378 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



outlined, this inability to observe it is precisely wbat one should 

 expect. It is not possible to analyze the total content of conscious- 

 ness into any definite number of " states." The total state of con- 

 sciousness at any given moment depends upon the condition and 

 character of a system of physical activities, and its few distinguish- 

 able elements are related to some rather than to other elements of 

 that system. But no portion of the system could be what it is if 

 the other portions were not just what they are, and in the succes- 

 sion of the clearer states of consciousness we see not merely the 

 effect of the one clear state upon the next clear state, but the effect 

 of one whole system upon the next whole system ; and often the 

 active factor in determining the character of the next clear state 

 is not what was clearest in the preceding, but one of those which 

 were dimly existent in the margin, or even one of those that were 

 subconscious. To determine the true properties of any state it 

 would be necessary to isolate it by breaking up this co-ordination, 

 and that, as I shall show later, we can to some extent do. 



Before taking up these more complex forms of disorganiza- 

 tion, or, better, disordination, I must make plain the meaning of 

 the word subconscious, which I have had occasion once or twice 

 to use. 



I am sitting in a chair and reading an interesting story ; the 

 clock strikes and I do not hear it. Why ? There are only four 

 possible theories. We must suppose that the air vibrations strike 

 the ear drum and are propagated through the ear bones and 

 lymph to the auditory nerve. Then either (1) the physical pro- 

 cess is blocked at some point between the terminal filaments of 

 the auditory nerve in the inner ear and its origin in the cortex ; 

 or (2) the irritation reaches the cortex, but fails to awaken any 

 cortical process ; or (3) it awakens a cortical process which is un- 

 accompanied by any mental state ; or (4) it awakens both a corti- 

 cal process and a mental state. For the first of these alternatives 

 there is no evidence. On the contrary, since I hear the clock 

 strike if I am expecting it, and since all theories require us to 

 regard expectation as dependent upon cortical processes, if any 

 mental phenomena are, we must look to the cortex for the expla- 

 nation and not to the peripheral machinery. The second alterna- 

 tive is conceivable, but there is no direct evidence for it and there 

 is some against it. It is frequently possible, for example, to 

 awaken by hypnotic suggestion a memory of the event which 

 was not consciously experienced, and, as memory depends upon 

 the traces left by earlier experiences in the cortex, it would seem 

 to follow that there must have been a cortical disturbance. The 

 third alternative is more probable. There is reason for believing 

 that any cortical process must attain a certain degree of intensity 

 before its mental concomitant comes into being at all, and per- 



