same collective idea, is both the one and the other. This however is but a rude logic. Not well understanding the process of distinguishing the same individual into different metaphysical sections, to compare, collate, and set one against the other (so awkwardly do we at first. apply ourselves to the analytical art), to get rid of the difficulty the mind produces a double individual, part real and part part imaginary, or repeats the same idea twice over; in which case it is a contradiction to suppose that the one does not correspond exactly with the other in all its parts. There is no other absolute identity in the case. All individuals (or all that we name such) are aggregates, and aggregates of dissimilar things. Here, then, the question is not how we distinguish one individual from another, or a number of things from a number of other things, which distinction is a matter of absolute truth, but how we come to confound a number of things together, and consider many things as the same, which cannot be strictly true. This idea, must then merely relate to such a connexion between a number of things as determines the mind to consider them as one whole, each part having a much nearer and more lasting connexion with the rest than with any thing else not included in the same collective

idea. (It is obvious that the want of this close affinity and intimate connexion between any number of things is what so far produces a correspondent distinction and separation between one individual and another.) The eye is not the same thing as the ear; it is a contradiction to call it so. Yet both are parts of the same contains these and infinite other distinctions. The reason of this is, that all the

body, which

parts of the eye have evidently a distinct nature, a separate use, a greater mutual dependence on one another than on those of the ear; at the same time that there is a considerable connexion between the eye and the ear, as parts of the same body and organs of the same mind. Similarity is in general but a subordinate circumstance in determining this relation. For the eye is certainly more like the same organ in another individual, than the different organs of sight and hearing are like one another in the same individual. Yet we do not, in making up the imaginary individual, associate our ideas according to this analogy, which would answer no more purpose than the things themselves would, so separated and so united; but we think of them in that order in which they are mechanically connected together in nature, and in which alone they can serve to any practical purpose,

VOL. II.

E

However, it seems hardly possible to define the different degrees or kinds of identity in the same thing by any general rule. The nature of the thing will best point out the sense in which it is to be the same. Individuality may relate either to absolute unity, to the identity or similarity of the parts of any thing, or to an extraordinary degree of connexion between things neither the same, nor similar. This last sense principally determines the positive use of the word, at least with respect to man and other organized beings. Indeed, the term is hardly ever applied in common language to other things.

To insist on the first circumstance, namely, absolute unity, as essential to individuality, would be to destroy all individuality; for it would lead to the supposition of as many distinct individuals as there are thoughts, feelings, actions, and properties in the same being. Each thought would be a separate consciousness, each organ a different system. Each thought is a distinct thing in nature; but the individual is composed of numberless thoughts and various faculties, and contradictory passions, and mixed habits, all curiously woven, and blended together in the same conscious being.

But to proceed to a more particular account of the origin of the idea of self, which is the connexion

of a being with itself. This can only be known in the first instance from reflecting on what passes in our own minds. I should say that individuality in this sense does not arise either from the absolute simplicity of the mind, or from its identity with itself, or from its diversity from other minds, which are not in the least necessary to it, but from the peculiar and intimate connexion which subsists between the several faculties and perceptions of the same thinking being constituted as man is; so that, as the subject of his own reflection or consciousness, the same things impressed on any of his faculties produce a quite different effect upon him from what they would do, if they were impressed in the same way on any other being. The sense of personality seems then to depend entirely on the particular consciousness which the mind has of its own operations, sensations, or ideas. Self is nothing but the limits of the mind's consciousness; as far as that reaches it extends, and where that can go no further, it ceases. The mind is one, from the confined sphere in which it acts; or because it is not all things. It is nearer and more present to itself than to other minds. What passes within it, what acts upon it immediately from without, of this it cannot help being conscious; and this

consciousness is continued in it afterwards, more or less perfectly. All that does not come within this sphere of personal consciousness, all that has never come within it, is equally without the verge of self; for that word relates solely to the difference of the manner, or the different degrees of force and certainty with which, from the imperfect and limited nature of our faculties, certain things affect us as they act immediately upon ourselves, and are supposed to act upon others. Hence it is evident that personality itself cannot extend to futurity; for the whole of this idea depends on the peculiar force and directness with which certain impulses act upon the mind. It is by comparing the knowledge I have of my own impressions, ideas, feelings, powers, &c. with my knowledge of the same or similar impressions, ideas, &c. in others, and with this still more imperfect conception that I form of what passes in their minds when this is supposed to be entirely different from what passes in my own, that I acquire the general notion of self. If I could form no idea of any thing passing in the minds of others, or if my ideas of their thoughts and feelings were perfect representations, i. e. mere conscious repetitions of them, all personal distinction would be lost either in pure sensation or in perfect universal sympathy. In the one