to anticipate what is to occur is plainly one of the most useful achievements of mind, for all providence implies apprehension and emotion therewith. but to look before and after is certainly not the prerogative of man alone, but anticipatory power is found throughout the realm of mind, and constitutes the larger portion of all cognition. to know a thing means, in general, to appreciate its potentiality; and all science is really prescience. knowledge is not the immediate sensation, but the meaning of it for life; it is the ideal translation from one sense to another in feeling tendency. thus, to scent is by itself a useless acquirement, but the connecting it with desired food is of the utmost service. the psychism gradually attains the power to interpret by various media the nature, that is, the experienceability, of the environment.

to foresee is then one of the commonest events in mind, and according to the painfulness or pleasurability foreseen is felt anger or fear, hope or desire, or allied emotions. but the foreseen does not always come to pass, and hence there results a new order of intellectual and emotional reaction. that what we had in mind would happen comes not, or is other than foreseen; this has a disturbing effect on cognition and emotion. prescience defeated becomes 164not merely nescience, but there is the positive definite shock of surprise, and the emotion of disappointment or some correlated form. surprise as the sense of contrast of real and ideal, involving personal sense of limitation and error, is, as we have noted (pp. 50 ff.), a painful experience. but where there is no preconceived notion, no expectation, there is no surprise, as lumholtz remarks of the australian savages, that they are not surprised at the railway and other wonders of civilization; they do not know enough to be surprised. the full apprehension and understanding of the gap between ideal and real is but very slowly attained. at first the thwarting is naturally and easily attributed to an enemy, and there is anger and pertinacious violence, but ultimately, by sad and repeated experience, mind is led to notice its own insufficiency, to feel that the conflict between the actual and the expected is due to subjective error rather than objective interference. genuine surprise, as distinct from mere nervous shock, is then, i think, a later phenomenon than is generally supposed. what is often taken for surprise with animals and children is really eager attention. again, certain modes of fright are often taken for surprise. but experience must have made a considerable advance in apprehension of experienceability before a real surprise can be manifested, which is always the correlative of a sudden contrariness of experience to what was preconceived. surprise involves a certain measure of a theory of experience; in short, a more or less definite body of knowledge. one who has framed no ideas of what experience should be can never be really surprised at whatever may happen. however, to be able to feel surprise is obviously very advantageous, to have a painful and sharp sense of the incongruity of real and ideal often conducts to that investigation which results in being prepared against being surprised in the same way again. the imperfectness of adaptation is thus consciously and intelligently remedied. the man of 165large resources, cautious nature, and keen insight and foresight, is little liable to be surprised, for in all circumstances he accurately forecasts a very wide range of possibilities.

when the good expected comes in less measure than was foreseen, or not at all, or some real evil instead, there is not merely surprise, but disappointment as well. when what is confidently expected does not happen, the emotional reaction is surprise; when what is eagerly hoped for does not occur, disappointment is the result. i am disappointed in not receiving a certain remittance i had hoped for. here the ought to be, the expected, is ranged over against the actual not, as in surprise, as a sudden and painful change in cognition, but solely for the personal advantage missed. disappointment is bound up with the sense of personal loss and detriment from the happening contrary to expectation. feeling of disappointment is thus emotional reaction from cognizance of evil result where good is looked for. the more it was hoped for, the more bitter the disappointment. this disappointment has its function as an emphatic protest against impracticality; the lessons of experience are thus brought home and made memorable. disappointment turns life from false dreams to stern realities; it prompts to an investigation of causes, and rouses cognition to a full understanding of the situation. hope thereby becomes more and more rational and realizable.

in all disappointment we note that the feeling is not about the past as such, but is with reference to the immediately actual in its unexpected bearing on life. thus it is not strictly retrospective emotion. though often initial to regret and grief, it should not be confounded with these.

a curiously illogical remark, and one not uncommonly heard, is, “i hope you will succeed, but do not be disappointed if you don’t.” this is really a psychological 166hibernicism. hope is the foundation of disappointment, and one cannot say, “hope, but do not be disappointed,” in the same breath with definite meaning. we cannot escape the painful implications of unfulfilled desire: we cannot both have our cake and eat it too. some measure of expectation of success is implied in all futuritive effort, hence a like measure of disappointment. the real sense of any such admonition can only be for moderating desire, and so tempering possible reaction. the expression in question amounts to little else than a phrase of well-wishing, but with little confidence in the actual result.

from the feeling of surprise and its congener, disappointment, it is natural to turn to the feeling for novelty. surprise and novelty both relate, but in different ways, to the character of the experience in relation to other experiences. the strangeness, however, in what is surprising, and which makes it surprising, is not intrinsic, but wholly relative to a preconception. thunder is familiar to me, but it may surprise me if it occur in january, and also totally out of my preconceived order; but a friend who has neither heard, nor heard of, thunder, will not be surprised by the sound in january, though he may be startled, and may feel the novelty of the phenomenon. the novel, purely as such, cannot surprise, for there is no field for the expectation which is the foundation of surprise. the surprising is always contrary to expectation, but the novel is simply unexpected, not in the range of thought and conception in any manner. a novel experience is one which has previously been unexperienced, and the feeling of novelty is the feeling of it as such, while a surprising experience goes quite against all we look for, and is often familiar and common enough, though sometimes it is novel, as when the absolutely new experience and not some familiar experience comes in place of the expected experience. if the man to whom thunder is novel is awaiting merely the pattering of rain, the crash of 167thunder will excite both feelings of surprise and novelty. in this case he is surprised before he feels the novelty of the surprising event.

a feeling for the novelty of an experience implies sense of experience and experienceable, and is thus debarred from primitive consciousness, which is merely a series of disconnected flashes, occurring a few times at the critical moments in an organism’s life. it is probable that in the origin of mind the first consciousness was the last, an entirely unique and isolated phenomenon in the animal’s life, hence supremely novel. however, at first, and undoubtedly also in later mind, consciousness but slowly rises to the sense of novelty of consciousness as such. after a long period of unconsciousness from any cause we do not appreciate returning consciousness as per se a comparatively novel phenomenon. in early mind every experience is practically a new experience, and so novel, but as there is no cognizance of experience in any light, and least of all in this light which is rather remote from immediate practicality, the feeling for novelty does not occur. sense of novelty implies a comparison of experience purely for its own sake, certainly a very late acquirement. thus in primitive mind, though all experiences are uniformly fresh, yet they are not appreciated as such. the feeling for novelty must always rest upon a considerable body of experience unified by ego-sense and apprehended as such, that is, consciousness of novelty implies both consciousness of consciousness and self-consciousness. the consciousness of novelty is thus far from being equivalent to novel consciousness. whenever, even in advanced mind, a novel consciousness occurs, we should be over hasty if we at once concluded that feeling of novelty was also experienced.

the first step in life is to get an experience, to struggle into a consciousness which may be immediately valuable, and which is at once emotional and motor in its action; 168the second step is to compare and identify the experience gained so as to ascertain its meaning for life with greater certainty. recognition thus comes early into play, but while the sphere of the sense of the novel lies in that of the unrecognised, it does not in any wise occupy the whole, for much that is unrecognised still is far from conveying feeling of novelty, because this feeling is, as we have said, far from being experienced on every presentation of the novel. the novel is equivalent rather to the unrecognisable. a dog may lose in a few months the power of recognising its master, yet the master after such a lapse of time cannot be said to awaken sense of novel. though not recognised for master he is recognised as one of many familiar objects, he is known to be a man, and that is as far as the identification goes. the experience then is in reality not a fresh one. here is a new man but there is nothing novel in the experience, much less is there a feeling of novelty. i doubt much if a dog or any lower animal notices and appreciates pleasurably or painfully the novel as such. the unrecognisable and unclassifiable presented to them may agitate them in various ways, as contrast a horse and a courageous dog on first seeing a locomotive, but there is no evidence of real feeling of the novelty of the experience as such. the enjoyment of the novel for its own sake is probably wholly confined to late human psychism.

it must, indeed, be granted that change from monotonous or confining circumstances is appreciated and appreciated pleasurably by lower animals, though they may not know enough to seek change for its own sake. animals certainly suffer from ennui, and enjoy variety within certain limits, but change is not newness, and absolute change or novelty in strict sense hardly appeals to them, that is, they do not appreciate the novelty of a situation. the really novel disturbs them, they do not desire it nor are pleased with it. it is only in fact in the 169higher ranges of human mind that experience of any kind, novel or various, comes to be sought for its own sake. to say, “this is a novel sensation,” or “how novel and delightful,” and all similar expressions, denotes a frame of mind which is artificial, that is, lies away from and beyond the common course of psychism under natural selection. the changefulness of experience and the novelty of an experience are in reality two distinct elements. one who has been ill in bed for weeks enjoys the change in sitting up in his arm chair, but there is no real novelty or sense of novelty. everything, we say, is novel and interesting to the child, tiresome and a bore to the blasé man of the world. the world is, in truth, fresh and new to the child, but the sense of the novel per se is very slowly developed, and the rarer the novel becomes, the more keen our appreciation of it. where all is novel, there can be no sense of novelty, for this is purely a contrast type of psychosis. the zest and eagerness of the child proceeds from radically other sentiments than the feeling for novelty; it is absorbed in things for themselves and what they directly give, and does not stop to reflect and feel about the relations of experiences, and so feel the novel as such. further we note that pleasing novelties are far from being equally pleasing as such. it may be as novel to carry a potato in my pocket as a double eagle, but not equally pleasing. the real value of novelty for emotion must always be carefully determined by subtracting accessory feelings.

with regard to the relation of novelty to pleasure and pain, the novel and the sense of the novel is always in its inception under evolution by natural selection unpleasant and painful. a novel experience is one which can only originate in painful struggle, and the new is always per se distasteful to early mind, which is ever conservative in its instincts and tendencies. a perfect life, biologically speaking, is one which is perfectly adapted to its environment, 170and so goes through its evolution with mechanically exact adjustment to circumstances; and the novel would break in upon the unconscious rhythm which is here perfected. habituation becomes so iron fast that the novel, even when distinctly pleasurable in itself, is resented, much less is the novel sought for its own sake. however, so far as a novel experience may come rather by way of regressiveness than progressiveness, it may delight us by its novelty whenever the mind becomes capable of appreciating novelty. thus purely hereditary tendencies, which we do not accomplish but which are accomplished in us during youth, as, for instance, the sexual evolution, may charm, not only in themselves, but for their novelty as well. but this experience which is not merely novel to the individual as springing up spontaneously by impetus from the past, but which is novel for the race, and requires effort to assimilate, and so is in the distinct line of higher evolution, as, the achieving a high spiritual sentimentality in love; this, the real novel, is inevitably and naturally painful. the first time the emotion of humility—a comparatively recent evolution—was experienced by a human being was a truly novel experience, though it is quite uncertain whether there was with it either sense or sentiment of novelty.

if the novel and the novel experience—and these terms are practically identical—are essentially painful, whence and how arises the peculiar pleasure which we undeniably may experience in connection with the novel appreciated as such? must all such pleasure be placed to the account of regressiveness? but pleasure of this kind is intrinsic in the act itself and not for its novelty per se. there is a wide variety of experience intrinsically either pleasurable or painful, which may be pleasurable to us solely by reason of its novelty. i may enjoy the novel experience of tasting a pomegranate, be the actual experience agreeable or disagreeable, merely enjoying the novelty as such. 171what is this novelty, why is it noticed, and why does it give occasion to pleasure or pain in emotional form?

as we have already pointed out, the sense of the novel and emotion about it cannot be said to arise with novel experiences in general. the novel in the objective sense is the first occurrence of any given definite kind of psychosis, as humility or pity, in the history of mind, and this novelty is probably not at first appreciated.

bain says that novelty is not an emotion, but “merely expresses the superior force of all stimulants on being first applied.” but from the point of view of psychic history the initial force of stimulants is always very inferior and slight. for example, to taste and to qualitatively distinguish tastes is an extremely slow growth in the race, and by no means suddenly completed even in the offspring of the most advanced individuals. place a drop of wormwood extract on an infant’s tongue and it may have a novel sensation and a disagreeable one, as evidenced by the reaction, yet the real force of the sensation is certainly quite inferior to that of a ten year old child in the given case. the absolutely new impression is always slight, for mind is, in the natural course of evolution, always slow at fully experiencing things, it is by effort and by effort alone that it attains the several orders of sensation and perception, and it is only by effort that they are realized with greater and greater force and clearness. by the very nature of psychic evolution as a progressive process toward helping adjustability the novel exercises at the first but a slight reaction. however, in the exigencies of existence the most wide awake, those most susceptible to perceiving novelties and new circumstances and to being suitably affected by them, have the advantage. hence the apprehension, interpretation, and application, of novelties is the path of progress which finally culminates in the achievements of human invention. an openness to the novel is thus of prime importance in 172a practical way, though this is quite distinct from the pleasing sense of novelty. however, the novel is not primarily attractive and interesting in and for itself, but this must be accounted a late evolution in an artificial period. the novel is at the first anything but charming. the absolutely novel is never pleasant for its own sake.

it is only in a relative way that the objectively novel pleases, that is, in the way of variety and change. where overflowing mental energy by reason of habituation finds no full and easy diverse activity the mind is hampered and constrained. thus youth in particular finds delight and relief in new sights and sounds, in fresh experiences of all kinds. quickly wearied and exhausted in one channel and yet full of active power, the mind springs rapidly from object to object along those lines which ancestral experience has rendered the lines of least resistance, thus especially in the plays and sports of childhood.

while the novel in this way as change pleases, yet there is no pleasing sense of novelty. sensations, sights, sounds, tastes, etc., please by their novelty, there is a pleasure in the sensations not merely intrinsic but relative to previous experiences, but the mind is not yet capable of the emotion of novelty which belongs to reflective consciousness. the child may be pleased by the novel, but is not consciously charmed by the novelty. the sense of experience as novel, and as such pleasing, belongs to a higher grade of consciousness than the na?ve direct consciousness of the child. novelty consciously known, appreciated, and sought for its own sake is a decidedly late evolution. there is an emotion and emotion of pleasure which we may feel in view of the novel per se. not merely the new object becomes the stimulant of a new and refreshing experience, but this experience being known as novel by the reflecting consciousness, and contrasted with other experiences, there comes therewith a peculiar ripple of pleasurable emotion, the emotion of the novel. the first 173emotion of novelty is itself thereby a novel consciousness which might be, to a very reflective self-conscious mind, an object for another emotion of novelty. in touching upon the emotion of novelty we have thus risen beyond the common course of natural selection, to the point where experience values itself for its own sake.

in contrast to the emotion of novelty is the emotion of familiarity. this might be discussed in a strictly parallel way to our discussion of the emotion of novelty. it is founded upon likeness, being the sentiment of likeness. an absolute novelty, the perfectly new, is of course imperceptible as such, and by the law of continuity cannot occur in nature. some correlation with past experience is required to make the thing cognizable at all, as is also some measure of unlikeness to make it distinguishable and so familiar. the emotion of familiarity is much neglected by psychologists, yet it forms a more important and a larger element in the pleasures of advanced mind than the emotion of novelty. many of the delights of home and domestic life are tinged by it. the pleasing sense of familiarity is, of course, most felt in contrast after some long experience of novelties, as when the traveller returns home from a prolonged journey. delight in the familiar for its own sake often largely prompts to the revisiting old scenes and renewing old habits. the emotions of novelty and familiarity have a constant contrasting play in many men. the familiar which is painful in itself may yet, like the novel painful in itself, be pleasurable. we often welcome the familiar and novel purely for their own sake whatever be their actual hedonalgic[c] content.

[footnote c: this adjective, which i used before seeing mr. marshall’s “algedonic,” more exactly expresses pleasure—pain quality.]

noticed familiarity like novelty may be painful. the disgusting emotion by which we may meet the unwelcome novelty, has its correlate in the wearing sense of monotony 174from the regular return of the familiar even though it be intrinsically pleasurable.

in the reflective emotions we have touched upon but a single group, the novelty-familiarity, which is certainly a complex but interesting kind of psychoses. in all this field we have rightly to separate mere sensitiveness to likeness and unlikeness—a tolerably early phenomenon—from sense of relatedness and unrelatedness of experiences in and for themselves. consciousness of experience as such is the mark of a radically new type of consciousness, quite set off from the na?ve unreflecting consciousness under the primitive conditions of natural selection and the struggle for existence. the significance of this, by which experience rests purely upon itself and is for itself, leads into a wide region. it is enough that we have instanced one of these later emotions in contrast to the directly serviceable emotions which have most concerned us in our present discussions, without inquiring closely into its function. it is evident that in the ordinary course of evolution the character of the situation as affecting life determines the serviceable emotion, thus different kinds of harmful situations determine fear, anger, hate, etc. if a situation is really interesting for life, it ultimately will be both known and felt in the progress of the struggle for existence just as surely as light, colour, sound, etc., are gradually appreciated. hence we might predict that the novel situation and the incongruous situation would receive some advantageous cognitive and feeling response, and that even emotions of novelty, familiarity, congruity, and incongruity, would arise, as well as the feelings for these things, if this were useful; that is, experience may ultimately consciously react upon itself in these ways as well as directly sense mere objects. now the pleasure in novelty for its own sake, while not consciously in the region of natural selection, yet indirectly may be favoured by it as prop?deutic to progressiveness. it would, indeed, from one 175standpoint seem possible to deduce according to the law of serviceability the whole course of experience past, present and future, and we might as assuredly predict particular feelings as we may predict the evolution of the wing or the hoof or the four-ventricled heart in the course of a physical biologic evolution. the psychic biologic evolution is to a certain point as strictly interpretable by the principle of advantageous natural selection as the physical, for the two are really co-ordinated. in the near future of psychology every psychosis in its origin and development will be as clearly traceable as any purely physiological organ, though this can never be accomplished in the purely objective manner, but will require a subjective manipulation which is now quite beyond us.