Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/779

 A THEORY OF SOCIAL MOTIVES 765

the nature of the instinctive reaction.'** I have numerous other facts on this point. For instance, this same little girl said to a certain person: "It's easy to be good when you are around but

when F is around he sets me on edge." By being good

she meant speaking gently instead of crossly, doing things will- ingly instead of sullenly, in fact a thousand and one instinctive acts involved in activity of limbs, expression of face, tone of voice, carriage of head, and general posture. That is, her emo- tional state determined what would be the nature of her in- stinctive response to stimulus. Another girl, somewhat older,

said of her piano-playing : "When G is in the room I can't

play at all — it is the atmosphere he brings, he is so critical; but

when B is in the room, I am at my best." Here, of course.

a large range of emotion was involved but also many acts as in- stinctive as in the simpler activity of the little girl. Marriage frequently makes a permanent change in men. Their predomi- nant instinctive reactions cease to be those of a man on edge before the competition of the business world and become sympa- thetic.

Failure to understand the fundamental relation of moods and emotional states to instinctive reactions frequently causes great perplexity in my groups. Thus a mother was perplexed because her daughter resented the slightest shade of inadvertent un- pleasantness in her manner, and, at the same time, submitted generally to the coarser domination of her (the daughter's)

except on the theory that the dispositional emotion of the former with refer- ence to the slave was compassion, that of the latter contempt, and that the reactions of these two different dispositions to the same external situation gradu- ally developed the theory of squatter sovereignty on the one hand and the theory of constitutional limitation on the other. The emotional attitude of people generally toward the struggles of the working-classes is, consciously or subconsciously, one of compassion or contempt. It is commonly thought that emotion should be excluded in forming judgments, but this is impossible. The truth is that sympathy should replace contempt. "The theory that the best juryman is one who has neither the inclination nor the capacity for sympathy is pretty thoroughly discredited even in the court room, and it has no applica- tion to human affairs in general. The truth is that sympathy alone dissolves the hard cruel facts of life so that our understanding may take hold of them." — Devine, "The Shirt-Waist Makers' Strike," Survey, January 15, 1910.
 * • How are we to explain the difference between Lincoln and Douglas