Page:An introduction to ethics.djvu/110

 of personality is that much of the experience which goes to the moulding of character is acquired by a man in his leisure hours. Much of it is derived from domestic and social and religious relationships, which are common to all men.

This is the explanation of the fact that the self that a man develops may not be internally consistent. A man may develop different selves, according to the different relations in which he stands to different groups of people. He may form one self in his business and another in his church. Now these selves may be discordant. The business-self may be dishonest, the religious self pious. There is an internal conflict between the two selves: the man is really trying to serve God and Mammon. But in other cases, the apparently different selves may be perfectly consistent. The officer may be stern towards the soldiers whom he commands, but as gentle as a woman towards his children. Such a self would, in reality, be perfectly harmonious, though it appears in one aspect in its attitude to one group of people, and in another aspect in relation to another group.

It is essential for a consistent moral life that the self should be harmonious. The personality must be one and constant. Its attitudes may vary in different relations and under different circumstances, but the personality as a whole should be a unity, for only then will its conduct be consistent. It is one of the great tasks of education to help the child to develop a harmonious self, to secure that his "modes of feeling, thinking, and acting show unity, consistency, and distinctive individuality."