Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind

SECTION VII. IDENTITY .

There is one other term, which still requires explanation; and that is, IDENTITY, about which there would not have appeared any difficulty, had it not been for Personal Identity; which is, indeed, a complicated case, and, of course, involves the obscurity which great complexity implies.

We have already seen, on what account we use the marks, same, and different, when we apply them to two simple sensations, or when we apply them to two ideas, simple, or complex. In these cases, the terms are relative terms, and name the objects in pairs.

There is another case, that which now it is our business to explain, in which the name is not applied to two objects, but to the same object, at two different times. Thus it is, that I say, The bridge at Westminster, by which I crossed the Thames thirty years ago, is the same by which I crossed it yesterday. The crown which was placed on the head of George IV. at his coronation, is the same by which the kings of England have been crowned for many centuries. The words which we read in the Gospel of Matthew, are the same which were written by that evangelist. The words which we read in the poem called the Æneid are the same which were written by the poet Virgil. The church which is now at Loretto, is the same with that which belonged to the Virgin Mary at Nazareth, which in the month of May, in the year 1291, was 165 carried through the air by Angels, from Galilee to Tersato, in Dalmatia; and again on the 10th of December, 1294, about midnight, by what conveyance is not known, was set down in a wood in Italy, in the district of Ricanati, about a thousand paces from the sea.

It is evident, from the contemplation of these instances, which might be multiplied to any extent, that the word SAME, in this mode of applying it, is merely the name of a certain case of Belief: a belief which, in some of the instances, is, memory; in some, is grounded upon testimony; in some, upon circumstantial evidence; and, in some, upon both testimony and circumstances. Thus, the case of belief respecting Westminster-bridge, which I mark by the word, same, is Memory. The cases of belief respecting the crown of England, respecting the words of the gospel, respecting the church of Loretto, marked respectively by the word same, are founded on testimony, joined with circumstances.

As we have already shewn wherein Belief, in all its cases, consists, we have implicitly afforded the exposition of Identity. From same, the concrete, comes, in the usual way, sameness, the abstract, dropping only the connotation of the concrete. And Identity and Sameness are equivalent terms.

From the importance, however, which has been attached to these words, it seems necessary to shew to the learner, somewhat more particularly, the mode of tracing the simple ideas composing the clusters which they are employed to mark.

The Lily, when it produces its brilliant flower in summer, I call the same, with the plant which began 166 to shew itself above the surface of the ground, in spring, from a bulb, which I had planted in a particular spot of my garden. I also called it the same, from one day to another, though changing every day in its size, and other appearances, from its germination to the present time. For what reason have I done so? On account of certain circumstances, which every body can enumerate; its rising from a certain root; the uninterrupted continuity, by means of the stalk, between the root and the other parts of the plant; its being always found in the same place, that is, in the same synchronous order with certain other things; its corresponding with other plants, the growth of which I have observed, and so on. If it had grown in a flower pot, and been transferred from one to another, the enumeration of the circumstances would have been different; the evidence of its having grown from the same root would have been drawn from other circumstances. When I say, then, that the Lily I see, with its flowers in July, is the same with the Lily just emerging from the ground in April, I only express my belief of its having sprung from a certain root, and of its having vegetated, in connexion with that root, in the way of the plants grouped in the class called Lily.

I have a male Calf, of singular beauty, produced from my cow. I observe him from day to day. From day to day I call him the Same; and I do so when he has grown a bull of the greatest size. When I do so, I merely express my belief in a certain train of antecedents and consequents, with which experience has rendered me familiar. There is a certain train of antecedents and consequents, known to me by 167 observation, which I call the birth, growth, maturity; and, in one word, the Life, of the animal. The birth, growth, and maturity of one animal, is one series of successions; the birth, growth, and maturity of another animal, is another series of successions. When I apply the name Same, then, to any animal, I merely express my belief, that my present sight of the animal is part of a particular series, of which that perception is the last link.

The case, it will not be doubted, is perfectly analogous, when I transfer the term from one of the lower animals to one of my fellow men. The birth, infancy, childhood, youth, manhood, of a human being, are names for different parts of a certain series of antecedents and consequents. This series is known to me by experience; that is, by sensation, by memory, and other cases of association. The life of one man is one series. The life of another man is another series. When I say, then, that a man is the same, I merely express my belief in one of those series; belief that the particular man, of the present instant, is the last link of such and such a chain, and not of any other.

It is, however, to be observed, that the chain, thus believed, and the evidence upon which it is believed, are different things; and that this evidence is different in different cases. In the case of a person whom I have lived with from his birth, and seen every day, the evidence, to a great degree, is sense and memory. Sometimes the sameness of an individual is proved in a court of justice, by evidence, such as is applicable to any other matters of fact; by written documents, marks on the body, articles of property found 168 with the child, and the testimony of those whose knowledge has been uninterrupted from one time to another.

It is not to be doubted, that when I transfer the word Same, from another man to myself, all that I do is to express my belief in one of those series; and the only difference in the case is, that it is a series of which I have evidence of a very particular kind, and of which many parts are known to me, which can be known to nobody else.

As far as memory reaches, the evidence, in regard to myself, is memory and sensation. In the case of Evidence by memory and sensation, we have observed a peculiarity, necessary to be remembered, that the Evidence, and the Belief, are not different things, but the same thing. The memory which I have of my own existence, that is, the memory of a certain train of antecedents and consequents, is the Belief of them; on account of which belief, I apply to myself the term same, in the same way as I apply it to any other of my fellow men.

But I apply the term same to myself beyond the point to which memory reaches; as far back, in short, as to other men. This is true: I believe, that a train of antecedents and consequents, corresponding to that which forms the existence of other men, has also formed my existence. Part of this train I believe, by consciousness, memory. Part, namely, that which precedes memory, I believe on other evidence. What that evidence is, it is not difficult to see. We have, in the first place, the evidence of testimony; namely, that of all the persons who knew us from our birth, to the time to which memory extends. We have next 169 the evidence of what happens in the existence of all other men; or that case of association which unites inseparably the idea of like antecedents with like consequents.

It may be said, however, that my belief in the Identity of other men, is a very different thing from belief in my own Identity; and that the foregoing exposition does not sufficiently account for the difference which every one remarks between them.

The foregoing exposition, when duly attended to, will be found to account completely for the difference. We have remarked, that the evidence which I have for a great part of the series, in the case of other men, and of myself, is remarkably different. In the case of other men, it consists of observation and memory; in the case of myself, it consists of consciousness and memory. In these several and respective circumstances, Observation, and Consciousness, the distinction wholly consists. The memory of a chain of facts observed, is the evidence in the one case. The memory of a chain of states of Consciousness, is the evidence in the other.

I doubt not that this, without further analysis, will be seen by many of my readers to be a complete solution of the question. It may, however, be still objected, that we resolve observation itself into states of consciousness; and, if so, that the memory of a chain of states of Consciousness, is the evidence in both cases.

This brings us to the very bottom of the matter. Every body recognises, at once, that the memory of a state of consciousness, and the memory of something 170 observed, are two distinct things; that the memory, for example, of one of my own sensations, and the memory of an outward fact, as of the death of my father, are specifically different: or, to take two cases still easier perhaps to distinguish; no one will say, that the memory of one’s own pain is any thing like the same state of consciousness with the memory of seeing another man in pain. In the one case, the state of consciousness remembered is the pain itself; in the other it is the sensations of sight or hearing, which indicated to me the pain of the other man, or called up the idea of his pain by association. In the one case, the memory is memory of my own sensations purely; in the other case, it is the memory of my sensations, as the evidence only of outward things.

Each of the terms, therefore, I, Thou, He, marks a particular chain of antecedents and consequents, terminating with the I, the Thou, the He, of the present moment. The I, the Thou, the He, of the present moment, is marked, by these terms, primarily; the preceding links are marked, secondarily, that is, connoted. When I say, “I, Thou, or He, did any thing,” it is the I, the Thou, the He, of the moment spoken of, that is specially noted. The rest of the chain is not particularly adverted to, except when there is particular occasion for it.

Since the I, the Thou, the He, stand for the names of three men, and equally denote the antecedents and consequents, forming what is familiarly called the thread of life, of each of those individuals; how does it happen, that the idea, which is called up by the term I, appears to be so different, from that which is 171 called up by the term Thou, or any term denoting the vital chain of any other man?

In what has been already stated, is found the answer. In that chain of antecedents and consequents which I mark by the term “same man,” two species of things are included; 1. The antecedents and consequents which form the successive states of his body; 2. The successive states of his consciousness.

In knowing the antecedents and consequents, which form the successive states of my own body and of that of another man, the mode, though in some respects different, is, in so many respects, the same, that it does not here require explanation. But the mode of knowing the successive states of my own consciousness, and of those of other men, is totally different; and in this consists the peculiarity which appears to belong to the idea which I annex to the term I, or myself. The knowledge of my own states of consciousness is consciousness itself, for the present moment, and memory of that consciousness for all the past. Of the states of consciousness of other men, I have no direct knowledge. I draw my belief of them only from signs. These signs, too, are significant only by reference to my own states of consciousness. Certain things cognizable by my senses, are accompanied in myself by certain states of consciousness, single, or in trains. These objects of sense (sights, sounds, &c.) are closely associated with the ideas of those states of consciousness. When presented to me, therefore, as objects of sense to other men, they excite the ideas of those states of consciousness; and hence what I call my knowledge and belief of the mental trains of other men. It is not necessary to go further in the 172 analysis. It is very obvious, that two complex ideas must be different, which are formed in these different ways; nor is any thing more necessary to account for the difference between the idea annexed to the pronoun I, and that annexed to the pronoun Thou.33

³³ The author has avoided an error in the mode and order of the enquiry, which has greatly contributed to make the explanations given by psychologists of Personal Identity, so eminently unsatisfactory as they are. Psychologists have almost always begun with the most intricate part of the question. They have set out by enquiring, what makes me the same person to myself? when they should first have enquired what makes me the same person to other people? or, what makes another person the same person to me? The author of the Analysis has done this, and he easily perceived, that what makes me the same person to others, is precisely what makes a house, or a mountain, the same house or mountain to them to-day which they saw yesterday. It is the belief of an uninterrupted continuity in the series of sensations derivable from the house, or mountain, or man. There is not this continuity in the actual sensations of a single observer: he has not been watching the mountain unintermittedly since yesterday, or from a still more distant time. But he believes, on such evidence as the case affords, that if he had been watching, he should have seen the mountain continuously and unchanged during the whole intervening time (provided the other requisites of vision were present—light to see it by, and no cloud or mist intervening): and he further believes that any being, with organs like his own, who had looked in that direction at any moment of the interval during which he himself was not looking, would have seen it in the same manner as he sees it. All this applies equally to a human object. I call the man I see to-day the same man whom I saw yesterday, for the very reason which makes me call the house or the mountain the same, viz., my conviction that if my organs had been in the 173 same position towards him all the time as they are now, and the other conditions necessary for seeing had been present, my perception of the man would have continued all the time without interruption.

If we now change the point of view, and ask, what makes me always the same person to myself, we introduce, in addition to what there was in the other case, the entire series of my own past states of consciousness. As the author truly says, the evidence on which I accept my own identity is that of memory. But memory reaches only a certain way back, and for all before that period, as well as for all subsequent to it of which I have lost the remembrance, the belief rests on other evidence. As an example of the errors and difficulties in which psychologists have involved themselves by beginning with the more complex question without having considered the simpler one, it is worth remembering that Locke makes personal identity consist in Consciousness, which in this case means Memory; and has been justly criticised by later thinkers for this doctrine, as leading to the corollary, that whatever of my past actions I have forgotten, I never performed—that my forgotten feelings were not my feelings, but were (it must therefore be supposed) the feelings of somebody else. Locke, however, had seen one part of the true state of the case; which is, that to myself I am only, properly speaking, the same person, in respect of those facts of my past life which I remember; but that I nevertheless consider myself as having been, at the times of which I retain no remembrance, the same person I now am, because I have satisfactory evidence that I was the same to other people; that an uninterrupted continuity in the sensations of sight and touch caused or which could have been caused to other people, existed between my present self and the infant who I am told I was, and between my present self and the person who is proved to me to have done the acts I have myself forgotten.

These considerations remove the outer veil, or husk, as it were, which wraps up the idea of the Ego. But after this is removed, there remains an inner covering, which, as far as I can perceive, is impenetrable. My personal identity consists 174 in my being the same Ego who did, or who felt, some specific fact recalled to me by memory. So be it: but what is Memory? It is not merely having the idea of that fact recalled: that is but thought, or conception, or imagination. It is, having the idea recalled along with the Belief that the fact which it is the idea of, really happened, and moreover happened to myself. Memory, therefore, by the very fact of its being different from Imagination, implies an Ego who formerly experienced the facts remembered, and who was the same Ego then as now. The phenomenon of Self and that of Memory are merely two sides of the same fact, or two different modes of viewing the same fact We may, as psychologists, set out from either of them, and refer the other to it. We may, in treating of Memory, say (as the author says) that it is the idea of a past sensation associated with the idea of myself as having it. Or we may say, in treating of Identity, (as the author also says), that the meaning of Self is the memory of certain past sensations. But it is hardly allowable to do both. At least it must be said, that by doing so we explain neither. We only show that the two things are essentially the same; that my memory of having ascended Skiddaw on a given day, and my consciousness of being the same person who ascended Skiddaw on that day, are two modes of stating the same fact: a fact which psychology has as yet failed to resolve into anything more elementary.

In analysing the complex phenomena of consciousness, we must come to something ultimate; and we seem to have reached two elements which have a good prima facie claim to that title. There is, first, the common element in all cases of Belief, namely, the difference between a fact, and the thought of that fact: a distinction which we are able to cognize in the past, and which then constitutes Memory, and in the future, when it constitutes Expectation; but in neither case can we give any account of it except that it exists; an inability which is admitted in the most elementary case of the distinction, viz. the difference between a present sensation and an idea. Secondly, in addition to this, and setting out from the belief 175 in the reality of a past event, or in other words, the belief that the idea I now have was derived from a previous sensation, or combination of sensations, corresponding to it, there is the further conviction that this sensation or combination of sensations was my own; that it happened to myself. In other words, I am aware of a long and uninterrupted succession of past feelings going as far back as memory reaches, and terminating with the sensations I have at the present moment, all of which are connected by an inexplicable tie, that distinguishes them not only from any succession or combination in mere thought, but also from the parallel successions of feelings which I believe, on satisfactory evidence, to have happened to each of the other beings, shaped like myself, whom I perceive around me. This succession of feelings, which I call my memory of the past, is that by which I distinguish my Self. Myself is the person who had that series of feelings, and I know nothing of myself, by direct knowledge, except that I had them. But there is a bond of some sort among all the parts of the series, which makes me say that they were feelings of a person who was the same person throughout, and a different person from those who had any of the parallel successions of feelings; and this bond, to me, constitutes my Ego. Here, I think, the question must rest, until some psychologist succeeds better than any one has yet done in shewing a mode in which the analysis can be carried further.—Ed.

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