development of a social self. We have seen how self-consciousness lies
at the foundation of personality, sharply discriminating persons from
things. We have seen too that wherever it is present, the person
curiously directs himself, passing through all the varieties of
purposive activity which were catalogued in the chapter on self-
direction. But such activity implies a being of variable, not of fixed
powers, a being accordingly capable of enlargement, and with
possibilities in him which every moment renders real. This progressive
realization of himself, this development, he--so far as he is good--
consciously conducts. And finally we found in the person the strange
fact that he conceives of his good self as essentially in conjunction
with his fellow man, and recognizes that parted off and in separate
abstractness he is no person at all. Accordingly personal
organization, direction, enlargement, conjunction. Under our analysis
two antithetic worlds emerge, a world of nature and of spirit, the
former guided by blind forces, the latter self-managed. Unlike
spiritual beings, natural objects are under alien control; have not
the power of development, and when brought into close conjunction with
others are liable to disruption.



II

Accepting this vital distinction, we see that the work of spiritual
man will consist in progressively subjugating whatever natural powers
he finds within him and without, rendering them all expressive of
self-conscious purpose. for we men are not altogether spiritual; in us
two elements meet. Our spirituality is superposed on a natural basis.
Like things, we have our natural aptitudes, blind tendencies,