THE STREAM OF THOUGHT. 257 



Nothing is easier than to symbolize all these facts in 

 terms of brain-action. Just as the echo of the ivhence, the 

 sense of the starting jjoint of our thought, is probably 

 due to the dying excitement of processes but a moment 

 since vividly aroused ; so the sense of the whither, the fore- 

 taste of the terminus, must be due to the waxing excite- 

 ment of tracts or processes wdiich, a moment hence, will be 

 the cerebral correlatives of some thing which a moment 

 hence will be vividly present to the thought. Represented 

 by a curve, the neurosis underlying consciousness must at 

 any moment be like this : 



Fig ^7. 



Each point of the horizontal line stands for some 

 brain-tract or process. The height of the curve above 

 the line stands for the intensity of the j)rocess. All the 

 processes are present, in the intensities shown by the 

 curve. But those before the latter's apex were more in- 

 tense a moment ago ; those after it will he more intense a 

 moment hence. If I recite a, h, c, d, e,f, g, at the moment 

 of uttering d, neither a, h, c, nor e, /, g, are out of my 

 consciousness altogether, but both, after their respectii^e 

 fashions, ' mix their dim lights ' with the stronger one of 

 the d, because their neuroses are both awake in some 

 degree. 



There is a common class of mistakes which shows how 

 brain-processes begin to be excited before the thoughts 

 attached to them are dne — due, that is, in substantive and 

 vivid form. I mean those mistakes of speech or writing 

 by which, in Dr. Carpenter's words, " we mispronounce or 

 misspell a w^ord, by introducing into it a letter or syllable 

 of some other, whose turn is shortly to come ; or, it may be, 

 the whole of the anticipated word is substituted for the one 



