INTENT, or INTENT OF CON SCIOUSNESS, in psychology is virtually identical with the goal of conscious endeavor at a specific moment in time. In German the word meinen is probably the nearest equivalent to our word Intent, though either Sagenwollen, or the phrase in Sinne haben might answer the purpose equally as well. French psychology employs (intention"; Italian, Modern Eng. lish may also be compared with M.E. the Fr. and O.F. attention, purpose. All these words, except those of German psy chology mentioned above, are in ultimate ongin from the Latin word (intentum," or the past participle of the Latin verb aintendere," meaning to intend," extend," "to stretch out The psychologist James employs "intent' in a manner peculiar to his system of psychology, to designate what intelligent consciousness "means or intends." As stated it is not usually employed in this sense by psychologists. Its usual sense is implied in the definition given at the beginning of this article, and this is a sense which marks a certain point of view from which one may regard an It is almost a law, that in any conscious process having unity of interest there must also exist a corresponding unity of object. This is shown by Baldwin. Exceptions are rather apparent than real. Par tial presentations, of course, come before con sciousness as appearances, but as appearances, always of one and the same total object, which consciousness is endeavoring to know in its completeness. If our interest be merely attain ment of knowledge, fuller, more definite, or more vivid, the Affect, as it becomes more per fectly known, is identical with the object as pre viously less perfectly known. For it is, says
Baldwin, what the mind consciously means or intends. While one's attention is constantly employed upon an object, the end pursued be comes progressively defined in the process of its achievement. And in so far as such an object remains indefinite, or partially developed in consciousness, it is an intent. The result of a concrete mental determination, that state in which any specific process in consciousness issues and completes itself, is known as "End state* (the German Enzu-stand, the French etat final, and the Italian stato finale).
Bradley employs 'content" in a sense anal ogous to that in which intent is understood under the definition of it given at the head of this article. Content in this sense, however, is peculiar to Bradley. For as ordinarily applied, content (of consciousness) means all special modifications of conscious experience, what ever may be their nature, and not merely ob jects of consciousness. Pleasure or pain are thus part of the content of consciousness, but neither are always an object or an intent of consciousness.
Intent is the consciousness, obiterdicta, of the general nature of the end-state, and is men tal progress toward an ideal we have successive stages of intent.