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PASTORAL PSYCHOLOGY
complex emotional tone or attitude that governs our thinking
and feeling about certain ideas and experiences, all of which are
coloured by this affective disposition, just as every object
illumined by a coloured light is pervaded by the colour.
For example, a sentiment of reverence is compounded of
many elements that may include fear of the unknown, curiosity,
joy and other feelings both positive and negative; not
experienced separately but all included in the one complex
emotion we feel. And many different objects, events and
experiences, otherwise markedly different from each other, are
linked together in our minds because they all evoke this one
compound feeling or emotional attitude.
Sentiments are pervasive, and they tend to spread. For
example, a sentiment of affection originally aroused by the
behaviour towards us of certain people may be enlarged to
include all people physically reminiscent of them, the ideas
they cherish and even the kind of homes they lived in or the
foods they enjoyed. When we express our pleasure in a pie or
cake by saying, ‘It’s just like mother used to make’, for instance,
our feelings illustrate this point.
Friendship is an affect-system. Hate is another. People,
things and even ideas can form the nucleus of such a system.
In this way moral affect-systems are formed around moral
ideas. If we have certain religious conceptions they will tend to
modify the quality of our affect-systems about morals and
almost everything else as well.
Our interest groupings are acquired, but our innate
tendencies have a great deal to do with their formation.
The strong and vital religious needs of a human being who is
truly devout must be understood from this point of view. It is
not a difference of innate disposition that distinguishes him
from a non-religious person but something that has been added
to the hereditary constitution.
Personality is not something hard, static and immutable. It
has its definite nature and character, but it is plastic and
responsive to change. Our traits and our interests can be
modified. Tendencies alone do not explain what we are or
determine what we can become.
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