Boris Sidis

“ The growth and development of the moment-consciousness is through its assimilation of fresh psychic material. In the man of science a favorite theory exercises such an assimilative power over facts otherwise disconnected. ”

“ The perception of the letters, words, and their isolated meaning is assimilated subconsciously, all of them being incorporated into the guiding moment-consciousness which is growing and developing, becoming enriched with more and more content. In writing a letter or an article on a certain subject we find the same fact of assimilation by the moment-consciousness of the sense-data coming in the successive steps of the whole experience. ”

“ The young infant pushes indiscriminately everything in its mouth, everything is for sucking, and only by experience it learns gradually to modify its reaction towards objects. On seeing a lemon, a child that is only acquainted with oranges will take it as an orange. The child will perceive the new visual experiences given by the lemon, as different from orange, but they will be assimilated to his sensory orange experience. The special visual experiences will give rise in the child's mind to some qualification of the percept "orange," the object being a kind of orange, a bad orange. ”

“ All are guided by the principal moment which grows richer in content with each successive step made, with each succeeding link of the series. In fact we may say that all those successive steps are stages in the growth and development of the one moment-consciousness. ”

“ The fact that the moment-consciousness expands, grows, and develops in its organization until it reaches a point of perfect adaptation to external conditions clearly shows that the moment is capable of working new psychic material into its constitution. ”

“ The patient is put into a quiet condition, and with his eyes closed and the experimenter's hand on the patient's forehead, the latter is urged to mental effort and strain, and, if necessary, given some hints. Experiences seemingly inaccessible flash lightning-like on the upper regions of self-consciousness. In all such cases the active moment-consciousness seizes on and assimilates any cognate experience, conscious or subconscious. ”

“ When the moment is stimulated to activity by an external object, the sensory stimulations of the present time-moment are new. Just these particular stimulations and sensory processes awakened have not occurred as yet in the life history of the animal, and still the object meets with its appropriate sensory response and motor reaction. ”

“ The material which it gets is of such a nature as to help to perpetuate the psychic life of the moment. The moment cannot possibly go on growing without having such material at hand. If the moment comes in contact with any psychic element or experience that can further its content, the experience is at once seized on and synthetized in the moment. ”

“ The tactual and motor sensations coming from each step are assimilated by the moment, leading in their turn to new series of reactions. Each new step is followed by new sensations that give rise to new reactions and so on, until the end of the moment is reached and the purpose accomplished. ”

“ If the fish usually reacts in making attacks when receiving perceptive stimuli coming from small fish, and if the new experience is somewhat unusual in its ordinary life experience, and at the same time not so striking as to call forth the reaction of fear, the fish will still carry out its ordinary reaction of aggressive movement, slightly modified by the new incoming experience. ”

“ The child in beginning to walk, does it with great hesitation and fear. It can only be compared to the attempt of an adult in learning to walk a rope, or a narrow board on a high place. Each step requires intense attention. ”

“ When the child is confronted with young animals, the latter are regarded in the light of "babies," they are also babies, they have their papas and mammas who give them cookies, tea, and oatmeal, undress them, and put them to bed. ”