The fastidious, refined woman dreams of being a swearing seaman, glibly using the coarsest profanity, and so on.

But the deepest and most fundamental line of cleavage in consciousness is its division into the sub-conscious and the clearly known self. Psychology recognizes to-day that no consciousness is single; in its very nature consciousness is double or multiple. The self we all think of when the word is first used is but a small part of ourselves. We may compare it with the spot of clearest vision in our field of sight. Just as the eye can focus on only one small spot at a time, so the recognized self is but a small spot in general consciousness. And as the unnoticed background has an immense influence on the objects clearly perceived, so, too, the unnoticed background of consciousness has an immeasureable effect on that which is clearly perceived. As life develops, more and more of the experiences that at first claimed attention, pass over into the unnoticed background. In this unregarded field lies what we call the unobserved tendencies or trends of life, the essence of temperament and tact, blind impulse and instinct, mechanical and automatic acts of every kind.

It would be hard to overestimate the scope and force of this under-consciousness. To take only one or two typical illustrations : Notice that a musician has only to see in what scale a composition is written to let his fingers fall without any further attention upon the notes of that scale. Anyone who speaks in a foreign language, after once having started a sentence in that tongue, pays no further attention, as a rule, to the need for avoiding words in his native tongue. He is in touch with a foreign background and that supplies him with words and phrases of its own order. The greater part, and sometimes the very best of life's work is accomplished through the agency of this background of consciousness.

To what we have figuratively called a "background/' psychologists have assigned many names, referring to it as a psychical automatism, a sub-conscious self, a subliminal consciousness, a subjective mind, etc. The last term seems to the writer to be a very objectionable one: for the sub-conscious activity is an integral characteristic of every mind and of all mental action in varying degree, and it is absurd to refer to this phase as if it were a separate mind.

It is true, however, that at times the attentive, reflective, clearly identified self seems to slip away from the scene of action, leaving open space for the sub-conscious activity. Another identity than the one we recognize as our own, seems to take possession of the scene. The artist, seer, or prophet is caught up into a state of ecstacy in which another than himself seems to speak and work through him. The most thorough systems of modern psychology, from Wundt down, emphasize these facts as part of our normal experience and point out, to use Professor Ladd's words, that "it may well be that so-called 'single' consciousness, in its most normal form, always conceals and indeed, as it were, is made up of double (and even multiple) consciousness, in some valid meaning of those words. The explanation of double consciousness, when the facts are in and the explanation is made, will be found in the extension rather than the reversal of principles, already known to apply to the normal activity of body and mind." *

Now, if the psychologists are right who maintain such a view of ordinary consciousness how do they account for the fact that mankind have generally ignored their multifold identities under common circumstances, and yet have recognized the multiplicity at once in the insane and the hypnotized? The full answer to this question would be a long story, and we can only briefly indicate its trend. The whole difference turns upon the continuance of memory and the return of self-consciousness.

Notice, first, the importance of a continuance of memory. While we dream we may not remember our waking selves, but when we wake memory holds over and we look back upon ourselves both in the dream and before the dream. Paul is not classed among the insane because he speaks of being "caught up into the third heaven," whether in the body or out of the body, I know not Upon his return to his common self, memory bridged over the sudden change.

But the objection will at once be raised that sometimes in insanity, and often in hypnosis, an accurate memory of one's past is retained, and yet there is no recognition of the old identity. Now, there are two causes which prevent the return of consciousness in these instances, one mainly physiological, the other psychological. When the organic sensations are suddenly and violently changed it is difficult for even the strongest mind to retain its equilibrium. We pointed out early in this chapter that sensations from within the body form the early idea of self, and they always retain an important place. If serious disturbances continue, the mind almost surely yields to the strain, and temporary or permanent insanity sets in. The more purely psychological cause for the loss of identity without the loss of memory is especially operative in hypnosis. A vivid suggestion is received either directly from the command of the hypnotizer or indirectly from the subject's preconception that the hypnotizer expects such a change. The strongly-suggested idea is the nucleus for a new system of ideas which displaces or usurps the central group of the normal system.

Of course, both in hypnosis and in insanity, physiological disturbances and suggested ideas may work together, each reinforcing the other's influence.

* Lodd, Philosophy of Mind, p. 168.

The foregoing discussion of the nature of our consciousness of personal identity, and of the approaches in ordinary experience to the peculiar phases of hypnotism may seem to some an attempt to explain away the wonderful changes observed. Exactly the reverse is true. The conservative standpoint is often misrepresented as one of hidebound prejudice and of obstinate blindness to the marvels of abnormal experience, whereas it is really seeking all the time to open the eyes of the world to the greater marvels inherent in the common everyday consciousness for which the world has small respect or interest. The most impressive teaching of a thoughtful psychology is its insight into the hitherto undreamed of depths of consciousness, out of which arises the commonly recognized self.

In the attempt to suggest a cause or origin for the variations in identity, many theories have been set afloat that cover only a part of the facts. The theories of the automatic functioning of the lower brain centers or of "unconscious cerebration" ignore the fact that we have entirely satisfactory evidence of the presence of consciousness. When, again, the phenomena are all classed as instances of morbid disassociation, the theory fails to do justice to the high degree of constructive work sometimes accomplished by the secondary consciousness. A wider and more inclusive study of the subject has been one of the results of the London Society for Psychical Research, and we bring our own discussion to a close with a very brief reference to the writings of two members of that society, Mr. F. W. H. Meyers and Mr. Podmore.

In his paper on the Subliminal Consciousness, Mr. Meyers has given us his mass of evidence and his own conclusions. His explanatory theories are rather imaginative, and go beyond his facts into mere conjecture, yet they command attention as the speculations of one who has made an elaborate investigation of the facts. Mr. Myers writes, "I accord no primary to my ordinary waking self except that, among many potential selves, this one has shown itself fitted to meet the needs of common life. There is in each of us an abiding psychical entity far more extensive than he knows. This subliminal consciousness may embrace a far wider range of activity, extending on the one side to psychological processes which have long dropped out of human knowledge, on the other to certain supernormal faculties (tele-pathy, clairvoyance, prevision), of which only stray hints have reached us, in our present stage of evolution." *

While Mr. Meyers evidently believes that the human mind can transcend time and space and the laws of the physical world, Mr. Podmore is more conservative. In his studies in Psychical Research, p. 413, seq. he writes, "It is held by some that in the hypnotic state we have a prophecy of the future endowments of the race. But it seems more probable that these abnormal conditions are not a prophecy but a survival. In the hurry and stress of living, it may be suggested, we have had to drop articles of luxury, as the keen scent, the telescopic eye, the unerring sense of direction, which served primeval man. For the pressure upon the area of our working consciousness is great and its capacity limited. Year by year ideas and sensations- once vivid grow fainter, and finally pass unregarded. When the nature of the process and the results which attend it are more clearly recognized, we may find it possible to recover something of these waste products and thus enrich our workaday selves. But as yet we seem to have found in the subliminal consciousness no certain indication of any knowledge or faculties which have not at sometime played a part in the primary field.

We come across memories of childhood, and many old forgotten things; we discover what seem to be traces of long lost but serviceable faculties, - telepathy, sense of time, of direction, of right, - we acquire partial control over bodily functions - digestion, circulation, and the like, - which civilized man has learned to acquiesce in as beyond his guidance. But in all this we only resume possession of our own. And we have as yet, I submit, no sufficient evidence of anything beyond that."

* Proc. S. P. R. vol. VII. p. 301, seq.

Every student of the depths of self-consciousness finds that the deeper study reveals the superficial and ephemeral character of the view of personal identity with which we start out. More and more clearly we perceive within ourselves the double and multiple selves, potential in the wider scope of mental life. And yet, in our final analysis, we must find that the multiple identities have more to unite than to separate them. Wherever memory and self consciousness hold over or revive, we shall have one self and not many. We see the possibilities open to an intelligence with memory and perception far superior to our own. Such a mind would take up all that seems to us to belong to other personalities into a larger, richer single identity, as clearly one as the crude idea with which we started on our research, but vastly more complex and inclusive.