Part 15 (1/2)

It belongs, moreover, to the order of substance, not to that of accidents: the substantial mode differs from the accidental mode, or modal accident, in this, that it gives to the substance some ultimate determining perfection which appertains to the substance as such, and whereby the substance is completed in the order of ”existing in itself”. Subsistence is not an accident, even though it supervenes on the complete nature, for it determines the substance of the latter, not in relation to any line of accidental activity, as a power or faculty, nor as something modifying it accidentally, but as a mode which ultimately determines and perfects it in the order of substantial reality itself, in the order of ”existing in itself” in such a full and perfect manner as to be _sui juris_ and incommunicable.

The main difficulty against this view is also theological: If subsistence is a positive perfection it either belongs to the complete individual nature or it does not; in the former case the humanity of Christ, a.s.sumed by the Divine Word, was not a complete human nature; in the latter case the individual human nature can exist without it: and both consequences are equally inadmissable.

But it may be replied that, granting the first member of the disjunctive, the consequence inferred from it does not really follow: subsistence belongs to the complete individual nature as an ultimate natural complement; but when it is absent and supplied supernaturally by the Divine Personality the nature is still complete as a nature: it is wanting in no absolute or ent.i.tative perfection, but only in a modality which is supereminently supplied by the Divine Personality. Neither is the consequence from the second member of the disjunctive a valid inference. For though personality as a mode does not belong to the essence of an individual human nature, no such individual nature can exist without _some_ personality, either its own or another: just as extension cannot exist without _some_ shape, though any particular shape is not essential to it.

To sum up, then, the doctrine of the two preceding sections: What are we to understand by a _person_, and by _personality_? Unquestionably our conception of person and personality (concrete and abstract) is mainly determined, and very rightly so, by an a.n.a.lysis of what const.i.tutes the actually existing individual of the human species. Whatever our concept be, it must certainly be realized and verified in all human individuals: these, before all other beings, must be included in the denotation of our concept of person. In fact, for the philosopher, guided by the natural light of reason alone, the term can have hardly any other connotation. He will, no doubt, ascribe personality, as the highest mode of being he knows of, to the Supreme Being; but he will here ascribe it only in an a.n.a.logical and supereminent way; and only from Divine Revelation can he know that this Supreme Being has not a single but a threefold Personality.

Again, his consideration of the nature of the human soul as an embodied substance which is nevertheless spiritual and immortal will enable him to affirm the possibility of _purely spiritual_ created beings; and these he will of course conceive as persons. But, conceiving the human soul itself as a const.i.tuent principle of the human individual, he will not conceive the soul itself as a person.

The philosopher who understands the traditional Aristotelian conceptions of substance, of individual substance (_substantia prima_), of incomplete, complete, and composite substances, of substance considered as _nature_ or principle of action, of substance considered as _hypostasis_, as the actually existing individual being which is the ultimate logical subject of all predications and the ultimate ontological subject of all real determinations: the philosopher who understands these concepts, and who admits them to be validly grounded in experience, and to offer as far as they go a correct interpretation of reality, will have no difficulty in making up his mind about what is requisite to const.i.tute a person.

Wherever he finds an existing individual being of any species, a being which, even if it is really composite, is nevertheless really one, such a being he will p.r.o.nounce to be a ”subsisting individual being”. He may not be able, in the inorganic world or among the lower forms of life, to distinguish for certain what is the real individual from what may be perhaps only an accidental, if natural, colony or group of real individuals. As a test he will always seek for the manifestation of an internal directive principle whereby all the vital functions of the organized ma.s.s of matter in question are co-ordinated in such a manner as to make for the preservation, growth and development of the whole throughout a definite life cycle from birth to death. This formative and directive principle is evidence of an individual unity of nature and subsistence; and such evidence is abundantly present in ”individuals” of all the higher species in botany and zoology. The ”individual subsisting being” will therefore be a ”complete individual substance or nature, existing and acting in every way distinct from and incommunicable to any other being, so that it exists and acts _sui juris_, autonomously”.

If such an individual nature is not merely corporeal but organic or animate, not merely animate but sentient, and not merely sentient but _rational_ or _intelligent_, _i.e._ const.i.tuted at least in part by a _spiritual substantial principle_ whereby the individual is _intelligent_ and _free_, then that individual is a person. Every individual of the human species is such. And all that is essential to his complete individual human nature enters into and const.i.tutes his person in the concrete. Not merely, therefore, his intellect and will; not merely his soul considered as ”mind,” _i.e._ as the basis and principle of his whole conscious and subconscious psychic life; or also as the principle of his merely organic life; or also as the actualizing principle of his corporeal nature; but no less also the corporeal principle itself of his composite being, the body itself with all its parts and members and organs: all these without exception belong equally to the human person; all of them without exception go to const.i.tute the _Ego_.(304) This, which is the Aristotelian and scholastic view of the human person, is in perfect accord with the common-sense view of the matter as evidenced by the ordinary usages of language. We speak intelligibly no less than correctly when we say that a man's body is part of his person as well as his soul or mind.

And we make a no less accurate, intelligible, and necessary distinction, when we distinguish between all that which _const.i.tutes_ the human person and that _whereby we know_ ourselves and other human individuals to be persons. Yet this distinction is not kept clearly in mind by many modern philosophers, who, approaching the study of personality exclusively from the side of what the individual consciousness testifies as to the unity and continuity (or otherwise) of mental life in the individual, are scandalized at the a.s.sertion that the human body can have anything to do with human personality.

74. CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE PERSONAL SELF.-In order to form the concept of person, and to find that concept verified in the data of our experience, it is absolutely essential that we be endowed with the _faculty of intelligence_, the spiritual power of forming abstract concepts; and secondly, that having formed the concept of person as a ”rational or intelligent subsisting being,” we be capable, by the exercise of _reflex consciousness_, to find in our own mental life the data from which we can conclude that this concept of person is verified in each and every one of ourselves. It is because we are endowed with intelligence that we can form all the abstract notions-of substance, individual, subsistence, existence, etc.,-which enter into and const.i.tute our concept of person. And it is because we can, by means of this faculty, reflect on our own mental operations, and infer from them that each of us is a complete individual rational nature subsisting independently and incommunicably, that we can know ourselves to be persons.

How the human individual forms these concepts and finds them verified in his own ”self,” how he gradually comes into conscious possession of the knowledge of his own individual being as an _Ego_, self, or person, are problems for Psychology.(305) It will be sufficient here to point out that there are grounds for distinguis.h.i.+ng between the individual's implicit subjective awareness of his subsistence or ”selfhood”-an awareness which accompanies all his conscious mental functions, and which becomes more explicit and definite as the power of introspection and reflex consciousness develops-and the ”_abstract quasi-objective notion_ of his own _personality_ habitually possessed by every human being”.(306)

The individual human being _immediately_ apprehends his own existence, and his abiding unity or sameness throughout incessantly changing states, in the temporal series of his conscious activities; but his knowledge of the _nature_ of his own being can be the result only of a long and carefully conducted a.n.a.lysis of his own activities, and of inferences based on the character of these activities. The former or implicit knowledge of the self in the concrete is direct and intuitive. The individual _Ego_ apprehends _itself_ in _its states_. This knowledge comes mainly from within, and is subject to gradual development. Father Maher thus describes how the child comes gradually into possession of it:-

As thoughts of pleasures and pains repeated in the past and expected in the future grow more distinct, the dissimilarity between these and the permanent abiding self comes to be more fully realized. Pa.s.sing emotions of fear, anger, vanity, pride, or sympathy, accentuate the difference. But most probably it is the dawning sense of power to resist and overcome rising impulse, and the dim nascent consciousness of responsibility, which lead up to the final revelation, until at last, in some reflective act of memory or choice, or in some vague effort to understand the oft-heard ”I,” the great truth is manifested to him: the child enters, as it were, into possession of his personality, and knows himself as a _Self-conscious Being_. The _Ego_ does not _create_ but _discovers_ itself. In Jouffroy's felicitous phrase, it ”breaks its sh.e.l.l,” and finds that it is _a Personal Agent with an existence and individuality of its own_, standing henceforward alone in opposition to the universe.(307)

After this stage is reached, the human individual easily distinguishes between the ”self” as the _cause_ or _subject_ of the states, and the states as _modifications_ of the self. This distinction is implicit in the concomitant awareness of self which accompanies all exercise of direct cognitive consciousness. It is explicit in all deliberate acts of reflex, introspective self-consciousness. The data from which we form the abstract concepts of substance, nature, individual, person, self, etc., and from which we arrive by reasoning at a philosophical knowledge of the nature and personality of the human individual, are furnished mainly by introspection; but also in part by external observation of the universe around us.

Concomitantly, however, with the process by which we become implicitly but immediately aware of the _Ego_ or self as an abiding self-identical person in and through our own mental activity, we gradually form a quasi-objective and historical view of our own personality as one of a number of similar personalities around us in the universe. This view, says Father Maher,

gathers into itself the history of my past life-the actions of my childhood, boyhood, youth, and later years. Interwoven with them all is the image of my bodily organism, and cl.u.s.tering around are a fringe of recollections of my dispositions, habits, and character, of my hopes and regrets, of my resolutions and failures, along with a dim consciousness of my position in the minds of other selves.

Under the form of a representation of this composite art, bound together by the thread of memory, each of us ordinarily conceives his complete abiding _personality_. This idea is necessarily undergoing constant modification; and it is in comparing the present form of the representation with the past, whilst adverting to considerable alterations in my character, bodily appearance, and the like, that I sometimes say: ”I am completely changed,” ”I am quite another person,” though I am, of course, convinced that it is the same ”I” who am changed in accidental qualities. _It is because this complex notion of my personality is an abstraction from my remembered experiences __ that a perversion of imagination and a rupture of memory can sometimes induce the so-called _”illusions or alterations of personality”_._(308)

When we remember that this objective conception of the self is so dependent on the function of memory, and that the normal exercise of this faculty is in turn so dependent on the normal functioning of the brain and the nervous system,(309) we can hazard an intelligible explanation of the abnormal facts recorded by most modern psychologists concerning hypnotism, somnambulism and ”double” or ”multiple” consciousness.(310) Father Maher, ascribing these phenomena partly to dislocations of memory, partly to unusual groupings of mental states according to the laws of mental a.s.sociation-groupings that arise from peculiar physiological connexions between the various neural functionings of the brain centres,-and partly to semi-conscious or reflex nerve processes, emphasizes an important fact that is sometimes lost sight of: the fact that some section at least of the individual's conscious mental life is common to, and present throughout, the two or more ”states” or ”conditions” between which any such abnormal individual is found to alternate. This consideration is itself sufficient to disprove the theory-to which we shall presently refer-that there is or may be in the individual human being a double, or even a multiple ”human personality”.

75. FALSE THEORIES OF PERSONALITY.-It is plain that conscious _mental activity_ cannot _const.i.tute_ human personality, or subconscious mental activity either, for all activity is of the accidental mode of being, is an _accident_, whereas a person must be a _substance_. Of course it is the self-conscious cognitive activity of the human individual that _reveals_ to the latter his own self as a person: it is the exercise of reflex consciousness combined with memory that gives us the feeling of personal ident.i.ty with ourselves throughout the changing events of our mental and bodily life. Furthermore, this self-consciousness has its root in the _rational_ nature of the human individual; and rationality of nature is the differentiating principle which makes the subsisting individual a ”person” as distinct from a (subsisting) ”thing”. But then, it is not the feeling of personal ident.i.ty that _const.i.tutes_ the person. Actual consciousness is neither the essence, nor the source, nor even the index of personality; for it is only an activity, and an activity which reveals immediately not the _person_ as such, but the _nature_ as rational;(311) nor does the rational (substantial) principle of a composite nature const.i.tute the latter a person; but only the subsistence of the complete (composite) individual nature itself.

These considerations are sufficiently obvious; they presuppose, however, the truth of the traditional doctrine already explained in regard to the existence, nature and cognoscibility of _substance_. Philosophers who have misunderstood and rejected and lost this traditional doctrine of substance have propounded many varieties of unsatisfactory and inconsistent theories in regard to what const.i.tutes ”person” and ”personality”. The main feature of all such theories is their identification of personality with the habitual consciousness of self, or habitual feeling of personal ident.i.ty: a feeling which, however, must be admitted to include _memory_ in some form, while the function of memory in any shape or form cannot be satisfactorily explained on any theory of the human _Ego_ which denies that there is a human _substance_ persisting permanently as a unifying principle of successive mental states (63-4).

So far as English philosophy is concerned such theories appear to have had their origin in Locke's teaching on person and personal ident.i.ty.

Discussing the notions of ident.i.ty and diversity,(312) he distinguishes between the ident.i.ty of an individual substance with itself in its duration throughout time, and what he terms personal ident.i.ty; while by ident.i.ty in general he means not abstract ident.i.ty but the concrete permanence of a thing throughout time (34). On this we have to call attention to the fact that just as _duration_ is not essential to the _const.i.tution_ of a substance, so neither is it essential to the const.i.tution of a complete subsisting individual substance or person (64); though it is, of course, an essential condition for all human apprehension whether of substance or of person. Locke was wrong, therefore, in confounding what reveals to us the abiding permanence, ident.i.ty or sameness of a subsisting thing or person (whether the ”self” or any other subsisting thing or person) throughout its duration in time, with what const.i.tutes the subsisting thing or person.

Furthermore, his distinction between substantial ident.i.ty, _i.e._ the sameness of an individual substance with itself throughout time, and personal ident.i.ty or sameness, was also an error. For as long as there is _substantial_ unity, continuity, or ident.i.ty of the subsisting individual substance, so long is there unity, continuity, or ident.i.ty of its subsistence, or of its personality if it be a rational substance. The _subsistence_ of a complete individual inorganic substance is changed as soon as the individual undergoes _substantial_ change: we have them no longer _the same_ subsisting individual being. So, too, the subsistence of the organic individual is changed as soon as the latter undergoes _substantial_ change by the dissolution of life, by the separation of its formative and vital substantial principle from its material substantial principle: after such dissolution we have no longer _the same_ subsisting plant or animal. And, finally, the subsistence of an individual man is changed, or interrupted, or ceases by death, which separates his soul, his vital principle, from his body. We say, moreover, that in the latter case the human _person_ ceases to exist when the ident.i.ty or permanence of his subsisting substance or nature terminates at death; for _personal ident.i.ty_ we hold to be the ident.i.ty of the complete subsisting substance or nature with itself. But Locke, who practically agrees with what we have said regarding the abiding ident.i.ty of the subsisting individual being with itself-whether this individual be an inorganic individual, a plant, a brute beast, or a man(313)-distinguishes at this point between ident.i.ty of the subsisting individual substance and _personal_ ident.i.ty.

Of ident.i.ty in general he says that ”to conceive and judge of it aright, we must consider what idea the word it is applied to stands for; it being one thing to be the same substance, another the same man, and a third the same person, if person, man, and substance, are three names standing for three different ideas”.(314) And, struggling to dissociate ”person” from ”substance,” he continues thus:-

To find wherein personal ident.i.ty 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, and, as it seems to me, essential to it. When we see, hear, smell, taste, feel, meditate, or will any thing, we know that we do so. Thus it is always as to our present sensations and perceptions, and by this every one is to himself what he calls self; it not being considered in this case whether the same self be continued in the same or divers substances. For since consciousness always accompanies thinking, and it is that which makes every one to be what he calls self, and thereby distinguishes himself from all other thinking things; in this alone consists personal ident.i.ty, _i.e._ the sameness of a rational being: and as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past action or thought, so far reaches the ident.i.ty of that person; it is the same self now it was then; and it is by the same self with this present one that now reflects on it, that that action was done.(315)