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A The Subconscious Self 
and 
Its Relation to Education and Health The Subconscious Self 
and 
Its Relation to Education 
and Health 
By 
Louis Waldstein, M.D. 
t V v J 
“ What’s done we partly may compute 
But know not what’s resisted.” 
Burns. 
New York 
Charles Scribner’s Sons 
i8q8 Copyright, 1897 
By Charles Scribner’s Sons 
eSnttacrsttg 33rrss 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. To My Mother The Subconscious Self 
I 
All the knowledge which man has of his sur- 
roundings and of himself is derived from im- 
pressions received by the different organs of 
sense, and is conveyed to the brain by means 
of the connecting nerves. These impressions 
are modified by the permanent peculiarities of 
the apparatus of perception and transmission. 
The color of an object, for instance, affects 
the eye of one who is color-blind differently 
from that of another whose color-sense is 
normal; again, certain sounds and chords pro- 
duce different effects upon the ear according 
to the constitution of that organ in different 
persons. The impressions, therefore, which 
arrive in the brain of one individual are origi- 
nally as much unlike the impressions received 
by another, as the respective eyes or ears, or THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
any of the other organs of sense, are different 
in structure and functional power. The same 
original variations exist in the nerves which 
conduct, and in the brain which receives, the 
impressions. It follows therefore that the per- 
ception of impressions in the central organ is 
primarily governed by its organic, presumably 
structural, peculiarities. 
Our impressions are thus modified by these 
permanent inherent qualities, and they are 
further subject to temporary variations affect- 
ing the organs that convey them to the brain, 
so that the same object may appear to be 
different according to the nervous condition 
obtaining for the moment, — modified, in other 
words, by changes in functional energy. It 
will not be necessary for the purpose of this 
inquiry to enter into an examination of these 
facts, for they refer to another part of the 
subject than the one here dealt with. 
One fact it is necessary to insist upon : that, 
in whatever degree or manner these perceptions 
may have been received, they are registered 
2 INTRODUCTION 
3 
permanently; they are never absolutely lost. 
We cannot, it is true, recall at will every 
impression which has been received during the 
course of our existence, and so give direct 
proof of this assertion ; but the countless in- 
stances of the reappearance of most feeble 
impressions, coming up again after many years, 
should make further proof unnecessary. Im- 
pressions that have been registered in early 
childhood, for instance, reappear involunta- 
rily, thus showing their original tenacity at a 
period of life when no selective process, or 
reasons for remembering or forgetting, can pos- 
sibly have been at work. This part of the 
subject, however, must be referred to at a later 
stage of this inquiry. It need only be admitted, 
for the present, that impressions once received 
have a quality of permanence, and, when taken 
together, constitute the elements of what we 
call memory. And this refers not alone to 
those which strike the so-called higher senses; 
it applies as well to impressions received in 
the brain from the other organs of our body, 4 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
as, for instance, those of assimilation or of 
secretion. Modern anatomical research has 
clearly demonstrated direct nerve connections 
between the centre of perception and these 
organs, by means of which all their modifica- 
tions are directly conveyed to the brain. We 
are thus justified in assuming to-day that even 
the normal functioning of the vegetative organs 
excites corresponding and repeated impressions 
which are incorporated in our memory. We 
are not conscious of this, it is true, under 
ordinary circumstances; for these impressions 
are repeated in almost continuous monotony, 
and result in a tonic condition which remains 
unperceived owing to the more powerful im- 
pressions of the normal and active condition 
of our mind. It is only in cases of disease 
or functional disturbances that the absence of 
this tonic condition is perceived at once. As 
long as the stomach, for instance, contains food, 
it is continued, but when the stomach is empty, 
the change of innervation is perceived as in- 
dicated by the sensation of hunger. Or when ORGAN SENSATIONS 
5 
abnormal sensations, as Tissie and others have 
pointed out, disturb the unconscious conditions 
of sleep and create dreams, those splanchnic 
stimuli, which are too slight to lead to per- 
ceptions during the waking hours, induce 
corresponding mental activity. “We are not 
conscious of such sensations ” means that our 
attention is not concentrated in that direction, 
— that we have not learnt to appreciate these 
slight constantly present and constantly recur- 
ring impressions, — and, moreover, the fact that 
attention is directed into other channels pre- 
vents their action upon the mind. There are, 
however, individuals who suffer acutely from the 
continued presence of these sensations, which 
need not be violent or pronounced. Every 
physician meets with such cases frequently 
among the large class of nervous patients. 
And now, returning to the impressions that 
come from without, that are received by our 
sensory organs, properly so called, we can 
divide these into two classes, which some- 
times, it is true, merge into each other. 6 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
The act of concentrating our attention upon 
certain objects necessitates the exclusion of all 
other impressions. In listening to a conversa- 
tion, however, we receive impressions not only 
of the words uttered, but also of the sounds 
in the air and of its temperature, of odors, the 
forms, colors, lights and shades; to which are 
added all those subtle sensations due to our 
sense of touch and to the skin; — all associ- 
ating themselves with the thoughts conveyed. 
The more we exclude these surrounding in- 
fluences, the simpler are the impressions and 
the consequent perception and registration of 
the conversation addressed to us; the less, on 
the other hand, we are able to exclude the 
associating impressions from it, the less dis- 
tinct, because more complicated, will be the 
memory of the impressions received: our at- 
tention will not have been complete. 
We therefore make a distinction between 
the conscious impressions and those others associ- 
ated with them though not within the narrowed 
circle of our attention, the subconscious impres- SUBCONSCIOUS IMPRESSIONS 
7 
sions. We are active and selective relative 
to the conscious, passive only in respect to 
the subconscious impressions. But the latter 
class of impressions is, however, permanently 
registered, and forms a constituent part of 
memory. Every one will at once appreciate 
the fact that impressions here called subcon- 
scious are by far more numerous than those 
designated as conscious; the totality of our 
memory, therefore, are made up to a far greater 
degree of subconscious than of conscious im- 
pressions. The accumulated contents of our 
memory govern our emotions, our thoughts and 
actions, and therefore that portion of our mem- 
ory made up of subconscious impressions and 
their aggregate must necessarily play a great 
part in our individual life. As was indicated 
by a few words before, we cannot escape add- 
ing to these constituents of our intellectual and 
emotional individuality those constant and subtle 
impressions conveyed from our organs of vege- 
tative and animal life. 
By excluding all other impressions we con- 8 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
sciously receive one impression only, which is 
thereby made distinct; while those that are 
received more or less passively are vague and 
relative. When this mental act of exclusion 
has been imperfect, the conscious impression is 
associated with one or more subconscious im- 
pressions. But subconscious impressions are 
not necessarily associated, they are most fre- 
quently unassociated, when they are received 
through the lower senses or by the infant, who 
receives subconscious impressions only, and, 
moreover, it is comparatively late in child life 
that attention is exercised, — in other words, that 
associations crowding in with each impression 
are excluded. The distinctness of the impres- 
sion depends upon the degree of attention 
attained by the sense through which it has been 
received, and it is owing to this development 
that we are able to receive impressions of the 
conscious order. Such isolated impressions 
when called up appear in their unassociated 
form and re-create the intellectual mood which 
they primarily produced, whereas an impression MOODS 
9 
with many associations is attended by them 
whenever it appears, creating the emotional 
condition, the mood, which they represent. 
When at some future time a conversation is 
recalled, all those coincident impressions, which 
were merely accidental when received, reappear 
and re-create the entire scene. It is a fact of 
every-day occurrence that, on the other hand, 
one or more of those subconscious impressions 
calls up the memory of a precise and clear 
thought or experience in the past; and this 
will happen the more readily the more associ- 
ated impressions are connected with the event. 
Very often these accidental or subconscious im- 
pressions are exceedingly effective in recalling 
such a past experience in its vital entirety. 
Thus, the scent of a flower, a song, even the 
sensation of temperature or of the moving 
air, conjure up with vividness and complete- 
ness an entire scene or incident which in 
itself made no deep impression and seemed 
entirely lost for years. In reality it is not the 
impression that is repeated, it is the mood that 10 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
corresponds to the primary subconscious ex- 
perience, and it is the mood also that might 
recall the conscious state into existence. Thus, 
a warm draught of air in midwinter, fanning 
the face suddenly and for an instant, charged 
with some exotic scent, may call up a per- 
son, incident, or locality connected with a 
period of one’s life passed years ago in the 
South, or it may only create a mood corre- 
sponding to the sadness or joy of those days. 
We have all been swayed by such sudden 
mental conditions, and our opinions and actions 
may even be governed by them, and, ponder 
as we may, we generally find it impossible to 
account for them. If, however, some thought 
is devoted to the occurrence, we can in many 
instances trace the mood and its consequent 
association to some impression striking for the 
moment one of the senses. That the sense 
should be one of the lower, undeveloped ones 
is naturally accounted for if we admit that 
such images in their vagueness correspond to 
the subconscious impressions, and that they in MOODS AND EMOTIONS 
11 
their turn originate the various moods. The 
less an organ of sense has been trained to 
perceive with attention, the nearer purely 
subconscious will the impressions be that it 
receives, be they associated or isolated. The 
eye in man, on the other hand, has been trained 
in concentration from early youth, that is, 
elimination of unessential associations, and has 
thus become his most important organ of pre- 
cise sensation and information. Ocular images, 
therefore, are less likely to produce subconscious 
impressions, and objects seen do not generally 
create moods or emotions. The eye of a 
painter, moreover, will consciously take in 
scenes and colors that may be only subcon- 
sciously received by the ordinary individual. 
The impressions conveyed to the brain by the 
sense of smell in man are mostly of the sub- 
conscious order; while in the canine race they 
constitute, as we may suppose, the chief part 
of its intelligence. The odors which we per- 
ceive subconsciously must be far beyond our 
estimation when we consider that, according 12 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
to Valentin, the human olfactory nerve can dis- 
tinguish bromine even in a dilution of 1/30,000 
of a milligram in one cubic centimeter of air, 
and that Fischer and Penzoldt have found 
that 1/9,200,000 milligram of mercaptan and 
1/920,000 milligram of chlorphenol in the same 
quantity of air are still perceived by the human 
sense of smell. Is it not fair to suppose, there- 
fore, that it is through this sense that our sub- 
conscious emotional self is principally affected, 
and is it not fair to assume that olfactory and 
tactile sensations are largely accountable for our 
moods ? If our organ of smell is proved by 
such experiments to be so sharp as to detect 
such minute traces, when consciously tested, it 
must constantly convey innumerable impressions 
to the brain, and add thus to our subconscious 
memory a fund of immotive forces, though 
we remain unconscious of these undefined 
sensations. For, as Galton says, vague sensa- 
tions have only immotive qualities. It is the 
same with the tactile sense. There is hardly 
a moment during the waking hours, nay, even THE TACTILE SENSE, ETC. 
13 
during sleep, so far as it is not absolutely a 
state of unconsciousness, when the nerve end- 
ings in the skin are not constantly assailed by 
sensations of pressure, of temperature, of the 
flux and reflux in the blood supply. While we 
are completely unconscious of all these im- 
pressions, yet they enter into and increase the 
material of the subconscious self. 
While the slightest external stimulation may 
awaken a subconscious condition, it cannot be 
directly produced by an effort of the will. If, 
for instance, Italy be mentioned, or any inci- 
dent of the sojourn in the South be spoken of, 
the attention will be aroused and the memory 
led to matters of detailed and conscious ex- 
perience, and thus rather deflected from awak- 
ening the mood. Subconscious impressions 
therefore, entering and stimulating the sub- 
conscious region of memory, are most active 
in awakening early impressions, general moods, 
and so call up in turn their associations. Their 
persistence can be explained in some instances 
by the fact that they affect the subconscious 14 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
self without, or with but a small degree of 
inhibition from the conscious self, which may 
be weakened, in some cases even paralyzed by 
the suddenness of the impression. Such shocks 
need not necessarily come from some un- 
pleasant experience. The sudden apparition 
of a beautiful face, the scent of some pleasant 
perfume, or a stirring melody indistinctly per- 
ceived, though each may come in upon a mo- 
ment of most absorbing mental application, will 
outlast every conscious memory and be the 
predominating characteristic of some evening 
far back in the years of our life. 
The greater the attentive perception of the 
special sense has become, the more closely, in 
other words, education has fixed the connection 
between its functional activity and the upper 
consciousness, the more readily can conscious 
impressions received by the senses be recalled 
by an effort of the will. That the eye has been 
so trained I have pointed out, and it will there- 
fore be clear that visual associations are more 
readily remembered consciously, and the im- ATTENTION 
15 
pressions associated with them often reconstruct 
a contemporary impression consciously received. 
We have thus seen that the subconscious im- 
pressions are dependent upon the degree of 
attention developed in connection with the 
senses; that they are persistent, even when 
those consciously received may have become 
inactive ; that they are most readily recalled by 
other subconscious and therefore involuntary 
impressions; and lastly, that they are not under 
the control of the will. 
But there are conditions when it is in our 
power to reach the subconscious memory of 
another person with some degree of certainty; 
these arise when the controlling action of his 
mind is more or less excluded, when it is most 
nearly in a subconscious condition. I mean 
those moments directly preceding sleep, the 
delirium of dream itself and of fever, the semi- 
consciousness of senility, the fictitious exist- 
ence of the deranged mind, and lastly the 
hypnotic state. 
Now the education which is given in civilized 16 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
countries all the world over differs little in its 
essential parts; the conscious self is therefore 
substantially the same wherever schools and 
colleges exist. The subconscious self, how- 
ever, which is built up out of that countless 
multitude of subconscious impressions and their 
recurrence coming from the surroundings, cus- 
toms, language, national types, physical effects 
of climate, and so many other sources, is widely 
different. An “educated” Frenchman’s opin- 
ions— whether he be a merchant, a profes- 
sional man, or an artisan — may be in no wise 
different from those of an educated Englishman 
or of an educated German; he is, as we prop- 
erly say, “ a man of the world.” But when, 
for any reason, — emotional, for instance, or 
through depression, or illness,— his conscious 
self is weakened or fails him, his subconscious 
self asserts itself and the national character- 
istics appear in spite of u intellectual ” culture. 
In like manner do the more individual environ- 
ments of his home create a subconscious self 
in every person, and make of him not merely HEREDITY 
17 
a representative of his times, but produce in 
him those qualities peculiar to his country, to 
his nativity, and to the class in society to which 
he belongs, — thus stamping him at once with 
all their limitations and idiosyncrasies. 
The likeness which connects individuals of 
one family is not only one of features, it ex- 
tends to peculiarities of structure of internal 
organs and their functional peculiarities. It is 
in this way that tendencies to disease can be 
explained. And if it is true that there is a 
continuous stream of nervous impulses flowing 
from these organs to the brain, and adding their 
impressions to those accumulating in the sub- 
conscious memory, it must follow that the 
tendency to mimicry in the assertion of the 
subconscious self must be as much a fact as is 
the tendency to the development of pathological 
conditions. Not only does the child subcon- 
sciously imitate the repeated actions of the 
parent, it also feels as he feels. 
In our time much has been made of a law 
of heredity, which is called upon to explain 18 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
many peculiarities, physical as well as mental 
and moral, and the literature of the day teems 
with examples which are meant to illustrate this 
law. In so far as the most careful work in 
a rigidly scientific spirit has led the natural 
philosopher and the physician to establish cer- 
tain indubitable facts, they can in the large 
majority of cases be referred to as mimicry in 
organic form, and hence in function, more 
assumed, however, than actually demonstrated. 
That the child should inherit the particular kind 
of liver or stomach of his parent, as well as 
the nose or eye, does not in itself appear 
very wonderful. But that the law so deduced 
should also condemn the offspring to the vices 
of the parent, and so lead to the assumption 
that all interference will be of no avail, that 
progressive degeneration is a fatal consequence 
of ancestral sins, are conclusions by no means 
sufficiently established; — they are indeed care- 
lessly asserted in most cases where other ex- 
planations are wanting. The force of early 
impressions, their repetition and their result, EARLY TRAINING 
19 
the correcting influence of early training both 
in a concentrating as well as in a deflecting 
direction, are unhappily quite overlooked, as 
explaining many facts now ascribed to hered- 
ity, and it is the object of the following in- 
quiry, while showing the subconscious origin of 
most of the physical phenomena, to suggest 
certain means of prevention and of cure. 
These influences appear to me to be important 
in forming habits of mind and body, and they 
are in many cases much easier to detect than 
are the so-called hereditary peculiarities. Nay, 
more than this; what is often called heredity 
is simply the expression of a subconscious self, 
the beginnings of which can be traced to early 
childhood, when the actions of the parents and 
their example are subconsciously perceived, and, 
by their constant repetition, form fundamental 
impressions which make up a great part of 
the memory. 
From conscious impressions and the accumu- 
lation of them, the intellectual, the calculating, 
the deliberate man is formed. Drawn from the 20 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
depths and the rich material of the subconscious 
impressions is evolved the emotional, the spon- 
taneous, the passionate man. The conscious 
self governs the actions of man in his relations 
to his surroundings, it makes him aware of his 
responsibilities toward the animate and inani- 
mate world, as well as toward himself. All 
desires, instinctive cravings, useless exertions, 
are kept in check by this part of his mental 
nature; it is the conscious self which is prin- 
cipally exclusive in its function because con- 
centrating ; suppressing, therefore inhibitory. 
Were it not for this, man would break through 
the limits placed for him by organized society ; 
the family, the national peculiarities, would 
predominate, and concerted action, as well as 
social order, would be impossible. It is the 
conscious self which regulates man’s work, and 
it is the exertion of its concentrating activity 
which fatigues the nervous system in its efforts 
to exclude all those impressions which come 
without call. Rest from this is either uncon- 
sciousness in sleep or the condition of passive GENIUS 
21 
reception of impressions which come in upon 
us when the conscious self is allowed to rest, 
when we give ourselves over to contemplation 
without purpose and desire. In this condition 
the mind is in the artistic mood, so closely con- 
nected with our emotional life; for both have 
their origin in the subconscious self. 
It would be wrong, however, to attribute to 
the conscious self active powers alone, and to 
the subconscious only passive receptive func- 
tions ; for there are occasions when active and 
productive results of man’s mental energy are 
directly derived from subconscious sources. 
The creations of genius, for instance, can only 
be explained by assuming that they result from 
the spontaneous action of that part of man’s 
mind freed from the chains which the intellectual, 
the purposely “ educated ” part of the mind has 
wound round it. The artist will himself oft- 
times confess that he cannot explain how his 
best work has been done; he can but rarely 
attain the same degree of creative freedom at 
will. Every one of us has such moods when 22 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
it appears as if some other power than that 
over which we have control speaks or acts out 
of us. There are moments when the mind has, 
as it were, shaken off the oppression of the 
selecting will, when self-criticism is ignored 
and conceptions in thought or form spring into 
life without effort. Difficult problems, intricate 
situations, are treated with surprising facility; 
and when we relapse into our accustomed 
condition it is as if we had fallen from a 
height, or as if another, a more powerful 
individuality had existed in us for the time. 
We have a name for such moments, we call 
them inspired; and thus erroneously go outside 
of ourselves for an explanation, instead of find- 
ing it deep down in our subconscious self, the 
germs of which were sown perchance far back 
in our childhood, developed by our surround- 
ings, added to by conditions beyond our con- 
trol and not chosen by those who were 
preparing the material for our mental develop- 
ment. So far from being the cause of our 
mood of “ inspired ” productiveness, this care- GENIUS 
23 
fully directed mental “ education ” was really 
efficient only in recalling us to our ordinary, 
sober, and “ rational ” state. It is through the 
subconscious self that Shakespeare must have 
perceived without effort great truths, which are 
hidden from the conscious mind of the student, 
that Phidias fashioned marble and bronze, that 
Raphael painted Madonnas and Beethoven com- 
posed symphonies. It is futile to attempt an 
explanation of these artistic phenomena from 
the purely conscious point of view, and it is 
for this reason that all efforts of analysis fail 
to make us understand the workings of genius, 
which we realize but cannot follow. It is 
precisely by reason of the ingenuousness, the 
naivete of genius that perception does not 
approach the subject through the conscious 
channels; it is entirely without purpose, with- 
out analysis, without induction. What seems 
to us the result of most minute observation and 
subtle reasoning has been spontaneously, sub- 
consciously apprehended by the artist; it is, I 
should say, an elemental process of unreasoning 24 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
impressionability, which with us is rare and fit- 
ful, whilst it is the normal, wellnigh constant 
mood of the poet and the productive artist. 
With ordinary people this mood depends much 
more upon the absence of conscious thought, 
while with the poet and artist it is a more con- 
stant and active condition of the mind. Such 
minds, as Dowden expresses it, are the descend- 
ants not so much of their direct progenitors 
as of the whole human race. Hence the uni- 
versality of their works, and their unfailing wis- 
dom, and the absolute beauty of form in which 
they are clothed. It has ever been a source of 
wonder how Shakespeare, whose w education,” 
as we have narrowed the sense of the term, 
must have been of the simplest, came to dis- 
cover truths that only the most learned in the 
various professions could understand. I ven- 
ture to assert that it is only to be explained 
by the assumption that he perceived them 
with a naturalness of vision unobscured by all 
the detail of methodical research and analysis 
with which the man of science is fitted out. GENIUS 
25 
The eyes of the poet are accustomed to strong 
light and vivid impressions, which come to him 
without search and are held fast and applied by 
him without effort. His impressionability is 
more acute than ours, for his subconscious self, 
nurtured from earliest youth by Nature herself, 
has developed free from the narrowing effect of 
purposely directed observation. Herein often 
also lie the causes of his failings; the expression 
of his thoughts may be vague and complicated 
to the conscious, critical mind. Shelley, for 
instance, frequently sees odors, feels light and 
shade, and is moved by things incorporate. 
This powerful development of the subconscious 
self accounts, moreover, for many of the artist’s 
personal frailties; his predominant personal 
mood makes him oblivious of his relation to 
the world in which, after all, he is obliged to 
move, and hence his disregard of his responsi- 
bilities toward society and friends, family and 
state. “ II a les defauts de ses qualites.” 
From this and from what follows it will 
appear why insanity and genius have been 26 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
considered in some degree to be related to 
each other in their origin, a proposition which 
is, it seems to me, greatly over-generalized by 
Lombroso and his followers. 
It is impossible to understand the poet and 
the artist and their works from the purely 
analytical examination of their fully developed 
individuality, or their education and surround- 
ings as they present themselves consciously; 
on the other hand a thorough knowledge of 
those subconscious impressions out of which 
the subconscious part of their mind was built 
up, and which are especially numerous and 
powerful in early childhood, might lead to a 
clearer apprehension of their chief character- 
istics and to a more perfect understanding of 
their works. The commonly accepted state- 
ment, that the artist and the poet are products 
of their time, is only partially true; for it 
takes no account of the personal factors that 
are not so easily discovered. One illustra- 
tion out of many may make my meaning 
clearer. FEUERBACH 
27 
In the collection of modern paintings in 
the National Gallery of Berlin there is a large 
picture by Feuerbach, representing u The 
Symposium of Plato.” The history of this, 
perhaps the most finished work of this pro- 
lific and remarkable artist, as it is told in a 
collection of his letters and biographical notes 
which appeared some time after his death 
(“ Ein Vermachtniss ”), is significant in many 
ways. He conceived the idea of painting 
this picture at the very outset of his career, 
and, though after beginning it the plan and 
the sketches were changed and modified in- 
numerable times, there is one figure which 
remained unaltered from the first, and during 
the whole course of selection and of rejection 
of the other parts of the composition : it is the 
figure of Socrates and his position in the pic- 
ture with regard to chiaroscuro and composi- 
tion. Even were we ignorant of the account 
which Feuerbach himself gives of the diffi- 
culties he labored under during the creation 
of this masterpiece, our attention would needs 28 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
be drawn to the prominent light in which 
the figure of the philosopher is placed, a 
relief which isolates him, and therefore dis- 
turbs the otherwise perfect harmony of the 
composition. The critic, moreover, might 
rest satisfied with pointing out this peculiarity 
in composition, and might be tempted to de- 
duce from it an elaborate theory of the man- 
ner of this particular artist and its effect upon 
his school, which would certainly have de- 
veloped under him, judging from the enthu- 
siasm of his pupils, if he had retained his 
position as Professor at the Academy in Vienna. 
It cannot be my purpose to analyze this pecu- 
liarity of inharmonious accentuation in the 
other larger paintings of the artist, though it 
would be curious and most instructive from 
our present point of view. For in Feuer- 
bach’s own words lies, it appears to me, the 
explanation of the singular treatment of Socrates 
in his Symposium, and they throw a strong light 
upon the workings of the artist’s mind. In 
referring to the plan of the painting in one FEUERBACH 
29 
of his letters, he expresses surprise at the 
persistence with which the head of Socrates, 
ever present, haunts him, unaltered from the 
beginning in expression and illumination, the 
light falling on the bald part of the head in 
such a manner as to bring out in sharp lines 
the profile. “ My mind has been so long 
possessed of this image, its position, its pre- 
cise illumination, that I have often tried to 
trace it back to its origin, and not succeeding, 
must assume,” he half jestingly adds, “ that 
I have been born with it.” We, who are 
familiar with this refuge in antenatal regions, 
so satisfying to the pseudo scientific mind of 
to-day, need not wonder at finding the artist 
unable to suggest a far simpler explanation, — 
an explanation, moreover, that, if farther an- 
alyzed, might elucidate many stages in his 
development as an artist, and lead us to under- 
stand the forces that fashioned his style and 
prescribed the motive for his works. They 
were classical for the most part, and no won- 
der. His father was Professor of Philosophy 30 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
in the University of Freiburg, and an archaeol- 
ogist of high attainments. In his home the 
child was surrounded, we may be allowed to 
assume without forcing an argument, by all 
the paraphernalia of his father’s profession; 
among them casts from ancient Greece and 
Rome. What is more likely than that among 
them, near the window in the study, there may 
have stood the head of the philosopher in a 
position that the light would fall obliquely 
upon the side and top, bringing out at once 
both the firmness of character in its lower 
parts and the thoughtfulness and profundity in 
the forehead and temples ? It was not an 
object for study and conscious contemplation 
for the child, but it was one that impressed 
itself without choice indelibly upon his memory, 
there to lie dormant until called up by asso- 
ciated ideas many years after. So unconscious 
was he of this that every conscious effort to 
account for its persistent and well defined 
apparition was unsuccessful, though his imagi- 
nation at that later period must have been THE POETIC MOOD 
31 
disporting itself in close proximity to similar 
mental images. 
I have purposely given this detailed account 
in order to direct attention to the importance 
of biographical material of this kind, confident 
as I am that a close study of the early lives of 
poets and artists, and the subconscious impres- 
sions which they then receive, might lead to a 
better understanding of their style and schools. 
As opposed to this instance I might relate 
many examples, which I have taken pains to 
collect, where the artist himself is made to real- 
ize the subconscious influence, not alone in the 
stage of conception, but also during the period 
of creation. A celebrated writer of fiction and 
verse once described vividly to me her experi- 
ence when at work. The personages of her 
novels and plays suddenly and unaccountably 
appeared to her while she was working or 
attending to ordinary matters, vaguely at first, 
then in a more definite form, with distinct 
features and gestures. Sometimes they dis- 
appeared or were overshadowed by the real 32 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
persons connected with her every-day life. 
Again they reappeared, and gradually assumed 
all the characteristics of real beings, grouping 
themselves, speaking, acting, and even think- 
ing quite independently of the author’s will. 
“ Thus,” she said, “ they became a part of my 
life, as if they had entered into it, and might 
finally exert their influence even upon my own 
existence, were I not conscious of my separate- 
ness from them.” And in time these human 
beings, in the various phases of their existence 
and their surroundings, assumed such a degree 
of vividness, and obtruded themselves so forcibly 
upon her attention, that her own conscious 
life threatened to become involved, so that, if 
only to rid herself of their obsession, she was 
driven to relate what was being enacted in her 
mind and was wholly independent of her will. 
Writing down what thus presented itself with 
an almost feverish activity, (for her pen could 
not keep pace with the rapidity of the lifelike 
changes in the imaginary world of which she 
was only a spectator,) she was often herself THE POETIC MOOD 
33 
moved to tears or excited to mirth by the situa- 
tions and scenes that were unrolling themselves 
before her. In this manner she would work 
on, driven by that other self in her, until she 
was obliged to stop from sheer physical exhaus- 
tion ; and when, in pacing up and down in the 
room, she would chance to see her face in the 
mirror she hardly recognized herself, so changed 
was her expression. M It looked,” she said, 
w like that of another person, and I would have 
to pull myself together in order to recompose 
my features into their ordinary expression.” 
Such work, when subsequently re-read, was 
generally found to be good work; it was only 
when conscious moments, acts with will and 
purpose directed toward the outer world and 
pertaining to her position in it, disturbed the 
artistic mood, that the quality of her writing 
was marred by false expression or by imperfec- 
tion in form. In such moments the thread of 
events, or the logical relation between the char- 
acter and the action, was frequently for the 
time being interrupted. 34 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
When the conscious self has thus regained 
control, the artist finds it impossible to recall 
the mood of creation by an effort of the will: 
the Muses have retired into their native domain, 
into the subconscious self, and the lost mood 
will return only when reawakened either by 
some powerful association, or if the subcon- 
scious self is stirred by a subconscious impres- 
sion of adequate force. Thus another eminent 
writer found in music the best means of re- 
awakening the poetic power : after a concert 
the imaginary personages once again continued 
their existence and swayed his imagination as 
before. 
To those who have given thought to this 
subject it will not be necessary, I am sure, to 
quote further examples, which I might easily 
multiply from the material I have collected; I 
desire merely to illustrate two points that in this 
connection are of the greatest interest. The 
one is that impressions received, be it in early 
childhood or in later years, must be received 
into the subconscious part of the mind in order THE ARTISTIC MOOD 
35 
to constitute the creative phase of the aesthetic 
mood, and that, further, the awakening of this 
subconscious condition of mind is the sole con- 
dition for pure art conception and perfect art 
production. The artist himself awakens, as it 
were, to his dual mental nature when he sud- 
denly contemplates the subconscious workings 
of his “ imagination ” with his critical, his con- 
scious self. The artist, on the other hand, 
who proceeds from what he conceives to be 
the “ real ” object, minutely analyzed and con- 
sciously reconstructed, the modern w realist ” 
or “ impressionist,” addresses himself to the 
critical faculty, and thereby calls into play pre- 
cisely that mental force which prevents pure 
contemplation the more the interest in experi- 
ence is exerted ; and he thereby misses com- 
pletely the true distinction of all pure art 
impression. For it is necessary that the mood 
proper for the pure and full enjoyment of the 
work of art must be analogous to that in which 
it has been conceived. The aesthetic mood is 
grounded also in the subconscious self, and is 36 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
therefore closely related to the elements of its 
composition. It is, in its essence, receptive, 
contemplative, distinctly personal, and therefore 
free from purpose and conscious selection. 
The power of enjoyment, furthermore, is de- 
pendent, in a negative sense, upon the absence 
of analysis and intellectual effort, which might 
tend to diminish its intensity and alter its 
quality. Instead of thus ascribing the disturb- 
ing effect to the conscious impressions upon the 
aesthetic mood, it is common to assume a weak- 
ness of the imagination. The author, the 
artist or musician, weakens for himself and 
for his audience the pure effect of the work of 
art when he applies to it the laws of con- 
struction that have been formulated in the 
course of time. In applying critical analysis 
and well grounded tests to it, he involuntarily 
destroys or decreases its value as a spontaneous 
creation. It is true that he thereby may evoke 
a new element of pleasure — though origi- 
nally foreign to art — which appeals to another 
faculty, that of the intellectual mood ; and this THE AESTHETIC MOOD 
37 
might outweigh the purely aesthetic enjoyment 
to the intellectual esoteric, — nay, to the moral- 
ist the u purpose ” may convey ideas of more 
value than the enjoyment of pure form and 
color and harmony of sound. 
We have all had experiences of this kind, 
and have generally been content to repeat the 
trite saying that “ reality never comes up to 
imagination.” In describing his life in Venice, 
Rousseau tells of an incident in his “ Confes- 
sions,” how in the theatre he fell asleep during 
the opera, and, after sleeping for some time in 
spite of the u noisy and brilliant ” music, he 
awoke during the strains of an air that affected 
him so profoundly that he could not find words 
strong enough to describe his emotions. “ I 
must possess that piece,” he continues. “ I 
procured it, and kept it a long time; but it was 
not the same on paper as in my memory. It 
contained, to be sure, the same notes, but it 
was not the same thing. That divine melody 
can never be rendered as it was on the day it 
awakened me — soundless, in memory only.” 38 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
The essential nature of aesthetic pleasure is 
therefore found in the appeal to the subcon- 
scious self, and its degree will depend upon the 
elements that make up this part of our memory. 
It is for this reason that some highly intel- 
lectual persons are quite insensible to music, 
a form of art that engages most directly the 
subconscious and thus awakens the artistic 
mood, and moves the one of us to tears, and 
consoles and enlivens the other. It depends 
only upon the complexion of our subconscious 
self in what manner and in what degree we are 
affected. 
It would be of interest to follow out this 
part of the subject in its relation to works of 
art, and one might be led to formulate certain 
laws governing aesthetics as a science. Here, 
however, it may suffice to have insisted upon 
the fact that artistic creation as well as aesthetic 
pleasure in its purest form are a function of the 
subconscious self; and that the study of the 
artist’s creative genius, and of the taste peculiar 
to the nation and the epoch, must be begun by PLEASURE IN ART 
39 
a thorough understanding of their subconscious 
peculiarities. This would be found, I repeat, 
in the early surroundings, in the natural condi- 
tions, and in the events which govern the times 
as they affect the artist in his subconscious self. 
Whenever a work of art is the vehicle for an 
idea or purpose outside of its essential form, it 
falls short of being a pure art creation, and 
fails in its appeal to the aesthetic mood, whilst, 
be it conceded, it may serve some other, but 
secondary purpose, which belongs to the prov- 
ince of the archaeologist, the art historian, and 
the collector. 40 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
II 
From the moment of birth — and, in so far as 
we have seen that organic or splanchnic sen- 
sations are communicated to the brain, even 
before birth — begin the deposit and retention 
of subconscious impressions in the mind of the 
child, and so the foundation is laid for the de- 
velopment of that part of man’s mental nature 
which, in the foregoing pages, has been called 
the subconscious self. I have chosen this ex- 
pression — first used, if I mistake not, by 
George Henry Lewes — because these impres- 
sions are not conscious, for that would as- 
sume a selection of impressions, or in other 
words the exclusion of associations; nor can 
they be considered unconscious, for they can be 
called up and actively applied in later years. 
The extent, force, or character of the subcon- 
scious self must depend, in the first instance 
and to a certain degree, upon the organs of EDUCATION 
41 
perception and upon the receptivity of the 
brain. These qualities are native, born with 
the individual, and are comparatively constant, 
because they are variable only in degree and 
subjected only to change in the physical condi- 
tions. I have excluded the examination of 
such inherent differences ; for it is the nature 
of the impressions themselves, and their effect 
upon the individual, so important in man’s life, 
for pleasure and for pain, that form the subject 
of these considerations. 
When we speak of the education of the child, 
we mean generally the effort to provide a store 
of impressions which are consciously received 
and retained for future use. When the world’s 
educators treat of culture, they apply this term 
to the use which is made of precepts inculcated 
and consciously added to that part of our men- 
tal personality which again is the conscious 
self. But while the parent and the teacher, 
the moral and political educators, are addressing 
but one small part of the individual, everything 
that surrounds youth, every sensation from his 42 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
own body, every instinct that comes from the 
functional activity of his organs, is adding an 
enormous number of impressions to his mem- 
ory, which go to constitute his subconscious 
self. This part of his mind depends upon his 
impressionability, so that one individual differs 
greatly from another in the development of this 
integral part of his nature. The character, 
moreover, of his subconscious self depends 
wholly upon the quality of the impressions re- 
ceived, of instincts satisfied. When the suck- 
ling baby is hushed by being fed every time 
that it cries, it is certain that there is created 
an intimate connection in its mind between the 
cry and the physical sensation of taking food, 
tasting it, and receiving it in the stomach. 
I may be allowed to forestall in this place 
the discussion of a point that might be raised 
in favor of “ instinct ” in its relation to the 
subject under consideration. Instinct, I hold, 
is not in its origin a psychological factor: it 
can be described as the necessity for functional 
activity inherent in the organ and dependent INSTINCT 
43 
upon its supply of nourishment; it is a physi- 
ological element. Only the satisfaction or the 
suppression of an instinct creates impressions 
that enter into the make up of the subconscious 
self, and these assume an integral importance 
in direct proportion to their repetition. The 
indulgence or the disregard of instinctive appe- 
tites, therefore, may thus become the connecting 
link between the physiological reflex and the 
higher mental complexion of the individual. 
If the child sleeps in the light, awakens in a 
sunless room, and receives physical impressions 
without number from nursemaids, its habits 
must necessarily depend upon such surround- 
ings. It is well known to every observer 
of children how keen is their power of ob- 
servation, how retentive their memory, how 
true their mimicry. There is little in their 
surroundings that escapes them, and still it 
is extremely difficult to fix their attention. 
Nothing is more difficult than to teach a child 
concentration; it is comparatively late in its 
life that it begins to take in what we call 44 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
conscious impressions. The first years of its 
life are devoted to the reception of subcon- 
scious impressions, and it is then that the per- 
manent foundation of its subconscious self is 
laid. It is a very simple matter to demonstrate 
the inability of children to observe correctly, 
and to fix their attention in a conscious manner 
upon the most elementary objects. The obser- 
vations of Preyer, Darwin, and other students 
of children, are most interesting evidence of 
this, and my own tests, that have been addressed 
to every sense of the child, have in many in- 
stances greatly surprised me. I should like to 
recommend only one simple experiment to the 
reader. Let him draw a circle on a piece of 
paper or on a slate, and, inviting the child’s 
full attention, mark a cross therein, choosing 
a well defined position, either on the one side 
or the other, above or below the centre. After 
allowing the little one to note the relative 
position well, but only, of course, for a fraction 
of a minute, remove it and ask the child to 
reproduce the drawing on a blank piece of CULTURE IN CHILDHOOD 
45 
paper or on the other side of the slate. I have 
found that among a large number of children 
(I may say several hundreds) ranging from 
five to nine years of age, barely one tenth have 
given the cross the correct place within the 
circle ; nor, indeed, was it an easy matter to 
induce them to reproduce the figure, although 
they were pleased to see what I had drawn. 
As those actions which emanate from our 
conscious self are intentional, that is, are de- 
signed for their effect upon the outside world 
and our position in it, so does the subconscious 
self act with impulse irrespective of effect, striv- 
ing to satisfy directly our innermost, true ele- 
mental nature. How important is it, therefore, 
that the surroundings of the child which form 
the temperament should be chosen with care ! 
It is not precept or admonition that is most 
important in this period ; careful constant ex- 
ample, without apparent effort or purpose, is 
the beginning of true culture. For culture 
depends upon the impulse, not upon purpose. 
And if the love for the beautiful, if the 46 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
aesthetic mood has its origin in the subcon- 
scious, how essential is it to create numberless 
impressions of beauty and harmony upon the 
child, and to exclude everything that is ugly 
and squalid ! The poor and the rich are equally 
in the position to satisfy such demands. The 
objects surrounding the child, the persons habit- 
ually in its company, even the colors, should 
be chosen with care; sunlight and fresh air 
should have free access, not only for the sake 
of the body’s health, but also to create and 
preserve a mood of natural joyfulness. Wher- 
ever possible the surroundings of the house, and 
especially the carriage and behavior of those 
with whom the child comes into contact, should 
be of true geniality and refinement. The satis- 
faction of instinct should not be allowed to 
create impressions of habit. Is it too bold to 
assert that the crying baby who makes a slave 
of its mother develops into the habitual mal- 
content of society ? that the child surrounded 
by every outward sign of shiftlessness, cheerless- 
ness, that lives in an atmosphere of egotism, RACIAL AND RELIGIOUS PREJUDICE 
47 
discord, and “ white lies,” may grow to the 
man who may some day surprise his friends 
by acts that seem out of harmony with the 
life he had been leading among them ? 
In those early impressions of which no one 
seems to be conscious, least of all the child, 
and which gather up power as the rolling ava- 
lanche, the elements are collected for future 
emotions, moods, acts, that make up a greater 
part of the history of the individual and of 
states, more effective and significant than those 
that are written down in memoires, however 
intimes, or that can be discovered in archives, 
however “ secret.” The strange vagaries of 
affection and passion, which affect the whole 
existence, of men and women — the racial and 
religious prejudices that shake states and com- 
munities to their very foundations, that make 
and unmake reputations and set the wheel of 
progress back into the dark ages, — can be traced 
to such small beginnings and into those nooks 
of man’s subconscious memory. In the inti- 
macy of the family, where every conscious 48 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
effort is supposed to be made to develop the 
best social tendencies, numberless thoughtless 
remarks and insinuations directed against a 
class, a religion, a race, many acts of unre- 
strained cupidity, are reconstructing insidiously 
revivals of mediaeval persecution ! Whenever 
in the course of events periods of depression in 
the affairs of men set in,— and this corresponds 
to physical and mental debility in the life of 
the individual,— times when the passions and 
egotistical emotions of the individual free them- 
selves from conscious restraint, — it is then 
that religious prejudice and hatred of class are 
revived, or rather only brought to light out of 
the depths of a subconscious fund of reiterated 
early memories. What Bagehot says of great 
communities is true also of the individual : they 
are w like great mountains, — they have in them 
the primary, secondary, and tertiary strata of 
human progress ; the characteristics of the lower 
regions resemble the life of old times, rather 
than the present life of the higher regions.” 
Whenever serious social revolutions occur, the CULTURE IN CHILDHOOD 
49 
lowest elements of the human mind are brought 
to the surface, as the material of the mountain’s 
formation is thrown up out of the depths through 
the crater during volcanic eruptions. 
I can merely indicate the lines along which 
a system of education and culture might be 
carried out, if the importance of the develop- 
ment of the subconscious self be acknowledged, 
even if that part of instruction upon which 
most stress is laid in general be in a measure 
subordinated. The surroundings in which the 
child is taught are of more importance, in 
relation to the ultimate degree of culture to 
be attained, than the lesson; the manner of 
the teacher, than the substance of his teach- 
ing. The evil effects upon the health and 
moral tone of the young mind, the condition 
of its nerves, can be directly traced to such 
general causes by the attentive parent and the 
careful physician. The beginnings of nervous 
disturbances, so frequent in our times, can 
be traced even further back, into the period 
of infancy: many cases of sleeplessness, lack 50 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
of appetite, and general restlessness in the in- 
fant are caused by surroundings which are 
exciting, and awaken prematurely the impres- 
sionability of the infantile mind, when it is of 
the greatest importance that restfulness and 
regularity should prevail. Later in life, as has 
been said, the manner of instruction is of 
greater importance even than its matter; even 
the form of books, the print, the paper, and 
the bindings, should not be neglected. Of 
late years the kindergarten system and teach- 
ing by object lessons have brought improve- 
ments which are of the greatest value. But 
here also details of apparently minor impor- 
tance might be treated more carefully. It 
cannot be without deleterious effect upon the 
development of the artistic sense of children 
if they are taught to interlace strips of paper 
in the most hideous combination of colors, 
or if they are made to recite ridiculous songs 
and sentimental rhymes. For though these 
teachings are addressed to the intellect, and 
are meant to form the conscious part of the EDUCATION OF GIRLS 
51 
mind, they remain for the most part uncom- 
prehended and enter therefore into the com- 
position of the subconscious self. 
It has often been deplored by those most 
interested in higher education, who have 
had ample opportunity for observation, that so 
many children, especially during adolescence, 
break down under the strain of the severe 
course of intellectual training. Since the es- 
tablishment in recent years of colleges for 
girls, this has been said with greater emphasis 
of girls than of boys, — a fact which has been 
used by those who oppose higher education of 
women on the ground of their fundamental 
unfitness for such a strain. Whenever the 
ordinary arguments have failed, physical reasons 
and hereditary causes were looked for. It 
seems to me as if here also the understanding 
of the nature of the subconscious and its 
ulterior bearings will lead, not only to a proper 
realization of the true state of things, but 
even to much needed reforms in the early 
training of the future female student. As 52 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
the impressions upon the very young are 
subconscious and vague, and make up, espe- 
cially by reason of their great persistence, the 
subconscious memory out of which is devel- 
oped the subconscious self, the more this part 
of the juvenile mind is developed, the greater 
becomes the general impressionability and the 
consequent strength of “ moods.” With every 
mental effort there are created, in such children, 
moods corresponding to, and associating them- 
selves with, the conscious impressions, whereby 
these latter become more or less indistinct, 
and their apprehension is consequently rendered 
more difficult. In this manner the subcon- 
scious and conscious self are continually in 
conflict with each other, and the impression- 
ability is more and more increased. The posi- 
tion of girls and their life in the family is 
much more conducive to the growth of the 
impressionable part of the mind than is that 
of boys. Possibly certain physical peculiar- 
ities may contribute in a measure in this direc- 
tion. It is therefore not surprising that the EFFECT OF EARLY IMPRESSIONS 
53 
college girl may suffer from nervous break- 
downs more frequently than the boy. 
I have for several years collected observa- 
tions which could be used as proof of these 
general propositions, and it is surprising to note 
how intimate is the connection between certain 
idiosyncrasies, likes, dislikes, and prejudices, 
with early impressions of the subconscious 
order. I have found it less difficult than I 
had supposed, when first my attention was 
directed to these matters, to trace back to their 
origin, and so find a simple explanation for, 
certain unexpected acts and surprising peculi- 
arities that were inexplicable to the parents or 
teachers of a child, and were therefore referred 
to the dark regions of hereditary tendencies. 
There would be small harm if this were 
merely an error of judgment; but it is much 
more. For the predicate “inherited” carries 
with it the admission of the unalterable, fatal- 
istic, incorrigible : we are unable to eradicate 
or to change such tendencies; they are beyond 
our influence. But if, on the contrary, the 54 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
cause can be discovered in certain early 
shocking or powerful, because oft repeated 
impressions, that have been added to the 
subconscious memory, much can be done 
to prevent the formation of such “ tenden- 
cies,” — in fact, they can be pursued into 
their very stronghold. 
A young boy of my acquaintance had an 
invincible dislike to music, and could not be 
prevailed upon to continue his piano lessons. I 
was impressed by the violence of his aversion, 
and, upon inquiry, was told that he was born 
and passed his infancy in a house next to a 
conservatory of music; no doubt, he had been 
constantly disturbed in his sleep by the dis- 
cordance of sounds from a number of instru- 
ments played at the same time. Another 
showed a surprising and violent dislike to busi- 
ness ; when I found that it was because of 
his inaptitude for the study of arithmetic, I 
learned that his first teacher was a person who 
looked upon his own profession as an unbearable 
drudgery, and was hence an object of the most EARLY IMPRESSIONS 
55 
violent dislike because of his gruffness and un- 
fairness to the young and impressionable boy. 
The manner here was the efficient cause in 
creating a far-reaching dislike for the object of 
teaching, and had nothing to do with a lack of 
talent or natural gift. The refined tastes and 
joyous dispositions of the elder children in a 
family with whom I often came into contact 
was a matter of some surprise to me, as I could 
not account for the common trait among them 
by the position or special characteristics of the 
parents: they were in the humblest position 
socially, and all but poor. My first visit to 
their modest home furnished me with the 
natural solution, and gave me much food for 
reflection. The children — there were six — 
occupied two rooms into which the sunlight 
was pouring as I entered; the remaining rooms 
of the apartment were sunless for the greater 
part of the day; the color and design of the 
cheap wall paper were cheerful and unobtrusive, 
bits of carpet, the table-cover, and the coverlets 
on the beds were all in harmony, and of quiet 56 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
design in nearly the elementary colors; every- 
thing in these poor rooms of poor people had 
been chosen with the truest judgment for aes- 
thetic effect, and yet the mother seemed sur- 
prised that I could make so much of what 
seemed to her so simple a matter. 
Among my notes I find an instance referring 
to an English lady, which is especially interest- 
ing as showing how readily “ heredity ” may be 
called into account for what is amply explained 
by subconscious experience and the develop- 
ment in early life of abnormal impressionability. 
Mrs. X. had lost her mother when barely three 
years of age, and her early life was spent in the 
house of her grandparents. Her mother was 
for many years an invalid, and saw little of her 
child. When four years old, she was seen 
one day, during her first attempts at sewing, 
threading a needle with her left hand. This 
attracted the attention of the family, as it was 
known to have been the habit of her mother. 
Though the lady is right-handed in all other 
matters, she has retained the habit to the present EARLY IMPRESSIONS 
57 
day. u This surely,” said she, “ is an example 
of inheritance, for I could not have been taught 
to sew by my mother.” And so, upon first 
sight, it appeared to me; but when I took pains 
to inquire more closely into the mental nature 
of my informant, I was soon convinced of the 
extraordinary development of her subconscious 
self: she was most impressionable, easily and 
unduly affected by her surroundings, depressed 
and exhilarated in turn, full of prejudices, and 
given to sudden likes and dislikes, — all without 
definable or logical reasons. On the other 
hand, her conscious self, her intellectual pow- 
ers of observation, precision of memory or 
expression in relation to matters that she en- 
deavored to grasp and to retain, were remarkably 
weak, and hardly under her control. When I 
questioned her about her early impressions, she 
could remember only those that were made 
upon her w feelings,” or that were of a nature 
to affect only an impressionable child, while 
those that are held fast by well balanced youth- 
ful minds were totally obliterated. She could 58 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
remember her mother only in one connection, in 
a dress trimmed with cherry-colored ribbons, as 
she bent over her crib one evening to kiss her 
good-night before going out. It is a noteworthy 
fact, that this isolated image was made as the child 
was near sleep, a period, as we shall see, when 
the subconscious part of the mind is most recep- 
tive. Her grandmother died when she was ten 
years of age, and, although kind and affectionate 
to her, she could think of her only with a mix- 
ture of dislike, since she had once for some 
trifling fault—it was in her third year — 
angrily called her a u little minx,” an expression 
that she could understand only in connection 
with the raised voice and the discontented look. 
The associative impressions were, of course, 
the principal factors in the recollection. w I 
loved her dearly, quite as I should a mother, but 
do what I may I cannot rid myself of that 
childish impression.” And she added, w A cer- 
tain bright cherry-colored ribbon will instantly 
call to my mind my mother; I always connect 
the smell of lavender with my grandmother; it EARLY IMPRESSIONS 
59 
was her favorite plant, and everything belonging 
to her used to smell of it.” 
Here then is a child of most pronounced 
susceptibility for subconscious impressions, 
which have lasting and characteristic associa- 
tions connected with them, the force of which 
cannot be overestimated. Is it not more 
natural to assume that the habit of the mother 
threading a needle with the left hand, witnessed 
daily during the first three years of childhood, 
left its effect upon the ductile memory of the 
child, so that she adopted it also in the absence 
of other teaching, than to assume a needle- 
threading centre on the right side of the brain 
of this individual ? Countless peculiar tricks of 
the parents, taken up comparatively late in life 
by the children, — pursing of the mouth when 
reading, blinking with one eye when in deep 
thought, fretting one side of the beard or mous- 
taches, etc., — might be cited, did they not at 
once suggest themselves to the reader. 
The reader no doubt also remembers, from 
his own experience, many instances where the 60 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
depressing effect of associated impressions has 
left its stamp upon the mind, and has projected 
itself far into the life of the adult. I must add 
a typical instance illustrating the vaguely asso- 
ciative and subconscious action of early impres- 
sions, given me by one of the most talented 
actors of the German stage. At the age of 
three he was led into the room of a little friend 
whose body had been prepared for burial. The 
coffin was covered with wreaths and flowers 
that filled the room with their perfume; and, 
though he must have been deeply impressed by 
the awful presence of the child in its coffin, the 
sight of the dead, — which was repeated in after 
years on the battle-field and elsewhere, — never 
recalled this first encounter with death. But 
when he met with a mixture of scents which 
resembled that of the mortuary chamber of his 
little friend, the picture rose up at once before 
his inner eyes, vivid and clear in all its details, 
creating simultaneously a mood of sadness and 
of fear. 
There is, of course, an element of error in HELEN KELLER 
61 
all such instances, which might make it doubt- 
ful whether such impressions are really those 
that have been received in early childhood, for 
it is possible that they may have been repeated 
in later years. If it were possible, therefore, to 
appeal successfully to the memory of a person 
who could not have received the same im- 
pressions later than in early childhood, their 
persistence and hence their effect would be 
conclusively demonstrated. 
I have had the good fortune to become ac- 
quainted with Helen Keller, whose remarkable 
mental development, though blind, deaf, and 
dumb from her nineteenth month, has been 
the theme of several most interesting memoirs. 
I would refer the reader to a charming bio- 
graphical notice by Mrs. Florence Howe Hall, 
in the u St. Nicholas Magazine ” for September, 
1889, and to a sympathetic account by Mr. Lau- 
rence Hutton, in “ Harper’s Bazar ” of February 
22, 1896. I am greatly indebted to Mrs. Keller 
for her kindness in sending me the details, with- 
out which I could not have carried out my ex- 62 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
periment, and to Miss Annie M. Sullivan, her 
teacher, to whose tuition is wholly due the 
awakening and development of the unique in- 
telligence of the wonderful young woman, for 
the interest she evinced in the object and the 
help she extended so freely toward its accom- 
plishment. Of course I cannot speak too 
highly of the gentleness and patience with which 
Miss Helen Keller herself met me. 
The serious illness that threatened her life 
at the time left the child of nineteen months 
with only those organs of sense unimpaired 
which we are accustomed to regard as the 
lower senses in man, — those of touch, of taste, 
and of smell. Her high degree of intelligence 
to-day — which enables her to converse with 
rare thoughtfulness and understanding not only 
in English but also in German and French, and 
to form a judgment quite her own of her sur- 
roundings, of events, and of persons — must 
have been entirely formed by impressions re- 
ceived through them, and, we may assume, by 
those that date back into babyhood. HELEN KELLER 
63 
Among her many accomplishments that for 
appreciating music is one of the most astonish- 
ing. She perceives it by feeling the vibrations 
of the instruments with her fingers placed lightly 
upon them, and even through the floor, when, 
as in one instance, it was covered with a thick 
carpet. For she is not only conscious of it, 
but is without a doubt swayed by its rhythm, 
either depressed by a melancholy strain like 
“ The Old Folks at Home,” or “ Home, 
Sweet Home,” or elated and pleasantly excited 
by a waltz or a galop. I have seen her deeply 
affected by the female voice which reached her 
through her fingers touching the throat of the 
singer. On another occasion she likened a 
dance played on the piano from the manuscript 
to “ running water.” The simile appeared to 
all of us as very apt. Three months later she 
again made the same comparison upon hear- 
ing the same composition for the second time. 
She has therefore created a centre for musical 
impressions through the sensations of touch, 
just as we have one for the same order of 64 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
impressions, with the important difference that 
ours is connected with the ear, while Helen 
Keller’s is connected with the nerve-endings in 
the skin and muscles. Were it possible to 
recall true aural impressions in her case through 
the medium of touch,— aural impressions that 
must have been received, of course, before her 
nineteenth month, — it not only would prove the 
force of subconscious impressions (being infan- 
tile), but would suggest the interesting question 
whether in such cases a connection is not estab- 
lished between the one centre, that of hearing, 
and the other, that of touch, and thus create 
a new kind of mental process, peculiar to such 
cases. 
With this purpose in view I wrote to Mrs. 
Keller, who kindly sent me the titles of two 
plantation songs, which were commonly sung 
in her home in Alabama when Helen was a 
baby, but are not now generally sung, and which 
I could procure only in manuscript from the 
South. These tunes I had played upon the 
piano while she stood beside the instrument HELEN KELLER 
65 
with her fingers resting upon its wooden frame. 
Care was taken, of course, that she should 
know nothing of my intentions, and that she 
should be taken unawares. The effect was strik- 
ing. The young woman, now just entering 
upon her sixteenth year, became greatly excited, 
laughed and clapped her hands after the first 
few bars of “ Way down in the Meadow 
a’mowing of the Hay.” 
“ Father carrying baby up and down, swinging 
her on his knee : Black crow ! Black crow ! ” 
she exclaimed repeatedly, with manifest emotion. 
Miss Sullivan and several ladies present were 
greatly astonished at the result. On hearing 
the second song, “The Ten Foolish Virgins,” 
the same effect was produced. It was evident 
to all those who were present that the young 
lady was carried back to her early surroundings, 
even into the time of life when she was carried 
about by her father; but we could not find a 
meaning for the words “ black crow.” I con- 
sidered it prudent not to question her, but 
applied by letter to her mother, who was kind 66 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
enough to send an early reply. Mrs. Keller 
said: “ What you wrote interested us very 
much. The 1 Black Crow ’ is her father’s 
standard song, which he sings to all his children 
as soon as they can sit on his knee. These are 
the words: 4 Gwine long down the old turn 
xow, something hollered, Hello Joe,’ etc. It 
was a sovereign remedy for putting them (the 
children) in a good humor, and was sung to 
Helen hundreds of times. It is possible that 
she remembers it from its being sung to the two 
younger children as well as to herself. The 
other two I am convinced she has no association 
with, unless she can remember them as she heard 
them before her illness. Certainly before her 
illness her father used to trot her on his knee 
and sing the ‘ Ten Virgins,’ and she would 
get down and shout as the negroes do in 
church. It was very amusing. But after she 
lost her sight and hearing it was a very painful 
association, and was not sung to these two little 
ones ” (the younger children). 
It was quite clear that the child, after she HELEN KELLER 
67 
was nineteen months old, might have received 
an impression of the “ Old Crow ” song when 
it was sung to the younger children, through 
the peculiar vibrations communicated to the 
floor of the room; but the other two songs 
could only be perceived through the ear when 
she was a baby younger than eighteen months, 
and could hear, and are therefore a part of her 
earliest memory. We are therefore justified in 
assuming that the vibrations of the piano from 
the two plantation songs, communicated to her 
by the touch, over fourteen years later, have 
travelled to the centre where her early aural 
impressions are stored up, and that they in their 
turn reawakened the memory of the Old Crow 
song, which she had heard before her illness, 
and possibly also had felt by vibration afterward 
when it was sung to the younger children. 
It appears to me that this striking instance 
proves, beyond a doubt, and as nothing else 
could more, the persistence of early impres- 
sions, as well as the intimate connection that 
the centres of two different senses, though 68 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
physiologically related in many ways, may 
assume in certain cases. The mental quality 
of sound thus conveyed by vibration alone 
must, it is evident, be of a peculiar nature, 
different from such sensations of the normal 
person, for it is composed of elements of 
the immediate skin impression, associated with 
those of the earlier ones deposited in the normal 
sound memory. 
Now if later physical habits, prejudices, and 
dislikes have their origin in the subconscious 
self, is it not equally consistent to look for the 
causes of deep affection and love in this part 
of the soul of man ? Is it unreasonable to 
suppose that there are vague prototypes in 
the subconscious memory, gradually formed in 
earliest years, for the later images which sud- 
denly fill the heart with a force and persistence 
that defy reasonable explanation, nay, fre- 
quently contradict the conscious predilections 
of the lovesick person ? It may well be that 
some subconscious memory of early impres- 
sions, a resemblance utterly impossible to re- RELIGIOUS BELIEFS 
69 
memorize consciously, is the cause of cc love 
at first sight.” 
Our religious beliefs are not originally devel- 
oped by reason ; the conscious self has nothing 
to do with their origin. The religion of our 
homes is our religion, however great may be 
the influence of our intellect upon our attitude 
toward it later in life. And when in later 
years we are wont to attach but small impor- 
tance to the formal side of spiritual matters, 
ascribing to the details of cult merely a secon- 
dary importance and allegorical significance, we 
undervalue strangely the essential part which 
these exercises and observances have played in 
the earliest period of our mental development, 
intimately connected as they were with most 
trivial but constantly recurring events in our 
childhood, and thus forming an integral element 
of our subconscious self. “ The church bell 
has rung God into our soul ” are words of 
Jacobsen, which express well what is meant. 
It would be interesting to study the history 
of the church bell in this connection. First in- 70 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
troduced as a part of the cult of the Catholic 
Church about the year 600, it must play a very 
important part in developing and sustaining the 
religious mood. Leaving aside the effect it 
must necessarily have upon the sleeper, when 
tolling at night, the matin and vesper bell must 
perforce create, at regular times, at least some- 
thing like a religious subconscious impression, 
which is daily added to the store of our emo- 
tions. The sound of the bell at dawn insinu- 
ates itself into the mind, at a time when sleep 
is lightest, and is gradually merging into the 
waking state. We have seen that this is one of 
the periods of greatest impressionability, and the 
sound may therefore either create dreams of a 
distinctive nature, or may direct our thoughts 
into some particular course at the moment of 
awakening. The hush at sunset and the changed 
appearance of our surroundings is not the only 
cause for an increase of emotional impressiona- 
bility, but the exhaustion of the muscular sys- 
tem has produced, as Dr. S. Bettmann has 
conclusively shown, a condition of the mind RELIGIOUS BELIEFS 
71 
in which its power for concentrated and an- 
alytical activity is very considerably weakened: 
two conditions most favorable to the influence 
of vague sensations and for the creation of 
emotional moods. At this moment there floats 
through the air the choir of vesper bells from 
far and near, and turns the mind towards reli- 
gious things. The reader who has travelled in 
Italy or Spain will agree with me in thus recog- 
nizing a subtle power in the church bell, which 
cannot have failed to contribute to the forces 
that have given to the Catholic Church its pre- 
dominance in those parts. 
Primitive man invented the ceremonies 
which were meant by him to propitiate the 
Superior Powers. To his offspring the cere- 
monies themselves produce “ subconsciously ” a 
religious mood and habit of mind, and direct or 
modify ever after his religious feelings and 
thoughts. They were early impressions at 
first, bare of a higher meaning, and contributed, 
with the numberless other subconscious percep- 
tions, to form an indissoluble union in his sub- 72 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
conscious memory. And so from generation 
to generation the child received similar ritual 
impressions intimately connected with all that 
filled his daily life, — strengthened, furthermore, 
by the aesthetic mood, as it is called out during 
religious observances of our times. During 
high mass in the cathedral all the senses are 
occupied, and the result is a blending of im- 
pressions, all the more vague because numerous. 
The temperature of the air is different from 
that outside, the color from the stained windows 
gives to the dim light an effect quite its own, 
while the odor of incense, the chant of the 
choir and music of the organ combine to create 
a mood to which all the senses are contributing 
in a vague but powerful manner. Is it not 
remarkable that those churches have lost the 
fewest of their followers whose manner of 
worship has always been most impressive ? 
Leaving out of consideration all other sides of 
the question, I am inclined, as may have ap- 
peared, to ascribe a high and positive importance 
in man’s inner history to the ritual side of all RELIGIOUS BELIEFS 
73 
forms of religion, on the ground chiefly that we 
can ill afford to miss any of the links that bind 
us to our innermost personal existence as it 
evolves itself in youth. For when either in old 
age or through disease the intellectual powers 
are weakened, when the will is broken by mis- 
fortune, when the things of this world are los- 
ing their proportion and their importance, the 
sound of the bell, the odor of incense, the re- 
pose under the dome, are recalled, and the 
sceptical man of action falls back into the mem- 
ories of childhood and of youth. It may well 
be that this is the mood that has so often, in 
the history of man, brought back the schis- 
matic and unbeliever “ into the bosom of the 
church,” when stricken down by disease or 
bent low by sorrow and the futility of the 
conscious struggle of the individual against 
his part of the u woe of the world.” Is it 
not as if the light that is shed in resplendent 
harmony of colors upon the altar recalled 
those days when, as in early childhood, there is 
no travail, no duty, and no mental anguish,— 74 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
when the soul rests content in pure con- 
templation without desire or thought, — the 
“Nirvana” of this life? 
The beginnings of the subconscious self can 
thus be traced to an early period in man’s 
life. Its character depends, as might be more 
amply discussed than is here contemplated, 
upon the nature of the subconscious impressions 
and those that are intimately associated with 
them. It might be shown that peculiarities 
of temperament, certain thoughts and acts, 
which cannot be otherwise explained and are 
so frequently attributed to heredity, can be 
traced to early and oft repeated impressions, 
in their nature subconscious or received as 
such. But it is not only the character of the 
subconscious part of the mind that is thus 
formed; its extent, its power, its force as 
well, are subject to the same causes. Like 
everything organic this also is developed in 
proportion to its use. If the surroundings of 
the youthful mind are calculated to multiply 
vague and changing impressions, if the satis- NATURAL SURROUNDINGS 
75 
faction of instinctive cravings is added to the 
sum of those associations which create strong 
impulses, it is inevitable that the impressiona- 
bility of the individual will grow in proportion. 
In such cases, as life progresses, the subcon- 
scious part of the mind will assume the pre- 
ponderance in thought and action, work and 
play ; the passions both good and bad will be 
governed by impulse alone. The conscious 
self, the intellectual part of the mind, will be 
suppressed; the effect of what is done or said 
or thought will be of minor importance as 
compared with the satisfaction of impulsive 
desire. Moreover, all outward stimulation will 
directly create emotions and reactions in the 
nervous system, which will in their turn pro- 
duce abnormal conditions that may finally pass 
beyond control. 
It would therefore seem no less important 
that the subconscious self and all that tends 
to its development should be held in due 
control and not suffered to assume abnormal 
influence. All appeals to the imagination of 76 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
the young, all violent emotions and abrupt 
changes of surroundings, should be kept within 
narrow limits. And, although it is quite as 
dangerous to the development of the plastic 
juvenile mind to teach concentration of at- 
tention or to appeal to the memory (which is 
of such slow growth, as it depends upon asso- 
ciation) too early, it is well to enlarge gradually 
the field of exact observation. In nature, the 
contemplation of which is most refreshing to 
the subconscious self, we can find also the 
simplest materials for the growth of the intel- 
lectual, the conscious part of the youthful 
mind. To distinguish between essential and 
accidental peculiarities in natural objects should 
be the first and principal object lesson for the 
young ; for in Nature all associations are most 
clearly related to normal functions, and the 
law of causation is best recognized in its great- 
est purity and in its fullest independence from 
the human will itself. 
With the exception of pure art alone, all 
works of man bear the stamp in greater or LIFE IN THE COUNTRY 
77 
less degree of their purpose and utility; wher- 
ever the eye turns in the city it is met by 
objects showing the ulterior direct and inter- 
ested aims for which they were designed; and 
the youthful mind is filled therefore with ideas 
which carry it away from the appearance of 
things to what lies behind and beyond them. 
The surroundings in the country, however, 
impress the child with their perfection in them- 
selves ; every work of Nature has its end within 
itself, and its contemplation carries with it 
that restful spirit and singleness of purpose 
which is as the soul of each crystal, plant, 
and insect. In the city the mind cannot be 
at rest, for the attraction of its life, full of 
plan and purpose, render concentration most 
difficult, while in the country the power for 
concentration is given by the freedom left for 
contemplation, which strengthens the conscious 
as well as the subconscious self. It is a re- 
markable fact that perhaps most of the greatest 
men in history have passed their youthful days 
in the country} and quite as interesting, on 78 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
the other hand, is the degenerative effect of 
city life, to which Fothergill has drawn at- 
tention in his statistical researches in respect 
to London and Paris. 
The training of the youthful mind is, I take 
it, one of the most difficult problems that can 
well be imagined ; for it presupposes, not only 
a high degree of knowledge and of what Sir 
Herbert Maxwell has recently described as 
“intellectual detachment,” but of infinite tact 
and a thorough understanding of the child’s 
innermost nature. Such qualities for dealing 
with children do not come of themselves; 
they require much thought and trouble. 
It is needless, I trust, to recall what has 
been said of the influence of nurses, gover- 
nesses and teachers for good and for evil in 
this connection; at best it is in every case a 
risk of the gravest nature to delegate the ed- 
ucational and directing powers of the mother 
to any stranger, especially during the earliest 
years. 
The plan to be followed in the endeavor INDIVIDUALIZATION 
79 
to establish a balance between the subconscious 
and the conscious self of the child must differ 
in every individual case; in the one it is well 
to encourage the tendency to contemplation, 
while in the other it might be better to ex- 
clude the effect of the vaguer impressions by 
stimulating the selective method and a habit 
of close observation. The self-observation of 
Charles Darwin contains an implied warn- 
ing. He says of himself that his power of 
enjoying music diminished gradually as he ac- 
quired more and more the faculty of exact 
research and analytical study. This experience 
is by no means uncommon, nor is it rare to 
observe quite the contrary state of things where 
the growing love for an art has gradually weak- 
ened the power for close observation. 
But it is not only the development of the mind 
in the healthy condition that ought to occupy 
the attention of the parent from the outset, 
but he must also bear in mind that a great 
number of mental disturbances are directly 
caused by injudicious training. A knowledge 80 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
of certain family traits, if recognized in their 
importance and counteracted early enough by 
a stimulation of normal and inhibiting mental 
powers, would sensibly diminish the occurrence 
of functional nervous disorders, and even of 
insanity. Such peculiarities may be often 
found to depend upon certain abnormal organ 
sensations proper both to parent and child, and 
will then require intelligent medical attention. VAGUE SENSATIONS 
81 
Ill 
The fundamental and most lasting character- 
istics of both the conscious and subconscious 
self are formed in youth. But during the 
entire life of man additions to both parts of his 
mind are continually made by his experience. 
His own choice of surroundings can modify in 
a measure the nature as well as the force of 
those impressions which crowd in upon his 
mind, but they are themselves independent 
of his will. And so it is with their effect upon 
his life; their influence is more frequently felt 
than recognized, and if he wishes to examine 
them, to understand his subconscious self, he 
must convert them into conscious perceptions. 
The sympathy or aversion with which persons 
affect us at first sight, the depressing or the ex- 
hilarating effect of certain scenes, erroneously 
considered instinctive, could be easily accounted 82 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
for if it were possible to raise certain associa- 
tions from the depths of the subconscious self: 
to rememorize them. But as such impulses 
depend upon numberless, and often very early 
and vague impressions, it is generally impos- 
sible to recognize their true cause, especially 
as our senses are mostly consciously engaged 
by our present surroundings. When a pecu- 
liar scent, the characteristic appearance of a 
person or place, a bar of music, awaken in 
us a special mood, it is necessary first to 
recognize the inciting cause, excluding all sen- 
sations of the moment, before the mind is able 
to concentrate its attention upon the mood 
thus subconsciously produced. Thus, I feel 
myself suddenly and strangely elated while 
studying the titles of a collection of books in 
a shop window. “ Surely, the sight of a new 
book on the 4 British Nudibranchiate Mollusca ’ 
cannot be the cause of this powerful sense of 
joyfulness ? ” Nothing that I can see can ex- 
plain this sudden mood. I close my eyes and 
listen. Among the noises of the street I can TELEPATHY 
83 
distinguish the sounds from a hand-organ, and 
I presently recognize the tune it is playing as 
an air that long ago marked time to my steps 
in the first quadrille I had learned to dance. 
What if I had not been able to trace the first 
impression ? It was certainly subconscious, 
for I was then a child and was completely 
engrossed by the difficulties of courtesying and 
swinging my partner in the proper fashion of 
the thing. The mood before the “ Mollusca ” 
would have remained unexplained, but it would 
have been none the less deep; and perhaps 
might have influenced me in my actions under 
other conditions. There can be no doubt that 
we are thus powerfully moved by subconscious 
impressions many times in the day, and that our 
actions are often governed by them, without 
recognition of their causes, rather than by what 
our judgment would lead us to do. 
The experience of one person in a given 
moment might very well be identical to that 
of another, for we are to-day subject, even at 
great distances, to a multitude of similar impres- 84 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
sions, mostly induced by vague sensations. The 
direct effect of modern journalism and the tele- 
graph must necessarily be to set in motion men- 
tal activity of precisely the same nature all over 
the globe, and call up much the same interests 
and emotions. The uniformity of daily habits, 
fashions, food, and the like, will serve to awaken 
numberless subconscious moods, which might 
suggest, in their turn, the same course of ideas. 
May we not explain in this way the origin of 
some of the phenomena which have been as- 
cribed to telepathic influences ? 
In thus seeking out the subconscious connec- 
tions between the present and the past, we con- 
vert a subconscious impression into a conscious 
one, and, if cultivated, such a habit would do 
much toward modifying the sum of emotions 
and moods, and consequently reduce our impres- 
sionability. 
It has been said in the first part of this essay, 
that, although the conscious and subconscious 
impressions and their resultants can be separated, 
there are many which have elements of both. SLEEP 
85 
All impressions cannot be classified as purely 
conscious or purely subconscious. We are 
sometimes receiving mixed impressions, and are 
then adding material to both constituents of our 
mind. There are moments, moreover, when 
we are more receptive for the one than for 
the other. Inasmuch as concentration, or (what 
is the same thing) attention, depends upon the 
elimination of all but a single impression, those 
from our own body as well, conscious impres- 
sions singly and purely can be received only 
during full wakefulness, in a state of perfect 
health, when we are in complete possession of 
our active mental powers. We are, on the 
other hand, most open to subconscious impres- 
sions when our will has been weakened by 
physical exertion, disease, old age, or mental 
languor. 
During perfect sleep the organs of sense 
and the brain have ceased to react entirely; 
perfect sleep is therefore a period of entire 
rest. Sleep is, however, seldom perfect, in- 
terrupted as it is by dreams and by a con- 86 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
dition of partial wakefulness at its beginning 
and toward its end. During those periods 
we are especially open to subconscious im- 
pressions. When sleep approaches, concen- 
tration of the mind, attention, becomes more 
and more imperfect, so that all impressions 
are gradually vaguer and dimmer, and glide 
into the subconscious region, where they are 
recorded, until finally even this degree of im- 
pressionability is lost in the unconscious con- 
dition of perfect sleep. If, however, by their 
nature or by their intensity they call up asso- 
ciations lying dormant in the subconscious 
memory (be they recent or more remote), the 
subconscious self continues its activity and 
elaborates dreams. Such dreams are difficult 
to remember when they are followed by a 
certain period of profound sleep ; but in spite 
of this their influence is felt in a subconscious 
manner for an indefinite time and with vary- 
ing degrees of intensity; they may create 
after-moods that appear to the individual him- 
self, as well as to others, utterly incomprehen- DREAMS 
87 
sible. In a number of cases I have frequently 
succeeded in tracing a depressed condition or 
one of unwonted exhilaration to dreams that 
could be recollected with the aid of suggesting 
questions and of a continued mental effort. 
Of course such dreams may be led through 
certain associations into the conscious self, and 
thereby to a complete awakening. Mr. F. W. 
H. Myers has called attention in his studies on 
the w Subliminal Consciousness ” to the fact that, 
in his attempts to recall the last impressions 
received from his surroundings at night before 
falling asleep, he was obliged to close his eyes 
and so to induce a condition of partial uncon- 
sciousness in the morning, before such images 
would reappear. It is well worth mentioning, 
in this connection, that he was unable to recall 
the consciously chosen impressions of the night 
before, but that only those appeared again 
which had thus appeared but vaguely. In 
other words, the subconscious impressions 
only were received into the subconscious self 
at a time when the conscious self was begin- 88 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
ning to lose its power of action, and they 
could not be remembered in a conscious manner, 
for it became necessary to induce a subcon- 
scious condition before they would reappear. 
While thus the dreams in the first period 
of sleep are developed in the direction from 
the conscious to the subconscious condition, 
there are others, those at the end of sleep, 
which originate in the opposite direction. Here 
it is that impressions upon the organs of sense, 
such as noises, odors, general skin sensations, 
set going the subconscious region of the mind 
and create dreams in accordance with these 
sensations. The rhythmical sound of a car- 
penter’s hammer in the early morning may 
suggest a tune of the same rhythm with which 
the sleeper awakens ; the odor of flowers may 
call up country scenes visited long ago and 
wholly forgotten ; the light of the sun starts 
the horrors of conflagration or of war; and 
so every outward irritation may become the 
starting point of dreams, without limit of time 
or space. 89 
DREAMS 
These two kinds of dreams may originate in 
a slightly different manner, but this is their 
usual development. To them we may add 
a third class of dreams, usually of a frightful, 
horror-producing nature, which occur generally 
between three to five hours after the beginning 
of sleep, and which are caused by sensations 
coming from abnormal conditions of internal 
organs : digestive disturbances, hunger, neuralgic 
pains, fever, and other conditions approaching 
disease. 
Whatever be the kind of dream, whatever 
its origin, its seat is always in the subconscious 
self, and there adds to the development of this 
part of man’s mind. The habitual dreamer, 
therefore, is much more liable to be swayed 
in his waking condition by impulses, emotions, 
and moods. Hence it is of great importance 
that both parent and physician should devote 
some attention to dream-life. From the time 
and nature as well as from the frequency of 
dreaming, many useful indications can be ascer- 
tained. It is evident, furthermore, that the 90 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
impressions which surround the sleeper and 
precede sleep ought to be of a nature con- 
ducive to a cheerful condition of the mind 
when it lapses into rest as well as when it 
awakens to full consciousness. Thus greater 
care should be exercised in the choice of situa- 
tion and adornment of our sleeping apartments 
than is usual, even among the most thoughtful 
of us ; for, as we have seen, it is fair to sup- 
pose that the last waking impressions and 
thoughts often create more lasting impressions 
than is commonly recognized. 
Certain nervous disorders are accompanied 
by sleeplessness or restless nights, and a great 
part of the weakness of those so affected can 
be directly accounted for by the great waste of 
nervous energy that is the consequence of the 
activity of the brain during sleep. A simple 
examination of the renal secretions of the 
morning, and a comparison of the same with 
those of the day, give further evidence of this 
result. 
Pure cases of insomnia are caused by an OVER-TRAINING OF CONSCIOUS SELF 
91 
over-exertion of the conscious part of the 
mind. The cares of the day are followed up 
into the night, and prevent the necessary con- 
dition of unconsciousness and absolute rest from 
setting in. Medicinal treatment is frequently 
without benefit, for the drug will in many 
cases only aggravate the condition by stimulat- 
ing the subconscious part of the mind and thus 
creating dreams. In other cases, sleeplessness 
is the consequence of a habit consciously 
acquired. 
Mr. N., a lawyer, had been a sufferer from 
insomnia during four years. That he went 
without sleep, as he alleged, is vouched for by 
the testimony of several nurses, who were with 
him for months at a time. Mr. N. had trained 
himself gradually into this degree of wakeful- 
ness. Beginning as a poor youth with but little 
schooling, he succeeded in reaching eminence 
in his profession chiefly by unremitting and 
systematic night work, the day being given up 
to wage-earning for the support of himself and 
a part of his family. On going to bed he in- 92 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
variably passed the events of the day in review, 
arranged and classified all new impressions, and 
laid out carefully his plan of action for the next 
day. At the same time he persistently avoided 
for years all pleasures, and was constantly kept 
by his duties to others (many of them self-im- 
posed) from all purely contemplative relaxation. 
The hours of sleep were thus gradually reduced 
until he could not sleep at all, however tired he 
might be. He rested in a fashion only, sitting 
with his eyes closed during the day or night, 
but never so that he became wholly unaware 
of what was taking place around him. He be- 
came unable to divert his mind from conscious 
thought, and could never relax concentration 
sufficiently to take pleasure either in art or na- 
ture ; the faculty for contemplation, for receiv- 
ing subconscious impressions, had thus become 
weakened. All the efforts that were made to 
cure this case were unavailing, simply because 
they were directed only toward suppressing the 
exaggerated conscious self, while it must evi- 
dently be the first step, next to the removal INSOMNIA 
93 
of all incitants to conscious thought, to restore 
the ability to receive subconscious impressions, 
to create and strengthen the emotional faculty. 
This is an extreme case, which illustrates 
well, however, the effect of an overweening 
development of the conscious self. 
I cannot refrain from alluding at this point 
to a condition which will doubtless be familiar 
to the reader out of his own experience. In- 
stead of keeping the attention fixed upon a 
purposely chosen line of thought, many of us 
are pursued in the night by a worrying condi- 
tion of the mind, which comes from a vague 
consciousness of the business of the day or the 
duties of the next; and when sleep at last pos- 
sesses us, it is disturbed by dreams connected 
with or suggested by the last thoughts before 
sleep. I have often met this condition by 
directing that all open questions and contin- 
gencies be carefully written out, and that these 
notes be put away until the next morning, 
The subconscious mood was thus prevented, 
substituting for it a single conscious memory, 
'n 94 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
namely, of the bit of paper safely locked away 
for reference. 
One is frequently assured, more especially 
by nervous persons, that they never dream. 
This is in many cases only because they can- 
not recall the fact. a I have never dreamed in 
my life, I am quite sure of that,” I was in- 
formed by one of them the other day. But 
when I saw him again, a week later, he told 
me that he was utterly wrong, that, in fact, he 
dreams every night, and, now that I had called 
his attention to the matter, he might safely say 
that he must have dreamed every night of his 
life. He had evidently become aware of the 
truth of the matter only upon awakening in the 
morning after first seeing me. 
This condition is of very great importance 
in every case, most of all in cases of nervous 
disorders, and must be accounted as a serious 
obstacle to a perfect re-establishment of mental 
health. 
An eminent writer, who was suffering from 
a nervous breakdown of a serious nature, com- CORRECTING MOODS 
95 
plained principally of restless sleep and of 
constant dreaming; he could not close his 
eyes even for a short time during the day 
without dreaming immediately. In spite of 
the fact that he could rarely remember the 
contents of his dreams, he recognized, never- 
theless, that they were frightful and sad, for 
he was depressed in the morning and was 
frequently under the same melancholy mood 
during the entire day. His condition was one 
of great mental weakness and depression, 
especially as work of any kind was impossible. 
He was told to attempt every morning to 
recall the entire dream of the previous night, 
and to send me an account carefully written 
out. In the first letter, accompanying a 
number of the most fantastic and grewsome 
fictions, he accused me of unnecessary cruelty 
in thus renewing the mental agonies of the 
night. But when I next saw him he assured 
me that he felt much freer in the morning, 
that he dreamed less frequently, and that the 
dreams were shorter and less disagreeable. He 96 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
now understood, he said, the object I had in 
mind in having him write them down. It is 
not my object to enter upon the medical side 
of the question, but I could not refrain from 
giving the rather incomplete account of this 
case, because it illustrates so well what was 
previously insisted upon, — the subconscious 
persistence in the mood of the following day 
of the dreams of the previous night, and how 
this effect can be prevented by converting the 
subconscious dream itself into a conscious 
object of thought and production. 
It was quite clear in this case that the mood 
upon awakening was caused by the nature of 
the dreams of the night, but in most cases it 
is not so evident why one is either depressed 
or exhilarated in the morning, frequently even 
under the control of what seems to be some 
mysterious mental influence during the entire 
day. Amiel describes this state in his Journal, 
and is finally led to believe that it is some 
subtle condition of consciousness produced by 
the ghosts of the soul, reflections of past hap- AMIEL 
97 
piness, the manes of our dead emotions. He 
says: u How shall I find a name for that subtle 
feeling which seized hold upon me this morn- 
ing in the twilight of waking ? It was a 
reminiscence, charming indeed, but nameless, 
vague, and featureless, like the figure of a 
woman seen for an instant by a sick man in 
the uncertainty of delirium, and across the 
shadows of his darkened room. I had a dis- 
tinct sense of a form which I had seen some- 
where, and which had moved and charmed me 
once, and then had fallen back with time into 
the catacombs of oblivion. But all the rest 
was confused : place, occasion, and the figure 
itself, for I saw neither the face nor its expres- 
sion. The whole was like a fluttering veil 
under which the enigma—the secret of hap- 
piness — might have been hidden. And I was 
awake enough to be sure that it was not a 
dream.” It was not a dream, but the sub- 
conscious reminiscence of a dream, which Amiel 
might have called into distinct recollection if 
he had not been so much a day-dreamer, a 98 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
man full of emotions, and under their sway, 
who like Hamlet is happy in contemplating his 
weakness of will and want of action : u I very 
soon discovered that it was simpler for me to 
give up a wish than to satisfy it. ... I have 
been ashamed to desire.” And in another 
place he asks: 44 What is it that has always 
come between real life and me ? What glass 
screen has, as it were, interposed itself between 
me and the enjoyment, the possession, the 
contact of things, leaving me only the role of 
the looker on ? ” It is, I venture to say, that 
he was leading (at least the Amiel of the 
“Journal Intime”) in great part a subcon- 
scious existence mentally, that of the IVelt- 
schmerz egoist. 
Organ sensations, so vague and feeble that they 
are not consciously perceived, frequently create 
subconscious impressions during sleep, and give 
rise to dreams that have often appeared as pre- 
cursors of disease. They may, therefore, prove 
to be valuable premonitory signs to the phy- 
sician, for the same reason that made them DREAMS 
99 
appear as prophetic omens to the people at all 
times. Such reactions of the mind in sleep 
upon physical disturbances generally of a con- 
stitutional nature are not uncommon in children, 
causing them to start up in bed, to cry out, 
and in some cases to rush about as if in 
great fright. It is evident how important it is 
to recognize this connection, especially as it 
is mostly found in impressionable subjects, 
whose entire mental condition is aggravated by 
such dreams. 
An old lady, a constant dreamer, relates that 
one dream constantly reappears, in which she 
is pursued by some one or by some wild beast, 
until she finds herself hemmed in by tall houses 
at the end of a narrow street; seized with 
terror, she awakens trembling and exhausted. 
The scene is so distinct and familiar to her 
from its frequent reappearance that, were she 
an artist, she could paint it in all its details. 
And, nevertheless, she cannot remember ever 
having seen it in the waking state. Her de- 
scription corresponds to no modern city in 100 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
America, where such houses and streets are 
unknown, and must refer to some place in 
Germany, which she cannot now identify. 
This dream has evidently carried her back into 
her earliest childhood, and reawakened recol- 
lections of her early subconscious life, the 
details of which are now entirely submerged in 
her conscious waking existence. 
All that has just been said can be applied 
even with more force to the sick. Their suf- 
ferings are not alone caused by the abnormal 
conditions of the body and of the mind directly ; 
there are others of a more subtle and vague 
nature that are indirectly produced by the neces- 
sary surroundings and their unavoidable accom- 
paniments. Long after the illness itself is 
passed, it has left, deep down in the subcon- 
scious part of the mind, scars, as it were, of 
the wounds which less defined sensations of the 
unhappy state have inflicted : a condition of 
u nervous weakness,” “ irritability,” which to 
the patient himself and to those around him 
seem inexplicable. No organic trouble or SUBCONSCIOUS MEMORY OF ILLNESS 
101 
functional disturbance can be found to account 
for this more or less continuous mental and 
moral depression, and all efforts of the will are 
unavailing to throw it off. It is only when 
we bear in mind that every detail in the sick- 
room, every word or act, even the expression 
of countenance of those around the bed, creates 
subconscious impressions, which in the abnor- 
mally receptive condition of the invalid contrib- 
ute toward the formation of a subconscious 
memory, can we understand why it is so difficult 
to re-establish the former balance in the mind of 
the convalescent. It is therefore most important, 
to begin with, that the general aspect of the 
sick-room be as pleasant as possible, and that 
no detail in its arrangement be prominent 
enough to obtrude itself upon the notice of 
the patient, and thus associate itself with the 
general impression left by the period of suffer- 
ing. It is advisable even to change all impres- 
sions occasionally by transferring the sufferer 
from one room to another. At all events, it 
will be found that a complete change of scene, 102 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
after recovery, will be the speediest manner 
of removing those subconscious scars, if not to 
prevent entirely the depressing stage of con- 
valescence. The scene of an illness leaves 
quite as deep an impression upon the subcon- 
scious self as that of the disease itself upon the 
conscious memory. 
From a misunderstanding of these causes, 
many unavailing attempts are constantly being 
made in the treatment of certain functional dis- 
orders of the nervous system which are so 
common in our day. The hysterical, neuras- 
thenic, and hypochondriacal are all abnormally 
impressionable, and, though the beginning of 
the nervous derangement may be traced in 
certain cases to some definite cause, this con- 
dition of the mind after illness or any other 
shock must, in many cases, be considered as 
the true cause of the evil. It is for this reason 
that all advice and every effort addressed to 
the will of the patient can have no effect, 
however he may exert himself; and as such 
unavailing attempts to throw off the mental NERVOUS CONDITIONS 
103 
weight demonstrate his weakness even more, 
they have the contrary effect, and are likely to 
aggravate the trouble. Dr. Weir Mitchell has 
pointed out the causes of failure in applying 
his beneficent “ Rest Cure ” in similar instances. 
Next to the cheerfulness of the room, sunlight, 
brightness of coloring on ceiling, walls, and 
furnishings, even to the pictures on the walls, 
are of importance. The ways of nurse and 
doctor contribute largely to the success in this 
mode of treatment, for such minor details 
impress themselves upon the patient precisely 
in that part of his mind, the subconscious, which 
is the seat of these nervous disorders. 
In the great majority of cases, however, it 
is imperative to resort to a radical change of 
occupation, of surroundings and moral impres- 
sions, which may together act upon the sub- 
consciousness of the individual, in order to 
effect a gradual change in its very composi- 
tion, vitiated, as it may be, by influences that 
reach far back into earliest childhood. 
The increase of hysteria and of neurasthenia 104 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
in our day is a subject of grave consideration 
for the physician. The general public also 
remarks upon these subjects, be it from per- 
sonal experience or for the reason that their 
manifestations are treated of so persistently in 
a piquant and alluring class of imaginative 
literature. Thus these abnormalities of the 
human mind have become matters of engrossing 
interest. The novelist, the playwright, and 
certain painters and sculptors of the u realistic ” 
and “ naturalistic ” schools have adopted the 
“ neurotic ” as a theme for treatment, profess- 
ing to lend truthfulness to their subject by 
assuming so called scientific methods of obser- 
vation and analysis. We are made to witness 
every detail of physical suffering, and are not 
spared the shrieks and the impotent struggles 
of the victim of professed hereditary dementia; 
every phase of the pathology of love is depicted 
with all the cunning of the modern art of fiction ; 
and the assumed results of u degenerative ” 
influences are published as undoubted facts for 
all who can read, without any regard to the HYSTERIA AND NEURASTHENIA 
105 
critical maturity of the general public. What 
wonder then that the arrogant assumption of 
half-knowledge, infected with the venom of 
polluted imagination, still further weakens the 
minds of those who are sufficiently impressiona- 
ble as it is. The use thus made of art and 
popular science is directly opposed to their true 
nature, and must be deeply deplored by those 
who have their beneficent object at heart, and 
I cannot allow an opportunity like the present 
to pass without adding, in this place, a few 
words concerning the nature of the above 
mentioned w neuroses,” convinced as I am that 
they are not hereditary diseases, but are caused 
rather, in the great majority of cases, by errors 
in the training of youth and the thoughtlessness 
of the individual himself. They would then 
be preventable, and would, in many cases, yield 
to proper treatment. 
Hysteria as well as neurasthenia is the effect 
of a weakness in the conscious self, and a cor- 
responding predominance of all the impulsive, 
emotional, and distinctly egotistical manifesta- 106 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
tions of what constitutes the subconscious self. 
The hopes and fears of the hysterical and of 
the neurasthenic individual, his thoughts and 
actions, are in accurate relation to the charac- 
teristics of the subconscious part of his mind. 
But here ceases the likeness of these two 
nervous diseases ; their symptoms have a com- 
mon origin, but they differ in development. 
The neurasthenic, the nervously exhausted 
person, has over-estimated the limits of his 
strength for intellectual work, and has thus 
gradually lost the use of the inhibiting power 
of his conscious self. Consequently his imagi- 
nation has assumed complete control over his 
thoughts and acts, and as he feels the ineffi- 
ciency of his attempts to re-establish this con- 
trol, he becomes discouraged and depressed. In 
such cases it is utterly useless, nay, harmful, to 
appeal to reason, or to attract the patient’s 
attention to other things and thoughts; his 
unfortunate condition can be improved best by 
mental rest, rest as absolute as can be. Were 
it possible to produce a condition resembling SELF-TREATMENT OF HYSTERIA 
107 
dreamless sleep it would be, I venture to say, 
the ideal method of treatment. 
The hysterical condition, on the other hand, 
need not necessarily include any feebleness of 
the faculties for observation or judgment; they 
are indeed in many cases uncommonly strong, 
but here the subconscious memory has been 
unduly developed. Such subjects are highly 
impressionable, and are governed by their vague 
and powerful emotional moods, so that the 
mental reflexes are set going upon the slightest 
stimulation, while the inhibiting power of the 
will, however much it may be exerted, remains 
ineffectual. It is clear, therefore, that the first 
causes of hysteria must be looked for in the 
habits which the mind was allowed to form in 
early youth, and will therefore be found in the 
subconscious self, which has been left to de- 
velop itself without judgment and care, and 
to which the satisfaction of the instinctive 
desires has added its emotive effect. Hence it 
is that this functional disturbance is so difficult 
to cure, and that nothing will answer short 108 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
of a complete change of habits and surround- 
ings, chosen with a view to modify the com- 
plexion and force of the subconscious self, 
as well as to cultivate the practice of concen- 
tration of attention upon questions and oc- 
cupations drawing the mind away from the 
consideration of self toward altruistic and im- 
personal interests. 
In order to reach the seat of the hysterical 
disturbance certain drugs have been employed, 
and in recent years treatment by means of hyp- 
nosis has led to very gratifying results in many 
cases. If, however, the patient could be taught 
the systematic exercise of the conscious self 
upon the subconscious, much benefit of a cu- 
mulative and permanent nature might be derived. 
Let him learn to search for himself with regu- 
larity and insistence the depths, as it were, of his 
subconscious self, and attempt to discover the 
hidden causes for his peculiar sensations and 
emotions, and thus by raising and converting 
them into conscious impressions destroy their 
baneful influence. Much as in the case of SELF-TREATMENT OF HYSTERIA 
109 
the dreaming writer, related above, he will 
gradually reduce the preponderance of emo- 
tional impressionability and strengthen the con- 
scious part of his mind ; and will through such 
self-confessions exert a more powerful and a 
more lasting effect than he can hope for from 
confidential communications to physician or to 
friends, or could find in the confessional of the 
Church. 
Certain mixed cases of these two disorders, 
and other mental conditions which might be 
mentioned here were this the place for such 
discussions, are often considered of hereditary 
origin and therefore incurable ; they are, how- 
ever, quite as much results of subconscious 
impressions, since they have their origin in the 
abnormally developed subconscious self, whose 
character must be determined in each individual 
case. 
To the subconscious impressions derived from 
sensations upon the special organs of sense 
from external sources must be added, as we 
have seen, a great number of impressions that 110 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
come from internal organs. Their importance 
will stand in direct relation with the impres- 
sionability of the person ; they will naturally 
play a greater part in the mind of the neuras- 
thenic and hysterical than in that of the normal 
individual, and create hypochondriacal ideas and 
delusions. In neurasthenia and in hysteria slight 
degrees of functional disturbances add their 
depressing influences to these conditions, and 
keep persons suffering from them in constant 
fear of physical illness and death. 
Since the phenomena of hypnotism have be- 
come the subject of legitimate scientific inves- 
tigation, chiefly through the efforts of Charcot 
and his school, a great number of theories 
have been put forward to explain them. There 
are still current notions of occult forces which 
the operator is said to employ in order to affect 
the subject, ideas that are diligently and profit- 
ably encouraged by the professional hypnotiseur. 
Those who have earnestly applied themselves 
to the study of this very ancient condition of 
the human mind have been, fortunately, sue- HYPNOTISM — SUGGESTION 
111 
cessful in counteracting such errors; and we 
know to-day that the hypnotic state is one that 
has its origin only in certain peculiarities of the 
“ subject,” entirely independent of any influ- 
ence attaching to the person who may be 
instrumental in producing it. Much has been 
done in this direction toward our understand- 
ing of this branch of psychological research ; and 
since the publication of the work of Liebault 
and of Bernheim, the whole matter has been 
materially simplified by the proof that all hyp- 
notic demonstrations are really nothing more 
than effects of suggestions, — suggestions that 
are, moreover, to such a degree free from any 
personal power in the operator that they can 
even be produced by the subject upon him- 
self, — Auto-Suggestion. 
While every opportunity should be made use 
of to distinguish between well grounded experi- 
ence and the sensational accounts from the pen 
of auto-suggested enthusiasts, it is well to coun- 
teract the influence of popular exhibitions and 
the misconceptions to which they lead by pass- 112 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
ing laws governing the practice of hypnotism, 
just as the practice of every branch of medicine 
is controlled in civilized countries. Its unlaw- 
ful practice ought to be made a penal offence, as 
the unlawful administration or sale of drugs now 
is. The knowledge we at present have of hyp- 
notism and its ulterior effects urges us to apply 
the same caution to its use as is now done with 
morphine, belladonna, and other powerful agents. 
I do not mean by this to imply that it has had, 
so far as I know, a directly fatal effect, or even 
lasting evil results, any more than the use of 
the drugs mentioned, if applied by those who 
have acquired the requisite knowledge; and I 
say this, being possessed of all the facts of the 
case. Shall we lose the inestimable benefit of 
anaesthesia, because in a few deplorable cases 
death has been attributed to the use of chloro- 
form or ether, when diseases of the heart or 
kidneys, or other constitutional failings were 
present and beyond recognition ? It is not my 
purpose to dilate further upon the uses of hyp- 
notism in medicine, for I propose merely to HYPNOTISM — SUGGESTION 
113 
refer to some popular superstitions which sur- 
round it. I may repeat, what has been often 
said before, that they are intimately connected 
with the indifference of the legislator to deal 
with the matter. A recent sensational lawsuit 
in Bavaria against a charlatan and common 
swindler caused the adoption of laws in that 
country regulating hypnotic experimentation. 
This cause c'elebre acquires further importance 
in a medico-legal sense, in that it is the first in 
which the facts of suggestion were officially 
recognized in any European court of law. 
I have said that various theories for the 
explanation of hypnotic phenomena have been 
advanced. As Wundt has shown in his criti- 
cal essay on hypnotism, some of these are 
unsatisfactory because they are meant to cover 
both the physiological and psychological aspect 
of the question; and they failed because it 
became necessary to assume certain equally 
unproven functional and physical hypotheses. 
But I believe that their chief weakness lies 
in the fact that they premised and were applied 114 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
to a specific condition of the brain during 
hypnosis, which is held to be functionally 
different and quite apart from the normal and 
habitual mental state. The analogy which 
Liebault established as existing between the 
hypnotic and the sleeping state first promised 
to be productive of definite results. Bernheim 
has, until lately, represented with rare powers 
of close observation and analysis this point of 
view of the Nancy School. He has, however, 
become convinced that suggestion creates a 
psycho-dynamic condition of the central ner- 
vous system which makes it specially receptive 
to, and controllable by, outward influences. 
After having carefully considered the value 
of the various attempts toward solving the 
problem, and having given no little time and 
pains to the study of the subject experimentally, 
I cannot declare myself satisfied with any one 
view in its entirety. I should be, however, 
inclined to combine the hypothesis of Liebault 
with that of Bernheim. As regards Liebault’s 
view, we must admit similarity of hypnosis SUGGESTION 
115 
with imperfect sleep, while we must relegate 
the definition of Bernheim to the physiological 
side of the question, preferring for the moment 
to confine ourselves to its psychological aspect. 
The great advance made by the Nancy 
School was the recognition of the fact that all 
the phenomena of so called hypnotism could 
be referred to suggestion. The hypnotic con- 
dition, as well as what happens during its; 
continuance, is suggested. With this step the 
inquiry ceased to be confined to abnormal 
and ultra-critical regions, and thereby entered 
into the domain of the ordinary processes of 
mental activity, and so brought the subject 
within a more easily attainable reach. The 
hypnotic condition hence is a phase of the 
mind differing only in degree from the normal. 
Every idea that is suggested to us awakens 
other thoughts and associations, and stimulates 
our conscious mind to action, but at the same 
time it also penetrates into our subconscious 
self, and thus creates a mood, or general mental 
condition. In the highly developed intellectual 116 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
individual the functions called into play are 
directed toward analytical processes; concen- 
tration and the interest in impersonal thoughts 
are awakened. Exceptionally, however, when 
the intellectual faculties are enfeebled through 
physical exhaustion, as sleep approaches, in 
disease or old age, and also in childhood, when 
these powers are yet undeveloped, the mood 
predominates, and is apt to influence the entire 
mind, and then the subconscious self becomes 
its only active part. Suggestions of fear, of 
pain, of joy, of self-confidence, are followed by 
all the effects of these conditions as if they 
were actual. We exert our senses forcibly, 
and direct them towards the persons and scenes 
surrounding us in order to escape from the 
unreal situation into which we have been 
forced by inner emotive powers, just as, start- 
ing up in the night, we should rub our eyes or 
pinch the skin to awaken out of the trance of 
a dream. The impressionable “ subject,” how- 
ever, whose subconscious self has been power- 
fully developed, frequently at the expense of SUGGESTION 
117 
his conscious self, and who is but feebly pro- 
vided with elements of defence against the 
attacks upon his subjective mental nature, is 
more readily and more surely impressed in this 
manner. His grasp upon reality, his self- 
directing power, is not always under his control, 
and he thinks and acts according to the sug- 
gestion which he has received; the emotive 
mood prompts the motive impulse. The im- 
pressionable therefore are the best subjects for 
the hypnotizer; while the trained mind that 
habitually selects and rejects, and habitually 
counteracts the exclusive sway of moods and 
emotional impulses, can be affected only under 
special and exceptional conditions, which, more- 
over, originate in every case in himself alone. 
It has been already pointed out that the sub- 
conscious self is especially active in the com- 
position of dreams, and it is in a dream 
differing only in degree that the hypnotized 
person follows the train of thought or action 
which is suggested to him. The fact that 
hypnosis is induced most readily by the vivid 118 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
representation of the idea of sleep makes the 
analogy even closer; the 11 subject ” who 
refuses to receive the idea of sleep into his 
mind in a passive and complete manner at the 
outset of the experiment cannot be hypnotized. 
And though I have seen many instances in 
which suggestions have been obeyed when the 
word w sleep ” had not been mentioned, I am 
still convinced that the condition of such 
patients was dream-like in that they were for 
the moment only in a sub-conscious state, — a 
state which, as we have seen, can be a power- 
ful motor of action. In the degree of resistance 
to be overcome in order to hypnotize the 
M subject ” we are enabled to recognize the 
composition of the mind,— whether the sub- 
conscious or the conscious part of it is more or 
less developed, — and we are thus enabled to 
determine in which direction his training needs 
improvement. And, as we know that what 
happens during hypnosis applies directly to the 
subconscious self, we may then hope to modify 
its development by creating impressions that SUGGESTION 
119 
can be compared to those received in early 
childhood. 
This has been recognized by the Nancy 
School, and its professors have repeatedly called 
attention to the disciplinary and correctional 
value of this method in the education of the 
young. 
I have had repeatedly to resist the temptation 
of enlarging that part of my subject which is 
especially familiar to the physician, and at this 
point I must also desist from entering into a 
discussion of the use of hypnotism in its medi- 
cal aspect; but I cannot refrain from touching 
in a few words upon two considerations that 
are more nearly related to the subconscious self. 
I mean the relation of the free will and of the 
memory to hypnosis and its psychical effects. 
While our emotions, and with them every- 
thing that directly actuates our inner personal 
life, are moved by forces which have assumed 
independence from our will, it is alone from 
the positive and distinguishing qualities of our 
conscious self that we draw the ability to 120 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
w will,” and these can and do inhibit the un- 
fettered sway of our emotions and passions. 
The hypnotic state presupposes the relinquish- 
ment of our power to will; we are thus rendered 
susceptible to outward influences upon our sub- 
conscious self. In those cases where the sug- 
gestion “ to sleep ” is promptly obeyed, we 
must assume that the will is habitually weak, 
or that the impressionability is highly developed. 
In either case the suggestion is first converted 
into an auto-suggestion, more or less promptly, 
according to the degree of development of the 
conscious or of the subconscious self. We 
cannot admit, therefore, that the hypnotic 
condition can be produced by force. This is 
a fact, it seems to me, of the greatest foren- 
sic importance. Society must protect itself 
against people who come within the pale of the 
law, either by abnormally weak conscious de- 
velopment, or through actions dependent upon 
the preponderance of unrestrainable impression- 
ability. Criminal acts committed as post-hypno- 
tic suggestions will doubtless occupy the attention SUGGESTION 
121 
of the legislator and the jurist very considerably 
in the near future ; the investigations of Liegeois 
give abundant evidence of the importance of 
the subject. It will be necessary to determine 
in how far the hypnotized individual can be 
held legally responsible before the law. I need 
not refer to the different theories of legal 
punishment, and to the end which it is meant 
to serve, whether as a deterrent, a reprisal, or a 
protection to society. We need here only 
consider protection to society. I have never 
been able to make any of my subjects perform 
acts resembling crimes of violence by post- 
hypnotic suggestion, while I have been success- 
ful in most cases where harmless acts had been 
suggested. The “ subject ” either remem- 
bered the giving of the command, or could be 
made to remember the facts by the method of 
throwing out hints to assist memory. In the 
case, for instance, of a highly educated gentle- 
man, the injunction that a harmless thing should 
be done by him five minutes after awakening 
out of an incomplete hypnosis was resisted 122 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
consciously for a time, but was finally carried 
out, much to his disgust. “ I know quite well 
what I am to do, and remember fully that you 
told me I was to do it; but I shall not give 
way.” Give way he did, in the end, and 
explained his evident weakness of resistance 
by the statement that the idea of what he was 
to do was so persistent and uncomfortable, 
that he preferred to be done with it in order to 
get rid of the uncomfortable obsession. We 
need not have been hypnotized to have the same 
experience, when we are rendered mentally un- 
comfortable by some resolve that has slipped 
back into our mind (subconscious memory), 
where for the moment we cannot find it. Had 
I suggested to the gentleman in question any 
criminal act, he would have resisted effectually, 
especially for the reason that a suggestion of such 
a nature could have found no place in his sub- 
conscious self. For the character of the sub- 
conscious self, we have seen, depends upon the 
subconscious memory, and this is made up of 
the sum total of subconscious impressions. SUGGESTION 
123 
The individual who carries out a criminal 
post-hypnotic suggestion has, I hold, a crim- 
inal subconscious self, and society must find 
some means of protection against a potential 
malefactor. 
It has been asserted by some writers that the 
u subject ” cannot recall what has been said or 
done while in a deep hypnotic condition. This 
is only true in a limited number of cases; just 
as we cannot recall every dream of the night 
before. But I have repeatedly been able to 
awaken a complete remembrance of the entire 
scene by certain words, which might help in 
awakening the subconscious memory. For in- 
stance, the u subject ” is asked to take a hat 
from the table five minutes after awakening. 
This was acted upon, but could not be remem- 
bered as a command made during hypnosis. 
If, however, the u subject ” was earnestly and 
insistently requested to think hard and to try 
to remember, with the additional indication of 
the questions, “ Were you told to take any- 
thing ? Was it a cap ? ” the subject ex- 124 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
claimed with evident relief that he was told to 
“take a hat from the table after five minutes.” 
In cases of dreams similar suggestive questions 
asked of others or put to ourselves may recall 
an entire dream which seemed quite impossible 
under ordinary circumstances. It is, however, 
much easier to attain the same result, if the 
subject be questioned in a subsequent experi- 
ment in the case of hypnotism, or during sleep 
in the case of dreams. It is a well known 
experience, for instance, that one who is moan- 
ing in sleep and showing other evidences of 
dreaming, can frequently be made to give 
an account of the dream if gently questioned 
while stroking the forehead or hand in a 
soothing, quiet manner. 
If we are thus made to recognize the simi- 
larity in many respects between the dreaming 
and the hypnotic state, we are forcibly led to 
assume that suggestions with a curative object 
might reach the subconscious self more easily at 
the time when sleep is near. In cases of func- 
tional nervous diseases we might achieve the OLD AGE 
125 
happiest and most surprising results if we would 
suggest to the patient, or cause him, just as he 
was about to close his eyes in sleep, to suggest to 
himself happy thoughts, a painless condition, or 
the return of lost powers; thus substituting arti- 
ficial hypnosis by the spontaneous one of dreams. 
Such dreams, in which the suggestions of hap- 
piness are further elaborated and which might 
give rise to post-hypnotic suggestions reaching 
far into the following day, and so with each 
night and morning, may intensify and increase 
the happy result. This method of treatment is 
based upon what has been said above concern- 
ing the nature and effect of dreams, and upon 
the permanence of subconscious impressions. 
Let us now consider another aspect of the 
relation between the active and passive parts of 
the mind, after the period of development is 
long passed, and when it no longer is in our 
power to modify them in any way. 
It is common to hear those who are advan- 
cing in years complain of an increasing weakness 
of memory. It is not, however, so much due to 126 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
the gradual loss of power to recall impressions 
recently received, as it is to the fact that the 
faculty for concentrating the attention upon 
them is lessening by degrees as old age ad- 
vances. And as the influence of the present is 
thus perceptibly diminished, and with it the 
affairs of active life lose their interest, the past 
with its more personal and intimate features 
again assumes greater distinctness and impor- 
tance, until, be it earlier or be it later, the mind 
of the aged relapses completely into the subcon- 
scious condition resembling that of childhood. 
During this period of advancing feebleness in 
the conscious part of self and the correspond- 
ing gradual preponderance of the subconscious, 
it becomes especially evident how powerful and 
lasting are the subconscious impressions. For 
the images and ideas that come up to the sur- 
face are not of those that played an important 
part in the history of the individual as it re- 
vealed itself in his actions, words, or in his 
relations with his fellow men and with the world 
in general j they are rather the recollections of OLD AGE 
127 
the vaguer and associated impressions which 
were received into and which impressed them- 
selves upon his memory, without choice and 
without the wish to remember them. Only 
those who have been his contemporaries from 
early youth, who may have been able to follow 
his early mental development, and who are 
thereby initiated into the secret workings of his 
innermost personality, can hope to understand 
the thoughts he dwells upon and the cravings 
that move him in these phases of senile degen- 
eration. The aged are themselves astonished 
when questioned and recalled to the present at 
the reappearance of such trivial images or un- 
important details, while the occupations of their 
early manhood and their most important and 
absorbing interests are entirely lost to the 
memory. 
Goethe tells his friend Riemer an interesting 
instance of this kind (Goethe’s Conversations 
with Eckermann): “ I know of a case where 
an old man of the lower classes, on his death- 
bed, was heard suddenly to recite several Greek 128 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
passages in the most elegant Greek. As it 
was generally known that he understood not 
a word of Greek, this occurrence was con- 
sidered miraculous, and was at once exploited 
by shrewd wags at the expense of the more 
credulous. Unfortunately for them, however, 
it was presently discovered that in his boyhood 
he was compelled to memorize and to declaim 
Greek sentences, serving in this way as an in- 
spiring influence to a high-born dullard. He 
had thus, it would appear, acquired a smatter- 
ing of Greek phraseology in a purely mechanir- 
cal manner, without ever understanding a word 
of it. Not until he lay at the point of death, 
some fifty years later, did these meaningless 
words come up again out of his memory and 
force themselves into utterance.” 
If at any time during the life of man the 
importance of the subconscious impressions be 
particularly apparent, it is then, when from 
physical causes he has become unable to select 
what should occupy his thoughts, when the 
subconscious self has wellnigh become pre- OLD AGE 
129 
dominant. Hence it is that the pleasures as 
well as the pains of old age depend above all 
upon the character and force of the subcon- 
scious self. 
It is by no means rare to find extreme old 
age unaccompanied by any signs of M second 
childhood ” ; mental vigor, on the contrary, has 
preserved itself until the end. The senile 
changes have not, in these cases, prevented 
a constant though fitting exercise of the active 
mental faculties; the gradual increase of physi- 
cal weakness has not been allowed to serve as 
an excuse for day-dreaming and a passive pre- 
dominance of subconscious impressions. These 
worthy old people practise the advice of Cicero: 
continuing their interest in the arts and sciences 
and the active observation of Nature ; and are 
thus demonstrating that even towards the end 
of life we have still some control left over the 
balance between the conscious and the subcon- 
scious part of self. 
In old age the conscious self is only partially 
enfeebled, but when the conscious self has be- 130 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
come entirely unable to act, be it for the time 
or permanently, when its inhibitory power is 
reduced completely, and when therefore illusions 
that cannot be corrected are treated as if they 
were real, temporary or incurable insanity takes 
the place of logical thought. In this state, the 
subconscious, with all that it may contain, directs 
every demonstration of mental life, constructs 
conditions and interprets impressions solely in 
accordance with its contents. In how far some 
rudiments of the conscious self can be called up 
and be made to control the purely subconscious 
reasoning of the insane is different in individual 
cases, and has been frequently observed by 
those who have had the opportunity to study 
them closely. The account which Kandinsky 
has given of observations made upon several 
former patients, after complete cure or between 
the attacks, is most valuable evidence in this 
connection. In these cases hallucinations could 
be completely corrected and destroyed by an 
effort to exert the u higher ” intellectual facul- 
ties in directing them intently upon the outer INSANITY 
131 
and actual objects, or by following up a selected 
train of logical reasoning induced by himself. 
Among the patients who were found espe- 
cially good subjects for the studies of what 
Kandinsky terms Pseudo-hallucinations—a nice 
distinction upon which it is unnecessary to 
enter in this place — was an artillery officer, 
thirty-eight years of age, who, after having 
regained complete mental health, could be made 
to hallucinate almost at will or when under the 
effect of certain drugs. Without attempting 
to give a detailed description of these most 
interesting experiments, I consider it important 
enough in connection with the subject under 
consideration to quote several conclusions which 
would be deduced from them. Dolinin (this 
is the pseudonym which Kandinsky gives his 
patient) could never, for instance, hallucinate 
an impression which he had previously, and 
therefore consciously, determined upon, nor 
was it in any case possible to continue the 
hallucination after any addition or alteration 
had been made which was consciously received, 132 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
unless such impressions were vague in them- 
selves. In other words, the conscious self 
could not create subconscious impressions; on 
the contrary, it counteracted the hallucinating 
activity of the subconscious self. One instance 
must be especially mentioned here as an illus- 
tration of what has been said about the relation 
of the subconscious self and insanity. Dolinin 
imagined himself (hallucinated, i. e. imagined 
with all the qualifications of reality) driving in 
a sledge through the winter night, and saw 
plainly the yellowish light of the lamps in 
places upon the snow-piles thrown up on either 
side of the street. When he attempted to 
convert the yellow glare into the white light 
of electric lamps, the entire picture disappeared 
at once. Here we have an instance of a scene 
resembling those imagined by the insane, con- 
structed out of all such elements that could 
have accumulated in the subconscious memory 
of the man, and had he chosen to convert the 
yellow light into red or green light he might 
have succeeded, as he did before, in similar HALLUCINATIONS 
133 
cases. But he failed in the case of electric 
light, because this, a more recent experience, 
belonged wholly to his conscious memory. 
The impressions of electric street lights could 
not, at his age, have been so common, and 
their introduction was too recent, that they 
should form impressions of childhood which are 
received in a subconscious manner. This ex- 
periment was made in 1883, when he was 
thirty-nine years of age, and, as electric street 
lighting was introduced no earlier than 1876, 
he could not have been more than thirty-two 
years old when he saw it for the first time. 
The hallucinations of the insane to-day con- 
tain nothing alluding to the telephone, the 
phonograph, and other recent inventions, but 
those of twenty years hence may be full of 
wire messages from paradise or flash lights 
from hell. 
In the insane the hidden impulses show 
themselves in their predominating importance, 
thus revealing the innermost nature of the 
individual, and recalling the elements out of 134 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
which the subconscious self has been developed 
even far back into the beginnings of its ex- 
istence. The contents and character of the 
illusions and hallucinations will be found to 
coincide with the subconscious impressions in 
all those cases in which they can be discovered, 
and thus demonstrate most conclusively their 
permanence and overweening influence under 
certain conditions. It is not generally the 
intensity of the first impressions which makes 
them thus permanent and of such influence in 
later life, but it is their repetition in the early 
life of an impressionable person. From this 
point of view alone is it possible to understand 
such cases of recurrence of early and involun- 
tary impressions, of which mention is made by 
several authors ; as, for instance, the case of the 
illiterate servant who recited several passages 
of the Talmud during an attack of mania. 
Upon inquiry it was found that she had served 
for some time in the early part of her youth 
in the family of a theologian, who was in the 
habit of walking to and fro in his study while GHEEL 
135 
at work, repeating such passages aloud, thus 
creating in the subconscious part of the illiterate 
maid, while she was devoting her full attention 
apparently to the usual menial duties of her 
position, impressions that for years lay dormant 
in the subconscious part of her mind, which, 
when it assumed abnormal activity in insanity, 
brought up to the surface, as it were, the 
unintentionally memorized passages from a 
work she could never hope to understand, and 
in a language she had never known. Many 
curious incidents in the life of the insane can 
be accounted for in the history of their sub- 
conscious self; and if we were sufficiently 
informed of the personal history of patients, 
we might in every case and in like manner 
refer the cause of the different forms of in- 
sanity to their true origin. It is not wonderful, 
therefore, that words, gestures, actions, which 
strike us frequently in madhouses, should be 
reflections from images out of the childhood 
of the inmates. An artist illustrator, for in- 
stance, who was thoroughly familiar with the 136 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
features of Napoleon, having drawn them ac- 
curately for many years, now in his insanity 
struts about as the Emperor of France, decked 
out with the attributes of royalty, which he has 
thoughtlessly seen in his first picture-book when 
he nestled in the lap of his mother; a well known 
actor, in his ravings, declaims childish allitera- 
tions from morning till night; a third, well 
known for his fine musical compositions, is 
busy hushing the imaginary baby in his arms 
to sleep with nursery lullabies that may have 
been his first experience in his art. 
But it is not only from the impressions of 
early childhood that the subconscious self is 
fed, and that the degree and nature of impres- 
sionability is determined, it is also by such 
impressions in the later periods of life that 
this part of the mind is influenced. There 
are some, moreover, that are self-imposed, and 
that add perhaps more to the misery of human 
existence than physical suffering. Among them 
u worry ” is one of the most general and the 
most to be feared. It is not mental work WORRY 
137 
that kills, it is worry. Worry is expectation 
of some evil event. In expectation we are 
going over the mental processes that would 
be called for in case the event should happen 
to which we are looking forward. We have 
therefore expended uselessly, in many cases 
even vainly, a great amount of nervous energy. 
Hence worry is one of the commonest causes of 
nervous exhaustion. But it is more. Nervous 
exhaustion is a weakening, as we have seen, 
of the upper consciousness, of the powers for 
analytical thought and of judgment; but worry 
creates at the same time an incalculable num- 
ber of subconscious emotive impressions, so 
that, while the conscious self is being weakened, 
the subconscious self is being more powerfully 
stimulated. The period at which this con- 
dition may lead to insanity is dependent, in a 
great degree, upon the previous condition and 
character of the subconscious memory, but the 
danger must be recognized. 
While this course of mental aberration may 
be well known to the reader, I am not quite 138 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
sure that he has realized the part that supersti- 
tions play as factors in the development of 
diseases of the mind. I am not referring to 
the common superstitions that have come over 
to us from folk-lore and folk-medicine, nor 
to those that are developed out of religious 
fanaticism ; but to superstitions of a distinctly 
personal nature, created by the fancy of the 
individual and possible only to a mind whose 
faculty for reasoning has been gradually weak- 
ened and whose indulgence in emotions and 
moods have resulted in an utterly selfish men- 
tal existence. I have already alluded in few 
words to the origin of such superstitions, 
together with the prejudices peculiar to the 
individual. Worry is a condition of incidental 
expectation of evil events ; superstition is its 
permanent equivalent. 
When my attention was first attracted to 
this subject, I was greatly surprised to find so 
many persons of acknowledged intelligence 
governed in many acts by numerous and sin- 
gular superstitions. It seems to me as if the SUPERSTITIONS — OMENS 
139 
first cause of this condition of mind is to be 
found in the impressionable nature of such per- 
sons, which, gratified by the importance they 
ascribe to their personal experience, develops 
gradually into a degree of emotional perver- 
sity in which they submit to what was aptly de- 
scribed as “ the tyranny of coincidences.” The 
great danger to the good health of the mind 
is apparent. I have in mind the sad case of 
a young woman, who died in a madhouse, 
and from whose family I obtained a long list 
of superstitions, representing but a small num- 
ber of the evil omens which she herself had 
connected with the commonest acts and occur- 
rences of every-day life, and which therefore 
must have occupied her mind constantly, and 
have insidiously destroyed all power for logi- 
cal thought. 
I cannot say, of course, that they were suf- 
ficient by themselves, but they certainly acted 
as a contributing cause, for they sufficiently 
explained a number of her delusions. So 
much is certain, that from a knowledge of these 140 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
superstitions many of her peculiarities in health 
and words and acts when insane have become 
perfectly clear, and seen from her point of view 
entirely logical. 
The modern treatment of the insane has 
been largely influenced by such observations, 
which have been applied in methods whereby 
the patient is to be insensibly led into the 
condition of his normal existence. At Gheel, 
in Belgium, especially, this system has been 
most thoroughly and successfully applied. The 
patients who are not a menace to the surround- 
ings live there in perfect freedom among the 
other inhabitants of the village, in a condition 
as nearly like their previous existence as pos- 
sible, and engaged in work which may tend 
to rekindle the spirit of emulation and ambition 
in their enfeebled “ conscious ” selves. But, 
unfortunately, this part of the mind is broken, 
its associations with the individual impulse of 
the disused mind loosened, so that it fails to 
answer to the stimuli that are offered every- 
where by the trained physician and the ad- TREATMENT OF INSANITY 
141 
mirable accoutrements of most asylums in our 
time; and I have often wondered whether 
a systematic appeal to the subconscious self 
of the insane might not hold out more promise 
of curative results. It is true that music and 
the other arts have been and are employed, 
often with most beneficent effect; but I have 
in mind a more extended and especially a more 
individualized application of those impressions 
most likely to produce sympathetic resonance 
upon the deepest chords of the mental appa- 
ratus. To begin with, I should follow the 
usual mode of inquiry in every case, exhaust- 
ing every means of information in order to 
penetrate into the character of the subcon- 
scious self of the patient, and, having possessed 
myself of this knowledge, apply the means 
most apt to reach and modify it. The im- 
pressionability of the insane patient is mani- 
fest, else there could be no insanity. But 
it must be borne in mind that this impression- 
ability resides in such individuals in the sub- 
conscious self. This must therefore be reached, THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
142 
and reached, moreover, by subconscious im- 
pressions apt to create moods and emotions, 
and hence impulses and actions: colors, music, 
scents, gustatory and other sensations, might 
be chosen, albeit with the greatest care, and 
with a due regard to the individuality of the 
patient and the nature of his subconscious 
self. And, as we have found the admission 
and retention of such impressions to be most 
readily attained in the period before sleep under 
normal conditions, so this time may prove to 
be the most propitious for the alterative effect 
of these measures, aided by a possible dream- 
like continuation; especially as it is known 
that insane persons are subject to dreams. 
Calmeil has devoted much attention to the 
subject of the dreams of the insane ; and from 
his careful observation it follows that there 
exists a continuous connection between their 
hallucinations in the waking state and their 
dreams. Dolinin found, when he induced hal- 
lucinations (Pseudo-hallucinations of Kandin- 
sky) shortly before falling asleep, that they TREATMENT OF INSANITY 
143 
then assumed a more logical sequence and were 
converted into continuous dreams. Can one 
help being reminded here of Shakespeare’s 
wonderful intuition in awakening the mad old 
king by the soft strains of lovely music, and 
thus freeing him from madness ? 
But enough has been said to justify the 
assertion that in the education of the child the 
possibilities of the development of insanity in 
later years may either be favored or in a 
great measure prevented. When the disease 
of the parent shows itself in the mind of the 
offspring, it may well be (and I maintain that 
it so happens in a large number of cases) that 
the habits of the father or mother in the form 
of uncontrolled nervous vagaries are the pab- 
ulum which feeds the subconscious self of 
the child, rather than that hereditary and there- 
fore structural peculiarities should be made 
accountable for such cases. 144 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
IV 
The object which I have had before me in 
presenting this hypothesis of the dual nature 
of our mind has been twofold. I have en- 
deavored to show how it may be possible to 
account for certain peculiarities and failings of 
our nervous organization by causes more readily 
understood than by the assumption of hereditary 
influences, and, furthermore, how it may be in 
our power to modify as well as to prevent, and 
to deal with certain nervous conditions. 
As regards the educational possibilities it 
must be said that both the conscious and sub- 
conscious self can be influenced directly by the 
training of the attention in the use of the senses. 
For, as Kraeppelin has found in his studies of 
the mechanism of some simpler psychical phe- 
nomena, everything depends upon the method of 
acquiring knowledge ( u die Lern Methoden ” ). 
He found that the reaction of either the lower IMPRESSIONS FROM MIXED SENSATIONS 
145 
or the higher mental centres depended ultimately 
upon their more or less intimate connection 
with one or the other sense. 
“ One who repeats slowly (what he hears), 
reads quickly (what he sees), and conversely.” 
In the one case the connection between hearing 
and speech is closer by habit and training, and 
in the other the path from the eye to expression 
has become more direct. As a general rule, it 
will be found that those who can read music 
well “ at sight ” are poor players from memory; 
many, however, who play “ by ear,” and who 
have extraordinary facility in repeating music 
heard only once before, are slow in learning 
from the book. 
Impressions received from an organ of sense 
that has been developed in the direction of con- 
centration in a different degree exert an influ- 
ence upon mental images derived from another 
sense. And as such interferences multiply they 
will gradually intensify certain peculiarities to all 
impressions of a like origin and fix mental differ- 
ences between individuals. Thus in a normal 146 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
child the mental image of a lemon will be com- 
posed of the impressions derived from four senses, 
but in every individual case the impression from 
one of these senses will be the most distinct; the 
taste in one, in another the form and color, and 
in a third perhaps the odor of the lemon. One 
will be the most conscious, while the other 
three will be more or less subconscious ; and 
these will tend to react one upon the other in 
creating the mental image of the fruit. What 
the ultimate results of such complex impressions 
will be has been sufficiently discussed. 
It is fair to assume that in the case of the 
blind and deaf mute these relations of the im- 
pressions one upon another might be most 
clearly discovered. The experience of Mr. 
William B. Wait, Superintendent of the New 
York Institution for the Blind, in teaching har- 
mony to a number of his pupils, which he 
has had the kindness to relate to me, seems to 
illustrate this point most aptly. 
Harmony is considered as a scientific, purely 
theoretical branch of learning, that might be MUSICAL TRAINING OF THE BLIND 
147 
acquired by a person without any previous train- 
ing in music, and it is usual to take it up only 
at a late stage of musical instruction, as a higher 
step in musical education. No instructor would 
think of combining it with the first years of 
tuition. 
It would be fair to suppose that blind children 
who have been instructed in the elements of pi- 
ano music, might easily be taught harmony also, 
supposing that their sense of hearing were much 
more receptive. After attempts had been made 
with such instruction in the above mentioned 
institution, adopting the manner based on the 
usual graphic illustrations, but without adequate 
or satisfactory results, a trial was made with a 
class by introducing a substitute for usual staff 
symbols in the form of raised type to record 
examples and solutions, and, by relieving the 
memory, to promote spontaneity of musical 
thought. While the raised type afforded ample 
means of expression, it was found at the end 
of the year that the pupils had made no progress 
in the study of harmony and counterpoint. 148 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
Finally a course was adopted as if the pupil had 
hardly received any previous instruction at all: 
it began by teaching scales, keys, intervals, and 
chords, and relying wholly upon aural impres- 
sions and oral nomenclature, with key-board 
work. In this way the object was completely 
attained. 
This experience teaches that harmony can be 
best taught the young blind coincidently with 
the early lessons in music, and that it is there- 
fore unnecessary and a waste of time to wait 
for a late stage in musical education, as is the 
rule with normal pu, Ils0 We can further con- 
clude from it that the addition or association of 
touch impressions with those of hearing retard or 
hinder rather than facilitate the understanding 
of the materials and construction of harmony. 
Therefore, in teaching harmony to the blind, 
the appeal should be made to the aural sense, 
with no objective recourse other than the key- 
board. 
It appears to me that this most interesting 
experience of the complicating influence of one MUSICAL TRAINING OF THE BLIND 
149 
class of impressions upon the other might be 
applied with advantage in the case of normal 
children as well. We have seen that the 
aesthetic pleasure derived from an art is dis- 
tinctly diminished by associating with it the 
more conscious thoughts of technique and 
purpose, and, in my opinion, the failures in 
teaching the blind by the usual methods are a 
conclusive proof of this assertion. It may be 
admitted, as indeed has been pointed out al- 
ready, that the perception of technical perfection 
may add to the amount of pleasure derived 
from contemplation of the work of art, but 
that will and must alter the original and be- 
neficent effect in that the conscious self is 
called into play to exert its critical functions. 
More striking still are those instances where 
impressions upon one sense instantly suggest 
subconscious images of another sense impres- 
sion. Such people, for instance, are never able 
to disassociate a gustatory impression from that 
of a certain scent, while others habitually con- 
nect the mental sensation of certain colors with 150 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
certain other impressions of sound. Galton, 
Flournoy, Gruber, Myers, and others, have 
called attention to this peculiarity in a number 
of persons under the designation of audition 
coloree. I myself have studied three cases, in 
two of which certain colors attached them- 
selves to proper names, as, for instance, the 
name Rufus appeared in dark red, Isaac in 
green, Paul grayish blue, etc.; and in the third, 
the color connected itself with the sound of 
definite vowels. 
This subject is important enough to be 
studied from the point of view upon which I 
have here laid stress, since I have found that 
such subjects are highly impressionable, and 
have a highly developed subconscious self. 
Thus I have ascertained this to be the case in 
the four pupils and one teacher, who were 
found to be “ visualizers ” out of thirty-five 
in a school for girls who were examined at my 
request. It is curious to note that several of 
the girls, who had first answered that they 
never associated colors with sounds, returned AUDITION COLORfiE 
151 
the next day, admitting that upon closer self- 
questioning they had found that they also 
“ visualized,” but may not have realized the 
fact because it seemed so u self-evident ” to 
them. 
All those secondary and associated impres- 
sions must be viewed in the light of pseudo- 
hallucinations, and are expressions of a peculiar 
development of the subconscious self. Being 
vague and unreal, they call into play at once the 
subconscious memory and self, and create distinct 
moods, which in such cases are apt to dominate 
the higher conscious sphere, or to add on each 
recurrence to the impressionability of the in- 
dividual. Were it possible to break this abnor- 
mal connection and so to isolate single conscious 
impressions, the subconscious self would re- 
ceive less material and be prevented from undue 
development. 
The effect of a powerful conscious im- 
pression upon the color association is strikingly 
shown in one of my cases, where the definite- 
ness of the color appearing with a certain 152 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
proper name was lost after the death of a 
dear friend of that name: the name now 
brought up the image of the dead friend and 
took the place of the color formerly associated 
with it. I succeeded in the same case in ren- 
dering all colors dimmer by giving certain 
drugs, found by Kraeppelin to be stimulants of 
the higher mental faculties. 
The single and sharply defined impression is 
a conscious one, and helps to develop the con- 
scious self. As clearness and freedom of percep- 
tion and thought depend upon the habit of using 
the special sense properly, it becomes necessary 
to devote the greatest attention to the train- 
ing of every organ of sense, insisting upon its 
full and individual use, and with undivided 
attention. 
The test that a child is possessed of such 
proper and full use of its senses can only be 
made in demanding that he should recognise the 
first impression and reproduce it also if possible. 
If, for example, pieces of colored yarn be 
shown, the pupil must not alone be held to REPRODUCTION AND RECOGNITION 
153 
select certain shades from them, but must be 
taught to sort them and to reproduce the 
various colors with colored pencil or with the 
brush ; such tests would then be the unfailing 
proof that the impression has been recognized 
and therefore stored up consciously. I am 
well aware that in following out the teachings 
of Froebel this and similar methods are em- 
ployed in the kindergarten of to-day ; I men- 
tion it now because I should like to have the 
same training extended to all the senses as well 
as to the eye ; for the power and usefulness of 
the conscious self is increased by every clear 
and full impression, if it comes even from the 
so called lower senses. I have said that the 
impression upon a sense is the more certain to 
be a conscious one the higher the sense is 
developed, from which we may infer that all 
impressions might be of that order if it were 
possible to develop every sense to perfection. 
The sense of smell in man is hardly so 
developed, and the impressions that take root 
in his memory are therefore for the most part 154 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
subconscious. If we consider, however, how 
it can be made to perceive the faintest traces 
of odors when consciously applied, as in the 
physiological experiment, we must realize how 
much material might be kept from entering 
into the subconscious sphere and from these 
creating moods and emotions. 
I have often observed that those who are 
fondest of strong scents (women for the most 
part) belong to the highly impressionable class, 
while those with a well developed conscious 
self, careful observers, and those of analytical 
habits cannot abide perfumes. This sense, 
which usually creates merely subconscious im- 
pressions to man because it is not trained in 
him, is in some animals the principal stimulant 
to intelligent action. Biffi and Schiff found 
that dogs, deprived directly after birth of the 
use of this organ by the destruction of certain 
parts of the mucous membrane in the nose, 
could not even find the tit of the mother ani- 
mal, and would surely have perished if they had 
not been guided at each suckling; on growing EFFECT OF ODORS 
155 
up such dogs showed no trace of the usual 
recognition of their master or of fidelity to him. 
I have been able to observe another peculiarity 
in dogs in relation to odors; they exhibit the 
most marked repugnance to perfumes and 
odoriferous flowers, turn away at once from 
the object, draw in the tail between the legs, 
tremble if one insists, and make off with all the 
signs of great fright: a man who should see a 
ghost could not be in greater terror. The 
scents that awaken pleasurable emotions and 
moods in some human beings seem almost to 
remind the dog of some consciously experienced 
danger. 
I have studied the effect of odors of a num- 
ber of substances upon a large number of per- 
sons, and have found that they create upon some 
the most marked results. In every case, I am 
led to believe that it is only the impressionable 
subject, or one who is in that condition for the 
time being, who is affected at all, while those 
whose conscious self seems to be well developed 
or normal show no reaction. There appeared 156 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
to be no constant relation between the character 
of the odor and its effect. Musk, for instance, 
would greatly depress one person who seemed 
invigorated by assafoetida, while another, indiffer- 
ent to these two, was deeply affected by camphor. 
Of course, I need not say that these experi- 
ments were made with the usual precautions in 
order to exclude error. The subject was first 
made to believe that nothing startling would 
happen, thus excluding the influence of expect- 
ant attention. He was told to breathe in the 
usual regular and quiet manner, and the experi- 
ment was repeated and varied in every instance. 
In one case the effect was emotional, and corre- 
sponded to a mood, and could be moreover dis- 
covered by the changed action of the pulse ; it 
was therefore subconscious in its action, and 
showed itself physically in a change in the cir- 
culation. I was further able to note a distinct 
interference from the conscious sphere, for the 
effect both upon the mind and upon the blood 
pressure was influenced by mental concentra- 
tion. An impressionable lad, for instance, be- EFFECT OF SOME DRUGS 
157 
came almost completely passive and dazed from 
musk, an odor which he could not recognize; 
but when he finally discovered what it was the 
effect disappeared and the pulse became stronger 
and fuller. I have before me the tracing of the 
pulse of an hysterical patient, which shows a 
marked change during the inhalation of assa- 
foetida, and another from the same subject 
showing the neutralizing action upon the assa- 
foetida-tracing produced by the mental and 
conscious effort of doing a simple sum of arith- 
metic while inhaling the odor. I must add, 
that both ammonia and camphor had no effect 
whatever upon the pulse of this same subject, 
showing distinctly that the result was due en- 
tirely to an olfactory impression. In this con- 
nection it is interesting to recall the influence 
of music upon the hypnotized subject, observed 
by Dr. Warthin: the pulse was notably af- 
fected in quality and frequency, while contrac- 
tions of various groups of muscles showed 
clearly that different emotions were produced, 
according to the nature of the music. 158 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
This subject surely deserves closer study, 
which would, however, pass beyond the scope 
of an essay which is addressed to the gen- 
eral reader. I shall therefore content myself 
with having given only a few of the interest- 
ing facts that I have collected. The little 
that has been said, however, contributes to the 
opinion that the lower senses furnish us mostly 
with subconscious impressions, that these can 
be directly suppressed by calling into action the 
conscious mental functions, and lastly that cer- 
tain changes in the circulation of the blood are 
physical accompaniments of subconscious stim- 
ulation. How far this stimulation may depend 
in degree and quality upon the peculiarity of 
the individual, or upon associations beyond the 
reach of the conscious memory, must be deter- 
mined in each individual case. 
Man has at all times employed unwittingly 
either the stimulating or sedative action of sen- 
sations of his lower organs of sense, evidence 
of which is plentiful in folk-medicine. The 
negress in the Southern States derives the same TRAINING OF THE SENSES 
159 
soothing pleasure from the odor of assafoetida, 
contained in the bag fastened round the neck 
of her piccaninny to protect him from evil and 
from illness, that the impressionable K grande 
dame ” finds in the strong scents with which 
she surrounds herself. 
The reader has learned to realize sufficiently 
both the sedative and the stimulating action of 
vague sensations upon the skin, to make it 
superfluous to enter into a discussion, however 
imperfect, of this part of the subject. Many 
of the principal results of irritation and counter 
irritation, of hydrotherapy and of manipulation, 
must depend in the first instance upon their 
mental effects. The eye of the hawk, the eat 
of the horse, even the antennae of insects, must 
carry definite conscious impressions to the ani- 
mal, while man receives for the most part but 
subconscious impressions from the correspond- 
ing organs. 
In how far a method of education tending 
toward further development of the conscious 
part of the mind should be applied to children 160 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
depends upon each individual case, and must be 
left to the insight of the parents and tutors. I 
would suggest only that, when the nervous con- 
stitution of the offspring makes it probable that 
reflexes and emotions might multiply and pre- 
dispose to hysteria or other neurotic disturb- 
ances, when the imagination of the child shows 
premature activity, the persistent training of 
the powers of attentive observation and the 
resulting development of the conscious mem- 
ory might well be of fundamental importance 
and produce the most far-reaching results. 
In other cases of sluggish imagination and 
weak emotional vitality we should discourage 
“ conscious ” training and stimulate the subcon- 
scious part of the mind by vaguer and artistic 
impressions. 
In the education of the normal child the sub- 
conscious memory should be made up of mate- 
rial such as can be found in its purity only in 
art and in nature. Let the child’s fund for 
emotions, its source for moods, spring from 
works of art and objects in nature that show no TRAINING OF THE SENSES 
161 
other purpose but to be the most perfect em- 
bodiment of the union of their original elements, 
— form, color, and rhythm. Let the youthful 
eye rest rather upon the armless Venus of Milo 
than upon the Venus of Medici; make it always 
possible and habitual for the child to con- 
template with contentment the scenes in the 
woods, the ocean, and the glories of the firma- 
ment, so that his innermost nature may in future 
years find solace and rest in pure contemplation. 
In adult life, as we have seen, vague impres- 
sions by themselves and in the form of associa- 
tions with conscious impressions are continually 
acting upon the subconscious self and adding 
to its development. The emotions as conse- 
quences of vague impressions upon the senses 
can be reduced by concentrating the attention; 
thus adding to the power of the conscious self. 
Methodical training of the senses in accurate 
observation is surely within the power of every 
one of us, and there can be nothing more con- 
ducive to a healthful activity of the mind than 
the persistent search for the true causes of the 162 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
phenomena that surround us. He, however, 
who nourishes an interest only in so far as he 
is pleasurably or painfully affected by events 
and physical sensations, will finally care for 
nothing but the emotions and moods they 
may produce. The subconscious self will 
regulate his actions, and predominate in his 
thoughts, and produce that habit of mind that 
is made up of prejudices, superstitions, fears, 
and selfish impressionability. Those who see 
in our times only the signs of withering 
w degeneration ” have strangely overlooked the 
invigorating effects of scientific work and the 
stimulating elements that come from men’s 
growing love for nature and for physical 
exercise; their statistics take no account of 
that large and multiplying class of quiet 
workers for whom the craving for new and 
strong emotions simply does not exist. 
We have, I trust, recognized how certain 
morbid conditions of the intellect, diseases of 
the mind, can be accounted for by an undue 
development of the subconscious self, or by a NANCY SCHOOL —HYPNOTISM 
163 
disturbed relation between it and the conscious 
part of the mind in the child and in the adult, 
and I have tried to prove how much might be 
done in such cases if the subconscious self 
could be impressed. The conscious self can 
be acted upon only during complete wakeful- 
ness ; the subconscious self however can be 
reached best when it is most impressionable; 
this is in early childhood, shortly before and after 
sleep, and lastly in those conditions of subcon- 
scious existence that correspond to the dreaming 
state, and during the hypnotic trance. 
To-day, when we have been taught prin- 
cipally by the studies of the Nancy School that 
hypnotism is a condition of the mind in its sub- 
conscious state, in which the subject is especially 
receptive for suggestions, and have seen that 
there are other phases in which suggestions 
can be made to act upon the subconscious 
self, we can readily realize that it is not 
necessary in many cases to induce hypnotism 
in order to influence subconscious conditions. 
Incidentally it appears perfectly plain to us that 164 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
mental factors are at work in the case of 
“ faith cures,” and the miraculous results of a 
pilgrimage to Lourdes. 
Patients appeal to them as a last resort, 
considering themselves incurable after receiv- 
ing no benefit from ordinary medical treatment, 
and approach the novel method in a state of 
subconscious expectation, a mood sufficient in 
itself, in many cases, to remove the greater 
part of their symptoms. The excavations of 
Cavvadias have furnished us with much inter- 
esting material, showing that the miraculous 
cures of Epidaurus were effected at this ancient 
Greek shrine five hundred years before our era 
in precisely the same manner and by sugges- 
tion as in our times at Lourdes. 
It appears certain from inscriptions found 
upon u stelae ” that were dug up there, and 
published in 1891, that the cult of iEsculapius 
at Epidaurus was based upon miracle working of 
the demigod, and not upon the medical art. 
It was only five hundred years later, when the 
belief in the effect of miracles began to decrease LOURDES — EPIDAURUS 
165 
that the priests began to study and to apply 
medical and surgical means, in order to sustain 
the reputation of the place and to keep up its 
enormous revenues. The incurables (for such 
usually came there) first cleansed themselves 
with the water from the holy well, brought 
sacrifices, and thereupon fell into sleep after 
certain ceremonial acts had been performed by 
the priests. The son of Apollo then appeared 
to them in dream, attending to the sufferer 
according to his ailments (cutting open his body, 
removing worms, and the like, cleansing him, 
etc.), and imposing specific sacrifices or acts 
that would bring him back to health. In most 
cases the sick woke up suddenly restored to 
health. Large sums of money were asked 
(sometimes specified during the dream) for those 
cures; we learn from an inscription that a sum 
corresponding to sixty thousand francs was paid 
for one cure. In order to illustrate the refine- 
ment of method of the ancient faith doctors, I 
must mention the fact that those in labor as 
well as the dying were considered unclean, and 166 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
were therefore removed from the precincts 
of the temple. 
The preventive treatment falls naturally to 
the parent first, and later to the individual him- 
self, while in cases of nervous and mental 
diseases the physician is called upon to make 
use of “ mental therapeutics,” such as shall be 
required by the individual case. In many of 
them, I am sure that suggestions methodically 
made before sleep would act quite as well as if 
made during hypnosis, and much good would 
result from a careful elaboration of such a 
method of treatment. Further work along 
these lines, laid down by Kraeppelin on the 
action of some stimulating and sedative drugs 
upon the mental functions, may lead to most 
important discoveries, enabling us to modify 
or produce certain psychical conditions, thus 
facilitating the desired effect of surroundings 
and “ mental therapeutics.” I have for some 
time past devoted much time to the study of 
this subject, but cannot here enter further upon 
the results that I have obtained. It may, CONCLUSION 
167 
however, be of interest to the reader to learn 
that Kraeppelin has found, while employing 
most exact scientific methods, that alcohol, in 
all its forms, and taken in the usual quantities, 
acts in a decidedly weakening and paralyzing 
manner upon the upper mental centres (the 
conscious self), while it stimulates the lower 
ones. It will thus reduce the power of observa- 
tion, analysis, and judgment, and stimulate the 
instincts, emotions, and the imagination. It is 
clear, therefore, that its use is very detrimental 
to the healthfulness of precisely those mental 
powers that we have found it desirable to cul- 
tivate, and that it will coincidently increase the 
impressionability, and tend to produce those ner- 
vous and mental disorders which are so common 
among us. Coffee and tea and analogous chemi- 
cal bodies act very much in the opposite direc- 
tion with regard to the conscious mental centres ; 
it is equally clear, therefore, that their abuse is 
as detrimental to the nervous functions through 
the danger from over-stimulation. The actor 
and the public speaker finds, by experience, 168 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
what has been thus proven by careful and 
painstaking experiment, that wine will loosen 
the tongue and remove the disturbing effect 
of self-analysis, commonly called stage fright. 
And we can now fully realize the wisdom of 
the epicures following up the wine at dinner 
with the “ demi-tasse,” were it not for the 
final u bottle of fine old fruity port.” 
In the treatment of neurasthenia, as well 
as of hysteria and of analogous functional dis- 
orders of the nervous system, the effects of 
drugs are largely determined by their effect 
upon one or the other part of the mind, and 
we can best appreciate them by the coinci- 
dent reaction of the circulatory system. The 
conscious self, weakened by neurasthenia, is 
beneficially stimulated by certain drugs admin- 
istered internally and raising the arterial tension, 
while even the odor of some of our simplest 
remedies shows their quieting effect in hysteri- 
cal seizures in their action upon the over 
developed and unsubdued subconscious mental 
sphere. Thus, a lady who gave evidence of the CONCLUSION 
169 
effect of assafoetida upon the first trial affirmed 
that she could not have lived through recent 
and deep family afflictions without her smelling- 
bottle, containing the solid extract of assafoetida 
which she held continually in her hand. I 
may add, that ammonia was without effect in 
her case. Another quieted attacks of nervous 
palpitation of the heart, and the coincident 
anxious sensations, with a few whiffs of musk. 
But this part of the subject, as I have said 
before, must be treated at greater length in 
another place. 
I have endeavored to show in this short 
sketch that our mental personality is repre- 
sented by the sum of all the impressions which 
have been deposited in our memory during 
our lifetime, impressions which depend prima- 
rily, as has been indicated at the outset, upon 
peculiarities of organic structure preformed in 
us. The nature of all these impressions, how- 
ever, differs, as has been seen, in two well 
defined manners. The conscious impressions, 
toward which we learn gradually to direct our 170 
THE SUBCONSCIOUS SELF 
attention, form in their aggregate a conscious 
self, which directs in its turn our attention and 
our acts as they affect principally our relation to 
the outer world. Through the conscious self 
we also control that other part of ourself 
from which emanate impulses and moods, the 
consuming desire to live our own life, to 
realize our ideals, irrespective of the relations 
which surround us. Hence it comes that a 
dualism exists in the life of every one of us, 
more or less accentuated according to the dif- 
ference between our conscious and our sub- 
conscious self. The higher pleasures and the 
deeper pains depend upon this relation, and 
he alone can be happy who has established a 
true balance between his innermost desires, 
arising out of his subconscious self, and the 
duties that impose themselves upon him from 
his consciousness of all the responsibilities 
which his understanding has taught him to 
recognize. It must be the constant aim of 
him who aspires to the highest degree of 
culture to educate both parts of himself in CONCLUSION 
171 
such a manner that the one may act in due 
degree upon the other. For the real tragedy 
in every man’s inner life is the conflict between 
these two inherent parts of his inner self, 
and when we have learned to understand the 
workings of these two mental powers in our- 
selves we shall be slow in passing judgment 
upon our fellow men : — 
“ What’s done we partly may compute, 
But know not what’s resisted.”