University of Virginia Library

REVIEWS

THE FOUNDATIONS OF CHARACTER. By A. F. Shand. Macmillan and Company, London, 1914. Pp. xxx+532.

In his preface the author says: "A great difficulty which I have found in the course of my work has been to collect the facts or observations of character on which I had to rely. Such material as I have obtained has been drawn much more from literature than from any other source; and this was inevitable, because psychology has hardly begun to concern itself with these questions." This reproach levelled against psychology rebounds on the author, for throughout the book he shows himself evidently unacquainted with those branches of psychology, notably the medical ones, that have contributed so brilliantly and extensively to the science of characterology. It need hardly be pointed out, further, that to rely on second-hand material, which cannot be checked, analysed, or immediately studied, as the living facts can is a procedure that is open to insuperable objections.

The author repudiates any analytical approach to his problems, preferring what he terms "a concrete and synthetic conception of character," and so "avoids breaking up the forces of character into their elements, and being driven to consider the abstract problem of their mutual relation." His method consists in assuming the existence of these forces, as part of his working hypothesis, and in formulating general laws based on a study of them. As he himself puts it, "It is in the first place a method of discovery rather than of proof;—a method reaching no further than a tentative formulation of laws; for organising the more particular under the more general; for interpreting the generalised observations which every great observer of human nature forms for himself, and by this interpretation making some advance towards their organization. "It follows from this that the book is predominantly descriptive in nature, and in this field it must be said that the author has accomplished great work, one that will be of almost indispensable value to future students of the various emotions.

The book is really a study of the emotions rather than of character, and so we have to pay special attention to what the

author has to say concerning them. As is well known, he formulated some years ago a special conception—it can hardly be called a theory—of the emotions, and the most novel part of the present work is the way in which this conception is expounded and elaborated in detail. He rejects the usual sense of the term in which it is taken to express a certain degree of elaboration of the affective aspect of the mind, and adopts a much wider definition in which the conative, affective, and cognitive aspects are all represented. " `Emotion' for us will connote not feeling abstracted from impulse, but feeling with its impulse, and feeling which has essentially a cognitive attitude, however vague, and frequently definite thoughts about its object." He distinguishes, none the less, between an emotion and the entire system to which it belongs. It is the part of the system that is present in consciousness, there being two other parts that are not; namely, the processes connected with it in the body, and the executive part concerned with its outward expression and modes of behaviour. The three main primary emotions are fear, anger, and disgust; other are curiosity, joy, sorrow, self-display, and self-abasement. The four emotional systems of anger, fear, joy and sorrow have an innate connection not only with one another, but also with every other primary system. Most of the book is taken up with a very detailed study of the emotions just enumerated, and in this study the author insists on the functional point of view, constantly enquiring into the dynamic aspects and tendencies of the emotion under consideration. This is perhaps the only respect in which it could be seen that the book was written within the last forty years.

Mr. Shand's view of the relation between the emotions and the instincts has led to an animated controversy with Dr. McDougall, published in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society for 1914-1915. According to the latter writer, every emotion has a corresponding instinct, and is merely the affective aspect of this instinct. Mr. Shand, on the contrary, holds that there are vastly more instincts than emotions, that a given instinct may enter into several different emotional systems, and that each emotional system may at various times, and according to its needs, make use of almost any number of different instincts. The reviewer is unable to determine whether these different points of view have any further implications than a difference in the definitions adopted by the two writers. McDougall obviously employs the term

instinct in a much more comprehensive and inclusive sense than Shand does.

In the discussion of this interrelation there occurs, by the way, the following suggestive passage: "There are no fears so intense as those which arise in situations from which we cannot escape, where we are forced to remain in contemplation of the threatening events. There is no anger so intense as when the blood boils and all the sudden energy that comes to us cannot vent itself on our antagonist. The arrest of an instinct is that which most frequently excites the emotion connected with it; and therefore we feel the emotion so often before (or after: Reviewer) the instinctive behaviour takes place, rather than along with it." This seems to after-shadow the modern views on intrapsychical conflict and abreaction.

Another conception peculiar to the author, first propounded in 1896, is that regarding the sentiments. Sentiments, in the author's sense, are "those greater systems of the character the function of which is to organize certain of the lesser systems of emotions by imposing on them a common end and subjecting them to a common cause." A constant conflict seems to go on between the organizing tendency of these sentiments and the tendency of the constituent emotions to achieve freedom and autonomous action, a conception quite in harmony with the modern views of "complex-action," although Shand's "sentiments" are far from being synonymous with either "complexes" or "constellations" in our sense. The implications that follow from his conception of the sentiments, and the importance he attaches to it, are well shown by the following interesting passages. "The result of the modification which the systems of the emotions undergo in man, and especially the multiplication of the causes which excite and sustain them, is (1) to make man the most emotional of animals, and (2) to render possible the debasement of his character. For that which is a condition of his progress is also a condition of his decline,—the acquired power of ideas over emotions, and the subsequent power of each indefinitely to sustain the other. Hence the existence of the emotions constitutes a serious danger for him though not for the animals, and the balance which is lost when the emotions are no longer exclusively under the control of those causes which originally excite them can only be replaced by the higher control of the sentiments. There are then three stages in the evolution

of emotional systems; the first and primitive, in which they are under the control of the stimuli innately connected with their excitement, undergoing a certain change through individual experience, but not radically altered; the second, in which they become dangerous and independent systems; the third, in which they are organized under the control of the new systems which they are instrumental in developing." "There are three principal stages in the development of character. Its foundations are those primary emotional systems, in which the instincts play at first a more important part than the emotions; in them, and as instrumental to their ends, are found the powers of intelligence and will to which the animal attains. But even in animals there is found, some inter-organization of these systems, or, at least, some balance of their instincts, by which these are fitted to work together as a system for the preservation of their offspring and of themselves. This inter-organization is the basis of those higher and more complex systems which, if not peculiar to man, chiefly characterize him, and which we have called the sentiments, and this is the second stage. But character, if more or less rigid in the animals, is plastic in man: and thus the sentiments come to develop, for their own more perfect organization, systems of self-control, in which the intellect and will rise to a higher level than is possible at the emotional stage, and give rise to those great qualities of character that we name "fortitude," "patience," "steadfastness," "loyalty," and many others, and a relative ethics that is in constant interaction with the ethics of the conscience, which is chiefly imposed upon us through social influences. And this is the third and highest stage in the development of character, and the most plastic, so that it is in constant flux in each of us; and the worth that we ascribe to men in review of their lives, deeper than their outward success or failure, is determined by what they have here accomplished."

We have given some indication of the positive side of the book, one which deserves great praise for both its matter and style. On the negative side we have to remark on the following important omissions. As was mentioned to start with, no acquaintance whatever is shown with either the methods or findings of what may broadly be called medical psychology, the only psychology that has at its disposal the material on which a science of character could be founded. That the important work of Klarges on characterology

is not considered may be accounted for by the fact that there is not a single German reference given in the whole book. In the second place, the genetic point of view is almost completely overlooked, one of cardinal importance in such a field. Thirdly, the whole subject of the unconscious is treated as non-existent. It is a complete misnomer to entitle a book on descriptive psychology "The Foundations of Character" when no notice whatever is taken of that region of the mind where the very springs of character take their source, and where the most fundamental features of character are to be found. Last, but not least, is the absence of any study of the sexual instinct and emotions, surely of cardinal importance for any investigation of character. Apart from the general contributions made by this instinct to character, one thinks of such clearly-cut pictures as the masochistic, voyeur, and anal types of character.

An inadequate index closes an unsatisfactory, though in many respects valuable, book. We note no fewer than twelve references to "Seneca," but none to "sex" or "shame;" sixteen to Hudson, but none to Freud, Janet, Prince, Adler, or Klarges.

ERNEST JONES.

AN INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY. By William McDougall. Published by John W. Luce & Co., Boston, 1910.

Although this book was published a few years ago, nevertheless it seems sufficiently important to the reviewer to have it brought prominently before psychopathologists.

In the introduction McDougall reminds us that the instincts are the prime movers, the mental forces, the sources of energy, the springs of human action, the impulses and motives which determine the goals and course of all human activity, mental and physical. These instincts, being the fundamental elements of our constitution, must be clearly defined, and their history in the individual and the race determined. For this purpose, comparative and evolutionary psychology is necessary, for the life of the emotions and the play of motives in mental life are the least susceptible of introspective observation and description. "The old psychologising," says McDougall, "was like playing `Hamlet'

with the Prince of Denmark left out, or like describing steam-engines while ignoring the fact of the presence and fundamental role of the fire or other sources of heat." A knowledge of the constitution of the mind of man is a prerequisite for any understanding of the life of society in any or all of its many aspects. And this applies to psychopathology. I venture to assert that had certain individuals read and digested a book of this sort it might have been a prophylactic against an exclusively sexual conception of human conduct.

The work is divided into two sections. Section one deals with the mental characteristics of man of primary importance for his life in society, while section two is concerned with the operation of the primary tendencies of the human mind in the life of societies. The successive chapters of the first section take up in order the following questions: the nature of instincts and their place in the constitution of the mind, the principal instincts and the primary emotions of man; some general or non-specific innate tendencies, the nature of the sentiments and the constitution of some of the complex emotions; the development of the sentiments; the growth of self-consciousness and of the self regarding sentiment; the advance to the higher plane of social conduct; and volition. In the second section the author considers the reproductive and the parental instincts, the instinct of pugnacity, the gregarious instinct, the instincts through which religious conceptions affect social life, the instincts of acquisition and construction, and there is a final chapter on imitation, play and habit.

McDougall dividends the instincts into specific tendencies or instincts and general or non-specific tendencies. He calls attention to the abuse of the term "instincts" and himself defines an instinct as an inherited or innate psychophysical disposition which has the three aspects of all mental processes: the cognitive, the affective and the conative—or a knowing of some object or thing, a feeling in regard to it, and a striving towards or away from that object. "The continued obstruction of instinctive striving is always accompanied by painful feeling, its successful progress towards its end by pleasurable feeling, and the achievement of its end by a pleasurable sense of satisfaction." He reminds us that "the emotional excitement, with the accompanying nervous activities of the central part of the disposition, is the only part of the total instinctive process that retains its specific character and remains

common to all individuals and all situations in which the instinct is excited." We may experience the emotional excitement and the impulse to the appropriate movements of an instinct or the re-excitement of an instinctive reaction in its affective and conative aspects without the reproduction of the original idea which led to its excitation. Pleasure and pain but serve to guide these impulses or instincts in their choice of means towards these ends.

One of McDougall's important conclusions is that "each of the principal instincts conditions some one kind of emotional excitement whose quality is specific or peculiar to it, and the emotional excitement of specific quality that is the affective aspect of the operation of any one of the principal instincts may be called a primary emotion." This is McDougall's definition of emotion.

McDougall then takes up for discussion and analysis the principal instincts and the primary emotions of man which include the following: the instinct of flight and the emotion of fear; the instinct of repulsion and the emotion of disgust; the instinct of curiosity and the emotion of wonder; the instinct of pugnacity and the emotion of anger; the instincts of self-abasement (or subjection) and of self-assertion (or self-display) and the emotions of subjection and elation (or negative and positive self-feeling); the parental instinct and the tender emotion, and such other instincts of less well-defined emotional tendencies as the instinct of reproduction (with sexual jealousy and female coyness), the gregarious instinct, the instincts of acquisition and construction; and the minor instincts of crawling, walking, rest and sleep. McDougall denies the existence of such instincts as those of religion, imitation, sympathy and play.

There then follows a consideration of some general or nonspecific innate tendencies or pseudo-instincts which are not specific instincts with special accompanying emotions, and this leads to the analysis of sympathy or the sympathetic induction of emotion, suggestion and suggestibility, imitation, play, habit, disposition and temperament.

The sentiments are now taken up for analysis and definition. A sentiment, according to McDougall, who accepts Shand's definition, is an organized system of emotional tendencies or dispositions centred about the idea of some object. Among the complex emotions not necessarily implying the existence of sentiments McDougall includes admiration, awe and reverence, gratitude,

scorn, contempt and loathing, and envy. Among the complex emotions implying the existence of sentiments he considers reproach, anxiety, jealousy, vengeful emotion, resentment, shame, joy, sorrow and pity, happiness, surprise. The nature and the constitution of the sentiments and the complex emotions comes in for very illuminating analysis. The chapters on the growth of self-consciousness and of the self-regarding sentiment, the advance to the higher plane of social conduct, and volition are to be considered among the best chapters of this very excellent work. The discussion and analysis is very penetrating and clear. It is well worth while presenting the following abstract of the chapter on volition: All impulses, desires and aversions, motives or conations are of one of two classes: (1) from the excitement of some innate disposition or instinct; and (2) from excitement of dispositions acquired during the life of the individual by differentiation from the innate dispositions, under the guidance of pleasure and pain. When in the conflict of two motives the will is thrown on the side of one of them and we make a volitional decision, we in some way add to the energy with which the idea of the one desired end maintains itself in opposition to its rival. The idea of the self, or self-consciousness, is able to play its great role in volition only in virtue of the self-regarding sentiment. The conations, the desires and aversions, arising within this self-regarding sentiment are the motive forces which, adding themselves to the weaker ideal motive in the case of moral effort, enable it to win the mastery over some stronger, coarser desire of our primitive animal nature and to banish from consciousness the idea of the end of this desire.

Volition, therefore, following McDougall, may be defined as the supporting or re-enforcing of a desire or conation by the cooperation of an impulse excited within the system of the self-regarding sentiment. The sentiment of self-control is the master sentiment for volition and especially for resolution. It is a special development of the self-regarding sentiment. The source of the additional motive power, which in the moral effort of volition is thrown upon the side of the weaker, more ideal impulse, is ultimately to be found in that instinct of self-display or self-assertion whose affective aspect is the emotion of positive self-feeling. These remarks are given more or less verbatim.

McDougall next analyzes strength of character which he differentiates from disposition and temperament which are innate.

In section two, as stated previously, the author takes up for separate and more minute analysis the family (the reproductive and the parental) instincts, the instinct of pugnacity, the gregarious instinct, the instinctive bases of religion, and the instincts of acquisition and construction. Imitation, play and habit receive separate treatment in the final chapter.

The reviewer can freely recommend this book as one of the best, if not the best book of this sort that has come into his hands. His personal opinion is that it is the best. McDougall presents us with an acceptable and clean-cut classification of the instincts, emotions and sentiments, he accurately defines these terms, he gives the analysis and constitution of these instincts, emotions and sentiments, and develops the motive sources of human conduct. He adopts many original and novel standpoints. He is an independent thinker. He has here presented us with a book which, because of its clearness and its frank meeting of the problems, is of the utmost value to the psychopathologist and the psychiatrist. In fact the contents of just such a work as this should be the first lesson of every worker in this field. In this way only can he really begin to understand human conduct.

This work should find its place in the forefront of those books which should be read and digested by all workers in any of the social sciences.

For the reviewer it has been a genuine pleasure to read and to review this book and he most heartily recommends it to the reader of these pages.

MEYER SOLOMON.