f I have had images of a given prototype many times, I can mean one of
these, as opposed to the rest, by recollecting the time and place or any
other distinctive association of that one occasion. This happens, for
example, when a place recalls to us some thought we previously had in
that place, so that we remember a thought as opposed to the occurrence
to which it referred. Thus we may say that we think of an image A when
we have a similar image B associated with recollections of circumstances
connected with A, but not with its prototype or with other images of the
same prototype. In this way we become aware of images without the
need of any new store of mental contents, merely by the help of new
associations. This theory, so far as I can see, solves the problems of
introspective knowledge, without requiring heroic measures such as those
proposed by Knight Dunlap, whose views we discussed in Lecture VI.

According to what we have been saying, sensation itself is not an
instance of consciousness, though the immediate memory by which it is
apt to be succeeded is so. A sensation which is remembered becomes an
object of consciousness as soon as it begins to be remembered, which
will normally be almost immediately after its occurrence (if at all);
but while it exists it is not an object of consciousness. If, however,
it is part of a perception, say of some familiar person, we may say that
the person perceived is an object of consciousness. For in this case
the sensation is a SIGN of the perceived object in much the same way
in which a memory-image is a sign of a remembered object. The essential
practical function of "consciousness" and "thought" is that they enable
us to act with reference to what is distant in time or space, even
though it is not at present stimulating our senses. This reference
to absent objects is possible through association and habit. Actual
sensations, in themselves, are not cases of consciousness, because they
do not bring in this reference to what is absent. But their connection
with consciousness is very close, both through immediate memory, and
through the correlations which turn sensations into perceptions.

Enough has, I hope, been said to show that consciousness is far too
complex and accidental to be taken as the fundamental characteristic
of mind. We have seen that belief and images both enter into it. Belief
itself, as we saw in an earlier lecture, is complex. Therefore, if any
definition of