§ 5. Sentiment and Emotion. — After the full treatment of emotion in bk. iii., div. i., ch. iv., it is not necessary to say much more about it at this point. What is true of perceptual process, holds, mutatis mutandis, of ideational. On the perceptual plane, the actual presence of a dangerous situation excites fear; on the ideational, the ideal prevision of a similar situation has a similar effect. All the general characteristics of emotion which we enumerated in bk. iii., div. i., ch. iv., § 1 (Emotions.), apply equally to perceptual and ideational process.

There is only one point which appears to require more extended treatment at this stage. We noted that emotions, so far as they had not their primary origin in organic change, usually exhibit a parasitical character.

They are in the main secondary phenomena, and presuppose the existence of more specific tendencies. The anger, for instance, produced in a dog by taking away its bone presupposes the specific appetite for food.

Now on the ideational plane the specific tendencies which condition the occurrence of emotion are incomparably more varied and complex than the primary perceptual tendencies. All the various systems of ideas which grow up in the process of ideal construction of the world and of the Self, have their cognitive aspect. Each system of ideas is a general tendency to feel and act in certain ways under certain circumstances. It is convenient to have a general name for ideal systems, considered from this point of view. It does not appear that any better word can be selected for the purpose than sentiment, though in so employing it we extend its application beyond the range of ordinary usage. If we give this extended application to the word, we may regard emotions which presuppose mental dispositions organised through previous trains of ideational activity, as episodes in the lifehistory of sentiment.

The credit of first drawing attention to this distinction between emotion and sentiment belongs to Mr. Shand, and we cannot do better than quote his words. Emotions "are in a sense adjectival and qualify a more stable feeling. Whereas the specific organisation of our sentiments, — affection for our friends, the homesentiment, and every sentiment that we can use the term ' love' to express, as love of knowledge, art, goodness, love of comfort, and all our interests, as interest in our health, fortune and profession, interest in books, collections, selfinterest,— these, so far from being mere adjectives and qualifying other feelings, are the relatively stable centres to which the first attach themselves, the substantives of these adjectives, the complex wholes which contain in their possible lifehistory the entire gamut of the emotions.

In the love of an object , there is pleasure in presence and desire in absence, hope or despondency in anticipation, fear in the expectation of its loss, injury, or destruction, surprise or astonishment in its unexpected changes, anger when the course of our interest is opposed or frustrated, elation when we triumph over obstacles, satisfaction or disappointment in attaining our desire, regret in the loss, injury, or destruction of the object, joy in its restoration or improvement, and admiration for its superior quality or excellence. And this series of emotions occurs, now in one order, now in another, in every sentiment of love or interest, when the appropriate conditions are present.

Now consider how these same emotions repeat themselves, often with opposite objects, in the lifehistory of every sentiment which we name dislike or hatred. There is pain instead of pleasure in the presence of the object, desire to be rid of it, to escape from its presence, except we can injure it or lower its quality, hope or despondency according to the chances of accomplishing this desire, elation or disappointment with success or failure, anger or fear when it is thrust upon us and persists, surprise when the unexpected occurs, regret or grief, not in its loss or injury, but in its presence and prosperous state." *

* " Character and the Emotions," Mind, n.s., No. 18 (April, 1896), pp. 217218.

The distinction between emotion and sentiment is to a large extent a distinction between dispositions and actual states of consciousness. Such a sentiment as friendship cannot be experienced in its totality at any one moment. It is felt only in the special phase which is determined by the circumstances of the moment. If we are parting from our friend, we feel sorrow; if we are about to meet him after long absence, we feel joy. The joy and the sorrow are actual experiences; but the sentiment which includes the susceptibility to either according to circumstances, cannot in its totality be an actual experience. It is a complex emotional disposition * which manifests itself variously under varying conditions. These varying manifestations are the actual experiences which we call emotions. Thus we may say that so far as actual experience is concerned the sentiment is constituted by the manifold emotions in which it manifests itself. But this must be understood with an important qualification. We must not suppose that all sentiments are capable of manifesting themselves in the same emotions. On the contrary, the character of the emotion is specifically different according to the nature of the sentiment on which it depends; and the difference may be important enough to justify a different name for the emotion. This is specially exemplified in the distinction between the emotions which have reference to personal and to impersonal objects respectively. The "emotions common to our love of whatever object become complicated with new differentiations in the love or hatred of a human being. Pleasure in the presence of the object, desire for it in absence, for the preservation of its existence, for its superior quality, anger or fear when it is threatened, hope, admiration, disappointment, regret, recur, and constitute the love of the object, of its wellbeing; but the specific emotion of sympathy is differentiated. The nearest approach to this in our love of inanimate things, or those great constructions of our thought, business, knowledge, art, morality, is the interest we take in the continuance of the object, in its improvement, or heightened quality, and, conversely, in the pain which any loss of quality, injury, or destruction occasions. Now if we supposed the object were self-conscious and took pleasure in its own continuance and improvement, and felt pain in its injury or lowered quality, there would then occur a sympathy or identical feeling excited in two conscious beings in reference to the same object. Thus where human beings are concerned, there necessarily arise coincidences of this sort which, multiplying in those common situations where danger or injury is present, develop the emotion of sympathy as a new component of the love of the object. And in the process of development, pity acquires a qualitative flavour distinguishing it from the pain felt in the injury or destruction of inanimate objects.

In the next place, the pleasure felt for the excellence or superiority of an object that we love, develops into the new emotions of respect and reverence: respect where there is a superior power or quality which fails to win admiration, reverence where this superior quality is recognised as moral. And both admiration and something of fear blend in this emotion and give to it a flavour and specific quality of its own.

Lastly, consider how the regret or sorrow that we feel when we have injured any object that we are interested in or love, where human beings are concerned, and our action is not accidental but the outcome of anger, or the change from love to hatred, differentiates the new emotions of remorse and repentance. Repentance is no mere revival of this same universal sorrow or regret; it has acquired a character of its own with the blame that we pass on ourselves, the futile effort to recall and undo the past, the hope and desire and resolution to make the future different. And remorse too has a character of its own, with the fear and even horror that blend with it, the regret for what has been done, without the hope and resolution of repentance, but rather with a deep despondency or despair which sees no possible escape."*

* Op. cit., pp. 218219.