Note 274 — Chapter X · (continued 2)

Some subtle reader will object that the Thought cannot call any part of its Object 'I' and knit other parts on to it, without first knitting that part on to Itself; and that it cannot knit it on to Itself without knowing Itself;—so that our supposition (above, p. 304) that the Thought may conceivably have no immediate knowledge of Itself is thus overthrown. To which the reply is that we must take care not to be duped by words. The words I and me signify nothing mysterious and unexampled—they are at bottom only names of emphasis; and Thought is always emphasizing something. Within a tract of space which it cognizes, it contrasts a here with a there; within a tract of time a now with a then; of a pair of things it calls one this, the other that. I and thou, I and it, are distinctions exactly on a par with these,—distinctions possible in an exclusively objective field of knowledge, the 'I' meaning for the Thought nothing but the bodily life which it momentarily feels. The sense of my bodily existence, however obscurely recognized as such, may then be the absolute original of my conscious selfhood, the fundamental perception that I am. All appropriations may be made to it, by a Thought not at the moment immediately cognized by itself. Whether these are not only logical possibilities but actual facts is something not yet dogmatically decided in the text.