74 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



out a calculation on the blackboard, while continuing to speak of mat- 

 ters outside the subject of the calculation. It is more a matter of habit 

 than an indication of any mental power, natural or acquired, to speak 

 or write sentences, even of considerable length, after the mind has 

 passed on to other matters. In a similar way some persons can write 

 different words with the right and left hands, and this, too, while speak- 

 ing of other matters. (We have seen this done by Professor Morse, the 

 American naturalist, whose two hands added words to the diagrams he 

 had drawn while his voice dealt with other parts of the drawing ; to add 

 to the wonder, too, he wrote the words indifferently from right to left 

 or from left to right.) In reality the person who thus does two things 

 at once is no more thinking of two things at once than a clock is, when 

 the striking and the working machinery are both in action at the same 

 time.* 



As an illustration of special mental power shown in health, by a 

 person whose mental condition in illness we shall consider afterward, 

 Sir Walter Scott may be mentioned. The account given by his aman- 

 uensis has seemed surprising to many, unfamiliar with the nature of 

 literary composition (at least after long practice), but is in reality such 

 as any one who writes much can quite readily understand, or might 

 even have known must necessarily be correct. " His thoughts," says 

 the secretary to whom Scott dictated his " Life of Napoleon Bonaparte," 



* Since the above was written we have noticed a passage in Dr. Carpenter's " Mental 

 Physiology," p. 719, bearing on the matter we have been dealing with: ".The following 

 statement recently made to the writer by a gentleman of high intelligence, the editor of a 

 most important provincial newspaper, would be almost incredible, if cases somewhat simi- 

 lar were not already familiar to us : 'I was formerly,' he said, ' a reporter in the House 

 of Commons ; and it several times happened to me that, having fallen asleep from sheer 

 fatigue toward the end of a debate, I had found, on awaking after a short interval of en- 

 tire unconsciousness, that I had continued to note down correctly the speaker's words. 

 I believe,' he added, ' that this is not an uncommon experience among Parliamentary re- 

 porters.' The reading aloud with correct emphasis and intonation, or the performance 

 of a piece of music, or (as in the case of Albert Smith) the recitation of a frequently re- 

 peated composition, while the conscious mind is entirely engrossed in its own thoughts and 

 feelings, may be thus accounted for without the supposition that the mind is actively en- 

 gaged in two different operations at the same moment, which would seem tantamount to 

 saying that there are two egos in the same organism." An instance in the writer's expe- 

 rience seems even more remarkable than the reporter's work during sleep, for he had but 

 to continue a mechanical process, whereas in the writer's case there must have been 

 thought. Late one evening at Cambridge the writer began a game of chess with a fellow 

 student (now a clergyman, and well known in chess circles). The writer was tired after 

 a long day's rowing, but continued the game to the best of his ability until at a certain 

 stage he fell asleep, or rather fell into a waking dream. At any rate, all remembrance 

 of what passed after that part of the game had entirely escaped him when he awoke or 

 returned to consciousness about three in the morning. The chess-board was there, but 

 the men were not as when the last conscious move was made. The opponent's king was 

 checkmated. The writer supposed his opponent had set the men in this position either 

 as a joke or in trying over some end game. But he was assured that the game had con- 

 tinued to the end, and that he (the writer) had won, apparently playing as if fully con- 

 scious ! Of course, he can not certify this of his own knowledge. 



