The Ego, or Personality. 937 



Irishman. But it is less easy to distinguish a Bavarian from a Prus- 

 sian or an Austrian. In other words, we find less difference between 

 people having the same origin and nearly the same environment, than 

 where these conditions are different. And if we continue to narrow the 

 inquiry, we find children of the same parents to bear a closer resem- 

 blance to each other than to others, and if it be a case of twins, we are 

 sometimes unable to distinguish them from each other. Not only do 

 they look alike but they act alike, and their opinions are apt to be alike. 

 We say of them, " the}*- are animated by the same spirit. " And this ex- 

 pression indicates that we instinctively regard them as having similar 

 minds, which is really the fact, and that involves a common feeling of 

 identity to a considerable extent. Each one knows how the other is af- 

 fected by a given stimulation, from the manner in which he is himself 

 affected. We thus reach the conclusion that the ego and the feeling of 

 personality are built up by the forces in the environment, and are mat- 

 ters of development and habit. 



Whether I think another person feels just as I do or not, is a matter 

 of inference from what I know of his surroundings and education. I 

 feel that I am myself John Brown (say); my feeling of identity con- 

 sists of the linking together in my memory of what can be recalled of 

 all the sensations that have ever been there, sensations of all the ex- 

 periences that this organism has ever been subjected to or influenced by. 

 John Smith never had precisely the same experiences as I have. His 

 aggregate of sensations give a resultant feeljng of identity different 

 from mine. This series of sensations is associated with the name of 

 Smith as a habit, so that the entire association of sensations, including 

 that of the nime, forms a single ego, similar to many others in many 

 respects, yet unique and on the whole, unlike any other in existence. 



Since all sensations, from whatever quarter, enter into the composition 

 of the conscious ego, it follows that when there is a failure of sensation 

 of any sort, there must soon be a reduction of the ego. Diseases of 

 the senses then become diseases of the personality. The minds of per- 

 sons born blind and deaf, are very different from what they would have 

 been if the senses of sight and hearing had been active. None of the 

 conceptions of color or sound can enter into the composition of the ego, 

 and a great many of those relating to form must be wanting, too. If a 

 person loses these senses after having acquired a stock of the sensa- 

 tions, he will no doubt make the most of the stock on hand, and the 

 ego remains, to a large extent, crystallized and unalterable as to such 

 mentality as is based upon them, except that he will probably lose some 

 of them through failure of memory. But it is remarkable to what ex- 

 tent the sense of touch compensates for the loss of sight and hearing. 

 The wonderful case of Laura Bridgman illustrates this in a striking 



