5i6 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



subserve that end have been discriminated from the others under 

 the stress of natural selection and organized into a conscious sys- 

 tem. The others have either been forced out, as their places were 

 needed by more important elements, or have never got in, because 

 they could not compete with the others in point of utility. 



Among those which have been forced out, their functions 

 being relegated to the nervous mechanism, are the powers of vol- 

 untarily controlling the involuntary muscles, the processes of 

 secretion, absorption, assimilation, excretion. In many persons 

 all vivid imagery has in like manner been lost. Among those 

 which have never been received into the normal consciousness 

 are those which we vaguely term genius, and also telepathy, 

 clairvoyance, and probably an infinity of other modes of cogniz- 

 ing reality. 



For all this infinite wealth of thought and experience which 

 Mr. Myers believes to exist outside the narrow bounds of the 

 upper consciousness he proposes the term " subliminal states." 

 They embrace every type of consciousness known to us, from the 

 most filmy and incoherent of dreams to the most sublime flights 

 of genius, and many more of which we have never framed a con- 

 ception. Sometimes they flow along in distinct streams, each 

 with its own memory and desires ; at others they blend into more 

 complex wholes. 



In the curious phenomena which I have been studying, and in 

 many more which I have not taken into consideration, Mr. Myers 

 believes we have manifestations of one or more of these hidden 

 streams. In all forms of automatism the subliminal material is 

 forced into the upper consciousness much as a stream of lava is 

 forced through the earth's crust. The material itself may be non- 

 sense or a revelation, but the mechanism is in all cases the same. 

 In sleep, dream, hypnosis, trance, and ecstasy we see a temporary 

 subsidence of the upper consciousness and the upheaval of a sub- 

 liminal stratum. 



We need not suppose that our selves are always to consist 

 of this conglomerate of disorganized material. We may believe 

 that in some future life harmony will succeed discord ; all the 

 scattered portions of our psychical selves will be reunited into a 

 new and higher synthesis a self more rich in memories, more 

 alive to its environment, more strong in action than any we can 

 now imagine. 



Of all the theories developed from the ]wint of view of the 

 doctrine of independence, Mr. Myers's is the most comprehensive 

 in its scope, is kept in most constant touch with what the author 

 regards as the facts, and displays the greatest philosophic insight ; 

 but its very comprehensiveness may well make us hesitate. We 

 must make theories they are the very eyes of the student but 



