THE INTERPRETATIONS OF AUTOMATISM. 511 



seized upon by somebody. One refers hypnotic states to exces- 

 sive blood supply, another to diminished blood supply, another to 

 accumulation of waste products in the blood, another to inhibi- 

 tion of the association paths, another to inhibition of the frontal 

 region, another to inhibition of one hemisphere, another to inhibi- 

 tion of the entire cortex, and so on. There may be an element of 

 truth in some of these theories, but it is certain that no one is 

 suflScient to account for all the facts, even if the alleged super- 

 normal facts be excluded as non-proved. 



In fact, we know very little indeed about the brain processes 

 which are immediately related to consciousness, and consequently 

 many psychologists are reluctant to resort to them for explana- 

 tions of what goes on in consciousness. They prefer to limit the 

 inquiry to the facts and laws of mind and to formulate the phe- 

 nomena of suggestibility and automatism in mental terms alone. 

 It is not possible for me to analyze these theories here, as each 

 presupposes a knowledge of the particular psychological point of 

 view from which it is conceived. The ideas of inhibition of atten- 

 tion, interference with association, inhibition of will, influence of 

 imagination and expectation, figure largely in all these theories. 

 That which I have been developing in these pages belongs to this 

 type, but is distinguished by its free use of conceptions derived 

 from the theory of dependence. Assuming that consciousness 

 depends upon and indicates the existence of physical processes, 

 that these physical processes have the attributes of other physical 

 forces, that they in some way coalesce and interact in the brain 

 cortex, I borrowed these physical conceptions and applied them 

 directly to those mental phenomena which we regard as depend- 

 ent upon the physical. Thus, if the simultaneous grasping of 

 several mental facts indicates a coalescence of their physical bases, 

 and vice versa, then inability to become conscious of any mental 

 fact the physical basis of which we have reason to believe exists 

 would indicate that its physical basis had failed to coalesce with 

 the others. In such cases I described the mental fact as itself 

 "cut off from" or "dissociated from" the other mental states, 

 although, manifestly, mental states, which do not themselves 

 occupy space, can not be spatially cut off from or separated from 

 anything whatever. The phenomena of suggestibility I ascribed 

 to the removal through this dissociation of the checks and coun- 

 terchecks exerted by mental states upon one another, thus allow- 

 ing suggested sensations and ideas to work out their results more 

 freely than usual. 



Analogous conceptions have been worked out by other writers 

 without explicit reference to the physical basis of consciousness. 

 Thus, Dr. Hans Schmidkunz, in a bulky and learned but badly 

 written book {Psychologie der Suggestion, Munich, 1892), makes 



