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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 The Library of Congress 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/humanmotivesOOputn 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
MIND AND HEALTH SERIES 
 
 Edited by H. Addington Bruce, A.M. 
 
 4UMAN MOTIVES 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES JACKSON PUTNAM, ; M.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR EMERITUS, DISEASES OF THE NERVOUS 
 SYSTEM, HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 
 1915 
 
Copyright, 1915, 
 By Little, Brown, and Company. 
 
 All rights reserved 
 Published, May, 1915 
 
 Set up and electrotyped by J. S. Cashing Co., Norwood, Mass. , U.S.A. 
 Presswork by S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, Mass. , U. S.A. 
 
 MAY 24 1915 
 ©GI.A398993 
 
EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 THIS is one of a series of handbooks 
 designed to extend knowledge of 
 the important discoveries affect- 
 ing individual and social welfare that have 
 been made during recent years through 
 psychological research. Most of the books 
 in the series will deal with special problems 
 as illumined by the results of investigations 
 aiming directly at their solution. But the 
 present volume is of a more general charac- 
 ter, having as its main purpose the focus- 
 sing of attention on the aid afforded by 
 modern psychology to the upbuilding of a 
 really sound and practical philosophy of 
 life. 
 
 Undoubtedly the outstanding feature of 
 the psychological researches of the past 
 
EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 quarter of a century has been the explora- 
 tion of that vast, and previously almost 
 unknown, region of the human mind 
 termed "the subconscious." The dis- 
 covery that complicated mental processes 
 may, and constantly do, go on beneath the 
 threshold of consciousness, and that these 
 processes include a dynamic action perpet- 
 ually and profoundly affecting "the con- 
 scious self" for good or for ill, has led to 
 further discoveries that have already been 
 turned to good account. 
 
 Particularly helpful has been the demon- 
 stration of the permanence of the ex- 
 perience and memories of the first years of 
 life, and the role played by them as deter- 
 minants of adult character, behavior, and 
 health. There has even come into being a 
 new department of medicine, based on this 
 proved relationship of subconscious mem- 
 ories and certain maladies — the psycho- 
 neuroses, or functional nervous and mental 
 disorders. 
 
 vi 
 
EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 But it is not only to the physician that 
 the exploration of the subconscious has 
 been of great helpfulness. Its results are 
 equally important to the parent, the educa- 
 tor, the social reformer. Indeed, as Doctor 
 Putnam makes clear, they are of prime 
 significance to all of us. 
 
 For one thing, knowledge of them gives 
 us a far better understanding of ourselves 
 and our fellows, thereby leading to greater 
 insight into means of self-improvement, 
 and leading also to a more tolerant and 
 just view of those about us. And, fully 
 as important, the results of modern investi- 
 gation of the subconscious point the way, 
 when properly considered, to a surer grasp 
 of the meaning of the universe and our own 
 place in it. They have, that is to say, a 
 philosophical and spiritual as well as a 
 psychological value. 
 
 This it is Doctor Putnam's effort to es- 
 tablish, and the result is a volume that 
 should bring encouragement to all oppressed 
 
 vii 
 
EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 by the seeming impossibility of reconciling 
 the intuitions of religious faith with the 
 dictates of modern science. That the find- 
 ings of the field of science — medical psy- 
 chology — in which Doctor Putnam him- 
 self has so long and ably labored, tend to 
 reinforce, not weaken, religious conviction, 
 is his firm belief; and he has presented 
 his reasons for this belief with admirable 
 candor and force. 
 
 Apart from this larger aspect, his book is 
 of direct value to his readers because of 
 the light it throws on the subject with 
 which it is primarily concerned — human 
 motives. The hidden impulses that so 
 often hurry us to rash actions; the weeds 
 in our minds that need to be uprooted lest 
 they obtain a fatal dominance over our 
 constructive energies; the secret sources 
 of harmful habits — on all of these Doctor 
 Putnam turns the revealing gleam of psy- 
 chological analysis. 
 
 Throughout he rightly emphasizes the 
 viii 
 
EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 importance of studying motives with refer- 
 ence to the dynamic forces that underlie 
 them, rather than with reference to their 
 face value ; and, attacking them from this 
 better point of view, he brings to every 
 reader a message of personal importance. 
 
 H. ADDINGTON BRUCE. 
 
 IX 
 
PREFACE 
 
 De potiori designatio 
 
 (An act or motive is not clearly understood until 
 it has been defined in terms of its most significant 
 meanings.) 
 
 THE practical importance for the 
 study of motives of the sentiment 
 that this Latin line so tersely ren- 
 ders, has impressed itself strongly on my 
 mind in the course of the past two years. 
 During this period I have had occasion to 
 study men's motives at close range, and 
 have become convinced that in order to 
 understand them fully one should define 
 them very clearly in such terms as will 
 indicate the greatest dangers and the best 
 hopes toward which they point. Motives 
 
 xi 
 
PREFACE 
 
 are at best such mixed affairs, and the 
 chances are so many for deceiving ourselves 
 as to the deeper bearings of our thoughts 
 and acts, that the temptation instinctively 
 to take advantage of one or another of these 
 opportunities is almost irresistible. 
 
 One of the most striking ways in which 
 men acknowledge the ties that bind them 
 to their fellows is through accepting social 
 standards in the interpretation of their 
 own intentions. The conventions of a 
 society endorse or justify many an act 
 and many a failure to act, behind which 
 motives lie which in the case of one or 
 another given person may be of a sort 
 that social conventions did not and could 
 not contemplate. A word or act that 
 means little to one person may thrill with 
 emotion for another, and no general rule 
 as to their use or avoidance could possibly 
 be adopted. Every one must judge for 
 himself in such matters, but to do this in 
 any thorough-going fashion, — to the ex- 
 
 xii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 tent, for example, of espousing an unpopu- 
 lar cause, or of seeing through and perhaps 
 abandoning a strong prejudice, or of assum- 
 ing voluntarily a serious responsibility ; — 
 to do this means to prove oneself pos- 
 sessed of unusual strength of character and 
 will. The situation here involved is made 
 more complex through the fact that while 
 the temptation is strong to shrink from 
 assuming full responsibility for our acts 
 and from facing out our obscurer and 
 deeper-lying motives, it is an easy matter, 
 by going a short distance in these direc- 
 tions, to persuade ourselves that we have 
 gone a long distance. And it is easy 
 also to utilize self-biame in such a way as 
 to secure a sense of satisfaction through 
 which no real change of temperament is 
 brought about. 
 
 For reasons such as these, and especially 
 in view of a series of important practical 
 investigations to which attention will be 
 called, it has seemed to me worth while 
 
 siii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 to emphasize the importance of training 
 ourselves to see, gleaming through our 
 immediate and partial motives, a back- 
 ground of stronger tendencies from which 
 these motives derive their main signifi- 
 cance. I believe, on the one hand, that 
 men are more strongly bound than they 
 usually recognize, by a sense of obligations 
 definable as " ideal." Whatever name one 
 may choose for these ties, they are virtu- 
 ally religious in their nature, and the rec- 
 ognition of them often gives rise to a 
 feeling of new birth. The sense of these 
 obligations, even though unacknowledged 
 or denied, makes itself felt through the 
 host of lesser motives. 
 
 On the other hand, men are handi- 
 capped by passions, longings, personal am- 
 bitions, cravings for success and mastery, 
 to a degree of which they are never wholly 
 conscious. Not only a portion of men's 
 acts but all of them derive some coloring 
 from these sources. The influences under- 
 xiv 
 
PREFACE 
 
 lying them are not to be designated as 
 bad, but as tendencies needing to be appre- 
 ciated and utilized in the service of prog- 
 ress of the best sort. 
 
 Such progress implies constant re-inter- 
 pretation of our motives with reference 
 both to the desires and instincts which 
 belong to us by virtue of our evolutional 
 history and those which belong to us by 
 virtue of our social relationships, con- 
 strued in the widest possible sense. 
 
 In the first chapter I propose to carry 
 further the description of these two main 
 sources of motives, and to indicate the 
 relative significance of the two correspond- 
 ing modes of approach to the study of 
 them, — namely, the philosophic and the 
 psycho-analytic methods. 
 
 The second chapter will take up the 
 relation of the individual to the creative 
 energy which underlies the universe. This 
 will be done for the purpose of suggesting 
 a rational basis for the religious concep- 
 
 XV 
 
PREFACE 
 
 tions which are taken as constituting one 
 source of human motives. 
 
 In the third chapter the history of the 
 psycho-analytic movement will be given 
 at greater length. 
 
 In the fourth chapter some of the prin- 
 ciples brought to light through psycho- 
 analysis and their interest for educators 
 will be pointed out. 
 
 In the fifth chapter a number of ques- 
 tions already discussed will be taken up 
 afresh on the basis of certain simple dia- 
 grams. 
 
 In the sixth chapter it will be shown 
 that human progress is to be regarded as 
 equivalent to the discovery of new rela- 
 tionships between the inner world of one's 
 own spirit and the world of empirical 
 experience. 
 
 JAMES JACKSON PUTNAM, M.D. 
 
 April 12, 1915. 
 
 xvi 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 OHAPTEB 
 
 Editorial Introduction 
 
 PAGE 
 
 V 
 
 
 Preface 
 
 xi 
 
 I. 
 
 Main Sources of Motives . 
 
 1 
 
 II. 
 
 The Rational Basis of Religion 
 
 35 
 
 III. 
 
 The Psycho-Analytic Movement 
 
 67 
 
 IV. 
 
 Educational Bearings of Psycho- 
 
 
 
 analysis 
 
 105 
 
 V. 
 
 Instincts and Ideals ; 
 
 134 
 
 VI. 
 
 An Attempt at Synthesis . 
 
 165 
 
 Index 
 
 177 
 
 XVll 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 Chapter I 
 
 Main Sources of Motives 
 
 "A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery 
 of your sick or the return of your absent friend, or 
 some other favorable event raises your spirits, and 
 you think good days are preparing for you. Do not 
 believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but your- 
 self. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph 
 of principles." — R. W. Emerson. 
 
 IN spite of the innumerable partial 
 influences in obedience to which we 
 act, our motives are mainly traceable 
 to the conjoined action of two different and 
 apparently antagonistic sets of tendencies, 
 related to our rational aspirations on the 
 one hand and to our emotional repressions 
 on the other. To define these tendencies 
 
 1 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 in such a way as to bring out the contrast 
 between them, yet with the aim of showing 
 that the differences underlying this con- 
 trast are susceptible of being reconciled in 
 a new and rational synthesis, is the pur- 
 pose of this book. 
 
 I shall call these two sorts of motives, 
 provisionally, motives of constructiveness 
 and motives of adaptation, but it will 
 appear that the sources from which they 
 spring are not fully indicated by these 
 names. A motive summarizes the life his- 
 tory of the individual who entertains it, 
 and, like the individual himself, may be said 
 to stand at the point of intersection of 
 numerous lines of energy, each of which 
 
 "Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
 And cometh from afar." 
 
 The main lines of energy with which a man 
 must reckon represent, on the one hand, his 
 evolutional, biologic history, with all that 
 that implies in the way of half-blind self- 
 assertion, temptation, struggle, victory, and 
 
MAIN SOURCES OF MOTIVES 
 
 defeat; and, on the other hand, his spirit- 
 ual history, — that is, his relationship to 
 the life of the universe as a whole. To feel 
 the right to assert this relationship and the 
 ability to recognize its bearings entails on 
 human beings the same sort of responsi- 
 bility that the members of an intrinsically 
 noble family feel with regard to the main- 
 tenance of its traditions. "Noblesse oblige" 
 
 Really to know a thing or to understand 
 a situation means more than to be able to 
 recognize it when met again. It means to 
 know what it stands for and what it may 
 lead to, to be acquainted with its history, 
 and to appreciate as the essential element 
 in that history the creative energy which 
 made the thing or situation what it is, and 
 which has a significance far transcending 
 the meaning of this particular and partial 
 manifestation of its capacity to create. 
 
 This principle is peculiarly important 
 where motives are in question. That which 
 one most needs to know about a man is 
 
 3 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 his deeper-lying trends of character and 
 their source. This knowledge is difficult to 
 gain, but the search is of a worthy sort and 
 should not be hampered by the passing of 
 judgments which might have been deferred. 
 Praising and blaming, whether of others or 
 of oneself, often imply motives which are 
 not what they appear to be. We ought to 
 take sides definitely, for good and against 
 evil. But in order to do this to good pur- 
 pose we need to have a more realizing sense 
 of the nature and the history of our own 
 personal tendencies — both the influences 
 that imprison us within the toils of self- 
 indulgence and those that make us free — 
 and of the same and kindred tendencies in 
 the history of mankind. 
 
 It usually happens that men are moved 
 by broader and better motives than they 
 are consciously aware of, and that to be so 
 moved is, virtually, to acknowledge obliga- 
 tions of which the final implication can be 
 expressed only in ideal terms. 
 
 4 
 
MAIN SOURCES OF MOTIVES 
 
 We are told by botanists that the root- 
 lets of many plants extend far more widely 
 than an ordinary inspection would sug- 
 gest. Between the rows in our vegetable 
 gardens delicate fibrils are said to extend 
 to such a distance and in such fineness 
 that only special methods of investigation 
 are able to detect them; and yet their 
 existence is important for the well-being 
 of the plant to which they lead. But if 
 the plant is dependent upon what happens 
 in these distant and unseen fibrils, so, a 
 thousand times more and in a far more 
 complex sense, are the trends of character, 
 temperament, and desire of a human 
 being determined by the unseen rootlets 
 of emotional interest that extend far around 
 him into the remotest corner of his past 
 life, into the lives of other men and into a 
 foreshadowed life that he can call, inferen- 
 tially, his own. Emerson has said, with 
 just insight: "The fiend that man harries 
 is love of the best." It is, however, 
 
 5 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 equally true that he is harried by a half- 
 knowledge of his hampering and repressed 
 desires. Between these two poles he moves, 
 and from their influence his various mo- 
 tives gain their strength. 
 
 The instinctive, though unspoken, recog- 
 nition of the first of these poles of origin is 
 affirmed by men's willingness to live and 
 to die for results that they can never see, 
 and could not possibly define unless by 
 saying, perhaps, that they knew in what 
 direction and in obedience to what prin- 
 ciples these ends were to be sought. When 
 one looks closely at the influences that 
 inspire to patriotism, for example, it be- 
 comes clear that behind the love of country 
 there lies a love of humanity and justice 
 and freedom. Lovelace's inspiring lines, 
 
 "I could not love thee, dear, so much, 
 Lov'd I not honour more," 
 
 express a range of thought analogous to 
 many that pass unexpressed. But the 
 best final term of such thoughts is not 
 
 6 
 
MAIN SOURCES OF MOTIVES 
 
 always held before the mind; nor is it 
 sufficiently realized to what extent these 
 broader motives are mixed with others, 
 which are mischievous largely because they 
 are unconsciously entertained and are there- 
 fore unregulated by the conscious reason. 
 
 To ask what this best final term would 
 be is virtually equivalent to asking whether 
 there is any rational goal of human life. 
 This question can, I think, be confidently 
 answered. But the acknowledgement of 
 such a goal would imply the conscious 
 acknowledgement of ideal relationships, 
 definable in religious terms, though equally 
 susceptible of philosophic definition. 
 
 Beyond the communities and social 
 groups with which we are familiar and 
 which we feel ourselves under obligation 
 to uphold, it is easy to imagine others 
 which we can conceive of as, in a practical 
 sense, still better, and to recognize that 
 in them the higher, more constructive 
 qualities of men fashioned like ourselves 
 
 7 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 would find a freer chance of expression. 
 But, as beyond this humanly possible 
 community we must believe in the exist- 
 ence of an ideal community, just as be- 
 yond the picturable world of time and 
 space we must believe in the existence 
 of an unpicturable world of power, made 
 intelligible to us through the sense that 
 we have of our own constructive powers. 
 
 Constructiveness is seen to the best ad- 
 vantage in the daily affairs of life at those 
 moments when the reason, the intuition, 
 and the will place the individual nearest to 
 his ideal best. Only then can he accomplish 
 the utmost of which he is capable toward 
 the establishment of the best tendencies 
 in human affairs. But "the best in one- 
 self" is only to be stated in terms of a 
 creative energy greater than can find ex- 
 pression in any finite life. 
 
 The question as to what one ought to 
 consider the final measure of constructive- 
 ness, — that is, the question as to the final 
 
 8 
 
MAIN SOURCES OF MOTIVES 
 
 standard by which one may regulate one's 
 motives and deeds, — does not admit, in- 
 deed, of an answer that would be acceptable 
 to all persons ; but the basis for an answer 
 is given through the study of one's own 
 intelligence, freedom, and will. We live 
 in a social world of persons and recognize 
 that we are bound to some of them by 
 mutual interest and affection. It is not 
 only to these persons as standing for them- 
 selves alone, however, that we are bound, 
 but still more to them as representing the 
 forces that help to make them what they 
 are and that underlie our own lives, — the 
 forces represented by the ties of family, 
 church, state. But these bonds pass over 
 into still wider bonds, ideally definable, and 
 there is no rational stopping-place until 
 one reaches the point of vantage whence it 
 is possible to see clearly that there are ties 
 which bind all the parts of our universe, 
 apparently so shifting and incongruous, 
 into one. When the true nature of these 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 ties is seen, many of the incongruities may 
 be found to result from the freedom inher- 
 ent in the parts of this system of things. 
 For if freedom is present at all, it must 
 be present everywhere. The excellence 
 that we conceive of is an excellence that 
 we can approach in practice. And if it 
 thus exists in us it must exist in some sense, 
 in the universe of which we are a part. 
 
 How little are most of us aware of the 
 existence and availability of these great 
 forces of creative energy! Why is this 
 so? What is the nature and what the 
 origin of the tangle of hampering influences 
 by which we are encompassed, and which 
 prevent us from being what we might 
 otherwise become? This inquiry brings 
 us face to face with the second class of 
 motives, and a hint as to its answer is 
 given in the very eagerness that prompts 
 the question. Men are creatures of long- 
 ing, and they would never do their best 
 if this were not the case. This longing 
 
 10 
 
MAIN SOURCES OF MOTIVES 
 
 may be based on a genuine and intense 
 desire for the accomplishment of what 
 their intelligence and reason stamp as 
 best; or it may be a longing for personal 
 gratification and ambition. 
 
 The power which should show itself in 
 deeds of the best sort often evaporates in 
 the expression of a sentiment that de- 
 scribes how fine such deeds would be if 
 done. Strong and elusive passions are 
 at work in us which we must learn to 
 utilize for good ends, at the cost, if we do 
 not, of seeing them master us in the inter- 
 ests of ends that are undesirable, It is 
 as if antagonistic groups of spirits were 
 competing eagerly for the control of our 
 motives and emotions and even of our 
 thoughts and acts. These spirits are our 
 better selves and our less good selves, or 
 our more mature and relatively immature 
 selves, striving for mastery. The person 
 who chooses the expedient and sets aside 
 the better is not simply one who fails to 
 
 11 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 do his best ; he is one who virtually accepts 
 the domination of something in himself 
 of which he hardly realizes the presence or 
 the force, and who yields to the strong pull 
 of an instinctive longing which demands 
 an outlet and of which it is our business to 
 understand the nature. 
 
 The motives of every one of us vary 
 extremely in detail, according to the par- 
 ticular circumstances which give rise to 
 them; the point of essential interest is, 
 however, that they are very apt to imply 
 the presence of repressed emotions of which 
 we are unconscious but which neverthe- 
 less live within us as relatively independent, 
 active agents that can exert a strong 
 influence on our conduct and our thoughts. 
 
 This situation will be made clearer if 
 we pause to consider under what condi- 
 tions the conflicts and repressions arise, 
 in dealing with which men have to call 
 compromises and adaptations to their aid. 
 Stated in broad terms, it may be said that 
 
 12 
 
MAIN SOURCES OF MOTIVES 
 
 all created beings have a certain amount 
 of freedom, and that by virtue of this 
 freedom their interests are bound to clash. 
 This freedom, furthermore, applies not 
 alone to men themselves, regarded as 
 units, but also to the thoughts and emotions 
 of men, especially those that, having been 
 expelled (through "repression") from the 
 society of that special group of feelings 
 which we elect to call "ourselves," become 
 organized and systematized into "com- 
 plexes," — somewhat as the Miltonic Satan, 
 cast out of heaven, organized himself in 
 hell. The difference between a "complex" 
 and a person is immense, in detail; but 
 the resemblance is also well defined, and 
 a certain amount of individuality and 
 freedom may be ascribed to the former as 
 well as to the latter. 
 
 The reason that "repression" gains its 
 position of importance in our lives is that 
 there are many emotional desires which 
 make a strong appeal yet which the de- 
 
 13 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 mands of social convention and our own 
 consciences forbid us openly to acknowl- 
 edge. The repression of an emotion does 
 not mean necessarily its elimination. On 
 the contrary, it may secure its preserva- 
 tion in a very undesirable and deeply 
 rooted form. Prejudices are based upon 
 repression, and every one is aware how 
 utterly unreasonable they are, how they 
 resist the educative influences of experi- 
 ence, and with what virulence they inject 
 themselves into our lives and hamper or 
 modify our judgments. The same is true 
 of superstition. Into a world of social 
 conventions every child is born, but he 
 is born, too, with a capacity to entertain 
 longings and cravings. We wish for pleas- 
 ure; we find that we must conform to 
 rules. The result is the adoption of com- 
 promises in which both pleasure and con- 
 formity find themselves represented, even 
 if only by the aid of symbols. 
 
 It must be clearly understood, as a 
 14 
 
MAIN SOURCES OF MOTIVES 
 
 fact of great significance, that a man is 
 never exclusively the expression of his own 
 ideals, a disembodied soul nourishing itself 
 on inspiration and the worship of the best. 
 On the contrary, he has a body and an 
 evolutional history, a strong sense of 
 separate individuality and physiological 
 needs. But these conditions of existence, 
 if in one sense they antagonize the influ- 
 ence of the spirit which is immanent in 
 all men and which keeps alive in them 
 an ideal of brotherhood, are nevertheless 
 capable of making that brotherhood more 
 real in another way. Limitation is the 
 necessary condition of effort and the results 
 of limitation figure, inevitably, sometimes 
 as good, sometimes as evil. Even our 
 ideals would not have their present form 
 were it not that our lot is cast in a world 
 of limitation, in which progress is possible 
 only through conscious effort, compromise 
 and adaptation. 
 But compromise and adaptation have a 
 15 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 deep root also in the egoistic desires of 
 infancy, when cultivated too much in and 
 for themselves and too little as a bridge 
 leading to better things. Even the best 
 men and women may be torn by the con- 
 flicts to which the cravings of infantile 
 origin gave rise, and some of the fine 
 persons whom Dante places in his Hell 
 or allows to toil painfully up the steep 
 sides of the Hill of Purgatory are of this 
 description. Society demands loyalty and 
 severely punishes its disloyal members, 
 even though the tendency to be disloyal 
 may have overwhelmed them unawares. 
 That these cravings have this consequence 
 needs emphasis ; for so conspicuously neces- 
 sary and useful are acts done under the 
 influence of motives of compromise and 
 adaptation that it is difficult to get a 
 hearing for the arguments which show in 
 what subtle ways, and yet with what 
 poignant force, they are apt to make 
 themselves our masters and to restrain 
 
 16 
 
MAIN SOURCES OF MOTIVES 
 
 us from allowing our best desires to rule. 
 Endowed with freedom as we are, and 
 compelled by our own nature to bring 
 into existence and to maintain as fantasies, 
 groups of thoughts and emotions which, 
 in their turn, are relatively free, we do not 
 realize that our own creations may become 
 our tyrants, — our Frankensteins. In a 
 measure, these dangers are the school- 
 masters of the child. Old or young, in 
 order to succeed, we must court danger 
 and failure, must assert ourselves, and 
 must abandon the hope of certainty. In 
 compensation for this sacrifice we gain 
 the chance to enjoy a growing sense of 
 strength, the perception, as we grow older, 
 of light breaking on the darkness, the 
 feeling of constantly increasing compan- 
 ionship, and the evidence that in some sense 
 our journey may have a reasonable end. 
 But at every stage of the journey we are 
 obliged, in order that the next step may 
 be taken more safely, to make choices and 
 
 17 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 decisions. The choices and decisions of 
 the organisms whose lives prepared the 
 way, through seons of time, for ours, present 
 themselves to us as instincts, and these 
 instincts place forces in our hands which 
 we are under constant temptation to abuse. 
 Corresponding to the two sorts of motives 
 which I have designated constructive and 
 adaptive, there are two modes of approach 
 to the investigation of our motives. One 
 of them is that with which every person is 
 more or less familiar under the form of 
 philosophical reasoning, especially as the 
 philosophy of religion. In order to gain 
 the best knowledge of human nature by 
 this method, we ought, first of all, to con- 
 sider man at his best, as he is when in 
 the full flood of intelligent realization of 
 his own possibilities and in the full flood 
 of his power to make sacrifices, to form 
 rational ideals, to see into and beyond 
 actual situations to the meanings and the 
 values that lie concealed in them. Hav- 
 
 18 
 
MAIN SOURCES OF MOTIVES 
 
 ing learned, through a contemplation and 
 scrutiny such as this, to appreciate the 
 nature of men at their best and to recog- 
 nize the capacity in them to work for the 
 most constructive social and ideal ends, 
 we have the right to feel ourselves pre- 
 pared to see the true nature of the processes 
 that characterize those tendencies in the 
 lives of men which prevent them from con- 
 forming systematically to their own ideals. 
 At each point it is possible to trace the 
 influence of these tendencies, assuming 
 the guise of needful compromise and ad- 
 aptation, though based on the instinctive 
 desire to preserve motives and emotions 
 which those who entertain them unawares 
 would fain think themselves to have ban- 
 ished altogether. 
 
 The mature man is a more natural ob- 
 ject of primary study than the immature 
 man or the child, because the traits that 
 make him mature correspond to the traits 
 with which we, as rational beings, enter 
 
 19 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 on our task. To accustom ourselves to the 
 study of immaturity and childhood before 
 proceeding to the study of maturity and 
 manhood is often to habituate ourselves 
 to an undesirable limitation of our vision 
 with reference to the scope of the enter- 
 prise on which we enter. 
 
 The second mode of approach is through 
 what has been called the "psycho-analytic 
 method," which is to all intents and pur- 
 poses a form of the "genetic method." 
 The genetic method is that best known to us 
 as the Darwinian mode of studying or- 
 ganic and psychologic evolution, and resem- 
 bles that mode of research in the respect 
 that both of them begin with the appar- 
 ently simpler manifestations of life and 
 proceed from these toward the appar- 
 ently more complex forms. 
 
 I do not rank the philosophic and the 
 genetic modes of approach as equally signifi- 
 cant in all respects for the study of human 
 life, but as indispensable, each of them to the 
 
 20 
 
MAIN SOURCES OF MOTIVES 
 
 other. If one had to choose between them, 
 it would be more important to secure the 
 benefits that flow from the study of men 
 at their best and in their strength, than 
 as they appear when seen at their second 
 best and in their immaturity and weak- 
 ness. But, for my part, I feel grateful 
 for having had the opportunity of appre- 
 ciating the benefit of each one of these 
 sources of knowledge of mankind, because 
 I feel sure that neither, alone, can give us 
 what we need. And I shall endeavor to 
 point out that failure to acquire the kind 
 of knowledge which comes through the 
 use of the psycho-analytic method, and 
 especially the attitude of resistance which 
 makes men unwilling to seek this knowl- 
 edge and leads them to misunderstand its 
 bearings, are serious handicaps to their 
 progress in the ordinary affairs of life and 
 to their power to understand and sym- 
 pathize with their fellow men. For in 
 order to know human nature at its best 
 
 21 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 and to feel our sympathies going out, not 
 to a few selected persons, but to men in 
 general, we must learn to know men at 
 their weakest as well as at their strongest 
 points, and to see that the difference be- 
 tween success and failure is a difference 
 of degree. Not only this, but the respects 
 in which men are disguised from them- 
 selves, through repression, act as so many 
 "blind spots," 1 by virtue of which they 
 become unable to see certain qualities in 
 their neighbors. It is for this reason that 
 many otherwise fine persons are so narrow 
 in their appreciation of their fellow men. 
 
 These two modes of approach, while 
 apparently so different, have some strik- 
 ing points of resemblance, both in method 
 and in aim. 
 
 The psycho-analytic mode of approach 
 deals with men primarily on the basis of 
 their concrete experiences since birth, the 
 
 1 1 refer to the so-called "blind spot" of the retina, the pres- 
 ence of which is not recognized until some device is used for making 
 it apparent. 
 
MAIN SOURCES OF MOTIVES 
 
 record of which their memories are urged 
 and aided to complete, and usually do 
 complete to an extent not previously con- 
 templated as possible. It is the concrete 
 individual that is studied; but through 
 the accumulated knowledge of many indi- 
 viduals we learn to comprehend many 
 slight hints which each one's memory can 
 furnish. The philosophic or rational mode 
 of approach, on the other hand, is based 
 on the observation that no logically-minded 
 person (and that means, in effect, no per- 
 son) finds it possible to think any particular 
 thought without realizing, on reflection, 
 that this implies entertaining other 
 thoughts without which the first would 
 be incomplete. 
 
 He must, for example, recognize, as a 
 basis for every thought worth naming, 
 the fact that he is himself a living, self- 
 consistent person ; and also that other 
 persons exist with whom he can communi- 
 cate and to whom he is bound by certain 
 
 23 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 ties. A person may become so accus- 
 tomed to neglecting these presuppositions 
 and necessary inferences of his thought 
 that he would acknowledge no recognition 
 of them at all. But if he is led to look at 
 himself intelligently, and encouraged to 
 break down the resistances which he may 
 be inclined to oppose, the evidence for 
 the validity of certain inferences becomes so 
 strong that it can scarcely be disregarded. 
 By virtue of this reasoning, he finds him- 
 self forced to recognize layer upon layer 
 of thought that make him look at the 
 object of his primary inquiry in a wider 
 and wider form. He finds, first, that all 
 things are related; and, later, that this 
 relationship should not be defined in any 
 way that would make it inconsistent with 
 the action of his own mind. From the 
 fixed relationships between things of the 
 sort contemplated by science, he moves 
 on to the conception of "self -relation" — 
 that is, to a relation characterized by a 
 
 24 
 
MAIN SOURCES OF MOTIVES 
 
 self-consistency existing in spite of change, 
 such as every one finds in his own obser- 
 vation of himself. 
 
 Somewhat the same statement may be 
 made of the concrete discoveries concerning 
 experience which are brought out by the 
 psycho-analytic mode of approach. There, 
 too, persons unused to the employment of 
 this method at first declare that the memory 
 of their experiences is limited by bounds 
 which they find it impossible to overstep. 
 But here, again, it is found that the diffi- 
 culty is by no means one of memory alone. 
 The main trouble is that each of us is 
 hemmed in by habits and prejudices which 
 have grown to be so firmly organized that 
 it is hard to overcome them. One might 
 call them unseen walls, or better designate 
 them as an invisible net woven of cords as 
 strong as steel. These walls, this net, must 
 be rendered visible and must be broken 
 through before further progress is possible. 
 
 Thus, while the two modes of approach 
 25 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 differ strikingly in appearance (the first 
 of them being based on the recovery of 
 concrete memories, one by one, through 
 processes of association and by the aid of 
 hints derived from the analysis of dreams, 
 the other depending on the conscious recog- 
 nition, one after another, of a series of log- 
 ical inferences and deductions), yet in fact 
 the resemblances between them are equally 
 striking and equally important. In using 
 either mode, real, emotional resistances, of 
 the nature of fixed prejudices, have to be 
 broken down ; and further analysis would 
 show that in both cases these resistances 
 are analogous in origin and nature. At 
 any rate the task of overcoming them is 
 so difficult that one is reminded, in dealing 
 with them, of the story of the god Thor, 
 to whom the task was assigned of emptying 
 an innocent-seeming horn of wine, on the 
 contents of which, after taking deep 
 draughts, he was chagrined to find that he 
 had made but slight impression. Later, it 
 
 26 
 
MAIN SOURCES OF MOTIVES 
 
 was mockingly explained to him that the 
 horn was magically connected with the 
 sea. Another more homely but equally 
 good illustration of the same point is that 
 told by Emerson with regard to the weed- 
 ing of a garden. The would-be gardener 
 thinks, at first, that he has an easy task 
 before him, but each weed pulled up reveals 
 many more that he behind. So it is with 
 people's resistance to the recognition of 
 their own memories or the logical inferences 
 from their thoughts. We think our knowl- 
 edge of ourselves is reasonably accurate 
 and are sure that if the opportunity were 
 offered we should be willing and glad to 
 enlarge its boundaries. But when the op- 
 portunity really does offer, — that is, 
 the moment we find ourselves beginning 
 to see our own characters and tempera- 
 ments, or even our present body of knowl- 
 edge, in a new light, especially if in this 
 process we come up against something 
 which demands the breaking down of a 
 
 27 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 prejudice, — at that moment we look about 
 instinctively to find reasons for calling off 
 the dogs, lest they really find the quarry. 
 If we could be absolutely sure what the 
 nature of the quarry was, perhaps the search 
 for it would be continued. But to know 
 this would be to have a knowledge which 
 would make the search itself unnecessary. 
 We must, then, go on, slowly, perhaps pain- 
 fully, step by step; or else we must aid 
 ourselves by constructing, with the help 
 of imagination, a notion of the goal. 
 
 Some new meaning or motive always lies 
 behind the meanings and motives which 
 the person under investigation thrusts for- 
 ward as those by which his thoughts and 
 conduct are inspired. Any one familiar 
 with the Socratic method of inquiry, as 
 illustrated, for example, in the "Republic" 
 of Plato, will appreciate the significance of 
 this statement. The inquiries conducted 
 by the great analyzer proceeded on both 
 these lines, and the person under interro- 
 
MAIN SOURCES OF MOTIVES 
 
 gation was made to bring out motive after 
 motive, inference behind inference, until he 
 arrived at the real basis of his thought. 
 
 Not only is this true, but it is true also 
 that between the concrete experiences and 
 the logical inferences themselves, if one 
 looks closely at the matter, the differ- 
 ence is not so great as at first sight ap- 
 pears. It is always possible to substitute 
 the creative energy of a thing or a sit- 
 uation for the concrete thing itself. This 
 cannot be denied. We must deal with 
 concrete situations. We must deal also 
 with their causes. If facts are stubborn 
 things, the creative energies that lie behind 
 them are still more stubborn. If elec- 
 tricity makes the lamp glow, and if it is 
 the light thus given that we wish to under- 
 stand, then it is the light that we must 
 study. But no student should be blinded 
 by this fact to the still greater fact of the 
 unseen current that flows silently through 
 the dark and hidden wire. In the light of 
 
 29 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 the underlying tendency, even dull and 
 obscure facts gain a new richness and mean- 
 ing. The student of psycho-analysis who 
 has studied carefully the "association" 
 method, especially with reference to the 
 analysis of dreams, must have become 
 aware that when we seem to study experi- 
 ences and actual memories, it is really the 
 tendencies, the traits (especially of child- 
 hood) which lie behind these memories and 
 behind the grotesquenesses and picturesque 
 fagades of dreams that are the real objects 
 of our search. These traits contain, as 
 elements, emotional longings which the 
 censorship of social conscience forbids us 
 openly to entertain. 
 
 In spite of the determined search for the 
 concrete, even the most scientific and em- 
 pirical of observers finds it unavoidable, 
 from time to time, to speak of the energy 
 which feeds our lives and makes possible 
 our instinctive as well as our purposive 
 acts and motives, as a "reservoir" of 
 
 30 
 
MAIN SOURCES OF MOTIVES 
 
 force, a "stream," a "current," and so on. 
 To do this, however, is to recognize that 
 an act is what it is because it is the expres- 
 sion of a creative energy, and my conten- 
 tion is that this element of creative energy 
 is the real object to which our attention 
 should mainly be devoted. Unless we 
 learn to appreciate this causal energy and 
 to find its analogue in ourselves, the con- 
 templation of the act is vain. 
 
 To use one more simile, suggested by a 
 friend, we may lie on the grass and watch 
 with infinite enjoyment a soft cloud resting 
 quietly upon the mountain top, the type 
 and emblem of repose. But if we climb 
 the mountain and visit the cloud itself, we 
 may find that a strong wind is rushing 
 through it, constantly bringing moisture 
 which is quickly deposited and again as 
 quickly taken up. To discover this aspect 
 of the cloud's life is to learn a lesson 
 that might aid one to appreciate the fact 
 that human beings and human motives, 
 
 31 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 significant though they may be regarded 
 in and for themselves, are far more sig- 
 nificant when regarded as the expression of 
 something greater than themselves. These 
 are considerations to which the genetic 
 method, devoted as it is to the study of the 
 panoramic details of our unfolding lives 
 and debarred from the study of deeper- 
 lying causes, cannot possibly do justice. 
 But, in fact, the genetic method leads 
 straight and of necessity to the philosophic 
 method. 
 
 I have undertaken in this chapter to 
 show that our motives are derived from 
 two main sources. In everything that we 
 do we obey, on the one hand, an impulse 
 stronger than most people are aware of, 
 which, if taken by itself, would make us 
 entertain motives and perform acts corre- 
 sponding to our best possible ideals and 
 implying the activity of a power greater 
 than ourselves. Obedience to this power 
 does not deprive us of our independence, 
 
MAIN SOURCES OF MOTIVES 
 
 but helps us to act in conformity with the 
 scheme of the universe taken as a whole. 
 
 But this tendency never works alone. 
 The fact that we have an evolutional his- 
 tory, and stand as the representative of a 
 creative energy that expressed itself, first in 
 far simpler forms of life and finally in the 
 form of human instincts, and the additional 
 fact that we are designed to live in social 
 groups, brings it about that we have strong 
 personal desires, which form an obvious 
 source of motives making themselves felt 
 throughout our lives and often coming into 
 conflict with the motives of the other order. 
 
 After describing these two sources of 
 motives I called attention to two modes of 
 approach to the study of human life as 
 exemplified in intentions and in acts. 
 
 Finally I pointed out that these two 
 modes of approach — which were desig- 
 nated as philosophical and religious, on the 
 one hand, and genetic or psycho-analytic, 
 on the other — although they seem to 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 differ widely, really resemble each other at 
 many points ; and that this resemblance 
 is seen to be greater when instead of giving 
 our attention only to concrete experiences, 
 or to forces treated as concrete elements, 
 as the student of natural science neces- 
 sarily treats them, we substitute for them, 
 in our thought, the creative energy of 
 which they are the expression. 
 
 34 
 
Chapter II 
 The Rational Basis of Religion 
 
 " The rounded world is fair to see, 
 Nine times folded in mystery : 
 Though baffled seers cannot impart 
 The secret of its laboring heart, 
 Throb thine with Nature's throbbing breast 
 And all is clear from east to west. 
 Spirit that lurks each form within 
 Beckons to spirit of its kin ; 
 Self -kindled every atom glows, 
 And hints the future which it owes." 
 
 IN the previous chapter I have shown 
 reason for adducing a religious stand- 
 ard of motives as the one to be relied 
 upon for furnishing the main goal of prog- 
 ress, and I now wish to offer further reasons, 
 of a more philosophical sort, for doing this. 
 It is neither in a doctrinal nor an unduly 
 mystical sense that I undertake the advo- 
 cacy of religion, but because I wish to ac- 
 
 35 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 knowledge the supremacy of this influence 
 in our lives. I am well aware that the 
 church, with all that it implies, is a place 
 where reason and rational emotion find 
 themselves side by side with passion and 
 superstition. If, however, — or in so far as, 
 — religion is the expression of the truth, it 
 expresses the most important aspect of the 
 truth ; and to support it strenuously in its 
 best form is an essential preliminary to the 
 elimination of its abuses. 
 
 To some people the religious feeling 
 comes without effort and gives a joy and 
 sense of dignity to daily life. But there 
 are others who can only believe what they 
 can classify in accordance with the kind 
 of evidence that they are in the habit of 
 employing, and who therefore set aside 
 the claims of religion altogether, as founded 
 on sentiment alone. Even at the best, 
 they feel, the religious standard could be 
 of no especial value except as fostering 
 good conduct and loyalty of purpose. 
 
 36 
 
THE RATIONAL BASIS OF RELIGION 
 
 And since, by virtue of their intelligence, 
 they have tacitly accepted these standards 
 of conduct as binding, they see nothing to 
 be gained through the assertion of rela- 
 tions of obligation toward an invisible and 
 illimitable being, and through the observ- 
 ance of ceremonials which they cannot 
 justify without compromising their honesty 
 and their reason. The religious attitude, 
 they think, is only the expression of a sen- 
 timent founded in a longing for excitement 
 and compensation, and the claim for an 
 "absolute" anything at all is philosoph- 
 ically untenable and practically unneces- 
 sary. This attitude is well defined, in part, 
 in the following sentiment expressed a few 
 years ago by an eminent English writer on 
 philosophy : 
 
 "We do not need to know what is abso- 
 lutely good in order to know that one thing 
 is better than another. We do not need to 
 know the elixir of life in order to know that 
 beef is more nourishing than straw, and 
 water healthier than absinthe. We do not 
 
 37 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 need to be assured of immortality in order 
 to judge that a life is worth living. We do 
 not need to know absolute truth in order to 
 detect a lie. The fact is that our ideals are 
 not actually prior to the particular experi- 
 ences they profess to 'explain,' but are built 
 up out of suggestions derived from the 
 latter." 
 
 If these various propositions were ration- 
 ally tenable, and if when conscientiously 
 adhered to they could be made to furnish 
 a satisfactory basis of social morals, they 
 ought to be accepted. But if they do 
 not seem of this character, we ought to 
 come forward with our objections, were 
 it only for the sake of the many persons 
 who are still in doubt and to whom our 
 particular line of reasoning might appeal. 
 It is certain that moral crises often come 
 when both decision and conduct need the 
 best prop and spur that can be given them, 
 and the sense of obligation that goes with 
 adherence to a big cause is surely greater 
 than that which a little cause can set in 
 
 38 
 
THE RATIONAL BASIS OF RELIGION 
 
 action. In this sense, if in no other, we 
 do need to know what is "absolutely good" 
 in order to know that one thing is better 
 than another. Unless we prepare ourselves 
 for the coming of such crises, we are sure 
 to find ourselves, like the foolish virgins, 
 with our lamps unfilled and with our minds 
 unfurnished with the knowledge of what 
 source to turn to for the needful oil. 
 
 It is asserted that men find in the grati- 
 fication of personal desires and in the defense 
 of their own firesides motives of greater 
 strength than any feeling of obligation 
 toward an invisible ideal can supply. 
 But this is a mistake. The social whole 
 and its representative spirit are the real 
 centre of every man's devotion. 
 
 My own reasons for giving my alle- 
 giance to the religious standard and for 
 endorsing the observance of suitable reli- 
 gious ceremonials are as follows : 
 
 It is true that ceremonials can serve the 
 ends of superstition, and this should be 
 
 39 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 made known. But even superstition may 
 carry the germs of something better. We 
 keep birthdays and make much of the an- 
 niversaries of the birth or death of great 
 men without feeling that our own sense of 
 dignity suffers impairment thereby. Fur- 
 thermore, the recognition of such feelings of 
 affection and respect shows that we 
 acknowledge something within us that is 
 a little better than what we are able under 
 ordinary conditions to put immediately 
 into practice. 
 
 The situation as regards religion seems 
 to me to be of the same sort with this. 
 We all strive to show reason, love, and will 
 in the conduct of our affairs and in our 
 dealings with one another. We realize, 
 also, that neither reason, love, nor will can 
 exist or be used alone, and that it is only 
 for the convenience of our speech that we 
 reason as if this possibility existed. The 
 nearer we come to the point of acting or 
 thinking in such a way that our intelli- 
 
 40 
 
THE RATIONAL BASIS OF RELIGION 
 
 gence, our disinterested love, and our voli- 
 tion coalesce and are seen to reinforce one 
 another, the more truly do we conceive 
 ourselves to be acting in accordance with 
 what we call our best. And we feel justi- 
 fied in asserting that the acts done under 
 these conditions are constructive in a 
 deeper and wider sense than those done 
 under conditions when reason, love, or 
 will seem to act independently. After pass- 
 ing on, in this way, along a well-defined 
 line of progress, from less perfected to 
 more perfected persons, have we the right 
 to call a halt to our aspiring reason ; and at 
 what point ? Must we not perforce con- 
 clude that a being exists of whom it is true 
 that this interpenetration of reason, love, 
 and will is absolute and invariable, and if 
 we find reason to believe that we stand in 
 a close relationship to this being, then have 
 we not the duty and the right to show 
 our recognition of the relationship by ap- 
 propriate ceremonies? These ceremonies 
 
 41 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 must not, however, be allowed to become 
 the masters of our thoughts and feelings; 
 nor should we fail to determine, through 
 scrutiny, just what these thoughts and feel- 
 ings are. 
 
 If the universe has a personality of 
 which we can assert, at least, that it can- 
 not be incompatible with our own and that 
 it lends dignity to our own, and if we be- 
 lieve this personality to be under an in- 
 herent obligation to make itself prevail at 
 its best, just as each finite person is glad to 
 give the best expression to his personality, 
 then we should recognize the same sort 
 of obligation to work in harmony with the 
 universe-personality that we feel with refer- 
 ence to the endorsement of our own sense 
 of loyalty, rationality, and constructiveness. 
 
 In asking whether the universe is per- 
 sonal we ought to begin by admitting that 
 one portion of it surely is, — namely, our- 
 selves. We cannot use our reason to 
 affirm our doubts and at the same time 
 
THE RATIONAL BASIS OF RELIGION 
 
 deny our reason. We cannot assert our 
 own power of disinterested love and will 
 and at the same time deny that love and 
 will exist. Finally, since it is impossible 
 that a thing which has a certain perfectness 
 should have come into existence except as 
 the expression, or through the influence, of 
 a preexisting something that was at least 
 equally perfect, then the degree of per- 
 fection found by us in ourselves and attrib- 
 uted by us, as a necessity of our thought, 
 to mankind at large, must have been for- 
 ever in existence as a fundamental element, 
 or condition, of the universal life of which 
 our own is an integral part. The sym- 
 phony cannot create the composer; its 
 existence presupposes him. 
 
 I was much impressed recently to hear 
 a distinguished and clear-thinking pro- 
 fessor of philosophy, whose attitude with 
 regard to "realism" had made me expect a 
 different opinion on this point, assert that 
 if God exists, it must be as an influence or 
 
 43 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 energy permeating the universe as an 
 essential feature of it and as present in 
 every detail and part of it, and that in 
 fact he believed this to be the case. This 
 is my own opinion. 
 
 The fact is that if one is willing to see 
 that any and every investigation must 
 start with the acceptance, on the part of 
 the man who makes it, of himself, at his 
 best, as affirming a condition which the 
 finished investigation must ratify and to 
 which it must conform, much discussion 
 would be spared. 
 
 Here we are, with our own duties and 
 our own powers, and compelled to recog- 
 nize the existence of other men, of like 
 sort, at the cost of denying, if we refuse 
 to do so, the very condition that we began 
 by assuming as essential. 
 
 But the allegiance which we admit as 
 due to ourselves as partially rational, 
 partially disinterested beings, capable, in 
 spite of our limitations, of conceiving of 
 
 44 
 
THE RATIONAL BASIS OF RELIGION 
 
 persons and a world not thus limited; 
 this same allegiance we owe, in redoubled 
 measure, to the Being whom we thus 
 conceive, and whose existence, in conceiv- 
 ing of it, we affirm. In any investigation 
 into the secrets of life, the inquirer is sure 
 to find what he brings, — no less, no more. 
 The whole man must give and find him- 
 self. While striving to find himself, he 
 may, at first, look at the world naively, as 
 a world of separate and individual things; 
 then, in accordance with scientific teach- 
 ing, as a world of fixed forces and relations. 
 But here one cannot stop. Fixed relations 
 have no standing in a world of real change, 
 except as forms of speech, — that is, except 
 as pointing to the self-relationships of per- 
 sonal life. Eventually one must assume 
 these self-relationships of spontaneous per- 
 sonal life to be characteristic of the uni- 
 verse as a whole, even the world of nature 
 conceived of as existing in relation to 
 persons. 
 
 45 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 I respect the agnostic attitude of scien- 
 tific men and believe it to be the expression 
 of a genuine honesty. But when it is too 
 tenaciously adhered to, and the arguments 
 that to me appeal so strongly fail to con- 
 vince, I feel the right to think that this 
 attitude is quite as much in need of expla- 
 nation and defense as the attitude of the 
 believer. Many persons find it extremely 
 difficult to gain a practical sense of obliga- 
 tion, — as resting on them by virtue of an 
 origin and destiny of the sort here assumed, 
 — to recognize in their belief the basis of a 
 real source of motives. This is largely be- 
 cause they consider it impossible to estab- 
 lish either their origin or their destiny, in an 
 idealistic sense, or think that at best these 
 cannot be defined except in terms of the 
 most shadowy description. Yet such per- 
 sons are often to be seen sacrificing them- 
 selves for a feeling of obligation which it 
 would be impossible to defend in scientific 
 terms. Many of them would be able to 
 
 46 
 
THE RATIONAL BASIS OF RELIGION 
 
 endorse in practice the fine lines that stand 
 over the gateway to Soldiers' Field at 
 Harvard University : 
 
 "Though love repine, and reason chafe, 
 There came a voice without reply, — 
 ' 'Tis man's perdition to be safe 
 When for the truth he ought to die.'" 
 
 But to do this, to re-bind oneself in this 
 fashion, is to accept and assert one of the 
 essential conditions of religion. 
 
 If we go further and express the idea in 
 a form at once more personal and more 
 universal, we must take God, or His equiva- 
 lent, as the object of our devotion . This 
 should not be considered as amounting to 
 the postulation of some cold and infinitely 
 remote idea. We use these terms — 
 "God" and "the universe" — to express 
 something which we feel to be in us, yet 
 which transcends us and the other persons 
 to whom we might feel that our loyalty 
 was due. To do this is equivalent to the 
 
 47 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 assertion, in its final form, of the obliga- 
 tion which every man is under to maintain 
 the dignity of mankind at its best. 
 
 A difficulty in the way of adopting this 
 religious ideal as a standard of obligation 
 is that the terms "universe" and "God," 
 besides being shadowy, have connotations 
 that to many people are positively 
 obnoxious. They suggest sentimentality 
 and emotional excess. It is for reasons 
 such as this that men's attitude toward 
 religion is at present in a peculiar state. 
 One observer after another has declared, 
 on the basis of positive evidence, that two 
 tendencies of opposite sorts are now ap- 
 parent, side by side. On the one hand 
 men are leaving the established churches, 
 while on the other the religious sentiment 
 as such, accompanied with the desire for 
 opportunities of union on some religious 
 basis, is distinctly on the increase. Some 
 established forms, however, we must have, 
 just as the soul must have a body, and it 
 
 48 
 
THE RATIONAL BASIS OF RELIGION 
 
 would be possible to infuse new life into 
 the old forms if all were agreed on the 
 essential points at stake. 
 
 Finally, the sense- world, with which 
 our passions, our efforts, our fears, and our 
 experiences are all bound up, has such a 
 hold upon the mind that to be asked to 
 believe in any world from which time and 
 space have been excluded arouses at first a 
 sense of resistance hard to overcome and a 
 feeling of distress difficult to endure. The 
 memories which we owe to the sense of 
 touch and the senses of sight and hearing 
 have such a value for us that they almost 
 constrain us to reject all other modes of 
 getting at our facts. When we are asked, 
 therefore, to accept an unpicturable world, 
 it is inevitable that in making the attempt 
 to do so we should crane our necks as if 
 with the secret hope that we might after 
 all make it visible, forgetting that in the 
 world of dreams and fancies we divorce 
 ourselves from our senses altogether, and 
 
 49 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 yet see and feel and hear, and also that 
 language is capable of making evident to 
 us, mentally, relations which no sense can 
 ratify. 
 
 To learn to make the unpicturable world 
 real is to make our way toward a light 
 which constantly grows brighter; and as 
 we near its source we learn to reject, for 
 good and all, the idea that to discuss matters 
 of this sort is to study something that a 
 man might almost pride himself on being 
 ignorant of, or certainly might be content 
 to remain ignorant of without acknowl- 
 edging any serious gap in his education. 
 Attitudes of this sort I now look upon as 
 mainly reactions of defense. 
 
 What we most care for in the world are 
 love, justice, honor, power, — all of which 
 are unpicturable and are related to the 
 various forms of energy without which 
 nothing could exist. To gain a realizing 
 sense that these forms of energy are just 
 as real as any fact in nature is to make an 
 
 50 
 
THE RATIONAL BASIS OF RELIGION 
 
 advance well worth the working for. Such 
 an advance cannot be gained without labor, 
 for to feel the reality of a world of this 
 sort, to learn to live in the midst of these 
 unpicturable energies, requires practice just 
 as truly as it requires practice to feel at 
 home in any unfamiliar environment. Many 
 have learned this lesson and have made 
 their knowledge an influence of real sig- 
 nificance in their lives; and among these 
 I think especially of Helen Keller, who has 
 described the progress of her own enlighten- 
 ment in striking terms. Groping her way 
 through her one channel, in her search for 
 the fullness of the picturable world, she 
 found, at last, and as if suddenly, that her 
 mind, with its power of retaining its own 
 self-consistency through its constantly and 
 infinitely changing relationships, arrived at 
 last at a point where her blindness and her 
 deafness became almost banished. To- 
 ward the end of the chapter in which she 
 describes her progress she says : 
 
 51 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 "Ancient philosophy offers an argument 
 which seems still valid. There is in the 
 blind as in the seeing an Absolute which 
 gives truth to what we know to be true, 
 order to what is orderly, beauty to the beau- 
 tiful, touchableness to what is tangible. 
 If this is granted it follows that this Abso- 
 lute is not imperfect, incomplete, partial. 
 It must needs go beyond the limited evi- 
 dence of our sensations, and also give light 
 to what is invisible, music to the musical 
 that silence dulls. Thus mind itself com- 
 pels us to acknowledge that we are in a 
 world of intellectual order, beauty, and har- 
 mony. . . . Thus deafness and blindness 
 do not exist in the immaterial mind, which 
 is philosophically the real world, but are 
 banished with the material senses. Reality, 
 of which visible things are the symbol, 
 shines before my mind. While I walk about 
 my chamber with unsteady steps, my spirit 
 sweeps skyward on eagle wings and looks 
 out with unquenchable vision upon the 
 world of eternal beauty." 
 
 Although we live and breathe and have 
 our being in an unpicturable world, a 
 world not of things but of values, the 
 prejudice against studying the nature of 
 
 52 
 
THE RATIONAL BASIS OF RELIGION 
 
 this world still retains its force. It is often 
 thought that no one could breathe, in any 
 practical and practicable sense, the rare 
 atmosphere of an unpicturable world, and 
 that if Immanuel Kant said that time and 
 space exist only in our minds, as a neces- 
 sary condition for our thinking, he was 
 talking a sort of nonsense which could 
 be treated with neglect, if not contempt. 
 
 Persons not in the habit of defining to 
 themselves the conditions of existence of 
 the unpicturable world of ideal values are 
 apt to make errors of two sorts. They 
 first clothe this world in forms, details, and 
 colors which are taken from the life of 
 evolution and experience and represent the 
 projection of experience, and then, finding 
 themselves unable to accept a world so 
 pictured, they reject the arguments for 
 its existence altogether. In order that 
 these pitfalls may be avoided, it should be 
 seen that what is claimed is the possession 
 of something, itself undefinable in detail, 
 
 53 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 which underlies all forms and makes ex- 
 perience possible and intelligible. Even 
 what we call the world of reality is to a 
 great extent a vision, but the power to en- 
 tertain such visions, unpicturable though 
 they are, remains our best possession. 
 
 Every thinking person knows that if 
 matter is a condition, to a certain extent, 
 of the existence and manifestation of force, 
 nevertheless matter, as ordinarily con- 
 ceived, is nothing without force, and that 
 in fact there is a strong tendency, even on 
 the part of physicists, to move toward 
 conceptions of matter such as indicate a 
 growing suspicion on their part that force 
 can at least be conceived of, for purposes of 
 study, as detached from these other mani- 
 festations of themselves that are called 
 matter. Wherever electricity and magnet- 
 ism are found, for instance, one sees them 
 always in a double form. Imponderable 
 and unpicturable as they are, they are 
 capable nevertheless of dividing themselves 
 
 54 
 
THE KATIONAL BASIS OF RELIGION 
 
 into positive and negative "fluids," — that 
 is, of acting upon themselves, with nothing 
 else between. And when it comes to 
 the introspection of our own thought the 
 same thing happens on a larger scale. It is 
 not with our bodily eyes that we see our 
 thoughts, and yet we do observe them. 
 
 In addition to the reasons already urged 
 for hostility to metaphysical ideas, the 
 common argument should be mentioned 
 that mind cannot be fundamental in the 
 world, because if we go back to the time 
 when no organic life existed on our planet 
 there is no evidence that mind existed 
 either. By this argument, mind seems to 
 be ruled out of the universe altogether. 
 It is forgotten, however, that no one would 
 admit for a moment that the absence of 
 organic life, in the ordinary acceptation of 
 the word, meant the banishment of the 
 laws of physics. 
 
 But what are the laws of physics? Are 
 they something that can have a real and 
 
 55 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 permanent and spontaneous existence con- 
 joined with the capacity for creating out of 
 themselves the minds of living beings? 
 Or are they formulas of measurement 
 adopted by men for particular acts, with 
 the accomplishment of particular results 
 in view, just as they use foot-rules as a 
 convenient but entirely arbitrary mode of 
 measurement? No one can sit long, 
 to-day, among a group of scientific men 
 freely talking together, without hearing 
 astounding admissions from them as to 
 occurrences that seem to show, when the 
 matter is looked into closely, that the phys- 
 ical laws are only approximations to the 
 truth. 
 
 The fact is that when inquiring as to 
 the relative validity of physical laws and 
 mental laws, it is with ourselves that we 
 are under obligation to begin and ourselves 
 that we must take into account at every 
 stage of the proceedings, as furnishing at 
 once the powers that work and the tools 
 
 56 
 
THE RATIONAL BASIS OF RELIGION 
 
 through which they work. In short, 
 physics can come to its rights only through 
 metaphysics. The world of absolute, iron- 
 chain relativity must be recognized as 
 only a symbolic expression for a world of 
 self -relativity — that is, a world of free 
 thought, uniform in proportion to the degree 
 of perfection to be found in the motives and 
 the reason that work through it. "Das 
 Vergangliche ist nur ein Gleichniss." 
 
 To shield ourselves behind an unwill- 
 ingness to be thought of as giving alle- 
 giance to symbolic statements as if they 
 were scientific definitions, is a sort of self- 
 defense, indicative of a suspicion that 
 some truth really lurks behind these state- 
 ments in the form of a god to be loved, 
 or a devil to be feared, — with neither of 
 which can we bring ourselves face to face 
 with anything like the ease with which we 
 can face an experiment in chemistry or 
 physics. 
 
 Professor Royce defines God as "the 
 57 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 totality of the expressions and life of the 
 world-will, when considered in its con- 
 scious unity." This definition will be 
 better understood if it is translated into 
 terms of our own experience. To speak of 
 any being as "consciously unified" is to 
 say that he is conscious of himself as re- 
 maining virtually the same person from 
 one day to the next, although in reality we 
 must admit that neither in a physical nor 
 a mental sense is it possible for a person to 
 remain the same even from one moment 
 to the next. The sense of unity — that is, 
 of self -consistency — through this change 
 means something more than that to a 
 considerable extent the two circles which 
 we might regard as standing, the one for the 
 individual of to-day, the other for the indi- 
 vidual of yesterday or to-morrow, could 
 be thought of as overlapping. It is even 
 doubtful whether in any proper sense such 
 an overlapping could be postulated at all. 
 But the real point is that a self-consciously 
 
 58 
 
THE RATIONAL BASIS OF RELIGION 
 
 unified person is one who not only can 
 but must express himself in constantly new 
 forms and thus show himself to be a per- 
 son of many sides or many possibilities. 
 This kind of unity, or individuality, which 
 is best defined in the expression that a per- 
 son is never so much himself as when he is 
 giving himself wholly to some cause outside 
 himself, is a unity not definable in terms of 
 physical laws, but characteristic of spon- 
 taneous life. To say that God is the 
 totality of the expressions of the world-will 
 is again to say nothing more than what can 
 justly be affirmed of every man. No other 
 definition of a personality is possible, for 
 nothing lives except as it acts, and the acts 
 that we have done and that contribute to 
 make us what we are, still live. To say 
 that God creates man and the world and 
 is immanent in the acts and thoughts of 
 men is also entirely explicable, if thought 
 of from the light of our own experience. 
 Do we not make our own thoughts and 
 
 59 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 acts, and are we not immanent in them? 
 Do we not also, at each moment, make 
 our bodies, when we bend them to our 
 wills and set up mechanisms which there- 
 after will do what was once the immediate 
 expression of our bidding ? 
 
 We cannot think either of ourselves or 
 of the world as partly living (that is, partly 
 animated by a spontaneous life) and partly 
 dead, although we must be prepared to see 
 constantly appearances that might be taken 
 as giving rise to this idea, — just as, again, 
 in the case of the rising and setting of the 
 sun, we seem to see that luminary going 
 up and down. The particles of our skin 
 and its appendages seem, indeed, to dry 
 up and disappear. But here comes the 
 law of the conservation of energy to our 
 aid. These particles take the same place 
 that the leaves take that fall from the 
 forest trees. Sooner or later they become 
 converted into soil, and new leaves come 
 again; that is, they never get far away 
 
 60 
 
THE RATIONAL BASIS OF RELIGION 
 
 from a state in which they are virtually 
 portions of the spontaneous life and energy 
 of the world. And so our own bodies are 
 in close relation to our personal lives, and 
 the laws of physics to the laws of the mind. 
 Motion would soon cease and would never 
 have begun unless beyond the bodies 
 moved there had been some source of energy 
 that was self-renewing. To this energy, in 
 its simplest form, the name of "purus 
 actus," pure activity, or self -activity, is 
 given ; and it needs but little change in point 
 of view to recognize the practical identity 
 of this principle with the "poussee vitale" 
 and "elan vitale" of Bergson, with which 
 every one is now familiar, with the "vital 
 impulse" accepted as essential by some 
 biologists, and with the energy assumed 
 by psycho-analytic writers to be resident 
 in- our instincts. 
 
 Everything which is real is self-active, 
 and nothing except that which is real in 
 this sense exists for us at all, unless as an 
 
 61 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 abstraction of the imagination. To this 
 self-activity must be accorded the same 
 power of acting on itself with which the 
 study of electricity and magnetism has 
 made us all familiar. But it should be 
 clearly recognized that these two ways in 
 which self -activity expresses itself, although 
 near enough alike to permit the use of the 
 more familiar as a guide to the understand- 
 ing of the less familiar, are by no means 
 identical. Self-activity, in its simplest 
 manifestation — that is, as constituting 
 the life of nature — is to be thought of as 
 like a sequence of tones (discords, it may 
 be) which if taken by themselves are of no 
 value but which may be conceived of as 
 infused with the meaning of the whole 
 musical composition of which they are a 
 part. Or, again, such simpler manifesta- 
 tions might be compared to the first out- 
 line drawn by a great master and intended 
 to foreshadow his finished composition ; or 
 to the self -active proposition of the logician, 
 
THE RATIONAL BASIS OF RELIGION 
 
 which brings out through its spontaneous 
 life hidden possibilities of meaning and of 
 power. 
 
 So, first expressing itself through phys- 
 ical laws, then through such forms of 
 activity as are characteristic in the se- 
 quences of the vegetable world and the 
 animal world, a point is reached of which 
 Emerson speaks when he says : 
 
 "And well the primal pioneer 
 Knew the strong task to it assigned, 
 Patient through Heaven's enormous year 
 To build in matter home for mind." 
 
 More and more, as time goes on, it is 
 seen that the evidences of apparent deter- 
 minism in the world, numerous as they are, 
 tend to disappear. The history of man- 
 kind and the history of the individual alike 
 are histories, on the whole, of the growth 
 of freedom. The stream is often inter- 
 rupted, often seems to take a backward 
 course ; but its main flow is onward ; 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 "For He that worketh high and wise, 
 Nor pauses in his plan, 
 Will take the sun out of the skies 
 Ere freedom out of man." 
 
 The universe is a self-consistent whole, 
 rational and free, ever and eternally chang- 
 ing in detail yet without losing its con- 
 sistency with itself. By the same right, 
 we continue from week to week and from 
 year to year to call ourselves by the same 
 name, to feel ourselves responsible for the 
 acts that as other persons we once did and 
 as other persons we shall do. Each frag- 
 ment of the universe is living, and by the 
 law in accordance with which life is self- 
 division and creation and every element of 
 that which creates passes into the created, 
 every particle of the universe has a measure 
 of freedom — that is, of choice. Of this 
 power of choice, evidence is to be seen 
 even in the lowest forms of organisms 
 known to men. But freedom cannot exist 
 without conflict and clash, and through 
 
 64 
 
THE RATIONAL BASIS OF RELIGION 
 
 these it must win a uniformity in which 
 order is again found, — this time, how- 
 ever, not dependent upon an iron-chain 
 necessity but existing as an evidence of 
 perfect intelligence coalescing with per- 
 fectly disinterested love and perfect will. 
 
 The reasoning through which I have here sought to show our 
 obligation to assert a universe of completeness transcending and 
 supplementing our world of incompleteness, is of a kind on which 
 we all constantly rely yet without realizing the extent to which 
 we do so or the full bearing of the principle involved. Every one 
 will admit, upon reflection, that we reach our conclusions partly 
 through the unconscious recognition of inferences and contrasts 
 that we do not name. One cannot affirm that a given object is 
 light in color without tacitly assuming that it might have been 
 dark, and so on. It is less obvious yet more important that one 
 cannot say "I perceive" without tacitly assuming a self-conscious, 
 self -consistent, relatively continuous "I." In some respects these 
 tacit assumptions are the more vital portions of the process in 
 question. Thus, the best service rendered by a perception is 
 often that it points to a conception, and the best service rendered 
 by a conception of a given sort is that it points to a further con- 
 ception of a more comprehensive kind. Through observing 
 physical phenomena and discovering how rigidly dependent they 
 seem to be, one upon another, one is led to see that no such rigid 
 law of relativity obtains among mental phenomena and learns 
 thus to recognize that thought is self-related and that, in this 
 sense, our mental life takes its place beside the processes charac- 
 terized as "infinite." This principle, whereby the finite is used 
 to prove the infinite, the logical to prove something beyond logic, 
 derived activity to prove spontaneous activity, has been relied 
 upon by great thinkers since the days of Plato, and in our day 
 
 65 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 and generation especially by such men as Doctor W. T. Harris, 
 Professor Royce, Professor Bowne, and others of like standing. 
 Its importance has recently been pointed out afresh by Doctor 
 C. J. Keyser, Professor of Mathematics in Columbia University, 
 in his address entitled "Science and Religion, the Rational and 
 the Superrational." 
 
 In this striking and inspiring paper Doctor Keyser points out 
 that our human faculties enable us to follow sequences of any and 
 every sort up to an indeterminate and ever-receding point. Be- 
 yond every point to which our finite intelligence leads us, we find 
 ourselves obliged to infer the existence of something which tran- 
 scends our power of logical definition. Through necessary in- 
 ferences of this sort we are compelled to get beyond the picturable 
 to the unpicturable world, beyond time and space to a real infinite, 
 and beyond the mental operations of logical sort to a mental life 
 transcending logic. The interesting address closes with the state- 
 ment that "in every category where the laws of reason reign we 
 find that the great process of Idealization points aloft to some 
 form above the laws : we find that — like the Class of all Classes, 
 like the Joint Affirmation of all Propositions, like the Logical Sum 
 of all Relations, like Omniscience, like Beauty absolute — so, 
 too, Eternality, Omnipotence, Omnipresence, Necessity or Fate, 
 Unconditioned Freedom or Self-determination, Perfect Justice, 
 Universal Harmony, the Goodness of God, Felicity Divine, and 
 many other supreme ideals and supreme perfections of rational 
 experience and thought, are all of them forms of Being absolute, 
 constituting an Overworld, a realm Superrational. 
 
 ******* 
 
 "To debate the 'existence' of such a world were a vain dis- 
 pute. In some sense, whatsoever quickens, lures, and sustains, 
 exists. Aspiration is not mocked. Reason's unattainable ideals 
 are the light-giving ^Ether of Life. Therein is the precious and 
 abiding reality of the Overworld," 
 
 66 
 
Chapter III 
 
 The Psycho- Analytic Movement 
 
 "Of the storm of men's passions, the clash of 
 their deeds 
 I am the soul and the breath, 
 The weaver of life's web : 
 Birth and death, 
 Flood and ebb ; 
 The pattern grows ; 
 Life flows and glows ; 
 So at Time's roaring loom do my shuttles weave 
 Men's lives as a garb for the God of Love." 
 
 The Earth Spirit, "Faust," Part I. 
 
 THIS chapter is intended to give a 
 more systematic account than has 
 thus far been attempted of the 
 psycho-analytic movement, its aims, its 
 accomplishments, and the significance for 
 the study of human motives of the re- 
 pressed tendencies with which it deals. 
 
 The psycho-analytic movement may be 
 defined as an attempt to make the facts 
 
 67 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 and principles discovered through the 
 analysis of individual lives of service in 
 the study of race history and of life in 
 general. The psycho-analytic method is the 
 name given to the special means by which 
 the memory is aided to penetrate into the 
 forgotten portions of one's life, with the 
 view of bringing to the light of clear con- 
 sciousness the details of emotional con- 
 flicts which, in spite of being out of sight, 
 exert an influence, often of an unfavorable 
 sort, on the development of character and 
 temperament, as well as on the motives, 
 the habits, and the thoughts. The memory 
 accomplishes this by passing from one to 
 another of a long series of events related 
 to each other by ties of the most varied 
 sorts, and in doing so, it makes use of the 
 aid furnished by inferential thinking and 
 utilizes the hints provided by vast treas- 
 uries of accumulated knowledge. The aim 
 is a practical one, and the question is how 
 the person under investigation can best be 
 
 68 
 
THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC MOVEMENT 
 
 helped to gain a deeper and more intelli- 
 gent insight into his own life. Every 
 thought, every emotion even, is partly 
 rational, partly an expression of feeling, 
 and partly a manifestation of will. If the 
 element of reason is accentuated, the ele- 
 ment of emotion must play a part more in 
 harmony with reason. This is education 
 and leads to a gain in mental stability and 
 health. The data that are needed must 
 be sought for at first by burrowing in the 
 dark closet of one's mental life, somewhat 
 as one digs for Indian relics in an old shell 
 heap ; that is, by giving rein to one's 
 memory and one's power of thought, and 
 encouraging it to go on a voyage of dis- 
 covery without reference to what may be 
 discovered. When found, these "relics" 
 prove to be anything but inert facts. On 
 the contrary, they are very active agents, 
 insistent on their rights and difficult to 
 subdue. 
 
 The starting points for such processes 
 69 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 of search into the unconscious life, through 
 association, are contributed by ideas that 
 come into the patient's mind as if acci- 
 dentally or that are furnished by dreams, 
 which, unimportant though they may seem 
 to be, are really found, when analyzed, 1 
 to be based largely on fundamental experi- 
 ences of early childhood. In similar 
 fashion, conversations, word-association 
 tests, indeed almost any material that the 
 patient's random, non-selective thoughts 
 may offer, can serve as points of depar- 
 ture for these analyses. 
 
 Having defined thus briefly what psycho- 
 analysis aims primarily to do, I beg leave, 
 before proceeding further, to indicate the 
 position of this important movement when 
 considered in relation to the other prin- 
 cipal mode of approach to the study of 
 human life and motives which has been 
 mentioned in the preceding chapters. 
 
 1 It is not the dream story, as one first tells it, that has this 
 significance, but the deeper-lying memory complexes drawn out 
 by association. 
 
 70 
 
THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC MOVEMENT 
 
 Professor Sigmund Freud, who has been 
 the real life and soul of this movement 
 from the beginning, has stated and reiter- 
 ated in clear terms that no generalizations 
 should be drawn from the data which the 
 method furnishes that are not fully justi- 
 fied by the clinical observations. He has 
 always asserted that he makes no claim 
 to have discovered anything like the sole 
 avenue to the explanation of human life 
 and human conduct. He and his immedi- 
 ate followers have felt themselves to be 
 dealing merely with a well-defined scien- 
 tific investigation, — the study, namely, of 
 a certain portion of the unconscious life, 
 that portion which is made up of emotions 
 which are unwelcome (for social reasons) 
 and therefore repressed, yet which are 
 longed for as sources of enjoyment. They 
 have carefully avoided, so far as this was 
 practicable, the postulation of any definite 
 theological or philosophical opinions. Psy- 
 cho-analysts might reach what conclusions 
 
 71 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 they wished on such points as these, or 
 any points, though with the understanding 
 that if they found themselves impelled 
 to use methods or assert principles that 
 were essentially incompatible with those 
 on which Freud had based his definition 
 of psycho-analysis, they should no longer 
 designate their methods by that term. I 
 do not consider that this applies to the atti- 
 tude I take, because I accept Freud's defini- 
 tion and merely assert that psycho -analytic 
 doctrines, like all scientific doctrines, are 
 valid only within certain definite limits. 
 
 It is truly remarkable what a touchstone 
 has been put into our hands through this 
 significant movement, wherewith to dis- 
 tinguish real motives from the apparent 
 motives which overlie them, and, under- 
 neath the faults and failings, the fears and 
 obsessive habits of adult life, to trace the 
 workings of the instinctive cravings of 
 imaginative, pleasure-seeking, and pain- 
 shunning infancy, dragging back the adult 
 
 72 
 
THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC MOVEMENT 
 
 from the fulfilment of his higher destiny. 
 The complete enumeration of the gains that 
 have already been secured, of the paths 
 of promise that have been opened to us, 
 through these fruitful investigations and 
 these applications of the biogenetic prin- 
 ciple in the study of human personality, 
 would be a recital of an imposing charac- 
 ter. It is not only for medicine that these 
 advances have been won. It has been 
 clearly shown that the great pieces of im- 
 aginative and creative literature of the 
 world, especially the great world poems 
 such as the tragedies and epics of Greece, 
 the fairy stories and the myths which have 
 stood so long the test of time, and so, too, 
 the manifestations of wit and humor and 
 the many other modes of naive expression 
 in which the soul of man instinctively lays 
 open its hidden motives, are all permeated 
 by the same tendency that underlies the 
 signs and symptoms of the hysterias, the 
 phobias, and the compulsions. 
 
 73 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 The first impulse to these investigations 
 came from Doctor J. Breuer of Vienna, who 
 had occasion, in 1881, to treat an intelli- 
 gent young woman suffering from hysteria 
 in a serious form, characterized by paralyses 
 and contractions and disorders of speech, 
 for which he tried in vain the usual means 
 of cure. With him was associated, as 
 student and assistant, Sigmund Freud. 
 Doctor Breuer found that the facts offered 
 by this patient in explanation of her ill- 
 ness, although they were freely furnished 
 and represented her entire history so far 
 as her consciousness could give it, consti- 
 tuted only a fraction of the story which in 
 the end her memory succeeded in drawing 
 from its depths. Under the influence of 
 a special method of inquiry, the history 
 was gradually recovered of many experi- 
 ences which had apparently been forgotten 
 and which proved to be of an emotional 
 character, connected with personal long- 
 ings that had not been gratified. In pro- 
 
 74 
 
THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC MOVEMENT 
 
 portion as the barriers were thrown down 
 that separated the hidden portion of the 
 patient's past from that of which she had 
 remained consciously aware, one and 
 another of her distressing symptoms 
 dropped away. 
 
 No further investigations were under- 
 taken for a number of years; but the 
 facts observed had made a deep impres- 
 sion upon Freud, and he meditated upon 
 them during a period of ten years, a part 
 of which time he spent as a student of 
 Charcot in Paris. On his return to Vienna, 
 he urged Breuer to take up the matter 
 again, and to utilize the striking results 
 obtained in this case as a basis for investi- 
 gations upon a larger scale. After this, 
 for a time, the two worked together, later 
 Freud alone. In a recent review of these 
 experiences and of the subsequent history 
 of the psycho-analytic movement, Freud 
 points out that Breuer, who was a much 
 older man and a student of general medi- 
 
 75 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 cine, withdrew from the enterprise (as the 
 former believes) at a point when he became 
 half consciously aware whither it was driving 
 — or rather, that it was driving in a direc- 
 tion in which he did not care to go further. 
 Freud was then, and has remained, a 
 man of keen insight, and of remarkable 
 honesty and fearlessness. Special reasons 
 of a personal character had led him to 
 interest himself in the treatment of ner- 
 vous disorders, and the study of medicine 
 was the natural avenue to that field. 
 Having once made his choice, he found him- 
 self captured and engrossed by the interest 
 of this new movement, which had impressed 
 him from the outset as one of great impor- 
 tance. He felt himself a pioneer in a new 
 country, and under conscientious obligation 
 to report, without hesitation, everything 
 that he found there exactly as he found it. 
 In no other way can any pioneer explorer 
 fulfil his obligations toward mankind, whose 
 unchosen representative he is. 
 
 76 
 
THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC MOVEMENT 
 
 One of the first facts that forced itself 
 gradually more and more upon his notice 
 was that the childhood of patients with 
 nervous symptoms is, in an unexpected 
 degree and sense, the parent of their later 
 years; and also that the symptoms which 
 many of them present later form a sort of 
 hieroglyphic language in which their earlier 
 history is preserved. He learned to see 
 that the accounts which his patients gave 
 to explain the onset of their illnesses had 
 by no means the significance which they 
 purported to have. Most of these nervous 
 disorders come on either in puberty, — 
 that is, at the beginning of one of the great 
 critical periods of life, — or at a time when 
 the person concerned is subjected to some 
 one or another of the inevitable strains of 
 personal, domestic, or social responsibility. 
 This is no more true, however, of nervous 
 invalids than it is of persons living the 
 ordinary life of citizens in the community. 
 The long shadows of coming responsibility, 
 
 77 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 which begin to make their appearance 
 during adolescence, the necessity, virtual 
 if not actual, of thinking of oneself as a 
 husband, a wife, a parent, the acute or 
 prolonged strains of increasing cares, grow- 
 ing anxiety, coupled with the obligation 
 to bear one's burdens to a great extent 
 alone, — all these difficulties, present or 
 to come, combine to accentuate any specific 
 tendencies to weakness, of whatever sort. 
 But over and above these causes, and as 
 furnishing a virtual preparation for them, 
 there are to be found, by careful searching, 
 a series of predispositions, due partly to 
 the accentuation, in infancy and child- 
 hood, of particular traits and tendencies 
 of temperament and character, or to the 
 establishment of partial arrests of develop- 
 ment at certain points along the line of 
 rapidly changing infancy and childhood. 
 Thus are laid down what might be called 
 special lines of least resistance. 
 
 From the individual himself all the 
 78 
 
THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC MOVEMENT 
 
 details of this early history are hidden. 
 What he feels and what he tries to ward 
 off is a sense of distress which he often 
 recognizes as a sense of estrangement 
 from himself. 1 What he does not recognize 
 is that in consequence of these temporary 
 inhibitions to further progress that be- 
 came established in infancy and early 
 childhood, he became subject to special 
 forms of temptation which were thereafter 
 to be reckoned with. When prevented 
 from pushing forward toward the best 
 outcome, the stream of energy of which 
 the individual is the expression occupies 
 channels which would otherwise have been 
 left unflooded. In like fashion the child 
 who cannot enter into the life of his school 
 companions finds some means of occupying 
 his wits and hands, and thus opens doors 
 for himself into modes of gratification and 
 
 1 The sense of being in the grasp of some agency foreign to 
 oneself, which accompanies this sense of estrangement, is the 
 equivalent of the demonic "possession" of the ancients. 
 
 79 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 excitement to which he will remain only 
 too liable to return. 
 
 In his attempt to secure for himself 
 some measure of relief from these feelings 
 of distress, the individual, now grown 
 older, feels forced to explain them in some 
 manner which is consonant with his pre- 
 vious training and his theory of life, how- 
 ever crude this theory may be. No per- 
 son can live happily in a world that seems 
 out of relation to his thought; and every 
 man who feels himself surrounded by influ- 
 ences that he cannot understand must per- 
 force attempt to seek some sort of rational 
 explanation, which may have reference 
 only to a particular situation, or may in- 
 volve, though perhaps without his knowl- 
 edge, the framing of some unifying theory 
 of the universe, — which under the cir- 
 cumstances is likely to be imperfect. It 
 is as a part of the attempt to secure such 
 an explanation that the patient lays stress 
 on this or that fatigue, this or that partic- 
 
 80 
 
THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC MOVEMENT 
 
 ular illness or disease as the assumed cause 
 of his distress, or concludes that the uni- 
 verse is cruel or irrational or the com- 
 munity hostile to his peace. 
 
 It is needless to say that I have no inten- 
 tion of minimizing the effect of the later 
 occurrences and strains in which nervous 
 illnesses (so potent, indirectly, as a source 
 of motives) seem to start. I wish only 
 to insist upon the fact that all the pecu- 
 liarities of a man's character and tempera- 
 ment, whether we call them normal or 
 abnormal, desirable or undesirable, are 
 partly due to the establishment in the 
 earliest years of life of those lines of least 
 resistance which in their turn imply tem- 
 porary arrests of development at one or 
 another special point. We are all familiar 
 with the sayings, "The child is father of 
 the man" and "Just as the twig is bent the 
 tree's inclined." But what this means in 
 terms of the exact bending of the twig, 
 the exact characteristic of this or that 
 
 81 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 especial phase of childhood, it is now more 
 possible to state. The later events of life, 
 in other words, owe a large portion of their 
 power for harm to the fact that they repro- 
 duce, in new shape, old emotional excesses 
 and limitations, of childish form and child- 
 ish substance. Children love fairy stories 
 and love to invent them for themselves; 
 and they often go on, — still as children, 
 more mature in years but still immature 
 in fact, — telling themselves fairy stories to 
 the end of time. 
 
 Perhaps through the accompanying set 
 of figures it will be possible to gain a better 
 grasp of this idea. Let us suppose that 
 D represents (by its wholly arbitrarily 
 chosen shape) one or another of these later 
 experiences which is the apparent cause 
 of some undesirable peculiarity of character. 
 Such assumed causes are illness of some 
 sort, losing one's possessions, the death of 
 a relative or friend, and so on. 
 
 Let me say again that I do not deny that 
 
THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC MOVEMENT 
 
 events like these, whose number is infinite, 
 may in this or that particular case exert 
 a considerable share of the influence that 
 has been ascribed to them. All that I 
 would affirm is that in everybody's his- 
 tory the effect of these later occurrences is 
 immensely accentuated if earlier experi- 
 ences of an emotional sort have occurred 
 in infancy and early childhood, strong 
 enough to give a " set " to the patient's 
 traits, and with a sufficiently accurate 
 resemblance to the later experiences to 
 have enabled the patient's instinct to utilize 
 the latter as means of vaguely recalling 
 the former. 
 
 In the case suggested by the diagram, 
 the figures A, B, C, and D, although by no 
 means alike, resemble one another in several 
 respects. "Birds of a feather flock to- 
 gether" in the mental as in the physical 
 world ; and if the experience A, which we 
 assume to have been one occurring during 
 the plastic period of infancy, trivial though 
 
 83 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 it would perhaps have seemed in the eyes 
 of the adult, was able to make a powerful 
 emotional impression at that 
 time, it will seek to reproduce 
 itself later through B and C 
 and D 9 and through a thou- 
 sand more such B's and C's 
 and D's. This tendency will 
 also be a much stronger one 
 if the emotional experience A 
 was wholly, or in part, re- 
 pressed at the time of its oc- 
 currence, or soon after. For 
 B/ these repressed experiences 
 have a marvellous ability to 
 resist the influence of time. 
 The only part of all this pro- 
 cess of which the patient re- 
 l i ? tains conscious awareness may 
 be a sense of nameless distress, 
 corresponding to the conflict between two 
 sets of desires which he had felt. It is this 
 nameless distress that forces him to adopt 
 
 84 
 
 Y 
 
THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC MOVEMENT 
 
 some seemingly rational explanation, — the 
 illness, etc., — which, however, in view of 
 the repression that has occurred, cannot be 
 the real explanation. The distress, even, 
 may be absent. The thoroughly egoistic 
 patient, for example, often feels his egoistic 
 cut de sac to be a paradise. And yet it is 
 the fool's paradise par excellence in the 
 eyes of most onlookers. 
 
 One point of essential interest in the 
 developments to which the study of the 
 famous first case of Breuer and Freud — 
 and of the tens and hundreds of others 
 which came after it — soon gave rise was 
 that emotions of a very personal nature, 
 implying personal tensions of an emotional 
 character, came more and more definitely 
 to the front, and that when these were 
 scrutinized, they were found to pass with- 
 out a break into that great storehouse of 
 intense feeling that one designates as "sex- 
 ual." As the result of studying these 
 developments, Freud found himself obliged 
 
 85 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 to conclude that only those persons suf- 
 fer from these nervous disorders whose sex- 
 emotions (the word being taken in a sense 
 presently to be defined) are in some way 
 disturbed. This statement was at first 
 one of concomitance rather than of cause. 
 But the causal significance of it became, 
 as time went on, forced more and more 
 into the foreground of discussion. When 
 one who is furnished with the information 
 that is now available looks back upon the 
 formative period of these doctrines and 
 lays aside prejudice of all sorts, it seems 
 extraordinary that the generalization given 
 should have aroused the storm of comment 
 that it did. For the persons whom Freud 
 studied were, speaking broadly, persons 
 in whom the evidences of the emotional 
 life are always prominent; that is, first 
 of all, his patients, then the great class of 
 artists of every form and sort, painters, 
 sculptors, poets, musicians, writers of fic- 
 tion, and representatives of religion and 
 
 86 
 
THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC MOVEMENT 
 
 philosophy, of certain types — persons, in 
 a word, who have strong emotions which 
 they cannot express directly and so must 
 express indirectly, — as by symbols. Stat- 
 ing this in another way, Freud and the 
 psycho-analysts have but followed the lead 
 of the innumerable writers of romance, 
 song, and drama, seeking only to carry 
 further and to express in scientific terms 
 what these others had given utterance to 
 in other fashions. 
 
 Freud has never asserted it as his opinion, 
 and it certainly is not mine, that this is the 
 only root from which artistic expression 
 springs. On the other hand it is probable 
 that all artistic productions are partly 
 referable to this source, and a close exam- 
 ination of many of them would enable 
 any one to justify the opinion that it is a 
 source which is largely drawn upon. To 
 feel that in saying this I bring an unjust 
 accusation against artists and those whose 
 expression partakes of the artistic would 
 
 87 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 be to seriously misunderstand my mean- 
 ing and the facts at issue. We need not, 
 indeed, confine ourselves to writers of 
 romance. Every student of folk-lore and 
 the histories of primitive races, every 
 student of evolution, such as Darwin, is 
 aware that reproduction forms an essen- 
 tial part of the duty of every living thing, 
 and that the preparations for it are multi- 
 fold and vast to a degree infinitely tran- 
 scending — one might think — the actual 
 necessities of the case. It is so imperative 
 that plants and animals should provide 
 for the perpetuation of their species that 
 they adopt inconceivably subtle and varied 
 methods to bring this result about and to 
 make sure that it shall succeed. It is in 
 this light that the whole matter should be 
 studied, and no thinking person can remain 
 in ignorance of the fact that a large pro- 
 portion of the conventions of men's social 
 lives have, among other things, this end 
 in view. Around this great function of 
 
 88 
 
THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC MOVEMENT 
 
 reproduction — a function so inherent that 
 even to live or to think is to create or repro- 
 duce — emotions center that are stronger, 
 more varied, and at the same time more 
 repressed than are any other set of motives 
 whatsoever. How, then, could it be other- 
 wise than that in any great system of emo- 
 tional reactions (for as such it is certain that 
 "symptoms" should be classified) these 
 emotions should be prominent? 
 
 The question need not here be raised 
 whether from every point of view it is 
 desirable or necessary to classify as sexual 
 a large number of phenomena that Freud 
 did so classify. For it should be known 
 that he came, after a time, to extend this 
 designation to every personal relation, of 
 whatever sort, in which the "tender emo- 
 tions" are conspicuously active. In brief, 
 he made it synonymous with the German 
 word "lieben" which may be looked upon 
 as practically equivalent to our English 
 "love." 
 
 89 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 One can readily see, at the same time, 
 how it happened that people shrank so 
 strongly and so bitterly from accepting 
 Freud's aphoristic proposition and declined 
 utterly to treat his statements with the 
 respect they would have shown to any 
 other scientific generalization standing on 
 a similar foundation of observation. How 
 numerous and important are the conclu- 
 sions that have been reached on data 
 gathered with less conscientiousness and 
 pains and less convincing than those which 
 he brought forward! Indeed, one of the 
 most interesting and important pieces of 
 evidence in the case is the very fact of this 
 hostility; and Freud tells us that he him- 
 self at first shared in the repugnance, and 
 that he might never have reached the 
 conclusions he did reach had he not remem- 
 bered certain strong opinions casually 
 dropped by several of his teachers, which 
 he was at first inclined to disbelieve but 
 which retained a hold upon his memory. 
 
 90 
 
THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC MOVEMENT 
 
 The fact of the presence of this resist- 
 ance in people's minds is, I repeat, one of 
 the strongest reasons for believing that we 
 have here to deal with a set of feelings that 
 are, in the first place, intensely strong, 
 in the next place vigorously repressed, 
 and, in the third place, preserved through 
 this very repression as furnishing a real 
 and desirable richness of meaning to all 
 the acts of daily life in which personal rela- 
 tionships are concerned, and also as furnish- 
 ing a treasure-house of excitement on which 
 we can instinctively draw, even to an unde- 
 sirable extent, without making it appear, 
 even to ourselves, that this is being done. 
 
 The poet who stirs our emotions with 
 his recitals of deeds or thoughts to which 
 the term "excess" might justifiably be 
 applied has no realization that this excess 
 on which he counts has its root in the repres- 
 sions of his sex emotions. It is not neces- 
 sary that he should become aware of this 
 fact, unless as a student in this field. But 
 
 91 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 on the other hand, it is important that 
 those persons in society, be they intelligent 
 laymen, disinterested mothers, or educators, 
 who desire to form their opinions on the 
 basis of a real knowledge of human nature, 
 should know all that they can of the prin- 
 ciples here at stake. 
 
 We often hear it said that Freud and his 
 followers have "gone too far" in classi- 
 fications of this sort and in the references 
 that they make to symbolizations of innu- 
 merable sorts. But it is forgotten, or not 
 realized, that the use of these symboliza- 
 tions dates back for the most part to 
 periods so remote that their historical 
 origin is shrouded in deep mystery, and, 
 on the other hand, that the importance of 
 the classification is not apparent until the 
 time comes when it must be used to serve 
 some really practical end. I repeat, how- 
 ever, that the striking fact is the attitude 
 of hostility to the suggestion of the validity 
 of a classification such as this, an attitude 
 . 92 
 
THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC MOVEMENT 
 
 which can have no other root than the 
 fact that the ideas which it brings up are 
 accompanied by emotional tensions so great 
 and at the same time so significant and 
 in a sense so sacred, that we are unwilling 
 to have them played upon, or even clearly 
 to recognize them ourselves. 
 
 When we rise to a mental level next 
 above the feelings of this class, we find 
 ourselves face to face with a sentiment 
 which the Church from time to time has 
 done so much to foster: that everything 
 that has to do with the sexual emotions is 
 gross and wrong. This idea is in part, 
 no doubt, of Oriental origin, since in the 
 East repression has been carried so far 
 as to involve even life itself, — as exempli- 
 fied, for instance, by the conduct of the 
 monks in Thibet, who have themselves 
 enclosed, while still comparatively young, 
 in caves connecting with the outer world 
 only by small openings through which 
 insufficient quantities of food are pushed. 
 
 93 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 On the other hand, it has been an accom- 
 paniment of the growth of the desire for a 
 fuller life of the spirit, and an immortality 
 through which the pains and sorrows of 
 this world should be shaken off or left 
 behind. Some persons consider the body as 
 a cage, a prison-house, and the home of dust 
 and decay in which we are compelled to live 
 but from which we should long and aspire 
 to escape. Needless to say, there are 
 still many religious sects the world over 
 among whom feelings of this sort are 
 carried to an unwarrantable point. 
 
 But the fact that has been overlooked 
 in all these tendencies is that when we are 
 dealing with human nature we are deal- 
 ing with a power to which we may, for the 
 moment, blind ourselves, and that can be 
 modified but cannot be obliterated. 
 
 It is in seeking and finding ever-new 
 outlets for these repressed emotions that 
 adaptation, often in injurious forms, takes 
 place. 
 
 94 
 
THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC MOVEMENT 
 
 I have called attention to the fact that 
 it is in the periods of infancy and early 
 childhood that the lines of least resistance 
 are laid down, traits and tendencies formed, 
 and compromises adopted which the adult 
 needs only to follow later in order to rind 
 himself launched on a path of trouble, 
 the source of which is hidden even from 
 himself. All that I can say on this point, 
 to which a volume might easily be devoted, 
 must be condensed into a few paragraphs. 
 But it is so important that I cannot pass 
 it altogether by. 
 
 If any one should imagine that it was 
 my intention to characterize the period 
 of infancy and childhood as one of gross 
 sensuality — of such a sort, for example, 
 as really to justify in a psychological sense 
 the term "original sin,' 9 which our fathers 
 used so freely to cover such facts as those 
 of which I am about to speak, he would 
 be very much mistaken. On the contrary, 
 I feel myself entirely in sympathy with 
 
 95 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 the best that the poets of childhood, such 
 as Wordsworth, have maintained. Espe- 
 cially do I recognize the truth of the state- 
 ment made by Froebel with regard to the 
 play of childhood, which he characterizes 
 as a pure and spiritual activity, typical 
 of the inner natural life in man, saying 
 of it that it gives " larger freedom and 
 contentment, inner and outer rest, peace 
 with the world." One of the best out- 
 comes of our elaborate studies in philosophy 
 and psychology, in ethics and morals and 
 the art of living, would be the recovery, — 
 in a form penetrated through with self-con- 
 scious recognition, — of the glorious self- 
 forgetting spontaneity, the creativeness 
 that knows no bounds, the sense of com- 
 radeship which competition only strength- 
 ens, the power of passing without a 
 break from thought and fancy into act, 
 the power of recognizing obstacles and limi- 
 tations as fences to be climbed, in response 
 to a challenge joyfully accepted, — of all 
 
THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC MOVEMENT 
 
 of which blessings most children have 
 experienced something and imagined more 
 under the form of play. 
 
 Nevertheless, it must be recognized also 
 that childhood is a time of doubt, disap- 
 pointment, and passion, from which, at 
 the moment, children often long to get 
 away. 
 
 One of the first things the child finds 
 when he comes into his new world is that 
 he has a greater capacity for sense per- 
 ception than he has power to utilize. 
 For this reason many of his feelings are 
 not what psychologists call feelings of 
 relation, — that is, not such as prompt 
 him and help him to carry out better cer- 
 tain acts the utility of which he is later 
 to discover. What wonder is it then, that 
 thus placed, thus compelled to occupy him- 
 self almost exclusively with his own sensa- 
 tions and to build the world of his imagina- 
 tion largely on the basis of them, taking 
 the persons about him, to a great extent, 
 
 97 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 as sources of possible (and always personal) 
 gratification ; what wonder is it that the 
 young child should become an egoist, as 
 he does? 
 
 Another striking fact about the infant 
 is that he comes into the v/orld as the 
 inheritor of tendencies which had their 
 origin and usefulness in dark periods of 
 his development, of which we know the 
 history only through the researches of 
 biologists. 
 
 To pass hastily onward, I would simply 
 state that in the child's next period he 
 comes in contact with persons, that is, with 
 society, — namely, the society of his mother 
 and his nurse. The greatest real service 
 that such persons can render the young 
 child is to make of themselves a bridge 
 over which he may pass into a broader 
 life. But too often, led thereto by their 
 own selfishness and ignorance, their own 
 still living and active immaturity, they 
 fail in this important mission and let them- 
 
 98 
 
THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC MOVEMENT 
 
 selves become of too much importance 
 to the child in and for themselves. 
 
 I will summarize, in brief, by pointing 
 out that childhood, consecrate it and admire 
 it as we may, corresponds to the period 
 of immaturity of the race. It is the 
 Unshapen Land of the Greeks, the home 
 of fantasies of power and longing. 
 
 One cannot too much admire the myth 
 of Hercules (whose strength, it should be 
 noted, lay not in his muscles but in his 
 reason and his will) who strangled, when 
 an infant in his cradle, the serpents sent 
 against him by the envious Juno. The 
 serpent, as most people are aware, repre- 
 sents two things : temptation, as in the 
 Garden of Eden, and wisdom, as when it 
 is made to symbolize the physician's power 
 of healing. It is wholly within the accepted 
 interpretation of primitive customs and 
 mythology for us to assert, as a meaning 
 if not the meaning, of this story, that 
 Hercules, in strangling these serpents, sym- 
 
 99 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 bolized the overcoming of temptation on 
 the one hand and the gaining of wisdom 
 and of force of character on the other. 
 It will be remembered, for example, that 
 among our own Indians the strength and 
 courage of the conquered enemy are sup- 
 posed to pass into the soul of the warrior 
 by whom he has been vanquished. 
 
 It is needless to say that I appreciate, 
 as well as any one, that most children are 
 preserved from wandering very far into 
 the blind alleys of self-assertion and of 
 self-indulgence. Some distance they must 
 wander, and some obstacles they must 
 conquer. It is well for them that they 
 have these obstacles to face ; it is well also 
 that the obstacles are not greater. But 
 the duty devolves on those who guard 
 and guide their footsteps to see that they 
 learn not to disguise and repress their pur- 
 poses, and do not go too far astray. 
 
 The subject of repression should be 
 sufficiently intelligible in its main outlines 
 100 
 
THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC MOVEMENT 
 
 to any person who has watched with mod- 
 erate care his own mental processes; and 
 so, also, should some of the reasons be 
 clear to him for the resistance which every 
 one instinctively opposes to the setting free 
 of these repressed thoughts. Less evident 
 would it seem, perhaps, to some persons, 
 that the emotions which have been re- 
 pressed in this fashion, and which are 
 recovered with such difficulty, continue to 
 play active parts in determining our con- 
 duct and forming our motives and our 
 thoughts. The testimony for the validity 
 of this principle has been extensively fur- 
 nished, not alone by Freud, but by psychol- 
 ogists of all schools. 
 
 The distinctive feature of the uncon- 
 scious life as defined by Freud is not re- 
 vealed by the descriptions of those writers 
 for whom the terms "unconscious" and 
 "subconscious" have the same meaning. 
 The number of experiences which a person 
 has absolutely forgotten, in the ordinary 
 
 101 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 sense of that word, or which lie for the 
 moment outside the circle of his conscious 
 attention is, of course, very large ; but the 
 interest of the unconscious for the psycho- 
 analyst lies not alone in this fact, but as 
 much and more in the fact of the energetic 
 part which these groups of repressed and 
 organized emotions continue to play, on 
 which we turn our backs for the distinct 
 reason that they have an interest for us 
 and yet are felt to be out of harmony with 
 the main purposes of our conscious lives. 
 If looked at in this way, it might be said 
 that these repressed emotions, carefully 
 concealed from us though they are, lie 
 really near the surface of our minds. We 
 close our eyes to them, indeed, but can find 
 them, if we are willing, and have taught 
 ourselves, to look for them. Should we 
 look for them, and should we endeavor to 
 break down the resistances within our minds 
 that prompt us not to do so ? This ques- 
 tion is answered by different sorts of people 
 102 
 
THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC MOVEMENT 
 
 in two different ways. Some persons feel 
 that their repressions are natural and useful, 
 and that instead of trying to reveal their 
 troublesome emotions to themselves they 
 should turn away from them and devote 
 themselves to some work of usefulness in 
 the community. So widely do circum- 
 stances vary that there is no general rule 
 to give; and I have, indeed, studiously 
 avoided going deeply into any medical or 
 therapeutical argument. Two things, how- 
 ever, I will say. The first is that a per- 
 son reaps no benefit from claiming that 
 the tendencies which he deprecates are 
 not his own, that he is not responsible for 
 his unconscious thoughts. In my opinion 
 this is one of the numerous reactions of 
 defense, and one of an objectionable kind. 
 What do we gain, and what does the world 
 gain, either the world of science or the 
 world of social life, through such a refusal 
 on the part of any one to make himself 
 responsible for what is really a portion of 
 103 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 himself? It is not so much a question of 
 who is responsible for these repressed 
 emotions as it is of the fact that they are 
 playing an important part in our lives 
 and in the community, and that we are the 
 only persons who can take charge of them. 
 It is a matter of choice with each person 
 how far he will agree to accept the re- 
 sponsibility for his unconscious thoughts. 
 He need not do so if he feels that his real 
 welfare is best served by keeping them 
 concealed and ignoring their existence, 
 and if he is not hampered by a haunting 
 consciousness of their presence. He does 
 himself no indignity, on the other hand, 
 if he chooses to consider and study their 
 nature and to lay the ghosts of his fears 
 and desires by meeting them face to face. 
 To do this is usually to find that they 
 indicate the presence of tendencies which 
 are natural but which need to be under- 
 stood, respected, and controlled. 
 
 104 
 
Chapter IV 
 Educational Bearings of Psycho- Analysis 
 
 THE question is often asked by persons 
 interested in the psycho-analytic 
 movement: "Is it doing anything 
 toward the prevention of the evils to which 
 it calls attention?" This chapter will 
 take up a number of points bearing on 
 the problems which the question raises. 
 I begin by proposing a modification in the 
 form of the question itself, so that it shall 
 read: "Has the psycho-analytic move- 
 ment brought to light any special prin- 
 ciples that persons having to do with the 
 education of children or interested in prob- 
 lems of social progress can teach themselves 
 to utilize?" 
 
 The psycho-analytic method in its com- 
 plete form is applicable only as between 
 
 105 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 doctor and patient, and cannot be used 
 except on a relatively small scale. If 
 anything more extensive is to be accom- 
 plished this can be done only through the 
 voluntary efforts of intelligent and inter- 
 ested persons who are willing to study at 
 once themselves and those under their 
 charge, and to restrain within modest limits 
 their expectations of definite results. 
 Neither teachers nor parents can make 
 themselves psycho-analysts without a spe- 
 cial training. What they can do is to recog- 
 nize what the essential aims of the psycho- 
 analytic method are, and to what its suc- 
 cess is mainly due; and then to make 
 themselves masters of a few of the prin- 
 ciples which its use has emphasized, and 
 to consider in what way these principles 
 can be applied to children at large, in the 
 schoolroom and at home. 
 
 The aim of the psycho-analytic method, 
 as used in medical practice, is to bring 
 the whole mass of thoughts and emotions 
 106 
 
EDUCATIONAL BEARINGS 
 
 which are actively influencing the motives 
 and the conduct of a patient under the 
 control of his conscious will. Recognizing 
 the fact that these emotions have had no 
 adequate outlet and are out of harmony 
 with the main body of the motives which the 
 patient, as a member of society, acknowl- 
 edges as his own, the physician helps him 
 to find an outlet for them in speech, and 
 to discover in this way a means of recon- 
 ciliation between them and "himself." 
 
 The patient is encouraged to give the 
 fullest expression to his thoughts, and, to 
 this end, to place himself, successively and 
 repeatedly and by the aid of memory and 
 imagination, in the various situations rep- 
 resenting the deeper layers of his present 
 ideas and emotions and those of his youth 
 and, so far as possible, of his childhood 
 and his infancy. These deep-going con- 
 versations are the equivalent, in aim, of 
 those which every judicious mother and 
 teacher gladly encourage child and pupil to 
 107 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 carry on, so far as circumstances may 
 permit. The sole purpose in undertaking 
 them, in the case of the physician and 
 his patient, is to aid the latter to define 
 the conflicts which harass him and to find 
 that the significance of these conflicts shifts 
 as he transfers them on to higher levels 
 and brings them within the reach of a 
 wider knowledge and a broader and more 
 generous outlook. 
 
 A conflict thus transferred to a higher 
 level is a conflict largely solved; but in 
 order that its expression on this level 
 should be reached, an appreciative hear- 
 ing must first be accorded to it on a level 
 that corresponds to the fantasy-weaving 
 days of childhood, when the real world was 
 of a very different sort from any with which 
 the adult, in his ignorance of himself, is 
 still familiar. Stevenson has lighted up 
 a small fragment of this situation in his 
 story, "The Lantern Bearers." He makes 
 many a reader thrill with sympathy for 
 108 
 
EDUCATIONAL BEARINGS 
 
 the members of this secret order, whose 
 deep excitement "over nothing" might, in 
 real life, have been dismissed with a smile, 
 possibly with a rebuke. 
 
 But if an effort is required to get even 
 thus far into our youth, how much harder 
 is it to get with complete sympathy into 
 those still earlier years which are in fact 
 so full of significance for the remainder 
 of our lives ! Yet this is a task well worth 
 the expenditure of much time and labor. 
 The child should be assured of a ready 
 hearing and of sympathy for wishes and 
 ideas however grotesque, however foreign 
 to the hearer's present thought. He should 
 find in his parents or teachers persons for 
 whom his childish and foolish fancies have 
 a value, as they have for himself; patient 
 listeners, who do not think him morbid 
 because he feels an interest in questions as 
 to the origin of his own physical or spiritual 
 being. It can not be too strongly urged 
 upon every mother that it is her business 
 
 109 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 to understand the child's gropings, or at 
 the least not to stifle or check his inquiries, 
 whatever direction they may take. 1 The 
 essential thing is that the child should be 
 given the best possible chance to show all 
 that he has in him, of understanding, of 
 poetry, of personal power, and that these 
 forces should be led gradually into the 
 channels of broader social ends. He should 
 neither be flattered, nor too much per- 
 suaded, nor too much indulged, nor too 
 much dominated. If conformity is de- 
 manded in lesser matters, as it must be, 
 care should be taken that it does not make 
 itself felt as a controlling influence through- 
 out. 2 
 
 1 1 recommend to the careful reading of all educators an ad- 
 mirable book, "The Individual Delinquent," by William Healy, 
 whose work in connection with the Juvenile Court of Chicago is 
 well known. 
 
 2 It is true that society hates a non-conformist, but the tendency 
 to accept this attitude should be regarded with suspicion. Each 
 individual may be said to be surrounded with an invisible net. 
 So long as he conforms, he does not feel the net ; but let him try 
 to break away from conformity, and he finds himself a prisoner. 
 This situation is, however, more subtle and more interesting than 
 
 110 
 
EDUCATIONAL BEARINGS 
 
 Above all, the possibility should be 
 recognized by parents and teachers that 
 to indulge or to dominate a child often 
 means only to seek an outlet for one's own 
 desires. 
 
 It is no doubt true that there is a cer- 
 tain danger of over-doing intimate con- 
 versations with children, just as there is 
 danger attaching to almost every powerful 
 influence. So long as free talking means 
 continuous progress, and especially so long 
 as it is found to lead to a greater sense of 
 freedom and happiness, to an increased 
 participation in the child's companionship, 
 its effect may justly be estimated as bene- 
 ficial. If the time arrives when the desire 
 to talk becomes a source of undue excite- 
 ment or morbid gratification on the child's 
 part, it should be regarded as the con- 
 
 the illustration would suggest. A certain amount"? of non-con- 
 formity is permitted, so that we may have the sense of being free. 
 Deceived in this way, many persons fail to realize to what extent 
 they are enslaved. But the sense of dependence may, in its turn, 
 be coveted and is a temptation to be shunned. 
 
 Ill 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 dition calling for careful consideration on 
 its own merits. 
 
 The criterion of willingness on the part 
 of the child to recognize himself as a social 
 being, whether in play or work, is of the 
 highest value. It is the community which 
 is the unit, not the individual regarded as 
 alone. Even the most misanthropic, the 
 most shy, self-conscious, and unsociable or 
 a-sociable of persons virtually recognizes 
 this truth. To social life of some sort the 
 affection and devotion of the parent should 
 be the avenue and the bridge. 
 
 I am not dealing here, however, with 
 the innumerable troubles and dangers to 
 which children are exposed, but am only 
 suggesting measures which all thoughtful 
 and intelligent parents can profitably use 
 with a view to keeping their children from 
 forming too strongly the repression habit. 
 Any emotional excess carries with it a 
 certain danger, and yet no development can 
 be ideal. Every decision involves cutting 
 
 m 
 
EDUCATIONAL BEARINGS 
 
 oneself off from some other choice, and 
 the only question is what general rules 
 can be adopted through which to place one- 
 self within the range of favorable chances. 
 The river of life must flow onward, and 
 the child must learn to forget himself in 
 affection, play, and work. It is certain, 
 however, that there will be eddies and back- 
 waters in the river which will more or less 
 impede its flow. 
 
 Another danger that the researches of 
 psycho-analysts have done much to illu- 
 minate has reference to the significance of 
 this or that act, — this or that objection- 
 able or self-indulgent habit, for example, — 
 regarded in itself. I wish to call attention 
 to the fact that too much stress is often 
 laid upon the act, and too little upon the 
 tendency of which the particular act may 
 be a sign. The significance, for educational 
 purposes, of an act interpreted as a sign 
 is often very great, whereas if the attention 
 of the parent and the child is concentrated 
 
 113 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 on the act itself the result may be that 
 the underlying tendency passes uncorrected 
 and shows itself in some new form. The 
 ancient myth of the Old Man of the Sea 
 may profitably be recalled in this connec- 
 tion, as illustrating how fertile a dominant 
 tendency may show itself in the invention 
 of ever new manifestations of itself. Her- 
 cules, in this instance, who had the intelli- 
 gence to see through these diversities of 
 form to the motive that underlay them, 
 may serve as the representative of the in- 
 telligent parent or teacher who does not 
 allow his imagination to be carried away 
 too easily with the idea that because he 
 has induced the child to repress some out- 
 ward habit he has necessarily aided him 
 thereby to overcome the self-indulgent 
 motive of which the habit w T as only one 
 expression. 
 
 The next question that arises is as to 
 the mental qualifications of the parent or 
 the teacher to serve as instructor of the 
 
 114 
 
EDUCATIONAL BEARINGS 
 
 child. I believe that in preparation for 
 this task they could and should scrutinize 
 carefully their own unconscious tendencies 
 and motives. In making this attempt 
 they should determine to avoid the pitfall 
 of self -depreciation and self-reproach, — 
 a habit which is exceedingly enticing be- 
 cause it can mask itself as a rational 
 acknowledgment of error, whereas it is in 
 reality little else than a form of egotism. 
 The intelligent commander wishing to push 
 forward against an enemy that he fears 
 does not pause long to dwell upon his mis- 
 takes ; and yet he makes himself aware of 
 them. What is needed by most people 
 is more knowledge of the possibilities, 
 capacities, and dangers which lie about the 
 pathways of their children and themselves ; 
 but the habit of passing judgments and 
 forming moral estimates is more likely to 
 hamper than to help. On the other hand, 
 any one may properly feel at liberty to 
 view with suspicion emotional excess in 
 115 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 every form. Each individual must decide, 
 with reference to a given case, what form he 
 will let his feelings take, but should prepare 
 himself to discover that an over-strong 
 emotion of one sort is pretty certain to be 
 counterbalanced by some opposing ten- 
 dency of which he is unaware. The wisest 
 person is he who can clearly see both these 
 antagonistic tendencies. But it is of some 
 value to know that they are there, and 
 strengthened by that knowledge to march 
 forward toward the performance of our 
 tasks, rilled with sympathy for our neigh- 
 bors, and rilled, too, with the strong desire 
 to do our best for the welfare of the com- 
 munity. 
 
 There is a tendency among physicians and 
 teachers to make their personal influence 
 over their patients or pupils count as too 
 strong a factor. They do not sufficiently 
 realize, in doing this, that the ultimate 
 result may be to diminish the latter's sense 
 of independence. I emphasize this point 
 
 116 
 
EDUCATIONAL BEARINGS 
 
 because psycho-analysts have studied it 
 with especial care. They have shown the 
 dangers and objections attendant on such 
 relations and have taken pains to guard 
 their patients and themselves against them. 
 Through considering the subject of sick- 
 ness, on the one hand, and health, on the 
 other, and the relationship between the 
 two, I learned long ago to realize that 
 nervous invalids are indistinguishable, both 
 in theory and practice, from the people who 
 are classified as "well." There are few 
 among us who have not suffered in some 
 measure under unreasonable fears, the sense 
 of estrangement, compulsions, obsessions 
 or analogous disorders, such as destroy the 
 savor of life for so many fine, courageous 
 persons, and none who have not felt the 
 yoke of temperamental traits that are of 
 the same origin with these symptoms. 
 Almost all men, when exposed to stress 
 and strain, show characteristics of objec- 
 tionable sorts. In reality, these charac- 
 
 117 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 teristics should be thought of as always 
 present although usually concealed, and 
 there is no sufficient reason why one per- 
 son should plume himself on the absence 
 of these traits or why another should 
 blame himself because he has them. Men- 
 tal good health is more clearly evidenced 
 by the desire to learn how best to deal with 
 the qualities of which we find ourselves in 
 charge than in fixing the gaze on the re- 
 spects in which we seem to be superior. 
 It might be said that all men warm their 
 hands at the fire where some get burned, 
 — the fire, namely, of emotional excitement 
 and repression, — and we should not hesi- 
 tate to admit this fact. 
 
 The true relationship between "sick- 
 ness" and "health," from the particular 
 point of view here under consideration, 
 becomes much clearer when the fact is 
 borne in mind that the symptoms of 
 disease in general are to be thought of as 
 in part the signs of reactions of a normal 
 118 
 
EDUCATIONAL BEARINGS 
 
 sort. Disease is often popularly considered 
 as nothing but a "visitation," a misfortune, 
 to be recovered from if possible and other- 
 wise to be endured with such fortitude as 
 one can muster. With increasing knowl- 
 edge of pathological processes it became 
 evident, however, many years ago, that a 
 good many of the phenomena, even of 
 bodily disease, could be better classified 
 as phenomena of health. Reactions of 
 this sort (that is, healthy responses on the 
 part of the organism to the challenge of 
 difficulty) are always to be discovered if 
 one looks for them. Nature is always 
 active, and just as surely as water seeks 
 everywhere its level or as melted wax 
 accommodates itself to rough surfaces so 
 does this tendency toward the establish- 
 ment of new equilibriums show itself, even 
 from the moment when the forces of de- 
 struction set about their work. The results 
 of these reactions are interesting and in- 
 structive from the scientific standpoint, 
 119 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 but not invariably satisfactory from the 
 standpoint of the individual regarded as 
 a member of society. Compensation, often- 
 times so useful, may pass into over-com- 
 pensation of a harmful sort. We must be 
 prepared, in any case, to see a very differ- 
 ent result from that which our narrow 
 experience had led us to expect. In our 
 dread of responsibility and of getting far 
 from "goal" we often underrate the re- 
 sources of nature and of ourselves, and in- 
 stinctively repel every change even if for 
 a gain. But no gain comes without sacri- 
 fice, and Emerson shows himself to be a 
 sound observer in saying : 
 
 "When good is near you, when you have 
 life in yourself, it is not by any known or 
 accustomed way; you shall not discern 
 the footprints of any other; you shall not 
 see the face of man; you shall not hear 
 any name ; — the way, the thought, the 
 good, shall be wholly strange and new." 
 
 I first learned the propriety of thus 
 looking upon disease as a "reaction" and 
 120 
 
EDUCATIONAL BEARINGS 
 
 upon many of its phenomena as actual 
 indications of progress toward a new sort 
 of health, at a period, about forty years 
 ago, when it was my privilege to become 
 acquainted with J. Hughlings Jackson of 
 London, one of the great philosophers in 
 medicine. I well remember the strong 
 impression made upon my mind when he 
 pointed out that what we were in the habit 
 of calling the signs of defect and failure 
 on the part of human organisms assumed 
 to be suffering under some malign influence, 
 were really signs of an instinctive attempt 
 on the part of those organisms to reassert 
 themselves. To use the illustration that 
 Jackson then employed, let us suppose we 
 are in the presence of some one who, in 
 consequence of a lesion of the brain, is 
 unable to talk intelligibly, and who, in 
 trying to do so, gives forth a flood of inco- 
 herent sounds. To the friends of such a 
 patient each new utterance of this sort is 
 one sign the more of the misfortune which 
 
 121 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 has befallen him and seems to open a new 
 vista into a distressing future. But let 
 the observer think himself more accurately 
 into the situation, endeavoring from the 
 standpoint of scientific appreciation to 
 look deeply into the process going on within 
 the patient's mind and brain, and it will 
 be seen that behind all this jargon speech 
 there lies a genuine effort to find means 
 of adequate expression, and that forces 
 are at work in him which tend, on the 
 whole, toward the recovery of a relatively 
 stable equilibrium. What we, then, as 
 students of scientific truth, desiring to 
 become familiar with the resources of 
 life at its best, should let ourselves be most 
 impressed with, is not the signs of disor- 
 ganization in such a patient's case, but the 
 signs of a healthy power and determina- 
 tion on the part of the elemental forces of 
 his being to find some new means of read- 
 justment. These elemental forces should be 
 reinforced by insight, intelligence, and will. 
 
 122 
 
EDUCATIONAL BEARINGS 
 
 " Fear not then, thou child infirm, 
 There's no god dare wrong a worm ; 
 Laurel crowns cleave to deserts, 
 And power to him who power exerts. 
 Hast not thy share ? On winged feet, 
 Lo ! it rushes thee to meet ; 
 And all that Nature made thy own, 
 Floating in air or pent in stone, 
 Will rive the hills and swim the sea, 
 And, like thy shadow, follow thee." 
 
 If one compares a series of these reac- 
 tions, differing from each other in com- 
 plexity, it will be found possible, after ex- 
 tending the list somewhat at each end, to 
 obtain a fresh and striking illustration 
 of one of the main theses of this book. 
 
 The principal forms of reaction thus 
 far considered have been those involving 
 biological and pathological processes, rather 
 than those of the mental life. In order 
 to bring out clearly, however, the idea that 
 I have in mind, I will call to the attention 
 of the reader that there are other forms 
 of response which are characteristic of 
 123 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 certain processes of nature that do not 
 involve organic life at all, and yet which 
 simulate reactions of organic life. Some 
 of the phenomena relating to the repair of 
 injured crystals are of this sort, and there 
 are others which show perhaps even more 
 strikingly than this, that tendencies exist 
 which cause even the inorganic world to 
 react in a quasi-purposive manner to dis- 
 turbances of its equilibrium. In the case 
 of the crystals, no matter what the injury 
 may be, the outcome of these responses is, 
 under favorable conditions restoration of 
 the damaged structure to its original form. 
 Not only this, but chemists and physi- 
 cists have shown * that a closer relationship 
 than has usually been recognized exists 
 between natural phenomena and the higher 
 needs of organic life. The earth's crust, 
 it would appear, was prepared for the 
 coming of beings of the type and with the 
 requirements of man. 
 
 1 L. J. Henderson : "Fitness of Environment." 
 124 
 
EDUCATIONAL BEARINGS 
 
 Reactions on the next higher level are 
 of the type of those which biologists have 
 dealt with under the name of tropisms; 
 and with them may be ranged the phenom- 
 ena which have been studied by physi- 
 cians with reference to the repair of wounds. 
 Passing to a higher level still, we come to 
 the reactions that are mainly in question 
 in this chapter, through which the symp- 
 toms of nervous invalidism come into 
 existence. In these reactions, the patient's 
 conscious intelligence seems to take no part ; 
 but on the other hand the unconscious pro- 
 cesses are extensively concerned in their 
 production. And since these unconscious 
 processes are hardly to be spoken of except 
 as portions of our personalities, — por- 
 tions for which we should, strictly speaking, 
 make ourselves responsible, — it may be 
 said that here the mental life intervenes 
 strongly in the determination of the out- 
 come. 
 
 It will, I trust, be understood that these 
 125 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 nervous symptoms differ in no essential 
 respect from a large group of other phe- 
 nomena which would ordinarily be classified 
 as temperamental traits ; and for the sake 
 of making the comparison seem more 
 reasonable, we will assume that reference is 
 here made to traits which cause annoyance 
 to those possessing them, or interfere with 
 their happiness and their usefulness as 
 members of society. The generalizations 
 of Hughlings Jackson were cited mainly 
 to show that the conceptions with refer- 
 ence to disease which we employ to serve 
 our daily needs are misleading when they 
 are adopted as the basis of a scientific classi- 
 fication. I make this statement here again 
 in the hope that by offering a somewhat 
 more scientific explanation of these traits 
 and symptoms I can make it easier for 
 those who are hampered by them to deal 
 with them to better purpose. It is an im- 
 portant fact that the elemental, pleasure- 
 loving tendencies of our nature, which are 
 
EDUCATIONAL BEARINGS 
 
 always prominent in childhood, continue 
 to make themselves felt in later years, 
 though without coming clearly to our 
 consciousness. At the same time every 
 one is under the necessity of conforming 
 to social conventions, and to the demands 
 of conscience which, broadly speaking, is of 
 social origin. Such being the case, let us 
 assume that a child, in consequence of con- 
 flicts within his mind occurring as the result 
 of temptations — not necessarily very im- 
 portant from the adult standpoint — ac- 
 quires the habit of anxiety. Groping for 
 means to free himself from this state, he 
 instinctively refers this anxiety to some 
 special cause ; and thus is developed one or 
 another, or a series, of the meaningless 
 fears of which every one has heard and 
 which most persons have experienced. 
 
 The point to which I desire to call 
 
 attention is that to thus shift the burden 
 
 of the anxiety from its unknown origin 
 
 to an apparently reasonable cause which is 
 
 127 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 not in fact the real cause, is a sort of 
 response which in a sense represents a 
 "gain." Wholly incapable of arguing out 
 the whole process in his mind, the child 
 feels the original strain of the conflict as 
 something from which he seeks relief. By 
 dint of what we will now speak of as a 
 reaction (casting aside the misleading name 
 of "illness"), he states the problem to 
 himself in a form which has at least the 
 appearance of rationality, not realizing that 
 in his symptoms his repressed emotions are 
 present in disguise. 
 
 Looking at the matter in this way, we 
 can see that the reaction as a whole, while 
 it induces a result which in itself is unde- 
 sirable, and one for which those who desire 
 to help the child would gladly substitute 
 a better outcome, brings with it an adjust- 
 ment which, if his unconscious mind had 
 the power to express itself, would be recog- 
 nized as beneficial. The number of pos- 
 sible reactions of this kind is almost indefi- 
 
 128 
 
EDUCATIONAL BEARINGS 
 
 nitely large, and they occur, wholly or in 
 part, without the conscious awareness or 
 cooperation of the person concerned. 
 
 The justice of this conception becomes 
 clearer if one scrutinizes the significance of 
 one's own fits of temporary depression, 
 or if one considers the psychology of a fit 
 of anger, or of self -depreciation. These are 
 illustrations of the principle that I have 
 in mind. Whatever else "the blues" ac- 
 complish, they certainly afford us a chance 
 to bury ourselves in a sea of self-engross- 
 ment; and as for passion, it is far easier 
 to fly into that state than it is to find a 
 rational solution of a given difficulty. We 
 do not desire, in one sense, either the de- 
 pression or the anger; that is, in the 
 fullness of our higher self-conscious wishes 
 we do not so desire. For this reason the 
 idea is always resented that we lend our- 
 selves to such results as these. Neverthe- 
 less, it is we who fall into these states and 
 it is we who derive whatever partial and 
 129 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 unsatisfactory benefit is obtainable through 
 them. If, therefore, we choose to place 
 ourselves in an attitude of responsibility 
 toward our mental processes, the terms 
 "desire" and "gain" as applying to these 
 symptoms or reactions seem not wholly 
 out of place. 
 
 This same statement may be made of a 
 large proportion of our common symptoms, 
 as well as of the objectionable traits and 
 tendencies of emotion in general. There 
 is something in the person so reacting that 
 welcomes the result, even if the person as 
 a whole would gladly have rejected it. 
 
 Finally, we come to the highest reactions 
 of all, — those which every one would 
 recognize to be in harmony with his best 
 purposes and will and would wish to make 
 habitual. They involve self-sacrifice and 
 a postponement of narrower and more per- 
 sonal desires in the interests of the larger 
 social whole of which each individual is a 
 member and a representative. 
 
 130 
 
EDUCATIONAL BEARINGS 
 
 If, now, we glance once more over this 
 whole series of reactions, what shall we 
 consider as their nature? It is impossible 
 to regard some of them as of one origin 
 and the rest as of a wholly different sort, 
 without denying the unity of nature. If 
 the simpler reactions are determined by 
 some influence of which a physical or a 
 chemical phenomenon is usually to be 
 regarded as the type, have we a right to 
 classify the rest, even those which have 
 here been denominated as highest, in the 
 same category? On the other hand, shall 
 we follow the reverse process and regard 
 the whole series as in some sense "per- 
 sonal"? I have said enough to indicate 
 that my judgment is in favor of the latter 
 choice; and I call attention to the fact 
 that a number of eminent students of 
 evolution have pointed out that the law 
 of the survival of the fittest no longer 
 seems to afford an adequate explanation 
 of conduct the moment we pass from the 
 
 131 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 consideration of the acts of animals lower 
 in the scale than man to the motives and 
 the acts of man himself. 
 
 Treatment by psycho-analysis, in brief, 
 is a kind of education. The largest part 
 of the benefit to be derived from it is to 
 be obtained not so much through the dis- 
 covery of the special hidden cause or causes 
 of this or that particular symptom, as 
 through the general development of char- 
 acter that goes on gradually as a result 
 of the removal of the inhibitions by which 
 this development which is part of the nor- 
 mal birthright of every individual had 
 been hitherto obstructed. It is sometimes 
 tempting, for the sake of a striking simile, 
 to recall to oneself the story of the "Frog 
 Prince" or some kindred fairy-tale or myth, 
 as hinting at the possibility of a sudden 
 change of temperament in the desired direc- 
 tion. But although the simile is a sound 
 one if rightly used, a fairer illustration of 
 the course of improvement in most cases 
 
 132 
 
EDUCATIONAL BEARINGS 
 
 would be the process of repair through 
 which an organism long a prey to some dis- 
 ease is gradually aided to regain its health. 
 In proportion as one gains a more fully 
 developed character, through the removal 
 of fixations or harmful trends of character 
 and temperament, and of the inhibitions 
 based thereon — that is, in proportion as 
 one exchanges immaturity for maturity 
 through education — in this same propor- 
 tion will one's unfavorable tendencies grad- 
 ually pass away, or undergo modification 
 for the better. 
 
 133 
 
Chapter V 
 Instincts and Ideals 
 
 I PRESENT in this chapter two dia- 
 grams and a table which are intended 
 to explain, as if seen from a new 
 angle, some of the principles asserted in 
 the foregoing pages, together with certain 
 others that have not as yet been offered. 
 The first two figures should be understood 
 simply as illustrating the doctrine that 
 both of the two forms of influence so fre- 
 quently referred to make themselves felt 
 at every point in a person's life and play 
 their respective parts in the determination 
 of all his acts. 
 
 Figure I represents the view that a man's 
 
 ideal possibilities are implicitly and infer- 
 
 entially present (or "immanent") in all 
 
 that he is and does throughout his life. 
 
 134 
 
INSTINCTS AND IDEALS 
 
 These ideal possibilities are active in pro- 
 portion to the degree that the individual 
 life conforms to the type of the universe- 
 life, and are therefore more effective accord- 
 ing as the individual is more really mature ; 
 but it is suggested that they exist as real 
 forces even in earliest infancy. 
 
 oo 
 
 Maturity — 
 
 •--- Immaturity--- 
 FIG. I. FIG. II. 
 
 Figure II shows that the converse is 
 true of a man's tendency to adaptation 
 and compromise. This tendency also is 
 present throughout life, but is greater or 
 less according as immaturity is greater or 
 less. 
 
 The most "real" thing about a man 
 may be defined, I think, as the creative 
 135 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 spirit which is immanent in him and 
 without which he cannot do his best. 
 This immanent, creative energy I have 
 indicated in Figure I by the mathematical 
 sign of infinity. 
 
 Taken at their face value, these figures 
 might seem to imply a belief on my part 
 that the influence which I have designated 
 as man's immanent ideal is felt more in 
 later life than it is in infancy, and that the 
 reverse is true of the influences which at- 
 tend the necessity of dealing with the 
 repressed emotions and their consequences. 
 Such an assertion as this would be only 
 relatively true, however, and if it had 
 been convenient I should have avoided 
 altogether, by the use of different colors, 
 the implication given through the heavier 
 and lighter shading. The idea presented 
 has been brought forward in earlier pages, 
 and seems indeed simple enough. But 
 it is not usually accepted to the extent 
 that I believe it should be. 
 
 136 
 
INSTINCTS AND IDEALS 
 
 With regard to the doctrine in accord- 
 ance with which "immanence" is possible 
 and at the same time not incompatible 
 with personal independence, I would ask 
 again that each person consider his rela- 
 tion to his own thoughts, to his "team," 
 his family, or his country. If it be urged 
 that the influence of one's "team," or 
 family, or country is immanent only in 
 the sense that it forms a part of one's 
 subconscious thoughts, I can only say 
 that I think such an objection is philo- 
 sophically untenable and incomplete. If, 
 instead of emphasizing the physical sepa- 
 rateness of an individual, one considers 
 him as an incident in the continuous life of 
 innumerable lines of energy, it will seem 
 easier to admit, I think, that an individ- 
 ual life passes over into other lives. 
 The seedling of a tree, if considered at any 
 given moment, may be called an inde- 
 pendent thing or organism. But looked 
 at in another way, this portion of the 
 
 137 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 tree's life is certainly not to be considered 
 as apart from the creative energy that 
 made that tree possible and might create 
 others of like sort. In each and every 
 particular animal or plant the creative 
 energy of the corresponding species is 
 certainly "immanent"; and if we had the 
 perspicacity to see it we should undoubt- 
 edly find some sign, some anatomical mark 
 even, in each part of such an organism, at 
 each moment of its development, in which 
 its entire history would be hinted at or 
 foreshadowed. This is a proposition which 
 the microscope cannot demonstrate as true. 
 But when one looks at a fern in the early 
 summer and finds at its root the prepara- 
 tion for the new ferns of the next year, 
 it seems impossible to doubt that one is 
 in the presence of a tendency which could 
 be traced much further. 
 
 Figures I and II, as I have said, illus- 
 trate the same principle, but in Figure II 
 the application of the principle is reversed. 
 
 138 
 
INSTINCTS AND IDEALS 
 
 As the better is immanent in the less 
 good, and as a man's best possibilities 
 exert an influence even while the necessity 
 for adaptation and compromise seems pres- 
 ent, so the necessity for adaptation and 
 compromise extends throughout his life 
 and makes its influence felt in modifying 
 even the most constructive acts and 
 thoughts. 
 
 One illustration will be sufficient at this 
 point, though many others will be found 
 scattered through the book. I take it 
 from the great subject of love, parent 
 alike of good and harm. The best that 
 this magic word implies corresponds to 
 the best possibilities of man's nature. 
 But the great and sacred word may be 
 used like the flag of an honorable nation 
 hoisted over a pirate's ship. To be genuine 
 and at its best, the love for another person 
 should mean the desire to do for that per- 
 son the best that could be done, or to 
 arouse in him the best that he is capable 
 
 139 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 of expressing. It aims to induce in the 
 person loved something of the same sense 
 of freedom and unselfish devotion by which 
 it is itself inspired. A close inspection 
 often reveals the fact that even when love 
 for another seems most warm the dominant 
 impulse may be a passionate love of self. 
 This admixture should be recognized and 
 the misplaced energy gradually diverted to 
 a better channel. But the situation should 
 not be complicated through the introduc- 
 tion of self -depreciation, which leads to no 
 good outcome. 
 
 140 
 
INSTINCTS AND IDEALS 
 
 TABLE 
 
 Disinterested love 
 Conscious reason 
 
 Imagination serving the interests of reason 
 Conscious will, based on reason 
 Genuineness, as in art, science, and ac- 
 tivity in any department of life 
 Adaptation, consciously directed 
 
 Knowledge 
 
 Rationalization used to secure relief from 
 the sense of disharmony 
 
 Compromise unconsciously adopted 
 
 Reactions of defense 
 
 Self-assertion, sometimes useful, some- 
 times harmful 
 
 " Will to Power " 
 
 Egoism; self-love. 
 
 Fantasy, of immature type, used in the 
 interests of self-love, sense of power 
 and excitement 
 
 Passion; emotional excess, fear based 
 on desire, etc., etc. 
 
 Cravings; persistence of immature, ele- 
 mental desires, desire to inflict or 
 suffer pain 
 
 Instincts 
 
 Undifferentiated energy in emotional 
 form 
 
 141 
 
 B 
 
 CO 
 
 
 V 
 
 > 
 
 a 
 
 B 
 
 CO 
 
 a. 
 
 3 
 
 a 
 
 < 
 
 B 
 
 a 
 
 o 
 
 H 
 
 1 
 
 a 
 
 o 
 
 
 H 
 
 W 
 
 | 
 
 
 
 6' 
 
 3 
 
 0- 
 
 OJ 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 This table aims to make easier of com- 
 prehension some of the different stages 
 through which every person must pass in 
 the course of his journey from the period 
 of birth, and more especially from the time 
 when as a child he begins to eat of the 
 Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, up 
 to the later period when, by the aid of 
 experience well utilized, he reaches the 
 summit of his possibilities. Although, in 
 general terms, this journey is spoken of 
 as the passage from youth to mature life, 
 it would be better characterized, in a 
 psychological sense, as a passage from a 
 virtual immaturity to a virtual maturity. 
 For maturity does not necessarily imply 
 fullness of years; nor is fullness of years 
 capable by itself of eliminating immaturity. 
 
 It seemed to me impossible to represent 
 in a diagram the interpenetration and 
 coalescence which characterize the different 
 qualities suggested in the table. Students 
 of psychology know well that into each 
 142 
 
INSTINCTS AND IDEALS 
 
 act and thought of a given moment the 
 whole past experience of the actor or the 
 thinker enters. But one may go further 
 than this and assert, as I have endeavored 
 to make clear, that in a certain sense the 
 possibilities of the future are foreshadowed 
 in the occurrences of the present. 
 
 It is also impossible to indicate by the 
 table the fact that the denominations used 
 are intended to be suggestive only, and 
 that their significance changes with the 
 changing circumstances of a given case. 
 Self-assertion and egoism, for example, are 
 of value if thought of, not as a final state 
 but as bridges or stepping-stones toward 
 some better outcome. Self-assertion and 
 egoism may, however, be only euphemisms 
 for overbearing domination, the narrowness 
 which robs sympathy of its best attributes, 
 and thoughtlessness pointing toward 
 cruelty. Each one of these objectionable 
 qualities may be hidden (through repres- 
 sion), though its presence in the uncon- 
 
 143 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 scious mind may be hinted at through the 
 outward display of its opposite, just as 
 love and hate, fear and desire, etc., form 
 natural couples, only one half of which 
 is manifested externally. More common 
 than this is the situation in which self- 
 assertion limits progress, as seen in the case 
 of the wife of the clergyman in "The Ser- 
 vant in the House," and in the narrow 
 attitudes of religious sects, sometimes pass- 
 ing into a latitudinarianism which in its 
 turn, runs the danger of sinking into 
 indifferentism. 
 
 It is unnecessary to say more about the 
 contrast between disinterested love and 
 passionate or self-love. But a word may 
 be added about the contrast which this 
 tabular view points out between the power 
 of imagination and fantasy in its different 
 forms. One often hears it said that the 
 imagination, so vivid in the child, but 
 present at all ages, is one of man's most 
 splendid attributes. And so it is, in so 
 144 
 
INSTINCTS AND IDEALS 
 
 far as it fulfils its best offices and serves 
 the constructive interests of the highest 
 reason, love, and will. But here again, as 
 in the case of love, too little distinction is 
 made between the uses to which imagina- 
 tion can be put. Sometimes, as so often 
 happens in the case of the child and the 
 immature adult, or of the hidden, immature 
 yet active portion of each person's nature, 
 this noble gift is employed for the sake of 
 furnishing excitement as an amusement, 
 and the results of over-indulgence in this 
 habit are disastrous. Too often it leads 
 to the pernicious discovery that the dull- 
 ness of life can be readily exchanged for, 
 or compensated by, a series of dramas 
 which one's power of unconscious fantasy- 
 building can easily make as exciting as 
 may be desired (that is, as exciting as one's 
 habits of childhood have set up the taste 
 for). But, unfortunately, while the im- 
 agined tragedies of childhood as pictured 
 in fantasies and daydreams may be sources 
 145 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 of gratification only, the same imagined 
 tragedies, clothed in the garments which 
 the real fears of adult life have woven, 
 form companions of a very different sort. 
 
 The better use of the imagination is 
 that of serving to illuminate the dark and 
 dull places of one's life and of giving clues 
 to the investigating power of reason. It 
 is with the repression into the subconscious 
 life of the fantasies of immature type that 
 their potency for harm begins. 
 
 In the passage from the narrow life of 
 immaturity, egoism, passion, craving, and 
 self-assertion — cultivated in and for them- 
 selves — to the disinterested life which it 
 is every one's birthright to enjoy, there are 
 many intermediate goals, some of which 
 might count virtually as the final goal. I 
 have attempted, in the table, to indicate 
 the value of some of these results, by 
 speaking of "genuineness," as in art, 
 science, and occupations of all sorts. The 
 chemist working, perhaps, unseen and un- 
 146 
 
INSTINCTS AND IDEALS 
 
 known in his laboratory, but with the rest 
 of mankind inferentially and virtually 
 present in his mind, is in reality doing con- 
 structively social work of a high order. 
 So, too, there are persons who do not pro- 
 fess religion, many indeed who may 
 avowedly discard religion in the ordinary 
 sense, yet who are moving, even in so 
 doing, toward a life of ideal usefulness, in 
 the same sense that this is true of persons 
 of the Abou Ben Adhem type. I would 
 only urge that such workers might profit- 
 ably go one step further than they do, 
 and become the conscious and out-spoken 
 advocates of the principles which they 
 practice. The person whose mind works 
 rationally, and who is willing to think out 
 his thoughts and to accept the ultimate 
 conclusions to which his inferences lead, 
 surely gains something of value through a 
 more positive assertion of his faith. 
 
 Having thus, I trust, made it clear that 
 I have placed at one end of this table the 
 147 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 qualities which mark one of the poles of 
 human motives and at the other end the 
 qualities which mark the other pole, I 
 would call attention to a few other points 
 of interest which the table may help to 
 make more clear. In the first place, the 
 attempts at self -satisfying "rationaliza- 
 tion," etc., are the attempts which every 
 individual makes, from earliest childhood 
 onward, to square the world with his 
 desire on the one hand and with his limited 
 intelligence and limited power of love, will, 
 and insight, on the other. Feeling appre- 
 hensive, or inclined to worry, or in any 
 sense threatened with discomfort, he adopts 
 an explanation which satisfies him for the 
 moment, and yet which is very far from 
 laying bare the real cause of the uncom- 
 fortable situation. This real cause lies 
 usually in his own temperament and is 
 closely related to a variety of experiences 
 of early life through which the tendency 
 in question was emphasized and intensified. 
 
 148 
 
INSTINCTS AND IDEALS 
 
 All of us are subject to this habit, and if it 
 seems a necessary one and does bring us a 
 certain amount of relief, yet it has its very 
 objectionable side. The best method by 
 which to break away from this rationaliz- 
 ing habit is to make abundant use of 
 knowledge and self -scrutiny. 
 
 I have placed "knowledge" between 
 "genuineness" and the rationalizing and 
 egoistic tendencies, because knowledge is, 
 in its pure form, a tool which we can use 
 as if relatively, though of course not abso- 
 lutely detached from the other qualities of 
 the mind. 
 
 Another point should be made clear. 
 The defect in all the genetic methods of 
 studying human nature is that they assume 
 as "given" the energies that express them- 
 selves as "instincts," or in the "tropisms" 
 and other vital processes which antedate 
 our instincts and are believed to explain 
 them. But this habit of procedure, while 
 it is necessary for the researches in ques- 
 
 149 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 tion, indicates a limitation of their useful- 
 ness. It is all very well to say that our 
 instincts, when brought into conflict with 
 one another, work out to this or that result. 
 But from what source do our instincts 
 come ? I believe there is only one possible 
 source of all power in the world. Good, 
 bad, and indifferent, so long as we are 
 anything at all, we are the children of the 
 self -active energy, the "purus actus," of 
 which the whole universe and each smallest 
 part of it consist. 
 
 It is impossible to express through a 
 diagram or table the fact to which I wish 
 next to call attention, but reference to it 
 belongs in this place. The essential func- 
 tion of all life is to reproduce and to per- 
 petuate itself, in some form. To live or 
 to think is, in essence, to endeavor com- 
 pletely to express, and thus to reproduce, 
 ourselves, in our dealings with the outer 
 world and with all the problems which come 
 before us. Every motive is a creative 
 150 
 
INSTINCTS AND IDEALS 
 
 tendency, — a tendency to make some new 
 step toward the establishment of a rela- 
 tionship between the world without us and 
 the world within us. Biology teaches the 
 same lesson. 
 
 Finally, I wish to call attention to the 
 fact that the different tendencies of human 
 nature to which different motives corre- 
 spond, may be thought of better as super- 
 imposed, one upon the other (or as inter- 
 woven or mutually interpenetrating), than 
 as arranged in the linear series which the 
 necessities of diagram and table-making 
 require. Whenever a person finds himself 
 confronted by a difficult problem, — a 
 situation which repeats itself with each 
 one of us at every moment, — he must 
 necessarily meet that problem in a great 
 many different ways at once. He seems 
 to respond to it finally with a single act, 
 due, one might suppose, to a single motive. 
 But if we had the power to look into the 
 facts, we should find that the problem had 
 151 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 appealed to every layer, so to speak, of 
 the man's nature, and that the various 
 responses corresponding to these different 
 layers had played definite parts in the 
 determination of the result. The final act 
 of response to such a problem fails to 
 give any adequate idea of the different ele- 
 ments of this medley of emotions and of 
 thoughts, although expert observers can 
 see in it something of the medley. 
 
 The inferences which I desire to draw 
 are two in number : In the first place, all 
 these partial emotions lend a certain rich- 
 ness to the result conceived of as a complex 
 thought or as a motive; and, again, the 
 analysis of these complex thoughts and 
 emotions into their partial elements is often 
 of the highest value. 
 
 I had at first intended to introduce a 
 diagram to indicate the tendency which 
 the development of every individual ex- 
 hibits in greater or less measure, to become 
 checked or arrested at one or another stage, 
 
 152 
 
INSTINCTS AND IDEALS 
 
 with the result that subsequent develop- 
 ment becomes modified in a specific way. 
 It seemed probable, however, that this 
 would give rise to misunderstandings, and 
 the attempt was abandoned. 
 
 It is common enough to hear it said that 
 this or that person has never thoroughly 
 grown up, but remains in some respects a 
 child, or reverts easily to childish ways. 
 Few of those who make such a remark 
 realize, however, to what degree it is pos- 
 sible to define the meaning of this state- 
 ment, or how important it sometimes is to 
 do so. Neither is it sufficiently recognized 
 that, in another sense, the period of child- 
 hood may be taken as typical of the best 
 outcome of one's development. 1 
 
 Childhood may be divided into several 
 important phases. There is the phase of 
 birth, the phase of growing interest on the 
 part of the child in himself (which may 
 take on a very intense form), and the 
 
 1 Wordsworth's Ode, "Intimations of Immortality." 
 153 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 phase of interest in others, first as resem- 
 bling and repeating himself, then as fur- 
 nishing a supplement to himself and giving 
 an opportunity for the expenditure of 
 rapidly evolving interest and affection. It 
 has been found that instead of going 
 steadily onward through these different 
 phases toward a further stage of develop- 
 ment in which better possibilities will be- 
 come revealed, the child's progress may 
 be checked in any one of them in such a 
 way that the main line of development is 
 interfered with to a greater or less degree, 
 and sometimes seriously. These relative 
 arrests, or "fixations," give rise to special 
 sorts of cravings or temptations which 
 always remain lurking in the background. 
 The kind of fixation or arrest which it is 
 easiest to understand is that which results 
 in egoism of an aggravated sort. The 
 tendency to be egoistic, to love to see one- 
 self on a pinnacle without regard to the 
 way in which one gets there, is always 
 154 
 
INSTINCTS AND IDEALS 
 
 present in some measure and is often very 
 difficult to shake off. Child or man, we 
 all long to see ourselves prominent, and 
 instinctively devise a thousand ways of 
 cultivating this longing without seeming to 
 ourselves to be doing so. The child in his 
 development may be supposed to touch, 
 or follow for short distances, many lines of 
 evolution which he shortly afterward re- 
 jects. And yet, in times of stress, he is 
 likely to revert to them again because they 
 represent periods of his existence which in 
 his infancy and immaturity made strong 
 claims on his attention. 
 
 I have attempted in Figure III to indi- 
 cate a few of these side-tracks, the psycho- 
 logical history of which is so remarkable, 
 and which are to be thought of as occurring 
 (under the influence of some special stress) 
 as the secondary result of a relative arrest 
 of development at one or another phase of 
 infancy (not indicated in the figure). The 
 more important of these side-tracks are 
 155 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 the inveterate egoism above mentioned, 
 the tendency to over-done individualism, 
 self-assertion, "will to power," through 
 which the development of individuals and 
 
 °' < "&' 
 *<?? 
 
 Maturity 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 r 
 
 ^ 
 
 / 
 
 r? e 
 
 fgs 
 
 ** 
 
 s** 
 
 Infancy 
 FIG. HI. 
 
 nations is often checked. Individualism 
 and self-assertion have at times been 
 lauded as so valuable that to attack them 
 seems almost a ground for criticism. And 
 indeed it is true that the willingness to go 
 156 
 
INSTINCTS AND IDEALS 
 
 forward and bear one's burdens and if pos- 
 sible one's neighbor's, to say "No," to 
 espouse a cause which is unpopular, to cast 
 aside the tendency to seek excuses for one's 
 existence, to expose oneself to risk of life 
 or reputation, indicates a possible line of 
 progress of a fine sort. Such willingness 
 means progress if it leads onward to some- 
 thing better still; but if this does not 
 happen, it indicates a real arrest. The in- 
 dividualism which plays so large a part 
 in the poems and essays of Emerson, for 
 example, and which was quietly but firmly 
 exemplified by him in life, constitutes a 
 noble trait. But all readers of Emerson 
 must be aware that this doctrine was 
 preached by him as a stepping-stone 
 toward the same recognition of depend- 
 ence on duties and ideals that I have 
 endeavored in this essay to emphasize as 
 important. One cannot read Nietzsche's 
 fiery lines without feeling that his in- 
 dividualism also had much to recommend 
 157 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 it, based, as it was, on the doctrine of 
 the voluntary endorsement of that which 
 each person finds genuinely present in 
 himself. What was in Nietzsche's mind, 
 when he did not go too far, was like that 
 which was in Emerson's mind when he 
 said, "If I am the Devil's child, I will 
 live from the Devil." But, unfortunately, 
 this self-assertiveness can be terribly over- 
 done, with the result that the person sub- 
 ject to it becomes an advocate of criticism 
 gone mad, instead of a center of helpful- 
 ness to his neighbors and his community. 
 
 One should remember Shakespeare's 
 striking lines: 
 
 . . . " O, it is excellent 
 
 To have a giant's strength ; but it is tyrannous 
 
 To use it like a giant." 
 
 The tendency to use one's strength like a 
 giant (that is, like an overgrown but im- 
 mature being) is the tendency which is 
 often cultivated under the false notion that 
 to do so is a sign of manly courage; but 
 158 
 
INSTINCTS AND IDEALS 
 
 there are times when the " courage to let the 
 courage sink" * is a sign of greater promise, 
 both for the individual and for mankind. 
 
 It is with reference to this point that I 
 would call attention again to the obliga- 
 tion which those persons are under who 
 believe, as I do, in the importance of study- 
 ing motives with reference to the creative 
 forces that underlie them, to realize that 
 neither self-assertion, nor efficiency, nor 
 the "will to power "can be taken as a final 
 goal. It is quite amazing how prevalent 
 the contrary notion is. How much easier 
 it is to arouse a cry of sympathy for such 
 martial or stoical appeals as those con- 
 tained in the "Invictus" by Henley, and 
 Kipling's " If," than for many a far nobler 
 appeal that relies on the belief that deep- 
 seated, genuine devotion to the common 
 welfare, as expressing our complete selves, 
 is the only standard on which we should 
 ultimately rely ! 
 
 1 Arthur Hugh Clough : "The Higher Courage." 
 159 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 The moment individualism ceases to be 
 a stepping-stone to something better and 
 gets itself ranked as a goal to be pursued 
 in and for itself alone, it unmasks itself as 
 a sign that the development of the indi- 
 vidual received a check at an earlier stage, 
 and that we have before us a situation of 
 immaturity. 
 
 Analogous to the side lines and rela- 
 tively blind alleys referred to in the fore- 
 going pages is the strong craving which is 
 felt by every one from time to time, and 
 by some persons in an insistent form, to 
 escape from the steep and narrow path of 
 responsibility and effort and to get back 
 into conditions of rest and pleasure. This 
 craving for relaxation and irresponsibility 
 is the longing to get back into the period 
 of childhood, not as it exists, but as we 
 picture it to ourselves. The childhood of 
 most persons is not wholly a time of un- 
 alloyed happiness, but often a period of 
 renunciation, sorrow, and disappointment. 
 
 160 
 
INSTINCTS AND IDEALS 
 
 The infant is no sooner born than he begins 
 to indicate by his cries (as Ferenczi has so 
 well explained) his dim sense of loss. And 
 then and there begins the longing for what 
 has been and is no more, which never 
 wholly ceases. 
 
 Happiness and unhappiness occur, in 
 childhood as in later years, not continu- 
 ously, but in alternation. The sickening 
 suspicion that one is "not wanted," the 
 dread of isolation and of reprobation or 
 self -reprobation, the fears of ridicule and 
 of the dark and a thousand kindred fears 
 represent situations not to be ignored. 
 The image of childhood which the adult 
 delights to dwell upon contains in far 
 greater abundance and in purer form the 
 characteristics that make the period a 
 golden one than does the period itself. 
 Art and literature also have constantly 
 conspired with the imagination of each 
 individual to make this phase that which 
 we would fain believe it to have been. 
 161 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 It is true, however, that every individual, 
 as well in adult life as in infancy and old 
 age, instinctively supplements the details 
 of the world of his actual knowledge and of 
 his toil and pain, with the far wider and 
 more satisfying world of his imagination, 
 and escapes when he can from the former 
 to the latter, just as many people escape — 
 if they can find excuse to do so — from the 
 situations of actual responsibility to situa- 
 tions from which responsibility is absent. 1 
 
 An analogy might be pointed out be- 
 tween this process of retrogression and the 
 analogous process well known to go on as 
 one of the features of evolution. Animal 
 species and plants revert to forms that 
 maintain themselves more easily, — that 
 is, to forms that do not require so much 
 vital energy for their maintenance as the 
 more complex forms from which the rever- 
 sion has taken place. In the old saying of 
 doubtful accuracy, "If you scratch a Rus- 
 
 1 See Faguet's recent book, "The Dread of Responsibility." 
 162 
 
INSTINCTS AND IDEALS 
 
 sian you will find a Tartar," we see the 
 hint of another form of this reversion, and 
 the imagination of any one, even when not 
 stimulated by the history of war, will 
 supply plenty of instances of like kind. 
 The state indicated by the name "Tartar" 
 could be better expressed in psychological 
 terms as the state, so common in child- 
 hood, when the tendency is present which 
 the adult, in looking back upon it, char- 
 acterizes as cruel. People are too ready 
 to accept these tendencies in themselves 
 and the motives that go with them, with- 
 out realizing the importance of hunting 
 them to their lairs and calling them by 
 names that need not necessarily be "hard" 
 in the adult sense, but should clearly char- 
 acterize their true origin. 
 
 Too easy contentment is the condition 
 to be mainly dreaded. The whole river 
 of life, source and all, belongs inferentially 
 to every man ; but in order to enter into 
 the value of this possession, we should 
 
 163 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 learn to see its dangerous cataracts and 
 whirlpools as well as the calm reaches over 
 which we may pass to and fro without 
 danger. If we must carry within the 
 depths of our lives, without realizing that 
 we do so, an Unshapen Land of emotions 
 where Gorgons and Titans have their 
 home, we should remember that the deni- 
 zens of this unshapen land represent sources 
 of undifferentiated energy which we, like 
 Perseus, may conquer and make our own. 
 Finally, I wish to forestall the criticism 
 which might easily be made, that I have 
 said nothing about Fear as a source of 
 human motives. I admit the fact and 
 would only say that fear shows itself, on 
 close analysis, to be mainly important, in 
 the development of the child, as a product 
 of undue desire or longing. We learn to 
 fear largely through learning to entertain 
 uncontrolled longings and cravings. Thus 
 the primary object of our fears is our 
 emotions, or ourselves. 
 
 164 
 
Chapter VI 
 An Attempt at Synthesis 
 
 "Line in nature is not found ; 
 
 Unit and universe are round ; 
 
 In vain produced, all rays return ; 
 
 Evil will bless, and ice will burn." * 
 
 " Uriel," R. W. Emerson 
 
 THERE is perhaps no single passage 
 in any of Emerson's subtle poems 
 that expresses his philosophy of life 
 better than the one here quoted. The 
 same thought underlies many of his writ- 
 
 1 In the explanatory notes to Emerson's poems written by his 
 son, E. W. Emerson, this passage occurs : 
 
 "From boyhood Emerson was familiar with 'Paradise Lost,' 
 and Uriel, the bright Archangel of the Sun, would best see the 
 vast orbits, the returns and compensations, the harmony and 
 utter order of the Universe, — God in all. This did away with 
 Original Sin, a separate principle of Evil, hopeless Condemnation, 
 Mediation, — for Emerson saw in Nature a symbol. The Law 
 was alike in matter and spirit. He had shaken off dogma and 
 tradition and found that the Word 
 
 Still floats upon the morning wind, 
 Still whispers to the willing mind." 
 
 165 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 ings and, among others, the striking poem 
 "Compensation," which is quoted in part 
 on an earlier page. 
 
 Why is it that these poems fascinate 
 some readers and repel others? Is the 
 attraction which they exert due only to 
 the challenge to our wits brought by the 
 paradoxes which they present; or do we 
 feel that these paradoxes contain vital 
 truths of universal application but such as 
 lend themselves to poetical statement by 
 reason of their subtlety? 
 
 If I can answer these questions satis- 
 factorily, or, rather, if I can make intelli- 
 gible an affirmative answer to the last 
 question, I shall feel that I have justified 
 the assertion made on an early page, — 
 namely, that it ought to be possible to 
 make a synthesis of the two groups of 
 motives here considered, of such a sort as 
 to bring out the best meanings of both. 
 
 Emerson's idea, which is the idea of the 
 philosophical school of thought for which 
 
 166 
 
AN ATTEMPT AT SYNTHESIS 
 
 he stands, is that progress consists in an 
 eternal seeking, a never-ending attempt to 
 find ever new and richer meanings in life. 
 
 "God offers to every mind its choice 
 between truth and repose. Take which 
 you please, — you can never have both." 
 
 The powerful thinker, Lessing, whose 
 " Nathan der Weise " has stimulated specu- 
 lation in so many minds, wrote, in another 
 connection, a searching passage bearing on 
 this problem, of which I offer here a free 
 translation. 
 
 "If God should offer me the Truth in his 
 right hand, and in his left hand the Search 
 for Truth, even burdened with the condition 
 that the search would be in vain, I would 
 humbly take the treasure which the left 
 hand offered, saying, "Father, here I rest 
 my choice. Absolute Truth remains for 
 Thee alone." 
 
 Let no one feel mocked and disappointed 
 by having this perpetual search held up to 
 him as a goal. Is it not true that God 
 167 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 himself, as the creative spirit of the uni- 
 verse, is to be thought of in these terms, — 
 namely, as an Eternal Renewer of evolu- 
 tion? Is not His function the utilization 
 of self-activity for the perpetual recreating 
 of endless spirals leading up to self-conscious 
 beings who have the power to conceive 
 the whole scheme, and to make perpetually, 
 in their turn, an ever renewed search for 
 higher forms of self-expression? A uni- 
 verse constructed in this fashion implies, 
 it is true, incessant conflict, and at times 
 these conflicts may impress one as intol- 
 erable. But can any one formulate a uni- 
 verse containing free beings yet from which 
 conflict should be excluded? This has 
 been attempted in the past and is 
 attempted at the present day by those 
 who seek rest and expect to find it in an- 
 other world than this. But wiser people 
 realize that a Heaven of rest would be an 
 intolerable prison-house, which no con- 
 ceivable number of compensatory pleas- 
 
 168 
 
AN ATTEMPT AT SYNTHESIS 
 
 ures should induce us to accept. Instead 
 of shunning conflicts, ought we not to wel- 
 come them and learn to see in them new 
 means for gaining insight? It may be 
 said that a doctrine of this sort is suit- 
 able perhaps for those whose lives are 
 crowned with comfort, but that it is a 
 cruel doctrine to apply to those on whom 
 conflicts bear with special stress and those 
 who have to suffer pain. It is true that 
 the lot of such persons is hard to bear; 
 but it has been borne innumerable times, 
 not only with resignation, but in a better 
 spirit still. It is idle to expect that we can 
 understand the universal scheme in each 
 one of its details, but unreasonable to 
 demand that because of this inability we 
 should reject the work of our reason 
 altogether and refuse to see even the out- 
 line of the scheme. There are many lots 
 which it is difficult to endure, but none 
 that would not be lightened if the mind 
 could get a vision of the truth, or could 
 
 169 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 feel the influence of this truth in an intui- 
 tive or religious sense. 
 
 Let it not be supposed, however, that 
 the outcomes proposed by Emerson, in the 
 form of the richer meanings which the uni- 
 verse offers to all who will seek for them, 
 are to be had only for the asking. To assert 
 this would be to overlook a number of 
 important facts. When he says that evil 
 will bless, and (as in "Compensation") 
 that our own best selves rush, in spite of 
 all obstacles, to meet us, he announces 
 what may be, not what must be. The 
 determination of the actual outcome rests 
 with us. When pain, adversity, sorrow, 
 or temptation make their challenge to the 
 human soul, they may call forth a courage 
 and faith that seem to be born of the 
 need for them, and thus lift the life of him 
 who undergoes the trial to a higher plane. 
 
 One of the most typical forms of the 
 rounding out of the circle such as Emer- 
 son refers to, with the result that what 
 
 170 
 
AN ATTEMPT AT SYNTHESIS 
 
 may be poetically defined as "evil" shall 
 be found to bless, is given in the history of 
 compensation as applied to conditions of 
 organic imperfection. The deaf Beethoven 
 expresses his power of inward hearing in 
 symphonies which — one may assume — 
 without his deafness he could never have 
 produced. The blind and deaf Helen 
 Keller discovers a world of beauty and 
 music richer than that in which she other- 
 wise would have lived. In a somewhat 
 similar fashion the blinded and careworn 
 Faust, abandoning as vain his attempt 
 to discover happiness in merely nominal 
 pleasures, learns at last that he has in him 
 the power to find a better satisfaction in a 
 life of wholly different sort. 
 
 Emerson's conception can be utilized 
 still further as a means of clothing with a 
 new value some of the lessons of expe- 
 rience. The introspection of psycho- 
 analysis, for example, which most people 
 object to at the outset because they con- 
 171 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 sider it as equivalent to what ordinarily 
 passes by the name of introspection, is 
 found in the end, if all goes well, to be 
 something very different. When we look 
 at ourselves with morbid introspection we 
 gain from this effort (which is really a 
 means for securing gratification) only the 
 intensification of an objectionable emotion. 
 But if for this morbid scrutiny we con- 
 scientiously substitute a rational self- 
 scrutiny, the result is useful. Every effort 
 has in it something of reason, something 
 of feeling, and something of will. And 
 the more we introduce reason into this 
 mixture, the less important, relatively 
 speaking, becomes the part played by 
 emotion, until, as the final outcome, the 
 emotion itself becomes an element in the 
 furtherance of rational effort. 1 In a simi- 
 
 1 It was with this idea in view — the idea, namely, that the 
 human passions and emotions should, as a rule, if rightly inter- 
 preted and assimilated, be able to contribute something of value 
 to life in its best form — that I placed at the beginning of the 
 account of the psycho-analytic movement (Chapter III) the 
 
 172 
 
AN ATTEMPT AT SYNTHESIS 
 
 lar fashion it is found that temptation may 
 be converted into power, and the intoler- 
 able distress due to repressed emotions into 
 a willingness to take one's share of the 
 world's troubles. Self-assertion need not 
 be cultivated for its own sake, but should 
 be exchanged for the cultivation of power 
 to be used for the sake of the community. 
 Childhood ceases to be the parent of 
 objectionable tendencies and takes its place 
 as the emblem of all that is best in human 
 nature. 
 
 Our real world, think of it in whatever 
 terms we may, is a world modified and 
 adorned by fancy, and the problem for 
 each individual is to make it correspond 
 to the expression of his best self and the 
 best selves of other men. Every one longs 
 for rest, but not for the repose of the 
 Lotus-Eaters. The only rest that really 
 
 glowing outburst in which the Earth Spirit tells the shrinking 
 Faust how he takes the lives of men, just as they are, and weaves 
 them into a garment for God. 
 
 " Nil humanum a me alienum puto," 
 
 173 
 
HUMAN MOTIVES 
 
 satisfies is that which comes through the 
 discovery of better adaptations between 
 ourselves and the life around us. The 
 justification for introducing in a book on 
 motives the reasoning followed in this 
 chapter is that the choice of motives, 
 whether voluntarily or instinctively made, 
 must depend in the final analysis on the 
 standards arrived at through education, 
 the true function of which consists in lead- 
 ing to the discovery of deeper and deeper 
 relationships between the outside world 
 and the inner life. 
 
 I conclude this chapter, as I began it, 
 with a quotation from Emerson, the "Two 
 Rivers." 
 
 "Thy summer voice, Musketaquit, 1 
 Repeats the music of the rain ; 
 But sweeter rivers pulsing flit 
 Through thee, as thou through Concord Plain. 
 
 Thou in thy narrow banks art pent : 
 The stream I love unbounded goes 
 
 1 "The Concord River." 
 174 
 
AN ATTEMPT AT SYNTHESIS 
 
 Through flood and sea and firmament ; 
 Through light, through life, it forward flows. 
 
 I see the inundation sweet, 
 I hear the spending of the stream 
 Through years, through men, through Nature fleet, 
 Through love and thought, through power and 
 dream. 
 
 Musketaquit, a goblin strong, 
 Of shard and flint makes jewels gay ; 
 They lose their grief who hear his song, 
 And where he winds is the day of day. 
 
 So forth and brighter fares my stream, — 
 Who drink it shall not thirst again ; 
 No darkness stains its equal gleam, 
 And ages drop in it like rain." 
 
 R. W. Emerson. 
 
 THE END 
 
 175 
 
INDEX 
 
 Beethoven, Ludwig von, 
 
 164, 171. 
 Bergson, Henri, 61. 
 Bowne, Borden P., 66n. 
 Breuer, J., 74, 75, 85. 
 
 Charcot, J. M., 75. 
 
 Childhood, 78, 79, 82-84, 
 95; play, 96-97; de- 
 velopment, 98-100, 153- 
 155 ; education in, 105- 
 133, 160, 161, 174; (see 
 Imagination). 
 
 Clough, Arthur H., 159. 
 
 Creative energy, 3-10, 29- 
 34, 150, 151, 168. 
 
 Dante, 16. 
 
 Darwin, Charles, 20, 88. 
 
 Dreams, 30. 
 
 Education, 69, 70, 92; 
 relation to psycho-analy- 
 sis, 105-133; in relation 
 of outer to inner life, 
 174. 
 
 Egoism, table, 141 ; 143. 
 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 27, 
 157, 165, 170, 171; 
 
 quoted, 1, 5, 35, 47, 63, 
 
 64, 66, 120, 123, 158, 
 165, 167, 174-175. 
 
 Fagttet, E., 162. 
 Fantasies, see Childhood, 
 
 Imagination. 
 Fear, 164. 
 Ferenczi, $., 161. 
 Freedom, inherent in life, 
 
 10, 13, 17. 
 Freud, Sigmund, 71, 72, 74, 
 
 75, 76, 85-87, 89, 90, 92, 
 
 101. 
 Froebel, Friedrich, 96. 
 
 Genetic method, 20, 32. 
 Goethe, 171, 173?i ; quoted, 
 57, 67. 
 
 Harris, W. T., 66rc. 
 Healy, William, llOrc. 
 Henderson, L. J., 124. 
 Henley, W. E., 159. 
 
 Ideals, as a source of 
 motives, 10, 11, 12, 39; 
 logical justification of, 
 
 65, 66. 
 
 177 
 
INDEX 
 
 Imagination, table, 141 ; 
 
 144-146. 
 Immanence, doctrine of, 
 
 134-139. 
 Individualism, table, 141 ; 
 
 156, 157. 
 Infancy, see Childhood. 
 
 Jackson, J. Hughlings, 
 121, 122, 126. 
 
 Kant, Immanuel, 53. 
 Keller, Helen, 51, 171; 
 
 quoted, 52. 
 Keyser, C. J., 66n. 
 Kipling, Rudyard, 159. 
 
 Lessing, G. E., 167. 
 Limitation, significance of, 
 15. 
 
 Maturity (and immatur- 
 ity), 19-21, 132, 135, 
 136, 142, 158, 160. 
 
 Motives, of constructive- 
 ness, 2-10; table, 141; 
 of adaptation and com- 
 promise, 10-15, 94 ; 
 table, 141 ; antagonistic 
 sources, 1-34. 
 
 Myths and fairy tales, 26, 
 73, 83, 99, 100; 114, 132, 
 142, 173. 
 
 Nietzsche, 157, 158. 
 
 Parents and teachers, 
 
 value of psycho-analysis 
 for, 112-116. 
 
 Philosophic method, 18, 23 ; 
 as contrasted with psy- 
 cho-analytic method, 22- 
 31. 
 
 Physical laws, relation to 
 mental laws, 55, 56, 60, 
 61. 
 
 Plato, 28. 
 
 Psycho-analysis, general 
 account of, 67-104; re- 
 lation to education, 69- 
 70, 105-133 ; practical 
 aims, 106-108; thera- 
 peutic action, 132, 133; 
 relation to morbid intro- 
 spection, 171, 172. 
 
 Rationalization, table, 
 141 ; 148, 149. 
 
 Reactions, varieties of, 
 compared, 123-131 ; of 
 defense, 103, 129; (see 
 also Symptoms). 
 
 Reasoning, inferential, 24, 
 41; philosophic, 35-66. 
 
 Religion, rational basis of, 
 35-65 ; scientific criti- 
 cisms of, 37, 46 ; relation 
 to personality, 40-41 ; 
 meaning of God, 57-58 ; 
 popular attitude toward, 
 36, 48; ceremonials, 39, 
 40 ; superstition, 39, 40 ; 
 (see also 165-174). 
 
 Repression, 12, 13, 14, 71, 
 
 178 
 
INDEX 
 
 100-104 ; as affecting 
 judgment, 22 ; (see also 
 Unconscious). 
 Royce, Josiali, 56, 66n. 
 
 Self- activity, 61, 62, 150, 
 
 168. 
 Self-relation, 24, 45, 58. 
 Sex emotions, 85-95. 
 Shakespeare, quoted, 158. 
 Sickness and health, mutual 
 
 relation, 117-122. 
 Social relationships, 14, 38, 
 
 39. 
 Stevenson, R. L., 108. 
 
 Symptoms, 
 117-133. 
 
 as reactions 
 
 Unconscious, The, 101, 
 102, 128, 129; respon- 
 sibility for, 129, 130. 
 
 Universe, personality of, 
 42-45 ; rationality of, 
 64, 65. 
 
 Unpicturable world, 49- 
 54. 
 
 Wordsworth, William, 
 quoted, 2; 96, 153. 
 
 179 
 
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