 Shepherd starts by explicating the notion of self. She contends that whenever we are awake, we have sensations of our own existence, life, and the extension of the body; ideas of their causes are formed by the usual inference. Organs of sense have no special part in causing sensations of the sort just mentioned; rather the living body does. We consider this body (as it is unperceived) to be the source of pleasure and pain and to be bounded by the skin. What is called “self” in addition to the mind is contained within the skin. Shepherd concludes that the notion of self is “the notion of the conscious sensation of the extension of the body and of a sufficient cause for life and sensation in general” (EASP: 62). All the elements of what is called “self” are implied by this notion— general capacities for sensation and life (the mind and body) and the sensations of one’s own existence, life, and the extension of the body. 