Passing from this point let us ask what is the alternative to identity. If we deny sameness in character and assert mere resemblance, with what are we left? We are left, it seems to me, in confusion, and end with sheer nonsense. How mere resemblance without identity is to qualify the terms that resemble, is a problem which is not faced, and yet unsolved it threatens ruin. The use of this mere resemblance leads us in psychology to entertain gross and useless fictions, and in logic it entails immediate and irretrievable bankruptcy. If the same in character does not mean the same, our inferences are destroyed and cut in sunder, and in brief the world of our knowledge is dissolved.[1]
And how is this bankruptcy veiled? How is it that those who deny sameness in character can in logic, and wherever they find it convenient, speak of terms as ‘the same,’ and mention ‘their identity,’ and talk of ‘one note’ and ‘one colour’? The expedient used is the idea or the phrase of ‘exact likeness’ or ‘precise similarity.’ When resemblance is carried to such a point that perceptible difference ceases, then, I understand, you have not really got sameness or identity, but you can speak as if you had got it. And in this way the collision with language and logic is avoided or rather hidden.
What in principle is the objection to this use of ‘exact likeness’? The objection is that resemblance, if and so far as you make it ‘exact’ by removing all internal difference, has so far ceased to be mere resemblance, and has become identity. Resemblance, we saw, demands two things that resemble, and it demands also that the exact point of resemblance shall not be distinguished. This is essential to resemblance as contra-distinguished against identity, and this is why—because you do not know what the point of resemblance is and whether it may not be complex—you cannot in logic use mere resemblance as sameness. You can indeed, we also saw, while analyzing still retain your perception of resemblance, but, so far as you analyze, you so far have got something else, and, when you argue, it is not the resemblance which you use but the point of resemblance, if at least your argument is logical. But a point of resemblance is clearly an identity. And it is, we saw,
- ↑ The position of Mr. Hobhouse here, who appears on the one hand to deny all identity of quality or character, and yet on the other hand appears not to be willing to assert that resemblance without a basis of identity is possible, I may repeat does not seem intelligible.
