I never can catch _myself_ at any time without a
perception, and never can observe anything but the perception. When
my perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound sleep, so long
am I insensible of _myself_, and may be truly said not to exist.
And were all my perceptions removed by death, and I could neither
think, nor feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate, after the dissolution
of my body, I should be entirely annihilated, nor do I conceive
what is further requisite to make me a perfect nonentity. If any
one, upon serious and unprejudiced reflection, thinks he has a
different notion of _himself_, I must confess I can reason no
longer with him. All I can allow him is, that he may be in the
right as well as I, and that we are essentially different in this
particular. He may perhaps perceive something simple and continued
which he calls _himself_, though I am certain there is no such
principle in me.
"But setting aside some metaphysicians of this kind, I may venture
to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a
bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed one
another with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux
and movement.... The mind is a kind of theatre, where several
perceptions successively make their appearance, pass, repass, glide
away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations.
Pages:
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198