"In man, personality is usually defined with reference to self-consciousness rather than to individuality; but the power of reflection and self-knowledge is linked up, in our type of personality at least, with the new flight of individuality — conscious memory seems necessarily to imply a vast increase of independence, so that it is all one whether we define the possessor of personality as a self-conscious individual, or as an individual whose individuality is more extensive both in space and time than the material substance of his body. Personality, as we know it, is free compared with the individuality of the lower animals; but it is still weighted down with the body. There may be personalities which have not merely transcended substance, but are rid of it altogether: in all ages the theologian and the mystic have told of such "disembodied spirits," postulated by the one, felt by the other, and now the psychical investigator with his automatic writing and his cross-correspondences is seeking to give us rigorous demonstration of them. If such exist, they crown Life's progress..."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Julian Huxley
Sir Julian Sorell Huxley FRS (June 22 1887 – February 14 1975) was an English evolutionary biologist, author, humanist and internationalist, known for his popularisations of science in books and lectures. He was the elder brother of Aldous Huxley.
33 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Julian Huxley →
Related Quotes
"Natural selection, in fact, though like the mills of God in grinding slowly and grinding small, has few other attribu…"
"Christianity is a universalist and monotheist religion of salvation. Its long consolidation and explosive spread, ach…"
"Religion in some form is a universal function of man in society, the organ for dealing with the problems of destiny, …"
"Let me remind my readers that the term divine did not originally imply the existence of gods: on the contrary, gods w…"
"Human potentialities constitute the world's greatest resource, but at the moment only a tiny fraction of them is bein…"
"A religion of fulfilment must provide bustling secular man with contacts with all that is permanent and enduring, wit…"
"The last two thousand years have seen the development of elaborate monotheistic theologies; but in the process their …"
"Eventually the old ideas will no longer serve, the old ideological framework can no longer be tinkered up to bear the…"
"God is a hypothesis constructed by man to help him understand what existence is all about.... To say that God is ulti…"
"Evolution is a process, of which we are products, and in which we are active agents. There is no finality about the p…"