factor may seem overborne. The other conditions here have joined to modify the general consequence, but the law itself has worked fully, and has maintained its selfsame character. And, given two individuals with any part of their content indiscernible, then, while that is so, we are bound, so far, to consider them the same. However much their diversity may preponderate, however different may be the whole effect of each separate compound, yet, for all that, what is the same in them is one and identical. And our principle, thus understood, is surely irrefragable, and wears the air, perhaps, more of triviality than of paradox. Its results indeed often would be trivial, most empty and frivolous. Its significance varies with varying conditions. To know that two souls have an element of their contents in common, may thus be quite unimportant. Such knowledge may, again, assure us of the very gravest and most fundamental truths. But of all this the principle itself, being abstract, tells us nothing.
And as to any working connection our principle is silent. Whether an identical point in two things affects them otherwise, so as to cause other changes to happen, we are unable to learn from it. For how a thing works must depend on its special relations, while the principle, as we have seen, remains perfectly general. Two souls, for example, which live together, may by their identity be drawn into active community. If the same were sundered in time, this, for our knowledge, would be impossible. But, in the latter case, the identity exists actually as much as it exists in the former. The amount of sameness, and the kind of sameness, and what the sameness will bring forth—these points all fall outside of our abstract principle. But if any one bases an objection on this ground, he would seem to be arguing in effect that, because, in fact, diverse identities exist, therefore identity, as a fact, has no actual existence. And such a position seems irrational.
