The truth contained in this proposition may be expressed thus: When a thing develops, some part of it remains the same during the change, so that a continuity is preserved. Yet every change of a part of an organism—such is the intimate interconnection of all its parts—produces an alteration, be it ever so small, of the whole unity. And in the course of evolution the character of the whole thing may be changed. Think of the growth of a caterpillar into a butterfly, or of an egg-cell into a man. However, the changes in the character of an adult man will become slighter and slighter the stronger certain features of his existence preserve their sameness, although the most stable personality will, nevertheless, be subject to, at least, unimportant changes as long as life lasts. Mr. Conybeare, like his master Professor Green and all the transcendentalists, is still under the influence of a belief in the thing in itself. The unity of an organism which is the product of the co-operation of its parts, is not some independent thing whose business it is to gather up their single activities and bring them into relation with one another. The unity of a self is the combination of all those relations which make of its parts a systematised whole, and this unity is changing together with its constituents; as a matter of fact, we have to state that it does _not_ remain constant or the same with itself. Mark that I do not deny the unity of the soul, nor do I underrate the enormous importance of this unity. But I do deny that this unity exists independent of its parts. It is as much immanent in its parts as is a melody in its notes. There is as little a transcendental self-hood as a melody in itself independent of its sounds. The assumption of a transcendental unity which throughout the process of evolution remains the same with itself naturally leads to a wrong conception of what Mr. Conybeare calls “latent capacities.” The terms potential existence and latent qualities are fertile and useful ideas but we must beware not to employ them incorrectly. Any heap of iron ore can be called a potential sword. This is a mode of speaking which expresses the possibility that the ore can be changed somehow into a sword. But the sword does not exist at all, not even as a latent quality of the ore. The ore has no latent qualities of that kind. Those qualities of the ore which represent the potential sword are very patent to everybody who knows the art of using them properly and changing them into an actual sword. We may say that the hen’s egg contains a potential chick; but this is a mere mode of speech devised to say that the egg can be changed into a chick under certain conditions. There is no chick at all contained in the egg and nothing that is like a chick.