Elements of Psychophysics, Vol. I

Regarding the greatest and most decisive example, people either do not admit it or have not thought of it. But this is exactly what the relationship between the spiritual and bodily worlds offers us.

What appears to you from an internal standpoint as your mind Geist: A central term in German philosophy meaning mind, spirit, or intellect; here Fechner uses it to describe the internal "I" of consciousness—you who are this mind yourself—appears from an external standpoint, by contrast, as the bodily foundation of this mind. There is a difference between whether one thinks with the brain, or looks into the brain of the person thinking.*) There, completely different things appear; but the standpoint is also completely different—an internal one there, an external one here; even unspeakably more different than in the previous examples, and therefore the difference between the modes of appearance is unspeakably greater. For the double mode of appearance of the circle, or the planetary system, is basically only obtained from two different external standpoints; in the middle of the circle, or on the sun, the observer remains outside the path of the circle, outside the planets. But the self-appearance of the mind is obtained from a true internal standpoint of the underlying being toward itself—the standpoint of coincidence original: "Coincidenz"; the state of being identical with oneself or occupying the same "space" of experience with itself—whereas the appearance of the corresponding corporeality is obtained from a truly external standpoint, that of non-coincidence.

From this it now becomes immediately self-evident why we first sought the reason why no one can perceive mind and body—despite how directly they belong together—simultaneously. Quite simply, no one can stand externally and internally toward the same thing at the same time.

For this reason, too, no mind perceives another mind directly as a mind, even though one might think it would most easily perceive a being of its own kind; because as another being, it does not coincide with it, and therefore only has the bodily mode of appearance of that mind. Therefore, no mind can perceive another at all except with the help of its corporeality; for what shines outward from the mind is precisely its bodily mode of appearance.

*) Equivalent original: "Aequivalent" to "looking into" is the act of forming an adequate conception based on conclusions drawn from what is seen externally—representing how the internal state would appear if the obstacles to looking inside were removed.