More important is it
to inspect the stages through which we rise to consciousness, for
these are often overlooked. People imagine that they are self-
conscious through and through, and that they always have been. They
assume that the entire life of a person is the expression of
consciousness alone. But this is erroneous. To a large degree we are
allied with things. While self-consciousness is our distinctive
prerogative, it is far from being our only possession. Rather we might
say that all which belongs to the under world is ours too, while self-
consciousness appears in us as a kind of surplusage. No doubt it is by
the distinctive traits, those which are not shared with other
creatures, that we define our special character; but these are not our
sole endowment. Our life is grounded in unconsciousness, and with
this, as students of personal goodness, we must first make
acquaintance.
Yet how can we become acquainted with it? How grow conscious of the
unconscious? We can but mark it in a negative way and call it the
absence of consciousness. That is all. We cannot be directly aware of
ourselves as unconscious. Indeed, we cannot be quite sure that the
physical things about us, even organic objects, are unconscious. If
somebody should declare that the covers of this book are conscious,
and respond to everything wise or foolish which the writer puts
between them, there would be no way of confuting him.
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