Sketch of an Organismal Theory of Consciousness 95 



objectively personal. In other words, it will be my task to 

 remove, or at least to show the way to remove, the vagueness 

 which Sellars asserts, rightly, has hitherto clouded this 

 side of personality. To do this thing is, indeed, one of my 

 most important chances to contribute to a "better philosophy 

 of life." 



But since our psychical life, especially our conscious life, 

 is a vast incalculably vast complex of experiences, of 

 "contents," sounds, sights, memories, feelings, ideas, many 

 of which are set off very sharply from the rest, are clearly 

 characterizable, and are wonderfully persistent; and since 

 innumerable of these are coming along all the while which 

 have much of genuine newness about them ; and since further, 

 these contents of consciousness are intertwined with and are 

 determinative of a vast complex of other contents called voli- 

 tions which in turn are linked up with and are more or less 

 directive of bodily activities of many kinds, some purely re- 

 flex and some instinctive, it seems impossible to escape recog- 

 nizing, even if one wanted to, that if the verb "to create" has 

 any definite meaning at all the normal, self-conscious animal 

 organism is about the most creative thing we know or can 

 conceive. Indeed it is altogether likely that the very notion 

 of creation, whether natural or supernatural, came initially 

 from the creative activity and the impulse to such activity, 

 of man himself. 



We may justly say, I think, that we know all creativeness, 

 chemical creativeness with the rest, through being in our own 

 deepest natures creative, that is, transformative and trans- 

 formative in the way which we call chemical. We learn 

 about the processes of life and call some of the most essen- 

 tial of them chemical just by performing those processes as 

 some of our most essential attributes. A portion of the pro- 

 cess which goes on within us, together with the corresponding 

 product, constitutes what we call the science of bio-chemis- 

 try. This means that according to our hypothesis "objec- 



