personal identity, till this strange doctrine, and its consequences,
were stated to him by another, it may almost be taken for granted, that
he would not have failed instantly to discover its absurdity, as a mere
verbal paradox; and, yet, after much reflection on the subject, he
does not perceive that very absurdity, which he would have discovered,
but _for reflection_. Such is the strange nature of our intellectual
constitution. The very functions, that, in their daily and hourly
exercise, save us from innumerable errors, sometimes lead us into
errors, which, but for them, we might have avoided. The philosopher is
like a well armed and practised warrior, who, in his helmet and coat
of mail, goes to the combat with surer means of victory, than the ill
disciplined and defenceless mob around him, but who may yet sometimes
fall where others would have stood, unable to rise and extricate
himself, from the incumbrance of that very armour, to which he has owed
the conquests of many other fields.
What, then, may we conceive to have been the nature of the illusion,
which could lead a mind like that of Mr Locke, to admit, _after_
reflection, an absurd paradox, and all its absurd consequences, which,
_before_ reflection, he would have rejected?
It is to be traced chiefly, I conceive, to a source which is certainly
the most abundant source of error in the writings and silent
reflections of philosophers, especially of those who are gifted with
originality of thought,--the ambiguity of the language they use, when
they retain a word with one meaning, which is generally understood
in a different sense; the common meaning, in the course of their
speculations, often mingling insensibly with their own, and thus
producing a sort of confusion, which incapacitates them from perceiving
the precise consequences of either. Mr Locke gives his own definition
of the word person, as comprised in the very consciousness which he
supposes to be all that is essential to personal identity; or at least
he speaks of consciousness so vaguely and indefinitely, as to allow
this meaning of his definition to be present to his own mind, as often
as he thought of personality. “To find,” he says, “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.”[53]
Having once given this definition of a person, there can be no
question, that personal identity, in _his_ sense, is wherever
_consciousness_ is, and only where consciousness is. But this is true
of a person, only as defined by him; and, if strictly analysed, means
nothing more, than that consciousness is wherever consciousness is,--a
doctrine, on which, certainly, he could not have thought it worth his
while to give any very long commentary. It appears more important
however, even to himself, and worthy of the long commentary which he
has given it, because, in truth, he cannot refrain from still keeping,
in his own mind, some obscure impression of the more common meaning of
the term, and extending to a _person_, as thus commonly understood,
what is true only of a person, as defined by him. It is as if some
whimsical naturalist should give a definition of the word _animal_,
exclusive of every winged creature, and should then think that he was
propounding a very notable and subtile paradox, in affirming that no
animal is capable of rising for a few minutes above the surface of the
earth. It would be a paradox, only inasmuch as it might suggest to
those who heard it, a meaning _different_ from that of the definition;
and, but for this misconception, which the author of it himself might
share, would be so insignificant a truism, as not to deserve even the
humblest of all praise, that of amusing absurdity.
When, in such cases as this, we discover that singular inconsistency,
which is to be found even in the very _excellence_ of every thing that
is _human_,--the perspicacity which sees, at an immeasurable distance,
in the field of inquiry, what no other eye has seen, and which yet, in
the very objects which it has grasped, is unable to distinguish what is
visible to common eyes, are we to lament the imperfection of our mental
constitution, which leaves us liable to such error? Or, as in other
instances, in which, from our incapacity of judging rightly, we are
tempted at first to regret the present arrangement of things, are we
not rather to rejoice that we are so constituted by nature? if man had
not been formed to _err_, in the same manner as he is formed to reason,
and to know, that perfect system of faculties, which excluded error,
must have rendered his discernment too quick, not to seize instantly
innumerable truths, the gradual discovery of which, by the exercise of
his present more limited faculties, has been sufficient to give glory
and happiness to whole ages of philosophical inquiry. If, indeed, the
field had been absolutely boundless, he might still have continued
to advance, as at present, though with more gigantic step, and more
searching vision, and found no termination to his unlimited career.
But the truths which relate to us physically, on this bounded scene of
things in which we are placed, numerous as they are, are still in some
measure finite, like that scene itself; and the too rapid discoveries,
therefore, of a few generations, as to the most important properties of
things, would have left little more for the generations which were to
follow, than the dull and spiritless task of learning what others had
previously learned, or of teaching what themselves had been taught.
Philosophy is not the mere _passive possession_ of knowledge; it is,
in a much more important respect, the active exercise of acquiring it.
We may truly apply to it what Pascal says of the conduct of life in
general. “We think,” says he, “that we are seeking _repose_, and all
which we are seeking is _agitation_.” In like manner, we think that
it is _truth_ itself which we seek, when the happiness which we are
to feel most strongly, is in the mere search; and all that would be
necessary, in many cases, to make the object of it appear indifferent,
would be to put it fairly within our grasp.
“Our hopes, like towering falcons, aim
At objects in an airy height;
But all the pleasure of the game,
Is afar off to view the flight.”
What little value do we set on discoveries that have been long familiar
to us, though their own essential value must still continue the same.
Even on the whole mass of knowledge, that has been gradually and
slowly transmitted to us, we reflect with little interest, unless
as it may lead to something yet unknown; and the result of a single
new experiment, which bears no proportion to the mass to which it is
added, will yet be sufficient to rouse and delight every philosopher in
Europe. It is a very shrewd remark of a French writer, in reference to
the torpor, which the most zealous inquirer feels, as to every thing
which he _knows_, and his insatiable avidity for every thing which he
does _not_ know, that “if Truth were fairly to show herself as she is,
all would be ruined; but it is plain, that she knows very well, of how
great importance it is, that she should keep herself out of sight.”
If we were to acquire, by an unhappy foresight, the knowledge which
is not yet ours, it is very evident, that we must soon regard it, in
the same manner, as the knowledge which we have already acquired. The
charm of novelty, the delights of gratified curiosity, would not be for
us. The prey would be at our feet; and it would be vain, therefore, to
expect that ardour of soul, which is kindled, amid the hopes and the
fears, the tumult and the competition of the chase.
“If man were _omnipotent_, without being _God_,” says Rousseau, “he
would be a miserable creature: he would be deprived of the pleasure of
_desiring_; and what privation would be so difficult to be borne!” It
may be said, at least with equal truth, that, if man were _omniscient_,
without the other perfections of the Divinity, he would be far less
happy than at present. To infinite benevolence, indeed, accompanied
with infinite power, a corresponding infinity of knowledge must afford
the highest of all imaginable gratifications, by its subservience to
those gracious plans of good, which are manifested in the universe, and
which, in making known to us the existence of the Supreme Being, have
made him known to us, as the object of grateful love and admiration.
But if, in other respects, we were to continue as at present,--with
our erring passions, and moral weaknesses of every sort,--to be doomed
to have nothing _to learn_, would be a punishment, not a blessing. In
such circumstances, if they were to continue forever, the annihilation
of our intellectual being would not be an evil so great, as the mere
extinction of our curiosity, and of all the delights and consolations
which it affords, not merely when we gratify it, but when we are merely
seeking to gratify it.
“Else wherefore burns,
In mortal bosoms, this unquenched hope
That breathes from day to day sublimer things,
And mocks possession! Wherefore darts the mind,
With such resistless ardour, to embrace
Majestic forms, impatient to be free,
Proud of the strong contention of her toils,
Proud to be daring?”[54]--
“Why departs she wide[55]
From the dull track and journey of her times,
To grasp the good she knows not? In the field
Of things which may be, in the spacious field
Of science, potent arts, or dreadful arms,
To raise up scenes, in which her own desires
Contented may repose,--when things which are
Pall on her temper like a twice told tale.”[56]
It is sufficient, that we are endowed with powers of discovery. Our
gratitude is due to Heaven for the gift; and the more due for that
gracious wisdom, which has known how to _limit_ the powers which it
gave, so as to produce a greater result of good by the very limitation.
Our prejudices, which sometimes forbid reasoning, and the errors, to
which our imperfect reasoning often leads us, we should consider, when
all their remote relations are taken into account, as indirect sources
of happiness; and though we may wish, and justly wish, to analyse them,
and to rise above their influence,--for, without this exertion, and
consequent feeling of progress, on our part, they would be evil rather
than good,--we must not forget, that it is to them we owe the luxury,
which the immediate analysis affords, and the acquisition of the
innumerable truths, which the prevalence of these errors, in past ages,
has left to be discovered by the ages which succeed.
In this, and in every thing which relates to man, Nature has had
in view, not the individual or the single generation only, but the
_permanent race_. She has therefore, not exhausted her bounty on any
one period of the long succession; but, by a provision, which makes
our very weakness instrumental to her goodness, she has given to all,
that distant and ever-brightening hope, which, till we arrive at our
glorious destination,
“Leads from goal to goal,
And opens still, and opens on the soul.”
With enough of _mental vigour_ to advance still farther in the tracks,
of science that are already formed, and to point out new tracks to
those who are to follow, we have enough of _weakness_ to prevent us
from exploring and exhausting, what is to occupy, in the same happy
search, the millions of millions that are to succeed us. Truth itself,
indeed, will always be progressive; but there will still, at every
stage of the progress, be something to _discover_, and abundance to
_confute_. “In 24,000 years,” to borrow the prediction of a very
skilful prophet,--“In 24,000 years, there will arise philosophers,
who will boast, that they are destroying the errors which have been
reigning in the world for 30,000 years past; and there will be people
who will believe, that they are then only just beginning to open their
eyes.”
In these remarks, on the nature of our varied consciousness, and on
the unity and identity of the mind in all its varieties,--we have
considered the mental phenomena in their _general_ aspect. We have now
to consider them as arranged in kindred classes,--or rather to attempt
the difficult task of the classification itself.
To this I shall proceed in my next Lecture.
FOOTNOTES:
[51] Reid's Essays on the Intellectual Powers, Essay III. Chap. vi.
[52] Essay concerning Human Understanding, B. ii. c. xxvii. sect. 20.
[53] Essay concerning Human Understanding, B. ii. c. xxvii. sect. 9.
[54] Pleasures of Imagination, (first form of the poem,) B. i. v.
166-171. 173-5.
[55] ----Why departs the soul
Wide from the track.--ORIG.
[56] Pleasures of Imagination, (second form of the Poem,) B. i. v.
213-220.
LECTURE XVI.
ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE PHENOMENA OF MIND.
After considering the Phenomena of the Mind _in general_, we are
now to proceed to consider them, in the _separate classes_ in which
they may be arranged. The phenomena themselves, indeed, are almost
infinite, and it might seem, on first reflection a very hopeless task,
to attempt to reduce, under a few heads, the innumerable feelings,
which diversify almost every moment of our life. But to those, who
are acquainted with the wonders, which classification has performed,
in the other sciences, the task, difficult as it is, will still seem
not absolutely hopeless; though in one respect, its difficulty will
be more highly estimated by them, than by others;--since _they_ only,
who know the advantage of the fixed and definite nature of the objects
of classification, in other _sciences_, can feel, how much greater
the obstacles must be, to any accurate arrangement, in a science, of
which the objects are indefinite, and complex, incapable of being fixed
for a moment in the same state, and destroyed by the very effort to
grasp them. But, in this, as in other instances, in which nature has
given us difficulties with which to cope, she has not left us to be
wholly overcome; or, if we must yield, she has at least armed us for
so vigorous a struggle, that we gain additional intellectual strength,
even in being vanquished. “Studiorum salutarium, etiam citra effectum,
salutaris tractatio est.” If she has placed us in a labyrinth, she has
at the same time furnished us with a clue, which may guide us, not
indeed through all its dark and intricate windings, but through those
broad paths, which conduct us into day. The single power, by which we
discover resemblance or relation in general, is a sufficient aid to us,
in the perplexity and confusion of our first attempts at arrangement.
It begins, by converting thousands, and more than thousands, into one,
and, reducing, in the same manner, the numbers thus formed, it arrives
at last at the few distinctive characters of those great comprehensive
tribes, on which it ceases to operate, because there is nothing left
to oppress the memory, or the understanding. If there had been no
such science as chemistry, who could have ventured to suppose, that
the innumerable bodies, animate and inanimate, on the surface of our
globe, and all, which we have been able to explore in the very depths
of the earth itself, are reducible, and even in the imperfect state
of the science, have been already reduced, to a few simple elements?
The science of mind, as it is a science of analysis, I have more than
once compared to _chemistry_, and pointed out to you, and illustrated,
its various circumstances of resemblance. In this too, we may hope the
analogy will hold,--that, as the innumerable aggregates, in the one
science, have been reduced and simplified, the innumerable complex
feelings in the other will admit of a corresponding reduction and
simplification.
The classes which we form, in the mental as well as in the material
universe, depend, as you cannot but know, on certain relations which
we discover in the phenomena; and the relations according to which
objects may be arranged, are of course various, as they are considered
by different individuals in different points of view. Some of these
relations present themselves immediately, as if to our very glance;
others are discoverable only after attentive reflection;--and though
the former, merely as presenting themselves more readily, may seem on
that account, better suited for the general purpose of arrangement,
it is not the less true that the classification, which approaches
nearest to perfection, is far from being always that which is founded
on relations, that seem at first sight the most obvious. The rudest
wanderer in the fields may imagine, that the profusion of blossoms
around him,--in the greater number of which he is able, himself, to
discover many striking resemblances,--may be reduced into some order of
arrangement. But he would be little aware, that the principle according
to which they are now universally classed, has relation, not to the
parts which appear to him to constitute the whole flower, but to some
small part of the blossom, which he does not perceive, at the distance
at which he passes it, and which scarcely attracts his eye, when he
plucks it from the stem.
To our _mental_ classifications the remark is equally applicable. In
these too, the most obvious distinctions are not always those which
answer best the purposes of systematic arrangement. The phenomena of
the mind, are only the mind itself existing in certain states; and,
as many of these states are in their nature agreeable, and others
disagreeable, this difference, which is to the sentient being himself
the most important of all differences, may be supposed, to afford the
most obvious principle of classification. What is pleasant, what is
painful, are perhaps the first classes, which the infant has formed
long before he is capable of distinguishing them by a name; and the
very imbecility of idiotism itself, to which nothing is true or false,
or right or wrong,--and to which there is no future, beyond the
succeeding moment,--is yet capable of making this primary distinction,
and of regulating, according to it, its momentary desires.
“The love of pleasure is man's eldest-born,
Born in his cradle, living to his tomb.
Wisdom,--her younger sister, though more grave,
Was meant to minister, not to dethrone[57]
Imperial Pleasure, queen of human hearts.”[58]
The distribution, which we should be inclined to make, of our mental
phenomena, according to this obvious principle, would be into
those which are pleasing, those which are painful, and those which
are neither painful nor pleasing. But, however obvious this first
distinction may seem, as a principle of arrangement, the circumstances,
on which the differences depend, are so very indefinite, that the
distinction,--though it may be useful to have it in view, in its most
striking and permanent cases,--cannot be adopted, as the basis of
any regular system. To take the mere pleasures and pains of _sense_,
for example,--to what intelligible division could we reduce these,
which are not merely fugitive in themselves, but vary, from pain to
pleasure, and from pleasure to pain, with a change of their external
objects, so slight often, as to be scarcely appreciable, and, in many
cases, even when the external objects have continued exactly the same?
How small, and how variable a boundary separates the warmth which is
pleasing from the heat which pains! A certain quantity of light is
grateful to the eye. Increase it;--it becomes, not indifferent,--though
that would be a less change,--but absolutely painful; and, if the eye
be inflamed, even the small quantity of light,--which was agreeable
before, and which seemed, therefore, to admit of being very safely
classed among the sources of pleasure,--is now converted into a source
of agony. Since it is impossible, therefore, to fix the limits of
pain and pleasure, and every affection or state of mind, agreeable,
disagreeable, or indifferent, may, by a very trifling change of
circumstance, be converted into an opposite state, it is evident, that
any division, founded on this vague and transient distinction, must
perplex, and mislead us, in our attempts to systematize the almost
infinite diversities of thought and feeling, rather than give us any
aid in the arrangement.
The great leading division of the mental phenomena which has met with
most general adoption by philosophers, is into those which belong to
the _understanding_, and those which belong to the _will_;--a division
which is very ancient, but though sanctioned by the approbation of
many ages, very illogical; since the will, which, in this division,
is nominally opposed to the intellect, is so far from being opposed
to it in reality, that, even by the asserters of its diversity, it is
considered as exercising, in the intellectual department, an empire
almost as wide, as in the department allotted to itself. We reason, and
plan, and invent, at least as _voluntarily_,--as we esteem, or hate, or
hope, or fear. How many emotions are there too, which cannot, without
absolute torture, be forced into _either_ division! To take only a few
instances, out of many,--to what class are we to reduce grief, joy,
admiration, astonishment, which perhaps are not phenomena of the mere
understanding, and which,--though they may lead indirectly to desires
or volitions,--have nothing, in themselves, that is voluntary, or
that can be considered as in any peculiar degree connected with the
_will_? The division of the mental phenomena into those which belong
to the _understanding_, and those which belong to the _will_, seems,
therefore, to be as faulty, as would be the division of animals, into
those which have legs and those which have wings; since the same
animals might have both legs and wings, and since whole tribes of
animals have neither one nor the other.