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The bearing of this subordination of individual self to group unity can be illustrated in various ways. When, for example, the stage of the Hero-God is reached in human history, these gods are at first group deities, not personal gods. Likewise, just as the individual totem grew out of the group totem, so the patron saint of the individual appears later than the more universal saint. Even more striking are primitive notions of sin and its punishment. Sin at this level was wholly an objective or ritualistic breach, not a sense of ethical short-coming. Precisely because it was objective and because of the closeknit life of the group in other respects, the sense of sin became, too, a group sense. Hence the breach of any member involved the whole. Ten righteous men might have saved Sodom, but the un-rightness of one would have sufficed to bring down its destruction. This sense of group responsi1bility becomes the source of a tremendous sanction for discipline and approved conduct. It gives to the taboo its inviolability.

Beliefs in reincarnation and family or tribal totems reenforce this palpable sinking of individuality in the mass, not only of contemporaries or posterity but also of the legendary past. Still further evidence crops out of the ritual practices by which savage children are endowed with personalities distinct from those of their parents or tribemates; for, be it remembered, birth does not necessarily confer personality; often it must be acquired by a recognized social procedure.

It is evident that in such vital matters as acquiring or losing one's self, the beliefs and sentiments of a primitive group wielded absolute authority over the individual. It is equally evident that those folkways and rudimentary philosophy served as the wellspring of social control and social order. Therefore, since order is one of the elements

in any concept of progress, the bearing of the savage philosophy of the self upon the early history of mankind. is apparent.

But for our purposes it is even more important to find out how primitive men looked upon changes in the self. This whole aspect of savage life can be summarized in the doctrine of metamorphosis, as it forms one of the three cardinal principles of primitive nature-philosophy, namely, i that all is possible, that all is related, and that all changes. The second of these principles is of profound significance; for it meant that not only were men related to other men, but also that a vague, emotional feeling of community (based upon failure to mark off the various kingdoms and forces of nature) fused and identified them with animals, with stocks and stones and cosmic powers. This 'pathetic fallacy' of forcing nature's moods and powers into accord with those of suffering gods and heroes is as old as real religion and literature, and still remains a trump card for the melodramatist or romantic novelist. But to the primitive mind it was much more vivid and compelling, particularly when combined with the idea that all might change. For by it all barriers were let down and the human personality became so fluid that this could become that or the other at will: man is transformable into buffaloes or werwolves, pigs, deer, paroquets, or churchbells; women into pillars of salt, laurel trees, or lakes; statues or ravens into lovely maidens; frogs into princes; dry bones become living men; St. Januarius' blood liquefies to order; human beings mate with and beget animals and vice versa; cabbage and parsley beds yield human babies. Myth, folklore, legend, religious dogma, magic, and witch-baiting all unite in testifying to this common belief in metamorphosis; that is, in modifying more than that, in revolutionizing human nature. The legends of Pygmalion, Circe, Acteon,

the Golden Ass, Proteus, Apollo and Daphne, and Shakespeare's creation of Puck are but a few classic and familiar outcroppings of this rich and widespread stratum of thought. The same idea appears in the miraculous beliefs about renewing youth, such as crystallized in the legends of the Wandering Jew, Joseph of Arimathea, and the 'fountains of youth.' Initiation ceremonies and early dramatic art also testify to the belief that real transformations of personality are possible. It is significant that even so late. as Plato's time philosophers could fear the metamorphosis of the actor into his rôle.

It may not be out of place here to recall to mind such. modern survivals of belief in metamorphosis as the change in personality of the priest when he dons his ecclesiastical vestments; the judge when he put on his robe and mounts the bench; the convert when he claims "entire sanctification"; the dogma of papal infallibility resulting from a mysterious interchange of personality between the pope and the Godhead; the soldier with his 'frightfulness'; or the policeman when he lays aside his ordinary humanity and citizenship to become the 'personification of the law,' and tells you with shocking naïveté that he tortures a suspected prisoner not as a man but as an officer.

These illustrations from the history of human nature yield several important conclusions on the methods by which our sense of self is constructed. In the first place we must have been impressed by the large rôle of the feelings in coloring primitive perception and especially perception of the self. The emotion of fear begot many curious and all but incredible beliefs about metamorphosis. The feeling of safety derived from close association strengthened the tendency of the individual to merge himself in his group. Ignorance of the scientific order of nature, errors in seeing and hearing, faulty analogies and judgments, all

conspired to suppress sharp dualisms in primitive thought, and promoted in particular the failure to distinguish rigidly between ego and alter. This was largely responsible for early communism in property and for those broad definitions of kinship which merged the individual into his totem-clan, family, or tribe. That is to say, the notion of the individual soul and its priceless worth, and the militant sense of self as a property holder were characteristics lacking in early men; hence they must have been acquired in the course of comparatively recent religious and industrial evolution, and are therefore modifiable. Moreover, whatever we may think of the ways in which belief in metamorphosis has expressed itself, it is quite undeniable that the changes in human character and circumstance are authentic and cannot be repudiated. They yield emphatic affirmation upon the possibility of molding and modifying the human. self. The phenomena of religious conversion (the broken and contrite heart, the miracle of tongues, the pulverized will of the initiate, "twice-born men," etc.), of "double personality," of hypnotic suggestion, or even of more normal and commonplace educational experiences indicate that this belief may still retain a valid place in our thinking. Could we once peer into the depths of that dim valley, the subconscious self, we might well be startled at the undreamed-of possibilities of transformation. But the final and most important conclusion from the ethnographic data we have gathered is a strong hint that the sense of (self is essentially social and that as the mind is a working unity, so the concept of self reflects this totality of mind feelings, ideas, desires, percepts, concepts; and is controlled, shaped, and colored by it.

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CHAPTER III

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE SELF

OUR study of primitive thought and customs has suggested that the self is not a fixed or static quantity, but is a variable, depending upon the whole content and coloring of the mind for its shape and texture. Suppose we turn to psychology and inquire whether it supports such a conclusion. It is understood that we are not concerned here with speculative theology and its identification of the immortal God-given soul as the real self speaking through 'conscience' to our other selves, which are really not us in the eternal sense. Remember that our purpose is to keep these discussions rigorously objective. We might begin by setting aside the old metaphysical notion of the self as expressed, for example, by Bishop Butler: "It is not an idea, or abstract notion, or quality, but a being only, which is capable of life and action, of happiness and misery." To be sure we cannot treat such a concept too cavalierly, for a host of problems psychological and sociological seem to demand such a concept for their solution. For example, can evolution account for the separation by the self of itself from its sensations? In other words, can the self have evolved out of simple mechanical reactions upon exterior stimuli; or has there always been a self-existent spiritual principle distinct from the impressions and

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1 "Dissertation of Personal Identity" in Bohn's ed. of his Analogy and Sermons, pp. 328–34.

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