The Foundations of Personality [63]
love has done. What is pity? Though objects of love always elicit pity, when helpless or injured, objects of pity are not necessarily objects of love. In fact, we may pity through contempt. Objective pity is a type of tender feeling in which there is little or no self-feeling. We do not extend the ego to the piteous object. We desire to help, even though the object of pity is an enemy or disgusting. One of the commonest struggles of life is that between self-interest and pity,--and the selfish resent any situation that arouses their pity, because they dislike to give. Pity tends to disappear from the life of the soldier and is, indeed, a trait he does not need; in the lives of the strong and successful, pity is apt to be a hindering quality. In a world in which competition is keen, the cooperative gentle qualities hinder success. The weak seek the pity of others; they need it; and the pity-seeker is a very distinct type. The strong and proud hate to be pitied, and when wounded they hide, shun their friends and keep the semblance of strength with a brave face. Pity directed toward oneself as the object is self-pity,--a quality found in children and in a certain amiable, weak, egoistic type, whose eyes are always full of tears as they talk of themselves. Of course, at times, we are all prone to this vice of character, but there are some chronically afflicted. Certain so-called sentimentalists are those who die, tribute their pity in an erratic fashion. These are the vegetarians who are sad because it is wrong to kill for food; yet they wear without compunction the leather of cattle who have neither committed suicide nor died of old age. And the anti-vivisectionists view without any stir of pity the children of the slums and the sick of all kinds. Pity raises man to the divine but, like all the gentle qualities, it needs guidance by reason and common sense before it is of any value. Just as there are objects and individuals recognized or believed to be as somehow favorable and who evoke tender feeling, so there are objects and individuals regarded as unfavorable, perhaps dangerous, who arouse aversion and hatred. The feeling thus produced is the other great sentiment of life, which on the whole organizes character and conduct on a great plane. Hatred, a decidedly primitive reaction, still is powerful in the world and is back of dissension of all kinds, from lawsuits to war. When one hates he is attached to the hated object in a fashion just the reverse of the attachment of love; joy, anger, fear and sorrow arise under exactly the opposite circumstances, and the aim and end of hate is to block, thwart and destroy the hated one. The earlier history of man lays emphasis on the activities of hate,--war, feats of arms, individual feuds. Hate, unlike love, needs no moral code or teaching to bring it into activity; it springs into being and constantly needs repression. Unlikeness alone often brings it to life; to be too different from others is recognized as a legitimate reason for hatred. The most important cause is conflict of interest and wounding of self-feeling and pride. Revengeful feeling, fostered by tradition and "patriotism," caused many wars and in its lesser spheres of operation is back of murders, assaults, insults and the lesser categories of injuries of all kinds. The prime emotion of hatred is anger; in its less intense aspect of aversion it is disgust. The aim and end of anger is destruction of the offending object; the aim and end of aversion is removal, ejection. Hate may be and often is a noble sentiment, though the trend of modern thought, as it minimizes personal responsibility, is to eliminate hate against persons and intellectualize hate so that it is reserved for the battle against ideas. Whether you can really summon all your effort against any one, against his plans, opinions and actions, unless you have built up the steady sentiment of hatred for him, is a nice psychological question. Hate is most intense in little people, in persons absolutely convinced that their interests, opinions and plans are sacred,