From Existence To Life: The Science Of Self-Consciousness

From Existence To Life: The Science Of Self-Consciousness – James Porter Mills

There has been a growing feeling in my mind that “Health” is too small a title with which to introduce a book that sets forth the noblest science that can possibly be formulated. Although health is one of the most desirable conditions in personal life, and one of the most essential, yet it is but one of the ways of Life that are set forth in the book. It appears to me that, “From Existence to Life; the Science of Self-Consciousness” exactly covers the whole field of that which is herein formulated. It is a science for all-round use, health being but one of the many modes of the Principle of All-Knowledge; and, so far as man is concerned, the science of self-consciousness, formulated correctly, and made use of intelligently, should satisfy the mind and comfort the heart in all the emergencies of self-conscious life, enabling a man to “hold on his way and grow stronger and stronger.”

From Existence To Life: The Science Of Self-Consciousness

From Existence To Life: The Science Of Self-Consciousness

Format: Paperback.

From Existence To Life: The Science Of Self-Consciousness.

ISBN: 9783849673413.

Available at amazon.com and other venues.

 

Author’s note to the third edition (from Wikipedia):

There has been a growing feeling in my mind that “Health” is too small a title with which to introduce a book that sets forth the noblest science that can possibly be formulated. Although health is one of the most desirable conditions in personal life, and one of the most essential, yet it is but one of the ways of Life that are set forth in the book.

It appears to me that, “From Existence to Life; the Science of Self-Consciousness” exactly covers the whole field of that which is herein formulated. It is a science for all-round use, health being but one of the many modes of the Principle of All-Knowledge; and, so far as man is concerned, the science of self-consciousness, formulated correctly, and made use of intelligently, should satisfy the mind and comfort the heart in all the emergencies of self-conscious life, enabling a man to “hold on his way and grow stronger and stronger.”

This science may be treated strictly as a science, and all the ordinary religious nomenclature may be eliminated by substituting scientific for personal terms of being. Set forth in religious terms as well, it becomes ideal, and satisfies the religious nature; but set forth in scientific terms only, and practised, the same results will obtain in mind and heart for those who have not been able to accept religious dogma, as for those to whom religion makes its heart-felt appeal.

Let me here explain what I mean by the terms self-conscious and self-consciousness. I do not refer to that morbid state of feeling where a person is unduly impressed by what is believed to be the critical observation of those about him; the state where he is centred on his own personality, and which often manifests either as excessive shyness or as vanity. This is the popular use of the words; but I use the terms, of course, in their scientific sense, as denoting that state in which a man knows that is — is conscious of himself— the state in which he is able to reason from cause to effect, and to order his movements in life intelligently; it is the normal state of man as we find him to-day, in his ordinary, objective, mental realm. I also often speak of the soul-store as self-consciousness in a subjective state, it being the result of the active self-conscious experience obtained through the objective office of the mind.

I have been through the book and have simplified some of the more abstruse passages, where ideas have been difficult to express, and have altered some places on which further light has come to me since the book was written. I have also added a chapter on the office of the mind, which still further simplifies the hitherto complex teachings of scholastic and experimental psychology.

James Porter Mills,

Logan Place Lecture Room, 3, Logan Place, Earl’s Court Road, W.

 

(The text of the last section was taken from a Wikipedia entry and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.)

 

Publisher’s Note: This book is printed and distributed by Createspace a DBA of On-Demand Publishing LLC and is typically not available anywhere else than in stores owned and operated by Amazon or Createspace.

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