The art of sound pictures (1930)

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS iSi faction are composed of different combinations of dominance and compliance. And passion and captivation are various combinations of submission and inducement. Desire The simplest of all desires is that which the baby feels for its food. The human body is a wonderful machine, so designed as to compel the infant to comply from within with certain substances in its environment which we call food. The mechanism by which this compliance is brought about we need not consider in the present discussion. Suffice it to say that when hunger pangs are initiated in the infant’s stomach, he cannot pay attention to anything in the world but food. At the same time, he is driven to dominate the food by seizing and swallowing it. This drive, in fact, is the controlling emotional element in the spontaneous mixture of dominance and compliance. The infant is compelled to comply with the food by giving up everything else to seek it, while, at the same time, he wishes above everything else to dominate and possess the food with which he is compelled to comply. The simultaneous mixture of dominance and compliance, directed toward the same object, food, gives that peculiar emotional craving which we ordinarily term desire. Desire is the mainspring of all complex human emotions. Early in life we begin to wish other things than simple food and drink. A child learns to desire toys, pretty objects of various sorts, sunshine or rain, ponds to sail his boats in, sand piles to build castles, and good times of all sorts. Later in life the same individual extends his desires still further. Girls learn to long for clothes, jewelry, parties, and beautiful possessions; and mature