THE SCOPE OF MIND. 



261 



On page 23G, he gives us a special warning to " take especial care, 

 at the outset, to avoid those numerous rocks which project from 

 either bank on which we might early suffer shipwreck from the 

 temptation to exceed our limitations." I am very much afraid 

 that the author, with all this piloting, has not entirely succeeded 

 in steering clear of a certain rock he mentions in the third 

 paragraph on page 235, as " physiological materialism." The trend 

 of the paper is, to my mind, a little in this direction. I do not 

 say it is intentional on the part of the author, but that is the 

 impression it rather gives me. 



On page 240, line 17 from the top, the author quotes a line from 

 Kirchener— " We find in instinct the action, unconscious and yet 

 purposive." That is a remarkably worded line ! Does he mean 

 by that that the action is unconscious in the animal, but purposive 

 in him who is doing the action, or what does he mean ? No 

 doubt, if you row in a boat-race, you may say the action of the 

 oar is unconscious, as far as regards the oar, and purposive as 

 regards the rower. I do not know whether that is what the author 

 of the passage means, or whether it is simply a line of pure and 

 vmadulterated nonsense. 



I must differ from the author of the paper with regard to the 

 statement (possibly it is a lapsus Unyniv) at the top of page 24G — 

 " The will itself may be unconscious." An unconscious will is, to 

 me, an unmeaning phrase, nor can I agree with the author in his 

 theory that " children can be moulded unconsciously " (at the end 

 of the last page) " with far greater ease than through their 

 consciousness." Possibly this expression " unconsciousness " may 

 be usc>d in this paper in a somewhat different sense to what it is 

 generally understood to be. Of consciousness there are three 

 kinds, dormant or latent consciousness, which we know as sub- 

 consciousness ; ordinary consciousness, or wariness of anything, 

 and attention, or concentrated consciousness. It a little appears 

 as though, in this paper, consciousness is sometimes confused with 

 attention, and nnconscionsness certainly with s2ib-coiisciousness. I 

 would suggest to the learned author, if he will allow me, to 

 abandon the term "unconscious mind" and to substitute for it 

 " sub-consciousness." 



The author has given us much from other minds ; but he has 

 not given us his own definition of mind. This does not conduce 

 to clearness of thought. I do not know whether he intends to 



