Studies in the Evolutionary Psychology of FeelingStanley, Hiram Miner
Philosophy
Studies in the Evolutionary Psychology of Feeling
Stanley, Hiram Miner
Emotions
The _rationale_ of the evolution of anger is not far to seek. We have
seen that fear is the spring of defensive action, and it is obvious that
anger is the stimulant to offensive action. Fear is regressive, anger
aggressive. Fear is contractile, anger expansive. Fear is the emotion of
the pursued, of the prey; anger the emotion of the pursuer, of the
predacious. Emotion in the service of life evidently has two great
psychic ramifications from this point, and the whole world of
emotion-beings, which compose the greater mass of organisms, is hence
divided in two great divisions, a fear class and an anger class.
Likewise in relation to opposing natural forces as to neighbouring
competing and destroying organisms, the same distinction is to be made
according as the animal either combats or flees. Shyness or fierceness,
timidity or irascibility, these are characters which divide the animate
world into two grand antagonistic groups. Zoology has recognised this
psychic differentiation as a marked and essential feature in its
nomenclature, thus _lepus timidus_. In fact, the most important part of
evolution is the psychical; in this, indeed, lies the whole significance
and value of the organism. The attainment of more and more advantageous
psychic qualities is the main trend of evolution, for psychic power as
distinct from main force, like that of the elements, is far and away of
the most value in the struggle for existence, and ultimately, as in man,
it achieves the subduing all lower powers, natural, vegetable and brute,
to its own ends. It is psychical quality, moreover, which determines
physical, and not _vice versâ_. Thus it is not the possession of claws,
fangs, etc., that makes an animal fierce, but it is fierceness which
develops and maintains these weapons of offence. Thus it is, though thus
far practically overlooked by scientists, that psychic development,
especially on the emotional side, is of the utmost importance as the
prime factor and motive in organic processes. The central core of life
is emotional capacity, and this in its evolution determines the whole
external morphological trend of evolution of organisms which is so
closely followed by the science of to-day. But the science of the future
is comparative psychology, which, when once placed on a secure basis of
interpretation, will determine the real and inner law of evolution as a
psychic movement incarnating itself in a succession of animate forms.
But a sure method of knowing a psychic fact as such when it occurs, and
what, how, and why it is, is yet to be discovered and applied, and
extra-human and even extra-ego consciousness is a field, so far, for
little else than hypothesis. If this remark be turned against us, we say
that our work is mainly a deductive interpretation of the course of
psychic evolution from the general standpoint of natural selection,
reinforced and illustrated by introspective investigation, and merely
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