phenomena be truly explained either by physiology or by the observation of
consciousness apart from their history. They have a growth of their own,
like the growth of a flower, a tree, a human being. They may be conceived
as of themselves constituting a common mind, and having a sort of personal
identity in which they coexist.

So comprehensive is modern psychology, seeming to aim at constructing 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