To sum up: One representation cannot so crowd out a second, since the remainder of \(b\), (i.e., \([R_b]\)), can never \(= 0\). On the other hand, two representations suffice to crowd out a third completely out of consciousness, making it incapable of affecting the state of mind (Gemüthszustand); and this is all the more the case for further representations with a weaker vivacity than c (SW V: 292). The limen is determined as a limit (“Gränze”) below which a representation is fully inhibited, but crossing which, it achieves a “degree of actual representing” (SW V: 292). The notion of a degree of representing allows Herbart to speak of representations “rising” and “sinking”, and of representations lying more or less deeply beneath the limen (SW V: 293). “Consciousness”, then, just is “the totality of coincident representing”, and the representations at play in the arena of awareness make out the “state of mind” (SW V: 294; cf. SW IV: 372, §130). Thus Herbart concludes that the psyche’s apparent property of being only able to activate a very small number of representations simultaneously is no property at all. Rather, it is the necessary consequence of the oppositions among our representations themselves, and thus dependent on their native vivacity (cf. Boudewijnse, et al. 1999: 178–9).