Alfred Russel Wallace 



below the threshold of consciousness, or is a subliminal 

 part of our self. 



I should like to have come over to Broadstone expressly 

 to ask your views on the parts you queried. For I have 

 an immense faith in the soundness of your judgment, and 

 in the accuracy of your views in the long run. 



I should like also immensely to see you again and in 

 your lovely home. . . . — Yours ever sincerely, 



W. F. Barrett. 



To Prof. Barrett 

 Old Orchard, Broadstone, Wimborne. February 20, 1911. 



My dear Barrett, — I wrote you yesterday on quite 

 another matter, but having yours this morning in reply to 

 my criticisms of your Address, I send a few lines of ex- 

 planation. Most of my queries to your statements apply 

 solely to your expressing them so positively, as if they were 

 absolute certainties which no psychical researcher doubted. 

 My main objection to the term '' subliminal self " and its 

 various synonyms is, that it is so dreadfully vague, and is 

 an excuse for the assumption that a whole series of the 

 most mysterious of psychical phenomena are held to be 

 actually explained by it. Thus it is applied to explain 

 all cases of apparent " possession," when the alleged 

 ** secondary self " has a totally different character, and 

 uses the dialect of another social grade, from the normal 

 self, sometimes even possesses knowledge that the real 

 self could not have acquired, speaks a language that the 

 normal self never learnt. All this is, to me, the most 

 gross travesty of science, and I therefore object totally 

 to the use of the term which is so vaguely and absurdly 

 used, and of which no clear and rational explanation has 

 ever been given. 



You are now one of my oldest friends, and one with whom 



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