Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/767

 A THEORY OF SOCIAL MOTIVES 753

tute for stimuli of instincts or for the symbols of impulses, move- ments of the imagination.

Each of these two great classes of sentiment, the forceful and the expansive, has different varieties. Thus Lincoln, one of whose strong points was his wealth of sentiment, made use of images suggestive of resistful^^ emotion and of images suggestive of contemptuous emotion.^^ His sentiment also included images suggestive of expansive emotions and impulsives.'^^ We see in Lincoln also a third fundamental kind of sentiment, namely, a movement of the imagination and images of a quality which stirred a feeling of hopelessness and resignation. These, in turn, are of two classes, those suggestive of the emotion of shame^^ and those suggestive of the emotion of submission to overpower- ing doom.^* We find the germs of these two kinds of agitative sentiment in those usages of primitive religions the function of which is to produce the emotions of shame and fearful submission in worshipers.

The essential characteristic of sentiment is that it is a sus-

Gettysburg Edition, Vol. VI, p. 79.
 * Letter to Mr. Washbume, i860: Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln,

^ John W. Forney writes of Lincoln : "One evening I found him in such a mood [of profound agitation]. He was ghastly pale. The dark rings were around his caverned eyes. His black hair was brushed back from his temples and he was reading Shakespeare, as I came in. "Let me read you this passage from Macbeth," he said. "I cannot read it like Forrest but it comes to me tonight like a consolation :

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of record time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle; Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more ; it is a tale Told by an idiot full of sound of fury. Signifying nothing." — Anecdotes of Public Men, Vol. III. This is an example of mixed sentiment, involving both contempt and resignation. " Hapgood, Abraham Lincoln, pp. 282, 283.

"Lincoln was fond of quoting from Richard III, Act 1, scene i : "I that am rudely stamped and want love's majesty," etc

Proud?" This poem "he recited for some thirty years at every opportunity." — Hapgood, Abraham Lincoln, p. 49.
 * See Lincoln's favorite poem, "Oh 1 Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be