38. Therefore every thing passes away within us never to return, the disappearance is real, the reappearance but apparent; that which ceases to be can never return to be again; there may be a similar thing, but not the same; that which was, is passed, and time does not retrace its steps.
39. Therefore, the series of internal phenomena, considered in themselves and abstracted from the subject in which they reside, are necessarily unconnected, and there is no way of subordinating the terms of the series to any law, or connecting link.
40. Still this law exists in all our intellectual acts; reason, without laws which govern it, would be the greatest of absurdities; this link is found in all our affections. That they pass from us with their distinction and difference and resemblance is a fact of our mind, to which we are subjected, as to a primitive and inevitable condition of our existence.
41. The proposition, I think, in the sense in which the word think includes all internal affections, does not relate to isolated phenomena alone, but it necessarily implies a point, which we call the me, in which these phenomena are connected. If this point does not exist, if it is not one and identical, the thought of to-day can have no connection with the thought of yesterday: they are two distinct things, at different times, and perhaps contradictory: when I say to-day, I think, and mean that the I is the same as in the proposition, I thought yesterday, my language would be absurd; if they are mere phenomena, two thoughts without any connecting link, the me is nothing, I cannot say, I thought, I think; but I must say there was thought, there is thought. If, then, you ask me, where? in whom? I must reply, that there is no where, no who; I must deny the supposition, and confine myself to repeating, there was thought, there is thought.
42. To say me, it is necessary to suppose a permanent reality; a reality, because that which is not real is nothing; permanent, because that which passes away disappears, ceases to be, and cannot serve as the point to unite other things.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
REMARKS ON THE SOUL'S INTUITION OF ITSELF.
43. The permanent reality of the me, considered in itself and abstracted from the things which pass within it, is a fact which we perceive in our intuition, and which we express in all our words. If this presence, this internal experience, be what is called the intuition of the soul, then we have intuition of our soul. This intuition is reproduced in every particular intuition, and in all internal affections in general; for, although they are isolated phenomena, they imply the intuition of the me, because they imply the consciousness of themselves.