CHAPTER IV

THE ORGANISATION OF THE UPPER LEVELS OF THE MIND

Those untrained in psychology generally conceive of the mind as a homogeneous whole; our first systematic examination reveals to us, however, that the mind is just as organic as the body.

The organisation of the mind may best be realised by thinking of it as a tank across which, at different heights, are placed sieves of varying coarseness of mesh. We must conceive of the mind as being composed of certain layers, and the layer in which our conscious life has its most permanent focus we will consider to be the outermost layer and name THE FOCUS OF CONSCIOUSNESS. Immediately behind the Focus of Consciousness lies the level which psychologists call THE FRINGE OF CONSCIOUSNESS, and the two are divided from one another by a sieve-like mechanism which is technically called a CENSOR.

The understanding of these two levels of the mind may be rendered clearer if we next consider the uses to which they are put. Supposing a person is sitting in a room listening to a lecture, of what will he be aware? Firstly, his attention will be concentrated upon the lecture, and, secondly, he will be dimly conscious of the sounds made by the traffic in the street outside. By an effort of will he will pay attention to those ideas only which are connected with the lecture, and exclude from consciousness those which are connected with the street traffic; or, to express the process in psychological terms, we may say that all the ideas connected with the lecture are admitted to the focus of consciousness, and all ideas connected with the street noises are kept in the fringe of consciousness, and that the censor-sieve is so adjusted that ideas in the fringe may not intrude upon the focus. Its meshes may be conceived as being of such a size that only the compact little ideas appertaining to the lecture can pass through them, and the undefined ideas connected with the street traffic are held back.

It will readily be seen that our powers of concentration depend upon the satisfactory functioning of this psychic sieve. The more we can bring the adjustment of its meshes under voluntary control, the better will be our powers of concentration; whereas, if its mesh be loose or faulty, and we have acquired little or no control over it, we shall find that we are unable to hold our mind to any consecutive train of thought, and that our focus of consciousness is constantly liable to be invaded by ideas alien to the matter to which we wish to pay attention.

These two levels, the FOCUS and FRINGE OF CONSCIOUSNESS, together comprise what is known as THE CONSCIOUS MIND. This is the part of the mind which most truly seems to be “our-self.” It is the section of the mind in which we carry on all our conscious mental activities, but it is by no means the whole of the mental house.

Immediately behind the fringe of consciousness comes the level of the mind which is known as the FORECONSCIOUS, PRECONSCIOUS, and many other things according to the school of psychology whose doctrines are adhered to. If, however, its function be understood, it will be readily enough recognised through the disguise of the varied nomenclature which, unfortunately, complicates the study of psychology.

In this level of the mind are stored all the ideas which we hold in memory, but are not actually thinking about. It may, in fact, be defined as the level of conscious memory, and just as the focus is separated from the fringe of consciousness by an adjustable censor-sieve, so an exactly similar sieve interposes between the fringe of consciousness and the foreconscious, and works upon exactly the same principles.

Thus, the student listening to the lecture could adjust this second sieve so as to allow everything he had ever learnt that had any bearing upon the subject in hand, to rise into the focus of consciousness and help him to understand the lecture. It is this faculty which is of such great importance in determining the critical powers of the mind, for the previously determined ideas, ranging themselves alongside the fresh concepts offered for assimilation, serve as standards of value, and form a running commentary upon the lecture.

These three levels together, the focus, the fringe, and the foreconscious, form the level of the mind to which we have access and of which we can make use; but we must note this point in connection with these levels, that any idea which we may wish to consider must be placed in the strong light of the focus of consciousness before we can see it clearly; we cannot consider an idea while it is still in the foreconscious, but we can, at will, take it out of the foreconscious and place it in the focus of consciousness for our consideration.

Indeed, these three levels of the mind may be likened to a kitchen, the foreconscious being the cupboard, the fringe of consciousness the table, and the focus of consciousness the mixing basin; and the ideas upon the three levels may be represented by the ingredients of the pudding, some of which are put away in the cupboard, some lie ready to the hand upon the table, and others are actually in the mixing basin being stirred.

Those on the table, like the ideas in the fringe of consciousness, lie ready to the cook’s hand, but she is not dealing with them at the moment; those in the cupboard (the foreconscious) are out of sight, but she knows they are there and can get them if she wants them; but it is only those that are in the basin, the focus of consciousness, that she is actually at work upon.

To the average man these three levels constitute all there is of his mind, he has no conception of the strange hinterland lying behind the narrow strip of civilised coast, yet it is here that the springs of his being take their rise, and it is the discovery and exploration of this hinterland which has been the great contribution of modern psychology to the sum of human knowledge.