would be equally members with myself. I will here add once more, that this distinction subsists as necessarily and completely between myself and those who most nearly resemble me, as between myself and those whose character and properties are the very opposite of mine: because it does not relate to the difference between one being and another, or between one object and another, considered absolutely or in themselves, but solely to the difference of the manner and the different degrees of force and certainty, with which, from the imperfect and limited nature of our faculties, the same or different things affect us as they act immediately upon ourselves, or are supposed to act upon others. Indeed the distinction becomes marked and intelligible in proportion as the objects or impressions are intrinsically the same, as then it is impossible to mistake the true principle on which it is founded, namely, the want of any direct communication between the feelings of one being and those of another. This will shew why the difference between ourselves and others must appear greater to us than that between other individuals, though it is not really so.
Considering mankind in this two-fold relation, as they are to themselves, or as they appear to one another, as the subjects of their own thoughts, or the thoughts of others, we shall find the origin of that wide and absolute distinction which the mind feels in comparing itself with others, to be confined to two faculties, viz. sensation, or rather consciousness[1], and memory. The operation of both these faculties is of a perfectly exclusive and individual nature, and so far as their operation extends (but no farther) is man a personal, or if you will, a selfish being. The sensation
- ↑ To avoid an endless subtlety of distinction, I have not here given any account of consciousness in general: but the same reasoning will apply to both.
