Essays on Life 



who have never seen us, is in all sober serious- 

 ness our truer and more abiding life, and the 

 one which those who would make the best of 

 their sojourn here will take most into their 

 consideration. 



Unconsciousness is no bar to livingness. 

 Our conscious actions are a drop in the sea as 

 compared with our unconscious ones. Could 

 we know all the life that is in us by way of 

 circulation, nutrition, breathing, waste and 

 repair, we should learn what an infinitesimally 

 small part consciousness plays in our present 

 existence ; yet our unconscious life is as truly 

 life as our conscious life, and though it is un- 

 conscious to itself it emerges into an indirect 

 and vicarious consciousness in our other and 

 conscious self, which exists but in virtue of 

 our unconscious self. So we have also a 

 vicarious consciousness in others. The un- 

 conscious life of those that have gone before 

 us has in great part moulded us into such 

 men and women as we are, and our own 

 unconscious lives will in like manner have a 

 vicarious consciousness in others, though we 

 be dead enough to it in ourselves. 



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