CHAPTER VIII

THE FUNCTIONS OF MENTAL STATES

§ 21. The Function of Mental Life as a Whole

Thoughts and Feelings Influence Action.-The function of thoughts and feelings,-i.e., the work they do, the service they perform, their share in the business of life, is to influence actions. In some wider, freer world than that of this present life, mental states may count of themselves directly. But as things are here, we help or harm our fellow men only by what we do. Only when a man's ideas and emotions issue in effects on his deeds, words, gestures, facial expression or other bodily acts, do they make any difference to anyone else. And in truth, though it would be a long task to explain why, it is only when they influence such acts of body or at least of brain, that they make any permanent difference to him. Unless mental states resulted in acts that altered the physical world or the bodies and minds of men they would be of no service, and would as well not be. In § 27 it will be shown that sooner or later, directly or indirectly, every mental state is expressed or worked off in causing or inhibiting bodily movements or brain changes. That we now see to be their reason for being. We feel the outside world in order that we may react to it. We remember and learn and reason in order that we may modify our reactions to it. The great majority of our feelings have as their function to change our behavior.

The great majority of our actions are done in response to and under the guidance of mental states. Getting up, dressing, eating breakfast, the work of business or study, the play of games and social life, what we say, where we go, the entire course of a day's doings minus the merely physiological activities of digestion, circulation and the like, represent the stimulation to and control of conduct by thought. The history of a man's life of action as a whole is the history of the changes in his natural make-up which have been wrought by his mental life. The steel which always reacts uniformly to the magnet by approach, -the acid and metal which always react by combining to form hydrogen and a salt, these give no sign that they possess feelings; but in the animal kingdom in proportion as we find the power to change the individual's responses to conditions, to adapt behavior to circumstances, in the same proportion we find evidences of conscious life.

Knowledge Is Not the Sole or Ultimate Purpose of Thought. It is a common mistake to speak of mental states as a means to knowledge as if that were their final goal. Mental states are not in all cases means to knowledge. Many of our emotions and impulses furnish us only with tendencies to act. For instance, love and envy do not enlighten our minds with respect to their objects. but only change our dispositions toward them. When mental states are means to knowledge the knowledge itself is really valuable chiefly as a means to action. would be of little advantage to have sensations of cold or knowledge of the physiological effects of low temperature if one never was moved thereby to put on a coat or build a fire. The reasoning of the mathematician is well nigh profitless until it is expressed in words or diagrams or some other form of expression so as to influence the world's behavior. We learn so as to do. Thought aims

It

at knowledge, but with the final aim of using the knowledge to guide action.

Adaptation. Intelligent behavior,—that is, reacting to the situations of life so as to adapt oneself to them,— involves three factors: (1) being sensitive, (2) acting or making movements, and (3) connecting with each of the different situations certain particular movements. might give these three factors names as follows:

(1) Sensitiveness or Power of Impression or Reception.

(2) Movement or Power of Expression or Action. (3) Connection or Power of Association or Elaboration.

We could then say that the function of mental ife was to be impressed by the environment and to associate suitable acts with all impressions. The work of education is to make the impressions, acts and connections between them suitable, not only in the sense of suiting the actual world but also in the higher sense of suiting the ideal demands which are to transform the imperfect world that is into some better world of the future.

That mental life in general serves to adapt conduct to environment in useful ways does not imply that in each and every case it does so. Feet are useful in general but they sometimes trip us up; the blood is useful in general but it serves at times as the medium for disease. So thought, though useful in general, at times leads men into blunders. That we can swallow food implies that we can also swallow poison, and that we can think wisely implies also that we can make mistakes. Moreover, just as the evolution of the body does not keep pace with the changes in the environment and manifests useless organs such as the vermiform appendix, so also the mind shows useless

sensations such as those coming from tickling, useless emotions such as hysterical fear or joy.

I shall not waste the reader's time in the following account of the special functions of different classes of feelings and connections between them by rehearsing under each head the cases of useless functioning. The reader should once for all understand that such exceptions occur. In the text only the more general facts will be presented.

§ 22. The Functions of Different Groups of Mental States

The Function of Sensations and Percepts.-The function of sensations and percepts is to serve as signals to warn us of the presence of some thing or quality or condition and so to arouse the appropriate thought or act or emotion. Sensations and percepts may be likened to the signals of an army or the steam-gauge of an engine. They report what occurs within and in the neighborhood of our bodies, that is they report more or less of the environment, and thus are the first step in our adaptations to it. This does not mean that a sensation or percept necessarily resembles or duplicates or mirrors the thing it stands for. The feeling of sweet no more needs to be like sugar than does the position of the indicator on a steam-gauge to be like an explosion. A toothache is no more like a decayed tooth than it is like a green light; a sound is no more like air-vibrations than like ether-vibrations. The function of the sensations is not to give us a picture of the outside world but to lead us to act properly toward it. It is indeed literally true that we in any case sense not so much what is present, as what it is useful for us to feel.

The different sensations give, of course, warnings of

the existence of different qualities or features of physical things or bodily conditions. Sights and sounds are specialized signals of distant objects; pains, of conditions dangerous to life and health; and so on through the list. In general, sensations are warnings that emphasize the presence of qualities and conditions, while percepts are warnings of the presence of things themselves.

The Functions of Images and Memory.-The function of images is to permit us to prepare for future reactions to things not at the time present. They allow us, so to speak, to anticipate the future, to prepare for war in time of peace. By thinking of the frosty Caucasus we can take measures in thought or action against the time when we shall actually confront it. It is by virtue of images that man thinks before and after and so modifies his behavior apart from the stress of immediate contact with things. He can thus spend days in preparation for a situation which in actual presence would allow of hardly a minute's thought. Instead of having to wait for the convenience of nature, he can suit nature to his thought.

The function of the permanence of mental changes in conscious memory and in unconscious habits of thought and action is, of course, to permit experiences to extend their influence into the future. Man and other animals as well would quickly succumb to the environment if the lessons it taught them in one hour were all lost during the next. It would be useless and indeed meaningless to learn if we learned only immediately to forget.

The Function of Feelings of Relationships. To explain in detail the service rendered by feelings of relationships would require too intricate an analysis of their influence on human conduct. In general they enable man to adapt his reactions to the world as a related whole. Since things are alike and different, are causes and effects,