304 PSYCHOLOGY. 



If they really were the innermost sanctuary, the vHi- 

 mate one of all the selves whose being we can ever directly 

 experience, it would follow that all that is experienced is, 

 strictly considered, ohjecHve; that this Objective falls asun- 

 der into two contrasted parts, one realized as ' Self,' the 

 other as * not-Self ; ' and that over and above these parts 

 there is nothing save the fact that they are known, the fact 

 of the stream of thought being there as the indispensable 

 subjective condition of their being experienced at all. But 

 this condition of the experience is not one of the things ex 

 perienced at the moment; this knowing is not immediately 

 known. It is only known in subsequent reflection. Instead, 

 then, of the stream of thought being one of cow-sciousness, 

 " thinking its own existence along with whatever else it 

 thinks," (as Ferrier says) it might be better called a stream 

 of /S'ciOMsness pure and simple, thinking objects of some of 

 which it makes what it calls a ' Me,' and only aware of its 

 * pure ' Self in an abstract, hypothetic or conceptual way. 

 Each ' section ' of the stream would then be a bit of scious- 

 ness or knowledge of this sort, including and contemplat- 

 ing its ' me ' and its ' not-me ' as objects which work out their 

 drama together, but not yet including or contemplating its 

 own subjective being. The sciousness in question would be 

 the Thinker, and the existence of this thinker would be given 

 to us rather as a logical postulate than as that direct inner 

 perception of spiritual activity which we naturally believe 

 ourselves to have. ' Matter,' as something behind physical 

 phenomena, is a postulate of this sort. Between the postu- 

 lated Matter and the postulated Thinker, the sheet of phe- 

 nomena would then swing, some of them (the ' realities ') 

 pertaining more to the matter, others (the fictions, opinions, 

 and errors) pertaining more to the Thinker. But icho the 

 Thinker would be, or how many distinct Thinkers Ave ought 

 to suppose in the universe, would all be subjects for an 

 ulterior metaphysical inquiry. 



Speculations like this traverse common-sense; and not 

 only do they traverse common sense (which in philosophy 

 is no insuperable objection) but they contradict the funda- 

 mental assumption of every philosophic school. Spiri- 

 tualists, transcendentalists, and empiricists alike admit in 



