Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1905-08-10
The Observer.

! cOunteF 10 some OF our pr6cOncelVe0
notions. Just as there is wide spread
impression that we are not responsible
for our beliefs, so there is an impress
sion, equally widespread, that we are
not responsible for our feelings. The
Observer last week, attempted TO show
the baselessness of the first assumption;
he will endeavor now to expose the
fallacy of the second.
1t is true that the hand of arbitrary
and violent compulsion cannot be laid
upon our emotions. Mere force and
will power on the part of gardener
cannot cause the tendris of vine to
cling instantly to wall or post. Mere
force connot compel a child to like the
thugs which he ought to like, or to feel
sorrow and shame for his misdeeds.
Emotion can no more be forced through
sheer effort of will than can a cubit
be added to ones stature through
mere taking of thought But Indirect
ly and mediately emotion may be
trained and controlled to an extent al
most unlimited. By understanding the
nature of emotion and by taking ad-
vantage of the laws which govern it.
we may develop and control it with a
success equal to that of Mr.. Luther
Burbank in his remarkable achieve
ments with plants.
The great law of emotion is that we
like that to which we have become ac-
customed. 1t is this law that explains
why, "be it ever so humble, there is no
place like home" 1t explains
the hold upou us of familiar
faces and scenes and occupa
t!ons. Let two persons associate close
ly together for a length of time, or
even for short time under unusual cir
cumstances, and sense of comrade-
| ship will be developed between them
which years of subsequent absence from
| each other may not wholly efface
/ Romantic love between the sexes is
apt to prove eVanescent and is in itself
poor guarantee of the permanence of
the marriage bond; but the association
| ofhusband aud wife in the home. and
the close community of their interests,
may be relied upon, in the great ma.
jority of cases, to develop in each for
the other, an affection that is both deep
and enduring.
The way TO take advantage of the
aw that we like that toWhich we are ac-
customed, is to accustom ourselves to
that which we ought to like Our en-
vironment and associations are largely
a matter of our own making. The
actual world ofmen and things, which
surrounds us, is 50 complex and multi
farious, that no one can be in respon-
sive touch with the whole of it. The
world as it exists for each individual is
merely sort of personal selection of
certain persons and things out of the
great totality of the real world. Ones
world is really therefore an expressian
of his own character and choice. He
who puts himself in association with
what is evil and accustoms himself, to
it, is himselfresponsible for his result
ing love of the evil and repugnance to-
wards the good. Our associations and
the likings and loves which spring out
of them should wait upon a high pur-
pose and ideal. We should learn to
love what we ought to love. The law
that we like what we are accustomed
to, applies to the word of ideals as well
as to the world of acuality. If we ac-
custom ourselves to thoughts of ''the
things that are more excellent" we
shall grow more and more to like those
things, and to grow into the likeness
of them.
To one who is enslaved to some par
tlcular vice, the opposite virtue may
seem hard and repellent. But let him
| cherish the thought of that virtue, and
gradually he will come to love it, 1t is
possible, in no hypocritical sense, to as.
sumo virtne if we have it not. If one
accustoms himself to think aud speak
kindly, even when the inward feeling
is anything but kindly, the habit of
kindly feeling itself will surely grow
upon him. Mere emotion in not an
end in itself but only means to an
end. If, as oftens happens, passing
emotion stands in the light of our high
purpose and duty, we have a right to
deny and disregard the passing emo
! tion, which to all intents is a traitor to
our real self, and to assume the pres
ence of the emotion which would re-
feet Our true thought and intention.
Burglary