THE THREE FUNDAMENTAL PHASES OF CONSCIOUSNESS.--Thus we see that if we
could cut the stream of consciousness across as we might cut a stream of
water from bank to bank with a huge knife, and then look at the cut-off
section, we should find very different constituents in the stream at
different times. We should at one time find the mind manifesting itself
in _perceiving_, _remembering_, _imagining_, _discriminating_,
_comparing_, _judging_, _reasoning_, or the acts by which we gain our
knowledge; at another in _fearing_, _loving_, _hating_, _sorrowing_,
_enjoying_, or the acts of feeling; at still another in _choosing_, or
the act of the will. These processes would make up the stream, or, in
other words, these are the acts which the mind performs in doing its
work. We should never find a time when the stream consists of but one of
the processes, or when all these modes of mental activity are not
represented. They will be found in varying proportions, now more of
knowing, now of feeling, and now of willing, but some of each is always
present in our consciousness. The nature of these different elements in
our mental stream, their relation to each other, and the manner in which
they all work together in amazing perplexity yet in perfect harmony to
produce the wonderful _mind_, will constitute the subject-matter we
shall consider together in the pages which follow.
