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ence, no power, and no validity in the world of reality. 37 This argument
we shall consider later.38 His other two arguments he sums up as fol-
lows Self-hood, the essence of all personality, does not depend upon
any opposition that either has happened or is happening of the Ego to a
Non-Ego, but it consists in an immediate self-existence which consti-
tutes the basis of the possibility of that contrast whenever it appears.
Self-consciousness is the elucidation of this self-existence which is
brought about by means of knowledge, and even this. is by no means
necessarily bound up with the distinction of the Ego from a Non-Ego
which is substantially opposed to it.
Studies in Hegelian Cosmology/59
In the nature of the finite mind as such is to be found the reason
why the development of its personal consciousness can take place only
through the influences of the cosmic whole which the finite being itself
is not, that is, through stimulation coming from the Non-Ego, not be-
cause it needs the contrast with something alien in order to have self-
existence, but because in this respect, as in every other, it does not con-
tain in itself the conditions of its existence. We do not find this limitation
in the being of the Infinite; hence for it alone is there possible a self-
existence, which needs neither to be initiated nor to be continuously
developed by something not itself, but which maintains itself within
itself with spontaneous action that is eternal and had no beginning.
Perfect Personality is in God only; to all finite minds there is allot-
ted but a pale copy thereof; the finiteness of the finite is not a producing
condition of this Personality, but a limit and a hindrance of its develop-
ment. 39
69. Taking the first of these contentions we must remark that the
term Non-Ego is rather ambiguous, when the relation of an Ego to a
Non-Ego is spoken of. It may mean something that is not an Ego at all,
or it may only mean something that is not the Ego which forms the other
term of the relation. In this sense two Egos might each be the other s
Non-Ego. It is in this wider sense that we must take it if we are to
consider any relation which on Hegelian principles can be regarded as
essential to the Ego. For Hegel certainly thinks that nothing is real but
spirit, and we saw reason in the last chapter to believe that all spirit
must be taken as selves. It follows that no Ego could come into relation
with anything but another Ego, which would, as far as that relation
went, be the Non-Ego of the first.
We may, no doubt, unreservedly accept Lotze s statement that no
being in the nature of which self-existence was not given as primary and
underived could be endowed with self-hood by any mechanism of
favouring circumstances however wonderful. 40 This completely
harmonises with the conclusion reached in the last chapter, that it was
impracticable to regard a self as anything but a fundamental differentia-
tion of the Absolute. But the question still remains whether it is not an
essential part of the eternal, primary and underived nature of each self
that it should be related to some reality outside it.
Lotze further remarks that the Ego and Non-Ego cannot be two
notions of which each owes its whole content only to its contrast with
the other; if this were so they would both remain without content....
60/John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart
Hence every being which is destined to take the part of the Ego when the
contrast has arisen must have the ground of its determination in that
nature which it had previous to the contrast 41 and, therefore, indepen-
dent of the contrast.
Now it is quite true that if we tried to explain the Ego exclusively
from the reality outside to which it is in relation, we should have fallen
into a vicious circle, since that reality could only be explained with
reference to the Ego. But it by no means follows from the impossibility
of explaining the isolated Ego by the isolated Non-Ego, that the Ego can
be explained without its Non-Ego, or is conceivable without it. There is
a third alternative that the isolated Ego cannot be explained at all,
being an unreal abstraction which shows its unreality by its inexplica-
bility, and that Ego and Non-Ego can only be explained when they are
taken together as mutually explaining each other. The idea of the Ego is
certainly more than the mere fact that it is related to the Non-Ego, but
this does not prevent the relation to the Non-Ego being essential to the
nature of the Ego. If, to take a parallel case, we tried to explain the idea
of a parent merely in terms of the idea of a child, we should have fallen
into a vicious circle, since we should find that the idea of a child could
not be explained except in relation to the idea of a parent. But it would
not be correct to argue from this that a parent could exist, or be con-
ceived, without a child. They are certainly not two notions of which
one owes its whole content to its contrast with the other, but that does
not prevent each of them from being meaningless without the other.
70. The Ego, therefore, would not necessarily become inexplicable,
even if it could not be conceived except in relation to the Non-Ego. Can
it be conceived otherwise? Lotze answers this question in the affirma-
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