Topic 8. EMOTION.
Section 58.
Little as emotion, as generally understood, may have to do with
the criminalist, it is, in its intention, most important for him. The
motive of a series of phenomena and events, both in prisoners and
witnesses, is emotion. In what follows, therefore, we shall attempt
to show that feeling, in so far as we need to consider it, need not be
taken as an especial function. This is only so far significant as to
make our work easier by limiting it to fewer subjects. If we can
reduce some one psychic function to another category we can explain
many a thing even when we know only the latter. In any event, the
study of a single category is simpler than that of
many.
[1]
Abstractly, the word emotion is the property or capacity of the
mind to be influenced pleasantly or unpleasantly by sensations,
perceptions, and ideas. Concretely, it means the conditions of desire
or disgust which are developed by the complex of conditions thereby
aroused. We have first to distinguish between the so-called animal
and the higher emotions. We will assume that this distinction
is incorrect, inasmuch as between these classes there is a series of
feelings which may be counted as well with one as with the other,
so that the transition is incidental and no strict differentiation is
possible. We will, however, retain the distinction, as it is easier by
means of it to pass from the simpler to the more difficult emotions.
The indubitably animal passions we shall take to be hunger, thirst,
cold, etc. These are first of all purely physiological stimuli which
act on our body. But it is impossible to imagine one of them, without,
at the same time, inevitably bringing in the idea of the defense
against this physiological stimulus. It is impossible to think of the
feeling of hunger without sensing also the strain to find relief from
this feeling, for without this sensation hunger would not appear as
such. If I am hungry I go for food; if I am cold I seek for warmth;
if I feel pain I try to wipe it out. How to satisfy these desiderative
actions is a problem for the understanding, whence it follows that
successful satisfaction, intelligent or unintelligent, may vary in
every possible degree. We see that the least intelligent—real
cretins—sometimes are unable to satisfy their hunger, for when
food is given the worst of them, they stuff it, in spite of acute sensations
of hunger, into their ears and noses, but not into their mouths.
We must therefore say that there is always a demand for a minimum
quantity of intelligence in order to know that the feeling of hunger
may be vanquished by putting food into the mouth.
One step further: In the description of the conduct of anthropoid
apes which are kept in menageries, etc., especial intelligence is
assigned to those who know how to draw a blanket over themselves
as protection against cold. The same action is held to be a sign of
intelligence in very young children.
Still more thoroughly graded is the attitude toward pain, inasmuch
as barely a trace of intelligence is required, in order to know that it
is necessary to wipe away a hot liquid drop that has fallen on the
body. Every physiological text-book mentions the fact that a
decapitated frog makes such wiping movements when it is wet with
acid. From this unconscious activity of the understanding to the
technically highest-developed treatment of a burn, a whole series of
progressively higher expressions of intelligence may be interpolated,
a series so great as to defy counting.
Now take another, still animal, but more highly-developed feeling,
for example, the feeling of comfort. We lay a cat on a soft bolster—
she stretches herself, spreads and thins herself out, in order to bring
as many nerve termini as possible into contact with the pleasant
stimuli of the bolster. This behavior of the cat may be construed as
instinctive, also as the aboriginal source of the sense of comfort and
as leading to luxury in comfort, the stage of comfort which Roscher
calls highest. (I. Luxury in eating and drinking. II. Luxury in
dress. III. Luxury in comfort.)
Therefore we may say that the reaction of the understanding to
the physiological stimulus aims to set it aside when it is unpleasant,
and to increase and exhaust it when it is pleasant, and that in a
certain sense both coincide (the ousting of unpleasant darkness
is equivalent to the introduction of pleasant light). We may therefore
say generally, that feeling is a physiological stimulus indivisibly
connected with the understanding's sensitive attitude thereto.
Of course there is a far cry from instinctive exclusion and inclusion
to the most refined defensive preparation or interpretation, but the
differences which lie next to each, on either side, are only differences
in degree.
Now let us think of some so-called higher feeling and consider
a special case of it. I meet for the first time a man who is unpleasantly
marked, e. g., with badly colored hair. This stimulates my eyes disagreeably,
and I seek either by looking away or by wishing the man
away to protect myself from this physiologically-inimical influence,
which already eliminates all feeling of friendship for this harmless
individual. Now I see that the man is torturing an animal,—I do
not like to see this, it affects me painfully; hence I wish him out of
the way still more energetically. If he goes on so, adding one disagreeable
characteristic to another, I might break his bones to stop
him, bind him in chains to hinder him; I even might kill him, to
save myself the unpleasant excitation he causes me. I strain my
intelligence to think of some means of opposing him, and clearly, in
this case, also, physiological stimulus and activity of the understanding
are invincibly united.
The emotion of anger is rather more difficult to explain. But it
is not like suddenly-exploding hatred for it is acute, while hatred
is chronic. I might be angry with my beloved child. But though
at the moment of anger, the expression is identical with that of
hatred, it is also transitive. In the extremest cases the negating
action aims to destroy the stimulus. This is the most radical means
of avoiding physiological excitation, and hence I tear in pieces a
disagreeable letter, or stamp to powder the object on which I have
hurt myself. Where persons are involved, I proceed either directly
or symbolically when I can not, or may not, get my hands on the
responsible one.
The case is the same with feeling of attraction. I own a dog,
he has beautiful lines which are pleasant to my eye, he has a
bell-like bark that stimulates my ear pleasantly, he has a soft coat which
is pleasant to my stroking hand, I know that in case of need the dog
will protect me (and that is a calming consideration), I know that
he may be otherwise of use to me—in short my understanding tells
me all kinds of pleasant things about the beast. Hence I like to
have him near me; i. e., I like him. The same explanation may be
applied to all emotions of inclination or repulsion. Everywhere we
find the emotion as physiological stimulus in indivisible union with
a number of partly known, partly unknown functions of the understanding.
The unknown play an important rôle. They are serial
understandings, i. e., inherited from remote ancestors, and are
characterized by the fact that they lead us to do the things we do
when we recognize intelligently any event and its requirements.
When one gets thirsty, he drinks. Cattle do the same. And they
drink even when nobody has told them to, because this is an inherited
action of countless years. If a man is, however, to proceed intelligently
about his drinking, he will say, "By drying, or other forms of
segregation, the water will be drawn from the cells of my body, they
will become arid, and will no longer be sufficiently elastic to do their
work. If, now, by way of my stomach, through endosmosis and
exosmosis, I get them more water, the proper conditions will return."
The consequences of this form of consideration will not be different
from the instinctive action of the most elementary of animals—the
wise man and the animal drink. So the whole content of every emotion
is physiological stimulation and function of the understanding.
And what good is all this to the criminal lawyer? Nobody
doubts that both prisoners and witnesses are subject to the powerful
influence of emotional expression. Nobody doubts that the determination,
interpretation, and judgment of these expressions are as
difficult as they are important to the judge. And when we consider
these emotions as especial conditions of the mind it is indubitable
that they are able to cause still greater difficulty because of their
elusiveness, their very various intensity, and their confused effect.
Once, however, we think of them as functions of the understanding,
we have, in its activities, something better known, something rather
more disciplined, which offers very many fewer difficulties in the
judgment concerning the fixed form in which it acts. Hence, every
judgment of an emotional state must be preceded by a reconstruction
in terms of the implied functions of the understanding. Once this
is done, further treatment is no longer difficult.
[[ id="n58.1"]]
A. Lehman: Die Hauptgesetze des menschlichen Gefühlsleben. Leipzig
1892.