There is, according to this view, a General Will with which the will of

the good citizen is in accord. He feels that he would despise himself

were his private will not in harmony with it. The notion of the reality

of such a will is no new one. It is as old as the Greeks, for whom the

moral order and the city state were closely related; and we find it in

modern books in which we do not look for it. Jean Jacques Rousseau is

probably best known to the world by the famous words in which he begins

the first chapter of the _Social Contract_: "Man is born free, and

everywhere he is in chains. Those who think themselves to be the masters

of others cease not to be greater slaves than the people they govern."

He goes on in the next paragraph to tell us that if he were only to

consider force and the effects of it, he would say that if a nation was

constrained to obey and did obey, it did well, but that whenever it

could throw off its yoke and did throw it off, it acted better. His

words, written in 1762, became a text for the pioneers of the French

Revolution. But they would have done well to read further into the book.

As Rousseau goes on, we find a different conception. He passes from

considering the fiction of a social contract to a discussion of the

power over the individual of the General Will, by virtue of which a

people becomes a people. This General Will, the _Volonté Générale_, he

distinguishes from the Volonté de Tous, which is a mere numerical sum of

individual wills. These particular wills do not rise above themselves.

The General Will, on the other hand, represents what is greater than the

individual volition of those who compose the society of which it is the

will. On occasions, this higher will is more apparent than at other

times. But it may, if there is social slackness, be difficult to

distinguish from a mere aggregate of voices, from the will of a mob.

What is interesting is that Rousseau, so often associated with doctrine

of quite another kind, should finally recognize the bond of a General

Will as what really holds the community together. For him, as for those

who have had a yet clearer grasp of the principle, in willing the

General Will we not only realize our true selves but we may rise above

our ordinary habit of mind. We may reach heights which we could not

reach, or which at all events most of us could not reach, in isolation.

There are few observers who have not been impressed with the wonderful

unity and concentration of purpose which an entire nation may

display--above all, in a period of crisis. We see it in time of war,

when a nation is fighting for its life or for a great cause. We have

marvelled at the illustrations with which history abounds of the General

Will rising to heights of which but few of the individual citizens in

whom it is embodied have ever before been conscious even in their

dreams.

By leadership a common ideal can be made to penetrate the soul of a

people and to take complete possession of it. The ideal may be very

high, or it may be of so ordinary a kind that we are not conscious of it

without the effort of reflection. But when it is there it influences and

guides daily conduct. Such idealism passes beyond the sphere of law,

which provides only what is necessary for mutual protection and liberty

of just action. It falls short, on the other hand, in quality of the

dictates of what Kant called the Categorical Imperative that rules the

private and individual conscience, but that alone, an Imperative which

therefore gives insufficient guidance for ordinary and daily social

life. Yet the ideal of which I speak is not the less binding; and it is

recognized as so binding that the conduct of all good men conforms to

it.

C. PERSONALITY AND THE SOCIAL SELF

1. The Organism as Personality[69]

The organism and the brain, as its highest representation, constitute

the real personality, containing in itself all that we have been, and

the possibility of all that we shall be. The complete individual

character is inscribed there with all its active and passive aptitudes,

sympathies, and antipathies; its genius, talents, or stupidity; its

virtues, vices, torpor, or activity. Of all these, what emerges and

actually reaches consciousness is only a small item compared with what

remains buried below, albeit still active. Conscious personality is

always but a feeble portion of physical personality.

The unity of the ego, consequently, is not that of the one-entity of

spiritualists which is dispersed into multiple phenomena, but the

co-ordination of a certain number of incessantly renascent states,

having for their support the vague sense of our bodies. This unity does

not pass from above to below, but from below to above; the unity of the

ego is not an initial, but a terminal point.

Does there really exist a perfect unity? Evidently not in the strict,

mathematical sense. In a relative sense it is met with, rarely and

incidentally. In a clever marksman in the act of taking aim, or in a

skilled surgeon performing a difficult operation all is found to

converge, both physically and mentally. Still, let us take note of the

result: in these conditions the awareness of real personality

disappears; the conscious individual is reduced to an idea; whence it

would follow that perfect unity of consciousness and the awareness of

personality exclude each other. By a different course we again reach the

same conclusion; the ego is a co-ordination. It oscillates between two

extreme points at which it ceases to exist: viz., perfect unity and

absolute inco-ordination. All the intermediate degrees are met with, in

fact, and without any line of demarcation between the healthy and the

morbid; the one encroaches upon the other.

Even in the normal state the co-ordination is often sufficiently loose

to allow several series to coexist separately. We can walk or perform

manual work with a vague and intermittent consciousness of the

movements, at the same time singing, musing; but if the activity of

thought increases, the singing will cease. With many people it is a kind

of substitute for intellectual activity, an intermediate state between

thinking and not-thinking.

The unity of the ego, in a psychological sense, is, therefore, the

cohesion, during a given time, of a certain number of clear states of

consciousness, accompanied by others less clear, and by a multitude of

physiological states which, without being accompanied by consciousness

like the others, yet operate as much as, and even more than, the former.

Unity, in fact, means co-ordination. The conclusion to be drawn from the

above remarks is namely this, that the consensus of consciousness being

subordinate to the consensus of the organism, the problem of the unity

of the ego is, in its ultimate form, a biological problem. To biology

pertains the task of explaining, if it can, the genesis of organisms and

the solidarity of their component parts. Psychological interpretation

can only follow in its wake.

2. Personality as a Complex[70]

Ideas, after being experienced in consciousness, become dormant

(conserved as physiological dispositions) and may or may not afterward

be reawakened in consciousness as memories. Many such ideas, under

conditions with some of which we are all familiar, tend to form part of

our voluntary or involuntary memories and many do not. But when such is

the case, the memories do not ordinarily include the whole of a given

mental experience, but only excerpts or abstracts of it. Hence one

reason for the fallibility of human memory and consequent testimony.

Now under special conditions, the ideas making up an experience at any

given moment tend to become organized into a system or complex, so that

when we later think of the experience or recall any of the ideas

belonging to it, the complex as a whole is revived. This is one of the

principles underlying the mechanism of memory. Thus it happens that

memory may, to a large extent, be made up of complexes. These complexes

may be very loosely organized in that the elementary ideas are weakly

bound together, in which case, when we try to recall the original

experience, only a part of it is recalled. Or a complex may be very

strongly organized, owing to the conditions under which it is formed,

and then a large part of the experience can be recalled. In this case,

any idea associated with some element in the complex may, by the law of

association, revive the whole original complex. If, for instance, we

have gone through a railroad accident involving exciting incidents, loss

of life, etc., the words "railroad," "accident," "death," or a sudden

crashing sound, or the sight of blood, or even riding in a railroad

train may recall the experience from beginning to end, or at least the

prominent features in it, i.e., so much as was organized. The memory of

the greater part of this experience is well organized, while the earlier

events and those succeeding the accident may have passed out of all

possibility of voluntary recall.

To take an instance commonplace enough but which happens to have just

come within my observation: A fireman was injured severely by being

thrown from a hose wagon rushing to a fire against a telegraph pole with

which the wagon collided. He narrowly escaped death. Although three

years have passed he still cannot ride on a wagon to a fire without the

memory of the whole accident rising in his mind. When he does so he

again lives through the accident, including the thoughts just previous

to the actual collision when, realizing his situation, he was overcome

with terror, and he again manifests all the organic physical expressions

of fear, viz.: perspiration, tremor, and muscular weakness. Here is a

well-organized and fairly limited complex.

Among the loosely organized complexes in many individuals, and possibly

in all of us, there are certain dispositions toward views of life which

represent natural inclinations, desires, and modes of activity which,

for one reason or another, we tend to suppress or are unable to give

full play to. Many individuals, for example, are compelled by the

exactions of their duties and responsibilities to lead serious lives, to

devote themselves to pursuits which demand all their energies and

thought and which, therefore, do not permit of indulgence in the lighter

enjoyments of life, and yet there may be a natural inclination to

partake of the pleasures which innately appeal to all mankind and which

many pursue. The longing for these recurs from time to time. The mind

dwells on them, the imagination is excited and weaves a fabric of

pictures, thoughts, and emotions which thus become associated into a

complex. There may be a rebellion and "kicking against the pricks" and

thereby a liberation of the emotional force that impresses a stronger

organization on the whole process. The recurrence of such a complex is

one form of what we call a "mood," which has a distinctly emotional tone

of its own. The revival of this feeling tone tends to revive the

associated ideas and vice versa. Such a feeling-idea complex is often

spoken of as "a side to one's character," to which a person may from

time to time give play. Or the converse of this may hold, and a person

who devotes his life to the lighter enjoyments may have aspirations and

longings for more serious pursuits, and in this respect the imagination

may similarly build up a complex which may express itself in a mood.

Thus a person is often said to have "many sides to his character," and

exhibits certain alternations of personality which may be regarded as

normal prototypes of those which occur as abnormal states.

Most of what has been said about the formation of complexes is a

statement of commonplace facts, and I would not repeat it here were it

not that, in certain abnormal conditions, disposition, subject, and

other complexes, though loosely organized, often play an important part.

This is not the place to enter into an explanation of dissociated

personality, but in such conditions we sometimes find that disposition

complexes, for instance, come to the surface and displace or substitute

themselves for the other complexes which make up a personality. A

complex which is only a mood or a "side of the character" of a normal

individual may, in conditions of dissociation, become the main, perhaps

sole, complex and chief characteristic of the new personality. In Miss

Beauchamp, for instance, the personality known as BI was made up almost

entirely of the religious and ethical ideas which formed one side of the

original self. In the personality known as Sally we had for the most

part the complex which represented the enjoyment of youthful pleasures

and sports, the freedom from conventionalities and artificial restraints

generally imposed by duties and responsibilities. In BIV the complex

represented the ambitions and activities of practical life. In Miss

Beauchamp as a whole, normal, without disintegration, it was easy to

recognize all three dispositions as "sides of her character," though

each was kept ordinarily within proper bounds by the correcting

influence of the others. It was only necessary to put her in an

environment which encouraged one or the other side, to associate her

with people who strongly suggested one or the other of her own

characteristics, whether religious, social, pleasure loving, or

intellectual, to see the characteristics of BI, Sally, or BIV stand out

in relief as the predominant personality. Then we had the alternating

play of these different sides of her character.

In fact, the total of our complexes, which, regarded as a whole and in

view of their reaction to the environment, their behavior under the

various conditions of social life, their aptitudes, feeling-tones,

"habits," and faculties, we term character and personality, are in large

part predetermined by the mental experiences of the past and the

vestiges of memory which have been left as residual from these

experiences. We are the offspring of our past.

The great mass of our ideas involve associations of the origin of which

we are unaware because the memories of the original experience have

become split and a large portion thus has become forgotten even if ever

fully appreciated. We all have our prejudices, our likes and dislikes,

our tastes and aversions; it would tax our ingenuity to give a

sufficient psychological account of their origin. They were born long

ago in educational, social, personal, and other experiences, the details

of which we have this many a year forgotten. It is the residua of these

experiences that have persisted and become associated into complexes

which are retained as traits of our personality.

3. The Self as the Individual's Conception of His Rôle[71]

Suggestion may have its end and aim in the creation of a new

personality. The experimenter then chooses the sort of personality he

wishes to induce and obliges the subject to realize it. Experiments of

this kind succeeding in a great many somnambulists, and usually

producing very curious results, have long been known and have been

repeated, one might say, almost to satiety within the last few years.

When we are awake and in full possession of all our faculties we can

imagine sensations different from those which we ordinarily experience.

For example, when I am sitting quietly at my table engaged in writing

this book, I can conceive the sensations that a soldier, a woman, an

artist, or an Englishman would experience in such and such a situation.

But, however fantastic the conceptions may be that we form, we do not

cease to be conscious withal of our own personal existence. Imagination

has taken flight fairly in space, but the memory of ourselves always

remains behind. Each of us knows that he is himself and not another,

that he did this yesterday, that he has just written a letter, that he

must write another such letter tomorrow, that he was out of Paris for a

week, etc. It is this memory of passed facts--a memory always present to

the mind--that constitutes the consciousness of our normal personality.

It is entirely different in the case of the two women, A---- and B----,

that M. Richet studied.

Put to sleep and subjected to certain influences, A---- and

B---- forget their identity; their age, their clothing, their

sex, their social position, their nationality, the place and

the time of their life--all this has entirely disappeared.

Only a single idea remains--a single consciousness--it is the

consciousness of the idea and of the new being that dawns upon

their imagination.

They have lost the idea of their late existence. They live,

talk, and think exactly like the type that is suggested to

them. With what tremendous intensity of life these types are

realized, only those who have been present at these experiments

can know. Description can only give a weak and imperfect idea

of it.

Instead of imagining a character simply, they realize it,

objectify it. It is not like a hallucination, of which one

witnesses the images unfolding before him, as a spectator

would. He is rather like an actor who is seized with passion,

imagines that the drama he plays is a reality, not a fiction,

and that he has been transformed, body and soul, into the

personality that he sets himself to play.

In order to have this transformation of personality work it is

sufficient to pronounce a word with some authority. I say to

A----, "You are an old woman," she considers herself changed

into an old woman, and her countenance, her bearing, her

feelings, become those of an old woman. I say to B----, "You

are a little girl," and she immediately assumes the language,

games, and tastes of a little girl.

Although the account of these scenes is quite dull and

colorless compared with the sight of the astonishing and sudden

transformations themselves, I shall attempt, nevertheless, to

describe some of them. I quote some of M----'s

_objectivations_:

_As a peasant._--She rubs her eyes and stretches herself. "What

time is it? Four o'clock in the morning!" She walks as if she

were dragging sabots. "Now, then, I must get up. Let us go to

the stable. Come up, red one! come up, get about!" She seems to

be milking a cow. "Let me alone, Gros-Jean, let me alone, I

tell you. When I am through my work. You know well enough that

I have not finished my work. Oh! yes, yes, later."

_As an actress._--Her face took a smiling aspect instead of the

dull and listless manner which she had just had. "You see my

skirt? Well, my manager makes me wear it so long. These

managers are too tiresome. As for me, the shorter the skirt the

better I like it. There is always too much of it. A simple fig

leaf! Mon Dieu, that is enough! You agree with me, don't you,

my dear, that it is not necessary to have more than a fig leaf?

Look then at this great dowdy Lucie--where are her legs, eh?"

_As a priest._--She imagines that she is the Archbishop of

Paris. Her face becomes very grave. Her voice is mildly sweet

and drawling, which forms a great contrast with the harsh,

blunt tone she had as a general. (Aside.) "But I must

accomplish my charge." She leans her head on her hand and

reflects. (Aloud.) "Ah! it is you, Monsieur Grand Vicar; what

is your business with me? I do not wish to be disturbed. Yes,

today is the first of January, and I must go to the cathedral.

This throng of people is very respectful, don't you think so,

monsieur? There is a great deal of religion in the people,

whatever one does. Ah! a child! let him come to me to be

blessed. There, my child." She holds out to him her imaginary

bishop's ring to kiss. During this whole scene she is making

gestures of benediction with her right hand on all sides. "Now

I have a duty to perform. I must go and pay my respects to the

president of the Republic. Ah! Mr. President, I come to offer

you my allegiance. It is the wish of the church that you may

have many years of life. She knows that she has nothing to

fear, notwithstanding cruel attacks, while such an honorable

man is at the head of the Republic." She is silent and seems to

listen attentively. (Aside.) "Yes, fair promises. Now let us

pray!" She kneels down.

_As a religious sister._--She immediately kneels down and

begins to say her prayers, making a great many signs of the

cross; then she arises. "Now to the hospital. There is a

wounded man in this ward. Well, my friend, you are a little

better this morning, aren't you? Now, then, let me take off

your bandage." She gestures as if she were unrolling a bandage.

"I shall do it very gently; doesn't that relieve you? There! my

poor friend, be as courageous before pain as you were before

the enemy."

I might cite other objectivations from A----'s case, in the

character of old woman, little girl, young man, gay woman, etc.

But the examples given seem sufficient to give some idea of the

entire transformation of the personality into this or that

imaginary type. It is not a simple dream, it is a _living

dream_.

The complete transformation of feelings is not the least

curious phenomenon of these objectivations. A---- is timid, but

she becomes very daring when she thinks herself a bold person.

B---- is silent, she becomes talkative when she represents a

talkative person. The disposition is thus completely changed.

Old tastes disappear and give place to the new tastes that the

new character represented is supposed to have.

In a more recent paper, prepared with the co-operation of M. Ferrari and

M. Hericourt, M. Richet has added a curious detail to the preceding

experiments. He has shown that the subject on whom a change of

personality is imposed not only adapts his speech, gestures, and

attitudes to the new personality, but that even his handwriting is

modified and brought into relation with the new ideas that absorb his

consciousness. This modification of handwriting is an especially

interesting discovery, since handwriting, according to current theories,

is nothing more than a sort of imitation. I cite some examples borrowed

from these authors.

It is suggested in succession to a young student that he is a sly and

crafty peasant, then a miser, and finally a very old man. While the

subject's features and behavior generally are modified and brought into

harmony with the idea of the personality suggested, we may observe also

that his handwriting undergoes similar modifications which are not less

marked. It has a special character peculiar to each of the new states of

personality. In short, the graphic movements change like the gestures

generally.

In a note on the handwriting of hysterical patients, I have shown that

under the influence of suggested emotions, or under the influence of

sensorial stimulations, the handwriting of a hysterical patient may be

modified. It gets larger, for example, in cases of dynamogenic

excitation.

The characteristic of the suggestion that we have just studied is that

it does not bear exclusively on perception or movement--that is to say,

on a limited psychic element; but there are comprehensive suggestions.

They impose a topic on the subject that he is obliged to develop with

all the resources of his intellect and imagination, and if the

observations be carefully examined, it will also be seen that in these

suggestions the faculties of perception are affected and perverted by

the same standard as that of ideation. Thus the subject, under the

influence of his assumed personality, ceases to perceive the external

world as it exists. He has hallucinations in connection with his new

psychological personality. When a bishop, he thinks he is in Notre Dame,

and sees a host of the faithful. When a general, he thinks he is

surrounded by troops, etc. Things that harmonize with the suggestion are

conjured up. This systematic development of states of consciousness

belongs to all kinds of suggestions, but is perhaps nowhere else so

marked as in these transformations of personality.

On the other hand, everything that is inconsistent with the suggestion

gets inhibited and leaves the subject's consciousness. As has been said,

alterations of personality imply phenomena of amnesia. In order that the

subject may assume the fictitious personality he must begin by

forgetting his true personality. The infinite number of memories that

represent his past experience and constitute the basis of his normal ego

are for the time being effaced, because these memories are inconsistent

with the ideal of the suggestion.

4. The Natural Person versus the Social and Conventional Self[72]

Somewhat after the order of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde I seem to possess

two distinct personalities, being both at the same time but presenting

no such striking contrast as the Jekyll-Hyde combination. They are about

equally virtuous. Their main difference seems to be one of age, one

being a decade or so in advance of the other.

At times they work harmoniously together and again at cross-purposes. I

do not seem to have developed equally. Part of me sits humbly at the

feet of the other part of me and receives advice and instruction. Part

of me feels constrained to confess to the other part of me when it has

done wrong and meekly receives rebuke. Part of me tries to shock the

other part of me and to force the more dignified part to misbehave and

giggle and do things not considered correct in polite society.

My younger part delights to tease the older, to doubt her motives, to

interrupt her meditations. It wants to play, while my older self is more

seriously inclined. My younger self is only twelve years old. This is my

real self. To my own mind I am still a little girl with short dresses

and a bunch of curls. For some reason my idea of self has never advanced

beyond this point. The long dress and the hair piled high will never

seem natural. Sometimes I enjoy this duality and again I do not.

Sometimes the two parts mingle delightfully together, again they wrangle

atrociously, while I (there seems to be a third part of me) sit off and

watch the outcome.

The older part gets tired before the younger. The younger, still fresh

and in a good humor, undertakes to furnish amusement for the older. I

have often thrown myself on the bed wearied and exhausted and been made

to shake with laughter at the capers of the younger part of me. They are

capers indeed. On these occasions she will carry on conversations with

friends--real friends--fairly bristling with witticisms, and although

taking both parts herself, the parry and thrust is delightful.

Sometimes, however, the younger part of me seems to get up all awry. She

will carry on quarrels--heated quarrels--from morning to night, taking

both sides herself, with persons whom I (the combination) dearly love,

and against whom I have no grievance whatever. These are a great

distress to my older self.

On other days she seems to take the greatest delight in torturing me

with imaginary horrors. She cuts my throat, pulls my eyes out of their

sockets, removes tumors, and amputates limbs until I wonder that there

is anything left of me. She does it all without administering

anæsthetics and seems to enjoy my horror and disgust.

Again, some little jingle or tune will take her fancy and she will

repeat it to herself until I am almost driven to madness. Sometimes it

is only a word, but it seems to have a fascination for her and she rolls

it as a sweet morsel under her tongue until sleep puts an end to it.

Again, if I (the combination) fall ill, one part of me, I have never

discovered which, invariably hints that I am not ill at all but merely

pretending. So much so that it has become with me a recognized symptom

of incipient illness.

Moreover, the younger and older are never on the same side of any

question. One leans to wisdom, the other to fun. I am a house divided

against itself. The younger longs to dance, to go to the theater and to

play cards, all of which the older disapproves. The younger mocks the

older, calls her a hypocrite and the like until the older well-nigh

believes it herself and almost yields to her pleadings. The older

listens sedately to the sermon, while the younger plans her Easter suit

or makes fun of the preacher.

The older declares she will never marry, while the younger scouts the

idea of being an old maid. But even if she could gain the consent of the

older, it were but little better, they differ so as to their ideals.

In society the difference is more marked. I seem to be a combination

chaperone and protégée. The older appears at ease, the younger shy and

awkward--she has never made her début. If one addresses a remark to her

she is thrown into utter confusion until the older rushes to the rescue.

My sympathy is with the younger, however, for even to this day I, the

combination, can scarce resist the temptation to say nothing when there

is nothing to say.

There is something tragic to me in this Siamese-twins arrangement of two

so uncongenial. I am at one and the same time pupil and teacher,

offender and judge, performer and critic, chaperone and protégée, a

prim, precise, old maid and a rollicking schoolgirl, a tomboy and a

prude, a saint and sinner. What can result from such a combination? That

we get on tolerably is a wonder. Some days, however, we get on admirably

together, part of me paying compliments to the other part of me--whole

days being given to this--until each of us has such a good opinion of

herself and the other that we feel on equal terms and are at our

happiest.

But how dreadful are the days when we turn against each other! There are

not words enough to express the contempt which we feel for ourselves. We

seem to set each other in the corner and the combination as a whole is

utterly miserable.

I can but wonder and enjoy and wait to see what Myself and I will make

of Me.

5. The Divided Self and Moral Consciousness[73]

Two ways of looking at life are characteristic respectively of what we

call the healthy-minded, who need to be born only once, and of the sick

souls, who must be twice-born in order to be happy. The result is two

different conceptions of the universe of our experience. In the religion

of the once-born the world is a sort of rectilineal or one-storied

affair, whose accounts are kept in one denomination, whose parts have

just the values which naturally they appear to have, and of which a

simple algebraic sum of pluses and minuses will give the total worth.

Happiness and religious peace consist in living on the plus side of the

account. In the religion of the twice-born, on the other hand, the world

is a double-storied mystery. Peace cannot be reached by the simple

addition of pluses and elimination of minuses from life. Natural good is

not simply insufficient in amount and transient; there lurks a falsity

in its very being. Cancelled as it all is by death, if not by earlier

enemies, it gives no final balance, and can never be the thing intended

for our lasting worship. It keeps us from our real good, rather; and

renunciation and despair of it are our first step in the direction of

the truth. There are two lives, the natural and the spiritual, and we

must lose the one before we can participate in the other.

In their extreme forms, of pure naturalism and pure salvationism, the

two types are violently contrasted; though here, as in most other

current classifications, the radical extremes are somewhat ideal

abstractions, and the concrete human beings whom we oftenest meet are

intermediate varieties and mixtures. Practically, however, you all

recognize the difference: you understand, for example, the disdain of

the Methodist convert for the mere sky-blue healthy-minded moralist; and

you likewise enter into the aversion of the latter to what seems to him

the diseased subjectivism of the Methodist, dying to live, as he calls

it, and making of paradox and the inversion of natural appearances the

essence of God's truth.

The psychological basis of the twice-born character seems to be a

certain discordancy or heterogeneity in the native temperament of the

subject, an incompletely unified moral and intellectual constitution.

"Homo duplex, homo duplex!" writes Alphonse Daudet. "The first time that

I perceived that I was two was at the death of my brother Henri, when my

father cried out so dramatically, 'He is dead, he is dead!' While my

first self wept, my second self thought, 'How truly given was that cry,

how fine it would be at the theater.' I was then fourteen years old.

This horrible duality has often given me matter for reflection. Oh, this

terrible second me, always seated whilst the other is on foot, acting,

living, suffering, bestirring itself. This second me that I have never

been able to intoxicate, to make shed tears, or put to sleep. And how it

sees into things, and how it mocks!"

Some persons are born with an inner constitution which is harmonious and

well balanced from the outset. Their impulses are consistent with one

another, their will follows without trouble the guidance of their

intellect, their passions are not excessive, and their lives are little

haunted by regrets. Others are oppositely constituted; and are so in

degrees which may vary from something so slight as to result in a merely

odd or whimsical inconsistency, to a discordancy of which the

consequences may be inconvenient in the extreme. Of the more innocent

kinds of heterogeneity I find a good example in Mrs. Annie Besant's

autobiography.

I have ever been the queerest mixture of weakness and strength,

and have paid heavily for the weakness. As a child I used to

suffer tortures of shyness, and if my shoe-lace was untied

would feel shamefacedly that every eye was fixed on the unlucky

string; as a girl I would shrink away from strangers and think

myself unwanted and unliked, so that I was full of eager

gratitude to anyone who noticed me kindly; as the young

mistress of a house I was afraid of my servants, and would let

careless work pass rather than bear the pain of reproving the

ill-doer; when I have been lecturing and debating with no lack

of spirit on the platform, I have preferred to go without what

I wanted at the hotel rather than to ring and make the waiter

fetch it. Combative on the platform in defense of any cause I

cared for, I shrink from quarrel or disapproval in the house,

and am a coward at heart in private while a good fighter in

public. How often have I passed unhappy quarters of an hour

screwing up my courage to find fault with some subordinate whom

my duty compelled me to reprove, and how often have I jeered at

myself for a fraud as the doughty platform combatant, when

shrinking from blaming some lad or lass for doing their work

badly. An unkind look or word has availed to make me shrink

myself as a snail into its shell, while, on the platform,

opposition makes me speak my best.

This amount of inconsistency will only count as amiable weakness; but a

stronger degree of heterogeneity may make havoc of the subject's life.

There are persons whose existence is little more than a series of

zigzags, as now one tendency and now another gets the upper hand. Their

spirit wars with their flesh, they wish for incompatibles, wayward

impulses interrupt their most deliberate plans, and their lives are one

long drama of repentance and of effort to repair misdemeanors and

mistakes.

Whatever the cause of heterogeneous personality may be, we find the

extreme examples of it in the psychopathic temperament. All writers

about that temperament make the inner heterogeneity prominent in their

descriptions. Frequently, indeed, it is only this trait that leads us to

ascribe that temperament to a man at all. A _dégénéré supérieur_ is

simply a man of sensibility in many directions, who finds more

difficulty than is common in keeping his spiritual house in order and

running his furrow straight, because his feelings and impulses are too

keen and too discrepant mutually. In the haunting and insistent ideas,

in the irrational impulses, the morbid scruples, dreads, and inhibitions

which beset the psychopathic temperament when it is thoroughly

pronounced, we have exquisite examples of heterogeneous personality.

Bunyan had an obsession of the words, "Sell Christ for this, sell him

for that, sell him, sell him!" which would run through his mind a

hundred times together, until one day out of breath with retorting, "I

will not, I will not," he impulsively said, "Let him go if he will," and

this loss of the battle kept him in despair for over a year. The lives

of the saints are full of such blasphemous obsessions, ascribed

invariably to the direct agency of Satan.

St. Augustine's case is a classic example of discordant personality. You

all remember his half-pagan, half-Christian bringing up at Carthage, his

emigration to Rome and Milan, his adoption of Manicheism and subsequent

skepticism, and his restless search for truth and purity of life; and

finally how, distracted by the struggle between the two souls in his

breast, and ashamed of his own weakness of will when so many others whom

he knew and knew of had thrown off the shackles of sensuality and

dedicated themselves to chastity and the higher life, he heard a voice

in the garden say, "Sume, lege" (take and read), and opening the Bible

at random, saw the text, "not in chambering and wantonness," etc., which

seemed directly sent to his address, and laid the inner storm to rest

forever. Augustine's psychological genius has given an account of the

trouble of having a divided self which has never been surpassed.

The new will which I began to have was not yet strong enough to

overcome that other will, strengthened by long indulgence. So

these two wills, one old, one new, one carnal, the other

spiritual, contended with each other and disturbed my soul. I

understood by my own experience what I had read, "Flesh lusteth

against spirit, and spirit against flesh." It was myself indeed

in both the wills, yet more myself in that which I approved in

myself than in that which I disapproved in myself. Yet it was

through myself that habit had obtained so fierce a mastery over

me, because I had willingly come whither I willed not. Still

bound to earth, I refused, O God, to fight on thy side, as much

afraid to be freed from all bonds as I ought to have feared

being trammeled by them.

Thus the thoughts by which I meditated upon thee were like the

efforts of one who would awake, but being overpowered with

sleepiness is soon asleep again. Often does a man when heavy

sleepiness is on his limbs defer to shake it off, and though

not approving it, encourage it; even so I was sure it was

better to surrender to thy love than to yield to my own lusts,

yet, though the former course convinced me, the latter pleased

and held me bound. There was naught in me to answer thy call,

"Awake, thou sleeper," but only drawling, drowsy words,

"Presently; yes, presently; wait a little while." But the

"presently" had no "present," and the "little while" grew long.

For I was afraid thou wouldst hear me too soon, and heal me at

once of my disease of lust, which I wished to satiate rather

than to see extinguished. With what lashes of words did I not

scourge my own soul. Yet it shrank back; it refused, though it

had no excuse to offer. I said within myself: "Come, let it be

done now," and as I said it, I was on the point of the resolve.

I all but did it, yet I did not do it. And I made another

effort, and almost succeeded, yet I did not reach it, and did

not grasp it, hesitating to die to death, and live to life; and

the evil to which I was so wonted held me more than the better

life I had not tried.

There could be no more perfect description of the divided will, when the

higher wishes lack just that last acuteness, that touch of explosive

intensity, of dynamogenic quality (to use the slang of the

psychologists), that enables them to burst their shell, and make

irruption efficaciously into life and quell the lower tendencies

forever.

6. Personality of Individuals and of Peoples[74]

In my opinion personality is not merely a unifying and directing

principle which controls thought and action, but one which, at the same

time, defines the relation of individuals to their fellows. The concept

of personality includes, in addition to inner unity and co-ordination of

the impulses, a definite attitude directed toward the outer world which

is determined by the manner in which the individual organizes his

external stimulations.

In this definition the objective aspect of personality is emphasized as

over against the subjective. We should not in psychological matters be

satisfied with subjective definitions. The mental life is not only a sum

of subjective experiences but manifests itself invariably also in a

definite series of objective expressions. These objective expressions

are the contributions which the personality makes to its external social

environment. More than that, only these objective expressions of

personality are accessible to external observation and they alone have

objective value.

According to Ribot, the real personality is an organism which is

represented at its highest in the brain. The brain embraces all our past

and the possibilities of our future. The individual character with all

its active and passive peculiarities, with all its antipathies, genius,

talents, stupidities, virtues, and vices, its inertia and its energy is

predetermined in the brain.

Personality, from the objective point of view, is the psychic individual

with all his original characters, an individual in free association with

his social _milieu_. Neither innate mental ability, nor creative energy,

nor what we call will, in and of themselves, constitutes personality.

Nothing less than the totality of psychical manifestations, all these

including idiosyncrasies which distinguish one man from another and

determine his positive individuality, may be said to characterize, from

the objective point of view, the human personality.

The intellectual horizon of persons on different cultural levels varies,

but no one, for that reason (because of intellectual inferiority), loses

the right to recognition as a person, provided that he maintains, over

against his environment, his integrity as an individual and remains a

self-determining person. It is the loss of this self-determined

individuality alone that renders man completely impersonal. When

individual spontaneity is feebly manifested, we speak of an ill-defined

or a "passive" personality. Personality is, in short, from the objective

point of view, a self-determining individual with a unique nature and a

definite status in the social world around him.

If now, on the basis of the preceding definition, we seek to define the

significance of personality in social and public life, it appears that

personality is the basis upon which all social institutions, movements,

and conditions, in short all the phenomena of social life, rest. The

people of our time are no more, as in the Golden Age, inarticulate

masses. They are a totality of more or less active personalities

connected by common interests, in part by racial origin, and by a

certain similarity of fundamental psychic traits. A people is a kind of

collective personality possessing particular ethnic and psychological

characteristics, animated by common political aspirations and political

traditions. The progress of peoples, their civilization, and their

culture naturally are determined by the advancement of the personalities

which compose them. Since the emancipation of mankind from a condition

of subjection, the life of peoples and of societies has rested upon the

active participation of each member of society in the common welfare

which represents the aim of all. The personality, considered as a

psychic self-determining individual, asserts itself the more

energetically in the general march of historical events, the farther a

people is removed from the condition of subjection in which the rights

of personality are denied.

In every field of activity, the more advanced personality "blazes a new

trail." The passive personality, born in subjection, is disposed merely

to imitate and to repeat. The sheer existence of modern states depends

less on the crude physical force and its personified agencies, than on

the moral cohesion of the personalities who constitute the nation.

Since the beginning of time, it is only the moral values that have

endured. Force can support the state only temporarily. When a nation

disregards the moral forces and seeks its salvation in the rude clash of

arms, it bears within itself the seeds of its own destruction. No army

in the world is strong enough to maintain a state, the moral basis of

which is shaken, for the strength of the army rests upon its morale.

The importance of personality in the historic life of peoples is

manifest in periods when social conditions accelerate the movement of

social life. Personality, like every other force, reaches its maximum

when it encounters resistance, in conflict and in rivalry--when it

fights--hence its great value in friendly rivalry of nations in industry

and culture, and especially in periods of natural calamities or of

enemies from without. Since the fruits of individual development

contribute to the common fund of social values, it is clear that

societies and peoples which, other things being equal, possess the most

advanced and active personalities contribute most to the enrichment of

civilization. It does not seem necessary to demonstrate that the pacific

competition of nations and their success depends on the development of

the personalities which compose them. A nation weak in the development

of individualities, of social units which compose it, could not defend

itself against the exploitation of nations composed of personalities

with a superior development.

D. BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL HEREDITY

1. Nature and Nurture[75]

We have seen that the scientific position in regard to the

transmissibility of modifications should be one of active scepticism,

that there seems to be no convincing evidence in support of the

affirmative position, and that there is strong presumption in favor of

the negative.

A modification is a definite change in the individual body, due to some

change in "nurture." There is no secure evidence that any such

individual gain or loss can be transmitted as such, or in any

representative degree. How does this affect our estimate of the value of

"nurture"? How should the sceptical or negative answer, which we believe

to be the scientific one, affect our practice in regard to education,

physical culture, amelioration of function, improvement of environment,

and so on? Let us give a practical point to what we have already said.

a) Every inheritance requires an appropriate nurture if it is to

realize itself in development. Nurture supplies the liberating stimuli

necessary for the full expression of the inheritance. A man's character

as well as his physique is a function of "nature" and of "nurture." In

the language of the old parable of the talents, what is given must be

traded with. A boy may be truly enough a chip of the old block, but how

far he shows himself such depends on "nurture." The conditions of

nurture determine whether the expression of the inheritance is to be

full or partial. It need hardly be said that the strength of an

(inherited) individuality may be such that it expresses itself almost in

the face of inappropriate nurture. History abounds in instances. As

Goethe said, "Man is always achieving the impossible." Corot was the son

of a successful milliner and prosperous tradesman, and he was thirty

before he left the draper's shop to study nature.

b) Although modifications do not seem to be transmitted as such, or in

any representative degree, there is no doubt that they or their

secondary results may in some cases affect the offspring. This is

especially the case in typical mammals, where there is before birth a

prolonged (placental) connection between the mother and the unborn

young. In such cases the offspring is for a time almost part of the

maternal body, and liable to be affected by modifications thereof, e.g.,

by good or bad nutritive conditions. In other cases, also, it may be

that deeply saturating parental modifications, such as the results of

alcoholic and other poisoning, affect the germ cells, and thus the

offspring. A disease may saturate the body with toxins and waste

products, and these may provoke prejudicial germinal variations.

c) Though modifications due to changed "nurture" do not seem to be

transmissible, they may be re-impressed on each generation. Thus

"nurture" becomes not less, but more, important in our eyes.

"Is my grandfather's environment not my heredity?" asks an American

author quaintly and pathetically. Well, if not, let us secure for

ourselves and for our children those factors in the "grandfather's

environment" that made for progressive evolution, and eschew those that

tended elsewhere.

Are modifications due to changed nurture not, as such, entailed on

offspring? Perhaps it is just as well, for we are novices at nurturing

even yet! Moreover, the non-transmissibility cuts both ways: if

individual modificational gains are not handed on, neither are the

losses.

Is the "nature"--the germinal constitution, to wit--all that passes from

generation to generation, the capital sum without the results of

individual usury; then we are freed, at least, from undue pessimism at

the thought of the many harmful functions and environments that

disfigure our civilization. Many detrimental acquired characters are to

be seen all around us, but if they are not transmissible, they need not

last.

In the development of "character," much depends upon early nurture,

education, and surrounding influences generally, but how the individual

reacts to these must largely depend on his inheritance. Truly the

individual himself makes his own character, but he does so by his

habitual adjustment of his (hereditarily determined) constitution to

surrounding influences. Nurture supplies the stimulus for the expression

of the moral inheritance, and how far the inheritance can express itself

is limited by the nurture-stimuli available just as surely as the result

of nurture is conditioned by the hereditarily determined nature on which

it operates. It may be urged that character, being a product of habitual

modes of feeling, thinking, and acting, cannot be spoken of as

_inherited_, but bodily character is also a product dependent upon vital

experience. It seems to us as idle to deny that some children are "born

good" or "born bad," as it is to deny that some children are born strong

and others weak, some energetic and others "tired" or "old." It may be

difficult to tell how far the apparently hereditary goodness or badness

of disposition is due to the nutritive influences of the mother, both

before and after birth, and we must leave it to the reader's experience

and observation to decide whether we are right or wrong in our opinion

that quite apart from maternal nutritive influence there is a genuine

inheritance of kindly disposition, strong sympathy, good humor, and good

will. The further difficulty that the really organic character may be

half-concealed by nurture-effects, or inhibited by the external heritage

of custom and tradition, seems less serious, for the selfishness of an

acquired altruism is as familiar as honor among thieves.

It is entirely useless to boggle over the difficulty that we are unable

to conceive how dispositions for good or ill lie implicit within the

protoplasmic unit in which the individual life begins. The fact is

undoubted that the initiatives of moral character are in some degree

transmissible, though from the nature of the case the influences of

education, example, environment, and the like are here more potent than

in regard to structural features. We cannot make a silk purse out of a

sow's ear, though the plasticity of character under nurture is a fact

which gives us all hope. Explain it we cannot, but the transmission of

the raw material of character is a fact, and we must still say with Sir

Thomas Browne: "Bless not thyself that thou wert born in Athens; but,

among thy multiplied acknowledgments, lift up one hand to heaven that

thou wert born of honest parents, that modesty, humility, and veracity

_lay in the same egg_, and came into the world with thee."

2. Inheritance of Original Nature[76]

The principles of heredity (may be recapitulated as follows):

First of all, we find useful the principle of the unit-character.

According to this principle, characters are, for the most part,

inherited independently of each other, and each trait is inherited as a

unit or may be broken up into characters that are so inherited.

Next, it must be recognized that characters, as such, are not inherited.

Strictly, my son has not my nose, because I still have it; what was

transmitted was something that determined the shape of his nose, and

that is called in brief a "determiner." So the second principle is that

unit-characters are inherited through determiners in the germ cells.

And finally, it is recognized that there really is no inheritance from

parent to child, but that parent and child resemble each other because

they are derived from the same germ plasm, they are chips from the same

old block; and the son is the half-brother to his father, by another

mother.

These three principles are the three corner stones of heredity as we

know it today, the principles of the independent unit-characters each

derived from a determiner in the germ plasm.

How far are the known facts of heredity in man in accord with these

principles? No doubt all human traits are inherited in accordance with

these principles; but knowledge proceeds slowly in this field.

As a first illustration I may take the case of human eye color. The iris

is made up of a trestle-work of fibers, in which are suspended particles

that give the blue color. In addition, in many eyes much brown pigment

is formed which may be small in amount and gathered around the pupil or

so extensive as to suffuse the entire iris and make it all brown. It is

seen, then, that the brown iris is formed by something additional to the

blue. And brown iris may be spoken of as a _positive_ character,

depending on a determiner for brown pigment; and blue as a _negative_

character, depending on the absence of the determiner for brown.

Now when both parents have brown eyes and come from an ancestry with

brown eyes, it is probable that all of their germ cells contain the

determiner for brown iris pigmentation. So when these germ cells, both

carrying the determiner, unite, all of the progeny will receive the

determiner from both sides of the house; consequently the determiners

are double in their bodies and the resulting iris pigmentation may be

said to be _duplex_. When a character is duplex in an individual, that

means that when the germ cells ripen in the body of that individual

each contains a determiner. So that individual is capable, so far as he

is concerned, of transmitting his trait in undiminished intensity.

If a parent has pure blue eyes, that is evidence that in neither of the

united germ cells from which he arose was there a determiner for iris

pigmentation; consequently in respect to brown iris pigmentation such a

person may be said to be _nulliplex_. If, now, such a person marry an

individual duplex in eye color, in whom all of the germ cells contain

the determiner, each child will receive the determiner for iris

pigmentation from one side of the house only. This determiner will, of

course, induce pigmentation, but the pigmentation is simplex, being

induced by one determiner only. Consequently, the pigmentation is apt to

be weak. When a person whose pigment determiners have come from one side

of the house forms germ cells, half will have and half will lack the

determiner. If such a person marry a consort all of whose germ cells

contain the determiner for iris pigmentation, all of the children will,

of course, receive the iris pigmentation, but in half it will be duplex

and in the other half it will be simplex. If the two parents both be

simplex, so that, in each, half of the germ cells possess and half lack

the determiner in the union of germ cells, there are four events that

are equally apt to occur: (1) an egg _with_ the determiner unites with a

sperm _with_ the determiner; (2) an egg _with_ the determiner unites

with a sperm _without_ the determiner; (3) an egg _without_ the

determiner unites with a sperm _with_ the determiner; (4) an egg

_without_ the determiner unites with a sperm _without_ the determiner.

Thus the character is duplex in one case, simplex in two cases, and

nulliplex in one case; that is, one in four will have no brown pigment,

or will be blue eyed. If one parent be simplex, so that the germ cells

are equally with and without the determiner, while the other be

nulliplex, then half of the children will be simplex and half nulliplex

in eye pigment. Finally, if both parents be nulliplex in eye

pigmentation (that is, blue eyed), then none of their germ cells will

have the determiner, and all children will be nulliplex, or blue eyed.

The inheritance of eye color serves as a paradigm of the method of

inheritance of any unit-character.

Let us now consider some of the physical traits of man that follow the

same law as brown eye color, traits that are clearly positive, and due

to a definite determiner in the germ plasm.

Hair color is due either to a golden-brown pigment that looks black in

masses, or else to a red pigment. The lighter tints differ from the

darker by the absence of some pigment granules. If neither parent has

the capacity of producing a large quantity of pigment granules in the

hair, the children cannot have that capacity, that is, two flaxen-haired

parents have only flaxen-haired children. But a dark-haired parent may

be either simplex or duplex; and so two such parents _may_ produce

children with light hair; but not more than one out of four. In general,

the hair color of the children tends not to be darker than that of the

darker parent. Skin pigment follows a similar rule. It is really one of

the surprises of modern studies that skin pigment should be found to

follow the ordinary law of heredity; it was commonly thought to blend.

The inheritance of skin color is not dependent on race; two blonds never

have brunette offspring, but brunettes may have blondes. The extreme

case is that of albinos with no pigment in skin, hair, and iris. Two

albinos have only albino children, but albinos may come from two

pigmented parents.

Similarly, straight-haired parents lack curliness, and two such have

only straight-haired children. Also two tall parents have only tall

children. _Shortness_ is the trait: tallness is a negative character.

Also when both parents lack stoutness (are slender), all children tend

to lack it.

We may now consider briefly the inheritance of certain pathological or

abnormal states, to see in how far the foregoing principles hold for

them also. Sometimes the abnormal condition is positive, due to a new

trait; but sometimes, on the contrary, the normal condition is the

positive one and the trait is due to a defect.

Deaf-mutism is due to a defect; but the nature of the defect is

different in different cases. Deaf-mutism is so varied that frequently

two unrelated deaf mutes may have hearing children. But if the deaf-mute

parents are cousins, the chances that the deafness is due to the _same_

unit defect are increased and all of the children will probably be deaf.

From the studies of Dr. Goddard and others, it appears that when both

parents are feeble-minded all of the children will be so likewise; this

conclusion has been tested again and again. But if _one_ of the parents

be normal and of normal ancestry, all of the children may be normal;

whereas, if the normal person have defective germ cells, half of his

progeny by a feeble-minded woman will be defective.

Many criminals, especially those who offend against the person, are

feeble-minded, as is shown by the way they occur in fraternities with

feeble-mindedness, or have feeble-minded parents. The test of the mental

condition of relatives is one that may well be applied by judges in

deciding upon the responsibility of an aggressor.

Not only the condition of imperfect mental development, but also that of

inability to withstand stress upon the nervous system, may be inherited.

From the studies of Dr. Rosanoff and his collaborators, it appears that

if both parents be subject to manic depressive insanity or to dementia

precox, all children will be neuropathic also; that if one parent be

affected and come from a weak strain, half of the children are liable to

go insane; and that nervous breakdowns of these types never occur if

both parents be of sound stock.

Finally, a study of families with special abilities reveals a method of

inheritance quite like that of nervous defect. If both parents be color

artists or have a high grade of vocal ability or are littérateurs of

high grade, then all of their children tend to be of high grade also. If

one parent has high ability, while the other has low ability but has

ancestry with high ability, part of the children will have high ability

and part low. It seems like an extraordinary conclusion that high

ability is inherited as though due to the absence of a determiner in the

same way as feeble-mindedness and insanity are inherited. We are

reminded of the poet: "Great wits to madness sure are near allied."

Evidence for the relationship is given by pedigrees of men of genius

that often show the combination of ability and insanity. May it not be

that just that lack of control that permits "flights of the imagination"

is related to the flightiness characteristic of those with mental

weakness or defect?

These studies of inheritance of mental defect inevitably raise the

question how to eliminate the mentally defective. This is a matter of

great importance because, on the one hand, it is now coming to be

recognized that mental defect is at the bottom of most of our social

problems. Extreme alcoholism is usually a consequence of a mental

make-up in which self-control of the appetite for liquor is lacking.

Pauperism is a consequence of mental defects that make the pauper

incapable of holding his own in the world's competition. Sex immorality

in either sex is commonly due to a certain inability to appreciate

consequences, to visualize the inevitableness of cause and effect,

combined sometimes with a sex-hyperesthesia and lack of self-control.

Criminality in its worst forms is similarly due to a lack of

appreciation of or receptivity to moral ideas.

If we seek to know what is the origin of these defects, we must admit

that it is very ancient. They are probably derived from our ape-like

ancestors, in which they were _normal_ traits. There occurs in man a

strain that has not yet acquired those traits of inhibition that

characterized the more highly developed civilized persons. The evidence

for this is that, as far back as we go, we still trace back the black

thread of defective heredity.

We have now to answer the question as to the eugenical application of

the laws of inheritance of defects. First, it may be pointed out that

traits due to the absence of a determiner are characterized by their

usual sparseness in the pedigree, especially when the parents are

normal; by the fact that they frequently appear where cousin marriages

abound, because cousins tend to carry the same defects in their germ

plasm, though normal themselves; by the fact that two affected parents

have exclusively normal children, while two normal parents who belong to

the same strain, or who both belong to strains containing the same

defect, have some (about 25 per cent) defective children. But a

defective married to a pure normal will have no defective offspring.

The clear eugenical rule is then this: Let abnormals marry normals

without trace of the defect, and let their normal offspring marry in

turn into strong strains; thus the defect may never appear again.

Normals from the defective strain may marry normals of normal ancestry,

but must particularly avoid consanguineous marriages.

The sociological conclusion is: Prevent the feeble-minded, drunkards,

paupers, sex-offenders, and criminalistic from marrying their like or

cousins or any person belonging to a neuropathic strain. Practically it

might be well to segregate such persons during the reproductive period

for one generation. Then the crop of defectives will be reduced to

practically nothing.

3. Inheritance of Acquired Nature: Tradition[77]

The factor in societal evolution corresponding to heredity in organic

evolution is tradition; and the agency of transmission is the nervous

system by way of its various "senses" rather than the germ-plasm. The

organs of transmission are the eye, ear, tongue, etc., and not those of

sex. The term tradition, like variation and selection, is taken in the

broad sense. Variation in nature causes the offspring to differ from the

parents and from one another; variation in the folkways causes those of

one period (or place) to differ from their predecessors and to some

extent among themselves. It is the vital fact at the bottom of change.

Heredity in nature causes the offspring to resemble or repeat the

present type; tradition in societal evolution causes the mores of one

period to repeat those of the preceding period. Each is a stringent

conservator. Variation means diversity; heredity and tradition mean the

preservation of type. If there were no force of heredity or tradition,

there could be no system or classification of natural or of societal

forms; the creation hypothesis would be the only tenable one, for there

could be no basis for a theory of descent. If there were no variation,

all of nature and all human institutions would show a monotony as of the

desert sand. Heredity and tradition allow respectively of the

accumulation of organic or societal variations through repeated

selection, extending over generations, in this or that direction. In

short, what one can say of the general effects of heredity in the

organic realm he can say of tradition in the field of the folkways. That

the transmission is in the one case by way of the sex organs and the

germ-plasm, and in the other through the action of the vocal cords, the

auditory nerves, etc., would seem to be of small moment in comparison

with the essential identity in the functions discharged.

Tradition is, in a sense and if such a comparison were profitable, more

conservative than heredity. There is in the content of tradition an

invariability which could not exist if it were a dual composite, as is

the constitution of the germ-plasm. Here we must recall certain

essential qualities of the mores which we have hitherto viewed from

another angle. Tradition always looks to the folkways as constituting

the matter to be transmitted. But the folkways, after the concurrence

in their practice has been established, come to include a judgment that

they conduce to societal and, indeed, individual welfare. This is where

they come to be properly called mores. They become the prosperity-policy

of the group, and the young are reared up under their sway, looking to

the older as the repositories of precedent and convention. But presently

the older die, and in conformity with the ideas of the time, they become

beings of a higher power toward whom the living owe duty, and whose will

they do not wish to cross. The sanction of ghost-fear is thus extended

to the mores, which, as the prosperity-policy of the group, have already

taken on a stereotyped character. They thus become in an even higher

degree "uniform, universal in a group, imperative, invariable. As time

goes on, they become more and more arbitrary, positive, and imperative.

If asked why they act in a certain way in certain cases, primitive

people always answer that it is because they and their ancestors always

have done so." Thus the transmission of the mores comes to be a process

embodying the greatest conservatism and the least likelihood of change.

This situation represents an adaption of society to life-conditions; it

would seem that because of the rapidity of succession of variations

there is need of an intensely conserving force (like ethnocentrism or

religion) to preserve a certain balance and poise in the evolutionary

movement.

Transmission of the mores takes place through the agency of imitation or

of inculcation; through one or the other according as the initiative is

taken by the receiving or the giving party respectively. Inculcation

includes education in its broadest sense; but since that term implies in

general usage a certain, let us say protective, attitude taken by the

educator (as toward the young), the broader and more colorless

designation is chosen. Acculturation is the process by which one group

or people learns from another, whether the culture or civilization be

gotten by imitation or by inculcation. As there must be contact,

acculturation is sometimes ascribed to "contagion."

4. Temperament, Tradition, and Nationality[78]

The temperament of the Negro, as I conceive it, consists in a few

elementary but distinctive characteristics, determined by physical

organizations and transmitted biologically. These characteristics

manifest themselves in a genial, sunny, and social disposition, in an

interest and attachment to external, physical things rather than to

subjective states and objects of introspection, in a disposition for

expression rather than enterprise and action.

The changes which have taken place in the manifestations of this

temperament have been actuated by an inherent and natural impulse,

characteristic of all living beings, to persist and maintain itself in a

changed environment. Such changes have occurred as are likely to take

place in any organism in its struggle to live and to use its environment

to further and complete its own existence.

The result has been that this racial temperament has selected out of the

mass of cultural materials to which it had access, such technical,

mechanical, and intellectual devices as met its needs at a particular

period of its existence. It has clothed and enriched itself with such

new customs, habits, and cultural forms as it was able, or permitted to

use. It has put into these relatively external things, moreover, such

concrete meanings as its changing experience and its unchanging racial

individuality demanded. Everywhere and always it has been interested

rather in expression than in action; interested in life itself rather

than in its reconstruction or reformation. The Negro is, by natural

disposition, neither an intellectual nor an idealist, like the Jew; nor

a brooding introspective, like the East Indian; nor a pioneer and

frontiersman, like the Anglo-Saxon. He is primarily an artist, loving

life for its own sake. His _metier_ is expression rather than action. He

is, so to speak, the lady among the races.

In reviewing the fortunes of the Negro's temperament as it is manifested

in the external events of the Negro's life in America, our analysis

suggests that this racial character of the Negro has exhibited itself

everywhere in something like the rôle of the _wish_ in the Freudian

analysis of dream-life. The external cultural forms which he found here,

like the memories of the individual, have furnished the materials in

which the racial wish, i.e., the Negro temperament, has clothed itself.

The inner meaning, the sentiment, the emphasis, the emotional color,

which these forms assumed as the result of their transference from the

white man to the Negro, these have been the Negro's own. They have

represented his temperament--his temperament modified, however, by his

experience and the tradition which he has accumulated in this country.

The temperament is African, but the tradition is American.

If it is true that the Jew just because of his intellectuality is a

natural-born idealist, internationalist, doctrinaire, and revolutionist,

while the Negro, because of his natural attachment to known familiar

objects, places, and persons, is pre-adapted to conservatism and to

local and personal loyalties--if these things are true, we shall

eventually have to take account of them practically. It is certain that

the Negro has uniformly shown a disposition to loyalty during slavery to

his master and during freedom to the South and the country as a whole.

He has maintained this attitude of loyalty, too, under very discouraging

circumstances. I once heard Kelly Miller, the most philosophical of the

leaders and teachers of his race, say in a public speech that one of the

greatest hardships the Negro suffered in this country was due to the

fact that he was not permitted to be patriotic.

Of course all these alleged racial characteristics have a positive as

well as a negative significance. Every race, like every individual, has

the vices of its virtues. The question remains still to what extent

so-called racial characteristics are actually racial, i.e., biological,

and to what extent they are the effect of environmental conditions. The

thesis of this paper, to state it again, is: (1) that fundamental

temperamental qualities, which are the basis of interest and attention,

act as selective agencies and as such determine what elements in the

cultural environment each race will select; in what region it will seek

and find its vocation in the larger social organization; (2) that, on

the other hand, technique, science, machinery, tools, habits,

discipline, and all the intellectual and mechanical devices with which

the civilized man lives and works remain relatively external to the

inner core of significant attitudes and values which constitute what we

may call the will of the group. This racial will is, to be sure, largely

social, that is, modified by social experience, but it rests ultimately

upon a complex of inherited characteristics, which are racial.

The individual man is the bearer of a double inheritance. As a member of

a race, he transmits by interbreeding a biological inheritance. As a

member of society or a social group, on the other hand, he transmits by

communication a social inheritance. The particular complex of

inheritable characters which characterizes the individuals of a racial

group constitutes the racial temperament. The particular group of

habits, accommodations, sentiments, attitudes, and ideals transmitted by

communication and education constitutes a social tradition. Between this

temperament and this tradition there is, as has been generally

recognized, a very intimate relationship. My assumption is that

temperament is the basis of the interests; that as such it determines in

the long run the general run of attention, and this, eventually,

determines the selection in the case of an individual of his vocation,

in the case of the racial group of its culture. That is to say,

temperament determines what things the individual and the group will be

interested in; what elements of the general culture, to which they have

access, they will assimilate; what, to state it pedagogically, they will

learn.

It will be evident at once that where individuals of the same race and

hence the same temperament are associated, the temperamental interests

will tend to reinforce one another, and the attention of members of the

group will be more completely focused upon the specific objects and

values that correspond to the racial temperament. In this way racial

qualities become the basis for nationalities, a nationalistic group

being merely a cultural and, eventually, a political society founded on

the basis of racial inheritances.

On the other hand, when racial segregation is broken up and members of a

racial group are dispersed, the opposite effect will take place. This

explains the phenomena which have frequently been the subject of comment

and observation, that the racial characteristics manifest themselves in

an extraordinary way in large homogeneous gatherings. The contrast

between a mass meeting of one race and a similar meeting of another is

particularly striking. Under such circumstances characteristic racial

and temperamental differences appear that would otherwise pass entirely

unnoticed.

When the physical unity of a group is perpetuated by the succession of

parents and children, the racial temperament, including fundamental

attitudes and values which rest in it, is preserved intact. When,

however, society grows and is perpetuated by immigration and adaptation,

there ensues, as a result of miscegenation, a breaking up of the complex

of the biologically inherited qualities which constitute the temperament

of the race. This again initiates changes in the mores, traditions, and

eventually in the institutions of the community. The changes which

proceed from modification in the racial temperament will, however,

modify but slightly the external forms of the social traditions, but

they will be likely to change profoundly their content and meaning. Of

course other factors, individual competition, the formation of classes,

and especially the increase of communication, all co-operate to

complicate the whole situation and to modify the effects which would be

produced by racial factors working in isolation.

III. INVESTIGATIONS AND PROBLEMS

1. Conceptions of Human Nature Implicit in Religious and Political

Doctrines

Although the systematic study of it is recent, there has always been a

certain amount of observation and a great deal of assumption in regard

to human nature. The earliest systematic treatises in jurisprudence,

history, theology, and politics necessarily proceeded from certain more

or less naïve assumptions in regard to the nature of man. In the

extension of Roman law over subject peoples the distinction was made

between _jus gentium_ and _jus naturae_, i.e., the laws peculiar to a

particular nation as contrasted with customs and laws common to all

nations and derived from the nature of mankind. Macauley writes of the

"principles of human nature" from which it is possible to deduce a

theory of government. Theologians, in devising a logical system of

thought concerning the ways of God to man, proceeded on the basis of

certain notions of human nature. The doctrines of original sin, the

innate depravity of man, the war of the natural man and the spiritual

man had a setting in the dogmas of the fall of man, redemption through

faith, and the probationary character of life on earth. In striking

contrast with the pessimistic attitude of theologians toward human

nature, social revolutionists like Rousseau have condemned social

institutions as inherently vicious and optimistically placed reliance

upon human nature as innately good.

In all these treatises the assumptions about human nature are either

preconceptions or rationalizations from experience incidental to the

legal, moral, religious, or political system of thought. There is in

these treatises consequently little or no analysis or detailed

description of the traits attributed to men. Certainly, there is no

evidence of an effort to arrive at an understanding of human behavior

from an objective study of its nature.

Historic assumptions in regard to human nature, no matter how fantastic

or unscientific, have exerted, nevertheless, a far-reaching influence

upon group action. Periods of social revolution are ushered in by

theorists who perceive only the evil in institutions and the good in

human nature. On the other hand, the "guardians of society," distrustful

of the impulses of human nature, place their reliance upon conventions

and upon existing forms of social organization. Communistic societies

have been organized upon certain ideas of human nature and have survived

as long as these beliefs which inspired them controlled the behavior of

members of the group.

Philosophers from the time of Socrates have invariably sought to justify

their moral and political theories upon a conception, if not a

definition, of the nature of man. Aristotle, in his _Politics_ and

Hobbes in his _Leviathan_, to refer to two classics, offer widely

divergent interpretations of human nature. Aristotle emphasized man's

altruistic traits, Hobbes stressed his egoistic disposition. These

opposite conceptions of human behavior are explicit and in each case

presented with a display of evidence. Yet students soon realize that

neither philosopher, in fashioning his conception, is entirely without

animus or ulterior motive. When these definitions are considered in the

context in which they occur, they seem less an outgrowth of an analysis

of human nature, than formulas devised in the interest of a political

theory. Aristotle was describing the ideal state; Hobbes was interested

in the security of an existing social order.

Still, the contribution made by social and political philosophers has

been real. Their descriptions of human behavior, if inadequate and

unscientific, at least recognized that an understanding of human nature

was a precondition to social reorganization. The fact that philosophical

conceptions and ideal constructions are themselves social forces and as

such frequently represent vested interests, has been an obstacle to

social as well as physical science.

Comte's notion that every scientific discipline must pass through a

theological and metaphysical stage before it assumed the character of a

positive science seems to be true as far as sociology is concerned.

Machiavelli shocked the moral sense of his time, if not the moralists of

all time, when he proposed to accept human nature as it is as a basis

for political science. Herbert Spencer insisted upon the futility of

expecting "golden conduct from leaden instincts." To the utopian social

reformers of his day he pointed out a series of welfare measures in

England in which the outcome was the direct opposite of the results

desired.

This negative criticism of preconceived notions and speculations about

human nature prepared the way for disinterested observation and

comparison. Certain modern tendencies and movements gave an impetus to

the detached study of human behavior. The ethnologists collected

objective descriptions of the behavior of primitive people. In

psychology interest developed in the study of the child and in the

comparative study of human and animal behavior. The psychiatrist, in

dealing with certain types of abnormal behavior like hysteria and

multiple personality, was forced to study human behavior objectively.

All this has prepared the way for a science of human nature and of

society based upon objective and disinterested observation.

2. Literature and the Science of Human Nature

The poets were the first to recognize that "the proper study of mankind

is man" as they were also the first to interpret it objectively. The

description and appreciation of human nature and personality by the poet

and artist preceded systematic and reflective analysis by the

psychologist and the sociologist. In recent years, moreover, there has

been a very conscious effort to make literature, as well as history,

"scientific." Georg Brandes in his _Main Currents in Nineteenth Century

Literature_ set himself the task to "trace first and foremost the

connection between literature and life." Taine's _History of English

Literature_ attempts to delineate British temperament and character as

mirrored in literary masterpieces.

The novel which emphasizes "_milieu_" and "character," as contrasted

with the novel which emphasizes "action" and "plot," is a literary

device for the analysis of human nature and society. Émile Zola in an

essay _The Experimental Novel_ has presented with characteristic

audacity the case for works of fiction as instruments for the scientific

dissection and explanation of human behavior.

The novelist is equally an observer and an experimentalist. The

observer in him gives the facts as he has observed them,

suggests the points of departure, displays the solid earth on

which his characters are to tread and the phenomena develop.

Then the experimentalist appears and introduces an experiment,

that is to say, sets his characters going in a certain story so

as to show that the succession of facts will be such as the

requirements of the determinism of the phenomena under

examination call for. The novelist starts out in search of a

truth. I will take as an example the character of the "Baron

Hulot," in _Cousine Bette_, by Balzac. The general fact

observed by Balzac is the ravages that the amorous temperament

of a man makes in his home, in his family, and in society. As

soon as he has chosen his subject he starts from known facts,

then he makes his experiment and exposes Hulot to a series of

trials, placing him among certain surroundings in order to

exhibit how the complicated machinery of his passions works. It

is then evident that there is not only observation there, but

that there is also experiment, as Balzac does not remain

satisfied with photographing the facts collected by him, but

interferes in a direct way to place his characters in certain

conditions, and of these he remains the master. The problem is

to know what such a passion, acting in such surroundings and

under such circumstances, would produce from the point of view

of an individual and of society; and an experimental novel,

_Cousine Bette_, for example, is simply the report of the

experiment that the novelist conducts before the eyes of the

public. In fact, the whole operation consists of taking facts

in nature, then in studying the mechanism of these facts,

acting upon them, by the modification of circumstances and

surroundings, without deviating from the laws of nature.

Finally, you possess knowledge of the man, scientific knowledge

of him, in both his individual and social relations.[79]

After all that may be said for the experimental novel, however, its

primary aim, like that of history, is appreciation and understanding,

not generalization and abstract formulas. Insight and sympathy, the

mystical sense of human solidarity, expressed in the saying "to

comprehend all is to forgive all," this fiction has to give. And these

are materials which the sociologist cannot neglect. As yet there is no

autobiography or biography of an egocentric personality so convincing as

George Meredith's _The Egoist_. The miser is a social type; but there

are no case studies as sympathetic and discerning as George Eliot's

_Silas Marner_. Nowhere in social science has the technique of case

study developed farther than in criminology; yet Dostoévsky's

delineation of the self-analysis of the murderer in _Crime and

Punishment_ dwarfs all comparison outside of similar studies in

fiction. The function of the so-called psychological or sociological

novel stops, however, with its presentation of the individual incident

or case; it is satisfied by the test of its appeal to the experience of

the reader. The scientific study of human nature proceeds a step

farther; it seeks generalizations. From the case studies of history and

of literature it abstracts the laws and principles of human behavior.

3. Research in the Field of Original Nature

Valuable materials for the study of human nature have been accumulated

in archaeology, ethnology, and folklore. William G. Sumner, in his book

_Folkways_, worked through the ethnological data and made it available

for sociological use. By classification and comparison of the customs of

primitive peoples he showed that cultural differences were based on

variations in folkways and mores in adaptation to the environment,

rather than upon fundamental differences in human nature.

The interests of research have resulted in a division of labor between

the fields of original and acquired nature in man. The examination of

original tendencies has been quite properly connected with the study of

inheritance. For the history of research in this field, the student is

referred to treatises upon genetics and evolution and to the works of

Lamarck, Darwin, DeVries, Weismann, and Mendel. Recent discoveries in

regard to the mechanism of biological inheritance have led to the

organization of a new applied science, "eugenics." The new science

proposes a social program for the improvement of the racial traits based

upon the investigations of breeding and physical inheritance. Research

in eugenics has been fostered by the Galton Laboratory in England, and

by the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor in the United

States. Interest has centered in the study of the inheritance of

feeble-mindedness. Studies of feeble-minded families and groups, as _The

Kallikak Family_ by Goddard, _The Jukes_ by Dugdale, and _The Tribe of

Ishmael_ by M'Culloch, have shown how mental defect enters as a factor

into industrial inefficiency, poverty, prostitution, and crime.

4. The Investigation of Human Personality

The trend of research in human nature has been toward the study of

personality. Scientific inquiry into the problems of personality was

stimulated by the observation of abnormal behavior such as hysteria,

loss of memory, etc., where the cause was not organic and, therefore,

presumably psychic. A school of French psychiatrists and psychologists

represented by Charcot, Janet, and Ribot have made signal contributions

to an understanding of the maladies of personality. Investigation in

this field, invaluable for an understanding of the person, has been made

in the study of dual and multiple personality. The work of Freud, Jung,

Adler, and others in psychoanalysis has thrown light upon the rôle of

mental conflict, repression, and the wishes in the growth of

personality.

In sociology, personality is studied, not only from the subjective

standpoint of its organization, but even more in its objective aspects

and with reference to the rôle of the person in the group. One of the

earliest classifications of "kinds of conduct" has been ascribed by

tradition to a disciple of Aristotle, Theophrastus, who styled himself

"a student of human nature." _The Characters of Theophrastus_ is

composed of sketches--humorous and acute, if superficial--of types such

as "the flatterer," "the boor," "the coward," "the garrulous man." They

are as true to modern life as to the age of Alexander. Chief among the

modern imitators of Theophrastus is La Bruyère, who published in 1688

_Les caractères, ou les moeurs de ce siècle_, a series of essays on

the manners of his time, illustrated by portraits of his contemporaries.

Autobiography and biography provide source material for the study both

of the subjective life and of the social rôle of the person. Three great

autobiographies which have inspired the writing of personal narratives

are themselves representative of the different types: Caesar's

_Commentaries_, with his detached impersonal description of his great

exploits; the _Confessions of St. Augustine_, with his intimate

self-analysis and intense self-reproach, and the less well-known _De

Vita Propria Liber_ by Cardan. This latter is a serious attempt at

scientific self-examination. Recently, attention has been directed to

the accumulation of autobiographical and biographical materials which

are interpreted from the point of view of psychiatry and psychoanalysis.

The study _Der Fall Otto Weininger_ by Dr. Ferdinand Probst is a

representative monograph of this type. The outstanding example of this

method and its use for sociological interpretation is "Life Record of an

Immigrant" contained in the third volume of Thomas and Znaniecki, _The

Polish Peasant_. In connection with the _Recreation Survey_ of the

Cleveland Foundation and the _Americanization Studies of the Carnegie

Corporation_, the life-history has been developed as part of the

technique of investigation.

5. The Measurement of Individual Differences

With the growing sense of the importance of individual differences in

human nature, attempts at their measurement have been essayed. Tests for

physical and mental traits have now reached a stage of accuracy and

precision. The study of temperamental and social characteristics is

still in the preliminary stage.

The field of the measurement of physical traits is dignified by the name

"anthropometry." In the nineteenth century high hopes were widely held

of the significance of measurements of the cranium and of physiognomy

for an understanding of the mental and moral nature of the person. The

lead into phrenology sponsored by Gall and Spurzheim proved to be a

blind trail. The so-called "scientific school of criminology" founded by

Cesare Lombroso upon the identification of the criminal type by certain

abnormalities of physiognomy and physique was undermined by the

controlled study made by Charles Goring. At the present time the

consensus of expert opinion is that only for a small group may gross

abnormalities of physical development be associated with abnormal mental

and emotional reactions.

In 1905-11 Binet and Simon devised a series of tests for determining the

mental age of French school children. The purpose of the mental

measurements was to gauge innate mental capacity. Therefore the tests

excluded material which had to do with special social experience. With

their introduction into the United States certain revisions and

modifications, such as the Goddard Revision, the Terman Revision, the

Yerkes-Bridges Point Scale, were made in the interests of

standardization. The application of mental measurements to different

races and social classes raised the question of the extent to which

individual groups varied because of differences in social experience.

While it is not possible absolutely to separate original tendencies from

their expression in experience, it is practicable to devise tests which

will take account of divergent social environments.

The study of volitional traits and of temperament is still in its

infancy. Many recent attempts at classification of temperaments rest

upon as impressionistic a basis as the popular fourfold division into

sanguine, melancholic, choleric, and phlegmatic. Two of the efforts to

define temperamental differences rest, however, upon first-hand study of

cases. Dr. June E. Downey has devised a series of tests based upon

handwriting material for measuring will traits. In her pamphlet _The

Will Profile_ she presents an analysis of twelve volitional traits:

revision, perseverance, co-ordination of impulses, care for detail,

motor inhibition, resistance, assurance, motor impulsion, speed of

decision, flexibility, freedom from inertia, and speed of movement. From

a study of several hundred cases she defined certain will patterns which

apparently characterize types of individuals. In her experience she has

found the rating of the subject by the will test to have a distinct

value in supplementing the test for mentality.

Kraepelin, on the basis of his examination of abnormal mental states,

offers a classification of types of psychopathic personalities. He

distinguishes six groups: the excitable, the unstable, the psychopathic

trend, the eccentric, the anti-social, and the contentious. In

psychoanalysis a simpler twofold division is frequently made between the

_introverts_, or the "introspective" and the _extroverts_, or the

"objective" types of individual.

The study of social types is as yet an unworked field. Literature and

life surround us with increasing specializations in personalities, but

attempts at classification are still in the impressionistic stage. The

division suggested by Thomas into the Philistine, Bohemian, and Creative

types, while suggestive, is obviously too simple for an adequate

description of the rich and complex variety of personalities.

This survey indicates the present status of attempts to define and

measure differences in original and human nature. A knowledge of

individual differences is important in every field of social control. It

is significant that these tests have been devised to meet problems of

policies and of administration in medicine, in industry, in education,

and in penal and reformatory institutions. Job analysis, personnel

administration, ungraded rooms, classes for exceptional children,

vocational guidance, indicate fields made possible by the development of

tests for measuring individual differences.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. ORIGINAL NATURE

A. _Racial Inheritance_

(1) Thomson, J. Arthur. _Heredity._ London and New York, 1908.

(2) Washburn, Margaret F. _The Animal Mind._ New York, 1908.

(3) Morgan, C. Lloyd. _Habit and Instinct._ London and New York, 1896.

(4) ----. _Instinct and Experience._ New York, 1912.

(5) Loeb, Jacques. _Comparative Physiology of the Brain and Comparative

Psychology._ New York, 1900.

(6) ----. _Forced Movements._ Philadelphia and London, 1918.

(7) Jennings, H. S. _Behavior of the Lower Organisms._ New York, 1906.

(8) Watson, John. _Behavior: an Introduction to Comparative Psychology._

New York, 1914.

(9) Thorndike, E. L. _The Original Nature of Man._ Vol. I of

"Educational Psychology." New York, 1913.

(10) Paton, Stewart. _Human Behavior._ In relation to the study of

educational, social, and ethical problems. New York, 1921.

(11) Faris, Ellsworth. "Are Instincts Data or Hypotheses?" _American

Journal of Sociology_, XXVII (Sept., 1921.)

B. _Heredity and Eugenics_

1. Systematic Treatises:

(1) Castle, W. E., Coulter, J. M., Davenport, C. B., East, E. M., and

Tower, W. L. _Heredity and Eugenics._ Chicago, 1912.

(2) Davenport, C. B. _Heredity in Relation to Eugenics._ New York, 1911.

(3) Goddard, Henry H. _Feeble-mindedness._ New York, 1914.

2. Inherited Inferiority of Families and Communities:

(1) Dugdale, Richard L. _The Jukes._ New York, 1877.

(2) M'Culloch, O. C. _The Tribe of Ishmael._ A study in social

degradation. National Conference of Charities and Correction, 1888,

154-59; 1889, 265; 1890, 435-37.

(3) Goddard, Henry H. _The Kallikak Family._ New York, 1912.

(4) Winship, A. E. _Jukes-Edwards._ A study in education and heredity.

Harrisburg, Pa., 1900.

(5) Estabrook, A. H., and Davenport, C. B. _The Nam Family._ A study in

cacogenics. Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., 1912.

(6) Danielson, F. H., and Davenport, C. B. _The Hill Folk._ Report on a

rural community of hereditary defectives. Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.,

1912.

(7) Kite, Elizabeth S. "The Pineys," _Survey_, XXXI (October 4, 1913),

7-13. 38-40.

(8) Gesell, A. L. "The Village of a Thousand Souls," _American

Magazine_, LXXVI (October, 1913), 11-13.

(9) Kostir, Mary S. _The Family of Sam Sixty._ Columbus, 1916.

(10) Finlayson, Anna W. _The Dack Family._ A study on hereditary lack of

emotional control. Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y., 1916.

II. HUMAN NATURE

A. _Human Traits_

(1) Cooley, Charles H. _Human Nature and the Social Order._ New York,

1902.

(2) Shaler, N. S. _The Individual._ New York, 1900.

(3) Hocking, W. E. _Human Nature and Its Remaking._ New Haven, 1918.

(4) Edman, Irwin. _Human Traits and Their Social Significance._ Boston,

1919.

(5) Wallas, Graham. _Human Nature in Politics._ London, 1908.

(6) Lippmann, Walter. _A Preface to Politics._ [A criticism of present

politics from the point of view of human-nature studies.] New York and

London, 1913.

(7) James, William. _The Varieties of Religious Experience._ A study in

human nature. London and New York, 1902.

(8) Ellis, Havelock. _Studies in the Psychology of Sex._ 6 vols.

Philadelphia, 1900-1905.

(9) Thomas, W. I. _Source Book for Social Origins._ Chicago, 1909.

[Contains extensive bibliographies.]

B. _The Mores_

1. Comparative Studies of Cultural Traits:

(1) Tylor, E. B. _Primitive Culture._ Researches into the development of

mythology, philosophy, religion, language, art, and custom. 4th ed. 2

vols. London, 1903.

(2) Sumner, W. G. _Folkways._ A study of the sociological importance of

usages, manners, customs, mores, and morals. Boston, 1906.

(3) Westermarck, E. A. _The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas._

London and New York, 1908.

(4) Ratzel, F. _History of Mankind._ Translated by A. J. Butler. London

and New York, 1898.

(5) Vierkandt, A. _Naturvölker und Kulturvölker._ Leipzig, 1896.

(6) Lippert, Julius. _Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit in ihrem

organischem Aufbau._ Stuttgart, 1886-87.

(7) Frazer, J. G. _The Golden Bough._ A study in magic and religion. 3d

ed., 12 vols. (Volume XII is a bibliography of the preceding volumes.)

London and New York, 1907-15.

(8) Dewey, John, and Tufts, James H. _Ethics._ New York, 1908.

2. Studies of Traits of Individual Peoples:

(1) Fouillée, A. _Psychologie du peuple français._ Paris, 1898.

(2) Rhys, J., and Brynmor-Jones, D. _The Welsh People._ London, 1900.

(3) Fishberg, M. _The Jews._ A study of race and environment. London and

New York, 1911.

(4) Strausz, A. _Die Bulgaren._ Ethnographische Studien. Leipzig, 1898.

(5) Stern, B. _Geschichtete der öffentlichen Sittlichkeit in Russland._

Kultur, Aberglaube, Sitten, und Gebraüche. Zwei Bände. Berlin, 1907-8.

(6) Krauss, F. S. _Sitte und Brauch der Südslaven._ Wien, 1885.

(7) Kidd, D. _The Essential Kafir._ London, 1904.

(8) Spencer, B., and Gillen, F. J. _The Native Tribes of Central

Australia._ London and New York, 1899.

C. _Human Nature and Industry_

(1) Taylor, F. W. _The Principles of Scientific Management._ New York,

1911.

(2) Tead, O., and Metcalf, H. C. _Personnel Administration; Its

Principles and Practice._ New York, 1920.

(3) Tead, O. _Instincts in Industry._ A study of working-class

psychology. Boston, 1918.

(4) Parker, C. H. _The Casual Laborer and Other Essays._ New York, 1920.

(5) Marot, Helen. _Creative Impulse in Industry; A Proposition for

Educators._ New York, 1918.

(6) Williams, Whiting. _What's on the Worker's Mind._ New York, 1920.

(7) Hollingworth, H. L. _Vocational Psychology; Its Problems and

Methods._ New York, 1916.

III. PERSONALITY

A. _The Genesis of Personality_

(1) Baldwin, J. M. _Mental Development in the Child and the Race:

Methods and Processes._ 3d rev. ed. New York and London, 1906.

(2) Baldwin, J. M. _Social and Ethical Interpretations in Mental

Developments._ Chap ii, "The Social Person," pp. 66-98. 3d ed., rev. and

enl. New York and London, 1902.

(3) Sully, J. _Studies of Childhood._ rev. ed. New York, 1903.

(4) King, I. _The Psychology of Child Development._ Chicago, 1903.

(5) Thorndike, E. L. _Notes on Child Study._ New York, 1903.

(6) Hall, G. S. _Adolescence._ Its psychology and its relations to

physiology, anthropology, sociology, sex, crime, religion, and

education. 2 vols.. New York, 1904.

(7) Shinn, Milicent W. _Notes on the Development of a Child._ University

of California Studies. Nos. 1-4. 1893-99.

(8) Kirkpatrick, E. A. _The Individual in the Making._ Boston and New

York, 1911.

B. _Psychology and Sociology of the Person_

(1) James, William. _The Principles of Psychology._ Chap, x,

"Consciousness of Self," I, 291-401. New York, 1890.

(2) Bekhterev, V. M. (Bechterew, W. v.) _Die Persönlichkeit und die

Bedingungen ihrer Entwicklung und Gesundheit._ "Grenzfragen des Nerven

und Seelenlebens," No. 45. Wiesbaden, 1906.

(3) Binet, A. _Alterations of Personality._ Translated by H. G. Baldwin.

New York, 1896.

(4) Ribot, T. A. _Diseases of Personality._ Authorized translation, 2d

rev. ed. Chicago, 1895.

(5) Adler, A. _The Neurotic Constitution._ New York, 1917.

(6) Prince, M. _The Dissociation of a Personality._ A biographical study

in abnormal psychology. 2d ed. New York, 1913.

(7) ----. _The Unconscious._ The fundamentals of human personality,

normal and abnormal. New York, 1914.

(8) Coblenz, Felix. _Ueber das betende Ich in den Psalmen._ Ein Beitrag

zur Erklaerung des Psalters. Frankfort, 1897.

(9) Royce, J. _Studies of Good and Evil._ A series of essays upon

problems of philosophy and life. Chap, viii, "Some Observations on the

Anomalies of Self-consciousness," pp. 169-97. A paper read before the

Medico-Psychological Association of Boston, March 21, 1894. New York,

1898.

(10) Stern, B. _Werden and Wesen der Persönlichkeit._ Biologische und

historische Untersuchungen über menschliche Individualität. Wien und

Leipzig, 1913.

(11) Shand, A. F. _The Foundations of Character._ Being a study of the

tendencies of the emotions and sentiments. London, 1914.

C. _Materials for the Study of the Person_

(1) Theophrastus. _The Characters of Theophrastus._ Translated from the

Greek by R. C. Jebb. London, 1870.

(2) La Bruyère, Jean de. _Les caractères, ou les moeurs de ce siècle._

Paris, 1916. _The "Characters" of Jean de La Bruyère._ Translated from

the French by Henri Van Laun. London, 1885.

(3) Augustinus, Aurelius. _The Confessions of St. Augustine._ Translated

from the Latin by E. B. Pusly. London, 1907.

(4) Wesley, John. _The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley._ New York and

London, 1907.

(5) Amiel, H. _Journal intime._ Translated by Mrs. Ward. London and New

York, 1885.

(6) Cellini, Benvenuto. _Memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini._ Translated from

the Italian by J. A. Symonds. New York, 1898.

(7) Woolman, John. _Journal of the Life, Gospel Labors, and Christian

Experiences of That Faithful Minister of Jesus Christ, John Woolman._

Dublin, 1794.

(8) Tolstoy, Count Leon. _My Confession._ Translated from the Russian.

Paris and New York, 1887. _My Religion._ Translated from the French. New

York, 1885.

(9) Riley, I. W. _The Founder of Mormonism._ A psychological study of

Joseph Smith, Jr. New York, 1902.

(10) Wilde, Oscar. _De Profundis._ New York and London, 1905.

(11) Keller, Helen. _The Story of My Life._ New York, 1903.

(12) Simmel, Georg. _Goethe._ Leipzig, 1913.

(13) Thomas, W. I., and Znaniecki, F. _The Polish Peasant in Europe and

America._ "Life-Record of an Immigrant," III, 89-400. Boston, 1919.

(14) Probst, Ferdinand. _Der Fall Otto Weininger._ "Grenzfragen des

Nerven- und Seelenlebens," No. 31. Wiesbaden, 1904.

(15) Anthony, Katherine. _Margaret Fuller._ A psychological biography.

New York, 1920.

(16) Willard, Josiah Flynt. _My Life._ New York, 1908.

(17) ----. _Tramping with Tramps._ New York, 1899.

(18) Cummings, B. F. _The Journal of a Disappointed Man_, by Barbellion,

W. N. P. [_pseud._] Introduction by H. G. Wells. New York, 1919.

(19) Audoux, Marguerite. _Marie Claire._ Introduction by Octave

Mirabeau. Translated from the French by J. N. Raphael. London and New

York, 1911.

(20) Clemens, Samuel L. _The Adventures of Tom Sawyer_, by Mark Twain

[_pseud._]. New York, 1903.

(21) Hapgood, Hutchins. _The Autobiography of a Thief._ New York, 1903.

(22) Johnson, James W. _The Autobiography of an ex-Colored Man._

Published anonymously. Boston, 1912.

(23) Washington, Booker T. _Up from Slavery._ An autobiography. New

York, 1901.

(24) Du Bois, W. E. B. _The Souls of Black Folk._ Chicago, 1903.

(25) Beers, C. W. _A Mind That Found Itself._ An autobiography. 4th rev.

ed. New York, 1917.

IV. INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

A. _The Nature of Individual Differences_

(1) Thorndike, E. L. _Individuality._ Boston, 1911.

(2) ----. "Individual Differences and Their Causes," _Educational

Psychology_, III, 141-388. New York, 1913-14.

(3) Stern, W. _Ueber Psychologie der individuellen Differenzen._

Leipzig, 1900.

(4) Hollingworth, Leta S. _The Psychology of Subnormal Children._ Chap.

i. "Individual Differences." New York, 1920.

B. _Mental Differences_

(1) Goddard, H. H. _Feeble-mindedness._ Its causes and consequences. New

York, 1914.

(2) Tredgold, A. F. _Mental Deficiency._ 2d ed. New York, 1916.

(3) Bronner, Augusta F. _The Psychology of Special Abilities and

Disabilities._ Boston, 1917.

(4) Healy, William. _Case Studies of Mentally and Morally Abnormal

Types._ Cambridge, Mass., 1912.

C. _Temperamental Differences_

1. Systematic Treatises:

(1) Fouillée, A. _Tempérament et caractère selon les individus, les

sexes et les races._ Paris, 1895.

(2) Hirt, Eduard. _Die Temperamente, ihr Wesen, ihre Bedeutung, für das

seelische Erleben und ihre besonderen Gestaltungen._ "Grenzfragen des

Nerven- und Seelenlebens," No. 40. Wiesbaden, 1905.

(3) Hoch, A., and Amsden, G. S. "A Guide to the Descriptive Study of

Personality," _Review of Neurology and Psychiatry_, (1913), pp. 577-87.

(4) Kraepelin, E. _Psychiatrie._ Ein Lehrbuch für Studierende und Ärzte.

Vol. IV, chap. xvi, pp. 1973-2116. 8th ed. 4 vols. Leipzig, 1909-15.

(5) Loewenfeld, L. _Ueber die geniale Geistesthätigkeit mit besonderer

Berücksichtigung des Genie's für bildende Kunst._ "Grenzfragen des

Nerven- und Seelenlebens," No. 21. Wiesbaden, 1903.

2. Temperamental Types:

(1) Lombroso, C. _The Man of Genius._ Translated from the Italian.

London and New York, 1891.

(2) ----. _L'uomo delinquente in rapporto all'antropologia, alla

giurisprudenza ed alle discipline carcerarie._ 3 vols. 5th ed. Torino,

1896-97.

(3) Goring, Charles. _The English Convict._ A statistical study. London,

1913.

(4) Wilmanns, Karl. _Psychopathologie des Landstreichers._ Leipzig,

1906.

(5) Downey, June E. "The Will Profile." A tentative scale for

measurement of the volitional pattern. _University of Wyoming Bulletin_,

Laramie, 1919.

(6) Pagnier, A. _Le vagabond._ Paris, 1910.

(7) Kowalewski, A. _Studien zur Psychologie der Pessimismus._

"Grenzfragen des Nerven- und Seelenlebens," No. 24. Wiesbaden, 1904.

D. _Sex Differences_

(1) Ellis, H. H. _Man and Woman._ A study of human secondary sexual

characters. 5th rev. ed. London and New York, 1914.

(2) Geddes, P., and Thomson, J. A. _The Evolution of Sex._ London, 1889.

(3) Thompson, Helen B. _The Mental Traits of Sex._ An experimental

investigation of the normal mind in men and women. Chicago, 1903.

(4) Montague, Helen, and Hollingworth, Leta S. "The Comparative

Variability of the Sexes at Birth," _American Journal of Sociology_, XX

(1914-15), 335-70.

(5) Thomas, W. I. _Sex and Society._ Chicago, 1907.

(6) Weidensall, C. J. _The Mentality of the Criminal Woman._ A

comparative study of the criminal woman, the working girl, and the

efficient working woman, in a series of mental and physical tests.

Baltimore, 1916.

(7) Hollingworth, Leta S. "Variability as Related to Sex Differences in

Achievement," _American Journal of Sociology_, XIX (1913-14), 510-30.

[Bibliography.]

E. _Racial Differences_

(1) Boas, F. _The Mind of Primitive Man._ New York, 1911.

(2) _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits._ 5 vols.

Cambridge, 1901-08.

(3) Le Bon, G. _The Psychology of Peoples._ Its influence on their

evolution. New York and London, 1898. [Translation.]

(4) Reuter, E. B. _The Mulatto in the United States._ Boston, 1918.

(5) Bruner, F. G. "Hearing of Primitive Peoples," _Archives of

Psychology_, No. 11. New York, 1908.

(6) Woodworth, R. S. "Racial Differences in Mental Traits," _Science_,

new series, XXI (1910), 171-86.

(7) Morse, Josiah. "A Comparison of White and Colored Children Measured

by the Binet-Simon Scale of Intelligence," _Popular Science Monthly_,

LXXXIVC (1914), 75-79.

(8) Ferguson, G. O., Jr. "The Psychology of the Negro, an Experimental

Study," _Archives of Psychology_, No. 36. New York, 1916.

[Bibliography.]

TOPICS FOR WRITTEN THEMES

1. Cooley's Conception of Human Nature

2. Human Nature and the Instincts

3. Human Nature and the Mores

4. Studies in the Evolution of the Mores; Prohibition, Birth Control,

the Social Status of Children

5. Labor Management as a Problem in Human Nature

6. Human Nature in Politics

7. Personality and the Self

8. Personality as a Sociological Concept

9. Temperament, Milieu, and Social Types; the Politician, Labor Leader,

Minister, Actor, Lawyer, Taxi Driver, Chorus Girl, etc.

10. Bohemian, Philistine, and Genius

11. The Beggar, Vagabond, and Hobo

12. Literature as Source Material for the Study of Character

13. Outstanding Personalities in a Selected Community

14. Autobiography as Source Material for the Study of Human Nature

15. Individual and Racial Differences Compared

16. The Man of Genius as a Biological and a Sociological Product

17. The Jukes and Kindred Studies of Inferior Groups

18. History of the Binet-Simon Tests

19. Mental Measurements and Vocational Guidance

20. Psychiatry and Juvenile Delinquency

21. Recent Studies of the Adolescent Girl

22. Mental Inferiority and Crime

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Is human nature that which is fundamental and alike in all

individuals or is it those qualities which we recognize and appreciate

as human when we meet them in individuals?

2. What is the relation between original nature and the environment?

3. What is the basis for the distinction made by Thorndike between

reflexes, instincts, and inborn capacities?

4. Read carefully Thorndike's _Inventory of Original Tendencies_. What

illustrations of the different original traits occur to you?

5. What do you understand by Park's statement that man is not born

human?

6. "Human nature is a superstructure." What value has this metaphor?

What are its limitations? Suggest a metaphor which more adequately

illustrates the relation of original nature to acquired nature.

7. In what sense can it be said that habit is a means of controlling

original nature?

8. What, according to Park, is the relation of character to instinct and

habit? Do you agree with him?

9. What do you understand by the statement that "original nature is

blind?"

10. What relation has an ideal to (a) instinct and (b) group life?

11. In what sense may we speak of the infant as the "natural man"?

12. To what extent are racial differences (a) those of original

nature, (b) those acquired from experience?

13. What evidence is there for the position that sex differences in

mental traits are acquired rather than inborn?

14. How do you distinguish between mentality and temperament?

15. How do you account for the great differences in achievement between

the sexes?

16. What evidence is there of temperamental differences between the

sexes? between races?

17. In the future will women equal men in achievement?

18. What, in your judgment, is the range of individual differences? Is

it less or greater than that of racial and sex differences?

19. What do you understand is the distinction between racial inheritance

as represented by the instincts, and innate individual differences? Do

you think that both should be regarded as part of original nature?

20. What is the effect of education and the division of labor (a) upon

instincts and (b) upon individual differences?

21. Are individual differences or likenesses more important for society?

22. What do you understand to be the significance of individual

differences (a) for social life; (b) for education; (c) for

industry?

23. What do you understand by the remaking of human nature? What is the

importance of this principle for politics, industry, and social

progress?

24. Explain the proverbs: "Habit is ten times nature," "Habit is second

nature."

25. What is Cooley's definition of human nature? Do you agree or

disagree with him? Elaborate your position.

26. To what extent does human nature differ with race and geographic

environment?

27. How would you reinterpret Aristotle's and Hobbes's conception of

human nature in the light of this definition?

28. What illustrations of the difference between folkways and mores

would you suggest?

29. Classify the following forms of behavior under (a) folkways or

(b) mores: tipping the hat, saluting an officer, monogamy, attending

church, Sabbath observance, prohibition, immersion as a form of baptism,

the afternoon tea of the Englishman, the double standard of morals, the

Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, the Constitution of the United

States.

30. What do you understand to be the relation of the mores to human

nature?

31. In what way is (a) habit related to will? (b) custom related to

the general will?

32. How do you distinguish the general will (a) from law, (b) from

custom?

33. Does any one of the following terms embody your conception of what

is expressed by _Sittlichkeit_: good form, decency, self-respect,

propriety, good breeding, convention?

34. Describe and analyze several concrete social situations where

_Sittlichkeit_ rather than conscience or law controlled the behavior of

the person or of the group.

35. What do you understand by convention? What is the relation of

convention to instinct? Is convention a part of human nature to the same

extent as loyalty, honor, etc.?

36. What is meant by the saying that mores, ritual, and convention are

in the words of Hegel "objective mind"?

37. "The organism, and the brain as its highest representative,

constitute the real personality." What characteristics of personality

are stressed in this definition?

38. Is there any significance to the fact that personality is derived

from the Latin word _persona_ (mask worn by actors)?

39. Is the conventional self a product of habit, or of _Sittlichkeit_,

or of law, or of conscience?

40. What is the importance of other people to the development of

self-consciousness?

41. Under what conditions does self-consciousness arise?

42. What do you understand by personality as a complex? As a total of

mental complexes?

43. What is the relation of memory to personality as illustrated in the

case of dual personality and of moods?

44. What do you understand Cooley to mean by the looking-glass self?

45. What illustration would you suggest to indicate that an individual's

sense of his personality depends upon his status in the group?

46. "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players."

Is personality adequately defined in terms of a person's conception of

his rôle?

47. What is the sociological significance of the saying, "If you would

have a virtue, feign it"?

48. What, according to Bechterew, is the relation of personality to the

social _milieu_?

49. What do you understand by the personality of peoples? What is the

relation of the personality of peoples and the personalities of

individuals who constitute the peoples?

50. What do you understand by the difference between nature and nurture?

51. What are acquired characters? How are they transmitted?

52. What do you understand by the Mendelian principles of inheritance:

(a) the hypothesis of unit characters; (b) the law of dominance; and

(c) the law of segregation?

53. What illustrations of the differences between instinct and tradition

would you suggest?

54. What is the difference between the blue eye as a defect in

pigmentation, and of feeble-mindedness as a defective characteristic?

55. Should it be the policy of society to eliminate all members below a

certain mental level either by segregation or by more drastic measures?

56. What principles of treatment of practical value to parents and

teachers would you draw from the fact that feeble inhibition of temper

is a trait transmitted by biological inheritance?

57. Why is an understanding of the principles of biological inheritance

of importance to sociology?

58. In what two ways, according to Keller, are acquired characters

transmitted by tradition?

59. Make a list of the different types of things derived by the person

(a) from his biological inheritance, and (b) from his social

heritage.

60. What traits, temperament, mentality, manner, or character, are

distinctive of members of your family? Which of these have been

inherited, which acquired?

61. What problems in society are due to defects in man's original

nature?

62. What problems are the result of defects in folkways and mores?

63. In what way do racial temperament and tradition determine national

characteristics? To what extent is the religious behavior of the negro

determined (a) by temperament, (b) by imitation of white culture?

How do you explain Scotch economy, Irish participation in politics, the

intellectuality of the Jew, etc.?

FOOTNOTES:

[55] Charles H. Cooley, _Social Organization_, pp. 28-30.

[56] Charles H. Cooley, _Human Nature and the Social Order_, pp. 152-53.

[57] _The Theory of the Leisure Class_ (New York, 1899).

[58] From Edward L. Thorndike, _The Original Nature of Man_, pp. 1-7.

(Teachers College, Columbia University, 1913. Author's copyright.)

[59] Compiled from Edward L. Thorndike, _The Original Nature of Man_,

pp. 43-194. (Teachers College, Columbia University, 1913. Author's

copyright.)

[60] From Robert E. Park, _Principles of Human Behavior_, pp. 9-16. (The

Zalaz Corporation, 1915.)

[61] Adapted from Milicent W. Shinn, _The Biography of a Baby_, pp.

20-77. (Houghton Mifflin Co., 1900. Author's copyright.)

[62] From Albert Moll, _Sexual Life of the Child_, pp. 38-49. Translated

from the German by Dr. Eden Paul. (Published by The Macmillan Co., 1902.

Reprinted by permission.)

[63] From C. S. Myers, "On the Permanence of Racial Differences," in

_Papers on Inter-racial Problems_, edited by G. Spiller, pp. 74-76. (P.

S. King & Son, 1911.)

[64] From Edward L. Thorndike, _Individuality_, pp. 1-8. (By permission

of and special arrangement with Houghton Mifflin Co., 1911.)

[65] From W. E. Hocking, _Human Nature and Its Remaking_, pp. 2-12.

(Yale University Press, 1918.)