guilty man cannot escape from himself, though human law be a feeble and tardy avenger of wrong.

Self has no plurality of organs or faculties.— This individual being, or self, is capable of acting in different ways; and for convenience of speech and classification, these modes of action have been arranged as the results of different faculties; though, in truth, it is no more proper to attribute to the person distinct powers and organs for comparison, memory, and judgment, than to give to the body separately a walking faculty, a lifting faculty, a jumping faculty, and so on. In the one case, these faculties are but different aspects of the same mental power; in the other, but different applications of the same muscular strength. To attribute to me the organ of memory, is no more than to say that I am able to remember, the person who remembers being one and the same with him who judges and feels. Yet this classification of mental phenomena seems to imply a complexity of being, and, for this reason alone, it has always furnished the chief support for the several theories of materialism. The groundwork of these systems entirely falls away, when we consider that this division of organs is only verbal, as the real division is of a plurality of functions exercised by the same being. Seeing differs from hearing, because two distinct organs of the body are exercised for different ends; but when the two acts become entirely mental, as in the case of memory, the distinction between them is done away; I recall the features of a landscape with which I was once familiar, by the same kind of effort which brings to mind the successive notes of a strain of music heard long ago. More facility may be gained by practice with one class of recollections than with another; this does not affect the nature of the process, but only its rapidity.

whether

Immediate consciousness of self. — How we come to a knowledge of self, or to this consciousness of personality, mediately, by an act of judgment, knowing that each sensation or thought must have a substratum or substance in which it inheres, and hence inferring what we are not directly conscious of; or whether we gain it immediately, being equally, and at the same moment, conscious of the sensation and of the sentient

66

being, is a question that need not detain us long. A thought is but the phase, or aspect, for the moment, of the thinking being; it is but the abstract expression of the fact expressed in the words, "I think." If we speak of it as "a state of mind," the convenience of language compels us to regard it abstractly; but looking upon it as an act, we consider the real occurrence in its entireness. Take one of the appetites, for instance; to have "the sensation of hunger" is an abstract and general expression, applicable to any number of cases; but in any particular case, it signifies nothing unless interpreted to mean I am hungry." The subject and object of thought are thus inseparably blended together in every act of thinking, and can no more be separated from each other in reality than two polar forces. When we reflect upon a sensation that has passed away, we may consider it by abstraction, first, in regard to the object, and then it is called a sensation of color, hardness, or something else; or, secondly, in regard to the subject, and then I have a conception of self as performing some act, or experiencing some affection. This apperception, as Leibnitz calls it, or direct consciousness of self, seems to me an invariable concomitant of mental action.* The attention, indeed, may be concentrated on the object of thought, and then the personal consciousness is not remembered. Just so, a person may be absorbed in a reverie while loud music is sounding near him, and pay no attention to it; it is usually said, that he does not hear it; but this cannot be, as his faculty of hearing remains unimpaired, the vibrations must reach his ears, and, in fact, if

*Properly speaking, consciousness is an attribute, not of mind, but of me. When mind is objectified, or made an object of thought, it is not mind which is conscious of its own changes, but 'I' am conscious of those changes. "For to change and to be cognizant of change; for a thing to be in a particular state, and to be aware that it is in this state, is surely not one and the same fact, but two totally distinct and separate facts." Herein is a fundamental difference between matter and me; for matter is not cognizant of its own changes-is not aware of its state.

For the substance of this note and the preceding one, I am indebted to some excellent articles on the Philosophy of Consciousness in "Blackwood's Magazine" for 1838.

THE IDEA OF SELF, OR PERSONAL EXISTENCE.

59

59

In

the music suddenly stops, he is roused from his abstraction by the absence of the accustomed sound, just as one dozing in church is waked when the preacher has ended his sermon. truth, he hears every note, but instantly forgets it, from the lack of attention; and at the close, of course, he has forgotten the whole. Just so, a person thinking is never conscious of a thought without being conscious of himself at the same instant; his attention may be directed either to the object or the subject, according to the wish or exigency of the moment. If laboring under acute pain, the phrase which expresses the state of his mind at any instant is, "I suffer;" for the abstract sensation of pain would have no interest for him, except as self enters into or endures it.

What is personality. — If this be the correct view, and I can see no valid objection to it, the idea of personality is fixed on an immovable basis. Self is an indivisible unit,

a monad, in

technical phrase, endowed with intelligence and activity; and we are directly conscious of it in itself, and in its passing into thought and act, without being compelled to infer its existence from these manifestations. If we only inferred the substance from the attributes, we could not conceive of it unless in the exercise of those attributes, any more than we can conceive of matter without its qualities, without extension, form, solidity, or color. But we can conceive of our personal existence in the intervals both of thought and action. A consciousness of existence underlies the exercise of every function of mental life. The celebrated argument of Descartes, "I think, therefore I am," has been objected to, and with reason, on the ground that the conclusion merely repeats what is, not merely implied in the premise, but formally stated in it. Thought is but a mode of action, and cannot be conceived as a reality without the agent, though it may be considered separately by abstraction.*

* From the writer, already cited, on the Philosophy of Consciousness, I borrow another illustration of the fact, that our knowledge of self is direct and immediate.

"The child's employment of language previous to his use of the word

Why self cannot be defined.· But it is said that we cannot describe self, or give any definition of personality, except by enumerating its attributes, or the acts of which it is capable. Hence it is inferred, that we know nothing more of it than of matter, which can be described only as the unknown substratum of certain qualities that are evident to sense. But all simple

'I,' may be accounted for upon the principle of imitation, or, at any rate, it must be considered as a mere illustration of the general law of cause and effect. But neither association, nor the principle of imitation, nor any conceivable modification of the law of cause and effect, will account for the child's use of the word 'I.' In originating, and using this term, he reverses or runs counter to all these laws, and more particularly performs a process diametrically opposed to any act of imitation. Take an illustration of this. A child hears another person call a certain object' a table;' and the power of imitation naturally leads him to call the same thing, and any similar thing, 'a table.' Suppose, next, that the child hears this person apply to himself the word 'I.' In this case, too, the power of imitation would naturally lead the child to call that man 'I.' But is this what the child does? No. As soon as he becomes conscious, he ceases, so far at least as the word 'I' is concerned, to be an imitator. He still applies the word 'table' to the objects to which other people apply that term; and in this he imitates them. But with regard to the word 'I,' he applies this expression to a thing totally different from that which he hears all other people applying it to. They apply it to themselves, but he does not apply it to them, but to himself; and in this, he is not an imitator, but the absolute originator of a new notion.

"Is it objected, that, in the use of the word 'I,' the child may still be considered as an imitative creature, inasmuch as he merely applies to himself a word which he hears other people applying to themselves, having borrowed the application of it from them? Oh! vain and short-sighted objection! As if this very fact did not necessarily imply and prove that he has, first of all, originated within himself the notion expressed by the word 'I,' (namely, the notion of his conscious self,) and thereby, and thereby only, has become capable of comprehending what they mean by it. In the use and understanding of this word, every man must be altogether original. No person can teach to another its true meaning and right application; for no two human beings ever use it, or ever can use it, in the same sense, or apply it to the same being. The word 'I,' in my mouth, as applied to you, would prove me to be a madman. The word ‘I,' in your mouth, as applied to me, would prove you to be the same. Therefore, I cannot, by any conceivability, teach you what it means, nor can you teach me."-Blackwood, vol. xliii. p. 790.

ideas are incapable of definition, and the only mode of describing them is to enumerate the occasions on which they rise, or are suggested to the mind. Wherever there is complexity, the several parts can be distinguished, and a complete list of these will constitute a description of the object, which will be intelligible to one who has had no sensible evidence of its existence. But if the idea be simple, no account of it can be understood except by those who know it, or have had experience of it already. Colors are simple sensations, and the impossibility of defining or describing them is proved by the familiar fact, that no form of words can convey the slightest notion of them to a person blind from his birth. The word "green" may be explained by saying that it is the color of the foliage, or "blue" as the color of the sky; and this is enough for one who has seen the aspect of external nature; but it is no definition, and conveys no knowledge to him who has never had the faculty of vision.

The idea of self belongs to the same category with all our simple sensations, and with the more abstruse ideas of time, space, motion, and the like. All are indefinable, because indivisible; they cannot be described, because they have no complexity of parts. But who doubts our knowledge, or questions the reality, of motion, or light, or time, because they cannot be explained by any form of words, or, what is the same thing, cannot be resolved into simpler ideas? The unity of personality, then, which is the important point for present consideration, is established by the very argument which is brought to do away with the reality of the idea of person altogether.

The ancient philosophers and the schoolmen were guilty of much solemn trifling, in their vain attempts to define these simple ideas. Thus "motion" was explained to be “the act of a being in power so far forth as in power;" and "light" to be "the act of perspicuity so far forth as it is perspicuous." The inanity and uselessness of such definitions are now generally admitted, though Lord Monboddo attempted to defend them. It is justly observed by Locke, that "the modern philosophers, who have endeavored to throw off the jargon of the schools, and