The Nature of Goodness

by George Herbert Palmer

Probably we are born without it. We know how gradually the infant acquires a mastery of its sensuous experience; and it is likely that for a long time after it has obtained command of its single experiences it remains unaware of its selfhood. In a classic passage of "In Memoriam" Tennyson has stated the case with that blending of witchery and scientific precision of which he alone among the poets seems capable:—

"The baby, new to earth and sky,
What time his tender palm is prest
Against the circle of the breast,
Has never thought that 'this is I.'

"But as he grows he gathers much,
And learns the use of 'I' and 'me,'
And finds 'I am not what I see,
And other than the things I touch.'

"So rounds he to a separate mind,
From whence clear memory may begin,
As thro' the frame that binds him in
His isolation grows defined."

Until he has separated his mind from the objects around, and even from his own conscious states, he cannot perceive himself and obtain clear memory. No child recalls his first year, for the simple reason that during that year he was not there. Of course there was experience during that year, there was consciousness; but the child could not discriminate himself from the crowding experiences and so reach self- consciousness. At what precise time this momentous possibility occurs cannot be told. Probably the time varies widely in different children. In any single child it announces itself by degrees, and usually so subtly that its early manifestations are hardly perceptible. Occasionally, especially when long deferred, it breaks with the suddenness of an epoch, and the child is aware of a new existence. A little girl of my acquaintance turned from play to her mother with the cry, "Why, mamma, little girls don't know that they are." She had just discovered it. In a famous passage of his autobiography, Jean Paul Richter has recorded the great change in himself: "Never shall I forget the inward experience of the birth of self-consciousness. I well remember the time and place. I stood one afternoon, a very young child, at the house-door, and looked at the logs of wood piled on the left. Suddenly an inward consciousness, 'I am a Me,' came like a flash of lightning from heaven, and has remained ever since. At that moment my existence became conscious of itself, and forever."

The knowledge that I am an I cannot be conveyed to me by another human being, nor can I perceive anything similar in him. Each must ascertain it for himself. Accordingly there is only one word in every language which is absolutely unique, bearing a different meaning for every one who employs it. That is the word I. For me to use it in the sense that you do would prove that I had lost my wits. Whatever enters into my usage is out of it in yours. Obviously, then, the meaning of this word cannot be taught. Everything else may be. What the table is, what is a triangle, what virtue, heaven, or a spherodactyl, you can teach me. What I am, you cannot; for no one has ever had an experience corresponding to this except myself. People in speaking to me call me John, Baby, or Ned, an externally descriptive name which has substantially a common meaning for all who see me. When I begin to talk I repeat this name imitatively, and thinking of myself as others do. I speak of myself in the third person. Yet how early that reference to a third person begins to be saturated with self- consciousness, who can say? Before the word "I" is employed, "Johnny" or "Baby" may have been diverted into an egoistic significance. All we can say is that "I" cannot be rightly employed until consciousness has risen to self-consciousness.

VIII

And when it has so risen, its unity and coherence are by no means secure. I have already pointed out how often it is lost in moments when the conscious element becomes particularly intense. But in morbid conditions too it sometimes undergoes a disruption still more peculiar. Just as disintegration may attack any other organic unit, so may it appear in the personal life. The records of hypnotism and other related phenomena show cases where self-consciousness appears to be distributed among several selves. These curious experiences have received more attention in recent years than ever before. They do not, however, belong to my field, and to consider them at any length would only divert attention from my proper topic. But they deserve mention in passing in order to make plain how wayward is self-consciousness,— how far from an assured possession of its unity.

This unity seems temporarily suspended on occasion of swoon or nervous shock. An interesting case of its loss occurred in my own experience. Many years ago I was fond of horseback riding; and having a horse that was unusually easy in the saddle, I persisted in riding him long after my groom had warned me of danger. He had grown weak in the knees and was inclined to stumble. Riding one evening, I came to a little bridge. I remember watching the rays of the sunset as I approached it. Something too of my college work was in my mind, associated with the evening colors. And then—well, there was no "then." The next I knew a voice was calling, "Is that you?" And I was surprised to find that it was. I was entering my own gateway, leading my horse. I answered blindly, "Something has happened. I must have been riding. Perhaps I have fallen." I put my hand to my face and found it bloody. I led my horse to his post, entered the house, and relapsed again into unconsciousness. When I came to myself, and was questioned about my last remembrance, I recalled the little bridge. We went to it the next day. There lay my riding whip. There in the sand were the marks of a body which had been dragged. Plainly it was there that the accident had occurred, yet it was three quarters of a mile from my house. When thrown, I had struck on my forehead, making an ugly hole in it. Two or three gashes were on other parts of the head. But I had apparently still held the rein, had risen with the horse, had walked by his side till I came to four corners in the road, had there taken the proper turn, passed three houses, and entering my own gate then for the first time became aware of what was happening.

What had been happening? About twenty minutes would be required to perform this elaborate series of actions, and they had been performed exactly as if I had been guiding them, while in reality I knew nothing about them. Shall we call my conduct unconscious cerebration? Yes, if we like large words which cover ignorance. I do not see how we can certainly say what was going on. Perhaps during all this time I had neither consciousness nor self-consciousness. I may have been a mere automaton, under the control of a series of reflex actions. The feeling of the reins in my hands may have set me erect. The feeling of the ground beneath my feet may have projected these along their way; and all this with no more consciousness than the falling man has in stretching out his hands. Or, on the contrary, I may have been separately conscious in each little instant; but in the shaken condition of the brain may not have had power to spare for gluing together these instants and knitting them into a whole. It may be it was only memory which failed. I cite the case to show the precarious character of self-consciousness. It appears and disappears. Our life is glorified by its presence, and from it obtains its whole significance. Whatever we are convinced possesses it we certainly declare to be a person. Yet it is a gradual acquisition, and must be counted rather a goal than a possession. Under it, as the height of our being, are ranged the three other stages,—consciousness, reflex action, and unconsciousness.