Page:Essays on the Principles of Human Action (1835).djvu/66

 in temper, in power. It is this perception or apprehension of their real differences that first enables me to distinguish the several individuals of the species from each other; and that seems to give rise to the most general idea of individuality, as representing first positive number, and secondly the sum of the differences between one being and another as they really exist in a greater or less degree in nature, or as they would appear to exist to an impartial spectator, or to a perfectly intelligent being. But I am not in reality more different from others than any one individual is from any other individual; neither do I in fact suppose myself to differ really from them otherwise than as they differ from each other. What is it then that makes the difference greater to me, or that makes me feel a greater difference in passing from my own idea to that of any one else, than in passing from the idea of an indifferent person to that of any one else? Neither my existing as a separate being, nor my differing from others, is of itself sufficient to constitute personality, or give me the idea of self, since I might perceive others to exist, and compare their actual differences without ever having this idea.

Farther, individuality expresses not merely the absolute difference, or distinction between one individual and another, but also a relation, or comparison of that individual with itself, whereby we affirm that it is in some way or other the same with itself, or one thing. In one sense it is true of all existences whatever, that they are the same with themselves; that is, they are what they are and not something else. Each thing is itself, it is that individual thing and no other, and each combination of things is that combination and no other. So also each individual is necessarily the same with himself; or, in other words, that combination of ideas which represents any individual person, is that com-