Internal difference, has so far ceased to be mere

resemblance, and has become identity. Resemblance, we

saw, demands two things that resemble, and it demands

also that the exact point of resemblance shall not be

distinguished. This is essential to resemblance as

contradistinguished against identity, and this is why--

because you do not know what the point of resemblance is

and whether it may not be complex--you cannot in logic

use mere resemblance as sameness. You can indeed, we

also saw, while analyzing still retain your perception

of resemblance, but, so far as you analyze, you so far

have got something else, and, when you argue, it is not

the resemblance which you use but the point of

resemblance, if at least your argument is logical. But a

point of resemblance is clearly an identity. And it is,

we saw, the double sense of the word

"likeness," which seems to authorize this use of

likeness for sameness. Likeness may mean my specific

experience of resemblance--and that of course itself is

not identity--or it may mean the real partial sameness

in character of two things whether to me they resemble

or not. Thus "exact likeness" can be used for the

identical character which makes the point of likeness,

and it need not mean the mere likeness which can be

opposed to identity. And where exact likeness does not

mean the identical character, bankruptcy at once is

patent.

We are warned, "You must not say that two notes are

the same note, or that two peas have the same colour,

for that is to prove yourself incompetent to draw an

elementary distinction; or rather you may say this with

us, if with us you are clear that you do not mean it,

but mean with us mere resemblance." And when we ask, Are

the notes and colours then really different, we hear

that "the likeness is exact." But with this I myself am

not able to be satisfied. I want to know whether within

the character of the sounds and within the character of

the colours there is asserted any difference or none.

And here, as I understand it, the ways divide. If you

mean to deny identity, your one consistent course is

surely to reply, "Of course there is a difference. I

know what words mean, and when I said that it was not

the same but only alike, I meant to assert an internal

diversity, though I do not know exactly what that is.

Plainly for me to have said in one breath, The character

has no difference and yet it is not the same character,

would have been suicidal." And this position, I admit,

is so far self-consistent; but it ends on all sides in

intellectual ruin. But the other way, so far as I

understand it, is to admit and to assert that in exact

likeness there is really no difference, to admit and to

assert that it involves a point of resemblance in which

internally no diversity is taken to exist, and which we

use logically on the understanding that divergence of

character is excluded--and then, on the other side, to

insist that here we still have no sameness but

only likeness. And with this, so far as I can see, there

is an end of argument. I can myself understand such an

attitude only as the result of an unconscious

determination to deny a doctrine from fear of its

consequences.

But if we are to look at consequences--and I am ready

to look at them--why should we be blind on one side? To

avoid confusion between what may be called individual

sameness and mere identity of character, we should of

course all agree, is most desirable. But the idea that

you will avoid a mistake by making an error, that you

will prevent a confusion between different kinds of

identity by altogether denying one kind, seems to me to

be irrational. The identity that you deny will in

practice come back always. It may return in a form

genuine but disguised, obscured and distorted by the

deceptive title of exact likeness. But on the other hand

it may steal in as an illusive and disastrous error. And

we need not seek far to find an instructive illustration

of this. J. S. Mill may be called, I presume, the leader

of those who amongst us deny identity of quality, and

J. S. Mill on the other hand taught Association by

Similarity. At least we must say this until it has been

proved here--as elsewhere with regard to the argument

from particulars--that we who criticise Mill know no

more of his real meaning than in fact Mill himself did.

And Association by Similarity, as taught by Mill and his

school, entails (as I have proved in my Principles of

Logic) and really asserts the coarsest mythology of

individual Resurrection. And I do not think that the

history of philosophy can exhibit a grosser case of this

very confusion against which we who believe in identity

are so specially warned. Yes, you may try to drive out

nature, and nature (as the saying goes) will always come

back, but it will not always come back as nature. And

you may strive to banish identity of character, and

identity always will return, and it will not always

return in a tolerable form. The cardinal importance of

the subject must be my excuse for the great length of

this Note, and for my once more taking up a controversy

which gives me no pleasure, but which I feel I have no

right to decline.

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EXPLANATORY NOTES

p. 15. The action of one part of the body on another

percipient part may of course be indirect. In this case

what is perceived is not the organ itself but the effect

of the organ on another thing. The eye seen by itself in

a mirror is an illustration of this.

p. 18. Compare here the Note to chapter xxi.

p. 22. For the "contrary" see Note A, and for "external

relations" see Note B.

Chapter iii. In this chapter I have allowed myself to

speak of "relations" where relations do not actually

exist. This and some other points are explained in Note

B. The reader may compare pp. 141-3.

p. 30. The Reals to which I am alluding here are

Herbart's.

p. 36. By a "solid" I of course here merely mean a unit

as opposed to a collection or aggregate.

p. 48. On the connection between quality and duration,

cf. Note C.

p. 51. "Ideas are not what they mean." For some further

discussion on this point see Mind, N.S. IV, p. 21 and

pp. 225 foll.

p. 53. A difficulty which might have been included in

this chapter, is the problem of what may be called the

Relativity of Motion. Has motion any meaning whatever

except as the alteration of the spatial relation of

bodies? Has it the smallest meaning apart from a

plurality of bodies? Can it be called, to speak

strictly, the state either (a) of one single body or (b)

of a number of bodies? On the other hand can motion be

predicated of anything apart from and other than the

bodies, and, if not, can we avoid predicating it of the

bodies, and, if so, is it not their state, and so in

some sense a state of each?