Pride is not always arrogance and aggression. There
is that pride that does not ape but learn humility.
And with the human imagination all these elementary instincts, of the
flesh, of curiosity, of self-assertion, become only the basal substance
of a huge elaborate edifice of secondary motive and intention. We live
in a great flood of example and suggestion, our curiosity and our social
quality impel us to a thousand imitations, to dramatic attitudes and
subtly obscure ends. Our pride turns this way and that as we respond to
new notes in the world about us. We are arenas for a conflict between
suggestions flung in from all sources, from the most diverse and
essentially incompatible sources. We live long hours and days in a kind
of dream, negligent of self-interest, our elementary passions in
abeyance, among these derivative things.
2.7. THE SYNTHETIC MOTIVE.
Such it seems to me are the chief masses of the complex of motives in
us, the group of sense, the group of pride, curiosity and the imitative
and suggested motives, making up the system of impulses which is our
will.
Pages:
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94