3. The "external" bundle of qualities, which formed for Locke the knowable element in a thing or "body," may be regarded as being the same at two different times—as having, so to speak, a life-history. Here one is simply calling up in thought the experience described under Sense III.
4. Two "external" things (bundles of "real" qualities), or two "external" qualities, existing at one time, may be called the same to mark similarity. Here we have Sense IV.
5. An "external" thing (in the sense just indicated), or an "external" quality, may be called the same with its representative. If this representative be the immediate object of knowledge, we have the experience described as Sense VII. If it be another "external" thing or quality, e. g., an "external" picture in an "external" mirror, an "external" statue in "external" marble, etc., we have Sense V.
6. Two men may be said to perceive the same "external" thing. In saying this one simply calls up in mind the complex described at length under VI, but makes the duplicate, which is, to him, the thing, stand in the complex in the place of the percept, this being now regarded as a mere representative.
7. An "external" thing may be said to be the same with its representative in consciousness or with the substance or noumenon assumed to underlie it. Here we have Sense VII.
It would seem scarcely necessary to mention this last, since, if the representative in consciousness can be called the same with its "real" correlate, it would seem self-evident that the "real" correlate may be called the same with it. I add it, however, for the sake of completeness. It should be noted that in this last kind of sameness we step over the limits of any one class of being, ideas, things (as bundles of qualities), or substance. The word is used to denote a relation between something in one class and a corresponding thing in another class.
In the foregoing I have been considering the sameness of "real" or "external" things regarded as bundles of qualities. If one ask concerning the sameness of Locke's "substance," or the "noumenon" of other writers, I would say that our notions of this must vary with the kind of being we allow this nebulous entity. Strict consistency in dealing with a noumenon as sometimes defined means, of course, its utter collapse. If, however, we keep anything in mind at all, we must carry over to it at least the first of the kinds of sameness described. I do not think it would be hard to show that several other kinds are carried over in despite of consistency by men who hold to this shadowy something under one name or another.
As, however, we do not find here any new sense of the word same, but mere repetition in a new field (if one may call it such), it seems unnecessary to dwell upon this part of my subject.
I have not discussed at all the sameness of things from the point of view of an adherent of that Natural Realism which claims that we know immediately real things and yet holds that real things are not our perceptions themselves, but something extra-mental. This view is so incoherent that it is not likely to be taken seriously by men who have learned to reflect at all. I may say, however, en passant, that it does not add to the kinds of sameness I have described: it merely confounds them one with another, and falls into the inconsequences which naturally result from so doing.
Sec. 10. When we come to the question of the sameness of the Self or Ego we are, if possible, on more debatable ground than heretofore. The whole subject of our knowledge of the Self lies as yet, in the opinion of many, very much in the dark. Without undertaking the task of defining narrowly what this elusive something is, it would seem that I may safely make concerning it at least the following assertions: