Perhaps there was only one farther step possible. Philosophy itself,
the study of mind, might be regarded as a study of the unconscious.
And this step has been taken. Books now bear the paradoxical title
"Philosophy of the Unconscious," and investigation of the sub-
conscious processes is perhaps the most distinctive trait of
philosophy to-day. More and more it is believed that we cannot
adequately explore a person without probing beneath consciousness. The
blind processes can no longer be ruled out. Nature and spirit cannot
be parted as our fathers supposed they might. Probably Kant is the
last great scholar who will ever try to hold that distinction firm,
and he is hardly successful. In spite of his vigorous antitheses,
hints of covert connection between the opposed forces are not absent.
Indeed, if the two are so widely parted as his usual language asserts,
it is hard to see how his ethics can have mundane worth. Curiously
enough too, at the very time when Kant was reviving this ancient
distinction, and offering it as the solid basis of personal and social
life, the opposite belief received its most clamorous announcement,
resounding through the civilized world in the teachings of Rousseau.
Rousseau warns us that the conscious constructions of man are full of
artifice and deceit, and lead to corruption and pain. Conscious
guidance should, consequently, be banished, and man should return to
the peace, the ease, and the certainty of nature.



V

Now I do not think it is worth while to blame or praise a movement so
vast as this. If it is folly to draw an indictment against a nation,
it is greater folly to indict all modern civilization. We must not say