THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SELF. 307 



all sicklied o'er with self-distrust, and to slirink from trials 

 with which his powers can really cope. 



The emotions themselves of self-satisfaction and abase- 

 ment are of a unique sort, each as worthy to be classed as 

 a primitive emotional species as are, for example, rage or 

 pain. Each has its own jDeculiar j)h3-siognomical expres- 

 sion. In self-satisfaction the extensor muscles are inner- 

 vated, the eye is strong and glorious, the gait rolling and 

 elastic, the nostril dilated, and a peculiar smile plays upon 

 the lips. This whole complex of symptoms is seen in an 

 exquisite way in lunatic asylums, which always contain 

 some patients who are literally mad with conceit, and 

 whose fatuous expression and absurdly strutting or swag- 

 gering gait is in tragic contrast with their lack of any 

 valuable personal quality. It is in these same castles of 

 despair that we find the strongest examples of the opposite 

 physiognomy, in good people who think they have com- 

 mitted ' the unpardonable sin ' and are lost forever, who 

 crouch and cringe and slink from notice, and are unable to 

 speak aloud or look us in the eye. Like fear and like 

 anger, in similar morbid conditions, these oj^posite feelings 

 of Self may be aroused with no adequate exciting cause. 

 And in fact we ourselves knoAV how the barometer of our 

 self-esteem and confidence rises and falls from one day to 

 another through causes that seem to be visceral and organic 

 rather than rational, and which certainly answer to no cor- 

 responding variations in the esteem in which we are held 

 by our friends. Of the origin of these emotions in the race, 

 we can speak better when we have treated of — 



3. SELF-SEEKING AMD SELF-PHESERVATION. 



These words cover a large number of our fundamental 

 instinctive impulses. We have those of bodily self-seeking, 

 those of social self-seeking, and those of spiritual self-seeking. 



All the ordinary useful reflex actions and movements 

 of alimentation and defence are acts of bodily self-preser- 

 vation. Fear and anger prompt to acts that are useful 

 in the same way. Whilst if by self-seeking we mean 

 the providing for the future as distinguished from main- 

 taining the present, we must class both anger and fear 



