From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



The mystery becomes clearer only if it be admitted 

 that above the metamorphoses, above the organic and 

 physiological modifications and the revolutions in the 

 chemical equilibrium of life, there exists the directive 

 dominant of a superior dynamism. 



4. THE HISTOLYSIS OF THE INSECT 



It is in the post-embryonic development of certain 

 insects that the evidence of this dominant appears in 

 the most striking manner. As is well known, certain 

 insects undergo their last and greatest transformation 

 in the chrysalis. They are then subject to an extremely 

 curious change histolysis. 



In the protective envelope of the chrysalis, which shuts 

 off the animal from light and from external perturbing 

 influences, a strange elaboration takes place, singularly 

 like that which will presently be described under the 

 head of the so-called supernormal physiology. The 

 body of the insect is dematerialised. It is disintegrated, and 

 melts into a kind of uniform pap, a simple amorphous 

 substance in which the majority of organic and specific 

 distinctions disappear. There is the bare fact in all its 

 import. 



Doubtless the question of histolysis is far from being 

 fully elucidated. Since its discovery by Weissmann in 

 1864, naturalists have not been able to come to entire 

 agreement on the extent of the dissolution nor on its 

 mechanism. It is, however, well established, ' that when 

 the larva becomes immobile and is transformed into a 

 pupa, most of its tissues disappear by histolysis. The 

 tissues thus destroyed are the hypodermic cells of the 

 first four segments, the breathing tubes, the muscles, 

 the fatty body and the peripheral nerves. Of these 

 there remain no visible cellular elements. At the same 



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