68 Life and Matter [chap. iv. 



Let the jubilant but uninstructed and 

 comparatively ignorant amateur materialist 

 therefore beware, and bethink himself twice 

 or even thrice before he conceives that he 

 understands the universe and is competent 

 to pour scorn upon the intuitions and 

 perceptions of great men in what may 

 be to him alien regions of thought and 

 experience. 



Let him explain, if he can, what he 

 means by his own identity, or the identity 

 of any thinking or living being, which at 

 different times consists of a totally different 

 set of material particles. Something there 

 clearly is which confers personal identity and 

 constitutes an individual : it is a property 

 characteristic of every form of life, even the 

 humblest ; but it is not yet explained or 

 understood, and it is no answer to assert 

 gratuitously that there is some fundamental 

 " substance " or material basis on which that 

 identity depends, any more than it is an 

 explanation to say that it depends upon a 

 "soul." These are all forms of words. As 





