The Self is a Collection of Perceptions

Some philosophers imagine that we:

• are always intimately conscious of our self,
• feel its existence and its continuance, and
• are certain of its perfect identity and simplicity.

They say that the strongest sensation, the most violent passion:

• fixes the self more intensely, and
• makes us consider their influence on the self by their pain or pleasure, instead of distracting us from the self.

But all these assertions are contrary to our experience of the self.

If we continued this reasoning, then we cannot have any idea of the self.

The idea of the self is derived from what impression?

Every real idea comes from an impression.

But the self is not any one impression.

It is an impression that references our several other impressions and ideas.

If any impression creates the idea of self, that impression must continue invariably throughout our lives, since the self is supposed to exist for a lifetime.

But no impression is constant and invariable.

Pain and pleasure, grief and joy, passions and sensations succeed each other.

They never all exist at the same time.

Therefore, the idea of the self cannot be derived from any impressions.

Consequently, there is no such idea of the self.

Then what must become of all our perceptions on this hypothesis?

The perceptions by our self:

• are different, distinguishable, separable from each other,
• may be separately considered,
• may exist separately, and
• do not need anything to support their existence.

How do they belong and are connected to the self?

I can never catch myself at anytime without a perception.

When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound sleep, then I do not exist.

I would be entirely annihilated if all my perceptions were removed by death.

The rest of mankind is nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions which:

• succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and
• are in a perpetual flux and movement.

The Mind is a Theatre Where Perceptions Live

Our eyes cannot turn in their sockets without changing our perceptions.

Our thought is still more variable than our sight.

All our other senses and faculties contribute to this change.

There is no single power of the soul which remains unalterably the same, perhaps for one moment.

The mind is a kind of theatre where several perceptions successively make their appearance.

Perceptions pass, re-pass, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations.

There is no simplicity in it at one time.

There is no identity in different times, whatever natural propension we may have to imagine that simplicity and identity.

The comparison of the theatre must not mislead us.

They are the successive perceptions only that constitute the mind.

We do not have the most distant notion of:

• the place where these scenes are represented,
• the materials it is composed of.

What then gives us so great a propension to:

• ascribe an identity to these successive perceptions, and
• suppose ourselves having an invariable and uninterrupted existence through our lives?

To answer this question, we must distinguish between personal identity regarding:

• our thought or imagination, and
• our passions or our concern for ourselves.