The answer is: It alone makes possible a reading of the fact, “_consciousness_”--that is to say, a reading of myself which, as already shown, can never be of an inductive, but only of an intuitive nature. That which in the mode of apprehending it peculiar to science, invests the problem of heredity with a specific gravity such that of itself it must necessarily tumble to the ground, is the fact that in this apprehension of the problem consciousness falls to be included as part of that which is to furnish the demonstration. From the standpoint physiology adopts, consciousness must reside in the groundwork, in the cell material; so that now it is a question of carrying the demonstration right on into this groundwork. As their trump card against the materialistic and mechanistic wing of science, the idealistic and teleological wing play this: “Consciousness, thought, psychic faculty, or whatever else one chooses to name it, does not admit of being explained under the image of a motion, thus cannot be explained mechanically.” And materialism yields the point with a grinding of the teeth behind which is concealed a sort of inward satisfaction that would say something to this effect: “It is quite true what you say there. We can account for everything, only not for this last little remainder, consciousness. The extent of our knowledge is best shown by this our helplessness; but the day will yet come when this holy Ilion also, this stronghold of nature and her secrets--consciousness--shall fall before our giant strokes.” With the adoption of such an attitude, science finds herself in the difficult position of having to account for consciousness from its antecedent conditions. These antecedent conditions may be followed up along two lines of inquiry; on the one hand, along the line of anatomical, physiological conditions, sense organs and brain; and on the other hand, along the line of functional conditions, of the perceptions in their varying degrees and qualities--two tasks which physiology and psychology share between them. To the former task it is that we are indebted for the existence of one of the most splendid departments--perhaps, indeed, the most splendid department--of the physiological sciences: the physiology of the sense-organs. One may say that this line of research reveals most impressively of all the splendid poverty of science--a dazzling altogether astounding wealth of the most interesting details, which, however, instead of converging to draw nearer to the sought-for goal, lose themselves in the boundless.