ABSTRACT
Every state of consciousness must be considered as a complex event, which implies a nervous process; this nervous process is not an accessory, but an integral part of the event; and further, it is the basis, the fundamental condition of the event. The coincidence of some of the present sensations with some of the past sensations, now conjured up by the association of ideas, would seem to be the sole cause of the "recollection", that is of the "consciousness" of having been present in person at the event in question. Consciousness is not in itself a character which belongs, as its very own, to a psychic state: it characterizes a relation between two or more psychic states. Consciousness is not an intrinsic or absolute property of psychic states, but a property extrinsic and relative, which accompanies certain modalities of reference existing between those states.
