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p.12 The central feature of the doctrine is the contention that "consciousness" is identifiable with a certain unique type of control; in other words, that it involves a certain peculiar kind of stimulus.
p.13 By hypothesis, however, the conscious stimulus is conditioned throughout upon a conflict of reactions which require continuous adjustment, so that the type of procedure remains the same. If we accept the dictum of psychology that attention is coextensive with consciousness, there is warrant for the view that consciousness has to do with just this curious "incompleteness," by virtue of which the present stimulus makes provision for its own successor. And if we bear in mind that the incompleteness is intrinsic to the stimulus, or inherent in it, we seem to have come upon a trait which constitutes a genuine differentia of the psychic and which makes it possible to draw a sharp line between conscious and mechanical behavior. In so far as a stimulus is of this sort, behavior becomes "forward-looking"; it becomes behavior that is "controlled by the future." The stimulus that is sought is one that will adjust the conflicting reactions; but the process of securing this stimulus is always to some extent a matter of discovery, of trial and error, the empirical filling-in of an antecedent framework or outline.
p.16 "By virtue of what property or relation does one possible bit of content get attended 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 conflicting reactions will likewise vary.
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