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3. Let us then take, as before, a man's mind,

and inspect its furniture and contents. We must try to

find that part of them in which the self really

consists, and which makes it one and not another. And

here, so far as I am aware, we can get no assistance

from popular ideas. There seems, however, no doubt that

the inner core of feeling, resting mainly on what is

called C*nesthesia, is the foundation of the self.

But this inner nucleus, in the first place, is not

separated from the average self of the man by any line

that can be drawn; and, in the second place, its

elements come from a variety of sources. In some cases

it will contain, indivisibly from the rest, relation to

a not-self of a certain character. Where an individual

is such that alteration in what comes from the

environment completely unsettles him, where this change

may produce a feeling of self-estrangement so severe as

to cause sickness and even death, we must admit that the

self is not enclosed by a wall. And where the essential

self is to end, and the accidental self to begin, seems

a riddle without an answer.

For an attempt to answer it is baffled by a fatal

dilemma. If you take an essence which can change, it is

not an essence at all; while, if you stand on anything

more narrow, the self has disappeared. What is this

essence of the self which never is altered? Infancy and

old age, disease and madness, bring new features, while

others are borne away. It is hard indeed to fix any

limit to the self's mutability. One self, doubtless, can

suffer change in which another would perish. But, on the

other hand, there comes a point in each where we should

agree that the man is no longer himself. This

creature lost in illusions, bereft of memory,

transformed in mood, with diseased feelings enthroned in

the very heart of his being--is this still one self with

what we knew? Well, be it so; assert, what you are

unable to show, that there is still a point untouched, a

spot which never has been invaded. I will not ask you to

point this out, for I am sure that is impossible. But I

urge upon you the opposite side of the dilemma. This

narrow persisting element of feeling or idea, this fixed

essence not "servile to all the skyey influences," this

wretched fraction and poor atom, too mean to be in

danger--do you mean to tell me that this bare remnant is

really the self? The supposition is preposterous, and

the question wants no answer. If the self has been

narrowed to a point which does not change, that point is

less than the real self. But anything wider has a

"complexion" which "shifts to strange effects," and

therefore cannot be one self. The riddle has proved too

hard for us.

We have been led up to the problem of personal