As many people have the impression that the verifiable self, the object that we name with “I,” is usually the material body, it may be well to say that this impression is an illusion, easily dispelled by anyone who will undertake a simple examination of facts. It is true that when we philosophize a little about “I” and look around for a tangible object to which to attach it, we soon fix upon the material body as the most available _locus_; but when we use the word naïvely, as in ordinary speech, it is not very common to think of the body in connection with it; not nearly so common as it is to think of other things. There is no difficulty in testing this statement, since the word “I” is one of the commonest in conversation and literature, so that nothing is more practicable than to study its meaning at any length that may be desired. One need only listen to ordinary speech until the word has occurred, say, a hundred times, noting its connections, or observe its use in a similar number of cases by the characters in a novel. Ordinarily it will be found that in not more than ten cases in a hundred does “I” have reference to the body of the person speaking. It refers chiefly to opinions, purposes, desires, claims, and the like, concerning matters that involve no thought of the body. _I_ think or feel so and so; _I_ wish or intend so and so; _I_ want this or that; are typical uses, the self-feeling being associated with the view, purpose, or object mentioned. It should also be remembered that “my” and “mine” are as much the names of the self as “I” and these, of course, commonly refer to miscellaneous possessions. I had the curiosity to attempt a rough classification of the first hundred “I’s” and “me’s” in Hamlet, with the following results. The pronoun was used in connection with perception, as “I hear,” “I see,” fourteen times; with thought, sentiment, intention, etc., thirty-two times; with wish, as “I pray you,” six times; as speaking—“I’ll speak to it”—sixteen times; as spoken to, twelve times; in connection with action, involving perhaps some vague notion of the body, as “I came to Denmark,” nine times; vague or doubtful, ten times; as equivalent to bodily appearance—“No more like my father than I to Hercules”—once. Some of the classifications are arbitrary, and another observer would doubtless get a different result; but he could not fail, I think, to conclude that Shakespeare’s characters are seldom thinking of their bodies when they say “I” or “me.” And in this respect they appear to be representative of mankind in general.