UNCONSCIOUS MENTAL WORK.
[TO TEE EDITOR OF THE ''SPEETATOR."]
SIR,—There appears to be no doubt that both the body and nervous system may do work of which the mind has not only no consciousness, but over which it seems to exercise no controlling force. Take, for instance, what are called the organic functions of the body—those performed by the liver, the kidneys, heart, the alimentary canal, both in its function of the digestion and absorp- tion of food, and in its saltatory movements and the individual nerve-ganglia. The working of these may be called, if anything is gained by it, automatic. The mind may have the power of arresting the working of these organs, but beyond this its con- nection with them is to a great extent indirect.
A limb will move on the application of a stimulus, though entirely cut off from the operations of " will " by softening or section of the spinal cord ; that is, the ganglionic centre will receive and reflect the influence exerted by the stimulus on a paralysed limb, without appealing to the brain. Why, then, may not the cerebral grey (ganglionic) matter work, not only unoperated on, but even without the cognisance, so to speak, of the " mind ?" The bodily economy of a child born acephalic will go on, and many co- ordinate muscular movements will be made as if brain and mind were both there ; and to account for these things, we must either have recourse to " automatism," or believe, with Mr. G. H. Lewes, that there are two kinds or degrees of " consciousness,"—a higher and a lower, a mental and a ganglionic. These are connected with each other intimately, and are interdependent, but may be entirely disconnected in action.
To my mind, it is much plainer and more scientific to adopt the idea of there being two " consciousnesses," than to have re- course to the notion of " automatic " work. Of the two con- sciousnesses, the ganglionic is the elder-born, but the lass honour- able, as St. Paul would say. The ganglionic, to put it in another way, is inherent, and animal, and incomplete ; the mental con- sciousness is almost, if not entirely, educational, and is comple- mental and necessary for the proper development of the ganglionic. The consciousness of the acephalic child is wholly ganglionic, and insufficient for the purposes of life for any length of time. There is no brain to receive impressions from the outside. At first, the consciousness of the child who is born with properly formed brain is also entirely ganglionic, but impressions received by the ganglia are transmitted to the brain, and the child learns to know what feeling, seeing, tasting is. The child's " mind " has been born of this lower "consciousness," and is now growing under this lower, ganglionic teaching. Soon, however, the higher outstrips the lower, and although the mental still continues to be beholden to the ganglionic consciousness for many new lessons, yet it, as a rule, takes its lessons, so to speak, more directly, and impresses the ganglionic consciousness into a new service. The ganglia become, in time, so accustomed to answering certain impressions in a certain way, that the operations can be carried on without the immediate superintendence of the mind. Does it not seem better, therefore, to look upon " consciousness " as being of a double nature, than to drag a new idea and a new term into science, where no great good seems likely to arise from them ?
Like you, in your article of the 22nd January, I cannot conceive of a thought originating in the cell-work of the brain and a process of reasoning carried on without the cogni- sance of the mind. Visions of the paths traversed by the mind in the process of reasoning on a subject may occupy the brain without the mind being required to form them, and indeed the impressions of them may be so vividly imprinted on the mole- cular machinery of the brain that they are remembered when that organ has awaked from its rest, but that a new thought or an original idea should start up or be developed by the simple, un- guided movements of a mass of organic particles would seem to be as much beyond belief as it is beyond proof.
Here is a story iz propos of Dr. Carpenter's, but the solution of
it I leave to yourself or others. I knew a clergyman who was in the habit, if a thought struck him in the night when in bed, of tying a knot on some part of his under-clothing to keep him in mind of it till the morning. As thought succeeded thought, so knot succeeded knot. Night became his studying time and day his writing-time. The same thing was sometimes carried on during his sleep, so that he often felt at a lose, when he first awoke, to account for so many reminders. However, as he untied his knots, his ideas, thus registered, unravelled themselves, and so also with those which bad occurred to him apparently during his sleep. The curious thing is that the subjects which were registered during the latter were not always connected with those that had occupied his mind when awake.
Now, with regard to the operations of the calculating-boys, there is no reason to believe that they are any more automatic in their nature than are the operations of the mind of a surgeon in diagnosing this or that fracture. Ask a surgeon by what process of reasoning or thought he had come to any particular conclusion, and he will not be able to tell you ; so says Sir Astley Cooper. The student can, because be has not yet brought his "lower con- sciousness" to the aid of his "higher," and his diagnosis has to be gone through laboriously, and with mental effort. When he comes to have worked longer and seen more, he arrives at con- clusions, to use the old phrase, as if' by intuition.—I am, Sir, &c.,
J. COTTPER JOHNSTON.
Gwar-y-Castell, Crickhowell, South Wales, February 1.
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