Valuation, its nature and laws : being an introduction to the general theory of value

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VALUATION: ITS NATURE AND LAWS

VALUATION

NATURE AND LAWS

AN INTRODUCTION TO
THE GENERAL THEORY OF VALUE

BY

WILBUR MARSHALL URBAN, PH. D.

FORMERLY CHANCELLOR GREEN FELLOW IN MENTAL SCIENCE, AND HEADER IN

PHILOSOPHY, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY; PROFKSSOR OF PHILOSOPHY,

TRINITY COLLF.UE, HARTKORO, CONN.

LONDON

SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LIM.

NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.

1909

ovvc Vt*-'':rr*

,. . RlP

.VAk-'^*-" *

TO

JAMES MARK BALDWIN

AS A MARK OF
APPRECIATION AND RESPECT

'

PREFACE

THE " point of view," the unexpressed assumptions in the half-
light of which any book, even the most " scientific," is written,
and which sometimes find their way into the preface, are often
more informing and more interesting than the book itself. This
should be eminently true in the case of a book on Values, for
here, if anywhere, the writer might, perhaps, be permitted to
wear his heart on his sleeve. It is not my purpose, however,
to add this glimmer of possible human interest to an otherwise
dull book. In so far as the statement of such presuppositions
may have any significance for the main developments of the
book, they are presented with due objectivity and detachment
in the Introduction, and carried — with equal care, it is to be
hoped — to some of their more obvious conclusions in the final
chapter. It is unnecessary to anticipate them here. But with
regard to the more general background — the relation of such
a book to the characteristic assumptions of the time — the situa
tion is different. Here a prefatory word may be a word in
season ; it may not only illuminate some of the dark places, but
may even give the key to an appreciation if not to a complete
understanding of the entire discussion.

Until recently there was little question as to what should
be the suppressed major premise of any serious inquiry, what
ever its subject-matter might be. To science and the scientific
method belonged the whole " choir of heaven " as well as the
" furniture of earth." To leave this assumption unquestioned
was felt to be the only correct attitude, and where its acceptance
was not whole-souled, half-hearted imitation took its place.

viii Preface

For some time, it is true, this assumption has not been without
its disquieting effects upon life and art, upon morals and religion.
The sophistication and even pruriency of thought and feeling
to which some of the expressions of the scientific spirit have
given rise, have led to a reaction against intellectualism which
if not widespread is at least profound. But it was not until
the triumphant march of science led to the soul and its inmost
values that this reaction took definite form. The realisation
of the capacity for large ineptitudes no less than for small futili
ties, which an uncriticised application of scientific method may
display, has led to a questioning of its most fundamental assump
tions. Vague distrust has developed into outspoken alogistic
and even misologistic tendencies, until the counter-assumption,
that values lie beyond the ken of knowledge and science, bids
fair to rival its opponent in honour. In our theory as well as in
our practice we have reached a point of equivocation, not to say
contradiction, at which we must either take refuge in a new
doctrine of " two-fold truth " or else, if there is any practical
meaning in the principle of the dialectic, await with patience a
middle ground of unification.

In the meantime, this dilemma of the Time-Spirit demands a
new and rigid alignment of principles, and any book which enters
the " fighting-zone " owes it to itself to be clear on this point.
The present work places itself frankly on the side of knowledge
rather than of edification, in the full belief that the latter pre
supposes the former. For better or for worse, we are caught in
the grip of an immitigable will to know, a will to know which
claims for its province " the human soul and its limits, the
entire range of its hitherto acquired experiences, the entire history
of the soul and its still unexhausted possibilities." Short of
this we cannot stop except by the loss of the energy of this will
which means the decadence of values as well. Nor does it shun
the bringing together of the concepts of value and science. If
science when it has followed this track has sometimes shown

Preface ix

qualities meriting the term " dismal," it does not follow that
when it has penetrated more deeply it may not be " gay." We
may well believe that the period of a crude and external domi
nance of the human spirit by an inhuman conception of science
is approaching its zenith, if indeed it has not already begun to
decline ; but it would be a mistake to infer that with such decline
will go that deeper and more intimate control of the individual
and social will alike which is made possible through the inter
pretation of their meanings in terms of reflective thought. Be
cause certain limited conceptions, as well as unlimited claims,
of science are being modified, it does not follow that the power
of science, in the older and better use of that term, will be lessened.
Rather may we confidently look for its increase. For faith and
feeling also make unlimited claims which only the discipline of
the scientific spirit enables us properly to appraise. There will
always be new ventures in faith and science alike, and new
ventures must always be followed by new evaluations. But
such evaluations are not to be secured by reference to a closed
system, either of truths or of values, but only by that orderly
progression from actualities to possibilities and certainties
which is the method of science. In the interest of true evalua
tions, the present time is committed to the full development of
all that is implied in the concept of science rightly understood.

In comparison with this task — in its larger aspects by no
means that of the merely technical philosopher, the aim of the
following pages is much more modest. Limited as they are to
certain "first works" which must in the nature of the case be
largely technical, the writer must be content merely to hope that
they may affect, at least indirectly, the larger issues.

The first six chapters, beginning with " definition and analy
sis," and culminating in the chapter on the general laws of
valuation, seek to lay the foundations for an understanding
of the different types of value judgments, their implications
and their limits. In the development of this portion, chapters

x Preface

IV. and v. are in a sense an interruption, since they are wholly
psychological ; and, while they treat of matters necessary to the
complete understanding of the more general topics that follow,
might have been handled in separate sections as required. On
the whole, it seemed better to bring them together in one
systematic treatment. Chapters vn. to xm. inclusive apply these
results to a genetic and synthetic investigation of the conscious
ness of value from its lowest to its highest levels. Without
laying claim to comprehensiveness or completeness, it may be
said, I think, that there is no significant form of worth experience
which is not adequately enough treated to show its relation to
the general system of values. Finally, in chapter xiv. an
attempt is made to show the bearing of these results on what I
have ventured to call the axiological problem of evaluation.
The views which I have felt justified in presenting in the
limited space of a single chapter represent but in outline
certain philosophical conclusions to which the study of the
phenomenology of valuation has led. The work was originally
planned to be merely such a phenomenological study, and as
such it must be judged, but the unity which the entire work
gained by the addition of this chapter seemed to compensate
for any inadequacies which the chapter might appear to have
when viewed by itself. In this connection I wish to express
my regret that Miinsterberg's Philosophic der Werthe appeared
too late for the utilisation, except in the last chapter, of any
of the valuable suggestions which I have got from its study.
While my general position has remained unmodified, I could not
have remained uninfluenced, in many details at least, by his
brilliant and persuasive presentation of a view which is essentially
opposed to my own.

In acknowledging my indebtedness to recent writers for
many of the ideas contained in these pages, I have first of all
to express my specific obligations to the oral as well as written
teachings of Professor Baldwin. My deeper sense of obligation

Preface xi

he has most kindly allowed me to express in the form of dedica
tion. Of my indebtedness to Meinong and Ehrenfels, as well as
to others of that school, my references to their works give visible
proof. These do not, however, adequately suggest the valuable
help that I have received, not only from their researches in this
special field, but from all their writings. To the French psy
chologists, Ribot and Paulhan, whose studies in " feeling "
have yet to be properly valued, I am also greatly indebted.
In conclusion, I have to express my gratitude to Professor
J. H. Muirhead, the editor of the Library of Philosophy, for his
very kind interest in the work, as well as for many valuable
suggestions and criticisms. My colleagues Professor G. A.
Kleene and Professor Arthur Adams have also rendered me
great assistance, the former with expert suggestions on points
in economics, the latter in connection with the reading of the
proof.

Chapters u., m., and part of iv. have already appeared as
articles in the Psychological Review. They have in each case
been considerably modified to suit their present purpose. The
general Introduction is an expansion and modification of a
paper printed in the Philosophical Review under the same title.

TRINITY COLLEGE, HARTFORD, CONN.
December, 1908.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

PAGE

The Function of a General Theory of Value : its Nature and Sources . I

The Psychological Problem and Method — The Presuppositional Method of

Psychological Analysis : a form of the Genetic Method . . -9

The Axiological Problem and Method — Facts and Norms — Genesis and

Validity . . . . . . . . .16

The Relation of the Psychological and Axiological Points of View . .18

CHAPTER II

DEFINITION AND ANALYSIS OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF VALUE

The Judgment of Value — Worth Predicates as Affective- Volitional Meanings
— Equivocations in Judgments of Value leading to Analysis of Pre
suppositions . . . . . . . .21

Values as Meanings of an Object for a Subject — The Subject of the Value
Judgment — The Subject in Different Attitudes — Classification of Atti
tudes : Simple Appreciation, Personal and Over-Personal or Impersonal
— The Object of the Value Judgment — Objects of Condition, Personal
and Over- Individual Value — The Relation of Subject and Object . 26

Psychological Analysis of Worth Experience — Worth as Feeling with certain
Cognitive Presuppositions — The Worth-Fundamental is Feeling, not
Desire — The Presupposition of Reality not exclusively Existential Judg
ment : Criticism of Theory of Existential Judgment underlying this View
— The Presupposition of Reality: Presumption, Judgment and Assump
tion of Existence of Objects — Analysis of these Cognitive Attitudes . 35

The Genesis and Relations of these Presuppositions — Genetic Levels of
Valuation . . . . . . . . -49

Resume of Definition and Analysis . . . . . -S3

CHAPTER III

MODES OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF VALUE — PRIMARY AND ACQUIRED

Appreciative Description of Feelings of Value : its Nature and Method . 5 5
The Fundamental Appreciative Distinctions in Feeling — Descriptions of
Reality-Meanings of Feelings of Value, not of Simple Feeling

Contents

abstracted from Cognitive Presuppositions— The Three-Dimensional "
Theory of Feeling : Interpretation— Correlation of Appreciative Mean
ings with Cognitive Presuppositions ... 50

Meanings Acquired by Development from the Fundamental Modes— Value-
Movement— Acquired Meanings of Simple Appreciation— The Impellent
Mode : Feelings of Obligation— The Semblant Mode : ^Esthetic Feeling 67

Acquired Meanings of Characterisation and Participation: Personal and
Over-Individual Values .... 7I

The Quantitative Meanings of Worth Feeling— Analysis of the Concept of
Degree— Degree of Worth (Depth and Breadth) and Degree of Intensity :
Independently Variable— Intensity-less Appreciation : Illustrations-
Theories of this Relation — Suggestion of a Genetic Theory to be
developed later ..... 72

The Bearing of this Analysis on Further Problems . . 78

CHAPTER IV

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF A THEORY OF VALUATION

The Nature of Feeling and Will and their Relations— Dualistic Theories of
Feeling and Will : Criticism— Monistic and Genetic Theory— Interpreta
tion of the Monistic Theory : its Relation to the Definition and Analysis
of the Consciousness of Value . . . . . g r

Further Analysis of Feeling: Structural and Functional— Feeling as a
Kind of Sensitivity — The Appreciative Distinctions in Feeling as
" Forms of Combination " of the Elements . . . .96

Correlation of Structural and Functional Analysis — Changes in Functional
Meaning and Changes in Sensitivity: Passion and Emotion. Sentiment
and Mood, and Affective Sign— Theory of their Genetic Relations . 103

Corollaries from the Preceding Theory — Their Significance for the Theory
of Valuation .... .108

CHAPTER V

THE CONTINUITY OF AFFECTIVE-VOLITIONAL MEANING

The Acquirement of Recognitive and Generic Meanings on the Part of
Feelings : The Problem . . . . . . . 1 1 r

Affective Memory — Types of Affective Memory — The Criterion of Recogni
tive Meaning as applied to Feelings — Theory of Affective Memory . 113

The Generic Meanings of Feeling: Affective Generalisation — The Phe
nomena of Affective Continuity: Substitution, Subsumption, Transition 120

Psychological Theory of Generic Meanings of Feeling — Imageless Appre
hension and Intensity-less Appreciation — The Process of Affective
Generalisation . . . . . . . • 121

The Role of Affective Generals in Processes of Valuation — Worth Continui
ties: Illustrations . . . . . . -133

Contents xv

CHAPTER VI

THE LAWS OF VALUATION

PAGE

The Laws of Valuation : Their Nature and Range of Application—4

Economic and Extra-Economic Values — Classification and Interpretation 142

The Law of the Threshold : General Meaning — Economic Thresholds,
Upper and Lower : The Existence-Minimum and Final Utility — Modific
ation of the Threshold through Acquired Meanings : Complementary
Values — General Function of Threshold in Processes of Valuation — The
Independent Variability of Hedonic and Worth Thresholds . .146

The Law of Diminishing Utility : Its Historical Significance and Relation

to a General Theory of Value , . . . . .156

The Psychological Basis of the Law : Dulling of Sensitivity with Repetition
and Satiety — Critical Examination of these Laws — Their Application
limited to Sense-Feelings and to the Hedonic Redundancies of Feelings
of Value — Restatement of the General Law of Limiting or Diminishing
Value . . . . . . . . .158

Extent of the Application of this Law : Its Application to all Instrumental
Utility Values, but not necessarily to Intrinsic Ideal Values — The Law
of Marginal Utility and its Explanation — Certain Limitations of this Law 167

The Law of Complementary Values — As Modifying the Law of Limiting
Value : In Economic Valuation ; In Extra-Economic Valuation,
Ethical and ..Esthetic — General Characterisation of the Law: Its
Psychological Basis — Interpretation . . . . . 173

The Application of these Laws to Ideal Objects of Intrinsic Value — The
Limits of this Application . . . . .181

General Conclusions : The Problem of the Limits of Acquirement of Value —
Inferences from this Study of the Laws of Valuation — Their Bearing
upon Further Studies . . . . . . .185

CHAPTER VII

VALUES OF SIMPLE APPRECIATION

Values of Simple Appreciation : their Origin and Nature — Objects of " Con
dition" Worth, Primary and Derived ..... 190

Value Movements in General : Definition and Classification — Their Relation
to the Laws of Valuation . . . . . . . 194

Value Movements of Simple Appreciation : Ethical and ^Esthetic Values
thus Acquired — Modification of Economic Values of Acquisition and
Consumption ........ 205

The Ethical or Impellent Mode of Simple Appreciation : As the Result of
Inward Value Movement — Pre-Ethical and Quasi-Ethical Impulsions
and Obligations : their Sub-Personal and Sub-Social Character — Illus
trations of Instinctive, Quasi-Ethical Obligations — Modification of Econ
omic Valuation by these Acquired Obligations . . . . 207

^Esthetic or Semblant Mode of Simple Appreciation : as Special Form of
the Value Movement toward Activity — Pre-^Esthetic and Quasi-
jEsthetic Forms of Activity : Their Individual and Sub-Social Character
Conditions of Movement to Activity in its Pre-^Esthetic Form — The
Special Differentia of .the ^Esthetic . . . . .216

Modification of Economic Valuation by Acquired ^Esthetic Values . . 229

xvi Contents

CHAPTER VIII

PERSONAL AND OVER-INDIVIDUAL VALUES — THEIR ORIGIN
AND NATURE

PACE

Personal and Over-Individual Values : their Origin and Nature — Their
" Common Meaning " Presupposes Sympathetic Participation . .232

Sympathetic Participation (Einfuhlung): its Relation to Simple Apprecia
tion and Feeling . . . . . . . -234

The Psychology of Sympathetic Projection: Its Nature and Conditions —
The Inducing Conditions of Affective Projection . . . .236

Levels of Sympathetic Participation — The Presuppositions of Sympathetic
Feelings : (a) Organic Sympathy, with Vague Presumption of Existence ;
(b) Rise of Assumption-Feelings and Emergence of Distinctions in Pre
suppositions — Sembling ; (c) Judgment-Feelings : Conceptual Reconstruc
tion of the Inner Life in Terms of Dispositions .... 244

Sympathetic Participation (Einfuhlung) as a Process of Valuation — The
Nature of the Feelings of Value Involved : the Projected Feelings
"Real" Feelings — Value Movements in Participation and Characterisa
tion ......... 249

The Distinction between Personal and Impersonal Participation — Intensive
and Extensive Projection : Resulting in Differences of Presuppositions
of Feelings ...... * 253

CHAPTER IX

PERSONAL WORTHS : VALUES OF CHARACTERISATION

Definition : The Personal Attitude in Valuation — The Presuppositions of
this Attitude — The Ideal of the Personality — How assumed in all Judg
ments of Personal Worth ....... 260

The Character of the Ideal Person as determined by the Processes in which
it is Constructed — Idealisation involved in Sympathetic Participation —
Division of the Personality — Extrusion of the Negative Elements —
Further Stages in Idealisation : ^Esthetic Individuation of the Person ;
Acquirement of Complementary Value ..... 263

The Laws of Valuation as applied to Personal Worth — The Problem in the
Light of our General Study — Special Examination of Feelings of Personal
Worth ......... 270

The Activities of Idealisation and Characterisation — Not Subject to the Law
of Diminishing Value : Feelings of Personal Worth not Subject to Dulling
of Sensitivity and Satiety ....... 272

The Effect of Idealisation on our Actual Feelings and Judgments — The
Semblant Mode in Characterisation — Dispositions Created which affect
Actual Judgment . . . . . . . 275

Absolute Personal Values : They exist as Practical Absolutes . . 277

CHAPTER X

PERSONAL WORTHS — Continued

Analysis and Interpretation of the Concrete Judgments of Personal Worth :
Imputation and Obligation — Definition of the Subject, Object, and Terms
of Estimation Presupposed in such Judgments « . ' -» . 282

Contents xvii

PAGE

Difference between the Personal or Ethical and the Impersonal or Moral
Standpoints ......... 288

The Relative Estimation of Personal Worth — The Thresholds and Norms
of Personal Obligation and Imputation : Their Origin in the Processes of
Sympathetic Participation . . . . . . .291

The Normal Threshold : The Norm of Characterisation — The Upper and
Lower Limits of Personal Worth : The Characterisation-Minimum — How
Presupposed in all Judgments of Personal Worth .... 293

Laws Governing Feelings of Personal Worth : as Illustrated in Imputation
of Merit and Demerit and in Personal Obligation .... 298

The Axiological Question of the Validity of the Implicit Assumptions or Pre
suppositions of these Judgments ...... 309

CHAPTER XI

IMPERSONAL OVER-INDIVIDUAL VALUES

Definition : Over-Individual Values of Participation and Utilisation — The
Impersonal Attitude in Valuation — The Morally Qualified Act and the
Morally Qualified Judgment — Relativity of the Distinction between the
Personal and Impersonal Attitude . . . . . 311

The Presuppositions of the Impersonal Attitude : Over-Individual Demands
— Over-Individual Demands as Collective Desire and Feeling — Their
Origin and Nature — Social Synergies : Demand and Supply — The Re
lation of Subjective to Objective Participation Value . . . 317

Subjective Participation Value — The Individual's Feelings of Participation
Value as Determined by Social Sympathy — Extensive Sympathetic Par
ticipation — The Laws of Social Sympathy . . . . 320

The Objective Participation Value of Dispositions as Deduced from the
Laws of Social Sympathy — The Law of Marginal Participation Value . 328

Corollaries from the Law of Marginal Participation Value — The Laws of
Social Synergy — Social Value Movements — Social Differentiation and
Segregation — The Norms and Limits of Participation Value . . 331

The Limits of Acquirement of Social Over-Individual Value — The Question
of Absolute Social Values ....... 342

CHAPTER XII

IMPERSONAL OVER-INDIVIDUAL VALUES — Continued

Analysis and Interpretation of Concrete Moral Judgments — The Moral
Value of an Act as determined by its Participation Value — Estimation
of Moral Value in Terms of Egoism and Altruism — The Significance of
these Terms . . . . . . . . • 35°

The Thresholds and Norms of Moral Judgment — The Norm of Participation :
The " Correct " : The Normal Expectation of Social Participation — The
Lower Threshold : The Participation-Minimum — How Developed in
Social Participation and Presupposed in all Judgments of Moral Value . 356

Laws Governing Objective Participation Value as reflected in Imputation
of Praise and Blame and in Moral Obligation — Moral Obligation Relative,
not Absolute ........ 358

xviii Contents

CHAPTER XIII

SYNTHETIC PREFERENCE

PAGE

The Relative Value of Different Classes of Worth Objects— The Levels of
Valuation ......... 366

Rationalistic and Monistic Theories of Valuation — Criticism — Intuitionism
and Scepticism ........ 368

Analysis of the Facts of Synthetic Preference as exhibited in Judgments of
Obligation and Imputation of Value — Conflicts between the Ideals and
Obligations of the Different Levels of Condition, Personal and Impersonal
Over-Individual Values — The Resolutions of these Conflicts in Actual
Experience : In so far as Uniform and Unequivocal, Reflections of the
General Laws of Valuation — Break-down of these Laws at the Limits . 371

Conclusions from the Analysis of Synthetic Preference — Restatement of
the Criticism of Monistic Theories — The Doctrine of Supreme Moments
or Practical Absolutes — The Supreme Moments of Intrinsic Appreciation
Transcend all Distinctions of Appreciative Description — The Bearing of
these Conclusions on Larger Philosophical Problems . . . 378

CHAPTER XIV— Conclusion

VALUATION AND EVALUATION

Restatement of the Axiological Point of View — Reflective Evaluation —
Normative and Factual Objectivity . . . . -384

Analysis of Axiological Distinctions of Reality and Truth employed in Re
flective Evaluation — The Meanings of Existence : Outer and Inner —
The Meanings of Truth : Outer and Inner ..... 386

The Relation of Normative to Factual and Truth Objectivity — Their
Meanings only Partially Identical : The Objectivity of Values not wholly
Reducible to Existence and Truth — Proof of this Conclusion in the Value
Judgments of Religion ....... 390

The Sufficient Reason or Sanction of Valuation — The Ground of Value —
The Rationalistic Criterion ; The Pragmatic Criterion ; Criticism —
Formulation of the Sufficient Sanction of Valuation in the Light of the
Ultimate Meaning of the Presupposition of Reality and of its Fulfilment 395

Axiological Necessity and Sufficiency — The Well-Founded Value — Axio
logical Possibility and Compossibility — Formulation of a Criterion of the
Well-Founded Value . . . . . .405

Application of this Criterion to Specific Practical Problems — Again the
Monistic Ideals . . . . . . • 4J4

Philosophical Conclusions — Truth, Value, and Reality : Their Ultimate
Relations ....... • 422

INDEX . . . 429

VALUATION

ITS NATURE AND LAWS

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

I. THE FUNCTION OF A GENERAL THEORY OF VALUE

THERE has seldom been a time in the history of thought when
the problem of " value " has so occupied the centre of attention
as at present. Fundamental changes in the actual values of
mankind, giving rise to what has been well called " our anxious
morality," with its characteristic talk of creating and conserving
values, have brought with them what may, without exaggeration,
be described as a gradual shifting of the philosophical centre of
gravity from the problem of knowledge to the problem of values.
The problem of knowledge has itself become, in some quarters
wholly, in others partially, a problem of value.

The historical causes of this, until recently silent, change of
attitude are, in a general way, clear enough. The change from
intellectualism to voluntarism, the rigorous discipline of the
human soul through the almost universal application of the
concepts of evolution and the struggle for existence, with their
ideas of selective and survival values — these are explanations
which immediately suggest themselves ; and yet they are but
general and superficial characterisations of a still more funda
mental crisis of the social will, a crisis which has its roots deep in
the necessities of things, and which we are as yet scarcely able
to understand.

Whatever the causes, the effects are everywhere in evidence.
This gradual change in actual values has found a mouth
piece, if somewhat rhetorical and rhapsodical, in Nietzsche's
cry of " transvaluation of all values." But this cry has been

2 Valuation : its Natiire and Laws

echoed by other hearts and minds, and that which began as a
species of poetry has passed into sober prose. Of chief import
ance is the transition from the accumulation of knowledge to its
evaluation. To say nothing of the growing attempt to evaluate
the results of physical science in the interests of a more compre
hensive natural philosophy — a movement which may or may not
have some connection with Nietzsche's arraignment of science in
its present form, we may find sufficient evidences of this change
of heart in the social and moral sciences, where the problem of
value lies closer to the surface. " While formerly," we are told,
" it was almost wholly the external structure of the social life,
and the economic values which it produces, that received atten
tion, now it is the meaning of this life for the human soul, its
spiritual origin and spiritual effects, which finds expression."1
In short it is the problem of evaluation.

Corresponding to this change in practical attitude, has ap
peared the more theoretical consciousness of, as it were, a new
side of reality. We have been scarcely aware, so we are told,
that our entire life, on its conscious side, is one continuous series
of feelings of value and evaluations, of explicit judgments and
implicit assumptions of value ; and that it is only by reason of
the very fact, that they are valued, that the mechanically deter
mined elements of reality in any sense have meaning for us.
Far from being a mere fact among other -facts, that which we
mean by our evaluation of objects is something independent of
this world, and so little merely a part of it that it is rather the
whole world seen from a special point of view. Over against a
world of facts is set a world of values.

But if this growing consciousness of the problem of value has
indeed reached a point where we are conscious of a world of
values, where the terms ethical, aesthetic, and even " truth "
values, are in every mouth, and where the thought of a special
" theory of value " is no longer novel, with it has also come the
realisation that philosophy, and the philosophical disciplines
which are traditionally concerned with values, are, in their
present form, not quite in a position to take possession of the new
world. It is true that for some time metaphysics has seemed to
many to be but a theory of value ; but the traditional problems

1 This quotation is taken from the " Prospekt" of Die Gesellschaft (Verlag
der Literarischen Anstalt, Ruten & Loenig, in Frankfurt A. M.), a collection of
social-psychological monographs in which the various institutions of society are
studied from the point of view of their values for the individual. Some of the
titles are Religion, Speech, Custom, Commerce, The State, Politics, War, The
Strike, etc.

Introduction 3

as well as the traditional methods of that discipline are still such
as to make the question of values subordinate to the question
of " being." Nor are the special sciences which deal with
facts of value able, as such, to cope with the changes, in
both form and content of discussion, which this new setting of
the problem has brought about. An harmonious division of
labour between economics, ethics, and aesthetics has produced
results which, for various and sufficient reasons, do not meet
the need. It is rather precisely because of this division of
labour, unwisely conceived, that the results are unsatisfactory.
More and more the conviction gains ground that a general theory
of value, which shall comprehend in a systematic and scientific
way all types of human values, is an absolute necessity.

II. THE SOURCES OF SUCH A THEORY

It has been said that the most fruitful metaphysical thought
of the present is to be found in the special sciences. While
perhaps not quite true, such a statement has this element of
truth, that it is within the special sciences that the most signifi
cant questions of philosophy first make their appearance. Simi
larly, the necessity of solving certain special questions of value
within the sciences of economics, ethics, and aesthetics, has
developed concepts the significance of which extends far beyond
these limits, and which therefore afford the material for more
general and systematic reflections.

Of first importance is the " theory of value " which economics
has developed for its special purposes. Narrow as this theory
is (for it is not so long ago that an economist, F. von Wieser,
although of the opinion that he had fulfilled his intention of
' ' treating exhaustively the entire sphere of worth phenomena with
out an exception," did not once in his investigations go beyond
the region of economic goods), nevertheless, the very limitation of
its activities to a narrow range of problems has led to an intensive
analysis of certain facts and laws of valuation which should have
long since furnished an example to ethics, and which must now
furnish both the stimulus and the discipline for any one who seeks
to comprehend the larger field. But this limitation of interest
has obscured wider relations, knowledge of which would have
been fruitful for the special work of the economist himself, and,
in some cases, has led to fallacies of both observation and infer
ence, which a more philosophical treatment of facts would have

4 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

corrected. These limitations are, however, being overcome. The
necessity of translating economic into sociological conceptions,
of correlating economic with larger social values, has brought
about a notable change. Indeed, much of the movement in the
direction of a more general theory comes from economics itself.
Gradually the opposition to theory in this sphere is giving way,
and at the same time the feeling increases that economic values
are but a special class of human worths, and that they can be
understood only in their relations, especially in their relation to
ethical values.1

Ethics, likewise, has its contributions to make to a general
theory of value. Chief among these are its appreciative analyses
and descriptions of qualitatively different attitudes and disposi
tions, and its elaboration of a doctrine of the norms of obligation
and virtue in which the appreciative distinctions of the race have
been fixed. To this must be added the development of hypotheses
as to the nature of the ultimate good, which, while they have
not led to any final solution, have nevertheless served to develop
and organise the normative point of view. But it is precisely
because of this preoccupation with ultimate norms and abstrac
tions that ethics is in no position to meet the advances of econom
ics. For ethics, as it is commonly understood, still remains
too much in the traditions of the Greeks, and, instead of seeking
a theory of value founded upon an adequate psychology, con
tents itself with a theory of abstract goods, consisting in an
external and often arbitrary classification and evaluation of
objects of desire without a sufficiently vital sense of the great
problems involved in the processes and laws of desire themselves.

Especially harmful, moreover, has been the Kantian distinc
tion between the " empirical " and the " intelligible " will, and
the narrowing effect of the concept of abstract imperatives.
Although no longer held in its original form, it still exercises
influence through the unfortunate antithesis of facts and values,
of genesis and validity. For where such distinctions are made
ultimate, where the laws of the empirical will are conceived to
be irrelevant, or even hostile, to the will that values, there a
science of values is impossible.

Where, on the other hand, ethics has broken loose from these
bonds, the new-found freedom has given rise to such a multitude
of irreconcilable principles that it is immediately apparent that

1 Compare in this connection Hadley's article on " Economic Science " and the
present writer's article on " Worth " in the Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology.

Introduction 5

the certainty of method, which makes possible internal unity
of principles and harmonious external relations with other
sciences, is still lacking. It has even been seriously doubted
whether ethics can maintain its place as a special science —
whether it is not doomed to break up, on the one hand, into a
part of psychology, the task of which shall be to analyse the
individual feelings, judgments, and acts of will, the content of
which has the moral predicate, and, on the other hand, into a
part of sociology, which shall portray the forms and content of
the common life which stand in relations to the ethical obligation
of the individual. Its double character will, it is thought, ulti
mately prove its undoing.1

Doubtful though such predictions may rightly be held to
be — for the boundaries of sciences are determined by other
motives than those of mere logic, and there are practical reasons
which will plead strongly for the integrity of ethics as a separate
discipline, still there can be no doubt that the inconsequent
character of the science, in its present state, unfits it for leader
ship in the attempt to conceive valuation in its more general
aspects. Like economics it has, to be sure, recently been looking
beyond its narrowly conceived province, and seeking points of
contact with its neighbours— the breaking up of its solidarity is,
in one sense, but an outward sign of an inward grace ; but this
is in itself not sufficient to make of ethics the science of values
par excellence.

Nor is such a science to be developed by a merely external
fusion of elements from both of the preceding sciences, with
perhaps the addition of a few judicious reflections upon aesthetic
and religious values. To meet the obvious necessities of the
situation there is required, rather, a systematic treatment of
human values in their mutual relations, together with the psy
chology of feeling and will upon which such a theory must rest.
What is needed is a point of view and method which shall go
beyond the special motives of economics and ethics, and thus find
common ground in a conception and purpose which unite them
both. Thus, while economics has been thought to be a descriptive
and explanatory science, and has contented itself with description
of the empirical laws of valuation for the purposes of control, it
has really been shot through with assumptions of a normative
character, and has been fruitful in disclosing actual standards of
value which ethics has often failed to estimate at their proper

1 Simmel, Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft, Berlin, 1893, Vol. I, Preface.

6 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

worth. On the other hand, ethics, although claiming to be a
normative science, has found it necessary to investigate the
phenomenology of feeling and will, without, however, as I shall
seek to show later, succeeding in making these investigations
sufficiently fruitful for its more ultimate purposes. The de
sideratum, therefore, seems to be to find a method which shall
unite in some more fruitful way the descriptive and the norma
tive points of view, a method which shall know how to interpret
the norms of the so-called " intelligible " will in terms of the
laws of the " empirical " will.

Is SUCH A SCIENCE POSSIBLE ?

The preceding statement of the problem of a general theory
of value shows it to consist in two main problems, closely con
nected, the descriptive or psychological and the normative or
axiological. And such a conception of the problem seems
necessitated by the facts with which we are concerned. For
the function of valuation has two aspects. On the one hand,
we fed the values of objects ; on the other hand, we evaluate
these objects and ultimately the experiences of value them
selves. The first aspect is a process, the conditions and laws
of which are to be determined ; the second is a function, the
meaning and norms of which are to be developed. To a pre
liminary characterisation of these two problems we might now
proceed immediately, were it not for the dogma of the anti
thesis of the " intelligible and empirical " will which, in its
various forms, has stood in the way of a science of values, and
must therefore receive brief consideration.

This dogma, appearing under various names, now as the
antithesis of genesis and validity, again as the antithesis of facts
and values, has become especially familiar, not to say insidious,
in its latter-day formulation, Appreciation versus Description.

It is not difficult to understand the motives of the antithesis
in its present form. The gradual usurpation of the whole
field of description by certain specialised scientific methods
brought with it inevitable disappointment. The psycho-physical
and biological methods, approaching as they did the problem
from without, and finding irrelevant all aspects of experience
except such as could be connected with the conceptions of these
sciences, soon showed their inadequacy as means of describing
experiences of value. The simplest solution of the difficulty

Introduction 7

seemed, therefore, to be in looking upon values as merely ap
preciable and not communicable in terms of any objective
description. Value is always the meaning of an attitude of a
subject, and is therefore not describable in terms of mental
elements. An attitude can be merely appreciated.

It would seem that the antithesis is falsely conceived, and
that it arises primarily from the fact that we have to do here
with a false way of setting the problem. Instead of going directly
to facts, the point of view here disclosed starts with a wholly
arbitrary and narrow conception of description. Having assumed
this, and finding a mass of experience which escapes its categories,
the logic of the situation leads to the conclusion that there is
appreciation without description. Let us first consider the
abstract merits of the antithesis, and then we may turn to a
critical examination of the concept of scientific, and therefore
psychological, description which underlies it. From this we may
be able to determine the function of psychology in a general
theory of value.

As a preliminary distinction the antithesis does well enough.
For a moment, perhaps, one's appreciation seems to be one's
own " incommunicable dream," but the need of participating
with others in the social concourse presses upon us the necessity
of objectifying our experience, of searching for presentations
with which the experience may be connected. Through them
the attitude becomes objectified to consciousness and communi
cated to others, and behold appreciation has itself increased.
The very condition of continuous and progressive appreciation
is some sort of description.

It is no less true that there can be no description, even the
most scientific, without an appreciative element. Here again
the ideal of a scientific description without the element of
appreciation is merely an ideal limit, set for certain purposes,
but a limit not realised in actual experience. It would not be
difficult to show that, when in any science we make abstractions,
the direction and extent of these abstractions are determined
by an act of appreciation. All abstraction is in the last analysis
purposive. Whether the product of our abstraction is in any
sense the concrete thing with which we started, or has any useful
relation to it, is finally to be decided by an act of appreciation.

So much for the antithesis in its general form. The twofold
assumption that there may be appreciation without some form
of description, or description without an ultimate moment of

Valuation : its Nature and Laws

appreciation, proves untenable in both aspects. It is true that
there may be a blind sort of feeling of significance before the rise
of any cognitive acts objectifying the experience, but that feeling,
with all its brute immediacy, has scarcely reached the level of ex
plicit appreciation or feeling of value. It is also true that the total
meaning of an appreciation is never exhausted in any description.
There is always an element which just escapes. But some of the
meaning is conserved ; otherwise it is not description. We may,
it is true, describe — satisfactorily for certain limited purposes—
and at the same time ignore certain aspects of the total appre
ciation, but never all, otherwise it is no description.

From these general conclusions more specific inferences may
be drawn of immediate and practical importance for the dis
cussions that follow. In the first place, there are varying types
of description of any phenomenon, types determined by the
purposes of the description, and therefore by the degree of
appreciation retained in the descriptive terms. The antithesis
between appreciation and description is accordingly reducible
to a distinction between two types of description, appreciative
and scientific, and we may probably infer that there is at least
an appreciative description of experiences of value.

In another connection * I have sought to show that there is
such appreciative description — and communication — of individual
experiences of value, and to develop its characteristics and princi
ples. A brief summary _of the conclusions will be sufficient
for the present purpose. rSuch description has as its object the
communication and objectification of the intrinsic meaning of
individual experience in the interest of facilitation, either con
servation or increase, of appreciation. This communication
and description are accomplished through connection of individual
experiences with ideal psychical objects, already shared and over-
individual, projected affective - volitional meanings embodied
in ideal persons and states. Through identification or contrast
with these the individual experience is communicated, both in
its quality and degree. Such communication and description
is essentially norm construction. For the ideal object, thus pro
jected and shared, contains the funded meaning of past experi
ences, and constitutes not only the presupposition, the medium,
of all communication of present experience, but also the norm
of its control.

1 "Appreciation and Description and the Psychology of Values," Philosophical
Review, November, 1905.

Introduction . 9

When we ask what it is that this appreciative description
seeks to communicate, aad what it is, according to the view criti
cised, thalrraTHiot-be-eomnittnicated'and described, we find it to be
certain references of the attitude beyond the present experience,
meanings acquired in individual and social processes. These
are always references of the present state to something pre
supposed. They may be described in general terms as trans-
gredient and immanental. The transgredient reference, as
expressed, for example, in such appreciative categories as obliga
tion and desert, is a present feeling, but includes in it a reference
beyond the present state. The immanental reference — as, for
instance, the worth suggestions of aesthetic states — is a present
state, referring, not beyond the present state, but to something
more deeply implicit, something presupposed in it. These re
ferences, communicated, as we have seen, by connection, either
through identification or contrast, with projected ideals or norms,
really point to the psychical processes in which these norms
were constructed and in which their meaning was acquired. J
Whether these processes can be described, whether the genesis
of these attitudes and meanings can be reconstructed, is the
problem of the psychology of worth experience, and this includes
the question of the relation of appreciative to scientific
description.

III. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM AND METHOD

The first task of a general theory of value is psychological
analysis. Strictly speaking there is no problem, scientific or
unscientific, which does not have its psychological side. Not
only the questions, but also the objects in connection with which
these questions arise, belong in the first place to the psychical
life. It is further apparent that the fact of value itself cannot be
described otherwise than by reference to determinations which
are taken from the psychical life and which therefore belong to
psychology. The most convincing proof of this is the fact
that it has never occurred to economics, which is in the main
free from abstract questions of methodology, to attempt to
define the nature of value without reference to psychology.
Reflections of this nature would seem to lead to the inference
that it is in psychology and its analyses that we must, in the first
place, look for those general categories of description which shall
form the basis of a general theory of value, and for the general

io Valuation: its Nature and Laws

laws of psychical process which shall enable us to correlate the
different types of valuation. Such, indeed, is a plain inference
from the facts, but here again certain a priori theories of the
nature and function of psychology call a temporary halt.

Upon the general question, as it relates to psychology as a
whole, there are a multitude of counsels at the present time.
There are those who see in psychology and its descriptions
chiefly a propaedeutic to the interpretation and appreciation of
actual psychical reality, the categories of which are teleological.
It is the fundamental Geisteswissenchajt. It is upon the basis
of such a conception of psychological purpose and method alone
that we may ascribe to psychology the role of the science of
abstract mental laws which shall make possible the interpretation
of the concrete mental reality with which the sciences of ethics,
aesthetics, etc., are concerned. In direct opposition to this view,
both historically and logically, is the view which denies the possi
bility of description except through connection of the psychical
with physical objects, and which therefore, in view of the artificial
transformation of the psychical which results, also denies its func
tion as interpreter of the psychical objects of ethics and aesthetics.
Finally, there are those who, while perhaps not sure as to the
precise logical basis for the recognition of two distinct types of
method within the same science, are yet forced by a broad
view of the facts to recognise two distinct purposes in the re
constructions of psychology, the one having as its end the con
struction of abstract concepts which shall be instrumental
in the interpretation of actual historical psychical reality as a
process of acquirement of meaning, the other the control of the
psychical through its connection with mechanical process.

Upon any conception of the function of psychology other than
the second, the facts of worth experience are, as such, the
material of psychology. That view is obviously but a special
application of the general antithesis between appreciation and
description, and must in the last analysis share its fate, but a
brief consideration of this special expression of the dogma will
clear the way for our positive conceptions of the function of
psychology in a general theory of value.

Briefly it runs as follows. All description and explanation
have as their motive the communication and ultimately the control
of experience. Such communication and control of the subjective
and individual are possible only through linkage with objects
which have common meaning and which, therefore, are, through

Introduction 1 1

abstraction, as far removed as possible from individual apprecia
tions. The only objects which fulfil these conditions are the
physical objects, the abstractions of physical science which have
lost all intrinsic meaning and have become wholly instrumental.
The ideal of psychology is therefore connection of the psychical
with physical objects, and only in such connection do we have
description and explanation which merits the name of scientific.

The consequences of this are obvious. For if the only
description which merits the name scientific is connection with
physical objects, then in the reconstruction of our immediate
appreciations abstraction must be made from all appreciative
moments in the psychical, and the immediate experience must
be broken up into non-appreciative elements, preferably sensa
tions, which may be connected with the non-appreciative elements
of the physical construction. What this means for the psychology
of those aspects of the psychical which form the basis of worth
experience is evident. Feeling and will, the basis of this experi
ence, intend, in both the transgredient and immanental references
of their states, psychical objects as well as physical, and can
communicate these intents, these acquired meanings, only through
connection with such ideal objects. These objects are, however,
always projected will and feeling, and scientific description, if it
is of the nature assumed, can make no use of these psychical
objects, and therefore no use of the abstract conceptions of feeling
and will in its reconstructions. Such continuity as it may
establish is not psychical, but must be wholly in terms of physio
logical dispositions. If this view of psychological description is
justified, Miinsterberg has drawn the only conclusion possible,
viz., that there is no psychology of the worth experience possible,
and therefore no relation between appreciative and scientific
description.

Clearly the whole question revolves about the more ultimate
problem of the purpose of psychological description. The
question is not whether physical objects are the only media
for any description — we have seen that they are not, but
rather whether they are the most useful for the purposes of
psychology. That there are other objects than the physical
through which communication and description are possible, we
have seen. If our initial assumption, that appreciation without
description and description without appreciation are but abstrac
tions and ideal limits, that all concrete thought activities con
tain both moments in different degrees, is valid, then there can

1 2 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

be scientific constructions making use of terms in which the
process of abstraction from appreciative connotation shows
different degrees of completeness, according as the purposes of
the reconstruction require. It follows that the absolute contrast
between appreciative and scientific description disappears, and
we have left merely the practical problem of the degree to which
appreciative differences shall be retained in our constructions.
This is wholly a question of the purpose of the description.

Historically, and in present practice in so far as it is fruitful,
the motive of psychology is primarily one of interpretation.
The region of possible control of mind through its connections
with the body, although we cannot limit it a priori, is small
indeed in comparison with the regions of possible interpretation
through psychical conceptions. Even in the region where the
motive is primarily one of direct control, the conclusion is rapidly
gaining ground that control is possible only through appreciative
interpretation of the mental life. Especially noteworthy is the
change of view in the field of mental pathology, where the
necessities of practice are leading to a reaffirmation of the
fundamental conceptions of emotion and conation, as against
the purely neurological conceptions.1 Even if this were not so,
it is impossible to ignore the larger region where the function
of psychology is wholly interpretative. And here the motive
determines the method. For concepts, in order to be instru
mental for interpretation, must conserve, and contain, at least
implicitly, the acquired meaning which they seek to describe.
The explanation must be in functional terms, and functional
terms are in the last analysis refinements of appreciative descrip
tion.'2 The question whether there is any relation between

1 Compare in this connection the psychological conceptions of Janet, i.e. of emotion
and conation, with the neurological of Wernike and Ziehen. Also the introductory
paragraphs of James's Presidential Address, The Energies of Men.

8 Moreover, with the growing recognition of the close relation of economic objects
and values to other psychical objects and their values, already referred to, comes the
recognition of the fact that the psychology of values is concerned with the interpretation
of individual and social worth processes and only indirectly with their control. With
this recognition of the interpretative function comes the necessity of the use of terms
which may be instrumental in interpretation, terms with appreciative connotation. As
soon as the economic philosopher seeks to use his constructions as a means of interpreta
tion of concrete reality, to connect economic with ethical and nssthetic worths, he must
restore the appreciative aspects. Interesting illustrations of this appear in the works
of Veblen — A Theory of the Leisure Class (Macmillan) and A Theory of Business
Enterprise (Scribner), one of the most significant aspects of whose method consists in
making technical essentially appreciative terms, and more marked still in Simmel's
Philosophic des Geldes. It is an interesting fact that while official psychology in some of
its tendencies seeks to exclude all appreciative descriptions, the economic sciences are
becoming more psychological by restoring them.

Introduction 1 3

appreciative and scientific description is then the better known
problem whether psychology should be a " functional " or a
" content " psychology. For the latter a psychology of value
is impossible ; for the former it is possible, and what is more,
a present fact.

When, therefore, we narrow this general problem of psycho
logical method to the more specific question of the psychology of
worth experience, it is possible to draw certain inferences as to
method which find substantiation in the actual procedure of psy
chology. In the first place, values are facts, to be described as any
other mental facts. The sharp antithesis of facts and values might
temporarily delay the appeal to psychology, but the simple and
inevitable necessity of the situation — that every assertion of a
worth involves likewise the assertion of its conformity with actual
or possible experiences of feeling and will — makes the appeal to
psychology ultimately unavoidable. But the recognition of this
abstract proposition does not help us until we have a clearer
conception of psychical fact. Whether psychological analysis
can serve as an instrument of interpretation and appreciation
of values depends upon what we conceive its function to be.
Here the principle maintained throughout this discussion must
be final. If experience is conceived to be cognisable as a fact
only when it is viewed as a passive state loosed from all relations
with the object which it cognises and appreciates, then the
experience of value cannot be cognised in this sense. If, on the
other hand, psychology is a science which, although it makes
use of abstractions, still deals with reality, then a value can be
cognised as a fact, as well as appreciated. To cognise it as a fact,
related in certain uniform ways to facts of the same order,
requires that it shall be subsumed under general concepts ;
but in order that these concepts shall really define it, they must
have meanings common to all appreciation. Psychological
description must then start with appreciative description. To
describe thus appreciatively a valuation, its meaning as an
attitude must be communicated ; but this meaning can be com
municated only by connecting it with the ideal objects toward
which the attitude is taken, and by characterising the pre
dominant moment in the attitude, whether feeling or will, and
the cognitive presuppositions which determine it. Consequently,
when we attempt to describe and classify, and to derive genetically
the various attitudes in valuation, we must retain in our abstrac
tions such concepts as feeling and will, functional terms which

14 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

have still enough of appreciative connotation in them to be
instrumental in the interpretation of appreciations.

Here then finally we see the relation of appreciative to
scientific psychological description. Appreciative description
communicates the meanings of feelings acquired through con
nection with psychical objects toward which the feeling is
directed. These objects are, as such, not the material of psy
chology alone any more than are the physical objects. As
objects they belong to the normative sciences. But while they
are not the material of psychology alone — inasmuch as
they are projections beyond the individual, nevertheless the
processes by which they have been projected and objectified
and the processes by which the individual, when once they have
become psychical objects, participates in their meanings — in
other words, the presuppositions, conative and cognitive, which
determine his feeling attitudes toward them — are distinctly
the material of psychological study.

THE PRESUPPOSITIONAL METHOD — A FORM OF
GENETIC METHOD

The method of psychological worth analysis we may then
characterise as the Presuppositional Method. It begins with
analysis of presuppositions. The key to the position is to be
found in the fact that worth experience is always an attitude.
An attitude is an immediate experience which contains in it a
reference — in our terms, either transgredient or immanental — to
presupposed psychical process. Its determinants are the actual
cognitive acts of the present experience — for all worth ex
perience presupposes some form of cognition of reality — and the
conative dispositions, the assumptions and postulates, which
form the platform of the present experience. The varying
worth attitudes must be defined in terms of their presupposi
tions, actual and dispositional. But further, if any worth
attitude, when viewed thus psychologically, is an immediate
feeling plus the acquired meaning or reference, then this
reference, which is for immediate appreciation the sign of worth
continuity, must find a psychological interpretation in a con
tinuity which is psychical, and not in one established indirectly
through connection with physiological dispositions. With this
our method becomes genetic.

The genetic method in psychology, broadly viewed, is capable

Introduction 1 5

of different formulations. Thus Baldwin, Paulhan, and Stout,
although making the idea of development fundamental, make
use of somewhat different principles. Accommodation and
Habit, Systematisation and Arrest of Conative Tendencies —
such are the differing functional conceptions with which they
work. But the conception which underlies them all is, I think it
may he safely said, that the progressive differentiation and
correlation of the content of consciousness, by which new mean
ings are acquired and appreciatively distinguished, must be
referred for explanation to functional readjustments of conscious
ness as an organic whole. Different levels of meaning are thus
distinguished and transitions from one level to another accounted
for. One of the most important consequences of this genetic,
functional method is that what appears from one point of view
as habit or disposition, may in a new adjustment find a place in
the content as a meaning ; so that the functional meaning of
disposition, viewed as habit, is conserved on the new platform
of accommodation in the new arrangement of content. This
unification of functional habit and content under the genetic
categories finds its most notable expression, on the cognitive
side of experience, in the doctrine of the general concept it is able
to contribute. Whereas from the purely analytical point of view
the general concept finds no satisfactory psychological equivalent,
from the genetic its functional meaning receives due recognition.
" Selective thinking may then be viewed as the systematic or
progressive and continuous determination of the stream of
thought in the individual's mind."1

When now this genetic method is applied to the worth aspect
of consciousness, a similar problem presents itself — how valuation
may be conceived as a continuous, progressive, and systematic
determination of the stream of conation and feeling in the
individual's mind. Here again, psychical continuity is the
important point, and the special form in which it here appears
stands in close connection with the problem of the derivation
of the different attitudes of appreciation as genetic modes of one
continuous process of acquirement of meaning — of showing how
the acquired meaning of one attitude, having become dispositional,
functions as an assumption or presupposition of new feelings
and modes of valuation. This involves the concept of psy
chical development or value-movement, the conditions and laws

1 Baldwin in the Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, Vol. II, article on
"Selective Thinking."

1 6 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

of which must be explained in terms of still more general laws
of feeling and will.

The presuppositional method as thus described, lies midway, so
to speak, between the teleological analysis and explanation of the
normative sciences — which assume an end or ends as the in
struments of analysis of the stages of meaning and the ordering
of the psychical objects, and the causal method which abstracts
from all meaning, and may thus break up the whole concrete
attitude, including the functional presuppositions, into as many
parts as it finds convenient in the working out of the relation of
mind and body. The presuppositional method assumes no
specific end for psychical process. It contents itself with carrying
over from the sphere of appreciation the merely functional
concept of " acquirement of meaning." But assuming conative
continuity in which meaning is acquired, it takes the differences
in meaning distinguished by appreciative description, which
would be ignored in the purely causal analysis, and asks what
functional adaptation is presupposed by this difference. And
since all adaptation which is psychical consists of conative and
cognitive acts, its problem is to analyse out the conative and
cognitive presuppositions of worth-feelings.

IV. THE AXIOLOGICAL PROBLEM AND METHOD — FACTS AND
NORMS — GENESIS AND VALIDITY

The second task of a theory of value is the reflective evaluation
of objects of value. We not only feel the value of objects, but
we evaluate these objects and ultimately the feelings of value
themselves. Clearly another point of view than the psychological
is here involved, a point of view which requires, not only to be
clearly defined, but also to be properly related to the psycho
logical. If our problem were that of the determination of the
validity of objects and processes of knowledge, it would be best
described as logical or epistemological, but the term epistemology
is too narrow to include the problem of the evaluation of values,
and we may therefore make use of a special term to define the
problem as it here presents itself. On the analogy of the term
epistemology we have constructed the term axiology/ and may
hereafter speak of the relation of the axiological to the psycho
logical point of view.

The chief problem for axiology, as for epistomology, is
bound up with the distinction between subjective and objective,

Introduction 1 7

a distinction made use of in connection with judgments of value
as well as judgments of knowledge. We recognise values as in
some way independent of individual acknowledgment, for between
the subject and the object there are relations of feeling and will,
felt as demands and obligations, just as inviolable as those
of the sense impressions imposed upon us from without. Between
the subjectively desired and the objectively desirable in ethics,
between subjective utility and sacrifice and objective value and
price in economic reckoning, between the subjectively effective
and the objectively beautiful in art, in all these cases there is a
difference for feeling so patent that in naive and unreflective
experience the feelings with such objectivity of reference are
spoken of as predicates of the objects themselves.

For reflection, however, there is a difference between the
meaning of this distinction in the sphere of values and that which
it has in the sphere of truth, and it is at this point that the
specific character of the axiological problem appears. In the
theory of knowledge the dispute still rages, and is especially
fierce at the present time, as to whether there is an objectivity
which transcends all subjective process, whether qualities inhere
in the thing apart from experience. For the theory of value
the problem is simplified. All values are in one sense subjective.
All are founded on some process. But we recognise that our con
cept of subjectivity must make room for a kind of objectivity,
that the feelings or desires developed in one process may exercise
a control over feelings and desires determined by other processes,
and that this control gives them a form of objectivity.

When we seek a name for this form of objectivity, we find
one at hand in the concept of the norm and of normative judg
ments. The practical significance of an objective value is that
it forms the norm for subjective feelings of value, that it deter
mines subjective feeling in some way. An examination of the
character of this determination indicates its uniqueness. The
norm is the product of appreciative description and construction
of subjective feeling ; but when it is thus objectified and projected,
it becomes a demand, the acknowledgment of which is the con
dition, or presupposition, of further appreciations, or subjective
feelings. The acknowledgment of the normal exchange value,
the price of an object, is the condition of its further utilisation
by the individual, the acknowledgment of permanently desirable
dispositions is the condition of the realisation of certain subjective
ethical values, the acknowledgment of objective beauty is the

1 8 Vahiation : its Nature and Laws

condition of permanent aesthetic satisfactions. Still more
apparent is the relation in the case of the extreme objectifica-
tions of religion. Ideals of a supernatural character are the
product, phenomenologically speaking, of individual and racial
appreciative constructions ; but the assumption, or postulation,
of their existence is the presupposition of certain subjective
feelings of value, such as reverence and inner peace. In general
the norm is an assumption or postulate of existence representing
the permanent aspects of desire, underlying changeable feelings
and judgments. Its function is the control of appreciation.

The norm is thus seen to have the double character of sub
jectivity and objectivity. The normative judgment represents
at the same time a subjective appreciation and an objective
description. Its subjective reference is seen in the fact that
it is only through these projected ideal objects, assumed to exist
independently of the subject, that the subject's individual
feelings can be communicated. Norm construction is, as we have
seen, a product of appreciative communication and description.
As such the norm has a psychological genesis and character ;
it is an assumption, a postulate, determined by certain disposi
tions. Its objective character is apparent, on the other hand,
in that, having passed beyond the subjective control of the
moment and become, through its character as a presupposition
of belief, the condition of further subjective appreciations, it in
turn exercises control over these feelings.

From this double character of normative objectivity certain
characteristics of axiology and axiological method may be
inferred. The axiological problem is the reflective evaluation of
values, and this evidently consists in determining the validity
of distinctions between subjective and objective already de
veloped in worth experience. Now, the distinction being what
it has been shown to be, it is clear that the question of the
validity of any such distinction is bound up wholly with the
question whether the objectivity postulated fulfils its function
as the necessary presupposition of the continuity of valuation, in
its two aspects of acquirement and conservation of value. Other
questions may indeed be raised — as for instance whether the
reality which an object of value thus has is equivalent to existence
apart from subjective process, but they are not axiological. It
is also evident that such a criterion must remain wholly abstract
and general until the phenomenology of valuation, its processes,
its objects and laws, has been developed. To the application

Introduction 1 9

of the criterion we shall return in the concluding chapter, con
tenting ourselves for the present merely with its formulation.

When, however, the problem of axiology is stated in this way,
it is immediately apparent that a certain definite relation to
psychology is involved. For immediate experience this norma
tive objectivity appears in an immediate appreciation of value
which has as its cognitive presuppositions certain assumptions
or postulates, but for reflection these very assumptions show
themselves to be the product of a selective, genetic differentiation
of our desires — through arrest, effort, and consequent readapta-
tions and reconstructions, in which some of our desires have
developed into permanent and objective demands. Out of the
general level of immediate appreciation has emerged a develop
ment which has its conclusion in a new kind of objectivity or
reality. It is clear, then, since all values, whether subjective or
objective, are founded on some process, that the ultimate question
as to their validity is whether they are well-founded or not. It
is also clear that whether they are well-founded or not depends
upon their conformity to certain ultimate laws. Every assertion
of a value implies at the same time an assertion of its conformity
to the laws of feeling and will.

To this inference from the preceding study of the nature
of the normative judgment, the dualism between apprecia
tion and description is likely again to reply with a doctrine of
absolute values, and to insist that the evaluation of objects
of value is wholly independent of their genesis, the norms
of their evaluation being in no sense related to, or determined by,
psychological laws. It is unnecessary to recall our previous dis
cussion in order to point out that the axiom " no description
without appreciation " has as its converse " no appreciation
without description," a proposition which we have also accepted
as justified. If it is true that there is no description and com
munication without its stimulus and control in appreciation,
it is also true that there is no appreciation except through the
media and the control of objective descriptions. But what
is reflective evaluation but the highest form of appreciation,
and how can that reflective evaluation proceed in its task of
distinguishing between subjectively and objectively determined
values without a study of the genesis of these differentiations ?
The situation may be stated in still another way. Whatever
may be the abstract formulae for the normative sciences of
the norms of validity, they cannot be anything else than the

2O Valuation : its Nature and Laws

development in other terms, and for other purposes, of what,
from another point of view, we call psychological laws. We may
well believe that psychological description is not the whole of a
theory of value, but it certainly is not irrelevant to the normative
problem. It is at least necessary that the assumptions and
postulates embodied in these norms shall be psychologically
possible, that " they shall be in harmony with the general laws
of the conscious life and only special and detailed developments
of what lies in these laws." *

1 Quoted from Hoffding's discussion of the relation of logical laws to psychology,
The Problems of Philosophy, p. 76, translation, Macmillan, 1905.

CHAPTER II

DEFINITION AND ANAL YSIS OF THE
CONSCIOUSNESS OF VALUE

I. WORTH PREDICATES AS FUNDED AFFECTIVE- VOLITIONAL
MEANINGS — ANALYSIS

i. The Judgment of Value.

A CURSORY examination of the more general terms of worth
description, good and bad, useful and useless, beautiful and
ugly, noble and ignoble, etc., or indeed the terms worth and
worthless, valuable and valueless themselves, and the manner
in which they are applied, makes us immediately aware of the
fact that, for the unreflective worth consciousness, they are at
first tertiary qualities, as much a part of the object as the so-
called primary and secondary qualities are parts of the physical
object of cognition. This is especially noticeable in the case of
the ethical and aesthetic predicates, but it is no less true of the
unreflective use of the terms utility and value, as for instance
when we say that iron has utility or value even when the con
ditions of its applicability are lacking. The intrinsic worth
judgment is psychologically the more fundamental, whatever
may be inferred upon closer inspection and reflection.

But while as qualities of objects, as terms employed in
appreciative description, they have a certain kind of objectivity,
they are nevertheless felt to differ from the other qualities in
that they are subjectively conditioned in a way that the so-
called primary and secondary qualities are not.

The judgment of value has accordingly been described as a
mere assertion of the meaning of the object for the subject, or as
an appreciation. When I say that the object is good or beautiful
or noble, I assert a direct relation of the object to my feeling and
will, a vharmony between the object and my subjective dis
positions which is relatively independent of my judgment of

21

22 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

existence of the object or judgment of the truth of the idea I have
of the object. Existence is perceived ; truth is thought ; value
is felt. But while the worth predicates are in the first place
felt and not cognised, while they are at the third remove from
pure objectivity, nevertheless, there is presupposed in every
appreciation, in every judgment of value, a reference to reality
and truth. This reference comes to the surface as soon as I ask
such questions as these : is the object really good or useful ?
is it truly noble or beautiful ? The feeling of value includes the
feeling of reality. Appreciative meanings presuppose reality
meanings.

2. Equivocations in the Value Judgment, leading to Axiological
Distinctions in Existence, and Reality Meanings.

Accordingly, when we attempt a further analysis of these
predicates we find certain references to reality, always implicit
in the judgment, which demand to be made explicit. Prior
to such reflective analysis they give rise to equivocations in their
meaning, equivocations so confusing that more than one thinker
has counselled entire scepticism in the matter, not without a show
of reason, it must be admitted. But that this initial scepticism
is merely a salutary warning becomes apparent as we follow
these equivocations to their sources, for it is precisely in this
process, this study of the grammar of the worth consciousness,
that we find both the nature of these predicates and the basis
of their classification. The character of the confusion may be
seen at a glance by observing the distinctions which worth analysis
has developed, in all the concrete worth sciences, economics,
ethics, aesthetics, for the removal of the equivocations. Worths
are said to be subjective or objective, real or ideal, actual or
imputed, intrinsic or instrumental.

The first distinction, between subjective and objective
worths or values, gives the key to the situation. The same
objects, let us say diamonds, may have little worth or indeed be
distasteful to me personally, although in another attitude I
may ascribe great value to them and, indeed, think of them as
intrinsically valuable. My friend's action may be sanctioned
by me in immediate appreciation, although from an objective,
moral point of view I must needs condemn it. Such contradic
tions can only be resolved by a distinction between subjective
and objective values. Closely connected with this equivocation

Definition of the Consciousness of Value 23

is that which arises when the distinction between intrinsic and
instrumental values is ignored. An object which is worthless,
or indeed the object of negative worth judgments of harmful
or bad, may acquire the worth predicate when it becomes in
strumental to some object of immediate or intrinsic value.
Similarly, within the sphere of instrumental values or utilities of
economics, we find an equivocation which can be removed only by
the use of the distinction between subjective and objective.
On the one hand, if any thing is of worth because it is utilisable,
it is always so for a subject and with reference to concrete con
ditions. But on the other hand, we are led to ascribe value to an
object, for instance when we say that iron has value, irrespective
of its relation to an individual subj ect and to concrete conditions :
by a process of abstraction we give the object value in itself.
For these differences in meaning the economists have used the
terms subjective and objective value ; or the latter is sometimes
called objective exchange value.

From these illustrations we see that the attitude expressed
by a worth judgment, whether the worth be described as sub
jective or objective, is an attitude of a subject, but the difference
in attitude is determined by the inclusion or exclusion of certain
presuppositions, the nature of which is to be determined. The
other distinctions, between real and ideal, actual and imputed
values, show the same desire to remove the equivocations inherent
in worth predicates.

Sometimes we attribute worth to an object when we mean
that it deserves to be valued, irrespective of its actual valua
tion by any person or group of persons. Such value is said
to be ideal. Again, there are objects of valuation, the exist
ence or non-existence, or the possibility or probability of
realising which is not inquired into, but which are abstractly
valued and said to be ideal values in contrast to the real
value of objects where the judgments of existence or possibility
are true or grounded judgments. In both cases the real and the
ideal values are equally functions of the relation of the object
to the subject. The difference lies in the attitude of the subject,
in the different presuppositions of the feeling in the two cases.
Confusion of meaning arises only when these presuppositions
are not made explicit.

The distinction between actual and imputed values, like the
other distinctions considered, is one which is not found in the
immediate worth experience itself, but which develops when

24 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

the presuppositions of the worth judgment are made explicit
through reflective analysis. The total worth predicated of an
object is often seen to have more than one determinant and
under certain circumstances, the element in the total value
corresponding to one subjective determinant will be described as
actual, while the other element will be described as imputed.
Thus the elements of a total complex, food for instance, will each
be said to have its actual value arising from its capacity to
satisfy separate desires, or to satisfy desire when consumed
separately. On the other hand, such worth as an element
may get from its combination with the other elements is said
to be an imputed value. , In a similar way, when an act of a
person has value as manifesting a disposition instrumental to the
fulfilment of social ends, this is described as its actual value,
while an additional value attributed to it as a part, or manifesta
tion of the total personality, is described as an imputed value
over and above the actual value of the act. It is obvious from
these illustrations that the different moments in the total worth of
the object have different subjective determinants, and that these
go back to the different objects or aspects of the object upon
which judgment is directed, in other words, to the cognitive
presuppositions.

3. Interpretation of these Equivocations — As due to
Different Presuppositions.

The meanings thus differentiated may be described as the
reality-meanings of the worth predicates. As distinguished
from the purely appreciative meanings previously considered,
they represent modifications in worth predication determined
by differences in cognitive attitude toward the object. The
necessity of such distinctions arises from the fact that the appre
ciative meanings are not wholly independent of the reference to
reality involved. As simple acts of appreciation, the pre
suppositions of existence may not be explicit; indeed the
most primitive judgments of worth are assertorial— without any
conditional element whatever. But as soon as the question of
evaluation of the worth predicates themselves is considered, as
soon as the axiological problem of the differentiation of subjec
tively conditioned values from objectively conditioned, is raised,
then the presuppositions of reality must be made explicit. By
making them explicit is understood the acknowledgment of the

Definition of the Consciousness of Value 25

presupposition of reality, present in all judgments of value, in all
appreciations, in specific judgments of existence. In what way
are the values real ? In what way are the objects of value
existents or realities ?

From this study of the various meanings of the worth predi
cates, it becomes clear that the worth judgments express not
attributes of objects apart from the subject, even when the value
is described as actual and objective, but rather functions of the
relation of subject to object. When we speak of an object
as having absolute or objective value, it is only by a process
of temporary abstraction from the subject in some specific
attitude, not from the subject itself. The other differences of
meaning in the worth predicates reflect the same fact. Thus
when I attribute value to an object, meaning that it is actually
valued, my attitude is determined by certain presuppositions
of judgment, which are the product of participation in the worth
judgments of others. When, however, my judgment means that
the object is ideally of worth, deserves to be valued, that
judgment expresses a modification of attitude brought about
either by exclusion of certain presuppositions of judgment,
as when I pass my judgment in opposition to temporary
judgments about me, or by inclusion of other presuppositions,
as when, for instance, I appeal from a narrower actual worth
judgment to a possible more universal judgment. The situation
is the same in the case of the distinction between actual and
imputed values. The actual value is always the meaning of
the object for a subject in some attitude — never an attribute of
the object itself. The imputed value added to the actual value
arises from attitudes of the subject, negligible or irrelevant from
the standpoint from which the actual value is determined.

From all this it is apparent that whatever meaning we may
ultimately give to the objectivity of worth predicates, whatever
validity may be assigned to the presupposition of reality im
plicit in all judgments of value, we may unhesitatingly assert
that these predicates are meanings pre-determined by antecedent
psychical processes. While at first sight they appear to be
tertiary qualities of the object, on closer inspection they are
seen to be acquired meanings of the object for the subject, as, in
fact are some of the so-called primary and secondary. As thus
predetermined they may be described as funded meanings, in
that they represent the accumulated meaning of these processes.
Furthermore, we may now see that the equivocations in the

26 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

value judgment which have been analysed arise, just as do certain
contradictions in cognitive predication, through abstraction of
the predicates, as qualities of the objects, from the processes
of acquirement of meaning in which the meaning was funded.

But this analysis enables us to add something more to our
definition and characterisation of worth predicates. We have
defined them as funded meanings, pre-determined by antecedent
psychical process. It is possible to limit stiU further the concept
by defining them as affective-volitional meanings, thus distin
guishing them relatively from the attributes employed in cognitive
predication. Relations to judgments of truth and existence are
presupposed in all appreciations and judgments of value, but
as we have seen, in the first place only implicitly. As assertorial
judgments, they assert a relation of the object to feeling and will
—either an immediate actual experience or a possible experience
of feeling or will— that is, belief in the power of the object to call
such experiences into being.

II. FURTHER ANALYSIS OF THE VALUE JUDGMENT AS EXPRESSING
AFFECTIVE-VOLITIONAL MEANING OF THE OBJECT FOR THE
SUBJECT

i. Axiological Distinctions as Clues to Analysis.

Two important consequences follow from this conception
that worth or value is the funded meaning of the object for the
subject in different attitudes, or as predetermined by different
dispositions and interests. In the first place, while the dis
tinctions we have been discussing are developed from the axio-
logical standpoint of the determination of the relative validity
of worth judgments, we have in the analysis underlying these
distinctions at the same time a clue to the psychological analysis
and classification of the 'different attitudes involved. In all these
differences of meaning the sources of the difference were found in
the nature of the cognitive presuppositions. All valuation, as
attitude of the subject, is primarily an act of immediate apprecia
tion ; but this primitive attitude may be modified to give
various meanings by the inclusion of various types of judgments,
existential, instrumental, judgments referring the object to the
self or others, judgments of possibility or probability of acquisi
tion and possession, etc. While for the axiological point of view
the truth of these presuppositions is significant, for psychological

Definition of the Consciousness of Value 27

analysis their importance lies in the changes in worth experience,
which follow upon changes in these presuppositions. In the
second place, as a result of this conception of worth as the
affective- volitional meaning of the object for the subject in
different attitudes, the way is now open for an analysis of the
worth subject and for a classification of the fundamental worth
attitudes.

2. The " Subject " of the Value Judgment— The Subject in Different
Attitudes — Classification of Attitudes.

The equivocations in the meaning of the worth predicates
already considered, indicate certain fundamental differences
for the subject of the experience. The distinctions between
subjective and objective worth, between actual and ideal, are
reducible to differences in the judging subject. These differ
ences have led to the conception of different subjects for differ
ent types of worth judgments. Thus Kreibig1 distinguishes
between a primary and secondary worth subject, the primary
being the individual as such, the secondary being the group or
race consciousness. So also Meinong,2 in treating of the difference
between ethical and moral judgments, distinguishes the more per
sonal ' ' ethical ' ' from the impersonal, ' ' moral ' 'subj ect. The former
is the concrete ego in his relation to the alter ; the latter is
neither the ego nor the alter but an abstraction, a third person, the
" impartial spectator " who sits in judgment upon both. These
distinctions, appearing as they have in the effort to do justice
to fundamental differences in worth predication, point in the right
direction. But they are nevertheless open to the criticism which
attaches to all conceptual constructions employed as instruments
of analysis, that they are in danger of being hypostatised into
separate realities and conceived as real even when abstracted
from the individual subject. For certain purposes of social and
ethical philosophy, we may, perhaps, speak of a group conscious
ness, of a general or over-individual will, without a serious dis
tortion of the facts ; but for the empirical analysis of worth
judgments, it is nearer the truth to say that the subject in the role
of the individual, of the group or race, or of the impartial spectator,
is the individual in different attitudes. The problem is then to

1 Kreibig, Psychologische Grundlegung eines Systems der Wert-theoric, Wien, 1902,

P

Meinong, Psychologisch-ethische Untersuchungen zur Wert-lheoriet Graz, 1894,
pp. 72, 163, 216.

28 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

account for the origin, differentiation, and fixation of these
relatively permanent attitudes.

The worth judgment of an individual may then express the
affective- volitional meaning of an object for the subject, as
qualified by the subject's participation in and explicit cog
nition of the worth attitudes of others, of single persons, of
social groups, or perhaps of an over-individual worth conscious
ness which transcends even group distinctions, giving the im
personal attitude of the " impartial spectator." The differ
ence in attitude is determined by the inclusion or exclusion of
judgments as part presuppositions of the meaning. The psycho
logical problem is the tracing of the processes by which this
participation in, and cognition of, the attitudes of others is real
ised, the more specific problem of worth analysis itself being to
determine how this modification of the attitude of the subject
also modifies the worth predicated of the object.

In a preliminary way we may distinguish three fundamental
attitudes of the self or subject of worth judgment : (i) Simple
appreciation of the affective-volitional meaning of an object for
the self ; (2) the personal attitude, in which the worth of the
object is determined by explicit reference of the object, whether
a physical possession or a psychical disposition, to the self or
the alter, and in which characterisation of the self or the alter
is presupposed; and (3) the impersonal attitude, in which the
subject of the judgment is identified with an impersonal over-
individual subject and the value of the object is determined by
explicit reference to the over-individual demand.1 All three are
forms of appreciation of worth, but while the first is simple
appreciation, in that the presuppositions are simple, the personal
and impersonal attitudes are complex and derived, having as
their presuppositions judgments and assumptions which have
had an historical genesis.

3. The " Object " of the Value Judgment — Classification of Worth

Objects.

As the subject of value experience, one of the moments in
the value function, is constantly changing, expanding and con
tracting through inclusion and exclusion of presuppositions of

1 This classification corresponds in principle with Baldwin's classification of cogni
tive meanings in the first volume of his J^hought and Things, chap, vii, p. 148, where he
distinguishes: (i) Simple and private; (2) aggregate and con-aggregate; (3) social and
public meanings.

Definition of the Consciousness of Value 29

judgment, so also the object of valuation undergoes modifica
tion. Broadly speaking, the object of worth belongs to the
presentational side of consciousness, is the object of immediate
apprehension with its implicit presupposition or explicit judgment
of existence. It is, therefore, in the first place, the not-self the
external object of feeling and will, those aspects of experience
which are from the beginning presentational. But there is
scarcely any aspect of consciousness which cannot become pre
sentational, cannot be presented to consciousness, and thus
become the object of judgment. Even the attitude of valuation
itself, which we may describe as "psychical" pre-eminently, is
susceptible of representation, translation into ideal terms, and
of thus taking its place on the objective side of the value function.
The psychology of this representation of the psychical will
engages our attention at those points where we shall make use
of the principle. Here it is merely important to insist that the
general class, worth objects, includes physical and psychical
and, among the latter, the attitude of valuation itself.

A more significant distinction among objects of valuation is
that between primary and secondary or between simple and
founded objects. By a founded object in general we understand
one built up by processes of ideation and judgment upon
primary sensations and perceptions. Such a founded object
is, strictly speaking, not the object of perception but of idea
tion or judgment, and may be said to be pre-determined by these
processes. Thus certain ideal objects of presentation and judg
ment, while themselves neither sensed nor perceived, may be said
to be founded on sensation and perception. / The processes of
sympathetic realisation of the feelings of another, are in the first
place perceptual in character, but upon the basis of these pro
cesses certain ideal objects, the self and its dispositions, are built
up, and these become the objects of imputed values. To them is
imputed the funded meaning of the processes of feeling and
conation involved in their construction.

These founded objects may be of two kinds, according as they
are founded on processes of perceptual or ideational activity. Illus
trations of the former are : (a) beauty or grace of form in objects
of perception ; (6) founded qualities acquired in the sensational and
perceptual activities of consumption of food, or more broadly of
various instinctive activities, such as cleanliness, manners. Any
harmonious grouping or arrangement of the activities of living
creates secondary objects of worth, founded upon the primary.

3O Valuation : its Nature and Laws

As illustrations of the secondary worth objects, founded on pro
cesses of ideation and judgment, we may take the person and his
affective or conative dispositions, built up conceptually on the basis
of the immediate appreciations of sympathy by a process of infer
ence, which, in turn, become the objects of secondary judgments
of merit and demerit, etc. To these may be added a third group
of founded worth objects which may be described as over-
individual. These are the products of the ideal re-construction of
objects of primary worth, as determined by participation in the
worth processes of larger social groups or of society at large.
To this class belong the ideal moral and cultural goods of society,
economic goods as objects of exchange, including the medium
of exchange which has over-individual worth exclusively. In
distinguishing thus between founded objects as products of
perceptual and ideational activities, we cannot of course make the
distinction absolute, for in the case of many such objects both
activities have been at work in their construction.

A preliminary classification of worth objects would then
include the following groups : (i) Objects of simple appreciation.
These objects may be either physical or psychical and include
the founded psychical objects built up in perceptual activity.
The worth of these objects may also be described as " condition "
worth for the reason that when the feeling of value is made the
object of reflection it is referred directly, as feeling of pleasantness
or unpleasantness, to a modification of the condition of the
organism, and is set in contrast to personal and social values.
(2) Objects of personal worth such as qualities and dispositions
of the person (the self or the alter) objects founded in the pro
cesses of characterisation of the person. (3) Objects of over-
individual or common worth constructed in processes of social
participation, ideal constructions developed in the interest of
social participation, or of utilisation and exchange of objects. In
general these objects of worth correspond to the fundamental
attitudes of the subject of the value experience.

4. The Relation of Subject and Object — Further Development of
the Term "Affective-Volitional Meaning ": its Extension and
Intension.

The analysis of the meanings of worth predicates, and the
consequent differentiation and classification of the fundamental
types of the subject and object of the judgment of value, bring

Definition of the Consciousness of Value 3 1

us to a third problem, namely, a more definite characterisa
tion of the term affective-volitional meaning and an analysis
and classification of the modes of consciousness corresponding to
its various meanings. As long as we were concerned merely
with a preliminary differentiation of cognitive meaning from
that aspect of meaning described as worth or value, it was
sufficient to describe the latter as a meaning pre-determined by
processes of feeling and conation, and the judgment of value as
an appreciation or acknowledgment of that funded meaning.
But when this criterion is examined more closely and the attempt
is made to determine more precisely just what aspect of meaning
is represented by the different types of worth judgments, appre
ciation, characterisation, participation and utilisation, just what
the determining processes of feeling and conation are in each
case, more detailed psychological analysis becomes necessary.

When we seek to make more specific this very general descrip
tion of the worth relation, we are confronted with two possible
views of worth which may be described as a broader and a
narrower view.

The narrower view recognises only two types of value
judgment, the ethical and economic, thereby limiting the term
value to such feeling attitudes as follow upon the affirmation
of the existence or non-existence of an object for the self or
its purposes. This limitation denies, therefore, the character
of worth attitude to all immediate feeling of the meaning
of the object for the subject, prior to the distinctions which
we describe as economic and ethical, and likewise to all forms
of higher immediacy of feeling attitude as we have them
primarily in the aesthetic consciousness. This view, which
has been presented most definitely by Witasek1 and H. W.
Stuart,2 logically excludes the aesthetic from the sphere of
values, in the view of the former because the aesthetic is pre-
judgmental, i.e., is feeling which has merely presentations as its
content, in the view of the latter because he conceives it to
be post-judgmental, an appreciative state in which all judgment
has lapsed. Either mode of cutting the aesthetic attitude off
from its closely related ethical and economic attitudes is, we
shall find, open to serious criticism.

The reasoning which underlies the formulation of this criterion

1 Witasek, Allgemeine JEsthetik, Leipzig, 1904.

a Stuart, Valuation as a Logical Process, in Dewey's Studies in Logical Theory^
Chicago, 1903.

32 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

is well expressed by Stuart in the following paragraph : " Our
general criterion for the propriety of terming any mode of
consciousness the value of an object must be that it shall per
form a logical function, and not simply be referred to in its
aspect of psychical fact. The feeling or emotion, or whatever
the mode of consciousness in question may be, must play the
recognised part, in the agent's survey of the situation, of prompt
ing and supporting a definite practical attitude with reference
to the object. If, in short, the experience enters in any way into
a conscious purpose of the agent, it may properly be termed
a value."

Now, in examining this criterion one recognises immediately
that it provides a good definition of a certain type of re
flective value judgments which we may call secondary. A very
large group of our worth judgments are determined by the
conscious inclusion of the feeling or emotion as presented
content, and as partial determinant of the judgment. The typical
economic judgment takes place only upon the occasion of adding
to or taking from our store of objects, and is motived by a re
flective inclusion of the worth feeling in our total practical atti
tude. The ethical judgment, in its typical reflective form, may be
shown to be of the same character in that the subject's own mode
of experience or way of feeling, presented in terms of a disposition
or quality of the self, enters as a determinant in the total situation.
But the secondary and derived character of these reflective
judgments soon becomes evident. How can the feeling or
emotion as presented content " play a recognised part " as a value
" in the agent's survey of the situation," unless, as a motive
to previous unreflective judgments, i.e., before it was presented
as a conscious determinant, it was also a value or at least sug
gestive of value ? We may say, then, that, while much of valua
tion is a logical process in this sense, nevertheless valuation in
itself has its roots in experiences of simple appreciation, where the
emotion, while determinative, is not so consciously, as object
of presentation or judgment, and must, therefore, be referred to
simply in its aspect of psychical fact.

We must, accordingly, interpret our definition of value as
affective-volitional meaning in a broader way — so as to include
modes of feeling or desire, as the case may be, which
are merely appreciative of the object, which merely appre
hend the object with its funded meaning. We cannot con
fine it to attitudes in which this meaning, abstracted from

Definition of the Consciousness of Value 33

the object, becomes a motive in the subject's survey of the
situation. We shall then be enabled to include both the attitudes
of lower immediacy, which are pre-judgmental, and those of
higher immediacy, which are post-judgmental, recognising the
intermediate role of the reflective judgments, existential, instru
mental, possessive, etc., and recognising also that the reflective
and the unreflective, the intrinsic and the instrumental, are con
stantly passing over into each other, a phenomenon which we
shall later describe as value-movement.

In close relation to this first problem which arises in the
attempt to make more specific the general definition of worth as
affective-volitional meaning, a second problem arises, namely,
the question of the specific manner in which we shall set the
worth-moment in relation to its psychological equivalents, feeling
and conation. In the use of the double term affective-volitional
itself in our preliminary demarcation of worth experience, there
inheres a certain vagueness which, while excusable when viewed
in the light of the purpose of the term, must be subjected to
explicit analysis if we are to find equivalents for worth
experience which shall form the basis for a scientific re
construction of the processes of valuation. The significance
of this double term lay in the fact that it marked off a species
under the generic term, meaning. Not that there could be cog
nitive meaning without worth references or affective-volitional
meaning without cognitive presuppositions. Indeed, we shall
see that these terms are not very clear at the limits. Merely to
indicate a relative distinction, by means of emphasis on different
aspects of meaning, was the purpose of this differentiation.

In the second place, the double term was necessary for the
reason that only in such a definition could all the attitudes
toward objects, recognised as worth attitudes, be included.
For our ordinary usage, at least, makes a clear distinction be
tween feeling and will and recognises, as objects of worth, objects
toward which both types of attitude are directed. Prior to
more scientific analysis, this double relation must be taken as
descriptive of the worth attitude. But here again, when this
general definition is subjected to psychological analysis, we find
that the distinction between feeling and conation in some of its
forms is far from clear, and it is consequently difficult to say
under which of these terms the immediate experience which is
the bearer of these meanings, is to be subsumed. On the one
hand, we find experiences of preference and obligation where

34 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

feeling, in the form of passive pleasantness and unpleasant
ness, is scarcely present, or, if present at all, is irrelevant —
so irrelevant in fact that some theories of worth experience (e.g. ,
the voluntaristic theories of Brentano and Schwartz) find
the locus of value in what they describe as " intensity-less
acts of preference," denying the worth aspect to feeling and
its intensities. On the other hand, we find worth experiences,
such as the aesthetic, apparently purely affective, where desire,
or conation in all its forms, is at a minimum, and appears to be
significant, if significant at all, merely as a disposition or pre
supposition. While, then, in view of these facts the general
term affective-volitional meaning was necessary to define the
various meanings of objects included under the term values, it is
nevertheless evident that the definition can become serviceable
for further psychological analysis and explanation only when
it is determined which of these elements, the affective or conative,
is primary and which secondary — that is, which is always present
actually as conscious experience and which as a merely dis-
positional determinant.

In the light then of these considerations, it would appear
that the course of our further analysis is clearly indicated.
We are compelled, on the one hand, to include both the
concepts of feeling and conation in our psychological equiv
alents for the worth moment ; otherwise we should not have
a true equivalent for the funded meaning of the object described
as worth. On the other hand, when we seek to analyse the
content of the experience, we find they are present in different
degrees and different ways, and the question arises which is the
more fundamental. Is then the worth-fundamental feeling or]
desire ?

In the second place, whichever of these two aspects be taken
as fundamental, a second question necessarily arises — is worth
coextensive with feeling or desire, or is there a further demar
cation within the sphere of feeling or desire ? In other words,
have all feelings or desires, whatever their conditions, however
fleeting and however caused, the transgredient and immanental
references which characterise the worth attitude of the subject
toward the object ?

Definition of the Consciousness of Value 35

III. PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF WORTH EXPERIENCE — WORTH
AS FEELING WITH CERTAIN COGNITIVE PRESUPPOSITIONS

i. The Worth-Fundamental is Feeling, not Desire — Criticism of

Ehrenfels.

Both of these problems have been in the forefront of
recent psychological analysis of value.1 They are questions
which are forced upon the attention as soon as we attempt to
co-ordinate and reduce to common terms the varying attitudes
which have been included within the definition of worth
experience. It is true that there is a point of view from which
these finer distinctions are irrelevant. One can see that for
the limited purposes of economic analysis, which requires but a
short excursion into psychology, we might speak of the worth
moment, now as feeling, and now as desire. Ehrenfels is also
probably right in saying that the general laws of valuation
and the forms of mutation of values or value-movement, hold
true whether we define worth experience as feeling or desire,
and that changes in judgment of value are due to modifications of
feeling or desire. Nevertheless, a complete analysis of the worth
consciousness, in all its phases, requires the solution of both these
problems.

It is in connection with the first problem that the first diver
gence in definition appears, as typified in the different formula
tions of Meinong and Ehrenfels. Ehrenfels defines the worth
of an object as its desirability and makes actual desire the
fundamental, assigning to feeling a merely dispositional role ;
while Meinong, on the other hand, identifies actual worth
experience with feeling, desire appearing in his definition only
as presupposed disposition. In some sense, we have seen, both
terms, feeling and conation, must enter into our psychological
definition ; the question is which shall be given the role of
fundamental, actual experience, and which that of disposition.

Ehrenfels2 takes desire as the actual psychological worth-
fundamental. Value, we are told, is proportional to the desira
bility of the object — and he continues, as though it were self-

1 For a detailed historical statement and criticism, see the writer's article "Recent
Tendencies in the Psychological Theory of Value," Psychological Bulletin, Vol. IV,
No. 4, March 15, 1907.

2 Ehrenfels, System der Wert-theorie, Leipzig, 1897, Vol. I, chap. I, especially
P- 35-

36 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

evident, — 'i.e., to the strength of the actual desire which cor
responds to it." The first part of the definition is certainly true.
The funded meaning of an object is its desirability, its capacity,
under certain circumstances, of calling out desire. The second
part does not, however, necessarily follow. It does not follow
either that judgments of worth are determined by actual desire,
or that the worth of the object is proportional to the strength of
the actual desire. As to the identification of value or desira
bility with actual desire, a consideration of certain simple but
typical worth experiences indicates, that it is not exclusively an
actual, but, ultimately, merely a possible desire or desire-dis
position with which worth is to be equated, a modification of his
earlier definition which Ehrenfels himself accepts. When I
think of an absent friend, I may feel his worth to me without the
slightest trace of actual desire for his immediate presence,
although the presupposition of that feeling is a disposition so to
desire. Or again, my consciousness of the objective value of
objects of economic use may be independent of any actual desire,
although not of my knowledge of their desirableness under certain
circumstances. It is equally true that the degree of worth or
desirability of an object cannot be straightway identified with
the degree of actual desire. It is undoubtedly proportional
to the strength of desire-disposition presupposed, but the strength
of a conative tendency or disposition is not always measured by
the intensity of actual desire ; is often inferred indirectly from
its effects on volition, or through the intensity of the emotional dis
turbance following upon arrest. The assumption that the strength
of a desire-disposition is given directly in immediate modifications
of consciousness, is one which introspection makes highly im
probable, and Ehrenfels, at least, with whose definition we are
here concerned, does not admit it.

It is clear, then, that while desire, and conative tendency in
general, must find a place in our worth definition, it cannot be
taken as the psychological fundamental in the sense that it is
the conscious correlate of the funded meaning of the object.
This conscious correlate is feeling. Ehrenfels thus brings feeling
into his definition. Desire is not determined by mystical qualities
of objects but by aspects of our consciousness which can be
reduced to psychological terms. " All acts of desire are deter
mined, in regard to their direction as well as their strength, by
the relative increase of pleasure which they, according to the
affective dispositions of the individual in question, bring with

Definition of the Consciousness of Value 37

them upon their entrance into, or continuance in consciousness."
Feeling is, therefore, after all, primary. The worth of an ob
ject is directly proportional to the strength of desire, but this
strength of desire is determined by the difference of the place
of the object in the hedonic scale.

In this conception of Ehrenfels the whole psychological
problem of the nature of feeling and desire and of their rela
tions, is involved. Into that larger question we cannot here
enter. It will be sufficient to notice certain fundamental diffi
culties which have been generally recognised by the critics of
the position. The criticism turns upon the concept of the deter
mination of desire by feeling, upon the idea of the causal rela
tion involved. It is maintained with justification that for a feel
ing to be a cause of desire it must be actual, that is a present
state of consciousness. But according to Ehrenfels' conception it
is not always a present state, but often a state which does not yet
exist, which is said to be the cause. It is the existence of an object
nbt yet realised or the non-existence of a present object, which is
desired. The hedonic accompaniment of a not-yet existent
object, itself therefore not existent, cannot in any causal sense
be the determinant of desire. But it may be said that it is the
difference of these two states that is the cause. In that case it
must be either the unfelt, uncognised difference, an abstraction,
which is the cause, or else a new feeling following upon the
judgment of the difference between the actual present feeling
and an imagined feeling arising from the assumption of the
existence or non-existence of the object. In the first case, we
have a conceptual abstraction made the cause — which is impos
sible. In the second case, a feeling difference has become the
object of judgment, and a value moment is already present prior
to desire. It is clear that in some sense feeling or feeling-dis
position is always presupposed by desire, but the relation cannot
be described as causal.

Ehrenfels recognises, that upon this causal view of the rela
tion of feeling to desire, the proposition must be modified to read :
desire is determined by feeling or feeling-dispositions. But we
have already seen that worth cannot, in every case, be identified
with actual desire, but only with the capacity of being desired or
desirability. Thus Ehrenfels is finally left without any conscious
correlate for the worth moment. Both the feeling and conative
aspects tend to become dispositional.

38 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

2. The Criterion of Worth Feeling — Presupposition of
Reality.

For reasons of the nature of those developed in our criticism
of Ehrenfels's worth definition, Meinong * makes feeling the worth-
fundamental. The sense of worth is given in feeling - signs,
Werth-gefiihle, which are determined in character and degree by
the nature of their presuppositions (Voraussetzungen).2 These
presuppositions he further conceives, in the case of worth feelings,
to be always judgments (or according to his later formula
tion, judgments and assumptions — Annahmen), and are there
fore distinguishable from feelings which have merely sensations
or presentations as their presuppositions. Leaving out of account
for the moment the question of this limitation of the class,
worth feelings, we may accept Meinong's general position.
The preferability of feeling as the fundamental element seems
to me to be beyond doubt, and for the following reasons.
In general our argument would be : There can be no sense of
worth without a meaning which may properly be described
as felt meaning, while there can very well be a sense of worth
without that qualification which we describe as desire and voli
tion. More specifically, even in those experiences which we call
explicit desire or volition, the essence of the desire can be
equally well described in terms of feeling without doing violence
to our speech. 'Yhe essence of desire is the feeling of lack or
want. We " fed the need " of something. What further
qualifies desire is the kinaesthetic sensations which are irrelevant
accompaniments from the standpoint of the essential worth
moment. But it is by no means in the same sense true that
every worth experience involves explicit desire. We may
actually feel the worth of objects without the slightest
trace of that qualification of our feeling which we describe as
actual desire for their presence, although a conative disposition
is presupposed and may become explicit under suitable conditions.
The same is true of aesthetic and mystical states of repose where
actual desire is in abeyance.

What this means for our definition is clear. In actual
worth experience desire is not necessarily present although

1 Meinong, Psychologisch-cthische Untersuchungen, Part I, chap. I.

2 In presenting Meinong's position I have translated Voraussetzung "presupposi
tion" rather than pre-condition, as better adapted to convey his meaning, and have
retained this broader usage of presupposition throughout, although in the usage of
Baldwin it is confined to the higher reflective level, that is, if I understand his
position correctly, his presupposition is always a "presupposition of belief."

Definition of the Consciousness of Value 39

feeling is. The desire is present often merely as a dispositional
moment which, however, may become actual under certain
definite circumstances. In so far, therefore, as our definition
includes the element of desire, we must enlarge it to read—
an object has worth in so far as it is either desired or has the
capacity of calling out desire, has, in other words, desirability.
This definition includes the mystical and sesthetic states of
repose already referred to, for no object can become the object
of such feelings which has not been desired and may not under
some circumstances again be desired. Conation is present dis-
positionally (how we shall see later) even in these states of repose.
But the case is different with feeling. In defining worth as
feeling with certain characteristic presuppositions we mean
that every actual worth judgment implies actual feeling — even
in those cases where the worth attitude is scarcely distinguishable
from the cognitive.

Feeling having been taken as the actual conscious correlate
of worth predicates, the second problem arises — whether worth
feelings are coextensive with feelings in general, or whether some
further differentiation within the general class, feeling, is re
quired. It is at this point that the definition of Meinong, that
feelings of worth are exclusively " judgment-feelings," becomes
important. This view, which may be described as the in-
tellectualistic theory of worth experience, has given rise to so
many important developments in ethics and aesthetics that
it demands the most careful consideration. Negatively viewed,
it denies the character of worth experience to all feelings which
have as their presuppositions mere presentations, to all feelings
which may be adequately described as the mere feeling-tone of
the presentation or as the effect of the entrance of the presenta
tion into consciousness. It differentiates " worth feeling " from
mere " pleasure-causation," i.e. pleasure viewed as mere re
action to stimulus.

Before considering in detail the psychological grounds for
this view, it will be well to observe the more general fact that,
whether worth -experience be defined in terms of desire or feeling,
it cannot be made co-extensive with either. Desire, in itself,
does not constitute the experience of valuation : there are fleet
ing desires which do not attain to the level of valuation, a fact
which leads Kr tiger in his definition, which is in terms of desire,
to make the differentia of worth a certain constancy of desire.
Again, as Meinong points out, illustrations are plentiful of valu-

4° Valuation : its Nature and Laws

ation without actual consciousness of pleasure, while a fleeting
pleasure does not necessarily involve valuation. Reflection
upon these facts of experience leads to more strictly logical
considerations such as those which appeared in our criticism of
Ehrenfels's definition. The sense of value cannot be identified
with the mere feeling of pleasure, although of course a feeling of
pleasure when it is made the object of judgment may become
a value, for the feeling of value is conditioned not only by the
presence of objects, but also by their absence. The mere absence
of the object is not the condition of the feeling, but the cogni
sance (in Meinong's terms the judgment) of non-existence.
The hedonic state which would be the effect of the presence of
the absent object is not actual, and can therefore not be, in any
causal sense, the condition of the desire and of valuation. More
over, the cause of the pleasure is often quite distinct from the
object of the feeling of value, often physiological and uncon
scious. The feeling of value can therefore not be viewed as the
effect or accompaniment of sensation or presentation of an
object, but as conditioned by some presupposition of the existence
of the object. In the case of the reflex feeling of the value of life,
conditioned by organic sensations, the feeling is objectless
but contains a primitive presumption of reality which then
maintains itself, as an explicit judgment of value, by attaching
itself to objects which form the concrete content of life.

The negative aspect of Meinong's position, the denial of the
character of worth experience to mere presentation-feelings,
appears justified from this analysis of the facts. A funda
mental distinction seems to exist between feeling which is a
mere feeling-tone, accompaniment or effect of a sensation or
revived image, and feeling-attitude which is characterised by
the direction of the feeling toward the object. Feeling-attitudes
alone seem to contain the worth-moment. It is undoubtedly true
that feeling-tone of presentation, when it reaches a certain degree
of intensity, gives rise to a feeling-attitude, to the presentation
of the cause as object and the direction of judgment toward it,
and thus to feeling of worth. But this feeling or desire, as the
case may be, is distinguished from the feeling-tone by the presence
of additional presuppositions ; whether exclusively judgmental
or not is a question to be determined.

A critical consideration of this positive aspect of Meinong's
definition requires a closer examination of his use of the term
presupposition (Voraussetzung) . Under this concept he includes

Definition of the Consciousness of Value 41

all those conditions of feeling which are psychical in character,
as distinguished from other causes of feeling which may be dis-
positional and physiological. In this sense a presupposition
may be any psychical process, presentation, judgments, the
various types, categorical, hypothetical, etc., and other types of
function, perhaps, such as assumption. In every case where
the presupposition of a feeling is spoken of, the feeling is directed
toward an object and is conditioned by some psychical act, of
presentation, of imagination with its assumption of reality, or
of judgment, which is for Meinong a fundamental form of
psychical process. The significance of this distinction is to be
found in the fact that the characteristic meanings of feelings
which distinguish them as feelings of value, are not to be differ
entiated in terms merely of the objects toward which the feeling
is directed, nor yet in terms of the causes of the feeling, but in
terms of the cognitive acts or attitudes which relate the object
to the subject.

(a) The Presupposition of Reality not exclusively Existential
Judgment — Criticism of Meinong.

Is then the presupposition of worth feeling exclusively judg
mental, as Meinong maintains ? To this question our answer
must be negative. But we may admit, to begin with, that
many types of worth attitude do have existential judgments
as presuppositions, and that all secondary modifications of worth
attitude are determined by the inclusion or exclusion of judg
ments, existential and relational, as part presuppositions of
the feeling. But that there is no primary immediate con
sciousness of value without explicit judgment of existence or
non-existence of the object, cannot be maintained. As was
pointed out in our discussion of the equivocations in the worth
predicates, ideal and imputed values may be attributed to ob
jects when the question whether they exist or may be acquired
is not raised, and when, accordingly, the attitude can never
reach the point of explicit judgment. The activities of imagina
tion and idealisation abundantly prove that the feelings directed
upon their objects are really feelings of worth and are determina
tive of worth judgments, although they presuppose mere as
sumptions of the reality of the objects which do not require to be
converted into, or explicitly acknowledged in, existential judg
ments.

4 2 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

Meinong has indeed found himself compelled upon further
reflection to modify his definition to the extent that he
includes with the judgment-feelings assumption-feelings (An-
nahme-gefiihle). He recognises, that " often one values an
object at a time when there is entirely wanting all chance
of judgments of existence and non-existence, because it is
not yet determined whether the object thought of as in the
future will exist or not." Moreover, "it is possible, and
it frequently happens, that we value an abstractly presented
object without inquiring after its existence."1 And in a later
paper2 he further qualifies his position by recognising that
it is only some universe of reality which is necessarily presupposed,
in that the presuppositions are not necessarily categorical existen
tial judgments, but may be hypothetical or disjunctive. Now
in all these cases where the object is " abstractly presented,"
assumed to exist, or asserted to exist conditionally, reality is
presupposed in some sense ; there is some reference to reality.
It is also clear that in all these cases the feeling characterised
as feeling of value is, by this very reference to reality presupposed,
in some way differently qualified from the feeling of pleasantness
or unpleasantness. The question at issue is merely as to the
proper characterisation of the reality-meaning, whether it rests
exclusively upon existential judgment or not.

(b) Criticism of the Theory of Existential Judgment underlying this
View — Existential Judgment merely Acknowledgment of a
Presupposition of Reality.

This question is still more ultimately conditioned by a
theory of the existential judgment. To this theoretical problem
we shall presently turn, but it will be in the interests of clear
ness to seek a preliminary characterisation of this presupposi
tion of reality. There can be no question, in the first place,
that wherever there is the feeling of value, there is reality feel
ing. When once an object, the existence of which was what I
desired or what conditioned my feeling of value, is explicitly
judged non-existent, the object undoubtedly loses its value for
me. The essential condition of its being valued is eliminated.

1 Meinong, " Uber Werthalten und Wert," Archiv fur Systematise)* Philosophic,
l89S»4PP- 327-46. Also his later work, Uber Annahmen.

" (Jrtheilsgefuhle, was Sic sind und was Sie nicht sind" Arckiv fur die gesammtc
Psychologic, Vol. VI, 1905.

Definition of the Consciousness of Value 43

My appreciation of the worth of an object does not, however,
necessarily, and in every case, rest upon such explicit judgment
of existence, but at most upon a primary undisturbed presumption
of reality. By this primary presumption of reality, of a reality,
moreover, in which the more specific existence meaning has not
yet been differentiated, is to be understood the mere act of
acceptance, taking for granted,1 prior to the explicit taking up
of the object into a pre-determined sphere of reality through
the existence predicate, and prior to the assumption of existence
of an object in the interest of continuity of any trend or activity,
whether of the type of cognition or valuation.

As illustrative of this attitude of primitive presumption we
may consider first the reality-feeling which attaches to percep
tion and presentation simply because of the " recognitive mean
ing " ! which they have. Distinctions between existent and
non-existent arise later — more especially in the case of pre
sentations in the fancy or imagination mode. They are
presumed to be real until the entrance of illusion-disturbing
moments which require the presumption to pass over into ex
plicit judgment and conviction either of existence or non-exist
ence. The fairy world of the child is a wrorld neither of pure
presentation nor of existential judgment but of presumption.
The same may be said of many ideals of the more developed
mind, as for instance, the religious, about which questions of ex
istence and non-existence are not seriously asked. In all these
cases some psychically pre-determined demand, whether arising
from a more objective cognitive factor of recognition or a more
subjective factor of conative disposition or interest, creates a
presumption of reality.

Such presumption must be carefully distinguished from both

1 The use of the term presumption to characterise this relation to reality is, I think,
fully justified both linguistically and psychologically. Our ordinary speech, it is true,
frequently fails to distinguish between presumption and assumption, and has, moreover,
read into the word presumption a certain ethical connotation which partially unfits it
for the present use. On the other hand, the original meaning of the Latin praesumptio
is much nearer to the use that we have in mind — it had more the meaning of taking for
granted prior to explicit judgment and was quite different from the conscious assump
tion of reality as we have it in hypothesis. The modern English dictionaries give as
one of the renderings, taking for granted, the meaning here emphasised. The use of
the term in formal logic, as in fallacies of presumption, while at first apparently against
our usage, on closer inspection seems to favour it. A presumption is a material fallacy,
an unconscious pre-logical taking for granted. Finally, the value of the introduction of
this term for our immediate purpose is to be found in the possibility it affords of using
the prefixes pm, sub, and ad, with the same root, to designate modifications of cognitive
attitude.

2 Baldwin's distinction referred to above.

44 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

judgment and assumption. The existential judgment arises,
we shall see, only after disturbance in a sphere of reality already
presupposed ; it is an act which takes place only after some dis
position, some tendency to recognition, or to renewal of attitude
of feeling or will meets with opposition or arrest. It must be
equally clearly distinguished from the later, more developed,
attitude of assumption of existence which presupposes dis
positions already created by actual judgment. The assumption,
except when it is what we describe as an unconscious assump
tion (and then it is really an approximation to presumption),
recognises the possibility of the non-existence of the object, and
in some modes of playful assumption (the " semblant modes "
of Professor Baldwin) it is, so to speak, on the verge of explicit
judgment of non-existence. But in the making of the assumption
the act is determined by a subjective factor, a demand arising
from already existing dispositions and interests. The assump
tion is an acknowledgment of this demand.

It is obvious, after this analysis, that the definition of feeling
of value under consideration, as feeling with existential judg
ment as its presupposition, is possible only on the theory that
the primitive form of judgment is the mere act of acceptance
(acknowledgment) * or rejection and involves no relational aspect,
no separation of two elements, subject and predicate. The
existential judgment is identified with acceptance and the non-
existential with rejection. If this view of judgment (Brentano's)2
can be maintained, it follows necessarily that there can be no
feeling of value without a judgment as presupposition, for all
attitude is primarily acceptance or rejection, and the feeling of
value is an attitude, not mere presentation plus feeling. But can
mere acceptance or rejection be identified with judgment of
existence and non-existence, and at the same time any useful
conception of judgment be retained ? I think not, and for the
following reasons.

The view that they can implies : (a) That presentation

1 The use of the terms acknowledgment and rejection as correlative is most unfortu
nate, for it prejudices the whole question. Rejection, as any dictionary tells us, is not
the opposite of acknowledgment. Acknowledgment has as its opposite disavowal,
while the opposite of rejection is acceptance. This linguistic relation corresponds
precisely to the psychological. Acknowledgment and disavowal both represent the
explicit judgmental acts by which a reality already presupposed is affirmed or denied.
Mere acceptance or rejection of an object presupposes nothing more than a presumption
of reality or disturbance of that presumption.

2 For a presentation and discussion of Brentano's theory of judgment see Stout,
Analytical Psychology, Vol. I, chap. V.

Definition of the Consciousness of Value 45

and judgment (acceptance or rejection of the existence of the
presented) are two different and irreducible elementary aspects
of consciousness ; (6) that while the affirmation or negation
of A (as function) adds something to its mere presentation
(as function), the affirmation or negation of ^4's existence
(as content) adds nothing to the affirmation or negation of A
(as content). The first thesis is the key to the position. Is
there such a thing as simple apprehension, presentation with
out acceptance, or does apprehension involve apprehension of
existence ? At first sight the former of the two possible
alternatives seems to be true. From the standpoint of analysis
alone, we seem to find cases in which the element of affirmation
is at a minimum, or is even entirely lacking, and in which
a merely presentational consciousness remains. Leaving out
of account the case of doubt or suspended judgment where,
although at a minimum, tendencies to judgment still remain,
we may turn immediately to the typical case of aesthetic
contemplation. Here it is said we have a strictly presenta
tional consciousness, at least when the contemplation is pure,
when the aesthetic is unmixed with other factors. This view we
shall find it necessary to reject, and for the following reasons.
In the first place, aesthetic contemplation is an attitude — not
mere presentation ; in it there is, as Ehrenfels says, at least a
resting in reality, " ein Haften an der Wirklichkeit," either
outer or inner. As such it is more than mere presentation.
While for the purposes of the psychologist the idea of a purely
presentational consciousness is sometimes a useful abstraction,
every actual experience presupposes a minimum of acceptance or
rejection. The procedure, therefore, which takes this abstraction,
made for purposes of analysis, as a picture of reality, and from it
infers, for instance, the unreality of the aesthetic object and ex
perience and its exclusion from the sphere of worth experience,
is vitiated by serious fallacy.

But if the merely presentational consciousness be but an ab
straction, there still remains the question — to what extent, in
actual concrete cases of aesthetic contemplation, all acceptance and
rejection may be seen to be excluded and the purely presentational
approached. Perhaps the difference is negligible. Most aesthetic
attitudes, it is recognised by all, fail to give us this contempla
tion pure. In the sublime and tragic, for instance, pseudo-
aesthetic factors, so called, enter in, in the form of acknow
ledgments and rejections, judgments of various kinds. Even

46 Vahiation : its Nature and Laws

beauty, in its narrower sense, contains, as partial moments,
normative judgments. If we are to find any concrete aesthetic
experience of " pure contemplation," it must be in the
simplest perceptual forms and form-qualities. These are indeed
usually taken as the typical aesthetic objects when the aesthetic
is thus denned. But even here it is doubtful whether the
element of acceptance and rejection, or of conation, can be ex
cluded. It is true that these forms and form-qualities, when
abstracted from the elements in which they inhere, may be viewed
as the objects of purely presentational activity. Nevertheless
their construction was the product of conative activity which
involved spontaneous acceptance and rejection, presumption of
reality. Viewed genetically, every aesthetic feeling of form
presupposes a disposition created by preceding conative activity.

The distinction between simple apprehension and acceptance
is, then, even in aesthetic contemplation, a relative one. What
shall be said of the second part of the thesis — that acceptance
or rejection of an object, A, is identical with the affirmation or
negation of the existence of A, or, in other words, with judgment ?
Acknowledgment or rejection does undoubtedly presuppose the
reality, in some sense, of the presentational content. This is
the same as saying that all conation is directed toward objects
presumed to be real. It does not follow, however, that explicit
existential judgment is involved. We must, I think, look upon
the existential judgment as derived from a simpler and more
ultimate attitude toward a reality presupposed in all conation,
even on the perceptual level. Acceptance and rejection involve
presumption of existence but not necessarily judgment.

Such a distinction between presumption and judgment in
volves of course a theory of the nature of judgment. Into the
logical questions here raised we cannot go in detail, but this
much at least may be said. The position maintained by Sigwart
(among other logicians) — that judgment " must be regarded
as establishing a relation, even in its existential form," seems
necessary if our conception of it is to retain any useful sig
nificance.1 When the relational aspect is allowed to lapse, judg
ment becomes practically indistinguishable from conation. It
is true that the existential judgment occupies a unique position.
It does not establish a relation between its subject and the pre
dicate, " being," " but between an object as idea and an object as
intuited." Affirmation of existence or non-existence presupposes,

1 Sigwart, Logic (translation), Vol. I, p. 72.

Definition of the Consciousness of Value 47

as mere acceptance or rejection does not, at least the beginning
of the differentiation of subject and predicate.1

3. The Presupposition of Reality — Presumption, Judgment, and
Assumption of Existence of Objects — Analysis of these Cog
nitive Attitudes.

On the theory of judgment here developed, the existential
judgment and the pure presentation, in so far as " con
templation " is pure presentation, are secondary attitudes,
derived from the primitive presumption of reality presupposed
in all acceptance or rejection of an object. The difference
between the presumption and judgment is that, while in the
former we have merely acceptance and rejection, in the latter we
have acknowledgment and disavowal, acceptance and rejection
plus belief or disbelief. Returning then to the question of the
necessary presuppositions of the feeling of value, it is clear that
there must be the presumption of reality, for without it there can
be no attitude toward the object, seeing that attitude involves
either acceptance or rejection, or disposition to accept or reject.
But it is equally clear that the existential judgment cannot be the
sole and necessary presupposition of the feeling, for there can be
no such explicit judgment (acknowledgment or disavowal) except
as there is already some reality meaning, some presupposition of
reality. Again, the hypothetical pure presentation, in so far as
there is any such mode of consciousness, is equally secondary and
derived. It is the result of abstraction from the primitive
presumption of reality, the result of arrest of this presumption
implicit in all conation. Meinong's use of the expression " ab
stractly presented" is significant in this connection. To pre
sent abstractly means to strip off the reality feeling involved
in the first experience. This relation to reality feeling may,
however, be partially restored by a further movement of conation
in which the presented object is assumed to exist, an attitude we
find characteristic of certain secondary contemplative aesthetic
experiences.

1 The following quotation from Baldwin's Thought and Things, Vol. II (chapter II,
on "Acknowledgment and Belief," p. 17), puts the situation admirably: " The exist
ence meaning which the judgment always presupposes in the sense given, may, when
explicitly asserted, be called a predicate but not an attributive predicate, not a separate
element of presented context or of recognitive meaning, attributed to the subject matter.
It is only the explicit assertion of the presupposition of belief in the sphere in which the
subject matter is constituted an object of thought."

48 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

We are thus led finally to a consideration of the relation of the
attitude of assumption to the primitive presumption of reality and
to the existential judgment. This question is important for the
reason that the special modification of feeling which has assump
tion as its " presupposition," the feelings of the imagination (Phan-
tasiegefiihle) of Meinong's school, has been made much of in recent
discussion. For one thing it has been asserted that these feelings
are not real and therefore not feelings of value, although under
certain circumstances they may stand for, or represent, real
feelings. Our own view, which will be developed more fully later,
is that they are real feelings in any sense which has significance
for psychology and that they have a presupposition of reality,
although from the point of view of reflective evaluation of the
objects of such feelings (the axiological point of view) the judg
ments which spring from these feelings may be invalid. But a
more adequate characterisation of the attitude of assumption
itself is our first problem.

Assumption, as a cognitive attitude, has two meanings.
According to its first meaning it is an acceptance, a taking as
existent, of an object when there is an underlying sense of the
possibility of its being non-existent. In this sense it is a half
way stage between the primitive presumption of reality and the
existential judgment. In this sense also it is a secondary move
ment or act of cognition within a developing sphere of reality,
bounded by the primitive presumption of reality and the ex
istential judgment, affirmative or negative. From the point of
view of conation, it is an act determined by the momentum of
a subjective disposition or interest. In its second meaning it is
not pre-judgmental but post-judgmental, that is, a permanent
assumption is created by habitual judgment ; it presupposes
dispositions created by acts of judgment and is derived from
the judgment attitude. In this case the assumption approaches
closely to the presumption, and for this attitude the two terms
are often used interchangeably. It is important to emphasise
these two meanings1 for the feeling attitudes involved are in many
respects quite different, and the confusion of the two has led
to misinterpretation of worth experience. Thus the feelings
which attach to assumptions of the first type may be described
as feelings of the imagination ; they belong to the mode of

1 Baldwin's recently published theory of " schematic " function recognises both
these modes of "assumption," the existential judgment lying, genetically, between
them. Thotighl and Things, Vol. I, chap. v.

Definition of the Consciousness of Value 49

semblance or " make-believe." But those which attach to
assumptions of the second type are more accurately described
as feeling-abstracts or affective signs and represent the acquired
or funded meanings of past judgment feelings. To this class,
we shall see later, belong all those feelings or funded meanings
which inhere intrinsically in general concepts. Such terms
as truth, virtue, duty, etc., have functioned in particular ex
istential judgments, and it was upon the basis of these judgments
that the feelings of value for which these terms stand arose. But
when they are thus formed they are abstractly valued without
explicit judgments of existence or non-existence. They repre
sent an assumption which has arisen through formation of habit.
Explicit judgment is always the terminus of a process of adapta
tion. From the primitive presumption arises, through arrest,-?
assumption, which in turn passes into judgment and the laterjj
assumption.

We are now in a position to summarise our view as to the
nature of simple appreciation or primary feelings of value, in
so far as it is related to Meinong's criterion. We agree with him
to the extent that we include among the feelings of value only
such feelings as have reality meanings, that is, have some pre
supposition of reality. As to the nature of that presupposition
of reality we differ. We deny its limitation to existential judg
ment and include the two attitudes of presumption and assump
tion. This may be said to be the result of our critical analysis of
the meanings of experiences of worth. There remains still the
question of the functional and genetic account of these different
presuppositions. Before undertaking this we must glance briefly
at another criterion of feeling of value recently developed, more
especially by Lipps.

IV. THE GENESIS AND RELATIONS OF THESE PRESUPPOSITIONS
OF THE FEELING AND JUDGMENT OF VALUE

i. Criticism of the Theory that All Feelings of Value Presuppose
Reference to the Personality.

It is maintained that all feelings of value are feelings of per
sonality — that the analysis which finds the criterion of feeling
of value in the nature of the attitude toward a transcendent
object, really overlooks the significant moment, which is the
reference of the feeling to the subject, the personality. Feelings

5O Valuation: its Nature and Laws

of value are feelings of activity of the subject, the acts of judg
ment, etc., being of only secondary importance. Such a criterion
is presented in the formula of Lipps i1 " Der Wert jeder Lust ist
bedingt durch einen Personlichkeitswert." Now, while it is un
doubtedly true that there are types of feelings of value which
have as their presupposition explicit reference to the person
ality — i.e., those feelings described as values of character
isation, including feelings of obligation, desert, etc. It must
nevertheless be recognised that these values are secondary
and acquired, that they presuppose judgments referring the
attitude to the presented self, the self being the product
of an ideal construction based upon preceding experiences of
value. The only sense in which Lipps's statement may be said
to be true is that in primary feelings of value, as distinguished from
simple pleasure, there are certain modifications, certain implicit
meanings which, when reflected upon, lead to their reference to
the self. Such a modification of his view we may accept.

The meanings which appear on the level of simple appre
ciation prior to reference to the self, Kriiger2 has described as
depth and breadth of the feeling in the personality, and he con
ceives them to constitute a third dimension of feeling, besides its
intensity and duration, a dimension which is determined by a rela
tive constancy of disposition. His development of the criterion
is both analytical and genetic. Valuation is distinguished from
mere desire and simple " pleasure-causation by a moment of
relative constancy of desire. Desire of itself does not constitute
valuation, and valuation is never mere desire or a series of desires.
He further conceives the relation of this "desire-constant" to
the individual desires on the analogy of the relation of concepts
to particular sensations and percepts. A valuation always pre
supposes a relatively constant disposition, and this disposi
tion appears as an actual element in consciousness only in
a corresponding judgment. Yet the judgment of value is not
the valuation itself. This is given rather in the characteristic
modification of the experienced desire and feeling, which he con
ceives to grow in depth with the development of the " desire-con
stant." 3 He suggests that it is probable that in the first stages

1 Lipps, Die ethischen Grundfragen, Leipzig, 1899, Chap. I.

a Kriiger, Der Btgriff des absolut Wertvollen als Grundbcgriff der Moral philosophic,
Leipzig, 1898, chap. Ill ("Zur Psychologic des VVertes").

a One point, however, he has left undetermined. Is the worth experience given in
feeling or desire ? In some passages he speaks as though the sense of worth were given
in feeling as determined by or as determining desire, in others as though it were given
in the experiences of desire themselves. As a matter of fact, he does not seem to have

Definition of the Consciousness of Value 51

of conscious life only that was consciously striven after which
brought with it relative increase of pleasure, and that the con
sciousness of value has probably taken its rise in such strivings,
but every desire has a tendency to develop a relative constancy
and thus to pass into a valuation. It leaves behind in the per
sonality constant dispositions, and with them traces of value.
The mechanism of pleasure-causation is thus broken through by
the formation of values ; and as soon as the function of valua
tion is formed at a single point, the will ceases to be exclusively
determined by the intensity and duration of expected pleasure.
Through the fact of valuation the affective-volitional life gets, so
to speak, a third dimension; the value of a constant desire is
determined by its breadth and depth in the personality.

The interest of this definition of Kriiger's is to be found in the
fact that it is an attempt to connect the appreciative distinctions
which differentiate feelings of value from other feelings, which
lead ultimately to the characterisation of the self and to the ex
plicit reference of the object to the self, with the functional,
dispositional conditions of the feeling, and it has been presented
here at some length because this concept of conative constants
or dispositions as the necessary conditions of feelings of value,
feelings with depth and breadth, is precisely the concept which we
need to connect these appreciative meanings with the reality
meanings which the preceding analysis has distinguished.
At an earlier stage it was seen that both the concepts of feeling
and conation must find a place in the definition of worth ex
perience. It is now seen that feelings of value are not com
pletely characterised by reference to their presuppositions of
reality, presumption, judgment and assumption, but that we
must go more deeply into the conative dispositions which deter
mine these acts of presumption, judgment, and assumption.

2. Genetic Levels of Valuation.

How then shall we conceive this relation of the two determi
nants of feelings of value ? If we describe the acts of cogni
tion as the actual psychical presuppositions and the conative

faced this question at all, as the following passage indicates : " Where the capacity or
function of valuation is to some degree realised, there the individual experiences of
feeling and desire are in a peculiar manner heightened and deepened, they have a
personal character. They find, so to speak, in the personality a fuller and more indi
vidual resonance. We can in such a case speak of a more highly developed ' Gemiits-
leben ' " (p. 50).

52 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

tendencies as the dispositional conditions, our problem would
read : What is the relation of the actual presuppositions to the
dispositional conditions as determinants of feelings of value ?
The answer to this question must be in genetic terms. We have
already seen that there is a certain genetic relation between the
attitudes of presumption, assumption, and judgment. Each, in
its way, represents a functional attitude toward a psychically
pre-determined object, the acceptance of a demand, acquiescence
in a claim to control, and each therefore is a type of reality
meaning. But these demands or controls vary at different
stages of the genetic series. An analysis of the manner in
which the dispositional factor functions at the different stages
of development should give us a point of view from which to
unify the results of our study.

The condition which determines the primitive presumption of
reality seems to be that the object shall have recognitive mean
ing for a conative tendency. At this point the cognitive and
conative moments can scarcely be distinguished. As far back as
we can go in our analysis, interest and conation seem to deter
mine recognition, and recognition is the condition of the first
reality-meaning which characterises feelings of value. In the
primitive presumption of reality the dualism between subjective
and objective controlling factors has not yet emerged. It is with
the first arrest of a conative tendency, through the development
of an independent cognitive interest, and through differentiation
of the recognitive factor from the conative, that the innocency of
primitive presumption is disturbed and a differentiation of sub
jective and objective demands or controls appears. Here the
attitude of assumption emerges, determined largely by the sub
jective control factor of the conative disposition, often in oppo
sition to objective controls already established — but not neces
sarily so. Assumption of the existence of an object is the
acceptance of a subjective demand, after arrest of primitive
presumption, and constitutes a transition stage between pre
sumption and explicit acknowledgment of a control as objective.1
From the assumption attitude emerges the existential judgment,
either positive or negative. It represents not merely the accept
ance or rejection of an object, but the explicit acknowledgment
or disavowal of a certain control factor. It is important to ob-

1 I am inclined to agree with Professor Baldwin that a pure fancy mode or play of
fancy, described by him as the first semblant mode, constitutes a genetic transition
between presumption and assumption, but for our purposes it is negligible.

Definition of the Consciousness of Value 53

serve that this control factor may be either an objective or sub
jective factor and that the existential judgment may be
acknowledgment of either. But in the latter case the subjective
has, by that very process, been transferred to the objective side
of the equation.

V. RESUM^ OF PRECEDING DEFINITION AND ANALYSIS

The material is now before us for a summary restatement
of our original definition of value, as funded affective- volitional
meaning, in terms of psychological equivalents. The psycho
logical equivalent of the worth predicate is always a feeling,
with certain meanings determined by actual cognitive presuppo
sitions or types of aQgmtive_reacJtion which actualise pre-existent
conative dispositions. The value or funded meaning of the
object is its capacity of becoming the object of feeling and
desire through actualisation of dispositional tendencies by acts
of presumption, judgment, and assumption.

The conative disposition is the fundamental determinant of
the feeling of value or appreciative meaning of the object, but
the disposition may be actualised, represented in function by
different cognitive attitudes or acts, of the types enumerated, and
according as it is one or the other of these types is the feeling
qualified in the manner described.1 Underlying the feeling
of value attached to the idea of my friend is the conative disposi
tion, the interest created by former desires for his presence and
satisfaction of those desires, but that feeling may now arise
upon mere momentary assumptions of his existence without a
trace of desire for his immediate presence. All " disposition-
feelings," however actualised, are feelings of value because they
represent the funded meaning of affective- volitional process,

1 In the consideration of the relation of the actual presuppositions to the dispositional
conditions there are still certain questions which have considerable bearing upon later
discussions. Thus Witasek maintains, that while it is probably true that feelings of
worth arise upon the mere presentation of an object related to desire dispositions, never
theless, since desire presupposes judgment, and these dispositions have been formed by
preceding judgments, the worth feeling is ultimately still a "judgment-feeling." Now
it may be admitted that judgments enter into the formation of these desire dispositions,
but as dispositional they are merely conative tendency, for it is the essence of judgment
to be explicit and actual. Again, it is argued (by Saxinger), that the dispositions corre
sponding to judgment feelings are different from the dispositions correlated with assump
tion feelings, and he bases his arguments upon differences in the laws governing the two
kinds of feeling. Into the consideration of this question we cannot enter here — that
will be reserved for later study. We may simply emphasise our own position that
worth feeling is a function of conative disposition, whether conation expresses itself
explicitly in judgment or assumption.

54 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

although they have different reality - meanings. From the
standpoint of the extension of the term, the class, feelings of
value, includes aesthetic feelings, feelings of the imagination
so-called, as well as practical and ethical attitudes.

In general, then, we may conclude that feeling of value is
the feeling aspect of conative process, as distinguished from
the feeling -tone of simple presentations. And by conative
process we understand the total process of development by
which affective-volitional meaning is acquired, the total process
including actual and dispositional moments. How these dispo
sitions, and with them the feelings which they condition, are
modified, both qualitatively and quantitatively, at different
stages of this development, by changes in presuppositions, and
more especially by the inclusion of secondary judgments of
relation, etc., is the problem of the next chapter.

CHAPTER III

MODES OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF VALUE-
PRIMARY AND ACQUIRE

I. THE APPRECIATIVE DESCRIPTION OF FEELINGS OF VALUE —
DESCRIPTION OF MODES OF REALITY FEELING

i. The Nature of Appreciative Description.

THE course of the preceding chapter has led to a demar
cation of those meanings described as worths or values.
Beginning with the preliminary definition of worth as the
affective-volitional meaning of the object for the subject,
we advanced by successive stages of analysis to the more
specific statement that worth experience is always a feeling
attitude which presupposes the actualisation of some conative
disposition by acts of presumption, judgment, or assump
tion (implicit and explicit). This definition obviously involves
a certain theory of the nature of feeling and of its relation
to conation. For one thing, this broader use of the term
feeling involves a relative distinction between feeling-attitude
and affective tone of sensation, a distinction which has in
fact been insisted upon, and it also leads to the view that
feeling, as worth feeling, has appreciative distinctions not
found in passive affection. To this theory of the nature of feel
ing, and to the more abstract psychological analysis which it
involves, we must turn our attention later. For the present — and
indeed as a necessary preliminary to this later study — our problem
is the further development of the appreciative distinctions of
feeling.

Earlier in our study a distinction was made between the " ap
preciative " and "reality-" (including existence-) meanings of
worth predicates. Starting with the analysis of the latter, we
developed the definition of value in terms of its functional
presuppositions. But in the course of that very analysis we

55

5^ Valuation : its Nature and Laws

came upon certain appreciative distinctions in feeling, as, for
instance, in the study of the criteria of Lipps and Kriiger, such
as feelings of the personality, breadth and depth of feeling in the
personality, which were taken as descriptive of feelings of value.
Logically, this analysis of appreciative descriptions of feeling
should, perhaps, have come first in our own study, but the order
of presentation chosen has this advantage, that the critical studies
of the preceding chapter have, by their results both positive and
negative, defined the sphere of worth experience, and have given
us the clue to the interpretation of the different qualifications of
feeling which are suggestive of worth, that is, which give rise to
those meanings of objects which we call worth predicates.

The worth predicates themselves, as tertiary qualities of
objects, are, in their manifold modifications, appreciative dis
tinctions arising from differences in the meaning of feelings.
They are projections into the object of distinctions within
feeling. The supposition immediately presents itself that,
since they are funded meanings of feeling processes, they
correspond directly to fundamental differences in feeling itself,
and that there are as many differences in feeling as there are
worth predicates. Reflection, however, makes it clear that appre
ciative description of objects, while the expression of worth feel
ings, is not necessarily the appreciative description of those
feelings themselves. These predicates are what we feel about
the object, not how we feel. We feel beauty, goodness, nobility,
sublimity, obligation, but when we describe how we feel in such
cases a transition has been made to the appreciative description
of the feeling itself. The feeling has been made the object
of presentation and description, and it is quite possible that in
such appreciative description of the feeling one of these general
worth predicates may stand for different modifications of feeling,
or for several at the same time. Thus the predicate good may,
when applied to an act, have as its equivalent a feeling described
as the tension of obligation, at another the feeling of satisfied
repose. In order to describe adequately the feeling I have when
I call an object sublime, it may be necessary to use the terms
elevation and repose ; and, if I wish to add to my description
quantitative terms, to speak of the depth of the feeling. It is
apparent, then, that what is meant by the appreciative distinc
tions in primary worth feeling are those descriptions of his feelings
which the subject seeks as the equivalents of his worth predicates
applied to objects. The ultimate terms in which such feelings

•Modes of the Consciousness of Value 57

of simple appreciation are described should give us the funda
mental modifications of worth feeling.

2. The Relation of Appreciative Description to the " Scientific "
Description of Feeling as Content — Theories of Feeling.

It has been said that there are innumerable nuances of
feeling, and in the same breath it has been asserted that all these
differences are reducible to differences in intensity and duration
of a one-dimensional continuum, pleasantness-unpleasantness,
these differences being due to differences in the sensational,
perceptual, or ideal content with which the feeling is connected.
With the first part of this statement we may agree, but the second
requires critical examination. The consciousness of the inade
quacy of this conception of the dimensions of feeling has been
growing recently, and the demand for new analysis has arisen
from two distinct quarters — from the study of the psychology
of worth experience, on the one hand, and from non-appre
ciative psycho-physical analysis as illustrated in Wundt's three-
dimensional theory, on the other hand.

In the case of the " worth psychologists," with whom we are
in this connection primarily concerned, the logic of this anal
ysis is clear enough. When they turn from the worth predicates
of objects to a description of the experiences which determine
these predicates, they find the old terminology, intensity and
duration of pleasantness-unpleasantness, inadequate for the
reconstruction of this experience. In the analysis of Kriiger
which we have already considered, worth feeling, which is dis
tinguished functionally from pleasure-causation by the fact that
it presupposes conative constants, is distinguished appreciatively
by a new dimension, depth and breadth in the personality.
Simmel,1 who likewise makes feeling the fundamental element,
also finds it necessary to distinguish the aspects of depth and
breadth of feeling from intensity. Another class of analysts,
who hold a voluntaristic theory, find modifications of worth ex
perience, which cannot be correlated with feeling if feeling be
conceived merely as intensity of pleasantness-unpleasantness.
Brentano2 is compelled to assume quasi-logical dimensions of
acts of preference, to which pleasantness and unpleasantness
are related merely as redundant passive phenomena and more

1 Simmel, Einkitung in die Moralwissensfhaft.

2 Brentano, Psychologic. Also Ursprung der sittlichen Erkentniss.

5 8 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

recently and definitely, Schwartz1 has found it necessary to dis
tinguish fundamentally between degrees of worth experience,
satisfaction (Sattigung des Gefallen) and intensity of feeling,
and on the assumption that feeling is passive pleasantness-
unpleasantness, to seek a voluntaristic basis for worth experi
ence. Despite the differences in theory of the nature of the
worth-fundamental, it is clear that these analyses all have in
view the object of doing justice to appreciative distinctions in
worth experience, whatever that may be found to be, in terms of
psychological equivalents.

3. The Problem and Method of Appreciative Description.

If then we hold to the view already developed, that worth
experience is feeling with certain characteristic presuppositions,
our task is naturally to seek some conception of feeling which
lies between the two views propounded — both of them unwork
able for our analysis — the proposition that feeling has innumer
able modifications, and the view that it is merely intensity
of pleasantness and unpleasantness. Now the key to our pro
cedure is to be found in the fact that " pleasantness-unpleasant
ness " covers but one class of terms which may be applied to the
description of the concrete feeling attitude, that there are other
class terms which are equally fundamental for the communi
cation of the qualitative differences in feeling. As a descrip
tion of the subjective experience corresponding to the
worth predicate, the qualitative differences, pleasantness-un
pleasantness, are insufficient. Moreover, when this has become
clear, it will also appear that in order to express quantitative
differences in worth feeling it will be necessary to make use of
other conceptions than that of intensity, in its narrower sense,
which has been transferred from sensation to the pleasantness
and unpleasantness which accompanies sensation.

The problem then is — what are the fundamental nuances
of feeling corresponding to the tertiary qualities or worth
predicates attributed to objects ? The answer to this
question would naturally take the form of a classification
of the appreciative descriptions of feeling attitudes and indeed
a desideratum of the greatest importance in the present situa
tion of the psychology of feeling is precisely such a "natural"
classification of the appreciative terms used in the first stages

1 Schwartz, Psychologic des Willens, chap. II ; also Appendix I.

Modes of the Consciousness of Value 59

of introspection. As I have elsewhere1 pointed out, the psy
chology of religious, ethical, and aesthetic feeling must build its
generalisations almost entirely upon the results of such introspec
tions, gathered, for instance, by the questionnaire method, and its
possibility rests ultimately upon the existence of uniformities in
such descriptions. Partial contributions to such a classification
already exist — notably in the sphere of religious experience-
but in default of any adequate view of the whole range of such
descriptions, and in view of the impossibility of attempting
such a classification here, we may resort to the more usual and
more direct method of analysing our experience directly for the
primary fundamental meanings of feeling, and then seeking to
develop the secondary derived meanings by "genetic progressions "
from the fundamental. This special application of the genetic
method of analysis will have the advantage of presenting our
results in such a form as to connect them immediately with the
results of the preceding analysis of functional presuppositions,
and the two will act as mutually supplementary and corrective.

II. THE FUNDAMENTAL APPRECIATIVE DISTINCTIONS IN
FEELING — QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE

i. Qualitative : Directions and References — The Three-
dimensional Theory.

What, then, are the primary, irreducible aspects of feelings
which must be- distinguished in order to fix their place in a
system of meanings ? As has been suggested, these aspects
must be expressed in terms both of quality and degree. Our
first concern is therefore with the qualities of feeling. Every
concrete feeling attitude has two primary aspects or mean
ings, its direction and its reference. Its direction is either
positive or negative. Its reference is either transgredient
or immanental. Of the first aspect little need be said.
It is that fundamental duality of quality which, when feel
ing is viewed retrospectively as passive and as abstracted
from conation, is described as pleasantness-unpleasantness. As
direction or meaning of feeling attitude, however, it presupposes
relation of the attitude to conation. What have been described

1 "Appreciation and Description and the Psychology of Values," Phil. Rev.,
November, 1905.

6° Valuation : its Nature and Laws

as the references of feeling specify more completely, on the other
hand, this relation to conation ; they are aspects of the feeling
which refer to something presupposed, to a disposition already
acquired for which the object has a meaning. In the case of
the transgredient reference it is the sense of a subjective control
leading on to other states. In the case of the immanental, it is a
sense of a more objective control leading to continuance or
repose in the same state. When it comes to describing these
directions and references, their different nuances and suggestions,
use is made of metaphorical and analogical terms, the significance
of which we must consider.

The simplest analogy here made use of is that of contrast pairs
from the different sense regions. Feelings are described as sweet
or bitter, bright or dull, soft or hard, etc. They specify for finer
discrimination and description the two fundamental directions of
feeling, the positive and the negative, pleasant and unpleasant.
Of these it is not necessary to speak in detail, for while they help
to describe the worth or affective-volitional meaning of objects
for the subject, their external and analogical origin makes them
only indirectly the means of communication of worth experiences.
A more important group of terms employed in differentiating
the worth suggestions of feeling-attitudes are those which may be
described as dynamic. They describe the dynamic suggestions
of the feeling, specify the transgredient reference. This trans
gredient reference is ordinarily described metaphorically in terms
of forms of movement from the external world. Of the large
number of such forms made use of in these descriptions a
slight study of the literature of such appreciative introspec
tion makes us immediately aware. It is full of terms for
different nuances of movements of the crescendo or diminuendo
type— of soaring, uplifting, of sudden breaking in upon con
sciousness, of dying away, of height and depth, etc. They
can probably all be included under the general terms tension,
restlessness, and perhaps contraction, the nature of which
dimensions, and the theory connected with their classifica
tion, we shall consider presently. From the point of view of
content such forms of movement are probably complexes founded
on relations of intensity and duration among more ultimate
elements. However that may be, the characteristic of these
symbolic, dynamic descriptions is that they describe transitional
aspects of experience, transitions from one aspect of content to
another by which meaning is acquired. By this I mean that in

Modes of the Consciousness of Value 61

the present feeling there is always a transgredient reference to a
past or future attitude. The present experience is always the
foreground of a background, past or future, which is still, or
already, dimly felt. Of course in such a feeling there is always
reference to conation, and it might be objected that we are here
dealing with impulse and desire rather than with feeling, if it were
not that, as we shall seek to show, feeling cannot be completely
abstracted from conation.

A third, and qualitatively opposite, class of terms is used
to characterise appreciatively the nuances of immanental refer
ence of feeling. They may all be grouped, I think, under the
general terms, repose, relaxation, and expansion. Feelings of ex
pansion have an unusual wealth of descriptive terms at their
service. Favourite descriptions are in terms of pervasion and
possession. The subject of the emotion describes himself as per
vaded — as by an ether, a fluid — as swallowed up by the emotion,
and in the mystical amorous and religious literature, of which such
descriptions are typical, it is with love, with the glory or the will
of God, that the subject is filled. These suggestions or meanings
of feelings are likewise probably aspects or qualities founded on
more elementary content.

This immanental reference of repose, with its cognate expan
sion of feeling, is a meaning wrhich the feeling gets when the con-
ative tendency or disposition, presupposed, has reached the stage
of habit after accommodation. The object of the feeling occupies
the whole consciousness, but into the meaning of the object is
taken up all the accumulated meaning of the processes of accom
modation for which the disposition now stands. The reference
of the feeling is not beyond the present state, but to something
more deeply involved in it.

In the case of the term expansion (and contraction its corre
lative transgredient term) , it is obvious that such descriptions are
metaphorical transferences from the spatial world of perception,
but I think it can scarcely be denied that, as appreciative de
scriptions, they are as fundamental as the other descriptions
transferred from the experiences of intensity and duration. It
has been objected to the three-dimensional theory of feeling
that, if the analogical terms, tension-relaxation, restlessness-
quiescence are introduced, there is no reason why the terms
contraction-expansion should not also be applied. There is none
in fact — the only question is whether they are equally irreducible
as terms of appreciative introspection. With an introspection

Valuation : its Nature and Laws

which is not appreciative we have in this connection no
concern.

That contraction and expansion are in this sense fundamental
aspects of feeling there can I think be no question. And in this
connection it is interesting to note the fact that, in a recent study
ling by experimental methods, without these appreciative
itmctions, it was found impossible to distinguish the feeling-
tone of simple sensation from a mood or disposition-feeling
former attaches, so to speak, to the stimulus-complex
(taste) while the latter spreads over the whole consciousness "
: was further found that they have different pneumographic
expressions. The former is attended by quickening, the latter
by slowing of respiration.1

(a) The Three-dimensional Analysis a Description of Reality-
Meanings of Feelings of Value-not of Simple Feeling
Abstracted from Cognitive Presuppositions.

The relation of this analysis to the so-called three-dimen
sional theory of feeling developed by Wundt may be stated as
)llows. We accept the analysis ; but for us the terms of this theory
are descriptive equivalents for appreciative meanings of total
J attitudes, while for Wundt they are qualities of simple
The difference arises necessarily from the different
:s of view from which the description of the same experience
s approached. The appreciative descriptions try to fixate the
meaning of the conative references (transgredient and imma-
nental) implicit in the feeling attitude, i.e., references to preceding
and succeeding conation. The analysis of Wundt, on the other
hand, seeks to fixate the same experience by terms from which
the worth connotation is more completely abstracted, and in which
the implicit reference to the self is ignored. Royce, it should how
ever be noted in passing, finds the "interest" in the hypothesis
m the " statement it makes possible of the relation of feeling
and conduct, not adequately conceived on the one-dimensional
theory " -a clear recognition of the fact that he is concerned with
appreciative description.

That the three-dimensional theory constitutes a true descrip-

lon of total feeling attitudes is scarcely open to dispute. The

slightest appreciative introspection enables us to distinguish

on Gefuhl," Arckiv fur die

Modes of the Consciousness of Value 63

between the exciting pleasure of hope and the tranquil pleasure
of peace, between the painful tension of dread and the equally
painful relaxation of despair. The question at issue is not, then,
whether these differences are appreciable among total feeling atti
tudes and thus constitute worth suggestions, but rather whether
they are equally characteristic of sensation-feelings. On this
question there is no conclusive answer to be given at the present
time. Wundt has brought forward experimental evidence in
favour of the view that these additional qualities belong also to
simple sensation-feelings (the feeling tone of colours and sounds,
for instance). As to the value of the evidence, there is, of course,
still doubt ; some experimenters do not find the modifications
of the curves corresponding to the three-dimensional analysis.
But even if there were no question in regard to the facts them
selves, the meaning of these facts would not be unequivocal.
We cannot, for one thing, be sure that while the stimuli are so-
called simple sensations, the feeling reactions are simple feel
ings. They may be — and, indeed, probably are — on the
emotional level, the organic and muscular sensations due to the
surplus excitation. It is certainly true that the results are most
apparent, both in the graphic registration and in introspection,
as reference to Wundt's studies will show, in those cases where
the reactions are on the emotional level. Besides, as has
already been pointed out, although the feeling tone of sensa
tion is itself not worth-suggestive or on the level of worth feeling,
nevertheless, when the stimulus has reached a certain intensity
or duration, it gives rise to a feeling attitude which is worth-
suggestive. Until the experimental evidence is more un
equivocal, both introspection and logic would rather lead to the
view that these dimensions of feeling which seem to belong to
simple feeling-tone of sensation are really qualities of a secondary
feeling attitude following upon pleasure-causation. Storring's
analysis, already referred to, would seem to indicate the truth
of this view. a

1 Recent criticisms of the three-dimensional theory have been entirely justified in
saying, on the one hand, that these qualifications of feeling are taken from the side
of conative meaning, and on the other that when we look for equivalents in
content, we find them only in sensations, kinsesthetic and organic. Both state
ments are true and at the same time consistent with each other, as will appear
in our later studies of feeling. It is only in the appreciatively described total
meaning of the attitude that they appear as primary qualities of experience. When we
take the abstract point of view of function they break up into relations of affirmation and
arrest of tendency. When we take the abstract point of view of content or structure, they
break up into complexes or series of sensations. The way of reconciling structural and
functional points of view in psychology is to correlate them both with the appreciative
description from which both take their origin.

64 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

(b) Worth Feelings are on the Emotional Level.

Be this as it may, I think it may, nevertheless, at least be
said that these aspects of experience, whether that experience
be a hypothetical affective or sensational content, become worth-
suggestive, acquire the transgredient and immanental references
only on the emotional level, only when the feeling is a feeling
attitude toward an object. And I think it may further be said
that the criterion of such a feeling attitude, or emotion (the term
emotion being used in its broadest sense to include passion,
sentiment, and mood, as well as emotion proper), is the presence
of the cognitive presuppositions already analysed, presumption,
judgment, and assumption. What is meant by this, to state the
point more fully, is that the differences in feeling-attitude appre
ciatively distinguishable appear only in total feeling-attitudes, and
are not varieties of the mere feeling-tone of sensations. It may
be that the content which acquires these meanings is certain
simple affective or sensational elements, but it acquires these
meanings only on the level of emotion.

The view here developed involves, further, that the cri
terion of an emotion or feeling- attitude is to be found in the
presence of a cognitive act (presumption, judgment, assump
tion) as the presupposition of the feeling. Can this view
be maintained ? I think it may not only be reasonably main
tained, but is, in fact, inevitable, if we approach the study of
emotions as above defined from the standpoint of their
meaning. There is, to be sure, another point of view, that
of more abstract study of content and emotional expression,
from which this scarcely seems to be the proper criterion, as
for instance, in the case of the inherited instinctive emotions,
of which the instinctive fear of animals is a good illustration.
But while this is true — and with this view of the facts our pre
sent analysis must, in its proper place, be brought into harmony,
it is, nevertheless, also true that, as a meaning, an emotional atti
tude always presupposes such cognitive acts. Joy and sorrow,
the two typical and fundamental emotional attitudes which have
these worth suggestions or meanings, become meaningless when
conceived apart from these presuppositions. They are usually
judgment-feelings, although not always such (as Meinong main
tains), for they may follow upon simple presumption or assump
tion of reality. The joy in the presumed, assumed, or asserted
reality of an object is toto genere different from the pleasantness

Modes of the Consciousness of Value 65

of a sensation. And the same is true of those modes of emotional
attitude, such as fear, dread, despair, hope, elation, in which
the cognitive act is further modified in the direction of possibility
or necessity. It is further to be observed that, from the point
of view of appreciative analysis, these emotional attitudes are
variously specified according as the fundamental positive or
negative direction has transgredient reference with its tension
or restlessness, or immanental reference with its relaxation and
repose. Joy or sorrow, as we have seen, may be of either type.
The inevitable conclusion seems to be that these meanings arise
only when there is that totalisation of attitude, the condition of
which is the actualisation of conative dispositions through acts
of the type described.1

(c) Objectless Feelings not an Exception.

There are, however, certain phenomena which constitute an
apparent exception to this law, namely, objectless feelings (emo
tions, sentiments, and moods), which, although objectless, are
clearly worth suggestive and find expression in worth judgments.
Practically all the concrete emotional attitudes — joy, sadness,
anger, fear — may appear as worth feelings without concrete per
ceptual or ideal objects. A nameless sadness or fear, an objectless
anger, may arise in consciousness with all the worth suggestions
of enhanced or thwarted conation, but without any object towards
which it is definitely directed. This does not mean that there
are no adequate conditions (physiological, and even psycho
logical), but merely that there is no presupposition, no judg
mental reference to the existence or non-existence of objects.
They appear at first sight to be without such presuppo
sitions. In reality, however, they are to be viewed as in the
main analogous to exclamations and some forms of impersonal

1 Wundt (and, it may be added, Hoffding also) makes much of the principle of
totalisation, of total resultant, in his analysis and theory of feeling. Whatever be
the nature of the simple feelings, they all tend to merge in a total resultant, a unitary
feeling. This principle of " Einheit der Gefiihlslage" is referred to the principle of
unity of apperception for its explanation, all feeling being viewed as the subjective
aspect of apperception. The truth of this general proposition is beyond question, but
there are different grades of apperception and different degrees of totalisation. Un
doubtedly when attention is held by a sensation of sound or colour, or by an organic
sensation, its feeling-tone tends to dominate consciousness and to fuse with it all other
feeling-tones. But it is not until there is explicit reference of the sensation, as object,
to a conative disposition through judgment or assumption, that the totalisation of atti
tude takes place which gives rise to the worth suggestions of feeling. In such a totalisa
tion the feeling-tone of sensations, as such, becomes irrelevant and subordinate to the
worth feelings of the attitude as a whole.

66

Valuation : its Nature and Laws

judgment in the sphere of cognition. As in these cases there is
no directly asserted subject of the predicate discoverable, so in
objectless emotions and moods there is no directly asserted
object of judgment to which the worth predicates implied in
the feelings of joy, sorrow, etc., are applied. Reality is implied
-the feelings are real and "earnest," but there is no existential
judgment about any definite object in reality. There is merely
an undifferentiated presumption or assumption of reality as pre
supposition ; but this is sufficient to make them worth feelings.

The psychology of the impersonal judgment scarcely leaves
us room to doubt of its nature. There is for such judgment
neither subject nor predicate, nor reference of the one to the
other. It is, so to speak, the amorphous, protoplasmic germ of
later reflective judgments which do involve a separation of subject
and predicate. Whatever, in the interests of systematic logic, we
may seek to supply as the subject of such judgment in order
to bring it within the classifications of a logical system—
whether we describe the subject as universal and undeter
mined, the whole of reality, or as a determined and particular
sensation^ of^ the moment, the fact remains that psychologic
ally the " it " of the impersonal judgment is contentless. Simil
arly, in the objectless worth feeling the object is no presentation
either universal or particular, no sensation either peripheral or
organic. Subject and predicate, presentation and feeling, are
not discriminated. We have to do here with a protoplasmic
worth attitude without judgmental presuppositions but which
may, nevertheless, become definite through the inclusion among
its presuppositions, which are now merely conative and dis-
positional, of some explicit act of judgment.

3. Correlation of Appreciative Meanings with Cognitive
Presuppositions.

Can we, then, correlate the meanings of worth feelings,
thus described, with specific types of cognitive presup
positions ? The necessary presupposition of worth feeling
is, as we have seen, the actualisation of a conative disposition
through acts of presumption, assumption, and judgment. Can
we connect the specific type of reference of the feeling with a
definite type of actual presupposition ?

The two directions of worth feeling (positive and negative), as
distinguished from mere pleasantness-unpleasantness, contain

Modes of the Consciousness of Value 67

some presupposition of reality— witness our study of joy and
sorrow, love and anger, hope and despair. And as we shall see
later, positive and negative worth may vary independently of
pleasantness-unpleasantness. But it is with the other qualifica
tion of feeling, the reference to conation, that we are chiefly con-
When we turn to the transgredient reference, with its
tension, restlessness, contraction, and to immanental reference
with its relaxation, repose, and expansion, we find that they are
closely connected with changes in the presupposition of reality.
In general the transgredient reference appears in all those
emotional attitudes where an habitual presupposition of reality
5 with opposition or arrest, where, for instance, primitive
presumption passes into assumption and judgment. In such a
case it may be, either the subjective control factor— the conative
imposition which is felt in the background and which gives rise
to the assumption— or the more objective factor of control, the
recognitive, determining and giving rise to judgment. In either
ase, however, the transgredient reference is to a disposition in
the background, in the process of determining a new accom
modation.

The immanental reference to reality, on the other hand
represents the emotional attitude which goes with accommoda
tion realised. It is the feeling which attaches to judgment-
t or to the assumption of the second type arising out of that
The fact that habit has its own feeling, its own worth
suggestions, is a point which must be emphasised throughout.

III. MEANINGS ACQUIRED BY DEVELOPMENT OF THESE
FUNDAMENTAL MODES— VALUE-MOVEMENT

i. Acquired Meanings of Simple Appreciation.

With the analysis of these primary aspects or meanings
which feelings disclose, we are led to the problem of derived or
acquired feeling attitudes.

There are two possible conceptions of the nature of
these attitudes and of the process of their derivation. The

: of these is the concept of fusion or mixture of feelings
purely analytical in character. On this view the aspects

feeling, the meanings of appreciative description are
hypostatised as elements, and all acquired meanings are

68 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

conceived as fusions or mixtures of these elements. The
second concept, genetic and functional in character, looks
upon the derived attitude, the acquired meaning, as a new
aspect, the product of a new " totalisation " of consciousness in
which the old aspects are taken up into the new, but in which
the new meaning is not exhausted by its analysis into the old
elements. The new feeling-attitude is a new accommodation,
a development, in terms of worth theory, a value-movement.

The former of these views, of very limited applicability at
the best in any region of psychological explanation, is wholly
inapplicable to the explanation of the meanings of feeling-
attitudes. Wundt is, unfortunately, despite his three-dimensional
theory, still too much under the influence of this conception,
although in applying his fundamental law of psychical causality,
the law of resultants, he explicitly asserts that there is an ac
quired meaning in the resultant complexes or fusions not found
in the elements. It is better to abandon the concept of elements
entirely in this connection and to make use wholly of the genetic
concept of acquirement of meaning through change in pre
suppositions.

The acquired meanings of feelings may be divided into two
groups : (i) the acquired meanings of simple appreciation, and
(2) those of characterisation and participation. If we recall
these distinctions, previously made, it will be remembered that
simple appreciation of an object is an appreciation of its affective-
volitional meaning or worth prior to explicit reference of the
object to the ego or the alter or to other objects, prior, in other
words, to secondary possessive or instrumental judgments. On
the level of simple appreciation appear, then, certain qualifica
tions of the general transgredient and immanental references of
feeling.

(a) The Impellent Mode-Feelings of Obligation.

The first of these acquired meanings to be considered is the
feeling of oughtness or obligation. The feeling of oughtness that
a thing should be, that an act should take place, is a specific form
of the feeling of value. As such, upon our view, it should be
defined in terms of its presuppositions. Appreciatively de
scribed, it is an acquired modification of the general feeling of
transgredient reference or of tension, and may be best described
as the Impellent Mode. Apart from appreciative description
it is an experience of mere strain — perhaps, from the point of

Modes of the Consciousness of Value 69

view of content, a mere strain sensation. Its differentia is to
be found in the precise character of the transgredient reference,
and therefore in the character of its cognitive presuppositions.
Now the feeling of oughtness, in its simplest form, attaches to
objects, to things. It is felt that if a thing does not exist it
ought to. As thus applied, for instance, by a child who as yet
has practically no sense of personal, ethical obligation, it means
little more than that the thing is desired. But just that little
additional meaning is the important modification. Is it possible
to define this additional meaning ?

The point of difference is to be found, I think, in the fact that
the presuppositions of the feeling of oughtness are not simple,
as in the case of a simple mode of feeling or desire. The feeling
of oughtness is, in fact, a transition mode between two existential
judgments, in which an existential feeling is qualified by an
assumption- feeling. The object does not exist, and we have
the corresponding feeling or desire, but so strong is the conative
disposition presupposed that it gives rise to an assumption of
existence. This assumption is felt to be not merely possible,
but necessary, and thus, as Simmel has said, obligation is in one
aspect a mode of thought lying midway between possibility and
necessity.1 The source of this assumption is the subject's
conative disposition and the feeling of oughtness is the feeling of
that subjective control ; but since the subjective control is not
explicitly acknowledged in judgment, the oughtness is felt as
a tertiary quality of the object.

The transgredient reference of the assumption is therefore to
the disposition. To refer again to the figure of the foreground
and background of consciousness, the judgment of existence or
non-existence of the object is in the foreground, the modification
of the feeling which we describe as oughtness having reference to
an object in the background which at first is revealed merely in
this modification of feeling, but which later, through the ac
tivities of ideal construction and judgment, becomes an explicit
ideal object, the self or the social will. When this is developed
ethical obligation is felt. In a sense the simple feeling of ought-
ness is objectless until this stage of ideal construction is reached,
and corresponds to the impersonal judgment.

1 Simmel's masterly study of the modes of oughtness, das Sollen (Einkitting in die
Moralwis sense haft, chap, i) can be merely referred to in passing, fuller treatment being
reserved for another connection. The important point is that it is a fundamental mode,
at the same time cognitive and affective-volitional.

7O Valuation : its Nature and Laws

(b) The Semblant Mode-JEsthetic Feeling.

Corresponding to the feeling mode of oughtness, the primary
impellent mode out of which ethical obligation develops, we find
a second mode of simple appreciation which represents a special
qualification of the immanental reference of feeling, the " sem-
blant " or aesthetic mode.1 This mode, the aesthetic feeling, is
always appreciatively described in terms of repose and expansion,
and its worth, in so far as the experience is purely aesthetic, is im
manental. Here again we have, not a simple aspect of feeling
with simple presuppositions, but an attitude implying transition
and accommodation, and therefore characterised by typical
changes in cognitive presuppositions.

The characteristics of this mode of feeling, its repose, relax
ation, and expansion, have their origin in the fact that the judg
ments of existence and non-existence, and with them explicit
conation, desire, are inhibited, reduced to a minimum, and remain,
in fact, merely as a dispositional presupposition, while conscious
ness is largely absorbed in presentational content. With the laws
which govern the ordering of that content, and which condition
the arrest of desire and the inducing of repose, we are not at
this point concerned ; it is sufficient to note the general fact that
formal principles of aesthetics owe their significance psycho
logically to the fact that they are instrumental in producing this
effect. But as has already been pointed out, it is not an adequate
view of aesthetic feeling to regard it as a purely presentational
consciousness. While explicit judgment is reduced to a minimum,
its place is taken by assumptions which relate the object to a
desire which is now merely dispositional. These assumptions,
we have seen, may be of two types, the explicit and the implicit.
In the first case we have the primitive semblant mode, in the
latter the more developed mode of contemplation.

In general, then, the aesthetic mode of sembling or contempla
tion is a complex, derived mode of feeling of value in which the
presuppositions are presentational content and assumptions.
To use again the figure of the foreground and background of
consciousness, the foreground is taken up with presentational
content, the psychical energies involved in judgment are occupied

1 For the use of the term "semblant mode," see Baldwin's Thought and Things ;
Vol. I, especially chap. VI. As to his complete identification of sembling with Einfuhl-
ting, I think there is some doubt, since the latter, in at least some of its aspects, is
earnest, and the feeling has presumption and judgment — not merely assumption — as its
presupposition.

Modes of the Consciousness of Value 7 1

with the activities of mere apperception of content in its relations,
with contemplation, while in the background remains the as
sumption of existence, with its reference to conative dispositions.
While the object is detached from immediate desire, its relation
to desire is not absolutely severed.

An illustration will show the situation with greater clearness.
The aesthetic appreciation of feminine beauty is a psychosis
grafted immediately upon desire and desire-dispositions. The
process by which the aesthetic psychosis supervenes upon that
of crude desire is one of arrest, social and individual, and of re
arrangement of the elements of the object, presented either un
consciously, or consciously as in art, in such a manner as to fill
the foreground of consciousness with presentational activity,
and to detach the object from immediacy of desire. An implicit
assumption of the existence of the object for desire is, however,
a necessary presupposition of the aesthetic appreciation. Should
the conative disposition become explicit in actual desire, the
aesthetic repose would cease and a new adaptation take place.

In both these appreciative modes, it should finally be observed,
worth or affective-volitional meaning has been acquired. The
deepening of the transgredient or immanental reference, as the
case may be, becomes part of the funded meaning of the object,
and is imputed to the object. The recognition of this fact is of
far-reaching importance, for all the meanings acquired in these
modes of appreciation enter as determinants in later judgments
of value.

2. Acquired, Meanings of Characterisation and Participation.

Simple appreciation, with its two primary modifications de
scribed, is further differentiated into secondary acquired mean
ings which we may describe as personal values of possession
and merit, instrumental or utility values of utilisation, and
the common values of participation. The characteristic of all
these modifications of primary feeling of value is to be found in
the fact that they arise through the establishment of relational
judgments between the object and the disposition presupposed.
Otherwise expressed, the merely felt transgredient or immanental
reference of simple appreciation is now referred to its explicit
object which is acknowledged in judgment.

An analysis of the personal feelings makes this point clear.
The feeling of possession is more than the feeling of the worth of
the object, as presumed, judged, or assumed to exist. The

72 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

object acquires an imputed value through the explicit acknowl
edgment of the subject for which it exists. Similarly, the
feeling of personal obligation or merit arises on the basis of a
reference of the valued disposition to the personality. In general
we may say that the personal feelings have an additional
presupposition of reality which the primary feelings have not.
But the more developed modes of these primary feelings, the
impellent and the semblant, contain the germ of these personal
values. They are transition stages in which a new feeling mode
is introduced, through the transgredient or immanental reference
arising upon assumptions. In the case of the personal value the
assumption becomes an existential judgment of acknowledgment
of the self. Of course such a transition requires ideal construc
tion of the self, and this involves an extension of simple apprecia
tion through sympathetic Einfiihlung, a process to be studied in
another connection.

The impersonal feelings of the participation values or utility-
values of dispositions and objects involve a further extension of
this acquirement of common meaning. In addition to the pre
supposition of the reality of the desired object, there is an ad
ditional presupposition of similar desires and feelings in the minds
of others which gives rise ultimately to judgments and assump
tions of over-individual demands. How such presuppositions
arise is, again, of course, a problem of genetic psychology, more
especially of the study of the laws of sympathetic imitation and
Einfiihlung. The main point here is that the appreciative differ
ences in the meaning of the feelings arises through explicit
acknowledgment of references which were previously merely
implicit.

It should be noted finally that, just as the transgredient
and immanental references acquire depth of meaning through
the obligation and aesthetic modes, so in these experiences
primary feeling is further deepened and broadened.

IV. THE QUANTITATIVE MEANINGS OF WORTH FEELING — DE
GREE OF ACQUIRED MEANING AND DEGREE OF INTENSITY —
THEIR RELATIONS

i. Analysis of Concept of Degree of Worth Feeling —

" Depth and Breadth."

Worth predicates have been defined as the funded meanings of
objects. These predicates or meanings correspond, we have

Modes of the Consciousness of Value 73

seen, to certain qualitative aspects of feeling, primary and
derived. But they have also a quantitative aspect — of degree.
To what aspects of feeling do these differences of degree
correspond ?

It has already been pointed out that many psychologists have
found it necessary to distinguish between degree of feeling of
value and degree of intensity of sensation-feeling, and some
have used such terms as depth and breadth of the feeling in the
personality to characterise quantatitively the worth suggestion of
the feeling. And when we examine more closely the appreciative
distinctions made in the sphere of worth experience it becomes
clear that some such distinction is necessary. For, in the first
place, it is to be observed that, if we make use of those apprecia
tive descriptions of feeling subsumed under the general terms
transgredient and immanental references, we cannot properly
apply the quantitative term, intensity. While, for instance, we
may speak of the degree, we cannot properly speak of intensity
of repose or expansion, and thus seem to be driven to some such
terms as depth and breadth. Thus we find Munsterberg1
accepting the ordinary formula, that intensity of feeling de
creases with repetition, and at the same time, in his desire
to do justice to the concrete facts of worth experience,
insisting that repetition may increase the depth of feeling
tone. Clearly depth and intensity are here definitely dis
tinguished and admitted to be independently variable. It
appears, then, that we must make a distinction between
degree, or intensity in the broader Kantian sense, and intensity
in the narrower sense of sensational intensity, between degree of
feeling of value and intensity of pleasantness-unpleasantness as
feeling-tone of sensations. Intensity in this latter sense applies
to all sensation-feelings, to " pleasure-causation," as we have de
scribed it, and probably to all sensation feelings which enter into
a total feeling complex, but not, properly speaking, to feeling-
attitudes, not to the worth aspect of feeling.

What, then, is the relation between the degree of acquired
meaning or value of a feeling attitude and intensity of pleasant
ness-unpleasantness ? How are they related for appreciative
introspection and analysis, and how shall this empirical relation,
when determined, be connected with our analysis of the con
ditions, actual and dispositional, of these two aspects of feeling ?
This question is of the utmost importance, because in the solution

1 Miinsterberg, Grundziige der Psychologies Leipzig, 1900, p. 39.

74 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

of this problem is involved the whole question of the measure
ment of feelings of value, to which we must presently turn.

2. Degrees of " Worth " and Degrees of Intensity

Independently Variable — Illustrations.

We find, then, that not only is worth experience distinguishable
:rom pleasure-causation in the aspects both of quality and degree
t also that degree of value varies independently of hedonic
Two phenomena of our worth experience indicate
s relation, (i) Feeling of positive worth may exist side by side
with unpleasant experiences and feeling of negative worth with
pleasant. (2) Degree of worth feeling may increase with de-
rease of hedonic intensity, and there are numerous instances
where worth feelings are practically intensity-less. These facts
have led to the general conception of the irrelevance of the
hedonic aspects of a total attitude for worth judgment and to
the formulation of Brentano's doctrine of "hedonic redun
dancies."

We shall examine the facts briefly, and then turn to a con
sideration of the theories of the relation of the two distinguish
able aspects. The first phenomenon is well illustrated in the

issical description of Lessing. In a letter to Mendelssohn he
" In this we are then agreed, my dear friend, that all
passions are either strong likes or dislikes. Also in this that in
every such feeling of like or dislike we are conscious of a greater
sense of reality, and that this consciousness cannot be other
than pleasant. Consequently, all passions, even the most un
pleasant, are as passions pleasant." ' The paradox of calling that
which is unpleasant pleasant, and the lack of adequate analysis
in this description, should not blind us to its essential truth While
the same feeling cannot at the same time be both pleasant and
unpleasant, it is quite possible that we are concerned here with
two actual feelings in certain definite relations to each other

Plausible explanations have been given from the point of
view of the identification of worth feeling with a form of simple
pleasure. It is said that we have to do here with an illusion
of judgment, that what was formerly unpleasant has now be
come pleasant through change in physiological disposition, and
that the unpleasantness instead of being real is merely a memory

former unpleasantness. It seems hardly necessary, however,

1 Quoted from Him, The Origins of Art, London, Macmillan, 1900, p. 60.

Modes of the Consciousness of Value 75

to deny in the interests of theory what is a fairly constant
deliverance of appreciation, namely, that feeling of positive worth
may be co-existent with actual unpleasantness. Or it might be
said that we have a simple case of mixed feeling. A pleasant
and unpleasant sensation-feeling may exist side by side in the
same state of consciousness, as for instance, the pleasant taste
of sugar and the unpleasant sensations of satiety as they are
just beginning to appear — why then should not two worth feelings
or worth feeling and simple pleasantness or unpleasantness ?
To this we may answer that the two cases are not parallel. The
inapplicability of the concept of mixture or fusion to feelings of
value we have already pointed out, and in this case the figure is
especially misleading.

If we look at Lessing's description more closely we find that
his paradox really arises from a failure to analyse — to distin
guish between two aspects of the total psychosis, the feeling of
value and the irrelevant hedonic accompaniments. The situa
tion he describes admits of two interpretations. On the one
hand, the passion, of anger let us say, is really a feeling of nega
tive worth, with certain cognitive presuppositions — unpleasant,
as Lessing says. It is quite possible, however, that the organic
disturbance may be pleasantly toned, especially after long-
continued arrest, with its unpleasant strain sensations. We
should then have pleasant accompaniments of a feeling of
negative worth. On the other hand, it is equally possible
that what Lessing calls the pleasantness of the unpleasant
passion may really cover a gradual transition from one feeling
of value to another, and that what he calls the pleasantness
of the psychosis may be a feeling of value of the personal type.
The object itself may have negative worth, while the entire ex
perience of having such a passion, or, in fact, the knowledge of
the capacity for such reaction, may give rise to a feeling of
satisfaction, of personal worth. This might even extend to
such passions as have unpleasant hedonic accompaniments.
Feelings of value would then be accompanied by unpleasant
sensation feelings.

The second group of facts which lead to this differentia
tion of degree of intensity of pleasantness-unpleasantness from
degree of worth or meaning of the feeling, are the so-called
intensity-less attitudes or acts of valuation and preference.
Here, it is maintained, quasi-logical modifications take the place
of intensity. If we begin with the two primary modifications

7 6 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

of simple appreciation, the ethical and aesthetic, we find intensity
giving place to other modifications. A quiet sense of obligation
may reveal a degree of worth of an ideal object which the in-
tensest passion or emotion does not suggest. Similarly in the
aesthetic, or semblant mode, a degree of immanental worth may
be suggested in the depth and breadth of the feeling when the
element of intensity is reduced to a minimum. But still more
evident do these facts become when we pass to the secondary,
derived feelings, the personal and the impersonal over-individual
references. In a case of preference between objects to which
these feelings correspond, a relatively intensity-less feeling of
personal worth may have an affective-volitional meaning which
the intensest passion connected with sense objects has not.
And so with the over-individual feelings. If, then, by intensity
we mean, not the broader Kantian conception of any modification
of degree of inner experience, but that particular degree which
applies to sensation and feeling-tone of sensation, there can be
no question but that worth feelings, as determined by judgment
and assumption, may be practically intensity-less. These acts
are, of course, causally connected with sensation tendencies,
both peripheral and organic, and every such act has as its accom
paniment secondary hedonic resonances of more or less inten
sity, but the point is that appreciatively we can distinguish the
two factors, and are aware that the latter do not determine the
worth judgment.

The facts upon which this hypothesis of independent varia
bility of the two factors in a total worth attitude is based are
now before us, as well as the subordinate role which the hedonic
resonance plays in worth judgments. We are, however, as yet
wholly without any conception which will enable us to under
stand this relation functionally.

3. Theories of this Relation — Suggestion of a Theory to
be developed later.

There are two general theories of this relation, which may
be described as the dualistic and the monistic or genetic. The
dualistic theory is represented by Brentano and Schwartz. In
Brentano's view,1 as we have seen, any concrete attitude of
valuation can be analysed into two aspects, intensity-less acts of
preference, acts of love and hate, and the hedonic redundancies

1 Brentano, Psychologic, especially p. 197. Also Ur sprung der sitt lichen Erkentniss,
especially p. 86.

Modes of the Consciousness of Value 77

which accompany them. To the latter alone, as sensation-feel
ings, belong, properly speaking, degrees of intensity. In
Schwartz's view1 feeling intensity belongs to the passive side
of consciousness, degrees of worth to the active, voluntaristic
side. The latter appear in the form of acts of analytic and
synthetic preference. The essential point of both conceptions is
the dualism between feeling and will, and the reference of worth
distinctions to modifications of will.

The facts which have given rise to this theory are, as we
have seen, true enough. So also is the conception of hedonic
redundancies, in so far as it merely describes the functional
relation of these two aspects. But it is far from certain
that it is necessary to draw the dualistic conclusion. That
would follow only on condition that feeling and will are
totally different elements, that the distinction between them
as active and passive is ultimate, and secondly, that the only
modification of feeling which can be made the equivalent of
degrees of worth is hedonic intensity.

Whether these assumptions are necessary must be determined
ultimately by a consideration of the whole question of the psy
chology of feeling and will and their relations, which must be
reserved for another chapter. It will be sufficient here to
deny the necessity of such assumptions, and in the meantime
to suggest a second possible conception, monistic and genetic
in character. Feeling, according to our analysis, has other
modifications, other meanings than passive pleasantness - un
pleasantness, viz., transgredient and immanental references to
conative dispositions. These references, which arise only when
the disposition is actualised by cognitive acts of presumption,
judgment, assumption, are signs of the affective-volitional
meaning of the object, its relation to conation. Feeling as
passive is therefore not to be separated from will as active.
But more than this, these references or aspects may, con
ceivably — with repeated actualisation of the dispositions —
become differentiated, as developed meanings, from the aspect
of hedonic intensity, and increase in depth and breadth. If
this view should prove tenable, we should have a relation
analogous to that between the general concept and the particular
presentation. As the meaning of the concept develops with
actualisation of the judgment-disposition in successive cognitive
acts, the particular presentation becomes less and less significant,

1 Schwartz, Psychologic, des Willens, chap. II ; also Appendix I.

78 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

until we have what is practically imageless apprehension.
So also with the development of the meanings of feeling, the
hedonic resonance may become less and less significant until
relatively intensity-less appreciation of the worth of the object
appears. The substantiation of such a conception of affective
generalisation involves a more extended excursion into the psy
chology of feeling. Here we may merely note the fact that such
feeling-attitudes exist, i.e., in the case where the presuppositions
are assumptions, either of the explicit or implicit type.

V. CONCLUSION— THE BEARING OF THIS ANALYSIS ON
FURTHER PROBLEMS

In concluding this chapter we may with advantage return to
a consideration of the preliminary definition of worth and worth
predicates from which the entire analysis took its start. This
analysis, it will be seen, has given content to that definition. It
has also given us the ground-work for further researches into
the principles governing the concrete phenomena of valuation
of different types, economic, ethical, aesthetic, etc. A more
general view, both retrospective and prospective, will serve to
give unity to the results thus far attained.

In general, we found worth or value to be the funded affective-
volitional meaning of the object for the subject. That funded
meaning, as expressed in terms of the predicates, goodness,
utility, beauty, obligation, desert, etc., represents the desira
bility of the object, although not necessarily the fact of actual
desire. The funded meaning is acquired through actualisa-
tion of conative dispositions by acts of presumption, judgment,
and assumption, and this actualisation results in feeling which
undergoes certain modifications, with change in presuppositions,
and with repetition. This feeling, with its modifications,'
reflects the funded meaning of the object. Worth predication,'
in the aspects both of quality and degree, is determined by ap
preciative modifications of feeling, which in turn are determined
by changes in the presuppositions of the feeling.

To these funded meanings, roughly classified as simple ap
preciation of objects (with its impellent and semblant modes)
personal worths of characterisation, and common over-indi
vidual values of participation and utilisation, correspond certain
classes of objects, primary and derivative, perceptual and ideal.
All these derived objects, with their corresponding attitudes, are

Modes of the Consciousness of Value 79

perceptual and ideal constructions which emerge through
certain value movements from simple appreciation. The genesis
of these objects, with their corresponding predicates, is one of
the chief problems which now present themselves. This differ
entiation and fixation of objects and predicates of valuation
must be traced to fundamental laws of the psychical processes
by which affective-volitional meaning is acquired. These laws
we may describe as the Laws of Valuation.

But worth predication has a quantitative as well as quali
tative side. Worth judgments express preferability of one object
over another, as well as degrees of preferability of different
amounts of the same object. We are thus led to the problem
of the measurement of the worth or funded meaning of objects.
At this point several questions arise. Is worth or value, as we
have conceived it, an object, a function, to which the concepts
of quantity and measurement can be applied ?

In answering this question we must first note the fact that
such quantitative judgments do exist. Within the various
regions of worth predication numerous empirical uniformities
are discoverable connecting quantity of object with degree of
worth predicated. Thus in the region of economic " condition "
worths, there are certain empirical laws connecting changes
in the intrinsic desirability or in the utility (instrumental de
sirability) of an object with changes in its quantity. In the
region of judgments of personal worth the obligation or merit
predicated varies in certain definite ways with changes in the
amount of the object or in this case disposition displayed.
The same is true of those judgments upon dispositions according
to their over-individual value for participation. It is clear,
then, that empirical relations of a quantitative character may
be established between objects and their worth predicates or
funded meanings. But such empirical laws would constitute no
explanation, nor would they enable us to establish relations of
degree between objects of these different types. While we
might formulate empirical statements of dependence of degree
of value of the object upon changes in the object without for
mulating any theory of the psychological grounds for this de
pendence, such measurement must, if it is to lead to any insight
into the nature of worth judgments, involve the reduction of
these empirical uniformities to more ultimate psychological
laws. Thus, to take an illustration from another region of
psychology, the significance of the empirical formulation of

8o Valuation : its Nature and Laws

Weber's law for perception holds good, irrespective of any
theory of its psychological explanation. Or, to take another
illustration from a more closely related region of investigation,
the law of marginal utility in economics is an empirical law
which holds, within limits, irrespective of its interpretation, and
is capable of explanation in terms which do not necessitate the
hypothesis of continuous change in hedonic intensity. We must
therefore distinguish between the merely empirical formulation
of more and less and a theory of the psychological determinants
of the change in degree of worth or affective-volitional meaning
of the object.

The question whether worth, or funded meaning of an ob
ject as we have denned it, is susceptible of measurement is
reduced, then, to the still more fundamental question whether
the psychological determinants of that meaning are objects of
measurement. Into the acquired and funded meaning of an object
enter various elements presupposing various processes and atti
tudes. If these can be analysed out, and their contributions to
the total worth of the object determined, such measurement is
possible. On the view which we have rejected — that degree
of value is to be equated with degree of intensity of pleasant
ness-unpleasantness, or as sometimes formulated, with a func
tion of intensity and duration, the problem is, at least theoreti
cally, simple. The laws of habit, satiety, contrast, etc., for
sensation-feelings might be applied directly to feelings of value.
But such a procedure is impossible after our analysis. The
psychological determinants are for us more complex. Having
defined feelings of value as feelings presupposing dispositions
actualised by presumption, judgment, and assumption, our
problem is the determination of the capacity of the object, as
presumed, judged, or assumed to exist, to call out feelings of
value. Since the worth of the object is a function of the ca
pacity of the subject for feeling, as determined by these preceding
processes of accommodation in judgment and assumption, we
must inquire into the effect of these processes upon the 'dis
positions presupposed. The analysis and formulation of these
factors constitute the laws of valuation. Such laws are capable
of determination, and when determined they enable us to explain
the empirical laws of " more and less."

i

CHAPTER IV

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF A
THEORY OF VALUATION

THE preceding studies of worth experience — of " feelings of
value," of their meanings and presuppositions — have brought
us to a point where new problems present themselves which
necessitate new methods of solution. Thus far we have been
concerned merely v/ith the analysis of the fundamental modifi
cations of feelings of value and of their presuppositions. Our
task is now to make use of the results of this analysis in the
determination of the laws of valuation, as a process of ac
quirement of affective-volitional meaning. Our former prob
lem of analysis and description has now become one of
explanation.

The problem of explanation is a genetic problem, in the larger
sense of that word. Now the genetic method is, we have seen,
but an extension of the presuppositional method. Its task is,
in general, to show how valuation may be conceived as a sys
tematic, progressive, and continuous determination of the
stream of conation and feeling in the individual's mind, to
show how presuppositions become actual in feeling and desire,
and how actual feelings and desires, and dispositions when
formed, become presuppositions of new feelings and desires,
and of further modifications of quality and degree.

When the nature of the task is thus stated, it becomes evident
that its successful prosecution involves a further excursion into
the psychology of feeling and will. We have as yet no adequate
conception of the nature and relations of feeling and will, such
as would enable us thus to conceive valuation as a systematic,
progressive, and continuous determination of the stream of
conation and feeling. We have not yet developed such abstract
conceptions of feeling and conation, as would make possible
an account of the manner in which actual experiences of feeling
G 81

Valuation : its Nature and Laws

and desire create the presuppositions of succeeding valuations.
We have no developed concept of affective-volitional deter
mination. To this general problem we must now turn our
attention.

For the purposes of this study the general question of the
nature of feeling and will and their relations may be reduced to
three special problems.

i. In the first place, what is the nature of feeling and of its
relation to conation, actual and dispositional, as required by
our definition and analysis of worth experience ? We dis
tinguished between feeling and desire, and although the dis
tinction appeared to be not very clear at the limits, we found
grounds for defining experience of worth as feeling. But we
found feeling determined by conative dispositions, and these
in turn determined by feeling. How shall we understand this
relation ? Moreover, in our analysis of the fundamental modi
fications of worth feeling we used the concept of feeling in a broad
sense, which included references to conation in a sense quite
different from the definition of feeling as passive affection.
Clearly, a psychological theory of feeling and will is involved,
which must now be more fully developed.

2. In the second place, the appreciative analysis of the differ
ent modifications of worth feeling calls for some further theory of
the nature of feeling itself. This demand appears especially in
connection with our distinction between degree of intensity of
feeling and degree of worth or affective-volitional meaning, but
is also involved in our analysis of the transgredient and imma-
nental references and their distinction from pleasantness-un
pleasantness. These aspects or meanings of feeling - attitude
must be founded upon some actual content or process of con
sciousness, must have equivalents in terms of content and
function.

3. Finally, we have a third problem, which may be described
as the problem of the continuity of worth process. This is closely
connected with the preceding question— how an object may
acquire funded meaning while the intensity of feeling reaction
diminishes. The problem presents itself in the following way.
The consciousness of value is at any given moment an emo
tional consciousness. Such emotional states are, however, when
viewed as content, discrete and fugitive. While, therefore,
worth judgment, viewed in the light of its meaning, is continu
ous—that is worth experiences of the present are conserved in

Psychological Basis of a Theory of Valuation 83

succeeding judgments of value— the emotional experiences which
find expression in these judgments, seem at first sight discon
tinuous. Are feeling and emotion thus fugitive and discontinu
ous, so that their meaning survives merely in the physiological
dispositions created ? Or is there such a thing as a felt con
tinuity, wherein feeling acquires recognitive and generic meanings,
which are then taken up into permanent sentiments, and upon
the basis of which as presupposition new feelings and volitions
are formed? Is there such a thing as an "affective logic" or
quasi-logical continuities of affective- volitional meaning ? It is
in connection with this problem that a satisfactory conception
of the nature of feeling as content of experience, and as functional
in determining succeeding experiences of feeling and will, is
most important. Its solution is possible only after an investi
gation of the first two problems concerning the nature of feeling
and will. To these the present chapter will be devoted, the
problem of the nature of this continuity being reserved for a
special investigation.

I. THE NATURE OF FEELING AND WILL AND
THEIR RELATIONS

i. The Problem.

The problem of feeling and will and the nature of their
relations is perhaps the most difficult within the entire field of
psychological analysis. The reason for this is not far to seek,
for nowhere is it more important that the distinction between
appreciative and non-appreciative description should be realised
and a true theory of their relations formed, and nowhere is there
such confusion on these points as in this sphere.1

To illustrate my point in detail, the distinction between feel
ing as passive and will as active is an appreciative distinction.
One concrete attitude is relatively more passive than another

1 The consequence has been the widely divergent analyses with which psychologists
have been scandalised. The original distinctions within this sphere were made from the
appreciative point of view because analysis of feeling and will first began S the worth
problem, e.g., Plato and Aristotle and in modern times the English Utilitarians As the
original interest became secondary to that of non-appreciative description, the distinctions
developed in appreciative description were applied without reflection to a hypothetical
feeling abstracted from Us presuppositions. Tradition was all powerful here tor we are
natural y conservative m all that concerns the feeling and worth side of exper enc^and
when a last independence of analysis appeared, the question of the retention or elimina
tion of these distinctions seems to have been determined largely by personal ind™ ion
rather than by considerations of scientific method.

84 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

with reference to its meaning in a series of attitudes, i.e. with
reference to what succeeds or precedes ; but when we abstract
from the meaning of the attitude and apply the distinction to
hypothetical content, it involves us, we shall find, if it is made
absolute, in contradictions, and is far from representing the facts.
The distinctions between feeling, emotion, impulse, desire, wish,
and will, are primarily appreciative, made with reference to the
meanings of the attitude and, as we shall see later, go back to
certain differences in cognitive presuppositions. Similarly, the
distinction pleasantness-unpleasantness, and its selection as
the dominant in the feeling complex or attitude to the exclusion
of other aspects, is one which has been determined largely by
appreciative purposes, i.e., it is the abstract aspect which appears
emphasised when the subjective attitude is transformed into a
state and itself becomes an object. Now when these apprecia
tive distinctions, which are largely concerned with the intent of
an attitude rather than with the content of a state, are taken to
apply to content from which meaning has been abstracted, in
teresting difficulties and contradictions arise. When the dis
tinctions between passive and active, feeling and conation, are
taken as non-appreciative ultimate distinctions, we have a
dualism in affective-volitional meaning which the several different
dualistic theories seek to bridge by establishing relations of
causal determinism between the two aspects. One finds feeling,
as a distinct element (passive pleasantness or unpleasantness),
the necessary antecedent of all conation ; another, giving the
primacy to conation, finds in the passive feeling the sign of the
satisfaction or arrest of some antecedent active impulse or desire ;
or, finally, the dualism may be pressed so far (as in the recent
work of Schwartz) as to admit the existence of volition without
fee)ing.

The extent to which these fundamental differences colour all
worth analysis and theory is obvious. Psychological hedonism,
with its incapacity to explain a great part of worth experience,
is the result of the first. A theory which is unable to include
the aesthetic in the sphere of worths is the result of the second.
From the third we get the strained formalism of Kant and
Schwartz. In view of these difficulties, no theory of feeling
and will and of their relations (and some theory is necessary) is
of any value unless it is formed with a clear consciousness of
the problem involved in the relation of the appreciative to the
scientific description of the psychical.

Psychological Basis of a Theory of Valuation 85

There are two views which have been formed with this clear
consciousness of the methodological presuppositions involved.
On the one hand, Meinong tells us, the relation of feeling and
will can be determined only from the worth standpoint, while
Wundt looks upon the distinctions introduced from the point of
view of worth analysis, such as the distinctions between feeling,
desire, and will, as " pure logical artifacts, not in the least
psychical ultimates distinct from each other." As a conse
quence, the distinction between feeling and will is for the former
ultimate, while for Wundt's monistic theory there is a funda
mental identity of feeling elements underlying all these artificial
distinctions.

Between two such divergent views, with such different
methodological presuppositions, there appears to be no middle
ground, and yet to my mind each has a relative validity, and is
susceptible of reconciliation with the other. More than this, I
am inclined to think that the Identity theory, developed from the
standpoint of analysis of content, is the only one which will
harmonise with the distinctions in affective-volitional meaning,
developed from the standpoint of functional intent.

2. Dualistic Theories of Feeling and Will — Criticism.

We may begin our study, then, with a brief critical exam
ination of those views which, upon the assumption of an absolute
distinction between feeling as passive pleasantness or unpleasant
ness and conation as active, seek to establish a relation of causal
psychical determination between them. If the distinction is
one of content viewed apart from its intent or meaning, then it is
necessary that experience shall show us, either that passive feeling
is the necessary antecedent of all active states which are called
conative, or, on the other hand, that all passive states of feeling
have as their necessary antecedents arrest or accommodation
of conscious impulse or desire, in its very nature, as content,
different from feeling.

The first of these dualistic views, in its original form of
psychological hedonism, was beautiful in its simplicity. Feeling,
as a passive state, is always an effect of content, sensation and
idea, and their relations. The aspects, quality and intensity,
vary with the changes in sensational and ideal content, and the
intensity and quality determine impulse, desire, etc., the active
side of consciousness.

86 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

A very superficial examination of the facts suffices to show
us that, if by feeling we mean simple passive pleasantness or
unpleasantness with certain intensities, it is by no means the
necessary antecedent of any given impulse or desire. On the one
hand we have simple impulses for which there is no such con
scious hedonic antecedent. When the impulse to take exercise
comes over me at a given time, introspection will show me that
it is necessarily preceded neither by a conscious feeling of un
pleasantness nor by an anticipation of pleasantness, although
either may be the antecedent. On the other hand there are phen
omena of a more developed conation which we have seen
described as " intensity-less " acts of preference in which affective
disturbance is at a minimum, and which, if feeling be described
as passive hedonic intensity, certainly show no such feeling ante
cedent. Impulses with the note of obligation in them are fre
quently of this character.

That there are changes in affective-volitional meaning (Ge-
muthsbewegungen, in the broadest sense), described as impulse
and desire, which do not presuppose an antecedent passive
hedonic consciousness or consciousness of hedonic difference, is
clear. If we include in feeling other qualities such as tension-
• relaxation, restlessness-quiescence, it is merely a verbal quibble
to raise any question of antecedent and consequent. We
have already attributed to the concrete feeling the essential
character of the conative side, a virtual acceptance of the Identity
theory.

This fact, that there are numerous impulses and desires which
follow immediately upon presentation and judgment without
appreciable hedonic consciousness intervening, is, moreover,
admitted by the upholders of the theory of dependence them
selves. Thus Kreibig speaks of dispositional feelings below the
threshold as determining impulse and desire, while Ehrenfels
speaks of desire as determined by feeling or feeling-dispositions.
And even when it is actual feeling which is conceived as causally
determinative, it is not, as we have seen in our previous analysis
of Ehrenfels's worth definition, feeling as a separate antecedent
state, but the feeling-difference as determined by the object as
existing or not existing and the feeling-disposition of the subject.
In the case of the impulse to exercise it would be, not necessarily
the unpleasantness of the present state nor the anticipated
pleasure, but the difference between the two, which constitutes
the necessary presupposition of the impulse or desire.

Psychological Basis of a Theory of Valuation 87

It is in these admissions, and consequent modifications, that
we see the failure of this entire theory of dependence growing
out of the separation of feeling from conation. A feeling
which does not rise above the threshold is a pure conceptual
construction. So also is the feeling-difference when made the
presupposition of desire. For a feeling-difference can be an
actual psychical determinant in only two ways : either it is an
ideal construction, the resultant of reflection upon feelings,
and then we have an idea as the presupposition of the desire
or else this difference is felt as tension or restlessness, as an ex
pectancy generated by the hypothetical disposition, the active
conative moment supposed to be determined by the feeling.
Where feeling- difference is conceived to be the presupposition of
conation, it is either not distinct from conation or else it is a
purely conceptual construction.

The second theory of dependence, which has been de
veloped upon the assumption that feeling and conation are
ultimates from the point of view of content, is that all feelings
have as their necessary antecedent some phase of conscious con
ation, and that feeling is the sign of arrest or satisfaction of
desire. Here, again — if conation is conceived to be an aspect of
consciousness which, as content for non-appreciative description/
is distinct from feeling, it is difficult to establish a thorough-going
relation of dependence. It is true that affective attitudes on the
plane of worth suggestion presuppose the activities of accept
ance or rejection, but even here it cannot be said that the
relation is one of antecedent and consequent, nor can it be said
that the worth feelings are passive pleasantness and unpleasant
ness. But it is by no means easy to include in such a general
isation all the phenomena of feeling. There are, in the first
place, the feelings which accompany simple sensations, the
agreeable or disagreeable affective tone of an odour or colour.
There are also the sudden emotions of -surprise and fear, and
finally the instinctive emotions, inherited and appearing at first
without any conative experience as their antecedent.

As to the first group of phenomena, those who hold the view
that feeling has its rise in arrested conation insist that even these
phenomena fall under the general law. So also does the func
tional theory in general when it is consistent and sharply dis
tinguishes feeling and conation. Thus, in a recent article written
from this point of view, unpleasantness is conceived to follow
upon arrested conation, while pleasantness appears only when

Valuation : its Nature and Laws

conation is accommodating itself after arrest. States which do
not contain conative moments are neutral.

Nevertheless, the difficulties in the way of such an answer
are not to be minimised. If we examine the reasons given for
this inclusion we find that they are of two kinds— the first being
analytical and introspective, the second functional. The first is
to the effect that it is impossible to get the feeling-tone of a
simple sensation uncomplicated with the aspects of tension-
taxation or restlessness-quiescence, with their suggestion of
onative presuppositions. The second or functional argument
is to the effect that the law of decrease of affective tone through
t and repetition of stimulus is primarily a law of adaptation
tendency to stimulus, and that, when an odour or tone loses
5 affective tone through repetition, it does so because the
sense-tendency, or need of excitation of the physical organism
•reduced by arrest, has been satisfied. Here again as in
the preceding theory, the relation can be made universal only
by going beyond immediate experience and supplementing it
with hypothetical conceptual constructions. The aspects of
tension-relaxation or restlessness-quiescence, if they appear in
the simple feeling-tone of sensation, are analytically separable
:rom the feeling as antecedent content and intrinsically different
rom feeling; impulse and desire are not conscious "presuppo
sitions of the feelings. Nor when the intensity of feeling-tone
imimshes with repetition does it necessarily mean that actual
impulse or desire gradually disappears, but merely that some
Imposition or tendency diminishes in strength with repetition of
stimulus. The proposition that all feeling presupposes
conation holds only when modified to read, " or conative dis
position and tendency."

The same reflections hold good for the other phenomena of
Jling, the sudden emotions of surprise and fear, and the
inherited instinctive emotions. When, upon walking through
the woods, I am surprised with the odour of flowers, this emotion
has as its presupposition no specific experience of impulse or
Such surprise is possible with relative passivity of con
sciousness, although, were there complete passivity, even sur-
i would be impossible. The situation seems to be that at
least some general conative tendency toward objects other than
the flower must be arrested in order that surprise shall arise,
surprise is not occasioned by the odour directly, but by the
arrest of some other conative interest or tendency. It does not,

Psychological Basis of a Theory of Valuation 89

however, presuppose actual desire. The same may be said of
the instinctive emotions. They presuppose dispositional or i
stinctive conative tendency, not actual conation ; they are them
selves experiences which may with equal right be described as
feeling or arrested impulse. Finally, there is the aesthetic
feeling in the case of which, while conation is presupposed dis-
positionally, certainly no conscious impulse or desire necessarily
precedes. Analysis shows the aspects \vith conative connota
tion, relaxation and repose, as well as the merely hedonic, but
these are aspects of the total attitude, not different states, except
for retrospective analysis.

The conclusion of these reflections is, then, that a thorough
going dependence of feeling, as distinguished from conation,
upon conation, can be established only when we modify our
proposition to read conation or conative disposition or tendency.
This is practically the conclusion reached in the examination of
the theory which makes conation determined by feeling. But
when we have introduced the concept of disposition, that is when
we have gone beyond the distinctions of immediate experience,
and supplemented them with conceptual constructions, it does
not matter greatly whether these dispositions are described as
belonging to feeling or desire. As Ehrenfels wisely recognises, for
worth theory— which is concerned with the changes in valuation
and their laws, as determined by changes in dispositional pre
suppositions, it does not matter whether these dispositions are
described as affective or conative : the laws of valuation will
hold on either assumption. The conclusion of real importance,
however, is that the distinction between feeling and will is not
one of psychical content, but of intent or meaning.

3. Monistic and. Genetic Theory of Feeling and Witt.

The chief outcome of our consideration of these two theories
of the relation of feeling to will is that no thoroughgoing relation
of dependence can be established either way except by leaving
the sphere of psychological fact and supplementing it with the
conceptual constructions of dispositions. If, however, in order
that we may fill out this relation of dependence, we include among
the attributes of feeling restlessness-quiescence, which have the
conative connotation in them, it is doubtful whether anything is
gained by this complete separation of the two aspects of experience.
The " Identity " theory denies that this distinction is fundamental,

90 Vacation : its Nature and Laws

and asserts that it arises only from the difference in point of view
rom which we look at one primary content of consciousness
My own view is that this theory, rightly understood, affords
the most satisfactory basis for a true theory of values while
doing most complete justice to the facts of analysis. We shall
now turn our attention to the development of this theory.

In its most general form, it has been well stated by Wundt
in the psychological part of his Principles of Morality.1 There
we are told that these distinctions are purely conceptual de
termined by the point of view from which we observe a series
inner events, the flow of consciousness itself being not con
cerned with them. " Every act of will presupposes a feeling
with a definite and peculiar tone : it is so closely bound up with
elmg that, apart from it, the act of will has no reality at
On the other hand, all feeling presupposes an act of will ;
the quality of the feeling indicates the direction in which the
will is stimulated by the object with which the feeling is con
nected."

This view is developed in more detail from the standpoint of
psychological analysis of content in the last edition of his Psy
chology. Here the emotion ("Affekt " or Gefiihlsverlauf] is taken as
e ultimate of concrete affective-volitional meaning or intent and
this emotion, which, as content, is a complex of feeling elements
may be called emotion, impulse, desire, or will, according to the
nature of the movement or complex. " The question is no
longer what specific conscious content the will is, but what
aspect a feeling must assume to become volition." This specific
difference he finds (i) in the character of the " end-feelings " of the
emotion and (2) in a certain meaning or intent of the total emotion
which can be formulated only in retrospective logical terms. As
to the first point, conation or will-process is an emotion which
through its movement produces a final feeling which in turn
destroys the emotion. It is the final feeling of relaxation which
distinguishes the conative process from emotion. Again, in
the entire Gefiihlsverlauf, when experienced as conation, there
dwells a Zweck-richtung which is realised in the end-feeling of
relaxation. Primary conative processes, such as impulse are
emotions with this meaning ; secondary derived conation, such
as desire and will, are emotions in which certain single feelings
and presentations, elements in the total emotion, are singled
out as the motive for the final feeling of relaxation. So

1 Wundt, Ethics, Vol. I, «« The Principles of Morality," pp. 6 and 7.

Psychological Basis of a Theory of Valuation 9 1

that " desire is not so much the preparatory stage of an actual,
as the feeling basis of an arrested conation." The experience
which constitutes desire may be viewed as feeling or conation
according to the point of view from which it is observed. All
these concepts are finally logical abstractions, and not funda
mental distinctions of content.1

A similar view was, in all its essentials, developed by Bren-
tano,2 from the point of view of worth analysis, before Wundt's
present formulation, in his well-known claim that in a given
series of affective-volitional meanings, a vita] series of adaptation
passing from feeling to will (as, for instance, sadness, longing
for an absent good, passing into desire to secure it, courage to
undertake to secure it, decision to act), it is impossible at any
point to make an absolute distinction between feeling and will.
They constitute rather a continuous series of meanings in which
these two aspects can be distinguished only relatively and con
ceptually.

The criticisms passed upon this conception by the upholders
of the dualistic views are instructive as showing the contradic
tions involved in the theories which make these distinctions
ultimate differences of content. The upholder of such a dualism
must put his finger on the point in the series where feeling ends
and conation begins. Ehrenfels finds it immediately after the
first stage of the series. Sadness alone is pure passive unpleasant
ness. All the others have in them the active principle of desire.
But both the superficiality and the contradictions in such an
analysis become immediately evident. For what is involved ?
Clearly, to make the distinction at this point necessitates the
throwing of the emotions of hope and courage from the feeling
to the desire side of the distinction, as indeed Ehrenfels does,
and the logic of such procedure would be to confine feeling to
pleasantness and unpleasantness as passive and unspecified states.

1 Physiologisclie Psychologic ($th edition), Vol. Ill, chaps, xvi and XVII. Affekt is
here translated emotion in accordance with the broad use of that term in chapter in,
p. 64, and as recommended by the Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, pp. 310,
317, article on Emotion.

» The considerations which were influential in this analysis of Brentano were pre
cisely those of which we have already taken cognisance. If feeling be taken as identical
with passive pleasantness and unpleasantness, valuation cannot be reduced to d
mination of conation by feeling, to pleasure-causation. Feeling, it is true, viewed
merely as pleasantness and unpleasantness, is present throughout the entire accommod
ative or vital series, such as that described above, but it becomes less and less signifi
cant in the latter stages where the dynamic tension becomes dominant. Hedonic
intensities become irrelevant redundancies and we have practically intensity-less conation.
The absolute dualism between the worth and hedonic element, as described in
chapter III, p. 76, is unnecessary if these distinctions are interpreted genetically.

92 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

But when this violence is done, the superficiality of the analysis
immediately appears. Can we say that sadness is pure passive
unpleasantness ? Certainly not. Already in the relatively passive
state of sadness we have the preliminary stage of the accommod
ative reaction, the vital series. This is to be found in the
expansiveness of the feeling. The concentration of images in
this phase of brooding sadness, the tendency of the feeling to
expand, contains already an immanent activity, differing only in
degree from succeeding phases of more explicit conation. The
fact of the matter appears to be that feeling seems to be mere
feeling, and passive, only when we separate it retrospectively
from the functional whole, the vital series of which it is the first
phase. Prospectively, in the first phase of expanding feeling, is
already contained a sense of the strength and extent of the con-
ative system arrested, and this feeling passes without a break over
into the relatively more active emotions, desire and will, acts
which follow as the arrest increases in strength and duration.
From the standpoint of the later stages, the initial feeling, viewed
as a cause, seems relatively passive.

If, on the other hand, we seek, as some do, to find the point
of distinction between the more active feelings and decision at
the end of the series, the only point of difference that we can
find is again an end-feeling of relaxation. The origin of this
end-feeling, and of the characteristic sensations which go with it,
is to be found in the simple fact that the general disturbance,
displayed in the series of emotions preceding the moment of de
cision, has found a definite motor channel in some specific bodily
movement or word-formation. But to separate this final phase,
this end-feeling, from the feelings which precede it, is again to
give us a mere torso, an unreal abstraction. The entire vital
or worth series is one, with a continuity of affective-volitional
meaning. Each phase may be interpreted as conation or feeling
according to the point of view from which it is observed.

The consideration of these two attempts to mark off the
active and passive aspects of experience — to differentiate, in
terms of elementary content, the affective and conative phases
of a total vital worth series, shows that such an effort must
prove unsuccessful. If we abstract from the meaning which
the attitude has by virtue of its place in such a series, the dis
tinction between active and passive, and with it that between
affection and conation, lapses. We have in these conclusions
therefore, without further analysis, the grounds for our negative

Psychological Basis of a Theory of Valuation 93

position with regard to the dualistic theories of feeling and will
which find the worth element in feeling conceived as passive
pleasantness-unpleasantness or in desire, and for our criticism
of any conception of causal determination between them. They
afford positive grounds, moreover, for our definition of worth as
" affective- volitional meaning," and for the view that the worth
experience is a concrete feeling-attitude, in which conation is
always present and conative dispositions always presupposed.1

4. Interpretation of the Monistic Theory — Us Relation to the
Definition and Analysis of the Consciousness of Value.

Nevertheless, while this duality, this distinction between
feeling and will, is not one of elementary content, it is still a
duality of meaning which becomes fundamental from the appre
ciative point of view. Feeling and will are two meanings of the
same content ; but what determines the difference in meaning ?
How is this differentiation to be understood ? Our answer to
this question must be in the general terms of the " Identity
theory," that is, that the difference can be described only in con
ceptual, logical, retrospective terms. By this it is meant — to
make the general statement more specific — that this duality
or distinction is one of recognitive and selective meaning.
The passive or active meaning is one which the attitude gets by
reason of its place in the vital series, and one which becomes ex
plicit only when the attitude is viewed in relation to preceding
or succeeding phases of the series. They are differences of genetic
mode.

If we seek to describe retrospectively these two modes,
if, in other words, we seek to convey their internal meaning,
after the fact, we find that we can do so only in terms of cog
nition, by description of the cognitive presuppositions of the
attitudes. According to Wundt, the special aspect which an
emotion must assume to become volition, is an immanental Zweck-

1 It is interesting to note that in a recent article, "The Nature of Conation and
Mental Activity" (The British Journal of Psychology, Vol. II, Part I), Stout, while
defining conation c< as a complex experience " which, however, contains as one of its
elements "a simple and unanalysable element uniquely characteristic of it — an element
from which the whole derives its distinctively conative character" (which he describes as
felt tendency, and which is not identical either with motor sensations or affection), never
theless admits that this felt tendency and affection, though distinguishable, do not occur
separately, and he proposes to use the term "interest" to express the unity of conative
and affective characters in the same process. I cannot see that this view differs essen
tially from the one developed here. As analysed by Stout, these two aspects are retro
spective abstractions.

94 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

richtung, and this aspect can be understood only as change in
cognitive attitude, not in content. The attempt of Miinsterberg
to characterise the distinction is also instructive in this connection.
" In feeling," he says, " an object, independent of us, is inter
preted through conation (Trieb). . . . This Trieb remains, however,
as overtone and as a help in apperception of the object, thought of
as independent, which we judge in feeling. If we make the object
dependent upon us, so that we perceive it as retained or excluded,
then we experience conation and impulse, but not, properly
speaking, a feeling."1 Now, to make the object dependent
upon us is to assume its existence or non-existence, as the case
may be — that assumption being motived by a subjective
disposition presupposed. To think it as independent of us,
which, according to Miinsterberg's analysis, we do when we
feel rather than desire, is again to judge or assume its existence
or non-existence, but the motivation of the cognitive act is in
this case a control of a more objective origin and character.
The significance of this analysis is to be found in the fact that
the distinction between feeling and conation is one which,
in the last analysis, is reducible to a difference in the immediate
functional meaning of elementary content, and that, when this
meaning is retrospectively described, such description involves
recourse to cognitive presuppositions.

There can be no doubt, however, that this difference in im
mediate functional meaning, though retrospectively describable
only in terms of cognitive attitude, is really implicitly present
prior to explicit cognitive acts of judgment and assumption,
and that below the level of worth experience this duality has its
germs in the simplest types of organic accommodation and habit.
The " dependence upon " or " independence of " subjective
control, which on the higher level is explicitly cognised in acts
of judgment and assumption, is implicitly felt in the funda
mental attitudes of habit and accommodation after disturbance of
habit. If then we view in this more external way such a vital ac
commodative series as that described by Brentano, we find that
what distinguishes the phases which are predominantly affective
from those predominantly conative is the degree of inhibition
of a presupposed disposition or tendency. Whether we call the
phase in question feeling or will depends upon the point in the
process of accommodation in which we, so to speak, catch the
experience. In Brentano's series the first stages are characterised

1 Grundzuge der Psychologie, p. 366.

Psychological Basis of a Theory of Valuation 95

by the apprehension of the object as relatively independent of
the subject (in this case the apprehension is judgmental) — and
in introspection they are interpreted as feeling; in the later
stages the object is apprehended as more and more dependent,
until in the last phases the belief or judgment that the desire will
be accomplished enters and voluntary decision has been reached.
Likewise, when Wundt describes the relation in the statement
that " feeling may just as well be looked upon as the beginning
of a conative process, as on the other hand will may be con
ceived as a complex feeling-process, and that the emotion is a
transition between both/' he is distinguishing different phases
of one accommodative process.

With this conception of the nature of the duality in meaning
of feeling as passive, and desire or volition as active, we are
in a position to justify our definition and analysis of worth-ex
perience. Feeling and desire are differences of genetic mode,
relative differences of functional meaning, not of content. The
worth of an object is therefore its affective- volitional meaning,
and is given in feeling- attitudes in which there is always an ele
ment, transgredient or immanental, of conation. We describe the
worth-fundamental as feeling or concrete emotion, because pure
passive affection and pure active conation are limiting terms in
the series, and really exist merely as abstractions. But the
affective-volitional meaning, or worth, of an object, its rela
tion to desire and conative disposition as interpreted through
feeling, becomes explicit only on the cognitive level where ac
commodation is in the form of cognitive acts of presumption,
assumption, and judgment. It is the actualisation of the dis-
positional tendency, either in feeling or desire, through these
cognitive acts, which gives to the feeling or desire that meaning
described as worth.-

In conclusion it may be pointed out that in this conception
of the nature of feeling and will and of their relations we have
a psychological basis for the study of the laws of valuation.
The concrete laws of valuation are not reducible to general laws
of feeling, abstracted from conation, nor of desire abstracted
from feeling, but rather of affective-volitional process conceived
as a whole. If we apply the term interest, employed by Stout
in the connection already referred to, to designate the conative
process in its twofold aspect, we may quite properly speak
of these laws of acquirement of affective- volitional meaning as
laws of interest.

96 Valuation : its Natiire and Laws

II. FURTHER ANALYSIS OF FEELING — THEORY OF THE
NATURE AND RELATION OF ITS DIFFERENT ASPECTS

i. Structural Analysis.

The theory of the relation of feelings and will already de
veloped has given us a psychological basis for the definition of
worth experience as feeling with certain presuppositions. Our
second problem, the further analysis of feeling itself, arises
from the fact that the appreciative distinctions already made —
between the different modes of feeling, between the feeling-tone
of sensation and the meanings of feeling-attitudes, which are
alone suggestive of worth, between intensity of feeling-tone and
depth and breadth of feeling, all demand some further theory
of the nature of feeling itself. In our previous analysis of these
appreciative descriptions we have already suggested certain
elements of such a theory which must now be developed in
more detail.

(a) Feeling as a Kind of Sensitivity.

We have said that the concrete psychoses which are subsumed
under the general terms feeling and will — emotion, passion,
sentiment and mood, impulse and desire — are fundamentally
different meanings of the same general content. Can we specify
more completely the nature of this content ? A consideration
of the attempts to answer this question may well be preceded
by an explicit recognition of the fact that, just as the concepts
of feeling and will are abstractions from a concrete whole of
meaning which, as such, can be only appreciatively described,
so any attempt to reconstruct the appreciative difference of
feeling in terms of content, i.e., in terms of non-appreciative
description, must involve a process of abstraction which makes
one aspect of the total complex do duty for the whole. Simmel
has well said of the use of pleasure as synonymous with feeling
that : it rises as a concept, as a separate content of conscious
ness, only after its manifold real characteristics (Ausgestal-
tungen) have determined our actions, and after precisely these
differences have had their effect.1 But when this fact is fully
recognised, it still remains true that one abstraction, one equiva-

1 Simmel, Einleitung in die Moralwissenschafl, Vol. I, p. 307 : " Lust taucht als
Begriff, als gesomlerter Bewustseinsinhalt erst auf, nachdem ihre realen Ausge-
staltungen tausendfach das Zweckhandeln beherrscht und nachdem gerade die Fiille
und Verschiedenheit dieser dazu angeregt hat, unter gegenseitiger Verdunklung jenes
Verschiedenen dem Gemeinsamen davon eine besondere Beleuchtung zu verleihen."

Psychological Basis of a Theory of Valuation 97

lent may be more useful for its purposes than another. The chief
purpose of a theory of feeling stated in terms of mental elements
is, to my mind, and according to the general principles already
laid down, its use as an instrument in the interpretation of the
functional relation of the general aspect of experience which we
describe as feeling to that other aspect which we call cognition ;
and while from the point of view of our special study there are
many questions of analysis which may be left unconsidered,
nevertheless, we cannot avoid altogether the formulation of
some working conception which will serve this special purpose.

All theories are agreed that feeling is the peculiarly
subjective aspect of experience, in contrast to the objective,
cognitive, and it has been proposed that the term feeling be
applied in a broad sense to the subjective fringe of all cognitive
experience. But the question arises immediately just how
subjective — and we have answers varying all the way between
the extremes of those who hold that feeling is entirely unpre
sentable and is never found on the objective side of the equation,
and those who find in it quasi-cognitive functions such as memory
and generalisation. Closely connected with this is the question
of the degree of independence of feeling of the cognitive aspects
of experience, of sensation and image content.

Without going too fully into minor distinctions, we may
in general distinguish three main theories of the structural
nature of feeling. The first of these is that feeling is not content,
but merely the affective tone of content, sensational and re
presentational. But on this view it is necessary to distinguish,
as Stout has done, the affective tone of content, sensational and
ideal, from the affective tone of process, perceptual and idea-
tional. The fundamental aspect of emotion, sentiment, and
mood is, then, the feeling-tone of the process, positive or negative,
according as it is facilitated or arrested (the feeling-tone of
sensations and images, the more objective peripheral, and the
more subjective organic, entering as secondary qualifying
elements, through surplus excitation). The second theory,
Wundt's, is like the preceding in distinguishing feeling completely
from sensitivity, but differs in the fact that it conceives feeling to
be a special mental element, on the analogy of sensation. These
elements have three attributes, pleasantness-unpleasantness,
tension-relaxation, and restlessness-quiescence, distinguished in
the preceding chapter. Total feelings are then complexes of
these hypothetical elements. The third theory, of which

98 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

Miinsterberg may be taken as representative, holds that these
are appreciative descriptions, and that when we turn the feeling-
attitude into an object of non-appreciative description, only
sensational elements can be discovered. A psychosis called
feeling is then but a complex of sensations more difficult of
analysis than other more objective complexes.

Leaving specific criticisms of the first two theories to be
developed in the course of the discussion, I find certain general
considerations which lead to a modified form of the last theory.
In the first place the non-sensational aspects of any experience
are, in the very nature of the case, only appreciatively
describable in functional terms. In the second place the dis
tinction between affectivity and sensitivity cannot, I think,
be as completely drawn as is presupposed in the first two con
ceptions. And, finally, properly combined with the functional
genetic conception of feeling and will already developed, it
seems adequate to account for all the modifications of feeling-
attitude which we have found significant for a theory of feeling
and of worth experience.

The breadth of the use of the word feeling in ordinary speech
has been frequently commented upon in recent discussions.
We feel a sensation, an emotion, a mood, or sentiment. We
feel darkness and distance, the remoteness or nearness of things
in memory. We feel an impulse, a desire, and we feel determined
to do a thing. If we start with the last use of the term, we
find that, apart from the functional place of the attitude in
a vital accommodative series, and the nature of its cognitive pre
suppositions, there is nothing to distinguish the feeling of desire or
will (i.e., of being determined) from the feeling of an emotion or
mood, except the character of the sensational content in the two
experiences. In the case of the desire or feeling of determination
there are certain kinaesthetic or motor sensations which are quite
distinct from the organic and systemic sensations which qualify
the attitude which we describe as emotion, sentiment, or
mood. The difference in the " feel " of the two kinds of atti
tudes is adequately describable in terms of these sensations and
their combinations. In the vital series some distinguishable
feeling-attitude has normally preceded (not always, however,
as we have seen) the desire or act of will, and its meaning is
taken up into the more explicit volition ; but the added content
which comes with the volitional attitude gives a distinguishing
quality to the psychosis. Moreover, in the case of explicit

Psychological Basis of a Theory of Valuation 99

desire or volition the subjective sensational content tends to
usurp consciousness, and the perception of the object is a second
ary element in the total complex.

In the coarser emotions, so called, the sensational elements
stand out almost as clearly as in the case of desire. In these,
in very truth, the " body " of the emotion is the mass or
series of sensations, mostly organic, but also partly motor,
since the emotion can never be completely distinguished from
the desire. But the " soul " of the emotion, to use a correlative
term, its meaning, is found, as in the case of the volition, in
its place in the vital series, in its cognitive presuppositions.
When, however, we seek to describe this meaning, we can do so
only by having recourse to appreciative terms — we describe its
positive or negative directions, its dynamic and expansive
suggestions, etc.

The preceding attitudes are analysable as psychoses, because
their content usurps consciousness even to the partial exclusion
of the objects toward which they are directed, and because they
represent the result of marked inhibition of conative tendency.
When we turn to those "finer" phases of feeling, the sentiments
and moods which attach to ideal objects and the "feeling-
tone " of sensational and perceptual objects, we find the object
upon which they are directed, or to which they are attached,
more in the ascendent. Those sensational experiences which in
the coarser emotions stood out in all their discreteness, now fall
into the background, and are recoverable only in case the feeling
flares up again through arrest, into a coarser, more fully embodied
meaning. What shall we say of the structure of these finer
states ? I cannot see that we have any other alternative than
to say that, as content, the feeling is the same sensation mass,
but so reduced in intensity as to be for practical purposes in
separable from the objective cognitive content, or so completely
fused as to forbid analysis of the separate elements. These
finer feelings seem, in contrast to the coarser forms, to lead a
disembodied existence, or, better still perhaps, they become
embodied in, or fuse with, other presentational material such as
the motor or auditory resonance of a word, visual or tonal com
plexes, in nature, human expression, and art. We speak then
of the feeling-tone of the object, or describe the object as suffused
with feeling.

Finally, there is a group of experiences, of which we shall have
more to say presently, in which the affective state is scarcely

ioo Valuation : its Nature and Laws

distinguishable from the cognitive. The affective aspect, the
subjective reference, is so sublimated that it is little more than
an accompaniment of the cognitive process. Speaking figuratively,
we may perhaps describe them as subtle tones which, in ordinary
unimpeded mental process, take the place of explicit fuller em
bodiment of desire, emotion, and sentiment, and call them
" affective signs." The so-called feelings of relation are of this
character— the feeling-tones which attach to conjunctions, ad
verbs, etc., or to the moods of the verb, I shall, I can, I will, I
ought, I must. These affective tones are all sublimated forms
of explicit emotion and conation, and, with sufficient arrest in
the ideational process in which they occur, may flare up into the
explicit embodied feeling of which they are the signs, with all
its characteristic sensational content. They have consequently
been described as vestigial phenomena, survivals of former
motor and organic attitudes. It is to be noted too that, while
normally they are the affective tones of words, they may, never
theless, appear prior to and independently of word formation.
For the sake of completeness it should be added that the affective
tone of abstract and general terms, the affective-volitional
meaning acquired in processes of ideal construction, and accom
panied by explicit desires and emotions, are of the same general
character. But of this more later.

(b) The Appreciative Distinctions in Feeling as "Forms of
Combination" of the Elements.

To this theory — that feeling, when viewed as content, is a
form of sensitivity, serious objections have been raised. Es
pecially these finer forms of affectivity, which seem to be with
out embodiment in analysable muscular or organic sensations,
raise a doubt as to the completeness of our analysis. And,
indeed, we may well question its adequacy, as it stands, without
any further modification, to account for the different qualifica
tions of feeling as differentiated by appreciative description. Is
it not necessary, after all, as for instance in Wundt's theory, to
assume special feeling elements to account for these differences ?

Both Wundt and Stout have criticised this theory of emo
tions on the ground of the difficulty of accounting for the
qualitative differences in emotion merely as differences in
sensation quality of the muscular and organic reflexes, and
because of its being viewed as an effect rather than as a cause

Psychological Basis of a Theory of Valuation 101

of the organic resonance. The differences in motor and
organic reaction, and therefore in sensation complexes, con
sistent with the realisation of the same subjective emotional
state, necessitate, it is said, our looking elsewhere for the dis
tinctive content of emotional psychoses.1 In addition, it is
held that such a theory wholly ignores in its explanation of the
emotions the conative tendencies which they presuppose. " An
emotion involves a certain trend or direction of activity which
particularises itself in any way it can, according to circumstances."
These criticisms, it may be admitted, are in the main sound,
but the modification which the theory requires to make it adequate
is one which presents itself almost immediately when one views an
emotion in its aspect as content. A closer analysis indicates that
what gives such a psychosis its specific quale is not the separate
sensation qualities, nor yet their fusion in an indistinguishable
mass, but rather the structural relations among these elements.
In addition to the qualities of the sensations, there are certain
temporal and intensity relations among them. Every emotion has,
in addition to the object toward which it is directed, the pre
suppositions which give it its meaning, and its positive and
negative direction, its own peculiar organic resonance with
its own specific character due to the "form of combination" of
the temporal and intensity aspects of the elements.

This concept of a new specific quale, or form of combination,
giving rise to new qualities which may be appreciatively dis
tinguished, seems to have become a permanent feature of theories
of emotional complexes, irrespective of their conception of the
nature of the elements in those complexes. Wundt, who holds
that these elements are hypothetical feelings, differing in toto
from sensitivity, reconstructs the different complexes as different
forms of Gefuhlsverlauf among the elements. Witasek, who
holds that these " movement - forms " are forms of com
bination of sensational elements, conceives that the Gestalt-
qualitdt thus formed becomes the presentable aspect of the
total affective complex. It is not necessary to reopen the dis
cussion between the sensation-element and affective-element
theories. For the point we are concerned with here, that ques-

1 Moreover, difficulties arise from the genetic point of view. As has been pointed
out by Stout, the same emotion— for instance, fear — may arise in connection with very
different motor expressions, even in the same animal, showing clearly that the specific
quale of an emotional psychosis is something which may remain constant notwithstand
ing considerable variation in the qualities of organic and muscular sensations following
upon motor expression.

IO2 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

tion is relatively unimportant. The point of real importance
is that such form-qualities exist, and that they are founded on
the temporal and intensity relations of the elements.1

These form-qualities, moreover, as has been clearly shown
by Witasek, may be transposed from the organic sensitivity
in which they first inhere to presentational and ideal content.
Many of the "finer" sentiments are without embodiment in
sensational content, and therefore without this emotional
intensity. They consist wholly in the " form of combination "
of cognitive content, which, however, still retains the meaning
of former fully embodied emotions. Of this fact we shall
make further use in our study of the processes of sym
pathetic Einfithlung :and the new meanings and values which
arise in those processes. Sympathetic projection of a feel
ing-attitude involves presentation of the psychical, in this
case the peculiarly subjective aspect of experience described
as feeling. Now, of course, the hedonic intensity and
the cognitive presuppositions of the feeling-attitude can be
projected only conceptually, as objects of judgment, assump
tion, etc. But this does not exclude the possibility of the
intuitive presentation of the form of the psychosis, and, there
fore, of its specific quale. For, if the form of an emotion is the
system of temporal and intensity relations among the elements
of the complex, this aspect can be abstracted from the elements
precisely as any other form of combination (e.g., rhythm), and
transposed to other elements. This is precisely what happens,
and, when we come to the study of sympathetic projection
(Einfuklung) in detail, we shall find that the form-qualities of
objects, persons, and things constitute the inducing conditions
for this intuitive realisation of the emotion, as when the sighing
of the wind or the bodily or vocal expression of a person expresses
for our intuitive perception the particular emotion in .- iestion.

Moreover, on this hypothesis it is possible to understand how
the peculiar resonance of an emotion may remain unmodified,
notwithstanding great changes in the qualities of the separate
sensations and in the absolute intensity of the emotion viewed
as a total complex. As^on the^more objective presentational

1 Wundt — we may merely note in passing — has made some progress in the direction
of classifying these various movement - forms : (i) The rapidly rising and slowly
falling ; (2) the slowly rising and rapidly falling ; (3) the intermittent ; and (4)
the oscillating, and in subsuming the affects appreciatively distinguishable under these
rubrics. The most fruitful principle of classification is, I believe, to be found in this
Direction, but with the actual classification we are here only remotely concerned.

Psychological Basis of a Theory of Valuation 103

side, the form of combination of the temporal and intensity
aspects of sensational elements, as, for instance, a rhythm, may
be transposed from one set of elements to another, and, provided
the relative intensities and temporal relations are unimpaired,
remain entirely clear and distinct with dampening of the in
tensity of the total complex — so here, even on the assumption
that affectivity is a form of sensitivity with a peculiarly sub
jective meaning, we may see how the specific quale of the emotion
may still be accounted for.

In conclusion, then, we may say that a complete analysis
of any total affective attitude must differentiate four aspects :
(i) its positive and negative direction ; (2) its presuppositions,
dispositional and actual ; (3) its sensation content ; and (4)
the form of combination of that content, or this quale transposed
to more objective cognitive content, of which it becomes then
merely the affective over- tone.

2. Correlation of Structural and Functional Analysis

of Feeling.

»

The outcome of this structural analysis of the different
phases of experience which we group under the general term
feeling, is the view that the different modifications of feeling
are meanings of a certain type of sensitivity. The significance
of this conception lies in the fact that, while the essence of feeling
is a functional meaning, it is an embodied meaning, and we may
therefore expect different modifications of that meaning to be cor
related with significant changes in this sensitivity. These changes
in meaning, with their correlated changes in sensitivity, will,
moreover, in all probability be connected with changes in func
tional presuppositions. The working out of these relations
would enable us to correlate our structural analysis and classi
fication with the earlier genetic analysis of the accommodative
series.

(a) Changes in Functional Meaning and Changes in Sensitivity-
Passion and Emotion-Sentiment and Mood.

The duality of affection and conation has been interpreted
as a differentiation of meaning determined by the place of
the psychosis in the accommodative series. Structurally,
the emotion is seen to be a shortened form of desire and volition,

IO4 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

in which organic largely takes the place of motor sensitivity.
In other words, from the standpoint of structural analysis,
the nearer a psychosis approaches to explicit desire and vo
lition, the more pronounced becomes that special phase of
sensational content which we call strain and effort. It is in
these phases that we find inhibition of conative disposition
or tendency at a maximum.

But there are other modes of feeling, distinguished by psy
chological analysis, which represent various stages in accommod
ation, and which show corresponding typical changes in the
sensitivity of which they are the meanings. Certain modes of
feeling, finer forms of affectivity, such as sentiment and mood,
are characterised by the fact that the organic sensations with
their hedonic intensity become less and less important while
the functional meaning remains unimpaired. There are even
certain phases of affective-volitional meaning in which the
meaning is without embodiment in analysable organic sensitivity,
but in which it appears merely as an overtone of perception
or cognitive activity in general. Can we understand these
phenomena in terms of our genetic theory ?

(b) Their Genetic Relations.

In a general way it may be immediately seen that the terms
passion and emotion, sentiment and mood, stand for appreciable
differences in meaning of affective attitude. One love is best
described as a passion, another as a sentiment ; one fear as
an emotion, another as a mood. It is also apparent that there
are genetic relations among them. Emotion may become
fixed as a mood, passion may pass over into a sentiment. Senti
ment may flare up into passion and mood be stirred into emotion.
The significance of these appreciative distinctions is to be found
in the fact that they represent different attitudes, different
modes of affective- volitional meaning of the object for the sub
ject which, as in the case of Brentano's series, with its dis
tinctions between feeling, desire, and will, go back ultimately
to differences in presuppositions. In fact, the transition from
passion to sentiment, and its limiting term " affective sign,"
or from emotion to mood and " affective sign " constitutes a
vital series which may be appreciatively segregated for analysis
and description in terms of function and structure.

A singularly superficial view of the nature of these dis-

Psychological Basis of a Theory of Valuation 105

tinctions reduces them to differences merely in degree of in
tensity. This insufficiency of the analysis has been supplemented
by Paulhan's study, Les phenomenes affectifs et le lois de leur
apparition, the general import of which is so thoroughly in
harmony with our study that it may be stated in his own

terms.

His general theory is that affective states presuppose conative
tendencies of varying degrees of strength and systematisation ;
that the actual appearance in consciousness of an affective atti
tude is due to incoordination and arrest of these tendencies,
and that in these affective states there are certain aspects
of content which disclose the degree of systematisation and
arrest presupposed ; that the modifications of attitude, passion,
sentiment, emotion, mood, and affective sign may be reduced
to differences of degree in which these aspects are present,
and therefore to differences in arrest of tendencies presup
posed. Those aspects of affective disturbance upon the basis of
which a genetic and functional classification is thus possible are :
(i) the intensity or vehemence of the disturbance, the force and
persistence of the arrested tendency; (2) the multiplicity of
phenomena in the affective state (mass of sensational content)
disclosing the complexity of the tendencies presupposed; (3)
the degree of the tendency of the disturbance to absorb conscious
ness (which we may interpret as indicating the degree of con
centration of subsidiary tendencies about the fundamental).
All these aspects are interpreted as functions of the two factors
systematisation and arrest of conative tendency.

Having established the general fact that all affective attitude
involves at least a minimum of arrest, he examines the different
attitudes, passion, emotion, sentiment, mood, etc., in the light
of the preceding analysis. Passions and emotions disclose these
aspects at a maximum and represent the extreme of arrest. On
the other hand, sentiments and moods, derived respectively
from the passions and the emotions, show these aspects in a less
marked degree, and represent, therefore, the beginning of re-
adaptation after arrest or the reduction of the moment of arrest.
All these aspects are, however, again reproducible in passion
and emotion when the conative disposition is again subject to
arrest. On the functional side, then, this diminution of in
tensity, multiplicity, and absorption of consciousness represents
the habit which comes with repetition.

In the "affective sign" (a new descriptive term introduced

io6 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

by Paulhan for affective phenomena not ordinarily observed in
superficial introspection), we have a still further reduction of
these aspects of the affective experience. It represents a limiting
term in the affective or vital series, hard to distinguish from
terms in an intellectual series. Paulhan describes the role of
these affective signs in the following way : " We may describe
more clearly perhaps the nature of this class of facts by com
paring them with the operations of the cognitive conscious
ness. We know that cognitive phenomena are often substituted
the one for the other. Thus the image replaces the sensation,
ideas or words are able to replace images. The substitu
tion takes place so easily that one is not as a rule led to recog
nise it, and the more ultimate, abstract, and feeble substitutes
have consequently been but rarely studied by psychologists.
These substitutes are pure abstracts, produced perhaps by the
partial excitation, feeble but systematised, of a large number
of tendencies. We find in the affective sphere facts of substitu
tion analogous to those which we recognise in the functioning
of intelligence. Passion and sentiment are replaced often by
other states of consciousness of an affective nature, which be
come substitutes for them and fill their role." x

This greater capacity of the affective-sign for substitution
or transference from one fundamental to another is functionally
its most significant aspect, and, as Paulhan points out, this
capacity goes with the fact that it shows intensity, multiplicity
of content, and absorption of consciousness, at a minimum.
On the side of content it is the relative absence of these
aspects which marks the affective sign as the limiting term in
the vital series we are considering. But to this negative aspect
must be added a positive. This Paulhan recognises in the pe
culiar tone which the sign, although relatively intensity-less,
gives to consciousness. The decrease in these contentual aspects
does not, however, mean loss in worth suggestion or affective-
volitional meaning. The affective sign has a functional meaning
which does not lie in its intensity.

1 Les phinomtnes affcctifs, etc., Paris, 1901, p. 72. He thus further describes their func
tion in consciousness : " If we recall an affective impression with strength and persistence,
we may be able to free ourselves from it partially, as we would not be able in the case

the original affective disturbance, but we feel always within us, not the original im
pression, but an element which replaces it momentarily and which gives to the state of
consciousness a peculiar tone." This tone he then goes on to describe as both generic
and recognitive in its suggestions. This is a true piece of psychological analysis and
introspection, examples of which will be given and discussed in more detail in the
following chapter on affective memory and affective generalisation.

Psychological Basis of a Theory of Valuation 107

In this application of the genetic view to the explanation
i of the relation of the functional meaning of feeling attitudes to
! their sensitivity, we have not only an important extension of
the general principle that the differences in affective-volitional
attitudes are reducible to differences of genetic mode in a vital
accommodative series, but also the basis for psychological ex
planation of certain phenomena of valuation. We have found
that, on the level of worth experience, accommodation and
habit are to be co-ordinated with cognitive acts, feeling and
desire being actualisations of conative dispositions through
presumption, judgment, and assumption. An obvious inference
from this conclusion would be that the differences in meaning
of these different modes, passion, sentiment, affective sign,
emotion, mood, affective sign, may, in so far as they are signifi
cant for worth experience, be conceived in terms of modification
of cognitive presuppositions.

This inference is, I think, justified by the facts. Senti
ments, moods, and, still more, affective signs, representing,
as they do, habituation in varying degrees, are significant in
worth experience precisely because they are modes of feeling
which go with assumptions of the two types, explicit and im
plicit. In the preceding chapter we had occasion to point out
that, even in the case of those moods apparently physiological
in origin, objectless feelings in general, there is really a vague
presumption of reality. All forms of affectivity which are
worth-suggestive have cognitive presuppositions, and in the
case of the modes of feeling which act as substitutes for
passion and emotion the presuppositions are assumptions,
explicit or implicit. In the first case, as we shall see presently,
we are concerned with feelings of the imagination, in the second,
with feeling-abstracts. Accordingly, the different modes of the
vital series, passion, sentiment, affective sign or emotion, mood,
affective sign, represent on the side of presuppositions, and in their
aspect of worth suggestion, a gradual, although not always recog
nised, change in presuppositions. Passion and emotion represent
readjustment after arrest, and this readjustment in so far as it
is a worth experience implies judgment. But sentiment and
mood, and still more the affective sign, stand for the adjustment
as it approaches accomplishment. These forms of affectivity
represent the affective-volitional meaning of habit, and as such
are the psychical correlates of dispositions.

1 08 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

3. Corollaries from the Preceding Theory of Feeling.

In the light of the preceding analysis and theory it is now
possible to understand psychologically certain facts of worth
experience which the studies of the preceding chapters have
brought to light. We have seen that the appreciative dis
tinctions and descriptions of worth experience involve the
possibility of differentiation and ultimately independent vari
ability of different aspects of the total feeling-attitude. This
appeared most emphatically in our introductory distinction
between feeling of worth (with its meanings, references) and
pleasantness-unpleasantness, between degree of feeling of value
and degree of intensity of pleasantness-unpleasantness. From
the differentiation of these aspects, and from the very fact that
they can be presented and described, it was also inferred that
the psychical as such, in this case the feeling, must in some
way be the object of recognition, presentation, and judgment,
and thus approach to the cognitive side of experience. The
application of these conceptions constitutes the special problem
of the following chapter. Here we shall content ourselves with
showing how our theory of feeling makes these conceptions
possible.

With respect to the first of these problems — how acquire
ment of funded meaning may go hand in hand with diminution
of hedonic intensity, or how the aspect of hedonic intensity
may become redundant in any given worth experience — our
concept of feelings as meanings embodied in a certain type of
sensitivity is seen to be enlightening. The two directions of
feeling attitude, positive and negative, which belong to it by
virtue of its relation to conative disposition, become pleasant
ness-unpleasantness when the attitude is viewed retrospectively,
as predominantly passive. When thus viewed, moreover,
passive affectivity becomes a form of sensitivity and may
properly be said to have degrees of intensity. But since
intensity, in its narrower sense, is also, properly speaking,
an attribute of sensitivity alone, the meanings of the attitude
in its prospective reference, the transgredient and immanental
references which it has by virtue of its cognitive presuppositions,
have degree, but not intensity. As an analogy we may take the
meaning of an idea and its content or imaged substrate. The
latter has intensity, but the former intension and extension.

This fact being recognised, we may see the meaning of the

Psychological Basis of a Theory of Valuation 109

statement previously made that " pleasantness rises as a separate
content of consciousness only after the real manifold character
istics have determined our actions," i.e., only when it is selectively
differentiated, as passivity, from the other meanings, the trans-
gredient and immanental references. When the other aspects,
or meanings, of the total attitude are uppermost, i.e., in the
prospective reference of the attitude, the passive hedonic aspect
is in abeyance, and for the worth aspect irrelevant and re
dundant. Thus it comes about, as we have repeatedly seen,
that the worth suggestions of the feeling-attitude may be un
affected by the dampening of the absolute intensity of the
organic resonance or sensitivity. Intensity is a function of
structural modification, of degree of arrest of organic tendency,
and, while habit, which comes with adaptation, involves dimin
ution of this intensity, it does not necessarily involve modi
fication of the other meanings of the content. This we have
seen in our study of sentiments, moods, and " affective signs."

Thus it comes about also that in any given total attitude
(of any duration) there may be variations of hedonic tone,
both qualitative and quantitative, which do not in the least
affect the worth suggestion or meaning of the total attitude.
Sadness is a negative worth attitude and hope a positive, the one
is predominantly pleasant and the other predominantly un
pleasant ; but the sadness as a total attitude may be now pleas
antly, now unpleasantly tinged, while hope, though predomi
nantly pleasant, may contain unpleasant moments. Yet this
does not, as Stout says, affect in the least degree the strength of
the conative aspect of the attitude or, as I should prefer to say,
the variations of hedonic tone of the passive aspects of the feeling
attitude are irrelevant to the worth suggestion or meaning of the
total attitude.

With this conception of the different aspects or meanings of
the feeling attitude, differentiated in the process of accommod
ation, there arises the further question of the possibility of
feeling acquiring that objectivity which goes with recognition
and presentation. In our structural study we had occasion to
note different degrees in which a feeling may be independent of
its obj ect. The feeling-tone of the sensation is inseparable from the
content to which it attaches, while the emotion, sentiment, or
mood, in other words, the " disposition-feeling," spreads over
consciousness. The question arises whether this independence,
this segregation or detachment of feeling from its object can

I IO

Valuation : its Nature and Laws

reach such a point that the feeling itself may acquire
and genenc meaning. There are seyera] ^ 1

enology of valuation where such an hypothesis is required

vhicht"?' ,'" the Pr°CeSSeS °f Bathetic participa on to
which the feeling as projected object acquires recognitive mean"
mg for the subject, but with these special applicataTwT^e
not now concerned. Our only interest here is to point ouTthat
m this conception of feeling as a meaning, as a fom of comb n-

penden o6f tmentS v ^"^ S6nSitiV"y' itsdf -latively ,ndt
lent of this sens.tivity, we have a basis for this hypothesis

CHAPTER V

THE CONTINUITY OF AFFECTIVE-VOLITIONAL
MEANING

THE ACQUIREMENT OF RECOGNITIVE AND GENERIC AFFECTIVE
MEANINGS — AFFECTIVE MEMORY AND GENERALISATION

i. The Problem.

A THIRD problem of the psychology of valuation, requiring
a special analysis of feeling, is connected with the question
of the nature of the continuity of worth experience and judgment.
This question, briefly stated in the preceding chapter and re
served for a separate discussion, now becomes answerable in
the light of the results of the analysis of that chapter. The
question, as there stated, is this : How does the meaning of
previous emotional experience, having found expression in a
judgment of value, function in new judgments, in new accommod
ations? Otherwise expressed, How shall we understand psy
chologically the funded meaning which an object acquires through
the formation of dispositions ?

The view generally held is that feeling is a discontinuous
accompaniment of cognitive experience, that it becomes func
tional merely by the creation of physiological dispositions and
tendencies, or by reflective interpretation of the past experience
in a new situation. One writer states the problem thus : " Now,
if it were in a direct way, as immediately felt emotion, that the
consciousness of value must be functional if functional at all, then
the problem might well be given up ; but it would be a serious
blunder to conceive the problem in this strictly psychological way.
A logical statement of the problem would raise a different issue-
not the question whether emotion, as emotion, can in any sense
be functional in experience, but whether the consciousness of
value, and emotion in general, may not receive reflective in
terpretation, and thereby, becoming objective, play a part as a

1 1 2 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

factor in subsequent valuation-processes."1 Now, it is quite
true that from the logical point of view it is " simply a matter
of fact " that a present consciousness of value does become a
factor in subsequent valuation-process. It is, however, not
clear that this dispenses us from the necessity of understanding
how this is psychologically possible. It is also clear, on the
other hand, that if this continuity is conceived purely physio
logically, if the disposition is conceived to be functional without
any psychical correlate of conscious meaning, the valuation-
process is psychologically discontinuous just as truly as in the
logical statement of the situation.

Neither of these views is an adequate account of the con
tinuity of valuation. Immediately felt emotion does in
deed become functional through reflective interpretation, i.e., by
becoming the object of new judgments and assumptions, but
there are also felt continuities in which the acquired meaning
of past feelings determines directly the meaning of the present
feeling. For the explanation of such continuities we must
assume an emotional " logic," in which feeling is directly de
terminative through its acquirement of recognitive and generic
meanings. In a preceding chapter, where the difference be
tween hedonic intensity and " depth and breadth " of funded
meaning was appreciatively determined, it was suggested that
a theory of " affective generalisation," of development of generic
feeling-attitudes, afforded a basis for the understanding of these
facts. To the consideration of this theory we must now turn.

Certain phenomena already examined afford the starting-
point for this theory. Our combined structural and functional
analysis of feeling has disclosed certain forms of feeling, senti
ments, moods, and, more particularly, " affective signs," which
differ in certain definite ways from passional and emotional
reactions to specific situations. Their lack of sensational
intensity, their character as residual feelings, gives them a
representative function, and enables them to play a functional
role in worth determination, irrespective of their intensity, a
role analogous to that of the general concept in cognition. As
we may speak of a relatively imageless apprehension of cognitive
meaning, so we may speak of a relatively intensity-less apprecia
tion of affective-volitional meaning or value.

Now the fact itself — of the existence of such residual feelings,

1 H. W. Stuart, Valuation as a Logical Process, in Dewey's Studies in Logical
Theory, p. 336.

The Continuity of Affective- Volitional Meaning 1 1 3

such relatively intensity-less phases of feeling (which take the place
of explicit and more concrete emotions and passions) — is, I think,
beyond doubt. From various quarters the facts themselves
are being recognised. The only question is as to the usefulness
of this conception of memory and generalisation, or of recognitive
and generic meanings, as a formula under which to group the
facts. Of its usefulness as an hypothesis for explaining the
unities and continuities of valuation the present writer is per
suaded, despite recent criticisms of the conception. Nevertheless,
it is important to recognise that it is merely an hypothesis of an
analogical character, and that it is valuable only in so far as it
enables us to get a deeper insight into the facts of valuation ; and
that, further, there is no objection to the substitution of another
conception if it fulfils this function better. This position
I have already maintained in a critical study of Ribot's theory.1
The reason for the retention of the concept of an " affective
logic " is to be found in the fact that the phases of affectivity
under discussion do seem to have a representative role analogous
to that of generals and abstracts in the sphere of cognition,
that they do determine actual feeling and worth judgments, as
opposed to the view that they are totally different from real
feelings and do not affect them. This is the significant point,
and a point to which we shall devote a fuller discussion later.

With this view of the nature of the hypothesis in mind, we
have the following problems before us : (i) What are the phe
nomena of worth determination, of affective-volitional process,
which give rise to this hypothesis ? (2) What is the psychological
criterion in terms of content and function, of recognitive and
generic meaning in the sphere of cognition ? What are the
similarities between these and the phases of affectivity under
discussion which give rise to this analogical hypothesis ? In
other words, What is the criterion of affective memory and
generalisation ? (3) What is the origin of these phases and
their function in the unities and continuities of valuation ?

II. THE ACQUIREMENT OF RECOGNITIVE MEANING BY FEELING
THE PROBLEM OF "AFFECTIVE MEMORY"

The problem of " affective memory " has recently received
considerable attention.2 In my own earlier studies in this

1 Review of Ribot's La logique des sentiments. Psych. Bulletin, Vol. II, No. 9.

2 The fullest and most recent study of Affective Memory is found in Paulhan's La
Jonction de la memoirc et le souvenir affectif, Paris, 1904.

ii4 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

subject.1 it was pointed out that a distinction must be made
between the fact of recognition of feeling as past and our
explanation of the phenomenon, and that, moreover, the accept
ance of the facts has been hindered by certain prejudices of
theory, both as to the nature of feeling and of memory. If we
identify feeling with one of its aspects, pleasantness-unpleasant
ness, and then ask whether an hedonic tone may be recalled, there
is indeed none but a negative answer to that question. There is
no restoration of a past hedonic tone, except in conceptual terms,
for every experience of pleasantness-unpleasantness is an actual
present feeling. If, however, we put the question as it should be
put — does a present feeling ever acquire recognitive meanings ? —
the answer is in the affirmative. And, when we further ask:
How does it acquire this meaning, and what aspects are recog
nised ? there is some hope of answering the question. To this
question, in so far as it concerns our psychological theory of
valuation, we must give some attention, but we may at the
outset disclaim any intention of exhaustive treatment and refer
for details to the studies already cited.

i. Types of Affective Memory.

The facts of affective memory have been collected in con
siderable number. The restatement of them here would re
quire more space than can be devoted to the subject. Our
concern is primarily with the interpretation of the phenomena
and the determination of their place in our genetic and functional
theory of acquirement of affective-volitional meaning.

We may recall, however, that there are two forms which
have been generally distinguished : (i) what may be called
voluntary revival, or, more carefully expressed, perhaps, volun
tary re-instatement of a feeling attitude with recognitive meaning,
and (2) involuntary spontaneous recurrence of an attitude,
without its accompanying object, but with recognitive meaning.

Of the first type of re-instatement there are numerous illus
trations in the literature referred to, and, in fact, in every
day experience. I shall note only one, which is considered by
Pillon to be distinct disproof of the view that the so-called
revived emotions are really new ones. It is a passage in the
Nouvelle Heloise (Part IV, Letter 17) where Saint-Preux de-

" The Problem of a Logic of the Emotions and Affective Memory," Psychological
Review, Vol. VIII, Nos. 3 and 4.

The Contimiity of Affective- Volitional Meaning 1 1 5

scribes himself as reviving in the presence of the old scenes of
love the same emotions, but as falling into rage and despair
upon recognising their futility. Pillon considers this evidence
that there is a recognised difference between the revived emotion
and the new in the mind of Rousseau.

If we examine this illustration of the first type more closely,
it appears that we have to do with what has recently been
described as " feelings of the imagination." Feelings of imagina
tion are those which follow upon the representation of image
content, where the content is not presumed or judged, but merely
assumed to exist. Such a feeling may be evoked, either by
recalling images of the past with assumption of existence in
the past, or by calling them up with assumption of present or
future existence. In the first case the feelings have recognitive
meaning, and we speak of affective memory ; in the latter case
we have imagined feelings in the more limited sense of the word.
In both cases the " feeling of the imagination " differs from
the actual present feeling in its coefficient of reality and in
certain aspects of structure.

Some feelings of the imagination (i.e., assumption-feelings)
have, then, recognitive meaning, and it is important to note
that these feelings with recognitive meaning may be reinstated,
either by recalling images of the past with assumption of ex
istence, or by a form of auto-suggestion, motor or verbal, in
which the subject induces sentiments or moods by assuming
a motor attitude, or by use of verbal symbols having emotional
overtones from past experiences of feeling. Toward this re
instated feeling a new feeling-attitude, positive or negative,
may be taken, as in the case of Saint-Preux already described.
This feeling is the actual present feeling, and presupposes the
passage of assumption into explicit judgment of existence or
non-existence.

The second type of reinstatement is quite different. In
this case the feeling-attitude may recur with recognitive meaning,
even without any recognised presentational content or any
explicit assumption as presupposition. The feeling itself is first
recognised, and only later emerge the presentations to which
it refers. It is at first of the nature of an objectless feeling,
but has, nevertheless, recognitive meaning. A classical illus
tration of this type is the experience of M. Littre, given by
Ribot, where the feeling connected with the death of his sister,
which took place in his youth, comes over him unexpectedly

n6 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

in his old age, after the memory of the death had for years
ceased to be accompanied by feeling.1 In such cases the recog
nition of the feeling seems to be independent of the recognition
of presentational content, and is reinstated indirectly through
association.

The two types thus distinguished have been called respec
tively false and true affective memory, and, as Paulhan recog
nises, there seems to be a real distinction involved, although
not one so ultimate as these terms would indicate. The dis
tinction lies in the fact that, while both are feelings of the imagina
tion with certain definite marks which distinguish them from
real present feelings, the evocation of the one is dependent upon
revival of image content, while the other, the so-called true
memory of feelings, is itself the condition of revival of memory
images. To the functional basis of this distinction we shall
return, but we must first determine the criterion which dis
tinguishes the feeling of the imagination (in both forms) with
its recognitive meaning, from the " present " actual feeling.

2. The Criterion of Recognitive Meaning.

The criterion of recognitive meaning (of any experience,
whether cognitive or affective) is a certain mark of pastness
inherent in a present experience or content. This mark of
pastness is reducible to certain equivalents in terms both
of function and content. On the side of function the differ
ence between an experience with, and one without, recognitive
meaning seems to be primarily one of control, of reality co
efficient. In the case of the content which has the mark of
the present without any reference to the past, the content is
an object cognised as immediately given. Where, on the other
hand, it has the mark of pastness, the content is felt not to

1 Reference may also be made to a case cited by Mauxion in an article, " La vraie
memoire affective," Revue philosophique, February, 1901, and I may also quote a case
from my own experience described in the article already referred to :—

"A few years ago, while living abroad, there came into my consciousness, entirely
without associational conditions that were recognisable, a peculiar emotional tone which
I recognised as having been experienced before with peculiar intensity. I located it
finally as the emotional overtone of a peculiarly desolate bit of anthracite coal region.
So strong and marked was it that it developed into particular emotions of great vivid
ness, and sufficient to lead immediately to a bit of descriptive writing. The point of
psychological interest is that with the closest search no ideal content could be found
which would account for its revival. It is probably explained by the fact that a some
what similar feeling had that day been generated by wholly different content— the
squalor of a certain quarter in a foreign city, and that there had been direct emotional
recall through emotion."

The Continuity of Affective- Volitional Meaning 1 1 7

be immediately given, but as so connected with the immediately
given that the immediacy can be restored.

This difference is reducible, in its functional aspects, to
difference in cognitive acts. All content with the mark of
presentness is presumed or judged to exist. The presumption
of existence characterises, we have seen, all acceptance of con
tent which is objectively determined, while judgment is but
the explicit acknowledgment of that determination. The
content with the mark of pastness, on the other hand, is felt
to be connected with immediate content the existence of which
is assumed. It is this connection with assumed reality which
gives it its recognitive meaning.

To this functional difference between the content with past
and present meaning there corresponds a difference in structure.
Analysis discloses the fact that memory images differ from im
mediate perception in that they are schematic, and lack the
peculiar " sensational intensity " which characterises immediate
perception. The schematic character lies in the fact that
there has been a " wearing away " of certain elements in the
total complex, those elements being retained which through
complication and other forms of association are connected
with previous experiences. The reduction in intensity is prob
ably to be correlated with the reduction of tendency to motor
expression in the case of memory images. However we explain
these structural differences between immediate perception and
memory image, they are closely connected with the functional
criterion of recognitive meaning. The content with these
characteristics is distinguished from immediate perception,
is inhibited by perception, is thrown back and localised in the
past.

3. The Criterion of Recognitive Meaning as Applied
to Feelings.

From these reflections we should naturally be led to infer
that, among the classes of feelings distinguished by our analysis,
feelings with presumptions and judgments as presuppositions
do not have recognitive meaning, and that assumption feelings
alone have the qualification of pastness. And this inference
is justified by the facts. For, in the first place, the two types
of feelings which have the mark of pastness, where a present
feeling seems to be a re-instatement of a past experience (the
so-called false and true affective memory), are either " feelings

1 1 8 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

of the imagination," with assumptions as presuppositions
or objectless feelings which, although at first without objects
and explicit presuppositions, develop into feelings of the imagina
tion. And what gives them their recognitive meaning, it is
easy to see, is the belief that they are reducible to or convertible
into, actual immediate feelings, */ the content which is their
object should again acquire the coefficient of reality which goes
with perception and its presumption of existence, or if the
content should again become the object of existential judgment.
On the other hand, it is equally easy to see why feelings with
presumptions and judgments as presuppositions have no mark
of pastness.^ Each act of apprehension or judgment is itself
a new accommodation and involves a new, unique feeling.

Both these types of feeling have, then, this qualification of •
pastness or recognitive meaning, because of their reference to
an actual feeling which it is believed would be reinstated with
the reinstatement of perception or judgment. But this con
version is not always possible, and, when attempted, it is
frequently followed by a change in feeling— the new feeling
being neutral, or, indeed, often opposite in character.1 New con
ditions of the present, or changes in the disposition of the subject,
often inhibit the judgment-feeling toward which the assumption-
feeling points. In the case of Saint-Preux the feelings of the
imagination with recognitive meaning refuse to take on the
actuality of a present feeling, and are felt to be futile. When
one returns to the scenes of his childhood, feeling has often
become neutral or opposite in character. The feelings con
nected with a shipwreck or a death, as long as they are merely
remembered or imagined, retain all the aspects of the early
experience, except that which gives it its mark of presentness ;
but the present actual affective attitude toward the past event
may become neutral, or at least blunted. This appears notably
in the case of the experience of M. Littre, where, although the

1 It is interesting to note that Angell (Psychology, p. 266) admits the existence of

ctive memory in the practical sense that we feel that we could, if necessary, recall

events with their former feelings, although, he goes on to say, "if we actually attempt

o recall the event we find that sometimes the recollection itself is affectively colourless,

jmetimes it has the affective character of the original event and sometimes an opposite

character. It is this fact that we feel that we could recall that is significant. In order

that we may have this reference to a real feeling of the past at all, there must be an

affective sign representing it. Whether that affective sign or feeling of the imagina-

lon with recognitive meaning, can be converted into a real feeling or not, whether,

owing to change in feeling-dispositions, the present actual feeling differs from the past

feeling, is beside the mark. Angell's analysis is here inadequate for the reason that he

tails to distinguish between the revived feeling and the present actual feeling, the latter

emg, of course, a new feeling without the mark of pastness.

The Continuity of Affective-Volitional Meaning 119

actual feeling attitude toward the past event, the death of
his sister, had long since become neutral, nevertheless the feeling
of the past, through some chance association, returned in its
former character and meaning.

What, then, is this mark of the actual present feeling which
distinguishes it from the feeling of the past ? Those who have
analysed these feelings of the imagination with the mark of
pastness agree that the " revived " feeling, whether imaginatively
revived or spontaneously recurring, differs from an " actual '
present feeling in certain respects analogous to those differences
discoverable in the sphere of cognitive images. Like the revived
image, the imagined feeling or emotion is schematic. But
schematic in this sphere means the absence of the full, rich
organic sensations in which the "present" feeling is em
bodied. With this reduction in sensitivity comes a corresponding
reduction in intensity. The revived feeling lacks that " sen
sational intensity " which actual feeling has. It has its own
intensity, which, as has been pointed out by Paulhan and the
present writer, and more recently by Saxinger, is unaffected
by repetition, and in that respect stands out in marked contrast
with the present actual feeling. This so-called intensity of
the feeling of the imagination is better described, however, as
the meaning of the feeling, to distinguish it from the sensational
intensity of the actual feeling.

The feelings of imagination, following upon assumptions,
have undergone certain modifications which distinguish them
from " actual," present feelings. It remains now merely to de
termine what aspect of the total feeling-complex remains in
the feeling of the imagination and acquires recognitive meaning.
Upon the theory of feeling developed it is not difficult to answer
this question. We have already seen that, while feeling is the
embodied meaning of a certain type of sensitivity, that meaning,
as a form of combination of the content, is relatively independent
of the specific elements of the content and of their intensity. It is
this " form-quality," I think we may safely say, that is recognised,
and it has recognitive meaning because it feels as though it
could, were the necessary conditions given, be converted into
that fully embodied meaning, with all the reality feeling of
immediate perception with its primary presumption of reality
or of explicit existential judgment.

This view, much more fully developed in the paper already
referred to, receives confirmation in the introspective accounts

1 20 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

of "revived" feelings. Notwithstanding the fact that the
actual feeling attitude toward a past experience may have
changed, the subject may still recall in imagination the precise
nuance of emotion, the thrill, the expansiveness, etc., of the
feeling from which the mark of present reality has vanished,
provided, of course, he is of the affective-memory type.1 It is
a view, moreover, which, if valid, will enable us to understand
how feeling may become objective, may be projected, in processes
of imaginative Einfuhlung, into another person, recognised and
read back into the self.

III. THE ACQUIREMENT OF GENERIC MEANINGS ON THE PART
OF FEELING — AFFECTIVE GENERALISATION

With this understanding of the nature of the acquirement
of recognitive meaning on the part of feeling-attitudes, we
may turn to the consideration of the further hypothesis de
veloped in the effort to account for the continuity of affective-
volitional meaning— namely, that certain phases of feeling
acquire a generic meaning, relating them to the judgment of
value in a manner analogous to the relation of the general con
cept to the judgment.

The common characteristic of the theories of affective-
continuity criticised is, it will be remembered, that there is
no felt continuity— that habit has no felt meaning. Feeling
of worth being identified with hedonic intensity, as feel
ing-attitude approaches habit actual worth feeling decreases.
In the case of the genetic modes of feeling-attitude analysed,
passion, emotion, sentiment, mood, and affective sign, we
have, with approach to habit, a progressive diminution of
intensity, and with it a decrease of actual worth feeling.
In opposition to this view we have maintained that these
higher genetic modes of feeling-attitude are related to passion
and emotion as the general concept is related to the particular
percept. As the general concept represents the acquired mean-

) A passage from Taine's De ? intelligence, quoted by Paulhan with reference to the
revival of emotions, shows the aspects of feeling recognised on revival. " La seule chose
qui en moi se reproduise intacte et entiere, c'est la nuance precise demotion, apre,
tendre, etrange, douce ou triste, qui jadis a suivi ou accompagne la sensation exte-
rieure et corporelle; je puis renouveler ainsi mes peines et mesplaisirs les plus compliques
et les plus delicats, avec une exactitude extreme et a de tres grandes distances ; a cet
egard le chuchotement incomplet et defaillant a presque le meme eftet que la voix."

The Continuity of Affective- Volitional Meaning 121

ing of a judgment disposition, so these generic forms of affectivity
represent the acquired or funded affective-volitional meaning of
particular emotional reactions, and have a functional role in
worth determination, independent of their intensity, analogous
to the role of the general concept in cognitive judgment.

i. The Phenomena of Affective Continuity : Substitution,
Subsumption, Transition.

This analogy between the function of the general concept
and the so-called generalised emotion appears more specifically
in three types of felt continuity — affective substitutions, affective
subsumptions, and affective transitions. Just as an image with
generic meaning may, because of its reference to past situations
and judgments, take the place of varied image content in our
judgments and reactions, so certain affective signs may take
the place of specific emotional reactions. As the subsumption
of a particular image under a general concept gives to the
particular the cognitive predicates of the general, so the colour
ing of a specific emotion by a sentiment or mood gives to the
former the worth connotation of the latter. Finally, as a par
ticular image with generic meaning affords the basis of transi
tion from particular to particular, so the generic meanings of
affective states make possible affective transitions analogous to
logical judgment, giving rise to an " affective logic."

The phenomena of affective substitution have already been
described under the head of " affective signs." There it was
seen that relatively contentless and intensity-less phases of
affectivity could, as schematic meanings, take the place of
particular passions and emotions. On closer analysis it further
appeared that these substitutes might be of two kinds, either
a feeling following upon explicit assumption of an object (where
the assumption is a substitute for judgment) or the emotional
connotation of a general term, the feeling in this case following
upon implicit assumption, but connected either with judgmental
habit or with a mere verbal image.

The second group of phenomena, affective subsumptions,
has been presented in detail in two papers in the Psychological
Review." A brief restatement of the chief points of this discus-

1 Cf. pp. 105 ff.

2 "The Problem of a Logic of the Emotions and Affective Memory," Psychological
Review, Vol. VIII, Nos. 3 and 4.

122 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

sion will suffice. Two forms of this emotional unity or affective
subsumption were distinguished: (i) ethical sanction, and (2)
aesthetic appreciation. The characteristic of both of these phe
nomena is that certain particular emotional reactions are sub
sumed directly under sentiments, moods, or affective signs
without the mediation of intellectual relational judgments,
thus giving rise to wholly emotional unities. To these may
be added certain mystical religious states which represent the
extreme of emotional unity, with a minimum of presentational
content and judgment.

Ethical sanction of the emotional type is characterised by
the fact that some generic dominant emotional attitude having
acquired the transgredient reference of obligation, already
described, is " felt " to include more particular desires and
emotions, and to sanction them. Illustrations of this inclu
sion appear in such expressions as " holy " anger, " reverent "
fear or mirth. In such cases the immediate emotional re
action, the anger or mirth, is coloured by a presupposed senti
ment or mood. As will be shown in detail later, an actual
judgment- feeling is determined by a generic feeling- attitude,
which accompanies an ever-present implicit assumption. Of
interest in this connection is also the gradual assimilation of
marital under the maternal sentiment, described by Ribot,
for it frequently has the character of ethical sanction. These
phenomena have generally been described as mixtures of feeling,
resulting from the presence in the same unity of consciousness of
different images, but such a conception ignores, as we have
already seen, the difference in the functional character and
presuppositions of the two feelings. The justification of calling
them inclusions, rather than mixtures of feeling, is to be found
in the fact that the generic aspect of the total attitude gives its
meaning to the other aspect — sanctions it, in that it determines
its place in a system of worths. The generic feeling is, more
over, often without explicit image content.

The experiences in which this affective subsumption is
seen in its most complete form are certain cases of aesthetic ap
preciation and creation. An intuitive "unity in variety" has
always been recognised as a characteristic of the aesthetic mode,
but recently it has become apparent that such unity may be
almost exclusively emotional. The unity for appreciation
may be created and retained by inducing certain assumptions,
with their corresponding generic sentiments and moods, and by

The Continuity of Affective-Volitional Meaning 123

the arrangement of details of imagery in such a manner that the
feelings and emotions connected with this imagery may be
easily assimilated to the primary sentiment or mood. They
do not disturb the assumption, are not, in other words, " illusion-
disturbing." As extreme cases of this we may cite certain
impressionistic or symbolic styles where the general mood or
Stimmung is almost palpable, and can be easily segregated from
the emotional or feeling tones of the elements — whether words,
visual images, tones, or what not.1 Not only may the generic
feelings be distinguished from the feeling- tones of the elements,
but, like the sentiments of places, they may often be recalled,
and recognised without revival of the particulars.

On the other hand, such generic emotions, sentiments, or
moods, may be germinal to aesthetic creation, and the pro
cess of creation becomes, in such cases, a subordination or sub-
sumption of particular images under the general mood, accord
ing to their emotional values. On the side of active creative
expansion of sentiment and mood over particulars we have
the interesting account by Poe of the construction of the Raven.
He tells us that his starting-point was the purpose to express
the mood of melancholy. For this mood he found the charac
teristic refrain, Nevermore. His art then consisted in finding
particular images, such as the Raven, the locality of the poem,
etc., which had emotional tones that could be subsumed under

1 A striking illustration of this is that exquisite mood poem of Tennyson's The
Lotos-Eaters. All his technique of imagery and rhythm is expended, not only to
arouse the grey mood of forgetfulness and indifference, but to carry it on and on,
intensified and solidified, until it becomes the mood through which the very gods see the
world. That world includes many things which do not fit this mood, yet, like gods,

They smile in secret, looking over wasted lands.

Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,

Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships and praying hands.

And, although these rapid pictures suggest incipient emotional responses of another sort
than the dominant mood, they succeed each other so rapidly that it is all

Like a tale of little meaning, though the words are strong.

The general mood may become so strong that it will spread over all particular emotional
tendencies, provided the technique of expression is such as not to allow these particular
motor tendencies to get above a certain strength. In this case the technique consists in
the rapid piling up of the pictures, thus preventing the particular emotional suggestions
from getting in their full motor value. Experiments with people in the reading of this
poem have led me to the conclusion that if the mood of the poem is fully appreciated
before this passage comes, it may be subsumed under the dominant mood. Otherwise
the contrast is too great and the unity of the poem seems to be broken.

The technique of the Lotos-Eaters, when closely examined, shows that this subsump-
tion is furthered by the imagery and sounds employed in the poem. The former is
always in vague general terms, keeping out the particularised images which with their
intenser emotions would overcome the languor of the general mood. The resonances
are further damped by the careful use of vowel sounds : " Here are cool mosses deep "-
" the ivies creep" — " the long leaved flowers weep."

124 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

this mood. And he did not scruple, he tells us, deliberately to
tone down or exclude all imagery, the emotional intensity of
which was too great for the mood.1

The third group of phenomena, described as affective tran
sitions, comprises certain continuities in which transition is made
from one affective attitude to another through the medium of an
affective, rather than ideal or conceptual mean term. In such
cases the same phase of affectivity, i.e., the affective sign, which
we have seen in the role of substitute for particular emotion,
or as giving colour, through a kind of subsumption, to particular
emotions, becomes a mean term, connecting in one continuity
of meaning, particular emotions otherwise different in character.
The most characteristic forms of such emotional signs are the
residual feelings or abstracts that inhere in general terms and
their corresponding words, such as love, duty, God, etc. These
may function as transitional mean terms when there is no con
crete object of judgment toward which the feeling represented
by these words is directed. The objects of such feelings are
not definite presentations, but as in the case of objectless feelings,
already considered, vague universals — not the object of ex
plicit judgment, but of assumption. But while the emotional
suggestion of words is the typical form of transition, it is possible
that even the word embodiment may be lacking, and that the
vague mood or affective sign may determine worth attitude
without embodying itself in any presentation that analysis can
discover to be relevant. Full illustrations of such transitions
are given in the later paragraphs of this chapter.

2. The Psychological Theory of Generic Meanings-
Structural and Functional Analysis

The facts which give rise to this hypothesis of the existence
of the phenomena variously described as affective generals,
abstracts, or affective signs, and of a corresponding " affective
logic," are now before us. These facts are, in general, in favour
of the view that there are phases of affectivity in some way
different from the usual emotional reaction to a particular definite
situation, therefore (in our terminology), from the particular
feeling. They indicate also that these phases acquire recognitive

1 Poe The Philosophy of Composition ; also Paulhan, V Invention, p. 8l ; also
Ribot, U Imagination crtatricc, where Poe is classed as of the diffluente type of imagm:
tion, in which the unity is the emotional abstract.

The Continuity of Affective-Volitional Meaning 125

and generic meanings, which enable them to function as substi
tutes for particular feeling reactions. What, now, is the ground
for describing these phenomena as affective generals or abstracts ?
To answer this question it is necessary to develop a criterion
of abstraction and generalisation, and to show that these phe
nomena fall under such descriptive terms.

(a) The Nature of Generic Meanings of Ideas:
Imageless Apprehension.

Upon this problem, as it applies to the cognitive side of
experience, we are not without some definite conceptions.
We may, therefore, take our departure from the psychology
of general ideas in which the problems are fairly clear, and
in which some conclusive results have been obtained. With these
before us, we may then turn with some hope of success to the
similar problem in the sphere of feeling. The most important
analytical problem in the psychology of general concepts may
be stated in the following way. The general concept stands for
a meaning which has been acquired in the process of judgment ;
its functional correlate is, therefore, habit or judgmental dis
position. But this meaning is always the meaning of some
psychical content. What content can introspection discover
corresponding to this meaning ? If this content be looked for
m terms of images, the answer is given— there is no content, or
t is inadequate and irrelevant. The final question then is,' in
the words of Stout,1 how is " imageless apprehension " possible ?

Considering the phases of this problem in detail, we find
that for the most abstract concepts there is no image equivalent.
Words such as liberty, truth, force, may pass through our minds!
be intrinsically apprehended, and leave a trail of meaning, without
calling up specific images, and even when there are images, these
are often wholly irrelevant to the meaning. Moreover, in the case
of the most abstract terms, there may be judgments and subsump-
lons, which approximate to the habitual and automatic, in which
the subject finds no image content corresponding to the term.
Thus^to sum up the results of Ribot's investigation of general
ideas, he finds no characteristic content distinguishing the
formation of general ideas, and for the more abstract notions
no analysable content whatever. The conclusion is that the

* Stout, Analytical Psychology, Vol. I, chap. IV.
Ribot, The Evolution of General Ideas, chap. IV.

126 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

concept can be formulated only in functional terms and must
be relegated to the unconscious, which, on his principles, means
physiological disposition.

It is true that the criticism of Royce upon these conclusions
of Ribot — that the latter's investigations were concerned merely
with the most abstract notions, and that the poverty of his
results is due rather to the extreme simplicity and automatic
character of the judgments and reactions which the experimenter
used than to the absence of a psychical correlate, is well founded.
It is true, as he maintains, that when judgment takes place with
effort, after inhibition, in the attempt to assimilate some novel
particular, conscious experience of the process is present. Never
theless, even here, in the instrumental use of the concept, the
particular images called up are not adequate equivalents for
this consciousness of meaning, they are often irrelevant — and
besides, there still remains the intrinsic meaning of the term,
already described, which is present, when there is no inhibition,
and which, nevertheless, has no image equivalent. The problem
still remains to find some correlate for this consciousness — the
question still is : How is imageless apprehension possible ?

The approach to the solution of this problem has been but
gradual. As long as psychology failed to go beyond the
separate presentations and their external associations for prin
ciples of description and explanation, it could by no possibility
find any terms of description for this additional meaning. Judg
ments appear to be mere associations after disjunction, and the
general concept has no reality except as physiological dis
position. The nearest approach along the old lines was when the
equivalent of this " meaning " was found in a sort of composite
photograph of particulars, a blurred reproduction which is
susceptible of recall by a large number of presentations, and
which, in the process of recall, receives special emphasis upon
that aspect with which the new particular assimilates. But the
irrelevance of these images in some cases, and their total ab
sence in others, mark the limits of this conception. The attempt
of James to bring this " meaning " within the ken of psychology
by use of the metaphor of the psychic " fringe " or overtone
to describe our sense of the halo of relations about an
image, has been of great historical importance, but it was not
until there appeared a much wider extension of the concept
of content beyond the limits of an atomistic psychology, that
justice could be done to this suggestion. The condition of

The Continuity of Affective-Volitional Meaning 127

this extension was the recognition of the fact that between
content and function there is no fixed gulf, that what is function
on one level becomes conserved as content on a higher level — the
recognition, in short, of the genetic point of view. Now, func
tionally, we have seen, the general concept is a judgment-dis
position, an acquired meaning developed in the processes of
judgment, and, judgment being a developed form of conation,
the positive significance of the general concept is its instrumental
use as a means of conative unity and continuity.

The meaning or intent of a general notion is therefore
not the object of presentation at all. It is the object of judgment.
By becoming the object of judgment, however, it also becomes
a content of a higher order. This meaning, become content, is
therefore, as we have already seen, relatively independent of
particular presentations ; indeed, the particular presentations
may be wholly irrelevant, and the meaning may inhere in mere
words which, although they may, in their origin, have been
accompanied by associated images, are now wholly independent
of them.

Distinction between the Instrumental and Intrinsic Meaning
of the General Notion.

It is, however, quite possible to over-emphasise the instru
mental character of the general notion. This has been a notice
able characteristic of recent discussions. As a matter of fact,
psychological analysis must distinguish two types of meaning
of the general notion, genetically related to each other, an in
trinsic as well as an instrumental. Under the influence of sub
jective interests and dispositions, an aspect, which has already
recognitive meaning, is separated, abstracted from the object,
and in the interest of conative continuity is assumed to exist,
is given a quasi-existence. This assumption of the first explicit
type (arising in the semblant mode, and having schematic
meaning, to use Baldwin's terms) passes into judgment when
the assumed existence is acknowledged in a judgment relating
the quasi-real with the reals of immediate perception. But
there is also a function of the general notion in which its meaning
is intrinsic, as in the cases of imageless apprehension already
discussed, in which words such as truth, liberty, may leave a
trail of meaning in our minds without the presence of images.
The point of difference lies in the fact that the third stage of

128 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

the accommodative process has appeared. The judgment dis
position created by repeated judgments of an instrumental
character has given rise to the implicit assumption of the
second type. When the general concept contains this im
plicit assumption of existence, as in the case of the belief in
abstract truth as a reality, intrinsic meaning is hypostatised into
a reality. The fulfilment of such an assumption lies wholly in
the continuity of the intrinsic meaning, and not in its instru
mental reference to a particular situation. This meaning, for
which an " objective" is assumed to exist — at least until the im
plicit assumption is disturbed by new existential or truth judg
ments, is that which characterises contemplation. This is
the origin of all belief in the reality of general concepts. We
are not concerned here with the metaphysical validity of such
a belief, but merely with the psychological origin of this second
intrinsic meaning of the general concept, for we shall find a
similar distinction in the meanings of affective generals.1

(b) The Nature of Generic Meanings of Feelings.
Intensity-less Appreciation.

The answer to the question — how is imageless apprehension
possible ? — has led to a development of a positive functional
criterion of generalisation which supplements the negative
criterion of relatively imageless apprehension. The problem
of the psychical correlate of the meaning of the affective general
or abstract presents itself in a somewhat similar way. Here
the negative criterion is intensity-less appreciation, and the cor
responding question is, how is this intensity-less appreciation
possible, or if we use emotion in its limited sense of concrete
affective disturbance — how is emotionless appreciation possible ?

In the first place, it is important to emphasise the fact that
this lack of intensity is the characteristic attributed by those who
have made a study of the phenomena to the phases of affectivity

1 Thus, as Stout says of the conceptual "now," the word "now" may stand for the
moment of the specious present with its sensation content, for the now of an historical
epoch, of a year or a day with their varied ideal content. These are instrumental
functions involving judgment, and the relative constancy of the meaning of the con
ceptual "now" is not a function of the sameness of its content, but of the constancy of
the judgmental processes of which it is the objective meaning. The word " now " has a
meaning (as in the case of the other words studied) even when none of this varied con
tent is present, when it is founded merely upon the auditory or motor sensations which
make up the word. This is its intrinsic meaning, and here we have merely the vague
assumption of an objective for it, of an existence in which it inheres.

The Continuity of Affective-Volitional Meaning 129

variously described as affective sign, affective abstract or
general. When subjected to structural analysis, these feelings
are seen to differ from particular feelings in the fact that
they lack the intensity and multiplicity of organic sensations
which characterise the particular emotion. In the second
place, these phases of affectivity have a funded meaning which
is independent of increase or diminution of intensity. In
fact, the one criterion of these forms, however they be desig
nated (as recognised by Paulhan, Elsenhans, and Saxinger),
is that they are not subject to the law of diminution of in
tensity with repetition. In these descriptions, it is true, no clear
distinction is made between intensity and degree of meaning,
but a careful scrutiny shows that it is degree of funded meaning
which they find unmodified by repetition. On our view, which
identifies intensity with intensity of organic sensitivity, the term
intensity-less appreciation means that the degree of intensity of
the sensitivity in which the feeling is embodied is irrelevant for
the worth suggestion of the feeling. The question then is, how
can the meaning of emotional reactions remain after the particu
lar organic sensitivity, with its intensity, and the particular
percepts which called out the emotion have disappeared ?

Let us first examine these generic phases of affectivity more
closely. The existence of words, with cognitive meaning in
dependent of particular images, was the starting-point of the
analysis of the psychology of the general concept. Words with
emotional connotation, when there is no specific image or emotional
content, may properly be the starting-point for our study of
the affective abstract. With the emotional connotation of
words in its most patent aspects we are tolerably familiar.
Burke tells us that he found it " hard to persuade several that
their passions (a general term for feeling) are affected by words
for which they have no ideas," but that was at a time when a
purely intellectualistic psychology as well as art made im
possible a true perception of the facts. Certain forms of modern
art, as well as a more subtle and sophisticated analysis of our
own experience, make us now thoroughly cognisant of the general
fact. Ribot has taken as the most primitive type of emotional
logic (that is mental movement which has as its mean term
the emotional rather than the cognitive connotation of a term),
what he describes as the logic of persuasion or appeal.1 It is
" most primitive " because it diverges least from the conceptual

1 La logique des sentiments, Paris, Felix Alcan, 1905.

I3o Valuation: its Nature and Laws

logic- yet the transitions, while giving rise to the illusion of cog
nitive mean terms, are for the most part emotional.

But still more marked is the purely emotional connotati-
of words in their intrinsic appreciation, where they pass through
the mind, leaving a trail of appreciation without raising ideas
or definite emotional responses. Such use of words for tl
purely emotional connotation, as in symbolist poetry, Kit
has taken as a type of affective logic almost pure and
these intrinsic emotional appreciations of words 1
tones, so to speak, which Elsenhans takes as the basis f
conception of generalised emotions.

Words then may have an emotional connotation for whi
there is no adequate emotional content-equivalent and n<
adequate presentational presuppositions. But there are oth
generic phases of emotionalism which do not have even this
embodiment in words. Sentiments are almost wholly con
nected with words, but moods and affective signs may lac
even this embodiment. Of chief importance in this connect]
are the so-called sentiments or moods of places. Here a certain
feeling attitude, with definite recognitive meaning, includes in
it the funded meaning of past emotional reactions which, H
felt could be individually revived with the revival of the par
ticular presentations. This is also characteristic of the moc
we carry away from the reading of a poem, as illustrate
the Lotos-Eaters already referred to.1

From these illustrations it appears that, as in the
of imageless apprehension of cognitive meaning, so
intensity-less appreciation of affective-volitional meaning ther
are two types, the instrumental and the intrinsic. And this fact
underlies I think, the distinction frequently made between
affective generals and affective abstracts. In the case
the feeling with generic meaning functions as a substit
representative (either as recognitive of former particular emotion
or as anticipatory of concrete feeling situations), it may

outlines have long since, disappeared from °2£^^O?dS£Sto the whole of
impression," we make combination and tusic 01 : m> , j t its constituent

a supersensible intuition, which we but re luctan ^*&™ me !Lm have the writers

of its significance for the psychology of feeling.

The Continuity of Affective- Volitional Meaning 131

spoken of as abstract or instrumental. On the other hand, in
the case of sentiments of places, or sentiments attached to words,
the meaning is generic but intrinsic.

In all these phenomena what we have described as " intensity-
less appreciation " is the negative characteristic, and may be
said to be the negative condition of their generic character and
function. In the several cases we have considered — the emo
tional connotation of a word, representing repeated particular
judgment feelings of the past, the " affective sign " as mean
term of affective transitions, the generic and schematic sentiment
of places — all owe their generic and representative capacity to the
fact that, because of some specific difference in functional pre
supposition, they do not pass over into the full emotional res
onance which characterises the particular emotional reaction
to a definite situation. They are in the meaning of our terms
intensity-less appreciations. To account for this difference
in functional presuppositions is to account for these phenomena.

3. The Process of Affective Generalisation — Acquirement
of Generic Feeling.

With this analysis of the facts before us, it is now possible
to understand the process by which a concrete feeling-attitude
acquires generic meaning. Evidently the process has two
aspects, one describable in terms of change of function, and the
other in terms of modification of structure. On the one hand,
how does the meaning become independent of specific image
content and cognitive reaction ? On the other hand, how does
the funded meaning become independent of sensitivity and its
intensity ? The first aspect is evidently closely connected with
the second.

The process of acquirement of generic meaning, or of affective
generalisation, may be described as abstraction from the indi
vidual presuppositions of the feeling, and the substitution of an
assumption of existence for specific judgment. Feelings with
generic meanings are all assumption feelings, and their intensity-
less character may be ascribed to the different attitude toward
reality involved.

In understanding this proposition it is first important to note
that the acquirement of recognitive meaning is the beginning of
acquirement of generic meaning. The recognitive meaning, func
tionally viewed, consists in the fact that the feeling of the present

Valuation: its Nature and Laws

stands for an actual feeling of the past into which, it is believed,
it is convertible. It has a representative capacity. But this
same feeling, thus loosed from its immediacy by change of pre
suppositions from judgment to assumption, has also acquired
an anticipatory character, a reference to future actual judgment
feelings into which it can be converted. It is here that its
generic character is found. Such a feeling anticipates or repre
sents—not one definite actual emotional reaction with its unique
and individual presupposition— but a general situation which
may be specialised in various particular emotions according to
conditions. The derived forms of affectivity, sentiment, mood,
and still more, affective sign, have this recognitive and generic
meaning in varying degrees. In general, then, the rise of generic
meaning is conditioned by abstraction of feeling from its indi
vidual presuppositions and the substitution of assumptions.

But this generic meaning we have found to be of two types,
instrumental and intrinsic, and one of these, the intrinsic,
is closely connected with habit. Every assumption-feeling has,
as such a generic character, in that it is anticipatory of specific
judgment-feelings which it qualifies when they become actual-
ised. But, as we have already seen, there are two types of
assumption, the explicit and the implicit. The first is an
accommodation in the form of imaginative projection as deter
mined by subjective interest. The second is habit follow
ing upon repetition of judgment. The explicit assumption is
always anticipatory of judgment to come, and is therefore in
strumental. The implicit assumption and its feeling is 1
psychical correlate of judgment-disposition, and its meaning
is intrinsic. That which these two types have in common
is the important thing, and this is the fact that both are re
presentatives, affective signs, for actual situations in which
existence is presumed or explicitly acknowledged in judgment.
Their representative function is made possible through their
schematic, intensity-less character already described. Both may
therefore properly be characterised as abstractions, in that their
generic meaning is acquired through abstraction from individual
presuppositions and by the reduction of those aspects of feeling-
attitude which make them specific emotions or passions.

The difference between the two types lies solely in their
origin and function. There are two ways in which a feeling
is evoked by assumption: (a) imagination of the existence of an
object or class of objects, in which process the feeling becomes

The Continuity of Affective-Volitional Meaning 133

generic and schematic ; or (b) by repeated judgments passing
over into judgment habit and implicit assumption, when,
embodied in general terms, in mere words, it is an affective
sign for particular judgment-feelings.

Specific passions and emotions presuppose explicit judg
ment. Sentiments, moods, and affective signs may be realised
on the mere assumption of the object, the object being often
the merest and vaguest universal. Thus it is that these ab
stracts inhere in mere words. The words God, love, liberty,
have a real emotional connotation, leave a trail of 'affective
meaning, because they stand for an object which is implicitly
assumed to exist, an assumption generated by previous judg
ment reactions. Let, however, this assumption pass into
judgment, let the explicit judgment, I am free or not
free, this is or is not my duty, God exists or does not exist,
arise through some arrest of my habitual attitude, and again
passion and emotion appear with an intensity which is de
termined by the desire presupposed and the degree of arrest.
We may quite properly speak of the emotional connotation of
such words as the funded meaning of previous emotional re
actions and the affective abstracts which constitute the psy
chical correlates of this meaning as the survivals of former
judgment-feelings. These residual feelings may, from the point
of view of function, be described as affective abstracts precisely
because, while every particular emotional attitude presupposes
the apprehension and acknowledgment of the existence of a
particular object, the affective abstract, the " sign " of these
emotional attitudes may be experienced with all its worth
suggestion independently of the presupposition of the actual
feeling.

IV. GENERAL THEORY OF THE ROLE OF AFFECTIVE GENERALS
IN PROCESSES OF VALUATION— ILLUSTRATIONS

r. Criticism of the view that they do not determine particular
feelings, are not Feelings of Value.

A view in many respects similar to the preceding is the
theory of Phantasiegefuhle, feelings of the imagination, de
veloped by Meinong and Saxinger, and already referred to in
an earlier paragraph. This view demands a special examina
tion here for the reason that, while many of the facts of analysis

1 34 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

are true and while their explanation as assumption-feelings-
to which I owe many suggestions for the theory here developed-
is sound enough, nevertheless the conception of their role
the processes of worth determination is open to serious cnt

cism.

11. , c

In so far as introspective analysis is concerned, Saxmger
practically recognises the existence of such phases of affective-
experience as we have described under the terms affective
abstract and affective sign, but he gives them another explana
tion Elsenhans's generalisation and Ribot's abstraction
feeling have reference, he tells us, to the same emotional
phenomenon in different contexts. The generalised feelings
are feelings of imagination following upon assumption,
abstract feelings are feelings of imagination attaching directly
to "substrate-ideas." For these imagined feelings he finds i
necessary to assume the existence of dispositions entirely distinct
horn those presupposed by actual feelings, and accounts for 1
direct attachment of imagined feelings by assuming that
dispositions may be actualised by substrate-ideas or general
concepts, as well as by assumptions. Feelings of the imagina
tion differ from actual feelings in that their intensity is not
modified by repetition and in that the corresponding desires
of the imagination do not cease with fulfilment. The essential
characteristic of this view is to be found in the denial t
these feelings of the character of real feelings, and therefc
of feelings of value, for the reason that they are not actual,
but imagined feelings (ScheingefiMe) ; and in the denial, i
the second place, that these feelings influence, or are influence
by real feelings. This last point is the mam issue.

Saxinger's grounds for this view1 are both theoretical
and experiental. The theoretical may be dismissed in a few
words for they rest upon certain doubtful assumptions, and
in general upon a conception of feeling which we have foum
untenable. In the first place, it is assumed that feeling is wholly
subjective, wholly different from sensitivity, and
incapable of undergoing processes analogous to generalisation
and abstraction, incapable of acquiring recognitive and selective
meaning, a view which our entire analysis has led us t

i R. Saxmger, Beitrage zur Lehre von der emotionalen Phantasie ; Zt itschrift fur

^S^^ '

theorie und Psychologic, Leipzig, 1904.

The Continuity of Affective- Volitional Meaning 135

In the second place, and closely connected with this, is the as
sumption that intensity and degree of meaning of feeling are
identical, and that therefore the criterion of the real feeling
is diminution of intensity with repetition. Any phenomena
which do not follow this law must accordingly be, not real feelings,
but some sort of quasi-feelings which he describes as feelings of
the imagination. This criterion of real feelings we must also
question, in view of our previous analysis of feeling.

The facts of experience, on the other hand, upon which
he bases his conclusions, require closer examination. He
finds, as we do, these phases of affectivity similar to other
feelings in all respects, except that they do not have that
sensational intensity which characterises the so-called actual
feelings, and that, in their case, repetition does not affect their
meaning. These facts he accounts for in terms of their
difference in presuppositions. They are all assumption feelings,
having dispositions different from those which give rise to
actual feelings. He believes, moreover, that an examination
of the facts discloses an independence of real and imagined
feelings which makes necessary this hypothesis of different
and independent dispositions.

As to the question of fact, we may admit that much that
Saxmger has brought forward gives a certain plausibility to
tms view, but only, I think, when the facts are mis-interpreted.
Thus we may admit, for instance, the truth of his statement that,
while with time the feeling of sadness following upon the death
of some loved one may lose its sting, that is, may decrease
in intensity, it is quite possible that the joy in imagining the
existence of the departed loved one may, within limits, be un
affected by this dulling of the real feelings. We may also admit
the truth of his illustration where the father gets a certain
joy in imagining his son successful, while his feelings, determined
by the certain knowledge that his son is a failure, remain un
affected by the feelings of imagination following upon the as
sumption. A relative independence of these two phases of
experience, and the possibility of their existing together, cannot
be denied. But it would be a doubtful inference to conclude
that they are ultimately independent. Such independence is
the most only temporary. I am inclined to think that in
both cases the capacity for such feelings of imagination steadily
decreases with the recognition of the inevitableness of the
actual fact. In so far as my own introspection goes, with the

1 36 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

repetition of judgments of non-existence and their negative
worth feelings, the capacity, as well as the desire, for visual
isation and assumption of existence of the objects which give
rise to the feelings of imagination, weaken, and the former
feelings remain only as a mood or affective sign which a word
or name suggests. This does not, however, exclude the possi
bility of involuntary recrudescence of the imagined feeling under
certain favourable conditions of general mood or association.
The facts of unmediated revival of emotions, examined in the
study of affective memory, are too unequivocal to admit of such
denial.

Saxinger recognises, indeed, such cases of apparent in
fluence, both of assumption feelings upon judgment feelings
and judgment feelings upon assumption feelings, but thinks
that such influence is only apparent, and must be explained in
another way. The question arises in his discussion especially
in connection with the view of Witasek, that the feelings of
the imagination in aesthetic experience are influenced by the
actual sentiment or mood in which the subject is at the time
of the aesthetic experience. It is a well-known fact that some
moods and sentiments are completely antagonistic to these
feelings and emotions of art. Thus, if we are in a mood of de
pression, we cannot realise, even imaginatively, the joyous
feelings expressed by a work of art. In certain moods tragic
emotions are unreal and even absurd. Saxinger finds an ex
planation for these facts in the theory that we have here not
the influence of one feeling upon another, but the influence of
intellectual processes of judgment. Certain judgments, with
their accompanying feelings, make impossible the activities
of assumption, and therefore the feelings of imagination.
But precisely in this abstraction of the feelings from their in
tellectual presuppositions we have the weakness of the argu
ment. Throughout our study of feeling and desire we have in
sisted that an essential characteristic of the feeling or desire,
as the case may be, is its cognitive presupposition. Feelings,
as we have shown, do not determine feelings causally, nor do
feelings determine desire. All determination of affective-
volitional meaning is through change in cognitive presuppo
sitions. When, therefore, the presuppositions of one feeling
make impossible or otherwise influence the presuppositions of
another, we have influence of feeling upon feeling in the only
sense that such an expression has meaning.

The Continuity of Affective- Volitional Meaning 137

Finally, in discussing this influence of one type of feeling on
the other, Saxinger has not considered at all the case of those
phenomena, the affective signs of words, which he describes
as feelings of imagination attaching directly to " substrate-
ideas," and which, on our theory, are assumption - feelings
of the second type, where the assumption is implicit, following
upon presupposed judgmental habit. An examination of these
phenomena would have shown him that they constantly in
fluence his so-called real feelings and desires. Their influence
is seen in two significant situations : (a) where they act as im
pelling sentiments or affective signs, negating, inhibiting par
ticular desires and emotions ; and (6) in those cases of sub-
sumption of the ethical type where, giving their meaning directly
to a particular reaction of desire or feeling, without any mediating
associations, they increase its energy or affective-volitional
meaning.

Throughout his entire discussion of these phenomena Sax
inger has entirely failed to recognise the genetic relation of
assumptions of both types, explicit and implicit, to judgment,
a relation which the analysis of our first chapter made clear,
and which has been persistently emphasised in the discussions
that follow. Because of their genetic relations to particular
judgment feelings, these assumption feelings are representative,
both in a recognitive and anticipatory capacity, of actual feelings,
and determine them in ways already described, and to be
shown in more detail presently.1

2. The Role of Affective Generals in Worth
Determination.

How, then, shall we characterise the role of these phases
of affective experience in the continuity of affective-volitional
meaning ? If the results of this criticism of Saxinger are valid,
if these phases do determine actual feelings, that is, immediate

1 In this connection a paragraph from James's recent presidential address, The
Energies of Men, is suggestive. "As certain objects awaken love, anger, or
cupidity, so certain ideas naturally awaken the energies of loyalty, courage, endurance,
or devotion. When these ideas are effective in an individual's life, their effect is often
very great indeed. They may transfigure it, unlocking innumerable powers which, but
for the idea would never have come into play. 'Fatherland,' 'The Union,' 'Holy
Church,' the ' Monroe Doctrine,' ' Truth,' ' Science,' ' Liberty,' Garibaldi's phrase
' Rome or Death,5 etc., are so many examples of energy-releasing abstract ideas. The
social nature of all such phrases is an essential factor of their dynamic power. They are
forces of detent in situations in which no other force produces equivalent effects, and
each is a force of detent only in a specific group of men."

T,8 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

O

reactions to concrete situations, if the distinction between
real feelings and feelings of the imagination is not ultimate
but the result of a neglect of their genetic relations, and
finally the inference as to the existence of distinct dispositions
is not necessary, there is nothing in the way of our conception o
an affective logic." On the other hand, our structural analysis
"these Chases "(and our functional analysis of their origin) has
shown the validity of their description as generic forms <
affectivity, and affords a basis for the concept of affective logic
We may now seek to develop in more detail the quasi-logical
relation of these phases to the so-called actual feelings.

Our main proposition is that these affective generals and
affective signs are the bearers of a funded meaning which is
tndependen? of their intensity, and that they represent par-
ttTar feehngs-in relations of substitution, subsumptjon
and mediation-in the continuity of valuation. It b this
representative function which should be emphasised. Saxmger
recognises indeed, the representative character of feeling,
but do not see that this involves a real function in the pro
cesses of valuation. " Assumption-feelings," he tells us, take
the place of feelings of value. The objects are measured
according to their subjective worth when their existence „ non-
existence is assumed." Meinong ,s more alive to this real i
tion of the assumption feelings of the two types in he processes
of valuation. He makes a distinction between Werther
Werthalten, and recognises a subjective Werthcn in *e case of
assumption feelings and a more objective Werthalten
case of judgment feelings.1 He even goes so far as to give a
certain advantage to these representative feelings m the process
o valuation, m that they are often present when *e condmon
of judgment are impossible. The importance of these qu.
tlingf as he calls them, for the continuity of affective-volitional

e the function of affective

generals and affective signs in the following general
The assumption-feeling, whether a feeling following upon an
actual explicit assumption of the existence or ™";e^enc
of an object, or attached directly to a word or general
with its assumption of a corresponding objective, H con
nected with an habitual judgment wh.ch has passed ove mt »
an implicit assumption of existence, as m the case of

• Meinong, Utter Annahnun, Leipzig, 1902, *apter v.il, » 53, 54, 55-

The Continuity of Affective -Volitional Meaning 139

representative of our actual capacity for a particular worth
feeling in a particular situation. If the assumption is explicit
it tells us, in imagination, how we should feel in the actual situa
tion. Attached directly to a word or general concept, it stands for
a series of j udgment- feelings in the past. Attached to an habitual
judgment or belief of the present it is the representative of a
j udgment-disposition .

3. Illustrations of the Role of Affective Generals in Worth
Continuities.

This general statement may be made more explicit by
applying it to certain concrete cases of affective substitution,
subsumption, and transition, with which our studies began.
We may note especially the cases of ethical and aesthetic sub-
sumptions where a generic phase of emotion, sentiment, mood,
or affective sign gradually takes the place of particular ex
plicit emotion, and assimilates new emotional attitudes to it,
thus affording the basis for transitions of feeling.

In the case of ethical sanction we have a union of assumption
and judgment. All affective abstracts are as such, as " in
tensity-less appreciation," assumption-feelings, while judgment-
feelings are particular passions and emotions, and therefore
show the aspects of intensity and multiplicity of content. Now
in an ethical situation which is emotional an existential judg
ment is always presupposed and we have always a particular
passion or emotion. But we are familiar with changes of ethical
attitude where a new attitude becomes merged into an old, or
where the old remains as a qualifying or sanctioning undertone
of the new. Such cases we found in the phenomena of holy
anger, or of a sexual love becoming predominantly maternal in
its nature. Examination of these subsumptions (which we found
are not mixed feelings), shows the situation to be of the following
type. A new object, or new aspect of an old object, becomes
the object of an existential judgment, and therefore of a new
•emotion, while the old judgment does not immediately vanish,
but is represented by an assumption which has an affective
abstract as its correlate. In the case of holy anger the ex
istential judgment about God is in abeyance ; is for the time
represented by an assumption. The feeling corresponding to it
is an abstract, generic religious feeling, while the concrete object
is judged and reacted to emotionally. Now the importance

1 4o Valuation: its Nature and Laws

of the analysis lies in the fact that, while the resultant attitude
seems to be a fusion, as a matter of fact it is a real subsumption,
for it is on the basis of the capacity of retaining the assumption
that the union is possible. Should the attendant circumstances
of the anger be such as to suppress the underlying religious
assumption, the religious tone would faU out In the other
case the presence of the feelings of the wife and the mother in
the same attitude toward the husband, the existential judg
ments which call out the particular emotions are directed upon
aspects of the object which appeal to the maternal instinct,
but the disposition formed by the marital relation persists as
an undertone in a feeling which has a vague assumption as

presupposition.

One more illustration, one frequently used as an extreme
example of mixture of apparently opposing feelings, but whi
is really a limiting case of subsumption, will show the situation
clearly Rousseau's Confessions, which remains a classic
appreciative introspection, describes how the repeated
sumption that Madame Martens was his mother passed over
into a situation where mere imagination became almost betel,
and the correlated filial feelings followed. But when the
lation altered and became a liaison, at first the new feelings
were coloured by the sanctities of the old attitude which had
now passed back into an assumption. Such a colouring die
not he tells us, and indeed could not, last. The assumption,
with its accompanying feeling, was forced out, and in the pr<
cess he suffered the pangs of remorse. In this extreme case,
which indeed seems perhaps pathological, we have never
theless a type of the emotional logic or fallacy, as the case may
be which is characteristic of all ethical sanction or re-adaptation.
When, for instance, a man wakes to find his beliefs, which are
largely emotional, changed, it means simply that the old belief
has for a long time been merely an assumption which now at
last a new judgment has finally suppressed.

Esthetic subsumption is of a different type. Here the im
mediate object of the feeling attitude is merely presented, not
judged, although there are cases where judgments enter in as
partial presuppositions. In the cases of the Lotos- Eaters and
the Raven, already described, the actual objects of the pa
ticular feelings are all objects of presentation, not of judgment.
It would however, as we have shown, be superficial analysis tc
deny the presence of conation and desire, at least dispositionally.

The Continuity of Affective-Volitional Meaning 141

In these cases the disposition is represented by an assumption
in the one case of the existence of the desired rest, and in
the other of irrevocable fate. The mood in each case is the
affective correlate of the underlying assumptions. Now genetic
ally these assumptions are the products of previous actual
desires and existential judgments— only thus could the objects
of the assumptions have the interest to hold the esthetic at
tention, but the possibility of holding all the various particular
emotions in the unity of the mood is conditioned by the fact
that the mood modifies the feelings connected with the specific
imagery, arrests their tendency to pass over into specific actual
feelings, i.e., to acquire an intensity which would disturb the
aesthetic illusion.

CHAPTER VI

THE LAWS OF VALUATION

I LAWS OF VALUATION-THEIR NATURE AND RANGE
OF APPLICATION

r -

discovery of laws ac -g ; i J euivalence or

by the worth
are the laws governing the change rn acua ^

if the relation of the object to ts wo "n die and

and tins was certamly the cone us.ono our ^-^^ ^
if, further, some of these ,. ' . meanings of these

sensations or P-sen" at ™.~Sior all types

formulatlons

142

The Laws of Valuation 143

been made, although upon an inadequate analysis of worth
experience, and therefore have a definite place in worth theory
a critical examination of their foundations and the extent of
their application constitutes our first problem.

i. The Laws of Valuation applicable to Extra-Economic

Values.

These psychological laws have been sought primarily by
the science of economics for the purpose of measuring the prefer-
ability of one object over another within a restricted' field of
goods. The method of investigation is to study the laws of
preferabihty growing out of the laws governing the consumption
! separate goods by an individual— i.e., the laws of subjective
value— on the assumption, made, apparently, by most writers in
:onomics, that these values are unmodified by the individual's
participation in the economic activities of a group. The laws
of objective value may then be developed from the laws of
subjective value. In general it may be said that this means of
imphfying the problem has justified itself in the results attained
m investigating the larger problem of valuation in general
shall first study the laws governing the worth feeling of
the individual apart from those complications introduced by
participation in the worth feelings of others, leaving this aspect
I the problem to be treated separately in another place.

.he investigation of the laws of valuation has been described
as a larger problem than that contemplated by the economic
ctnne of consumption. The meaning of this will appear
when we reflect that, while valuation is feeling-attitude toward
:ts in general, physical and psychical, economic valuation
oncerned only with those feeling attitudes towards objects
nation of which is conditioned by consumption. Consump-
pn is but a special case of appreciation. Although other modes
>i appreciation, such as the ethical and aesthetic, may enter in to
ify the worths of consumption, and thus to change the total
i or funded meaning of the object, they are nevertheless
tly speaking, no longer worths of consumption. The general
m appreciation, includes, therefore, besides the worth feelings
ch arise in the process of consumption of physical goods
ler feelings which have as their objects psychical qualities of a
higher order, growing out of the physical objects by processes of
^eptual and ideal construction. Such are the esthetic worths

144 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

imputed to a feast as the result of arrangement of the objects of
consumption in an harmonious manner. Such also are the values
which we describe as cleanliness and thrift, objects of appre
ciation which emerge in processes of consumption, and which,
although qualities inhering in these processes, may nevertheless
be abstracted from them and become the objects of appreciation.
The laws of valuation must take into account the laws govern
ing the change in worth feelings corresponding to these different
types of objects.

But valuation, and therefore its laws, must include a wider
range of feelings than these. Out of the elementary processes
of consumption and appreciation are developed other ideal
objects and constructs (not objects of sensation and presentation
at all, but merely of j udgment and assumption) , which may both
modify the primary worths of appreciation and also come to be
independently valued. The worth of an object of consump
tion, as it is being enjoyed, may be modified by instrumental
judgments as to its utility for other purposes, or by judgments
regarding its exchange value as determined by reference to
its demand by other subjects. Likewise the simple "condition "
worths of appreciation, cleanliness and thrift or other qualities
of this nature, may become the objects of a new type of feelings
when they are acknowledged as attributes of the self ; they
become psychical objects of personal worth. Our feeling of the
worth of these psychical objects may be further modified in a sig
nificant manner by subsidiary judgments regarding the existence
of these objects in social groups or in society at large, in some
cases heightened by judgment of their absence.

All these facts lead us to recognise the extent of the phe
nomena which the laws of valuation must include in their
generalisations, the variety of objects of worth feelings, and the
variety of processes and attitudes which these feelings pre
suppose. Our problem, from the standpoint of a general theory
of value, is to examine the psychological laws of feeling and
its modifications, developed for the purposes of economics, and
to determine the extent of their application to other types and
objects of valuation.

The Laws of Valuation 145

2. Laws of Valuation as Laws of Affective-Volitional Meaning —
Classification and Interpretation.

These psychological laws may in general be described as
laws of relativity of worth feeling. They are formulae describing
the modifications in worth feeling following upon modifications
of the dispositional presuppositions of the feeling. The first,
the law of the Threshold, states the fact that the power of an
object, or rather of a given quantity of an object, to call out
worth feeling and judgment, is a function of a disposition created
by previous feelings. The second, the law of Diminishing
Value, is a statement of the fact that the change in the capacity
of an object for valuation is a function of the effect of previous
worth feelings. Quantity of actual feeling, whether in the form of
repeated reactions or of intensity of a single reaction, diminishes
the capacity of the disposition for further actualisation in the
form of explicit feeling and judgment. The third law, that
of Complementary Values, is a formula for the description of
the modification of the capacity of an object for calling cut
worth feeling, as determined by the combination of the primary
object with other objects. Under certain conditions the working
of the law of Diminishing Value is thus modified and the value
of the object increased.

The interrelation of these laws is apparent. The threshold
of worth judgment is determined by both the second and third
laws. The second law, working alone, has the effect of raising
the threshold, but this effect is modified by the factor intro
duced by the third law. It is, accordingly, the effect of these
laws in determining the value, or affective- volitional meaning,
of different types of objects that constitutes the ultimate
object of their study. They are further interrelated in that
they constitute the laws, formulate the conditions, of psychical
progression or value movement. Movements to new objects, or
changes in attitude toward old objects, of desire and feeling are
to be interpreted in terms of these laws.

Finally, it is to be observed that these laws are descriptive
formulas for the effect of actualisation of a disposition, in actual
feeling, upon the strength of the disposition presupposed, and
therefore upon its capacity for further actualisation. When
this is recognised, the importance of our preceding analysis
of the presuppositions of worth feeling, the types of acts through

1 46 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

which feelings are actualised, becomes apparent. The actual
effect of these different presuppositions, presumptions, judgments,
assumptions, upon the feeling, and its corresponding disposition,
is a problem for specific analysis. It is only in the case of dis
positions corresponding to the feeling-tone of sensation that
the relation can be conceived as one of direct causal stimulation.
In the case of feelings of value the relation is of another type,
and the underlying dispositions must be clearly distinguished.

II. THE LAW OF THE THRESHOLD — ITS GENERAL

MEANING

With these general considerations in mind, we may turn
to a study of the first principle of relativity of worth feeling,
that which we have described as the principle of the Threshold.

In general this principle is an expression of the fact that
the power of an object to call out a feeling of worth, or a feeling
of worth difference, depends not upon the object alone, but
upon the feeling or conative dispositions of the subject as well.
If this principle is put into quantitative form, the question
relates to the least quantity of the object which will produce
a modification in the feeling of worth. The importance of this
principle is obvious. All worth theory is concerned with the
determination of the principles of relative preferability of objects,
that is their relative importance or affective- volitional meaning.
In order that such degrees of preferability may be established,
it is necessary that fixed starting-points for such estimation
should be found at the limits of relative worth, i.e. where
relative worth passes over into worthlessness on the one
hand, or into absolute unlimited worth on the other. These
upper and lower limits of relative worth we may, on the
analogy of the laws of intensity, call the upper and lower
thresholds.

This concept of limits has been defined with accuracy for
the limited sphere of consumption and utilisation. The upper
and lower limits of valuation in this sphere have been described
respectively as the " existence-minimum " and the " final
utility."

But that this concept of limits is susceptible of extension,
of a much wider range of application in worth analysis and theory,
a very superficial reflection makes evident. The objects of
worth judgment, we have seen, may be physical objects of

The Laws of Valuation 147

consumption, or qualities of these objects for appreciation ;
they may be psychical objects, such as acts of persons, or
affective-volitional dispositions expressed by those acts. If we
take the second group of objects, acts and dispositions pre
supposed by these acts, and consider the ethical judgments
called out by them, we find that the same act, or the amount
of disposition disclosed by that act, may have worth or be
worthless according to the disposition presupposed in the sub
ject of the judgment. Thus, as an object of personal worth it
may rise above the threshold of value, when it has not reached
the minimum required to call out the social moral judgment.
So, also, a given act may call out a judgment of disapproval,
personal or social, when it is not sufficient to rise above the
threshold of legal judgment. There are thus, so to speak,
qualitatively different thresholds marking off the different spheres
of meaning in which the judgments are made. To these cor
respond different modifications of feeling, the actualisation of
which requires different types of objects or different amounts
of the same object. This fact finds illustration even in the
case of objects of strictly economic valuation. A physical
object of mere condition worth, the value of which consists
solely in its capacity of satisfying some desire of the senses, may,
with increase or decrease in amount, call out feelings and judg
ments of possession or of instrumental value which modify the
worth feeling, not only in the direction of degree, but also by
introducing new aspects of quality.

From these facts several important consequences follow.
In the first place, by discovering the upper and lower limits of a
given type of valuation — the boundaries within which differ
ences of worth are determined wholly by differences in quantity
of the object, we are enabled to mark off the different levels of
valuation. The qualitative thresholds mark the limits of these
regions. Thus we shall distinguish thresholds of condition
worth of appreciation, thresholds of personal worth of charac
terisation, and thresholds of social worth of participation and
utilisation. In the second place, in determining these limits and
their mutual relations, we have a basis for the analysis, not only
of the laws of preference within a given sphere of meaning,
but also of the laws of value-movement from one sphere of
meaning to another, and therefore the laws of preference of
one type of objects over another.

The different levels of valuation and the different objects

148 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

of value are the products of perceptual and ideal constructions
in the process of acquirement of meaning. While the thresholds
represent conceptual limits within which the valuation of a
given type of objects moves, they nevertheless correspond to
actual appreciatively recognisable differences in feeling-atti
tude, determined by difference in presuppositions. A genetic
study of these presuppositions, and therefore of the expecta
tions or demands to which they give rise, will enable us to fix
the limits of these demands.

With this understanding of the larger significance of the
concept of the threshold in worth theory, we may now return
to a detailed study of the psychology of the economic threshold
of condition worths.

2. Economic Thresholds — The Existence-Minimum
and Final Utility.

The limits within which the relative valuation of an object
of condition worth moves may be described as the " existence-
minimum," and the point of " final utility."

The minimum of existence is that conceptual point at which
absolute value passes over into relative value. Until the mini
mum of a given good which is necessary to existence is reached,
there can be no estimation of relative value, for any quantum
of the good has absolute value and is capable of calling out
indefinite sacrifice. The good has no substitute, and it is only
among goods with " capacity of substitution " that relative worth
or degrees of preferability can be established. The upper threshold
of relative value in consumption is, then, the first increment of
satisfaction which rises above the indispensable minimum. The
psychological meaning of this concept of the upper threshold
is to be found in the fact that until this point is reached the
entire personality is involved, that is, about the fundamental
want or desire, whether it be for food or warmth, or any other
object, the entire system of conative tendencies is concentrated,
through arrest of the fundamental desire, and is directed toward
the one object. When the minimum of existence is reached, and
the tension or arrest of the fundamental tendency is relaxed, the
estimation of worth becomes relative, that is, each successive
increment of the good is estimated with reference to the im
portance of the isolated particular wants and desires. It need
scarcely be said that for many goods there is no such upper

The Laws of Valuation 149

threshold or minimum of existence. They find substitutes or
otherwise cease to be desired long before this point is reached,
but their place or relative importance in a system of values is
determined by their relations to certain fundamental goods
without capacity of substitution, relations which become
apparent as soon as our habitual valuations are disturbed and
we are forced to ultimate preferences.

The lower threshold, or the point of final utility, is again
that conceptual point at which the minimum of worth tends to
pass over into worthlessness. It is the smallest quantity of the
good which has the capacity of satisfying the least important
of the subsidiary wants or purposes of the subject. Psycho
logically expressed, it corresponds to the most remote of the
subsidiary conative tendencies connected with the fundamental
to which the good ministers. Now, whether any such point
of final utility actually exists in any concrete experience or not,
it is, like the minimum of existence, at least an ideal limit useful
in describing actual processes of valuation.1

In the case before us — which is concerned with the instru
mental values of economics, and therefore with worth feelings
which have as their presuppositions, in addition to judgments
of existence and non-existence, subsidiary utility judgments,
it is clear that these points represent limits of relative instru
mental valuation. Thus the lower threshold, the quantum of
minimal worth, represents that point at which the judgment of
its existence or non-existence has the least importance, that is
where, with this judgment, goes an instrumental judgment
referring it to the least significant purpose. Any quantity
below that is worthless, or is valued, if at all, in some other
attitude, i.e., intrinsically. Thus to the rich man the small coin,
a penny, may be instrumentally worthless, while as a part of an
individualised whole, his wealth, it may have an intrinsic worth.

1 The use of the term Final Utility in this way requires some explanation and perhaps
apology. As introduced by Jevons, and employed by economists generally, it describes
the intensity of desire satisfied by the last increment of a commodity purchased or con
sumed, i.e., last in any given process of acquisition or consumption, and may fall far
short of the hypothetical last increment before worthlessness is reached. It is therefore
only relatively final and is identical with the concept of Marginal Increment or Marginal
Utility which is now gradually displacing it. Since, however, Final Utility in this
sense is held to be determined by the law of Diminishing Utility, according to which the
value of any stimulus is the degree of satisfaction obtained by its last repetition, and
therefore varies with the amount or rate with which the stimulus is furnished, final
utility as marginal tends to become identical with final in the sense of minimal value.
The very fact that the somewhat inept use of the term as identical with Marginal Utility
is passing into disuse, may perhaps serve as an excuse for the special application made
of it in this connection.

150 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

The point of minimal or final utility is, then, the psychological
point where all relative instrumental judgments fall away or at
least are not called out. The minimum of existence, on the other
hand, the point where relative valuation passes over into absolute,
is psychologically the point of arrest or suppression of all instru
mental j udgments, where value becomes intrinsic. We have at this
point the extreme of arrest, and, as a consequence, concentration
of all subsidiary tendencies or dispositions about the funda
mental. The feeling, in this case passion, has all the acquired
meaning of the other dispositions, but it is implicit and immediate,
all relative judgments being suppressed.1

There are two points, therefore, at which relative and instru
mental value passes over into intrinsic : (a) the upper threshold
where the value becomes practically absolute ; and (6) the lower
threshold, where minimal worth passes into worthlessness
unless the minimum in some way acquires intrinsic worth.
The first of these situations we may easily understand. The
transgredient reference of the feeling to presupposed conative
dispositions has become an impellent mode of quasi-obligation.
Desire and feeling are unconditional, undetermined by any specific
particular end. Here, we shall find later, arise certain quasi-
obligatory feelings even in the sphere of economic values. The
other situation — where the object which is worthless or below the
lower threshold of instrumental value, acquires intrinsic worth,
requires more detailed analysis.

1 This concept of upper and lower limits of relative valuation has been developed
for the purpose of making possible descriptive formulce for concrete worth attitudes.
To what extent do these conceptual points correspond to concrete situations ?
What are these situations in terms of our analysis? Have they actual correlates
or are they purely conceptual? It is obvious that, although possible, concrete
psychological dispositions represented by the conceptual points are rarely actual
moments in experience. We approach them, but they always tend to remain ideal
limits. In what sense then do they enter as actual determinants into experi
ence? Do they at all? They do, it would appear, and in this way. Although the
actual feeling correlated with these thresholds is scarcely realisable, for the limiting
judgments which constitute their presuppositions are largely hypothetical, nevertheless
such judgments are frequently represented by assumptions, and the feelings following
upon these assumptions complete the worth series. Of this concept of the substitution
of assumption feelings, as affective signs in the continuity of real valuation, we shall
make important applications later. Here it is necessary merely to note the phenomenon,
and to observe that while these substituted feelings lack the intensities which they would
have in real situations where the presuppositions are existential judgments, they have
nevertheless the worth suggestion, in this case the transgredient reference, which gives
them a functional place in actual valuation.

The Laws of Valuation 151

3. Modification of the Lower Threshold through Acquired Meanings
— Complementary Values.

The acquirement of intrinsic worth on the part of an object
or quantity of an object, in itself below the threshold of value,
must be viewed as a modification of feeling brought about by
inclusion of a new presupposition. It is already apparent that
an object, the mere existence of which does not call out worth
feeling may rise above the threshold when it is related through
instrumental judgment to other worth objects and their feelings.
It is also true — and this is the phenomenon with which we are
here concerned, that a worthless object may acquire intrinsic
value through relation to an individuated whole which is as
sumed to exist, and which has intrinsic value. Such acquired
values may be described at complementary, and to the more
detailed study of such values we shall devote a later section.
Here we may content ourselves with a study of the manner in
which they modify the threshold. In the case cited, the simple
intrinsic appreciation of the penny, when it has no instrumental
worth for the subject, is a worth feeling with presuppositions
different in certain important points from the threshold of in
strumental worth, namely, in the subsidiary presuppositions.
In the place of the instrumental judgments and their feelings,
which the object in itself does not call out, there enters as a
substitute an assumption-feeling, having as its presupposition
an envisaging, and momentary assumption of existence, of wealth
as an individualised whole, of which the minute object, though
instrumentally worthless, is a part. That which raises the
minute object above the threshold of value in such a case is not
the intensity of the immediate feeling, but the subsumption of
the judgment-feeling under the assumption-feeling described.

A like phenomenon is observable in other regions of valua
tion than the economic. Thus in the ethical sphere we frequently
find that the theft of a pin, or some other minute commission
or omission, although utterly insignificant instrumentally, may
call out feelings of intrinsic worth or ww-worth. Here, again,
it is not the mere existence or non-existence of the act which
calls out the worth feeling, but the subsumption of the act
under the general concept imputes to the act all the worth
suggestion of the affective abstract which the assumption of the
existence of the object, corresponding to the concept, involves.

152 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

Similarly, in the sphere of the aesthetic, we shall find that
an element, worthless in itself, may, as part of an intuitively
individuated whole, acquire the value of the whole. The
feeling may be said to expand to include the element in
itself worthless. With the characteristics of intuitive individu-
ation and with the nature of complementary aesthetic values
we are not here concerned. It will be sufficient to note that
even in the region of economic objects of condition vorths
this law is at work. In certain quasi-aesthetic combir.ations
of utilities — as in a festal meal or the style of a suit of raiment
—a detail, valueless in itself, as a single utility, may acquire
an extraordinary value.

From the illustrations before us the general principle is
apparent, that an object below the threshold of value may become
the object of intrinsic valuation when there is imputed to it
the worth which comes with the assumption of the existence
or non-existence of an individuated whole of which it is a part.
The ordinary explanation of this fact is in terms of association,
the rise above the threshold being conceived as due to a sum
mation of minute dispositional feelings below the threshold,
aroused through the stimulation of dispositions associated with
the affective disposition corresponding to the primary object.
This concept of mere summation, which is inevitable, when
worth feeling is defined as pleasure, is, however, untenable.1
The modification of worth feeling which follows upon the
intrinsic ethical or aesthetic valuation of the object, is not
a summation of hypothetical feeling elements, but a new
total feeling following upon an apprehension of a new-founded
object either conceptual, or, as in the case of the aesthetic, in
tuitively given, which is the object of assumption. We are
concerned here with a phenomenon of subsumption of feeling,
not summation, with a change in cognitive presuppositions,
not change in stimulation. The worth threshold, in contrast
to the simple hedonic, must be viewed as cognitive in character.

4. The Independent Variability of Hedonic and Worth
Thresholds.

The threshold of value, whether of simple appreciation with
its intrinsic reference or of utility with its instrumental refer-

1 Hoffler, Psychologic, Yienna, 1897, p. 448.

The Laws of Valuation 153

ence, has, it will be seen, a cognitive character, which dis
tinguishes it from the merely hedonic threshold. The con
fusion of these two conceptions, a procedure fairly common
in worth analysis and theory, has led to serious fallacies which
can be avoided only by insistence upon this point. The inde
pendent variability of worth feeling and of pleasantness and
unpleasantness, already pointed out in a preceding chapter,1
is further confirmed by our study of the worth threshold. For
it is possible that, as Kriiger pointed out, an object may call
out a fleeting pleasantness or unpleasantness or momentary
impulse without crossing the threshold, and it is, on the other
hand, equally possible for an object to rise above the worth
threshold without an appreciable affective disturbance.

As an illustration of the first possibility we may consider
the case, an entirely possible one certainly, where a trivial
musical phrase in its aspect of mere auditory stimulation (or,
still better, a momentary organic sensation) may call out a fleeting
pleasantness or unpleasantness which does not reach the point of
worth judgment. We are conscious of the hedonic change, but
there has not been that totalisation of affective attitude through
cognitive reference to the object which constitutes the pre
supposition of worth feeling. The second possibility, the rise
of an object above the worth threshold without accompanying
pleasure causation, is illustrated by the many cases where a
disposition to worth judgment has been formed on the basis of
immediate pleasure-causation, and where the judgment of the
existence of the object then calls out worth feeling even when
the object fails, although sensed or presented, to give pleasure.
Thus when the point of satiety has been reached, it frequently
happens that actual enjoyment of the object (of taste, for in
stance), or imaginative presentation of its enjoyment, is no
longer accompanied by pleasure, but the judgment that the
object still exists, or that it does not exist, may call out feelings
of value.

This principle of the independent variability of the simple
hedonic and worth thresholds is further substantiated when we
turn from the stimulus-threshold to the threshold of difference.
There may be appreciable differences in the hedonic intensity
without changes in worth feeling, and changes in the worth
attitude without appreciable changes in hedonic intensity.
For the first of these possibilities a simple illustration will suffice.

1 Chapter in,

Valuation: its Nature and Laws

In the apprehension of an object, more especially a work of art,
we may distinguish between the emotional attitude toward the
object as a whole, and the particular affective tones of the ele
ments as attention passes from one phase to another,
there 'may be appreciable changes in feeling-tone which are
sufficient to lead to movement from one aspect to another
in readaptation of attention, but not sufficient to lead to that
readaptation of judgmental attitude which is presupposed in
value movement-or in change of worth attitude toward the
object as a whole. Similarly, repeated acts of apprehension may
lead to appreciable changes in feeling-tone, due to fatigue of the
nervous dispositions connected with sense stimulation, without
necessarily leading to a change in worth attitude, that is t
change in cognitive presuppositions presupposed in such change
of attitude. The worth feeling toward the object, founded
these elements of presentation, presupposes another disposi
tion These phenomena, we shall find, are of considerable
importance when we come to consider the second law

valuation.

A similar situation exists in the case of economic feelings oi
value that is where the feeling follows upon instrumental judg
ments. Let us take the concrete case of an individual in the
enjoyment of any object which causes pleasure. With
the total attitude, which may vary in time length,
may be appreciable differences in pleasure, as, for instance,
in the consumption of a food, without cognisable change
in valuation until there has entered a change of attitude that
a change in the judgment presuppositions of the feeling, through
the judgmental reference of the object to other purposes, 1
purposes of the future, etc. Here again cognisable differences
in worth feeling do not coincide with the least perceptil

donic changes.

The second possibility— variation in the worth attitude with
out variation in intensity of pleasure-may also be illustrate
from the sphere of feelings of economic value. From the poii
of view of pleasure it is a matter of indifference whether, beside
the quantity of the object being enjoyed, other objects c
same nature exist or do not exist, but for the worth feeling it
is of considerable moment. The inclusion within the presuppo
sitions of the feeling attitude of such accompanying judgments
may bring about a cognisable difference in the feeling of value,
while the feelings of simple pleasure remain the same.

The Laws of Valuation 155

In these phenomena of difference in variability of the threshold
of difference for pleasure-causation and the threshold of differ
ence for feelings of value, we have a situation analogous to
that which has been pointed out in the sphere of sensation and
perception. It has been argued that there also a distinction
must be made between the threshold of difference for sensation
and for perception. Within limits a stimulus may be varied
without producing an appreciable difference in the object cog
nised. There is a difference for sensation, but not for per
ception. This means that the perception of difference involves
the acquirement upon the part of the sensations of a meaning
which expresses itself in readaptation, in modification of attitude
in the form of judgment. Between these changes in meaning,
or attitude, are changes for sensation which are not significant
for cognition.1 In a somewhat similar way it may be said that
worth feeling and feeling of worth difference belong to the cogni
tive level, i.e., are emotion, sentiment, and mood, and not the
hypothetical element of pleasure. There may, therefore, con
ceivably be change in the hedonic redundancies without any
change in the value reaction. This means, simply, that varia
tions may be superficial in the sense that they do not involve
any totalisation of consciousness in a unitary affective attitude.
They do not penetrate into or involve the personality.

The formulation of this distinction — between the hedonic
and worth thresholds, involves important consequences for
our theory. For, the fact having been established that the
rise of an object above the threshold of worth or worth differ
ence involves cognition of affective-volitional meaning, trans-
gredient and immanental reference, and therefore judgment or
assumption as presuppositions, it will now be necessary, in ex
amining the psychological laws operating to modify these thresh
olds, to study each type of worth feeling for itself, and to
refuse to extend uncritically the laws modifying pleasure-
causation, and therefore the hedonic threshold, to worth feeling
and the perception of worth differences in general.

1 Stumpf, Tonpsychologie, Vol. I, p. 33. Also Stout, Analytical Psychology, Vol. I,
p. 48, and Manual of Psychology, p. 120.

156 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

III. THE LAW OF DIMINISHING (OR LIMITING) VALUE : CRITICAL
STUDY OF ITS PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS — INTERPRETATION

i. Its Historical Significance.

The preceding study of the concept of the threshold of value,
and its relation to the hedonic threshold, has made it clear
that for an object to call out a feeling, or a feeling of difference,
of worth or value, a change in its cognitive presuppositions
is necessary. Whether in a given psychological situation
a given object or quantity of an object will rise above the thresh
old of worth feeling, or feeling of worth difference, depends
upon the attitude or disposition (conative and judgmental)
created by previous valuations. The problem immediately
arises as to the existence of definite laws governing this rela
tivity, whether any factors can be discovered which modify
in a uniform way the dispositional presuppositions of worth
feeling, and thus the worth feelings themselves.

The theory of value developed for the purposes of economics
has formulated a law of relativity for utility in consumption,
basing its formulation upon the psychological laws governing
the modification of " sensation-feelings " and their corresponding
dispositions. The factors of frequency of stimulation, quantity
of stimulation, and limitation of capacity for stimulation, in pro
ducing the effects of habit, or dulling of sensitivity and of satiety,
afford the psychological basis for the general law of Diminishing
Value and for the more specific law of Marginal Utility connected
with it. On the assumption that all feeling of value is identical
with pleasure, it would follow that this law of relativity would
apply to all types of worth feeling.

But on this point there is difference of opinion. Thus, on
the one hand, we find Ehrenfels contending for an extension of
the principle of Grenz-nutzen to a more general principle of
Grenz-frommen, while Kreibig maintains that this principle is
a special formulation of the general law of relativity, applicable
only to the limited sphere of the instrumental values of economic
goods. It is clear that the answer to this question depends
upon the more fundamental problem — whether these psycho
logical factors which affect the dispositions underlying feel
ings of pleasure act in precisely the same manner upon the
conative and judgmental presuppositions of worth feelings,

The Laws of Valuation 157

whether habit and satiety which correspond to the factors of
repetition and quantity have the same functional meaning for
worth feelings as for pleasure-causation. These questions can
be answered only in the light of a psychological analysis of
these factors.

As a preliminary to this analysis we must examine more
fully the formulation of this principle of relativity, and bring
to light the psychological assumptions upon which the law
rests. The first formulations go back to Bentham and Ber
noulli.1 The problem of Bentham was the relation of wealth
to happiness, and it arose in connection with the question of
the relation of the distribution of goods to his " greatest-happi
ness " principle. As a result of his analysis, he develops, in
the Panomial Fragments, the following principle which he dignifies
with the name of an axiom : " The effect of wealth in the produc
tion of happiness goes on diminishing as the quantity by which the
wealth of one man exceeds that of another goes on increasing ;
in other words, the quantity of happiness produced by a particle
of wealth (each particle being of the same magnitude) will be
less and less at each particle ; the second will produce less than
the first, the third less than the second, and so on." The com
mon element in his various formulations of the principle may
be expressed in the following way. The minimum of existence
being assumed as given, when this quantity of the good increases
in any constant relation, happiness, the primary worth, increases,
other things being equal, within certain limits, but not in the
same proportion ; rather is the rate of increase of happiness in
relation to wealth a constantly lessening one, although Bentham
does not formulate any law governing the rate of decrease.
Bernoulli's famous law also assumes the minimum of existence,
and he finds, as does Bentham, the increase of happiness, in
proportion to the increase of wealth, a constantly lessening
quantity. Bernoulli goes beyond Bentham, however, in attempt
ing to formulate the law quantitatively. Happiness is conceived
to grow in arithmetical proportion as the quantity of wealth
increases geometrically. Finally Gossen, under whose name
the law of Diminishing Value has largely entered into Political
Economy, formulates the law in the following words, thus
leading up to the concept of marginal or final utility : " With

1 For a general sketch of the history of these formulations see Kraus, Zur Theorie des
Wertes .Halle, 1901, chap, iv ("Grundlagen der modernen Werttheorie"). especially
pp. 58-69.

158 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

the increase of the quantity of the object the worth of each
additional increment must suffer deciease until finally zero is
reached " ; or, again, " The first increment of an object of value
has the highest worth, the second less worth, until finally worth-
lessness is reacheckfcdt

These formulations of the law of Diminishing Value all
agree in the genera, conception that the satisfaction of desire
or pleasure, when it is increased quantitatively, finally results
in the loss of capacity for that desire (and with it feeling) —
and, therefore, in movement of desire to new objects, and the
formation of new dispositions. For this reason, in view of the
functional aspect of the law, as a cause of new adaptations, we
shall describe it henceforth as the law of Limiting Value.

2. Psychological Basis of the Law — The more General Laws of
(a) Dulling of Sensitivity with Repetition, and (b) Satiety —
Critical Study.

When we seek for the psychological basis of the law, we find
that all these formulations of Bentham, Bernoulli, and Gossen
alike, assume the identity of worth feeling with pleasure,
and therefore the dependent variability of the two. All that
was necessary, therefore, to establish psychologically this
general principle of relativity was an appeal to the laws
governing the physiological conditions of sensitivity to pleasant
ness and unpleasantness. Bentham definitely based his formu
lation of the principle upon the more fundamental psycho-
physical laws of dulling of sensitivity through repetition and
habit, satiety, and limitation of capacity of appropriation ; and
Fechner likewise, in subsuming the law of Bernoulli under his
more general law of sensitivity, does so on the assumption of
the universal applicability of these laws.

But this assumption immediately arouses suspicion of its
soundness, and cannot be admitted without careful scrutiny.
If, as our studies of the threshold indicated, pleasure-causation
and worth feeling may vary independently, i.e., the intension
and extension (depth and breadth in the personality) may vary
independently of the intensity and multiplicity of the hedonic
redundancies, and if there may be, to that extent, intensity-less
acts of appreciation, the presuppositions of which are conative

1 Gossen, Ent-wickelung der Gesetze des Menschlichen Verkehrs und der daraus
fliessenden Regclnfiir Mcnschlichcs Handeln, 1853, P- 31-

The Laws of Valuation 159

and judgmental, and not sense stimuli, it would follow that
these psycho-physical laws governing sensation-feelings, and
the general principle of relativity built upon them, should not
be uncritically extended to judgment and -ssumption feelings —
that is to worth feelings, without a sr ill analysis in each
case. In fact, Fechner himself, even or., the assumption that
pleasure and feeling of value are identical, \ arns us against any
overhasty generalisation of the principles governing the pleasure
values of simple sensation to cover more complex feelings. In the
Vorschide der Aesthetik (p. 76) he says : "A really mathematical,
merely psycho-physical measure of the intensity of pleasantness
and unpleasantness could be found only in connection with a
knowledge of the universal ultimate cause of pleasantness and
unpleasantness ; until then it can be nothing more than an
estimate of more or less."

Much more, then, if the relative independence of pleasure-
causation and worth feeling be established, is a separate ex
amination of the application of these laws to the latter
class of feelings necessitated. As Brentano truly says :
" For all psychical phenomena which have their grounds in
psychical occurrences within the organism (not in external
stimuli), or are called forth by other psychical phenomena,
a measure of intensity fails." It is entirely conceivable, for
instance, that in total attitudes of appreciation, or valuation,
two components of the total feeling may be distinguished, the
worth feeling which has psychical presuppositions, conative
tendency and judgment, and the hedonic redundancies with
their sensational conditions both organic and peripheral. To
the latter aspect the laws of dulling of sensitivity and satiety
might apply, while for the former, already found to be inde
pendently variable, the factors of repetition and quantity might
have another significance. It is at least conceivable that in
crease in depth and breadth of feeling tone might go on side by
side with the reduction of the intensity and multiplicity of the
hedonic redundancies.

(a) The Law of Dulling of Sensitivity. Critical Analysis — Its
Application Limited to Sensation Feelings and the Re"
dundancies of Feelings of Value.

The two principles of dulling of sensitivity and satiety
are often confused, and treated as identical because of their

1 60 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

having the same practical effect upon the estimation of
the utility of objects of consumption corresponding to isolated
organic wants or tendencies. Thus in estimating the utility
of a given increment of sugar, it is a matter of indifference whether
the lowered utility imputed to it is the result of diminution of
desire, through lowering of nervous sensitivity by repetition
of stimulation, or whether it is the consequence of the peculiar
organic sensations of satiety produced by the quantity of the
stimulus. The practical consequences for the estimation of
utility are the same. But when we come to examine the psy
chology of the two phenomena, differences appear of such a
nature as to make separate studies of the two cases necessary.

It was, we have seen, to the effect of repetition of satisfaction
of desire in producing habit and dulling of sensitivity (and
to its corollary, limitation of capacity of appropriation) that
Bentham chiefly appealed to substantiate his general principle
of Limiting Value. Repetition of stimulation so modifies the
physiological or dispositional conditions of the feeling as to change
the relative intensity of the feeling in the direction indicated by
the law. It is clear that the degree of worth feeling which
follows upon the judgment or assumption of the existence or
non-existence of any object will be determined by the disposition
created by previous acts of consumption or appreciation, but it
does not follow that repetition will have the same effect upon all
these dispositions. As the presuppositions of the different
feelings vary, so on the side of the object, the factor of
frequency or quantity may vary in meaning. We must there
fore consider the influence of the factor of repetition upon the
different types of feeling separately.

The effect of repetition upon one type of worth feeling,
the case where the feeling of value is conditioned by preceding
sensation-feelings, is simple and evident. An object which
has the capacity to satisfy a sense-tendency becomes an object
of worth when it is judged or assumed to exist or not exist.
The sensation feelings which arise in the process of consumption
are not worth feelings, but the worth feelings are determined solely
by the dispositions created by the processes of consumption.
The repetition of stimulation, the dulling of sensitivity, lowers
the capacity of judgment or assumption of existence to call out
our worth feeling, for the reason that, in this case, the modifica
tions of sensation-feelings are the sole determinants of the worth
feelings. Thus sugar is an object of worth because it satisfies

The Laws of Valuation 161

a sense-tendency, and the stimulation of the sense-organ gives
pleasure. But the fatigue of nervous substance through suc
cessive stimulations reduces the sensitivity. There is, to be
sure, a limited degree to which fusion of sensations, and the
simultaneous moderate stimulation of different sense-tendencies
may produce a greater degree of pleasure for a longer time'
But this qualitative sublimation of the gross quantitative factor
is possible only within very narrow limits. Ultimately sensitivity
is dulled, and the judgment or assumption of the existence of
the stimulating object fails to call out worth feelings, unless the
judgment is modified by secondary instrumental judgments
Conative activity is arrested, and we have value movement
toward another object.

When, however, we turn from immediate pleasure-causation
to the study of worth feelings, that is feelings where the relation
e object to the disposition is not one of immediate stimu
lation, but is mediated by presumption, judgment, and assump
tion, it is not so certain that the principle of habit or dulling of
sensitivity can be applied directly as a description of changes in
worth feeling. We must rather examine in detail the effect of
repetition on each type of feeling.

Let us first consider certain feelings of simple appreciation
Uowmg upon presumption or existential judgment. Per
sonal fame, as expressed in the applause of others, is normally
the object of worth feeling. This feeling is not the result of
the stimulation in the applause, but of a judgment of existence
an ideal object which the applause expresses. Repetition
of this applause and of the accompanying judgment is ordinarily
flowed by emotional indifference. That which was first
recognised with intensity of emotion is finally recognised with
out emotional disturbance. Or again, we may take the case
* a man (e.g., a miner) whose occupation brings him face to face
with constant danger. The judgment of the existence of the
is at first accompanied by more or less intense emotional
Disturbance, but with repetition of the judgment his sense of
danger becomes dulled. It would appear, then, that repetition
1 ]udgment feelings involves dulling of sensitivity, and there
fore diminution of worth feeling.

The first part of this inference is certainly true, and the latter

2ems to be a necessary corollary from the first. But before

admitting its necessity we must observe more closely what

actually takes place in such cases. The phenomena are more

,62 Valuation: Us Nature and Laws

complex than appears at first sight. Can we logically infer
thatP because of this dulling of sensitivity, the conative dis
positions corresponding to these two objects, fame and danger
have been equally diminished, and that the objects have tost
their worth, positive or negative? I think not For, m t
fir pice, the sensitivity which is dulled is the emotional
dlturbance, and this owes its first intensity to coiUras •
to the disturbance of some presumption or judgment hab
which preceded, and to the effort involved in the readaptation
mciden? to realisation in a new judgment of the existence
the formerly non-ex.stent object With the growth o ^con
viction the emotional disturbance disappears and the mte ity
o sensitivity diminishes. But it does not follow that the mean
ing of the feeling, its transgredient or immanental reference il
depth and breadth in the personality, has diminished
matter of fact, experience shows us an entirely f «^f at™e
When once the conviction of the existence of the fame or
danger as the case may be, has been formed, the feeling as
leXnt mood, or affective sign is always present as an
und ™' in the emotional experience of the person, co ounng
all his worth judgments. It constitutes a presupposition .

of this fact is to be found

in the substitution of assumption, implicit or «£
ment. In another connection1 it was shown that
Tudgment is of the relational type, that is. it appeals only after
'arrest, is association after disjunction. In all other cases reahty
is assumed. In all existential judgment, adaptat.on, and
ore emotional disturbance, is involved, with its correspondmg
intensity. As with repetition the judgment passes over in o
ssumption the intensity decreases, the energy involved m
emZnal disturbance is used up and dulling of — ty
follows But this sensitivity is only one aspect of the 1
attitude When judgment has given place to assumption,
with its feeling of the imagination, its generic sentiment or afl
tive sign the sensitivity has indeed diminished m intensity- he
feeling becomes practically intensity-less-but the meamng of the
ee ing itslpth and breadth in the personality, may remain un-
mpafred or may even increase. In the illustrations cons.dered,
heTnded meaning of the idea of fame or of danger remains m
the form of such affective correlates. These correlates may 1

1 Chapter II, p. 42 ff-

The Laws of Valuation 163

reinstated, either by the explicit assumption with its feeling of
the imagination, or by the implicit assumption embodied in a
general concept, the feeling-tone of words. When the feeling
is of the first type, the subject often continues to realise in
imagination the felt meaning of objects and ideas when actual
sense experience or specific adaptive judgment is without affec
tive reaction. In phenomena of the second type the mere
affective abstracts themselves, which have the funded meaning
of past experience (e.g. of fame and danger), and still more — as
shown in the illustrations of the preceding chapter,1 those which
have a social origin and meaning, continue as felt presuppositions
of further emotional experience.

The question arises, finally, as to the effect of repetition
upon the assumption feelings of the two types described, the
feelings of imagination and the affective abstracts or signs which
take the place of particular emotional reactions. Repetition
does not, I think, reduce the worth suggestion of these affective
experiences. They are modified only when judgment makes
the assumption untenable.

The fact that these phases .of affectivity are in some way
different from sensation feelings and particular emotions or judg
ment-feelings, has not escaped the observation of students of
these phenomena. This difference is ordinarily described as
consisting in the fact that the feelings of the imagination (Sax-
inger) or the affective abstracts and signs (Paulhan) are not
subject to the law which governs particular, " real " feelings, i.e.,
the law of diminution of intensity with repetition,2 and has been
explained by the theory that the actualisation of these feelings,
whether by explicit imagination or by the verbal correlate of
habitual judgment, does not involve, as in the case of other
feelings, the expenditure of energy, and therefore the diminution
of the capacity of the affective dispositions for actualisation.
Now the fact of this difference we may admit, but not its ex
planation. Repetition affects the intensity of all sensitivity,
even of the hedonic accompaniments of worth feeling, but the
meaning of the feeling is relatively independent of its intensity.
Dulling of sensitivity for emotional disturbance cannot be cor
related with decrease in worth or affective- volitional meaning.

1 Chap, v, p. 137, note.

2 Chap, v, p. 128.

1 64 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

(b) The Law of Satiety does not apply to Feelings
of Value.

The second psychological principle to which the law of
Diminishing Value is referred for its foundation is the principle
of satiety. In determining whether these formulations are
applicable to all acts of appreciation, we found it necessary
to treat separately the two principles of habit and satiety,
although from the standpoint of their practical effect upon
the determination of the utility of objects they could be treated
as identical.

What is to be understood by satiety seems perfectly clear
in the case of the consumption of a simple good which corre
sponds to an isolated sense tendency. As described in the most
general terms, it is a law connecting intensity of sensation with
quality of feeling. With increase in the intensity of the sen
sation there is a relatively slower increase in intensity of pleasure
until a critical point is reached where the pleasure begins to
fall off. Finally, a second critical point in the curve is reached
where the positive coefficient of pleasure passes over into a
negative coefficient of unpleasantness or pain. The second
point is described as satiety or Ubersattigung. Now this
conception of an entire change in quality of the affective tone
of the sensation quality, while a description quite sufficient for
the uses of the economist in his account of the effect of quantity
upon utility, is, from the standpoint of psychological analysis,
a fiction, an undue simplification of the phenomenon. As a
matter of fact, the situation is not so simple. What we have
here is, not pure pleasure until a certain point is reached and
then a sudden change to unpleasantness, but rather a mixed
phenomenon. The pleasure arising from the stimulation of
any organic tendency is made up of the affective tone of the
sensation itself plus the affective tone of organic sensations
associated with it. With over-stimulation the latter gradually
become unpleasant, but at first not sufficiently so to modify the
dominantly pleasurable tone of the total psychosis. That
which constitutes the moment called satiety is really the pre
dominance of the unpleasantly toned organic content. Such
a thing, then, as transformation of pleasure into its negative
does not exist. What has been so described is really a driving
out of the pleasure feeling attached to the content, as at first

The Laws of Valuation 165

experienced, by a more intense unpleasant feeling arising from
competing foreign contents.

Now while, as it has been said, this interpretation of the
phenomenon does not in any way affect the consequences drawn
from the principle of satiety for the utility of goods in consump
tion, it does modify considerably our conception of the bearing
of the principle of satiety upon acts of appreciation in general.
In the first place, it is not even clear that we can say that satiety
is the normal consequence of satisfaction of desire itself, that
is, that it lies in the very nature of desire. It is even abstractly
conceivable that, if the successive increments of a good could
be appropriated in such a way as not to create organic dis
turbances and thus introduce new content, the principle of
dulling of sensitivity would hold for isolated tendencies, while
the principle of satiety would not.

Much more important do these considerations become
when we turn to the appreciation of so-called ideal goods.
When we recognise that the phenomena of satiety are not in
herent in the appreciative activity itself, but are accompanying
phenomena, sensational redundancies secondary to appre
ciation, then new light is thrown upon certain complicated
facts of appreciation. In the first place, we may notice
that the appreciative consciousness itself makes a clear dis
tinction between the role which these accompanying experi
ences, described as satiety, play in the two cases of con
sumption and ideal appreciation. We may express this by
saying that when the phenomenon of satiety enters into the
process of consumption, the subject transfers its meaning to
the object of desire ; he has enough of the object itself. But
when in the pursuit of ideal goods or in acts of appreciation,
the unpleasant organic sensations appear as accompaniments of
over - stimulation and fatigue, he recognises their secondary
character, and does not transfer them to the object; they
do not affect the value of the object. This we express in
our judgments that the thirst for knowledge, beauty, or good
ness is insatiable. Psychologically this means that the sense
of value as affective-volitional meaning persists as an undertone
in consciousness. The transgredient or immanental reference
of the feeling goes beyond the organic unpleasantness of the
moment. Desire remains present dispositionally in the form
of sentiment, mood, or affective sign. A mere imagination,
assumption, of the existence of the object suffices to call up

1 66 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

these representative worth suggestions, when the actual pro
cesses of perception and judgment involved in the realisation of
the objects would be accompanied by the unpleasant conditions
which we have described by the term satiety. The worth
moment does not lie, then, in the hedonic accompaniments,
but in the transgredient and immanental reference to dispo
sitions presupposed, which- may persist with change in hedonic
redundancies. It is true that these accompaniments, this satiety,
may become the object of a negative worth judgment, and that
this negative worth may then compete with the positive worth
of the object, but in this case we have a new situation. The
state of satiety has been presented as an object of worth feeling,
and is itself no longer worth feeling, or an aspect of it.

It appears, then, that when the feeling of satiety, the
peculiar mass of unpleasant organic sensations that goes by
that name, arises in connection with judgment feelings, this
does not mean that the worth or judgment-feeling has passed
over from a positive to a negative quality, but rather that the
physiological processes involved in the presentation and judg
ment of the object, and in the accompanying emotional ex
perience, have been exhausted and that the pleasurable accom
paniments have passed over into unpleasant. It is not the dis
position, the capacity for worth feeling itself, which is exhausted,
but other dispositions involved in the presentation and judg
ment of the object. In such cases the valuation may persist
in the form of an assumption feeling, during the experience
described as satiety.

(c) Conclusion — The Limited Application of the Laws of Dulling
of Sensitivity and Satiety.

In considering the bearing of these two factors of habit
and satiety on worth feeling in general, some such analysis
as the preceding is all-important if we would avoid confusion.
Thus Gossen, who takes appreciation of a work of art as illus
trating the general law of Limiting Value, fails to distinguish
the several factors involved in such appreciation. He tells us
that " a work of art will bring to the artist who beholds it the
highest enjoyment in that moment when he has observed it
long enough to grasp all its elements. This enjoyment will
sink steadily with continued study, and, after a longer or shorter
time, according to the nature of the object and the observer,

The Laws of Valuation 167

the latter will become tired ; satiety will appear, even when he
seeks to enjoy works of the same kind. If, after a longer
or shorter time, according to the object and the observer, a
desire for the repetition of the pleasure arises, he will then,
on account of his previous knowledge of the work of art, reach
the highest point of enjoyment in a shorter time. But this point
will be reached the less easily and the less frequently the more
often and the more frequently the repetition has taken place."
But in this description Gossen fails to distinguish two different
types of feeling involved in this appreciation. Had he observed
more closely, he would have found that, while this is a true
account of what takes place in the purely sensuous pleasure in
the formal factors, nevertheless the sentiment felt toward the
content, the object expressed by the work of art, might quite
easily have remained unaffected by repetition. The feeling
in this latter case is an assumption - feeling and presupposes
dispositions quite different from those the stimulation of which
affords the pleasure of the formal element. Actualisation of
these dispositions has by no means the same consequences as
stimulation of dispositions involved in pleasure causation.

IV. EXTENT OF THE APPLICATION OF THE LAW OF LIMITING
VALUE TO IDEAL OBJECTS — THE GENERAL PROBLEM

The preceding study of the two principles of habit and satiety,
upon which the general law of Limiting Value is based, has
shown them to hold only for sensation-feelings and for intensities
of emotional disturbance involved in judgment-feelings. The
latter, the feeling intensities which diminish with repetition of
judgment, may, indeed, be sensation - feelings also, resonances
of the organism following upon the psychical activity of judg
ment. To the worth feelings themselves, the affective-volitional
meaning acquired in processes of judgment and assumption, the
laws of dulling of sensitivity and satiety do not necessarily
apply, for they are not sensation-feelings. We should avoid,
however, at least at this stage of the discussion, the inference
that the law of Limiting Value is not universally applicable, as
claimed by its founders. Because the psychological analysis
upon which, as a theory, it was based, is faulty, it does not
follow that it fails as a description of fact. It is entirely con
ceivable that it represents the fate of all processes of valuation

1 Gossen, Entwickelung der Gesetzet etc., p. 5.

1 68 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

whatsoever, but that the principle rests upon the limitation of
other capacities than those of sense stimulation.

" There are two types of valuation in which the object as sense
or presented is not the immediate cause of feeling, but in which
the feeling -disposition is mediated through intellectual pro
cesses of judgment or assumption. They are worth feehngs
which rise upon processes of ideal reconstruction of the objec
through judgment. These reconstructions may be either the work
of instrumental judgments, in which case the corresponding values
are instrumental values, or processes of aesthetic reconstruction
which individualise the object as an harmonious whole, am
make it of intrinsic value. We must now examine these wortl
feelings and their modifications to determine to what
this law of valuation holds.

The objects of such types of valuation, and their fundt
meanings, are "founded" objects in the sense of our intro
ductory analysis. The various types of such objects already
enumerated, the psychical objects of appreciation such as
beauty and grace of form in perceptual objects-founded qualities
which emerge in the activities of consumption and in instinctive
activity generally, such as cleanliness, manners, etc the qu;
ties and dispositions of persons, viewed either in their intrinsic
worth as worths of the person, or, instrumentally, as the basis
of social participation, and finally objects of utilisation of ex
change-more especially the medium of exchange-all se,
although they inhere, so to speak, in objects of immediate sensa
tion and presentation, are themselves not the objects of such
processes, but rather of judgment and assumption As such
their funded meaning is not determined by simple feeling, 1
by feelings which have as their presuppositions the processe
of judgment and assumption of which they are the objects
It is of course possible, and it frequently occurs, that the*
worths or meanings are attributed to the sensations and pr.
sentations themselves, and then we speak of them as
plementary values of the latter, but for psychological analysi
they must be kept quite distinct.

Let us now, with these considerations in mind, turn first tc
the problem of the application of the law of Limiting Valu
to the objects of utilisation and exchange, the type of
tension of simple appreciation which takes place through t
interpolation of instrumental judgments.

The Laws of Valuation 169

i. Application of the Law to all Instrumental Values,
(a) The Law of Marginal Utility and its Explanation.

Economic worth theory took its rise from the obvious applica
tion of the principle of Limiting Value to objects corresponding
to isolated sense tendencies. Its extension to valuation in
general was made possible, as we have seen, historically, by the
unanalysed substitution of wealth in general, or money, for the
particular homogeneous good corresponding to an isolated sense-
tendency. In the concept wealth, and still more in that of
money, we have the most abstract possible symbol for objective
value and thus indirectly for subjective worth. If therefore the
principle of relativity developed for isolated processes of con
sumption holds for the valuation of successive increments of
wealth in general, it would seem that the inference as to the
universality of its application was justified, and with it the
hedonistic assumptions of its founders.

Now, as a matter of fact, we shall see that the merely em
pirical law of modification of worth feeling, developed by Bentham
and his successors, does hold within limits for the valuation of
successive increments of wealth ; but it does not follow that the
psychological explanation of this empirical law is the same in both
cases. Since the value feelings accompanying successive incre
ments of wealth are judgment- feelings while in consumption
the feelings are sensation - feelings, the presuppositions being
different, the law of their modification may be different. As
illustrative of our position, we may refer to another region of
psychology. If the principle of relativity called Weber's Law,
developed first for the perception of differences of intensity,
is found, as Wundt maintains, to hold also for the perception of
relative differences in pitch, it does not follow that the explana
tion is the same. Intensity and pitch are two different things,
in fact independently variable. The subsumption of this law
of relative pitch under the law of relative intensity, because the
empirical law is the same, would be unjustified. Likewise, with
out further analysis, we cannot infer that, because the empirical
law of the modification of judgment-feelings in instrumental
valuation is the same as that in immediate pleasure-causation,
the two phenomena are identical.

The feelings of value corresponding to the concept wealth are,
with certain significant exceptions which we shall consider later,

i 70 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

judgment feelings. Whatever be the concrete object symbolising
wealth, the essence of the conception lies in the fact that, through
the interpolation of certain judgments as to its reapplicability for
different purposes, whether through extension of simple use or
through exchange, the object is removed from the immediacy of
simple pleasure-causation, of stimulation or consumption. The
presupposition of such a feeling of value is then the fundamental
conative tendency as modified by subsidiary judgments as to
reapplicability of the object. An object's value in use, notwith
standing the extension of its applicability through exchange,
always retains at least 'a faint reference to the fundamental
desires to which it first afforded satisfaction, but the more, as in a
" money-economy," it becomes abstracted from this primary
reference and fills the role of mere symbol of exchange, the more
its purely instrumental character becomes emphasised. Now the
consequence of this is that successive increments of any good,
which, after a certain point in the immediate or direct satisfac
tion of desire is reached, can then produce a modification of feeling
only through exchange for other objects, are not direct stimuli,
but can modify feeling only through the indirect process of calling
out judgments.

What is the effect, then, of successive increments of wealth,
making necessary repeated judgments of reapplicability of the
good, upon the economic threshold or threshold of value feeling ?
Obviously such increase raises the threshold of value,
new judgment of application diminishes the capacity of the good
for application, i.e. with each added increment of the good,
especially of the abstract symbol money, the more significant
and important fundamental condition worths of the subject be
come satisfied, the possibilities of reapplication, always for
any individual a limited universe, become progressively ex
hausted and the relation between the object and the immediate
appreciation becomes more and more mediated and remote.
In other words, in order that a significant instrumental relation
may be established between the new increment and a condi
tion or personal worth, the increment must be appreciably

greater.

It is clear then, that the economist is justified in extend
the conception of Diminishing Utility or Limiting Value to include
all those values mediated by successive judgments of reapplic
tion, as well as to those conditioned by repetition of immediat<
stimulation. Moreover, the law of Marginal or Final tihty,

The Laws of Valuation 1jl

deduced from this more general principle, according to which

J value of a sum of goods depends, not upon the "total"

ity, but upon the marginal or " final " degree of utility of the

last addition, is universally applicable to all objects, the value

1 which consists in their capacity for reapplication. It is not

so clear however, that this fact is to be explained by reference

the laws limiting our capacity for mere stimulation. It is

.ther probable that more complex processes of imaginative and

ideal construction of ends are involved.

(b) Certain Limitations to the Law of Marginal Utility.

Certain significant limitations of this law will bring the situation
into clearer relief. It has been recently pointed out by Simmel '
that what we may call the curve of value, or funded meaning

f money, for any individual cannot be viewed as a plotting of
progressive, gradual changes, but must rather be looked upon as
representing a series of discrete stages. Thus, if the individual
has a given income, he lives normally in a universe of certain
relatively fixed possibilities from which many of the most signif
icant condition and personal worths, such, for instance, as esthetic
satisfactions and social position, in so far as they are dependent
upon money, are excluded. Gradual additions to his income

re valued by him according to the law developed above for
within that relatively fixed system, the reapplications become
progressively less and less important. But if the increment

i of sufficient amount to change the universe of possibilities the
level of valuation is changed. New worths of condition 'and
person come within the individual's horizon, new possibilities of
application appear, and the curve begins again on a new level

/\S cMmmfM rprmrl^e: nno-n-t-ifir ,,.\^ •*. •

uaiKb, c itv. when it is grasped as

whoi K. ' ' e as a ™e

whole may be transmuted, sublimated, into quality. Of course

ZshoidsrT,level the T agam begms to w°rk' modify-e ^

esnold in the manner described above

A second modification of this law appears closely connected
fee one previously described. In the former case, the
charac enst.c feature is to be found in the fact that if a certain
f money, say a million dollars, is received, its subjec
tive worth ,s not to be calculated according to the law of margmal
. is at first a direct appeal, without mediating in-
rumental judgments, to the worths of the personality (social

1 Simmel, Philosophic des Geldes, pp. 250-76.

172 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

esteem, independence, etc.). The threshold is qualitative, not
quantitative. In a similar manner, such a sum of money acquires
this qualitative character when it is viewed as an ideal. In the
case of the miser, for instance, who sets before himself a certain
sum viewed as a unity, as an ideal, the value of the successive
increments of money does not follow the law of marginal utility.
As he nears his goal the smallest increment may have almost an
absolute value, and even in the earliest stages of the process of
acquisition, the value of any increment is not to be calculated ac
cording to this law. The significant feature of this situation is to
be found precisely in the suppression of instrumental judgments
and the substitution for them of an assumption of the possible
application of the wealth as a whole. To the minute increment
is imputed the assumption feeling that goes with the individuated
whole, or we may say that the most insignificant moment in the
series borrows worth from the end feeling of the series. As we have
seen in our study of the threshold, intrinsic valuation of a minute
object as part of an individuated whole lowers the threshold of
worth for that object. Whereas, then, in the instrumental
valuation of wealth each successive amount calls forth worth
feeling only through the mediation of a series of instrumental
judgments — and value decreases with the remoteness of the
object from the fundamental desire, in the intrinsic valuation
of wealth, on the other hand, as an individuated whole, the
valuation which follows upon this individuation, is subject
neither to the dulling of sensitivity which follows upon repetition
of sensation feelings nor to the limitation of judgment capacity
which inheres in instrumental valuation.

A consideration of these phenomena enables us then to under
stand the limited application of the law of marginal utility
to the founded ideal objects of economic utility and exchange,
without subsuming it under the laws of dulling of sensitivity
and satiety, which apply only to pleasure. And — what is still
more important— it enables us to dispense with the psychological
fiction of the continuous variability of intensity of pleasure with
changes in increments of wealth, an assumption which underlies
much of economic worth theory. As a matter of fact, however,
it must be recognised that some economists have employed this
law as a purely empirical principle without accepting the theo
retical fiction of infinitesimal changes in worth feeling.1

1 Oskar Kraus, Zur Thtvie des Wertes, p. 64.

The Laws of Valuation

v

tmuity and extension of , i lle a certam con-

reconstructions °n

of sensitivity)

It is H °f habU <dulllng

of

of desiiwhi inn>Onf ty,P<! °f reconstr-ti<»> of objects

which a

intuitive instead of

valuation is developed I

individuates a CTO™ n

monious group rfetonen°s

emerge new psychicT o,, H H K

valued. We have no /« ^ JuCtS Which are intrinsically

of indivlduation and! stuZte 1 "'"" °f 'heSe PrOCeSS-

idy the laws governing the intrinsic

s rec°nstruction is

fOm °f intrinsic
construct'°n ^ intuitive, in that it

Whok of ™anlng, an har-
' Pr°CeSS °f i

1 74 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

valuation of these psychical objects, more especially the extent
of the applicability of the law of Limiting Value.

i. Description of the Laws of Complementary Values-

(a) In Economic Valuation.

The general characteristic of this type of reconstruction
is to be found in the fact that the elements of a total group of
objects, or the part-processes of a total conative process of con
sumption or acquisition, are so related to each other as to be
complementary. In other words, when related to each other
as elements in an individuated whole, the value of the whole, the
degree of satisfaction of the conative tendency presupposed,
exceeds the value of the sum of the elements taken separately.
The values acquired in such processes are described as (
plementary Values, and the objects toward which these feelings
are directed are ideal objects. The complementary values
thus acquired may, indeed, be imputed to the elements taken
separately, but they are not the values of the elements but
of the object founded upon the harmonious arrangement
elements. We must first consider this doctrine as formula t,
for economics, and then determine the extent of its applicati-
to other types of values.

As a consequence of the law of Marginal Utility the psycho-
logical basis of which we have been considering, the econoi
without difficulty draws the inference that the value of a supp y
of goods is determined, not by addition of the utilities actually
got from the different parts, that is by the sum of the very differ
ent utilities of the different portions, but by the utility of its
least important part multiplied by the total number of ea
equally large part. To this general law an exception is how
ever, universally recognised, namely where a sum of g od
constitutes a unity and, as such, displays a certain utility effect
whTch is not equal to the sum of the utilities of the separate
"arts As a consequence, it further follows that any given
part of the whole has imputed to it a utility over and above
Siat which it would have as an *^**ti^^£
the law of Marginal Utility. A stock illustration is that of
hun er and his powder, ball, and flint. Each of these alone is
useless All of them, taken together with the labour involved
Tn employing them, equal the value, or, in the more accurate
terms of the economist, the discounted value, of the game.

The Laws of Valuation 175

Because each alone is useless, and is of utility only in combina
tion, the value of each is equal to the value of the whole.

(b) Extra-Economic Valuation — ^Esthetic and Ethical.

In this illustration we have a unity, an individuated whole,
the instrumental value of which arises from the grouping of the
elements, the parts of the whole being interrelated by instrumental
judgments. But the same general principle is evident in cases
where the instrumental judgments recede into the background and
intrinsic valuation takes their place. We have already considered
cases in which wealth viewed as a whole acquires a complementary
value of an intrinsic character, a value which not only exceeds
quantitatively the sum of the instrumental values of the parts, but
changes qualitatively as well, where quantity is sublimated into
quality. In the two cases referred to — where the reception of a
round sum of money leads to its intrinsic valuation as a whole
(rather than to an instrumental valuation of the parts, according
to the law of Marginal Utility, as when the amount is gradually
acquired), or where the miser values his wealth as a whole without
reference to the instrumental value of the parts — in these cases
the instrumental judgments have sunk into the background and
are represented merely by a vague assumption of instrumental
value, the total amount being valued intrinsically without explicit
reference to the instrumental value of the parts.

But we find still other cases where the general principle of
complementary values applies to individuated wholes, where the
element of utility, and of instrumental judgments, is entirely lack
ing, where both the whole and the parts are objects of intrinsic
appreciation. These are perceptual and ideal unities which have
an aesthetic or ethical character. Two illustrations will suffice
to indicate the character of these constructions. As examples of
such perceptual wholes we may take a face in which all the features
taken together are charming, or a landscape in which the river,
the hills, the valleys, are all said to be beautiful. None of them
would be beautiful without the others ; each has all the beauty of
the whole. Of such ideal constructs the individuality of a person is
typical. The person is an ideal construct, a complex of traits
or dispositions all of which, when thus combined to make the
unique whole, create that founded object, the person. The
intrinsic worth of the person is something over and above the

176 Valuation: its Natiire and Laws

separate values of the parts, and to the separate trait or dis
position is imputed all the complementary value of the whole.

(c) General Characterisation of the Law.

The phenomena described by the principle of Complementary
Values are now before us. From the illustrations given it is
seen to be a process by which the range of valuation is extended,
both in the sphere of physical objects of sensation and perception
and in the region of ideal objects of imagination and judgment,
a process by which the working of the law of Limiting Value,
which holds both for sensation and judgment feelings, is modified.
It is this aspect of the situation which has received special
attention from Professor Patten a in his theory of consumption.
The older doctrine of consumption, he tells us, does not take into
account all the elements of pleasure and utility. Besides the
gross quantity of the goods, and the relation of this quantity to
the capacity of the elementary wants, there are in all groups
of goods capacities for rearrangement which are outside the category
of quantity, that is are qualitative, aesthetic. A group of goods,
harmoniously arranged, is capable of giving indefinitely greater
pleasure than the mere sum of the separate pleasures of each of the
components of the group. The complementary values are then
imputed to the components. This principle is conceived as
coming in to modify the working of the laws of habit and satiety.
These laws, as we have seen, apply to all sensation feelings, and
consequently the law of Limiting Value applies to all worth
judgments determined by such feeling-dispositions. But since
there is in these objects of sensation feeling a certain capacity for
harmonious combination which extends their capacity for con
tinued stimulation, these laws are to a degree modified. " Since
these aesthetic goods may be said to be goods without the point of
satiety which is found in simple economic goods," and " since
simple aesthetic goods may be said to be the result of the blending
of distinct pleasures into one group and the aesthetic pleasures
seem to be the largest harmonious grouping of pleasures that
society can produce," it would follow, Professor Patten thinks,
that " progress, in the sense of increase of value for the in
dividual and society, must lie in the direction of harmonious
consumption." Despite the unfortunate terminology, which
identifies worth with pleasure causation and speaks of summation

1 S. N. Patten, The Consumption of Wealth, Philadelphia, 1889.

The Laws of Valuation 177

of pleasures, we may accept this as a true account of the ex
tension of the activities of simple appreciation through the
rearrangement, reconstruction of the objects of desire and feeling.
But Professor Patten has added to this conception another
of equal importance for our study. In his pamphlet Economic
Causes of Moral Progress,1 he attempts to show that at least many
of our aesthetic and ethical ideals, relatively permanent and pro
gressive sources of satisfaction, are but qualitative expressions,
names for these complementary goods, the value of which is
imputed to the economic goods. Thus comfort, cleanliness,
thrift — he might have added taste and manners — are qualitative
terms for the process of harmonising goods or objects of sensuous
feelings, and of ejection of inharmonious elements. Even the
home and its attendant virtues, the state with its justice, are
groups of such values, partly economical, partly ethical. If we
extend the conception of consumption to include all the activities
involved in acquisition and utilisation of goods, we may accept
this account of the origin of the primitive ethical and aesthetic
objects. The importance of such a conception lies in the fact
that, if these qualitatively different worths may thus be related
to the elementary economic values as complementary, we have
a means of co-ordinating these two groups of values.

But it must be noted, in the second place, that these qualita
tive expressions for harmonious consumption and activity,
these aesthetic and ethical ideals, are new objects of worth feeling,
ideal objects, founded it is true on perceptual activities, but
nevertheless now no longer the objects of sensation and perception,
but of judgment. As such ideal objects of judgment, they them
selves now become objects of new worth feelings and are capable
of ideal reconstruction into new individual unities or wholes.
Thus the worths of the personality, the ideals of goodness, nobility,
obligation, inner peace, freedom, perfection, etc., are qualitative
terms for complementary values arising from the harmonious
co-ordination of these fundamental dispositions. They are
objects of desire and worth feeling founded, not in perceptual,
but in ideational activity and construction. To what extent
these ideal objects may become relatively permanent and pro
gressive sources of satisfaction is a problem to which we must
later turn our attention.

1 S. N. Patten, Economic Causes of Moral Progress, Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. Ill, Sep. 1892.

I78 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

3. Psychological Interpretation of the Law of Complementary

Values.

The extension which has thus been given to the economic
concept of Complementary Values-to include all acquired
affectfve-volitional meanings which arise m the P^ess o
cerceptual and ideal reconstruction of individualised whole;
out of the simple elements which constitute the primary
obiects of desire and feeling— opens up a vista of mnumeral
ob ects of secondary acquired value, and raises the quest,,
the limits of such ideal construction and acquirement of meaning^
When this process of perceptual and ideal construction is viewed
in this larger way, as a form of conative continuity, it is seen
that these'constructions are all in the service of continuity -rf
valuation and constitute readaptations of conative tendency
after arrest The facts of this conative continuity or acquire
m nt Tworth are adequately enough described by this formula
™l Complementary Values, but the attempt to answer the question
of the limits of the process requires that the principle 1 e properly
interpreted.

(a) The Objects of Complementary Value: Forms of Combination,

Perceptual and Ideal— Founded Objects.
The interpretation ordinarily given-that the complementary
acquired value is in some sense a sum of the quantities of pleasure
Tthe elements, although that product is recognised as being
something more than the mere sum of the elements-fails to
take account of the really significant feature of the process
That feature is to be found in the fact that ttj. acqu,red value has
as its object, not the elements, but a new object founded on the «-
arrangement of the elements. Even in the simple case of th

mbfnation of food-stuffs and the order of their consumption,
th object of the acquired worth is a qualification, a meaning
which hough it may be conceptually abstracted from the pro-
STcan beSintuitively realised only in the consumption ofjhe
elements themselves. When we consider the further
pi cTtton o these food elements with the objects of other senses-
Delights flowers, and music of the banquet, the refinements
"process of serving and eating, the psychical character of
the object of the acquired worth becomes more evident, f

The Laws of Valuation 179

have in the terms " taste " and " manners " the means of
separating the form of the process from the material elements.
The psychical objects, cleanliness and thrift, though equally
forms of combination developed in the processes of consumption,
can be still more easily and completely abstracted from the
process, as objects of judgment and assumption, and may be
referred in judgments of possession to the self, the subject of the
process.

This conception of the psychical object as a form quality
emerging in conative process may, moreover, be extended to other
fundamental instinctive activities, connected with acquisition,
the hunt, war, labour, etc., to sex and parenthood, and finally to
perceptual and ideational activities involved in knowledge and
art. The range of possible psychical objects, the construction
of which adds complementary value to the objects of immediate
sensation and perception upon which they are founded, is con
sequently very large. We may, moreover, again recall the fact
that personality, when intrinsically valued, is a " character,"
a form of combination of certain elements. In this case the
elements are certain qualities or dispositions which emerge in the
process of ideal construction involved in sympathetic Einjiihlung.
Of this special application of the principle we shall make con
siderable use later.

(b) Psychological Laws of Complementary Values.

These psychical objects may, therefore, be founded on per
ceptual and ideational activities alike ; they are the products of
individuating activities, both perceptual and ideational. Is it
possible to refer this general law of Complementary Value to more
ultimate psychological principles, as in the case of the other two
laws, of the Threshold and of Limiting Value ?

In approaching this question, it is well to observe the fact
that we are here concerned with the formulation of general
psychological laws of acquirement of meaning through individua-
tion of psychical objects — with general laws, therefore, which have
specific application in different spheres of concrete valuation.
In the second place, we must distinguish between the general
laws of acquirement of meaning, of which the law of Comple
mentary Values is an expression for worth theory, and the
particular laws of combination of elements by which the
meaning is acquired.

180 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

The Law of Complementary Values has accordingly two
aspects. From the point of view of conative activity there is
progress, to a new (psychical) object. From the point of view of
content there is a combination of elements in which an individu
ated whole emerges with a meaning not found in the elements
taken separately. Wundt has described these two aspects as the
law of Heterogeneity of Ends, and the law of Creative Resultants,
or more simply, Resultants.1

The principle of Resultants is, then, a law of combination of
elements and acquirement of meaning through that combination
and reconstruction. Every resultant is an individuated whole,
either perceptual or ideal. The complementary value is the
affective-volitional meaning acquired in that construction.
What are the psychological factors or laws involved ?

Wundt formulates but one such law, that of increase through
contrast. Here he has in mind the increase of effect for feeling
and will which the contrasting elements exercise upon each other.
But while the principle of contrast, when viewed in all its
aspects, may be said to comprehend all the principles of intuitive
construction, nevertheless for our purpose it is necessary to
formulate more specific laws for such ordering of content.

We may distinguish, then, three specific laws of intuitive
combination of elements into total resultants : (i) the law of
contrast in its narrower sense ; (2) the law of the total series (the
principle formulated by Fechner for aesthetics as the Folgegesetz) ;
and (3) the law of end feelings (which Fechner formulated in its
aesthetic application as the Versdhnungsgesetz). The meaning of
these laws may be stated very briefly, for their fuller develop
ment will be required at various points where they are applied.

The principle of simple contrast merely states that an object
of desire and feeling when contrasted with its opposite, or when its
existence is contrasted with its non-existence, gets an imputed
value which, by itself, it has not either intrinsically or instru-
mentally. The law of the " total series " is a formulation of the

1 Wundt, Physiologische Psychologic, Fifth Edition, Leipzig, 1903, Vol. Ill,
chap, xxn ; also Kreibig, Psychologische Grundlcgung eines Systems der Wert-
theorie, Wien, 1902, pp. 59-63, for a similar study. Wundt describes them as
laws of psychical causality in distinction from physical causality, pointing out that,
whereas in physical causality there is a quantitative equivalence between antecedent
and consequent, in psychical process the resultant always shows an increase or acquire
ment of meaning. Calling this acquirement of affective-volitional meaning "increase
of energy," he finds in this contrast — between equivalence of energy in the physical
sphere and increase of psychical energy — the fundamental difference between physical
and the psychical causality. While making use of his descriptive formulae we need
not, and shall not, for reasons developed in the introductory chapter and elsewhere
in our discussion, conceive them in terms of causality.

The Lazvs of Valuation 181

fact that the ordering of objects of desire and feelings in a graded
series, or with certain relations of contrast and repetition, as for
instance in rhythm, gives rise to an imputed value of the whole
which is not a sum of the value of the separate elements. The
law of " end feelings " recognises the fact that the worth of a
series of elements is determined by the final moment of the
series and its relation to the preceding moments. In all these
specific forms of arrangement of elements form-qualities are
created which constitute the real objects of the imputed value.

VI. EXTENT OF APPLICATION OF THE LAW OF LIMITING
VALUE TO IDEAL OBJECTS OF INTRINSIC VALUE

We are now in a position to return to the problem with which
this discussion of the founded ideal objects of valuation took its
rise — namely the extent of the application of the law of Limiting
Value to the intrinsic valuation of such objects. The im
portance of the question is far-reaching. In the succeeding
chapters we shall have occasion to consider the more specific
problem of the laws governing the actual concrete judgments of
the worth of ideal objects of aesthetics and ethics. Here we are
concerned merely with the general theoretical question, whether
the nature of these objects, and of their corresponding worth
feelings, is such as to make this general law applicable. Upon this
question, as we have seen, there is a significant difference of
opinion. Kreibig and Meinong deny its application, while
Ehrenfels affirms it. The problem is in the first place obviously
a question of fact. Are there any objects of desire and feeling
which have the power of calling forth continuous intrinsic valua
tion ? It is, in the second place, however, a question of psycho
logical analysis of what is involved in the act of valuation. Thus
an analysis which recognises, with Brentano, intensity-less acts of
valuation would be in a position to infer the existence of such
objects, for the laws of dulling of sensitivity and satiety apply
only to hedonic intensities. In general, any theory which makes
the fundamental distinction between pleasure-causation and
worth feelings, between sensation-feelings and feeling actualised
by judgments and assumptions, would leave the question open.

If then we start with the immediately given facts of experi
ence, with our appreciation of those perceptual and ideal objects
which emerge in our instinctive conative activities and in our
ideal constructions, we are at first sight disposed to admit the

1 82 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

working of the law of Limiting Value in this sphere as well.
The complementary values which emerge in harmonious con
sumption modify, it is true, the effects of habit and satiety,
and extend the limits of valuation, but ultimately these limits are
reached. The acquirement upon the part of a group of com
plementary objects of sense stimulation, of meanings such as
sensuous beauty, taste in eating, etc., removes the object from
the immediate gross satisfaction of desire, and postpones the
dulling of sensitivity and satiety ; but since these meanings are
founded on some stimulations and are conditioned by them, they
are ultimately subject to the law inherent in all feelings of sense.
Sensuous beauty palls, refinement of living becomes wearisome,
and we seek refreshment in crude contrasts of ugliness and
coarseness. There is a return value-movement from the acquired
to the fundamental.

The same nemesis seems to follow the so-called ideal feelings,
the valuation of those ideal objects the worth of which is deter
mined by emotion and sentiment, the ideal objects of know
ledge, art, and morals. With the loss of novelty, with each
successive act of appreciation, there is diminution of enthusiasm,
loss of the emotional uplift which constitutes the peculiar glory
of the first realisations. James has described this process in his
usual picturesque and impressive way in his chapter on emotions,
and it is a phenomenon everywhere present in our appreciation of
persons and objects. Friendship begins with full and resonant
emotions, love with an ecstatic devotion, to become with use
habits with scarcely perceptible affective intensity. Perhaps
the most striking illustration of all is the effect of repetition
upon sympathetic participation (Einfuhlung). With each act of
participation, the judgment of the existence of the ideal object,
the disposition in the alter, acquires more certainty, the character
is more fully realised, but the realisation has become habit, the
emotional resonances are deadened. It would seem, then, that
those ideal objects the value of which lies, not in their being
sensed, but in their being judged or assumed to exist or not exist,
also lose their capacity for calling out intense emotions. If,
then, we should equate the worth or funded meaning of these
objects with this capacity, there would be no question that the
intrinsic valuation of such objects is subject to the law of Limit
ing Value.1

1 And, doubtless, in some moods of retrospection the mind turns from the unded
meaning of the object to the emotional accompaniments of the earlier appreciations.

The Laws of Valuation 183

Apparently, then, we may conclude that the repeated ex
perience of these ideal emotions and sentiments is accompanied
by the same dulling of sensitivity for intensity of affective dis
turbance which comes with repetition and habit in the case of
repeated sensation-feelings, and, in those experiences where the
intensity of the emotion is unusual, by the phenomena of satiety.
We might be led, therefore, to conclude further that the intrinsic
valuation of ideal objects is subject to the law of Limiting Value.

On the other hand, with equal truth it may be said that these
experiences do not modify our feeling of the worth of the objects,
do not determine our worth judgments, as habit and satiety
have been seen to modify our judgments in the case of objects of
sensation-feeling. The worth of the object seems to be deter
mined by other modifications of consciousness than this feeling
intensity, and to persist throughout these changes in hedonic
accompaniments, as relatively permanent and progressive sources
of satisfaction. This analysis of the facts of our experience would
therefore indicate that in such processes we have a " mixture of
phenomena " in which the worth of the object and its capacity
for calling out feeling intensities are independently variable.
In other words, as we have previously insisted, habit has its own
worth feelings, its own affective-volitional meaning.

This apparent antinomy has been clearly expressed in a
passage in Mimsterberg's discussion of the relation of worth
experience to psychology. To a remark of Windelband, that
" all interest and appreciation, all valuation on the part of
men, have reference to individual and particular appearances,"
Miinsterberg answers : " If by value we mean the psychological
feeling-process which is called forth in objective causal happen
ing, such sense of value appertains to repeated no less than to
single reactions. Of course there are acts the attraction of which
lies in their novelty and singularity, but all that is good and noble
gains depth of feeling- tone through repetition just as displeasure
with the low and coarse grows through repetition." x With the
truth of Miinsterberg's observation we may, on the basis of our

The lover looks back with regret upon his ecstasy, the religious devote cries out in the
words of the hymn : " Where is the blessedness I knew when first I saw the Lord !"
And not rarely the artist and enjoyer of works of art alike long for the emotional
accompaniment of their earlier appreciations, and, at times, put more value upon them
than upon their realised ideals and their attained insights. Nevertheless we rightly
look upon these backward movements as temporary phenomena, in what is still a con
tinuous valuation of the ideal object. The lover still loves and believes and appreciates.
The ideal objects remain relatively permanent and progressive sources of satisfaction.
1 Miinsterberg, Grundziige der Psychologic, pp. 39 and 40.

1 84 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

own analysis, readily agree. That the increase of depth of feeling-
tone, with repetition, is an empirical law of some types of worth
feeling no one could deny, unless under the influence of the
prejudice that the laws of habit and satiety, which apply to sensa
tion feelings, apply to all feelings. But the recognition of this
empirical law necessitates logically, if we are to explain it, a
distinction between the attributes, depth of feeling-tone and
intensity. Clearly depth of feeling-tone, which is here equated
with degree of worth, cannot be equated with degree of intensity
of affective disturbance. Depth of feeling must be taken as
a description of a modification of a special aspect of feeling,
other than the affective tone of sensations and presentations,
for the intensity of such hedonic tone is also subject to dulling
of sensitivity with repetition.

The question, in so far as it is one of psychology merely,
seems to depend for its solution upon the answer to two pre
liminary questions — namely : what is the nature of these ideal
objects, and what is the nature of the psychical acts of which
they are the objects ? For the modifications of feeling are, as
we have seen, determined by the character of the presuppositions
of the feeling.

As to the nature of the objects of this intrinsic valuation,
it has already been shown that they are ideal and " founded,"
and that, while the ideal or conceptual objects of utility-judg
ments are subject to the limitations inherent in this type of
construction, there is, on the other hand, in the case of the in
dividuating type of construction which creates these objects of in
trinsic worth, no limit — at least none that can be determined
a priori — to the acquirement of meaning. The laws of this
individuating construction, already analysed, indicate this fact
clearly.

When we turn to the feeling side of this process of intrinsic
valuation of ideal objects, and examine the presuppositions of
these feelings, we find that the cognitive acts presupposed are
judgments and assumptions (explicit and implicit) ; such ideal
objects are not objects of sensation and presentation at all.
Now the detailed analysis of feelings conditioned by such acts,
has shown us that the laws of dulling of sensitivity and satiety,
upon which the principle of Limiting Value is based, do not apply
to these feelings, but only to the hedonic redundancies of the
acts. Otherwise expressed, the affective abstract, or " affective
sign " (an assumption- feeling representing judgmental habit)

The Laws of Valuation 185

is not subject to these laws, but rather increases in depth of
feeling-tone with repetition. The assumption-feeling may, as
we have seen, attach itself directly to judgment or to a word
which represents a general concept, and, as thus representing the
acquired meaning of earlier worth judgments, it constitutes the
assured presuppositions of the new judgment-feelings. Each
successive judgment of value embodies the assumption-feeling or
" habit-meaning " of preceding judgments, and thus makes
possible the increase of " depth of feeling-tone," of sentiment.

This increase of depth of feeling does not, however,
exclude the phenomena of dulling of sensitivity and satiety as
applying to the " hedonic redundancies " of these successive
appreciative acts. The causes of these redundancies, accompany
ing acts of intrinsic appreciation of ideal objects are, as Brentano
has suggested, too complex to admit of the formulation of specific
laws of their modification. In principle, however, the laws of
dulling of sensitivity and satiety are applicable to these, as to
all sensation- feelings. When we say, therefore, that the acquire
ment of intrinsic value on the part of these ideal objects, the
permanence of these ideal sentiments, is unaffected by these
laws, we mean to say merely that the modification of the intensity
of the accompanying sensation-feelings becomes irrelevant
for worth judgment. We have already, in a number of connec
tions, seen the independent variability of these two aspects of a
total feeling attitude, more particularly in the case of the effect
of repeated appreciations of a work of art, already analysed,
and in the distinction here made we have the solution of the
apparent antinomy in intrinsic valuation.

VII. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS — INFERENCES FROM THIS STUDY
OF THE LAWS OF VALUATION FOR DIFFERENT TYPES OF
OBJECTS — THE PROBLEM OF THE LIMITS OF ACQUIREMENT
OF VALUE

The preceding study of the law of Limiting Value, and of its
application to feelings directed toward different types of objects,
has been purely psychological in character, in that it was
concerned with the application of the laws of dulling of sen
sitivity and of satiety to feelings with different presuppositions.
It can easily be seen that in this principle we have the means
of defining different worth objects in terms of their capacity
for continuous valuation, and thus for determining the relative

1 86 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

oreferability, not only of objects of the same kind but of
different groups or kinds. Such use of these stud.es we
TaU make ir? the succeeding chapters, which treat of the
different worth objects distinguished in the first chapter (objects
of condition worth, personal worth, and impersonal or over,
individual worth) ; but before turning to these subjects, and by
way of concluding this discussion, we have still to consider a
croblem of very general theoretical bearings, the problem,
namely, whether the principle of Limitation of Capactty (capacity
of appropriation, as developed for consumption originally) can
be applied to valuation in all its aspects.

It was to this general principle, it will be remembered, that
the economic theory of value looked for its foundation : tc it
all other laws were referred. That theory, we saw, is base
partly upon analysis of a very limited sphere of experience,
partly upon unwarranted assumptions of an a pnon character
Because the dispositions underlying " pleasure-causation
linSed in capacity, it is assumed that all worth dispositions,
Sings of value being identified with pleasure - causation
are subject to the same limitation. Now that an emp.nca
^dy of a larger range of worth feelings, and thei, • psychica
conditions, has shown the capacity of some ideal object
continuous valuation to extend far, perhaps ' ""^'te^ beyond
the limits conceived by the theory we have been ,
examining, we may turn our attention to this a pnon ^unrpt^

The assumption is, of course, that for every ideal
object which appreciation may distinguish, and for the w.
feeling directed toward it, there is a corresponding physiologica
disposition; that this disposition is part of a system the tota
energy of which is a constant and limited amount .that wit
this system there may be redistribution, but never actual increase
of energy ' and that the increase of the energy of any deposition
?s therefore strictly limited by the mutual relations of the e emen »
of the system. This conception is then simply earned
into the psychical sphere and from it are deduced limits f
nsvrhical energy and the acquirement of meaning.
PSyCSuch ^Sumption clearly underlies *~""*^
when he says 1 that " the ethical dispositions, just as litt
Others however insignificant, possess the power of extending
^^Tbeyond tleir given limits, that in then ^tendency
so to do they are held fast in their former relations by t

i System dcr Werththeorit, Vol. II, p. 217 note.

The Laws of Valuation. jg,

tendency inherent in all other dispositions to maintain their
former force.' And the same assumption is present when he
maintains (m criticism of Kruger's formulation of the suprem

cTm6; , f^ V3jUe' ^ the desire for the ^crease of the
capacity of valuation itself) that, » the claim that every subject

£t±Sf,mUSt PK?SeSS,the diSp°Sition to value the^ valuing
activity tself is capable neither of a priori nor of empirical proof "*

Obviously it ,s assumed that every ideal object constructed has
as ,ts correlate, a definite physiological disposition, and that S
Place m a system of values is but a reflex of the place of the
disposition in a system of energies

More specifically, the question is raised whether it is possible
for us rationally to wish or strive for increase of our wo?"
positions m any direction. Can a man, for instance, on the bas s
of an experience of the sentiment of benevolence, rat onally deste

vole '

Ehrenfels s first answer is unqualifiedly negative but

m reply to Hoffler's criticism of the same ' (and this fea thatl
necessary for our purpose), he concludes that it would be rational
or a man, let us say in a state of exaltation of benevolent emotfe
leading to great sacrifice, to desire intrinsically, as per™
possess™, the «*, capacity for benevolent eeling^sTe ex

that IS' more than

for the reason that his desire is not for
something which transcends the known measure of the capacity
the disposition mvolved. But to desire an increase in the
disposition itself would be irrational, for it wouW TmTolve

^ S6t WhlCh °ther ^Positions would receve

Obviously the problem, as here formulated is concerned
trintal ValUe °f the d-Po-t10n for s™ai

r f qU6Stl0n' but merejy with the possibility

A \ r y hlS lncrease from the point of view of I

out of account the secondary question

— ^,IL^S, ^jntem aer Werttith eori e 'v ol 'll nn TTC i*f. t u-rr
p. 599. "i PP- I/5> »7«J a'so Hoffler, /•'jyv

tem d'r Mrthtteont, Vol. II, p. 171

1 88 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

of the nature of that measure (which would have to be ex
pressed not only in terms of intensity, but also of extension,
that is of its capacity for expression in all the acts of life, whereas
Ehrenfels takes into account only the strength or intensity),
we may go directly to the root of the problem. The rationality
of the desire for increase of disposition must be determine
wholly by the question of experience, whether such an ideal is an
object with capacity of continuous valuation, whether with
repetition or increase of amount, the worth feeling increase
accordingly. The criterion being one of intnnsic and internal
meaning, the only way in which the possibility and desirability
of the increase of a disposition can be known is by willing
it by judging or assuming the object to exist and mfe
the truth of such judgment or assumption from the wortl
experiences which result. The criterion is wholly mtr
experiential. But for Ehrenfels the real test of the rationality
of the desire is not an intra-experiential test, not a criterion
formed in the inductive analysis of the different types of worth
feelings themselves. It is inferred deductively from a purely
hypothetical and abstract conception which is extra-psychological.
It rests upon the assumption of specific nervous dispositions
and of the limitation of the energies of these dispositions.

This it seems to me, is an essentially false way of stating the
problem The " rationality " of any valuation is essentially an
axiological problem, and as I hope to show in the concluding
chapter, the only possible axiological criterion is an internal
one immanent in the process of valuation itself,
point of view, the only sense in which the question of rational
ity " has any meaning is that expressed by the purely
practical question-can I continue to desire and will any
object or its increase, without internal contradictions, con
tradiction in this sphere meaning, of course, not contradiction
of judgment with judgment, but of feeling with feeling •
of feeling with will ? In the concrete case before us, i
actually desire increase of a given sentiment, and in that ex
perience there is nothing paradoxical, as there is in the case of the
desire for indefinite increase of pleasure, but with each judgment
of increase of the sentiment there is an increase of worth feeling
then such a desire is rational in the only sense in which t
word has meaning in this connection.

The true way of stating Ehrenfels's problem is rather this-
does such a desire for indefinite increase of an ideal object,

The Laws of Valuation

£'

5 *'

=»=
b«™ ,„ i.,«P,s,,, ts- tht j"*"™' "• *-

logical analysis of the dffierent t , that a PSych°-

and the formulation of the lawtof ^T r T"'11 fedin«s'
analysis, give us the sr' ntifi valuation based upon this

pret the concrete facts of I T^3 ™th which to inter-
disclose. The iefulness o Ih ° WWch °Ur analysis «»

ing studies shou d not be ^LT*?*0"* *" °Ur SUCCeed-
introduction of concep ions f Z I 7 preJudiced ^ the
irrelevant. °m a sPhere whi<* is essentially

CHAPTER VII

I. VALUES OF SIMPLE APPRECIATION — THEIR ORIGIN AND

NATURE

i. Objects of " Condition Worth," Primary and Derived

A PRELIMINARY classification of worth objects distinguished
three general groups — condition worths, or worths of simple
appreciation, personal worths, and over-individual or imper
sonal worths. To these corresponded the three fundamental
types of activity of valuation, simple appreciation, characterisa
tion, and participation, the latter including utilisation of ob
jects. On each of these levels of valuation the worth of the
object is the funded affective-volitional meaning acquired in
antecedent psychical processes, and the different qualifications
in worth feeling on these levels, distinguishable for appreciation,
go back to differences in the processes by which these worths
are funded. Condition worths of simple appreciation are
determined by feelings of the individual which presuppose
merely presumptions, judgments, or assumptions of existence
or non-existence of objects immediately or remotely desirable,
that is, objects which correspond to conative dispositions.
They are called condition worths because the feelings aroused
are, when abstracted from the object and viewed retrospectively,
referred not to the idea of the self, but to the affective condition
of the organism. Personal worths are determined by feelings
which presuppose processes of sympathetic Einfuhlung and ideal
construction of dispositions on the basis of that experience,
while over-individual worths are determined by feelings which
have as their presuppositions still wider processes of social
participation, and consequent ideal construction.

The three levels thus distinguished represent relatively
distinct stages in valuation, and are related to each other in
such a manner that the values of the lower level are implicitly
presupposed on the next higher level. Personal and social

190

Values of Simple Appreciation 191

values, with their qualitatively distinct feelings and differ
entiated objects, emerge first in the processes of simple appre
ciation, being built upon and developed out of objects of " con
dition" worth. This general process, in which the object of
explicit judgment and feeling becomes the object of implicit
assumption, and gives place to a new object on a higher
level, we may describe as a progression or Value Movement.
The general problem that confronts us in our succeeding studies
is, accordingly, the description of the processes involved in these
progressions, the discovery of their conditions and laws, and
the reduction of their empirical uniformities, in so far as possible,
to the general laws of conation and feeling described as the laws
of Valuation.

While this is the general problem — the genetic background
of our picture, the immediate foreground is taken up by
the values and objects of condition worth. These objects
are the primary worth objects, and their values the primary
values. From these, as has been said, the personal and social or
over-individual values are derived. But within the region of
condition worths themselves, there are certain phenomena and
laws of valuation which require study for their own sake. To
this problem the present chapter is devoted, and it may be
described as the application of the general laws of Valuation to
the specific class of condition worths.

Objects of condition worth are of varied character, and
may for convenience be divided into physical and psychical.
To the physical objects belong primarily the so-called economic
goods, desire for which is conditioned by certain primary sense-
tendencies, the stimulation or gratification of the same being
described as consumption. To these must be added other
objects of sense tendency which for various reasons do not enter
directly into economic calculations, although they must of
necessity indirectly, such as the satisfaction of fundamental
sex and gregarious instincts. Psychical objects of condition
worth are the qualities of physical objects, which, arising in
the processes of consumption, pursuit, acquisition, become the
objects of new appreciations, and either add complementary
worth to the primary objects, or, when made the objects of
judgment, call out new worth feelings.

This distinction between primary and derived objects and
values of simple appreciation constitutes the starting-point
for the detailed studv of values of condition and their laws.

192 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

It is desirable, therefore, to develop the distinction more fully.
By a primary value (or Stammwert, as Ehrenfels calls it) is
understood any object which serves to satisfy immediately
any fundamental instinctive sense-tendency. The mere pre
sumptions or judgment of existence or non-existence of such
objects is followed by a feeling of intrinsic value. By funda
mental, in this sense, we understand a relatively constant in
stinctive tendency, with its corresponding passional or emotional
psychosis (or instinct feeling), which may, according to the
cognitive acts through which it is actualised, be predominantly
desire or feeling.1

It is not necessary for our purposes that we should determine
just what objects and values are primary and what secondary.
For some purposes of ethical and social science such a classi
fication is, it is true, necessary — and many attempts have
been made in this direction, notably the recent efforts of
Ehrenfels and Schwartz, but for the special ends of the present
study, it is quite sufficient to recognise that there are certain
fundamental conative tendencies, such as hunger, sex, ex
pression of bodily energy, etc., the satisfaction of which gives
immediate and unconditional " condition " worth, that for any
given individual they are primary and original, and that the
simplest object corresponding to these tendencies are therefore
primary objects of simple appreciation.

Much more important is the derivation of the secondary
from the primary. These secondary or derived values emerge,
it was said, in the processes of pursuit, acquisition, and con
sumption of the primary objects. As complementary values,
they are first imputed, as additional values, to the primary
objects ; but they may ultimately be abstracted from the primary
objects, ideally reconstructed and independently valued, when
they become the objects of personal and social values.

In the preceding chapter we have seen in a general way
how these complementary values emerge in the processes of
valuation. On the side of the object they are the resultants of

1 The term fundamental carries with it no implications as to higher objective worth
or underived character. As Schwartz in his criticism of Nietzsche's worth theory
rightly points out, there are no conative tendencies or dispositions which by reason
of their originality carry with them implications as to their primary, least of all ex
clusive, worth. At the same time, when we view the history of the individual as
well as that of the race, we find that certain instincts and conative tendencies to
which the fundamental passions correspond do, in a certain sense, act as poles about
which others concentrate. The individual at birth may from a psychological point
of view be looked upon as a group of more or less loosely co-ordinated conative
tendencies, impulses, and instincts.

Values of Simple Appreciation 193

perceptual and ideal reconstruction ; on the side of conative
tendency they involve readaptations of attitude after arrest.
Continuous valuation of any isolated physical good, satisfaction
of any single tendency, is followed by dulling of sensitivity
and satiety, and the reconstruction of the object, together
with modifications of the attitude, constitutes a value move
ment in which the continuity of valuation is maintained.
Our present task is to study these value movements in more
detail, to discover whether these transformations of attitude and
reconstruction of objects cannot be reduced to general types,
and their conditions and laws determined. To this end we shall
seek, first, to classify and analyse the general phenomena of value
movement, and then to distinguish those which are characteristic
of sirnple appreciation — those by which primary condition
worths acquire complementary value — from the more complete
developments from one level of valuation to another. From
this understanding of value movements and their relation to
the general laws of valuation, we shall turn to the study of two
special forms of psychical development, in which objects of con
dition worth acquire ethical and aesthetic values, and shall seek
to show how these acquired complementary values modify our
simple economic judgments.

Our general problem may be made more definite by con
necting it with the results of the preceding chapter. The law
of the Threshold, the law of Limiting Value, and the law of
Complementary Values are, we found, the fundamental laws
of worth-process in general. We have seen how both of these
last two laws modify the threshold. The law of Limiting Value
modifies the threshold of value judgment in the sense that old
objects and habitual quantities of these objects lose their value,
and discontinuous value movement to new objects results. The
law of Complementary Values, of which the continuous value
movements to be described are but special applications, extends
both the lower and upper threshold of valuation. How these
thresholds are modified by acquired ethical and aesthetic values
constitutes the chief problem of our study.

o

1 94 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

II. VALUE MOVEMENTS IN GENERAL — DEFINITION AND CLASSI
FICATION — THEIR RELATION TO THE LAWS OF VALUATION

i. Definition of Value Movements.

By the term value movement we understand, then, any
reconstruction of the object, or readaptation of attitude, from
which there results continuity of valuation. The term, thus
technically used, has acquired a permanent place in the recent
contributions to worth theory. The term is primarily due to
Ehrenfels,1 who uses it to describe any transference of worth
feeling from one object to another. Schwartz 2 makes use of
the same conception, although he gives it another name, Motiv-
Wandel, thereby describing the fact that, in the pursuit of one
object new objects gradually, and often unconsciously, take the
place of the old. Both writers then seek to classify and formu
late the laws of these value movements, and ultimately to in
terpret them in terms of the fundamental laws of value. To
these types of value movement they give the term Directions
of movement, indicating thereby that the changes that take
place are not lawless, but disclose certain trends, the causes for,
and the meaning of which, it is the function of worth analysis
and theory to discover. This conception of value movement
we may accept — with the one modification, however, that it
shall be understood to include also changes in attitude toward
the same object, as well as changes in the object, by which mean
ing is acquired.

With this understanding of the use of the term value move
ment, we may distinguish two general types, already referred
to, the discontinuous and the continuous. We have the former
when, through the working of the laws of habit and satiety,
there is simply transference of conative tendency from one
object to another. The one acquires meaning, the other loses

1 System der Werththeorie, Vol. I, p. 135.

* Psychologic des Willcnst etc., p. 203. This passage may well be quoted in its
entirety : " This relation [Value Movement] is found regularly under certain conditions,
namely, when, originally only one tendency having moved us, unexpectedly a new note
of our will, hitherto unsounded, makes itself heard. As yet we know not what it is
that sounds softly within us. We still think we are acting only in the direction of the
first motive. But the second gains in force, at first merely as a subsidiary tone of the
primary, perhaps never to be heard independently. And yet it may suddenly take
the place of the first and be heard for itself. When that happens, when we gradually
begin to perform the acts done from the old motive under the influence of the new, and
thereby either forget the old or supplement the old with the new, then we have what is
called Alotiv-wandel or value movement."

Values of Simple Appreciation 195

it. On the other hand, we have continuous value movement
where there is gradual transference of conative tendency to
a new object or a new aspect of the same object, where the new
worth feeling becomes complementary to the old or the old
feeling remains as an undertone in the new.

2. Classification of Value Movements — Their Directions.

By the directions of value movement, then, we understand
the relatively uniform types of transference of worth feeling to
new objects, or to new aspects or funded qualities, of the
same objects, whereby new meaning is acquired. As modes
of acquirement of worth or affective-volitional meaning, they
are, in the first place, distinguishable only appreciatively ; but,
since such movement presupposes some psychical process whereby
the object is modified, and also certain changes in the functional
presuppositions of the feeling-attitude toward the object, these
appreciative descriptions may be translated into psychological
terms. Their appreciative character appears immediately in
the terminology employed in their description. They have
been classified as upward and downward, as forward and back
ward movement, as inward movement and as movement toward
activity. In each case the immediate feeling or condition worth
of the object has acquired some new reference, transgredient
or immanental, not previously distinguishable.

We may best study these phenomena by a critical ex
amination of the classifications of these directions, and of the
principles which underlie them. Ehrenfels 1 distinguishes four
principal types of direction, the upward, the downward, the
inward value movements, and what he describes as the move
ment toward activity. To such a movement he gives the
general name Ziel-folge, because, while for the subject of the
value movement there is no consciousness of end or purpose,
nevertheless, in reflection the transitions may be seen to have
an internal meaning. We have a Ziel-folge nach aufwarts, up
ward value movement, when an object valued immediately and
intrinsically becomes valued mediately because it is instrumental
to the attainment of some new object of value. The reverse
of this — where an object valued as a means to an end becomes
valued for itself, the former object having been lost sight of, he
describes as Ziel-folge nach abwdrts. We have the inward value

1 System der Werththeorie, pp. 132-141.

Valuation:

movement, «*** ~

ierred from some object of 6 the

which the worth f itutrwhen the emphJs of valuation is

toward activity takes place when t i y ^ activitles m.

shifted from the °Y^ of Se object and' m reacting upon it
volved in the presentation of the oD] e here present

Illustrations of these four types movements are

in our experience. The upward g*^ jnstincts and their
observable in connection with aU tun Q( ^^ o

objects. The satisfaction of hunger kr , ^ instrument ,

intrinsic worth at first, may c nie to ^.^ be

to ideal and conceptual ends, as wne, n ^^ health

conscious^ valued »£££%£;% Lught consciously as
and power, or when experience s ot The downwatd

means for the development «*•"££ cases where money,
movement is, on the ^^trst as instruments to other
knowledge, position, etc. sought « IUustrations of this

ends, finally become ends *£•«££»* and social groups,
tendency may also ^ s^eS^valued first merely as necessary
where frugality and self ^lal J own

means to ends, acquire an mtr va valuation of dis-

The inward value movement, toward t ^ ^^

positions intrinsically, often d«dy —< ^ ^ rf
Lrd movement, is constantly m e" wWch have

consideration the fund ament al e hical p courage>
been historically developed in ^ this way fixed {or social

veracity, etc., the *«ndament"sUee the genesis of new dis-
imitation and valuation, we may ^ee [ th g our

positions as objects of r'^Tn ft conditions of life requiring
ees. Every marked change ^ of disposltion through

-
iost

sight of. activity is also observable in con-

The movement toward V As we shall see
nection with aU forms of cona U« ^tende y^ ^^

later, it is at the root , aU ^ m activity, at first

esthetic in the broadesl ense. VV to {unctlon

directed toward some concrete ol |ect ^e ^ transference

with relative independence of the end of ^
of the emphasis of valuation.

Values of Simple Appreciation 197

hunt, of love-making, of social communication of all sorts, all
instinctive at the start, and with definite concrete ends, may
become intrinsically valued as mere forms of activity. And
with this transference of emphasis, comes rearrangement and
ordering of the activities as individualised wholes with a mean
ing of their own.

Schwartz makes a slightly different classification of these
phenomena from a somewhat different point of view. It
can be shown, however, I think, that it is really with the
same uniformities of direction that his analysis is concerned.
He distinguishes three fundamental types of value movement,
or Motiv-Wandel. These are the forward and backward move
ments and the movement toward activity. By the forward move
ment is understood the development from mere condition worth
to ideal objects and values, either personal or over-individual.
Typical illustrations of this movement are the development of
passion into ideal love, of merely organic sympathy into conscious
benevolence, of curiosity into love of knowledge and truth. In
each of these cases physical objects, the worth or funded mean
ing of which is determined by the modifications of feeling as a
condition of the organism, gradually pass over into founded ideal
objects whose worth is determined by feelings presupposing the
processes of judgment in which the ideal objects were con
structed. This is described as the forward movement because
it is the normal direction which worth processes take in con
tinuous valuation.

We have the backward movement, on the other hand, when
the emphasis of valuation is transferred from the object of im
mediate appreciation or condition worth, or, indeed, from an
ideal object, personal or over-individual, which has developed
out of simple appreciation, to the mere hedonic redundancies
of the feeling of value. In this phenomenon, the hedonic reson
ance abstracted from the total attitude, conceived as passive,
and presented in conceptual terms as quantity of pleasure,
becomes the object of desire and worth feeling. This backward
movement is conspicuously present in all forms of conscious
hedonism and epicureanism, but is also to be observed in a
more subtle form in sentimental enjoyment of emotions of all
kinds — sympathetic, religious, moral, etc.

It will be observed that Schwartz does not distinguish a
special type of inward value movement toward the valuation
of dispositions. The reason for this is clear when we recognise

198 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

that it is but one aspect of forward value movement. All
forward movement is in the direction of the construction of
ideal objects and their valuation. Now the disposition is an
ideal construct based upon the experience of condition worths,
and referred to the self in judgment. It is, therefore, clearly
a type of forward movement of ideal reconstruction of experi
ence in the interest of continuity of valuation. The movement
toward activity is closely connected with the backward move
ment, although not to be identified with it.

A comparison of these attempts to classify value move
ments reveals two facts which, when properly interpreted,
will enable us to explain them psychologically, and to show
their origin and function in the processes of valuation. In the
first place, as has already been suggested, these directions of
value movement are appreciative descriptions of certain uni
formities in modification of psychical content and function.
When they are described as movements, forward and backward,
as inward movement and movement toward activity, we have
before us a complete system of possible developments of desire
or conation from some simple fundamental desire as a point of
departure, a system of possible developments through which
worth may be acquired.

In the second place, we find that they fall into two general
groups : (i) the value movement as transference of worth
feeling along the series of means to ends, the upward or down
ward movement ; (2) value movement to some new object, or
new aspect of the old object, which gradually emerges in the
processes of desire and feeling directed toward the primary
object. Such are the inward movement toward the disposition,
the movement toward activity, and the backward movement
toward the hedonic accompaniments. It is with the second
general class that we are here concerned. They are, as we have
described them, " continuous " value movements in that they
represent continuous acquirement of meaning.

In those value movements where the continuity is reflective,
the change in functional presuppositions consists in the inter
polation of a relational judgment between desire or feeling
and its object. The object is of value because it is instrumental
to the attainment of another object of desire. The disposition
when viewed as object is of value because it is instrumental
to some desirable act, or because it is identified with the subject.
Those value movements, on the other hand, which are character-

l/alues of Simple Appreciation 199

ised by a gradual change in appreciative attitude, by a change
which takes place within an emotional unity and continuity, have
changes in presuppositions of another type. They consist for
the most part in the gradual substitution of assumptions for
the primary judgments, the addition of new judgments and
the combination of existential judgments and assumptions in
various ways. Both types of value movement arise, as we shall
see, as adaptations of conative tendency after arrest and ' dis
tancing' of the object of immediate desire and feeling; they
differ in the extent to which the readaptation involves conceptual
reconstruction.

3. Analysis of Value Movements in Simple Appreciation.

When we examine more closely this second group of value
movements, i.e., where an object acquires new meanings, it
is apparent that they are all characterised by the fact that
they begin in a change of attitude toward the primary object,
in which change new feelings, or modifications of feelings,
emerge, leading to the imputation of complementary value to
the primary object, and ultimately to the construction of new
ideal objects. In the first case we have merely an extension of
simple appreciation, in the second case an advance to a new
level of valuation, as, for instance, of personal worths. The
inward value movement and the movement toward activity
are first of all value movements of simple appreciation, but they
are the germ of later ideal constructions and values.

This gradual change in attitude — with its perceptual and ideal
reconstruction of the primary object — involves certain changes
in cognitive presuppositions. In general these changes are of the
nature of substitution of assumption for judgment, of gradual
change of the primary judgment into assumption, explicit or
implicit, and emergence of new judgments. The character of
these substitutions differs in detail with the specific type of
value movement, but the general nature of the process may be
described by saying that the primary object of judgment, desire,
and feeling, is gradually distanced, falls into the background,
the feeling of its existence being retained merely as an assumption-
feeling, while a new object or new aspect of the old object comes
into the foreground as object of presentation and judgment.

To consider in more detail the changes in functional pre
suppositions involved in the value movements of simple appre-

2OO Valuation : its Nature and Laws

elation, we may start with the type of movements described as
substitutions. Here it is obvious — for instance, in the case
where the marital attitude becomes gradually coloured by the
maternal, or reversely, as in the case of Rousseau, described in
a preceding chapter,1 — that we have to do with phenomena of
affective subsumption, the nature of which has already been
described. As the new aspect of the old object, or the new
object, gradually becomes the object of judgment, and, there
fore, of new worth feelings, the old judgment- feeling does not
disappear, but gradually changes into an assumption-feeling.
The old relation, the old attitude, the marital, for instance,
remains as a vague presupposition or assumption, and the affec
tive sign which goes with it colours the new feeling. We have
in this phenomenon an emotional continuity, whereas in the dis
continuous value movement, previously described, the transition
from one judgmental attitude to another is abrupt.

The inward movement and the movement toward activity
on the level of simple appreciation are phenomena of the same
general type, of gradual readaptation. In the first case, the
inward movement, the judgment- feeling is gradually modified
until it becomes an implicit assumption, and gives place to a
new modification of feeling and a new object. The object of
primary feeling is one, the existence or non-existence of which
is intrinsically desired. Out of this desire springs an act which
is instrumentally necessary and instrumentally valued. With
the repetition of that act, and the formation of habit or con
stancy of disposition, the object of immediate desire is distanced,
the control factor becomes subjective, and new assumptions
and judgments emerge. The act itself is assumed to have an
intrinsic value, even when abstracted from the object. It
acquires an impulsion, a momentum, so to speak, which per
sists even when the primary object sinks into the background.
Such an inward value movement may be either purely indi
vidual and sub-social, or partially social in its origin and
conditions. It is with its individual aspect that we are first of
all concerned.

Now, as has been pointed out, the completion of this value
movement leads to the presentation of the disposition itself as
object of judgment, and to its intrinsic valuation. But between
this and the immediate desire for the object or act lies an inter
mediate stage of inward movement, which is the significant

1 Chap, v, p. 140.

Values of Simple Appreciation 201

phenomenon in this connection. This intermediate attitude is
characterised by an intensification of the transgredient reference
or tension, through the formation of the dispositional constant.
This modification of feeling has, however, as its functional
presupposition, merely an assumption of some ultimate object
for the transgredient reference of the feeling. Thus the gradual
acquirement of the feeling of obligation with reference to any
act, a phenomenon which we shall later consider as the most
important phase of the inward movement, consists in adding to
the worth of the object or act the transgredient reference ac
quired in the formation of the disposition, this added feeling
having as its presupposition the assumption of the existence or
non-existence of a more ultimate desirable object to which
the reference points. On the level of simple appreciation, of
merely felt obligation, this object is always indefinite. It is
only through ideal construction and explicit judgment, when
this transgredient reference is directed explicitly to such objects
as the self or the other, the law, the State, or God, that assump
tion passes over into judgment. The process by which obligatory
character is imputed to an object or act may then be viewed
as a continuous value-movement in which an old worth feeling
is gradually subsumed under a new, the new in this case being
the assumption-feeling corresponding to the dispositional con
stant created. The acquired worth in this case is an increase
of the transgredient reference.

The movement toward activity also consists in the gradual
distancing of the primary object of desire and worth feeling
and the interpolation of a new attitude or object. In its complete
form the activity of conation or feeling becomes the presented
object of new judgment-feelings, as when for instance the activities
of play, the hunt, or love, as in coquetry, become the object of
worth themselves, without any conscious reference to their
primary objects. But here again, between immediate desire
for the object and the stage of explicit valuation of the activity
directed toward the object, there is an intermediate phase of
importance for simple appreciation. It is the stage where the
gradual substitution of the activity leads merely to the imputa
tion of the new worth thus acquired, to the original object of
desire. The process here involved is relatively simple. The
original object of desire, the judgment of the existence or non-
existence of which is followed by worth feelings, is gradually
distanced, and for the judgment a mere assumption is substituted.

2O2

Valuation : its Nature and Laws

As the desired object sinks into the background, the activity
comes into prominence.

Now, the characteristic of this acquired worth, appreciatively
described, is its immanental reference. The distancing of the
object from immediate desire, which takes place when judgment
passes over into assumption, and the coming into the foreground
of consciousness of the mere activities of conation and feeling,
make possible repose in the object, together with the acquirement
of new worth through the independent functioning of the activi
ties originally directed upon the object. When we come to study
in more detail the acquirement of aesthetic worth, as the most im
portant aspect of the movement toward activity, we shall find
that the acquired immanental reference of the aesthetic attitude is
a worth moment which has as its corresponding object those ideal
objects which we mean by the words beauty, grace, sublimity, etc.
Finally we may see that the movement towards activity, as a
felt continuity, must also be viewed as an emotional subsumption.
The new feelings which arise in the perceptual and ideal con
struction of the object in the interests of mere activity, are sub
sumed under the fundamental emotional attitude, some senti
ment or mood, directed toward the primary object.

4. Interpretation and Explanation of Value Movements : Their
Relation to the Laws of Valuation.

A general review of the changes in functional presuppositions
which characterise all these value movements in simple apprecia
tion, discloses the fact that the common element in them all
is the distancing of the primary object of desire or feeling,
and the interpolation of new feeling attitudes with modified
presuppositions. The change of judgment into assumption,
the assimilation of new judgments to these assumptions, and
through it all a felt continuity, are the significant factors. It i
important to emphasise both the fact and the nature of this
continuity. These processes are continuous in that, in contrast
with the reflective developments or the movements determined by
instrumental judgments, all these movements of simple apprecia
tion, the affective substitutions, the inward movement and the
movement toward activity, constitute a gradual assimilation of a
new meaning to an old object or a new object to an old meaning.
In the second place, the character of the continuity is best
scribed as emotional, as an emotional subsumption. The mean

Values of Simple Appreciation 203

term of the transition is emotional ; the assumption feeling,
representing the judgment habit of former valuations of the
primary object, is retained as the background or " affective
sign " which gives colour to the new feeling. Such subsumptions
we may describe as forms of emotional logic.

The justification of this conception of an emotional as dis
tinguished from an intellectual logic has already been attempted
in an earlier chapter.1 In that chapter also the nature and con
ditions of these affective subsumptions have been treated in their
more psychological aspects, and illustrations of the fundamental
types of subsumption developed in detail. Here it is important
merely to emphasise the fact that the value movements of simple
appreciation are of this general type.

But the significance of these emotional continuities really
appears only when they are viewed genetically as readaptations
(progressions or regressions, as the case may be), following upon
the working of those laws of interest or of affective-volitional
meaning, described as the laws of valuation. The principal
law, the law of Limiting Value, which, we have seen, applies to
all objects of condition worth, and to all instrumental construc
tions growing out of valuation of objects of condition worth,
may, in its functional aspect, be interpreted as a law of arrest,
and the value movements as readaptations after arrest. The
general law of acquirement of Complementary Value describes in
general terms certain forms of readaptation after arrest.2

Functionally viewed, the law of Limiting Value formulates
the conditions under which arrest and discontinuity of conative
process appear. When reduced 'to their psychological causes,
these arrests were seen to be of two general types. In the first
place there is the arrest of any isolated conative tendency due
to habit and satiety following upon repetition or over-stimulation
of the sense tendencies involved. In the second place, however,
and equally important, is the modification of feeling, and arrest

1 Chap, v, pp. 121 ff.

2 The importance of the moment of arrest in value movement must be emphasised.
The criticism made by Hegel upon those theories of the development of mind which
proceed in a purely "affirmative manner" may still hold to-day if we translate their
intellectualistic terminology into affective-volitional. In speaking of these methods, he
says : " Their ruling principle is that the sensible is taken (and with justice) as the prius
and the initial basis, but that the latter phases that follow from this starting-point present
themselves as emerging in a solely affirmative manner, and the negative aspect of
mental activity by which the material is transmuted into mind and destroyed as a
sensible is misconceived and overlooked" (Philosophy of Mind, William Wallace, The
Clarendon Press, sec. 442, p. 61). So also we may say that, while the condition worths
are the prius of higher levels of valuation, the later phases arise only through arrest of
the primary.

2O4 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

of conation when the limit of instrumental judgment is reached,
when the reapplicability of the object in question for the satisfac
tion of primary wants ceases, or when acts, instrumentally
valuable in the attainment of objects, become inapplicable, and
when attainment is no longer probable, or even possible.

These then are the causes of arrest of conative tendency which
lead to value movement. But it is all important to emphasise the
fact that these arrests of conative tendency may be complete
or only partial, for in the difference of the degree of the arrest
we have the source of the distinction between different types of
value movements. Where the arrest is complete, the value
movement is discontinuous, and we have transference of cona
tion and feeling to a new object. Where, on the other hand,
the arrest is only partial, we have value movement of the con
tinuous type, the gradual assimilation of a new object to an old,
or gradual change in attitude toward the primary object, by
which complementary value is acquired. The value of the
primary object remains as an assumption, a presupposition of
the new feelings.

Finally we may note the teleological character of these
value movements. Functionally viewed, they are readapta-
tions after arrest, whereby continuity of valuation is secured
and meaning is acquired. The description of the directions
of these movements or types of adaptations, is, we have
already seen, appreciative in character, and therefore pre
supposes the postulate of all appreciative descriptions,
enhancement of worth or acquirement of meaning, and is
teleological in its nature. But when these value movements
are described as teleological, it is obviously not meant that they
are determined by an explicit consciousness of end.1 Such
explicit reference to ends appears only upon the higher levels of
valuation. Looking back from these higher levels, we may see
that the complementary values of objects of condition worth
contain the germ of developments to higher levels, but the objects
of valuation on these higher levels are not foreseen in simple
appreciation. In the value movements of simple appreciation
the teleology is wholly immanental.

1 The use made of Wundt's descriptive formula (Heterogeneity of Ends) in describing
these progressions constitutes an explicit denial of such character to the processes,
complementary values which arise in these movements are unforeseen, are not prese
in idea, but gradually emerge in the acquisition or enjoyment of objects of primary con
dition worth The teleological character appears rather as immanental and is described
by the application of Wundt's second principle the Law of Resultants. The results
these value movements, of these perceptual and ideal constructions of the object, have i
worth or meaning not in the elements.

Values of Simple Appreciation 205

III. ETHICAL AND ESTHETIC VALUES ACQUIRED IN VALUE
MOVEMENTS OF SIMPLE APPRECIATION — THEIR ROLE AS
DETERMINANTS OF THE ECONOMIC VALUES OF ACQUISITION
AND CONSUMPTION

i. Ethical and ^Esthetic Values as Modifications of Feelings
of Condition Worth.

There are two fundamental ways in which the simple appre
ciation of the condition worth of the object may be modified.
The worth attitude may acquire the attribute of obligation or
of aesthetic repose in the object. These acquired feelings then
become the basis of imputation of new worth to the object.

It is of the utmost importance to recognise the relativity of
these appreciative differences. The a priori distinctions drawn
by Kant do not maintain themselves upon closer analysis.
Genetically viewed, the more primitive ethical and aesthetic
values arise in the very processes of consumption and acquisition.
The obligation to cleanliness and thrift, the aesthetic values of
taste and refinement in living, are acquired almost imperceptibly.
And from the analytical point of view also, it is impossible to say
that obligation is something fundamentally different from desire
or that the aesthetic is desireless appreciation. They are
merely appreciative distinctions within the total worth process,
modifications of attitude by which meaning is acquired. And,
when the problem is approached from the side of economic
analysis, it is seen that even the economist cannot keep his
province distinct, but is forced to see his general laws modified
by the intrusion of ethical and aesthetic motives. These facts,
which constitute the bane of the various worth sciences when they
seek to work alone, are precisely those which contain the greatest
promise for worth theory as a whole. An act or an attitude
acquires ethical worth or meaning when it becomes obligatory,
and for an act to be felt as obligatory, means that it has become
the object of a new kind of worth feeling. An object acquires
aesthetic worth or meaning when it becomes, as we say, beautiful,
the term being used in its larger sense to include all the modifica
tions of the aesthetic. And for an object to be felt as beautiful,
means that it has become the object of a new kind of worth
feeling. In each case the oughtness or the beauty of act or object
is a funded meaning or worth acquired in some process and
imputed to the object or act.

;06 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

When we seek to describe appreciatively these

precisely described the sense ; of beauty ,s a d^« g

sw

saart

r^renftoward^ctivity aheady descnhed.

1 Chap, in, pp. 68-71.

Values of Simple Appreciation 207

2. The Ethical Mode of Simple Appreciation — Its Modification
of the Condition Worth of Objects.

(a) Analysis of the Impellent Mode of Obligation.

An attempt to analyse more completely the sense of obligation
shows that it is, in one sense, an ultimate mode of appreciation
which is not further reducible. Our description of it as a deepen
ing of the transgredient reference as impellent mode, is in reality
only a description and not a definition. Strictly speaking,
definition is impossible. If we wish to go further in our fixation
of this mode of experience, it must be by a method of interpolation
of the mode in a series of equally ultimate meanings, and by
determination of their psychological equivalents. But in follow
ing this procedure we are immediately met by a considerable
difference of opinion. Thus Simmel finds obligation to be a
fundamental modality of thought (Denk Modus) ; others de
scribe it as a mode of will and still others as a mode of feeling.
On closer inspection it will, nevertheless, appear, I think, that
there is no necessary irreconcilability in these different views.
Worth experience, of which obligation is a mode, is seen always
to be feeling with certain cognitive presuppositions, while the
distinction between feeling and will has, on closer analysis,
shown itself to be a relative difference of intent and not of
content.

Simmel finds obligation, das Sollen, in one aspect, a mode of
thought which lies midway between the judgments of non-
existence and existence. Speaking of the various possible
attitudes toward objects, he says : " One could arrange them
all in a phenomenological series which extends from the mere
presentation of an object for our thought, without existence, to
complete reality. Das Wollen, das Hoffen, das Konnen, das
Sollen, all these are, so to speak, mediate stages between non-
existence and existence, which, for one who has never experienced
them, we could as little define as we are able to say what being or
thinking really is: there is no definition of obligation."1 Here
then the attitude of obligation is indirectly defined by giving it its
place in a continuous vital series, in much the same fashion
that the relations of attitudes of feeling and will were defined
. in Brentano's series. What is it that distinguishes the attitude
of obligation from the adjacent terms or modes in the series ?

1 Simmel, Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft, Berlin, 1892, Vol. I, p. 8.

2o8 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

Evidently it is its different cognitive presuppositions. It will be
recalled that we found the difference between feeling and will
in difference of intent or meaning of the same content according
as the object is recognised as independent of, or dependent upon,
the subject. With the recognition of independence of the object
we have feeling, with the recognition of dependence we have
desire or volition, according to the degree of the dependence.
Now worth feeling is feeling with judgments or assumptions
as its presuppositions, and the sense of obligation being a mode
of worth feeling, we must look for its differentia in these terms^
The feelings, " I wish," " I hope," " I can," " I should,
must " " I will," represent an ascending scale of changes i
these presuppositions in which the dependence of the act or object
upon the self comes more clearly to consciousness,
presupposes merely the judgment of non-existence; ' hope
this judgment as qualified by an assumption of possibility ;
must " represents this possibility as having passed over into ex
plicit judgment of existence. The feeling " I ought" lies midway
between power and constraint.

Obligation, when thus inserted into a series of cognate attitudes
is seen to be, in one aspect, a mode of thought. But this serial
method of interpretation also enables us to answer the other ques
tion as to whether it is a mode of feeling or will. Common speech
allows either description. For just as we fed need or hope or our
power to do a thing, so we may equally well be said to feel
obligation or the necessity of an act. The sense of obligation
may, therefore, very properly be described as a mode of worth
feeling On the other hand, when seen prospectively, in 1
light of the succeeding attitude of will, the sense of oughtness
seems to be nearer to, in fact a preliminary stage of volition.
The validity of both descriptions appears when we apply the
results of our preceding study and recognise that the distinction
between feeling and will is itself not ultimate, but that will is
also feeling with certain characteristic presuppositions,
sense of obligation appears to be a mode of will, and not feeling,
only when the term feeling is limited to those hedomc con
comitants which go with emotional disturbance. The feeling ot
obligation is by no means to be identified with emotional di<
turbance, for the deepest obligation may be represented
affective abstracts and even by affective signs, often t
emotional connotation of a word.

If this analysis of the sense of obligation is adequate, it is not

Values of Simple Appreciation 209

difficult to show its place in the system of value movements by
which condition worths acquire complementary value. Its
subsumption under the inward movement has already been
suggested in a preceding paragraph, where it was seen to be a
movement from the desire for the object itself to an attitude where
the desire is qualified by a consciousness of the disposition pre
supposed. It is an inward movement in which the object, or act
directed toward its realisation, acquires all the meaning of this
inward reference. The " distancing " of the object, its detach
ment from immediate satisfaction through arrest, is followed by
the deepening of the transgredient reference, which in turn is the
sign of the added element of a subjective control having its
locus in the pre-formed disposition. The mere feeling of the non-
existence of the object is supplemented by the assumption of
possibility, the feeling " I can," which then passes over into
judgments of existence and necessity. The impellent mode which
later develops into explicit sense of obligation is, therefore, a
transition stage between desire springing out of non-existence
and the sense of the " must be " which comes with the judgment
of existence.1

(b) Pre-Ethical and Quasi-Ethical Impulsions and Obligations:
Their Sub-Personal and Sub-Social Character.

The feeling of obligation in its simplest, pre-ethical form,
as impellent mode, is accordingly merely a new modification
of worth feeling. This modification is, as has been already
pointed out, at first, in its germinal form, objectless. Its apparent
object is still the primary object of simple desire, the simple
desire and feeling having been insensibly qualified by the deep
ening of the transgredient reference. Its real object r however,
is the disposition presupposed, and ultimately the ideal construct
of the self or the social group, to which the feeling is referred
when the progression or value movement has reached the stage
of explicit acknowledgment and characterisation of the pre
suppositions of the feeling. For this explicit acknowledgment

1 This origin of the movement toward obligation as dependent upon arrest is well
described by Simmel in Vol. II, p. 387 of the Einleitung, " Das Sollen nimmt eine
mittlere Stellung zwischen dem Miissen und dem Wollen ein ; beim Miissen stellen sich
der Handlung, die schlieslich aus einem iiberwiegenden Grunde doch gewollt wird, sehr
starke Wollungen entgegen ; bei dem freien Wollen gar keine ; bei dem Sollen eine
gewisse Anzahl, deren Uberwindung das Maass des sittlichen Verdienstes angiebt." He
is here describing obligation on the higher levels of personal and social worths.
P

2io Valuation: its Nature and Laws

•

and characterisation in judgment, certain processes of sym
pathetic imitation and projection, or pinfuhlung, are necessary.
But the object, later to be characterised and acknowledged, is
vaguely anticipated in the transgredient reference of the feeling.
The objects of the feeling of obligation are therefore always ideal
objects, and it is their worth which is reflected in the feeling of
obligation.

The feeling of obligation has, accordingly, different degrees of
explicitness. It may be merely felt, as in simple appreciation,
or it may be explicitly referred to some ideal object. In the
first case some object of the new qualification of feeling is vaguely
assumed, while in the second case some ideal object, such as the
ideal of the self and its dispositions, or the idea of social good or
law, is constructed, and to this the feeling is referred.

We may distinguish three levels of development at which this
deepened transgredient reference may appear, and they may
be described, in Guyau's terms, as the three psychological
equivalents of obligation.1 The first equivalent is that which
we have described as belonging to the level of simple appreciation,
the dynamic suggestion, the transgredient reference which an
attitude attains in an individual as the result merely of the
formation of conative dispositions or constants through rep
etition and habit. This equivalent we may describe as the
instinctive, pre-ethical, obligation on the level of simple apprecia
tion of objects. The second equivalent is the tension, deepening
of the transgredient reference, which arises through sympathetic
projection (Einf uhlung) . The presumption of the existence
of the feeling and feeling-disposition in another, or in social
groups, deepens the transgredient reference of the feeling
as condition of the subject. This Guyau describes as tension
arising from " fusion " of desires and feelings. The third equiva
lent is the further increase of tension or transgredient reference
which arises at the stage of reflection when the object of the
feeling is explicitly characterised and acknowledged as a demand,
personal or over-individual, social or ideal, as the case may be.
This third equivalent corresponds to the distinctly ethical
obligation. The others may be described as the pre-ethical
and quasi-ethical, respectively.

The situations in which this deepening of the worth con
sciousness, described as the sense of obligation, appears most

1 Guyau, Esquisse d'une Morale, sans obligation et sanction, Book I, chap, in,
especially p. 127.

Values of Sim-pie Appreciation 211

marked are, as the Kantian analysis rightly discovered, those
in which oppositions between personal and over-individual worths,
and between personal or over-individual worths and condition
worths occur, where in fact preference and sacrifice appear.
Such situations presuppose processes of sympathetic projection
and the ideal construction of personal and over-individual
objects toward which the feeling of obligation is directed. The
feeling of obligation in such cases presupposes, therefore, explicit
judgments of the existence or non-existence of the objects
and explicit references of them to the self or the alter. With
these we sfyall be concerned in later chapters. But while the
higher levels of obligation presuppose these processes of social pro
jection and imitation, it must not be thought that the feeling of
obligation is, as simple impellent mode, exclusively social in its
origin, or that the value movement toward the ethical is con
ditioned by the presentation of the attitude as a personal or social
worth. This is as far from the truth as it would be to say that the
aesthetic mode of worth experience is socially conditioned because
most of the specific aesthetic activities are social in their origin.
The primary sense of obligation is, as Guyau in his splendid
analysis shows, both sub-personal and sub-social. Mere instinctive
feeling, as a simple condition worth, prior to its presentation
either as an attitude of the self or the alter, has in it the potenti
ality of that situation of contrast and opposition out of which the
sense of obligation arises. Guyau has described this primary
sense of obligation as strictly correlative to the sense of capacity.
Wherever in the face of arrest emerges the sense of " I can,"
there tends to follow from it imperceptibly the sense of " I
ought."

(c) Illustrations of Various Instinctive, Quasi-Ethical Obligations.

Let us, then, first examine some expressions of this sub-
personal, sub-social sense of obligation prior to ideal construction
and conscious reference of feeling to ideals. There is scarcely any
conative tendency which cannot under certain conditions acquire
the sense of obligation. We are hardly aware of the constant
undertone of obligation which accompanies our simplest, most
instinctive acts. One of the most noticeable, and also most
instructive, is the sense of obligation which the mere possession
of brute physical strength may acquire. We begin to exert our
strength for a given end. If opposition appears, we frequently

212 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

find ourselves impelled to persist long after the object of the
original effort loses its interest. The place of worth has been
usurped by the attitude. Inward value movement has taken
place. All this would be simple enough in those cases where
persistence of effort is, under the stimulus of social imitation and
contrast, ideally presented as a personal worth, or as an object
with over-individual reference, but the point here is that ex
perience shows us this obligation emerging on the level of simple
appreciation, sub-personally and sub-socially, prior to the ideal
presentation of the attitude.

And if strength obliges, it is also true that other instinctive
activities connected with condition worths acquire the sense
of obligation. Sex, for instance, has its impulsions of an instinc
tive sort, prior to that reference of its attitudes and dispositions
to the self and society which creates the ethical and moral obliga
tion proper. Of such instinctive obligation Guyau has given a
good illustration in the case of a young girl who cast herself
out of the window rather than endure the embraces of a husband
who did not call out her love. Her state of mind bore all the
characteristic marks of the feeling of remorse, although all the
acquired obligations, personal and social, were met. She had
obeyed the commands of her parents and the demands of society,
but the instinctive obligations of sex triumphed in the form not
merely of distaste and unhappiness, but of a primary form of
remorse of the most fundamental character. So too the derived
emotional attitude of shame, which represents the product of a
long series of racial inhibitions, carries with it a primary obliga
tion of such a character that, even after reflective consideration,
after the construction of personal and social ideals which tend to
modify it, it triumphs in an instinctive obligation which cannot
be gainsaid.

An instructive characteristic of these obligations, which may
perhaps serve to account for their retention after reflection
comes in to modify them, is their complementary worth, height
ening the worth of the instinctive activity itself. Indeed one of
the most remarkable phenomena of the worth consciousness is
precisely this tendency to retain obligations and even to create
them. In connection with this very instinct of sex, the in
numerable little delicacies of obligation with which it hedges
itself about, the inhibitions which it, so to speak, sets itself, often
of no social significance and sub-personal in so far as they are
not consciously referred to the self, are so many ways of instinc-

Values of Simple Appreciation 2 1 3

lively acquiring new worth and meaning. Cases, almost ab
normal in character, have been pointed out (Zola describes it in
the case of one of his characters) of women who, after a life
in which they have abandoned these instinctive inhibitions,
obligations, and shames of sex, have, when entering upon a real
passion, sought to restore them with a zeal no less than pathetic.
The sense of unworthiness in the presence of a true love leads
to the development of a conscious cult of modesty which the
pure woman who had never felt the loss of these values would
never think of building up.

The significance of these phenomena which, although they
have been described in the case of but two fundamental con-
ative tendencies, are really characteristic of all, for the instinctive
creation of individual obligations is everywhere present in our
affective-volitional life, lies in the fact that this primary equiva
lent of obligation, this tendency to inward value movement,
whereby the object of immediate desire is set at a distance,
and thus acquires the complementary value of the transgredient
reference of the disposition presupposed, is a normal form of value
movement in the acquirement of affective-volitional meaning.
It is a special form of that general law of value movements, the
principle of Heterogeneity of Ends according to which conative
tendency directed toward an object develops new ends and values
not foreseen.

(d) Modification of Economic Valuation by these Acquired

Obligations.

The close relation which has been shown to exist between
simple desire and instinct and the primary equivalent of obliga
tion gives us a point of view from which we may understand the
genetic relation between simple condition worths in general and
ethical worths, more particularly between economic and ethical
values. The economic value of an object is determined by its
capacity to satisfy desire, either intrinsically by virtue of its rela
tion to conative dispositions, or instrumentally through its causal
relation to other objects which have this intrinsic capacity.
The activities of acquisition and consumption which determine
the economic worth of an object are themselves unethical, non-
moral, but may obviously acquire ethical values, and become
moralised. Certainly they may become moralised through their
relation to personal and social ends presented ideally as intrinsic-

214 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

ally valuable objects with which the economic activities are in-
strumentally related. But it would also seem that in the mere
processes of acquisition and consumption these condition worths
may insensibly acquire an ethical meaning. The instinctive
obligations which we have described may become thus qualified,
independently of any consciousness of more remote ends, personal
or social, presupposed in the processes of mere acquisition and
consumption. For such quasi-ethical qualifications there are,
as we have seen, definite descriptive terms such as thrift, enter
prise, cleanliness, etc. They represent dispositions which, at
first merely instrumental to the condition worths of acquisition
and consumption, may later be intrinsically valued as personal
worths, or imputed as intrinsic complementary worths to the
primary objects of desire, of acquisition and consumption,
with the latter phenomenon that we are here concerned, and an
analysis of the principles which underlie this imputation will dis
close the essential features of the process by which mere con
dition worths acquire the coefficient of obligation ; and secondly,
the way in which this acquired meaning modifies the laws which
govern judgments of economic value.

In our study of the Laws of Valuation,1 it was seen that
valuation moves between the two limits, or thresholds, which
mark off relative valuation from worthlessness on the one hand,
and from absolute worth on the other. The lower threshold
is that minimum of the good which has least importance, that
is the smallest increment the existence or non-existence of which
calls out a modification of worth feeling. The upper threshold,
or the " existence-minimum," is that minimum of a good, without
capacity of substitution, the possession of which constitutes the
necessary presupposition of all further relative valuation, and
which, therefore, itself has absolute value. In the sphere of
condition worths, with which we are here concerned, the objects
corresponding to these thresholds are quantities of a physical
object, the desirability of which lies in its capacity to satisfy
certain fundamental sense tendencies. It is in the modification
of these thresholds that the acquirement of the feeling of obliga
tion is seen to modify the judgments of condition worth.

It is beyond question, I suppose, that the feeling of the
worth of an object which constitutes the minimum of existence,
and which is without capacity of substitution, is quasi-ethically
qualified, has the acquired feeling of obligation. Within limits,

1 See chap, vi, pp. 148 ff-

Values of Simple Appreciation 2 1 s

\J

which we cannot here consider, self-preservation is the first
law of life. It is the most primitive instinctive obligation
which arises when the arrest of conative tendency is carried
far enough. There may not be a transgredient reference of
the feeling to an idea of the self so explicit that the feeling

f personal obligations arises, but there is at least a trans
gredient reference to the whole system of ideal ends which are
founded upon the preservation of life.1 Now, strictly speaking
the feeling of the intrinsic value of the object, the obligatory
character of the act directed toward the acquisition of the

>bject, falls off rapidly after the minimum of existence is passed.
Larger quantities of the good have only relative instrumental
value, for the reason that they satisfy only secondary and ac
quired tendencies, and have capacity for substitution. But
is precisely at this point that acquired complementary values
with their coefficient of obligation may come in to modify this
law anc to change the threshold of relative valuation. If,
for instance, the acquired complementary value of cleanliness
has supervened upon the consumption of the raw material

f desire, and if a corresponding disposition is formed with the
coefficient of obligation, the minimum of existence— the quantity
of goods vhich has absolute value, and for which indefinite
sacrifice wll be made— will be increased. Whatever is an
absolutely necessary condition to a certain irreducible minimum
of cleanliness will acquire absolute value. And in fact, as we
shall see lafer, when such a disposition is referred to the person
ality, and ccquires personal worth, its obligation may be of
such a character as to lead to the risk of life itself. On this
level of simple appreciation the acquirement of the coefficient

t obligation is seen to impute additional value to objects of
mere condition worth.

The acqurement of the feeling of obligation is, then, followed

mputaticn of intrinsic worth to the object. This leads us

consideration of a second phenomenon, namely, the modi-

ication of tht lower threshold of " final utility " through the

imputation oi the feeling of obligation to the object. This

)menon nay be more definitely described by saying that

0^ SCem;-at fi^ Sight' t0 be an illust^ion of what Baldwin

soost on of { °f f- ""I""1;- The System °f ideal ends founded u?on the pre-
ition of self-prservation is, of course, not present as a motive in any sense The

sLakK/±f ^,1^ °ne'S Hfe '*' Uke ^ imPdlent ™de °f "eehng
speaking, efyeOtu. All that is meant by this statement is that, after arrest of

acquircs an intrinsic

2i6 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

an acquired obligation, the result of an inward value movement,
may make intrinsically valuable a quantity of an object whi
instrumentally valueless, i.e., below the threshold. The pursuit
of the minimum of existence develops an instinctive obligate
in the manner described. The effort itself, the economic virtue
of enterprise, becomes intrinsically valuable. So also
the most economic disposal of the goods, descnbable as t
economic virtue of thrift. This acquired intrinsic and c
plementary value is then imputed as an additional value to
the purely instrumental values of quantities of the good, *hic
would, according to the law of Marginal Utility, if it were alone
determinative, approach to worthlessness. The illustration oJ
small coin, instrumentaUy valueless but intrinsically of wortl
described in our study of the concept of the threshold, is
case in point. And in general the very real -obligation c ten
largely instinctive and without explicit ends, which impe.
men to acquire and conserve property after it ceases to have
appreciable instrumental value for them, is of this nat

III ESTHETIC APPRECIATION AS A SPECIAL FOR* OF THE
" MOVEMENT TOWARD ACTIVITY-ITS MODIFICATICN c
DITION WORTHS

The distinctive attribute of the aesthetic mode of experience,
in contrast to the ethical, is its immanency. Beth «
are intrinsic, but while the ethical mode is appreciatively «
scribable as a deepening of the transgredient reference,
esthetic is seen to be a deepening of the immsnental refer-
ence. In our analysis of appreciative desertions in
first chapter, we found it to be characterised by repose in ti
obiect and increase of expansive suggestions o: the
From the standpoint of the genetic study of vake movements
we subsumed the movement toward the esthete under th.
general type of movement toward activity. It remains now
fo correlate these two points of view, to show hew the changes
in function and content involved in the moment toward
activity are the determining conditions of this repose in the
object and expansion of feeling: how in fact* one at
repose and activity may be combined, and how tiis ™™binat ™
creates complementary worth which is then mputed

n the case of our study of the ethical qualification of

Values of Simple Appreciation 2,7

condition worths, through the acquirement of the obligator
coefnc.en so our study rf ^ ^^ atio™

q

ao

begm Wlth an attempt to define fte ho,q equivakn s

of the appreciative description. And here, again we find th,

feaeTngPo°f eo"tPreSented- *" ^^ ^™" ™"
ng, of conation, or 01 cogmtion ? The answers are varied

and, again I am inclined to think, not necessarily contradltorv'

seTt V^V^' ^^fy, the .esthetic attitude wi? be'
seen to be a mode definable in aU three terms. Let us begin
however, wifl, an examination of certain attempts to find the

0 T*** aPPredati™ in f-ling, as Determined by
arrangement of sensational and presentational

ntent

I. Analysis of the Esthetic Mode of Appreciation.
In each of these attempts the question is asked Whv
do we have this specific ordering or rlrrangemLt of conTent

Ctl

ech ca th, e *StetC exPerience? And m
ordeTtW thePy 'S' uWe neg'eCt differen«s in terminology

he greatest et't^T , ^ gFeateSt am°Unt of Pleasure %
length of time without satiety. But while all

eckon with this conceptual abstraction of quantity of pleasure
dement whTchwl "^ "" yS'S' they Sh°W' I think' a common

rranSha1^ ^/M"W. A'«. «"d .Esthetics, p. 335
Groos, Z?^«/^«r^ Gen^, Giessen, 19^2" chap. ,.

2 ,8 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

pleasure through " playful illusion." Here, again, we have
an appreciative differentiation of esthetic pleasures from oth rs
in that both these terms, play and illusion, have a funct,ona
meaning. In his earlier psychological works, wh.ch were c<
cerned largely with the genesis of playful illusion as a significant
function, Uos was indined to account for the pleasure of both
the " play " and " illusion " aspects by connecting it wit
biologkal utility ,-as a pleasure arising from the mere activity c
these instincts themselves. But in his later work,' which ,s con
cerned more with the analysis of the aesthetic Attitude itself
the emphasis is put upon the rearrangement of the eld .<
content Here the idea is developed that the playful dwell
in " inner imitation " upon the impressions of things, the
porary identification of the self with other things or persons
with its moment of conscious self-illusion, are the
conditions which make possible the fusions and compl,
of sensational and associational content out of whict , compk
mentary pleasures arise. The changes m content which th
take place are twofold. There is, first, a widening .of the
ntd oPf experience, through inclusion, in the intuit,ve moment
of fusion, of the complementary associations ; and, S condly
an elimination of all elements which are inharmonious with the
total experience, and which, by their intensity or power to ,
the attention, would lead to judgments and value ™™«**
in short, all illusion-disturbing moments Conversely
be added, an arrangement of content winch brm£s about th,
fusion, and eliminates these disturbing moments create
Aesthetic illusion. Here, again, the essential features ar = the
widening of the field of experience, and the repose in t, made
possible through elimination of the elements which wo,

UPAgliSheld that the essential characteristic of the .sthetic
experience is that it combines in a unique way the dish,
2££ of activity and repose. A somewhat incomplete con-

1 Groos, Der asthetische Genuss.

- Puffer, The Psychology of Beauty, chap. III.

Values of Simple Appreciation 219

equilibrium, and if no one breaks loose, so to speak to become
a fundamental, either in the form of desire or judgment we
have repose of desire and judgment, and consequently no value
movement. But this equilibrium of impulses, in so far as it is
onditioned by arrangement of content, is brought about by
a diffusion of stimulation, i.e., by a widened field of well-balanced
stimulations. To the technical means employed in the creation
this widened field of diffused and balanced stimulation we
have occasion to refer later. The important point here is
the definition.

With this sketch of the three formulations before us it is not
fficult to define the common element. This is clearly the con
cept of the widened ground of diffused stimulation, the balance
[ impulses, so that no one shall constitute an illusion-disturbing
moment and lead to readjustment in a new value movement
the consequent repose of conation in the object and the
expansion of feeling which goes with it. The ordering rear
rangement of content characteristic of the esthetic experience
is therefore, in the service of the deepening, or enhancement
that fundamental mode of worth experience which is
appreciatively described as the immanental reference the ex
pansive suggestion of the feeling. But this repose of conation
i its expansion of feeling, is, as the preceding analysis made
clear, conditioned by a characteristic change in the content of
experience, by a reconstruction of this content in such a
manner that the foreground of consciousness is taken up with
secondary and subsidiary activities of sensation and presentation
play " of impressions which inhibits the fundamental
mative tendency with which they are associated. What the
chnique of this reconstruction of the widened field of attention
tay be we have yet to consider, but it is apparent that it must
J o i the general nature of substitution of a multiplicity of
subsidiary activities for the fundamental conative tendency
Ihis view of the characteristic modification of the content
3 aesthetic experience is, however, incomplete without a
corresponding analysis of the aesthetic as attitude. Such change
ntent presupposes a change in the presuppositions of the
feelmg-a ttitudc. Thus far we have considered the aesthetic
node only as a mode of feeling. We must now consider it in
its genetic relations to other worth attitudes, as a mode of cona
tion and cognition.

220 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

(b) Analysis of the Cognitive Presuppositions of the ^Esthetic Mode
— Interpolation in the Vital Series.

The answer to this problem is possible only through the em
ployment of the same method, the attempt to locate the mode
in a vital series of attitudes, used in the analysis of the sense of
obligation. When thus viewed, the aesthetic is seen to be not
desireless appreciation, as it is sometimes held, nor feeling with
mere presentations as its presuppositions. The aesthetic atti
tude is seen to have both conative and cognitive presuppositions.
The object which now presents this widened field is in the
first place an object of desire and judgment; the impulses
which are balanced in the aesthetic field were first of all impulses
subsidiary to some fundamental conative tendency directed
toward the object. When the movement toward activity
takes place— when the object as desired sinks into the back
ground, is distanced, the fundamental desire becomes, it is
true, dispositional, but it is this presence as a desire-disposition
which gives the depth of immanental reference in the feeling
of repose — as we have already seen in the illustration of the
appreciation of feminine beauty.1 The aesthetic as a feeling
mode lies, then, midway between the passivity of sensation
feeling and explicit desire, the distinction of feeling and desire
being only relative.

Nor is the aesthetic pure " presentation - feeling " without
reference to reality. Here, again, the method of interpolation
shows it to be a mode of thought midway between the judg
ment of existence and the judgment of non-existence. Before
the movement toward the aesthetic, the object as object of
desire, actual or possible, was the object of explicit judgments
of existence or non-existence. With the distancing of the object,
and the transformation of explicit desire into feeling, there is
a change in presuppositions. The aesthetic feeling is no longer
a judgment -feeling, neither is it merely a "presentation"
feeling, but rather an assumption-feeling. In aesthetic feeling
the existence of the object is always assumed, unless explicit
judgment of non-existence supplants the assumption.

Here is to be found the element of truth in the description
of the esthetic as conscious self -illusion. This internally con
tradictory term is a somewhat bungling way of describing a

1 Chap, ill., p. 71

Values of Simple Appreciation 221

real mode of experience, that intermediate stage of adaptation
between explicit judgment and explicit judgment. It is an
assumption of reality which will suffice for the temporary repose
in the object, and for the realisation of all the values which
that object may have for conation when desire is explicit and
its presuppositions are existential judgments. But the illusion
may be said to be conscious, and to be self-illusion, only in the
sense that the assumption, although possessing the coefficient of
reality which it has by virtue of its actualisation, in its own
special way, of a conative disposition, is under the control
of the habits of judgment and implicit assumptions created in
former experience, so that ordinarily any tendency of the as
sumption to pass over into explicit judgment is inhibited. It
is not a conscious self-illusion in the sense that its control is
conditioned by a conscious reference to the self.

2. The. Origin of the Movement toward Activity and the Msthetic
Attitude — Its Individual and Sub-Social Character.

The preceding analysis of the structural and functional
modifications characteristic of the aesthetic attitude and ex
perience justifies its subsumption under the general type of
value movement described as movement toward activity.
In the first place, to consider the second aspect first, there
is the substitution of assumption for judgment and the dis
tancing of the object or its detachment, from immediate desire,
characteristic of the semblant mode. With it, in the second
place, comes the enhancement of worth through the increased
activity of the subsidiary tendencies of sensation, presentation,
etc., characteristic of the imaginative attitude. With this
account of the nature of the aesthetic mode comes the problem of
its genesis as a mode of simple appreciation. The problem is in
reality twofold : (a) what are the conditions of the movement
toward activity itself ; and (b) what is the origin of the specific
form of activity, with its quality of detachment, which character
ises the aesthetic ?

(a) Conditions of Movement toward Activity in its Pre- /Esthetic

Form.

As the origin of the inward movement toward the attitude
of obligation is thought by many to be wholly social, so also

222 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

there is a similar tendency to account for the genesis of the
aesthetic in merely social terms. The study of the beginnings
of art gives a certain plausibility to this view in that much of
the rearrangement, reconstruction, of expression of emotions
and objects of emotion, seems to be directly connected with
the motive of securing social consent in emotional expression,
and thus of enhancement of sympathetic participation. The
element of order introduced into crude emotional expression
is accordingly conceived to have a purely social origin. Never
theless, while social sympathy may enhance aesthetic worth,
and while the motive of social consent may determine many
forms of art, both the movement toward the aesthetic
itself, and the reconstruction of content involved in that move
ment, must, it seems to me, like the movement to the ethical,
be sub-social and individual in their origin. As a value move
ment in the individual, its functional conditions must be looked
for in the general conditions of value movement, arrest of the
fundamental through distancing of the object of desire, or
through satiety and substitution of subsidiary tendencies.

In his valuable work on The Origins of Art T Him has em
phasised this aspect of the origin of art. In the first place,
he has distinguished in a very satisfactory way between the
question of the functional genesis of the aesthetic psychosis
itself and the question of the historical origin of particular
forms of artistic expression. He has seen clearly that the
various activities in which the aesthetic specifies itself (the
concrete origins of art through the secondary social motives
of conveying information, display, and self-exhibition, erotic
and martial stimulation, etc.) do not explain the antecedent
emotional psychosis which they presuppose and express. These
are rather activities, emotional and volitional, in which an
antecedent need of emotional expression specifies itself. The
art impulse itself, or, in our terms, the movement toward ac
tivity, must be sought in deeper and more general functional
causes. These he finds in the tendency to the development of
secondary activities when the primary is subject to arrest.
From the standpoint of description in terms of pleasure and pain,
art serves either as the reliever of the pain which comes from
thwarted conative tendencies, or else as a means of enhancing
the pleasure of a fundamental already pleasurable, and of post
poning the moment of satiety.

1 Him, The Origins of Art, Macmillan, 1900, chaps. I, iv, and vi.

Values of Simple Appreciation 223

Space will not permit a detailed study of the facts of individual
and social psychology by means of which this view is substantiated
—how sorrowful emotions, and even painful sensations, may
really be the relief of deep-seated arrest of activity through the
substitution of secondary activities, and may thus attain a posi
tive worth ; how in the social expressions of grief, in the wailing
feats of certain savages, and in the vocero in general, not only
is sorrow relieved, but positive joy of a new sort, joy in expression,
in activity, is generated ; how in their orgies the Maenads,
by noise, roaring and loud cries, by frenetic dance and wild
actions, even by tortures, strove to preserve and recover the
faded sense of life which ever baffled their exertions. But enough
has been said to show that much of the movement toward ac
tivity, out of which artistic activity is ultimately born, is due
to the painful arrest of conative tendency. The object of the
fundamental conative tendency, of desire and sorrow, is dis
tanced, the full realisation of its existence or non-existence is
supplanted by a vague assumption which gives but an undertone
to the whole experience, while the activity of the subsidiary
tendencies usurps the foreground of consciousness.

This is indeed one mode of origin of the movement toward
activity, but it does not include that movement toward
activity which results in enhancement of the worth of an
object already desirable, i.e., possessing the capacity of satisfying
a fundamental desire. The movement in this case is to be
understood also as an adaptation alter arrest, but here the arrest
of conative tendency appears at another point. We have else
where seen that when once a fundamental conative tendency
has through repeated arrests concentrated about it subsidiary
tendencies, a too immediate or exclusive satisfaction of the
fundamental leads to satiety in which the subsidiary tendencies
are left unsatisfied. The movement toward activity of the
subsidiary tendencies has as its motive in many cases the dis
tancing of the object of desire in the interest of continuity of
valuation of the same object in that to its worth is added the
complementary value of the secondary activities.

Of this character are the form-qualities added to the economic
activities of acquisition and consumption already discussed ;
and the artistic reconstruction of objects of use so that aesthetic
repose in them is possible seems to be, from this point of view,
of the same general character — the distancing of the object as
an object of utility, the feelings of instrumental worth being,

224 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

as we have seen, by their very nature, quickly subject to the
law of limiting value. Finally, the distancing of the object
of sex, the movement toward mere activity in both coquetry
and idealisation, whatever its biological origin may be, ap
pears, as individual value movement, to be of the same char
acter. It may be said, therefore, that the origin of the movement
toward activity is, as has already been shown in our general
study of value movements, to be found in the arrest of funda
mental conative tendency.

(b) The Special Differentia of the ^Esthetic.

But it may be properly objected that, while this is a true
account of the origin of the general type of " movement toward
activity," that while it is true that the causes of this movement
are sub-social and individual, nevertheless, these movements,
as such, are not necessarily movements to the aesthetic attitude.
All movements to the aesthetic are movements toward activity,
but not all movements toward activity are aesthetic. Granting
the inherent necessity of this movement toward activity, why
does the movement not stop with crude and primitive motor
and emotional expression — which would suffice to occupy the
foreground of consciousness, to still the pain of arrest, and to
enhance the faded sense of life, why does the movement de
velop into that ordered activity which characterises the aesthetic ?
We have accounted for the pre-aesthetic movement toward
activity, out of which the aesthetic attitude itself is ultimately
born, but we have not as yet shown why this activity becomes
aesthetic.

It is clear that in this question we have the crux of the
problem, and, indeed, of all attempts to explain the aesthetic.
Nor is the answer to the question altogether easy. It is not
surprising that many have finally looked for the point of differ
ence between unaesthetic free play of emotional expression and
of activity of the imagination, and ordered aesthetic activity, in
social rather than individual causes. But, important as the
factor of community of activity and social consent may be in
fixing the forms of activity, and in many cases perhaps originating
them, it is still possible, I think, to show that this introduction
of the element of order, this reconstruction of the content of
experience, is inherent in the movement toward activity itself
as a stage in individual worth experience. If we grant the truth

Values of Simple Appreciation 225

of our initial definition of the aesthetic mode as a modification of
the immanental reference of repose; if, further, we grant that
this repose in the object of desire, this tendency to prolong the
appreciation of the object is fundamental, and can be achieved
only by detachment of the object from immediate desire, in
the semblant mode, the question is practically answered. It is
precisely because this immanental reference, this repose in
the activity is impossible without such ordered, balanced, and
harmonious activity, because without the element of order,
the illusion-disturbing moments, the desires and judgments
spring again into being, and lead to new value movements,
that the movement toward activity, to become aesthetic, must
include this rearrangement of activity. The element of form,
of order, must, therefore, be looked upon genetically as purely
instrumental to the acquirement of aesthetic worth, which is
ultimately the affective-volitional meaning of content.

3. ^Esthetic Characterisation of Activities and Objects — The
Function of the Element of Order in Creating ^Esthetic Values.

The role of the element of order in prolonging the appre
ciation of objects, in enhancing the immanental worth of objects
through detachment from immediate desire, can best be shown
by reference to artistic activity, more especially to the primitive
arts where the direct relation of the art activity to the funda
mental desires and instincts out of which it emerges has not yet
been severed, where aesthetic activity has not yet become an
end in itself, an independent object of value. Reconstruction
of content, we have seen, may be both perceptual and ideal,
and aesthetic reconstruction may be of both types. Ordering
of our motor activities, as in the dance, ordering of our visual
or auditory experiences, constitutes perceptual reconstruction,
while the aesthetic characterisation of things or persons as, for
instance, in literature, would be ideal construction.1

Let us begin, then, with the most primitive and simple
form of aesthetic characterisation, the perceptual reconstruction
of activities of emotional expression. Ethnology shows us

1 /Esthetic reconstruction should be distinguished from other types of construction,
perceptual and ideal, illustrations of which we have already considered. Perceptual
reconstruction which facilitates conative tendency, ideal construction of objects and
dispositions which, through instrumental judgments, extends the range of conation, may
also give rise to new economic and ethical worths. But in the case of these types of
reconstruction, conation is explicit, the worth moment is transgredient ; while in esthetic
•construction, conation is dispositional and the worth moment is immanental.

226 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

that primitive dances are invariably the reconstructions of the
bodily expressions of concrete emotional states arising out of
definite concrete instincts. By this it is meant that primitive
dances are always erotic, martial, funereal, or religious. Such
reconstructions always have two aspects, the dramatic and
the rhythmic. They show forth in gesture and pantomime
the motor activities in which these instincts are expressed,
and add to these a certain order and rhythm. Both these ele
ments of order involve a certain reconstruction of crude emo
tional expression, and they constitute the fundamental elements
in all aesthetic characterisation. The element of rhythm, besides
its social function of securing participation or social consent in
movement, has the effect of keeping the emotion and its ex
pression, whether it be martial, erotic, or religious, on a high
level for a comparatively long period, to the exclusion of the
desire for the object. The object is distanced and the funda
mental conation becomes dispositional. This rhythm, usually of
the form of advance and retreat, of affirmation and arrest of ex
pression, produces an equilibrium of impulses which prevents
the fundamental tendency from breaking forth into overt action.

On the other hand, the dramatic elements of the emotional ex
pression are ordered in a cumulative dynamic " movement-form "
which becomes fixed as the characteristic order of the dance.
It is generally, as in the erotic or war dance, a conventionalised
"movement-form" of the gradual rise, and also the decline, of
the fundamental emotion. Beginning with movements and
gestures, which are at first rather suggestive than fully expres
sive, it passes on by gradual transitions to more and more overt
and furious expression, until sometimes the distinction between
art and reality is finally lost. Here, again, besides its function
in securing social participation, this dramatic movement-form
introduces a principle of serial order into phenomena by means
of which there is individual acquirement of worth. Into the
aesthetic experience is carried over a conventionalised form of
the very activities which constitute the actual instinct from
which the aesthetic has arisen as a value movement toward
activity.

The significant and strictly formal aesthetic factor, as the
above analysis shows, is, of course, the balance of impulses
which detaches the object from immediate desire. It constitutes
a special application in the sphere of aesthetic reconstruction
of that general principle of perceptual and ideal reconstruction

Values of Simple Appreciation 227

discussed in a previous chapter under the head of the law of
complementary values. But in addition to this, there is also the
application of the principles of the " total series " and of " end
feelings/' characteristic of serial phenomena. In the case
before us, the dynamic movement-form of the passions in ques
tion is individualised into a total series, and the gradation always
has reference to culmination in certain final expressions and
feelings which give character to the whole.

The role of these formal factors is evident ; but it is im
portant to note that the detachment of the object is only partial,
that in these primitive dances, in which the object of conation
is still not very remote from desire, and where the fundamental
desire or system of desires is as yet scarcely dispositional, the
'•' content " factor, the dynamic movement-form of emotional
expression, has not reached the point of aesthetic reconstruc
tion which it undergoes in more developed artistic activity. It
is still partly extra-aesthetic. When, however, in music and
drama, as they become historically differentiated from the dance,
a still greater distance is put between the object and the funda
mental, the principle of equilibrium is introduced into the
movement-forms, and the conative element becomes still more
dispositional, remaining present, in fact, as for instance in music,
only in the form of a dominant mood.1

A word is required concerning the perceptual aesthetic recon
struction of static objects in which rhythm and dynamic move
ment-form do not enter, i.e., aesthetic perception as we have it
in the fine arts. For aesthetics pure and simple, this is perhaps
the most important field of analysis, but since our interest is
confined to the problem of the functional relation of the aesthetic
to other worth attitudes, and since we may, therefore, expressly
disclaim all desire for completeness in analysis, a mere sketch
must suffice. Here, again, we have individuation of the object
in the interest of repose. The two significant factors are the
arrest and repose of the fundamental through equilibrium of
subsidiary impulses and the individualisation and segregation
or detachment of the content. To consider the first moment
in the light of the results of analytical psychology, it is im
portant to realise that here also we are concerned with a re
construction of activity, but in this case not of the motor ac
tivity of emotional expression, but of an inner activity of at
tention. Here the activity controlled is not emotional expression,

1 See chap. V, pp. 122-3.

228 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

but attention. The movement toward activity in this case is
toward what has been described as a " play with impressions,"
wherein the objects of sensation and perception are so ordered
into groups and " form-qualities," that the separate impulses
of attention are balanced, attention being distributed over a
field so widened that no portion of the presented whole calls
forth feeling and desire of such immediacy and intensity as to
break the unity of the whole, — to destroy the illusion and the
repose and to lead to a new value movement.

The principles of reconstruction of the aesthetic field in the
" non-serial " arts are, mutatis mutandis, the same as in the serial
arts, namely, the principles of contrast, of " total series," and of
"end feelings"; but here these principles are applied to the
activities of attention in such a manner as to make possible the
widened field of attention and the consequent expansion of feeling.

This widened field of attention is well illustrated in pic
torial art. Here the formal conditions of equilibrium and
repose are to be found in the disposition of spaces and the
composition of the colour elements. The values of these ele
ments of order are in this respect merely instrumental to the
equilibrium of the attention-activity sought. The colours
used and the objects portrayed have, of course, their intrinsic
affective meaning, through association, but this refers to pre
supposed conative tendency. In so far as the disposition of
the formal elements as such is concerned, it is controlled by
special forms of the fundamental laws of aesthetic construction
already considered. To this end we have the use of colour
contrasts and contrasts of masses, the principle of the " series "
which in this case consists in the ordering of the lights and shades
in a gradually diminishing scale, with the high light in the centre
of attention, and, finally, the use of the principle of " end feeling "
which in this case consists in such a balance of elements that
the attention always returns to a central point of interest
equivalent to the tonic in musical composition.

The important point for our study is, however, not the
detailed analysis of this formal element of order, but rather
its relation to the worth element in the aesthetic experience.
The object of the worth feeling is always primarily the content
expressed by the presentations thus ordered, although there may
of course be a secondary worth judgment upon the instrumental
value of the form as such, its adequacy to represent or express
the object, or to secure and retain the aesthetic repose. This

Values of Simple Appreciation 229

content is always the object of possible desire or aversion.
That is, if it were judged to exist or not exist it would call out
actual desire or emotion. But in the aesthetic state these judg
ments are inhibited, and for them are substituted assumptions.
From the standpoint of worth theory, then, the formal element
of order is significant only as a means of securing repose in
the object (or content) which, when unaesthetically experienced
is the object of explicit desire and judgment. What are tech
nically described as the " values " of the particular elements in a
work of art (a painting, for instance) are, therefore, relative
instrumental values, instrumental, that is, to the enhancement
of the primary aesthetic worth, the repose or immanental
reference.

Consequently, when, by a movement toward activity, an
object acquires complementary aesthetic values, it is not to be
understood that this acquired value is the resultant of an addition
of the values of the formal " elements," but that it is an en
hancement of the immanental reference of the worth feeling, an
expansion of the feeling over the object as a whole. The desire
for the object of the assumption is present dispositionally and
actually in the form of the affective abstract, sentiment or mood.
The adequacy of the formal element is determined by the senti
ment or mood, thus enhancing the worth or affective-volitional
meaning of the object.

4. Modification of Condition Worths through Acquirement of
Complementary ^Esthetic Values.

With this account of the nature and genesis of the aesthetic
attitude as a form of the movement toward activity, we are
now in a position to apply our results to the principal problem
of our study, that is, to the determination of the manner in
which the aesthetic attitude modifies our primary judgments of
appreciation, more especially our economic judgments. The
manner in which simple condition worths acquire quasi-ethical
qualification has already been studied. It remains to indicate
how feelings of condition worth become aesthetically qualified,
and how this qualification modifies economic worth judgment
and its laws.

In order to understand this problem rightly, it is necessary
to recall our distinction between the value movement in simple

230 Valuation : its Nat^tre and Laws

appreciation and the completed value movement to a new
ideal object, or end. In the first case the deepening of the
transgredient or immanental reference of the feeling, as the
case may be, constitutes merely a complementary value added
to the primary object or desire. In the completed value move
ment, on the other hand, the original object of desire is lost sight
of, and a new object, to the construction of which the acquired
meaning was germinal, takes its place. The object or activity
is independently valued. Now the reconstruction of objects
and activities which is, properly speaking, artistic, and which
constitutes the aesthetic in the full sense of the term — such re
constructions as we have described in the preceding paragraphs,
are of this conscious type. The complementary value of " re
pose in activity," beauty in its various modifications, is sought
for its own sake, and the reconstruction of the object is instru
mental to this ideal end. But prior to this stage of the aesthetic,
there is that phase of movement toward the aesthetic, or to
ward activity, in which the primary object of desire remains
primary, and the secondary movement toward activity merely
modifies the primary value. These may properly be described
as quasi-aesthetic values.

These quasi-aesthetic values, like the quasi-ethical, may
appear in connection with all activities, perceptual or conceptual.
The solution of a mathematical problem, the performance
of a surgical operation, may, in this sense, be beautiful, no less
than the " style " or " manners " connected with the more funda
mental and instinctive activities, such as eating or walking, or
what not. All these acquired values may be described as style, the
style of life. In their simplest form, however, such manners, to
gether with their values, appear in connection with the funda
mental instincts and the acquisition and consumption of objects.
Between any fundamental desire or instinct and its satisfaction —
such as the desire for food, raiment, love, etc. — intervene these
quasi-aesthetic activities, the values of which enter into the
funded value of the object. Style in the serving and eating of
food, in the forms and colours, and in the actual wearing of
dress, the graces and coquetries of love, all extend the primary
values of the objects immensely, and give them greater capacity
for continuous valuation.

It is this extension of the capacity for valuation which is
significant. And while any object, no matter what its simple
condition worths may be, may acquire such complementary

Values of Simple Appreciation 2 -» i

value, it is especially at the threshold and limits of condition
worth that this function of quasi-aesthetic values is most ap
parent. We have already seen that an object, or quantity of
an object, too insignificant either for immediate appreciation
or for re-application, in other words, below the threshold of
intrinsic or instrumental value, may, as part of an aesthetically
individuated whole, acquire the value of the whole.1 The same
phenomenon, viewed in another way, means that these quasi-
aesthetic values modify the laws of satiety and dulling of sensi
tivity for simple condition worths as well as the law of limiting
value as it applies to instrumental values. It will not be neces
sary to show again how this law enters into the unconscious as
well as the conscious technique of life, into the fundamental as
well as the more developed activities. It is sufficient to em
phasise the fact that it modifies in a significant way all our
economic judgments.

1 Chap, vi, pp. 151-2, also p. 175.

CHAPTER VIII

I. PERSONAL AND OVER-INDIVIDUAL VALUES : THEIR ORIGIN

AND NATURE

i. Their "Common Meaning" Presupposes Sympathetic
Participation (Einfiihlung) .

THE preceding study of " condition " worths, of the simple
appreciation of objects, has emphasised the purely individual,
sub-personal, and sub-social character of these feelings. These
feeling-attitudes may have both quasi-ethical and quasi-aesthetic
modifications without acquiring either the personal or over-
individual and social reference which is characteristic of the
more developed forms of both ethical and aesthetic experience.
But it was also maintained that these modifications of simple
appreciation, these complementary values, contain the germ of
more complete value movements to the higher levels of per
sonal and impersonal social valuation, movements which in
volve the creation or ideal construction of new objects and
new modifications of attitude, the development, in other words,
of new levels of meaning where the feelings, and their corre
sponding worth judgments, presuppose new judgments and
assumptions. In succeeding chapters we shall study personal and
impersonal social values in detail, defining and classifying their
objects and seeking to determine the laws of valuation of these
objects. For the present, our study is confined to the genetic
problem of the origin of these new objects and attitudes, more
especially the origin of the distinctive presuppositions of these
feeling-attitudes.

That which personal and impersonal or over-individual values
have in common, and which distinguishes them from simple
condition worths, is the fact that they presuppose certain
processes of acquirement of meaning which simple appreciation
does not. This fact appeared both in the nature of the objects
of such values and in the character of the meaning of the feelings

232

Personal and Over -Individual Values 233

as expressed in the worth predicates attributed to the objects.1
In the first place, the objects were described as ideal and
" founded," i.e., they are ideal constructions founded on certain
processes which they presuppose. In the second place, the
meanings of these feelings, as expressed in corresponding worth
predicates, are secondary acquired meanings which, as was
shown in Chapter III, arise through explicit acknowledgment in
judgment of meanings and references of the feelings of simple
appreciation, and through their characterisation as a personal
or social over-individual demand.

When we seek to define more explicitly what this acquired
meaning is, we find that the meaning is " common "; the feeling
is both individual and over-individual in its reference, and the
objects are founded upon certain judgments or implicit assump
tions that the feeling and desire of the individual are shared by
others. In all feelings of personal worth, it is presupposed that
the self and its dispositions or qualities is the object of worth
feelings on the part of others. In all personal judgments upon
others, it is assumed that objects of desire and feeling have a
common meaning. In all judgments of impersonal worth, it is
assumed that the individual is representing a wider social con
sciousness, which is making the same judgments and assumptions.

An examination of the worth predicates in these spheres
illustrates the situation more fully. To consider personal
worths first, worth is imputed to expressions of feeling
or acts of will as manifesting certain dispositions of the
personality. The terms of this imputation are approval and
disapproval, praise and blame, merit and demerit, accord
ing as the disposition exists or does not exist, or ultimately
according to the amount of disposition. Corresponding to
these judgments of imputation are certain demands upon the
person, as a person, to possess and express the dispositions in
question. These demands, when expressed in explicit worth
judgments, constitute judgments of obligation. Such imputation
of praise and blame, and of obligation, may be described as
ethical imputation. There is also an aesthetic imputation which
finds expression in the predicates of beauty, nobility, sublimity
of character and actions, closely related to the ethical predi
cates. All these judgments of imputation presuppose certain
assumptions which we may describe as constituting the common
" ideal of personality."

1 Chap. II, p. 28 ; chap. Ill, pp. 71-2.

234 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

The acts and dispositions in question may, however, be
judged from another point of view. Value may be imputed to an
act, not because it expresses a personality, but because it is in
strumental to certain social, over-individual ends, and satisfies
certain impersonal demands. The imputation of merit or de
merit, or of obligation, may in this case be described as im
personal imputation, and such imputation presupposes certain
expectations or assumptions with regard to the participation
of the individual in the social life, therefore constituting what
may be described as an ideal of social participation.

If now we describe the first class of values as the characterisa
tion-value, the second as the participation-value of acts and dis
positions, we may generalise to the extent of saying that both
types of valuation presuppose the construction of ideal objects,
the disposition, the person, the social will, and the emergence
of new feelings or modifications of feeling which express them
selves in these judgments of imputation. The expectations or
implicit assumptions which are presupposed in all such imputa
tions of personal or impersonal value, are in a greater or less
degree common and shared. The question of immediate interest
is, accordingly, the study of the psychical processes of participa
tion in which these new meanings emerge. These have been
variously described as imitation, sympathetic projection or
Einfiihlung.

2. Sympathetic Participation — Einfiihlung : Its relation to
Feeling and Simple Appreciation.

It is a commonplace of present-day psychology that the
self and the alter are ideal constructions, the material of
which are the sensations, ideas, emotions, desires of the in
dividual. It is equally a commonplace that this construction
is a social process in which imitation and opposition, or contrast,
are at work as the functional, genetic causes. Baldwin has in
broad outlines sketched the processes of imitation (projection,
introjection and ejection) by which the dialectic of self-con
sciousness takes place. Royce has emphasised the importance
of contrast in the process, and Tarde, from the sociological point
of view, has shown the equal importance of imitation and oppo
sition in the generation of new content in the individual and
society. But, so far as I am aware, there has been no system
atic attempt to show in detail the modifications of the con-

Personal and Over- Individual Vahtes 235

sciousness of value brought about by this dialectic process. This
is due to the fact that the process has been studied largely from
the point of view of the psychology of cognition, the interest
being primarily in the cognitive content and meaning of the con
structs, rather than in the conative and affective side of the pro
cess. When viewed in this latter aspect, the process is seen to be
one of Einfuhlung, a process of " feeling-in," in which feeling
attitudes are sympathetically projected into another, re-read
back into the self, thus becoming the objects of cognition, of
judgment and assumption, and ultimately of new feelings of
value. It is, therefore, in this aspect, a value 'movement in which
new values are acquired.

It is as such a value movement, as the continuation of pro
cesses of feeling, of simple appreciation, that Einfuhlung is to
be studied, and, when viewed in this light, it is seen to be a
value movement of the " inward " type, where the movement
is complete. There is, therefore, no hard and fast line between
feeling and " feeling-in " (Einfuhlung), between appreciation
and characterisation. Activities of appreciation lead gradually
and necessarily to characterisation. In the specific case of the
feeling of obligation, the felt impulsion which arises in the forma
tion of a conative disposition is gradually referred explicitly to
the disposition as a phase of the self or the alter. The vague
and uncertain transgredient reference is made explicit in the judg
mental reference of the disposition to the ideal construct of the self.
It becomes conscious obligation. It is, therefore, as a complete
value movement, beginning with simple appreciation of the
emotional expressions of others and ending with the characterisa
tion of persons, that Einfuhlung is to be studied. We shall
accordingly use the term to designate the entire process (pro
jection, imitation, and ejection) involved in the activities of
characterisation and participation, and shall consider it, more
over, in its aspect of affective-conative process,1 for it is a

1 This broad use of the term Einfuhlung may perhaps be questioned. It is true that
the weight of authority is in favour of confining it to the purely aesthetic type of
personalisation and personal construction ; 'it was to explain certain aesthetic phenomena
that the concept was first introduced (Lipps and Volkelt). On the other hand, the broader
use to which the very structure of the term naturally gives rise — to include all forms
of projection or ejection of our own feeling into others — has been employed by some
writers, notably by Witasek in his article, " Zur Psychologic der cesthetischen EinfiMung"
to which more extended reference is made in a later section of this chapter. There
aesthetic Einfuhlung is considered to be only one form of the process and is distinguished
from ethical. That this broader conception is justified by a genetic treatment of the
processes will, I think, become apparent as the discussion proceeds. Baldwin's
identification of Einfuhlung with Sembling is, I think, only partially true. As will be
seen later, there is a semblant mode at one stage of the total process, but it is not the

236 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

term which includes both feeling and conation, the relations
of which have been determined in a preceding chapter. With
the change in cognitive presuppositions through participation
there comes corresponding changes in feeling, in the aspects
both of qualitative and quantitative meaning, in both quality
and degree. From these laws of participation are later to be
developed the laws governing the valuation of personal and
over-individual objects.

II. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EINFUHLUNG: SYMPATHETIC PRO
JECTION

i. The Problem — The Nature of the Projected Feeling — How is
Einfiihlung Possible ?

Projection, in the larger sense of the term, is used to de
scribe all externalisation of psychical content. We project the
spatial reference of touch and other sensations into the objects
without us. We project ideas, concepts, formed in the inner
activities of comparison and differentiation, as the real grounds,
external to us, of our sensational experience. In like manner we
characterise ourselves and others by reading into our immediate
experiences of feeling conceptual constructs of dispositions,
relatively constant, to which these feelings are referred.

But it is immediately clear that just as the first type of pro
jection of constructs is conditioned by immediate perceptual ex
perience, as these constructs are ideal objects founded upon
perception, so, in the second type, the conceptual constructs of
dispositions are founded upon immediate experiences of feeling, in
this case upon the " internal perception," the appreciation of the
feeling-attitudes of others. Immediate sympathetic participation
is, therefore, the condition of the conceptual construction of dis
positions of the personality as objects of personal worth feel
ings. To understand the objects of personal worth it is neces
sary to analyse the processes of sympathetic Einfiihlung on
which they are founded.

The phenomena in connection with which sympathetic
projection has been chiefly studied are those of aesthetic and
ethical personalisation. The simplest form is found in the read
ing into impersonal and often inorganic objects of the organic

whole of the process. For a general discussion of this term, see Baldwin's Dictionary
of Philosophy and Psychology, on the topics, " Esthetic Sympathy" and " Einfiihlung"
in the article on terminology.

Personal and Over-Individual Values 237

sensations, feelings, emotions, and desires that are really in our
selves. Of this type the attribution of feelings of movement,
effort, or strain, to static spatial forms, or to successions in time
(the upward striving of a pillar or tower in architecture, the
movement of a melody in music) are illustrations. Of sym
pathetic Einfuhlung in the case of persons, we have illustrations
in the " feeling-into " persons of emotions such as anger and fear
on the basis of expression, facial and bodily, as in the case of the
aesthetic appreciation of acting, or in the case of more ethical judg
ments where we take up practical attitudes toward persons on the
basis of this appreciation. It is out of these immediate appre
hensions and appreciations of an "inner life" beyond the self,
whether that inner life be presumed, assumed, or judged to exist,
that the ideal constructions arise. Our first problem is, therefore,
to determine the nature and conditions of this process of per
sonalization, which, in its cognitive aspect, is apprehension and,
in its affective-volitional aspect, appreciation. The psychological
problem is : How is Einfuhlung possible ? The solution of this
problem is the necessary preliminary to the study of the feelings of
value which presuppose these processes.

The psychological problem — how is Einfuhlung possible ? —
has given rise to considerable discussion in recent literature.
This discussion has occasioned a wealth of psychological analysis,
but one in which the theoretical problems raised cannot be
said to have reached a final solution. The chief source of
difficulty is found in the fact that the experience felt into the
object, whether a thing or a person, is at once an experience
of the subject of the sympathetic projection, and a content of the
object, i.e., apprehended as content of the object. The feeling
seems to be both experience of the subject, with its own individual
presuppositions, and content projected outside the subject,
apprehended and appreciated as inner life of the object. How
an inner life, other than our own, whether real or assumed, can be
interpreted in terms of our own experience, through projection
of our own inner states; and what are the changes which the
feeling of the subject must undergo, changes both in content and
functional presuppositions, in order to be projected and realised
as experience of the alter ; constitutes one of the most difficult
problems of psychology.

We may best consider this general problem by taking up
in detail certain special questions to which it has given rise.
In the first place, it is, as we have seen, upon the basis of some

238 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

immediate appreciation that the conceptual constructions of
character and dispositions are founded. It is as intuitively real
ised that the feeling in another leads to conceptual characterisa
tion. How shall we conceive this intuitive realisation of another's
feeling ? If it is by a process of projection of our own feelings,
what are the aspects of the perceived objects, whether things or
persons, which furnish the stimulus to this projection, and how
is the fusion of the subject's feeling with the object to be
understood psychologically ?

In the second place, what is the character of the projected
feeling ? Is it a " real " feeling, with the same elements
of content and the same presuppositions which characterise
feeling as an immediate experience, or is there a substitution of
presentation for feeling, and a gradual change in presuppositions ?
What, in general terms, are the changes in content and functional
presuppositions which condition participation in the successive
stages of the process ?

Finally we have a third problem growing out of the preceding.
What is the role of feelings of participation in the processes of
valuation ? Is the projected feeling itself a feeling of value, or
are the only feelings of value those judgment-feelings which
emerge when dispositions in the person are judged to exist.
This apparently somewhat subtle question has considerable
bearing upon our view of Einfuhlung as a process of valua
tion, for it is merely another aspect of the more general
question — whether assumption-feelings or feelings of the imagin
ation are feelings of value.1

2. Sympathetic Projection of Feeling — Its Nature and Conditions.

Our first problem, then, is to seek to understand how the
individual intuitively apprehends and appreciates the inner life
of an object other than himself. This is said to take place through
a process which is described, in one aspect, as " inner imitation,"
in another, as " projection." The subject is said to enliven the
object by projecting or feeling into it his own feeling-content,
for which process of " feeling-in," or inner imitation, some aspect
or expression of the object constitutes the stimulus. For the
purely psychological analysis of this process, and the structural
analysis of the content of consciousness which conditions the
process, it is wholly irrelevant whether the enlivened object is an

1 Chap. V, pp. 137-9.

Personal and Over- Individual Values 239

impersonal thing or a person; whether the assumption or judg
ment of the existence of an inner life, which emerges in the
process, is valid or not. Upon reflection, the object may be
known to be impersonal and the assumption to be invalid, but
reflection does not affect this form of inner perception any more
than it modifies the illusions of external spatial perception.
Here we are concerned in the first place merely with the psycho
logical processes involved.

The process of inner imitation or projection is further charac
terised as a fusion or complication of one type of content with
another. The more subjective content, which we describe as
feeling or desire, is said to be complicated with more objective
content of peripheral origin. The stimuli of sight and sound,
spatial forms, movement-forms, gesture, vocal expression, etc.,
act as cues for experiences of feeling and organic sensations.
The latter constitute the inner imitation, as distinguished from
muscular imitation, and these contents, being fused with the
peripheral content, become objectified — i.e., acquire the objective
reference of that content and are apprehended as qualities of the
object. We may, therefore, define the feeling in inner imitation
as the induced feeling and the perceptual contents as the inducing
conditions.

In order to understand how this fusion is possible, we must get
the phenomena more definitely before us. And in the first place,
it must be observed that the appreciation of the projected feeling
as a quality of the object includes two relatively distinct situa
tions, which may be described as a more emotional appreciation
and as an intuitive apprehension. In aesthetic Einfuhlung, for in
stance, two distinct situations are possible. In looking at a Gothic
tower we may, either merely see the pinnacles striving upward, or
be ourselves actually emotionally elevated, i.e., we may have the
actual organic sensations attendant upon an inner motor tendency.
In the latter case there is a personal participation in the upward
urge of the pinnacles, while in the former we have a projection
of the movement in terms of representation. In like manner
we may realise vividly the affective state, with all its worth sug
gestions, i.e., anger or fear, in another personality without shar
ing in the actual organic sensations which make up its content ;
or, again, when the necessary presuppositions are present, we
may experience sympathetically the organic sensations likewise.
And, it is important to recognise that when we thus vividly
" see " or realise the upward urge of the pinnacles, or the fear

240 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

and anger of our fellows, we do not simply think them in con
ceptually, but we also in some sense see them. It is, as Witasek
insists, an intuitive (anschauliche) representation.

When we analyse these two situations, we find that they
differ in two important respects, in the nature of the feeling-
content projected and in the nature of the presuppositions of
the feeling. We shall see that between the stage of immediate
emotional participation, organic sympathy, and the more in
tellectual intuitive apprehension there is a change both in content
and cognitive presuppositions. It is with the first point that
we are here concerned ; the second will be considered later.

In the case of the more emotional participation, full organic
sympathy, there is a fusion of the emotion or desire, with all
its subjective meaning, with the more objective perceptual
or ideal content. This fusion we have no difficulty in under
standing when we recall our analysis of feeling as the " meaning "
of a special form of sensitivity, motor and organic. This mean
ing, we have seen, is embodied in certain form-qualities of the
sensitivity, and when this subjective sensitivity is fused with
the more objective, under certain conditions presently to be
developed, the subjective meaning is felt into the object. On
the other hand, the understanding of the more intuitive appre
hension of the projected feeling requires the application of that
other fact, developed in our analysis of feeling, namely, that the
form of combination of the elements may be abstracted from the
elements and pass over into presentation. In this way that which
is peculiarly psychical, i.e., feeling and will, may be presented,
and, as in the phenomenon before us, the projected feeling may
be intuitively apprehended as a quality of the object.1

And now appears a further fact of importance to which Groos
has called attention,2 and which we shall have occasion to con
sider more fully later. Organic sympathy, Einfiihlung as well
as feeling, is subject to the law of dulling of sensitivity with
repetition. Repetition may deaden the organic sympathy,
damp down the intensity of the organic resonance until it finally

1 This is developed more fully in chap, iv, p. 103. Of the four distinguishable aspects of
a given affective attitude, its positive or negative direction, its presuppositions (judgment
or assumption), the form quality of its elements and the intensity of its resonance, only
the form-quality is the object of intuitive presentation. The other aspects may become
the objects of judgment, they may be conceptually represented. The pleasantness or un
pleasantness, with its intensity, and the peculiar individual presuppositions may become
the objects of judgment but not of immediate presentation. They belong to the unpre
sentable side of our experience.

8 Der asthetische Genuss, Giessen, 1902, pp. 1 86 ff.

Personal and Over- Individual Values 241

disappears, but the intuitive realisation of the feeling or desire
projected, and of its meaning, still remains. We no longer feel
the upward urge of the pinnacles, or the organic resonance of
the angry man, but we apprehend them. We have here, in
sympathetic participation, a phenomenon similar to that ob
served in the case of simple feeling — showing the genetic
relation between simple appreciation and participation, namely,
that while accommodation through repetition dampens the
intensity of the hedonic and sensational aspect of the total
feeling-attitude, nevertheless, with the repetition there emerges
the affective - volitional meaning, the dynamic and expansive
suggestions of the feeling attitude. This phenomenon on the
level of Einfuhlung, corresponds to facts of the vital series where
emotion and passion pass over into sentiment, mood, and
" affective sign."

Accordingly, a certain change in feeling, as content, condi
tions the process of projection whereby the projected feeling is
apprehended and appreciated as a quality of the object. The
two stages of our illustration indicate phases of this modifi
cation. The further development of the process by which
a subjective feeling becomes object, requires the study of the
change in cognitive presuppositions involved in the process of
projection. Before considering this aspect of the problem, we
must glance at the inducing conditions of affective projection,
those aspects of perceptual content which constitute the stimuli
for this projection.

The Inducing Conditions of Affective Projection.

The form- qualities of objects, whether the objects be persons
or things, whether the form-qualities be static or dynamic,
are the inducing grounds of such intuitive affective projection.
It is with the inducing conditions in persons that we are chiefly
concerned, but these will be best understood in the light of
an analysis of the simpler phenomena of Einfuhlung as involved
in the aesthetic characterisation of things.

The inducing conditions of all affective projection are, in
the beginning, perceptual form-qualities determined by re
lations of quality, intensity, duration, or extension of simple
elements. Rise or fall of melody in the tonal scale, increase
or decrease of relative intensities, light and shade, loudness or
softness of sounds, gradual increase or decrease of rapidity of

242 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

tempo induce affective states with dynamic suggestions which
are then projected as tertiary qualities of the object. The
emotions or moods induced by the gradual increase of light at
sunrise, or decrease at sunset, the rising shriek of the wind
are illustrations. To these must be added the dynamic sug
gestions of qualitative, intensive, and other contrasts, in which
one member of the contrasting pair is emphasised through the
opposition of the other; they become the inducing grounds,
especially in art, for the suggestion of affective - volitional
meanings, the affirmation and arrest of conative tendencies.
Rhythmic time relations, both in nature and art, may induce
various forms of the two fundamental modifications of worth
feeling, the dynamic and expansive, as the peaceful murmur
of the brook or the angry lash of the waves. Finally, space
forms, such as the upward urge of the pinnacle, or the dim
distances of perspective, induce emotions or moods of the dyn
amic transgredient character, while other forms induce expan
sive feelings of repose.

When the objects of Einfuhlung are persons, the inducing
conditions are of the same general character, — form-qualities
of perception. The flush that mantles the face has a
different emotional meaning, according as its rise is sudden
or gradual. Muscular expression of the body, of the face, or
even of the eyes alone, emphasis in speech, either of stress or
pitch, modulation of the voice, etc., all these are in the first
place form-qualities, i.e., relatively permanent relations of quality,
intensity, or duration, among the sense elements. They are
expressive, that is, they have meaning, because with them
fuses the movement form of the emotional attitude.

In all these cases the psychical process may be described
as a fusion of an inward with the external movement form,
emotions being, as we have seen, in their aspect of content,
movement forms of the more subjective aspect of sensational
content, muscular and organic sensations, genetically residual
traces, vestiges of form remaining over from motor attitudes.
But it must be observed that while in many cases we find an
actual fusion of the muscular and organic sensations with the
external forms, this is not a necessary prerequisite of intuitive
realisation of the objectified emotion. As we have already
observed in Groos's illustration, we may see the upward urge of
the pinnacle without feeling it in the sense of having the feelings
of effort, the reason being that the essential element of the

Personal and Over- Individual Values 243

emotional attitude is the movement - form which may, with
repetition, be abstracted from the organic and muscular sensa
tions on which it was primarily founded, and transposed to
another series or group of sensations. The external phenomena
into which the intuited feeling is projected have acquired this
affective-volitional meaning.

It is also important to emphasise the fact that, while the
inducing conditions are primarily perceptual form-qualities, they
are not exclusively so. Especially in the case where the objects
are persons, certain unities and continuities of ideational activity
become the inducing grounds of sympathetic projection. Trains
of ideas, their types of combination or association, acquire definite
movement-forms which are expressive of feeling attitude, more
especially those differences in attitude which we describe as
temperamental.1 Without doubt, emotions and moods, and
the dispositions which underlie them, frequently determine
the associational processes, both as to what images shall be
called up, and as to the manner in which they shall be or
dered. We cannot be far wrong, then, in describing such image
continuities as movement-forms of thought, since in them is
embodied some form of affective-volitional meaning. And such
types of thought become the basis for intuitive projection of
feeling attitude, constituting for the observer emotional ex
pression, just as truly as do the perceptual movement-forms.
For when through the expression of his thoughts I realise the
affective-volitional attitude of a poet, or of my friend, it is not
by a process of inference, a man having such thoughts, such a
type of mind, must have such and such feelings or feeling dis
positions, but immediately through sympathetic participation.
\

1 Herein lies the great importance of similarity or difference of temperament as con
ditions of sympathetic projection, an importance which we can, however, merely suggest
and not develop. Differences in temperament represent differences in the capacity of
individuals for experiencing different types of emotional attitude, and ultimately of
emotional expression. They have, indeed, been classified on the basis of degree of im
mediacy and intensity of sensori- and ideo-motor response, in impulse and emotion, that
is, on the basis of the functional relation of systematic affirmation and arrest of conative
tendency. It is not difficult to see, therefore, that sympathetic intuitive realisation of
another man's attitude is largely dependent upon the temperamental equipment of the
intuiting subject. It is equally apparent that worth judgments which have their
grounds in this sympathetic participation, and which we may, therefore, describe as
emotional and personal imputation, will vary in a significant manner from those more
impersonal judgments which are intellectual in character and have their grounds in con
ceptual judgment and inference. From this difference important consequences will
follow for the later studies.

244 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

3. The Presuppositions of Feelings of Participation,
(a) In the First Stage of Sympathetic Projection the Presuppositions

are Presumptions.

The second of these general problems raises the question
of the nature of the presuppositions of projected feelings. It
has been maintained that there is an ultimate difference
between feeling as a simple condition of the individual and
feeling as projected or felt into another, and that, m order to
be projected, feeling must be presented or imagined,
presuppositions of an actual feeling, as a unique expenence of
the individual are, it is said, sensations, organic tendencies,
and judgments, of the individual alone, which cannot be shared.
Therefore the projected feeling is not an actual feeling, but a
presented one. In the actual situation of sympathetic Emfuh-
lung it is not the projected feeling which is real, but merely
the secondary feeling which follows upon judgment about the
disposition of the person into whom the feeling is projected.
The projected feeling as such is an imagined feeling.

Now that in the course of the total process of participate
there appears a stage where the feeling is imagined and
presented, and that this is a significant stage in the for
mation of personal ideals, is undoubtedly true. There arise
a distinction between the feeling as immediately felt
as projected, due to a differentiation of presuppositions. But
this is not characteristic of the first stage of the process.
At this point the feeling has as its presupposition a simple
presumption of existence determined by organic imitation.
It has already been pointed out that, when genetically viewed,
the distinction between feeling and Einfiihlung is not absolute.
The latter is but a continuation of the processes of simple ap
preciation and we find upon closer study that in its simplest
form as mere organic sympathy, it shows no such distinct
between the feeling as felt and the feeling as projected,
are good reasons for maintaining that in elemental organic
sympathy there is no presentation of the feeling, and no differ
entiation between the presuppositions of the feeling as a con
ditionof the subject and the feeling as a quality of the object
It is hard, for instance, to believe that the feelings of eff
experienced through organic sympathy are in any way
tinguishable from the same feelings when they have their origin

Personal and Over-Individual Values 245

solely in the individual, and still harder to believe that there
is any difference between the feelings of an infant when he
weeps in organic sympathy, and when he weeps because of
some stimulus which has its origin wholly within his own
organism.

In the first stage of sympathetic projection, we may there
fore conclude, the presupposition of the feeling is a simple
presumption of existence of an inner life — not, it should, how
ever, be observed, of an inner life as definitely localised either
in the self or the alter. Negatively expressed, there is no dis
tinction between the feeling as individual experience and as
projected, no distinction between the presuppositions in the
two cases. In this organic sympathy we have the germ of a
common meaning later to develop into feelings of participation,
but as yet scarcely distinguishable from the " condition "
feelings of simple appreciation.

(6) The Rise of Assumption Feelings and Emergence of Distinction
between Presuppositions — " Sembling."

Nevertheless, such participation in the feeling of others,
where there is lacking the sense of distinction in presuppositions,
is undeniably limited to the most rudimentary form of organic
sympathy, on the sensational and perceptual level. All that we
can infer from these facts is that the distinction between real
and imagined or presented feeling, which later becomes of im
portance, is, at least genetically, not ultimate. But as soon as
the instinctive organic sympathy is in the least degree modified
by arrest, there is readaptation in conative process, a change
in presuppositions takes place, and with it, we shall find, a
change in the content of projection. This change consists
in the gradual substitution of explicit assumption for presump
tion, and with such substitution emerges a distinction between
the feeling as merely felt and as projected.

The processes by which the subject comes to assume or
imagine the existence of an inner life in the objects without
him are in principle the same as those which condition, in its
most general aspect, the passage from presumption to assump
tion.1 All feelings of value presuppose at least the presumption
of existence of the object. When such dispositions to desire
or feel in a certain way have been created by relatively external

1 Cf. chap. II, p. 51 f.

246 Variation : its Nature and Laws

and objective conditions, the dispositions thus formed become
a factor of subjective control, giving rise to assumptions of exist
ence. In the case of organic sympathy, and its sympathetic
projection, there are created certain dispositions to participate
which go beyond the limits of organic sympathy, and thus give
rise to Einfuhlung of the playful semblant type, with its mere
assumption of existence. This may remain mere aesthetic
appreciation, or the assumption may develop into judgments
of existence with their accompanying ethical feelings of a more
serious character.

In this passage from simple presumption to assumption
there is, therefore, a significant reconstruction of the situation.
The subject now explicitly assumes the existence of the feeling
in the alter. In the preceding stage no such explicit assump
tion is made, for the reason that there is no distinction between
inner and outer control. But to assume explicitly the existence
of the feeling is to assume its necessary presuppositions in the
alter. These presuppositions, however, as well as the hedonic
subjective aspect, cannot, as we have seen, be immediately
or intuitively projected. They can only be ejected as conceptual
constructions. In the attitude of assumption, therefore, we have
the beginning of that ideal reconstruction of the experiences
of immediate feeling which conditions their ejection into the
alter and his characterisation as a person.

Certain important changes in the feeling of the subject
accompany this change from presumption to assumption, and
condition the further developments of ideal construction and
characterisation. The feeling has become an assumption-feeling,
and this, we have seen from our preceding studies, involves
certain characteristic changes in the feeling. In the first place
there appear those changes which we described as abstraction
and generalisation. On the functional side the process was seen
to be one of abstraction or detachment of the feeling from in
dividual presuppositions.1 The " feeling-in" of an attitude into
another, with the assumption of presuppositions different from
those of one's own feeling, gives to the feeling a quasi-general
meaning, a schematic character, which raises it out of the
sphere of simple subjective appreciation, and starts it upon a
new path of objective meaning.

In the second place, in the assumption-feeling we found the
beginning of a differentiation of certain aspects of the total feel-

1 Chap. V, pp. 131-3.

Personal and Over- Individual Values 247

ing-attitude — of the individual unpresentable aspect from the
presentable form-qualities of the feeling. With this differentia
tion the feeling acquires recognitive and generic meaning. These
characteristics of assumption-feelings which were developed
in the abstract analysis of the earlier chapter, are now seen to
get an additional significance in the processes of Einfiihlung.
On the one hand the rise of assumption-feelings, feelings of
the imagination, with accompanying changes in content and
function, is the condition of the extension of participation beyond
the range of the simple appreciations of organic sympathy.
On the other hand, the processes of Einfiihlung continue the
processes of generalisation and obj ectification of feeling-attitudes
already begun. It is to this latter aspect, and its significance
for the further processes of characterisation and ideal construc
tion, that we must now turn.

These two characteristics of the assumption-feeling, or
feeling of the imagination, its relative independence of in
dividual presuppositions, and its differentiation of aspects
of the total attitude, lead to important progressions or
value movements in the characterisation of the self and the
alter.

In the first place, such a feeling has acquired a dual
character and function. It is at the same time both subjective
feeling and objective presentation ; it has both an individual
and an over-individual reference. It is, so to speak, in a state
of unstable equilibrium preliminary to new differentiations
and determinations. This point must be emphasised if we are
to make clear the nature of this transition stage in the total
process of Einfiihlung, for it is closely connected with a ques
tion to be raised presently — whether the projected content
is a " real " feeling, or is merely imagined. To say that
the sembled feeling is both subjective feeling and objective
presentation seems at first sight paradoxical. But, according
to the view already developed, feeling is the subjective meaning
of a specific kind of content, a meaning which may be em
bodied in organic sensations, or may be transposed to more
objective content of peripheral origin, when the feeling is said
to be intuited. When, therefore, it is held that the sembled
or presented feeling has a dual reference, both subjective
and objective, it is meant that it stands in a representative
capacity for the individual feeling, with its uniquely individual
presuppositions, from which it has been abstracted and into

248 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

which it may be re-converted on occasion, and that at the same
time it has an objective over-individual reference.

This dual character develops further the " common mean
ing " already implicitly present in organic sympathy. In
organic sympathy, presuppositions are not distinguished; but
with the abstraction from individual presuppositions which
comes with the assumption attitude, the feeling acquires a
schematic character, which permits it to be read back and forth
from the self to the alter. By its schematic character is under
stood precisely this abstraction from uniquely individual pre
suppositions and from organic sensation content, the charac
teristic which makes possible its dual reference, and makes
it, to use Baldwin's terms, a " Person-Project," which may,
in the further development of the process, be identified in ex
plicit judgment with either the self or the alter.

Of chief importance in the rise of the objective and " com
mon " meaning of feeling-attitude, is the fact that the schematic
feeling of the imagination may acquire recognitive and generic
meanings. With the intuitive projection of the feeling into the
" other," appears the conscious recognition of the feeling as
one's own. It has already been shown in another connection T
that the condition of acquirement of recognitive meaning on
the part of a feeling is that it shall become an assumption
feeling. It is not the unique, individual aspect of the feeling
which is recognised, but the schematic movement-form of the
feeling of the imagination. In the semblant mode of Einfuhl-
ung we have precisely the condition necessary for the objecti-
fication and recognition of feeling-attitude, and for the reading
back of the feeling, in terms of idea, into the self. Here also
arise those further differences in the meaning of the feeling,
between feeling as passive pleasantness-unpleasantness and
as dynamic and expansive movement-forms, with their reference
to conative dispositions, — those differences in feeling which lead
on to ideal construction.

(c) Feelings of Participation as Judgment- Feelings — Presuppo
sitions as objects of Judgment — Conceptual Reconstruction
of the Inner Life in Terms of Dispositions.

The rise of assumption-feelings, and the semblant mode
in participation, is the condition of the acquirement of certain

1 Chap, v, p. 117 ff.

Personal and Over- Individual Values 249

meanings and of further development in the characterisation
of persons. It has already been shown that, while this stage of
assuming or sembling of an inner life in other things and persons
may remain a mere assumption, an intrinsic appreciation with
the immanental values of the aesthetic, it may also lead on to
a further stage in characterisation. The intuitive schematic
feeling " project " may be merely instrumental to a stage where
the vaguely assumed inner life is explicitly acknowledged in
acts of judgment. This stage we may describe as the ejection
of the presuppositions of the feeling in the form of conceptual
construction of dispositions.

When this stage of the process is reached, the conditions
of the complete inward value movement, toward the valua
tion of the disposition, are given. In the place of the mere
presumption or assumption of the existence of a dispositional
correlate for the projected feeling, judgment develops, and
judgmental habit. It is these judgments of existence or non-
existence of dispositions, in the self or the alter, which consti
tute the presuppositions of those feelings of value which we
have described as personal and impersonal (social), and which
find expression in those judgments of obligation and imputation
described in earlier paragraphs of this chapter. Repetition
of judgment, the formation of judgment-habit, gradually creates
certain implicit assumptions or expectations, with which the
subject making the worth judgment comes to the objects of
judgment, the acts and dispositions of persons.

4- Einfilhlung as a Process of Valuation—The Nature of the
" Feelings of Value " involved—Value Movements in Sym
pathetic Participation and Characterisation.

(a) The Projected Feelings are "Real " Feelings.

We have now traced genetically the gradual change in
tive presuppositions, together with the corresponding
changes in feeling, which characterise the total process of par
ticipation as affective-conative process. The purely psychological
study of changes in content and functional presuppositions
which condition the acquirement of these personal and over
individual meanings, requires to be supplemented at certain
points by a more specific inquiry into the role of the feelings
of participation in the processes of valuation.

This inquiry is obviously fundamental to the study of the

2 50 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

consciousness of personal and social, over-individual values,
for these feelings of value depend upon Einfiihlung, and one of
the most important succeeding studies will be concerned with
the application of the laws of valuation to these feelings. But
as a preliminary to this study certain questions arise which
belong properly to this psychological analysis. The projected
feeling, with its individual and over-individual reference, is
both subjective feeling and objective presentation. In addition
to its individual presuppositions, as subjective feeling, it pre
supposes presumption, assumption, or judgment of existence
beyond the subject, in another. Is the feeling when projected
a real feeling of the individual, and, therefore, a feeling of
value ?

In the first place, the question has arisen whether feelings,
when they lose their purely individual character, are still
feelings, or whether, with the change in functional presupposi
tions and content described, they do not cease to be feelings
and become presentations. This question, which is but a
special aspect of the larger problem which has presented itself
at different points, has received attention largely in connection
with the study of Einfiihlung in its aesthetic aspect. In this
discussion it has been maintained, on the one hand, that only
presented feelings could be projected, while on the other hand
it has been insisted that the projected feelings are real feelings.

The question whether the projected feeling is an actual
feeling or a presentation of a feeling, involves a further question.
Is the immediate apprehension and appreciation of the feeling
of another, with its presumption or assumption of existence, a
feeling of value, or do feelings of value arise only when secondary
judgments as to the existence or non-existence of real feelings
or feeling-dispositions corresponding to the presented feeling
are passed ? We have already maintained that the projected
feeling is a real feeling of value, with presumption or assumption
of existence. It remains now merely to justify this position
by a critical consideration of the psychological questions in
volved. The entire dispute may be referred, I think, to an in
adequate conception of the nature of feeling, and to an un-
genetic abstraction of the two terms, — function and content.

Witasek 1 maintains that only presented feelings can be

1 Witasek, Zur psychologischen Analyse der resthetischen Einfiihlung, Zeitschrift fur
Psychologic und Physiologic, etc., XXV, 1901. Also Allgemeine ^sthetik, Leipzig,
1904, pp. 114 and 107.

Personal and Over-Individual Values 2 5 1

projected. For, in the first place, actual feelings have certain
presuppositions, sensational, organic, conative, and judgmental,
which belong to the individual alone. Without these the real
feeling cannot exist. But these presuppositions are different in
the individual who projects and the other into whom the feeling
is projected. The presuppositions cannot themselves be projected.
While the projected feelings are imagined or presented, never
theless, actual feelings of sympathy, feelings of participation, may
arise when the subject affirms the existence of dispositions cor
responding to these presented feelings. Groos,1 on the other hand,
maintains the real character of the projected feelings themselves,
on the ground that organic sensations are present, thereby making
them the criterion of real feeling, at the same time recognising
that there may be projection of feeling in terms of pure presenta
tion. Thus, I may be conscious of a man's anger or fear without
experiencing the organic disturbance which is the basis of that
actual emotion, and, again, I may have that presentation
plus the organic disturbance, when I actually feel the experience
with him. In both cases we have Einfiihlung, but in one case
the feeling is actual, while in the other it is presented.

It is apparent that in the case of both these views we are
presented with but a partial aspect of the truth. Witasek
finds "real" feelings of participation only on the higher level
of ejection where dispositional presuppositions are judged to
exist. They are, therefore, judgment-feelings. Groos sees
in the primitive organic sympathy, with its presumption of
reality, an experience of real feeling, but denies reality to the
stage of imaginative projection, because of the absence of
organic sensations. In neither of these views is the true
criterion of real feeling given. With respect to the content
aspect of feeling-attitude, which Groos has in mind when
he makes the presence of organic sensations the criterion
of real feeling, we have already seen in our analysis of feeling 2
that, while feeling is primarily the embodied meaning of certain
forms of sensitivity, organic and motor, it is not dependent
upon that content for its meaning, but may be transferred as
form-quality to other content, relatively more objective, without
losing its subjective reference and meaning. On the other
hand, the same analysis of feeling has shown us that the as
sumption which underlies the view of Witasek — that the dis
tinction between feeling and presentation is ultimate — will not

1 Groos, Der asthetische Genuss, p. 209. 2 Chap, iv, pp. 100-3.

252 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

bear examination. If such a view is taken there is, of course,
no question that the coefficient of reality is lacking to the pro
jected and intuitively presented feeling-attitude, but this view
is without foundation.

The mistake at the root of both these misconceptions of the
situation is, as has already been suggested, the neglect of the
genetic point of view, the failure to recognise that the imaginative
projection, with its quasi-presentational content, with recog-
nitive and generic meaning, is but a transition stage between
the simple appreciations of organic sympathy and the more
developed feelings of participation which come with judgment
and judgment-habit, or implicit assumption — an intermediate
stage in which the " psychical " attitude is intuitively presented,
recognised, and referred in acts of judgment to the self and the
alter. As such, it has all the meaning of the primary feeling
for which it stands, and into which it can be again converted
by reinstatement of individual presuppositions. As such, it is
also representative and anticipatory of the later feelings of par
ticipation, when presumption and assumption pass over into
explicit judgment. What has been said, in more general terms,
with reference to the real character of the affective abstract and
affective sign * and its role as real feeling in the processes of
valuation, may, therefore, now be repeated and again emphasised
in connection with its function in the activities of sympathetic
participation. The projected feeling is a feeling of value,
whether that over-individual reference consist in a presumption,
assumption, or judgment of its existence in another.

(b) Value Movements in Participation and Characterisation.

The conclusion of the preceding paragraphs — that the
distinction between the feeling as individual and as projected
and shared is merely genetic and relative, enables us finally
to see the genetic relations between the different feelings of
participation and the different cognitive attitudes in Einfiihlung
and characterisation of persons. As in simple appreciation of
objects, so in characterisation of things and persons, there
are value movements, in the latter case from organic sympathy
to ethical and aesthetic participation and characterisation.

The difference between ethical and aesthetic participation is not
a difference in affective content of projection, but in cognitive

1 Chap, v, pp. 137-9.

Personal and Over-Individtial Values 253

presuppositions. In aesthetic Einfiihlung, the presuppositions
are assumptions, in ethical, judgments. In both cases the
feeling as psychical content has been intuitively projected on
the basis of the inducing conditions described, and with this
has developed the conceptual construction of dispositions
which are either judged or assumed to exist or not exist. It
is the feelings following upon these judgments or assumptions
which are different in the two cases. The ethical feelings
are those of judgment, the aesthetic those of assumption.1 In
the case of a character of fiction or of the drama, as, for
instance, Lear, we realise the despair and fury just as really as
in real life, sometimes more clearly and vividly, and we have
a certain kind of sympathy arising from a temporary assump
tion of the existence of actual presuppositions of the feelings.
In ethical participation, on the other hand, we have the in
tuitive realisation of the feelings, but the presuppositions are
judged to be real.

III. THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN PERSONAL AND IMPERSONAL
FEELINGS OF PARTICIPATION

i. Intensive and Extensive Projection.

The preceding study of the processes of Einfiihlung, of the
origin of feelings of participation with their ideal objects, has
failed to take account of one difference in acquired meaning
which emerges very early in the process, namely, the distinction
between personal and impersonal feelings of value. All feelings
of participation have an over-individual reference, have a
common meaning, but this common meaning may be specifically
qualified as personal or impersonal. In the first chapter it was
pointed out that the same object, the disposition to act or feel

1 This analytical distinction, true as it is, may be pressed too far if in calling the
assumption-feelings of aesthetic sympathetic participation, Sc/ieingefiihle, and the
judgment feelings of the ethical, real feelings, the aesthetic are banished from the realm
of worth feelings. We have already in our introductory definitions included the
assumption-feelings among the worth phenomena, a procedure the importance of which
will become especially apparent in the following study of the activities and values of
characterisation. In the actual process of characterisation of the person and the im
puted worths which arise in that process, we shall find the a-sthetic participation worths
entering as actual determinants in ethical valuation. Without going into greater detail
in the present connection, it will be sufficient to point out that idealisation of character
plays an important role in ethical judgments, and that these ideals are realised in aesthetic
moments when assumptions take the place of judgments. The counsels of perfection
whispered to our souls in these moments colour our ethical judgments in the real life
that follows.

254 Valuation: Us Nature and Laws

in a certain way, might be judged from two different stand
points the personal and the impersonal. The feelings of value
in these cases are qualified by different acquired meanings and
references. The subject of the judgment represents two different
selves or perhaps better, two different attitudes of the sel:
Our problem is to account for this differentiation of meaning

and attitude.

This difference in attitude is fundamental,1 and has its r
in the most elementary conditions and processes of sympathetic
participation. Prior to all reflective judgment, to conscious judg
ment regarding the instrumental value of a quality or disposition
for the purposes of the self or others, and, therefore, prior to
the reflective distinction between egoism and altruism, there
is a felt difference between the demand which is more intensive
and personal, and that which is extensive and social, between
the feeling of approval or disapproval which is more inward and
personal in origin and reference and that which is more external
and impersonal. These distinctions go back to a difference in
presuppositions present in the most elementary forms c

pathy.

The fundamental difference we have in mind may
conveniently characterised as the distinction between intensive
and extensive sympathy. By intensive sympathy and sym
pathetic participation, we understand, in the first place, that
form of sympathy in which the processes of imitation, imagina
tive projection, and ideal construction, are confined to the ego
and a single alter. Where the conditions of such relations are
realised repeatedly, the common content with its common mean
ing becomes markedly individuated and personal. By exten
sive sympathy, on the other hand, we understand that form in
which a larger number of individuals are included in the range
of sympathetic projection, where the individual participates 11
the feeling and conation of social or racial groups. Between
the extremes of intensive and extensive sympathy, there are,
however, innumerable intermediate stages, and the terms
obviously have merely a relative significance.

Personal and Over- Individual Values 255

This relative significance is, nevertheless, important, for the
reason that the more extensive the range of participation, the
more unindividuated and impersonal the common meaning is.
The grounds for this we shall seek to show in detail presently,
but it is possible to see without further analysis that the more
extensive the range of projection, the more generic and racial
must be the feeling-attitude, and the less completely will it
be identified with a single personality. If this is so, we should
properly expect to find the implicit assumptions and the dis
positions which they express, differing widely according to the
intensive or extensive character of the processes of participation
in which they are formed.

2. The Distinction due primarily to Differences in Inducing

Conditions.

The inducing conditions of affective projection in general,
considered without reference to the later distinction between
intensive and extensive projection, have already been described.
Organic imitation of movement- forms, perceptual or ideal,
is the basis of sympathetic projection. When the objects
of Einfuhlung are persons, the perceptual movement-forms
are bodily expression of various kinds, and those phases
of motor expression which appear in the qualities of thought
and speech. For the most elementary organic sympathy,
similarity of motor attitude, of expression in general, is a neces
sary pre-requisite ; and for imaginative projection, certain simil
arities of attitude or temperament, which, as we have seen,
are reducible to similarities in the functional relations of
affirmation and arrest of conative tendency, are equally
necessary.

Taking attitude in the sense defined, it is clear that
within any social group, whether large or small, there will be
various differentiations of attitude. In the first place, to con
sider the most general and abstract difference first, individuals
are found to differ in the degree to which they are predominantly
affirmative or negative in type. Between the two limits — total
absence of inhibition, and predominant arrest, such as we find
in ascetics, there will be indefinite variation. At present we
are not concerned with the causes of such variation — whether
sub-social, biological, and economic, but merely with the
fact of variation. This fact being recognised, it is further seen

256 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

that within any organised society, or even group within a larger
society wherever there has been isolation enough to make sue
a group or society relatively homogeneous, there is a tendency
for these variations to arrange themselves about a norm t
more individual variations, either in excess or defect of
normal being eliminated or lost in the group attitude.

More specific variations in attitudes and emotional
are determined by the character of the fundamental conative
tendency about which the other tendencies are systematised,
and which in consequence has the greatest arresting and organ
ising influence upon other tendencies. Thus, in every assemblage
of individuals, sympathetic participation is determined by what
we may describe as similarity or differentiation of Crests,
which colour in a noticeable way all emotional attitudes. With
out pretending to an exhaustive treatment of the types and
causes of this differentiation and its effect upon emoti<
attitude the possibilities being really inexhaustible, we may
content 'ourselves with reference to two lines of differentiation
which have attracted special attention, namely, differences c
function arising out of differences of sex and of employment.
Recent studies in social psychology, especially those of Bucher
and Veblen,2 have made much of the effect of differentiation of
fundamental functions upon secondary or derived sentimer
and emotions. The centre of affirmation and arrest vanes
so greatly, and becomes so fixed with generations of soc
heredity, that the sentiments and ideals of one class are wit
difficulty realisable by another.

When we turn to the fundamental differentiation of sex
function, the effect of organic function in determining dil
ence in derived sentiments and emotions is still more promi
nent In addition to the generic difference which appears
in the fact that to the man affirmation is more of a hat
than in the case of the woman, there are the specific differenc
which arise from the different locus of the arrest in the two
cases Fundamental differences in feeling-attitude and
dispositional capacity for given sentiments and emotions, se1
certain definite limits to sympathetic participation, and ul
mately, when ideal construction of dispositions has taken pi;
to differentiation in ideals of obligation and virtue.

Leipzig, 1890.

Personal and Over- Individual Values 257

From this brief sketch, it may be easily seen that there are
causes at work differentiating and establishing, in larger and
narrower groups, habitual attitudes and expressions which
form the inducing conditions of sympathetic participation.
These causes are doubtless both social and sub-social, the sub-
social factors being biological and psychological in the narrower
individual sense. But with the special character of these
causes we are not immediately concerned. Our problem is
rather this : granted the existence of such differentiations of
attitude, how do they affect sympathetic participation and the
feelings of value which emerge in these processes ?

3. The Distinction Develops with Progress from Organic
Sympathy to Ideal Construction.

The most elementary differentiation of the personal and
impersonal reference of " common feeling " occurs in organic
sympathy, the first stage of sympathetic participation. It
becomes more marked in the succeeding stages of imaginative
projection, or sembling, and of ideal construction and judgment.
In organic sympathy itself, prior to differentiation of presuppo
sitions, the sympathy may have an individual or social reference.
Group passions and emotions are as fully realisable sympathetic
ally as are individual. We may well believe that what is called
contagion of emotion is more completely realised on primitive
than on the higher social levels. The individual subject to
this contagion apprehends immediately, through inner imitation,
the emotional attitude thus expressed, and projects it with
presumption of its existence beyond the self. It is a common
feeling, and for the participant has a common meaning, but it
is not — and this is the important point — localised in an individual
and then read back into the self. It remains external and im
personal in its reference, as an over-individual, impersonal
demand.

The differentiation of personal and impersonal reference of
the common meaning becomes still more marked when sym
pathetic participation is extended beyond organic sympathy,
through sembling or feelings of the imagination. The inducing
conditions of organic sympathy are similarities of motor atti
tude and expression, and the limits of such participation are
definitely set by biological conditions which are sub-social
and psychological. Beyond this point the projection becomes

258 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

imaginative, and the feeling of participation is an assumption-
feeling. The condition of such imaginative projection, we
have already seen, is abstraction of the feeling from its individual
presuppositions and from its organic accompaniments. The
significance of this fact for our study of the modification of
the " common meaning " of feeling through extensive projection,
is far-reaching. It follows that the more extensive the range
of sympathetic projection, the more the individuals vary in
expression and attitude, the more complete this process of
abstraction must be, and the less personal will be the reference
of the feeling.

This consequence may be shown in two ways. In the first
place, only certain limited classes of feeling-attitudes are sus
ceptible of extensive projection, and these are precisely those
attitudes which are least individualised, most completely generic
or racial. Within narrower groups, the derived and more highly
differentiated emotional attitudes may be intuitively appreciated,
but with the increase of extent of the projection, the assump
tion becomes more and more uncertain and the characterisa
tion more and more fanciful ; it is only the primitive condition
worths which are susceptible of very extensive projection.
I hear of some act of heroism on the part of a savage
or an Oriental. Up to a certain point I can intuitively realise
his attitude, especially if it is an act of heroism in connection
with the fundamental motives of family or state, but even then,
as a result of racial differentiations of habits of expression
and thought, only incompletely, and in the case of more differ
entiated attitudes, not at all. This is especially true in the
case of the nuances of his sense of honour. Into the back
ground of presuppositions or implicit assumptions which deter
mine his feelings and judgments, I can penetrate only with the
greatest difficulty, for they have been created by activities of
sympathetic participation and consequent imaginative and ideal
construction differing in important respects from those which
have determined my own. Social selection and differentiation
have worked differently in the two cases. With the nature and
laws of this selection we shall be concerned in another connec
tion ; here it is important merely to note the fact that beyond
purely organic sympathy, sympathetic participation is distinctly
limited.

In view of these facts, it can be easily seen that the judg
ments and implicit assumptions of existence or non-existence

Personal and Over-Individual Values 259

of more extensive social dispositions and demands, rest less and
less upon immediate organic sympathy and intuitive projection,
and more and more upon abstract inference and judgment, and
that, consequently, the feelings of participation in this case
become progressively more and more impersonal. It may be
also readily seen that the implicit assumptions or expectations
thus generated will vary widely, both in the character of the
attitudes or dispositions demanded and in the amount expected,
from the expectations or demands generated in more immediate
personal intercourse. In these facts we shall find the explana
tion of those differences in personal and social obligation, per
sonal and impersonal imputation, reference to which has been
made at the beginning of this chapter. The further develop
ment of these differences and their explanation belong to suc
ceeding chapters.

CHAPTER IX

I. PERSONAL WORTHS— THE VALUES OF CHARACTERISATION
OF THE PERSON

i. Definition : the Personal Attitude in Valuation.
THE values described as personal constitute a well-marked
sphere of meanings in our worth experience. Between the
satisfaction of a simple sense-tendency, and its corresponding
condition worth, and the satisfaction of a demand more deeply
rooted in the personality, there is a difference which is immedi
ately appreciated. No less clear is the distinction between
the value of an act as a quality or expression of the personality
and as merely a means to other ends, either individual or social.
If we had occasion to criticise the statement of Lipps that
" every pleasure is conditioned by a personality worth,"
it is, nevertheless, true that a certain class of worth feelings
presuppose explicit reference to the ideal or concept of
person. These feelings are described as feelings of personal

worth.

The objects of such feelings are primarily qualities c
positions of the person. It is true that physical objects of
condition worth may acquire a complementary personal value,
but this is possible only when they are related to the primary
objects through secondary associations or instrumental judg
ments It is with the primary objects of intrinsic personal
worth that we are here concerned. These objects, we have
seen, are ideal constructions developed in the processes of
sympathetic participation. Through the processes of Emfuhl-
ung the feeling of the individual acquires a common
over-individual meaning. The disposition corresponding
this feeling, now presumed, assumed, or judged to exist in
another, has acquired a new meaning and value through 1
very fact of participation, of its being shared. But wher

1 Chap. II, pp. 5°
260

Personal Worths 261

disposition is thus cognised, and has this subjective " participa
tion-value," it may be further intrinsically and independently
valued as an expression of the person, the self, or the alter.
This is its personal value or value for characterisation.

The attitude toward personal worths, of the self or the alter,
is one which we describe in terms of respect or admiration, with
their opposites, contempt and disdain. We clearly distinguish
self-respect from self-complacency, and self-disdain from self-
pity ; and respect and disdain for others from mere liking or
disliking and pity. The reason for this distinction is to be found
in the fact that the first class of predicates represents personal
worths, the second condition worths. Pity, like, and dislike
are simple modifications of feelings of condition worth, adequately
described in terms of pleasantness and unpleasantness. It is
to these latter attitudes that the distinction between egoism
and altruism alone applies, for it is only when we take the sub
jective feeling as end, to which the qualities of the person are
related as means, only when we form the concept of our own or
another's happiness, that the conflict between egoism and al
truism arises. It is merely this subjective aspect of " condition
worth " that has no common meaning, and that cannot be shared.
Self-complacency and self-pity are, properly speaking, egoistic,
self-respect and self-disdain are not. Pity for the unhappiness
of another, or satisfaction in his pleasure, is altruistic ; respect
and disdain for another are neither egoistic nor altruistic. The
intrinsic valuation of personality transcends the distinction.1

Equally clear is the distinction between the personal and the
impersonal attitude in valuation. Within certain limits, which
will be defined as our study proceeds, respect and disrespect,
admiration and disdain, may be independent of the moral judg
ment of good and bad. Just as the personal attitude transcends
the distinction between egoism and altruism, so, at points, it
transcends the distinction of moral goodness and badness with
which they are closely connected.

The preceding study of feelings of personal worth, their

1 The feelings of hate and envy which are so often the accompaniments of the re
cognition of personal worths are but proofs of this position. We cannot hate or envy
a man because of his personal worth. This is an acquired worth which is intrinsically
recognised as good and desirable for us. It is only when we turn our eyes to the hedonic
accompaniments, the condition worths which we infer to accompany the personal worth
or with which we conceive the personal worth to be instrumentally connected, that we
feel envy and hate. Thus, doubtless, the illiterate Athenian when he hated to hear
Aristides «z//«f just, was always thinking of the rewards of the virtue. To envy a man
because of his beauty, strength, or virtue is essentially a backward value movement.

262 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

objects and the qualities predicated of the objects, makes clear
the more important characteristics of these feelings. Their
meanings are acquired meanings, and their objects ideal con
structs. Both the feelings and their objects presuppose the
development of a certain sphere of meaning within which the
judgments of characterisation are passed, a sphere or level of
meaning which, while it develops by certain processes out of
the lower level of feelings of condition worth, is now contrasted
with that lower level.

Analysing these presuppositions in more detail, we find
that they are certain implicit assumptions with which the
subject of the feeling comes to the object. These assumptions,
as we have already seen in the studies of the preceding chapter,
are of the nature of expectations of the existence or non-existence
of certain dispositions, certain tendencies to desire, feel, and act,
on the part of the self and the alter. These assumptions, when
made as a demand upon the self, give rise to feelings of personal
obligation ; when made as a demand upon the alter, they con
dition our judgments of praise and blame. In general, then, the
presupposition of the sphere of meanings described as personal
worths is the ideal construct of the 'person, individuated as the
self or the alter, to which the objects of the feelings are referred.

2. The Idea or Ideal of Personality : Its Meaning — How assumed
in all Judgments of Personal Worth.

In saying that the existence of the person is assumed im
plicitly in all feelings and judgments of personal worth, we
have introduced the concept of personality, and in doing so
we must proceed with caution if we are not to go beyond the
limits of psychological method. Whatever may be said as to
the ultimate metaphysical reality of the self, it is not, strictly
speaking, an object of immediate experience, not an object of
perception, nor, on the side of feeling, of simple appreciation,
but is rather a construct of a higher order built up upon im
mediate perceptions and appreciations. The self is not first
there as an object and then characterised, but is rather an
object which is constructed and individuated in the very pro
cesses of characterisation. Constructed first for practical pur
poses, as a concept for the regulation of our expectations of
sympathetic participation, it becomes individuated as an object
with intrinsic value and meaning, to which obligations, responsi-

Personal Worths 263

bilities, merits, and demerits may be imputed, concepts which
stand for certain acquired meanings of feeling. It is, first of all,
a worth construction, and only secondarily an object of knowl
edge.

Such a self is always assumed in feelings and judgments of
personal worth. And the self thus assumed is, in the first place,
a generic and ideal self. To be more explicit, the ideal self is
at the same time personal and over-individual. The specific
disposition assumed has acquired an additional meaning through
reference to the concept of the person, but the concept of the
person is at first schematic, and not individuated into the ego
and the alter as centres of unique interests and inner life. In
order to understand this, it is necessary to recall the conception
of the "person-project" developed in the preceding chapter.1
There it was pointed out that the development of this ideal pro
jection in the processes of sympathetic Einfiihlung — the passage
of simple organic sympathy with its presumption of existence,
into feelings of the imagination in sembling, the abstraction of
the feeling from individual presuppositions and its schematic
character in general — makes it at once over-individual and per
sonal, ready to be read either into the self or the alter, and ac
knowledged in judgment as identical with the self or the other.

II. THE CHARACTER OF THE IDEAL PERSON AS DETERMINED BY
THE PROCESSES IN WHICH IT is CONSTRUCTED

i. Idealisation Involved in Sympathetic Einfiihlung.

The character of the presupposed personality is determined by
certain factors inherent in sympathetic projection itself. The
first of these may be described as the tendency to idealise. By
idealisation is here understood the tendency, inherent in pro
jection in its imaginative, semblant mode, to enlarge, so to speak,
the feeling and feeling disposition as projected and assumed to
exist in the " other." The projected feeling, abstracted from
its individual presuppositions, is assumed to be deeper and
broader, more completely identified with the person.

Illustrations of this fact are numerous. Most apparent
in undeveloped persons, and differing in degree with differences
in temperament, it is, nevertheless, present to some extent
in all personal relations. The savage or barbarian, lost in

1 Chap, viil, p. 248.

264 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

admiration of the strength and pride of his chief, ignores the
shadows, the negative factors of which he is conscious in himself,
and it may be added, the negative condition worths, the pains
which come to himself through this superiority. The child
worships the " good and beautiful lady." The simple man
believes the scholar's knowledge boundless. More developed
persons are subject to the same illusion. The illusions of love
will suffice for our purpose, since they are well adapted to show
the psychological source of the illusion. The lover feels sym
pathetically the love of his adored, but as the result of the very
conditions of sympathetic Einfiihlung, i.e., abstraction from indi
vidual presuppositions, it is a purified and enlarged love that he
beholds. In himself he is conscious of its dependence upon organic
and other presuppositions — he is conscious of its admixture with
condition worths, in this case lust— and though he may believe
the disposition constant, he is conscious of the variations in
feeling. Although intellectually he might infer similar con
ditions in the other, intuitively he is unable to project them,
and, therefore, ignores them. The enlarged purified love he
beholds is assumed to have a corresponding disposition— a corre
late in the object of his devotion, and that disposition is assumed
to have depth and breadth in the personality not realisable in

himself.1

This imaginative projection, with its accompanying ab
straction of the feeling from individual and limiting presuppo
sitions, and its consequent enlargement, is, however, but the
first stage of idealisation. The projected feeling has both an
individual and an over-individual reference, and when that
feeling is sympathetically realised as an attitude of the alter,
it is again read back into the self. Idealised in the sense we
have described, by imaginative projection, it is again referred
to the self in its idealised form. Lipps has described the
process in terms which I can do no better than quote in full.
" As I look about me the man appears, now in this point, now
in that, increased beyond the measure found in myself. That
means, as we know, that expressions in others awake in me
the idea of an increase of an element in my own nature. So
arises in me a new idea of personality which, just in so

1 Lipps, Die ethischcn Gntndfragen, p. 44- It is an empirical fact— upon which
Lipps rightly lays considerable weight in his argument for the recognition of mtr
personal worth in the alter, as opposed to its derivation from egoism— that the normal
accompaniment of sympathetic projection is the contrasting of the assumed attitude or
disposition in the " alter " with our own, in the direction of idealisation of the alter.

Personal Worths 265

far as it represents an extension of my real personality, is in
comparison with the latter an ideal personality. There arises
in me, finally, in the course of this process a representation of
the 'ideal personality." *

2. Division of the Personality — Extrusion of the Negative Moment
Further Stages in Idealisation.

In the process, as thus far sketched, we have but the
beginning of the ideal construction of the personality. The
primary contrast between worths of condition and of the person
is the germ of the idealisation described, but the contrast,
and the idealisation which it conditions, do not stop here. The
contrast is thus far between the imagined and the actual feeling,
between the feeling as projected into the alter or read back
into the self, and as individual feeling with its individual pre
suppositions. The identification of this ideal project with
the other, or in a return movement with the self, involves a
further step in the process of characterisation, which may be
described as contrast of the personal worth, now identified with
the self or the alter, with the condition worths now conceived
as sub-personal. This leads to a division of the personality.

The division of the personality, whether of the self or the
alter, is a well-known phase of ideal construction. The dis
tinction between the higher and the lower self is presupposed
in all ethical judgments. The analysis of the situation shows
that it arises out of an explicit acknowledgment, as an opposition,
of what was at first merely a felt contrast. The identification
of the disposition, as a positive quality, with the person, requires
some corresponding acknowledgment of the opposing negative
tendencies, and this gives rise to the intensification of the primary
contrast in a conceptual division of the self. The contrast
between the flesh and the spirit, between desire and will, are
well-known characterisations of the situation. In such cases
the objects, the " spirit " and the " will," acquire a new mean
ing, and are, through this contrast, more completely identified
with the ideal personality.

We should fail, however, to understand the real signifi
cance of this stage if we did not realise that it may be but germinal
to a later stage, in which division of the personality develops
into complete extrusion of the lower tendencies, of the negative

1 Lipps, Die ethischen Grundfragen, p. 37.

266 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

moment. Such a stage is reached, for instance, in the notion
of temptation and in the personification of the tempting ten
dencies in the form of a hostile personality. The extreme of
this externalisation we have in certain religious personifications
where the highest personal worths are identified with the good
God, while the evil is projected into opposing personalities and
forces. The individual who identifies his will with the will of
God frequently acquires, through the completeness of the con
trast, the absolute value of complete sanctification, and to him
is imputed by other persons the ideal values of sainthood. Similar
heightening of the sense of value follows when the negative
factor is externalised in an opposing social group, as when the
personal worth of the martyr is increased through contrast with
the surrounding evil. As a child of his age, some of its evil is
probably in him, but the individuation of his personality abo\it
some supreme personal worth as a centre, brings with it ex
trusion of the negative elements. Such complete contrasts
are commonly fully realised only in the isolation of the person
ality, in aesthetic construction where the negative moments are
for the moment ignored, but there are quasi-aesthetic moments
present in all ideal construction, and they are accompanied by
belief in the ideal. Even purely aesthetic idealisations may,
as we shall see later, under certain circumstances, pass over
into belief, and affect our actual ethical feelings and judgments.

3. Intuitive (^Esthetic) Individuation of the Personality — Acquire
ment of Complementary Value.

Thus far in our study of the ideal construction of the
personality, its schematic character and over-individual aspects
have been emphasised. With the ideal imaginative projection
of an individual feeling-attitude and its contrast with condition
worths, it acquires a personal reference and meaning. But
when the ideal construct of the person is thus formed, when
a quality of that person is valued intrinsically as an expression
of the person, further processes of individuation appear, and
the quality or qualities in question acquire complementary
value through their relations to each other as parts of a har
monious totality. The contrast or division of the personality,
and ultimately the aesthetic or quasi-aesthetic isolation of the
person, afford the necessary conditions for that individuating
reconstruction and rearrangement of the elements of the person-

Personal Worths 267

ality which makes repose in the object possible, and gives rise to
complementary immanental value.

This individuation of the personality is of the intuitive type
of construction discussed in a preceding chapter,1 where certain
forms of this individuating construction, both perceptual and
ideational, were described, and their fundamental laws deter
mined. In particular, we considered the emergence of new
objects of appreciation, such as sensuous beauty, manners,
cleanliness, through the rearrangement of sensational and
perceptual activities ; also the individuation of abstract ideal
constructions, such as a sum of money, where the sum as a
unity or totality, acquires an intrinsic value not constituted by
the instrumental values of its separate elements. The in
dividuating construction of the personality does not differ in
principle from these types, but merely in the material elements.

The function of the law of contrast in building up the
ideal personality is primary. In fact, the other two laws are,
as we have seen, in a sense expressions of it. The contrast of
a quality of a personality, with other qualities, by which it
acquires complementary value, may be seen at two points.
Such a quality may be contrasted either with the opposite
qualities of surrounding persons, or with opposing qualities
in the same personality which have been or are being over
come. Thus the holiness of a martyr stands out as completely
identified with his personality, in contrast to the universal
corruption about him. Augustine is all the more a saint for
the opposition of his complete devotion to ideal ends in later life
to the lower feelings and desires of his earlier career. Whether
the contrast is between an inner and a more external self, or
between the self and society — in either case the contrast enhances
the sense of reality, and therefore of the value of the person
ality. The fondness of those who have undergone experiences
of conversion for contrasting their present with their past, arises
from the increase in the sense of personal worth, resulting from
complete identification of present ideals with the personality,
the sense of elevation, which results from the contrast.

The principle of the " total series," which was seen to be
so important in aesthetic construction, has an important role
to play in the real activities and judgments of personal worth
experience. It may almost be described, perhaps, as the dra
matic tendency in the characterisation of the self and the alter.

1 Chap, vi, pp. 173 ff.

268 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

Unity and continuity form the goal, consciously or unconsciously,
of all characterisations of personality. The ordering of the
acts, of the expressions of a life, as they appear in temporal
relations of succession, in such a manner that they have a quali
tative order or meaning, as determined by relations of teleo-
logical dependence, is one of the chief sources of the comple
mentary values imputed to personalities. This quasi-sesthetic
characterisation of the personality is inseparable from any
reconstruction of our own past or construction of our future,
for the reason that the self is primarily a worth construction.
It is equally inseparable from the biographical and historical
reconstruction of other personalities.

Finally we may note the important role of the principle of
" end feeling " in this characterisation of the personality. In
general the tendency, already noted, to reconstruct the temporal
relation teleologically through processes of selection and ex
clusion, leads to the selection of the end term of the series as
the keynote of the whole, and as the chief determinant of the
character of the whole. Even in the characterisations of the
self and the alter of ordinary life, this ordering of the elements
of the total character under the end-moments is much in evidence.
The expression, in various forms, of the thought that no one is
to be reckoned happy until he dies, shows the emphasis put
upon the last moments. In like manner the importance of
the last moments before death in determining the judgment
upon a person as a whole is shown in the emphasis which re
ligion puts upon the " making of a good end." But it is in the
aesthetic characterisations of literature, where illusion-disturbing
judgments are inhibited, and, to a degree also, in the quasi-
aesthetic characterisations of biography and history, that the
working of this law of ideal construction is most apparent,
and the importance of the principle in the determination of
the worth imputed to the personality as a whole is best shown.
A moment of supreme manifestation of strength or self-sacrifice,
at the end of a relatively meaningless life, may give it a supreme
meaning and hallow all the other moments ; may, indeed, through
very contrast with the weakness or evil of the former acts,
heighten the value imputed to the personality. Finality as
purpose, is logically independent of temporal finality, but not
for intuitive construction. In one sense it does not matter when
the chief note of a man's life, as, for instance, his heroic moment,
occurs, but in another sense it does. It is a timeless value, but

Personal Worths 269

for our unification of his character it makes all the difference in
the world whether the heroic act came early and was followed
by mediocrity or weakness, or whether a meaningless life receives
meaning from a final beautiful act. As in the unities of the
" temporal arts," music and the drama, so in the aesthetic
characterisation of the person we seek to make the two kinds
of " ends " coincide.

In the preceding principles of characterisation of persons are
disclosed the laws according to which the process of idealisation,
begun in sympathetic Einfiihlung and consequent contrast of
person and condition worths, is carried on in the intuitive in-
dividuation of the person. In both cases, there is acquire
ment of value. In the first stages of the process of ideali
sation the acquired value is transgredient, i.e., the projection
of the attitude, its acquirement of common meaning, and its
contrast with condition worths, issue in a new demand which
is felt in the self as personal obligation, and with reference to
the alter as a demand for intrinsic personal values. The acquired
value of the individuating construction, on the other hand, is
immanental, and arises from repose in the object, the unitary
personality. Here the values are partially or wholly aesthetic,
and the feelings of value find expression in the aesthetic predi
cates of perfection, nobility, beauty of character, etc. In the
acquirement of this complementary immanental value, many
qualities of the person are significant largely because of their
role as necessary elements in the unique totality, and have
only personal value, being without instrumental value for social
ends.

4. Conclusions.

The general conclusions to be drawn from this study of
the processes of idealisation of the person may be thus stated.
In this process a new meaning is acquired, a new level of valua
tion formed. Through reference to the ideal of the person,
and through contrast with condition worths, the disposition
becomes the object of feelings qualitatively different from the
feelings of simple appreciation. But not only is this qualita
tively new meaning acquired. The feelings of value, with these
acquired presuppositions, have greater transgredient and im
manental reference, greater depth and breadth in the personality.
They represent, therefore, an absolute increase in the degree of
value or affective-volitional meaning. In general, personal

270 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

worths have preference over condition worths. The demand
to realise personal worths, as represented in feelings of " per
sonal " obligation, is more intense than in the case of the quasi-
ethical obligations attached to objects of condition worth.
Personal qualities have in them a greater capacity for con
tinuous valuation than objects of condition worth. These
conclusions we shall see further substantiated in our studies of
personal obligation and imputation of personal worth in the
following chapter.

III. THE LAWS OF VALUATION AS APPLIED TO OBJECTS OF
PERSONAL WORTH

i. The Problem.

The ideal schematic person, the existence of which is im
plicitly assumed or presumed in all feelings and judgments of
personal worth, has now been sketched in its broad outlines.
It is seen to be the conceptual term for a system of dispositions
or affective-volitional tendencies which is assumed to exist,
now in the self, now in the alter. As such it is the necessary
background or presupposition of the entire group of values
which we call personal. It was further shown how this sche
matic ideal may be individuated by the individuating principles
inherent in ideal construction, and how the elements may acquire
complementary value as part of a unique totality. It is, there
fore, with such expectations, assumptions, demands, that the
individual who judges comes to the objects of judgment, and
his imputation of merit or demerit is the expression of the feelings
of satisfaction or dissatisfaction following upon judgments of
existence or non-existence of the expected dispositions.

These assumptions or demands are, on their part, expressions
of dispositions generated in the processes of sympathetic par
ticipation, and have been determined by the selective processes
of idealisation inherent in such participation. When this fact
is duly recognised, it becomes apparent that our description
has thus far abstracted wholly from one important aspect of the
feelings of personal worth, and of their corresponding judg
ments, namely, the aspect of quantity or degree. Since the as
sumptions underlying judgments of personal worth represent
the funded meaning acquired in processes of sympathetic par
ticipation and idealisation, the individual comes to the object

Personal Worths 271

of judgment, not only with a pre-disposition to assume the ex
istence of certain qualities, but also to expect these qualities
in certain amounts. Consequently the feelings and judgments
of personal worth will be determined by the degree to which
these expectations are realised. The relative value of any
quantity, we have seen, is a function of the relation of that
quantity to the amount of the presupposed demand. That
demand, again, is determined by the dispositions to feel or desire
created by previous acts of valuation. In this case the demand
is the reflex of the ideal personality, that is, the funded meaning
of the dispositions, acquired through reference to the construct
of the person. Our task is now to define this demand in quanti
tative terms, to determine the laws of valuation of these ideal
objects of personal worth.

2. The Problem in the Light of our General Study of the Laws of

Valuation.

The solution of this problem is, in a sense, merely the ap
plication to a special question, to a specific class of worth objects,
of the general principles developed in the chapter on the Laws of
Valuation. It would seem that in defining the objects of per
sonal worth as ideal and intrinsic, we have already determined
the laws of their valuation, for it has been shown, at con
siderable length, that such objects have the capacity of con
tinuous valuation, that degree of value increases with increase
in the amount of the object. Objects of condition worth and
of instrumental value we found to be subject to the law of
Limiting Value, and the concrete judgments of value in these
spheres were seen to reflect the working of this law, i.e., the thres
holds and limits are determined by it. On the other hand, ideal
intrinsic objects, with the capacity for individuation and ac
quirement of complementary value, are not subject to this law.
From this conclusion it was further inferred that the presuppo
sition or postulate of judgment in this sphere is the possibility
of continuous valuation and of the existence of absolute values.
With regard to the special class of personal worths, it would
follow, if these general principles are true, that the demand for
such objects is unlimited, that the assumption underlying our
judgments of personal worth, our judgments both of obliga
tion and of imputation of merit and demerit, would be that
indefinite increase of dispositions with personal worth means

272 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

continued increase in degree of value. It would be " rational,"
to use the illustration of the earlier chapter,1 to desire the in
crease of such dispositions indefinitely; and our judgments of
obligation and imputation, in reflecting that desire or demand,
would likewise be rational, would be but the reflection of actual
facts and laws of worth experience.

This conclusion, based upon considerations of a general
character, we shall find justified in the sequel, and an analysis
of our actual judgments in this sphere will confirm the hypothesis.
It will be seen that our judgments of personal obligation and im
putation presuppose this postulate. Nevertheless, a special
analysis of sympathetic participation and idealisation from this
point of view will not only give a more concrete basis for this
general conclusion, but will develop certain facts necessary for
the adequate interpretation of judgments of personal worth.

3. Feelings of Personal Worth as Modified by the Factor of Quantity

of the Object.

Analysis of the Factor of Quantity.

The feelings of personal worth have their origin in im
mediate sympathy and sympathetic participation, which is in
the first place organic. Out of this develop imaginative pro
jection and ideal construction of dispositions, with their as
sumptions and judgments of existence. It is clear that in
our investigation of the effect of quantity on the degree of
feeling we must keep before us this difference in objects and
presuppositions of the feelings. In the case of simple organic
sympathy the factor of quantity appears in two forms: as repeti
tion of sympathetic participation, and as intensity of the feeling
in which the subject sympathetically participates. When the level
of ideal construction, i.e., assumption and judgment, is reached,
the. object is not the immediate emotional expression, but the
disposition presupposed, and the factor of quantity is different.
The quantity of the disposition may be displayed in two ways :
either by repetition of the expression in acts, or by strength of
disposition displayed in a single act. In the first case, the
quantity of the disposition is measured in its extent, the degree
to which it is habitual in the personality ; in the second case, it
is measured in its depth, the degree to which the disposition is
fundamental in the personality.

1 Chap. VI, pp. 186 ff.

Personal Worths 273

(a) Organic Sympathy.

Organic sympathy we found to be genetically the lowest
level of sympathetic participation. The effect of repetition upon
these participation feelings is the ordinary one of dulling of
sensitivity, leading ultimately to the arrest of participation.
Analysis of experience leaves no doubt of this fact. It is ap
parent alike in aesthetic Einfiihlung where the objects are im
personal and in ethical participation in the feeling of persons.
In the case of " inner imitation," where the inducing conditions
are perceptual movement-forms of nature, repetition is followed
by the dulling of the organic resonance, as was clearly illustrated
in the studies of the preceding chapter.1 Still more is this true
in the case where the inducing conditions are the expressions
of persons. In organic sympathy with the joys and sorrows of
others, such sympathy is distinctly limited to short periods and
to favourable conditions, and loses its intensity with repetition."
In both cases, however, there is the possibility of substituting for
organic sympathy an intuitive realisation of the feeling — more
technically expressed, of feeling of imagination or emotional
abstract — in the attitude of sembling.

The dulling of sensitivity with repetition has as its parallel
a corresponding effect of satiety — i.e., when the intensity
of the emotional expression, to be sympatheticaly realised,
is above a certain normal amount. The emotional demand
made upon the sympathetic person by an extreme of joy or
sorrow, by unlimited enthusiasm, devotion, or sacrifice, as
exhibited in the alter, may, as far as the organic resonance is con
cerned, have an effect entirely analogous to satiety in the sphere
of other sensation-feelings, and especially so when the subject's
temperamental equipment sets a limit to these emotional ex
periences. Here again, however, the limits of organic sym
pathy do not necessarily mark the limits of all forms of sym
pathetic participation. The substitutes for the full emotional
resonance, the feelings of the imagination in sembling, may
notably extend the range of our participation. In aesthetic
participation, as in the drama, we find that, if certain conditions
are met, an indefinite increase of feeling, as expressed by the
actor, may be participated in sympathetically by the spectator
in a manner and degree impossible in the case of those feelings
described as " real." The aesthetic isolation and illusion bring

1 Chap. VIII, p. 240. * Chap, vi, p. 182.

T

274 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

about an unusual extension of our capacities of sympathetic
participation, making possible a complete, though temporary,
identification of the feeling of the self with that of the other
and the identification of the sympathetic participant with the
personality as dramatically presented.

(b) Judgment and Assumption Feelings.

Organic sympathy is, then, subject to the law of Limiting
Value as determined by dulling of sensitivity and satiety. But
organic sympathy does not mark the limit of sympathetic
participation. There are forms of participation in which the
feelings have as their presuppositions assumptions and judg
ments. Our further problem is clearly to determine the effect
upon these dispositions, and upon their corresponding implicit
assumptions, of actualisation of feeling through these cognitive
acts. What is the effect of the factor of quantity in this sphere ?

Here the problem is at first sight more complicated, but
it is immediately simplified when we recognise that, whatever
this effect may be, it is not one of dulling of sensitivity and
satiety. These laws do not apply to judgment and assumption
feelings as such, for they are not sensation-feelings.1 With
this negative conclusion, it becomes at once clear that we are
not concerned with the mere mechanical effects of repetition
and over-stimulation, but rather with the question of the limits
of what we have called judgment capacity.2 When the quantity
of an object is apprehended in acts of cognition, the value of
the quantity is either instrumental or intrinsic. When the
feeling of value is mediated by instrumental judgments, it is
subject to the law of Limiting Value for reasons developed in
the chapter referred to, and which need not be repeated here.
This law would apply to the value of a disposition, in so far as
that value is instrumental. On the other hand, when the value
is intrinsic, and presupposes the assumption of the existence of
an individuated whole of which it is a part, the law of Comple
mentary Values becomes operative, and the capacity of the object
for continuous valuation depends entirely upon the degree to
which individuation and isolation are possible. Whether, then,
there is increase in degree of value, depends upon the degree to
which, with increase in quantity of an object of personal worth,
the object can be isolated and intrinsically valued. Whether
these complementary values determine the demand for personal

1 Chap, vi, p. 159. a Chap, vi, p. 171.

Personal Worths 275

worths presupposed in our actual judgments of imputation and
obligation, depends upon the degree to which such intrinsic
valuations modify the dispositions presupposed by these judg
ments.

4. The Effect of Idealisation on our Actual Judgments and
Judgmental Dispositions.

(a) Idealisation as Imaginative Construction.

This intrinsic valuation is possible, however, only on the
condition of aesthetic or quasi-aesthetic isolation of the person
ality, described in the study of the processes of idealisation.
The preponderating role of imaginative projection, with its
contrast and individuation, in the process of idealisation has
been emphasised. Do these feelings of the imagination or
assumption feelings enter into the formation of our permanent
beliefs, or implicit assumptions of reality ? Evidently the vital
question in the present discussion concerns the effect of these feel
ings of imagination upon our dispositions to actual feeling, and
therefore upon our worth judgments. This is, of course, but
another aspect of the general question fully discussed in an
earlier chapter.1 There we insisted that feelings of the imagina
tion, as well as judgment feelings, modify our feeling dispositions,
our implicit assumptions, and are, therefore, of functional
importance in the processes of valuation. Here we might apply
that conclusion without further analysis of the facts, but our
development of the present study will be more satisfactory if we
make an independent analysis of aesthetic participation.

(b) The Effect of the Semblant Mode in Simple Appreciation.

The effect of the semblant, aesthetic mode in simple appre
ciation has already been shown, but a reconsideration of the facts
at this point will enable us to understand better its role in the
characterisation of persons. Cognitively considered, the attitude
was found to be one of conscious self-illusion in that in most
experiences of the aesthetic type, more particularly artistic
creation and appreciation, the elimination of illusion-disturbing
moments is a conscious process, and the judgments which would
destroy the illusion are never completely inhibited. Neverthe
less, even here the distinction between reality and illusion

1 Chap, v, pp. 137-9.

276 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

cannot be pressed too far. The aesthetic mode of appreciation
is genetically related to other worth attitudes, in that it is a
value movement toward activity, in which assumption takes
the place of judgment, and in which desire becomes dispositional.
But precisely because of this genetic relation, the immanental
value acquired in the movement modifies our actual feelings of
value, as is seen in the phenomena of imputed value.1 Even in
art the assumption feelings are not without effect upon our
actual desires and feelings. In such a work of art as Tennyson's
Lotos-Eaters — a well-nigh perfect illusion of mood where, by the
elimination of all illusion-disturbing factors, the dominant mood
of peace and forgetfulness is completely realised — it is quite
possible that its effect may persist in non-aesthetic attitudes.
It is impossible, it is true, that the momentary assumption of
the existence of such a land of dreams should pass over into
actual belief in its existence, but since it was a real, though dis
positional desire that was temporarily satisfied, the illusion may
have its effect as an undertone in determining actual feelings
and judgments. Such dreams not only create a belief which
leads to its own realisation, as wrien Columbus said, " It was
not astronomy or geometry, but his reading Isaiah's prophecy
of a new heaven and a new earth, that set him on his discovery,"
but they may also form the basis of a critical judgment of actual
conduct and life, which may lead to the realisation of the new
heavens and the new earth of the reformer.

(c) The Effect of the JEsthetic in the Characterisation of Persons.

When we pass to the role of imagination in the character
isation of persons, and its effect upon the implicit assumptions
underlying our personal judgments, the distinction between
imagination and belief is still more vague. In our study of
ethical and aesthetic projection, it was found that the difference
lies, not in the projected feeling, but in the secondary partici
pation-feeling following upon the judgment or assumption of
the existence or non-existence of a dispositional correlate. In
the case of Lear there cited, the projected feeling, as feeling,
may be more fully realised than in actual life. It is the im
pulse or disposition to participate that is at a minimum, and
therefore the corresponding feelings of participation may be
said to lack reality. They are assumption-feelings. Neverthe-

1 Chap, vii, pp. 229 ff.

Personal Worths 277

less these assumption-feelings may pass over into judgment-
feelings in several significant ways. The vulgar tendency to
take the passions of the stage as real, and sometimes to act
accordingly, shows this relation of assumption to judgment in
a crude form. The ideal limiting case of the aesthetic attitude,
desireless intuition, is but imperfectly realised. Will is present
dispositionally, ready to flare up upon the crudest semblance to
reality. Much more significant, however, for the larger life
of worth experiences is what may be described as the " after-
feeling of reality," the conviction or judgment, that such
situations, such passions, etc., are actually real. We have here,
then, the curious situation, the meaning of which has not been
fully appreciated, that a feeling, the character of the presuppo
sitions of which, as assumptions, was fully realised at the time,
may gradually pass over into a real feeling with judgment as its
presupposition. Phenomena of this sort are not far to seek.
An aesthetic realisation of idealised passions and emotions may
generate expectations which colour the actual judgments of
real life. Similarly, a man may come to believe in his own dreams,
which at first were recognised as dreams.1

(5) Absolute Personal Values : They exist as Practical Absolutes.

The self is an ideal construction of an individuating
character involving contrast, serial order, and totalisation
through the idea of finality. The working out of this con
struction involves an isolation and extrusion of the " negative
moments," possible only in aesthetic idealisation. In such
idealisation absolute values are realised, that is, situations appear
where the object of personal worth is completely identified with
the personality ; the elimination of opposing elements is absolute
and the ideal of perfection is realised.

1 The nature of this transition from aesthetic, imaginative construction of a person
ality, with its mere assumption of reality and its conscious "self-illusion," to actual
belief is well illustrated, in an extreme form, in some cases of illusions of mediumship.
In that interesting and instructive study of mediumship, M. Flournoy's A Journey to
Mars, it would seem to be established that the creation of secondary personalities was
preceded by periods of incubation, in which an ideal fictitious personality was being con
structed from materials got from reading, conversation, etc. Gradually there was a
systematisation of tendencies and attitudes about a fundamental, and an accompanying
arrest of illusion-disturbing tendencies. Finally the segregation became so complete
that the system received a new name and became a new personality. The transition
from assumption to judgment with its accompanying belief was gradual. What the
trance contributed to the situation was simply that it afforded the conditions for com
plete auto-suggestion, arresting all tendencies which would be illusion-disturbing, which
would again transform belief into assumption.

278 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

In actual ethical characterisation this ideal is only im
perfectly realised. The ever-recurrent division of the self into
the lower and the higher (the Kantian contrast between the
empirical and the rational, intelligible will), is a necessary
condition of ideal construction and of ethical judgment, but is
normally incomplete. The complete identification of the ideal
object of personal worth with the personality is merely an ideal
to be attained, because of the difficulty of complete extrusion
of the negative moment. There are, however, unique experi
ences, both in the processes of self-realisation and in the charac
terisation of the alter, where the illusion of complete identification,
of perfection, which is ordinarily possible only in purely aesthetic
experiences, becomes part of the real ethical process, where the
aesthetic assumption acquires the conviction of judgment.
These we may describe as practical absolutes.

The situations where these unique experiences, these supreme
moments, appear are those in which the contrast between the
individual and the surrounding social values, or between the
ideal personal worths and the lower condition worths, is so
complete that the negative moments are wholly externalised,
and the personality is completely unified through identification
with the ideal object ; the aesthetic isolation and illusion is
complete. This means that psychologically, for immediate
experience, there are absolute personal worths — however these
may be judged from a more objective impersonal and over-
individual point of view. The ideal constructions of religious
experience and the identification of the individual with these
constructions are cases in point. The supreme sacrifice of
Christ becomes an object of belief, and the identification of
the individual will with his will has, at least in exceptional
cases, produced the experience or illusion of complete holiness.
Now the interesting feature of these religious experiences is
that, while like the aesthetic they depend upon isolation (Christ
is one with the Father and the believer is " hid with Christ in
God "), in the religious experiences there is such complete arrest
of all " illusion-disturbing " factors and all opposing elements,
that assumption passes over into belief. They afford momentary
realisations of supreme values which negate all questions of
possibility and probability, and all such reference beyond the
moment as characterises ethical and moral judgments. But
the point should be emphasised that, while these experiences are
conditioned by aesthetic and quasi-aesthetic detachment or isola-

Personal Worths 279

tion, they continue to have effect beyond these momentary realisa
tions. The aesthetic and religious assumptions generate expecta
tions which function as ideal norms in the ethical judgments of
obligation and imputation. The question at this point, it will be
observed, is not whether the subject of these experiences has or
has not the capacity for actual worth feeling of this character,
or whether, indeed, individuals in actual life have the capacity
for displaying such ideal dispositions, but merely whether
psychologically the assumption generated in the aesthetic ex
perience modifies actual belief and judgment.

It now remains to study the points at which these psych
ological absolutes are found, and to show the psychological
conditions in which they are realised. They are what may be
called Tragical or Heroic Elevation, and Inner Peace and
Harmony. The first appears as the limiting case of trans-
gredient worth, the latter as the limit of immanental worth.
Tragical elevation may appear at two points : either where
for an attitude which the person has completely identified with
the self, and which is therefore a personal worth, all condition
worths — including life, which is the presupposition of condition
worths — are sacrificed ; or, secondly, where the individual sets
himself in complete opposition to external worth judgments of
society and goes to destruction for the worth which he identifies
with himself. The point here made may be illustrated by
saying that absolute personal worth has been realised even if
the object for which the sacrifice has been made is, from the
impersonal point of view of instrumental judgment, not con
sidered worth the sacrifice. Psychologically viewed, the com
plete unity of the personality thus attained is a product of com
plete contrast or opposition in which the central quality of the
personality is so emphasised that the minor elements are lost
sight of, have become irrelevant, as have also the secondary
judgments as to the effects of the act. The leader who cham
pions to the death a lost cause is the object of absolute imputed
worth, irrespective of the effect of the sacrifice — even if the
cause was evil and should have been lost. In a similar manner
the imperfections and weaknesses of the man are ignored or
felt to be wiped out by the final act. It is the " end feeling "
that gives the tone to the whole life. As long as the sacrifice
and opposition is not complete, our judgments upon the man
as a personality are complicated by secondary judgments as
to the existence of negative elements and their social effects.

280 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

But let the sacrifice or opposition become complete, and
these secondary judgments lapse. The person is, in very
truth, elevated above them ; they become externalised and
irrelevant.

In a similar fashion, and corresponding to the ideal of the
" heroic," the ideal of the " beautiful soul," or inner harmony,
represents an ideal construction of the personality in which all
disturbing moments are eliminated, and in which there is the
repose of satisfied conation. Here, again, we have what may be
described as an absolute moment in valuation, but in this case
the passing of the relative into absolute value arises, not from a
complete identification of the disposition with the personality
through one supreme moment of effort and sacrifice transcend
ing all relative estimation, but rather from the complete identi
fication which comes with repetition and habit.

The realisation of either of these moments is possible obviously
only through the quasi-aesthetic isolation of the personality, the
conditions of which have already been described. Whether
realised as a feeling of absolute personal value in the sublime
moments of obligation, or as a sense of perfection of another
revealed in glimpses of absolute sacrifice or perfect harmony
of character, such experiences rest upon assumptions which
are made possible only by abstracting from the causal and
instrumental point of view. Such assumptions or postulates,
with regard to the possibility or actuality of absolute personal
worths, may, accordingly, fail of justification from other points
of view, which include more general theoretical considerations.
But the importance of these moments from the point of view
of the present discussion is to be found in the fact that they
are practical absolutes,1 so to speak, points where conation, and
with it all relative valuation, comes to rest. Though realised
only when the isolation of the individual is assumed in aesthetic
experiences, they create expectations which determine the norms
and standards of actual ethical judgments of personal worth,

1 For a similar use of the term " absolute " compare Simmel's Philosophic des Geldes,
p 213 where he distinguishes between absolute and relative ends : "Absolut— m dem
hier fraglichen, practischen Sinne— ist der Wert der Dinge an denen em Willensprozess
definitiv Halt macht." The use of the term "practical absolutes' to describe these
moments of tragical elevation and inner peace should be emphasised. They are practi
cal in the sense that the objects, the belief in the existence of which gives rise t
satisfaction of conation beyond which relative increase is impossible, exist Jar the pro
cesses of valuation, the practical activities of feeling and will for which they are ends,
but not necessarily apart from these processes. They are moments in which mdividi
processes of feeling and conation come to complete fruition, but Irom a more objective,
impersonal point of view, this belief in absolute objects might appear illusory.

Personal Worths 281

as the succeeding studies of these judgments will show We
may, then, conclude this discussion by affirming that objects
of personal worth may acquire absolute value, in so far as they
are intrinsically valued as qualities of an individual, and that,
moreover, the implicit assumption which underlies all judgments
of personal worth is precisely this belief.

CHAPTER X

\

PERSONAL WORTHS (Continued)

I. INTERPRETATION OF THE CONCRETE JUDGMENTS OF PERSONAL
WORTH IN TERMS OF THE PRECEDING THEORY OF THEIR
ORIGIN AND NATURE

i. The Problem.

IT has been maintained that the feelings and objects of
personal worth constitute a well-defined region of worth ex
perience, and the studies of the preceding chapter have gone
far to justify this view. The valuation of persons as persons
constitutes a relatively independent type, one which presupposes
a differentiation of object and attitude, and which is charac
terised by specific presuppositions and postulates. If this
view is justified, we should expect to find these conclusions sub
stantiated by a detailed analysis of the actual judgments in
this sphere — the judgments of personal obligation, and of im
putation of personal merit and demerit, already distinguished.
We should expect these judgments to disclose certain
empirical uniformities, both in the qualitative predicates
employed and in the quantitative aspects of the judgment, i.e.,
in the way in which the degree of value varies with the amount
of the object of value. Such uniformities a careful analysis
of the phenomena discloses, and, when properly interpreted,
they are seen to reflect the laws of valuation of personal
worths already developed. To such analysis and interpreta
tion we must now turn, seeking in the facts of judgment a
proof or disproof of our theory. The problem of this chapter is,
accordingly, the formulation and interpretation of the empirical
laws of characterisation of persons and of estimation of personal
worth.

The first condition of such a study is obviously the isolation
of the phenomena in question, the judgments of personal worth,

282

Personal Worths 283

of personal obligation and merit or demerit, from other types
of judgment. In order to interpret adequately these judgments
it will be necessary to differentiate : (i) the objects of judgment,
and (2) the terms and predicates in which the characterisation
and estimation take place, from the objects and predicates
in other types of worth judgment. It is further necessary to
differentiate the norms or standards, the expectations or implicit
assumptions with which the judging subject comes to the
characterisation of the person, and to the estimation of personal
worth, from similar norms in other types of estimation. If
such differentiation of attitude, such isolation of phenomena
is possible, we may hope to account for the worth judgments
in question by tracing them back to the processes of sympathetic
participation and ideal construction in which the objects, predi
cates, and presuppositions arose.

2. The Objects of Personal Worth.

The distinction between objects of " condition " and
" personal " worth is implicit in our experience prior to any
reflective distinction between egoism and altruism. It has
already been shown that there is a well-defined sphere of in
trinsic appreciation of dispositions and qualities of the person,
quite apart from the estimation of the utility values of those
dispositions or qualities, as instrumental to condition worths
of the subject. The objects of personal worth are ideal objects
which have acquired a common over-individual meaning through
the processes of sympathetic Einfiihlung and ideal construction ;
and therefore have acquired a further complementary value
through reference to the individuated whole, the person. It
is as a quality or expression of this whole that it has its meaning
and value. We have already traced the processes in which
the objects of personal worth are constructed and contrasted
with condition worths, and need not repeat this here. It is
sufficient to emphasise the fact that this contrast of objects
of personal with objects of condition worth is present in all
concrete worth judgments, and will presently appear in our
study of the predicates employed in the characterisation of
persons and in the quantitative estimation of personal worth.
The objects of personal worth judgments are, then, qualities
or dispositions of the person ; and value, in the form of merit or
demerit, is imputed to the person on the basis of possession or

284 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

non-possession of these qualities. But there is a further differ
entiation in concrete worth experience which must be taken into
account in our isolation of personal worth judgments, one to
which more detailed study must be given. These ideal objects,
qualities, and dispositions may be judged from two distinct points
of view, the personal and the o^r-personal or, in its extreme
form, impersonal. As an object of 'personal value the quality or
disposition is judged intrinsically, as part of the ideal whole, the
person. In personal judgment, the judging subject abstracts
from all reference of the disposition to social, over-individual
ends, from the instrumental value which the disposition in
question has for the ends of social participation. The personal
judgment, as such, presupposes the isolation or detachment of
the person from social references, and the characterisation of
him, and estimation of his value, in the light of expectations
generated in immediate sympathetic participation and ideal
characterisation. In the over-personal attitude, on the other
hand, the subject abstracts from just these personal references
and meanings of the quality or disposition, and ultimately, by
processes to be described later, reaches a relatively impartial or
impersonal point of view in which his judgments are determined
by the demands or expectations of a wider social consciousness.

This difference comes out strikingly in certain charac
teristic facts which will be immediately recognised. We may
describe them in general terms as the shifting of the centre of
interest or attention, the affirmation of one system of assump
tions, and the negation or inhibition of another. In all those
cases where the specifically personal attitude is uppermost,
and where the intrinsic ethical or aesthetic predicates of respect
and admiration are called out, our characterisation of persons
almost constantly puts the qualities which we may describe
as " lovable," the purely personal quasi-ethical qualities, before
the more moral attributes with their larger social reference.
So also the more aesthetic qualities, such as harmony or strength
of character — often irrespective of the acts in which they are
shown — may take precedence of the more moral, directly social
virtues. Limiting cases appear where personal devotion and
admiration, not to say worship, exists with almost total sup
pression of moral judgment. The fact seems to be that there are
some personal qualities the reference of which to wider social
values is the most remote and indirect, others which have a
significance both for personal and social judgment, and

Personal Worths 285

still others, perhaps, almost wholly impersonal and social in
their reference. The important point is that the demands
or assumptions, in personal participation, differ in significant
ways from those which represent the subject in his capacity
of participant in the larger demands of society. Such
isolation of the person is, nevertheless, always relative ; it ap
proaches to completeness only in the activities of aesthetic
characterisation, where the conditions of detachment and isola
tion are most favourable, but it is present as a determinant in
all concrete judgments of personal worth.

For this distinction between the personal and impersonal
attitudes in judgment the terms ethical and moral have been used.
This distinction corresponds fairly well with popular usage, the
terms moral and immoral being employed with reference to those
standards which are universal and impersonal — what Kant de
scribed as the region of perfect obligation ; while ethical and un
ethical are employed to designate that larger and more indeter
minate region of differentiated personal ideals, but of imperfect
social demand. We shall presently see in detail how the personal
and impersonal judgment of the same disposition differ both
qualitatively and quantitatively as a result of this differentiation
of attitude, but before considering this question we must make
a preliminary study of the terms or predicates employed in
judgments of personal worth.

3. The Terms of Estimation of Personal Worth.

The terms in which a person is characterised are, as we
have already seen, ethical and aesthetic. The ethical predic
ates, good and bad, are imputed to a character on the ground
of the possession or non-possession of qualities demanded of
him as a person in personal relations. The aesthetic predicates,
nobility, vulgarity, beauty, ugliness of character, represent
complementary values arising from the harmonious or in
harmonious relations of qualities within the personality.

An analysis of the ethical predicates good and bad, as used
in the characterisation of persons, and in estimation of their
personal worth, shows clearly the differentiation of object and
attitude, the relative isolation of the personality already de
scribed. In the first place, when once the qualities and dis
positions which are instrumental to, and the condition of,
personal participation or intercourse have been differentiated
and fixed by the selective processes of Einfiihlung, and are

286 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

intrinsically valued, their value is estimated wholly in terms
of their depth and breadth in the personality, the degree of
their identification with the person. The various virtues are all
estimated in these terms. They extend all the way from those
quasi-ethical qualities which are significant merely in the char
acterisation and appreciation of the individual, the lovable and
admirable qualities, to the more fundamental virtues, such as
courage, integrity, persistence, etc., having wider social instru
mental value. In so far as the attitude is personal, character
isation of the person as good means simply supremacy of per
sonal over condition worths, and as bad the supremacy of con
dition over personal values. The distinction between the two
levels, and between forward and backward value movements,
having once been made, the choice of ease and comfort, of bodily
good of any sort, instead of such qualities as have a more personal
reference, is always the object of negative judgment. With
the exception of certain limiting cases to be considered later,
this law is practically universal.

The terms of estimation of personal worth are, therefore,
intra-personal. They reflect the relative isolation of the per
sonality from social judgments, and abstraction from the instru
mental social value of the quality. This comes out more clearly
when we contrast the terms in which the personal worth of a
quality is measured with those employed in the measurement of
its social impersonal value. In order to measure the degree of
personal worth, the extent to which the valued quality is identi
fied with the personality, its depth and breadth in the person,
it is necessary to have some means of comparison, and this is
found in the contrast between personal and condition worths.
All estimation of relative value involves two factors, a positive
and a negative ; the degree of value of an object is measured
indirectly by the extent to which other objects are sacrificed
for it. In the case of imputation of personal worth, the worth
of a person is determined by his readiness to sacrifice condition
to personal worth. The terms of estimation are, therefore,
wholly intra-personal, within the ego, and reflect the division
of the self involved in the ideal construction of the person.

This is, however, in striking contrast to the terms of estima
tion employed when the disposition or quality is measured
from the more specifically moral point of view. Here the
moral value of a disposition is measured in terms of sacrifice
of the individual for the over -individual, of egoism for altruism.

Personal Worths 287

In this attitude of judgment, both condition and personal worths
are lumped together as individual, and set in opposition to over-
individual social values. From this point of view, estimation of
the value of a disposition abstracts entirely from the intrinsic
value of the disposition as a quality of a person, and considers
it wholly in the light of the disposition to participate in over-
individual ends displayed by the quality in question, the de
gree of which disposition is measured by willingness to sacrifice
both condition and personal worths. It is true that in the main
personal worths may on reflection be seen, in the light both of
their genesis and meaning, to retain a potential reference to
social ends. It is also true that in general social values have
complementary personal values which can be reflectively worked
out. But this is not absolutely true, as will be shown in the
sequel. Personal and social values are at some points indifferent
in the sense that the concepts individual-ethical and socially
valuable are only partially and occasionally identical. There
are certain qualities and actions which come under the concept
of the individual-ethical which from the standpoint of social
morality are indifferent, as well as certain social demands which
may be in abeyance in personal relations. The full extent and
bearing of this fact will be discussed in another connection.1
The point of importance here is that these remote relations,
if they exist at all, are irrelevant for the specific judgment, in
the specific situation.

An illustration will bring the situation into clearer relief,
and emphasise still more strongly the relative isolation of the
personality involved in imputation of personal worth. Any
individual of more than ordinary character, displaying to an
unusual degree the most fundamental personal worths of strength,
daring, and persistence in the pursuit of his ends, forms his own
standard, and to a certain extent finds it accepted by others.
We may estimate the acts of some unscrupulous master of men,
or, in fact, of an ordinary robber, low indeed when we view them
in the light of our normal expectation of what his attitude should
be toward social ends. But when, suppressing these judgments
temporarily, we consider merely his courage and perseverance,
his readiness to sacrifice condition worths for what are to him
personal worths, our estimate is largely modified. For the time
being, at least, these qualities dominate us, and we seem to get a
glimpse into ultimate realities of will deeper than the superficial

1 Chapter xiv.

288 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

distinctions of egoism and altruism. This employment of a
double standard, as involuntary as it is disconcerting at times,
is indicative of a real duality in our conception of the good
which must be worked out completely before it can be overcome.
In this connection a final question appears. There are
two ways in which the supremacy of personal worths, their
identification with the personality, may be realised. The
same relative supremacy might be attained, either by actual
increase of the disposition which has personal worth, or, in
directly, by the decrease or weakening of the disposition which
has merely condition worth. Is the imputed value the same
in both cases ? Experience has, I think, an entirely unequivo
cal answer to this question. In so far as our judgment is one
of purely personal worth, increase of personal worth may be
acquired only in the first way. The mere weakening of the con
dition worths decreases the personal worth in that, however
idealised and spiritualised these personal qualities may become,
they have their roots in those more elemental qualities of
strength and spontaneity of instinct and will to which, as we
have seen, a quasi-ethical, sub-personal, and sub-social obligation
attaches. The weakening of these impulsions involves the
weakening of the personal values with which they are set in
contrast. If, on the other hand, our judgment is purely social
and impersonal, the way in which the desired relation of personal
to condition worths is attained is irrelevant, for we are concerned
only with its extrinsic effects, i.e., with the instrumental value of
the disposition in question for social ends. The point to be em
phasised is that our specific judgments are always relative and
partial. It is immaterial for practical purposes, for our " snap "
social judgments, whether correct personal habits and qualities
arise from mere weakness of passions or from strength of will. The
effect is, in either case, the same. But for our judgment upon
the person it makes all the difference in the world.

4. The Difference in Relative Value of the Same Objects (Dispos
itions or Qualities] according as the Value is Personal or
Over-personal.

The difference in objects and in terms of estimation of the
two spheres of personal and impersonal judgment has shown
clearly the tendency to isolation of the person in judgments of
personal worth. The difference becomes still more marked

Personal Worths 289

when the quantitative aspect of these judgments is considered.
There are, as has been shown, some qualities or dispositions which
have both a personal and impersonal reference, and toward which
our attitude is mixed. Even here, however, it is not difficult to
separate the personal from the impersonal attitude, for the reason
that the quantity of the disposition displayed brings out
strikingly different judgments, according as the attitude of judg
ment is personal or impersonal.

This is, first of all, evident in what may be described
as the difference in sensitiveness of the personal and impersonal
or social thresholds, the difference in the standard of personal
and moral imputation. The same absolute amount of dis
position displayed by an act may have a very different relative
significance in the two cases. Such a disposition as truthfulness,
which has both a personal and a social reference, affords a good
illustration. A painful scruple or a slight divergence from
strict truthfulness may have a value for personal participation,
and, therefore, for personal imputation, while it is negligible
for impersonal social participation. On the other hand, it is
equally true that in the case of some dispositions the threshold
of moral worth judgment may be passed without any variation
in the personal worth judgment. This is most apparent in
those cases where we recognise that the moral norm has some
thing of the conventional in it, where its reference to important
ends is, though real, somewhat remote and indirect. My friend
may have slightly transgressed, and as representing the social
attitude, I call him to account ; but the very expression of my
face and the tone of my voice shows that my personal atti
tude has not altered. This is also true in more important
situations. Candour compels one to recognise that even varia
tions from more fundamental norms, as, for instance, those
which regulate the relations of the sexes, may, when they are
the expression of a frank, generous, and spontaneous passion,
leave the personal attitude essentially unchanged.

In the second place there are numerous nuances of per
sonal appreciation which, while significant for personal par
ticipation and for personal judgments, do not call out strictly
moral approval or disapproval. This fact we have already
observed in its qualitative aspect. There are extensive regions
of personal qualities which are only remotely significant from
the abstract moral point of view ; those qualities, for instance,
which were described as " lovable." But this fact becomes

290 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

still more apparent when we view the situation from its quanti
tative side. In the case of those qualities which call out both
the personal and impersonal reaction, there are wide variations
in quantity of disposition which jail to influence the moral judg
ment. In imputing worth on the basis of a disposition dis
played, if the imputation is personal, the total disposition out
of which the action springs is taken into account, as an expression
of the personality, and the degree of value imputed tends to
vary directly with the amount of disposition displayed. In
specifically moral judgment, on the other hand, we judge rather
in the light of the minimum of disposition without which the
act could not take place, i.e., its instrumental value for society.
All else, excess of disposition beyond the constant of social
expectation, whatever of uniquely individual emotion and
sentiment is displayed by the act, tends to be irrelevant,
and, if included in the judgment at all, receives an imputed
value slight in proportion to the amount of disposition displayed.
A consideration of the preceding phenomena confirms the
view that the judgment of personal worth is a relatively distinct
type of judgment, involving distinct attitudes and presuppo
sitions, and one which may be isolated from other types for more
detailed study.1 This well-defined difference in the significance
of qualities or dispositions, in respect both to quality and quan
tity, according as the point of view from which they are judged
is the personal or impersonal, indicates that what we have
described as imputation of personal worth follows its own laws,
as determined by its own distinctive presuppositions. If we can
define these presuppositions we shall have the basis for the ex
planation of this type of judgment and its laws.

1 Meinong, Psychologisch-ethische Untersuchungen zur Wtrththeorie, p. 295, has,
to an extent, developed the same distinction without, however, recognising the full
significance of the personal attitude in worth judgment. He describes the difference
as one between emotional and intellectual imputation. In intellectual imputation the
subject of the worth judgment is not the person in immediate personal relations
with the object of the judgment, but the impersonal subject representing the total
social consciousness. In emotional imputation the subject is an individual in immediate
sympathetic relations with another person. In like manner in intellectual imputation
the act, upon the basis of which value is imputed, is judged wholly in the light of its
instrumental value for social ends. The emotional aspect of the act and the place 11
the total personality of the disposition which it presupposes, are irrelevant, while 11
emotional imputation these determine judgment, and the instrumental values tend t
become irrelevant.

Personal Worths 291

II. THE PRESUPPOSITIONS OF RELATIVE ESTIMATION OR
MEASUREMENT OF PERSONAL WORTH

i. The Thresholds and Norms of Personal Obligation and
Imputation: their Origin in the Processes of Sympathetic
Participation.

The presuppositions which underlie judgments of personal
worth are clearly different from those which determine the
so-called moral and impersonal judgments. The preceding
attempt to isolate the phenomena of personal imputation justifies
this conclusion. The question now arises whether it is possible
to define these presuppositions more explicitly, and thus to
derive the concrete phenomena of personal imputation from
them.

The presupposition of feelings and judgments of personal
worth is, expressed in the most general terms, what we have
described as the ideal personality.1 More closely examined,
this ideal was seen to consist in certain implicit assumptions
as to the existence or non-existence of qualities or dispositions
in the person, certain expectations generated in sympathetic
participation and ideal construction. When these expectations
are met, when the object is judged to exist, the feeling is one of
satisfaction and the judgment is positive ; when the object does
not exist, the feeling is one of dissatisfaction and the judgment
negative.

The demand for the existence of certain qualities or dis
positions, their possession by the self or the alter, is the pre
supposition of the feelings of personal worth described. The
qualities in question are the necessary condition of personal
participation, and of those feelings of respect and admiration
for the person as such. But, as we have also seen, these
assumptions or expectations have a quantitative aspect, as
determined by the laws of valuation applied to feelings of par
ticipation. The degree of feeling, and therefore the degree
of worth imputed to the person, is, consequently, a func
tion of the relation of the quantity of disposition displayed,
of the supply, to the demand presupposed As in the sphere
of condition worths, the intrinsic and instrumental values of
economics, the degree of value of the object is a function of the

1 Chap, ix, p. 262.

292 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

two factors, demand and supply ; so also here the value imputed
to the person is a function of the relation of existential judg
ments as to the amount of disposition displayed by the person
to the implicit assumption or expectation presupposed.1

In our more general study of the Laws of Valuation - it
was pointed out that aU judgments of value, on whatever level
presuppose certain norms and limits which define in conceptual
terms the capacity of the demand or feeling-disposition pre
supposed. These we defined as the Thresholds of Value, and
while they were described in detail only in the case of " condition "
worths, it was shown that the same conception might be applied
to the higher levels of valuation. As in the case of economic
worth judgment, in order to measure the relative value of different
quantities of a good, it is necessary to define the demand quantita
tively, that is, to determine the conceptual points within which
the demand moves, its norms and its limits, and the law of
increase and decrease of the demand with change in quantity of
the good, so also here, in the sphere of personal worth, the same
requirements must be met.

We have already applied these concepts in our preliminary
demarcation of the region of quasi-ethical and ethical personal
worths from the impersonal moral worths. These points of
difference, expressed in the most general terms, consisted in
the two facts : (i) that an act expressive of a certain quantity
of disposition might call out a personal worth feeling in emotional
imputation when it would not rise above the threshold of im
personal moral judgment ; and (2) that increase of quantity
of disposition, displayed in such act or acts, continues to call
out personal reaction long after, from the impersonal moral
point of view, the increment has become worthless or has
passed over into negative worth. The limits of personal

1 ,D°U^ may naturally ar[se as to the applicability of the concepts of demand and
supply in this connection in that, while the judgment of value seems to be determined

: demand or expectation presupposed, the ethical demand seems to be unaffected

by the supply. This very general and uncriticised assumption is just the point at issue.

Ihe ethical demand, as an abstract norm and as theoretically formulated, does have the

appearance of such independence. The ideal of personality as expressed in the demand

be a person and respect others as persons" can be said to be thus unconditional for

e very good reason that it is practically meaningless. It is only when the ideal

becomes specific, when the demand is for a specific quality or disposition of the person

ality, that it becomes the basis of actual concrete judgments of value. But such

demands _ in the individual are, as we have already seen in our study of the ideal

construction of the personality, determined, both as to what specific qual.ties are

smanded and as to the amounts expected, by the empirical conditions of personal

participation.

2 Chap, vi, p. 146.

Personal Worths 293

worth are, therefore, much wider than in the case of moral or
impersonal worth judgment; the lower threshold is lower, the
upper threshold is higher. These facts indicate that the region
of ethical and quasi-ethical personal worths, which presuppose
relative isolation of the personality, is a wider region than the
moral. We must now seek to determine the thresholds of personal
worth feeling more definitely, since they constitute the critical
points in all imputation of personal worth.

(a) The Normal Threshold — The Norm of Characterisation.

All imputation of personal worth, whether positive or nega
tive, whether of merit or demerit, takes its start from, pre
supposes, what may be described as the normal threshold. The
normal threshold represents that amount of disposition which
corresponds to the normal expectation, the habit or implicit
assumption, generated in personal intercourse, in sympathetic
participation and its accompanying ideal constructions. As a
result of repeated processes of " reading back and forth " of
feeling and feeling-dispositions, the subject comes to expect,
of himself and the " other " alike, acts expressive of a certain
constancy of disposition. Expressed in the more definite terms
of estimation of personal worth, he expects a certain degree of
supremacy of personal over condition worths, he expects certain
personal worths to have acquired a certain depth and breadth in
the personality. Since this expectation constitutes the normal
presupposition of the characterisation of persons which under
lies personal intercourse, we may describe it as the characterisation
norm.1

It is clear that this constant, this norm of characterisation,
corresponds to habit, and that, when the amount of dis
position displayed by a person merely fulfils the demands of
the " correct," meets the implicit assumption with which we
approach him, it does not call out any explicit judgment, positive
or negative. To the person who displays a disposition corre
sponding to our normal expectation we impute neither merit nor

The significance of this concept becomes clearer if we contrast it with another
conception of which we shall make use later, namely, the participation-norm. When
we come to the study of the impersonal, specifically moral, judgment upon acts
(as distinguished from the ethical and quasi-ethical personal), we shall find that there
also a certain normal expectation can be clearly distinguished and defined. But it is
different from the normal expectation in judgments of personal worth, and is determined
by different laws. It represents that amount of a socially desirable disposition which is
normally expected of an individual, and is determined by its instrumental value for
social ends.

294 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

demerit. It is only when the disposition in question varies
appreciably in the way either of excess or defect, that any
explicit reaction and judgment takes place. But from this
point on there is imputation of degrees of merit or demerit pro
portional to the amount of variation of the disposition above
or below the normal. We must now seek to determine the
limits within which this variation moves.

(b) The Upper and Lower Limits of Personal Worth — The
Characterisation-Minimum.

In the case of any given quality or disposition which has
become inseparable from the ideal of the -person, indispens
able for personal relations and the values of characterisation,
there grows up, as we have seen, a normal expectation or norm
of characterisation. From this norm there may be consider
able variation. With excess of disposition there is imputation
of positive worth or merit ; with defect, imputation of negative
worth or demerit. But the character of this series of judgments
is determined by certain limiting presuppositions or assumptions,
beyond which the attitude and type of judgment undergoes a
change. These limits or thresholds depend upon what we
may describe as the characterisation-minimum.

By this minimum of characterisation is meant the smallest
amount of a disposition or quality necessary for personal sym
pathy and personal relations, and for the feelings of respect and
admiration which are characteristic of personal attitudes. This
term, constructed on the analogy of the existence-minimum in the
sphere of condition worths, denotes a conceptual point marking
the division between condition worths and acquired personal
worth. The minimum of existence marks the limit of relative
condition worth where it passes over into absolute worth, and
is the term used to describe the smallest quantity of an object
necessary for existence, and for which no substitute can be found.
The minimum of characterisation is the smallest quantity of the
disposition of a person necessary for personal participation,
and therefore for valuation as a person, and without capacity
of substitution. When the amount of the disposition sinks below
this limit, the person becomes worthless from the personal point
of view, and this minimum constitutes the lower threshold of
personal imputation. But, on the other hand, since it represents
the minimum of an indispensable personal good, it may acquire

Personal Worths 295

absolute worth, and complete sacrifice of condition worths for
this indispensable minimum may call out imputation of absolute
value. This point represents the upper limit of relative estima
tion of personal worth.

The minimum of characterisation appears, therefore, in two
concrete situations. In the first place, as the amount of the
disposition falls below the normal expectation, the imputation
of demerit becomes more and more emphatic, until a point
is reached where the worth judgment experiences a qualitative
transformation. The personal attitude passes over into im
personal judgment or into mere altruism, which, as we have
seen, is a feeling arising upon the recognition of the condition
worths or ww-worths, the pleasures or pains, of the person
judged. The minimum necessary for personal participation
has been reached. Such a situation we sometimes describe by
such phrases, as an act or person is "beneath criticism" or
" perfectly worthless." In the second place, such a minimum
appears as a functional moment in another concrete situation.
When an individual, for the sake of a minimum of personal
worth (say honour), sacrifices all his condition worths, even
life itself, our judgment passes over from the negative to
the positive side, and indeed from relative into absolute
valuation ; the moment of the heroic or tragical elevation is
reached. This situation is entirely in harmony with what we
have found to be the character of personal worths. In thus com
pletely identifying himself with the minimum of personal worth
necessary for his own and others' ideal construction of his self,
through sacrifice of condition worths, the subject has displayed
another personal worth, courage or devotion, on the basis of
the recognition of which positive worth is imputed. There has
been what may be described as a certain substitution of personal
worths.

2. The Substitution of one Personal Worth for Another — Its

Limits.

This leads us to a consideration of the entire question of
substitution of personal worths. The minimum of characterisa
tion exists only in the case of qualities or dispositions for which
there are no substitutes. We have also seen that such a mini
mum of characterisation is presupposed, or is present as an
implicit assumption, in all imputation of personal worth. Are all

296 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

personal worths without this capacity of substitution ? To
answer this question properly, we must make a distinction
between dispositions which are without substitutes in particular
situations of personal participation and dispositions which are
without capacity of substitution absolutely. In economic
thinking, the crust of bread is the minimum of existence only
under certain conditions of time and place which make substitu
tion impossible. So also in personal or ethical imputation— a given
minimum of a disposition may be without substitute in certain
relations of sympathetic participation, and therefore in the valua
tion of the self or the alter. Thus if we take the more superficial
personal worths, beauty, fame, intellectual power, tact, we find
hat, while the more intimate personal relations are impossible
without them— and those who do not exhibit the necessary
minimum are judged impersonally rather than personally,
nevertheless, they are really goods with the capacity of sub
stitution, for a display of the deeper personal worths, such
as honour, devotion, courage, strength, etc., may restore the
relation of personal imputation.

Even more fundamental values than these, such as chastity
and honour, usually without capacity of substitution, may,
under exceptional circumstances, be sacrificed for still more
Jtimate personal worths, still more primitive qualities. Thus
we find that, while the personal worth of chastity is, in women,
Tmally without capacity of substitution, that of honour
normally without substitute in men, at the same time there are
cases where the loss of both may be compensated for by the
iisplay of still more ultimate personal worths. To the woman
who sacrifices her chastity for her starving child, or for the love
of a man, or for love of country, if the love be great enough,
and the lost chastity a real sacrifice, we impute a personal worth
which may reach the absolute moment. The same is true of
the sacrifice of honour for love. What has taken place here is
that a still more ultimate personal worth has been substituted
for a lower. And the failure thus to sacrifice, as in the Statue
and the Bust, calls out negative worth judgments. It would
appear, then, that the only qualities which are absolutely without
ibstitutes are the most fundamental personal worths, strength
and harmony of character. In so far as there is isolation of the
personality, our sense of personal worths is emphatic on these
points.

Nevertheless, it must be recognised that the situations here

Personal Worths 297

described are limiting cases. The isolation of personality, with the
consequent detachment from social demand, is, for most of us,
perhaps fortunately for society, confined to the purely aesthetic
moments. In most of our judgments upon actual personalities,
these personal judgments are so complicated with social moral
judgments that the laws of personal imputation do not stand out
clearly. The isolation of personality which is presupposed in all
personal judgments is only imperfectly realised. But the fact
that it can be realised aesthetically, and that, when thus realised,
the judgments of imputation follow the laws here described, is
significant for the whole theory of value.

3. The Role of the Characterisation-Minimum in Personal

Obligation.

To this study of the significance of the minimum of char
acterisation in imputation of personal worth to the alter, should
be added a word as to its reflex meaning for the self, in his
feelings of personal worth as reflected in the sense of personal
obligation. Here, too, the minimum of characterisation is pre
supposed in all sense of relative obligation — not as the limit
of personal participation, but of ideal characterisation of the
self.

Two illustrations will be sufficient to show how it functions.
We are told most enlightening accounts of transformations in
the sense of personal obligation, which take place in the case
of those who by circumstances are compelled to live for long
periods in uncivilised regions, apart from personal participa
tion in the life of those among whom their sense of obligation has
been acquired. Personal worths are socially derived, and fre
quently we find them dropping off for lack of continuation of the
processes of sympathetic participation in which they were ac
quired. We find a regressive substitution of more elemental for
more developed attitudes. Among others, cleanliness and manners
are often lost. But we are also told of pathetic cases where, for
the sake of cleanliness, or other habits which distinguish a
gentleman, most important condition worths will be sacrificed,
and in extreme cases cleanliness may become an indispens
able minimum, for which life itself is risked, if not actually
sacrificed. The situation obviously is this. Through contrast
this personal worth, normally, perhaps not absolutely without
substitutes, is, nevertheless, now so completely identified with

298 Valuation: its Natitre and Laws

the personality, that it becomes a symbol of all other personal
worths, and for it even life is sacrificed. Here the most emphatic
obligation is found at the minimum of characterisation.1

There seems to be no question of the existence of some
personal worths— in the region of personal obligation as well
as of imputation, for which there are no substitutes. They
constitute the irreducible minimum of certain dispositions
necessary for personal participation in the experience of the
alter and of personal attitude toward him, as well as the irre
ducible minimum necessary to that ideal characterisation of the
self which is the condition of the continuation of valuation on
the higher level of personal worths. As such they have absolute
value. It does not follow, however, that these same dispositions,
in their aspect of instrumental value for social over-individual
ends, are equally without capacity for substitution. The over-
individual, instrumental value of dispositions is determined by
other laws.

III. ANALYSIS OF THE LAWS GOVERNING FEELINGS OF
PERSONAL WORTH AS ILLUSTRATED IN IMPUTATION OF
MERIT AND DEMERIT AND IN PERSONAL OBLIGATION

i. Imputation of Personal Worth to the Alter.

With these norms and limits as conceptual instruments of
analysis, we may now turn to a quantitative study of feelings
of personal worth as expressed in the judgments of imputation
and obligation. The worth of the disposition is measured
directly by the changes in the emphasis of the judgments of
imputation, indirectly by the strength of the feeling of obligation
as expressed in the judgment " I ought." The imputed worth
expresses the degree to which the expectations generated in
sympathetic projection are satisfied; negative worth judgments
reflect the degree of variance from the expectation. Similarly,

1 In Conrad's novel, Lord Jim, Loid Jim, the chief character of the book-
having, by processes of imaginative construction, identified most completely his
personal worth with the attitude of bravery, and failing, through weakness of the flesh,
to perform a brave act which he demands of himself, i.e., the rescue of shipwrecked
people — feels his sense of personal worth completely lost, and devotes his entire life to
its recovery, a recovery which is finally realised only in the tragical elevation of self-
sacrifice. One of the interesting features of this study is that this sense of personal
obligation is represented as persisting independently of any social demand, in a savage
environment where his past is wholly unknown. Here we have the significance of the
characterisation-minimum at its clearest, an illusion perhaps from the point of view of
social obligation and imputation, but for our empirical study of the worth consciousness
a very significant illusion.

Personal Worths 299

the degree of obligation measures the extent to which the ideal
object, the disposition, has been identified with the personality,
and therefore has worth. In tracing out the modifications in
these feelings, and their corresponding judgments— between the
limits of the normal threshold, at which the imputed value is
null, and the characterisation minimum where the imputed
value is absolute, we shall have the means of determining the
validity of our analysis of the origin and nature of personal

worths.

We may begin this discussion by taking as our object
of study feelings or dispositions irrelevant for moral judgment,
that is, for impersonal participation, but decidedly significant
for personal participation; thence proceeding to the consider
ation of dispositions significant for both personal and impersonal
participation, but which, after a certain minimum of the disposi
tion is reached, become irrelevant, if not superfluous, for the
demands of impersonal participation.

As illustrative of the first we may take some nuance of
conjugal or filial sentiment too fine to rise above the threshold
of the moral sense, one which is essentially the product of
sympathetic Einfiihlung between two persons. Such are the
finer and more spiritual faiths and loyalties which may be
demanded as the basis or unspoken presupposition of inti
mate personal relations, but which can scarcely be demanded
in the more impersonal but still moral relations which are the
concern of the impartial spectator. The somewhat romantic
demand for absolute trust, for the faith which believeth all
things despite appearances, is the necessary condition of the
higher forms of love and friendship, of conjugal and filial
relations, but lies beyond the sphere of the strictly moral.
A certain minimum of the crasser conjugal and filial attitudes
our moral sense does indeed demand, but with others, it is strictly
speaking, not concerned. The individual not concerned with
them is aware of them indeed only through aesthetic presentation.
When once such an attitude of trust or loyalty has been identified
with a personality and a certain expectation formed, personal
worth feeling may run through a whole gamut of positive and
negative changes without the threshold of impersonal moral
judgment having once been crossed, just as there may be con
siderable modifications in our moral judgment, as, for instance,
judgments of disapproval upon disposition and act which are not
significant for the law.

300 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

Given such a disposition as a personal worth, the judgments of
imputed value, between the two critical points of expectation, the
norm and the minimum of characterisation, arrange themselves
as follows. Decrease in disposition below the normal expectation
is followed by corresponding increase in the demerit imputed,
until the minimum of characterisation is reached, a point which,
of course, varies with individuals and circumstances. But when
this point has been passed, the indispensable minimum of
personal participation having been reached, the distinctly personal
relation has been severed, and either mere condition worths
become significant or an impersonal moral attitude appears.

The phenomena at this point are very interesting. When
the minimum of characterisation has been reached, one of two
fundamental changes in attitude on the part of the subject
of judgment takes place. Either he may substitute an
attitude of pity on the basis of his appreciation of the " con
dition " worths or mi- worths of the alter, or he may substitute
the intellectual, impersonal attitude of moral judgment for
the personal, and emotional. We have already, in our discussion
of the minimum of characterisation, considered the former possi
bility. It is a value movement of the backward type in which
organic sympathy takes the place of the intuitive projection
upon which personal worths are founded, or in which the con
ceptual construct of the pleasure or pain of the other is made
the end of altruistic acts, instrumental to increase of pleasure
or decrease of pain. The other possibility is the substitution
of the impersonal attitude, in which the isolation of the person
ality ceases and the impartial moral judgment takes its place.
In connection with the personal worths considered, conjugal
and filial attitudes, both types of substitution are in evidence.
Love passes over into pity or into scrupulous justice. When
the minimum of personal participation has been reached, valu
ation does not cease, but object and attitude change. It is
significant that the minimum may be passed and the personal
relation severed when, from the standpoint of the impartial
spectator, the distinctively moral predicate "bad" cannot be
applied. Similarly, as we shall see later, the personal worth
relation may be maintained long after, from the moral point of
view, the person is the object of judgments of disapproval.
There is a sense in which feelings of personal worth are beyond
the moral region of good and bad, above and below.

If we turn now to those dispositions which are significant

Personal Worths 301

for both personal and impersonal imputation, but which in
certain quantitative aspects are no longer relevant for moral
judgment, we find the same laws, with slight modifications,
at work. The sense of honour, as a disposition calling out
both personal and moral judgment, is a good illustration, for
it is the class name for a group of dispositions significant from
different standpoints of judgment, varying all the way from
the purely personal, through social groups of varying extension,
to the impersonal impartial standpoint. It needs no discus
sion to point out that the expectation in these different cases
varies greatly. As in the similar case discussed above, an
individual may lose all personal honour for his friend or
social group long before he has done anything which will call
out strictly moral judgment. It is also equally true that an
excess of sacrifice for the ideal of honour may, from the personal
standpoint, call out an absolute personal value, while from the
social moral point of view it is irrelevant or indeed quixotic,
if not the object of distinct disapproval. In fact, the indispens
able minimum which is demanded of an individual in a purely
personal relation, or even in a limited group, may exceed the
normal demand in impartial moral judgment. Thus we find that
the sacrifice for honour is susceptible of indefinite increase,
and that with this increase there is a corresponding increase
of personal worth, in so far as we have the condition of isolation
of the personality fulfilled. On the other hand, in so far as the
social moral point of view, with its intellectual instrumental
judgments, intervenes, excess of disposition beyond a certain
point tends to call out negative worth judgments.

It will be worth while to consider one more disposition
which may be judged both as a personal and social worth, namely,
altruism, especially since it is at this point that the most inter
esting problems of the relation of personal to social values
appear. By altruism is understood the disposition to sym
pathetic participation in the worth feeling of others. This
disposition may obviously be valued both intrinsically as a
personal worth and instrumental^ with reference to its value
for social ends. Now for certain reasons, which will be de
veloped in the following chapter, the instrumental value of the
altruistic disposition, the disposition to sacrifice condition and
personal worths for over-individual values, is not susceptible
of indefinite increase. We shall find that a certain normal
display of altruism is demanded, but that increase in excess

302 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

of that norm is governed by a law analogous to the law of
Diminishing Utility in the sphere of economic goods. A point
is finally reached where sacrifice is no longer approved, and may
indeed call out negative judgments of disapproval. But it is
significant that if the altruistic individual be isolated from
social moral judgment, he may acquire personal worth indefinitely
through such sacrifice of condition and personal worths. In so
far as the disposition is valued intrinsically, as an attribute
of the personality, it is not subject to this law, but with the in
crease of the disposition there is a corresponding increase of
imputed worth. The limiting case is the tragical elevation
which comes with the sacrifice of all condition and personal
worths for over-individual good, the sacrifice of life itself. Such
sacrifice, if its value were determined by impersonal intellectual
judgment, would not be found to have the absolute value which
we attribute to it intrinsically as a personal worth. And when
we thus value it intrinsically, we do so, it should be observed,
as expressive of the capacity of the individual to identify himself
with the over-individual object, abstracting from the instru
mental value of the act. As a personal worth, altruism may
acquire absolute value, as a social worth it is not susceptible
of indefinite valuation.

This difference in the standards of value applied to the
same disposition, according as it is referred to the personality
or to over-individual objects, will come out more clearly in
the succeeding chapters, where the norms of over-individual
values are developed, and the laws of preference between personal
and over-individual worths are studied. Here it is sufficient
merely to note that in this intrinsic valuation the question of
the effect of increase of disposition is ignored as irrelevant.
Secondary instrumental judgments are suppressed in the im
mediacy of the personal relation, or at most are represented
by a vague assumption of indefinite reapplicability, or instru
mental value, of the disposition in question. In the terminology
of ethical discussion, the motive alone is considered, and not the
effect. Whether this attitude, this assumption, does not in
volve an illusion is, of course, a question. The whole problem
of worth illusions will present itself for consideration at the con
clusion of the chapter.

Personal Worths 303

2. Personal Obligation as Reflecting the Laws of Personal Worth.

The individual's feelings of the worth of his own qualities,
as distinguished from his sense of the worth of the qualities of
the alter, are more obscure than the latter. In general, however,
it may be said that his sense of the importance of his personal
qualities is reflected in his feelings of personal obligation. The
degree of the feeling of obligation represents the extent to
which the quality has been identified with the personality,
and, therefore, the degree of its transgredient reference. The
depth of the feeling of satisfaction and inner peace, when the
obligation is met, reflects in a similar manner this acquired
personal meaning.

The feeling of obligation, as analysed in a preceding chapter,1
was found to have three forms, to show three shades of meaning
which are appreciatively distinguishable. Condition worths
may acquire an instinctive sub-personal and sub-social obligation,
through arrest of conative tendency, as illustrated in the obli
gations which appear as the objects of condition worth approach
the existence minimum. ~ Psychical objects, qualities or dis
positions of the personality which emerge in the processes of
sympathetic participation and ideal construction, arouse feelings
of obligation which may be personal or social and over-individual,
according as the object is referred to the self, as intrinsic quality
of the person, or to some over-individual social demand. The
feeling of obligation toward these psychical objects may be
personal or over-individual, according as the demand is felt as
personal or social. There are some attitudes or dispositions to
which merely personal obligation attaches, while there are others
which have both personal and over-individual or social obligation.
It is with the feeling of personal obligation that we are now con
cerned.

These purely personal obligations are not difficult to dis
tinguish either from the sub-personal, instinctive, or from the
impersonal moral. If, as was indicated in a previous chapter,
it may be said that strength, sex, etc., have certain obligations
which are not the reflex of ideal projections, either personal or
social, it is also true that there are some qualities of the person
ality which have obligations which are irrelevant for social
participation, more specifically for social demand. Their ful-

1 Chap. VII, pp. 209-11. a Chap, vn, pp. 213-16.

304 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

filment is not significant for social demand ; they do not rise
above the threshold of impersonal moral judgment. Nor does
failure to meet these obligations call forth any self-condemnation
in so far as our attitude is impersonal and moral. The dis
tinction sometimes made between perfect and imperfect obli
gation describes the situation. Perfect obligation applies to
those fundamental dispositions demanded as a condition of
social participation, demanded universally, and in a certain
amount which constitutes the minimum for participation.
Those more individual and personal obligations, on the other
hand, which attach to dispositions not demanded generally, and
to dispositions in excess of the minimum demanded, are described
as imperfect.

The phrase " Noblesse oblige " includes many of these
personal, and from the impersonal point of view imperfect, obli
gations. Thus, to take the obligations of nobility in its original
class sense, such obligations, as the result of intimate sympathetic
participation, will be more intimately personal than the more
extensive social obligation. Deeper still are the more personal
obligations of the thinker to truth, of the artist to beauty, and
of the saint to holiness. They frequently transcend completely
any cognisable social reference ; and the obligation remains, even
when the attitude, the disposition to which it is attached is,
either by reason of its uniqueness or its excess, not only irrele
vant, but even inimical to wider social participation.

The chief characteristic of personal obligation is, then,
that its objects do not necessarily correspond to the objects
of impersonal social obligation. Much more noticeable is
this discrepancy when we consider personal obligation in its
quantitative aspect. The intensest personal obligation is always
about the minimum of characterisation, but this minimum may
represent an amount of the disposition in question far in excess
of the normal or correct as demanded by social judgment.
And, whereas the impersonal obligation falls off in intensity
as the amount of disposition demanded by a given act exceeds
the normal, the personal obligation still remains.

This divergence arises from differences in the processes
of sympathetic participation in which these two worth attitudes
have their origin, and thus in differences in the demands felt
as obligations. In the case of all those attitudes or dispo
sitions which have both over-individual and personal obligation,
there is a certain normal disposition which we may describe

Personal Worths 305

as the "correct," how determined we need not in the present
connection consider, about which the intensest over-individual
obligation is found. Any variation from the correct, in the
way of lack, is felt as obligation to make good the deficiency,
and this feeling of obligation finds its expression in the obli
gation to sacrifice personal and condition worths. But when
the sacrifice reaches a certain point normally demanded, or
when the over-individual good to be attained by the sacrifice
is so minute as not to be significant for social participation, the
over-individual demand or impersonal obligation lapses. Not
so, however, if the attitude or disposition is identified with the
personality, as a personal worth. The personal demand or obliga
tion continues beyond this point, and if the disposition is a
personal worth for which there is no substitute, it may reach the
absolute point at the minimum of characterisation. The illustra
tion of cleanliness, already considered in connection with the
discussion of this minimum, is a case in point. To this, as an
ideal object of desire, attaches both social and personal worth ;
it is the object of both over-individual and personal demand.
The intensest over-individual obligation is found at the minimum
demanded for social participation, and the sacrifice demanded
will be greatest at this point. But when the sacrifice exceeds the
maximum demanded, over-individual obligation begins to fall
off. It does not follow, however, that personal obligation has
ceased. On the contrary, when, as in the case cited,1 cleanliness
has been identified with the personality as a good for which
there is no substitute, it constitutes an indispensable minimum,
and the demand for sacrifice may be absolute. It is noteworthy
that quantitatively this minimum for characterisation may exceed
that which constitutes the minimum for participation. In the case
before us the degree of cleanliness which constituted the charac
terisation-minimum was far in excess of the social demand.
The obligations to honour and altruism are of the same general
character. Personal obligation to an ideal of honour may
continue long after all feeling of impersonal over-individual
obligation has lapsed; and in this particular case, the per
sonal obligation may be in contradiction to the social, as when
the obligation to avenge one's honour conflicts with the moral
obligation to abstain from personal vengeance.

In the case of altruism we have the most striking illustration
of the relation under discussion. A certain degree of altruism

1 See above, pp. 297 ff.

306 Valuation : its Natiire and Laws

constitutes the maximum of social demand, the maximum
required for social participation. Beyond that point impersonal
obligation falls off, but not necessarily personal obligation.
The intensest personal obligation is felt at the characterisa
tion-minimum, and the amount of the disposition which
constitutes this minimum for a given individual may be
far in excess of the maximum of social demand. The charac
terisation minimum constitutes the indispensable minimum
for the ideal construction of the self, and a disposition which
ceases to have value for over-individual ends may acquire in
trinsic complementary value through reference to the total
personality.

3. The Role of ^Esthetic Complementary Value in Judgments

of Personal Worth.

The preceding paragraphs seem to indicate that objects
of personal worth, as measured by the feelings of merit and
obligation, may acquire absolute value. Through the processes
of sympathetic participation and isolation of the personality,
dispositions may be so identified with the personality as to be
without capacity of substitution, and to demand indefinite
sacrifice of condition worths. With the increase of this demand
for sacrifice, there is a corresponding increase of the individual's
sense of worth, increase of the transgredient reference of the
feeling; and with increase of the disposition to sacrifice, there
is a corresponding increase of the merit imputed to the per
sonality. This law appears to hold, however, only when the
individual is isolated, and when judgments as to the partici
pation or instrumental value of the dispositions in question
for social good are suppressed. The limiting case, both of
personal imputation and personal obligation, is reached in the
feeling of tragical elevation which comes with complete identi
fication of the attitude with the personality through complete
sacrifice of other worths, even of life itself.

But an analysis of actual worth judgments seems to indi
cate that personal worths are thus " steigerungsfahig," sus
ceptible of indefinite valuation, and may even acquire absolute
worth, when the identification with the personality is not meas
ured in terms of sacrifice, i.e., is without the elements of opposition
and contrast. If the personality may be isolated and tragically
elevated by the extreme of sacrifice, it seems equally possible
for it to be aesthetically isolated by the display of an inner unity

Personal Worths 307

and harmony of character which shows no traces of effort and
struggle. For it is, in the first place, a fact long observed that
many of the finer attitudes of personal worth are of such a
character that they lose their unique quality when their display
involves sacrifice and effort. Love, devotion, gratitude, honour,
are feelings which cannot be forced without losing something
of worth. We care neither to demand them of others nor to
have others demand them of us. The moment of spontaneity
and harmonious expression which constitutes what has been
called the " beautiful soul " seems to be a fundamental factor
in determining personal worth.

Now, while there can be no doubt that worth is imputed
to this element in personality, and that the degree of worth in
creases with the increase of the disposition above the normal,
it would be a mistake to interpret such imputed worth as merit.
The condition of the imputation of merit is the sacrifice of
condition to personal worths, the contrast and opposition which
arises from the ideal construction of personal worths. In the
case before us, however, it is precisely because this distinction
has lapsed, and the objects of personal worth are desired with
the same spontaneity as the objects of condition worth, that
the new quality enters into our feeling of the worth of the person
ality. It has been held that these values presuppose the
consciousness of effort and sacrifice in the same way that the
feeling of the worth of a work of art, a picture, or a piece
of music, may include in it a realisation of the effort involved
in mastering the difficulties of execution.1 That such an element
does enter into many aesthetic valuations of personality is beyond
doubt, but it has then ceased to be, as in the case of imputa
tion of merit, a measure of value. The situation is rather this.
The feeling in question is of the aesthetic immanental worth
which comes from the assumption that the disposition desired
is fully realised in the personality. This is the positive source
of the worth feeling. But such repose in the personality pre
supposes its isolation, and this isolation involves the ex
trusion of all negative moments ; otherwise the assumption
of such complete realisation cannot be maintained. The cog
nition of past efforts and sacrifices adds nothing to the intrinsic
worth of the object, but merely strengthens the assumption and
isolates the object. This, I am inclined to think, is the hidden
emotional logic of the religious consciousness in its worship of

1 Simmel, Einleitung in die Aforalwissenschaft, Vol. I, p. 227.

308 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

such ideal persons as Buddha and Jesus, a factor in the ideal con
struction of which there is always the story of supreme tempta
tions. The temptations add nothing to the intrinsic value, but
they serve to isolate the person and to strengthen the assump
tion upon which the worth feeling rests.

It should be noted that the isolation of the personality,
and these corresponding aesthetic valuations of persons in art
and in life, are unique and fleeting moments in experience, for
the reason that the assumptions upon which they rest can be
sustained for but short periods and under special conditions.
But, as has already been pointed out, there are some moments
of worth experience the value of which does not lie in repetition,
but which, when once experienced, create expectations which
determine succeeding worth judgments.

Of equal importance for a comprehensive view of the values
of characterisation is the more subjective correlate of these
judgments of personal worth, namely, the individual's sense of
inner peace, or absolute worth, which comes with the exclusion
of all negative elements, and with them of effort and conflict.
This is undoubtedly a real factor in experiences of personal
worth, although, like the experiences of the preceding paragraph,
it is of the unique and non-habitual type. Unlike the feeling
of tragical elevation, which comes with the isolation of complete
sacrifice, and which supervenes upon effort, these experiences,
of which the mystical religious is the extreme expression, isolate
the self by identifying it with a Supreme Being. The complete
identification of the individual will with the will of God, in which
the self is " lost in wonder, love, and praise," is the characteristic
feature. The disposition which has personal worth is increased
to the absolute point by identification of the individual with a
being in which the absolute is assumed to be already realised.
The essentially aesthetic character of this experience, as dis
tinguished from the ethical character of the feelings of obligation,
appears in the fact that that which, ethically, is always a goal,
is, in the religious experience, assumed as already realised.

There can be no manner of doubt that such " practical "
absolutes exist, and that they are believed to correspond to
actual reality. There is also no doubt that this belief finds
expression in our actual judgments. Whether repeated or not,
they stand as representative, as the measure of the capacity of
the individual for worth experience. As such they determine
his obligations and judgments.

Personal Worths 309

4. The Question of the Validity of these Judgments of Personal
Worth and of the Implicit Assumptions or Postulates upon
which they rest.

Our analysis of the actual judgments of personal worth
has justified the main contentions of this chapter — that personal
worth may be acquired indefinitely; that there are absolute
personal worths ; and that this assumption is presupposed as
the postulate of all characterisation of persons and all esti
mation of personal worth. Psychologically, this belief, this
implicit assumption, is explicable. The preceding chapter
was devoted entirely to the study of the genesis of the assump
tions presupposed in feelings of personal worth, and their effect
in determining our actual judgments — both qualitatively and
quantitatively. The recognition of this postulate as underlying
all judgments of personal worth was the culminating point of
the discussion.

But when we turn from the purely phenomenological aspect
of the problem to the question of the validity of these judg
ments, and therefore of the assumptions which they presuppose,
a somewhat different problem arises. May not these assumptions,
these ideals be unfounded in fact, and, therefore, the judgments
of personal worth be illusions ? When absolute worth is im
puted to a personality in the moments of tragical elevation and
inner harmony, it is on the basis of the assumption of complete
identification of the person with the ideal object. When the
subject feels absolute obligation toward a personal worth, or
the feeling of complete inner peace which comes with the satis
faction of that obligation, it is upon the assumption of the
possibility of realising the object or the belief that the object
is already realised. If these assumptions should be unfounded
from the point of view of an external system of " matter of fact,"
would not the feelings in this case be feelings of the imagination,
real enough as psychological phenomena, but unreal in the sense
that their cognitive presuppositions are unfounded ? These
assumptions themselves have their origin psychologically in
imaginative constructions which presuppose the aesthetic isola
tion of the personality. May not reflection upon the " causes
of things ' ' show this isolation to be unreal, and the assump
tions created in such experiences without any foundation in
fact ? If such should turn out to be the case, we might very

310 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

properly describe them as " pathetic fallacies," on the analogy
of the use of the term in literature and art, where we read into
inanimate objects of nature sentiments and ideas which are
not there in reality. In this case our fallacy would be that we
read into persons, and into the system of things in general,
imaginative constructions which do not exist, and assume them
to be real instead of the aesthetic illusions that they perhaps are.
This problem, it will be readily seen, involves the whole
question of the " rationality " of these assumptions and beliefs,
a question already discussed in a preliminary way in a preceding
chapter, where the conditions of the solution of the problem
were stated. The question as to what constitutes reality and as
to what is illusion in our worth experience, now appears in a more
concrete and pressing form. The attempt at a solution we shall
reserve for the axiological discussions of the concluding chapter,
where the general problem of the relation of judgments of value
to judgments of fact and truth will be considered. Meanwhile,
we must turn to the investigation of another class of values, the
social and over-individual, and of their relations to the personal
and individual. It is frequently the facts and laws of these
more objective valuations which seem to throw doubt upon the
assumptions of the personal sphere.

CHAPTER XI

I. OBJECTS OF IMPERSONAL, OVER-INDIVIDUAL VALUE — THEIR
NATURE AND ORIGIN

i. Definition.

A THIRD class of objects of value, and with it a third type of
valuation, was distinguished in our introductory chapter, a
class of objects described as over-individual and a type of valu
ation characterised as impersonal. Objects of over-individual
value are those, the value of which is founded on processes of
desire and feeling which are social and over-individual ; and their
valuation by the individual is impersonal, in so far as his feelings
and judgments presuppose participation in the impersonal over-
individual desire and feeling. Through process of participation
in the worth consciousness of others, the feelings and desires of
the individual acquire a new meaning, an over-individual refer
ence to ends beyond the self.

Two classes of over-individual objects were distinguished,
the moral and the economic. That which they have in common
is the fact that both are founded in a certain over-individual
demand, a demand which may be variable in extent and in
tensity, but which is, nevertheless, always felt as more than
personal. Their difference lies in the character of the objects.
The economic object is primarily a physical object of condition
worth which has, through processes of ideal reconstruction
consequent upon the individual's participation in the worth
judgments of others, acquired the over-individual reference
that makes it an object of exchange value. The moral
object is an act, or disposition represented by the act, which
is no longer valued merely for the condition worths which
result, or for its intrinsic worth for the personality, but for its
participation value, its reference to this over-individual demand.
An economic object is an object of condition worth with the
acquired capacity of exchange ; a moral object is a disposition

312 Valuation: its Mature and Laws

of a person which has, in addition to its immediate subjective
and personal meaning, the acquired capacity of being instru
mental to certain over-individual ends, participation in which
is socially desirable. Its value is, therefore, a social partici
pation value. Both values are objective and social, objective
exchange and objective participation value. It is evident that
the similarities of these two types of value extend so far 'that
in both cases the individual who passes such judgments of value,
economic or moral, becomes, for the time being, an " impartial
spectator," represents an attitude in valuation attained by
abstraction from the individual and personal references and
meanings of the object, and which therefore, to the extent that
this detachment is realised, is impersonal.

In our discussion of the equivocations in judgments of value,1
we found that it was possible to attribute to the same object posi
tive and negative worth, according to differences in attitude or in
the presuppositions of the feeling. Thus I may attribute objective
value to objects, e.g., diamonds, although subjectively, as ob
jects of condition worth, they are distasteful. To reach this
objective impersonal attitude, a certain abstraction from sub
jective appreciations is necessary. Through participation in
the worth processes of others, the object is removed from im
mediate appreciation and becomes mediately, as an exchange
value, instrumental to more remote appreciations. A certain
ideal reconstruction of the object, described in a previous
chapter,2 has taken place. I now conceive the value of the object
to lie in its capacity of exchange, and this acquired meaning
is founded on a series of judgments, which in constructing the
over-individual demand, have at the same time abstracted from
immediate appreciation.

An entirely similar situation exists in the case of the morally
qualified judgment upon acts and dispositions, the psychical
objects of moral judgment. Here also my impersonal, ob
jective judgment upon an act may differ widely from my per
sonal judgment. In the moral judgment that which determines
the value of the act is not, as in the case of personal worth, its
significance as indicative of a feeling-attitude or disposition
intuitively realised by the subject, but its meaning as an in
strument for furthering the over-individual ends of society.
The moral participation value of a relation of the sexes " with
out benefit of clergy " is low for the reason that, not conforming

1 Chap. II, pp. 22 f. 2 Chap. VI, pp. 169 f.

Objects of Impersonal Over-Individual Value 313

to over-individual demand, it set limits to further participation
in other ends. But the personal worths and worths of appreci
ation which grow up in this relation may possibly be of the
highest order, perhaps even because of the social isolation and
the contrast which comes with it. No one who has studied
human experience closely, from an unbiased point of view, will
feel disposed to deny the possibility of such a situation, or
to deny that circumstances are conceivable in which the per
sonal obligation to such relation might be very emphatic, and
in which the disposition displayed, in so far as we ignore the im
personal point of view, might lead us, not only to condone, but
actually to impute worth to, the personality involved. But from
the standpoint of the distinctively moral or social j udgment such
emotional accompaniments are irrelevant.

2. The Impersonal Standpoint in Moral Judgment — The Morally
Qualified Act and the Morally Qualified Judgment.

Economic and moral values are alike objective and social,
and the judgment of the individual in such cases is impersonal.
It is the impersonal moral judgment upon dispositions which
concerns us here, since a detailed study of economic values is
not within the province of this investigation. The origin and
nature of economic values has been treated in a general way in
the chapter on the Laws of Valuation.1 With this present
comparison of the two classes we may, therefore, turn directly
to the study of the moral values of dispositions.

Returning, then, to the illustration already given of the
distinction between ethical and quasi-ethical or personal judg
ments and moral or impersonal, it is quite evident in such a case
—and this is merely an extreme instance of very frequent
contradictions between personal or private, public or moral
judgment — that while the object of the judgment, the act, is
superficially the same in both cases, the meaning of the act is
radically different in the two situations. The presuppositions
of the act itself, as well as of the attitude of judgment upon the
act, represent different acquired meanings. One meaning of the
act is irrelevant from one point of view, the other equally so from
another point of view. For the personal attitude and judgment,
the act has meaning as a spontaneous expression of a person
ality, and is measured wholly in terms of sacrifice of lower

1 Chap. IV, pp. 142 ff. and 167 ff.

3 T 4 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

condition worths. For the moral point of view, it has meaning
as readiness or failure to participate in an over-individual de
mand, and is measured in terms of readiness to sacrifice indivi
dual and personal desires and demands.

This appears in both the morally qualified act and the morally
qualified judgment. The morally qualified act is determined by
the motive presupposed. An act is thus qualified when it
expresses a disposition to impersonal participation, the response
to an impersonal, over-individual demand. The act is moral
precisely in the degree to which subjective and personal motives
are abstracted from ; and, whereas in personal imputation the
degree of imputed personal value is measured in terms of sacrifice
of condition to personal worths, in impersonal imputation —
as we shall see later, in more detail — the moral value of the dis
position is estimated in terms of sacrifice of egoism for altruism,
egoism including from this point of view both condition and
personal worths, and altruism being a term used to designate all
dispositions to participate in over-individual ends. Similarly, the
morally qualified judgment is the judgment determined exclusively
by the consciousness of the over-individual demand, and pre
supposes abstraction from individual and personal demands. It
is the judgment of the " impartial spectator," who abstracts from
the subjective participation value of an act, and from its acquired
complementary personal values, and reflects in his judgment
merely the objective participation value of the disposition.1

3. Relativity of the Distinction between the Personal and the
Impersonal Attitude.

But while the morally qualified act and judgment upon that
act represent ideally the impersonal attitude upon the part of
the actor and spectator alike, nevertheless, neither particular

1 That the foregoing distinction between ethical and moral values — and the consequent
definitions of the morally qualified act and judgment — will commend themselves im
mediately to the reader is perhaps too much to expect. The confusion underlying the
identification of the two has been too prevalent, and of too long standing in ethical
writings, to be easily cleared away. For this very reason, the limitation of the term
moral in our way is perhaps to be deprecated : a term entirely unequivocal in meaning
would have been preferable, if indeed such were to be found. But, on tne other hand,
there are in favour of this restricted usage two reasons which to the writer seem decisive.
In the first place, it is but making more rigorous for accurate analysis a real distinction
which, as we have already seen, is present in all valuation of acts, and is even recog
nised by the distinction between the personal and the moral. In the second place, it is
justified by its fruiifulness in analysing and interpreting concrete moral judgments, as
they are presented to us in the following chapter. The results of that analysis must
decide whether the distinction is valid or not.

Objects of Impersonal Over- Individual Value 3 1 5

acts nor judgments upon these acts ever show the moral attitude
in its purity. Actual situations are always more complex. In
the sphere of concrete judgments the distinction between the
personal and impersonal is only relative.

In our study of personal worths, we have already seen that,
while there were some aspects of the person, some dispositions,
which are wholly irrelevant for impersonal, moral judgment,
many of them have significance for both types of judgment,
and become irrelevant for moral judgment only in certain quan
tities. Our moral judgment takes cognisance of them only
when they reach a certain minimum, and ceases to find them
relevant when they reach a certain maximum. Thus it was
found that, in the valuation of the same object, at certain points
the personal passes over into the impersonal and the impersonal
into the personal attitude.1 Again, the impersonal attitude
itself, as the specifically moral, is merely the limiting case of a
series of degrees between the purely personal and the impersonal.
Between the complete isolation of the personality, which is the
limiting case of personal imputation, and the complete ab
straction from the personal moment, which is the ideal of moral
judgment, there are those judgments in which the over-individual
worth, which gives the disposition its participation value, is a
group, class, or perhaps national worth. The ideal object
" honour," already considered in our study of personal worths,
is a case in point. Between the standard of honour which holds
between friends and that which is abstractly " human," many
specifications of the standard appear, as determined by class and
racial consciousness. The objects of quasi-ethical, ethical, and
moral worth judgment tend to overlap, and the subjects of these
judgments are, therefore, but relative differentiations of attitude
acquired through differences in the psychical processes pre
supposed. Moreover, the impersonal attitude of the " impartial
spectator " is but an ideal limit at which the personal reference
is still more or less present.

The difference between personal and impersonal judgment
is further characterised by the distinction between emotional
and intellectual imputation.2 Here, again, the relativity of the
distinction is apparent. Every worth judgment, as worth
judgment, is the expression of some feeling. Accordingly,
when the impersonal, moral judgment is said to be intellectual,
the expression of practical reason as opposed to emotion, it is

1 Chap, x, pp. 283 f., 300 f. - Chap, x, p. 290 note.

316 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

meant merely that certain emotional aspects of the personal
relation which are determinants in personal imputation have
become irrelevant— not that the attitude itself has become
purely cognitive and has ceased to be emotional. More specif
ically, the apprehension of the over-individual meaning of the
individual's act and disposition, and the entrance of that cog
nitive act as a presupposition of the feeling of value of the
object, inhibits those emotions which are significant merely for
immediate and personal participation.

Two facts stand out clearly— first, that the objects of moral
judgment are but a narrower, differentiated class within the
larger group of ethical and quasi-ethical worths, and partially
identical with them ; and, secondly, that the impersonal moral
attitude of the subject of the judgment is attained by abstraction
from personal and emotional elements, whether as determinants
of the act or of the judgment upon the act. From these
facts we may draw certain important conclusions in regard
to the origin and nature of the moral standpoint and object.
In the first place, it is clear that the presuppositions of both
types of judgment, the implicit assumptions and demands,
of the personal and impersonal attitude alike, are acquired in
processes of sympathetic participation, and that the objects
are products of ideal constructions founded on these processes.
As has been shown in our sketch of sympathetic participation,
the feeling-attitude of the alter has first an immediate appreci
ative value for the subject, what we may in this connection
describe as the subjective participation value of the attitude.
Out of this, on the one hand, develops the characterisation of
the person, and the independent, intrinsic valuation of the
attitude as an expression of the person. This is the personal
value of the disposition. On the other hand, from this " sub
jective " participation value, develops the objective participation
value, the over-individual value reflected in the impersonal
moral judgment, the instrumental value which the disposition
has as contributory to social over-individual ends. But in the
second place, it is equally apparent that the objective over-
individual values, consciousness of which is presupposed in
moral judgment, are determined by social demands in which
the individual merely participates ; they are the product of social
interaction, or sympathetic participation in its social aspect.

Our task is now to define these objective social values more
fully, to determine their origin, nature, and laws, and to show

Objects of Impersonal Over- Individual Value 3 1 7

how they are presupposed in moral judgment. The present
chapter will be devoted to this study of objective partici
pation value, while the following will attempt to show that
the moral judgment, in its two aspects of obligation and im
putation of praise and blame, reflects these values and their
laws,

II. SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE PARTICIPATION VALUE OF

DISPOSITIONS

i. Their Relations.

The over-individual " participation value " of a disposition
or quality is, it has been said, a function of the relation of that
object to social over-individual demand, and the moral judg
ment of the " impartial spectator " has as its presupposition
a consciousness of this relation. With this statement of the
situation, it becomes evident that the problem of the ensuing
study is twofold. In the first place, we have to consider the
nature and origin of this over-individual demand and of the ideal,
over-individual objects of the demand ; and, secondly, the manner
in which the individual participates in this demand, and how the
meaning acquired in this process determines his feelings and
judgments of impersonal value— how the consciousness of
over-individual ends and demands becomes a presupposition
of his feelings. The problem is, accordingly, one involving
both individual and social psychology.

By this statement it is meant that the over-individual de
mand, in which the objective participation value of a disposition
is founded, must be studied in two aspects: as a social fact,
the product of social interaction ; and as a cognised presuppo
sition of the individual's feelings and judgments. As an ob
jective social fact, it is the product of social interaction, of
sympathetic participation in its objective social aspect. But
as a product of social interaction it is the resultant of modifications
of the subjective feelings of value of individuals, as determined
by these processes of sympathetic participation. There is,
therefore, a definite relation between the subjective and ob
jective participation values of dispositions. This relation we
must now seek to determine.

318 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

2. Collective Desire and, Feeling — Social Synergies
Demand and Supply.

External to the individual, and often apart from any con
sciousness in him of their existence, there are certain collective
or aggregate desires or demands which may be described as
the social will, and which may be localised in larger or
smaller social groups. These collective desires or trends owe
their existence to the simple fact that, in consequence of uni
formity in the organic and biological conditions of psychical life,
men have similar instincts and desires, and, consequently,
similar passions and emotions. It is possible that such desires
and feelings may be shared without any accompa^-ing con
sciousness of their " common meaning." A demand to which I
am myself a contributing factor might conceivably exist,
indeed often does exist, without my being conscious of its ex
istence. As such, my desire is but a part of a collective or
aggregate demand. But it is possible that I may also be con
scious of the demand of which my desire is a part. Not only
has the object of desire then acquired a common meaning, but
I have become conscious of that common meaning, and in so
far as this consciousness enters as presupposition of my feeling,
my desire is itself modified, and with it my feelings and judg
ments of value.1

Collective desire and feeling, when it has acquired this
" common meaning," when the object of desire and feeling is
consciously held in common, we may describe as Social Synergy ;2
and the objective, over-individual values may be described as the
resultants of social synergies. The introduction of this term has
for its purpose the clearest possible distinction between social
forces as conscious and as sub-conscious. It is with the former
that we are here concerned, and our problem is to analyse these
social processes of conscious inter-action by which the objective
over-individual values are determined. These processes are

1 Cf. in this connection Baldwin's study of aggregate, con-aggregate, and public
meaning, Thought and Things, Vol. I, Chap, vii, sects. 5-10, and of their higher stage,
syndoxic and synnomic meaning. Ibid., Vol. II, chap. in.

The term Synergy is here used on the analogy of its use in Psychology (cf. the
definition of the term in Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology), where by
motor synergy is understood the working together of motor tendencies to form a totality.
The term Co-operation, while more in use, has this disadvantage, that it covers only a
limited field of the phenomena with which we are concerned. Co-operation implies
participation in the intellectual processes of devising means to ends, while many phases
of participation are purely sympathetic and emotional.

Objects of Impersonal Over-Individiial Value 319

the activities of sympathetic participation and ideal construction
already studied from the point of view of abstract psychological
analysis of the individual. Our task is now to study them as
factors in the creation of those social synergies, those factors
of " demand and supply " which determine the over-individual
participation value of dispositions.

The two factors of social synergy, demand and supply, the
demand for socially desirable acts, and the readiness of indi
viduals to supply them, are, in so far as they presuppose this
common meaning, the products of social thought and sympathy,
that is, of the sympathetic participation of the individuals in
common ends. Through sympathetic participation in collective
desire and feeling, the individual becomes aware of the over-indi
vidual damand, and this awareness modifies his disposition to act
or to expect actions from others. The social supply is similarly
conditioned. It is the product of the acts of individuals con
tributing to the social end, and the dispositions of the indi
viduals to participate and to contribute to the social supply
is determined by consciousness of the demand acquired through
sympathetic participation. This consciousness, although be
ginning with emotional contagion and simple appreciation of
common organic function, passes through common judgment
and belief, to common sentiments and ideals.

The objective participation value of a disposition is, then,
a function of the two factors of social synergy, supply and
demand ; and these factors are determined by the conscious
ness of common meaning on the part of the individuals par
ticipating. In order, therefore, to determine the nature of these
factors and their laws, it is clearly necessary to discover how this
consciousness of common over-individual meaning modifies the
individual's disposition to participate and to demand partici
pation on the part of others. From these facts and laws of
subjective participation value it may, then, be possible to deduce
the laws of social synergy and of the objective participation
value of dispositions.

In the chapter on the Laws of Valuation we found, it will
be remembered, that economic method consists in the analysis
of the laws of subjective value, on the assumption that the
objective or exchange value can be developed from the laws
of subjective value, a procedure which justifies itself. The
situation here is analogous, for, as in the case of an economic
good, its exchange value is a function of the laws of desire

320 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

and feeling, of subjective worth in the individuals desiring
the good, so the participation value of a given disposition is a
function of the laws governing the tendency or disposition to
participate of the individuals involved. Consequently, having
studied the phenomena of sympathetic projection and the
consequent modifications of feelings of value and dispositions
in the individual, we may pass to the objective, social point of

view.

III. THE LAWS OF SUBJECTIVE PARTICIPATION VALUE

i. The Individual's Feelings of Participation Value as Determined
by Social Sympathy — Extensive Sympathetic Projection.

The individual becomes aware of collective desire and feeling
through extensive sympathetic projection. In this process
his feelings of value acquire an over-individual reference and
meaning. Analysis of extensive projection, and its inducing
conditions,1 leads, moreover, to the following general conclusion :
with the extension of the range of sympathetic participation,
the feeling of participation becomes more and more impersonal,
and the object of participation value becomes more and more
abstract. Let us recall briefly the grounds for this conclusion.

In the first place, the feeling becomes over-personal in char
acter. Its transgredient, over-individual reference is beyond the
personality. Even on the level of simple organic sympathy,
immediate participation in group emotion or passion " takes the
individual out of himself." The forces of group suggestion
inhibit the more individual and personal feelings and reactions,
until finally the abstraction of the feeling from its purely indi
vidual presuppositions reaches such a point that it is no longer
referred back to the self and identified with the self in an act
of judgment. The presupposition of the feelings of value in
such organic sympathy is the vague presumption of an over-
individual trend or demand not definitely localised in a person
ality, either in the self or the alter. While still implying the self
remotely, it is now free from explicit reference to private and
personal meanings. In the second place, the conditions of ex
tensive projection, the character of the inducing conditions, lead
to a certain selection among the feeling-attitudes of the individual.
Only the most fundamental and general attitudes are susceptible

1 Chap, via, pp. 253 ff.

Objects of Impersonal Over- Individual Value 321

of extensive projection, and of acquiring this impersonal, over-
individual reference. The condition of projection of an attitude
of an individual into social groups is abstraction from the
individual and personal presuppositions and references of the
feeling.1 From the consideration of these facts it is apparent that
the over-individual demand, as immediate or merely felt, is already
over-personal in character. The demand for a given attitude or
disposition, though vaguely felt, is not localised in any person,
either the self or the alter, and may thus ultimately become the
presupposition of a relatively impersonal and impartial attitude.
With the emergence of this impersonal qualification of the
transgredient reference of feeling, begins the ideal construction
of over-individual ends to which the feeling is referred. As in
the case of feelings of personal worth, the acquired meaning of
the feeling is referred to the ideal construct of the personality,
so here the acquired impersonal reference leads to conceptions
of an over-individual will and of impersonal ends. But it is
at this point that the chief difference between the two types of
feelings and of their presuppositions appears. The ideal con
struction of the " person " is, as we have already seen, indi
viduating and intuitive in character, while the over-individual
objects are abstract and conceptual. Beginning with the
initial contrast between condition and personal worths, and the
idealisation of the person described, the detachment of the indi
vidual from social relations further advances until he is intrinsic
ally valued as an end in himself. The disposition of the person
in question is intrinsically valued as an expression of the person,
and acquires complementary value through its relation to the
person conceived as an individuated whole. In the case of the
ideal construction based upon extensive sympathetic partici
pation, the situation is otherwise. With the growing imperson
ality of the feeling, the ideal construct to which it is referred
becomes more and more abstract. With every increase in the
extension of the concept of the over-individual end to which
the feeling refers, it is progressively more and more difficult
to refer it back to the person as an intrinsic personal end,
in other words, to visualise it concretely. Thus the indi
vidual is felt to be merely the locus or the bearer of these social
over-individual ends or ideals, and his dispositions are conceived
as merely instrumental or contributory to their realisation. The
consequences of this are significant. As soon as immediate

1 Chap, vin, p. 257.

322 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

sympathetic participation develops into ideal construction
and judgment, the feelings of value have as their presuppositions
instrumental judgments, and the demand represents not in
trinsic but instrumental values.

2. Feelings of Participation Value as Modified (Quantitatively) by
Extensive Projection — The Laws of Social Sympathy.

The modification through extensive projection, of the
presuppositions of the individual's feelings, and their conse
quent change in reference have now been shown. A certain
relation between the extension of the common meaning, the
impersonality of the individual's feeling, and the degree of
abstractness of the object of the feeling has appeared. Is it
possible to establish any relation between this extension of the
common meaning and its intension, between the degree of
expansion of sympathy and its intensity ? If such a relation
appears, it may afford the basis for the formulation of the laws
of subjective participation value, and ultimately of objective
social values.

The primary condition of the sense of over-individual value
is, as we have seen, sympathetic participation in its aspect
of extensive projection. Beginning with its simplest form,
where the conditions are similarities of organic conditions,
and developing through the stages of imaginative and ideal
construction, the extension of the range of sympathetic pro
jection involves abstraction from personal presuppositions and
references, and therefore a qualitative modification in the direc
tion of impersonal reference. This qualitative change is also
accompanied by characteristic changes in the quantitative aspect
of the feeling. In order to understand these changes we must
make a careful analysis of the quantitative factors involved.

The factors here under consideration are, on the one hand,
the degree of sympathy felt, or its intensity? and, on the other
hand, the extension of the range of the sympathetic feeling,
through the inclusion of more and more individuals in the group
in which the individual participates. What is the effect of
extension of sympathy upon its intensity ? And further-
since the desire to participate in over-individual ends is a function
of the intensity with which the over-individual demand is felt,

1 The term intensity is here used in the general sense of de.^ree, not "sensational
intensity " (Cf. chap, in, pp. 73 f.).

Objects of Impersonal Over-Individual Value 323

how is this desire affected through the satisfaction of the demand
by the acts and dispositions of others ?

If we begin with that form of extensive sympathy described
as participation in group desire or emotion, immediate partici
pation in collective attitudes, we find that the effect of such
participation upon the feelings of the individuals participating
is clearly marked. We have already seen that in such cases of
"contagious emotion," expansion of the feeling is possible
only in the case of relatively primitive and undifferentiated
emotional attitudes, and is limited to relatively short periods.
Within relatively small groups, and for short periods, the emotion
or passion may attain a high intensity and complete expansion,
so that the group feels intensely and as one man. We may
almost speak of a mob soul. As reflected in the individual
thus participating, the effect is seen in an intensification of
his feeling of over-individual reference. Within limits, the
degree of sympathy, and with it the intensity of the over-indi
vidual demand, increases with the extension of the range of
sympathy. This temporary increase in the feeling of value
is manifested in increase of disposition to participate, to respond
to the social demand, and in increase of demand for similar
response on the part of others. But it is a well-known fact that
such participation, based upon organic sympathy, is followed
by phenomena analogous to the experiences of dulling of sensi
tivity and satiety, which we have seen to accompany aU excess
of organic sympathy. Extensive sympathy of this fortuitous
kind, based upon external and often superficial similarities of
attitude, and made possible only through the arrest of more
individual and personal attitudes and habits, is followed by
reaction. The temporary presumption of existence of objects
and ends, corresponding to the group emotion or passion, fails
to develop into judgment and judgmental habit, or implicit as
sumption.

It is obvious that while the experiences of immediate
participation in group emotions and passions may afford the
basis of consciousness of over-individual ends and demands,
this is, in the very nature of the case, limited to rare occasions
and to relatively small groups. Any extension of social sym
pathy beyond these limits must rest upon imaginative and

LI^ Well-kn?wn effect °Tf emotional revivals in producing dulling of sensitivity and
wo dyfor thesfeff^V11 ^T ^^ °f the West ** ^ have a significant
"burnt out <" Y SP °f thC regi°n Visited ^ Such mob emotions as

324 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

conceptual constructions. Our ability to realise sympathetically
over-individual trends and demands depends upon conditions of
a more intellectual character. Imaginative projection, with its
assumption of the existence of corresponding dispositions,
depends upon similarity of attitude. How does extension of
the range of sympathetic projection modify the conditions
of such sympathetic participation, and, therefore, the degree of
sympathy ?

It has already been shown that the condition of imaginative
projection is abstraction of the feeling from its purely individual
reference, that it is only in this way that the " person project "
acquires its common over-individual meaning. It has also been
shown, however, that if the processes of abstraction from private
and personal meanings continue, the reference of feeling becomes
impersonal ; the feeling-abstract is no longer referred back to the
person, but is projected and localised beyond the person. Now the
important point in this connection is that, owing to the nature of
the inducing conditions of imaginative projection, we find with
increase in the range of sympathy, decrease in similarity of in
ducing conditions, and, consequently, growing abstraction and
impersonality of the feeling. It may be shown, I think, that,
with this decrease in resemblance and consequent growth in
abstractness and impersonality of the feeling, the feeling of
sympathy, and with it the feeling of value of the attitude in
question, will decrease in intensity.

Several significant facts indicate the truth of this inference.
In the first place, as has already appeared, extensive projection
exercises a selective influence among our feeling attitudes.
Owing to the variations in individuals, the nature and con
ditions of which have already been considered, there is a weed
ing out of all feeling-attitudes which are unique and personal,
these being retained for intimate and personal relations alone.
Certain others will be stamped as class and group attitudes, and
only the most fundamental attitudes will survive in more
extended sympathetic projection. But a similar selection is
made with reference to the quantitative aspect of feeling-
attitudes. Even in the case of those attitudes which, so to
speak, survive extensive as distinguished from intensive pro
jection, there is a characteristic modification of the intensity
of the projected feeling. Gradually the extremes of feeling,
the unique and individual variations, are inhibited in favour
of a certain normal intensity which in actual experience has been

Objects of Impersonal Over- Individual Value 325

ound to meet with response. Accordingly, we may go a step
further and say that, with increase in the range of sympathy
there is not only decrease in similarity of inducing conditions,
and consequently growth in abstractness and impersonality of
the feeling, but also, as the result of these, decrease in intensity.1
Immediate sympathetic participation, whether it be conditioned
by similarity of organic conditions or by similarities of ideal
presuppositions of the feelings, is thus limited by the psycho
logical nature and conditions of sympathy. This fact evidently
has a meaning both for individual and social psychology. It
states both the law according to which the feeling of the demand
to participate is modified in the individual's consciousness,
and also the law of this demand in its more social aspect.

Viewing sympathetic participation in this objective, socio
logical way, we find the truth of this law manifest in illustra-
trations which are numerous and instructive. Among primitive
men, social sympathy, and the concomitant sense of collective
values, is intense and immediate. The limitations of the
group, the relative homogeneity of their affective experience,
and of its corresponding expressions, are conditions which
favour rapid expansion of feeling and its dominance over
the consciousness of the entire group. Within more highly
organised societies, where the organisation consists in differentia
tion of smaller groups within the larger whole, we find the most
intense emotional participation in connection with those af
fective attitudes which correspond to limited groups. And as
a further consequence, we find the actual feelings of obligation
and judgments of praise and blame more emphatic with reference
to group attitudes. We need call attention only to those
specialised obligations and virtues of the politician and the
labourer within our own civilisation, and to the equally special
ised obligations of military classes in societies of the aristocratic
type.

1 It is facts of this character which Giddings (Inductive Sociology, p. 217) has sought
to gather together in his formulation of the so-called " Law of Sympathy." " Using
the word sympathy," he says, " for all the feelings which are included in the conscious
ness of kind, the law of sympathy is, the degree of sympathy decreases as the generality
of resemblance increases." Further, " it loses intensity as it expands to the more remote
resemblances, and becomes intense as it contracts to the narrower degrees."

326 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

3. The General Law of Subjective Participation Value— The Law
of Limiting Value.

The conclusion thus far reached is that, while, up to a point,
with extension of sympathy its intensity increases, with con
tinued extension the degree of sympathy decreases. With the
growing impersonality of the reference the intensity is lowered.
This general law finds its explanation, apparently, in the
limits set to social sympathy by the nature of its psychological
conditions. Immediate sympathy, with its intuitive projection
of the feeling attitude, becomes more and more impossible with
extension of the social group. Our feelings and judgments of
value, in so far as they presuppose this immediate sympathetic
participation, with its underlying assumptions, manifest the
working of this law. Nevertheless, all our feelings and judg
ments of participation value are not necessarily conditioned
by this immediate intuitive sympathy. On the basis of imme
diate sympathetic participation, conceptual constructions of
dispositions and over-individual ends, to which these dispositions
are instrumentally referred, are built up, and when once these
concepts are formed, the dispositions are valued instrumentally.
What is the effect of increase of quantity of such dispositions
upon the individual's feeling of their value ?

The quantity of the supply of such dispositions may be
increased or decreased either by the addition or subtraction of
new individuals to the number of participants, or by increase or
decrease in the amount of the given disposition in members
of the social group. The question is : What is the effect of
these quantitative factors upon the individual's feelings of value
—and consequently upon the affective-volitional disposition
to participate which these feelings presuppose? How does
the increase of the quantity of the over-individual good affect
the individual's desire to add to it by participation, and his
feeling of value when others add to it by acts of participation ?
I think there can be no question that these feelings of partici
pation value, and consequently the dispositions to participate,
are subject to the general law of Limiting Value developed in
the chapter on Laws of Valuation. In general, with each
additional judgment of the extension of the area of partici
pation, or of increase in the area of the common good through
these increments, there is a relative falling off in the increment
to the degree of worth, until finally a point is reached where

Objects of Impersonal Over- Individual Value 327

additions to the total good are without appreciable effect upon
worth feeling.

There are several facts which indicate in a significant manner
the existence of this law. In the first place, the individual's
desire to participate — and ultimately, we shall see, his feeling of
obligation to participate — reflects this situation. When once
the demand for the over-individual object has been created,
the individual's desire to add to the sum of social good seems to
depend upon the degree to which the good is already realised.
The greatest energy of participation appears normally where
the lack of the social good is most apparent, and falls off as the
disposition to participate becomes more and more general.
Where voting is a general duty and opportunity, and where
the act of voting constitutes a contribution to over-individual
impersonal good, we feel both the desire and obligation to vote
when the participation is least ; and as it becomes more general
our feeling of its worth and our desire to participate diminishes.
In like manner, any contributions to social worths, such as acts
of politeness, are felt as of most worth when in contrast to a
more or less general lack of civility. They do not rise above
the threshold of worth judgment when such participation is
universal. On the other hand, up to the point at which these
deficiencies are emphatically felt, and we identify ourselves with
the rising minority demand, there is a tendency to fall in with
those who abstain from the acts in question, for the reason that
it is of no use to do otherwise. The actual participation value
of our act is insignificant.

In general, then, the subjective participation value of a
disposition, whether it be intrinsic or instrumental, whether
it be immediate or mediate, seems to be subject to the law of
Limiting Value. Of course such an abstract, general statement
of the facts must be modified in important particulars, as we
shall see in more detail presently, when to the impersonal par
ticipation value of the act personal and group worths are added
as complementary values. When the object with over-individual
reference has also a personal or class reference, acquired in im
mediate emotional participation, this law will be modified in
the same manner as the law of Marginal Utility for objects of
consumption is modified by the principle of complementary
values. Just as the details of a feast or of dress, or an insig
nificant fraction of our total wealth, themselves without appre
ciable instrumental value, may acquire value as part of a unique

328 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

and harmonious totality, so acts such as those described above,
in themselves also without appreciable value for social participa
tion, may acquire complementary value as a part or a sign of
a harmonious personality, or as a mark of a coherent social class
or group.

IV. THE OBJECTIVE PARTICIPATION VALUE OF DISPOSITIONS
AS DEDUCED FROM THE LAWS OF SOCIAL SYMPATHY— THE
LAWS OF SOCIAL SYNERGY

i. Objective Participation Value.

The preceding studies have had as their object the deter
mination of the laws governing the changes in the individual's
feelings of over-individual value, immediate and mediate or
instrumental, as conditioned by the extension of the range
of sympathetic participation. The question now arises whether
from these facts it is possible to deduce the laws of objective,
over-individual value, conceived as objective laws abstracted
from the individual subjects of the feelings of value. We have
maintained that the individual's feeling of value, in so far as it
is impersonal, reflects the actual social value of the dispositions
he thus impersonally judges. If this is true, the quantitative
laws governing his feelings of over-individual value must corre
spond to similar laws of social value. Only on this condition
would the norms and standards of impersonal judgment, pre
sently to be considered, correspond to actual social values.

The objective participation value of a disposition is a
function of two factors, the quantity of the demand and the
quantity of the supply. Both of these factors are determined
by the feelings and feeling-dispositions of the individuals par
ticipating in the collective will which creates the demand or
supply. These feelings of the individuals are, however, as we
have seen, modified in certain specific ways by extension of
the range of the sympathetic feeling ; and with this modification
there is a corresponding change in the individual's desire or
disposition to participate. From this it may be easily seen that
there is a direct relation between the laws governing the indi
vidual's feelings and feeling-dispositions and the objective value
of those dispositions as determined by the interaction of the
individuals. More explicitly stated, the social demand and sup
ply, and the objective values of which they are the determining

Objects of Impersonal Over- Individual Value 329

factors, are in some sense the product of the individual's dis
position, considered as modifying the demand or supply, as the
case may be. As the intensity of the individual's feeling of
over-individual value, expressed either in the degree to
which he participates in the social demand or in acts supplying
the desired dispositions, is determined by the degree to which
the dispositions are universalised, so the intensity of the over-
individual demand, when conceived as abstracted from the in
dividuals participating, must be determined by the degree to
which the disposition is universalised, i.e., by its quantity.
Our problem is now to state the law of this dependence more
definitely, and to formulate, on the basis of the principles govern
ing this interaction, the law of the participation value of over-
individual objects.

2. The Law of Marginal Participation Value.

A disposition or quality of an individual may, as we have
seen, have a twofold value — the participation value which it
has as the condition of wider social intercourse, i.e., as
contributing to common over-individual ends, and the per
sonal value which it has as expressive of a total personality.
The latter is complementary to the participation value. From
the point of view of the present study, we are interested in the
individual's disposition merely as it affects the quantum of the
social good. Participation through acts expressive of dispo
sitions may then be conceived as additions to or subtractions
from this good. The supply may be increased in two ways.
Either there may be increase in the amount of the disposition
of the individuals involved, as displayed in increase of the
energy of participation, or there may be increase through the
addition of individuals to the group. There may be increase
in the intensity or extension of the supply. Corresponding
to this objective social supply there is a social over-individual
demand. What, then, is the effect of changes in the supply
brought about by these two factors upon the quantity of the
collective demand? This collective, over-individual demand
is, like the supply, a variable quantity, and a quantity which
is determined by the desire of the individuals concerned for
acts with participation worth, that is, for expressions which
may be the inducing grounds of sympathetic projection. This
demand in the individuals may be satisfied by increase either

33° 'Valuation : its Nature and Laws

in the intensity of sympathetic participation or in its extension.
We must, then, consider the effect of each factor in the supply
upon the demand of the individuals.

It is clear, in the first place, that, according to our law of
sympathetic projection, the effect of expansion of the group
as a factor in the increase of supply is to lower the intensity
of emotional participation in the individuals, and, therefore
the intensity of the demand. The effect of increase of intensity
of the supply is of the same nature, but, the situation being
somewhat more complex, it requires closer analysis. Let
us suppose that in some manner, how it does not matter—
whether through imitation or more conscious choice— a
disposition which has participation value increases in an
individual or a number of individuals considerably beyond
the average intensity. Will not such an increase in the
supply bring with it, through suggestion and imitation, a
corresponding increase in demand? In other words, cannot
such a disposition increase in intensity and extension simul
taneously ?

At first sight it would appear so, but upon reflection doubts
arise. For, according to our analysis of sympathetic projection,
a variation from the average intensity of the disposition pre
supposes a variation from the normal in attitude, and the greater
this variation from the normal, the smaller the group in which
sympathetic participation is possible. Clearly, then, additions
to the supply, through increase above the normal of the amount
of disposition in individuals, involves new group segregations.
The demand would be increased in individuals and groups,
but such increase in intensity above the normal would be secured
only by the limitation of the extensity of the demand.

From these facts it would appear that we are justified in
inferring that the over-individual value of these objects is gov
erned by a law analogous to the law of Marginal Utility in the
sphere of economic values. Ehrenfels has formulated the same
law, and developed it in a somewhat similar fashion.1 He
characterises it as the law of Grenz-frommen, to distinguish

1 Ehrenfels, System der Werttheorie, Book II, chap, in, especially p. 86.

When we examine more closely the nature of these over-individual objects or goods,
Lhe participation value of which determines their morality, we see that all the con
ditions necessary for the application of such a law exist. For the application of the
economic law of Marginal Utility to any object of condition worth it is necessary: (i)
that the object be limited in amount ; (2) that it have capacity of substitution ; and
(3) that the desire corresponding to the object have the tendency to highest possible
activity. An examination of the processes of sympathetic projection which create

Objects of Impersonal Over- Individual Value 331

it from the law of Grenz-nutzen in the sphere of economic goods.
But since we have denned social good, of which the moral sense
is the reflection, wholly in functional terms of participation,
we may preferably speak of the law of Marginal Participation
Value. This law, it is further apparent, is but the resultant,
in the sphere of objective social values, of the law of Diminish
ing or Limiting Value operative in the sympathetic participation
of individuals.

3. The Laws of Social Synergy.

If the line of reasoning which has led to the formulation
of this law is sound, we are justified in concluding — thus far
upon merely theoretical grounds — that the individual's feeling
of over-individual value, and his judgments of value, precisely
in so far as they are impersonal and reflect this feeling, correspond
directly to the objective social participation value of the dis
positions judged. Our thesis has been that moral worth judg
ments, in their aspect both of obligation and imputation, are
impersonal judgments upon acts, and reflect the participation
value of these acts for over-individual ends. An analysis of
these judgments, to which we shall presently turn, will show
this correspondence. It will become evident that the conscious
ness of over-individual value presupposed by these judgments,
reflects the working of this law, i.e., that the norms and limits
presupposed by these judgments reflect this law of participa
tion value. In the meantime, and as a preliminary to this
analysis, we may here develop certain important consequences
of the law significant for our later studies. These consequences
are twofold, and may be properly described as corollaries from
the law of Marginal Participation Value. This law, together
with its corollaries, may, then, be described as the laws of Social
Synergy, for they are the laws governing those social processes
of sympathetic interaction and valuation which have been
characterised as social synergy.

these over-individual objects shows that all these conditions are in force. The desire for
the object springs out of the tendency to participation, and this tendency, in its primitive
organic form, seeks the highest possible activity both in intensity and extension. The
amount of the disposition is always limited, both in extension and intensity, by the
conditions of sympathetic projection; and, 'finally, as we have seen, while dispositions
in their personal or limited group reference are, under certain special circumstances,
without capacity of substitution, no specific disposition is as such ultimately indispensable
for social participation.

Valuation : its Nature and Laws

(a) Corollaries from the Law of Marginal Participation Value.
In the first place the working of this law results in the

the minimu and maximum demanded of him will

*

<*

In the second place, we shall find that the inevitable con
sequence of this law of social synergy is social differe™n and'
group segregat.cn. The tendency to complete unive saUsatio

tlZcTT'ft0 h JS ™Tnt in "very "da! di^osufon °or

lency is followed by loss of participation value This

arrest of social demand is followed by value mlvement to

, ethical or esthetic. In the former it is through detach-
'01 i"divMuation of «- object or /erson that

- on

ueH S °rSamsatlon and unification about an ideal or

Irte newelT r"1 Other ^"P5' Thr°USh these cont^
rise new complementary group values, which are imputed over

and above the actual value which the object would haveL
virtue merely of the functioning of the primary law of soda"
synergy, and which therefore modify the norml and L ts of

™ e t°wTnh JUdgTent' °nly ^ the Consideration of

phenomena m their inter-relations shall we be able

C°nCrete S0dal UdmentS °f

«..» j «j.<j.cmcjiiLS Of

imputation.

Objects of Impersonal Over-Individual Value 333

(6) Norms and Limits of Participation Value — Social Value

Movements.

The first consequence of the application of this law to
social values is that it enables us to distribute conceptually
these social worths about three critical points. The working
of this law, the principle of Grenz-frommen, as Ehrenfels calls
it when applied to social worth dispositions, results in a mutation
of value in which three phenomenal phases may be distinguished,
as aspiring, normal, and outlived values (Ehrenfels's 1 aufstrebende,
normale, und nberlebte Werthe). These we may describe in the
following way. An aspiring social value is one the intensity of
demand for which in a given social group is great, corresponding
to a limited expansion or diffusion in the social consciousness.
A normal value may be described as one in the case of which
the intensity of the demand and the extent of its diffusion are
more nearly equal. In the outlived value the diffusion has
become so great that decrease in intensity, and finally loss of
value as it approaches universality, follow. We have here the
stages of a social value movement, from social passion and
emotion to habit and indifference, analogous to the similar
stages in the instrumental valuation of objects by individuals.

This law of the mutation of social values is most apparent
in the superficial changes in fashions. In the case of fashions
in clothes and manners, the value is chiefly found in the functional
significance of the object for social participation and contrast,
and the value movements are correspondingly rapid and super
ficial. The period of intensification of personal and group
values through novelty and contrast is quickly followed by
imitation and universalisation until, when the objects become
" common," their value, which has been conditioned largely by
temporary demand, expires and is finally outlived — and new forms
of distinction and contrast become necessary. The working of
the law is seen here at its purest because the greater part of the
demand for the object or act is an expression of their value for
immediate social participation, the more indirect value they may
have for specific individual and social ends being relatively little.
This is seen in the fact that when the mode is past the greater
part of their social esteem and economic value or price has
gone. It is the paradox of fashion that when it is most
prevalent, when the demand is at its height, its decay has

1 Ibid., Book II, chap. Ill, par. 17.

334 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

already set in. Up to that point it is the extension that stimu
lates imitation and creates its value ; when that point is reached
it is this same extension which destroys its value and leads to its
wholesale abandonment. It is just because of this emptiness of
all meanings except the commonness of superficial contagion
that the pursuit of fashion is so essentially self-defeating.

When we turn to the more important region of the socially
desirable dispositions and common ideals of men, we find that,
while they are more permanent conditions of social participa
tion—the ends which they serve being more ultimate and perma
nent—nevertheless, they are subject to the same law. The value
movement, it is true, is extended over a longer time, and is,
therefore, more difficult to detect. Moreover, the social par
ticipation value is much more complicated with fundamental
personal worths, and the dependence of its intensity upon its
social expansion is not so clearly marked. Nevertheless, analysis
enables us to distinguish the two elements.

The most patent illustrations of these value movements
are to be found in the sphere of social and political ideals
and shibboleths, although similar laws govern the more
ultimate moral ideals which underlie them. The ideals of
" liberty, fraternity, equality " of the French Revolution may
be said to have gone through these phases. In contrast to the
opposing ideals of the old regime they were first aspiring, and
participation in them was accompanied by intense personal and
group worths. The normal stage was reached when they became
the presupposition of judgments of morals and legislation.
They had then become diffused enough to find institutional
expression, and were still felt intensely enough to make them a
moral force. At this point, the specific dispositions for which
these ideals with their suffused emotion stood (the disposition
to acknowledge manhood suffrage, etc.) having secured practi
cally universal assent, they are taken for granted. Social habit
appears, and the usefulness of the ideals for social partici
pation decreases. They begin to be outlived, and their demands
are not strongly felt. The old symbols become empty words,
lacking the social emotion of the aspiring value or the social
sentiment which accompanies habit. They do not correspond
to actual values, and therefore lack real obligatory force. It
may, of course, be said that the spirit of these ideals is far from
realised, and that they will constantly take on new forms. This is
true, but each new form means the differentiation of a new specific

Objects of Impersonal Over- Individual Value 335

disposition and a new concrete ideal, and the intensity with which
that ideal is felt will again depend upon the same empirical con
ditions, the degree of expansion which the ideal has attained.

All this may be easily misunderstood — may be taken to mean
that the ideals which have undergone this transmutation into
" things taken for granted," or social habits, have lost all relation
to actual social values. This is far from the truth. They have
become the platform of implicit assumptions upon which new
values may be built up. Emerson's epigram "that culture is
the measure of things taken for granted" may well be applied
here ; we may say that civilisation is the measure of socially
desirable dispositions or habits taken for granted. But when
all this is admitted, it is still true that on the platform of things
taken for granted new ideals suffused with emotion must arise if
conscious social values are to continue. A potential value can
become actual and dynamic only by becoming a felt value. In
order to continue, value must forever be taking on new forms.

This brings us finally to the question of the possible existence
of certain social ideals and dispositions, underlying the more
superficial values, which are said to have absolute value and
to escape the social value movement here described. In the
preceding case it was said " the spirit remains, even if the form
changes," and it is not only a popular assumption, but also in
many quarters a philosophical postulate, that there are certain
fundamental acts and innermost dispositions to participate
which have absolute and unconditioned value. But when
we examine the acts or dispositions in question, we discover
that in every case they have acquired this unique sanctity
only by abstraction from concrete reality. The assumption
of absoluteness has had its ground either in a narrowness of
historical and social perspective — in which case the feeling
of absoluteness has attached itself to a concrete act or disposi
tion which is in reality neither universal nor eternal, or else,
perhaps, in a process of logical abstraction— in which case the
object is so abstract that no actual felt value whatever is at
tached to it, and the postulate of universality and eternity
cannot be challenged. This illusion is furthered by the
fact that different dispositions pass through these phases
of value movement in widely varying periods of time, and
that some dispositions remain in the normal phase through
long periods, so that it is difficult to determine whether
there has been any appreciable movement toward the loss of

336 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

intensity which characterises the outlived value. Moreover,
actual changes in worth dispositions may be perfectly consonant
with long-continued retention of the old name.

Such a conclusion evidently has an important bearing upon
our conception of moral values. Underlying the normative
law of " universalisation," whatever its form, whether utili
tarian or idealistic, whether in the Kantian form or in Fichte's
modification (" act so that the maxim of thy conduct may be
come for thee an eternal law"), is the assumption that moral
values escape the laws inherent in the temporal character of values.
But the difficulties in such a conception are not to be hidden.
Universalisation of a given disposition, or even indefinite increase
of the supply, must involve such a modification of the demand as in
turn to change the actual objective social value of the disposition.
To act as though the maxim of one's act were an eternal law is to
act as though frequency of repetition would have no effect upon
its value, an assumption which experience does not allow us to
make with respect to the objective values of any object. What
ever validity such an assumption may have for the worth experi
ence of the individual, it cannot be taken as a norm or measure
of actual social values.

With the postulate of absolute value in its logical or axio-
logical aspect we are not here concerned. That " value is
eternal," in the sense that continuity of valuation is presupposed
in every value judgment, is the necessary postulate of every
judgment of value; that it is universal in the sense that my
value judgment is in some way continuous with the judgments
of all other subjects of valuation is an equally necessary postulate.
But to infer from this that the participation value of any con
crete disposition or act is either eternal or universal is un
warranted. Such an inference would be justified only in case
we could show that for the instrumental participation value of
certain dispositions there are no substitutes. But beyond the
idea that whatever possesses actual social value must persist in
one form or another, we cannot pass; and of these future
forms we cannot form any definite ideas, for experience shows
us a continual readjustment according to the laws already
described. That many of these social values may, as ideals,
and therefore as centres of organisation for individuals and
groups, acquire the meaning of practical absolutes is a possi
bility we have already suggested, and will consider more fully
presently, but as social values they are always relative.

Objects of Impersonal Over- Individual Value 337

(c) Social Values as Reflected in the Individual.

Assuming the truth of this schematic picture of the mutation
of social values, of the value movement that every social value
undergoes, and therefore also of the distribution of values in any
given cross-section of the social consciousness, how does this
situation reflect itself in the individual's consciousness of over-
individual values ? It is clear that values in all three stages
will be represented. Those dispositions which belong to the
class, normal values, will constitute a central region which
we may describe as " moral " worth dispositions. They
represent a degree of constancy of habit in worth judg
ment which other dispositions cannot attain. This constancy
has two aspects. On the one hand, these moral worths
represent the most completely universalised dispositions, and
consequently the expectation, or demand for participation
in them is relatively universal. On the other hand, the intensity
of participation expected is relatively constant, and represents
the norm of expectation in judgments of obligation and im
putation. As a result of this element of constancy in the normal
moral disposition, the judgments which spring out of this norm
approach most closely to the impartial impersonal ideal which
constitutes the standpoint of morality.

About this region of "moral" values as a centre, gather the
aspiring and outlived values which, in contrast, may be described
as ethical or quasi-moral worths. They are so named because,
while social and over-individual in their reference, they lack the
impersonal reference of the impartial spectator. They are limited
group values which shade over into personal worths.

The aspiring values are supra-normal worths in that they
represent great intensity with limited expansion. To take as
an illustration the new values taught by Christianity in its
early days, within the Christian fellowship itself the de
mand for manifestation of its virtues exceeded the normal,
while it was clearly felt that a different standard must be
recognised for those outside. In the case of such ideals the
expectation is not " standardised " ; individual variation is more
marked. But for this very reason the intensity with which
the individual participates is also greater than in the case of
normal values — in direct proportion to the absence of the
virtues in others. Moreover, the value imputed to the indi
vidual thus participating is proportionally greater.

338 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

The outlived social value, on the other hand, is below the
normal, in that expansion so outruns intensity that participa
tion is no longer emotional but purely intellectual and formal,
in so far as the mass of individuals is concerned. The social
demand, as reflected in the individual, is, therefore, normally
much less intense than in the case of the other classes of worth
dispositions, the aspiring and the normal. Thus there are certain
conventional acts and standards, such, for instance, as church^
going in some communities and certain forms of charity, which
were at one time motived by a vital and immediately felt dis
position to participate in common worship or in the common
good, but which are now kept going merely by an intellectual
recognition of their formal instrumental value for social solidarity.
A good test of an outlived value is just this conscious effort to
keep it up when the real disposition for which it stood has passed
away or has been transferred to some other act. The loss of
belief in these forms of piety and charity does not necessarily
mean weakening of the energy or will to participate which
underlies them. They simply draw in, and contract to more
ideal and personal forms, awaiting perhaps the time of a new
embodiment in a social ideal which shall again caU forth feelings
of reality.

An outlived value makes itself felt, therefore, in this way.
As a positive ideal it is still upheld, and is often the more
eloquently preached the more its vitality wanes, but its non-
observance is less and less noted and disapproved until finally
it is entirely detached from the direct relation to feeling and will
which formerly gave it life. In the consciousness of every indi
vidual there will, therefore, be certain faint social obligations
which reflect outlived values.

In general, then, as has already been stated, the individual's
consciousness of over-individual values will reflect the actual
social values of these objects, and his disposition to participate
and to demand participation on the part of others will be modified
in the ways described. But we should not overlook the fact
that, as in the case of the aspiring values, so in the outlived,
the working of this general law of value movement may be
modified. The outlived value may become the ideal or the centre
of intrinsic values for individuals and groups, and may acquire
a new participation value through contrast and opposition,
as in the case of reactionary and radical groups. An outlived
social value, such as class ideals of honour and bravery belonging

Objects of Impersonal Over- Individual Value 339

to a military type of civilisation, may survive in an industrial
regime, the monastic ideals of humility and contemplation may
survive in a time when they correspond to no widespread social
demand, and through this very contrast and opposition they
may become the objects of intense loyalty and of emotional
participation. For such reactionary individuals and groups
they again become aspiring values. The worth thus acquired
is, however, an ethical, personal, or group worth, and the de
mand is no longer impersonal and over-individual. To the
radical, on the other hand, these same socially outlived values
become the stimulus for the development of new ideals and
values, and in seeking freedom from the old conventional senti
ments and ideals he thereby develops the new. This leads us
to the phenomenon of social differentiation and its bearing upon
the development of values.

(d) Social Differentiation — Group Segregation.

The second consequence of the law of Marginal Participation
Value, social differentiation, is closely connected with the
phenomena of social value movements which we have been
considering. The tendency to complete universalisation and
expansion which is inherent in social dispositions is followed
by loss of participation value and by value movements to new
objects. In these movements appear new group formations
and contrasts, with acquirement of complementary value through
these contrasts. In the sphere of objective social values also
we find, within certain limits, a modification of the law of Mar
ginal Participation Value similar to the modification of instru
mental values in other spheres, — through acquirement of intrinsic
complementary value.1

Social differentiation, group segregation, consists in the
unification and organisation of a group about some ideal end.
It is the product of two factors, the tendency to complete ex
pansion and homogeneity inherent in imitation and sympathetic
participation, and the tendency to individuation and intensi
fication of sympathetic feeling through contrast. The first
factor produces social habit. Aspiring values become normal
and normal values become outlived. But this process is held
in check by individuation of the group through idealisation
and contrast. The processes here involved are in principle the

1 Chap, vi, pp. 171 ff.

340 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

same as those employed in the idealisation of the person. The
disposition in question is assumed to be universalised within a
group, a class, a race, a party, etc., and this homogeneity is
deepened through contrast with opposing groups. Such ideal
construction may go so far as to individuate the opposing groups
about the negative, evil dispositions and ends, in which case,
by a well-known contrast-effect, the negative elements are ex
truded, and the unity of the group idealised. We have already
seen how this individuation and isolation of the group is to a
degree possible in organic sympathy. For short periods, and
in connection with fundamental desires and passions, the soli
darity of the group may be complete, and the sympathy may
be intensified by group contrast. But such isolation is only
temporary, and the presumption of homogeneity is likely soon
to lose its force and to prove illusory. More important in
creating permanent assumptions of group solidarity are the
idealisations of the group through aesthetic and religious con
structions, which we shall presently study in detail. Through
these ideal constructions groups are organised about the aspiring
and outlived values, and these objects acquire an intrinsic
meaning for the individual group which is quite apart from their
objective instrumental value.

This is but a special application of the general law according
to which instrumental values, on becoming intrinsic, acquire
complementary value. As the law of Marginal Utility for objects
of instrumental value, more especially for wealth in general,
was seen to be modified in certain significant ways, i.e., a
quantity of wealth acquires a complementary intrinsic value,
not found in the instrumental value of the parts, so we find
a similar modification of the law of Marginal Participation Value.
The valuation of a sum of money as a whole, where the separate
instrumental judgments are suppressed, where its indefinite
applicability to condition and personal worths is assumed,
and where it is referred immediately to the personality, gives to
the sum of money, as a unity, an intrinsic value which may
greatly exceed its actual instrumental value. In a similar
way, when an over-individual good, a social disposition with
participation value, is identified with a group, and assumed to
be universalised in that group, it acquires an intrinsic worth
which goes beyond the limits of instrumental valuation. Emo
tional participation is extended beyond the limits set by the
working of the law of instrumental judgments. Doubtless

Objects of Impersonal Over- Individual Value 341

the specialised dispositions and ideals of special groups and
classes all have had, or still have, certain instrumental values
for society at large. The specialised dispositions of military
classes, the ideals of free expression of the artist class, the ideals
of contemplation and renunciation of religious orders, all have
instrumental values for society. But in every case their value
is conditional upon their not being universalised.

There can be no doubt that the condition of the highest
realisation of participation value is group segregation. How far
this individuation or isolation of a group may go in the direction
of creating absolute permanent worths, and what are the limits
of the process, we shall have occasion to consider, but that
it is a factor to be reckoned with in accounting for the phenomena
of actual social values, and the individual's participation in them,
is clear. For, not only does it come in to modify, at least tem
porarily, the inevitable tendency of all social values to pass into
social habit where emotional participation ceases, and thus to
maintain in the form of group worths the class described as
outlived, longer than would otherwise be possible, but it also,
by its intensification of aspiring worths, enhances their value.
Moreover, it affords the conditions for the intensification of
personal worths, or, from a more objective point of view, for
the development of great personalities.

If we may make use of a biological analogy, with a distinct
consciousness of its purely suggestive value, this group isola
tion may be compared to isolation in the sphere of natural
selection. There it is generally recognised that, in order that
a new variation may be fixed in the species, isolation of the
species, either through environmental conditions or the im
possibility of breeding with other species, must be assumed.
Otherwise the variation would soon be lost again through pan
mixia. In a somewhat similar manner, in order that there may
be continuance of intrinsic valuation of definite and fixed atti
tudes, isolation of groups is necessary, or at least contributory.
Here we have the springs of class jealousy, once group segrega
tion has taken place. Social pan-mixia, the breaking down of
class barriers, makes impossible that fixity and contrast of ideals
which constitute the condition of many personal and group values.
Such class jealousy often connects itself with the preservation and
isolation of ideals and standards which, from the point of view of
wider, more impersonal judgment, seem fictitious, as, for instance,
in the case of the seemingly fine spun and arbitrary notions of

342 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

honour which characterise certain classes. They are indeed
fictitious, but only in the sense that many personal values are, in
that they are ideal constructions made in the interest of con
tinuity of valuation. As the primitive tribesman finds himself
in the arbitrary and conventional tribal marks which adorn his
brother's person, so individuals of a later civilisation find in
intrinsic and conventional attitudes those contrasts and oppo
sitions which deepen, if they do not broaden, the feeling of
participation.

It is not necessary to insist at any length upon the fact that
we are not here concerned in the least with any evaluation of
these phenomena, with the determination of the teleology or
dys-teleology of social differentiation. Whether salvation consists,
as with Tolstoi, in wiping out these fictitious values and getting
back to those which are most universal and primitive, however
that may be conceived to be possible, or as with Nietzsche, in
affirming still more distinctly these same segregating attitudes, or
as with Guyau, and in a more scientific way with Simmel, in
bringing about an ordered continuum of social values in which
the individual can easily pass from one to the other, is a problem
of social philosophy and practice. Our interest is merely in the
psychological processes involved in social differentiation.1

4. The Limits of Participation Value of Dispositions — The
Question of Absolute Social Values.

The consideration of these laws of social synergy— the law
of Marginal Participation Value, and its two corollaries with
reference to value movement and group formation and differ
entiation — would seem to lead to the conclusion that the
social over-individual value of qualities and dispositions of
persons, no less than of economic goods, is always relative,
the degree of value being relative to the quantity of the dis-

1 The phenomena of social differentiation have ordinarily been studied from the
objective point of view, as an extra-psychic, social fact, part of the order of
nature. Viewed in this way, apart from the value consciousness of the individuals
involved, it has been studied in two aspects : (a) causally and genetically, as the
product of sub-conscious forces of selection, defined now as economic, now as
biological, now as a combination of the two, — as a product, in other words, of a
specification of functions ; or (b) logically, or, perhaps better, ideologically, in that
the thinker seeks to rationalise, and sanction, social segregation by showing that
such differentiation is instrumental to the realisation of some abstractly defined good-
according to one or other of the hypotheses most in vogue, the idealistic or the
hedonistic, either the fullest ideal life or a maximum of pleasure or utility. With
neither of these aspects of the problem are we primarily concerned. Both types of
explanation are, strictly speaking, extra-psychological.

Objects of Impersonal Over- Individual Value 343

position or the degree of its universalisation. This, if true, would
exclude the possibility that any disposition, no matter how funda
mental, should acquire absolute social value. The very fact
that, as social, the value is instrumental and not intrinsic would
necessitate this consequence. From this it would follow that
judgments of value of the individual, in so far as they are im
personal and moral and reflect actual over-individual value,
would be always relative and' never absolute, as in the case of
personal worths.

Nevertheless, while this conclusion seems to be inevitable —
and we shall find it substantiated by an analysis of the concrete
phenomena of impersonal moral judgments of obligation and
imputation, we cannot accept the conclusion without further
analysis. It is at least conceivable that, as in the case of personal
worths, so here, a disposition having social value may become
intrinsically valued, and thus acquire absolute complementary
value. If it is impossible that a social good should attain abso
lute participation value, and that the moral obligation to that good
should be unconditional, it is still conceivable that the abstract
moral point of view might be so modified by other activities of
valuation, as, for instance, aesthetic and religious, that the
instrumental value might become intrinsic and acquire absolute
complementary value. In the sphere of personal values the
ethical reaches an absolute moment through aesthetic characteri
sation. There, we found, in the very processes of characterisa
tion are contained the necessary presuppositions of absolute
personal worths, the aesthetic isolation of the individual, the
suppression of instrumental judgments and repose in the object.
The hypothesis of absolute personal worths was then found
substantiated in the actual judgments of personal obligation
and merit. May it not be that in the processes of social partici
pation and ideal construction there are similar activities creating
absolute values ?

In the foregoing study of social sympathy and its consequent
ideal constructions, we have already had occasion to call atten
tion to the fact that, while the normal law of social sympathy,
as determined by its conditions, is that with the increase of the
range of sympathy the degree of sympathy decreases, neverthe
less, this law is modified by group isolation and contrast. Simi
larly, it appeared that through this group isolation and contrast
the conditions are realised which make possible, within limits at
least, the individuating reconstruction of the group and the

344 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

acquirement of complementary value. The question for con
sideration now is, how far this individuating construction may
go in this direction.

There are two types of social ideal construction or idealisation
which create complementary values and extend the range of
social participation and valuation, the aesthetic and the religious.
In the beginning strictly limited in their scope, confined to the
function of enhancement of group and racial values, the range
of their constructions has expanded until some aesthetic and
religious idealisations lay claim to absolute and universal validity,
on the one hand as expressing the purely and simply " human," on
the other as having reached the divine. How far these construc
tions are able to create absolute social values we must now decide.

Taking up the problem from the side of aesthetic idealisation,
there can be do doubt, it would seem, that aesthetic feeling
does extend immensely the capacity for social participation —
both in intensity and expansion. In the chapter on Value
Movement * we had occasion to criticise one view of the origin
and nature of aesthetic attitudes and constructions which, because
of their great significance for the expansion of social sentiment
and its maintenance on a high level of intensity, sought the con
ditions of aesthetic expression wholly within the social. While
we were compelled to look for the presuppositions of the move
ment toward the aesthetic in the individual, and thus to criticise
the merely social theory of its origin, we did not ignore its sig
nificance as a vehicle for the extension of social sympathy.
In smaller groups, and on the level of emotional contagion —
where the inducing conditions of sympathetic participation
are largely perceptual, as in the dance of primitive peoples—
this function of art is very much in evidence. On the higher
ideational level also, and in much larger social groups, national
and racial, where the sentiment shared is a funded meaning of
some great over-individual ideal, there may arise something
which may quite properly be described as a racial assumption
of the reality of that ideal and of its complete expansion.
In that racial assumption the individual may feel an absolute
over-individual worth, and may realise the moments of inner
peace and sublimity. All this may be admitted, and yet, when
we examine more closely the forms in which this great group
faith or illusion incorporates itself, the inherent incapacity of
the aesthetic to make social worths absolute shows itself.

1 Chap, vii, pp. 221 f.

Objects of Impersonal Over- Individual Value 345

The very condition of aesthetic repose is individuation
and isolation. Only thus can an object acquire immanental
worth, only thus are the instrumental judgments which other
wise determine the worth of the object, and which give us only
relative value, suppressed. But this individuation and isola
tion is possible only when the racial ideal, the virtue or capacity,
is incorporated in some great individual, the "hero," or in some
relatively small group. The meaning of the ideal in all its
fullness can be expressed only by limiting its expansion. Thus
all great racial art which approximates to the expression of
absolute worths is essentially monarchical or aristocratic. A
democratic art, in the sense that it may be shared, is possible —
it may be actually prevalent and generally appreciated, — but in
the sense that it represents only that which is common and
undifferentiated in human nature, it is a contradiction in terms.

An interesting proof of this position from the negative side
is to be found in the incapacity of aesthetic social ideal con
structions to create illusion. Utopian pictures of a society in
which the social worths or worth dispositions, which now have
value merely instrumentally with reference to social need and
demand, are universalised — where communism not only of goods
but of ideals abounds, where altruism reigns, although no longer
needed, and justice without injustice to be righted — leave us
strangely cold. The reasons for this incapacity of impersonal
social ideals for the acquirement of intrinsic immanental worth
are to be found, not only in the fact that such constructions
must remain abstract and conceptual, but also because it is
impossible for us to assume their existence, or at least rest in the
assumption, with any degree of belief. The emotional con
ditions of belief are wanting, and intellectually, the assumption
of the indefinite applicability of these dispositions to social
ends, when subjected to scrutiny, will not maintain itself. It is
only when, as in the case of the religious ideal of the Kingdom
of Heaven, the ideal is made supernatural — when, i.e., the assump
tion underlying the aesthetic contemplation is frankly detached
from empirical conditions and is grounded in a supernatural
personality, contrasted with the entire system of nature, that
belief is possible.

This incapacity of purely impersonal over-individual worths
for aesthetic idealisation does not, however, prevent them from
being the object of absolute immanental worth for individuals
and groups. The relatively complete expansion of an aspiring

346 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

worth, or even an outlived social worth, within homogeneous
groups, may create the illusion of complete universalisation.
The conditions here are favourable to the isolation and indi-
viduation of the group which would make possible such an
assumption. The very contrast and opposition of such groups,
as Utopian societies and saintly orders, afford the conditions
for such a degree of intensification and expansion of these worths
within the group as to arrest critical existential and instru
mental judgments, and to favour the assumption of actual
realisation. These conditions are indeed favourable to the
realisation of personal worths of elevation and inner peace,
but they are then no longer impersonal.

Religious construction is closely connected with aesthetic in
that it projects its social worths into ideal personalities, but
it shows this important difference that, whereas the aesthetic
construction is all directed toward repose in a worth already
realised, toward an hypostatisation of the immanental tendency
in worth experience, the religious construction is, in its purest
form, directed toward making absolute the transgredient
moment. As such, it projects the over-individual worth into
a person or persons with whom the individual or society is in
volitional relations. This difference appears in the different
role which the negative moment plays in the two constructions.
In the aesthetic constructions the tendency is simply to eliminate
or ignore opposing tendencies as illusion-disturbing moments.
In the religious consciousness, before it is affected by philo
sophical reflection, the tendency is to intensify the conscious
ness of the reality of the ideal by opposing it to certain negative
forces to which equal reality is ascribed. In both cases value
is intensified by contrast and detachment, but the result is
attained in different ways.

Now, in so far as religious construction is a social phenomenon,
it is clear that it is simply an extension of sympathetic
projection. If it is true, as comparative religion seems to in
dicate, that " fear first made the gods," if the first projection
beyond the social group, in over-social persons or forces, is
that of the negative or opposing moment, such a fact is easily
understood on the basis of our analysis. The dispositions with
participation value remain longest instinctive and intra-social
because they constitute the attitudes and dispositions which
through sub-social forces were selected and fixed as the
instinctive basis of participation. But once the negative

Objects of Impersonal Over- Individual Value 347

dispositions have been projected, the positive or good dis
positions with participation value soon follow. From this
point on the process is fairly clear. The persons of the gods
in whom the worth dispositions are projected correspond at
first directly with group distinctions. Tribal or national
gods are the good gods, the bad deities being the gods of the
enemy. The highest form of religious construction, on the
social side, is attained when the racial limits are transcended
and the god becomes one god and the god of all men. It would
seem, then, that in the religious construction we have the possi
bility of the universalisation of over-individual values, and at
the same time of emotional participation of the individuals
in these values, which is the real condition of absolute worth.
If in the religious consciousness group limits may really be trans
cended, and if in the ideal constructions of religion we have an
object for universal emotional participation, we have a situation
of the greatest possible significance, for we have here the possi
bility of an absolute over-individual demand for participation,
and such participation would have absolute not relative value.
Does the religious consciousness really transcend these limits ?

In order that there may be emotional social participation
in these over-individual constructions, two conditions seem
to be requisite : (i) the personalisation of the deity, and (2)
the opposition of the deity to negative tendencies, preferably
personalities. The religious consciousness, if it is to be both
emotional and social, cannot transcend these limits. I mean
by this to say that there may be a certain type of emotional
participation of the individual in a being conceived to transcend
these limits, but the moral and social sphere has been left behind.
Attempts have been, and are constantly being made, in the in
terests both of purely intellectual and of worth continuity, to
transcend these limits ; and these efforts take the form of a panthe
istic monism in which the fundamental notes are universalisation
of some worth attribute and abstraction from anthropomorphic
personal and group limits. It is with these constructions only
in so far as they are worth constructions, and with their capacity
for becoming objects of absolute worth, that we are here con
cerned. When viewed in this aspect, as a worth construction
which shall at the same time be completely over-personal and
the object of worth feeling, the process is seen to be self-defeating.

The facts which show this may, for the sake of emphasis,
be put in the form of a dilemma, which may be described as the

348 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

dilemma of all pantheistic worth constructions. When the
worth attribute, whether it be pure reason — and reason in these
constructions is always a worth attribute — or some ineffable
form of experience which transcends reason, is thus universalised
and made absolute, one of two things happens. Either it
ceases to be a worth construction with any intrinsic meaning
whatever, and becomes a purely instrumental intellectual con
struction, or else it passes from the sphere of impersonal worth
objects into the region of the subjective and personal. In either
case it has transcended the region of the moral. In the great
historic pantheistic constructions this emotional logic is every
where apparent. Hinduism can attain the purely impersonal
worth object only through atheism, and the object thus created
can remain an object of feeling only by becoming identified
with the self, as in the famous phrase, " That art thou ! " The
attempt to make absolute the over-individual worth construction
reduces the social moral world to illusion, and in the moment
of attainment it is no longer an impersonal but a personal worth
of inner peace that is achieved.1

We are justified, then, in concluding this study with the
statement that religious construction in its social aspect may,
like the purely aesthetic construction, enhance the consciousness of
over-individual value, but it cannot transcend the laws inherent
in social construction. Religion may give complementary
values to social ends, and intensify the feeling of social obli
gation, but to do so it must remain dualistic and anthropo
morphic. This dualism is overcome in moments of contempla
tion and faith, but the condition of these experiences is Einfiih-
lung in its aesthetic individuating form, not impersonal partici
pation. The personal and impersonal values fuse in an absolute
intrinsic value. As immediate, it is over-personal and over-
social in its meaning. But it still remains a personal value in
the sense that it is only as a practical absolute, as the limit of
a series of personal experiences, that it has axiological meaning
and validity.

Whether this implies that personality in its aesthetic and

1 The intellectual love of Spinoza and the cosmic emotion of Clifford are also doubt
less real, or at least possible, experiences, in which absolute immanental worth is
attained, but it is a personal worth with which we are concerned in both cases. Such
emotion does not attach to the purely impersonal world order when abstracted from
the subject which constructs and individuates it. The mechanical world order, the
immensities of space and time are, as such, worthless. It is only when the soul
whispers to itself, in varied dialects to be sure, the magical and mystical words, " That
art thou" that the "that" acquires worth.

Objects of Impersonal Over- Individual Value 349

religious form is the highest category of worth experience we
need not here inquire— since our interest is confined to the
dynamics of valuation. If it is, it must take up into it all the
meanings of the social consciousness. What we must insist
upon is that religious and aesthetic experiences have axiological
validity, and are not merely empty mysticism, only in so far as
they retain as their content and indispensable presuppositions,
the meanings acquired in personal participation. It is as means'
of enlargement, not loss, of personality that they have signifi
cance.

CHAPTER XII

OVER-INDIVIDUAL VALUES (Continued).

I. INTERPRETATION OF CONCRETE MORAL JUDGMENTS IN THE
LIGHT OF THE PRECEDING ANALYSIS AND THEORY

The Problem.

WE come now to the study of the concrete phenomena of moral
judgment which must test the truth of the preceding theory —
the analysis of judgments of moral obligation and imputation.1
If moral values are actual values, determined by processes of
social participation and by the laws of social synergy, then
these judgments should reflect, in their qualitative and quantita
tive aspects alike, the expectations and demands created by
these processes. The situation here is entirely similar to that
which presented itself in the sphere of personal worths. As a
result of our study of their genesis, certain laws were developed,
and these were shown to be reflected in the phenomena of per
sonal obligation and imputation. A theory of the nature and
laws of moral values has likewise been developed, and the phe
nomena of moral judgment, if we succeed in isolating them,
should reflect these laws. More specifically, since moral values
are the objective participation values of dispositions, and since
these values are by their very nature subject to the law of Mar
ginal Participation Value, we should expect the moral judgment
to reflect in its quantitative aspects the operations of this law.
An analysis of the empirical laws of moral judgment will show
this hypothesis to be justified.

i. The Object of Moral Judgments — The Morally Qualified Act.

The prerequisites of such an empirical study are, as we have
seen in a similar analysis of personal worths, the isolation of

1 For similar studies of these phenomena, and also for some of the terminology used
in this discussion, the reader may be referred to Meinong, Psych. -Ethisch. Unter-
suchungen zur Werttheorie, chap, ill of Part II (Vom moralischen Sollen) ; also
Ehrenf'els, System der Werttheorie, Part II, pp. 195-205 ; also Simmel, Einleitung in
die Moralwissenschaft, Vol. II, p. 323.

35°

Over- Individual Values 351

the object of judgment, the fixation of the terms in which esti
mation of moral value takes place, and the definition of the
presupposed demand in terms of its norms and limits — that is,
the limits within which the estimation moves.

The definition of the morally qualified object, as already
given, isolates the phenomena in a preliminary way. The
morally qualified act we found to be an act which expresses a
disposition to impersonal participation, the response to an
impersonal demand. The morally qualified judgment upon
such an act is one in which abstraction is made from all sub
jective and personal elements, and which reflects a disposition
to judgment as determined solely by the over-individual de
mand. It is the judgment of the " impartial spectator." Further
studies have, however, caused us to modify this definition
somewhat. If, as has appeared, over-individual demands,
to be felt at all, must be related to the concrete interests of
a group and can never be wholly abstract and universal, then,
strictly speaking, there is no purely impersonal participation
and no wholly impartial spectator. The morally qualified
act and the morally qualified judgment, as at first defined,
would alike be ideal limits never actually realised. This con
clusion we may admit. The moral value of an act is always
an actual social value, and the demand presupposed by moral
obligation toward such an act, and by moral judgment upon it,
always represents a concrete, relative value determined by the
laws of social synergy. Moral values are actual, not ideal,
as in the case of personal values. To this statement the " ideal
society " for which the reformer works seems to present a con
tradiction. The values there are ideal, and at the same time
apparently moral and social. Nevertheless, the contradiction
is only apparent. In so far as they are ideal they are per
sonal and intrinsic. The reformer's utopia may be intrinsically
desirable, but it cannot yet be determined whether the ideal
can be actualised. Only those ideals which have already been
at least partially actualised, and have taken form in an over-
individual demand, institutional, legal, or social, can form a
standard for an impartial judgment of the actual moral value
of an act. Thus even the reformer who works for ideal con
ditions would hesitate to judge the men of his time by any other
than the best actualised standards.1

1 Even when the "radical" promulgates ideals and standards in opposition to the
social valuations of his time, and seeks to organise groups about these ideals, he does

352 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

2. The Terms of Estimation of Moral Value — Egoism and Altruism.

All estimation of relative value, we have repeatedly seen,
takes place in terms of two variables : affirmation of conative
tendency and its arrest, which stand for the positive and negative
moments. In the case of impersonal judgment upon impersonal
participation, the positive factor is the tendency to participate
in over-individual trends, to contribute to over-individual
goods, while the negative moments are the " condition " and
" personal " worths which may arrest this tendency to par
ticipate. In estimating the participation value of the act we
measure its positive altruistic quality in terms of the strength
of the egoistic tendencies sacrificed for the altruistic.

It will be observed that in this social or moral reckoning
the distinction between condition and personal worths, funda
mental in personal imputation, becomes irrelevant, and both
are subsumed under the general term of egoistic tendencies and
dispositions, a clear indication of the process of abstraction
by which the impersonal point of view is reached. The dispo
sitions described as altruistic may include attitudes or tendencies
to participate which display different degrees of impersonality.
Thus one may sacrifice individual ends for the good of another
individual, for the good of a limited group, or for relatively
abstract social ends. But the essential of such participation
is that there be some contrast between individual and over-
individual good — otherwise we have purely personal relations
and personal worths. The extreme of altruism, as understood
in this reckoning, is the case where the object or person for which
the sacrifice is made is so remote from our personal sympathies
that the participation is wholly unemotional.

Moral imputation, as distinct from personal and ethical,
is therefore, strictly speaking, judgment upon the act as thus
qualified. An act is said to be " correct," deserving or blame
worthy, according to the relation between the egoistic and
altruistic tendencies expressed by the act. These qualifications
of the act, and the degrees of emphasis with which they are

not seriously, in ordinary social relations at least, judge his fellows by these standards.
Except for purposes of pedagogical effect (as in the case of Bernard Shaw, perhaps), he
does not in actual situations go beyond the normal demand. His sense of humour, if
not of justice, and his intellectual apprehension of the principle of " economy of the
truth" (especially when the truth is so very inner and ideal) is usually sufficient to guard
him against such fallacies of worth judgment. Nietzsche's personal and social relations
are excellent illustrations of this fact.

Over- Individual Values 353

predicated, are, moreover, reducible to a function of these
positive and negative moments. But while moral judgment is
primarily upon the act, and upon the act as instrumental,
that is, as contributing to over-individual worths, the moral
judgment may easily pass over into the ethical and personal.
Altruism, as we have seen, may be judged both as a personal
and a social worth ; and, while in the concrete worth experience
the two are not kept distinct, yet it is necessary for our scientific
purposes that they should be.

(a) The Amount of Altruistic Disposition as Measured by the

Character of the Individual Good Sacrificed.

If now we turn to a more specific examination of this reckon
ing in terms of egoism and altruism, we find that the dispositions
thus described may vary in several significant aspects, each
type of variation affecting the moral judgment, which is a function
of the two variables. In the first place, there is the amount of
the disposition to participate, as measured by the character of
the condition and personal worths sacrificed. Condition worths
may vary along the whole scale from the existence-minimum to
the wholly worthless, personal worths from the characterisation-
minimum, which is without capacity of substitution, to the most
superficial personal quality. As an illustration we may take the
case of the rescue of a human life (an act of high participation
value) : (a) by the sacrifice of a few hours of ease and pleasure ;

(b) by the risk of one's good name ; (c) by the loss of all one
values of condition and person, or even loss of life itself. If we
bring no other elements into the reckoning, it is obvious that
the degree of altruism is a steadily increasing one in these three
cases, and that, other things being equal, the moral value of the
act increases accordingly.

(b) As Measured by the Character of the Over-Individual Good for
which Sacrifice is Demanded.

A second factor enters into our estimation when we take
into account the character of the over-individual demand to
which the given act constitutes a response. This demand
differs : (a) according to the nearness or remoteness of the object
from personal or group sympathies; and (b) according to the

2 A

354 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

degree to which the demand for the object has become uni-
versalised. The latter factor we may call the " coefficient of
projection or participation," by which is meant the character of
the demand as representing a normal, aspiring, or outlived
value.

In the first case, the nearness or remoteness of the object
determines the emphasis of our judgment, of our positive judg
ment when the act takes place, of negative when the act is
omitted. Thus sacrifice of condition or personal worths for
one's child will receive less praise than sacrifice for a friend, for
an unknown man, or for an abstract principle. And, in the
same order, the failure to sacrifice will call out disapproval or
negative judgment — strong disapproval in the case of failure to
sacrifice for one's child, less and less disapproval as the objects
become more and more remote from the emotional participation
of the individual. Again it may be observed that our judg
ments take into account the projection co-efficient of the senti
ments, participation in which is demanded. Sacrifice for a
value which has already attained a high " expansion-coefficient,"
large social recognition, let us say duty to the family, integrity
in business, freedom in the State, is rated less highly than sacri
fices for worths which have attained less expansion, which are
not normal, but rather aspiring values, as, for instance, new
ideals of truth or social justice just beginning to be strongly felt.
It would appear, then, that when we take the attitude of the
impartial spectator we cannot abstract from a consideration of
the instrumental value of the sacrifice itself, i.e., from the relative
importance of the object sacrificed and of the over-individual
demand to which the sacrifice is a response. Altruism as a
social value is not possessed of the capacity of indefinite increase ;
its felt importance has a limit determined by the laws of social
participation already developed.

It cannot be denied, of course, that absolute sacrifice is actually
demanded of ourselves and others, that an act which is so insig
nificant as to be below the threshold of instrumental value may
not only become so important as to demand such sacrifices, but
the sacrifice may actually acquire absolute value, as was seen
in our study of personal worths. It is important to recognise,
however, that this value is no longer merely impersonal and over-
individual, that which it has for the impartial spectator, but is
a complementary value which is acquired through reference to
the concept of the personality or to quasi-personal constructions

Over- Individual Values 35 c

of the group or the nation, as an indispensable part of a total
complex. The merit imputed in such a case is not the reflex
of an over-individual demand, but of a personal demand which
arises through identification of the attitude with the personality
The importance of this will be especially apparent when we
come to study the laws of preference between personal and over-
individual worths.1

(c) The Significance of these Terms of Estimation.

When the results of this analysis are properly weighed
they are seen to constitute strong grounds for the hypothesis'
that moral judgments reflect the working of the laws of social
sympathy, and more specifically the law of Marginal Partici
pation Value. Estimation of the degree of moral value in terms
of the character of the individual good sacrificed and of the
over-individual end for which it is sacrificed, turns upon the
degree of concreteness and immediacy or abstractness and
remoteness of the goods and ends.

For, in the first place, this imputation of value in degrees
varying with the remoteness of the object from emotional
sympathetic participation, is precisely what we should expect
m the light of the law that intensity of sympathy decreases
with increase of the generality of resemblance. It means
simply that our sense of over-individual value is relative to
our capacity to represent in sympathetic projection the affective-
volitional meaning of others. Again, the variations in degree
f emphasis of the judgment, corresponding to the differences
in social sentiment described as normal, aspiring, and outlived
values, indicate the working of the same law, according to
which the intensity of an over-individual trend decreases with
its expansion. Where, as in the aspiring value, the intensity is
in excess of the expansion, there the emphasis is greater than in
the case where the relation of intensity to expansion is more
nearly normal. These are all aspects of the law of Marginal
Participation Value.2

1 Chap. xni.

356 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

II. THE THRESHOLDS AND NORMS OF MORAL JUDGMENT

These general facts with regard to the conditions which
determine the changes of emphasis in our moral judgments
being established, we may now turn £o a quantitative study of
these changes. And if the preceding analysis, largely qualitative,
made our hypothesis probable, the facts now to be considered
make this probability a practical certainty. In a general way
we have seen that, if no changes in the character of the over-
individual object be introduced, the moral value imputed to
the act, within certain limits which will presently be deter
mined, varies directly with the amount of sacrifice of condition
and personal worths. The question now arises whether this
variation, its laws and its limits, can be more accurately de
termined — in order that we may connect them with the psychical
processes which condition these judgments, and compare the
region of impersonal with that of personal worth judgment.

The first requisite of such a study is the determination of
conceptual points or thresholds from which the increase and
decrease of judgmental emphasis rise and fall. Two such
critical points may be distinguished. They may be described
as the Norm of Participation or the " correct," and the Partici
pation-Minimum. In general the correct represents the normal
expectation, fulfilment of which is accompanied by neither
praise nor blame. The minimum of participation represents
the smallest .quantity of a social good for which sacrifice of
individual good is demanded. These conceptual points are
in principle not difficult to determine, although, owing to changes
in social values, they are not always easy to define in a given
concrete situation.

i. The Norm of Participation or the "Correct" --The Normal
Expectation of Social Participation.

In defining the region of the " correct " the first thing to be
noted is that, in comparison with the normal threshold of
personal worth, it is much cruder, much less sensitive. The
sphere of the correct includes wider variations than the corre
sponding sphere in personal worth feeling. Praise and blame
come less quickly in impersonal than in personal valuation.
The " correct " in wider business circles allows of considerable

Over- Individual Values 357

variation from the standard demanded in personal intercourse.
The sacrifices of his personal interests for the larger interests of
his profession demanded of the physician as correct, may seem
quixotic, or be wholly unintelligible, to wider business groups. The
reason is not far to seek. Social and impersonal participation is
instrumental, and a display, either of egoism or altruism, does
not become significant, does not rise above the threshold of the
correct into the regions of praise and blame, until its importance
can be felt by the cruder sense of the multitude. But the fact
must not be overlooked that the region of the correct expands
and contracts with differentiation or fusion of sentiment, with
group segregation or combination.

The region of the correct in impersonal moral judgment
represents, then, the normal disposition to participate, the
normal sacrifice of egoistic to altruistic interests, whether for
individuals or for social ideals. In any particular case of moral
judgment, this norm of sacrifice is strictly relative to the sig
nificance of the over-individual object or ideal, as we have
defined that significance above,1 for which the sacrifice is made.
The disposition normally expected is, therefore, a direct product
of the laws of social synergy as we have defined them.

2. The Participation-Minimum — The Lower Threshold.

At the point of the correct there is no imputation of praise or
blame. To remain in the social niveau is not meritorious, and,
by reason of the crudeness of the social sense at this point,
slight variations in excess or defect of the normal are not readily
marked. But as the variations increase the judgments of praise
and blame appear. As the altruistic disposition to sacrifice
increases, so within certain limits the judgments of praise also
increase. This increase of altruism may, as we have seen, be
measured in two ways : either in terms of the character of the
over-individual object for which sacrifice is made, or in terms
of the character of the individual good sacrificed. Now, measured
in either way, there is a limit to the praise imputed for the per
formance of an act or of blame for its omission. This limit is
the participation-minimum already described, the minimum of
the over-individual good for which sacrifice is demanded, or,
what amounts to the same thing, the maximum of sacrifice of in
dividual good demanded. When this minimum for participation

1 Cf. above, pp. 353 f.

35 ^ Valuation : its Nature and Laws

is reached, in so far as the praise or blame is purely moral or
impersonal, the performance of the act is not praised and its
omission not blamed.

The existence and function of this participation-minimum
appears clearly in certain concrete cases. The demand for truth
fulness, respect for property, and benevolence, are more or less
completely universalised sentiments. But, from an impersonal,
impartial point of view, we do not expect a man to sacrifice
important personal interests, or ultimately life itself, for a
merely formal adherence to an insignificant truth. Neither
do we expect him to make such sacrifice for the comfort of
a total stranger, nor to suffer pain or death rather than ap
propriate an insignificant object to which his name is not at
tached.

III. JUDGMENTS OF IMPUTATION AND OBLIGATION—
AS RELATED TO THESE NORMS AND LIMITS

i. Imputation of Praise and Blame.

The minimum for participation represents that minimum of
the over-individual good beyond which sacrifice is not demanded
by the impartial spectator, and the demand for sacrifice falls
off as the good approaches this minimum. Any exhibition
of altruistic disposition in excess of this demand will then be
supra-normal. Let us see how the judgments of praise and
blame are constituted at this point.

A disposition in excess of the normal may, for reasons which
we have seen, not be noticeable at first, but when it becomes
apparent it calls out judgments of praise, for the very good
reason that in general altruism is in demand. But the increase
of the disposition is not accompanied by a corresponding in
crease in the degree of praise. Altruism, as a social good, is
not susceptible of indefinite increase. As the excess of the
disposition in proportion to the object becomes more and more
marked, the judgmental emphasis begins to fall off, and finally
a point is reached where praise passes over into blame. A good
illustration is that of the mother who persists in sacrificing im
portant personal and condition worths, health, strength, and
her own interests of various kinds, for minor worths of the child.
In such a case the moral value of the act decreases relatively to
the excess of the sacrifice over the normal, and threatens to

Over -Individual Values 359

pass over into the region of the blameworthy. In the same
manner failure to sacrifice is accompanied by judgments of
blame, but with less and less emphasis until, as the minimum is
reached, the failure becomes negligible.

How different all this is from personal imputation is patent.
There it was precisely at these points, at the minima of char
acterisation (and of participation also when the over-individual
good is identified with the person), that absolute worths ap
peared. Thus in the case of the preceding illustration of the
mother, if we participate in her act emotionally, that is, isolate
her aesthetically from the social value-process, an absolute
sacrifice for a trivial end may acquire absolute value. In such
a case we have intrinsic valuation of the mother as such, repose
in the idea, and the principles of intellectual imputation are
transcended. The ethical theorist might say — upon reflection—
that the reason the moral judgment takes this form is that, as
a result of her excessive sacrifice for the child, other services to
society at large, and even to the child itself, are made impossible
— more important values of the same kind, are sacrificed to lower.
Such a logical relation, such an ultimate harmony of ends and
norms, may conceivably be worked out by a philosophy of ethical
values, but the presuppositions of concrete judgments are not
derived reflectively, but result from the working of the empirical
laws of valuation.

In this connection another fact, already noted in the preceding
chapter, is significant. In personal characterisation the emo
tional accompaniments of the act are relevant. In immediate
personal participation we infer the disposition presupposed
from the emotional expressions which constitute the inducing
grounds of our sympathetic participation. Whether the act
of participation is accompanied by passive participation, lively
sympathy, apparent readiness to offer oneself, or enthusiastic
sacrifice, is a question of decided moment. A person with sensi
tive feeling for personal worths would prefer — and rate higher—
an insignificant act with evidence of gracious insight and feeling,
to a much more important act done with a sullen, or even cool,
sense of duty. There is ample room for the " pathetic fallacy "
here, yet most of us prefer our illusions because of their fruitful-
ness for life and faith. But these very accompaniments, so
significant in emotional imputation, are irrelevant for the im
personal imputation of moral judgment. A minimum of dis
position requisite for the bringing forth of the normal act is

360 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

demanded, but all beyond that is more or less irrelevant. I say
" more or less," for while it is, in a measure, taken into account,
because the impersonal judgment is never pure, nevertheless,
the value imputed to these manifestations is far from being in
proportion to the excess of disposition displayed. When a man
is righteous overmuch, the excess is but grudgingly acknowledged
and approved by social judgment.

2. Moral Obligation.

When we turn to the more internal aspect of the over-individual
demand, as it finds expression in the individual's sense of
impersonal demand or obligation to participate, we find the
same general laws at work, determining the conditions of the
demand's being felt at all and the intensity with which it is felt.
Oligation being but the reverse side of imputation of praise
and blame, this is what we should expect ; and, while it is per
haps more difficult to isolate impersonal from instinctive and
personal obligations than to distinguish between personal and
impersonal imputation, nevertheless, the phenomena are suf
ficiently distinguishable to enable us to show the working of
these laws, the laws of actual over-individual values.

a) It Reflects Actual Objective Participation Values.

In conformity with the nature of moral values as actual,
we find that, in order that impersonal obligation may be felt
at all, there must be as a necessary presupposition the judgment
of the existence of an actual over-individual demand. More
over, and this is still more significant, there must be presupposed
the certainty, probability, or at least possibility, of the act
in question being instrumental to the realisation of the over-
individual social end. The degree of obligation decreases accord
ing as the judgment is one of certainty, probability, or mere
possibility, and lapses entirely with the judgment of impossi
bility. This condition of impersonal obligation, which a further
analysis of the facts will clearly show to exist, is in striking
contrast to the conditions of personal obligation, where, as we
have seen, the feeling of obligation to personal ideals is not so
conditioned.

A vivid characterisation of the critical point at which over-
individual obligation lapses is given in Robert Louis Stevenson's

Over-Individual Values 361

fable of the two men on the sinking ship. The captain of the
sinking ship, it must be premised, has just found one of the
hands smoking in the powder magazine. " ' For my own poor part,'
says the captain, ' I should despise a man who, even on board
a sinking ship, should omit to take a pill or to wind his watch.
That, my friend, would not be the human attitude ! ' 'I beg
pardon, sir,' said Mr. Spoker, ' but what is precisely the differ
ence between shaving in a sinking ship and smoking in the
powder magazine ? ' 'Or doing anything at all in any con
ceivable circumstances ? ' cried the captain. ' Perfectly con
clusive. Give me a cigar ! ' Two minutes after the ship blew
up with a glorious detonation." With the lapsing of all possi
bility of there being social significance to the act, lapsed all
obligation toward the ordinary duties of life. Personal obliga
tions, the captain would probably admit, still remain. Just as
one may not be nasty in the dark, so when courage is of no more
avail, we do not expect a man to lose his personal worth of man
liness. Obligations of the instinctive, appreciative order, of
strength, etc., also still remain. But with the lapsing of the possi
bility of realisation of over-individual good, all social obligation
lapses.

The situation is brought out still more clearly in the obligation
to vote at an election. The feeling of obligation is undoubtedly
strongest, other moments being neglected, when the vote is
thought to have almost certainly an effect upon the election.
As that certainty decreases, the feeling of obligation, in so far
as it is impersonal, also decreases until a point is reached where
it may lapse entirely. This situation may arise in two ways.
Either there may be so many voting the same way as to make
the individual's vote negligible ; or else, through corrupt prac
tices, the effect of the vote may be nullified. If the individual
is absolutely certain that his vote wiU be of no effect, ordinarily
his feeling of social obligation lapses. It is quite possible, of
course, that personal and narrower group obligations may still
persist. He may owe it to himself to fulfil his duty. Loyalty
to a class ideal, or even to an abstract principle, as an object
of personal worth, may still influence him, but his feeling of
obligation loses that over-individual reference which charac
terises impersonal obligation. This accounts, it would seem,
for that peculiar sense of futility which the principle of " per
formance for performance's sake " arouses in us when it is justified

1 Quoted from Taylor, The Problem of Conduct, p. 265.

362 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

merely by reference to future and indirect instrumental values.
The fear that failure to do one's abstract duty completely, even
when there is no point in doing it, may lead to undermining of
a good habit, seems to be a form of unworthy timidity. The
robust conscience, to use Ibsen's phrase, lets the good habit
take care of itself. But the intrinsic value of the act at the
moment — its purely personal value — is another matter.

(b) It Reflects the Norms and Limits of Objective
Participation Value.

Moral obligation is intimately related to moral praise and
blame. It is the more subjective aspect of the demand pre
supposed in moral judgments. There must, accordingly, be
a definite relation between the degree of strength or intensity
of the feeling of obligation and the degree of emphasis of moral
judgments of praise and blame. We have already seen that
the degree of praise and blame is determined by certain norms
and limits, the norm and minimum of participation. How is
the intensity of obligation related to these ?

In studying the phenomena of imputation it was found
that the norm of participation represents the zero-point. To re
main in the social niveau is not meritorious. Those who perform
the normal duties of life, who fulfil the normal expectations,
both as to the quality and amount of disposition displayed,
acquire no merit except through contrast with exceptional
demoralisation. But when we turn to the more subjective
aspect of the situation, impersonal obligation, we find that
it is precisely at this region of the " correct " that the feeling of
impersonal obligation is most intense and emphatic. Moreover,
the intensity of the obligation falls off as the quantity of the
object, the social good, approaches the participation minimum,
or as the object passes out of the region of the normal into that
of the supra-normal, where the values are ideal and aspiring,
and the disposition to sacrifice is beyond the normal. In these
cases the obligation to participate is less and less intense ; while,
as the distance from the region of the correct increases, the
neglect or refusal to participate appears more and more
admissible.

The facts of the moral life bear out this analysis, and the
reasons for the facts are not far to seek. Even a limited ob
servation convinces one that in those cases where the objective

Over-Individual Values 363

social demand appears in its purest form, in those cases, namely,
where men of action and affairs live the unreflecting life of their
day and class, uncomplicated by more general and ideal re
flections — it is the acts which represent the " sacred average,"
in some cases of the race, in others of a class, which mark the
limits of social obligation and effort. It is what " one does,"
and even more emphatically, what " one does not," in other
words the correct, which constitutes the whole duty of man.
To the achievement of this necessary minimum all conscious
moral effort is devoted, the rest being left to the control of obli
gations of an instinctive kind. Strongly confirmatory of this
view is the fact that in more developed, as well as in more primi
tive communities, the conventional demands of ceremonial
morality and of etiquette are easily confused with the more
strictly moral. It has been said that one's conscience often
pricks him more severely for a faux pas than for a sin, and,
while this is perhaps not quite true, it is still true enough to
indicate that it is at the correct, the habitual, that the stress of
the over-individual demand is chiefly felt, often irrespective of
the question of the ends which the social demand subserves.

The reason for these characteristics of impersonal obligation
is to be found in the fact that, in the main, the correct or the par
ticipation norm represents the indispensable minimum of social
participation and cohesion. Its value is instrumental and not
intrinsic, and consequently increase of the disposition above the
amount demanded, while it has value, becomes progressively
less and less significant. It is for this reason also that law, with
its legal norms, is almost wholly concerned with giving additional
sanctions to the average normal duties, with the preservation of
the indispensable minimum of moral or altruistic dispositions.
The objective value of this minimum, experience has shown;
but it would be impossible to predict what changes in value
would follow the enforcement by law of more personal and in
dividual obligations. We may conclude then that moral obli
gation, as well as the moral judgments of praise and blame,
reflects actual participation values as determined by the laws of
social synergy.

(c) Moral Obligation is Relative — not Absolute.

But with this conclusion we find ourselves, it cannot be denied,
in apparent conflict with the supposed " moral sense," and with

364 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

much of ethical theory. Moral obligation often seems to reflect
in terms of feeling an absolutely impersonal, over-individual
law, universal and necessary. Such is Kant's categorical im
perative, which he thinks he finds attached to attitudes and dis
positions demanding complete universalisation, not realising,
apparently, that the condition of this demand being felt at all
is precisely the lack of universalisation. Clearly in such a
situation one of two things must be true. Either our entire
theory of moral values, and the analysis of facts upon which it
rests, must be at fault, or else this supposed deliverance of the
moral sense, and with it the theory based thereon, must represent
some distortion of the worth consciousness, some misinterpre
tation of the facts which a closer analysis will discover.

We shall scarcely be open to criticism if, after that
which has gone before, we choose the second alternative.
Nor is it difficult to show that we are here concerned with a
misinterpretation, and to point out wherein it consists. The
moral values, as distinguished from the ethical and quasi-
ethical, belong to that innermost group of dispositions described
as normal, representing social habit, i.e., the maximum of ex
pansion consistent with the minimum of intensity necessary to
felt impulsion. As social habit, the feeling of obligation is not
the reflection of an absolute impersonal law, but of a concrete
social synergy, and of actual objective values. As such the
demand is limited in intensity and extension. How, then,
does the concept of absolute, or perfect and unconditional,
obligation arise — that is, the idea of a demand for every in
dividual and for an individual under every circumstance ?

The idea of perfect, in the sense of universal, obligation
rests upon an abstract ideal construction. A certain minimum
of a given disposition is demanded of all the participants in a
given social group, for which it has normal participation value.
An individual who feels this demand idealises it ; he assumes
that, were it universalised, it would still have the same or greater
value. In this assumption he is further influenced by the fact
that for these fundamental normal attitudes there are certain
class names, such as the cardinal virtues, which, although they
include under them in the course of time greatly varying atti
tudes, nevertheless, create the illusion of permanence and uni
versality. Through the working of the laws of social value
movement there may be, as in the case of the change in meaning
of the virtues of courage and chastity from Greek to Christian

Over- Individual Values 365

times, actual change in attitude with relative permanence of
name.1

The illusion of perfect, in the sense of unconditional, obli
gation arises in a somewhat similar way. The act which has
value with reference to a certain specific end, and in certain
circumstances, is assumed to be applicable under all circum
stances, and the disposition expressed by the act to be of value
in any amount. Such an assumption with regard to personal
values which are intrinsic is, we have seen, in a sense justi
fiable, but with reference to instrumental values it is illusory.

1 See above, p. 335.

CHAPTER XIII
SYNTHETIC PREFERENCE

I. THE RELATIVE VALUE OF DIFFERENT CLASSES OF
WORTH OBJECTS

THERE still remains a chapter in our investigation of these
judgments without which the preceding studies would be fla
grantly incomplete, a chapter which is in a sense both the com
pletion and the test of our preceding analyses. We have sought
to isolate the various objects and standpoints in valuation, to
study their laws, their norms, and their limits, in the light of
their psychological genesis and of the character of their psycho
logical presuppositions. But we have continually recognised that
there is an artificial and abstract element in this procedure,
that any given concrete act of valuation may represent the
resultant of various motives, and that, moreover, many of these
concrete acts of valuation consist of preferences, not only be
tween objects of the same class, on the same level of valuation,
but between objects on different levels. We have analysed the
conditions which determine the relative values of objects within
the same general group, but it is not yet clear that we can infer
without further study the laws which determine the relative
values of the different groups. To this question we must now
turn.

Some steps in this direction we have already taken. We
have analysed the fundamental appreciative distinctions be
tween condition, personal, and over-individual impersonal
values, and have sought to account for these distinctions in
terms of the acquired presuppositions of the feelings. Each
of these classes represents a meaning acquired in some process
and determined by certain characteristic presuppositions. As
instruments of analysis we made use of the concepts of the
threshold, and of capacity for continuous valuation, as determined

366

Synthetic Preference 367

by the laws of valuation, seeking to determine these laws for
the different levels. As a result we found that, in general,
personal values represent a higher level of meaning than con
dition worths, and over-individual values a higher level than
either. The question now arises whether the acts of valuation
which consist of preferences among these different worth objects
can be explained as resultants of the facts and laws already
developed, or whether new principles must be called in to
account for them. This may be described as the problem of
Synthetic Preference, in contrast to the laws of analytic prefer
ence developed for the several levels of valuation.

The characteristic of all such acts of preference is sacrifice.
What Bohm Bauwerk has said of economic goods is, mutatis
mutandis, and, with certain limitations, true of all worth ob
jects. " We find occasion," he says, " to pass judgments of
value only under two conditions : first, when it is a matter of
letting a good pass out of our possession by gift, exchange, or
use ; and, secondly, when it is a question of adding a good to
our possessions." This is true in all those cases where the judg
ment of value takes place after conflict of motives, although,
as we have seen, there are certain types of judgments which
merely register feelings of value having as their presuppo
sitions the habits or implicit assumptions which follow upon
adjustment. But in all cases of conflict, estimation of value
takes place in terms of two variables, a positive and a negative
factor. The question of preference and sacrifice is simple enough,
at least in principle, within the separate spheres of values. It
is simply a matter of more or less, and the judgment is analytical.
By this is meant that the judgment or preference is the result
merely of the distinction, according to their degree, between
objects or qualities within the same general class of values. Thus
in the sphere of condition worths, the relative value of different
objects, and quantities of objects, is a function of the specific
laws of valuation in this sphere, of the capacity of the object
immediately to satisfy desire, or to acquire complementary
values through rearrangement and association with other
objects. Similarly in the other spheres of personal and social
values, definite and specific empirical laws determine the relative
value of different objects, of acts and dispositions. When, how
ever, it becomes a question of sacrifice of an object of one type
for an object of another qualitatively different type, the problem
is more complicated.

368 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

II. RATIONALISTIC AND MONISTIC THEORIES OF PREFERENCE
AND SACRIFICE— CRITICISM — VOLUNTARISM AND SCEP
TICISM

The history of ethical theory is full of attempts to explain
these facts of preference and sacrifice by reference to some
monistic principle, some single conception of end or good out
of which all relative values spring, and to which they may be
referred. Now with these conceptions as metaphysical theories
of the ideal end we have in this connection no concern. It is
conceivable that a philosophy of values might be able to formu
late a concept of a single ultimate ideal, the mere thinking of
which would include its obligatory character, its normative
objectivity, in the sense that the conception of " the most perfect
Being " was said to include its existence. But it does not neces
sarily follow that from this logical obligation, if we may so call
it, the actual felt demands can be deduced. We must avoid
carefully the confusion between obligation as a logical category
and as an actual experience. It is with the latter phenomenon,
with the empirical facts of obligation and imputation in the
more complicated form of conflicts between different spheres
of values, that we are here concerned, and our interest in the
different theories of a single end is in this connection confined
to the one question : to what extent do the single ideals actually
maintain themselves in practical situations, to what extent can
our actual feelings of obligation be shown to refer to a single
conscious end ? Should they turn out to do so, the idea of a
science of ethics would so far find confirmation. But, on the other
hand, even if a single conscious end should be shown to be em
pirically untenable, it does not follow that a science of ethics
is impossible, nor indeed that it is impossible to show a functional
unity in the processes of valuation. To this more ultimate
question we shall return, but for the present we must examine
these theories of preference in detail.

Viewed from the empirical standpoint, as hypotheses for
interpreting the concrete facts of preference, the monistic theories
present difficulties, for in every case they are the products of
abstraction in which one conceptual construct, developed in
the course of the concrete processes of valuation, is abstracted
from these concrete processes, and taken as an equivalent for
all types of values. Thus Hedonism, in all its forms, takes

Synthetic Preference 369

the abstract equivalent for condition worths, quantities of
pleasure, and seeks to reduce all affective-volitional meanings
to these terms. All preferences are reduced to choices between
quantities of pleasure. The self-realisation hypothesis does the
same thing with the fundamental concept of the personal level,
striving in vain to show a reference to the " self " as the pre
supposition of all acts of preference. Still another theory finds
the solution in the reduction of all condition and personal worths
to abstract impersonal ends.

But all these hypotheses have shown themselves more and
more incapable of explaining the manifold and complicated
phenomena of synthetic preference — i.e., it seems impossible to
reduce all preferences, all resolutions of conflicts, to the conscious
introduction of any one of these ideals as norms ; and the pro
blem has accordingly been brought to ahead by the absolute denial,
in recent discussions, of any monistic and rational principle in
terms of which these preferences may be explained. This
denial has found expression in two forms : in the revival of in-
tuitionism, of which Schwartz's voluntaristic type is a good
example ; and, on the other hand, in a thorough-going scepticism,
of which Simmers is the most conspicuous illustration.

The essential point in Schwartz's position J is that, while
the preference which takes place in the different spheres of
condition, personal and over-individual worth objects is analyti
cal, and may be seen to be determined by the empirical laws of
valuation, preference between these different groups can be
understood only as synthetic, as due to an immediate unanalys
able judgment that personal worths shall be preferred to
condition worths, and over-individual to personal and con
dition worths. This law is absolute and is not reducible to
any empirical laws growing out of the genesis and character of
worth objects. Leaving out of account the failure of this law
as a description of fact, a point which we shall consider in its
proper place, it is sufficient to note in this connection that such
a method of solving the problem, by magnifying relative ap
preciative distinctions into eternal principles, implies a failure
to recognise the essential nature of these distinctions as genetic
and relative.

Scepticism is always a near neighbour to intuitionism, and
the scepticism in this case takes the form of denying the ex-

1 Schwartz, Psychologic des Willcns, zur Grundlegtntg der Ethik, Part II,
chaps. I and II.

2 B

37O Valuation: its Nature and Laws

istence of any single law to which these preferences may be
referred. The two monistic conceptions which have especially
called out this sceptical attitude are the concept of an extra-
experiential or metaphysical Self, of which these different worth
objects represent different stages of realisation, and that of hedon
istic utilitarianism which conceives these different worth objects,
with their differences for appreciation, as reducible to a common
equivalent, quantity of pleasure.

The inadequacy both of the Self-realisation and of the Hedon
istic hypothesis is shown by Simmel's criticism of the two
concepts.1 The keynote of his criticism of the unity of the
personality as the supreme norm of worth experience is to be
found in the fact that he sees in it a transference of the supreme
logical category of epistemology to the sphere of worth experi
ences where it does not necessarily apply. To infer the actual
unity of the ends of volition from the logical unity of the sub
ject of knowledge is to go beyond the worth experience itself.
We do indeed find the empirical unity of the subject, or self, an
object of desire and of worth judgment, and, within limits,
a standard of values, just as we find individuation a motive in
the construction of worth objects, but the individual, and the
processes of individuation, are empirical and not logical.2 In
like manner the concept of pleasure is an abstraction from our
experiences of feeling of value, an abstraction which ignores the
appreciative distinctions in feeling to such a degree that it
no longer includes the appreciative differences of depth and
breadth, and the personal and impersonal meanings of the
feelings. It is a workable equivalent only for what have been
described as condition worths.

It is undoubtedly true that neither of these conceptions
will establish continuity between the different spheres of values.
And the reason is that in both cases the standards of a par
ticular type of worth judgment are abstracted from the processes
in which they are constructed, and applied as norms to a differ
ent type of activity. Within a certain class of relative judg
ments, concerned with condition worths, pleasure is a well-
founded object of desire and quantity of pleasure a well-founded

1 Simmel, Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft, Book I, chap. IV, Book II, chap. VI.

2 An instructive criticism of the first of these monistic principles is to be found
in Taylor's Problem of Conduct, where it is shown at what points actual worth
experiences prove refractory to such reduction. The great single moments of ex
perience, both of supreme assertion and supreme negation, do not lend themselves easily
to this conception of Self-realisation.

Synthetic Preference 371

standard of judgment. The ideal of unity of the personality is
also undoubtedly the presupposition of an entire group of worth
judgments — of personal obligation and of imputation of personal
worth — and as such constitutes, within those limits, a well-founded
object of desire and a standard of judgment. The ideal of the
sacrifice of the subjective and personal, it is equally obvious,
is a well-founded ideal within the limits of strictly moral judg
ment. But no single one of these conceptions has been able to
supply a satisfactory standard for synthetic preference, and
scepticism as to the existence of such a standard has resulted.
The only way open to us, then, is to take these pre-scientific
distinctions between condition, personal, and over-individual
values as heuristic conceptions, and, by empirical analysis of
actual preferences — the conflicts between obligations on these
different levels and between personal and impersonal imputation,
to determine to what extent these preferences show uni
formities, to what extent higher unities and continuities of
preference may be established. If any such higher laws of
preference emerge, it may be expected that they will be more
general expressions of the empirical laws already found operative
in the different spheres.

III. ANALYSIS OF THE FACTS OF SYNTHETIC PREFERENCE AS
EXHIBITED IN JUDGMENTS OF OBLIGATION AND IMPU
TATION

The point at which Simmers scepticism becomes most
incisive is in his discussion, in the last chapter of his work, of
the conflicts of duty. It is just the impossibility of accounting
for the actual resolutions of the conflicts between our different
obligations in terms of any single highest end, any monistic
principle of valuation, that leads to the denial of such a principle.
In particular he insists that we have no standard in terms of
which we may estimate the relative importance of the extensive
and intensive aspects of obligation, i.e., judge between the duty
which is more intensive because more personal and emotional,
and that which is less intensive but more extensive, because more
general and over-individual in its reference. Preference be
tween an extensive duty with weak intensity and a narrower
duty with marked intensity is, he maintains, determined by
forces in the darker life of feeling which cannot be adequately
expressed in terms of our knowing consciousness. In this

372 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

statement of the difficulty we have the problem of our own
study presented in our own terms, that is, what deter
mines our choice between ideal objects of condition, personal,
and over-individual worth, where degrees of obligation can be
reduced neither to differences in degree of intensity of feeling
nor to the explicitness of reference of the object to the self. And
the same difficulty inheres in our attempts to rationalise our
judgments of imputed worth.

Let us, then, begin our study by returning to that other
form of denial of a monistic principle of continuity, the volun-
taristic intuitionism of Schwartz, according to which our con
sciousness of value, as expressed in feelings of obligation, always
demands the sacrifice of condition to personal and over-individual
values, and the sacrifice of both condition and personal to over-
individual values. Some facts of experience must have motived
this formulation, otherwise it would not have the element of
truth that it certainly has. For it contains at least this much
truth — that it constitutes a broad generalisation of the facts. It
is one of those pre-scientific formulations which precede more
detailed analysis. More than this, it corresponds to what we
have found to be the genetic levels of meaning. In general,
normal over-individual values have greater transgredient refer
ence than normal personal values, and personal values greater
than condition worths. In general, also, we find this fact
reflected in our feelings of obligation.

But when we seek to carry out this generalisation in detail,
we find that it is by no means an accurate picture of the facts.
If it were so it would mean, as Schwartz admits, that our sense of
obligation would demand the sacrifice of the most important
personal to the least important over-individual good, and the
greatest condition worth to the smallest personal worth, a con
sequence which the analysis of actual judgments by no means
bears out. It is, therefore, precisely at this point of the limits
that the critical question arises. An analysis of how our sense
of value reacts at these limits or points of conflict of obli
gations, will not only have the negative result of showing the
points where this intuitional formula breaks down, but will also
have the positive result of disclosing the empirical principles
which determine the actual resolutions of such conflicts.

Synthetic Preference 373

i. Conflicts between Personal and Impersonal Obligations.

Especially enlightening for our study is a striking illus
tration of this intuitionist point of view from the pen of Tolstoi.1
With his customary fondness for intense and clear-cut assertions,
he raises the question of the limits of self-sacrifice, and answers
it by affirming that our conscience recognises no limit. He
presents us with a picture of beggars coming one after the other
to the house of the moralist, and receiving all his money, food,
and shelter. At last there appears a disreputable tramp, who
asks for the moralist's last bundle of straw, the final barrier
between him and the certainty of death. Should the moralist
give it ? Yes, not only share it, but give it completely. To all
questions of limits or compromise Tolstoi answers with a de
termined " No ! " Even the minimum of existence, and all the
personal worths which it involves, must be sacrificed, be the
consequences what they may. There can be no doubt that there
are many who would honestly feel no such obligation, and yet
this is not the extremest form in which the demand might be
stated. Conceivably the last bundle of straw might be asked
merely for some minor purpose of the beggar— not for the pro
tection of his life and health. Or it might be asked as a charity
for one who is not only far removed from the immediate sym
pathies of the giver, but one with whom he would never come in
contact, and yet the demand would be the same in principle.

Assuming that for some, as, for instance, Tolstoi himself,
this would be a real obligation, for many others it certainly
would not. And if this be granted, it would appear that, not
only does the a priori principle itself fail of universality, but that
this fundamental difference in worth feeling, at such a point,
affords some basis for that scepticism which denies the possi
bility of our finding any explanation for preferences of this sort.
The first inference we may admit, but the second only in case
the laws which we have already developed fail to give us any
clues to the explanation.

In attempting to find these clues we must first recall the
fact, frequently insisted upon, that any concrete practical
attitude of obligation or imputation is a complex, the total
force of which is analysable into several motives. The sense

Tolstoi, Acte der Selbst-Opferung, Wiener Rundschau, October I, 1899. Quoted
from Kreibig, Psychologische Grundlegung ernes Systems der Wert-theorie, p. 152.

374 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

of worth which Tolstoi expresses in this extreme judgment of
obligation may very well represent, not only his sense of the
moral or participation value of his act, the over-individual
value, and therefore obligation, but also a sense of its personal
worth, and therefore personal obligation for him. We should
in such a case have, not a pure over-individual demand as the
determinant of the judgment, but such a demand as modified by
complementary personal worths. Such a preference would then
be at least partially explicable upon our principles.

We may best approach this question by taking the other
side of the apparent antinomy, that of the man who would, not
feel such obligation. This we should have less difficulty in
understanding psychologically. In the extreme case, as the
situation was presented — where the beggar is far away and
the object which means life or death to the giver is of only
secondary importance to the recipient, the participation value
of the act is so remote and indirect that it is practically below
the threshold of worth feeling. It is below the participation-
minimum, as we have defined it.1 On the other hand, the
value of the object for the individual sacrificing — since it is
the minimum of existence and constitutes the indispensable pre
supposition of other acquired values, is practically absolute.
If, then, the laws of " condition " and of over-individual, social
values were alone operative, there can be no question which
way the preference would go. In that case, too, where the
bundle of straw is also the minimum of existence for the beggar,
the obligation would still not be felt by many, and with perfect
honesty, because of the remoteness of the beggar from their
sympathy, and because of the absolute value of the object
sacrificed. In this case, as well as in the first, the value of the
over-individual object is far below the minimum of participation,
the amount of the over-individual good for which the sacrifice
is normally demanded, while the sacrifice here demanded is far
above the maximum of altruism expected in the normal working
of over-individual demand. The judgment of the man who
honestly does not feel the obligation to such extreme sacrifice
seems to be in accord with the normal laws of valuation.

Does it not then seem that such a preference as Tolstoi's,
such a feeling of obligation, must be irrational, or at least supra-
rational, in the sense that it transcends all the empirical laws
of worth feeling ? Some extreme voluntarists have so held,

1 Chap, xi , pp. 357 f.

Synthetic Preference 375

finding in self-denial a mystery which transcends all empirical
explanation. But this seems as hasty an inference as is the
claim of the extreme rationalist to explain these experiences in
terms of a conscious rational ideal. It is just cases like these
which give us the clue to our empirical analysis. We have
already seen in an earlier chapter l how altruism, as measured
in terms of sacrifice of condition and personal for over-individual
worths, may itself become a personal worth, and, as such, is
indefinitely Steigemngsfahig, susceptible of indefinite increase,
when as an impersonal worth it is not. It is quite possible that
the supreme worth of tragical elevation enters as a determining
moment in such an act of preference. In fact it would seem that
Tolstoi is himself a case very much in point. James, in his
study of Tolstoi's conversion to his extreme altruism with its
accompanying religious feeling, lays stress upon the preceding
moment of satiety and loss of value upon the part of other
objects. " A well-marked case of anhedonia," he calls it,
" a passive loss of appetite for all life's values." 2 We have,
then, in the absolute intrinsic value ascribed to altruism, ap
parently, merely the substitution of one personal worth for
another, and not really the sacrifice of all condition and personal
worths to the smallest over-individual worth. If Tolstoi rea
lised the relative participation value of such acts, i.e., felt their
demand merely in the degree which would follow upon the
normal working of the ordinary laws of sympathetic participa
tion, there would be a limit to the over-individual obligation
to sacrifice.

(c) Confirmation of this Explanation by the Judgments of the
"Impartial Spectator."

When we turn to the judgments of the impartial spectator
upon such acts of sacrifice, we find this view substantiated.
There is a fundamental difference between what we may demand
and what we may admire in these matters. The ordinary man
would say, I suppose,— if he could become articulate and if he
would consent to use the terminology of the present discussion,
' I cannot help imputing emotionally absolute worth to such
a personality when he thus, by an act of extreme self-sacrifice
for an insignificant over-individual worth, displays such strength
and singleness of disposition, but I am at the same time unable,

1 Chap, x, p. 301. 2 James, Varieties of Religious Experience^ p. 149.

376 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

when I take the impersonal point of view of moral judgment
upon the act, on the basis of its participation value, to demand
it of every person. Nor is the moral value which I impute to
it in any sense proportional to the strength of the disposition
displayed. For when I take the impersonal standpoint in
judgment, I become aware of the fact that such absolute self-
sacrifice means the sacrifice, not only of condition and personal
worths, but of other over-individual values of which the
existence and self-realisation of the individual in question are
presuppositions. The individual is the meeting-point of various
over-individual demands ; in him inhere various group worths,
of family, state, knowledge, art, etc." It would seem, then,
that in his judgment of the participation value of an act, the
impartial spectator cannot avoid taking into account what
may be described as the " personality-coefficient " of the in
dividual sacrificing and of the individual for whom the sacrifice
is made, that is, the relative significance of the system of values
for which each stands. But when this is once admitted, it is
clear that the a priori principle of preference enunciated by
Tolstoi is not reflected in our judgments of imputation.

2. Conflicts of Condition and Personal Worths.

The actual resolutions of the conflicts between personal
and condition worths seem equally refractory to subsumption
under one general principle. The proposition that all condition
worths should be sacrificed to personal worths also falls short of
being an accurate picture of our real feelings of obligation.
That it describes in a general way our feeling of the relative
value of the two classes of objects is beyond doubt, but here
again, when we examine the limiting cases, difficulties arise.

In order to understand the situation properly, we must recall
the fact that there are instinctive obligations on the level of
simple appreciation or simple condition worths, prior to activities
of characterisation, and that it is in the region of the existence
minimum that these obligations arise. It is a question, there
fore, of preference between two kinds of obligation, not between
mere desire unqualified by obligation and the feeling of obliga
tion, and here again we may be disposed to say with Simmel that
the determining forces lie beyond the ken of our knowing con
sciousness.

But to consider first the facts themselves, it seems fairly

Synthetic Preference 377

clear that objects of condition worth, in so far as they are of
relative and instrumental value, are normally felt to be of less
value than personal worths; they should always be sacrificed
to the least important personal worth. They have more capacity
for substitution and have less capacity for continuous valuation
than personal worths. Such obligation as may attach to merely
instrumental and condition worths is only indirect, and is de
pendent upon their relation to the necessaries of existence or to
personal worths. But when it comes to a choice between the
minimum of existence and minor personal worths with capacity
of substitution (more or less external personal worths, such as
pride in one's position, name, beauty, etc.), our judgment
is not wholly unequivocal. When this type of personal obliga
tions comes into conflict with fundamental condition worths,
with obligations which arise in the struggle for existence,
we are disposed to think that such personal values are more or
less fictitious, or at least have capacity of substitution, and
should therefore be sacrificed. While we may admire absolute
sacrifice of condition worths for such personal worths, in that
thereby a new personal worth is revealed, we cannot demand it
for the reason that such personal worths are relative and not
absolute. They are not without capacity of substitution. If
they are lost more fundamental personal worths may take their
place.1 The minimum of existence, on the other hand, is without
capacity of substitution.

The real test of the formula appears when the conflict lies
between absolute personal and absolute condition worths,
between the minimum of existence and the minimum of charac
terisation. Illustrations in point would be conflicts between
starvation, or extreme bodily pain, and honour. Extreme bodily
pain, for example, approaches the psychological absolute of
supreme evil in the sphere of condition worths. Otherwise
expressed, in the moment of extreme bodily pain, or in imagina
tion of it with belief in its imminence, cessation or removal of
the evil has absolute worth, constitutes the existence-minimum.
Let us suppose that a person, subjected to cruel torture, has
sacrificed, one after the other, minor personal worths which
are not without capacity of substitution, until finally nothing
but the sacrifice of his honour, it may be by the betrayal of
a comrade or by obedience to a demand to recant, will purchase the
relief which now has for him absolute value. We expect him

l. Chap, x, pp. 295 f.

378 Valuation: its Natitre and Laws

to hold out, for we believe, however the belief may have been
created, that such persistence is possible and has taken place.
If the personal worth triumphs we hail such triumph as heroic,
and the worth imputed to the personality is absolute. But
suppose it does not ? Our reaction in that case is not instinctive
and unequivocal. We have already seen in our study of per
sonal worths a that at this point two reactions are empirically
possible. When the minimum of characterisation is sacrificed,
either all personal relation is abrogated, the person is beneath
contempt, and our attitude passes into one of purely impersonal
moral or judicial judgment, or else the attitude of personal
respect and admiration passes into one of profound organic
sympathy and pity which may amount to a sanctioning of his
act. We may admire such extremes of sacrifice, but we do not
demand them universally. Our feeling of obligation seems to be
similarly equivocal in such situations. There are some indi
viduals for whom this extreme of sacrifice would be obligatory,
others for whom it honestly would not be. The significance of
these facts seems to be that in the limiting cases of conflict
between condition and personal worths the general norm of
preference may break down. Our judgments are not unequivocal
and a priori.

IV. CONCLUSIONS FROM THE ANALYSIS OF SYNTHETIC
PREFERENCE

i. Summary of Results.

The preceding examination of the facts of synthetic preference
leads to certain conclusions, in the light of which it is possible
to formulate a theory of more general philosophical significance.
Returning to the question with which the analysis started,
the grounds are now apparent for the negative conclusion that,
whatever continuity there may be in the processes of valuation,
it cannot be shown to spring from the consciousness of any
single rational end or principle. There is no single ideal which
shows itself to be ultimate in the sense that it always consti
tutes the controlling factor in the solution of these conflicts.
In the second place, it seems equally certain that there is no
universal a priori law governing these preferences. While
the norms and ideals of the different genetic levels constitute

1 Chap, x, pp. 300 f.

Synthetic Preference 379

a continuous series of values, the appreciative distinctions are
not ultimate in the sense that they maintain themselves ab
solutely in the limiting cases of conflict.

Nevertheless, our study has not been wholly barren of positive
results. Modest as our insight is in comparison with what is
claimed by those theories of the standard which we have been
considering, still we have, up to a point at least, learned some
thing of the principles operative in synthetic preference. In so
far as these concrete and individual experiences can be ration
alised at all, they seem to be resultants of the laws of valuation
already developed. They reflect, in a general way at least, the
relative capacities of the different objects for continuous valua
tion and for substitution, and therefore the acquired meaning
of the objects. By the method of ethical experimentation we
have employed, in which it was sought to test the relative capacity
of the different ideals to persist in the face of arrest, and to dis
cover the range and limits of our judgments of obligation and
imputation, we have secured results which agree in the main
with the laws of acquirement of value.

But that these values are acquired, that the distinctions
between the different groups of worth objects are acquired and
not ultimate, is apparent in the breakdown — at the limits—
of the so-called a priori law of preference. At these points the
distinctions tend to lapse. In the case where the distinctions
are wholly within the Ego (between worths of condition and
person), there seem to be supreme moments of assertion of the
will where the distinction disappears, where the ideal objects and
their acquired meanings and obligations fall away, giving place
to simple immediacy. Personal ideals may acquire absolute
value, that is, may become practical absolutes in the moment of
tragical elevation. But so may a supreme necessity of organic
life. In the one case it is the minimum of characterisation,
in the other that of existence, which has absolute value.
Whichever alternative triumphs in a conflict, we cannot properly
speak of a victory either of condition or personal worth, for
the conceptual distinction between the idea of pleasure and of
the self simply does not exist. Similarly, the man who, in the
supreme moments of preference between personal and over-
individual worths, chooses the absolute personal worth, is no
longer, strictly speaking, an egoist. Nor is he who chooses
the over-individual worth, with its moment of tragical elevation,
an altruist. The relative distinction between egoism and

380 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

altruism lapses. Again we are face to face with an absolute
moment of simple immediacy in which relative distinctions
vanish.

On every hand, then, we are forced to the conclusion that
the supreme moments of affirmation or abnegation trans
cend the relative distinctions which the intellect makes in
the service of the will, and consequently in part elude our con
ceptual descriptions. The acquired distinctions and meanings
of these ideal objects are appreciative descriptions, volitional
norms, formulated in the interest of continuity of appreciation
and valuation. This is the important point. The monistic
theories we have been considering fail to take sufficiently into
account the elements of discontinuity which the analysis of
value judgments discloses. They invariably seek to deduce
the concrete norms, or psychologically determined presuppo
sitions of value judgments, from logical conceptions of the
relation of the individual to the universal, i.e., from ultimate
logical presuppositions. The philosophy of supreme moments, to
which we have been led by our analysis, seems to negative such
conclusions. Rather does it appear that the moments of abso
lute worth experience may be equally those of self-affirmation
and self-abnegation, and ultimately moments in which even these
intellectualistic conceptions lapse. Viewed phenomenally, the
activity of the will seems to be an oscillation between supreme
moments within the different spheres of values, and a principle
which should explain them would have to give us the laws of
these oscillations, the larger concept which would comprehend
them in a higher unity.

2. The Bearing of these Results upon Larger Conceptions.

The attempt to formulate such a larger philosophical con
ception does not lie within the province of this study, but we
may offer in conclusion certain suggestions, as much by way of
avoiding misunderstanding as for the sake of completeness.

Throughout this entire study, including the present chapter,
the standpoint and methods of empirical analysis of valuation
have been consistently maintained. In so far as the monistic
theories of the ideal are considered, it is with the object
of determining their function as conscious ideals, as actual pre
suppositions or norms of judgment and feeling — not as attempts
to characterise the ultimate logical presupposition of valuation

Synthetic Preference 381

required by a philosophy of values. That such a philosophy
of values is possible, or that the single ultimate presupposition
upon which valuation, when thus logically viewed must rest,
can be characterised, we need not deny. In order that valua
tion shall be not only describable in terms of its empirical con
ditions, but also intelligible in the light of its ultimate meaning,
such an axiological re-reading of our judgments of value in the
light of their ultimate logical presuppositions is probably neces
sary. All that we have here been concerned to show is that no
unity and continuity of conscious ideals and norms is discover
able, no single content has for feeling unconditional value.

That the logical presupposition of all valuation must be a
single incontestable or unconditional value, follows from the logical
unity of the subject of the value judgment, and from the claim
of the value judgment to objectivity. But from this logical
unity of the subject we cannot pass to the empirical unity of
conscious ends and of felt values ; from the logical postulate of
an unconditioned value we cannot pass to the unconditioned
value of any concrete content. Such a transition is made im
possible, we have seen, by the equivocal character of the actual
feelings of obligation and of intrinsic appreciation or approval
and disapproval in the limiting cases, and by the oscillation
between the ideals of self-realisation and self-abnegation. But,
despite this discontinuity of conscious ideals and of empirically
derived norms, there can be no question of the functional unity
and continuity of valuation itself. Even in those cases in which
the outcome of the conflict is equivocal, and in which the acquired
distinctions break down, the choice is always of the nature
of a falling back upon a value which is without capacity of
substitution, and which represents the necessary presupposition of
continuity of volition and valuation — in other words, is a practical
absolute in our sense of the term. It is conceivable, therefore,
that, while no single ideal can be taken to represent absolutely
the whole end and meaning of this continuity — for the reason
that no conceptual construction can, because of its empirical
origin, be universalised and applied continuously, and while,
consequently, no single norm embedded in such ideal can be
applied in every empirical situation, it may still be possible to
formulate a metaphysical conception of this functional unity and
continuity which shall be compatible with the actual plurality
of conscious ends and of empirical norms or presuppositions.
Accordingly — thus it is argued by the monistic philosophies

382 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

of value — we cannot dispense with the concept of a meta
physical or met-empirical will, whether personal or impersonal
and over-individual, if the functional unity and continuity
of valuation is to be intelligible, the realisation of such a will
being presupposed in every realisation of finite ends and in every
particular judgment of value. The facts here examined do
not prove the impossibility of such logical unity and continuity,
but merely that the attempt to formulate that implicit pre
supposition in terms of conscious ideals must remain incom
plete. The breakdown of the distinctions between personal
and condition worths, between egoism and altruism, simply
means that the content of the ideal has been conceived too
narrowly, and that out of these conflicts and oppositions a
larger ideal arises which includes these distinctions. The
question must, therefore, assume this form — not is there a
single conscious purpose to which all other ends are subordinate,
but rather is there not, for reflective evaluation at least, some
absolute intrinsic value logically presupposed in these empirical
ends, to which, as an ultimate presupposition, the implicit
assumptions, the empirically derived norms, in the various
judgment situations, may be logically reduced ?

When the problem is thus stated the situation is materially
changed. For a monistic philosophy as thus contemplated,
there is support in our actual experiences of value. The presence
in our experience of what we have described as practical absolutes
indicates clearly that such an absolute unconditioned value is
presupposed, and that, while this value is not realised in any
empirical content conceived as end, it is realised in moments of
intrinsic appreciation where the empirical will comes to rest in
the assumption of complete realisation through identification
with the met-empirical will.

It is not our purpose to pursue these suggestions as to the
possibility of a philosophy of values further in this connection.
How the ultimate postulate of valuation is to be defined —
whether as self-realisation or as realisation of an impersonal
over-individual will, whether as " will to power " or as will
to " Selbsterhaltung der Welt " — or whether indeed the functional
unity and continuity of values presupposed in the empirical
experiences of feeling and will can be defined in any such abstract
terms, is a question which for our present purposes may be left
unanswered. In the following chapter we shall undertake a
consideration of the entire axiological question of the evaluation

Synthetic Preference 383

of values, of the meaning of the distinction between subjective
and objective values, of the meaning of the presupposition of
reality implicit in every feeling and judgment of value, and of
the ways in which that presupposition is actualised and acknow
ledged. From this larger view of the problem we may again return
to this point. The object of these paragraphs has been merely
to show the bearing of the results of our empirical analysis upon
this question, and here the conclusion of importance is this.
While a monistic philosophy of values is possible, it must be
such as to allow us to take the facts of actual value judgment
at their face value. We must not distort them by subsuming
them all under one empirically derived ideal and norm, for they
are 'practically discontinuous. There are situations where con
dition worths have supreme value without the consciousness
that they are the necessary condition of personal and over-
individual values. Personal values may have supreme worth
without the consciousness that they are the means to the realisa
tion of social ends. There are cases where altruistic acts are
chosen without the idea that thereby the self is realised. In
general the principle must be recognised that the feelings of
value— of obligation and of intrinsic appreciation, approval,
and disapproval— are not to be conceived as determined by the
logical relations of subordination to ultimate ends, but as feelings
attaching directly to specific content, and as conditioned by
empirically derived demands. In the light of an ultimate
postulate these demands may be interpreted and made intelligible,
but they cannot logically be deduced from a single end.

CHAPTER XIV— (Conclusion)
VALUATION AND EVALUATION

I. THE PROBLEM— RESTATEMENT OF THE AXIOLOGICAL POINT

OF VIEW

WHATEVER else the course of this investigation may or may
not have succeeded in bringing to light, it has at least led us
to a point where we may see the justification of the concept
and method of a general theory of value as outlined in the in
troductory chapter. Through the genetic treatment of the
different types of value judgments and their laws, a more
intensive analysis of the facts of worth experience and a more
comprehensive view of their inter-relations have been made
possible. Every advance in intensive analysis and in compre
hensive correlation should bring with it greater power of in
terpretation ; and this test of fruitfulness has been applied
at various points, with the result that many types of value
judgment, hitherto not sufficiently understood, have been
explained in terms of the general laws of valuation.

But such increase of insight as we may have gained cannot
have failed to bring more fully to consciousness the other aspect
of a general theory of value described as axiological, to have
emphasised its importance, and to have made clearer the nature
of the problem. In our introductory chapter we sought to
state this problem, and in doing so we examined critically a
certain view according to which the two problems of description
and evaluation are wholly unrelated. Between the feeling
of value as an experience of the individual, conditioned by
psychically derived and determined presuppositions, and the
judgment of value with its claim to objectivity, and therefore
its logical presupposition of a world of unconditioned values,
there is, it is held, no common ground. According to this
view our task was properly concluded in the preceding chapter
and our inability to discover any absolutely unconditione

384

Valuation and Evaluation 385

values constitutes a condemnation of our entire method. At
this point a philosophy of values must begin with an entirely
different purpose and method, its task being to discover and
to formulate the single absolute value logically presupposed
in all specific forms of value, and from this to develop deduc
tively " a closed system of pure values," uncontaminated by
any admixture of empirical feeling and will. Without raising
any question as to the abstract possibility or impossibility of
any such ideal — although after our study of actual valuation
it cannot fail to appear to rest upon a false reading of the mean
ing of the claim to reality and objectivity in value judgments,
we may easily see that this is not the nature of the problem
as it presents itself to us. At numerous points we have seen
specifically — what was stated in general terms at the beginning
—that the question of validity or evaluation is in some way
closely bound up with the facts and conditions of valuation,
and that the axiological problem rises directly out of the psycho
logical. The problem of evaluation being the adjustment of the
implicit claims to reality which our feelings of value with their
presumptions, judgments, and assumptions make, it is necessary
to interpret those claims in terms of their empirical origin and
conditions.

It is, therefore, with a much more concrete body of questions
that axiology, as we have conceived it, has to deal, — with those
questions, namely, which arise when in practical situations
we seek to distinguish between the subjective and objective
value, between the founded and unfounded judgment of value.
Such problems are everywhere present, not only in practical
reasoning but in the sciences of value. It was in fact with
a view to their solution that the distinctions between actual
and imputed, real and ideal, subjective and objective, values
have arisen in practical judgments, and have been developed
in scientific usage. But their significance is still more clearly
seen in all those discussions, as for instance between individual
ism and socialism, about ethical and social ideals, where the
dispute rests upon certain assumptions as to the possibility of
economic or moral motives, the truth or falsity of certain ideals
—whether they are founded or unfounded. More specifically,
then, we have the problem of illusions and fallacies of value
judgment, a problem which came to the surface at various points
in our special studies. ^Esthetic and quasi-aesthetic appreci
ations, personal and social ideals, religious hypostatisations —
2 c

386 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

all these give rise to certain ideal and imputed values. In
what sense are these values real ? Or are they indeed real at
all ? Now from the standpoint of psychological process, all
these intrinsic ideal and imputed values arise in the processes
of actual valuation, and, as such, are in a sense real. They all
rest upon assumptions which have the feeling of reality. The
question is whether from some other point of view they may
not be wholly subjective and ideal, fictitious and illusory, as
opposed to real. What is the standpoint of ultimate judgment
in such cases— how shall the ultimate criterion of reality be
defined in a way which shall include predicates of worth as well
as of truth, attributions of value as well as of fact ?

II. REFLECTIVE EVALUATION — NORMATIVE AND FACTUAL

OBJECTIVITY

i. Analysis of Axiological Distinctions.

These are questions of reflective evaluation, and any solution
of them must involve the development of the meanings and
implications of the various axiological distinctions which re
flective evaluation introduces. The origin and nature of these
distinctions we have already seen. Analysis of the value judg
ment (Chapter II) has shown us that, while the judgment is
assertorial, there is always some implication of relation of values
to reality. But while judgments of value presuppose reality,
while they presume, assume, or judge their objects to be, or to
exist, it is not always clear in what sense that existence is claimed.
Unreflective value judgments are not unequivocal, and it is for
the purpose of removing the various equivocations which arise
that the distinctions between subjective and objective, intrinsic
and instrumental, actual and potential, actual and imputed, real
and ideal or imagined values, are introduced. These distinctions
we have already found of use as guides to the analysis of pre
suppositions of feelings of value, and with their help we were
able to determine the subject and object and the dispositional
and actual presuppositions of different types of value judgment.
But their implications are ultimately normative, and it is with
the development of these implications that we are here con
cerned.

The whole problem is bound up, therefore, with the question

Valuation and Evaluation 387

of the ultimate meaning, in all its. extension and intension,
of the presupposition of reality implicit in all feelings and judg
ments of value. What are the possible meanings of reality
as employed in reflective evaluation, and what is the common
logical core of all these meanings ? The answer to these ques
tions will enable us to see the relation of values to fact and
truth, of normative to factual and truth objectivity, as they
appear in actual judgment. From a study of these relations
we shall then be enabled to understand the ultimate meaning
of the postulate of realisation, and to develop specific criteria
for determining the extent to which it is fulfilled.

2. Meanings of Existence and Truth.

As to the first aspect of the problem we may get our starting-
point by retracing the processes of reflective evaluation, and
developing the implications of the axiological distinctions there
employed. Reflective evaluation consists in the clarification
of the meaning of reality implicit in judgments of value by the
development of explicit existential and truth meanings. Through
the development of these distinctions, subjective valuation is
controlled, this element of control being, as we have seen in
the Introduction, the practical significance of normative ob
jectivity.

In their first and more limited meaning, the terms actual
and real, when applied to values, signify that the presupposition
of reality — presumption or assumption, as the case may be,
is directly or indirectly convertible into already completed
factual or truth judgments, independent of the value judgment.
The terms potential, ideal, and imputed, on the other hand,
mean that the values thus described have presuppositions
not thus convertible, or at least not wholly convertible, into such
judgments. What are the meanings of existence and truth
employed in such evaluations ?

(a) Existence: Outer and Inner.

The first and most obvious meaning of the presuppo
sition of reality is that of physical as distinguished from psychical
existence. If this is what the presupposition means, then in
order that the value may continue it is necessary that this
specific meaning of the presupposition of reality shall be ful-

388 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

filled. If this meaning cannot be realised, if conversion into
the object cannot take place, then the value is subjective and
imaginary. In the case of the so-called " condition " worths,
both immediate and mediate or instrumental, this is what the
distinction between subjective and objective values means.
In order to satisfy directly, or to be instrumental to more
ultimate satisfactions, the object must have physical existence.
A feeling of the imagination has in this case merely repre
sentative, not actual, value.

Again, for some purposes of normative control a value is
said to be actual and objective when its object exists — not in
the physical sense, as an object of sense perception, but still in
the outer sense of being the object of a demand external to and
independent of the will of the subject. When a desire, ex
pectation, or demand of the individual subject finds fulfilment
in, or is continuous with, the demand of others, individuals
or social groups, the value is said to be actual. Sympathetic
participation in the feelings and wills of others gives rise to
the construction of dispositions ; and the assumption of ex
istence in this case means outer existence in wills other than
our own. Such is the meaning of existence implied in all judg
ments in which a quality is said to belong to, or to be possessed
by, an individual, and it has its psychological correlate in the
concept of disposition. Such also are the economic and moral
social values determined by processes of demand and supply.
The value exists, and in a sense only in will or mind, but in
the collective will or mind as distinguished from the individual.
A subjective value is said to be actual, to have_ objective
grounds, when it is in some sense continuous with, or con
vertible into, the social value. From this point of view, as
we have already seen in our analysis of impersonal judgments,
whatever of the individual and personal feeling and feeling
dispositions is convertible directly or mediately into a supply
for that demand, has actual value, in that it is founded in an
existential judgment. All else is irrelevant, and is described
as ideal and imputed value.

These are the chief meanings of the predicate of existence,
but there is still a third which is equally important in distinguish
ing the subjective from the objective, the real from the unreal
in valuation. In this case the distinction is within the individual
subject. The demand which is acknowledged as objective
and as a norm for the control of the fleeting subjective experi-

Valuation and Evaluation 389

ences, is not "outer" in either of the preceding senses. It is
an inner demand which represents organised and permanent
dispositions as over against temporary desires and feelings.
Any form of will which has become ineradicable, any expectation,
demand, or assumption which is incontestable, acquires a nor
mative objectivity which, in contrast to the desires and feelings
which it controls, makes it an existent which must be taken
into account. It is, accordingly, merely this persistence, con
tinuity, or control which is acknowledged when the predicate
of existence has this meaning of inner reality. x

(b) Truth: Outer and Inner.

The preceding meanings of reality include all those cases
where the claim to objectivity is acknowledged in predicates
of existence — where continuance of value requires the possibility
of direct conversion of presumption or assumption into existen
tial judgment. There are, however, other cases where satisfaction
of this claim to objectivity does not require this direct and
immediate conversion, but only acknowledgment of truth as
objective. What is the meaning of the objectivity of truth ?
Here, as in the case of the predicate of existence, there are
several meanings which we may conveniently classify as " outer "
and "inner" truth.

By " outer " truth is understood in ordinary speech " cor
respondence of idea with reality," reality being taken in the
special sense of existence. Propositions said to be true or
false in this sense are general propositions about existents
of the physical, social, or individual worlds, or connections,
causal and other, among these existents. The concept of cor
respondence includes the further assumption that, while the
ideas themselves are not existents, they are founded upon
existents, and are hypothetical in the sense that their truth
is conditioned upon the assumption of the existence of the ob
jects about which the propositions are made. The external
control, though remote, is assumed to be real. While to ground
the objectivity of a value, it is sufficient to say that the idea or
concept to which the feeling of value attaches is thus true,
still there is always implied in the conception of outer truth

1 For a similar discussion of the meanings of existence, from the standpoint of
Epistemology, see Baldwin, Thought and Things, vol. I, chapter X, §§ 9, 10, II. Also
his discussion of " primary, secondary and tertiary conversion," in vol. II, chapter III.

390 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

the belief that the judgment of truth will lead to, or may be
converted into, the judgment of existence. . Outer truths of this
sort are in general the causal laws of the physical, social
economic, and individual-psychical spheres. . They are organised
and retrospective propositions about existents, and many ideals
and anticipations of value must, in order to make good their
claim to objectivity, conform to these laws.

But there are certain meanings of truth not exhausted
in this description, cases in which truth is not " outer " in
the sense that it claims correspondence with external exist
ents. Here truth is said to be merely an internal relation
among ideas, correspondence of idea with idea, identity and
lack of contradiction. The claim to objectivity in this case
is interpreted as logical consistency, necessity, and universality.
It is sometimes held that this meaning of the objectivity of
truth is also the ultimate meaning of the claim to objectivity in
values. Whether this is true or not we have still to consider,
but we may at least admit that there are certain values, e.g., of
knowledge, where, in order that the presupposition of reality
may be fulfilled, they must conform to this demand.

3. The Relation of Normative to Factual and Truth
Objectivity.

Evidently, after this analysis, the next question is — to
what extent normative objectivity is identical with factual
and truth objectivity, to what extent, in other words, the terms
real and objective, when applied to the values of objects, have
the same meaning as when applied to objects apart from valu
ation. There can be no question that at some points they are
identical. At others they are closely related, and at still others
they may, perhaps, be independent. The answer to this ques
tion involves the whole problem of the relation of judgments
of value to judgments of truth and fact.

(a) Normative and Factual Objectivity.

There are some cases where normative and factual objec
tivity are clearly identical. Here continuance of subjective
value and feeling of reality requires that the presumption or
assumption of existence created by subjective dispositions
shall be convertible into an existential judgment. When the

Valuation and Evaluation 391

home-sick mariner imagines his desired haven near, this feeling
the imagination has representative value, but it will not
continue unless the assumption develops into existential judg
ment, either through perception or by inference from obser
vations by means of his nautical instruments. Similarly,
in the case of Gaunilo's Island, the mere formation of the image
and assumption of its existence is not sufficient; there must
be conversion into existential judgment of the first type, in
order that it may have real value.

In the second place, it is clear that normative objectivity
is frequently identical with factual objectivity of the second
type. Wherever the reality of a value is conditioned by the
belief that the object desired is also the object of desire and will
on the part of others, individuals or social groups, there factual
objectivity is implied in the normative. Thus in all cases
where the value judgment of the individual lays claim to
objectivity in the sense of the impersonal economic or "moral"
judgment, this judgment can receive its validity only from
an existential judgment of the second type, which predicates
of the value an existence in social demand and supply independeni
of the individual. " Normal " exchange values or prices,
" normal " moral or participation values, are both facts and
norms— facts in that they have a kind of outer existence in
dependent of the subject, and norms because the subject must
take this outer reality and control into account. They have
normative objectivity precisely because they have factual
objectivity. In so far as actualisation of subjective feelings
of value is conditioned by exchange or participation in social
activities, economic or moral, the individual's judgment of the
value of the object or disposition must conform to, and be ful
filled in, the objective social value. Such norms we may de
scribe as instrumental; and they must have factual existence
in the sense that they are founded upon social demand.

(b) Normative and Truth Objectivity.

In general it may also be said that, when the value is instru
mental, normative objectivity is identical with truth objectivity

the outer type, or with propositions about relations among
physical, social, and individual-psychical existents. Whenever
the actualisation of any ideal or anticipation requires the appli
cation of physical objects or participation in economic and social

39 2 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

processes, this ideal must conform to the general laws or truths
of these spheres. All instrumental values presuppose first direct
conversion, and if that is not possible, indirect conversion into
existential judgments.

But, as we have said, there are other values, ideals, and
anticipations which transcend the claims of this kind of outer
truth, and which, in order to be valid, do not require this
direct or indirect conversion into existences. Such are the
ideal values of ethical, aesthetic, and religious experience. The
assumptions of ultimately desirable ethical dispositions, and of
objective beauty as distinguished from the subjectively effective,
are ideals of this sort. Developed though they may have been
in social interaction, and retaining, as they undoubtedly do,
a secondary instrumental value for social participation, they
are, nevertheless, now primarily significant as the conditions
or presuppositions of the continuity of individual and per
sonal values. Inner truth and reality such ideals have ;
they are ideal constructions which are realised or fulfilled in
the individual experience which they control. They are not
empty imagery, mere objects, for they have a funded meaning
or value which can be converted into actual feelings of value.
But their presupposition of reality cannot be wholly converted
into existential and truth judgments. There are aesthetic
values which do not claim the physical existence of their object.
There are personal ethical ideals the objectivity of which is
claimed in every feeling of obligation, in every judgment of im
putation of which they are the grounds, and yet this normative
objectivity does not imply that they are actually realised, or
even capable of complete realisation, in specific individuals
or societies.

We are thus led to the conception of " inner truth," as the
last of the pre-formed and organised definitions of the meaning
of the presupposition of reality. Surely here value and truth
are ultimately and completely identical ; all values presuppose
at least inner truth or validity. It all depends upon whether
truth, when thus defined abstractly and retrospectively, can also
be defined comprehensively enough. The most comprehensive
definition of abstract intrinsic truth attainable is, as we have
seen, that of logical consistency, with its assumption of uni
versality and necessity. Can the postulate of valuation be
identified with this logical postulate ? Or is there a last meaning
of inner truth not definable apart from the judgment of value

Valuation and Evahiation 393

in which it is implied ? We have already suggested doubts of
this identity of truth and value, and a fuller examination of the
question establishes these doubts more firmly.

This lack of identity may be seen at two points. On the
one hand, such ethical, aesthetic, and religious ideals, though
still claiming inner truth, often appear in an indeterminate
form, which makes them not comparable with abstract con
ceptions, a fact especially apparent in aesthetic and religious
symbolic truth. It may be said that this fact means merely
that the implicit claim is never pushed. But this is hardly true,
for the reason that the presupposition of reality is satisfied with
out pushing the claim; and in case the attempt is made, for
extrinsic reasons, to turn the reality into abstract truth, and
the attempt to do so is unsuccessful, the feeling of inner truth
still persists. On the other hand, this same lack of identity
is apparent from the fact that logical necessity does not always
include realisation of inner truth. It by no means follows, as
we have seen in the preceding chapter, and shall see more clearly
in the sequel, that such logical necessity includes reality
for the will and for appreciation generally. Nor does logical
contradiction necessarily mean incompatibility for volition.
Intellectual conviction does not always include realisation.

We are therefore forced to conclude, either that certain forms
of value judgment are independent of truth judgments, or else
that such truth as they presuppose is not definable in retrospec
tive or logical terms. In the former case, appreciation includes
reality unconditionally, and there is no criterion other than
this immediate appreciation. In the latter case, there is still
an implicit hypothetical reference to judgments of existence and
truth not reducible to any of the retrospective formulations
or organisations of experience thus far described. The latter
is probably the true interpretation of the situation. While
tese ideal values, in order to make good their claim to norma
tive objectivity, do not demand conversion into existential
and truth judgments of the types defined, they still have a re
ference to matter of fact and truth. Just what this hypothetical
reference may be, can be determined only after the postulate
of valuation itself is developed in all its meaning. In either case
however, this much is certain— there is only partial identity
between normative and factual objectivity, between the axio-
logical and epistemological predicates. The distinction be
tween subjective and objective values is one which arises within

394 Valuation : its Natztre and Laws

the function of valuation itself with a view to the control of
this function. The axiological predicates of existence or truth
get their meaning from their place in this function, and this
meaning is always relative to the special intent of the sub
jective experience to be controlled. Every value is in a sense
real. An unreal value is a contradiction in terms. The only
question is as to how this reality shall be explicitly acknow
ledged and characterised in terms of reflective definition.

4. Proof of this Conclusion in the Value Judgments of

Religion.

Religious values furnish an admirable illustration of the
truth of this analysis of the relation of judgments of value
to judgments of truth and fact — of their relative independence
at certain points. They are, as Hoffding has well said, value
judgments of the second degree, in that they express the feelings
which arise from the consideration of the fate of primary per
sonal and social values in reality ; they express the demand for
conservation of values already acquired. As a consequence of
this character, the judgment of value is bound up originally
with existential judgments, the real meaning of which is not
always at first apprehended.

The object of religious belief and devotion is psychologically
an appreciative construction externalised and given " outer "
existence in the manner already described (Chapter XI). The
presupposition of reality is acknowledged in existential judg
ments of the most elementary type. As a consequence, for
the unsophisticated religious consciousness, appreciative and
existential meanings are often inextricably mixed. Literal
paradises and hells arise out of this state of primitive undifferen-
tiation ; the heights and deeps of our experiences of value are so
confused with temporal and spatial magnitudes that belief in
the reality of the values is made to rest upon the belief in the
physical existence of the symbols. But when this first fusion
—and confusion — is broken up, as it ultimately is when the
interpretation of the presupposition of reality in this way is no
longer possible, i.e., when the object is neither perceptually verifi
able nor continuous with other truth judgments, a readjustment
of reality-meanings takes place. A restoration of the value in
the form of a conception of symbolic or inner truth appears,
and, if the value involved is vital, the presupposition of reality

Valuation and Evaluation 395

outlasts the cruder factual and truth judgments. The history
of religions, of Christianity no less than the others, shows this
progressive clarification of reality-meanings, the historical
culmination in the case of Christianity being the attempt to
identify the presupposition of reality implicit in the ideal of
perfection with logical or truth objectivity in its most abstract
form. The failure of this attempt, as in the Ontological Proof,
marks the full realisation of the primacy of values. Experience
has shown the remarkable power of religious beliefs to recuperate
and readjust themselves, and from this vitality we may probably
infer that, until the values of men themselves change, the value
judgments of religion need fear nothing from the appearance
of new judgments of fact and truth.

III. THE SUFFICIENT REASON OF VALUATION— THE GROUND
OR SANCTION OF VALUE

i. The General Problem of Sufficient Reason or Sanction.

The situation which our preceding analysis has disclosed
is one which has, in many quarters, compelled the abandon
ment of that form of intellectualism which makes objective
value derivative from preformed and already organised judg
ments of fact and truth. The several meanings of reality and
realisation show clearly that normative objectivity, and, there
fore, the predicate of reality when applied in the only sense
proper in the sphere of values, cannot be completely identified
with factual and truth objectivity in the narrower sense, either
of physical and psychical existence and connections among
those existents, or of logical validity. With the realisation of
these facts has come the various forms of a logism, seeking
for concepts and criteria of validity which shall embrace and
legitimate the various reality-meanings not thus reducible,
and finding expression, therefore, in a reaching out, either after
an independent principle of sufficiency for value judgments, or
toward an expansion of the concepts of reason and truth to
include grounds not recognised in the older logical and epistem-
ological theories. This general problem— of which our search
for the meaning and grounds of normative objectivity is but a
special form, may then be properly described as the formula
tion of a theory of the Sufficient Reason of Valuation—or if

396 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

the term " reason " seem too intellectualistic in its connotation,
Sufficient Sanction. It includes the discovery of the ultimate
core of meaning in the various demands for reality, and the
determination, in the light of this conception, of the various
types of experience which constitute sufficient fulfilment of
the specific demands. We are thus led to the second aspect
of our general problem.

The proposal to develop an independent Sufficient Reason
of valuation seems, at first sight, to give away the whole case.
Because of the intellectualistic connotation of the word reason
, the task appears predestined to failure, the use of the term
reason or ground seeming to refer wholly to grounding in pre
ceding judgments of fact or truth. But the history of the
term, as well as its present usage, shows that it has a much
wider connotation, and is used interchangeably for truth and
value. Leibnitz constantly interchanges the two, and in
applying his principle of sufficient reason, not only grounds
judgments of value in more ultimate judgments of value,
but judgments of truth and fact in judgments of value. As
synonymous with his principle he sometimes uses the phrase
" principle of fitness " (convenance) or harmony. We give the
sufficient reason of a thing, he says, when, in addition to its
abstract possibility, we show its compossibility with other
things ; and in developing that compossibility he often introduces
a concept of inclining or moral compossibility — evidently pure
worth conceptions. Rationality is ultimately identical with
continuity of experience in all its forms. It is true, as I have
elsewhere shown,1 that in the succeeding developments of the
principle the tendency has been again to restrict it to judgments
of factual and truth objectivity of the types defined, but this
has merely had the effect of developing a counter-tendency to
the various forms of alogism which characterise the thought
of the present.

2. The Pragmatic Criterion — Criticism.

This general tendency to alogism appears especially in
connection with the problem of illusions and disillusionment
which has become so prominent with the development of the
causal or scientific point of view. Some of its most interesting

1 The History of the Principle of Sufficient Reason : Its Metaphysical and Logical
Formulations. Princeton Contributions to Philosophy, No. i, The Princeton Press, 1897.

Valuation and Evaluation 397

expressions have arisen in connection with just those problems
which have emerged in our study of the phenomenology of
valuation— whether, namely, the ideal objects with their im
puted values are merely illusions, or whether they have some
relation to reality. It is present, for instance, in all the works
of Guyau, but is especially emphasised in his Esquise d'une moral,
where in developing a purely positive morality sans sanction,
either theological or metaphysical, he finds certain value judg
ments and obligations resting upon assumptions which, from the
external point of view of the existential and truth judgments
of science, are wholly unfounded, and therefore, illusions.
But they are "fruitful" illusions— fruitful for life, and must
therefore have some ultimate reality and meaning. Again,
it appears to Ehrenfels that, while from the point of view
of actual social values the assumptions upon which many
subjective worth experiences rest seem fallacious, nevertheless,
though illusions, they still have some instrumental value.'
Finally, we may note the pragmatic point of view of James in
his estimate of the subjective and personal worths of religious
experience. He deduces their truth from their fruitfulness,
and from their value for life is disposed to argue some objective
existent. Moreover, and this is an important point, he dis
tinctly denies the jurisdiction of the existential and truth judg
ments of science, more particularly of physiology and pathology,
in the sphere of worth judgment.

In all these cases we have, broadly speaking, an application
of the pragmatic criterion. And when closely examined, this
latter further seems to be but a special application, with greater
intensity of purpose, and to a wider range of phenomena than
formerly, of a philosophical formula by no means new, and one
which has deserved a more whole-hearted application than
it has hitherto received. The formula, wherever there is appear
ance there is reality, or, in Herbart's terms, " wie viel Schein, so
viel Hindeutung auf Sein," has been accepted in some form or
other by all except the most extreme intellectualists, but in
most cases— and notably in the case of Herbart himself—
inveterate rationalistic prejudices have prevented the full
development of its implications. The turn which the prag-
matist has given to the formula seems to be but an over-emphasis
upon one type of indirect conversion of the implicit presupposition
of reality, namely the instrumental, and to be due historically
to the peculiar emphasis of the present time upon the utility

39$ Valuation : its Nature and Laws

conceptions of biological evolution, with which in fact the
pragmatic conception of truth is closely connected.

With that phase of the pragmatist's contention which in
sists upon a broader conception of reality and truth, one which
will include and legitimatise certain incontestable presuppositions
of reality implicit in values, we may confess ourselves in
sympathy. We have seen that, while values presuppose reality
and truth, they do not always presuppose such conceptions of
truth as can be abstractly denned in terms of " correspondence
of image with object " or of " logical consistency." These, to be
sure, constitute grounds of fulfilment or realisation in particular
cases, as analysis of the meanings of reality shows. When the
presupposition of reality means physical or psychical existence
or ideal consistency, these constitute the test of reality. But
the presupposition of reality means more than this, and the
application of such specific criteria as though they were absolute
negates the more general conception already formulated, and
gives us a generous crop of illusions. With the criticisms of
the formulations of " truth in general " and their direct applica
tion as criteria of realities, we are therefore in accord, but it is
doubtful whether the criterion which is proposed in their place,
that of utility or of indirect conversion through instrumental
judgments, is adequate either as a definition of the meaning
of truth, or as a test of the validity of the various implications
of reality. All values have a reference to reality, but the mean
ing of that reference cannot be exhausted in the concept of
utility.

It must, nevertheless, be admitted that the test of utility
does from the ground of many judgments of value which have an
inner presumption of reality, but are not directly convertible into
judgments of existence. The concept of utility has, moreover,
been so broadly interpreted as to include all types of instrumental
relations, biological, social, and individual. But it is not difficult
to see that this concept of pragmatic sanction owes its value
primarily to its generality and that it suffers from the same
difficulties as the other criteria. As soon as the abstract con
cepts of " utility," or " fruitfulness for life," are defined and
applied to particular situations, certain equivocations arise, and
with them certain difficulties.

Thus, if our pragmatism is of the crude type, if we conceive
" life " in an external way, then our criterion still fails to include
many internal meanings, many intrinsic and individual values

Valuation and Evaluation 399

which cannot be thus related to the external biological and social
existences. Taken in this sense, the criterion is still external,
in that it really does not transcend the crude distinction of
physical and psychical reality. For the concept of instrumen
tality, the relation of means to ends, can be applied only to
pre-established existents. An idea or ideal can be instrumental
to the production only of existences, physical goods, or psychical
experiences, and to be thus instrumental it must itself be an
existent.

But even if utility is taken in a broader sense, if our prag
matism is of the more refined type, i.e., if we include in our world
of pragmatic truth ideal meanings which are individual and in
trinsic, such as the ethical and religious " practical absolutes,"
we can do so only by resorting to a shifting use of the terms
utility and instrumental value. Thus, when Augustine says,
' I seek thee in order that my soul may live," he attributes in
this utterance only mediate value to the object of his faith,
but when in other utterances he speaks of God as the highest
or only good, as goodness and truth itself, the object of his faith
appears invested with immediate value. Between the two the
pragmatist seems to find no difference, when, as a matter of
fact, even pragmatically viewed, there is all the difference in
the world — a difference not only in the meaning of the
presupposition of reality, but also in the type of experience
in which it is realised. This fallacy of equivocation is one
to which the pragmatist is constantly prone. He uses his
concept of utility primarily to apply to truths in the case of
which the value is in the strict sense instrumental, but when
he finds truths and values of a purely intrinsic kind, of the
higher type of immediacy where the value is immanental and
not transgredient, he covers the situation by the use of the
general phrase " fruitful for life." This appears in the relative
truth which James has been recently according to the concept
of the absolute.1 He admits its function as practical, as the means
to " moral holidays," and again as the presupposition of the
immanental values of aesthetics and religion, but does not realise,
although other pragmatists apparently do, that the whole
instrumental concept is here in danger. For to realise these
experiences, these " holidays," at all, the very condition is that
you do not make them conscious ends, and still less means to
ends. The condition of their functioning at all is that they

1 James, Pragmatism, Longmans, Green & Co., 1907, Lecture II, pp. 73-79.

400 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

remain implicit assumptions — otherwise the process is self-
defeating. This is what is meant at bottom by the criticism
that, as a theory, pragmatism itself lacks pragmatic value. We
may conclude, then, that the pragmatist's attempts to charac
terise in retrospective terms the presupposition of reality in all
its meanings is no more ultimate than those which it criticises,
and that any conception of the primacy of values which shall
be satisfactory must not confine itself to the instrumental con
ception.

3. The Ultimate Meaning of the Presupposition of Reality and of
its Fulfilment — The Demand for Continuity.

What, then, is the ultimate ground or sanction of value
judgments ? The answer to this question evidently involves
a deeper analysis of the ultimate presupposition of reality
and its satisfaction, one that goes beyond the pragmatic in
terpretation, valuable as it is as a protest against the logical
deduction of values, and as an attempt to widen the concept of
sufficient reason. It is equally apparent that the problem
centres about those intrinsic values the objects of which are
ideals not reducible either directly or indirectly to judgments of
fact or truth, and not related instrumentally to values the
objects of which have been already acknowledged as true or
existent. There are, as our study has abundantly shown, forms
of realisation or satisfaction which do not depend for their
validity upon either of these kinds of acknowledgment, where,
indeed, realisation is possible only on condition that the
assumption of reality merges directly into realisation, and that
we do not seek to reduce it to retrospective judgments of fact,
truth, or utility. The objectivity claimed for the ideal values
of ethical, aesthetic, and religious experience cannot be defined
in terms of any of these conceptions of direct or indirect con
version into existential and truth judgments. To determine
just what constitutes their sufficient reason we must know what
the demand for reality ultimately means.

A definition of this demand, as a postulate of reflective
evaluation, requires a comprehensive analysis of the common
element in all the various forms of presumption and assumption
as they appear on the different levels of unreflective experience.
Here it is no longer a question of the genesis of specific forms of
the common presupposition, but of the intelligibility of the

Valuation and Evahiation 401

common element or the logical core which gives it meaning, and
which survives its transformation into various forms. If,
then, we review our analysis of the axiological predicates—
this time, however, with a view to their intension rather than
to their extension,— we find but one element which is clearly
common to them all, namely, the postulate that our experiences
of feeling and will, as subjective and individual, are in some way
identical or continuous with a reality that transcends our
momentary experience. They have a reference, either trans-
gredient or immanental, beyond themselves. Sometimes this
postulate means, as our analysis has shown, that the object,
as desired and enjoyed by us, exists in the physical sense ; and
the value is said to be objective and valid when the feeling of
value continues after presumption has passed into existential
judgment. Valid also is that subjective feeling of participation
when the object of our subjective feeling is also the object of
other wills than our own, when our feeling and will is continuous
with an over-individual experience. Again a subjective feeling
of value is valid when it is identical or continuous with dis
positions or forms of will in ourselves which have already attained
an objective and over-individual reference. These direct,
together with the corresponding indirect, forms of conversion
through judgments of truth, constitute the usual meanings of
realisation. But finally— and this is the most significant point
—in the case of intrinsic ideal values the postulate means only
inner identity and continuity of the will with its objects or with
itself, through successive empirical moments of realisation.
This internal identity and continuity, as over against the
discontinuity of momentary and isolated desires and objects,
creates an objectivity within the subject's experience, and
constitutes the last meaning of objectivity as reality.

The character of this ultimate form of the postulate gives
the key to the meaning of the postulate of identity in all its
forms. Here the transcendental reality presupposed is clearly
will, and the axiological predicate of inner truth means identity
of will with will. The other expressions of the postulate are
but more indirect and disguised forms of the same claim of
identity of subjective with more objectified forms of will. They
are specialised demands which have developed as secondary
meanings ; and, while the desire for existence as such, and for
abstract truth, may appear apart from other desires, normally
factual and truth objectivity are demanded only as instrumental

2 D

402 Valuation : its Natiire and Laws

to that inner reality and truth which arises from identity of
one act of will with another, and all secondary distinctions are
made with a view to the maintenance of that continuity.

The presupposition of reality in all valuation is, then, the
identity or continuity of subjective volition with forms of will
which transcend the individual and momentary experience —
not merely identity of subjective " image " with objective
" thing," of subjective will with over-individual in the sense
of social will, nor yet of subjective will with itself as objectified
as a disposition of a person — but, ultimately identity of subjective
will with a met- empirical will not completely expressed in any of
these forms. Whether that identity is acknowledged, that
continuity maintained, by explicit existential judgment after
arrest, i.e., after distinction between outer and inner, or by
explicit postulation or acknowledgment of persistent assumptions
or ideals, or, finally, by the mere continuance of an implicit
assumption, — in every case some form of reality or being is
acknowledged because of identity of subjective with objective
will.

The realisation of this postulate of identity in any of the
specific forms of empirical continuity gives objective value.
Complete identity would mean absolute value ; and, could we
formulate this met-empirical will in such a way as to deduce
from it its actual content or objects, a system of absolute values
or of unconditioned satisfactions could be developed. For
objects which could afford the basis of such complete identity
would be universal and eternal values, unmodifiable by any
empirical conditions, objects of an over-individual will or long
ing unaffected by the desires and feelings of the individual.

The attempts to define the met-empirical will in terms of
realisation of self, or realisation of an impersonal over-individual
will interpreted socially, have been criticised in the preceding
chapter. The wholly acquired and intra-experiential character
of these distinctions and meanings makes it inconceivable that
either should be completely identical with the total meaning
of the over-individual will; and the analysis of actual value
judgments in these spheres showed their relative nature. It
is still conceivable, however, that, if the meaning and content
of volition should be abstractly enough defined, it might be
found ultimate enough to form an absolutely necessary pre
supposition of all actual volition, and at the same time broad
enough to include these, as well as all other, forms of realisation —

Valuation and Evaluation 403

and thus to be an incontestable value. The many attempts
thus to characterise the unconditioned act of will presupposed
in all relative and subjective volitions — as " the will to love,"
" the will to power," etc., can logically lead only to an abstraction
in which all elements of individual desire and emotion are
eliminated, and finally to the emptiest of logical abstractions
—the will to pure being. Such is the recent attempt to ground
all values in an over-individual longing, an over-individual will
to the self-maintenance of the world, or, more briefly, " Wille
zur Welt." Suggestive as this characterisation of the ultimate
presupposition of reality undeniably is — as a logical characterisa
tion, it is too thin an abstraction upon which to build a world
of actual values. For, either it includes in it the concrete
content of an already defined and realised world, or else it means
nothing more than mere persistence or continuity of will. In
the first case, the relativity of all ideal construction makes it
impossible to show the absolute identity of actual ideals and
their realisations with such a will ; the postulate of eternity of
value does not include the eternity of specific objects of value.
In the second case, the very abstractness of the meaning of will
as thus defined makes it so empty a concept that it is useless as
a criterion of evaluation until it is reduced to the specific forms
of the demand for continuity. Viewed in either way, it is useless
as a point of departure for developing a system of absolute
values.

From such reflections it seems necessary to conclude that
the presupposition of reality, realised in various forms of actual
worth experience, cannot be defined in such a way as to deduce
from it absolute values. It can be characterised merely as a
postulate of the continuity of value, the persistence of will and
its satisfaction beyond any empirical forms which it may assume.
The logical, or better axiological, postulate of identity of the
empirical with the met-empirical will becomes for practical
purposes the demand for continuity of empirical desire and
feeling, for continuity of subjective with already objectified forms
of will. The real problem is, then, to find the empirical forms
in which the demand for continuity appears, and to determine
the extent to which the empirically derived objects fulfil these
demands.

* Hugo Miinsterberg, Philosophic der Werte : Grundzuge einer Weltanschauung
Leipzig : Verlag Johann Ambrosius Earth, 1908.

404 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

4. The Postulate of Continuity: Acquirement and Conservation
of Value — Practical Absolutes.

The two forms in which this demand appears in immediate
experience are the transgredient and immanental references
of feelings of value. When, however, these references become
the explicit demands of reflective evaluation, they appear as the
postulates of acquirement and conservation of meaning or value.
In order that the function of valuation may continue, that
volition may persist, new values must be acquired, and those
already acquired must persist or be conserved in new objects
on new levels. Every specific form of the demand for continuity
may, therefore, be comprehended in these two aspects of the
general postulate of valuation.

It is, perhaps, idle to raise the question as to which of the
two aspects is ultimate. In his admirable discussion of religious
values, Hoffding * makes the concept of conservation the more
ultimate, deducing the demand for acquirement from conserva
tion on the ground that the condition of the persistence of value
is the creation of new values. But further reflection seems to
require a reversal of this relation. The inmost principle of
sufficient reason of volition, and the ultimate criterion of norma
tive objectivity alike, are to be found in the fact that an act
of will affords the basis for ever new forms of will, and that
a value is but the starting-point for new values. But in this
principle is included the further postulate that any volition
already fulfilled, any value experienced, is conserved in some
form as the platform for new volitions and values, that any
essential value persists in new forms of reality. The postulate
of conservation is a retrospective formula having reference
to those implicit assumptions which constitute the indispensable
conditions of continuity of valuation.

In the recognition of this fact — that the postulate of con
servation is included in the ultimate presupposition of reality,
we have finally the basis for an understanding of the function
of the axiological predicates of existence and truth. The judg
ment of value, while an appreciation, is one which includes
reality ; while assertorial in form, it has a hypothetical reference
to reality. The predicates of existence and truth are, when

1 Hoffding, The Philosophy of Religion, translation from the German edition.
Macmillan & Co., 1906. pp. 215 ff.

Valuation and Evaluation 405

used axiologically, the explicit meanings developed in the interest
of conservation of the implicit presupposition. As prospective
ideals, values require merely that inner truth which is identical
with value. As norms conserving the values already acquired,
and forming the basis of new values, they must have that outer
existence and truth which makes them objective and over-
individual. The demand for outer existence and truth in its
various forms is but an expression of the demand for persistence
and conservation, and the predicates in which this demand is
acknowledged are the signs of such conservation.

It is also clear that any form of existence or truth may,
under certain circumstances, have absolute value. Any of the
objects of actual desire, any of the ideal constructions developed
in the empirical processes of valuation, may become practical
absolutes in that their persistence is demanded unconditionally.
The will to live, the will to be a person, and the will to participate
may, as we have seen, under certain circumstances, be un
conditional, and the realisation of certain objects of will, as
for instance, the minimum of existence, of characterisation, or of
participation, may have absolute value. The feeling of absolute
obligation in its several forms appears in connection with those
objects which are without capacity of substitution, and which
are therefore assumed to be the indispensable conditions of
continuity of valuation. In general it may be said that the
feeling of absolute value of the existence or truth of certain
concrete objects thus arises because, under the empirical con
ditions of their origin, already described, they are the objects
in which the met-empirical postulate of identity finds con
crete expression in an individual demand. While there are
no absolute values in the theoretical sense that the object
of the individual empirical will can be shown to be absolutely
identical with the object of the met-empirical will, the
empirically derived presupposition identical with the logical
presupposition, there are, nevertheless, as we have seen, practical
absolutes, objects which in specific situations are the indis
pensable conditions of realisation of the postulate of continuity.

5. Axiological Sufficiency — The Well-Founded Value.

The presupposition of reality, the claim to objectivity, means
then, ultimately, the fulfilment of the postulate of continuity
of value in its two forms of acquirement and conservation.

406 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

The significance of this conclusion is far-reaching. If this is
what the postulate of valuation ultimately means, the sufficient
reason of any assumption of reality, any subjective experience
of feeling or will, is to be found in just this continuity, in the
fact that it maintains itself in succeeding experiences of feeling
and will. Unhindered activity or continuity is the source of
reality and value. Judgments of existence or of logical con
sistency are merely special forms of registering the fact that
specific presuppositions have maintained, themselves. They are
but secondary modifications of the primary feeling of reality.
An incontestable assumption, postulate, or belief registers the
same fact.

This is the axiological meaning of certain facts brought
out in our psychological analysis. We have seen (pp. 42-49)
that it is not the entrance of a new element, the existential
judgment, which makes the mere idea, until now unreal, ob
jective and real; but it is rather the process of abstraction— by
which an "objective," with primitive presupposition of reality,
is turned into a mere object, that creates the feeling of unreality.
When this abstraction has taken place, when the presumption
of reality is disturbed, it must, to be sure, be restored in some
explicit acknowledgment of the presupposition of reality, but
unless disturbed it is valid. No less valid, it may be added,
are any secondary and derived assumptions and postulates
which form the basis of continuity of actual experience of value.

This being the meaning of the presupposition of reality and
of its fulfilment, it is clear in what direction the criterion of
its realisation must be found, fit is apparent that we must
look, not for absolute grounds, but for sufficient sanctions of
value judgments, not for absolute norms, but for well-founded
ideals of value. The postulate of identity of the empirical with
the met-empirical will is realised, not in absolute, but in sufficient
identities — i.e., sufficient for the continuity of value.' Here,
then, in this question of the nature of axiological sufficiency
lies our real problem. For, if it is true that we cannot find points
of absolute logical identity between the objects of the empirical
and met-empirical will, it is no less true, as we have already
seen, that the concept of mere continuity is useless until made
more concrete and practical. A closer scrutiny of the concept
of sufficiency is demanded, and here again the thinking of Leibnitz
is suggestive.

For him, as we have seen, rationality and continuity are

Valuation and Evaluation 407

identical. But complete continuity of finite objects with the
ultimate reality, and therefore absolute grounding, would
require, as he says, " infinite analysis." Nevertheless, in
order that a phenomenon may be " well-founded," in order
that practical distinctions may be made between the subjective
and the objective, such infinite analysis is not necessary. It is
required merely that the analysis shall be sufficient, that it
shall satisfy a specific form of the demand for continuity, i.e.,
sufficient in the sense in which we say of a certain magnitude that
it is sufficient when it satisfies a given equation.1 In like manner,
recalling the steps of our argument up to this point, we may say
that a value is well-founded when it fulfils a specific presupposition
of reality. In the case of a value judgment, the " equation" to
be satisfied is formed by the analysis of the specific presupposition
of reality or demand for objectivity implicit in a value judgment,
and its solution consists in determining the specific meaning of
the predicate of reality which satisfies that demand. The entire
question is one of relevancy. With regard to the world of cog
nitive judgment, Leibnitz says : " Although this entire life
were said to be nothing but a dream, and the visible world
nothing but a phantasm, I should call this dream or phantasm
real enough if we are never deceived by it, when we use our
reason rightly." 2 In like manner, paraphrasing Leibnitz's
thought for the sphere of practical value judgment, we may say :
a value is real and objective enough if it maintains itself, if
the ideal continues when we reason and will rightly, i.e., if we
do not take the presumption or assumption of reality to mean
that which, in the light of its place in the system of our experi
ences, it does not, and indeed cannot mean.

The applications of this principle to the practical reasonings,
anticipations, and postulates of our individual and social, of
our economic, ethical, religious, and aesthetic life, are compre
hensive and varied, and to some of these applications we shall
direct attention in the sequel. Here we may note, merely
in the light of what has preceded, that it introduces into
our application of the criterion of continuity that element of
control which gives it practical axiological value. For it tells
us this much negatively at least — that the objectivity or reality
implicit in a value, although well-founded, need not necessarily

1 R. Latta, Leibnitz: The Monadology, etc. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1898,
p. 236, note.

2 De Modo distingucndi phenomena realia ab imaginariis. Ed. J. E. Erdmann,
Berlin, 1840, 4442.

408 Valuation : its Nat^tre and Laws

mean identity with factual or truth objectivity of any of the
types described. Reality of ideals does not necessarily mean
their translation into terms of social objectivity or existence •
nor can we infer that specific appreciative constructions or ideals
will continue in precisely the same form. We have found that
except in the case of the most ultimate personal worths these
ideals have capacity of substitution. As long as new experi
ences arise, so long there will be new valuations. A highest
value, other than the practical absolutes of the personal sphere
is not demonstrable. Value can be preserved only by trans-
Drmations, and all that we can say is that, since value persists
essential value in any ideal will be acknowledged in new
constructions and new existential judgments.

IV. APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON
OR SANCTION OF VALUATION— Irs RELATION TO CONCRETE
NORMS AND ASSUMPTIONS

i. The General Problem.

The criterion of normative objectivity, of reality in the
only sense in which it is applicable to values when conceived
omprehensively, has now been developed. Its implication
with respect to an ultimate postulate of worth continuity,
and its further implication that sufficiency is always relative
a specific presupposition of reality, includes, I think, all
hat is significant in the pragmatic criterion and furnishes
the key to the ultimate grounds of valuation. In the concept
of sufficient as distinguished from absolute ground of value
and m the definition of sufficiency as relative to specific con
tinuities and specific presuppositions, we have, moreover, the
point of connection between the axiological and phenomenological
omts of view— between the specific presuppositions, presump-
ons and assumptions as genetically derived, and the presupposi
tion of reality as logically interpreted. Our task is, therefore,
to deduce logically a system of values from one absolute
contestable value, but rather to interpret the actual demands
d presuppositions of valuations axiologically, i.e., to show the
relation of the actual presuppositions of concrete values to the
ultimate logical presupposition of valuation, the degree to which
continuity of valuation is realised in specific ideals.

Valuation and Evaluation 409

Of the possible meanings of the claim to reality or normative
objectivity, only that of inner reality and truth requires special
consideration. In the other cases normative objectivity is
identical with factual and truth objectivity, and the realisation
of the presupposition of reality requires acknowledgment in
specific existential and truth judgments. Only by such con
version of presumption and assumption into judgment is con
tinuity of valuation possible, is the value as a subjective ex
perience well-founded. The test of the well-founded value in
this case presents no special problem. The claim to reality
is specific in its meaning, and the illusions which follow its mis
interpretation are manifest to all who tamper unwittingly with
the physical and economic worlds. But with the claim of
intrinsic ideals to inner truth and reality the case is different.
Here validity does not involve complete conversion of assump
tion into already determined fact and truth ; the faiths embodied
in such ideals need not be completely actualised in the specific
spheres of physical and social reality. What, then, are the
specific tests which such claims must fulfil in order to be
accepted as well-founded ?

(a) Inner Truth has a Reference to Inner Existence or Psychical
Matter of Fact. — The Nature of this Reference.

The fact that ideals transcend experience in the sense that
they do not demand complete conversion into factual and
truth judgments, i.e., continuity at every point with the objective
world of science, has been taken to mean, as we have seen, that
here the presupposition of reality is to be interpreted as an
assumption of universality and eternity of the values involved.
If this is its meaning, then, of course, there are no empirical
tests of sufficiency, any reference to actual empirically con
ditioned feeling and will being irrelevant. But this interpretation
of the presupposition of reality we have found to be a logical
distortion of its meaning. While the ultimate postulate of
valuation is an assumption of the eternity of value, it does not
include the eternity of specific objects and concepts of value;
while it assumes identity with an over-individual will, it does
not assume that identity without a difference comprehended
in the concept of logical universality. Again, while ideals
transcend experience in the sense defined, they nevertheless
have their roots in certain regions of experience and fact.

410 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

Founded as they are upon psychical matter of fact, they contain
an implicit reference to retrospectively denned reality which
must be made explicit and subjected to test. Can the nature
and measure of this reference be denned, and can this definition
be applied reflectively to the evaluation of ideals and the judg
ments based upon them-in other words, to the differentiation
of valid ideals from " pathetic fallacies " ?

The nature of this reference is not difficult to define in general
terms. Whenever the claim to objectivity is made in the case
ideal values and their norms, this claim includes the belief
that they are realisable in some fashion. We live by ideals
it is true, but only because they are at the same time realities'
An ideal, as soon as it becomes practical, is an anticipation of
•eality. The claim to universality and eternity has no meaning
until in that claim we admit the temporal anticipation that
with the actual empirical extension or persistence of the ideal'
there will be a corresponding actual fulfilment in empirical
realisations, that the postulate of continuity will be realised
in its two aspects of acquirement and conservation. But antici
pations are meaningless and groundless unless based upon some
reference to fact, and in this case the " matter of fact " is what
we call broadly "human nature," human feeling and volition in
its various aspects and forms.

This very general characterisation of the reference to matter
of fact implied in all ideals can, moreover, be made more definite
tor the purposes of axiology. Using the form of words employed
the Introduction, and now charged with a fuller meaning, we
may say : every assertion of value involves ipso facto an assertion
of its conformity with the laws of feeling and will. The abstract
formulations of the normative sciences, their ideals and norms
cannot be anything else than the development, in other terms
and for other purposes, of what, from another point of view, we
call psychological laws. As now understood, the empirical
laws of valuation have axiological significance ; it is through
them that the specific empirical demands are to be interpreted.
For the processes of feeling and will, in which ideals are con
structed, permanent dispositions are formed, and the presupposi
tions of value judgments are established, are real processes of the
real will. They determine the specific conditions of the realisation
of the met-empirical will presupposed in all valuation ; they
create spheres of actual and possible experiences which in turn
condition the inner reality of ideals. The sufficient reason or

Valuation and Evaluation 4 1 1

sanction of ideals must therefore include the question whether
they are axiologically possible, and in what sense and within
what limits they are possible.

This conception of the relation of validity to psychical
matter of fact is inevitable for any one who holds that every
actual experience of value, while presupposing objective validity,
is, nevertheless, in one aspect a subjectively conditioned feeling,
that every judgment of value, however over-individual its
reference, must express the felt realisations of some subject.
Nor does such a view commit its holder to that form of Psy-
chologismus which identifies continuity of feeling as a mere
psychical fact with continuity of value as an axiological principle.
It merely sets him in opposition to the view which holds that
realisation and satisfaction are unrelated to empirical feeling.
For us the disjunction between logical validity and psychical
fact is not complete ; the genetic conception, with its implication
of the reality of the developing processes of feeling and will — an
implication which we have seen underlies all appreciative de
scription and the genetic method to which it gives rise — consti
tutes a middle ground. Upon this middle ground our solution
of the problem must be based.

(b) Axiological Sufficiency and Possibility.

The sufficient reason of a judgment which contains any
implication or presupposition of reality must, as Leibnitz long
ago pointed out, include a reference to possibility. In addition
to possibility every such judgment must have a further mark,
which Leibnitz describes as the special characteristic of suf
ficiency — " compossibility," or compatibility of the given judg
ment with other established judgments. The region of the
possible is negative, and is determined by the application of
the principle of non-contradiction ; that of compossibility is
more positive, and is determined by the harmony of the given
concept, judgment, or postulate with the entire system of
experience and the ultimate postulate of continuity which
underlies it.

That sufficiency must include possibility and compossibility
is clear, but, in order that we may apply these conceptions to
the region of worth experience, we must see just what meaning
they have in connection with valuation. That there may be
contradiction between facts and values which make values.

412 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

at least in the form originally conceived or presented, impossible,
that there may be disharmonies or incompatibilities between
values and values, between ideals and ideals, which require
the elimination or reconstruction of ideals, are facts which
are patent to all. But these contradictions and disharmonies
cannot be reduced to logical terms. As it is impossible to say
that a logically necessary conception is ipso facto a felt value,
so it is impossible to say that a contradiction in feeling and will
is necessarily reducible to abstract logic. What, then, is the
meaning of the possible and compossible in the sphere of valua
tion, and what is its axiological interpretation ?

The whole question is evidently one of relevancy. What
realms of fact and what laws are relevant in the determination
of axiological possibility ? This question we have already
considered in a general way in the concluding paragraphs of
Chapter VI. It is a pertinent question, we found, to ask whether
an ideal is possible — whether, for instance, to consider again
the illustration there used, it is rational for a man to desire
indefinite increase of a valued disposition on the assumption
that with this increase there would be increase of value. It is
not pertinent, however, to answer the question by showing
that the assumption is in contradiction with inferences from
the principle of the conservation of energy. The only question
that is relevant is whether such an assumption conforms
to inner psychical matter of fact, to the laws of feeling and will.
Again, it is pertinent to ask whether certain ideals of social
good are possible, whether, for instance, the will to universalise
altruistic dispositions, or to make the maxim of one's con
duct an eternal law, presupposes assumptions which are or
are not in harmony with the fundamental facts and laws of
social value. The assumption in this case is that amount, i.e.,
frequency of repetition, is accompanied by corresponding in
crease of instrumental value, an assumption which is not in
harmony with the laws of participation value. But here also
there is only one type of existential judgment which is relevant
—namely judgment concerning the psychical dispositions de
termined by the working of the laws of sympathetic participa
tion. In general it may be said that, while there are specific
regions of inner psychical fact which must enter into the retro
spective evaluation of any such ideal or assumption, there are
entire regions of outer fact and truth which are totally irrelevant,
namely the causal and mechanical generalisations of physical

Valuation and Evaluation 413

science. They are without competency in this connection,
because they are formed for an entirely different purpose, and
by abstracting wholly from the experience with which we are
here concerned.

The question of compossibility or compatibility of value
judgments involves something more than possibility. Here the
question is one of compatibility of the presuppositions of one
value judgment with those of another ; and it arises in all those
cases of judgment and volition which involve transition from
one norm or ideal to another — either continuity between different
types or levels of valuation, or the reduction of norms and
standards to a single ideal. The working of the fundamental
laws of valuation and worth construction, the value movements
from lower to higher levels, create those appreciative distinctions
or qualitative differences in the meanings of our feelings, which,
while not absolute and a priori, nevertheless are practically
absolute in the sense that they fix the limits to the activity of
specified ideals. It is chiefly in the attempts to universalise
specific ideals, as, for instance, the ideals of pleasure, perfection,
and self-sacrifice, that incompatibilities appear.

The general relation of possibility to compossibility is now
clear. In the former, the creation of psychical disposition
determines the possibility or impossibility of certain feelings
and volitions. In the latter, the development of dispositions,
ideals, and levels creates certain conscious meanings and dis
tinctions, certain universes of appreciative discourse which
mutually limit and determine each other. In the main it may
be said that the special studies of the different types of value
feelings and judgments — their conditions, laws, and limits —
were studies in axiological possibility, while those concerned
more specifically with the problems of synthetic preference and
valuation dealt with problems of compossibility.

Having thus distinguished the two concepts of possibility
and compossibility, it is possible to unite them again in a more
comprehensive concept. As the well-founded ideal value is
that which makes possible continuity of valuation, so the ideal
which is not well founded is that which develops discontinuity.
Where impossibility and incompatibility appear the process
is " self-defeating." In this concept of the self-defeating pro
cess we have a negative test of validity.

The full significance of this concept is apparent only when
it is recognised that it is volitional in meaning and transcends

4^4 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

the sphere of merely logical contradiction. That it is capable
•i almost purely logical statement is evidenced by the extensive
use of the principle of " endless regress " and of self-defeating
activities of thought, as seen especially in the antinomies. But
even here, as Bosanquet 1 has pointed out, the real meaning
ultimately affective-volitional. The wearisome vanity of
these empty repetitions without hope of unity or finality, with
out repose of realisation and satisfaction of the will, is what
really leads to value movement to new types of activity and ideal
construction. That this is Kant's ultimate meaning appears
think, from the close connection of his doctrine of antinomies
with his practical philosophy. The transition from the agnosti
cism of the theoretical to the faith of the practical reason is a
value movement on a large scale. Be this as it may, that the
•rincrple is essentially one of volition and valuation rather
than of thought and logic, appears from the fact that, while
s we shall see later, all logical applications of the principle
are referable to volitional categories, not all applications to
valuation are logical. This is especially apparent in the so-
called hedonistic paradox, where the pursuit of pleasure is said
to be self-defeating— not because of a logical contradiction
but of an inherent character of the practical will. The self-
defeating process is accordingly one which arises when we will
an idea in connections in which the ideal is untenable, wherever
there is demand for a type of realisation which is inherently
impossible. Correspondingly, all fallacies of valuation arise
in the acknowledgment of the primary presupposition of reality
in spheres of existence and truth not comprehended or implied
in this presupposition.

2. Application of these Principles to Specific Problems.

In this conception of axiological possibility and compossibility
we have the sufficient sanction of ideal values, the sufficient
reason or criterion of their inner truth. The application of
this criterion in connection with the specific problems which
have emerged in the course of our investigation, and which
have been emphasised at the beginning of this chapter, would
involve practically the rehearsal of the entire content of the
preceding discussion. Though tedious, it would not be difficult
to show that the entire question of what are realisable and

1 Logic, Vol. I, p. 173.

Valuation and Evaluation 415

well-founded ideals, in the various forms in which it presents
itself in the economic and moral, individual and social life,
must ultimately find its solution by reference to this sort
of truth and rationality. The disputes between the individualist
and the socialist, for instance, as to what are possible and im
possible motives, practicable or impracticable ideals, imply
certain assumptions, on the part of both, which can be tested only
by the application of such axiological criteria. Thus the question
of the desirability of certain forms of distribution of economic
goods, of the extension of certain moral dispositions — their
effect upon values — raises the further question of the relation
of individual to social values, whether, more specifically, certain
values are not conditioned by their being exceptional and isolated
by personal and group contrasts, and whether, even if their
extension were economically and psychologically possible,
such a process would not be axiologically self-defeating in that
they would then be incompatible with other values.

With equal truth it may probably be said that whatever
fallacies appear in such reasonings about and anticipations of
values, are in the main a specific axiological form of the material
fallacies of composition and accident, fallacies which arise from
what may, perhaps, be called false quantities in volition. Thus
the assumption that a motive which has its origin in a limited
participation in class consciousness, and which has attained its
intensity and extension within that class by the fact of contrast
and opposition, would, if universalised, exist in the same clear
ness and intensity, is one which requires examination, and may
possibly contain a fallacy which vitiates the entire argument in
which it appears. When the socialist argues that the motives
which have been characteristic of special classes, such as the
military, artistic, or philanthropic, could be extended to all
industrial activity, he may be right — there may be certain
universal elements unmodifiable by specific function, but any
prediction of the form they would assume, or of the results of
such universalisation, is liable to errors of this type. Equally
doubtful is any argument which proceeds upon the assumption
that the ideals which actuate men in exceptional situations, and
which are perfectly legitimate expectations in the sphere of per
sonal obligation and imputation, are susceptible of repeated appli
cation in normal circumstances or of universal extension. On the
other hand, we have the converse fallacy when we apply the
laws of social value judgment of men en masse to individual

4i 6 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

situations and persons — when we seek to argue from economic
and sociological generalities, made for certain purposes, to the
nature and capacities of individual originators of values.

(a) Again the Monistic 'theories of Ultimate Value.

But with such special problems we are not here concerned.
Our object is rather to show in a general way the principles
which underlie all reflective evaluation of ideals and values.
Nevertheless, while we cannot take up this criticism in detail,
we may in conclusion profitably return to a reconsideration,
from our present point of view, of the question of ultimate ideals
and norms as presented in the preceding chapter. To such
assumptions of ultimate ends, and their corresponding norms,
all. the special assumptions which we have just been con
sidering in turn go back, and the question of their validity
or workableness is closely connected with the more ultimate
question of the validity of the ideals on which they rest.

In all reasonings and anticipations of the type described,
some single ideal, such as happiness, self-realisation, or realisa
tion of over-individual social good, is usually presupposed,
either explicitly or implicitly. These ideals are implicitly
assumed as norms of certain types of judgments of obligation
and imputation, but, in the several monistic theories discussed,
each has also been taken separately as the absolute ideal of
valuation, as the single explicit end of all volition. Examina
tion of our actual feelings and judgments has shown us that
they do not afford ground for such monistic theories. The
method of testing these ideals and norms employed in the pre
ceding chapter showed that they break down at the limits.
Now, with our present conceptions of possibility and compossi-
bility, we may see why these single ideals, as single ideals, are
not well-founded.

In general it may be said that, with reference to certain
situations, in connection with certain processes and levels of
valuation, each of these ideals is well-founded, in that the funded
meaning finds realisation, in that the postulate of continuity, as
we have defined it, finds fulfilment. These ideals or assumptions
prove illusory and fallacious, however, when, abstracted from
the specific processes in which they are developed and which
they in turn control, they are universalised and conceived to
hold absolutely and unconditionally. It is then that im-

Valuation and Evaluation 417

possibilities and incompatibilities appear ; and they appear
just because the very act of taking them unconditionally in
volves a misinterpretation of the presupposition of reality.

These general principles have been applied, either con
sciously or unconsciously, in the many criticisms of Hedonism
which have sought to show its self-defeating character and to
display its practical fallacies, but they have significance for
us only in their general logical bearings, and these can be shown
in a few words. The ideas of pleasure or happiness are, as
we have seen, ideal constructions. As objects, as passive
states, they are abstractions, the product of a process of abstrac
tion exercised upon our " condition " worths, including the
primary condition worths together with the complementary
values, ethical and aesthetic, which arise on that level. Now,
within certain limits, this abstraction has a basis in reality,
i.e., the desire for pleasure is well-founded. When we believe
pleasure to exist, and assume that it may be attained, our belief
and assumption are justified by the fact that up to a certain point
the assumptions are realised, not indeed in " pleasures," but
in actual worth feelings. This " point " is determined by the
nature of the processes and laws in which the ideal is implicit
or embedded. As a convenient representation of objects of
condition worth, and within the limits of the laws governing
such values, it is a well-founded object of conation. But when
applied beyond that sphere — to represent personal worths, for
instance, its capacity as an object of continuous valuation dis
appears, as may be seen in the fact that it is not a substitute
for personal worth. No less fallacious is the attempt to sub
stitute a sum of pleasures for over-individual, social good; for
the fulfilment of the demand for this good does not include
necessarily, i.e., in so far as the test of experience can show,
the realisation of the demand for pleasure.

The self-defeating or paradoxical character of Hedonism
as a monistic ideal appears, therefore, at two specific points.
If I assume pleasure to be an object of absolute value, in the
sense of a perpetually tenable end, my experiences will probably
prove such an assumption unfounded and illusory, for the reason
that it is in contradiction with the laws of condition worths
in connection with which the idea alone has meaning. The
assumption is axiologically impossible, for it is contrary to the
laws of valuation. On the other hand, if I proceed upon the
assumption that pleasure may be taken to represent indis-

2 E

4i 8 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

criminately all values on whatever level, I am equally subjected
to practical illusions ; my assumption turns out to be incom
patible with those fundamental appreciative distinctions which
have been genetically developed, and is, therefore, axiologically
incompossible. In both cases the presupposition of reality in
the ideal of pleasure has been misinterpreted, reality has been
claimed where the claim cannot be realised.

No less paradoxical and self-defeating is the universalising
of the ideal of over-individual and impersonal good with its
corresponding norm, for here, again, such a process involves
a misinterpretation of the presupposition of reality. The
classical criticisms of this ideal, as for instance Schiller's criticism
of the Kantian conception of obedience to an absolute law
uncontaminated by individual feeling, and Spencer's criticism
of absolute altruism, emphasise the unreality of the ideal, its
incompatibility with other fundamental values. Wherein does
this unreality consist ?

Our study of the nature and origin of the ideal of over-
individual and impersonal good has shown it to be also an abstrac
tion standing for certain concrete social ideals which emerge in
the processes of social participation. As such it has a certain
reality. But in this case the presupposition of reality, the
demand for realisation implicit in the ideal, can mean only
one thing — namely, that type of outer existence described as
social, which consists in the fact that the ideal as subjective
experience finds its fulfilment or realisation in a corresponding
over-individual and social demand. If it cannot be thus ful
filled, the ideal is empty and lacks reality, and the judgments
of obligation and imputation founded upon it are fallacious.
Normative objectivity implies factual objectivity, i.e., an ideal
in order to have reality must have actual participation value.
Such ideals are well-founded, therefore, just in so far as they
are in conformity with the laws of participation value which
determine both the nature and the extent of the demand which
gives them their reality.

When, however, the subject acts and judges as though
the presupposition of reality or claim to objectivity means,
not this factual objectivity, but that purely logical objectivity
characterised as universality and eternity, fallacies both of
obligation and imputation arise. Ideals and their norms are
abstracted from the empirical processes of emotional participa
tion of persons and groups, and instead of being treated as

Valuation and Evaluation 419

founded upon actual desire and its satisfaction, they are held to
be determined by a wholly over-individual and impersonal will.
The self-defeating character of such an assumption appears in
the fact, as shown in detail in preceding chapters,1 that the ideal
either becomes an unreal abstraction or passes over into a wholly
individual and personal value.

We are finally brought, then, to the question of the reality
of the personal ideal and of personal values. Here the claim to
absoluteness takes the form of the ideal of perfection ; " per
fection is eternal." A certain paradoxical and self-defeating
character has been charged to this ideal also, and without doubt
it may give rise to fallacies both of judgment and action, which
must engage our attention. Our first task, however, is to deter
mine to what extent it is well-founded, what is the true inter
pretation of the presupposition of reality.

Like the ideals already considered, it is an ideal construction
developed in certain empirical processes. In these processes
funded meaning is acquired, and within certain limits this
funded meaning is realised in certain actual feelings, ethical,
aesthetic, and religious. The forms in which the ideal of personal
value appears are, as our study has shown, the ideal of absolute
sacrifice at the characterisation minimum and of complete
inner harmony. That these ideals have a certain basis in reality
is indicated by the fact that they form the presupposition of
the very real experiences of personal obligation and of aesthetic
realisations of intrinsic values. But the condition of the realisa
tion of these values is the isolation of the personality. The ideal
of perfection is the organising principle of the personal series,
but it is realised only in so far as it remains implicit in that
process. The presupposition of reality or the claim to objectivity
in this case means just that inner continuity and reality of the
ideal which we have found to be the ultimate meaning of norma
tive objectivity. In so far as the ideal remains thus an implicit
organising principle of experience, it is an assumption which
includes its own reality, fulfilling the demands of possibility
and compossibility alike, as our study of the laws of valuation
in this sphere has shown. The personal obligations felt, and
the aesthetic and religious values imputed on the basis of the
belief in perfection, are not pathetic fallacies, but the highest
realities. But let this meaning of reality be misinterpreted,
let us seek to convert this inner reality into outer reality through

1 Chapters xn and xm.

420 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

existential and instrumental judgments, and illusions and un
realities appear.

Of these false applications of the ideal of personal perfection,
the one most commonly emphasised is that which appears when
we make the implicit presupposition or norm of personal obliga
tions and imputations an explicit end, single and conscious,
to which other ends and values are sacrificed. In this case
the process is self-defeating, and pathetic sentimentalities and
unrealities appear. Self-forgetfulness is no less the condition
of perfection than of happiness, and those single experiences
which come by the grace of the gods are not to be repeated at
will. The quasi-aesthetic moment of isolation, deeply as it is
rooted in reality, is not to be petrified into a permanent attitude
without loss of value and reality. The fallacy of the situation
is again misinterpretation of the presupposition of reality.
In this case the subject of the illusion assumes that realisation
of the ideal means its actualisation in certain psychical states.
Assuming that reality means psychical existence, an intrinsic
ideal is turned into a means to ends ; it becomes instrumental
to certain psychical experiences, and the inevitable consequence
is the "backward value movement" to the hedonic accompani
ments of the ideal. No less fallacious is that other application
of the ideal in which the assumption of its reality is interpreted
as demand for existence in the social sense. As social ideals
and norms become empty and unreal when abstracted from
the empirical processes of participation in which they are con
structed and which they control, so here expectations generated
in the ideal construction of the personality do not necessarily find
fulfilment in social demand.

(b) Inferences from the Application of Axiological Principles
to Special Problems.

From this axiological criticism of ultimate assumptions
two conclusions may be drawn. In the first place the working
out of our principle — that the sufficient sanction of an ideal
with its assumption of reality is always relative to the specific
meaning of reality implied, has shown us that, while it is the
nature of ideals to transcend experience, in that they are not
completely convertible into factual and truth judgments, never
theless they are real, and control experience only in so far as

Valuation and Evaluation 421

they are well-founded anticipations of experience. Some refer
ence to experience already organised is necessary.

But a second conclusion of even greater importance may
be drawn — namely, that the general principle of indifference
of judgments of value to judgments of truth and fact at certain
points is substantiated by an examination of the grounds of
different judgments. This relative independence is seen first
of all in the indifference of judgments of value, where the pre
supposition of reality means one kind of fact or truth, to other
judgments of value implying another kind of fact or truth,
where, to be more explicit, distinctions of inner and outer truth
are drawn. Thus a certain indifference of personal and social
values has shown itself at various points, and has become so
constant as to be almost of the nature of a fundamental
principle, into the meaning of which we may well inquire more
fully.

If we view social values and their mutations from the ex
ternal point of view of mere matter of fact, we must, as we have
seen,1 judge certain values to be normal, others to be aspiring,
and still others to be outlived. But to the individual who
casts in his lot with any of these values, who realises himself
in identifying himself with them, our judgments of fact are
relatively indifferent. The reactionary judges or assumes
what you, as an impartial spectator, have inferred to be an
outlived value, to be of absolute worth, and if he realises, in
sacrifice of self for it, the highest personal worth, that is his
test, and your existential judgments are irrelevant. The same
may be said of a reformer who throws himself into an aspiring
worth, and even of the normal man who finds harmony and
peace in living the life of his day.

On the other hand, it is equally true that much that is
of significance from the personal point of view is irrelevant
for objective social values as a system of forces. The fate of
the personal worths is a matter of indifference. They seem to
play the role of epiphenomena. The working of the laws of
personal worth construction may produce the values of inner
peace and tragical elevation in connection with narrow group
worths and outlived values which, from the point of view of
the factual judgments of the objective system, are merely
individual in their meaning, and luxuries which have no ap
preciable instrumental value, or which, if they have any value

1 Chap. XI, pp. 333 ff.

422 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

at all through social imitation, are practically negligible. Often
they appear as pathetic fallacies, resting upon judgments and
assumptions which do not conform to the system of values
judged as a system of fact. Our valuation of extremes of
altruism is often possible only by an abstraction of the person
from his relations to society.1

But the relative indifference discoverable at this point
becomes still more marked when we leave the sphere of ethical
and social judgments and consider judgments of value in their
relation to the more neutral or " wertfrei" judgments of science.
If there is indifference at those points where judgments of value
and fact seem most closely related, it is needless to say that
the indifference will become much more pronounced where the
scientific constructions and formulas are still more remote
from value judgments, and abstract still more from appreciation
in their descriptions. The indifference of judgments of value
to the constructions of science becomes progressively more
marked as we pass from the centre to the periphery, from social
and economic to physiological, biological, and physical con
structions. It is only when the abstract conceptions of science
are really not abstract, when they still contain an appreciative
connotation, that conflicts arise. Only when science uses
symbols which have a worth connotation, when she talks of
the abysses of space, of fate, of the reign of law, of the struggle
for existence, of survival of the fittest, etc., does she come into
contradiction with values. And these contradictions arise
precisely because when she thus talks another language she
becomes progressively more and more symbolic and equivocal.
But this indifference is always, it must be remembered, relative
and genetic, not absolute.

V. CONCLUSION
i. Existence — Truth — Value.

The development of a point of view in evaluation distinctive
enough to merit the special term axiological, or, in other words,

1 For a fuller discussion of the point, see the writer's two papers, The Individual
and the Social Value Series, Philosophical Review, Vol. XI, Nos. 2 and 3. Also
Ehrenfels: System der Werttheoric, Vol. II, p. 153. An impartial observation of the
empirical data, Ehrenfels confesses, shows us that the concepts " socially valuable," and
"individual-ethical" are only partially and occasionally identical, that, as a matter
of fact, "there are certain dispositions and actions which come under the concept of the
individual-ethical which from the standpoint of social morality must be designated
indifferent."

Valuation and Evaluation 423

of a special principle of Sufficient Reason or Sanction of valuation
and value judgments, seems to have found its justification in
the concrete problems which it both reveals and solves. The
fact that judgments of value have as their " objective " a reality
not fully exhausted by factual and logical objectivity is made
clear by the merely partial and relative identities of normative
with factual and truth objectivity, and by the principles of
practical estimation of values which the recognition of this fact
brings about.

But while we have in these axiological principles the grounds
for the practical distinction between subjectively and objectively
conditioned values, between practical reality and illusion,
there is still unquestionably something to be desired from the
more theoretical point of view. The concepts of existence
and reality, of truth and value, are left sufficiently un
related to give some ground for the criticism that the full im
plication of our discussion of the relations of these concepts is
still to be developed. Somewhere, it will be said, there must
be a point of ultimate anchorage, a point of complete identity
between reality — the " objective " of judgments of value and fact
alike, and one or the other of these subordinate concepts, an
identity so complete and definite — of reality with value or
reality with truth — that in the one case all facts and truths
may be seen to be forms of value, or, in the other, all values
aspects of truth. Ultimately we must face this last question :
Does all truth and fact rest upon an incontestable value, an
absolutely tenable attitude of will, or do values rest ultimately
upon an undeniable truth the opposite of which is unthinkable ?
Is the ultimate statement of the situation to be in intellectualistic
or voluntaristic terms ?

That some answer to this question is implied in, and, in a
sense perhaps demanded by, our preceding discussions, can
scarcely be denied. And there can be no doubt that the whole
drift of our discussion has been in the direction of a concept
of the primacy of value and of the value judgment, in the sense*
that the " objective " or intent of the predicates of reality is
always value, and that the existential and truth judgments
are but special forms of valuation. Let us, then, in conclusion,
seek to find the logical ground of this inference, to take this
last logical step.

424 Valuation : its Nature and Laws

2. The Meaning of the Concepts of Indifference and Relevancy.
Evidently the point in our discussion where the logical
implications were not completely drawn is to be found in our
conceptions of relative indifference of value and truth, and of
merely partial identity of normative with factual and truth
objectivity. To some such position we were driven by our
analysis, and with the admission of the fact we apparently
accepted the old dualism between appreciation and description
in a new though none the less serious form. Nor would such
an inference be entirely without foundation, although there
is, it should be observed, a significant difference between such
a principle of indifference formulated at the close of our
investigations, and the antithesis between appreciation and
description which from the beginning makes impossible such
description of worth experience. But as a matter of fact this
is not an adequate view of the situation, for the principle, as
we have formulated it, has two aspects, a positive as well as
a negative. Not only does it warn us against deducing the
reality of values from the outer truth or existence of the objects
valued, but it also tells us that value itself involves an inner
truth and reality not describable in these terms.

The negative significance of this principle has been fully
developed. It tells us explicitly that the complete intent or
meaning of the presupposition of reality cannot be exhausted
in any abstract definitions of existence and truth, and that,
therefore, the predicates of reality as used in valuation cannot be
wholly tested by such norms. Its value is methodological and as
fundamental for axiological method, I believe, as the principle
of psycho-physical parallelism for psychology. As the latter
tells us that the psychical can never be reduced to the physical,
nor the physical to the psychical— so long, at least, as we remain
on the plane of scientific description, so the axiological principle
of indifference warns us not to seek to reduce ah1 values to
factual and truth objectivity, all worth experiences to mere
effects of social processes or means to social ends, i.e., again, so
long as we remain on the axiological plane.

But the positive implications are even more significant.
The very reason for this injunction not to identify reality with
existence and truth is that the intent or meaning of the pre
supposition of reality transcends any retrospective definitions
of existence and truth. Analysis of the predicates of reality

Valuation and Evaluation 425

in their extension and intension, has shown us, not only that
the meaning of these predicates is varied, but also that acknowl
edgment of the presupposition of reality in existential and truth
judgments is always relative to the specific intent of the pre
supposition. To put this into more general form for our present
purposes, we may say — the criterion of knowledge as such is
always relative, and arises, not out of the relation of a special
intent to an absolute intent, but from relations of special contents
to special intents. Error and fallacy consist in discrepancy
between special content and intent. Attempts to generalise
these proximate intents, to formulate concepts of " truth in
general " in such a way as to make it all inclusive and to give
it intrinsic meaning, serve only to emphasise their relativity.
When truth is denned as " correspondence of idea with reality,"
as " contradictionless experience," or even pragmatically, as
" instrumentality of ideas for life," such formulas prove, as we
have seen, to be either too narrow to fulfil the intent of truth,
or, when they are sufficiently broadened to satisfy our sense
of rationality, so little self-sufficient as to force us beyond con
cepts of existence and truth to modes of immediate experience
or of intrinsic appreciation which they presuppose.

We are thus led to the conclusion that judgments of existence
and truth, far from being exhaustive of the intent of reality,
themselves have axiological meaning only in so far as they serve,
by acknowledgment of fulfilment of a special intent, to lead to
that identity of the empirical with the met-empirical will which
constitutes the essence of value. In other words, they are not
predicates of total systems of experience. Judgments of exist
ence and truth apply only to relations among our impressions
and ideas. It has been well said that the totality of experience
is as little describable as existent or true as the totality of
matter is describable as heavy.

But if we admit that existence and truth cannot be exhaust
ively interpreted except with reference to concepts or postulates
of valuation, and therefore, that value may logically be prior U
existence and truth, it still remains an open question whether the
identity of value with reality can be so characterised as to make
the relations of value to existence and truth intelligible. It may
be that totalities of experience can be only appreciated, that
only values can be the predicates of such total experiences.
As we found it impossible to characterise a total experience
as absolutely true, it may be equally difficult to say what would

426 Valuation : its Nature ana Laws

make a total experience absolutely valuable. Now, for value
and reality to be identical means that an experience, in order to
be real, must be satisfying. Could we say what the object of
absolute satisfaction is, there would be no longer any points of
indifference ; we could deduce the nature of truth and existence
from it. Such definition is, as we have seen, impossible, but it is
not inconceivable that we may be able so to describe ap
preciatively our ultimate values as to show that they transcend
truth and existence and include them. It may be possible
for " the inspirations of reason, appreciative of values," to use
Lotze's fine phrase, so to apprehend the ultimate nature of the
will and its satisfaction as to enable us to adumbrate that in
contestable value in the light of which we can pass from the
object of thought to its reality.

Lotze's own well-known attempt so to apprehend ultimate
value leads him to find this final satisfaction in the feeling or
consciousness of harmony, including all those forms of activity
in repose, of unity and continuity, describable as love, beauty,
perfection. In these experiences — the highest inspirations of
reason — reason finds its own inmost essence ; in them is realised —
in practically absolute moments, the assumption of identity
of the empirical with the met-empirical will. It would be
" intolerable " that these ideals, formed in the activities of ideal
construction, should have no existence, power, or validity in
the world of reality. They are true he holds : we can feel them
when we cannot think them. From these ultimate appreciations
he then deduces the relative validity and value of those special
forms of continuity, between inner and outer existence, inner
and outer truth, which are the indispensable conditions of this
realisation.

Now it may well be granted that these inspirations of reason
far outrun its reasoned convictions, and that this insight into
the identity of value and reality cannot make itself wholly
intelligible. Our handling of the speech of valuation is still
•inept, with its cnide distinctions of feeling and knowledge, and
its unworthy slavery to the prejudicial connotations of the term
feeling. It may, indeed, be further granted that precisely at
this point, in his use of the concepts of feeling and thought,
Lotze's presentation of the concept requires decided modification.
But with all these admissions, it remains true that his funda
mental insight into the identity of value with reality and the
priority of value to truth and existence remains incontestable.

Valuation and Evaluation 427

This doctrine of priority means, when properly interpreted,
that worth experience in its entirety corresponds to a larger
world of reality than the limited regions of existence and truth.
There are forms of harmony of intent with content of experience
which are not comprehended under the specific meanings of
these terms. The standards of knowledge are but special
formulations of the ideals of unity and continuity ; and of the
total realm of ideal objects judged or assumed to be real, only
a limited number will conform to these standards, these specialised
demands. Many do not thus conform, and yet contribute to
the unity and continuity of affective-volitional meaning. The
ideal makes itself felt, and finds satisfaction in many ways
which fail to conform to these definitions. It is no less true
that the standards of value are special and relative formulations
of this demand. There are forms of harmony not exhaustively
interpreted in terms of the realisation of any of the ends to
which these standards refer, forms of harmony in which the
experience transcends ideal construction of ends no less than of
truths. This we have fully recognised in the preceding chapter
in our conception of supreme moments in which distinctions of
ends and norms lapse. But this merely serves to emphasise the
priority of value. Practical absolutes may indeed come at the
limits of volition, relative values may be sublimated into absolute ;
but, so far as I know, a relative truth may become absolute only
by becoming the presupposition of an absolute value.

To the final question, therefore— how are judgments of exist
ence and truth related to ultimate appreciations with their
intrinsic values ? — our answer is simple and evident. They
establish relations between experience and experience, between
idea and idea, which lead to new appreciations or conserve those
already acquired. The specific predicates of existence of truth,
already considered, have meaning only when they add to the
intrinsic value or reality of an impression or idea. There are
cases where the acknowledgment of the presupposition of reality
in these predicates does add value and reality to the idea, e.g.-,-
where the presupposition of reality already includes a retro
spective explicit definition of existence or truth. But such
addition is not a necessary consequence of such acknowledgment,
nor is such acknowledgment a necessary condition of appreciation.
As the critics of the Ontological Proof have clearly seen, the proof
of the truth or existence of the idea of the perfect being adds
nothing to its reality. In the intrinsic appreciation of the mean-

428 Valuation: its Nature and Laws

ing of the demand or postulate of such a Being, whatever reality
: has is already included. Its central place in the spiritual life
its value, must guarantee its reality, and the attempt to translate
such ultimate reality into the subordinate concepts of outer
existence and truth can certainly add nothing to that reality
and may even, by falsely interpreting the presupposition of
reality, lead to error and unreality.

This is the final point to which our axiological study brings
The implications of valuation when fully worked out lead
to the claim of priority. Yet, since there is always the further
implication of an inner truth which, while not exhausted in the
predicates of existence and truth already considered, is still not
in ultimate contradiction with them, since, in other words, life
and experience show themselves progressively more and more
capable of statement as a system of truth, there remains always
the assumption of the ultimate inteUigibility of every value.
A still higher form of experience in which the two claims are
equaUy satisfied, a form of contemplation which transcends wiU
and thought alike, must ever be the goal, acknowledged or
unacknowledged, of all metaphysics. Such a state of equilibrium
would indeed be the Beatific Vision. Whether it is attainable
or not, and if attainable capable of being held, it is not for us
to say.

THE END

INDEX

Absolute values, 19, 335, 342 if., 3635.,
370, 380, 384 f., 396 ff., 402, 406, 425 ff.

Absolutes, practical, 150, 277, 295, 374,
376 ff., 382, 399, 404, 427

Act, cognitive, as related to dispositions,

5i» 53, 64, 95

^Esthetic feeling, 31, 45, 53, 251

^Esthetic mode, presupposition of, 45, 7°»
122, 220, 235 n., 240, 275

/Esthetic values, of simple appreciation,
205, 217, 221, 224, 229; of character
isation of the person, 266, 277, 296,
306 ; in social participation, 334 ; validity
of, 3°9, 399, 422 ff.

Affective continuity (substitution, subsump-
tion, transition), 121, 130

Affective generalisation, 77, 120, 131,
I33f., 244

Affective abstract (See Affective general
isation.)

Affective memory, H3f., 116, 131

Affective sign, 105 f., 112, 129, 241

Alogism, 395

Alter, the ego and the, 211 ; as ideal con
struction, 234, 248, 261

Altruism, egoism and, nature of distinc
tion, 261, 264 n. ; as personal worth,
301 ; as social value, 314, 352 f. ; limits
of, 359, 374 f-

Appreciation and description, 6ff., 17, 19,

57, 424
Appreciation, intensity-less, I28ff., 274;

and hedonic redundancies, 76, 162, 166,

185. (See also, Intensity-less feelings.)
Appreciation, simple, 30, 32, 192 ; objects

of, 30 ; meanings of, 59, 67 ; value

movements of, 199, 234
Appreciative description, nature of, 8, 14,

55 ; of feeling and will, 83 f. ; terms of,

59 ff. ; and scientific, 57, 62
Apprehension, imageless, 125
Apprehension, of inner life in others, 237

Art, and aesthetic experience, 166 ; origins
of, 222 ; the element of order in, 225 ff.

Aspiring values, 333 f., 337. (See also
Value Movements.)

Assumption, as cognitive act, 38, 42, 47,
52 ; as presupposition of worth attitudes,
70, 137 f. ; implicit and explicit, 48, 70,
115, 132; in affective memory and
generalisation, 115, 131 f.; in value
movement, I99f. ; in Einfuhlung and
sympathetic participation, 233, 245, 259

Assumption, implicit, role of in charac
terisation, 280, 290 ff., 309; in social
participation, 313 f., 316, 334f., 356 f.,
362

Assumption-feelings, 48, 115, 118, 138,
150, 162, 166, iSiff., 245. (See also
Feelings of imagination and Intensity-
less appreciation. )

Augustine, 399

Axiology and Axiological method, l6f.,
24, 1 88, 309 f., 384

Axiological sufficiency, 405, 411. (See
Valuation and Evaluation. )

B

Baldwin, J. M., on genetic method, 15 ;
on cognitive and existence meanings,
28 n., 47 n., 389 n.; on semblant mode,
70, 127 ; on Einfuhlung, 234, 235, 248

Bentham, 157

Bernoulli, 157

Bohm Bauwerk, 367

Bosanquet, B., 414

Brentano, F. , on judgment, 44; on
hedonic redundancies and intensity-
less feeling, 57, 76, 159; on feeling and
will, 90

Characterisation, values of, 30, 71, 234,
260 f., 284. (See Personal worths.)

429

430

Valuation : its Nature and Laws

Complementary Values, law of, 145, I73ff.,
I78ff. ; in relation to other laws, 151,
229> 173; in economic valuation, 174;
in extra-economic valuation, 175 ; in
simple appreciation, 193, 214, 229; in
characterisation, 266 f., 306; in social
participation, 340, 348

Condition, worths of, definition, 30, 147 f.,
190, 197, 294 ; and value movement,
2O5» 2I3> 2295 and of person, 261, 264,
269, 286, 300 f., 367, 372, 376

Consumption, economic, 143, 160, 170;
as modified by other values, 177, 213,
229

Continuity of value, postulate of, 15, 404 ff.

Correct, the. (See Norm of Participation)

D

Degree of worth or value, 72, 74, 76, 108,
152; measurement of, 79, 156 f., 171,
282 ff., 288 ff., 291, 322

Demand and Supply, in economics, 142 f. ;
in personal worths, 292 ; in social
values, 318, 327, 329

Depth and Breadth, of feeling, 50, 72 ff.,
155 ; as determined by disposition, 50,
76, 183, 206, 209, 217; in the person
ality, 264, 269 f., 286, 296, 304, 371.
(See Degree of worth. )

Desire and value, 35 ff., 70, 82, 85, 94,
148 ff.

Diminishing Utility. (See Diminishing
Value. )

Diminishing Value, law of, 145, 156, 158 ;
extent of application of, 167, 171 ff,
181 ; as related to value movement, 145,
*93> 203 5 in personal worths, 272 ff. ;
in social values, 326 ff.

Disposition, concept of in definition of
value, 33 f., 37, 50, 53, 77; in genetic
method, I4f., 82,95, IO4 ; and implicit
assumption, 121, 127, 133, 138, 248,
258 f.

Disposition, ethical and moral, 233, 248 f.,
258f., 26off., 283ff, 291, 294, 298,
311 ff., 342, 351 f., 37Sf. (See Norm
of Characterisation and Participation.)

Economics, and theory of value, 3, 311,
367; laws of, 142 f., 169, 174, 177

Economic values, definition of, 143, 311 ;
thresholds of, 146 ff. ; laws of, 169,

174; as related to other values, 213 ff.,
229, 311

Ehrenfels, Ch. von, on definition of value,
35 ff. ; on feeling and will, 86 ; on laws
of valuation, 156, i86ff, 330 f. ; on
value movements, 195, 333 ; on moral
obligation, 350 n., 397, 422 n.

Einfuhlung; and valuation, 72, 102,
234 ff. ; psychology of, 236, 238, 241,
255 ; ethical and aesthetic, 245, 252 ;
and real feelings, 240, 249 ff., 273.
(See Participation, sympathetic.)

Elsenhans, T. R., 129

Emerson, 335

Emotion, as feeling of value, 64 ; analysis
of, 88, 97, 100 ff, 119

Emotional Logic, 76 f., H2f., 121, 139,
203 f.

Ethical and Moral values, 285, 314. (See
also Personal and Impersonal values.)

Ethical scepticism, 5, 370

Ethics and theory of value, 4, 368, 380 ff.,
416

Existence, judgment of, 42 ; as presuppo
sition of feeling of value, 38 ff, 66, 80,
95. "8, 133, 162, 199, 248; as related
to other presuppositions, 47, 51, 66,
69 ff., 77 f., 94. (See Judgment-feelings.)

Existence, meanings of, 22, 387 ff. (See
Presupposition of reality. )

Fechner, 159, 180

Feeling, analysis of, 62, 93 f., 103 f. ;

dimensions of, 59 ff., 62, 83, looff. ;

presuppositions of, 41 ff, 47, 64, 66;

genetic relations of, 51 ff., 104 ; theories

of, 57, 82, 94, 96 ff.
Feeling and value, 35, 39 ff, 53, 64 f.,

95
Feeling and will, theories of, 57, 83, 85,

89 ff., 93 ff.
Feelings of value, presuppositions of, 35 ff,

47, 62, 66
Feelings of the imagination, in valuation,

1 15, 133 ff. , 138 ; in Einfithlung, 245 ff,

250 ff. ; in ethical judgment, 263, 276.

(See Assumption-feelings. )
Flournoy, Th., 277

Genesis and Validity, 6, 16, 384, 424 f.
Genetic method, in worth analysis, 44 ff,
68, 81, 137, 191, 234, 252

Index

Genetic levels of valuation, 51, 190, 230,
282 ff., 314, 366, 379, 384

Genetic Theory of feeling and will, 89,
104

Gestalt-qualitat ("form of combination"
of elements), of emotional complexes,
100, no, 119, 132, 238 ff. ; and com
plementary values, 179 ff. ; in aesthetic
characterisation of persons, 225 ff. , 266 f.

Giddings, F., 325

Gossen, 157, 166

Group Segregation. (See Social Differen
tiation. )

Gross, K., 217, 240, 251

Guyau, J. M., 210, 342, 397

H

Habit, and disposition, 5°f-» 83; an(^
feeling of value, 5of., 83, 103 ff., 120,
133, 161, 183 f. ; and affective abstract,
133, 158; and implicit assumption, 48,
67, 107, 121, 133, 249, 259; dulling of
sensitivity with, 158, 161, 183, 203,
323 ; and normal expectation, 293,
333 ff., 356, 361

Hedonic redundancies, of feelings of value,
77, 108, 129 f. ; as affected by repeti
tion, 163, 166, 273 ; role of in valua
tion, 155, 185, 197, 261. (See In
tensity-less appreciation.)

Hedonism, ethical, 84, 370, 417

Hegel, 203

Herbart, 397

Him, Yrjo, 74, 222

Hoffding, H., 20, 65, 394, 404

Hoffler, A., 152

Idealisation, of the person, 263, 265 f.,
275 ff. ; of social wholes, 342 ff. , 363 f.

Impartial Spectator. (See Impersonal at
titude.)

Impellent mode. (See Obligation.)

Impersonal attitude in valuation, 27 f.,
232 f., 313 f., 350 f., 375 f., 378

Impersonal values. (See Over-individual
values.)

Imputation, of merit and demerit, 233 ;
emotional and intellectual, 290, 315 ;
personal and ethical, 260 ff. , 291, 298 ff. ,
307, 309 ; social and moral, 290, 293,

3°2. 314, 356, 358 ff., 375 f-
Imputed value, 22 f., 174, 177, 214

Inner Peace, 279, 307 f., 344, 380. (See
Tragical Elevation.)

Intensity-less feelings, 34, 77, 106, 128

Intuitionism, ethical, 369 ff.

Isolation (or detachment), aesthetic, 266,
278 ff. ; as presupposition of personal
values, 285 ff., 296 f., 299, 301, 307,
312 ; of social groups, 339, 344 f., 359

James, William, 12, 137 n., 126, 182, 375,

397, 399

Jevons, S., 149

Judgment-feelings, 38 ff., 47, 53, 64,
93 ff, 138, 248. (See Existence, judg
ment of.)

K

Kant, 205, 278, 285, 336, 414
Kraus, Oskar, 157, 172
Kreibig, J. C., 27, 86, 156
Kruger, F., 39, 50 ff., 153

Leibnitz, 396, 407, 411

Limiting Value, law of. (See Diminishing

Value.)

Lipps, Th., 49 ff., 264
Lotze, 130, 426

M

Marginal Participation Value, law of,
329 f., 332; and social value move
ments, 333 ; and moral judgment, 350

Marginal Utility, law of, 149, 156, i69ff.,
1 74> 327. 33°- (See Valuation, Laws of. )

Marshall, H. R., 217

Meaning, worth as affective-volitional, 15,

26, 30 ff., 93 f.; acquired and funded,
8, 82, niff. ; "common," 232, 253;,
recognitive, 113, 117, 248; generic, 121,
I25» J39> 248; of existence, 22, 24, 55,
387

Meinong, A., on definition of value, 35 ff.,
41 ff. ; on judgment and assumption,
138; on ethical and moral judgment,

27, 290 n. ; on moral obligation, 350 n.
Merit and Demerit. (See Imputation.)
Minimum of Characterisation, 294, 297,

3°4, 377
Minimum of Existence, 148 ff, 214, 294,

353, 373, 377
Minimum of Participation, 357, 361, 374

432

Valuation : its Nature and Laws

Modes of consciousness of value, 55, 67 ff.
Monistic theories of value, 368, 380, 416
Moral judgment, the, 313, 350 ff., 356.

(See Impersonal attitude.)
Moral obligation. (See Obligation.)
Munsterberg, H., n, 73, 94, 183, 403

N

Nietzsche, F., 2, 192, 342, 352 n.
Norm of Characterisation, 293, 299 f., 304
Norm of Participation, 293 n., 333 f.,

356 f.
Normal values, 333 f. , 391. (See Value

Movements (social).)
Normative and Descriptive, l6ff. , 384 ff.,

424 f.
Normative objectivity. (See Objectivity

of values. )

O

Objectivity of values, 17, 22 f., 187 f.,
309 f., 384 ff. ; relation of, to fact
and truth, 386, 390 ff. (See Sufficient
Reason and Well-founded value. )

Objects of value, classification of, 29

Obligation, analysis of, 68, 207 ; quasi-
ethical, 209 ; ethical and personal, 297,
303 ff. ; social and moral, 360 ff ; perfect
and imperfect, 285, 304, 364 ; conflicts
of, 373 f., 376, 379

Ontological Proof, and primacy of values,

395. 427

Organic sympathy, 244, 273, 322 f.
Outlived values, 333 f., 338, 341, 354.

(See Value Movement (social).)
Over-individual values, 30, 311 f., 366;

laws of, 328 ff., 342; estimation of,

350 ff.

Participation, sympathetic, nature and
laws of, 234, 238, 244 ff. ; extensive and
intensive, 253 ff., 320 f. (See Einfiih-
lung and Sympathy. )

Participation, values of, definition of, 30,
71, 254 ; personal and impersonal,
253 ff. ; subjective and objective, 261,
316, 328 f. ; laws of, 320, 326, 328 ff.,
333, 342

Pathetic fallacies, 310, 359, 410

Patten, S. N., 197 f.

Paulhan, F. R. , on genetic theory of
affective attitudes, 105 ff. ; on affective

memory, 113; on "affective sign,"

124, 129.
Personal worths, definition of, 270 ;

origin and laws of, 263 ff, 270, 277 ;

objects of, 283 ff. ; norms and limits

of, 291 ff,, 348, 359, 361, 373, 376, 419
Personality, and value, 49, 262 ; ideal of, as

assumed in judgments of personal worth,

262 ff., 291 ; construction of, 248 f.,

263 ff. ; idealisation of, 266, 275. (See
Isolation, aesthetic.)

Person-project, 248, 263

Pleasantness-unpleasantness, and feeling
of value, 39, 50, 57, 62 f., 96, 108,
114; and the laws of valuation, 142,
152, 158, 166, 176, 184; and aesthetic
values, 217 ff. ; and personal worth,
50, 261, 300, 368 f., 417

Poe, the Raven, 123, 140

Practical Absolutes. (See Absolutes, prac
tical. )

Pragmatism and pragmatic criterion, 396,

398

Praise and blame. (See Imputation.)
Presumption of existence, as cognitive

attitude, 43, 477 ff., as presupposition

of feelings of value, 43, 66, 190, 245;

and implicit assumption, 52, 1 18, 257
Presupposition of reality, in feelings of

value, 24 ff, 38 f., 47, 53, 66; ultimate

meaning of, 400 ff.
Presuppositional method, as form of the

genetic, 14 ff., 81, 384.
Projection. (See Einfiihlung.)
Psychology of valuation, the, 9 f., 14
Puffer, Miss EM 219

Quasi-ethical and quasi-moral. (See Ethi
cal and Moral and Obligation.)

R

Reality-meanings. (See Meaning and Pre
supposition of reality.)

Religious value, 346 ff. , 394 f.

Ribot, Th., on affective memory, 113, 115 ;
on affective generalisation, 124, 129

Royce, J., 62, 126, 234

Sanction, ethical, 122 ; Sufficient.
Sufficient Reason of valuation.)

(See

Index

433

Satiety, law of, 1648". ; and appreciation,
183, 203, 221, 237; and sympathetic
participation, 273, 323

Saxinger, R., 119, 1331".

Schiller, F., 418

Schwartz, H., 58, 77, 85, 192 f., 369

Self-realisation, theory of, 370, 419 f.

Semblant mode. (See ^Esthetic mode. )

Sensitivity, dulling of, 159 ff., 161, 185;
in appreciation, 203, 221, 231 ; in
sympathetic participation, 240, 273,
323- (See Habit.)

Sensitivity, feeling as, 96 ff.

Shaw, B., 352 n.

Sigwart, 46

Simmel, G., on ethical theory, 12, 370;
on feeling of value, 57, 69, 96 ; on laws
of valuation, 171 ff. ; on definition of
obligation, 69, 207 ; on practical abso
lutes, 280 n. ; on social differentation,
256 ; on moral obligation, 350 n.

Social Differentation, and valuation, 322,
339

Spencer, H., 418

Spinoza, 348 n.

Stevenson, R. L., 361

Stbrring, G., 62

Stout, G. F., 44, ioo, 125, 128, 155

Stuart, H. W., 31, 112

Stumpff, C., 155

Sufficient Reason of valuation, 395, 4oof.,
406 f.

Sympathy, social, 322 ff.

Synergy, social, 318, 331, 351, 357

Synthetic preference, 366, 368 ff., 371,
378 f.

T
Taylor, A. E., 36 in., 370

Tennyson, Lotos-Eaters, 123, 140, 276

Thresholds of value, economic and extra-
economic, 146 ff. ; as modified by com
plementary values, ethical and aesthetic,
J51* 215, 230; in personal worth,
293 ff. ; in over-individual value, 356 f.

Tolstoi, 342, 373

Tragical Elevation, 279, 295, 298, 302,
30(i> 375. 380- (See Inner Peace.)

Transgredient and immanental references
of feelings, to dispositions presupposed,
0, II, 60, 69 f., 71, 150; in simple ap
preciation, 201, 206, 210, 216; in
personal values, 269, 277, 303, 307 ; in
impersonal values, 320, 344, 346 ; axio-
logical meaning of, 401, 404, 410
2 F

Truth, meanings of in evaluation, 389 ff.,
394, 409, 422 ff.

U
Universality in morals. (See Absolute

values.)
Utility, values of, 30, 143, 169, 311.

(See Diminishing Value and Marginal

Utility.)

Valuation, nature of, 21 ff., 142 ; levels of,
51, 147, 190, 230, 314, 366, 379, 384

Valuation, laws of, 79, 1426'., 145, 156,
167 ff., i73ff., 185 ff., 193, 202, 27off.,
320 ff., 328, 37L379, 384

Valuation and Evaluation, relations of,
24, 61, i85ff. 309 f., 384 ff. (See
Normative and Descriptive. )

Value, definition and analysis, 21 ff., 95;
avctuajl_jyid_jji4juted, 22 f., 174, 177,
214, 386 ; intrinsicaijiU-mstimnental,
22, 148, I52,~i(xfr, 174, 195, 20o7^6i,
26gff., 311, 327, 342 f., 386, 391,
396 ff., 400; primajjLJH%d--dejjved, 67,
71, 192; rear"and ideal, 22 f., 309,
342 ff., 386~-

Value, the judgment of, as assertory, 21 f. ;
types of, 31 ; the subject of, 27 ; objects
of, 28 ; relation of to judgments of fact
and truth, 384 ff, , 422 ff.

Value, theory of, I ff.

Value Movements, 15, 67, 191 ff. ; and
laws of valuation, 145, 193, 202 f. ; of
simple appreciation, 67, 199; of sympa
thetic participation and characterisation,
232, 252 ; social, 333 ff.

Vcblcn, T. B., 12, 256

Voluntarism, 368 f., 403, 422 ff.

W

Well-founded value, the criterion of, 19,
185, 309, 405 ff., 409, 413, 416 ff.

Wieser, F. von, 3

Witasek, St. von, 31, 53, 101, 235, 250

Worth. (See Value.)

Worth predicates, 22 ff., 55 ff., 78 f., 233,
282 f., 285, 352 ff.

Worth suggestions of feeling, 61, 64

Wundt, W., on three-dimensional theory
of feeling, 63 ; on feeling and will,
90 ff, 97, ioo; on law of "resultants,"
I So, 204

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