SUGGESTIBILITY AND KINDRED PHENOMENA. 197 



merit involves a very complex co-ordination of the forces that 

 underlie it. And I have also shown that the permanent existence 

 of any element of consciousness, if at all complex, involves not 

 merely a co-ordination, which might be temporary, but a perma- 

 nent organization of certain of those forces into enduring sys- 

 tems. Not enduring in the sense that they are always actively 

 operating, but in the sense that when any one element is active it 

 calls into activity the other elements as well. The same is true of 

 consciousness as a whole. We may discern this in two quite dif- 

 ferent forms. The first is what we may call the permanent form 

 of consciousness. We observe that at any given time conscious- 

 ness has a certain form of organization which is so constant that 

 we are tempted to think it can not exist in any other form. Some 

 one element or organized group of elements tends to be more clear 

 and distinct than the others. This one is called the center of at- 

 tention or focus of consciousness ; the others constitute the mar- 

 gin. From moment to moment the focus shifts; new elements 

 rise into dominance, and the old fade away. Yet there is always a 

 dominant element, and this it is to which we attend. Usually the 

 focus and margin are inversely related to one another ; that is to 

 say, when any given group tends to become more clear and dis- 

 tinct the other elements tend to lose with respect to clearness and 

 distinctness. This is what we mean when we say that we can not 

 attend to two things at once. But it is not always true. There 

 are states in which the heightening of one element tends to 

 heighten all the others as well. In imminent danger, for in- 

 stance, there is frequently an intense exaltation of the total con- 

 tent of consciousness, and the same phenomenon is occasionally 

 found as a precursor of an epileptic attack. Now, this constant 

 form into which consciousness tends to fall, and which is, by the 

 way, the basis of our notion that the mind is a single entity of 

 some sort, is very suggestive. We know that all physical forces, 

 if they can in any way act upon one another, tend to coalesce into 

 one common resultant, and I think it probable that in the law of 

 attention we see the mental manifestation of some form of coa- 

 lescence between the physical forces which form its basis. 



Again, the consciousness of each of us forms a permanent 

 entity which we severally call " myself." Into all the problems 

 connected with this word of many meanings I can not enter, but 

 of one thing we may be quite certain whatever the consciousness 

 of self may be, it is largely dependent upon the continuity and 

 uniformity of our memories. Any great change in a man's life 

 which introduces into his present a mass of experiences quite out 

 of keeping with his past is apt to introduce into his consciousness 

 of personal identity a strange sense of unreality and uncertainty. 

 He rubs his eyes and says : " Who am I ? Am I really John 



