Our feelings exist in a world at the same time as other things do. Our feelings are things, therefore. An icebox affects us, and our feeling about an icebox can affect us when this icebox is not around. The icebox can be distinguished from the feeling about an icebox, though it is clear, too, they are of each other.
If Stephen Jones says, “I have this feeling about an icebox, and I think I should tell Wilma about it,” he is reasoning. For he is looking at a feeling of his, and feeling or thinking something about it.
The ability to look at our feelings as objects, that is, to externalize them, is the basic thing in reason. If we can see a worry or a hope in the same way that we see a bush or a flower pot, we can reason.
In reasoning, we criticize our feelings just as we would objects in a kitchen. We have a feeling about what our feelings should be going for. To feel feelings is to feel the possibility and the purpose of feeling.
Feelings can be compared to one’s own feelings, or to another person’s feelings, and can be compared or related to things which are not feelings.
Laurie Sullivan is talking within herself, or soliloquizing:
“I don’t see why I feel so different about John this week. I know I didn’t like his not taking me to the ice cream parlor last Friday night; but still, this doesn’t seem enough to make me not want to see him yesterday or today. After all, John may not have had the money on him, or he may have been tired. What was it? I know I don’t like his eyes so much, and I know Stella said there’s something about him she wouldn’t trust if she were me, but I’ve known this all along, and I did want to see John so much two weeks ago. Is something going on in me? Maybe something is happening in me I don’t know about. Maybe I’m missing those dancing lessons I was taking; maybe I really do want to go on the stage rather than get married to John Murphy so soon. And I want to see Bob a little more than I do John. I thought I was through with him entirely. It’s very hard for a girl to know her own thoughts, but you just have to keep on trying. I just don’t know why, when John kissed me that night last April, things happened to Laurie deep and all over the place; and why, last Friday, I just looked as if something happened when it really didn’t. And I knew it didn’t, and maybe John knew, too. You know, he can be pretty smart, though Mom doesn’t think all in all he’s as smart as Bob. And Mom can be pretty smart, too, sometimes. Wouldn’t she be surprised if I told her John wasn’t so hot now? I wouldn’t put it that way, of course, to her. I remember the night I told her loud, and I even stamped my foot: ‘Mom, John is the real thing this time. Your darling daughter Laurie has met it at last. She may have been in a fog before and thought she wasn’t, but there are no clouds now. John Murphy is God’s male gift to your girl sweetheart.’ —Gawd, the way my thoughts go on. I even get a headache. What am I going to tell Mom and Ned if I really don’t feel so big about John? It’ll be hard. It’s tough thinking about it. There’s no way out, though; I’ve got to think it through.”
Laurie Sullivan has been reasoning. It’s one of many kinds of reasoning, or many possibilities of reasoning—this soliloquizing of a New Jersey girl of twenty—but it’s reasoning.
In the very first words, as given, of Laurie, she is looking at her feeling, or an interior state, as an object. She is saying: “I feel something,” looking at what she feels, and thinking about why she feels it. When you consciously ask the cause of a feeling of yours, and you know you are doing this—for Laurie, if asked in a friendly way what she was doing, might have said, “Oh, I’m thinking about some notions of mine”—well, this goes with reasoning, is of reasoning, and only that. —Further, at the same moment that Laurie is thinking of her feelings, there is present in her mind a picture of someone not present physically or materially; so there is a tie-up of Laurie’s own feelings and a remembrance as object of something not herself, and yet present. Besides, there is the looking at time as an object in the words “this week.”
Yes, there is something which a tiger doesn’t have, or a dog, or an ant—or anything else but man. If these beings did, they would be human, too. Laurie may not be a master of concepts, adroit with methodologies, at home in generalities, a good hand at abstraction—but only a person who reasoned, or only a being which reasoned, could have said as she did on a recent humid and warm evening in early September, twenty-six miles from New York City: “I don’t see why I feel so different about John this week.” It took a long time, and a various and complicated time, to have in existence somebody having going on in her what went on and showed itself in Laurie Sullivan.
Laurie proceeds with her unquestionable reasoning. She is aware of two feelings of hers (at least) and compares them with a time relationship. She says: “I know I didn’t like…”
These last words imply a whole lot. There is an “I” which knows something about another “I,” and says “I” twice—with one “I” looking at the other. Now an intelligent elephant may have a sense of I, but he doesn’t say or think that one I is looking at and judging the other. If he did, he’d be what Laurie is in elephant form. —Then Laurie says she knew she didn’t like something. Here an affective state, or one of pleasure or pain, is known, that is, becomes the object of a cognitive state. Feeling and thought, or motion and judgment, have become one in Laurie’s mind or words. This, as the world goes, is also a big order. Along with this cognitive awareness of an affective state, is the awareness of an action of a person as apart from the person: for “his not taking me to the ice cream parlor” is an abstraction of an action in itself from the person performing the action. Time, in the rest of the sentence, is once more looked at as an object—in the phrase “last Friday night.” It takes a lot for something in existence to name time, to make time specific, to look on it as an object.
Then Laurie, after looking at and mentioning two feelings of hers, gets another feeling from the combination, which in turn she looks at and questions: “This doesn’t seem enough to make me not want to see him yesterday or today.” It will be noted that negation in the not is likewise expressed and looked at. The expression of negation as such is also of reasoning.
Laurie, the next moment, gets into the mind of John and tries to justify him as against a feeling of hers. This can be seen in the words: “John may not have…” And she does some questioning about the situation she ascribes to him. Then she becomes aware of a past criticism of hers, and aligns this criticism with the criticism of another mind—Stella. And Laurie can say, all within her mind, that her feeling was akin to Stella’s feeling, and also different. And she sees, as object, something she has known for some time: “I’ve known this all along”; and she places this knowledge as against a simultaneous desire: “I did want to see John two weeks ago.”
Laurie proceeds to ask if something general and vague is taking place within her: “Is something going on in me?” In this question, the pondering New Jersey girl is placing the I that is considering as against the me that is seen as object.
In the next sentence, Laurie objectifies uncertainty or probability in relation to herself: “Maybe something is happening to me I don’t know about.” Then she “concretizes,” to a degree, her uncertainty; and at the same time places a possible pain—“Maybe I’m missing those dancing lessons”—along with a possible desire—“maybe I really do want to go on the stage”—along with a questioned large desire she has at the moment—“rather than get married.” The mind of Laurie at this time is a shifting, rich field of perceptions in motion, perceptions compared, emphasized, objectified, felt, reconsidered, and so on.
Laurie’s mind goes on this way. The objectifying of feelings does not cease. The past, a picture in her mind of Bob, and a picture in her mind of John, are considered together. Laurie reconsiders the finality of a previous judgment: “I thought I was through with him entirely.” And she generalizes about herself, seeing herself as a girl in relation to the concept girl in the thought: “It’s very hard for a girl to know her own thoughts, but you just have to keep on trying.” When Laurie talks about knowing “her own thoughts,” she has arrived at a high state of unalloyed, not to be questioned cognition or reasoning. What else but a being like Laurie could talk of knowing her own thoughts?
Laurie says she doesn’t know, and impliedly asks a question as to the cause of an intense feeling of hers. She is troubled, but “scientific,” in wanting to know the cause of a feeling. This is to be seen in: “I just don’t know why, when John kissed me that night last April, things happened to Laurie deep and all over the place.” It should also be noted that Laurie, in speaking of herself as Laurie, sees herself in the third person, and so objectifies her subjectivity, and welcomes impersonality—at least somewhat.
The girl goes on to imagine a state of mind in John. To imagine states of mind in another is a procedure rich in conceptual significance. Most living beings don’t do it. Laurie is one of those who do. She’s special, from the life, or mental, point of view.
And the reasoning girl thinks of the intelligence as a whole of one person in relation to another. She also relates her mother’s general way of mind to hers—in relation to the appraisement of the intelligence of two persons. This can be seen in: “You know, he can be pretty smart, though Mom doesn’t think all in all he is as smart as Bob. And Mom can be pretty smart, too, sometimes.”
And the girl thinks about possibility and surprise in the future. She thinks of a state of mind of hers, and how that state of mind will be put into words. And Laurie thinks of an emotion of hers in the past—and of this emotion in relation to a physical accompaniment—stamping of foot. And she describes past thoughts of hers, as they were put into words. She describes retrospectively past criticisms of her own mental insufficiencies. Laurie says, talking of herself: “She may have been in a fog and thought she wasn’t, but there are no clouds now.” Laurie here is thinking of thoughts in one aspect of the past, criticized by thoughts in a later aspect of the past—and she’s thinking of the thoughts and the thoughts criticizing these thoughts, in thoughts now.
A moment later she comes back to herself. She’s aware of the swift motion of her cogitations. She thinks of a possible physical result of these cogitations. She thinks of new feelings as being in the future, and how she will put them into words: “What am I going to tell Mom and Ned if I really don’t feel so big about John?” And she thinks about her thinking, and decides that thinking should go on, despite the painful affective state accompanying. All this is in: “It’s tough thinking about it. There’s no way out, though; I’ve got to think it through.”
Certainly, if Laurie is thinking about thinking, she has gone quite far in the territory of Reason and Form and Mentality and Concepts.
What I have said so far is against the common notion that reason is not concerned with everyday things, intense things, murky things, even trivial things. There has been a disposition to make of reason a snobbish thing; to confine it to exclusive manners of mind; to limit it by making it haughty. Laurie, it is true, doesn’t do some things that Aristotle or Spinoza did. She, however, uses her mind in a way that all the logic books try to describe. The kinds or variations of reason have to be distinguished from reason itself.
There is one other quite important misuse of the idea of reason. It is more common than the setting up of reason as a cold, exclusive affair. This misuse is related to the first. The misuse of the idea of reason I am now talking of, is when reason is thought of and dealt with as being against instinct; and also against “emotion,” and such things.
I have defined instinct as desire not known or seen as an object. Now people have been heard to say: “I want to reason this out”; which is equivalent to saying: “I desire to reason this out.” We then find reason or reasoning an object of desire. In fact, I can hear a person saying, quite reasonably or justifiably: “I want like hell to be logical.”
If to reason itself can be an object of desire, certainly reason is not against desire. And if one does reason because one has desired to reason, the desire certainly is not annulled while reasoning; just as the desire to eat is not annulled even while one is eating. So desire and reason exist at once in a mind.
Instinct is desire we do not see as an object. Now all desire was once instinct; for every desire was once not seen as an object. We did come to see our instinct as an object. This means there was an instinct to see our instinct. As soon as we see a feeling of ours as an object, we are reasoning. Was there, in the young child, a desire to see his instinct as an object? There was, because he did not reason first to see his instinct as an object. This is the same as saying: He did not reason first to reason. So he had an instinct, an unknown desire, to reason. This amounts to saying that reason came from instinct; and, indeed, that reason is instinctive. Well, it is. A person in a bad situation will instinctively, to protect himself, reason about it. Reasoning is just as much an instinct as swallowing. We have an unknown desire to know our desires. We instinctively wish to see our feelings as objects.
Why, then, should instinct be seen as against reasoning?
The whole spurious and unnecessary pitting of instinct against reasoning, comes from a not seeing that in a difficult situation, we have two kinds of instinct, and two kinds of reasoning; these two kinds of instinct and two kinds of reasoning are, as reason and instinct, aspects of the same thing.
Edith Gibbons, in Poughkeepsie, New York, is thinking of seeing her sick father in Boston. She has a friend, Hal, whom she doesn’t want to leave; and besides, it will be somewhat expensive; and besides, she doesn’t see herself as having too good a time; and besides, she has thought at times she hated her father.
Then Edith remembers that her father has helped her; that after all he is her father; that he can still mean a great deal to her; and that perhaps she should get perspective on Hal by being away from him for a while. And as to money, what is money compared to the ties of blood? Other thoughts are also present in Edith.
It will be seen that each thought has both its “reason” and its “instinct” side.
Edith can feel how distressing it is to leave Poughkeepsie and take a train trip and leave Hal in the midst of an intense situation. This feeling can be put reasonably so: “I don’t see why my life has to be jumpy. Here am I, living pretty interestingly in Poughkeepsie. Hal needs me and I need him. My father has been brutal to me. Why should I discompose my life just for a selfish old man?”
It is clear from this that Edith instinctively does not want to leave Poughkeepsie; and that reasoningly she doesn’t want to leave Poughkeepsie. It is hard to see where, if the instinct and the reason of Edith Gibbons go the same way, and reach the same conclusion, they’re against each other. It follows from this alone that instinct and reason need be no more against each other than the size of a dress and the color of the dress, or the number of the pages of a book and the melodramatic situations in the book.
Then Edith instinctively wants to go to Boston. There is a pull that way. It was her father who, with her mother, took care of her from babyhood. Ah, the Christmas present he brought her years ago! She can remember the way he played piggy-back with her. There has been at times such a kind light in his eyes. How worried he was when she was sick! Suppose he dies: can there be another father? How will she feel if he dies, and she doesn’t see him? And maybe he will die suddenly; so isn’t the waiting horrible? And she has known Hal only two months, and her father years and years.
These feelings surge or play around in Edith’s mind. She comes to them without planning to. They are what a Victorian novelist might call the “instinctive, welling thoughts of a heart in deep distress.” But they can all be put as strict reason; in fact, once they are in action, they are reason.
Edith could say, logically: “There is definitely a tie of blood. Old associations are facts. How can I be unregardful of someone from whose flesh I came and who has taken care of me before I knew who I was? He has done many things for me—some stand out in particular. I remember so clearly the Christmas present he bought me once. And even though it may sound silly, an adult who played piggy-back with me when I was a child, should not be neglected when he is infirm. And reciprocity matters: he was very worried when I was sick. And persons should be valued in proportion to their rarity or uniqueness: I have only one father, and can have only one. And since I would feel so bad if he died without my seeing him again, would it not be wiser to make the trip to Boston immediately? For though he is not desperately sick, still, he may die suddenly. I therefore am showing insufficient vision if I do not leave immediately. Hal matters, truly; but I’ve known the person something in me wants to neglect as against Hal, many, many years; since long before I can remember; while I know Hal only two months.”
The matter of importance here is not whether Edith goes to Boston or not. The dilemma in its agony and in its interior waverings, is common in the history of mankind and womankind. What is to be seen here, is that Edith instinctively wants to go to Boston and has reason for going; that a part of her instinctively does not want to go and also has reason for not wanting to go. The battle, therefore, in Edith, no matter how agonizing, or how decided or undecided, is not of instinct versus reason; but of one kind of reasoning as against another kind, and one kind of instinct as against another kind.
Persons would grant that reason can be wrong. People have reasoned, and welcomed untruth, anyway. People have instinctively been right; that is, attained truth. Since the purpose of reason is to attain truth, and reason may not attain it, it follows that instinct can be more reasonable than a certain kind of reason. So it is; and so it can be.
For example, Professor Timothy Simms has written an article in which, he has come later to see, he has been incorrect about and unfair to the work of a little-known contemporary writer. He knows that he can pretend he was right and fair.
The instinct of Professor Simms, which he has not fully articulated, is to write a note to the journal in which the article appeared, making the correction. Professor Simms, however, would look a little silly if he so quickly admitted he was wrong, after having been so neatly sarcastic about the work of Gerard Wells. So he says to himself: “I can’t afford to risk my reputation in this way. Maybe Wells wasn’t as bad as I said he was here, but it’s likely he can be. Besides, what’s the idea of being quixotic? Eternal justice is a notion—perhaps even a chimera.”
An instinct, then, in Professor Simms, wishes for the professor to follow the Kantian or Platonic ideas of ethics he studied at college, while his reason tells him not to.
However, it is clear that his instinct could be made to sound reasonable, and his reason instinctive.
Reason and instinct are aspects of the world, seen as rest and motion. Reason seems cold, and instinct more intense; but just as in the world itself, rest can be seen as an aspect of motion, and motion as an aspect of rest—so reason can be seen as an aspect of instinct, and instinct as an aspect of reason. It is dangerous for man to place form and energy in opposition to each other. Reason is an aspect of energy; it is a kind of action; it is life; it cannot be disconnected from the bloodstream.
That which led man to reason, as I have implied, was a need he did not know. He was impelled to find what this need was. Man has an instinctive desire—or just instinct—to find out what his instinct is about. We have an instinct to be logical. We instinctively reason about our instincts. —If, as I have said, a child does not plan to reason, decide to reason, or reason to reason, what must have happened was that he had an impulse, a desire, a drive, a primitive tendency to reason. And when a child is grown up, he still has a primitive tendency to reason. Reason is not an artificial, sophisticated, intricate something which somehow is added to instinct to keep it tame, to discipline it in the narrow sense, and to interfere with it and to devitalize it. Reason is instinctive energy completed, energy which has taken form. But reason as form still has in it what it completed, just as a metal spoon with form still has metal in it. Energy looks for form, but is not the less energy in finding it; it is the more energy.