162 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
are in some measure inter-related; and in a well-balanced mind, the 
net results of a bewildering number of psychical processes, many of 
them previously subliminal and unconscious, are caught up in sub- 
servience to conscious integration. But taken in detail there is much 
interplay between the psychical sub-systems as such, with facilitation, 
partial arrest, more or less inhibition, and perhaps derangement of 
function. There may be failure of normal integration within one 
systematic whole, or even such dislocation as we speak of as complete 
dissociation. And any of the psychical sub-systems—the so-called 
sexual complex for example—may be active in the subliminal region 
of the unconscious, or may rise into the supraliminal field and may 
modify the course of conscious events. 
There is thus integration within the sub-systems severally, and 
integration of these sub-systems collectively so as to constitute a 
whole with (let us hope) due balance and poise. The unity of the whole 
is not that of simplicity but that of integrated complexity. In the 
degree in which the total integration fails to conduce to what we 
speak of as mental health and sanity we regard the poise as abnormal, 
and seek, by appropriate means (under the guidance of sympathy), 
(1) to ascertain to what sub-systematic conditions the lack of balance 
is due, and (2) to re-establish, if possible, the normal poise. It is 
here that psycho-therapy has done such valuable work in the practical 
application of psychological principles no longer restricted to the sphere 
of reflective consciousness only. 
Levels of Psychical Integration. 
In our normal life much integration proceeds on the reflective 
level—that of rational thought and volitional conduct. The older 
philosophers, with some variation of terminology, urged that the 
difference between this reflective level and the perceptive level below it 
(e.g. in Descartes’ animal automatism) is one not only of degree but 
of kind. The difference, they said in effect, is radical and absolute, 
demanding metempirical explanation. Thus the word ‘ kind’ carried 
a definitely metaphysical implication the influence of which is still 
with us to-day. But apart from this, as a matter of frankly empirical 
description of what is found, it was their way of expressing what I 
seek to express by saying that reflective consciousness has a new 
emergent quality—that which characterises reason as distinguished from 
perceptual intelligence. We have, however, the one word ‘ conscious- 
ness’ for both these levels. But within the more comprehensive sub- 
class, comprising all instances of consciousness, we may distinguish 
two sub-classes subordinate therein, (i) that of instances of reflective 
consciousness (iv, y), and (ii) that of instances of non-reflective con- 
sciousness (iv, B ). Both sets of instances have the criteria of con- 
sciousness. But in (i) there is a further differentia in that ‘ value’ 
(in the technical sense) is referred to the object of such reflective thought. 
There is then, on this view, reflective integration, and there is also 
non-reflective or perceptive integration, each on its appropriate level, and 
each in its distinctive way conscious. 
It is to the reflective level that all interpretation and explanation 
