OF THE SPIRIT. 



331 



And here we must remove the ancient prejudice that se. 



Personality 



the predicate of personality can only be vouchsafed to jjJ^L|_ 

 a being which exists through its difference from, and 



Lotze's speculation. Again and 

 again he recurs to it. Not only 

 does the discussion in the 4th chap- 

 ter of the last book of the ' Micro- 

 cosmus' turn on this important 

 subject, but it also formed one of 

 the principal points for treatment 

 in his lectures on ' Philosophy of 

 Religion ' (see ' Grundziige der 

 Religionsphilosophie,' 1882, sees. 

 30-86). The classical passage in 

 the ' Microcosmus ' is the follow- 

 ing : (vol. iii. p. 573 ; English 

 transl. by Hamilton and Jones, vol. 

 ii. p. 685 sqq. ) "The ordinary 

 doubts as to the possibility of the 

 personal existence of the Infinite 

 have not shaken our conviction. 

 But in seeking to refute them, we 

 have had the feeling that we were 

 occupying a position which only 

 the most extraordinary perversion 

 of all natural relations could have 

 brought about. The course of de- 

 velopment of philosophic thought 

 has forced us into the attitude of 

 having to show that the conditions 

 of personality which we meet with 

 in finite things are not lacking to 

 the Infinite ; the natural position 

 of the matter should rather have 

 led us to show that of the full 

 personality, possible only in the 

 Infinite, a faint reflection is vouch- 

 safed likewise to the finite ; for not 

 producing conditions, but hin- 

 drances in the way of the develop- 

 ment of self-existence are the 

 peculiarities of the finite ; to these 

 we wrongly attach its claim to 

 personal existence. The finite be- 

 ing acts everywhere by means of 

 forces which it has not given to 

 itself and according to laws which 

 it has not made- that is to say, 

 by means of a mental organisa- 

 tion which exists not only in itself 



but likewise in innumerable of its 

 equals. Hence in reflecting on 

 self, it may easily seem to it as if 

 in it were an obscure and unknown 

 substance, on which rested as on a 

 support all personal life. Hence 

 those never completely silenced 

 questionings : What then we our- 

 selves are ? What our souls ? 

 What that dark, unintelligible, 

 never thoroughly conscious self 

 which works in our emotions and 

 passions ? That these questions 

 can arise is a proof how little per- 

 sonality is developed in us to the 

 extent which its idea permits and 

 requires. It can perfectly only 

 exist in the Infinite Being who in 

 reviewing all its phases and actions 

 nowhere meets with a feature in 

 its passive or active life, the mean- 

 ing and origin of which were not 

 quite transparent and explicable 

 out of its own nature. The posi- 

 tion of the finite mind, tied as it is 

 to a special place in the general 

 order of things, is the cause why its 

 inner life is gradually wakened by 

 external stimuli, why it flows on 

 according to the laws of a psychical 

 mechanism, which orders single 

 ideas, feelings, and desires to chase 

 and expel each other. Hence there 

 is never a concentration of the 

 whole self in one moment, our con- 

 sciousness never presents to us a 

 picture of our whole self, neither of 

 its co-existent states nor even less 

 of the unity of its development in 

 time. To ourselves we ever appear 

 from a partial point of view which 

 discloses only a portion of our be- 

 ing ; roused by external touches we 

 react with this partial conscious- 

 ness ; only in a limited sense can 

 we truly say that we act ; rather, 

 in most cases something happens ' 



