What constitutes nearness or distance of ideas, in other words, what determines the sequence of ideas is another question. That the idea, however, of sequence, and, consequently of logical proximity and logical distance, is the fundamental idea in regard to the expressions in question is evident from the very use of the words _this_ and _that_. Now the sequence of ideas is capable of being determined by two tests. 1. The idea to which the name was last given, or (changing the expression) the name of the last idea may be the nearest idea in the order of sequence, and, consequently, the idea referred to by the pronoun of proximity. In this case the idea closest at hand to the writer of the second line of the couplet quoted above was the idea of the _atmosphere_ (_aer_), and it was, consequently, expressed by (_this_) _hic_. 2. Or the idea to which the name was first given, or (changing the expression) the name of the first idea may be the nearest idea in the order of sequence, and consequently the idea referred to it by the pronoun of proximity; inasmuch as the idea which occurs first is the most prominent one, and what is prominent appears near. In this case, the idea closest at hand to the writer of the second line of the couplet quoted above would have been the idea of the _sea_ (_pontus_), and it would, consequently, have been the idea expressed by _this_ (_hic_). As Ovid, however, considered the idea at the end of the last half of one sentence to be the idea nearest to the {415} beginning of the next, we have him expressing himself as he does. On the other hand, it is easy to conceive a writer with whom the nearest idea is the idea that led the way to the others. As I believe that one and the same individual may measure the sequence of his ideas sometimes according to one of these principles, and sometimes according to another, I believe that all rules about the relations of _this_ and _that_ are arbitrary. It is just a matter of chance whether a thinker take up his line of ideas by the end or by the beginning. The analogies of such expressions as the following are in favour of _this_, in English, applying to the _first_ subject, _that_ to the _second_; since the word _attorney_ takes the place of _this_, and applies to the first name of the two, _i. e._, to _Thurlow_. "It was a proud day for the bar when Lord North made Thurlow (1) and (2) Wedderburn (1) Attorney (2) and Solicitor General."--_Mathias from Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors._ * * * * * {416} CHAPTER VII. ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE WORD SELF. s. 515. The undoubted constructions of the word _self_, in the present state of the cultivated English, are three-fold.