But, my friend, how does an atom
think? Acknowledge that thou knowest nothing of the matter."
--VOLTAIRE.
I.
OUR IGNORANCE OF OURSELVES.
Self-Analysis, apart from its scientific uses, has seldom rewarded
those who have practised it. To probe into the inner world of motive
and desire has proved of small benefit to any one, whether hermit,
monk or nun, indeed it has been altogether mischievous in result,
unless the mind that probed, was especially healthy. Bitter has been
the dissatisfaction, both with the process, and with what came of it,
for being miserably superficial it could lead to no real knowledge of
self, but simply centred self on self, producing instead of
self-knowledge, self-consciousness, and often the beginnings of mental
disease.
For fruitful self analysis it is apparently necessary then to have a
clear, definite aim outside self--such as achieving the gain of some
special piece of knowledge, and we find such definite aims in
psychology, and certain systems of philosophy--Greek, English, and
German, in Plato Locke, Kant, and in the meditations of Descartes, and
many others. Self-analysis is the basis of psychological knowledge,
but the science has been chiefly used to explain the methods by which
we obtain knowledge of the outer world in relation to ourselves.
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