514 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the supernormal field the facts already reported, should they be 

 substantiated by further inquiry, would go far toward showing 

 that consciousness is an entity governed by laws and possessed 

 of powers incapable of expression in material conceptions. 



I do not myself regard the theory of independence as proved, 

 but I think we have enough evidence for it to destroy in any 

 candid mind that considers it that absolute incredulity as to 

 its possibility which at present characterizes the average man 

 of science. 



Now, if it were proved true, what explanations can it provide 

 for the phenomena of suggestibility and automatism ? 



The simplest way of looking at the facts is to ascribe them to 

 a partial separation of mind and body. This notion is based upon 

 the fact that the memory of the secondary state is so often lost. 

 The mind may be supposed to be asleep while another person 

 plays upon the sensitive machine which it has just been using. 

 When memory is retained, we may suppose that consciousness, 

 upon being reunited to its body, reads off, as it were, the traces 

 left in the brain by what was going on in its absence. This is 

 the notion which the very word automatism connotes, and it has 

 been held more or less clearly by many writers. It accounts 

 very well for most of the facts of hypnotic states, for the simpler 

 forms of post- hypnotic suggestion, and is especially suggested by 

 hysterical losses of sensation and movement, and by successive 

 personalities. The same fundamental conception may be inter- 

 preted in accordance with the theory of dependence by ascribing 

 all these phenomena to brain processes of too lotv a degree of in- 

 tensity to awaken consciousness. 



But this notion breaks down when applied to the more ad- 

 vanced stages of motor automatism, as fully developed automatic 

 writing, to simultaneous personalities, to the more advanced forms 

 of post-hypnotic suggestion, to trance and ecstasy. In all these 

 cases we have as good evidence for the existence of consciousness 

 as we ever have, save that the consciousness which we infer does 

 not become a part of some recognized person's memories. Conse- 

 quently we must admit either that organized matter, or some 

 tertium quid which is neither mind nor matter, is capable of pro- 

 ducing the effects which we ascribe to consciousness, or else that 

 there sometimes exists in connection with a given body a con- 

 sciousness distinct from that known to us. 



The first of these alternatives would practically bring us back 

 to the theory of dependence. The second, the doctrine of a tertium 

 quid, is found in many writers, although there is no agreement as 

 to the characteristics of the third entity. This notion is indeed 

 descended from the ancient distinction between body, soul, and 

 spirit. The tertium quid is usually conceived as a semimaterial 



