addition, and without diminution into clearer and more intelligible forms.
In observance and exemplification, then, of this rule, let us now take up an expression frequently made use of by common sense, and which, in the preceding chapter, we had occasion to bring forward—that expression, to wit, constantly in the mouth of every one, "my mind," or let it be "my emotion," "my sensation," or any similar mode of speech; and let us ask, What does a man, thus talking the ordinary language of common life, precisely mean when he employs these expressions? The metaphysician will tell us that he does not mean what he says. We affirm that he does mean what he says. The metaphysician will tell us that he does not really make, or intend to make any discrimination or sundering between himself and his "mind;" or we should rather say his "state of mind." We affirm that he both intends to make such a separation, and does make it. The metaphysician declares that by the expression "my emotion" the man merely means that there is one of them; namely "emotion," that this is himself (the being he calls "I"), and contains and expresses every fact which this latter word denotes: and in making this averment the metaphysician roughly subverts and obliterates the language of the man. We, however, reverencing the canon we have just laid down, refrain from doing this gross violence to his expressions, because, if we were guilty of it, we should consider ourselves upon the point of falling into great errors, and of confounding a most essential distinction which has not escaped the primitive and almost instinctive good sense of all mankind—the genus metaphysicorum excepted. This tribe will not admit that in using the expression, for instance, "my sensations," the man regards himself as standing aloof from his sensations: or at any rate they hold that such a view on the part of the man is an erroneous one. They will not allow that the man himself and the fact of consciousness stand on the outside of the sphere of the "states of mind" experienced: but they fetter him down within the circle of these states, and make him and consciousness identical with them.
In opposition to this, the ordinary psychological doctrine, we, for our part, prefer to adhere to the language of common sense; believing that this represents the facts faithfully and truly, while the formulas of metaphysics misrepresent them grievously. We affirm that the natural man, in using the words "my mind," expresses and intends to express what is, and what he feels to be the fact—namely, that his conscious self, that which he calls "I" (ego), is not to be confounded, and cannot be confounded with his "mind," or the "states of mind," which are its objects. Let us observe, he merely views "mind," and uses this word, as a term expressing the aggregate or general assemblage of these states, and connects with it no hypothesis respecting its substance. On the other hand, to the ego he never thinks of applying the epithet "my." And why not? Simply because it is he; and if mind also was he, he never would dream of applying the word "my" to it either. The ego is he—not something which he possesses. He therefore never attempts to objectify it, because it will not admit of this. But he can talk rightly and intelligibly of "my sensations;" that is to say, he can tell us that this ego is visited by various sensations, because he feels that the ego—that is, himself—is different from these sensations. At any rate, he never, of his own accord, confounds himself and his sensations or states of mind together. He never, in his natural state, uses the word "mind" as convertible with the word "I;" and if he did so, he would not be intelligible to his species. They would never know that he meant himself; and simply for this reason, that the fact of self-reference or consciousness is not contained or expressed in the word "mind," and cannot, indeed, be denoted by any word in the third person. It has been reserved for the "metaphysics of mind" to introduce into thought and language a confusion which man's natural understanding has always steered clear of.
We have found, then, that this distinction between the man himself (that called ego) and the states of mind which he is conscious of, obtains in the language of common sense, and we do not feel ourselves entitled to subvert or to neglect it. But to leave it precisely as we found it, would be to turn it to no account
