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 many types of satisfaction. When a creature develops to the point that it establishes all kinds of rules governing conduct, when it establishes sanctions that are eternal and has purposes that have a terminus in a hereafter which is out of the span of life of the planner, it becomes quite difficult to say just what it is man seeks. In fact, every man seeks many things, many satisfactions, and whatever it may be that Man in the abstract seeks, individual men differ very decidedly not only as to what they seek but as to what should be sought.
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 formulae to work.
Food must be bought or produced, and this involves cooperation, 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 die than violate the established standards in such matters.[1] Thus to the simple act of eating, to the satisfaction of a primitive desire set up by a primitive need, there are any number of obstacles set up by the complexities of our social existence. The sanction of these obstacles, their power to influence us, rests in other desires and purposes arising out of other "needs" of our nature. What are those needs? They are inherent in what has been called the social instincts, in that side of our nature which makes us yearn for approval and swings us into conformity with a group. The group organizes the activities of its individuals just as an individual organizes his activities. The evolutionists explain this group feeling as part of the equipment necessary for survival. Perhaps this is an adequate account of the situation, but the strength of the social instincts almost lead one to a more mystical explanation, a sort of acceptance of the group as the unit and the individual as an incomplete fragment.
[1] 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.
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 be that in some of these we are dealing with a powerful inhibition of appetite of the kind seen in anhedonia.
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,[1] though she may wear a bathing suit without reproach.
[1] This is, of course, not quite so true in 1921 as in 1910.
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 as to operate as a unit. A permanent excitability of these nervous centers as a unit is engendered, and these are easily aroused either by a stimulus from the body or from without. Thus the sex impulse arises directly from tensions within the sex organs but is built up and elaborated by approval of and admiration for beauty, strength and intelligence, by the desire for possession and mastery, by competitive feeling, until it may become drawn out into the elaborate purpose of marriage or the family.
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 in some mysterious manner, but no more mysterious than life, instinct or intelligence are. These excitements struggle for the possession of an outlet in action, and this is what we call competing desires, struggle against temptation, etc.
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 father lie dormant all the judgments of the time on the conduct and guiding motives of the little one.
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 from the inert whose energy is low to the dynamic types that are ever busy and ever seeking more to do.
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 and belief have their origin when, at the mother's breast, the child separates its mother from the rest of the things of the world. And not only in the relief of hunger is the mother active, but she gets to be associated with the relief from wet and irritating clothes, the pleasant bath, and the pleasure of the change of position that babies cry for. Her bosom and her arms become sources of pleasure, and the race has immortalized them as symbolic of motherhood, in song, in story and in myth.
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[1] 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 monkeys in a cage squat together, rubbing sides and elbows. The home in which our child finds himself, though a social institution, is not gregarious; it gives him only a limited contact, and as soon as he is able and self-reliant he seeks out a little herd, and on the streets, in the schoolroom and playground, he really becomes a happy little herd animal.
[1] 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.
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,"[1] 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!"
[1] 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.
At any rate, the organization of activity for definite purposes starts. The little investigator is apparently obsessed with the idea that everything it can reach, including its fingers and toes, are good to eat, for everything reached is at once brought to the mouth, the primitive curiosity thus being gustatory. In this research the baby finds that some few things are pleasant, many indifferent and quite a few disgusting and even painful, which may remain as a result not far different from that obtained by investigation in later years. The desire for pleasant things commences to guide its activities. Every new thing is at once an object for investigation, perhaps because its possibilities for pleasure are unknown. That curiosity may have some such origin is at least a plausible statement. At any rate, desire of a definite type steps in to organize the mere desire for activity; and impulse is controlled by purpose.
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, roues, 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 hotter than he supposed, has been under the table and bumped his head, has found an unusually sweet white lump which in later life he will call sugar. The good child is often without sufficient curiosity to be bad, whereas the bad child may be an overzealous seeker of experience.
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 a factor in the development of character of which we have already spoken, a group of desires that have their source in the emotional response of the child to the parent, in the emotional response of an individual to his group. Out of the social pressure arises the desire to please, to win approval, to get justification, and these struggle in the mind of the child with other desires.
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 world with laid-down beliefs and with explanations of one kind or another for everything. His group differs from other groups in its explanations and beliefs; his family even may be peculiar in these matters. He asks, he is answered and enjoined to believe. Without credulity there could be no organization of society, no rituals, no ceremonials, no religions and customs,--but without the questioning spirit there could be no progress. Most of the men and women of this world have much credulity and only a feeble questioning tendency, but there are a few who from the start subject the answers given them to a rigid scrutiny and who test belief by results. Let any one read the beliefs of savages, let him study the beliefs of the civilized in the spirit in which he would test the statement of the performance of an automobile, and he can but marvel at man's credulity. Belief and the acceptance of authority are the conservative forces of society, and they have their origin in the nursery when the child asks, "Why does the moon get smaller?" and the mother answers, "Because, dear, God cuts a piece off every day to make the stars with." The authorities, recognizing that their power lay in unquestioning belief, have always sanctified it and made the pious, non-skeptical type the ideal and punished the non-believer with death or ostracism. Fortunately for the race, the skeptic, if silenced, modifies the strength of the belief he attacks and in the course of time even they who have defended begin to shift from it and it becomes refuted. Beliefs, as Lecky[1] so well pointed out, are not so of ten destroyed as become obsolete.
[1] Lecky: "History of European Morals." As he points out, the belief in witchcraft never was disproved, it simply died because science made it impossible to believe that witches could disorganize natural laws.
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 role 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 directions, that we tend to be as tall as our top hats and as penetrating as our walking sticks, that the man who has a club in his hand has a tactile sense to the very end of the club. James in his marvelous chapter on the various selves points out that a man's interests and affections are his selves, and that they enclose one another like the petals of a rose. We may speak of unipetalar selves, who include only their own bodies in self-feeling; of bipetalar selves who include in it their families, and from there on we go to selves who include their work, their community, their nation, until we reach those very rare souls whose petals cover all living things. So men extend their self-feeling, if ambitious, to their work, to their achievements,--if paternal to their children; if domestic, to wife and home; if patriotic to the nation, etc. Development lies in the extension of the self-feeling and in the increase of its intensity. But the obstacle lies in the competitive feelings, in that dualism of man's nature that makes him yearn not only for fellowship, but also for superiority. These desires are in eternal opposition, but are not necessarily antagonistic, any more than are the thumb and the little finger as they meet in some task, any more than are excitation and inhibition. Every function in our lives has its check and balance, and fellowship, yearning and superiority urge one another.
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 really seek the good, that I am really good, though perhaps I seem not to be." The child who hurts its thumb runs to its mother for sympathy, and the pain is compensated for, at least in part, by that sympathy. Throughout life we desire sympathy for our hurts, except where that sympathy brings with it a feeling of inferiority. To be helped by others in one way or another is the practical result of this aspect of fellowship.
(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 praise. To be generous and charitable becomes method for the extension of fellowship.
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 meant to appeal to the conscience of the one who has wounded them. On the other hand, there are those whose feeling of self sustains them in the face of most criticism, who depend largely upon the established mentor within themselves and who seek to conform to the rulings of that inward mentor. Such people, if not martyred too soon, and if possessed of a fruitful ideal, lay new criteria for praise and blame.
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 rivals and enemies and bitterly resist any effort to strip away our own, often enough hiding it successfully from ourselves. There are few who face boldly their own egoism, and their sincerity is often admired. Indeed, the frank child is admired because his egoism is refreshing, i. e., he offers no problem to the observer. Out of the uneasiness that we feel in the presence of dissimulation and insincerity has arisen the value we place on sincerity, frankness and honesty. To be accused of insincerity or dishonesty of motive and act is fiercely resented.
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, or taste or spirit. Wine and women, pictures and beautiful things, leisure for research and contemplation,--money buys any and all of these, and as the symbol of all kinds of value, as the symbol of all kinds of power, it is sought assiduously by all kinds of men.
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. "Because when one of my brothers took sick and was in dire need, I who loved him could not help. I had no money, and all my monographs put together could not help him buy a meal. There is a cousin of ours, who has grown rich running a cheap moving-picture house, where the taste of the community is debauched every day. He lent my brother two thousand dollars out of his superfluities; it involved no sacrifice to him, for he purchased a third car at the same time--and yet HE is our savior. Love alone is a torture. I am going to get money."
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, by the superiority and service that come in the work of teacher, priest, physician, scientist, philosopher and philanthropist, and those that seek superiority and power in wealth, station and influence. Those who, will fellowship and those who will power is a short way of putting it, the idealists and the practical is another. Fellowship is built up on sympathy, pity, friendliness and the desire to help others; it is essentially democratic, and in it runs the cooperative activities of man. For it is not true that "competition is the life of trade"; cooperation is its life. Men dig ore in mines, others transport their produce, others smelt it and work it into shape, according to the designs and plans of still other men; then it is transported by new groups and marketed by an endless chain of men whose labors dovetail to the end that mankind has a tool, a habitation or an ornament. The past and present cooperate in this labor, as do the remote ends of the earth. Competition is the SPUR of trade; its mighty sinews, its strong heart and stout lungs are cooperative.
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 good, provided it does not injure fellowship. One must not, however, be misled by words; duty, service, fellowship come as often to the lips of the selfish as the unselfish.
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 public eye as conspicuous victims, notoriety has been mistaken for fame by those desperate for public attention. To be superior some way, even if only in crime and foolishness, brings about an immense amount of laughable and deplorable conduct to which only a Juvenal could do justice. The world yields to superiority such immense tribute that to obtain recognition as superior becomes a dominant motive. How that superiority is to be reached presents great difficulties, and the problem is solved according to the character of the individual.
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 democ-racy in belief, opinion and ideal. The mass must always lag behind the leaders, since it takes a generation or two for the ideas of the old leaders to permeate any society. Now and then a great leader finds a great following in his own lifetime, but his leadership rarely involves a new principle. There will always be a few ground breakers, behind them a few straggling followers, and far, far behind, the great mass of mankind.
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 conventional ways of doing things, as the way of living, the tipping of the hat, the form of greetings, the way of eating, but these conventions have great value to the majority of people as evidencing breeding and training or the lack (superiority or inferiority), and also as removing doubt and choice, so that things run smoothly and without contradiction. In a more noble sense, manners and courtesy prescribe conduct in order to proscribe offense to the self-valuation of others. Convention says, "Address people as if they were your equals at least; don't contradict brusquely because that implies their inferiority or stupidity; avoid too controversial topics since bitterness and humiliation may thus arise; do not notice defects or disabilities for the same reason; do not brag or be too conspicuous, since to boast of superiority is to imply the inferiority of others, and they will dislike you," etc. We tend to dislike and hate those who make us feel inferior, except under those special circumstances where sex-love, awe and admiration enter to make a certain inferiority desirable or befitting. So a large part of manners and courtesy concern themselves with the formulae of conduct which avoid this result to others, and we are also enjoined to conduct ourselves so that others will not regard us as inferior. We speak of a man as a "low person" if he eats with his knife, and very few things so humiliate us as the knowledge that we have behaved in an unmannerly way. One of the great purposes, then, is to be conventional, to behave, dress and "look" according to an accepted standard, one that is laid down for age, sex and social station. There are people to whom convention is truly almost holy, and true to our principle of variability, there are others who hate convention.
Because many writers have shot shafts of satire and ridicule at convention and custom, and because of the enormous reading public, the artificial nature of convention has been emphasized to that large part of the community that desires to be different merely for the sake of being different, and there is built up a conventional unconventionality. It has become the mark of the artist, the great in spirit, to be unconventional (at least in novels), and so there are a hundred "unconventional" poseurs to one genuinely free in spirit. Anything that becomes a dogma or a cult is not unconventional, for it is the standard or the custom of a group. Most Bohemians, so-called, are poseurs and conventionalized to their marrow. And most of the really unconventional are "freaks," "odd sticks" whose grotesque individualities cannot conform. But in the mass of the unconventional one finds here and there, like nuggets of gold in sand, the true reformers of the world.
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 them the feeling of superiority. Flattery, cajolement, humble supplication and the finer maneuvers of tact, all have this in mind. These however are palatable to the intelligent only when felt to be sincere and when emanating from some one more or less esteemed, though there are plenty who "fall" for the grossest flattery from almost any one, whose ego feeling is easily inflated with a corresponding shrinking in judgment and common sense. In the relations of men and women, flattery in one shape or another plays an enormous role --from the effect on women of the statement or implication in a subtle or gross way that they are charming, and the effect on men of acknowledged superiority in strength courage or intelligence. Of course, in both cases the effect is partly in the physical attractiveness of the flatterer and tends to become ridiculous when he or she is without charm. The simpering language that is irresistible when uttered by a starry-eyed maid of eighteen loses somewhat in beauty and effect when emanating from the lips of bespectacled forty. The power to use and the power to resist flattery in any of its forms have played almost as great a role in the history of the race as strength, beauty or intelligence.
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. Even when secretly convinced that they are wrong, husbands and wives will continue to insist on victory, for too often the domestic relationship is a struggle for leadership and dominance rather than a partnership and a conference. Two heads are better than one when the intelligence within the heads is of good grade and when the desire for superiority does not take trivial directions. And the effect of yielding to the whims of children is to develop an irritable, domineering egoism bent on having its own way, resisting reasonable compromise or correction. The greatest benefit of discipline and above all of contact with equals to a child is in the effect on this phase of egoism, i. e., that cooperation means compromise; to be reasonable implies listening with respect to others' plans and to accept better ways of doing things, even if they have originated with others; in other ways the subordinating of trivial egoism. The large families of other days offered the conflict of wills and its consequent lesson within the home; to-day the solitary child, or the one whose brother or sister is three, four or five years younger or older must go into the streets to obtain this discipline or else go without. The indulged have this form of inferior egoism more than do those who have been roughly handled, and so it is more common in women of the better-to-do classes and in men who have always exercised authority. It is of course found in what is known as the stubborn person, --he whose will is law to himself and who seeks to make it law to others. Ordinarily the stubborn person is merely a nuisance, but also, if he couples that stubbornness with intelligence and some especial ability, he may reach great heights, though he is seldom popular.
A sub-form of having one's own way is the adherence to one's own "opinion." The clash of opinions is in its noblest aspect the basis of knowledge; the correction of opinion that results when man meets man is the growth of tolerance and urbanity. Wide reading, travel and experience teach us that our opinions can never be absolutely right, and we grow to look upon them in a detached sort of way. In fact, the prime result of the growth of intelligence and of experience is to make one, as it were, objective toward oneself, to view one's own thoughts, beliefs and emotions with some humor and skepticism. But the uncultured, the narrow, the inexperienced, the young and the strongly egotistic never detach themselves from their opinions, and their opinions are themselves. Attack an opinion, contradict or amend it,--and a sort of fighting spirit is aroused. Argument differs from discussion in that it seeks all means to win--ridicule, sophistry, and personal attack --and it is by far the more common. There was a time when opinion was entirely enslaved, when only the ruler might venture on a new belief or its expression; then there came a time when the right to freedom of opinion and its expression was conceded, and now, with huge forces confronting one another, freedom of opinion[1] is again threatened. But that is an issue larger than our subject.
[1] The most profound contribution to the subject of discussion and freedom of opinion in recent years has been written by Walter Lippman in the Atlantic Monthly, September, 1920.
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, and there are others to which we are indifferent. There are those who feel it incumbent on themselves to contradict any opinion, even if they agree fundamentally with it. The mere fact that some one else gave it utterance arouses a sort of jealousy. Then there are others who will not permit any opinion of their own to be discussed, to whom it is a personal affront to do this. What we call urbanity is tolerance of other opinions; what we call reasonableness is the willingness to change opinions if convinced. What we call vacillation is to have no fixed opinion, to be influenced at once by the opinions of others. The pleasure sought in argument is a victory for our opinions and thus for ourselves.
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 it any ideal of service or of help, though beauty in the abstract is an ideal of high value. To desire to be beautiful physically as a leading aim usually leads to selfishness and petty vanity. As a subsidiary aim it balances character, but unfortunately, as we have before seen, it is inculcated as a primary aim early in the life of a girl. True, men seek to be beautiful in a masculine way, but the goal of masculine beauty is strength, which is directly serviceable. This is not to say that there are no men who are vain of their good looks, for there are many. But only occasionally does one find a man who organizes his life efforts to be beautiful, who establishes criteria of success or failure on complexion, hair, features of face and lines of figure. So long, therefore, as woman can obtain power through beauty and sex appeal, so long may we expect a trivial trend in her character.
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 our hypothetical adolescent, for here is where individual reaction and individual situations are too varied to be met with in one case. Some do not inhibit their sex desires at all; others resist now and then, others yield occasionally; still others remain faithful to the ideal. Some drop the conventional ideal and replace with unconventional substitutes, some resist at great cost to themselves, and others find no difficulty in resisting what is no temptation at all to them. Passion, resistance, opportunity, training and sublimation differ as remarkably as nuns differ from prostitutes.
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, father, worker in some definite field of industry; ambition becomes narrowed down to the possibilities or is entirely discarded as hopeless. The character becomes a collection of habits, with some controlling purpose and some characteristic relaxations. This at least is true of the majority of men. Here and there are those who have not been able to form a unification even along such simple lines; they are without steady habits, derelicts morally, financially and socially, or if with means independent of personal effort they are wastrels and idlers. And again there are the doers and thinkers of the world, the fortunate, whose lives are associated with successful purposes, whose ambitions grow and grow until they reach the power of which they dreamed. There are the reformers living in a fever heat of purpose, disdaining rest and relaxation, dangerously near fanaticism and not far from mental unbalance, but achieving through that unbalance things the balanced never have the will to attempt. He who works merely to get rich or powerful or to provide food for his family cannot understand the zealots who see the world as a place where SOMETHING MUST happen,--where slavery MUST be abolished, women MUST have votes, children MUST go to school until sixteen, prostitution MUST disappear, alcohol MUST be prohibited, etc. Such people miss the pretty, pleasant relaxing joys of life, but they gain in intensity of life what they lose in diffuseness.
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 the disappearance of moral control where one least expected it. And one of the greatest tragedies of our times occurred when an elderly statesman, on the brink of arterial disease of the brain, lost the strength and firmness of purpose that hitherto had characterized him. One of the worst features of the government of nations is the predominance of old men in the governing bodies. For not only are they apt to have over-intellectualized life, not only have they become specialists in purpose and therefore narrow, but the atrophy of the passions and desires of youth and middle life has rendered them unfit to legislate for the bulk of the race, who are the young and middle-aged. It is no true democracy where old age governs the rest of the periods of life.
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 egoistic desires and purposes. "I feel two natures struggling within me" is the epitome of every man's life. This is what has been called conflict by the psychoanalysts, and my own disagreement with them is that I believe it to be distinctly conscious in the main. A man knows that the pretty young girls he meets tempt him from his allegiance to his wife and his desires to be good; a woman knows that the prosaic husband no longer pleases, and why he does not please,--only if you ask either of them bluntly and directly they will deny their difficulties. The organic activities of the body, basic in desire of all kinds, are crude and give rise to crude forbidden wishes, but the struggle that goes on is repressed, rebelled against and gives rise to trains of secondary symptoms,--fatigue, headache, indigestion, weariness of life and many other complaints. It is perfectly proper to complain of headache, but it is a humiliation to say that you have chosen wrongly in marriage, or that you are essentially polygamous, or that an eight-hour day of work at clerking or bookkeeping disgusts and bores you. People complain of that which is proper and allows them to maintain self-respect, but they hide that which may lower them in the eyes of others. Gain their confidence, show that you see deeper than their words and you get revelations that need no psychoanalytic technique to elicit and which are distinctly conscious.
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 a traditional bee flitting from the rose to rose of desire. (Only the bee is a decidedly purposive creature, out for business not pleasure.) "Why all this striving and self-control?" cries the unorganized in all of us. "Why build up when Death tears down?" cries the pessimist in our hearts. Great epochs in history are marked by different answers to these questions, and in our own civilization there has grown up a belief that bodily pleasure in itself is wrong, that life is vanity unless yoked to service and effort. The Puritan idea that we best serve God in this way has been modified by a more skeptical idea that we serve man by swinging our efforts away from bodily pleasure and toward work, organized to some good end; but essentially the idea of inhibition, control, as the highest virtue, remains. Such an ideal gains force for a time, then grows too wearisome, too extreme, and a generation grows up that throws it off and seeks pleasure frankly; paints, powders, dances, sings, develops the art of "living," indulges the sense; becomes loose in morals, and hyperesthetic and over-refined in tastes. Then the ennui, boredom and disgust that always follow sensual pleasures become diffuse; happiness cannot come through the seeking of pleasure and excitement and anhedonia of the exhausted type arises. Preachers, prophets, seers and poets vigorously proclaim the futility of pleasure, and the happiness of service; inhibition comes into its own again and a Puritan cycle recommences. Stoic, epicurean; Roman republic, Roman empire; Puritan England, Restoration; Victorian days, early twentieth century; for to-day we are surging into an era of revolt against form, custom, tradition; in a word against inhibition.
As with periods, so with people; self-indulgence, i. e., indulgence of the passing desires, follows the idealism of adolescence. Youth sows its wild oats. Then the steadying purposes appear partly because the pleasure of indulgence passes. Marriage, responsibility, straining effort mark the passing of ten or a dozen years; then in middle life, and often before, things get flat and without savor, monotony creeps in and a curiosity as to the possibilities of pleasure formerly experienced is awakened. (I believe that most of the sexual unfaithfulness in men and women over thirty springs not from passion but from curiosity.)
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 state that strenuous purpose must alternate with quiet relaxation; excitement is to be sought only at periods and never for any length of time; relief from inhibitions can only be found in legitimate ways or self-reproach enters. Play, sports, short frequent vacations rather than long ones, freedom from ceremony as a rule--but now and then a full indulgence in ceremonials--and a realization that there is no freedom in self-indulgence.
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 circumstances. That is to say, he must continually adjust himself to the unforeseen, the obstacle, the favoring circumstance; the possible and impossible; the certain and uncertain. Adjustment to reality is what the neurologists call it, but they do not define reality, which indeed cannot be defined. It is not the same thing for any two persons. For some reality is success, for others it is virtue. The scientist smiles at the reality of the love-sick girl, and she would think his reality a bad dream. The artist says, "Beauty is the reality"; the miser says, "Cash"; the sentimentalist answers, "None of this but Love"; and the philosopher, aloof from all these, defines reality as "Truth." And the skeptic asks, "What is Truth?" We gain nothing by saying a man must adjust himself to reality; we say something definite when we say he must adjust his wishes to his abilities, to the opposing wills, wisher, and abilities of others; to the needs of his family and his country; to disease, old age and death; to the flux of the river of life. In the quickness of adjustment we have a great character factor; in the farsightedness of adjustment (foreseeing, planning) we have another. Does a man take his difficulties with courage and good cheer does he make the "best of it" or is he plunged into doubt and indecision by obstacles or complications? Is he calm, cool, collected, well poised, in that he watches and works without too much emotion and maintains self-feeling against adversity? We say a man is self-reliant when he finds in himself resources against obstacles and does not call on his neighbors for help. We would do well to extend the term to the one whose fund of courage, hope, energy and resource springs largely from within himself; who resists the forces that reduce courage, hope and energy. A higher sort of man not only supplies himself with the energetic factors of character, but he inspires, as we say, others; he is a sort of bank of these qualities, with high reserves which he gives to others. Contrast him with those whose cry constantly is "Help, help." Charming they may be as ornaments, but they deplete the treasury of life for their associates and are only of value as they call out the altruism of others.
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 of the life around him, out of the experience of the race and the teaching of its leaders come ideals. Good, Beauty, Justice,--these are good deeds, beautiful things, true and non-contradictory expressions, just acts raised to the divine and absolute, and therefore worshiped. And their opposite, arising from evil deeds, ugly and disgusting things, misleading experiences and suffering, become unified into various forms of Evil. Life becomes divided into two parts, Good and Evil, and personified (by the great majority) into God and the Devil. Man seeks the Good, hates Evil, esteems himself when he conforms to the ideal, loathes himself when he violates it. He cannot judge himself; he wishes to know the judgment of others and accepts or rejects that judgment.
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.