is not only possible, but most probable, that in every man there are elements in the internal felt core which are never made objects, and which practically cannot be. There may well be features in our Cœnesthesia which lie so deep that we never succeed in detaching them; and these cannot properly be said to be ever our not-self. Even in the past we cannot distinguish their speciality. But I presume that even here the obstacle may be said to be practical, and to consist in the obscurity, and not otherwise in the essence, of these sensations.[1] And I will barely notice the assertion that pleasure and pain are essentially not capable of being objects. This assertion seems produced by the straits of theory, is devoid of all basis in fact, and may be ignored. But our reason for believing in elements which never are a not-self is the fact of a felt surplus in our undistinguished core. What I mean is this: we are able in our internal mass of feeling to distinguish and to recognise a number of elements; and we are able, on the other side, to decide that our feeling contains beyond these an unexhausted margin.[2] It contains a margin which, in its general idea of margin, can be made an object, but which, in its particularity, cannot be. But from time to time this margin has been encroached upon; and we have not the smallest reason to suppose that at some point in its nature lies a hard and fast limit to the invasion of the not-self.
- ↑ Notice that our emotional moods, where we hardly could analyse them, may qualify objects aesthetically.
- ↑ How the existence of this margin is observed is a question I cannot discuss here. The main point lies in our ability to feel a discrepancy between our felt self and any object before it. This, reflected on and made an object—as, of course, in its main vague type is always possible with past feeling—gives us the idea of an unreduced residue. The same ability to feel discrepancy is the ground of our belief as to difference or identity between past and present feeling. But the detail of this discussion does not belong to metaphysics.
