Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/399

Rh that the thoughts it rouses there mingle unconsciously with a man's thinking most of the time. They constitute what we know as habitual ones in the normal state. When, therefore, the brain lies clogged in the general lethargy of the trance, these channels still remain relatively more permeable than the less pervious veins of more recently evolved sensations peculiar to the individual. Thus the activity that cannot wake the man wakes the race.

This brings us to confront the atavistic character of the general trance state. A priori, we have just seen that the state should hark back, and a posteriori that it does so in this particular case. But we have evidence that it is atavistic generally. The easy transition from one idea to another in the hypnotic state, the want of reasoning shown in it, the intentness and energy with which any given idea will be pursued one moment, only to be thrown over the next with a completeness which is caricatural, are states of mind that recall childhood for comparison. The man has become a sort of grotesque boy again. Could all idées fixes be eradicated, that is, could we have the perfectly