attention on it is to say that it is what we feel less and less as we
sink into a swoon. What this is, I cannot more precisely state. But in
swoon or sleep we are all familiar with its diminution or increase,
and we recognize in it the very color of our being. After my friend's
remark I am in a different state from that in which I was before.
Something has affected me which may abide. This is not the case with a
stone post, or at least there are no signs of it there. The post,
then, is unconscious. We call ourselves conscious.

In unconsciousness our lives began, and from it they have not
altogether emerged. Yet unconsciousness is a matter of degree. We may
be very much aware, aware but slightly, vanishingly, not at all. Even
though we never existed unconsciously, we may fairly assume such a
blank terminus in order the better to figure the present condition of
our minds. They show sinking degrees moving off in that direction;
when we think out the series, we come logically to a point where there
is no consciousness at all.

Such a point analogy also inclines us to concede. In our body we come
upon unconscious sections. This body seems to have some connection
with myself; yet of its large results only, and not of its minuter
operations, can I be distinctly aware. In like manner it is held that
within the mind processes cumulate and rise to a certain height before
they cross the threshold of consciousness. Below that threshold,
though actual processes, they are unknown to us. The teaching of
modern psychology is that all mental action is at the start
unconscious, requiring a certain bulk of stimulus in order to emerge
into conditions where we become aware of it. The cumulated result we
know; the minute factors which must be gathered together to form that
result, we do not know. I do not pronounce judgment on this