122 Journal of Comparative Nnirology and PsycJiology. 



duces an emotional reaction growing out of the feeling of loss 

 — hiatus in self — solution of individual continuity. We here 

 have the elementary mechanic of social life. 



It is only after this relation is perceived as mutual that a 

 moral element enters. When the child was about to leave 

 home for a long visit he visited the cow, the chickens, and the 

 cat to say farewell, and his regret in parting was greatly en- 

 hanced by the feeling of how great the grief of these fellow 

 creatures must be in losing him. He even paid a visit to famil- 

 iar spots and took leave of them with all the feeling of re- 

 ciprocity that he experienced in the case of living things. These 

 things formed a real part of his experience, he must also form 

 a part of theirs. This feeling of participation is a second step 

 and a moral one. This phase of social feeling is never entirely 

 obsolete. "Who shall smoke m)- meerschaum pipe" and "these 

 dear spots shall see me no more" illustrate this fact. 



Add the further idea of dependence and a high social status 

 is reached. "Really, I ought not to go away, for the servant 

 will forget to feed the animals." Obligation has arisen because 

 of the feeling of participation. I find that I form a necessary 

 segment in their lives, and, as they form a part of my sphere — 

 of "me" — of my larger or social self, I am obligated by that 

 fact, i. e., by an enlargement of the law of self-preservation, to 

 care for these animals. This is an obligation having a different 

 kind and more intimate sort of compelling force than would be 

 possible in the case of an inanimate and so non-participating 

 thing. It may be that in reality the animals do not know that 

 they are dependent on me for their sustenance, but it suffices 

 that I imagine them so to feel. This mutuality feeling makes 

 the obligation moral in a different sense from that growing out . 

 of fear that I might perhaps suffer a pecuniary loss by neglect. 

 It is customary to say that the social self is ejective, i. e. , 

 that we project our own feelings and experiences into others 

 and act in view of them. Another and in some respects a truer 

 way of expressing it is that the self is constantly enlarging to 

 embrace new elements. It is not simply that someone else feels 

 as I do — that might be an interesting fact, but it would have no 



