STYPTIC 



5597 



SUBCONSCIOUS 



pany, and not from a few ignorant subjects." 

 In 1664 an English fleet ordered the surrender 

 of the city and, after resisting a few days, Stuy- 

 vesant yielded, on September 3. He afterwards 

 settled down on his farm, or bouwerij, part of 



PETER STUYVESANT 



From an engraving after the painting by Van 

 Dyck. The original is owned by Robert Van 

 Rensselaer Stuyvesant, New York City. 



which is now known as the Bowery, in New 

 York City. He died on this estate and lies 

 buried in Saint Mark's Church. A beautifully- 

 carved and inscribed stone built into the wall 

 of the church covers his grave. Irving, in his 

 Knickerbocker History of New York, has given 

 Stuyvesant lasting fame. M.T. 



Consult O'Callahan's The History of New Neth- 

 erland; Abbott's Peter Stuyvesant. 



STYPTIC, stip'tik, from a Latin word 

 meaning to contract, is a term applied in medi- 

 cal practice to an agent that arrests bleeding 

 by drawing together the surfaces of the injured 

 blood vessel. Tannic acid and alum are ex- 

 amples of chemical styptics. They act by caus- 

 ing coagulation or clotting of the blood; the 

 clots close up the mouths of the injured vessels 

 and so stop the bleeding. There are a number 

 of vegetable styptic remedies, such as oak bark, 

 gallnuts and turpentine. C.B.B. 



STYX, stix, in Greek and Roman mythology, 

 the dreary and pestilential river that flowed 

 seven times around Hades, the abode of the 

 dead. Across it the departed spirits were rowed 

 by the ferryman Charon, to the realms of 

 Pluto, who assigned them either to the Elysian 

 Fields or to the grim regions of Tartarus. A 

 lofty waterfall in Arcadia was also known as 

 the Styx. Its waters were supposed to be 

 poisonous and its barren surroundings suggested 

 the entrance to the lower world. 



SUBCONSCIOUS , sub kon ' shus, THE. About 

 the term subconscious center many important 

 phases of mental conduct. The realm of the 

 subconscious includes the many motives, feel- 

 ings and impulses that affect behavior without 

 reaching full consciousness; it emphasizes the 

 significance of a variety of the mind's occupa- 

 tions without which human nature, normal and 

 abnormal, ^cannot be understood. Conscious- 

 ness has arisen because it is necessary for cer- 

 tain higher types of reaction. If rightly dis- 

 posed it is most helpful; if wrongly applied, it 

 becomes harmful. Consider physiological func- 

 tions: We have just as much awareness as is 

 good, and no more. We attend just enough to 

 the sensations accompanying eating to swallow 

 our food; if we put too much attention upon 

 swallowing, it suffers hence the difficulty in 

 swallowing a pill. We walk best when we walk 

 naturally; one does not walk naturally (which 

 means with a right distribution of conscious- 

 ness) when coming in late at church or theater 

 with the eyes of the assembly upon one. The 

 stiff expression so often seen in photographs re- 

 flects the consciousness of having one's picture 

 taken. 



All this illustrates the delicate relation be- 

 tween consciousness and conduct. Overcon- 

 sciousness of one's digestion makes the nervous 

 dyspeptic; but the complex varieties of con- 

 sciousness depend upon social training. The 

 free "unconsciousness" of childhood gives way 

 to increasing experience. The age of self-con- 

 sciousness is physiologically determined; the 

 shyness of young men in the presence of young 

 women is deeply regulated by all the compli- 

 cated reactions of sex. 



A large share of acquired habits are given 

 over to subconscious guidance. It is common 

 to remark that, without observing, we cannot 

 tell how we dress, how we know where to reach 

 for the knob of a door, to manipulate a type- 

 writer or a sewing machine. Yet at one stage 

 of learning all these actions were slow, delib- 

 erate and conscious. It is equally common to 



