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 PERSONS

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PERSONS

nating periods, but simultaneously. Thus M. Taine cites tlie case of a lady who while continuing a con- versation would write a whole page of intelligent and connected matter on some quite alien subject. She had no notion of what she had been writing, and was frequently surprised, sometimes even alarmed, on reading what she had written.

In dealing with the problems suggested by such phenomena, one must first of all be sure that the facts are well attested and that fraud is excluded. It should also be noted that these are abnormal condi- tions, whereas the nature of personality must be determined by a study of the normal individual. Nor is it permissible even in these exceptional cases to infer a "multiple" personality, so long as the phenomena can be explained as symptoms of disease in one and the same personality.

The various groups of phenomena enumerated above would merit the title of different "personal- ities", if it could be shown (a) that personality is constituted by functioning as such, and not by an underlying substantial principle, or (b) that, granted that there be a formal principle of unity, such cases showed the presence in the individual, successively or simultaneously, of two or more such principles, or (e) that the principle was not simple and spiritual but capable of division into several separately function- ing components. The hypothesis that functioning, as such, constitutes personality has already been shown insufficient to account for the facts of normal con- sciousness, while the other theories are opposed to the permanence and simplicity of the human soul. Nor are any of these theories necessary to account for the facts. The soul not being a pure spirit but the "form " of the body, it follows that while it performs acts in which the body has no share as a cause, still the soul is coniUtioned in its activity by the state of the physical organism. Now, in the case of non-simultaneous double personality, the essential feature is the break of memory. Some experiences are not referred to the same "self" as other experiences; in fact, the mem- ory of that former self disappears for the time being. Concerning this one may remark that such failures of memory are exaggerated ; there is no complete loss of all that has been acquired in the former state. Apart from the memory of definite facts about oneself there remains always much of the ordinary intel- lectual possession. Thus the baker "A. J. Browne" was able to keep his accounts and use the language intelligently. That he could do so shows the perma- nence of the same intellectual and therefore non-com- posite principle. The disappearance from his memory of most of his experiences merely shows that his physical organism, by the state of which the action of his soul is conditioned, was not working in the normal way.

In other words, while the presence of any form of intellectual memory shows the continuance of a per- manent spiritual principle, the loss of memory does not prove the contrary; it is merely absence of evi- dence either way. Thus the theory that the soul acts as the "form" of the body explains the two partially dissevered chains of memory. What sort of change in the nervous organism would be necessary to account for the calling up of two completely different sets of experiences, as occurs in double personality, no psychologists, even those who consider the physical organism the sole principle of unity, pretend to explain satisfactorily. It may be remarked that such manifestations are almost always found in hysterical subjects, whose nervous organization is highly un- stable, and that frequently there are indications which point to definite lesion or disease in the brain.

The alleged cases of simultaneous double person- ality, manifested usually by speech in the case of one" and writing in the case of the other, present special difficulty, in that there is question not of loss

of memory of an action performed, but of want of consciousness of the action during its actual perform- ance. There are certainly degrees of consciousness, even of intellectual operation. The doubt therefore always remains as to whether the so-called uncon- scious writing, if really indicative of mental operation, be literally unconscious or only very faintly conscious. But there is a further doubt, namely, as to whether the writing of the "secondary personality" is intel- lectual at all at the moment. The nervous processes of the brain being set in motion may run their course without any demand arising for the intellectual action of the soul. In the case of such highly nervous sub- jects, it is at least possible that images imprinted on the nervous organism are committed to writing by purely automatic and reflex action.

Finally, there remains a sense in which phenomena of the same nature as those we have been considering may be indicative of the presence of a second person- ality, e. g. when the body is under the influence of an alien spirit. Possession is something the possibility of which the Church takes for granted. This, how- ever, would not imply a true double personality in one individual. The invading being would not enter into composition with the body to form one person with it, but would be an extrinsic agentcommunicating local motion to a bodily frame which it did not "in- form". (See Consciousness; Soul.)

MvEBS, Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death, 1 (London, 1903), ii. and appendix: Ribot, Les Maladies de la Fer~ sonnalite (Paris, 1885), tr. The Diseases of Personality (Chicago, 1906); Mahe-!, Psychology (London, 1903); Roube, Eludes, LXXV, 35, 492, 636; Richmond, An Essay on Personality as a Philosophical Principle (London, 1900); Illingwobth, Person- ality, Human and Divine (London, 1894), i, ii; Harper, Meta- physics of the .School, bk. V (London, 1879), ii, iii; Binet, Lee Allirations de la Personnalite (Paris, 1892), tr. (London, 1896); On Double Consciousness (Chicago, 1905).

L. W. Geddes.

Persons (also, but less correctly, Parsons), Rob- ert, .losiut, b. at Nether Stowey, Somerset, 24 June, l."j Hi; a. in Rome, 15 April, 1610.

I. Eakly Life. — His parents were of the yeoman class (for the controversy about them, see below "Memoirs", pp. 36-47), but several of his many brothers rose to good positions. By favour of the local parson, Julm Hay ward (onci' ;i monk at Tmin- ton), Robert w:is sent to St. Mar\ s Hall, Oxfor.l (1562). After tak- ing his degrees with distinction he became fellow and tutor at Balliul (1568); but i:; Feb., 1574, he was forced to resign, partly because of his strong Cath- olic leanings, part- ly through coll(>ge quarrels. Before long, he went abroad, and was reconciled, proba- bly by Father William Good, S.J., and after a year spent in travel and study, he became a Jesuit at Rome (3 July, 1575).

II. English Mission, 1579-1581. — At Rome he suggested the PInglish mission for the Society, ana when the students of llic iMiglish ('(illcgo (q- v.) there came into ililliciillies with their first rector, he exerted himself to maintain peace, and proposed the "oath of