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EEMAEKS BY THE EIGHT HON. THE LOED O’NEILL, ' 
I look upon both this and the former paper contributed by Mr. Ground as ; 
very valuable contributions to the literature of the Victoria Institute. In 
the present one he seems to me to have quite correctly pointed out the 
fallacy which pervades Mr. Herbert Spencer’s system of psychology, namely, 
his making the ego to be nothing but the aggregate of feelings and ideas, 
existing at each moment. "Where or in what such ideas and feelings exist, 
is a question to which Mr. Spencer does not supply us with a satisfactory 
answer. He does not, of course, mean all ideas and feelings throughout the 
universe, inasmuch as these consist of innumerable aggregates ; and if he 
means those belonging to any one person, he is not consistent with himself, 
inasmuch as, on his theory, there is no such thing as personality in any 
intelligible sense of the word. His view would destroy the ego altogether. 
For who can guarantee that the aggregate of ideas and feelings at any one 
moment will be the same as at another ? In fact, this aggregate is ever- 
varying. I may be thinking of one subject at one moment and of another 
at another. I may be glad now, and sorry a few moments hence. In 
short, my state, — i.e., the aggregate of my ideas and feelings, — may at any 
instant be quite different, nay, opposite, to what it was at the instant imme- 
diately preceding. Indeed, it is scarcely possible, on Mr. Spencer’s prin- 
ciples, to express oneself correctly on this subject. For when I say, “ I may 
be glad or sorry,” or when I speak of the aggregate of my feelings, &c., an 
ego distinct from those ideas and feelings is necessarily implied ; nor could I 
express my meaning intelligibly without implying it. Mr. Spencer himself, 
as Mr. Ground has observed, although his language is most carefully chosen, 
cannot help, in one passage, speaking of “ the subject of such psychical 
changes,” &c., although he does not admit that there is any subject in which 
such changes could take place. In short, with all his ingenuity, he cannot 
get over the fact that feeling cannot take place unless there be something 
which feels, nor can thought be exercised unless there be something which 
thinks. As well might we assert that there may be motion without any- 
thing moving or being moved. Thus ideas and feelings necessarily imply 
an ego which perceives and feels, and which, at the same time, is distinct 
from perception and feeling, as being the subject of which these are states 
or accidents. Well may Mr. Ground say that the fiercest assailant of 
Berkeley appears here possessed of a double portion of his spirit. In fact, in 
asserting that the ego is but an aggregate of ideas and feelings, he goes as far 
as Hume, who did much to explode Berkeley’s views (though such was not his 
intention) by showing the consequences to which they lead, when logically 
carried out. Berkeley held that the only realities are Mind and Ideas, the 
former being the vehicle of the latter. Hume saw no necessity for the 
vehicle, considering that Ideas do not require such ; and between his theory 
and that of Mr. Spencer it is not easy to see any difference. Berkeley 
imagined that his theory gave the death-blow to materialism, as, indeed, the 
