CHAPTER VI.

CERTAIN POSSIBLE OBJECTIONS.
It seems desirable at this stage to consider certain possible objections in detail.
The facts of outright physical murder on the one
hand, and of uttermost self-sacrifice
basemen" of the physical life on the other, seem
physical to conflict with the theory of the nature
death. of Loye and of Hate prOpOunded. here,
in so far as it says that absolute union or absolute separation is impossible. But the reconciliation is to be found in the consideration that even in these cases— when they are true instances of Love and Hate — there is in the consciousness the perpetuation of the relation of Love or of Hate, as the case may be, that is to say, a perpetuation of both the factors or Jlvas in the relation of love or of hate, and so an absence of utter union or separation. This explanation will not appear very satis- factory to those who have not yet seen by nature reason to believe that the individual of consci- self, the Jiva, has any life apart from ousness. the present physical body. Yet the fact of the consciousness of a perpetual, unending rela-
CERTAIN POSSIBLE OBJECTIONS. 6S
tion is verifiable by them too. When a person deliberately and voluntarily undergoes suffering for the well-being of another, even to the extent of giving up his life ; when he does so silently, in concealment, and unrecognised ; when he is, over and above all this, an atheist, an agnostic, a non- believer in a soul and a future life by the convic- tion of his intelligence ; even under all these circumstances, if his mind were looked into with sufficient scrutiny, there would be found in it, a desire for recognition, suppressed by some stronger motive ; a consciousness, a sub-consciousness it may be, that his act of self-sacrifice might have a permanent, a lasting, nay, a perpetual value ; and a long series of the beneficial results of the act would also be present in his consciousness, thereby extending that consciousness actually over all that period, notwithstanding the side-belief that the consciousness would be cut short in a limited time. The truth here is that the side-belief is a mere word-belief — there is no real modification of consciousness corresponding to it ; consciousness can never imagine its ovt n cessation.
»
II1
11 Through the numberless months, years, yugas and kalpas, past and to come in the exhaustless
l PaAchadaslu, i. 7.
I
66 SCIENCE OF THE EMOTIONS.
future, what rises not, nor sets, is this One Self- luminous Consciousness alone."
" Never has the cessation of consciousness been witnessed; or if it has been, then the witness thereof himself remains as the embodiment of that same consciousness."
It has just been said that cases of murder and of self-sacrifice of life — when they are true instances of Love and Hate— are reconcileable with the theory put forward here. Other cases do not need such reconciliation and they are no less frequent.
Let us consider what would be true instances of the relinquishment of one's own life
ofSdeathS and the taking °f another for Pure for Love or Love and pure Hate, respectively. And
by Hate, nrst the precise significance of Love
and precise
meaning of and Hate should be fixed in this re-
these two f erence. Which one or more of the three cases. principal phases of each can be meant
here ?
i Devi-Bhagavata, III. xxxii. 15, 16. The Vyasa-Bha- Shya on Yoga-Sutra, ii. 9, and the Vatsyayana-Bhashya on Nyaya-Sutra, III. i. 19, infer previous experience of death, and therefore previous lives, from the fear of death in this life.
CEKTAIN POSSIBLE OBJECTIONS. 67
On the side of Love, such absolute self-surrender, involving complete self-extinction, would, at first sight, appear to be possible in the case of all the three phases. A greater might conceivably give himself away wholly to a smaller to enlarge the latter's life. So a smaller might also give himself to the greater and be absorbed into his larger life ? But is this possible ? Apparently not, from what has been said before as to the nature of self- surrender and Devotion. The superior cannot take from the lesser, and so increase the latter's inferiority. Such an absorption is not possible in the case of equals either. It involves a reasoning in a circle. Each cannot become absorbed in the other, only one may in another. The result is that only a greater can give himself away to a lesser ; and the meaning of Love in this special connection is therefore Benevolence.
What is the case on the side of Hate ? Equals as equals, and while continuing equals, cannot harm each other. And the lesser can clearly not suppress the greater. Thus in the case of Hate too, only the greater can suppress and take the life of the lesser ; and so in this reference Hate means Pride.
Unfortunately the word Pride does not express all that is meant to be expressed. And there does not appear to be another English word— scarcely •even a Samskrt word, though m a d a comes very near to it— to express the exact opposite of
68 SCIENCE OF THE EMOTIONS.
Benevolence, to express Hate plus superiority in* strength phis active exercise of both.1 Tyranny approaches most nearly. Hate, Tyranny, and Pride will therefore be used rather unprecisely in the suc- ceeding paragraphs as each seems fittest. It should also be noted that the words ' greater ' and * lesser ' have been used above in a precise and limited signi- fication, restricted to the ability to give or take life. Passing on after this preliminary limitation of Infrequen- ^e signification of Love and Hate in cy of death self-sacrifice and slaughter proceeding, and fre-' from them, we find that the cases where quency of the death, and the death alone, of the physical body of the benefactor is ab- solutely necessary for the purpose of the benefac- tion, and is consciously, deliberately, and fully premeditated, are, fortunately for humanity, few. The Buddha, in a previous incarnation, giving up his Brahmana-body in invincible and joyous tender- ness to feed the life of the famishing tigress and her cubs ; wives sucking the poisoned wounds of hus- bands and dying ; shipwrecked sailors tossed on rafts for week after week, and casting lots to decide whose body should first be sacrificed to feed his starving comrades ; healthy persons giving blood in large quantities for transfusion into the veins of the sick— are. very infrequent instances in tradition
* The Dhydna-bindu Upanishat indicates that krpa or Compassion and h i m s a or slaughter, the wish to destroy* are at the opposite; ends of a certain line in the ' heart.'
I
CERTAIN POSSIBLE OBJECTIONS. 69
:and history. In most other cases the self-sacrifice of life is incidental and not premeditated, not even strongly expected as probable, as in rescues from fire or water or weapons. In such cases the giving up of life is not necessary, very often the exact opposite is necessary, to the achievement of the object of the action.
In the case of Hate — Pride plus Tyranny — unfortunately for humankind, the action whereof the suppression of another's life is the direct and premeditated object is very frequent at this point of small progress in human evolution.
The causes and beginnings of Hate are, in strict theory, not more numerous than this8* those of Love amongst embodied Jlvas.
But the instinct of Love is unity ; hence Benevolence begins by giving up one after another the many things that make up embodied life, in order to secure, in the receding end, the unity of two selves. An utter self-sacrifice of life is therefore seldom required. The instinct of Hate on the other hand is separateness ; and where it is strong and rampant it would begin by at once taking away— in imagination only if it cannot in actuality — the separate life and self of the other, as the very root, in order wholly, easily, and effectually to suppress all the rest that constitutes the existence of that other. In lawless and savage races the slaughter of human beings, on the slightest occasions, is, in consequence, immense. But in
70 SCIENCE OF THE EMOTIONS.
ordered and well-governed societies — where the very fact of social organisation shows that the elements of Love and harmony and union are more or less prevalent over the elements of Hate and discord and disorder — the Hate is less strong, and would not, or is not allowed to, begin with murder, but generally commences with inflicting minor injuries and losses.
In the result, the fact remains that there is much more murder caused by true Hate than self- sacrifice of life by Love.
Cases of murder for robbery and for sex-jealousy — wherein the * separate self ' seeks its own comfort and preservation and propagation either in and through its own physical body, or in and through its progeny — are cases of rather indirect Hate. There is the desire to gain something which is likely to cause pleasure and enhance life. But as this is a desire in and for the ' separate self, ' and not in and for the ' united Self, ' there is a conflict over it between the two separate selves concerned, instead of union ; and this conflict becomes the conflict of manifest Hate. If there were no such conflict, the underlying Hate would not come to the surface. Cannibals, travellers' accounts say, treat their future victims with great care and tenderness, and fatten them up ; and there is no sign of Hate at all in their relations. But let the victim resist his immolation, and Wrath and Hate are at once aroused.
CERTAIN POSSIBLE OBJECTIONS. 71
This belongs to travellers' stories, which cannot be verified by everybody's personal experience. Let us take what is within the reach of every one.
Poulterers, and beef, mutton, and pork-breeders feed and tend their animals very carefully, — even affectionately, shall we say ?— and enhance their life for the time being by fattening them up, and so do exactly what Love would do rather than Hate in similar circumstances. But what would be the case if one of these animals resisted yielding up its flesh when it was required of him by its master ? The rage and roar of wild animals tearing their prey are only due to the resistance of the prey, to its endeavour to keep its flesh for itself. This conflict of desires brings out the hidden Hate. So far as the mere flesh is concerned, the tiger loves not its mate more dearly than it loves the antelope. The tiger, the leopard, has been known to fondle and play with the body of its prey after killing it. It rends not its mate as it rends the antelope, because it finds in that mate possibilities of repeated pleasures, which can be secured by the fostering of that mate and would be lost by the rending of it. It has no such inducement to preserve rather than destroy in the case of the deer. The infant that, afterwards, for t a p a s y a and self-denial, was compelled by Brahma to hold the office of the sixth Manur Chakshusha, laughed, remembering his former
72 SCIENCE OF THE EMOTIONS.
births, while being fondled in his mother's lap with many words of love, The frightened mother asked the recently-born baby why it laughed. The babe replied : u Thou lovest me, it is true ; but so does this wild cat that is waiting for an opportu- nity to eat me ; so also does this ogress of a subtler plane, invisible to thee, but visible to me, also waiting for the same ! They love me too, though in a somewhat different way ! " x
In other words, the emphasising of the 'united Self y with reference to a common object of desire is Love ; the emphasising of the ' separate selves' with reference to a common object of desire is Hate.
In other cases the Hate is more direct. In the case of insults and affronts, of reflections against each other's superiority, of non-admission of such, of the desire to ' cut down tall poppies,' the desire to suppress each other, etc., has no other distant and indirect motive and object.
tc It is the very nature of the proud that they cannot endure the rise of others." These, it may perhaps be said, are instances of true Hate causing murder in a special sense.
* Markandeya-Purana, chapter Ixxiii.
2 Kiratarjunlya, ii. 21. Another and perhaps better read- ing is $tn*fct9 'aggressiveness' or ' pride, ' instead of 4 rise.'
CERTAIN POSSIBLE OBJECTIONS. 73
The deaths in wars are, it may be noted, con- nected with both Benevolence and death for Tyranny. In so far as the fighters fight mixedLove for what they believe to be a righteous and Hate. causej ancj risk their lives for the sake of the general good of their country, they are dominated by the one emotion ; in so far as they fight for mere robbery of land, or money, or similar physical advantages of commerce, etc. — however specious the names given to the causes of the war — they are dominated by the other.
All these cases will, it seems, be covered by the theory of a perpetuation of the relation in consci- ousness—and so in subsequent lives, according to the Indian doctrine on the subject.
Beginning with Anger, each party to a relation of Repulsion endeavours to separate tuationin the other as much as possible from and by himself. This he seeks to secure by memory. taking away from that other all that makes up his being, and so making him inferior to and distant from himself. The other reciprocates, and so ' exchange of blows ' goes on, till the relation of Anger is changed into the relation of
I Pride on the one hand and Fear on the other. The former then exclaims : " I have broken this creature's spirit." The other bears away in his heart the bitterness and ashes of despair, the ever-burning fire of secret rage, and rankling sense of mortification and malice. This is the
74 SCIENCE OF THE EMOTIONS.
commonest development of relations of Repulsion. Sometimes, only too frequently, the relation, apparently ends in the death of one party caused by the violence of the other. But so long as the Hate continues in the heart of the survivor, the other party is also present in his mind and to his consciousness, and the relation has not really ended ; witness the boasting over destroyed enemies, arches and monuments of triumph, and periodical celebrations, etc., etc. Even when the Hate dies, and is succeeded (through natural re-action coming sooner or later, as it must, in the same life or in another) by Remorse and other subsequent moods, then too the relation between the two continues, the two are still together in consciousness ; but the nature of the relation has, of course, changed. In the same way, so long as the memory of the perished benefactor continues in the heart of the benefitted, both the parties to the relation of Love are present in consciousness ; here also memorial monuments serve as illustration. These psychological facts have actual superphysical consequences in post- mortem life according to the Puranas. l
1 It would be interesting, in this connection, to follow out the modus operandi of the Law of Karma. The commen- tary, known as the Para martha-prapa, on the Bhagavad-Gitar says that all beings are bound together by the (superphysical but material) rays of the Hiranya-garbha,- whose centre of life is the heart of the Sun, and that each action of each'
CERTAIN POSSIBLE OBJECTIONS. 75
And so all the component parts, all the Jivas, of a world are and continue to be bound to each other in relations of Love or Hate by the bonds, of memory and consciousness, till the bonds are loosened by knowledge, in the way that will appear later on.
Two other possible objections should be noticed here. Is it true that we feel no emo- objections: tions towards inanimate objects ? We in. Erao- fear a cyclone, or loathe a filthy cess- towards pool, or are annoyed by the excessive inanimate sun or rain or fog or snow, the child is objects. angry with the stone which has hurt it and even strikes it, we love the home- stead, admire a mountain or forest scene, and caress tenderly a gem or statuette or other work of art. Are these not inanimate objects and do they not yet call forth emotion in the sense accepted here ? The answer is that the words indicating emotions are used in such cases only by metaphor ; the objects of the emotions are
being with reference to another is notified to and registered at the centre along the appurtenant rays, and brings its own reaction along these same. The mutual adjustments between the inner and outer bodies, as between acting and re-acting causes and effects, in consequence of sins and merits, seem to be part of the same material or superphysical modus ope- randi. The spiritual or metaphysical explanation is the thread-bond of the Common Self appearing as individualities within individualities. Vide The Science of Peace, ch. xiii. and The Advanced Text-Book of SanatanaDharma, Part I. ch., iv, and III. ii.
76 SCIENCE OF THE EMOTIONS.
invested in imagination with an individuality similar to that o£ human or other living beings ; they are regarded as independent and inassimil- able or unabsorbable sources of pleasure or pain. If they were absorbable, they would be objects of like and dislike in the same sense as good or bad food ; in no case of emotion-proper.
The second objection is : What about the ii In- mental states which have been variously
tellectual named * Emotions of relativity, ' such sentl~ «• as N°velty> Variety, Monotony, Free- dom, Restraint, Wonder ; or ' Emo- tions of intellect,' such as Relief, ' similarity in diversity/ 4 lucidity or cogency or neatness of argument or judgment ' ; or '^Esthetic emotions,' Beauty, Harmony, Utility, Fitness, Sublimity, the Ludicrous ; or the ' Moral or Religious Senti- ments ' ; or the 4 Emotions of self ' such as self- regard, self-esteem, self-gratulation ; or ' Emotions of power ' ; or ' of action/ such as Pursuit, etc. ? The answer to this is that many of these will be found on analysis to be reducible into emotions proper as denned here, as will be shown in a subsequent chapter on Complex Emotions ; and that the rest, which are not so reducible, are on a level with and practically varieties of not desires but pleasurable and painful sensations or cognitions and actions directly promotive or abative of vitality. *
i See the remarks on Pleasure and Pain, p. 27, supra^ and on the Emotions of the Sublime and again of the Beauti-
CERTAIN POSSIBLE OBJECTIONS. 7V
ful, ch. viii, infra. The various kinds of pseudo-Emotions mentioned here are referred to by Bain, The Emotions and the Will, and by Ribot, The Psychology of the Emotions, and others, under more or less different names. They are briefly dealt with by William James, The Principles of Psychology, II., ch. xxv. ; he calls them ' the subtler emotions ' and distinguishes in them a ' primary element ' and a ' secon- dary ' one ; the ' secondary ' element is nothing else than the ' coarser ' emotions, as he calls them, the Emotions proper, from our standpoint, from which the ' primary ' element is not emotional at all. It is true that, by reflexion and re-reflexion or mutual combination and complication, the three primary factors of the conscious life, cognition, desire, and action, become evolved into thought, emotion, and occupation, etc., and these may again be sub-divided into triplets reproducing the feature of one mainly and of the other two subordmately. But the following out of these complications is beyond our present purpose ; the broad principles of how this complexity evolves will be found stated in The Science of Peace, ch. xv., and also indicated in the tables appended to ch. viii. of this work.