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228 no organized agencies to investigate the status of the pauper class,—the dilemma brought upon him by the promptings of his sympathy, on the one hand, and the sense of his duty to society which only the refusal to help the man will fulfil, on the other hand,—this dilemma, which on a larger scale is one of the critical dilemmas of all social endeavor, may be translated directly into the terms of our psychological analysis. We may say that Mr. A. has two possible attitudes or courses of conduct before him. And the two are what they are according as he thinks of the tramp in one way or the other. If he thinks of him as an unfortunate, deserving man, possibly hungry, or maimed beyond possibility of self-support, then there is an alter which arouses his 'accommodating' self, his sympathetic impulses, his desire to make an exception in this case. But when he thinks of the man under the ordinary conditions of the profession of 'tramping,' as a worthless creature of drink, who will continue to burden the community and persuade others to do the same, as long as free food or lodging is given him, or money without work, then he has before him quite a different alter; one that calls out his habitual, aggressive self. His dilemma, therefore, is really due to the shifting of the poles of his inner dialectic. Suppose he be a man of benevolence only, or a man with no willingness to take trouble for the general good; then he acts at once on the first of the thoughts of self—he has no dilemma. So, on the other hand, if he be very rational in his methods of thought, or very much impressed with the dangers of the tramp tribe, or very impecunious and willing to make law a cloak for private selfishness in any of these cases he acts promptly in terms of the habitual self; then also he finds no dilemma. So the very fact of the embarrassment, if it arise, is witness to the play of his various thoughts of the tramp.

But this, it is clear, does not exhaust the statement of the dilemma. As a matter of fact, whichever way he decides, he is afterwards haunted by the fear that he has done wrong. The two thoughts of self still remain clamorous. And the question comes up; why is this so? Why is not the choice of either course right? What is the further standard, to which he feels