PSYCHOSIS AS TRIPLE PROCESS.

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or organic sensations preponderate, may be supposed to contain from the beginning a rudimentary process of intellection in the vague discrimination of the qualities of the sensations which succeed one another.1

It seems certain that in the case of human consciousness. at least the three functional activities are always present in some degree of strength, though the proportion of strength varies very greatly. Thus, as will be seen more fully by-and-by, there is a close interaction between feeling and intellection. Most if not all presentations have some feeling-accompaniment or "affective tone," while it is the strength of this element of feeling which determines that maintenance and intensification of the presentation through the process of attention on which all distinct cognition depends. Intellection and willing again are closely connected. The intellectual processes involve attention, which in its higher form is volitional. On the other hand, willing or conation is always guided by a cognitive element, a representation of some object of desire and of an action fitted to realise the same. Lastly, feeling is intimately connected with willing, constituting indeed its immediate stimulus.

§ 4a. Form of Triple Process in Psychosis. If the three functions are thus found always to co-operate, we may, it is evident, say that every completed mental operation is constituted by the activities of the three functions. In other words, we may view every concrete mental state or psychosis as a "triple process," and various attempts have been made to represent the form of this compound process as one and the same in all cases. The more common form is that of the Herbartian psychologists, a presentation exciting feeling and leading to desire and so to conation. This scheme has recently been developed by Dr. James Ward. It rests on the assumption that presentation is, in a unique sense, fundamental and primordial, and that feeling and conation, if not derived from this, are at least dependent on it. That this order represents many of the processes of our more developed consciousness is indisputable. Our higher feelings are the concomitants of and are excited by intellectual elements (presentations or representations), and, as has been pointed out, feeling in many cases leads on to desire and voluntary action. Nevertheless the scheme by no means accurately represents all our concrete mental experiences. For one thing, feeling in its lower forms does not seem to follow or

1 The priority of feeling in animal consciousness is maintained by Horwicz, Psychologische Analysen, theil i. abschnitt vi., and theil ii. hälfte i. The presence of a germ of intellection in the lowest types of consciousness is well argued by Schneider, Der menschliche Wille, kap. ix. p. 190 seq.; and by Ward, Encyclopædia Britannica, art. “Psychology,” p. 40.

to depend on presentative elements. The initial phase in mental processes arising out of bodily (organic) sensations is distinctly one of feeling. A twinge of toothache or of muscular cramp is not first apprehended under its qualitative aspect, a twinge, and then felt as pain. It is this fact which gives support to those who, like Horwicz and Körner, regard bodily feeling as prior to intellect. Even in the case of the higher feelings it is not uncommon to find feeling preceding representation. This applies, for example, to sudden and disturbing sense-impressions which affect us disagreeably before they are objects of apprehension, and to worrying thoughts, e.g., of some omitted duty, which give us trouble before they emerge into clear consciousness. Moreover, attention to presentations, as we shall see, appears in all cases to follow feeling, which here assumes the form of interest, and it has been pointed out that there is no process of intellection without attention. It seems to follow that the forms of combination of the three functional activities are more complicated and admit of more variation than any such simple scheme would imply. More particularly such a scheme overlooks the fact of the interaction of the elements. This interaction may be illustrated in the case of looking at any attractive object, say a pleasant or curious face. Here we have the development of a presentation under a stimulus of feeling which excites the attention, and the reciprocal action of this developed presentation on the feeling. Similarly there is an interaction between intellectual and volitional processes, and between feeling and volition.1

§ 5. Nature of Psychological Classification. The division of mind into feeling, knowing, and willing is commonly spoken of as a classification of mental states. If, however, all our concrete states are constituted by a co-operation of the three factors, it is evident that we cannot classify these by referring them to one or another of the heads. Thus, if an emotion always contains intellectual elements, we cannot refer it to the head of feeling as if it were a feeling pure and simple. The ordering or arranging of psychical phenomena differs from that of material things, such as minerals or plants, which are thought of as detached objects, and are logically grouped in particular classes because of a number of important and decisive similarities.

1 The common Herbartian view of the dependence of feeling on presentation and of conation on feeling may be studied in Lotze. (See Microcosmus, bk. ii. chap. ii.) Cf. Wundt, Physiol. Psych. i. p. 541, etc. Ward has introduced more complication by his double act of attention, without however materially altering the order of dependence of the three elements. (See Encyclopædia Britannica, art. "Psychology," PP. 40-44.) That this order of dependence is not obviously apparent in all cases may be seen by the form of the triple process put forth by the late G. H. Lewes, viz., Sensible Affection (which includes pleasure and pain), logical grouping (intellection), and motor impulse (volition). (Problems of Life and Mind, third series, vol. ii. p. 240 and following.) Cf. on this same subject Bain, Mind, xiv. p. 101 ff.

CLASSIFICATION OF PSYCHICAL STATES.

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In other words, psychological classification is not what logicians call a natural classification.

In speaking of a phenomenon of feeling or of intellection it must always be understood that we are resorting to the logical artifice of abstraction, and singling out for special consideration some particular factor or aspect of a concrete mental state. And theoretically every concrete state can be considered thrice by a reference to each of its three factors. At the same time, as already hinted, there are broad differences among our concrete mental experiences answering to these distinctions. Thus there are mental operations, such as following a train of thought or reasoning, where the intellectual factor is so much more important than the emotional that we can disregard this last without appreciable error. And the same is true of states of mind which we should all describe as feelings or emotions, or as volitions. Hence the psychologist is able to consider apart and trace the separate development of what we distinguish as the life of thought, of feeling, and of action. And no harm comes from this so long as it is remembered that we are abstracting, i.e., viewing an element apart from other conjoined elements, and that we must supply the omitted reference to other co-operant factors when we come on to specially consider these.

The objection recently taken by Ward and others against the use of the word classification in psychology is perhaps not quite so convincing as it looks. It seems to be forgotten that any separating out of a concrete psychical state or psychosis is an arbitrary proceeding. Our conscious life is a continuous flow of changes, and it is impossible to divide this off into sections or slices and call these complete mental operations. This being so, it is only a step slightly more arbitrary at the worst to make our sections still smaller and distinguish between successive moments of feeling, intellection, and conation (as Ward himself indeed does), and make these our psychological units instead of the supposed 'concrete states' which are compounded out of these.1

§ 5a. Theory of Mental Faculties. The attempt to reach elementary functions of mind and to exhibit all concrete mental operations as compounded of these is comparatively recent. The tendency of psychologists has been to separate as sharply as possible different modes of operation by referring them to distinct faculties. Thus will was viewed as a faculty distinct from intellect; and within the domain of intelligence, observation a faculty distinct from imagination, this distinct from judgment, and so forth. The extreme form of the faculty-theory was

1 On this point see article "Psychology," Encyclopædia Britannica, p. 44, and Mind, vol. xiii. p. 80.

a view of mind as made up of a number of separate powers, each of which carried on its operations with supreme indifference to all the rest, and as having no more organic unity than a number of sticks fastened together in a bundle. The facultyhypothesis was severely criticised by Herbart, who endeavoured not only to reduce all intellectual operations to one simple type, representation (Vorstellung),1 but to make this the fundamental form of mental activity and to regard feeling and conation as based upon, if not indeed derivable from, the Vorstellung and its laws. The tendency of psychologists to erect abstract distinctions into separate existences has received a blow in this country also from the Associationists from Hartley downwards. For, by regarding all forms of cognition as the product of association working on sense-elements, and by showing the operation of the same laws of association in the domain of feeling and of volition, they have brought prominently into view the identity of texture of all parts of our mental life. The precise relation of faculty to function has been well illustrated by G. H. Lewes. (Study of Psychology, p. 27 and following.) According to him faculty is the special modification of a (native) function, which modification is brought about by education.

§ 6. Psychical and Physiological Functions. Thus far we have sought to distinguish between the elementary psychical functions by a process of purely subjective analysis, and without reference to their physiological accompaniments. But if there is a general correlation between psychical and certain physiological phenomena, we may expect it to show itself in respect of these distinctions of function. That is to say, to the tripartite division of psychical function we may expect to find corresponding a tripartite distinction of nervous function.

Now, as was pointed out above, the functions of the nervous system are broadly divisible into two, sensory and motor. And this bipartite division appears to apply to all the cerebral processes. Moreover, every nervous process may be viewed as compounded of these as its factors. The simplest type of nerve-process (the reflex action) is a sensory stimulation. followed by a motor discharge (see above, p. 46); and this form appears to be the common one in the case of the highest cerebral actions.8

1 The reader must remember that the German psychologists do not distinguish presentations and representations as we do, but include both under the term Vorstellung.

On the defects of the Faculty-theory, see Lotze, Microcosmus, book ii. chap. ii.; cf. Stout's exposition of Herbart's view in Mind, vol. xiv. p. 322; and Wundt, Physiol. Psychol. Einleitung, 2.

It has recently been shown that every process of thought is attended by a slight motor discharge. See a remarkable paper by Dr. Ch. Féré on "Sensation and Movement" in Brain, July, 1885.

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It is thus evident that the physiological division of cerebral function does not correspond with the psychological division of psychical function. It would roughly answer to the old bipartite division of mind into a cognitive and a conative factor. The tripartite division is thus in a peculiar manner the outcome of subjective analysis, unaided by objective (physiological) considerations.

While we are thus unable to make out a close correspondence between psychological and physiological distinctions of function, we may with some degree of precision determine the nervous concomitants of the three psychical factors.

Intellection evidently involves the sensory side of the system, viz., the peripheral organs of sense, by which are received the impressions that supply the material for thought. The processes of elaborating this material into thought further involve as their physiological basis that network of nervous connexions which we find in the higher centres of the brain. It must be added that a subordinate motor element is also involved in these processes of intellection, viz., in the accompaniments of the act of attention.

Feeling, again, involves the sensory side of the nervous system, since it is through sensory nerves that the simplest modes of pleasure and pain are excited. In addition to this feeling engages the motor organs. The peculiar physiological concomitant of feeling is indeed a widely-diffused discharge from the centres on the voluntary muscles and on the internal organs of circulation, respiration, etc. Violent contraction or extreme laxity of the muscles, changes in temperature, in the action of the heart, and so forth, are the known attendants of strong emotion, and contribute, as we shall see, an important characteristic colouring to our emotional

states.

Lastly, Willing or Conation involves a restricted or selected motor discharge or system of discharges. In carrying out a voluntary action certain movements have to be carefully coordinated, and other movements inhibited. Such a result can only be brought about by the excitation of a definite group of motor centres, and this again takes place as the consequent of a co-ordination between certain sensory regions and the particular motor regions concerned.