From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



We can now make a step forward in our search 

 for truth; and, keeping steadily to facts and within 

 the limits of the possible, we can distinguish that which 

 belongs to the essential dynamo-psychism in the individual 

 from that which pertains to its representation. 



2. THE INDIVIDUAL CONSIDERED AS REPRESENTATIONS 



Schopenhauer, adopting the biological ideas then 

 current, laid down a very simple concept of individuality. 

 Apart from his metaphysical theory, his concept was 

 in accord with the materialist thesis which taught that 

 the organism is the individual. To this Schopenhauer 

 added that * the individual is Will objectified in an 

 organism ' ; and he regarded the organism as the unique 

 individual representation of that will. For Schopen- 

 hauer, as for the materialistic physiologists, the organism 

 that unique representation contains within itself all 

 manifestations of individual activity, and these remain 

 strictly within the limits of time and space which 

 condition the body. They are born and die with the 

 individual, and cannot transcend the range of his 

 physical and sensorial capacities. His psychism is the 

 pure and simple product of the activity of his nerve- 

 centres. The consciousness that belongs to him is a 

 function of that activity. All the attributes of the 

 individual are passing and ephemeral attributes created 

 by the obj edification of ' will ' in an organised 

 being. 



This concept of Schopenhauer's was in agreement 

 with the biological knowledge of his day. It is so no 

 longer. The facts now known traverse this simple aspect 

 of the individual; they prove that individual activity 

 may surpass the limits and the framework of the organism. 

 They prove, in philosophic language, that there are 



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