Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/29

18 J. DEWEY : from a side which gets added force with every advance of physical science. The simplest physiology teaches that all our sensations originate from bodily states that they are conditioned upon a nervous organism. The science of biology teaches that this nervous organism is not ultimate but had its origin ; that its origin lies back in indefinite time, and that as it now exists it is a result of an almost infinite series of processes ; all these events, through no one knows how much time, having been precedent to your and my mind, and being the condition of their existence. Now is all this an illusion, as it must be, if its only existence is for a con- sciousness which is " but a transition from one state to another "? The usual answer to this argument is that it is an iynoratio elenchi : that it has presupposed a consciousness for which these events existed ; and that they have no mean- ing except when stated in terms of consciousness. This answer I have no call to rebut. But it must be pointed out that this is to suppose the individual consciousness capable of transcending itself and assuming a universal standpoint a standpoint whence it can see its own becoming, as in- dividual. It is this implication of the universal nature of the individual consciousness which has constituted the strength of English philosophy ; it is its lack of explication which has constituted its weakness. Subjective idealism has " ad- mitted of no answer and produced no conviction " because of just this confusion. That which has admitted of no answer is the existence of all for consciousness ; that which has produced no conviction is the existence of all for our con- sciousness as merely individual. English philosophy can assume its rightful position only when it has become fully aware of its own presuppositions ; only when it has become conscious of that which constitutes its essential character- istic. It must see that the psychological standpoint is necessarily a universal standpoint and consciousness neces- sarily the only absolute, before it can go on to develop the nature of consciousness and of experience. It must see that the individual consciousness, the consciousness which is but " transition," but a process of becoming, which, in its primary aspect, has to be defined by way of " contrast," which is but a "part" of conscious experience, nevertheless is when viewed in its finality, in a perfectly concrete way, the universal consciousness, the consciousness vhich lias never become and which is the totality; and that it is only because the individual consciousness is, in its ultimate reality, the universal consciousness that it affords any basis whatever for philosophy.