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THE following remarks concern the process whereby a moral attitude towards others is substituted for an attitude of love. This doubtless happens to some extent in the course of every individual development, but there are cases where it dominates the development and gives a characteristic colouring to the whole personality. The process then goes far beyond the mere matter of obedience, of doing things against one's will because some authority orders or compels one to do them. It may become almost the only way in which such a person can express any positive attitude towards another, the giving of pleasure or the displaying of care for the other's interests and welfare. Whatever may be the way in which he manifests these positive attitudes, his inner feeling is one of moral obligation; he manifests them because he feels it is the right and proper thing to do, fundamentally because he feels he ought to. This feeling of 'oughtness', though in itself often concealed or even repressed, definitely differentiates the attitudes and behaviour from those more spontaneously arising from friendliness, affection or love. It would interest us to know what this remarkable substitution signifies in the character development, how it comes about and what are its consequences in later life.
A simple way to describe the state of affairs would be to say that