April 27, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



397 



and ieloiv the threshold of consciousness in 

 case of some of the observers as of others. 



The time taken for the arising of spon- 

 taneous and willed images varies greatly in 

 the same and different observers. 



With some observers the preimage, that 

 is, subconscious mental activity, is much 

 more frequent and has much more influence 

 as regards the kind of willed image that 

 arises. 



Subconscious activity is sometimes re- 

 vealed in the willed images that arise. 



The spontaneous images give a survey of 

 the static and dynamic condition of the 

 subconscious. 



The following is a brief summarization of 

 some other matters of practical and theoret- 

 ical interest brought out by the examination 

 of the experimental results: It is possible 

 through using the image method, to deter- 

 mine the richness and poverty of the sub- 

 conscious in a given individual as regards 

 quality and quantity ; his tendency to react 

 along the lines of habit-thought (spontane- 

 ous ideas and images) ; whether he has nat- 

 urally or has acquired the ability to direct 

 the course of his thought, in short, whether 

 he is really able to free himself from habit- 

 thoughts and start new lines of thinking ; to 

 ascertain how to enrich or render non-effect- 

 ive, when desirable, what is subconscious 

 in an individual; to foretell the probable 

 effect of a given environment, as regards 

 momentary thinking and the storing up of 

 thought material upon a particular ob- 

 server and upon observers in general, and 

 the length of residence most desirable as re- 

 gards such storing up ; again, the prevailing 

 thought-constellations in a given observer 

 can be ascertained through the method as 

 well as whether it is possible and desirable 

 to strengthen such natural groupings or to 

 break them up through education ; whether 

 the levels and strata of the subconscious in 

 a given observer can and should be shifted ; 



also, whether marked vacillations of atten- 

 tion in a person are not sometimes due to 

 persistent preimages and if so whether it is 

 not possible for such images to be excluded 

 or transformed into more useful forms; 

 again, whether work may not sometimes be 

 more rapidly and effectively done by an 

 observer by letting himself go and waiting 

 for the problem to solve itself under the 

 threshold of consciousness and spring into 

 consciousness, that is, whether too much or 

 too little emphasis is being laid on will in 

 his case; to make out whether permanency 

 or vacillation characterizes a person's 

 thinking and the effect of this on his life as 

 an actor ; to get at the strength of will of an 

 observer and to determine the possibility 

 of weakening or strengthening it ; to deter- 

 mine the direction and strength of a re- 

 agent's memory and imaginative power for 

 the purpose of getting information concern- 

 ing his ability and weakness along observa- 

 tional lines and correcting them where de- 

 sirable; to decide whether it is better to let 

 one's subconscious thinking take care of 

 itself or to make an effort to educate it; to 

 examine the effect of weariness and sick- 

 ness on an individual's intellectual life, as 

 it is possible that these are not entirely 

 detrimental from the standpoint of the 

 storing up and destruction of thought mate- 

 rial; to get hints regarding a reagent's 

 fitness for a given vocation; in short, to 

 make a diagnostic, prophylactic, and thera- 

 peutic study of the consciousness of a given 

 individual. 



In examining the work being done to-day 

 along the line of mental tests my criticism 

 has been that nearly everywhere it seema 

 to end in the diagnosis, that is, the thera- 

 peutic significance of what is learned from 

 the diagnosis is too much ignored. For this 

 reason I have asked myself and have made 

 some experiments to ascertain what the 

 image method had to offer in a therapeutic 



