Essays in scientific synthesis / by Eugenio Rignano.

  • Eugenio Rignano
Date:
[1918]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Essays in scientific synthesis / by Eugenio Rignano. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    functions, the love for the child is nourished and strengthened by the continuous performance of the acts it dictates/’ 1 But maternal love, and family love in general, thus arising out of given relations which become habitual, represent but one particular case of a universal law. Every other relation, in fact, established with things or with persons, however special it may be, becomes a thing “ desired ” as it passes into a habit. In other words, in every environmental relation, whether general or particular, we find a verification of Lehmann’s law of “ the indispensability of the habitual,” which he estab¬ lished for every stimulus to which one grows accustomed, and in the absence of which we become conscious of a “ need.” 2 3 A friend once wrote to G. E. Muller : “ I have in my room a small clock which does not run more than twenty-four hours without being wound up. So it often stops, and when that happens I notice it at once, while naturally I do not notice it at all when it is going. The first time this occurred I felt something like this : I suddenly became aware of an indefinite unrest, a kind of emptiness, and I could not say at the moment what was the cause. It was only after some reflection that I discovered the cause in the stopping of the clock.” 3 Besides, we all have noticed that habit gives pleasure to things which at first were disagreeable, and certain 1 F. Pillon, Sur lamémoire et Vimagination affectivcs, “ Année philoso- phique,” 17th year (1906), Paris, Alcan, 1907, pp. 69-70. 2 A. Lehmann, Die Hauplgesetzc des menschlichen Gefuhlslebens, Leipzig, Reisland, 1892, pp. 194 et seq. 3 G. E. Muller, Zur Theorie der sinnlichen Aufmerksamkeit, Leipzig, Edelmann (no date), p. 128. 8
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