The record-union., 1897-07-26
NY VESTIGIAL CONSCIOUSNESS.
A Story of the New Psychology.

deuce of the nghter in crimson and gold
whose fame rang through the times
when sword was mightier than retort
and crucible Is your arbeit disagree
able, dangerous? Then must you not
abandon it, but cling to it for the love
of science. The stern old doyen of your
department may praise you for it-or he
may not You look not to that for your
reward, but to the joy which comes
from the attainment of new fact in
nature than which there is nothing
purer in life. Because of this, for that
which l have to relate here l desire
neither praise nor blame. My research
Is complete, and if 1 have suffered
well, the game of consequences has been
played by better men, and the law of
the conservation of energy stands al
ways ready to save the student of sci
ence from the childish expectation Of at
tainment without compensation.
AT my fathers knee L lisped in the
accents of science, for my child-talk Of
1he birds and flowers and the ants on
the garden walk he listened to and en-
couraged, so that under his kindly in
1luence my life became passionate re-
search of nature. One science after an
other L ransacked relentlessly until I
had trained myself strenuously into the
possession of that union of patience and
mechanical ingenuity, which, with an
amaginative temperament, is the best
guarantee of success in my calling. In
the evening of my youth settled down
On a quiet university town as decent in
Biology, burdened with but little tu-
of a
small income.
My life was thus golden with the
promise Of progress until that hap
pened which has made me of all men
most miserable. But that research, a
record Of which may be found in the
Complies Rendus of the French Acad-
emy for 1895, in which, I trust, have
given no sign Of the painful emotion
which may have beset me, as BELTS a
man Of my calling; but in this paper /
may be allowed to write naturally of
what, although a great scientific
achievement, has tossed me as wreckage
on the ocean wave.
It was on a stormy night in the fall
of the year of 1894 that l called on the
professor of psychology. He was my
dear friend and fellow worker and an
old man and gray, with the kind, sad
eyes of men who, tempted away from
Investigations of fact, struggle with
those questions Of God and Immortality
at which science can only shrug its
shoulders and theology so confidently
answers. Long into the night we talked,
but most we talked of the work of the
great Binet, and as this work is con-
fined to the journals of science to which
the people have so little access, I may,
perhaps, without impropriety, and on
account of what follows, speak of it here.
Let us know, then, that there exists
among men a distressing disease known
as hySterical aneSthesia, by which any
or all of the limbs of man may be-
come dead to all feeling while yet the
man has the power to move. Now, it
was Binet's fame to find that although
the arm of a. man so stricken might be
dead to him, yet it had a consciousness
of its own, and that it might in a sense,
be made even to think of itself; for he
found that, did he but put a pen in
the hand of an arm so dead and hidden
from the man by a screen, yet would
the hand write strange things outside
of the mans own consciousness and
knowledge. And each man may know
the thing for himself by turning to
Binet'S report.
Long We talked, I say, of such things
and speculated how every man might,
perhaps be dual in his personality
the one ego good, it might be, and the
other evil-and we examined the lives
of men we knew to surprise ourselves
into verifcation of our thought Strange
thoughts, also, of the responsibility of
man for his own actions came to US
that night; and as I ploughed my way
home through the deepening rain, it
came to me that now l might be of
service to the good of true religion
and the cause of sacred science could
4. a normal man, but separate two mys-
terious personalities entwined within
me, not after the fantastic, story book
fashion of DR.. Jekyll and Mr.. Hyde, but
in manner scientific and rational. I
was not, indeed, blind to the danger I
incurred, but the love of science up
bore me, and, in truth, the thought of
danger must always be laid aside for
the sake of truth.
How I brought about that state of
double consciousness, which has given
TO science new knowledge concerning
the human soul, I hesitate much to set
down in this place, dreading the tongue
of the scorner; for men too often ac-
count as fOohshness the painstaking
work of a laborer in little things, not
knowing that on such little things does
the kingdom of science rest. Let me
say that l learned, with somewhat of
patience, to read from a book while
listening to the talk of a friend, re-
slOrtfne each in faitbf11IneCs ap5 av-
nctitude. Now, should any man deem
this too remarkable for credence, let
him make the attempt, and with but
iittle persistence he will succeed; and
ne will know also for truth that in
such a condition his mind does act
ually break itself into two-one part
attending to spoken words and the 9TH
er to written characters.
From this starting-point of my en-
deavor I esSayed the task of writing a
letter while still continuing to read, a
much more difficult experiment, and
succeeded in by few, as may be found
set down in modern psychology.
succeeded at first indifferently we'll, but
eventually both wrote and read with
equal freedom at one and the same
time. Here 1 imagined myself to have
discovered what many had previously
suspected, that our consciousness, not
being the cause of our actions. was
but the sunshine which Illuminated
them, much as the shadow of a trav-
eler on the desert may show him his
path, but can in no way be accounted
the cause of his movements; for after
long practice / had but to choose a
subject of eSSav and while attending