1. Transformations of Personality.
I HAVE dwelt at length elsewhere upon a certain theory of
character, without which it is absolutely impossible to
understand divers transformations or inconsistencies of conduct
which occur at certain moments, notably in time of revolution.
Here are the principal points of this theory:
Every individual possesses, besides his habitual
mentality, which, when the environment does not alter, is almost
constant, various possibilities of character which may be evoked
by passing events.
The people who surround us are the creatures of certain
circumstances, but not of all circumstances. Our ego consists of
the association of innumerable cellular egos, the residues of
ancestral personalities. By their combination they form an
equilibrium which is fairly permanent when the social environment
does not vary. As soon as this environment is considerably
modified, as in time of insurrection, this equilibrium is broken,
and the dissociated elements constitute, by a fresh aggregation,
a new personality, which is manifested by ideas, feelings, and
actions very different from those formerly observed in the same
individual. Thus it is that during the Terror we see honest
bourgeois and peaceful magistrates who were noted for
their kindness turned into bloodthirsty fanatics.
Under the influence of environment the old personality may
therefore give place to one entirely new. For this reason the
actors in great religious and political crises often seem of a
different essence to ourselves; yet they do not differ from us;
the repetition of the same events would bring back the same men.
Napoleon perfectly understood these possibilities of
character when he said, in Saint Helena:—
“It is because I know just how great a part chance
plays in our political decisions, that I have always been without
prejudices, and very indulgent as to the part men have taken
during our disturbances. . . . In time of revolution one can
only say what one has done; it would not be wise to say that one
could not have done otherwise. . . . Men are difficult to
understand if we want to be just. . . . Do they know themselves?
Do they account for themselves very clearly? There are virtues
and vices of circumstance.”
When the normal personality has been disaggregated under
the influence of certain events, how does the new personality
form itself? By several means, the most active of which is the
acquisition of a strong belief. This orientates all the elements
of the understanding,
as the magnet collects into regular curves the filings of a
magnetic metal.
Thus were formed the personalities observed in times of
great crises: the Crusades, the Reformation, the Revolution
notably.
At normal times the environment varies little, so that as
a rule we see only a single personality in the individuals that
surround us. Sometimes, however, it happens that we observe
several, which in certain circumstances may replace one another.
These personalities may be contradictory and even
inimical. This phenomenon, exceptional under normal conditions,
is considerably accentuated in certain pathological conditions.
Morbid psychology has recorded several examples of multiple
personality in a single subject, such as the cases cited by
Morton Prince and Pierre Janet.
In all these variations of personality it is not the
intelligence which is modified, but the feelings, whose
association forms the character.
