Léonie 1 knows only of herself; Léonie 2, of herself and of Léonie 1; Léonie 3 knows of herself and of both the others. Léonie 1 has a visual consciousness; Léonie 2 has one both visual and auditory; in Léonie 3 it is at once visual, auditory, and tactile. Prof. Janet thought at first that he was Léonie 3's discoverer. But she told him that she had been frequently in that condition before. A former magnetizer had hit upon her just as M. Janet had, in seeking by means of passes to deepen the sleep of Léonie 2.
"This resurrection of a somnambulic personage who had been extinct for twenty years is curious enough; and in speaking to Léonie 3, I naturally now adopt the name of Léonore which was given her by her first master."
"This resurrection of a somnambulic personage who had been extinct for twenty years is curious enough; and in speaking to Léonie 3, I naturally now adopt the name of Léonore which was given her by her first master."
The most carefully studied case of multiple personality is that of the hysteric youth Louis V. about whom MM. Bourru and Burot have written a book.[313]The symptoms are too intricate to be reproduced here with detail. Suffice it that Louis V. had led an irregular life, in the army, inhospitals, and in houses of correction, and had had numerous hysteric anæsthesias, paralyses, and contractures attacking him differently at different times and when he lived at different places. At eighteen, at an agricultural House of Correction he was bitten by a viper, which brought on a convulsive crisis and leftboth of his legsparalyzed for three years. During this condition he was gentle, moral, and industrious. But suddenly at last, after a long convulsive seizure, his paralysis disappeared, and with it his memory for all the time during which it had endured. His character also changed: he became quarrelsome, gluttonous, impolite, stealing his comrades' wine, and money from an attendant, and finally escaped from the establishment and fought furiously when he was overtaken and caught. Later, when he first fell under the observation of the authors, hisright sidewas half paralyzed and insensible, and his character intolerable; the application of metals transferred the paralysis to theleftside, abolished his recollections of the other condition, and carried him psychically back to the hospital of Bicêtre where he had been treated for a similar physical condition. His character, opinions, education, all underwent a concomitant transformation. He was no longer the personage of the moment before. It appeared ere long that any present nervous disorder in him could be temporarily removed by metals, magnets, electric or other baths, etc.; and that any past disorder could be brought back by hypnotic suggestion. He also went through a rapid spontaneous repetition of his series of past disorders after each of the convulsive attacks which occurred in him at intervals. It was observed that each physical state in which he found himself, excluded certain memories and brought with it a definite modification of character.
"The law of these changes," say the authors, "is quite clear. There exist precise, constant, and necessary relations between the bodily and the mental state, such that it is impossible to modify the one without modifying the other in a parallel fashion."[314]
"The law of these changes," say the authors, "is quite clear. There exist precise, constant, and necessary relations between the bodily and the mental state, such that it is impossible to modify the one without modifying the other in a parallel fashion."[314]
The case of this proteiform individual would seem, then, nicely to corroborate M. P. Janet's law that anæsthesias and gaps in memory go together. Coupling Janet's law with Locke's that changes of memory bring changes of personality, we should have an apparent explanation of some cases at least of alternate personality. But mere anæsthesia does not sufficiently explain the changes of disposition, which are probably due to modifications in the perviousness of motor and associative paths, co-ordinate with those of the sensorial paths rather than consecutive upon them. And indeed a glance at other cases than M. Janet's own, suffices to show us that sensibility and memory are not coupled in any invariable way.[315]M. Janet's law, true of his own cases, does not seem to hold good in all.
Of course it is mere guesswork to speculate on what may be the cause of the amnesias which lie at the bottom of changes in the Self. Changes of blood-supply have naturally been invoked. Alternate action of the two hemispheres was long ago proposed by Dr. Wigan in his book on the Duality of the Mind. I shall revert to this explanation after considering the third class of alterations of the Self, those, namely, which I have called 'possessions.'
I have myself become quite recently acquainted with the subject of a case of alternate personality of the 'ambulatory'sort, who has given me permission to name him in these pages.[316]
The Rev. Ansel Bourne, of Greene, R. I., was brought up to the trade of a carpenter; but, in consequence of a sudden temporary loss, of sight and hearing under very peculiar circumstances, he became converted from Atheism to Christianity just before his thirtieth year, and has since that time for the most part lived the life of an itinerant preacher. He has been subject to headaches and temporary fits of depression of spirits during most of his life, and has had a few fits of unconsciousness lasting an hour or less. He also has a region of somewhat diminished cutaneous sensibility on the left thigh. Otherwise his health is good, and his muscular strength and endurance excellent. He is of a firm and self-reliant disposition, a man whose yea is yea and his nay, nay; and his character for uprightness is such in the community that no person who knows him will for a moment admit the possibility of his case not being perfectly genuine.On January 17, 1887, he drew 551 dollars from a bank in Providence with which to pay for a certain lot of land in Greene, paid certain bills, and got into a Pawtucket horse-car. This is the last incident which he remembers. He did not return home that day, and nothing was heard of him for two months. He was published in the papers as missing, and foul play being suspected, the police sought in vain his whereabouts. On the morning of March 14th, however, at Norristown, Pennsylvania, a man calling himself A. J. Brown, who had rented a small shop six weeks previously, stocked it with stationery, confectionery, fruit and small articles, and carried on his quiet trade without seeming to any one unnatural or eccentric, woke up in a fright and called in the people of the house to tell him where he was. He said that his name was Ansel Bourne, that he was entirely ignorant of Norristown, that he knew nothing of shop-keeping, and that the last thing he remembered—it seemed only yesterday—was drawing the money from the bank, etc., in Providence. He would not believe that two months had elapsed. The people of the house thought him insane; and so, at first, did Dr. Louis H. Read, whom they called in to see him. But on telegraphing to Providence, confirmatory messages came, and presently his nephew, Mr. Andrew Harris, arrived upon the scene, made everything straight, and took him home. He was very weak, having lost apparently over twenty pounds of flesh during his escapade, and had such a horror of the idea of the candy-store that he refused to set foot in it again.The first two weeks of the period remained unaccounted for, as he had no memory, after he had once resumed his normal personality, of any part of the time, and no one who knew him seems to have seen himafter he left home. The remarkable part of the change is, of course, the peculiar occupation which the so-called Brown indulged in. Mr. Bourne has never in his life had the slightest contact with trade. 'Brown' was described by the neighbors as taciturn, orderly in his habits, and in no way queer. He went to Philadelphia several times; replenished his stock; cooked for himself in the back shop, where he also slept; went regularly to church; and once at a prayer-meeting made what was considered by the hearers a good address, in the course of which he related an incident which he had witnessed in his natural state of Bourne.This was all that was known of the case up to June 1890, when I induced Mr. Bourne to submit to hypnotism, so as to see whether, in the hypnotic trance, his 'Brown' memory would not come back. It did so with surprising readiness; so much so indeed that it proved quite impossible to make him whilst in the hypnosis remember any of the facts of his normal life. He had heard of Ansel Bourne, but "didn't know as he had ever met the man." When confronted with Mrs. Bourne he said that he had "never seen the woman before," etc. On the other hand, he told of his peregrinations during the lost fortnight,[317]and gave all sorts of details about the Norristown episode. The whole thing was prosaic enough; and the Brown-personality seems to be nothing but a rather shrunken, dejected, and amnesic extract of Mr. Bourne himself. He gives no motive for the wandering except that there was 'trouble back there' and he 'wanted rest.' During the trance he looks old, the corners of his mouth are drawn down, his voice is slow and weak, and he sits screening his eyes and trying vainly to remember what lay before and after the two months of the Brown experience. "I'm all hedged in," he says: "I can't get out at either end. I don't know what set me down in that Pawtucket horse-car, and I don't know how I ever left that store, or what became of it." His eyes are practically normal, and all his sensibilities (save for tardier response) about the same in hypnosis as in waking. I had hoped by suggestion, etc., to run the two personalities into one, and make the memories continuous, but no artifice would avail to accomplish this, and Mr. Bourne's skull to-day still covers two distinct personal selves.The case (whether it contain an epileptic element or not) should apparently be classed as one of spontaneous hypnotic trance, persisting for two months. The peculiarity of it is that nothing else like it ever occurred in the man's life, and that no eccentricity of character cameout. In most similar cases, the attacks recur, and the sensibilities and conduct markedly change.[318]
The Rev. Ansel Bourne, of Greene, R. I., was brought up to the trade of a carpenter; but, in consequence of a sudden temporary loss, of sight and hearing under very peculiar circumstances, he became converted from Atheism to Christianity just before his thirtieth year, and has since that time for the most part lived the life of an itinerant preacher. He has been subject to headaches and temporary fits of depression of spirits during most of his life, and has had a few fits of unconsciousness lasting an hour or less. He also has a region of somewhat diminished cutaneous sensibility on the left thigh. Otherwise his health is good, and his muscular strength and endurance excellent. He is of a firm and self-reliant disposition, a man whose yea is yea and his nay, nay; and his character for uprightness is such in the community that no person who knows him will for a moment admit the possibility of his case not being perfectly genuine.
On January 17, 1887, he drew 551 dollars from a bank in Providence with which to pay for a certain lot of land in Greene, paid certain bills, and got into a Pawtucket horse-car. This is the last incident which he remembers. He did not return home that day, and nothing was heard of him for two months. He was published in the papers as missing, and foul play being suspected, the police sought in vain his whereabouts. On the morning of March 14th, however, at Norristown, Pennsylvania, a man calling himself A. J. Brown, who had rented a small shop six weeks previously, stocked it with stationery, confectionery, fruit and small articles, and carried on his quiet trade without seeming to any one unnatural or eccentric, woke up in a fright and called in the people of the house to tell him where he was. He said that his name was Ansel Bourne, that he was entirely ignorant of Norristown, that he knew nothing of shop-keeping, and that the last thing he remembered—it seemed only yesterday—was drawing the money from the bank, etc., in Providence. He would not believe that two months had elapsed. The people of the house thought him insane; and so, at first, did Dr. Louis H. Read, whom they called in to see him. But on telegraphing to Providence, confirmatory messages came, and presently his nephew, Mr. Andrew Harris, arrived upon the scene, made everything straight, and took him home. He was very weak, having lost apparently over twenty pounds of flesh during his escapade, and had such a horror of the idea of the candy-store that he refused to set foot in it again.
The first two weeks of the period remained unaccounted for, as he had no memory, after he had once resumed his normal personality, of any part of the time, and no one who knew him seems to have seen himafter he left home. The remarkable part of the change is, of course, the peculiar occupation which the so-called Brown indulged in. Mr. Bourne has never in his life had the slightest contact with trade. 'Brown' was described by the neighbors as taciturn, orderly in his habits, and in no way queer. He went to Philadelphia several times; replenished his stock; cooked for himself in the back shop, where he also slept; went regularly to church; and once at a prayer-meeting made what was considered by the hearers a good address, in the course of which he related an incident which he had witnessed in his natural state of Bourne.
This was all that was known of the case up to June 1890, when I induced Mr. Bourne to submit to hypnotism, so as to see whether, in the hypnotic trance, his 'Brown' memory would not come back. It did so with surprising readiness; so much so indeed that it proved quite impossible to make him whilst in the hypnosis remember any of the facts of his normal life. He had heard of Ansel Bourne, but "didn't know as he had ever met the man." When confronted with Mrs. Bourne he said that he had "never seen the woman before," etc. On the other hand, he told of his peregrinations during the lost fortnight,[317]and gave all sorts of details about the Norristown episode. The whole thing was prosaic enough; and the Brown-personality seems to be nothing but a rather shrunken, dejected, and amnesic extract of Mr. Bourne himself. He gives no motive for the wandering except that there was 'trouble back there' and he 'wanted rest.' During the trance he looks old, the corners of his mouth are drawn down, his voice is slow and weak, and he sits screening his eyes and trying vainly to remember what lay before and after the two months of the Brown experience. "I'm all hedged in," he says: "I can't get out at either end. I don't know what set me down in that Pawtucket horse-car, and I don't know how I ever left that store, or what became of it." His eyes are practically normal, and all his sensibilities (save for tardier response) about the same in hypnosis as in waking. I had hoped by suggestion, etc., to run the two personalities into one, and make the memories continuous, but no artifice would avail to accomplish this, and Mr. Bourne's skull to-day still covers two distinct personal selves.
The case (whether it contain an epileptic element or not) should apparently be classed as one of spontaneous hypnotic trance, persisting for two months. The peculiarity of it is that nothing else like it ever occurred in the man's life, and that no eccentricity of character cameout. In most similar cases, the attacks recur, and the sensibilities and conduct markedly change.[318]
3. In 'mediumships' or 'possessions' the invasion and the passing away of the secondary state are both relatively abrupt, and the duration of the state is usually short—i.e., from a few minutes to a few hours. Whenever the secondary state is well developed no memory for aught that happened during it remains after the primary consciousness comes back. The subject during the secondary consciousness speaks, writes, or acts as if animated by a foreign person, and often names this foreign person and gives his history. In old times the foreign 'control' was usually a demon, and is so now in communities which favor that belief. With us he gives himself out at the worst for an Indian or other grotesquely speaking but harmless personage. Usually he purports to be the spirit of a dead person known or unknown to those present, and the subject is then what we call a 'medium.' Mediumistic possession in all its grades seems to form a perfectly natural special type of alternate personality, and the susceptibility to it in some form is by no means an uncommon gift, in persons who have no other obvious nervous anomaly. The phenomena are very intricate, and are only just beginning to be studied in a proper scientific way. The lowest phase of mediumship is automatic writing, and the lowest grade of that is where the Subject knows what words are coming, but feels impelled to write them as if from without. Then comes writing unconsciously, even whilst engaged in reading or talk. Inspirational speaking, playing on musical instruments, etc., also belong to the relatively lower phases of possession, in which the normal self is not excluded from conscious participation in the performance, though their initiative seems to come from elsewhere. In the highest phase the trance is complete, the voice, language, andeverything are changed, and there is no after-memory whatever until the next trance comes. One curious thing about trance-utterances is their generic similarity in different individuals. The 'control' here in America is either a grotesque, slangy, and flippant personage ('Indian' controls, calling the ladies 'squaws,' the men 'braves,' the house a 'wigwam,' etc., etc., are excessively common); or, if he ventures on higher intellectual flights, he abounds in a curiously vague optimistic philosophy-and-water, in which phrases about spirit, harmony, beauty, law, progression, development, etc., keep recurring. It seems exactly as if one author composed more than half of the trance-messages, no matter by whom they are uttered. Whether all sub-conscious selves are peculiarly susceptible to a certain stratum of theZeitgeist, and get their inspiration from it, I know not; but this is obviously the case with the secondary selves which become 'developed' in spiritualist circles. There the beginnings of the medium trance are indistinguishable from effects of hypnotic suggestion. The subject assumes the rôle of a medium simply because opinion expects it of him under the conditions which are present; and carries it out with a feebleness or a vivacity proportionate to his histrionic gifts. But the odd thing is that persons unexposed to spiritualist traditions will so often act in the same way when they become entranced, speak in the name of the departed, go through the motions of their several death-agonies, send messages about their happy home in the summer-land, and describe the ailments of those present. I have no theory to publish of these cases, several of which I have personally seen.
As an example of the automatic writing performances I will quote from an account of his own case kindly furnished me by Mr. Sidney Dean of Warren, R I., member of Congress from Connecticut from 1855 to 1859, who has been all his life a robust and active journalist, author, and man of affairs. He has for many years been a writing subject, and has a large collection of manuscript automatically produced.
"Some of it," he writes us, "is in hieroglyph, or strange compounded arbitrary characters, each series possessing a seeming unity in generaldesign or character, followed by what purports to be a translation or rendering into mother English. I never attempted the seemingly impossible feat of copying the characters. They were cut with the precision of a graver's tool, and generally with a single rapid stroke of the pencil. Many languages, some obsolete and passed from history, are professedly given. To see them would satisfy you that no one could copy them except by tracing."These, however, are but a small part of the phenomena. The 'automatic' has given place to theimpressional, and when the work is in progress I am in the normal condition, and seemingly two minds, intelligences, persons, are practically engaged. The writing is in my own hand but the dictation not of my own mind and will, but that of another, upon subjects of which I can have no knowledge and hardly a theory; and I, myself, consciously criticise the thought, fact, mode of expressing it, etc., while the hand is recording the subject-matter and even the words impressed to be written. IfIrefuse to write the sentence, or even the word, the impression instantly ceases, and my willingness must be mentally expressed before the work is resumed, and it is resumed at the point of cessation, even if it should be in the middle of a sentence. Sentences are commenced without knowledge of mine as to their subject or ending. In fact, I have never known in advance the subject of disquisition."There is in progress now, at uncertain times, not subject to my will, a series of twenty-four chapters upon the scientific features of life, moral, spiritual, eternal. Seven have already been written in the manner indicated. These were preceded by twenty-four chapters relating generally to the life beyond material death, its characteristics, etc. Each chapter is signed by the name of some person who has lived on earth,—some with whom I have been personally acquainted, others known in history.... I know nothing of the alleged authorship of any chapter until it is completed and the name impressed and appended.... I am interested not only in the reputed authorship,—of which I have nothing corroborative,—but in the philosophy taught, of which I was in ignorance until these chapters appeared. From my standpoint of life—which has been that of biblical orthodoxy—the philosophy is new, seems to be reasonable, and is logically put. I confess to an inability to successfully controvert it to my own satisfaction."It is an intelligentegowho writes, or else the influence assumes individuality, which practically makes of the influence a personality. It isnotmyself; of that I am conscious at every step of the process. I have also traversed the whole field of the claims of 'unconscious cerebration,' so called, so far as I am competent to critically examine it, and it fails, as a theory, in numberless points, when applied to this strange work through me. It would be far more reasonable and satisfactory for me to accept the silly hypothesis of re-incarnation,—the old doctrine of metempsychosis,—as taught by some spiritualists to-day, and to believe that I lived a former life here, and that once in a while it dominates myintellectual powers, and writes chapters upon the philosophy of life, or opens a post-office for spirits to drop their effusions, and have them put into English script. No; the easiest and most natural solution to me is to admit the claim made, i.e., that it is a decarnated intelligence who writes. Butwho?that is the question. The names of scholars and thinkers who once lived are affixed to the most ungrammatical and weakest ofbosh...."It seems reasonable to me—upon the hypothesis that it is a person using another's mind or brain—that there must be more or less of that other's style or tone incorporated in the message, and that to the unseen personality, i.e., the power which impresses, the thought, the fact, or the philosophy, and not the style or tone, belongs. For instance, while the influence is impressing my brain with the greatest force and rapidity, so that my pencil fairly flies over the paper to record the thoughts, I am conscious that, in many cases, the vehicle of the thought, i.e., the language, is very natural and familiar to me, as if, somehow,mypersonality as a writer was getting mixed up with the message. And, again, the style, language, everything, is entirely foreign to my own style."
"Some of it," he writes us, "is in hieroglyph, or strange compounded arbitrary characters, each series possessing a seeming unity in generaldesign or character, followed by what purports to be a translation or rendering into mother English. I never attempted the seemingly impossible feat of copying the characters. They were cut with the precision of a graver's tool, and generally with a single rapid stroke of the pencil. Many languages, some obsolete and passed from history, are professedly given. To see them would satisfy you that no one could copy them except by tracing.
"These, however, are but a small part of the phenomena. The 'automatic' has given place to theimpressional, and when the work is in progress I am in the normal condition, and seemingly two minds, intelligences, persons, are practically engaged. The writing is in my own hand but the dictation not of my own mind and will, but that of another, upon subjects of which I can have no knowledge and hardly a theory; and I, myself, consciously criticise the thought, fact, mode of expressing it, etc., while the hand is recording the subject-matter and even the words impressed to be written. IfIrefuse to write the sentence, or even the word, the impression instantly ceases, and my willingness must be mentally expressed before the work is resumed, and it is resumed at the point of cessation, even if it should be in the middle of a sentence. Sentences are commenced without knowledge of mine as to their subject or ending. In fact, I have never known in advance the subject of disquisition.
"There is in progress now, at uncertain times, not subject to my will, a series of twenty-four chapters upon the scientific features of life, moral, spiritual, eternal. Seven have already been written in the manner indicated. These were preceded by twenty-four chapters relating generally to the life beyond material death, its characteristics, etc. Each chapter is signed by the name of some person who has lived on earth,—some with whom I have been personally acquainted, others known in history.... I know nothing of the alleged authorship of any chapter until it is completed and the name impressed and appended.... I am interested not only in the reputed authorship,—of which I have nothing corroborative,—but in the philosophy taught, of which I was in ignorance until these chapters appeared. From my standpoint of life—which has been that of biblical orthodoxy—the philosophy is new, seems to be reasonable, and is logically put. I confess to an inability to successfully controvert it to my own satisfaction.
"It is an intelligentegowho writes, or else the influence assumes individuality, which practically makes of the influence a personality. It isnotmyself; of that I am conscious at every step of the process. I have also traversed the whole field of the claims of 'unconscious cerebration,' so called, so far as I am competent to critically examine it, and it fails, as a theory, in numberless points, when applied to this strange work through me. It would be far more reasonable and satisfactory for me to accept the silly hypothesis of re-incarnation,—the old doctrine of metempsychosis,—as taught by some spiritualists to-day, and to believe that I lived a former life here, and that once in a while it dominates myintellectual powers, and writes chapters upon the philosophy of life, or opens a post-office for spirits to drop their effusions, and have them put into English script. No; the easiest and most natural solution to me is to admit the claim made, i.e., that it is a decarnated intelligence who writes. Butwho?that is the question. The names of scholars and thinkers who once lived are affixed to the most ungrammatical and weakest ofbosh....
"It seems reasonable to me—upon the hypothesis that it is a person using another's mind or brain—that there must be more or less of that other's style or tone incorporated in the message, and that to the unseen personality, i.e., the power which impresses, the thought, the fact, or the philosophy, and not the style or tone, belongs. For instance, while the influence is impressing my brain with the greatest force and rapidity, so that my pencil fairly flies over the paper to record the thoughts, I am conscious that, in many cases, the vehicle of the thought, i.e., the language, is very natural and familiar to me, as if, somehow,mypersonality as a writer was getting mixed up with the message. And, again, the style, language, everything, is entirely foreign to my own style."
I am myself persuaded by abundant acquaintance with the trances of one medium that the 'control' may be altogether different from anypossiblewaking self of the person. In the case I have in mind, it professes to be a certain departed French doctor; and is, I am convinced, acquainted with facts about the circumstances, and the living and dead relatives and acquaintances, of numberless sitters whom the medium never met before, and of whom she has never heard the names. I record my bare opinion here unsupported by the evidence, not, of course, in order to convert anyone to my view, but because I am persuaded that a serious study of these trance-phenomena is one of the greatest needs of psychology, and think that my personal confession may possibly draw a reader or two into a field which thesoi-disant'scientist' usually refuses to explore.
Many persons have found evidence conclusive to their minds that in some cases the control is really the departed spirit whom it pretends to be. The phenomena shade off so gradually into cases where this is obviously absurd, that the presumption (quite apart froma priori'scientific' prejudice) is great against its being true. The case of Lurancy Vennum is perhaps as extreme a case of 'possession'of the modern sort as one can find.[319]Lurancy was a young girl of fourteen, living with her parents at Watseka, Ill., who (after various distressing hysterical disorders and spontaneous trances, during which she was possessed by departed spirits of a more or less grotesque sort) finally declared herself to be animated by the spirit of Mary Roff (a neighbor's daughter, who had died in an insane asylum twelve years before) and insisted on being sent 'home' to Mr. Roff's house. After a week of 'homesickness' and importunity on her part, her parents agreed, and the Roffs, who pitied her, and who were spiritualists into the bargain, took her in. Once there, she seems to have convinced the family that their dead Mary had exchanged habitations with Lurancy. Lurancy was said to be temporarily in heaven, and Mary's spirit now controlled her organism, and lived again in her former earthly home.
"The girl, now in her new home, seemed perfectly happy and content, knowing every person and everything that Mary knew when in her original body, twelve to twenty-five years ago, recognizing and calling by name those who were friends and neighbors of the family from 1852 to 1865, when Mary died, calling attention to scores, yes, hundreds of incidents that transpired during her natural life. During all the period of her sojourn at Mr. Roff's she had no knowledge of, and did not recognize, any of Mr. Vennum's family, their friends or neighbors, yet Mr. and Mrs. Vennum and their children visited her and Mr. Roff's people, she being introduced to them as to any strangers. After frequent visits, and hearing them often and favorably spoken of, she learned to love them as acquaintances, and visited them with Mrs. Roff three times. From day to day she appeared natural, easy, affable, and industrious, attending diligently and faithfully to her household duties, assisting in the general work of the family as a faithful, prudent daughter might be supposed to do, singing, reading, or conversing as opportunity offered, upon all matters of private or general interest to the family."
"The girl, now in her new home, seemed perfectly happy and content, knowing every person and everything that Mary knew when in her original body, twelve to twenty-five years ago, recognizing and calling by name those who were friends and neighbors of the family from 1852 to 1865, when Mary died, calling attention to scores, yes, hundreds of incidents that transpired during her natural life. During all the period of her sojourn at Mr. Roff's she had no knowledge of, and did not recognize, any of Mr. Vennum's family, their friends or neighbors, yet Mr. and Mrs. Vennum and their children visited her and Mr. Roff's people, she being introduced to them as to any strangers. After frequent visits, and hearing them often and favorably spoken of, she learned to love them as acquaintances, and visited them with Mrs. Roff three times. From day to day she appeared natural, easy, affable, and industrious, attending diligently and faithfully to her household duties, assisting in the general work of the family as a faithful, prudent daughter might be supposed to do, singing, reading, or conversing as opportunity offered, upon all matters of private or general interest to the family."
The so-called Mary whilst at the Roffs' would sometimes 'go back to heaven,' and leave the body in a 'quiet trance,' i.e., without the original personality of Lurancy returning. After eight or nine weeks, however, the memory and manner of Lurancy would sometimes partially, but not entirely, return for a few minutes. Once Lurancy seems tohave taken full possession for a short time. At last, after some fourteen weeks, conformably to the prophecy which 'Mary' had made when she first assumed 'control,' she departed definitively and the Lurancy-consciousness came back for good. Mr. Roff writes:
"She wanted me to take her home, which I did. She called me Mr. Roff, and talked with me as a young girl would, not being acquainted. I asked her how things appeared to her—if they seemed natural. She said it seemed like a dream to her. She met her parents and brothers in a very affectionate manner, hugging and kissing each one in tears of gladness. She clasped her arms around her father's neck a long time, fairly smothering him with kisses. I saw her father just now (eleven o'clock). He says she has been perfectly natural, and seems entirely well."
"She wanted me to take her home, which I did. She called me Mr. Roff, and talked with me as a young girl would, not being acquainted. I asked her how things appeared to her—if they seemed natural. She said it seemed like a dream to her. She met her parents and brothers in a very affectionate manner, hugging and kissing each one in tears of gladness. She clasped her arms around her father's neck a long time, fairly smothering him with kisses. I saw her father just now (eleven o'clock). He says she has been perfectly natural, and seems entirely well."
Lurancy's mother writes, a couple of months later, that she was
"perfectly and entirely well and natural. For two or three weeks after her return home, she seemed a little strange to what she had been before she was taken sick last summer, but only, perhaps, the natural change that had taken place with the girl, and except it seemed to her as though she had been dreaming or sleeping, etc. Lurancy has been smarter, more intelligent, more industrious, more womanly, and more polite than before. We give the credit of her complete cure and restoration to her family, to Dr. E. W. Stevens, and Mr. and Mrs. Roff, by their obtaining her removal to Mr. Roff's, where her cure was perfected. We firmly believe that, had she remained at home, she would have died, or we would have been obliged to send her to the insane asylum; and if so, that she would have died there; and further, that I could not have lived but a short time with the care and trouble devolving on me. Several of the relatives of Lurancy, including ourselves, now believe she was cured by spirit power, and that Mary Roff controlled the girl."
"perfectly and entirely well and natural. For two or three weeks after her return home, she seemed a little strange to what she had been before she was taken sick last summer, but only, perhaps, the natural change that had taken place with the girl, and except it seemed to her as though she had been dreaming or sleeping, etc. Lurancy has been smarter, more intelligent, more industrious, more womanly, and more polite than before. We give the credit of her complete cure and restoration to her family, to Dr. E. W. Stevens, and Mr. and Mrs. Roff, by their obtaining her removal to Mr. Roff's, where her cure was perfected. We firmly believe that, had she remained at home, she would have died, or we would have been obliged to send her to the insane asylum; and if so, that she would have died there; and further, that I could not have lived but a short time with the care and trouble devolving on me. Several of the relatives of Lurancy, including ourselves, now believe she was cured by spirit power, and that Mary Roff controlled the girl."
Eight years later, Lurancy was reported to be married and a mother, and in good health. She had apparently outgrown the mediumistic phase of her existence.[320]
On the condition of the sensibility during these invasions, few observations have been made. I have found the hands of two automatic writers anæsthetic during the act.In two others I have found this not to be the case. Automatic writing is usually preceded by shooting pains along the arm-nerves and irregular contractions of the arm-muscles. I have found one medium's tongue and lips apparently insensible to pin-pricks during her (speaking) trance.
If we speculate on the brain-condition during all these different perversions of personality, we see that it must be supposed capable of successively changing all its modes of action, and abandoning the use for the time being of whole sets of well-organized association-paths. In no other way can we explain the loss of memory in passing from one alternating condition to another. And not only this, but we must admit that organized systems of paths can be thrown out of gear with others, so that the processes in one system give rise to one consciousness, and those of another system to anothersimultaneouslyexisting consciousness. Thus only can we understand the facts of automatic writing, etc., whilst the patient is out of trance, and the false anæsthesias and amnesias of the hysteric type. But just what sort of dissociation the phrase 'thrown out of gear' may stand for, we cannot even conjecture; only I think we ought not to talk of the doubling of the self as if it consisted in the failure to combine on the part of certain systems ofideaswhich usually do so. It is better to talk ofobjectsusually combined, and which are now divided between the two 'selves,' in the hysteric and automatic cases in question. Each of the selves is due to a system of cerebral paths acting by itself. If the brain acted normally, and the dissociated systems came together again, we should get a new affection of consciousness in the form of a third 'Self' different from the other two, but knowing their objects together, as the result.—After all I have said in the last chapter, this hardly needs further remark.
Some peculiarities in the lower automatic performances suggest that the systems thrown out of gear with each other are contained one in the right and the other in the left hemisphere. The subjects, e.g., often write backwards, or they transpose letters, or they write mirror-script. All theseare symptoms of agraphic disease. The left hand, if left to its natural impulse, will in most people write mirror-script more easily than natural script. Mr. F. W. H. Myers has laid stress on these analogies.[321]He has also called attention to the usual inferior moral tone of ordinary planchette writing. On Hughlings Jackson's principles, the left hemisphere, being the more evolved organ, at ordinary times inhibits the activity of the right one; but Mr. Myers suggests that during the automatic performances the usual inhibition may be removed and the right hemisphere set free to act all by itself. This is very likely to some extent to be the case. But the crude explanation of 'two' selves by 'two' hemispheres is of course far from Mr. Myers's thought. The selves may be more than two, and the brain-systems severally used for each must be conceived as interpenetrating each other in very minute ways.
To sum up now this long chapter. The consciousness of Self involves a stream of thought, each part of which as 'I' can 1) remember those which went before, and know the things they knew; and 2) emphasize and care paramountly for certain ones among them as 'me,' andappropriate to thesethe rest. The nucleus of the 'me' is always the bodily existence felt to be present at the time. Whatever remembered-past-feelingsresemblethis present feeling are deemed to belong to the samemewith it. Whatever other things are perceived to beassociatedwith this feeling are deemed to form part of that me'sexperience; and of them certain ones (which fluctuate more or less) are reckoned to be themselvesconstituentsof the me in a larger sense,—such are the clothes, the material possessions, the friends, the honors and esteem which the person receives or may receive. This me is an empirical aggregate of things objectively known. TheIwhich knows them cannot itself be anaggregate, neither for psychological purposes need it be considered to be an unchanging metaphysical entity like the Soul, or a principle like the pure Ego, viewed as 'out of time.' It is aThought, at each moment different from that of the last moment, butappropriativeof the latter, together with all that the latter called its own. All the experiential facts find their place in this description, unencumbered with any hypothesis save that of the existence of passing thoughts or states of mind. The same brain may subserve many conscious selves, either alternate or coexisting; but by what modifications in its action, or whether ultra-cerebral conditions may intervene, are questions which cannot now be answered.
If anyone urge that I assign noreasonwhy the successive passing thoughts should inherit each other's possessions, or why they and the brain-states should be functions (in the mathematical sense) of each other, I reply that the reason, if there be any, must lie where all real reasons lie, in the total sense or meaning of the world. If there be such a meaning, or any approach to it (as we are bound to trust there is), it alone can make clear to us why such finite human streams of thought are called into existence in such functional dependence upon brains. This is as much as to say that the special natural science ofpsychologymust stop with the mere functional formula.If the passing thought be the directly verifiable existent which no school has hitherto doubted it to be, then that thought is itself the thinker, and psychology need not look beyond. The only pathway that I can discover for bringing in a more transcendental thinker would be todenythat we have anydirectknowledge of the thought as such. The latter's existence would then be reduced to a postulate, an assertion that theremust beaknowercorrelative to all thisknown; and the problemwho that knower iswould have become a metaphysical problem. With the question once stated in these terms, the spiritualist and transcendentalist solutions must be considered asprima facieon a par with our own psychological one, and discussed impartially. But that carries us beyond the psychological or naturalistic point of view.
[257]See, for a charming passage on the Philosophy of Dress, H. Lotze's Microcosmus, Eng. tr. vol. i, p. 592 ff.
[257]See, for a charming passage on the Philosophy of Dress, H. Lotze's Microcosmus, Eng. tr. vol. i, p. 592 ff.
[258]"Who filches from me my good name," etc.
[258]"Who filches from me my good name," etc.
[259]"He who imagines commendation and disgrace not to be strong motives on men ... seems little skilled in the nature and history of mankind; the greatest part whereof he shall find to govern themselves chiefly, if not solely, by this law of fashion; and so they do that which keeps them in reputation with their company, little regard the laws of God or the magistrate. The penalties that attend the breach of God's laws some, nay, most, men seldom seriously reflect on; and amongst those that do, many, whilst they break the laws, entertain thoughts of future reconciliation, and making their peace for such breaches: and as to the punishments due from the laws of the commonwealth, they frequently flatter themselves with the hope of impunity. But no man escapes the punishment oftheircensure and dislike who offends against the fashion and opinion of the company he keeps, and would recommend himself to. Nor is there one in ten thousand who is stiff and insensible enough to bear up under the constant dislike and condemnation of his own club. He must be of a strange and unusual constitution who can content himself to live in constant disgrace and disrepute with his own particular society. Solitude many men have sought and been reconciled to; but nobody that has the least thought or sense of a man about him can live in society under the constant dislike and ill opinion of his familiars and those he converses with. This is a burden too heavy for human sufferance: and he must be made up of irreconcilable contradictions who can take pleasure in company and yet be insensible of contempt and disgrace from his companions." (Locke's Essay, book ii, ch. xxviii, § 12.)
[259]"He who imagines commendation and disgrace not to be strong motives on men ... seems little skilled in the nature and history of mankind; the greatest part whereof he shall find to govern themselves chiefly, if not solely, by this law of fashion; and so they do that which keeps them in reputation with their company, little regard the laws of God or the magistrate. The penalties that attend the breach of God's laws some, nay, most, men seldom seriously reflect on; and amongst those that do, many, whilst they break the laws, entertain thoughts of future reconciliation, and making their peace for such breaches: and as to the punishments due from the laws of the commonwealth, they frequently flatter themselves with the hope of impunity. But no man escapes the punishment oftheircensure and dislike who offends against the fashion and opinion of the company he keeps, and would recommend himself to. Nor is there one in ten thousand who is stiff and insensible enough to bear up under the constant dislike and condemnation of his own club. He must be of a strange and unusual constitution who can content himself to live in constant disgrace and disrepute with his own particular society. Solitude many men have sought and been reconciled to; but nobody that has the least thought or sense of a man about him can live in society under the constant dislike and ill opinion of his familiars and those he converses with. This is a burden too heavy for human sufferance: and he must be made up of irreconcilable contradictions who can take pleasure in company and yet be insensible of contempt and disgrace from his companions." (Locke's Essay, book ii, ch. xxviii, § 12.)
[260]For some farther remarks on these feelings of movement see thenext chapter.
[260]For some farther remarks on these feelings of movement see thenext chapter.
[261]Wundt's account of Self-consciousness deserves to be compared with this. What I have called 'adjustments' he calls processes of 'Apperception.' "In this development (of consciousness) one particular group of percepts claims a prominent significance, namely, those of which the spring lies in ourselves. The images of feelings we get from our own body, and the representations of our own movements distinguish themselves from all others by forming apermanentgroup. As there are always some muscles in a state either of tension or of activity it follows that we never lack a sense, either dim or clear, of the positions or movements of our body.... This permanent sense, moreover, has this peculiarity, that we are aware of our power at any moment voluntarily to arouse any one of its ingredients. We excite the sensations of movement immediately by such impulses of the will as shall arouse the movements themselves; and we excite the visual and tactile feelings of our body by the voluntary movement of our organs of sense. So we come to conceive this permanent mass of feeling as immediately or remotely subject to our will, and call it theconsciousness of ourself. This self-consciousness is, at the outset, thoroughly sensational,... only gradually the second-named of its characters, its subjection to our will, attains predominance. In proportion as the apperception of all our mental objects appears to us as an inward exercise of will, does our self-consciousness begin both to widen itself and to narrow itself at the same time. It widens itself in that every mental act whatever comes to stand in relation to our will; and it narrows itself in that it concentrates itself more and more upon the inner activity of apperception, over against which our own body and all the representations connected with it appear as external objects, different from our proper self. This consciousness, contracted down to the process of apperception, we call our Ego; and the apperception of mental objects in general, may thus, after Leibnitz, be designated as the raising of them into our self-consciousness. Thus the natural development of self-consciousness implicitly involves the most abstract forms in which this faculty has been described in philosophy; only philosophy is fond of placing the abstract ego at the outset, and so reversing the process of development. Nor should we overlook the fact that the completely abstract ego [as pure activity], although suggested by the natural development of our consciousness, is never actually found therein. The most speculative of philosophers is incapable of disjoining his ego from those bodily feelings and images which form the incessant background of his awareness of himself. The notion of his ego as such is, like every notion, derived from sensibility, for the process of apperception itself comes to our knowledge chiefly through those feelings of tension [what I have above called inward adjustments] which accompany it." (Physiologische Psychologie, 2te Aufl. Bd. ii, pp. 217-19.)
[261]Wundt's account of Self-consciousness deserves to be compared with this. What I have called 'adjustments' he calls processes of 'Apperception.' "In this development (of consciousness) one particular group of percepts claims a prominent significance, namely, those of which the spring lies in ourselves. The images of feelings we get from our own body, and the representations of our own movements distinguish themselves from all others by forming apermanentgroup. As there are always some muscles in a state either of tension or of activity it follows that we never lack a sense, either dim or clear, of the positions or movements of our body.... This permanent sense, moreover, has this peculiarity, that we are aware of our power at any moment voluntarily to arouse any one of its ingredients. We excite the sensations of movement immediately by such impulses of the will as shall arouse the movements themselves; and we excite the visual and tactile feelings of our body by the voluntary movement of our organs of sense. So we come to conceive this permanent mass of feeling as immediately or remotely subject to our will, and call it theconsciousness of ourself. This self-consciousness is, at the outset, thoroughly sensational,... only gradually the second-named of its characters, its subjection to our will, attains predominance. In proportion as the apperception of all our mental objects appears to us as an inward exercise of will, does our self-consciousness begin both to widen itself and to narrow itself at the same time. It widens itself in that every mental act whatever comes to stand in relation to our will; and it narrows itself in that it concentrates itself more and more upon the inner activity of apperception, over against which our own body and all the representations connected with it appear as external objects, different from our proper self. This consciousness, contracted down to the process of apperception, we call our Ego; and the apperception of mental objects in general, may thus, after Leibnitz, be designated as the raising of them into our self-consciousness. Thus the natural development of self-consciousness implicitly involves the most abstract forms in which this faculty has been described in philosophy; only philosophy is fond of placing the abstract ego at the outset, and so reversing the process of development. Nor should we overlook the fact that the completely abstract ego [as pure activity], although suggested by the natural development of our consciousness, is never actually found therein. The most speculative of philosophers is incapable of disjoining his ego from those bodily feelings and images which form the incessant background of his awareness of himself. The notion of his ego as such is, like every notion, derived from sensibility, for the process of apperception itself comes to our knowledge chiefly through those feelings of tension [what I have above called inward adjustments] which accompany it." (Physiologische Psychologie, 2te Aufl. Bd. ii, pp. 217-19.)
[262]The only exception I know of is M. J. Souriau, in his important article in the Revue Philosophique, vol. xxi, p. 449. M. Souriau's conclusion is 'que la conscience n'existe pas' (p. 472).
[262]The only exception I know of is M. J. Souriau, in his important article in the Revue Philosophique, vol. xxi, p. 449. M. Souriau's conclusion is 'que la conscience n'existe pas' (p. 472).
[263]See the excellent remarks by Prof. Bain on the 'Emotion of Power' in his 'Emotions and the Will.'
[263]See the excellent remarks by Prof. Bain on the 'Emotion of Power' in his 'Emotions and the Will.'
[264]Cf. Carlyle:Sartor Resartus, 'The Everlasting Yea.' "I tell thee, blockhead, it all comes of thy vanity; of what thou fanciest those same deserts of thine to be. Fancy that thou deservest to be hanged (as is most likely), thou wilt feel it happiness to be only shot: fancy that thou deservest to be hanged in a hair halter, it will be a luxury to die in hemp.... What act of legislature was there thatthoushouldst be happy? A little while ago thou hadst no right tobeat all." etc., etc.
[264]Cf. Carlyle:Sartor Resartus, 'The Everlasting Yea.' "I tell thee, blockhead, it all comes of thy vanity; of what thou fanciest those same deserts of thine to be. Fancy that thou deservest to be hanged (as is most likely), thou wilt feel it happiness to be only shot: fancy that thou deservest to be hanged in a hair halter, it will be a luxury to die in hemp.... What act of legislature was there thatthoushouldst be happy? A little while ago thou hadst no right tobeat all." etc., etc.
[265]T. W. Higginson's translation (1866), p. 105.
[265]T. W. Higginson's translation (1866), p. 105.
[266]"The usual mode of lessening the shock of disappointment or disesteem is to contract, if possible, a low estimate of the persons that inflict it. This is our remedy for the unjust censures of party spirit, as well as of personal malignity." (Bain: Emotion and Will, p. 209.)
[266]"The usual mode of lessening the shock of disappointment or disesteem is to contract, if possible, a low estimate of the persons that inflict it. This is our remedy for the unjust censures of party spirit, as well as of personal malignity." (Bain: Emotion and Will, p. 209.)
[267]It must be observed that the qualities of the Self thus ideally constituted are all qualities approved by my actual fellows in the first instance; and that my reason for now appealing from their verdict to that of the ideal judge lies in some outward peculiarity of the immediate case. What once was admired in me as courage has now become in the eyes of men 'impertinence'; what was fortitude is obstinacy; what was fidelity is now fanaticism. The ideal judge alone, I now believe, can read my qualities, my willingnesses, my powers, for what they truly are. My fellows, misled by interest and prejudice, have gone astray.
[267]It must be observed that the qualities of the Self thus ideally constituted are all qualities approved by my actual fellows in the first instance; and that my reason for now appealing from their verdict to that of the ideal judge lies in some outward peculiarity of the immediate case. What once was admired in me as courage has now become in the eyes of men 'impertinence'; what was fortitude is obstinacy; what was fidelity is now fanaticism. The ideal judge alone, I now believe, can read my qualities, my willingnesses, my powers, for what they truly are. My fellows, misled by interest and prejudice, have gone astray.
[268]Thekindof selfishness varies with the self that is sought. If it be the mere bodily self; if a man grabs the best food, the warm corner, the vacant seat; if he makes room for no one, spits about, and belches in our faces,—we call it hoggishness. If it be the social self, in the form of popularity or influence, for which he is greedy, he may in material ways subordinate himself to others as the best means to his end; and in this case he is very apt to pass for a disinterested man. If it be the 'other-worldly' self which he seeks, and if he seeks it ascetically,—even though he would rather see all mankind damned eternally than lose his individual soul,—'saintliness' will probably be the name by which his selfishness will be called.
[268]Thekindof selfishness varies with the self that is sought. If it be the mere bodily self; if a man grabs the best food, the warm corner, the vacant seat; if he makes room for no one, spits about, and belches in our faces,—we call it hoggishness. If it be the social self, in the form of popularity or influence, for which he is greedy, he may in material ways subordinate himself to others as the best means to his end; and in this case he is very apt to pass for a disinterested man. If it be the 'other-worldly' self which he seeks, and if he seeks it ascetically,—even though he would rather see all mankind damned eternally than lose his individual soul,—'saintliness' will probably be the name by which his selfishness will be called.
[269]Lotze, Med. Psych. 498-501; Microcosmos, bk. ii, chap. v, §§ 3, 4.
[269]Lotze, Med. Psych. 498-501; Microcosmos, bk. ii, chap. v, §§ 3, 4.
[270]Psychologische Analysen auf Physiologischer Grundlage. Theil ii, 2te Hälfte, § 11. The whole section ought to be read.
[270]Psychologische Analysen auf Physiologischer Grundlage. Theil ii, 2te Hälfte, § 11. The whole section ought to be read.
[271]Professor Bain, in his chapter on 'Emotions of Self,' does scant justice to the primitive nature of a large part of our self-feeling, and seems to reduce it to reflective self-estimation of this sober intellectual sort, which certainlymostof it is not. He says that when the attention is turned inward upon self as a Personality, "we are putting forth towards ourselves the kind of exercise that properly accompanies our contemplation of other persons. We are accustomed to scrutinize the actions and conduct of those about us, to set a highervalueupon one man than upon another, by comparing the two; topityone in distress; to feelcomplacencytowards a particular individual; tocongratulatea man on some good fortune that it pleases us to see him gain; toadmiregreatness or excellence as displayed by any of our fellows. All these exercises are intrinsically social, like Love and Resentment; an isolated individual could never attain to them, nor exercise them. By what means, then, through what fiction [!] can we turn round and play them off upon self? Or how comes it that we obtain any satisfaction by putting self in the place of the other party? Perhaps the simplest form of the reflected act is that expressed by Self-worth and Self-estimation, based and begun upon observation of the ways and conduct of our fellow-beings. We soon make comparisons among the individuals about us; we see that one is stronger and does more work than another, and, in consequence perhaps, receives more pay. We see one putting forth perhaps more kindness than another, and in consequence receiving more love. We see some individuals surpassing the rest in astonishing feats, and drawing after them the gaze and admiration of a crowd. We acquire a series of fixed associations towards persons so situated; favorable in the case of the superior, and unfavorable to the inferior. To the strong and laborious man we attach an estimate of greater reward, and feel that to be in his place would be a happier lot than falls to others. Desiring, as we do, from the primary motives of our being, to possess good things, and observing these to come by a man's superior exertions, we feel a respect for such exertion and a wish that it might be ours. We know that we also put forth exertions for our share of good things; and on witnessing others, we are apt to be reminded of ourselves and to make comparisons with ourselves, which comparisons derive their interest from the substantial consequences. Having thus once learned to look at other persons as performing labors, greater or less, and as realizing fruits to accord; being, moreover, in all respects like our fellows,—we find it an exercise neither difficult nor unmeaning to contemplate self as doing work and receiving the reward.... As we decide between one man and another,—which is worthier,... so we decide between self and all other men; being, however, in this decision under the bias of our own desires." A couple of pages farther on we read: "By the terms Self-complacency. Self-gratulation, is indicated a positive enjoyment in dwelling upon our own merits and belongings. As in other modes, so here, the starting point is the contemplation of excellence or pleasing qualitiesin another person, accompanied more or less with fondness or love." Self-pity is also regarded by Professor Bain, in this place, as an emotion diverted to ourselves from a more immediate object, "in a manner that we may term fictitious and unreal. Still, as we can view self in the light of another person, we can feel towards it the emotion of pity called forth by others in our situation."This account of Professor Bain's is, it will be observed, a good specimen of the old-fashioned mode of explaining the several emotions as rapid calculations of results, and the transfer of feeling from one object to another, associated by contiguity or similarity with the first. Zoological evolutionism, which came up since Professor Bain first wrote, has made us see, on the contrary, that many emotions must beprimitivelyaroused by special objects. None are more worthy of being ranked primitive than the self-gratulation and humiliation attendant on our own successes and failures in the main functions of life. We need no borrowed reflection for these feelings. Professor Bain's account applies to but that small fraction of our self-feeling which reflective criticism can add to, or subtract from, the total mass.—Lotze has some pages on the modifications of our self-regard by universal judgments, in Microcosmus, book v, chap. v, § 5.
[271]Professor Bain, in his chapter on 'Emotions of Self,' does scant justice to the primitive nature of a large part of our self-feeling, and seems to reduce it to reflective self-estimation of this sober intellectual sort, which certainlymostof it is not. He says that when the attention is turned inward upon self as a Personality, "we are putting forth towards ourselves the kind of exercise that properly accompanies our contemplation of other persons. We are accustomed to scrutinize the actions and conduct of those about us, to set a highervalueupon one man than upon another, by comparing the two; topityone in distress; to feelcomplacencytowards a particular individual; tocongratulatea man on some good fortune that it pleases us to see him gain; toadmiregreatness or excellence as displayed by any of our fellows. All these exercises are intrinsically social, like Love and Resentment; an isolated individual could never attain to them, nor exercise them. By what means, then, through what fiction [!] can we turn round and play them off upon self? Or how comes it that we obtain any satisfaction by putting self in the place of the other party? Perhaps the simplest form of the reflected act is that expressed by Self-worth and Self-estimation, based and begun upon observation of the ways and conduct of our fellow-beings. We soon make comparisons among the individuals about us; we see that one is stronger and does more work than another, and, in consequence perhaps, receives more pay. We see one putting forth perhaps more kindness than another, and in consequence receiving more love. We see some individuals surpassing the rest in astonishing feats, and drawing after them the gaze and admiration of a crowd. We acquire a series of fixed associations towards persons so situated; favorable in the case of the superior, and unfavorable to the inferior. To the strong and laborious man we attach an estimate of greater reward, and feel that to be in his place would be a happier lot than falls to others. Desiring, as we do, from the primary motives of our being, to possess good things, and observing these to come by a man's superior exertions, we feel a respect for such exertion and a wish that it might be ours. We know that we also put forth exertions for our share of good things; and on witnessing others, we are apt to be reminded of ourselves and to make comparisons with ourselves, which comparisons derive their interest from the substantial consequences. Having thus once learned to look at other persons as performing labors, greater or less, and as realizing fruits to accord; being, moreover, in all respects like our fellows,—we find it an exercise neither difficult nor unmeaning to contemplate self as doing work and receiving the reward.... As we decide between one man and another,—which is worthier,... so we decide between self and all other men; being, however, in this decision under the bias of our own desires." A couple of pages farther on we read: "By the terms Self-complacency. Self-gratulation, is indicated a positive enjoyment in dwelling upon our own merits and belongings. As in other modes, so here, the starting point is the contemplation of excellence or pleasing qualitiesin another person, accompanied more or less with fondness or love." Self-pity is also regarded by Professor Bain, in this place, as an emotion diverted to ourselves from a more immediate object, "in a manner that we may term fictitious and unreal. Still, as we can view self in the light of another person, we can feel towards it the emotion of pity called forth by others in our situation."
This account of Professor Bain's is, it will be observed, a good specimen of the old-fashioned mode of explaining the several emotions as rapid calculations of results, and the transfer of feeling from one object to another, associated by contiguity or similarity with the first. Zoological evolutionism, which came up since Professor Bain first wrote, has made us see, on the contrary, that many emotions must beprimitivelyaroused by special objects. None are more worthy of being ranked primitive than the self-gratulation and humiliation attendant on our own successes and failures in the main functions of life. We need no borrowed reflection for these feelings. Professor Bain's account applies to but that small fraction of our self-feeling which reflective criticism can add to, or subtract from, the total mass.—Lotze has some pages on the modifications of our self-regard by universal judgments, in Microcosmus, book v, chap. v, § 5.