24 DEVELOPMENT AND PURPOSE CHAP. 



need only a movement, a re-direction of attention to be 

 brought forward as distinct objects. In this respect their 

 position closely resembles that of the sounds of the clock 

 which I am aware of as soon as something calls my attention 

 to them, but which otherwise may pass unnoticed. They 

 are 'there,' but not known to be there. That is to say, 

 they are in the Mind though not in consciousness, and that 

 again, to keep to facts which we can verify, means that they 

 belong to a mass of operative elements continuous with 

 consciousness, capable of figuring in consciousness, in- 

 fluencing the contents of consciousness, but not necessarily 

 at any given time distinct elements in the content of con- 

 sciousness. To use once more the figure of the lamp, 

 consciousness is at any moment the area indefinite in its 

 boundaries in which the light falls. Mind is the whole 

 area which the lamp, as it turns this way and that, is capable 

 of illuminating. 



We may profitably carry the figure a little further. Let 

 us suppose that in the sphere around the lamp many things 

 are going on which intimately affect one another. It is a 

 field of interacting forces, which are only to be thoroughly 

 understood when understood as a whole. Let us suppose 

 that the lamp is swinging in all directions so as to illuminate 

 the whole area in turn. An observer would then have the 

 entire data before him for understanding the processes in 

 question. He would obtain them piecemeal, but he would be 

 able to put his results together, and there would be no source 

 of information from which he would be entirely cut off. 

 Suppose, on the other hand, that the lamp was so pivoted 

 that it would only swing in one plane, or perhaps that it 

 was even limited to a section of that plane. The observer 

 would then be in very different case. He could only obtain 

 a fragmentary knowledge. If anything were so arranged 

 as to occur regularly in that plane he could forecast its 

 behaviour, but without adequate knowledge of the under- 

 lying forces. Suppose, finally, that after being limited to a 

 segment, the lamp were set free to sweep the whole circum- 

 ference, and after being limited to a plane were set free to 

 sweep the whole sphere. The spectator would then be 

 aware of a complete change in the point of view, carrying 



