Page:Philosophical Review Volume 27.djvu/118

106 faction arc practically simultaneous. In the second type the affective tendency is maintained in suspense throughout the series of preparatory acts and reactions which are preliminary to the consummating act in which the satisfaction of the affection is attained. This state of suspense, of unsatisfied desire, can only be accounted for through the opposition of a contrary affective tendency. This contrary tendency is the product of the disappointment and disillusionment resulting from the failure of past consummating acts, which were too hastily instituted under the impulsion of the original affective tendency. It is such a condition of affective contrast which develops that state of affective tendency maintained in suspense and constituting the state of attention. This affective antagonism is revealed in the examination of typical states of attention, from the apparently automatic reactions of lower animals to the subtlest choices of modes of action in the scientific researches of man. The object in attention is thus approached from two different points of view and results of great variety and precision are obtained. Where there is no affective contrast there is no state of attention. This can be seen in cases of sudden or extreme emotion, and in monomania, where hallucinations and illusions are easily aroused. Consciousness is likewise a phenomenon derived directly from the affective tendencies. Psychological investigation shows that the same act may be either conscious or unconscious, although the same group of sensations accompanies each performance of the act. No past psychic state is conscious or unconscious by itself, but only in relation to some present psychic state. This relation consists in the at least partial co-existence of the affective state of the first with that of the second, and the at least partial superposition or fusion of these more or less analogous states. This relation of consciousness may thus be prolonged through a series of acts, of which each member is conscious by reference to another member of the series. It is also quite possible to have two series, related within themselves, but not related to each other. One of these will then be the conscious series, the other the unconscious. This explains the normal condition of dual personality, in which either series may in turn be conscious or unconscious, depending upon the relations of the affective tendencies of the psychic states. In pathological cases of dual personality, each series constitutes a conscious series for one phase of the personality, while remaining an unconscious series for the other. In unusual instances one series may be conscious in relation to a second, while this second will have no consciousness of the first. Consciousness is thus not a psychic state in itself, but the characteristic of a relation between two or more psychic states.

In order to deal successfully with a subject of such range and significance as that of the present article, one must neglect all the theories of the various schools, free oneself from all prejudices, and confine oneself to the general