1. Our consciousness is not merely a knowledge of many individual things, the possession of concrete and abstract, particular or general conceptions and ideas, the cherishing of sensations, feelings and the like. We not only know, but we know that we know, and we can ponder in thought over the very fact that we are able thus to reflect in thought. Thought can turn its attention upon itself, can establish that it takes place, and how it runs its course, can reflect upon the forms in which it expresses itself, its powers, its laws, possibilities, and limits, and can ponder over the general nature of thought and the contingent individual nature of the particular thinking subject. (The very possibility and preliminary condition of moral freedom is implied in this.) How naturalism is to do justice to this fact it is not easy to see. Even if it were possible that the mental content was gained through mere experience, that comparisons, syntheses, and abstractions were formed simply according to the laws of association, and that these were sublimed and refined to general ideas, and could grow into axioms of logic and of geometry, or crystallise into necessary and axiomatic principles—none of which can happen—yet it would always be a knowledge of something. But how this something could be given to itself remains undiscoverable. The soul is a _tabula rasa_ and a mere mirror, says this theory. But it would still require to show how the silver layer behind the mirror began to see itself in the mirror. The Unity of Consciousness. 2. The same holds true of the unity of consciousness, of which we are directly convinced. It is quite inexplicable if consciousness is a function of the extended and divisible physical substratum which is built up of nerve-cells and nerve-fibres. And yet this unity is the fundamental condition of our whole inner life. Even the facts of association demonstrate it. Two images could not come together, the one could not call up the other, if they were not possessed in the same consciousness, and could unite in it. It is the preliminary condition of every higher mode of thought, of every relating of things, of every comparison and abstraction. No judgment can be formed, no conclusion drawn without this. How could a predicate become associated with its subject, or a principal clause with its subordinate clause, if they were in separate consciousnesses, and how could the conclusion be drawn from them? Consciousness of the Ego.