156 THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY. 



order the conditions are often not present, but lie some- 

 where outside of the series. Seven separate characters, 

 then, mark off these two orders of manifestations from one 

 another. 



§ 44. What is the meaning of this? The foregoing 

 analysis was commenced in the belief that the proposition 

 postulated by Philosophy, must affirm some ultimate classes 

 of likenesses and unlikenesses, in which all other classes 

 merge; and here we have found that all manifestations of 

 the Unknowable are divisible into two such classes. What 

 is the division equivalent to? 



Obviously it corresponds to the division between object 

 and subject. This profoundest of distinctions among the 

 manifestations of the Unknowable, we recognize by group- 

 ing them into self and not-self. These faint manifestations, 

 forming a continuous whole differing from the other in the 

 quantity, quality, cohesion, and conditions of existence of 

 its parts, we call the ego y and these vivid manifestations, 

 indissolubly bound together in relatively-immense masses, 

 and having independent conditions of existence, we call the 

 non-ego. Or rather, more truly — each order of manifesta- 

 tions carries with it the irresistible implication of some 

 power that manifests itself; and by the words ego and non- 

 ego respectively, we mean the power that manifests itself in 

 the faint forms, and the power that manifests itself in the 

 vivid forms. 



As we here see, these consolidated conceptions thus anti- 

 thetically named, do not originate in some inscrutable way; 

 but they have for their explanation the ultimate law of 

 thought that is beyond appeal. The persistent conscious- 

 ness of likeness or difference, is one which, by its very per- 

 sistence, makes itself accepted; and one which transcends 

 scepticism, since without it even doubt becomes impossible. 

 And the primordial division of self from not-self, is a cumu- 

 lative result of persistent consciousnesses of likenesses and 



