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.Instead ofbeing egoistic I should be spontaneously altruistic, then.But in this case, only partially realizedin actual human conditions, though the self I empirically love would have changed, my pure Egoor Thinker would have to remain just what it is now.My spiritual powers, again, must interest me more than those of other people, and for the samereason.I should not be here at all unless I had cultivated them and kept them from decay.Andthe same law which made me once care for them makes me care for them still.My own body and what ministers to its needs are thus the primitive object, instinctivelydetermined, of my egoistic interests.Other objects may become interesting derivatively throughGet any book for free on: www.Abika.com THE PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY201association with any of these things, either as means or as habitual concomitants; and so in athousand ways the primitive sphere of the egoistic emotions may enlarge and change itsboundaries.This sort of interest is really the meaning of the word 'my.' Whatever has it is eo ipso a part ofme.My child, my friend dies, and where he goes I feel that part of myself now is and evermoreshall be:"For this losing is true dying;This is lordly man's down-lying;This his slow but sure reclining,Star by star his world resigning."[p.325] The fact remains, however, that certain special sorts of thing tend primordially topossess this interest, and form the natural me.But all these things are objects, properly so called,to the subject which does the thinking.[13] And this latter fact upsets at once the dictum of theold-fashioned sensationalist psychology, that altruistic passions and interests are contradictory tothe nature of things, and that if they appear anywhere to exist, it must be as secondary products,resolvable at bottom into cases of selfishness, taught by experience a hypocritical disguise.If thezoological and evolutionary point of view is the true one, there is no reason why any objectwhatever might not arouse passion and interest as primitively and instinctively as any other,whether connected or not with the interests of the me.The phenomenon of passion is in originand essence the same, whatever be the target upon which it is discharged; and what the targetactually happens to be is solely a question of fact.I might conceivably be as much fascinated,and as primitively so, by the care of my neighbor's body as by the care of my own.The onlycheck to such exuberant altruistic interests is natural selection, which would weed out such aswere very harmful to the individual or to his tribe.Many such interests, however, remainunweeded out - the interest in the opposite sex, for example, which seems in mankind strongerthan is called for by its utilitarian need; and alongside of them remain interests, like that inalcoholic intoxication, or in musical sounds, which, for aught we can see, are without any utilitywhatever.The sympathetic instincts and the egoistic ones are thus co-ordinate.They arise, so faras we can tell, on the same psychologic level.The only difference between them is, that theinstincts called egoistic form much the larger mass.The only author whom I know to have discussed the question whether the 'pure Ego,' per se, canbe an object of regard, is Herr Horwicz, in his extremely able and acute PsychologischeAnalysen.He too says that all self-regard is regard for certain objective things.He disposes sowell [p.326] of one kind of objection that I must conclude by quoting a part of his own words:First, the objection:"The fact is indubitable that one's own children always pass for the prettiest and brightest, thewine from one's own cellar for the best - at least for its price, - one's own house and horses forthe finest.With what tender admiration do we con over our own little deed of benevolence! ourown frailties and misdemeanors, how ready we are to acquit ourselves for them, when we noticethem at all, on the ground of 'extenuating circumstances'! How much more really comic are ourown jokes than those of others, which, unlike ours, will not bear being repeated ten or twelveGet any book for free on: www.Abika.com THE PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY202times over! How eloquent, striking, powerful, our own speeches are! How appropriate our ownaddress! In short, how much more intelligent, soulful, better, is everything about us than inanyone else.The sad chapter of artists' and authors' conceit and vanity belongs here."The prevalence of this obvious preference which we feel for everything of our own is indeedstriking
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