286 ROUGH WAYS MADE SMOOTH. 



honest denial of all knowledge of the conduct attributed to 

 him. If such cases were common, again, it would not 

 improbably happen that the simulation of dual consciousness 

 would become a frequent means of attempting to evade 

 responsibility. 



Another curious point to be noticed is this. Supposing 

 one subject to alternations of consciousness were told that 

 in his abnormal condition he suffered intense pain or mental 

 anguish in consequence of particular actions during his 

 normal state, how far would he be influenced to refrain from 

 such actions by the fear of causing pain or sorrow to his 

 ' double,' a being of whose pains and sorrows, nay, of whose 

 very existence, he was unconscious? In ordinary life a man 

 refrains from particular actions which have been followed by 

 unpleasant consequences, reasoning, in some cases, ' I will 

 not do so-and-so, because I suffered on such and such 

 occasions when I did so J (we set religious considerations 

 entirely on one side by assuming that the particular actions 

 are not contrary to any moral law), in others, * I will not do 

 so-and-so because my so doing on former occasions has 

 caused trouble to my friend A or B : ' but it is strange to 

 imagine any one reasoning, * I will not do so-and-so because 

 my so doing on former occasions has caused my second self 

 to experience pain and anguish, of which I myself have not 

 the slightest recollection.' A man may care for his own 

 well-being, or be unwilling to bring trouble on his friends, 

 but who is that second self that his troubles should excite 

 the sympathy of his fellow-consciousness ? The considera- 

 tions here touched on are not so entirely beyond ordinary 

 experience as might be supposed. It may happen to any 

 man to have occasion to enter into an apparently uncon- 

 scious condition during which in reality severe pains may 

 be suffered by another self, though on his return to his 

 ordinary condition no recollection of those pains may 

 remain, and though to all appearance he has been all the 

 time in a state of absolute stupor ; and it may be a reason- 

 able question, not perhaps whether he or his double shall 



