It is worth noticing that the symbols supplied by analysis are not “ought” words but “process” words. You are not told to die for your country; you are told to face all the values which you can find in the situation. This does not, however, eliminate the “arbitrary” character of decisions actually reached. The decision comes with all the shock of revelation, of inevitability, of unexpectedness; the individual may only control decisions by rehearsing the pertinent values until he finds himself in the clutches of a judgment. This willingness to accept uncertainty, to scrutinize intermediate terms and pertinent values, is an outcome of the analytical discipline. Such a procedure grew up in a civilization whose values have been in confusion since the medieval cosmology broke down. President Masaryk, serious thinker and scholarly writer, began his sociological work with a study of suicide, which he found to be a rough index of the value strains in culture. When emotional bonds are forged with exponents of life-patterns of different design, the mental stage is set for both creative originality and destructive disintegration. The individual must assume the load of working out his own scheme of values, and many are disorganized in the attempt. The validation of the prolonged interview as a contributor to our dependable knowledge about life depends upon objectifying its processes; the achievement of its implications for the reconstruction of the hierarchy of individual values is an impressionistic and often turbulent experience.[64] CHAPTER XII[65] THE PERSONALITY SYSTEM AND ITS SUBSTITUTIVE REACTIONS So far in this book human behavior has been interpreted in terms of various “tendencies” which such behavior is supposed to manifest. Suppose we call into question this type of psychological explanation. What, after all, is a “tendency”? It postulates a relationship between events, one of which is taken as the terminal situation, and others of which are treated as relative approximations to the type situation. Terms like “wishes,” “desires,” “instincts,” “impulses,” “drives,” and “motives” are all employed in this sense. For purposes of analysis, tendency interpretations may be divided into five main classes, depending on the nature of the relationship which is postulated between the approximate and the terminal situation. First, personality events may be interpreted as approximations toward, or realizations of, goals (terminals) which are communicated by the subject. We may believe a man who tells us that he is running for a train when we see him dashing along the street toward the railway station. Second, personality events may be interpreted as degrees of approximation to subsequent events which are actually observed. Mr. C’s solicitude for the health and welfare of the needy ones of the district may be construed in the light of his subsequent campaign for Congress.