The Principles of Psychology, Vols. 1-2

This sort of interest is really the meaning of tJie tvord 'my.' Whatever has it is eo ipso a part of me. My child, my friend dies, and where he goes I feel that part of my* self now is and evermore shall be : " For this losing is true dying ; This is lordly man's down-lying ; This his slow but sure reclining, Star by star his world resigning." The fact remains, however, that certain special sorts of thing tend primordially to possess this interest, and form the natural me. But all these things are objects, properly so called, to the subject which does the thinking.* And this latter fact upsets at once the dictum of the old-fash ioned sensationalist psychology, that altruistic passions and interests are contradictory to the nature of things, and that if they appear anywhere to exist, it must be as second ary products, resolvable at bottom into cases of selfishness, taught by experience a hypocritical disguise. If the zoolog ical and evolutionary point of view is the true one, there is uo reason why any object whatever might not arouse passion and interest as primitively and instinctively as any other, whether connected or not with the interests of the me. The phenomenon of passion is in origin and essence the same, whatever be the target upon which it is discharged ; and what the target actually happens to be is solely a ques tion of fact. I might conceivably be as much fascinated, and as primitively so, by the care of my neighbor's body as by the care of my own. The only check to such exuber ant altruistic interests is natural selection, which would weed out such as Avere very harmful to the individual or to his tribe. Many such interests, however, remain unweeded out — the interest in the opposite sex, for example, which seems in mankind stronger than is called for by its utili tarian need ; and alongside of them remain interests, like that in alcoholic intoxication, or in musical sounds, which, for aught we can see, are without any utility whatever. The sympathetic instincts and the egoistic ones are thus co-ordinate. They arise, so far as we can tell, on the same psychologic level. The only difference between them is, that the instincts called egoistic form much the larger mass.

The only author whom I know to have discussed the question whether the ' pure Ego,' per se, can be an object of regard, is Herr Horwicz, in his extremely able and acute Psychologische Analysen. He too says that all self-regard is regard for certain objective things. He disposes so well of one kind of objection that I must conclude by quoting a part of his own words : First, the objection : " The fact is indubitable that one's own children always pass for the prettiest and brightest, the wine from one's own cellar for the best — at least for its price, — one's own house and horses for the finest. With what tender admiration do we con over our own little deed of Denevolence ! our own frailties and misdemeanors, how ready we are to acquit ourselves for them, when we notice them at all, on the ground of * extenuating circumstances ' ! How much more really comic are our own jokes than those of others, which, unlike ours, will not bear being repeated ten or twelve times over ! How eloquent, striking, powerful, our own speeches are ! How appropriate our own address ! In short, how much more intelligent, soulful, better, is everything about us than in anyone else. The sad chapter of artists' and authors' conceit and vanity belongs here.

''The prevalence of this obvious preference which we feel for every thing of our own is indeed striking. Does it not look as if our dear Ego must first lend its color and flavor to anything in order to make it please us ? ... Is it not the simplest explanation for all these phenomena, so consistent among themselves, to suppose that the Ego, the self, which forms the origin and centre of our thinking life, is at the same time the original and central object of our life of feeling, and the ground both of whatever special ideas and of whatever special feelings ensue ?"

Herr Horwicz goes on to refer to what we have already noticed, that various things which disgust us in others do not disgust us at all in ourselves. " To most of us even the bodily warmth of another, for example the chair warm from another's sitting, is felt unpleasantly, whereas there is nothing disagreeable in the warmth of the chair in which we have been sitting ourselves." After some further remarks, he replies to these facts and reasonings as follows :

"We may with confidence affirm that our own possessions in most cases please us better [not because they are ours], but simply because we know them better, 'realize' them more intimately, feel them more deeply. We learn to appreciate what is ours in all its details and shadings, whilst the goods of others appear to us in coarse outlines and rude averages. Here are some examples: A piece of music which one plays one's self is heard and understood better than when it is played by an other. We get more exactly all the details, penetrate more deeply into the musical thought. We may meanwhile perceive perfectly well that the other person is the better performer, and yet nevertheless — at times —get more enjoyment from our own playing because it brings the

melody and harmony so much nearer home to us. This case may almost be taken as typical for the other cases of self-love. On close examina tion, we shall almost always find that a great part of our feeling about what is ours is due to the fact that we live closer to our own things, and so feel them more thoroughly and deeply. As a friend of mine was about to marry, he often bored me by the repeated and minute way in which he would discuss the details of his new household arrangements. I wondered that so intellectual a man should be so deeply interested in things of so external a nature. But as I entered, a few years later, the same condition myself, these matters acquired for me an entirely differ ent interest, and it became my turn to turn them over and talk of them unceasingly. . . . The reason was simply this, that in the first instance I understood nothing of these things and their importance for domestic comfort, whilst in the latter case they came home to me with irresistible urgency, and vividly took possession of my fancy. So it is with many a one who mocks at decorations and titles, until he gains one himself. And this is also surely the reason why one's own portrait or reflection in the mirror is so peculiarly interesting a thing to contemplate . . . not on account of any absolute ' c'est moi,"1 but just as with the music played by ourselves. What greets our eyes is what we know best, most deeply understand; because we ourselves have felt it and lived through it. We know what has ploughed these furrows, deepened these shadows, blanched this hair ; and other faces may be handsomer, but none can speak to us or interest us like this." *

Moreover, this author goes on to show that our own things are fuller for us than those of others because of the memories they aAvaken and the practical hopes and expecta tions they arouse. This alone would emphasize them, apart from any value derived from their belonging to ourselves. We may conclude with him, then, that an original central self -feeling can never explain the passionate warmth of our selfregarding emotions, ivhich must, on the contrary, be addressed directly to special things less abstract and empty of content. To these things the name of ' self ' may be given, or to our conduct towards them the, name, of ' selfishness,' Imt neither in the self nor the selfishness does the pure Thinker play the 'title-role.'

Only one more point connected with our self-regard need be mentioned. We have spoken of it so far as active in~ stinct or emotion. It remains to speak of it as cold intel lectual self-estimation. We may weigh our own Me in the» * Psychologische Analysen auf Physiologischer Grundlage. Theil n. lite Hillfte, § 11. The whole section ought to be read. balance of praise and blame as easily as we weigh other people, — though with difficulty quite as fairly. The just man is the one who can weigh himself impartially. Impartial weighing presupposes a rare faculty of abstraction from the vividness with which, as Herr Horwicz has pointed out, things known as intimately as our own possessions and performances appeal to our imagination ; and an equally rare power of vividly representing the affairs of others. But> granting these rare powers, there is no reason why a man should not pass judgment on himself quite as objectively and well as on anyone else. No matter how he feels about himself, unduly elated or unduly depressed, he may still truly know his own worth by measuring it by the outward standard he applies to other men, and counteract the injus tice of the feeling he cannot wholly escape. This selfmeasuring process has nothing to do with the instinctive self-regard we have hitherto been dealing with. Being merely ono application of intellectual comparison, it need no longer detain us here. Please note again, however, how the pure Ego appears merely as the vehicle in which the estimation is carried on, the objects estimated being all of them facts of an empirical sort, * one's body, one's credit,

* Professor Bain, in his chapter on 'Emotions of Self,' does scant jus tice to the primitive nature of a large part of our self-feeling, and seems to reduce it to reflective self-estimation of this sober intellectual sort, which certainly most of it is not. He says that when the attention is turned inward upon self as a Personality, " we are putting forth to wards ourselves the kind of exercise that properly accompanies our contemplation of other persons. We are accustomed to scrutinize the actions and conduct of those about us, to set a higher value upon one man than upon another, by com paring the two; to pity ono in distress; to feel complacency towards a par ticular individual; to congratulate a man on some good fortune that it pleases us to see him gain; to admire greatness or excellence as displayed *>y any of our fellows. All these exercises are intrinsically social, like Love and Resentment; an isolated individual could never attain to them, nor exercise then. By what means, then, through what fiction [!] can we turn round r.nd play them off upon self? Or how comes it that we obtain any satisfaction Ly putting self in the place of the other party? Perhaps the simplest form of the reflected act is that expressed by Self -worth and Self-estimation, based and begun upon observation of the ways and con duct of our fellow-beings. We soon make comparisons among the indi viduals about us; we see that one is stronger and does more work than another, and, in consequence perhaps, receives more pay. We see one putting forth perhaps more kindness than another, and in consequence

one's fame, one's intellectual ability, one's goodness, or whatever the case may be. Bodily Appetites and Instincts Love of Adorn ment, Foppery, Acquisitiveness, Constructiveness, Love of Home, etc. Desire to please, be noticed, admired, etc. Sociability, Emula tion, Envy, Love, Pursuit of Honor, Ambition, etc. Intellectual, Moral and Religious Aspiration, Con scientiousness Personal Vanity, Modesty, etc. Pride of Wealth, Fear of Poverty Social and Family Pride, Vainglory, Snobbery, Humil ity, Shame, etc.

Sense of Moral or Mental Superior ity, Purity, etc. Sense of Inferiority or of Guilt Having summed up in the above table the principal results of the chapter thus far, I have said all that need receiving more love. We see some individuals surpassing the rest in aston ishing feats, and drawing after them the gaze and admiration of a crowd. We acquire a series of fixed associations towards persons so situated; favor able in the case of the superior, and unfavorable to the inferior. To the strong and laborious man we attach an estimate of greater reward, and feel that to be in his place would be a hap pier lot than falls to others. Desiring, as we do, from the primary motives of our being, to possess good things, and observing these to come by a man's superior exertions, we feel a respect for such exertion and a wish that it might be ours. We know that we also put forth exertions for our share uf good things; and on witnessing others, we are apt to be reminded of ourselves and to make comparisons with our selves, which comparisons derive their interest from the substantial conse quences. Having thus once learned to look at other persons as per- iOrming labors, greater or less, and as realizing fruits to accord; being, moreover, in all respects like our fellows, — we find it an exercise neither difficult nor unmeaning to contemplate self as doing work and receiving the reward. ... As we decide between one man and another, — which is worthier, ... so we decide between self and all other men; being, how ever, in this decision under the bias of our own desires." A couple of pages farther on we read: "By the terms Self-complacency. Self-gratulation, is indicated a positive enjoyment in dwelling upon our own merits and belongings. As in other modes, so here, the starting point is the contem plation of excellence or pleasing qualities in another person, accompanied more or less with fondness or love." Self-pity is also regarded by Professor

be said of the constituents of the phenomenal self, and of the nature of self-regard. Our decks are consequently sleared for the struggle with that pure principle of personal identity which has met us all along our preliminary expo sition, but which we have always shied from and treated as a difficulty to be postponed. Ever since Hume's time, it has been justly regarded as the most puzzling puzzle with which psychology has to deal ; and whatever view one may espouse, one has to hold his position against heavy odds. If, with the Spiritualists, one contend for a substantial soul, or transcendental principle of unity, one can give no positive account of what that may be. And if, with the Humians, one deny such a principle and say that the stream of passing thoughts is all, one runs against the entire commonsense of mankind, of which the belief in a distinct principle of selfhood seems an integral part. Whatever solution be adopted in the pages to come, we may as well make up our minds in advance that it will fail to satisfy the majority of those to whom it is addressed. The best way of approaching the matter will be to take up first —

In the last chapter it was stated in as radical a way as possible that the thoughts which we actually know to exist do not fly about loose, but seem each to belong to some one Bain, in this place, as an emotion diverted to ourselves from a more im mediate object, "in a manner that we may term fictitious and unreal. Still, as we can view self in the light of another person, we can feel towards it the emotion of pity called forth by others in our situation."

This account of Prof essor Bain's is, it will be observed, a good specimen of the old-fashioned mode of explaining the several emotions as rapid cal culations of results, and the transfer of feeling from one object to another, associated by contiguity or similarity with the first. Zoological evolu tionism, which came up since Prof essor Bain first wrote, has made us see, on the contrary, that many emotions must be primitively aroused by special objects. None are more worthy of being ranked primitive than the selfgratulation and humiliation attendant on our own successes and failures in the main functions of life. We need no borrowed reflection for these feel ings. Professor Bain's account applies to but that small fraction of our self-feeling which reflective criticism can add to, or subtract from, the total mass.— Lotze has some pages on the modifications of our self-regard by universal judgments, in Microcosmus, book v. chap, v § 5.

thinker and not to another. Each thought, out of a multi tude of other thoughts of -which it may think, is able to distinguish those which belong to its own Ego from those which do not. The former have a warmth and intimacy about them of which the latter are completely devoid, being merely conceived, in a cold and foreign fashion, and not appearing as blood-relatives, bringing their greetings to us from out of the past. Now this consciousness of personal sameness may be treated either as a subjective phenomenon or as an objec tive deliverance, as a feeling, or as a truth. We may ex plain how one bit of thought can come to judge other bits to belong to the same Ego with itself ; or we may criticise its judgment and decide how far it may tally with the nature of things.

As a mere subjective phenomenon the judgment presents no difficulty or mystery peculiar to itself. It belongs to the great class of judgments of sameness; and there is nothing more remarkable in making a judgment of same ness in the first person than in the second or the third. The intellectual operations seem essentially alike, whether I say "I am the same,' or whether I say 'the pen is the same, as yesterday.' It is as easy to think this as to think the opposite and say 'neither I nor the pen is the same.'

This sort of bringing of tldngs together into the object of a single judgment is of course essential to all thinking. The things are conjoined in the thought, whatever may be the relation in which they appear to the thought. The thinking them is thinking them together, even if only with the result of judging that they do not belong together. This sort of subjective synthesis,, essential to knowledge as siich (when ever it has a complex object), must not be confounded with objective synthesis or union instead of difference or discon nection, known among the things.* The subjective syn-

* "Also nur dadurch, dass ich em Maunigfaltiges gegebeuer Vorstellungeu iu einem Bewusstsein verbinden kann, ist es moglich dass ich die Identittit des Bewusstseins in diesen Vorstellungen selbst vorstelle, d. h. die analytische Einheit der Apperception ist nur unter der Voraussetzung irgend eiuer synthetischen m5glich." In this passage (Kritik der reineu Veruunft, 2te Anil. § 16) Kant calls by the names of analytic and synthetic thesis is involved in thought's mere existence. Even a really disconnected world could only be known to be such by having its parts temporarily united in the Object of some pulse of consciousness.*

The sense of personal identity is not, then, this mere synthetic form essential to all thought. It is the sense of a sameness perceived by thought and predicated of things thought-about. These things are a present self and a self of yesterday. The thought not only thinks them both, but thinks that they are identical. The psychologist, looking on and playing the critic, might prove the thought wrong, and show there was no real identity, — there might have been no yesterday, or, at any rate, no self of yesterday ; or, if there were, the sameness predicated might not obtain, or might be predicated on insufficient grounds. In either case the personal identity would not exist as a fact; but it would exist as a feeling all the same ; the consciousness of it by the thought would be there, and the psychologist would still have to analyze that, and show where its illusoriness lay. Let us now be the psychologist and see whether it be right or wrong when it says, / am the same self that I was yesterday.

We may immediately call it right and intelligible so fai as it posits a past time with past thoughts or selves con tained therein — these were data which we assumed at the outset of the book. Right also and intelligible so far as it thinks of a present self — that present self we have just studied in its various forms. The only question for us is as to what the consciousness may mean when it calls the apperception what we here mean by objective and subjective synthesis respectively. It were much to be desired that some one might invent a good pair of terms in which to record the distinction — those used in the text are certainly very bad, but Kant's seem to me still worse. ' Categorical unity' and 'transcendental synthesis' would also be good Kantian, but hardly good human, speech.

* So that we might say, by a sort of bad pun, "only a connected world can be known as disconnected." I say bad pun, because the point of view shifts between the connectedness and the disconnectedness. The discon nectedness is of the realities known ; the connectedness is of the knowl edge of them ; and reality and knowledge of it are, from the psychological point of view held fast to in these pages, two different facts. present self the same with one of the past selves which it has in mind.

We spoke a moment since of warmth and intimacy. This leads us to the answer sought. For, whatever the thought we are criticising may think about its present self, that self comes to its acquaintance, or is actually felt, with warmth and intimacy. Of course this is the case with the bodily part of it ; we feel the whole cubic mass of our body all the while, it gives us an unceasing sense of personal existence. Equally do we feel the inner ' nucleus of the spiritual self,' either in the shape of yon faint physiological adjustments, or (adopting the universal psychological be lief), in that of the pure activity of our thought taking place as such. Our remoter spiritual, material, and social selves, so far as they are realized, come also with a glow and a warmth ; for the thought of them infallibly brings some degree of organic emotion in the shape of quickened heart-beats, oppressed breathing, or some other alteration, even though it be a slight one, in the general bodily tone. The character of ' warmth,' then, in the present self, re duces itself to either of two things, — something in the feel ing which we have of the thought itself, as thinking, or else the feeling of the body's actual existence at the moment, — or finally to both. "We cannot realize our present self with out simultaneously feeling one or other of these two things. Any other fact which brings these two things with it into consciousness will be thought with a warmth and an inti macy like those which cling to the present self.

Any distant self which fulfils this condition will be thought with such warmth and intimacy. But which distant selves do fulfil the condition, when represented? Obviously those, and only those, which fulfilled it when they were alive. Them we shall imagine with the animal warmth upon them, to them may possibly cling the aroma, the echo of the thinking taken in the act. And by a natural consequence, we shall assimilate them to each other and to the warm and intimate self we now feel within us as we think, and separate them as a collection from whatever selves have not this mark, much as out of a herd of cattle let loose for the winter on some wide western prairie the

owner picks out and sorts together when the time for the round-up comes in the spring, all the beasts on which he finds his own particular brand. The various members of the collection thus set apart are felt to belong with each other whenever they are thought at all. The animal warmth, etc., is their herd-mark, the brand from which they can never more escape. It runs through them all like a thread through a chaplet and makes them into a whole, which we treat as a unit, no matter how much in other ways the parts may differ inter se. Add to this character the farther one that the distant selves appear to our thought as having for hours of time been continuous with each other, and the most recent ones of them continuous with the Self of the present moment, melting into it by slow degrees ; and we get a still stronger bond of union. As we think we see an identical bodily thing when, in spite of changes of structure, it exists con tinuously before our eyes, or when, however interrupted its presence, its quality returns unchanged ; so here we think we experience an identical Self when it appears to us in an analogous way. Continuity makes us unite what dissimi larity might otherwise separate ; similarity makes us unite what discontinuity might hold apart. And thus it is, finally, that Peter, awakening in the same bed with Paul, and recalling what both had in mind before they went to sleep, reidentifies and appropriates the ' warm ' ideas as his, and is never tempted to confuse them with those cold and pale-appearing ones which he ascribes to Paul. As well might he confound Paul's body, which he only sees, with his own body, which he sees but also feels. Each of us when he awakens says, Here's the same old self again, just as he says, Here's the same old bed, the same old room, the came old world.

The sense of our own personal identity, then, is exactly likeany one of our other perceptions of sameness among phenomena. It is a conclusion grounded either on the resemblance in a funda mental respect, or on the continuity before the mind, of the phe nomena compared. And it must not be taken to mean more than these grounds warrant, or treated as a sort of metaphysical or absolute Unity in which all differences are overwhelmed. The past aiid present selves compared are the same just so far as they are the same, and no farther. A uniform feeling of * warmth,' of bodily existence (or an equally uniform feel ing of pure psychic energy?) pervades them all ; and this is what gives them a generic unity, and makes them the same in kind. But this generic unity coexists with generic differ ences just as real as the unity. And if from the one point of view they are one self, from others they are as truly not one but many selves. And similarly of the attribute of continuity ; it gives its own kind of unity to the self — that of mere connectedness, or unbrokenness, a perfectly definite phenomenal thing — but it gives not a jot or tittle more. And this unbrokenness in the stream of selves, like the uubrokeuness in an exhibition of ' dissolving views,' in no wise implies any farther unity or contradicts any amount of plurality in other respects.

And accordingly we find that, where the resemblance and the continuity are no longer felt, the sense of personal iden tity goes too. We hear from our parents various anecdotes about our infant years, but we do not appropriate them as W3 do our own memories. Those breaches of decorum awaken no blush, those bright sayings no self-complacency. That child is a foreign creature with which our present self is no more identified in feeling than it is with some stranger's living child to-day. Why ? Partly because great time-gaps break up all these early years — we cannot ascend to them by continuous memories ; and partly be cause no representation of how the child felt comes up with the stories. We know what he said and did ; but no senti ment of his little body, of his emotions, of his psychic striv ings as they felt to him., comes up to contribute an element of warmth and intimacy to the narrative we hear, and the main bond of union with our present self thus disappears. ft is the same with certain of our dimly-recollected experi ences. We hardly know whether to appropriate them or to disown them as fancies, or things read or heard and not lived through. Their animal heat has evaporated ; the feel ings that accompanied them are so lacking in the recall, or

so different from those we now enjoy, that no judgment of identity can be decisively cast. Resemblance among tike parts of a continuum of feelings (especially bodily feelings) experienced along with things widely different in all other regards, thus constitutes the real and verifiable 'personal identity ' ivhich ice feel. There is no other identity than this in the ' stream ' of subjective consciousness which we described in the last chapter. Its parts differ, but under all their differences they are knit in these two ways ; and if either way of knitting disappears, the sense of unity departs. If a man wakes up some fine day unable to recall any of his past experiences, so that he has to learn his biography afresh, or if he only recalls the facts of it in a cold abstract way as things that he is sure once happened ; or if, without this loss of memory, his bodily and spiritual habits all change during the night, each organ giving a different tone, and the act of thought becom ing aware of itself in a different way ; lie feels, and he says, that he is a changed person. He disowns his former me, gives himself a new name, identifies his present life with nothing from out of the older time. Such cases are not rare in mental pathology ; but, as we still have some rea soning to do, we had better give no concrete account of them until the end of the chapter.

This description of personal identity will be recognized by the instructed reader as the ordinary doctrine professed by the empirical school. Associationists in England and France, Herbartians in Germany, all describe the Self as an aggregate of which each part, as to its being, is a separate fact. So far so good, then ; thus much is true whatevei farther things may be true ; and it is to the imperishable glory of Hume and Herbart and their successors to have taken so much of the meaning of personal identity out of the clouds and made of the Self an empirical and verifia ble thing.

But in leaving the matter here, and saying that this sum of passing things is all, these writers have neglected certain more subtle aspects of the Unity of Consciousness, to which we next must turn. Our recent simile of the herd of cattle will help us. It will be remembered that the beasts were brought together into one herd because their owner found on each of them his brand. The ' owner ' symbolizes here that ' section ' of consciousness, or pulse of thought, which we have all along represented as the vehicle of the judgment of identity ; and the ( brand ' symbolizes the characters of warmth and con tinuity, by reason of which the judgment is made. There is found a seZ/'-brand, just as there is found a herd-brand. Each brand, so far, is the mark, or cause of our know ing, that certain things belong-together. But if the brand is the ratio cognoscendi of the belonging, the belonging, in the case of the herd, is in turn the ratio existendi oi the brand. No beast would be so branded unless he be longed to the owner of the herd. They are not his because they are branded ; they are branded because they are his. So that it seems as if our description of the belongingtogether of the various selves, as a belonging-together which is merely represented, in a later pulse of thought, had knocked the bottom out of the matter, and omitted the most characteristic one of all the features found in the herd — a feature which common-sense finds in the phenomenon of personal identity as well, and for our omission of which she will hold us to a strict account. For common-sense insists that the unity of all the selves is not a mere ap pearance of similarity or continuity, ascertained after the fact. She is sure that it involves a real belonging to a real Owner, to a pure spiritual entity of some kind. Eolation to this entity is what makes the self's constituents stick to gether as they do for thought. The individual beasts do not stick together, for all that they wear the same brand, Each wanders with whatever accidental mates it finds.

The herd's unity is only potential, its centre ideal, like the * centre of gravity ' in physics, until the herdsman or owner comes. He furnishes a real centre of accretion to which the beasts are driven and by which they are held. The beasts stick together by sticking severally to him. Just so, common-sense insists, there must be a real proprietor in the case of the selves, or else their actual accretion into a ' personal consciousness ' would never have taken place.