Consciousness and Personality [pp. 273-287]

CONSCIOUSNESS AND PERSONALITY.
in question as a measure or standard of self-comparison and selfjudgment; and the term is in my own mind not abstract, but
concrete, designating a known or imagined class of men preeminently possessed of this trait.
If such is the process by which self-knowledge is attained, it
follows that we can have no conception of any trait of character except as a human trait; and if a human trait, as belonging
really or potentially to men. If there be divine attributes that
are not human, we can know nothing of them, nor could any
possible revelation make us acquainted with them. If there be
alleged divine acts which are called just or merciful, which yet
do not accord with our concept of justice or mercy as concrete
in man, it is impossible that they should seem to us just or
merciful, whatever theological euphemisms we may employ
concerning them. On the other hand, of the consciousness-as
I believe, not a continuous self-consciousness-of the inferior
animals we can neither know nor conceive any trait or attribute
that is other than human. Thus, so far as we know anything,
if we know anything, of the ferocity of the tiger or the affection of the dog for his master, it is simply of such passions of hatred or love as we are consciously capable of. The
beastly part or type of the passion we could not comprehend,
tho we were to pass a lifetime in watching its manifestations. Thus in our concepts of character we cannot transcend
humanity or fall below it. Godlike and beastly, as applied to
character, are not suprahuman or subterhuman, but the outside limits of humanity,-the asymptotes which the curve of
our consciousness may approach perpetually, but can never
reach.
While we employ actual men or ideal humanity as the standard of comparison in judging of our own characters, we judge
of others by comparing them with ourselves, either directly or
by a standard of comparison which is simply our own consciousness idealized and generalized,-for the most part directly, as it
seems to me; for in our judgment of other men's characters we
are seldom dispassionate. The characters that we approve have
our love and our sympathy; those that we blame are the objects
of our dislike and aversion; and these emotions indicate a sense
of kindred or non-kindred which can hardly have any other
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