Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/542

 530 CHAELES MEECIEE : A CLASSIFICATION OF FEELINGS, II. spondence of feeling with action, and when actions approach one another in character the corresponding feelings must exhibit a similar alliance. It is true that Despair and De- spondency have here a wide interval interposed between them although they are so closely akin ; but consider the relations with which they correspond. If we turn back to the Tables in which they are described we find that Despair is the feel- ing corresponding with the relation to the organism of an agent of overwhelming power with which it has unsuccess- fully contended ; while Despondency is the feeling corre- sponding with the preponderance of defeats over successes. Manifestly these two relations are closely allied in nature, and if the feelings corresponding with them were not also closely allied, the classification would indeed be open to de- structive criticism. The same will be found true of the other couples of feelings instanced above. So far, however, the defence only shifts the objection a step further back. The rejoinder may at once be made : How is it that actions ac- knowledged to be so closely akin are placed so widely apart in the classification ? The answer to this is the same that was given to a similar objection anticipated as offered to the arrangement of the Antagonistic feelings the impossi- bility of representing in serial order relationships so intricate as those subsisting among the feelings. Manifestly we are here in the presence of a cross-relationship among the larger groups similar to those found to exist within the group of Antagonisms, and illustrated by the relations demonstrable in a diagram of three dimensions. The natural proximity of two feelings belonging to different groups may be well illustrated by the diagram of the tree already utilised. Just as we see two branches jutting in opposite directions from a trunk, divide, sub-divide, and spread until the outermost twigs of one interlace with the outermost twigs of the other, and the leaves of the two branches are in contact, so the outlying feelings of any great group may be expected, as they have been found, to approximate more or less closely to the outlying feelings of other groups. (To be concluded.)