Читать книгу The origins of art; a psychological & sociological inquiry - Y. Hirn - Страница 6

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Before attempting to prove that the impelling force in art-creation is to be explained by the psychology of feeling, we must first pay some attention to the general theory of emotional states. It would be impossible to assert anything about the æsthetic importance of such activities as have their origin in emotional conditions without first having made out the relation between feeling and movement.

In this purely psychological investigation it is advantageous to postpone all æsthetic considerations. The important thing is to get hold of the mental factors in their simplest possible form. Even the lowest feelings, therefore, the feeling-tones of mere physical sensation or the vaguest emotional states, such as comfort or discomfort, which are overlooked in all works on æsthetic proper, may be of great value in this preliminary discussion.

It is preferable to begin with the feeling-tones of definitely physical origin, because these hedonic elements have been subjected to an experimental investigation which could never be undertaken with regard to the complex emotions and sentiments. As early as 1887 Féré published some important researches on the relation between sensation and movement. By submitting persons to various external stimuli, he showed that every such stimulus calls forth a modification of the activities of the body, which modification, according to the intensity and the duration of the stimulus, takes the character either of enhancement or of arrest. In all cases when the apparatus used in the experiments indicated a shortened reaction-time and an increased development of energy, the subject of the experiment had experienced a feeling of pleasure. Every painful stimulus, on the other hand, was connected with a diminution of energy.[41]

These results have been corroborated in the main by the later researches of Lehmann. He has not, however, restricted his attention to the development of energy, but has also measured the changes in pulsation and respiration which occur under the influence of various stimuli. His conclusions are these:—

“Simple pleasurable sensations are accompanied by dilatation of the blood-vessels, and perhaps also by an increase in the amplitude of heart-contraction, together with an increase in the innervation of the voluntary muscles, at least of those connected with respiration. In sensations of pain one has to distinguish the first shock of irritation from the subsequent state. At the moment of irritation there ensues a deeper inhalation, and, if the irritation is strong, also an increase in the innervation of voluntary muscles. Then there generally follows a relaxation.”[42]

The physiological theory of pleasure and pain which can be deduced from these experiments is, however, neither new nor original. Féré has himself pointed out that his researches only serve to prove the views which have been advanced with more or less explicitness by Kant, Bain, Darwin, and Dumont.[43] All authors who have closely studied the movements of expression have also remarked that pleasurable feelings are accompanied by a tendency towards increased activity (Gratiolet, Darwin, Bain, Bouillier, Mantegazza).[44] And the popular views on pleasure and pain, as we find them expressed in literature, all agree on this point: “La joie est l’air vital de notre âme. La tristesse est un asthme compliqué d’atonie.”[45] Every one knows that movement and unchecked increased activity generally create pleasure. And, on the other hand, functional inhibition is in our experience closely connected with feelings of pain.

Although these broad facts are universally recognised, there is nevertheless no unanimity with regard to their interpretation. It may be held, on the one hand, that the perception of those objective conditions which call forth pleasure is accompanied by a tendency to movement. That, conversely, movement creates pleasure would thus be the result of an association. But it may also be contended that the functional enhancement, the stimulation itself, when present to consciousness, is perceived as pleasure, and that the feeling-tone created by movement is thus not indirect and secondary, but, on the contrary, is a typical pleasure.

We do not by any means deny the influence which associative processes exercise on all our feelings and on the activities connected with them. As has been shown by Darwin, animals as well as primitive man have earned their chief enjoyment, outside their delight of warmth and repose, by violent actions, such as hunting, war, and pairing fights.[46] And if it be objected that memories from those distant times cannot now influence our feelings, it must at least be admitted that within the life of the individual a firm foundation is laid for association between pleasure and activity.[47] Independently of all general theories, we must therefore reckon with association as a factor by which the motor element of pleasure is greatly increased. But it seems to us impossible to make the remembrance—conscious or unconscious—of earlier similar states the only ground of the activity which is connected with pleasurable feelings.

It is at least far more simple and consistent to explain, with Hamilton and Bain, the activity itself as the physiological condition of pleasure. If any increase of function—whether brought about by chemical, mechanical, or psychical (that is, indirectly mechanical) influences—be considered as a physiological condition of pleasure, and any arrest of function in the same way be considered as a counterpart of pain, then all states of pleasure or pain may be included in one common interpretation. Only it must be remembered that the increase of function can never be measured by any absolute standard. The same stimulus which in one individual calls forth pleasure may in another individual cause pain, and the same bodily activity which we enjoy when in a vigorous state of health may occasion suffering when we are weak or ill. Such variations are evidently conditioned by the varying functional powers of the organs involved. When these powers are reduced, a stimulus, or a movement which usually produces a stimulating effect, may instead call forth depression and pain.

In every explanation of pleasure-pain, attention must therefore be paid not only to the claims which are made on the several organs by the objective causes (stimuli or movements), but also to the capacity of the organs to meet these claims. This capacity, on the other hand, is evidently dependent upon the supply of energy afforded by the nutritive processes. In the endeavour to pay due attention to both these factors Lehmann has been led to this conclusion: “Pleasure and pain may in all cases be assumed to be the psychical outcome of the relation between the consumption of energy which at a given moment is demanded from the organs, and the supply of energy which is afforded by nutrition.”[48] In the course of a lengthy and laborious investigation Marshall has arrived at a very similar result: “Pleasure and pain are determined by the relation between the energy given out and the energy received at any given moment by the physical organs which determine the content of that moment.” Pleasure is experienced, according to Marshall’s definition, whenever a surplus of stored energy is discharged in the reaction to the stimulus; pain is experienced whenever a stimulus claims a greater development of energy in the reaction than the organ is capable of affording.[49]

In this mode of treatment due attention is paid to those theories according to which the conditions of pleasure are to be sought, not in expenditure of force, but in the receiving of force or in the recovery of balance.[50] But though this point has its own importance, it cannot by any means be put on a level with the dynamic aspect. Pleasure can never arise when the organs are not well-nourished, strong, and capable of function; but it arises only on the condition that they actually do perform a function. As Marshall has rightly remarked, there is no reason to believe that surplus of vigour and receipt of nourishment in themselves could ever be objects of consciousness.[51] As long as we can speak of mental states, these must be accompanied by corresponding activities. The chief merit of Marshall’s thesis is precisely this, that every emotional state, independently of its tone and of its perceptible manifestations, can be interpreted in terms of activity. Pleasure, acute or massive, appears as the result of a stimulus, which, owing to a happy proportion between its intensity and the functional capacity of the organ, has modified the bodily functions in such a way as to produce manifestations of energy. Pain, acute or massive, appears as the result of a stimulus, possibly of the same kind, which, owing to a disproportion arising from its own greater intensity or the smaller functional capacity in the organ, has called forth a functional inhibition—that is to say, that kind of activity which is manifested to us as an arrest of energy.

It would be too sanguine to expect the real nature of pleasure and pain to be exhaustively defined in any formula such as the above. From a theoretical point of view grave objections may undoubtedly be raised against Marshall’s theory as well as against every general interpretation of emotional states. It may even be admitted, and we desire to admit it as soon as possible, that in several cases it seems extremely difficult to derive the feeling-tone of even the simplest sensations from the proportion between “energy given out and energy received.”[52] But since, as far as we can see, similar difficulties meet us in the application of every existing emotional theory, for the present we must consider the constructions of Mr. Marshall, notwithstanding their speculative and necessarily unsafe character, as affording us the most consistent explanation of the hedonic phenomena. In an earlier work, Förstudier till en konstfilosofi (A Preliminary Study for a Philosophy of Art), I have tried to discuss and refute some of the arguments which can be adduced against this theory. In the present work such a theoretic digression would lead us too far away from the main subject. For a right understanding of the relation between feeling and “expressional” movements it is not necessary, we believe, to adopt exclusively any one of the emotional theories. We shall be quite content if it is admitted that Mr. Marshall’s interpretation affords us a scheme or formula by the aid of which we can account, if not for the nature, at least for the external manifestations of our feelings.

In applying his definitions to the various kinds of pleasure and pain, Mr. Marshall has recourse to three important principles, viz. the limited amount of energy which our system is capable of developing at any given moment, the storage of surplus supplies of nourishment, and the transference of energy from one organ to another. By referring to these principles he has been able to bring under his explanation those feelings which seem to correspond not to “activities,” but to “states.”[53]

As is well known, Hamilton had already pointed out the important, though unsuspected, element of activity which is involved in our enjoyment of dolce far niente.[54] But with the physiology at his command he could scarcely have explained why rest after heavy work is always accompanied by eminently pleasurable feelings. If it be assumed, however, that in the case of psychical effort, e.g., the call upon our limited fund of energy has reduced the vegetative functions to inactivity, and that this inactivity has caused a storage of nutritive supply, then it is self-evident that the vegetative functions, as soon as the one-sided effort has ceased, must discharge their surplus in movements of a pleasurable character.

The pain arising from restricted activity can equally be explained in terms of movement. If we believe that our system has a limited amount of energy which—as long as life is maintained—must necessarily be active in some direction or other, then we shall also understand that anything which closes the natural and usual outlet of this energy will give rise to activities in related organs, the nutritive state of which does not present the conditions of pleasurable function. Mr. Marshall has tried to indicate the details of the transition by which inactivity in one organ causes excessive activity in other organs. His description of the “gorging of the nutritive channels,” “the calling for aid of the disabled elements,” etc., is, however, too figurative and poetical to be of any importance in a psychological argument.[55] Taken as a vague and necessarily coarse metaphor, this physiological image may, however, illustrate a process which perhaps can never be exactly analysed, but which is nevertheless familiar to everybody. No one who has experienced in any higher degree the diffused sensation of gnawing inactivity can doubt the active element in this corroding feeling. One seems to feel how the checked and thwarted impulses devouringly turn themselves inward. Poetical literature is full of passionate outcries against the tortures which imposed inaction inflicts on active spirits; and modern autobiographies give us pathetic examples of the sufferings of those whose intellectual activity has been diverted from outward aims to internal analysis. The candid confessions of Amiel and Kierkegaard show the inevitable necessity with which mental energy, if arrested in its natural course, finds itself an outlet in destructive activity. This truth had already been expressed in simple and drastic form in Logau’s old epigram:—

Ein Mühlstein und ein Menschenherz wird stets herumgetrieben.

Wenn beides nicht zu reiben hat, wird beides selbst zerrieben.

The displacement of mental attention corresponding to the transference of energy from one organ to another in the inevitable search for a channel of outlet causes arrested activity to be felt as an unbearable massive pain; but this process implies at the same time a possibility of relief. If the sufferings of restriction can be considered as brought about by arrested impulses which have turned inwards, then it is evident that any outward activity may overcome the obstruction. Pleasure can perhaps not be achieved before the checked organ resumes its functions; but even a vicarious activity in some related organ may relieve the pain. Hence the diffused, undirected movements by which we instinctively try to get rid of a feeling of restriction. Every high-strung emotional state which has not yet found its appropriate expression affords an instance of this sensation. Exalted delight therefore often manifests itself in ecstatic dances and songs, which, properly speaking, rather relieve an incipient pain than express a pleasure. Violent movements act as unconscious expedients by which the organism restores itself to its normal balance.

A similar instinct ought, one would expect, to operate in sensations of acute pain. In point of fact, an obscure consciousness of the limitation of functional energy, or, to put it in psychological terms, of attentive power, leads us to seek and find relief from pain in violent movement. Some of the frantic dances of savage tribes undoubtedly serve to deaden the sufferings inflicted by ritual tortures. But it is, of course, only in exceptional cases that these anæsthetic expedients are intentionally resorted to. As a rule they are to be considered as a radiation of nervous tension, and are so little conscious that we can scarcely even call them instinctive. Besides all the motor manifestations which thus follow upon a sensation of severe pain in almost direct physiological sequence, some pantomimic activity of defence or avoidance will generally be called forth by the notion of an objective source of pain. Owing to associations derived from earlier similar states, this reaction may often appear even when there is no definite object which can be assigned as the cause of the feeling. Among primitive people the pantomime of pain undoubtedly has its ground in a mythological conception of the nature of feeling. Pain is regarded as a concrete thing which the body may be capable of shaking off or avoiding. Crude as it may seem, this illusion is so closely bound up with our instinctive reactions that even the most enlightened man can never completely emancipate himself from its influence. There is thus nearly always an intellectual factor which co-operates with the physical tendency towards energetic reaction to pain.

Thus pain, notwithstanding its inhibitive character, may act, especially when it is acute, as a motor incitement. Hence the curious cases of favourable medical effects produced by severe physical suffering, which may serve not only as a distraction of the attention, but also as a positive stimulation of sinking vitality. Hence also the enhanced intellectual activity which often follows upon pain.[56] There was perhaps more malignity than truth in the remark of Michelet that Flaubert might imperil his talent by curing his boils;[57] but there are unquestionable instances to prove that wounds and acute diseases have exercised a powerful exciting influence on certain artistic temperaments.

All these stimulating effects of pain must naturally be taken into account in every emotional theory. But they can by no means be adduced, as Fechner thinks, as an argument against the definition which we have already given.[58] Reactions to pain follow, indeed, so immediately upon the sensation, that they cannot be separated in time from its proper expression. But it must always be remembered that the activities, whether of writhing under the influence of pain or of combating it, are secondary manifestations by which the feeling-tone is gradually weakened. Whether the stimulating effects appear at the very moment of impression or only when the sensation has become fully conscious, pain is always, we believe, at its keenest when the outward development of energy is lowest. If the notion “expression” is conceived in its strictest sense, i.e. as the physiological counterpart of the emotional state, then pain has only one expression—inhibition.

With regard to states of pleasure it is more difficult to make any distinction between primary and secondary manifestations. Every new movement is a new expression of the same feeling which—as long as fatigue does not set up its peculiar pain—is only enhanced by these repeated “somatic resonances.” If pleasure is originated by the increased function of one individual organ, then this stimulation must, owing to the solidarity of the functions, gradually extend over wider areas in the system. The more numerous the organs which take part in the activity, the more numerous also are our sensations of function, and the greater the gain of our pleasure in richness and variety. An undefined feeling of vigour, assurance, or power can only acquire distinctness and intensity by expressing itself in some mode of physical or mental activity. But while stimulation is thus directly connected with the feeling-tone of pleasurable states, it must be admitted, on the other hand, that—as has been remarked above—associative influences also contribute towards enhancing their active manifestations. By these secondary motor-impulses, however, the original feeling is only increased. It can therefore be said that pleasure feeds and nurtures itself by expression. Pain, on the contrary, increases in strength in the same degree as the inhibition extends over the organism. But it can only be weakened by active manifestations. Movements, as we have shown, deliver us from the massive, indistinct pains of restriction as well as mitigate our acute sufferings.

The life-preserving tendency which, under the feeling of pleasure, leads us to movements which intensify the sensation and make it more distinct for consciousness, compels us in pain to seek for relief and deliverance in violent motor discharge. In either case the activity is called expressional, and it seems difficult to avoid this equivocal usage. But it is indispensable to make a strict distinction between the expression which operates in the direction of the initial feeling itself, and the expression by which this feeling is weakened.

This distinction will appear with greater clearness in the following chapter, where we shall apply the laws of expression to the complex emotional states. Then it will also be possible for us to point out some æsthetic result of the psychological survey which perhaps may seem for the moment a departure from our proper subject.