41. The proposition, _I think_, in the sense in which the word _think_ includes all internal affections, does not relate to isolated phenomena alone, but it necessarily implies a point, which we call the _me_, in which these phenomena are connected. If this point does not exist, if it is not one and identical, the thought of to-day can have no connection with the thought of yesterday: they are two distinct things, at different times, and perhaps contradictory: when I say to-day, _I think_, and mean that the _I_ is the same as in the proposition, _I thought yesterday_, my language would be absurd; if they are mere phenomena, two thoughts without any connecting link, the _me_ is nothing, I cannot say, _I thought, I think_; but I must say _there was_ thought, _there is_ thought. If, then, you ask me, _where? in whom?_ I must reply, that there is no _where_, no _who_; I must deny the supposition, and confine myself to repeating, _there was_ thought, _there is_ thought. 42. To say _me_, it is necessary to suppose a permanent reality; a reality, because that which is not real is nothing; permanent, because that which passes away disappears, ceases to be, and cannot serve as the point to unite other things. CHAPTER VIII. REMARKS ON THE SOUL'S INTUITION OF ITSELF. 43. The permanent reality of the _me_, considered in itself and abstracted from the things which pass within it, is a fact which we perceive in our intuition, and which we express in all our words. If this presence, this internal experience, be what is called the intuition of the soul, then we have intuition of our soul. This intuition is reproduced in every particular intuition, and in all internal affections in general; for, although they are isolated phenomena, they imply the intuition of the _me_, because they imply the consciousness of themselves. 44. The variety of isolated phenomena instead of proving any thing against the unity of the intuition of the _me_, on the contrary, evidently confirms it. If we conceived only one fixed and identical thought, there would be less necessity of uniting with it the idea of a subject in which it resides; but when there is a multitude of different phenomena, which cannot co-exist without contradiction, we must refer them to something constant, or else the internal world is converted into an absolute chaos. 45. The soul has, therefore, an intuition of itself; that is to say, it is conscious of its unity in multiplicity, of its identity in diversity, of its permanence in succession, of its constant duration in the appearance and disappearance of phenomena. Either we must admit this, or we must renounce the legitimacy of all testimony of consciousness, and embrace the most complete skepticism that ever existed, extending it both to the internal and to the external world.