820 PSYCHOLOGY. 



not love it because he finds it to be identified with himself. 

 Reverting to natural history-psychology will help us to see 

 the truth of this. In the chapter on Instincts we shall 

 learn that every creature has a certain selective interest in 

 certain portions of the world, and that this interest is as 

 often connate as acquired. Our interest in things means 

 the attention and emotion which the thought of them will 

 excite, and the actions which their presence will evoke. 

 Thus every species is particularly interested in its own. 

 prey or food, its own enemies, its own sexual mates, and 

 its own young. These things fascinate by their intrinsic 

 power to do so ; they are cared for for their own sakes. 



"Well, it stands not in the least otherwise with our bod- 

 ies. They too are percepts in our objective field — they are 

 simply the most interesting percepts there. AMiat happens 

 to them excites in us emotions and tendencies to action 

 more energetic and habitual than any w^hich are excited by 

 other portions of the ' field.' What my comrades call my 

 bodily selfishness or self-love, is nothing but the sum of 

 all the outer acts which this interest in my b ^dy spontane- 

 ously draws from me. My ' selfishness ' is here but a de- 

 scriptive name for grouping together the outward symp- 

 toms which I show. When I am led by self-love to keep 

 my seat whilst ladies stand, or to grab something first and 

 cut out my neighbor, what I really love is the comfortable 

 seat, is the thing itself which I grab. I love them prima- 

 rily, as the mother loves her babe, or a generous man an 

 heroic deed. Wherever, as here, self-seeking is the out- 

 come of simple instinctive propensity, it is but a name for 

 certain reflex acts. Something rivets my attention fatally, 

 and fatally provokes the ' selfish ' response. Could an au- 

 tomaton be so skilfully constructed as to ape these acts, it 

 would be called selfish as properly as I. It is true that I 

 am no automaton, but a thinker. But my thoughts, like 

 my acts, are here concerned only with the outward things. 

 They need neither know nor care for any pure principle 

 within. In fact the more utterly * selfish ' I am in this 

 primitive way, the more blindly absorbed my thought will 

 be in the objects and impulses of my lusts, and the more 

 devoid of any inward looking glance. A baby, whose con- 



