organized in this form, or, to use the common term, consciousness considered apart from and prior to its activity, can never be known _by experience_, i. e., _we can never be conscious of an unconscious state_. "Unconditioned consciousness" is consciousness considered as quiescent because in it have been awakened no "definite forms"--no "thinking." "In the nature of things," then, it is impossible to be conscious of an "unconditioned consciousness." Yet Mr. Spencer says that "our consciousness of the unconditioned," which he has already asserted and proved, is a "positive," and therefore an active state; is identical with, is "literally the unconditioned consciousness," or consciousness in its quiescent state, considered before it had been awakened into activity, which is far more absurd than what was just above shown to be a contradiction. To escape such a result, a less objectionable interpretation may be given to the dictum in hand. It may be said that it looks upon consciousness only as an activity, and in the logical order after its action has begun. We are, then, conscious, and in this is positive action, but no definite object is present which gives a form in consciousness, and so consciousness _returns upon itself_. We are conscious that we are conscious, which is an awkward way of saying that we are self-conscious, or, more concisely yet, that we are conscious; for accurately this is all, and this is the same as to say that the subject and object are identical in this act. The conclusion from this hypothesis is one which we judge Mr. Spencer will be very loath to accept, and yet it seems logically to follow. Indeed, in a sentence we are about to quote, he seems to make a most marked distinction between self-consciousness and this "consciousness of the unconditioned," which he calls its "obverse."