nature of these tendencies. We have noticed in the first book,1 that joy and sorrow as they succeed one another are the most common cause of our love of an object. But this statement is ambiguous. If the conclusion we reached in the first book is valid, we neither acquire the primary emotional dispositions that are implied in love, nor yet their organisation with one another; both of which are part of the constitution of the mind. What we usually acquire is the connection between them and some object on behalf of which they are displayed. Until this connection is formed, there is the disposition to love, but not love itself. Now it is through the succession of joy and sorrow about a given object that love is acquired for this object. Their function in love is to establish this bond; and from this point of view they are the most important emotions of its system. And as soon as joy in the presence of anything is felt for the thing itself and not for its advantages, the whole system of love is rendered incipiently active on its behalf. But though love is so often stirred within us a little, and for so many things, it is seldom aroused to strong and enduring activity; but commonly passes away as quickly as it has arisen. It is the great function of sorrow in love, through its tendencies of attraction and restoration, to establish a durable bond with the object. For the bond which joy alone forms with an object would in its absence be quickly dissolved, were there no sorrow to reinforce it. 1 Ch. iv. CHAPTER XI OF THE LAWS OF THE INCREASE AND DIMINUTION OF SORROW THERE are some familiar laws of the increase and diminution to which sorrow is liable that we shall attempt to define in this chapter, to serve as a basis for the further research that will reveal the facts that contradict them, and bring out their remaining ambiguities: thereby taking that step in advance without which we cannot carry these laws nearer to the ideal of universally true or scientific laws. 1. It is a general law that (64) The intensity of emotions is proportioned, other things equal, to the degree in which they contrast with preceding or accompanying states. This law has been frequently noticed. Adam Smith expressed it as follows: "The vivacity . of every sensation, as well as of every sentiment, seems to be greater or less in proportion to the change made by the impression of either upon the situation of the mind or organ; but this change must necessarily be the greatest when opposite sentiments and sensations are contrasted, or succeed immediately to one another."1 It seems to be a particular form of this law that (65) Sorrow tends to be increased by the close precedence of joy, and in proportion to the clearness of our remembrance of it in our experience; and, again, by perceiving the signs of joy around us, and in a less degree by the thought that, while we sorrow others rejoice. Many observations in literature bear witness to this law. 1 'Hist. of Astronomy,' sect. i. That a sorrow's crown of sorrows is remembering happier things." This law is implied in what Balzac says of the fortitude of one of his characters: "Il a fallu, comme elle, n'avoir connu qu'une rapide saison de bonheur pour résister à tant de secousses ! " 3 Another says: "Le meilleur remède que je sache pour les douleurs présentes, c'est d'oublier les joies passées." Shakespeare represents the unfortunate queen of Richard II. as declining to hear tales of joy or sorrow: 3 Sir Philip Sidney in his grief at the loss of Penelope Devereux writes: As the sun casteth shade night showeth star, We measuring what we were by what we are, Moreover the comparison which increases sorrow may include not only our own past joys, but those of others around us: "Oderunt hilarem tristes, tristemque jocosi. "8 For 1 'Inferno,' canto v. line 121. 54 Richard II.,' a. iii. sc. iv. • Fox-Bourne, A Memoir of Sir Philip Sidney,' ch. x. p. 290. sometimes the expression of another's happiness reminds us of our own lost happiness: "Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird That sings upon the bough; Thou minds me o' the happy days When my fause love was true." 1 And people are aware of this; for when they come into the presence of anyone afflicted with sorrow, they repress the expression of enjoyment, and replace it by one of sympathy and sadness. And thus it is that when disaster comes in the midst of enjoyment it would at once make the greatest impression, did we not so often fail to realise it. Adam Smith observes: "Grief comes on slowly and gradually, nor ever rises at once to that height of agony to which it is increased after a little time. But joy comes rushing upon us all at once like a torrent." 2 But with some quick minds it is different. "When any distress or terror," says Goethe, surprises us in the midst of our amusements it naturally makes a deeper impression than at other times, either because the contrast makes us more keenly susceptible, or rather because our senses are then more open to impressions, and the shock is consequently stronger." 3 (2) There is a complementary law to the one we have been considering (66) Sorrow tends to be diminished by the close precedency and by the remembrance of other sorrow in our experience, and again by the perception of the signs of sorrow around us, and in some, though in a less degree, by the knowledge of such suffering. This law, like the preceding, seems to be a particular form of a more general law, which has also been referred to by Adam Smith. He states it in the following terms: "As the opposition of contrasted sentiments heightens their vivacity, so the resemblance of those which immediately succeed each other renders them more faint and languid." 4 "A parent,' he proceeds," who has lost several children immediately after one another, will be less affected with the death of the last 1 Robert Burns. * ' History of Astronomy,' sect. i., p. 9. 3'The Sorrows of Werther,' June 16. than with that of the first, though the loss in itself be, in this case, undoubtedly greater; but his mind being already sunk in sorrow, the new misfortune seems to produce no other effect than a continuance of the same melancholy. . . .”1 "Those who have been unfortunate through the whole course of their lives are often indeed habitually melancholy, and sometimes peevish and splenetic, yet upon any fresh disappointment, though they are vexed and complain a little, they seldom fly out into any more violent passion, and never fall into those transports of rage or grief which often, upon the like occasions, distract the fortunate and successful." 2 Adam Smith concludes that on this law are founded, "in a great measure, some of the effects of habit and custom. It is well known that custom deadens the vivacity of both pain and pleasure, abates the grief we should feel for the one, and weakens the joy we should derive from the other . . . because custom and the frequent repetition of any object come at last to form and bend the mind or organ to that habitual mood and disposition which fit them to receive their impression, without undergoing any very violent change." 3 Whether this law, that where successive emotions resemble one another the last tends to be on that account weaker, can be maintained with the generality which Adam Smith ascribed to it may be doubted. Our experience of the behaviour of anger seems to contradict it. If a man is already in some degree under the influence of anger, it will probably be increased by opposition to his wishes. Children are so well aware of this fact that they select the most favourable times for requesting favours of a parent that are likely at others to be refused. There are indeed some men, says Gratian, "who cannot refuse"; with them no skill is required. 'But with others their first word at all times is No; with them great art is required . . . Surprise them when in a pleasant mood, when a repast of body or soul has just left them refreshed... The days of joy are the days of favour, for joy overflows from the inner man into the outward creation." It is not "a good time after sorrow." In a quarrel we often 1 'History of Astronomy,' sect. i., p. 10. Ibid., p. II. |