_Cases of abnormal or suspended Consciousness._--In certain disordered and abnormal states of the nervous organism, the knowledge of what has transpired previously to that state seems to be lost; and then again, on passing out of that condition into the normal one, all knowledge of what took place while in the abnormal state is wanting. Instances are on record where persons have alternated in this manner from one to the other condition, carrying on, as it were, by turns, two separate and independent lines of mental activity. An instance of this nature is related by Dr. Wayland. It has been usual to speak of these as instances of disordered or suspended consciousness. Strictly speaking, however, it is not consciousness but memory that is in such cases disordered. It is not the knowledge of the present, but of the _past_, that is disturbed and deficient. While the abnormal state continues, the individual is conscious of what transpires in that state. When it ceases, the patient wakes as from a reverie or dream, and retains no _recollection_ of any thing that took place during its continuance. It is the _memory_ that fails, and not the consciousness. We are never _conscious_ of the _past_. _Objects of Consciousness._--1. Consciousness deals only with reality. We are conscious only of that which is, not of that which may be. The poet is conscious indeed of his fiction, the builder of air-castles is conscious of his reverie, but the fiction and the reverie, regarded as mental acts, are _realities_, and it is only as mental acts that they are objects of consciousness. 2. Not every thing real is an object of consciousness, but only that which is _present_ and in _immediate relation_ to us. The destruction of Pompeii, and the existence of an Antarctic continent are realities, but not objects of my consciousness. 3. Primarily and directly we are conscious of our own mental states and operations; of whatever passes over the field of our mental vision, our thoughts, feelings, actions, physical sensations, moral sentiments and purposes: mediately and indirectly we are conscious of whatever, through the medium of sense, comes into direct relation to us. For instance, when I put forth my hand and it strikes this table, I am conscious not only of the movement, and the effort to move, but of the sensation of resistance also, and indirectly I may be said to be conscious not of the resistance only, but of something--to wit, the table--as resisting. This something I know, as really as I know the sensation and the fact of resistance. To this immediate perception of the external world in direct relation to our physical organism, Sir W. Hamilton would extend the sphere of consciousness. Usually, however, the term has been employed in a more restricted sense--to denote the knowledge of what passes within, rather than of what lies without the mind itself. CHAPTER II. ATTENTION.