Morning journal and courier., 1889-01-30

ments regard as new persons who speak by the same mouth and make use of the same physical organization. The late MT. Edmund Gurney and MT. W. H. Myers have done a great deal to familiarize the readers of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Re- search with the studies of the great Havre CTS, in the transactions of that society for last month, has given us most interesting account and criticism of M. Janet's paper on unconscious acts in somnambulism C'Les Actes Inconscients dans le Somnambu
 lisme'O, in which there is very curious de- scription of the two separate persons who have been manufactured or evoked out of a stolid peasant woman, the wife of char coal-burner near Cherbourg, of whom MT. Myers says that she seems at first sight "as unlikely person could well be found to extend one's idea of the capacities of the human intelligence" Perhaps if we wish to
 be quite accurate, what the experiments on
 this charcoal burners wife-Madam B.,
 as she is called-really do extend one's idea of, is rather the incapacities than the capaoi-
 ties of the human intelligence. That, how
 ever, might admit of argument. Let us
 briefly place before our readers some of the
 facts of this particular case, and consider
 the sort of inferences which they seem to
 suggest. Madame B. is described as
 very shy and illiterate woman, quite with
 out curiosity, and absolutely submissive to
 what her physicians-amongst whom M. Ja- net is now the most active (at least in the scientific investigation of her case e)-choose to suggest She has been under close super vision for several years, and her character, both when awake and when in the somnam- bulic state, is very familiar to the three French physicians who have specially stud- jed her in tho tranee-state. In her waking state she goes by the name of Leonie. In her first and what We may call her super6- cial trancs-state, produced by few passes to the influence of which she is very suscep.
 tible, she calls herself Leontine, and Leon- tine has great contempt for Leonie. Le- ontine, far from being shy and stolid and
 without curiosity, is excessively vivacious and restless to an insupportable degree.
 She continues good-natured, but she has &C.,
 quired singular tendency to irony and
 bitter jests.- She entirely repudiates all re- sponsibility for Leonie. "That good woman is not l." she says; ''she is too stupid" Le- ontine, however, has considerable history of her own, for it seems that Madame B. was first sent into the trance. state in her
 first confinement; and Leontine's memory dates from the first trance into which Mad anne B. tor Leonie) was thrown, though the persons who first induced this somnsm- bulic state were not those who now habitu- ally treat her case. The consequence is that Leontine regards herself as the mother of Madame B-'s children, but will not admit that Madame B-'s husband is her hus- band. She calls him the husband of ''the other"-i. e., Leonie, while she regards the children whom she bore under these trance conditions as her own and not "the others" AS an illustration of what Leontine thinks of Leonie, we may mention that Leontine was once told by Professor Janet that when the trance was over and Leonie had resumed apron and tie it on again. Accordingly, when the trance was over, Leonie, or Mad anne B., began taking off her apron quite unconsciously-the action being, by virtue of the order given in the trance state, Leon
 tines and not Leonie s-whereupon Profess
 sor Janet called Leonie's attention to the fact
 that she Madame B. was loosening her apron
 (of which Madame B. had been quite unaA
 ware.) She exclaimed at once, Why my
 apron is coming loose," and tied it on again.
 This, however, was not enough for Leontine prompting Madame B. again uncon- sciously united her apron, took it of and put it on again. The oldest part of the story, however, is the sequel, on the rsxt day, when the trance was again induced. ''Well," said Leontine to Professor Janet, l F'I did what you told me yesterday. How 1 stupid the othsr one Ii. e., Leonie] looked while took her apron off. Why did you | tell her that her apron was falling off was obliged to begin the job over again."
 But now ss to the third personality, Leo- nore, as it is called. After Leontine had &C., | cumulated quite long memory, her memo- l ry extending only to what is done either in the trance-state, or as result of what IS or dered in the trance to be done after the i trance shall be overall which actions Leon l tine regards as her own and stores in this | distinct trance memory of hers-a new 1 phase or stratum of personality was educed | in her, deeper than Leontine's, by further l passes; and in this new and deeper trance 1 state the patient calls herself Leonore, and despises Leontine as much as Leontine de- 1 spises Leonie. This new personality, | though without the stolidity and apparent | dullness of the charcoal burners wife, is not l marked by the excitabllity and restlessness l of Leontine. She stands, indeed, in some thing of the position of Hegel's "higher l Unity" to both Leorie and Leontine. She | rebukes and remonstrates with Leontine fol 1 her levities. She will take no responsibility | for Leontine's follies. When Leontine first l became conscious of Leonore she declared 1 that she heard 0 voice speaking to her from | the left side which frightened her. On one occasion it said, Enough. enough; be quiet | you are a nuisancel" And on another occa l sion, when Professor Janet had asked ques l ton which the somnambule steadily refused | to answer, she heard voice saying to hel | from the left, "Come, be sensible: you must l answer" Afterwards, when in the deeper | trance, Professor Janet questioned the pa l tient about this voice-in this trance, ws
 must remember, the patient calls herself Le
 onore-and asked, "What was it that hap
 pened when Leontine was so frightened:'
 ''Oh! nothing" replied Leonore. "It was
 who told her to keep quiet. I saw that sh' | was annoying you; don't know why sh' l was frightened" Leonore, then, distin | guishes herself alike from Leonie and iron | Leontine. For Leontine she seems to have
 thorough contempt. ''Vous voyez bien,
 she says, ''que je ne suis pas cette bavarde
 cette folie; nous ne nous ressemblons al l tout" And Leonores character appears t.
 have the gravity of Madame B-'s, with
 l out it's stoliditv and dullness