Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/840

 8 1 THE AMERICAN JO URNAL OF SOCIOL OG Y

the fact that consciousness does not extend beyond the past conflict. The fact is rather that the soul has through the conflict undergone some sort of modification of itself, which cannot be recalled, which is not to be likened to a wound that can be healed, even though it leaves a scar, but rather to a lost member. This is the most tragic irreconcilability : neither a grudge nor a reservation nor secret spite needs to have remained in the soul and to have created a positive barrier between the two parties. The fact is merely that through the conflict which has been fought out something has been killed in the person in question which cannot be again brought to life, no matter how eager the efforts may be to that end. Here is a point at which the impo- tence of the will emerges most vividly in contrast with the actual personality. Wherever this is misunderstood there will be countless unjust judgments and self-martyrdoms. It is entirely useless to accuse a defective will for the impossibility of restor- ing the old relationship. While this is the form of irreconcilabil- ity in the case of very simple and not easily influenced natures, another form is observed in the case of persons who are subject- ively highly differentiated. The image and after-effects of the conflict, and of all those things which are laid to the charge of the other party, remain in consciousness, and the painful impres- sion created by it cannot be removed; but undiminished love and attachment gather around this image nevertheless, while recollections of it and resignation with reference to the past do not constitute a diminution of the attachment, but are wrought into the image of the other party; we love him now, so to speak, inclusive of these passive elements in the balance of our total relationship to him, which our thoughts can no longer eliminate from our conception of him. The bitterness of the struggle, the points at which the personality of the other party asserted itself, which bring into the relationship either a prominent renunciation or a constantly renewed irritation all this is for- gotten and really unreconciled. It is, however, so to speak, localized ; it is absorbed as a factor in the total relationship, the central identity of which need not suffer because of this factor. That the quarrel leaves behind such a dissociating element,