Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/359

A CLASSIFICATION OF FEELINGS. 347 with, the feelings of Desperation on the one side and of Despair on the other. When we follow this protuberance upward toward the apex of the cone, we find that it gradually merges into Fear, while its neighbours similarly graduate, the one into Courage, the other into Defeat. Followed still higher, Fear narrows first into Hatred, then through Dislike into Annoyance ; Courage becomes first Anger and then Vexation; and Defeat becomes modified into Mortification of various degrees. If, instead of noticing the connexions among the feelings, we pay attention to the divisions between them, we find additional evidence that this solid diagram truly represents their relations to one another. For if the buttresses are large and prominent at the base and diminish towards the apex, it is but stating the same fact in another way to say that the divisions between them at the base are deep, and become more and more shallow as they run upwards, until at the apex they disappear. And if we turn from the diagram to the feelings whose relations it represents, we find that the differences between them have a corresponding disposition. Between the Despair that attends a failure to counteract the action of a noxious agent whose power is cognised as overwhelming, and the Triumphant Exultation that follows an unexpected success, the interval is as great as can possibly exist between feelings of the same genus. Between the Triumph that attends success over an agent previously cognised as superior, and the wretchedness of Defeat that attends failure of the counteraction, not only is the difference less than in the previous case, but other things being equal, it is less in exact proportion as the power of the agent is cognised as less overwhelming. When the agent is approximately equal in power the gap between the feeling aroused by success and that aroused by non-success, though still very considerable, is manifestly less. As the agent becomes less and less powerful, the interval between the two sets of feelings aroused by success and by non-success diminishes more and more, until as the agent becomes insignificant the feelings subside into a dead level of indifference. Again, the feeling of abject Terror that accompanies the absence of all effort to resist an overwhelmingly powerful enemy differs very widely from the feeling of Desperation that accompanies the strenuous effort to resist. Between Fear, the homologue of Terror, and Courage, the homologue of Desperation, the interval, though still great, is not so great. When we rise to the next "whorl" of feelings, in which the relative powers of the agent and the organism are cognised as approximately equal, the corresponding feelings of Hate and Anger are