Turn now and contemplate a calmer scene. Consider the commonplace life of a commonplace man as it develops in the untroubled prosperity of a steady business and a quiet home. Such a career seems as orderly and uniform as the flood I have been describing is terrible and strange. Surely no supernatural calculator is required to cast the horoscope of its hero: for he does, and leaves undone, the same actions, he thinks and leaves unthought the same ideas, as thousands of his contemporaries; and, so far as outward appearance goes, he is an indistinguishable member of an undistinguished crowd. Yet, in spite of this, we know him to be unique. There never has been before, nor will there ever be again, another individual exactly like him. A similar statement, it may be urged, can be made about our catastrophic flood. Though this has plenty of parallels, none of them, strictly speaking, are exact. Where, then, lies the distinction on which I am trying to insist? Let me endeavour to mark the contrast. If the material world be conceived as a mechanical system, the flood in my illustration may be regarded as a piece arbitrarily cut out of it at the whim of the spectator. It possesses no natural unity; and, like the whole of which it is a fraction, the moving particles which compose it do each obey laws which are (we assume) perfectly well known, and have been endlessly exemplified. Its behaviour is the sum of the behaviour of these several parts: and it is by estimating their movements that our imaginary calculator can prophesy its course with absolute exactness. He is never perplexed by the problem of negligibility; for negligibility in such a case can be accurately measured, and our calculator possesses all the data required for its measurement. In short, the principle of regularity may here be applied in its most uncompromising form; it requires no qualification, nor can it be pressed too boldly or too far. But the case is otherwise when we have to abandon the strictly mechanical point of view, and investigate regions where negligibility has a small and uncertain application. Such a region is individual consciousness. This possesses a natural or intrinsic unity. Its phases are never precisely repeated; nor can it be regarded as a collection of independent elements, the sequences of which may be separately examined, verified, and repeated. Not only is the whole unique, but the parts are unique also. Or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that there _are_ no parts possessing a fixed character of their own apart from the whole. Not only is everything qualified by everything else, but few of these qualifications are negligible. Perfect repetition is therefore impossible, and our calculator, whatever his powers, could never feel at home with his premises, or secure in his conclusions. The present would always be new, and the future would always be doubtful.