The Ego, or Personality. 935 



ses alike, the sensations they get through them are largely different 

 owing to the difference in the environments. The personality of a man 

 with a white skin, red hair, and blue eyes, differs from that of a man 

 with a red skin, black eyes and hair. The differences which appear 

 upon the surface indicate differences in the intimate nature of the cere- 

 bral, nervous, muscular and other tissues of the body. These differences 

 are in turn due to the differences in the exposure of the two, and of the 

 races from which the}' have descended. But the differences which have 

 made their mark on the outside in too obscure a manner to be readily 

 observed, are yet vastly numerous and important, and depend on the 

 immediate experiences of the individual. If one of two sons of savage 

 parents be sent to a civilized city to be educated, while the other re- 

 mains with the wild tribe, the personality of the two will rapidly diverge. 

 In that of the wild one will be incorporated the impressions of the un- 

 cultivated desert, prairie and mountain, and of the wild game roaming 

 thereon; of the comfortless, smookj^ teepee and its dirty surroundings, of 

 the dogs and ponies, of the barbarous dress, trappings and ornaments, 

 of the scanty domestic appliances, meager cuisine, primitive, unpolished 

 manners, uncleanly habits; conversation carried on in a language poor 

 in words and construction, on subjects relating only to the chase and the 

 commonest actions of a barbarous people, personal anecdote, individual 

 achievement and mythical legend, the scanty and meager traditions of a 

 small tribe of barbarians. The personalties of the educated one will 

 comprise impressions as much more numerous than those of the other, 

 as the circumstances, activities, paraphernalia, literature, and ideas of 

 civilized life exceed those of savage life. Dwellings commodious 

 and elegant, cultivated lands, vast factories and shops, complicated 

 and infinitely varied sorts of machinery and appliances ; great public 

 works, buildings, bridges, railroads, streets, telegraphs, tunnels ; great 

 stores of the accummulated products of labor, exquisite works of art, 

 libraries filled with the experiences, learning and wisdom of the whole 

 race for a hundred generations ; schools, colleges and churches, theaters, 

 museums ; all these and thousands of other things, with their myriads of 

 details, are so many object lessons making their impressions on his plas- 

 tic brain, and thus constructing the curious mechanism whose reactions 

 upon nervous energy are his sensations, which together constitute his 

 conscious personalit} 7 . Now if we imagine each of these two diversely 

 lormed persons to be presented with a book on some scientific or histori- 

 cal subject, such book forms a stimulation which will affect one very 

 differently from the other. The wild one will be unable to read it or 

 get ideas from it at all, except such as its external appearance, binding, 

 &c. , give. The disturbance to his personality as already constituted 

 will be very small, practically nothing. The personality of the other 



