CRITICAL REMARKS, ETC. 505 



Now, in every investigation our first duty is to inquire 

 what facts are most certain and evident, and what conse- 

 quences evidently flow therefrom, and our various speculations 

 and hypotheses must be judged by the results of such inquiry. 



In studying- the activities of organisms, therefore, we 

 should first make use of that about which we can obtain the 

 most evident and certain knowledge. But of all organisms 

 no one is nearly so well known to us as is our own. No- 

 thing then can well be more irrational than for us to ignore 

 our self-knowledge, while seeking to understand the nature 

 of other living organisms. 



Prominent amongst the "humble philosophy of facts" 

 is the fact that we not only think but can know we are 

 thinking, that we can know much of our own past in addi- 

 tion to our present, and that we can consider and reconsider 

 our thoughts in different groups and serial orders, passing 

 them in review, as it were, before a present consciousness 

 of them and of ourselves. 



If we are certain (and I think only an unsound mind 

 can doubt it) that we have — that we consist of — a material 

 extended body, it is yet more evident and indisputable that 

 we have — that we consist of — an individual immaterial 

 energy. Of much which this energy can accomplish we are 

 directly conscious. That the phenomena of the body are 

 influenced thereby is certain, while our conscious psychical 

 activity shades off into activities of which we are entirely 

 unconscious. 



On the principle of parsimony we cannot, in the absence 

 of evidence, deny that this immaterial psychical energy (which 

 shows itself in our conscious mental activity and acts in 

 states of our being, ordinarily unnoted, but which can be 

 known to consciousness), also energises in all the body's 

 unconscious activities. 



I do not, of course, mean we are conscious of anything 

 within our body and distinct from it, but that we are con- 

 scious of being both a material organism and an immaterial 

 energy, and that the latter, during healthy life, is dominant 

 and directive. This indeed is shown by every act we con- 

 sciously perform in obedience to our will. 



