It is difficult to draw a line between what a person calls himself and his own. Our feelings and actions in relation to some of the objects that belong to us are largely similar to the feelings and actions in relation to ourselves. Our good name, our children, our works can be as dear to us as our own body, and can evoke in us the same feelings, and in the event of an encroachment on them, the same desire for retribution. And our bodies — are they just ours or is it ourselves? Undoubtedly, there were cases when people renounced their own body and looked at it as a garment or even a prison from which they would someday be happy to escape.
Obviously, we are dealing with a changeable material: the same object is considered by us sometimes as part of our personality, sometimes simply as “ours”, and sometimes as if we had nothing in common with it. However, in the broadest sense, a person’s personality is the sum total of everything that he can call his own: not only his physical and mental qualities, but also his dress, house, wife, children, ancestors and friends, his reputation and works, his estate. , horses, his yacht and capital. All this evokes similar feelings in him. If in relation to all this things are going well, he triumphs; if things go downhill, he is upset; Of course, each of the objects we have listed affects the state of his spirit differently, but they all have a more or less similar effect on his well-being. Understanding the word «personality» in the broadest sense, we can first of all subdivide its analysis into three parts in relation to
- its constituent elements;
- feelings and emotions caused by them (self-esteem);
- actions caused by them (self-care and self-preservation).
The constituent elements of personality can also be subdivided into three classes:
- physical person,
- social personality and
- spiritual personality.
physical personality
In each of us, the bodily organization is an essential component of our physical personality, and some parts of the body can be called ours in the narrowest sense of the word. The body organization is followed by clothing. The old saying that the human person consists of three parts: soul, body and dress is more than a simple joke. We appropriate the clothes of our personality to such an extent, to such an extent we identify one with the other, that few of us will not hesitate for a moment to give a decisive answer to the question which of the two alternatives they choose: to have a beautiful body, dressed in eternally dirty and torn rags, or under an ever-new suit to hide an ugly, ugly body. Then the closest part of ourselves is our family, father and mother, wife and children — flesh from flesh and bone from our bone. When they die, a part of us disappears. We are ashamed of their bad deeds. If someone offended them, indignation flares up in us immediately, as if we ourselves were in their place. Next comes our home, our home. What happens in it is part of our life, its sight arouses in us the most tender feeling of affection, and we are reluctant to forgive a guest who, having visited us, points out shortcomings in our home environment or treats it contemptuously. We give an instinctive preference to all these various objects connected with the most important practical interests of our life. We all have an unconscious drive to guard our bodies, to dress them in adorned dresses, to cherish our parents, wife and children, and to look for our own corner in which we can live, perfecting our home furnishings.
The same instinctive drive urges us to accumulate wealth, and the acquisitions we have made earlier become more or less familiar parts of our empirical personality. The works of our vital labor are most closely connected with us. Few people would not feel their personal annihilation if the work of their hands and brain (for example, a collection of insects or an extensive handwritten work), which they created over a lifetime, suddenly turned out to be destroyed. The same feeling is felt by the stingy with his money. Although it is true that part of our grief at the loss of objects of possession is due to the realization that we now have to do without some benefits that we expected to receive from the further use of objects now lost, nevertheless, in any such case, in addition to that, there still remains in us a feeling belittling our personality, turning some part of it into nothing. And this fact is an independent mental phenomenon. We immediately find ourselves on the same level with the tramps, with those pauvres diables (rabble) whom we so despise, and at the same time we become more alienated than ever from the happy sons of the earth, the lords of the land, the sea and people, the lords living in full splendor of power and material security. No matter how we appeal to democratic principles, involuntarily, in front of such people, openly or secretly, we experience feelings of fear and respect.
Recognition of our personality by other representatives of the human race makes us a public person. We are not only herd animals, not only love to be in the company of our own kind, but we even have an innate tendency to attract the attention of others and make a favorable impression on them. It is difficult to think of a more diabolical punishment (if such a punishment were physically possible) than if someone got into a society of people where he was completely ignored. If no one turned around at our appearance, did not answer our questions, did not take an interest in our actions, if everyone, when meeting with us, deliberately did not recognize us and treated us like inanimate objects, then a kind of rage, impotent despair would take possession of us. . Here, the most severe bodily torments would be a relief, if only during them we would feel that, for all the hopelessness of our situation, we still did not fall so low as not to deserve anyone’s attention.
Strictly speaking, a person has as many social personalities as individuals recognize in him a personality and have an idea about it. To encroach on this idea is to encroach on the person himself. But considering that persons who have an idea about a given person naturally fall into classes, we can say that in practice every person has as many different social personalities as there are different groups of people whose opinion he values. Many boys behave quite decently in the presence of their parents or teachers, and in the company of ill-mannered comrades, they rage and scold like drunk cabbies. We present ourselves in a completely different light in front of our children than in front of club mates; we behave differently in front of our regular customers than in front of our employees; we are something completely different in relation to our close friends than in relation to our masters or our superiors. Hence, in practice, the division of a person into several personalities is obtained; this can lead to a disharmonious split in the social personality, for example, if someone is afraid to expose himself to some acquaintances in the light in which he appears to others; but the same fact may lead to a harmonious distribution of the various sides of the personality, for example, when someone, being tender towards his children, is severe towards his subordinate prisoners or soldiers.
The most peculiar form of social personality is the lover’s idea of the personality of the person he loves. Her fate causes such a lively participation that it will seem completely meaningless if we apply to it any other scale than the measure of organic individual attraction. For himself, the lover, as it were, does not exist until his social personality receives a proper assessment in the eyes of the beloved being, in the latter case, his delight transcends all boundaries.
The good or bad glory of a person, his honor or shame are names for one of his social personalities. The peculiar social personality of a person, called his honor, is the result of one of those split personality of which we spoke. The idea that a person develops in the eyes of his environment is the guiding motive for approving or condemning his behavior, depending on whether he meets the requirements of this social environment, which he could not comply with in a different everyday situation. Thus, a private person may, without a twinge of conscience, leave a city infected with cholera, but a priest or doctor would find such an act inconsistent with their concept of honor. The soldier’s honor motivates him to fight and die under circumstances where the other person has every right to flee to safety or flee without stigmatizing his social self.
In the same way, a judge or a statesman, by virtue of his position, finds it dishonorable to engage in money transactions that do not involve anything reprehensible to a private person. It is not uncommon to hear people distinguish between different aspects of their personality: «As a person I pity you, but as an official I cannot spare you»; «Politically he is my ally, but morally I can’t stand him.» What is called the opinion of the environment is one of the strongest engines in life. A thief dare not rob his comrades; a card player is obliged to pay card debts, even if he does not pay his other debts at all. Always and everywhere the code of honor of a fashionable society forbade or allowed certain actions solely to please one of the sides of our social personality. In general, you must not lie, but as far as your relationship with a famous lady is concerned, lie as much as you like; from an equal you accept a challenge to a duel, but you will laugh in the face of a person of a lower social status compared to you if this person takes it into his head to demand satisfaction from you — these are examples to clarify our thought.
spiritual personality
By spiritual personality, inasmuch as it is related to empirical personality, we do not mean this or that particular transitory state of consciousness. Rather, we mean by spiritual personality the complete unification of individual states of consciousness, specifically taken spiritual abilities and properties. This unification can, at any given moment, become the object of our thought and evoke emotions similar to those produced in us by other parts of our personality. When we think of ourselves as thinking beings, all other aspects of our personality appear to us, as it were, as external objects. Even within the boundaries of our spiritual personality, some elements seem more external than others. For example, our faculties of sensation seem to be, so to speak, less intimately connected with our «I» than our emotions and desires. The very center, the very core of our self, as we know it, the holiest of holies of our being, is the feeling of activity found in some of our inner states of mind. This feeling of inner activity has often been pointed out as a direct manifestation of the life substance of our soul. Whether this is so or not, we will not analyze, but note here only the peculiar internal character of mental states that have the property of appearing active, whatever these mental states may be in themselves. They seem to go towards all the other experiential elements of our consciousness. This feeling is probably common to all people.