J.— PSYCHOLOGY. 157 
may call it the class of psychical events—as distinguished from physical 
and physiological events. But we still want some convenient noun 
which we may qualify by the adjectives ‘ conscious ’ and ‘ unconscious.’ 
I borrow from Mr. Alexander, and adapt for my present purpose, the 
name ‘enjoyment.’ Perhaps the chief objection to the choice of this 
word is that it must be understood as including what is unpleasant no 
less than that which is pleasureable. But as I cannot find a better, 
and am loth to coin a worse, I ask leave to use this word ‘ enjoyment’ 
to include all that has the psychical character or aspect. I regard the 
emphasis on affective tone which it suggests as a point in its favour. 
On these terms there fall within the comprehensive class of enjoy- 
ment two sub-classes: (a) unconscious enjoyment and (b) conscious 
enjoyment—the latter marked by certain differentiating criteria. It 
may, however, be said (with some impatience): This division and sub- 
division into classes and sub-classes may be all very well in its way; 
but we ought to deal with concrete systems, not with abstract classes. 
So be it. Then, in this or that psychical system or mind, with concrete 
individuality, there is enjoyment which is (in some sense) unconscious, 
and there may also be enjoyment which is conscious (under some 
definition); and we want to distinguish in some way the one kind of 
enjoyment from the other. That puts the matter in more concrete 
form. 
The question now arises: Is the distinction between the conscious 
and the unconscious just the same as that which is often drawn between 
“above the threshold’ and ‘below the threshold’ (supraliminal and 
subliminal)? Or, if they are not just the same, is there such close and 
intimate alliance that we may still say that all that is supraliminal is 
conscious and all that is subliminal is unconscious ? 
Let us first ask what we are to understand by supraliminal and by 
subliminal. I find this question exceedingly difficult to answer, save 
~ in rather vague and general terms. It involves a boundary line—the 
threshold—very hard to draw if one keeps within the sphere of what I 
have called homogeneous treatment. Is it a matter of intensity of 
_ psychical process, or of complexity, or of some combination of both? 
a 
” 
If so, can we, on purely psychical grounds, get a scale of one or other 
or both, so as to determine that zero-level at which what we call the 
threshold stands? It is difficult to do so. 
May we say that the supraliminal is what we actually feel or ex- 
perience, and that the subliminal is that the presence of which we 
infer? Then on what grounds is this inference based? Is it that 
we find, on occasion, that we have done something without any felt 
experience in doing it? If so, what evidence is there with regard to the 
nature of the psychical or inner aspect which on that occasion accom- 
panied the doing? Or is it that the supraliminal experience is such as 
to lead us to infer that the subliminal modifies its felt nature? But 
if the difference is felt, as such, the subliminal so far enters into the 
supraliminal field so as to be felt indirectly if not directly. In that case 
the boundary seems hard to draw. 
Shall we then resort to heterogeneous treatment? Shall we regard 
the psychically supraliminal as correlated with some assignable 
