Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/525

 THE NORMAL SELF, ETC. .'> | 1 negative the idea of a true self, being composed of two but,
 * illy harmonised ' moments,' and maintaining itself

within the specious unity of Consciousness in direct opposi- tion to an Abnormal Self. It is therefore permeated and confined by Eelativity, is unstable, moving, evolving elBtxs, e'So? in the sense of ' real kind ' or ' species,' but not in the sense of pure and absolute ' form '. Nevertheless, as I venture to think, it is the only and the most perfect kind of form that the concrete nature of Evolutionary Ethics permits us to grasp in thought. It is the form or ' container ' of all tlvat Instinct, Habit, Tradition and the most careful Reason- ing have together shown the typical wise and good man of a given age or generation to be his possible Best. On the other hand the Abnormal Self is the negation of moral etSo? in Platonic language, the net outcome of the alliance of the brute and the sophist against the man. In spite, then, of the partial contradictions that it contains, I am disposed to regard the Normal Self as pheno'menally a fact, and, moreover, as the fact that Ethical Science needs to posit in the forefront of its general definitions. At any rate I feel sure that it is more of a fact than is the Tribal Self of Clifford. Relative consistency, relative completeness and comprehensiveness, is the standard by which both alike must stand or fall. If therefore the idea of the Normal Self, as I have tried to explain it, is more really comprehensive and in this sense truer than the Tribal Self of Clifford, then it is better, ethically speaking, and like any other experimental formula is entitled to prevail until, like a priest of Nemi, it succumb to a still doughtier rival.