That which determines a man, that which makes him one man, one and not
another, the man he is and not the man he is not, is a principle of
unity and a principle of continuity. A principle of unity firstly in
space, thanks to the body, and next in action and intention. When we
walk, one foot does not go forward and the other backward, nor, when we
look, if we are normal, does one eye look towards the north and the
other towards the south. In each moment of our life we entertain some
purpose, and to this purpose the synergy of our actions is directed.
Notwithstanding the next moment we may change our purpose. And in a
certain sense a man is so much the more a man the more unitary his
action. Some there are who throughout their whole life follow but one
single purpose, be it what it may.
Also a principle of continuity in time. Without entering upon a
discussion--an unprofitable discussion--as to whether I am or am not he
who I was twenty years ago, it appears to me to be indisputable that he
who I am to-day derives, by a continuous series of states of
consciousness, from him who was in my body twenty years ago. Memory is
the basis of individual personality, just as tradition is the basis of
the collective personality of a people. We live in memory and by
memory, and our spiritual life is at bottom simply the effort of our
memory to persist, to transform itself into hope, the effort of our past
to transform itself into our future.
Pages:
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57