Page:Principles of Psychology (1890) v1.djvu/224

204 204 P8TCH0L0GY. Now M. Janet found in several subjects like this that if he came up behind them whilst they were plunged in conversa- tion with a third party, and addressed them in a whisper, tell- ing them to raise their hand or perform other simple acts, they would obey the order given, although their talk- ing intelligence was quite unconscious of receiving it. Lead- ing them from one thing to another, he made them reply by signs to his whispered questions, and finally made them answer in writing, if a pencil were placed in their hand. The primary consciousness meanwhile went on with the conversation, entirely unaware of these performances on the hand's part. The consciousness which presided over these latter appeared in its turn to be quite as little disturbed by the upper consciousness's concerns. This proof by ' auto- matic^ loriting, of a secondary consciousness's existence, is the most cogent and striking one ; but a crowd of other facts prove the same thing. If I run through them rapidly, the reader will probably be convinced. The apparently ancesthetic hand of these subjects, for one thing, will often adapt itself discriminatingly to what- ever object may be put into it. With a pencil it will make writing movements ; into a pair of scissors it will put its fin- gers and will open and shut them, etc., etc. The primary con- sciousness, so to call it, is meanwhile unable to say whether or no anything is in the hand, if the latter be hidden from sight. " I put a pair of eyeglasses into Leonie's anaesthetic hand, this hand opens it and raises it towards the nose, but half way thither it enters the field of vision of Leonie, who sees it and stops stupefied : ' Why,' says she, ' I have an eye- glass in my left hand !' " M. Binet found a very curious sort of connection between the apparently anaesthetic skin and the mind in some Salpetriere-subjects. Things placed in the hand were not felt, but thought of (apparently in visual terms) and in no wise referred by the subject to their start- ing point in the hand's sensation. A key, a knife, placed in the hand occasioned ideas of a key or a knife, but the hand felt nothing. Similarly the subject thought of the number 3, 6, etc., if the hand or finger was bent three or six times by the operator, or if he stroked it three, six, etc., times. In certain individuals there was found a still odder