e very reason was
regarded as an activity of the self, and its fruits were valued for
their enhancement of the welfare of the self. And if this be true of the
Stoics and the Epicureans, it is still more clearly true of the
neo-Platonists of the Christian era, who mediate between the ancient
and mediaeval worlds.

[Sidenote: Emphasis on Self-consciousness in Early Christian
Philosophy.]

Sect. 184. It is well known that the early period of Christianity was a
period of the most vivid self-consciousness. The individual believed
that his natural and social environment was alien to his deeper
spiritual interests. He therefore withdrew into himself. He believed
himself to have but one duty, the salvation of his soul; and that duty
required him to search his innermost springs of action in order to
uproot any that might compromise him with the world and turn him from
God. The drama of life was enacted within the circle of his own
self-consciousness. Citizenship, bodily health, all forms of
appreciation and knowledge, were identified in the parts they played
here. In short the Christian consciousness, although renunciation was
its deepest motive, was reflexive and centripetal to a degree hitherto
unknown among the European peoples. And when with St. Augustine
theoretical interests once more vigorously asserted themselves, this new
emphasis was in the very foreground. St. Augustine wished to begin his
system of thought with a first indubitable certainty, and selected
neither being nor ideas, but _self_. St. Augustine's genius was
primarily religious, and the "Confessions," in which he records the
story of his hard winning of peace and right relations with God, is his
most intimate book. How faithfully does he represent himself, and the
blend of paganism and Christianity which was distinctive of his age,
when in his systematic writings he draws upon religion for his knowledge
of truth! In all my living, he argues, whether I sin or turn to God,
whether I doubt or believe, whether I know or am ignorant, in all _I
know that I am I_. Each and every state of my consciousness is a state
of my self, and as such, sure evidence of my self's existence. If one
were to follow St. Augustine's reflections further, one would find him
reasoning from his own finite and evil self to an infinite and perfect
Self, which centres like his in the conviction that I am I, but is
endowed with all power and all worth. One would find him reflecting upon
t