The Mt. Sterling advocate., 1904-04-27
EVIDENCE OF A SIXTH
SENSE.
MANY FAMILIAR PERCEPTIONS
OF ORDINARY LIFE
Must Be Referred to Some UnCon
scious Mental hCtiYitp.

Nothing, possibly, cs.i more Wv
idly demonstrate the truth that we
have sixth sense than the way in
which literary men work. 1t has
been wildly put by DR.. G. Thomp-
son, who, in relating the conditions
under which his book of psychology
was written, said: 81 have had a
feeling of the uselsssness of all vol
untary effort. 1t has many times
seemed to me that 1 was merely a
passive instrument in the hands of
a person not myself. In view of
being obliged to wait upon those
unconscious processes, l collected
material in advance, and left it to
digest itself till L was ready to
write about it. 1 delayed those
portions of the work relating to at.
tention, association and represen-
tation for a month. I went TO my
library each morning, and preserv-
ed days in succession reading
Aristotle, Locke, Hartley, Mill,
Balm, Spencer, Lewes, Paine, Hodg-
son and then would sit looking out
the window at the park.
81 was conscious of thinking of
nothing. would take my field
glasses and watch people. want
ed to write. but could not. hecanse
knew that l was not yet in prop
er mental state to say what ought
to be said. One evening, when
reading the daily paper, the sub
stance of what l wanted flashed
upon my brain, and the next morn
ing l began to write. This is only
a sample of many such expert
ences.
SIN writing this work l have
been unable to arrange my knowl-
edge of a subject until / expert
enced clearing up of my mind,
when l unhesitatingly wrote the
result. 1 have best accomplished
this by leading the conscious mind
as far away as possible from psy-
cology."
The reason we are so little con-
scious of our sixth sense is because
it is obscured by our conscious
mind in exactly the same way as
the high tide obscures the sand
Yet who would deny that the sand
exists beneath the surface of the
waves?
How does the sixth sense inau-
ence the other five with which we
are famillarp
First, with regard to seeing. II
has been proven by psychologists
that certain portion of the brain
is destroyed the consciousness of
sight is gone, yet the unconscious
vision remains, and is sufficient to
guide the animal. An example OF
this is furnished by the mechani-
cal way in which a blind pigeon
will pick up it's food. Again, if a
blind man is struck on the eye he
will "see stars" to use the common
expression, although he has no
power of sight, merely through the
irritation Of the sense of sight.
How long the unconscious mind,
acting on the conscious, will cause
a thing not really in existence to
be ''seen" is related by Prof. Stive-
ly. He said: "One morning, soon
after breakfast, 1 stood gazing at a
hive of bees just beginning to
swarm. They were dashing rapid
ly about against the bright sky in
most curious, yet regular con-
fusion.
''In the evening as il grew dark,
/ again went out to look at the
bee hive, and was much surprised
to see, as / thought, multitudes OF
big flies coursing about in the air,
told my sister-in-law, who said
/ must be mistaken, as she had
never seen an evening on which so
few flies were abroad. Soon after
in my bedroom, was surprised to