268 
avour the inference that an infinite mind not only might exist 
without a brain, but that, so far from needing one, it would be 
positively hampered and limited, i.e. rendered finite, by the 
presence of a brain. * 
The other argument reads as follows ( loc . cit., p. 392) • “Ma- 
terial motion determines the content of an idea; but the attri- 
bute ot consciousness is not necessary to this content, for the 
same content may, apart from the forms of sense fin which 
human ideas are clothed], also be thought unconsciously f which 
is u egging, on the basis of a previous defective induction 
the very point in question. What we wish to know is, whether 
an idea (Hartmann’s word is Vorstellung, representation) is, in 
any other than a metaphorical sense, possible without a con- 
scious mind possessing it— whether that is a true “representa- 
tion which is not made to a mind that consciously perceives 
itj. but if, now, consciousness can be found neither in the 
content nor, as we have previously seen, in the sensuous form 
of the idea, it is not at all necessary to the existence of an idea 
Lor mental representation ”] as such, but must be an accident,, 
which may or may not be joined with the idea.” Conscious- 
ness then (conscious knowledge, possession of ideas), is not 
identical, whether m whole or in part, with either the form or 
the content of our ideas; therefore it is an accident. By parity 
of reasoning, I argue in reply : Sight is neither in the form nor 
m the co “tent of the eye; hence it is an accident of the eye 
non-essential to its due operation, natural function and use! 
lere might be an eye which performed all the functions of an 
eye without seeing ! The absurdity of this is doubtless obvious 
enough Who needs to be told that although sight is neither 
m the ™ rm nor . ln the content of the organ of sight, yet the 
16 i § au e ^ e in a ny sense which makes it 
practically different from a clod of common earth, except as 
through it some one really sees? So an idea, psychologically 
speaking, is nothing but a dead unreal abstraction, except as it 
is an instrument of conscious knowledge to its possessor. 
One of the admissions made by Hartmann in his second 
hl passin ^ destr °ys of itself all 
the foice of the first argument. If the relation of conscious- 
ness to the forms of sense (in which the ideas of all brain- 
possessing terrestrial beings are clothed) is accidental, we mav 
obviously, reversing the order of terms, say that the relation of 
sense to consciousness is accidental, or non-essential ; whence 
he conclusion that consciousness (contrary to the assertion in 
he first argument) does not depend on the presence of a brain, 
lor the brain, as a physical organ, is nothing but the chief 
