320 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



found to be individual differences in the area of distinct vision, compara- 

 ble in magnitude to the differences found in most other traits. Slight if 

 any correlation could be detected between the size of the area of distinct 

 vision and the speed of reading or the number of fixation pauses per line 

 of print. The amount read during one fixation pause is, in most persons, 

 much less than the amount covered by the area of distinct vision. 



Brother Chrysostum, in discussing 'Space,' noted two sources of con- 

 fusion in treating it. The first consists in a failure to distinguish between 

 real and ideal space. Real space may be defined as the real extension of 

 a given body considered as contained within the surfaces that bound it. 

 This concept is complex, containing an objective element — a real exten- 

 sion, and a subjective element — a logical relation. Real space, viewed 

 concretely, is neither infinitely divisible nor infinite, as current physical and 

 astronomical discussions illustrate. Confusion also arises from an implied 

 identification of space and place. As real space is primarily real extension 

 and therefore solid contents as bounded, so place is primarily the bounding 

 surface referred to the enclosed or bounded body. The two concepts are 

 complementary, not identical. 



Professor Miller traced the doctrine of 'Imageless Thought' back to 

 Descartes, Spinoza and Schopenhauer. The argument for it has been 

 that since the work of thought, the conclusion reached, can not be attributed 

 to sensation or to images of sensation — since, indeed, the work of thought 

 may be accomplished in the absence of imagery — therefore there must be 

 some other agent in thought, and consciousness must contain something 

 besides sensation and imagery. To this argument the answer is that there 

 need be nothing there. Nothing capable of doing the work of thought need 

 show in consciousness. Thought as a function must be distinguished from 

 conscious content. As a function, thought is essentially unconscious. It 

 makes no difference how impotent and irrelevant the images in conscious- 

 ness may appear, if only by good luck their associations are such as to lead 

 to the right conclusion. WTiat those who testify to experience of imageless 

 thought really experience is probably a bodily feeling, which, left unana- 

 lyzed, appears as a feeling of satisfaction or of being on the right track, 

 but which, when carefully attended to, is found to be of sensory quality, 

 like all other conscious content. 



Dr. Bliss said in abstract: Theologians have usually sought to derive 

 the concept of the Trinity from quite other than psychological sources. 

 Yet the existence of a psychological trinity is certainly a suggestive fact 

 in this connection; it seems possible that the concept of God as threefold 

 has arisen from conceiving the fundamental tendencies of the human mind 

 as indefinitely expanded. Expansion of the intellectual tendency would 



