ABSTRACT

This chapter reviews two points which stand out even from the preliminary survey. The first point suggests that if the native reaction patterns are the simplest units of character, they soon give place to more complex units consisting of the emotion in question organized round an object. The second point suggests that emotions are the most powerful instigators of action and that the educator who is concerned with a diversion of object must look to it that he does not paralyze activity. In investigation of the learning process we found it useful to consider the simplest units of learning, and in this we were helped by the experiments undertaken in learning in animals. Anger in the service of a remote end is only possible at a comparatively late stage of development when the more complex units of character which are known as sentiments have reached a relatively advanced stage of conscious organization.