642 THE BIOLOGICAL BASIS OF INDIVIDUALITY 



particular, such terms as egoism, altruism, have a meaning only in the con- 

 text of the social and natural struggle ; they signify certain attitudes, balanc- 

 ings between our needs and those of others in these struggles. It is largely 

 in such a world of varying conflicts that the individual lives and his activi- 

 ties take their course. 



This world of the social and natural struggle is essentially the egocentric 

 world, from which, step by step, the objective world of science has detached 

 itself in the past and will continue to detach itself in the future. It is only 

 if we consider the different psychical states active in the sphere of the social 

 and natural struggle as this struggle has developed in the course of human 

 history that we understand some of the characteristic desires and needs of our 

 individuality, as manifested by our wish to attain an absolute significance 

 and an independence of time and space. To accomplish these aims the in- 

 dividual longs (1) to be free and self-determining; (2) to be unique and 

 constant, essentially unchangeable, a self-conscious continuity; (3) to be 

 eternal, and (4) to obtain appreciation and self-justification in the face of 

 attacks and criticism, to prove worthy of existence and to be in harmony 

 with the laws of man and of the universe. Let us examine such needs and 

 desires and state to what degree they may rest on constants in the human 

 constitution finding expression in the present social constellations and how 

 far they may be founded on illusions. 



1. Free will and self-determination. The concept of psychical individuality 

 implies, as we have seen, the feeling of freedom, the existence and manifesta- 

 tion of a self-determining entity, which according to the belief of many 

 assumes the character of a spirit or soul, which is an eternal factor ; this 

 "self" is distinct in each person and sharply differentiated from the processes 

 underlying our machine-like automatisms, and it presupposes the action of a 

 directing principle coming from the inside, rather than a mechanism dependent 

 upon the interaction between organism and environment by way of definite 

 reflexes acting in preformed channels. 



That there are fixed factors determining our actions we have already dis- 

 cussed ; in certain cases the automatisms active in thinking and in the mani- 

 festation of emotions become so evident that, under these conditions, we are 

 ready to abandon the concept of individuality. Thus the lack of freedom is 

 especially clear in the hypnotized person, or in the person who, after having 

 been hypnotized and then awakened, carries out the commands given to him 

 during hypnosis ; others around him recognize his lack of freedom, although 

 he is not aware of it himself. A lack of freedom is shown also by a sleeping 

 person, or by one who is under the influence of certain drugs, which change 

 his thoughts, emotions and behavior ; also by the insane. The thoughts of in- 

 dividuals suffering from the same type of mental disease may be very similar 

 in character and only slightly or hardly at all individualized. A further evi- 

 dence of automatism is furnished by cases of a split or double personality, 

 where normally connecting memories are conspicuously disconnected at a 

 certain point, although in reality every individual has a multiple personality 

 dependent on the existence within him of mutually incompatible suggestions, 



