[60] It may avoid misunderstanding if I anticipate here a subsequent remark: that my point is not in the least that “states of consciousness” require some “synthetic unity” or faculty of substantial mind to effect their association. Quite the contrary; for this theory also admits the “states of consciousness” as existences in themselves also. My contention is that the “state of consciousness” as such is always a methodological product, developed in the course and for the purposes of psychological analysis. [61] The “functions” are in truth ordinary everyday acts and attitudes: seeing, smelling, talking, listening, remembering, hoping, loving, fearing. [62] This is perhaps a suitable moment to allude to the absence, in this discussion, of reference to what is sometimes termed rational psychology--the assumption of a separate, substantialized ego, soul, or whatever, existing side by side with particular experiences and “states of consciousness,” acting upon them and acted upon by them. In ignoring this and confining myself to the “states of consciousness” theory and the “natural history” theory, I may appear not only to have unduly narrowed the concerns at issue, but to have weakened my own point, as this doctrine seems to offer a special vantage ground whence to defend the close relationship of psychology and philosophy. The “narrowing,” if such it be, will have to pass--from limits of time and other matters. But the other point I cannot concede. The independently existing soul restricts and degrades individuality, making of it a separate thing outside of the full flow of things, alien to things experienced and consequently in either mechanical or miraculous relations to them. It is vitiated by just the quality already objected to--that psychology has a separate piece of reality apportioned to it, instead of occupying itself with the manifestation and operation of any and all existences in reference to concrete action. From this point of view, the “states of consciousness” attitude is a much more hopeful and fruitful one. It ignores certain considerations, to be sure; and when it turns its ignoring into denial, it leaves us with curious hieroglyphics. But after all, there is a key; these symbols can be read; they may be translated into terms of the course of experience. When thus translated, selfhood, individuality, is neither wiped out nor set up as a miraculous and foreign entity; it is seen as the unity of reference and function involved in all things when fully experienced--the pivot about which they turn. [63] Delivered before the Philosophical Club of the University of Michigan, in the winter of 1897, and reprinted with slight change from a monograph in the “University of Chicago Contributions to Philosophy,” 1897. Transcriber’s Notes Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.