The Analysis of Mind

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LECTURE I. RECENT CRITICISMS OF "CONSCIOUSNESS"

There are certain occurrences which we are in the habit of calling
"mental." Among these we may take as typical BELIEVING and DESIRING.
The exact definition of the word "mental" will, I hope, emerge as
the lectures proceed; for the present, I shall mean by it whatever
occurrences would commonly be called mental.

I wish in these lectures to analyse as fully as I can what it is that
really takes place when we, e.g. believe or desire. In this first
lecture I shall be concerned to refute a theory which is widely held,
and which I formerly held myself: the theory that the essence of
everything mental is a certain quite peculiar something called
"consciousness," conceived either as a relation to objects, or as a
pervading quality of psychical phenomena.

The reasons which I shall give against this theory will be mainly
derived from previous authors. There are two sorts of reasons, which
will divide my lecture into two parts:

(1) Direct reasons, derived from analysis and its difficulties;

(2) Indirect reasons, derived from observation of animals (comparative
psychology) and of the insane and hysterical (psycho-analysis).

Few things are more firmly established in popular philosophy than the
distinction between mind and matter. Those who are not professional
metaphysicians are willing to confess that they do not know what mind
actually is, or how matter is constituted; but they remain convinced
that there is an impassable gulf between the two, and that both belong
to what actually exists in the world. Philosophers, on the other hand,
have maintained often that matter is a mere fiction imagined by mind,
and sometimes that mind is a mere property of a certain