Chapter Ii 32

A RELATIVE CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS: AN ANALYSIS OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN ITS ETHNIC ORIGIN

The Newtonian system assumes an unqualified absolute and fails to take account of factors operating within the larger system in which it is itself an element--In the sphere of psychic phenomena a similar system of absolutism dominates our presumably conscious world--Analysis of our judgments reveals the assumption that the position intrinsic to the observer is all-inclusive and authentic--But our world of impressions is artificial and reflects the artificial systematization that fails to include our own organisms--This autocratic interpretation of life is based on a bidimensional or image system which in its arbitrary and personal evaluation distorts the universe of reality--Normality is consensus comprising the personal absolute vested in the unconscious of the collective mind--Need to replace pictorial mode by organic coalescence in common affectivity--Personal systems of men, single and collective, are but relative with respect to an organic societal consciousness--Concept of relativity of consciousness abrogates absolute standard and embraces dimensional element of the system, individual and social, of which we ourselves are a component part--Transition from bidimensional (contemplation of aspect) to tridimensional (participation in function) affords basis for measuring deflections of personality, socially as well as individually.