§ 72. =Mood, Passion, Temperament.=—With lapse of secondary attention, the sentiments lapse, as we have seen, into feeling-attitudes. It appears, from ordinary observation, that they may also persist, in weakened form, as =moods=. Thus, the moods acquiescence-indecision-incredulity correspond with the sentiments belief-doubt-disbelief; and we speak of a critical humour, a religious frame of mind, and so on. It is doubtful whether the sentiments rise to the intensity of =passion=; we speak, it is true, of a passionate humility, of a passion of disapprobation or of renunciation; but it is probable that these experiences are emotive, singly and not multiply determined. A detailed classification of the =temperaments= would include forms characterised by special susceptibility to sentiment and by type of response, intellectual, artistic, and so forth. Meantime, the crude fourfold arrangement of p. 227 seems to cover the cases: the ascetic temperament, for instance, falls under the melancholic, the critical under the phlegmatic, the ‘artistic’ of current speech under the choleric or sanguine. Questions and Exercises (1) What do you mean by ‘style’? Do not write commonplace; think the question out, and answer it in psychological terms. (2) Have some argumentative passage read aloud to you. Notice how the intellectual feeling-attitudes rise and disappear, as the argument proceeds. Differentiate them, and try to give them names; mark the sentences which call them forth; try to determine if their nature and arousal correspond with the writer’s intention. (3) What modes of feeling-response may be aroused by music? Illustrate, if possible, by actual examples. (4) Are there any movements that characteristically express certain sentiments, as clenching the fist (for instance) expresses anger? (5) Matthew Arnold defined poetry as “a criticism of life” (look up the passage, in the Preface to Poems of Wordsworth, and be sure that you understand it!). Does this definition suggest any further field of usefulness for æsthetics? May æsthetics properly be extended to cover it? (6) How does ‘curiosity’ differ from ‘inquisitiveness’? (7) Can you recall any characters, in literature or fiction, who might stand as embodiments of some social or religious sentiment? (8) Two traditional explanations of the ludicrous are (_a_) the theory of degradation: that when we laugh we are realising our own superiority, and (_b_) the theory of incongruity: that the comic situation always involves a nullifying of expectation. What criticisms can you offer? (9) What sort of temperament are we thinking of when we agree to call Shakespeare, Cervantes, Goldsmith, Sterne, Lamb, Dickens and George Eliot ‘humorists’? (10) Aristotle lays it down that tragedy “accomplishes by pity and fear the purgation of such emotions.” Can you read a positive and definite meaning into this statement? Can you rephrase it, in terms of our psychology of sentiment? Is it then adequate?