Chapter V: Mental Life
1904 original text, YOGeBooks typeset transcription; original text extent only
one time in their life betrayed a confidential secret to some one else. Amusing as it
seems, it is common to hear a person accuse himself of a breach of trust, saying, as he
tells a secret, ‘This was told me in confidence.’ His egoistic emotion will not allow him
to say, ‘I am not worthy of confidence,’ although he would unhesitatingly draw that
conclusion in the case of another.…
“It is confidently remarked that the egoistic emotions cannot warp mathematical
truths, for they are inflexible and unerring. Such a statement might do very well in
schoolrooms, but it has no place elsewhere. A noted lawyer said: ‘I have a client who is
a plaintiff in a damage suit. Now, a damage, if expressed at all, must be mathematically
expressed. My client’s damages amount to the sum of two and two, or four. But he
cannot possibly add his own two and two of damage without making the sum five.
The defendant adds this same two and two and makes the sum three. If it were not
for the fact that the emotions of self will not allow men to add units correctly, quite
a percentage of my practice would be gone. If men were sure that selfish emotion
would not prompt another man to take advantage of them when opportunity
offered, a still larger percentage of my practice would be lost.’
“The undoubted fact that our own acts do not cause in us the same emotions as
similar acts on the part of others is one of the strangest psychological truths. This
legacy from unevolved man, from the times when brute might was the only right, has
been handed down to us. This legacy is still a beam of varying size in every human eye.
We shall probably long continue to excuse certain acts of our own and of our friends
and to criticise our enemies severely for those same deeds. We see this tendency
full-fledged in animals. A big, strong dog will take away a bone from a starving dog.
A wealthy railroad president and wealthy directors will plan to wreck a rival road
whose bonds and stock may constitute a large proportion of the investments of
some orphans. These men would experience intense emotion if any one attempted
to steal from a child of theirs. They will steal from the children of others without a
qualm. The advance in intelligence has many times served to increase this tendency.
Napoleon was a very intelligent man. The promoters of hydra-headed trusts are men
of great sagacity. It is nevertheless true that, as a man acquires the habit of reflecting
on his own actions, as he by an effort places himself in a neutral position, and from
that changed point of view looks at his deeds with another’s eyes, as he puts himself
in the place of those whom his acts have inconvenienced or wronged, this brute
legacy, so destructive of truth, will grow less and less. But only the possessor of a vivid
imagination, either natural or acquired, can ever succeed in doing this. Children who
are early taught to regard each act from the point of view of those affected by that
act are placed in the royal road to overcome this tendency. A successful business man
recently said that he did not wish his children thus taught, for such training would put
them at a disadvantage in the struggle for existence.
“True conceptions are hampered not only by those emotions which are popularly