The Foundations of Personality [2]
while reshaping his outer world to reshape himself also."[1] Moreover, man is the only seeker of perfection; he is a deep, intense critic of himself. To reach nobility of character is not a practical aim, but is held to be an end sufficient in itself. So man constantly probes into himself--"Are my purposes good; is my will strong--how can I strengthen my control, how make righteous my instincts and emotions?" It is true that there is a worship--and always has been--of efficiency and success as against character; that man has tended to ask more often, "What has he done?" or, "What has he got?" rather than, "What is he?" and that therefore man in his self-analysis has often asked, "How shall I get?" or, "How shall I do?" In the largest sense these questions are also questions of character, for even if we discard as inadequate the psychology which considers behavior alone as important, conduct is the fruit of character, without which it is sterile. [1] Hocking.
This book does not aim at any short cuts by which man may know himself or his neighbor. It seeks to analyze the fundamentals of personality, avoiding metaphysics as the plague. It does not define character or seek to separate it from mind and personality. Written by a neurologist, a physician in the active practice of his profession, it cannot fail to bear more of the imprint of medicine, of neurology, than of psychology and philosophy. Yet it has also laid under contribution these fields of human effort. Mainly it will, I hope, bear the marks of everyday experience, of contact with the world and with men and women and children as brother, husband, father, son, lover, hater, citizen, doer and observer. For it is this plurality of contact that vitalizes, and he who has not drawn his universals of character out of the particulars of everyday life is a cloistered theorist, aloof from reality.
CHAPTER I. THE ORGANIC BASIS OF CHARACTER The history of Man's thought is the real history of mankind. Back of all the events of history are the curious systems of beliefs for which men have lived and died. Struggling to understand himself, Man has built up and discarded superstitions, theologies and sciences. Early in this strange and fascinating history he divided himself into two parts--a body and a mind. Working together with body, mind somehow was of different stuff and origin than body and had only a mysterious connection with it. Theology supported this belief; metaphysics and philosophy debated it with an acumen that was practically sterile of usefulness. Mind and body "interacted" in some mysterious way; mind and body were "parallel" and so set that thought-processes and brain-processes ran side by side without really having anything to do with one another.[1] With the development of modern anatomy, physiology and psychology, the time is ripe for men boldly to say that applying the principle of causation in a practical manner leaves no doubt that mind and character are organic, are functions of the organism and do not exist independently of it. I emphasize "practical" in relation to causation because it would be idle for us here to enter into the philosophy of cause and effect. Such discussion is not taken seriously by the very philosophers who most earnestly enter into it. [1] William James in Volume 1 of his "Psychology" gives an interesting resume of the theories that consider the relationship of mind (thought and consciousness) to body. He quotes the "lucky" paragraph from Tyndall, "The passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a definite thought and a definite molecular action in the brain occur simultaneously; we do not possess the intellectual organ, or apparently any trace of the organ which would enable us to pass by a process of reasoning from one to the other." This is the "parallel" theory which postulates a hideous waste of energy in the universe and which throws out of count the same kind of reasoning by which Tyndall worked on light, heat, etc. We cannot understand the beginning and the
This book does not aim at any short cuts by which man may know himself or his neighbor. It seeks to analyze the fundamentals of personality, avoiding metaphysics as the plague. It does not define character or seek to separate it from mind and personality. Written by a neurologist, a physician in the active practice of his profession, it cannot fail to bear more of the imprint of medicine, of neurology, than of psychology and philosophy. Yet it has also laid under contribution these fields of human effort. Mainly it will, I hope, bear the marks of everyday experience, of contact with the world and with men and women and children as brother, husband, father, son, lover, hater, citizen, doer and observer. For it is this plurality of contact that vitalizes, and he who has not drawn his universals of character out of the particulars of everyday life is a cloistered theorist, aloof from reality.
CHAPTER I. THE ORGANIC BASIS OF CHARACTER The history of Man's thought is the real history of mankind. Back of all the events of history are the curious systems of beliefs for which men have lived and died. Struggling to understand himself, Man has built up and discarded superstitions, theologies and sciences. Early in this strange and fascinating history he divided himself into two parts--a body and a mind. Working together with body, mind somehow was of different stuff and origin than body and had only a mysterious connection with it. Theology supported this belief; metaphysics and philosophy debated it with an acumen that was practically sterile of usefulness. Mind and body "interacted" in some mysterious way; mind and body were "parallel" and so set that thought-processes and brain-processes ran side by side without really having anything to do with one another.[1] With the development of modern anatomy, physiology and psychology, the time is ripe for men boldly to say that applying the principle of causation in a practical manner leaves no doubt that mind and character are organic, are functions of the organism and do not exist independently of it. I emphasize "practical" in relation to causation because it would be idle for us here to enter into the philosophy of cause and effect. Such discussion is not taken seriously by the very philosophers who most earnestly enter into it. [1] William James in Volume 1 of his "Psychology" gives an interesting resume of the theories that consider the relationship of mind (thought and consciousness) to body. He quotes the "lucky" paragraph from Tyndall, "The passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a definite thought and a definite molecular action in the brain occur simultaneously; we do not possess the intellectual organ, or apparently any trace of the organ which would enable us to pass by a process of reasoning from one to the other." This is the "parallel" theory which postulates a hideous waste of energy in the universe and which throws out of count the same kind of reasoning by which Tyndall worked on light, heat, etc. We cannot understand the beginning and the