Sketch of an Organismnl Theorif of Con.sciousmss 297 



which the organism is composed. Consequently I am not 

 even concerned primarily with sensation in so far as this im- 

 plies sense organs or even nerves and nerve terminals of the 

 simplest kind. Rather 1 am dealing witii the stages and con- 

 ditions antecedent to consciousness and in which it is latent, 

 in much such way as the cytologist when he studies the living 

 substance of all sorts of tissue-cells is not dealing with organs 

 and the organism in the full sense, but only with their sub- 

 strata. But although it is not knowledge, properly speaking, 

 either in its conceptual or perceptual aspect that I am dis- 

 cussing, since my enterprise does take me across the border 

 line and a short distance into the realm of knowledge, I must, 

 in the interest of historical continuity and setting, say a 

 little more than I have said about the general nature of 

 knowledge. 



My assertion should be taken literally that there is no 

 content of consciousness which is purely either subjective or 

 objective, inner or outer, conce})tive or perceptive, ideational 

 or impressional, or whatever form of expression be given the 

 antithesis here implied. That every content of consciousness 

 which exists or can be conceived has an essential element of 

 both members of the antithesis is exactly what I mean. To 

 illustrate, even the axioms, postulates, or whatever else may 

 be counted as most ultimate in mathematics contain an ele- 

 ment of the outer, or objective, as well as of the inner, or 

 subjective. These mathematical contents of consciousness I 

 single out to illustrate my meaning because they have been 

 clung to by philosophers and scientists more tenaciously than 

 any others as purely subjective or mental. And further 

 there is a strategic gain in this reference to mathematics in 

 that it brings into the open the fundamental opposition of 

 my hypothesis to one main root of Cartesian i)l»ilosoj)liy ; 

 the philosophy, that is, from which the modern doctrine of 

 psycho-physical parallelism has grown. Our thinking, which 

 Descartes held proves our existence, really proves it only in 



