Slike strani
PDF
ePub

Self-Esteem and Self-Estimation.

Most persons, one supposes, have with more or less distinct consciousness framed a notion of their own value, if not to the world generally, at least to themselves. And this notion, however undefined it may be, is held to with a singular tenacity of belief. The greater part of mankind indeed seem never to entertain the question whether they really possess points of excellence. They assume it as a matter perfectly self-evident, and appear to believe in their vaguely conceived worth on the same immediate testimony of consciousness on which they assure themselves of their personal existence. Indeed the conviction of personal consequence may be said to be a constant factor in most men's consciousness. However restrained by the rules of polite intercourse, it betrays its existence and its energy in innumerable ways. It displays itself most triumphantly when thrown into sudden isolation, when others unite in heaping neglect and contempt on the believer's head. In these moments he proves an almost heroic strength of confidence, believing in himself and in his claims to careful consideration when all his acquaintance are practically avowing their disbelief. This intensity of belief in personal value may be observed in very different forms. The young woman who quite independently of others' opinion, and even in defiance of it, cherishes a conviction that her external attractions have a considerable value; the young man who, in the face of general indifference, persists in his habit of voluble talk on the supposition that he is conferring on his fellow-creatures the fruits of profound wisdom; and the man of years whose opinion of his own social importance and moral worth is quite disproportionate to the estimation which others form of his claims: these are but some of the many illustrations of that firm and unshakeable persuasion of personal value which is so deeply rooted in human nature.

Yet while this supposition is so very general, and always attended with such a strength of conviction, it is to be noticed that the conception of value which people associate with their personality is commonly a very vague one. In order to have a definite idea of the worth of a thing we must obviously possess a standard of value, and we must consciously compare the particular object with other things which have this same kind of value. Thus if a girl wished to form a clear notion of the æsthetic value of her features or of her general deportment, she would require a distinct conception as to what constitutes real beauty of person, and she would need too to think of other instances of these pleasing possessions in order to discover how high she stands in the hierarchy of

beautiful or elegant women. It is scarcely necessary to say that people's estimate of themselves is very rarely of this precise character. As to what really makes a man or a woman valuable, whether in a moral or in any other aspect, a person has no doubt some more or less clear idea when gauging the worth of another, but he rarely keeps a distinct conception before his mind when carrying out his easy methods of self-estimation. Many a man who has the deepest conviction of his dignity would be quite at a loss if called on to name the elements of his character to which this respect is due. Nay, people may even be fully persuaded that they are of great moral excellence and still be quite confused as to where exactly their virtues lie. Scarcely less obscure seems to be most persons' conception as to their exact relative position in the scale of valuable people. Many, no doubt, could so far define their notion of their own worth as to fix according to their own opinion their relation to some few of their acquaintances. Thus the young man who has a firm belief in the social value of his conversational rhetoric, might most probably connect with this idea a vague reference to one or two rivals in his art. That is to say, his self-estimation might be reducible to the proposition "At any rate I am able to beat B and C by a long interval." It is probable that very many people who cherish an opinion of their own personal attractions or moral excellence habitually define their supposed value by a reference to one or two such favourable objects of comparison. The conviction of their worth naturally solidifies, so to speak, in the definite shape, "I feel myself to be superior to X or Y." Where even this incomplete comparison is lacking, a person's appreciation of himself must be in a very hazy condition indeed. A man or woman who constantly cherishes the idea of personal worth, and yet is unable to define this worth by comparison with the qualities of others may be said to have a belief, but scarcely one which is reducible to distinct propositional form. The affirmation "I am of a very high but wholly undefinable value," may perhaps be looked on as a rudimentary proposition; but where the terms are wholly indefinable the amount of information which such a statement conveys must be regarded as infinitesimal. Yet this is probably the utmost which a very large number of persons, who are deeply convinced of their individual importance, could attain as a verbal expression of their belief. The additional mention of the kind of valuable quality on which the person bases this vague judgment scarcely affects the degree of its vagueness. When a person inwardly affirms "I am very wise," or "I am very self-denying," and has not the remotest idea whether and by how much he surpasses any given known example of this quality and the average attainment of it, he seems to be stating something like a distinct proposition, but in reality he is cherishing one of the vaguest of beliefs.

The common form of self-estimation is, then, a vague but ineradicable persuasion of personal excellence of some more or less distinctly conceived variety, in a degree that is hardly made distinct at all, and can only be defined as a superlative with a positive and a comparative suppressed. We

[ocr errors]

do not say that this kind of belief in personal dignity of some kind is a universal attribute of mankind. Among civilised people at least one may find a few individuals who are singularly deficient in this respect. They appear to be wholly indifferent to the question of their merits, whether in their own eyes or in those of others. Such naïve natures are too practical to trouble themselves about what seems so useless a point, and their shrewd common sense perceives in the habit of thinking about one's self at all something exceedingly silly and laughable. Their customary attitude with respect to themselves and their deserts is one of contented indifference. Yet though in such robust minds there is no chance for a distinct idea of self or of its value to rise into consciousness, careful observation may generally discover signs of a latent impulse to think well of one's qualities and actions. We may perhaps look on persons of this character as possessing the habit of self-estimation in its most rudimentary and but partially conscious stage.

There is another class of seeming exceptions to our general theory which calls for special notice. We refer to those persons who appear habitually to depreciate themselves and their doings. Every one has no doubt fallen in with such extremely modest individuals, who are disposed to make a very low estimate of themselves, even when others approve their conduct. In some of these cases it seems clear that the humble opinion thus professed is to a certain degree affected, for the simple reason that such a modest self-esteem is itself regarded as a graceful and even virtuous possession. But allowing for these ambiguous cases, there appears to be a considerable number of minds which sincerely entertain a very unfavourable opinion of themselves. They are quick and sensitive in finding holes and stains in their moral garment, and are inclined to pass over their best qualities as things of little or no account. Yet even in these instances we think it is possible to discover ample traces of the natural impulse to think well of one's self, only that it shows itself here in a more subtle and partially disguised form. The state of mind of the persons we are now speaking of seems to be the resultant of two forces, a desire to approve one's self and a conscientious fear of judging one's qualities and actions too favourably. That is to say, the disposition to entertain an elevated estimate of one's self is checked and limited by a fine conscientious sensibility, and is reduced to a nascent impulse, a half-hidden desire. When this conscientious sensibility becomes extreme, it assumes the shape of a morbid tendency to see only the unfavourable aspects of one's character. In these rare cases the impulse we have been discussing betrays its presence indirectly only, namely, in the mental distress and disappointment which evidently accompany the very lowly self-estimate formed in these instances. Finally, if there are persons who appear sincerely to believe in their own insignificance and worthlessness, and yet are unafflicted with the distress. of which we have just spoken, we may reasonably presume that they belong to the class of healthy objectively disposed minds which cannot VOL. XXXIII.-NO. 194.

9.

bring themselves to reflect distinctly on their own merits. The disavowal of worth with such persons may be regarded as their protest against the habit of indulging in the pleasures of self-esteem. They half make themselves believe that their importance is zero as a logical justification for their habitual neglect of themselves as objects of reflection.

It would seem, then, that the disposition to think highly of one's self in the vague manner before described is eminently a natural instinct of the human mind. Even where it does not become conscious of itself, so to speak, in a flattering conviction of personal excellence, its indirect action may be traced in a number of ways. Like a force in mechanics which does not produce motion, its presence and its intensity are inferrible from the amount of counteracting force which is called into requisition in order to destroy its effect. Since, then, this habit of favourable self-estimation is so common a trait in human nature, it may be worth while to look into its sources, to peer down into the dark cavernous recesses of the mind from which it wells forth.

We have found that the characteristics of this opinion of personal excellence are the intensity of the belief and the vagueness of the conceptions entertained. Now both of these features point to the conclusion that this particular belief is much more of a sentiment or emotion than an intellectual cognition. That is to say, people somehow feel themselves to be of value without distinctly perceiving the presence and exact situation of this value. Mr. Lewes has lately insisted on the proposition that all cognition springs from feeling, that emotion is the earliest and rudest stage of knowledge. The immediate feeling of the moment gives me the minimum of information respecting a thing. The utmost which it teaches is the presence of some vaguely defined quality in a wholly undefined degree. For example, the mind of a child who lights on a bit of brilliant colour in a book, and utters some exclamation to indicate its pleasurable admiration, is for the moment exclusively impressed with the beauty of these particular tints. To the child's consciousness at the moment this object is incomparably, absolutely beautiful. It could not explain where the charm lay, or contribute in the least to the solution of the question how beautiful this particular object is. Here we see how feeling pure and simple, while giving rise to the very strongest assurance, yields the subject of it scarcely any knowledge. True knowledge begins with discrimination of one thing from another, and a comparison of several things which have some feature in common; and these processes necessarily involve a limitation of feeling. In the first pleasurable excitement with which one listens to a new and delicious melody it would be wholly impossible to pass any judgment on the nature and degree of its beauty. For the instant its charm is boundless and absolute. Just so we may see that the self-estimation of most persons is the intense assurance of an immediate feeling, and not the calm conviction which attends a clear intellectual perception.

But how, it may be asked, does this assurance of personal dignity

spring immediately out of a present feeling, as the conviction that a thing is beautiful springs out of the pleasurable emotion which it calls forth? And further, what feeling have we in regarding ourselves at all analogous to the pleasurable sensations which are excited by beautiful objects? To the second of these questions it may be answered, that there is a feeling instinctively connected with self, which shows itself more and more distinctly pari passu with the growth of the idea of self. We can watch this double growth taking place in young children who betray a simple sentiment for self as soon as their minds can be supposed to form any conception of it. It is very hard to define this feeling more precisely than by terming it a rudimentary sense of personal importance. It may show itself in very different ways, taking now a more active form, as an impulse of self-assertion, and a desire to magnify one's own will to the suppression of others' wills, and at another time wearing the appearance of a passive emotion, an elementary form of amour propre. And it is this feeling which forms the germ of the selfestimation of adults. For in truth all attribution of value involves a feeling, namely, a kind of respect and a desire to possess, and the ascription of value to one's self is in its simplest form merely the expression of this state of feeling.

But how is it that this feeling shows itself instinctively as soon as the idea of self begins to arise in consciousness? The answer to this question is to be found, we imagine, in the general laws of mental development. All practical judgments like that of self-estimation are based on some feeling which is developed before it; and, again, feeling itself is based on some instinctive action which in like manner is earlier than the feeling. Thus, for example, an Englishman's judgment that his native country is of paramount value springs out of a long-existent sentiment of patriotism, which sentiment again may be regarded as having slowly grown up about the half blindly followed action of defending and furthering the interests of one's nation or tribe. In a similar way, one suspects, the feeling of personal worth, with its accompanying judgment, is a product of a long process of instinctive action. What this action is it is scarcely necessary to remind the reader. Every living organism strives blindly or consciously to promote its own life and wellbeing. The actions of plants are clearly related to the needs of a prosperous existence, individual first and serial afterwards. The movements of the lower animals have clearly the same end. Thus, on the supposition that man has been slowly evolved from lower forms, it is clear that the instinct of self-promotion must be the deepest and most ineradicable element of his nature, and it is this instinct which directly underlies the rudimentary sentiment of self-esteem of which we are now treating. First of all, there is the unreflecting organised habit of seeking individual good, of aiming at individual happiness, and so of pushing on, so to speak, the action of the individual will. This instinct shows itself in distinct form as soon as the individual is brought

« PrejšnjaNaprej »