Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS; OR, THE EXPERIENCES OF AN INDOOR SERVANT.

Cogitationis nomine intelligo illa omnia quæ nobis consciis in nobis fiunt, quatenus eorum in nobis conscientia est.-Descartes, Prin. Phil. i. § 9.

All theories of the human mind profess to be interpretations of consciousness; the conclusions of all of them are supposed to rest on that ultimate evidence, either immediately or remotely. What consciousness directly reveals, together with what can be legitimately inferred from its revelations, composes, by universal admission, all that we know of the mind or indeed of any other thing.-Mill, Examination of Sir W. Hamilton, p. 107.

AM, what I have always been, indoor servant and general maidof-all-work to the human family, in which I have lived ever since I can remember. My regular duties have mostly been to superintend the outdoor servants and to perform all the work of the house that could properly be called indoor, especially to wait on my master by answering his bell and his questions. These duties have however varied somewhat from time to time, according to the pleasure of my masters, as the following narrative will sufficiently show. Probably no servant that ever existed has experienced more of the ups and downs attending such a life than I have in one place I have been made much of, in another, I have been treated shamefully. It is possible that a short account of the more remarkable of these experiences may prove interesting to many of the members of that great family, which I have served so long, and who I feel sure regard me for the most part with the greatest possible love and respect. I purpose therefore relating my fortunes in the great houses where I have lived; not that I was always best off in these places, but like other domestics I feel that to have been a kitchen-maid in a duke's establishment is a greater honour than to have been confidential servant in an ordinary mansion.

To begin at the beginning: I cannot pretend to tell the time of my birth; but that I have been in

existence for many generations, is a fact I know to be true. Not that, like some people I know, I am ashamed of my old age, I am rather proud of it. It is some confirmation of an opinion I have always ardently cherished-that I am immortal. Of my parentage, I will only say that I have always entertained the belief that I am of Divine origin, and this belief has also been held by some of my best and greatest masters; of late years however some men have been trying to persuade the world that I am of mere human, or I might rather say, of brute, origin. The same people also affirm that I am much older than I imagine myself to be. There was a time when I thought that I came into existence with the first progenitors of the Human family, and that I was therefore somewhere between five and six thousand years old; I am now informed that, in common with these progenitors, I am vastly older than six thousand years. They say that I must, from my birth to the present time, be entitled to reckon some millions of years. One thing has always vexed me in these recent revelations, if I may so call them, viz. That while I am not displeased at the extension they give to my life, I am very displeased at the low origin to which they ascribe it. However, I have lived long in the world, and I have met with evils even worse than denying my Divine parentage; I have met with men

who have not scrupled to call me a liar, and even to deny me any real existence at all.

There is, as I know from having lived with the Human family so long, a period of human life when the child has hardly come to realise its own existence. Similarly, in my own case, there was a very long, long period, in which, though I existed, though I proved my existence by immense activity in performing my indoor functions, yet nobody seemed to recognise it as a fact, no one gave me credit for it. Even after I had become thoroughly established in the service of the Human family, taking a part in all their thoughts, speculations, and indoor work generally, they were a long time without even giving me a name; at least, they did not give me my proper name-a name which should express in one word the fact of my existence, and my inseparable connection with Humanity. I have heard for indeed there are few opinions extant, or ever have been extant, that I have not heard that the depriving a child of its name does it grievous injury. I can confirm this opinion by my own case, for I discovered that my not possessing a name was equivalent to affirming my non-existence. So that if it be true, as has been said, that people are apt to take the name for the thing expressed by it, it is equally true, that they never reverse the process; names, according to my experience, are nothing less than primary conditions of all existence.

At last, after many centuries of this nameless unrealised existence, I had a name given me, a word was found which established my existence and at the same time expressed the position I had the honour to hold in the Human family.

At this period, therefore, my life fairly begins. A brave man whose name was M. Descartes ventured to call attention to these unex

pressed truths of my existence and my utility. He offered to make me mistress of his own house, telling me in three Latin words that he could not live without me. Nay, he went further than this, and in the exuberance of his passion, said he was sure nobody could live without me. In a word he made my service to Humanity the proof of its existence. This, as the reader may easily suppose, was a great rise in life for me.

I had now what every

servant regards as the main objects of her life; a home, a position, and a name. The years I spent with this master I have always looked upon as among the happiest in my long existence. My work was here, as elsewhere, to control the five outdoor servants, to perform a variety of indoor offices, and to wait on my master. This was indeed a pleasure to me, from the very great respect he always showed for me. He gave me the first place in his house and consulted my wishes and followed my advice in everything, and were it not for occasional fits of dimness of vision, from which I have suffered throughout my life, and which imparted an air of uncertainty to some of my dictates, my cup of happiness might now be said to be full. My master was not long in discovering this my defect; accordingly he set about finding out and discriminating my clear-sighted moods from my dim-sighted ones. He used to tell me, and other people when speaking of me, that whatever I saw and testi fied of clearly, was indubitably true, and he drew up a series of rules by which he might judge whether in any given matter my vision was perfectly clear. It will therefore be seen that I was with M. Descartes much more a mistress than a ser vant; indeed, few mistresses pro bably ever had such undoubting confidence reposed in them, as my master placed in me. I was, in short, his indoor oracle, and he

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

showed his unfeigned belief in my make clear utterances by employing me to discover truth for him; for instance, he had once doubted the existence of a Divine Ruler of the world, and to some extent, of the world about him; I however did not scruple to avow my solemn oracular conviction that there was such a Divine Being (whom indeed I regard as the author of my existence), and that the world was not a fictitious appearance but a reality. Relying on my testimony, he then accepted these beliefs as true. I may however here confess the fact that, like most confidential and favourite servants, I often managed to find out, in a doubtful matter, which way my master's own prepossessions tended, and being naturally of a pliable disposition and easily influenced by those with whom I came in contact, I accommodated my opinions to what I believed to be his wish.

One great service which my living with M. Descartes effected for me, was to introduce me to the world by giving me a name and position. I now experienced the truth which I have no doubt most servants have had occasion to learn, that to have lived in one good place with an excellent character is a fortune to a servant. From this time forward, therefore, I felt sure of being able to find as many places as I chose to fill. And in this expectation I was not deceived; for when my master died, an event which was to me the cause of unfeigned sorrow, I had many places offered to me by his disciples, all of which I undertook, and, as I hope, discharged to the satisfaction of my masters. I cannot, however, mention all these. I therefore hurry on to the next grand place in which it was my privilege to live.

This was in the house of a Jew of Amsterdam, whose name was Benedict de Spinoza. He was, as I

can prove, a most amiable and good man, though, as in the case of other good men, this did not save him from persecution at the hands of the bad. He had made my acquaintance through the instrumentality of M. Descartes. He directly professed the greatest regard for me, and insisted on my coming to live with him. I did so, and found myself treated with the greatest honour. He did not indeed always call me by the name which my late master had given, and which I love best to go by; but in other respects my treatment was just as kind, and for the most part my work and position were the same as they had been with M. Descartes. Perhaps, however, he was a trifle more particular than my late master in discriminating between my clear-sighted and my dim intervals, so as to separate what he held to be my certainly true from my possibly false opinions. He made out a list of these latter, and included among them many items which other masters with whom I lived had not hesitated to pronounce indubitably true. But when he once had reason to suppose that my vision was good, the credit he gave to it was unbounded. He would allow no one to call it in question for a single moment. He also readily admitted my Divine origin; but as he assigned the same origin to everything, even to the outdoor servants and their work, I did not value the honour highly.

I now come to a part of my history when my lot was destined to undergo a change. In all the places where I had lived, I had hitherto been completely an indoor servant, having all the outdoor servants entirely under my control. True, I was supposed in many cases to have taken counsel with them before forming my own opinions; but it often happened that I did not think of doing this, and formed my own judgments just as if they

had never existed. They did indeed say that the advice I gave my masters was often false, but that might have been merely the utterance of their spite and envy, for, like head servants elsewhere, I could afford, in the full confidence of my masters' regard, to look down upon the menials below me.

What, then, was my disgust and dismay when I found, in my next two grand places, that I, who had been made so much of by my other masters, was to be put forsooth in complete subordination to the outdoor servants. Those places were with two Englishmen, whose names were Thomas Hobbes and John Lock; (and here I may observe parenthetically that the position assigned to me in English houses have generally been inferior to that which I have obtained in my French or German places). In these two cases the five outdoor servants were taken, for the first time in their lives, into full confidence, and I was deputed to fulfil no higher task than to convey to my master what they chose to tell me. I was, in short, now become, instead of confidential servant and complete mistress of the house, a mere messenger or errandrunner between my master and his outdoor upstarts. The reason of this may possibly have been that, suffering avowedly from blindness at certain times or in view of certain objects, the suspicion may have gone abroad that even my clear-sighted opinions were not infallible. Anyhow I was now to take the lower servants' place. However, I hope I did my duty to the best of my power. I have said before that I am of a pliable disposition, and I now had ample opportunity of testing it. The five outdoor servants were now become five household oracles, and did nothing all day long but deliver their judgments and opinions, and that with such an air of authority, that for my part I was quite disgusted at them. However,

I still maintained considerable intercourse with my master; for, though the outdoor servants now gave their advice, they could not deliver it directly to my master. They were, however, very cautious that I should not add to, or take away anything from it, in communication. Besides, there were a few completely indoor offices, which, as the outdoor servants could not do, were still in my sole charge. But the general rule of the house was expressed in an old Latin sentence, the sense of which was, 'Nothing can be done by Consciousness but what the outdoor servants show her the way to do,' and if this did not indicate that the outdoor servants were to be set above me, I know not what meaning the words could have. One result of my holding these two English places was the experience. which they brought me of the difference in men's estimation of indoor and outdoor life. My former masters lived almost altogether indoors, and so had special need of indoor service. My present masters, as indeed many of those who succeeded them, lived a great part of their time out of doors, only retiring within when driven to do so by the unfavourable condition of the weather, consequently the outdoor servants were in most request.

Badly as I had been treated here, I was destined to undergo a lower depth of degradation. I went to look for a place, on Mr. Lock's recommendation, with a M. Condillac, but he told me, he had no need of me; the outdoor servants could do their own work and mine too. Notwithstanding this refusal I lived in his house for some time, but he did his best to ignore me, and persisted in denying my existence even while receiving service at my hands.

My next great place was with an enemy of Mr. Lock's, whose name was Leibnitz. He at once put me in a better position than I had latterly obtained. He was indeed very

angry with Mr. Lock for treating me as he had done, and so far as he could, he showed his feeling for me by deeds as well as words. He at once set me in my old position as to the outdoor servants by limiting their functions and increasing mine. Their work was directed to be submitted unconditionally to my judgment and inspection, and my estimate of it was to be final. Besides which, he gave me the character for Necessary Truth which was awarded to me by my first master, M. Descartes. My present master, moreover, added a clause to the rule of Mr. Lock's house when adopting it for his own establishment. He ob. served that the tendency of the rule was to do away with my existence altogether. Hence, he modified the rule by affirming, 'Nothing can be done by Consciousness, but what the outdoor servants show her the way to do, except manifest her own existence.' I found in after-life that this alteration, though it may not seem much, was in reality of great

use to me.

I come now to speak of another small change in my condition. This happened at my next place, which was with an Irish bishop, of the name of Berkeley. Here the outdoor servants were made nothing of; indeed, but that he could not do very well without them, I verily believe he would have turned them away; however, they were considered as so many nonentities and their work was given over to the care of the Ruler of the world, in whose sight alone, my master said, it could have any value or reality. As may therefore be supposed, my present master lived a very indoor life; so much was this the case, that his enemies affirmed that he denied the existence of anything out of doors at all. But this was, to say the least, a great exaggeration. So much, however, of this report was true, that most of the housework in this place fell into

my hands. I even managed to do some offices that had hitherto been performed by the outdoor servants; and to fall in with my master's fondness for indoor life, whenever I delivered my opinions, I ignored as much as possible all the share which the outdoor servants may have had in contributing to form them.

From this place I went to the house of a Scotchman, whose name was David Hume. Here I was once more very badly treated. He agreed with my late master in putting no trust in his outdoor servants, but he differed from him in extending an equal distrust to my own judgments or even to my own existence. For anything he knew, he said, my existence might not be a real one, and if I possessed such a thing, I might employ it in telling lies. Never before had I had such a character. I could excuse his want of confidence in his outdoor servants, but that, without any provocation, he should treat me in the same manner was, I thought, too bad. However, if he gave me the lie in public, he for the most part believed me in private; and so I was content to stay with him; but he was certainly among the most troublesome masters I ever had to serve.

In

The next great place I took was under a German professor, Immanuel Kant. Here I again obtained a very high position, being at once reinstated in my own place of superior and confidential servant. this establishment the outdoor servants' work was very limited. They were indeed allowed to begin the work of the house, but all the higher and more delicate parts of it had to be accomplished by me. Moreover, several tasks which my English masters generally had shown an inclination to give the outdoor servants, Professor Kant at once assigned to me; especially I had to undertake the production of two useful commodities to the Human family called Space and

« AnteriorContinuar »