CHAPTER XII. 



CONCEPTION. 

 THE SENSE OP SAMENESS. 



In Chapter YIII, p. 221, the distinction was drawn be* 

 fcween two kinds of knowledge of things, bare acquaintance 

 with them and knowledge about them. The possibility of 

 two such knowledges depends on a fundamental psychical 

 peculiarity Avhich may be entitled " tlie principle of constancy 

 in the mind's meanings,'" and which may be thus expressed : 

 " The same matters can he thought of in successive portions of 

 the mental stream, and some of these po7'tions can know that 

 they mean the same Tnatters ivhich the other portions meant. '^ 

 One might put it otherwise by saying that " the mind can 

 alivays intend, and know ivhen it intends, to think of the Same." 



This sense of sameness is the very keel and backbone of 

 our thinking. We saw in Chapter X how the conscious- 

 ness of personal identity reposed on it, the present thought 

 finding in its memories a warmth and intimacy Avhich it 

 recognizes as the same warmth and intimacy it now feels. 

 This sense of identity of the knowing subject is held by 

 some philosophers to be the only vehicle by which the 

 world hangs together. It seems hardly necessary to say 

 that a sense of identity of the known object would perform 

 exactly the same unifying function, even if the sense of 

 subjective identity were lost. And without the intention to 

 think of the same outer things over and over again, and the 

 sense that we were doing so, our sense of our own personal 

 sameness Avould carry us but a little way towards making 

 a universe of our experience. 



Note, however, that we are in the first instance speak- 

 ing of the sense of sameness from the point of view of the 

 mind's structure alone, and not from the point of view of 

 the universe. We are psychologizing, not philosophizing, 



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