A NEW PHASE OF GERMAN THOUGHT. 31c, 



providential action, which guides humanity toward an end, sometimes 

 even in spite of human efforts. 



At the same time that Hartmann endeavors to prove, by the facts 

 we have just spoken of, the existence of " a psychical principle main- 

 taining itself above matter," he fancies that he has evolved from these 

 same facts the idea of what he calls " the unconsciousness," the idea 

 of an intelligence which has no consciousness of itself, of unconscious 

 manifestations (Vorstellungen), of unconscious volitions. We declare 

 that we have not succeeded in comprehending this idea it even seems 

 to us self-contradictory. What is an idea or a volition without the 

 consciousness of that idea or that volition? Can the idea be any 

 thing else than ono form of consciousness, as the volition is another 

 form of it ? Hai'tmann is able to cite facts of intelligence which are 

 outside of the consciousness of the me, but without being able to prove 

 that these facts must be unconscious, absolutely and in themselves. 

 Who can even prove to us that the Zis the totality of the conscious 

 phenomena of the brain ? The /is nothing more than a series of facts, 

 and may there not be alongside of this series a multitude of facts 

 which become real, without being attached to it by any bond of con- 

 tinuity ? For instance, personal character is made up of a great num- 

 ber of conditions, which, without any consciousness on the part of the 

 I, modify the direction of its volitions : these facts only make them- 

 selves known to us by their influence on the acts and the morals of the 

 individual. But does it follow, from their being unconscious relatively 

 to the me, that they are unconscious in themselves ? Hartmann's own 

 doctrines, on the contrary, would lead us to allow that the other ner- 

 vous centres, the spinal marrow, the ganglia, etc., are endowed with 

 their own consciousness ; that there is a special consciousness in each 

 cell of a plant or animal, perhaps even in every material atom ; in a 

 word, that consciousness coincides everywhere with reality, uncon- 

 sciousness being outside of real facts. But what is to be concluded 

 from this, except that none of the real facts, which Hartmann has set 

 forth with so many details, offer us the idea of the unconscious ? 

 And then what foundation is there for this definition, that " the uncon- 

 scious is the cause of all those facts, in an organic and conscious indi- 

 vidual, which lead us to the supposition of a psychical and unconscious 

 cause ? " We will even say that Hartmann seems to us to have suc- 

 ceeded better in widening the sphere of consciousness, than in found- 

 ing a philosophy of the unconscious. 



If we put ourselves the question, What is the real motive that de- 

 termined him to attribute unconsciousness, rather than consciousness, 

 to the supreme intelligence, to God? we find only an a priori reason, 

 drawn from the idea that evil rules the world : " If, at the time of the 

 creation of the world, there was in God any thing like consciousness, 

 the existence of the world would be an inexcusable cruelty, and the 

 development of the world a useless absurdity." Hartmann finds him- 



