Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/560

542 performed before him, or to continue indefinitely the regular movement that is imparted to a part of his body. It is supposed, for the explanation of this phenomenon, that the continuation of a movement may occur, either from obedience or merely because an image has been conjured up in the mind of the patient, this image being the source of the movements. An aneesthetic hand is made to write a letter; the movement of this hand stimulates somewhere in the mind of the unconscious subject the motor images; these images are not inhibited by anything; they spend themselves in action, and the movement is repeated. This involves no obedience; it is a much more simple and elementary psychological phenomenon. These explanations may possibly both hold good, each for different persons and for different conditions of experiments.

The same effects as in anæsthesia may be produced in the state of distraction. Attention—an effort of the mind and of the entire organism which increases the intensity of certain states of consciousness—if brought to bear on a perception, makes it more swift, more exact, more detailed. This adaptation of all the available force of the organism converging in a single event, which may be a sensation, an image, a sentiment, etc., produces a temporary state of monöideism. It is accompanied by distraction. One can not pay attention to certain things without being distracted from others. The likeness of distraction and anæsthesia has been mentioned. A hysterical patient whose arm is insensible finds himself in very nearly the same state of mind as if he never thought of his arm, or if he were indifferent to it, or as if he had concentrated the power of his attention on other things. So we may try experiment with it: we may concentrate this hysterical patient's attention on a certain point and examine the special effects of the division of consciousness produced by distraction. The ease with which the attention of these patients can be distracted is almost incredible. Profiting by the state produced, one has only to approach from behind and pronounce some words in a low voice to place himself in relation with the unconscious person. The sentence is not heard by the principal personality, whose mind is elsewhere, but the unconscious person hears it and acts upon it. The identity of the secondary ego constituted during anæsthesia or distraction with the somnambulistic ego has been established in experiments by M. Paul Janet.

While the two consciousnesses are separate from a certain point of view, they may be reunited from another point of view and may retain both relations. The phenomena are very complicated and very interesting for psychology. The relations of two consciousnesses may take two distinct forms—those of antagonism and those of united action. When they are in collaboration we