LIFE AND CONSCIOUSNESS 103 



that is open to us, the region in which the answer 

 to the problem will be found. 



Now, it is some of these lines that I desire to 

 follow with you to-day. Each of them, taken 

 apart, will give, I repeat, nothing but a proba- 

 bility ; but all together, by converging on the same 

 point, may give us an accumulation of probabili- 

 ties which will gradually approximate scientific 

 certainty. 



Here is the first line I wish to follow, the first 

 aspect of the question that I wish to point out to 

 you. What we call " the mind " is, before all, 

 something conscious it is consciousness. But 

 what do we mean by consciousness ? You rightly 

 guess that I am not going to define this simple 

 thing which eludes all definition, and which every- 

 one can experience. But, without exactly giving 

 a definition which would be much less clear than 

 the thing defined, we may at least indicate its 

 most obvious and most striking character. Con- 

 sciousness signifies, above all, memory. The 

 memory may not be very extensive; it may 

 embrace only a very small section of the past, 

 nothing indeed but the immediate past; but, in 

 order that there may be consciousness at all, 

 something of this past must be retained, be it 

 nothing but the moment just gone by. A con- 

 sciousness which retained nothing of the past 

 would be a consciousness that died and was re- 

 born every instant it would be no longer 

 consciousness. Such is just the condition of 



