The Foundations of Personality [82]
to praise men in other noncompetitive fields or for qualities in which they are not competing. Thus an author may strongly admire an athlete or a novelist may praise the historian; a beautiful woman admires another for her learning, though with some reservation in her praise, and a successful business man admires the self-sacrificing scientist, albeit there is a little complacency in his approval. He is truly generous-hearted who can admire his competitor. I do not mean lip-admiration, through the fear of being held jealous. Many a man joins in the praise of one who has outstripped him, with envy gnawing at his heart, and waits for the first note of criticism to get out the hammer. "He is very fine--but" is the formula, and either through innuendo, insinuation or direct attack, the "subordinate" statement becomes the most sincere and significant. But there are those who can admire their conqueror, not only through the masochism that lurks in all of us, but because they have lifted their ideal of achievement and character higher than their own possibilities and seek in others the perfection they cannot hope to have in themselves. In other words, where competition is hopeless, in the presence of the greatly superior, a feeling of humility which is really admiration to the point of worship comes over us, and we can glory in the quality we love. To admire is to recede the ego-feeling, is to feel oneself in an ecstasy that becomes mystical, and in that sense the contradiction arises that we feel ourselves larger in a unification with the admired one. Each age, each country, each group and each family set up the objects and qualities for admiration, in a word, the ideals. Out of these the individual selects his specialties in admiration, according to his nature and training. All the world admires vigor, strength, courage and endurance,--and these in their physical aspects. The hero of all times has had these qualities: he is energetic, capable of feats beyond the power of others, is fearless and bears his ills with equanimity. Beauty, especially in the woman, but also in man, has received an over-great share of homage, but here "tastes differ." We have no difficulty in agreement on what constitutes strength, and we have objective tests for its measurement; but who can agree on beauty? What one race prizes as its fairest is scorned by another race. We laugh at the ideal of beauty of the Hottentot, and the physical peculiarity they praise most either disgusts or amuses us. But what is there about a white skin more lovely than a black one, and why thrill over blue eyes and neglect the brown ones? What is the rationale for the admiration of slimness as against stoutness? Indeed, there are races who would turn with scorn from our slender debutante[1] and worship their more buxom heavy-busted and wide-hipped beauties. The only "rational" beauty in face and figure is that which stands as the outer mask of health, vigor, intelligence and normal procreative function. The standards set up in each age and place usually arise from local pride, from the familiar type. The Mongolian who finds beauty in his slanting-eyed, wide-cheek boned, yellow mate has as valid a sanction as the Anglo-Saxon who worships at the shrine of his wide-eyed, straight-nosed blonde. [1] The peasant type, greatly admired by the agricultural folk of Central Europe, is stout and ruddy. This is a better ideal of beauty than the lily-white, slender and dainty maid of the cultured, who very often can neither work nor bear and nurse children.
When we leave the physical qualities and pass to the mental we again find a lack of agreement as to the admirable. All agree that intelligence is to be admired, but how shall that intelligence be manifested? In practice, the major part of the world admires the intelligence that is financially and socially successful, and the rich and powerful have the greatest share of the world's praise. Power, strength, and superiority command admiration, even from the unwilling, and the philosopher who stands aloof from the world and is without
When we leave the physical qualities and pass to the mental we again find a lack of agreement as to the admirable. All agree that intelligence is to be admired, but how shall that intelligence be manifested? In practice, the major part of the world admires the intelligence that is financially and socially successful, and the rich and powerful have the greatest share of the world's praise. Power, strength, and superiority command admiration, even from the unwilling, and the philosopher who stands aloof from the world and is without