Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/539

 FREDERIC W. H. MYERS, Human Personality. 525 considered to be products of the soul's activity in subliminal channels ; (3) the supernormal phenomena. We have seen that in the first group we have evidence of the occasional existence of a secondary consciousness (co-existing beside the primary or ordinary consciousness) which in some cases has become so highly developed as to constitute a secondary personality and which sometimes exhibits intelligence and sensory powers and powers over the metabolism of the body greater than those of the primary personality. But we have seen that, with the doubtful exception of the last, these phenomena of divided personality are well ex- plained by Dr. Pierre Janet's clearly conceived theory of mental disaggregation, and neither call for, nor in any way directly support, the hypothesis of the " subliminal self ". Of the phenomena of the second group, ideas of men of genius, hallucinations, etc., we have seen that they are regarded as being off-shoots of the "sub- liminal self " in virtue of an erroneous psychological assumption, the assumption namely that the mind is normally aware of the processes which determine the succession and the composition of its states of consciousness. Turning to the supernormal phenomena we found that in the case of thought-transference the ideas or sensations transferred are always, or usually, present to the ordinary consciousness of the agent and that the transferred state also appears frequently in the ordinary consciousness of the percipient. The invocation of the " subliminal self " for the explanation of these facts appeared therefore as a gratuitous complication of a sufficiently mysterious subject. We saw that the whole group of supernormal phantasms, in so far as they are not telepathically explicable, are best regarded as manifestations of the activity of disembodied spirits, and that here again the invocation of the " subliminal self" con- stitutes a gratuitous complication amounting in the case of the " phantasmogenetic centre " to monstrous proportions. Lastly we saw that Myers himself does not seek to find for the conception any support or any role in the culminating phenomenon of " posses- sion ". But now let us put aside the conclusion here indicated, and accepting for the moment the " subliminal self " as a well-founded hypothesis, let us ask how far its establishment achieves the ends for which it was conceived. In the first place, we find that, as Dr. Leaf has well shown, the acceptance of the doctrine of the " subliminal self " deprives the evidence for the continuance of life of the spirit after the death of the body of all that emotional and ethical value which Myers himself and most of those who ardently desire it have attached to it. For that which survives, according to the showing of this hypothesis, is something vastly different from the personality that strove and hoped and was known and loved here in the flesh. ' From another standpoint we may ask, Does the acceptance of this hypothesis harmonise the belief in a future life with the well- founded conclusions of modern science ? It must be admitted that,