408 MENTAL FUNCTION 



the subconscious is, however, as difficult as its physiology is important. 

 E. von Hartmann has described it once for all in his weighty but 

 oppressive "Philosophy of the Unconscious," while numerous students 

 of abnormal mind, of the phenomena of hypnosis, of suggestion, and of 

 sleep, of multiple personality, etc., add continually to the knowledge of its 

 influence, and (but much more slowly) to that of its more precise nature 

 in physiological terms. 



The relations of the subconscious aspects of mind are perhaps best 

 illustrated by the admirable, if trite, simile of a stream : Let the water 

 of a deep and rapid river, then, represent the sensory mass of conscious- 

 ness, its rocky bed the basal organism, its surface the thin and changing 

 focus of attentive consciousness, and the manifold and active mass below 

 the subconscious parts of the mental process. These lower portions 

 are not readily appreciated, for they flow deeply and more or less darkly 

 beneath the surface, down near their unexplained channels in the proto- 

 plasm. On these lower strata of the stream the upper layers rest. It 

 is only the surface which is fully realized at any moment. Any disturb- 

 ance below (in the subconscious) produces changes above, while, on the 

 contrary, any commotion of the surface (conscious) portion of the river 

 may influence only to a less degree and less easily the depths beneath 

 especially little those which are deepest and closest to the bodily 

 functioning. Obstructions in the minor channels in this river-bottom 

 (say an inflamed nerve) produce upheavals not only in the mass (the 

 subconsciousness), but also on the surface (in full consciousness). This 

 stream never stops so long as its banks are present to direct and continue 

 its movements, but its foggy surface may at times be all but invisible (as 

 in coma), although perhaps always in existence. With the ultimate 

 destination of the river physiology is not concerned any more than with 

 its primal origin. It is enough now if we realize that its relations both 

 to the attentive consciousness above and to the bodily substratum below 

 are most intimate even if still undefined. 



THE FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS. As we have just seen, in the adult 

 mental process pure sensations, untinged and unexpanded by other 

 aspects of mind, scarcely exist as such. What we experience mostly are 

 sensations, feelings, volitions, and cognitions fused together. Feelings 

 in one sense and figuratively speaking are largely made out of sensations. 

 The canvas and the richly varied pigments of a beautiful painting are 

 somewhat like the sensations; the picture itself, significant and valuable, 

 tingling with life, is like the feeling itself. In one sense, then, the feeling 

 is made up out of the sensations, but always it is immensely more, even 

 as the beautiful picture is greatly more than a yard of canvas and an ounce 

 or two of paint. These additional affective elements come from the 

 fusion and the interactions which take place between the parts of the 

 mental function. 



Feeling in general has at least three characteristics in addition to its 

 basis found in the muscular, joint, glandular, and visceral sensations 

 underlying and, in a sense, causing it. These three qualities are some 



