When we think of that sense, that feeling, or that inclination which makes us affirm the word "I", we realize that it is difficult to point out what this "I" is, what is its character. For it is something which is beyond human comprehension. That is why a person who wishes to explain, even to himself, what it is, points to what is nearest to him declaring: "This is the one whom I have called "I."" Therefore every soul which has, so to speak, identified itself with anything, has identified itself with the body, its own body, because that is the thing which one feels and realizes to be immediately next to one, and which is intelligible as one's being.

So what a person knows of himself as the first thing is his body. He calls himself his body, he identifies himself with his body. For instance if one asks a child: "Where is the boy?", he will point to his body. That is what he can see or can imagine of himself.

This forms a conception in the soul. The soul conceives this deeply, so that after this conception all other objects, persons or beings, color or line, are called by different names, and the soul does not conceive of them as itself, for it already has a conception of itself: this body, which it has first known or imagined to be itself. All else that it sees, it sees through its vehicle which is the body, and calls it something next to it, something separate and different.

In this way duality in nature is produced. From this comes "I and you." But as "I" is the first conception of the soul, it is fully concerned with this "I"; with all else it is only partly concerned. All other things that exist, besides this body which it has recognized as its own being, are considered according to their relation with this body. This relation is established by calling them "mine", which is between "I" and "you': "You are "my"" brother, or "my" sister, or "my" friend." This makes a relationship, and according to this relationship the other object or person stands nearer to or farther from the soul.

All other experiences that the soul has in the physical world and in the mental spheres become a sort of world around it. The soul lives in the midst of it, yet the soul never for one moment feels with anything that it is "I." This "I" it has reserved, and made captive in one thing only: the body. Of everything else the soul thinks that it is something else, something different: "It is near to me, it is dear to me, it is close to me, because it is related. It is mine, but it is not me." "I" stands as a separate entity, holding, attracting, collecting all that one has got and which makes one's own world.