Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/491

 THE PROBLEMS OF HYPNOTISM. 479 This question remained for a long time without an answer ; but two answers were at last given by countrymen of our own one, which as far as it went was of a clear and definite character, by Braid ; the other, of a hazy and unex- planatory character, by Dr. Carpenter. This description may at first sight seem unjust to the latter, inasmuch as he professes general agreement with Braid, and does not seem aware of having adopted a different basis. It will not be hard, however, to justify what has been said. Dr. Carpenter's explanation (Mental Physiology, c. xiv.) rests purely on mental ground : his argument is concerned with states which (though of course, like other mental states, they have their physical correlate in the nervous system) he treats throughout in their purely mental aspect. There could be no objection to this treatment, were it successful as far as it goes the conditions of success obviously being that the phenomena of the mental state for which we seek explanation should be brought into relation with phenomena of other and more familiar mental states ; for scientific explanation consists in bringing out identities between new and old knowledge. Dr. Carpenter's failure to realise this condition seems to me to be complete. The region where he seeks the needed identities is the well-recognised one of reverie and abstrac- tion ; and his endeavour is to embrace the phenomena of these familiar states with those of Hypnotism in the common category of ' automatic mental action '. As an instance of the automatism of reverie, he describes the loose play of fancy to which the poet may resign himself under the influ- ence of some pleasing aspect of Nature. To illustrate the automatism of abstraction, he describes the ' absence of mind ' which has characterised many clear and profound thinkers, showing itself in their eccentric conduct in the streets, or in random answers to persons who have addressed them when their whole attention was absorbed in following some complicated train of logical thought. The reader will observe, even before we begin to test the resemblance of these ' explanatory ' phenomena to the unexplained facts of Hypnotism, how confused and confusing the idea of automa- tism has already become. It is more than doubtful, to begin with, whether ' automatism ' correctly describes the poet's condition at all. As long as the idea of will is absent, ' automatic ' is an excellent word to describe actions, the conditions of which are inside and not outside the subject of them : such, for instance, is its appropriate meaning in physiology. But the mind is not a cell or a tissue ; and, in the present connexion, to call the mind's actions automatic,