childhood pass and the period of maturity and old age comes
on. It is still my body, whether I am a child or an old man,
and it has always been mine, and never for a moment capable
of confusion with the body of any one else.

When we try to discern the most important psychological
contributors to this sense of identity, we discover two which
are evidently of radical significance. The first of these is
memory. Were we not able to identify among our various
thoughts those which represent former experiences of our
own, it is certain that any feeling of personal identity which
we might have would differ fundamentally from that which
we now possess. Undoubtedly that peculiar use of the idea-
tional process which we call anticipation plays an important
part in this connection. The second factor is a persistent
background consciousness of our own organism. When the
bodily sensations and feelings are seriously deranged, we
always experience a strange sense of uneasiness and distress
which is often wholly out of proportion to any actual pain
that we may be suffering. Our general sense of bodily exist-
ence, then, gives a fairly constant tone to our consciousness,
and thus furnishes a certain impression of sameness or con-
tinuity. Beyond question there are other phases of con-
sciousness which contribute their quota toward the same end.
But these two are certainly preëminent.

It is a remarkable fact that our sense of the identity and
continuity of our own personality is essentially unaffected by
the interruptions which occur in the onflowing of conscious-
ness. In coma, as in sleep, consciousness may, so far as we
can discover, be wholly suspended. Yet upon its return it
once more claims its own from out of the past, and under such
circumstances it ordinarily manifests no disturbance whatever
of the sense of personal identity.

Subject-Object Nature of Consciousness. -- If we examine
from a more critical and reflective point of view the implica-
tions of consciousness for the concept of the self, we come

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