The Foundations of Personality [88]
ceremonies had to be observed, and certain people, magicians and priests had to be utilized in order to give the wish its power. Wisdom and magic were mainly the ways of obtaining wishes. Childhood still holds to this, and prayer is a faith that your wish, if placed before the All-Mighty, will be fulfilled. Since wishing brings a pleasurable excitement, it has its dangers, in the daydream where wishes are fulfilled without effort. Power, glory, beauty and admiration are obtained; the ugly Duckling becomes the Swan, Cinderella becomes the Princess, Jack kills the Giant and is honored by all men; the girl becomes the beauty and heroine of romance; the boy becomes the Hero, taking over power, wealth and beauty as his due. The world of romance is largely the wish-world, as is the most of the stage. The happy ending is our wish-fulfillment, and only the sophisticated and highly cultured object to it. Moulding the world to the heart's desire has been the principal business of stage, novel and song. In the normal relations of life, the wish is the beginning of will, as something definitely related to a future goal. He who wishes finds his way to planning and to patient endeavor, IF training, circumstances and essential character meet. To wish much is the first step in acquiring much,--but only the first step. For many it is almost the only step, and in the popular phrase these have a "wishbone in the place of a backbone." They are the daydreamers, the inveterate readers of novels, who carry into adult life what is relatively normal in the child. The introspective are this latter type; rarely indeed do the objective personalities spend much time in wishing. Undoubtedly it is from the introspective that the wish as a symbol and worker of power gained its influence and meaning. This transformation of the wish to a power is found in all primitive thought, in the power of the blessing and the curse, in the delusions of certain of the insane who build up the belief in their greatness out of the wish to be great; and in our days New Thought and kindred beliefs are modernized forms of this ancient fallacy. It is a comforting thought to those who seek an optimistic point of view that most men wish to do right. Very few, indeed, deliberately wish to do wrong. But the difficulty lies in this, that this wish to do right camouflages all their wishes, no matter what their essential character. Thus the contestants on either side of any controversy color as right their opposing wishes, and cruelties even if they burn people at the stake for heresy, kill and ruin, degrade and cheat, lie and steal. Thus has arisen the dictum, "The end justifies the means." The good desired hallows the methods used, and all kinds of evil have resulted. Practical wisdom believes that up to a certain point you must seek your purpose with all the methods at hand. But the temptation to go farther always operates; a man starts to do something a little underhanded in behalf of his noble wish and finds himself committed to conduct unqualifiedly evil. 5. There are certain other emotional states associated with energy and the energy feeling of great interest. What we call eagerness, enthusiasm, passion, refers to the intensity of an instinct, wish, desire or purpose. In childhood this energy is quite striking; it is one of the great charms of childhood and is a trait all adults envy. For it is the disappearance of passion, eagerness and enthusiasm that is the tragedy of old age and which really constitutes getting old. Youth anticipates with eagerness and relishes with keen satisfaction. The enthusiasm of typical youth is easily aroused and sweeps it on to action, a feature called impulsiveness. Sympathy, pity, hope, sex feeling--all the self-feelings and all the other feelings--are at once more lively and more demonstrative in youth, and thus it is that in youth the reform spirit is at its height and recedes as time goes on. What we call "experience" chills enthusiasm and passion, but though hope deferred and a realization of the complexity of human affairs has a moderating,