662 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



in his self-contemplation as if in him were a dark un- 

 known substance, on which rested, as on a support, all 

 personal life. Hence those ever recurring questions, 

 what then we ourselves are, what our souls, what that 

 dark, unintelligible, never thorovighly conscious self 

 which works in our emotions and passions. That these 

 questions can arise is a proof how little personality is 

 developed in us to the extent which the idea permits 

 and requires. It can only exist perfectly in the Infinite 

 Being who, reviewing all His phases and actions, nowhere 

 meets with a moment of passive or active life the 

 meaning and origin of which were not quite transparent 

 to Him. The position of the finite mind, tied as it is 

 to a special place in the general order of things, is the 

 cause why its inner life is gradually wakened by external 

 stimulations, why it flows on according to the laws of a 

 psychical mechanism which bids single impressions, feel- 

 ings, and desires, chase and expel each other. Hence 

 there is never a concentration of the whole self in one 

 moment, our consciousness never presents to us a picture 

 of our whole self ; not of its coexistent states, much less 

 of the unity in its development in time. Even to our- 

 selves we ever appear from a partial point of view, which 

 discloses only a portion of our being ; roused by external 

 touches we react with this partial consciousness ; only 

 in a limited sense may we say that we act ; rather 

 in most cases something happens in us through those 

 impressions and feelings to which the psychical mechan- 

 ism has given the preponderating influence. Much less 

 are we ever really for ourselves. Memory loses much, 

 but most of all the record of our own individual moods. 



