From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



for creative synthesis and aids a man in producing his 

 most perfect mental work.' 



What are we to conclude ? Simply that the theory 

 of psychological automatism is applicable only to a small 

 number of the less important facts and cannot claim to 

 furnish any general explanation. 



P. Janet finds himself obliged to admit this, and he 

 admits it reluctantly and ungraciously when he writes 

 as follows. 



* Since the time when I used this word " subcon- 

 scious " in a clinical and commonplace sense, other 

 authors have used the word in a very much higher 

 one.' 



' This word has been used to designate marvellous 

 activities which exist, so it would seem, within 

 ourselves without our suspecting their presence; it 

 has been used to explain sudden enthusiasms and the 

 divinations of genius. ... I shall not venture to 

 discuss theories so consoling, which may perhaps 

 be true.' 



' I shall limit myself to the observation that I 

 am busied with quite other things. The poor sick 

 folk that I was studying had no kind of genius; 

 the phenomena which in them had become sub- 

 conscious, were very simple matters which are part 

 of the consciousness of other men without giving 

 any cause for surprise. They had lost personal 

 consciousness and the power of self-direction; they 

 had sick personalities that is all.' 1 



This, in fine, is all that is covered by automatic 

 subconsciousness properly so called. The higher active 

 subconsciousness, being entirely different in essence 

 and nature, must be clearly distinguished from the 

 former. 



1 P. Janet, Preface to J. Jastrow's Subconscieiux. 

 106 



