294 PSYCHOLOGY. 



cruellest bodily tortures would be a relief ; for these would 

 make us feel that, however bad might be our plight, we had 

 not suuk to such a depth as to be unworthy of attention 

 at all. 



Properly speaking, a man has as many social selves as 

 there are individuals ivho recognize him and carry an image 

 of him in their mind. To wound any one of these his 

 linages is to wound him.* But as the individuals who 

 carry the images fall naturally into classes, we may practi- 

 cally say that he has as many difi'erent social selves as 

 there are distinct groups of persons about whose opinion 

 he cares. He generally shows a different side of himself 

 to each of these different groups. Many a youth who is 

 demure enough before his parents and teachers, swears 

 and swaggers like a pirate among his ' tough ' young friends. 

 We do not show ourselves to our children as to our club- 

 companions, to our customers as to the laborers we em- 

 ploy, to our own masters and employers as to our intimate 

 friends. From this there results what practically is a 

 division of the man into several selves ; and this may be a 

 discordant splitting, as where one is afraid to let one set of 

 his acquaintances know him as he is elsewhere ; or it may ' 

 be a perfectly harmonious division of labor, as where one 

 tender to his children is stern to the soldiers or prisoners 

 under his command. 



The most peculiar social self which one is apt to have 

 is in the mind of the person one is in love with. The 

 good or bad fortunes of this self cause the most intense 

 elation and dejection — unreasonable enough as measured 

 by every other standard than that of the organic feeling of 

 the indi^ddual. To his own consciousness he is not, so long 

 as this particular social self fails to get recognition, and 

 when it is recognized his contentment passes all bounds. 



A man's fame, good or bad, and his honor or dishonor, 

 are names for one of his social selves. The particular 

 social self of a man called his honor is usuall}' the result 

 of one of those splittings of which we have spoken. It is 

 his image in the eyes of his own 'set,' which exalts or con- 



* " Who filches from me my good name," etc. 



