The external world echoes inside of us; it is prolonged in us in the same way that we overflow into it. Things, beings from outside, penetrate into our consciousness, mingle intimately in our inner lives, become entwined in our existence, and, conversely, we merge our existence with theirs. Our ideas, our sentiments, pass from our minds to others and vice versa. There is in us something other than ourselves; there is also something of us in the objects that become assimilated, or that we assimilate, into our lives. <Durkheim: Moral education>