The Act of Creation (36 page)

I have given samples of Pasteur's and Poincaré's style; Franklin
was an accomplished stylist; Maxwell wrote commendably funny,* and Erasmus
Darwin unintentionally funny verse; as for William James, I must confess
that I find his style far more enjoyable than his brother Henry's. In our
present century Eddington, Jeans, Freud, Kretschmer, Whitehead, Russell,
Schrödinger, to mention only a few, gave convincing proof that works
on science can at the same time be works of literary art. (One could also
quote works by literary and art critics as pedantic and desiccated as
papers in a technical journal for applied chemistry.) Needless to say,
technical communications addressed to specialists must employ technical
language; but even here the overloading with jargon, the tortuous and
cramped style, are largely a matter of conforming to fashion.
The same inhuman -- in fact anti-humanistic -- trend pervades the climate
in which science is taught, the classrooms and the textbooks. To derive
pleasure from the art of discovery, as from the other arts, the consumer
-- in this case the student -- must be made to re-live, to some extent,
the creative process. In other words, he must be induced, with proper aid
and guidance, to make some of the fundamental discoveries of science by
himself, to experience in his own mind some of those flashes of insight
which have lightened its path. This means that the history of science
ought to be made an essential part of the curriculum, that science should
be represented in its evolutionary context -- and not as a Minvera born
fully armed. It further means that the paradoxes, the 'blocked matrices'
which confronted Archimedes, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Harvey,
Darwin, Einstein should be reconstructed in their historical setting and
presented in the form of riddles -- with appropriate hints -- to eager
young minds. The most productive form of learning is problem-solving (Book
Two,
XIII-XIX
). The traditional method of confronting
the student not with the problem but with the finished solution, means
depriving him of all excitement, to shut off the creative impulse,
to reduce the adventure of mankind to a dusty heap of theorems.

 

 

Art is a form of communication which aims at eliciting a re-creative
echo. Education should be regarded as an art, and use the appropriate
techniques of art to call forth that echo. The novice, who has gone
through some of the main stages in the evolution of the race during his
prenatal development, and of the evolution from savage to civilized
society by the time he reaches adolescence, should then be made
to continue his curriculum by re-capitulating some of the decisive
episodes, impasses, and turning points on the road to the conquest
of knowledge. Our textbooks and methods of teaching reflect a static,
pre-evolutionary concept of the world. For man cannot inherit the past;
he has to re-create it.

 

 

 

Summary

 

 

The scientist's motivational drive is a blend of passions in which
both the self-asserting and self-transcending tendencies participate
-- symbolized by the Mad Professor and the Benevolent Magician of
folklore. It is, however, a blend in which both tendencies are sublimated
and balance each other. This development is already foreshadowed in
the exploratory behaviour of clever animals. When Köhler's chimpanzee
Sultan discovered, after many unsuccessful efforts, that he could rake
the banana into the cage by fitting two short hollow sticks into each
other, his motivation was obviously to get at the banana. But his new
discovery 'pleased him so immensely' that he kept repeating the trick
and forgot to eat the banana (for similar observations, see Book Two,
VIII
). If Archimedes was originally motivated
by the desire to obtain money or favours from the tyrant of Syracuse,
his jubilant shout was certainly not due to anticipation of the reward.

 

 

Ambition, greed, vanity can enter the service of creativity only through
indirect channels; and the self-transcending emotions must undergo a
similar process of sublimation from mystic immersion in the harmony of
the spheres to the scrupulous attention paid to eight minutes arc. The
process is reflected in the gradual transformation of magic into science.

 

 

The creative achievements of the scientist lack the 'audience appeal' of
the artist's for several reasons briefly mentioned -- technical jargon,
antiquated teaching methods, cultural prejudice. The boredom created by
these factors has accentuated the artificial frontiers between continuous
domains of creativity.

 

 

 

NOTE

 

 

To
page 265
: See
Appendix
II
, p. 691.

 

 

 

 

 

PART THREE

 

 

THE ARTIST

 

 

 

A. THE PARTICIPATORY EMOTIONS

 

 

XII
THE LOGIC OF THE MOIST EYE
Laughter and Weeping
The classic responses to comedy and tragedy are laughter and weeping. Both
are overflow channels for the disposal of emotions; luxury reflexes
without apparent utility. This much they have in common; in other respects
they are direct opposites.
There is a vast literature on the psychology of laughter, but hardly
any on the psychology of weeping.* The theory of the comic which I have
proposed, however controversial, can at least be judged in the light of
earlier theories on similar or opposite lines; where weeping is concerned
we are on virgin territory. This indifference towards the manifestation
of emotions in weeping (which is after all neither an uncommon nor a
trivial phenomenon) is in itself symptomatic of the contemporary trend
in psychology -- about which later.
Weeping and crying confront us with an even more confusing variety of
expressions than laughter. There are variations in intensity; in mood;
in spontaneity. The bawling of a spoilt child, the contrived sobs of
public or private stagecraft are secondary derivatives which distort the
original pattern; cultural restraints and social infection are further
superimpositions on it. We must disregard these adventitious elements
and concentrate on spontaneous weeping in its pure form, as an automatic
'reflex' (see
pp. 28-29
).

 

 

The first step is to distinguish between weeping and crying -- it is a
peculiarity of the English language to treat them as synonyms. Weeping has
two basic reflex-characteristics which are found in all its varieties: the
overflow of the tear-glands and a specific form of breathing. These vary
in intensity from a mere moistening of the eye and 'catching one's breath'
(or feeling 'a lump in the throat') to a profusion of tears accompanied
by convulsive sobbing; just as laughter varies in intensity from smiling
to convulsions. Crying, on the other hand, is the emitting of sounds
signalling distress, protest, or some other emotion. It may be combined
with, or alternate with, weeping. Frequently when a child, or a depressed
patient, is said to be 'crying his head off' his eyes are in fact dry: he
is not weeping. On the other hand, when your char-lady has a 'good cry'
at the movies, she isn't crying at all but weeping. Crying is a form of
communication (even if the audience is only imagined); weeping is not.

 

 

Let me now compare the external manifestations -- bodily changes -- in
weeping and in laughter. In weeping, the eyes are 'blinded' by tears: they
lose their focus and lustre. The laugher's eyes sparkle, the corners are
wrinkled, but brow and cheeks are taut and smooth, which lends the face
an expression of radiance; the lips are parted, the corners lifted. In
weeping, the features crinkle and crumple; even when weeping for joy or
in aesthetic rapture, the transfigured face reflects a serene languidness.

 

 

The breathing pattern in weeping is a series of short, deep, gasping
inspirations, i.e. sobs, followed by long, sighing expirations, with
the glottis partially closed -- the lump in the throat. This is the
exact opposite of the breathing pattern of laughter with its bursts
of
expiratory
puffs -- sobs in reverse, followed by long, deep
intakes
-- reversed sighs. A prolonged, violent fit of laughter,
however, may produce the sobbing type of respiration as an after-effect --
a phenomenon which strengthens the hypothesis (see below) that laughter
and crying are mediated by rival branches of the autonomous nervous
system -- the first being sympathicotonic, the second vagotonic.

 

 

The third contrast is between bodily postures and motions. The person
who laughs tends to throw his head back by a vigorous contraction of
the elevators in the neck; the person who weeps 'lets the head droop'
(into the hands, on the table, or on somebody's shoulder). Laughter
contracts the muscles and throws the body into violent motion -- banging
the table or slapping one's knees; in weeping, the muscles go flabby,
the shoulders slump forward, the whole posture reflects a 'breaking down',
a 'letting go'.

 

 

In the fourth place, vocalization in laughter -- roaring, giggling,
chuckling, etc. -- is expressive of joie de vivre with aggressive
overtones; but if weeping is accompanied by crying, the sounds express
lament, appeals for sympathy.

 

 

Finally, in laughter tension is suddenly exploded, emotion debunked;
in weeping it is drained away in a gradual process
which does not
break the continuity of mood
; there is no dis-owning of emotion --
thought and sentiment remain united to the end. Moreover, the gradual
relief in weeping does not prevent the simultaneous generation of more
emotion of the same type, so that the influx may balance the overflow,
and relief is incomplete, or not even experienced as such.

 

 

 

Why do we Weep?

 

 

Let me discuss a few typical situations which may cause the shedding
of tears.

 

 

 

A. Raptness. Listening to the organ in a cathedral, looking at a majestic
landscape from the top of a mountain, observing an infant hesitantly
returning a smile, being in love -- any of these experiences may cause
a welling-up of emotions, a moistening or overflowing of the eyes,
while the body is becalmed and drained of its tensions. A few steps
higher on the intensity-scale, and the "I" seems no longer to exist,
to dissolve in the experience like a grain of salt in water; awareness
becomes de-personalized and expands into 'the oceanic feeling of limitless
extension and oneness with the universe'.*
Here, then, we see the self-transcending emotions displayed in their
purest form. Once you start fondling the smiling baby and making a
fuss of it, an active, possessive element enters into the situation
and the spell is broken. The purely
self-transcending emotions do
not tend towards action, but towards quiescence, tranquillity, and
catharsis
. Respiration and pulse-rate are slowed down, muscle-tone
is lowered; 'entrancement' is a step towards the trance-like states
induced by the contemplative techniques of Eastern mysticism and by
certain drugs. The experience of 'the blending of the finite with the
infinite' can become so intense that it evokes Faust's prayer:
O Augenblick verweile
-- let this moment last for eternity,
let me die. But there is nothing morbid in this; it is a yearning for
an even more complete communion, the ultimate catharsis or
samadhi
.
The reason for their passive, quietistic nature is that the
self-transcending emotions
cannot be consummated by any specific
voluntary action
. You cannot take the mountain panorama home with you;
the surest method to break the charm is clicking your camera. You cannot
merge with the infinite or dissolve in the universe by any exertion
of the body; and even in the most selfless forms of love and communion
each individual remains an island. To be 'overwhelmed' by love, wonder,
devotion, 'enraptured' by a smile, 'entranced' by beauty -- each verb
expresses a passive state, a surrender; the surplus of emotion cannot
be worked off in action -- it can be comummated only in
internal
,
visceral and glandular, processes.
These observations are again in keeping with the character of the
two divisions of the autonomous nervous system. We have seen that the
self-assertive emotions operate through the powerful adrenal-sympathico
system which galvanizes the body into action under the stress of hunger,
pain, rage, and fear. The parasympathetic division, on the other hand,
never goes into action as a compact unit; it does not dispose of a
powerful pep-hormone like adrenalin, acting directly on the body as
a whole. The sympathetic division has been compared to the pedals of
a piano, which affect all the notes sounded; the parasympathetic to
the separate keys which act locally on various organs. In the main,
its function is to counteract and to complement sympathico-adrenal
excitation: to lower blood-pressure and pulse-rate, neutralize excesses
of blood-sugar and acidity, to facilitate digestion and the disposal of
body-wastes, to activate the flow of tears, etc. In other words, the
general action of the para-sympathetic system is
inward-directed,
calming, and cathartic
. All this, and other arguments of a more
technical nature, point to the correlation of the participatory emotions
with the parasympathetic system.*
B. Mourning. A woman is notified of the sudden death of her husband. At
first she is stunned, unable to believe the news; then she finds some
relief in tears.
Again, it is a situation in which nothing purposeful can be done, which
does not beget action, but passive surrender -- 'giving in to grief'. And,
again, the emotion originates in the experience of 'belonging to',
'belonging together', of a communion which transcends the boundaries of
the self. Resentment, guilt, unconscious gratification, may, of course,
enter into the widow's mixed feelings, but we are concerned at the
moment only with her experience of identification and belonging. That
experience, and the emotions generated by it, have not come to an end with
the husband's death; on the contrary, they have at the same time become
more intense and frustrated. The overflow of tears is insufficient to
relieve her from this surplus of emotions; she weeps 'in grief', whereas
the euphoric experiences of the previous section caused 'weeping in joy'.
But the difference is in fact a matter of degrees. The moist eyes in
the transfigured face of the young mother also reflect an emotion which
cannot be completely consummated, lived out; the urge to transcend
the self's boundaries, to break out of its insulation always carries
a certain amount of frustration. Saints and mystics spend their lives
trying to escape the prison of the flesh; Hemingway, who was not a saint,
wrote of the 'heart-breaking profile' of his young Venetian contessa;
and to be overwhelmed by beauty may indeed be as 'heart-breaking' as a
widow's tears sweetened by self-pity. A long, enforced separation may be
as painful as a final one; and there are cases of mourning where worship
of the dead partner, with or without hope for a reunion in after-life,
creates a more harmonious, if imaginary, communion than the actual
partnership ever did.
These continuous transitions between 'weeping in joy' and 'weeping
in sorrow' reflect the relative nature of 'pleasure' and 'unpleasure'
(
Unlust
, disphoria, as distinct from physical pain). Emotions
have been called 'overheated drives'. A drive becomes 'overheated' when
it has no immediate outlet; or when its intensity is so increased that
the normal outlets are insufficient; or for both reasons. A moderate
amount of overheating may be experienced as a pleasurable arousal,
thrill, excitement, or appetite -- while anticipating (or imagining)
the consummatory act. Even physical discomfort and pain are readily
tolerated (for instance, in mountain-climbing or trout-fishing on an icy
morning) in the pleasurable anticipation of the reward. But when the
'overheating' exceeds a critical level it is experienced as tension,
stress, frustration, suffering. However, the pleasure-unpleasure
tone is determined not only by the
intensity
of emotive
pressure; it also depends on whether the pressure is
increasing
or decreasing
. Intense frustration changes into incipient relief
the moment the consummatory action has started -- or has merely come
into sight. Decrease of tension is pleasurable -- up to a point. If
the water-level, so to speak, falls
below
a critical point,
there is a sensation of drying-up, of boredom and restlessness. At
this stage increases of emotion are induced by various methods of
seeking out thrills -- from wild-game hunting to horror comics and other
forms of what one might call 'emotional window-shopping': the vicarious
satisfactions derived from reading the social gossip columns or watching a
strip-tease. In these cases the pleasurable experience is derived not from
anticipating, but from
imagining
the reward; and the satisfaction
obtained -- such as it is -- consists in the 'internal consummation' of
those components in the complex drive which can be lived out in fantasy.
Thus pleasure-unpleasure form a continuous scale of 'feeling-tones' which
accompany emotion: the former indicating the progress (real, anticipated,
or imagined) of a drive towards its consummation, the latter indicating
its frustration.
This leads us to a quasi three-dimensional theory of emotions (which
sounds involved, but is probably still a woeful over-simplification). In
the first place, we must obviously differentiate between the various
emotions according to the
nature of the drive
, originating in
various physiological, social, or 'psychogenic' [1] needs and urges --
hunger, sex, protection of offspring, curiosity (the 'exploratory drive'),
conviviality, etc. To use a coarse but comfortable analogy, let each
of these be represented by a different tap in a saloon-bar, which is
turned on as the demand arises, each serving a beverage with a different
flavour. In the second place, we have the
pleasure-unpleasure
scale, corresponding to the pressure in the tap -- whether the liquid
flows smoothly, or gurgles and splutters because of air-locks or excess
pressure. In the third place, we have the polarity between the
self-assertive and participatory
tendencies which enter into each
emotion (for instance, possessiveness versus identification in maternal
love); this could be represented by the relative proportion of alcohol
and water in the liquid. We can thus distinguish between three variables
or 'parameters' in every emotional experience: 'flavour' (hunger, love,
curiosity); 'pressure', pleasant or unpleasant; and 'alcohol-content':
toxic, i.e. aggressive-defensive, or soothing and cathartic.
C. Relief. A woman whose son has been reported by the War Office as
missing suddenly sees him walking into her room, safe and sound. Again
the first reaction is shock and rigidity; then she flings herself into
his arms,
alternately laughing and weeping
.
Obviously there are two processes involved here. The first is the sudden,
dramatic relief from anxiety; the other an overwhelming joy, love,
tenderness. Some writers on the subject are apt to confuse these two
reactions -- to regard all joyous emotion as due to relief from anxious
tension. But clearly a tender reaction would be expected in any case from
the mother on her son's return -- even if he were merely returning from
a day at school, and there had been no previous anxiety. Vice versa,
relief from anxiety in itself, though always pleasant, does not create
tender feelings overflowing in tears. What happened in the present case
is that the agony the woman endured had increased the intensity of her
yearning and love; and that relief from anxiety had increased out of all
proponion the gratification she would have felt on his return after an
absence under normal circumstances.
Let me be a little more explicit -- for the situation has, as we shall
see, a direct bearing on the emotional reactions induced by works of
dramatic art. The mother's sudden relief from anxiety could be verbalized
as 'thank God you are not dead'. Up to that moment she had tried to
control her fears, to banish from consciousness the terrible images of
what may have been happening to her boy. Now she can let herself go,
allow her emotions a free outlet. Hence the manic display of hugging,
bustling, laughing, calling in the neighbours, and upsetting the tea
kettle: she is working off the adrenalin of all that pent-up and suddenly
released anxiety. But in the middle of these hectic activities there
are moments when she glances at the embarrassed prodigal with a kind of
incredulous, rapt expression and her eyes again overflow with soothing,
peaceful tears. The alternation and overlapping of the two patterns --
one eruptive and agitated, the other gradual and cathartic -- indicate
the now familiar two processes and the nature of the emotions acted out.
These become even more evident in exclamations such as 'How silly of
me to cry', followed by more bustling and merriment. The unexpected
return of the boy was like a the 'bolt out of the blue' which cut short
the tense narrative of her anxious fantasies; the tension has suddenly
become redundant, and is disowned by reason. At other moments she is
still unable 'to believe her eyes' and emotion wells up again. This may
even include some unconscious resentment against the cause of so much
needless worry, who stands in her room, sunburnt and grinning, unaware of
the suffering he has caused: 'What a fool I have been to worry so much'
may be translated as 'What a fool you have made of me'.
'Laughing through one's tears' is caused by quickly oscillating mental
states, where reason and emotion are alternately united and dissociated. A
sudden shock which demands a major emotional readjustment is often
followed by such oscillatory phases in which the subject alternately
believes and disbelieves her eyes, until a full grasp of reality is
reached on all levels. If instead of the happy ending, there had been
a tragic one -- a telegram informing the woman of her boy's death --
then, instead of disbelieving her eyes, she would have been tempted to
disbelieve the news; and while the happy mother behaves at moments as if
the boy were still in danger, the bereaved mother may behave at times
as if he were still alive. In the former case, the successive flashes
of reality which disrupt the web of illusion bring happy relief; in
the latter, each flash brings renewed despair. A person with psychotic
dispositions may, however, cling to the illusion, and it will be the
matrix of reality which disintegrates instead. The 'hollow' laughter
in certain forms of insanity seems to echo the effort of reversing the
process of adjustment -- the effort of going mad in the teeth of a world
that is sane.
In the milder forms of paranoia induced by the stage and screen, the
oscillations between illusion and reality are deliberately created and
prolonged. The cathartic effect of the antique mysteries and of the
modern drama alike are derived from man's unique faculty of believing
and disbelieving his eyes in the same blink.