THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SELF. 305 



US a continual direct perception of the thinking activity in 

 the concrete. However they may otherwise disagree, they 

 vie with each other in the cordiality of their recognition of 

 our thoughts as the one sort of existent which skepticism 

 cannot touch.* I will therefore treat the last few pages as 

 a parenthetical digression, and from now to the end of the 

 volume revert to the path of common-sense again. I mean 

 by this that I will continue to assume (as I have asfeumed 

 all along, especially in the last chaj)ter) a direct awareness 

 of the process of our thinking as such, simply insisting on 

 the fact that it is an even more inward and subtle phenome- 

 non than most of us suppose. At the conclusion of the 

 volume, however, I may permit myself to revert again to the 

 doubts here provisionally mooted, and will '"idulge in some 

 metaphysical reiiections suggested by them. 



At jjresent, then, the only conclusion I come to is the 

 following : That (in some persons at least) the part of the 

 innermost Self which is most vividly felt turns out to con- 

 sist for the most part of a collection of cephalic move- 

 ments of ' adjustments ' which, for want of attention and 

 reflection, usually fail to be perceived and classed as what 

 they are ; that over and above these there is an obscurer 

 feeling of something more ; but whether it be of fainte^ 

 physiological processes, or of nothing objective at all, but 

 rather of subjectivity as such, of thought become * its own 

 object,' must at present remain an open question, — like the 

 question whether it be an indivisible active soul-substance, 

 or the question whether it be a personification of the pronoun 

 I, or any other of the guesses as to what its nature may 

 be. 



Farther than this we cannot as yet go clearly in our 

 analysis of the Self's constituents. So let us proceed to the 

 emotions of Self which they arouse. 



2. SEIiF-FEELING. 



These are primarily self-complacency and sdf-aissatis- 

 faction. Of what is called ' self-love,' I will treat a little 



* The only exception I know of is M. J. Souriau, in bis important 

 article in the Revue Philosophique, vol. xxii. p. 449. M. Souriau's con- 

 clusion is ' que la conscience u'existe pas ' (p. 472). 



