Another phase of the transformation of hostility by reason and imagination, is that it tends to become more discriminating or selective as regards its relation to the idea of the person against whom it is directed. In a sense the higher hostility is less personal than the lower; that is, in the sense that it is no longer aimed blindly at persons as wholes, but distinguishes in some measure between phases or tendencies of them that are obnoxious and others that are not. It is not the mere thought of X’s countenance, or other symbol, that arouses resentment, but the thought of him as exhibiting insincerity, or arrogance, or whatever else it may be that we do not like; while we may preserve a liking for him as exhibiting other traits. Generally speaking, all persons have much in them which, if imagined, must appear amiable; so that if we feel only animosity toward a man it must be because we have apprehended him only in a partial aspect. An undisciplined anger, like any other undisciplined emotion, always tends to produce these partial and indiscriminate notions, because it overwhelms symmetrical thought and permits us to see only that which agrees with itself. But a more chastened sentiment allows a juster view, so that it becomes conceivable that we should love our enemies as well as antagonize the faults of our friends. A just parent or teacher will resent the insubordinate behavior of a child or pupil without letting go of affection, and the same principle holds good as regards criminals, and all proper objects of hostility. The attitude of society toward its delinquent members should be stern, yet sympathetic, like that of a father toward a disobedient child. It is the tendency of modern life, by educating the imagination and rendering all sorts of people conceivable, to discredit the sweeping conclusions of impulsive thought—as, for instance, that all who commit violence or theft are hateful ill-doers, and nothing more—and to make us feel the fundamental likeness of human nature wherever found. Resentment against ill-doing should by no means disappear; but while continuing to suppress wrong by whatever means proves most efficacious, we shall perhaps see more and more clearly that the people who are guilty of it are very much like ourselves, and are acting from motives to which we also are subject.