ably exacted for every motion, it also shows the nature of its agency in phenomena, and that having exhausted all its capacities in accounting for them, we have only arrived at the discovery that no action can take place in nature, so far as we know, until it is caused by mind. After admitting all that science has to say about the necessity of law, we find that there lies behind that a necessity of thought, which transcends matter and its laws, and that if force is necessary as a condition of motion it is only necessary as an implement of the great master-workman mind. And, however far we may extend our conception of the province of matter, and the necessary action of its laws, we may still see beyond it and including it a precedent necessity of spiritual agency.

We conclude, then, that so much of the New Philosophy as would find the constitution of nature in matter and its laws, and is thus defined as the natural outcome of materialistic thought, is not as it claims to be, a result of the law of Correlation, and the consequent uniformity of nature, inasmuch as it is compelled, contrary to the law of Correlation, to affirm that thought which is inconvertible into material motion, is nevertheless a function of matter, and contrary to the uniformity of nature, that in addition to the causative agency of mind there is another and distinct mode of causation by natural law. (See Huxley as above, p. 137.)

It is not then from any hostility to the truths of science, nor from any want of appreciation of the dignity and importance of its pursuits, neither is it from any misconception of the nature and dignity of matter, that we distrust the teachings of those to whom science reveals the world only through the interplay of matter and force; neither is it, as Prof. Tyndall supposes, because we are ignorant of natural law; but rather for the reason that when we consider the nature of matter and its laws as science reveals them to us, we find that matter is distinct from mind, and that its motions are not converted into thought; and that the essence of things is not in the matter composing them, and that the secret of phenomena is not in the force involved in them; that the real explanation of them all is in a kind of action which cannot be weighed in material balances, nor measured by material standards and 46

VOL. XXXIII.

does not proceed from a material agent, and cannot be resolved into material motions; and because we find that the true meaning of the things which science busies itself in examining, whether we call them works of nature or of art, lies not in the things themselves, but in their relations to that thinking agency which formed them and is the author of what they seem to do. Let him who doubts the proposition explain to himself, the meaning of the locomotive and its motions without referring them to the mind of man; and when he can bring us a rational explanation of them in terms drawn from the vocabulary of matter and force alone, let him afterwards tell us, if he will, about the material origin of thought. Meantime, finding in the known agency of mind in nature a clearly defined mode of causation by the action of mind using matter and its forces for the accomplishment of its purposes, and remembering that science teaches the uniformity of nature, we shall feel bound by the teachings of science itself to adhere to that oldest and most deeply rooted of scientific beliefs, that Mind and not Matter is the great fact and the moving power in nature; and that God is the author of the works of nature, not by the exertion of blind force, but by the power of thought, according to the counsels of his will.

ARTICLE V.-OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.

Edua

BY CHARLES E. GRINNELL.

BEFORE proceeding with what I have to say upon self-consciousness, I wish to come to an understanding with the reader about the way in which I approach the subject. My motive is not controversial. It is not my object to defend or to attack any school or any opinion. I wish to form an opinion of my own, and whatever, in the course of my remarks, may agree or disagree with one or another side is, in either of those aspects, merely incidental to my purpose to come to a sound conclusion concerning what is true. Consequently, for the examination of self-consciousness I lay down no rules, metaphysical or logical, and I reserve no doctrines of science or theology. To begin with a system would not be to seek, or to appreciate when given, the primitive facts, whatever they may be, upon which any systematic view that I shall acquire must depend. To be sure, as Schleiermacher* said in criticizing Des Cartes, one needs to stand in the historic line and to use the results of the progress of others; and I am not so absurd as to ignore such necessary relations and such evident advantages. But the most unpretending thinkers, nevertheless, themselves constitute their particular part of the historic line, and the worth to them and their successors of the methods and convictions of others must be largely determined by their own original thought. I should despair of getting clean facts if I borrowed the fashion of any other man's thinking. The difficulties of such a beginning I feel, but they are real and must be met. Even moral considerations must be put aside, and the search for what is or is not to be discovered to be true must be undertaken at the risk of every interest, external and internal, of the individual who makes it. Whatever may be the inherited or acquired tendency of his mind, and the intellectual and social atmosphere about him, he must ignore all the probable and possible

* Geschichte der Philosophie.

results of what his conclusions may be, and seek what facts he can find simply to know them as truths. Until his conclusions are reached he should be indifferent to what they may be, and not until he has definitely settled upon his convictions in philosophy should he distract his attention and disturb his judgment by discussing their consequences in society. They who will not pursue this course are not of the refined temper which psychology requires, a philosophical spirit analogous to the childlikeness recognized as essential to entrance into another sphere. And it may be added, to prevent a misunderstanding on the score of morals, such as are fit to pursue the course described will do it, as their predecessors have done their thinking, with due regard meanwhile to whatever state of affairs may surround them. Or, to use a vulgar maxim with an esoteric interpretation, they will think twice before they act, thinking first as philosophers, what may be, or is, true; thinking next as men who, even during their doubts, are something more than philosophers, what is expedient for the healthy life of themselves and the community, without a regard for which sound philosophy would be rendered impossible and even the most popular superficially moral and pretentiously religious efforts for universal improvement would be vain. The relevancy of these preliminary remarks to what follows will be evident to such as try to live the life in which speculative opinions be come of importance. But if to any it seem superfluous for one who is about to express a prevailing opinion to begin with a declaration of mental freedom, they need to be reminded that, in order to be thoroughly understood, every one must state his point of view; and that without such genuine declarations on the part of those who freely reach generally received opinions, they would not necessarily be understood to belong to the fel lowship of all honest thinkers of whatever conclusions, the truthful influence of which fellowship is so much needed amid the strife of partisans; and some readers might fall into the error of supposing freedom to be in the sole possession of one or another party.

The question-Are actual phenomena known to have essential being? or, Is Being known?-which both Spencer and Hamilton would have us believe to have been finally answered

by Kant in the negative, is, nevertheless, still asked as naturally as before by many a philosopher, and answered as naturally in the affirmative. "Being is not known; only phenoma are known," say the school of Kant and the empiricists with Comte. Being is known with its phenomena, say we. This general statement, however, is not intended as an introduction to a philosophy of the Absolute; on the contrary, it is to be defined according to my most concrete experience.

What I mean can only be explained by beginning with what must be the commencement of all sound philosophy-psychology--and within psychology by beginning with self-consciousness; for the claim that one knows anything needs the warrant of a knowledge of him who knows. Consciousness proper I define to be simply the knowledge of self in its various states. I am conscious of the Ego; I am not conscious of the non-Ego. My knowledge of the phenomena of the non-Ego comes through perception, not through what I have defined as consciousness; and any conception of an absolute Ego it is not within my present purpose to consider. Consciousness, then, in my use of the term, means only self-consciousness. And in

asserting that I am conscious of myself, I mean that I have an intuition of my own being, an immediate, original knowledge of the entity which, phenomena and essence, I find to be myself. By the words my own Being I intend to signify that which I unconditionally and invariably find, whenever I am conscious, to be permanently adequate to the production of all the phenomena of my actual experience, under whatever conditions those phenomena may be produced. When using the term Being in such a general statement as Being is known, I intend to include under the one word both the self of which I am immediately conscious, and whatever besides myself there may be which I infer from my intuition of my own being and from my perception of phenomena not of my own being to be permanently adequate to the production of those phenomena. My knowledge of my own being I am obliged, for want of a better word, to call absolute, with the hope that this will be understood if I explain that it neither implies with Fichte, a knowledge of an absolute Ego, nor is intended to assert that I know all that