not feel the ownership of
what he had given, and he could not feel that he had given it away.[1]

[Footnote 1: Quoted from the obituary of Andrew Carnegie in the
_New York Times_ of August 12, 1919.]

This sense of incredulity at one's actions or achievements
is rarer than the consciousness of self which it promotes.
The intensity of this self-awareness is increased when opinion
is expressed or power exerted in the face of opposition. The
man who finds himself standing out against the community
in which he lives, who is a freethinker among those who are
intensely religious, an extremist among those who are custom-ridden,
spiritualistic among people who are controlled by
materialistic ideas, finds the sense of his own personality
heightened by contrast. When dissenting opinions are steadfastly
maintained in the face of the opposition of a powerful
majority, there develops a personality with edge and strength.
The man who can persist in his belief against the prevailing
winds of doctrine and of action may be wrong, but he is a
personality. He is intensely and persistently aware of himself.
Similarly, the exertion of power in the face of opposition
increases the sense of one's own power and helps to consolidate
it. One derives from it the same exhilaration that one
has in feeling a canoe under the impulsion of one's paddle
overcome the resistance of the water. In the same way, the
exertion of social power in the face of obstacles makes half the
exhilaration of politics and business for some types of men in
business and political life. One admires the ruthlessness of a
Napoleon at war or of a captain of industry in the sharp industrial
competition of the nineteenth century, not because it is
ruthless, but because it is power. Such men are at least not
neutral; they are positive forces.

The contrast between the "self" and the others may be
friendly, with a recognition of all other selves as equally
entitled to existence. One pursues the even tenor of one's way,
and is content to let others pursue theirs. Men of very powerful
personality have exhibited the utmost gentleness and
consideration of others. Lincoln, the typical strong, silent
man, displayed a tenderness for the suffering and distressed
that has already become proverbial.

The contrast between one's self and the world may be one of
bitter opposition, as when one's ideas or actions are subjected
to social censure. As Mill argued over half a century ago, th