From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



Self, passing beyond terrestrial existences, may learn to 

 use these supernormal faculties, and to understand them 

 sufficiently to bring them little by little under the 

 dominion of its will. 



The hypothesis is a large one, but its study must 

 be left to future research in the metapsychic domain, 

 by which it may, perhaps, be confirmed. With more 

 certainty we may infer that the being in its discarnate 

 phases, freed from cerebral conditions, can and should, 

 when it has reached a sufficiently high level of con- 

 sciousness and liberty, know itself better and better. 1 

 Its past should be accessible to him within the limits 

 of its evolution as actually realised, and it might even 

 be able consciously to prepare its future. 



4. METAPHYSICAL INFERENCES ON THE ORIGIN 



AND END OF INDIVIDUALISATION 



This paragraph has no claim to be scientific; the 

 hypotheses which it puts forward are only intended to 

 offer matter for discussion. 



THE ORIGIN OF THE INDIVIDUAL 



At the beginning of evolution, as far as we may be 

 able to conceive of such beginning, there is neither 

 consciousness nor individualisation. Schopenhauer 

 expressed this as follows: 



* Thus in the lowest forms of life we have seen 

 Will appearing as a blind impulse, a dumb and 

 mysterious effort far from any direct consciousness. 

 It is the simplest and weakest of its objectifications. 



1 We have shown in L'Etre Subconscient that liberty and consciousness 

 are correlative to each other. 



238 



