MEMORY AND THE INDIVIDUAL.
'EVERY one is familiar with the efforts that have been
made during the last few years by the Society for Psychical Research to establish by scientific investigation the survival of human personality after the death of the body. It has not been generally remarked, however, that the greater part of these efforts have in reality been directed towards proving the survival, not of personality, but of memory. It seems to be assumed on the one band that the survival of memory is enough to prove the survival of the individual, and on the other that without a survival of memory the survival of the individual is unintelligible. Mr. Walter Leaf's criticism of the original report upon Mrs. Piper was indeed directed against the first of these assumptions. For he pointed out that after physical death there might still remain in exist- ence disintegrating masses of memories, which could not be described as a "person," but to which the medium's mind might have some access. The more recent evidence is, however, not liable to this objection. A cross-correspondence, if it implies the survival of anything at all, implies the survival, not merely of memories, but of a directing personality. But, apart from such inductive proofs of a future existence, it is interesting to consider more generally the relation of the individual to memory, whether he could be said to survive without it, and if so, whether such survival would satisfy the aspiration to immortality.
It would be hard to find much support for the view that personal identity depends entirely upon a continuous memory. Of all the factors that make up the human mind, none is more fleeting and liable to disease. According to this view, identity would be for ever fluctuating. A man who forgets an event in his past life would not be the same person as the man to whom the event occurred. But if something should happen to remind him of it, then his identity would have changed back once more. And it is not merely the trivialities of life that are forgotten. Our natures have been formed as the result of hundreds of thoughts and actions which have dis- appeared entirely from our memories. Yet we are asked to believe that all these essential but forgotten causes are in reality the thoughts and actions of another person,— the person who died when our memory died. But not only do we forget what has actually happened to us ; sometimes we actually remember what never happened to us. George IV. remembered that he was present at the battle of Waterloo, and this genuine but mistaken belief could not be distinguished psychologically from a true memory. In the same way a patient under the influence of hypnotism may be made to remember another man's past. Are we to suppose that in such a case there is an actual change of identity ? If we had been able to impress upon Charles Peace all the memories of Ruskin, would Charles Peace's personality have disappeared ? Yet if this seems absurd, we are forced to conclude that there is some element of the self deeper than memory. Any attempt to define this element—this ultimate spirit of the individual— seems doomed to failure. There is a saying of Bishop Butler's which might well be recommended to the philosopher,— "Everything is what it is, and not another thing." So individuality is simply individuality ; and the attempt to discover some further meaning for the word can only lead to error. We might be tempted, for instance, to suggest that a n an's true ego is nothing more than his character. But individuality goes deeper even than character. Character changes : the individual remains the same. Thus a man who in his youth is honest may meet with temptations that make him into a thief ; so too the sentimentalist may become a cynic. The changing character is no more than a manifestation of the individuality beneath.
But when once we have decided that our personality consists of something more than a mere tissue of memories, we may go further, and ask whether memory is even necessarily a condition of personality. Mr. Gerald Balfour in the current number of the Hibbert Journal quotes a remark of Leibniz that " if one were to become Emperor of China on condition of entirely forgetting one's past, this would mean the annihilation of oneself and the creation of an Emperor of China." That this observation is false we have no doubt; but it is one which cannot be logically refuted. An appeal to introspection is the only possible, and far from satisfactory, test of its truth. For this purpose we may quote a few words from a more modern philosopher, Dr. McTaggart, who, as a follower of Hegel, is deeply interested in the refutation of this theory :—" Now suppose a man could be assured that in a short time he would lose for ever all memory of the past. Would he consider this to be annihilation, and take no more interest in the person of similar character who would occupy his old body than he would in any stranger ? Or would a man approaching the gate of hell lose all selfish regret for his position if he was assured that memory, as well as hope, must be left behind on his entrance ?" To such questions only one answer seems possible; and we are driven to the admission that a survival of physical death is at least con- ceivable, even though the destruction of the brain tissues carries with it a destruction of memory.
The discussion of the probability of a survival in such con- ditions must be left to metaphysicians. We may point out, however, that though to us the idea may be incongruous, yet to thousands of those who live further to the East it is a familiar article of belief. And this will perhaps throw light upon the last of the questions which we raised,—namely, whether such a belief would be of any comfort. The natural impulse is to answer :—" No. What comfort could the new life bring with it, if at the same time it brought the loss of every interest and every person that we care for to-day ? " But reflection will perhaps bring another opinion. Memory is after all no more than a gigantic notebook. If the note- book is destroyed, for a time all will be confusion. But gradually the mind will assert itself and begin to build up again another notebook to take the place of the lost one. And since the individual will remain unchanged, he will tend to fill the new notebook with facts similar to the lost facts. In short, although he will not know it, his interests will be the same as before ; and there can be no reason why this should not be -equally true of his personal relations. The continuity will be real, even though it is unconscious. "But what a waste," the objector may exclaim, " to be forced to replace with infinite pains all the memories that have been reduced to nothing." They would not, how- ever, have been reduced to nothing. The detailed memories would, it is true, have perished; but their influence would have helped to mould the character with which the personality would begin its new life. An analogy to this has been found by Dr. McTaggart within the limits of a single life. " When a personal relation has existed for many years, many of the events which formed its temporal content, and had importance and significance at the time, are completely forgotten. But we do not regard them as lost, for.we recognise that each of them has done its part in moulding the relationship which exists at present. And so they are preserved—preserved indeed far more perfectly than they could be in memory. For, in memory, each of them would be a mere potentiality, except in the moment when it was actually thought of, while, as factors of disposition, they are all permanently real." Neither the happiness nor the value of an individual can depend upon his memory of the past. So long as we could be certain that our actions and thoughts in this life would help to determine our conditions and our relations to those we love in the next, we could afford to smile at death, even though it should prove to be a sleep and a forgetting.
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