(1) Self -consciousness is the soul's utterance 'I am.' (rt) I am myself and nobody else (cf. Jn 9* iyuj dfu). Almost tlie first sense of personality is that it speaks from behind closed doors. It can look out on otiiers, but they cannot enter un- invited to share its life. This point is brought out in Holman Hunfs famous picture ' The Light of the World,' in which the door has no handle outside. ' Each self is a unique existence, which is perfectly impervious to other selves — impervious in a fashion of which the impenetrability of matter is a faint analogue' (Seth, Hegelian ism and Per- sonalitij, p. 216). (b) I am mj'self amid the varied functions of mj' being. Spinoza based personality on the intellect, Schleiermacher on the feeling, Scliopenhauer on the will. But personality subtly underlies thinking, feeling, and willing. They are only modes of the soul's self-expression. Thej' are unified in the intuition ' I am." In Jn 6^ there is an illustrative use of iyJ} el/jn, when Jesus assured the disciples of His personal identity behind an unfamiliar appearance. (c) I am myself in a continiiity of experience. In all movement of time and change of circumstances the soul still knows itself as the same. We cannot get rid of our own past ; it is with us still. And no sceptical philosophy can dissolve this elemental fact. There is a corresponding sense of eyd) eifxi in Jn 8**, where Jesus says, ' Before Abraham was, I am,' and reveals tlie wonderful secret of His self-conscious- ness.— These modes of the soul's utterance 'I am' enter into tlie basis of our understanding, on which is erected that faculty of the soul called reason, by which we cognize and construe the world. But the soul must be considered not only in this static, but also in its dynamic aspect, in its —
(2) Self-determination, which is the soul's asser- tion 'I will.' The soul selects and pursues its own ends at the bidding of its own desires. It has music of its oa\ti to beat out, by appreciating and appropriating objects in its own enWronment. The whole range of enjoyment in the pursuit of happiness on the one hand, and of endurance in the path of duty on the other, rests on the use of this power of self-determination. But that which moralizes the human will is that it responds to two voices — (a) 'I can.' The sense of liberty therein expressed is an essential element of per-
sonality, and through the intuition of the soul it has held its own as an assertion of free will in spite of the affirmations of reason respecting the win of God (in theology) or the laws ot nature (in science). Our moral sense is strictly bound up with this assertion of the soul, without which theie can be neither merit, nor blame, nor any accountabilitj-. It is this which binds up our being with that of God.
' So near is glory to our dust.
So nigh is God to man, When Duty whispers low, " Thou must," The youth replies, " I can." ' (Emerson).
(b) 'I must.' Not, however, until 'I will" is con- summated in ' I must " is the height of personality reached, for its liberty of will is given for the sake of its voluntary obedience. When the personality has found its master, its resources are all enlisted on the side of self-determination, especially when for loves sake we lose ourselves. In other words, the highest outgoing and incoming of personality in self-determination is in the exercise of love.
' Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords
with might, Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music
out of sight.'
2. Christ's influence on the conception of per- sonality.— The full extension of the possibilities of personality is due to Jesus Christ. He opened up new \istas for the soul's self-consciousness by re- vealing the inherent but hitherto hidden natures of God, the world, and the soul, whereby the value of the jjersonality has been infinitely enhanced ; and higher ways for the souls self-determination bj- bringing the gift of the Holy Spirit, in the strengtli of which the soul overcomes the world, submits to God, and thus realizes itself. This is what the \\orld was waiting for. Prof. Bigg ( The Ch u rch a n d Bonian Empire) shows that the Eastern religions of Isis and Jlithras were being welcomed because bj- their virtual monotheism and their proffer of peace and happiness they seemed to meet the need-* of the newlj- discovered personalitj'. Christ did this completely. He supijlied the kej- of know- ledge to self-consciousness and the nerve of power to self-determination. Henceforth the soul is a possibility to be realized through knowledge in obedience. These are the two factors of faith, for ' faith is at once a vision and an allegiance ' (Hort). Prior to Christ, and still apart from Him, the con- ception of the world has largely absorbed both the notion of God (in Polytheism, Pantheism, and Fatalism), and that of the soul (in Naturalism and Materialism). But through Christ, God and man draw out apart from the world, apart from each other too (sin being the 'sunderer") ; and j^et more trulj' close to each other, under the common conception of personality in which lx)tli share as di.stinguished from the world. lUingworth has put the whole point finelj' at the end of his 5tli Banip- ton Lecture : ' As reason qualifies and conditions our whole animal nature bj' its presence, so that we are never merely animals, spiritualitj- also per- meates and modifies all that we call our natural faculties ; and our personality itself is, in this sense, as truly supernatural as the Divine Person in whom alone it finds its home.'