man possess laws in the proper sense of the word; but here, too, according to the Hobbesian doctrines which make law to consist in the domination or supremacy of force, and the power of a supreme magistrate all that is necessary to constitute it, man might, in every respect, be considered a finished legislator, and a creature living under laws.
But it is time to turn these preliminary observations to some account. Let us now, then, ask, depriving man of consciousness, what is it we actually leave him, and what is it we actually deprive him of? We leave him all that we have said. We leave him existence, and the performance of many operations, the greatest, as well as the most insignificant. But the existence thus left to him, together with all its phenomena, is, we beg it may be observed, only one species of existence. It is a peculiar kind of existence which must be noted well, and discriminated from existence of another species which we are about to mention. In a word, it is existence merely for others. This is what we leave man when we suppose him divested of consciousness.
And now we again ask, depriving man of consciousness, what do we really deprive him of? and we answer, that we totally deprive him of existence for himself; that is, we deprive him of that kind of existence in which alone he has any share, interest, or concern; or, in other words, by emptying him of consciousness, we take away from him altogether his personality, or his true and proper being. For of what importance is it to him that he should exist for others, and, for them, should evolve the most marvellous phenomena, if he exists not for himself, and takes no account of the various manifestations he displays? What reality can such a species of existence have for him? Obviously none. What can it avail a man to be and to act, if he remains all the while without consciousness of his Being and his actions? In short, divested of consciousness, is it not plain that a man is no longer "I," or self, and, in such circumstances, must not his existence, together with all its ongoings, be, in so far as he is concerned, absolutely zero, or a blank?
Thus existence becomes discriminated into two distinct species, which, though they may be found together, as they usually are in man, are yet perfectly separate and distinguishable; existence, namely, for others, and existence for one's self. Recapitulating what we have said, this distinction may be established and explained thus, in a very few words:—Deprive man of consciousness, and in one sense you do not deprive him of existence, or of any of the vigorous manifestations and operations of existence. In one sense, that is, for others, he exists just as much as ever. But in another sense, you do deprive him of existence as soon as you divest him of consciousness. In this latter sense he now ceases to exist; that is, he exists no longer for himself. He is no longer that which was "I," or self. He has lost his personality. He takes no account of his existence, and therefore his existence, as far as he is concerned, is virtually and actually null. But, if there were only one species, and one notion of existence, it is impossible that man, when denuded of consciousness, should both exist and not exist, as we have shown he does. If existence were of one kind only, it would be impossible to reconcile this contradiction, which is yet seen to be perfectly true, and an undeniable matter of fact. The conclusion, therefore, is inevitable and irresistible, that existence is not of one, but of two kinds; existence, to wit, for others, and existence for ourselves; and that a creature may possess the former without possessing the latter, and that, though it should lose the latter by losing consciousness, it may yet retain the former, and "live and breathe and have a being in the eyes of others."
Does some one here remark that consciousness is not our existence, but is merely the knowledge of our existence? Then we beg such a person to consider what would become of his existence, with respect to him, if he were deprived of the knowledge of it. Would it not be, in so far as he was concerned, precisely on the footing of a nonentity? One's knowledge, therefore, or consciousness of existence, is far more than mere consciousness of existence. It is the actual ground of a species of existence itself. It constitutes existence for one's self, or personal existence; for without this consciousness a man would possess no personality, and each man's per-
