THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SELF. 351 



sciousnesses, or of the same consciousness being supported 

 by more than one substance. He made his readers feel 

 that the important unity of the Self was its verifiable and 

 felt unity, and that a metaphysical or absolute unity would 

 be insignificant, so long as a consciousness of diversity might 

 be there. 



Hume showed how great the consciousness of diversity 

 actually was. In the famous chapter on Personal Identity, 

 in his Treatise on Human Nature, he writes as follows : 



"There are some philosophers who imagine we are every moment 

 intimately conscious of what we call our Self ; that we feel its exist- 

 ence and its continuance in existence, and are certain, beyond the evi- 

 dence of a demonstration, both of its perfect identity and simplicity. 

 . . . Unluckily all these positive assertions are contrary to that very 

 experience which is pleaded for them, nor have we any idea of Self, 

 after the manner it is here explained. ... It must be some one im- 

 pression that gives rise to every real idea. ... If any impression gives 

 rise to the idea of Self, that impression must continue invariably 

 the same through the whole course of our lives, since self is supposed 

 to exist after that mannei*. But there is no impression constant and 

 invariable. Pain and pleasure, grief and joy, passions and sensations 

 succeed each other, and never all exist at the same time. . . . For my 

 part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always 

 stumble on some particular perception or other of heat or cold, light or 

 shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at 

 any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the 

 perception. When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by 

 sound sleep, so long am I insensible of myself and may truly bo said 

 not to exist. And were all my perceptions removed by death, and could 

 I neither think, nor feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate after the dissolutiou 

 of ray body, I should be entirely annihilated, nor do I conceive what is 

 farther requisite to make me a perfect non-entity. If anyone, upon 

 serious and unprejudiced reflection, thinks he has a different notion of 

 Jiimself I must confess I can reason no longer with him. All I cap 

 allow him is, that he may be in the right as w^ell as I, and that we are 

 essentially different in this particular. He may, perhaps, perceive 

 something simple and continued which he calls Jiimself; though I am 

 certain there is no such principle in me. 



" But setting aside some metaphysicians of this kind, I may venture 

 to aflBrm of the rest of mankind that they are notJiing hut a bundle or 

 collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an 

 inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement. Our 

 eyes cannot turn in their sockets without varying our perceptions. Our 

 thought is still more variable than our sight; and all our other senses 

 and faculties contribute to this change; nor is there any single power of 



