as only possible on the supposition of its existence; but not vice versa.
I. So I find it to be; and if that be all thou wouldst say, I admit thy assertion, and have already admitted it.
Spirit. Thou engenderest, I say, this second consciousness; producest it by a real act of thy mind. Or dost thou find it otherwise?
I. I have surely admitted this already. I add to the consciousness which is simultaneous with that of my existence, another which I do not find in myself; I thus complete and double my actual consciousness, and this is certainly an act. But I am tempted to take back either my admission, or else the whole supposition. I am perfectly conscious of the act of my mind when I form a general conception, or when in cases of doubt I choose one of the many possible modes of action which lie before me; but of the act through which, according to thy assertion, I must produce the representation of an object out of myself, I am not conscious at all.
Spirit. Do not be deceived. Of the act of thy mind thou canst become conscious only in so far as thou dost pass through a state of indetermination and indecision, of which thou wert likewise conscious, and to which this act puts an end. There is no such state of indecision in the case we have supposed; the mind has no need to deliberate what object it shall superadd to its particular sensations,—it is done at once. We even find this distinction in philosophical phraseology. An act of the mind, of which we are conscious as such, is called freedom. An act, without consciousness of action, is called spontaneity. Remember that I by no
