SI 6  Psychological  Aspects  of  Faith,

toward  the  matter  in  question  and  one's  customary
behavior  in  its  regard.  Both  these  aspects,  the  cogni-
tive and  the  appetitive,  or  conative,  are  included  by
psychologists  under  the  general  head  of  reactions  to  a
situation,^  and  it  is  these  reactions,  especially  selective
reactions,  that  determine  character,  "the  essential  part
of  a  man."  ^  For  "character  is  that  expression  of  a
man  which  is  most  constant,  habitual,  and,  in  conse-
quence, most  unconscious,  unpremeditated,  genuine."  ^

^  "A  reaction  ...  is  a  movement  made  in  response  to  an
external  stimulus."  (Titchener,  Text-hook ,  p.  428.)  "The  physical
or  external  situation  is  the  whole  external  world  as  an  organism,  at
any  given  moment,  takes  it;  it  consists  of  those  stimuli  to  which
the  organism,  by  virtue  of  its  inherited  organization  and  its  pres-
ent disposition,  is  responsive, — which  it  selects,  unifies,  focalizes,
supplements,  and,  if  need  be,  acts  upon.  The  mental  or  internal
situation  is,  in  like  manner,  some  imagination  or  memorial  [or
intellectual]  complex  which  is  fitted,  under  the  conditions  obtain-
ing in  the  nervous  system,  to  dominate  consciousness,  to  maintain
itself  in  the  focus  of  attention,  to  serve  as  the  starting  point  for
further  ideas  [in  the  broad  meaning  of  that  term]  or  for  action.
To  put  the  definition  in  a  word,  a  situation  is  the  meaningful  ex-
perience of  a  conscious  present".     (Ibid.,  p.  369.)

^  This  thought  is  admirably  developed  by  Mgr.  Guibert  in  his
little  book,  Le  CaracUre.  He  distinguishes  and  develops  three
meanings  of  the  term:  as  the  distinctive  sign  in  a  man's  exterior;
as  his  inner  moral  constitution;  as  his  moral  energy  (p.  3).
