AND ITS SELF-CONSERVATION. 3 



now, recurring to what was said at the beginning, it 

 may be added that a maxim is nothing else than an 

 abridged statement of a theory. Following which it 

 would perhaps not be wholly amiss to inquire whether 

 the "scientific" maxim we have just been considering 

 is wholly exempt from the untrustworthiness so confi- 

 dently assumed to inhere in all other theories. In truth 

 it is extremely likely to be just that theory which has 

 been least scrutinized, least subjected to criticism,, which 

 turns out to be the most untrustworthy. 



b. FUNCTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 



It is impossible then that a "fact" should come into 

 the consciousness of an individual otherwise ' than as in 

 part the actual creation of that consciousness. A sup- 

 posed passive impressibility of the mind is, in truth, 

 but a contradiction in terms. In order that the mind 

 may be impressed as mind, it must be no less active 

 than passive. It must receive that is, actively take up 

 into itself the element or force tending to produce an 

 eifect upon the mind from without. 



But this active reception is also a transformation. 

 It adds to the outward element an inner element 

 namely, that of the mind's own activity and the two 

 are now fused into a single, indivisible fact of con- 

 sciousness. The spontaneous activity of the mind itself 

 is a necessary phase of every fact of consciousness, with- 

 out which phase, therefore, it would be impossible that 

 any such fact of consciousness should ever arise. 



The first "facts," then, for which the mind must 

 account* are the facts of its own consciousness. Nay, 

 rather the only facts with which the mind can ever 



