Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/102

 86 SOPHIE BRYANT : man's memory is to show not that he sinned on system, but that all his errors brought the amendment of shame and remorse. Thus the admirers of Goethe seek to defend him by minimising the significance of his ill-faith to Frederika, though his truer defence lies ready to hand in the bitter self-reproaches which he did not spare. The righteous man, however, the vigilance of whose "presence of mind" preserves from error, may yet have much occasion to learn himself, especially if there be some complexity in the circumstances of his life. Borne forward on the wave of some strong impulse, he will see, afterwards at least, that although reason consented, the deed being fairly rational, it was not all reason or his judgment of right. And thus reflecting there will be revealed to him deeply rooted attachments, invincible defensive instincts, pivoting his will. The more clear the revelation the more surely will he know that these are the warp in the web of conscience, without which the judgments of reason would fall idly apart like the separate though orderly threads of the woof. The work of self-consciousness is to express these beneficent instincts as principles and to weave them into the system of the developed conscience ruling life. Moreover, he will find in himself instincts also of another temper, though the self-controlled man will never to the full become aware of the possibilities of evil in himself. Nor is there value in the sort of scrutiny which searches for these roots of evil when they do not put forth stem and leaf. Liability to the instincts out of which error arises, is not error is not even character when the error does not come near to occurrence. Yet in the current of such liability one human nature may differ not a little from another. Such differences will, I think, appear chiefly in our social rather than in our self- consciousness, in our sympathies, antipathies, tolerances and intolerances. We sympathise with that which we might be or do as well as with that which we consciously are. Instincts in ourselves of which we are unconscious, having never given them play, will make us sympathise with others manifesting them. But this is only within certain limits. As I have on another occasion tried to show, the obscure instincts which we stifle most mercilessly come so far to the surface in us when others manifest them as to make us understand and shrink in abhorrence from those others. Thus beyond certain limits acceptable to conscience obscure instincts cause us to be antipathetic to their like. Simple intolerance of Others I would distinguish from antipathy as an effect