19 |
"The moral
feelings might be studied in the same
The moral feelings. Pity.
Its increasing intensity is a qualitative progress. |
way. Let us take pity
as an example. It consists in the first place in putting oneself
mentally in the place of others, in suffering their pain. But if it were nothing more, as some |
have maintained, it would inspire us with the idea of
avoiding the wretched rather than helping them, for pain is naturally
abhorrent to us. This feeling of horror may indeed be at the
root of pity; but a new element
soon comes in, the need of helping our fellow-men and of alleviating
their suffering. Shall we say with La
Rochefoucauld that this so-called sympathy
is a calculation, "a shrewd insurance against evils to come
"? Perhaps a dread of some future evil to ourselves does
hold a place in our compassion for other people's evil. These
however are but lower forms of pity. True pity consists not so much in fearing suffering
as in desiring it. The desire is a faint one and we should hardly
wish to see it realized; yet we form it in spite of ourselves,
as if Nature were committing some great injustice and it were
necessary to get rid of all suspicion of complicity with her.
The essence of pity is thus a need for self-abasement, an aspiration
downwards. This painful aspiration nevertheless has a charm about
it, because it raises us in our own estimation and makes us feel
superior to those sensuous goods from which our thought is temporarily
detached. The increasing intensity of pity thus consists in
a qualitative progress, in a transition from repugnance to fear,
from fear to sympathy, and from sympathy itself to humility." |
(Our bold and color, and violet bold italic problematics.)
Bergson restarts his footnote counts on each page. So to refer
a footnote, one must state page number and footnote number.
Our bold and color highlights follow a code:
- black-bold - important to read if you are just scanning
our review
- orange-bold - text ref'd
by index pages
- green-bold - we see Bergson
suggesting axiomatic, perhaps quantum and even gnostic memes
- violet-bold - an apparent
classical problematic
- blue-bold - we disagree
with this text segment while disregarding context of Bergson's
overall text
- gray-bold - quotable
text
- red-bold - our direct
commentary
Index
|
20 |
"We
do not propose to
carry this analysis any further. The psychic states
whose intensity we
Conscious states connected
with external causes or involving physical
symptoms. |
have just defined
are deep-seated states
which do not seem
to have any close relation to their external
cause or to involve the perception
of muscular contraction. But such |
states are
rare. There is hardly any passion or desire, any joy or sorrow,
which is not accompanied
by [quantum ensemble] physical symptoms;
and, where these symptoms occur, they probably count for something
in the estimate of intensities.
As for the sensations properly
so called, they are manifestly connected with their external cause,
and though the intensity of the sensation
cannot be defined
by the magnitude of its cause, there undoubtedly exists some
relation between these two terms. In some of its manifestations
consciousness even appears to spread outwards [in Quantonics,
we call this "quantum awareness;"
it is due, n¤t classical spatial extensity, rather, both
quantum coherent locality and superluminal isocoherent
n¤nlocality], as if intensity
were being developed into extensity, e.g. in the case of muscular effort. Let us face this
last phenomenon at once: we shall thus be transported
at a bound to the opposite extremity of the series of psychic
phenomena." |
(Our bold, color, violet bold italic problematics and violet
bold problematics.)
You may need review, now, of issues of classical cause-effect vis-à-vis quantonic
ensembles of both affectings and outcomings, see
our August, 2001 QQA, and
also see our whatings
happenings nextings. See affectation.
See uncertainty.
Too, now is probably a good time to recall what Mae-wan
Ho has told us about classical
vis-à-vis quantum arm flexure.
Index
|