The Foundations of Personality Part 9

Love, then, is this tender feeling made purposive and intelligent. It is a sentiment, in Shand's phrase, and seeks the good of its object. It may be narrow, it may be broad, it may be intense or feeble, but in its organized sense it plans, fights and cherishes. It has organized with it the primary emotions,--fear if the object is in danger, or anger is evoked according to the circ.u.mstances; joy if the object of love is enhanced or prospers; sorrow if it is lost or injured under circ.u.mstances that make the lover helpless. Love is not only the tenderest feeling, but it is also the most heroic and desperate fighter in behalf of the loved one. Here we are face to face with the contradictions that we always meet when we personify a quality or make an abstraction. Love may do the most hateful things; love may stunt, the character of the lover and the beloved. In other words, love, tender feeling, must be conjoined with intelligence, good judgment, determination and fairness before it is useful. It would be a nice question to determine just how much harm misguided love has done.

What is pity? Though objects of love always elicit pity, when helpless or injured, objects of pity are not necessarily objects of love. In fact, we may pity through contempt. Objective pity is a type of tender feeling in which there is little or no self-feeling. We do not extend the ego to the piteous object. We desire to help, even though the object of pity is an enemy or disgusting. One of the commonest struggles of life is that between self-interest and pity,--and the selfish resent any situation that arouses their pity, because they dislike to give.

Pity tends to disappear from the life of the soldier and is, indeed, a trait he does not need; in the lives of the strong and successful, pity is apt to be a hindering quality. In a world in which compet.i.tion is keen, the cooperative gentle qualities hinder success. The weak seek the pity of others; they need it; and the pity-seeker is a very distinct type. The strong and proud hate to be pitied, and when wounded they hide, shun their friends and keep the semblance of strength with a brave face. Pity directed toward oneself as the object is self-pity,--a quality found in children and in a certain amiable, weak, egoistic type, whose eyes are always full of tears as they talk of themselves.

Of course, at times, we are all p.r.o.ne to this vice of character, but there are some chronically afflicted.

Certain so-called sentimentalists are those who die, tribute their pity in an erratic fashion. These are the vegetarians who are sad because it is wrong to kill for food; yet they wear without compunction the leather of cattle who have neither committed suicide nor died of old age. And the anti-vivisectionists view without any stir of pity the children of the slums and the sick of all kinds. Pity raises man to the divine but, like all the gentle qualities, it needs guidance by reason and common sense before it is of any value.

Just as there are objects and individuals recognized or believed to be as somehow favorable and who evoke tender feeling, so there are objects and individuals regarded as unfavorable, perhaps dangerous, who arouse aversion and hatred. The feeling thus produced is the other great sentiment of life, which on the whole organizes character and conduct on a great plane. Hatred, a decidedly primitive reaction, still is powerful in the world and is back of dissension of all kinds, from lawsuits to war. When one hates he is attached to the hated object in a fashion just the reverse of the attachment of love; joy, anger, fear and sorrow arise under exactly the opposite circ.u.mstances, and the aim and end of hate is to block, thwart and destroy the hated one. The earlier history of man lays emphasis on the activities of hate,--war, feats of arms, individual feuds. Hate, unlike love, needs no moral code or teaching to bring it into activity; it springs into being and constantly needs repression. Unlikeness alone often brings it to life; to be too different from others is recognized as a legitimate reason for hatred. The most important cause is conflict of interest and wounding of self-feeling and pride. Revengeful feeling, fostered by tradition and "patriotism," caused many wars and in its lesser spheres of operation is back of murders, a.s.saults, insults and the lesser categories of injuries of all kinds.

The prime emotion of hatred is anger; in its less intense aspect of aversion it is disgust. The aim and end of anger is destruction of the offending object; the aim and end of aversion is removal, ejection. Hate may be and often is a n.o.ble sentiment, though the trend of modern thought, as it minimizes personal responsibility, is to eliminate hate against persons and intellectualize hate so that it is reserved for the battle against ideas. Whether you can really summon all your effort against any one, against his plans, opinions and actions, unless you have built up the steady sentiment of hatred for him, is a nice psychological question. Hate is most intense in little people, in persons absolutely convinced that their interests, opinions and plans are sacred, sure of their superiority and righteousness. Once let insight into yourself, your weakness and your real motives creep into your mind and your hate against opponents and obstructors must lessen. Those who realize most the fallibility of men and women, to whom Pilate's question "What is truth?" has added to it a more sceptical question, "What is right," find it hard to hate. Therefore, such persons, the broad-minded and the most deeply wise, are not the best fighters for a cause, since their efforts are lessened by sympathy for the opponent. Here is the marvel of Abraham Lincoln; rich with insight, he could hate slavery and secession and yet not hate the southern people. In that division of himself lies his greatness and his suffering.

The disappearance of personal hate from the world can only come when men realize the essential unity of mankind. For part of the psychological origin of hate lies in unlikeness. Great unlikeness in color and facial line seems to act as a challenge to the feeling of superiority. Wherever a "different" group challenges another's superiority, or enters into active compet.i.tion for the goods of life, there hate enters in its most virulent form. The disappearance of the "unlike" feeling is very slow and is hindered by the existence of small "particular" groups. Little nationalities,[1] small sects, even exclusive clubs and circles are means of generating difference and thus hate.

[1] The more nationalities, each with its claim to a great destiny, the more wars! There is the essential danger and folly of tribal patriotism.

We shall not enter into the origin of hate through the danger to purpose, through rivalry among those not separated by unlikeness.

Hate seems to be a chronic anger, or at least that emotion kept at a more or less constant level by perception of danger and the threat at personal dignity and worth. Obstructed love or pa.s.sion and the feeling of "wrong," i. e., injury done that was not merited, that the personal conscience does not justify, furnish the most virulent types of hatred. "Love thine enemies" is still an impossible injunction for most men.

We cannot hope to trace the feeling of revenge in its effects on human conduct. Though at present religion and law both prohibit revengeful acts, the desire "to get even" flames high in almost every human breast under all kinds of injury or insult. This form of hate may express itself crudely in the vendetta of the Sicilian, the feud of the Tennessee mountaineer, or the a.s.sault and battery of an aggrieved husband; it is behind the present-day conflict in Ireland, and it threatened Europe for forty years after the Franco-Prussian War, --and no man knows how profoundly it will influence future world affairs because of the Great War.

Often it disguises itself as justice, the principle of the thing, in those who will not admit revenge as a motive; and the eclipsed and beaten take revenge in slander, innuendo and double-edged praise. To some revenge is a devil to be fought out of their hearts; to others it is a G.o.d that guides every act. We may define n.o.bility of character as the withdrawal from revenge as a motive and the subst.i.tution for it of justice.

Some hatred expresses itself openly and fearlessly and as such gains some respect, even from its own object. Other hatred plots and schemes, the intelligence lends itself to the plans completely and the whole personality suffers in consequence. Some hatred, weak and without self-confidence, or seeking the effect of surprise, is hypocritical, dissimulates, affects friendly feeling, rubs its hands over insults and awaits the opportune moment. This type is a.s.sociated in all minds with a feeling of disgust, for at bottom we rather admire the "good" hater.

We have spoken of these three specialized and directed outgrowths of excitement, interest, love and hatred as if they were primarily directed to the outside world, though in a previous chapter we discussed the introspective interest. What shall we call the love and hatred a man has for himself? Is the self-regarding sentiment any different than the sentiment of love for others? Is that hate and disgust we feel for ourselves, or for some action or thought, different from the hate and disgust we have for others?

Judged by Shand's dicta that anger and fear are aroused if the object of love is threatened, joy is aroused as it prospers, and sorrow if it is deeply injured or lost, self-love remarkably resembles other-love. The pride we take in our own achievements is unalloyed by jealousy, and there is always a trace of jealousy in the pride we take in the achievements of others, but there is no difference in the pride itself. There is no essential difference in the "good" we seek for ourselves and in the good we seek for others, for what we seek will depend on our idea of "good." Thus the ambitious mother seeks for her daughter a rich husband and the idealist seeks for his son a career of devotion to the ideal. And the sensualist devoted to the good of his belly and his pocket loves his child and shows it by feeding and enriching him.

There seems to be lacking, however, the glow of tender feeling in self-love. The projection of the self-interest to others has a pa.s.sion, a melting in it that self-love never seems to possess, though it may be constant and ever-operating. Self-regard, self-admiration or conceit may be very high and deeply felt, but though more common than real admiration for others, it seldom reaches the awe and reverence that the projected emotion reaches.

In mental disease, of the type known as Maniac Depressive insanity, there is a curious oscillation of self-love and self-admiration. This disease is cyclic, in that two opposing groups of symptoms tend to appear and displace each other. In the manic, or excited state, there is greatly heightened activity with correspondingly heightened feeling of power. Self-love and admiration reach absurd levels: one is the most beautiful, the richest and wisest of persons, infallible, irresistible, aye, perhaps G.o.d or Christ. Sometimes the feeling of grandeur, the euphoria, is less fantastic and the patient imagines himself a great inventor, a statesman of power and wisdom, a writer of renown, etc. Suddenly, or perhaps gradually, the change comes; self-feeling drops into an abyss. "I am the most miserable of persons, the vilest sinner, hated and rightly by G.o.d and man, cause of suffering and misery. I am no good, no use, a horrible odor issues from me, I am loathsome to look at, etc., etc."

Desperate suicidal attempts are made, and all the desires that tend to preserve the individual disappear, including appet.i.te for food and drink, the power to sleep. It is the most startling of transitions; one can hardly realize that the dejected, silent person, sitting in a corner, hiding his face and hardly breathing, is the same individual who lately tore around the wards, happy, dancing, singing and boasting of his greatness of power. Indeed, is he the same individual? No wonder the ancients regarded such insanity as a possession by an evil spirit. We of a later day who deal with this disease on the whole are inclined to the belief that some internal factor of a physical kind is responsible, some neuronic shift, or some strange, visceral endocrinal disorder.

While self-hate in this pathological aspect is relatively uncommon, in every person there are self-critical, self-condemning activities which sometimes for short periods of time reach self-hatred and disgust. McDougall makes a good deal of the self-abasing instinct which makes us lower ourselves gladly and willingly. This seems to me to be an aspect of the emotion of admiration and wonder, for we do not wish ordinarily to kneel at the feet of the insignificant, debased; or it is an aspect of fear and the effort to obtain conciliation and pity.

But the establishment of ideals for ourselves to which we are not faithful brings with it a disgust and loathing for self that is extremely painful and leads to a desire for penance of any kind In order that we may punish ourselves and feel that we have made amends. The capacity for self-hate and self-disgust depends largely upon the development of these ideals and principles of conscience, of expectation of the self. Frequently there is an overrigidity, a ceaseless self-examination that now and then produces miracles of character and achievement but more often brings the breakdown of health. This is the seeker of perfection in himself, who will not compromise with his instincts and his human flesh. There seekers of perfection are among the n.o.blest of the race, admired in the abstract but condemned by their friends as "too good," "impractical," as possessors of the "New England conscience." One of the effects of a Puritanical bringing-up is a belief that pleasure is unworthy, especially in the s.e.x field and even in marriage. Now and then one meets a patient caught between perfectly proper desire and an obsession that such pleasure is debasing; and a feeling of self-disgust and self-hatred results that is the more tragic since it is useless.

There are those in whom self-love and self-esteem is at a lower pressure than with the average man, just as there are those in whom it is at a much higher pressure. Such people, when fatigued or when subject to the hostile or even non-friendly opinion of others, become so-called self-conscious, i. e., are afflicted with fear and a feeling of inferiority. This may deepen into self-contempt and self-hatred. Part of what is called confidence in oneself is self-esteem, and under fatigue, illness, after punishment of a physical or mental nature, it is apt to disappear. Very distressing is this in those who have been accustomed to courage and self-confidence, perhaps whose occupation makes these qualities necessary. Soldiers, after ga.s.sing or cerebral concussion, men completely without introspection, fearless and gay with a.s.surance, become apprehensive, self-a.n.a.lytical and without the least faith in themselves, so that they approach their work in fear. So with men who work in high places or where there is risk, such as steeplejacks, bridge builders, iron workers, engineers; let an accident happen to them, or let there occur an exhausting disease with its aftermath of neurasthenia, and the self-esteem and self-confidence disappear so that in many cases they have to give up their job.

Because self-disgust and hatred are so painful, compensatory "mechanisms" have been set up. There is in many people a tendency to project outward the blame for those acts or thoughts which they dislike. In the pathological field we get those delusions of influence that are so common. Thus a patient will attribute his obscene thoughts and words to a hypnotic effect of some person or group of persons and saves his own face by the delusion. In lesser pathological measure, men have fiercely preached against the snares and wiles of women, refusing to recognize that the turmoil of unwelcome desire into which they were thrown was internal in the greater part of its origin and that the woman often knew little or not at all of the effect she helped produce.

One of the outstanding features in the history of the race has been this transfer of blame from the desire of men to the agent which aroused them. Of course, women have played on the desires of men, but even where this was true the blame for VULNERABILITY has seldom been fully accepted. Whenever any one has been "weak"

or "foolish" or "sinful," his mind at once seeks avenues of escape from the blame, from the painful feeling of inferiority and self-reproach. The avenue of escape selected may be to blame others as tempting or not warning and not teaching, may become entirely delusional, or it may take the religious form of confession, expiation and repentance. There are some so hardy in their self-esteem that they never suffer, never seek any escape from self-reproach, largely because they never feel it; and others, though they seek escape, are continually dragged by conscience to self-imposed torture. Most of us seek explanations for our unwelcome conduct on a plane most favorable to our self-esteem, and there arises an elaborate system of self-disguise, expiation, repentance and confession that is in a large part the real inner life of most of us. To explain failure especially are the avenues of escape utilized. Wounded in his self-esteem, rare is the one who frankly acknowledges inferiority. "Pull," "favoritism," "luck," explain the success of others as do the reverse circ.u.mstances explain our failures to ourselves. Sickness explains it, and so the defeated search in themselves for the explanation which will in part compensate them. Escape from inferiority follows many avenues, --by actual development of superiority, by denying real superiority to others, or by explaining the inferiority on some acceptable basis.

Here (as elsewhere in character) there is evident an organic and a social basis for feeling. We have not emphasized sufficiently a peculiarity of all human feeling, all emotions, all sentiments.

They have their value to the individual in organizing his conduct, his standard of value. They are of enormous importance socially. A great law of feeling of whatever kind, of whatever elaboration, is this; it tends to spread from individual to individual and excites whole groups to the same feeling; tender feeling is contagious, and so is hate. We are somehow so made that we reverberate at a friendly smile in one way and to the snarl and stern look of hate in another way. Ordinarily love awakens love and hate awakens hate, though it may bring fear or contempt. It is true that we may feel so superior or cherish some secret hate that will make another's love odious to us, and also we may admire and worship one who hates us. These are exceptional cases and are examples of exceptional sentimental stability. It is of course understood that by love is not meant s.e.x pa.s.sion.

Here the curious effect of coldness is sometimes to fan the flame of pa.s.sion. Desire obstructed often gains in violence, and the desire to conquer and to possess the proud, that we all feel, adds to the fire of l.u.s.t.

Self-esteem, self-confidence, hateful to others if in excess or if obtrusive, is an essential of the leader. His feeling is extraordinarily contagious, and the morale of the group is in his keeping. He must not show fear, or self-distrust or self-lowering in any way. He must be deliberate, but forceful, vigorous, masterful. If he has doubts, he must keep them to himself or exhibit them only to one who loves him, who is not a mere follower. It is a law of life that the herd follows the unwounded, confident, egoistic leader and tears to pieces or deserts the one who is wearying.

The basic sentiments of interest, love and hate, projected outward or inward, organize personality. Men's characters and their destinies rest in the things they find interesting, the persons they love and hate, their self-confidence and self-esteem, their self-contempt and hatred. And it is true that often we hate and love the same person or circ.u.mstance; we are divided, secretly, in our tenderest feelings, in our fiercest hate, more often, alas, in the former. For occasionally admiration and respect will mitigate hate and render impotent our aim, but more commonly we are jealous of or envy son, brother, sister, husband, wife, father, mother and friend. We love our work but hate its tyranny, and even the ideal that we cherish, when we examine it too closely, seems overconventionalized, not enough our own, and it stifles and martyrs too many unpleasant desires. We rebel against our own affections, against the love that chains us perhaps to weakness and forces us, weary, to the wheel.

How deeply the feeling of "right" enters into the sentiments and their labors needs only a little reflection to understand. Here we come to the effect of the sentiment of duty, for as such it may be discussed. The establishment of conscience as our inner guide to conduct, and even to thought and emotions, has been studied briefly. On a basis of innate capacity, conscience arises from the teaching and traditions of the group (or groups). The individual who has a susceptibility or a readiness to believe and a desire to be in conformity accepts or evolves for himself principles of conduct, based on obligation, expectation of reward and fear of punishment, these entering in various proportions, according to the type of person. In children, or the very young child, expectation of reward and fear of punishment are more important than obligation, and this remains true of many people throughout life. Gradually right, what we call duty, becomes established as a guiding principle; but it must struggle with impulse and the desire for immediate pleasure throughout life. In fact, one of the dangers of the development of the feeling of duty lies in the view often held by those guided by principle and duty that pleasure is in itself somehow wrong and needs justification. Whereas, in my opinion, pleasure is right and needs no justification and is wrong only when it offends the fundamental moralities and purposes of Society.

The feeling of "right" depends to a certain extent on the kind of teaching in early childhood, but more on the nature of the individual. It is based on his social feeling, his desire to be in harmony with a group or a G.o.d that essentially stands above any group. For the idea of G.o.d introduces an element having more authority than the group whom He leads. Here also is a factor of importance: choice is difficult for the great majority. Placed in a situation where more than one response is possible, an unhappy state of bewilderment results unless there are formulae for action. The leader is the chooser for the group; religion is an established system of choices even in its "Thou shalt not"

injunctions, and to be at one with G.o.d implies that one is following an infallible leader, and doubt and uncertainty disappear. Trotter[1] points out clearly the role the feeling of cert.i.tude plays in developing codes. As life becomes more complex, as more choices appear, the need of an established method of choosing becomes greater. The careful, cautious, conscientious types develop a system of principles for choice of action; they discard the uncertainty of pleasure as a guide for the certainty of a code laid down and fixed. Duty is the north star of conduct!

[1] "The Herd and its Instincts in Peace and War."

In pa.s.sing, an interesting development of our times is worth noticing. The tendency is to discard established codes, to weaken dogma and to throw more responsibility on the individual conscience. That is the meaning of the Protestant reformation, and it is the meaning of the growth of Unitarianism within the Protestant church; it is also the meaning of the reform movement in Judaism. The Catholic church has felt it in the breaking away of state after state from its authority, which virtually means that the states have thrown their citizens back on their own consciences and the state laws. In fact, reliance on law is in part an effort to escape the necessity of choosing. The pressure of external authority has its burden, but in giving up its certainty man also gives up tranquillity. Much of modern neurasthenia is characterized by a feeling of uncertainty, unreality, doubt: what is right, what is real? True, as religion in the dogmatic sense relinquishes its power, ethics grow in value and men seek some other formula which will compensate for the dogma. It is no accident that as the old religions lose their complete control new ones appear, with all-embracing formula, like Christian Science, New Thought, etc. Though these start with elastic general principles, sooner or later the directions for conduct become minute and then fixed. The tragedy of a great founder of religion like Buddha or Christ is that though he gives out a great pure principle, his followers must have, demand and evolve a dogmatic religion with fixed ceremonials. Man, on the whole, does not want to choose; he wants to have the feeling that he ought to do this or that according to a code laid down by authority. This will make a real democracy always impossible.

However the sentiment of duty arises, it becomes the central feeling in all inner conflicts, and it wrestles with inclination and the pleasant choice. Duty is the great inhibitor, but also it says "Thou shalt!" Ideally, duty involves self-sacrifice, and practically man dislikes self-sacrifice save where love is very strong. Duty chains a man to his task where he is inclined for a holiday. Duty may demand a man's life, and that sacrifice seems easier for men to make than the giving up of power and pelf. (In the late war it was no great trouble to pa.s.s laws conscripting life; it was impossible to pa.s.s laws conscripting wealth. It was easier for a man to allow his son to go to war than to give up his wealth en ma.s.se.)

The power of the feeling of duty and right over men is very variable. There are a few to whom the feeling of "ought" is all powerful; they cannot struggle against it, even though they wish to. All of their goings, comings and doings are governed thereby, and even though they find the rest of the world dropping from them, they resist the herd. For the ma.s.s of men duty governs a few relationships--to family and country--and even here self-interest is camouflaged by the term "duty" in the phrase "a man owes a duty to himself." This is the end of real duty. The average man or woman makes a duty of nonessentials, of ceremonials, but is greatly moved by the cry of duty if it comes from authority or from those he respects. He fiercely resents it if told he is not doing his duty, but is quick to tell others they are not doing theirs.

There is also a group in whom the sense of duty is almost completely lacking, or rather fails to govern action. Ordinarily these are spoken of as lacking moral fiber, but in reality the organizing energy of character and the inhibition of the impulse to seek pleasure and present desire is feeble. Sometimes there is lack of affection toward others, little of the real glow of tender feeling, either towards children[1] or parents or any one.

Though these are often emotional, they are not, in the good meaning of the term, sentimental.

[1] It is again to be emphasized that the most vital instincts may be lacking. Even the maternal feeling may be absent, not only in the human mother but in the animal mother. So we need not be surprised if there are those with no sense of right or duty.

Is the sentiment of duty waning? The alarmists say it is and point to the increase of divorce, falling off in church attendance, and the unrest among the laboring cla.s.ses as evidence that there is a decadence. Pleasure is sought, excitement is the goal, and sober, solid duty is "forgotten." They point out a resemblance to the decadent days of Rome, in the rise of luxury and luxurious tastes, and indicate that duty and the love of luxury cannot coexist. Woman has forgotten her duty to bear children and to maintain the home and man has forgotten his duty to G.o.d.

Superficially these critics are right. There is a demand for a more satisfying life, involving less self sacrifice on the part of those who have in the past made the bulk of the sacrifices.

Woman, demanding equality, refuses to be regarded as merely a child bearer and is become a seeker of luxury. The working man, looking at the world he has built, now able to read, write and vote, asks why the duty is all on his side. In other words, a demand for justice, which is merely reciprocal, universal duty, has weakened something of the sense of duty. In fact, that is the first effect of the feeling of injustice, of unjust inequality.

Dealing with the emanc.i.p.ated, the old conception of duty as loyalty under all conditions has not worked, and we need new ideals of duty on the part of governments and governing groups before we can get the proper ideals of duty in the governed.

Some of those ideals are commencing to be heard. International duty for governments is talked of and some are bold to say that national feeling prevents a real feeling of duty to the world, to man. These claim that duty must have its origin in the extension of tender feeling, in fraternity, to all men. In a lesser way business is commencing to subst.i.tute for its former motto, "Handelschaft ist keine Bruderschaft" (business is no brotherhood), the ideal of service, as the duty of business.

Everywhere we are commencing to hear of "social duty," of obligation to the lesser and unfortunate, of the responsibility of the leaders to the led, of the well to the sick, of the law-abiding to the criminal. Strange notion, this last, but one at bottom sound and practical.

In the end, the true sense of duty is in a sense of individual responsibility. Our age feels this as no other age has felt it.

Other ages have placed responsibility on the Church, on G.o.d and on the State. Difficult and onerous as is the burden, we are commencing to place duty on the individual, and in that respect we are not in the least a decadent generation.

CHAPTER IX. ENERGY RELEASE AND THE EMOTIONS

One of the problems in all work is to place things in their right order, in the order of origin and importance. This difficulty is almost insoluble when one studies the character of man. As we see him in operation, the synthesis is so complete that we can hardly discern the component parts. Inheritance, social pressure, excitement, interest, love, hate, self-interest, duty and obligation, --these are not unitary in the least and there is constantly a false dissection to be made, an artefact, in order that clearness in presentation may be obtained.

We see men as discharging energy in work and play, in the activities that help or hurt themselves and the race. They obtain that energy from the world without, from the sunshine, the air, the plants and the animals; it is built up in their bodies, it is discharged either because some inner tension builds up a desire or because some outer stimulus, environmental or social, directs it. Though we have no way of measuring one man's energy against another, we say, perhaps erroneously, "He is very energetic," or "He is not"; "He is tireless," or "He breaks down easily." As students of character, we must take this question of the energies of men into account as integral in our study.

Granting that the human being takes in energy as food and drink and builds it up into dischargeable tissues, we are not further concerned with the details of its physiology. How does the feeling of energy arise, what increases the energy discharge and what blocks, inhibits or lowers it? For from day to day, from hour to hour, we are conscious either of a desire to be active, a feeling of capacity or the reverse. We depend on that feeling of capacity to guide us, and though it is organic, it has its mysterious disappearances and marvelous reenforcements.

It arises, so we a.s.sume, from the visceral-neuronic activities, subconsciously, in the sense we have used that word. It therefore fluctuates with health, with fatigue, with the years. We marvel at the energy of childhood and youth, and the deepest sadness we have is the depletion of energy-feeling in old age. We love energy in ourselves and we yield admiration, willing or unwilling, to its display in others. The Hero, the leader, is always energetic. In our times, in America, we demand "pep,"

action and energy-display as an essential in our play and in our work, and we worship quite too frankly where all men have always worshiped.

What besides the organic activity, besides health and well-being, excites the feeling of energy and what depresses it?

1. This feeling is excited by the society of others, by the herd-feeling, and depressed by long-continued solitude or loneliness. The stimuli that come from other people's faces, voices, contacts--their emotions, feelings and manifestations of energy--are those we are best adapted to react to, those most valuable in stirring us up. Scenery, the grandeur of the outer world, finally depress the most of us, and we can bear these things best in company. Who has not, on a long railroad journey, watched with weariness and flickering interest valley and hill and meadow swing by and then sat up with energy and definite attention as a human being pa.s.sed along on some rural road?