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AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS.

or never allows himself to be moved by emotion, "inhuman."

(2) Emotions are for the most part instinctive in their origin. The child does not need to learn to feel angry or afraid. The simpler and coarser emotions, such as anger, fear, and jealousy, are more completely instinctive than the finer and more complex ones.

(3) Emotions are generally excited by some specific stimulus or some definite situation. In the latter respect they resemble impulses, which usually arise in response to some special need or interest. Some stimulus, e.g. a blow or an insult, is necessary to excite the emotion of anger. And some definite situation, e.g. a concert or a parting, is needed to produce complex emotional states. Emotions may also be excited by the recollection of some definite situation. The emotional state of the convert at the revival meeting is often produced more by his recollection of his good mother and his wasted life than by the preacher's actual words.

(4) The emotion may persist long after the stimulus has disappeared. If one has been angered early in the morning, the emotion may continue all day in a dull subconscious sort of way. If one has wakened up at night with the fear that burglars are in the house, it may take a long time for the emotion to disappear entirely. But perhaps the most persistent and constant of human emotions is hope. "Hope springs eternal in the human breast."

Such an emotion which persists after the situation in which it originated has passed may be called an emotional disposition. An emotional disposition is more indefinite than a simple emotion. A simple