mind more unlike to itself, if its states or tendencies alone, and not
its substantial identity be considered, than the minds perhaps of any
two human beings, at the same moment. But still, as we have seen, even
from the analogy of the material world,--which was supposed to furnish
a powerful objection, it is no argument against the absolute identity
of the mind, that exists in different states, however opposite, any
more, than it is an argument against the absolute identity of a body,
that it, at one moment, has a tendency to one particular motion,--at
another moment a tendency to a different motion,--and at another
moment, no tendency whatever to motion of any kind; since, in all these
cases, as much as in the varying affections of the mind, there is a
_change of state_, with absolute _identity of substance_.
FOOTNOTES:
[49] Fontenelle, Pluralité des Mondes, Conversat. 6me.
[50] Gulliver's Travels, part ii. chap. 3.
LECTURE XV.
CONSIDERATION OF THE OBJECTIONS AGAINST MENTAL IDENTITY, CONTINUED;
OPINION OF MR LOCKE RESPECTING IDENTITY; SOURCE OF HIS PARADOX ON THIS
SUBJECT; AND REFLECTIONS SUGGESTED BY IT.
My last Lecture, Gentlemen, was employed in considering the general
objection to the Identity of the Mind, drawn from the contrasts
of its momentary feelings,--an objection founded on the supposed
incompatibility of diversity of any kind, with strict and absolute
_identity_. After the very full examination which it received, it is
unnecessary to dwell at any length on the other objection, drawn from
changes of general character, in the same individual, at different
periods of life, or in different circumstances of fortune; since
precisely the same arguments, from the general analogy of nature, which
disprove the supposed incompatibility in the one case, disprove it
also in the other. Even _matter_ itself, we have seen, may, without
the slightest alteration of its identity, exist in an almost infinite
variety of states; having, in some of these states, qualities precisely
the reverse of those, which it exhibited in other states, attracting
what it repelled, repelling what it attracted;--and it surely is not
more wonderful, therefore, that the same identical mind, also, should,
in relation to the same objects, in different circumstances, be
susceptible of an almost infinite variety of affections,--approving,
disapproving, choosing, repenting. If we knew nothing more of the
relations of two billiard balls to each other, than the phenomena which
they exhibit, in the moment of their mutual percussion, when they
have been forced, within a certain degree of close vicinity, by the
impelling stroke, we should regard them, from their instant reciprocal
repulsion, as having a natural tendency to fly off from each other;
and, in the state in which they then exist, there is no question that
such is their tendency,--a tendency, which, in these circumstances,
may be regarded as their genuine physical character. Yet we have only
to imagine the two balls placed at a distance from each other, like
that of the remotest planet from the sun; and, in traversing the whole
wide void that intervenes, what a different physical character would
they exhibit, in their accelerating tendency toward each other, as if
their very nature were lastingly changed? If there are, then, such
opposite tendencies in the same bodies, without any loss of identity,
why may not the same minds also have _their_ opposite tendencies,
when, in like manner, removed, as it were, into circumstances that
are different, loving, perhaps, what they hated before, and hating
what they loved? If the change of state be not _temporary_, but
_permanent_, the resulting affections may well be supposed to be
permanently different; and, indeed, if they be different at all, cannot
but be permanently different, like the altered state. It is as little
wonderful, therefore, when any lasting change of circumstances is
taken into account, that the same individual should no longer exhibit
the same intellectual and moral appearances, as that matter, in its
different states, should no longer exhibit the same obvious phenomena,
_attracting_, perhaps, the very bodies which it before repelled, and
_repelling_ the very bodies which it before attracted, and attracting
and repelling with differences of force, and consequent differences of
velocity in the bodies moved, the varieties of which it would require
all the powers of our arithmetic to compute.
When we observe, then, in a mind, which we have long known and valued,
any marks of _altered character_,--when, for example, in one, who,
by the favour, or rather by the cruelty of Fortune, has been raised,
from a situation comparatively humble, to sudden distinctions of
power and opulence, we see the neglect of all those virtues, the
wider opportunity of exercising which seemed to him formerly the
chief, or even the only, advantage that rendered such distinctions
desirable,--the same frivolous vanity, which before appeared to him
ridiculous in others, and the same contemptuous insolence of pride,
which before appeared to him contemptible,--a craving and impatient
desire of greater wealth, merely because he has no longer any use to
make of it, unless, indeed that it has become more necessary to his
_avarice_, than it ever was before to his _want_,--and a gay and
scornful indifference to miseries, that are still sometimes able to
force themselves upon his view, the relief of which, that once seemed
to him so glorious a privilege, would now not require of him even the
scanty merit of sacrificing a single superfluity: When we perceive this
contrast, and almost say within ourselves, Is this the same being? we
should remember that the influence of fortune is not confined to the
mere trapping, which it gives or takes away,--that it operates _within_
as much as _without_,--and that, accordingly, in the case now imagined
by us, the new external circumstances have been gradually modifying the
mind, in the same manner, as new external circumstances of a different
kind modify the bodies, which happen to be placed in them,--not
affecting their _identity_, but altering their _state_; and that, if
we could distinguish, as accurately, the series of changes, which take
place in mind, as we can distinguish those which take place in matter,
we should not be more astonished, that, in circumstances of rare and
unhappy occurrence, a disposition once apparently generous is generous
no more, than we are to observe a body, attracted to another body, at
one distance, and afterwards repelled from it, in consequence merely of
a change of their mutual position,--a change so very slight as to be
altogether undistinguishable by our senses.
I have dwelt on this question at much greater length than I should
otherwise have done, however interesting it truly is as a question of
metaphysics, because I was anxious to obviate a prejudice which is
very closely connected with this point, and which, most unfortunately
for the progress of the Philosophy of Mind, has given a wrong bias to
the speculations of many very enlightened men. No one, I am aware,
can be so sincerely sceptical as to doubt, even for a moment, his
own identity, as _one continued sentient being_, whatever ingenious
sophistry he may urge in support of the paradox which he professes to
hold. But still, while the compatibility of diversity with absolute
identity, as now explained to you, was but obscurely felt,--a
compatibility which, to the best of my remembrance, no writer, with
whom I am acquainted, has attempted to illustrate,--the difficulty of
reconciling the growth or decay of knowledge, and all the successive
contrasts or changes of feeling, which our sensations, thoughts,
emotions, exhibit, with the permanent indivisible unity of the same
sentient principle, has been sufficient, in many cases, to produce a
vague and almost unconscious tendency to materialism, in minds that
would not otherwise have been easily led away by a system so illusive;
and, where it has not produced this full effect, it has at least
produced a tendency, in many cases, to encumber the simple theory
of the mental phenomena with false and unnecessary hypotheses, very
much akin to those of absolute materialism. Without this absolute
materialism, _mind_ must still be left, indeed, as the ultimate subject
of sensation, and the difficulty truly remains the same; but it is
contrived to complicate, as much as possible, the corporeal part of the
process, which precedes this ultimate mental part, by the introduction
of phantasms, or other shadowy films, animal spirits, vibratiuncles,
or other sensorial motions, that a wider room may thus be left for a
play of changes, and the difficulty of accounting for the diversity
of sensations be less felt, when it is to be divided among so many
substances in almost constant motion; while the attention is, at the
same time, led away from the immediate _mental_ change, in which alone
the supposed difficulty consists, to the mere _corpuscular_ changes, in
which there is no supposed difficulty.
It is a general law of our internal, as well as of our external
perceptions, that we distinguish most readily what is least
complicated. In a chorus of many voices, a single discordant voice may
escape even a nice discriminator of musical sounds, who would have
detected instantly the slightest deviation from the melody of a simple
air. A juggler, when he wishes to withdraw a single card, is careful to
present to us many; and, though the card which he withdraws is truly
before our eyes at the very moment at which he separates it from the
pack, we do not discover the quick motion which separates it, however
suspiciously watchful we may be, because our vigilance of attention is
distracted by the number of cards which he suffers to remain. It is not
because the card which he removes is not before us, then, that we do
not observe the removal of it, but because it is only one of many that
are before us. It is precisely the same in those complicated material
processes, with which some theorists encumber the simple phenomena of
the mind. The difficulty which seems, to them, to attend any diversity
whatever in a substance that is identical, simple, indivisible, and
incapable of addition or subtraction, remains, indeed, ultimately in
all its force, and would strike us equally, if this supposed difficulty
were to be considered alone. But many hypothetical vibrations, or other
motions, are given to our consideration at the same moment, that glance
upon our mental view like the rapid movements of the juggler's hand.
We, therefore, do not feel so painfully as before a difficulty which
occupies our attention only in part; and, in our feeble estimation of
things, to render a difficulty less visible to us, is almost like a
diminution of the difficulty itself.
For obviating this tendency to _materialism_, or to what may be
considered almost as a species of _semi-materialism_ in the physiology
of the mind, it is of no small consequence to have accurate views of
the nature of our mental identity. Above all, it is of importance, that
we should be sufficiently impressed with the conviction, that absolute
identity, far from excluding every sort of diversity, is perfectly
compatible, as we have seen, with diversities that are almost infinite.
When we have once obtained a clear view of this compatibility, as
independent of any additions or subtractions of substance, we shall
no longer be led to convert our simple mental operations into long
continued processes, of which the last links only are mental, and the
preceding imaginary links corporeal; as if the introduction of all
this play of hypotheses were necessary for saving that identity of
mind, which we are perhaps unwilling to abandon altogether; for it will
then appear to us not more wonderful, that the _mind_, without the
slightest loss of identity, should at one moment begin to exist in the
state which constitutes the sensation of the fragrance of a rose, and
at another moment should begin to exist in the state which constitutes
the sensation of the sound of a flute, or in the opposite states of
love and hate, rapture and agony--than that the same _body_, without
the slightest change of its identity, should exist, at one moment, in
the state which constitutes the tendency to approach another body, and
at another moment in the opposite state which constitutes the tendency
to fly from it, or that, with the same absolute identity, it should
exist, at different moments in the different states, which constitute
the tendencies to begin motion in directions that are at right angles
to each other, so as to begin to move in the one case north, in the
other east, and to continue this motion, at one time with one velocity,
at other times with other velocities, and consequently, with other
tendencies to motion that are infinite, or almost infinite.
With these remarks, I conclude what appears to me to be the most
accurate view of the question of our personal, or, as I have rather
chosen to term it, our mental identity. We have seen, that the belief
of this arises, not from any inference of reasoning, but from a
principle of intuitive assent, operating universally, immediately,
irresistibly, and therefore justly to be regarded, as essential to our
constitution,--a principle, exactly of the same kind, as those, to
which reasoning itself must ultimately be traced, and from which alone
its consecutive series of propositions can derive any authority. We
have seen, that this belief,--though intuitive,--is not involved in any
_one_ of our separate feelings, which, considered merely as present,
might succeed each other, in endless variety, without affording
any notion of a sentient being, more permanent than the sensation
itself; but that it arises, on the consideration of our feelings as
_successive_, in the same manner, as our belief of proportion, or
relation in general, arises, not from the conception of _one_ of the
related objects or ideas, but only after the previous conception of
_both_ the relative and the correlative; or rather, that the belief
of identity does not arise as subsequent, but is involved in the very
remembrance which allows us to consider our feelings as successive;
since it is impossible for us to regard them as successive, without
regarding them as feelings of our sentient self;--not flowing,
therefore, from experience or reasoning, but essential to these,
and necessarily implied in them,--since there can be no result in
experience, but to the mind which remembers that it has previously
observed, and no reasoning but to the mind which remembers that it
has felt the truth of some proposition, from which the truth of its
present conclusion is derived. In addition to this positive evidence
of our identity, we have seen, that the strongest objections which we
could imagine to be urged against it, are, as might have been expected,
sophistical, in the false test of identity which they assume,--that
the contrasts of momentary feeling, and even the more permanent
alterations of general character, in the same individual, afford no
valid argument against it; since, not in _mind_ only, but in _matter_
also,--(from a superficial and partial view of the phenomena of which
the supposed objections are derived,)--the most complete identity of
substance, without addition of any thing, or subtraction of any thing,
is compatible with an infinite _diversity of states_.
I cannot quit the subject of identity, however,--though from my belief
of its importance, I may already, perhaps, have dwelt upon it too
long,--without giving you some slight account of the very strange
opinions of Mr Locke on the subject. I do this, both because some
notice is due, to the paradoxes,--even though they be erroneous,--of
so illustrious a man, and because I conceive it to be of great
advantage, to point out to you occasionally the illusions, which have
been able to obscure the discernment of those _bright_ spirits, which
nature sometimes, though sparingly, grants, to adorn at least that
intellectual gloom, which even they cannot irradiate; that, in their
path of glory, seem to move along the heavens by their own independent
light, as if almost unconscious of the darkness below, but cannot
exist there for a moment, without shedding, on the feeble and doubtful
throngs beneath, some faint beams of their own incommunicable lustre.
It is chiefly, as connected with these eminent names, that fallacy
itself becomes instructive, when simply exhibited,--if this only be
done, not from any wish to disparage merits, that are far above the
impotence of such attempts, but with all the veneration which is due
to human excellence, united as it must ever be to human imperfection,
“Even the errors of great men,” it has been said, “are fruitful of
truths;” and, though they were to be attended with no other advantage,
this one at least they must always have, that they teach us how very
possible it is for man to err; thus lessening at once our tendency to
slavish acquiescence in the unexamined opinions of others, and--which
is much harder to be done--lessening also, as much as it is possible
for any thing to lessen, the strong conviction, which we feel, that we
are ourselves unerring.--The first and most instructive lesson, which
man can receive, when he is capable of reflection, is to _think for
himself_; the second, without which the first would be comparatively of
little value, is to reject, in _himself_, that infallibility, which he
rejects in _others_.
The opinion of Locke, with respect to personal identity, is, that it
consists in consciousness alone; by which term, in its reference to
the past, he can mean nothing more than perfect memory. As far back as
we are conscious, or remember; so far and no farther, he says, are we
the same persons. In short, what we do not remember, we, as persons,
strictly speaking, never did. The identity of that which remembers,
and which is surely independent of the remembrance itself, is thus
made to consist in the remembrance, that is confessedly fugitive; and,
as if that every possible inconsistency might be crowded together
in this simple doctrine, the same philosopher, who holds, that our
personal identity consists in _consciousness_, is one of the most
strenuous opponents of the doctrine, that the soul always thinks, or is
_conscious_; so that, in this interval of thought, from consciousness
to consciousness,--since that which is essential to identity is, by
supposition, suspended, the same identical soul, as far as individual
personality is concerned, is not the same identical soul, but exists
when it does not exist.
“There is another consequence of this doctrine,” says Dr Reid, “which
follows no less necessarily, though Mr Locke probably did not see it.
It is that a man be, and at the same time not be, the person that did a
particular action.
“Suppose a brave Officer to have been flogged when a boy at school,
for robbing an orchard, to have taken a standard from the enemy in
his first campaign, and to have been made a General in advanced life:
Suppose also, which must be admitted to be possible, that when he took
the standard, he was conscious of his having been flogged at school;
and that when made a General, he was conscious of his taking the
standard, but had absolutely lost the consciousness of his flogging.
“These things being supposed, it follows, from Mr Locke's doctrine,
that he who was flogged at school is the same person who took the
standard; and that he who took the standard is the same person who was
made a General. Whence it follows, if there be any truth in logic, that
the General is the same person with him who was flogged at school. But
the General's consciousness does not reach so far back as his flogging,
therefore, according to Mr Locke's doctrine, he is not the person who
was flogged, Therefore the General is, and at the same time is not, the
same person with him who was flogged at school.”[51]
But it is needless to deduce consequences, from this very strange
paradox; since its author himself has done this, most freely and
fully, and often with an air of pleasantry, that, but for the place
in which we find it, as forming a part of a grave methodical essay on
the understanding, would almost lead us to think, that he was himself
smiling, in secret, at his own doctrine, and propounding it with the
same mock solemnity with which the discoverer of Laputa has revealed to
us all the secrets of the philosophy of that island of philosophers.
He allows it to follow, from his doctrine, that, if we remembered _at
night_, and never but at night, one set of the events of our life; as,
for instance, those which happened five years ago; and never but in
the day time, that different set of events, which happened six years
ago; this, “day and night man,” to use his own phrase, would be two
as distinct persons, as Socrates and Plato; and, in short, that we
are truly as many persons as we have, or can be supposed to have, at
different times, separate and distinct remembrances of different series
of events. In this case, indeed, he makes a distinction of the visible
_man_, who is the same, and of the _person_ who is different.
“But yet possibly it will still be objected,” he says, “suppose I
wholly lose the memory of some parts of my life, beyond a possibility
of retrieving them, so that perhaps I shall never be conscious of
them again; yet am I not the same person that did those actions, had
those thoughts that I once was conscious of, though I have now forgot
them? To which I answer, that we must here take notice what the word
I is applied to; which, in this case, is the man only. And the same
man being presumed to be the same person, I is easily here supposed
to stand also for the same person. But 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; which we see is the sense of mankind in the solemnest
declaration of their opinions; human laws not punishing the mad man for
the sober man's actions, nor the sober man for what the mad man did,
thereby making them two persons: which is somewhat explained by our
way of speaking in English, when we say such an one is not himself, or
is beside himself; in which phrases it is insinuated, as if those who
now, or at least first used them, thought that self was changed, the
self-same person was no longer in that man.”[52]
Such is the doctrine of a philosopher, whose intellectual excellence
was unquestionably of the highest rank, and whose powers might be
considered as entitling him to exemption, at least, from those _gross_
errors which far weaker understandings are capable of discovering, if
even this humble relative privilege had not been too great for man.
He contends, that our remembrance of having done a certain action, is
not merely to us, the rememberers, the _evidence_ by which we believe
that we were the persons who did it, but is the very circumstance that
makes us _personally_ to have done it,--a doctrine, which, if the word
_person_ were to be understood in the slightest degree in its common
acceptation, would involve, as has been justly said, an absurdity as
great as if it had been affirmed, that our belief of the creation of
the world actually made it to have been created.