202 PSYCHOLOGT. 



say, of late months, they have been reinforced by a lot of 

 cunous observations made on hysterical and hypnotic 

 subjects, which prove the existence of a highly developed 

 consciousness in places where it has hitherto not been sus- 

 pected at all. These observations throw such a novel light 

 upon human nature that I must give them in some detail. 

 That at least four different and in a certain sense rival ob- 

 servers should agree in the same conclusion justifies us in 

 accepting the conclusion as true. 



' Unconsciousness ' in Hysterics. 



One of the most constant symptoms in persons suffer- 

 ing from hysteric disease in its extreme forms consists in 

 alterations of the natural sensibility of various parts and 

 organs of the body. Usually the alteration is in the direc- 

 tion of defect, or anaesthesia. One or both eyes are blind, 

 or color-blind, or there is hemianopsia (blindness to one 

 half the field of view), or the field is contracted. Hearing, 

 taste, smell may similarh' disappear, in part or in totality. 

 Still more striking are the cutaneous auiiesthesias. The old 

 witch-finders looking for the ' devil's seals ' learned well 

 the existence of those insensible patches on the skin of 

 their victims, to which the minute physical examinations 

 of recent medicine have but recently attracted attention 

 again. They may be scattered anyAvhere, but are very 

 apt to affect one side of the body. Not infrequently they 

 affect an entire lateral half, from head to foot ; and the 

 insensible skin of, say, the left side will then be found 

 separated from the naturall}- sensitive skin of the right hy a 

 perfectly sharp line of demarcation doAvn the middle of the 

 front and back. Sometimes, most remarkable of all, the 

 entire skin, hands, feet, face, everything, and the mucous 

 membranes, muscles and joints so far as they can be ex- 



rationalis, § 59; Sir W. Hamilton, Lectures on Metaph., lecture xvii; 

 J. Bascom, Science of Mind, § 12; Th. Jouflroy, Melanges Philos., 'du 

 Sorameil'; H. Holland, Chapters on >Iental Physiol., p. 80; B. Brodie, 

 Psychol. Researches, p. 147; E. M. Chesley, .Journ. of Spec. Phil., vol. xi. 

 p. 72; Th. Ribot, Maladies de la Personnalite, pp. 8-10, H. Loize, Meta- 

 physics, § 533. 



