Page:Essays on the Principles of Human Action (1835).djvu/73

 excites in the mind can affect it no otherwise than any similar impression produced by any other body must do. Afterwards, no doubt, the visible image comes in to confirm and give distinctness to the imperfect conclusions of the other sense.

It is by comparing the knowledge that I have of my own impressions, ideas, feelings, powers, &c., with my knowledge of the same or similar impressions, ideas, &c., in others, and with the still more imperfect conception that I form of what passes in their minds when this is supposed to be essentially different from what passes in my own, that I acquire the general notion of self. If I had no idea of what passes in the minds of others, or if my ideas of their feelings and perceptions were perfect representations, i. e. mere conscious repetitions of them, all proper personal distinction would be lost either in pure self-love, or in perfect universal sympathy. In the one case it would be impossible for me to prefer myself to others, as I should be the sole object of my own consciousness; and in the other case I must love all others as myself, because I should then be nothing more than part of a whole, of which all others