The Unity of the Organism 



tive" and "subjective," or "outer" and "inner" as applied to 

 life, are something quite different from what they have been 

 either in traditional philosophies, or in most, at least, of 

 recent psychology. "When we speak," Royce writes, "of 

 our physiological processes as internal, the word 'internal,' 

 although it here generally implies 'hidden, in whole or in part, 

 from actual outer observation', does not imply 'directly felt 

 by us ourselves.' " 5 My hypothesis implies a denial of the 

 correctness of this statement. I say that in the sum total 

 of the "contents of consciousness," a nether segment, as one 

 might call it, of physiological processes is "directly felt by 

 ourselves." There is no content of consciousness which does 

 not contain an element that is internal or subjective in what- 

 ever sense any other content of consciousness is internal or 

 subjective. And per contra, there is no content of conscious- 

 ness which is not objective to some extent, in whatever sense 

 any other content of consciousness is objective. The mind, 

 according to this conception, is not something which uses 

 the brain or any other part of the organism merely as a tool 

 with which to make thoughts and other contents of con- 

 sciousness. Nor on the other hand is consciousness of the 

 nature of a secretion, the gland for which is the brain, though 

 unquestionably the brain has an essential part in the pro- 

 duction of thought and the higher contents of consciousness. 

 Among the consequences of the reaction between the or- 

 ganism and the air we breathe are consciousness with its 

 marvellously rich and varied contents. 



But at this point I must specially request the reader to 

 notice that I am not pretending to describe and explain all 

 the contents of consciousness. In other words it is not a 

 theory of knowledge, but a theory of consciousness that I 

 am sketching; and knowledge in the strict sense, and con- 

 sciousness are very different. They differ, according to my 

 understanding, much as the fully developed, physical organ- 

 ism differs from the living substance, or protoplasm, of 



