Part 17 (1/2)

In the psychical world as well as the physical we must meet and overcome inertia Our lives h to overcome this natural inertia, and enable us besides to ainst many obstacles _The s and euides our shi+p, but feeling and emotion supply the power

To convince one's head is, therefore, not enough; his feelingshim to action Often have we _known_ that a certain line of action was right, but failed to follow it because feeling led in a different direction When decision has been hanging in the balance we have piled on one side obligation, duty, sense of right, and a dozen other reasons for action, only to have thement, reason, and experience may unite to tell us that a conteination may reveal to us its disastrous consequences, and yet its pleasures so appeal to us that we yield Our feelings often prove a stronger e and will co our motives

1 THE NATURE OF FEELING

It will be our purpose in the next few chapters to study the _affective_ content of consciousness--the feelings and es and the one that follows to the emotions

THE DIFFERENT FEELING QUALITIES--At least six (some writers say evenstates are easily distinguished These are: _pleasure_, _pain_; _desire_, _repugnance_; _interest_, _apathy_ Pleasure and pain, and desire and repugnance, are directly opposite or antagonistic feelings Interest and apathy are not opposites in a similar way, since apathy is but the absence of interest, and not its antagonist In place of the terms pleasure and pain, the _pleasant_ and the _unpleasant_, or the _agreeable_ and the _disagreeable_, are often used _Aversion_ is frequently enance

It is so coiven For have we not often felt the pain fro-planned trip, from the loss of a dear friend? Surely these are very different classes of feelings! Likee have been happy fro praised for so, or froain we sees

Weis always based on so _known_ It never appears alone in consciousness as _ about which to feel The ”what”_is a co predominates_, but which has, nevertheless, _a basis of sensation, or reatly varies in the different cases of the illustrations just given is precisely this knowledge ele of unpleasantness is a feeling of unpleasantness whether it co tooth or froree, and the entireis a partitself is of the same quality

FEELING ALWAYS PRESENT IN MENTAL CONTENT--No phase of ourelement We look at the rainboith its beautiful and har of pleasure acco sun, and a disagreeable feeling is the result A strong feeling of pleasantness accompanies the experience of the voluptuous ware between the icy sheets on the preceding evening was acco The touch of a hand may occasion a thrill of ecstatic pleasure, or it reeable And so on through the whole range of sensation; we not only _know_ the various objects about us through sensation and perception, but we also _feel_ while we know Cognition, or the knowing processes, gives us our ”whats”; and feeling, or the affective processes, gives us our ”hows” What is yonder object? A bouquet How does it affect you? Pleasurably

If, instead of the simpler sensory processes which we have just considered, we take the ination, and thinking, the case is no different Who has not reveled in the pleasure acco the memories of past joys? On the other hand, who is free fros of remorse? Who has not dreamed away an hour in pleasant anticipation of so so also accoht processes Everyone has experienced the feeling of the pleasure of intellectual victory over some difficult problem which had baffled the reason, or over soment proved correct

And likewise none has escaped the feeling of unpleasantness which accompanies intellectual defeat Whatever the contents of our mental stream, ”we find in the esti to us at any given moment, or that they then have an interest to us”

THE SEEMING NEUTRAL FEELING ZONE--It is probable that there is so little feeling connected with many of the humdrum and habitual experiences of our everyday lives, that we are but slightly, if at all, aware of a feeling state in connection with the side to it is as unthinkable as the obverse side of a coin without the reverse So tone or mood is always present The width of the affective neutral zone--that is, of a feeling state so little marked as not to be discriminated as either pleasure or pain, desire or aversion--varies with different persons, and with the saely by the a, and also on the fineness of the power of feeling discrie is usually so sible

2 MOOD AND DISPOSITION

The su the various sensory and thought processes at any given ti tone_, _orhours, and, indeed, during our sleeping hours as well, ainto the cortical centers At the present on, the chirp of a cricket, the chatter of distant voices, and a hundred other sounds besides At the same time the eye is appealed to by an infinite variety of stiht, color, and objects; the skin responds to many contacts and tean of the body is acting as a ”sender” to telegraph a e in to the brain Add to these the powerful currents which are constantly being sent to the cortex froans--those of respiration, of circulation, of digestion and assimilation And then finally add the central processes which accoh our itations and volitions

Thus we see what a cos must be, and how i is not present as a part of our mental stream It is this complex, nowin froans, and now on the basis of those in the cortex connected with our thought life, which constitutes the entire feeling tone, or _mood_

MOOD COLORS ALL OUR THINKING--Mood depends on the character of the aggregate of nerve currents entering the cortex, and changes as the character of the current varies If the currents run on much the saly constant; if the currents are variable, our mood also will be variable Not only is hts for its quality, but it in turn colors our entirewhose hue is reflected over all our thinking Let the looht and cheerful, and the world puts on a smile

It is told of one of the early circuit riders a entries in his diary, thus well illustrating the point: ”Wed Eve Arrived at the hory and tired after a long day in the saddle Had a bountiful supper of cold pork and beans, waro to rest feeling that ht; I feel called to a great and glorious work in this place Bro Brown's family are Godly people” The next entry was as follows: ”Thur Morn Awakened late this ht

I am verycalled to work a to doubt the safety of my own soul I am afraid the desires of Bro Brown and his fas” A dyspeptic is usually a pessiht mood

MOOD INFLUENCES OUR JUDGMENTS AND DECISIONS--The prattle of children rateful ly discordant noise e are in another What appeals to us as a good practical joke one day, may seem a piece of unwarranted impertinence on another A proposition which looks entirely plausible under the sanguine mood induced by a persuasive orator, may appear wholly untenable a few hours later Decisions which seery mood, often appear unwise or unjust e have become more calm Motives which easily iht, fail toperil and calamity which are an inevitable accompaniment of the ”blues,” are speedily dissipated when the sun breaks through the clouds and we are ourselves again

MOOD INFLUENCES EFFORT--A bright and hopeful mood quickens every power and enhances every effort, while a hopeless mood lioes into the gaed never plays to the limit The student who attacks his lesson under the conviction of defeat can hardly hope to succeed, while the one who enters upon his work confident of his power to master it has the battle already half won The world's best work is done not by those who live in the shadow of discourages eternal The optimist is a benefactor of the race if for no other reason than the sheer contagion of his hopeful spirit; the pessimist contributes neither to the world's welfare nor its happiness

Youth's proverbial enthusiasy rest upon the supre For these reasons, if for no other, the ood cheer

DISPOSITION A RESULTANT OF MOODS--The suives us our _disposition_ Whether these are pleasant or unpleasant, cheerful or gloo character of the rapes of thorns or figs of thistles, as to secure a desirable disposition out of undesirable loomy moods, nor a hopeful one out of the ”blues” And it is our disposition, more than the power of our reason, which, after all, determines our desirability as friends and companions

The person of surly disposition can hardly make a desirable companion, no matter what his intellectual qualities may be Weof a Newton, but it is hard to live with a person chronically subject to ”black moods” Nor can we put the responsibility for our disposition off on our ancestors It is not an inheritance, but a growth Slowly, day by day, and mood by mood, we build up our disposition until finally it comes to characterize us