separately, cannot possibly coexist. "Not that I would not, if I could," says James, "be both handsome and fat and well-dressed, and a great athlete, and make a million a year, be a wit, a bon-vivant, and a lady-killer as well as a philosopher; a philanthropist, statesman, warrior, and African explorer, as well as a 'tone-poet' and saint. But the thing is simply impossible. The millionaire's work would run counter to the saint's; the bonvivant and the philanthropist would trip each other up; the philosopher and the lady-killer could not well keep house in the same tenement of clay. So the seeker of his truest, strongest, deepest self must review the list carefully and pick out the one on which he is to stake his salvation."1

But this one "me" being chosen, even then the future potential better self is always at war with the present, however good. One can build only on the present self, yet he must leave it behind. He must both deny it and affirm it. The ideal potential self passes continual judgment on the present self.

The problem of life becomes, thus, everywhere a paradox, which can be definitely stated. A fundamental paradox is

involved in our very natures, as is perhaps indicated most clearly by Professor Royce's classification of mental phenomena1. He denotes two of the three fundamental heads of his classification as docility and initiative, and defines these terms as follows: "By the docility of an animal we mean the capacity shown in its acts to adjust to adjust these acts not merely to a present situation, but to the relation between this present situation and what has occurred in the former life of this organism. The term 'docility' is chosen as a convenient name both for the physical manifestation of the animal's power to profit by experience, and for the mental processes that accompany this same power." In this sense, docility gives us the law of habit. "Its interpretation in terms of consciousness is, that any conscious process which is of a type that has occurred before tends to recur more readily, up to the point where the limit of training has been reached, and to displace rival conscious processes, according as its type has frequently occurred." And the law of habit involves the law of association, "the assimilation of new habits to old ones," and, in the social life, the constant influence of imitation.

1 Outlines of Psychology, pp. viii, x, 38, 53, 198, 234, 279, etc.

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On the other hand, "The sort of mental initiative which is especially in question in the present discussion is that which appears when already acquired, and intelligent habits are decidedly altered, or are decidedly recombined, in such fashion as to bring to pass a novel readjustment to our environment." This is the recognition of "critical points" in our development. Now, our mental life and growth manifestly require both docility and initiative; each must have its due place and recognition. And this fundamental paradox involves many lesser ones. It appears, as has been already seen, in the intellectual life; it appears also in character, and in any large and wise management of life.

Character, in the large sense, requires both self-assertion and self-surrender, both individuality and deference, both the assertion. of a law for oneself and the reasonable yielding to others, both loyalty to conviction and open-mindedness, both free independence and obedience. "In brief," says Royce, "the preservation of a happy balance between the imitative functions and those that emphasize social contrasts and oppositions forms the basis for every higher type of mental activity. And the entire process of conscious educa

tion involves the deliberate appeal to the docility of these two types of social instincts.1 For, whatever else we teach to a social being, we teach him to imitate; and whatever use we teach him to make of his social imitations in his relations with other men, we are obliged at the same time to teach him to assert himself, in some sort of way, in contrast with his fellows, and by virtue of the arts which he possesses."

No wonder the child is often honestly perplexed, and not a little dazed, at times, to find himself blamed for disobedience, where he felt himself really standing for principle. Yet it is certain that without a good large admixture of self-assertion to give him backbone, the child will be mere clay under the influence of his surroundings and can never form character.2

No wonder the grown man, too, frequently mistakes. Lecky gives a particular illustration of this paradox in character, in speaking of

1I cannot help thinking that it would have been more logical for Professor Royce to have regarded these two contrasted instincts as illustrations respectively of his two fundamental contrasts of "docility" and "initiative"; and I have here so treated them. After the great emphasis of his fundamental classification of mental phenomena, his actual treatment of "initiative" seems needlessly d sappointing.

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the difficulties of "parliamentary government worked upon party lines." "It needs," he says, "a combination of independence and discipline which is not common, and where it does not exist parliaments speedily degenerate either into an assemblage of puppets in the hands of party leaders or into disintegrated, demoralized, insubordinate groups. The same paradoxical combination of qualities is indicated again by Lecky as necessary, when he says: "One of the worst moral evils that grow up in democratic countries is the excessive tendency to time-serving and popu larity-hunting, and the danger is all the greater because in a certain sense both of these things are a necessity and even a duty. Their moral quality depends mainly on their motive." This problem is thus a perpetual one. The solution cannot be easy for child or parent, for student or teacher, for citizen or government. Kindly, patient suggestion, which is reverent of the individual person, earnest seeking of the best that is attainable in the circumstances, and honest coöperation are needed.

So, too, a similar paradox confronts us in

1 The Map of Life, p. 183.

2 Op. cit., p. 141.