sence of the object of
love or hatred adds strength to the affection, and induces expressions or
acts of kindness or malevolence. 2. An exterior motive opposed to the
predominant spring of action often starts that spring into vigorous and
decisive activity, and makes it thenceforth stronger and more imperative.
It is thus that remonstrances, obstacles, and interposing difficulties not
infrequently render sensual passion more rabid; while temptation, by the
acts of resistance which it elicits, nourishes the virtue it assails. 3.
An exterior motive may have a sufficient stress and cogency to call forth
into energetic action some appetite, desire, or affection previously
dormant or feeble, thus to repress the activity of those which before held
sway, and so to produce a fundamental change in the character. In this way
the sudden presentation of vice, in attractive forms, may give paramount
sway to passions which had previously shown no signs of mastery; and, in
like manner, a signal experience of peril, calamity, deliverance, or
unexpected joy may call forth the religious affections, and invest them
with enduring supremacy over a soul previously surrendered to appetite,
inferior desires, or meaner loves.

*An undue influence* in the formation or change of character *is often
ascribed to exterior motives.* They are oftener the consequence than the
cause of character. Men, in general, exercise more power over their
surroundings, than their surroundings over them. A very large proportion
of the circumstances which seem to have a decisive influence upon us, are
of our own choice, and we might--had we so willed--have chosen their
opposites. A virtuous person seldom finds it necessary to breathe a
vicious atmosphere. A willingness to be tempted is commonly the antecedent
condition to one's being led into temptation. Sympathy, example, and
social influences are second in their power, whether for good or for evil,
to no other class of exterior motives; and there are few who cannot choose
their own society, and who do not choose it in accordance with their
elective affinities. It is true, indeed, that the choice of companions of
doubtful virtue is often the first outward sign of vicious proclivities;
while a tenacious adherence to the society of the most worthy not
infrequently precedes any very conspicuous development of personal
excellence; but in either case the choice of friends indicates the
predominant springs of action, and t