Page:Psychology and preaching.djvu/17

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same time in the same group. They spread along lines of mental homogeneity. An uncultured population specially subject to extreme excitements. They occur readily as to matters about which the group has little or no experience; but often experience is a predisposing cause. Often the prevalence in a population of a certain temperamental type renders the group more suggestible. In primitive stage of society such epidemics quite frequent; and spread readily in all directions. In the middle stage the caste system prevails and mental epidemics spread only within class lines. In modern industrial society they are less in tense, more diffusive and less durable. Excessive phe nomena of this type are becoming rarer.

��CHAPTER XIII OCCUPATIONAL TYPES 290

These types real and important, notwithstanding indi vidual variations within the type. First, the ministerial type. Breadth of the minister s occupation. Narrowing tendencies. The habit of dogmatism. Habitual gravity of tone and manner. The demand of modern life for a buoy ant and happy disposition. The minister a moral pathol ogist. But tends to over-emphasize loyalty to the eccle siastical institution as a virtue. Economic dependence tends to mould the type unfortunately. Spiritual leader ship requires independence of spirit. Second, the labour ing class type. The condition of the labourer s life as affecting his intelligence. His labour is physical, long con tinued, exhausting. He deals only with material reality, and that of the grosser kind. Works in a social vacuum. His leisure is brief. His life in the cities, however, stim ulates intelligence. His life conditions prevent a high de velopment of his emotional nature ; and set serious limi tations upon his ethical development. Relation of the min ister to the labourer s problem. Third, the business type. Definition of &quot;business man.&quot; His importance in modern life. His intellectual characteristics. Deals with quanti ties which can be weighed and measured, which gives him practical^ non-theoretical mind, and disposes him to a quantitative evaluation of things. In ethics this type places emphasis upon the practical virtues which lie at the basis of successful business. A double standard of ethics. Religious life similarly affected. The type is non-mystical, non-theological, &quot; practical,&quot; non-sectarian. Its influence upon the religious tendencies of to-day.

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