Four Characters in Consciousness__ow does it go on? We notice immediately four important characters in the process, of which it shall be the duty of the present chapter to treat in a general way:1) Every 'state' tends to be part of a personal consciousness. 2) Within each personal consciousness states are always changing. 3) Each personal consciousness is sensibly continuous.4) It is interested in some parts of its object to the exclusion of others, and welcomes or rejects__hooses from among them, in a word__ll the while.
Most of us probably fall several times a day into a fit somewhat like this: The eyes are fixed on vacancy, the sounds of the world melt into a confused unity, the attention is dispersed so that the whole body is felt, as it were, at once, and the foreground of consciousness is filled, if by anything, by a sort of solemn sense of surrender to the empty passing of time. In the dim background of our mind we know meanwhile what we ought to be doing: getting up, dressing ourselves, answering the person who has spoken to us, trying to make the next step in our reasoning. But somehow we cannot start; the pensée de derrière la tête [thought at the back of the head] fails to pierce the shell of lethargy that wraps our state about. Every moment we expect the shell to break, for we know no reason why it should continue. But it does continue, pulse after pulse, and we float with it, until__lso without reason that we can discover__n energy is given, something__e know not what__nables us to gather ourselves together, we wink our eyes, we shake our head, the background ideas become effective, and the wheels of life go round again.
Psychology: The Briefer Course
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Most of us probably fall several times a day into a fit somewhat like this: The eyes are fixed on vacancy, the sounds of the world melt into a confused unity, the attention is dispersed so that the whole body is felt, as it were, at once, and the foreground of consciousness is filled, if by anything, by a sort of solemn sense of surrender to the empty passing of time. In the dim background of our mind we know meanwhile what we ought to be doing: getting up, dressing ourselves, answering the person who has spoken to us, trying to make the next step in our reasoning. But somehow we cannot start; the pensée de derrière la tête [thought at the back of the head] fails to pierce the shell of lethargy that wraps our state about. Every moment we expect the shell to break, for we know no reason why it should continue. But it does continue, pulse after pulse, and we float with it, until__lso without reason that we can discover__n energy is given, something__e know not what__nables us to gather ourselves together, we wink our eyes, we shake our head, the background ideas become effective, and the wheels of life go round again.
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