that permanent and never-fluctuating constituent, which we call "I." And is not the pulsation of this latter truth felt and seen in every movement of my philosophical system? If Mr Cairns had alleged that my work was impregnated too much with the necessity of personal identity, there might have been some sense in the remark; but the counter-allegation is astonishingly opposed to the fact. To be convinced of this misrepresentation, the reader has only to glance at Propositions I., VI., and VII. of the Institutes, where the doctrine of personal identity is expounded and made use of, although not under that name, in a way which converts it from a truism into a grand and fructifying truth.
Thirdly, In the concluding part of this "result," where he says that my system "suspends on the successive thoughts of the individual, the existence of God and the universe;" and, in the passages in his pamphlet bearing on this point, Mr Cairns labours to force my system to a conclusion which cannot be deduced from it on any principles of logic or sound thinking, and to raise an objection to it which had been already started, and thoroughly obviated, in the Institutes themselves. I have cleared this topic about the difficulty of passing in thought from "me" to another "me," most effectually, in prop. XIII., obs. 10. It is, no doubt a point of some nicety, and I am not surprised at my critic's want of perspicacity in regard to it. Some logical power and analytical insight, are required to understand it. The point is this: I maintain that a contradiction is involved in our attempt to conceive the universe without any "me," or mind, in connection with it; but that no contradiction is involved in our thinking it in connection with a "me" or mind, other than our individual selves. According to my system, it is nonsense to affirm that things can exist without any mind; but it is not nonsense to affirm that they can exist in connection with some other mind than my individual self. An illustration will make this plain: let us suppose the centre of a circle to be endowed with consciousness, and suppose we affirm that this centre can have no cognizance of the circumference, without being cognizant of itself (the centre) as well. What would
