e so much in common that each, when it occurs, can be definitely
thought of as like those which preceded it. But in the genesis of an
emotion the successive experiences so far differ that each of them, when
it occurs, suggests past experiences which are not specifically similar,
but have only a general similarity; and, at the same time, it suggests
benefits or evils in past experience which likewise are various in their
special natures, though they have a certain community in general nature.
Hence it results that the consciousness aroused is a multitudinous,
confused consciousness, in which, along with a certain kind of
combination among the impressions received from without, there is a
vague cloud of ideal combinations akin to them, and a vague mass of
ideal feelings of pleasure or pain which were associated with these. We
have abundant proof that feelings grow up without reference to
recognized causes and consequences, and without the possessor of them
being able to say why they have grown up; though analysis,
nevertheless, shows that they have been formed out of connected
experiences. The familiar fact that a kind of jam which was, during
childhood, repeatedly taken after medicine, may become, by simple
association of sensations, so nauseous that it cannot be tolerated in
after-life, illustrates clearly the way in which repugnances may be
established by habitual association of feelings, without any belief in
causal connexion; or rather, in spite of the knowledge that there is no
causal connexion. Similarly with pleasurable emotions. The cawing of
rooks is not in itself an agreeable sound: musically considered, it is
very much the contrary. Yet the cawing of rooks usually produces in
people feelings of a grateful kind--feelings which most of them suppose
to result from the quality of the sound itself. Only the few who are
given to self-analysis are aware that the cawing of rooks is agreeable
to them because it has been connected with countless of their greatest
gratifications--with the gathering of wild flowers in childhood; with
Saturday-afternoon excursions in school-boy days; with midsummer
holidays in the country, when books were thrown aside and lessons were
replaced by games and adventures in the fields; with fresh, sunny
mornings in after-years, when a walking excursion was an immense relief
from toil. As it is, this sound, though not causally related to all
these multitudinous and varied past delights, but only