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The Seventh Lesson: The Unfoldment of Consciousness.589
Not only is it true that the mind can hold in consciousness but one fact
at any one instant, and that, consequently, only a very small fraction of our
knowledge can be in consciousness at any one moment, but it is also true
that the consciousness plays but a very small part in the totality of mental
processes, or mentation. The mind is not conscious of the greater portion of
its own activities—Maudsley says that only ten per cent comes into the field
of consciousness. Taine has stated it in these words: “Of the world which
makes up our being, we only perceive the highest points—the lighted up
peaks of a continent whose lower levels remain in the shade.”
But it is not our intention to speak of this great subconscious region of
the mind at this point, for we shall have much to do with it later on. It is
mentioned here in order to show that the enlargement or development of
consciousness is not so much a matter of “growth” as it is an “unfoldment”—
not a new creation or enlargement from outside, but rather an unfoldment
outward from within.
From the very beginning of Life—among the Particles of Inorganic
Substance, may be found traces of something like Sensation, and response
thereto. Writers have not cared to give to this phenomenon the name
of “sensation,” or “sensibility,” as the terms savored too much of “senses,”
and “sense-organs.” But Modern Science has not hesitated to bestow
the names so long withheld. The most advanced scientific writers do not
hesitate to state that in reaction, chemical response, etc., may be seen
indications of rudimentary sensation. Haeckel says: “I cannot imagine the
simplest chemical and physical process without attributing the movement
of the material particles to unconscious sensation. The idea of Chemical
Affinity consists in the fact that the various chemical elements perceive
the qualitative differences in other elements, and experience ‘pleasure’ or
‘revulsion’ at contacts with them, and execute their specific movements on
this ground.” He also speaks of the sensitiveness of “plasm,” or the substance
of “living bodies,” as being “only a superior degree of the general irritability
of substance.”