at we mean and who or what we
are talking about when we use that pronoun, but we have to give it up
and confess that we cannot find him. To me, Man is a machine, made up
of many mechanisms, the moral and mental ones acting automatically in
accordance with the impulses of an interior Master who is built out of
born-temperament and an accumulation of multitudinous outside influences
and trainings; a machine whose ONE function is to secure the spiritual
contentment of the Master, be his desires good or be they evil; a
machine whose Will is absolute and must be obeyed, and always IS obeyed.

Y.M. Maybe the Me is the Soul?

O.M. Maybe it is. What is the Soul?

Y.M. I don't know.

O.M. Neither does any one else.

The Master Passion

Y.M. What is the Master?--or, in common speech, the Conscience? Explain
it.

O.M. It is that mysterious autocrat, lodged in a man, which compels the
man to content its desires. It may be called the Master Passion--the
hunger for Self-Approval.

Y.M. Where is its seat?

O.M. In man's moral constitution.

Y.M. Are its commands for the man's good?

O.M. It is indifferent to the man's good; it never concerns itself about
anything but the satisfying of its own desires. It can be TRAINED to
prefer things which will be for the man's good, but it will prefer them
only because they will content IT better than other things would.

Y.M. Then even when it is trained to high ideals it is still looking out
for its own contentment, and not for the man's good.

O.M. True. Trained or untrained, it cares nothing for the man's good,
and never concerns itself about it.

Y.M. It seems to be an IMMORAL force seated in the man's moral
constitution.

O.M. It is a COLORLESS force seated in the man's moral constitution. Let
us call it an instinct--a blind, unreasoning instinct, which cannot and
does not distinguish between good morals and bad ones, and cares nothing
for results to the man provided its own contentment be secured; and it
will ALWAYS secure that.

Y.M. It seeks money, and it probably considers that that is an advantage
for the man?

O.M. It is not always seeking money, it is not always seeking power,
nor office, nor any other MATERIAL advantage. In ALL cases it seeks a
SPIRITUAL contentment, let the MEANS be what they may. Its desires
are determined by the man's temperament--and it is lord over that.
Temperament, Conscience, Susceptibility, Spiritual Appetite, are, in
fact, the sam