YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT/PART 18
CHAPTER XVIII.
The Role of the Emotions.
THE
average person greatly underestimates the part played by the emotional nature
in the mental activities of the individual. He is inclined to the opinion that,
with the exception of the occasional manifestation of some strong emotional
feeling, the majority of persons go through life using only the reasoning and
reflective faculties in deciding the problems of life and guiding the mental
course of action. There can be no greater mistake concerning the mental activities.
So far from being subordinate to the intellect, the emotional nature in the
majority of cases dominates the reasoning faculties. There are but very few
persons who are able to detach themselves, even in a small degree, from the
feelings, and to decide questions cold-bloodedly by pure reason or intellectual
effort. Moreover, there are but few persons whose wills are guided by pure
reason; the feelings supply the motive for the majority of acts of will. The
intellect, even when used, is generally employed to better carry out the
dictates of feeling and desire. Much of our reasoning is performed in order to
justify our feelings, or to find proofs for the position dictated by our
desires, feelings, sympathies, prejudices, or sentiments. It has been said that
"men seek not reasons but excuses for their actions."
Moreover,
in the elementary processes of the intellect the emotions play an important
part. We have seen that attention largely follows interest, and interest
results from feeling. Therefore our attention, and that which arises from it,
is dependent largely upon the feelings. Thus feeling asserts its power in
guarding the very outer gate of knowledge, and determines largely what shall or
shall not enter therein. It is one of the constantly-appearing paradoxes of
psychology, that while feelings have originally arisen from attention, it is
equally true that attention depends largely upon the interest resulting from
the feelings. This is readily admitted in the case of involuntary attention,
which always goes out toward objects of interest and feeling, but is likewise
true of even voluntary attention, which we direct to something of greater or
more nearly ultimate interest than the things of lesser or more immediate
interest.
Sully says: "By an act of will I may resolve to turn my attention to something—say a passage in a book. But if, after the preliminary process of adjustment of the mental eye the object opens up no interesting phase, all the willing in the world will not produce a calm, settled state of concentration. The will introduces mind and object; it cannot force an attachment between them. No compulsion of attention ever succeeded in making a young child cordially embrace and appropriate, by an act of concentration, an unsuitable and therefore uninteresting object. We thus see that even voluntary interest is not removed from the sway of interest. What the will does is to determine the kind of interest that shall prevail at the moment."
Again,
we may see that memory is largely dependent upon interest in recording and
recalling its impressions. We remember and recall most easily that which most
greatly interests us. In proportion to the lack of interest in a thing do we
find difficulty in remembering or recalling it. This is equally true of the
imagination, for it refuses to dwell upon that which is not interesting.
Even in the reasoning processes we find the will balking at uninteresting
subjects, but galloping along, pushing before it the rolling chair of
interesting intellectual application.
Our
judgments are affected by our feelings. It is much easier to approve of the
actions of some person we like, or whose views accord with our own, than of an
individual whose personality and views are distasteful to us. It is very
difficult to prevent prejudice, for or against, from influencing our
judgments. It is also true that we "find that for which we look" in
things and persons, and that which we expect and look for is often dependent
upon our feelings. If we dislike a person or thing we are usually able to
perceive no end of undesirable things in him or it; while if we are favorably
inclined we easily find many admirable qualities in the same person or thing. A
little change in our feeling often results in the formation of an entirely new
set of judgments regarding a person or thing.
Halleck
well says: "On the one hand the emotions are favorable to intellectual
action, since they supply the interest one feels in study. One may feel
intensely concerning a certain subject and be all the better student. Hence the
emotions are not, as was formerly thought, entirely hostile to intellectual
action. Emotion often quickens the perception, burns things indelibly into the
memory, and doubles the rapidity of thought. On the other hand strong feelings
often vitiate every operation of the intellect. They cause us to see only what
we wish to, to remember only what interests our narrow feeling at the time, and
to reason from selfish data only. * * * Emotion puts the magnifying end of the
telescope to our intellectual eyes where our own interests are concerned, the
minimizing end when we are looking at the interest of others. * * * Thought is
deflected when it passes through an emotional medium, just as a sunbeam is when
it strikes water."
As
for the will, the best authorities hold that it is almost if not entirely
dependent upon desire for its motive force. As desire is an outgrowth and
development of feeling and emotion, it is seen that even the will depends upon
feeling for its inciting motives and its direction. We shall consider this
point at greater detail in the chapters devoted to the activities of the will.
We
would remind you again, at this point, of the great triangle of the mind, the
emotional, ideative, and volitional activities—feeling, thinking, and
willing—and their constant reaction upon each other and absolute
interdependence. We find that our feelings arise from previous willing and
ideation, and are aroused by ideas and repressed by will; again we see that our
ideas are largely dependent upon the interest supplied by our feelings, and
that our judgments are influenced by the emotive side of our mental life, the
will also having its part to play in the matter. We also see that the will is
called into activity by the feelings, and often guided or restrained by our
thoughts, the will, indeed, being considered as moved entirely by our feelings
and ideas. Thus is the trinity of mental forces seen ever in mutual
relation—constant action and reaction ever existing between them.
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