206 PSYCHOLOGY. 



point ' or 'hvo points,' as accurately as if she were a nor* 

 mal person. She wouhl signify it only by these movements ; 

 and of the movements themselves her primary self would 

 be as unconscious as of the facts they signified, for what the 

 submerged consciousness makes the hand do automatically 

 is unknown to the consciousness which uses the mouth. 



Messrs, Bernheim and Pitres have also proved, by ob- 

 servations too complicated to be given in this spot, 

 that the hysterical blindness is no real blindness at all. 

 The eye of an hysteric which is totally blind when the 

 other or seeing eye is shut, will do its share of vision per- 

 fectly well when both eyes are open together. But even 

 where both eyes are semi-blind from hysterical disease, 

 the method of automatic writing proves that their percep- 

 tions exist, only cut off from communication with the upper 

 consciousness. M. Binet has found the hand of his patients 

 unconsciously writing down words which their eyes Avere 

 vainly endeavoring to ' see,' i.e., to bring to the upper con- 

 sciousness. Their submerged consciousness was of course 

 seeing them, or the hand could not have written as it did. 

 Colors are similarly perceived by the sub-conscious self, 

 which the hysterically color-blind eyes cannot bring to the 

 normal consciousness. Pricks, burns, and pinches on the 

 anaesthetic skin, all unnoticed by the upper self, are recol- 

 lected to have been suffered, and complained of, as soon 

 as the under self gets a chance to express itself by the 

 passage of the subject into hypnotic trance. 



It must be admitted, therefore, that in certain persons^ 

 at least, the total 'possible consciousness may he split into 

 parts ivhich coexist but mutually ignore each other, and 

 share the objects of knowledge between them. More re- 

 markable still, they are complementary. Give an object 

 to one of the consciousnesses, and by that fact you remove 

 it from the other or others. Barring a certain common 

 fund of information, like the command of language, etc., 

 what the upper self knows the under self is ignorant of, 

 and vice versa. M. Janet has proved this beautifully in his 

 subject Lucie. The following experiment will serve as the 

 type of the rest : In her trance he covered her lap with 

 cards, each bearing a number. He then told her that on 



