ABSTRACT

The consciousness of effort undoubtedly confronts psychology of a descriptive and dissecting nature with a number of important and interesting questions. The relation between experience and life exists in various forms, one of which is reflection, that is, man tries to reflect his own self and the world in his consciousness. The real self is not all comprised in the self-consciousness; the abundance and involved development of man's struggling powers are but partially realized in his emotional, perceptive, craving consciousness. What consciousness offers is but a selection of life-determining tendencies. Consciousness only appears where reasons of personal teleology require it, and this is only in cases of conflict. The individualistic theory, on the other hand, sees those depths filled with the ego in whose undivided and indivisible life-unity are hidden the first stirrings of consciousness no less than the first strivings of endeavour which, without the help of consciousness, are directed towards their goals.