Carl Jung: Man's capacity for consciousness alone makes him man. ~Carl Jung

In the same way that the State has caught the individual, the individual imagines that he has caught the psyche and holds her in the hollow of his hand.

He is even making a science of her in the absurd supposition that the intellect, which is but a part and a function of the psyche, is sufficient to comprehend the much greater whole.

In reality the psyche is the mother and the maker, the subject and even the possibility of consciousness itself.

It reaches so far beyond the boundaries of consciousness that the latter could easily be compared to an island in the ocean.

Whereas the island is small and narrow, the ocean is immensely wide and deep and contains a life infinitely surpassing, in kind and degree, anything known on the island—so that if it is a question of space, it does not matter whether the gods are "inside" or "outside."

It might be objected that there is no proof that consciousness is nothing more than an island in the ocean.

Certainly it is impossible to prove this, since the known range of consciousness is confronted with the unknown extension of the unconscious, of which we only know that it exists and by the very fact of its existence exerts a limiting effect on consciousness and its freedom. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 141

Man's capacity for consciousness alone makes him man. ~Carl Jung, CW 8, Para 412

The reason why consciousness exists, and why there is an urge to widen and deepen it, is very simple: without consciousness things go less well.

This is obviously the reason why Mother Nature deigned to produce consciousness, that most remarkable of all nature's curiosities.

Even the well-nigh unconscious primitive can adapt and assert himself, but only in his primitive world, and that is why under other conditions he falls victim to countless dangers which
we on a higher level of consciousness can avoid without effort.

True, a higher consciousness is exposed to dangers undreamt of by the primitive, but the fact remains that the conscious man has conquered the earth and not the unconscious one.

Whether in the last analysis, and from a superhuman point of view, this is an advantage or a calamity we are not in a position to decide. ~Carl Jung, CW 8, Para 695