98 PSYCHOLOGY AND PREACHING
repels, what is loved or hated. But while moral character can not be attributed to the sentiments per se, they are of the utmost ethical importance because in them our most impor tant relations with the objects of our environment, and especially the persons and principles of our social environ ment, are mainly determined ; and in those relations lies the very meaning of our moral and spiritual life. One s senti ments, being his emotional attitudes, lie at the very centre of his personality and determine his conduct in his most mean ingful reactions upon the objects outside himself, and even with respect to himself his conduct is determined by his sentiment for self. It is evident, therefore, that they are the fundamental elements of character and the supreme reg ulators of conduct. Perhaps the most significant elements of personality are the sentiments. What objects does a man love, not temporarily and spasmodically, but what can he be counted on to have that feeling for whenever it, or the idea of it, is present to his mind ? What does he hate, not in un related and capricious outbursts of anger, but what is it that regularly excites such an emotion in him whenever he has occasion to think of it? What does he reverence? What does he despise ? What does he honour ? What does he respect? The answers to these and similar questions evi dently disclose his character and indicate his conduct; and they are only the statement of his sentiments. Sentiments may be classified, then, as good or bad according to the objects around which they are organized. Our intuitions tell us that it is wrong to hate certain objects and wrong to love others.
But it is equally evident that among sentiments that are approved by a healthy conscience not all are of equal moral value; and likewise among those which are properly dis approved not all are of equal demerit. In both the positive and negative scales of moral value there are gradations of sentiments, according to the objects around which they are organized. Can we mark off with clearness these grada tions of the moral values of the sentiments? To attempt to
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