The Empirical Self
of each of us is all
that he is tempted to call by the name of me.
But it is clear that between what a man calls me
and what he simply calls mine
the line is difficult to draw.
We feel and act
about certain things that are ours
very much as we feel and act about ourselves.
Our fame,
our children,
the work of our hands,
may be as dear to us
as our bodies are,
and
arouse the same feelings
and the same acts of reprisal
if attacked.
And our bodies themselves,
are they simply ours, or are they us?
Certainly men have been ready
to disown their very bodies
and to regard them as mere vestures,
or even as prisons of clay
from which they should some day
be glad to escape.
All of the above passages are taken from Chapter 10 of William James's The Principles of Psychology, entitled "The Consciousness of Self." See?