most important part of the process;--for we are not to forget that the remembrance itself, the revealer of the past, is not a past, but a _present_ feeling. It is the mind existing for the present moment in a particular state, as much as any primary and immediate sensation is the mind existing in a particular state. That this state of remembrance, itself a present feeling, should be representative to us of some former feeling, so as to impress us irresistibly with the belief of that former state of the mind, is indeed most wonderful; but that it does impress us with this belief, is as undeniable as the belief itself is irresistible. Our faith in our identity, then, as being only another form of the faith which we put in memory, can be questioned only by those who deny all memory, and with memory all reasoning of every kind,--who believe only the existence of the present moment, and who with respect to every thing else, are as incapable of opposing or questioning as they are of believing. If our memory be unworthy of the faith which we _intuitively_ give to it, all that is founded on memory, and therefore demonstration itself, must equally deceive us. We cannot admit the most rigid demonstration, or expect it to be admitted, without having already admitted, intuitively, that identity, which in words only we profess to question, and to question which, even in words, is to assert the reality of that which we deny. The belief of the identity of self, then, as the one permanent subject of the transient feelings remembered by us, arises from a _law of thought_, which is essential to the very constitution of the mind. It has accordingly all the qualities, which I can imagine to be required by the most rigid scrutinizer of our principles of intuitive assent. It is universal, and immediate, and irresistible. I do not believe, with more confidence, that the half of thirty-two is equal to the square of four, than I believe, that I, who computed the square of four, am the same with that mind, which computes the half of thirty-two, and asserts the equality of the two numbers.