Relations between the Physical and the Moral. 229 



operations of which consciousness holds only the two extremities. 

 Finally, the highest creations of the imagination spring from the 

 unconscious. Every great inventor, artist, man of science, artificer, 

 feels within him an inspiration, an involuntary invasion, as it were, 

 coming out of the depths of his being, but which is, as has been 

 said, impersonal. All that comes under consciousness is results 

 and not processes. The difference between talent and genius is the 

 difference between the conscious and the unconscious. Artists, 

 prophets, martyrs, mystics, all those who in any degree have felt 

 the furor poeticus, have ever acknowledged their subjection to a 

 higher power than their own ego, and this power is the unconscious 

 overlapping the submerged consciousness. 



The mystics of every country and of every age put faith only 

 in their unconscious knowledge, and it is not to be denied that 

 they have brought back from the world of unconsciousness high 

 and entrancing visions. 



The logical operations of the intellect, namely, judgment and 

 ratiocination, may also be performed without consciousness. It is 

 a known fact that after a night's rest the mind finds the materials 

 of its work classed with an order that we should never have been 

 able to give them, with all our industry and all our dexterity. Men 

 of science of the first rank commonly foresee results by quick 

 intuition a thing which can only come from unconscious ratio- 

 cination. 'The art of divining, without which it is almost impossible 

 to advance ' (Leibnitz), is nothing but this. Every man, however 

 mediocre the quality of his mind, is unconsciously guided by a 

 hidden logic. A proper study of the unconscious would throw 

 some light on the question of ' innate ' ideas, and on those fun- 

 damental truths which we do not hesitate to admit under the 

 unconscious form ; and would, in particular, explain the induction 

 which presupposes a belief more or less vague in the uniformity of 

 the laws of nature. Probably the difference between deduction 

 and induction is only the difference between the conscious and the 

 unconscious, so that, outside consciousness, the two processes 

 would constitute only one, and that one would be deductive. 



As for the will, it derives ultimately from character, and the root 

 of character is in the unconscious. And, to our mind, it is 

 this that makes the question of the freedom ot the will insoluble, 



