340 PSYCHOLOOr. 



appropriation of most of the remoter constituents of the 

 self. Who ovt'ns the last self owns the self before the last, 

 for what possesses the possessor possesses the possessed. 



It is impossible to discover any verifiable features in 

 personal identity', which this sketch does not contain, im- 

 possible to imagine how any transcendent non-phenomenal 

 sort of an Arcn-Ego, were he there, could shape matters to 

 any other result, or be known in time by any other fruit, 

 than just this production of a stream of consciousness each 

 ' section ' of which should know, and knowing, hug to 

 itself and adopt, all those that went before, — thus standing 

 as the representative of the entire past stream ; and which 

 should similarly adopt the objects already adopted by 

 any portion of this spiritual stream. Such standing-as- 

 rej^resentative, and such adopting, are perfectly clear phe- 

 nomenal relations. The Thought which, whilst it knows 

 another Thought and the Object of that Other, appro- 

 priates the Other and the Object which the Other appro- 

 priated, is still a perfectly distinct phenomenon from that 

 Other ; it may hardly resemble it ; it may be far removed 

 from it in sj)ace and time. 



The only point that is obscure is the act of appropria- 

 )ion itself. Already in enumerating the constituents of the 

 8elf and their riA^alry, I had to use the word appropriate. 

 And the quick-witted reader probably noticed at the time, 

 in hearing Iioav one constituent was let drop and disowned 

 and another one held fast to and espoused, that the phrase 

 w'as meaningless unless the constituents w^ere objects in the 

 hands of something else. A thing cannot appropriate itself ; 

 it is itself ; and still less can it disown itself. There must 

 be an agent of the appropriating and disowning ; but that 

 agent we have already named. It is the Thought to whom 

 the various ' constituents ' are known. That Thought is a 

 vehicle of choice as well as of cognition ; and among the 

 choices it makes are these appropriations, or repudiations, 

 of its ' own.' But the Thought never is an object in its own 

 hands, it never appropriates or disowns itself. It appro- 

 priates to itself, it is the actual focus of accretion, the hook 

 from which the chain of past selves dangles, planted firmly 



