matter. Matter is known by its changes alone, mind also is known only by its changes. Thus, continues he, for all scientific purposes, the analogy between the two is complete, and science in both cases is practicable only by noting these changes and the order in which they recur.
"But may I ask," interposes the foreign interlocutor, "to whom these changes are known?"
"To me, the inquirer, to be sure!" answers the metaphysician.
"Then," rejoins the other," ought you not, logically speaking, to say that your universe resolves itself into three distinct orders of existence: 1st, Mind; 2d, Matter; and 3d, This which you call 'me,' to whom the changes of the other two are known; and when sciences of the first and second are complete, does not a science, or some knowledge, at least, of the third still remain a desideratum?"
"Not at all," replies the inquirer, "for 'I' and 'mind' are identical. The observed and the observer, the knowing subject and the known object, are here one and the same: and whatever is a science of the one is a science of the other also."
"Then you get out of one error only to be convicted of another. You set out with saying that mind, like matter, was visited by various changes, and that this was all; you said that changing was its only fact, or was, at least, the general complementary expression of the whole of its facts. So far I perfectly understood the analogy between mind and matter, and considered it complete. I also saw plainly that any principles of science applicable to the one object would likewise be applicable to the other. But when you are questioned as to whom these changes are known, you answer 'to me.' When further interrogated, you will not admit this 'me' to be a third existence different from the other two, but you identify it with mind, that is to say, you make mind take cognizance of its own changes. And in doing this, you depart entirely from your first position, which was, that mind did nothing more than change. You now, in contradiction to your first statement, tell me that this is not all. You tell me that moreover it is aware of its own changes—and in telling me this, you bring forward a fact connected with mind altogether new. For to change and to be cognisant of change; for a thing to be in a particular state, and to be aware that it is in this state, is surely not one and the same fact, but two totally distinct and separate facts. In proof of which witness the case of matter;—or perhaps matter also does something more than change; perhaps matter too has a 'me,' which is identical with it, and cognisant of its changes. Has it so? Do you identify your 'me' with matter likewise, and do you make matter take notice of its own changes? And do you thus still preserve entire the analogy between mind and matter?"
"No."
"Then the parallel is at an end. So far as the mere fact of change in either case is concerned, this parallel remains perfect, and if you confine your attention to this fact, it is not to be denied that analogous sciences of the two objects may be established upon exactly the same principles. But when you depart from this fact, as you have been forced to do by a criticism which goes no deeper than the mere surface of the language you make use of; and when you take your stand upon another fact which is to be found in the one object, while the opposite of it is to be found in the other object; the analogy between them becomes, in that point, completely violated. And this violation carries along with it, as shall be shown, the total subversion of any similarity between the two methods of inquiry which might have resulted from it, supposing it to have been preserved unbroken. You have been brought, by the very language you employ, to signalize a most important distinction between mind and matter. You inform me that both of them change; but that while one of them takes no cognizance of its changes, the other does. You tell me that in the case of matter the object known is different from the subject knowing, but that in the case of mind the object known is the same as the subject knowing. Disregarding, then, the fact of change as it takes place in either object, let us attend a little more minutely to this latter fact. It is carelessly slurred over in ordinary metaphysics; but it is certain, that our attention as psychologists ought to be chiefly directed, if not exclusively confined to it, inasmuch as a true knowledge of any object is to be obtained by marking the point in which it differs from other things, and not the point in
