74 SIR WILLIAM Hamilton's philosophy. 



act of perception," he says,* " I return from my observation witli the 

 most irresistible conviction of two facts, or rather two branches of the 

 same fact; — that I am, — and that something different from me exists. 

 In this act I am conscious of myself as the perceiving subject, and of 

 an external reality as the object perceived." Then a few pages further 

 on, " The ego and nonego, — mind and matter, are not only given toge- 

 ther, but in absolute coequality." f 



These passages are cited not for the purpose of bringing home to Sir 

 W. Hamilton the charge of denuding philosophical terms of their pre- 

 cise signification. Unhappily the intensity of one's regret at the want 

 of precision arises from the fact of its being strongly palliated, if not 

 justified, by very extensive usage. Possibly the inexactness with which 

 the two universal factors of knowledge are spoken of in English, may 

 arise from the unfortunate difficulty of finding for the knower a term 

 which expresses clearly and exclusively the first person. I believe, it 

 would be found advantageous if we could conveniently use for this 

 purpose the first personal pronoun alone ; for when we substitute such 

 words as mind, soul or spirit, or even terms like the self, or the ego ; in 

 fact, when we use I or me themselves as substantives with the definite 

 article, we require a constant reminder to prevent ourselves from attach- 

 ing to our language more than the pure self-consciousness. An advance, 

 however, has been made towards clearness on this subject by the adop- 

 tion of such terms as the self, the ego, &c., instead of the substantives, 

 mind and soul. Though expressions like the self, le moi and even the 1 

 may be met with in some of the older English and French authors,J 

 yet their introduction into general philosophical literature may be traced 

 to the influence of the modern German philosophy, and is perhaps with 

 justice ascribed by Krug 1| specially to Fichte's Wissenschajtslchre. 

 We are thus placed into a more favourable position for appreciating the 

 problem regarding the origin of self-consciousness, understanding by 

 the self simply what we mean when we use the words / and me, and 

 neither consciously nor inadvertently inserting into our meaning any- 

 thing such as a nervous system, an organic body, or a spiritual substance, 



* Lectures on Metaphysics, Vol. I., p. 288. f Ibid., p. 292. 



% See Locke's JEssay, Book II., c. 27, §§ 9 & 20 ; Pascal's Pensees, Art. V., § 18. 



II la his Fhilosophisches Lexicon, under the word Icli. Cardinal Wiseman traces 

 the prevalence of trancendental philosophy anaong the Germans to the fact, that 

 their first personal pronoun admits easily of being converted into a substantive. 

 (See Eenan's De I'origine de langage, p. 190, note.) 



