210 PSYCHOLOGY. 



mand her to weep, and when awake she really sobs, ])nt continues ir 

 the midst of her tears to tallc of very aay matters. Tlie sobbinir over, 

 there remained no trace of this grief, which seemed to have been t^uite 

 sub-conscious." 



The primary self often has to invent an hallucination by 

 which to mask and hide from its own view the deeds which 

 the other self is enacting. Leonie 3 * writes real letters, 

 whilst Leonie 1 believes that she is knitting ; or Lucie 3 

 really comes to the doctor's office, whilst Lucie 1 believes 

 herself to be at home. This is a sort of delirium. Tli9 

 alphabet, or the series of numbers, when handed over to 

 the attention of the secondary personage may for the 

 time be lost to the normal self. Whilst the hand writes 

 the alphabet, obediently to command, the ' subject,' to 

 her great stupefaction, finds herself unable to recall it, etc. 

 Few things are more curious than these relations of mutual 

 exclusion, of which all gradations exist between the severaJ 

 partial consciousnesses. 



How far this sj^litting up of the mind into separate con- 

 sciousnesses may exist in each one of us is a problem. M. 

 Janet holds that it is only possible where there is abnormal 

 weakness, and consequently a defect of uuifjang or co-or- 

 dinating power. An hysterical woman abandons j^art of her 

 consciousness because she is too w^eak nervously to hold 

 it together. The abandoned part meanwhile may solidify 

 into a secondary or sub-conscious self. In a perfectly sound 

 subject, on tlie other hand, what is dropped out of mind at 

 one moment keeps coming back at the next. The whole 

 fund of experiences and knowledges remains integrated, and 

 no split-off portions of it can get organized stably enough 

 to form subordinate selves. The stability, monotony, and 

 stupidity of these latter is often very striking. The post- 

 hypnotic sub-consciousness seems to think of nothing but 

 the order which it last received ; the cataleptic sub-con- 

 sciousness, of nothing but the last position imprinted on the 

 limb. M. Janet could cause definitely circumscribed red- 

 dening and tumefaction of the skin on two of his subjects, 



* M. Janet designates by numbers the different personalities which the 

 subject may display. 



