From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



being explained by the non-activity or the hyper-activity 

 of certain among these neurons. 



Professor Grasset thinks to explain subconscious 

 manifestations by a disjunction between the functioning 

 of Charcot's schematic ' polygon ' and a certain centre 

 O, localised somewhere in the gray matter of the brain. 



To all these theories the same objections can be 

 raised : 



1. They are adapted only to a few facts, leaving out 



of account the very thing which is most impor- 

 tant in subconsciousness the higher crypto- 

 psychism, and the supernormal. 



2. Even for the limited facts which they cover they 



are insufficient, since they assign as cause the 

 very thing which has to be explained the why, 

 and how, of these disjunctions. 

 Leaving the physiological, we will now pass on to 

 the psychological theories of the subconscious. 



PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 



These theories are many and of unequal value. 

 There are some which start from vicious reasoning, they 

 are petitiones principii, or verbal explanations. We will 

 discuss them briefly. 



3. PETITIONES PRINCIPII 



Kpetitioprincipii consists in carrying back a mysterious 

 occurrence to another not less mysterious, but previously 

 known and more familiar. Among supernormal phenom- 

 ena for instance, telepathy and thought-reading are the 

 most familiar and the best known, which gives them a 

 kind of priority of privilege, so that it is sought, by any 

 and every means, to reduce all intellectual mediumship 

 to them; which is absurd, and only complicates the 

 whole subject, for thought-reading and telepathy are 



in 



