Of course this is not the only way in which we learn to subordinate our
lower selves to our higher. A direct ethical judgment unquestionably
also plays its part, and last, not least, we apply to our own persons
judgments originally called forth by the acts of others. It is one of
the strangest laws of our nature that many things which we are well
satisfied with in ourselves disgust us when seen in others. With another
man's bodily 'hoggishness' hardly anyone has any sympathy; almost as
little with his cupidity, his social vanity and eagerness, his jealousy,
his despotism, and his pride. Left absolutely to myself I should
probably allow all these spontaneous tendencies to luxuriate in me
unchecked, and it would be long before I formed a distinct notion of the
order of their subordination. But having constantly to pass judgment on
my associates, I come ere long to see, as Herr Horwicz says, my own
lusts in the mirror of the lusts of others, and to _think_ about them in
a very different way from that in which I simply _feel_. Of course, the
moral generalities which from childhood have been instilled into me
accelerate enormously the advent of this reflective judgment on myself.
So it comes to pass that, as aforesaid, men have arranged the various
selves which they may seek in an hierarchical scale according to their
worth. A certain amount of bodily selfishness is required as a basis for
all the other selves. But too much sensuality is despised, or at best
condoned on account of the other qualities of the individual. The wider
material selves are regarded as higher than the immediate body. He is
esteemed a poor creature who is unable to forego a little meat and drink
and warmth and sleep for the sake of getting on in the world. The social
self as a whole, again, ranks higher than the material self as a whole.
We must care more for our honor, our friends, our human ties, than for a
sound skin or wealth. And the spiritual self is so supremely precious
that, rather than lose it, a man ought to be willing to give up friends
and good fame, and property, and life itself.
_In each kind of Me, material, social, and spiritual, men distinguish
between the immediate and actual, and the remote and potential_, between
the narrower and the wider view, to the detriment of the former and the
advantage of the latter. One must forego a present bodily enjoyment for
the sake of one's general health; one must abandon the dollar in the
hand for the sake of the hundred dollars to come; one must make an enemy
of his present interlocutor if thereby one makes friends of a more
valued circle; one must go without learning and grace and wit, the
better to compass one's soul's salvation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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