From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



were to break off discouraged, no amount of waiting 

 would find him more advanced for a second attempt. 

 In the interval there would have been no * latent 

 physiological work ' allowing a cessation of the effort 

 necessary for learning, and standing in lieu of that 

 effort. 



Again, when in training, a man habituates not only 

 his muscles, but his lungs and heart to endure the 

 fatigue of running; a single effort can never take the 

 place of methodical and continued training. When, 

 then, ' latent work by the brain ' is alleged, that is a 

 mere guess contrary to all that physiology teaches; it 

 is a hypothesis which involves an entirely new and 

 purely gratuitous notion ; that the cerebral organ 

 works in a manner essentially different from all other 

 organs. 



Let us now take another case: 



The artist, thinker, etc. . . . does not foresee the 

 work he means to do, and does not prepare it. He 

 produces under the influence of an * inspiration ' inde- 

 pendent of his desire and will, sometimes contrary to 

 them. There is not in this case the original impulse 

 for the supposed automatism. Here he does not 

 direct the inspiration, he is directed by it. How, then, 

 can we speak of psychological automatism ? 



* The unconscious sequence here,' says M. Dwel- 

 shauvers, ' is not an automatism but a vital action.' 



M. Ribot also says, * Inspiration reveals a power 

 superior to the conscious individual, strange to him 

 though acting through him a state which many 

 inventors have described by saying of their work I 

 had no part in it.' 



M. Dwelshauvers, in his recent study of sub- 

 conscious production, has abundantly shown that above 

 the psychological automatism (which is but a common- 

 place and inferior form of the Unconscious), there is an 

 active latent unconsciousness which ' serves as an arsenal 



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