The development of the human consciousness, according to the triple principle of its existence, or of its nature as compounded of spirit or mind, soul, and animated body, must begin with the soul, and not with the spirit, even though the latter be the most important and supreme. For the soul is the first grade in the progress of development. In actual life, also, it is the beginning and the permanent foundation, as well as the primary root of the collective consciousness. The development of the spirit or mind of man is much later, being first evolved in or out of, by occasion of, or with the co-operation of the soul. But even when thus developed, the mind (under which term we comprise the will, as well as the understanding) is neither in all men, nor always in the same individual, equally active. In this respect we may apply to it what has been said of the wind, which imparts vital motion and freshness to all the objects of outward nature: we “hear the sound thereof, but we can not tell whence it comes, nor whither it goeth.”[13] The thinking soul, on the contrary, is, properly speaking, always, though silently, working; and it is highly probable that it is never without conceptions. Of these, indeed, it may either possess a clear or an almost totally indistinct consciousness, according to that principle of unconscious representations propounded as a fundamental axiom of psychology by a great German philosopher[14] of earlier times, with whose opinions I often find myself agreeing, and with whom, before all other men, I would most gladly concur.