=True and False Interpretation.=--But this doctrine is the exact opposite of that intended by those who claim that all action is from self-love. The true doctrine says, _the self is constituted and developed through instincts and interests which are directed upon their own objects with no conscious regard necessarily for anything except those objects themselves_. The false doctrine implies that the self _exists by itself apart from these objective ends, and that they are merely means for securing it a certain profit or pleasure_. Suppose, for example, it is a case of being so disturbed in mind by the thought of another in pain that one is moved to do something to relieve him. This means that certain native instincts or certain acquired habits demand relief of others as part of themselves. The well-being of the other is an interest of the self: is a part of the self. This is precisely what is meant ordinarily by unselfishness: not lack or absence of a self, but _such_ a self as identifies itself in action with others' interests and hence is satisfied only when they are satisfied. To find pain in the thought of others pained and to take pleasure in the thought of their relief, is to have and to be moved by personal motives, by states which are "selfish" in the sense of making up the self; but which are the exact opposite of selfish in the sense of being the thought of some private advantage to self.[177] Putting it roundly, then, the fallacy of the selfish motive theory is that it fails to see that _instincts and habits directed upon objects are primary_, and that they come before any conscious thought of self as end, since they are necessary to the constitution of that thought. The following quotation from James[178] states the true doctrine: "When I am led by selflove to keep my seat whilst ladies stand, or to grab something first and cut out my neighbor, what I really love is the comfortable seat; it is the thing itself which I grab. I love _them_ primarily, as the mother loves her babe, or a generous man an heroic deed. Wherever, as here, selfseeking is the outcome of simple instinctive propensity, it is but a name for certain reflex acts. Something rivets my attention fatally and fatally provokes the 'selfish' response.... It is true I am no automaton, but a thinker. But my thoughts, like my acts, are here concerned only with the outward things.... In fact the more utterly selfish I am in this primitive way, the more blindly absorbed my thought will be in the objects and impulses of my lust and the more devoid of any inward looking glance."