176 THE RIDDLE OF THE UNIVERSE. 



Paulsen), that even our unconscious presentations, 

 sensations, and volitions pertain to our psychic life ; 

 indeed, the province of these unconscious psychic 

 actions (reflex action, and so forth) is far more 

 extensive than that of consciousness. Moreover, the 

 two provinces are intimately connected, and are 

 separated by no sharp line of demarcation. An 

 unconscious presentation may become conscious at 

 any moment ; let our attention be withdrawn from it 

 by some other object, and forthwith it disappears 

 from consciousness once more. 



The only source of our knowledge of consciousness 

 is that faculty itself; that is the chief cause of the 

 extraordinary difficulty of subjecting it to scientific 

 research. Subject and object are one and the same 

 in it : the perceptive subject mirrors itself in its own 

 inner nature, which is to be the object of our inquiry. 

 Thus we can never have a complete objective certainty 

 of the consciousness of others ; we can only proceed 

 by a comparison of their psychic condition with our 

 own. As long as this comparison is restricted to 

 normal people we are justified in drawing certain 

 conclusions as to their consciousness, the validity of 

 which is unchallenged. But when we pass on to 

 consider abnormal individuals (the genius, the eccen- 

 tric, the stupid, or the insane) our conclusions from 

 analogy are either unsafe or entirely erroneous. The 

 same must be said with even greater truth when we 

 attempt to compare human consciousness with that of 

 the animals (even the higher, but especially the lower). 

 In that case such grave difficulties arise that the views 

 of physiologists and philosophers diverge as widely as 

 the poles on the subject. We shall briefly enumerate 

 the most important of these views. 



