The moral managers

Throughout the eighteenth century the emotions had represented the animal in man and were to be subjected. Psychology advocated the extinction of the passions. By the end of the century this position had been totally reassessed. This change in attitude has been carefully examined in an essay by Kathleen Grange (1962 , pp. 512-23). Her essay is constructed around the analysis of a metaphor - a ship symbol ‘which man has consistently chosen to depict his psychological predicament’ (ibid., p.512). She traces the development of this metaphor from the philosophy of the Stoics onwards. For the Stoics the duty of the pilot was to bring his vessel into harbour. Tranquillity was the most sought after condition. This, of course, is opposed to the Aristotelian position which allies madness with genius and more generally sees emotion as a spur to action. This Aristotelian line of thought was developed by Thomas Wright in his Treatise of the Passions in Generalle (1604). Wright argues that emotions, rather than being impediments, play a necessary part in stirring us to action. Henry More argued that emotions purify the blood. ‘Boyle, La Rochefoucauld and More thus minimised the danger of storm, in opposition to the stoics, they maintained that the brisk winds of emotion served as active forces guarding man’s vessel from quicksands, stagnation and inertia’ (Grange, p.517). This approach culminated in the romantic cultivation of feeling. Absence of emotion was tantamount to death. Kathleen Grange finds this romantic approach epitomized in the poetry of Coleridge: ‘In place of stagnant calm, he suggested the need for humanitarianism and for the cultivation of feeling, mood and emotion’ (ibid., p.522). Changes in attitudes to the emotions are reflected in attitudes to sleep. Byrd describes the changed attitudes to sleep from Augustan suspicion to romantic interest in its creative possibilities.