Human Individuality 97CHAPTER 6
HUMAN INDIVIDUALITY
In explaining mental pictures, philosophers have had the
greatest difficulty with the fact that we are not ourselves
external things, but our mental pictures are supposed to
have a form corresponding to them. On closer inspection,
however, this difficulty turns out to be non-existent. To be
sure, we are not external things, but we belong with them
to one and the same world. The segment of the world that
I perceive as my subject is run through by the stream of
the universal world process. With regard to my percep-
tion, I am at first confined within the boundary of my
skin. But what is contained within this skin belongs to the
cosmos as a whole. Therefore, for a relationship to exist
between my organism and an object outside me, it is not
at all necessary for something of the object to slip into me
or to impress itself on my mind like a signet ring on wax.
Thus the question, “How do I learn anything about the
tree that stands ten paces from me?” is all wrong. It arises
from the view that the boundaries of my body are absolute
barriers, through which news about things filters into me.