Insensibility

“ Insensibility here would properly be regarded as a thing to be ashamed of—as little better than a moral paralysis, which might well exclude the questionable man from the circle of reasonable, enlightened, and rising people, as a sad fellow, and a poor pilgrim on the earth. ”

“ Anything like the stark insensibility of that young girl to every refinement of feeling, to every becoming doubt of herself, to every customary timidity of her age and sex in the presence of a man who had not disguised his unfavorable opinion of her, I never met with in all my experience of the world and of women. ”

“ I am possessed with that strange insensibility that my nearest relations have no tie upon me, and I find myself no more concerned in those that I have heretofore had great tenderness of affection for, than in my kindred that died long before I was born. ”

“ A constant and unmoved insensibility will in time chill the most warm affection, and, perhaps, raise suspicions in him of the cause, which would be terrible indeed: beware, therefore, I conjure you, how you affect to despise, or treat with any marks of contempt, or even of too much coldness, a tenderness which he has a right to expect you should return in kind, as far, at least, as modesty and discretion will permit you to bestow. ”

“ For that insensibility cannot be but at the expense of some unnatural ferocity of mind, or stupor of body." But let us consider whether to talk in this manner be not allowing that we are weak, and yielding to our softness. Notwithstanding, let us be hardy enough, not only to lop off every arm of our miseries, but even to pluck up every fibre of their roots. ”

“ A degree of insensibility has been long stealing over me, & now seems completely established, which, to my understanding, is more akin to death than life. Selfishly speaking, I never valued life very much—it were impossible to value it less than I do now. ”

“ Benevolence, pity, gratitude, are, I suspect, exceedingly apt to stagnate into a calm, sluggish [59] insensibility in that breast which has not been agitated by real misfortunes.
People do not fully enter into distresses which they never have felt, and which they think they run but a small risk of feeling. Accordingly it has been remarked, that those who have been favoured through life with the smiles of fortune, and whose time has been spent in the amusements of courts, and luxurious indulgences, very often acquire an astonishing insensibility to the misfortunes of others. ”

“ As regards curing disorders, producing insensibility to hunger and thirst, heat or cold, and the like, all are aware that to a man who is under the influence of some great and overpowering emotion, such as rage or surprise, or joy, no pain is perceptible. In like manner, by means of persuasion, sleep, a temporary oblivion, and the skillfully awakened Will, the same insensibility or ignoring can be effected. ”

“ He now met his approaching fate with a composure that it is difficult not to admire, even in Lovat. And yet reflection may perhaps suggest that the insensibility to the fear of death—an emotion incident to conscientious minds—bespeaks, in one whose responsibilities had been so grossly abused, an insensibility springing from utter depravity. Let us, however, give to the wretched man every possible allowance. ”

“ Such moral insensibility is, no doubt, intimately related to the physical insensibility already noted, and is of an equally morbid or atypical character. It passes far beyond that of the savage with which the moral insensibility involved in deliberately killing or injuring a fellow-creature may fairly be compared. ”

“ The sufferings of insensibility, this highest possible form of tedium, which—if we are to judge from the descriptions in literature and poetry—may in themselves be unbearable enough, must needs be unusually keen in individuals who are given up to philosophic reflection. The feeling of inanity which is caused by a suspense of vital sensations is apt to spread itself over the whole field of sense-experience. ”

“ If it was not for the entail, I should not mind it."
"What should not you mind?"
"I should not mind anything at all."
"Let us be thankful that you are preserved from a state of such insensibility." ”

“ The Advantages of Insensibility.—An English writer has recently suggested that we are wont to give excessive praise to the faculty of sensibility, while we depreciate its opposite, or the want of it, insensibility. It is clear, he maintains, that almost every shade of insensibility has a side of advantage as well as of disadvantage. The world forgets how very much tender sensibility often interferes with the calm judgment necessary for right action and the cool presence of mind which is essential to effective execution. ”

“ But each of these preferences carries with it an insensibility to other opportunities and occasions—an insensibility which can only be described physiologically as an inhibition of new impulses by the habit of old ones already formed. The possession of homes and wives of our own makes us strangely insensible to the charms of those of other people. Few of us are adventurous in the matter of food; in fact, most of us think there is something disgusting in a bill of fare to which we are unused. ”

“ It might in them be supposed to forebode, in their advancing years, a most improper insensibility to real honour and infamy of character.
In all other private misfortunes which affect ourselves immediately and directly, we can very seldom offend by appearing to be too little affected. We frequently remember our sensibility to the misfortunes of others with pleasure and satisfaction. ”

“ Our incredulity and insensibility with respect to what others frequently suffer from the toothache and other incidental disorders must have been remarked by 408every one, and are even ludicrous from the excess to which they are carried. Give what account you will of it, the effect is the same;—our self-love, and sympathy depend upon the same causes, and constantly bear a determinate proportion to each other, at least in the same individual. The same knowledge of any pain, which increases our dread of it, makes us more ready to feel for others who are exposed to it. ”

“ This resisting force, this insensibility, seems to partake of the extreme changes in sensibility which can occur in the animal economy during a time of great exaltation. Anger, fear, in a word, every passion, provided that it be carried to a paroxysmal point, can produce this insensibility. ”

“ And pernicious in the highest degree, although, nevertheless, not quite obsolete yet, is the practice of continuing to beat children already hardened to blows. Brutish insensibility is the consequence, and the hope is almost vain that even a long period of now unavoidable indulgence will restore a normal state of feeling. ”

“ When their patients’ pain becomes excessive they produce insensibility; so should we pray that our souls may be made insensible to the pain of our troubles, that we be not put under unendurable agony. ”

“ They may be so, as far as relates to broken bones and bruises, but not to other things. Nor are they necessarily so in their profession; for we find different degrees of callous insensibility in different individuals. ”

“ There is, there ought to be, no question in the matter of a little more or a little less of torture, or of dispute whether anæsthetics, when they can be employed, usually effect complete and final or only partial and temporary insensibility ”

“ For love is frightened at the intervals of insensibility and callousness that encroach by little and little on the dominion of grief, and it makes efforts to recall the keenness of the first anguish. ”

“ Every one we speak to seems so selfish, so volatile, so obdurate, that we can hardly believe there is anything like feeling or sympathy in the human breast; when, perhaps, scanned accurately, our own sensations would be found to be selfish, and our own accusations return upon our own head. Who could tell, in that mixed crowd, what were the motives, what the feelings, what the doubt and dread, which created the sort of fierce anxiety in my heart? Who could see in my look, or detect in my voice, more than the most minute portion of that anxiety? ”

“ I saw you struggling with vexations, that I was assured might be meliorated by tender confidence—I longed to pour its balms into your bosom. My sensibility disquieted you, and myself, only because it was constrained. I thought I perceived a conflict in your mind—I watched its progress with attention and solicitude. A thousand times has my fluttering heart yearned to break the cruel chains that fettered it, and to chase the cloud, which stole over your brow, by the tender, yet chaste, caresses and endearments of ineffable affection! ”

“ The natural consequence is restlessness, agitation, anger, indecision, etc. The dissociation of personality, with the outcropping of the “b mood,” follows—a conflict due to the excitation of certain childhood complexes, conserved in the unconscious and embracing sentiments in which are incorporated the instinct of self-subjection or abasement. This “b mood” is a study in itself. ”

“ Beside these calm passions, which often determine the will, there are certain violent emotions of the same kind, which have likewise a great influence on that faculty. When I receive any injury from another, I often feel a violent passion of resentment, which makes me desire his evil and punishment, independent of all considerations of pleasure and advantage to myself. When I am immediately threatened with any grievous ill, my fears, apprehensions, and aversions rise to a great height, and produce a sensible emotion. ”

“ The dominating emotion is early reinforced by the awakening of its ally, the fear instinct, with all its physiological manifestations. Then tremor, palpitation, perspiration, and vasomotor disturbances break out. Shame may be added to the emotional state.
5201. This reaction becomes intelligible if we regard it as one of conflict resulting in painful bashfulness and shame, inhibition of thought; the excitation of painful ideas, amnesia, and limitation of the field of consciousness. The self-regarding sentiment is awakened and dominates the content of consciousness. ”

“ My sensibility, originally acute, from having been too much exercised, has become nearly morbid, and has almost unfitted me for an inhabitant of this world. I am willing to believe, that your conduct towards me has originated in good motives, nevertheless, you have made some sad mistakes—you have deeply, though undesignedly, wounded me: I have been harrassed, distressed, mortified. You know not, neither will I attempt to describe, all I have suffered! language would be inadequate to paint the struggles of a delicate, susceptible, mind, in some peculiar and interesting situations. ”

“ Such a persisting repression may be brought about either directly by volitional conflict or indirectly through the cultivation of antagonistic sentiments. The cultivation of an instinct is a common enough observation. Every one can point to some one of his acquaintance who has so fostered his instinct of anger or fear, has so cultivated the habit of one or the other reaction that he has become the slave of his emotion. ”

“ Moreover, how could our sensibility fail to be, constantly, more or less impressed by so many general causes which, independent of particular causes, so constantly act upon us, at every instant of our life, and which, so to speak, ceaselessly besiege us, from within and from without? ”

“ It is just here that the mystery of pain and pleasure helps us to understand the mystery of love and malice, the same insensitiveness in certain souls that prevents their feeling any vivid pain or any vivid pleasure, also prevents their feeling any intense malice. But this insensitiveness which prevents their feeling any intense malice is, more than anything else, the especial evocation of the power of malice. ”

“ In other words, what are called agreeable or painful states only constitute the superficial part of the life of feeling, of which the deep element consists in tendencies, appetites, needs, desires, translated into movements. Most classical treatises (and even some others) say that sensibility is the faculty of experiencing pleasure and pain. I should say, using the same terminology, that sensibility is the faculty of tending or desiring, and consequently of experiencing pleasure and pain. There is nothing mysterious in the tendency ”

“ I have known one of these good-natur'd passionate Men say in a mix'd Company even to his own Wife or Child, such Things as the most inveterate Enemy of his Family would not have spoke, even in Imagination. It is certain that quick Sensibility is inseparable from a ready Understanding; but why should not that good Understanding call to it self all its Force on such Occasions, to master that sudden Inclination to Anger. ”

“ SO long as the mind was regarded as something separated from the body, or only united to it by feeble ties, bodily conditions could have nothing to do with mental phenomena—insanity was a disease of the soul. ”

“ For supersensitiveness is nothing but a disease produced by submission in your household and aggravated by fawning or by an excess of affection. Sincerity in either case did not help to extenuate their fault or mine. But my principle of tolerance would exercise its sway again, and, instead of throwing plates or smashing an earthen pitcher in a dramatic rage before a cowed audience of lovers, I would find myself nibbling at my own soul, eating my very heart in unrighteous anger. ”

“ When worry urged me, my love checked me."
"What provoked this uneasiness outside of these facts?"
"Your manner of living since our marriage; your accesses of anger and of tenderness; your fear of being observed; your agitation at night; your complaints—"
"I talked?" he cried.
"Never distinctly; you groan often, and moan, pronouncing broken words without sense, unintelligible—"
His anguish was violent; when he recovered he continued:
"What is it in this way of living that has made you uneasy?"
"Your constant care not to commit yourself—"
"Commit myself how?" ”