Consciousness has in itself no limit; all organization belongs to the
content. Whatever psychical states are attributed to one organism belong
thus to its consciousness but all the connections are entirely
connections of the content. We, therefore, have not even the right to
say that consciousness, as such, has unity. Unity too belongs to the
organization of the content. One part of the content hangs together with
the other parts but consciousness is only the constant condition for
their existence. Where there is no unity, there it cannot have any
meaning to speak of the double or triple existence. There may be a
disconnection in the various parts of the content and a dissociation by
which the normal ties between the various contents may be broken but
consciousness itself cannot fall asunder. Thus consciousness cannot have
any different degrees. The same consciousness experiences the distinct
clear content and the vague fading confused content. Thus also
consciousness can never be aware of itself and the word
self-consciousness is easily misleading. In psychology, it can never
mean that the consciousness which is a subject of all experience is at
the same time object of any experience. Its whole meaning lies in its
being the passive spectator. That of which consciousness becomes aware
in self-consciousness is the idea of the personality, which is certainly
a content. The personality, the actor of our actions, is thus never
anything but an object in psychology, and consciousness never anything
but a subject. Consciousness itself is thus in no way altered when the
idea of the personality is changing. Only if all this is carelessly
confused, if consciousness is sometimes treated as meaning subject of
consciousness, and at another time as meaning the content of
consciousness, and again at another time the unified organization of the
content, and at still another time the connection of the content with
the personality, and if finally all that is confused with the purposive
reality of the immediate personal life--only then, do we find the way
open to those tempting theories of the subconscious personality.
* * * * *
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