Personal identity

“ My personal identity, therefore, implies the continued existence of that indivisible thing which I call myself. Whatever this self may be, it is something which thinks, and deliberates, and resolves, and acts, and suffers. I am not thought, I am not action, I am not feeling; I am something that thinks, and acts, and suffers. ”

“ Personal identity, therefore, is full disproof of the theory. For personal identity rests in a single abiding consciousness, in which all separate mental acts are known as its own acts, the materials for memory and comparison. The truth is, that all moral distinctions arise out of the conviction that each individual, in the center of his personality, is a soul, itself determining its rational choices and responsible for the conduct of life. ”

“ In order that I may possess a proper personal identity so as to live, breathe, and feel along the whole line of my existence in the same intense and intimate mode, it is absolutely necessary to have some general medium or faculty by which my successive impressions are blended and amalgamated together, and to maintain and support this extraordinary interest. ”

“ Personal identity is that state of matter in which it possesses a consciousness of existence, and power of motion to procure happiness for the present, and thereby perpetuate it in every stage of its transmutation or revolution; and no change of that identity by loss of memory or by death, can dissolve the connection with its integer Nature, but like a river absorbed by the ocean, it transmutes into all forms of matter, and returns to rivers again. ”

“ One would think that the sense of personal identity would become vague in the contemplation of voyages over so vast a sea of being, but, on the contrary, this identity is the one thing about which the individual seems perfectly sure. ”

“ Am I equally interested in the fate of all? Or if I must fix upon some one of them in particular as my representative and other self, how am I to be determined in my choice? Here, then, I saw an end put to my speculations about absolute self-interest and personal identity. I saw plainly that the consciousness of my own feelings, which is made the foundation of my continued interest in them, could not extend to what had never been, and might never be; that my identity with myself must be confined to the connection between my past and present being ”

“ We now proceed to explain the nature of personal identity, which has become so great a question in philosophy, especially of late years in England where all the abstruser sciences are study'd with a peculiar ardour and application. ”

“ Our consciousness of personal identity assures us of our essential simplicity: the owner of the various constituents of the self, as we have seen them, the hypothetical Arch-Ego whom we provisionally conceived as possible, is a real entity of whose existence self-consciousness makes us directly aware. ”

“ Personal identity. This being premised, to find wherein personal identity 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 : it being impossible for any one to perceive without perceiving that he does perceive. When we see, hear, smell, taste, feel, meditate, or will anything, we know that we do so. ”

“ The bearing of the above will become obvious when we return, as we will now do, to the question of personal identity. The only difficulty would seem to lie in our unfamiliarity with the real meanings which we attach to words in daily use. ”

“ And one should really think it self-evident, that consciousness of personal identity presupposes, and therefore cannot constitute, personal identity; any more than knowledge, in any other case, can constitute truth, which it presupposes. ”

“ Hence in personal identity the main point is to fix the meaning of person; and it is chiefly because our ideas as to this are confused, that we are unable to come to a further result.
In the popular view a man’s identity resides mainly in his body. ”

“ The identity, which we are to consider, is, as I have already said, the identity only of the principle which feels and thinks, without regard to the changeable state of the particles of the brain, or of the body in general. This unity and permanence of the principle, which thinks, if we had still to invent a phrase, I would rather call mental identity, than personal identity, though the latter phrase may now be considered as almost fixed by the general use of philosophers. ”

“ I shall proceed to state (as far as is necessary to the present argument) in what the true notion of personal identity appears to me to consist; and this I believe it will be easy to shew depends entirely on the continued connection which subsists between a man’s past and present feelings and not, vice versâ, on any previous connection between his future and his present feelings, which is absurd and impossible.
Every human being is distinguished from every other human being, both numerically, and characteristically. ”

“ But that is impossible; for in truth my personal identity is founded only on my personal consciousness, and that does not extend beyond the present moment.—It must be maintained, on the other side of the question, that my past, my present, and my future self are inseparably linked together, equally identified by an intimate communion of transferable thoughts and feelings in one metaphysical principle of self-interest, before they can be equally myself, the same identical thing, to any purpose of sentiment or for any motive of action. ”

“ Questions of identity, where instances of personal resemblance are concerned, are, in themselves, the hardest of all questions to settle—the hardest, even when they are free from the complications which beset the case we are now discussing. ”

“ There are chapters dealing with Personal Identity, the Relation of the Soul to the Self, the Unity of the Soul—in spite of the marvellous phenomena of multiple personality, and a very interesting discussion on the possible permanency of sex, even in the more spiritual stages of the Soul’s future development. ”

“ And since by person we understand an intelligent essence having reason, and since there is a consciousness which always accompanies thinking, it is this which makes us all to be that which we call ourselves—thereby distinguishing us from other beings that think, and giving us our personal identity. ”

“ It is this greater liveliness and force with which I can enter into my future feelings, that in a manner identifies them with my present being; and this notion of identity being once formed, the mind makes use of it to strengthen it’s habitual propensity, by giving to personal motives a reality and absolute truth which they can never have. ”

“ As in the case of the thing and its qualities, we think that there is something distinct from the qualities in which they inhere and yet find ourselves unable to present to the mind any consistent idea of such thing, so we think that there must be some substance or basis of personal identity, some real self which has the successive changing conscious states, which has the character which distinguishes our actions as personal but which nevertheless is not itself these things. The self-contradiction {37} in the idea of self, or I, or subject, is that it both cannot change and is always changing. ”

“ This functional identity seems really the only sort of identity in the thinker which the facts require us to suppose. Successive thinkers, numerically distinct, but all aware of the same past in the same way, form an adequate vehicle for all the experience of personal unity and sameness which we actually have. ”

“ I have succeeded beyond a doubt; none can exist in your minds of my identity-my self, for you have never breathed my name to this mortal. Again will I come to you and tell you of our lovely world which we enjoy, each according to individual development. ”

“ They have no continued but a successive existence, but that self or I to which they belong is permanent, and has the same relation to all succeeding thoughts, actions, and feelings which I call mine. The identity of a person is perfect—it admits of no degrees—and is not divisible into parts. ”

“ Once feel this truth, and you begin to lose the sense of your identity, to know that your destiny, your self, is an organic part of all men. It is they that speak. It is themselves that have been found and expressed. ”

“ You know that that principle in you does not constitute your individuality. It constitutes your personality; but that in you which is undergoing change, and develops from a lower to a higher degree of knowledge, constitutes your individuality. This unchanging, ever-present, conscious identity is the very divine life within you, from which you derive all life. This outside identity, which thinks and wills, is no part of my immortal nature, separate from this divine principle within me. ”

“ Thus the more we isolate our own personality and self-identity from the other interests and experiences of life, the more nearly do we approach to consciousness of and coalescence with the supreme identity wherein all things have their source. ”

“ In one word, to fix the human personality, to give to each human being an identity, an individuality that can be depended upon with certainty, lasting, unchangeable, always recognisable and easily adduced, this appears to be in the largest sense the aim of the new method. ”

“ For questions of identity turn always upon sameness in character, and the reason why here you cannot reply generally, is that you do not know this general character which is taken to make the thing’s essence. ”

“ You would hardly recognize yourself could you see your own identity and individuality as it was ten years ago; you believe differently, you are another individual. What is that cry from the old home so far away? ”

“ Individuality, personality, and the sense of self, are only three aspects of the same thing. They are so many various views of the soul, according as we regard it from an intrinsic, an altruistic, or an egoistic standpoint.... By individuality we mean that bundle of ideas, thoughts, and day-dreams which constitute our separate identity, and by virtue of which we feel each one of us at home within himself.... Consciousness is the necessary attribute of mental action. ”

“ The only form of thing that we directly encounter, the only experience that we concretely have, is our own personal life. The only complete category of our thinking, our professors of philosophy tell us, is the category of personality, every other category being one of the abstract elements of that. ”

“ We are therefore brought to the conclusion that this universally diffused essence, which we might think of as a sort of spiritual protoplasm, must possess all the qualities of personality without that conscious recognition of self which constitutes separate individuality: and since the word "personality" has became so associated in our ordinary talk with the idea of "individuality" it will perhaps be better to coin a new word, and speak of the personalness of the Universal Mind as indicating its personal quality, apart from individuality. ”

“ The known empirical facts of “multiple personality” possess nothing surprising for such a doctrine. The individual Human Self appears, in my account, as a part of the Selfhood of the race. Social intercommunication amongst Selves is explained as a phenomenal indication that they share in a common larger Selfhood. The phenomenal dependence of Mind upon Matter is interpreted as another sort of evidence whereby our personal participation in the various forms and stages of Selfhood that are present in Nature is indicated. ”

“ When we come to the question of the sameness of the Self or Ego we are, if possible, on more debatable ground than heretofore. The whole subject of our knowledge of the Self lies as yet, in the opinion of many, very much in the dark. ”

“ Herein, therefore, have we placed the True Life,—the Life according to Reason,—that the personal life of Man be dedicated to that of his Race,—that the one be forgotten in the other. To forget oneself in others:—not in others regarded likewise in a personal character, where there is still nothing but Individuality;—but in others regarded as the Race. ”

“ But, to a greater or less extent, all psychology, in its practice, is compelled to admit the working power of Identity. A psychologist may employ this force unwillingly, or may deny that he employs it ”

“ The existence of a being, or the possession, or exercise of any principle, passion or attribute, implies personality, or individual identity, which is the same thing. The mind cannot conceive of existence, passion, principle, or action, without conceiving of them inhering in actually existing Essence, which must assume in the mind the idea of personality. Therefore, personality is strictly, and properly applicable to the Divine Essence. But the doctrine of a plural personality is to be established at present. ”

“ Lewis, what comprises identity?"
"The ego is a rather deep subject," replied the doctor thoughtfully. "The question 'What is this that am I?' is one pondered for many thousands of years. It is still without answer—though it is generally accepted that a man is what he is because of his lifetime of experiences." ”

“ There being no qualitative difference between souls, the principle of personality and identity is supplied by the subtile or internal body, which, chiefly formed of the inner organs and the senses, surrounds and is made conscious by the soul. ”

“ We discern some of the roots of our own being, and appreciate one side of our own character better—both as loving it and as noting where its weak points lie—when we see it thus remotely working in a bygone world and under outlived fashions, yet keeping so intimately true to the genius of the type. We get a glimpse of our vocation, see that we stand for a spirit that human life will always need to have expressed. ”