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not use myself I have no other self to use. My only business is to ascertain what I am, in order to put it to use. It is enough for the proof of the value and authority of any function which I possess to be able to pronounce that it is natural1.

Personality is thus the gateway through which all knowledge must inevitably pass. Matter, force, energy, ideas, time, space, law, freedom, cause, and the like, are absolutely meaningless phrases except in the light of our personal experience. They represent different departments of that experience, which may be isolated for the purposes of special study, as we separate a word from its context to trace its linguistic affinities, or pluck a flower from its root to examine the texture of its tissues. But when we come to discuss their ultimate relations to ourselves and to one another, or, in other words, to philosophize about them, we must remember that they are only known to us in the last resort, through the categories of our own personality, and can never be understood exhaustively till we know all that our personality implies. It follows that philosophy and science are, in the strict sense of the word, precisely as anthropomorphic as theology2, since they are alike limited by the conditions of human personality, and controlled by the forms of thought which human personality provides.

1 Newman, Grammar of Assent, ix. § 1.

• See note 2.

C

The fact that man is thus, in the phrase of Protagoras, the measure of all things, has been urged as a ground for scepticism from very ancient days; but such scepticism to be logical must also be universal, and apply equally to all regions of thought. Seeing, however, that science and common-sense are both agreed to reject this extreme conclusion, and to maintain that personal experience conveys true knowledge in their respective spheres, no antecedent objection can be raised against theology, on the ground that it rests on personal experience, and is therefore anthropomorphic. In all cases the experience in question must be critically tested; but in none is it invalidated by the mere fact that it is personal. For, in the words of an English Kantian of the older school, 'It is from the intense consciousness of our own real existence as persons that the conception of reality takes its rise in our minds: it is through that consciousness alone that we can raise ourselves to the faintest image of the supreme reality of God. What is reality, and what is appearance? is the riddle which philosophy has put forth, from the birthday of human thought; and the only approach to an answer has been a voice from the depths of the personal consciousness: "I think, therefore I am." In the antithesis between the thinker and the object of his thought-between myself and that which is related to me-we find the type and the source of the universal contrast between the one and the many, the permanent and the changeable, the real and the apparent. That which I see, that which I hear, that which I think, that which I feel, changes and passes away with each moment of my varied existence. I, who see and hear and think and feel, am the one continuous self, whose existence gives unity and connexion to the whole. Personality comprises all that we know of that which exists; relation to personality comprises all that we know of that which seems to exist. And when from the little world of man's consciousness and its objects we would lift up our eyes to the inexhaustible universe beyond, and ask to whom all this is related, the highest existence is still the highest personality; and the Source of all being reveals Himself by His name "I Am1.""

1 Mansel, Bampton Lectures, Lect. iii.

LECTURE II

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ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF HUMAN

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PERSONALITY

E cannot, strictly speaking, define personality, for the simple reason that we cannot place

ourselves outside it. The "mystery" that belongs to it,' as Professor Green says, ' arises from its being

....

the only thing, or a form of the only thing, that is real (so to speak) in its own right; the only thing of which the reality is not relative and derived. We can only know it by a reflection on it which is its own action; by analysis of the expression it has given to itself, in language, literature, and the institutions of human life; and by consideration of what that must be which has thus expressed itself.' Looked at analytically1, then, the fundamental characteristic of personality is self-consciousness2, the quality in a subject of becoming an object to itself, or, in Locke's language, 'considering itself as itself,' and saying 'I am I.' But as in the very act of becoming thus self-con

See note 3.

2 See note 4.

or

scious I discover in myself desires 1, and a will 2, the quality of self-consciousness immediately involves that of self-determination, the power of making my desires an object of my will, and saying 'I will do what I desire.' But we must not fall into the common error of regarding thought, desire, and will, as really separable in fact, because we are obliged for the sake of distinctness to give them separate names. They are three faculties functions of one individual, and, though logically separable, interpenetrate each other, and are always more or less united in operation. I cannot, for instance, pursue a train of thought, however abstract, without attention, which is an act of will, and involves a desire to attend. I cannot desire, as distinct from merely feeling appetite, like an animal, without thinking of what I desire, and willing to attain or to abstain from it. I cannot will without thinking of an object or purpose, and

desiring its realization. There is, therefore, a syn

thetic unity in my personality or self; that is to say, not a merely numerical oneness, but a power of uniting opposite and alien attributes and characteristics with an intimacy which defies analysis. This unity is further emphasized by my sense of personal identity, which irresistibly compels me to regard myself as one and the same being, through all changes of time and circumstance, and thus

1 See note 5.

2 See note 6.

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