popular and scientific observation agree that a very interesting and important phenomenon in consciousness is the sense of self as involving such feelings as pride, shame, self-satisfaction, and self-disgust. and the evolutionary psychologist is bound to consider self-consciousness in its rise and development as a life factor. what is its significance for life? how and when did it arise as answering a demand in the struggle for existence? further, the psychologist is bound to clearly define and analyse the self-sense as psychic fact, to understand just what it is, as well as what it seems. the nature of the self-sense must be carefully studied by introspection, and its elements and quality determined. however, the psychist has nothing, of course, to do with the self which is sensed, an inquiry which belongs alone to the metaphysician.
self-consciousness has been throughout all our discussion assumed and implied as factor in emotion life. object is not merely perceived, for this in itself has no life value, but is at once interpreted in experience terms, is self-related, and emotion arises and stimulates suitable will-response in bodily activities. thus all response to environment through cognition of environment means with sense of the environment as its own. thus, and thus only, is sense of environment rendered efficacious, for bare objectivity, which signifies nothing, has no value for life. 252under the conditions of existence in the struggle of life object cognition could not originate because it has no function. the theory of natural selection then requires that object and subject cognition be regarded as complementary psychic factors, coincident in their origin, and developing in strict correlation.
this corollary from the theory of natural selection, implying a self-relating act in all cognition under the condition of struggle for existence, is seen to be a likely hypothesis so far as we can judge from the action of low psychisms. any one who closely observes animals must recognise that self-interest determines their cognitive activities and in turn is roused by it. the alert listening and looking of a squirrel is obviously impelled by fear and awakens fear. the object perceived is constantly interpreted for its experience value, that is, there is constant self-reference. this is the type of all cognition under natural selection, i.e., where use dominates.
assuming then psychism as mode of adaptive reaction, we see the necessity for the correlation of the sense of self with the sense of things. an experiencer blind to self, who has no awareness of self, but merely blindly strives, has little advantage, for it possesses no self-directivity and no power of intelligent action. its adaptation is purely general; to be specific adaptation it must appreciate differences in environment in their differential action upon itself, an appreciation of the objective in subjective terms. it is probable then that the first knowledge was the apprehension of thing as painer and then of the thing as pleasurer. a discrimination of the two is attained, probably tactile, as hard and soft. the subjective import of the thing is at once realized from these signs.
it is obvious that the origin of self-consciousness must be placed very early in psychic life. with organisms which have but a few flashes of consciousness during their whole individual existence, whose whole experience is a 253mere sum of separate pleasure-pain thrills and blind efforts, there is neither sense of objectivity nor subjectivity. these very lowest psychisms have experience, but no sense of experience; pleasures and pains possess them, but they do not possess these. but if mentality arises and progresses solely by virtue of its function in saving and profiting the individual living organism, if the end of psychosis is this self-conservation of the bodily whole in its vitality, there is an imperative demand for self-cognizance in order to self-care. under the law of struggle and survival of the fittest, the organism which does not look out for itself must go to the wall or be in the lowest grade. self-conservation is closely linked with self-sense. hence the individual very early acquires some sense of itself in its environment, and so acts and conducts itself. thus under adverse forces it learns to know itself, to realize its own place and power, and to feel fear, anger, and so to appropriately respond to any environment. thus is secured manifold and special response to multiform conditions, whereas in the organism which has only pure subjectivity of pain the response would be uniform.
the condition of an ego being sensed or known is, of course, that there is an ego to be sensed. all experience is an individual’s experience, is personal, but this does not constitute egoism as an experience. the experiencer must have experience before he can know himself as experience centre, that is, there must be experience before there can be experience of experience. but the amount of consciousness and integration thereof which is required for self-cognizance is probably very small. the dynamic organic whole of psychic life, which we denominate ego, has almost from the start self-consciousness, and grows by self-integration. by the conjoint interaction of subject and object cognition with feeling and will elements egohood or personality is gradually developed to the largeness which we see in the human mind. experience which 254does not self-integrate is scarce worthy the name, and it is noticeable that we usually associate self-consciousness with the term. “having an experience” signifies a self-related psychic fact. given the first germ and experience constantly returns upon itself and self-develops. it anticipates itself, experiences the experienceable, and so serves life. a psychic individual without sense of his own individuality is practically undiscoverable and impossible. it is perhaps not too much to say that psychically egohood really begins when experience cognizes and organizes itself; the self is made by the sense of self. at first only an occasional achievement upon a very meagre basis of psychosis, the self-sense rose only through intense pain and effort, but has now become so built into experience that, with human minds at least, it seems constant and spontaneous factor. just what this means we have to note when we come to analyze the self-sense.
while the ego-sense is to be regarded as a reflection of experience upon itself, this reflection is far from being abstract, or general, or spontaneous. the self-sense is wrought out in the direct commerce with objects demanded by the exigencies of existence, a particular and concrete apprehension is produced. that is, mind is no purely internal development nor yet a mechanical impression. development is forced upon it in a world of competition and danger, but yet this development is always active response. the self-sense then by which the individual becomes aware of its own activities and feelings as its own, originates, like all other new modes, by stress and strain as a most valuable psychosis in the struggle of existence.
the primitive self-consciousness is evidently na?ve, that is, there is no consciousness of the self-consciousness. the low psychism is conscious of itself, knows what is to its own advantage, and is absorbingly selfish, but it is wholly unconscious of its self regard; so also with very young 255children we see an egoism which is perfectly unconscious and na?ve, often humorously so to the observant adult who perceives the utter simplicity of its selfishness. the embarrassing self-consciousness of the boy and girl in their teens, a conscious self-consciousness, is not yet achieved. the immediate consciousness of self cannot by itself embarrass, it must be complicated with reflection and with cognizance of other ego's; but later forms we do not need to discuss here.
in the simplest form of self-consciousness what are the necessary elements? and what is the essential nature of self-consciousness as psychic fact?
in the first place, then, what is the nature of self-consciousness as cognition? if cognition be awareness of object, what is self or subject cognition? is subject merely a kind of object? is self-consciousness a peculiar conscious mode, or is it merely of the same type as the general cognition of object? of course we wish to consider such questions here simply in the light of psychic fact.
it is often considered that self-cognitions are really in no way unique, that the subject sensed is merely the individual’s body or his mental powers. and it is undoubtedly true that subject is always some object, the subject cognition is apprehension of some object either corporeal or mental; yet self-cognition is never merely an object seen as object. the psychic act of self-cognition is a peculiar qualifying of the object cognition; the individual who merely knows body or mind has not self-sense, he must be aware of body and mind as his own. the essence of self-sense is not in the object as so perceived, but in the subjectifying reference. while the ego then is always constituted as object, ego sense as psychic fact is more than mere object cognition. the psychic self as object, as some mode or modes of consciousness, has naturally been emphasized. thus the self may be defined 256as that which is subject to will. yet the least reflection shows us that for self-sense this must imply my will, and so assume what it would explain. a consciousness of will act as effective psychic fact is not ego sense. a cognition of effort or nisus is not the sense of self save so far as the effort is known or felt as mine. and so in any other objectivist definition of self as psychic object, the self in its real nature as psychic act vanishes. thus the consciousness of pleasure-pain capacity, while closely related to self-sense, does not make it, for we have to add that the capacity must be known as one’s own. in every endeavour then to define or analyze the self as psychic fact we must either eliminate it or presuppose it, and this must be taken as very significant. it means at least that this stating it—being merely objectifying act—destroys the subjectifying which is its essence. the radical distinction and polar opposition of subjectifying and objectifying is therein suggested, and the difficulty of all fruitful discussion and scientific investigation, which is objectifying, is made apparent.
the objective cognition of a self can only mean cognition of an object capable of experience. objects are thus discriminated into two classes—experiencers and non-experiencers, subject-objects and bare objects; but this is not self-sense whereby the experiencer directly knows his own experience as such, but merely sense of a self as any individual object experiencing. this objective definition of a self is simple enough. it merely asserts that any object which at any moment of its persistence or existence has a consciousness or experience of any kind is thereby a self. but this is obviously not a definition of the self and self-sense as psychic act, nor does it explain it. the scientific statement that individual objects exist as experiencers, and so are personalities, or ego's, does not clear up the self-sense whereby the individual is aware of his own individuality as such. egohood as selfishness in 257this objective sense, and ego-hood as self-experience, as a feeling and knowing myself, are quite distinct. to the question, what makes an object—this particular object, body with limbs and various organs capable of feeling pain-pleasure—what makes this myself? the only answer is relation not, be it noted, to experience, but to my experience felt as such. and what makes an experience mine is that i consciously experience it; not merely that i experience—that experience occurs to me, or in me, as objective fact—but that i consciously experience, subjectively realize the experience as mine; not merely as realizing experience as experience, but as mine own. this ceaseless circle into which we fall in trying to define ego is hinted at in various common expressions. a child even will often remark, “i did not do it, my hand did it”; “you did not touch me, you touched my foot,” etc. that is, even the most cursory observation asserts that object in itself is not subject, that the me is not mine.
while, then, we must regard self-cognition as a genus by itself and as unanalyzable simple psychic fact, arising early upon a very slight basis of experience, and continually developing as most important psychosis for life, we may yet distinguish what is involved with it, what modes of consciousness it presupposes, and from which it yet is distinct.
we might speak of ego-sense as an experience knowing itself. but since cognition implies always a knowing and the known, an experience cannot, and does not, know itself. the consciousness knowing is never the consciousness known; and to speak of a consciousness as aware of itself is misleading and inaccurate. to speak of the cognizance of a pain as pain self-cognizant is an erroneous expression, for the pain does not know itself; but it is known by a cognition which is not it. to be aware of pain as such is awareness of consciousness, but is, interpreted strictly, in no wise self-consciousness. i may even 258speak of a self-conscious self-consciousness. this does not really mean what it directly implies, but can only mean a self-consciousness plus a consciousness of it as one’s own; that is, the self-consciousness is not actually conscious of itself. even if a consciousness could both be and know its being as an absolute, simple act, yet this would not be self-sense, an individual realizing its own individuality, but merely a single psychic act existing, and at the same time conscious of its existence. self-consciousness is more and other than any consciousness which is self-conscious, if that were possible.
consciousness of consciousness is not, then, self-consciousness. it is, indeed, conceivable that an ego, in objective sense, might know his own consciousness not as his own—the act of self-consciousness—but merely as consciousness, and he would thus exist as an individual, yet without subjective individuality. yet, as matter of fact, consciousness of consciousness always carries self-consciousness with it. if i become conscious of a consciousness which is my own, i know it, not merely as a consciousness, but as my own consciousness; if i am conscious of anger, i am conscious of being angry.
hume, in his chapter on personal identity, observes, “for my part, when i enter most intimately into what i call myself, i always stumble on some particular perception or other of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. i never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception.” this is a good illustration of a futile and mistaken attempt to absorb self-consciousness in consciousness of consciousness. of course hume was not the hypothetical ego which we have instanced as purely objective observer of his own consciousness; when he was conscious of any consciousness, as a heat or light sensation, a pleasure or a pain, he was assuredly, like other mortals, conscious of it as his own. the sense of mine-ness 259as psychic fact he should not have ignored, whatever might be his conclusions as to the myself but metaphysical psychology is always apt to swerve from fact.
the close connection of self-consciousness with consciousness of consciousness leads often to their confusion. thus under the head “illusions of self-consciousness,” j. m. baldwin, in his treatise on the senses and intellect, says, “of these subjective illusions we may mention emotional illusions, wrong estimates of our emotional states, as when an angry man declares that he was never more cool in his life.” this instance is plainly an illusion of introspection, not of self-inspection; there is a mistake in the consciousness of consciousness. wundt, in defining self-sense as perception of the unity of experience, falls into the same confusion.
it points to the fundamental value and place of these cognition factors, that when we say any one is conscious we imply them all. thus i say of some one rendered unconscious by an accident, “he slowly recovered consciousness,” by which i mean, became aware of himself and his surroundings with awareness of his own mental activities. he is consciously conscious, objectively conscious, and self-conscious. all this makes up for us being conscious, and is for cognitive mind such a simple organic basal movement as circulatory-nervous-motor function is for body.
an organism must, of course, have had some psychosis before it can become conscious of it, and of it as its own, and this primitive psychosis we regard as pure pleasure-pain series. but in the struggle for existence the organism is driven out of this subjectivity to cognize its environment as related to itself, to apprehend and comprehend and so to feel about itself—emotion—and so led to intelligent will activity as real self-activity. at the very first the organism has pleasures and pains, without knowing them as determined in itself by objects, but this primitive 260pre-cognitive stage is short, and most psychisms are certainly beyond it; they sense and notice things, bodily and beyond the body, as of experience value in pleasure and pain terms. at some most critical moment cognition first arose as triple movement, object—subject—consciousness knowledge. just what may have been its original form it is most difficult to determine, but we may suppose it to have been a very weak activity, possibly expressible, as, “it hurts,” object being simply pain centre. “it hurts,” means object self-related, with consciousness of the consciousness, and this is our language expression for what seems to be an extremely common psychosis among many organisms. as simple pains were probably the first conscious phenomena, consciousness of pain was probably the first consciousness of consciousness, involving also subject and object consciousness. not only to have a pain, but to be conscious of it as definitely objectively determined is decidedly useful attainment, which is finally inground in experience, so that it occurs spontaneously in highest psychisms. but it is only with a few of the highest human psychisms that consciousness object and subject are apprehended as general facts. even by philosophers and scientists, subject, subjectivity, and object are not easily apprehended in their distinctness as purely general modes; it requires will strain to properly know them.
we have throughout sought the origin and place of modes of consciousness in function, and from this point of view we must view object-knowledge, subject-knowledge, and consciousness-knowledge as early coincident and correlative. cognition springs up as a threefold mode, for in no single factor by itself has it life value. pain, we say, forced the organism to work out to object as painer, cognition arising at once as triple activity. however, this does not imply that there is a constant knowing with, an apperception, that every consciousness is accompanied with a 261consciousness of it. pains, pleasures, perceptions, etc., constantly engross the consciousness field without our apprehending them. simple, common folk and children are rarely apperceptive, but yet they are eminently self-conscious, and consciousness conscious in all their life of na?ve selfishness. they are constantly perceiving the significance of things for their own experience, and acting upon this felt meaning. although not immediately aware of what is passing in their own consciousness, as is common to certain high types of human psychism, yet in their self-interest they certainly know themselves as experiencers. thus immediate awareness of one’s own psychic attitude as such—apperception—is a kind of consciousness of consciousness in measure divorced from consciousness of the object, and so belonging to such a high scope of psychism that it hardly falls within the range of our discussion, which is confined to simple direct emotion—value of things as implying both self and consciousness knowledge. apperception as a constant reflection and introspection is certainly not original. in its original form consciousness of consciousness is merely implied element in the study of things. the study of conscious self self-possession, self-poise, conscious psychic self-development, is all very late.
leaving now the general consideration and analysis of self-consciousness in the light of the general doctrine of evolution, let us note how it occurs in consciousness to-day. let us come to some direct inductive study.
the simplest method and the most direct of studying the rise and nature of self-consciousness is in those experiences in coming to self-consciousness from deep sleep or from coma after severe accident. i say, “i regained consciousness,” “i came to consciousness,” meaning, not bare consciousness as in mere sensations or perceptions, but a self-consciousness involved therein. in becoming conscious i came to self-consciousness; in becoming aware of the objective, i at once realize my subjectivity, myself as 262experiencer. in coming out from under the influence of chloroform, there is, i have distinctly observed in my own case, a struggling to realize, which is both objective and subjective cognition. it is true a person having awakened under very strange circumstances, as in a bed in a hospital after an accident, may declare, “i did not know myself,” but this does not mean that he had no self-consciousness, but merely that for the moment he did not identify this self, himself, as john smith, of jonesville, etc. sometimes it happens that self-identification is not reached at all, but the self, as bodily whole experiencing, is speedily aware of self, a new personality and sense of personality quickly grows up. again, a lunatic mistaking himself for herod or c?sar is thus always self-conscious. he has consciously established himself as the self playing a part in the world, but according to the opinion of his sane fellows he is much in error as to what that part is. strictly speaking, there is no illusion of self-consciousness, except under the impossible supposition that a being not a real self or psychic individual should have self-sense; but the very act of self-cognizance implies reality of self-hood. it is plain that even the insane man who regards himself as tree or stone, has, however, the act of self-regard, is really self-conscious. strictly speaking, we cannot identify or recognise self, for sense of self is necessary in any recognition to make it such, a self-consciousness is a fundamental prius. you recognise a tree, a house, but you do not recognise yourself except as yourself is mere object related to you, to your experience. self-identification means only objective act, and is not, then, the same as self-consciousness, though based upon it.
i have endeavoured to make observations of myself in moments of awaking from sleep or going to sleep, to find whether subjective reference and objective apprehension are mingled co-ordinately in consciousness from the beginning, whether the self-sense reaches through both the 263perceptive life and the sensation life. drowsing in bed i sometimes have a feeling of bare pleasure as the first stage in a pleasant awakening. there is here no sensing, no localizing, no awareness of body or of anything, no self-consciousness. this mere undifferentiated pleasure, interrupted by “cat-naps,” may often recur. lolling half-awake every one has frequently experienced these feelings of pure pleasure, unsensed and unlocalized, and wholly unobjectivised, the barest and simplest consciousness, the very first stage in awaking. in this very lowest status in which i can ever catch my consciousness i have the pleasure from the warmth and softness of the bed without having to feel warm or sensing the soft. it is a distinct step to even feeling warm; moreover, in extreme drowsiness it is an effortful step, an active sensing, an objectifying self-activity, and hence a real self-consciousness, implied in the sensing act. to feel warm, to sense in this mode, is primarily object cognition which implies a measure of subject and consciousness cognition in feeling the warmth as source of the pleasure. any one who will closely examine his mental state at the very first stage of slow awaking from deep sleep—a state of primitive consciousness—will notice a vanishing moment of mere pleasure or pain, and in cases of great drowsiness, when a sensation supervenes upon this stage, it does not merely come, as in our ordinary consciousness, but it is brought; there is objectifying effort. so in basking in the sun like an animal, the very first and lowest stage of consciousness i drop to is pure pleasure without having even to feel warm; and the feeling warm is distinctly a new and higher step in consciousness which is often attained by some slight effort. thus it is distinctly possible for a man at times to be too lazy to feel warm; and this fundamental laziness must be accounted not uncommon with lower psychisms. similarly for cold awakening one. there is a moment of pain from cold before one feels cold, 264a general pain and uneasiness discomfort before one realizes what is the matter, feels cold and the part cold—foot it may be—and so reaches some self-consciousness; in language expression, i am cold or feel cold. here is a self-conscious personal experience, though the first touch of mere pain was experienced by the individual unconscious of himself.
we infer, then, that self-consciousness is first reached and maintained in the sensing act as definite cognitive volition. to sense warmth and cold is simply a little earlier objectification than to attain sense of a light or a sound. to feel is as active as to look or to listen. we know that there are modes of force an appreciation of which does not now enter into known psychosis, but which might be sensed through long and severe effort and evolve a new sense-organ. thus, if the conditions of life had demanded it, there would have arisen in the struggle of existence a magnetic sense, though now a man may place his head between the poles of the strongest magnet and be unable to reach any sensation. a magnetic sense once organized and inbred into experience would act with the same apparent spontaneity, as a “given,” as does such a sensation as that of heat; and a person feeling magnetic would have self-feeling implied the same as in feeling warm. that feeling warm with us denotes something which possesses consciousness rather than consciousness by struggle possessing it, is simply the result of the inheritance of the accumulated mental force by which past generations have reached this sense, and thereby consolidated self-consciousness with it, for self-consciousness is built up as reflex cognition from the cognitive effort and willing of the individual. sensation always begins in a sensing, a volition of the individual to realize externality in its experience value, that is, mode of affection of its own body, as in feeling warm pleasurably or painfully. when the objective is not merely sensed but perceived, 265when object and objects are definitely cognized, self-consciousness is greatly furthered, as each object and objectifying cognizance means self-reference or interpretation in terms of self-experience.
that self-consciousness is early and fundamental psychosis, is apparent, not only from the gradual losing consciousness on going to sleep or in gaining consciousness in waking, but also from the fact of its being universal in dream life. those factors which remain throughout all stages and kinds of dream life, are justly regarded as organic and basal. the higher and later elements, those which are still nascent and in the volitional stage, as conscience and reason, rarely or never occur in dreams. in the slightest dreams there is personal quality; i am consciously experiencing, i am walking, riding, looking, hearing, etc. an awareness of self pervades all dream life, even in its lowest form. we are constantly in a world of objects which we are conscious of in their experience value as affecting us or to affect us. a person relating a dream always narrates it as personal experience and so felt—“i dreamed i was in a cave and i heard water running and i felt it cold,” etc., etc. as far then as we can survey dream life, it is a significant fact that self-consciousness pervades it.
as far then as we can discover in dream consciousness, or in ordinary consciousness, self-consciousness is persistent and pervasive element. in the whole range of consciousness, with the exception of the very evanescent and absolutely primitive pure pleasure-pain series, self-cognition appears. we say, indeed, that a man forgets himself in a rage, but mean merely that the rage object as self-related quite engrosses consciousness to the exclusion of other forms of self-consciousness, as himself related to other selves. blind with fury to all other objects than the rage object, he does not notice things as related to himself, and he will rush into a stone wall. in the utmost 266concentration and intensification of emotion, self-consciousness does not disappear, but is itself concentrated and intensified. even in the delirium of passion, so long as any cognition remains self-consciousness remains. the intensification order in consciousness, that is, where multiple consciousness loses elements through intensifying of some others, bears evidence then to the fundamental nature of self-consciousness. a person roused from sleep by cold, which becomes more and more intense till he loses all consciousness through suffering, is throughout the long series self-conscious with the exception of the initial and the final pang of pain. from the moment when cold made him attain consciousness till the moment when he thereby lost consciousness—that is, practically the time he was conscious—he was self-conscious; this is the verdict of common introspection. any one who looks back upon his experiences of this intensification nature, finds himself to have been self-conscious throughout.
so far then as i have been able to examine them, the modes of coming to consciousness in dream life and in awaking process, and also the order of disappearing consciousness by intensification, confirm the general result which at the opening of this chapter we deduced from a general consideration of psychism under the conditions of existence, namely, that self-consciousness is necessary and important factor in all cognitive process, the self-relating act giving vital value to all consciousness of external and internal object, whether in sensing or perceiving.
we have already touched on the general function of self-consciousness, the gain which accrues to the individual organism from knowing its own experiences as such by giving self-directivity and special response. the individual is thereby enabled to look after its own interests, to consciously care for itself, and to make the most of itself. the core of psychic life is interest, and the core of interest is self-consciousness. that the psychism has 267interest, that it feels for itself, is essential to the progress of life. indeed, the genesis and growth of biological forms and organs lie in their attainment and perfecting as servants to the self in the struggle of existence. we know this to be the case for the sense-organs. the organism evidently came to appreciate light by a definite nisus with self-consciousness, just the same in kind as that by which organ is advanced to-day when straining the eyes to perceive a seventh pleiad. in short, we do not see because we have eyes, but we have eyes because we see. the seeing activity and effort as a self-activity generates the eye and perfects it. so also it is by locomotive effort that motor organs originate and develop. the young child learning to walk, self-consciously and with effort moving upon its legs, is an intimation of the way in which the limbs themselves arose in active response to environment. the rabbits imported into australia have, it is reported, learned to climb trees, with a consequent modification of foot structure. now the real genesis of the morphological change is obviously psychic, the climbing effort as a valuable function to life under the conditions of existence, viz., the scarcity of herbage.
but not only the motor and sensory organs are to be traced in origin and growth to psychic basis in self-consciousness and struggle, but other organs now quite disassociated from will may originally have been developed by will. thus the stomach may have originated in digestive effort and the heart in circulatory effort. that self-attention to the heart stimulates the action of the heart is well-known, and also that in rare cases the heart’s action is directly controlled by will. this may be survival. function is built up also as indirect result of will, as when motor effort in running develops heart action. psychism may thus be interpreted as the basis of all organic development. the body is the offspring of will. certainly as man surveys progressive adaptation in 268himself and other evolving organisms, the psychic basis is apparent in feeling and in effort self-conscious; and if in any wise it has apparently become mechanical and spontaneous, as in heart-beat, as in digestion, as in winking the eye, this is to be ascribed to impulse from the past. self-consciousness quickens reaction, for reaction time is shortened when there is anticipation, and anticipation implies self-consciousness as awareness of experienceability. self-consciousness also enormously strengthens reaction. thus the more thoroughly one realizes his own danger, the more powerful the effort to escape. this is true under normal and simple conditions, the only form in which we are considering self-consciousness. self-consciousness may become abnormal and debilitating in the hypochondriac, but this is a stage beyond our present studies. primarily in the struggle of life self-relating to one’s own experience is always advantageous function. the most important thing in life is the realization, by the aid of self-consciousness, of the self-experience value of things; to appreciate and understand environment, and so adapt oneself to it and adapt it to oneself, to conserve and extend self, this is the substance of psychism, and its whole history is thence pervaded by self-consciousness.
but we must now turn from these general considerations to specific emotions as related to self-consciousness. in the natural course of things, an organism can never sense or view the self with indifference. in all early psychic stages a dispassionate view of self is uncalled for and does not exist; and, in fact, even if the most educated and thoughtful human adult had a self-sense which is active as evolutionary cause, it may rightly be regarded as ever active. life forms from the lowest protista to the highest vertebrate are in their development due to active response, and thus morphological development may be looked at as a functional embodiment of psychism. instead, then, of regarding psychism merely as life factor, we 269may go farther, and define life as psychism. this is what the doctrine of active response and development thereby, with natural selection, leads to. the phenomena of life, so far as we can interpret them, seem to favour the view that organism is objectification of the will, and, except at the very first stage, will as cognitive, and triply so in object-subject-consciousness cognition. such evidence as we have points rather to organic body as reflex of mind than mind as reflex of body. that the initiatory, progressive, and creative force in evolution is psychic, we judge from such instances as we can observe of progressive adaptation in ourselves and in lower animals. where new circumstances affect a species, as the rabbit transferred to australia, the favouring modification of the foot to climb trees is evidently only attained by severest struggle for self-conservation. if a new mode of force were introduced to this planet, which should powerfully affect life, it would reach it at first only through pleasure-pain, and the growth to a special sense-organ for this new force would very gradually be attained through the struggle for existence.
the prime value of self-consciousness in evolution is in securing an intelligent correlation with environment. all specific reaction and adaptation arose probably through an emotion volitional self-relating of object. it is a biologic psychic law that all emotion is bound up with self-consciousness, and all self-consciousness with emotion, for thus only is there efficiency as intelligent will stimulation. but while sense of self is inherent in all emotion as such, may it not in some cases have a peculiar place, so that we may justly term them self-feelings or emotions of personality?
a child fears the dog and is proud of its new dress. here are two emotions which both imply self-consciousness, the object is in both related to the self, but they differ in egoistic quality in that in the fear there is sense of the thing as acting on the self, in the pride there is 270sense of the self as acting on the thing. in the pride it is the object as identified with the self that is the source of emotion. the pride proceeds from within outward, while fear, vice versa. in fear it is the experience value of the dog, that it will hurt, that gives the emotion quality; but in the pride the essence of the emotion lies, not in the influence of the dress on the self, but that the self is connected with the dress by way of ownership. “see my pretty dress”; “oh mama! the cross dog”; the emotions thus expressed appear to belong to different orders; the fear being of the thing in its effect on the self, the pride being of the self in the thing. pride is a glorified self-consciousness, self-consciousness is its substance and immediate spirit, whereas in fear self-consciousness is but an instrument in interpretation of experience value. we observe an interesting example of emotion of personality in a young girl who fears a cow and is yet ashamed of her fear. here, while self-consciousness is certainly involved in the fear, yet it is peculiarly involved in the emotion at her emotion as such; the shame is at or of herself, the fear is for herself. this peculiar personal feature of pride is signified by the common usage of language; the child is proud of the thing, does not pride the thing, but prides himself on the thing, whereas in fear he fears the thing for himself. i say, indeed, the child is afraid of the dog and proud of his dress, but the force of the preposition is quite general.
it may be said that pride is not peculiarly an emotion of personality simply as being directed toward self; one can hate himself, fear himself, be angry at himself, etc. but the drunkard fearing himself means merely that he fears the results of his own tendencies, delirium tremens, for instance, a perfectly objective fear. and it is evident that one cannot, holding to the term, self, in the same meaning, fear at once himself for himself. the self 271which is endangered is not the self which endangers. in all such cases as so-called fearing self the action is from without inward, which is the reverse of the mode in personality—emotion where oneself is seen, not as affected by the thing, but as himself in the thing.
the typical and earliest of the emotions of personality is undoubtedly pride. like all emotions pride includes cognition of object; pride is always proud of something but in the peculiar way before emphasized, in the light which our own personality casts upon it. pride generally and certainly originally implies sense of something done or possessed by self and that in a manner superior to competitors. it is a self assertion over rivals, an impressing spectators, a being proud of something to some one. if the world contained but one solitary conscious individual, he could never attain to pride, though he might be self-satisfied. sense of comparative self-magnification is essential to pride. pride as social in its nature suffers great diminishing when the individual is long kept in solitude, and in some cases men may ultimately lose all standard of comparison and so pride entirely vanishes. if a man were from his earliest remembrance an inhabitant of a desert isle pride would have no opportunity to develop. his achievements might satisfy himself, but they could not make him proud, for he would know nothing of others and their works. again, this need of sociality is seen in this, that we are not proud of our planet as such. we distinguish it, indeed, as our own, but we have no sense of pride in its finest features as such. i do not feel proud of amazonian forest or himalayan mountain merely as earth characters. however, if in the future we secure interplanetary communication, and planets rival each other as cities and countries do now, there will be a stimulus to pride on an astronomical scale. if we could say to the inhabitants of some neighbour sphere that our planet made better time 272round the sun than theirs, this would be the basis of an intense pride.
the extent of pride is thus equal to the extent of the self-sense, but in its wide ranges pride is relatively weak. i am proud of my country, but, other things being equal, more proud of my state and still more proud of my city. i am proud of the achievements of the anglo-american race, and i always survey a locomotive with pride, but it is when ownership and achievement comes closer to the ego, as in one’s relatives and family, that pride notably intensifies, and it reaches its maximum in view of one’s own attainments. that which we do without any assistance and which seems to us far beyond the ordinary gives the best and highest incitement to pride.
pride, in the later stages at least, is more and more discriminating, and is connected finally only with those objects which are the actual will products of the individual, and so identified with the veritable self. thus is erected by society a pride test, and men say, “he has a right to be proud,” or, “he ought not to be proud.” yet standards will differ, and what one will be proud of another will be ashamed of, and vice versa. the general standard is largely regulated by the comparative amount of will force and so of strength required in the particular act; thus, while i am not proud of crushing an ant, i might be at felling an ox.
the general expression of pride is holding up one’s head and expanding oneself generally, though this self-enlargement is not, as in anger, to inspire fear in beholders, but rather admiration. proud sense of superiority naturally asserts itself primarily in physical impressiveness, and, as such, pride plays an especially large part in sexual selection. the lower expression of pride is swagger and strut, the higher in a dignity and stateliness of demeanour.
273the function of pride, the use which originally determined its development, and which is still apparent, is a pleasure-sanction to competitive successful effort. the proud consciousness of triumph is one of the greatest pleasures of existence, and if there were no such emotion following the winning effort, life would lose much of its incentive. pride prevents parasitism. without pride to stimulate and reward, striving mind would have lost one of the most potent factors of progress. even in human education it becomes of value to appeal to a just and proper pride. in the lower life it is all important. it gives tone to life, gives power and confidence, assertiveness and aggressiveness, and conduces in a large measure to permanent and progressive self-aggrandisement. and not only for effect upon self but upon others, pride is an important psychic factor. thus pride in always showing a bold, commanding front to rivals, makes a direct impression upon antagonists. pride always puts the best foot first, hides weakness and exaggerates strength, so that the proud one always shows for all and even more than he is, and thus gains much in the struggle of existence where even mere appearance of power is apt to discourage opponents. the one who is strong and proud of it is doubly strong. pride is the reflex of gain and victory, as shame is of loss and defeat. it is thus the root of ambition, the desire of rank and place for superiority’s sake which has been, and now is, especially in advanced human psychism, a most powerful agent in the evolution of life and mind.
but while it is undoubtedly true that pride is in its origin solely an advantageous psychosis, and indeed, could have been developed in no other way, yet there is a disadvantageous side. only up to a certain point is it true that the prouder one is, the better off he is. when pride, over-stimulated, betrays into over-confidence and heedlessness, then, indeed, “pride goeth before a fall.” 274but at the first, however, we must suppose that the organism was proud of only that of which it was to its advantage to be proud; but by perversion and hypertrophy, indeed, in pride as in the case of other emotions, caused largely by rivals, it became a source of great disadvantage and positively destructive of high self-advancement. conceit, an over-weening abnormal pride which is totally irrelevant to the real standing of the individual, cannot but be highly injurious. however, harmful pride must be accounted rather late. in early psychisms attainment over and beyond others, when perceived naturally and normally, gave rise to pride as a wholly useful emotion reaction, and those who had the capacity of being proud had a distinct advantage over those who had no sense of their own consequence or no pride about it. even in human society we must remark that in general those who are incapable of becoming proud on proper occasion, are less and less liable to reach the occasion.
pride, as emotion of sense of superiority, manifests itself in many forms, of which we need not now expect to make a detailed or complete investigation, since the object of our present studies is merely to emphasize the main forms of the early emotions from the point of view of natural selection. simple pride, which is unconscious of itself, but acts directly and without reflection, as we see in a child proud of a new dress, is a phase which does not often appear in the experience of the educated human adult, where pride becomes highly complicated with emotional and intellectual movements of many kinds, and where it is extended to a wide diversity of objects with the extension of self-interest. thus men are proud of rank, blood, money, muscular strength, possessions, intellectual attainments, moral character, and, in fact, whatever the idea of mine can be applied to. however, the different kinds of pride are 275not to be distinguished by the object merely, as pride of rank, blood, etc., for difference in object does not by itself constitute distinct quality in psychic act. pride is the same, whether it is of a horse, a bank account, or a wife. still the object frequently calls up subsidiary emotions which may complicate pride, and the perceived nature of the object certainly influences our feeling toward it.
when an object is to be competed for, but we consider it beneath us to enter the lists, or we think our rivals unworthy of our attention, we have the peculiar phase of feeling termed arrogance. arrogance brooks no rivalry and stands apart on a peak of self-contained superiority. walter savage landor, the proudest of men, displays this feeling in perfection when he says in one of his cameos in verse:
“i strove with none,
for none were worth my strife.”
this is a perfect expression of complete arrogance. we may say that he was too proud to be proud. no one was worthy of his mettle, and so he held himself aloof with the feeling of immeasurable superiority. strictly speaking then, arrogance is a variety of very intense pride where the sense of superiority is perfectly exclusive and absolute, and disdains comparison. it is entirely inconsiderate of others’ rivalry and above caring for the approval or disapproval or admiration of others. thus this phase, unlike pride in general, seeks concealment rather than display; its excellence is so far beyond the common as to be unappreciable by contemporaries, and appreciated by self alone.
conceit is a term objectively applied, but hardly indicates a kind of pride, a real subjective distinction. he who thinks more highly of himself than he ought to think, esteems himself beyond his due, and so is considered by the community over proud, is termed 276conceited. the pride which is entirely just, as viewed from the objective standpoint, is quite the same subjectively as the most preposterous conceit. similarly also dignity is no real feeling. “that man is dignified”; this is an objective characterization of his manner of conduct, but this does not imply that he feels dignified. pride may give a dignified demeanour, but a feeling dignified can only refer to the reactive effect upon consciousness, of this mode of behaviour. “i feel proud,” may likewise sometimes be used, not for designating the subjective feeling or being proud, but as equal to, “i felt that i was proud,” that is, “i was proud and i knew it,” “i had the sense of being proud.” so also in general we may remark that while feeling may denote a simple state of being, yet such phrases as “i felt proud,” “felt angry,” etc., are ambiguous, and may mean either the bare feeling of pride, anger, etc., as experienced, or the feeling of being proud, angry, etc., or both, that is, consciousness of the particular consciousness may or may not complicate self-consciousness. the word, feel, is often used in this merely reflexive way to denote a sense of state as, “i was proud and i felt so at the time.” thus common phrase verifies the analysis that self-consciousness and consciousness of consciousness are bound up with emotion, the full analysis of the phrase showing that the feeling proud was an object consciousness plus a subject consciousness.
as previously intimated, we have to sharply distinguish between pride and such emotions as self-satisfaction and self-complacency. these latter emotions of personality deal solely with the self in its own sight, while pride is always not over self to self, but over self to others. the self-satisfied often are proud, but this is not necessarily implied. the comparative element enters in self-satisfaction, as in all true pride, but the comparison is primarily with oneself, not with others. if we succeed in our own 277eyes, we may think little about others. a pure self-satisfaction, like a purely altruistic pride, is a rare and late phenomenon. pride about others, pride to oneself, are both very apt to be tinged with the original pride over others. one says of a friend, “i feel proud of him”; but while this has a certain reality and psychic value of altruistic mode, yet the innate and fundamental selfishness of pride tends to make a place in what appears to be the most disinterested form. personal interest and aggrandisement is so inbred a motive from the earliest stages of evolution that it is never superseded.
a feeling of embarrassment is an emotion of personality which is closely connected with pride. those who are most susceptible to pride are most apt to feel embarrassed. the one who has no tendency toward pride, who does not in the least care how he may appear before others or in relation to others, and so does not value his place among his fellows, cannot be embarrassed. he may be disturbed by the difficulties of some task, but only in the same way in which he would be agitated by any difficult work undertaken by and for himself alone. the emotion of embarrassment, like pride, conceives the self in its social relations. when one says that he felt greatly embarrassed in being called on unexpectedly to speak at a dinner, we perceive that he means emotion, not merely in view of the inherent difficulty of the task, but in view of what he himself may or may not do under the inspection of the critical. in this emotion there is a wonderful quickening of the self-sense, a painfully intense self-consciousness being suddenly generated as the peculiar relation of self to others is impressed upon him. this self-sense is powerfully reinforced by the self-sense of the bodily expression of self-consciousness. the whole bodily self seems conspicuously magnified, and we become painfully aware of hands, feet, and other members. this bodily self-sensitiveness, as often contributing strongly to this emotion-total, is very 278marked in cases of blushing. a girl, feeling embarrassed, blushes, and immediately becoming conscious of the blushing as itself an embarrassing circumstance, blushes again still more violently, and becoming conscious of this, becomes still more confused, and so on, a constant cumulation of psychic effect from reaction of expression. sense of the expression of embarrassment is itself embarrassing, hence every embarrassment may become in itself a new source of embarrassment. however, that this peculiar self-consciousness cannot be forced in itself or in its expression, we see in the fact that the efforts of the maiden who exclaims in mock modesty, “i know i am blushing,” are entirely futile. this assumption of embarrassment may become embarrassing, and so a genuine expression be stimulated, which, however, is of quite another order from the one desired.
how such an emotion as that of embarrassment, which is disadvantageous from the first, could have originated under natural selection, can never be solved by the evolutionist who views all variation as originally springing from personal advantage. here is a psychosis, always the reverse of serviceable, an emotion anticipatory of disgraceful defeat, and so is really premonitory, but yet one which ever unnerves, rather than nerves to successful action. he who never feels embarrassed, under any circumstances always has the best chance. hence this psychosis must be strictly a negative evolution, an unfavourable variation determined by a persistent exciting by antagonists as serviceable to them. an adversary will always put his opponent in an embarrassing situation, and endeavour that he shall both be embarrassed and feel embarrassment. this emotion has thus been stimulated and fostered during ages of psychic evolution, and in advanced human evolution the stimulating it is one of the subtlest methods of offence.
a feeling of embarrassment is incipient shame, or perhaps 279the way for shame. but the feeling of embarrassment is generally anticipatory as to the potential, while shame is as to the actual; it is a feeling of present public degradation and loss. both equally imply a capacity for pride; one who cannot be proud cannot be ashamed. but shame, unlike the feeling of embarrassment, acts as serviceable variation to the individual, and is one of the weightiest negative guards to advantageous actions. it cannot promote very high and noble action, but it keeps above a certain low and base level. the member of society who has lost all pride and all sense of shame has ceased to feel the most powerful and useful of social incentives.[e]
e. as to the origin of bodily shame, we may suppose that this arose with reference to excreta as something rejected from the body, and therefore base and unworthy. with the refined even spitting and perspiring are shameful. it may be that sexual shame can be traced to the same root, but social convention and morality also have very large influence here.
there is a certain curious psychosis which may be called shame for want of a better term. i allude to the feeling which prompts one to shun oneself. one may not only be ashamed to look others in the eye, but even himself. he will not look at himself in a mirror because he feels a great loss of self-respect. this is not the opposite of vanity, a shame at viewing oneself because of unseemliness of feature, which is liable to general observation, but it is rather the reverse, the polar opposite of pure self-feeling, of self-respect and self-satisfaction. a feeling of shame with regard to oneself alone is still, of course, comparative; though it does not touch upon others, it implies a self-erected standard. this emotion, like the others just mentioned, is obviously very late.
however, perhaps the latest in the series, and the psychic culmination of all is humility. humility, like meekness, marks a new order of evolution. in the highest human development pride is eliminated and supplanted 280by humility. a true self-estimate of personal achievement upon a very wide and impartial impersonal basis, either that of a scientific view of man’s place in the universe, or as influenced by high religious and moral ideals, leads to a feeling of humility. egoism and self-assertiveness give place to altruistic modesty and refined reserve. the humble man always gives place rather than takes place. he does not lift himself above his fellows, but takes the lowest seat, and is servant of all. the humble man does not strive with others, not because too proud to do so, as landor, but because he feels called to the highest and best work for its own sake. he says with laotze, “do, not strive.” unthinking of getting ahead or falling behind others, he aims consistently and constantly at an ideal of perfect fruitage, so high an ideal that he always feels his own unworthiness in his own sight and in that of others, though aware of his desert by the ordinary standards of his community, country, or generation. worldly successes produce no elation in the lowly of heart; they view themselves, not with self-depreciation, but with the justness of the largest view, as newton, who, when complimented upon his attainments, replied that he had but picked up a few pebbles by the ocean of truth. spiritual and ethical principles sway these, and not personal ambition. and it must be noted that humility is not simply lack of pride under circumstances which naturally allow of it, an insensitiveness to pride, a wholly negative state, which is nothing in itself, but it is a positive feeling and emotion in view of oneself in relation to others. thus the humble man is he of high pride capacity, and who consciously refrains from pride when usual standards would allow it. “that is something to be proud of,” “he has a right to be proud,” and similar expressions mark the lower standards of which he never avails himself. the best and noblest specimens of mankind renounce the “world,” “the lust of the eye and pride of life,” and live by their self-erected 281ideals. and if we ask how the spirit of humility and disinterestedness can arise and progress in a natural evolution, we must answer that it holds its place and wins its way by reason of its greater inherent value and fruitfulness. he who has himself in view has lost sight of his work. by this psychic mode alone is the largest, most perfect, most permanent work accomplished, and ultimately, often posthumously, it is appreciated at its real worth. those originating and master minds in human history who have opened new avenues of spiritual progress, have usually been of this modest, unassuming, humble type. thus in a wholly natural manner the higher law of an ideal life prevails over the lower law of life which works only by competition in the struggle for existence.
