THE STREAM OF THOUGHT. 283 



We can easily add all these plane sections together to 

 make a solid, one of whose solid dimensions will represent 

 time, whilst a cut across this at right angles will give the 

 thought's content at the moment when the cut is made. 



Fig. 33. 



Let it be the thought, ' I am the same I that I was yesterday.' 

 If at the fourth moment of time we annihilate the thinker and 

 examine how the last pulsation of his consciousness was 

 made, we find that it was au awareness of the whole content 

 with same most prominent, and the other parts of the thing 

 known relatively less distinct. With each prolongation of 

 the scheme in the time-direction, the summit of the curve 

 of section would come further towards the end of the sen- 

 tence. If we make a solid wooden frame with the sentence 

 written on its front, and the time-scale on one of its sides, 

 if we spread flatly a sheet of India rubber over its top, on 

 which rectangular co-ordinates are painted, and slide a 

 smooth ball under the rubber in the direction from to 

 'yesterday,' the bulging of the membrane along this diagonal 

 at successive moments will symbolize the changing of the 

 thought's content in a way plain enough, after what has 

 been said, to call for no more explanation. Or to exj^ress 

 it in cerebral terms, it will show the relative intensities, at 

 successive moments, of the several nerve-processes to 

 which the various parts of the thought-object correspond. 



The last peculiarity of consciousness to which attention 

 is to be drawn in this first rough description of its stream 

 is that 



