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lecture08-第2章

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wish for incompatibles; wayward impulses interrupt their most



deliberate plans; and their lives are one long drama of



repentance and of effort to repair misdemeanors and mistakes。







Heterogeneous personality has been explained as the result of



inheritancethe traits of character of incompatible and



antagonistic ancestors are supposed to be preserved alongside of



each other。'90' This explanation may pass for what it is



worthit certainly needs corroboration。  But whatever the cause



of heterogeneous personality may be; we find the extreme examples



of it in the psychopathic temperament; of which I spoke in my



first lecture。  All writers about that temperament make the inner



heterogeneity prominent in their descriptions。  Frequently;



indeed; it is only this trait that leads us to ascribe that



temperament to a man at all。  A 〃degenere superieur〃 is simply a



man of sensibility in many directions; who finds more difficulty



than is common in keeping  his spiritual house in order and



running his furrow straight; because his feelings and impulses



are too keen and too discrepant mutually。  In the haunting and



insistent ideas; in the irrational impulses; the morbid scruples;



dreads; and inhibitions which beset the psychopathic temperament



when it is thoroughly pronounced; we have exquisite examples of



heterogeneous personality。  Bunyan had an obsession of the words;



〃Sell Christ for this; sell him for that; sell him; sell him!〃



which would run through his mind a hundred times together; until



one day out of breath with retorting; 〃I will not; I will not;〃



he impulsively said; 〃Let him go if he will;〃 and this loss of



the battle kept him in despair for over a year。  The lives of the



saints are full of such blasphemous obsessions; ascribed



invariably to the direct agency of Satan。  The phenomenon



connects itself with the life of the subconscious self;



so…called; of which we must erelong speak more directly。







'90' Smith Baker; in Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases;



September; 1893。















Now in all of us; however constituted; but to a degree the



greater in proportion as we are intense and sensitive and subject



to diversified temptations; and to the greatest possible degree



if we are decidedly psychopathic; does the normal evolution of



character chiefly consist in the straightening out and unifying



of the inner self。  The higher and the lower feelings; the useful



and the erring impulses; begin by being a comparative chaos



within usthey must end by forming a stable system of functions



in right subordination。  Unhappiness is apt to characterize the



period of order…making and struggle。  If the individual be of



tender conscience and religiously quickened; the unhappiness will



take the form of moral remorse and compunction; of feeling



inwardly vile and wrong; and of standing in false relations to



the author of one's being and appointer of one's spiritual fate。 



This is the religious melancholy and 〃conviction of sin〃 that



have played so large a part in the history of Protestant



Christianity。  The man's interior is a battle…ground for what he



feels to be two deadly hostile selves; one actual; the other



ideal。  As Victor Hugo makes his Mahomet say:







     〃Je suis le champ vil des sublimes combats:



     Tantot l'homme d'en haut; et tantot l'homme d'en bas;



     Et le mal dans ma bouche avec le bien alterne;



     Comme dans le desert le sable et la citerne。〃







Wrong living; impotent aspirations; 〃What I would; that do I not;



but what I hate; that do I;〃 as Saint Paul says; self…loathing;



self…despair; an unintelligible and intolerable burden to which



one is mysteriously the heir。







Let me quote from some typical cases of discordant personality;



with melancholy in the form of self…condemnation and sense of



sin。  Saint Augustine's case is a classic example。  You all



remember his half…pagan; half…Christian bringing up at Carthage;



his emigration to Rome and Milan; his adoption of Manicheism and



subsequent skepticism; and his restless search for truth and



purity of life; and finally how; distracted by the struggle



between the two souls in his breast and ashamed of his own



weakness of will; when so many others whom he knew and knew of



had thrown off the shackles of sensuality and dedicated



themselves to chastity and the higher life; he heard a voice in



the garden say; 〃Sume; lege〃 (take and read); and opening the



Bible at random; saw the text; 〃not in chambering and



wantonness;〃 etc。; which seemed directly sent to his address; and



laid the inner storm to rest forever。'91' Augustine's



psychological genius has given an account of the trouble of



having a divided self which has never been surpassed。







'91' Louis Gourdon (Essai sur la Conversion de Saint Augustine;



Paris; Fischbacher; 1900) has shown by an analysis of Augustine's



writings immediately after the date of his conversion (A。 D。 386)



that the account he gives in the Confessions is premature。  The



crisis in the garden marked a definitive conversion from his



former life; but it was to the neo…platonic spiritualism and only



a halfway stage toward Christianity。  The latter he appears not



fully and radically to have embraced until four years more had



passed。















〃The new will which I began to have was not yet strong enough to



overcome that other will; strengthened by long indulgence。 So



these two wills; one old; one new; one carnal; the other



spiritual; contended with each other and disturbed my soul。  I



understood by my own experience what I had read; 'flesh lusteth



against spirit; and spirit against flesh。' It was myself indeed



in both the wills; yet more myself in that which I approved in



myself than in that which I disapproved in myself。  Yet it was



through myself that habit had attained so fierce a mastery over



me; because I had willingly come whither I willed not。  Still



bound to earth; I refused; O God; to fight on thy side; as much



afraid to be freed from all bonds; as I ought to have feared



being trammeled by them。







〃Thus the thoughts by which I meditated upon thee were like the



efforts of one who would awake; but being overpowered with



sleepiness is soon asleep again。  Often does a man when heavy



sleepiness is on his limbs defer to shake it off; and though not



approving it; encourage it; even so I was sure it was better to



surrender to thy love than to yield to my own lusts; yet though



the former course convinced me; the latter pleased and held me



bound。  There was naught in me 
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