c scepticism is reduced to complete
silence. You cannot build up anything except illusion from a basis
that is itself illusion. If I were not self-conscious there would be no
centre or substratum or coherence or unity in any thought I had. If I
were not self-conscious I should be unable to think.

Consider, then, the attribute of reason. That we possess reason is
also a fact that carries with it its own evidence. It is reason which
at this very moment--reason of some sort, at any rate--I am bound to
use, in estimating the important place or the unimportant place
which reason itself should occupy. You cannot derogate from the
value of reason without using reason. You cannot put reason into an
inferior category, when compared with will or instinct or emotion,
without using reason itself to prove such an inferiority.

We may come to the conclusion that the universe is rather irrational
than rational. We may come to the conclusion that the secret of life
transcends and over-brims all rationality. But this very conclusion
as to the irrational nature of the mystery with which reason is
attempting to deal is itself a conclusion of the reason.

There is only one power which is able to put reason aside in its
search for truth and that power is reason.

Consider, then, the attribute of will. That we possess a definite and
distinct energy whose activity may be contrasted with the rest and
may be legitimately named "the will" is certainly less self-evident
than either of the two preceding propositions but is none the less
implied in both of them. For in the act of articulating to ourself the
definite thought "I am I" we are using our will. The motive-force
may be anything. We may for instance will an answer to the implied
question "_what_ am I," and our self-consciousness may return the
answer "I am I," leaving it to the reason to deal with this answer as
best it can. The motive may be anything or nothing. Both
consciousness and will are independent of motive.

For in all these primordial energizings of the complex vision
everything that happens, happens simultaneously. With the
consciousness "I am I" there comes simultaneously into existence
the consciousness of an external universe which is, at one and the
same time, included in the circle of the "I am I" and outside the
circle. That is to say when we think the thought "I am I," we feel
ourselves to be the whole universe thinking "I am I," and yet by a
primordial contradict