brim up as from
a spirit overflowing. Everything about him was individual and
spontaneous. He was perhaps most like a powerful river that braced
one's energies, and carried one along without the slightest desire to
resist.[1]

[Footnote 1: Charles Wharton Stork: "A Great Teacher," _The Nation_,
July 26, 1919.]

THE NEGATIVE SELF. All the types of personality or self that
have thus far been discussed are in some way positive or
assertive. But the self may be exhibited negatively, in a
shrinking, not only from observation, but from any positive
or pronounced action. This has already been noted in connection
with submissiveness. Most people in the presence of
their intellectual and social or even their physical superior,
experience a sense of, to use McDougall's term, "negative
self-feeling." In some people this negation or effacement of
the self is a predominant characteristic.

It may be mere social timidity, which, in the case of those
continually placed in servile positions, as in the case of the
proverbial "poor relation," may become chronic. In its most
disagreeable form it is exhibited as an obsequious flattering
and a pretentious humility. Of this the classic instance is
Uriah Heep in _David Copperfield_:

"I suppose you are quite a great lawyer," I [David Copperfield]
said, after looking at him for some time.

"Me, Master Copperfield?" said Uriah. "Oh, no! I'm a very
umble person."

It was no fancy of mine about his hands, I observed; for he
frequently ground the palms against each other, as if to squeeze them
dry and warm, besides often wiping them, in a stealthy way, on his
pocket-handkerchief.

"I am well aware that I am the umblest person going," said Uriah
Heep modestly, "let the other be where he may. My mother is
likewise a very umble person. We live in a numble abode, Master
Copperfield, but have much to be thankful for. My father's former
calling was umble. He was a sexton."

"What is he now?" I asked.

"He is a partaker of glory, at present, Master Copperfield, but we
have much to be thankful for. How much have I to be thankful for,
in living with Mr. Wickfield."

Negative self-feeling may be provoked by a genuine sense
of unworthiness or modesty, and when this takes place among
religious people, it may become a complete and rapturous
submissiveness to God. The records of many mediaeval and
of some modern mystics emphasize this complete yielding to
the will of God, and in His will find