Page:The Conception of God (1897).djvu/284

Rh the fable, it scratches with the beasts and flies with the birds, whenever the two parties contend; but, most of all, it loves hiding and the twilight.

Our schoolmen have now admirably defined our problem for us. A study of Leibnitz’s later doctrine would, I think, give us no essentially new light on the subject. We must try our own hands. The empirical world contains various sorts and degrees of segmentation. We call, or may call, any segmented mass an individual, of a lower or of a higher grade. But we mean more than the mere presence of segmentation by the use of the name “individual.” We mean that this one before us is not only segmented, but, in respect of its hæcceitas, unique. The question is, first: How can we be sure of this uniqueness? The first obvious answer is: “Sense, or some other form of brute experience, assures us of the fact.” But to this the equally obvious retort is: “Mere experience, as such, cannot immediately assure us of anything of the kind. Uniqueness is an idea of great subtlety. Individual Identity requires in general careful proof, or, at all events, careful reflection, as in case of our own identity. Moreover, what experience really presents is the fact of segmentation. Logical considerations, it would seem, must then supply the element of uniqueness.” On the other hand, this opposed answer