THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SELF. 325 



The fact remains, however, that certain sj)ecial sorts of 

 thing tend primordiallj to possess this interest, and form 

 the natural me. But all these things are objects, properly 

 so called, to the subject which does the thinking.* And 

 this latter fact upsets at once the dictum of the old-fash- 

 ioned sensationalist psychology, that altruistic passions 

 and interests are contradictory to the nature of things, and 

 that if they appear anywhere to exist, it must be as second- 

 ary products, resolvable at bottom into cases of selfishness, 

 taught by experience a hypocritical disguise. If the zoolog- 

 ical and evolutionary point of view is the true one, there is 

 no reason why any object whatever might not arouse passion 

 and interest as primitively and instinctively as any other, 

 whether connected or not with the interests of the me. 

 The phenomenon of passion is in origin and essence the 

 same, whatever be the target upon which it is discharged ; 

 and what the target actually happens to be is solely a ques- 

 tion of fact. I might conceivably be as much fascinated, 

 and as primitively so, by the care of my neighbor's body 

 as by the care of my own. The only check to such exuber- 

 ant altruistic interests is natural selection, which w'ould 

 w^eed out such as were very harmful to the individual or to 

 his tribe. Many such interests, however, remain unweeded 

 out — the interest in the opposite sex, for example, which 

 seems in mankind stronger than is called for by its utili- 

 tarian need ; and alongside of them remain interests, like 

 that in alcoholic intoxication, or in musical sounds, which, 

 for aught we can see, are without any utility whatever. 

 The sympathetic instincts and the egoistic ones are thus 

 co-ordinate. They arise, so far as w^e can tell, on the same 

 psychologic level. The only difference between them is, 

 that the instincts called egoistic form much the larger mass. 



The only author whom I know to have discussed the 

 question whether the ' pure Ego,' per se, can be an object 

 of regard, is Herr Horwdcz, in his extremely able and acute 

 Psychologische Analysen. He too says that all self-regard 

 is regard for certain objective things. He disposes so well 



* Lotze, Med. Psych. 498-501 ; Microcosmos, bk. ii. chap. v. §§ 3, 4 



