sanity; and a symptom of it because it is in reality one of the first stages in the disease itself, a disease which consists in fact, in such a degree of sensibility of some organ or tissue that it cannot be quiet under any of the ordinary circumstances under which there should be quiet. Even chorea, or St. Vitus' dance, is the result of such an increased sensibility of the afferent or sensory nerves of the body, as to keep up most of the time, irresistible excito-motor emotions.

As with sensations in general, so with emotions of this class; if continued without change in the cause that produces them, we cease to be conscious of them and they cease to be either sensations or emotions at all in the ordinary acceptation of the term. Hence as we say, we get "accustomed" to that which at first was unpleasant, and cease to notice it. But in many cases the cause not only continues to act: it increases the intensity of its activity, as in the case of hunger, fatigue, etc. And so too in case of disease; the congestion or disorganization in which the disease consists is likely to go on increasing, and thus it will keep on increasing sufficiently to fulfill the conditions of continued consciousness.

7. Nature of the Affections.

Next in order are Affections. These differ psychologically from the class just named, in that they have an intellectual antecedent; some act of the mind intervenes between the sensation and the emotion. This act must always be in the first instance an act of perception. We must perceive an object either to love or to hate it-to hope for it, or to fear it. But after some experience we find that emotions of this kind are quite largely influenced by imagination and memory. Emotions of this class coincide with the sensori-motor emotions of the physiologists.

In calling these emotions" affections," I am departing somewhat from the use of terms that is common among writers on

Psychology and Moral Philosophy. They speak of " affections "for persons” and as "having relations to persons," while appetites, as they say, are" for things." But I can see no ground for such a distinction in Psychology. As there is a large class, including, with hunger, etc., which Moral Philosophers have called "appetites," many others: so there is a large class besides what such writers have called Affections, that have precisely the same psychological characteristics, the one characteristic on which I have classified them, namely, that they are all excited by external objects, acting through one of the five special senses, followed by the act of perception.

They have also other characteristics in common.

(1) The act to which they lead does not, like the appetites, hunger, for example, exhaust the feeling, and turn it into the opposite. Thus the kind acts to which affection for a friend leads, rather increases than decreases the affection we have for him.

(2) They are largely matter of education and culture. The recurrence of hunger, for example, has no tendency, in itself, to increase our disposition to be hungry, or our susceptibility to that class of feelings. But in regard to the benevolent affections, we grow more and more benevolent by the habitual and continued exercise of that kind of feelings.

8. Several Classes of Affections.

The affections may be divided in several ways, and for several different purposes.

(1) they may be regarded as objective or subjective-the objective tending to acts terminating in the objects that excited them, as love, hate, etc., the subjective, on the other hand, terminating in ourselves, as fear and hope; these last scarcely lead us to do anything to the object, but end in merely hoping for it or fearing it. Hope and fear may, indeed, lead to exertion, but the acts to which they lead are scarcely denoted by transitive verbs. They are rather passive than active.

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(2) Again the objective affections are either benevolent or malevolent, according as they lead us to do good or evil to their objects. And these two varieties are again subject to subdivision, as the benevolent, into love, gratitude, pity, etc., and the malevolent, into anger, envy, hatred, resentment, etc.

(3) And then, for many purposes, hope and the benevolent affections are to be classified together, and fear is to be classified with the malevolent affections. Hope and the benevolent affections are always pleasant in themselves. They are conducive to health of the body and to vigor of mental activity; while fear and the malevolent affections are the reverse of this in all these respects. They are painful in themselves, and paralyzing in their influence upon the intellectual powers. It is indeed true, however, that they sometimes excite one to a phrenzy or paroxysm of exertion in which the powers of doing and enduring seem to be increased by the passion, as in some forms of insanity.

9. Evolution of the Affections.

I am inclined to think that in the early stages of infant life, these classes of affections are not more than two-that the distinction between love and hope, fear and hate scarcely makes its appearance. Every object perceived excites an emotion of the sensori-motor kind. The one class, take the form of mere attraction, and after that, as thought and reflection ensue, they become hope, or love, or gratitude, pity or compassion, etc. But in regard to the other class, I think that the first form of the affection is merely that of repulsion, and then, after reflection and thought, we come to hate and fear what has excited the repulsion.

There can be no doubt, I think, that we often come to fear and hate, perhaps hate rather than fear, whatever has often excited our anger.

In adult life, our affection towards a thing depends upon

what we call our "idea" of it; that is, it depends upon what we think it to be. Hence, that which at first thought excites fear may, on further knowledge of the object, and more thought about it, become an object of hope and pleasure; or the reverse, objects of hope become objects of fear. Thus, we "learn" to love what we once hated, and objects once loved may come to excite only hatred.

And in this fact with regard to the affections, we have more immediate control over them than we have over the appetites, or mere physical emotions. It is true, indeed, that we can neither love nor hate, hope nor fear merely by willing to do so. In the case of the physical emotions, we can produce a change only by resorting to physical means, and changing the cause of the sensation. In the case of the affections, on the contrary, we can change their character simply by changing our thoughts concerning the objects that excited them. That which pleases us is apt to set the mind at work in imagining excellence that nobody else has seen or found, and so, on the other hand, if an object displeases us, we are apt to ascribe to it defects and deformities that do not belong to it.

10. Power of Will over the Affections.

Nor is this all. By the voluntary direction of our thoughts we can change love into hate, or the reverse, without any increased actual knowledge of the object. There is probably nothing-person or thing--so bad that something may not be thought or said in its favor. Milton has managed to excite some sympathy, at least, for Satan and his descriptions of that incarnation of evil has induced in more than one breast-I remember the cases of Sterne and Burns-a hope, or “a wish "at least," that even he might come to good at last. If, now, we will fix our thoughts upon that which may be said or imagined concerning any object-for or against it-we can change our affections towards it almost at will, and love or hate, hope or fear, as we may take a fancy to do.

If, however, we are constantly in contact with the object, it becomes more difficult to ignore reality in the mere acts of imagination. It is difficult, if not impossible, to love that which displeases and annoys us whenever we meet it. And quite as difficult is it to avoid loving what pleases us, or produces only pleasant emotions, of whatever kind, when we come into actual contact with it, however unworthy of love we may know it to be.

The physical emotions as we have seen, are designed for our bodily, or physical, wellfare. They are intensely personal, and are apt to become selfish. My hunger is to notify me when I need to take food. It has no regard to or for anybody else, Another man's hunger performs the same office for him. It is not so with the affections. They are intensely social and have regard to, and for, others.

Hence a reason for another important distinction between them--a distinction founded upon a difference which we observe in fact, namely, that while the recurrence of any active state in the mere physical emotions does not seem to affect the susceptibility to emotions of that kind, the case is different with the affections. Susceptibility to hunger does not increase from day to day, in consequence of the act of eating. But susceptibility to an affection does increase by repeated acts of affection. The man who cultivates benevolent feelings becomes more benevolent, and is more easily affected by objects calculated to excite the feelings of that class. So, too, with fear and hate.

We can also decrease our susceptibility, by the opposite course. One can harden himself against all benevolent and generous impulses. He can steel himself against fear. He can, in fact, settle down into a life of mere physical emotions, and care for other things and other persons only as they administer to his comfort, or disturb his ease, until he would sacrifice all persons and things to himself without so much as a single thought that the universe, and all that is in it, was not made for him, or has any purpose in existing but to minister to his pleasure.