Our possessions, and especially such as are the fruits of our own actions, are indications of what we are. We judge, and within limits correctly, of a man by the company he keeps, the clothes he wears, by the books he reads, the pictures with which he decorates his home, the kind of home he builds or has built. And a man may feel as provoked by insult or injury to the person or things which have become an intimate part of his life as if he were being attacked in his physical person. Strip a man one by one of his physical acquisitions, of his associates, of the indications and mementos of the things he has thought and done, and there would be no "self" left. To speak of a man as a nonentity is to imply that he is no "self" worth speaking of; that he can be blown about hither and thither; that neither his opinions nor desires, nor possessions, nor associates make an iota of difference in the world. A man who is a "somebody," a "person to be reckoned with," is one who is a "self." He is one whose physical possessions or personal abilities or standing in the community make him one of the "powers that be." And it is the desire to be a factor in the world, to increase the scope and consequence of one's self that is the leading ingredient in what we call ambition, and the desire for fame, and at least one ingredient in the desire for wealth. Men may want wealth merely for the sake of possession, or for bodily comfort, but part of the desire consists in the ability thereby to spread one's influence, to be "one of the happy sons of earth, who lord it over land and sea, in the full-blown lustihood that wealth and power can give, and before whom, stiffen ourselves as we will ... we cannot escape an emotion, sneaking or open, of dread."[1] [Footnote 1: James: _Psychology_, vol. I, p. 293.] THE ENHANCEMENT OF THE SELF. The building-up of a more or less permanent self is natively satisfactory to most men, and every means will be taken to increase its scope and influence. Biologically we are so constituted as to perform many acts making for our self-preservation. The ordinary reflexes and instincts such as those which prompt us to eat, to defend ourselves against blows and the threatening approach of animals, to keep our equilibrium and recover our balance, are examples of these. The development and preservation of our social self is also made possible as it is initially prompted by our specifically social instincts. There is a native tendency, as already noted, to get ourselves noticed by other people, to seek their praise and avoid their blame. The instincts of self-display and leadership, and many of the non-social instincts, such as curiosity and acquisitiveness, are frequently called into play in the service of the more directly social tendencies of the individual. A large part of our activity, whatever be its other motives, is determined to some degree by the desire to develop the social self, to be a "somebody," to cut a figure in the world.