Inclination

INCLINATION. - I. IN PHILOSOPHY. - It is the orientation or disposition of an agent with respect to the object that is the goal or else the term of its acting: in this sense it may be said that i. is the tendential property or "appetite" that every agent and every form has for its final perfection: "Res naturalis per formam qua perficitur in sua specie habet inclinationem in proprias operationes et proprium finem, quem per operationem consequitur" (C. Gent., IV, 19). Natural forms imprint an i. toward natural perfections, supernatural forms give the i. that move to acts in the order of Grace: in the physical-biological world the i. coincide with the impulse expressed by physical laws and by the instincts (v.): in the life of the spirit they are subject to freedom. According to St. Thomas the i. in the spiritual order are more active than those of physical nature, and those of the supernatural order, consequent upon the infused virtues (especially the gifts of the Holy Spirit), operate in the soul "secundum quandam connaturalitatem" with divine things, which moves the soul to follow docilely the instinct of the Holy Spirit (Sum. Theol., 1ª-2ªe, q. 68, a. 2).

There is therefore a natural or unconscious i. (appetitus naturalis) according to which every creature tends toward what is fitting for it, prescinding from any knowledge (ibid., 1ª, q. 78, a. 1 ad 3), and it is therefore common to all nature and to every form and faculty. There is then a conscious i. (appetitus elicitus: ἄρξις διανοητικὴ; Aristotle, Eth. Nic., VI, 2, 1139 b 5), which follows upon sensitive or intellective knowledge; when it follows upon the deliberation of reason it constitutes the free i. (the ἄρξις βουλευτικὴ of Aristotle: ibid., III, 5, 1113 a 10). The i. is therefore an intrinsic principle of movement in nature, but it draws its foundation and the reason of its object and of its end from the form and from the degree of being to which it belongs. It is on this principle that education must be envisaged, and together with it also the problem of the morality of the i.

Cornelio Fabro

II. THE PEDAGOGY OF INCLINATIONS

In pedagogy, inclinations are considered as impulsive and innate tendencies, having as their object the preservation and development of psychological life; unlike appetites properly so called, which tend toward the preservation and development of physical life. Hence the difference between the two tendencies, because: a) while appetite refers to things, inclination extends also to persons

(one has an appetite for food, muscular action, rest; one has an inclination toward a friend, the family, the homeland); b) appetite generates a sensation of pleasure or of pain, inclination arouses a feeling of joy or of sorrow, according as it is seconded or thwarted; c) appetite is limited and periodic, it ceases when it is satisfied, it rises again at determined intervals, whereas inclination is permanent, it is never entirely satisfied (the more one knows, for example, the more one is curious to know), since psychological life is not confined within fixed boundaries; d) one may also add that appetite is common to man as to animals, whereas inclinations are proper to man.

1. Classification of inclinations

In the absence of a classification conducted according to strictly scientific criteria, one may follow the most common one, used by moralists, and divide inclinations into personal, social, and higher or impersonal.

a) Personal inclinations. - In his psychological life man tends first of all to the conservation and development of himself; personal, therefore, will be those inclinations which tend to the realization of the good of the individual, which consequently imply self-love, to which no man can naturally escape, and which correspond to the various needs and the various faculties: a) sensibility (curiosity to feel, to experience, and to experiment, thirst for happiness, repugnance for suffering, desire for emotions, whence: the viewing of tragic scenes, the reading of moving and fascinating novels, risky games, dangerous climbs, detective stories, vaporous fairy tales, etc.); b) intelligence (curiosity to know, to learn, to imagine, uneasiness before the unforeseen, the unknown, torment of doubt and uncertainty; anxiety to discover the future); c) will (curiosity to act, tendency to property in order to make oneself independent of men and circumstances, tendency to authority, whence: repugnance for subordination, desire to command, to impose one's own ideas, to direct others, to be served; need for activity; tendency to reputation, to fame in order to feel superior to others, to impose oneself on everyone).

b) Social inclinations. - Since man is not closed within the narrow barriers of his own personality, but is naturally sociable, he feels drawn toward his fellow men; hence a second group of inclinations, called social, because they tend to the realization also of the good of others, felt as variously necessary to one's own perfection; thus there will be three different types of inclinations: a) inclination to imitation, by which one adapts one's own "I" to the "I" of others and to the environment in which one lives. This explains the homogeneity of every human grouping, in which the same ideas and the same feelings are insensibly taken up; the power and the consequent contagion of example, of prejudice, of opinion, of proprieties, of fashion, which tend to create in two or more individuals analogous intellectual and affective dispositions; the psychology of inattentive or uncomprehending crowds, which abandon, so to speak, the personal soul in order to take on a collective soul; the psychology of social "I"s, that is, those attitudes which the personal "I" tends to take up in the face of its social situation, its task, its profession, in short the part it must discharge. b) Inclination to sympathy, either by sharing the feelings and dispositions of others (passive sympathy) or by going further and making others share one's own feelings. It is an essential need to leave one's own circle, not to feel happy or unhappy alone, because, when they are shared, happiness seems to be multiplied and unhappiness becomes more bearable. c) Inclination to benevolence, which leads one to will the good of others and to procure it for them, independently of one's own advantage.

Social inclinations must also be considered according to the object toward which they tend; there will therefore be: elective inclinations (friendship and love); domestic inclinations (family affections); corporate inclinations (esprit de corps); patriotic inclinations (love of the homeland); philanthropic or humanitarian inclinations (love toward humanity in general).

Just as there are social inclinations, so there are others to be considered antisocial: antipathy; misanthropy; jealousy; hatred. As the crown and synthesis of all inclinations stands the religious inclination.

God, even psychologically, appears as the one who alone can satisfy all our personal aspirations and our complex and infinite needs. He is apprehended as absolute truth, goodness and beauty.

2. The education of inclinations

It must naturally vary according to the different inclinations, and not only that, but also according to the multiple nuances that each of them takes on in the psychological complex of each individual. The particular norms will be indicated under the individual entries; here some general observations will suffice: a) since inclinations are so many innate tendencies, their education must not consist so much in developing them (they are already of themselves all that they can be), as rather in disciplining them, subjecting their exercise to reason and to the will, guiding them to a balanced use, which avoids excesses and deviations, always easy. Thus, for example, adaptation to the environment, which can lead to the leveling of personalities, to the slackening of energies of resistance, can be transformed into adaptation of the environment to our aspirations; imitation, which can become parrot-like repetition, a negation of one's own originality, can also instead be transformed into emulation and into a struggle against all abulic and passive mediocrity; the curiosity to know and to see, which can lead to vices even precocious ones, can become a stimulus to study; sympathy, which can descend, among other things, to morbidity and to vain ostentation of self, can become amiable pity, a sweet and delicate understanding of the miseries of others, etc.; b) since inclinations are not all equal in degree and in strength in different individuals, but variously distributed by provident nature, which makes some of them preponderant and others less so, education must aim to orient itself toward those inclinations which, seconded, give hope of better success, avoiding the danger of letting them fall into obscurity and of forming flat and almost amorphous characters, misplaced persons, who will not render all that they could have rendered to society; c) not all inclinations lead to good; all of them, however, in the normal individual are disciplinable and of all of them the will can make itself master. It is necessary therefore to orient the exercise of self-mastery toward those points which constitute in each one the greatest danger, if neglected; d) the educator (parents, teachers, directors) must, in this field so varied and so difficult, possess not only a good pedagogical culture, but also a spirit of constant vigilance, of flexible adaptation, of penetrating sensitivity and above all of intense love for his mission.

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