Thus, the student listening to the lecture could adjust this second sieve so as to allow everything he had ever learnt that had any bearing upon the subject in hand, to rise into the focus of consciousness and help him to understand the lecture. It is this faculty which is of such great importance in determining the critical powers of the mind, for the previously determined ideas, ranging themselves alongside the fresh concepts offered for assimilation, serve as standards of value, and form a running commentary upon the lecture. These three levels together, the focus, the fringe, and the foreconscious, form the level of the mind to which we have access and of which we can make use; but we must note this point in connection with these levels, that any idea which we may wish to consider must be placed in the strong light of the focus of consciousness before we can see it clearly; we cannot consider an idea while it is still in the foreconscious, but we can, at will, take it out of the foreconscious and place it in the focus of consciousness for our consideration. Indeed, these three levels of the mind may be likened to a kitchen, the foreconscious being the cupboard, the fringe of consciousness the table, and the focus of consciousness the mixing basin; and the ideas upon the three levels may be represented by the ingredients of the pudding, some of which are put away in the cupboard, some lie ready to the hand upon the table, and others are actually in the mixing basin being stirred. Those on the table, like the ideas in the fringe of consciousness, lie ready to the cook’s hand, but she is not dealing with them at the moment; those in the cupboard (the foreconscious) are out of sight, but she knows they are there and can get them if she wants them; but it is only those that are in the basin, the focus of consciousness, that she is actually at work upon. To the average man these three levels constitute all there is of his mind, he has no conception of the strange hinterland lying behind the narrow strip of civilised coast, yet it is here that the springs of his being take their rise, and it is the discovery and exploration of this hinterland which has been the great contribution of modern psychology to the sum of human knowledge. CHAPTER V THE ORGANISATION OF THE LOWER LEVELS OF THE MIND In the level of the mind known as the subconscious or unconscious are stored all the ideas to which we have no direct access. Some psychologists say that the memory of every impression which has ever been received by a sense organ is registered here as on a photographic plate, but this opinion is not universally accepted. We shall be quite safe in saying, however, that the memory of anything which has ever made a distinct impression on the mind is stored here and plays its part in the mental life.