But this may suggest to us a doubt. If such alterations of bodies are the sole means which we possess for conveying what is in us, can we be sure in the end that we really have conveyed it? For suppose that the contents of our various souls differed radically, might we not still, on the same ground, be assured of their sameness? The objec- tion is serious, and must be admitted in part to hold good. I do not think we can be sure that the sensible qualities we perceive are for every one the same. We infer from the apparent identity of our structure that this is so; and our conclusion, though not proved, possesses high probability. And, again, it may be impossible in fact that, while the relations are constant, the qualities should vary; but to assert this would be to pass beyond the limits of our knowledge. What, however, we are convinced of, is briefly this, that we understand and, again, are ourselves understood. There is, indeed, a theoretic- al possibility that these other bodies are without any souls,2 or that, while behaving as if they under- 1 Cf. Chapter xxii. There may, so far as I see, be many systems of souls, each system without a way of communication with the others. On this point we seem to be without any means of judging.
2 I do not mean that it is possible that my soul should contain all the experience which exists.
BODY AND SOUL. 345 stood us, their souls really remain apart in worlds shut up from ours. But, when this bare possibility is excluded, the question stands thus. A common understanding being admitted, how much does that imply? What is the minimum of sameness that we need suppose to be involved in it?
It might be interesting elsewhere to pursue this question at length, but I must content myself here with an attempt briefly to indicate the answer. The fact is that, in the main, we behave as if our internal worlds were the same. But this fact means that, for each one, the inner systems coincide. Through all their detail these several orders must lead to the same result. But, if so, we may go further, and may conclude that each comes to the same thing. What is the amount of variety then which such coinciding orders will admit? We must, I presume, answer that, for all we know, the details may be different, but that the principles cannot vary. There seems to be a point beyond which, if laws and systems come to the same thing, they must be actually the same. And the higher we mount from facts of sense, and the wider our principles have become, the more nearly we have approached to this point of identity. Thus sensible qualities, we may suppose, at one end are largely divergent; while, if we rise high enough at the other end, we must postulate sameness. And, between these two extremes, as we advance, the probability increases that coincidence results from identical character. It is, for example, more likely that we share our general morality with another man, than that we both have the same tastes or odours in common. And with this I will pass from a subject which seems both difficult and interesting, but which for metaphysics possesses but secondary importance. Whatever variety there may be, cannot extend to first principles; and all variety comes together, and is transformed, in the Absolute.
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But there is a natural mistake which, perhaps, I should briefly notice. Our inner worlds, I may be told, are divided from each other, but the outer world of experience is common to all; and it is by standing on this basis that we are able to communi- cate. Such a statement would be incorrect. My external sensations are no less private to myself than are my thoughts or my feelings. In either case my experience falls within my own circle, a circle closed on the outside; and, with all its ele- ments alike, every sphere is opaque to the others which surround it. With regard to communica- bility, there is in fact not any difference of kind, but only of degree. In every case the communication must be made indirectly, and through the medium of our outsides. What is true is that, with certain elements, the ways of expression may be shorter and less mistakeable; and again the conditions, which secure a community of perception, are, with certain elements, more constant and more subject to our control. So much seems clear, but it is not true that our physical experiences have unity, in any sense which is inapplicable to the worlds we call internal. Nor again, even in practice, is it always more easy to communicate an outer than an inner experience. In brief, regarded as an existence which appears in a soul, the whole world for each is peculiar and private to that soul. But, if on the other hand, you are considering identity of content, and, on that basis, are transcending such particular existences, then there is at once, in prin- ciple, no difference between the inner and the outer.1 No experience can lie open to inspection from outside; no direct guarantee of identity is possible. Both our knowledge of sameness, and 1 It is of course true that outer experience to be properly outer, must already have passed beyond the stage of mere feeling, and that what is called inner experience, need not have done so. But this is, only in part, relevant to the issue.
BODY AND SOUL. 347 our way of communication, are indirect and in- ferential. They must make the circuit, and must use the symbol, of bodily change. If a common ruler of souls could give to any one a message from the inside, such a message could never be handed on but by alterations of bodies. That real identity of ideal content, by which all souls live and move, cannot work in common save by the path of ex- ternal appearance.
And, with this, we are led to the question of the identity between souls. We have just seen that immediate experiences are separate, and there is probably no one who would desire to advocate a contrary opinion. But there are those, I presume, who will deny the possibility of two souls being, in any respect, really the same. And we must en- deavour very briefly to clear our ideas on this matter.
It would be, of course, absurd to argue that two persons are not two but only one, or that, in general, differences are not different, but simply the same; and any such contention would be, doubtless, a wilful paradox. But the principle of what we may call the Identity of Indiscernibles, has quite another meaning. It implies that sameness can exist to- gether with difference, or that what is the same is still the same, however much in other ways it differs. I shall soon attempt to define this principle more clearly, but what I would insist on, first, is that to deny it is to affront common sense. It is, in fact, to use words which could have no meaning. For every process of psychical Association is based on this ground; and, to come to what is plainer, every movement of our intellect rests wholly upon it If you will not assume that identity holds throughout different contexts, you cannot advance one single step in apprehending the world. There will be neither change nor endurance, and still less, motion 34& REALITY.
34& REALITY.
through space of an identical body; there will neither be selves nor things, nor, in brief, any intelligible fact, unless on the assumption that sameness in differents is real. Apart from this main principle of construction, we should be confined to the feeling of a single moment And to appeal to Similarity or Resemblance would be a futile attempt to escape in the darkness. For Similarity itself, when we view it in the daylight, is nothing in the world but more or less unspecified sameness. I will not dwell here on a point which elsewhere I have possibly pursued ad nauseam} No one, perhaps, would ever have betaken himself to mere Resemblance, unless he had sought in it a refuge from the dangers of Identity. And these dangers are the product of misunderstanding.
There is a notion that sameness implies the denial of difference, while difference is, of course, a palpable fact. But really sameness, while in one respect exclu- sive of difference, in another respect most essentially implies it. And these two " respects " are indivisible, even in idea. There would be no meaning in same- ness, unless it were the identity of differences, the unity of elements which it holds together, but must not confound. And in the same way difference, while it denies, presupposes identity. For difference must depend on a relation, and a relation is possible only on a basis of sameness. It is not common 1 Principles of Logic, pp. 261-2. Cp. Ethical Studies, p. 151. I do not understand that there is any material difference on this head between myself and Mr, Bosanquet, Knowledge and Reality, pp. 97-108. I would add that in psychology the alternative, between Association by general resemblance and by (explicit) partial identity, is a false one. The feeling that two things are similar need not imply the perception of the identical point, but none the less this feeling is based always on partial sameness. For a confusion on this head see Stumpf, Tonpsychologie, I., 112-114. And now (while revising these words for the press) I regret to have to add to Stumpf s name that of Professor James. I have examined the above confusion, more in detail, in Mind, No. 5, N.S. For Professor James' reply, see No. 6.
BODY AND SOUL. 349 BODY AND SOUL. 349 sense that has any desire to reject such truths, and blindly to stand upon difference to the exclusion of identity. In ordinary science no one would question the reality of motion, because it makes one thing the same throughout diverse times and spaces. That things to be the same must always be different, and to be different must be, therefore, the same — this is not a paradox, until it is paradoxically stated. It does not seem absurd, unless, wrongly, it is taken to imply that difference and sameness themselves are actually not different.1 And, apart from such mis- understanding, the ground and reason of the antagonism to identity is furnished merely by one- sided and uncritical metaphysics.
This mistaken opposition is based upon a truth, a truth that has been misapprehended and perverted into error. What has been perceived, or dimly felt, is in fact a principle that, throughout this work, has so often come before us. The Real in the end is self-subsistent, and contained wholly in itself; and its being is therefore not relative, nor does it admit a division of content from existence. In short relat- ivity and self-transcendence, or, as we may call it, ideality, cannot as such be the character of ultimate Reality. And, so far as this goes, we are at one with the objectors to identity. But the question really is about the conclusion which follows from this premise. Our conclusion is that finite existence must, in the end, not be real; it is an appearance which, as such, is transformed in the Absolute. But such a result obviously does not imply that, within the world of phenomena, identity is unreal. And hence the conclusion, which more or less explicitly is drawn by our opponents, differs widely from ours. From the self-subsistent nature of the Real they have 1 So long as wc avoid this mistake, we may, and even must, affirm that things are different, so far as they are the same, and the same, so far as they are different To get difference, or sameness, bare would be to destroy its character.
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inferred the reality of diverse existences, beings in any case several and finite, and without community of essence.1 But this conclusion, as we have seen, is wholly untenable. For plurality and separateness themselves exist only by means of relations (Chapter iii.). To be different from another is to have already transcended one's own being; and all finite existence is thus incurably relative and ideal. Its quality falls, more or less, outside its particular 44 thatness "; and, whether as the same or again as diverse, it is equally made what it is by community with others. Finite elements are joined by what divides, and are divided by what joins them, and their division and their junction alike are ideal. But, if so, and unless some answer is found to this contention, it is impossible to deny that identity is a fact.3 It is not real ultimately, we are agreed, but then facts themselves are not ultimate, and the ques- tion is confined to the realm of phenomenal existence. For difference itself is but phenomenal, and is itself assuredly not ultimate. And we may end, I think, with this reply. Show us (we may urge) a region of facts which are neither different nor yet the same; show us how quality without relation, or how mere being, can differentiate; point out how difference is to keep any meaning, as soon" as sameness is wholly banished; tell us the way in which sameness and difference can exist, if they may not be ideal; ex- plain how, if identity is not real, the world of experi- ence in any part holds together — at least attempt this, or else admit that identity is ideal and is, at the same time, a fact, and that your objection, in 1 The English writers who have objected to identity have left their principle of atomism and their principle of relativity simply standing side by side. Not one has (so far as I know) made the smallest attempt seriously to explain the position given to relations. Cp. Principles of Logic, p. 96.
2 Fact in the sense of unseparated adjective of fact. See BODY AND SOUL. 35 1 short, had no basis but confusion and traditional prejudice.
But the principle that sameness is real and is not destroyed by differences, demands, as we have seen, some explanation. It would be absurd, for instance, to suppose that two souls really are but one soul, since identity always implies and depends upon difference; and we may now treat this point as sufficiently discussed. Sameness is real amid dif- ferences; but we must neither deny that these differences, in one sense, affect it, nor may we assert that sameness is always a working connection. I will take these points in their order.
We may say that what is once true remains true always, or that what is the same in any one context, is still the same in any other context. But, in affirming this, we must be on our guard against a serious mistake. For a difference of conditions, it is obvious, will make a difference to sameness, and it is certain that contexts can modify their identical element If, that is, rushing to the oppo- site extreme, you go on to immerse wholly your truths in their conditions, if you refuse in any respect to abstract from this total diversity, then the principle of identity becomes inapplicable. You then would not have the same thing under different circumstances, because you would have declined to see anything whatever but difference. But, if we avoid these errors on each side, the principle soon becomes clear. Identity obviously by its essence must be more or less abstract; and, when we predicate it, we are disregarding other sides of the whole. We are asserting that, notwithstanding other aspects, this one aspect of sameness persists and is real. We do not say how far it extends, or what proj)ortion it bears to the accompanying diversity; but same- ness, so far as it goes, is actually and genuinely the same. Given a fresh instance of a law, and the law still holds good, though in the whole result this one 35 2 REALITY.
factor may seem overborne. The other conditions here have joined to modify the general consequence, but the law itself has worked fully, and has main- tained its selfsame character. And, given two indi- viduals with any part of their content indiscernible, then, while that is so, we are bound, so far, to con- sider them the same. However much their diversity may preponderate, however different may be the whole effect of each separate compound, yet, for all that, what is the same in them is one and identical. And our principle, thus understood, is surely irrefrag- able, and wears the air, perhaps, more of triviality than of paradox. Its results indeed often would be trivial, most empty and frivolous. Its significance varies with varying conditions. To know that two souls have an element of their contents in common, may thus be quite unimportant. Such knowledge may, again, assure us of the very gravest and most fundamental truths. But of all this the principle itself, being abstract, tells us nothing.
And as to any working connection our principle is silent. Whether an identical point in two things affects them otherwise, so as to cause other changes to happen, we are unable to learn from it. For how a thing works must depend on its special relations, while the principle, as we have seen, remains per- fectly general. Two souls, for example, which live together, may by their identity be drawn into active community. If the same were sundered in time, this, for our knowledge, would be impossible. But, in the latter case, the identity exists actually as much as it exists in the former. The amount of sameness, and the kind of sameness, and what the sameness will bring forth — these points all fall out- side of our abstract principle. But if any one bases an objection on this ground, he would seem to be arguing in effect that, because, in fact, diverse iden- tities exist, therefore identity, as a fact, has no actual existence. And such a position seems irrational.
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Our result, so far, is that the sameness between souls is a fact. The identity of their content is just as real as is their separate existence. But this identity, on the other hand, need not imply a further relation between them. It need not, so far as we can see, act in any way; and its action, where it acts, appears to be always indirect Souls seem to influence one another only by means of their bodies.
But this limited view of identity, as a working force, must be modified when we consider the indi- vidual soul. In the course of its internal history we must admit that the sameness of its states is an actual mover. In other words the mechanical in- terpretation, if throughout applicable to Nature, must in dealing with souls be in part given up. And I will end the chapter by pointing out this important distinction.
I mean by Nature here the physical world, con- sidered merely as physical and in abstraction from soul (Chapter xxii.). And in Nature sameness and difference may be said everywhere to exist, but never anywhere to work. This would, at least, appear to be the ideal of natural science, however incompletely that ideal has been carried into practice. No element, according to this principle, can be any- thing to any other, merely because it is the same, or because it is different For these are but internal characters, while that which works is in every case an outward relation.1 But then, if so, sameness and difference may appear at first sight to have no 1 I have not thought it necessary in the text to say anything on the view which finds a solution of all puzzles in impact For why, in the first place, the working of impact should be self-evident, seems, except by the influence of mere habit, not easy to perceive. And, in the second place, it is sheer thoughtlessness if we imagine that by impact we get rid of the universal. Complete relativity, and an ideal unity which transcends the particulars, are just as essential to impart as to everything else.
354 REALITY meaning at all. They may look like idle ornaments of which science, if consistent, should strip itself. Such a conclusion, however, would be premature, since, if these two characters are removed, science bodily disappears. It would be impossible without them ever to ask Why, or any longer to say Because. And the function of sameness and difference, if we consider it, is obvious. For the external relations, which work, are summed up in the laws; and, on the other hand, the internal characters of the separate elements serve to connect them with these universal strings or hinges. And thus, while inoperative, sameness and difference are still effective indirectly, and in fact are indispensable. This would appear to be the essence of the mechanical view. But I am unable to state how far at present, through the higher regions of Nature, it has been in practice applied; and again I do not know how properly to interpret, for example, the (apparent) effect of identity in the case of continued motion through space. To speak generally, the mechanical view is in principle non- sense, because the position of the laws is quite incon- sistent and unintelligible. This is indeed a defect which belongs necessarily to every special science (Chapter xi.), but in the sphere of Nature it reaches its lowest extreme. The identity of physical ele- ments may thus be said to fall outside their own being, their universality seems driven into banish- ment and forced to reside solely in laws. And, since these laws on the one hand are not physical, and since on the other hand they seem essential to Nature, the essence of Nature seems, therefore, made alien to itself, and to be on either side unnaturally sundered. However, compulsion from outside is the one working principle which is taken to hold in the physical world. And, at least if we are true to our ideal, neither identity nor difference can act in Nature. When we come to psychology this is altered. I do not mean that there the mechanical view ceases BODY AND SOUL. 355 wholly, nor do I mean that, where it is superseded, as in the working of pleasure and pain, that which operates must be ideal.1 But, to a greater or less extent, all psychology, in its practice, is compelled to admit the working power of Identity. A psycholo- gist may employ this force unwillingly, or may deny that he employs it; but without it he would be quite unable to make his way through the subject. I do not propose here to touch upon Coalescence or Blending, a principle much neglected by English psychologists. I will come at once to Redintegra- tion, or what is more familiar to us as Association by Contiguity. Here we are forced to affirm that what happens now in the soul happens because of something else which took place there before. And it happens, further, because of a point of identity con- necting the present with the past.3 That is to say, the past conjunction in the soul has become a law of its being. It actually exists there again because it happened there once, and because, in the present and in the past, an element of content is identical. And thus in the soul we can have habits, while habits that are but physical exist, perhaps, only through a doubtful metaphor. Where present and past functions have not an inner basis of identity, the word habit, if used, has no longer its meaning.8 Hence we may say that to a large extent the soul is itself its own laws, consists, itself, in the identity be- tween its present and its past, and (unlike Nature] has its own ideal essence not quite external to itself. This seems, at all events, the view which, however erroneous, must be employed by every working psychologist 1 On this point, and on what follows, compare Mind, xii., pp. 360 and foil.
* I have shown, in my Principles of Logic, that Contiguity can- not be explained by mere Similarity. See the chapter there on the Association of Ideas.
5 The question seems to turn on the amount of inward identity which we are prepared to attribute to a physical thing.
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