Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/318

302 Now there are two kinds of coexistence that can be predicated of thoughts. Coexistence in time and coexistence in consciousness. But coexistence in time will not account for the consciousness of coexistence. If the Associationist resorts to coexistence in the same consciousness, to explain the facts, he gives up his case. Either his "same consciousness" is Professor James's indivisible mental state or the unity of consciousness which is really a unity of — consciousness of the second theory.

As to this theory, the following alternative will certainly be admitted: Either the Transcendental Being, or Pure Ego, or Spiritual Substance is represented in consciousness or it is not. If it is not, we need not take any account of it in describing the facts of consciousness. When we ask: How are states of consciousness possible? their metaphysical condition is the all-important matter. But as I can describe a play of Shakespeare without saying anything about its authorship, so I can describe the facts of consciousness without saying anything about their metaphysical ground, unless this ground is a part of, or is in some way represented in, these facts themselves. But in the latter case, the representation becomes a part of the facts to be described, and as long as my aim is description only, I can and must ignore the metaphysical reality whose shadow forms a part or the whole of the object I am trying to describe.

From this it follows that the same argument that overthrows the Associationist's theory, establishes Professor James's. He maintains that all the facts of which we are conscious at any moment form an undivided mental state. As a natural-science psychologist, he gives no explanation of it. Looking simply at the facts, raising no question as to their metaphysical basis, he contends that they form one whole, else they would not be known to each other. The unity of consciousness upon which the Transcendentalists rightly lay such stress, is a unity of consciousness — not a unity of unconsciousness — not a unity of the transcendental ground of consciousness. Give to "unity of consciousness" the sense which the facts demand, and it means and can only mean the conscious unity in which all the parts of the field of consciousness form parts of an undivided whole.

These considerations, it appears to me, make it necessary for us to accept some such theory as Professor James has advanced of personal identity and substantiality. What can the identity of a metaphysical being do towards giving us a belief in our identity? Nothing whatever so long as it remains, from the point of view of our thought, a purely metaphysical being. Only as it becomes more, only as it transcends itself and becomes represented in consciousness, only as the identity that is out of consciousness projects its shadow, so to speak, across consciousness, can it furnish the foundation for a belief to conscious beings.