Full Idea
The conviction of personal identity is indispensably necessary to all exercise of reason. Reasoning is made up of successive parts. Without the conviction that the antecedent have been seen by me, I could have no reason to proceed to the consequent.
Gist of Idea
I can hardly care about rational consequence if it wasn't me conceiving the antecedent
Source
Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
Book Reference
'Personal Identity', ed/tr. Perry,John [University of California 1975], p.107
A Reaction
Society needs philosophers precisely to point such things out. It isn't conclusive, but populist waffle about the self not existing undermines the very concept of a 'train of thought', which everybody is signed up to. Trains of thought can take years.