ng
anew the entire world of thought. And prior to or simultaneously with
this construction a negative process has to be carried on, a clearing
away of useless abstractions which we have inherited from the past. Many
erroneous conceptions of the mind derived from former philosophies
have found their way into language, and we with difficulty disengage
ourselves from them. Mere figures of speech have unconsciously
influenced the minds of great thinkers. Also there are some
distinctions, as, for example, that of the will and of the reason, and
of the moral and intellectual faculties, which are carried further than
is justified by experience. Any separation of things which we cannot see
or exactly define, though it may be necessary, is a fertile source of
error. The division of the mind into faculties or powers or virtues is
too deeply rooted in language to be got rid of, but it gives a false
impression. For if we reflect on ourselves we see that all our faculties
easily pass into one another, and are bound together in a single mind or
consciousness; but this mental unity is apt to be concealed from us by
the distinctions of language.

A profusion of words and ideas has obscured rather than enlightened
mental science. It is hard to say how many fallacies have arisen from
the representation of the mind as a box, as a 'tabula rasa,' a book,
a mirror, and the like. It is remarkable how Plato in the Theaetetus,
after having indulged in the figure of the waxen tablet and the decoy,
afterwards discards them. The mind is also represented by another class
of images, as the spring of a watch, a motive power, a breath, a stream,
a succession of points or moments. As Plato remarks in the Cratylus,
words expressive of motion as well as of rest are employed to describe
the faculties and operations of the mind; and in these there is
contained another store of fallacies. Some shadow or reflection of the
body seems always to adhere to our thoughts about ourselves, and mental
processes are hardly distinguished in language from bodily ones. To see
or perceive are used indifferently of both; the words intuition, moral
sense, common sense, the mind's eye, are figures of speech transferred
from one to the other. And many other words used in early poetry or in
sacred writings to express the works of mind have a materialistic sound;
for old mythology was allied to sense, and the distinction of matter and
mind had not as yet arisen. Thus materialis