108 PSYCHOLOGY AND PREACHING
eration to cherish the same social ideal as another, so far as definite concepts are concerned; for one person, indeed, to hold an ideal precisely identical in its intellectual aspects with that held by another. We may try to develop in a group of persons an exactly identical ideal; but inevitably the peculiar experience of each, as organized in his ideas, will give a somewhat singular shape to the ideal which is formed in his mind and cherished in his heart. One s ideals are integral parts of his mental system, which is in some respects different from the mental system of every other. Of course, these differences between the mental systems of men who live in the same general environment and have the same general forms of experience are not always of great practical importance ; but our modern life is so highly differentiated, so variously complex, that one is sometimes startled at the wide differences between the points of view, modes of thought and ideals of men who move side by side in many of the activities of life. It is of great practical importance not only to be aware of the fact, which can hardly be hidden from any one who knows men, but to understand its causes and significance. What we see in our modern life is a vast medley of various and more or less conflicting ideals, individual and social. It is the inevitable psychological result of the marvellous differentiation of human activities in a highly complex and multifarious civilization. 1
3. It is apparent that sentiments and ideals are closely related. Ideals may be classified as a species of sentiments. They are emotional dispositions organized around a certain class of ideas, or around certain objects which embody these ideas. They differ from other sentiments in the fact that the ideas which constitute the intellectual core of them are conceived as perfect states or conditions which are goals to be striven for. It is characteristic of all positive sentiments that, in the absence of their objects, a desire for them is felt. The peculiarity of the ideal is that its object is thought of as
1 See Chapter on Mental Systems.
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