Page:Appearance and Reality (1916).djvu/122

. From this we drifted into a search for the self as the essential point or area within the self; and we discovered that we really did not know what this was. Then we went on to perceive that, under personal identity, we entertained a confused bundle of conflicting ideas. Again the self, as merely that which for the time being interests, proved not satisfactory; and from this we passed to the distinction and the division of self as against the not-self. Here, in both the theoretical and again in the practical relation, we found that the self had no contents that were fixed; or it had, at least, none sufficient to make it a self. And in that connection we perceived the origin of our perception of activity. Finally, we dragged to the light another meaning of self, not coinciding with the others; and we saw that this designates any psychical fact which remains outside any purpose to which at any time psychical fact is being applied. In this sense self is the unused residue, defined negatively by want of use, and positively by feeling in the sense of mere psychical existence. And there was no matter which essentially fell, or did not fall, under this heading.