There have been various philosophies dealing with the purposes of man.
Man seeks this or that--the eternal good, beauty, happiness, pleasure, survival--but
always he is represented as a seeker. A very popular doctrine, Hedonism, now somewhat in
disfavor, represents him as seeking pleasurable, affective states. The difficulty of
understanding the essential nature of pleasure and pain, the fact that what is pleasure to
one man is pain to another, rather discredited this as a psychological explanation. I
think we may phrase the situation fairly on an empirical basis when we say that seeking
arises in instinct but receives its impulse to continuity by some agreeable affective
state of satisfaction. Man steers towards pleasure and satisfaction of some type or other,
but the force is the unbalance of an instinct.
When we speak of man as a seeker, we are not separating him from the rest of living
things. All life seeks, and the more mobile a living thing is the more it seeks. A sessile
mussel chained to a rock seeks little but the fundamentals of nutrition and generation and
these in a simple way. An animal that builds habitations for its young, courts its mate,
plays, teaches and fights, may do nothing more than seek nutrition and generation, but it
seeks these through many intermediary "end" points, through many impulses, and
thus it has many types of satisfaction. When a creature develops to the point that it
establishes all kinds of rules governing conduct, when it establishes sanctions that are
eternal and has purposes that have a terminus in a hereafter which is out of the span of
life of the planner, it becomes quite difficult to say just what it is man seeks. In fact,
every man seeks many things, many satisfactions, and whatever it may be that Man in the
abstract seeks, individual men differ very decidedly not only as to what they seek but as
to what should be sought.
Our viscera, our tissues, as they function, change by the using up of energy and the
breaking down of materials. That change brings about sensory disturbances in our body
which are not unpleasant in moderation, which we call hunger, thirst and fatigue. To
relieve these three primitive states we seek food, drink and rest; we DESIRE food, drink
and rest. Desire then is primitive, organic, arising mainly in the vegetative nervous
system, and it awakens mechanisms that bring us food, drink and rest. A feeling which we
call satisfaction results when the changes in the viscera and tissues are readjusted or on
the way to readjustment. Here is the simplest paradigm for desire seeking satisfaction,
but it is on a plane rarely found in man, because his life is too complicated for such
formulae to work.
Food must be bought or produced, and this involves cooperation, competition,
self-denial, thrift, science, finance, invention. It involves ethics, because though you
are hungry you must not steal food or give improper value for it. Moreover, though you are
hungry, you have developed tastes, manners, etc., and you cannot, must not eat this or
that (through religion); you mast eat with certain implements), and would rather die than
violate the established standards in such matters.[1] Thus to the simple act of eating, to
the satisfaction of a primitive desire set up by a primitive need, there are any number of
obstacles set up by the complexities of our social existence. The sanction of these
obstacles, their power to influence us, rests in other desires and purposes arising out of
other "needs" of our nature. What are those needs? They are inherent in what has
been called the social instincts, in that side of our nature which makes us yearn for
approval and swings us into conformity with a group. The group organizes the activities of
its individuals just as an individual organizes his activities. The evolutionists explain
this group feeling as part of the equipment necessary for survival. Perhaps this is an
adequate account of the situation, but the strength of the social instincts almost lead
one to a more mystical explanation, a sort of acceptance of the group as the unit and the
individual as an incomplete fragment.
[1] The Sepoy Rebellion had its roots in a food taboo, and Mussulman, Hebrew and Roman
Catholic place a religious value on diet. Most of the complexities of existence are of our
own creation.
What is true of hunger is true of thirst and fatigue. Desires in these directions have
to accommodate themselves, in greater or lesser degrees, to the complexities in which our
social nature and customs have involved us. It is true that desires upon which the actual
survival of the individual depend will finally break through taboo and restriction if
completely balked. That is, very few people will actually starve to death, die of thirst
or keep awake indefinitely, despite any convention or taboo. Nevertheless there are people
who will resist these fundamental desires, as in the case of MacSwiney, the Irish
republican, and as in the case of martyrs recorded in the history of all peoples. It may
be that in some of these we are dealing with a powerful inhibition of appetite of the kind
seen in anhedonia.
The elaboration of the sex impulses and desires into the purposes of marriage, the
repression into lifelong continence and chastity, forms one of the most marvelous of
chapters in the psychological history of man. The desire for sex relationship of the crude
kind is very variable both in force, time of appearance and reaction to discipline and
unquestionably arises from the changes in the sex organs. Both to enhance and repress it
are aims of the culture and custom of each group, and the lower groups have given actual
sexual intercourse a mystical supernatural value that has at times and in various places
raised it into the basis of cults and religions. Repressed, hampered, canalized,
forbidden, the sex impulses have profoundly modified clothes, art, religion, morals and
philosophy. The sex customs of any nation demonstrate the extreme plasticity of human
desires and the various twists, turns and customs that tradition declares holy. There have
been whole groups of people that have deemed any sexual pleasure unholy, and the great
religions still deem it necessary for their leaders to be continent. And the absurdities
of modesty, a modified sex impulse, have made it immoral for a woman to show her leg above
the calf while in her street clothes,[1] though she may wear a bathing suit without
reproach.
[1] This is, of course, not quite so true in 1921 as in 1910.
Whatever a desire is basically, it tends quickly to organize itself in character. It
gathers to itself emotions, sentiments, intelligence; it plans and it wills, it battles
against other desires. I say IT, as if the desire were an entity, a personality, but what
I mean is that the somatic and cerebral activities of a desire become so organized as to
operate as a unit. A permanent excitability of these nervous centers as a unit is
engendered, and these are easily aroused either by a stimulus from the body or from
without. Thus the sex impulse arises directly from tensions within the sex organs but is
built up and elaborated by approval of and admiration for beauty, strength and
intelligence, by the desire for possession and mastery, by competitive feeling, until it
may become drawn out into the elaborate purpose of marriage or the family.
What is the ego that desires and plans? I do not know, but if it is in any part a
metaphysical entity of permanent nature in so far it does not become the subject matter of
this book. For as a metaphysical entity it is uncontrollable, and the object of science is
to discover and utilize the controllable elements of the world. I may point out that even
those philosophers and theologians to whom the ego is an entity of supernatural origin
deny their own standpoint every time they seek to convince, persuade or force the ego of
some one to a new belief or new line of action; deny it every time they say, "I am
tired and I shall rest; then I shall think better and can plan better." Such a
philosopher says in essence, "I have an entity within me totally and incommensurably
different from my body," and then he goes on to prove that this entity operates
better when the body is rested and fed than otherwise!
For us the ego is a built-up structure and has its evolution from the diffuse state of
early infancy to the intense, well-defined state of maturity; it is elaborated by a
process that is in part due to the environment, in part to the inherent structure of man.
We may postulate a continuous excitement of nerve centers as its basis, and this
excitement cognizes other excitement in some mysterious manner, but no more mysterious
than life, instinct or intelligence are. These excitements struggle for the possession of
an outlet in action, and this is what we call competing desires, struggle against
temptation, etc.
Sometimes one desire is identified with the ego as part of itself, sometimes the desire
is contrasted with the ego and we say, "I struggled with the desire but it overcame
me." Common language plainly shows the plurality of the personality, even though the
man on the street thinks of himself as a united "I," even an invisible
"I."
One of the fundamental desires, nay the fundamental desire, is the expansion of the
self, i. e., increased self-esteem. When the infant sprawls in his basket after his
arrival in this world, it is doubtful if he has a "me" which he separates from
the "non-me." Yet that same infant, a few years later, and through the rest of
his life, believes that in his personality resides something immortal, and has as his
prime pleasure the feeling of worth and growth of that personality, and as his worst hurt
the feeling of decay and inferiority of that personality.
Let us watch that infant as it sprawls in its little bed, the darling of a pair of
worshiping parents. In that relationship the child is no solitary individual; society is
there already, watching him, nourishing and teaching him. Already he is in the, hands of
his group who, though seeking his happiness, are nevertheless determined that he shall
obtain it their way. And from then to the end of his life that group will in large measure
offer him the criteria of values, and his self-esteem will, in the majority of cases, rest
upon his idea of their esteem of him. In the brooding mother, in the tender father lie
dormant all the judgments of the time on the conduct and guiding motives of the little
one.
The baby throws his arms about, kicks his legs, rolls his eyes. In these movements
arising from internal activities which, we can only state, relate to vascular
distribution, neuronic relations, visceral and endocrinic activities, is the germ of the
impulse to activity which it is the function of society and the individual himself to
shape into organized useful work. Thus is manifested a native, inherent, potentiality,
which we may call the energy of the baby, the energy of man, a something which the
environment shapes, but which is created in the laboratory of the individual. The father
and mother are delighted with the fine vigorous movements of the child, and there is in
that delight the approval that society always gives or tends to give to manifestations of
power. We tend involuntarily to admire strength, even though misdirected. The strong man
always has followers though he be a villain, and in fact the history of man is to a large
extent based on the fact that the strong man evokes enthusiasm and obedience.
This impulse to activity is an unrest, and its satisfaction lies in movement; in other
words there is a pleasure or a relief in mere activity. The need of discharging energy,
the desire to do so, the pleasure and satisfaction in so doing constitute a cornerstone of
the foundation of life and character. This desire for activity, as we shall call it
henceforth, is behind work and play; it fluctuates with health and disease, with youth and
old age; it becomes harnessed to purpose, it is called into being by motives or inhibited
by conflict and indecision and its organization is the task of society. Men differ in
regard to the desire for activity, with a range from the inert whose energy is low to the
dynamic types that are ever busy and ever seeking more to do.
The child's first movements are aimless, but soon the impressions it receives by
striking hands and feet against soft and hard things bring about a dim knowledge of the
boundaries of itself, and the kinesthetic impulses from joints and muscles help this
knowledge. The outside world commences to separate itself from the "me," though
both are vague and shadowy. Soon it learns that one part of the outside world is able to
satisfy its hunger, to supply a need, and it commences to recognize the existence of
benevolent outside agencies; and it also learns little by little that its instinctive
cries bring these agencies to it. I do not mean that the baby has any internal language
corresponding to the idea of outside agency, benevolence, etc., but it gets to know that
its cries are potent, that a breast brings relief and satisfaction. At first it cries, the
breast comes, there is relief and satisfaction, and it makes no connection or no
connection is made between these events of outer and inner origin. But the connection is
finally made,--desire becomes definitely articulate in the cry of the baby, which thus
becomes a plea and a summons. Anticipation of good to come appears and with it the germ of
hope and forward looking, and there is realization or disappointment, joy or anger or
sorrow. Thus desire is linked up with satisfaction in a definite way, ideas and feelings
of demand and supply begin to appear and perhaps power itself, in the vague notion,
"I can get milk," commences to be felt. Social life starts when the child
associates the mother with the milk, with the desire and the satisfaction. In the
relationship established between mother and baby is the first great social contact; love,
friendship, discipline, teaching and belief have their origin when, at the mother's
breast, the child separates its mother from the rest of the things of the world. And not
only in the relief of hunger is the mother active, but she gets to be associated with the
relief from wet and irritating clothes, the pleasant bath, and the pleasure of the change
of position that babies cry for. Her bosom and her arms become sources of pleasure, and
the race has immortalized them as symbolic of motherhood, in song, in story and in myth.
Not only does he associate the mother with the milk but her very presence brings him
comfort, even when he is not hungry. It is within the first few months of life that the
child shows that he is a gregarious[1] animal,--gregarious in the sense that he is unhappy
away from others. To be alone is thus felt to be essentially an evil, to be with others is
in itself a good. This gregarious feeling is the sine qua non of social life: when we
punish any one we draw away from him; when we reward we get closer to him. All his life
the child is to find pleasure in being with people and unhappiness when away from them,
unless he be one of those in whom the gregarious instinct is lacking. For instincts may be
absent, just as eye pigment is; there are mental albinos, lacking the color of ordinary
human feeling. Or else some experience may make others hateful to him, or he may have so
intellectualized his life that this instinct has atrophied. This gregarious feeling will
heighten his emotions, he will gather strength from the feeling that "others are with
him," he will join societies, clubs, organizations in response to the same feeling
that makes sheep graze on a hillside in a group, that makes the monkeys in a cage squat
together, rubbing sides and elbows. The home in which our child finds himself, though a
social institution, is not gregarious; it gives him only a limited contact, and as soon as
he is able and self-reliant he seeks out a little herd, and on the streets, in the
schoolroom and playground, he really becomes a happy little herd animal.
[1] One of my children would stop crying if some one merely entered his room when he
was three weeks old. He was, and is, an intensely gregarious boy.
Let us turn back to the desire for activity. As the power to direct the eyes develops,
as hands become a little more sure, because certain pathways in brain and cord
"myelinize,"[1] become functional, the outside world attracts in a definite
manner and movements become organized by desires, by purpose. It's a red-letter day in the
calendar of a human being when he first successfully "reaches" something; then
and there is the birth of power and of successful effort. All our ideas of cause and
effect originate when we cause changes in the world, when we move a thing from thither to
yon. No philosopher, though he becomes so intellectualized that he cannot understand how
one thing or event causes another, ever escapes from the feeling that HE causes effects.
Purpose, resistance, success, failure, cause, effect, these become inextricably wound up
with our thoughts and beliefs from the early days when, looking at a dangling string, we
reached for it once, twice, a dozen times and brought it in triumph to our mouth. And our
idea that there were forbidden things came when the watchful mother took it out of our
mouth, saying, "No, no, baby mustn't!"
[1] At birth, though most of the great nervous pathways are laid down, they are
non-functional largely because the fibers that compose them are unclothed, non-myelinated.
The various kinds of tracts have different times for becoming "myelinated" as
was the discovery of the great analogist, Flechsig.
At any rate, the organization of activity for definite purposes starts. The little
investigator is apparently obsessed with the idea that everything it can reach, including
its fingers and toes, are good to eat, for everything reached is at once brought to the
mouth, the primitive curiosity thus being gustatory. In this research the baby finds that
some few things are pleasant, many indifferent and quite a few disgusting and even
painful, which may remain as a result not far different from that obtained by
investigation in later years. The desire for pleasant things commences to guide its
activities. Every new thing is at once an object for investigation, perhaps because its
possibilities for pleasure are unknown. That curiosity may have some such origin is at
least a plausible statement. At any rate, desire of a definite type steps in to organize
the mere desire for activity; and impulse is controlled by purpose.
The child learns to creep, and the delight in progression lies in the fact that far
more things are accessible for investigation, for rearrangement, for tasting. It is no
accident that we speak of our "tastes" that we say, "I want to taste of
experience." That is exactly what the child creeping on the floor seeks,--to taste of
experience and to anticipate, to realize, to learn. Out of the desire for activity grows a
desire for experience born of the pleasure of excitement that we spoke of previously. This
desire for experience becomes built up into strange forms under teaching and through the
results of experience. It is very strong in some who become explorers, roues, vagabonds,
scientists as a result, and it is very weak in others who stay at home and seek only the
safe and limited experience. You see two children in one room,--and one sits in the middle
of the floor, perhaps playing with a toy or looking around, and the other has investigated
the stove and found it hotter than he supposed, has been under the table and bumped his
head, has found an unusually sweet white lump which in later life he will call sugar. The
good child is often without sufficient curiosity to be bad, whereas the bad child may be
an overzealous seeker of experience.
So our child reaching out for things develops ideas of cause, effect and power,
commences to have an idea of himself as a cause and likes the feeling of power. As he
learns to walk, the world widens, his sense of power grows, and his feeling of personality
increases. Meanwhile another side of his nature has been developing and one fully as
important.
The persons in his world have become quite individual; mother is now not alone, for
father is recognized with pleasure as one who likewise is desirable. He carries one on his
shoulder so that a pleasurable excitement results; he plays with one, holds out strings
and toys and other instruments for the obtaining of experience. Usually both of these
great personages are friendly, their faces wear a smile or a tender look, and our little
one is so organized that smiles and tender looks awaken comfortable feelings and he smiles
in return. The smile is perhaps the first great message one human being sends to another;
it says, "See, I am friendly, I wish you well." Later on in the history of the
child, he will learn much about smiles of other kinds, but at this stage they are all
pleasant. Though his parents are usually friendly and give, now and then they deprive, and
they look different; they say, "No, no!" This "no, no" is social
inhibition, it is backed up by the power of deprivation, punishment, disapproval; it has
its power in a something in our nature that gives society its power over us. From now
there steps in a factor in the development of character of which we have already spoken, a
group of desires that have their source in the emotional response of the child to the
parent, in the emotional response of an individual to his group. Out of the social
pressure arises the desire to please, to win approval, to get justification, and these
struggle in the mind of the child with other desires.
We said the child seeks experience,--but not only on his own initiative. The father
stands against the wall, perhaps with one foot crossing the other. Soon he feels a
pressure and looks down; there is the little one standing in his imitation of the same
position. Imitation, in my belief, is secondary to a desire for experience. The child does
not imitate everything; he is equipped to notice only simple things, and these he
imitates. Why? The desire to experience what others are experiencing is a basic desire; it
expresses both a feeling of fellowship and a competitive feeling. We do not feel a strong
tendency to imitate those we dislike or despise, or do not respect, we tend to imitate
those we love and respect, those for whom we have a fellow feeling. Part of the fellow
feeling is an impulse to imitate and to receive in a positive way the suggestion offered
by their conduct and manners.
Analogous to imitation, and part of the social instinct, is a credulity, a willingness
to accept as if personally experienced things stated. Part of the seeking of experience is
the asking of questions, because the mind seeks a cause for every effect, a something to
work from. Indeed, one of the main mental activities lies in the explaining of things; an
unrest is felt in the presence of the "not understood" which is not stilled
until the unknown is referred back to a thing understood or accepted without question. The
child finds himself in a world with laid-down beliefs and with explanations of one kind or
another for everything. His group differs from other groups in its explanations and
beliefs; his family even may be peculiar in these matters. He asks, he is answered and
enjoined to believe. Without credulity there could be no organization of society, no
rituals, no ceremonials, no religions and customs,--but without the questioning spirit
there could be no progress. Most of the men and women of this world have much credulity
and only a feeble questioning tendency, but there are a few who from the start subject the
answers given them to a rigid scrutiny and who test belief by results. Let any one read
the beliefs of savages, let him study the beliefs of the civilized in the spirit in which
he would test the statement of the performance of an automobile, and he can but marvel at
man's credulity. Belief and the acceptance of authority are the conservative forces of
society, and they have their origin in the nursery when the child asks, "Why does the
moon get smaller?" and the mother answers, "Because, dear, God cuts a piece off
every day to make the stars with." The authorities, recognizing that their power lay
in unquestioning belief, have always sanctified it and made the pious, non-skeptical type
the ideal and punished the non-believer with death or ostracism. Fortunately for the race,
the skeptic, if silenced, modifies the strength of the belief he attacks and in the course
of time even they who have defended begin to shift from it and it becomes refuted.
Beliefs, as Lecky[1] so well 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.
