Chapter XI · A Sketch for a Psychology
Reading edition
CHAPTER XI A Sketch for a Psychology
“Wot’s wot?” repeated one of the buccaneers in a deep growl. “Ah, he’d be a lucky one as knowed that!”—Treasure Island.
The view put forward here is in many respects heterodox, a disadvantage in a sketch. But so many difficulties attend any exposition of psychology, however orthodox and however full, that the dangers of misunderstanding are outweighed by the advantages of a fresh point of view. It is the general outline and in particular the insistence upon an account of knowledge in terms merely of the causation of our thoughts which is contrary to received opinion. The detail of the analysis of poetic experience, the account of imagery, of emotion, of pleasure, of incipient action and so forth, although, so far as I am aware, no similar analysis has before been explicitly set out, may be taken as comparatively orthodox.
The nervous system is the means by which stimuli from the environment, or from within the body, result in appropriate behaviour. All mental events occur in the course of processes of adaptation, somewhere between a stimulus and a response. Thus every mental event has an origin in stimulation, a character, and consequences, in action or adjustment for action. Its character is sometimes accessible to introspection. What it feels like, in those cases in which it feels or is felt at all, is consciousness, but in many cases nothing is felt, the mental event is unconscious. Why some events are conscious but not others is at present a mystery; no one has yet succeeded in bringing the various hints which neurology may offer into connection with one another. In some important respects conscious and unconscious mental events must differ, but what these are no one can as yet safely conjecture. On the other hand there are many respects in which they are similar, and these are the respects which are at present most open to investigation.
The process in the course of which a mental event may occur, a process apparently beginning in a stimulus and ending in an act, is what we have called an impulse. In actual experience single impulses of course never occur. Even the simplest human reflexes are very intricate bundles of mutually dependent impulses, and in any actual human behaviour the number of simultaneous and connected impulses occurring is beyond estimation. The simple impulse in fact is a limit, and the only impulses psychology is concerned with are complex. It is often convenient to speak as though simple impulses were in question, as when we speak of an impulse of hunger, or an impulse to laugh, but we must not forget how intricate all our activities are.
To take the stimulus as a starting-point is in some ways misleading. Of the possible stimuli which we might at any moment receive, only a few actually take effect. Which are received and which impulses ensue depends upon which of our interests is active, upon the general set, that is, of our activities. This is conditioned in a large degree by the state, of satisfaction or unrest, of the recurrent and persistent needs of the body. When hungry and when replete we respond differently to the stimulus of a smell of cooking. A change in the wind unnoticed by the passengers causes the captain to reduce sail. Social needs in this respect are often as important as individual. Thus some people walking in a Gallery with friends before whom they wish to shine will actually receive far more stimulus from the pictures than they would if by themselves.
A stimulus then must not be conceived as an alien intruder which thrusts itself upon us and, after worming a devious way through our organism as through a piece of cheese, emerges at the other end as an act. Stimuli are only received if they serve some need of the organism and the form which the response to them takes depends only in part upon the nature of the stimulus, and much more upon what the organism ‘wants’, i.e. the state of equilibrium of its multifarious activities.
Thus experience has two sources which in different cases have very different importance. So far as we are thinking about or referring to certain definite things our behaviour in all probability will only be appropriate (i.e. our thoughts true) in so far as it is determined by the nature of the present and past stimuli we have received from those things and things like them. So far as we are satisfying our needs and desires a much less strict connection between stimulus and response is sufficient. A baby howls at first in much the same way, whatever the cause of his unrest, and older persons behave not unlike him. Any occasion may be sufficient for taking exercise, or for a quarrel, for falling in love or having a drink. To this partial independence of behaviour (from stimulus) is due the sometimes distressing fact that views, opinions and beliefs vary so much with our differing moods. Such variation shows that the view, belief or opinion is not a purely intellectual product, is not due to thinking in the narrower sense, of response that is governed by stimuli, present or past, but is an attitude adopted to satisfy some desire, temporary or lasting. Thought in the strictest sense varies only with evidence: but attitudes and feelings change for all manner of reasons.
The threefold division between the causes, character and consequences of a mental event, conscious or unconscious, corresponds, with certain qualifications, to the usual division in traditional psychology of thought (or cognition), feeling, and will (or conation). To be cognisant of anything, to know it, is to be influenced by it; to desire, to seek, to will anything is to act towards it. In between these two are the conscious accompaniments, if any, of the whole process. These last, the conscious characters of the mental event, include evidently both sensations and feelings. (Cf. Chapter XVL, pp. 125-128.)
The advantage of substituting the causation, the character and the consequences of a mental event as its fundamental aspects in place of its knowing, feeling, and willing aspects is that instead of a trio of incomprehensible ultimates we have a set of aspects which not only mental events but all events share. We have, of course, to introduce qualifications. Stimuli, as we have mentioned above, are not the only causes of mental events. The nervous system is specialised to receive impressions through the organs of sense, but its state at any moment is also determined by a host of other factors. The condition of the blood and the position of the head are typical instances. Only that part of the cause of a mental event which takes effect through incoming (sensory) impulses or through effects of past sensory impulses can be said to be thereby known. The reservation no doubt involves complications. But any plausible account of what knowledge is and how it happens is bound to be complicated.
Similarly, not all the effects of a mental event are to be counted as what that event wills or seeks after; apoplectic strokes, for example, can be ruled out. Only those movements which the nervous system is specialised to incite, which take place through motor impulses, should be included.
On all other accounts the relation between an awareness and what it is aware of is a mystery. We can name the relation as we please, apprehension, presentation, cognition or knowledge, but there we have to leave the matter. On this account we make use of the fact that an awareness, say of a variety of black marks on this page, is caused in a certain peculiar way, namely through impressions on a part of the brain (the retina) and various complicated connected goings on in other parts of the brain. To say that the mental (neural) event so caused is aware of the black marks is to say that it is caused by them, and here ‘aware of’ = ‘caused by’. The two statements are merely alternative formulations.
In extending this account to more complicated situations where we know or, less ambiguously, refer to things which are past or future we have to make use of the fact that impressions are commonly signs, have effects which depend not on themselves alone but upon the other impressions which have co-operated with them in the past.
The detail of this procedure is most easily studied in connection with the use of words. We shall deal with it therefore in Chapter XVI, where the reading of a poem is discussed. Here only the general principle matters that to know anything is to be influenced by it, directly when we sense it, indirectly when the effects of past conjunctions of impressions come into play. More will be added later, in connection with the process of reading, about the receptive, the knowledge aspect of mental events. The other two aspects need less explanation. They are also more generally important for the understanding of poetic, musical and other experiences. For a theory of knowledge is needed only at one point, the point at which we wish to decide whether a poem, for example, is true, or reveals reality, and if so in what sense; admittedly a very important question. Whereas a theory of feeling, of emotion, of attitudes and desires, of the affective-volitional aspect of mental activity, is required at all points of our analysis.