II

According to the standpoint set forth in the preceding discussion, the

key to a consistent and fruitful interpretation of consciousness and

psychology lies in behavior. If we turn now to the psychology of

introspection, which has been dominant so many years, we find a

standpoint and mode of procedure which, on the surface at least, is of a

radically different kind. It behooves us, therefore, to consider this

standpoint in some detail in order to justify the attempt to reinterpret

and "evaluate" it in the light of our own doctrine.

The point of departure for introspective psychology is to be found, so

it seems, not in the facts of behavior, but in the distinction between

focal and marginal experience. It is on this distinction that the

introspective psychologist bases the attempt to give a psychological

analysis and description of the contents of experience. To analyze and

describe the facts of consciousness is to bring the marginal

constituents of experience into the white light of attention. Analysis

and description are possible just because experience is so largely a

welter of elements that disguise their identity and character. In some

way these unrecognized and unidentified elements are constituents of the

total experience. To borrow the language of a writer quoted by James,

"However deeply we may suppose the attention to be engaged by any

thought, any considerable alteration of the surrounding phenomena would

still be perceived; the most abstruse demonstration in this room would

not prevent a listener, however absorbed, from noticing the sudden

extinction of the lights."[40] Or, as James remarks: "It is just like

the overtones in music. Different instruments give the 'same note,'

namely, various upper harmonics of it which differ from one instrument

to another. They are not separately heard by the ear; they blend with

the fundamental note and suffuse it, and alter it."[41] Let the

attention be directed to these overtones, however, and they at once

detach themselves from their surroundings and step forth into the light

of day. Even so the ticking of the clock may pass unnoticed in the sense

that it is an undiscriminated element in the background of our

consciousness; but if the ticking comes to a sudden stop, the feeling of

a void in our consciousness proclaims the fact that something has gone

out from it.

The observation and description of the facts of consciousness, then, is

based directly on the fact that experience, as the psychologist deals

with it, possesses a focus and margin. Nature as conceived by the

physical sciences presents no such distinction. The facts are what they

are, and their character as focal or marginal, as clear or obscure,

depends altogether upon their relation to an intelligence. Or we may say

that if the facts of experience were always focal and never marginal, it

would never occur to us to speak of consciousness as we do at present.

As long as we confine ourselves to a given color, shape or temperature,

as experienced focally, we are not dealing with consciousness, but with

objects. An analysis of such facts that does not bring in the marginal

is not an analysis of consciousness, but an analysis of physical

reality. Even if we consider non-physical objects, such as mathematical

or economic concepts, we find that our analysis is not psychological

as long as the marginal is left out. The consideration of the margin,

however, brings us into the presence of facts which are of a distinctive

kind and which warrant a new science. Let the margin be eliminated and

psychology disappears at the same time.

The psychological doctrine of focus and margin, then, is a matter of

fundamental importance. On the interpretation of this doctrine depend

our systems of psychology and of philosophy. What, then, is meant by

focus and margin? If we turn to our psychologies, we seem to be

confronted once more with something that everybody knows and nobody can

define. But since we have to do with a distinction, the obligation to

differentiate cannot be wholly ignored. Consciousness is sometimes

likened to a visual field and sometimes to the waves of the sea. Like

the visual field it has a foreground and a background, a near and a

remote, a center and a margin or periphery. The contents of

consciousness are vivid or clear in the center of this field and fade

away into vagueness or obscureness in proportion to their approach to

the periphery. Or, to take the other comparison, the focus may be

represented by the crest of a wave and the margin by what we may call

its base. This illustration has the advantage that it indicates the

difference between higher and lower degrees of concentration. As

concentration increases, the crest of the wave rises higher and its

width decreases, while the reverse is true where the concentration of

attention is less intense. All consciousness possesses the distinction

of focus and margin in some degree; however much we may be absorbed in

an object or topic, there is always an indirect mental vision that

informs us of other facts, which for the time being are in the

background of our consciousness.

For purposes of description a metaphor is at best a clumsy device. It

has a tendency to substitute itself for the thing to be described and

thus to conceal its limitations and inaccuracies. The present case is no

exception. I am forced to think that the visual field in particular is a

thoroughly vicious metaphor when employed to body forth the distinction

of focus and margin. Whatever this distinction may in the end turn out

to be, it is not such as this comparison would lead one to suppose.

Objects seen in indirect vision appear obscure and blurred precisely

because they are in the focus of consciousness. We get pretty much the

same sort of obscureness or blur on a printed page when we look at it in

indirect vision as we do when we look at it from a distance that is just

too great to make out the words or characters. What the illustration

shows is that things look different according as the circumstances under

which we see them are different, but what bearing this has on marginal

consciousness is not at all obvious to an unsophisticated intelligence.

When we speak of a focus and margin in consciousness, we are presumably

dealing with conscious fact. Now this illustration of the visual field

does not represent conscious fact. Ordinary perception carries with it

no sense of obscureness at all, and when it does we have exactly the

same kind of situation as when an object is too distant or in some other

way inaccessible to satisfactory perception. That is, the object

perceived is in the 'focus' and not in the margin. The obscureness of

objects when seen with the margin of the retina has no more to do with

the margin of consciousness than the obscureness caused by an attack of

dizziness or by a morning fog.

It will be said, perhaps, that consciousness may be unclear even though

there be no sense of unclearness, that there is such a thing as

intrinsic clearness, quite apart from obstacles and problems. In other

words, the same sensation is capable of realizing various degrees of

clearness. It is not at all obvious, however, why the different

experiences that are concerned in such a comparison should be called the

same sensation. As long as we abstract from objective reference, each

sensation is just what it is and there is no opportunity to make

comparisons on the basis of clearness. A sensation as such--if we are

bound to speak of sensations--can by no possibility be an obscure

sensation, for the trait that we call obscureness or vagueness

constitutes the intrinsic being of that sensation. If we permit

ourselves to speak of clearness at all, we should rather say that it

possesses a maximum of clearness, since it has managed to express or

present its whole nature with not one trait or feature lacking. What

more could be demanded, in the way of clearness, of any conscious fact

than that it should body forth every detail that it possesses?

If sensations or states of consciousness possess degrees of clearness,

it seems to follow that we may scrutinize them for the purpose of

discovering characteristics that were present though scarcely

perceived, in much the same way that the polishing of old furniture

brings out the grain in the wood. But such a parallel, I submit, is

plain nonsense. The supposition that consciousness is something that in

due time and with good fortune may attain consciousness is too absurd

for discussion, even though it is a supposition that plays a

considerable role in present-day psychology.

The purpose of the discussion, up to this point, has not been to deny

the validity of the distinction between focus and margin, but to insist

upon the necessity of reconsidering the meaning of this distinction, if

we are to attain to a workable definition of consciousness and a

fruitful or even intelligible conception of the problem of psychology. I

have endeavored to show, in the first place, that the doctrine of focus

and margin involves the _raison d'etre_ of psychology. Apart from this

doctrine we have no task or problem that psychology can claim as its

distinctive possession. The analysis of what is in the focus of

consciousness is adequately provided for in the other sciences; it is

only with the introduction of what is called the margin that an

enterprise of a different kind becomes necessary. But, secondly, this

distinction of focus and margin cannot be drawn on the basis of the

experienced contrast between clearness and obscureness. The very fact

that anything is experienced as obscure means that it is an object of

attention, or, in other words, that it is in the focus of consciousness

and not in the margin. The comparison of focus and margin with direct

and indirect vision is misleading, because it suggests that experiences

are marginal in proportion as they are felt as obscure. And, thirdly, if

we undertake to distinguish between focus and margin on the basis of a

difference in clearness or vividness of which no note is taken at the

time, we encounter the difficulty that experience or consciousness,

taken abstractly, does not admit of such variations in degree, and so

this criterion likewise goes by the board.

The situation is indeed peculiar. That there is a realm of psychological

fact is universally conceded. As a consequence of this conviction a

great body of fact and of doctrine has been built up. It would be folly

to deny either the distinctiveness or the significance of this

achievement. And yet James's description of psychology as "a string of

raw facts; a little gossip and wrangle about opinions; a little

classification and generalization on the mere descriptive level; a

strong prejudice that we _have_ states of mind and that our brain

conditions them,"[42] is not wholly untrue even today. It is even

possible for a present-day critic to outdo James and maintain that the

legitimacy of psychology as a separate inquiry is a matter of faith

rather than of sight. The 'raw facts' of which James speaks resolve

themselves into physical and physiological material on the one hand and

metaphysical dogmas on the other; the gossip and wrangle are largely

over fictitious problems; the classifications and generalizations as a

rule involve trespassing on other fields; the prejudice that we have

states of mind has less standing-ground today than it had twenty years

ago. In other words, there is still plausible ground for James's

pessimistic comment: "This is no science, it is only the hope of a

science." A situation such as this carries with it the insistent

suggestion that the trouble lies, not primarily in the nature of the

subject-matter, but in our conception of the problem. "The matter of a

science," as James says, "is with us." And if the distinction of focus

and margin constitutes the starting-point and justification for a

science of psychology, a better understanding of this distinction will

mean a more adequate appreciation of the problem with which psychology

has to deal.

As a starting-point for a reconsideration of focus and margin, we may

take those experiences in which the distinction of clearness and

obscureness is presented as an experienced fact. Let us then turn once

more to the familiar illustration of the visual field. "When we look at

a printed page, there is always some one portion of it, perhaps a word,

which we see more clearly than we do the rest; and out beyond the margin

of the page we are still conscious of objects which we see only in a

very imperfect way."[43] That is, we appreciate the distinction between

what lies in the center of our visual field and what is more remote,

just because in this experiment we are trying to see what lies beyond

the center without turning our eyes in that direction. We set ourselves

the task of seeing what is on the page, and at the same time we

interpose an artificial obstacle. Hence the sense of effort, and the

contrast between what is clear and what is obscure. The present

experience is obscure, not inherently, but only with reference to a

certain problem or question. It is inadequate as an anticipation of

further experience. The contrast between clear and obscure is created by

our attempt to overcome the difficulty, and is therefore absent from

ordinary, unobstructed visual perception.

The situation described in the following familiar quotation from James

is an illustration of the same thing: "Suppose we try to recall a

forgotten name. The state of our consciousness is peculiar. There is a

gap therein; but no mere gap. It is a gap that is intensely active. A

sort of wraith of the name is in it, beckoning us in a given direction,

making us at moments tingle with the sense of our closeness, and then

letting us sink back without the longed-for term."[44]

'I met this man on the train, and later at the reception; but what is

his name?' The struggle rends our consciousness in twain. The occasions

of our meeting, his appearance, his conversation, are solid fact, yet

all suffused with the pervasive, evanscent "wraith" that tantalizes us

with glimpses which half reveal and half conceal the name we seek to

grasp.

To account for such experiences simply in terms of half-submerged

"sensations" and "images" is to do violence to all the requirements for

clear thinking. If we rule out explanations of this kind, we are

evidently forced to the conclusion that these experiences are obscure,

not in themselves or in the abstract, but with reference to the function

of putting us in possession of the name to which they are inadequate

clues. It is the subsequent, satisfactory experience of the name which

furnishes our standard for clearness; in other words, the implications

of obscureness are of a functional, and not of a static or structural,

kind. The marginal character of an experience is simply a reference to

its function as a clue or cue to some further experience, i.e., a

reference to its character as a changing stimulus. Or we may say that

the distinction between focus and margin is just another aspect of the

distinction between the conditions for further activity and the

incompleteness which leads to further adjustment. The transfer of the

future into the present gives us a fact, here and now, and in this

respect the experience is entirely focal in character, and as such it is

subject-matter for the various sciences. Whatever the nature of the

experience, it is just what it is, and not something else. With respect

to the further experience, however, which it conditions or for which it

prepares the way, the present experience is entirely marginal, i.e., in

its character as a changing stimulus it is subject-matter for

psychology. The distinction of focus and margin, then, is based

ultimately upon the function of experience in the control of behavior.

The given situation is a present fact and is in functional change; or,

in terms of our present discussion, it has both a focus and a margin. As

present fact it is a reality which requires recognition in the form of

adjustment; as in functional change it provides opportunity for bringing

the adjustment to fruition. That is, the experience both sets a task or

makes a demand and it points the way. The distinction is a distinction

of function, not of static existence, and it is this distinction which

is represented by the contrast of focus and margin.

If we compare this interpretation of focus and margin with that of

traditional psychology, we find that the latter construes the relation

of the present to the future experience wholly in static terms, the

functional relation being left out of account. The later experience is

read back into its predecessor in the form of dim or marginal images,

which need but show themselves more completely to make the two

identical. If these sensations were intended only as symbols of a

functional relationship, it would perhaps be scarcely worth while to

enter a protest against them. But when the functional relationship is

quite overlooked, the explanation that is given becomes exceedingly

dubious. The ticking of the clock, for example, that is present, though

unnoticed, the overtones of the note that suffuse the whole without

diverting attention to their individual qualities,--in what precise way

are facts of this kind concerned in the description of the experience

which they modify? A study of the clock or of the overtones can hardly

pass as an analysis of consciousness; it is too obviously an affair of

physics. Such a study becomes merely an excuse for repeating the

analyses of physics and reading them off in terms of sensations and

images. Moreover, the transfer of all this material to consciousness

looks suspiciously like a transaction in mental chemistry. Where, then,

is psychology to gain a foothold? What is the meaning of these uncanny

sensations and images, which nobody experiences, unless it be their

character as symbols of adjustment? They have no legitimate status, and

psychology, by consequence, has no legitimate problem, except in so far

as they represent those possible acts of adaptation which are the sole

and proper concern of psychology.

It remains to point out briefly the bearing of these results on what is

called "the method of introspection." We are sometimes assured that

introspection has discarded the belief in a separate mental stuff or

subject-matter, but there is ground for the suspicion that such

protestations are made in the same spirit that we affirm our belief in

the Ten Commandments or the Golden Rule, with no thought of being taken

seriously. At all events, without a literal "looking within" it seems to

become exceedingly difficult to differentiate introspection from

ordinary observation as practised in the other sciences. The reason for

this difficulty is that there is nothing left in introspection by which

it can be differentiated. The term introspection properly designates,

not a method but a problem; the problem, namely, of interpreting given

facts with reference to their function in the control of behavior. If

psychology is to justify its claim to the status of a science, it is in

duty bound to secure for itself both an objective criterion for the

adjudication of disputes which otherwise are of necessity interminable,

and a subject-matter that is not simply a heritage of metaphysical

prejudice, but a realm of fact that is attested by everyday observation

and experience.