«^ * o « o ^' o,"^ o '^ •1 o 0^ ,s- Jv^-^*^. 40. *o Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/subconsciousphen01mn SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA BY HUGO MUNSTERBERG THEODORE RIBOT PIERRE JANET JOSEPH JASTROW BERNARD HART AND MORTON PRINCE BOSTON RICHARD G. BADGER THE GORHAM PRESS I9IO Copyright, 1910, by Richard G. Badger All Rights reserved p : J^-^ ,^- ^^i The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. ©CI.A268i^6 CONTENTS Chapter One The Subconscious — Part i i6 Chapter Two The Subconscious — Part 2 33 Chapter Three The Subconscious — Part 3 40 Chapter Four The Subconscious — Part 4 53 Chapter Five The Subconscious — Part 5 71 Chapter Six The Conception of the Subconscious. . . 102 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA Subconscious Phenomena INTRODUCTION THERE is at present no consensus of opinion, either among psy- chologists who deal with the normal, or among the medical psychologists who deal with the abnormal, as to the class of phenomena to which the term "subconscious" shall be ap- plied, or, as to the interpretation of these phenomena. Thus, few writers mean the same thing by "subconscious," and even when two writers agree upon the same psychologi- cal interpretation of given phenomena each is likely to describe different sets of phe- nomena under the term. It has seemed ac- cordingly to the Editor that a symposium in which those who deal with the normal and abnormal might thresh out the difference of views would be timely and might help to an agreement in terminology at least and possi- bly in interpretation. The following general statement of the 9 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA present terminology and meaning of the sub- conscious will be of assistance to the general reader in following the discussion in this and the next number. Professor Miinsterberg has very clearly stated the three dominant theories of the subconscious backed respec- tively by laymen, physicians and psycholo- gists, and it is well that these three be kept well in the foreground of the discussion. Per- haps these three types are sufficient for a discussion in a symposium, and yet, there are three other meanings of the subconscious, one or other of which is held by individual writers and of which the reader should be reminded at least. These six may be sum- marized thus : First, it is used to describe that portion of our field of consciousness which, at any given moment, is outside the focus of our attention; a region therefore, as it is conceived, of diminished attention. Subcon- sciousness here, therefore, means the margi- nal states or fringe of consciousness of any given moment, and the prefix sub designates the diminished or partial awareness that we have for these states out in the corner of our mind's eye. The second meaning (Professor Miinster- 10 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA berg's second type) involves a theory which is an interpretation of the facts. It is with this meaning particularly that the term is used in abnormal psychology. Subconscious ideas are dissociated or split-off ideas; split off from the main personal consciousness, from the focus of attention — if that term be preferred — in such fashion that the subject is entirely unaware of them, though they are not inert but active. These split-off ideas may be limited to isolated sensations, like the lost tactile sensations of anesthesia; or may be aggregated into groups or systems. In other words, they form a consciousness coexisting with the primary consciousness, and thereby a doubling of consciousness re- sults. The split-off consciousness may dis- play extraordinary activity. The primary personal consciousness as a general rule is of course the main and larger consciousness; but under exceptional conditions, as in some types of automatic writing, the personal con- sciousness may be reduced to rudimentary proportions, while the secondary conscious- ness may rob the former of the greater part of its faculties and become the dominant con- sciousness. II SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA The third meaning (Professor Miinster- berg's first type) is an elaboration and ex- tension of the second, and thus becomes a theory which not only gives an elaborate in- terpretation of the facts of observation, but becomes a broad generalization in that it propounds a principle of both normal and abnormal life. Under it the dissociated states become synthesized among themselves into a large self-conscious personality, to which the term "self" is given. Subconscious states thus become personified and are spoken of as the "subconscious self," "subliminal self," "hidden self," "secondary self," etc.; and this subconscious self is conceived of as mak- ing up a part of every human mind, whether normal or abnormal, and is sup- posed to play a very large part in our mental life. Thus every mind is double; not in the moderate sense of two trains of thought go- ing on at the same time, or being engaged with two distinct and separate series of ac- tions at the same time; or even in the sense of there being certain limited discreet per- ceptions of w^hich the personal consciousness is not aware; but in the sense of having two selves which are often given special domains 12 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA of their own and spoken of as upper and lower ; the waking and submerged selves, etc. This theory, therefore, not only extends the principle of dissociated ideas into normal life and makes these constant elements of the hu- man mind, but enlarges the subconscious syn- thesis into something that is self-conscious and which can speak of itself as an "I." The fourth meaning of subconscious is that which by definition would have it include; first, the dissociated ideas embraced under the second definition above stated; and sec- ^fond, all those past conscious experiences which are either forgotten and can not be recalled, or which may be recalled as mem- ories, but for the moment are out of mind because in the march of events our thoughts have passed on and we are thinking about something else. All these potential mem- ories are placed in the subconscious which plainly is thus made to define two classes of facts; namely, dissociated states which are active, and those which are inactive, i. e., forgotten, or out of mind (Sidis' definition). The fifth use of the term (Myers' doc- trine) is an expansion of the third meaning and involves a metaphysical doctrine which 13 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA transcends all facts which one can possibly observe in others or introspect in himself. It is more specifically described as the "sublimi- nal,'* which is used as a synonym for subcon- scious. The subconscious ideas, instead of being mental states dissociated from the main personality, now become the main res- ervoir of consciousness and the personal con- sciousness becomes a subordinate stream flowing out of this great storage basis of "subliminal" ideas as they are called. We have within us a great tank of consciousness but we are conscious of only a small portion of its contents. In other words, of the sum total of conscious states within us only a small portion forms the personal conscious- ness. The personal self becomes even an in- ferior consciousness emerging out of a su- perior subliminal consciousness sometimes conceived as part of a transcendental world, and this subliminal consciousness is made the source of flights of genius on the one hand, while it controls the physical processes of the body on the other. The sixth meaning (Professor Miinster- berg's third type) of the term is an interpre- tation on pure physiological principles of the 14 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA phenomena customarily attributed to the ac- tivity of dissociated ideas. Some psycholo- gists believe that phenomena like automatic writing and speech, the so-called subconscious solution of arithmetical problems, hysterical outbursts, etc., can be best explained as pure neural processes unaccompanied by any men- tation whatsoever. These phenomena be- come therefore pure physiological organic processes of the body. The term subcon- scious thus becomes equivalent to the old theory of Carpenter's "unconscious cerebra- tion. 15 CHAPTER ONE BY HUGO MUNSTERBERG Professor of Psychology, Harvard THE few pages which a symposium allows do not give opportunity to sift the material which has led to the doctrine of the sub- liminal consciousness. My prac- tical studies in hypnotism, hysteria, automat- ic writing and similar abnormalities suggest to me decided hesitation in accepting the whole of the usual evidence without cross-ex- amination. And yet, to find a common basis for a theoretical inquiry, it certainly seems wiser not to quarrel about the experiences but rather to accept the facts as the most san- guine observer might present them. Yet, even if we welcome the observed facts in their widest limits, there can be no doubt that the subconscious itself is never among them. The facts which we find must be eith- er conscious psychical facts from which we draw inferences as to subconscious psychical i6 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA states, or physical expressions which cannot be explained by conscious ideas, emotions, volitions, and which thus demand not-con- scious factors for their explanation. The conscious experience of crystal-vision or of remembering the tactual experiences of an anaesthetic hand or the sudden solution of a problem which had slipped from conscious- ness, or, if you will, every act of genius may point to such hypothetical subconscious pro- cesses, but certainly the conscious seeing and remembering and solving is given, while the subconscious is constructed for purposes of explanation. In the same way the physical processes of automatic writing or of hysteric action are observable; the subconscious agen- cies are super-added elaborations. To acknowledge that the subconscious is found only through constructions in the ser- vice of explanation does not detract from its scientific reality; the fluid core of the earth is of the same logical type. But such acknowl- edgment does imply that the only correct question is this : which of the many construc- tions of the not-conscious causes is most use- ful for the explanation of the observed facts ? It is evident, however, that the preference 17 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA for one construction or another may and must be influenced by various sidefactors. When, for instance, the physician approaches those facts, his interest tends naturally to their practical treatment. He thus shapes his constructions in a way which brings the differences from normal mental life to the clearest relief and which offers a simple working description, definite enough to de- termine beforehand the events to be expected in the behavior of the patient. When on the other hand the layman comes to the same facts, he is struck bytheir surprising character and this wonder awakes the feeling of the general mysteriousness of the world; he thus tends to prefer a construction which explains the observed facts in a way that leads at the same time to the satisfaction of higher de- sires, perhaps even of religious emotions. W^hen, finally, the theoretical psychologist approaches the same facts, he has in mind no therapeutical treatment or emotional de- mand, and yet he too looks out far beyond the curious facts themselves; his interest is turned toward the remainder of mental life, and he thus prefers explanations which bring the abnormal facts in closest relation to the i8 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA normal processes and cover both by the same formulae. We therefore find three types of theories, the first backed mostly by laymen, the sec- ond by physicians, the third by psychologists. Yet the lines are not to be drawn sharply. That first group says : the subconsciousness is the psychical system of a full real personality below the conscious person ; that subconscious self remembers, thinks, feels, wills on its own accord, influences our conscious life, helps it out, shines through it and causes the abnor- mal facts. The popular mind clings to such a convenient method of explanation the more closely as It is on this basis easy to bring the subconscious selves into telepathic connection or to link them with mystical agencies. The second group says: the subconscious is psy- chical but not a system, it is made up of ideas, but they do not at first form a personality; it is dissociated split off mental material which only in a secondary way may flow together into a new detached self. The subconscious is then not at all a regular psychical founda- tion but something either pathological or at least artificial. The third group, finally, says : the subconscious that underlies the ab- 19 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA normal facts is the same that underlies the ordinary processes of memory, attention, etc. : it is not psychical at all but a physiologi- cal brain process. The emotional demands of the mystic, the practical demands of the physician, and the theoretical demands of the psychologist are well fulfilled by these three types of theories, and to a certain extent they can be helpful side by side; the purpose which we have be- fore us determines each time which of the three modes of construction is most useful for our special end. At least the second theory finds points of contact with each of the others. With the first it shares the belief that the subconscious is psychical, while the one conceives it as systematized, the other as dissociated. With the third it shares the con- viction that there is no independent self be- low the consciousness, while the one calls the underlying processes psychical, the other phy- siological. This latter difference does not de- ter the friends of the second theory from ad- mitting also a physiological .basis for the subconscious ideas, nor the adherents of the third theory from using psychological terms like idea, emotion, volition, for the short de- 20 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA scription of those complex physiological events as if they were accompanied by psychi- cal phenomena. Yet, the difference of prin- ciple remains, and if I have to choose, I feel inclined to take the place with the psychol- ogists in the third group; the subconscious is not psychical at all. I point here only to the most general rea- sons which determine my decision. The ex- planations which every theory of the sub- conscious offers are twofold. There is firstly a reservoir which keeps the subconscious ideas, and secondly a mental workshop which manufactures the products of thought as far as they are not elaborated consciously. The reservoir, full of dissociated ideas, has to explain the occurrence of strange conscious ideas and of otherwise surprising behavior. The workshop has to explain the conscious results of the evidently synthetic labor which goes on independently of our conscious con- trol. What is that reservoir? Of course, if we call it a reservoir of ideas we have yielded the whole point; ideas are of mental stuff. Students of abnormal psychology here in- dulge in the same type of circular conclusion which is frequent with animal psychologists. 21 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA The latter reason that animals of a certain development must have consciousness be- cause they have memory. Memory is of course a psychological expression, and the question is just whether the behavior of those animals has to be explained psychologically by memory or physiologically by an after- effect of earlier stimulations. The decision whether the one mode of explanation or other is to be applied cannot itself be deduced from the observed facts, but must precede the study of the facts; with other words: the question whether animals have consciousness or not cannot be answered by observation but be- longs to epistemological arguments. In the same way here; no fact of abnormal experi- ence can by itself prove that a psychological and not a physiological explanation is needed; it is a philosophical problem which must be settled by principle before the ex- planation of the special facts begins. To make the explanation dependent on the special abnormal facts is the more unjustified as the situation is in no way different from that of ordinary memory. If I reproduce by association a name or a landscape seen ten years ago I can postulate too that all this was 22 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA lying in me as a subconscious idea or at least as a mental disposition and that it could not be reproduced if something on the psychical side were not lasting through those ten years outside of my consciousness. But those who insist that the memory idea presupposes a lasting mental disposition and cannot be ex- plained by physiological after-effect, only for- get that the same logic would demand a spec- ial mental disposition also for each new per- ception. The whole "mystery" of an idea entering into consciousness presents itself perfectly every time when we use our eyes or ears, and it is astonishing how easily psychol- ogists overlook the parallelism of the prob- lems in regular perception, in ordinary mem- ory and in the abnormal awakening of disso- ciated ideas. To say that the perceptive idea too finds a special psychical disposition would be absurd, as we should then need such sub- conscious mental agency for every possible impression, and if every possible impression is equally prepared in the subconscious the appearance of no one would really find its explanation as every other would have the same chance. In the case of the perception we are thus obliged to rest in the explanation 23 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA of a psychical idea by a physical brain pro- cess only. But if the fresh idea is dependent only on the fresh excitement in the brain, there is not the slightest additional difficulty in interpreting by the same principle the re- current idea of memory by the recurrent brain process without any reference to a last- ing psychical trace. And if the normal mem- ory can work without subconscious mental help, there is no reason suddenly to presup- pose it for the abnormal awaking of appar- ently unaccountable ideas as in crystal vision and a hundred similar phenomena. The illu- sions of the ordinary memory easily lead over from the normal reproduction to the pathological. Brain processes without sub- conscious psychical forerunners furnish all that we need in the abnormal cases for the same kind of understanding which science has for seeing and hearing. But if we have no reservoir with stored-up subconscious ideas, we cannot have a work- shop either to prepare therein subconsciously combinations of subliminal material. It is again the physiological action which is entire- ly sufficient to explain just as much as the mental mechanism could explain. Of course 24 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA popular science turns naturally to psychical conceptions first, because those hidden pro- cesses which we must presuppose to explain the conscious results are thoroughly pur- posive and selective. But have we really a right to insist that purpose and selection re- fer necessarily to psychical factors and are incomparable with physiological processes? On the contrary, whenever purpose means as it does mean in this case a certain adaptation to the ends of the individual we must ac- knowledge that every organism shows such purposiveness. When the body digests a meal a hundred thousand cells are performing the most complex acts for the purposes of the organism, and they select the right chemical processes more safely than any chemist would be able to do ; yet nobody presupposes that there is a mental interplay in the intes- tines. In the same way all the other tissues are performing adjusted acts by physiologi- cal causes : have we any reason to expect less from the tissues of the central nervous sys- tem? Why cannot they too produce physio- logical processes that lead to well-adjusted results and that means to apparently pur- posive sensorial excitements and motor im- 25 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA pulses. But we must go much further still. Not only that the physiological cerebration is well able to produce the "intellectual" re- sult, but the physiological side alone is fit for it, the psychological is utterly unfit. To the popular mind that statement seems of course absurd, and indeed it needs some philosophi- cal insight into the logic of sciences to appre- ciate the situation. To bring it to short for- mulation, of course without full argument, we might characterize it as follows. Our in- ner life is a system of attitudes, of purposes, of will. But it is not for psychology to deal with the inner life in its immediate teleologi- cal reality. This real life and its real inner connectedness demand for their understand- ing our interpretation and appreciation it is furnished for instance by the student of his- tory or of philosophy. Psychology, on the other hand, is a science which aims at descrip- tion and explanation of inner life, a logical attitude which is artificial. Psychology con- siders the inner experience , therefore, for its special purpose as a series of describable phenomena; it transforms the felt realities of will into perceivable objects, into contents of consciousness. Through this transformation 26 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA the real purposlveness, yes, the whole inner connection of the will acts is eliminated; the psychological phenomena as such have no in- tentions and no significance any more but are merely bits of lifeless mental material, com- ple:k:es of unphysical objects made up of ele- ments which we call sensations. And this material which, through the objectification, has lost all its inner teleological ties, has not even the chance to enter into any direct cau- sal connections. The physical phenomena can and must be conceived as causally con- nected, the psychical not. There cannot be causality where the objects do not last but are destroyed in the very act of their appear- ance; just this is characteristic of all psycho- logical contents. The world is physical, in so far as we conceive it as identical with itself in ever new experiences, and to elaborate this self-identity of the material universe is the meaning of the causal treatment. The ob- ject is psychical just in so far as it is not iden- tical in new experiences, but is created anew in every act. Therefore there is no direct causal connection of the psychologized in- ner life; therefore there is only an indirect causal explanation of psychical phenomena 27 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA possible in so far as they can be conceived as accompaniments of physiological processes. In short, even the full conscious mental facts do not really hang together when viev/ed from a psychological point of view and are thus unfit to explain any results through their causal interplay; they are epiphenomena, and the causal working of the objectified con- scious facts goes on in the physiological sub- stratum. How misleading, therefore, to in- vent and to construct subconscious psychical phenomena for the express purpose of pro- ducing causal results instead of leaving that to the safe action of the cerebrum. The only motive for doing it is the popular confusion, — certainly not unfrequent even among psy- chologists, — which does not discriminate be- tween the psychological material as part of the world of phenomena and the teleological significance of our inner life in the world of meaning. The will as purpose binds by its meaning the facts of immediate life together and enters as such into ethics or law or his- tory, but the will as psychological content of consciousness does not bind anything and does not point to anything beyond itself; it is pimply a passing phenomenon. And yet only 28 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA in this unreal form, constructed by abstrac- tions and conceptions, the will can enter into the system of descriptive and explanatory science. In the explanatory system of psy- chology the purpose as such does thus not explain anything, just as astronomy has learned that the sixteenth century mixed the categories when the beauty of certain astron- omical curves was taken as the actual cause for certain astronomical movements. There is thus no reason to conceive a psy- chical fact existing outside of consciousness, — and that corresponds to the only significant meaning of consciousness. Consciousness is nothing which can be added to the existing mental facts, but it indicates just the existence of the psychical phenomena. Consciousness cannot do anything, cannot look here and there and shine on some ideas and leave oth- ers without illumination. No, consciousness means merely the logical relation point of its contents; the psychical phenomena are in consciousness as the physical phenomena are in nature; there cannot be physical phenom- ena outside of nature. Seen in this way the psychologist must sharply separate those pathological cases which really show posi- 29 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA tlve abnormal phenomena in the conscious facts themselves and those which from the standpoint of consciousness present negative occurrences only, — blanks where ideas are expected. To the first class belongs, for in- stance, the alternating personality; that is an abnormal grouping of psychical experiences. To the second class belong all those various phenomena which give rise to the theory of dissociated or automatic subconscious psychi- cal processes. The dissociated idea is psy- chologically not existent just as the ticking of the clock in my room does not exist for me when my attention is turned to my reading; the ticking reaches my brain and may there have after-effects, but the sound-sensation is inhibited. In this way all that which sug- gested the theory of the mental subconscious becomes simply increased or decreased inhibi- tion. Why the mental accompaniments of certain physiological processes are some- times inhibited must of course itself be ex- plained physiologically; everything seems to point to the relation between sensory excite- ment and the openness or closedness of the motor channels of discharge. It is true that such physiological explana- 30 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA tion gives small foothold for that mystical expansion of the theory which seemed so eas Ily reached from the subconscious mental life. But It Is not the least merit of the scientific physiological explanation that It ob- structs the path of such pseudophilosophy. Psychology even If it takes in psychological phenomena which lie under the cover of the subconscious, can never be the starting point for a metaphysical view of reality because, as we pointed out, the psychological material has been reached by an artificial transforma- tion of the real life experience. The psycho- logical phenomena are as unreal as the atoms which mathematical physics constructs for its logical purposes. If we seek real philosophy we must go back to the true Immediate will experience out of which the psychological constructions are shaped but which is as such not possible object of description. An inter- pretation and appreciative understanding of this real life, even in the most idealistic phil- osophy, can then never conflict even with the most radical physiological explanation of ab- normal psychology. The physiological psy- chologist thus ought carefully to avoid the language of the subliminal self theory as It 31 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA flows over too easily into antiphilosophy. But he has no reason to avoid the language of the dissociated-idea, theory — provided that the psychological word is taken as a short label for the very complex neural phy- siological process. If I had to write the his- tory of Miss Beauchamp I should conceive all subconscious processes in physiological conceptions, but I should describe them, for clearness and convenience sake, as the mas- ter of our symposium has so masterly done, in the terms of psychological language. 32 CHAPTER TWO BY THEODORE RIBOT Professor of Psychology, College de France THE question of the subconscious is so broad, so complex and so ob- scure that I shall be content if, in the brief remarks which fol- low, I succeed in throwing even a little light upon it. In this question we must distinguish two sides: the positive, composed of facts; and the hypothetical made up of theories. With regard to the facts, I find it advan- tageous to establish two categories: First: The static subconscious, comprising habits, memory and, in general, all organized knowledge. It is a state of conservatism, of repose (albeit relative), since representa- tions undergo incessant corrosions and meta- morphoses within themselves. Second: The dynamic subconscious which is a latent state of activity, of incubation and elaboration. Authors who have treated this 33 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA subject, have furnished examples of it in pro- fusion. From this source comes inventive work, inspiration in all sorts of discoveries, improvisation and even — to a feebler degree and in a more modest form — sudden repar- tee and bons mots; in short everything which sparkles forth from us spontaneously. Naturally, discussion and conjecture have focussed by preference upon the subconscious processes we call "dynamic," since these are the most varied and the most fertile in re- sults. On the nature of this subconscious activity, however, one finds only discord and obscur- ity. "Doubtless, one may maintain that, in the case of the inventor, everything goes on in the subconscious as it does ordinarily in consciousness itself, barring a message which does not reach the e^o; that the work which one may follow in consciousness, with its ad- vances and its retrocessions, is identical with what goes on without our knowledge. Such an hypothesis is possible, but far from proved. Again, concerning the essential nature of subconscious activity, two diametrically op- posed theories have been put forward : 34 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA The first (Myers, Delboeuf and other more recent authors) bears the stamp of a peculiar biologic mysticism. According to these authors, in certain men subconscious activity is invested with almost supernatural power, not only of a trophic and physio- logic, but also of a psychologic order, and constitutes in the individual an intermediate link between the human and the divine. The second, which has attained its most complete expression in Boris Sidis' book on suggestion, draws this picture of our subcon- scious, which is far from flattering: it (the subconscious) is stupid, uncritical, extremely credulous, without morality, and its principal mental mechanism is that of the brute — asso- ciation by contiguity. In my opinion two such hypotheses are not at bottom irreconcilable, since the above ad- vantages and defects make an integral part of human nature taken in its totality, and since they are unequally distributed among men. A much more important question, how- ever, is that of the ultimate nature of sub- conscious activity. Although many authors have tried to evade it by enveloping it in ob- scurity and doubt, it comes back to this inex- 35 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA orable dilemma, — psychologic or physiolog- ic? The psychologic solution rests upon an equivocal use of the word conscious. The conscious bears an unvarying stamp : it is an internal event, which exists, not in itself, but for me and in so far as it is recognized by me. Now, this solution admits that, if from the clear realm of consciousness one descends to the "marginal" consciousness and finally continues to go lower and lower to the un- conscious, which only manifests itself by mo- tor reactions, the primitive state thus impov- erished continues to remain to the end identi- cal in its essence with the conscious. Under- lying the psychologic theory, in all its forms, there is the tacit hypothesis that the conscious is assimilable to a quantity which may de- crease indefinitely without ever reaching zero. It is a postulate which nothing justi- fies. The experience of psychophysicians with regard to the "threshold" of the con- scious, without settling the question, would rather justify the contrary opinion: the per- ceptible minimum appears and disappears brusquely. This fact and others which might easily be pointed out seem to me un- 36 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA favorable to the hypothesis of the increasing or decreasing continuity of the conscious. The physiologic solution is simple and comprises few variants. It maintains that subconscious activity Is purely cerebral; the psychic factor which ordinarily accompanies the work of the nervous centres Is absent. I Incline toward this hypothesis, without dis- regarding its shortcomings and Its difficul- ties ; but, at least, it seems to me not contra- dictory as is the adverse hypothesis. It has been established by numerous experiences (Fere, BInet, Mosso, Janet, Newbold, etc.) that unconscious sensations (not apper- celved) act, since they produce the same re- action as conscious sensation, and Mosso has been able to maintain "that the testimony of consciousness is less reliable than that of the sphygmograph," but there are cases more complex. For Instance, that of Invention Is quite different, for it does not merely sup- pose the adaptation to an end which the phy- siologic factor would suffice to explain; it Im- plies a series of adaptations, corrections, and rational operations whose nervous action of Itself furnishes us but few examples. In spite of everything, I am coming more and 37 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA more to the side of the physiologic hypothesis and am quite in accord with the opinion re- cently set forth in America by Jastrow, and more clearly by A. H. Pierce in his "Studies in Philosophy and Psychology" (1906), in which he has presented in favor of the cere- bral interpretation such an excellent plea that further attempts in this line seem to me use- less. There still remains the question of double personality, or to be more exact, of multiple personality. At the present time the majority of psy- chologists admit that the ego^ the person, is a synthetical complex, which in its normal state, is made up of relatively stable ele- ments, in spite of incessant variations. In the abnormal cases, when a new personality arises, one can scarcely doubt that the sub- conscious lends its aid to its formation; on the one hand, in its static form, by the resur- rection of habits or of memories which seemed lost; on the other hand, in the appari- tion of intellectual or moral dispositions — higher or lower, good or evil, — which, latent until then, characterize the new ego. This psychologic problem is nevertheless 38 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA quite different from that concerning the na- ture of the subconscious. This new synthe- sis, of which the subconscious furnishes only the materials (and these only in part), de- pends upon profound causes, probably phy- siologic, having their roots in cenesthesia. Whatever opinion one may emit upon this last cause, it is a distinct study which begins here; subconscious processes play a role which is secondary and subordinate and are, properly speaking, a result, an effect. 39 CHAPTER THREE BY JOSEPH JASTROW Professor of Psychology, University of Wis- consin TO one who has devoted a volume* to an exposition of subconscious phenomena, the invitation to contribute to a symposium is naturally interpreted as a re- quest for a statement of the underlying and supporting conceptions of the work in ques- tion. The difficulty in meeting this request is inherent in the phenomena themselves ; for it is the nature of these to require delicate shadings and gradings and all the complex blendings of a difficult chiaroscuro, in order to shape the resulting delineation into a sig- nificant picture. Yet when addressed to those who are familiar with the picture and its genre, and equally with the elements and *The Subconscious. Part three is especially germane to the considerations here presented. 40 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA the technique of the composition, a sketch with reenforced contours and unconcern for transitions and corrections will meet with ready interpretation. I deem it a fundamental requisite of any adequate conception of the subconscious that it makes vital connection with the ordinary range of normal mental procedure, finding a natural place in an evolutionary interpreta- tion of psychic function, and interpretable likewise in (general) terms of neural dispo- sition. Such conception finds an equal obliga- tion to discover and decipher within the range of normal fluctuations, a great diversi- ty of relations, — of excess and abeyance, of distortion, temperamental facilitation and exaggeration and impediment, — that suggest unmistakably the minor abnormalities of sub- conscious function. It is difficult to overem- phasize the significance of this intermediate realm. There are to be sought the sources of the streams, whose waters in turbulent confusion break through their normally con- fining channels in seeming lusus naturae. With these obligations fairly met, the con- ception may confidently yet tactfully enter the perplexing field of the abnormal, and in so 41 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA doing will be disposed to emphasize once more the transitory, superficial, introspective- ly controllable procedures, that in their es- trangement maintain some correspondence, — fragmentary, uncertain, elusive, or even in- coherent in part though it be — with the nor- mal home relations. Thus rooted firmly in normal procedure, the conception may under- take the special analysis of the complexly ab- normal. The aspect of the resulting conception would admittedly be seriously altered if it should prove necessary in order to account for the abnormal varieties of experience, to assume a system of psychic relations in en- largement or correction of those seemingly adequate for normal psychology, and then in turn to revise the current psychological conception by a restatement in the light of the abnormal. Those who feel themselves forced by logical considerations or impelled by temperamental or philosophical prefer- ence to have recourse to such a remodeling of psychological relations have for the most part — and with wide diversity among them- selves — proposed some form of secondary consciousness, coordinate or subordinate al- 42 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA ter ego, subliminal self. Finding, notably in cases of disordered personality, a system of mental possessions and facilities seemingly out of relation to those of the normal self, they have concluded that there must regular- ly be such psychic satellites in the orbit, the presence whereof is not created but only re- vealed by a favoring eccentricity. They point out the notable range of experience, difficult of explanation, which the supposition of such a psychic relation might illuminate; and ar- gue that any supposition that dispenses with such a psychic co-partner must in turn resort to devious assumptions to include within its explanatory scope the aforesaid divergent ex- periences. For the tendency of this "dualistic" hypo- thesis to make alliance with extreme and gra- tuitous assumptions, the scientific formula- tion thereof need not be held accountable.^ *The argument from alleged supernormal powers in freedom from or violation of accepted physical and mental limitations, the psychologist is hardly called upon to consider; though its actual prominence in the literature will excuse the comment that such use of the hypothesis but imposes an additional burden to be borne, and does not contribute to the logical force of the argument. To one firmly convinced of the truth 43 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA The mass impression of the realm as of the detailed features, the entire trend of psycho- logical investigation and of so much of in- sight as illumines psychic procedure, seems to me overwhelmingly and consistently to bear against any such assumption, even when most objectively and logically .shaped. Here the ways divide. While investigation and ac- cumulation of data may proceed profitably without raising this issue, systematic interpre- tation cannot go far without revealing the formative trend of the underlying conception. To me the subconscious is psychologically sig- nificant and logically defensible only under some form of concept that clusters about the organic unity of the mind, and from such a base surveys in orderly sequence of relation, the divergent realm of minor and major ab- normalities. The explanation of subconscious proce- dure under this unitary conception is still be- set with hypothesis ; the sketch thereof made by any one artist inevitably reflects a favorite perspective, an allegiance of school and meth- of the "supernormal" data, the entire physical and mental world — quite as legitimately as the subcon- scious — may require an entire reconstruction. 44 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA od. Fundamentally the range of subconscious function must find a place in the mental sys- tem by reason of fitness or use, reenforced and developed by evolutionary influences, ul- timately of a highly intricate nature. The degree as well as the manner of feeling- awareness^ that attaches to functions that may qualify for a place in the psychic system is conditioned by the value of such an accom- paniment or privilege in the functional effi- ciency. Fundamentally the subconscious status of certain functions is an expression of the mode of their representation in the physio- logical and psychological economy. It is a fact that influences in the shape of all sorts and conditions of stimuli, play upon the neu- ro-psychic equipment and modify its expres- sive behavior. If the reactions to such stim- uh demanded an equable distribution of feel- ing-awareness throughout their range, there would be no provision (or a very different one) for subconscious functioning. The dis- tribution of awareness as attaching to higher and lower, reflex and simply automatic and ^At times a neutral term without the inevitable im- plications of "consciousness" is useful. For this I suggest feeling-awareness. 45 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA automatically familiarized behavior, sets forth this relation; as, again, direct experi- mentation by an "impressionistic" response to aspects of stimuli equalized beyond explicit differentiation or recognition corroborates the result. The analysis of subconscious procedure ac- quires additional complexity through the in- herent many-sidedness of acquisition and ex- pression. Through the facilitation brought about by experience, a lesser degree of awareness, a suppressed variety of its pres- ence, accompanies — the sensitiveness to and the interpretation of outer stimuli as well as the voluntary aspect of the response (initia- tive). An equally important determinant is the distribution of the attentive attitude, in itself a fundamental factor of the psychic procedure. Peculiarly prominent in all is the will-like, consenting aspect of the Incorpora- tive process, by virtue of its Intimate affilia- tion with the personal flavor of conduct, as through the selection and direction and in- tegration of experience, a self emerges, ma- tures and expands. When the direction of interest in subcon- scious functioning is shaped towards an in- 46 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA elusion of abnormal relations, there are oth- er obligations to be met. My exposition in- dicates my conviction that the conception thus emerging from the study of the normal legit- imately and fairly applies to the abnormal field. The most instructive variety of the domestic species revealing relatively pro- nounced or independent subconscious func- tioning, I find in the diversified lapses popu- larly termed absent-mindedness. Though evanescent and superficial, the disengagement of the normally accompanying "privileges" of complete consciousness presented in such cases, and again their amenability to analysis constitutes this domain a peculiarly instruc- tive example of what is meant by the subcon- scious in working trim. It is equally fortu- nate for the comprehension of the abnormal that so intrinsically abnormal a procedure as dreaming should be so common; and this both as furnishing a familiar alteration of mental state (physiologically conditioned), and as revealing the normality of the easy- going, revery-like, streams of mental occupa- tion that constantly and characteristically contribute to the psychic life. The variants of dream states, the drug in- 47 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA toxications, trance and hypnosis present anal- ogies of release, impairment and rearrange- ment of function in further extension of dreaming and mental abstraction. Abnor- mality in these regions is a shifting matter and centers about the orientation of the sub- ject to his environment. Such orientation is variously interfered with by the invasions of projections from the inner world (analogous to those of trance, hypnosis, delirium, drug intoxication), or by the allied alternations and entanglements of rival syntheses of ex- perience (multiple personality and the like). Such dissociations frequently betray their ori- gin in subconsciously assimilated experience, and their growth by a like disenfranchised rumination, while differently instructive, are the more sudden curtailments of distortions of orientation in disintegrating lapses, not uncommonly of a "shock'' origin. Through- out this series the type characteristics far outweigh in importance the vagaries of de- tailed manifestations, while the analyses of retention to loss, of one conscious synthesis to its rival (notably in the hysterical anaes- thesias) are peculiarly significant in their rev- elation of the standard modus operandi of 48 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA the abnormally subconscious, of the inter- course between dissociated groupings of func- tion. The fundamental difficulties surrounding this aspect of the conception are two: (i) the synthesizing of the products of such func- tioning into seceding systems (not merely sporadic states) ; (2) with or without such synthesis, the extreme elaboration of the products in specialized directions. Popularly this dual difficulty appears in the willingness to admit that absent-mindedness, dreaming, and simple suggestion are amply accounted for by a normally related conception^ of sub- *The most baffling group of subconcious facilities of a clearly normal type are the operations of arithmetical prodigies and related proficiencies. The determination of the status of these is a definite obligation which psychology has not yet met. There are beginnings and a few notable analyses; in the main, the results seemed to me so unsatisfactory that I was reluctantly com- pelled to all but omit them from my survey. I believe that in suitable cases the application of the methods used in cases of shifting personality, to the procedures in calculating prodigies, will reveal a more intimate insight into the subconscious facilitating steps, and that these will conform to the general conception here ad- vanced. The investigation seems at all events desirable and promising. 49 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA consciousness, but that trance states (like those of Mile. Helene Smith) and conflicting personalities (like the case of Miss Beau- champ) remain enigmatic. Hence it is well that explanation should be addressed to the rational or imaginative elaboration, and to the "doubling" or rival, seceding, or de- tached synthesis. The inherent difficulty of each phase lies in its participation in the oth- er. The creative effort in Mile. Smith's Mar- tian extravaganza astonishes by its appear- ance as the work of a handicapped phase of her consciousness; the ingenious tantalizings of "Sally" are remarkable because directed against and concealed from another phase of her being. Yet once the dissociated-minded- ness be admitted, a further complexity of its application seems no serious obstacle to its admission; and particularly is it to be recog- nized that this pyschic synthesis can not only draw upon the reservoir of the common con- sciousness, but as well assimilate in like par- tial incorporation experiences of its own. The widening detachment (doubling) results accordingly from the capacity of the disso- ciated consciousness to shape its orientation (not alone its memory resources) by its own 50 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA contracted model. I have attempted to show that the status thus resulting is of one type or another according (mainly) as the "fault" thus arising is genetic (Miss Beauchamp) or is disintegrating (Mr, Hanna), — the latter the more suggestive of definite physiological variation. In each the demonstrated though gradual and hard-won fusion points to the underlying unity despite temporary psycho- logical (or physiological) barrier, as do also the occasional spontaneous intercourse be- tween one realm and the other and the arti- ficially encouraged pour purlers upon a neu- tral ground. In fine, the added complication of these admittedly perplexing embodiments of dissociated functioning do not constitute a warrant for a distinctive hypothesis, but sug- gest a warranted extension of the conception of dissociation as applied to more common and regular phenomena. That the concep- tion of dissociation must be shaped to include these is obvious ; and the chief importance of further data lies in the hope that they may render more precise and explicit the connota- tion of that uniquely significant term in mod- ern psychology. While pleading for the regulative val- 51 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA ue of normal psychological conceptions for the study of abnormal psychology, I am as ready to derive from the lat- ter pertinent applications to the form- er, in theory and practice alike. The dictum that the grosser and more pronounced abnormalities are but common deficiencies writ large works both ways. The frequent existence of restraining and impeding influ- ences of a subconscious order in normal in- dividuals follows directly from the central position. The release of these by appropri- ate mental therapeutics is thus justified as practical procedure by reference to the analy- ses and again to the practical results in pro- nounced and wayward hysteria and in genetic and disintegrating lapses of personality. In such justification lies a legitimate phase of popular and professional interest in the con- ception of the subconscious. Here as else- where, wise practice will wait upon sound theory. 52 CHAPTER FOUR BY PIERRE JANET Professor of Psychology , College de France YOU have set me quite a difficult task and one which I hardly feel capable of accomplishing to your entire satisfaction. You ask me to take a stand with re- gard to the metaphysical theories which are developing today and which seem to have for their point of departure the study of phe- nomena formerly described by me under the name of the "Subconscious." These studies, already old, since I published them between the years 1886 and 1889, do not permit me to take part in this serious quarrel; they have a much more restricted and much less ambitious range. While the researches of the present day, whether they have a spirit- ualistic or a materialistic tendency, attain to the summit of the highest metaphysics, my old studies, very modest as they were, simply endeavored to throw light upon, describe and 53 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA classify certain phenomena of pathological psychology. Disturbances of the notion of personality are freely met with in psychiatric studies. One finds not only disturbances in the con- ception which patients make of their own person, when they pretend to be a king or an animal, but also one very often meets with curious alterations In the assimilation, the in- corporation of such and such a phenomenon with that feeling they have of their own per- son. Indeed, It is undeniable that there takes place in us a certain classing of psychologic phenomena ; some are attached to the group of the phenomena of the outside world, oth- ers are grouped about the idea of our per- son. This idea, whether exact or not, which is probably In a great measure a product of our social education, becomes a center about which we range certain facts, while others are placed outside of ourselves. Without discuss- ing the value and the nature of this distribu- tion as It Is brought about In the practically normal mind, I state simply the fact that cer- tain patients attach badly to their personality certain phenomena, while others do not hesi- tate to consider the same facts as entirely per- 54 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA sonal. In the delirium of typhoid fever one of my patients used to say to me : "J^st think of my poor husband who has such a frightful headache ; see how my children suffer in their stomachs, somebody is opening their abdo- men." She attributed to other people the sensations of suffering which ordinarily we do not hesitate to attribute to ourselves. One meets much more often still with a somewhat different illusion in that large class of pa- tients which I have described under the name of "psychasthenics;" many of them repeat incessantly such remarks as, "It is not I who feel, it is not I who eat, it is not I who speak, it is not I who suffer, it is not I who sleep; I am dead and it is not I who see clearly," etc.^ It is easy to determine that in these pa- tients their movements are correct, their di- verse sensations are correctly conserved, even their kinaesthetic and visceral sensa- tions; but the subject nevertheless declares that he does not attach them to his personal- *Nevroses et idees fixes, 1898, II, p. 62; Obsessions et psychasthenie, 1903, I, pp. 28 et 307, II, p. 40, 351. 55 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA ity; as far as he may he acts as if he did not have them at the disposition of his per- son. A patient of this sort, recently de- scribed by Seglas, declared that he had no memory and acted as far as possible as if he had really lost all memory, although it was easy to prove that he had in reality forgotten nothing.^ The apparent trouble of memory just as the apparent antecedent trouble of sensation and movement was nothing more than a disturbance in the development of the idea and the feeling of the personality. Among these psychasthenics the disturb- ance of the personality is not total. It is clearly manifest in certain mental operations which may aptly be called superior, — that is to say, in the judgment of recognition by which the attention attaches the new mental content to the old, in language with reflection and in voluntary action. But elementary op- erations of the personality seem to be pre- served; consciousness, that act by which a multiplicity and diversity of states is attached to a unity, seems to survive. The subject de- clares that it is not he who remembers this ^Journal de psychologic normale et pathalogique, March, 1907, p. 97. 56 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA or that act, that it is not he who sees this or that tree, but he remembers it nevertheless and continues to see it. At least it is manifest to us that his mind continues to see the tree, since he describes the changes which takes placfe in it and tells us : "The tree is green, its leaves flutter, but it is not I who see it." The disturbance of the personal perception ap- pears not to be profound. This incomplete character of the disturb- ances of the personality is found in all the ac- cidents of these psychasthenic patients; they have obsessions but are not completely insane and always recognize the absurdity of their obsessing ideas; they have impulses but do not carry them out; they have phobias con- cerning acts but never real inability to per- form acts, or real paralyses; they have inter- minable doubts but no true amnesias. It is the striking trait of their character that they never have any symptom in its completeness, and this incomplete character of the disturb- ances of their personality falls within a gen- eral law. Now there is another psychosis, all the symptoms of which might easily be put in a parallel column with those of psychasthenics, 57 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA and that Is hysteria. This mental disease has for its essential characteristic exaggeration, the carrying to an extreme of all preceding symptoms. Instead of the preceding obses- sions with doubt, there are in the mono-deis- tic somnambulism of hysterics fixed ideas which develop to the most extreme degree, with complete hallucinations and impulses ; in place of doubt there is true amnesia ; in place of phobias we meet with complete paralyses. It is, therefore, interesting to see the form which the trouble of the personality, just de- scribed as incomplete in the previously men- tioned disease, will take in hysteria. Doubtless certain hysterics at times ex- press, with regard to certain sensations, judg- ments -analogous to those of psychasthenics. A patient formerly cited by Professor James used to say: "My arm is no longer a part of me, it is foreign to me, it is an old stump." This, however, is rather exception- al and most commonly one meets with a dif- ferent order of facts. In the wake of certain crises in which fixed ideas have developed superabundantly and completely in the form of feelings, acts and hallucinations, which we have called mono-ldelstic somnambulisms, 58 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA the patient acts as if he were completely ig- norant of what has taken place ; he does not doubt his memories, he does not declare them foreign to his person; he does not speak of them at all, he ignores them. The same sub- ject has both legs paralyzed for certain per- iods of time, and yet he does not merely say that it is not he who walks, he does not walk at all. If one pricks or pinches his motion- less legs, he does not merely say that the sen- sation is foreign to him, that it no longer be- longs to him, that it is not he who feels; he says nothing at all, for he does not seem to feel it in any way. The loss which the per- sonality suffers, the alienation of the phenom- ena seems to be more complete than in the preceding case. Shall we say, however, that the cases are in nowise comparable? The psychasthenic still retained his mem- ories, his voluntary acts, his sensations. It is true that he said, "It is not I who remem- ber, I who move and feel," but he proved that he did feel by describing correctly ob- jects placed before him. In the hysteric these psychologic phenom- ena are merely suppressed, it is quite another disease, and that is exactly what I formerly 59 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA tried to show, although In opposition to the opinion current at that time. With a little more precaution than is necessary with the psychasthenic but in the same way, by more carefully avoiding attracting of the patient to the expression of these phenomena, one may^ demonstrate perfectly their existence in as complete a form as in the so-called normal individual. Take the case of a young girl of twenty years who In her somnambulistic per- iods indulges In fugues of several days' dura- tion, far from the paternal roof. After her fugues she appears to have lost completely all memory of them, although she seems in- capable of telling you why she went away or where she went. Under distraction and while she was thinking of something else, I put a pencil in her right hand and she wrote me the following letter apparently without cog- nizance of what she was doing. — "I left home because mamma accuses me of having a lover and it is not true. I cannot live with her any longer. I sold my jewels to pay my railroad fare. I took such and such a train," etc. In this letter she relates her entire fugue with precision although she continues to contend that she remembers nothing about 60 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA it. Another case, that of a man who seemed to have both legs paralyzed, rapidly tra- verses roofs during a somnambulism and even during the waking state makes with his limbs any movements one desires, if such movements are called for under favorable conditions. These people who seem not to see clearly or not to feel anything in their hands, describe to you in a subsequent som- nambulism or by means of the writing of which I have just spoken, or by still other methods, all the details of objects placed be- fore their eyes or brought in contact with their hands. Are we not obliged to conclude as in the preceding case, that sensations are really conserved, although the subject tells us that he does not feel them? These are in- teresting though perfectly commonplace clini- cal phenomena, since it is easy to see that all hysterical accidents are fashioned on the same model. They are analogous to the de- personalizations of psychasthenics, but they are not identical with them. I tried to sum them up under the word "subconscious," which, from my point of view, simply desig- nates this new form of the disease of the personality. 6i SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA Since the time when I first began to employ the word "subconscious," in this purely clini- cal and somewhat prosaic sense, I must ad- mit that other authors have employed the same word in a sense infinitely more ambi- tious. The word has been used to designate marvelous activities which exist, so it ap- pears, within ourselves without our even sus- pecting their existence, and which become the source of our virtues, of our enthusiasms and of the divination of genius. This recalls that amusing saying of Hartmann: "Let us not despair at having a mind so practical and so lowly, so unpoetical and so little spiritual; there is within the innermost sanctuary of each of us, a marvelous something of which we are unconscious, which dreams and prays while we labor to earn our daily bread." 1 intentionally avoid discussing theories so con- soling and perhaps true withal; I simply re- mind myself that I have something quite dif- ferent to do. The poor patients whom I studied had no genius ; the phenomena which had become subconscious with them were very simple phenomena, such as among other men are a part of their personal conscious- ness and excite no wonder. They had lost 62 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA the power to will and the knowledge of self they had a disease of the personality, nothing more. In connection with these same facts and in making use of the same word, their theories have touched the great problem of the con- nections between soul and body, between thought and brain. Are cerebral phenomena always accompanied by psychologic phenom- ena? When psychologic phenomena dimin- ish, when they are reduced to their simplest expression do they not tend to disappear, and may not one then say that nervous phenom- ena subsist alone? May not certain coordi- nate movements which are but ill perceived by patients during their convulsions, and In choreas, be attributed to simple cerebral phenomena without interjecting the notion of psychologic phenomena? If we were really determined to baptize these physiologic phe- nomena without thought of the name subcon- scious, might we not on account of the anal- ogy of the name say that all the phenomena of somnambulism or of automatic writing is easily explainable "by phosphorescent shad- ows which flit across certain centers of the cerebral cortex" I 63 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA Far be it from me to discuss these fine theories which seduce certain minds by their scientific appearance, and which after all do probably contain some truth. I am content to remark, that that is quite another problem Doubtless the question of the connections be- tween thought and brain may be discussed with regard to somnambulism as well as with regard to nearly every fact of normal life, but in my opinion there is no good reason why this great problem should be particu- larly raised in this connection. The assimi- lation of the conduct of the somnambulist, of the execution of the suggestion, of a page of automatic writing, with incoordinate convul- sive movements is pure childishness. These diverse acts are identical with those which we are accustomed to observe in persons like ourselves and to explain by the intervention of the intelligence. Undoubtedly one may say that a somnambulist is only a mechanical doll, but then we must say the same of every creature. These are useless reveries. In our ignorance, we simply know that certain com- plex facts, like an intelligent reply to a ques- tion, depend upon two things which we be- lieve associated; superior cerebral mechan- 64 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA ism and a phenomenon which we call an effect of consciousness. We find the same charac- teristics in the so-called subconscious phe- nomena, and we must suppose back of them the same two conditions. To be able to af- firm, anything else we should need to possess precise knowledge concerning the expression of superior or inferior phenomena of cere- bral activity, concerning the loss of the asso- ciation of consciousness with cerebral phe- nomena, knowledge which we positively do not possess. Certainly it ought not to be with regard to half understood symptoms of a mental disease that we should try to resolve these great problems of metaphysics. In my opinion, we have got other psychologic and clinical problems to resolve concerning the subconscious without embarrassing ourselves with these speculations. You see that I am today more occupied than formerly with the relations which exist between the depersonal- ization of psychasthenics and the subcon- sciouness of hysterics. We must study the intermediate types which are met with much oftener than I had thought. It is necessary to determine if certain characteristics of the one disease are not found in the other. Does 65 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA not the hysteric herself possess a sort of in- sane belief which makes her relinquish cer- tain phenomena? Up to what point is she sincere in her declarations of ignorance? Does she not to a certain extent deceive her- self? By what steps does she arrive at the complete separation of phenomena which seem to exist in certain cases? Do the psy- chologic phenomena thus dissociated always retain their properties, are they not more or less transformed? The same problem pre- sents itself in connection with the muscular phenomena, for in the hysterical contracture it does not seem to me exact to say that the muscular contraction remains absolutely what it was in normal movements. There are many other clinical problems of great import- ance which it seems to me must be studied None of these researches can be made with- out exact and long continued observations carried on under good conditions, and the very least of them is to my mind more im- portant than all the huge tomes full of spec- ulations put together. It seems to me not difficult to gather from these few reflections the reply to your questions, or, at least, to 66 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA certain of them.^ [i. What do you understand by the "Sub- conscious?"] The word "subconscious" is the name giv- en to the particular form which disease of the personahty takes in hysteria. [2. Does "doubhng" (Janet) of con- sciousness ever occur whether normally or pathologically? If not, how would you ex- plain the various so-called subconscious phe- nomena of abnormal psychology (automatic writing, speech, etc.)]? This word is not a philosophical explana- tion; it is a simple cHnical observation of a common character which these phenomena present. [3. Does the subconscious always repre- sent or depend upon the doubling of con- sciousness? If so, must there be a lack of awareness on the part of the personal con- ^A series of ten questions were sent to each con- tributor to this symposium, suggesting points on which it was thought desirable to obtain expressions of views and to keep the discussion within certain limits. Pro- fessor Janet concludes with answers to eight of these questions. I have interpolated each question in brackets in his article before the answer in order that the latter may be understood. — Editor. 67 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA sciousness for the second dissociated group of ideas?] There exist all sorts of intermediate path- ologic forms between the doubt of the psy- chasthenic and the subconsciousness of the hysteric. [4. Is there normally in every individual a second group of co-acting ideas of which the individual is not aware (a so-called sec- ondary consciousness) ? If so, are such ideas discreet or systematized?] It is possible, for all pathologic phenom- ena have their germ in normal physiology. [5. If doubling occurs, is it always patho- logical ? If so, how do you explain automatic writing, post-hypnotic phenomena, like un- conscious solutions of arithmetical problems and similar phenomena in normal people?] Clear-cut phenomena truly comparable to the subconsciousness of hysterics are infinite- ly rare in the normal mind. When they are really noted by competent observers they must be regarded as unhealthy accidents of a more or less transient character, and in gen- eral, as I have always observed, of a some- what sinister omen. Furthermore, these discussions of the 68 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA words, health and disease are absolutely puer- ile and recall the sophism of the Greeks about the bald-headed man. A phenomenon is mor- bid when it is most often associated with oth- er symptoms of a well recognized disease and when it disappears with the disease. Such indeed is the characteristic feature of som- nambulism and of automatic writing, which can no longer be evoked in hysterics when they recover from their disease. [6. Do you include under the term sub- conscious all conscious experiences that have been forgotten, and which are capable of be- ing synthesized with the personal conscious- ness at any given moment regardless of whether the forgotten experiences are co-act- ing or not (Sidis) ? (In this case subcon- sciousness becomes co-extensive with the for- gotten and out of mind.) ] It seems to me difficult to reply to this question when we know so little concerning the form in which our memories are pre- served when they are not called forth. [7. Do you limit the term solely to the conscious states which are in co-activity at any given moment, but of which the subject is not aware?] 69 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA The word ''subconscious" seems to me rather to apply to this more clearly cut case. [8. Do you base the conception of the subconscious on the fact of awareness on the part of the individual for certain conscious states, so that there would be different de- grees of subconsciousness corresponding to different degrees of awareness? For exam- ple, as in absent-mindedness and as repre- sented by the theory of the "fringe of the fo- cus of consciousness."] There are evidently relations between all these phenomena, but we must avoid con- founding them with one another; analysis compels us to establish some discontinuity be- tween the facts. So here, my dear Dr. Prince, you have the answers requested. I fear that they will hardly satisfy your readers. An investiga- tion of this sort does not resolve the prob- lems once and for all; it merely brings the different opinions into competition as they were before. I hope that it may interest at least some few and lead them to psychologi- cal observations which will be of lasting util- ity to science. 70 CHAPTER FIVE BY MORTON PRINCE Professor of Neurology, Tufts College Med- ical School IN the prefatory note to this symposium six different meanings in which the term "subconscious" is nowadays used were defined. All but the first and fourth of these meanings involve dif- ferent interpretations of the same observed facts. In a symposium of this kind three of these only need to be considered; namely, those which Professor Miinsterberg has so clearly distinguished and explained, as the points of view of the layman, the physician and the theoretical psychologist. /As the first of these three hangs upon the validity of the second, we need only take up for discus- sion the two last. These two offer interpre- tations of facts which are not in dispute. Let me state over again the problem : According to the first of these two inter- pretations (Professor Miinsterb erg's and my 71 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA second type) , so-called automatic writing and speech, post-hypnotic phenomena like the so- lution of arithmetical problems and various abnormal phenomena, of the origin of all which the subject is Ignorant, are the mani- festations of dissociated ideas of which the subject is unaware and which are therefore called subconscious. Thus a "doubling" of consciousness results consisting of the per- sonal self and the subconscious ideas. I pre- fer myself the term co-conscious to subcon- scious, partly to express the notion of co-ac- tivity of a second co-consciousness, partly to avoid the ambiguity of the conventional term due to its many meanings, and partly because such ideas are not necessarily 5«Z?-conscious at all; that is, there may be no lack of aware- ness of them. The co-conscious ideas may be very elementary and consist only of sensa- tions and perceptions which have been split off from the personal consciousness, as in hysterical anesthesiae, or they may consist of recurring memories of past experiences. Un- der certain conditions by a process of synthe- sizing these Ideas and assimilation of them with a greater or less amount of the personal self, which is thereby attenuated, in its facul- 72 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA ties, quite large dissociated systems of sub- conscious ideas may be formed and give rise to the complicated phenomena for which an interpretation is desired. According to the opposing hypothesis, all these phenomena are explainable as the man- ifestations of pure physiological processes un- accompanied by ideas. The apparently intel- lectual and purposive acts as well as volition and memory are performed by brain pro- cesses alone to which no consciousness be- longs. Such acts differ only in complexity from such other physiological processes which carry on the digestion and other func- tions of the body, on the one hand, and the spasmodic jerkings and twitchings, seen in chorea, epilepsy and other abnormal affec- tions, on the other. "Unconscious cerebra- tion, Carpenter called it years ago. Which of these two interpretations is correct? Pro- fessor Miinsterberg is absolutely right in saying *'no fact of abnormal experience can by itself prove that a psychological and not a physiological explanation is needed; it is a philosophical problem which must be settled by principle before the explanation of the special facts begins." The principle is the 73 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA existence of dissociated subconscious ideas. Are there such things ? With the meaning of this problem well be- fore the mind it becomes manifest that be- fore the fundamental principle of dissociated ideas is definitely established, it is the sheer- est waste of time to discuss larger problems, such as the extent of the subconscious symp- toms, whether they belong to the normal as well as the abnormal mind, whether they form a "self," a secondary self (third mean- ing), etc. These and others are important but secondary problems. Above all is it a wasteful expenditure of intellectual energy to indulge in metaphysical speculations regard- ing the existence and functions of a mystical subliminal self (Myers), transcending as it does all experience and everything that even a "subconscious self" can experience. The point then which we have to determine at the very beginning of the inquiry is this : Do ideas ever occur outside the synthesis of the per- sonal self-consciousness under any conditions, whether of normal or abnormal life, so that the subject becomes unaware of these? Or, putting the question in the form in which it is prescribed to the experimenter: Do phe- 74 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA nomena which appear to be the manifesta- tions of a subconscious intelligence necessi- tate the postulation of dissociated ideas, or are these phenomena compatible with the in- terpretation that they are due to pure physio- logical processes without psychical corre- lates? 75 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA The only grounds which I have for believ- ing that my fellow beings have thoughts like myself are that their actions are like my own exhibit intelligence like my own, and when I ask them they tell me they have conscious- ness, which as described is like my own. Now, when I observe the so-called automatic ac- tions, I find that they are of a similar charac- ter, and when I ask of whatever it is that performs these actions. Whether it is con- scious or not? the written or spoken reply is, that it is and that consciously it feels, thinks and wills the actions, etc. The evidence be- ing the same in the one case as in the other, the presumption is that the automatic intelli- gence is as conscious as the personal intelli- gence. The alternative interpretation is, not that a physiological process is lying, because lying connotes ideas, but that in some way it is able to rearrange itself and react to anoth- er person's ideas expressed through spoken language exactly in the same way that a con- scious intelligence lies I 76 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA The phenomena which occur in the neatest and most precise form and which, from the fact that they can be induced, modified and examined at will, are best adapted for experi- mental study, are so called automatic writing and speech. We will therefore take these for examination and see if they ever require the interpretation of a secondary intelligence of a psychical nature. When automatic writing is produced in its mostly highly developed form, the subject with absolutely unclouded mind, with all his senses about him is able to orient, think and reason as if nothing unusual is occurring. He may watch with unconcerned curiosity the va- garies of the writing pencil. In other words, he is in possession of his normal waking intel- ligence. Meanwhile his hand automatically produces perhaps long discourses of diverse content. But he is entirely unaware of what his hand is writing and his first knowledge of its content comes after reading the manu- script. We then have intelligence No. i and writing manifestations which may or may not be interpreted as having been produced by a 77 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA conscious intelligence No. 2. But writing of this sort is not always produced with intelli- gence No. I as alert as this. On the contrary, often and perhaps most frequently the writer falls into a drowsy con- dition in which he imperfectly orients his surroundings, and if he is reading aloud ac- cording to the common method of conducting the experiment, he is only dimly conscious of what he is reading. This extinguishing of consciousness in intelligence No. i may go further and he may not hear when spoken to or feel when touched. He reads on mechan- ically and without consciousness of the mat- ter he is reading. In other words, he has be- come deaf and tactually anesthetic and blind to everything but the printed characters on the page before him, and for even these mind-blind. In this state then there is prac- tically extinguishment of all sense perceptions and intellectual thought, and finally the im- pairment of consciousness may be carried so far that he actually goes to sleep. Ask intel- ligence No. 2 what has become of No. i, and the answer may be, "He has gone to sleep."^ ^This answer was given by a subject observed while this paper was being prepared. 78 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA In other words, intelligence No. i has disappeared, but intelligence No. 2 contin- ues. Now to interpret the automatic writing produced when this great impairment of in- telligence No. I has taken place as subcon- scious phenomena and due to subconscious in- telligence whether physiological or psycho- logical is to overlook the facts as presented. These are not phenomena of a subconscious intelligence but of an alternating intelligence or personality. The complete suppression of intelligence No. i has left but one intelli- gence, that which had been under other con- ditions intelligence No. 2. Unless the phy- siological interpretation be maintained the writing has ceased to be automatic in the sense in which the term was originally used and has become what, for the time being, is the primary intelligence although a different one from that which was originally awake. I say different because if we examine the con- tent of the writing we may find it is made up of memories of past experiences which were entirely forgotten by the original intelligence No. I and gives evidence of a personahty dif- fering in character, volitions, sentiment, 79 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA moods and points of view, of a character dif- fering in a large degree from that of the waking intelligence. The writing may be an original composition involving thought and reason comparable to that exhibited by a nor- mal mind. Such compositions are of great interest from the light they throw upon the origin and development of secondary per- sonalities, but with that we have nothing to do here. At present the only interest we have in such compositions is the evidence which they offer for the interpretation of such a personality. That is to say, whether its intelligence is the exhibition of physiolog- ical or psychological processes. To arrive at a satisfactory interpretation, we must study the behavior of the personality to its environ- ment. If we speak to it, it answers intelli- gently in writing, though intelligence No. i fails to respond. If we prick the hand, we obtain a similar response and lack of re- sponse from intelligence No. 2 and No. i re- spectively, and the same with the other senses. It exhibits spontaneity of thought and its faculties are curtailed in the motor sphere alone in which it retains power only to 80 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA move the muscles of the arm and hand;^ but even here in the motor sphere its facul- ties are not necessarily so limited for it may break out into speech and may exhibit various sporadic movements. It has lost only a gen- eral coordinating control over the whole body. In the motor sphere, therefore, its loss is not so great as that which has befallen intelligence No. i. In fact, we have here a condition very similar to that of some per- sons in deep hypnosis. The main point is that now we have to do with an alternating intelli- gence, not a co-intelligence. Is it an alternat- ing conscioiisnessf The next thing to note is that in passing from automatic writing, which is performed while intelligence No. i is completely alert, to writing which is performed while this in- telligence is completely or nearly extin- guished, we pass through insensible grada- tions from one condition to the other and we must infer that the intelligence must he ^By this is not meant that it has the same degree of knowledge and capacity for intellectual thought pos- sessed by the original personahty, No. i, but only that it has all the different kinds of intelligence possessed by a normal person. 8i SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA the same in kind, physiological or psychologi- cal, which produced the writing in the one case as in the other. If the alternating intelli- gence in the latter case is psychological, the subconscious intelligence in the former must be the same, for there is no place where we can stop and conclude — here the physiologi- cal ends and the psychological begins. In the alternating intelligence producing automatic writing we have an alternating per- sonality. We have here substantially the same condition that is observed, first, in some hpynotic states; second, trance states; third, ^'fugues," spontaneous somnambulism and post-epileptic states; fourth a state not very different from normal sleep with dreams, for- gotten on waking; and fifth, certain states of deep abstraction. In none of these has there ever been raised the doubt as to the con- scious character of the intelHgence. All are "alternating" states and some are alternating personalities. In the first group, suggestions requiring conscious intelligence are compre- hended, remembered and acted upon; in the second, writing and speech are manifested which can only be interpreted as the product of thought; in the third and fourth, the 82 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA thoughts and dreams can afterwards be re- gained by certain technical devices ; and in the last the conscious processes are remembered. 83 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA Let us go further with our experiment and take a case exhibiting automatic writing where intelHgence No. i remains unimpaired. We hypnotize such a subject. When asked what sort of intelligence it was that did the writing, he replies that he remembers perfect- ly the thoughts, sensations and the feelings which made up the consciousness of which in- telligence No. I was not aware and that this consciousness did the writing. Still, it may be maintained that this in itself is not proof but that the hypothesis is permissible, that these memories are sort of hallucinations, and that in hypnosis what were previously physiological processes now have become re- awakened and have given rise in the hypnotic synthesis to psychical memories. We shall then have to go further and seek for addi- tional evidence. 84 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA Automatic writers may be divided into two classes; namely, those who at the moment of writing are entirely unaware of what the hand is writing; and those in whom at the moment of writing ideas corresponding to written words surge apparently from no- where without logical associative relation in- to the mind. Mrs. H., for example, is an ex- cellent automatic writer of the second class. At the moment when the pencil writes ideas which it is about to express arise at once in her consciousness so that she is herself in doubt as to whether she writes the sentence volitionally, or whether it is written auto- matically entirely independent of her will. Sometimes while writing, the ideas come so rapidly that unable to express them with suf- ficient celerity with the pencil she bursts out into voluble speech. To test her doubt, she is given a pencil and told not to write. Then she finds herself without control of her hand, and, in fact, the pencil writes the more flu- ently the greater the effort she makes to in- hibit it. In the midst of a suitable sentence I hold her hand and restrain the writing, and 85 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA ask her to complete the sentence by word of mouth, which of course she could do if it was her own intelligence, that is No. i, that was doing the writing; but she cannot complete the idea, showing that she does not really know what the hand was about to write. Again, Mrs. B. in hypnosis is told to write automatically when awake, "three times six are eighteen; four times five are twenty.^' After being awakened she is given something to read aloud; while reading the hand begins to write as previously directed, but she stops reading saying, that she cannot because the, to her, absurd sums three times six are eigh- teen, four times five are twenty, keep coming into her head. She cannot understand why she should think of such things. Now, are we to conclude that the mechan- ism of automatic writing in the second class of writers differs from that performed by the first class, and that when the writer is aware of the automatic thoughts the writing is done by psychical processes, and that when he is not aware of any automatic thoughts it is done by physiological processes? In every other respect, in content of writing and in behavior of the automatic personality to the 86 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA environment, we find the phenomena are the same. It does not seem to me that such an interpretation is justifiable. As I view this question of the subconscious, far too much weight is given to the point of awareness or not awareness of our conscious processes. As a matter of fact we find entirely identical phenomena, that is identical in every respect but one — that of awareness — in which some- times we are aware of these conscious phe- nomena and sometimes not; but the one es- sential and fundamental quality in them is automaticity or independence of the personal consciousness. Doubling and independence of the personal consciousness are therefore the test of the subconscious rather than ware- ness. 87 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA In the content of automatic writing we find evidence which It Is difficult to reconcile with a physiological interpretation. This was briefly touched upon before. When studied we find that the writing does not consist of words, phrases and paragraphs which might be mere repetitions or memories whether phy- siological or psychical, of previous experi- ences, but even consist of elaborate original compositions. Sometimes In Mrs. Verrall's writing they consisted of original Latin or Greek compositions.^ Sometimes, as in those who are Inclined to a spiritistic interpreta- tion, of fanciful fairy-tale-like fabrications. Sometimes they exhibit mathematical reason- ing shown by the solution of arithmetical problems. Sometimes they consist of in- geniously fabricated explanations In answer to questions. Sometimes they Indicate a per- sonal character with varying moods and tem- peraments. Feeling and emotion whether of anger, hatred or malice, kindness or amia- bility are often manifested. If such a docu- *Proc. S. P. R, Vol. XX, p't liii, 1906, 88 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA ment were presented as testamentary evi- dence In the ordinary course of human affairs, it would seem as if the burden of proof would lie with him who would insist upon in- terpreting it as without psychological mean- ing and as only the expression of a physiolog- ical activity of the nervous system without thought. 8$ SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA 6 Suggestions In hypnosis may result in post- hypnotic phenomena, which are manifesta- tions of an Intelligence which may be of a kind which cannot possibly be explained by physiological habits, as it exhibits logical re- adjustment of ideas of a high order; for in- stance, complex arithmetical calculations. The subject is only aware of the final result, being entirely ignorant of the process by which it was arrived at. Later this process can be recalled in hypnosis as conscious mem- ories. To assume that such a calculation can be performed by a brain process not accom- panied by thought would seem to require the abandonment of the doctrine of the correla- tion of mind and brain. In some instances, as with automatic writing, the subject be- comes aware of the automatic conscious pro- cess though ignorant of its origin. Are we to assume here again that the processes giving rise to the same manifestations, under the same conditions, differ in kind according as whether a subject is aware of them or not — in the former case being psychical, in the lat- ter physiological ? 90 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA The great variety of phenomena occurring in abnormal conditions are often explained by the patient in hypnosis as the manifestations of ideas (perceptions, hallucinations, memo- ries, emotions, etc.), which are remembered as such, though unknown to the personal con- sciousness. [This evidence does not differ in kind from that derived from automatic writing (3).] 91 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA 8 After all, as I conceive the matter, the one great difficulty In the minds of those who are unable to accept the psychological Interpreta- tion of subconscious phenomena lies In under- standing how we can have states of conscious- ness of which we are unaware. Conscious- ness Is represented as a functioning unity, and It Is difficult to accept the notion that all states of consciousness are not so synthesized as to form part of that great system which we dub self-conscious. Thus, consciousness is confused with ^^//-consciousness. This has come about because the onlyimmedlate exper- ience which anyone has of conscious states Is with that which belongs to his self, which is only another way of saying with that of which he is aware. All conscious states, so far as we experience them, belong to, take part In, or help make up a self, — in fact, the expression, "We experience" Implies a self that experiences. It Is difficult, therefore, to conceive of a conscious state that is not a part of a self-conscious self. It seems queer then, to think of a state of consciousness, a sensa- tion, a perception, an idea floating off — so to 92 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA speak— by Its lonesome self and not attached to anything that can be called a self. It is difficult to conceive of anything worthy of be- ing called a sensation or perception, excepting so far as there is a self to experience it; and yet it really is a naive conception to imagine that we are self-conscious of each and every conscious state that Is aroused In correlation with out nervous system. Such a conception is very much akin to the naive notion of scien- tific materiahsm which assumes, for the prac- tical purposes of experimentation or other reasons, that phenomenal matter really exists as such. Consciousness whether in an ele- mentary or complex form must be correlated with an Innumerable number of different phy- siological brain syntheses. If this is not so the whole structure of the psycho-physiology of the mind and brain falls. We have every reason to assume that some sort of a psychi- cal state occurs when any one of these asso- ciation-groups is excited to activity. (At any given moment the great mass of them is in- hibited.) There is strong reason to believe that though ordinarily there is a harmony In the functioning of these association-groups, yet at times there is considerable disharmony 93 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA and there is clinical evidence for believing that there may be some independence of ac- tivity, especially under pathological condi- tions (hallucinations, obsessions, etc.), of different brain syntheses. Without being obliged to determine what brain synthesis belongs to the personal con- sciousness at any given moment, we are enti- tled to ask why must we necessarily be aware of all the conscious states which may belong to each and every brain association-group ? Is this not a naive assumption? If it is true that dissociated brain systems can functionate (as in other parts of the nervous system), and if it is true that they have psychical equiva- lents, then whether we are self-conscious of any given state of consciousness must depend, it would seem, upon whether the brain pro- cess, correlated with it, is synthesized in a particular way with the larger system of brain processes which is correlated at a given moment with the self-conscious personality. And in so far as a brain process can occur de- tached from the main system of brain pro- cesses, so far can consciousness occur without self-consciousness. Unfortunately, we have scarcely a glimmer of knowledge of the na- 94 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA ture of the synthesis, and therefore of the conditions which determine whether we shall be aware of any conscious state or not. This is a problem in psychology which awaits the future. Nor is self-consciousness a neces- sary element of consciousness. The naive character of the notion that we must be self- conscious of our consciousness is shown by introspective analysis in intense mental con- centration or absent-mindedness. Here is no awareness of self, only a succession of ideas which adjust and readjust themselves. It is not until afterwards, on "returning to one's self," that these ideas through memory be- come a part of our self-conscious personality. It will be noticed that an essential element in the conception of the subconscious, as gen- erally held by students of abnormal phenom- ena, is the absence of awareness of the per- sonal consciousness for the dissociated ideas. A consideration of the facts in their entirety do not permit of so limited a view to which I am compelled to dissent. Theoretically, a conception so narrow prevents our obtaining a broad view of allied psychological phe- nomena, obscures our perception of the broad principles underlying them and hinders 95 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA a correlation of closely related conditions. Dissociation, with activity, independent of the main focus of consciousness, does not necessarily imply or require absence of awareness on the part of the latter, and prac- tically, as we have seen in discussing the phe- nomena of automatic writing, under the same conditions, a subject is sometimes aware of the dissociated ideas which are actively mani- festing themselves and sometimes not. The same is true of post-hypnotic and abnormal phenomena. Indeed, even when there is ab- sence of awareness on the part of the person- al consciousness, the dissociated co-conscious- ness may, per contra, be aware of the content of the former. For this reason, if for no other, co-consciousness is the preferable term. The one fundamental principle and criterion of the subconscious is dissociation and co-ac- tivity (automatism). When we get rid of this notion of awareness as an essential ele- ment, we are able to grasp the relation be- tween the subconsciousness of hysterics and the disaggregation of personality of the psy- chasthenic, a study with which Dr. Janet says he is now occupied. The obsessions, the im- pulsions, the fears, in short, the imperative 96 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA ideas of the psychasthenic are as much dis- aggregated from the personal consciousness as the same are in the hysteric, excepting for that amount of synthesis that gives aware- ness. Indeed, the hysteric may have a cer- tain amount of awareness, or awareness for some and not for other ideas. The only dif- ference then between an ordinary obsession and a "subconscious" obsession as commonly viewed, is that the subject is aware of the one and not of the other. Undoubtedly the condition of awareness alters considerably the resulting psychical content, as it brings in- to play various co-operative and modifying and in some measure adjusting ideas. This is not the place to enter into a consideration of the differences and likenesses between psy- chasthenia and hysteria, but I believe it im- portant to insist that lack of awareness is not an essential factor in the development of the subconscious, and furthermore that an ap- preciation of this fact will enable us to better correlate the different varieties of co-con- scious activities not only in various diseased conditions but with facts of normal mental hfe. 97 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA Those who maintain the physiological in- terpretation seem to me to involve thmselves in difficulties far greater than any offered by the psychological interpretation. It is a fundamental interpretation of psycho-physi- ology that all thought is correlated with phy- siological activities. Whatever doctrine we adopt, whether that of parallelism or psycho- physical identification, every psychical pro- cess is correlated with a physiological pro- cess and vice versa. We cannot conceive of a psychical activity without a corresponding physiological one. How then can we con- ceive of a physiological process of a complex- ity and character capable of exhibiting itself as a spontaneous volitional intelligence with- out corresponding correlated ideas? Surely this needs explanation quite as much as does a lack of awareness of conscious processes. Yet with a certain modification of our con- ception of the meaning of the physical, it is possible to reconcile both interpretations. As a panpsychist I find no difficulty in accepting both a physiological and a psychical interpre- tation. For those who accept panpsychism 98 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA there is no distinction to be made between conscious processes and brain processes of a certain order, excepting as a point of view. They become identified one with the other. The psychical Is the reality of the physical. I cannot conceive of brain processes except as objective phenomena of conscious processes, and I cannot conceive of consciousness ex- cepting as the reality or ''Inner life" of brain changes. So that we may Indifferently de- scribe automatic actions as manifestations of physiological activities, if we keep to one set of terms, or of psychical activities If we mix the terms. But in doing this let us not strad- dle and deceive ourselves as to our real posi- tion. In thinking In physiological terms we must not confuse ourselves and, by adopting a terminology, imagine that those physical brain factors are without psychical equiva- lents. To hold to a pure physiological expla- nation without the notion of anything psychi- cal as a part of their real nature. Is to postu- late consciousness as a pure epi-phenomenon, something that we can shift in and out at our pleasure, when we have brain action, and jug- gle with as a conjurer juggles with his coins, — now you see them and now you don't. 99 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA It may be that the final explanation of many conscious processes, if we would avoid the entanglements of metaphysics, must be in physiological terms, because it must deal with that which belongs to experience. We can experience physiological "after effects,'^ and by a simple inference go back to the phy- siological functioning forerunner, and thus perhaps explain memory, but, as Professor Miinsterberg so well points out, it is difficult to see how a comprehensible explanation of memory can be found in "mental disposi- tions," and on grounds, as I would state them, that such dispositions being out of conscious- ness we have no experience of them and can have no conception of what they are. They become nothing more than meta-physical con- cepts. For myself I cannot even think of a "mental disposition," meaning, for instance, a name or mental picture that is not at the moment a state of consciousness, whether subconscious or belonging to my self-con- scious synthesis. However this may be, I not only say with Professor Miinsterberg that "the physiological cerebration is well able to produce the 'intellectual' result," but it must be able to do so. The only question 100 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA is whether it is accompanied by, belongs to, or is another aspect of ideas. This can, to my way of thinking, only be settled by logical inferences from the observed phenomena, and I. have endeavored in what has gone be- fore to marshal the evidence so far as it ex- ists today in substantiation of this interpre- tation. lOI CHAPTER SIX The Conception of the Suh conscious BY BERNARD HART, M. B., M. R. C. S. Assistant Medical Officer, Long Grove Asy- lum, Epsom THE conception of the subconscious has of recent years acquired a dominating position in psychia- try. The utility of this concep- tion in the co-ordination of our knowledge, and its fruitfulness in suggesting new lines of research, have become so obvi- ous, that the opposition which it at first aroused has been almost altogether over- come. Considerable disagreement, however, still exists as to the precise meaning to be ascribed to the term. What is the nature of a subconscious process — is it a physical or "No fact of abnormal experience can by itself prove that psychological and not a physiological explanation is needed; it is a philosophical problem which must be settled by principle before the explanation of the special facts begins." — Munsterberg. I02 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA mental phenomenon ? This and other similar questions constitute a fertile source of dis- pute, and the Symposium which recently ap- peared In this Journal showed the very di- vergent views held by some of the Leading psychologists and psychiatrists of the day. The present paper is an attempt to investi- gate the essential nature of this conception, to determine Its claims to a place In the struc- ture of modern science, and the position which must be assigned to it within that struc- ture. It will be profitable to first consider the more Important stages In the historical devel- opment of the theory of the subconscious. Our next step will be an enquiry concerning the characters which modern science demands that a conception shall possess in order to qualify it for admission within its portals. We shall then be in a position to consider how far the conception of the subconscious satisfies these demands, and to determine its place and function In psychology. The history of all thought has been domi- nated throughout by an essential tendency of the human mind — the endeavor to obtain con- tinuity. The mind abhors discontinuity as 103 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA nature Is said to abhor a vacuum. It strives to bring every new experience Into line with the old, to do away with Inexplicable gaps, and to reduce Its world to a connected intelli- gible whole. Mythology, religion, and phil- osophical systems provide us with numerous examples of this constant endeavor. Science Is nothing but the same trend of thought be- come coherent and articulate. Now it was early seen In the history of philosophy that, among the contrasts to be observed between the physical and mental, one of the most prominent was the compara- tive discontinuity of the latter. The psychi- cal life made its appearance In an Irregular manner, in flashes of limited duration, and in the Intervals between these flashes it ap- peared to altogether cease to exist. In con- trast to this the material world seemed rela- tively continuous, permanent, and independ- ent of the individual. Hence, if the study of the mind was to be brought into line with the rest of our knowledge, an attempt had to be made to get rid of the apparent discontinuity and Irregularity of psychical experience. Such an attempt has formed an integral part of most philosophical systems. The method 104 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA adopted by the earlier philosophers, how- ever, consisted mostly In Imaginative and fan- tastic constructions, which aimed solely at in- ternal coherence, and which had but little re- lation to the facts. It was only after the method of the Inductive sciences had long demonstrated Its utility in other branches of knowledge, that an endeavor was made to apply it to the sphere of psychology. The first serious contribution to the filling up of the gaps in the psychical series was made by Leibnitz, who demonstrated that our conscious life contains small elements ly- ing outside its main stream, but which never- theless produce an effect by a process of sum- mation and combination. Schopenhauer ( i ) thought that a large number of our sense per- ceptions were the result of unconscious pro- cesses of reasoning — and the same theory was propounded In a more exact form by Helmholtz (2). By this period, therefore, the attempt to bridge the Intervals In the psy- chical series by processes of unconscious thought had taken definite shape. The question of the subconscious first, how- ever, became prominent with the publication of Hartmann's 'Thilosophle des Unbewus- 105 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA sten," in 1868. The Intense enthusiasm with which this work was greeted in the most var- ied quarters affords a striking demonstration of that hunger for continuity whose existence we have already noted. Hartmann con- ceived the subconscious as a second personal- ity concealed beneath the surface of our or- dinary consciousness, but precisely compara- ble to the latter in Its structure and functions. He appeals to this hypothetical being when- ever there Is a gap in the chain of visible causation, and endows it with properties of a really startling kind. "Let us not despair," he says, "at having a mind so practical and so lowly, so unpoetical and so little spiritual ; there is within the innermost sanctuary of each of us a marvellous something of which we are unconscious, which dreams and prays while we labor to earn our dally bread" (3). Hartmann's work is of historical Importance on account of the stimulus it provided to further investigation, but his use of the con- cept of the unconscious was so unbridled that the value of his actual results is almost alto- gether nullified. James has described his theory as a "tumbling ground for whimsies," and Hoffding remarks, "We may say of it, 106 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA as Galileo said of the appeal to an almighty will, it explains nothing because it explains everything" (4). Some of the most important advances in the historical development of the subcon- scious have been furnished by the French School of Morbid Psychology during the lat- ter part of the nineteenth century, initiated under Charcot and Ribot, and culminating in the work of Janet. In his classical "Automa- tisme Psychologique" the latter demon- strated that a large number of morbid phe- nomena can be adequately explained by as- suming the existence of dissociated mental elements altogether outside the sphere of the personality. Morton Prince has further developed Ja- net's point of view. He divides psychologi- cal material into that of which the individual is personally conscious, and that of which he is not personally conscious. Those experi- ences are personally conscious which are syn- thesized in the "personality." The experi- ences of which the individual is not personal- ly conscious are further divided into co-con- scious and unconscious. Co-conscious corre- sponds in the main to Janet's "subconscious" 107 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA — actively functioning ideas dissociated from the personality. Under unconscious are in- cluded the phenomena of memory, and in general all the ideas, traces, etc., which arc not at the moment actively functioning, and which are to be regarded as mere physiologi- cal residua. Any of these latter may at any time become conscious or co-conscious. Dr. Prince considers that the essential character of a co-conscious idea consists in the fact that it leads an autonomous existence, and is not dependent upon the ego-complex. Co-con- scious, therefore, does not necessarily imply that the ego is unaware of the idea in ques- toin. Thus, in the well-known case described in "The Dissociation of a Personality," one personality knows all the thoughts and ac- tions of a second, but considers them to be those of another being whom, indeed, she re- gards with unconcealed dislike. This exten- sion of the m.eaning of Janet's conception is very important, and enables us to throw more light upon the analogous manifestations oc- curring in paranoia. The most modern development of the doc- trine of the subconscious is to be found in the works of Freud, Jung, and the Zurich School. io8 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA Their conception is totally different from those enumerated above, far more different than is generally supposed. This point will be better appreciated after a consideration of certain philosophical questions, which will subsequently be discussed. We have seen that the concept of the sub- conscious mind has gradually developed as a result of the demand for continuity in the psy- chical series. This same demand for con- tinuity has, however, led to an endeavor to solve the difficulty in an altogether different manner. Certain philosophers asserted that the psychical was unreal, a mere epiphenom- enal product of the physical, and that nothing but the material existed. The brain was con- sidered to secrete thought as the liver se- cretes bile. This school reached its zenith in the materiahsm of Moleschott and Biichner — a crude and naive philosophy now general- ly discredited. Later authorities, however, while admitting the reality of the psychical, denied that it could be made amenable to the method of science. Thus Karl Lange re- quired that all psychological definitions should be replaced by physiological, and Miinsterberg asserted that "mental facts, as IQ9 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA they are not quantitative, cannot enter into any causal relation" (5). It will be seen, therefore, that these authorities consider that so long as we are dealing with psychical facts there can be no question of causation or of science. They must be first translated into physiological terms, and it will then be pos- sible to formulate laws concerning them, and thus to incorporate them into the structure of our knowledge. This school has been aptly described by Hoffding as virtually wishing to abolish psychology in order to convert it in- to a science. For the exponents of this theo- ry the question of the subconscious does not exist — consciousness and subconsciousness are alike to be reduced to physiological terms, and the difference between them consists merely in a varying mode of combination of the cerebral elements. Certain other authorities adopt a compro- mise — they are ready to consider conscious- ness psychologically, but the subconscious is for them nothing but an inappropriate name for brain processes which have no psycholog- ical accompaniment. The main question at issue between these various schools is, therefore, whether the 1 10 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA subconscious is to be regarded as a brain fact or as a mind fact, whether it is a subject for physiology or for psychology. The present paper endeavors to show that this question is in itself based upon a misconception and that its solution becomes at once obvious when the meaning of the terms is correctly apprehend- ed. As a preliminary measure it will be neces- sary to temporarily diverge from our main subject, and to shortly consider the general properties of scientific concepts. The philosophical consideration of the groundwork of science is a growth of com- paratively recent years. The earlier scien- tists contented themselves with practical re- sults, and did not consider the foundations upon which they were building. During the latter part of the nineteenth century, how- ever, the need for a precise formulation and definition of these foundations began to make itself felt. Hence there arose a school of critical philosophy unique amongst philoso- phical creeds in the fact that its exponents have been men eminent in the scientific world — ^Clark-Maxwell, Ostwald, Mach, Karl Pearson. Pearson's "Grammar of Science" III SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA remains the finest vindication in the English language of the principles, aims, and methods of modern science. The short exposition which follows is an endeavor to cull the es- sential points from its pages. But limitations of space prevent more than a short summary of the principal conclusions being given, and for the demonstration of their validity the reader must be referred to the original work. Science is characterized, not by its content but by its method of investigation — it em- braces the whole field of knowledge and is as applicable to history as it is to chemistry. It deals, not with a fabulous entity called "mat- ter," but with the content of the human mind, and acknowledges its incapacity to deal with anything which forms no part of that con- tent. The material of science is therefore human experience, what James calls "the flux of sensible reality." In other words, phe- nomena, of whatever sort or kind they may happen to be, constitute the material, while science is simply our method of treating this material. Now it is found that human ex- perience does not take place in an entirely haphazard and chaotic manner, but that the events follow one another with more or less 112 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA regularity and order. This is the principle of the uniformity of nature. The aim of science is to find a means of proceeding from one point of experience to another with the least exertion of mental energy, in other words to achieve an "economy of thought." Its method is, firstly, to take some portion of human experience and to classify the facts found therein into sequences; secondly, to find some simple treatment which will re- sume an indefinite number of sequences in a single formula. Such a formula constitutes a scientific law. The law is the more funda- mental the wider the range of facts which it resumes. It is not a mythological entity, it is merely a construction of the human mind to enable it to deal better with its experience. If we examine any scientific law in order to determine its essential nature, we find that it has no immediate reference to sense impres- sions, or, in other words, to phenomenal reality, but is purely ideational or conceptual in character. The meaning of this statement will be made clearer by taking an example, e. g., Newton's law that "every particle attracts every other particle." Now a particle is not a sense-impression; it is defined as an infinite- 113 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA ly small portion of matter, that is to say, a pure idea, formed by carrying what is given in sense impressions to a conceptual limit in the mind. "Newton is here dealing with con- ceptual notions, for he never saw, nor has any physicist since his time ever seen, individ- ual particles, or been able to examine how the motion of two such particles is related to their position" (6). Similarly geometry, with its points, straight lines, and surfaces, is dealing with entities which are frankly ac- knowledged to be conceptual in character, and to have no real existence in the world of sense impressions. The physical conceptions of the atom and the ether are precisely anal- ogous in their nature. We find, therefore, that science does not profess to mirror some hypothetical universe lying altogether outside the human mind, but simply to provide a con- ceptual model, a "conceptual shorthand," by aid of which we can resume our sense im- pressions and predict future occurrences. "The physicist forms a conceptual model of the universe by aid of corpuscles. These corpuscles are only symbols for the compo- nent parts of perceptual bodies, and are not to be considered as resembling definite per- 114 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA ceptual equivalents. We conceive them to move in the manner which enables us most accurately to describe the sequences of our sense impressions. This manner of motion is summed up in the so-called law of motion" ( 7 ) . We therefore reach the conclusion that science is simply a mode of conceiving things. The justification of science lies precisely in the fact that it does enable us to resume our sense impressions and predict future occur- rences ; its value as truth lies in its value as a working hypothesis by which we may be- come the masters of phenomena. Now there may be more than one mode of conceiving the same things, and which mode we adopt may depend on the practical neces- sities of the moment. Thus the mathemati- cian insists on regarding bodies as bounded by continuous surfaces, whereas the physicist is compelled to regard them as bounded by discontinuous atoms. Neither of these modes is more true than the other; the question is merely which one has the greatest practical value in the particular sphere of thought in question. Armed with these conceptions let us now diredt our attention to those fields which 115 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA more particularly concern us, and firstly let us consider the problem of the physical and the mental. What, in fact, is the difference between physics and psychology? We are us- ually told that there are two orders of phe- nomena, the physical and the mental, two series which are so qualita:tively different that the passage from one to the other is unthink- able. Concerning the relation between these two series innumerable philosophical battles have been waged, and science must approach the question with a due regard for the meta- physical quicksands which await her on every side. It was pointed out by Bishop Berkeley that sense impressions are the only things of which we have any immediate knowledge, and modern science, having with some diffi- culty duly digested this fact, has discarded the pretence that it is engaged in a research into "things in themselves," and has relegat- ed the latter to the limbo of useless figments. Being entirely pragmatic in its ideals, and having a criterion of validity measured solely by utility, it recognizes that its field is the content of the human mind, neither more nor less. The modern scientist cannot therefore be accused of sharing the vulgar conception ii6 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA that "reality" consists of "material sub- stance," which by means of "energy and force" acts on "spiritual substance," giving rise in the latter to "sensations" which mir- ror the external reality. What, then, does he mean when he distinguishes between the mental and the material? The answer is that he means two different modes of conceiving human experience. On the phenomenal plane the physicist and the psychologist are dealing with precisely the same entities, sense impres- sions; the distinction between them lies in their different conceptual methods of resum- ing these sense impressions so as to express them in simple formulae. The physicist re- sumes his sense impressions by means of a conceptual model involving space and time, whereas the psychologist regards them as act- ual or potential constituents of a conscious- ness. As Mach (8) puts it, there is a "change of direction" in their methods of research. The ultimate goal of the physicist is a com- plete description of the universe in terms of motion or mechanism, the ultimate goal of the psychologist is "personality." Neither method is in itself better, more perfect, or more real than the other, both have an equal 117 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA right to be incorporated into the structure of science, comparison between them can only be made on the grounds of utiHty. We are only entitled to ask by which method we are better enabled to resume our experience of the past and to predict our experience of the future. And the only answer to this question which it is possible to give in the present state of knowledge is that both methods are of value, and that neither can be abandoned in favor of the other. For the present the physiologist and the psychologist must be allowed to proceed along their respective roads. But there must be no jumping from one mode of conception to the other. The physiologist must not in- troduce a psychological conception into his chain of cause and effect, nor must the psy- chologist fill up the gaps in his reasoning with cells and nerve currents. The former error is comparatively rarely met with, the latter is unfortunately only too common. No phy- siologist would consent to admit "ideas" as active elements in the sequence of changes which take place in the nervous system. He simply points out that he has no use for such a conception, and that, so far from helping ii8 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA him in his explanation of phenomena, it viti- ates his reasoning, and destroys the validity of all his former concepts. The psychologist, on the other hand, is a weaker vessel ; he less commonly belongs to what James has termed the ''tough-minded" school of philosophy. He is usually prepared to humbly admit that the phenomena of memory are adequately ex- plained by the potential physical energy of a brain cell, and does not venture to suggest that the potential psychical energy of an idea is a conception just as valid, and with pre- cisely the same claim or lack of claim to real existence.* The distinction between the phenomenal and conceptual which underlies the principles *This exposition of the method of science is mainly extracted from a paper by the author, entitled "A Philosophy of Psychiatry" (Journal of Mental Science, July, 1908), which contains a more detailed investiga- tion of the scientific basis of Psychiatry. The term "sense-impression" has been used for the sake of sim- plicity. It can no longer be maintained, however, that the mind contains nothing but sensory elements. Thought and emotion involve factors which cannot be reduced to terms of sensation, in the proper mean- ing of that word. To be strictly accurate, "element of experience" should be substituted for "sense-impres- sion" in the above description. 119 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA given above, Is of fundamental importance. Anything which can be experienced is a phe- nomenal fact — a scientific concept is a con- struction of the mind which cannot be exper- ienced at all. A nerve fibre is a phenomenal fact, the nerve current which traverses it is a conception. The nerve current is not a por- tion of our experience, we only experience the results which we ascribe to it; in other words, we invent the nerve current to explain the phenomenal result. Similarly colors, chemical substances, falling bodies are phe- nomena; ether waves, atoms, the force of gravity are conceptions. Precisely the same distinction is met with in the scientific treat- ment of the psychological series, a fact which we shall hope to subsequently demonstrate. It is only within recent years that morbid psychology has become amenable to the method of science. It was necessary that ob- jectives should replace Introspective psychol- ogy, and that the presence of certain external signs should be regarded as indicating the presence of certain conscious processes, a de- duction from analogy which every man makes when he talks to any other man. With- out this assumption any scientific treatment 120 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA of the mental processes of the insane was ob- viously impossible. It is needless to point out that psychology must also posulate the existence of an absolute determinism within the psychical series. The law of causation forms the essentiaL basis of the method of science. Our conception of the nature of science, and its relation to psychology, may therefore be summarized as follows: ( 1 ) The psychical and the physical are two different modes of conceiving human ex- perience. (2) From the point of view of science we are compelled to postulate an absolute de- terminism within each of these modes. (3) The method of science is applicable to either mode. It consists in the more or less arbitrary division of phenomenal exper- ience into artificial elements, and the construc- tion of laws regulating the interaction of these elements. The sole justification of these laws consists in the fact that they en- able us to resume and predict our experience, and hence to achieve an "economy of thought." (4) Science does not claim that the ele- 121 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA ments with which it deals necessarily have perceptual equivalents, and it may ascribe properties to certain of these elements which are even contradictory to all perceptual ex- perience, e. g., a weightless and frictionless ether. The constructions of science are therefore largely conceptual in character, and must be sharply distinguished from the phenomena which constitute our actual ex- perience. (5) The various elements entering into a conceptual construction must all be of the same mode, they mxay be either physical or psychical, but cannot consist in a mixture of the two. We are now In a position to return to our main theme, and to consider in the light of first principles the various doctrines of the subconscious so far enunciated. It is at once obvious that we must funda- mentally disagree with those authorities who regard the subconscious as a brain fact and not as a mind fact. Such a view involves that jumping from one mode of conception to the other, from the psychological to the phy- siological which we have seen to be incom- patible with the method of science. A con- 122 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA ception must be In the same terms as the phenomena which it is designed to connect. We cannot conceive cells and fibres as the connection between two ideas. The concep- tions of psychology must all be constructed within the psychical series. Only in this way can psychology have the same air as its sister sciences, the construction of a conceptual model which will enable us to resume our past and to predict our future experience. The conception of the subconscious has been devised by the psychologist to explain certain psychological phenomena — it must be re- garded as a psychological conception. For the same reasons memory must also be regarded as a psychological conception, a conception constructed to fill up the gaps in the phenomenal psychic series. It Is, of course, true that memory is not Itself a phe- nomenal psychic fact, we only experience the recurrence of a certain mental process — we assume, in order to satisfy our demand for continuity, that it has In some way existed during the interval, and we invent the con- ception of memory to explain this continued existence. To the reader who has not ade- quately grasped the essential principles of 123 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA the modern philosophy of science this may appear to be a very unsatisfactory explana- tion of memory. He may object that if this is all that psychology can say in the matter he would prefer to adopt the physiological point of view, and to regard memory as the con- servation of traces in the brain. But he will find that the physiological conception of memory is no more a phenomenal fact than the psychological. He will find himself us- ing such terms as "nervous energy/' "per- meability of paths," and other purely concep- tual ideas, and he will finally begin to realize that his "conserved trace" is merely a con- ception invented to resume the fact that a certain brain phenomenon is capable of re- peating itself. Translating memory into the physical series does not make it a phenome- nal fact, it must inevitably remain a concep- tion. And if memory from both points of view is merely a conception, then surely if we are talking of the recurrence of mental phenomena it is a psychological conception. Both in this case and in that of the subcon- scious no useful purpose is served by sud- denly jumping into the other series, and all hope of discovering a comprehensive scien- 124 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA tific law is ipso facto abolished. To maintain that the subconscious is a brain fact and not a mind fact is precisely analogous to main- taining that the law of gravity is a psycholog- ical conception and not a physical concep- tion * *Munsterberg (see Chapter One) has objected that "Those who insist that the memory idea presupposes a lasting mental disposition and cannot be explained by physiological after-effect, only forget that the same logic would demand a special mental disposition also for each new perception. The whole mystery of an idea entering into consciousness presents itself per- fectly every time when we use ous eyes or ears." We cannot admit that this is altogether true — the logical extension of the doctrines enunciated above would be simply that every new sensation might be also due to a previous "mental disposition." But science demands of its conceptions that they should satisfy the criterion of utility. We construct a conceptual memory and a conceptual subconscious in order to explain our ex- perience — the conception of a previous mental dispo- sition for each new sensation would serve no useful purpose whatever. We have to admit that sensations appear in a mind without any antecedents in that mind, and there can be no scientific objection to such an ad- mission. Such an objection could only have force if we postulated a law of conservation of psychic energy for each individual consciousness analogous to that holding in the material world. If we adopt panpsychism we may assert the existence of psychic antecedents to every sensation, but these would not, of course, exist 125 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA The example of memory shows us that psychology, like its sister sciences, has its phenomena and conceptions. This is only a reiteration of the fact that sciences do not differ in their method, but only in their ma- terial. For the sake of simplicity we have so far spoken of the subconscious as if it were also conceptual in character, but this position now requires considerable qualifica- tion. It is of fundamental importance to recog- nize the fact that different authors when they speak of the subconscious not only speak from different points of view, but speak of totally different things. Morton Prince has pointed out that "the term subconscious is commonly used in the loosest and most repre- hensible way to define facts of a different order, interpretations of facts, and philoso- phical theories" (9). Hence it is meaning- less to predicate any statement of the subcon- scious as a whole without first defining the in the individual consciousness. In the present state of our knowledge such a speculation takes us beyond the limits of utility, and therefore of science. Pan- psychism may, however, be regarded as the Utopia of the psychologist. 126 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA sense in which we are employing the term. Dr. Prince has enunciated its various mean- ings in his prefatory note. By Stout and others the term is used to denote those marginal portions of the field of conscious- ness which are not at the moment in the fo- cus of attention. Here subconscious merely means "dimly conscious.'* Myers ascribes to the subconscious various supernatural properties which take his conception altogeth- er beyond the limits of science. We have already dealt with Hartmann's picture of the subconscious as a second self comparable in all respects to the personal consciousness. The remaining meanings are best illustrated by the doctrines of Janet and Freud, and we must now proceed to examine these at some length. We have actual experience only of our own conscious phenomena — we deduce the con- scious phenomena of others by means of anal- ogy in two ways, directly from what they tell us through the medium of speech, indirectly from their actions.* Now the subconscious *It may be maintained that our knowledge of the conscious phenomena of others is therefore really con- ceptual in character, as we ourselves have no actual 127 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA of Janet and his followers does not differ in its essential nature from any "conscious phe- nomena of others" with which we are ac- quainted — its existence is deduced on precisely the same grounds. This fact has been ably demonstrated by Dr. Prince in his contribu- tion to the symposium. If we hold a con- versation with a patient whose hand at the same moment writes of matters which are unknown to the personality, we speak of the subconscious phenomena attending the writ- ing for the very same reason that we speak of the conscious phenomena attending the patient's conversation. The distinction of the subconscious lies solely in the fact that it is dissociated from certain other "conscious phenomena of others," which we designate as the personality. The subconscious of Ja- net is, therefore, a phenomenal fact. It may experience of them. If conceptual is taken in an in- definitely wide sense this is of course true. But such deductions are on an altogether different plane from the conceptions of science. Relatively to the concep- tions of science they are phenomena, just as helium in the sun is a phenomenon — and both science and every- day life are compelled to treat them as such. To refuse to subscribe to this point of view would involve the adoption of Solipsism, 128 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA be reduced in complexity to even a single idea, but it remains a phenomenon. Janet himself has remarked, "These diverse acts are iden- tical with those which we are accustomed to observe in persons like ourselves and to ex- plain by the intervention of intelligence. Un- doubtedly one may say that a somnambulist is only a mechanical doll, but then we must say the same of every creature. The term *doubling-of-consciousness' is not a philoso- phical explanation; It Is a simple clinical ob- servation of a common character which these phenomena present." (lo) If, however, we now turn to the views of Freud and Jung, we meet again with the phenomenon of dissociation, but we find add- ed thereto a mass of conceptions of an alto- gether different character. Limitations of space prohibit any adequate description of these doctrines, and we must therefore as- sume that our readers are already acquainted with their main features. We are here only concerned with the general conceptions un- derlying Freud's teaching, and these may, perhaps, be described in our own terminology as follows: The subconscious {unhewus- stsein) is regarded as a sea of unconscious 129 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA ideas and emotions, upon whose surface plays the phenomenal consciousness of which we are personally aware. These unconscious ideas are agglomerated into groups with ac- companying affects, the systems thus formed being termed ^'complexes." These complexes are regarded as possessing both potential and kinetic energy, and thus are capable of influencing the flow of phenomenal conscious- ness according to certain definite laws. The nature of their influence is dependent upon the relation they have to each other and to the normally dominating or ego complex. The complex may either cause the direct in- troduction into consciousness of its constitu- ent ideas and affect, or its influence may be distorted and indirect. The indirect effects may be of the most various types — symbol- isms, word forgetting, disturbance of the as- sociation processes, etc. A single idea or image in consciousness may be conditioned (constellated) by a multiplicity of uncon- scious complexes. All this is surely very different from any- thing that we have hitherto considered. In what does this difference consist? What is ^n "unconscious idea" — is not this a mean- 130 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA ingless self-contradiction ? Has anybody ever experienced an "unconscious complex"? The answer to all these questions is simple — we are no longer on the phenomenal plane, we have ascended to the conceptual. Uncon- scious ideas and complexes are not phenom- enal facts, they are concepts, constructions devised to explain certain phenomena — they have not been found, they have been made. The implicit assumptions in Freud's doctrines may be expressed as follows : If we imagine certain entities which may be described as unconscious ideas and complexes. If we ascribe certain properties to these entities, and assume them to act according to certain laws — then we shall find that the results thus deduced will coincide with the phenomena which occur in actual human experience. This train of thought Is the analogue of that un- derlying all the great conceptual construc- tions of physical science — the atomic theory the wave theory of light, the law of gravity, and the modern theory of mendelian hered- ity. We thus owe to Freud the first consistent attempt to construct a conceptual psychology. The attempt is, moreover, a legitimate em- 131 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA ployment of the method of science, the con- struction of a conceptual model which will enable us to resume our experience. It is, of course, true that conceptions have to be em- ployed therein which cannot even be con- ceived as having a phenomenal existence. But we have seen that the same statement is equally true of the conceptions of physics. An unconscious idea is a phenomenal impossibil- ity just as a weightless, frictionless ether is a physical phenomenal impossibility. It is no more and no less unthinkable than the math- ematical conception^- 1. But objections of this kind do not in the least vitiate the use of phenomenal impossibilities as scientific con- cepts; the utility of such conceptions in physi- cal science will surely suffice to demonstrate this. It is only necessary to clearly under- stand that we are speaking of concepts and not of phenomena. Similarly when we speak of "complexes" we mean that it is convenient to conceive that ideas are bound together into systems, that these systems persist in the mind, although we are not conscious of them, and that they exert an influence upon the flow of phenome- nal consciousness of which we may or may 132 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA not be aware. The complex may be said to be the psychological analogue of the concep- tion of force in physics. Strictly speaking, it can never itself become a fact of experience, a portion of phenomenal consciousness. Cer- tain ideas, affects, and conative tendencies be- longing to the complex may become facts of experience, we may be aware that we possess the complex — but the complex as a whole and as a directing force can never be actually ex- perienced, it is a pure conception. This may be seen, for example, in what may be termed the "political complex." When the party politician is called upon to consider a new measure, his verdict is largely determined by certain constant systems of ideas and trends of thought which we refer to as his "political complex." He may be honestly convinced that he is influenced solely by an unbiased consideration of the pros and cons of the measure in question, but the psychologist knows that this is not really so. Even if the politician is aware that he is biassed, this complicated system we have described can hardly be present as a whole to his mind. The "political complex" is not conscious, and it is equally impossible that it can be co- 133 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA conscious. It Is merely a conception which enables us to explain the fact that when a certain man is confronted with a political sit- uation he will tend to act in a certain constant direction. We cannot agree with Dr. Prince when he says, "What is it that binds the mental ex- perience of an emotional railroad accident, an obsession, or of a subject or mood com- plex, or whatever kind of association it be in- to a system? The answer must be sought in the nervous system, not in the mind" (ii). We should prefer to say that it must' be sought in the conceptual sphere, not in the phenomenal. The conception of the complex is not, ex- cept in name, an altogether new departure in psychology. James's description of the vari- ous "selfs" (12) which determine a man's action can be immediately translated into the language of complexes. Similarly Hoffding, when discussing the theories of the Associa- tionlsts, has pointed out that "in the process of association it is the connected whole which exercises its powers over the single ideas" (13). The lack of a perceptual equivalent to 134 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA many of Freud's conceptions is very striking when we peruse such a work as the "Traum- deutung." Here the individual dream image is conceived as being constellated by a large number of unconscious complexes — as a re- sult of the combination and interaction of these complexes the single image emerges in- to consciousness. Can we form any idea of a state of mind in which all this mass of men- tal elements is actually and phenomenally present? We have no evidence whatever of their phenomenal existence, such evidence as we had, for example, in the case of automatic writing previously considered. Freud has himself remarked on this point, "How can one picture to oneself the psychical condition during sleep? Do all the dream thoughts (subsequently elicited by analysis) actually exist together, or after one another, or do they constitute different contemporaneous streams finally coalescing? In my opinion, there is no necessity for us to attempt the construction of a picture of the psychic state during dream formation. We must not for- get that we are speaking of unconscious think- ing, and this may quite possibly proceed alto- gether differently from the conscious think- *3S SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA ing with which we are acquainted" (14). Similar considerations apply to Freud's de- scription of the mechanism of word-forget- ting, mistakes in speaking, etc. It is this very aspect of Freud's teaching which has aroused so much opposition, be- cause the introduction of conceptual psychol- ogy has seemed so strange to those who have been accustomed to leave psychology- its phe- nomena, but to hand over its concepts to phy- siology. All these difficulties vanish at once when we remember that we are speaking of con.- cepts and not of phenomena. We are' no more called upon to picture what a mass of simultaneous unconscious ideas may be like, than a physicist is called upon to picture what an ether without weight and without friction may be like. It is of the utmost importance that the phenomenal and conceptual should be sharply distinguished when dealing with these questions. The neglect of this principle has. we believe, led to that confusion of terminology and treatment stigmatized by Dr. Prince in his communication upon the Subconscious at the recent Geneva Congress. It is best to limit the temi subconscious to the 136 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA phenomenal facts demonstrated by Janet, and to speak of Freud's conception as the "un- conscious," the literal translation of the Ger- man Unbewusstsein. Scott (15) has objected that Freud's doc- trine has revived an atomistic theory of psy- chology — but all sciences are compelled to more or less arbitrarily divide phenomenal continua into artificial elements. They de- mand, in fact, a "continuity of conception to- gether with a conceived discontinuity of the material." The conceptual theory of the un- conscious is, moreover, constructed on an al- together different plane to the philosophical system of the old Associationists, in which the elements were regarded as real, and the unity of the whole as unreal. It must be definitely understood that we are making no attempt to demonstrate the validity of Freud's conceptions. Such an aim lies entirely outside the scope of the present paper. Our sole concern is to show that his conceptions are cast within the legitimate framework of science, and that they have all the properties which science demands that a concept shall have. But if this be so, then the validity of Freud's theories must be test- 137 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA ed by the method which has established all the conceptions of science, the method of experiment and verification. They cannot be proved or disproved by a priori considera- tions. The conceptions must be applied, and the results thus deduced must be compared with the results which are actually found. The truth of a scientific conception is neith- er more nor less than its utility in enabling us to resume and predict our experience. We must now proceed further and endeav- or to determine the relation between Janet's subconscious and Freud's unconscious. This relation is often held to be one of rivalry, but if our analysis of the two doctrines is correct, this view must be erroneous. There can be no rivalry between a description of the phe- nomenal facts, and a conceptual model con- structed to resume these facts. The phenom- enon of dissociation has not been disputed by Freud — on the contrary, it takes a prominent place amongst the circumstances which he de- sires to explain. *His work lies on a deeper plane, his aim is not a description of the facts, but the conceptual explanation of these facts. We have here, in fact, that progres- sion by which the method of science is invari- 138 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA ably characterized. Firstly, the collection and classification of facts, represented here by the co-ordinated description of the phe- nomena of the subconscious or co-conscious; secondly, the construction of a conceptual model to explain these facts, represented by the theories of Freud. Precisely analogous advances are to be found in the history of physics. Kepler, for example, by classifying the successive positions in space of the plan- ets, demonstrated that each moved in an el- lipse, one of whose foci v/as occupied by the sun. Newton subsequently explained this fact by the construction of the law of gravity. It must be carefully observed that we have spoken throughout of the relation of Freud's doctrines to Janet's conception of the subcon- scious, not to Janet's work as a whole. There can be no question that this larger relation is to a considerable extent one of conflict. But this conflict only arises when Janet leaves the phenomenal plane and proceeds to construct conceptual generalizations. Thus his views on the essential nature of hysteria and psy- chasthenia, the separation of the latter as a distinct entity, the origin of obsessions, and other similar points — these cannot be recon- 139 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA died altogether with the teaching of Freud. But whatever the ultimate verdict on these theories may be, Janet's indestructible monu- ment will always be his vindication of the psy- chological method, his demonstration of the phenomena of dissociation, and a description of the facts of hysteria which has never been excelled in the history of psychiatry. We are now in a position to summarize the results of our investigation: The word sub- conscious has been used by various authors to denote facts belonging to altogether differ- ent categories, and it is necessary in the inter- ests of clearness that a terminology should be devised which will obviate this confusion. Ex- cluding those speculative interpretations which do not enter into the field of science, these facts may be grouped under three heads. Firstly, the marginal elements of phe- nomenal consciousness (the subconscious of Stout) , secondly, dissociated portions of phe- nomenal consciousness (the co-conscious of Morton Prince, and the subconscious of Ja- net), thirdly, a non-phenomenal conceptual construction designed to explain the facts of phenomenal consciousness (the unconscious of Freud). All these form part of the ma- 140 SUBCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA terial of psychology, none of them form part of the material of physiology. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. "Schopenhauer. Satz vom Grunde. 2. H'elmholtz. Die Tatsachen in der Wahrnehmung. 3. Hartmann. Das Unbewusste, quoted by Janet, JouRN. OF Abnorm. Psychol., June, 1907. 4. Hoffding. Hisory of Philosophy, p. 583. 5. Miinsterberg. Psychology and Life, p. 127. 6. Pearson. Grammar of Science, 2d ed., p. 281. 7. Ibid. 8. Mach. "De la Physique et de la Psychologic," L'annee Psychologique, 1906. 9. Morton Prince. "The Subconscious," Comtes Rendus, Geneva Congress of Psychology, 1909. 10. Janet. "The Subconscious," Journ. of Abnorm. Psychol., June, 1907. 11. Prince. "The Unconscious," Journ. of Abnorm. Psychol., Oct., 1908. 12. James. Principles of Psychology, Vol. i, p. 291. 13. Hoffding. The Problems of Philosophy, p. 18. 14. Freud. Die Traumdeutung, p. 205. 15. Scott. "An Interpretation of the Psycho-analytic Method in Psychotherapy," Journ. of Abnorm. 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