CHAPTER XI
THE EVOLUTION OF CHARACTER WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE
TO THE GROWTH OF PURPOSE AND PERSONALITY
The Foundations of Personality | ||
11.
CHAPTER XI
THE EVOLUTION OF CHARACTER WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE
TO THE GROWTH OF PURPOSE AND PERSONALITY
THERE have been various philosophies dealing with the purposes of man. Man seeks this or that—the eternal good, beauty, happiness, pleasure, survival— but always he is represented as a seeker. A very popular doctrine, Hedonism, now somewhat in disfavor, represents him as seeking pleasurable, affective states. The difficulty of understanding the essential nature of pleasure and pain, the fact that what is pleasure to one man is pain to another, rather discredited this as a psychological explanation. I think we may phrase the situation fairly on an empirical basis when we say that seeking arises in instinct but receives its impulse to continuity by some agreeable affective state of satisfaction. Man steers towards pleasure and satisfaction of some type or other, but the force is the unbalance of an instinct.
When we speak of man as a seeker, we are not separating him from the rest of living things. All life seeks, and the more mobile a living thing is the more it seeks. A sessile mussel chained to a rock seeks little but the fundamentals of nutrition and generation and these in a simple way. An animal that builds habitations for its young, courts its mate, plays, teaches and fights, may do nothing more than seek nutrition and generation, but it seeks these through many intermediary "end'' points, through many impulses, and thus it has
Our viscera, our tissues, as they function, change by the using up of energy and the breaking down of materials. That change brings about sensory disturbances in our body which are not unpleasant in moderation, which we call hunger, thirst and fatigue. To relieve these three primitive states we seek food, drink and rest; we desire food, drink and rest. Desire then is primitive, organic, arising mainly in the vegetative nervous system, and it awakens mechanisms that bring us food, drink and rest. A feeling which we call satisfaction results when the changes in the viscera and tissues are readjusted or on the way to readjustment. Here is the simplest paradigm for desire seeking satisfaction, but it is on a plane rarely found in man, because his life is too complicated for such formulæ to work.
Food must be bought or produced, and this involves coöperation, competition, self-denial, thrift, science, finance, invention. It involves ethics, because though you are hungry you must not steal food or give improper value for it. Moreover, though you are hungry, you have developed tastes, manners, etc., and you cannot, must not eat this or that (through religion); you mast eat with certain implements), and would rather
What is true of hunger is true of thirst and fatigue. Desires in these directions have to accommodate themselves, in greater or lesser degrees, to the complexities in which our social nature and customs have involved us. It is true that desires upon which the actual survival of the individual depend will finally break through taboo and restriction if completely balked. That is, very few people will actually starve to death, die of thirst or keep awake indefinitely, despite any convention or taboo. Nevertheless there are people who will resist these fundamental desires, as in the case of MacSwiney, the Irish republican, and as in the case of martyrs recorded in the history of all peoples. It may
The elaboration of the sex impulses and desires into the purposes of marriage, the repression into lifelong continence and chastity, forms one of the most marvelous of chapters in the psychological history of man. The desire for sex relationship of the crude kind is very variable both in force, time of appearance and reaction to discipline and unquestionably arises from the changes in the sex organs. Both to enhance and repress it are aims of the culture and custom of each group, and the lower groups have given actual sexual intercourse a mystical supernatural value that has at times and in various places raised it into the basis of cults and religions. Repressed, hampered, canalized, forbidden, the sex impulses have profoundly modified clothes, art, religion, morals and philosophy. The sex customs of any nation demonstrate the extreme plasticity of human desires and the various twists, turns and customs that tradition declares holy. There have been whole groups of people that have deemed any sexual pleasure unholy, and the great religions still deem it necessary for their leaders to be continent. And the absurdities of modesty, a modified sex impulse, have made it immoral for a woman to show her leg above the calf while in her street clothes,[2] though she may wear a bathing suit without reproach.
Whatever a desire is basically, it tends quickly to organize itself in character. It gathers to itself emotions, sentiments, intelligence; it plans and it wills, it battles against other desires. I say it, as if the desire were an entity, a personality, but what I mean is that the somatic and cerebral activities of a desire become so organized
What is the ego that desires and plans? I do not know, but if it is in any part a metaphysical entity of permanent nature in so far it does not become the subject matter of this book. For as a metaphysical entity it is uncontrollable, and the object of science is to discover and utilize the controllable elements of the world. I may point out that even those philosophers and theologians to whom the ego is an entity of supernatural origin deny their own standpoint every time they seek to convince, persuade or force the ego of some one to a new belief or new line of action; deny it every time they say, "I am tired and I shall rest; then I shall think better and can plan better.'' Such a philosopher says in essence, "I have an entity within me totally and incommensurably different from my body,'' and then he goes on to prove that this entity operates better when the body is rested and fed than otherwise!
For us the ego is a built-up structure and has its evolution from the diffuse state of early infancy to the intense, well-defined state of maturity; it is elaborated by a process that is in part due to the environment, in part to the inherent structure of man. We may postulate a continuous excitement of nerve centers as its basis, and this excitement cognizes other excitement
Sometimes one desire is identified with the ego as part of itself, sometimes the desire is contrasted with the ego and we say, "I struggled with the desire but it overcame me.'' Common language plainly shows the plurality of the personality, even though the man on the street thinks of himself as a united "I,'' even an invisible "I.''
One of the fundamental desires, nay the fundamental desire, is the expansion of the self, i. e., increased self-esteem. When the infant sprawls in his basket after his arrival in this world, it is doubtful if he has a "me'' which he separates from the "non-me.'' Yet that same infant, a few years later, and through the rest of his life, believes that in his personality resides something immortal, and has as his prime pleasure the feeling of worth and growth of that personality, and as his worst hurt the feeling of decay and inferiority of that personality.
Let us watch that infant as it sprawls in its little bed, the darling of a pair of worshiping parents. In that relationship the child is no solitary individual; society is there already, watching him, nourishing and teaching him. Already he is in the, hands of his group who, though seeking his happiness, are nevertheless determined that he shall obtain it their way. And from then to the end of his life that group will in large measure offer him the criteria of values, and his self-esteem will, in the majority of cases, rest upon his idea of their esteem of him. In the brooding mother, in the tender
The baby throws his arms about, kicks his legs, rolls his eyes. In these movements arising from internal activities which, we can only state, relate to vascular distribution, neuronic relations, visceral and endocrinic activities, is the germ of the impulse to activity which it is the function of society and the individual himself to shape into organized useful work. Thus is manifested a native, inherent, potentiality, which we may call the energy of the baby, the energy of man, a something which the environment shapes, but which is created in the laboratory of the individual. The father and mother are delighted with the fine vigorous movements of the child, and there is in that delight the approval that society always gives or tends to give to manifestations of power. We tend involuntarily to admire strength, even though misdirected. The strong man always has followers though he be a villain, and in fact the history of man is to a large extent based on the fact that the strong man evokes enthusiasm and obedience.
This impulse to activity is an unrest, and its satisfaction lies in movement; in other words there is a pleasure or a relief in mere activity. The need of discharging energy, the desire to do so, the pleasure and satisfaction in so doing constitute a cornerstone of the foundation of life and character. This desire for activity, as we shall call it henceforth, is behind work and play; it fluctuates with health and disease, with youth and old age; it becomes harnessed to purpose, it is called into being by motives or inhibited by conflict and indecision and its organization is the task of society. Men differ in regard to the desire for activity, with a range
The child's first movements are aimless, but soon the impressions it receives by striking hands and feet against soft and hard things bring about a dim knowledge of the boundaries of itself, and the kinesthetic impulses from joints and muscles help this knowledge. The outside world commences to separate itself from the "me,'' though both are vague and shadowy. Soon it learns that one part of the outside world is able to satisfy its hunger, to supply a need, and it commences to recognize the existence of benevolent outside agencies; and it also learns little by little that its instinctive cries bring these agencies to it. I do not mean that the baby has any internal language corresponding to the idea of outside agency, benevolence, etc., but it gets to know that its cries are potent, that a breast brings relief and satisfaction. At first it cries, the breast comes, there is relief and satisfaction, and it makes no connection or no connection is made between these events of outer and inner origin. But the connection is finally made,—desire becomes definitely articulate in the cry of the baby, which thus becomes a plea and a summons. Anticipation of good to come appears and with it the germ of hope and forward looking, and there is realization or disappointment, joy or anger or sorrow. Thus desire is linked up with satisfaction in a definite way, ideas and feelings of demand and supply begin to appear and perhaps power itself, in the vague notion, "I can get milk,'' commences to be felt. Social life starts when the child associates the mother with the milk, with the desire and the satisfaction. In the relationship established between mother and baby is the first great social contact; love, friendship, discipline, teaching
Not only does he associate the mother with the milk but her very presence brings him comfort, even when he is not hungry. It is within the first few months of life that the child shows that he is a gregarious[3] animal, —gregarious in the sense that he is unhappy away from others. To be alone is thus felt to be essentially an evil, to be with others is in itself a good. This gregarious feeling is the sine qua non of social life: when we punish any one we draw away from him; when we reward we get closer to him. All his life the child is to find pleasure in being with people and unhappiness when away from them, unless he be one of those in whom the gregarious instinct is lacking. For instincts may be absent, just as eye pigment is; there are mental albinos, lacking the color of ordinary human feeling. Or else some experience may make others hateful to him, or he may have so intellectualized his life that this instinct has atrophied. This gregarious feeling will heighten his emotions, he will gather strength from the feeling that "others are with him,'' he will join societies, clubs, organizations in response to the same feeling that makes sheep graze on a hillside in a group, that makes the
Let us turn back to the desire for activity. As the power to direct the eyes develops, as hands become a little more sure, because certain pathways in brain and cord "myelinize,''[4] become functional, the outside world attracts in a definite manner and movements become organized by desires, by purpose. It's a red-letter day in the calendar of a human being when he first successfully "reaches'' something; then and there is the birth of power and of successful effort. All our ideas of cause and effect originate when we cause changes in the world, when we move a thing from thither to yon. No philosopher, though he becomes so intellectualized that he cannot understand how one thing or event causes another, ever escapes from the feeling that he causes effects. Purpose, resistance, success, failure, cause, effect, these become inextricably wound up with our thoughts and beliefs from the early days when, looking at a dangling string, we reached for it once, twice, a dozen times and brought it in triumph to our mouth. And our idea that there were forbidden things came when the watchful mother took it out of our mouth, saying, "No, no, baby mustn't!''
At any rate, the organization of activity for definite
The child learns to creep, and the delight in progression lies in the fact that far more things are accessible for investigation, for rearrangement, for tasting. It is no accident that we speak of our "tastes'' that we say, "I want to taste of experience.'' That is exactly what the child creeping on the floor seeks,—to taste of experience and to anticipate, to realize, to learn. Out of the desire for activity grows a desire for experience born of the pleasure of excitement that we spoke of previously. This desire for experience becomes built up into strange forms under teaching and through the results of experience. It is very strong in some who become explorers, roués, vagabonds, scientists as a result, and it is very weak in others who stay at home and seek only the safe and limited experience. You see two children in one room,—and one sits in the middle of the floor, perhaps playing with a toy or looking around, and the other has investigated the stove and found it
So our child reaching out for things develops ideas of cause, effect and power, commences to have an idea of himself as a cause and likes the feeling of power. As he learns to walk, the world widens, his sense of power grows, and his feeling of personality increases. Meanwhile another side of his nature has been developing and one fully as important.
The persons in his world have become quite individual; mother is now not alone, for father is recognized with pleasure as one who likewise is desirable. He carries one on his shoulder so that a pleasurable excitement results; he plays with one, holds out strings and toys and other instruments for the obtaining of experience. Usually both of these great personages are friendly, their faces wear a smile or a tender look, and our little one is so organized that smiles and tender looks awaken comfortable feelings and he smiles in return. The smile is perhaps the first great message one human being sends to another; it says, "See, I am friendly, I wish you well.'' Later on in the history of the child, he will learn much about smiles of other kinds, but at this stage they are all pleasant. Though his parents are usually friendly and give, now and then they deprive, and they look different; they say, "No, no!'' This "no, no'' is social inhibition, it is backed up by the power of deprivation, punishment, disapproval; it has its power in a something in our nature that gives society its power over us. From now there steps in
We said the child seeks experience,—but not only on his own initiative. The father stands against the wall, perhaps with one foot crossing the other. Soon he feels a pressure and looks down; there is the little one standing in his imitation of the same position. Imitation, in my belief, is secondary to a desire for experience. The child does not imitate everything; he is equipped to notice only simple things, and these he imitates. Why? The desire to experience what others are experiencing is a basic desire; it expresses both a feeling of fellowship and a competitive feeling. We do not feel a strong tendency to imitate those we dislike or despise, or do not respect, we tend to imitate those we love and respect, those for whom we have a fellow feeling. Part of the fellow feeling is an impulse to imitate and to receive in a positive way the suggestion offered by their conduct and manners.
Analogous to imitation, and part of the social instinct, is a credulity, a willingness to accept as if personally experienced things stated. Part of the seeking of experience is the asking of questions, because the mind seeks a cause for every effect, a something to work from. Indeed, one of the main mental activities lies in the explaining of things; an unrest is felt in the presence of the "not understood'' which is not stilled until the unknown is referred back to a thing understood or accepted without question. The child finds himself in a
It may seem as if imitation were a separate principle in mental growth, and there have been many to state this. As is well known Tarde made it a leading factor in human development. It seems to me that it is linked up with desire for experience, desire for fellowship, and also with a strongly competitive feeling, which is early manifest in children and which may be called "a want of what the other fellow has.'' Children at the age of a year and up may be perfectly pleased with what they have until they see another child playing with something,—something perhaps identical with their own. They then betray a decided, uncontrollable desire for the other child's toy; they are no longer content with their own, and by one means or another they seek to get it,—by forcible means, by wheedling or coaxing, or by tormenting their parents. The disappearance of contentment through the competitive feeling, the competitive nature of desire, the rôle that envy plays in the happiness and effort of man, is a thesis emphasized by every moralist and philosopher since the beginning of things. In the strivings of every man, though he admit it or not, one of the secret springs of his energy is this law of desire, that a large part of its power and persistence is in the competitive feeling, is in envy and the wish to taste what others are experiencing.
A basic law of desire lies in an observation of Lotze, elaborated by William James. We may talk of selfishness and altruism as if they were entirely separate qualities of human nature. But what seems to be true is that one is an extension of the other, that is, we are always concerned with the ego feeling, but in the one case the ego feeling is narrow and in the other case it includes others as part of the ego. Lotze's observations on clothes shows that we expend ego feeling in all
From the cradle to the grave, we desire fellowship as an addition to our gregarious feeling. We ask for approval, for we expand under sympathy and contract under cold criticism. Nothing is so pleasant as "appreciation,'' which means taking us at our own valuation or adding to it,, and there is no complaint so common as, "They don't understand me,'' which merely means, "They blame me without understanding that I
(There is a convincing physical element in the feelings and desires of man, evidenced in language and phrase. Superiority equals aboveness, inferiority equals beneathness; sympathy equals the same feeling. To criticize is to "belittle'' and to cause the feeling of littleness; to praise is "to make a man expand,'' to enlarge him. Blame hurts one's feelings,—"He wounded me,'' etc.)
At the same time we are strangely affected by the condition of others. Where no competitive-jealousy complex is at work, we laugh with other people in their happiness, we are moved to tears by suffering; we admire vigor, beauty and the fine qualities of others; we accept their purposes and beliefs; we are glad to agree with the stranger or the friend and hate to disagree. We establish within ourselves codes and standards largely because we wish to accept and believe and act in the same way as do those we want as fellows. Having set up that code as conscience or ideals, it helps us to govern our lives, it gives a stability in that we tend at once to resist jealousy, envy, the "wrong'' emotions and actions. "Helping others'' becomes a great motive in life, responding to misery with tears, consolation and kindness, reacting to the good deeds of others with
Asking for help in its varied form of praise, appreciation and kindness, giving help as appreciation and kindness, are the weak and strong aspects of the fellowship feelings. It is a cynical view of life, perhaps, but it is probably true that the weak phase is more common and more constant than the second. Almost everybody loves praise and appreciation, for these enlarge the ego feeling, and some, perhaps most, like to be helped, though here, as was above stated, there is a feeling of inferiority aroused which may be painful. Relatively there are few who are ready to praise, especially those with whom they are in close contact and with whom they are in a sort of rivalry. The same is true of genuine appreciation, of real warm fellow feeling; the leader, the hero, the great man receives that but not the fellow next door. As for giving, charity, kindness, these are common enough in a sporadic fashion, but rarely are they sustained and constant, and often they have to depend on the desire "not to be outdone,'' not to seem inferior,— have, as it were, to be shamed into activity. For there is competition even in fellowship.
There are people, especially among the hysterics, who are deeply wounded when sympathy is not given, when appreciation and praise is withheld or if there is the suggestion of criticism. They are people of a "tender ego,'' not self-sustaining, demanding the help of others and reacting to the injury sustained, when it is not given, by prolonged emotion. These sensitive folk, who form a most difficult group, do not all react alike, of course. Some respond with anger and ideas of persecution, some with a prolonged humiliation and feeling of inferiority; still others develop symptoms that are
Contrasting with the desires and purposes of fellowship we find the desires and purposes of superiority and power. Primarily these are based on what McDougall calls the instinct of self-display, which becomes intellectualized and socialized very early in the career of the child. In fact, we might judge a man largely by the way he displays himself, whether by some essentially personal bodily character, some essentially mental attribute or some essentially moral quantity; whether he seeks superiority as a means of getting power or as a means of doing good; whether he seeks it within or without the code. One might go on indefinitely, including such matters as whether he seeks superiority with tact or the reverse and whether he understands the essential shallowness and futility of his pursuit or not. To be superior is back of most of striving, and it is the most camouflaged of all human motives and pleasures. For this is true: that the preaching of humility, of righteous conduct, of service, of self-sacrifice, by religion and ethics have convinced man that these are the qualities one ought to have. So men seek, whenever they can, to dress their other motives and feelings in the garb of altruism.
Camouflage of motive as a means of social approval has thus become a very important part of character; we seek constantly to penetrate the camouflage of our
The desire for power and superiority will of course take different directions in each person, according to his make-up, teaching and the other circumstances of his life. Property as a means of pleasure, and as a symbol of achievement and of personal worth, is valued highly from the earliest days of the child's life. Very early does the child show that it prizes goods, shows an acquisitive trend that becomes finally glorified into a goal, an ambition. Money and goods become the symbol and actuality of power, triumph, superiority, pleasure, safety, benevolence and a dozen and one other things. Men who seek money and goods may therefore be seeking very different things; one is merely acquisitive, has the miser trend; another loves the game for the game's sake, picks up houses, bonds, money, ships, as a fighter picks up trophies, and they stand to him as symbols of his superiority. Some see in property the fulcrum by which they can apply the power that will shift the lives of other men and make of themselves a sort of God or Fate in the destinies of others. For others, and for all in part, there is in money the safety against emergencies and further a something that purchases pleasure, whether that pleasure be of body,
There are many who start on their careers with the feeling and belief that money is a minor value, that to be useful and of service is greater than to be rich. But this idealistic ambition in only a few cases stands up against the strain of life. Unless money comes, a man cannot marry, or if he marries, then his wife must do without ease and leisure and pretty things, and he must live in a second-rate way. Sooner or later the idealist feels himself uneasily inferior, and though he may compensate by achievement or by developing a strong trend towards seclusiveness, more often he regrets bitterly his idealism and in his heart envies the rich. For they, ignorant and arrogant, may purchase his services, his brains and self-sacrifice and buy these ingredients of himself with the air of one purchasing a machine. So the idealist finds himself condemned to a meager life, unless his idealism brings him wealth, and he drifts in spirit away from the character of his youth. It is the strain of life, the fear of old age and sickness, the silent pressure of the deprivations of a man's beloved ones, the feeling of helplessness in disaster and the silent envious feeling of inferiority that makes inroads in the ranks of the idealists so that at twenty there are ten idealists to the one found at forty.
I remember well one of my colleagues, working patiently in a laboratory, out of sight of the world and out of the stream of financial reward, enthused by science and service, who threw up his work and went into the practice of medicine. "Why?'' I asked him.
The world is built up on the sacrifices of the idealists, and eternally it crucifies them. Wealth and power are to him who has a marketable commodity, and one cannot complain when true genius becomes rich. But the genius to make money may be and often is—an exploiting type of ability, a selfishly practical industry, which neither invents nor is of great service. The men who now do the basic work in invention and scientific work in laboratories are poorly paid and only now and then honored. Every year in the United States hundreds of them leave their work in research and seek "paying jobs,'' to the impoverishment of the world, but to their own financial benefit. Countries where the scramble for wealth is not so keen, where the best brains do not find themselves pressed into business, produce far more science, art and literature than we do, with all our wealth. We will continue to be a second-rate nation in these regards, still looking for our great American novel and play, still seeking real singers and artists, until our idealism can withstand the pressure of our practical civilization.
For here is a great division in people. There are those who become enthused by the noble aims of life,
Power is aristocratic, and elaborates and calls into play competitive spirit. In all men the desire for power and the desire for fellowship blend and interplay in their ambitions and activities; in some fellowship predominates, in others power. If a man specializes in fellowship aims, without learning the secret of power, he is usually futile and sterile of results; if a man seeks power only and disregards fellowship, is hated and is a tyrant, cruel and without pity. To be an idealist and practical is of course difficult and usually involves a compromise of the ideal. Some degree of compromise is necessary, and the rigid idealist would have a better sanction for his refusal to compromise if he or any one could be sure of the perfection of his ideal.
The practical seek their own welfare or the welfare of others through direct means, through exerting the power and the influence that is money and station. Rarely do they build for a distant future, and their goal is in some easily and popularly understood good. What they say and what they do applies to getting rich or healthy, to being good in a conventional way; success is their goal and that success lies in the tangibles of life. They easily become sordid and mean, since it is not possible always to separate good and evil when one is governed by expediency and limited idea of welfare. This is also true,—that while the practical usually tend to lose idealism entirely, and find themselves the tools of habits and customs they cannot break from, now and then a practical man reaches a high place of power and becomes the idealist.
Though all men seek power and fellowship, we have a right to ask what are a man's leading pursuits. And we must be prepared to tear off a mask before we understand the most of our fellows, for society and all of life is permeated with disguise. Now and then one seeks to appear worse than he is, hates fuss and praise, but this rare bird (to use slang and Latin in one phrase) is the exception that proves the rule that men on the whole try to appear better than they are. Rarely does a man say, "I am after profit and nothing else,'' although occasionally he does; rarely does the scientist say, "I seek fame and reward,'' even though his main stimulus may be this desire and not the ideal of adding to the knowledge of the world. Behind the philanthropist may lurk the pleasure in changing the lives of others, behind the reformer the picture of himself in history. The best of men may and do cherish power motives, and we must say that to seek power is ethically
We spoke of power as a form of superiority. Since all superiority is comparative, there are various indirect ways of seeking superiority and avoiding inferiority. One of these is by adverse criticism of our fellows. The widespread love of gossip, the quick and ever-present tendency to disparage others, especially the fortunate and the successful, are manifestations of this type of superiority seeking. Half the humor of the world is the pleasure, produced by a technique, of feeling superior to the boor, the pedant, the fool, the new rich, the pompous, the over-dignified, etc. Half, more than half, of the conversation that goes on in boudoir, dining room, over the drinks and in the smoking room, is criticism, playful and otherwise, of others. There are people in whom the adversely critical spirit is so highly developed that they find it hard to praise any one or to hear any one praised—their criticism leaps to the surface in one way or another, in the sneer, in the "butt,'' in the joke, in the gibe, in the openly expressed attack. This way of being superior may be direct and open, more often it is disguised. Many a woman (and man) who denounces the sinner receives from her contemplation of that sinner the most of her feeling of virtue and goodness. The more bitterly the self-acknowledged "saint'' denounces the sinner, the more, by implication, he praises himself.
People seek the strangest roads to the feeling of superiority. From that classical imbecile who burnt down the Temple of Diana to the crop of young girls who invent tales of white slavery in order to stand in the
At the same time that we seek superiority we seek to be liked, to be esteemed, to be respected. These are not the same things, but are sufficiently alike in principle to be classed together. With some the desire to be liked becomes a motive that ruins firmness of purpose and success, as in the well-known "good fellow,''—accommodating, obliging and friendly, who sacrifices achievement to this minor form of fellowship. On a larger plane there is the writer or artist who sacrifices his best capacities in order to please the popular fancy, seeks popularity rather than greatness, for it is seldom that the two coincide. Back of many a man's "respectability'' is the fear of being disliked or discredited by his group. To be respectable, to live so that neither the neighbors nor one's own rather uncritical conscience can criticize, is perhaps the most common aim in life. There are some who are all things to all men, merely out of the desire to be agreeable, who find it easy to agree with any opinion, because they have not the courage to be disliked. Even the greatest men yield to the desire to be admired and liked, though the test of greatness is unpopularity.
For there never can be a real and lasting democracy
This digression aside, to be popular, agreeable and entertaining are both aims and weapons. Most of us would infinitely rather be liked than disliked, and with some it is a passion and a weakness. But to be popular, to be a good fellow, is an extraordinarily useful trait when combined with firm purposes and good intelligence. The art of life is to please, though its business is achievement and success, and here the art may further the business. Manners, courtesy and certain of the abilities, such as musical talent, story telling and humor are cultivated largely, though not wholly, out of the desire to please.
Manners and courtesy are really standardized methods of behavior, which are to adjust us in a pleasing way to our superiors, equals and inferiors, and to the various conventional situations of life. Naturally these will vary greatly in different ages and different countries. A democracy acknowledging in theory no superiors will insist that every man be called "sir'' and every woman "madam,'' whereas an aristocracy laughs at that. In reality there is no democracy anywhere, and so we address differently the woman of the mansion and the woman of the hovel, The mistress of the house calls her maid by her first name but would wonder what the world is coming to if the maid became as familiar. In a limited sense, manners and courtesy are
Because many writers have shot shafts of satire and
The "poseurs'' in custom have their analogies in the pompous, over-dignified and over-important; the affected, in a word. Affectation is felt to be a disharmony between the pose and the inner values or an attempt to win superiority or "difference'' of a superior kind by acting. In either case it excites ridicule, hatred or disgust, and shafts at it form part of the stock in trade of the satirist, humorist and indeed every portrayer of life. What men demand of each other is sincerity, and even where the insincerity is merely a habitual pose it arouses hostile feeling which expresses itself all the way from criticism to the overt act.
Since to feel superior is so highly prized in social relationships of all kinds, part of the technique of those seeking some advantage or other—economic, social, personal —from those who must be influenced is to give
It would be futile to elaborate in detail the various ways of seeking superiority or resisting inferiority. Two directions of this impulse need some attention, as they lead to personality traits of great importance. "Having one's way'' becomes a dominant desire with many people, and much of the clashing that occurs in families, organizations and the council chambers of nations arises from a childish, egoistic seeking of superiority. People enter into the most heated and sterile arguments, often coming to blows, if the course of conduct they desire to have followed is modified or blocked.
A sub-form of having one's own way is the adherence
You may judge a man by his type of argument and his reaction to the opinions of others. One should hold to his own beliefs and opinions, but only if they withstand the assaults of reason. To build ego feeling into opinions is to make ignorance sacred. For most of us there are certain opinions that we will not tolerate,
Here Montaigne's wisdom aptly expresses itself: "We deride ourselves a hundred times when we mock our neighbor.'' He is stubborn and unreasonable who does not agree with us. "Be reasonable,'' cry the unreasonable as they argue. "How stubborn and pigheaded you are,'' say those inaccessible to reason. The difficulty in reaching a true estimate of the world, ourselves and our neighbors lies in the egoism which permeates our beliefs and opinions.
A second direction of the impulse to superiority is personal beauty. Not only does the young girl (or any other, male or female) dress and adorn herself to attract those whose good opinion she seeks, but also she seeks superiority over her competitors. Her own self-valuation increases with the admiration of some and the discomfiture of others. To be beautiful, attractive or pretty becomes thus a goal to many aims of the personality; it offers a route to success in obtaining power, riches, etc.; it yields the longed-for admiration, and it gives the satisfaction of superiority. It rarely has in
We have lost track of our hypothetical child in the history of his character development, lost sight of him as he struggles in a morass of desires and purposes of power, fellowship and superiority. His situations become still more complex as we watch him seek to unify his life around permanent purposes, against a pestering, surging, recurring, temporary desire. He desires, let us say, to conform to the restriction in sex, but as he approaches adolescence, within and without stimuli of breathless ardor assail him. He must inhibit them if he proposes to be chaste, and his continent road is beset with never-resting temptations. He calls himself a fool at times for resisting, and his mind pictures the delights he misses—if not from direct experience, from information he gathers in books and from those who know—and if he yields, then self-reproach embitters him. But correctly to portray the situation is to drop
A similar situation is found in the work purposes. To work steadily, with industry and unflagging effort, at something perhaps not inherently attractive is not merely a measure of energy,—it is a measure of inhibition and will. For there are so many more immediate pleasures to be had, even if offering only variety and relaxation. There is the country, there is the lake for fishing; there is the dance hall where a pretty girl smiles as your arm encircles her waist; there is the ball field where on a fine day you may go and forget duty and strained effort in the swirl of an enthusiasm that emanates from the thousands around you as they applaud the splendid athletes; there is the good fellowship and pleasure that beckon as you bend to a task. To shut these out, to inhibit the temporary "good'' for the permanent good, is the measure of character.
These sex and work situations we must take up in detail in separate chapters. What is important is that as life goes on, necessity, the social organization and gradual concentration of energy canalize the purposes, reduce the power of the irrelevant and temporary desires. Habit and custom bring a person into definite relationship with society; the man becomes husband,
This war of the permanent unified purposes versus the temporary scattering desires—the power of inhibition —is involved in the health and vigor of the person. Disease, fatigue and often enough old age show themselves in lowered purpose, in the failure of the will (in the sense of the energy of purpose), in a scattering of activity. Indeed, in the senile states one too often sees
Unification of purpose often goes too far. Men lose sight of the duties they owe to wife and family in their pursuit of wealth or fame; they forget that relaxation and pleasure-seeking are normal and legitimate aims. They deify a purpose; they attach it to themselves so that it becomes more essentially themselves than their religion or their family. They speak of their work as if every letter were capitalized and lose sympathy and interest in the rest of the wide striving world. Men grow hard, even if philanthropists, in too excessive a devotion to a purpose, and soon it is their master, and they are its slaves. Happy is he who can follow his purpose efficiently and earnestly, but who can find interest in many things, pleasure in the wide range of joys the world offers and a youthful curiosity and zest in the new.
Every human being, no matter how civilized and unified, how modern and social in his conduct, has within him a core of uncivilized, disintegrating, ancient and
This brings me to the point that the constant inhibition, blocking and balking of desires and wishes, though in part socially necessary and ethically justifiable, is decidedly wearisome, at times to all, and to many at all times. It seems so easy and pleasant to relax in purposes, in morals, in thought, to be a vagrant spirit seeking nothing but the pleasures right at hand; to be like
As with periods, so with people; self-indulgence, i. e., indulgence of the passing desires, follows the idealism
There occurs a dangerous age in the late thirties and early forties, one in which self-indulgence makes itself clamorous. The monotony of labor, the fatigue of inhibition make themselves felt, and at this time men (and women) need to add relaxation and pleasure of a legitimate kind. Golf, the fishing trip, games of all kinds; legitimate excitement which need not be inhibited is necessary. This need of excitement without inhibition is behind most of the gambling and card playing; it explains the extraordinary attraction of the detective story and the thrilling movies; it gives great social value to the prize fight and the ball game where you may see the staid and the sober giving vent to an excitement that, may fatigue them for a time but which clears the way for their next day's inhibitions.
Unfortunately too many mistake excitement for happiness. The forms of relief from inhibition—card playing, sports, the theater, the thrilling story and the movie—grow to be habits and lose their exciting value. They can give no permanent relief from the pain of repression; only a philosophy of life can do that. A philosophy of life! One might write a few volumes on that (and there are so many great philosophers already on the market), and yet such a philosophy would only
I remember one Puritanically bred young woman who fled from her restrictions and inhibitions and joined a "free love'' colony in New York. After two years she left, them and came back to New England. Her statement of the situation she found herself; it summarizes all attempts at "freedom.'' "It wasn't freedom. You found yourself bound to your desires, a slave to every wish. It grew awfully tiresome and besides, it brought so many complications. Sometimes you loved where you weren't loved—and vice versa. Jealousy was there, oh, so much of it—and pleasure disappeared after a while. It wasn't conscience—I still believe that right and wrong are arbitrary matters —but I found myself envying people who had some guide, some belief, some restrictions in themselves! For it seemed to me they were more free than I.''
The fact is, for most men and women inhibition is no artificial phenomenon, despite its burdensomeness. It is not only inevitable, it is desirable. A feeling of power appears when one resists; there is mental gain, character growth as a result. Life must be purposive else it is vain and futile, and the feeling of no achievement and failure is far more disastrous than a thousand inhibitions.
Though man battles and compromises with himself, he also battles and compromises with his fellows and
There is no formula for adjustment. Intelligence, insight into one's powers and capacities, caution, boldness, compromise, firmness, aggressiveness, tact,— these and a dozen other traits and qualities come into play. It is a favorite teaching of optimistic sentimentalists, "Will conquers everything—it is omnipotent.'' God's will is,—but no one else's. What happens when two will and pray for diametrically opposing results? "Then God is on the side of the heaviest battalions,'' said Napoleon. Victory comes to the best prepared, the most intelligent, the least hampered and the luckiest. Outside of metaphysics and theology there is no abstract will; it is a part of purpose, intelligence and instinct and shares in their imperfections and limitations. To will the impossible is to taste failure, although it may be difficult to know what is impossible. Fight hard, be brave, keep your powder dry and have good friends is the best counsel for adjustment. But learn resignation and cultivate a sense of humor.
No inspiration in that? Well, I must leave inspiration to others who have an infallible formula. The best I can offer in adjustment is the old prayer, "Lord, make me love the chase and not the quarry! Lord, make me live up to my ideals!''
Out of the welter of conflicts into which the individual is plunged through his own nature and the nature
We say man seeks pleasure, satisfaction, the Good. True. But it is important to know that essentially he seeks a higher self-valuation, seeks to establish his own dignity and worth and has his highest satisfaction when that valuation is reached through conformity with absolute standards.
The Sepoy Rebellion had its roots in a food taboo, and Mussulman, Hebrew and Roman Catholic place a religious value on diet. Most of the complexities of existence are of our own creation.
One of my children would stop crying if some one merely entered his room when he was three weeks old. He was, and is, an intensely gregarious boy.
At birth, though most of the great nervous pathways are laid down, they are non-functional largely because the fibers that compose them are unclothed, non-myelinated. The various kinds of tracts have different times for becoming "myelinated'' as was the discovery of the great analogist, Flechsig.
CHAPTER XI
THE EVOLUTION OF CHARACTER WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE
TO THE GROWTH OF PURPOSE AND PERSONALITY
The Foundations of Personality | ||