The Sentiments Not Under the Direct Control of the Will

In making such an effort, a curious and important fact is forced on the attention of every one who reflects on the operations of his own mind; viz., that the feelings, propensities, and sentiments of our nature, are not, like the intellectual faculties, under the direct control of volition. The distinction is much the same as between the voluntary and the involuntary actions of different parts of the body.

One may, by a deliberate act of the will, set himself to calculate--to reason--to recall historical facts, etc., just as he does, to move any of his limbs: on the other hand, a volition to hope or fear, to love or hate, to feel devotion or pity, and the like, is as ineffectual as to will that the pulsations of the heart, or the secretions of the liver, should be altered. Many indeed are, I believe (strange as it would seem) not aware of the total inefficacy of their own efforts of volition in such cases: that is, they mistake for a feeling of gratitude, compassion, etc., their voluntary reflections on the subject, and their conviction that the case is one which calls for gratitude or compassion. A very moderate degree of attention, however, to what is passing in the mind, will enable any one to perceive the difference. A blind man may be fully convinced that a soldier's coat is of a different colour from a coal: and this his conviction is not more distinct from a perception of the colours, than a belief that some one is very much to be pitied, from a feeling of pity for him.

It is a very strange thing, certainly, that men should be so often greatly self-deceived in respect of their own feelings; and still more strange perhaps that this self-deceit, considering how very common it is, should have been seldom if ever noticed. Many a man would be most indignant at having it suggested, when he professes himself "very glad" of this, and "very sorry" for that (speaking with perfect sincerity as far as his own belief goes), that his feelings are in truth the reverse; that the event which he professes to rejoice at, and which perhaps he would really, from conscientious motives, have exerted himself to bring about, does in reality mortify and annoy him; and that he feels an inward relief and satisfaction at that which he professes, and believes himself, to lament. But let any one carefully and candidly look around him, and look within himself, and he will see reason for assenting to what has been here said. Of course this kind of self-deceit is the more likely to occur and the less likely to be detected, when it happens, as it often will, that there is a mixture of truth with error. We are often really under the influence of different, and even opposite emotions at once: e.g., we are in some respects gratified, and in others, pained, by the same occurrence: and it is in such cases most natural to imagine ourselves wholly under the influence of the feeling which our reason approves.

How the Feelings Are to Be Reached

How then is the difficulty to be surmounted which arises from the feelings not being (any more than certain muscles) under the direct control of the will? Good sense suggests, in each case, an analogous remedy. It is in vain to form a will to quicken or lower the circulation; but we may, by a voluntary act, swallow a medicine which will have that effect: and so also, though we cannot, by a direct effort of volition, excite or allay any sentiment or emotion, we may, by a voluntary act, fill the understanding with such thoughts as shall operate on the feelings. Thus, by attentively studying and meditating on the history of some extraordinary personage--by contemplating and dwelling on his actions and sufferings--his virtues and his wisdom--and by calling on the imagination to present a vivid picture of all that is related and referred to--in this manner, we may at length succeed in kindling such feelings, suppose, of reverence, admiration, gratitude, love, hope, emulation, etc., as we were already prepared to acknowledge are suitable to the case. So again, if a man of sense wishes to allay in himself any emotion, that of resentment for instance, though it is not under the direct control of the will, he deliberately sets himself to reflect on the softening circumstances; such as the provocations the other party may suppose himself to have received; perhaps, his ignorance, or weakness, or disordered state of health--he endeavours to imagine himself in the place of the offending party--and above all, if he is a sincere Christian, he meditates on the parable of the debtor who, after having been himself forgiven, claimed payment with rigid severity from his fellow-servant; and on other similar lessons of Scripture.

A Man of Sense Practices Rhetoric on Himself

Now in any such process as this (which is exactly analogous to that of taking a medicine that is to operate on the involuntary bodily organs), a process to which a man of well-regulated mind continually finds occasion to resort, he is precisely acting the part of a skilful orator, to himself; and that too, in respect of the very point to which the most invidious names are usually given, "the appeal to the feelings."

Such being then the state of the case, how, it may be said, can it be accounted for, that the idea of unfair artifice should be so commonly associated not only with rhetoric in general, but most especially with that particular part of it now under consideration? though no other artifice is necessarily employed by the orator than a man of sense makes use of towards himself.

Concluded on page four