Note 194 — Chapter III · THE PLACE OF THE “SELF” IN REALITY

I suppose that any doctrine which denies the ultimate reality of the finite self must expect to be confronted by the appeal to the alleged revelation of immediate experience. Cogito, ergo sum, is often taken as an immediately certain truth in the sense that the existence of myself is something of which I am directly aware in every moment of consciousness. This is, however, an entire perversion of the facts. Undoubtedly the fact of there being experience is one which can be verified by the very experiment of trying to deny it. Denial itself is a felt experience. But it is (a) probably not true that we cannot have experience at all without an accompanying perception of self, and (b) certainly not true that the mere feeling of self as in contrast with a not-self, when we do get it, is what is meant by the self of Ethics and History. The self of these sciences always embraces more than can be given in any single moment of experience, it is an ideal construction by which we connect moments of experience according to a general scheme. The value of that scheme for any science can only be tested by the success with which it does its work, and its truth is certainly not established by the mere consideration that the facts it aims at connecting are actual. Metaphysics would be the easiest of sciences if you could thus take it for granted that any construction which is based upon some aspect of experienced fact must be valid.