The Foundations of Personality by Abraham Myerson (color ebook reader .TXT) 📕

for the essence of the belief in immortality is to transfer hope

and success from the tangle of this world to the clear,

untroubled heavenly other world.

2. Here we must consider other, related qualities. The office of

intelligence is to adjust man to a complex world, to furnish

pathways to a goal which instinct perhaps chooses. Suppose a goal

reached,—say marriage is entered upon with the one that we think

is to give us that satisfaction and happiness we long for. The

marriage does not so result, either because we have expected too

much, or because the partner falls below a reasonable

expectation, or because contradictory elements in the natures of

the wedded pair cannot be reconciled. Unity is not reached;

disunion results, almost, let us say, from the very start. What

happens?

Many adjustments may take place. A crude one is that the pair,

after much quarreling, decide to separate or become divorced, or

on a still cruder, ignoble level, one or the other runs away,

deserts the family. A common adjustment, of an antisocial kind,

forms the basis of much of modern and ancient literature; the

partners seek compensation elsewhere, enter into illicit love

affairs and maintain a dual existence which rarely is peaceful or

happy. Indeed, the nature of the situation, with outraged

conscience and fear of exposure, prevents happiness.

But there are those who in such a situation do what is known as

“make the best of it.” They avoid quarrels, they keep up the

pretense of affection, they seek to discover the good qualities

in the mate; they are, as we say, resigned to the situation. To

be resigned is to accept an evil with calmness and equanimity,

but without energy. Resignation and courage are closely related,

though the former is a rather pallid member of the family. The

poor and the miserable everywhere practise this virtue; the

church has raised it perforce to the most needed of qualities; it

is a sort of policy of nonresistance to the evils of the world

and one’s own lot.

But resignation represents only one type of legitimate

adjustment, of sublimation. By sublimation is meant the process

of using the energy of a repressed desire and purpose for some

“higher” end. Thus in the case of domestic unhappiness the man

may plunge himself deeply into work and even be unconscious of

the source of his energy. This type of adjustment is thus a form

of compensation and is seen everywhere. In the case of many a

woman who gives herself over to her children without stint you

may find this sublimation against the disappearance of romance,

even if no actual unhappiness exists. Where a woman is childless,

perforce and not per will, an intense communal activity often

develops, leading to good if that activity is intelligent,

leading to harm if it is not. For sublimation develops the crank

and pest as well as the reformer. In every half-baked reform

movement you find those who are striving to sublimate for a

thwarted instinct or purpose.[1]

[1] The historian, Higginson, put it well when he said

substantially, “There is a fringe of insanity around all reform.”

Sublimation is the mark of the personality that will not admit

defeat even to itself. The one who does admit defeat becomes

resigned or seeks illicit compensation,—other men, other women,

drink. Freud and his followers believe that the neurasthenic or

hysteric is striving to find compensation through his symptoms or

that he seeks to fly from the situation that way. I believe that

the symptoms of the neurasthenic and hysteric often find a use in

this way, but are not caused by an effort for compensation. That

is, a neurasthenic may learn that his or her pains or aches give

advantages in sympathy, relief from hard tasks or disagreeable

situations; that they cover up or are an excuse for failure and

inferiority,—but the symptoms arise originally from defects in

character or because of the physical and social situation.

Nevertheless, it is well to keep in mind, when dealing with the

“nervous,” that often enough their weaknesses are related to

something they may gain through them. This I have called

elsewhere “Will to power through weakness,” and it is as old as

Adam and Eve. The weak have their wills and their weapons as have

the strong.

The highest sublimation, in the face of an insuperable obstacle

to purpose or an inescapable life situation, finds a socially

useful substitute in philanthropy, kindness, charity, achievement

of all sorts; the lowest seeks it in a direct but illicit

compensation for the self and in a way that merely increases the

social and personal confusion; and a pathological sublimation in

part, at least, manifests itself iii sickness. These are the

three leading forms, but it must be remembered that there are no

pure types in character; a man may sublimate nobly when his

domestic happiness is threatened but cheat when his business

purposes are blocked; a woman may compensate finely for

childlessness but “go all to pieces” because hair is growing on

her face and the beauty she cherishes must go. Contradictions of

all sorts exist, and he is wise who does not expect too great

consistency from himself or others.

3. “Man,” says Hocking, “can prolong the vestibule of his desire

through infinity.” By the vestibule of desire this philosopher

means the deferring of satisfaction for any impulse or desire. We

love, but we can wait for love’s fulfillment; we desire

achievement, but we can work and watch the approach of our goal.

Something we desire is directly ahead, almost in our reach,—

fame, love, riches, vindication, anything you please from the

sensuous to the sublime satisfaction; and then an obstacle, a

delay, appears, and the vestibule is lengthened out. A man may

even plan for the satisfaction he can never hope to have, and in

his greatest ideal that vestibule reaches through eternity.

That quality which enables a man to work and wait, to stand the

deferring of hope and desire, is patience. The classic figure of

patience sitting on a monument is wrong, for she must sit on the

eager desires of man. Nor is patience only the virtue of the good

and farseeing, for we find patience in the rogue and schemer.

Altruists may be patient or impatient, and so may be the selfish.

Like most of the qualities, patience is to be judged by the

company it keeps.

Nevertheless, the impatient are very often those of small

purposes and are rarely those of great achievement. For all great

purposes have to be spread over time, have to overcome obstacles,

and these must be met with courage and patience. Impatience is

fussiness, fretfulness and a prime breeder of neurasthenia.

Patience is realistic, and though it may seek perfection it puts

up with imperfection as a part of human life. But here I am

drifting into an error against which I warned the reader,—of

making an entity of a conception. People are patient or

impatient, but not necessarily throughout. There are men and

women who fuss and fume over trifles who never falter or fret

when their larger purposes are blocked or deferred. Some cannot

stand detail who plan wisely and with patience. Vice versa, there

are meticulous folk, little people, whose petty obstacles are met

with patience and cheerfulness, who revel in minute detail, but

who want returns soon and cannot wait a long time. We are not to

ask of any man whether he is patient but rather what does he

stand or do patiently? What renders him impatient?

A form of impatience of enormous social importance is that which

manifests itself in cure-alls. A man finds that his will

overcomes some obstacles. Eager to apply this, he announces that

will cures all ills. Impatient of evil, men seek to annihilate it

by denying its existence or by loudly chanting that good thoughts

will destroy it. These are typical impatient solutions in the

sphere of religion; in the sphere of economics men urge

nationalization, free trade, socialism or laissez faire, or some

law or other to change social structure and human nature. War

itself is the most impatient and consequently most socially

destructive method of the methods of the treatment of evil.

While patience is a virtue, it may also be a vice. One may bear

wrongs too patiently or defer satisfaction too long. One meets

every day men and women who help injustice and iniquity by their

patience. We are too patient, at least with the wrongs of others;

perhaps we really do not feel this intensely or for any length of

time. In fact, the difficulty with most of the preaching of life

is its essential insincerity, for it counsels patience for that

which it feels but little. We bear the troubles of others, on the

whole, very well. Nevertheless, there are Griseldas everywhere

whom one would respect far more if they rebelled against their

tyrants and taskmasters. Organized wrong and oppression owe their

existence mainly to the habitual patience of the oppressed. To be

meek and mild and long-suffering in a world containing plenty of

egoists and cannibalistic types is to give them supremacy.[1] We

admire patience only when it is part of a plan of action, not

when it is the mark of a passive nature.

[1] Here the ideals of East and West clash. The East, bearing a

huge burden of misery and essentially pessimistic, exhorts

patience. The West, eager and full of hope, is impatient.

4. Because man foresees he wishes. Rather than the reasoning

animal, we might speak of the human being as the wishing animal.

An automatically working instinct would produce no wish. The

image of something which has been experienced arouses an

excitement akin to the secretion of saliva at the thought of

food. The wish which accompanies the excitement is a

dissatisfaction, a tingling, an incomplete pleasurable emotional

state which presses to action. Sensuous pleasure, power,

conformity to the ideal, whatever direction the wish takes, are

sought because of the wish. Right education is to train towards

right wishing.

Because the wish is the prelude to action, it became all powerful

in mythology and superstition. Certain things would help you get

your wishes, others would obstruct them. Wishes became animate

and had power,—power to destroy an enemy, power to help a

friend, power to bring good to yourself. But certain ceremonies

had to be observed, and certain people, magicians and priests had

to be utilized in order to give the wish its power. Wisdom and

magic were mainly the ways of obtaining wishes. Childhood still

holds to this, and prayer is a faith that your wish, if placed

before the All-Mighty, will be fulfilled.

Since wishing brings a pleasurable excitement, it has its

dangers, in the daydream where wishes are fulfilled without

effort. Power, glory, beauty and admiration are obtained; the

ugly Duckling becomes the Swan, Cinderella becomes the Princess,

Jack kills the Giant and is honored by all men; the girl becomes

the beauty and heroine of romance; the boy becomes the Hero,

taking over power, wealth and beauty as his due. The world of

romance is largely the wish-world, as is the most of the stage.

The happy ending is our wish-fulfillment, and only the

sophisticated and highly cultured object to it. Moulding the

world to the heart’s desire has been the principal business of

stage, novel and song.

In the normal relations of life, the wish is the beginning of

will, as something definitely related to a future goal. He who

wishes finds his way to planning and to patient endeavor, IF

training, circumstances and essential character meet. To wish

much is the first step in acquiring much,—but only the first

step. For many it is almost the only step, and in the popular