vir] The Awakening of Personality 215 



have a universal currency. Wrong laws bring their own 

 immediate retribution in the chaos which ensues. 



Bergson's" inturningof the consciousness upon itself," 

 which he postulates as the beginning of self-hood, as- 

 sumes a fresh complexion. The beginning of self-hood 

 is self-control. Possibly we see this dawning in animals 

 such as dogs, which li ve under the stimulus of a personal 

 environment. They seem to begin to judge between 

 the courses of action. A well-trained dog will not steal 

 mutton from the dinner-table even in the absence of his 

 master. 



Self-control involves the conception " I am I " ; it re- 

 lates the thought "I can" with "I will" and "I will 

 not." At first there is vague appetition want, not / 

 want. When the creature reaches the stage of this train 

 of mental states; want want something else more 

 (say approval, or satisfaction in having followed a par- 

 ticular course) therefore must not; there is a definite 

 judgment of values, and a judgment implies a judge. 

 Thus it would seem that the personality is initiated at 

 that stage when a judgment of values appears; when 

 there is recognition of the possibility of two courses and 

 a balancing of their relative desirability. Such a judg- 

 ment involves the existence of an emotion proper, for 

 we may define an emotion as a tendency to act con- 

 sciously in a certain manner for a certain reason that is 

 consonant with the character of the person. We may 

 notice that this definition also involves the existence of 

 the self; and thus, from a slightly different standpoint, 

 we see that the arrival of personality in the evolutionary 

 process coincides with the replacement of simple appeti- 

 tion by emotion. 



These two conceptions may serve in some degree to 

 render Bergson's statement about the inturning of the 

 consciousness on itself less vague and difficult to grasp. 

 Judgment of values, involving the change from mainly 



