Sketch of an Organismal Theory of Consciousness 309 



sensory parts ; also all remembering, all feeling of the usual 

 kind, all imagining, and all thinking. Then let him answer 

 the question: How do I know I am alive? An undertaking 

 of this sort is wholly introspective in the sense of being 

 such that each person must engage in it for himself alone. 

 He can not show his results to anybody else. A good bit ot 

 ingenuity may be exercised on it and the outcome will be 

 found to be rather surprising if not very conclusive as to the 

 purpose for which the experiment was tried. But the results 

 as reported may be of some value. Personally, I believe I 

 can follow my consciousness down to where I can recognize 

 its most basal remaining "content" to be an awareness of 

 what I may call extension without definite limitations. It 

 seems to me I can detect something to which I could not, 

 from its nature alone, apply the terms "I" or "me" as some- 

 thing differentiated from everything else. Possibly what I 

 note is wholly fanciful, but I seem to feel myself in about 

 the condition of psychical life which I imagine a star fish is in. 



Of course I realize how far such a statement is from being 

 purified of all thought and other ordinary mental elements. 

 Nevertheless, I believe it to be of some value as evidence 

 that consciousness is an attribute of the organism as a 

 whole, and can neither be held to contain an element which 

 can exist separately from the organism, nor be restricted 

 to any particular part of the organism as the brain or the 

 nervous system. There seems to be some evidence "directly 

 felt by us ourselves," and that evidence points to this con- 

 clusion as to the nature and "seat" of consciousness. The 

 point is susceptible, I am quite sure, of rather rigid experi- 

 mental examination. However, the further experiments 

 which have suggested themselves to me involve difficulties 

 more formidable than I have thus far been in position to 

 attempt. 



The reader acquainted with James's notable Chapter X, 

 "The Consciousness of Self" (The Principles of Psychology, 



