Your Mind and How to Use It: A Manual of Practical PsychologyAtkinson, William Walker
Science
Your Mind and How to Use It: A Manual of Practical Psychology
Atkinson, William Walker
Psychology
We would remind you again, at this point, of the great triangle of the
mind, the emotional, ideative, and volitional activities--feeling,
thinking, and willing--and their constant reaction upon each other and
absolute interdependence. We find that our feelings arise from previous
willing and ideation, and are aroused by ideas and repressed by will;
again we see that our ideas are largely dependent upon the interest
supplied by our feelings, and that our judgments are influenced by the
emotive side of our mental life, the will also having its part to play
in the matter. We also see that the will is called into activity
by the feelings, and often guided or restrained by our thoughts, the
will, indeed, being considered as moved entirely by our feelings
and ideas. Thus is the trinity of mental forces seen ever in mutual
relation--constant action and reaction ever existing between them.
CHAPTER XIX.
The Emotions and Happiness.
"Happiness" has been defined by an authority as "the pleasurable emotion
arising from the gratification of all desires; the enjoyment of pleasure
without pain." Another has said that "happiness is the state in which
all desires are satisfied." But these definitions have been attacked. It
is held by many that a state of the absolute _satisfaction_ of desire
would not be happiness, for happiness consists largely in pleasurable
anticipation and imaginings which disappear upon the realization of the
desire. It is held that absolute satisfaction would be a negative state.
Paley expressed a better idea when he said that "any condition may be
denominated 'happy' in which the amount or aggregate of pleasure exceeds
that of pain, and the degree of happiness depends upon the quantity of
this excess."
Some have held that an existing contrast between pain and pleasure (the
balance being in favor of the latter) is necessary to establish
happiness. Be this as it may, it is admitted by all that one's happiness
or unhappiness depends entirely upon one's emotional nature and the
degree of the satisfaction thereof. And it is generally admitted that to
be happy is the great aim and object of the life of the majority of
persons,--if, indeed, not of _every_ person,--the happiness, of course,
depending upon the quality and degree of the emotions forming the
person's emotional nature. Thus it is seen that we are dependent upon
the emotional side of our mental life in this as in nearly everything
else making life worth while.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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