interest may be looked upon as a feeling attitude which assigns our activities
their place in a subjective scale of values, and hence selects among them. (2)
Objectively considered, an interest is the object which calls forth the feeling. (3)
Functionally considered, interest is the dynamic phase of consciousness.
Interest Supplies a Subjective Scale of Values.—If you are interested in
driving a horse rather than in riding a bicycle, it is because the former has a
greater subjective value to you than the latter. If you are interested in reading
these words instead of thinking about the next social function or the last picnic
party, it is because at this moment the thought suggested appeals to you as of
more value than the other lines of thought. From this it follows that your
standards of values are revealed in the character of your interests. The young
man who is interested in the race track, in gaming, and in low resorts confesses
by the fact that these things occupy a high place among the things which appeal
to him as subjectively valuable. The mother whose interests are chiefly in clubs
and other social organizations places these higher in her scale of values than her
home. The reader who can become interested only in light, trashy literature must
admit that matter of this type ranks higher in his subjective scale of values than
the works of the masters. Teachers and students whose strongest interest is in
grade marks value these more highly than true attainment. For, whatever may be
our claims or assertions, interest is finally an infallible barometer of the values
we assign to our activities.
In the case of some of our feelings it is not always possible to ascribe an
objective side to them. A feeling of ennui, of impending evil, or of bounding
vivacity, may be produced by an unanalyzable complex of causes. But interest,
while it is related primarily to the activities of the self, is carried over from the
activity to the object which occasions the activity. That is, interest has both an
objective and a subjective side. On the subjective side a certain activity
connected with self-expression is worth so much; on the objective side a certain
object is worth so much as related to this self-expression. Thus we say, I have an
interest in books or in business; my daily activities, my self-expression, are
governed with reference to these objects. They are my interests.
Interest Dynamic.—Many of our milder feelings terminate within ourselves,
never attaining sufficient force as motives to impel us to action. Not so with
interest. Its very nature is dynamic. Whatever it seizes upon becomes ipso facto
an object for some activity, for some form of expression of the self. Are we
interested in a new book, we must read it; in a new invention, we must see it,
handle it, test it; in some vocation or avocation, we must pursue it. Interest is