then for ever transcend our powers, The only question we can answer, is what has the subject found itself to be? The answer to this question would be an inventory of the present intellectual wealth of the race, and a sort of novum Organon of science, and a means of advancing the sciences.

This question, what has the subject found itself to be? though by no means easily answered, can be answered by a profound study of the monuments of the individual and the race; that is, the facts of Memory, and the facts of History. But a class of modern psychologists smile at our modesty, when we talk of the difficulty of answering this question, and of limiting our inquiries to this relative knowledge of the subject and the object. They tell us, that the soul may know itself as it were absolutely; for it can study, if not itself in itself, yet itself in its facts, and these facts in itself. The facts which reveal the soul, are in the soul; we carry them always about with us, and may find them whenever we look steadily within. We can study them as easily and as certainly, as we can the facts of physical science. We observe the facts of external nature by the external senses, and proceed by induction to the construction of a science of the universe; we may, in like manner, observe the facts of the soul by immediate consciousness, and proceed by induction to the construction of a complete Psychology, or science of the soul. If this were so, nothing would be more simple and easy than to know our selves; for nothing is or can be more certain than the facts of consciousness. But even admitting that there is the order of facts, of which these psychologists speak, and that we can study them by immediate consciousness, the study of the soul in them would not be the study of the soul in itself, for they are the phenomena of the soul; and the study of the soul in them would still be the study of the soul in its phenomena, according to the principle laid down. that being must always be studied in the phenomenon that the category of substance can be seized and studied only in the category of cause.

Moreover, the knowledge of the

VOL. XIE-NO. LV.

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subject obtained from these facts, even admitting that we can know them in the manner and to the extent alleged, would not be a complete and final answer to the question, what is the subject? unless it be assumed that the subject has already completely realized itself. If it be conceded that man has not as yet attained to the utmost limits of his possibility, that he has yet an Ideal, and therefore a Future, the knowledge contended for would not be an absolute knowledge of the subject; but merely a knowledge of what it has thus far found itself to be; that is to say, the same relative knowledge to which we contend all our knowledge is necessarily restricted.

But these psychologists misapprehend the character of the order of facts of which they speak; the world which contains them when they are observed; and the light or psychical faculty by means of which they are studied. The distinction they contend for, between what they call external senses and an internal sense or consciousness, does not really exist, and has been made in consequence of too strong a desire to establish, as it were, a parallelism between physical science and psychological science. This parallelism no doubt in some sort exists; but not in the sense contended. There is in fact no purely physical science; and no purely psychological science. Our physics depend always on our metaphysics; because the subject always includes itself as one of the elements of all its thoughts. It therefore necessarily constitutes one of the elements of physical science, as much as it does of psychological science; and the worth of its physical science always depends on the view which it takes of itself. As it knows itself only as the correlative of object, in all its science of itself, it must include as one of the elements of that science, the object or not me. Each science therefore contains the other, and the two are, as has just been intimated, not two sciences, but one science. As the science of the subject, and as the science of nature is always by the science of the subject is by the science of nature, the method of studying one or the other is doubtless the same. But we have not two sets of senses, one for the external, and one for the internal, one for nature, and the other for

the subject. The observer is always the subject, the me, the whole me and nothing but the me. I always observe, whatever the field of my observation, by virtue of my own inherent intelligence, or rather power of intelligencing. This power is one and indivisible, as is necessarily implied in the unity of the subject, which we found affirmed by its substantiality. This is always one and the same light, whether it shine out through those windows of the soul called the external senses, or whether it blazes out in the brilliant but brief light of consciousness. What this illumines I observe; what it leaves in the shade I cannot observe. In external sense, and in consciousness, the observer is always the same,-always "the one invariable, persisting subject, which I call me, myself.

The light, or power, by which I observe, or by which I am rendered capable of observing, is not only one and indivisible, but is always myself, and in no sense whatever distinguishable from me. It is me, inherently, essentially, not something separable from me, and capable of being distributed among different organs. The brain is called an organ of the mind, but the power to think is not the brain, is not secreted by it, does not reside in it. It does not think, I think; It is not the intelligent subject or force; I am that intelligent subject or force. The material, or physical organs, improperly termed senses, since they are not senses, but organs of sense, do not observe; I observe. The body does not feel; I feel. The pain which I say is in my foot, is not a pain which my foot feels, but a pain which I feel; and I may even continue to feel it for a time, after my foot has been amputated and removed far from me. Consciousness does not know, for it is not an agent, nor even the faculty of an agent. I am the agent and I, not the conscious ness-know. It is not correct to speak of the senses as observing the external world, and consciousness the internal world, as if I, the real and only subject, were standing idly by, with no conceivable employment, but that of merely listening to the reports which consciousness and the senses are so obliging as to make to me. It is always I myself, that sees, hears, feels, knows, although by means of appropri

ate organs, according to the conditions of my being and modes of activity. Consciousness, it cannot be repeated too often, is not a sense, a faculty, a power, nor even a fact of a peculiar sort; but simply the subject becoming able to recognize itself in the phenomenon, and to say, I am, I think, I will, I know, I love. All activity, whether voluntary or involuntary intelligent, or sentient, is in the subject,-is in fact the subject itself. Whatever is done, the me or subject does it; that is, when we contemplate the fact from the subjective side. It observes, because it is an active intelligence; knows, because it is an intelligent force. It is itself both the intelligence and the force in their indissoluble unity. There can be, then, no external intelligence, unless we can conceive the subject being external to itself; that is, out of itself. All intelligence is and needs must be internal, in the subject itself; and therefore must be internal also all our powers of observation, whatever they be, and whatever, or wherever, their organs.

Nor is this all. There not only are not the two sets of faculties for observing, supposed, but there are not even the two fields of observation contended for. There is not an external field of observation, and an internal field. It is admitted, that the subject may study itself in its facts, and learn itself, so far as it has entered into them; but it cannot and does not study these facts in itself. It is the observer; and all on the side of the observer. It cannot double itself over, as it were, and be at once the observer and the observed; nor can it divide itself into two halves, and observe one half of itself with the other. Now, nothing can be in the subject, or on the side of the subject, but the subject itself. If then these facts are in the soul, they are subject, and not object; and therefore cannot be studied. Nothing which is in the subject, till projected in the phenomenon, can, for this reason, be observed. All observation,since the subject is the observer, must therefore needs be external. All objects of contemplation, reflection, observation, study, or even imagination, must therefore be exterior to the subject. The very term object, implies that the facts concerned are out of the subject, standing over against it.

one which we merely remember to have experienced, is very obvious, and escapes no one's attention.

2. But these facts are unquestionably products of our past life. They can be remembered, as we say, recalled by memory; and when so recalled, they are objects of study-objects of thought -and, therefore, according to the principles laid down, not only object, but veritably NOT ME. But, if they are products of our past life, the creations of the subject, even admitting that the subject can manifest itself only in conjunction with the object, does it not follow that the object may be its own creation, and therefore after all really, and, so to speak, vitally subjective? If the subject can create its own object, as in reflecting on its own products, what evidence does the fact that it cannot manifest itself without an object, furnish that the object is really not me, existing out of the subject and independent of it?

That the facts of Memory are products of our past life, is conceded; that when remembered they are objects of thought, is not only conceded but contended; and therefore that in certain cases, and under certain restrictions, the object is a product of the subject, will not be denied. But, in calling these facts, products of our past life, we necessarily assume that our life begun prior to their production. They could not have been produced before we began to live, that is, to manifest ourselves. We must have acted prior to them. If then we can never act, as is certainly the case, saye in conjunction with the object, we must have had, prior to them, an object, which could have been in no sense whatever the creation of the subject. Moreover, let it be borne in mind, that these facts are not created by that act of the subject in which they are the object. They were the product not of that act, but of a prior act, and there fore had a sort of independent existence of the subject, before they became the object of its life.

But, although the Facts of Memory are products of our past life, they are not products of the subject acting alone. The past life of which they were the products, consisted, like all

dependent life, in the reciprocal action and reaction of subject and object. They were never then, even when facts of consciousness, purely subjective facts. Nothing is purely subjective but the me itself, or that which is all on the side of the subject; but all on the side of the subject, these facts never were. They are indeed the products of our past thinking; but like all thought, the resultant of TWO FACTORS, the joint product of the simultaneous action and reaction of both subject and object. They are, then, even considered in their origin, no more subjective facts, than they are objective facts. They are neither one nor the other, but partake of the nature of both.

Moreover, MEMORY itself, or the power by which we remember them, and are able to make them objects of reflection, is, in its manifestation, no more purely subjective than is the manifestation of the power to think or to perceive. Memory, properly speaking, is not a faculty of the subject, but an act, and therefore, according to the condition of all acting, the subject displaying itself in conjunction with the object. The subject by itself alone can no more remember than it can think. It needs physical and external conditions as much as seeing or hearing. In some states of the body we can no more remember than in some states of the visual organs we can see. In some states we remember with ease, in some with difficulty, in others not at all. Sometimes it is impossible to remember in one state what has been experienced in another, as is witnessed by the phenomena of sleep and natural or artificial somnambulism. Moreover, some outward circumstance, some external occasion, some motive or reason more or less urgent for remembering, is essential to induce us to remember, and even then, will we never so energetically, if the objective conditions of remembering are not favorable, we cannot remember. There must always be some fact of our present life, some present occasion, which demands the past, to cause us to resort to the past, and to consult its records. Since, then, we can remember only in concurrence with the objective, Memory itself must not be regarded as purely subjective; and therefore, of course, must not be regarded as purely sub

jective the facts of memory. The fact, then, that the facts of memory may be objects of reflection, then force of thought, makes nothing against the fundamental position, that THE OBJECT

IS ALWAYS NOT ME.

3. But what after all is Memory? Where are these facts of our past life when we cannot, or do not, remember them? They are not in the subject, for if they were, and the subject had the power of looking into itself, they would be always present in fact both to the subject and to its view, and therefore there would, and could be no memory. They could never fall into the past, never be lost sight of,-forgotten; but would be always present facts; for the subject being always itself present, of course whatever it contains would also be present. If they were always present in the soul, and the soul could always look into itself, it could also always see them, and be immediately conscious of their presence. But neither is by any means the case. These facts do fall into the past, and not unfrequently escape wholly from our sight. We do not carry our whole past always, as it were, under our eyes. We can remember but a very little of our past life, only here and there a thought, a sentiment, or an event, that stood out in bold relief, only here and there one flower that bloomed amid the millions that faded, and wasted their fragrance and beauty unnoted. The rich trains of thought, the pure and eloquent feelings awakened in us by the beauty, the grandeur, the agitation or the repose of nature, by the sweet and thrilling melodies of the harp, the conversation of the great and the wise, the venerable and the good, the true, the lovely, and the loved, have passed away and become to us as the receding echo of a pleasant dream, which we remember to have had, but which we can no longer recall. Could this be so, if the products of our past life were still in us, and we had the power of looking into ourselves, and reviewing them at our leisure ?

But, if these facts do fall into the past, and, to some extent, fade away from our sight, they do not vanish entirely. Some of them we remember, and the fact that we can remember

them is a proof that they in some sense do still continue to exist. What I remember is never a new creation, but always an old friend or acquaintance, revisiting me, with or without invitation. If these products of our past life, when not remembered, had ceased to exist, they would have become precisely as if they had never been, and it would be no more possible to remember them, than to remember, if the expression will be permitted, what had never occurred. The past, then, since, to some extent at least, it is open to memory, cannot be dead, but must be still something. It has not ceased to be. Forgotten it may be; we may not hear its eloquent voices, nor be charmed by its melodies, but it has not gone wholly out. One day, one happy moment, it shall return to our view in all, and even in more than all its original freshness and beauty. As we grow old, the veriest trifles of our childhood and youth come back to us, and we find again thoughts, sentiments, events, which move us, and even more powerfully than they did when they were actually present. We still find the friend of our youth so early and so suddenly taken from us; the beloved of my heart, from whom I have been separated by death, for long years, returns to me again, and my heart swells and my eyes overflow, as I look upon the sweet face that won me, and listen to the silver tones of that voice which charmed me. Could that which had ceased to be, which had become as if it had never been, come back to my heart with such vividness, and have such power to move me? No, no. The facts of my past life then still are, but WHERE ARE THEY?

It may be answered that they are in the Memory, but this answer cannot be accepted, for it is merely a repetition of the fact that prompts the question. It is merely saying that we remember, that under certain circumstances, we seem to ourselves to find again, though not as present, the facts of our past life. Memory is not something distinct from me. There is not the subject, and by its side, but distinct from it, a memory. Memory is the subject itself, the subject remembering. Nothing can be said to exist in the memory which may not be said to exist in the subject. These facts, we have seen, do