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Elements of Mental and Moral Science; Designed to Exhibit the Original Susceptibilities of the Mind
Elements of Mental and Moral Science Designed to Exhibit the Original Susceptibilities of the Mind Author:George Payne General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1828 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: CHAP. V. THE ORIGIN OF THE NOTION OF SELF, AND THE IDENTITY OF THE THINKING PRINCIPLE AMIDST ALL THE ARIETY OF ITS CONSCIOUSNESS. The notion of self is the conception of the existence of mind, as the permanent subject of the ever-shifting and endlessly diversified phenomena, of which, in popular language, we are said to be conscious. How then does this notion arise ? The question is not unattended with difficulty; and, as it might have been expected, the answer returned by different philosophers is by no means the same. If the existence of Mind, or of the being denoted by the words I, and myself, were a subject of consciousness, it would be manifestly as absurd to put the inquiry, " How do we attain the knowledge and belief of our existence?" as to ask in what manner we know that we experience a certain sensation. But this is not the case. " We are conscious," says Mr. Stewart, " of our sensations, thoughts, desires,« less