From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



need of the human mind, and in one sense are legitimate. 

 But their danger lies in the fact that they come to mean 

 something more than classifications, they come to mean 

 a quite illusory interpretation; they turn aside the 

 logical endeavour to understand and reason, or put it 

 to sleep. They have yet another danger, they mask 

 the essential unity of psychological synthesis, and lead 

 to the notion that the diverse subconscious manifesta- 

 tions may be susceptible of isolated and partial explana- 

 tion. Thus they mislead the investigator and retard all 

 philosophical progress. 



The question of the Subconscious is passing through 

 the stage which all important questions of scientific 

 philosophy have passed through. Sooner or later the 

 common link between all questions of the same order 

 is found, and then a harmonious synthesis is con- 

 structed, which is capable of explaining, if not all the 

 minor difficulties of detail (which will finally be resolved 

 little by little under the direction and control of the 

 general idea), at any rate all the major difficulties. But 

 before reaching the synthetic phase, the human mind 

 struggles painfully through a long analytical phase, 

 during which it only observes facts and classifies them 

 more or less skilfully. 



Nevertheless, from the beginning of this phase it 

 endeavours to find explanations, but these are based 

 on a small number of facts specially studied by this or 

 that investigator, and hastily generalised upon by him 

 by the help of an arbitrary and forced adaptation to other 

 groups of analogous facts. 



Then one of two things happens. 



Either these hasty and superficial theories are also 

 vague and inexact, and end in an insidious and deceptive 

 verbalism; or they are exact but cover only a small 

 number of facts, and cannot stand the test of general 

 application. 



Theories of these two categories are already 



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