section_path: Problem of definition/Traditional metaphors for mind
section_name: Traditional metaphors for mind
paragraph_text: Traditional metaphors for mind
  
  During the early 19th century, the emerging field of geology inspired a popular metaphor that the mind likewise had hidden layers "which recorded the past of the individual". By 1875, most psychologists believed that "consciousness was but a small part of mental life", and this idea underlie the goal of Freudian therapy, to expose the unconscious layer of the mind.
  
  Other metaphors from various sciences inspired other analyses of the mind, for example: Johann Friedrich Herbart described ideas as being attracted and repulsed like magnets; John Stuart Mill developed the idea of "mental chemistry" and "mental compounds", and Edward B. Titchener sought the "structure" of the mind by analyzing its "elements". The abstract idea of states of consciousness mirrored the concept of states of matter.
  
  In 1892, William James noted that the "ambiguous word 'content' has been recently invented instead of 'object'" and that the metaphor of mind as a container seemed to minimize the dualistic problem of how "states of consciousness can know " things, or objects; by 1899 psychologists were busily studying the "contents of conscious experience by introspection and experiment ". Another popular metaphor was James's doctrine of the stream of consciousness, with continuity, fringes, and transitions.
  
  James discussed the difficulties of describing and studying psychological phenomena, recognizing that commonly-used terminology was a necessary and acceptable starting point towards more precise, scientifically justified language. Prime examples were phrases like inner experience and personal consciousness:
  
  The first and foremost concrete fact which every one will affirm to belong to his inner experience is the fact that consciousness of some sort goes on. 'States of mind' succeed each other in him. But everyone knows what the terms mean in a rough way; When I say every 'state' or 'thought' is part of a personal consciousness, 'personal consciousness' is one of the terms in question. Its meaning we know so long as no one asks us to define it, but to give an accurate account of it is the most difficult of philosophic tasks. The only states of consciousness that we naturally deal with are found in personal consciousnesses, minds, selves, concrete particular I's and you's.