92 Consciousness a great source of error. 



actions are extremely intimate, as when attention is 

 directed to the action of will (which is itself a con- 

 scious act of attention) undisturbed thought becomes 

 very difficult ; and when further, the contemplative 

 faculty attempts to contemplate itself, as when con- 

 sciousness attempts to observe consciousness, in order 

 to define it, the attempt results in almost complete 

 failure, probably because the two actions (observing 

 and being observed) being opposite in kind, cannot 

 ' coexist at the same time in the same structure. 

 Knowledge of the exact nature of consciousness 

 therefore, will probably only be arrived at by indirect 

 means, when physiological and other knowledge is 

 sufficiently advanced. 



Consciousness, when uncorrected by sufficient 

 knowledge and inference, is a great source of error. 

 y That which we feel, we think exists whether it does 

 or not, until the subject is correctly explained to us. 

 The incessant and irresistible obtrusion of conscious- 

 ness exercises dominion over every mind, even of our 

 greatest thinkers, and causes disturbance and inter- 

 ruption in nearly every train of thought. It is largely 

 the cause of some of our most general ideas and 

 emotions and insensibly influences our views of man 

 and nature. It produces true impressions as well as 

 erroneous ones. It is a cause of the feeling that an 

 occult spirit exists within us independent of our 

 material structure. Combined with the almost equally 

 persistent impression of the uniformity of nature, it 

 largely produces the idea that the spirit within us, 



