In considering the question of character, with its various irregularities and idiosyncracies, we shall have to accustom ourselves to dealing with factors which do not exist in consciousness at all. Strange as it may seem to the uninitiated, many of our thoughts, ideas, and motives are quite outside our normal consciousness, and of them only the resulting emotions and actions appear on the surface. This may be taken as an absolute and indisputable fact, and one which the reader should try to appreciate at the outset, although it is somewhat difficult to realise, for we always find it hard to apprehend and understand something which we can neither see nor touch.