our hearts. We prize them for their want of deliberation. In short, we
give our unbiased endorsement not to the spiritual or consciously
guided person, but to him, on the contrary, who shows the closest
adjustment to nature.



VI

Yet even so, we have gone too far afield for evidence. First we
surveyed the ages, then we surveyed one another. But there is one
proof-spot nearer still. Let us survey ourselves. I am much mistaken
if there are not among my readers persons who have all their lives
suffered from self-consciousness. They have longed to be rid of it, to
be free to think of the other person, of the matter in hand. Instead
of this, their thoughts are forever reverting to their own share in
any affair. Too contemptible to be avowed, and more distressing than
almost any other species of suffering, excessive self-consciousness
shames us with our selfishness, yet will not allow us to turn from it.
When I go into company where everybody is spontaneous and free, easily
uttering what the occasion calls for, I can utter only what I call for
and not at all what the occasion asks. Between the two demands there
is always an awkward jar. When tortured by such experiences it does
not soothe to have others carelessly remark, "Oh, just be natural!"
That is precisely what we should like to be, but how? That little
point is continually left unexplained. Yet obviously self-
consciousness involves something like a deadlock. For how can one
consciously exert himself to be unconscious and try not to try? We
cannot arrange our lives so as to have no arrangement in them, and
when shaking hands with a friend, for example, be on our guard against