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me yet will I trust him," a spirit of self-abasement rather than self-enhancement. There is, and it is what modern psychology calls "negative self-feeling."[1] Its recognition throws a flood of light on the supposed ennobling devotion of sex, and especially, perhaps, of sex in woman.
Egotism or self-feeling takes, we are now taught, two forms, positive and negative; the instinct for self-assertion, the instinct, sometimes equally strong, for self-abasement. With the first form we are all familiar. The second form, which is quite as real, and perhaps more poignant, has been, till lately, somewhat neglected. This instinct of self-abasement, of negative self-feeling, appears in animals. A young dog will crawl on his belly, with his head sunk and his tail drooping, to approach a larger, older dog. The instinct is not fear; it does not accompany flight. The dog approaches, he even wants to attract attention, but it is by deprecation. It is the very ecstasy of humility.
This negative self-regarding sentiment, this instinct of of subjection, enters into all intensely passionate relations. It is an ingredient alike of love and of religion, and accounts for many of the analogies between these two complex sentiments. There can, however, be little question that, though it is rarely, in moments of vehement emotion, wholly absent in either sex, it is more highly developed and more uniformly present in women. In the bed-rock of human—or, rather,
- ↑ Mr. McDougall (Social Psychology, p. 62) says that "negative and positive self-feelings" were "first adequately recognised" by M. Ribot (Psychology of the Emotions, p. 240).
