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CONFLUENCE OF OPPOSITES
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lectual way, would thus be due to the difficulties involved in handling a new and extremely delicate tool, while the failure of the intellectual wrong-doer to utilise the ser. vices of lvis brain simply result from his inability to control his desires.
But we must now define the ego in more defiuite terms. The first thing noticeable about our consciousness is that it is individualistic. This is tantamount to saying that every one is aware of himself as himself and as 110 body else, however much the fiefinition of what he knows as himself may vary from time to time, from different causes. Simi. larly, nobody ever knows himself as more than one or a multitude of personages. There may be a conflict between our emotions and desires on one side and judgment and far-sightedness on the other ; but one never feels orieself as a corporation or board consisting of many individualities, with the decision of matters resting on a preponderance of votes. Reflection shows that our sense of awareness which we term conscious. -ness is an inner, subjective, psychic state that is best described by the term feeling of awareness, so that my knowlege of a thing is my feeling of awareness of its existence or presence. As such my consciousness of an object implies the simultaneous awareness of my own being as well as that of the object of my knowledge. This will be clear to any one who has understood knowledge to consist in a sense or feeling of awareness, for one can only feel one's own being and the states or
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