CHAPTER I. SECTION I.-THE RELATION BETWEEN EMOTION AND INTELLECT. IF by an effort we rise to a point of view in relation to matters of life above our ordinary one,-if we attempt to be not merely a link in the continuous chain of social life-struggle, but mentally to step out of it and try to overlook the interlinking of life, and to acquire a bird's-eye view of the whole, we can perceive what are termed general tendencies. If we make this effort in regard to thought, we may notice a tendency among some men of science respecting the question we have to deal with, the relation between Emotion and Intellect. There is a tendency to favour Intellect, and to disfavour, if not actually to repress, Emotion. The chain of reasoning runs thus: Children are more emotional; grown-up people are more intellectual and less emotional. Mankind in its childhood, in earlier days, was more emotional, and has grown, and is still growing, more intellectual and less emotional. This is the course of development, and we ought to act in accordance with it. This is faulty reasoning, for, first, the true nature of Emotion and of Intellect has been lost sight of; and, second, such a conception of development is fatalistic. Mental development is the sum and result of all mental action; it is not a something that from without pushes us in a certain direction; but the united action of our faculties gives both motion and direction. Another reason for the misconception concerning the true nature of Emotion is a more personal one. When, in endeavouring to teach arithmetic, your pupil persists in saying twice 2 is 5, and not 4, and instead of proving it simply says, ' He feels that it is so,' it will be natural for you to be indignant both with him and with the principle which furnishes a pretext for this absurdity. Well, some men oppose the laws and truths of Science, and, when pressed, seek to justify themselves on the ground of Emotion. I do not say that it is done in bad faith; with the greatest number it arises from a misunderstanding of the true nature of Emotion and its relation to Intellect. What is more natural and human for those who in turn oppose these men, than to combat both their faulty conclusions, and, in the heat of the combat, the supposed allied power? But an old proverb says, 'One must not pour out the child with the bath-water,' and the whole confusion can be overcome by learning thoroughly what Emotion and Intellect are, and what is the relation between them. Emotion, then, is the moving power of mind, and Intellect the guiding power. The simplest, lowest form of this moving element in man we call Sensation. We notice still lower forms of the same element in animals and plants. But here we are only dealing with man and the human mind. The highest and most complex form of this mental motor power I call the Emotions, and of these we have three large classes: the Ethical, the Esthetical, and the Cognitive Emotions-having for their corresponding objects the Good, the Beautiful, and the True. Emotion is the bridge over which all action must pass; be it through feelings, like pleasure and pain, liking or dislike, admiration or disgust, we must have felt before we can be driven to outwardly-manifest action, or even inward mental action,-thought. Even a cognition must be supported by an emotional state before it can be an effective guide to conduct. SECTION II.-FEELING AND KNOWING. The Cognitive Emotion is called Belief. It is the subjective state of mind corresponding to truth; the ultimate test of each belief is its power to drive us on to its corresponding action. There are numerous inward tests of belief; but the only true test of a firm belief is this moving power. Many a man believes in the strength of his character; but if he represents with vivid imagination the alluring temptations which he is to undergo, his belief may waver. The best instance of such a test is afforded by George Eliot in Romola, where a great man, convinced of his prophetic vocation, has to submit to this final test his belief in a super natural intervention on his own behalf, by walking through fire. "Not that Savonarola had uttered and written a falsity when he declared his belief in a future supernatural attestation of his work; but his mind was so constituted that while it was easy for him to believe in a miracle which, being distant and undefined, was screened behind the strong reasons he saw for its occurrence, and yet easier for him to have a belief in inward miracles, such as his own.prophetic inspiration and divinely-wrought intuitions; it was at the same time insurmountably difficult to him to believe in the probability of a miracle which, like this of being carried unhurt through the fire, pressed in all its details on his imagination, and involved a demand not only for belief, but for exceptional action." What do we mean by saying a truth is clear to us?— when we suddenly clap our hands, rise from our desk and pace the room, saying, 'I see, I see !'-when after a long conversation in which A endeavours to explain to B the relation between Heat and Force, Labour and Capital, B suddenly opens his eyes, taps his forehead, and exclaims, 'I have it now!' We have read the same words before, heard the same sentences over and over again; we have understood every single part, but we have not put them together; there was no Synthesis. At last, we hold it all, as it were, with one grasp, and we no longer say, 'I see,' but 'I feel how true that is.' Every time, as children, the words 'Honesty is the best policy,' or, 'Procrastination is the thief of time,' were repeated to us, the effect upon our mind was, that at first we hardly understood their verbal meaning; afterwards, they were so frequently repeated, and became so truly commonplace, that they had no power to stimulate our thoughts, and we either paid no attention to them, or even discredited them. Suddenly, one day, a cleverly-hidden dishonesty is discovered; or we find how much we really accomplish by doing things immediately. The vast amount of truth in such a rough-and-ready epigram, before underrated, now stands before us and we say, 'How true that is! The proverb ought to be reserved for moments like the present. The inventors even of the proverb have not fully understood its drift.' We feel as though we had newly invented it—it is born anew, at least in that deep signification. And what has caused all this? We understood every word in the adage before; not a word has been omitted, not a word has been added: the subject-matter is the same. Well, we have now for the first time felt the weight of the whole; it is clear to us, a part of us; it can move us on to action; it has become emotional. A great truth-a law of nature—is only then our own when we have fully mastered it, and embodied it into our mind; when it has become part of us-then only can it be of any effect in our action, and become a motive. We knew our multiplication-table by heart long before we had really grasped it. We have had the law of the Conservation of Energy preached to us, and we assent to every particular part of the whole, and yet do not fully conceive its all-pervading influence. Only when we are thoroughly imbued with it, when it has gone over 'in succum et sanguinem,' into flesh and |