st place, the assertion that consciousness
exists is not the statement of a fact but the designation of a problem.
What is the nature of the fact that we call consciousness? If the
common-sense individual, who assents so readily to the proposition that
we all know consciousness, be asked to differentiate between
consciousness and the objects of consciousness, he is dazed and
helpless. And, secondly, the assertion of indefinability involves us in
a difficulty. The indefinability of consciousness has sometimes been
likened to that of space, but in this latter case we find no such
confusion between space and the objects in space. It is clear, however,
that if consciousness is not something distinguishable from objects,
there is no need to discuss consciousness, and if it is distinguishable,
it must be distinguished before we are entitled to proceed with
observation and description. Definition is indispensable, at least to
the extent of circumscribing the facts that are to be investigated.
Moreover, if consciousness cannot be defined, neither can it be
described. What is definition, after all, but a form of description? To
assert, in effect, that consciousness is indefinable because it is
indescribable, and that for this reason we must be content with
description, is both a flagrant disregard of consistency and an
unwarranted abuse of our good nature.

This difficulty leads on to another, for doubts, like lies, have a
singular propensity to breed more of their kind. If consciousness is
something that everybody knows, why should it be necessary to look to
the psychologist for a description of it? if the study of consciousness
brings to light any new fact, that fact by definition is not a conscious
fact at all, and consequently is not the kind of thing that we set out
to describe. Consciousness, in short, cannot be analyzed; it cannot be
resolved into elements or constituents. It is precisely what it is and
not some product of our after-thought that we are pleased to substitute
for it.

These familiar considerations do not, indeed, decide the issue between
the rival theories of psychology, but they serve to suggest that our
introspective psychology has been too easily satisfied in the conception
of its specific problem or subject-matter. As a matter of fact, the work
that has been done in the name of psychology has been peculiarly barren
of results, so far as a consciousness _an sich_ is concerned, although
it has led to a