THE LAPSES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 483 



may serve as a natural and profitable approach to the general and 

 theoretical interpretations, which form an important goal of the psy- 

 chologist's efforts. 



If one were to set forth the factors of an operation intelligently 

 guided, that is, of a piece of human conduct, simple or complex, he would 

 find that every distinctive phase thereof may, on occasion, be carried on 

 with a markedly lowered, an unusually reduced, degree of the awareness 

 which its performance normally demands. The contours of such a 

 piece of conduct would show in silhouette, first, the perception of the 

 situation by the message brought through eye or ear or other window 

 of the soul; such message is offered to the appropriate powers of the 

 mind for interpretation and for the elaboration, variably intricate, of 

 the suitable response ; and the bit of conduct is rounded by the fit and 

 skilled execution of what it has been decided to do or say. What is 

 here appropriate is that one may find any portion or the whole of these 

 successive links in the chain of mental reactions sufficiently and intel- 

 ligently directed by a subconscious type of adjustment. Though the 

 factors properly form a unit, combining with like units into a series 

 of expanding complexity of kind and number, yet each is naturally 

 viewed as composed of its receptive or perceptive aspect, accompanied 

 by a suitable interpretation through which the process acquires mean- 

 ing: and again, of its expressive phase, which, as the issue of a pre- 

 paratory elaboration, becomes not merely a muscular contraction, but 

 a significant piece of conduct. For a different purpose it would be- 

 come necessary also to consider quite separately and minutely what 

 here must be treated en masse, the inner elaborative processes that bind 

 perception and expression, and thus appraise the dignity of the intel- 

 lectual response in terms of habit, training, insight, judgment or 

 wisdom. For the present argument, whether we proceed by large gen- 

 eral outlines, or by more detailed steps, we shall be able to illustrate 

 that for each stage of the process a counterpart in subconscious terms 

 may be found. 



The Motor Lapse and its Sensory Clue. 

 The receptive (sensory) and the responsive (motor) phases of a 

 bit of conduct are the ones most readily distinguished; and in regard 

 to these, my data emphasize that the latter occupy the focus of the more 

 common forms of subconscious activity: which means that, though the 

 reduced awareness spreads itself over the whole procedure, it affects 

 more prominently the motor response, the terminal, rather than the 

 initial, phase of conduct; or, that once the nature of a situation is 

 normally perceived, our motor habits step in to perform the appropriate 

 (or unintended) response with submerged awareness, possibly amid 

 distracted attention. A peculiarly apposite recognition of this rela- 



