^M^ s^.:\t^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-S) // 1.0 11.25 (^ 1^ 112.2 I.I I "^ 11^ 1.8 U 1 1.6 V ^ •> ^^v Photographic Sciences Corporation •^ \ ply the whole of what one actually means from the finite point of view."' However enigmatic the closing phrase of the extract may be, its earlier declaration may undoubtedly be conceded. Nevertheless, acknowledged "limitation" does not confine consciousness to knowledge of the unreal. If that were the only thing capable of being known, there could be no know- ledge at all. The real is necessary to know the real. Indeed, the real is necessary even to conceive the unreal. Herein, too, is seen the logical precedence of personality. The fact that we distinguish between substance and shadow; between real and phenomenal; between constant and variable relations, is evidence that knowledge is not confined to the phenomenal. To put the whole problem in a nutshell : The real is neces- sary to the orderly, the orderly to knowledge. That the not- me is known indirectly is conceded. That self is known im- mediately is not denied. In order to knowledge, therefore, reality must be found in self and all other reality interpreted from the nature of the ego. The subject occupying our attention is dealt with by Lotze, something after this fashion.' The common notion o* things allows us to give renlness only to that which is of the nature of mind, because (as has been shown) the being of things is not sensible qualities, nor is it supersensible intel- lectual qualities, nor unknown qualities, nor an unknown sub strate, nor lastly, merely a significant thought. If it be con- ceived as an operative idea, that will scarcely answer either, ^Vide, 6. J. Romanes, Mind, Motion and Monism, p. 88, seq. 'Studies of Good and Evil, p. XI of Introduction. Wide, MicrocosmoB, Book IX, Chap. III. Finite Personnlity, 5 because it is we who give this reality to the idea. "The only kind of reality that coald possibly belong to it is that of being a thought, really thought by some thinker." After indicating that Idealism (e. g., Kantian,) re- servos to spiritual beings a realness which it refuses to selfless things, he continues : "Now what hinders us from finding in this mental nature that addition which the previously empty notion of things needed in order to become the complete no- tion of somewhat real?" "Why should we not transform the assertion that only minds are real into the assertion that all that is real is mind?" This, it may be objected, would destroy the "externality", evidently characteristic of things. No. Existence for self is the "externality" or realness wanted. UealuesB is the being of that which exists for self. But as there are degrees of consciousness so there are degrees of real- ness in things. "Hence to realness in this sense we can at- tribute different degrees of intensity; we cannot say of every- thing that it is altogether real, or altogether not real ; bnt beings detaching themselves from the Infinite, with varying wealth and unequal complexity of self-existence, are real in different degrees, while all continue to be immanent in the Infi- nite."* Proposition VII. "The demand made by the notion of things and their formal determinations can be fulfilled only by that which is of the nature of mind." Proposition VIII. "Hence either only minds exist, or things are beings which share with minds in various degrees the general characteristic of mentality, namely, self- existence." Proposition IX. "The realness of things and their self- existence are notions which have precisely the same significance." A mind which continues immanent in the Infinite, directly that it exists for self, has in this very self-existence the fullest realness. How, then, account for the weight and impenetrability of matter, cause and effect, etc.? The author neglects neither this nor kindred problems, but these are aside from the imme- diate object we are pursuing. Our reason foi; quoting so fally is that the reader may catch the Lotzean notion that self- isolation, the highest characteristic of personalityi constitutes the highest reatness. »P. 646. Finite Personality. By nay of recapitulation, therefore : empiricism redaoea all reality t** "an unknown" and "the Unknowable," becauae it accepts mat ' or as the fundamental real. The idealistic theory, having estal'lished the existence of a non-natural principle, spiritual, permanent and synthetic in ita action, is content to assert that "constant relations" is the final definition of objec- tive reality. Our thesis is that all reality is oltiroately spiritual and that its nature is apprehended in self-conscious • ness. Personality stands "within the veil" and in self-realiza- tion finds tho clue at once to subjective and objective reality. The transcendental is at home with itself in self consciousness. The ego is the key to its own mystery, and as far as we can trace it, to the mystery of matter. Kant's dictum, "the understanding makes nature," presents one side of the truth because the categories are native, not foreign; consequently a knowledge of nature depends on the intelligence of man. But "the understanding" cannot sot to work arbitrarily in "making nature." If it does so, it produces only phantasmagoria. The "constancy of relations" depends not wholly upon thinking. Thought has to conform itself to its content. Relations are apprehended as frequently as they are "made." Mind could not do the one nor the other, unless in the first case it were determined ex mente : in the other, possessed native powers. The "form" and the "matter" of knowledge indicates its double source, but the sensuous element in cognition has un> known birth only when we are unacquainted with its parentage. If we could stand within reality (as I claim we do,) discover its nature to be akin to our own (as I believe it is) then there wonld be no room for Spencer to talk of "the unknown" or Kant to speak darkly of the "thing-in-itself." Materialism owes its distress to ita inability to discover the nature of the veiled *'substrate" on the other side of phe^ nomena. "It cannot be known /rom the outside\ ergo, it is placed forever beyond human ken." No, we reply, it can be known from the inside by a resi- dent conscious reality who stands behind the veil and within reality. The gap, gulf, abyss, owes its unphilosophical intui- tion to an improper method of approaching the subject. Locke, the unwitting father of modern agnosticism, asiumed Finite Per$onaUty, the BubstratQ aB real. la some inexplicable manner it worked the miracle of crossing the "guK" and writing itself into the bare tablet of the mind, a ready-made produce thrust upon us. It was not seen then that there can be no knowledge without synthetic function of an active power, the primal and only im- mediately known reality. Even Kant, who led pbilosophy past the mistake of em- piricism and proved the existence of a spiritual principle — the transcendental ego, — still talked of **ding an «toA," impugned the validity of the *'Ideas of Reason," and constituted objec- tive reality of ideal relations. However fervently the empiri- cal camp may chorus "Amen" to Kant's averment that God and the ego transcend knowledge, they cannot see in *'ideal relations" the tangible material they weigh and analyze and trace through various transformations from invisible gas to incompressible liquid or impenetrable solid; nor in them find an habitation for ''natural forces." Our contention is that permanent subject and permanent object are akin in nature. Knowing my own nature, the ob- jective is not "unknowable," is in fact but 2e«« knowahle than my alter ego. I know his nature and interpret his character from «e(/'-knowledge. Likewise I interpret the objective world — animal, vegetable, mineral— by codes adapted to their vary- ing orders of being, but showing the fundamental underlying reality to bo one in nature, though descending in hierarchical order from self-conscious personality to unconcsious atom. When human personality is understood, it is seen to be neither wholly mechanical, on the one hand, nor wholly lost in Diety, on the other ; but, akin to its environment, spiritual and nat- ural, it ranks between the ''Higher" and the lower "than I," possessing no small range of "self-differentiation" from the universe of which it forms a part. A limited personality truly, yet sharing the intelligence and will of the Highest — ^yielded in part to His children — and capable of fuller development. Also man partakes in part of the nature of that which is with- out him and lower than he, though kindred to him. PERSONALITY SACRIFICED BY MODERN PSYCHOLOGY. It will aid us in our consideration of volition, emotion and self-isolation — further characteristics of the ego— if at 8 Finite PersonaHty, this juncture we change our point of view and look at "facts" from the standpoint of physiological psychology. In a general sense the radical distinction between these opposed schools of psychological research, namely, that of spiritualism, rationalism or idealism, or ',he one hand, and of positivism, monism, physicism, etc., on the other, may be expressed in the terms, "subjective" and ''objective." More plainly, the contrast between them divides into a movement of three moments on each side — postulate, method and result. Empirical psychology grounds on materialism and cul- minates in agnosticism : its postulate — matter, plus inherent qualities; its method — observation and experiment; its lind- ing — phenomena and their relations ; beyond that conjecture. The old psychology begins in the realm of consciousness, assuming self as a spiritual principle; its method, self- introspection, JustiGed or modified by observation; its result, verification of "personality" as a spiritual and permanent entity, culminating in God, the Supreme Spirit, in whom all things have their being. "Because of its unique character, self-consciousness must be exploited by a method of its own," say the Old School. Impossible ! replies the New, for that is to postulate a "mythi- cal" something which science cannot consider, the ego, "a fiction born of nonentity." And so it comes to pass that, dis- trusting introspection, the physiological psychologist studies mind ab extras begins far afield and works towards conscious- ness. Having accustomed himself to forces and their measure- ments, he pursues psychometry to the borderland of conscious- ness and rises from "kinesis" to "metakincsis." In man is found a certain yery complex organism, a nervous system, the concomitants of whose processes are thoughts, feelings, etc. The origin and development of this organism can be traced from the beginning of life up to man, and some philosophers and scientists, such as Haeckel and Spencer, trace it to ultimate chemical atoms. Here we are on ground occupied by two theories in their method of finding a substitute for mind as a spiritual entity, diflTeriug only as to the date at which consciousness appears on the scene. The "mind-dust" theory posits atomistic con- sciousness in the orifl;inal fire-mist of the nebula. "The self- Finite Personality. .»» same atoms which, chaotically dispersed, made the nebula, now, jammed and temporarily caught in peculiar positions, form our brains; and the evolution of the brains, if under- stood, would be simply the account of how the atoms came to be so caught and jammed."^ Mental states are compounds of mind-stuff. Each atom of the original nebula, it is supposed, must have had an aboriginal atom of consciousness linked with it. Aggregates of material atoms make these bodies forms; so by an analogous process of aggregation mental atoms have fused into "consciousness*' such as we know in ourselves and suppose to exist in our fellow animals. *'Some such doctrine of atomistic nylozoism as this is an indispensable part of the thorough going philosophy of evolution."' The "automatic theory'* makes consciousness the product of the brain and identifies it with motion. When the dance of the molecules reaches a certain intensity and complexity, •'matter becomes self-conscious." Self-consciousness is not therefore the consciousness of a ''self* or ego. Whatever mind accompanies the movement is there merely as an "epiphe- nomenon," an inert observer, a sort of "foam, aura or melody," as Mr. Hodgson puts it, whose opposition or furtherance is alike powerless. Mind is the help*3ss result of dancing mole- cules. In so many words Professor Huxley tells us "we are conscious automata" and La Mettrie entitles one of his books "The Man Machine." V Since, however, Wundt is the recogpized coryphaeus of the whole school, why not hear him? Havi^^ asked the question, "What is now the nature of the mind? he answers:' "Our mind is nothino; else than the sum of our inner experiences, than our ideation, feeling and willing, collected together to a unity in consciousness and rising in a series of developmental stages to culminate in self-conscious thought and a will that is mor- ally free." Not unlike this is Mr. Spencer's theory. Epitomizing from his "Principles of Psychology," he says briefly :* "Mind consists of feelings, and the relations among feelings. By *JameB« Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, p. 140, *Idem. p. 149. 'Human and Animal Psycholoey, p. 451, *Data of Ethics, p. 110. 10 I ',: |i i Finite Personality. . I ii'l fi I composition of the relations, and ideas of relations, intelli* gence arises. By composition of the feelings, and ideas of the feelings, emotion arises." But enough. Any nutshell statement of a theory or fam- ily of theories must ever be unsatisfactory ; not less so, how- ever, must be a skeleton retort. Of the swarm of questions unavoidably raised, such, for example, as to the origin and ter- mination of the processes referred to, and of the laws, chanced or purposive, by which they are governed, we can say nothing directly. One problem alone must detain us. What bearing has the above on personality? It will be observed, that, bow- ever the theories disagree among themselves, they all make personality a product of non-personal forces. Even when the ego is not denied an existence, it is made the name, not of a spiritual entity, but of the convergent streams of sensations which are known by themselves. But if consciousness be metakinesis ; if mind be "the sum of our inner experiences" (Wundt), or "consists of feelings and the relations among feel- ings" (Spencer), then we have feelings, and even feelings re- lated, before we get mind, since mind is "the sum." Impossible! because in the cognition of the simplest sen- sation, mind is already actively at work. When Condillac says, the first time a child sees a color it is it, rath^tTnows it, he touches a truth. It is not *'known" until distinguished from what is not. Sir William Hamilton is undoubtedly correct, therefore, in asserting "plurality, differ- ence, and change" as necessary to cognition. That is, plural sensations are regarded in relation to one another. Until these relations are definite there is not ''knowledge," but only an eflfort to understand. In short,' sensations alone are not knowledge, for the cognition of the simplest sensation, it must be "distin- guished from what it is not." Now the apprehension of relation is the work of intelligence. A sensation cannot know itself. One sensation cannot know another sensation. In the apprehen ■ sion of an orange, color, flayor, odor, etc., make the percept; but the odor does not know the flavor; the color does not cognize the weight. There is a principle within, call it what you will, which knows all, distinguiiihes and relates them, and which therefore is not itself a phenomenon nor an aggregation of phe< nomena, bat a oognitive and abiding principle using the con- Finite Personality. 11 tribution of the senses for its own purposes. Thus a scent of fire is but a sensation. It is not however another sensation or cluster of sensations that, apprehensive of consequence^, hastens to ring the fire alarm. "Our mind is nothing else than the sum of our inner eX' perience" (Wundt). We reply, it requires the mind to make the sum. Separate experiences cannot live together and trans- form themselves into a something different from themselves which is afterwards to turn around and know them. "A per- sonality cannot be compounded out of a number of *^ersonaU' ties." When professor Wundt tells us, *'Oar mental experi- ences are as they are presented to us,"^ it is clear "personality" is assumed as different from and underlying the experiences. '*Oar" and ''to us'* betray the subject of the experience which self consciousness testifies to be other than its experience and permanent amidst it fiux. The same assumption carried Mr. Spencer throughout a similar description. After explaining that the Unknowable is manifested in a double series, viz., of *'faint manifestations" (subjective), and "vivid manifestations'' (objective,) he con- tinues, which *'we recognize by grouping uhcm into self and not-self \^* i. e., I am on hand "grouping" the manifestations of which self is compounded. As touching the matter in hand. Professor James delivers himself thus : "I confess therefore that to posit a soul in- fluenced in some mysterious way by the brain-states and re* spending to them by conscious affection, of its own, seems to me the line of least logical resistance, so far as we have yet at- tained."' Well and sanely said ; yet on the very next page our brilliant author confounds his convicti ns thus : "The bare Phenomenon^ however , the immediately known thing which on the mental side is in apposition with the entire brain-process, is the state of consciousness and not the soul itself." He continues; The soul "explains" nothing; accordingly, the "state of consciousnesss" usurps its place ; a visible substi- tute is preferred to an "unsafe hypothesis," because "our psy- chology will lymain posltivistic and non-metaphysical ; and 'Human and Animal Psychology, p. 452. ^Principles of Pyschology, Vol. I, p. 181. J$ Finite Personality. although this is certainly only a provitional halting place, and thiogi must some day be more thoroughly thought out, we shall abide there in this book, and just as we have rejected mind- dust we shall take no account of the soul." Faith plighted on one page; allegiance broken on the next. A proceeding all the more inconsistent, since the remainder of the work is full of metaphysio. Nevertheless the only key to a rational ex- plication of man, nature and God, is laid on the shelf until he finishes his task, — a psychology without a soul. Likens, hrwever, he discards a mind aggregated from mental functions. "The I which knows them cannot itself be an aggregate" (Page 400). If sensations knew themselves there would be no need of mind at all. Sensations, experien- ces, etc., accredited with Wundtian powers, could walk off and perform all the separate offices ascribed to personality; but "I" would know nothing of it, would have no say in the panorama. On the theory propounded, personality as it is revealed in self-consciousness would never have been suspected. Based on an external study of the causes of phenomena, the theory pictures not man as he knows himself, but as he ought to de- ceive himself into thinking himself on its preconceptions. In fine, proceeding on an impossible theory of cognition, it re- sults in the destruction of personality, a sacrifice for which the compounded substitute is no compensation. PERSONALITY AS REVEALED BY VOLITION. A "composite" personality we have seen is incompatible with a true theory of cognition, because mind is needed to perform the synthesis whose summation is supposed to result in mind. A mind produced from matter, whatever the process, arrives too late. Its office is performed before it appears. The ego is the active principle in cognition, not a compound of cognitions. Having hitherto considered only those active powers of the ego exercised in cognition, we might have defined man, as did Spinoza, **certus et determinattta modus cognitandi\*^ but man is more than a knowing principle, he is also volitional and emotional. What therefore do we mean or should we mean by volition? Am I a free agent, or the helf less child of necessity? Do I exercise will, or are my volitions made for me? Can I assert the freedom of my nature by resistance to Finite Peraonality. IS forces infinitely greater than those I command, or does the same necessity which obtains without me in nature control all psychic phenomena? Two answers are given to these questions. One says, man possesses a native power of self-determination which lays him open to responsibility, exposes him to the reproof of conscience, and at the same time constitutes the basis of the world's busi- ness, social and religious economy. The other finds personali- ty the product of complex forces whose play is independent of its wish or will ; it is not self-determined , it is determined ex mente. It follows also that, if will be a product of natural forces, it will have a "natural history." This introduces a theory of the genesis of man's volitional powers in which empiricism takes especial pride. Professor Bain's account may be accept- ed as typical. In brief, he teaches that mental phenomena co- ordinate with external stimuli. Refiex action affords us the fundamental type of response : spontaneous movements cause either pleasure, and are repeated, or pain, and are avoided ; thus driyen by pain, and allured by pleasure, our habits be- come fixed and such will as we possess is evolved. Let us quote Bain:^ "What we have to explain is the educational process of connecting definite feelings with definite actions, so that, in the furtherance of our ends, the one shall command the other . . the pleasure results from the movements and responds, by sustaining and increasing it. The delight thus feeds itself." Now this last short sentence is not intended to be poetical. Personification of feeling is quite in line with a theory which soberly assures us that personality is but a sum of this and other experiences. Singularly enough, though, some- thing more than the feelings is assumed, for an ^^educational process of connecting definite feelings with definite actions" for "the furtherance of our ends" implies the presence of a type of personality quite incompatible with the theory. /, who distinguish pleasure from pain, am capable both of "edu- cation" and of "furthering endi<," but / am conscious that I am more than my feelings. To represent will as equivalent to a play of motives analogous to the meeting of complex forces 'Emotions and Will. p. 321. 24 Finite Peraonaltty, in the physical world, where the oatcome is determined by the "last appetite" or "strongest motive," makes consciousness but the theatre of contending forces, of whose play I am a passive spectator. I may be the child of fortune ol^the victim of disaster; I may discover myself a saint or a villain; but natural laws wholly and of themselves have determined the result A statement so crass might be resented by advocates of a theory essentially identical; while others glory in the dis- covery that "remorse" should have no place in human exper- ience, and that duty is conventional. Fatalism is welcomed because it relieves man of responsibility; not, of course, from responsibility to the state, because our fellow- men still exact it of us; but it is supposed to relieve us from another kind of responsibility. Much of the coufusion which clouds the discussion of volition may be avoided by drawing a sharp distinction be- tween two radically different things, namely, will and power. Will is choice, preference, purpose, i. e., seff -direction towards an end. Power represents the quantity of force under my control. This may be ni7, or sufllcient to conquer the world. In so far as I am endowed with power my will is oauaal^ but the effect depends on two factors (will and power) only one of which is free; the other is often overmatched. When Tappan Bays "he willa to walk and his legs obey," he tells us a good deal more than that man willed: he tells us also something about his strength. A paralytic may will to walk and yet remain motionless. His will is normal, but his strength has failed. EanVs definition of will as "a kind of causality be- longing to living agents in so far as they are rational" is olijeotionable because it lends itself to a similar confusion.^ The expression, "freedom of will" is likewise misleading, because tautological. If man has will power, he is free. When Locke says that the man under whom a bridge breaks is not free, he confuses freedom with liberty. Certainly the man does not will to fall into the river; he wills just the opposite. As far an willing is concerned he is a free agent, and if possessed of power equal to his will he would not suffer ^^letaphysics of Ethics, Ohap. III. Finite Peraonality, 16 immerBion. A prisoner is deprived of his liberty, but he wills otherwise, and this attests at once bis self>determination and his restraint. An act of will being an act of choice, if I have the power of choice, freedom is conceded. If my volition were the result of external or internal forces independently of my wish or control, then I should be the creature of necessity. But I find myself endowed with the power of balancing motives and, refraining from action till I am decided as to what course is best to pursue, then I make the decision and am conscious of my freedom in so doing; and though a million actions be performed indifferently, if I draw the rein and determine one only, that single act proves possession of self- directive power. To speak of a "free will*' as though it were a foreign power acting independently is to misrepresent the case. Mr. Fiske is guilty of a caricature of this kind when he represents such a lawless will, in its caprice, pitching an unsuspecting man out of a fourth story window.^ Certainly volitions are "caused." I cause my volitions, otherwise I should not be free. Accordingly ^'free-will" is a term to be laid aside in favor of self-determination, self-action, freedom of the agent, etc., because these are more accurately expressive of the case. / am the actor, and I know I am. It is mislead- ing even to say I ought to govern my will^ for correctly speak- ing I should say govern myself. The action of conscience thus becomes intelligible. It does not lash my will, or my passion, or my motive ; it con- demns me. / should have acted otherwise; / ought to have practiced self-control, etc. The state and society, following the same principle, hold me responsible, as though I were the the chief arbiter of my own deeds; and they are right. It is useless for Spinoza, Hume and others to assure me that self-reproach is a mistake. I know I might have done dif- ferently; that is what gives regret its canker. Remorse does not kindle its fires over every unfortunate action of mine; only when / might have have done right and did not, that's when I suffer. By personal freedom therefore I mekn that I can deter- determine my own attitude to environing forces, that and 'Cosmic Philosophy, Part II. Chap. XYII. 16 Finite Personality. I i nothing more; not that I can change or oyeroome them. As a matter of fact, I am organic to nature, inexplicably, no doubt, yet in such a way that I can, nnder normal conditions, impress my will upon my environment, and actually do modify, and not frequently quell, forces which antagonize my purpose; but whether success or failure attends my endeavor is a matter of power, not alone of will. My strength is limited, but I am free. If "freedom" implied that men were free from restraint, then only one person in the world could be free, and in order to freedom he would require sufficient force to control the Universe. As it is, however, man is as free by nature, as if be were omnipotent; he is self- determinative — the only thiog he is held responsible for by Omuiscience — and if carried down a stream he cannot stem, he can nevertheless show his will by trying to "head upwards." It is no objection to my freedom to say that action fol- lows the line of character. IndeeJ, I should not be free if I could not follow my bent. The miser naturally hoards, and the spendthrift squanders his money; but it is not a neces- sity laid upon them. Each can oppose his tendency ; c^n will not to yield to his passion, and, if strong enough, he can con* qner his weakness. In otLer words, "character" is but the term for man's habitual conduct, the product of numberless acts. Every volition helps to modify the brand. It is im- proved or deteriorated by each day's doing. It is never abso- lutely fixed, but is ever fluent. I am the architect of my character simply and solely because I am a free agent. Is heredity, then, denied? By no means. For my original disposition, be it sunny or tempestuous, I am no more responsible than for the color of my eyes, the date of my birth or the weight of the sun; but I am responsible for modi- fying my disposition by that self-control which moulds char acter. Moral worth attaches only and wholly to the self-ac- tion of the agent. If he wills the right and is prevented from executing his purpose, we adjudge him guiltless. Bodily re- straint does not mar his worth. m If it could be shown that the evolution of the race, the heredity of the individual, the cerebral processes due to en- yironing stimnli, produce man's conduct without his let or Finite PerMonality. 17 hindrance, then "perBonality" would remain but the name for a more or loss consoious automaton, who, in so far as he con- ceives himself free, is the victim of "chronic delusion." He deserves neither praise nor blame. Indeed he is counted out by the theory ; external forces have taken their remorseless way ; nothing could have been otherwise. There no longer re mains a distinction between what is and what ought to be. This however is simply the denial of will. Choice is excluded. Man is brought to the level of the machine. Briefly to recapitulate: one theory begins with an unper- sonal postulate, follows a mechanical method, and presents us an indirect conclusion — a conclusion, moreover, inconsis- tent with the fabric of society, discredited by the pronounce- ments of conscience, and contradicted by the only witness in a position to speak with direct^^authority, viz., self conscious- ness The other therry begins in consciousness, the only place where will is known, finds it an original power of per sonality, thoroughly consistent with conscience, and the sense of responsibility; makes no apology for the one, nor finds it necessary to explain away the other. Moreover, in the light of this finding it becomes intelligible why the whole structure of society is based on contract; how men plan and promise and perform; how in fine man, taking raw nature, can re-create it; ye^ and from the crude stuff of his original nature, he con- structs a character. PERSONALITY AS REVEALED BY EMOTION AND ISOLATION. Thought and volition are accompanied by feeling, which, as distinguished from sensation, is called emotion, and the distinction is radical. One causes thought; the other is pro- duced by thought. Emotion rises in the mind and diffuses itself outwards over the whole system. Sensation has an ex- ternal cause, a definite organ, and travels, so to speak, inwards. While it is universally recofl;nized that all emotion is subjec- tive and can exist no otherwise, it is not seen that sensations are equally personal. Of course my emotions of love, pride, reverence, etc., have existence only in my mind, even when, as usual, they haye objective reference. But because sensations have an objective cause, it is often assumed that they have also an objective existence; accordingly, much philosophy li^^i I is Finite Penonality. and soionco are written as though the universe would be Just as we know it, though all minds were annihilated, all person- ality extinct. Yet sound, color, light, love, hate, pity have no existence except in mind; their being is personal. Tremulous ether is not light, but only its mechanical cause. The ether( ?) has objective being. Light is subjective, has its being in the mind. Vibrant air becomes sound only to a properly equipped intelligence. Music literally has its home in the soul. It is the ego who translates mechanical movement into melody. Now only the formal elements of knowledge are capable of precise comparison, as exemplified in mathematics, geometry, etc., but all subjective experience is from exact comparison excluded. Strawberry has not the same flavor to Mr. S. and Miss E., for although favorite to the former, is distasteful (and poisonous) to the latter. So far as name is concerned, red is the rame color to two individuals, but again produces different subjective efl'ects. So also of sounds, odors, etc. In a word, sensations, volitions and emotions do not exist in the air, or in vacuo ; they centre in a subject. Their esse is per- sonal. Personality may therefore be characterized as a sub- jective universe, a conscious centre of life, a cosmos of exper- ience, and may be shown to possess elements which make each sui generis in the world. Such being the case, we are now in a position to indicate more particulaaly man's threefold relationship to his environ- ment, to God, nature and his fellowmen. Not self created, he has his being in the Supreme, with whom his relation may be characterized as accordant or resentful. Again he is articulate with nature through his physical organism, by means of which the external world impresses itself upon him, and he conversely impresses himself upon it. It is, however, man's relation to man, as personal which most requires attention because affording a clue to both the other relations. First, then, as to fixed distance between, individuals; I find myself an isolated unity, permitted to approach within signalling distance of other persons, yet forever separated from them by an impassable gulf. No individual, however intimate with his alter ego, can cross over into his sanctum sanctissimum. It is absolutely impossible to stand within your experience as within my own and see the universe you Jf'inite Pertonality, 19 know. And, vice versa, you are pro-ompted from standing at the heart of mine. The **without" is in part common; the within is sui generis. As many spiritual universes exist as there are individual persons. My own experience is first hand, known from within; that of others, second hand, known from without by means of interpreted signs — language, gesture and grimace. All experience takes place in the first person. Knowledge never passes from one to another. It most be born where it lives. It is the construction of my own mental powers, exercised upon either the same facts you have inter- preted, or upon those conventional human symbols whose intelligibility depends equally upon my own powers of inter- pretation. My universe, that is the universe of which I am the cen- tre and life — my pain, pleasure, fear, care, anxiety, hope; my ambition and my love; my sub-conscious and even my uncon- scious qualities, — constitute a whole world of realities which exist not, and cannot exist any other where; but which, al- though confessedly subjective in being, yet nevertheless, through me, modify the world and change the course of his- tory. Everybody recognizes that the '^personal factor" is pre- dominent in history. The rise and fall of empires ; the birth and propagation of religions; the development of literature, science, commerce, etc., are personal achievements. A type of temperament precipitated the French Revolution; a similar peculiarity cost Charles I. his head; "Ambition" may be said to have established the Empire; ''Bighteonsness" to have gov- erned the Commonwealth. The trend of history notoriously follows the bent of persons; whether selfish, as seen in the vic- tories of Alexander, Zenghis Kahn and Napoleon ; or altruistic, as manifested by the labors of Moses, Solon, Lycurgas, or the poets and the scientists, the philosophers and reformers of the world. Having now emphasized the isolation and peculiarity of each human personality, it may be asked, *'I8 there no nearer means of communication between persons?" We think there is. The phenomena of hypnotism, telepathy and that sensi- tiveness to personal presence, too subtle for expression, and variously described as ''animal magnetism," "personal atmos- phere" or personal charm, require explanation, and afford at 90 Finite Personality, least preinmptive evidence in favor of inter related ■I'hcrei of inflaence. If the ego were a logical point or the "original aynthetio unity of apperception," to use Kant'a ezpreesion, it could have no complexion or character. Bat, if we trust self-conscious- ness, "a point" does nut represent me. Kant's method of seg- regation led to not a few misrepresentations of personality. There is but one ego, not three, and not three fractions of an ego. Organic to nature it is, and "transcendent" in the sense that it is superior to all that is below it in the spiritual scale; indescribable, truly, in terms of sense, but hot for that reason ''unlcnowable," or to be offered on the altar of a geom- etrical "point." Moreover it lends itself to confusion to speak of an "empirical" ego, as though there could be such a thing. One ego there is, a spiritual unity and capable of experience because inter-related with the universe. It is only man's in- eradicable habit of representing all things in spacial relations which prevents us from seeing that there may be many spirit- ual universes which do not exclude each other as material ob- jects do; but to a limited extent, at least, are interpenetrative. The difflcnlty we have to compass largely appertains to language. We talk in "picture terms," drawn from things visible; the spiritual remaining for that cause beyond the grip of speech, even when thought is not *'lost." Accordingly it is easy to see why personality is bettor described as an energy than as a substance. Nor is it all guess work when we speak of interpenetrative spheres. Subjective experience affords il- lustration; thought, feeling and volition, separable as ab- stractions, are not related in externality like books upon a shelf. Each is different from the other, yet each is permeated by the other. No less fruitful of illustration is the objective world. Light, heat and chemical powers reside in the same beam, a trinity in unity. May it not, indeed, be said, that the universe is constituted of interpenetrating realities? The "impenetrability of matter" escapes being a misnomer only because some forms of matter are mutually exclusive. Reality we have shown is ultimately spiritnaP best de- scribed as force or energy, and science demonstrates the uni- *Vide. Section I. Finite Peraonahty, 91 verse to be a unity of inter-aotiye forces. It is only because science begins with tlie lowest category of being, instead of with the highest, that for it, the "reign of law" fixes the limit of the real ; but personality remains inexplicable on a basis so low; while the whole universe becomes intelligible on assump- tion of the higher. Gravitation, cohesion, electricity, magnetism and chemi- cal affinity, being unconscious, afford us analogy only in the undeniable fact of their interpenetration ; but in self-con* sciousness man feels the change within, not less than his alter- ing environment; and further realizes that the latter to some extent results from the former according to personal prefer- ence. Because hand and eye, foot and finger, are under direct control of volition, they are not therefore relieved from the sway of non- personal forces — gravitation, chemism, heat, mag- netism etc.; but because my organism is inter-related with na- ture and self-directive, I can (to a limited extent) bend these forces to my will, or accommodate myself to their power, e. g., by posture, diet, change of climate, etc. A chemical element which travels from the inorganic through the vegetable, up to the animal kingdom becomes amenable to different and higher laws without escaping any of those under which it originally existed. Gravitation follows it alike in the furnace, the cru- cible and in vital functions. Varicose veins are I'ound below, not above the heart. In brief, the forces named represent kingdoms which interpenetrate freely, yet by indisputable right exercise their respective sovereignties. Now personality is a universe having a conscious nucleus. All in it is related to its centre. Its direction and deternaina* tion, in so far as will is supplemented with power, are con- trolled from that same point. Furthermore, if we may follow the analogies above described, and learn that personal spheres interpenetrate to a limited extent, we find an explanation of many subtle personal influences otherwise unaccounted for. Tnat indefinable something named "personal charm" which veiled the unattractive features of Socrates and George Eliot, smothered the defects of Abelard and Aaroa Burr, graced the gifts of Chesterfield, covered the "filth" of Samuel Johnson, and today makes A. J. Balfour as conspicuous a favorite on one side of the Atlantic as is Professor James on the other, is not r i i SB Finite Personality, "causeless" because it eludes definition. It represents one of the most potent forces in the world. Furthermore, it would seem that personal charm is given by measure unto man, for who has not regretted his own ualoveliness? Who has not marvelled at indescribable antipathies which fence him from his fellowman ? Yet personality is not a fixed quantity. It is capable of development. This leads to a third peculiarity of personal relationship, namely, that "distance" or "nearness," within limitations already indicated, is a matter under the control of volition. Professor Seth has well said that ''each self is an unique existence, which is perfectly imperviousy if I may so speak, to other selves — impervioiu in a fashion of which the impenetrability of matter is a faint analogue."^ For no repulsions are observable in nature so startling as those irremediable antagonisms, personal and national, whose succession has woven a deep red line into the web of history. But personal forces are amenable to personal control, and so it is found I can ^'freeze'* a fellow mortal out of my friendship) or fasten him to my soul "with hoops of steel." I can "shrink smaller than a knot-hole;" I can "blaze" or "burn" or "hard* en;" I can "flow" or "thrill" and produce like effects upon others; and all this, not by expressed anger, on the one hand, or the grace of "diplomatic" approach on the other; but, while the placid surface of politeness remains undisturbed through* out, by a sort of extension or withdrawal of inexpressible sym- pathy. How often we feel that an element entirely incongru- ous with the professions of friendship keeps persons apart! This field is too well known and its subject matter too volum- inous to require further reference. What we mean is well un< dcrstood. Now this trinity of peculiarities discoverable in personal relationships, may aid us in a matter of supreme importance : What is our relation to Deity? MAN'S RELATION TO GOD. First, man cannot be isolated from God, the source of his life, as perjorce he is from his fellow-man who holds with him, 'Heselianism and Personality, p. 227. Finite Personality. 23 in common, of the Divine nature. My being as part of His is one, at the centre, with its source and, so to speak, is rooted in and supported by it. Moreover, it could not be separated from Him literally without being taken out of the universe : accordingly, so far from being irretrievably isolated from God, I am inseparably linked to Him. Further, all that has been adduced regardin(; interaction of personal influence receives emphasis when viewed in regard to man's relation to Deity. In nature I am sensitive to alter- ing temperatures and atmospheric change; I am exposed to the waves of depression or enthusiasm, which sweep the social sea; I feel the infection and share the contagion of national foibles and fervors. Is it not therefore legitimate to infer that I am, or ought to be, more sensitive to spiritual influence at its Source, than to its play among individuals who merely share in it as I do? The inference seems conclusive. If we "live and move and have our being" in Deity, we may adopt Tennyson's phraseology, "Spirit with spirit can meet ; closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet." Of course "sensitiveness" depends on cultivation ; insensibility on neglect; a law as potent in spiritual as in physical life. Further, if analogy carried, my relation to The Supreme is adjustable at will. Envy, aversion, hate, as personal repul- sions, represent "distance" between individuals; while friend- ship, sympathy and love indicate that communion of soul which knits relations of araity — a literal oneness of feeling, not to the loss of individuality, but to its conscious emphasis. So also in my nearer relationships to God, whose nature I share, personality is not sacrificed ; it is emphasized by man's self- consciousness and self determination. "Distance" and "alti- tude," even to Deity, is a voluntary adjustment. The inter- penetration of personal spheres, their sensitive poise and feeling, do not preclude that "self action" which is a character- istic feature of personality. I have not met any one who professed to have mastered Hegel's philosophy. When Stirling and Martineau are not ashamed to confess arrearage in this regard, we need not pause to settle Hegel's precise view of "personality" or to take sides on the "Neo-Hegelian" dispute between Seth and Fairbrother; but it is vastly important to indicate that an unconscious or 84 Finite Personality. II < fractional personality is no personality at all. The Kantian or Hegelian idea of God as pare thought is a conception which satisfies no religious or moral need of the human soul. Color or warmth it has none, and there is no "loveliness" that wo should desire it. At best it is the "apotheosis of an abstrac* tion " for **pure thought" is a pure abstraction. Such a theory makes God "thought" but not a thinker. Impersooal and unconscious, he "finds himself" or "comes ta conscious- ness" only in the consciousness of human individuals. Un- satisfactory as such a presentation of Deity must ever remain to the man who is reaching out to The Mighty for either friendship or help, there is the further objection that it is absolutely unphilosophical, because it represents God as a "developing deity." His subjective life depending on the objective progress of the material universe, he cannot arrive at consciousness until evolution has brought forth creatures ranged hierarchially with man at the summit; and in man first discovers himself to himself, man being the "realization" of the absolute. Such a deity would require another deity to control the "development" ; a reductio ad absurdum of the theory. There are many doubtless who refuse the extreme Hegelian thesis of "pure thought" as the prius of all that is, who nevertheless are satisfied with a conception of deity as merely a "thinkmgpersonality" ; but how much better is this? None, except^t gains the benefit of implied qualities. In all the persons we know, will and feeling attend thought; and we may unconsciously complete the figure and rest content with our improvement on the actual doctrine. Such a process however reveals the defect of the theory. A will-less, unfeeling deity might elicit wonder, not worship; admiration, not ador- ation. God cannot be less than man at best, and He must be more. Human personality cannot be explained from a person- ality inferior to itself. The first need of science is for a first cause adequate to account for what is. More, morality transcends the demands of mere science and seeks for a deity worthy of accounting for what ought to &e, and because so worthy calls for inexpressible adoration and love. Person- ality is more than "idea" or "thought," in that it is permanent V ! Unite Personality. 95 amidst change, suffers and reacts, and is characterized by volition as well as intelligence. "Self-existence*' and "existence for self differentiate widely enough to indicate the distinction between infinite and finite personality. In God both are realized, makins; reality theo-centric; in man the latter alone, making knowledge, volition and emotion ego-centric. Human personality is incomplete as "lent out" from the Divine, in whom alone is personality perfect. Nevertheless personality proper may be ascribed to man. His identity is not lost in Deity nor his self-direction forfeited. The "wave" and "drop'* figure is helpful in this relation only as indicating community of nature, but beyond that in- adequate as being wholly mechanical. The predicates of personality, consciousness, volition, etc., are entirely wanting; whereas man can resist and resent as well as love and adore Deity. The clearest deliverance I am acquainted with on the relationship we are discussing is by the pen of Dr. James Martineau (in a letter to the author, dated January 25, 1896). He is criticising the "spark" illustration : "But this relation of scale between similars is not the relation of opposites^ between perceiving subject and perceived object. I, as percipient, know my book, my lamp, my com- panion, as different from me, and over against me, as belonging to the not-me. The spark does not know another spark, or the fire, as something either same or other. This duality and antithesis of mental apprehension receives no illustration from big and little lights. The resort to such imagery flings us at once into a pantheism in which personality, human and Divine, is inevitably lost, and the possibility of the moral affections disappears. For the existence of these, self-conscious free- agents are indispensable; and persons are inconceivable and impossible as parts or functions of another person. I conceive therefore that the primary postulate of all moral and religious life is the co- presence of personal agents, human and Divine, with separate spheres provided by the latter, of self determined choice between alternatives of graduated worth. No doubt this implies a certain abstinence of God from the exercise of His infinitude of power, for the sake of leaving 8cope for the play of moral character and responsibility in a world to which 98 Finite Personality. iM He lends out on trust to beings endowed with option, a portion of the energy which else is His." And now briefly, in conclusion, we have shown : (1) That man's nature and his relation to the universe he explores makes personality the beginning and goal of philosophy; (2) Determines its method; (3) Affords a clue to the nature of reality, which rescues philosophy from the shadows of a phenomenology and consli< tutes it an ontology ; and lastly its explication indicates the limits of the Jlxed and also of the voluntary relationships man holds to nature, to his fellow-men and to God; and reveals further what these voluntary relations should be. Accordingly, if philosophy is to fulfil her mission in a rational explanation of life, instead of denying tacts or accusing man- kind of racial insanity, it must investigate "personality," in which lie buried the roots ot the world's institutions and history; and upon which alone a sound morality or a true religion can be based. Furthermore, since philosophy like science proceeds on hypotheses, it ever presents to the future a prophetic face; and if one may be permitted to read its countenance, then the next great stage in the development of philosophy will be the clearer definition of personality, and the truer appreciation of its significance as a key to all human mystery and aspiration. An aesthetic ear, charmed by the felicity of his expression, is apt to accept without scrutiny Sir William Hamilton's exquisite bon mot, "The highest reach of human science is the scientific recognition of human ignorance," yet the truth it car- ries veils a deeper; for it drops man at the limits of knowledge, shuts the door of hope and extinguishes faith. Knowledge is an investment for the future; we cut the nerve of endeavor and rob life of its meaning by drawing an impossible circle around the present. Perhaps a nearer approximation to truth might be attained by saying, the highest reach of human science is the attainment of a scientific basis for human faith. At any rate it keeps the path open in the direction in which man is moving. ii> »