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

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