Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/96

84 PSYCHOLOGY special sensations and enters, though little suspected, into all our higher feelings. If, as sometimes happens in serious nervous affections, the whole body or any part of it should lose common sensibility, the whole body or that part is at once regarded as strange and even as hostile. In some forms of hypochondria, in which this extreme somatic insensibility and absence of zest leave the intellect and memory unaffected, the individual doubts his own existence or denies it altogether. Ribot cites the case of such a patient who, declaring that he had been dead for two years, thus expressed his perplexity: "J'existe, mais en dehors de la vie reelle, materielle, et, malgre moi, rien ne m'ayant donne la mort. Tout est mecanique chez moi et se fait inconsciemment. ' n It is not because they accompany physiological functions essential to the efficiency of the organism as an organism, but simply because they are the most immediate and most constant sources of feeling, that these massive but ill-defined organic sensations are from the first the objects of the directest and most unreflecting interest. Other objects have at the outset but a mediate interest through subjective selection in relation to these, and never become so instinctively and inseparably identified with self, never have the same inwardness. This brings iis to a new point. As soon as definite perception begins, the body as an extended thing is dis- tinguished from other bodies, and such organic sensations as can be localized at all are localized within it. At the same time the actions of other bodies upon it are accompanied by pleasures and pains, while their action upon each other is not. The body also is the only thing directly set in motion by the reactions of these feelings, the purpose of such movements being to bring near to it the things for which there is appetite and to remove from it those towards which there is aversion. It is thus not merely the type of occupied space and the centre from which all positions are reckoned, but it affords us an unfailing and ever-present intuition of the actu- ally felt and living self, to which all other things are external, more or less distant, and at times absent altogether. The body then first of all gives to self a certain measure of individuality, permanence, and inwardness. But with the development of ideation there arises within this what we may call an inner zone of self, having still more unity and permanence. We have at this stage not only an intuition of the bodily self doing or suffering here and now, but also memories of what it has been and done under varied circumstances in the past. External impressions have by this time lost in novelty and become less absorbing, while the train of ideas, largely increased in number, distinctness, and mobility, diverts attention and often shuts out the things of sense altogether. In all such reminiscence or reverie a generic image of self is the centre, and every new image as it arises derives all its interest from relation to this ; and so apart from bodily appetites new desires may be quickened and old emotions stirred again when all that is actually present is dull and unexciting. But desires and emotions, it must be remembered, though awakened by what is only imaginary, invariably entail actual organic perturbations, and with these the generic image of self comes to be intimately combined. Hence arises a contrast between the inner self, which the natural man locates in his breast or <f>p>fy> t the chief seat of these emotional disturbances, and the whole visible and tangible body besides. Although from their nature they do not admit of much ideal representation, yet, when actually present, these organic sensations exert a powerful and often irresistible in- fluence over other ideas ; they have each their appropriate train, and so heighten in the very complex and loosely compacted idea of self those traits they originally wrought into it, suppressing to an equal extent all the rest. Normally there is a certain equilibrium to which they return, and which, we may suppose, determines the so-called temperament, natural, or disposition, thus securing some tolerable uniformity and continuity in the presentation of self. But even within the limits of sanity great and sudden changes of mood are possible, as, e.g., in hysterical persons or those of a "mercurial temperament," or among the lower animals at the onset of parental or migratory instincts. Beyond those limits as the concomitant apparently of serious visceral derangements or the altered nutrition 01 parts of the nervous system itself complete " alienation " may ensue. A new self may arise, not only distinct from the old and devoid of all save the most elementary know- ledge and skill that the old possessed, but diametrically opposed to it in tastes and disposition, obscenity, it may be, taking the place of modesty and cupidity or cowardice succeeding to generosity or courage. The most convincing illustrations of the psycho- logical growth and structure of the presentation of self on the lower levels of sensation and ideation are furnished by these melancholy spectacles of minds diseased ; but it is impossible to refer to them in detail here. Passing to the higher level of intellection, we come at length upon the concept which every intelligent being more or less dis- tinctly forms of himself as a person, M. or N., having such and such a character, tastes, and convictions, such and such a history, and "Bases affectives de la Personnalite," in Revue philosophique, xviii. p. 149. such and such an aim in life. The main instrument in the forma- tion of this concept, as of others, is language, and especially the social intercourse that language makes possible. Up to this point the presentation of self has shaped that of not-self, that is to say, external things have been comprehended by the projection of its characteristics. But now the order is in a sense reversed : the indi- vidual advances to a fuller self-knowledge by comparing the self within with what is first discernible in other persons witliout. So far avant I'homme cst la socitM ; it is through the " us " that we learn of the " me " (comp. p. 75 note 1 ). Collective action for common ends is of the essence of society, and in taking counsel together for the good of his tribe each one learns also to take counsel with himself for his own good on the whole ; with the idea of the common weal arises the idea of happiness as distinct from momentary gratification. The extra-regarding impulses are now confronted by a reasonable self-love, and in the deliberations that thus ensue activity attains to its highest forms, those of thought and volition. In the first we have a distinctly active manipulation of ideas as compared with the more passive spectacle of memory and imagination. Thereby emerges a contrast between the thinker and these objects of his thought, including among them the mere generic image of self, from which is now formed this conception of self as a person. A similar, even sharper, contrast also accompanies the exercise of what is very misleadingly termed "self-control," i.e., control by this personal self of "the various natural affections," to use Butler's phrase, which often hinder it as external objects hindered them. It is doubtful whether the reasoning, regulating self is commonly regarded as definitely localized. The effort of thinking and concen- trating attention upon ideas is no doubt referred to the brain, but this is only comparable with the localization of other efforts in the limbs ; when we think we commonly feel also, and the emotional basis is of all the most subjective and inalienable. If we speak of this latest phase of self as par excellence "the inner self" such language is then mainly figurative, inasmuch as the contrasts just described are contrasts into which spatial relations do not enter. The term "reflexion" or internal perception is applied to that state Self-c of mind in which some particular presentation or group of presenta- scions tions (x or y) is not simply in the field of consciousness but there as ness, consciously related to self, which is also presented at the same time. Self here may be symbolized by M, to emphasize the fact that it is in like manner an object in the field of consciousness. The relation of the two is commonly expressed by saying, " This (x or y) is my (M's) percept, idea, or volition ; I (M) it is that perceive, think, will it." Self-consciousness, in the narrowest sense, as when we say, " I know myself, I am conscious that I am," &c., is but a special, though the most important, instance of this internal perception : here self (M) is presented in relation to self (with a difference, M') ; the subject itself at least so we say is or appears as its own object. It has been often maintained that the difference between con- sciousness and reflexion is not a real difference, that to know and to know that you know are " the same tlimg considered in different aspects." 2 But different aspects of "iiie same thing are not the same thing, for psychology at least. Not only is it not the same thing to feel and to know that you feel ; but it might even be held to be a different thing still to know that you feel and to know that you know that you feel, such being the difference perhaps between ordinary reflexion and psychological introspection.^ The difficulty of apprehending these facts and keeping them distinct seems obvi- ously due to the necessaiy presence of the earlier along with the later ; that is to say, we can never know that we feel without feel- ing. But the converse need not be true. How distinct the two states are is shown in one way by their notorious incompatibility, the direct consequence of the limitation of attention : whatever we have to do that is not altogether mechanical is ill done unless we lose ourselves in the doing of it. This mutual exclusiveness receives a further explanation from the fact so often used to dis- credit psychology, viz., that the so-called introspection and indeed all reflexion are really retrospective. It is not while we are angry or lost in reverie that we take note of such states, but afterwards, or by momentary side glances intercepting the main interest, if this be not too absorbing. But we require an exacter analysis of the essential fact in this retrospect the relation of the presentation x or y to that of self or M. What we have to deal with, it will be observed, is, implicitly at least, a judgment. First of all, then, it is noteworthy that we are never prompted to such judgments by every-day occurrences or acts of routine, but only by matters of interest, and, as said, gener- 2 So misled possibly by the confusions incident to a special faculty of reflexion, which they controvert James Mill, Analysis, i. p. 224 sq. (corrected, however, by both his editors, pp. 227 and 230), and also Hamilton, Lect., i. p. 192. 3 It has been thought a fatal objection to this view that it implies the possi- bility of an indefinite regress ; but why should it not? We reach the limit of our experience in reflexion or at most in deliberate introspection, just as in space of three dimensions we reach the limit of our experience in another respect. But there is no absurdity in supposing a consciousness more evolved and explicit than our self-consciousness and advancing on it as it advances on that of the unreflecting brutes.