The Foundations of Personality | Page 5

be an end sufficient in itself. So man constantly probes into
himself--"Are my purposes good; is my will strong--how can I
strengthen my control, how make righteous my instincts and
emotions?" It is true that there is a worship--and always has been--of
efficiency and success as against character; that man has tended to ask
more often, "What has he done?" or, "What has he got?" rather than,
"What is he?" and that therefore man in his self-analysis has often
asked, "How shall I get?" or, "How shall I do?" In the largest sense
these questions are also questions of character, for even if we discard as
inadequate the psychology which considers behavior alone as important,
conduct is the fruit of character, without which it is sterile.
[1] Hocking.

This book does not aim at any short cuts by which man may know
himself or his neighbor. It seeks to analyze the fundamentals of
personality, avoiding metaphysics as the plague. It does not define
character or seek to separate it from mind and personality. Written by a
neurologist, a physician in the active practice of his profession, it
cannot fail to bear more of the imprint of medicine, of neurology, than
of psychology and philosophy. Yet it has also laid under contribution
these fields of human effort. Mainly it will, I hope, bear the marks of
everyday experience, of contact with the world and with men and
women and children as brother, husband, father, son, lover, hater,
citizen, doer and observer. For it is this plurality of contact that
vitalizes, and he who has not drawn his universals of character out of
the particulars of everyday life is a cloistered theorist, aloof from
reality.


CHAPTER I
. THE ORGANIC BASIS OF CHARACTER
The history of Man's thought is the real history of mankind. Back of all
the events of history are the curious systems of beliefs for which men
have lived and died. Struggling to understand himself, Man has built up
and discarded superstitions, theologies and sciences.
Early in this strange and fascinating history he divided himself into two
parts--a body and a mind. Working together with body, mind somehow
was of different stuff and origin than body and had only a mysterious
connection with it. Theology supported this belief; metaphysics and
philosophy debated it with an acumen that was practically sterile of
usefulness. Mind and body "interacted" in some mysterious way; mind
and body were "parallel" and so set that thought-processes and
brain-processes ran side by side without really having anything to do
with one another.[1] With the development of modern anatomy,
physiology and psychology, the time is ripe for men boldly to say that
applying the principle of causation in a practical manner leaves no
doubt that mind and character are organic, are functions of the
organism and do not exist independently of it. I emphasize "practical"

in relation to causation because it would be idle for us here to enter into
the philosophy of cause and effect. Such discussion is not taken
seriously by the very philosophers who most earnestly enter into it.
[1] William James in Volume 1 of his "Psychology" gives an
interesting resume of the theories that consider the relationship of mind
(thought and consciousness) to body. He quotes the "lucky" paragraph
from Tyndall, "The passage from the physics of the brain to the
corresponding facts of consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a
definite thought and a definite molecular action in the brain occur
simultaneously; we do not possess the intellectual organ, or apparently
any trace of the organ which would enable us to pass by a process of
reasoning from one to the other." This is the "parallel" theory which
postulates a hideous waste of energy in the universe and which throws
out of count the same kind of reasoning by which Tyndall worked on
light, heat, etc. We cannot understand the beginning and the end of
motion, we cannot understand causation. Probably when Tyndall's
thoughts came slowly and he was fatigued he said--"Well, a good cup
of coffee will make me think faster." In conceding this practical
connection between mind and body, every "spiritualist" philosopher
gives away his case whenever he rests or eats.
The statement that mind is a function of the organism is not necessarily
"materialistic." The body is a living thing and as such is as
"spiritualistic" as life itself. Enzymes, internal secretions, nervous
activities are the products of cells whose powers are indeed drawn from
the ocean of life.
To prove this statement, which is a cardinal thesis of this book, I shall
adduce facts of scientific and facts of common knowledge. One might
start with the statement that the death of the body brings about the
abolition of mind and character, but this, of course, proves nothing,
since