THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SELF. 297 



and what it is 'of or ' about,' has become familiar to the 

 mind. The deeper grounds for this discrimination may 

 possibly be hard to find ; but superficial grounds are plenty 

 and near at hand. Almost anyone will tell us that thought 

 is a different sort of existence from things, because many 

 sorts of thought are of no things — e.g., pleasures, pains, 

 and emotions ; others are of non-existent things — errors 

 and fictions ; others again of existent things, but in a form 

 that is symbolic and does not resemble them — abstract 

 ideas and concepts ; whilst in the thoughts that do resem- 

 ble the tilings they are ' of ' (percepts, sensations), we can 

 feel, alongside of the thing known, the thought of it going 

 on as an altogether separate act and operation in the mind. 



Now this subjective life of ours, distinguished as such 

 so clearly from the objects known by its means, may, as 

 aforesaid, be taken by us in a concrete or in an abstract 

 way. Of the concrete way I will say nothing just now, ex- 

 cept that the actual ' section ' of the stream will ere long, 

 in our discussion of the nature of the principle of unity in 

 consciousness, play a very imjjortant part. The abstract 

 way claims our attention first. If the stream as a whole is 

 identified with the Self far more than any outward thing, a 

 certain portion of the stream abstracted from the rest is so 

 identified in an altogether peculiar degree, and is felt by all 

 men as a sort of innermost centre within the circle, of sanc- 

 tuary within the citadel, constituted by the subjective life 

 as a whole. Compared with this element of the stream, 

 the other parts, even of the subjective life, seem transient 

 external possessions, of which each in turn can be disowned, 

 whilst that which disowns them remains. Now, what is 

 this self of all the other selves ? 



Probably all men would describe it in much the same 

 way up to a certain point. They would call it the active 

 element in all consciousness; saying that whatever quali- 

 ties a man's feelings may possess, or whatever content his 

 thought may include, there is a spiritual something in 

 him which seems to go out to meet these qualities and 

 contents, whilst they seem to come in to be received by it. 

 It is what welcomes or rejects. It presides over the per- 

 ception of sensations, and by giving or withholding its 



