and those who have
attempted to find proofs for the traditional idea we have noted, have
usually really had these three in mind, and quite rightly so: they are,
self-consciousness, the unity of consciousness, and the consciousness of
the ego.

Self-Consciousness.

1. Our consciousness is not merely a knowledge of many individual things,
the possession of concrete and abstract, particular or general conceptions
and ideas, the cherishing of sensations, feelings and the like. We not
only know, but we know that we know, and we can ponder in thought over the
very fact that we are able thus to reflect in thought. Thought can turn
its attention upon itself, can establish that it takes place, and how it
runs its course, can reflect upon the forms in which it expresses itself,
its powers, its laws, possibilities, and limits, and can ponder over the
general nature of thought and the contingent individual nature of the
particular thinking subject. (The very possibility and preliminary
condition of moral freedom is implied in this.) How naturalism is to do
justice to this fact it is not easy to see. Even if it were possible that
the mental content was gained through mere experience, that comparisons,
syntheses, and abstractions were formed simply according to the laws of
association, and that these were sublimed and refined to general ideas,
and could grow into axioms of logic and of geometry, or crystallise into
necessary and axiomatic principles--none of which can happen--yet it would
always be a knowledge of something. But how this something could be given
to itself remains undiscoverable. The soul is a _tabula rasa_ and a mere
mirror, says this theory. But it would still require to show how the
silver layer behind the mirror began to see itself in the mirror.

The Unity of Consciousness.

2. The same holds true of the unity of consciousness, of which we are
directly convinced. It is quite inexplicable if consciousness is a
function of the extended and divisible physical substratum which is built
up of nerve-cells and nerve-fibres. And yet this unity is the fundamental
condition of our whole inner life.

Even the facts of association demonstrate it. Two images could not come
together, the one could not call up the other, if they were not possessed
in the same consciousness, and could unite in it. It is the preliminary
condition of every higher mode of thought, of every relating of things, of
every compariso