452 JAMES CLERK MAXWELL. [CHAP. XIV. 



Nor have I attempted to discuss the process by which 

 the suffering, real or apparent, of one may be a direct source 

 of pleasure to another who has cultivated the spirit of 

 cruelty. For I cannot think that pure cruelty, as distinct 

 from combativeness, anger and love of power, is anything 

 but a morbid growth of feeling, subject, of course, to the 

 general laws of the growth of feeling, whatever they may be, 

 but no more to be regarded as a subject for our discussion 

 here than those forms of perverted feeling which induce 

 dogs to gnaw off* their own toes, or devotees to hold their 

 arms above their heads till they can no longer bring them 

 down again. 



Ill 



(PSYCHOPHYSIK.) 



5th February 1878. " 



Whence came we ? whither are we going ? and what 

 should we do now ? are three questions of some celebrity. 

 We have come from somewhere between this and Orion ; we 

 are going at kilometres per second towards Hercules ; 

 and we must therefore observe stars in a direction at right 

 angles to our path ; are the answers suggested twenty-five 

 years ago. It seems to me that a change has come over the 

 questions, so that they now read, What used I to believe 

 about myself ? what is it likely I shall have to believe about 

 myself ? and what should I believe about myself now ? 



I used to believe myself to be the Conscious Ego. I am 

 told I shall have soon to believe myself to be a congeries of 

 plastidule souls, and that I must at once study psychophysik 

 in order to obtain a true knowledge of myself. 



I propose, therefore, to talk of the Conscious Ego, of 

 Plastidule souls, and of Psychophysik. 



(1.) What is your name ? is a still more celebrated ques- 

 tion. The suggested answer, N". or M., recalls to the mathema- 

 tician ideas and operations of the most heterogeneous kind. 

 Let us consider some of them. The instructors of my youth 

 would have expected me to answer My name is the Con- 

 scious Ego, one and indivisible, the Subject, in relation to 

 whom all other beings, material, human, or divine, are 



