A thing first is. When a thing is, it is looked on as a whole. Thought of as not being in motion, and with parts or forms, it has. —For example, an apple is, first. Then it has a red color; it has weight; it has taste; it has roundness; it has power; it has an interior; it has a core, and so on and so on. It has relation, though that relation is outside of it. Its relation is with everything, so one thing the apple has is something to do with everything. And the apple has possibility. The apple has possibility, logically, in the same way it has a red color. Both are of or with the apple; or in the apple; or about the apple.

We are and have. By being, we have. —The self is an irreducible unity, and also a tremendous aggregate of possessions. This can be seen in the sentences: “I have atoms; I have blood cells; I have feelings; I have relations; I have possibilities.” The word have, used of the self, makes atoms, blood cells, feelings, relations, possibilities, akin. All of these can be seen as possessions of the self, without which the self would not be entire.

The various nature of the possessions of the self has to be understood before personality is understood. When a self says, “I have pain; I have hope; I have weight; I have a sister; I have a past; I have bones; I have a duty; I have a fear; I have traditions”—how one thing can have all these and be one thing needs to be known for the self-thing to be understood. Furthermore, for the word have to be understood, it is necessary to see how the diversity of its uses in the phrases I have quoted is truly of one use.

The question: What does a thing have, is equivalent to: What is of that thing? What belongs to that thing? What is in that thing? What is the form of that thing? What is that a thing is seen as incomplete without? And all this is equivalent to: What is that thing?

Fundamentally, we have duties and desires in the same way. A person can say, “I have a longing” and “I have an obligation.” The longing and obligation are both parts or forms of him.

The way have is used in English points to its deepest meaning. When a person says: “I have to do this”—then what a person ought to do is seen as part of him. And when a girl says: “I have to see you”—an intense desire is seen as a necessity of the girl, and therefore a part of the girl; although “I have to see you” can, said in a different tone, mean just the necessity of seeing.

And in the phrase “it has to be,” there can be both inevitability and ethics. For ethics is akin in meaning, in the long run, to what is and has to be. This can also be seen in the phrase or sentence, “it is to be done”—where what will be is the same as what ought to be.

Further, in the idioms “I had rather do this” and “I had better do this,” preference, choice, necessity, what will be, are all seen as of a person, belonging to a person, forms or parts of a person.

Have is also interesting in the phrase “he has something,” where the something is so closely, intensely, meaningfully, part of the person.

Have in the present perfect tense in English—as in have seen, have shown, have endeared, implies that an action is of a person, belongs to a person, in the past and present at once.