458 PHYSIOLOGY CHAP. 



opposition between the conscious reasoning self and the sub- 

 conscious self, expressed in the form of vague sentiments which 

 form our instinctive tendencies and impulses. To this want of 

 harmony between the conscious and the subconscious we must 

 refer the inequalities and incongruities of character and conduct 

 which are emphasised in persous to whom we apply the epithets 

 of unbalanced, eccentric, or mad. 



It cannot have escaped the attention of teachers and moralists 

 that these incongruities and irregularities in character and con- 

 duct are most striking during the period of development, when 

 the functional activity of the brain is incomplete ; they are less 

 prominent in adult life, when the nervous system has become 

 finally adjusted, and the passions of youth have calmed down ; 

 but they sometimes reappear in old age, when senile degeneration 

 if the nervous system sets in. This shows that the incongruities 

 and irregularities of character depend on incomplete fusion and 

 functional co-ordination of the hypothetical segments that build 

 up personality ; in other words, they point to the possibility of a 

 disintegration of consciousness. 



A still more definite indication of dissociated personality in 

 normal subjects, independent of their age, is described by William 

 James in the "sense of presence" that is often felt by people 

 endowed with a mystical, religious temperament. All the good 

 actions and works of charity which they perform are inspired by 

 a good genius, a guardian angel who is always present in the 

 depths of their personality ; all the selfish and passionate acts, 

 all the sins they commit, are due to the suggestions of a bad 

 genius, a tempter of whom they are aware in the darker, more 

 atavistic regions of their soul. In mystics no matter what 

 dogmatic religion they profess the " conscious " and the " sub- 

 conscious " are not really fused together into a single individual ; 

 the suggestions of the subconscious are perceived introspectively 

 as the product not of intrinsic causes or conditions, but of causes 

 or agents extrinsic to their own individuality. To complete the 

 doubling or disintegration of personality in a mystic, two further 

 factors alone are necessary the diaphragm that, in Myers' pictur- 

 esque metaphor, separates the conscious from the unconscious, 

 must become impermeable, and, in consequence of this complete 

 functional separation of the two portions of the mind, the activity 

 of the subconscious must be exalted till it becomes a co-conscious 

 psychical entity. 



Not altogether without reason, biologists and psychologists in 

 general have refused to recognise any very high order of intellect 

 in mystics. Often, indeed, as the critical spirit develops and 

 scientific culture spreads, the religious spirit cools and the halo 

 of mysticism disperses. "As science advances, God withdraws," 

 is the audacious dictum of Proudhon. We must, however, abstain 



