From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



M. Boirac has also established the same thing. He 

 writes : 



' What conclusion can we draw from the whole 

 discussion ? To begin with, the method which 

 consists in explaining concrete facts by abstract 

 terms, such as " suggestion " and " suggestibility," 

 appears to us highly unscientific ; it is a relic of the 

 old scholastic method a recourse to occult entities, 

 qualities, and virtues. In a certain patient I can 

 induce at will the most unlikely hallucinations; I 

 can paralyse his organs as I please. What can be 

 the cause of such extraordinary effects ? Nothing 

 simpler; it is suggestion. But how is this suggestion 

 to be explained ? Whence comes its power ? That 

 is still simpler; it comes from suggestibility, a 

 natural property of the human brain. So they think 

 to explain facts by dressing them up in a name, just 

 as the schoolmen thought they were explaining the 

 sleep produced by opium by saying that opium has 

 a dormitive virtue.' x 



M. Boirac's reasoning may be applied to all the 

 classical explanations of subconscious phenomena, both 

 metapsychic and supernormal. 



Equally valueless are the explanations which may be 

 called purely verbal, which abound in the classical 

 psychology of the Subconscious. 



4. ARTIFICIAL DISJUNCTIONS AND VERBAL 



EXPLANATIONS 



Psychologists are prone to have recourse to artificial 

 disjunctions among the subconscious capacities. Their 

 efforts are directed to classifying and then labelling the 



* Boirac : L'Avenir des Sciences Psychiques. 



