The Rational Unconscious

Abstract

The most invidious distinction that has ever been made in philosophy is that between mind and matter. It is very old and it has accomplished a great deal of confusion. For consider that we judge between them on the basis of a difference in their reality. Either mind is more real and matter a construction, or matter is more real and mind epiphenomenal. Mind got somewhat spiritualized in the process of separation, and matter was made more crudely actual. As a consequence, men were led to believe either in this world or in the next. If one believed in this world, he did so in terms of creature comforts and pleasures; if in the next, then he was fully prepared to do without them. These beliefs led to some fairly bizarre behavior.