164 PSTCHOLOOT. 



and elaborate reasons to give for itself. We must there- 

 fore accord it due consideratiou. lu discussing the question : 



DO UNCONSCIOUS MENTAL STATES EXIST? 



it will be best to give the list of so-called proofs as briefly 

 as possible, and to follow each by its objection, as in scho- 

 lastic books.* 



First Proof. The minimum visihile, the minimum audibile, 

 are objects composed of parts. How can the whole affect 

 the sense unless each part does ? And yet each part does 

 so without being separately sensible. Leibnitz calls the- 

 total consciousness an ' aperception,' the supposed insensi- 

 ble consciousness by the name of 'petites perceptions.' 



" To judge of the latter," he says, " I am accustomed to use the ex- 

 ample of the roaring of the sea with which one is assailed when near the 

 shore. To hear this noise as one does, one must hear the parts which 

 compose its totality, that is, the noise of each wave, . . . although this 

 noise would not be noticed if its wave were alone. One must be affected 

 a little by the movement c^" one wave, one must have some perception 

 of each several noise, however small it be. Otherwise one would not 

 hear that of 100,000 waves, for of 100,000 zeros one can never make a 

 quantity." f 



JReply. This is an excellent example of the so-called 

 * fallacy of division,' or predicating what is true only of a 

 collection, of each member of the collection distributive ly. 

 It no more follows that if a thousand things together cause 

 sensation, one thing alone must cause it, than it follows 

 that if one pound weight moves a balance, then one ounce 

 weight must move it too, in less degree. One ounce 

 weight does not move it at all ; its movement begins with 



* The writers about ' unconscious cerebration ' seem sometimes to mean 

 that and sometimes unconscious thought. The arguments which follow 

 are culled from various quarters. The reader will tiud theui most sys- 

 tematically urged by E. von Hartraanii : Philosophy of the Unconscious, vol. 

 r, and by E Colsenet : La vie Inconsciente de I'Esprit (1880). Consult also 

 T. Laycock ; Mind and Brain, vol. i. chap v (1860); W. B. Carpenter: 

 Mental Physiology, chap, xni; F. P. Cobhe : Darwinism in Morals and 

 other Essays, essay xr, Unconscious Cerebration (1872); F. Bowen: Mod- 

 ern Philosophy, pp. 42X-480 ; R. H. Ilutton : Contemporary Review, vol. 

 XXIV. p. 201 ; J. S. ]Mill: Exam, of Hamilton , chap, xv; G. H. Lewes: 

 Problems of Life and Mind. 3d series, Proh. ii. chap, x, and also Prob. 

 III. chap. II ; D G. Thompson: A System of Psychology, chap, xxxiii- 

 J. M. Baldwin, Hand-bonk of Psychology, chap. iv. 



f Nouveaux Essais, Avant-propos. 



