Inclination

INCLINATION. -

I. IN PHILOSOPHY

It is the orientation or disposition of an agent with respect to the object that is the purpose or end of its operation: in this sense it can be said that inclination is the tendency or “appetite” that every agent and every form has for its ultimate 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 impress an inclination toward natural perfections, supernatural forms give the inclinations that move to acts in the order of Grace: in the physical-biological world inclinations coincide with the drive expressed by physical laws and instincts (v.). In the life of the spirit they are subject to freedom. According to St. Thomas, inclinations 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 inclination (appetitus naturalis), according to which every creature tends toward what is suitable to it, without 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 inclination (appetitus elicitus: ἄρξις διανοητικὴ; Aristotle, Eth. Nic., VI, 2, 1139 b 5), which follows upon sensitive or intellectual knowledge; when it follows upon the deliberation of reason it constitutes free inclination (Aristotle’s ἄρξις βουλευτικὴ: ibid., III, 5, 1113 a 10). Inclination is therefore an intrinsic principle of movement in nature, but it attains its foundation and the reason for its object and its end from the form and the degree of being to which it belongs. It is on this principle that education must be viewed, and likewise the problem of the morality of inclinations.

INCISIONE - Engraver’s workshop. Pellegrino Del Colle (17th cent.) - Rome, Gabinetto nazionale delle stampe.

Inclination is the orientation or disposition of an agent toward an object or end. It differs from appetite in that appetite tends toward the conservation and development of physical life, whereas inclination extends even to persons (one desires food, muscular action, rest; one has an inclination toward a friend, the family, the fatherland). The differences between the two tendencies are as follows: a) appetite refers to things, while inclination extends also to persons; b) appetite produces a sensation of pleasure or pain, whereas inclination arouses a feeling of joy or sorrow according as it is gratified or thwarted; c) appetite is limited and periodic, ceasing when satisfied and recurring at fixed intervals, whereas inclination is permanent and never fully satisfied (the more one knows, for example, the more one desires to know), since psychological life is not confined within fixed limits; d) appetite is common to man and animals, whereas inclinations are proper to man.

1. Classification of inclinations

Since there is no classification based on strictly scientific criteria, we may follow the more common one used by moralists and divide inclinations into personal, social, and superior or impersonal.

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

b) Social inclinations. — Since man is not confined within the narrow limits of his own personality but is by nature sociable, he feels drawn toward his fellow men; hence a second group of inclinations called social, because they tend to the realization of the good of others as well, felt as variously necessary to one’s own perfection. Three different types of inclinations will be found: a) inclination to imitation, by which one adapts one’s “ego” to the “ego” of others and to the environment in which one lives. This explains the homogeneity of every human grouping, in which the same ideas and feelings are insensibly adopted; the power and consequent contagion of example, prejudice, opinion, conventions, fashion, which tend to create in two or more individuals similar intellectual and affective dispositions; the psychology of inattentive or uncomprehending crowds, which, so to speak, abandon their personal soul to take on a collective soul; the psychology of “social egos,” that is, those attitudes which the personal “ego” tends to assume in relation to its social situation, its task, its profession, in short, the role it must play. 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 escape from one’s own circle, not to feel happy or unhappy alone, because when shared happiness seems to multiply 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 may also be considered according to their object; we shall thus have elective inclinations (friendship and love); domestic inclinations (family affections); corporate inclinations (esprit de corps); patriotic inclinations (love of country); philanthropic or humanitarian inclinations (love toward humanity in general).

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

God, even psychologically, appears as He 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

This must of course vary according to the different inclinations, and also according to the many shades each one assumes in the psychological complex of every individual. Particular norms will be indicated under the respective headings; here it will suffice to make some general observations: a) since inclinations are innate tendencies, their education will not so much consist in developing them (they are already all that they can be) as in disciplining them, subjecting their exercise to reason and will, guiding them to a balanced use that avoids excesses and deviations, which are always easy. Thus, for example, adaptation to the environment, which can lead to the leveling of personalities and the weakening of powers of resistance, can be transformed into adaptation of the environment to our aspirations; imitation, which can become parroting and denial of one’s own originality, can also be transformed into emulation and struggle against every passive and mediocre conformity; the desire to know and to see, which can lead to even precocious vices, can become a stimulus to study; sympathy, which can sink, among other things, into morbid tendencies and vain ostentation of self, can become amiable pity, a sweet and delicate understanding of the misfortunes of others, etc.; b) since inclinations are not all of equal degree and strength in different individuals, but are variously distributed by provident nature, which makes some preponderant and others less so, education must aim to orient itself toward those inclinations which, if fostered, give promise of better success, avoiding the danger of allowing them to fall into obscurity and of forming flat and almost shapeless characters, misfits who will not render to society all that they might have rendered; c) not all inclinations lead to good; yet in the normal individual all are capable of discipline, and the will can master them all. It is necessary, therefore, to orient the exercise of self-mastery toward those points which constitute in each person 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, flexible adaptability, penetrating sensitivity, and above all an intense love for his mission.

INCLINAZIONE (liturgia). — The natural gesture of respect expressed by a bow was adopted by both Eastern and Western liturgies from the most remote antiquity as an expression of humility, veneration, and adoration. In the liturgical ceremonial, the use of bowing is much more common in the East than in the West, where, beginning in the 10th–11th centuries, genuflection began to prevail for adoration, a rite originally of a penitential character. Bowing, as an act of adoration—especially at the moment of the elevation of the Host in the Mass—before disappearing from Western ceremonial, gave rise to heated controversies, such as the one that arose within the Chapter of Lyon in the last quarter of the 16th century.

In the pastoral sermons of St. Caesarius of Arles there is an entire series of references to bowing during prayer (cf. Serm. 72, 76, 77, 152, ed. G. Morin, Opera Omnia a. Caesarii, I, Maredsous 1937, pp. 303, 305, 306, 589, 591). The Ordo Romanus I (cap. 88, ed. M. Andrieu, II, Louvain 1948, p. 96) and Amalarius of Metz (cf. Liber Officialis, III, 22–23; ed. J. M. Hanssens, Vatican City 1948, pp. 329–30) attest that in the 8th–9th centuries in Rome the clergy stood bowed throughout the Canon. At the beginning of the rite of the elevation of the Host, Honorius III mentions only bowing even for the faithful (Potthast, 6163, letter of 19 Nov. 1219). The faithful were to bow particularly to receive the blessing, which is already evident from various passages in Book VIII of the Constitutiones Apostolorum (cf., e.g., chaps. 6, 37, 39 etc.; ed. F. X. Funk, Paderborn 1906, pp. 481, 542, 549). A vestige of this usage, which became common to all liturgies, remains in the Roman Rite in the words humilitate capita vestra Deo before the recitation of the oratio super populum on weekdays in Lent.

Two kinds of bowing are distinguished: that of the head (the Oriental προσπάντα; the inclinato capite of the ancient Ordines) and that of the body (the Oriental μετὰναι μιναξ; the permanenti inclinati of the Ordines). In the Roman liturgy, the first is subdivided into deep, moderate, and slight, while the second is divided into deep and moderate according to the circumstances.