tively projects its sense-perceptions as objects outside itself; and, accordingly, to this day, every uninstructed human being thinks he perceives the things themselves, because his perceptions, with the determination of externality, instinctively become objects to him. Thus only is it possible that the world of objects stands there ready for any being, without the idea of the subject occurring to it, whilst in conscious thought subject and object must necessarily spring simultaneously from the ideational process. It is, therefore, wrong to posit the concept of causality as mediator for a conscious segregation of the object, for objects are there long before the causal concept has arisen; and even were this not the case, yet, even then, the subject must be simultaneously gained with the object. Undoubtedly, from the philosophic point of view, causality is the sole means of getting beyond the mere ideational process to the subject and object; undoubtedly for the consciousness of the cultivated understanding, the object is only contained in perception as its external cause; undoubtedly the unconscious process, which lies at the bottom of the first apperception of the object, may be analogous to this philosophic conscious process,thus much is certain, that the process, as whose result the external object confronts consciousness ready formed, is a thoroughly unconscious one, and consequently, if causality plays a part in it-which for the rest we can never directly determine,-it can yet by no means be said, as by Schopenhauer, that the a priori given concept of causality produces the external object, because, in this mode of expression, the action must be conceived as a conscious one, which it decidedly cannot be, because it is formed much later, and, moreover, at first from reciprocal relations of the already formed objects.

Having got so far in this way as to see in perceptions external objects, the next point to be considered is the elaboration of the perceptions, e.g., in vision the sight of distance reckoned from the eye, single vision with two eyes,

sight of the third dimension in bodies, &c., and what corresponds thereto in other senses, as is discussed at length in so many manuals of physiology, psychology, &c. The processes which bring about this closer understanding, belong partly, indeed, to consciousness; in greater part, however, they fall into the domain of the Unconscious (comp. Wundt "Beiträge zur Theorie der Sinnes wahrnehmung," as well as the passages cited above, p. 39). "As the formation of perception by the single eye depends upon a series of psychical processes of an unconscious kind, so also the formation of binocular perception is nothing but an unconscious process of inference. . . . Thus it is not merely the special perception of depth to which the binocular act of vision necessarily leads, but it is, in addition, the representation of reflection and lustre, which arises therefrom in an altogether corresponding uniform manner" (Wundt, pp. 373, 374). "They (the unconscious psychical processes) are not merely those which form perceptions out of the unrelated sensations, but those also which bind the more immediate and simple perceptions themselves again into more compound ones, and thus bring order and system into the possession of our mind, before with consciousness that light is brought into this possession, which first teaches us ourselves to know it" (ibid. 375).

We might easily deceive ourselves concerning this relation, if we only reflected on the tardiness with which the human child attains to the full mastery of sense-perception. But if more exact investigation enables us here to perceive without difficulty, how small the elaboration of conscious thought is with children at the time, when they already possess this understanding of perception in full measure, the unconsciousness of all the needful processes among animals is evident at the first glance. The certainty with which these move soon after their birth, the propriety with which they comport themselves with respect to the outer world, would be impossible, if they did not instinctively possess this understanding of their sense-perceptions.

VOL. I.

If, as should properly be done, we include under sensuous perception in the wider sense this full comprehension of the sense-impressions, we see that the coming to pass of sensuous perception, which forms the foundation of all conscious mental activity, is dependent on a whole series of unconscious processes, without which aids on the part of instinct Man and Animal would perish helplessly, since they would lack the means of perceiving and of making use of the outer world.

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IX.

THE UNCONSCIOUS IN MYSTICISM.

THE word "mystical" is in everybody's mouth; everybody knows the names of celebrated mystics, everybody knows examples of the mystical. And yet how few understand the word, whose signification itself is mystical, and therefore can only be rightly comprehended by him who has within him a mystical vein, however weak it be. Let us try to get at the essence of the matter, by reviewing the various leading phenomena presented in the mysticism of different times and individuals.

We find among the largest number of mystics a turning \ away from active life and a falling back upon quietistic contemplation, even a striving after mental and bodily annihilation. This cannot, however, express the essence of mysticism; for the world's greatest mystic, Jacob Böhme, managed his household affairs in a methodical fashion, worked hard, and educated his children. Other mystics plunged so deeply into practical affairs as to come forward. in the character of world-reformers; others professed theurgy and magic, or practical medicine, and undertook journeys for scientific purposes.-Another series of phenomena, with higher degrees of mysticism, are bodily fits, as convulsions, epilepsies, ecstasies, imaginations and fixed ideas of hysterical women and hypochondriacal men, visions of ecstatic or spontaneously-somnambulistic persons. All these wear so much the character of bodily disease, that the essence of mysticism certainly cannot

be looked for in them, although they are for the most part intentionally produced by voluntary fasting, asceticism, and continued concentration of the fancy on one point. Those, who in the history of mysticism evoked such repulsive phenomena, we should at the present day commiserate in mad-houses, but in their own time they were adored as prophets and persecuted and slain as martyrs; such unfortunates, e.g., as took themselves to be Christ (Isaiah Stiefel, 1600) or God the Father himself. Nevertheless, it might be said the visions and ecstasies pass gradually into those purer and higher forms to which history owes so much; granted, certainly,-only this variable element must not be claimed as the essence of

mysticism.-A third form is asceticism. It is a mad 3

frenzy or a morbid delight when it is not embraced as an ethical system, which, however, is the case with Indian, Neo-Persian, and Christian penitents. Even then this is not necessarily mysticism, since, on the one hand, Schopenhauer has given us the proof that a person may be a clear thinker and yet regard asceticism as the only correct system; and, on the other hand, mysticism is just as compatible with the most unbridled, inordinate longing after enjoyments as with the strictest asceticism. A fourth series of phenomena in the history of mysticism are the wonders of the prophets, saints, and magicians occurring in every age. All that remains after tolerably strict criticism of these reports reduces itself to operations of healing, which may be comprehended partly as simply therapeutic, partly as conscious or unconscious magnetism, partly as sympathetic action, and admitted into the series of natural laws, if the magical-sympathetic action of mere will be allowed to pass as natural law. As long as this is refused, the latter certainly remains intrinsically mystical; but as soon as one gets accustomed to the phenomenon, it is not more mystical than the operation of any other natural law, of which we can make nothing at all, and yet do not on that account call mystical.

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