Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/87

V. VARIETY OF EXTENT, DEGREE AND UNITY IN SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. BY SOPHIE BRYANT. As one of the many grounds for variety in human nature not the least interesting are the degree and extent to which the self has become conscious of its qualifications, and the unity preserved by self-consciousness as it develops. From the relative self-unconsciousness of three years to the self- consciousness of thirty there are many stages, with possibili- ties of omission, or of breach and confusion at every one. Thus we may expect to find variety, not only in the qualifi- cations of the individual self expressing itself through in- stinct, but in its methods of self-revelation and the effects of that method. The self become conscious is a new factor in life, shaping it not just as the unconscious self does. 1. Effects on character as self -consciousness deepens and spreads. Self-consciousness is the means by which the nexus of in- stinct becomes continuous with the nexus of reason. It is through self-consciousness that reason plays on instinct to modify it, and through the same medium instinct presses for translation into practical ideas maxims of the instinct and thus modifies reason by finding voice in it. In short, without self-consciousness the unity of self and reason could not be complete could not even be an end pursued. Reason would develop as one whole seeking unity ; Instinct would develop as another whole or more probably as a chaos. The two connected together in one life, but not interpenetrating each other, might jog along side by side in fair agreement more or less so long as cir- cumstances did not evolve any serious disparity in the natural bent of each. But if circumstances did occur provoking a conflict between instinct and the practical ideas hitherto accepted as practical wisdom, then either there must be a battle and a defeat, or a solution must be found in which the instinct gets itself accepted as standing