Having thus endeavored to state the law of mind, in general, I descend
to the consideration of a particular phenomenon which is remarkably
prominent in our own consciousnesses, that of personality. A strong
light is thrown upon this subject by recent observations of double and
multiple personality. The theory which at one time seemed plausible that
two persons in one body corresponded to the two halves of the brain
will, I take it, now be universally acknowledged to be insufficient.
But that which these cases make quite manifest is that personality is
some kind of coördination or connection of ideas. Not much to say, this,
perhaps. Yet when we consider that, according to the principle which we
are tracing out, a connection between ideas is itself a general idea,
and that a general idea is a living feeling, it is plain that we have at
least taken an appreciable step toward the understanding of personality.
This personality, like any general idea, is not a thing to be apprehended
in an instant. It has to be lived in time; nor can any finite time
embrace it in all its fulness. Yet in each infinitesimal interval it is
present and living, though specially colored by the immediate feelings
of that moment. Personality, so far as it is apprehended in a moment, is
immediate self-consciousness.
But the word coördination implies somewhat more than this; it implies
a teleological harmony in ideas, and in the case of personality this
teleology is more than a mere purposive pursuit of a predeterminate end;
it is a developmental teleology. This is personal character. A general
idea, living and conscious now, it is already determinative of acts in
the future to an extent to which it is not now conscious.
This reference to the future is an essential element of personality.
Were the ends of a person already explicit, there would be no room for
development, for growth, for life; and consequently there would be
no personality. The mere carrying out of predetermined purposes is
mechanical. This remark has an application to the philosophy of religion.
It is that a genuine evolutionary philosophy, that is, one that makes the
principle of growth a primordial element of the universe, is so far from
being antagonistic to the idea of a personal creator, that it is really
inseparable from that idea; while a necessitarian religion is in an
altogether false position and is destined to become disintegrated. But a
pseudo-evolutionism which enthrones mechanical law above the principle of
growth, is at once scientifically unsatisfactory, as giving no possible
hint of how the universe has come about, and hostile to all hopes of
personal relations to God.