14 
were lent for exhibition by the Dairy Supply Company, 
the ‘“ Protene ” Company, and Messrs. Welford & Sons. 
An interesting series of experiments illustrated the 
lecture. 
On the 7th December, 1900, Mr. Frank Podmore, 
M.A., late Hon. Secretary of the Society for Psychical 
Research, read a paper on ‘‘ The Sub-conscious Mind.” 
The lecturer stated that the primitive metaphysical 
notion of consciousness as a simple homogeneous unity 
had been upset by the results of modern investigation. 
Consciousness is not simple; it is made up of hetero- 
geneous elements of varying degrees of intensity, and it 
can only be called a unity if we exclude essential facts 
from our survey. He then gave an analysis of a typical 
state of consciousness, showing that the focal area would 
be occupied by the subject matter of the present lecture, 
social relationships, etc.; the penumbra would include 
the routine matters of life. The lecturer then proceeded 
to give illustrations of the operation of consciousness 
in abnormal conditions, giving instances of the resolu- 
tion of problems and composing of poetry in dreams, the 
“inspired” speaking and writing of spirit mediums, the 
power of calculation and imagination, the enhanced 
muscular and sensory capacities exhibited in the trance. 
The view generally adopted by physiologists of the 
phenomena, a view in which the lecturer concurred, was 
that they illustrated the workings of a primitive state of 
consciousness ; indeed, we could sometimes trace in such 
states reminiscences of early life and recovery of faculties 
disused from childhood. The rival hypothesis saw in 
these abnormal states the revelation of a wider and more 
exalted mental capacity; but the main foundations for 
the view—the phenomena of telepathy and clairvoyance 
—were at present insufficiently demonstrated. 
