254 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION chap. 



psychological speculation and discussion, and we may there- 

 fore here rest content with a very summary statement, which 

 will as far as possible be confined to the holistic aspects of 

 subconscious mental activity. 



The activities of Mind below the level of consciousness are 

 most important for Mind as a whole. It is in this subcon- 

 scious area or field of its activities that Mind especially 

 feels the pressure of the past and to some extent the pull 

 of the future. The time factor is even more important 

 for the field of Mind than it is for the other fields pre- 

 viously considered. The central structure of Mind func- 

 tions in the full blaze of consciousness in the present; but 

 it is surrounded by a field of the greatest importance where 

 the past and the future respectively hold sway. Mind, 

 therefore, integrates the past and the future with the pres- 

 ent; mental activity is a synthesis which unifies all its time 

 in the present moment of functioning. And it is thus en- 

 abled to act with far more holistic effect than either matter 

 or life is able to do. Let us consider for a moment the 

 influence which the past and the future exercise on the pres- 

 ent in mental activity. 



The contribution of the past is twofold. In the first place 

 there is the experience of the past in the individual life which 

 has fallen into the background of the Mind and is no longer 

 directly remembered. Yet this experience, as is well known, 

 has a most powerful influence on the conscious present of the 

 experiencing subject. Even the unremembered past experi- 

 ence is not dead, but alive and active below the level of con- 

 sciousness. In the debating chamber of the present it may 

 not speak, but it voteSy and its silent vote is often decisive. 

 Mind does not work in water-tight compartments, its past 

 experience is integral with its present action. Its procedure 

 is entirely massive, integral, holistic. Memory, the great 

 basic bond of individuality, binding together and fusing all 

 the past phases and experience of the individual with the 

 present into one unique whole which is himself, operates 

 below as well as above the level of consciousness; essen- 

 tially it forgets nothing and leaves behind nothing of the 



