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PROPOSITION IX.
THE EGO PER SE.
The ego, or self or mind, per se, is, of necessity, absolutely unknowable. By itself—that is, in a purely undeterminate state, or separated from all things, and divested of all thoughts—it is no possible object of cognition. It can know itself only in some particular state, or in union with some non-ego; that is, with some element contradistinguished from itself.
DEMONSTRATION.
The ego is the element common to all cognition—the universal constituent of knowledge, (Proposition VII.) But every cognition must contain a particular or peculiar, as well as a common or universal, part, and there can be no knowledge of either of
