364 PSYCHOLOGT. 



But even were all the mytliology true, the process of 

 synthesis would in no whit be explained by calling the inside 

 of the mind its seat. No mystery would be made lighter by 

 such means. It is just as much a puzzle hoio the * Ego ' can 

 amploy the productive Imagination to make the Understand, 

 mg use the categories to combine the data which Recognition, 

 Association, and Apj^rehension receive from .sensible Intui- 

 tion, as how the Thought can combine the objective facts. 

 Phrase it as one may, the difficulty is always the same : the 

 31any knoivn by the One. Or does one seriously think he 

 understands better how the knower ' connects ' its objects, 

 when one calls the former a transcendental Ego and the 

 latter a 'Manifold of Intuition' than when one calls them 

 Thought and Things respectively ? Knowing must have a 

 vehicle. Call the vehicle Ego, or call it Thought, Psycho- 

 sis, Soul, Intelligence, Consciousness, Mind, Reason, Feel- 

 ing, — what you like — it must knoiv. The best grammatical 

 subject for the verb knoiv Avould, if possible, be one from 

 whose other properties the knowing could be deduced. 

 And if there be no such subject, the best one would be 

 that with the fewest ambiguities and the least pretentious 

 name. By Kant's confession, the transcendental Ego has no 

 properties, and from it nothing can be deduced. Its name 

 is pretentious, and, as we shall presently see, has its mean- 

 ing ambiguously mixed up with that of the substantial 

 soul. So on every possible account we are excused from 

 using it instead of our own term of the present passing 

 * Thought,' as the principle by which the Many is simul- 

 taneously known. 



The ambiguity referred to in the meaning of the tran- 

 scendental Ego is as to whether Kant signified by it an 

 Agent, and by the Experience it helps to constitute, an 

 operation ; or whether the experience is an event produced 

 in an unassigned way, and the Ego a mere indwelling ele- 

 ment therein contained. If an operation be meant, then 

 Ego and Manifold must both be existent prior to that col- 

 lision which results in the experience of one by the other. 

 If a mere analysis is meant, there is no .^uch prior exist- 

 ence, and the elements only are in so far as they are in union. 

 Now Kant's tone and language are everywhere the very 



