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Rh be solved is how the thought of one thinker, whose are all the thoughts, but who is not merely the sum-total of these thoughts, can arise; and what is implicated in such a peculiar form of thought. In other words, the problem is the problem of self-consciousness; and we want Professor James to solve it in accordance with his conception of his duty as a teacher of the "natural science" of psychology. This, we have seen, requires him to reject all metaphysical postulates, whether of a substantial soul, or of a psychic synthesis, or of elementary units of consciousness; and to tell us precisely what brain-processes correspond, in a "black unmediated" way, to this peculiar thought.

It is characteristic of the way in which the conception of psychology as a natural science is here carried out to find Professor James heartily commending Mr. D. G. Thompson for the following position: "All states of consciousness imply and postulate a subject Ego, whose substance is unknown and unknowable, to which states of consciousness are referred as attributes, but which in the process of reference becomes objectified and becomes itself an attribute of a subject Ego which lies still beyond, and which ever eludes cognition though ever postulated for cognition" (p. 355). Now we should suppose that our author would rebuke this ponderous sentence as containing an exceedingly sweeping metaphysical postulate, and, moreover, a transcendental Ego, or "cheap and nasty edition" (second edition?) of a soul; and also as being, "vagueness incarnate," because it speaks of "unknowable substance" that has plenty of attributes (by which, we suppose, all substances are known), and of cognized realities that "ever elude cognition." But No! Professor James actually maintains of Mr. Thompson's postulated unknowable entity called Ego: "This is our judging and remembering present ’thought,’ described in less simple terms." And is a "judging and remembering present Thought," — if only you spell it with a capital as Mr. Spencer spells his Unknowable — capable of all this? Well, then, we now understand the problem of self-consciousness; but the mystery of such a "Thought" is great. However, we forbear; for when