This
consciousness, observation and experiment prove, is first a feeling one,
later a feeling-thinking-willing one. The mind, then, is really the
activity of the brain as it feels, as it thinks, as it wills. We express
this in descriptive terms when we speak of mind as the _flow of
consciousness_, the sum of all mental associations, conscious and
unconscious. For mind is never a final thing. Looking within at our own
mental processes we find that always our thought is just becoming
something else. We reach a conclusion, but it is not a resting place,
only a starting place for another. My thought was _that_ a moment ago,
but while it was _that_ it was becoming _this_, and even now it is
becoming something else.
Thinking is mind. Feeling is mind. Willing is mind. But for the sake of
clearness we speak of feeling, thinking, and willing as being functions
of mind. Mind acts by using these powers. But to what end does it act?
What purpose does it serve? For these functions are not the reasons of
being for the mind, even as motion--while the immediate purpose of the
locomotive--is not its chief end.
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