112 SOCIAL HEREDITY AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



him to obey for any reason good or bad. He would 

 from that time begin to criticize self, to feel self- 

 respect when he followed this imaginary model and 

 experience shame when he failed to do so. So vividly 

 has this model come to stand in the conception of the 

 higher developed races that the individual comes to 

 speak of it as his other self, his alter ego, by which 

 phrase he means, when we analyze it closely, simply 

 an ideal embodying all the characters which he 

 thinks really belong to the best citizen that he can 

 imagine. The other self is nothing but the imaginary 

 ideal that actually would do the things which he feels 

 that he ought to do but does not. From this point the 

 moral sense acts wholly from within. The individual 

 would now be impelled not from fear of punishment 

 but because his other self commends his actions. 



This is an immense step in advance and opens a 

 new world of motives. The individual is now his 

 own judge and criticizes himself according to an 

 ideal. His own judgment of himself is much more 

 rigorous than that which he gives to another, since 

 he can judge himself according to his motives. His 

 sense of duty now insists that his motives should con- 

 form to an ideal. 



Right and Wrong. — The universal tendency of man 

 is to form abstractions. From the consideration of 

 blue, red, and yellow objects he forms an abstract 

 notion of color, and this greatly aids thought. From 

 the thought of many beautiful objects he makes the 

 abstraction beauty. Neither color nor beauty exists 

 in nature. In considering this line of actions, toward 

 which he feels impelled by conscience, he adopts 

 the same method. Feeling impelled to do certain 

 things and to refrain from doing others, he has 



