But it
makes a definite psychic impression, since elements of a higher psychic order are perceptible to
it. This order, however, does not coincide with the contents of consciousness. It is concerned
with presuppositions, or dispositions of the collective unconscious, with mythological images,
with primal possibilities of ideas. The character of significance and meaning clings to subjective
perception. It says more than the mere image of the object, though naturally only to him for
whom the [p. 500] subjective factor has some meaning. To another, a reproduced subjective
impression seems to suffer from the defect of possessing insufficient similarity with the object; it
seems, therefore, to have failed in its purpose. Subjective sensation apprehends the background
of the physical world rather than its surface. The decisive thing is not the reality of the object, but
the reality of the subjective factor, i.e. the primordial images, which in their totality represent a
psychic mirror-world. It is a mirror, however, with the peculiar capacity of representing the
present contents of consciousness not in their known and customary form but in a certain sense
sub specie aeternitatis, somewhat as a million-year old consciousness might see them. Such a
consciousness would see the becoming and the passing of things beside their present and
momentary existence, and not only that, but at the same time it would also see that Other, which
was before their becoming and will be after their passing hence. To this consciousness the
present moment is improbable.