74 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN PHILOSOPHY 



question as to what is to be reckoned part of the Self and 

 what is not, is a very difficult one. Among many other 

 things which we may mean by the Self, two may be 

 selected as specially important, namely, (i) the bare 

 subject which thinks and is aware of objects, (2) the 

 whole assemblage of things that would necessarily cease 

 to exist if our lives came to an end. The bare subject, 

 if it exists at all, is an inference, and is not part of the 

 data ; therefore this meaning of Self may be ignored in 

 our present inquiry. The second meaning is difficult to 

 make precise, since we hardly know what things depend 

 upon our lives for their existence. And in this form, 

 the definition of Self introduces the word " depend," 

 which raises the same questions as are raised by the word 

 " independent." Let us therefore take up the word 

 " independent," and return to the Self later. 



When we say that one thing is " independent " of 

 another, we may mean either that it is logically possible 

 for the one to exist without the other, or that there is no 

 causal relation between the two such that the one only 

 occurs as the effect of the other. The only way, so far 

 as I know, in which one thing can be logically dependent 

 upon another is when the other is part of the one. The 

 existence of a book, for example, is logically dependent 

 upon that of its pages : without the pages there would 

 be no book. Thus in this sense the question, " Can we 

 know of the existence of any reality which is independent 

 of ourselves ? " reduces to the question, " Can we know 

 of the existence of any reality of which our Self is not 

 part ? " In this form, the question brings us back to the 

 problem of defining the Self ; but I think, however the 

 Self may be defined, even when it is taken as the bare 

 subject, it cannot be supposed to be part of the immediate 

 object of sense ; thus in this form of the question we 



