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same science describes the phenomenon under the similitude of a 

 " fringe." He points out that around any distinct piece of 

 mental work, such as the recollection of a person or place or a 

 portion of poetry, there is an indistinct margin or " fringe," re- 

 presenting a region in which our minds are working, but working 

 without our cognisance. The process which goes on when we 

 endeavour to recollect a lost line of a quotation, and by which it 

 cames into our heads, afibrds an illustration familiar to most of us. 



The natural history of memory gives us, perhaps, the 

 readiest examples of unconscious mental activity, but we may 

 find them in all departments of our mental life. For instance, 

 if we analyse with care the process of perception, we find that 

 we are doing a great deal more than we are aware of. Take as 

 an example the case of a house perceived. There are colour 

 sensations, sensations of light and shade, sensations of form, 

 sensations also corresponding with the objects around and beyond 

 the house. All these are put together, to use an apt expression, 

 as if by a secret chemistry of the mind, so as to form a definite 

 object of consciousness, having its appropriate place and character 

 in space and time. 



Another common instance of unconscious mental activity is 

 aftbrded by the work of the extempore speaker, who, with an 

 unconscious, or at best only partly conscious, attention to an 

 underlying thread of connection, chooses his words and sen- 

 tences to accord with his varying topics and the attitude of his 

 audience. Poets also testify to the presence of unconscious 

 mental activity, and the late Cardinal Newman has given an 

 eloquent testimony to the reality and importance of this aspect 

 of mind in an Oxford sermon preached more than fifty years 

 ago. 



Analysis of the details of unconscious mental work is 

 naturally of extreme difficulty, but, by following up all the 

 clues we can find, it seems probable that a large part of 

 the unconscious mental work which we do consists in the 

 forming the dissolution and the re-arranging of associations 

 between the ever-changing elements of our mental life, — the 

 sensations, ideas, conceptions, volitions, and so on. Evidence 

 in favour of this seems to be found in the process of mental 

 development in childhood, and in an examination of the acquire- 

 ment of many of our common accomplishments. The facility 

 with which we leap from rock to rock, judging our distance, and 

 co-ordinating the muscular effort accordingly, involves the 

 operation of an activity, which has, no doubt, its physiological 

 accompanying conditions of stimulus, of reflex, of inhibition, of 

 co-ordination, Ac, in the cerebro-spinal system, but it is an 

 activity which (involving as it does such items as "less "and 

 "more") can hardly be described appropriately except in the 

 language of psychology. 



