Page:An introduction to ethics.djvu/88

 emotion always has a reference to some definite object. We are afraid of some thing or some person, we are angry at some thing or some person. But an emotional disposition is vague and general. It is a tendency to be easily excited to a certain emotion. Thus an emotional disposition of irritability, resulting from a definite fit of anger, will make us, while it lasts, more susceptible to anger than we are normally.

(5) The objects or situations which excite emotions in one person may have no effect on others. Emotions are relative to persons just as desires are. What is an object of desire to me may leave you quite cold. Similarly, what excites my emotions may have no effect whatever on you. The Englishman feels disgust at eating frogs, and the German feels disgust at the thought of eating rabbits. Many a man experiences a violent emotion of fear on seeing a black cat. One man's emotions may be affected by Handel's Largo, another's by Alexander's Ragtime Band. The teacher should bear in mind that it is not to be expected that the same emotion will be evoked in every child by the same situation.

(6) Emotions naturally express themselves in our physical appearance or behaviour. This fact has been vigorously stated by William James. "What kind of an emotion of fear would be left if the feeling neither of quickened heart-beats nor of shallow breathing, neither of trembling lips nor of weakened limbs, neither of gooseflesh nor of visceral stirrings, were present, it is quite impossible for me to think. Can one fancy the state of rage, and picture no ebullition in the chest, no flushing of the face, no