It is not denied, that in every consciousness there can be distinguished two elements—the existence of a content, and its relation to the ego; but it is denied, that this relation can be made objective, even to itself. This correctly describes the character of consciousness, as content and activity, and moreover, precisely delimits the domain of the psychical and determines the positive task of psychology. Those, who assume a consciousness of consciousness, ought logically to admit the consciousness of a consciousness of consciousness, etc.; as indeed some metaphysicians have done.
It may be maintained, however, that the distinction of the activities of consciousness, of sensation, representation, and thinking, is indispensable in psychology; but, at any rate, there are no different kinds, or even degrees or stages of consciousness. The consciousness of any simple sensation in kind is not different from the consciousness of a world; the factor of consciousness in both is the same; the difference lies exclusively in the content. This also applies to clear and obscure consciousness.
In order to determine the positive task of psychology, we ought to discover in every content and in every repeated act of consciousness, a certain common characteristic. Perception, as such, does not constitute consciousness, but merely denotes the presence of a multiple content; apperception, on the other hand, indicates only consciousness in the definite sense of a "unity" of that multiple content. This unity of consciousness properly does not appear, or only appears in the connection of the contents. That peculiarity of consciousness which we call apperception, is psychologically only apparent in the contents of consciousness; it does not constitute an object of psychology, but forms only its extreme limits. The common characteristic of every content of consciousness is therefore really to be found in the connection (Verbindung) in which the simple contents are represented in the repeated acts of consciousness. This connection exists only subjectively, irrespective of all objective meaning or value.
The existence of phenomena purely as phenomena, their subjective existence irrespective of object, constitutes their psychic existence or that side of the phenomenon from which it becomes an object of psychological research. Under this head come all those phenomena to which science denies an objective value: illusions of the senses, mental hallucinations, and the normal non-scientific representations of things, the creations of the imagination in music and in art, the entire subjective life of feeling and of aspiration, regarded only as a particularly characteristic association of representation, irrespective of all objective truth, which lies beyond the limits of psychology as such.
The characteristic, accordingly, is found in the unity in which the content represents itself in the single or reiterated acts of consciousness. In each act of consciousness the content is simply present, and no time is distinguished. When we distinguish time, a plurality of consciousness also must be distinguished. It may seem difficult to understand how two or more original acts of consciousness are again united into one act; but in reality this takes place. The idea of unity is thus enlarged, and becomes the consciousness of a multiplicity, the necessary unity of a multiple, a successive connection in time, and a simultaneous connection. All consciousness (representation) depends on connection, as is indirectly shown by trying to discover whether the elementary contents of consciousness can be represented in absolute isolation.
Abstract consciousness is thus found to be the relation of given contents to an ego, and connection constitutes the manner in which a multiple content appears or is represented in the reiterated relation to one and the same ego. Connection is the concrete expression of that relation itself, through which consciousness attains its definite and positive value. Abstract consciousness seems poor, but the multiplicity of a definite connection of contents affords a vast field of psychological research, for on that connection depends the concrete significance of the ego, which to us is not subject in general, but above all, is our own particular subject.
And finally at this point there spontaneously arises the question of a theory of the psychic phenomena. Every theory essentially presupposes an objective tendency, while consciousness, as the expression of the purest subjectivity of phenomena, cannot be rendered objective. It clearly follows, therefore, that the method of psychology must be radically different from all methods of the objective sciences.
γνλν
DER GENIALE MENSCH. By Cesare Lombroso. German Translation by Dr. M. O. Fraenkel. Hamburg: Verlagsanstalt und Druckerei-Actien-Gesellschaft (vormals J. F. Richter).
The French edition of Lombroso's "Man of Genius" has already appeared. The work is introduced by a preface written by M. Charles Richet, which reviews the subject with great clearness. All in all, this is an admirable book, well stocked with interesting facts and incidents, and well adapted to obtain a large number of readers outside of scientific circles. There is necessarily a dearth of abundant and well-authenticated facts in this subject,—historians until lately not having occupied themselves with the psychological phases of life; and accordingly there is great danger in universal generalisation from those that we have. This, however, Prof. Lombroso has recognised.