Just what, from being 'pure,' does its
becoming 'conscious' _once_ mean?
It means, first, that new experiences have
supervened; and, second, that they have
borne a certain assignable relation to the unit
supposed. Continue, if you please, to speak of
the pure unit as 'the pen.' So far as the pen's
successors do but repeat the pen or, being
different from it, are 'energetically'(1) related
to it, and they will form a group of stably
existing physical things. So far, however, as
its successors differ from it in another well-
determined way, the pen will figure in their
context, not as a physical, but as a mental fact.
It will become a passing 'percept,' _my_ percept
of that pen. What now is that decisive well-
determined way?
In the chapter on 'The Self,' in my _Principles_
---
1 [For an explanation of this expression, see above, p. 32.]
129
_of_Psychology_, I explained the continuous identity
of each personal consciousness as a name
for the practical fact that new experiences(1)
come which look back on the old ones, find
them 'warm,' and greet and appropriate them
as 'mine.' These operations mean, when analyzed
empirically, several tolerably definite
things, viz.
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