bysses of ignorance which
would be painfully in the consciousness of those who had
set up for themselves ideals of erudition and culture. A
laborer will live and move and have his being serenely in clothes
and in surroundings that "would never do" for a professional
man who had committed himself to live according to the
social standards of his class. Sometimes a man's actions will
be directed toward the construction of an ideal self, on standards
far in advance of those of his group. A man in developing
such a self is, indeed, in some cases practically committing
social suicide. The extreme dissenter from the
current standards of action is attempting to build up what
James has well called a "spiritual self," a self in the light
of his own ideals, rather than those current among his
contemporaries.

EGOISM _VERSUS_ ALTRUISM. The individual in developing his
own personality need not, necessarily, be selfish, nor is the
enhancement of one's personality incompatible with altruism.
One man may find his individuality sufficiently developed in a
large bank account, another in discovering a cure for cancer;
one man may seek nothing but gratification of his physical
appetites; another may find his fulfillment on the battlefield
in defense of the national honor. Since man is born with the
original tendencies to herd with and have common sympathies
with his fellows, and to pity those of them that are weak
and distressed, there is nothing more unnatural about altruism
than about egoism. It is true that in some men the so-called
altruistic impulses, the impulse to sympathize with
the emotions, feelings, aspirations and difficulties of others,
and to pity them in their distress, are comparatively weak;
that in some men the more obviously egoistic impulses, such
as the gratification of bodily desires, the acquisition of
physical possessions are strong and uncontrollable. But through
education the altruistic and social impulses of men may be
cultivated and strengthened, so that they may become more
powerful and dominant than even the urgency of physical
desire. "Man cannot live by bread alone," and a man in
whom a passion for reform or for religion, for a cause or for a
conquest has become strong, will sacrifice food, sleep, and
physical comfort, and may even find the satisfactory fulfillment
of self in self-sacrifice and obliteration.[1]

[Footnote 1: This is partly because man's sense of selfhood is
so largely socially conditi