CHAPTER VISOCIAL EXPRESSION
In order to find an explanation of the nature and origin of the art-impulse we were compelled to enter upon a digression on the general psychology of feeling. It appeared from this hasty examination that in the motor concomitants of physical as well as of mental feeling we have to do with a form of activity which, taken by itself, is independent of all external motives. It was shown that the diffusion of a feeling-tone always corresponds to some active manifestation, generally outward, which increases in the same degree as the state of consciousness gains in intensity and distinctness. Besides these immediate transformations of energy which, owing to the law of inertia, follow the primary enhancement or inhibition of function, we met with reactions of a more conscious kind, by which the organism strives to overcome the inhibition of pain, and to keep up the excitement of pleasure. And it was also found that the universal animal desire to increase every pleasure and to relieve every pain has given rise to a multitude of secondary manifestations, by which we try to sustain every pleasure, to make it more distinct for consciousness, and thus enhance it by expression, while, during states of pain, we strive for relief in diversion or inviolent motor discharge. Finally it was remarked that by the side of this expressional impulse we must take account of a yearning after increased consciousness, which leads us to pursue, even at the risk of some passing pain, all feelings and emotions by which our sensation of life is reinforced and intensified. All these impulses, accompanied by higher or lower degrees of conscious endeavour, are psychical phenomena of fundamental importance. They are not restricted to any particular stage of culture. And their coercive force is equal—nay, even superior to that of the imitative impulse, the play-impulse, and the impulse “to attract by pleasing.” If we could deduce the desire for artistic creation from the activities connected with feeling, we should here find the explanation of its universality as well as of its force.
But among the manifestations described in the foregoing chapters there is none which directly leads us to the artistic activity. As against theSpieltriebtheories it was objected that play never develops of itself into art, so it may now be objected, with as much reason, that all immediate or secondary emotional manifestations, however interesting they may be, give us no information on artistic manifestations. The instinctive tendency to express overmastering feeling, to enhance pleasure, and to seek relief from pain, forms the most deep-seated motive of all human activity. We can therefore derive the distinctive qualities of artistic production from this impulse only when it has been proved that art is better able than any other kind of mental function to serve and satisfy the requirements which arise from this impulse when it occurs in its purest form.
That this is the case, is the fundamental hypothesisupon which this work is based. It was impossible to prove its validity as long as emotional manifestations were treated as phenomena in the psychical life of the individual. For art is in its innermost nature a social activity. In order to elucidate the connection between art-impulse and emotional activities, we must therefore examine the latter as they appear in the social relations of mankind. We do not believe that any new principles are necessary for this purpose. We need only apply to social phenomena the same laws which were found to be valid for the emotional life of the individual. As, however, the legitimacy of such a course may be questioned, we must first devote some pages to a treatment of what we may call—if the expression is allowed—the interindividual life.
This digression brings us into a field of inquiry—that of the psychical conditions of social life—which during recent years has been the object of certain most important scientific researches. The investigations into the psychology of masses, as well as the experiments on suggestive therapeutics, have proved to how great an extent mental states may be transmitted from individual to individual by unconscious imitation of the accompanying movements. The doctrine of universal sympathy, a clear statement of which was given long ago in the ethical theory of Adam Smith,[97]has thus acquired a psychological justification in the modern theories of imitative movement. Contemporary science has at last learned to appreciate the fundamental importance of imitation for the development of human culture.[98]And some authors have even gone so far as to endeavour todeduce all sociological laws from this one principle. At the same time natural history has begun to pay more and more attention to the indispensability of imitation for the full development of instincts, as well as for training in those activities which are the most necessary in life.[99]
It is fortunate for the theory of art that the importance of the imitative functions has thus been simultaneously acknowledged in various departments of science. Whatever one may think of the somewhat audacious generalisations which have been made in the recent application of this new principle, it is incontestable that the æsthetic activities can be understood and explained only by reference to universal tendency to imitate. It is also significant that writers on æsthetic had felt themselves compelled to set up a theory of imitation long before experimental psychologists had begun to turn their attention in this direction. In Germany the enjoyment of form and form-relations has since Vischer’s time been interpreted as the result of the movements by which not only our eye, but also our whole body, follows the outlines of external things.[100]In France Jouffroy stated the condition for the receiving of æsthetic impressions to be a “power of internally imitating the states which are externally manifested in living nature.”[101]In England, finally, Vernon Lee and Anstruther Thompson have founded a theory of beauty and ugliness upon this same psychical impulse to copy in our own unconsciousmovements the forms of objects.[102]And in the writings of, for instance, Home,[103]Hogarth,[104]Dugald Stewart,[105]and Spencer,[106]there can be found a multitude of isolated remarks on the influence which is in a direct way exercised on our mental life by the perception of lines and forms.
In most of these theories and observations, however, the imitative activity has been noticed only in so far as it contributes to the æsthetic delight which may be derived from sensual impressions. But its importance is by no means so restricted as this; on the contrary, we believe it to be a fundamental condition for the existence of intuition itself. Without all these imperceptible tracing movements with which our body accompanies the adaptation of the eye-muscles to the outlines of external objects, our notions of depth, height, and distance, and so on, would certainly be far less distinct than they are.[107]On the other hand, the habit of executing such movements has, so to say, brought the external world within the sphere of the internal. The world has been measured with man as a standard, and objects have been translated into the language of mental experience. The impressions have hereby gained not only in emotional tone, but also in intellectual comprehensibility.[108]
Greater still is the importance of imitation for our intuition of moving objects. And a difficult movement itself is fully understood only when it has been imitated, either internally or in actual outward activity. The idea of a movement, therefore, is generally associated with an arrested impulse to perform it.[109]Closer introspection will show every one to how great a part our knowledge, even of persons, is built up of motor elements. By unconsciously and imperceptibly copying in our own body the external behaviour of a man, we may learn to understand him with benevolent or malevolent sympathy.[110]And it will no doubt be admitted by most readers that the reason why they know their friends and foes better than they know any one else is that they carry the remembrance of them not only in their eyes, but in their whole body. When in idle moments we find the memory of an absent friend surging up in our mind with no apparent reason, we may often note, to our astonishment, that we have just been unconsciously adopting one of his characteristic attitudes, or imitating his peculiar gestures or gait.
It may, however, be objected that the above-mentioned instances refer only to a particular class of individuals. In other minds, it will be said, the world-picture is entirely built up of visual and acoustic elements. It is also impossible to deny that the classification of minds in different types, which modern psychology has introduced, is as legitimate as it is advantageous for the purposes of research. But we canhardly believe that such divisions have in view anything more than a relative predominance of the several psychical elements.[111]It is easily understood that a man in whose store of memory visual or acoustic images occupy the foremost place may be inclined to deny that motor sensations of unconscious copying enter to any extent into his psychical experience. But an exclusively visual world-image, if such a thing is possible, must evidently be not only emotionally poorer, but also intellectually less distinct and less complete, than an intuition, in which such motor elements are included.
The importance of motor sensations in the psychology of knowledge is by itself of no æsthetic interest. The question has been touched upon in this connection only because of the illustration which it gives to the imitation theory. If, as we believe is the case, it is really necessary, for the purpose of acquiring a complete comprehension of things and events, to “experience” them—that is to say, to pursue and seize upon them, not only with the particular organ of sense to which they appeal, but also by tracing movements of the whole body, then there is no need to wonder at the universality of the imitative impulse. Imitation does not only, according to this view, facilitate our training in useful activities, and aid us in deriving an æsthetic delight from our sensations: it serves also, and perhaps primarily, as an expedient for the accommodating of ourselves to the external world, and for the explaining of things by reference to ourselves. It is therefore natural that imitative movements should occupy so great a place among the activities of children and primitive men. And we can also understand why this fundamental impulse, which has played so important a part in racialas well as in individual education, may become so great as to be a disease and dominate the whole of conscious life.[112]As children we all imitated before we comprehended, and we have learned to comprehend by imitating.[113]It is only when we have grown familiar by imitation with the most important data of perception that we become capable of appropriating knowledge in a more rational way. Although no adult has any need to resort to external imitation in order to comprehend new impressions, it is still only natural that in a pathological condition he should relapse into the primitive imitative reaction. And it is equally natural that an internal,i.e.arrested, imitation should take place in all our perceptions. After this explanation of the universality of this phenomenon we have no further need to occupy ourselves with the general psychology of imitation. We have here only to take notice of its importance for the communication of feeling.
As is well known, it is only in cases of abnormally increased sensibility—for instance, in some of the stages of hypnotism and thought transmission—that the motor counterpart of a mental state can be imitated with such faithfulness and completeness that the imitator is thereby enabled to partake of all theintellectualelements of the state existing in another. The hedonic qualities, on the other hand, which are physiologically conditionedby much simpler motor counterparts, may of course be transmitted with far greater perfection: it is easier to suggest a pleasure than a thought. It is also evident that it is the most general hedonic and volitional elements which have been considered by the German authors on æsthetic in their theories on internal imitation (“Die innere Nachahmung”). They seem to have thought that the adoption of the attitudes and the performance of the movements which usually accompany a given emotional state will also succeed to some extent in producing a similar emotional state. This assumption is perfectly legitimate, even if the connection between feeling and movement be interpreted in the associative way. And it needs no justification when the motor changes are considered as the physiological correlate of the feeling itself.
Everyday experience affords many examples of the way in which feelings are called into existence by the imitation of their expressive movements. A child repeats the smiles and the laughter of its parents, and can thus partake of their joy long before it is able to understand its cause.[114]Adult life naturally does not give us many opportunities of observing this pure form of direct and almost automatic transmission. But even in adult life we may often meet with an exchange of feeling which seems almost independent of any intellectual communication. Lovers know it, and intimate friends like the brothers Goncourt,[115]to say nothing of people who stand in so close a rapport with each otheras a hypnotiser and his subject.[116]And even where there is no previous sympathetic relation, a state of joy or sadness may often, if it is only distinctly expressed, pass over, so to say, from the individual who has been under the influence of its objective cause, to another who, as it were, borrows the feeling, but remains unconscious of its cause. We experience this phenomenon almost daily in the influence exerted upon us by social intercourse, and even by those aspects of nature—for instance, blue open sky or overhanging mountains—which naturally call up in us the physical manifestation of emotional states. The coercive force with which our surroundings—animate or inanimate—compel us to adopt the feelings which are suggested by their attitudes, forms, or movements, is perhaps as a rule too weak to be noticed by a self-controlled, unemotional man. But if we want an example of this influence at its strongest, we need but remember how difficult it is for an individual to resist the contagion of collective feeling.[117]On public occasions the common mood, whether of joy or sorrow, is often communicated even to those who were originally possessed by the opposite feeling. So powerful is the infection of great excitement that—according to M. Féré—even a perfectly sober man who takes part in a drinking bout may often be tempted to join in the antics of his drunken comrades in a sort of second-hand intoxication, “drunkenness by induction.”[118]In the great mental epidemics of the Middle Ages this kind of contagion operated with more fatal results than ever before or afterwards. But evenin modern times a popular street riot may often show us something of the same phenomenon. The great tumult in London in 1886 afforded, it is said, a good opportunity of observing how people who had originally maintained an indifferent attitude were gradually carried away by the general excitement, even to the extent of joining in the outrages.[119]In this instance the contagious effect of expressional movements was undoubtedly facilitated by their connection with so primary an impulse as that of rapine and destruction. But the case is the same with all the activities which appear as the outward manifestations of our strongest feeling-states. They all consist of instinctive actions with which every one is well familiar from his own experience. It is therefore natural that anger, hate, or love may be communicated almost automatically from an individual to masses, and from masses to individuals.
Now that the principle of the interindividual diffusion of feeling has been stated and explained, we may return to our main line of research and examine its bearings on the expressional impulse. We have seen that in the social surroundings of the individual there is enacted a process resembling that which takes place within his own organism. Just as functional modifications spread from organ to organ, just as wider and wider zones of the system are brought into participation in the primary enhancement or inhibition, so a feeling is diffused from an individual to a circle of sympathisers who repeat its expressional movements. And just as all the widened “somatic resonances” contribute to the primary feeling-tone increased strength and increased definiteness, so must the emotional stateof an individual be enhanced by retroactive stimulation from the expressions by which the state has, so to say, been continued in others. By the reciprocal action of primary movements and borrowed movements, which mutually imitate each other, the social expression operates in the same way as the individual expression. And we are entitled to consider it as a secondary result of the general expressional impulse, that when mastered by an overpowering feeling we seek enhancement or relief by retroaction from sympathisers, who reproduce and in their expression represent the mental state by which we are dominated.
In point of fact we can observe in the manifestations of all strong feelings which have not found a satisfactory relief in individual expression, a pursuit of social resonance. A happy man wants to see glad faces around him, in order that from their expression he may derive further nourishment and increase for his own feeling. Hence the benevolent attitude of mind which as a rule accompanies all strong and pure joy. Hence also the widespread tendency to express joy by gifts or hospitality. In moods of depression we similarly desire a response to our feeling from our surroundings. In the depth of despair we may long for a universal cataclysm to extend, as it were, our own pain. As joy naturally makes men good, so pain often makes them hard and cruel. That this is not always the case is a result of the increased power of sympathy which we gain by every experienced pain. Moreover, we have need of sympathetic rapport for our motor reactions against pain. All the active manifestations of sorrow, despair, or anger which are not wholly painful in themselves are facilitated by the reciprocal influence of collective excitement. Thus all strongfeelings, whether pleasurable or painful, act as socialising factors.[120]This socialising action may be observed at all stages of development. Even the animals seek their fellows in order to stimulate themselves and each other by the common expression of an overpowering feeling. As has been remarked by Espinas, the flocking together of the male birds during the pairing season is perhaps as much due to this craving for mutual stimulation as to the desire to compete for the favour of the hen.[121]The howling choirs of the macaws[122]and the drum concerts of the chimpanzees[123]are still better and unmistakable instances of collective emotional expression. In man we find the results of the same craving for social expression in the gatherings for rejoicing or mourning which are to be met with in all tribes, of all degrees of development. And as a still higher development of the same fundamental impulse, there appears in man the artistic activity.
The more conscious our craving for retroaction from sympathisers, the more there must also be developed in us a conscious endeavour to cause the feeling to be appropriated by as many as possible and as completely as possible. The expressional impulse is not satisfied by the resonance which an occasional public, however sympathetic, is able to afford. Its natural aim is to bring more and more sentient beings under the influence of the same emotional state. It seeks tovanquish the refractory and arouse the indifferent. An echo, a true and powerful echo—that is what it desires with all the energy of an unsatisfied longing. As a result of this craving the expressional activities lead to artistic production. The work of art presents itself as the most effective means by which the individual is enabled to convey to wider and wider circles of sympathisers an emotional state similar to that by which he is himself dominated.
We propose in the next chapter to indicate the way in which art in its various forms has served the expressional craving.