16 WHAT IS DARWINISM? 



phaticallj insisted upon by Mr. Mansel in 

 common Avith Sir William Hamilton and others, 



is the antithesis of subject and object 



What is the corollary from this doctrine, as 

 bearing on the consciousness of self? The 

 mental act in which self is known implies, like 

 every other mental act, a perceiving subject 

 and a perceived object. If, then, the object 

 perceived is self, what is the subject that per- 

 ceives ? Or if it is the true self which thinks, 

 what other self can it be that is thought of? 

 Clear!}'-, a true cognition of self implies a state 

 in which the knowing and the known are one 

 — in which subject and object are identified; 

 and this Mr. Mansel rightly holds to be the an- 

 nihilation of both. So that the personality of 

 which each is conscious, and of which the exist- 

 ence is to each a fact beyond all others the most 

 certain, is yet a thing which cannot be known 

 at all ; knowledge of it is forbidden by the very 

 nature of human thought." (pp. 65, 66). 



Mr. Spencer does not seem to expect that 

 any man will be shaken in his conviction by 

 any such argument as that. When a man is 

 conscious of pain, he is not to be puzzled by 

 telling him that the pain is one thing (the ob- 

 ject perceived) and the self another thing (the 



