CHAP, xv CONCEPTUAL THOUGHT 339 



Concepts of all these kinds, therefore, are formed by the 

 same methods of correlation applied to different material, 

 and are thus to be referred to one and the same stage 

 in the growth of mind. Viewed as a correlation of life's 

 experiences, it will appear that the conception of self 

 must always be in varying degrees incomplete. " Know 

 thyself" was a precept of the gods, a precept therefore 

 which man cannot adequately fulfil. It might be regarded 

 as fulfilled sufficiently for human purposes if we had a 

 clear grasp of the essential structure of that being that 

 unrolls itself in the personal actions and experiences, and 

 true self-interest would be to act conformably to the 

 permanent requirements of that structure. 1 In actual 

 life this is not realised. Indeed, at first sight, the actual 

 man is so inconsistent in his different capacities that we 

 often speak of him as having two or more personalities 

 and psychology gives to popular language a certain 

 sanction. In a sense, it is scientifically true that the 

 business man, who has spent the day in besting a rival, is 

 not the same person as the father who comes home to 

 romp with his children. The outward and visible sem- 

 blance is the same, but within it there are two quite 

 different masses of thought, emotion, and will, each 

 forming an interconnected system by itself, yet standing 

 in no logical or moral relation with the other. When 

 the cleavage becomes extreme, we speak of " double 

 personality," of alienation or insanity. But the germ 

 of this sort of madness is in all of us. 



If we could carry psycho-physical research far enough, 

 we should presumably find an ultimate unity in which even 

 these extreme differences come together. Meanwhile it 

 remains true for practical purposes, that is to say, for the 

 scientific evaluation of self-knowledge, that the practical self, 

 the self which a man considers when he is thinking about his 

 " interest," is rather a great fragment of his being than his 

 being's whole. A business man in his office has nothing 

 to do with " sentiment," but looks at things c< as a business 

 man." At home he may be entirely swayed by the 



1 Cf. the famous description of true and false self love in Aristotle, 

 Ethics, IX. ch. 8. 



Z 2 



