value implies a valuer; however universal or established a value may be, the term is meaningless unless it bears relation to people who value. no definition of value is possible, or at any rate satisfactory, that does not imply the judgment, choice, or assertion of a valuer in the act of valuing. the universality of a value does not make it objective or independent of valuers, but merely widens the applicability of that value with regard to any imaginable valuer. if this can be admitted, it follows that value cannot be made independent of the factors that determine or have determined the mental attitude of the valuer. for this reason i will attempt to give an account of some of the factors which bear directly upon man, the valuer, and less directly upon values in general and moral values in particular. the discussion will be under four headings: (1) instinct and heredity; (2) emotion; (3) judgment of ends; (4) environment and cosmic suggestion.
(1) instinct and heredity
we have already alluded to the part played by instinct in determining the initial character of[pg 74] the ego. instincts are here distinguished from the emotions to which they give rise. without unduly stretching the meaning of the word "suggestion," in the sense of a prompting to action not specifically in hypnotism, instinct may perhaps be looked upon as the innate suggestion of heredity. the two primary factors held to be fundamental in shaping and influencing the character of the individual are environment and heredity. the question of the predominance of the one influence or the other is the subject of keen controversy, and coincides with the contingent problem of the relative importance of inherent and acquired characters.
it is now becoming increasingly evident that the problem of heredity is nearer a solution if viewed rather from the psychical than from the purely biological or material aspect. so we seek the solution of the secret in psychology. the vital factor in organism is psychic from protozoan to man, whether we identify it with "psychoplasm," soul, ego, or "subjective mind."
those who put forward memory as the basis of heredity show that evolution implies the retention by organisms of their experiences in accommodating themselves to their gradually changing environment. constant and reiterated striving in certain directions in this process of accommodation, until actions become automatic—free of effort—produces habit. in the words of professor ward: "this law of habit we may reasonably regard as exemplified in the life of every individual[pg 75] in the long line of genealogical ascent that connects us with our humblest ancestors, in so far as every permanent advance in the scale of life implies a basis of habit embodied in a structure which has been perfected by practice."[64] laborious observations have been recorded of minute unicellular creatures to show that they "succeed as we do, only by way of trial and error." thus we are led to the conclusion that the acquisition of habits by the individual during his efforts to adapt himself to his environment, and transmitted down a long line of genealogical descent, is the method of heredity; and further, that man, in common with other animals, inherits all these racial and individual acquirements from his parents. instinct, we have said, may be termed the "suggestion of heredity," which again is "race memory," or the evolutionary product of habits acquired during the process of man's adaptability to his environment. this, then, is the primary and fundamental determinant of the character and quality of personality. it is the quality which is inherent in a man from the moment he begins his individual existence, that is, from the moment the sexual cells of both parents coalesce in the process of conception and form a new stem-cell. haeckel divides the instincts into two chief classes: the primary, which can be traced to the commencement of organic life—the common lower impulses inherent in the psychoplasm. the[pg 76] chief are impulses to self-preservation (by defence and maintenance) and the preservation of the species (by generation and the care of the young). these two, hunger and reproduction, are universally recognized as fundamental. the secondary were due to intelligent adaption; translated into habit, they gradually become automatic and "innate" in subsequent generations. the earlier these habits are acquired and ingrained in the life history of the race, the more invariable and immutable will be their transmission; the habits of a few generations are easily modified or effaced by conflicting tendencies or conditions. the life history of every new individual, in its initial stages, is a (more or less complete[65]) recapitulation of the life history of the race. the earlier ancestral acquisitions have been transformed into habit and have become secondarily automatic, the less are they liable to variation, and the more inexorable and unfailing will be their transmission. thus darwin showed the greater immutability of generic characters over later acquired specific characters. this applies to psychic as well as to physical characters. in the same way the earlier, during the course of his life, a man assimilates a strong suggestion, the greater will be its effect and the longer its influence will last.
let us now consider instinct in relation to moral conceptions. dr. mcdougall gives [pg 77]prominence in his "social psychology" to the following instincts, which, together with the emotional excitements which accompany them, play the foremost part in the evolution of moral ideas: (1) the reproductive, parental and erotic instincts, responsible for the earliest form of social feeling; (2) the instinct of pugnacity, with which are connected the emotions of resentment and revenge, which give rise, when complicated with other instincts, to indignation at anti-social conduct; (3) the gregarious instinct, which inclines animals to gather together in aggregations of their own species—this impulse has an important bearing upon the sympathetic emotions and is at the root of tribal loyalty; (4) the instincts of acquisition and construction, which have been developed with the idea of property, and the moral judgments connected therewith; (5) the instincts of self-abasement (or subjection) and of self-assertion (or self-display), with which are connected the emotions of "depression" and "elation"—the former instinct gives rise to feelings of respect towards superiors, divine or human, and the latter is the basis of self-respect.[66]
other writers lay greater emphasis on a distinct instinct of imitation. it is undoubted that imitation, both when it is spontaneous and when it is deliberate—the distinction between the two forms should be carefully observed—plays a great[pg 78] part in the formation of moral judgments. theological and ethical writers are fond of saying that the sense of moral obligation arises from the consciousness of approval, and consequent imitation, of an ideal or a standard which is submitted to our judgment; this implies deliberate imitation. the imitative tendency (purely spontaneous) is strongly marked in every child in its first efforts at vocalization, which are pure "echolalia," i.e. incessant repetition of the sounds it hears; in fact, imitation marks every step of a child's growing consciousness. practically all phenomena, however, attributed to the imitative instinct is in reality a manifestation of response to extrinsic suggestion. james speaks of "the imitative tendency which shows itself in large masses of men, and produces panics, and orgies and frenzies of violence, and which only the rarest individuals can actively withstand.... certain mesmerized subjects must automatically imitate whatever motion their operator makes before their eyes."[67]
to ascribe this tendency to a special instinct would be to disclose a faulty appreciation of mob psychology and the laws of suggestion. these panics, orgies and frenzies of violence, and similar vindictive or enthusiastic mob tendencies, are simply the natural response to mass or cosmic suggestion, as we shall see later.
the final and precipitate cause of these outbreaks is frequently the personal magnetism, or[pg 79] more correctly the suggestion, of one man. the qualities necessary for the exercise of this power—the secret of successful demagogy—are not, as might be supposed, the possession of a dominant will and a constructive, purposive or tenacious intellect. it may be, indeed, that a great man of action, a napoleon or c?sar, arises, and by these sterling qualities dominates the masses and their attendant sycophants and demagogues; but more usually the essentials are a gift for facile and frenzied oratory and the power of evoking emotional presentations, qualities possessed, par excellence, by madmen and fanatics, the kerenskys, lenins and visionaries of all times. their powers are the more irresistible, it is true, if combined with a shrewd knowledge of correct methods of propaganda and lavish adulation, for the obvious reason that, as we have seen, the strongest suggestion is the one that is most acceptable to the subject and most in accord with his predilections. nothing would be truer than to say that only the rarest individuals can actively withstand the onslaught of cosmic suggestion. it is significant that the greatest human type, the true genius, who appears most often in the great philosopher, less often in the great artist, and who possesses a superabundance of dominant will-power and constructiveness, is far less powerful than the great conqueror or politician; for he commands intellect rather than emotion, and the world is governed by emotion.
[pg 80]
it is not sufficiently realized that many so-called geniuses, imaginative, histrionic and poetical, can never deserve the highest place, for they are the sounding-boards of the world; their superlative quality is receptivity; they are instruments, not players; they voice the great masses, and they share with publicists and politicians a desire to be incriminated in the movement of their surroundings. wieninger, in his "sex and character," emphasizes the dependence of publicists and tribunes of the people upon the masses they would lead. the politician, like the prostitute, has to court the populace; she is a woman of the streets—he is a man of the streets. for this reason he denies to the great politician and the man of action the quality of true greatness. "the man of action shares with the epileptic the desire to be in criminal relation to everything around him, to make them appanages of his petty self. the great man feels himself defined and separate from the world, a nomad amongst nomads, and as a true microcosm he feels the world already within him."
the really great men, the kants, the descartes, leibnizs or spencers, and the greatest artists are wholly creative, purposive, dynamic; they owe no allegiance to the masses, for they are greater than the masses; they realize all without reflecting all; they seek nourishment where they will, and they spew out what they will; this perfect freedom is necessary for the attainment of truth. truthfulness is a necessary attribute of[pg 81] genius, but not of statecraft or government, or of poetical effusions of the imagination.
while we are dealing with the subject of instincts it may not seem out of place to refer to the widely held belief that maternal impressions during pregnancy have a direct influence on the temperament of the child, and are often responsible for inducing definite tendencies of aversion and attraction and even physical resemblances. although such acquired tendencies, admitting their existence, cannot strictly be classed with the instincts or tendencies inherited from former generations, since they are acquired after the inception of, and by, the new individual; yet they have a resemblance in that they are both pre-natal acquirements, and are manifested in the same way. writers on heredity and biology are apt to dismiss the subject as unworthy of serious consideration, and to account for any instances of the sort attributed to this cause as based on pure coincidence. it is, however, significant that the great majority of mothers who have given the matter any thought are, as a rule, firmly convinced of the reality of pre-natal influences. when the principles of suggestion are applied to the case, it will be seen that the conditions of pre-natal existence are favourable for the reception by an unborn child of strong telepathic suggestions from its mother. the embryo mind is entirely receptive; any violent psychic disturbance in the mother must react upon the child. most people know of some[pg 82] instance which points to the "impression" theory, and which it would be impossible to account for in any other way.
there appear to be no reasonable grounds for denying that maternal impressions may sometimes be held accountable for temperamental tendencies, not easily attributable to heredity, although it would, of course, be absurd to attempt to account for all abnormalities in the same way. the naturally greater receptivity and suggestibility of women, shown by their quick response to emotional suggestion, their credulousness, and the fact that women are the best mediums,[68] becomes very much more marked during pregnancy. at such times some women, normally distinguished by their vigour and initiative, become conspicuously impressionable; they become, in fact, ready "conductors" of suggestion. it follows that the influences that bear strongest upon them also bear upon the child.
greater importance should not be attached to the psychic environment of a child than to its inherent hereditary qualities, which irrevocably determine its native tendencies and the limits[pg 83] of its ultimate possibilities. environment may modify or enhance a child's inherent characteristics in an infinite variety of ways, but cannot nullify them or transcend by one iota the limit of its potential development.
in a previous chapter we discussed the view of those who regard moral judgment as an emotion or intuition of the "good" and the "right," and who find justification for our rules of conduct by referring them to the divine will, which is supposed to inspire them by means of the "moral organ" or conscience. we believe that a correct appreciation of psychology makes it abundantly clear that although there are many impulsive, instinctive and emotional factors totally unconnected with any rational or intellectual process which do, indeed, affect our moral judgments and give rise to ethical conventions, these factors can give no validity to moral codes; and that, stripped of the sentiments and emotions with which they are obscured, moral systems must be judged by principles of utility, while they are enforceable according to the universality with which they are desired. it is, moreover, equally absurd to look upon moral values as ultimate and irreducible categories of good and evil, irrevocably codified by an omniscient deity for the conduct of humanity for all time, and supposedly accessible to the intelligence of all who consult their conscience. this latter position, which is maintained by theistic "rationalists," leads to precisely the same "conclusion" as the [pg 84]arguments of the "intuitionalists," the only difference between them being that the conscience of the "rationalists" is a thinking and intellectual organ, while the conscience of the intuitionalists is an emotional and instinctive organ. but this amicable convergence is not accidental but a sine qua non, since in either case the object aimed at is identically the same, that object being the establishment of conscience, dependent on morality, on a pinnacle of ethical omniscience and infallibility, where its authority shall be unquestionable and absolute. they may well be left to their quarrel, which in reality amounts to little more than verbal quibbling.
instinct, as we have seen, must inevitably play a very large part in the evolution of public morality and the moral impulse of every individual. careful statistics have shown that criminal tendencies make their appearance with unfailing persistency in selected degenerate families. the genealogical record of one family may show a murderer in every generation; pauperism, prostitution and drunkenness are characteristics of another, and so on. heredity will primarily determine a man's inherent characteristics—his instincts, temperament, disposition and, eo facto, his "conscience." other factors, above all his immediate psychic environment, may, indeed, modify these tendencies for better or worse, but under the most favourable conditions cosmic suggestion, in its aspect of[pg 85] "public conscience," can never altogether supplant strong inherent tendencies. those who believe in the conscience myth sometimes object that the voice of conscience always calls in the right direction, but that a man may, throughout a long life of crime, stifle and inhibit that "still small voice," yet in the end (perhaps when faced with the extreme penalty of the law) the wretched sinner will exhibit the symptoms of the most genuine and heartfelt remorse and express the greatest horror of his evil deeds. this type of explanation shows a total failure to interpret psychological processes. it may, indeed, be a common occurrence for a condemned criminal, brought suddenly face to face with the prospect of plenary punishment, to experience real sorrow and shame at his conduct. the emotion will probably be perfectly genuine. the prisoner, with little hope of enjoying the fruits of his felony and removed from the direct counter-influence of a criminal environment, will be in the best possible frame of mind to respond to the right cosmic suggestion—universal horror and detestation of his deed. such a suggestion, reacting upon the instinct of self-preservation, will readily kindle emotions of remorse, self-horror and sorrow. penitence need have nothing to do with any true ethical appreciation of the action of which it is supposed to be the object. many cases have been recorded of miserable old women accused of witchcraft, who, learning for[pg 86] the first time at their trial of the crimes they were supposed to have committed, have become convinced of their guilt, and suffering the keenest pangs of remorse have died with penitence and resignation.
fear is the chief element of remorse: fear of our fellow-men, vague fears for the future, or in the most literal sense the fear of divine retribution or god. racine dramatizes this emotion in the famous confession of athalie: filled with dread at the words of warning uttered by the ghost of her mother jezebel, she recalls her vision:
tremble, m'a-t-elle dit,
fille digne de moi;
le cruel dieu des juifs
l'emporte aussi sur toi.
je te plains de tomber
dans ses mains redoutables,
ma fille.
(2) the factor of emotion
unfortunately for the attainment of truth, nothing has a greater influence on the formation of human opinion and character, and is therefore more inextricably bound up with all questions of politics, religion, morality and art, than the complex mental state we call emotion. nothing affects the well-being, health and happiness of mankind more directly.
emotion may perhaps be defined as a continuity of complex presentations manifested in organic sensation. in a sense, emotion is feeling, which is the wider term; it is an effect, which[pg 87] therefore cannot exist without its cause, though the same cause under different circumstances may produce many varied emotions, both in quality and degree.
the visible manifestation of emotional disturbance need bear no relation to its intensity. people of the greatest nervous sensibility, in whom emotional excitements are most deeply and acutely felt, often keep their emotions best under control. they are not, of course, able to inhibit the involuntary or visceral processes which are affected by emotion: heart, pulse, salivary glands and respiratory system may indeed tell the tale; but the will may prevent the contagion spreading further: the intellect may remain calm, thought and action slow and deliberate, demeanour outwardly cool and collected.[69] the lower the level of will-power and intellectual development, the more closely dependent will all cerebral processes be upon emotional states and reactions; at the same time, the emotions become cruder, less complex and subtle and even less deeply felt. children and savages are almost entirely emotional, in the sense that they think[pg 88] emotionally and have no power of intellectual detachment.
professor ward describes the effect of emotion on thought very clearly as follows: "emotional excitement—and at the outset the natural man does not think much in cold blood—quickens the flow of ideas.... familiar associations hurry attention away from the proper topic, and thought becomes not only discursive but wandering; in place of concepts of fixed and crystalline completeness, such as logic describes, we may find a congeries of ideas but imperfectly compacted into one generic idea, subject to continual transformation, and implicating much that is irrelevant and confusing."[70]
there are few people indeed whose views on religion, politics, art, and the rights and relations of the sexes are not chiefly emotional values. we may think that our convictions are based on logical reasonings, but the force of childish impressions and associations, and the unresisted bias of passions and interests, are the processes by which they have been cultivated, and rational thought has been devoted to the task of finding reasons for the convictions that are ready made.
emotion, as we have said, is a continuity of complex presentations whose elements are manifold; it is a state of feeling subject to constant modification and expansion while experience develops. first among the causal factors which influence emotion are the instincts, others may be intellectual concepts, many more come from the[pg 89] substrata of consciousness, and of these many are strictly physiological in character; for instance, there may be disturbances of the genital, vasomotor or digestive systems, cerebellar disturbances or latent molecular or biochemical nervous conditions, during which the mind responds to stimuli ignored under other or healthier circumstances; but over all it is the inherent disposition of the immaterial psychic or subjective mind which gives the whole its tone and tendency. we must, indeed, admit with james that "a disembodied human emotion is a sheer nonentity."
with the psycho-physical problem as to whether sensory excitation is antecedent to emotional expression, or emotion gives rise to bodily expression, we are not here directly concerned. since emotion is a continuous condition of experience, it may reasonably be supposed that organic disturbance is both a contributory cause and the reactionary result of emotion.[71] most people admit that "each emotion is a resultant of a sum of elements," and that some of those elements are functional and organic, without admitting the contention of professor james and[pg 90] those who insist with him that emotion is but a sum of organic sensations.[72]
emotional disturbances lead directly to the overthrow of the mental balance, which divides the normal man from the madman and the neurasthenic. modern psychiatrists lay stress on the emotional character of the latter affection. the underlying features of "functional neurosis" reveal themselves in symptoms denoting the clash of emotional elements within, together with a corresponding lack of adaptability to outer environment, and are characterized by instability and exaggeration of emotion rather than impaired intellect.[73]
the cultivation of the ?sthetic, pleasurable and benevolent emotions on the one hand, and the elimination of violent emotional excitements or discordant and morbid emotions on the other, are conditions as essential for the physical health as for the happiness of the individual. emotional sensibility is a condition necessary for the full appreciation and enjoyment of art, and of all that is pleasurable and beautiful, but when emotion is allowed to colour reason, the mind is closed to truth, knowledge and logic.
art gratifies the emotions as truth should gratify the intellect. it is not always fully realized how large a part emotional elements, which may embrace every form of sensory and[pg 91] erotic excitation, as well as the whole tone of the subjective mind, play in the most intellectual criticism of an artistic achievement. of these elements some may be irrelevant as well as irrational, and by no means realized by the critic at the time of writing his appreciation. elliot smith and pear illustrate this point in a way few people would want to dispute. "let us suppose that a musical critic, after hearing a new symphony by an unconventional composer, immediately writes a lengthy appreciation of the performance. it is clear that nobody would expect him to be able to give off-hand an account of his reasons for every sentence of the criticism. but it is obvious that a single phrase in this account may be but the apex of a whole pyramid of memories emanating from the critic's technical training, his attitude towards the new departure, experiences highly coloured with emotion which a few notes of music may have evoked, and his mental condition at the time he heard the performance. nobody denies that these may have shaped or even determined his criticism. but who believes either that they were all conscious at the time of writing the article, or that he could resuscitate them without much time and trouble and perhaps the help of a cross-examiner?"
in addition to the causal, largely emotional, elements might be added a prime determinant in artistic appreciation, namely, cosmic suggestion. in the case of a leading critic, overwhelmingly self-confident and secure of his position, the mere knowledge of the consensus of informed and [pg 92]uninformed opinion being favourable or otherwise might conceivably arouse an equally illogical desire to be esoteric and different at all costs. an antagonistic autosuggestion of this sort unconsciously underlying a critic's attitude would more than negative any body of opinion in one direction.[74] but if such artificial and diverse influences can affect the most highly trained and most honest critic, how much more will they affect the credulous and untrained? far greater will be the power of authoritative opinion in influencing those whose emotional sensibility is blunt and untrained, who gape in unresponsive perplexity at some artist's canvas, waiting to have the emotions they do not feel suggested to them, and who, when given the lead, infuse by the power of association into the meaningless daub or the subtlest motif alike the same spirit of satisfaction they derive from the garish crudities which alone, unaided, find a responsive echo in their breasts. it is well known that the less tutored the intellect the more real, as a rule, are the creatures of the imagination. children and savages have a wonderful faculty for believing in the reality of their illusions. does not this account for the fact that[pg 93] the less clearly a thing is understood the greater is the power of the imagination in supplying a meaning. a certain dimness and mystery or quality of incomprehensibility invariably adds to the respect and awe paid to works of art and their creators, officially labelled as "great." sometimes mere age or distance produces the requisite dimness. racine considered this atmosphere of distance a necessary device of stagecraft for the proper presentation of a hero. "on peut dire que le respect que l'on a pour les héros augmente à mesure qu'ils s'éloignent de nous."[75] in the same way the intensity of horror bestowed upon the arch-villain of the piece is increased in proportion to the distance away from which he is regarded; in other words, the less you know about him. but this does not hold good for the heroes of the histrionic stage more truly than for the heroes and arch-villains of the wider stage of the world. the principle can be applied equally to the heroes of art, religion, politics or war. it is not, of course, the dimness or distance per se which magnifies the object of appreciation; unaided that would merely have the opposite effect. the factor of dimness, by placing the object further from the grasp of reason, enables the playwright, politician, or critic, as the case may be, to play with greater ease and certainty upon the emotions of his audience, and by force of suggestion to endue his puppet more completely with the symbolic quality[pg 94] he wishes to present. in spite of medici prints, oleographic processes and the extension of culture which renders any one liable to receive choice samples of the italian masters free with a packet of cigarettes, what william hazlitt said with reference to michael angelo is still literally true. "we know," he writes, "nothing of him but his name. it is an abstraction of fame and greatness. our admiration of him supports itself, and our idea of his superiority seems self-evident, because it is attached to his name only."
convention is a very real and wellnigh irresistible power. not a few of our most cherished valuations—artistic, religious, political and social—are conventional fetishes which have been slowly evolved in the course of a great number of years as the result of determining factors, for the most part accidental and forgotten, and probably called into existence for totally different and unconnected reasons. yet the appropriate emotional reaction, evoked by the association of an object with such a conventional valuation or sentiment, may be just as keenly and genuinely felt as though it resulted from the awakening of some instinctive or innate law of our nature. impressionability is not a quality to be despised, but on the contrary to be carefully guarded from contamination. it is by means of emotion that all pleasure and pain, all aversion and attraction, and all sense of the ?sthetic is recorded by the senses. emotional sensibility may be compared to an instrument that may be so finely made[pg 95] that it is capable of registering the most delicate and exact vibrations so that any harsh sound will injure it, while, on the other hand, it may be made of a texture so coarse that it will respond instantly and indiscriminately to any loud and crude noise. this instrument has an inherent quality of excellence with a potentiality of exactness that may be developed in a great variety of directions.
the many factors which play a part in ?sthetic appreciation have been abundantly explored by psychological writers.[76] they have traced the great variety of ways in which art can be the means of evoking sympathetic emotions by connecting its subject with the inexhaustible interest in personality. they have cited the part played in inducing pleasurable sensations in music by the association of range, depth of tone and pitch with the expression of human passions; and in pictorial art, the appeal to muscular sensibility by suggested associations with movement and form, or the effect of straight lines and rounded forms in inducing sensations of vigour and repose. more obvious are the appeals to the sexual instincts. there are also associations that give beauty to colours, pleasurableness to those tints that suggest youth, health, vigour and feminine charm.
it is easy to understand the agreeableness of symbols of strength and solidity; the restfulness of economy in presentation, the pleasing effect of[pg 96] contrast and symmetry, variety and unity, of balance and the laws of proportion and musical ratios, or of harmony and regularity. the laws of relativity or comparison and of familiarity and strangeness are factors which play a part in all appreciation. finally, there is a more exclusively intellectual pleasure in the process of analytical valuation of artistic production.
we cannot acquire truth by means of the emotions, which can but be the means of informing us of our personal relation towards our environment. they may reveal us to ourselves, or may register the reflection of our environment within us; but the consequences of emotion cannot be regarded as ephemeral, for all emotional excitation must have a permanent residual effect upon the tone of the subjective mind.
(3) judgment of ends
without attempting to catalogue or enumerate the various intellectual and mental processes, consigning them to interminable classes and subdivisions of volitional, cognitive, affective and cogitative states or acts, labelled like so many distinct specimens in a collector's museum, it may yet be possible to detach certain features involved in the process of moral judgment which are distinguishable from the essentially instinctive, emotional and suggested elements we have been considering. the danger involved in reducing psychological processes to their constituent elements and treating of each element as though[pg 97] it were static and dissociated, is that it is apt to obscure a true appreciation of the actual manifestations of personality which result from complex and interactionary elements in continuous motion, forming one integral whole in constant process of influencing and being influenced by its environment. the whole is always more and something different from the sum of its parts. the factors here specially referred to which may determine in greater or lesser degree the nature and direction of moral valuation are deliberative, critical and analytic. these are essentially the intellectual and objective[77] processes exercised to the best advantage when freed to the greatest possible extent from instinctive and emotional complications. judgments formed under such conditions involve the realization of the ends and effects of conduct, and an assignment of "desirableness" to those ends. it is clear that an intellectual judgment of this nature, assigning value to the ends of conduct, must take into account those inherent characteristics and instincts which underlie all motives and interests. thus, we recognize the fact of the instinct of self-preservation, and are right in assigning the qualification "good" to life as denoting its desirableness; similarly the instinct of acquisition is general and fundamental in the human species,[78] we accordingly assign the [pg 98]qualification "good" to property and wealth, and to its destruction, "evil"; the abstract value of the end of this instinct is intensified and held in greater respect the more it is realized to have been the means by which the surplus energy of mankind has been utilized to accumulate the capital essential to the development of civilization. the desirableness of both life and wealth is also considerably increased or modified by collateral associations, by the pleasures they enable us to experience.
there is in all judgment of the morality of an action a perception of the end or consequence of that action. the clearness or dimness of the perception will depend upon the habits of thought and the organization of motives—or lack of it—which result from the native tendencies and development of the subjective mind. the norm of valuation which we apply to moral conduct is conditioned by many conscious and unconscious factors which determine our idea of "desirableness," and the standard will approximate to the conventional and common standard of the community in so far as we are influenced by our environment—or in proportion to our amenability to cosmic suggestion. it is on account of the obvious desire for pleasure and for avoidance of pain that utilitarians are justified in making use of that general fact as a standard of utility. this in no way implies that the motives of all conduct are efforts to obtain pleasurable sensation or to avoid pain. the mistake of this [pg 99]discredited doctrine of psychological hedonism lay in confusing the motive or impulse to action with the valuation of conduct. it is an unfortunate but undeniable fact that conduct is least often determined by valuation. realization or anticipation of the end of action is not the necessary stimulus of action, neither does it conform to volition or striving; but realization of consequences frequently inhibits the fulfilment of volition. both conduct and volition are determined by the relation of subject to object, and by the constitution of the ego, conditioned, as it is, by the innumerable factors of heredity and environment.
(4) cosmic suggestion
public opinion is often spoken of as something mysterious and powerful, to be recognized and submitted to, but not to be explained. napoleon is credited with having said: "public opinion is a power invisible, mysterious, and irresistible." some writers, failing to appreciate the true significance and nature of this dynamic factor in the formation of public sentiment, are content to fall back on the convenient subterfuge of divine agency as full and sufficient explanation. thus they speak of a "common consciousness" which is the arbiter of the morals and faiths of men, a consciousness which is subject to evolutionary progress, and yet owes its existence to divine revelation.
however inadequately, the attempt has [pg 100]nevertheless been made in these pages to present a wider and, at the same time, a more precise definition of those psychic and vital forces, included in the term environment, which play so great a part in the formation and growth of human beliefs, opinions and sentiments, in binding together nations, communities and groups, and no less a part in setting them against one another. for lack of a better, the designation "cosmic suggestion" has been used as a generic term to describe the force resulting from the accumulative suggestions or impulsions of aggregations of individual agents, between whom and the subjects or recipients a state of rapport is more or less established. it is an aspect, or perhaps more accurately a product, of the vital energy of the cosmos. in a community or a mass of men moved by common emotions and ideas, each individual plays the double r?le of operator and affected object or recipient.
the communication of a proposition by suggestion is distinguished from, though often accompanied by, other means by which ideas are communicated through the senses, involving rational processes which produce conviction. emotional suggestions are either rejected or accepted unquestioningly in the absence of any logical reason. the supreme importance and general applicability in normal waking life of this wider aspect of hypnotic suggestion is seldom adequately appreciated by students of social development. that the faiths and [pg 101]convictions of men do not depend upon their appeal to "man's reasoning faculties" is, however, usually admitted. lecky frequently dwells on this fact, as in the following passage: "in most men the love of truth is so languid, and their reluctance to encounter mental prejudices is so great, that they yield their judgments without an effort to the current, withdraw their minds from all opinions or arguments opposed to their own, and thus speedily convince themselves of the truth of what they wish to believe."
dr. mcdougall recognizes, as do most modern psychologists, the great social importance of this "current" of which lecky speaks; he terms it mass-suggestion. "children," he says, "largely in virtue of their suggestibility, rapidly absorb the knowledge, beliefs, and especially the sentiments of their social environment. but most adults also remain suggestible, especially towards mass-suggestion, and towards the propositions which they know to be supported by the whole weight of society, or by long tradition."[79] this also he calls prestige suggestion. individual suggestibility, he considers, is conditioned by native disposition and character, and dependent upon the relative strengths of the two instincts of self-assertion and subjection. he does not, however, appear to assign to this factor of suggestion any conspicuous part in the excitation of such emotions as, for instance, anger, moral indignation, shame and remorse. but the simultaneous [pg 102]excitation of the same emotion in crowds is attributed to the action of the gregarious instinct which is accountable for the sympathetic induction of emotion. the explanation given of the fact that the instinctive behaviour of one animal directly excites similar behaviour on the part of his fellows, consists in the assumption that among gregarious animals each of the principal instincts has a special perceptual inlet that is adapted to receive the sense-impressions made by the expressions of the same instinct in other animals of the same species: thus, for example, the fear instinct, inter alia, has a special perceptual inlet that renders it excitable by the sound of the cry of fear; the instinct of pugnacity is similarly excited through a perceptual inlet by the sound of the roar of anger, and so on. whatever the value of this assumption it is clear that the emotional excitement of an aggregation of individuals reacts with cumulative intensity upon each member of it. it is sufficient, however, to say that there exists in the human species a fundamental impulse of gregarious attraction, analogous in the physical world to the law of gravitation, which tends to produce aggregations of men and to intensify their suggestibility in relation to sheer weight of numbers and proximity. if we accept the view that the subjective mind is liable to be directly influenced by other subjective minds with which it is en rapport, the hypothesis of special perceptual inlets, designed for each instinct to receive only the corresponding[pg 103] sense-impressions derived from the efferent action of the same instinct in other individuals, becomes of secondary importance. any cause which simultaneously provokes emotional excitement in a large body of people tends to bring them into rapport, thence onwards a community of feeling has been established, like elements coalesce, foreign elements are dissipated or repulsed, the mass will think, feel and act as a collective whole, the impulse or emotion of one will re-echo in all, as when a certain note is struck all the chords in the instrument which are attuned to it are set vibrating. a skilful orator who can once succeed in evoking strong emotional response in his audience is in the most favourable position for transmitting any proposition by suggestion; any assertion is then likely to be received unquestioningly and with the strength of conviction, any suggestion to be resolved into action.
an orator of the ecstatic and fanatical type will endeavour, by working himself into a frenzy of excitement, to throw himself into the subjective state, for thus he is in closest rapport with his environment. this is the secret of the power of demagogues and of other worthless and otherwise insignificant individuals. it is said to have been the method of one of the most extraordinary characters of modern times—rasputin, or grigori yefimovitsch, a gross, illiterate, debauched and fanatical siberian monk, who, up to the time of his murder in december 1916, had the reputation of being the most powerful[pg 104] man in russia. according to the few reliable accounts of him that are obtainable, the influence of this man's personality and the religio-erotic frenzies which characterized his ministrations were such that women of the highest culture and refinement would prostitute themselves, body and soul, in obedience to his suggestion, ministers and high state officials habitually sought his favours, and among the masses he was a constant object of idolatry.
does any one suppose that if mark antony could have circulated his famous speech on the death of c?sar in pamphlet form, or could have published his appeal in a leading daily, he would have chosen that method? or if he had done so that he would have attained as striking a result as by the fire of his oratory? this brings us to a consideration of the difference between written propaganda and that which is spoken or acted and accompanied by emotional suggestion.
the mere written or printed proposition is assimilated by autosuggestion; its aim is to awaken what is already in the reader's mind, whether of fear or courage, love or hate, admiration or contempt, to make articulate what before was vague and undefined, to associate these qualities in the reader to certain objects or symbols, in this way gradually building up sentiments and ideals. but cosmic suggestion or psychic environment is a vital influence, capable of overcoming resistance and of kindling human passions[pg 105] and emotions. it is often asserted that the press accurately voices public opinion; this, however, as all pressmen know, is not true. the press to a certain extent approximates certain sections of public opinion, or more accurately adapts itself to it, but all it can truthfully be said to represent is the newspaper proprietors, and in a lesser degree the host of hired scribblers whom they employ. at the same time it would be foolish to minimize the enormous and ever-increasing power it wields—a power that increases pari passu with the growing power of the masses and corresponding decrease in responsibility and intelligence of their chosen rulers. the press, no longer confining itself to its legitimate r?le of conveying news, tends more and more to present the appearance of organized concerns for the dissemination of lies and counter-lies, and the propagation of hate, envy and humbug, each organ shouting its particular claptrap and catchwords with the frenzied persistence of bucket-shop touts. mr. hilaire belloc draws a subtle distinction between what he calls the "capitalist press," or those organs run for mere profit, and a "free press," or organs produced for the sole motive of influencing public opinion, i.e. for propaganda.[80] the former is vicious and untruthful, the latter is virtuous and bears witness to the truth. having once consigned all the existing press organs to their respective categories as "capitalist" or "free" by this simple test of motive, the vice[pg 106] of the one and the virtue of the other are at once apparent: anything meriting the label "capitalist" is naturally bad and depraved, while sufficient guarantee of the integrity and virtue of the "free" press may be found in the fact that mr. belloc himself writes for the "free" press, and testifies to the fact that it does not pay. while so arbitrary a distinction must necessarily appear captious and fanciful, and absurd when applied as a test of veracity, we may yet perhaps roughly distinguish between those organs which are designed primarily to sell at a maximum profit and those which are sold primarily to propagate a "cause," even at a loss. at the risk of appearing cynical, we might say that the chief difference between the two lies in the fact that the former is designed to pander to the foibles of its readers, and the latter is the expression of the fanaticism of its writers. as a matter of fact, such a hard and fast distinction can seldom be made between the two, since both motives are usually operative in the same enterprise, though in varying proportions. but surely it is absurd to claim for either an inherent predisposition to speak the truth. the failure of the "free press"—the carping rags that imagine themselves independent—would appear to lie in the very fact of their eagerness to convert. the natural resentment of the man who discerns an attempt to convert him was well expressed in a witty speech in the house of commons during a debate on the relations between press and[pg 107] government. what had always attracted him most about lord northcliffe, said the hon. member for stockport, was that he had never pretended to be a philanthropist. he was not one of those pestilent people who pretended to run newspapers in order that they might leave the world a little better than they found it.[81]
tradition and the building up of sentiments and ideals, together with the symbols by which they are known and familiarized, are very largely, if not exclusively, the work of the written word. but literature and the press are themselves governed by their past history, and by traditions and conventions that have been gradually built up from a few fundamental ideas, however diversified they may eventually have become; and these ideas, in their turn, owe their origin to the passions and sentiments of the race as a whole. even the work of genius has its roots in the ideas of the past. "are we sure," asks a french author, "that the ideas which flow from great men of genius are exclusively their own work? no doubt they always spring from the wealth of individual souls, but the myriads of grains of dust which form the alluvion where those ideas have generated are surely formed by the soul of the nation?"[82]
we have seen that it is a fundamental principle that the strongest suggestion must prevail; mass tells against single individuals, overwhelming quantity against quality, when the strength of[pg 108] either is measured against the resistance to be overcome. cosmic suggestion is conditioned by various circumstances which affect its influence. it is a commonplace to say that like attracts like; this fact is but another attribute of gregarious attraction and tends towards establishing the homogeneity of aggregations, and slightly modifies the attraction of mere numbers. it results in a diversity of centres of attraction; but these centres of attraction are apt to converge and coalesce if for any reason they are simultaneously affected by related or identical sentiments. frequency and persistency, as is well known, also modify the force of mere numbers. the loudest and most frequently repeated affirmations carry the most weight. in this way small bands of fanatics, by dint of reiteration, have had their catchwords and shibboleths accepted unquestioningly.
so far from weakening the respect and awe with which mere symbols are regarded, their very obscurity and lack of meaning will ensure their position and inviolability. the vogue for mysticism in poetry, art, and religion reflects this love of symbolism. men, from the very indolence of their minds, love to set up symbols and to worship them, without verifying the truths they are supposed to represent, for symbols are easily acquired and easily perceived, and dispense with the arduous necessity of probing reality and the mental discipline without which truth cannot be reached.
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the power of words and symbols is entirely independent of their real meaning. as we have already shown, the most meaningless and the most obscure phrases are, as a rule, for that very reason the most potent. such terms as liberty, equality, democracy, socialism, etc., whose meanings are so vague that whole libraries do not exhaust their possible interpretations, are solemnly uttered as though they were magic spells, at the very sound of which all problems disappear. symbolism and mysticism form the fanatic's charter of licence. they revel in the dim obscurity which intensifies the false brightness of their symbols. they welcome the emotional domination of their minds that they may abandon themselves to passions and feelings, and by developing their subjective[83] powers, infect the masses with their madness. a true metaphysics, it is well to remember, is the very antithesis of mysticism, for it aims at the elimination of symbols; its method is to co-ordinate and synthesize, and by means of the systematization of materia to penetrate through and beyond, towards a realization of direction and of value; it tests the highest powers of the intellect.
bergson defines metaphysics as the science which claims to dispense with symbols. a symbol, at best, can only stand for an aspect of the truth, a mere sign-post pointing somewhere in its direction. symbols have no part in intuition, yet linguistic symbols are necessary for conveying[pg 110] thoughts and ideals to others. the generality of men, however, can only think in symbols, and can only be influenced by them; lies and illusions are propagated and perpetrated in the form of images, yet images perform necessary service in establishing goals of endeavour for securing co-ordination and moral direction. symbololatry is a common trait of humanity, and few men analyse the symbols they worship; for this reason it is necessary that the ideals and symbols of "the good" should be forged by the few and the wise, not by the force of the greatest number, that is, they must come from above, not from below. thus we see that in past history religion has performed a necessary function, and that in spite of the gross unreality of its symbols it constituted the only instrument of consolidation at the disposal of primitive man. without this force, born of man's fear of the unknown, his ignorance and false appreciation of causality, together with a vague realization of his dependence on his fellows, the imposition of rough and arbitrary values, which first constituted moral conduct, would have been impossible. for this reason any advancement and progress in the direction of civilization would have been impossible without religion. the conservative spirit of religion is seen to have been the means of securing the consolidation and stability of society which was necessary for the well-being and strength of every community; without this it could not have survived. as long as men are[pg 111] dazzled by symbols and governed by emotions, and there is at present no sign of change in this respect, a strong hierarchy capable of evoking respect for its values alone can save a state from disintegration, anarchy and social decay; but only if that hierarchy is composed of the highest, noblest and most enlightened in the race can those values be the best possible, and can they continue to improve pari passu with advancing civilization. the alternative, the increasing despotism of the many, articulating through the voice of demagogues, resulting in the gradual extermination of the few and the highest, and in the imposition of values growing ever more false, points the way to decadence and barbarism. evolution implies decline no less than advancement, and the "survival of the fittest" in the former case means the survival of the lowest and the most degraded.
a child's moral conduct, like primitive man's, is at first absolutely dependent upon his environment, but with the development of self-consciousness and with the growth of an ideal of self, his values and his conduct become progressively freer from his present environment, and in a greater degree determined by the direction of past habits and the force of early impressions.[84] "there is hardly anything," said mill, "so absurd or so mischievous that it may not by the[pg 112] use of external sanctions and the force of early impressions be made to act on the human mind with all the authority of conscience."
the attainment of character through the development of an ideal of self and the systematization of habits and motives is a slow and gradual process, and only rarely is complete independence of judgment attained, which alone renders the highest form of moral conduct possible, when all conduct is determined by will with regard to the realization of ends.
