THE SEARCH FOR THE SOUL 463 



meaning, leading to endless confusion and misunderstanding. Psy- 

 chologists themselves deplore the ambiguities of the word " conscious- 

 ness." " There is no philosophical term at once so popular and so devoid 

 of standard meaning. How can a term mean anything when it is em- 

 ployed to connote anything and everjrthing, including its own nega- 

 tion ? "• " For the sake of clearness, terms like mind and psychosis will 

 be substituted for * consciousness/ owing to its ambiguity." • Of con- 

 sciousness Avenarius says, " It would be better to give up entirely so 

 treacherous a term." ^** 



In the following illustrations of the emphasis placed upon con- 

 sciousness in recent science, it should be remembered, then, that the 

 word is used either as quite synonymous with the older words " mind " 

 and " soul," or else, as is quite commonly the case, it is used in the sense 

 of an indefinite, not wholly known, psychic factor of life and progress. 

 In this latter sense the word soul, if it were permitted to use it, would 

 be still more appropriate. The careful reader in contemporary psycho- 

 logical and biological science will make the further interesting dis- 

 covery that the word " consciousness " is also used in the original and 

 more proper sense, as subject-object consciousness or self-consciousness, 

 and that it is usually so used by those writers who are engaged in show- 

 ing that consciousness is an evolutionary product of life and organiza- 

 tion, while, on the other hand, those now numerous writers and investi- 

 gators who believe that consciousness is a primitive datum or deep 

 underlying force of life, organization and progress, use the word in one 

 of the other two senses just mentioned. 



Let us take, then, a few illustrations of the emphasis which recent 

 science is putting upon consciousness as a world factor of primary im- 

 portance. Let it be borne in mind that until recently there were few 

 outside the ranks of idealistic philosophers to dispute the prevalent 

 belief that mechanical laws are sufficient to account for every phase of 

 human life, including mental and moral phenomena; that at certain 

 stages of organic evolution consciousness appears as a kind of by- 

 product and has no agency in the life drama itself, and that it is not 

 necessary to take any causal account of it in explaining life in its 

 physiological, psychological or social aspects. With this view compare 

 that of many representative present-day psychologists who hold that 

 consciousness, although itself perhaps a product of evolution, has be- 

 come a factor in evolution of the very first importance, changing not 

 only the very face of the earth, but changing the direction of evolution 

 itself. One writer says : 



• Perry, " Conceptions and Misconceptions of Consciousness," Psychological 

 Review, Vol. 11, p. 282. 



• Crawley, " The Idea of the Soul," p. 58. 



" " Am besten wars man gabe einen so verfUnglichen Ausdruck ganz auf." 

 Quoted by W. T. Bush, Joum. Phil., Psyoh. and 8ci. Meth., Vol. 11., p. 661. 



