tastes and acquired tastes. Individuals differ
considerably in their native tastes, and still more in their acquired
tastes. Liking for sweets is native, liking for fragrant odors is
native, but liking for lemonade, or black coffee, or olives, or
cheese, is acquired, and not acquired by everybody. Liking for bright
colors is native, but liking for subdued colors, and the special
pleasure in color harmonies, are acquired. So we might {181} run
through the list of the senses, finding under each some sensations
with native feeling-tone, and other sensations that acquire
feeling-tone through experience.

Some people have a native liking for numbers and other facts of a
mathematical nature. We say of such a one that he has a natural taste
for mathematics. Another has a natural dislike for the same. Some have
a taste for things of the mechanical sort, others fight shy of such
things. Some have a natural taste for people, being sociable
creatures--which means more than being gregarious--while others are
little interested in mixing with people, observing their ways, and the
give and take of friendly intercourse.

Now the question arises whether these native likes and dislikes, for
odors, colors, tones, numbers, machinery, and people, are really
independent of the instincts. Some psychologists have insisted that
all the interest and satisfaction of life were derived from the
instincts, laying special stress on the instincts of curiosity and
self-assertion.

With respect to our "natural liking for mathematics", these
psychologists would argue as follows: "First off, curiosity is aroused
by numbers, as it may be by any novel fact; then the child, finding he
can do things with numbers, gratifies his mastery impulse by playing
with them. He encounters number problems, and his mastery impulse is
again aroused in the effort to solve the problems. Later, he is able
to 'show off' and win applause by his mathematical feats, and thus the
social form of self-assertion is brought into play. This particular
child may have good native ability for mathematics, and consequently
his mastery impulse is specially gratified by this kind of activity;
but he has no real direct liking for mathematics, and all his industry
in this field is motivated by curiosity and especially by
self-assertion."

The instinct psychologists have a strong case here, as {182} they
would have also in regard to the liking for machinery. Still, the
mathematical indivi