THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 45 i 



were somewhat calmed when I pointed out that, taking the whole 

 population of London, and the number of deaths per week from small- 

 pox, this was about the rate of mortality at that time caused by it. 

 Yet in other minds, as in her mind, panic had produced an entire in- 

 capacity for forming a rational estimate of the danger. Nay, indeed, 

 80 perturbing was the emotion that an unusual amount of danger to 

 life was imagined at a time when the danger to life was smaller than 

 usual. For the returns showed that the mortality from all causes was 

 rather below the average than above it. While the evidence proved 

 that the risk of death was unusually small, this wave of feeling which 

 spread through society produced an irresistible conviction that it was 

 unusually great. 



These examples show in a clear way, what is less clearly shown 

 in countless other examples, that the associated ideas constituting a 

 judgment are much affected in their relations to one another by the 

 coexisting emotion. Two ideas will cohere feebly or strongly accord- 

 ing as the correlative nervous states involve a feeble or a strong dis- 

 charge along the lines of nervous connection ; and hence a large wave 

 of feeling, implying as it does a voluminous discharge in all directions, 

 renders such two ideas more coherent. This is so even when the feel- 

 ing is irrelevant, as is shown by the vivid recollection of trivialities 

 observed on occasions of great excitement ; and it is still more so 

 when the feeling is relevant that is, when the proposition formed by 

 these ideas is itself the cause of excitement. Much of the emotion 

 tends in such case to discharge itself through the channels connecting 

 the elements of the proposition; and predicate follows subject with a 

 vividness and persistence out of all proportion to that which is justi- 

 fied by experience. 



We see this with emotions of all orders. How greatly maternal 

 affection falsifies a mother's estimate of her child, every one ob-. 

 serves. How those in love fancy superiorities where none are visible 

 to unconcerned spectators, and remain blind to defects that are 

 conspicuous to every one else, is matter of common remark. Note, 

 too, how in the holder of a lottery-ticket hope generates a belief 

 utterly at variance with probability as numerically estimated, and 

 how an excited inventor has a confidence in success which calm 

 judges see to be impossible. That " the wish is father to the 

 thought," here so obviously true, is true more or less in nearly all 

 cases where there is a wish. And in other cases, again, as where 

 horror is aroused by the fancy of something supernatural, we see 

 that, in the absence of wish to believe, there may yet arise belief 

 if violent emotion goes along with the ideas that are joined to- 

 gether. 



Though there is some recognition of the fact that men's judgments 

 on social questions are distorted by their emotions, the recognition is 



