Excerpt from The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 18: January December, 1921 If we keep our eye upon this unique character of the stimulus, we get perhaps an indication of the direction in which we must go for an answer to Professor Lovejoy's question as to the conditions that de termine the development of a conscious situation. By virtue of what property or relation does one possible bit of content get at tended to, taken account of, perhaps taken up into the organized plan itself, while other bits are ignored or eventually excluded? It requires no argument, I take it, to show that the stimulus of the given moment necessarily varies with the situation, since no two instances of reaction are precisely alike. It follows, therefore, that the better stimulus which is demanded in order to harmonize the con flicting reactions will likewise vary. In the razor illustration, for example, if the reaction to sharp is to be harmonized with a con flicting reaction of reaching and grasping, the solution lies in picking it up so as not to cut the fingers; if the conflicting reactions are those connected with an effort to break a rope or string, the razor oflers itself as a suitable tool; if the perception of the razor occurs as an intrusion upon some other process to which it is irrelevant, the ad justment is perhaps best achieved by permitting the object to drop from view. I have no desire, of course, to give an appearance of simplicity to processes which are, as a matter of fact, discouragingly complex, but neither am I able to convince myself that the endless gradations and colorings of what James calls the fringe are insufi cient, in principle, to account for the entire range of conscious behavior. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.