Page:Philosophical Review Volume 24.djvu/194

178 of human values from the instincts and other innate dispositions. We have now to consider what advantages can be claimed in favor of this way of regarding values. In the first place, continuity is preserved. The highest values are connected in a continuous series with the lowliest instincts. No dualism or hiatus is necessary at any point. And this advantage can be gained without losing sight of the fact that the higher sentiments involve infinitely more than mere survival value.

A second advantage is, that it becomes possible in some measure to discriminate between what is and what is not subject to modification in human nature, and how such modifications as are possible and desirable can be affected. The instincts in their central conative and emotional elements are unchangable. They have come down to us from the animals, and in no time which we need to take into account can they be altered. However, through the organization of virtues and other sentiments man can modify and control forms of behavior in many ways: suppress and sublimate into artistic and religious creation those which are too raw and crude in their native modes of behavior like hunger and sex, direct into useful channels those of great but dangerous motive power like pugnacity, stimulate into greater activity those that are too sluggish like the acquisitive instinct, and open wider efferent channels for those which spontaneously find expression in too narrow circles, as tender emotion and gregariousness. Such changes can be effected, both by the individual man in his own development, and also by organized society through its means of social control.

Light is thrown upon various problems through the psychology of instinct and sentiment. In the light of the results of this field of inquiry the problem of the objectivity of ethical judgments takes on new significance. Similarly, it is probable that the question as to what kind of universality is afforded by aesthetic judgments will become clearer. The religious