I do not will to consider myself as equal to myself, for in the very act of constituting myself 'I', I take it as the same, and therefore as incapable of comparison, that is, of any application of the will.

If then, I 'minus' the will be the 'thesis'; [2] Thou 'plus' will must be the 'antithesis', but the equation of Thou with I, by means of a free act, negativing the sameness in order to establish the equality, is the true definition of conscience.

But as without a Thou there can be no You, so without a You no They, These or Those; and as all these conjointly form the materials and subjects of consciousness, and the conditions of experience, it is evident that the con-science is the root of all consciousness,--'a fortiori', the precondition of all experience,--and that the conscience cannot have been in its first revelation deduced from experience.

Soon, however, experience comes into play.

We learn that there are other impulses beside the dictates of conscience; that there are powers within us and without us ready to usurp the throne of conscience, and busy in tempting us to transfer our allegiance.