story of Markheim I think I see a gleam of hope, a suggestion and no more, of the final possibility, even for the most debased, of moral recovery. Markheim's last act of deliberate self-surrender seems like the first step away from the evil past towards a better future. It was the last possibility of good for the man; but even for him it was a possibility still. And does it not seem as if an evil character, however evil, being the formation of will, might be unformed and reformed by the same power? Is not character, after all, but a garment in which the spirit clothes itself a garment which clings tightly to it, but which it need not wear eternally? The tendency is towards such settlement or gradual fixation, whether in goodness or in evil. But absolute fixity of character is disproved by that indubitable fact of moral experience which Plato, equally with the Christian theologian, calls 'conversion '—such a complete change of bent as amounts not merely to a reformation but to a revolution of character-" the turning round of the eye of the soul and with it the whole soul, from darkness to light, from the perishing to the eternal." It seems as if the past and the present life were never an exhaustive expression of the possibilities of will. The man is always more than the sum of his past and present experience; and often he surprises us by creating a future which, while it stands in relation to the past, yet does so only, or chiefly, by antithesis. It is as if the catastrophe which comes with the culmination of his evil career, by its revelation of the full meaning of the life he has been living, shocked him into the resolve to live a different and a better life. It is as if Markheim said to himself, after the tragedy of that fateful day, when he had connected it with himself, and confessed that the seeds of even that evil were thickly sown in the soil of his evil past: “That is not the man I choose to be;" and as if, in the strength of that decision, accepting the full consequences of his deed, and surrendering himself deliberately to its retribu tion, he forthwith took the first step away from his past self and towards a future self entirely different. Might not even Tito, even Faust, even Esau, so choose at last the better part? Christianity calls it a new birth,' so different is the new man from the old. Yet, however different, it is the same man through the two lives; the same will, only it has changed its course; the same player, but in a new role. We must recognise, therefore, a very considerable range of variation in the adequacy of activity as the exponent of character. In some actions we see the stirring of the deeps of personality, the revelation of the very self; in others only the waves on the surface of the moral life. There is a great difference in this respect even between individuals. Some men are reserved, and their character is a closed book to their fellow-men. Others are open, and readily reveal their inner being. In some there is less depth of soil than in others-superficial natures, who have not much either to hide or to reveal, the volume of whose character is quickly read and mastered by their fellows. In some, perhaps in all, there is a double life, an outer and an inner, never quite harmonised, and often directly opposed. This double-faced unity' in the moral world, this co-existence and antagonism of 'two men' in one, of a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, is not necessarily duplicity or hypocrisy. Rather it seems to mean that there is always a residuum of moral possibility, whatever the actual character may have become: the man never is either Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde, the saint or the sinner; but he is potentially either, though actually partly the one and partly the other, more the one and less the other. And out of the furthest retreats of the unconscious or subconscious sphere there may emerge any day the buried, forgotten, yet truest and most real self. The man may have wandered into the far country, and may even seem to have lost all trace of goodness, and yet he may in the end come to himself,' and may recover those possibilities L 'So which had till then seemed possibilities no longer. long as there is life there is hope.' Character may seem to have entirely lost its plasticity, and to have become quite fixed and rigid. But it is not so. Character is a living thing, and life is never fixed or rigid. After all, the ordinary average character is more apt to suggest the true state of the case than either of the extremes. These extremes are instability or absence of character on the one hand, and what we have called fixity or finality of character on the other. The latter would be fossilisation, or the cessation of growth, which is death. Character is essentially, from first to last, plastic. It implies openmindedness, freshness or ingenuousness, receptivity for the new. The change is not, indeed, capricious or at random: the new must be linked to the old; the old must itself be renewed, recreated in every part. Yet the relation of the new to the old may be that of antithesis and revolt, as well as of synthesis and continuity. The development of character is not always in a straight line; it is ever returning upon and reconstituting itself. 7. Intellectual elements in volition.-It is necessary, before leaving the psychology of the moral life, to consider the relation of intellect and feeling to will. (a) The first intellectual element in volition is conception. The natural or animal life is unthinking, the voluntary or moral life is a thoughtful life. The Greeks understood this well; we find Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle all alike identifying virtue with knowledge or rational insight. It is not, however, true that the moral and the intellectual life are one, or that 'virtue is knowledge.' It is the volition behind the intellection that is the essential element. We might say that virtue is attention, or the steady entertaining of a certain conception of life or of its several activities. This is what distinguishes the voluntary form of activity from both. the instinctive and the impulsive forms. Instinct exe tion, he forthwith took the first step away from his past self and towards a future self entirely different. Might not even Tito, even Faust, even Esau, so choose at last the better part? Christianity calls it a 'new birth,' so different is the new man from the old. Yet, however different, it is the same man through the two lives; the same will, only it has changed its course; the same player, but in a new rôle. We must recognise, therefore, a very considerable range of variation in the adequacy of activity as the exponent of character. In some actions we see the stirring of the deeps of personality, the revelation of the very self; in others only the waves on the surface of the moral life. There is a great difference in this respect even between individuals. Some men are reserved, and their character is a closed book to their fellow-men. Others are open, and readily reveal their inner being. In some there is less depth of soil than in others—superficial natures, who have not much either to hide or to reveal, the volume of whose character is quickly read and mastered by their fellows. In some, perhaps in all, there is a double life, an outer and an inner, never quite harmonised, and often directly opposed. This double-faced unity' in the moral world, this co-existence and antagonism of 'two men' in one, of a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, is not necessarily duplicity or hypocrisy. Rather it seems to mean that there is always a residuum of moral possibility, whatever the actual character may have become: the man never is either Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde, the saint or the sinner; but he is potentially either, though actually partly the one and partly the other, more the one and less the other. And out of the furthest retreats of the unconscious or subconscious sphere there may emerge any day the buried, forgotten, yet truest and most real self. The man may have wandered into the far country, and may even seem to have lost all trace of goodness, and yet he may in the end come to himself,' and may recover those possibilities which had I then seemed possibilities no longer. Mer the ordinary average character is more apt to supat Tid must use be renewed, recreated in every gam relation of the new to the old may te was dannÁGA an revoit as well as of sythena and sortom development of character is not a I ever returning upon and resoIRELA Mg Lak |