204 PSTCHOLOOT. 



Now M. Janet found in several subjects like this that if he 

 came up behind them whilst they were plunged in conversa- 

 tion with a third party, and addressed them in a whisper, tell- 

 ing them to raise their hand or perform other simple acts, 

 they would obey the order given, although their talk- 

 irig intelligence was quite unconscious of receiving it. Lead- 

 ing them from one thing to another, he made them reply by 

 signs to his whispered questions, and finally made them 

 answer in writing, if a pencil were placed in their hand. 

 The primary consciousness meanwhile went on with the 

 conversation, entirely unaAvare of these performances on the 

 hand's part. The consciousness which presided over these 

 latter appeared in its turn to be quite as little disturbed by 

 the upper consciousness's concerns. This proof by ' aid o- 

 matic' luriting, of a secondary consciousness's existence, is 

 the most cogent and striking one ; but a crowd of other facts 

 prove the same thing. If I run through them rapidly, the 

 reader will probably be convinced. 



The apparently anaesthetic hand of these subjects, for 

 one thing, will often adapt itself discriminatingly to what- 

 ever object may be put into it. With a pencil it will make 

 writing movements ; into a pair of scissors it will put its fin- 

 gers and will open and shut them, etc., etc. The primary con- 

 sciousness, so to call it, is meanwhile unable to say whether 

 or no anything is in the hand, if the latter be hidden from 

 sight. " I put a pair of eyeglasses into Leonie's anaesthetic 

 hand, this hand opens it and raises it towards the nose, but 

 half way thither it enters the field of vision of Leonie, who 

 sees it and stops stupefied : ' Why,' says she, ' I have an eye- 

 glass in -my left hand !' " M. Binet found a very curious sort 

 of connection between the apparently anaesthetic skin and 

 the mind in some Salpetriere-subjects. Things placed in 

 the hand were not felt, but thought of (apparently in visual 

 terms) and in no wise referred by the subject to their start- 

 ing point in the hand's sensation, A key, a knife, placed in 

 the hand occasioned ideas of a key or a knife, liut the hand 

 felt nothing. Similarly the subject thought of the number 

 3, 6, etc., if the hand or finger was bent three or six times 

 by the operator, or if he stroked it three, six, etc., times. 



In certain individuals there was found a still odder 



