If the peculiar emotions of Desire have certain intimate relations among themselves, so that the change which one undergoes imports change in another, we must not forget that it is the function of these secondary emotions to represent and forecast changes of circumstances, through the thoughts which, in distinction from the primary emotions, belong essentially to them. Nor do they respond only to those changes that favour or impede the fulfilment of the desired end; they are responsive to another set of changes within the body, which make them too often untrustworthy indicators of the course of future events. There is a 'hopeful temper,' a' despondent temper,' an 'anxious temper,' a 'confident temper'; and we seem to be peculiarly disposed by inherited endowment, by the state of health, by the course of experience to one or other of them. Thus the prospective emotions, whatever their uses, have to be held under constant control; and this control it is in the capacity and interest of Desire to exercise, seeing that it is both a more comprehensive system than that of any one of these emotions, and also has to employ them in the pursuit of its ends. Yet while we try to restrain these emotions from exaggeration, so that they may represent adequately the changing course of events, yet we make one exception. We believe that Hope is of such unique importance that, whatever our circumstances, we must sustain it, in one form or another, with all the courage we possess.

CHAPTER VII

OF THE LIMITATIONS OF DESIRE AND THE ANTAGONISM OF DESIRE AND JOY

BESIDES the emotions peculiar to the system of desire there are other emotions common to it with other systems. For while belonging to these systems, they may also be organised in it, and wherever they are serviceable to its end, desire will have a tendency to arouse them. Of these common emotions the most conspicuous is anger.

It is a general law that all impulses when obstructed tend to arouse anger; and desire is one kind of impulse. Interference with the course of desire is one of the most frequent causes of anger. And this anger is then not only dependent on desire, but belongs to its system, and in a general way subserves its end for anger tends to overcome obstacles to this end. Fear may also belong to desire. Every great desire arouses fear when its end is in danger. We fear lest we shall fail in attaining it. Very different from this fear is that which the process of desire often arouses, when the means are dangerous. Such fear urges us to abandon the desire; is antagonistic to it, and therefore does not belong to its system.

The system of desire, though it is capable of organising many of the common and primary emotions, cannot contain all. It has its limitations; and of those emotions which it is held to exclude the most significant is Joy. There is generally felt to be some antagonism between Desire and Joy. Not only does the restless state of desire seem to exclude joy, but joy, the contemplative emotion, to exclude desire. Let us at once

express this antagonism as an empirical law: (140) Desire and Joy tend mutually to exclude each other from presence in consciousness. There are other and subordinate laws (141) When Desire is active, the intrusion of Joy suspends or deranges its activity; (142) When Joy is present, the intrusion of Desire tends to extinguish it.

The second of these subordinate laws has already been considered 1; we shall here consider some generalised observations in literature which imply the first. There is an Armenian fable 2 of " a hungry hen" who, dreaming of grain, began to scratch with her claws, and fell from her perch. A fable of La Fontaine's, called "La Laitière et le Pot-au-Lait," 11 3 teaches the same lesson: A milkmaid, carrying her can balanced on her head, eagerly directs her steps to the town where she is to sell her milk; and to be quicker and more agile, she puts on a short and light skirt. But as she goes, feeling no anxiety and anticipating the fulfilment of her desire, she begins to dream of what she will buy with the proceeds of the sale: first eggs, from which there will come poultry; then a pig; and from the sale of the pig, a cow. Absorbed in these contemplations, she no longer watches her steps; she stumbles, and the milk is spilt.

Both fables exemplify the effect of day-dreaming, or of the joy in imagining that our desire is fulfilled, on the process of desire itself. This enjoyment is shown to suspend and to derange its process, so that we fail in attaining our end. And if Joy may have this effect even when the process of desire is almost mechanical, how much more certainly will it do so when the means require constant attention and thought.

Hence, we find many observations in literature on the weakening effect of day-dreaming on the character. For in Desire we are striving after a result in the future; in Joy we are contemplating a result in the present, even though it be in the imagination. All progress, therefore, arises from desire, and the strength and industry that make progress possible: 'Châteaux en Espagne' and the indolence of the Spanish character go naturally together. Tourgueneff makes one of his characters express a similar reflection on the Russsian 1 B. ii. ch. vii. p. 285. 2 Armenian Fables.'

3 Fables.'

"1

character: "Our cursed Slavonic slackness gets the better of us. While we dream of work, we soar in eagle flights; we fancy we are going to shake the earth from its place-but when it comes to doing anything we are weak and weary directly." Another writer observes: "Les Esprits accoutumés à se plaire dans leur chez soi, meublé à leur fantaisie, ne s'aventurent qu'avec crainte dans la réalité extérieure, dans l'action. Le rêve, quand il n'est pas dirigé par une grande force intellectuelle finit par produire à la longue l'effet de ces drogues orientales, haschisch, bétel, opium, dont l'usage rend paresseux le plus actif et poltron le plus brave." 2

Thus the joy of anticipation suspends Desire, and if prolonged deranges its higher processes even more than the lower, and enfeebles the great qualities of industry, patience, courage and perseverance, which are so often required for the attainment of its ends.

In attempting to investigate the range of this empirical law, we may profitably distinguish between three kinds of joy, all of which may be closely connected with desire. These are (1) the joy of attainment, (2) the joy of anticipation, and (3) the joy of retrospect. The first comes with the fruition of desire where there is no disappointment. When desire has attained its end, its striving ceases in attainment; its system comes to an end,3 and joy succeeds. But as long as desire has not attained its end, it cannot feel this joy, and tends to exclude every other, so far as it is still pressing towards its goal. The joy of attainment is a very evanescent emotion, and soon gives place to new desires. It is a pause at a resting-place interposed by Nature between their restless states.

The second joy comes to us before we have attained the desired end, and in imaginative natures is often a substitute for it. It is often remarked that this joy of anticipation is greater than the joy of reality; for making things better than they are leads to disappointment. This joy of anticipation---we have seen-is no more part of the striving of desire than 1 Euvres,' Acia.'

2 Catulle Mendès, 'La Demoiselle en Or,' ch. iv.

3 Compare G. F. Stout, 'Manual of Psychology,' B. i. ch. i. § 5.

is the joy of attainment. It is an interruption; a pause at a resting-place that we so often make when we should be active and watchful. And as long as we eagerly press forward to our goal, and are anxious to reach it, we cannot pause to enjoy such idle imaginations. Our restless state forbids it; and hope and confidence are the utmost we can feel. But with confidence there goes diminished energy; and then desire is apt to give place to the joy of anticipation, and, as the fables indicate, it is not always able to reassert itself before being overtaken by disaster.

The third kind of joy, which is retrospective, may be aroused by the recollection of past scenes of our life, or may intervene in the process of a present desire. We feel it when we have made some conspicuous advance. Our desire is interrupted; we stop to look around, and rejoice at the progress we have made. We take good heart from it, and with renewed vigour start afresh.

Thus in all three cases, where joy is preceded and conditioned by desire, it is a break and resting-place, which interrupts the course of single desires, or is interposed between several.

Those pauses of joy which follow the attainment of ends occur in social and national, as well as in individual life; and when unduly prolonged, stamp epochs with sterility. The systematic tendency of joy to maintain things as they are, excludes desire for change or progress. Such an epoch in the opinion of some was that between 1800 and 1830 in England, when "Political and legislative changes were first checked by that pride in the English Constitution, and intense satisfaction with things as they were, which was inherited from a preceding generation, and is best represented by the studied optimism of Blackstone." 1

2. Of the Joys of Activity and their Relation to Desire.

There are certain facts which seem to contradict, to restrict, or at least to complicate the law of the antagonism of Desire and Joy. The three joys of Attainment, of Anticipation and

1 A. V. Dicey, 'Law and Public Opinion in England,' lect. iv.