I agree with James stating “the girl in Midshipman Easy could not excuse the illegitimacy of her child by saying ‘it was a very small one’” (James 152). How can illegitimacy be a little one? Illegitimacy is illegitimacy, period. It is defined as being born of parents not married to each other. Either they were married or they were not. There’s no in-between that I know of. Is it ok for a child to be illegitimate? In this day and time it’s no longer freakish. Maybe James is speaking of illegitimacy in different terms. Erratic or departing from the regular is another way of considering. Therefore the girl is saying her child is erratic and has no set course. How old is her child? And how does this relate to consciousness?Consciousness is erratic. It has no fixed course. In our conscious state, we aren’t really conscious. There is no such thing as consciousness. We walk around on Earth not guided by the organ in our head but obviously by a greater power from outside the self. James says, “We ought therefore ourselves sincerely to try every possible mode of conceiving the dawn of consciousness...” (151). So if James says we must find a way to understand this idea then it must exist, and I have totally misinterpreted the quote.Then he must mean that consciousness was born from two places that are not joined. Maybe this idea was brought into existence by God and the self (my personal definition of self here being the chemistry within the brain that causes the body to function). The neurons in the brain went crazy and decided, “Gee, we do so much work here we need something to be concerned with the environment while I deal with the body.” God agreed with the neurons, and along came what we today call consciousness. God and the self were in no way linked, and thus consciousness is totally illegitimate.How can I call consciousness illegitimate? I don’t...
