The Psychology of the EmotionsRibot, Th. (Théodule)
Science
The Psychology of the Emotions
Ribot, Th. (Théodule)
Emotions
1. The _animal_ form, or that of real aggression. It is primitive
and general. In animals it is seen in a pure state, because there
are no antagonistic, alterative, or restraining tendencies. Those
which live by prey, the voracious carnivora, present the complete
type. Besides the physiological phenomena already described there is
the actual attack, each species using its natural weapons—teeth,
claws, poisonous liquids. The feeling has the violence of a
hurricane, of an unchained force of nature. This is because it is
connected with extremely powerful instincts; that of nutrition,
which requires its prey, the struggle for life under its most
implacable form, that of attack—the necessity of destroying or being
destroyed. At this stage the element of pleasure is _nil_, or very
slight, because the destruction has a blind and unconscious
character. Bain thinks that monkeys are almost capable of enjoying
the agonies of their victims, and perhaps elephants also. If this is
correct, the fact is only met with in the case of the higher
animals. It is needless to add that this animal form of anger is
seen not merely in savage, but also in civilised man.
2. The emotional form properly so called, or that of simulated
aggression. Much less general than the preceding, this is peculiarly
human. Through the preponderance of the psychic element, or at
least, the relative effacement of the destructive impulses, it
appears to me the typical stage of anger as an emotion. It is
frequently seen in the higher animals; the dog, meeting his enemy,
stops, growls, erects his hair, and offers all the symptoms of
aggression in the nascent stage. Man most usually confines himself
to threats, with some degree of violence, unaccompanied by
destructiveness. The affinity of this form with the first is
evident, and evolutionists have drawn from it a psychological
argument in favour of descent from animals; those beings nearest to
nature—_i.e._, the lowest in evolution—are continually exercising
their anger: children on animals and weak people; savages,
coarse-natured people, idiots and imbeciles on any one who does not
resist them.
But the important point to note at this stage of evolution is the
definite appearance of a new element—the pleasure of seeing
suffering. With this, anger begins to grow refined. “There seems
little doubt,” says Bain, “that the primary fact in the pleasure of
anger is the _fascination for the sight of bodily affliction and
suffering_. Singular and horrible as the fact may appear, the
evidence is incontestable” (_The Emotions_, p. 178). The author goes
on to give instances which need not be repeated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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