What had been happening? About twenty minutes would be required to
perform this elaborate series of actions, and they had been performed
exactly as if I had been guiding them, while in reality I knew nothing
about them. Shall we call my conduct unconscious cerebration? Yes, if
we like large words which cover ignorance. I do not see how we can
certainly say what was going on. Perhaps during all this time I had
neither consciousness nor self-consciousness. I may have been a mere
automaton, under the control of a series of reflex actions. The
feeling of the reins in my hands may have set me erect. The feeling of
the ground beneath my feet may have projected these along their way;
and all this with no more consciousness than the falling man has in
stretching out his hands. Or, on the contrary, I may have been
separately conscious in each little instant; but in the shaken
condition of the brain may not have had power to spare for gluing
together these instants and knitting them into a whole. It may be it
was only memory which failed. I cite the case to show the precarious
character of self-consciousness. It appears and disappears. Our life
is glorified by its presence, and from it obtains its whole
significance. Whatever we are convinced possesses it we certainly
declare to be a person.
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