Page:Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology (1916).djvu/145

 a rapidly passing thought? It is not lawless, however, neither is it free, but closely determined within the limits of the milieu. If, therefore, even the superficial and manifestly most inconsequent formations of the intellect are altogether subject to the milieu-constellation, what must we not expect for the more important conditions of the mind, for the emotions, wishes, hopes, and intentions? Let us consider a concrete example, illustrated by tracing A.

The mother is 45 years old and the daughter 16 years. Both have a very distinct predicate type expressing personal judgment, both differ from the father in the most striking manner. The father is a drunkard and a demoralised creature. We can thus readily understand that his wife experiences an emotional voidness which she naturally betrays by her enhanced predicate type. The same causes cannot, however, operate in the case of the daughter, for, in the first place, she is not married to a drunkard, and, in the second, life with all its hopes and promises still lies before her. It is distinctly unnatural for the daughter to show an extreme predicate type expressing personal judgment. She responds to the stimuli of the environment just like her mother. But whereas in the mother the type is in a way a natural consequence of her unhappy condition of life, this condition is entirely lacking in the daughter. The daughter simply imitates the mother; she merely appears like the mother. Let us consider what this can signify for a young girl. If a young girl reacts to the world like an old woman, disappointed in life, this at once shows unnaturalness and constraint. But more serious consequences are possible. As you know the predicate type is a manifestation of intensive emotions; the emotions are always involved. Thus we cannot prevent ourselves from responding inwardly, at least, to the feelings and passions of our immediate environment; we allow ourselves to be infected and carried away by it. Originally the effects and their physical manifestations had a biological significance; i.e. they were a protective mechanism for the individual and the whole herd. If we manifest emotions, we can with certainty expect to receive emotions in return. That is the feeling of the predicate type. What the 45-year-old