282 BRAINS OF RATS AND MEN 



maticity of the process. Again, if an accident happens 

 at our busy corner, the traffic officer arrests (inhibits) 

 all traffic until a way around the obstruction is found 

 or the wreckage is cleared. 



In this analysis we have relegated to the frankly 

 unconscious much of that which in current literature 

 is often called by such meaningless terms as the "un- 

 conscious mind." But this unconsciousness is not 

 static; like everything else which is alive, it is dynam- 

 ic; it may even be creative, as are many ordinary 

 physiological processes. The liver creates glycogen 

 out of its raw materials, and it repeats the process 

 quite uniformly time after time. The associational 

 mechanisms of the brain may combine the same ele- 

 ments of experience over and over again, as when we 

 remember our house number in the telephone di- 

 rectory, or they may combine these elements in un- 

 familiar or even in quite original patterns. Much of 

 this sort of combination may be done without any 

 awareness of what is going on. Rivers (1922) has re- 

 marked very justly, "It would be an advantage, if, in- 

 stead of speaking of unconscious mental states, we 

 were to speak of unconscious experience." The effects 

 of this experience may later appear in consciousness — 

 or they may not — just as the effects of retinal excita- 

 tion may lead to a reflex winking of the eyes with or 

 without a sensation of light or any other awareness 

 of the event. 



In this connection we must not make the mistake 



