THE LAPSES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 487 



abnormal occurrences. It is, for instance, pertinent to note that a 

 student who on leaving his class-room instantly observes that the hat 

 and umbrella that hang upon his hook are not his, had not noticed this 

 fact when he had taken these articles from his room-mate in the morn- 

 ing, and used them. The morning exchange occurs when the attention 

 is not particularly directed to the recognizable personal marks of the 

 articles; but in choosing one's own belongings from half a hundred 

 others the identification process is more attentively demanded. 



There is a characteristic and common varietv of this substitution- 

 lapse that consists in the interchange of parts of two activities, both of 

 which are partially present to the mind. Sometimes the two activities 

 are allied members of what may be regarded as a single occupation: 

 sometimes the two are curiously unrelated, their connection being only 

 that they are charged upon a common consciousness. Of the former 

 I have quite an array of instances. There is the serving of the straw- 

 berry hulls while the berries are left in the pantry; the placing of the 

 coffee-strainer on the tray while leaving the cup of coffee in the kitchen ; 

 the sprinkling of sugar on one's egg and dropping the salt in the 

 coffee-cup; the placing of the washed dishes in the refrigerator and of 

 the ' left-overs ' of the meal in the pantry ; the attempt to thread one's 

 thimble; the intermittent dipping of the pen in the mucilage bottle 

 and of the brush in the ink, while writing labels and pasting them on 

 glasses; even the dropping of the watch into the boiling water, while 

 consulting the egg to gauge the time; or, in the excitement of a fire, 

 the throwing of a lamp out of the window while carefully carrying 

 down the bedclothes. The more striking interchanges are naturally 

 those of unrelated activities. The mind is charged with two tasks; 

 and the round peg drops into the square hole. A young lady, upon 

 receiving a letter while she is engaged in putting her hat away, tosses 

 the perused sheets into the hat-box, and places the hat in the waste- 

 paper basket. Under similar circumstances, with a book in one hand 

 and some discarded papers in the other, the book is thrown into the 

 fire or is rescued just as it is ready to leave the hand. A servant, in- 

 structed to fill the reservoir of the kitchen-stove with water and the 

 grate with coal, drops the coal into the reservoir, but ' comes to ' in the 

 act of carrying water to the hot grate. Quite common is the throw- 

 ing away of the article while retaining the wrapping, even when it 

 happens to be a caramel, and the paper is put into the mouth. Unusual 

 and yet natural is the instance of the young lady seated in the train 

 and eating a banana, who, upon the approach of the conductor to collect 

 the tickets, realizes that she has thrown her purse containing the 

 ticket out of the window, while carefully placing the banana-peel in her 

 hand-bag; or that of a young man, absorbed in a novel, conscious of 

 the fading light, but too interested to stop to light the lamp, and also 



