248 A. T. SCHOFIELD, ESQ., M.D., ETC., ON 



Again "• psychical and conscious are for us, at least at the 

 beginning- of our investigation, identical. The conceptiim 

 of unconscious psychical processes is for us an empty con- 

 ception."* Here we find a little hedging, but what is worst-, 

 on the same pagef we get an illustration of the imconscions 

 passing (jf a friend when absorbed in thought coming to our 

 consciousness aftei-. Professor Ziehen accounts for the un- 

 conscious impression by saying that more intense ideas 

 absorbed the thoughts, and that only as these waned did 

 ihe psychical perception of the friend appear, or he says 

 the sight of a friend "may be accompanied by a sensation 

 which, however, is not very intense in consequence of the 

 predominance of other ideas." 



This theory is negatived by the simple fact that these 

 unconscious impressions do not rise to consciousness as other 

 ideas lessen, but are flashed into consciousness often at long- 

 intervals afterwards. Of course an impression was made at 

 the time unconsciously. Again, '• Though in a loose sense 

 of the term consciousness, some mental events may be said 

 to be outside it, in another and stricter sense of the word all 

 that is mental is at the same time an element of conscious- 

 ness. Consciousness is the widest word in our vocabuhiry, 

 and embraces everything, that mind embraces.":): This 

 may be so as used by jNIr. jMill, but if so it embraces luicon- 

 sciousness and becomes a Avord without meaning. Cro- 

 fessor Alexander (Oxford) says, "Mind and consciousness are 

 coextensive, though not synonymous. I take mind to be 

 convertible with consciousness." Aristotle, Mill, Hamilton, 

 and Ward generally consider that consciousness is the cause 

 and necessary form of mental states, and that mind cannot 

 be conceived without it, and yet, as we sliall see, more than 

 one of these contradicts this position in his own Avritings. 



Reid, Stewart, Jouffroy consider consciousness is a faculty 

 of mind. " The school oJP Descartes and Loc-ke, i.e., the whole 

 of the ITtli and ISth centuries, expi-essly held that ])sych(dogy 

 has the same limit as consciousness, and ends witli it. ^Vhat 

 is without consciousness is remanded to physiology, and 

 between the two sciences the line of demarcation is absolute. 

 Consequently all those penumbral phenomena Avhich form the 

 transition from clear consciousness to perfect imconsciousuess 



■* J'siirholoqtf, I'l-ofessor Ziflieii. p. ">. 



t Ilnd. 



\ Ana/^sin of the Jlvmait Miiui, Janu-s ISIill, ji. Ji'7. 



