Lecture I

And now we turn to look within. We turn away from matter to consider the inner realm of consciousness. We see how within this inner realm of consciousness representations pass in review, feelings come and go, impulses of will flash through us. We observe all this and notice that when we attempt to bring the inner realm into the same kind of focus that we achieved with regard to the external world, it is impossible. We seem to swim in an element that we cannot bring into sharp contours, that continually fades in and out of focus. The clarity for which we strive with regard to outer nature simply cannot be achieved within. In the most recent attempts to understand this inner realm, in the Anglo-American psychology of association, we see how, following the example of Hume, Mill, James, and others, the attempt was made to impose the clarity attained in observation of external nature upon inner sensations and feelings. One attempts to impose clarity upon sensation, and this is impossible. It is as though one wanted to apply the laws of flight to swimming. One does not come to terms at all with the element within which one has to move. The psychology of association never achieves sharpness of contour or clarity regarding the phenomenon of consciousness. And even if one attempts with a certain sobriety, as Herbart has done, to apply mathematical computation to human mental activity [das Vorstellen], to the human soul, one finds it possible, but the computations hover in the air. There is no place to gain a foothold, because the mathematical formulae simply cannot comprehend what is actually occurring within the soul. While one loses man in coming to clarity regarding the external world, one finds man, to be sure—it goes without saying that one finds man when one delves into consciousness—but there is no hope of achieving clarity, for one swims about, borne hither and thither in an insubstantial realm. One finds man, but one cannot find a valid image of man.