IO6 PSYCHOLOGY AND PREACHING
actual. As the attention centres upon the image of the per fect a pleasant feeling-tone accompanies it; as it centres upon the imperfect, an unpleasant feeling-tone. It is in this desire with its varying feeling-tones that the emotional fac tors of the ideal are found. Perhaps this abstract analysis needs illustration. Let us suppose that a passionate lover of flowers takes a rose and exclaims, " This is an ideal rose." Manifestly he is contemplating what seems to him a rela tively perfect specimen of that species of flower. But in call ing it " ideal " he certainly has in the background of his mind the more or less distinct images of roses less perfect, and he has also some measure of desire that all roses should realize this beauty. He feels that this is a standard for all roses to be measured by ; that florists should seek to bring them all as nearly as possible up to this standard. In contemplating it as an ideal he has a feeling of satisfaction mixed, or alter nating, with dissatisfaction at the imperfection of the specimens which fall below this standard. The same is true of one s ideal of personal character. He has in mind the image of a personality in which is embodied in relative per fection those elements of character which seem to him good. In contrast with this image there are more or less distinct images of personalities that are in some respects inferior; and there is present the emotionally toned desire that they should realize the perfect type. Similar intellec tual and emotional factors enter into all ideals, individual or social.
These factors are, of course, very variable in their strength. As one contemplates the ideal, at one time the intellectual factors, the ideas, may be very vivid and the desire with its feeling-tones may be at a minimum re duced to an almost colourless wish ; but at another time the emotional factors may be very powerful, rising into the strength of a passion, while the intellectual processes in volved may be very indistinct. They may vary also with respect to the different ideals which a person may cherish. It may be characteristic of some of one s ideals that they
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