MIXED MUSINGS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15504, 10 January 1914, Page 1 (Supplement)

MIXED MUSINGS.

BY J. GILES. But if it be possible for the same man to have distinct incommunicable consciousness at different tunes, it is past doubt the same man would at different times make different persons. —Locke. The subject of personal identity raises subtle questions which easily lead even intelligent minds into mists and fogs, and it is only with hesitation and caution that I venture to thrust a probe through the surface of the mystery. Even the powerful and acute intellect of John Locke, in his chapter on "Identity and Diversity," seems to me to have fallen somewhat short of a full solution of the problem ; but, at all events, in the passage I have taken for my heading, he comes to a clear recognition of the conceivability of the same man having at different times different personalities. In my last "Musings" I touched upon this subject in alluding to an interesting dialogue between the Lord Buddha and the inquirer Kutadanta. This conversation seems to me to bristle with more subtleties than even Locke's chapter, but a glance at them may prove entertaining and perhaps profitable. The Buddha says : " Suppose there is a man who feels like you, thinks like you, and. acts like you, is le not the same man as you?" "No, sir," promptly replies the Brahman. Kutadanta has already admitted that a relighted flame may, in a sense, be called the same with the flame before its extinction, and the Master now asks him why the logic which holds good in other things should not hold good in relation to his own identity. Kutadanta, however, is disposed to stand to his guns. He thinks I Ihere is a peculiarity about himself which makes it altogether different from everything else and from other selves; so that, though "there may be another man who feels exactly like me, thinks like me, and acts like me; suppose even he had the same name and the same kind of possessions, he would not be myself." "True, Kutadanta," says the Buddha, " he would not be thyself." And then he goes on to question the Brahman about the identity of the infant, the boy, and the old man; and when Kutadanta admits their identity he is asked whether he thinks that sameness is constituted - by continuity onlyto which he replies: " Not only by continuity, but also t.nd mainly by identity of character." Thereupon the Teacher proceeds to convince him that the life of the man who inherits the karma of the old self is as truly a continuation of the life of that self as the life of any person at any moment is a continuation of the life of that person at any previous moment; and that he who would deny this must also logically deny that he who receives an answer to a question is the same as he who asked it.

But, since this identity is admitted to obtain only " in a sense," and " in another sense" not to obtain, the inquirer may still remain a little perplexed, although Kutadanta was, of course, convinced. The teachings of the Buddha seem to have consisted very much of questioning, after the Socratic method; and we may recall how De Quincey found the arguments of Socrates so unsatisfactory that he wished he could have had the chance of " putting on the gloves" and having a bout with the Master. And in the above dialogue some of us may feel that there are one or two points on which a little further light would be welcome. "But I have introduced this subject of identity' because if) has a bearing upon some objections that are felt to the doctrine of reincarnation.

A correspondent argues that since men of mature ago have ripe and developed characters, " it is an absurdity to suppose that these characters can in any way and under any circumstances be boiled down as it were and compressed in any puling infant which comes into the world without any character whatever." I agree with my correspondent that the idea is quite absurd, but I do not see how it is involved in reincarnation. I have seen a plum banana forced into a whisky bottle by exhaust li. the air in the latter with a piece of burning paper, and-1 have read of the Genie who allowed the fisherman to bamboozle him into condensing himself once more into the pot to be closed up again with Solomon's seal ; but I scarcely think either of these methods can illustrate the mode of reincarnation of the human entity. lam afraid such procedure would hardly conduce to the growth and development of the unfortunate baby. But is it an unreasonable suggestion that the soul undertaking the business of again engaging in the terrene life should employ in the process no more of his spiritual energies than the occasion requires, and that be should put no more of himself into the baby body than the latter can accommodate with safety and comfort the " ego" all the while living in his own world, thinking his own thoughts, and indulging in his own speculations? And as the young organism grows the superintending "ego" may find it a sufficiently fascinating and engrossing business to watch and promote its growth, and to stimulate its development, if possible beyond the stage attained in his previous " innings." The objection, indeed, seems to be completely answered if we can grasp the truth which is now held by many thinking people, and which seems confirmed by what is known of the so-called subliminal" self, and many psychic phenomena that the real human being is never fully represented through the physical brain or personality ; and that it is simply because of this incompetency of the latter that repeated earth-lives are necessary until the spirit has thoroughly mastered and attuned all its lower vehicles. When this is accomplished the wheel of rebirth will cease to drag the soul in its revolution. But my correspondent at once brings me back to the question of identity. He says that even if the squeezing process, which he has already pronounced absurd, were possible, " identity is not preserved. It is another being, another creation, and not myself in any point which constitutes identity, which must essentially be of the spirit, not of the body." Here again I am able to express substantial agreement with my esteemed correspondent,, though I think he has here expressed himself a little loosely. _ Certainly I think there is no personal identity between these two supposed manifestations of the " ego." The two persons are altogether diverse. The John Smith of to-day is not the same person as the James Jones of a former lime, although the spirit which formerly tried, perhaps unsuccessfully, to mould James Jones in a desirable fashion, has brought over certain results gained during hie connection with the personality, James Jones—certain elements of character —which we may hope will give him some additional driving power in renewing his experiment on the personality, John Smith. I believe some occultists "say that Tennyson was a reincarnation of Virgil, and the suggestion will scarcely be deemed impossible by anyone acquainted with the writings of both poets. Yet it would be absurd to say that Alfred Tennyson was once Virgilius Mam, for Tennyson and Virgil are earth-names, and not of the spirit, which could not fully manifest itself even through those two superb vehicles of expression. But since my correspondent himself says that identity must be of the spirit and not of the body, has he not completely answered his own obiec tion? J

The thoughts that I have here presented are not to be in any way taken as involving the slightest claim to knowledge or teaching capacity. They are only suggestions intended to stimulate thought in others who may feel an interest in subjects lying off the beaten track of worldly

engrossments. The practical outcome seems to be this : that all of us have two selves, one of thai spirit and one of the personality. The latter is so untrustworthy an entity that the Buddha pronounced it to be an illusory thing, always leading those who trusted it into errors ; and I think no one who has entered into the spirit of St. Paul's complaints on this head will think that the Buddha's teaching on this point was extravagant. And surely the question of identity is best settled by regarding it as a thing of the spirit, as mv correspondent says. Then we may realise that "persons" are not identical with each other, but that the supposed individual spirits of humanity" are in the highest sense a unity. The " heresy of separateness" is the one heresy that eats away the vitality of all religions, and it can only be destroyed when, to quote the words of a Master, one " recognises this individuality as not himself, but that thing ... by means of which he purposes, as his growth slowly develops his intelligence, to reach to the life beyond individuality." I will end with a more homely reminder to those who regard reincarnation as too fantastical a doctrine for consideration, that Professor Huxley declared that no serious thinker would reject it hastily, and that in his opinion natural analogies were in its favour.