صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

are before and after, are above and below, awareness of these relations guides our reactions to the things. And since the relations often equal or outweigh the things in practical importance, awareness of relations will often be of as great service as awareness of things.

The Function of Feelings of Meaning.-The function of an individual notion is to provide a constant mental sign for one particular thing, regardless of the variations in its appearances in percepts and images. Thus we can mean or think 'John Smith' no matter whether his face or voice or the sound of his name is perceived or imaged. The provision of a constant mental sign to stand for 'John Smith' anywhere and always implies the provision for similar reaction to 'John Smith' anywhere and always. The individual notion then enables anyone to economize by having one reaction to one thing instead of many reactions to its many varied appearances.

The function of a general notion or concept is to provide a constant mental sign for any one of the members of a group. As before this implies the power to react similarly to any member of the group by reacting to the sign that stands for any one of them. Since seven means any seven and five means any five, any seven and any five make twelve. Since acid means any acid and base means any base we can once for all form habits of knowledge and action respecting the union of any acid and any base. General notions are the short-hand of thought.

The function of an abstract notion or abstraction is to provide a mental sign for and hence means of reaction to some element or aspect or quality or relationship regardless of the particular thing or things in which it appears. Thus we react to intentions regardless of results; to lengths without either breadth or thickness; to times apart from anything happening in them; to shapes regardless

of what they are shapes of. In a sense we recreate the world to suit us by analyzing it in thought into elements more manageable and by reacting, not to the total situation with which we are confronted, but to some element in it which offers a vital point of attack.

The Function of Emotions.—Emotions serve to emphasize certain things and conditions and to lead to action in more specific and intense ways than do sensations and percepts. They commonly go with those things and conditions which nature has taught us to emphatically seek or avoid. The teachings of nature in this respect are however of much less value in the conditions of modern civilized life than they would be if man were still leading an animal life in the woods. Jealousy and rage, for instance, could be omitted from human life with little loss.

It is often stated that the emotions furnish the energy for action, while the intellectual states only guide and enlighten; that without the emotions man would never act vigorously. This is false. Men of vigorous action seem to be moved by strong emotions because acting vigorously itself tends to produce strong emotions, but really clear insight and prompt decision do as much to favor action as do soul-stirring fervor and intense passion. It would be truer to say that strong emotions represent a partial waste of the energy that should be used in action. The waste is only partial; for the emotion does, as was said in the previous paragraph, emphasize the situation and so intensifies action somewhat.

The Functions of Connecting, Selecting and Analyzing Agencies.—It is perhaps needless to call attention to the function of habits, the associations of ideas, and judgments. They are all names for connections; the first a general name, the second a name for connections amongst ideas only and the third for connections

commonly between concepts, abstractions and individual notions, connections that also usually involve a felt relationship. The function of connections as a class was made clear in the first few paragraphs of this chapter. Instincts, though also connections showing in general the function of all connections, have as their special function that of providing for the essentials of preservation and of serving as the material out of which the edifice of habits is reared.

Analysis, in the sense of noting parts, does the actual work of breaking the direct concrete experiences of things up into elements, and so of producing the abstractions the function of which we found to be so important. In fact the power to 'see into things,' to 'pick out the essential factor in a situation' is as important practically as the power to 'put two and two together;' so that analysis is as useful as association.

The function of attention, is, first, to economize time and effort. The selective activity for which attention stands concentrates mental life upon the things, qualities, and conditions of moment to us and allows the rest of the universe to slip by without taking our time. It allows us to proportion the prominence any thing shall have in the mind to the importance it possesses for our welfare. In the second place, attention is one main step toward analysis.

Only this brief statement of the functions of the means of connection, selection and analysis is given here, because the same topic will be dealt with more fully in Part III.

Exercises

The function or part played by different features of mental life can be concretely imagined by thinking what would be lost from life by the loss of any one of them.

acts.

Thus suppose a man to be:—

1. Without any concepts or abstractions.

2. Without any permanence to his ideas.

3. Without any images.

4. Without any established connections amongst his ideas. 5. Without any established connections between ideas and

6. Without any restriction of thought to special features of the situations encountered.

7. Without any sensations.

8. What are some of the difficulties that would be caused if the feelings of things in memory or anticipation were indistinguishable from the feelings of things present to perception?

PART II

THE PHYSIOLOGICAL BASIS OF

MENTAL LIFE

CHAPTER IX

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

§ 23. Gross Structure

Human thought and conduct are intimately connected with the working of the nervous system, by which is meant the brain and spinal cord, the nerves from these to the organs of sense and to the muscles, the nervous tissue in the organs of sense, and the sympathetic system and local ganglia. Injuries to or diseases of the nervous system cause marked changes in thinking and action., Brain tumors may result in disordered thinking; diseases of certain nerves cause inability to move the corresponding muscles; disease of the optic nerve causes blindness. Drugs which affect the nervous system, such as chloroform, alcohol and hashish, produce mental symptoms. The development of the nervous system in child life parallels the growth of bodily control, intellect and character. From a vast amount of such evidence as this it is abundantly shown that the thoughts and feelings and behavior of men are in direct relations with the activities of the nervous system.

The appearance to the naked eye of the human nervous system, as in Figs. 2, 3 and 4, offers little instruction

« السابقةمتابعة »