2.38 PSYCHOLOGY. 



meet and merge over the gap, mucli as the feelings of space 

 of the opposite margins of the ' blind spot ' meet and 

 merge over that objective interruj)tion to the sensitiveness 

 of the eye. Such consciousness as this, whatever it be for 

 the onlooking psych( logist, is for itself unbroken. It feels 

 unbroken ; a waking :lay of it is sensibly a unit as long as 

 that day lasts, in the sense in which the hours themselves 

 are units, as having all their parts next each other, with no 

 intrusive alien substance between. To expect the con- 

 sciousness to feel the interruptions of its objective con- 

 tinuity as gaps, would be like expecting the eye to feel a 

 gap of silence because it does not hear, or the ear to feel a 

 gap of darkness because it does not see. So much for the 

 gaps that are unfelt. 



With the felt gaps the case is different. On waking from 

 sleep, we usually know that we have been unconscious, 

 and we often have an accurate judgment of how long. The 

 judgment here is certainly an inference from sensible signs, 

 and its ease is due to long practice in the particular field.* 

 The result of it, however, is that the consciousness is, for 

 itself, not what it was in the former case, but interruiDted 

 and discontinuous, in the mere sense of the words. But 

 in the other sense of continuity, the sense of the parts being 

 inwardly connected and belonging together because they 

 are parts of a common whole, the consciousness remains 

 sensibly continuous and one. What now is the common 

 whole ? The natural name for it is myself, I, or me. 



When Paul and Peter wake up in the same bed, and 

 recognize that they have been asleep, each one of them 

 mentally reaches back and makes connection with but one 

 of the two streams of thought which were broken by the 

 sleeping hours. As the current of an electrode buried in 

 the ground unerringly finds its way to its own similarly 

 buried mate, across no matter how much intervening earth ; 

 so Peter's present instantly finds out Peter's past, and ncA^er 

 by mistake knits itself on to that of Paul. Paul's thought 

 in turn is as little liable to go astra3^ The past thought of 

 Peter is appropriated by the present Peter alone. He may 



* The accurate registration of the ' how long ' is still a little mysterious. 



