and this it does by being so profoundly a social experience.

What, then, is the psychological significance of asceticism? If we consider this question broadly, we shall see that asceticism, in the strict sense of selfinflicted pains and deprivations, is continuous with various self-imposed restraints that are not always counted as ascetic, such as submission to ecclesiastical authority and surrender to the will of God. We must take these as data, together with such conventional ascetic practices as retiring from society into solitude; renouncing marriage; denying the appetite for food; avoidance of ease and of pleasures (aesthetic enjoyment included); reflection upon disagreeable subjects, like death, hell, and one's own sins; inflicting positive pain upon one's self, as by means of the hair shirt, by scourging, by denying one's self sufficient sleep, or by not removing such sources of distress as vermin and filth.' problem lies in the paradox that men should take satisfaction in thwarting such natural functions as these: the food instinct; the sexual instinct; the gregarious instinct; the parental instinct; and nearly the whole list of preferential functions, especially multiplication of objects, communication, and aesthetic contemplation. →Why do these men want to restrict their wants?

Our

The most obvious part of the answer is that in a large proportion of cases one factor is the idea of individual salvation-the supposedly necessary price is paid for the greatest or most enduring satisfaction, such as

'One of the best psychological analyses of such phenomena is that of James. See The Varieties of Religious Experience, Index, under "Asceticism."

heaven, or escape from hell. To this extent the real problem of asceticism is this: How do repressive conceptions of the gods or of salvation secure social currency? Granted these conceptions, voluntary self-repression follows as a matter of simple practical wisdom on the part of sensitive natures that feel and aspire greatly. Our sure clue to this problem lies in repressive forms of human government. The individual has had to cringe and abase himself before irresponsible monarchs; his property has been taken by an irresponsible taxing power; he and his sons have had to risk their lives in fighting, without opportunity to decide for themselves the conditions of war or of peace. Just so, to get on the safe side of an ethically irresponsible god, or to accumulate merit with him, is a large factor in asceticism.

But it is not the only factor. Asceticism (under which I include the types of submission already mentioned) has too great emotional power, too great attraction, to be based upon a mere calculation of benefits. There are direct instinctive factors also, and even an element of self-emancipation. Correlative to the instinct of mastery, there is an instinct of submission that brings actual satisfaction in surrendering to an obviously more powerful being. It is as if by complete abnegation of self-will one became a sharer in the greatness of the master; he is placated, I become a part of his conquering retinue, and thus, by "having no will of my own," I gain significance.

I

I speak here of factors that are not pathological. In some individuals, doubtless, abnormal organic sensibility, or a mental derangement nvolving a fixed idea, plays a part.

2 See E. L. Thorndike, Original Nature, pp. 92 ff.

I

But discomfort can yield satisfaction without regard to any other and greater being. A common practice of children consists in experimenting with their own ability to endure pain or exertion without flinching. Grownups boast of the hardships they have endured in sickness, in camping or exploring, and in exhausting labor. Mythology abounds in admiration for those who suffer without being conquered. How is it that such apparent defeat of desire is turned into victory? The explanation is in two of the preferential functions: to be conscious, and to unify the objects of consciousness. Consciousness may be heightened by increasing the intensity of a sensation, even though it be from any other point of view disagreeable; and self-realization may actually be promoted by incorporating the discomfort into the conscious unity of one's will. To face the coming blow, to take it without flinching, and then to contemplate it without whimpering this victory over self is a victory of self. It takes that which breaks into the self, and uses it to effect a firmer organization thereof. A strained situation sometimes loses its strain as soon as one "knows the worst." Peace may come precisely through a clear, unfaltering recognition that one's feverish desires are finally defeated. The ascetic, without doubt, finds a part of his satisfaction in the freshness and the intensity of his experiences and in the self-unification that he achieves.

Another factor in much asceticism is clearly ethical. It is an effort to subdue individual impulses that oppose

'I have seen boys run pins almost full length into their own muscles. If the muscle was kept motionless there was little pain, but the act was nevertheless a test of "grit."

or seem to oppose the social standard. Here the central conflict concerns the sexual instinct. The substitution of marriage for promiscuity, and the founding and maintenance of the monogamic family, have involved human individuals, particularly the males, in the greatest of all ethical strains and struggles. The individual is required by social tradition and by social penalties to accept a standard against which the most powerful instinct rebels. Appropriate educational processes might perhaps guide this enormous impulsive energy toward the maintenance instead of the destruction of marriage and the family. But up to the present time education with respect to this moral issue has commonly lacked any such constructive method. The social standard and the individual impulse have simply collided, and the individual has been left to resolve the conflict, for the most part, by his own resources.

The typical ascetic saint goes through an inner conflict with what he regards as evil. He seeks complete victory; he will not be satisfied with anything short of the death or final quiescence of the troublesome desires. That is, he seeks to make himself as perfect as the socially evolved standard. Usually, however, he abstracts the standard from the social end or good in the interest of which it originated. He imagines that he can be good within himself, regardless of his contributions to the social good. He even withdraws from society into solitary places, or enters a narrow, monastic group of like-minded seekers after holiness. Not able to abandon wholly the social basis of the good, however, he seeks intimacy with the divine being. God now becomes partly abstract and unsocial like the ascetic himself, but

partly a substitute for human fellowship. The sympathy, the friendship, even the conjugal and the parental affection upon which the ascetic has turned his back, now assert themselves toward God, or the suffering Savior, or the child Jesus, or the Virgin, and by a process of autosuggestion the saint feels his affection reciprocated. Thus asceticism finally supports itself upon the very wants and satisfactions, rooted largely in bodily functions, that were at first denied in the interest of something supposedly more sacred.1

'It should be said, too, that surrender and self-abnegation differ according to the conception of God. The asceticism of India, among the enlightened, seeks a genuine and final emptying of the self, because the supreme being is without predicates. But the Christian idea of a positively benevolent God carries into Christian asceticism the constant possibility of interpreting surrender and self-denial as the substitution of social purpose for selfishness. Hence the frequent union of austerities with philanthropy.