ii THE STRUCTURE OF MIND 23 



distinctness of presentation from the maximum of clearness 

 to a zero, and also to something below this zero. The field 

 of consciousness appears not like a material object with 

 clear-cut outlines, but more like the halo of light which a 

 lamp projects into the darkness. There is a gradation from 

 the focus of the rays to their extreme verge, and the outline 

 of light is not clearly marked. Light fades away into dark- 

 ness. But that is not all, and when we pursue the matter 

 further the image of the lamp requires modification. For 

 not only is there an oscillation between the light and the 

 dark which we might compare to the effect of a swinging of 

 the lamp, but what goes on in the dark area affects the 

 lighted area just as ir it had passed there. I do not refer 

 merely to the marginal sensations like the striking of the 

 clock. I refer to the causes operating normally on the 

 definite elements of content within the field of perfectly 

 clear consciousness. Thus in my example I spoke of the 

 words suggested by the central idea. How does the idea 

 come to suggest these words? For the most part not 

 through any conscious process of which I could render 

 account, but by the reaction of the present purpose on my 

 antecedent knowledge of my mother tongue. A host of 

 experiences relative to the use and meaning of words, ex- 

 periences long forgotten and perished beyond recall in their 

 individual character are the influences which have furnished 

 me with whatever expressions I have at command. But 

 observe that this process of suggestion may itself at any 

 moment become conscious. Thus when in the previous 

 paragraph I wrote the word c Blickpunkt ' a conscious recol- 

 lection of a well-known passage in Wundt's Physiological 

 Psychology operated in my mind, and there even arose in it 

 faint images of the room in which twenty years ago I first 

 read that work. It might quite easily have happened that 

 I retained the word and forgot Wundt, but the funda- 

 mentals of the process would have been just the same. 

 Similarly if a question occurs as to the suitability of any 

 word, the processes which suggest it, the relations of mean- 

 ing, the grammatical or etymological connections are called 

 up into consciousness. They are, as we always say, rendered 

 explicit. They are there ' already by implication, and 



