POSTHYPNOTIC AND CRIMINAL SUGGESTION. 233 



tlie reason why this dynamic state remains inactive until the 

 signal sets it in operation. In some few cases, when a sensory 

 signal is to call a posthypnotic hallucination into the upper con- 

 sciousness, we can conceive of the sensory stimulus as the spark 

 necessary to explode the stored-up energy of the cells and raise 

 the idea to sensory level — make a thought seem vivid, intense, and 

 external like a perception. But this conception is of limited ap- 

 plication. The signal need not be sensory at all. It may even be a 

 process of the higher orders, such as a perception of resemblance 

 or difference, or even may consist in the lapse of time. I gave 



T some numbers to multiply and told him that if the figures 



1 and 4 happened to stand side by side in the course of his work he 

 would tear the whole up. When the numbers appeared in that 

 relation he at once noted it and carefully tore the paper to tiny 

 fragments. It is not easy to conceive of the suggestion as held in 

 check by the mere lack of such a complex process of reasoning as 

 this. Such difficulties I can not, I confess, explain away, and as 

 long as they remain unexplained, the theory with which they are 

 connected can not be accepted as final. It is to avoid them that 

 some writers have introduced the conception of a subconscious 

 personality which hears, remembers, and obeys without reference 

 to the condition of the upper consciousness, and this brings me to 

 the second question. 



We usually conceive of our potential memories as existing in 

 the form of a functional predisposition on the part of the nervous 

 mechanism, and as having no actual mental existence while we 

 are not thinking of them. At the first glance one would suppose 

 that the posthypnotic suggestion exists in the same form. But 

 cases have been reported which seem to prove that sometimes 

 at least the posthypnotic suggestion enjoys an actual existence, 

 even while the upper consciousness knows nothing of it. Thus Mr. 



Gurney says of P 11, one of his patients : " He was told on March 



26th that on the one hundred and twenty-third day from then he 

 was to put a blank sheet of paper in an envelope and send it to a 

 friend of mine whose name and residence he knew but whom he 

 had never seen. The subject was not referred to again until April 

 18th, when he was hypnotized and asked whether he remembered 

 anything in connection with this gentleman. He at once repeated 

 the order and said : ' This is the twenty-third day ; a hundred 



more.' S . ' How do you know ? Have you noted each day ? ' 



P 11. ' No, it seems natural.' S . * Have you thought of it 



often ? ' P 11. * It generally strikes me in the morning early. 



Something seems to say to me, You've got to count.' S . ' Does 



that happen every day ? ' P 11. ' No, not every day, perhaps 



more like every other day. It goes from my mind ; I never think 

 of it during the day. I only know it's got to be done.' " 



VOL. XLIX. — 20 



