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

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.

CHAPTER XII. THE METHODS OF PURPOSE—WORK CHARACTERS

Having asked concerning any person, “What are his purposes?”

whether of power or fellowship, whether permanent or transitory,

whether adjustable or not, we next ask, “How does he seek their

fulfillment?”

“He who wills the end wills the means” is an old saying, but men

who will the same end may will different means. There have been

those who used assassination to bring about reform, and there are

plenty who use philanthropy to hasten their egoistic aims. The

nihilist who throws a bomb to bring about an altruistic state is

own cousin to the ward heeler who gives coal to his poor

constituents so that his grafting rule may continue.

1. There are those who use the direct route of force to reach

their goal of desire and purpose. They attempt to make no nice

adjustments of their wishes to the wishes of others; the

obstacle, whether human or otherwise must get out of their way or

be forcibly removed or destroyed. “A straight line is the

shortest distance between two points,” and there is only one

absolute law,—“the good old rule, the simple plan that they may

take who have the power and they may keep who can.” The

individuals who react this way to obstacles are choleric,

passionate, egoistic and in the last analysis somewhat brutal.

This is especially true if they seek force at first, for with

nearly all of us extreme provocation or desperation brings

direct-action measures.

Conspicuously those accustomed to arbitrary power use this

method. They have grown accustomed to believing that their will

or wish is a cause, able to remove obstacles of all kinds. When

at all opposed the angry reaction is extreme, and they tend to

violence at once. The old-fashioned home was modeled in tyranny,

and the force reaction of the father and husband to his children

and wife was sanctioned by law and custom. The attitude of the

employer to employee, universally in the past and still

prominent, was that of the master, able in ancient times to use

physical punishment and in our day to cut off a man’s livelihood

if he showed any rebellion. In a larger social way War is crude

brute force, and those who delude themselves that the God of

victory is a righteous God have read history with a befoozled

mind. Force, though the world rests on it, is a terrible weapon

and engenders brutality in him who uses it and rebellion, hate

and humiliation in him upon whom it is used. It is an insult to

the dignity and worth of the human being. It must be used for

disciplining purposes only,—on children, on the criminal, and

then more to restrain than to punish. It cannot disappear from

the world, but it should be minimized. Only the sentimentalized

believe it can disappear entirely, only the brutal rejoice in its

use. Force is a crude way of asserting and obtaining superiority;

the gentle hate to use it, for it arouses their sympathy for

their opponent. Whoever preaches force as the first weapon in any

struggle is either deluded as to its value or an enemy of

mankind.

As a non-inhibited response, force and brutality appear in the

mentally sick. General paresis, cerebral arterio-selerosis,

alcoholic psychoses present classical examples of the impatient

brutal reaction, often in men hitherto patient and gentle.

2. Strategy or cunning appears as a second great method of

obtaining the fulfillment of one’s purposes. We all use strategy

in the face of superior or equal power, just as we tend to use

force confronted by inferiority. There is of course a legitimate

use of cunning, but there is also an antisocial trend to it,

quite evident in those who by nature or training are schemers.

The strategist in love, war or business simulates what he does

not feel, is not frank or sincere in his statements and believes

firmly that the end justifies the means. He uses the indirect

force of the lie, the slander, insinuation —he has no aversion

to flattery and bribery—he uses spies and false witnesses. He is

a specialist in the unexpected and seeks to lull suspicion and

disarms watchfulness, waiting for the moment to strike. Sometimes

he weaves so tangled a web that he falls into it himself, and one

of the stock situations in humor, the novel and the stage is

where the cunning schemer falls into the pit he has dug for

others. In his highest aspect he is the diplomat; in his lowest

he is the sneak. People who are weak or cowardly tend to the use

of these methods, but also there is a group of the strong who

hate direct force and rather like the subtler weapons.

The strategist tends to be quite cynical, and his effect on his