314 PSYCHOLOGY. 



find we cannot keep. Onr unselfislmess is tlius ajit to be a 

 ' virtue of necessity ' ; and it is not without all sliow of rea- 

 son that cynics quote the fable of the fox and the grapes in 

 describiuij; our progress thereinr But this is the moral 

 education of the race ; and if we agree in the result that 

 on the whole the selves we can keep are the intrinsically 

 best, we need not complain of being led to the knowledge 

 of their superior worth in such a tortuous way. 



Of course this is not the only way in which we learn 

 to subordinate our loAver selves to our higher. A direct 

 ethical judgment unquestionably also plays its part, and last, 

 not least, we apply to our own persons judgments originally 

 called forth by the acts of others. It is one of the strangest 

 laws of our nature that many things which we are well sat- 

 isfied with in ourselves disgust us when seen in others. 

 "With another man's bodily ' hoggishness ' hardly anyone 

 has any s^nnpathy ; — almost as little with his cupidity, his 

 social vanity and eagerness, his jealousy, his despotism, 

 and his pride. Left absolutely to myself I should probably 

 allow all these spontaneous tendencies to luxuriate in me 

 unchecked, and it would be long before I formed a distinct 

 notion of the order of their subordination. But having 

 constantly to pass judgment on my associates, I come ere 

 long to see, as Herr Horwicz says, my own lusts in the 

 mirror of the lusts of others, and to think about them in a 

 very different way from that in which I simply feel. Of 

 course, the moral generalities which from childhood have 

 been instilled into me accelerate enormously the advent of 

 this reflective judgment on myself. 



So it comes to pass that, as aforesaid, men have arranged 

 the various selves which they may seek in an hierarchical 

 scale according to their worth. A certain amount of bodily 

 selfishness is required as a basis for all the other selves. 

 But too much sensuality is despised, or at best condoned 

 on account of the other qualities of the individual. The 

 wider material selves are regarded as higher than the 

 immediate body. He is esteemed a poor creature who is 

 unable to forego a little meat and drink and warmth and 

 sleep for the sake of getting on in the world. The social 

 self as a whole, again, ranks higher than the material self 



