DUKE UNIVERSITY 
 
 WOMAN’S COLLEGE 
 LIBRARY 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Dr. & Mrs. H, Lindholm 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 https://archive.org/details/ondoubleconsciou01bine_0 
 
DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGICAL 
 STUDIES 
 
 BY 
 
 ALFRED BINET 
 
 NEW EDITION 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 (LONDON: 17 Johnson’s Court, Fleet St., E. C.) 
 
 i8g6 
 
COPYRIGHT BY 
 
 The Open Court Publishing Co. 
 1889-90. 
 
PUBLISHERS’ NOTE. 
 
 Owing to the notable advancement of the study of psychology 
 in the last few years, and to the increasing intimate co-operation of 
 inquirers in all countries, the remarks at the close of M. Binet’s 
 Introductory Essay, at page 13, although probably true at the time 
 of their writing, hardly characterize the situation at present (i8g6). 
 The recent lamented death of Professor Charcot is also to be noted 
 in reading the essay on the state of experimental psychology in 
 France. 
 

 \ 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introductory. Experimental Psychology in France . . . i 
 
 Proof of Double Consciousness in Hysterical Individuals . lo 
 The Relations Between the Two Consciousnesses of Hysterical 
 Individuals . . . . . . . . .19 
 
 The Hysterical Eye ........ 30 
 
 Mechanism or Subconsciousness ? . . . . . .38 
 
 The Graphic Method and the Doubling of Consciousness . 44 
 
 The Intensity of Subconscious States . . . . .56 
 
 The Role of Suggestion in Phenomena of Double Conscious- 
 ness .......... 68 
 
 Double Consciousness in Health . , . . . .76 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY IN FRANCE. 
 
 It is known that of late years, in France, a great 
 scientific movement has come about in favor of experi- 
 mental psychology. While the professors of our High 
 Schools and Universities are continuing to teach an 
 antiquated science, whose only method is that of in- 
 trospection, there has arisen on all sides in the philo- 
 sophical reviews, and even in journals strictly medical, 
 a body of work in which the investigation of mental 
 phenomena is conducted according to the methods of 
 natural science. Incontestably, the forerunner of this 
 activity in psychological inquiry was M. Taine, who 
 published in 1869 an important treatise upon “The 
 Understanding.” With remarkable penetration M. 
 Taine foresaw, to a certain extent, the most import- 
 ant results obtained in recent years. Thus, the entire 
 chapter upon “ Images ” may still be consulted with 
 profit. 
 
 The real inaugurator of the psychological move- 
 ment proper, is M. Ribot. The psychologists of 
 France owe much to M. Ribot. Without him, with- 
 out the Review* which he founded, without the work 
 
 * The Revue Philosopkique. 
 
ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 and results of foreign* investigation which he has 
 made known in France, many scientists would never 
 have thought of devoting their attention to psycholog- 
 ical research. Further, by instituting a chair at the 
 Sorbonne, and subsequently, at a more recent date, 
 at the College de France, M. Ribot has helped to give 
 an official consecration, in our country, to the study 
 of experimental psychology. Finally, some few years 
 past, in conjunction with M. Charcot, M. Ribot 
 founded a Society of Physiological Psychology which 
 now counts more than fifty active members. In draw- 
 ing together men of different professions, in bringing 
 the psychologist into communication with the physiol- 
 ogist, the physician, the alienist, the mathematician, 
 and the linguist, that society has fathered a great 
 number of important productions and substantially 
 contributed to the development of the science of 
 psychology. 
 
 The personal work of M. Ribot is contained in four 
 valuable monographs upon the Diseases of Memory, 
 of Will, of Personality, and upon the Psychology of 
 Attention. We are informed, moreover, that the 
 author has been at work for some time past, upon the 
 phenomena of emotion, and that he will perhaps pub- 
 lish, some day, a monograph upon that attractive 
 topic. 
 
 It would be difficult to characterize the work of M. 
 Ribot in a few words. We may say, however, that 
 he has constantly endeavored to stand upon the ground- 
 work of facts, entertaining a horror of metaphysics 
 that is perhaps exaggerated. Not a metaphysician, 
 he is neither materialist, nor spiritualist, nor monist — 
 
 * The experimental psychology of England and the experimental psychol- 
 ogy of Germany. 
 
EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY IN PRANCE, 3 
 
 nor anything of the kind. He has little love for great 
 systems, and rightly gives precedence to little facts, 
 accurately observed and minutely described. I be- 
 lieve, with him, that the future of psychology lies not 
 in great theories, but in little facts. Respecting the 
 relations of the physical and the spiritual, he regards 
 the matter as a simple concordance, without further 
 going into the problem ; he has frequently compared 
 the state of consciousness to a state superadded, 
 which in no shape modifies physiological processes, 
 and which acts like a shadow opposite a body. He 
 affirms, in different places, that an unconscious phe- 
 nomenon is nothing else than a purely physiological 
 phenomenon. It will be thought, perhaps, that de- 
 spite the repugnance of M. Ribot to metaphysics, a 
 certain metaphysical character attaches to the ideas 
 just noticed. I believe, in fact, that we know adso- 
 lutely nothhig regarding the nature of unconscious 
 phenomena. 
 
 The succeeding essays of this little book, however, 
 will be devoted to the investigation of the latter phe- 
 nomena in their relation to double consciousness ; and 
 I shall there briefly present the experiments made by 
 M. Pierre Janet and by myself (the latter not yet pub- 
 lished) upon the signification of unconscious phe- 
 nomena. 
 
 The method employed by M. Ribot in his admir- 
 able monographs, consists in elucidating the mechan- 
 ism of the normal state by recourse to mental pathol- 
 ogy. M. Ribot is neither a physician, nor an observer ; 
 the pathological data which he makes use of are 
 always second-hand ; but with an unusually extensive 
 range of knowledge he unites great discernment in the 
 selection and interpretation of facts. And, besides, 
 
4 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 he presents his psychological conclusions in language 
 so clear and precise, as to form a happy contrast to 
 the terminology of the classic philosophers. 
 
 In his studies in pathological psychology, the point 
 to which he has given especial prominence, is the law 
 of mental dissolution. This law can be regarded as 
 the key-stone of the structure he has reared. He has 
 very correctly observed, and better than had been 
 done before him, that there are stable states — strongly 
 organized, resistive ; and weak states — unstable, arti- 
 ficial, and easily lost. For instance, in memory, the 
 stable states are the simple and common movements 
 of adaptation ; the more complex are the delicate 
 movements of professional activity, the special mem- 
 ories. In the will, the stable and resistive are the 
 simple impulses, having their origin in an organic 
 state, as hunger, thirst ; the less stable are the com- 
 plex determinations of volition, in combination with 
 mobile moral elements, such as duty, or remote inter- 
 est. In attention, the stable is spontaneous attention, 
 kept alert by an active sensation ; the weak is volun- 
 tary attention and reflection. Now M. Ribot has 
 shown, that in progressive mental dissolutions, the 
 progression invariably follows the same order ; it pro- 
 ceeds from the less stable to the more stable ; from 
 the more delicately organized to the less delicately 
 organized ; from the higher to the lower. In sub- 
 stance, this is a great law of general pathology, of 
 which M. Ribot has made a happy application to 
 psychology. 
 
 By the side of M. Ribot we shall place M. Char- 
 cot, the eminent professor of the Salpetriere, who by 
 his studies of nervous diseases has taken, of late, a 
 prominent position in psychological science. It is M. 
 
EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY IN ERANCE. 
 
 5 
 
 Charcot who took the initiative in founding the So- 
 ciety of Physiological Psychology ; he is president 
 for life of that society. M. Charcot has written no 
 special treatise upon psychology : in fact, he writes 
 but very little. Aside from a few productions in con- 
 junction with his pupils, the only works that we have 
 from him are the reports of his lectures at the Sal- 
 petriere. In these lectures the psychological method 
 is frequently introduced, whenever the theme demands 
 an explication of the complicated web of psychical 
 phenomena. We shall cite, by way of instance, the 
 lectures upon hystero-traumatic paralysis, wherein 
 the eminent professor has firmly established the in- 
 fluence of the idea upon motory disturbances ; and 
 further mention must be made of the admirable lec- 
 tures upon aphasia, wherein the psychology of lan- 
 guage has been so happily resorted to in explanation 
 of the diseases of that important cerebral function. 
 
 A former pupil of M. Charcot, M. Charles Richet, 
 at present professor of physiology in the Faculty of 
 Medicine at Paris, has contributed to the advance- 
 ment of experimental psychology in France by a con- 
 siderable number of original works. After 1870, M. 
 Richet was the first investigator to reinaugurate the 
 study of hypnotism ; he was, likewise, the first to see 
 in these studies a field of psychological research, “a 
 method of intellectual and moral vivisection.” Among 
 the phenomena of suggestion there are several that 
 belong to him especially ; thus, he was the first to 
 show that the personality of a subject put to sleep 
 may be transformed, and every remembrance of the 
 true personality effaced, by suggestion, from his 
 memory, and a fictitious personality substituted. He 
 has also propounded quite ingenious ideas upon the 
 
6 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 phenomena of unconsciousness; he has brought out 
 the fact, that in hysterical persons and in a great many 
 individuals reputed normal, there exists a sort of a 
 permanent semi-somnambulism ; in other words, there 
 is, in these subjects, an unconscious ego, an uncon- 
 scious activity, which is constantly on the watch, 
 which contemplates, which gives attention, which re- 
 flects, which forms inferences, and lastly which per- 
 forms acts — all unknown to the conscious ego. Finally, 
 M. Richet has published, during recent years, in the 
 Revue Philosophique, of which he is an assiduous asso- 
 ciate contributor, a long essay upon “ Mental Sugges- 
 tion,” which has attracted considerable notice. His 
 researches tend to the conclusion, which the author 
 regards as probable, that thought is transmitted from 
 one brain to another without the intervention of signs 
 appreciable to our senses. The proof, the author 
 himself confesses, is not complete. M. Richet arrives 
 at a probability merely. The numerous treatises that 
 have been published in France upon this subject, are 
 to be attributed to the impetus given to the question 
 by the article of M. Richet. 
 
 Another pupil of M. Charcot, M. F^r6, now physi- 
 cian at the Bicetre, has distinguished himself in recent 
 years by his many researches in experimental psychol- 
 ogy, the subjects of which have been principally phe- 
 nomena of hysteria. In conjunction with me, M. 
 F^r^ first entered upon a course of investigations in 
 hypnotism and allied subjects. Our work together, 
 which still continues, has produced as its main result 
 a book upon “Animal Magnetism,” in which this sub- 
 ject is treated of particularly as a branch of psychol- 
 ogy. In this line of ideas, M. F6r6 has made an 
 especial study of hallucinations, and of systematic 
 
EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY IN FRANCE. 
 
 7 
 
 anesthesia and paralysis. The investigations referred 
 to have occasioned a great deal of controversy in the 
 circles known as the School of Nancy. The physicians 
 of Nancy have called in question certain conclusions 
 reached by the School of Salpetriere ; but it must be 
 remarked, that as regards the facts of suggestion all 
 discussions that have arisen have related only to ver- 
 bal differences. 
 
 M. Fer6 has lately pursued, in ingenious experi- 
 ments upon hysterical and hyper-excitable subjects, 
 investigations upon the psychology of movements. 
 He has shown that the quantity of movement pro- 
 duced depends upon the nature of the sensation. 
 Every sensory excitation, for instance the sight of a 
 red square, at first induces an augmentation of force 
 — a dynamogeny — measurable on the dynamometer ; 
 then, according as the excitation is prolonged, the 
 force diminishes, and dynamogeny gives way to en- 
 feeblement. Such, in rude outlines, are the experi- 
 men\:s in psycho-mechanics by which M. F6r6 has es- 
 tablished a quantitative relation between sensations 
 and movements. 
 
 We are obliged to be brief in the present sketch of 
 French psychologists. In conclusion, therefore, we 
 shall simply note the names of M. Espinas, who has 
 published valuable studies upon animal communities ; 
 Bernard Perez, who has given to the world several 
 attractive volumes upon the psychology of infants ; 
 Pierre Janet, to whom we owe the highly ingenious 
 investigations into unconscious manifestations of mind; 
 Egger, known through his highly interesting study of 
 internal audition, auto-observation ; Beaunis, who has 
 written upon inhibitions, upon hypnotism, upon the 
 muscular sense, etc. 
 
8 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 Accordingly, as may be gathered from the preced- 
 ing sketch, there is not, in France, a of psychol- 
 
 ogy ; there are no masters and disciples ; there is not 
 a body of accepted doctrines. We all work upon our 
 own individual score, without being subject to any 
 common word of command ; we are dispersed, like 
 skirmishers, upon the field of research. In his inaugu- 
 ral lecture at the College de France, M. Ribot cor- 
 rectly stated that the characteristic mark of French 
 psychological research was the production of mono- 
 graphs. We possess, in fact, a certain number of ex- 
 perimental studies upon special subjects. We have no 
 universal work, discussing, even in brief, the entire 
 province of psychology. M. Ribot, in adverting to 
 this want, said that two years would be demanded to 
 prepare a treatise upon French psychology, and that, 
 probably, by reason of the rapid advances being made 
 in our knowledge of this subject, when the treatise 
 were finished, it would no longer be available for cur- 
 rent use. 
 
 This being the character of French psychology, it 
 would be very difficult to state the opinions upon 
 which any great number of thinkers of our country have 
 united. How do we know, for instance, the views of 
 M. Charcot upon Personality, when he has not as yet 
 had occasion to express himself upon that point ? All 
 that we can do is to endeavor to bring into relief the 
 main tendencies of French psychological inquiry and 
 to indicate the methods preferentially employed. 
 
 With relatively few exceptions, the psychologists 
 of my country have left the investigations of psycho- 
 physics to the Germans, and the study of comparative 
 psychology to the English. They have devoted them- 
 selves almost exclusively to the study of pathological 
 
EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY IN PRANCE. 
 
 9 
 
 psychology, that is to say psychology affected by dis- 
 ease. Such, if I do not mistake it, is the foremost 
 feature of our work in psychology. One need only 
 glance at the titles of the principal original treatises of 
 M. Ribot to note that they treat of pathological condi- 
 tions : Diseases of Memory, of Will, of Personality, 
 
 etc. All the other authors have followed his example; 
 they have sought in the pathology of the mind or in 
 the pathology of nervous action, the data to render 
 intelligible the mechanism of the normal state. The 
 marked favor that studies in hypnotism have met with 
 in France, is a further proof of the preponderance ac- 
 quired by pathological psychology. The results ob- 
 tained by the systematic employment of the patholog- 
 ical and clinical methods, have been extensive ; but at 
 the present time they yet remain scattered in a mass 
 of reports accessible only to specialists. Consequently, 
 these results are almost unknown to the psychologists 
 of foreign countries. Thus is explained a circum- 
 stance that does not fail to excite surprise. Although 
 it is well established that pathology has furnished 
 psychology with the most recent and the most numer- 
 our results, yet the works upon psychology appearing 
 in Germany, in Italy, in England, and in America, 
 and which pretend to give a complete picture of the 
 present state of psychological research, say almost 
 nothing of the investigations of mental and nervous 
 pathology. The scientific work, really French, is not 
 recognized, and is practically suppressed. 
 
PROOF OF DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS IN 
 HYSTERICAL INDIVIDUALS. 
 
 The psychologists of France, during the past few 
 years, have been diligently at work studying the phe- 
 nomena of double consciousness and double person- 
 ality in hysterical individuals. The same problems have 
 also been the subject of numerous investigations in 
 foreign countries, especially in England and in Amer- 
 ica ; and the phenomena of automatic writing, which 
 are now so often described in the scientific periodicals 
 of both the above-mentioned countries, are evidently 
 due to that doubling of personality which is so mani- 
 fest in a vast number of hysterical people. 
 
 I wish to devote a series of articles to these prob- 
 lems, which are of such high importance to the psy- 
 chology of normal states as well as to the psychology of 
 nervous diseases. After briefly recurring to the results 
 of former studies, published in the Revue Philoso- 
 phique, the Archives de Physiologie, and in the Comptes 
 rendus de V Academie des Sciences, I shall set forth, with 
 more or less extensiveness, my recent observations. 
 
 In approaching so delicate a subject we must in the 
 first instance insist upon a question of method. When 
 we undertake to expound such strange phenomena as 
 those of the doubling of consciousness, at the first blush 
 we naturally provoke astonishment and even doubt. 
 In truth, is not the idea extraordinary, that in hys- 
 
PROOF OF DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. ii 
 
 terical individuals there should exist two distinct per- 
 sonalities, two egos united in the same person ? I 
 have frequently had occasion to speak of the doubling 
 of consciousness to persons who were unfamiliar with 
 science, and even to physicians, and I can verify the 
 fact, that people as a rule regard the phenomena in 
 question as highly doubtful \ for they imagine that there 
 do not yet exist precise experiments adequate to es- 
 tablish this duplication of personality. In fact, in or- 
 der to recognize and admit exceedingly delicate in- 
 tellectual perturbations of this order, we must be pre- 
 sented with objective, palpable, and actual evidence 
 of their existence. The experimentalist must strive 
 not only to discover the psychological phenomena which 
 explain so many manifestations of mental alienation, 
 but he must also, and with equal care, seek the method 
 of experiment that commands conviction and that ren- 
 ders such phenomena clear and evident to everybody. 
 
 The idea of such a method has guided me from my 
 earliest researches, and I have particularly endeavored 
 to discover the simplest possible experiments, such as 
 might be repeated at the bedside of patients without 
 previous preparation by any physician that might be 
 first called in. It is doubtless interesting to know, 
 that at the present day we possess the means of clearly 
 exhibiting the duality of persons in hysterical patients, 
 without being obliged to resort to the hypnotizing of 
 our subjects or to submitting them to any complex and 
 ill-defined influences. The patient, in the normal con- 
 dition, is almost as if awake, and the process employed 
 to reveal the two personalities which he contains is 
 as direct and as simple as that which consists of count- 
 ing the beatings of his pulse. 
 
 Before presenting the recent researches that I have 
 
12 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 made, I believe it profitable first to recapitulate the 
 processes of investigation employed. I may add that 
 the results that I have obtained, have been fully con- 
 firmed by the researches of other authors, among whom 
 I shall cite my friend, M. Pierre Janet, who has re- 
 cently published a very interesting work upon this 
 topic.* 
 
 In performing our experiment we must have re- 
 course to hysterical patients who in certain parts of 
 the body present a more or less extended region of in- 
 sensibility (anaesthesia). N othing is more common than 
 hysterical anaesthesia. At times it will appear in the 
 form of small islets, of small spots irregularly scattered 
 about. An hysterical patient, for example, may ex- 
 hibit a small anaesthetical spot in the palm of his hand. 
 On forcing a pin into this spot, or pinching the skin, 
 or burning it, the subject will not experience the 
 slightest sensation of contact, or sensation of pain ; 
 while, nevertheless, a few centimeters away from it 
 the same excitations will produce a very keen and pain- 
 ful reaction. With other patients the anaesthesia re- 
 veals a more regular distribution ; it may, for example, 
 comprise an entire limb, as an arm which has become 
 insensible from the extremity of the fingers to the 
 shoulder-joint. With other patients the distribution 
 of insensibility is even still more remarkable ; the 
 patient is divided into two halves by a vertical plane 
 extending through the breast to the back, so that one 
 half of his body — head, trunk, arm, and leg — is com- 
 pletely insensible, while the half corresponding pre- 
 serves its normal sensibility. Finally, it is not rare to 
 meet with hysterical persons whose insensibility ex- 
 tends to the entire body ; but in such cases the insen- 
 
 * L’automatisme psychologique. Paris : 1889. F. Alcan. 
 
PROOF OF DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 13 
 
 sibility is generally more marked in one half of the 
 body than in the other. 
 
 Let us now turn to a patient exhibiting an insensi- 
 bility extending to an entire limb. Let us fiist assure 
 ourselves by means of a few painful tests that this in- 
 sensibility is not simulated. Several means are adapt- 
 able for this purpose. Thus, whenever a patient 
 feigns the loss of sensibility, if, without warning him, 
 we suddenly excite his skin from behind a screen and 
 he betrays a movement of surprise, it is a proof that 
 he has felt the sensation. When we allow an electric 
 current of increasing intensity to pass through his 
 limb, there certainly must arrive a moment, in which 
 the pain is so intense that he cannot any longer endure 
 it. But genuine insensibility will come out victorious 
 from all such tests. Let us add that with hysterical 
 individuals the power of pressure upon the dynamom- 
 eter, in the insensible members, is generally weak- 
 ened, and that the time of physiological reaction is 
 prolonged. The tests described, accordingly, maybe 
 regarded as sufficiently numerous and competent to de- 
 feat any attempt at imposition. 
 
 I suppose, now, that we are occupied with a pa- 
 tient who exhibits a genuine anaesthesia, controlled by 
 all the clinical tests which the modern physician has 
 at his command. I shall take for granted, further, that 
 this insensibility, limited to a single limb, — the right 
 arm, for example, — affects all the tissues of the limb ; 
 that not only the skin, but muscles, tendons, and ar- 
 ticular surfaces have lost all trace of sensibility. The 
 patient feels neither puncture nor compression ; neither 
 pinching, faradization, nor passive movements im- 
 pressed upon his limb, when we have taken care to 
 
14 
 
 ON D O UBLE CO NSC 10 USNESS. 
 
 hide from him the sight of his limb by the interposi- 
 tion of a screen. 
 
 Under the above-mentioned conditions the ex- 
 perimentalist seizes a finger of the insensible hand, 
 and impresses upon the finger in question alternate 
 movements of flexion and of extension ; the patient, 
 be it understood, not being able to see his own hand, 
 does not know what is being done to him ; he does 
 not know whether they are bending or stretching one 
 of his fingers. Nevertheless, it frequently happens that 
 the finger thus manipulated spontaneously continues 
 the movement which the experimentalist has im- 
 pressed upon it ; we may observe that it bends and 
 straightens out again five or six times. The very 
 same thing would happen if we had caused the wrist 
 or elbow to perform passive movements. 
 
 Now, what does this experiment prove, which 
 admittedly is very simple and easy of repetition? 
 Evidently, in order that the finger should spontaneous- 
 ly repeat the movement that has once been impressed 
 upon it, it is necessary that the movement in ques- 
 tion should have been perceived. The patient never- 
 theless declares that he has not felt, or experienced, 
 anything in his finger. We must, accordingly, sup- 
 pose that an unconscious perception of the movement 
 has been produced ; there doubtless has been a per- 
 ception j the perception has engendered a similar 
 movement — this too seems evident ; but neither the 
 sensation nor its motory effect have entered within 
 the circle of the subject’s consciousness. This little 
 psycho-motory performance has been accomplished 
 without his knowledge, and so to speak, quite outside 
 of him. 
 
 Let us complicate our experiment a little, in 
 
PROOF OF DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 15 
 
 order the better to understand it. The eyes of the sub- 
 ject are throughout kept concealed behind a screen. 
 We now place some familiar object into the insen- 
 sible hand ; for instance, we thrust a pen-holder or a 
 pencil between the thumb and the index-finger. As 
 soon as the contact takes place the two fingers draw 
 together, as if to seize the pen ; the other fingers bend 
 half-way, the wrist leans sideways, and the hand as- 
 sumes the attitude necessary to write. In the same 
 manner by introducing the thumb and index-finger 
 within the rings of a pair of scissors we cause the sub- 
 ject to perform the movements of one who wishes to 
 cut. These experiments, of course, may be varied in- 
 definitely ; further instances, however, would be 
 superfluous ; the two given amply suffice for the pur- 
 poses of our analysis. 
 
 Here also the entire transaction takes place out- 
 side the consciousness of the subject; the pen-holder 
 was seized by the anaesthetic hand, without the sub- 
 ject’s perceiving, in a conscious manner, any contact, 
 and without his knowing that he held a pen-holder in 
 his hand. Now, this very simple act, performed by 
 the hand, is an act of adaptation ; it implies, not only 
 that the object has been felt, but also that this object 
 has been recognized as a pen-holder, for if the object 
 had been a different one a different act of adaptation 
 would have taken place. In this manner, the sen- 
 sation must be said to have provoked an uncon- 
 scious perception, an unconscious reasoning, an un- 
 conscious volition. In short, the event happened just 
 as if the pen-holder had been thrust into the sensible 
 hand ; as if the subject had felt the object, had 
 recognized it and decided to write ; with the sole 
 
i6 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 difference, however, that apparently the whole process 
 was without consciousness. 
 
 The theories of Huxley and of several English 
 authors concerning the part played by consciousness 
 in psychological phenomena seem here to find direct 
 application ; yet, as a matter of fact, this is only 
 apparently so, as we presently shall see. According 
 to Huxley consciousness is an epi-phenomenon, a 
 superfluous phenomenon, superadded to the physio- 
 logical process, but which reacts no more upon that 
 process than the shadow of the individual upon the 
 individual itself ; you may suppress consciousness, 
 and yet all physiological phenomena will continue to 
 be produced automatically just as before; objects 
 will continue to be perceived ; unconscious reasonings 
 will develop, followed by acts of adaptation. 
 
 Let us add a new complication to our last ex- 
 periment, and we shall find as a result, that Huxley’s 
 hypothesis is manifestly too simple to explain it. 
 Up to this point we have limited ourselves to the 
 production of movements in an insensible region ; 
 these movements, however, were very elementary, 
 and would not betray a well-developed thought. We 
 may essay to provoke certain acts of a more in- 
 tellectual character and of decidedly higher organi- 
 zation. The following is an example selected, as the 
 preceding ones, from among many others. 
 
 We put a pen into the anaesthetic hand, and we 
 make it write a word ; left to itself the hand preserves 
 its attitude, and at the expiration of a short space of 
 time repeats the word, often five or ten times. Having 
 arrived at this fact, we again seize the anaesthetic 
 hand, and cause it to write some familiar word, for 
 example, the patient’s own name ; but in so doing, 
 
PROOF OF DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 17 
 
 we intentionally commit an error in spelling. In its 
 turn the anaesthetic hand repeats the word, but oddly 
 enough, the hand betrays a momentary hesitation 
 when it reaches the letter at which the error in 
 orthography was committed; if a superfluous letter 
 happens to have been added, sometimes the hand will 
 hesitatingly re-write the name along with the supple- 
 mentary letter ; again it will retrace only a part of 
 the letter in question ; and again, finally, entirely sup- 
 press it. 
 
 Plainly, when the experiment successfully reaches 
 this degree of complication, we cannot explain it by 
 merely invoking unconscious phenomena. The cor- 
 rection of an orthographic error by the anaesthetic hand 
 indicates the presence of a guiding thought ; and it is 
 not perfectly clear, why the thought that directs the 
 movements of the writing should be unconscious, while 
 that which controls the movements of the word should 
 alone be regarded as conscious. It would seem more 
 logical to admit, that in these patients there exist two 
 distinct consciousnesses. The first of these conscious- 
 nesses gathers up the sensations proceeding from the 
 sensible members ; the second is more especially in 
 connection with the insensible regions. 
 
 In this manner we are able to verify that doubling 
 of consciousness which in recent years has become the 
 object of so many investigations. There may cer- 
 tainly have been given more striking examples of the 
 phenomena in question ; and there have been published 
 observations in which the two consciousnesses are to 
 be seen each performing a different task, and recipro- 
 cally ignoring each other. But all these curious ob- 
 servations are generally presented under conditions so 
 very complex that it is difficult to combine them for 
 
1 8 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 the purposes of a correct verification. The methods of 
 investigation, relative to hysterical anaesthesia, that 
 we have just set forth, at least possess the merit of fur- 
 nishing a strict proof of double consciousness. 
 
 This, however, does not imply that the methods 
 employed yield results with all patients indiscrimi- 
 nately. Many hysterical individuals do not react at all 
 when the experiments mentioned are being performed 
 upon them. But we must mistrust all purely negative 
 experiments, which simply prove that people did not 
 know how to set about the business in hand. I have 
 advanced the hypothesis, that when we are unable to 
 provoke the repetition of the movements, or acts of 
 adaptation, in anaesthetic regions, our failure is due 
 to a defect in the organization of the second con- 
 sciousness ; the excitation brought to bear upon the in- 
 sensible region is perfectly perceived, but it does not 
 directly lead to a determined movement \ there are no 
 actual associations, ready to play between sensations 
 and movements. Repetition of the experiments, how- 
 ever, may produce these necessary co-ordinations. 
 
 At this point, accordingly, we are in possession of 
 precise observations ; we know that in hysterical in- 
 dividuals there exist phenomena of double conscious- 
 ness, and using this as a starting-point, it now re- 
 mains for us, to develop our knowledge of this phe- 
 nomenon through additional experiments. 
 
RELATIONS BETWEEN THE TWO CONSCIOUS- 
 NESSES OH HYSTERICAL INDIVIDUALS. 
 
 Whenever we chance to discover a new fact, we 
 seldom describe it correctly. As a rule, we regard it 
 as simpler than in reality it is. The observers who 
 first investigated double consciousness in hysterical 
 persons occupied themselves particularly with putting 
 in a clear light the phenomenon of the separation of 
 the two consciousnesses ; this was, in fact, the first 
 thing to be done. But the study of the numerous re- 
 lations existing between these separate consciousnesses 
 was almost entirely neglected. It is our purpose, in 
 this paper, to recapitulate and present, in an abridged 
 form, the results of investigation on this topic ; and I 
 am convinced that some day it will furnish the clue 
 to a great number of phenomena of mental alienation. 
 Inward voices supposed to be heard by demented in- 
 dividuals, their fixed and impulsive ideas, the delirium 
 of possessed persons, are very probably phenomena 
 produced by the doubling of consciousness, and by 
 the influences that one of the consciousnesses exerts 
 upon the other. 
 
 For the time being we shall remain true to the 
 methods that we have followed in our previous study. 
 We shall eliminate all complex and ill-defined obser- 
 vations and adhere, by preference, to small, simple. 
 
20 
 
 OlSr DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 and precise experiments, easy of repetition, which, 
 without teaching us the phenomena in their total de- 
 velopment, at least yield an imperative proof of their 
 reality, which certainly must be regarded as a decided 
 advantage. 
 
 Automatic writing furnishes the first illustration of 
 the relations between the two consciousnesses. It is 
 a most important phenomenon and is worth the trouble 
 of being carefully studied. An examination of the 
 scientific collections of England and America shows 
 that in those countries the subject is frequently inves- 
 tigated. Professor William James has recently sent 
 me a woik in which he recapitulates certain very cu- 
 rious experiments performed by him upon normal in- 
 dividuals, or, at least, individuals who were supposed 
 to be such. The results obtained by him afford me 
 particular interest, since they closely resemble those 
 obtained by myself with hysterical individuals. 
 
 Automatic writing forms part of a class of move- 
 ments that have now for a long time been the subject 
 of inquiry in France, and which may be described 
 under the general name of unconscious movements 
 produced by ideas. As a result of numerous observa- 
 tions it is now a well-known fact that with excitable 
 individuals every idea produces in the body uncon- 
 scious movements which at times are so precise and 
 clear, that by registering them we are able to guess at 
 the person’s thoughts. The method of the experiment 
 is frequently the following. The individual is asked to 
 think of a word, a number, or of any object whatso- 
 ever, and at the same time a pen is thrust into his 
 hand, with the assurance that his thoughts will be di- 
 vined. It frequently happens then, that the person, 
 although not feeling any movement in his hand, will 
 
RELATIONS OF THE TWO CONSCIOUSNESSES. 21 
 
 
 o <u — 
 
 b£ <L> 
 
 •u I 
 
 3 2 
 
 
 ,2 « S 3 
 
 . 0> >-• o 
 
 B 
 
 c 2 B ui 
 
22 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 spontaneously write the word that he has thought of. 
 This experiment affords an elementary instance of the 
 operation known as thought-reading, and we at once 
 understand how any clever experimentalist may be 
 able to dispense with the use of the pen, and to guess 
 at a man’s thought by simple contact with the hand. 
 
 As might be readily expected, such movements 
 provoked by ideas are produced in hysterical persons 
 with the greatest facility. When a pen-holder is placed 
 in the hand of an anaesthetic subject, the automatic 
 writing will be produced without his knowledge, and 
 we are thus able to learn the most secret thoughts of 
 the patient. A careful study of these movements will 
 furthermore prove, that they are less simple than is 
 generally supposed. They are no mere reflex-move- 
 ments produced by ideas. This is proven by the fact 
 that the manner in which the idea is expressed de- 
 pends upon the attitude given to the anaesthetic hand. 
 Thus, we ask the subject to think of the number 3. 
 If he holds a pen in his hand he will write the figure 3. 
 If he has no pen, and if before the experiment we 
 have several times shaken the fingers of the insensible 
 hand, the subject will raise his finger three times ; the 
 same will apply to the wrist or to the movement of any 
 other member. If the subject has a dynamometer in 
 his hand he will press three distinct times upon this 
 instrument. If the experimentalist himself assumes 
 the initiative by raising the finger of the subject a cer- 
 tain number of times, the finger after having yielded 
 three times to the impressed movement will stiffen, as 
 if it thus wished to inform the experimentalist of the 
 number that had been thought of. All these experi- 
 ments, and particularly the last, show the intervention 
 of the second consciousness in the expression of the 
 
RELATIONS OF THE TWO CONSCIOUSNESSES. 23 
 
 idea of the number three. The first consciousness fur- 
 nishes the idea, and the second consciousness deter- 
 mines the manner in which the idea shall be expressed ; 
 there is, accordingly, a concurrence of the two con- 
 sciousnesses, a collaboration of the two egos for one 
 common task. 
 
 By a singular phenomenon the automatic writing 
 does not limit itself to making known what takes place 
 in the principal consciousness of the subject ; it is at 
 the same time in the service of the second conscious- 
 ness, so that, according to the nature of the cases at 
 issue, the first consciousness sometimes directs the 
 hand of the subject and at other times the second con- 
 sciousness. We have collected several observations 
 which leave no doubt on this point. Let us begin with 
 the very simplest. 
 
 Letting the subject hold a pen in his anaesthetic 
 hand, we trace a letter, or some such sign, upon the 
 back of the hand. The automatic writing will at once 
 reproduce the word that has been traced ; the word 
 itself, be it understood, not having been perceived by 
 the. principal consciousness, because the excitation was 
 performed upon the skin of an anaesthetic member, 
 and because anaesthesia in some way is the barrier 
 separating the two consciousnesses. If the word has 
 been reproduced, it accordingly must be because the 
 second consciousness has perceived it, and conse- 
 quently this simple experiment proves that the second 
 consciousness can express itself b}'^ automatic writing. 
 
 It may be remarked, in passing, that automatic 
 writing affords us a very convenient means of explor- 
 ing the sensibility of any apparently anaesthetic limb ; 
 and we are also able by employing this method to 
 measure the sensibility with an aesthesiometer. In 
 
a pen had been slipped, did not cease to write : 
 
 24 OM double consciousness. 
 
 s CU « rD 
 
 A ■* w a c 
 
 
 S’ « 
 
 ^ s- & 
 
 B E. 
 
 o 
 
 
 S. fi 
 
 S 2. S 
 
RELATIONS OF THE TWO CONSCIOUSNESSES. 25 
 
 fact, nothing is simpler. Let us prick the insensible 
 hand with one of the points of a pair of compasses : 
 the automatic writing will trace a single point. There- 
 upon let us apply at the' same time both points, and 
 the automatic writing, after a little practice, will be able 
 to tell us whether the points have been distinguished 
 or confounded ; their distance apart, in millimeters, 
 will give us the respective degree of sensibility. Every 
 time that I applied this method to hysterical subjects 
 I was able to verify that notwithstanding anaesthesia 
 sensibility had remained normal; we can easily under- 
 stand that the contradiction here is only in the terms 
 employed. 
 
 Automatic writing does not only serve to express 
 sensations perceived by the second consciousness ; it 
 is likewise able to express the thoughts that this sec- 
 ond consciousness spontaneously combines. Hyster- 
 ical persons have been found who, when a pen was 
 put into their hands and their attention diverted, began 
 to write, unconsciously, entire well-connected phrases, 
 recitals, confessions, etc. The principal subject — the 
 one with whom we communicate by word — suspects 
 nothing, and does not see what his anaesthetic hand is 
 doing ; it is the second consciousness which employs 
 this mode of expression. I myself have made this ex- 
 periment upon a subject, and other authors have like- 
 wise reported several instances. 
 
 The latter form ol experiment is evidently the one 
 that approaches nearest to the experiments upon au- 
 tomatic writing which at the present time are being 
 conducted in England and America. They consist in 
 asking a person to place his hand upon a planchette 
 that can serve for the purposes of writing and to re- 
 main immovable without thinking of anything. When 
 
26 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 the subject is nervous it will sometimes happen that 
 the planchette becomes agitated and begins to write 
 thoughts entirely foreign to the subject ; the latter re- 
 mains motionless and has no consciousness of any- 
 thing. It may be assumed, with great likelihood, that 
 under such conditions an intellectual doubling of the 
 subject takes place, analogous to that which we have 
 observed in our hemi-anaesthetic, hysterical patients. 
 Only, in the case of an hysterical individual, the doub- 
 ling is easier, in consequence of the insensibility which 
 reigns in a part of the body; it being easily compre- 
 hensible that the acts of the second consciousness, pro- 
 duced by preference in the insensible regions, remain 
 unknown to and concealed from the principal con- 
 sciousness. It may happen, however, with certain non- 
 hysterical subjects that experiments of doubling bring 
 about a transitory anaesthesia, and Mr, W. James has 
 recently observed, that while one of his patients was 
 writing with the planchette he did not feel the painful 
 excitations inflicted upon his arm, whereas the second 
 consciousness perceived them distinctly, and com- 
 plained of the same by means of the automatic writing. 
 
 Such complications of phenomena produce conse- 
 quences which it is easy to foresee. It may happen 
 that at the moment at which the principal conscious- 
 ness wishes to write a word, the second consciousness 
 may have the same intention, and may wish to write 
 an entirely different word : hence a conflict. A very 
 simple experiment will illustrate this conflict. Let us 
 seize the anaesthetic hand, and let us cause it to trace 
 behind a screen the word “Paris.” We know that 
 this word will be repeated several times. Thereupon 
 addressing ourselves to the principal subject, we will 
 ask him to write the word “London.” The subject. 
 
RELATIONS OF THE TWO CONSCIOUSNESSES. 27 
 
 entirely ignorant of what has just taken place, eagerly 
 seizes the pen with the intention to carry out our wish, 
 but to his utter astonishment the indocile pen instead 
 of writing London, writes Paris. Is not this a phe- 
 nomenon analogous to those irresistible impulses which, 
 in madness, consciously reveal themselves, — impul- 
 sions to theft, murder, arson, etc., which suddenly 
 manifest themselves to the great surprise of the pa- 
 tient, the latter submitting to the impulse without com- 
 prehending it. It is evident that these kinds of ex- 
 periments are destined to throw a flood of light upon 
 several still obscure points of mental pathology. 
 
 In the preceding exposition we have studied the 
 motory relations of the two consciousnesses ; we have 
 seen them either uniting their efforts to accomplish the 
 same act, or conflicting with regard to something to 
 be accomplished. But there exists a second kind of 
 relations between the two consciousnesses ; namely, 
 the relations of sensations and of images. It may hap- 
 pen that the sensation which has possession of a first 
 consciousness awakens an associated image in the sec- 
 ond consciousness, so that, by a unique intellectual 
 process, one of the parts will be conscious for one of 
 the egos, and the other for the second ego. The facts 
 pertaining to this order of relations are extremely cu- 
 rious and instructive. We shall limit ourselves to 
 those that are the simplest and most easily produced. 
 
 Let us once more turn our attention to an anaes- 
 thetic, hysterical patient ; we will make a series of im- 
 pressions upon his insensible hand ; our subject feels 
 absolutely nothing. It would, accordingly, be idle to 
 ask him how many impressions we have made, be- 
 cause he does not even suspect that his hand has been 
 pre.ssed. And yet, the highly extraordinary fact re- 
 
28 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 mains, that the subject, although apparently not hav- 
 ing felt anything, possesses an idea of the number of 
 excitations that have been made upon him. The fol- 
 lowing is proof: Let us make ten punctures in the in- 
 sensible hand and thereupon let us ask the subject, 
 who, as a matter of course, has not seen his hand, 
 which is hidden behind a screen, to think of some num- 
 ber and to name it; very frequently the subject will 
 answer that he is thinking of the number ten. In the 
 same manner let us put a key, a piece of coin, a nee- 
 dle, a watch into the anaesthetic hand, and let us ask 
 the subject to think of any object whatsoever; it will 
 still happen, yet less frequently than in the preceding 
 experiment, that the subject is thinking of the precise 
 object that has been put into his insensible hand. 
 
 It is important to note, that in all these cases the 
 subject believes he is thinking voluntarily and without 
 constraint ; the experimentalist, while compelling him 
 to think of the number ten, not depriving him of the 
 illusion of his freedom of will. 
 
 How shall we explain this result? How is it pos- 
 sible that, in consequence of an excitation not felt, the 
 subject should have a determined idea? We shall be 
 able to explain everything by supposing simply, that 
 the unconscious peripheral excitation, for example the 
 puncture of the anaesthetic hand, awakens, by way of 
 association, corresponding phenomena of ideation. 
 But in reality matters are more complex. We have 
 to admit rather, that when we excite the anaesthetic 
 hand, in different ways, by puncture or by contact with 
 an object, the second consciousness perceives the sen- 
 sation, counts the punctures, recognizes the object, 
 and, for the purposes involved, abandons itself to more 
 or less complicated intellectual acts. These intellect- 
 
RELATIONS OF THE TWO CONSCIOUSNESSES 29 
 
 ual acts are the final stage of the process, which has 
 had its origin in a sensation ; now this final point, this 
 result, this conclusion is the thing that alone penetrates 
 into the first consciousness. For example, when punct- 
 ures are made in the skin, one of the consciousnesses 
 counts the sensations, finds their sum-total, and this 
 sum-total it is that reaches the other consciousness, 
 not indeed under the form of tactile sensations, but 
 under the abstract form of a number. 
 
 To sum up. From the foregoing we perceive that 
 the separation of the two consciousnesses does not in- 
 terrupt all communications between them. The asso- 
 ciations of ideas, of images, perceptions, and move- 
 ments, that is, of all that pertains to the sphere of 
 lower psychology, is preserved nearly intact ; and 
 hence an idea in the first consciousness provokes a 
 movement in the second, and inversely, a sensation 
 perceived by the second consciousness can awaken an 
 idea in the first consciousness. 
 
 In the following essay we shall apply these results 
 to the study of the hysterical eye. 
 
THE HYSTERICAL EYE. 
 
 The various forms of retinal sensibility which are 
 met with in hysterical individuals have been carefully 
 studied by M. Charcot and his pupils, who have shown 
 that the phenomena in question, which persist during 
 the interval of hysterical crises, and which can exist 
 where there are no crises, constitute permanent stig- 
 mata, enabling us to discover hysteria without the aid 
 of convulsive attacks of any sort. At the present time 
 we are quite well acquainted with hysterical amaurosis, 
 with the concentric contraction of the field of vision, 
 with disturbances affecting the perception of colors, 
 and disorders of adjustment. 
 
 What is much less known, is the reason, the mech- 
 anism, of this anaesthesia of the retina. The many ex- 
 perimentalists who have hitherto studied the subject 
 in question, have pointed out a number of peculiar 
 features rather difficult of comprehension, in fact so 
 strange and striking, that some have ascribed them to 
 simulation on the part of the subjects. To furnish a 
 precise and clear instance of this, we may state, that 
 there are hysterical individuals who, with both eyes 
 open, perceive colors which they cannot distinguish 
 with one of their eyes alone ; while it seems even more 
 wonderful that there should be hysterical persons who 
 do not see at all with one eye, when that eye alone is 
 open, but whose unilateral blindness disappears as 
 
THE HYSTERICAL EYE. 
 
 31 
 
 soon as the function of vision is performed simulta- 
 neously with both eyes. 
 
 Let us dwell for a moment upon the instance given, 
 and later we shall endeavor to explain it. 
 
 We have for examination an hysterical person who 
 has entirely lost the sight of the right eye. Let us 
 place before the patient’s eyes a ‘box of Flees ’ ; that 
 is, a box furnished with two eye-holes. On the bottom 
 of the box are placed two points of different colors, 
 the one to the right, the other to the left ■, and by a 
 skillful arrangement the patient sees with his right eye 
 the point situated to the left, and with his left the point 
 situated to the right. This is the method employed 
 to detect shamming and simulation; for instance, in 
 the case of soldiers- drafted for the army. Thus the 
 shamming individual, who pretends not to see with 
 his right eye, will say that he does not see the point 
 which appears to the right ; but that is the point which 
 is seen by the left eye. The hysterical individual 
 acts somewhat differently, for he actually sees the 
 two points — that to the left, and that to the right ; he 
 accordingly sees with both eyes. 
 
 A great many hypotheses have been advanced in 
 order to explain these apparent contradictions — ana- 
 tomical hypotheses, like that of M. Parinaud, and psy- 
 chological hypotheses, like that of M. Bernheim. For 
 the time being we shall leave this matter aside. It 
 will be far more profitable to begin by setting forth our 
 recent observations ; for a simple observation can often 
 better point out the incorrectness of an hypothesis 
 than any number of arguments. 
 
 Experiments which we have made in the preceding 
 essays with reference to the insensibility of the sense 
 of touch in hysterical subjects, have shown us of what 
 
32 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 nature this insensibility really is. As a matter of fact 
 the hysterical subject is doubled ; he possesses two 
 distinct consciousnesses ; and one of these conscious- 
 nesses accurately perceives all the excitations that have 
 been impressed upon the insensible region. 
 
 We might already suppose, ‘a priori’, that insen- 
 sibility of the retina cannot in any respect differ from 
 insensibility of the skin in hysterical persons. The 
 facts that we have previously set forth, confirmed by 
 different authors and derived from our own experi- 
 ments, are too significant not to be general. But, we 
 cannot be satisfied with purely theoretical views. 
 
 I long sought in vain for some simple, decisive, 
 and purely clinical experiment which might prove that 
 the sensibility of the retina, in cases of hysterical 
 anaesthesia, was only dissociated and not destroyed. 
 Chance, aided in some degree by perseverance, has 
 enabled me to establish the following fact. We place 
 the hysterical subject before a scale of printed letters, 
 and tentatively seek the maximum distance from the 
 board at which the subject is able to read the largest 
 letters. It frequently happens with hysterical per- 
 sons that the vision of forms at a distance is very 
 imperfect ; a circumstance which may be owing either 
 to weakness of visual acuteness or to a defect in the 
 mechanism of adjustment. For the present we are 
 not attempting to distinguish these two facts from one 
 another. 
 
 After having experimentally determined the max- 
 imum distance at which the subject can read the larg- 
 est letters of the series, we invite him to read certain 
 smaller letters that are placed below the former. Na- 
 turally enough the subject is unable to do so ; but, if 
 at this instant, we slip a pencil into the anaesthetic 
 
THE HYSTERICAL EYE. 
 
 33 
 
 hand, we are able, by the agency of the hand, to in- 
 duce automatic writing, and this writing will repro- 
 duce precisely the letters which the subject is in vain 
 trying to read. 
 
 This process of experimentation has the pre-em- 
 inent advantage of taking the subject in his natural 
 condition — while awake and at rest ; for the power 
 of automatic writing persists with him, and this auto- 
 matic writing has moreover the advantage of revealing 
 to us the latent depths of consciousness that remain 
 unknown to the subject. 
 
 After the investigations which we have made upon 
 the hysterical anaesthesia of the skin, an explanation of 
 the preceding phenomenon seems to me wholly super- 
 fluous, and I shall be satisfied with the assertion that 
 the second consciousness possesses a stronger visual 
 acuteness than the first consciousness. 
 
 It is highly interesting to observe, that during the 
 ‘very time the subject is repeatedly declaring, that he 
 does not see the letters, the anaesthetic hand, unknown 
 to him, writes out the letters one after another. If, 
 interrupting the experiment, we ask the subject to 
 write, of his own free will, the letters of the printed 
 series, he will not be able to do so, and when asked 
 simply to draw what he sees, he will only produce a 
 few zig-zag marks that have no meaning. 
 
 Let us further remark, that although the subject 
 maintains that he sees nothing, the automatic writing 
 nevertheless reproduces all the letters marked on the 
 black-board with perfect regularity, without omitting 
 a single letter, beginning at the first and finishing 
 with the last. We must, accordingly, suppose that 
 during the experiment the second consciousness di- 
 
34 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 rects the line of sight, without the knowledge of the 
 principal subject. 
 
 The visual acuteness of this second consciousness 
 in the subjects which I have examined has seemed to 
 me to be equal to the normal acuteness. If we place the 
 subject at too great a distance from the black-board 
 the automatic writing will begin to hesitate ; the sub- 
 ject will thereupon commit real mistakes ; for example, 
 he will read “Lucien” instead of “ Louisa,” which, 
 incidentally observed, proves that the phenomenon 
 wrongly bears the name of automatic writing ; an au- 
 tomaton does not mistake ; the second consciousness, 
 on the contrary, is subject to error because it is a 
 consciousness, because it is a thing that reasons and 
 combines thoughts. 
 
 In the course of investigations of this kind there 
 sometimes arise certain perturbations which are very 
 important to understand, and which afford a fresh proof 
 of those manifold relations existing between the two 
 consciousnesses that we investigated in a former pa- 
 per. Thus, when the subject is convinced that he can- 
 not read the letters on the board, it may happen that 
 the automatic writing, controlled by this state of con- 
 sciousness, will confine itself to translating the same, 
 so that the anaesthetic hand will indistinctly trace the 
 words which the subject is muttering in a low voice to 
 himself, as “ I do not see, I do not see . . . . ” 
 
 A second perturbation arises from the fact, that the 
 subject, during the time that the hand is unconsciously 
 writing the word, believes he has a vague perception 
 of this same word. In reality this is only an illusory 
 perception. To produce this phenomenon we have to 
 call into play the automatic writing, by putting a pen- 
 cil into the anaesthetic hand ; and, as a matter of fact. 
 
THE HYSTERICAL EYE. 
 
 35 
 
 it is the more or less vague perception of these move- 
 ments of automatic writing that makes the subject be- 
 lieve he has a visual perception of the word, whereas 
 he has only a visual image of the same. Even this 
 image, at times, is rather vague. Thus, one of our 
 subjects, while his hand wrote the word “ Marguerite,” 
 said he thought he saw the name of a woman. But, 
 how could it be possible to perceive, with his eyes, 
 that a word is the name of a woman, if he could not 
 spell the word in question ? Evidently, in this case, 
 visual or muscular sensations belonging to the second 
 consciousness, have provoked in the first conscious- 
 ness an idea of the same kind. 
 
 We have already observed an analogous fact in 
 the experiments before reported upon the anaesthesia 
 of the skin and of the muscles \ we there saw, that if 
 we shake twice in succession an insensible finger, the 
 subject will think of the number two. The perception 
 of the movements of the finger by the second con- 
 sciousness had called forth in the domain of the first 
 consciousness an analogous idea, expressed in an ab- 
 stract form. 
 
 Let us remark, in passing, that through these ex- 
 periments there possibly exists a means of studying 
 abstract ideas. 
 
 We have now studied the perception of forms in an 
 eye presenting a weak visual acuteness. The same func- 
 tion may be studied in a completely amaurotic eye, 
 that is, in an eye afflicted with total blindness. It is 
 rare to meet with hysterical patients in whom insensi- 
 bility of the retina reaches the verge of blindness ; but 
 we can very easily produce this phenomenon by way 
 of hypnotic suggestion. I have had occasion to study 
 two hysterical subjects in whom by suggestion all man- 
 
36 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 ner of vision had been suppressed in the right eye. I 
 was easily able to establish the fact, that after closing 
 the left eye of the subject, and putting into his anaes- 
 thetic hand, without his knowledge, a pencil, the au- 
 tomatic writing was brought to reproduce all the let- 
 ters which we passed before the amaurotic eye. This 
 amaurotic eye, accordingly, did see, notwithstanding 
 its apparent blindness ; in other words, the second con- 
 sciousness was the one that saw ; it had not been struck 
 with blindness at the same time as the first conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 This latter experiment enables us absolutely to re- 
 ject any anatomical theory that has been designed to 
 explain the singular phenomena of v/hich we have 
 spoken at the beginning of this paper. We have said 
 that certain subjects, who with their right eye do not 
 perceive a certain color — for example, violet — will, 
 when seeing with both eyes, easily distinguish this 
 same color, even when, owing to the experimental ar- 
 rangement employed, the color mentioned is not placed 
 in the visual field of the left eye. This experiment, 
 and many others of a similar kind, lead us to sup- 
 pose, that the conditions of binocular vision are dif- 
 ferent from those of monocular vision. 
 
 To speak a little more precisely, it has been ad- 
 mitted that there exist two different kinds of visual 
 centres within the cerebral cortex ; in the first place 
 monocular centres, which act, when only one eye is 
 open ; and furtfier, binocular centres, that perform 
 their functions when both eyes are at the same time 
 open. Cerebral physiology, with its usual compla- 
 cency, has furnished more than one argument in favor 
 of this hypothesis, which, however, ought to be re- 
 garded as open to considerable suspicion. This be- 
 
THE HYSTERICAL EYE. 
 
 37 
 
 ing admitted, nothing seemed more easy than to ex- 
 plain, how and why hysterical individuals see certain 
 colors when both eyes are open, and not when only 
 one eye performs its functions ; people have thought, 
 that it was owing to the fact, that with such subjects 
 the binocular centre is spared while the monocular 
 centre alone is affected. 
 
 The last of our experiments absolutely refutes this 
 theory, showing us that a subject with an amaurotic 
 eye is able to register through automatic writing the ob- 
 jects that are placed before it during monocular vis- 
 ion. The monocular centre, accordingly, if it really exist, 
 cannot be an)^ more affected than the binocular centre. 
 
 We shall not linger any longer upon this study of 
 visual anaesthesia, which once again proves to us the 
 importance of the doubling of consciousness in hys- 
 terical persons, and the necessity of knowing this pro- 
 cess of doubling, in order to understand certain symp- 
 toms, at first sight so strange, and yet at bottom so 
 logical, which are met with, at every side, in hysteria. 
 
 We now know the most elementary facts at the 
 basis of mental dissociation, and we may attempt to 
 plunge to a still greater depth into the study of the 
 phenomenon described. 
 
MECHANISM OR SUBCONSCIOUSNESS? 
 
 In all the experiments that I have hitherto pre- 
 sented, I have supposed in hysterical persons the 
 existence of a double consciousness. This hypothesis 
 possessed the advantage of explaining how it happens 
 that we are able to provoke in the limbs of such indi- 
 viduals various complex movements of adaptation, 
 which are performed without their knowledge ; and 
 we, accordingly, proceeded upon the assumption that 
 these movements were regulated by a secondary con- 
 sciousness, which does not amalgamate with the prin- 
 cipal personality. 
 
 But' the objection has recently been made, that the 
 hypothesis of double consciousness is not necessary, 
 and that we might explain all the experiments in 
 question by presuming that the movements of the 
 insensible members are parcel of that mechanical 
 activity which is constantly seen at work in habit and 
 instinct, and which seems to perform its functions 
 without the aid of consciousness. 
 
 This second explanation, at first blush, is so natu- 
 ral, that when I began my researches I did not hesitate 
 to accept it, even contrary to the opinion of my friend 
 M. Pierre Janet, who adopted the hypothesis of sub- 
 conscious phenomena. But later, according as my 
 observations and experiments became more numerous, 
 I was compelled to abandon the explanation founded 
 
MECHANISM OR SUBCONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 39 
 
 upon mechanical acts. This, I admit, cost me a great 
 deal; for it is singular to observe, how, despite our- 
 selves, and the desire of being impartial, we ever 
 reluctantly surrender a first idea. I shall, there- 
 fore, essay to recapitulate the facts that have brought 
 about my conviction. Some of these facts are new ; 
 but the greater part have already been published by 
 me in the Revue philosophique of February, 1889 ; and 
 M. Pierre Janet in his recent book on psychological 
 automatism {V Automatisme psychologique~) has added 
 other facts that are highly interesting. 
 
 Let us begin with the simplest cases. 
 
 We have before us a lady patient, observed in the 
 waking state, whose anaesthetic hand, hidden behind 
 a screen, repeats the movements that it is made to per- 
 form ; the patient feels nothing, suspects nothing, and 
 believes that her hand is motionless. This repetition 
 of the movement may be regarded as a physiological 
 act devoid of consciousness. Let us complicate slightly 
 the experiment in question. Let us cause the hand to 
 trace the patient’s own name, and, in so doing, com- 
 mit an orthographical error ; it frequently happens 
 that the hand, in re-writing the name, hesitates when it 
 reaches the error, or will even correct it. We may 
 still, perhaps, maintain that this is a physiological act 
 devoid of consciousness. But let us continue. There 
 
 are patients, St. Am for example, whose hand 
 
 spontaneously finishes the word they are made to 
 trace ; thus, I cause the letter d to be written ; the 
 hand continues, and writes don ; I write pa, and 
 the hand continues and writes pavilion ; I write Sal, 
 and the hand writes ; Salpetriere. Is it possible that 
 this is an act destitute of consciousness ? The ques- 
 tion, manifestly, is become more doubtful. But there 
 
40 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 is a more convincing instance still, for the following 
 case is the most curious that has come under my 
 notice. M. Taine was speaking to me one day, in de- 
 tail, of an observation that he has inserted in the pre- 
 face to his beautiful book on Intelligence {T Intelli- 
 gence). The observation in question relates to a young 
 girl who, at times, would unconsciously seize a pen, 
 and write a whole page, the sense of which she did not 
 understand ; this page, always signed by the same 
 name, (M. Taine told me that it was the name of the 
 girl’s governess,) was the expression of mournful ideas 
 and sorrowful reflections upon life. What particularly 
 interested me in the matter of this observation was 
 the fact, that I myself, in an observation of my own, 
 have obtained an entirely analogous result, and M. 
 Pierre Janet, likewise, has gotten five or six more. The 
 lady patient, whom I observed, was an hysterical sub- 
 ject, whose right arm was totally insensible. On cer- 
 tain days, when a pen was put into her right hand be- 
 hind a screen, the hand in question, without further 
 solicitation, would begin to write connected phrases, 
 to which the mind of the patient remained wholly for- 
 eign, for while her hand was writing, the patient would 
 be chatting with us about something entirely different. 
 Concerning the explanation of these last facts, the 
 slightest doubt no longer seems permissible ; and it 
 is likewise certain that authors who have gathered 
 equally complicated observations, have not hesitated 
 in regard to the manner in which they are to be ex- 
 plained. 
 
 In fine, we behold, in this instance, the writing of 
 the anaesthetic hand become the secretary of a com- 
 plete personality, endowed with its own exclusive 
 ideas, and its own emotions. M. Taine, without the 
 
MECHANISM OR SUBCONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 41 
 
 thought of an objection, admits that these facts are 
 explained by the existence of two personalities in jux- 
 taposition. 
 
 I well know that a skeptic could always maintain 
 that the second personality, revealed in our experi- 
 ments, is a personality destitute of consciousness. I 
 am, indeed, unable to furnish the material proof to 
 convince such a skeptic that he is mistaken. The 
 question of consciousness, as in a future article I shall 
 have occasion fully to demonstrate, is one of the most 
 delicate problems that a psychologist could undertake 
 to solve. Upon the whole, however, it seems to me 
 that there is a great probability in favor of the ac- 
 ceptance of the element of consciousness in such 
 complex psychic manifestations as those I have just 
 cited. 
 
 M. Pierre Janet has added to the subject in ques- 
 tion a further argument, that ought to be regarded as 
 convincing. How are we led to recognize, he asks, 
 the existence of consciousness in another individual? 
 When we find, for example, that the individual utters 
 connected words, conveying sense. But, if the word 
 is one mode of expression of conscious thought, writ- 
 ing must be regarded as another, equally complex, or 
 even iilore so; and we are unable to understand why 
 writing should not prove as much as the spoken word. 
 
 Moreover, in order to render this demonstration 
 perfectly convincing, we will say, that there are pa- 
 tients in whom this second personality speaks, even 
 in the state of wake. Here, at least if I consult my 
 own experience, we have to do with entirely excep- 
 tional cases. Thus, I have seen three patients who, 
 when we slightly pricked their insensible member, 
 suddenly would complain in a loud voice, crying : 
 
42 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 “You hurt me !” It was the second personality that 
 spoke, for if we addressed the patient directly and 
 called her by her own name, she would invariably 
 declare that she had said nothing. I did not follow 
 out the study of these curious phenomena, because at 
 the beginning of my researches I did not know whether 
 they were real or simulated. But M. Pierre Janet 
 has observed similar ones under circumstances so pre- 
 cise, that now I no longer doubt their exactitude. 
 
 Here, accordingly, the second personality of the 
 hysterical patient not only writes of its own accord, 
 but speaks even. Shall we still maintain that this is 
 an unconscious personality? 
 
 But this is not all. We know of even more con- 
 vincing facts. We know of observations, in which 
 this second personality, ever awake, is seen gradu- 
 ally to develop more and more, and to assume the 
 initiative in conduct, instead of the first personality, 
 which is temporarily annihilated. Such is the case 
 of Felida, the interesting patient whose history M. 
 Azam reported twenty years ago, which people at 
 that epoch could not have been expected to under- 
 stand, but at the present time is perfectly elucidated 
 by all the data which in an abridged form we are plac- 
 ing before the reader. With Felida there occurred 
 certain critical periods, as the effect of which her 
 character would completely change and a part of her 
 recollections would disappear; she passed into a new 
 state — into her second condition, as M. Azam called 
 it ; this second condition, which would last weeks and 
 even months, was connected by memory with her pre- 
 vious “second” conditions. Thus she would remem- 
 ber persons, whom she had seen in former “second” 
 conditions, but she did not remember those whom 
 
MECHANISM OR SUBCONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 43 
 
 she had seen in the intervals. Thus there was 
 developed within the patient a real double personality, 
 not co-existent, but successive. 
 
 The facts above set forth have led me to the 
 assumption that there may exist in hysterical patients 
 two rational faculties, that are mutually ignorant of 
 each other. I do not regard this as a simple hypo- 
 thesis; it is an induction, in my opinion perfectly legit- 
 imate. 
 
 To me it seems difficult, upon the occasion of 
 every case examined and every movement produced 
 in the anaesthetic member, to declare whether the 
 movement in question is accompanied by conscious- 
 ness ; the criterion which we employ is too uncertain 
 to be everywhere applied with infallibility. But I be- 
 lieve it satisfactorily established in a general way, that 
 two states of consciousness, not known to each other, 
 can co-exist in the mind of an hysterical patient.* 
 
 We discover at once the psychological conclusion 
 to be drawn from the preceding experiments ; namely, 
 that the limits of introspection are not those of con- 
 sciousness ; and that where we have not conscious- 
 ness, there is not necessarily unconsciousness. Such 
 are the very important and very curious facts that to 
 me seem destined to reconstruct the theory of the 
 unconscious. 
 
 * I cannot adduce here all the arguments upon which my position is 
 based. I shall only refer, in this note, to the interesting researches of M. 
 Pierre Janet upon “systematic anaesthesia.” 
 
44 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS, 
 
 THE GRAPHIC METHOD AND THE DOUBLING 
 OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 Psychologists, in the last few years, have come 
 by many different ways to establish the fact that in 
 hysterical patients a plurality of persons exists. The 
 curious observation, for example, of Doctor Azam, of 
 Bordeaux, may be recalled, where a young woman, 
 by the name of F^lida, manifestly hysterical, presented 
 two successive lives in which she possessed neither 
 the same character nor had the same recollections.* 
 Azam’s observation does not stand alone. There are 
 others recorded, very many in fact, of the same kind; 
 as for instance that of Doctor Dufay. In his “Dis- 
 eases of Personality,” M. Ribot has given a complete 
 history of this interesting question. 
 
 The experiments that we presented in a former 
 series of articles on this subject, and the similar ex- 
 periments of M. Pierre Janet, accordingly, set forth 
 nothing new. We have simpl}^ found a method of re- 
 vealing in the majority of persons afflicted with hys- 
 teria those remarkable phenomena of duplication 
 which hitherto seemed somewhat exceptional. We 
 have established, almost with certainty in fact, that in 
 such subjects there exists side by side with the prin- 
 cipal personality a secondary personality, which is un- 
 
 *Azam, Double Conscience^ etc.: J. B. Baillifere, Paris. 
 
THE EMPLOYMENT OF THE GRAPHIC METHOD. 45 
 
 known by the first, which sees, hears, reflects, reasons, 
 and acts. 
 
 In following out our study of the methods that 
 enable us to reveal this hidden personality, we are now 
 to have recourse to the so-called graphic method, the em- 
 ployment of which, at first restricted to the work-rooms 
 of physiology, seems, at the present time, destined to 
 find its way into the current practice of medicine. 
 
 The principle upon which this method works, con- 
 sists, as we know, in the transmission of the move- 
 ment we desire to study, to a lever the pointed ex- 
 tremity of which writes upon a revolving cylinder. The 
 transmission of the movement to the lever may be 
 effected by various means, the simplest of which is a 
 rubber-tube having communication with an expansible 
 chamber, which moves the lever. Every pressure ex- 
 erted upon the rubber will be transmitted to the lever 
 by the column of air enclosed within the tube, and thus 
 trace a line upon the cylinder. This line presents va- 
 rious characteristics to be noted. When the lever is 
 at rest, and no movement is transmitted to it, the line 
 that it traces is perfectly rectilinear ; if, on the con- 
 trary, it receives a pressure, it will trace a curve more 
 or less uneven, which will rise above the line traced 
 when at rest, designated the line of abscissas. This 
 curve, by the height to which it rises above the line of 
 abscissas, will indicate the amplitude of the move- 
 ment ; by its length upon the cylinder, of which we 
 know the velocity of rotation, it will indicate, and that 
 with absolute precision, the rapidity of the movement ; 
 and finally, its form will indicate the form of the 
 movement. This, in few words, is the principle of 
 the wonderful method that has given a new status to 
 the physiology of movement. 
 
4*5 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 How may this method be applied to the study of 
 the doubling of consciousness? How are we to get a 
 line that will exhibit a relation to this disorder of the 
 mind ? The question was put to me by several psy- 
 chologists to whom I had discovered the present sub- 
 ject of my investigations. But the difficulty is at once 
 removed when we reflect that each separate personal- 
 ity can be brought to execute movements, and that 
 these movements can be registered. 
 
 For example, we have an hysterical patient, hemi- 
 
 anaesthetical on the left side; her name is P. S , 
 
 and she will be the subject of the experiments the de- 
 scription of which is to follow. She is a young girl, 
 twenty years of age, tall, well-developed, intelligent, 
 and of a serious disposition, yet who is subject to 
 dreadful convulsive attacks and in the intervals of 
 these attacks, to delirious crises. We shall study her 
 during one of these intervals of repose. With her, the 
 movements of the second personality which are com- 
 monly called “ automatic writing,” are highly devel- 
 oped in the insensible portion of her body ; thus, if we 
 tell her to think of a number, her anaesthetic hand will 
 be seen to execute movements in connection with the 
 number thought of ; if we tell her to count the beats 
 of a metronome, her hand, while she is counting, will 
 be seen gently to keep time. These different move- 
 ments are performed without the participation of will, 
 or even of consciousness on her part ; they may be 
 called, if we choose, automatic movements, but it is 
 not to be forgotten that they are extremely complex, 
 and that it would be improper to liken them to simple 
 reflex motions. We return, here, to an important 
 question that we have touched upon in our first article. 
 Repetition, perhaps, is necessary. We said there that 
 
THE EMPLOYMENT OF THE GRAPHIC METHOD. 47 
 
 the movements performed by the anaesthetic member 
 under the influence of an idea, sometimes exhibit all 
 the marks of a movement that is intellectual, the result 
 of a reflective act and of volition. One of the proofs 
 that may be given of this, is, that with our patient P. 
 
 S the application of a recording instrument to the 
 
 anaesthetic member greatly increases the intensity of 
 the movements ; and that when the instrument is taken 
 away they slacken, without, however, completely dis- 
 appearing. Furthermore, the form of the movement 
 varies with the form of the apparatus applied. If we 
 simply place a pencil in the insensible hand while the 
 subject is thinking of the number 5, she will write 5; 
 if we place a dynamograph in her hand, she will press 
 five times ; if a myographic drum be used, which is an 
 arrangement to measure muscular dilatation, and if 
 that apparatus be applied to the forearm, the forearm 
 performs a movement. In short, there is in all these 
 cases an intelligent adaptation to the form of the ap- 
 paratus used. If still other facts be required to de- 
 monstrate the complex nature of the movements in 
 question, we may say that they are not produced at the 
 outset in all patients; but it is necessary to wait for a 
 time — for example, to strike the metronome with regu- 
 larity some several minutes in succession, in order that 
 the second personality which has control of these 
 movements may comprehend what is wanted of it, and 
 execute the same. Thus, for example, if during an 
 experiment a key be let fall upon the table, the subject 
 will not at once perform an automatic movement ; but 
 if the key be let fall at equal intervals, or if we regu- 
 larly strike a metronome, a moment will arrive when 
 the movements will be produced and when they will 
 regulate their rhythm to keep time with the sound 
 
48 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 heard. Sometimes, even, it happens that when the 
 metronome is suddenly stopped, the subject, not be- 
 ing warned of our intention, continues to produce an 
 automatic movement or semi-contraction. 
 
 These few facts suffice to show us, that the in- 
 voluntary and unconscious movements an hysterical 
 subject performs when under the influence of a pre- 
 dominant idea or upon hearing the beats of a metro- 
 nome, reveal a directive process of reasoning and a 
 directive volition. They are voluntary movements on 
 the part of the second personality of the patient. 
 
 These movements are, as we have already remarked, 
 greatly stimulated by the application of an instrument 
 to receive them, and I have witnessed them produced in 
 almost every instance in which I have applied such 
 an instrument. The respiratory movements in parti- 
 cular, when the subject thinks of a number, or hears 
 the beats of the metronome, can change rhythm ; 
 further, according as the experiment is prolonged, the 
 movements increase progressively in intensity. 
 
 After these few preliminary remarks, I have now 
 only to bring before the eyes of my readers the tracings 
 
 that I have taken with the patient P. S , and 
 
 which are reproduced, with necessary explanations, 
 on the accompanying pages. 
 
 These tracings were all taken, without interruption, 
 in the course of a single experiment, and without any 
 alteration having been made in the apparatus, which re- 
 mained in its place. A myographic drum was applied 
 to each forearm. It will be remembered that the right 
 
 side of P. S is insensible ; the comparison of the 
 
 reactions produced in both sides of the body can 
 accordingly serve for showing the influence of anaes- 
 thesia upon the so-called automatic movements. 
 
THE EMPLOYMENT OF THE GRAPHIC METHOD. 49 
 
 Fig. I. — Experiment with P. S , hemianassthetical, on the right side. 
 
 The first line traced, beginning at the top, represents the voluntary contrac- 
 tions of the right, insensible arm. The second line traced represents the 
 voluntary contractions of the left, sensible arm. Both were taken at the same 
 time. The third line represents the automatic movements of the right, in- 
 sensible arm during the beats of a metronome ; the fourth line corresponds 
 to the left, sensible arm during the same experiment. The fifth tracing rep- 
 resents the automatic movements of the right, insensible arm while the sub- 
 ject is thinking of the number 5 ; the sixth line corresponds to the left, sensible 
 arm during the same experiment. The lines are to be read from left to right. 
 Minimum velocity of cylinder. 
 
50 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 We begin by asking the subject to press both hands 
 energetically, then to open them, his eyes all the while 
 being closed ; we thus obtain the two first lines of the 
 first figure ; the first line belongs to the right, anaes- 
 thetic arm, and the second to the left, sensible arm ; 
 we may collect therefrom the following differences : the 
 movement of the anaesthetic hand is behind that of the 
 other hand ; the height of the curve is less ; the line 
 of ascension is more inclined.* 
 
 Now, let us ask the subject to make no movement 
 whatever, to remain completely immobile, and to listen 
 attentively to the beats of a metronome : the third line 
 traced, of the figure, corresponds to the right, anaes- 
 thetic arm, which, without the knowledge of the sub- 
 ject, executes clearly-defined movements, in rhythmic 
 adaption to the beats of the metronome ; in the fourth 
 line, on the contrary, which corresponds to the left, 
 sensible member, scarcely anything is produced. 
 
 Let us stop the metronome, and ask the subject to 
 remain very quiet and, with both eyes closed, to think 
 of the number 5. The right hand then begins, without 
 the knowledge of the subject, to perform movements 
 very clearly indicated in the fifth tracing of our first 
 figure, while the left, sensible hand remains almost 
 immobile, as shown by the sixth and last line marked. 
 
 Accordingly, the first figure shows us, with per- 
 fect evidence, that if the two, sensible and insensible, 
 
 arms, of P. S be explored at the same time, the 
 
 voluntary contractions will be stronger in the sensible 
 member, and the automatic contractions, or those of 
 the second personality, stronger in the anaesthetic 
 member. This result, which we have similarly ob- 
 
 *On this point, I may refer to my last publication : Les Movements volon- 
 taires dans V Anesthesie hysterique. Revue Philosophique^ 1889. 
 
THE EMPLOYMENT OF THE GRAPHIC METHOD. 51 
 
 tained with another subject, appears to uphold the 
 conclusion that the second personality has chosen, as 
 the seat of its operation, the insensible regions of the 
 body. 
 
 This result, we once more remark, is obtained only 
 when we make simultaneously a bilateral exploration. 
 Other tracings, which we have deemed unnecessary to 
 publish, clearly show that the automatic contractions 
 of the sensible member are very much stronger when 
 no apparatus is during the same time applied to the 
 other arm. In this case, as a matter of fact, the second 
 personality brings its attention especially to bear upon 
 the region of the body where the experiment is being 
 made ; whereas, if it is obliged in some way, to concern 
 itself with both arms at the same time, it prefers to 
 take charge of the movements of the anaesthetic 
 arm. This common comparison is employed in order 
 to render a highly delicate fact clearly intelligible. It 
 is certain that what we designate by a convenient term 
 the second personality, is a complex synthesis of psy- 
 chological elements, and that this synthesis, according 
 to circumstances, is now constructed, now destroyed, 
 now enlarged, and now diminished. It is understand- 
 able, how attention, practice, and repetition can aid 
 the development of this synthesis ; which is the case, 
 when, in proportion as the experiment is protracted, 
 the movements become more and more extended. 
 This fact, moreover, can be observed with the majority 
 of the lines traced, by running over them from left to 
 right, in the directions in which they have been recorded. 
 
 Such are the many important facts bearing upon 
 the psychological history of the double personality ; 
 and these facts are to be accurately ascertained only by 
 the regular application of the graphic method. 
 
52 
 
 ON DO UBLE CON SCI 0 USNESS. 
 
 Fig. 2. — Experiment upon P. S , hemianmsthetic, on the right side. 
 
 Lines i and 2 are a repetition of the experiment recorded hy lines i and 2 of 
 the first figure. Line 3 corresponds to voluntary contractions of the right, 
 anaesthetic arm after paralysis of the left, at first sensible, arm. Line 4 cor- 
 responds to the left, paralyzed arm. Line 5 represents the automatic move- 
 ments of the right arm, and line 6, taken at the same time, represents the 
 automatic movements of the paralyzed left arm, while the patient is listening 
 to the beats of the metronome. The lines are to be read from left to right. 
 Minimum velocity of cylinder. 
 
THE EMPLOYMENT OF THE GRAPHIC METHOD. 53 
 
 This method contains still another lesson for us. 
 Glance at the figures 2 and 3. The lines traced were 
 taken, during the same experiment of course, after 
 having effected by suggestion a paralysis of move- 
 ment and of sensibility in the left half of the body, 
 which was previously sensible and capable of move- 
 ment. The changes produced at once strike the eye. 
 
 Beginning at the top, the two first lines of figure 2 
 are taken before the experiment of suggestion. The 
 first line is produced by the voluntary contractions of 
 the right, anaesthetic hand, and the second line by the 
 simultaneous voluntary contractions of the left, sen- 
 sible hand. It is the repetition, pure and simple, of 
 the two first lines of the first figure. Then intervenes 
 the suggestion producing paralysis. When the para- 
 lysis of the left member is complete, the subject is 
 again asked to squeeze strongly his two fists ; the vol- 
 untary contractions of the right arm have increased in 
 energy ; those of the left, anaesthetic arm are scarcely 
 perceptible, and, furthermore, they are behind, as will 
 be seen from a comparison of lines 3 and 4 of fig. 2. 
 
 Now we set our metronome a-going. The auto- 
 matic movements of the right member remain almost 
 what they were before the experiment of paralysis (line 
 5 of fig. 2, and line i of fig. 3); by way of compensa- 
 tion, however, those of the left member which were 
 imperceptible before the experiment when the member 
 was sensible and capable of movement, become very 
 distinct (line 6 of fig. 2, and line 2 of fig. 3). Simi- 
 larly, when the subject thinks of the number 3, the 
 movements are at the same time considerable in the 
 right, anaesthetic member (line 3, fig. 3) and in the 
 left, anaesthetic member (line 4, fig. 3). 
 
 If we seek to collect the signification of these trac- 
 
54 
 
 OiV DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 Fig. 3. — Experiment with P. S , hemian£esthetic, on the right side. 
 
 Lines i and 2 are a repetition of the experiment recorded by the tracings 5 
 and 6 of the second figure. Line 3 corresponds to the automatic movements 
 of the right arm while the subject is thinking of the numbers. Line 4, taken 
 simultaneously, corresponds to the automatic movements of the left, paralyzed 
 arm. Lines 5 and 6 were taken after the suppression of the paralysis and 
 while the subject was listening to the beats of the metronome; line 5 corre- 
 spends to the right, ancESthetic arm, and line 6 to the left arm, again become 
 sensible. The lines are to be read from left to right. Minimum velocity of 
 cylinder. 
 
THE EMPLOYMENT OF THE GRAPHIC METHOD. 55 
 
 ings, we shall see, in effect, that when suggestion has 
 stricken the left member with paralysis, which pre- 
 viously continued sensible, two simultaneous facts are 
 produced : its voluntary activity has diminished in in- 
 tensity, to the extent that the voluntary contractions 
 are hardly perceptible, and at the sam.e time its au- 
 tomatic activity has increased correspondingly, as 
 though there were a sort of antagonism between the 
 two functions. In other words, by creating anaesthesia 
 through suggestion in a region of the body, the province 
 of the second personality has been extended. 
 
 But it is curious to remark that the field of action 
 of this second personality is always limited ; it cannot 
 simultaneously produce movements equally precise 
 in the right and left members. For instance, when 
 the subject thinks of the number 3, one arm will bet- 
 ter express by its movements the figure thought of, 
 than the other (cf. line 3 and 4 of fig. 3); as if the at- 
 tention of the second personality could not be brought 
 to bear at the same time upon both arms. This is an- 
 other circumstance that the graphic method alone 
 could reveal. 
 
 We shall confine ourselves to these few summary 
 observations. It is not our intention to linger over 
 the detailed description of experimental facts, but only 
 to point out the principle of a new method adapted to 
 the scientific study of automatic writing and analogous 
 phenomena. It is much to be desired that those who 
 have occasion to study automatic writing in normal 
 persons, or in those who pretend to be such, will sub 
 ject the movements performed by these individuals to 
 the control of the graphic method. 
 
THE INTENSITY OF SUB-CONSCIOUS STATES. 
 
 In this new chapter of our study of the doubling of 
 consciousness I propose to enter upon an exceedingly 
 delicate problem, and one that is of the greatest im- 
 portance to psychology. At the Paris Congress of 
 Physiological Psychology recently, I raised a discus- 
 sion upon the subject in question, and for the benefit 
 of the readers of this review, I now desire again to 
 set forth the opinion I hold and the experiments I 
 have instituted ; at the same time profiting by the va- 
 rious remarks and objections that have been addressed 
 to me by other physiologists. 
 
 The problem that I seek to solve is, to understand 
 how and why in hysterical patients a division of con- 
 sciousness takes place. Not to present the question in 
 too abstract a form, I shall recall to mind a few ex- 
 periments that once again may better convey the idea 
 of what this so-called doubling of consciousness 
 really is. 
 
 We have repeatedly seen that in hysterical anaes- 
 thesia sensation is preserved and may reappear in a 
 secondary consciousness, distinct from the principal 
 consciousness. The observations that we have hitherto 
 published related to the sense of touch. We showed, 
 in this way, that an anaesthetic hand, hidden behind a 
 screen, would take a pen or pair of scissors, which had 
 been brought into contact with it, and with these 
 
THE INTENSITY OF SUBCONSCIOUS STATES. 57 
 
 several objects would perform various intelligent move- 
 ments ; which proved not only that the contact of the 
 objects in question had been perceived, but that even 
 their nature and functions had been recognized. To 
 these observations we are now able to add still others, 
 which show, that also the sensation of pain may be 
 preserved. Two subjects I observed revealed in one 
 half of their bodies a total insensibility to punctures, 
 pressure, burning, — in short, to the most varied kinds 
 of painful sensations ; but when we put a lighted 
 match into the anaesthetic hand, the fingers would 
 draw back from the flame in proportion as the latter 
 advanced, and would finally relax, allowing the match 
 to fall to the ground. Pain caused by burning, accord- 
 ingly, is actually felt in an apparently anaesthetic limb ; 
 there even existed, it seemed, a certain prevision of 
 pain and corresponding defensive movements ; yet all 
 this did not reach the principal consciousness of the 
 subject ; the sensations and movements of the anaes- 
 thetic limb, by grouping themselves together, formed a 
 secondary consciousness, which in its development did 
 not amalgamate with the main consciousness. I must 
 add, that, according to my own experience, it is less 
 easy to impress on the anaesthetic regions a sensation 
 of pain than a sensation of touch ; with most subjects 
 the anaesthetic hand which is able to adjust itself in 
 adaptation to familiar objects, does not seem to feel the 
 sensation of pain caused by a burning match, and 
 does not perform any defensive movement to avoid it. 
 
 I trust that the details given in regard to the divi- 
 sion of consciousness in hysterical subjects, will suffice 
 to impart a perceptible form to the problem that we 
 are endeavoring to solve. That problem is, to find out 
 why sensations provoked in an anaesthetic region do 
 
58 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 not reach the principal consciousness of the patient ; 
 indeed, our wonder is all the greater that the sensa- 
 tions in question should be perceived by another ego, 
 and should provoke appropriate movements. In other 
 words, the question we ask is, what are the psycho- 
 physiological conditions that determine the formation 
 of a second consciousness ? Having put the question 
 before the reader, we shall, for the sake of greater 
 clearness, at once point out the solution we propose. 
 
 It is a matter of observation, as we shall presently 
 show, that if among sensations belonging to the same 
 organ of sense, (for example, to touch or to sight,) 
 some belong to one consciousness and others to a dif- 
 ferent consciousness, there will exist among such sen- 
 sations a difference of intensity. We are unable in 
 cases of hemi-ansesthesis to demonstrate this fact di- 
 rectly ; for it is utterly impossible to compare with 
 one another, from the point of view of intensity, the 
 tactile sensations of any two, sensible and insen- 
 sible, parts of a body; because each of the conscious- 
 nesses knows but one of these two groups of sensa- 
 tions. We may, however, take a roundabout way, 
 and resort to an artifice based upon the following fact, 
 that in cases in which the hysterical patient presents 
 an approximatively regular hemi-anaesthesis, the or- 
 gans of sense situated in the insensible half will share 
 the anaesthesis to a less degree than the skin will ; thus, 
 the eye may reveal a loss of the perception of cer- 
 tain colors, or a concentrical contraction of the nor- 
 mal field of colors. It is, accordingly, possible to in- 
 stitute comparative experiments upon the sensibility 
 of the healthy eye, and likewise upon that of the eye 
 on the anaesthetic side, with the view of ascertaining 
 whether the sensations caused in both eyes by a same 
 
THE INTENSITY OF SUBCONSCIOUS STATES. 59 
 
 excitant exhibit differences of quality or of intensity. 
 The two following experiments seem to furnish an an- 
 swer to this question. 
 
 M. Charpentier has demonstrated, that a minimum 
 of perceptible color exists, depending upon the extent 
 of the stimulated part of the retina. The same fact 
 is verified in the hysterical patient, 5mt on a much ex- 
 aggerated scale, for in order that an hysterical person 
 may be able to perceive a color, the colored surface 
 must be larger than is required for the normal eye. 
 Now, it is highly important to be able to establish that 
 the chromatic minimum is not the same for both eyes. 
 Let us take an example. To perform the experiments, 
 it is not necessary to employ pure colors, since the 
 main fact of importance lies in the comparison of the 
 two eyes. Thus, in the case of Dem . . . . , a hemi- 
 anaesthetical patient on the right side, a piece of red 
 paper, to be perceived as such by the right anaesthet- 
 ical eye, had to be at least six millimetres square, 
 while in the case of the left eye two millimetres square 
 is a sufficient size. It is thus seen that the quantity 
 of excitation necessary for the production of the sen- 
 sation of red is not the same for both eyes. This is 
 not a matter of interpretation, but the actual fact 
 itself; whence, it appears, we may conclude with a 
 certain degree of probability, that if to both eyes we 
 apply one and the same excitant, the sensation pro- 
 duced on the sensible side will possess a greater in- 
 tensity than that produced on the anaesthetical side.* 
 
 A second experiment, likewise performed upon the 
 sense of vision, yields a result which, in my opinion. 
 
 * M. Parinaud, director of the opthalmoscopic department at the “ Sal- 
 petri^re,” has verified the same fact in a slightly different form. (Anesthesie 
 de la retine, Bruxelles, 1886.) 
 
6o 
 
 OM DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 leads to an analogous interpretation. We know that 
 when we present simultaneously to each of both eyes 
 two surfaces representing different colors, there is pro- 
 voked what is called a conflict, an antagonism of the 
 visual field. If, for example, we present to the right 
 eye a red back-ground, and to the left eye a green 
 one, the observer will perceive a field which seems 
 alternately red and green. I have attempted to repro- 
 duce this experiment with hysterical subjects, by em- 
 ploying certain colored glasses, that have kindly been 
 lent me by M. Ch. Henry. I have used only glasses 
 the color of which my patients could perceive with 
 both eyes. In hemi-ansesthetic hysterical subjects, 
 submitted to my investigation, I have established the 
 fact, that there is not produced a concurrence of the 
 visual fields, as in normal individuals ; the color placed 
 before the eye of the sensible side is the only one 
 perceived. If, for example, into the frame of a pair 
 of spectacles we insert a red glass and a green glass, 
 which are almost complementary and, when super- 
 posed, extinguish each other, the subject will only 
 perceive the color of the glass placed before the eye of 
 greater sensibility ; he thus only perceives red in the 
 one instance, and green in the other. Like the former 
 example, this new experiment seems to me to demon- 
 strate, that, given an equal degree of excitation, the 
 sensations of the sensible eye will present a greater 
 intensity than those of the anaesthetic eye. 
 
 This conclusion might be further strengthened by 
 researches that I have recently made with reference to 
 the times of reaction in visual excitations. The times 
 are longer when the excitation is performed upon the 
 anaesthetic eye ; which seems again to prove, that the 
 sensation of this eye, for any one excitation, is of a 
 
THE INTENSITY OE SUBCONSCIOUS STATES. 6i 
 
 less intensity than that of the sensible eye. M. Fer6 
 has made observations on the times of reaction to tac- 
 tile excitations, in cases of incomplete anaesthesias of 
 the skin, and has obtained similar results. 
 
 In the researches of which I have just given a con- 
 densed exposition, we have hitherto compared the 
 sensations produced in a sensible region and those 
 produced in an anaesthetic region from the point of 
 view of intensity only. If the conclusion derived — 
 although provisorily — from these first researches is cor- 
 rect, we ought to be able to generalize it, and to as- 
 sume in advance, that if we progressively diminish the 
 intensity of an excitant that acts upon the more sen- 
 sible organ, there must arrive a point at which the 
 sensation is sufficiently diminished in intensity as no 
 longer to form a part of the secondary consciousness, 
 but become sub-conscious, as are the sensations of the 
 anaesthetic regions. 
 
 And experiments, indeed, completely confirm this 
 prediction. Here again we are by preference referred 
 to visual excitants, in order, as far as possible, to 
 obtain precise and mensurable results. 
 
 We have, in fact, already discussed the experiment 
 required, in our study of the hysterical eye, — for which 
 see page 30 et seqq. We have seen, that if we place 
 an hysterical person before a graduated scale of let- 
 ters, the writing of the insensible hand, unknown to 
 the subject, is able to reproduce diminutive letters that 
 the subject himself cannot see. Now, it is easy to es- 
 tablish here, that a difference of intensity exists between 
 the sensations forming part of the two consciousnesses. 
 
 The word intensity, I well know, has, when applied 
 to sensations, a rather uncertain sense. But we call 
 attention to the fact, that the intensity of visual sen- 
 
62 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 sation here corresponds to an objective fact, suscep- 
 tible of measurement — the size, namely, of the retinal 
 image; and all things being otherwise equal, it is al- 
 lowable to say, that to the largest retinal image cor- 
 responds the most intense visual sensation. Now, just 
 as when we diminish the retinal image — through the 
 choice of ever smaller letters — a point arrives where 
 the size of the image becomes insufficient to allow of 
 reading, but nevertheless is sufficient to determine au- 
 tomatic writing, it is manifest, that the principal dif- 
 ference existing in this case between the sensations of 
 the two consciousnesses, is a difference of intensity. 
 
 This second series of experiments reaches, we see, 
 the same conclusion as the former. We shall pres- 
 ently expound still others, which belong to an entirely 
 different order. 
 
 Among the most curious and important facts that 
 have recently been discovered in the domain of phys- 
 iological psychology, we must mention the phenomena 
 of dynamogeny, as produced in hyperexcitable sub- 
 jects under the influence of peripheral excitations, 
 that is to say, of sensations of every kind. M. Fere, 
 who long has studied these dynamogenetic actions of 
 sensations, has demonstrated that they make them- 
 selves felt not only upon the movements, but upon the 
 sensibility, upon circulation and the other physiolog- 
 ical functions.* 
 
 These psycho-mechanical experiments can furnish 
 a fresh argument in support of the thesis we advance ; 
 showing, that if the sensations we provoke in an 
 anaesthetic limb, do not reach as far as the principal 
 consciousness of the subject, it is caused by lack of 
 intensity. In fact, when we subject the limb or the in- 
 
 ^ Sensation et Mouvement. Paris: F(5Iix Alcan. 
 
THE INTENSITY OF SUBCONSCIOUS STATES. 63 
 
 sensible region to the influence of a dynamogenetic 
 agent, as a magnet or to electricity, the sensations pro- 
 voked in this limb become conscious according as the 
 power of dynamometric pressure is increased ; there 
 is, accordingly, probably produced the same augmen- 
 tation of intensity in the psycho-sensorial process, as 
 in the psycho-motory process. 
 
 If there remained any doubt in regard to the pre- 
 ceding interpretation, such doubts, I trust, would be 
 destroyed by the recital of a somewhat complex exper- 
 iment upon the visual organ, which I have performed 
 
 upon several patients, and notably with L. L ■. Let 
 
 us again place this subject before the black-board with 
 its scale of written letters. The patient’s visual acu- 
 ity, as previously stated, is equal to 0-5 : the visual 
 acuity, revealed by the automatic writing, is a trifle 
 higher, it is equal to 075. If, while the subject is at- 
 tempting to decipher the letters, we subject him to a 
 dynamogenetic excitation, such as a simple pressure 
 upon the anaesthetic hand, the visual acuity of the con- 
 scious subject increases, it becomes equal to 075, 
 and, consequently, equal to that which guides the au- 
 tomatic writing. We are able to interpret this first 
 result by asserting, that peripheral excitation renders 
 conscious to the principal subject certain visual sen- 
 sations, in that it augments their intensity. 
 
 But the most curious fact that occurs in this ex- 
 periment is the following. This same dynamogenetic 
 excitation exerts its influence upon the visual acuity 
 that is in connection with the automatic writing. The 
 measurement of this visual acuity shows even, that it 
 can become equal to unity, namely, to that of a normal 
 eye ; the acuity of conscious perception remains less, 
 and only attains 075. 
 
64 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 It is really interesting to note, that a given periph- 
 eral excitation, which suffices to provoke automatic 
 writing, is not competent to provoke the conscious 
 perception of the principal ego. In other words, a 
 degree of sensorial intensity sufficient to provoke au- 
 tomatic writing, does not suffice to provoke conscious 
 perception ; which proves once again, that there exists 
 a difference of intensity between the psychological phe- 
 nomena of the two consciousnesses. 
 
 All the experiments above expounded are sus- 
 ceptible of a very simple counter-proof. Up to this 
 point we have seen, that in most cases we are able to 
 render a sensation sub-conscious, by diminishing the 
 quantity of excitation, or, inversely, to render a sen- 
 sation conscious by augmenting the quantity of exci- 
 tation. We have not operated directly upon the ele- 
 ment of consciousness. 
 
 Hypnotic suggestion enables us to modify this ele- 
 ment, to suppress it when it exists, or to create it, when 
 it is lacking. By this means we are able to ascertain 
 whether the conscious phenomenon corresponds to a 
 definitely determined degree of intensity of the phys- 
 iological phenomenon that serves as its foundation. 
 Upon this point, I have performed, in association with 
 M. Fer6, an experiment which seems to me decisive. 
 The experiment in question was conducted with an 
 hypnotisable, hysterical woman, who when she volun- 
 tarily pressed the dynamometer in the state of rest in- 
 dicated on it the number 20, and when she pressed 
 the instrument while looking at a red-colored surface, 
 the cipher 40. With this subject an hypnotic sugges- 
 tion suppresses for a moment the conscious vision of 
 the red. Again, invited to press the dynamometer, 
 while looking at the red surface, which to the subject 
 
THE INTENSITY OF SUBCONSCIOUS STATES. 65 
 
 seems grey, she no longer indicates 40, but a number 
 slightly higher than her normal figure. This experi- 
 ment demonstrates to us, that the suppression of con- 
 sciousness is equivalent to a diminution of intensity in 
 the corresponding physiological process. 
 
 And this conclusion, which we have already reached 
 a number of times, seems to me to deserve an earnest 
 consideration ; but, in order to be well understood, it 
 needs to be made precise. In short, the experiments 
 that we have recapitulated only seem to prove one 
 thing, viz. : that a sensation having been given, whether 
 visual, tactilp, auditive or other, if we diminish its in- 
 tensity, it is no longer perceived by the principal con- 
 sciousness, but may be discovered in a secondary 
 consciousness. A difference of intensity, accordingly, 
 can serve to explain how a tactile sensation a belongs 
 to the first consciousness, and a tactile sensation ^ be- 
 longs to the second. 
 
 But, when the sensations are of a different class, 
 this comparison of intensity becomes altogether in- 
 sufficient. Thus, there are subjects who will perceive 
 an electric current in a member where they have lost 
 the sensation of mechanical pressure, or of puncture, 
 of heat, or of cold. Evidently we cannot explain this 
 disassociation by saying that electric sensation is more 
 intense than other sensations, because frequently the 
 very subjects that are insensible to the strongest punc- 
 tures, are able to feel even the faintest galvanic current, 
 and moreover no standard of comparison is really pos- 
 sible between things that are so widely different. But 
 let us call attention to the fact, that if the explanation 
 we have proposed, encounters at this point a limit, — a 
 fact which merely proves that it is not general, — never- 
 theless, we are able to establish that the notion of 
 
66 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 quantity and of intensity maintains its importance, 
 even in experiments of the kind referred to. There 
 are, in fact, many hysterical subjects who do not per- 
 ceive the electrical excitation at the first instant it is 
 applied to the insensible skin ; but if the excitation is 
 continued for a few moments, it most frequently hap- 
 pens that sensibility to the electrical current will be 
 aroused under the form of a painful sensation ; which 
 proves beyond question, that a certain quantity of 
 electrical excitation is needed in order to arouse con- 
 scious sensation, and that quality is not the paramount 
 factor. 
 
 In conclusion I shall emphasize a psychological 
 aspect, which appears to me of a certain importance. 
 
 I do not believe that a difference of intensity between 
 two sensations of the same sense ipso facto justifies 
 their distribution into two different consciousnesses. 
 It is further necessary, that the sensation, however 
 faint, should not possess an interest, a practical im- 
 portance that might attract the attention of the sub- 
 ject, and by that very fact augment the intensity of 
 the sensation in question. 
 
 The hysterical subject, as I, with many other ob- 
 servers, conceive him, is an exhausted subject. The 
 slightest effort is painful to him, and he thus seeks to 
 husband his forces. Like all of us, he experiences a 
 vast number of sensations, differing both In their inten- 
 sity and quality . He makes a selection from among all 
 these sensations, because he finds it too fatiguing to 
 perceive them all. Generally speaking, he more care- 
 fully preserves visual sensations than tactile sensa- 
 tions, because he can less easily dispense with the 
 
 *M. Pierre Janet, k propos of my communication to the Paris Congress 
 had advanced an opinion which closely agrees with the one I set forth. 
 
THE INTENSITY OF SUBCONSCIOUS STATES. 67 
 
 former ; and in a given order of sensations, he pre- 
 serves the most intense sensations, because the latter 
 are perceived with the least effort of adaptation of the 
 sensory organ. Such, in my opinion, is the rather in- 
 direct role of the intensity of sensation in the division 
 of consciousness. 
 
 It is because feeble sensations are difficult to collect 
 and to arrange, because they exact greater attention 
 and greater effort, that the subject neglects them and 
 that they form secondary consciousnesses. The divi- 
 sion of consciousness, it seems to me, is chiefly ex- 
 plainable by the mental habitudes peculiar to the in- 
 dividual. 
 
THE ROLE OF SUGGESTION IN PHENOMENA 
 OF DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 We shall conclude our investigation of the subject 
 of double consciousness, by attempting to define ac- 
 curately the relations existing between the phenom- 
 ena treated of and those of suggestion. The subject 
 of suggestion has been extensively and carefully studied, 
 of late years, in France. At the present day, the facts 
 of this department are the best known and the least 
 discussed. They are daily reproduced in our hospitals 
 upon subjects of the most diverse characters; and 
 they will undoubtedly soon take their place in the cur- 
 rent practice of medicine. Some writers, of a type of 
 mind too prone to generalization, have exaggerated 
 the importance of suggestion, and are determined to 
 find suggestion at every turn ; they have asserted even, 
 that suggestion is the sole cause and key of all phys- 
 ical and moral phenomena capable of being provoked 
 in hypnotized subjects. 
 
 Owing to repeated experiments, it is comparatively 
 easy to give a fairly precise definition of suggestion ; 
 and such a definition is absolutely necessary if we de- 
 sire to avoid the error committed by many writers who 
 have come to explain everything by suggestion only 
 because they confound under this convenient term 
 things that are quite different. First of all, suggestion 
 implies, in the majority of cases, the setting into ac- 
 
SUGGESTION IN DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 69 
 
 tivity of the intellect of the subject ; it is pre-eminently 
 a psychological phenomenon. When a hypnotized sub- 
 ject, for example, is told that there is a snake or a 
 bird in front of him, and when, following thereupon, 
 he fancies he sees a serpent crawling at his feet, or a 
 bird flying in the air, this constitutes a suggestion, 
 for, to provoke the hallucination, an appeal has been 
 made to the intellect of the patient. The same result 
 may be reached without making use of words to con- 
 vey to the subject the thought in question : oftentimes 
 a simple gesture, a sign, an attitude, or even the form 
 of the experiment, are sufficient to apprise the subject 
 of what the experimenter wishes ; and the thought that 
 the latter has in mind is often hit upon and carried 
 into execution by the subject with a rapidity and a sa- 
 gacity that are astonishing. In this phenomenon we 
 come upon one of the greatest obstacles and one of 
 the most easily committed errors attending psycholog- 
 ical experiments with hypnotized subjects. 
 
 A second feature of suggestion, at least in the ma- 
 jority of cases, is the assumption of an influence exerted 
 by one person upon another. The subject of the sug- 
 gestion is at the orders of the experimenter ; he listens, 
 he appropriates the latter’s thought, he feels every- 
 thing the experimenter desires him to feel, obeys every 
 wish and every caprice the experimenter entertains. 
 The instances of resistance offered, frequently met 
 with, are evidence of incomplete hypnotization or of 
 incomplete suggestion. Of the observations that firmly 
 establish this passive obedience on the part of the sub- 
 ject, I shall cite that of M. Richet which I deem very 
 remarkable. The experiment was conducted with one 
 of his friends, whom, after having been put to sleep, 
 M. Richet compelled to pick up, twenty times in sue- 
 
70 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 cession, a piece of chalk that he kept throwing under 
 the table. 
 
 Such is what contemporary authors understand by 
 suggestion. The notion currently entertained thereof 
 may be explained by putting it into such a form as this, 
 namely, that it is the setting into activity of the intel- 
 lect of a subject by another person, who exerts upon 
 the subject a power more or less absolute. 
 
 I have no hesitation in declaring, for my part, that 
 a definition of this sort is beyond question insufficient 
 and that it would be unsafe to accept it it is much 
 too broad ; it comprehends too many facts ; it com- 
 prises, in effect, all psychology, and on this score every 
 psychological phenomenon becomes a phase of sug- 
 gestion — a state of affairs that would divest words of 
 their worth and complicate all questions involved. 
 With a very few authors, among them M. Pierre Janet 
 for example, I hold that we must restrict the term sug- 
 gestion to cases, precisely determined, in which a sub- 
 ject carries into effect a given phenomenon because he 
 has previously had the idea of it. He has conceived the 
 phenomenon, he has willed it, or at least he has given 
 it his adhesion, and he carries it out. Such is sugges- 
 tion. For example, we tell him to steal a handkerchief ; 
 he understands what we require of him, and does it. 
 Or perhaps, we tell him that his picture is drawn upon 
 a sheet of white paper ; he understands what is told 
 him, he represents to himself the portrait and believes 
 he sees it. In all these cases, we establish, when we 
 analyze them, the fact that the subject is conscious of 
 the end that he pursues and that the experimenter has 
 indicated it to him. 
 
 A psychologist will have no difficulty in recognizing 
 that suggestion, understood in the sense last indicated. 
 
SUGGESTION Ilsr DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 71 
 
 pre-supposes a great number of intellectual elements. 
 It appeals, in the first place, to the functions of per- 
 ception, then to the functions of ideation, of compre- 
 hension ; the entire intelligence can, in certain cases, 
 intervene in the shape of reasoning, of memory, and 
 of imagination ; and finally, the will, the emotions, the 
 entire personality of the subject may play a part in it, 
 be it by engaging in the suggestion, be it through 
 modifying the same, or in opposing it. Suggestion 
 clearly represents an intellectual activity that is ex- 
 tremely elevated and complex. 
 
 But it is plain that all the manifestations of the 
 mind can not be referred to a phenomenon of this 
 kind, as type. Every one possesses, within the sphere 
 of his psychological life, acts of a more simple, of a 
 more elementary order ; and these more elementary 
 acts must, in hypnotized subjects, plainly be retained. 
 The following are instances of such acts. If some one 
 sharply strike our knee, at the tendon just below the 
 cap, while our legs are crossed, we will suddenly lift 
 and extend the leg outward ; if a person, behind us, 
 strike, unawares, a vigorous blow with a stick upon a 
 Chinese gong, we will be stunned by the deafening 
 sound for which we were unprepared, and will make a 
 gesture of surprise or of fright, or wa will give forth a 
 cry. We have here, it may be said, elementary psy- 
 chological phenomena ; which do not contain a trace 
 of suggestion, for we have not had the idea or the in- 
 tention of making a movement of our leg before receiv- 
 ing the blow at the knee, or the idea of crying out be- 
 fore having heard the noise made by the gong. Now 
 the fact that these phenomena are produced in hyp- 
 notized subjects is no reason that they should alter in 
 
72 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 character, and we believe, accordingly, that suggestion 
 does not comprehend all psychological phenomena. 
 
 The reader is now well enough acquainted with the 
 subject to understand why it is insufficient to explain 
 everything that takes place in hypnotized subjects by 
 invoking the hackneyed term suggestion. “Sugges- 
 tion,” people say. And that suffices for all purposes, 
 that explains everything, and like the panacea of the 
 ancients it cures everything. As a matter of fact, 
 theories of suggestion, thus invoked, amount to noth- 
 ing less than make-shifts to save people the trouble 
 of serious and delicate investigation. 
 
 We have now come to the especial subject of our 
 inquiries. Without doubt, we shall find here sugges- 
 tion ; but it is not suggestion that explains the divi- 
 sion of consciousness in hysterical patients, at least the 
 spontaneous division observable in persons affected 
 with anaesthesia. Far from being the cause of the 
 division of consciousness, it is its effect. This latter 
 idea was first propounded by M. Pierre Janet, and ap- 
 pears to me eminently correct. A word will suffice to 
 elucidate it. 
 
 Suggestion, when successful, consists of an idea 
 impressed upon a person and reigning dominant in the 
 consciousness of that person ; reason, critical powers, 
 and will are impotent to restrain it. If a subject be- 
 lieves he is holding a bird upon his knee, in conse- 
 quence of the simple fact that I have told him so, the 
 conclusion evidently is that he has lost the power of 
 controlling, examining, and judging the ideas given 
 him. For suggestion to develop itself, accordingly, it 
 is necessary that the subject’s field of consciousness do 
 not contain too many antagonistic ideas. Now, it is 
 exactly this psychological situation that is found realiz- 
 
SUGGESTION IIV DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 73 
 
 ed in the duplication of consciousness. As a conse- 
 quence of such a phenomenon of bipartition, each of 
 the consciousnesses occupies a more narrow and more 
 limited field than if there existed one single conscious- 
 ness containing all the ideas of the subject. This re- 
 trenchment of the field of consciousness constitutes 
 what is called suggestibility. 
 
 We are able, to a certain extent, to test directly the 
 exactitude of the interpretation indicated, by recur- 
 ring anew to the experiments set forth in our previous 
 articles. When an hysterical subject presents an 
 anaesthesia of half of the body, the sensations received 
 into that half form, as we have seen, a consciousness 
 distinct from the principal consciousness. Now, in 
 many subjects, this second consciousness appears to 
 occupy a field of activity much more limited than the 
 principal consciousness, for the suggestions given it 
 are executed in a more automatic manner. For ex- 
 ample, let us command the subject, that is to say, the 
 principal consciousness, to take a pen and to write his 
 name; perhaps the subject will obey our injunction, 
 but it is also possible that he will resist it, and that in 
 the waking state he will be very slightly susceptible 
 to suggestion ; the field of his consciousness includes 
 a certain number of antagonistic ideas against wrych 
 a struggle must ensue, and over which victory is not 
 always certain. But the case is quite different when, 
 without saying a word to the subject, we slip a pen 
 into his anaesthetic hand, and make him trace a word 
 behind a screen ; the anaesthetic hand, in the majority 
 of subjects, does not hesitate to re-write the word ; in- 
 deed, it will write it successively a great many times 
 — proving the limited power of initiative of the impov- 
 erished consciousness that receives the sensations of 
 
74 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 the anaesthetic member. This incessant repetition of 
 the same graphical movement has been discovered in 
 several pathological cases, and the name of “verbige- 
 ration ” has been given it. This absence of the power 
 of initiative action is indeed so great that in the major- 
 ity of subjects that I have studied, a suggestion of con- 
 duct or action through the intermediary agency of the 
 anaesthetic hand could not possibly be effected. If 
 we cause to be written by the anaesthetic hand the 
 orders “ Cough,” “Sing,” “ Get up,” the hand will 
 reproduce automatically the order written, but the act 
 suggested will not be carried into execution. This 
 circumstance shows us that the phenomena of auto- 
 matic imitation constitute an inferior psychological 
 life. 
 
 M. Pierre Janet, whom I have frequently cited — 
 for he has pushed his investigations very far upon this 
 particular question and his conclusions often coincide 
 with my own — has discovered an interesting method 
 of utilizing this especial suggestibility produced by the 
 division of consciousness. Although 1 have no inclin- 
 ation, on this occasion, to occupy myself with anything 
 that relates to the practice of medicine, I may neverthe- 
 less point out that our researches in the province 
 of psychology may in case of necessity possess a very 
 great advantage for patients and contribute greatly to 
 the treatment of their diseases. 
 
 Up to this point I have investigated only that divi- 
 sion of consciousness that is spontaneous, that pre- 
 exists in subjects before any sort of experiment is in- 
 stituted. M. Janet has invented an ingenious means 
 of effecting an artificial division ; it consists in distract- 
 ing the attention of the subject while some one is talk- 
 ing to him. For example, we take advantage of a 
 
SUGGESTION IN DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 75 
 
 moment when the subject is chatting with some other 
 person, or is absorbed perhaps in a fascinating book, 
 to talk to him in a low voice ; whereupon a mental 
 bipartition is produced ; one part of the subject’s mind 
 is conversing with the first-mentioned person, and 
 another part with the second. Two distinct conscious- 
 nesses are thus formed, and each one is wholly occu- 
 pied with the task before it. The suggestions that can 
 be induced in this manner in a subject divided by 
 distraction, are much more efficacious than direct sug- 
 gestions ; they have, in addition, the advantage of 
 being capable of accomplishment without it being 
 necessary to put the subject to sleep, and we warmly 
 recommend this class to all those who seek to alleviate 
 the diseases of hysterical patients. 
 
DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS IN HEALTH* 
 
 The preceding experiments have been made with 
 hysterical ‘subjects’. It has seemed to me useful to 
 try if I could obtain analogous results in subjects that 
 are normal — or nearly so, for, of course, the normal 
 type has only an ideal existence. It is certain that, if 
 we succeed in seizing in a healthy individual the least 
 degree of the phenomena of duplication which are so 
 developed in the hysterical, a solid basis will be given 
 to the psychological study of double consciousness ; 
 each observer being put in a position to check all the 
 facts advanced. I have made my investigations on 
 five persons, wHo have been kind enough to submit 
 themselves patiently to very long, very minute, and 
 very monotonous experiments. So that, proceeding 
 from the results obtained and set forth in the forego- 
 ing pages, we shall now endeavor to find out whether 
 the phenomena of the duplication of consciousness are 
 to be met with in non-hysterical subjects. 
 
 * 
 
 * * 
 
 The persons on whom I have experimented are 
 two ladies of fifty, a lady of thirty, and two of twenty- 
 five years of age. One lady of fifty is ataxical ; the lady 
 of thirty is decidedly anaemic ; otherwise, all of them 
 enjoy good health. They have little intellectual cul- 
 
 * This article first appeared in Mind, No. LVII, from which with the 
 permission of the publishers it has been reprinted. 
 
DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS IN HEALTH. 
 
 77 
 
 ture, are completely ignorant of the aim of the experi- 
 ments, and know, of course, nothing of researches on 
 double consciousness or the like. I sat with each of 
 them, on an average, six times, for three-quarters of 
 an hour. The phenomena became gradually more 
 marked, and without doubt would become still more 
 so if the treatment were pushed farther. Lately I 
 have attended to the question whether suggestible 
 persons present a narrowing of the field of conscious- 
 ness, that is to say, a difficulty in occupying themselves 
 with several things at a time."*" I think I may answer 
 that it is not so with those of my subjects who present 
 the most developed automatic phenomena ; in fact, 
 they can do at the same time very complicated things, 
 for example, perform a mental addition, and squeeze, 
 in series of five or six pressures, an india-rubber tube 
 connected with a registering apparatus. I shall return 
 to this question later on. 
 
 A word, first of all, on the experimental conditions 
 selected. When experiments are made on an hyster- 
 ical subject with an insensitive limb, it is relatively 
 easy to submit that limb to excitations of which the 
 subject has no consciousness. If, for example, it is 
 the arm of the subject that is insensible, this is 
 placed behind a screen, the skin is excited without the 
 subject’s perceiving the excitation, and the move- 
 ments — often very intelligent — which the hand and 
 the forearm execute in response to that excitation are 
 produced outside the consciousness of the subject, and 
 prove consequently that there exists in the subject a 
 second consciousness. 
 
 But when the subject of the experiments has not 
 the least insensibility, it is necessary to change the 
 
 * Pierre Janet, V Automatisme psychologique , p. 456. 
 
78 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 method. If his hand, placed behind the screen, is 
 touched, he feels that it is touched, and the move- 
 ment by which he responds to this sensation is equally 
 conscious ; there is no double consciousness there. 
 To evoke double consciousness, it is therefore neces- 
 sary to render the subject insensible to the excitations 
 brought to bear upon his limb, and, for that purpose, 
 to distract him by occupying him otherwise ; distrac- 
 tion, as M. Pierre Janet has well shown, being a trans- 
 itory ansesthesia. 
 
 I therefore requested my subjects — to whom, of 
 course, no explanation was given of what was going 
 to be done — to seat themselves before a table and 
 leave their right hands to me, while I gave them 
 something interesting to read. In these conditions 
 one fact first showed itself which is worthy of remark. 
 If the hand of one of my subjects was pricked while she 
 was reading attentively, the sensation was less well 
 perceived than when the subject, without looking at 
 her hand, was told that she was going to be pricked and 
 was prepared to receive the sensation ; for example, 
 the separation necessary for the two points of a com- 
 pass to be felt as double was greater in the first case. 
 This, then, is anaesthesia by distraction ; it is fugitive, 
 passing deceptive, — but it exists. 
 
 I could render it stronger by means of an artifice. 
 Provoking different movements in the limb experi- 
 mented on, I requested the subject to execute no 
 movement, to leave her hand, for example, completely 
 motionless and relaxed, and at the same time made 
 her believe that it was I who, by slight pushes on the 
 pencil or on the hand, made the latter move. Thanks 
 to this little deception, the subject would pay no at- 
 tention to those slight movements of her hand, but 
 
DOUBLE CONSCIOUSN'ESS IN HEALTH. 
 
 79 
 
 attribute them to the experimenter. Evidently these 
 (very delicate) psychological conditions will vary from 
 one subject to another ; but for the moment we need 
 take no account of the variations. 
 
 One of the experiments it appeared to me easiest 
 to effect was that of the repetition of passive move- 
 ments. A pencil being placed in the hand of the sub- 
 ject, who was attentively reading a journal, I made 
 the hand trace a uniform movement, choosing that 
 which it executes with most facility, for example, 
 shadings or curls or little dots. Having communicated 
 these movements for some minutes, I left the hand to 
 itself quite gently ; the hand continued the movement 
 a little. After three or four experiments the repeti- 
 tion of the movement became more perfect, and, with 
 
 Mile. G , for example, at the fourth sitting the 
 
 repetition was so distinct that the hand traced as 
 many as eighty curls without stopping. 
 
 It is for the experimenter to choose with each sub- 
 ject the easiest kind of movement. I find that in gen- 
 eral those movements are easiest that can be executed 
 with a continous siroke. 
 
 In the first experiments, when the hand had been 
 successfully habituated to repeating a certain kind of 
 movement — for example, curls — it was to this kind of 
 movement that it had a tendency to return. If it was 
 made to trace the figure i a hundred times and was 
 afterwards left to itself, the stroke of the figure became 
 rapidly modified, and turned into a curl. This shows 
 well how rudimentary, as yet, was the motor memory 
 that was being developed. 
 
 When any kind of movement had been well re- 
 peated, it could be reproduced without solicitation 
 every time a pen was put in the subject’s hand and 
 
8o 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 she fixed her attention on reading. But if the sub- 
 ject thought attentively of her hand, the movement 
 stopped. 
 
 I have selected graphic movements because they 
 are sufficiently delicate to be produced without awak- 
 ening the attention of the subject, whereas move- 
 ments of flexion and extension impnessed upon the 
 fingers or the wrist would with difficulty pass unper- 
 ceived at the beginning of the experiments. 
 
 Movements of flexion and e»xtension can never- 
 theless be developed, and I have ascertained that it is 
 easier to get a total movement of the wrist repeated 
 automatically than an isolated movement of flexion of 
 one of the fingers. 
 
 When these movements of repetition become very 
 distinct, they may come to be generalized and to 
 appear in the other limb. 
 
 A second observation relates to the influence which 
 the contact of the experimenter exercises on the hand 
 experimented on. With a slight pressure I was able 
 to make the hand go obediently in all directions, car- 
 rying the pen with it. This is not a simple mechanical 
 compulsion, for a very feeble and very short contact 
 is sufficient to bring on a very long movement of the 
 hand. The phenomenon, I believe, can be approx- 
 imated to a rudimentary suggestion by the sense of 
 touch. Nothing is more curious than to see the hand 
 of a person who is awake and thinks she is in full 
 possession of herself implicitly obey the experi- 
 menter’s orders. In these conditions there appears 
 to me to be a partial hypnotisation. 
 
 It sometimes happens that the subject perceives 
 these movements ; but the perception is much less 
 distinct than in the normal state. You can assure 
 
DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS IN HEALTH. 
 
 8i 
 
 yourself of this by requesting the subject to describe 
 exactly the movement she has been made to execute. 
 
 The necessary condition for the preceding reactions 
 is, that attention should not be fixed on the hand and 
 what is taking place there. So far, I have realised 
 this condition by making the subject attend to some- 
 thing else, viz., reading, which is an intellectual oper- 
 ation, having nothing in common with the excitations 
 that produce manual movements. Thanks to this 
 artifice, the excitations, — for example, the contact of 
 the experimenter or the passive movement impressed, 
 — produced their full and entire effect on the psycho- 
 motor centres of the arm, without the attention and 
 will of the subject interfering to modify the reac- 
 ions. 
 
 Curiously, this result can be attained by quite op- 
 posite means. Instead of the attention of the subject 
 being attracted elsewhere, it may be fixed on the par- 
 ticular excitations that are to set going the psycho- 
 motor mechanism of the hand. 
 
 The following is the clearest example that I have 
 been able to establish. Place a metronome before 
 the subject and set it in motion. Let the subject 
 be requested to listen with the greatest attention to 
 the hard sharp sound of the metronome, while the 
 hand holds a pen. Pretty rapidly you can habituate 
 the hand of the subject to trace with the pen little 
 strokesthat follow the rhythm of the metronome. Some 
 persons even attain to doing it spontaneously. 
 
 In this experiment it is sufficient for the subject 
 to listen with attention to the sound in order to cease 
 to perceive the movements produced in the hand by 
 the acoustic excitation. The excitation and the move- 
 ment are nevertheless cause and effect. They are 
 
82 
 
 ON' DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 two elements of the same psycho-motor process ; and 
 a priori it might have been thought that the attention 
 fixed on one of these elements should naturally extend 
 to those associated with it. 
 
 Excitation of the movements of the hand may be 
 produced not only by external sensations, but by ideas 
 that strongly occupy the mind of the subject. If 
 the subject thinks forcibly of a name or of a figure 
 while holding a pen in the hand, and if the experi- 
 menter himself holds the hand of the subject it hap- 
 pens pretty often that the hand executes movements 
 distinct enough for the experimenter to be able to di- 
 vine his subject’s thought. This is the phenomenon 
 of automatic writing, which has been studied at length 
 within the last years. I have nothing new to add, 
 unless it be the remark that concentration of thought 
 on a figure is sufficient to produce a state of distraction 
 from the movements of the hand that is writing the 
 figure. 
 
 The experiment with the metronome gives occasion 
 for a remark as to the effect of attention on the in- 
 tensity of sensations. As long as the subject listens 
 to the beats of the metronome, the rhythmical move- 
 ments of the hand go on. They become much feebler 
 and may even cease completely if the subject is re- 
 quested not to listen any longer, but to think of some- 
 thing else. This observation has already been made on 
 hysterical subjects, and in much better conditions; for 
 the rhythmic movements of the hysterical subject’s in- 
 sensible limb are, as we have seen, so considerable that 
 they translate themselves, when the subject holds an 
 india-rubber tube, into pressures on the tube. We were 
 therefore able to register these movements by the 
 graphic method ; and the tracings obtained show that 
 
DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS IN HEALTH. 
 
 83 
 
 there is a great difference in the extent of the contrac- 
 tions, according as the subject listens with attention 
 to the sound of the metronome or tries not to hear it. 
 
 This experiment on the hysterical, taken along 
 with that which has just been described on healthy 
 subjects, proves, in my opinion, that there is in us a 
 power of augmenting the intensity of an excitation 
 whenever we attend to it. Attention is comparable to 
 will ; it is, in fact, nothing else than will directed to- 
 wards the organs of the senses and the processes of 
 ideation. Just as by the will we can stop a movement 
 or augment its energy, so by attention we can weaken 
 or augment the effect of a peripheral excitation. But 
 I reserve the study of attention for another time. 
 
 My aim here was simply to show that the rudi- 
 ment of those states of double consciousness which we 
 have studied first in the hysterical, may with a little 
 attention be found in normal subjects. This result 
 might have been inferred from the numerous observa- 
 tions on automatic writing which have been made on 
 subjects free from hysteria. Automatic writing is the 
 best known of these facts of double consciousness ; but 
 we have seen that it is not isolated. It is only one in a 
 large class of phenomena, others being the repetition 
 of communicated movements, suggestion by contact, 
 insensibility by distraction, &c. All these phenomena, 
 when brought together, throw light on one another 
 and attest the formation of a centre of consciousness 
 functioning independently of the common centre. My 
 experiments appear to me to demonstrate that many 
 normal subjects, if not all, are apt to have their 
 psycho-motor centres thus disaggregated. 
 
 Of course my experiments were not complicated 
 enough to prove that the psycho-motor centres of the 
 
84 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 hand and arm, which I have caused to act indepen- 
 dently, are accompanied by states of consciousness. 
 
 I have therefore not succeeded in demonstrating 
 double consciousness in healthy as in hysterical sub- 
 jects. I have only established the existence of the 
 first degree of the phenomenon. 
 
 Of the five subjects specially studied, I have only 
 found one — a lady of fifty — who, in spite of repeated 
 experiments, displayed neither automatic writing, nor 
 suggestion of the hand by contact, nor automatic 
 repetition of movements. The only fact observed 
 with this lady is that, when she reads while holding a 
 pen in the position necessary for writing, her right 
 hand insensibly traces with the pen a straight line 
 from left to right. I must add that she declares her- 
 self almost incapable of attentively following her read- 
 ing while experiments are being made on her hand ; 
 her attention, in spite of every effort, goes with curios- 
 ity to her hand and spies out all that is taking place 
 there. 
 
 The four other persons who submitted themselves 
 to my researches displayed the phenomena of double 
 consciousness. In two these phenomena were rudi- 
 mentary ; in the two others they were very developed. 
 According to their own evidence, these four subjects 
 can fix their attention on their reading with sufficient 
 force not to feel anything that is taking place in their 
 hand. 
 
 It seemed to me then that attention was an impor- 
 tant condition of the success of my researches. Accord- 
 ingly, I made the following experiment on my two best 
 subjects. 
 
 I studied first the repetition of passive movements 
 whilst reading was occupying their attention other- 
 
DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS IN HEALTH. 
 
 85 
 
 wise. The repetition was very distinct and developed. 
 It might continue more than a minute without the 
 knowledge of the subject. If, for example, the pencil 
 held in the hand had been made to trace a series of 
 curls, the hand went on of itself to trace as many as 
 a hundred more. 
 
 I now requested the subject to leave off her read- 
 ing, to close her eyes, and to think with all possible 
 attention of what was taking place in her hand. In 
 these new conditions the repetition of passive move- 
 ments appeared to diminish. When I asked the 
 subject to look attentively at her hand while it was 
 being made to trace curls, the movement stopped be- 
 fore it had well begun. The stoppage was here caused 
 by the attention of the subject, by her will ; in short, 
 by all the elements of her personality. 
 
 This is not all. I requested the same subject to 
 resume her reading, and began again to impress 
 movements on her hand. Under the influence of this 
 mental distraction, the repetition of the movement re- 
 appeared ; but it was much less distinct than before. 
 The experiments had somehow instructed the subject, 
 and it is probable that, in spite of the attention she 
 gave to her reading, she watched her hand and pre- 
 vented the movements from taking place. 
 
 At this point I thought of an experiment which 
 has thrown light on the very delicate mechanism of 
 these psycho-motor reactions. Instead of occupying 
 the subject with easy reading, I put before her a long 
 addition-sum, and required her to do it without the 
 smallest mistake. What I had foreseen happened ; 
 repetition of the movements communicated to the 
 hand began again, with a distinctness and a persist- 
 ency which it did not possess during the reading. 
 
86 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 This experiment gave me the key to the problem I 
 was trying to solve. I think I may sum up my last 
 result thus : the state of voluntary distraction produced 
 in the subject by the more exacting operation of ad- 
 dition prevents the consciousness, the attention and 
 the will from inhibiting the movements of the hand. 
 
 A conclusion like this will perhaps, for a superfi- 
 cial reader, have the appearance of a truism, and I 
 should be very glad if it appeared absolutely common- 
 place. But, when examined with care, the facts are 
 seen to be very curious and significant. The experi- 
 ments just described consist essentially in evoking 
 two psycho-physiological processes which have noth- 
 ing in common, such as reading on one side and 
 repetition of a manual movement on the other. In the 
 persons experimented on, the second of these pro- 
 cesses was accomplished better when accompanied 
 by the first. The automatic movements of the hand 
 were only distinct when the subject was at the same 
 time reading or adding up figures. 
 
 This is not like our common experience. In most 
 cases the mind cannot do two different pieces of work 
 at once without one of them suffering and sometimes 
 both. I have been able to establish this as it were de 
 visu in experiments I have been following out for 
 some time on the conflict of states of consciousness. 
 The procedure I have employed — which I shall de- 
 scribe at greater length elsewhere — consists in making 
 a person squeeze an india-rubber tube rhythmically, 
 while reading, or adding up mentally, or the like. 
 The india-rubber tube is connected with a registering 
 apparatus, and the pressures of the hand translate 
 themselves into a tracing of which the slightest irreg- 
 ularities can be detected. Now this tracing is fre- 
 
DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS IN HEALTH. 
 
 87 
 
 quently irregular in the parts that coincide with the 
 reading or addition •, and the irregularities are the 
 more marked the more difficult and complicated the 
 mental labor which the subject is asked to perform. 
 
 This result, compared with that which I obtained 
 in my experiments on automatic movements, is soon 
 shown to be its inverse, and apparently its contra- 
 dictory. The more the subject is distracted (by read- 
 ing, mental calculation, &c.) the more irregular 
 become the voluntary movements of the hand trans- 
 mitted to the india-rubber tube \ and, if the distraction 
 is very intense, these movements may cease com- 
 pletely. On the contrary, the more distracted the 
 subject is, the more regular and considerable become 
 the automatic movements of the hand. The contrast 
 is quite striking. 
 
 I am in no haste to generalize these results. I 
 only state what took place in my subjects. 
 
 The explanation of the difference observed between 
 the conditions of voluntary movement and those 
 of automatic movement, however, appears to me a 
 comparatively easy matter. When a person is asked 
 to do two things at a time — to read a book, for exam- 
 ple, and to execute some manual task — two motor 
 impulses are evoked which start from the same per- 
 sonality, from the same focus of consciousness. For it 
 is the same person that is charged to do the two things 
 at once, — to divide his attention and will between the 
 two things. This coexistence of the two operations 
 must evidently make each separately less perfect. The 
 more attention each exacts because of its complexity, 
 the more both will have to suffer from being carried 
 on together. 
 
 On the contrary, when an automatic action is 
 
88 
 
 ON DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 evoked in one of the limbs by a stratagem — when the 
 hand is forced, for example, to execute certain move- 
 ments without consciousness — it is not the conscious 
 personality of the subject that is appealed to. His 
 conscious personality would only interfere in the ex- 
 periment to inhibit the movement. This inhibition 
 we avoid by turning away his attention ; and, if there 
 is no inhibition when the person is distracted, it is due 
 to the same cause that makes him unable to voluntarily 
 squeeze the tube with regularity when he is distracted. 
 
 Schematising these complex relations of states of 
 consciousness, I arrive at the following result. In the 
 case where a person performs at once a mental addi- 
 tion and a muscular act, let the first operation be 
 called a and the second d. Observation shows that 
 each of them is prejudicial to the other, tends to inhibit 
 it. Let the automatic activity of the hand be called 
 c. There is in each subject a power to perceive this 
 activity and to suppress it by holding the hand motion- 
 less. Let this operation be called b. The operation 
 b then can inhibit c. But occupation of the subject 
 with reading, by provoking the operation a, prevents 
 him from inhibiting the movements of his hand ; that 
 is to say, a is permitted' to inhibit b, and this prevents 
 b from inhibiting c. There is here, to use a happy 
 expression of M. Brown-Sequard, inhibition of a cause 
 of inhibition. 
 
 % 
 
 * * 
 
 I wait for a future opportunity of following up 
 this interesting line of study. If I make known my 
 first results, it is because they bear on almost normal 
 subjects, and because, consequently, every one can, 
 with a little attention and patience, check all that I 
 
DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS IN HEALTH. 
 
 89 
 
 advance. Perhaps the results will be different for 
 different persons. 
 
 However that may be, the observations I have just 
 related may contribute to show the rather embarrass- 
 ing complexity of those inhibitory actions which psy- 
 chologists have only begun to study within the last 
 years. 
 
-•-I" 
 

 I