CHAPTER IX.
THE MEANINGS OF SELF.
Our facts, up to the present, have proved to be illusory. We have seen our things go to pieces, crumbled away into relations that can find no terms. And we have begun, perhaps, to feel some doubt whether, since the plague is so deep-rooted, it can be stayed at any point. At the close of our seventh chapter we were naturally led beyond the inanimate, and up to the self. And here, in the opinion of many, is the end of our troubles. The self, they will assure us, is not apparent, but quite real. And it is not only real in itself, but its reality, if I may say so, spreads beyond its own limits and rehabilitates the selfless. It provides a fixed nucleus round which the facts can group themselves securely. Or it, in some way, at least provides us with a type, by the aid of which we may go on to comprehend the world. And we must now proceed to a serious examination of this claim. Is the self real, is it anything which we can predicate of reality? Or is it, on the other hand, like all the preceding, a mere appearance—something which is given, and, in a sense, most certainly exists, but which is too full of contradictions to be the genuine fact? I have been forced to embrace the latter conclusion.
There is a great obstacle in the path of the proposed inquiry. A man commonly thinks that he knows what he means by his self. He may be in doubt about other things, but here he seems to be at home. He fancies that with the self he at once
