THE LIMITS OF HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 293 



"go on the whole night. To set her going again, it was only 

 " necessary to place her hands on the keys, and she would begin 

 " a new quadrille, soon again relapsing into sleep, and yet con- 

 " tinning to play well. I was studying a deep course of nieta- 

 " physics at the time, for my degree in those subjects in Trinity 

 " College ; and the case made a great impression on my mind. 

 " I could not account for it on any of my then principles \ but I 

 "see it perfectly now." 



I have recently learned, too, that it is no uncommon ex- 

 perience in telegraph offices, for transmitters of messages, when 

 they have been for some time in the service, to work the instru- 

 ments without conscious thought of what they are doing. 

 "They read the words," says my informant, " pass them through 

 "their minds, and transfer them to the sending part of the 

 "apparatus, just as unconsciously and automatically as Wheat- 

 " stone's transmitter does. I have often found myself," he con- 

 tinues, " indulging in trains of thought, or even listening to a 

 " conversation that might be going on near me, and yet continued 

 "to 'receive' and 'send' just as if I was giving my whole 

 "attention to the work; and when I came to see the messages 

 "afterwards, I knew that they had passed through my hands 

 " only by the handwriting. Once, indeed, when on night duty, 

 " I became completely unconscious whilst sending a long anvl 

 " monotonous ' group ' message, consisting entirely of figures, 

 "and woke up bewildered, and had to ask the receiving station 

 " ' after what ? ' before I could proceed. Some clerks believe 

 " that the work is done more accurately when done auto- 

 "matically; but I scarcely think this justified by experience." 



However strange these statements may seem, they find their 

 parallel in our own familiar experience. For almost every one 

 who has been much in the habit of reading aloud, is well aware 

 that he may continue to do this with perfect articulation, punctua- 

 tion, emphasis, and intonation, while his mind is so completely 

 engrossed by some entirely different subject, that, until his atten- 

 tion is recalled to it. he is no more aware that he is reading, or 

 conscious of the guidance he has been receiving from his visual 

 sense, than is the philosopher of the pursuance of his walk whilst 

 his whole mind is given to the solution of some knotty problem. 



