Consciousness was described by Freud as ‘a fact without parallel’. This paper suggests that the attempts by modern psychology and neuroscience to understand consciousness have failed to appreciate that it lies for clear and necessary reasons beyond the reach of ‘science’ as we have understood it since the seventeenth century. The author goes on to argue that the fact of consciousness implies a world of subjectivity and uniqueness which will only be integrated with the world of empirical science if there can be profound changes in our understanding of science itself; or, alternatively, if clear bounds are recognized to science's domain.