There are many primary impulses with little difference from one another which for other reasons, explained in the last chapter, it seems important to distinguish as a class from the emotions. Is not repugnance simply one of them, an impulse of aversion opposite to the impulse of desire, not an emotion of repugnance opposite to the emotion of joy? But why should we have an impulse of aversion to certain things, and an impulse of attraction to others, unless there were an emotion of repugnance in the one case, as there is an emotion of joy in the other, to account for it ? And repugnance seems to have a certain distinctiveness of feeling, if we observe closely such cases as the repugnance that we sometimes feel for our surroundings, or for the company of people who, although they do not arouse disgust, are unsuited to us. In addition to this, is repugnance a centre with which are organised a variety of tendencies, instinctive and acquired, such as we have found all the emotional systems to be which we have hitherto studied? That question we can only answer after we have examined its behaviour.

2. The Meaning of the Terms "Displeasure," "Distaste," 'Repugnance,' Aversion," " Antipathy."

The difficulty that we find in studying this emotion or impulse is enhanced by the variety of terms that may be used to denote it. The terms pleasure' and ' displeasure,' because their scientific connotation confines them to expressing abstract elements that are found in a great variety of states, are improperly used to denote emotions. Yet in their ordinary usage they are frequently employed to denote them at a low degree of intensity. Thus we say it is a ' joy' to meet a friend, a pleasure' to meet an acquaintance; or that it is 'pleasant' for us to visit foreign countries, but a 'joy' for the young who have never been out of their own land.

As it is with the term 'pleasure,' so is it with the term 'displeasure.' In its ordinary use the term does not so often stand for an abstract element, the opposite of pleasure, as for a composite emotion comprising a certain degree of anger. To be displeased with a person is to feel in some

1

degree angry with him. This meaning of the word is
recognised by Johnson, who also notices the more abstract
meaning of "uneasiness; pain received." In Murray's
Dictionary we find the following definitions of these two
meanings: (1) "The fact or condition of being displeased or
offended; a feeling varying according to its intensity from
dissatisfaction or disapproval to anger and indignation pro-
voked by a person or action"2; (2) "The opposite of pleasure;
discomfort, uneasiness, unhappiness; grief, sorrow, trouble."3
And as pleasure often implies a certain degree of joy,
so, too, displeasure often implies a certain degree of
its opposite, repugnance. But if 'pleasure' may be used
to denote either bodily or mental pleasure, ' displeasure
is chiefly used to denote unpleasant or painful attitudes of
mind. Some things displease us at once, and as it were
instinctively,' dark or gloomy things, harsh, creaking,
scraping, or violent noises; other things only displease us
through our past experience of them. Thus places we have
visited with expectations of enjoyment, and where we have
experienced only disappointment, discomfort, and annoyance
if we catch sight of them only from a passing train, cause us
displeasure. To recollect them, to hear them named by others,
still more to hear them praised, displeases us. So also people
whom we have met, and with whom we have felt ourselves
embarrassed, and unable to engage in an easy conversation, or
people whom we see frequently in some club or other public
place without ever accosting, it displeases us to meet again;
so that we feign not to recognise them or get away as soon as
we can. And thus it happens that from so many disagreeable
experiences we have many disagreeable thoughts; and
sometimes trains of them follow one another, so that whatever
we think of displeases us. Further we are displeased by
obstacles in our mental life, when we cannot see our course
clearly, and by conflicts of motive when we know not what to
decide, and these immediately displease us just as it
immediately displeases us to desire one thing and to be forced
to do another.

1 Johnson's Dictionary, Art. 'Displeasure.'
2 Art. Displeasure.'

3 Ibid.

In all these cases, though the meaning of the term ' displeasure' makes the quality of feeling prominent, yet it involves much more than this: the whole attitude of mind with its particular impulse of aversion. And while in such cases displeasure often includes anger, it does not include, or even suggest, disgust; it is the emotion that we have already expressed by the term 'repugnance,' although this term brings into prominence the impulse inseparable from it.

The term 'aversion' emphasises, and is sometimes confined to expressing, the conative side of all states that have an impulse to avoid the things which cause them; and if that which we have taken to be a distinct and original emotion were no more than an impulse common to a variety of painful emotions, then we should choose the term ' aversion' to express it. But this is so far from being the case that in respect of the examples we have taken, the terms‘displeasure' and 'repugnance' do not only imply such an impulse, but specially indicate a particular feeling which accounts for it. The term distaste' suggests, in its literal sense, some degree of the disgust which is aroused by sensations of taste, and therefore is not a suitable term to express an emotion which is neither the same as disgust nor derived from it. Certain kinds of food are distasteful, and distaste is here a name for a weaker form of disgust. Yet it is frequently used to express our attitude to modes of life that merely repel us. The literary man has a distaste for the business life with its daily routine and regularity; the countryman who works out of doors, for the life of the clerk at his desk. In these cases' distaste' means a displeasure or repugnance which is independent of disgust. Yet there is no doubt that disgust and repugnance are often not only confused in our thought, but blended in our experience. The marked resemblance, if not identity, between their tendencies and behaviour makes it easy for the feeling of the one to blend with that of the other, and the blending of them in our experience renders us liable to confuse them in thought.

'Antipathy' is a term that expresses better than does 'distaste' the original distinctness of this emotion. Certain people are immediately antipathetic to us, and so are certain

places and occupations. But the term 'antipathy' has another employment to which we shall here confine it. It suggests the opposite of all sympathetic emotions, and its range is co-extensive with them. For if in sympathy there is identity of feeling between two persons, here there is opposition or antagonism. It is perhaps for this reason that antipathy suggests hate. There is an immediate antipathy felt sometimes by one man for another, that is not confined to repugnance, but vaguely suggests the presence of tendencies in the background that would only find their satisfaction in inflicting suffering, injury, or death; as if indeed there were stimuli that were capable at once of exciting the complex and innate system of hate, as there are assuredly others that may at once arouse love. But wherever hate is aroused its system involves a disposition to feel an emotion antipathetic to that which the hated person feels: when he rejoices, then sorrow; when he sorrows, then joy; when he hopes, then fear; when he despairs, then triumph. In other cases there is a certain difference. When he shows anger then anger rises against him; when pride, then a pride that overtops his; when contempt, then a contempt that reduces his to insignificance. And these, though similar, are still antipathetic emotions, because directed against the other to inflict injury or suffering on him. All these antipathetic emotions belong to the system of hate, and they belong to nothing else. "A soft answer turneth away wrath," and sorrow appeaseth it; but they neither turn aside nor appease hate.

Thus each of these different terms seems to imply more or less clearly the existence of an opposite emotion to joy, which yet is not the same as disgust.

3. The Mood of Repugnance.

As there is a diffusive mood of joy, welling up in us in good health, and especially in youth, making objects of joy out of things and events that could not normally arouse it; so there is also a mood, and even a fixed temper, of repugnance to which the sick and old are prone, equally diffusive, making things that usually arouse joy displeasing to us.

This mood shows itself in several ways: (1) by a turning

D D

away of the eyes, head, and body from anything that awakens our repugnance in order to avoid attention to it, recognition of it, occupation with it; (2) by the pursuit of solitude; (3) by continual fault-finding and complaint ; (4) by manifestations of anger; (5) by the expression of despondency and sorrow. In the most familiar meaning of the term displeasure' we have already found evidence of the frequent conjunction of repugnance with anger.

The turning away of the eyes, head, or body is only one of the ways in which we get rid of an object which is either repugnant or disgusting to us, and is confined to those cases in which it can be perceived. But we have noticed a group of cases which specially distinguish repugnance from disgust, in which the object is not external to us. We feel an instinctive repugnance to physical pain; but we cannot get rid of it by such movements of the eyes or body. We have acquired the power to some extent of controlling our attention, and sometimes we practise not attending to the pain by directing our thoughts elsewhere. Sometimes we become restless, as if we might find some movement or position that would lessen the pain. Sometimes we exert great muscular effort, which diminishes the amount of attention we can give to it. But when we have learnt to distinguish the cause of the pain, we acquire a number of other methods by which it may be removed, and the end of our repugnance attained.

The behaviour characteristic of repugnance, and especially of its mood, then, shows that there are several tendencies involved in its system. The chief or central tendency is to get rid of that to which we feel repugnance, that is, to exclude it from our experience. This is the organising tendency of the system; other tendencies are subordinate or accessory to it. Thus, for instance, there is the tendency to arouse anger when the chief tendency is obstructed, and sorrow when it is frustrated. In the mood of repugnance, and when human beings in general become repugnant to us, even those we love, there naturally arises the desire for solitude. Men become misanthropical, avoiding their fellow creatures. And because at such times they are relatively insusceptible to the opposite emotions of joy and admiration, they lose sight of