2. The congeries inside a man at one given moment

does not satisfy as an answer to the question what is

self. The self, to go no further, must be something

beyond present time, and it cannot contain a

sequence of contradictory variations. Let us then modify

our answer, and say, Not the mass of any one moment, but

the constant average mass, is the meaning of self. Take,

as before, a section completely through the man, and

expose his total psychical contents; only now take this

section at different times, and remove what seems

exceptional. The residue will be the normal and ordinary

matter, which fills his experience, and this is the self

of the individual. This self will contain, as before,

the perceived environment--in short, the not-self so far

as that is for the self--but it will contain now only

the usual or average not-self. And it must embrace the

habits of the individual and the laws of his character--

whatever we mean by these. His self will be the usual

manner in which he behaves, and the usual matter to

which he behaves, that is, so far as he behaves to it.

We are tending here towards the distinction of the

essential self from its accidents, but we have not yet

reached that point. We have, however, left the self as

the whole individual of one moment, or of succeeding

moments, and are trying to find it as the individual's

normal constituents. What is that which makes the man

his usual self? We have answered, It is his habitual

disposition and contents, and it is not his changes from

day to day and from hour to hour. These contents are not

merely the man's internal feelings, or merely that which

he reflects on as his self. They consist quite as

essentially in the outward environment, so far as

relation to that makes the man what he is. For, if we

try to take the man apart from certain places and

persons, we have altered his life so much that he is not

his usual self. Again, some of this habitual non-self,

to use that expression, enters into the man's life in

Its individual form. His wife possibly, or his child,

or, again, some part or feature of his inanimate

environment, could not, if destroyed, be so made good by

anything else that the man's self would fail to be

seriously modified. Hence we may call these the

constituents which are individually necessary; requisite

for the man, that is, not in their vague, broad

character, but in their specialty as this or that

particular thing. But other tracts of his normal self

are filled by constituents necessary, we may say, no

more than generically. His usual life gets its

character, that is, from a large number of details which

are variable within limits. His habits and his

environment have main outlines which may still remain

the same, though within these the special features have

been greatly modified. This portion of the man's life is

necessary to make him his average self, but, if the

generic type is preserved, the special details are

accidental.

This is, perhaps, a fair account of the man's usual

self, but it is obviously no solution of theoretical

difficulties. A man's true self, we should be told,

cannot depend on his relations to that which fluctuates.

And fluctuation is not the word; for in the lifetime of

a man there are irreparable changes. Is he literally not

the same man if loss, or death, or love, or banishment

has turned the current of his life? And yet, when we

look at the facts, and survey the man's self from the

cradle to the coffin, we may be able to find no one

average. The usual self of one period is not the usual

self of another, and it is impossible to unite in one

mass these conflicting psychical contents. Either then

we accept the man's mere history as his self, and, if

so, why call it one? Or we confine ourselves to periods,

and there is no longer any single self. Or, finally, we

must distinguish the self from the usual constituents of

the man's psychical being. We must try to reach the self

which is individual by finding the self which is

essential.