PSYCHO-PHYSICAL PHENOMENA 451 



These statements by the most courageous and convinced of 

 the English spiritualists are substantially confirmed by the most 

 cautious of the French positivists, Th. Eibot. " It is the 

 unconscious," he writes, " that produces what is vulgarly termed 

 inspiration. This state is a positive fact, presenting specific 

 physical and psychical characters. Above all, it is impersonal 

 and involuntary, acting after the fashion of an instinct, when 

 and how it will ; it may be entreated, but it suffers no constraint. 

 Neither reflection nor will replace it in the original creation. 

 The eccentric habits which artists indulge in during their creative 

 periods merely tend to create a special physiological condition, 

 and to increase the cerebral circulation so as to arouse or maintain 

 unconscious activity." 



The only objection that can be - made, either to Myers or to 

 Eibot, is that their psychological theory combines into a single 

 category (the subliminal, or the unconscious) two distinct forms 

 of mental activity; that which many now term "subconscious," 

 i.e. (on the definition we have accepted) whatever operates and 

 develops within us in a manner that is hidden or removed from 

 introspection, and that which we are about to examine under 

 the definition of " co-consciousness " the secondary personality of 

 psychiatrists, or subliminal ego proper. 



IV. A much-disputed question among physiologists and psycho- 

 logists is whether the subconscious is based upon processes that are 

 purely physical or material, or upon psycho-physical processes, like 

 conscious phenomena. Can we, or can we not, admit a psychical 

 activity in which there is absolutely no mentality, i.e. which 

 consists in purely physiological processes ? Can it be assumed 

 that certain normal or pathological states of the nervous system, 

 such as sleep, coma, epileptic states, etc., represent genuine 

 interruptions of the mental processes; or are the latter, while 

 they vary considerably in vigour and distinctness, never absolutely 

 interrupted during life ? 



Carpenter was the first to support the former proposition 

 under the somewhat clumsy name of " unconscious cerebration" 

 which was then adopted by reliable psychologists like Mlinsterberg 

 and Eibot, and the American psychiatrist Morton Prince. The 

 latter view is held by most physiologists and psychologists, 

 particularly by those who, to represent the mysterious relation 

 between mind and body, adopt the pragmatical hypothesis of 

 psycho-physical parallelism, which they extend to all specific" 

 vital processes, or at least to those of the nervous system, and 

 particularly to that part of it which subserves the functions of 

 animal life. 



This is a very difficult question, and from the standpoint of 

 positive science, no exact solution, free from ambiguity and 

 uncertainty, seems possible. 



