Is important, but the decision, if there is one, appears

quite arbitrary. But perhaps, if we quit the view of the

outside observer, we may discover some principle. Let us

make the attempt.

We may take memory as the criterion. The self, we may

hold, which remembers itself is so far one; and in this

lies personal identity. We perhaps may wish also to

strengthen our case by regarding memory as something

entirely by itself, and as, so to speak, capable of

anything whatever. But this is, of course, quite

erroneous. Memory, as a special application of

reproduction, displays no exceptional wonders to a sane

psychology, nor does it really offer greater

difficulties than we find in several other functions.

And the point I would emphasize here is its limits and

defects. Whether you take it across its breadth, or down

its length, you discover a great want of singleness.

This one memory of which we talk is very weak for many

aspects of our varied life, and is again

disproportionately strong for other aspects. Hence it

seems more like a bundle of memories running side by

side and in part unconnected. It is certain that at any

one time what we can recall is most fragmentary. There

are whole sides of our life which may be wanting

altogether, and others which will come up only in

various degrees of feebleness. This is when memory is at

its best; and at other times there hardly seems any

limit to its failure. Not only may some threads of our

bundle be wanting or weak, but, out of those that

remain, certain lengths may be missing. Pieces of our

life, when we were asleep, or drugged, or otherwise

distempered, are not represented. Doubtless the

current, for all that, comes to us as continuous. But so

it does when things go further, and when in present

disease our recollection becomes partial and distorted.

Nay, when in one single man there are periodic returns

of two disconnected memories, the faculty still keeps

its nature and proclaims its identity. And psychology

explains how this is so. Memory depends on reproduction

from a basis that is present--a basis that may be said

to consist in self-feeling. Hence, so far as this basis

remains the same through life, it may, to speak in

general, recall anything once associated with it. And,

as this basis changes, we can understand how its

connections with past events will vary indefinitely,

both in fulness and in strength. Hence, for the same

reason, when self-feeling has been altered beyond a

limit not in general to be defined, the base required

for reproduction of our past is removed. And, as these

different bases alternate, our past life will come to us

differently, not as one self, but as diverse selves

alternately. And of course these "reproduced" selves

may, to a very considerable extent, have never existed

in the past.

Now I would invite the person who takes his sameness

to consist in bare memory, to confront his view with

these facts, and to show us how he understands them. For

apparently, though he may not admit that personal

identity has degrees, he at least cannot deny that in

one life we are able to have more than one self. And,

further, he may be compelled to embrace self-sameness

with a past which exists, for him only sometimes, and

for others not at all. And under these conditions it is

not easy to see what becomes of the self. I will,

however, go further. It is well known that after an

injury followed by unconsciousness which is removed by

an operation, our mental life may begin again from the

moment of the injury. Now if the self remembers

because and according as it is now, might not another

self be made of a quality the same, and hence possessing

the same past in present recollection? And if one could

be made thus, why not also two or three? These might be

made distinct at the present time, through their

differing quality, and again through outward relations,

and yet be like enough for each to remember the same

past, and so, of course, to be the same. Nor do I see

how this supposition is to be rejected as theoretically

impossible. And it may help us to perceive, what was

evident before, that a self is not thought to be the

same because of bare memory, but only so when that

memory is considered not to be deceptive. But this

admits that identity must depend in the end upon past

existence, and not solely upon mere present thinking.

And continuity in some degree, and in some

unintelligible sense, is by the popular view required

for personal identity. He who is risen from the dead may

really be the same, though we can say nothing

intelligible of his ambiguous eclipse or his phase of

half-existence. But a man wholly like the first, but

created fresh after the same lapse of time, we might

feel was too much to be one, if not quite enough to make

two. Thus it is evident that, for personal identity,

some continuity is requisite, but how much no one seems

to know. In fact, if we are not satisfied with vague

phrases and meaningless generalities, we soon discover

that the best way is not to ask questions. But if we

persist, we are likely to be left with this result.

Personal identity is mainly a matter of degree. The

question has a meaning, if confined to certain aspects

of the self, though even here it can be made definite in

each case only by the arbitrary selection of points of

view. And in each case there will be a limit fixed in

the end by no clear principle. But in what the general

sameness of one self consists is a problem insoluble

because it is meaningless. This question, I

repeat it, is sheer nonsense until we have got some

clear idea as to what the self is to stand for. If you

ask me whether a man is identical in this or that

respect, and for one purpose or another purpose, then,

if we do not understand one another, we are on the road

to an understanding. In my opinion, even then we shall

reach our end only by more or less of convention and

arrangement. But to seek an answer in general to the

question asked at large is to pursue a chim‘ra.

We have seen, so far, that the self has no definite

meaning. It was hardly one section of the individual's

contents; nor was it even such a section, if reduced to

what is usual and taken somehow at an average. The self

appeared to be the essential portion or function, but in

what that essence lies no one really seemed to know. We

could find nothing but opinions inconsistent with each

other, not one of which would presumably be held by any

one man, if he were forced to realize its meaning.

(4) By selecting from the individual's contents, or

by accepting them in the gross, we have failed to find

the self. We may hence be induced to locate it in some

kind of monad, or supposed simple being. By this device

awkward questions, as to diversity and sameness, seem

fairly to be shelved. The unity exists as a unit, and in

some sphere presumably secure from chance and from

change. I will here first call our result which turned

out adverse to the possibility of any such being

(Chapters iii. and v.). And secondly I will point out in

a few words that its nature is most ambiguous. Is it the

self at all, and, if so, to what extent and in what

sense?

If we make this unit something moving parallel with

the life of a man, or, rather, something not moving, but

literally standing in relation to his successive

variety, this will not give us much help. It will be the

man's self about as much as is his star (if he has one),

which looks down from above and cares not when he

perishes. And if the unit is brought down into the life

of the person, and so in any sense suffers his fortunes,

then in what sense does it remain any longer a unit? And

if we will but look at the question, we are forced to

this conclusion. If we knew already what we meant by the

self, and could point out its existence, then our monad

might be offered as a theory to account for that self.

It would be an indefensible theory, but at least

respectable as being an attempt to explain something.

But, so long as we have no clear view as to the limits

in actual fact of the self's existence, our monad leaves

us with all our old confusion and obscurity. But it

further loads us with the problem of its connection with

these facts about which we are so ignorant. What I mean

is simply this. Suppose you have accepted the view that

self consists in recollection, and then offer me one

monad, or two or three, or as many as you think the

facts call for, in order to account for recollection. I

think your theory worthless, but, to some extent, I

respect it, because at least it has taken up some fact,

and is trying to account for it. But if you offer me a

vague mass, and then a unit alongside, and tell me that

the second is the self of the first, I do not think that

you are saying anything. All I see is that you are

drifting towards this dilemma. If the monad owns the

whole diversity, or any selected part of the diversity,

which we find in the individual, then, even if you had

found in this the identity of the self, you would have

to reconcile it all with the simplicity of the monad.

But if the monad stands aloof, either with no character

at all or a private character apart, then it may be a

fine thing in itself, but it is mere mockery to call it

the self of a man. And, with so much for the present, I

will pass away from this point.

(5) It may be suggested that the self is the

matter in which I take personal interest. The elements

felt as mine may be regarded as the self, or, at all

events, as all the self which exists. And interest

consists mainly, though not wholly, in pain and

pleasure. The self will be therefore that group of

feelings which, to a greater or less extent, is

constantly present, and which is always attended by

pleasure or pain. And whatever from time to time is

united with this group, is a personal affair and becomes

part of self. This general view may serve to lead us to

a fresh way of taking self; but it obviously promises

very little result for metaphysics. For the contents of

self are most variable from one time to another, and are

largely conflicting; and they are drawn from many

heterogeneous sources. In fact, if the self means merely

what interests us personally, then at any one time it is

likely to be too wide, and perhaps also to be too

narrow; and at different times it seems quite at

variance with itself.

(6) We are now brought naturally to a most important

way of understanding the self. We have, up to the

present, ignored the distinction of subject and object.

We have made a start from the whole psychical

individual, and have tried to find the self there or in

connection with that. But this individual, we saw,

contained both object and subject, both not-self and

self. At least, the not-self must clearly be allowed to

be in it, so far as that enters into relation with the

self and appears as an object. The reader may prefer

another form of expression, but he must, I think, agree

as to the fact. If you take what in the widest sense is

inside a man's mind, you will find there both subject

and object and their relation. This will, at all events,

be the case both in perception and thought, and again in

desire and volition. And this self, which is opposed to

the not-self, will most emphatically not coincide with

the self, if that is taken as the individual or

the essential individual, The deplorable confusion,

which is too prevalent on this head, compels me to

invite the reader's special attention.

The psychical division of the soul into subject and

object has, as is well known, two main forms. The

relation of the self to the not-self is theoretical and

practical. In the first we have, generally, perception

or intelligence; in the second we have desire and will.

It is impossible for me here to point out the distinct

nature of each; and still less can I say anything on

their development from one root. What seems to me

certain is that both these forms of relation are

secondary products. Every soul either exists or has

existed at a stage where there was no self and no not-

self, neither Ego nor object in any sense whatever. But

in what way thought and will have emerged from this

basis--this whole of feeling given without relation--I

cannot here discuss. Nor is the

discussion necessary to an understanding of the crucial

point here. That point turns upon the contents of the

self and the not-self; and we may consider these apart

from the question of origin.

Now that subject and object have contents and are

actual psychical groups appears to me evident. I am

aware that too often writers speak of the Ego as of

something not essentially qualified by this or that

psychical matter. And I do not deny that in a certain

use that language might be defended. But if we consider,

as we are considering here, what we are to understand by

that object and subject in relation, which at a given

time we find existing in a soul, the case is quite

altered. The Ego that pretends to be anything either

before or beyond its concrete psychical filling, is a

gross fiction and mere monster, and for no purpose

admissible. And the question surely may be

settled by observation. Take any case of perception, or

whatever you please, where this relation of object to

subject is found as a fact. There, I presume, no one

will deny that the object, at all events, is a concrete

phenomenon. It has a character which exists as, or in, a

mental fact. And, if we turn from this to the subject,