CHAPTER X.. Classifications.

CLASSIFICATIONS.

Their discrepancies—Reduced to three types: (1) Classification of pleasures and pains—(2) Classification of emotions: two forms, empiric and analytico-comparative—(3) Classification of representations, intellectualist form—Critical remarks—Impossibility of any classification.

The confusion of that department of psychology which deals with the feelings and the vagueness of its terminology appear in all their fulness with the problem of classification. Although, for reasons which will be given at the end of the chapter, a complete and satisfactory classification seems to me impossible, there has been no lack of attempts, and it must be admitted that they are not illegitimate, at any rate as approximative efforts towards a provisional order.

Within the last fifty years, in spite of the very moderate amount of zeal with which psychologists have studied the feelings, we find about twenty treatises signed by well-known names, not to mention minor variants. They are far from being in agreement, except on some few points, and when they are compared, in order, if possible, to reconcile them, the first impression is one of inextricable confusion and hopeless divergence. If we examine them a little more carefully, we begin to see light. We see that the differences are only in the objects classed and the methods followed; in one word, it is possible to attempt a classification of these classifications; and when this is done, we find, if I am not mistaken, that they can all be reduced to three types. (1) Some writers, virtually, classify only pleasures and pains, tracing back the whole of affective life to their modalities. (2) Others classify the emotions properly so called; and here we must distinguish two groups, according as the method employed is purely empiric, and founded on current observation, or has recourse to analysis and genetic research, after the manner of the so-called natural classifications. (3) Lastly, others classify intellectual states pure and simple, and, conversely, the affective states which accompany them: this is the intellectualist method.

Footnote 90:

For a historical summary of these classifications, consult especially Sully, The Human Mind, vol. ii., Appendix F, p. 357, and Bain, Emotions, Appendix B.

In order to justify our distinction, we shall successively examine these three types. This excursion on an ungrateful soil will not be altogether without, at least, a negative utility.

As many writers show a common tendency to reduce the whole of the affective life to pleasures and pains, considered as essential and fundamental phenomena, it is natural that one category of classifications should have been based upon these.

“In the science of pleasure and pain,” says Léon Dumont, “we no longer find ourselves, as in other sciences, in presence of separate organs and functions; for pleasure, like pain, belongs to all organs and all functions. Thus, we think that to recapitulate in this science the classification of the perceptive and intelligent faculties, and of the will, is to give way to a psychological tautology, which, though it causes no serious inconvenience, in any case throws little light on the analysis” (op. cit., Pt. II., p. 1). No more could be said than this. Yet, to classify, we require a directing principle, and where shall we find it? “This basis is supplied to us by our own definition of pleasure and pain: pleasure being the augmentation of force in the whole of the conscious individuality, pain its diminution.” Thence, Dumont deduces the divisions found in many authors: pain is positive when it results from an increased expenditure, negative when it depends on absence of excitement; pleasure is positive when there is increased excitement, negative when the expenditure is diminished. In other terms, if we compare the total “force” to a continually renewed capital, we have, in the one case, either more expenditure or less receipts, in the other either more receipts or less expenditure.

But Dumont does not stop there; he passes on to details; he insists on classifying the species under those four generic headings, and thus we have—Positive pains: effort, fatigue, the ugly, the hideous, the immoral, the false. Negative pains: weakness, exhaustion, inanition, physical pain properly so called, ennui, perplexity, doubt, impatience, expectation, sorrow, fear, sadness, pity. Negative pleasures: rest, cheerfulness. Positive pleasures: those of the senses, those of activity, such as games, dreaming, amusements, æsthetic and intellectual pleasures, sublimity, admiration, beauty, and their varieties.

I have transcribed this classification as Dumont gives it. I shall raise no objection, either to a division so arbitrary as to include physical pains among the negative pains, or to the abuse of a vague word, “force,” which he shows a marked inclination to take in a transcendental sense. I will only consider one point, the transition which is surreptitiously made from a classification of pleasures and pains to a classification of the emotions or something analogous. The writer does not keep his promise of not classing “the perceptive and intelligent faculties, and the will;” and it is not in his power to keep it. In fact, what he has followed is the old classic division (pleasures and pains of the senses, the heart, the mind), which may possibly serve for a didactic exposition, but for no other purpose.

Beaunis has proposed a classification of pleasures and pains which also has as its basis a single principle: the various modes of motion. He discriminates three classes of pains: the nervous centres may be inactive through insufficiency of motion; their activity may be in excess through exaggerated motion; or their activity may be suddenly checked by arrest of motion. The same classification is adopted for pleasures: inaction, activity, arrest. I am inclined to think this division preferable to the other. He has also attempted a detailed classification of physical (p. 176) and moral (p. 235) pains; but he gives none for pleasures.

Footnote 91:

Beaunis, Sensations internes, chap. xxi.

For my part, I am inclined to believe that a classification (in the exact sense of the word) of pleasures and pains is an impossible task. As these characters are very general, one can only establish exceedingly general divisions. As soon as we go beyond this, we are, in reality, classing internal or external sensations, percepts, images, concepts, modes of action, accompanied by a pleasurable or painful state, positive or negative, due to activity, overactivity, or arrest; but the modalities of the pleasurable and painful, which, besides, are infinite, are not classed in and for themselves. The varieties of physical pain, the simplest, commonest, and best studied kind, the easiest to isolate, and the most free from concomitant representation, have never yet been subject to a fixed classification, from Hahnemann, who reckoned them as 73 in number, to Beaunis, who enumerates 83.

In short, the “science of pleasure and pain,” as L. Dumont somewhat emphatically calls it, belongs to the category of sciences which do not proceed by way of classification, since they do not as yet possess the material. We can only lay down extremely general divisions, and then proceed by incomplete enumeration.

II.

The emotions, at least the simplest and best defined, present themselves as psychic states having their own specific characteristics. They differ among themselves, not as one mode of pleasure or pain differs from another mode, but as one thing differs from another thing; in this way, they appear as objects susceptible to classification. We have already said that two methods have been adopted.

(1) The first strongly resembles the so-called artificial classifications, which might also be called concrete or synthetic. It takes the emotions as realities and places itself before them as the zoologist and the botanist place themselves before the varieties of animals and plants. It is empirical—i.e., it has no guiding principle; it classifies according to observation only, following external resemblances and differences.

Bain may be cited as one of the principal representatives of this method. I will not insist on a piece of work unworthy of such a psychologist; yet he has done it twice over, without arriving at an agreement with himself.

His earlier classification gives as fundamental the emotion of relativity (surprise, astonishment), terror, tenderness, self-esteem, anger, the sense of power, of activity, of mental exercise, æsthetic emotion, moral emotion.

The later includes eleven groups: love, anger, fear, the sentiment of property, the pleasure of power and its correlative pain of subjection, pride, vanity, activity (“plot-interest”), knowledge (the intellectual feeling), æsthetic emotion (beauty), moral sentiment. Three of these are “simple”—anger, love, and fear; but we find, a little later on, that love and anger are called “the giants of the group, the commanding and indispensable members of the emotional scheme;” so that fear would seem to be eliminated.

The incoherence and inconsistency of this attempt are sufficiently obvious, and I need not insist on them. (It should be noted that, in both cases, the religious sentiment is omitted.) I can find only one valuable remark—viz., that “pleasures and pains are contained in every one of the classes to be described, just as the natural orders of plants may each contain food and poison, sweet aromas and nauseating stinks.” I have only referred to this classification in order to show how, by its very nature, it is condemned to failure. Floating at haphazard, without fixed principle, when not contradictory, it can only be arbitrary.

Footnote 92:

Bain, The Emotions and the Will, p. 76.

Herbert Spencer has criticised it in a well-known passage, which I will briefly recapitulate, since it serves as a transition to the second form of classification, and throws some light on the latter. Bain has overlooked the fact that in confining his attention to the most obvious characteristics of the emotions, he is following the method of the ancient naturalists, who classed the cetacea among fishes. Every classification should be preceded by a rigorous analysis. For this purpose it would be necessary, as a preliminary, to study the ascending evolution of the emotions through the animal kingdom, to find out which of them are the first to appear, coexisting with the lowest forms of organisation and intelligence, and to note the existing differences, as regards emotion, between the higher and lower human races. Those common to all may be considered as simple, and those peculiar to the civilised races as ulterior and derivative.

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Footnote 93:

H. Spencer, Essays, vol. i. (Library Ed., 1891), pp. 241-264.

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2. Inspired by the above observations, Dr. Mercier has worked out a classification which I shall give as an example of the analytic and comparative method. It is in any case the most recent and the most detailed. Proceeding after the manner of zoologists and botanists, he divides into classes, sub-classes, genera, and species, forming seventeen tables. We gather from these that there are 6 classes and 23 genera, under which may be ranged (after deducting all repetitions and duplicate entries) 128 manifestations of feeling, such as are to be found in common experience and rendered in current language. It is not possible, nor would it serve any useful purpose, to present this classification here in detail; I shall only indicate the 6 great classes with some sub-divisions, which will enable us to understand their nature.

Footnote 94:

The Nervous System and the Mind (1888), pp. 279-364.

The first class includes the feelings primarily affecting the conservation of the physical or mental organism. It comprises 2 sub-classes (according as the primary excitation is initiated by the environment, or within the organism itself), 2 orders, and 9 genera.

The second is that of the feelings primarily affecting the perpetuation of the race, considered as simple wants. Two sub-classes: primary (sexual emotion and its varieties) and secondary (paternal, maternal, filial, etc., feelings).

With the third class we leave behind the region of the primitive and fundamental feelings. It includes those which relate to the common welfare (community, family, etc.). It comprises 2 orders, each of which is further divided into several genera—viz., the patriotic and the ethical emotions.

The fourth class (only vaguely differentiated from the preceding) is that of the feelings relating to the welfare of others: sympathy, benevolence, pity, and their opposites.

The fifth class comprises the feelings which are neither conservative nor destructive, so that here we pass beyond the region of pure utility, whether individual or social. It is divided into 2 orders and 5 genera—viz., admiration, surprise, the æsthetic feeling, the religious feeling, and the “feeling of recreation.”

The sixth and last class is that of the feelings which correspond to abstract relations (in ordinary nomenclature designated as intellectual feelings)—conviction, belief, doubt, perplexity, scepticism. It has no sub-divisions.

Even when all details are omitted, the general drift of this work must be sufficiently apparent to the reader. Although conducted according to a fixed method, it does not escape the difficulties inherent in every classification of the emotions. In the first place, the order of filiation is not always very well marked. The author himself recognises that an arrangement in series is not possible, but this difficulty has also presented itself in zoology and botany. We meet with repetitions, i.e., forms of sentiment figuring several times over in different categories. This, too, is inevitable. The complex emotions (or some of them, at least) are formed by anastomoses: they are rivers formed by converging streams coming from various sources lying in different directions. One may legitimately refer them to one or other of these origins; but the attribution will be partial and arbitrary. The religious sentiment, for instance, is included in the class of intellectual emotions. But its social character is undeniable (a point we shall return to in the proper place); let us recall, in passing, the worship of ancestors and deified heroes, and the strictly national religions of antiquity, the communities, orders, confraternities, corporations, the missionary work carried on in modern times, and, above all, the contagious character of religious emotion in general. It is false, moreover, to say that this emotion “tends neither to the preservation nor the destruction of the individual.” It might therefore be just as well—or just as ill—placed in the third class. As soon as we pass from simple to complex emotions, it is of more importance to determine their composition than their filiation. Now, this procedure belongs rather to chemical than to zoological classification.

III.

A third type of classification, peculiar to the intellectualists, consists in classing according to the intellectual states, in so far as these are accompanied by affective elements. This system sprang from the psychology of Herbart, is based on it, and is met with in the works of the principal representatives of his school, Waitz, Drobisch, and especially Nahlowsky in Das Gefühlsleben (pp. 44 et seq.). This method is peculiar to Germany, and its influence is still perceptible even in Wundt, and more recently in Lehmann’s book (op. cit., pp. 338 et seq.). In England, Shadworth Hodgson approaches this type.

Apart from the procedure common to all, these classifications agree still less in detail than those of the first two types. Taken broadly, they have an academic aspect; they are frittered away in divisions, sub-divisions, distinctions, whence there arises more darkness than light. There is, however, a dichotomy peculiar to them corresponding to a reality which is not met with in the two previously-mentioned types, and, on this account, deserves notice.

This kind of classification, in the first place, establishes two great categories of emotions—those depending on the contents of the representations, and those depending on the course of the representations. Let us compare the flux of the states of consciousness to that of a river, which, according to the nature of the soil and the state of the sky, runs, sometimes clear, sometimes muddy, sometimes blue or green, sometimes greyish. Besides these various aspects, there is yet another kind, depending on the movement of the water, sometimes slow, sometimes rapid, here stagnant, there broken by the abrupt windings of the banks. One of these corresponds to the course, the other to the contents of the representations on which the affective states are based.

The first class (the contents) comprises the qualitative emotions, which are generally divided into inferior or sensory, and superior, which are intellectual, æsthetic, moral, or religious, according as the ideas exciting their feelings are those of the true, the beautiful, the good, or the absolute.

The second class (the course of the representations) comprises the formal emotions—i.e., those depending on the different forms of the course of ideas, on the relations existing between them. Nahlowsky distinguishes four species—(1) the feeling of expectation and impatience; (2) that of hope, anxiety, surprise, doubt; (3) of ennui; (4) of refreshment and work.

The only merit of this classification is its showing that there are affective manifestations depending only on relations—transitions from one intellectual state to another. This merit, however, depends on the essential defect of the system, which consists in dealing with perceptions, representations, and ideas only—not with affective states taken in themselves, and directly. As this method of procedure is, definitively, an intellectual classification, it ought not to omit any form of knowledge, not even those blurred and evanescent states—the relations—which unite, disjoin, exclude, draw together, eliminate, subordinate, in short, indicate the movements of thought, and which students have often made the mistake of forgetting. It remains to be known whether many relations are not states of an affective rather than an intellectual nature; this is a point which I shall examine later on.

We may console ourselves for this multiplicity and divergence of classifications by saying that the naturalists have not been more successful. It will be granted without difficulty that it is easier to classify animals than affective states; yet, to take our own century only, how many systems!—from Lamarck, Cuvier, Oken, to Blanville, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Siebold, Ehrenberg, Richard Owen, Von Baer, Vogt, Agassiz, and finally to Häckel—if we cite only the principal names!

I have indicated in passing why a true classification of the emotions—i.e., a distribution into orders, genera, species, according to the dominant and subordinate characters—is impossible. Every classification, if not purely empirical, expresses a general theory of affective life, a “system,” and, consequently, a hypothesis. More than this, it can never congratulate itself on having exhausted its matter, for every emotion, simple or compound, admits of innumerable varieties determined by the individual, the race, the epoch, and the course of civilisation; some are extinct, others, again, of recent origin. Lastly, the existence of mixed emotions—which are numerous—is a fatal objection to every attempt at distribution into a linear series. The only track to follow is that of genetic filiation—viz., to state first the simple, primary emotions, then to find out by what mental processes, conscious or unconscious, the composite and derived emotions have arisen from them. We shall attempt to define these in a future chapter. But this work is no longer a classification.

Footnote 95:

See Part II., chap. vii.