CHAPTER XIX.
THE THIS AND THE MINE.
We have seen that the forms of space and time supply no good objection to the individuality of the Absolute. But we have not yet faced a difficulty which perhaps may prove more serious. There is the fact which is denoted by the title of the present chapter. The particularity of feeling, it may be contended, is an obstacle which declines to be engulfed. The “this” and the “mine” are undeniable; and upon our theory, it may be said, they are both inexplicable.
The “this” and the “mine” are names which stand for the immediacy of feeling, and each serves to call attention to one side of that fact. There is no “mine” which is not “this,” nor any “this” which fails, in a sense, to be “mine.” The immediate fact must always come as something felt in an experience, and an experience always must be particular, and, in a sense, must be “unique.” But I shall not enter on all the problems implied in the last word. I am not going to inquire here how we are able to transcend the “this-mine,” for that question will engage us hereafter (Chapter xxi.), and the problem now before us is confined to a single point. We are to assume that there does exist an indefinite number of “this-mines,” of immediate experiences of the felt. And, assuming this fact, we are to ask if it is compatible with our general view.
The difficulty of this inquiry arises in great part from vagueness. The “this” and “mine” are
