Personality

Preface

\ CVERYBODY believes in his own

" existence and that he knows something about himself. What exactly he knows about himself, and his own personality, is another question. It is an interesting question; and, the moment a man tries to answer it, he begins to be a philosopher. But it is a difficult question, and, inasmuch as science contrives to get on without answering or even raising it, he may be tempted to doubt whether his own personality has any reality. Especially will this doubt become troublesome, when he discovers that psychology provides no proof of the existence of the self, and that some psychologists proceed to deny the reality of personal identity. Probably, however, he will feel that, if he cannot prove, neither, after all, can he doubt, his own existence; and, with that, he may be

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tempted to imagine that he can dismiss the question. But he can't. The same doubts that are raised about his own personality and existence can be raised about the existence and personality of God. If personality is an unmeaning term, designating nothing, then there are no persons, human or divine. If it has a meaning, and designates a reality of some kind, then we ought at least to try to understand what we mean by it, and to form some conception of what the reality is which is designated by the term.

The preceding words state in outline the argument which is contained in the following pages, and which formed the matter of four lectures, given last summer at Oxford in the Vacation Term for Biblical Study. In Chapter I. it is pointed out that physical science and psychology can go their way and do their work without assuming the existence of personality. In Chapter II. is an examination of arguments which are based on psychology, and are intended to show that I am certain I do not exist; that

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personality is a mistaken inference; and that the only Thinker is the passing Thought. Chapter III. is a discussion of M. Bergson's argument that " there are changes, but no things which change, " and the inference to be drawn from it, that there are changes, but no persons who change. In Chapter IV. it is maintained that persons are not individuals, in the sense of closed systems, but are at once subjects cognisant of objects, and objects presented to other subjects; that the principle of unity which holds persons together, and the impulse towards unity, with one's neighbour and one's God, is love.

F. B. Jevons.

CONTENTS CHAPTER I

PAGE

Personality and Impersonality . . i

Chapter I

Personality, a hypothesis not required either by Physical Science or by Psychology or by Pre- Animism. Impersonality, however, denies, and therefore pre-supposes, Personality.

[T is possible to be quite certain about * a thing, and quite wrong: to err is human; and the whole human race may make the same mistake for centuries before discovering the error. For countless centuries mankind was certain that the earth was motionless: the Lord "hath made the round world so sure, that it cannot be moved/ ' And yet it moves. When the earth thus gives way beneath our feet — and, at every step we take, we thrust the earth away — where shall we find any ground of certainty? A common mode of expressing absolute certainty about a thing is to say, "I am as certain of it as I am of my own existence/ ' And it is indisputable that most people are certain of their own existence, But it is also indisputable that all people for long were certain that the earth "cannot be moved/ ' If, then, for all their certainty they were wrong about the earth, it is apparently, at any rate, possible that on the other point also — their own existence — they may be quite certain and yet quite wrong. We can understand now how natural and how easy it was for man to draw the wrong inference from the apparent motion of the sun. Then may not his certainty about his own existence be an inference which it is easy to draw, which is first drawn precisely because it is easiest drawn, and for that very reason is least likely to be the correct inference? If it took mankind ages to draw the correct inference in the one case, little wonder that it has not yet been commonly drawn in the other case. If the movement of thought in the one case was from error to truth, may it not in the other case be also in the same direction?

"In the notion of self," a recently published philosophical work (English Thought for English Thinkers, p. 193) says, "we have the sole presented type of substance, a something that continues unchanged under a change of accidents." But the notion of the self as something that continues unchanged is very like the notion of the earth as something that "cannot be moved." We have had to give up the notion that the earth is the centre round which the solar system revolves. We are slowly parting with the notion that man is the centre round which and for which the universe exists. The geocentric notion has gone and is carrying with it the anthropocentric notion also. There is no fixed, unmoved, unchanging centre such as the earth was once supposed to be. The notion is illusory. To recognise that the notion of personality, the notion of the self as something which exists or continues unchanged, may be an illusory notion, is doubtless as difficult as to realise that the earth is rotating on its axis and revolving round the sun. Yet the difficulty does not alter the fact. The truth, indeed, is that some facts can be explained just as satisfactorily on the assumption that the sun moves as they can be on the assumption that the earth moves. And those facts were precisely the facts which were most obvious and which therefore monopolised the attention of man for countless centuries. The facts which were less obvious failed, for that very reason, to arrest his attention. But, when his attention was arrested, it became evident eventually that when all the facts — and not merely the most obvious — were taken into account, however great the difficulty of realising the motion of the earth, the difficulties in the way of supposing it motionless were infinitely greater. These difficulties however did not present themselves at first. At first, and for long afterwards, the supposition that the earth was fixed and motionless, and that the sun it was that moved sufficed as an explanation of the facts that were observed. In the same way, the supposition that, though the things around one change, one does not change oneself — that one's Self, or Personality, is 11 something that continues unchanged under a change of accidents' ' — is a supposition which is easily made, which is made indeed without thinking, but which now in these later days may seem incapable of sustaining any longer the weight and burden of the facts which science has accumulated upon it.

In the lowest stage of development in which we can directly observe human society, we find not only that man believes — or rather we should say acts on the belief — in his own personality, but also that everywhere around him he finds a personality not his own. He does things himself — or thinks he does — and his explanation of the things that happen to him, if he feels that they require explanation, is that they also are the doing of some personal being or other. His notion is that he is a personal power, surrounded by personal powers. He believes in agents, in personal agents ; and he has, as yet, no conception of impersonal causes. He is in the stage of development known as animism. The successive journeys of the sun do not seem to him to be successions merely. He must account for them; and the only account he can render is that they are the doing or the behaviour of a personal power, which is like himself in that it is personal, though as power it transcends any power of his own.

In this supposition of personal power he finds a satisfactory explanation of the unexpected and the unforeseen. And, with his very limited knowledge of natural laws, much is to him unforeseeable that modern science predicts with a sense of certainty. Eclipses and comets which confirm our knowledge of the laws of nature are ascribed by him to the arbitrary will of the personal agents whom he supposes to produce them. On the other hand, the events in the ordinary, trivial round of human life, which happen in the usual way, which are expected and which come off as expected, seem to require no explanation. They are regarded as quite natural. And the progress of knowledge, or at any rate the advance of scientific knowledge, consists precisely in wresting territory from the domain of the unexpected and the unforeseen. It consists in ascertaining the conditions under which an event, once unforeseeable and startling in its occurrence, may be expected with assurance, or even be produced by man. When the conditions which determine that the thunder shall follow the lightning are known, there is nothing more mysterious or unexpected in the sequence than there is in the fact that the electric bell rings when you press the push. Primitive man's supposition that personal power was required to account for the thunder — the Psalmist's conviction that "the voice of thy thunder was in the heaven " — becomes superfluous : given the conditions enumerated by science, the thunder or the bell is heard. No further explanation is necessary. There is no room for any other conditions than those which science enumerates — and neither personal power nor arbitrary will is amongst those conditions. Science seeks to ascertain the conditions under which events do as a matter of fact take place ; and it formulates those conditions in the shape of laws of co-existence and succession. So far has science now advanced in dealing in this way with the occurrences which take place around us, that the existence of laws of nature is beyond the possibility of doubt. That our knowledge of them is as yet defective and erroneous is also beyond the possibility of doubt. If our knowledge of the laws of nature were not defective and erroneous, it would be impossible for science to advance. It is because there are defects and errors that there is room and need for science to progress. But the reason why science has progressed thus far is that it has set aside the attempt to find amongst the objects of nature either personality or personal power. It no longer seeks for either. Its aim is to ascertain the laws of the co-existence and succession of the events that take place around us.

But the events that take place around us are not the only events which interest us. What goes on within us interests us profoundly. And what goes on within us may be studied, as well as what takes place around us. It may be studied and it is studied by Psychology. The object of Psychology, as a science, must obviously be the same as that of all other sciences. Their object is to ascertain the laws of nature. Its object therefore is to ascertain the laws of human nature. The other sciences study the co-existence and succession of the events that take place around us. The science of Psychology studies the co-existence and succession of the events that take place within us. Psychology, John Stuart Mill tells us, is "the science which is concerned with the uniformities of succession — the laws, whether ultimate or derivative — ■ according to which mental states succeed one another." Psychology, therefore, as thus defined, deals with uniformities;

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like all the other sciences, it sets aside arbitrary will. By the very meaning of the words, what is " arbitrary' ' is not " uniform/ ' If mental states succeed one another in arbitrary fashion, they do not succeed one another uniformly. And if there are no uniformities of succession, there can be no science of mental states — that is, there can be no psychology. But it is undeniable that in similar circumstances we have much the same feelings; and when we have the same feelings we act in much the same way as before. Obviously, therefore, there are uniformities of succession within us, just as there are uniformities of succession in the events that take place around us. And if the latter can be studied and formulated with some degree of correctness, then the former can also. Human nature as well as physical nature can be studied scientifically. Science can deal with the one as well as with the other—on the same terms and conditions, viz., that arbitrary will is excluded, and uniformity of succession is admitted. When, however, we

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have once come to see that uniformity of succession must be admitted, and the freedom of the will be excluded, in order that psychology may take its proper place amongst the sciences, we shall have little hesitation in taking one further step. Indeed, if psychology is to assume its full rank as a science we must take the one further step. Physical science, or the natural sciences, have, as we have seen, no use for the notion, entertained by primitive man and by the Psalmist, that personal power is required to account for thunder and lightning. "The thunderer," a Jupiter tonans, is from the point of view of science wholly superfluous: there is no such person. If then psychology is to be really scientific — if it is to be concerned solely with "the uniformities of succession, according to which mental states succeed one another' ' — ■ then just as a thunderer is superfluous, so from the point of view of science a thinker is superfluous: there is no such person. Mental states, or states of consciousness, of course, there must be, if there is to be any psychology at all. And those states of consciousness must not only succeed one another, but must exhibit uniformities of succession, if psychology is to be a science. But beyond or behind "the uniformities of succession, according to which mental states succeed one another' ' it is as unnecessary for psychology to go, as it is for physical science to go beyond or behind the uniformities of succession which are to be observed in the occurrence of the events that take place around us. Indeed, just as the hypothesis of "a thundferer," a Jupiter tonans, is, for the purposes of science, either otiose or positively misleading, so for the science of psychology the hypothesis of "a thinker' ' is either otiose or positively misleading. If it implies and is conceded to imply nothing more than the fact, admitted on all hands, that consciousness exists and that states of consciousness exhibit uniformities of succession, then the hypothesis of "a thinker 7 ' is otiose and superfluous. No one denies the existence of consciousness.

But the consciousness which is thus admitted to exist is, as Huxley termed it, "epiphenomenal." It accompanies successive states of the brain, as the shadow of a train may accompany the train as it travels. But the shadow does not make the train move; nor does this " epiphenomenal" consciousness cause the successive states of the brain: it simply accompanies them.

If, on the other hand, the hypothesis of "a thinker' ' is found on consideration to imply something more than that there are thoughts or states of consciousness, exhibiting uniformities of succession, that over and above, or behind, the changing thoughts or successive states of consciousness, there is " something that continues unchanged/ ' a permanent Self or person, then we relapse into a position exactly parallel to the supposition discarded by physical science, that over and above, or behind, the thunder, there is "a thunderer," who thunders, when he chooses to do so, arbitrarily. At the present day however we have given up the belief in a

Jupiter tonans; and, if we have given up the notion of "a thunderer," we are, it may be argued, called upon, in consistency, to give up the notion of "a thinker."

Thus the events within us and the events around us, when studied from the same point of view — the scientific point of view — and by the same method — the scientific method — point in the same direction and to the same conclusion. All knowledge, if it is really knowledge, and not a misapprehension of facts, must be harmonious and consistent: It must form a unity. The unification of knowledge consists precisely in discarding assumptions prematurely made. Such premature assumptions, accounting for some facts only, must be discarded in favour of those which come later and which account for a much wider range of facts. Personality, from this point of view, is an assumption which was early made to account for all the events — ■ external and internal — which arrested the attention of man and called for explanation. It is an assumption which science has steadily set aside. The succession of events without us can be explained by science without resorting to that hypothesis. The succession of events within us can be explained by science without resorting to it. It is not an aid, but an embarrassment to science. It does not tend to the unification of knowledge, but, by introducing an unfathomable gap between the personal and the impersonal, seems to make unification impossible.

Perhaps it may be felt to be strange that all mankind, at all stages of human development, should have resorted to this notion of personality as the sole explanation of all events that take place around us and within us, and that yet this notion of personality should be a false explanation of the facts. But, in the first place, even if we assume this to have been the case, it is by no means unique or singular. As we have already seen, the notion that the earth cannot be moved was for thousands of years accepted as a fact, whereas it was really a false explanation of the actual facts. There is no a priori reason why a false inference should not, for a time, and for a long time, be universally drawn. But, if it be felt strange that man should from the beginning have gone so far astray from the simple facts of observation as to attribute every event that interested him to personal agency, then it will also be felt necessary to inquire whether in the beginning he really did attribute everything that occurred to personal agency, whether, that is to say, it was from animism that man started in his attempt to explain the events that happen in the world, or from something earlier. And in point of fact within the last few years, inquiry into this question has been started; and the theory of a pre-animistic period in the intellectual evolution of man has been put forward. "The root idea of this pre- Animism," Mr. Clodd says in The Transactions of the Third Congress of the History of Religions, 1908, "is that of power everywhere, power vaguely apprehended, but immanent, and as yet unclothed with personal or supernatural attributes. " In a paper on " Pre- Animistic Religion, " which appeared in Folk Lore in June, 1900, Mr. Marett had earlier argued that " Religious Awe is towards Powers, and these are not necessarily spirits or ghosts, though they tend to become so." And in the Census of India, 1901, Sir Herbert Risley tells us that in Chota Nagpur he has come across instances which " linger on as survivals of the impersonal stages of early religion." Sir Herbert's impression is that what the jungle people there really do believe in is "not a person at all in any sense of the word"; but "some sort of power." Mr. Clodd cites as indicative of this pre-animistic period, "The Melanesian and Maori belief in a power or influence called mana, to which no personal qualities are attributed, " and says that "with this, in broad and indefinite conception, may be compared the kutchi of the Australian Dieri, the agud of the Torres Islanders, the manitou of the Algonkins, the wakonda of the

Dakotans, and the oki or orenda of the Iroquois.' ' "The Bantu mulungu and the Kaffir unkulunkulu have no connection with the idea of personality, " and he quotes Mr. Hollis's suggestion that in the engai of the Masai "we may have primitive and developed religious sentiment, where the personality of the deity is hardly separated from striking natural phenomena. "

Let us now consider this pre-animistic theory in its relation to the question of Personality. The notion of Personality is a notion which science, as we have seen, finds useless or worse than useless for its purposes. The uniformities of succession which science is concerned to ascertain and establish, whether they be uniformities in the succession of the events that take place around man, or of those which take place within him, can be ascertained and established without assuming the existence of persons. Indeed, if by persons are meant beings possessing free-will, and having the power to act or not to act uniformly, then the notion of Personality is worse than useless for the purposes of science. From this point of view, if science is to be accepted, the notion of Personality must be regarded as an erroneous notion. It must be regarded not as a fact, but as a false inference from the facts. It must be regarded not as a fact from the beginning, but as a fallacy into which man stumbled. In the stage of his evolution known as animism, we find him fallen into the fallacy of supposing that he is a person having to do with other personalities, human and other than human. There must therefore have been a previous stage, prior to animism, in which as yet he had not stumbled into this fallacy. In this pre-animistic period, man observed succession in the events that took place around him, but he did not ascribe those events to the action of any person: he had not yet the conception — the fallacious conception — of "a person at all, in any sense of the word." What he had, we are told, was a vague conception of power, "unclothed with personal or supernatural attributes. "

When things happened to man, in this stage of his evolution, he did not regard them as the doing of any person at all: he ascribed them "to some sort of power," to power vaguely conceived.

For the moment let us suppose that this was so, and for the moment let us not ask for any proof that it was so. Let us ask, And what then? The supposition enables us to dismiss personality. If there was a stage in the evolution of man when he simply had not the vaguest conception of personality, he obviously could not use the conception 6f personal power to account for the occurrence of any event. When therefore he wished to explain anything that befell him, he was in one respect, and a very important respect, like the modern man of science: he did not make the mistake of ascribing the event to any person or personality. And so far, the hypothesis of a pre-animistic period appears to harmonise with the view that the belief in personality is an inference — a false inference from the facts. The hypothesis of pre-animism enables us to point to a period when it had as yet never entered the mind of man to draw that inference. The teaching of science enables us to see that the inference — when it came to be drawn — was a false inference. Pre-animistic man could not ascribe the production of events to personal agency, for the very sufficient reason that he had no conception of persons or personality.

But though pre-animistic man on this supposition was thus in agreement with the most recent teachings of science, he was also, on this supposition, from the beginning absolutely wrong, from the scientific point of view, on another matter. According to the hypothesis, though pre-animistic man had no conception of a person at all, in any sense of the word, he had a vague conception of power, and it was to power, vaguely conceived, that he attributed the events which happened around him or happened to him. But science has come to set aside the conception of power, just as it has set aside the conception of personality. Its object is to ascertain and state uniformities of succession; and that it can do perfectly well without using the conception, or reverting to the hypothesis, of power. Science deals with the sequence of events and endeavours to ascertain uniformities of sequence. Whether there is any power which produces those sequences and uniformities is a question into which science does not enter. Whether there be such a power or not does not in the least affect the fact that the sequences and uniformities do actually obtain. But as regards pre-animistic man the supposition is that he did ascribe the occurrence of events to some sort of power; and from the scientific point of view pre-animistic man was just as much in error in ascribing events to some sort of power, as animistic man was in ascribing events to personal power or persons. In resorting to the supposition of power man went just as far astray from the simple facts with which scientific observation is concerned as he did in resorting to the supposition of persons or personal power.

Power, then, whether personal or impersonal, is a conception for which science has no use. Power, either personal or impersonal, is an explanation of events to which man has always had recourse. On the theory that animism is the earliest stage in the intellectual evolution of man, personal power was that in which man from the beginning sought the explanation of the events that befell him. On the theory of pre-animism it was in power, power vaguely conceived, some sort of power, that man first sought the explanation of the events that befell him. Now, if the power, to which, on the pre-animistic theory, man referred the events that befell him, was the power not of a person at all, in any sense of the word, then perhaps it might be argued that such impersonal power, even though it was but a hypothesis, is at any rate a hypothesis of which modern science is tolerant: it is a hypothesis with which the facts of science and of ordinary experience are reconcilable, whereas the hypothesis of personality or personal power is irreconcilable with the scientific conception of the uniformity of nature.

The question then is as to the nature of the power to which man in the beginning referred the events that befell him. On the pre-animistic theory, man at that stage of his history had not yet framed the conception, the fallacious conception of personality, or personal power. Obviously, therefore, if he had no idea of personality, he could have no idea of impersonality. The idea of personality must exist if it is to be denied. Impersonality is simply the denial of personality. Impersonal power is simply power which is not personal ; and the idea of impersonal power could not possibly enter the mind of a man unless he had some sort of notion of personal power. By universal consent man in the animistic period had a notion — however vague and however unsatisfactory — of personality; he explained every event that seemed to him to require explanation by ascribing it to the action of some personality — either a human personality or some being which resembled man in being a personality, but which possessed more and other powers than man. Only by slow degrees did he come to attain to the idea of power in the abstract, apart from the person who exercised it. The idea of "things," having power to act, was an idea which animistic man did not possess.

The argument advanced in support of the theory of pre-animism is that because man had no conception, or had not yet realised the conception, of things as impersonal, therefore he had no conception of persons and did not know persons to be persons. Now this argument would be conclusive, if it were true that personality was a relative term, if person and thing were relative terms necessarily implying each other in the same way that "mother" and "child" are terms each of which necessarily implies the other and neither of which can be understood without reference to the other. If "person" were a term which had no meaning, when considered apart from "things, " as "mother" would be a term without signification if we did not know the meaning of " child, " then indeed it would be undeniable that the conception of " person' ' could not arise or be understood before man had the conception of "things. " But that is not the case: " person' ' is a term, the meaning of which involves no reference to "things." It is perfectly possible to this day to suppose that persons and persons alone exist, that there is nothing and can be nothing which is impersonal. The supposition may be false, it may overlook facts which are fatal to it. And animistic man may have overlooked those facts. If there are such facts, then it is part of the theory of animism that at that stage of his intellectual development man did overlook them. The theory of animism is that man did things (or supposed he did) and that he explained such things as he undertook to explain by supposing that they too were done by somebody. Whatever the conception was that animistic man framed of himself and his fellowmen and of the way in which or the power by which he and they performed actions, that conception was the conception of personality. And the conception of "things, " having power to act had not yet been entertained by him: what we regard as lifeless, inanimate "things," he regarded as living persons, acting as he did, and from motives similar to his, when they did act. The one and only explanation he could give or admit for anything that required explanation was that somebody did it. The only power he could or did conceive of was personal power. That filled the whole field of his intellectual vision.