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CHAPTER XXIII.

THE CRITERION OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

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225. Having established the worth of the principles of consciousness, of evidence, and of contradiction, in relation to the dignity of fundamental, we will now examine the intrinsic value of the different criteria. And here the doctrine of the preceding chapters, of which the following are the development and complement, furnishes much light. We will begin with consciousness, or the internal sense.

The testimony of consciousness includes all phenomena, either actively or passively, realized in our soul. It is by its nature purely subjective; so that in itself considered, apart from the intellectual instinct and the light of evidence, it testifies nothing with respect to objects. By it we know what we experience, not what is; we perceive the phenomenon, not the reality; what authorizes us to say: such a thing appears to me; but not, such a thing is.

The transition from subject to object, from the idea representing to the thing represented, from the impression to the cause impressing, belongs to other criteria: consciousness is limited to the interior, or rather, to itself, which is nothing but an act of our soul.

226. We must distinguish between direct and reflex consciousness: the former accompanies every internal phenomenon; the latter does not: the former is natural; the latter philosophical: the former abstracts the act of reason; the latter is one of these acts.

Direct consciousness is the presence of the phenomenon to the mind, whether that phenomenon be a sensation or an idea, an act or an impression, in the intellectual or the moral order.

This distinction shows that direct consciousness accompanies every exercise, whether active or passive, of the faculties of our soul. It is a contradiction to say that these phenomena exist in the soul, and are not present to it.

These phenomena are not modifications like those which occur in insensible things; we here treat of living modifications, so to speak, in a living being; in the idea of these modifications is contained their presence to the mind.

It is impossible for us to have a sensation without experiencing it; for whoever says he has a sensation, says that he experiences a sensation: this experience is its presence; an experienced sensation is a present sensation.

Thought is by its essence, a representation that can neither exist nor be conceived without presence; the name itself shows this, and the idea which we join with it confirms the meaning of the word. When we speak of representation, we understand that there is some real or imaginary object, which mediately or immediately offers itself to the subject. There is then presence in every representation, and consequently in every thought.

If, from what is passive, like sensations and representations, we pass to the active, that is, to the phenomena when the soul freely evolves its force in the intellectual or moral order, in combining or willing, this presence is, if possible, yet more evident. The being that thus acts, does not obey a natural impulse, but motives which it proposes to itself, and to which it may or may not attend. To make intellectual combinations and to exercise acts of the will, without either being present to the soul, are contradictory assertions.

227. Reflex consciousness, called by the French aperception, from the verb s'apercevoir, and denoting perception of the perception, is the act whereby the mind explicitly knows any phenomenon which is realized in it. Thus, I hear a noise: the simple sensation, present to and affecting my mind, constitutes what we have called direct consciousness; but if besides hearing, I also aperceive, to use a Gallicism, that I hear; then I not only hear, but also think that I hear: this we call reflex consciousness.

228. It is clear from this example, that direct and reflex consciousness are not only distinct but separable. I may hear without thinking that I hear; and this is very often the case.

229. Most men have little reflex consciousness, and the greatest intellectual force operates directly. This ideological fact is connected with moral truths of the utmost importance. The human mind was not born to contemplate itself, to think that it thinks: its affections were not given as an object of reflection, but as impulses which elevate it to what it is called to: the principal object of its intelligence and love is, in this life as in the other, the infinite being. The worship of itself is an aberration of pride; its punishment is darkness.

230. All great scientific discoveries lie in the objective, not in the subjective order. The exact sciences, natural as well as moral, have emanated not from reflexion of the subject upon itself, but from knowledge of objects and their relations. Even the metaphysical sciences, in all that is most solid in them, ontology, cosmology, and theology, are purely objective: ideology and psychology which consider the subject, are full of the obscurity inherent in all that is subjective; ideology scarcely does more than merely observe internal phenomena—an observation, we may remark, generally very defective, poorly made, and bewildered with vain cavils; and what has psychology itself, truly demonstrated, except the simplicity of the soul, the necessary consequence of the unity of consciousness? In all else it resembles ideology, and to a certain point, is confounded with it; it observes phenomena, and afterwards defines and classifies them better or worse, but fails to explain their mysterious nature.

231. Consciousness is the foundation of the other criteria, not as a proposition which serves as their basis, but as a fact which is a necessary condition of them all.

232. Consciousness tells us that we see the idea of one thing contained in the idea of another: thus far there is nothing but appearance; the formula, to express its testimony would be: it appears to me; which denotes a purely subjective phenomenon. But this phenomenon is accompanied by an intellectual instinct, an irresistible impulse of nature, which makes us assent to the truth of the relation, not only so far as it is in us, but as it is formed without us, in the purely objective order, whether in the sphere of reality or possibility. Thus it is explained how evidence is founded on consciousness, not as identified with it, but as resting upon it as a fact from which it cannot be abstracted, and as also containing the intellectual instinct which makes us believe whatever is evident to be true.

233. Sensation, in itself considered, is a fact of pure consciousness, since it is immanent in us: so far is it from being an act whereby the mind passes beyond itself, translates itself to the object, that it ought rather to be regarded as a passion than an action, and this accords with the common mode of speaking, which ascribes it to a passive rather than to an active faculty. Nevertheless on this mere fact of consciousness is in some sense founded what is called the testimony of the senses, and consequently all knowledge of the external world, its properties, and relations.

In the sensation whereby we see the sun, there are two things: the sensation itself, that is, the representation which I experience in myself, and which I call sight; and the correspondence of this sensation to the external object which I call the sun. Evidently, these are two very distinct things, and yet we always unite them. Consciousness is certainly the first basis of the formation of judgment; but alone it does not suffice, for it only testifies that the sensation is, not what it is. How is the judgment completed? By means of a natural instinct which makes us render sensations objective, that is, makes us believe in an external object corresponding to the internal phenomena. Thus the testimony of the senses is in some manner founded on consciousness; it does not, however, proceed from consciousness alone, but requires the natural instinct, by means of which we form our judgments in perfect security.

234. We must here remark that evidence has nothing to do with the testimony of the senses, even in their intellectual part, wherein we judge that an external object corresponds to the sensation. The idea of the existence or possibility of an external object does not enter into the idea of the sensation as purely subjective, and without this indispensable condition there can be no evidence. Not only is this clear of itself, but it is confirmed by daily experience. We continually have the representation of the external subjectively considered, as a pure phenomenon in our soul, although no real object corresponds to it; more or less clear when we are awake, but most vivid, even so as to produce a perfect illusion, when we are asleep.

235. With this exposition, the value and extent of consciousness may be exactly determined: this we shall see in the following propositions, in all of which, we would observe, we treat only of direct consciousness.

FIRST PROPOSITION.

The testimony of consciousness extends to all the phenomena that are realized in our soul, regarded as an intellectual and sensitive being.

SECOND PROPOSITION.

236. If there exist in our soul phenomena of a different order, that is to say, if it may in some sense be modified in non-representative faculties, the testimony of consciousness does not extend to such phenomena.

We do not advance this proposition without a solid reason. It is probable, and even very probable, that our soul has active faculties, of the exercise of which it is not conscious; otherwise how explain the mysteries of organic life? The soul is united to the body, and is for it the vital principle, the separation from which causes death, manifested in complete disorganization and decomposition. This activity is exercised without consciousness, either of the mode or of the fact of its existence.

It may be said that there is here a series of those confused perceptions of which Leibnitz speaks in his Monadologie; or that these perceptions are so slight, so wan, as to leave no trace in the memory, nor be an object of reflection: but these are only conjectures. It is hard to persuade one's self that the fœtus in the mother's womb has any consciousness of the activity exercised for the development of its organization: it is also hard to persuade one's self that even in adults there is any consciousness of that same activity producing circulation of the blood, nutrition, and other phenomena which constitute life. If these phenomena are produced, as they certainly are, by the soul, there is in it, an exercise of activity of which it either has no consciousness, or one so weak and confused that it is as if it were not.

THIRD PROPOSITION.

237. The testimony of consciousness, in itself considered, is so limited to the purely internal, that it is of itself worth nothing in the external order, either for the criterion of evidence or that of the senses.

FOURTH PROPOSITION.

The testimony of consciousness is the foundation of the other criteria, inasmuch as it is a fact which they all require, and without which they are impossible.

FIFTH PROPOSITION.

238. From the combination of consciousness with intellectual instinct arise all the other criteria.(23)