CHAPTER XXVI.

CONSCIOUSNESS IN GENERAL.

§ 377. Successive decompositions of the more complex phenomena of intelligence into simpler ones, and of these into still simpler ones, have at length brought us down to the simplest; which we find to be nothing else than a change in the state of consciousness. This is the element out of which are composed the most involved cognitions. Analysis leaves us no alternative but to hold that the perception of a vast landscape consists in a multitude of coordinated changes; and that of co-ordinated changes also, consists the most abstract conception of the philosopher.

This result, reached by taking to pieces our cognitions, is, indeed, the one indicated by à priori considerations. To be conscious is to think; to think is to put together impressions and ideas; and to do this, is to be the subject of internal changes. It is admitted on all hands that without change, consciousness is impossible: consciousness ceases when the changes in consciousness cease. If, then, incessant change is the condition on which only consciousness can continue, it would seem to follow that all the various phenomena of consciousness are resolvable into changes. Even from a general view of the facts, therefore, may be prophesied the issue to which a detailed analysis has led us.

Still more clearly may this same issue be foreseen, when it is remembered that we can become conscious only

through the changes caused in us by surrounding things. Here is an organism placed in the midst of objects. If it is uninfluenced by them, it can know nothing of them-think nothing of them. Their existence cannot be revealed to it unless by the effects they produce on it-the changes they work in it. Only through changes can it be made conscious of an external world; and only out of changes can be constructed that knowledge of an external world which is possible to it.

But a full comprehension of this truth that the primordial element of all intelligence is simply a change, and that every complex mental phenomenon is a co-ordinated group of changes, will best be gained by arranging synthetically the results lately reached by analysis. After contemplating in their order of genesis, a few of the primitive cognitions treated of in recent chapters, both the particular conclusions there reached, and the general conclusion based upon them, will be clearly understood.

§378. As already sufficiently explained, absolute quiescence in consciousness is cessation of consciousness. To constitute a consciousness, however, incessant change is not the sole thing needed. If the changes are altogether at random, no consciousness, properly so called, exists. Consciousness is not simply a succession of changes, but an orderly succession of changes-a succession of changes combined and arranged in special ways. The changes form the raw material of consciousness; and the development of consciousness is the organization of them. This premised, let us consider under what conditions consciousness becomes nascent.

The lowest form of consciousness that can be conceived, is that resulting from the alternation of two states. When there is a change from state A to state B, and from state B to state A-that is when states A and B come into existence as the antecedents and consequents of changes, each

change constitutes a phenomenon in consciousness; and the recurrence of such changes becomes a consciousness. Not that such a consciousness is one which we can realize to ourselves, or one which would ordinarily be termed consciousness. We must regard it as the first step towards tho evolution of consciousness proper-a step such as we may imagine to have been taken in the lowest animals that manifest sensibility. But now let us inquire what is given in this first step. By the hypothesis, the second stato B differs from the first state A-constitutes a second state only in virtue of being different; that is to say, A and B are unlike. That there can exist any cognition of them as unlike is not to be supposed. Such a cognition implies a complicated mental act that becomes possible only after considerable development. All we have now to note is, that this first phenomenon is one of the experiences out of which are ultimately elaborated the ideas of change, of sequence, of unlikeness. Suppose that there occurs the change B to A. Here are the materials for a second relation of sequence-a second relation of unlikeness. But this is not all. There has now arisen a second state A, like the first state A. Data have been presented which, in an advanced consciousness, would constitute a relation of likeness. At present, however, even supposing a latent capacity for thinking such a relation, it cannot be thought from lack of experiences to class it with. Let there occur another change, A to B. This constitutes a second relation of unlikeness, of the same nature as the one first established-a change or relation like the before-experienced relation. There are now given the materials which, did there exist a power of coordinating them, might compose a thought. There have arisen two relations of likeness between primitive states of consciousness-between A and A, and B and B; and also a relation of likeness between two changes-between two relations of unlikeness. By a practised consciousness,

A

this second change or relation would be thinkable as like the first-might be classed with it, or assimilated to it. Let another change B to A arise. further relation of unlikeness is presented, like a foregoing one. And by a perpetual repetition of these changes A-B, B-A, the two states and their two relations tend to become more and more cognizable. Thus, even in a consciousness of the lowest imaginable type, there are foreshadowed the relation of sequence, the relation of unlikeness among the sensations, the relation of likeness among the sensations, the relation of unlikeness among the changes, and the relation of likeness among the changes. The earliest possible experiences are those supplying the raw material from which these cognitions are developed.

Suppose that a third state, C-a third kind of sensation, is now joined to the others. Further relations of likeness and unlikeness between states and between changes result. But not simply can there occur a greater variety of phenomena of the same kind: new kinds of phenomena become possible. The two states A, B, we have assumed to alternate with equal facility in each direction A-B, B—A. If, however, the new state C frequently follows B but never precedes it, there results an experience of two orders of change which become known by contrast: the duplex change A-B, B-A, answering to the relation of co-existence, and the single change B-C, answering to the relation of sequence proper. Moreover, after this introduction of a third state, it becomes possible for some particular combination to be established as one of more frequent recurrence than the others; and the recurrence of such particular combination, B-A-C for example, supplies the material for a relation of likeness, not between one single change in consciousness and previous changes, but between a group of changes and previous groups. Nor is this all. The more varied experiences that now arise of the relations of likeness and unlikeness, which subsist between several

kinds of primitive states, several kinds of single changes, and several kinds of compound changes, afford data for the consciousness of likeness and unlikeness in general, apart from the particular terms between which they were first established.

Supposing this introduction of new sensations, new changes, and new combinations among them, to be carried on step by step, let us mark what must result from that universal law, that the more frequently mental states have occurred in a certain order the more easily and rapidly do they follow one another in that order. In proportion as the specially-combined states D-B-A-C, have been repeated, the time occupied in the transition from the first to the last becomes abbreviated; and ultimately this series of states and changes takes no more time than one of its constituents originally did. The consequence is, that these compound changes tend to become more and more clearly thinkable as single phenomena in consciousness-more and more readily classable with the like previous phenomena and distinguishable from others. But now observe the important fact that in proportion as a chain of such changes is consolidated into a single change, in the same proportion do the several sensations which form the antecedents and consequents of the changes, become present together. When the compound change D-B-A-C, takes place, as it ultimately does, almost instantaneously, it results that before the first sensation or idea D, has ceased, the others B, A, C, have severally arisen. Hence there is produced a consolidated consciousness in which many sensations appear to be simultaneously presented-a consolidated consciousness answering to some outward object that habitually gives this group of sensations. And we have but to conceive an endless progress in this consolidation of changes, to comprehend how there can arise the consciousness of complex things-how the objects with which human intelligence deals become thinkable as like and unlike-how the highest acts of perception and reason become possible.