Chapter IX: Nature and Person (2)

74. CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE PERSONAL SELF.—In order to form the concept of person, and to find that concept verified in the data of our experience, it is absolutely essential that we be endowed with the _faculty of intelligence_, the spiritual power of forming abstract concepts; and secondly, that having formed the concept of person as a “rational or intelligent subsisting being,” we be capable, by the exercise of _reflex consciousness_, to find in our own mental life the data from which we can conclude that this concept of person is verified in each and every one of ourselves. It is because we are endowed with intelligence that we can form all the abstract notions—of substance, individual, subsistence, existence, etc.,—which enter into and constitute our concept of person. And it is because we can, by means of this faculty, reflect on our own mental operations, and infer from them that each of us is a complete individual rational nature subsisting independently and incommunicably, that we can know ourselves to be persons.

How the human individual forms these concepts and finds them verified in his own “self,” how he gradually comes into conscious possession of the knowledge of his own individual being as an _Ego_, self, or person, are problems for Psychology.(305) It will be sufficient here to point out that there are grounds for distinguishing between the individual’s implicit subjective awareness of his subsistence or “selfhood”—an awareness which accompanies all his conscious mental functions, and which becomes more explicit and definite as the power of introspection and reflex consciousness develops—and the “_abstract quasi-objective notion_ of his own _personality_ habitually possessed by every human being”.(306)

The individual human being _immediately_ apprehends his own existence, and his abiding unity or sameness throughout incessantly changing states, in the temporal series of his conscious activities; but his knowledge of the _nature_ of his own being can be the result only of a long and carefully conducted analysis of his own activities, and of inferences based on the character of these activities. The former or implicit knowledge of the self in the concrete is direct and intuitive. The individual _Ego_ apprehends _itself_ in _its states_. This knowledge comes mainly from within, and is subject to gradual development. Father Maher thus describes how the child comes gradually into possession of it:—

As thoughts of pleasures and pains repeated in the past and
expected in the future grow more distinct, the dissimilarity
between these and the permanent abiding self comes to be more
fully realized. Passing emotions of fear, anger, vanity, pride, or
sympathy, accentuate the difference. But most probably it is the
dawning sense of power to resist and overcome rising impulse, and
the dim nascent consciousness of responsibility, which lead up to
the final revelation, until at last, in some reflective act of
memory or choice, or in some vague effort to understand the
oft-heard “I,” the great truth is manifested to him: the child
enters, as it were, into possession of his personality, and knows
himself as a _Self-conscious Being_. The _Ego_ does not _create_
but _discovers_ itself. In Jouffroy’s felicitous phrase, it
“breaks its shell,” and finds that it is _a Personal Agent with an
existence and individuality of its own_, standing henceforward
alone in opposition to the universe.(307)

After this stage is reached, the human individual easily distinguishes between the “self” as the _cause_ or _subject_ of the states, and the states as _modifications_ of the self. This distinction is implicit in the concomitant awareness of self which accompanies all exercise of direct cognitive consciousness. It is explicit in all deliberate acts of reflex, introspective self-consciousness. The data from which we form the abstract concepts of substance, nature, individual, person, self, etc., and from which we arrive by reasoning at a philosophical knowledge of the nature and personality of the human individual, are furnished mainly by introspection; but also in part by external observation of the universe around us.

Concomitantly, however, with the process by which we become implicitly but immediately aware of the _Ego_ or self as an abiding self-identical person in and through our own mental activity, we gradually form a quasi-objective and historical view of our own personality as one of a number of similar personalities around us in the universe. This view, says Father Maher,

gathers into itself the history of my past life—the actions of my
childhood, boyhood, youth, and later years. Interwoven with them
all is the image of my bodily organism, and clustering around are
a fringe of recollections of my dispositions, habits, and
character, of my hopes and regrets, of my resolutions and
failures, along with a dim consciousness of my position in the
minds of other selves.

Under the form of a representation of this composite art, bound
together by the thread of memory, each of us ordinarily conceives
his complete abiding _personality_. This idea is necessarily
undergoing constant modification; and it is in comparing the
present form of the representation with the past, whilst adverting
to considerable alterations in my character, bodily appearance,
and the like, that I sometimes say: “I am completely changed,” “I
am quite another person,” though I am, of course, convinced that
it is the same “I” who am changed in accidental qualities. _It is
because this complex notion of my personality is an abstraction
from my remembered experiences __ that a perversion of imagination
and a rupture of memory can sometimes induce the so-called
_“illusions or alterations of personality”_._(308)

When we remember that this objective conception of the self is so dependent on the function of memory, and that the normal exercise of this faculty is in turn so dependent on the normal functioning of the brain and the nervous system,(309) we can hazard an intelligible explanation of the abnormal facts recorded by most modern psychologists concerning hypnotism, somnambulism and “double” or “multiple” consciousness.(310) Father Maher, ascribing these phenomena partly to dislocations of memory, partly to unusual groupings of mental states according to the laws of mental association—groupings that arise from peculiar physiological connexions between the various neural functionings of the brain centres,—and partly to semi-conscious or reflex nerve processes, emphasizes an important fact that is sometimes lost sight of: the fact that some section at least of the individual’s conscious mental life is common to, and present throughout, the two or more “states” or “conditions” between which any such abnormal individual is found to alternate. This consideration is itself sufficient to disprove the theory—to which we shall presently refer—that there is or may be in the individual human being a double, or even a multiple “human personality”.

75. FALSE THEORIES OF PERSONALITY.—It is plain that conscious _mental activity_ cannot _constitute_ human personality, or subconscious mental activity either, for all activity is of the accidental mode of being, is an _accident_, whereas a person must be a _substance_. Of course it is the self-conscious cognitive activity of the human individual that _reveals_ to the latter his own self as a person: it is the exercise of reflex consciousness combined with memory that gives us the feeling of personal identity with ourselves throughout the changing events of our mental and bodily life. Furthermore, this self-consciousness has its root in the _rational_ nature of the human individual; and rationality of nature is the differentiating principle which makes the subsisting individual a “person” as distinct from a (subsisting) “thing”. But then, it is not the feeling of personal identity that _constitutes_ the person. Actual consciousness is neither the essence, nor the source, nor even the index of personality; for it is only an activity, and an activity which reveals immediately not the _person_ as such, but the _nature_ as rational;(311) nor does the rational (substantial) principle of a composite nature constitute the latter a person; but only the subsistence of the complete (composite) individual nature itself.

These considerations are sufficiently obvious; they presuppose, however, the truth of the traditional doctrine already explained in regard to the existence, nature and cognoscibility of _substance_. Philosophers who have misunderstood and rejected and lost this traditional doctrine of substance have propounded many varieties of unsatisfactory and inconsistent theories in regard to what constitutes “person” and “personality”. The main feature of all such theories is their identification of personality with the habitual consciousness of self, or habitual feeling of personal identity: a feeling which, however, must be admitted to include _memory_ in some form, while the function of memory in any shape or form cannot be satisfactorily explained on any theory of the human _Ego_ which denies that there is a human _substance_ persisting permanently as a unifying principle of successive mental states (63-4).

So far as English philosophy is concerned such theories appear to have had their origin in Locke’s teaching on person and personal identity. Discussing the notions of identity and diversity,(312) he distinguishes between the identity of an individual substance with itself in its duration throughout time, and what he terms personal identity; while by identity in general he means not abstract identity but the concrete permanence of a thing throughout time (34). On this we have to call attention to the fact that just as _duration_ is not essential to the _constitution_ of a substance, so neither is it essential to the constitution of a complete subsisting individual substance or person (64); though it is, of course, an essential condition for all human apprehension whether of substance or of person. Locke was wrong, therefore, in confounding what reveals to us the abiding permanence, identity or sameness of a subsisting thing or person (whether the “self” or any other subsisting thing or person) throughout its duration in time, with what constitutes the subsisting thing or person.

Furthermore, his distinction between substantial identity, _i.e._ the sameness of an individual substance with itself throughout time, and personal identity or sameness, was also an error. For as long as there is _substantial_ unity, continuity, or identity of the subsisting individual substance, so long is there unity, continuity, or identity of its subsistence, or of its personality if it be a rational substance. The _subsistence_ of a complete individual inorganic substance is changed as soon as the individual undergoes _substantial_ change: we have them no longer _the same_ subsisting individual being. So, too, the subsistence of the organic individual is changed as soon as the latter undergoes _substantial_ change by the dissolution of life, by the separation of its formative and vital substantial principle from its material substantial principle: after such dissolution we have no longer _the same_ subsisting plant or animal. And, finally, the subsistence of an individual man is changed, or interrupted, or ceases by death, which separates his soul, his vital principle, from his body. We say, moreover, that in the latter case the human _person_ ceases to exist when the identity or permanence of his subsisting substance or nature terminates at death; for _personal identity_ we hold to be the identity of the complete subsisting substance or nature with itself. But Locke, who practically agrees with what we have said regarding the abiding identity of the subsisting individual being with itself—whether this individual be an inorganic individual, a plant, a brute beast, or a man(313)—distinguishes at this point between identity of the subsisting individual substance and _personal_ identity.

Of identity in general he says that “to conceive and judge of it aright, we must consider what idea the word it is applied to stands for; it being one thing to be the same substance, another the same man, and a third the same person, if person, man, and substance, are three names standing for three different ideas”.(314) And, struggling to dissociate “person” from “substance,” he continues thus:—

To find wherein personal identity consists, we must consider what
person stands for; which, I think, is a thinking, intelligent
being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as
itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places;
which it does only by that consciousness which is inseparable from
thinking, and, as it seems to me, essential to it. When we see,
hear, smell, taste, feel, meditate, or will any thing, we know
that we do so. Thus it is always as to our present sensations and
perceptions, and by this every one is to himself what he calls
self; it not being considered in this case whether the same self
be continued in the same or divers substances. For since
consciousness always accompanies thinking, and it is that which
makes every one to be what he calls self, and thereby
distinguishes himself from all other thinking things; in this
alone consists personal identity, _i.e._ the sameness of a
rational being: and as far as this consciousness can be extended
backwards to any past action or thought, so far reaches the
identity of that person; it is the same self now it was then; and
it is by the same self with this present one that now reflects on
it, that that action was done.(315)

The definition of person in this passage as “a thinking, intelligent being,” etc., is not far removed from our own definition; but surely conscious thought is not “that which _makes_ every one to be what he calls self,” seeing that conscious thought is only an _activity_ or _function_ of the “rational being”. It is conscious thought, of course, including memory, that _reveals_ the “rational being” to himself as a self, and as the same or identical self throughout time; but unless the “rational being,” or the “thinking, intelligent being, that has reason and reflection,” etc.—which is Locke’s own definition of “person”—were there all the time identical with itself, exercising those distinct and successive acts of consciousness and memory, and unifying them, how could these acts _even reveal_ the “person” or his “personal identity” to himself, not to speak of their _constituting_ personality or personal identity? It is perfectly plain that these acts _presuppose_ the “person,” the “thinking, intelligent being,” or, as we have expressed it, the “subsisting, rational, individual nature” _already constituted_; and it is equally plain that the “personal identity” which they _reveal_ is _constituted by_, and _consists simply in_, the duration or continued existence of this same subsisting individual rational nature; nor could these acts reveal any identity, personal or otherwise, unless they were the acts of one and the same actually subsisting, existing and persisting substance.

Yet Locke thinks he can divorce personal identity from identity of substance, and account for the former independently of the latter. In face of the obvious difficulty that actual consciousness is not continuous but intermittent, he tries to maintain that the consciousness which links together present states with remembered states is sufficient to constitute personal identity even although there may have intervened between the present and the past states a complete change of substance, so that it is really a different substance which experiences the present states from that which experienced the past states. The question

Whether we are the same thinking thing, _i.e._ the same substance
or no ... concerns not personal identity at all: the question
being, what makes the same person, and not whether it be the same
identical substance, which always thinks in the same person:
different substances, by the same consciousness (where they do
partake in it), being united into one person, as well as different
bodies by the same life are united into one animal, whose identity
is preserved, in that change of substances, by the unity of one
continued life ... [for] animal identity is preserved in identity
of life, and not of substance.(316)

Here the contention is that we can have “the same person” and yet not necessarily “the same identical substance,” because _consciousness_ may give a personal unity to distinct and successive substances in the individual man just as _animal life_ gives an analogous unity to distinct and successive substances in the individual animal. This is very superficial; for it only substitutes for the problem of human personality the similar problem of explaining the unity and sameness of subsistence in the individual living thing: a problem which involves the fact of _memory_ in animals. For scholastic philosophers unity of life in the living thing, involving the fact of memory in animals, is explained by the perfectly intelligible and will-grounded teaching that there is in each individual living thing a _formative and vital principle_ which is _substantial_, a _forma substantialis_, which unites, in the _abiding self-identical unity of a complete individual composite substance_, the material principle of the corporeal substances which thus go, in the incessant process of substantial change known as metabolism, to form partially, and to support the substantial continuity of, the living individual. While the latter is thus in constant process of material, or partial, substantial change, it remains, as long as it lives, the same complete individual substance, and this in virtue of the abiding _substantial_ formative and vital principle which actuates and animates it. The abiding permanence or self-identity of the _subsisting individual substance_ which feels or thinks, and remembers, is an intelligible, and indeed the only intelligible, ground and explanation of memory, and of our consciousness of personal identity.

But if we leave out of account this abiding continuity and self-identity of the subsisting individual substance or nature, which is the subject, cause and agent of these acts of memory and consciousness, how can these latter, in and by themselves, possibly form, or even indeed reveal to us, our personal identity? Locke felt this difficulty; and he tried in vain to meet it: in vain, for it is insuperable. He merely suggests that “the same consciousness ... can be transferred from one thinking substance to another,” in which case “it will be possible that two thinking substances may make [successively] one person”.(317) This is practically his last word on the question,—and it is worthy of note, for it virtually _substantializes consciousness_. It makes consciousness, which is really only an act or a series of acts, a _something substantial and subsisting_. We have seen already how modern phenomenists, once they reject the notion of substance as invalid or superfluous, must by that very fact equivalently _substantialize accidents_ (61); for substance, being a necessary category of human thought as exercised on reality, cannot really be dispensed with. And we see in the present context an illustration of this fact. The abiding self-identity of the human person cannot be explained otherwise than by the abiding self-identical subsistence of the individual human substance.

If personal identity were constituted and determined by consciousness, by the series of conscious states connected and unified by memory, then it would appear that the human being in infancy, in sleep, in unconsciousness, or in a state of insanity, is not a human person! Philosophers who have not the hardihood to deny human personality to the individual of the human species in these states, and who on the other hand will not recognize the possession of a _rational nature_ or substance by the subsisting individual as the ground of the latter’s personality and personal identity, have recourse to the hypothesis of a _sub-conscious_, or “_sub-liminal_” _consciousness_ in the individual, as a substitute. If by this they merely meant an abiding _substantial_ rational principle of all mental activities, even of those which may be semi-conscious or sub-conscious, they would be merely calling by another name what we call the _rational nature_ of man. And the fact that they refer to this principle as the sub-conscious “self” or “Ego” shows how insistent is the rational need for rooting personality and personal identity in something which is a _substance_. But they do not and will not conceive it as a substance; whereas if it is not this, if it is only a “process,” or a “function,” or a “series” or “stream” of processes or functions, it can no more constitute or explain, or even reveal, personal identity, than a series or stream of _conscious_ states can.(318)

Unable as he was to explain how the same consciousness could persist throughout a succession of really and adequately distinct substances (except by virtually substantializing consciousness), Locke nevertheless persisted in holding that consciousness and consciousness alone (including memory, which, however, is inexplicable on any other theory than that of a subsisting and persisting substance or nature which remembers), constitutes personality and personal identity. We have dwelt upon his teaching mainly because all modern phenomenists try to explain personality on the same principles—_i.e._ independently of the doctrine of substance.

As a corollary from his doctrine he inferred that if a man
completely and irrevocably loses consciousness [or rather memory]
of his past life, though he remains the same “man” he is no longer
the same “person”: “if it be possible for the same man to have
distinct incommunicable consciousness at different times, it is
past doubt the same man would at different times make different
persons”;(319) and he goes on in this sense to give a literal
interpretation to the modes of speech we have referred to
above.(320) He likewise admitted that two or more “persons,”
_i.e._ consciousnesses, can be linked with the same individual
human being, or the same individual human soul, alternately
appearing and disappearing, giving place successively to one
another. When any one of these “personalities” or consciousnesses
ceases to be actual, it must in Locke’s view cease to be in any
sense real: so that there could not be two or more personalities
at the same time in the same individual human being. Modern
psychologists, however, of the phenomenist school, convinced that
sub-conscious mental activities are not only possible, but that
the fact of such activities is well established by a variety of
experiences, have extended Locke’s conception of personality (as
actual consciousness) to embrace groups of mental activities which
may emerge only intermittently “above the threshold of
consciousness”. Hence they explain the abnormal cases of double or
multiple consciousness already referred to, as being
manifestations of really distinct “personalities” in one and the
same human individual. In normal human beings there is, they say,
only one normally “conscious personality”. The sub-conscious
mental activities of such an individual they bulk together as
forming this individual’s “sub-liminal” or “sub-conscious” _Ego_
or “self”: presumably a distinct personality from the conscious
one. In the abnormal cases of “double-consciousness” the
subliminal self struggles for mastery over the conscious self and
is for a time successful: the two personalities thus for a time
changing places as it were. In the rarer or more abnormal cases of
treble or multiple consciousness, there are presumably three or
more “personalities” engaged in the struggle, each coming to the
surface in turn and submerging the others.

It is not the fancifulness of this theory that one might object to
so much as its utter inadequacy to explain the facts, nay, its
utter unintelligibility _on the principles of those who propound
it_. For we must not lose sight of the fact that it is propounded
by philosophers who purport to explain mental life and human
personality without recourse to a _substantial soul_, to any
_substantial_ basis of mental life, or indeed to the concept of
_substance_ at all: by philosophers who will talk of a mental
process without admitting mind or soul as a _substance_ or
_subject_ of that process, of a “series” or “stream” of mental
functions or activities without allowing any _agent_ that would
exercise those functions, or any _substantial abiding principle_
that would unify the series or stream and know it as such;
philosophers who regard the _Ego_, “self,” or “person,” as
_nothing other than_ the group or series or stream of mental
states, and not as anything of which these are the states; and,
finally, who speak of these groups of functions or activities as
“personalities”—which they describe as “struggling” with one
another—apparently oblivious of the fact that by using such
language they are _in their thought at least_ transforming these
_activities_ into _agents_, these _states_ into _subjects of
states_, in a word, these _accidents_ into _substances_; or else
they are making their language and their thought alike
unintelligible.(321)

Of course those numerous modern philosophers who, like James, try
to “find a place for all the experiential facts unencumbered by
any hypothesis [like that of an individual substantial soul,
presumably] save that of passing states of mind” [_ibid._, p.
480], do not really leave these “states” suspended in mid-air as
it were. The imperative need for admitting the reality of
substance always ultimately asserts itself: as when James
recognizes the necessity of admitting something “more than the
bare fact of co-existence of a passing thought with a passing
brain-state” [_Principles of Psychology_, i., p. 346—_apud_ MAHER,
_ibid._, p. 483]. Only his speculation as to what constitutes this
“something ‘more’ which lies behind our mental states” [_ibid._,
p. 485] is not particularly convincing: “For my own part,” he
says, “I confess that the moment I become metaphysical and try to
define the _more_, I find the notion of some sort of an _anima
mundi_ thinking in all of us to be a more promising hypothesis, in
spite of all its difficulties, than that of a lot of absolutely
individual souls” [_ibid._, p. 346—apud MAHER, _ibid._]. This
restatement of the medieval pantheistic theory known as Averroïsm,
Monopsychism, or the theory of the _intellectus separatus_ [_cf._
DE WULF, _History of Medieval Philosophy_, pp. 381 _sqq._], is a
somewhat disappointing contribution to Metaphysics from the most
brilliant of our modern psychologists. The “difficulties” of this
“more promising hypothesis” had discredited it a rather long time
before Professor James resurrected it [_cf._ criticisms—_apud_
MAHER, _ibid._].