CONSECRATION
276
CONSECRATION
ject and object. This feature of our mental life has
been adduced in evidence of the immateriality of the
soul by former writers, but under the title of an argu-
ment from the luiity of consciousness it has been
stated in perhaps its most effective form by Lotze.
The phrase "continuity of consciousness" has been
employed to designate the apparent connectedness
which characterizes our inner experience, and the
term "stream" of consciousness has been popularized
by Professor James as an apt designation of our con-
scious life as a whole. Strictly speaking, this continu-
ity does not pertain to the "states" or phenomena of
consciousness. One obviously large class of inter-
ruptions is to be found in the nightly suspension of
consciousness during sleep. The connecting contin-
uity is really in the imderlying subject of conscious-
ness. It is only through the reality of a permanent,
abiding principle or being which endures the same
whilst the transitory states come and go that the past
experience can be linked with the present, and the
apparent unity and continuity of our inner life be pre-
served. The effort to explain the seeming continuity
of our mental existence has, in the form of the prob-
lem of personal identity, proved a hopeless crux to all
schools of philosophy which decline to admit the real-
ity of some permanent principle such as the human
soul is conceived to be in the Scholastic philosophy.
John Stuart Mill, adhering to the principles of Hume,
was driven to the conclusion that the human mind is
merely "a series of states of consciousness aware of
itself as a series". This has been rightly termed by
James "the definite bankruptcy" of the Association-
ist theory of the human mind. James' own account
of the ego as "a stream of consciousness" in which
"each passing thought" is the only "thinker" is not
much more satisfactory.
Abnormal Forms of Consciousness, — In pro- cesses of self-conscious activity therelative prominence of the self and the states varies much. When the mind is keenly interested in some external event, e. g. a race, the notice of self may be diminishetl almost to zero. On the other hand, in efforts of difficult self- restraint and deliberate reflection, the consciousness of the ego reaches its highest level. Besides this experience of the varying degrees of the obtru- siven'ess of the self, we are all conscious at times of trains of thought taking place auto- matically within us, which seem to possess a certain independence of the main current of our mental life. Whilst going through some familiar intellectual opera- tion with more or less attention, our mind may at the same time be occupied in working out a second series of thoughts connected and coherent in themselves, yet f[uite separate from the other process in which our intellect is engaged. These secondary "split-off" processes of thought may, in certain rare cases, de- velop into very distinct, consistent, and protracted streams of consciousness; and they may occasionally become so complete in themselves and so isolated from the main current of our mental life, as to possess at least a superficial appearance of being the outcome of a separate personality. We have here the phenom- enon of the so-called "double ego". Sometimes the sections or fragments of one fairly consistent stream of consciousness alternate in succession with the sec- tions of another current, and we have the alleged "mutations of the ego", in which two or more dis- tinct personalities seem to occupy the same body in turn. Sometimes the second stream of thought ap- pears to run on concomitantly with the main current of conscious experience, though so shut off as only to manifest its existence occasionally. These parallel currents of mental life have been adduced by some writers in support of an hypothesis of concomitant "multiple iKM-soiKilities". The psychological litera- ture (healing willi tlicse phenomena which has grown up in recent years is already very large. Here it suf-
fices to observe in passing that all these phenomena
belong to morbid mental life, that their nature antl
origin are admittedly extremely obscure, and that the
cases in which the ego or subject of one stream of con-
sciousness has absolutely no knowledge or memory of
the experiences of the other, are extremely few and
very doubtful. The careful and industrious observa-
tions, however, which are being collected in this field
of mental pathology are valuable for many purposes;
and even if they have not so far thrown much light
on the problem of the inner nature of the soul, at all
events they stimulate effort towards an important
knowledge of the nervous conditions of mental pro-
cesses, and they ought ultimately to prove fruitful for
the study of mental disease.
Reverie, dreams, and somnambulistic experiences are forms of consciousness mediating between normal life and the eccentric species of mentality we have just been discussing. One particular form of abnormal consciousness which has attracted much attention during the last quarter of a century is that exhibited in hypnotism (q. v.). The type of consciousness pre- sented here is in many respects similar to that of somnambulism. The main feature in which it differs is that the hypnotic state is artificially induced antl that the subject of this state remains in a condition of rapport or special relation with the hypnotizer of such a kind that he is singularly susceptible to the suggestions of the latter. One feature of the hypnotic state in common with some types of somnambulism and certain forms of the "split-off" streams of consciousness con- sists in the fact that experiences which occurred in a previous section of the particular abnormal state, though quite forgotten during the succeeding normal consciousness, may be remembered during a return of the abnormal state. These and some other kindred facts have recently given rise to much ingenious spec- ulation as to the nature of mental life below the "threshold" or "margin" of consciousness. Certain writers have adopt etl the hypothesis of a "subliminal", in addition to our ordinary "supraliminal", conscious- ness, and ascribe a somewhat mystic character to the former. vSome assume a imiversal, pantheistic, sub- liminal consciousness continuous with the subliminal consciousness of the indivitlual. Of this universal mind they maintain that each particular mind is but a part. The question, indeed, as to the existence and nature of unconscious mental operations in individual minds has been in one shape or another the subject of controversy from the time of Leibniz. That during our normal conscious existence obscure, subconscious mental processes, at best but faintly recognizable, do take place, is indisputable. That latent activities of the soul which are strictly imconscious, can be truly mental or intellectual operations is the point in debate. Whatever conclusions be adopted with respect to those various problems, the discussion of them has es- tablished beyond doubt the fact that our normal con- sciousness of everyday life is profoimdly affected by subconscious processes of the soul which themselves escape our notice. (See Peuson.\lity; Psychology; Soul.)
RiCKABY, First
Balmbs, Fundamental James, Principles of /*> vii, ix, x; Ferrikr, ,1/^
Ill.i; Ladd,; ' v; Janet, L' A 84-140, 305-y:!:-, \| ,,, (London and New \oi
Nc
ondon, 19011. part II, v;
York. 1896), I, x.xiii:
rk and London. 1890),
'-1 the Philosophy of Con-
- phf/sic, tr.(Oxford, 1884).
1. in and New York, 1895). M,- (Paris. 1899), 36-44. , Empirical and Rational S. 360-367, 475-492. Michael Maher.
Consecration, in general, is an act by which a
thing is separated from a common and profane to
sacred use. or by which a person or thing is dedicatee
to the service and worship of God by prayers, rites
and ceremonies. The custom of consecrating personi
to the Divine service and things to serve in the wor
