In the Capitoline Museum at Rome is a famous statue of Venus, which, like many works of this kind, is ingeniously mounted upon a pivot, so that one who wishes to study it can place it at any angle with reference to the light that he may prefer. Thus he may get an indefinite number of views, but in every view what he really observes, so far as he observes intelligently, is the whole statue in a particular aspect. Even if he fixes his attention upon the foot, or the great toe, he sees this part, if he sees it rightly, in relation to the work as a whole. And it seems to me that the study of human life is analogous in character. It is expedient to divide it into manageable parts in some way; but this division can only be a matter of aspects, not of elements. The various chapters of this book, for instance, do not deal with separable subjects, but merely with phases of a common subject, and the same is true of any work in psychology, history or biology.
CHAPTER V
THE SOCIAL SELF—1. THE MEANING OF “I”
The “Empirical Self”—“I” as a State of Feeling—Its Relation to the Body—As a Sense of Power or Causation—As a Sense of Speciality or Differentiation in a Social Life—The Reflected or Looking-glass “I”—“I” is Rooted in the Past and Varies with Social Conditions—Its Relation to Habit—To Disinterested Love—How Children Learn the Meaning of “I”—The Speculative or Metaphysical “I” in Children—The Looking-glass “I” in Children—The Same in Adolescence—“I” in Relation to Sex—Simplicity and Affectation—Social Self-feeling is Universal.
It is well to say at the outset that by the word “self” in this discussion is meant simply that which is designated in common speech by the pronouns of the first person singular, “I,” “me,” “my,” “mine,” and “myself.” “Self” and “ego” are used by metaphysicians and moralists in many other senses, more or less remote from the “I” of daily speech and thought, and with these I wish to have as little to do as possible. What is here discussed is what psychologists call the empirical self, the self that can be apprehended or verified by ordinary observation. I qualify it by the word social not as implying the existence of a self that is not social—for I think that the “I” of common language always has more or less distinct reference to other people as well as the speaker—but because I wish to emphasize and dwell upon the social aspect of it.
Although the topic of the self is regarded as an abstruse one this abstruseness belongs chiefly, perhaps, to the metaphysical discussion of the “pure ego”—whatever that may be—while the empirical self should not be very much more difficult to get hold of than other facts of the mind. At any rate, it may be assumed that the pronouns of the first person have a substantial, important, and not very recondite meaning, otherwise they would not be in constant and intelligible use by simple people and young children the world over. And since they have such a meaning why should it not be observed and reflected upon like any other matter of fact? As to the underlying mystery, it is no doubt real, important, and a very fit subject of discussion by those who are competent, but I do not see that it is a peculiar mystery. I mean that it seems to be simply a phase of the general mystery of life, not pertaining to “I” more than to any other personal or social fact; so that here as elsewhere those who are not attempting to penetrate the mystery may simply ignore it. If this is a just view of the matter, “I” is merely a fact like any other.
The distinctive thing in the idea for which the pronouns of the first person are names is apparently a characteristic kind of feeling which may be called the my-feeling or sense of appropriation. Almost any sort of ideas may be associated with this feeling, and so come to be named “I” or “mine,” but the feeling, and that alone it would seem, is the determining factor in the matter. As Professor James says in his admirable discussion of the self, the words “me” and “self” designate “all the things which have the power to produce in a stream of consciousness excitement of a certain peculiar sort.”[[37]] This view is very fully set forth by Professor Hiram M. Stanley, whose work, “The Evolutionary Psychology of Feeling,” has an extremely suggestive chapter on self-feeling.
I do not mean that the feeling aspect of the self is necessarily more important than any other, but that it is the immediate and decisive sign and proof of what “I” is; there is no appeal from it; if we go behind it it must be to study its history and conditions, not to question its authority. But, of course, this study of history and conditions may be quite as profitable as the direct contemplation of self-feeling. What I would wish to do is to present each aspect in its proper light.
The emotion or feeling of self may be regarded as an instinct, doubtless evolved in connection with its important function in stimulating and unifying the special activities of individuals.[[38]] It is thus very profoundly rooted in the history of the human race and apparently indispensable to any plan of life at all similar to ours. It seems to exist in a vague though vigorous form at the birth of each individual, and, like other instinctive ideas or germs of ideas, to be defined and developed by experience, becoming associated, or rather incorporated, with muscular, visual and other sensations; with perceptions, apperceptions and conceptions of every degree of complexity and of infinite variety of content; and, especially, with personal ideas. Meantime the feeling itself does not remain unaltered, but undergoes differentiation and refinement just as does any other sort of crude innate feeling. Thus, while retaining under every phase its characteristic tone or flavor, it breaks up into innumerable self-sentiments. And concrete self-feeling, as it exists in mature persons, is a whole made up of these various sentiments, along with a good deal of primitive emotion not thus broken up. It partakes fully of the general development of the mind, but never loses that peculiar gusto of appropriation that causes us to name a thought with a first-personal pronoun. The other contents of the self-idea are of little use, apparently, in defining it, because they are so extremely various. It would be no more futile, it seems to me, to attempt to define fear by enumerating the things that people are afraid of, than to attempt to define “I” by enumerating the objects with which the word is associated. Very much as fear means primarily a state of feeling, or its expression, and not darkness, fire, lions, snakes, or other things that excite it, so “I” means primarily self-feeling, or its expression, and not body, clothes, treasures, ambition, honors, and the like, with which this feeling may be connected. In either case it is possible and useful to go behind the feeling and enquire what ideas arouse it and why they do so, but this is in a sense a secondary investigation.
Since “I” is known to our experience primarily as a feeling, or as a feeling-ingredient in our ideas, it cannot be described or defined without suggesting that feeling. We are sometimes likely to fall into a formal and empty way of talking regarding questions of emotion, by attempting to define that which is in its nature primary and indefinable. A formal definition of self-feeling, or indeed of any sort of feeling, must be as hollow as a formal definition of the taste of salt, or the color red; we can expect to know what it is only by experiencing it. There can be no final test of the self except the way we feel; it is that toward which we have the “my” attitude. But as this feeling is quite as familiar to us and as easy to recall as the taste of salt or the color red, there should be no difficulty in understanding what is meant by it. One need only imagine some attack on his “me,” say ridicule of his dress or an attempt to take away his property or his child, or his good name by slander, and self-feeling immediately appears. Indeed, he need only pronounce, with strong emphasis, one of the self-words, like “I” or “my,” and self-feeling will be recalled by association. Another good way is to enter by sympathy into some self-assertive state of mind depicted in literature; as, for instance, into that of Coriolanus when, having been sneered at as a “boy of tears,” he cries out:
“Boy!...