The Foundations of Character: Being a Study of the Tendencies of the Emotions and Sentiments

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Macmillan and Company, limited, 1914 - Psychology - 532 pages
A scientific treatment should not diminish, but increase the general interest taken in character. To bring together the various aspects of the subject, which, in literature, are treated in isolation from one another; to lead up to a general conception of it; to study the methods by which the knowledge of it may be increased in accuracy and extent; these are to make approaches to a scientific treatment of character. While I have had chiefly to confine myself to a study of the tendencies of the emotions and sentiments, this has been, throughout, my aim. This book, then, is a study of method. Yet I do not claim that this method is essentially new. It is in the main the hypothetical method of the sciences; it has had to be adapted to the treatment of character: that is all. A complete science of mind would include a science of character. The best approach to such a science is through the study of the primary emotions and their connected instincts. This study is to be directed to an analysis of tendencies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved).

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Page 485 - Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, This many summers in a sea of glory; But far beyond my depth : my high-blown pride At length broke under me ; and now has left me, Weary, and old with service, to the mercy Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me.
Page 52 - A blank, my lord : She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, Feed on her damask cheek : she pined in thought ; And, with a green and yellow melancholy, She sat like patience on a monument, Smiling at grief.
Page 356 - Oh, the wild joys of living ! the leaping from rock up to rock, The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver shock Of the plunge in a pool's living water, the hunt of the bear, And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair. And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold dust divine, And the...
Page 306 - Low spirits are my true and faithful companions; they get up with me, go to bed with me, make journeys and returns as I do; nay, and pay visits, and will even affect to be jocose, and force a feeble laugh with me; but most commonly we sit alone together, and are the prettiest insipid company in the world.
Page 54 - Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil; rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Page 358 - For it so falls out, That what we have we prize not to the worth, Whiles we enjoy it; but being lack'd and lost, Why, then we rack the value...
Page 449 - And for the second, certain it is, there is no vexation or anxiety of mind which resulteth from knowledge otherwise than merely by accident ; for all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself...
Page 352 - At this grief my heart was utterly darkened; and whatever I beheld was death. My native country was a torment to me, and my father's house a strange unhappiness; and whatever I had shared with him, wanting him, became a distracting torture. Mine eyes sought him everywhere, but he was not granted them; and I hated all places, for that they had not him; nor could they now tell me, "he is coming," as when he was alive and absent.
Page 358 - The idea of her life shall sweetly creep Into his study of imagination, And every lovely organ of her life Shall come apparell'd in more precious habit, More moving-delicate and full of life, Into the eye and prospect of his soul, Than when she liv'd indeed...
Page 325 - O that I were where Helen lies! Night and day on me she cries ; Out of my bed she bids me rise, Says "Haste and come to me!

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