Prom the Unconscious to the Conscious 



fact, was led to the conclusion that the Self is a 

 function of the brain, or, at least, cannot exist apart 

 from it. 



'We can no more,' writes Haeckel, 'separate our 

 individual soul from the brain, than the voluntary move- 

 ment of the arm can be separated from the contraction 

 of our muscles.' 1 



Now in subconscious psychism, this parallelism 

 no longer exists. If, for the moment, we ignore the 

 results of the automatic activity of the brain (which 

 constitutes a kind of inferior subconsciousness), no 

 connection can be found between the active or superior 

 subconsciousness and the degree of cerebral activity. 



On the contrary, the less active the cerebral organ, 

 the greater the activity of the superior subconsciousness. 

 It appears in full strength, not by a voluntary psychic 

 effort, but in the inaction or the repose of the brain ; in 

 states of distraction, reverie, or even of natural or induced 

 sleep. 



Beaunis 2 who has studied the subconscious, not as 

 a psychologist, but as a physiologist, remarks as follows. 

 ' Subconscious work does not produce weariness like 

 conscious work . . . and I would say to all those who 

 live by the work of their brains, to those who follow 

 science, literature, and art, " let the subconscious do 

 the work, it never gets tired." 



After that, one wonders how a physiologist of the 

 standing of Beaunis has failed to see the momentous 

 inference from such a declaration. This inference is, 

 however, inevitable subconscious psychism is entirely 

 and specifically distinct from voluntary effort. 



Effort can do nothing to create subconscious psychism. 

 At most it can start its activity and guide it in a given 

 direction, that is all. Far from continued effort helping 

 it, cessation of effort is the condition for the successful 

 realisation of intuitive and artistic works of genius. 



1 Haeckel : Le Monisme. * Quoted by M. Dwelshauvers. 



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