Page:Philosophical Review Volume 2.djvu/681

. 6.] falsity in it as well as truth. Shall we then try this new category of ‘Becoming’? But the becoming may not be a mere change; it may be an evolution. We find we are a considerable way from a knowledge that is absolutely certain.

The difficulties are enormously increased, if we turn our attention to the Ego. “I am sure of my existence.” What is the “I” to which existence is thus confidently attributed? Usually he who makes this affirmation means that the individual he is a hard, not-to-be-dissipated lump of fact in the universe. But it is one of the most serious problems for Science or Philosophy to say what the Ego is. And until we know what it is, how shall we affirm its existence? It would not be to it that our affirmations would apply. Probably indeed we are referring them to what is only a phantasm of our brains. It is unnecessary to criticise at length the somewhat petulant assertion, that we are sure that at least something is.

It thus appears that even this primary certainty is not absolute. Even the existence of the Ego is hypothetical. An Archimedean point is not easily found. In truth, the proposition of Descartes seems to acquire its appearance of certainty, just in so far as it is analytical. He denied that it was an analytical proposition; but possibly he was more completely deluded by traditional notions than he was himself aware. In the concept of thinking, as he entertained it, was not the existence of an Ego given? Was it not for him an assumption, which he never questioned, that thought was an attribute of a thinking thing? Accordingly, since he construed his experience as that of thought, he found necessarily that he had existence. To construe his experience thus was, however, to make assumptions with too great facility.

The sense of personal identity seems to many to be an irresistible belief; but this ‘sense’ can be readily seen to be of the nature of a hypothesis. To those who have studied Psychology, it can show little of the character of an infallible certainty. We identify ourselves with the past by virtue of memory. The past self, with which our present is identical, is a past of concrete experiences, emotions, and ideas, and these