MODIFICATIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS.* PROFESSOR JASTROW'S volume on the psychological signifi-
cance of subconscious phenomena is a useful, well-reasoned, and careful investigation in a region largely frequented by quacks and impostors, and for that very reason avoided by many orthodox thinkers. The book is, unfortunately, much too long and diffuse, and in the portion of the subject that deals with the obscure phenomenon very absurdly denominated " multiple personality " Professor Jastrow has chosen to rely upon the preposterous case of Miss Beauchamp, told in a volume published last year under the title, The Dissociation of a Personality. That case as given to the public suggests an hysterical practical joke front beginning to end, and should not be cited as evidence by any scientific writer. The case of Thomas Hanna as used here is of considerable value, though it will not bear the conclusions drawn from it by the doctors who stated the case. Hanna, as the result of certain accidents, suddenly ceased consciously to realise his past life. After a time this life came back at certain intervals, during which the life lived since the accident was forgotten. A stage of alternating memory followed, and
• The Subconscious. By Joseph Isstrovr, Professor of Psychology in the University of Wisconsin. London; a. Constable and Co. {10s. net.]
at last the two memories coalesced. There was nothing in all this to suggest a dual personality, though the phenomena exhibited are of considerable medical interest.
Professor Jastrow divides his book into three parts, dealing respectively with the normal and the abnormal conditions of consciousness and the theory of subconscious phenomena. He holds, very reasonably, that consciousness, or " awareness," develops according to the principle of utility,—namely, "the delegation of as many as possible of the frequently repeated routine activities to semi-automatic mechanisms, and the con- sequent freedom more effectively to devote the main directive attention to complex deliberation and expression." Evolution aims at producing only useful forms of consciousness and at relegating to habits all the minor functions of life. Conscious- ness participates but little in the operations of habits, and therefore " the field of well-drilled habits, of semi-automatic groups of movements, of the customary common activities that make up the great mass of the familiar but intelligent routine," is a useful area in which to observe the operation of subconscious phenomena. Professor Jastrow sums up the position clearly when be says:- " Without being in any way abnormal, we do many things, and indicate that we see, hear, or feel things, and yet are we so sub- conscious of these incidents that, so far as we rely upon the testimony of memory under the searching examination of our attentive consciousness, we should unreservedly deny that these experiences and these doings were indeed ours."
In considering this type of phenomena we must also take into account what is here called "the distribution of attention." Some things require little or no attention, while "the highest use of our powers, the nicest adjustment of our skill, requires the undisturbed concentration of attention upon one single task." The area of attention is, of course, largely dependent on the individual sensitiveness to disturbance. Some people shut out the world in doing their work and thinking their thoughts about work, and can with difficulty be recalled to the conscious performance of habitual phenomena. Others are always open to any call. Professor Jastrow lays stress on this individual quality. " It prepares us to find that the more extreme and abnormal manifestations of the subconscious will depend more intrinsically upon the operation of a favourable temperament than upon any objective inducement, such as an engrossing occupation." One may add, in fact, that it is the real personality, the man himself, who determines the type of consciousness. The importance of this fact must not be overlooked when we consider much of the quackery written about multiple personalities.
Subconscious processes perform services of high value "in the flow of logically associated ideas." This is admitted, and it follows from it that the subconsciousness has the power of selective attention. Certain noises only waken the sleeper. The dreamer selects certain sensations to make his dream. The subconscious memory brings back a fact to the con- scious memory by a chain of thoughts that must have been deliberately formed by a selective process. What the mental procedure is, how the inner logic works, we do not yet know ; but we do know that the subconscious mind is working for us always, and that all thought is the subject of subconscious preparation. Professor James has finely laid stress upon this fact ,—
" Let no youth have any anxiety about the upshot of his education, whatever the line of it may be. If he keep faithfully busy each hour of the working day, he may safely leave the final result to itself. He can with perfect certainty count on waking up some fine morning, to find himself one of the competent ones of his generation, in whatever pursuit he may have singled out. Silently, between all the details of his business, the power of judging in all that class of matter will have built itself up within him as a possession that will never pass away."
Professor Jastrow proceeds to give us phases of subconscious- ness. First come ordinary lapses of consciousness,—" failures of adjustment of consciousness to the actual conditions that confront us." The automatic carrying out of an habitual action—such as winding a watch—is an instance of sub- conscious action. Various types are here given. The mental condition which produces the lapse is the important feature of the phenomenon, since an exaggeration of that condition may bring about "abnormal alterations of consciousness." We are, in fact, face to face with a physiological rather than a psychological problem,—a fact that is almost entirely ignored by those who set out to seek multiple personalities. Professor Jastrow seems to tie, in his attempt to define self-consciousness, to fall into a similar fault, to fail to recog- nise that any variation from full self-consoiousness is a matter of physiology,—a temporary disguising (due to physical causes) of the eternal ego from itself. To define self-consciousness as "the integration of the successive reactions of experience upon endowment into a personal self " is to deny the indivisi- bility of the ego, and fling aside a wealth of philosophic con- clusions from the time of Plato to the time of Hegel. It is the personal self that makes experience itself possible, though no doubt experience affects the conditions of consciousness.
When we turn to the study of abnormal conditions of con- sciousness we find material that helps us in the investigation of subconscious action. Abnormal conditions of consciousness depend upon what Professor Jastrow calls "a favorably disp osed temperament," but what may be better called the personality of the subject, coupled with some particular stimulus. We may thus get conditions varying from mere persistent absent- mindedness to sheer madness. Professor Jastrow would carry the change as far as "altered personality "; but that seems to beg the whole question. These abnormal conditions "are but exaggerations of what slightly and momentarily occurs in the ordinary range of normal experience." The subject of " Dream-Conscionsness " is dealt with fully
"Dreaming may thus be viewed as a reversion to a more primitive type of thought, the less developed procedure being due negatively to the loss of voluntary regulation, and positively to the imaginative musings and self-contained reveries to which the natural movement of the mind dominantly trends. The absence of the sense of control not only brings it about that wo accept passively what fancy chooses to bring, but that, when brought, it comes to ns lacking that personal stamp of our own efforts that makes us take credit for our waking constructions. The same simplification relieves us of the duty of maintaining a consistent character ; and so we witness not alone the transformation of one object into a wholly unrelated one, but the attachment of our individual characteristics to another personality, and the acquisi- tion by our personality of traits foreign to our nature."
Of course the doctrine that the self of dreamland is an echo of the self that might have been under different condi- tions is capable of no proof, though it is sufficiently ingenious. But it is not at all true to say that in sleep the mind is. " dependent upon inner resources." On the contrary, dreams are often, if not always, the result of objective experience conveyed in an unusual way to the brain,—the result of light, touch, smell, sound, or disordered organs. Professor Jastrow passes from dreams, to "the variants of Dream- Consciousness,"—variations due to some particular stimulus, such as drags or alcohol. Dreams also are, as we have- said, due to stimulus of some sort. Stimulus applied during some particular physiological condition 'produces some particular deviation from normal consciousness. All this is perfectly easy to understand ; but when we come to consider what is here called " dissociated conscious- ness" the field grows less clear. Somnambulism, in which apparently only part of the brain is acting, is an interest- ing state, and the mesmeric trance even more important. Things done in the latter state are done by a person- who is either not conscious of planning the actions, or. plans under conscious direction from without. A person under mesmeric influence declares that black is white, while. the brain registers the fact that black is black. How is it to., be accounted for P Undue influence is really the answer. One personality is afraid of another. The brain registers, as usual, the results of experience, but the outward personality obeys a command. Certainly neither somnambulism nor mesmerism suggests dissociation of personality. To tell a lie either for. purposes of self-interest or under undue influence does not point to a dissociated, but to a dominated, personality. Nor again, leaving out of the question the force of undue influence, is the power of doing many things together any evidence of ' dissociation. A person may knit, read, play chess, listen to conversation, and have a flow of inward thoughts without any vestige of dissociated consciousness. The brain has " thought- tight " compartments, all definitely under control. The so- called dissociation that occurs in abnormal cases is the result of physical disability, aided, no doubt, by a personality that varies from the normal. It is an abuse of language to apply the adjective "psychological" to 'the problem, and to allege that "dissociated states pave the way to disintegrated personality." The problem is medical, and not philosophical. It is a question of body, and not of soul. An accident. separated Thomas Hanna's memory into two parts, and bodily:
treatment reunited them. Purely physical causes introduced (in so far as the matter was not a practical joke) the many so-called personalities into Miss Beauchamp's body, and physical causes ejected them. It is useful to investigate the various phases of a personality. It is mere quackery to talk of its disintegration. An actor glancing in a mirror may not recognise himself. But he has not two personalities. The body is the temporary clothing of the soul, acting on our stage, and may play tricks, but there is only one soul.
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