ix PSYCHO-PHYSICAL PHENOMENA 447 



In comparison with Herzen's descriptive definitions those of 

 James appear vague and defective, like all that are the product 

 of pure speculation. According to James, e.g., for adults " a pure 

 sensation is an abstraction" and "pure sensations can only be 

 realised in the earliest days of life." He neglects the absence of 

 distinction between the self and not-self which characterises the 

 sensations that form the content of the first phase of mental life. 

 Not in earliest infancy alone, but in all the states in which intellect 

 is low and feeble, in which attention is weakened and the will 

 ceases to act, the self is absorbed in pure sensation ; the psychical 

 state loses its lucidity, and becomes a confused and impersonal 

 affective state, with no sharp distinction between the perceiving 

 me and the not-me perceived. 



Pierre Janet, who investigated the lower forms of human 

 psychical activity with much success, expresses the same concept 

 in the following terms : 



" Sensation is usually defined as the simple phenomenon which 

 takes place in me when / see, / hear, and so on. But evidently 

 this contains one term in excess, namely, the word me, the word /. 

 . . . Looking at it from the purely physiological point of view, 

 one is forced to conclude that there are sensations without a 

 self. . . ," 



III. When from the phenomena of full consciousness and of 

 semi-conscious states we pass on to examine and define the 

 phenomena generically known as unconscious, the ambiguity of 

 this expression is at once obvious. The term may be employed, 

 as Assagioli remarks, either to signify a phenomenon unaccom- 

 panied by any state of consciousness (i.e. without any character of 

 mentality) or one of which we are not aware (i.e. a phenomenon 

 that is unconscious in relation to our empirical or sensorial self, 

 but conscious in relation to the other psychical centre distinct 

 from the self, which is innate in us and forms an integral part of 

 our mentation). 



We must thus consider separately two categories of unconscious 

 psycho-physical phenomena : those known by the specific term now 

 accepted by most psychologists as subconscious, and those which 

 Morton Prince proposes to term co-conscious, or states of con- 

 comitant consciousness. 



In the widest sense the term " subconscious " covers whatever 

 is developed in our mind by obscure processes which are not 

 accessible to introspection. Subconscious phenomena may be 

 regarded as effects of physiological processes of which the self has 

 neither clear, nor confused and obscure, knowledge, in which there 

 is no sharp differentiation between the ego and the non-ego, but 

 which nevertheless form part of our psychical experience. They 

 may coexist and interlock with synchronous conscious processes, 

 or they may precede, interrupt, or succeed them, rising above or 



