Page:The Conception of God (1897).djvu/318

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SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY BY PROFESSOR ROYCE
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simple or direct, but endlessly repeated fashion. More complex grows the contrast of ego and non-ego when my attention is not merely attracted to the states of my neighbour’s mind as indicated to me in one region of my mental life, and as thus directly contrasted with mine, but is also attracted to the fact that my neighbour is aware of me, has his opinion of me, and is concerned in me very much as I am concerned in him. For now I learn to contrast my neighbour’s view of me, not only with my states as they already exist in me, but also with the view of myself that hereupon, by virtue of my natural vanity, modesty, obstinacy, or plasticity, gets aroused in me as my response to his conceived opinion of me. My neighbour approves me. And now I both note and value myself more. My neighbour dislikes my looks, my actions, my voice, the selfishness of my behaviour. I come also to take note of this view of myself. It arouses a response of resentment, of contempt, of shame, of obstinacy, of desire to reform, or of wish that I were another. And now I am conscious of myself in a very complex and indirect way, as well as by virtue of the direct contrast. My ideal self, the self that I want to be, as well as my real self, begins to emerge in this contest. What I am and what my neighbour is, what I am and what I seem to him to be, what he thinks of me, and what in response I think of him, — all these pairs now contrast. Moreover, I henceforth take note of what I myself aim to be. One may observe, however, that, just in so far as such experiences introduce this ideal element into my idea of myself, they peculiarly tend to give me