Consciousness / by Henry Rutgers Marshall.

  • Henry Rutgers Marshall
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Consciousness / by Henry Rutgers Marshall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    that my perceptions and conceptions, without which there would be for me no universe of objects, would likewise disappear and be for me at that moment non-existent. The very appearance of the existence of this objective world as apart from me is determined by certain characteristics of these very perceptions and conceptions themselves, character- istics which are summed up in my statement of a belief in the reality of the objects to which these perceptions and conceptions refer ; but this belief, this conviction, is certainly a mental phase belonging entirely to my consciousness, and which would become non-existent were my consciousness annihilated. It is true that in my daily life I for the most part consider little else than those parts of my consciousness which I describe as objective realities ; that among these objects I note human bodies, among which one, which I call my own, has the special characteristic that it is very definitely related to that part of my consciousness which I distinguish from objects in the outer world. It is true also that I attribute to these other human bodies conscious experiences correspond- ing with my own ; and that it would be impossible for me to gain the orderly conceptions of my own consciousness with which I am familiar without comparing the notion I have of my own personality with the notion I have of the personalities of other men, and of the existence in the universe of other living beings and inanimate objects which affect me. None the less does it appear that all this objec- tive universe, with its intensely interesting specific objects, would be all non-existent for me if my consciousness were annihilated. II Sec. 3. When I study my consciousness I find it always displaying a doubleness of aspect. There is a something relatively clear and distinct, which however does not seem
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