realize is (accident apart) our ends, or the objects we desire; and that all we can desire is, in a word, self.
This, we think, will be readily admitted by our main psychological party. What we wish to avoid is that it should be admitted in a form which makes it unmeaning; and of this there is perhaps some danger. We do not want the reader to say, ‘Oh yes, of course, relativity of knowledge,—everything is a state of consciousness,’ and so dismiss the question. If the reader believes that a steam-engine, after it is made, is nothing[1] but a state of the mind of the person or persons who have made it, or who are looking at it, we do not hold what we feel tempted to call such a silly doctrine; and would point out to those who do hold it that, at all events, the engine is a very different state of mind, after it is made, to what it was before.
Again, we do not want the reader to say, ‘Certainly, every object or end which I propose to myself is, as such, a mere state of my mind—it is a thought in my head, or a state of me; and so, when it becomes real, I become real’; because, though it is very true that my thought, as my thought, can not exist apart from me thinking it, and therefore my proposed end must, as such, be a state of me;[2] yet this is not what we are driving at. All my ends are my thoughts, but all my thoughts are not my ends; and if what we meant by self-realization was, that I have in my head the idea of any future external event, then I should realize myself
- ↑ We may remark that the ordinary ‘philosophical’ person, who talks about ‘relativity,’ really does not seem to know what he is saying. He will tell you that ‘all’ (or ‘all we know and can know,’—there is no practical difference between that and ‘all’) is relative to consciousness—not giving you to understand that he means thereby any consciousness beside his own, and ready, I should imagine, with his grin at the notion of a mind which is anything more than the mind of this or that man; and then, it may be a few pages further on or further back, will talk to you of the state of the earth before man existed on it. But we wish to know what in the world it all means; and would suggest, as a method of clearing the matter, the two questions—(1) Is my consciousness something that goes and is beyond myself; and if so, in what sense? and (2) Had I a father? What do I mean by that, and how do I reconcile my assertion of it with my answer to question (1)?
- ↑ Let me remark in passing that it does not follow from this that it is nothing but a state of me, as this or that man.
