brown divided emotions into retrospective and prospective, but such a classification has no basis in a general biological view nor yet in a special analysis of the particular phenomena. it is evident that the two great classes of emotion from the point of view of struggle for existence will be response to injurer and to benefactor. these are the two prime qualities in things for which emotional notice is most needed as a service to life, and hence the broad and fundamental division of emotion must always be into that which is response to the harmful and that which is response to the beneficial. here only is the great and constant distinction in the nature of emotions. prospect and retrospect are equally meaningless in themselves considered. from a merely a priori biologic point of view we must, then, pronounce it quite unlikely that the time-sense should fundamentally differentiate emotion, but we should expect that the prime division would be with respect to cognised injury or benefit.

that time-sense is not a grand principle of division we also see plainly when we examine particular emotions. thus, in the case of anger, while we can say at once that this is, in all its forms, repulse to injury, can we claim it is either prospective or retrospective emotion? the truth is, the thought of injury done, doing, or to be done, equally wakens anger in choleric individuals. the man who harmed me yesterday excites my anger, and so does the 177man whom i perceive to be now injuring me or about to injure me. the quality of the emotion is identically the same whether the object be considered as in past, present, or future. even what seems to be a purely temporal emotion, like hope, which is usually regarded as wholly prospective, may yet have other temporal aspects. thus, we sometimes say, “i hope it was not so,” where hope is obviously retrospective, or more strictly prospective-retrospective, having reference to expectation with desire that the event will turn out not to have happened.

but it may be said that, as emotion rests upon representation, the proper classification of the emotions will depend upon the divisions of representation which are essentially determined by the time-sense as representation of past or future. representation with sense of representation implies a cognition of the thing as represented merely, and so as non-existent to present actual sensing, as something having been, or to be, sensed. the emotion arises thus on cognition of the experienceable, and includes always some dim impression of potency of object for harm or benefit at some time. however, though this may be the case, it is plain that it makes no radical distinction in emotion. if a man threatens me with some injury, this fires my rage, which is greatly increased if i catch him in the act of committing the injury threatened, or find that he has committed the evil deed. change in time-sense may thus bring change in intensity of some emotions, but it does not determine quality of emotion. the prime factor as to kind of emotion is always, not any sense of time, but the personal value of the event, which may or may not receive a definite time determination. indeed, a form of representation, before any sense of experience as merely subjective phenomenon is attained, is a prominent feature in the direct na?ve experience which constitutes by far the greater bulk in the total existent consciousness. before experience is aware of itself and of the experienceable 178there is a certain purely subjective mirroring of that which is not present to sense, but has been, i.e., there is a re-occurrence in consciousness which has the subjective force of reality; though the objective actuality is lacking, such re-occurrence by association without the actual presence of the object stands, however, for reality to the mind experiencing—it is a direct intuition; the object, though unreal, is perfectly real to consciousness, and conveys no meaning, and so is not a basis for emotion. yet in the higher representation with a sense of experience as integral element, the representation is sometimes practically timeless, though surcharged with emotion tendency. the highest objects which the mind represents have little time quality, and all the nobler sentiments, as love of truth, justice, etc., exist with little or no reference to time. so also in the very earliest representation, the object is seen in its feeling value—emotion basis—as soon as it is perceived as object; but this is as an immediate subjective realizing in which time-sense plays very little part. the conscious interpretation of past and future as a conscious connecting of the two is certainly not a primitive function. the time form is, then, on the whole, merely incidental in emotion, and is by no means a fundamental principle determining classification.

yet, though we must reject time as a cardinal principle of division in emotion, still we must acknowledge that the term retrospective emotion denotes a real group of mental phenomena, including revenge, regret, remorse, and kindred forms, which are marked as feeling for the past merely as past. however, pure retrospection is rare and late. the past does not for primitive mind stand by itself as something to be dwelt upon, to be thought about, to be moved by, and stirred to action. the immediate present absorbs the mind, and the past interests and excites only so far as bearing directly on the present. and so it is that the child lives in the present, the youth and man in the future, 179the old man in the past; and this denotes the relatively late appearance of pure retrospection and of emotion founded thereon. emotion is first merely spectant, then prospective, then retrospective. however, when we say an emotion is concerned solely with the present in the very young, we mean, of course, the immediately prospective—that which has relation to but one sense and by association rouses emotion, as an apple, seen or handled by a child, awakens emotion, desire to taste. where sense consciousness is not multiform, but single and uniform, as, doubtless, in very low organisms, there is no opportunity for any emotion, for there is no interpretation power. but the intensification of some one sense connection already attained may be a basis for emotion which we may loosely call emotion spectant, as when the greedy child eagerly eating an apple desires a larger bite, sweeter portion, etc. however,—though it has little classification value,—emotion can be only prospective or retrospective; and this is, of course, implied in its basis—representation. emotion by its very nature must be a looking forward, or a looking backward, or both. as a feeling about, and not a direct feeling, this is obviously its unvariable cognitive content. the immediate and actual realization may be direct feeling or sensation, but it is never in itself emotion. emotion is always over something, an experience of experience, and cannot thus be simple content. it is thus a consciously idealizing mode as distinguished from direct realization which is wholly self-contained.

one of the most important and interesting retrospective emotions is revenge. the cardinal idea in revenge is returning evil for evil. not only must there be a paying back for past injury, but there must be an equivalence, eye for an eye, and tooth for a tooth; and the revengeful emotion is the meting out such purely retributive action. exact return becomes the basis of a general usage in animal and human societies. justice, law, and punishment 180rest upon the idea of inflicting duplicate or equivalent injury for injury received. administrative justice is the specialization of revenge in the hands of a few members of a community, a social differentiation by which individuals in general secure their revenges at great economy by proxy. further, the revengeful emotion is a smouldering hate which vents itself only some time after the immediate occasion. this is not the flush of anger which prompts to vigorous offensive action upon the injurer at the very moment of harm perceived, and it does not appear as stimulant to immediate self-conservative activities, but is simply the spirit of getting even for relatively long past injury.

what, now, is the function of revenge as a life factor? it surely does not mend my injury that i do another harm solely because he has some time harmed me, and the whole impulse might seem a pure waste of energy. but under natural selection revenge must arise in serviceability of some sort; and it is obvious that while revenge is of no use in mending the past, it yet has a large value with reference to future possible injury. yet revenge is undeniably without conscious meaning for present or future; it is merely the spirit and determination to get even, and so its deterrent function is unconsciously attained. a dwelling in thought on the past per se, a feeling about it and acting on it, while it cannot help life directly, has a large value in its ultimate effect upon enemies. he who never forgets injury, and for whom by-gones are never by-gones, who never fails to return injury for injury, is feared and is less likely to be injured. junker, the african traveller, remarks of the pygmies, “they are much feared for their revengeful spirit.” thus, other things being equal, the most revengeful are the most successful in the struggle for self-conservation and self-furtherance. though by itself considered irrational and foolish to inflict return injuries upon an injurer long after the immediate occasion, yet its 181deterrent effect is very great with reference to other assailants. thus, pure retrospection may have unconsciously prospective value, or sometimes revenge may be really retrospective-prospective, as when one says, “i will fix him so he will not do that again.” here function is consciously known, but in instinctive revenge there is no such foresight, and, in general, utility is no consideration with the revenger, whose mind is bent rather on doing great harm for its own sake to his enemy rather than benefiting himself. it is always the conscious or unconscious significance for the future that justifies revenge in the natural course of events; while it is no remedy for my hurt, if some one has put out my eye, to put out his in return, yet this revenge act, and so the feeling which prompts it, is of highest prospective value with reference to future possible enemies. every one will know that i cannot be harmed with impunity. despoil or injure the revengeful in any way and you inevitably suffer for it sooner or later, and so revenge acts as a protective psychical variation of high value. on the whole the revengeful is less likely than others to be molested and injured, and thus has a manifest advantage in the struggle for existence. revenge has, then, also rightfully its own subjective sanction, a pleasure reaction, for revenge is, indeed, “sweet.”

revenge is apparently found in a considerable range in the animal kingdom, and seems universal in the genus homo. however, we cannot infallibly conclude from certain actions that revengeful emotion is present, and especially is this so in the case of animals. thus, in the well-known instance of the elephant, who, observing a man passing by who had greatly annoyed him years before, suddenly drenched him with dirty water, we are not necessarily to suppose that this elephant was prompted by the emotion of revenge; although this may have been the case, we are not perfectly sure how far the elephant did the act merely as recompense for what the man had done, or how far the 182sight of the injurer, and so one likely to injure, roused to simple anger and defence against the threatening harmful. many acts which seem like revenge are quite likely to be common defence or offence, are done with reference to what the object is and will be as injurious, based upon knowledge of the past, and not as merely retrospective retributive acts. memory for injuries received is strong in many animals; that which has harmed is often recognised after many years as the harmful, and appropriate simple emotion, not revenge, is manifested. rage, rather than revenge, is the usual emotion among lower animals in special instances where revenge might seem called for; and thus it is more likely that the elephant should rage and hate rather than have pure revenge as in the case considered.

however, somewhere rather late in sub-human psychism revengeful emotion certainly arose as an advantageous variation, and it grew in strength and prominence for many ages of psychic progress. at length it culminated, and began its decline with the marked increase of co-operative sociality, with which it must greatly interfere. reprisal and counter-reprisal, vendetta, feud, is opposed to that social union which is strength; and so we see that tribes and nations in which the spirit of personal revenge has been a dominant trait have been left behind in the march of progress. revengefulness, at least in the form of retributive personal violence for injuries done, is, in a highly civilized community, entirely superseded by the machinery of law. instead of slaying a brother’s murderer i call upon the law to execute justice and retribution, and i bring certain designated ones among my fellows to secure my revenge. where a man takes the law in his own hands, and kills or injures the violator of his home or the slayer of his nearest kin, he recedes to the lower unsocial plane from which civilization has arisen. thus revengefulness, in certain forms at least, has become in the highest human 183communities a disadvantageous variation, and is gradually being eliminated. this negative elimination of revenge is also greatly hastened by the progress of certain ethical and christian conceptions by which a new and opposite law of conduct is enforced, namely, the returning good for evil.

one of the most interesting and most retrospective of emotions is sorrow. sorrow, grief and regret are wholly regardful of the past, are pains at the past. they are purely subjective or “mental” pains at the past, and in no wise pains from the past; they are not pains recurrent from past pains, but purely a painful emotion at the representation of past pain. thus, a man says, “i did it to my own harm and hurt, and i have always been sorry i did it.” here the sorrow-pain is evidently quite distinct from the direct pain of the injury; pain for the harm done is one thing, and pain from the harm done is another. i hurt myself, and i not only have this pain, but, being sorry that i did it, i have this new emotional pain added. sorrow as painful emotion for the past is thus plainly unique and peculiar. to feel sorry over what has happened is a mode of feeling altogether different from feeling proud of it, angry at it, etc., and we may reasonably regard sorrow as a distinct genus of retrospective emotion. what, now, is the nature and function of this special emotion reaction?

we have to consider here only that simple primitive sorrow which is a painful emotion at regarding personal loss or failure. such simple sorrow we see in the child who cries over spilled milk, in the man who expresses deep regret at the careless misstep by which he broke his leg. in this emotional reaction at the injurious the harmful is neither escaped nor repelled, as through fear and anger; the feeling disturbance is comparatively passive and purely reflective, and is not a spur to some immediate advantageous defensive or offensive activity. in sorrow we are pained emotionally at the trouble which has come upon 184us through our own agency or otherwise, but we do not struggle from it or against it, but there is purely helpless retrospection. harm and loss which might provoke in one nature to fear or anger, in another lead only to inactive sorrow.

the cognition form in sorrow means always sense of personal loss. i may fear a thing, or i may be angry at a thing, but i can be sorry only for a person. i do not feel sorry for a broken chair, though i may feel sorry for having broken it. this view of one’s own personal agency in causing harm to one’s self and harm to others is very prominent in a large range of sorrow. in viewing any action which determined some evil, i say, “i am sorry i did it.” this is, however, a later mode of the emotion, which at the first cannot take account of any agency, but is simply an acute feeling of distress at the injury received. thus the one who grieves over the spilled milk regards, not his own agency, but only his loss; he is sorry, not that he spilled the milk, but that his milk was spilled. yet the sense of personal agency certainly forms a great part in much sorrow, and tends to intensify it. i may grieve over any harm that has come upon me, but my grief is intensified as i remember my own agency in bringing it about. i may feel sorry over the loss of my goods by fire, but if i lose them by my own careless act, my sorrow is redoubled. strictly speaking, perhaps, the sorrows are distinct, i feel sorry for having done it and i am sorry at it done; yet they may be said to constitute a single psychic state. sense of our own agency, however, in having produced harm to self is as likely to produce anger at self or even fear of self. hence our intensest and purest sorrows are apt to be those occasioned by considering injuries occasioned by elemental forces. that harm which we did not help because we could not, the inevitable injury, this excites a keen regret and deep mourning.

185the pain in sorrow is as peculiar, searching, unanalyzable and undescribable as other simple emotion pains, and only conceivable through realization. this sinking, helpless pain over what has happened is clearly distinct from the sensation order of pains, and is in no wise a reflection from them. the pain i have at remembrance of some great loss which has befallen me is certainly very distinct from that which came from the loss itself.

what part now does sorrow play as a psychic life-function, and how explain it on the general principle of natural selection? at first sight, sorrow or grief over the past seems utterly valueless, seems to be mental energy thrown away. the past is irretrievable, of what use then is any grief? is not all regret vain? to deplore its loss does not tend to restore a lost arm, and it is of no use crying over spilled milk. indeed, he who bewails spilled milk has not only the actual loss but the ideal pain about the loss. he who grieves suffers doubly. but while it is true that sorrow for what has happened cannot alter the occurrence, yet it has a permanent salutary effect on the one who sorrows to give more caution for the future. the child will carry the pitcher of milk the more carefully next time by the more he has grieved over the past occurrence. by increasing sensitiveness and capacity for sorrow experience is strengthened, deepened, and completely adjusted to environment. shallow and volatile natures, who take all loss and harm easily, and even gaily, have little strength, and attain no great and permanent growth. but with most, when the object of strong desire is suddenly lost, not only will there be a disappearance of the positive feeling about it, but an actual minus or negative state will be generated, a reaction mode we term grief. by this grief the chief lessons of all higher experience are made possible. grief is not a pathological phenomenon in mind, but in its place thoroughly normal and useful. indeed, if under certain circumstances grief did not appear, mind 186would be proved very crude, obtuse, or diseased. he who never feels sad about what has happened, is not of a progressive or highly advanced type. if one does not feel sorry for his past errors and hurtful actions, he plainly has so much the less motive force to higher action for the future. if sorrow had never entered the world of mind, if the whole corrective for injurious actions or want of action lay wholly in the immediate pain resulting or in the direct simple emotions like fear and anger, a most potent factor in psychic progress would be lacking. the possibility of going wrong, i.e., literally aside, and contrariwise to one’s own interests, is implied in the struggle for existence. the next best thing to the impossible status of being unable to do wrong, is to have the capacity of feeling for the wrong, that is, of experiencing grief. sorrow is thus a corrective of the highest importance in the history of experience. the slips, willed and unwilled, from the narrow path of upward evolution are of necessity many; but a man is, on the whole, best doing the largest part in the evolution scheme in which he finds himself, who both knows the wrong as such, and is sorry for it, whether in the primitive selfish mode, or better still, on the higher ethical and religious grounds. the greatest and most efficient minds are those who have felt most keenly for their errors, faults, and sins.

as to the origin of grief, we may say with confidence that it is tolerably late, and certainly subsequent to anger and hate and like reactions. under certain circumstances sorrow must be accounted a more favourable reaction than these. rage is certainly impotent and useless on many occasions of recalled injury, and rage is besides a very intense emotion and expensive of energy. the general law in the development of emotion is toward milder, more economical, and more permanent forms, and then it is that sorrow must at some time have originated under the demands of life, and been preserved and developed under 187natural selection. sorrow most probably originated as supplanting rage at the view or remembrance of injury done. in young children we often see rage mingled with the first manifestation of grief, and but slowly is the rage eliminated and pure grief attained. sorrow exercises its function where rage is useless. the child cries over spilled milk partly from rage, partly from grief, but such mishaps will tend more and more to be attended by grief only, as the better and more economical reaction. further, in a certain range of cases, sorrow in its manifestations serves to appease revenger, and sincere regret, unmistakably expressed, often saves the wrong-doer an equivalent harm. this form of sorrow function is distinctly cultivated in the education of children where they are taught to feel sorry for faults if they would be forgiven and escape punishment.

grief in its origin and its earlier occurrence is not the spontaneous and almost irresistible impulse of our adult human experience, but, like all emotion and all progressive psychism, is by effort of will. that is, we must suppose that grief has its origin in some such nisus as a child exhibits when he is taught to be sorry for something he has done. hence it is only gradually and with the lapse of many generations after its origin that sorrow becomes hereditary and spontaneous. at first sorrow was a distinct attainment, rarely and but occasionally reached by any individual, and it is comparatively late in psychic history that it becomes a permanent and innate power. sorrow also very gradually widens its sphere. at first purely selfish, a retrospective reaction at one’s own hurt, it becomes at length, through sociality and its concurrent advantages, altruistic; sorrow is felt for others and the springs of sympathy and pity are developed. that this altruism is very late development is obvious, in that it has still to be taught even among the most advanced of the human race to their children. the child is taught to 188feel sorry for the cat he has hurt, for the blind man, for the cripple. and we must conclude that at one time in psychic history egoistic sorrow was likewise at the stage of development at which we now see altruistic, and we may suppose that in the far future the altruistic may come to the present status of the egoistic sorrow. however, for both there is an indefinite field for expansion, for refinement of sensibility, and for readiness and appropriateness of manifestation. sorrow also will develop more and more on ethical and religious grounds. remorse arises and develops; and also the “godly sorrow for sin.” we learn to feel, not merely sorry over the past as affecting our disadvantage, but to feel sorry conscientiously as our deeds or those of others conflict with the law of right or with the law of god. those who have no god-consciousness, and so no feeling about their action in the sight of god, no sense of sinfulness, have yet often acute moral sense and feelings. however, the origin and function of the moral and religious sense in the light of natural selection is a wide subject which can only be alluded to here; suffice it to say that sorrow is thereby lifted to a peculiar and new plane of self-contained spirituality. that is, the bearing of it is often without relation to physical life-function, and even adverse thereto, and throughout has its value and sanction in itself alone.

one of the deepest and most significant of late forms of sorrow is that for the dead, and its importance is obvious from the fact that a word is especially coined to denote its expression, namely, mourning. nothing can be more useless than mourning for the dead as far as the individual object is concerned; the most poignant sorrow cannot in anywise tend to reanimate the corpse. however, it plainly serves as an index to the value put upon life, and so in general has a most powerful effect on conservation and upbuilding of life. other things being equal, sensitiveness to this form of sorrow measures accurately possibly self-conservative 189effort or effort for others’ conservation, which in a state of sociality, is equivalent in value to one’s self. the lives for which there is the most mourning and real sorrow when death comes are the most valuable to the community, and for the conserving of which the utmost combined effort would be extended. where life has little value attached to it, sorrow is slight and mourning short. as compared with the savage state, loss and injury to life is infinitely more respected in the great centres of modern civilization—the nuclei of progress. it is because we feel strongly for the safety of friends and relatives that we employ the best devices to insure their protection from injury and death. one who has sorrowed most deeply over the death of a friend caused by his own careless handling of a gun, will for the future be much more careful for himself and others. to be sure we sorrow deeply because we place a high estimate upon the life rather than place high estimate because we sorrow greatly; but if there were no sorrow reaction, there would be no emotion basis for the future caution and care, and it affects our general estimate of life. thus there is ever a cumulative emotional development.

perhaps the latest developed form of sorrow is the feeling of sadness which comes over one in reflecting upon pain as a universal fact of existence. the pessimistic mood, with its converse, the optimistic, as based on philosophic generalization, is certainly extremely late. pain at pain in general, pleasure at pleasure as a purely general fact, are equally remote from primitive modes, and mark culminating phases. while, perhaps, there is a certain justification and value in being saddened by the spectacle of universal pain, yet a gravity rather than a despondency is its proper measure. pain, punitive and premonitory, plays, as we have already noted more than once in our discussions, a most beneficent and essential part in the struggle for existence and in all the higher struggle. it 190is a necessary and salutary phenomenon, involved in the very nature of evolution by struggle; hence he who impugns pain and is offended at it, really impugns the psychic nature of things and desires with schopenhauer the annihilation of will. as a matter of fact the extreme pessimistic spirit is more destructive to progress than even the most buoyant optimism, in that it nips all earnest and forceful activity in the bud. a foolishly happy-go-lucky activity is better than a paralysis of effort through conviction of its inherent painfulness and ultimate inutility. the scientific evidence, so far as we can now read it, points decisively to the belief that pain-will activity, an intense struggle, is the earliest mind, and the condition of its birth has been the law of its development, and for aught that we can see, ever will be. into this we are born, and it is as foolish to run counter to it as to the law of gravitation. a philosophy which runs counter to reality must either build a new reality or subside; but it is most certainly to be doubted whether the philosophic spirit ever has or ever will determine a general innovation in psychic evolution. but we cannot do more than merely advert to these large questions here.

with reference to the development of sorrow it is an obvious remark that much which causes grief in the earlier stages of mental growth ceases to have that effect with maturer experience. thus the man may not notice, or may laugh at, or may feel irritation at occasions which in his early life would have wakened grief. on the contrary, much that seems grievous to the old is not so regarded by the young. in general, grief tends to become less frequent and paroxysmal, but more profound and lasting with the growth of mind.

as to the kinds of retrospective emotion the largest division is, of course, into the painful and pleasurable. we have touched only on some of the painful, but each painful emotion has its analogous pleasurable emotion. 191we have used the terms sorrow and grief as synonyms. if we should make a distinction, it would be to put sadness or sorrow in antithesis to happiness, and grief to joy; that is, sorrow proceeds from outward circumstances, grief from subjective conditions. however, popular usage is not firm on this point. regret is a mild sorrow. remorse is the ethical side of sorrow. resignation is a very late phase of emotion related to sorrow. a person says, my child was crushed in the accident, yet i do not grieve, but am quite resigned. here certainly is a new mode of feeling about past harm, and it is a mode as far above sorrow proper as sorrow is above anger in the evolutionary scale. we do not lament or weep over the past, but there is self-conscious, self-constrained sinking of the will, and a composure which is not apathy, but a gentle emotion wave. nor is there a callousness; one is not hardened, but softened, and made the more sensitive. the emotion of resignation is thus cultivated and to be cultivated, and is yet in the volition stage which marks the early form of all emotions. even in the highest human types resignation does not come, it must be brought; the instinctive impulse upon contemplating past personal evil is toward sorrow or anger and revenge, which must be checked, and resignation directly willed and assumed as the proper emotion. resignation, then, as a growing point in psychic evolution, a distinct attainment as frame of mind, is generally and rightly accounted a virtue. at present, then, it seems the culmination of retrospective emotion with regard to past personal injuries, and it exercises and will more and more exercise a most important function in human psychic development.