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we expect with greater or less assurance will be experienced during some time future.

§ 22. We thus arrive at the conclusion that sensations become so connected together in groups, that one of a group is capable of reviving before consciousness all the others. But although we may describe these sensations as being our mental phenomena, we cannot determine what particular sensations shall constitute particular groups. This is done for us by nature; or in other words there is a natural grouping of sensations in which we cannot, as a rule, produce any essential change. By experience only can we come to know the constituent elements of a group, and by frequently experiencing naturally connected groups of sensations, a subjective association such as we have described comes to be formed between them. The succession of sensations before consciousness gives us time. The positing of an ideal sensation in the midst of a group recognised as having had a past existence, or as likely to have a future existence, is memory or expectation. This mental process, it must be borne in mind, as referred to here, is subsidiary to the acquisition of presentative knowledge, as we shall presently see. In the meantime, we are not supposed to know anything except sensations, revived sensations, and the relations which they bear to one another in kind, in time, and as members of associated groups.*

* It is possible that there are some sensations which cannot be revived except as parts of a group; and, perhaps, there are few which can be recalled by a merely mental effort without the aid of some associated circumstances. But nevertheless it seems allow

CHAP. II.

SECT. III.

Independence of the order of

sensations.

CHAP. II.
SECT. IV.

Résumé.

Language

self-con

sciousness.

SECTION IV.

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.

§ 23. In the previous sections we have used the term consciousness in a general sense, as comprehending all kinds of feeling or sensations. The necessities of language required us to speak of sensations appearing before consciousness, but in reality, the series of sensations occupying time constitute our general consciousness. Thus, consciousness, as far as we have yet examined it, comprehends two elements; the first, particular kinds of sensations variously grouped; the second, time. The former of these elements is called the material, the latter the formal; sensations being the matter of our conscious life, and time the form. In other words, there can be no consciousness which does not consist of actual or revived sensations of this or that particular kind, and those sensations must necessarily occupy a certain time, and succeed one another in time.

implying § 24. We now turn our attention to a particular form of language which shows that this is not a full explication of consciousness. A common man, speaking of his mind or feelings, would say "my mind,” or "my feelings." He would say "I" thought so-and"I" felt such a sensation; "I" was conscious of

so;

able for us, as we have done in this section, to treat sensations as revived, excluding the conditions and accompanying circumstances by the helps of which they usually appear before consciousness.

this smell or that sound. In short, every one thinks and speaks of himself as a person not to be identified. with his body, or the series of phenomena which make up what he calls his mind. This reference of all one's feelings and thought to self is called selfconsciousness. The idea of self-hood involves the belief that "I," who am conscious of feelings at the present moment, am the same identical being who was conscious at a past time of those feelings which I remember. This permanence of self in the midst of successive and diverse sensations is the essential element of personality. The idea of self is not that of the sum of the series of feelings which constitute our general consciousness, because it is absurd to speak of the aggregate of a series of feelings being conscious of themselves. There is implied a kind of opposition between self and the sensations of which self is conscious. Sensations past, present, and expected, are all referred to self as their possessor and subject. Self is thought to be the unity in the midst of diverse kinds of sensations, the permanent element in the midst of transient and successive sensations, the one conscious subject in the midst of many and diverse objects.

§ 25. It would be inconsistent with the object of the present treatise to enter into a discussion of different theories which have been propounded as to the nature of self. That is a question of metaphysics rather than of psychology. But it is quite within our sphere to enquire as to the origin of selfconsciousness, or the conditions which are necessary

CHAP. II.

SECT. IV.

SECT. IV.

Conditions of attain

ing to self

consciousness.

CHAP. II. to the conception of our self-hood. These conditions are manifest from what has gone before. There must first have existed a succession of diverse objects before there could spring up the idea of one permanent subject. Everything is known to be what it is by being thought of as different from what it is not. The notion of unity could not spring up except as related and opposed to that of diversity. The notion of permanence could not arise without the correlative notion of succession. The notion of one subject could only be conceived as in relation to that of many objects. Thus, in a certain sense, we may say that self-consciousness is the result of reflection upon the diversity of sensations succeeding one another in time. But only in a certain sense, because the very act of reflection involves the treating of the successive sensations as objects—that is, involves self-consciousness. Thus, the only explanation which we can give of the nature or origin of our notion of self is a simple analysis of the notion itself and an opposing of its elements to their correlates. The universal condition of knowledge is relativity; nothing can be known except as related to, and distinguished from, something else. And the peculiarity of the notion of self is that it is the universal relative set over against all objects of consciousness as its correlatives. And as these objects succeed one another in time, while self continues the same through time, we may say that time is the universal form or frame which comprehends both self and the objects of consciousness.

CHAP. II.
SECT. V.

SECTION V.

SENSATIONS AS OBJECTS.

§ 26. We have hitherto been considering sensations merely as differing from one another in kind, and as succeeding one another in time, but in our analysis of self-consciousness we saw that they are necessarily looked upon as being objects related to and known by the subject, self. We must now examine them more carefully in their character as objects of consciousness, in order to see if anything is involved in them which will help us in the explication of the process of acquiring our presentative knowledge. And the very word object, contradistinguished as it is from subject, appears to indicate an element in our sensations which may be of great importance. It indicates that sensations are possessed of an element foreign to the subject knowing; they are regarded as being not-self. There are, besides, other features of sensations which render more complete their character of objectivtiy. Individual sensations cannot be created or annihilated at pleasure. We may, it is true, interfere with the physical conditions of sensations, we may shut our eyes, get out of the reach of perfumes, or close our ears. But as far as self-consciousness is concerned, the conditions of sensations being fulfilled, the conscious self cannot but be cognisant of the sensations which appear. And not only is the existence of sensations beyond the control of self, but also the

Meaning of object.

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