established in consciousness, looked over, and deciphered. We judge
whether they require to be sent in one direction or another, or
whether we may not rest in their simple cognizance. Every moment we
receive a multitude of such messages. They are not always called for,
but they come of themselves. My hand carelessly falling on the table
reports in terms of touch. A person near me laughs, and I must hear. I
see the flowers on the table; smell reports them too; while taste
declares their leaves to be bitter and pungent. All this time the
inner organs, with the processes of breathing, blood circulation, and
nervous action, are announcing their acute or massive experiences.
Continually, and not by our own choice, our minds are affected by the
transactions around. Sensations occur--

"The eye, it cannot choose but see;
We cannot bid the ear be still;
Our bodies feel, where'er they be,
Against or with our will."

These itemized experiences thus pouring in upon our passive selves are
found to vary endlessly also in degree, time, and locality. Through
such variations indeed they become itemized. "Therefore is space and
therefore time," says Emerson, "that men may know that things are not
huddled and lumped, but sundered and divisible."



V

Have we not, then, here reached the highest point of personal life,
self-consciousness? No, that is a peak higher still, for this is but