as no contradiction in fact, in reasoning, or in idea, comes to destroy it.[1]
What seems to stand out most clearly after all these explanations is the rôle which we ought to attribute to the consciousness. Two rival theories have been maintained: that of the mirror-consciousness and that of the focus-consciousness. It would seem—I merely say it would seem—that the first of these best harmonises with the preceding facts. For what seems most probable is, that the consciousness illuminates and reveals but does not act. The theory of the focus-consciousness adapts itself less to the mechanism of the association of ideas.
From this we come quite naturally to see in the intelligence only an inactive consciousness; at one moment it apprehends an object, and it is a perception or an idea; at another time it perceives a connection, and it is a judgment; at yet another, it perceives connections between connections, and it is an act of reason. But however subtle the object it contemplates may become, it does not depart from its contemplative attitude, and cognition is but a consciousness.
One step further, and we should get so far as to
- ↑ We think spontaneously of the general and the necessary. It is this which serves as a basis for the suggestion and the catchword (réclame), and it explains how minds of slender culture always tend towards absolute assertions and hasty generalisations.
