4?o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 



By HEEBEET SPENCEE. 



VII. Subjective Difficulties Emotional. 



THAT passion perverts judgment, is an observation sufficiently 

 trite ; but the more general observation of which it should form 

 part, that emotion of every kind and degree disturbs the intellectual 

 balance, is not trite, and, even where recognized, is not duly taken into 

 account. Stated in full, the truth is that no propositions, save those 

 which are absolutely indifferent to us, immediately and remotely, can 

 be contemplated without likings and repugnances affecting the opin- 

 ions we form about them. There are two modes in which our conclu- 

 sions are thus falsified. Excited feelings make us wrongly estimate 

 probability, and also make us wrongly estimate importance. Some 

 cases will show this. 



All, who are old enough, remember the murder committed by 

 Miiller on the North London Railway some years ago ; for, even after 

 reaching that stage at which accounts of crime lose their interest, and 

 police-reports become unreadable, it is impossible to avoid gathering 

 from gossip some knowledge of startling tragedies. Most persons, 

 too, will remember that for some time afterward there was universally 

 displayed a dislike to travelling by railway in company with a single 

 other passenger supposing him to be unknown. Though, up to the 

 date of the murder in question, almost innumerable journeys had been 

 made by two strangers together in the same compartment without 

 evil being suffered by either though, after the death of Mr. Briggs, 

 the probabilities were immense against the occurrence of a similar fate 

 to another person similarly placed yet there was habitually roused a 

 fear that would have been appropriate only had the danger been con- 

 siderable. The amount of feeling excited was quite incommensurate 

 with the risk. Though the chance was a million to one against evil, 

 the anticipation of evil was as strong as though the chance had been a 

 thousand to one or a hundred to one. The emotion of dread destroyed 

 the balance of judgment, and a true estimate of likelihood became im- 

 possible ; or, rather, any rational estimate of likelihood that might be 

 formed was wholly inoperative on conduct. 



Another instance was thrust on my attention during the small-pox 

 epidemic, which a while since so unaccountably spread, after twenty 

 years of compulsory vaccination. A lady living in London, sharing 

 in the general trepidation, was expressing her fears to me. I asked 

 her whether, if she lived in a town of 20,000 inhabitants, and heard 

 of one person dying of small-pox in the course of a week, she would 

 be much alarmed. Naturally she answered, "No;" and her fears 



