226 Heredity. 



cerebration,' or, ' the soul's preconscious activity/ Here we touch 

 the quick of our subject, since the brain, or at least the gang] ionic 

 matter spread over the surface of the hemispheres, is the seat of 

 the highest and most complex psychological operations. But, as 

 we have already remarked, there is no mode of mental activity 

 which may not be produced under its unconscious form. Facts 

 will prove this. 



But how are we to study these phenomena if they are with- 

 drawn from our direct observation ? if, on the one hand, they are 

 cognizable only by the consciousness, and if, on the other, they 

 lie outside of consciousness ? We do not profess here to sketch a 

 method whose processes vary, of necessity, according to the cases. 

 Most commonly we reach them by induction, advancing from the 

 known to the unknown. We arrive at the unconscious by ascer- 

 taining the influence it may have on conscious life, just as we 

 discover an invisible planet by the perturbations it produces. We 

 infer the unconscious from its well-ascertained conscious results. 

 If I am a somnambulist, and rise from my bed at night, dress 

 myself, and sit me down at a table to write verses, I must, when 

 I wake next day, admit that I am the author, because I see them 

 in my own handwriting, though I may have no recollection of 

 what has occurred; in other words, I infer, from the material 

 result before my eyes, that my mind must have performed, in a 

 certain interval of time, a certain number of very complicated 

 operations which differ from ordinary psychological work in only 

 one point, viz. that they are effected without consciousness. 



On entering upon the study of the facts, we meet with a group 

 of morbid states, comprising natural and artificial somnambulism, 

 ecstasy, catalepsy all facts so common that there is no need to 

 describe them. * There are well-authenticated cases in which auto- 

 matic action of this kind has not only produced results perfect of 

 themselves, but has produced them by a shorter and more direct 

 process than would have been thought possible in the waking state. 

 The absence of every distracting influence seems to favour the 

 uninterrupted action of the mental mechanism, if the phrase is 

 permissible.' (Carpenter.) A thing not so well known is, that in 

 a certain form of epilepsy the patient often goes on doing auto- 

 matically, though consciousness is abolished, what he was doing at 



