an interesting and important contribution to the subject. He lays stress on the coyness and reluctance of the female, and illustrates it by examples derived from observation. “Thus the female cuckoo answers the call of her mate with an alluring laugh that excites him to the utmost, but it is long before she gives herself up to him. A mad chase through tree-tops ensues, during which she constantly incites him with that mocking call, till the poor fellow is fairly driven crazy. The female kingfisher often torments her devoted lover for half a day, coming and calling him, and then taking to flight. But she never lets him out of her sight the while, looking back as she flies and measuring her speed, and wheeling back when he suddenly gives up the pursuit. The bower-bird leads her mate a chase up and down their skilfully built pleasure-house, and many other birds behave in a similar way. The male must exercise all his arts before her reluctance is overcome. She leads him on from limb to limb, from tree to tree, until it seems that the tantalizing change from allurement to resistance must include an element of mischievous playfulness.”[148]

Professor Groos regards the instinctive coyness of the female as the most efficient means of preventing the too early and too frequent yielding to sexual impulse.[149] He thinks it probable that “in order to preserve the species the discharge of the sexual function must be rendered difficult, since the impulse to it is so powerful that, without some such arrest, it might easily become prejudicial to that end. This same strength of impulse is,” he adds,[150] “itself necessary to the preservation of the species; but, on the other hand, dams must be opposed to the impetuous stream, lest the impulse expend itself before it is made effectual, or the mothers of the race be robbed of their strength, to the detriment of their offspring.” It has its origin in the general fact that, before any important motor discharge takes place, there is apt to be a preparatory and gradually increasing excitement. But this is specially emphasized in association with the sexual impulse. As Professor Zeigler wrote, in a private communication to Dr. Groos,[151] “Among all animals a highly excited condition of the nervous system is necessary for the act of pairing, and consequently we find an exciting playful prelude very generally indulged in.”

Courtship may thus be regarded from the physiological point of view as a means of producing the requisite amount of pairing-hunger; of stimulating the whole system and facilitating general and special vascular changes; of creating that state of profound and explosive instability which has for its psychological concomitant or antecedent an imperious and irresistible craving. This not only overcomes the coyness of the female, but generates and strengthens the ardour of the male--a point on which, perhaps, Professor Groos does not lay sufficient stress. For the process is reciprocal; and though the male leads in the ardour of courtship, yet this ardour constantly grows till at last it overcomes the barriers of reluctance. Courtship is thus the strong and steady bending of the bow that the arrow may find its mark in a biological end of the utmost importance in the survival of a healthy and vigorous race.

The coyness and reluctance of the female afford the conditions under which the bow is bent to the full. But they also afford the conditions of the apparent act of choice. This takes the place, on the perceptual plane of mental development, of that deliberation which precedes the higher act of choice on the ideational plane. For psychology, as well as for biology, then, Dr. Groos’s suggestion is a welcome and helpful one. Both upholders of sexual selection and critics of that hypothesis, have been apt to regard the choice of a mate in animals from too anthropomorphic a point of view--to look upon it as the outcome of rational deliberation, of weighing in the æsthetic balance the relative attractiveness of this suitor and of that, and of reaching a definite conclusion that the one is to be accepted because he behaves or is adorned in such and such a way, while the other is to be rejected because he falls below all reasonable standards of requirement. The choice exercised by the female, if so we term it, is far simpler and more naïve. Indeed, Professor Groos goes so far as to say that on his hypothesis the element of choice is altogether abolished. “It is the instinctive coyness of the female,” he says,[152] “that necessitates all the arts of courtship, and the probability is that seldom or never does the female exert any choice. She is not awarder of the prize, but rather a hunted creature. So, just as the beast of prey has special instincts for finding his prey, the ardent male must have special instincts for subduing female reluctance. According to this theory, there is choice only in the sense that the hare finally succumbs to the best hound, which is as much as to say that the phenomena of courtship are referred at once to natural selection.” He reaches this conclusion, however, by gradual stages. He first urges[153] that “it would be absurd to affirm that all bird songs originate in a conscious æsthetic and critical act of judgment on the part of the female. A conscious choice either of the most beautiful or the loudest singer is certainly not the rule, and probably never occurs at all. But,” he adds, “is it not still a choice, though unconscious, when the female turns to the singer whose voice, whether from strength or modulation, proves most attractive? Even if the song is primarily a means of recognition or an invitation from the male, still the psychological effect must be that the female follows the songster that excites her most, and so exerts a kind of unconscious selection.”

The phrase “unconscious choice” is, however, somewhat unsatisfactory, especially when we remember that it is used to indicate the result of a direct appeal to the conscious situation. If, however, we say that it is perceptual choice arising from impulse as distinguished from ideational choice due to motive and volition, we see that the distinction is in line with that which we have drawn again and again, and which Dr. Stout so well emphasizes in his “Manual of Psychology.” But we have also drawn the distinction between instinctive behaviour prior to individual experience, and intelligent behaviour the result of such experience. Under which of these classes does the behaviour of the female during courtship fall? Professor Groos, in the further development of his hypothesis, seems to place it in the instinctive category. “Instead of a conscious or unconscious choice, of which we know nothing certain,” he says,[154] “we have the need of overcoming instinctive coyness in the female, a fact familiar enough, but hitherto not sufficiently accounted for. Then the question no longer is, which among many males will be chosen by the female, but which one has the qualities that can overcome the reluctance of the female whom he woos. Sexual selection would then become a special case of natural selection.”

I am unable to follow Professor Groos in this view, which I find it rather difficult to reconcile with such statements as that already quoted, in which he says that the female’s “tantalizing change from allurement to resistance seems to include an element of a mischievous playfulness.” It is more probable that instinctive coyness and reluctance afford the conditions under which experience of the pleasures of courtship may be gained. It is said that a flirt, when taken to task for her conduct at ball and picnic, justified it by asking demurely how else she was to gain that wide experience of men which was absolutely necessary to guide her in exercising a wise and becoming choice. Let us hope that when the fateful time arrived she acted with due deliberation. Now the coquetry of birds affords the opportunity of gaining just such experience in the light of which a perceptual choice may be made.

Let us remember that courtship is, as Darwin said, “a prolonged affair,” and that coyness is a means to its prolongation. And let us remember that in simple cases, as also in more complex matters, the intelligent exercise of choice depends upon what Dr. Stout terms the acquisition of meaning. “The chicken does not, at first,” he says,[155] “distinguish between what is edible and what is not. This it has to learn by experience. It will at the outset peck at and seize all worms and caterpillars indiscriminately. There is a particular caterpillar called the cinnabar caterpillar. When this is first presented to the chicken it is pecked at and seized, like other similar objects. But as soon as it is fairly seized it is dropped in disgust. When next the chicken sees the caterpillar, it looks at it suspiciously, and refrains from pecking. Now, what has happened in this case? The sight of the cinnabar caterpillar re-excites the total disposition left behind by the previous experience of pecking at it, seizing it, and ejecting it in disgust. Thus the effect of these experiences [what I have termed the conscious situation] is revived. The sight of the cinnabar caterpillar has acquired a _meaning_.” Take now the case of a coy hen bird, to whom several males pay court. The sight of this one, behaving after his kind, excites in small degree the sexual impulse and emotions. Her heart beats but little the faster for all his antics, her respiratory rhythm is scarcely affected, her feathers, like her feelings, remain comparatively unruffled. He has acquired meaning from the reaction to his presence; it is not, however, a very attractive meaning. But that other, perhaps from mere persistency, perhaps because he is more “vigorous, defiant, and mettlesome” (she, at any rate, certainly knows not why), deeply stirs her organic being, sets her all aglow, and breaks down the barriers of her coyness. And this he does because he is the centre of a conscious situation which has acquired, through her experience of his presence, a meaning and an interest that are at last irresistibly attractive. It is a choice from impulse, not the result of deliberation; but it is a choice which is determined by the emotional meaning of the conscious situation. And it is the reiterated revival of the associated emotional elements which generates an impulse sufficiently strong to overcome her instinctive coyness and reluctance.

And this coyness is the natural correlative of the ardour of the male, an ardour increased by his courtship antics. If the female yielded readily and at once, the behaviour of courtship would never have been evolved. Superabundant vigour in the male is, no doubt, a favourable condition of courtship, as it is of play; but neither is it a _sine quâ non_, nor in any case does it, or can it, afford any guidance of behaviour into just those specific channels in which we find it setting during the breeding season. If sexual selection be not a _vera causa_ of the specific direction, we have at present no other hypothesis which in any degree fits the facts. And to the criticism of those who, like Mr. W. H. Hudson, urge that dance and song, and aërial evolutions in birds, are seen at times when the immediate business of courtship forms no part of the situation, Professor Groos’s theory of play affords a sufficient answer. If courtship, whose biological end is of such supreme importance, forms a central feature in the serious business of animal life; and if play is the preparation and practice for behaviour of biological importance; we should expect to find manifestations (with an emotional difference, and no doubt many differences in detail) of all those actions, the due performance of which, in the supreme hour of courtship, will alone enable the adequately prepared and well-practised male to overcome the reluctance of the female, and beget offspring to transmit his instinctive and emotional tendencies.

IV.--ANIMAL “ÆSTHETICS” AND “ETHICS”

In this section we shall consider some types of behaviour which suggest situations that contain the germs of æsthetics and ethics, with a view to determining, so far as possible, the principles on which they should be interpreted. This is a peculiarly difficult subject; for we are endeavouring to get behind the behaviour, and to infer the mental conditions which accompany it, and through which it assumes its distinctive character. The difficulty is twofold: first, because, as Dr. Stout puts it,[156] “human language is especially constructed to describe the mental states of human beings, and this means that it is especially constructed so as to mislead us when we attempt to describe the workings of minds that differ in any great degree from the human;” and secondly, because, to quote the same careful thinker,[157] “the besetting snare of the psychologist is the tendency to assume that an act or attitude which in himself would be the natural manifestation of a certain mental process must, therefore, have the same meaning in the case of another. The fallacy lies in taking this or that isolated action apart from the totality of conditions under which it appears. It is particularly seductive when the animal mind is the subject of inquiry.”

We must, therefore, base our method of procedure on some definite principle. The canon of interpretation which I have elsewhere suggested[158] is, that we should not interpret animal behaviour as the outcome of higher mental processes, if it can be fairly explained as due to the operation of those which stand lower in the psychological scale of development. To this it may be added--lest the range of the principle be misunderstood--that the canon by no means excludes the interpretation of a particular act as the outcome of the higher mental processes, if we already have independent evidence of their occurrence in the agent. Now, the conclusion to which we are led by direct experiment and a critical study of the actions of animals whose life-history is known to us is, that most of their behaviour--perhaps all--is due to what Dr. Stout terms the perceptual, as opposed to the ideational, exercise of cognition. Their behaviour can be explained without having recourse to the hypothesis that they reflect, and attain to ideal schemes as the result of abstraction and generalization consciously directed to this end. Rather than repeat what I have already said, I will quote Dr. Stout’s summary of the position to which he, too, has been led. “The vast interval,” he says,[159] “which separates human achievements, so far as they depend on human intelligence, from animal achievements, so far as they depend on animal intelligence, is connected with the distinction between perceptual and ideational process. Animal activities are either purely perceptual, or, in so far as they involve ideas, these ideas serve only to prompt and guide an action in its actual execution. On the other hand, man constructs ‘in his head,’ by means of trains of ideas, schemes of action before he begins to carry them out. He is thus capable of overcoming difficulties in advance. He can cross a bridge before he comes to it.”

It has already been stated that in the intelligent behaviour of animals under man’s teaching he is the rational agent, they his willing slaves. This may be here again illustrated to enforce the distinction drawn by Dr. Stout in the above passage. Those who have seen a shepherd’s dog working sheep on a moorland fell, and have taken the trouble to ascertain how the results he sees have been attained, will appreciate, on the one hand, how well the dog knows and responds to the signals of his master, and, on the other hand, how completely all initiation is in the master’s mind, not that of the keenly intelligent dog. Those who merely witness such a performance without inquiry or investigation will probably misunderstand the whole matter. In the north of England competitions are not uncommon where, say, three sheep have to be driven over a definite course, between certain posts and round others, through narrow passages and into a fold--all within a certain time limit. At such a competition success depends on two things: first, the training of the dog to respond at once to some six or eight whistle-signals, often accompanied by gestures and movements of a stick; and secondly, the judgment of the shepherd. The signals, given in different whistle-tones and inflections, have for the dog meaning, such as drive straight on, from this side, from that, stop, lie down, creep, and so forth. The dog’s whole business is to obey these signals. And the instant response of a well-trained dog is admirable. But in the whole proceeding he is merely the executant of his master’s orders. He originates no important step. And if you listen to the criticisms by other shepherds during a competition you will find that they are mainly passed on the judgment shown by the master, and only in palpable failures in obedience on the behaviour of the dog. The intelligent animal is what he is trained to be--one whose natural powers are under the complete control of his master with whom the whole plan of action lies.

Since, then, in the cognitional field we find no independent evidence of the higher processes, we are bound, in accordance with our canon, to interpret emotional situations on similar principles, unless we find in them outstanding facts which cannot be explained in this way.

In considering the pairing situation we urged that the framing of an ideal of beauty to which a given suitor approaches, or from which he falls short, is unnecessary for the interpretation of the facts. We should not in strictness, therefore, speak of “an appreciation of beauty” or “a taste for the beautiful” in birds, since such expressions almost inevitably imply that these creatures have reached some conception of beauty as distinguished from and contrasted with ugliness. At the same time the hen certainly appears to enjoy the situation of which the plumed cock, attitudinizing thus, forms the centre of interest--through which he acquires meaning. Although, therefore, there is probably no ideal or standard of beauty, there are afforded the data in experience from which, were the bird capable of reflection, such an ideal might, in ideational sublimation, be derived. Before comparison, abstraction, and generalization can be applied, in the reflective laboratory of thought, there must be suitable experiences to form the raw material on which these rational processes can be exercised. Long ere, in the course of mental evolution, the correlative conceptions implied in the phrase “beautiful or ugly” had taken definite form, perceptual situations must have arisen, where, by direct appeal to the senses, by the diffused effects of stimulation and their accompanying feeling-tone, and by the natural satisfaction of mere impulse, the foundations were laid of that appreciation of the beautiful which forms the reflective superstructure we build upon them. Indeed, the pleasure and satisfaction attending particular situations, as they severally arise, appear to contain the perceptual germs of what in later development becomes æsthetic appreciation.

The bird which, having completed its nest, eyes it with apparent satisfaction, may well have the germs of that which, when rendered schematic in our thought, we call taste. Dr. Gould, indeed, states that certain humming-birds decorate their nests “with the utmost taste,” weaving into their structure beautiful pieces of lichen. And the gardener bower-bird collects in front of its bower flowers and fruits of bright and varied colours. What meaning these carry in the conscious situation we do not know; we can only suppose that they incidentally contribute to the heightening of the sexual impulse, and have been evolved as a means of stimulation to the biological end towards which sexual selection is unconsciously directed. For it is probable that all the situations with which pleasure and satisfaction are in high degree associated are, in primary origin, closely connected with behaviour directed, through natural or sexual selection, to some definite biological end, or, in brief, with behaviour of biological value. And it is, perhaps, not improbable that the states of consciousness most highly toned with strong emotion have their origin in those situations which arise amid the pairing, parental, and companiable relations of animal life.

We have already said that the companion, as the nucleus of a situation, is a thing which reacts in altogether special ways, so that it becomes differentiated from other things as something the meaning of which, and the interest in which, are _sui generis_ and unique in type. It becomes the centre of emotional situations, which we ascribe to rivalry, emulation, jealousy, and so forth. And we have also drawn attention to the view that the genetic order, so far as there is an order, is not first the ego and then the alter, but first the mother and companions and then through them the self. We learn to know ourselves only through knowing others. We must now ask the question--a question which must be answered before we can touch on the possible ethics of animals--how far, and in what sense, the social animal regards others as of like nature to itself, and capable also of like feelings and emotions. Stated in this form we must, I think, answer the question in the negative. The expression, “of like nature to itself,” implies that the self has already taken more or less definite form, and that the animal infers that, since the alter behaves and reacts in like manner to the ego, it also is an ego. This is distinctly an act of reasoning. As Clifford phrased it, the companion becomes an _eject_. We can never by direct experience become acquainted with the feelings of others, but we can endow them ejectively with personality analogous to our own.

But, though it is exceedingly doubtful whether any animal can regard its companion as an “eject,” may there not be a perceptual anticipation of the ideational process that comes with later-developed reflection? A decade ago I gave the following answer to this question: “For myself, I cannot doubt that animals project into each other the shadows of the feelings of which they are themselves conscious.”[160] Professor Mark Baldwin speaks of the stage at which this takes place, as the “projective stage” of development. “Now, in the fact,” he says,[161] “of herding, common life and arrangements for the protection of the herd, animal societies of various kinds, animal division of labour, etc.,--whatever be the origin of it,--we have what seems to be such an epoch in animal life. These creatures show a real recognition of one individual by another, and a real community of life and reaction, which is quite different from the individualism of purely sensational and unsocial consciousness. And yet it is just as different from the reflective organization of human society, in which the self-consciousness and personal volition of the individual play the most important _rôle_. I see no way of accounting for the gregarious instinct anywhere, except on the assumption of such a projective epoch of animal consciousness.”

Now, in endeavouring to realize how the situation feels to an animal in this projective stage, the first difficulty we encounter is that of divesting ourselves of those products of reflection which characterize our own mental situation; and to avoid what Dr. Stout, in the passage above quoted,[162] terms the psychologist’s besetting snare. The second difficulty is to grasp that, in experience, subject and object are inseparable, however clearly we may learn to perceive that they are distinguishable aspects of that experience. If the subject is eventually regarded as that which experiences, and the object as that which is experienced, it is surely obvious that each is necessary to the other. But, before these different aspects are clearly distinguished, there is, in the perceptual stage of mental development, what we may term a distribution of the items of experience among the centres of interest.

In illustration of the kind of distribution which we may suppose to come naturally to an animal, in what Professor Baldwin terms the projective epoch, let us take three animal situations: first, a chick pecks at a soldier-beetle, and finds it nauseous; secondly, a hen-bird hears the joyous song of her mate; thirdly, a puppy in play bites its companion, and receives a painful nip in return. Each of these constitutes an experience-situation; assuming that the results of the experience are distributed, how may we suppose them to be allocated?

In the first case, the soldier-beetle is the centre of interest in the situation. As the situation develops, the element of nauseousness is introduced. As Dr. Stout puts it, this is what gives the soldier-beetle meaning. Can it be doubted that, if there be any distribution, the nauseousness, though it is altogether what we have learnt to call a subjective affection, attaches itself to the soldier-beetle? The plain man, unsophisticated by Berkeleyan discussion, says simply, in such cases, “The thing is nauseous.” And this probably indicates the naïve and primitive distribution. Turning now to our second example, when the hen hears the courtship song the mate is the centre of a situation suffused with pleasurable feeling. How is the joyousness, again essentially subjective for our later thought, distributed? Surely, if at all, on the mate who forms the centre of interest. This it is which gives him meaning. The joy of the bearer is projected on to the singer. Not entirely, perhaps; the hen literally, on Professor James’s theory of the emotions, feels her heart-beat quickened by his presence, and the delightful ruffling of her feathers. But our aim is not to deny that the germs of the subjective arise in the midst of such situations, but to contend that some at least of the joyous character of the situation attaches to the song of the singer, that some of the feeling is projected, and that this is what gives the mate meaning. In our third case, the playful puppy bites his companion, and is sharply bitten in return. Pain enters into the coalescent situation as a whole. How is it distributed? In the phraseology of association, the nip he gives is closely linked with the pain he receives. By coalescence the pain and the nip form parts of the developed situation. But the companion is the centre of interest. And part of the pain is probably projected on this centre. That such projection actually occurs is rendered probable by such cases as the following, which was told me some years ago. A child, whose exact age I have forgotten if I then ascertained, was pricked by a pin, and he said, “Pin ’urted; poor pin.” It is, indeed, not unlikely that with animals the outward projection of feeling is widely distributed over inanimate, as well as animate, objects, and that its due restriction comes far later in development, of which the so-called personification of lifeless things by savages may be a relic. In any case, the give-and-take of play in young animals, and the after-earnest of courtship and fighting, would seem to afford ample opportunity for the external and internal distribution of feeling which sows the seed in perceptual life of that which blossoms into self and alter in the reflective life of ideational thought.

Although, therefore, an animal cannot conceive its companion as another self of similar nature, and with like passions to his own, yet a considerable share of the feeling-element of the conscious situation is projected on to that companion as the chief centre of interest. And if it be said that this is his feeling and not his neighbour’s, the objection will be seen to lose its force, so soon as it is realized that even man has no experience of any feelings save his own. The only way we can reach fellow-feeling is through sympathy; and sympathy has its roots in the projective process we have endeavoured to describe. We endow our neighbours with natures as sensitive to pain and pleasure as our own. This is a pre-requisite to the social relationships termed ethical. But when we hear people say, and find even Mr. Romanes putting on deliberate record,[163] that “the feelings which prompt a cat to torture a captured mouse can only be assigned to the category to which, by common consent, they are ascribed--delight in torturing for torture’s sake,” I venture to think that common consent, if such it be, is wrong. As I said a dozen years ago,[164] before Professor Groos had so carefully elaborated his theory of play, “the cat or kitten plays with the mouse not from innate cruelty, but for the sake of getting some little practice in the most important business of cat life. Only man, who has the capacity for nobler things, can be cruel for cruelty’s sake;” and this is the direction in which Dr. Groos’s opinion[165] tends to set. Mr. Romanes might have learnt a lesson in caution from his sister, who at first attributed a sense of shame to the capuchin she so carefully studied, but subsequently was led to adopt a simpler interpretation. “He bit me in several places to-day,” she says, in her admirable diary,[166] “but he seemed ashamed of himself afterwards, hiding his face in his arms, and sitting quiet for a time.” She adds, however, in a footnote: “On subsequent observation, I find this quietness was not due to shame at having bit me; for whether he succeeds in biting any person or not, he always sits quiet and dull-looking after a fit of passion, being, I think, fatigued.”

Shame is an ethical feeling. And as we have briefly discussed the germs of æsthetics in animals, so we may now as briefly consider the germs of ethics. In its developed form ethics is one of the “normative sciences” involving standards of right and wrong. It is, as Professor Mackenzie says,[167] “the science of the ideal in conduct.” It involves a standard of “ought,” the product of reflection and generalization. Conduct is compared with the ideal, and perceived to be either below, up to, or perhaps beyond, the normal standard accepted by civilized mankind. This involves a judgment; and so far as conduct is shaped in accordance with the ideal we attribute the guidance to ethical motives. Such ideals, such judgments, and the control of conduct through the play of such motives, are probably beyond the mental capacities of animals. They belong to the ideational stage of mental development, when the conative tendency becomes volitional; not to the perceptual stage, when it is impulsive. They do not enter into the conscious situation as it takes form in the animal mind. Behaviour has not in them acquired ethical meaning, since in developed ethics, as normative, such meaning always has reference to the norm, or standard. A real sense of shame implies that our acts have fallen below our ideal.

It may be said that we cannot prove that animals do not frame such ideals. But, if we accept the canon of interpretation above laid down, what has to be proved is that they do frame them. Is there any case among the hundreds that are popularly adduced to show that dogs are ashamed of themselves, that they possess a sense of justice, that they feel the prick of conscience, that on the one hand they know when they have done wrong, or on the other hand enjoy a sense of conscious rectitude--is there any particular case so described in the popular phraseology of anecdote, which could not be more simply described as the direct outcome of the coalescent situation, without the introduction of any implied reference to a standard of behaviour reached by reflective thought? The pug that has taken a nap on the drawing-room sofa, leaps down and slinks off with a “guilty” look on his master’s approach. One can surely picture the previous situations, and be tolerably certain that they contained an element of reproof or something more energetic. The poodle that has successfully performed his tricks bounds to his mistress with an air of duty well performed. Has he never been petted and patted under such circumstance? Routine in many animals--so often creatures of habit--begets a customary sequence, the breach of which is at once felt. To this I ventured[168] to ascribe the conduct of the turnspit dog reported by Arago. He refused with bared teeth to enter out of his turn the drum by which the spit was rotated. The companion dog was put in for a few moments and then released; whereupon the dog which before had been so refractory seemed satisfied that his turn for drudgery had come, and, entering the wheel of his own accord, began turning the spit as usual. The bared teeth may be here perhaps ascribed to an outraged sense of justice. But is it not a more simple, and just as probable, supposition that the behaviour was due to breach of customary routine. A trainer with whom I had some conversation on this matter pointed out a collie bitch, and said, “If I put her through her tricks in the usual order she does them like an angel; but if I try and make her alter the order she snaps and sulks like the devil.”

I have elsewhere[169] expressed my opinion that, though animals may behave in ways which may tend to mislead us, they do not act with intent to deceive. A dog is described[170] as “showing a deliberate design of deceiving” because he hobbled about the room as if lame and suffering from pain in his foot. But may not this be simply due to the fact that chance experience had led to a situation through which a hobbling gait had acquired the meaning of more petting and attention than usual? To behave with deceit as a deliberate motive implies the idea that the action will be interpreted as having a significance different from that which it really has. It is only possible on the ideational plane of mental development. It implies, too, from the ethical standpoint, a conscious departure from the standard of truth. The black that is acted has conscious reference and relation to the white that is not black. Few, however, will credit animals with deceit of this fully conscious and deliberate kind. Like the fibs of little children, the apparent deceit of animals is probably merely behaviour which has been associated in experience with pleasant results.

The case of shamming sickness, quoted from K. Russ, is thus interpreted by Professor Groos.[171] And yet he adds, “When we see deception used so effectively to serve practical ends, examples of which are very common, it can hardly be doubted that there is in all probability more consciousness of shamming in play than we have any means of demonstrating.” And elsewhere in the same work he observes,[172] “Many a grown animal still takes pleasure in the mock combats that he learned in youth. From a psychological point of view this phenomenon is especially noteworthy, from the fact that the adult animal, though already well acquainted with real fighting, still knows how to keep within the bounds of play, and must therefore be consciously playing a _rôle_, making believe.” I fail, however, to see the justification for the “therefore.” Surely the difference of behaviour in this example, and in other such examples, is sufficiently explained as the outcome of diverse situations, without having recourse to anything so psychologically complex as the conscious self-illusion of make-believe--interesting and important as this is in the psychology of children. To suppose that a monkey who nurses a bit of blanket has any ideas about its being a make-believe baby is _not_ to interpret the behaviour of animals in accordance with the canon we have adopted for our guidance.

To return to the “ethics” of animals. I have urged that ethical ideas, properly so called, have no place in their psychology. But just as the pleasure and satisfaction attending particular situations, as they severally arise, appear to contain the perceptual germs of what in later development becomes æsthetic appreciation; so, too, do they also contain the perceptual germs of what becomes, through reflection in man, ethical approbation. And the situations in which these ethical germs must be sought are those which entail behaviour for the good of the social community. Indeed, we may go so far as to say that the perceptual foundations of ethics are laid in the social instincts. The satisfaction or dissatisfaction arising from the performance or non-performance of instinctive behaviour, evolved for the biological end of the preservation of the social community, is the perceptual embryo from which conscience is developed. Professor Mackenzie has indicated the ambiguities in the use of the term “conscience.” “It is,” he says,[173] “sometimes used to express the fundamental principles on which the moral judgment rests; at other times it expresses the principles adopted by a particular individual; at other times it means ‘a particular kind of pleasure or pain felt in perceiving our own conformity or nonconformity to principle.’[174] This last seems to me,” adds Mr. Mackenzie, “the most convenient acceptation of the term, except that I should prefer to say simply that it is a feeling of pain accompanying and resulting from our nonconformity to principle.” According to this definition the existence of a principle or ideal is presupposed; and the fact that Professor Mackenzie lays stress upon the pain of nonconformity, shows that the ideal is a high one. In the case of the animal, however, such an ideal of right conduct has probably not taken form. But Mr. Mackenzie also speaks of the “quasi-conscience” begotten of custom. This comes nearer to the feeling which animals may be supposed to have when their behaviour does not accord with that which through instinct or habit is the usage of the community. And if, as seems to be shown by observation, animals sometimes punish the breaches of such usage--when, for example, cats punish their kittens for uncleanliness--the quasi-conscience will assume a more developed form.

We may say, then, that the perceptual data are given in animal experience from which, in ideational sublimation, ethical ideals may be derived by a process of reflection and generalization. As in the case of æsthetics, so in that of ethics; long ere, in the course of mental evolution, the correlative conceptions implied in the phrase “right or wrong” had taken definite form, perceptual situations must have arisen in which behaviour carried with it the feelings of satisfaction or the reverse which laid the foundations of that approbation of the right which forms the superstructure we build upon them by the exercise of reflective thought.

V.--THE EVOLUTION OF FEELING AND EMOTION

“Whatever conditions,” says Dr. Stout,[175] “further and favour conation in the attainment of its end, yield pleasure. Whatever conditions obstruct conation in the attainment of its end, are sources of displeasure. This is the widest generalization which we can frame, from a purely psychological point of view, as regards the conditions of pleasure and displeasure respectively.” Here Dr. Stout seems carefully to avoid the commonly accepted and much advertised conclusion, that pleasure and pain (to use this more familiar word as the antithesis of pleasure) are themselves the end of conative endeavour. And he is so far right that they by no means constitute the sole or indeed the primary end of all conative process. Attention is a conative act; but its primary end is not pleasure, but rather, as Dr. Stout says,[176] the fuller presentation of the object. No doubt this brings pleasure; but the fuller presentation comes first, and carries the pleasure with it. Instinctive response to felt stimulus falls within the conative attitude. In it there is that “inherent tendency to pass beyond itself and become something different,” which Dr. Stout assigns to conation as its chief characteristic. But the end is not pleasure, but simply the instinctive behaviour. And if we say that the attainment of this end does bring satisfaction, which is a form of pleasure, Dr. Stout would probably reply that this is rather a result of the process than its true end.

Now, in such cases, what we are really dealing with is a class of _organic_ processes having conscious accompaniments. No doubt the conscious accompaniments are of importance; they certainly cannot be neglected by the psychologist: but their feeling-tone does not constitute that which makes instinct run its course. And I have introduced the subject for present discussion in this way to reinforce what has already been repeatedly urged in the foregoing pages, that individual behaviour, in its first intent, is a biological legacy with ends predetermined through heredity. The inherent tendency to pass beyond itself and become something different, which for the old psychology was a heaven-sent impulse, or, as Addison said, “an immediate impression from the first Mover and the Divine energy acting in the creatures,” becomes for the new psychology an organic bequest. But the attainment of ends thus already predetermined has feeling-tone, both as process and in its resulting consciousness, and this feeling-tone serves to modify, through the situation it introduces, future behaviour, and thus, in a sense, affords a new end to subsequent conation.

“Life,” wrote James Martineau,[177] “is a cluster of wants physical, intellectual, affectional, moral, each of which may have, and all of which may miss, the fitting object. Is the object withheld or lost? there is pain: is it restored or gained? there is pleasure: does it abide or remain constant? there is content. The two first are cases of disturbed equilibrium, and are so far dynamic that they will not rest till they reach the third, which is their posture of stability and their true end.” This is an adequate description of the essential features in conative process. But in genetic precedence, as in individual development, the physical wants come first, and, at the outset of behaviour, the satisfaction or content is not and cannot be foreseen, since it has never yet entered into experience. To adopt a distinction suggested by Professor Mackenzie,[178] the conation is _purposive_, since we see that an end is involved, but not _purposeful_, since there is no definite consciousness of the end aimed at. But when experience has introduced feeling-tone into the situation, we may say that this, in a sense, introduces a new end to subsequent behaviour.

Mr. Herbert Spencer has said[179] that pleasure is that which we seek to bring into consciousness and retain there; pain, that which we seek to get out of consciousness and keep out. May we assert, then, that, in the modification of behaviour due to experience, the pleasure to be gained or the pain to be avoided is the psychological end? Certainly not without qualification, unless we be among those who are content to accept any form of words which gives a general sort of notion of the kind of thing which we suppose is meant, and which is probably more or less correct. We want here and now to get clear ideas, and to express them with some approach to accuracy. To say that pleasure is the psychological end of intelligent behaviour is to put the matter too subjectively and in too abstract a form. Professor Mackenzie has clearly indicated the ambiguity in the word “pleasure.” “Pleasure,” he says,[180] “is sometimes understood to mean agreeable _feeling_, or the feeling of satisfaction, and sometimes it is understood to mean an _object_ which gives satisfaction. The hearing of music is sometimes said to be a pleasure, but of course the hearing of music is not a feeling of satisfaction; it is an object that gives satisfaction. Generally, it may be observed that when we speak of ‘pleasures’ in the plural, or rather in the concrete, we mean objects that give satisfaction; whereas when we speak of ‘pleasure’ in the abstract, we more often mean the feeling of satisfaction which such objects bring with them.” May we not go a step further, but entirely in the same direction, and say that pleasure is a constituent part of the concept self as an object of thought or desire; that its proper sphere is in the ideational consciousness; and that, as we interpret the animal mind, it has no place as such therein? The hedonist regards pleasure as the most excellent and distinctive characteristic of his ideal self and his ideal community. But animals have not risen or fallen to the level of hedonism. Pleasure is not for them a motive of conduct, though nice objects, as such, are attractive, and through them impulse acquires direction and force.