Consciousness and Personality [pp. 273-287]

THE PRINCE TON RE VIEW.
We can conceive of knowledge-that is, of consciousness-as
existing without self-consciousness. We can conceive even of
an omniscient self that should have no knowledge of its own
selfhood. Suppose a being with the cognitive powers perfectly
developed, we will say physically not unlike man, but changeless and motionless, in a changeless and motionless universe,
needing neither nourishment nor rest. Suppose him, like those
emblematic figures of the prophet's vision, full of eyes before
and behind, and with a keenness of sight that could penetrate
the remotest depths of ether; with ears, too, that could take in
every note on the scale of nature's unceasing yet unvarying harmony; and with an intuitive perception of proportions and correspondences, so that the entire immutable cosmos is as well
known to him as to us is the fashion of our garments or the
furniture of our apartments. He could have no sense of his
own distinct selfhood, no conception of the me or the not-me.
Uranus or Sirius would be to him in no other relation than his
own arm or foot. He could have no conception of being, because there would be nothing that could suggest the idea of notbeing.
Vary the supposition. Imagine the universe not changeless,
tho our supposed spectator of it is changeless. There is
constant development around him. In the far-off empyrean he
sees nebula crystallize into solid orbs; in his own near neighborhood trees grow, blossom, bear fruit, and ripen it; the once
tenantless woods and waters are peopled; still in him the lifecurrents are congealed: there is in him this clear, all-penetrating,
all-comprehensive perception, without the slightest modification
of his status. He could not know that all this development
was not self-growth. He would still be utterly incapable of
circumscribing his own selfhood. He must move, he must
detach himself from his environments; he must separate himself from the immovable or the developing universe around him;
he must be able to compare the me with the not-me, that which
obeys his will spontaneously with that which awaits some express action upon it to overcome its inertia,-in order to know
that he is not the universe.
Pantheism is identical with this hypothesis. It postulates
an an'mza mundi, a soul of the universe, not independent of mat
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