So unmistakable is this gradation of spirit, that one is tempted to ascribe it to cosmic rather than to human causes. It is as marked as the change in color of the human complexion observable along any meridian, which ranges from black at the equator to blonde toward the pole. In like manner, the sense of self grows more intense as we follow in the wake of the setting sun, and fades steadily as we advance into the dawn. America, Europe, the Levant, India, Japan, each is less personal than the one before. We stand at the nearer end of the scale, the Far Orientals at the other. If with us the I seems to be of the very essence of the soul, then the soul of the Far East may be said to be Impersonality.
Curious as this characteristic is as a fact, it is even more interesting as a factor. For what it betokens of these peoples in particular may suggest much about man generally. It may mark a stride in theory, if a standstill in practice. Possibly it may help us to some understanding of ourselves. Not that it promises much aid to vexed metaphysical questions, but as a study in sociology it may not prove so vain.
And for a thing which is always with us, its discussion may be said to be peculiarly opportune just now. For it lies at the bottom of the most pressing questions of the day. Of the two great problems that stare the Western world in the face at the present moment, both turn to it for solution. Agnosticism, the foreboding silence of those who think, socialism, communism, and nihilism, the petulant cry of those who do not, alike depend ultimately for the right to be upon the truth or the falsity of the sense of self.
For if there be no such actual thing as individuality, if the feeling we call by that name be naught but the transient illusion the Buddhists would have us believe it, any faith founded upon it as basis vanishes as does the picture in a revolving kaleidoscope,-- less enduring even than the flitting phantasmagoria of a dream.
If the ego be but the passing shadow of the material brain, at the disintegration of the gray matter what will become of us? Shall we simply lapse into an indistinguishable part of the vast universe that compasses us round? At the thought we seem to stand straining our gaze, on the shore of the great sea of knowledge, only to watch the fog roll in, and hide from our view even those headlands of hope that, like beseeching hands, stretch out into the deep.
So more materially. If individuality be a delusion of the mind, what motive potent enough to excite endeavor in the breast of an ordinary mortal remains? Philosophers, indeed, might still work for the advancement of mankind, but mankind itself would not continue long to labor energetically for what should profit only the common weal.
Take away the stimulus of individuality, and action is paralyzed at once. For with most men the promptings of personal advantage only afford sufficient incentive to effort. Destroy this force, then any consideration due it lapses, and socialism is not only justified, it is raised instantly into an axiom of life. The community, in that case, becomes itself the unit, the indivisible atom of existence.
Socialism, then communism, then nihilism, follow in inevitable sequence. That even the Far Oriental, with all his numbing impersonality, has not touched this goal may at least suggest that individuality is a fact.
But first, what do we know about its existence ourselves?
Very early in the course of every thoughtful childhood an event takes place, by the side of which, to the child himself, all other events sink into insignificance. It is not one that is recognized and chronicled by the world, for it is wholly unconnected with action. No one but the child is aware of its occurrence, and he never speaks of it to others. Yet to that child it marks an epoch.
So intensely individual does it seem that the boy is afraid to avow it, while in reality so universal is it that probably no human being has escaped its influence. Though subjective purely, it has more vividness than any external event; and though strictly intrinsic to life, it is more startling than any accident of fate or fortune.
This experience of the boy's, at once so singular and yet so general, is nothing less than the sudden revelation to him one day of the fact of his own personality.
Somewhere about the time when sensation is giving place to sensitiveness as the great self-educator, and the knowledge gained by the five bodily senses is being fused into the wisdom of that mental one we call common sense, the boy makes a discovery akin to the act of waking up. All at once he becomes conscious of himself; and the consciousness has about it a touch of the uncanny. Hitherto he has been aware only of matter; he now first realizes mind.
Unwarned, unprepared, he is suddenly ushered before being, and stands awe-struck in the presence of--himself.
If the introduction to his own identity was startling, there is nothing reassuring in the feeling that this strange acquaintanceship must last. For continue it does. It becomes an unsought intimacy he cannot shake off. Like to his own shadow he cannot escape it.
To himself a man cannot but be at home. For years this alter ego haunts him, for he imagines it an idiosyncrasy of his own, a morbid peculiarity he dare not confide to any one, for fear of being thought a fool. Not till long afterwards, when he has learned to live as a matter of course with his ever-present ghost, does he discover that others have had like familiars themselves.
