From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



They do not act according to some autonomous habit, 

 but take an original direction. The will manifested is 

 not only sharply defined ; it also differs from that of the 

 subject, and may be opposed or even hostile to it, as 

 in the case of Miss Beauchamp, studied by Dr Morton 

 Prince. 1 



In mediumship, this spontaneity, will, and autonomy 

 of the so-called secondary personalities appear still more 

 remarkably; they sometimes show a quite complete 

 psychism of their own, with their own faculties of willing, 

 knowing, and reasoning; with acquirements often very 

 different from those of the conscious subject, such, for 

 instance, as the knowledge of a language unknown to 

 the latter. In the more notable cases, there would seem 

 to be really nothing in common between the two person- 

 alities. How can the term * automatism ' be applied 

 to these facts ? 



Let us now pass to subconscious productions of an 

 artistic, philosophic, or scientific order. Only defective 

 reasoning can attribute inspiration and genius to cerebral 

 automatism. 



Let us analyse what happens in these subconscious 

 productions. 



To take a typical case, a man of science, an artist, 

 or a thinker undertakes a certain work. Confronted 

 with some unexpected difficulties, he is discouraged, and 

 stops. To his surprise, some time later, the solution 

 which he had vainly sought comes to him without effort, 

 and the work he had planned is easily completed. 



This, it is said, is because the brain has continued 

 to work automatically in the direction of the original 

 impulse; but it is impossible to find in physiology an 

 analogous example of automatic function. 



When, for instance, one learns to ride a bicycle, a 

 long series of voluntary efforts have to be repeated to 

 reach the stage of automatic direction. If the learner 



1 Dr Morton Prince : The Dissociation of a Personality. 

 104 



