CHAPTER X. 



THE SCOPE OF MIND. 



MUCH needless confusion is often thrown over the 

 study of mental phenomena by the mode in which the 

 subject is regarded, and by the phraseology in common 

 use. It is customary to speak of ' the Mind,' as thougli 

 it were a something having an actual independent exist- 

 ence an entity, that is, of ' spiritual ' or uncorporeal 

 nature. Consequently we find, spread abroad in all 

 directions, definitions of Mind and descriptions of the 

 powers of Mind which, to say the least, carry with them 

 implications of a decidedly misleading character. 



It is the common and almost inevitable practice of 

 substituting some abstract word for a more cumbersome 

 phrase or statement, which tends to keep up the notion of 

 a distinct psychical entity. Thus the word ' Mind ' is 

 generally used as a collective designation for the subjective 

 states which reveal themselves to each one of us in con- 

 sciousness, and which we infer to exist in other beings 

 like ourselves. But the genesis and real legitimate mean- 

 ing of such a term is only too frequently forgotten by 

 Borne writers, whilst, by others, it has never been clearly 

 apprehended; as a consequence, the word ' Mind' comes 

 to be used most frequently, not as a general abstract 

 name answering to no independent reality, but as though 

 it corresponded to a real and positive something, existing 





