SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY. i 79 



not only in insanity, but in far more frequent and less severe nervous 

 disorders, as in trance, hysteria, and simple nervous exhaustion. 



The Involuntary Life. The unconscious and involuntary char- 

 acter of much of mental action is now so far allowed that it may be 

 assumed as a basis for argument in discussions relating to the brain. 

 Many psychologists and some physiologists agree in this, that many 

 of our thoughts are practically unconscious, and all agree that mental 

 action is largely involuntary. This truth, as applied to the higher 

 phases of activity, has long been noted ; in the words of Lynch, " when 

 our views are most earnest, most solemn, and most beautiful, we are 

 often conscious of being in a state rather than of making an effort." 

 Says Goethe : " No productiveness of the highest kind, no remarkable 

 discovery, no great thought which bears fruit, and has its results, is in 

 the power of any one. All men, who closely watch their inner life, 

 become conscious of these high truths, at least as that life develops. 

 The sign of growth in the soul is, that it gradually loses confidence in 

 its volitional reasonings about best and highest things, and reposes 

 trust rather in what it feels to be given." We work best when we are 

 not working. In the lower realms of activity, through various grada- 

 tions, what we call volition has oftentimes but a subordinate influence ; 

 much is done automatically, and in spite of or against our wills. The 

 noisy rabble of passions and emotions throw the captain overboard, and 

 the mind either drifts or sails furiously and recklessly before the storm ; 

 the very attempt of the will to assert its pow y er is the signal for mu- 

 tiny: it is most influential when it lies low, and gently guides the helm. 



The involuntary life or that side of mental activity that is inde- 

 pendent of volition constitutes even in health the larger part of life, 

 and in certain states of disease man becomes an absolute automaton. 

 The very effort of attention is liable to destroy the scientific value of 

 our observation of the object to which our attention is directed, since 

 it subtracts and draws off the cerebral force from those faculties that 

 are needed in careful and thorough attention ; only when one has 

 reached the stage where he can observe without severe, conscious effort, 

 can he be said to be a good observer. An extreme illustration of au- 

 tomatism is the state of trance, a morbid condition of the brain in 

 which, as I have elsewhere sought to prove, the activity is concentrated 

 in some one faculty or group of faculties, the activity of other portions of 

 the brain being for the time suspended. A person in this state may do 

 the very things he especially wills not to do : what he wishes and tries 

 to do he cannot ; the will is no longer the master, but the servant. For 

 a person in this state to attempt to observe, is as useless as for a steam- 

 engine to attempt to reason ; he is an automaton, a machine, a bundle 

 of reflex actions, like a plant or polypus. He sees, hears, smells, tastes, 

 and feels, whatever may be suggested to his emotions either by individ- 



