106. Thus that reduction of reality to that of which nothing can be said, which follows from its identification with particularity in time, follows equally from its identification with the resistance of body, or (which comes to the same) from the notion of an ‘outer sense’ being its organ; since it is only that which _now_ resists, not a general possibility of resistance nor a relation between the resistances of different times, that can be regarded as outside the mind. In Locke’s language, it is only a particular parcel of matter that can be so regarded. Of such a parcel, as he rightly says, it is absurd to ask what is its essence, for it can have none at all. (See above, paragraph 94.) As real, it has no quality save that of being a body or of being now touched--a quality, which as all things real have it and have none other, cannot be a _differentia_ of it. When we consider that this quality may be regarded equally as immutable and as changing from moment to moment, we shall see the ground of Locke’s contradiction of himself in speaking of the real thing sometimes as indestructible, sometimes as in continual dissolution. ‘The real constitutions of things begin and perish with them.’ (Book III. chap. iii. sec. 19.) That is, the thing at one moment makes an impact on the sensitive tablet--in the fact that it does so lie at once its existence and its essence--but the next moment the impact is over, and with it thing and essence, _as real_, have disappeared. Another impact, and thus another thing, has taken its place. But of this the real essence is just the same as that of the previous thing, namely, that it may be touched, or is solid, or a body, or a parcel of matter; nor can this essence be really lost, since than it there is no other reality, all difference of essence, as Locke expressly says, [1] being constituted by abstract ideas and the work of the mind. It follows that _real_ change is impossible. A parcel of matter at one time is a parcel of matter at all times. Thus we have only to forget that the relation of continuity between the parcels, not being an idea caused by impact, should properly fall to the unreal--though only on the same principle as should that of distinctness between the times--and we find the real in a continuity of matter, unchangeable because it has no qualities to change. It may seem strange that when this notion of the formless continuity of the real being gets the better of Locke, a man should be the real being which he takes as his instance. ‘Nothing I have is essential to me. An accident or disease may very much alter my colour or shape; a fever or fall may take away my reason or memory, or both; and an apoplexy leave neither sense nor understanding, no, nor life.’ (Book III. chap. vi. sec. 4.) But as the sequel shows, the man or the ‘I’ is here considered simply as ‘a particular corporeal being,’ _i.e._ as the ‘parcel of matter’ which alone (according to the doctrine of reality now in view) can be the