THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SELF. 331 



thinker and not to another. Each thought, out of a multi- 

 tude of other thoughts of which it may think, is able to 

 distinguish those which belong to its own Ego from those 

 which do not. The former have a warmth and intimacy 

 about them of which the latter are completely devoid, being 

 merely conceived, in a cold and foreign fashion, and not 

 appearing as blood-relatives, bringing their greetings to us 

 from out of the past. 



Now this consciousness of personal sameness may be 

 treated either as a subjective phenomenon or as an objec- 

 tive deliverance, as a feeling, or as a truth. We may ex- 

 plain how one bit of thought can come to judge other bits 

 to belong to the same Ego with itself ; or we may criticise 

 its judgment and decide how far it may tally with the 

 nature of things. 



As a mere subjective phenomenon the judgment presents 

 no difficulty or mystery peculiar to itself. It belongs to 

 the great class of judgments of sameness ; and there is 

 nothing more remarkable in making a judgment of same- 

 ness in the first person than in the second or the third. 

 The intellectual operations seem essentially alike, whether 

 I say * I am the same,' or whether I say * the pen is the 

 same, as yesterday.' It is as easy to think this as to think 

 the opposite and say 'neither I nor the pen is the same.' 



This sort of bringing of things together into the ohject of a 

 single jndgmeoit is of course essential to all thinking. The 

 things are conjoined in the thought, Avhatever may be the 

 relation in which they appear to the thought. The thinking 

 them is thinking them together, even if only with the result 

 of judging that they do not belong together. This sort of 

 subjective synthesis, essential to knowledge as such (when- 

 ever it has a complex object), must not be confounded with 

 objective syntJiesis or union instead of difference or discon- 

 nection, known among the things.* The subjective syn- 



* "Also nur dadurch, dass ich ein Mannigfaltiges gegebener Vorstel- 

 lungen in einem Bewusstsein verbiuden kann, ist es moglich dass ich die 

 Identitiit des Betciisstseins in diesen Vorstellungen selbst vorstelle, d. h. die 

 analytische Einheit der Apperception ist nurunter der Voraussetzungirgcnd 

 einer syuthetiscben moglich." In this passage (Kritik der reinen Ver- 

 nunft, 2te Autl. § 16) Kant calls bj^ the names of analytic and synthetic 



