From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



in the second, the pessimistic conclusions which seem to 

 flow naturally and of necessity from it. 



This conclusion does, in fact, necessarily follow if 

 it be admitted, as Schopenhauer and von Hartmann 

 maintain, that there is an impassable abyss and an 

 essential difference between the unconscious and the 

 conscious. 



This essential difference takes away all ideal purpose 

 and all meaning from the universe and from life. 



And while the other postulates of the German 

 philosophers are deduced with mathematical precision, 

 the alleged essential difference between the unconscious 

 and the conscious rests on nothing. 



The assimilation of consciousness to a mere * repre- 

 sentation ' is not logical. 



Why should consciousness be exclusively bound to 

 the temporary semblances which make up the universe ? 



Why should not all that falls within its domain be 

 registered, assimilated, and preserved by the eternal 

 essence of being ? 



What! The divine principle, the will or the 

 unconscious, is to be allowed all potentialities except 

 one, and that the most important of all the power to 

 acquire and retain the knowledge of itself. 



How much more logical it is to presume that this 

 real and eternal will which is objectified in transitory 

 and factitious personalities, will keep integrally the 

 remembrances acquired during these obj edifications, 

 thus by numberless experiences passing from primitive 

 unconsciousness to consciousness. 



Certainly the human personality which covers the 

 period from birth to death of the body is destined to 

 perish and to have an end as it had a beginning; but 

 the real ' individuality,' that which is the essential being, 

 keeps and assimilates to itself, deeply graven in its 

 memory, all states of consciousness of the transitory 

 personality. 



198 



